Today is the deadline for high profile bills including legalizing physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients, collecting data on police stops to address alleged racial profiling and expanding Medi-Cal to undocumented immigrants. Also, LA County Sherriff Jim Mcdonnell answers your questions. Then, Stanford scientists are trying to measure creativity.
Sacramento lawmakers are going to (and out of) town
Today is the deadline to pass bills out of the State Assembly and State Senate, so lawmakers are powering through bills to make the cut.
Among the more high profile bills moving through the legislative process are: SB 128, which would legalize physician-assisted suicide for terminally ill patients; AB 226, which would sanction the creation of a framework and regulatory structure for medical marijuana; and a raft a bills that would increase the use of renewable energy in the state to 50% by 2030.
Because both houses of the state legislature are held by Democratic majorities, Democrats are largely the ones proposing, drafting, and corralling the necessary support for what is viewed as a very liberal agenda. Some of these bills would: collect data on police stops to address alleged racial profiling by police, increase the age to purchase tobacco products from 18 to 21, and expand Medi-Cal to undocumented immigrants.
More than 500 bills are in the works, although it is unlikely that all of them will pass their respective house today and even more unlikely that all that do will receive Governor Brown’s support.
What bills would you like to see move forward for debate?
Guest:
Dan Walters, Columnist, Sacramento Bee; "Opinion: An illusion of action in California’s Capitol"
KPCC Just Ask project aims to empower healthcare consumers
Just Ask is a new collaboration between KPCC and KQED. The goal is to empower consumers to learn about the costs of their health care.
Why? There’s a veil of secrecy surrounding the prices of health care services. For a long time, consumers might not have minded, if they had good insurance plans that covered most of these services. So doctors and patients aren’t accustomed to talking about health care costs. But now, more and more people are responsible for more of their health care bills, through high-deductible health plans and other forms of cost-sharing.
Several recent studies have shown that many people with insurance can’t afford their deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs, and that’s deterring them from getting needed care. So now, people have more incentive to find out what a medical procedure costs – BEFORE they get it.
Guests:
Rebecca Plevin, KPCC Health Reporter
Lisa Aliferis, KQED Health Reporter
LA County Sheriff McDonnell on Tanaka indictment, recruiting, ICE in county jails and more
The Los Angeles’ Sheriff’s Department says it wants to leave no questions when it comes to what the department’s internal ‘honesty policy’ means.
L.A. County Sheriff Jim McDonnell announced planned enhancements to LASD's internal policy on honesty during KPCC’s “AirTalk with Larry Mantle” Wednesday after an internal memo went out to LASD employees earlier that morning.
“We put that out this morning to all of our staff to make clear the highest standard is expected in all that we do. Just as I hold myself to these high standards, I hold everyone else in the department to them as well.”
LASD didn’t provide specific details regarding what changes will be coming to the policy on honesty, as the proposal is still in a final draft form and must be reviewed and greenlit by the police unions before it can go into effect. Sheriff McDonnell says he'll also be taking a more proactive role in internal discipline, which was not the case before.
Also, the Los Angeles Times published a story that suggested staffing shortages could delay Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell’s plans for a sweeping overhaul of the way the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department conducts business.
Sheriff McDonnell ran on a platform of reforming the department, promising to weed out corruption and increase department transparency. About a month earlier, former LASD Undersheriff Paul Tanaka and another former high-ranking LASD official were indicted on charges of obstruction of justice and conspiring to do so.
Larry asks Sheriff McDonnell about his plans to bring in more deputies and fill the recruiting gap as well as the indictment against former Undersheriff Tanaka. He’ll also talk with Larry about the fictitous “Masonic Fraternal Police Department,” which was run, in part, by a former aide to California attorney general Kamala Harris.
Have questions for Sheriff McDonnell? Call us at 866-893-5722, post them in the comment section below, or our Facebook page or tweet
using #AskTheSheriff.
Guest:
Jim McDonnell, Sheriff of Los Angeles County
California looks to raise its smoking age to 21
The state Senate this week approved a bill that would raise California’s minimum age for buying tobacco products from 18 to 21.
Sen. Ed Hernandez introduced the bill in an effort to reduce smoking and tobacco use by the state’s young people. Tobacco use among California’s youth is a major problem with nearly 36,000 youth who start smoking each year. Hawaii is the only other state attempting to raise its smoking age, which is currently under consideration. However, other states such as Alabama, Alaska, Utah and New Jersey have set their smoking age to 19.
Does raising the smoking age solve the tobacco use problem among youth? Is it a realistic deterrent, is 21 too high? Should we also raise the minimum age for other things, like joining the military or voting? The bill now heads to the Assembly for consideration. If signed into law California would be one of the first states in the U.S. to increase the smoking age to 21.
Guests:
Tom Briant, Executive Director, National Association of Tobacco Outlets (NATO), a national trade association for tobacco retailers based in Minnesota
call us with your opinion on raising the tobacco age to 21 at 866-893-5722
Rais Bhuiyan, subject of Kathryn Bigelow’s new film and True American book, on forgiveness
In September of 2001 Rais Bhuiyan was working at a gas station convenience store in Dallas Texas when a day laborer named Mark Stroman walked into the store and shot Bhuiyan in the face with a shotgun.
Stroman was seeking revenge on people who he viewed as Arab for the 9/11 attacks that had occurred just weeks earlier. Stroman’s killing-spree left two South Asian convenience store workers dead and seriously injured Bhuiyan.
A year later, Mark Stroman was put on trial for his crimes. At the trial Stroman dubbed himself the "Arab slayer" and called the shootings "patriotic" retribution for the terror attacks. Stroman was given the death penalty for his crimes, and a decade later he was executed by lethal injection.
However, before his execution, Stroman had a change of heart for his crimes, saying in his final moments that "hate is going on in the world and it has to stop." A main reason for Stroman's drastically altered point of view was the effort made to spare his life by Rais Bhuiyan.
Bhuiyan joins us to share his story and how he was not only able to forgive the man who tried to kill him, but also his efforts to spare Stroman’s life.
Bhuiyan’s story was told in Anand Giridharadas’ book “The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas,” and is the subject of an upcoming film by Academy Award winning director Kathryn Bigelow.
Guest:
Rais Bhuiyan, victim of an attack by Mark Anthony Stroman, whose death sentence he later advocated to overturn; he’s the subject of Anand Giridharadas’ book “The True American: Murder and Mercy in Texas,” which is being made into a movie by Kathryn Bigelow.
Stanford marries brain science and art to crack the code of creativity
Creativity is something that's become as valued in the arts as it is in disciplines as far afield as business, medicine and technology.
But how exactly do you measure creativity? How do you teach it? It’s a perennial question that neuroscience has been called upon in recent years to answer.
A new study from Stanford is the latest to employ neuroscience to try to answer the question. The study asked participants to engage in a game similar to Pictionary while hooked up to an MRI machine. The results show an increase in activity in the cerebellum, which is typically tied to motor control. The study claims to be the first to find a direct evidence that that part of the brain in involved in creativity.
What are the implications of the study? Is creativity something that can be tested, replicated, and taught like a science?
Guests:
Manish Saggar, Instructor at the Center for Interdisciplinary Brain Sciences Research at Stanford University. He is the lead author of the study, which has just been published in the online journal Scientific Reports
Grace Hawthorne, Consulting Associate Professor at the Stanford D.School, the university’s design school. She is one of the co-authors of the study