Michelle Obama unveiled a proposal to change nutritional information on packaged food labels intended to help consumers make healthier food choices. Will the new labels improve eating habits? A new blood test provides more accurate and less invasive prenatal indication of Down Syndrome. What are the ethical issues associated with this test? Are LA's parking tickets unconstitutional?
One serving or two? Nutrition labels to get their first major overhaul in two decades
The nutritional information on the back of packaged foods is about to undergo a major overhaul to bring it more in line with the way Americans actually eat. The proposals, unveiled this morning by Michelle Obama at the White House, are designed to help parents and other consumers make healthier food choices.
The changes include bigger, bolder calorie counts at the top of the label; more realistic portion sizes and grams of added sugars, whether they come from corn syrup, honey etc, will be shown in one number.
Advocates for better food labeling have long argued that serving sizes are unrealistically small (who shares a bag of M&Ms, really?) and gives people a false sense of how many calories they're actually consuming.
Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows that an increasing number of Americans are relying on nutrition labels when picking food at the grocery store.
RELATED: First look: The FDA's nutrition label gets a makeover
About 42 percent of working-age adults and 57 percent of older adults now say they consider the FDA's nutrition label when they're shopping. Even more say they would use the information if it were provided at restaurants.
If approved, will the new labels help people make better food choices? How would you like to see the new labels redesigned? Do you pay attention to nutritional labels when shopping?
Guests:
Andrea Giancoli, registered dietician with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics
Kathleen Keller, Phd, Assistant Professor, Department of Health and Nutritional Sciences and Food Science at Penn State University
People with easier-to-pronounce names are deemed more trustworthy, study says
A new, UC Irvine-led study found that people trust strangers with easier-to-pronounce names more than strangers with difficult-to-pronounce names – even when those strangers are from the same foreign country.
What’s more, people are more likely to trust claims when attributed to strangers with easier names. For example, the assertion that “macadamia nuts are in the same evolutionary family as peaches” was more believable when attributed to “Andrian Babeshko” than when it was credited to his countryman “Czeslaw Ratynska.”
The findings appear in the current issue of the journal PLOS ONE.
Guest:
Eryn Newman, a postdoctoral fellow in UC Irvine’s Department of Criminology, Law & Society and the study’s lead author
Are LA’s parking ticket fines and late fees unconstitutional? (Poll)
A federal court will decide whether parking tickets in Los Angeles violate the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments’ prohibition of excessive fines. Two L.A. residents with similar stories are suing after being charged what they call exorbitant penalties for late payment on parking tickets.
The tickets, issued in downtown Los Angeles at $63 each, but after the two-week deadline for payment passed, the fines went up to $175. According to the attorney for the two plaintiffs, the fees amounted to 174.4 percent of the median daily wage for L.A. residents and 336 percent of the median daily wage for Latinos.
Angelenos aren’t the only ones griping about the high price of a parking ticket. Other cities have dealt with heavy fines by allowing violators to make payment plans, extend payments, or volunteer to pay off their debt.
Are parking ticket fines unconstitutional? How long should people have to pay off their tickets, and what penalties should late payment incur? How will this case fare before the court?
Guests:
Donald Norris, founder of Norris and Galanter LLP and attorney in the L.A. parking ticket case
Beth Colgan, Thomas C. Grey fellow at Stanford Law School and former Managing Attorney of the Institutions Project at Columbia Legal Services in Seattle, Washington
Read the full complaint below:
The fight to keep film and TV jobs in California
California has lost more than 16,000 jobs in an eight-year period due to film and television production leaving the state, according to a new analysis released today.
The Milken Institute report says mounting job losses are coming from staggering competition from states like New York that lure production away from California with generous tax credits. Among the most recent poachings is “The Tonight Show,” which was lured by new incentives in the Empire State.
New York created its credit a decade ago and since then, it’s tripled and Governor Andrew Cuomo added some new language: For “relocated television productions” that spent “at least five seasons out of state,” “with an audience of 200 or more,” "that incur at least $30 million in annual production costs in the state.”
Sounds like an awful lot like the Tonight Show, no?
Guest:
Kevin Klowden, director of the Milken Institute’s California Center and co-author of “A Hollywood Exit: What California Must Do to Remain Competitive in Entertainment – and Keep Jobs.”
Jessica Gould, reporter for public radio station WNYC in New York
Today’s latest fashion trend: dressing normal
It’s called “normcore” and it’s apparently taking the streets of New York by storm, according to New York magazine.
Consciously eschewing high-end labels, the cool kids in the fashion capital of the world are now raiding their folks closets and donning dad jeans and Patagonia fleece and a pair of comfy sneakers. Essentially, “normcore” says dressing "normal" is the ultimate fashion statement. The trend forecasting firm K-Hole widens the fashion concept to a larger social attitude, which New York magazine sums up as "embracing sameness deliberately as a new way of being cool, rather than striving for 'difference' or 'authenticity.'"
Guest:
Emily Segal, a cofounder of K-HOLE, a trend forecasting group in New York.
LA Magazine: The Fall of Sheriff Lee Baca
Writer Celeste Fremon details the fall of Lee Baca in the latest issue of Los Angeles magazine. The story also focuses heavily on Paul Tanaka, a candidate for Los Angeles County Sheriff, and the work culture Baca and Tanaka created.
"Sheriff Lee Baca fancied himself a visionary. His number two, Paul Tanaka, considered himself a force to be reckoned with. Together they allowed one of the nation’s most powerful law enforcement agencies to drift into a morass of scandal that compelled both to retire," Fremon writes.
Statement from Campaign Spokesman Reed Galen:
"We fundamentally disagree with the story and how it portrays Paul Tanaka’s character and his record with the Sheriff’s Department. We cooperated with Ms. Fremon on multiple occasions, providing insight and clarity to some of her attacks and little to nothing was used of those conversations. Ms. Fremon’s story is a one-sided hit piece that explores old and tired attacks on an individual who has dedicated over 30 years of his life to public safety in Los Angeles County. She has built her career by tearing down public safety officials and it is clear this story is no different.”
Statement from Paul Tanaka:
Guest:
Celeste Fremon, creator and editor of WitnessLA.com and an award-winning journalist specializing in gangs, law enforcement and criminal justice. She is the author of “Downfall,” which details the fall of Lee Baca, in the March issue of Los Angeles magazine.