President Trump just signed a new executive order regarding immigration – will this version of the travel ban withstand legal challenge?; what’s the future of the CA high-speed rail now that Trump’s blocked key funding?; plus, we look at the history of sleep and insomnia.
The week in politics: What’s new in President Trump’s executive order on immigration
President Trump’s new travel moratorium is designed to avoid the successful legal challenge that scuttled his previous ban. But will it, too, prove vulnerable?
The new order is a 90-day ban on travelers from Sudan, Syria, Iran, Libya, Somalia, and Yemen. Iraq was in the first order blocked by federal courts but has now been dropped. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said this was because the State Department and Iraq were working together to implement updated security measures to prevent Iraqi citizens with terroristic or criminal intent from entering the country. Legal permanent residents, green card holders, are exempt under the new order, as are current visa holders, and refugees from anywhere in the world, not just Syria, will be banned for 120-days. The ban will be enacted in ten days.
The Administration argued that the last ban needed to be implemented immediately so those planning harm wouldn't accelerate plans to enter the U.S. -- are there concerns now that this ten day period before implementation could be exploited? And for those looking to challenge the new ban, what might be constitutionally vulnerable?
Guests:
Alan Gomez, USA Today reporter covering immigration; he tweets
Lanhee Chen, research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and former policy director for the Romney-Ryan 2012 presidential campaign; he tweets
John Iadarola, host and creator of ThinkTank, part of The Young Turks Network; he also serves as a weekly co-host for The Young Turks weekly live show; he tweets
James R. Copland, a senior fellow and director of Legal Policy at the Manhattan Institute
Ahilan Arulanantham, legal director and director of advocacy at the ACLU of Southern California
What’s next for California’s high-speed rail after Trump Admin blocks key funding
Is California's high-speed rail project dead?
Well . . . it's definitely hit the brakes.
That's due to the deferment of a $647 million federal grant for the electrification of Caltrain, which has put a hold on plans to finish California’s high-speed rail project.
The delay was prompted by a letter to Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao from 14 Congressional Republicans. It called for a full audit to be completed prior to any grant approval. Funding would have paid for a 50-mile electrical power system for both Caltrain and a potential high speed rail to travel from San Jose to San Francisco, and critics of the move are describing this as the Trump Administration’s attack on the state of California. Gov. Jerry Brown last week asked the president’s administration to reverse the decision to withhold the grant. And senators Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein are among lawmakers who have expressed their support of funding the project.
So what’s the future of the high-speed rail? Larry weighs in with experts on the project to find out.
Guests:
Ralph Vartabedian, L.A. Times national correspondent; he has been following the story; he tweets
Meghan McCarty, KPCC reporter covering commuting and mobility issues; she tweets
Ethan Elkind, Director of the Climate Change and Business Program, a joint program between UCLA and UC Berkeley schools of law. He is the author of “Railtown: The Fight for the Los Angeles Metro Rail and the Future of the City” (University of California Press, 2014); he tweets
The history of sleep…and sleeplessness
It’s supposed to be the best -- and simplest -- eight hours of your day, so why do so many people find themselves wrestling with that benign thing called sleep each night?
In the book “Wild Nights: How Taming Sleep Created Our Restless World,” writer Benjamin Reiss tackles the history of sleep (and insomnia) by looking at literature, social and medical history, and science.
The book tells the stories of sleep through different people, from cave-dwelling sleep researchers to sleepwalkers and frustrated parents.
Guest:
Benjamin Reiss, a professor of English at Emory University, and the author of the new book, “Wild Nights: How Taming Sleep Created Our Restless World” (Basic Books, 2017)