Surprise legal turnaround in the controversial case; Hot sauce expert and entrepreneur discuss the reason behind the growing popularity of hot sauce; and lawyers debate who's responsible for last year's San Bernardino shooting.
Planned Parenthood lawyer, pro-life advocate debate Houston grand jury decision
There was a surprising legal turnaround in Houston yesterday.
The Harris County DA had asked the grand jury to look into allegations Planned Parenthood was profiting from selling fetal organs to medical researchers. The allegations stemmed from undercover videos made by the founder of the Irvine-based antiabortion group, The Center for Medical Progress.
However, the DA announced late yesterday that the grand jury both cleared Planned Parenthood and indicted the makers of the undercover videos. Center for Medical Progress founder David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt face felony charges of tampering with a governmental record.
Daleiden was further indicted on a misdemeanor charge related to trafficking in human organs.
David Daleiden has been somewhat media shy, except with us. He was with us twice last year.
We were in contact with him this morning, and we're hopeful he'll be able to join us later this week. In our first conversation, Daleiden strongly defended his and Merritt's creation of phony identities to get access to Planned Parenthood conferences and employees. However, it might well be that the fake drivers licenses they used have brought the felony charges.
Guests:
Josh Schaffer, Houston-based lawyer for the Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast, the organization that is at the center of the grand jury investigation.
Eric Scheidler, executive director of the Pro-life Action League, a national organization headquartered in Chicago. The group is one of the organizers behind a series of national protests against Planned Parenthood that came in the wake of the Center for Medical Progress videos
How will new depression screening guidelines benefit mothers?
The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force released new recommendations about depression screening in adults this morning.
These new recommendations will focus on pregnant women and new mothers, who were not explicitly mentioned in the last USPSTF recommendation in 2009.
While this is a step forward, how will these new recommendations be carried out in practice? How will this is change the taboo nature of talking about depression among new and expecting mothers? What is your experience with depression as a mother?
Guests:
Dr. Emily Dossett, MD, Assistant Clinical Professor in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology and the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at Los Angeles County + University of Southern California (LAC+USC) Medical Center
Hot sauce expert, entrepreneur on local flavors, exploding popularity of gourmet hot sauce
Do you enjoy taking your taste buds to the limits of spiciness?
Do you seek out the hottest sauces, peppers, and seasonings to use generously on your food, regardless of how your mouth burns? Are you always in search of something hotter? If so, you might be a chilehead.
The gourmet hot sauce industry has exploded across the United States since the discovery and propagation of the Ghost Chili in 2007 as sharp culinary minds and master pepper growers have searched for the next hottest thing.
Since then, the Ghost Chile has been replaced four different times as the Guinness Book of World Records’ hottest chili pepper, a title which now belongs to the Carolina Reaper. But even with the exploding popularity of gourmet hot sauces, many areas of the country still pride themselves on the cultures and flavors that have made them famous, from the vinegar-based Tabascos of the deep south and East Coast to the jalapeno heat-heavy sauces of the West.
How are Americans’ hot sauces tastes evolving? What are the regional differences we see in hot sauces in terms of ingredients and spiciness? If you’re a chili-head, we'd like to hear from you.
For more on how the hot sauce scene is evolving in Los Angeles, check out this feature from KPCC’s Leslie Berestein-Rojas.
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Guests:
James Beck, aka ‘The Hot Sauce Boss; chile pepper, hot sauce, and spicy food expert, and owner of iBurn, a specialty store selling hot sauces and other spicy foods in Houston, TX
Oscar Ochoa, Local entrepreneur and creator/owner of ‘El Machete Microbrew Piquant Sauces’
New claim alleges San Bernardino fostered hostile work environment, led to terrorist attack
Who’s responsible when a mass shooter attacks?
It’s a question that new claims against San Bernardino county are raising in the wake of the deadly terror attack at the Inland Regional Center on December 2, 2015.
Those claims, filed last week by family members of Sierra Clayborn, an environmental health specialist who was among the 14 killed in the attack, seek damages over $200 million and are the first to suggest the county fostered a hostile work environment.
How does that get proven or disproven? We talk with several lawyers about the legal fallout.
Guests:
Greg Keating, professor of law at USC Gould School of Law
Dr. Park Dietz,MD., MPH., PhD founder of the Threat Assessment Group, Inc., a forensic and consulting firm focusing on workplace violence and the risk of threats. He has testified and consulted in cases such as the assassination attempt on President Reagan and the Unabomber investigation
Legendary CBS newsman, Russian expert Marvin Kalb on Putin and Ukraine problem
Former CBS News’ Moscow bureau chief and Russian expert Marvin Kalb’s new book examines the Russian invasion of Crimea in 2014.
The move was followed by a series of uprisings in Southern Ukraine spearheaded by pro-Russian rebels. Those events, which happened suddenly and in rapid succession, took the US and the world by surprise. Russia was slapped with strict sanctions, further chilling relations between the West and Russia.
Kalb’s book argues that the military move was not as unplanned as believed, that Vladimir Putin long had designs to stir discord in the region. In “Imperial Gamble,” Kalb lays out the history of Russia and Ukraine to illuminate on what informed Putin’s decision, and how the Ukraine crisis today, if left unresolved, could impact stability in that region for years to come.
Guest:
Marvin Kalb, a Harvard professor emeritus and author of the book, “Imperial Gamble: Putin, Ukraine, and the New Cold War” (Brookings Institution Press, 2015); he tweets from
Former U.S. Marshal on red flags that could have prevented OC prison break
The hunt is still on for three inmates who broke out of the Men’s Central Jail in Santa Ana as jail officials continue to put the pieces of the escape together. One of the larger questions emerging is centered around why jail officials didn’t discover the prisoners were gone until 16 hours after they had escaped, giving them a huge lead on fugitive hunters.
The three men were housed together in a dormitory-style cell, serving time for various violent crimes including murder and kidnapping. They were discovered missing during a prisoner headcount on Friday evening. A spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department says to escape, the inmates had to cut through several layers of metal and rebar and traverse plumbing tunnels in order to get to the prison roof, where they made ropes out of clothing and bedsheets to use to rappel down the side.
So far, no jail employees have been connected to the escape, but many are wondering how three men were able to break out of the facility without anyone catching wind of their plan and why they were all housed in the same unit in the first place. Jails in Los Angeles County house inmates who are convicted of violent crimes like murder or attempted murder in single cells.
What were the red flags that prison officials missed? How hard is it for jail officials to catch wind of a prison escape plan? Could this escape have been prevented?
Guest:
Craig Caine, Inspector (Ret.) U.S. Marshals Service New York/New Jersey Regional Fugitive Task Force with 30+ years law enforcement experience