Supreme Court Upholds Oregon’s Assisted Suicide Law; Stardust Mission; The Constitution And Foreign Affairs After 9/11; The Health Of The California Wine Industry
Supreme Court Upholds Oregon’s Assisted Suicide Law
The Supreme Court upheld Oregon's one-of-a-kind physician-assisted suicide law Tuesday, rejecting a Bush administration attempt to punish doctors who help terminally ill patients die. Justices, on a 6-3 vote, said that a federal drug law does not override the 1997 Oregon law used to end the lives of more than 200 seriously ill people. New Chief Justice John Roberts backed the Bush administration, dissenting for the first time. The administration improperly tried to use a drug law to punish Oregon doctors who prescribe lethal doses of prescription medicines, the court majority said. Larry Mantle talks with Chapman University School of Law Professor John Eastman, Democratic State Assemblyman from Van Nuys Lloyd Levine, and Stanford University School of Law Professor Hank Greeley.
Stardust Mission
After a seven-year journey, the NASA Stardust space capsule landed safely Sunday at Dugway Proving Ground with tiny particles that scientists hope will yield clues to how the solar system formed. The capsule's blazing plunge through the atmosphere lit up parts of the Western sky. The cosmic samples were gathered as the Stardust spacecraft swooped past a comet known as Wild 2 in 2004. The spacecraft, which was launched in 1999, used a tennis racket-sized collector mitt to snatch the dust and store the particles in an aluminum canister. Larry talks with Thomas Duxbury, Project Manager of the NASA Discovery Stardust and project manager of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, which managed the $212 million mission.
The Constitution And Foreign Affairs After 9/11
John Yoo served as a deputy assistant attorney general in the Office of Legal Counsel at the U.S. Department of Justice, from 2001 to 2003, where he worked on issues involving foreign affairs, national security and the separation of powers. Larry talks with Professor Yoo about his new book, The Powers of War and Peace: The Constitution and Foreign Affairs after 9/11 and his views on presidential powers in wartime.
The Health Of The California Wine Industry
More Americans are drinking wine than ever before, but fewer are buying California wines. Larry Mantle talks about these trends and others with experts on the California wine industry. Guests include Jerry Hirsch, LA Times staff writer, John Gillespie, President of Wine Market Council, and Randy Kemner, Owner of The Wine Country, a 7000-foot wine store located in the city of Signal Hill near Long Beach.