California foreclosures in decline. Orange County Journalists Roundtable. High noon for California’s new Insurance Commissioner, Dave Jones. Senator Mark Udall proposes the end of the aisle at the State of the Union Address. The cut-throat quest to find dark matter, dark energy & a Nobel Prize.
Foreclosures up across the nation, down in California
As Californians struggling with 12 percent unemployment are trying to hang onto their mortgages, there may yet be signs of hope on the horizon. According to numbers just released, foreclosure activity in the state decreased 14 percent last year, compared with a 2 percent increase in the rest of the nation. Home prices in California hit bottom in April of 2009 and have risen incrementally since then. The first state to show signs of the housing crisis, California now may be the first to recover. Analysts caution that demand for housing is still weak – but does this news signal a first step on the road to recovery?
Guest:
Richard Green, Director, USC Lusk Center for Real Estate
Orange County Journalists Roundtable
Larry and our talented trio of Orange County journalists riff about the latest news from the OC. Top stories up for discussion: Great Park redevelopment bonds in jeopardy, the latest on OC fairgrounds, UCI fertility fraud doctor arrested in Mexico, Mike Carona’s appeal denied and John Wayne airport food.
Guests:
Gustavo Arellano, Managing Editor of the OC Weekly and author of Ask A Mexican
William Lobdell, freelance journalist covering Orange County
Teri Sforza, Staff Writer for the Orange County Register
High noon for California’s new Insurance Commissioner
Dave Jones, who took office just last week, has already drawn a line in the sand on behalf of California’s cash-strapped consumers by questioning proposed multiple premium increases by all four major health carriers. As he put it in a letter to Aetna, Anthem Blue Cross, Pacificare and Blue Shield, the increases “come at a time when Californians and their families are struggling out of the worst recession since the Great Depression.” Although the law does not allow him to reject increases outright, Jones has bought some time by calling for a 60-day hold on the new rates while he gives their requests a thorough review for compliance. Will California’s new insurance sheriff win this showdown?
Guest:
Dave Jones, California Insurance Commissioner
Reaching across the aisle – or eliminating it altogether?
Democratic Senator Mark Udall of Colorado sent a letter yesterday to House leaders with a radical proposition: at next week’s State of the Union address, why not have Democrats and Republicans sit together, doing away with the traditional party-line divisions? In his letter, Udall writes, "Perhaps, by sitting with each other for one night, we will begin to rekindle that common spark that brought us here from 50 different states and widely diverging backgrounds to serve the public good." Can this symbolic gesture help our lawmakers come together in a time of such divisive politics?
The cut-throat quest to find dark matter, dark energy & a Nobel Prize
What is the 4 percent universe? It’s the one that encompasses everything we see: you, your dog, your dirty laundry, Earth, Sun, planets, stars, galaxies. What makes up the remaining 96%? Well, that’s where things get tricky. It’s all the other stuff we can’t see in any form. Astronomers call it “dark matter” and “dark energy,” which has nothing to do with Darth Vader or the Dark Side – as far as we know. But the quest to shed light on the “dark” is something that gets astrophysicists really hot. It is perhaps the greatest mystery in all of science. Solving it will bring fame, riches and a Nobel Prize. In his new book, The 4 Percent Universe, author Richard Panek brings this epic story to life. Based on interviews with the major players – from Berkeley’s Saul Perlmutter and Harvard’s Robert Kirshner to the doyenne of astronomy Vera Rubin – Panek paints a colorful portrait of the rivalries, collaborations, blind alleys and eureka moments. What is the universe made of? How do we know?
Guest:
Richard Panek, author, The 4 Percent Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reali (HMH)