Today on AirTalk, we revisit the FBI investigation into the LA City Council as former city councilman Mitch Englander surrendered to agents yesterday. Also on the show, we get an update on the coronavirus in LA County as the first case of community spread is reported; look into whether babies are altruistic; and more.
L.A. County Has Its First Coronavirus Case From Community Spread
Los Angeles County has confirmed that the number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the county has risen to 16. One of the new cases was contracted through community spread.
In a move to prevent the spread of coronavirus in the world of professional sports, the NBA, MLB, NHL, and MLS have issued a
— MLS Communications (@MLS_PR) March 9, 2020
announcing that all non-essential personnel, including media, will not be allowed in team locker rooms.
Meanwhile, global supply chains that once originated from China are changing, as companies look to find new places to buy their goods.
Many Los Angeles residents are taking extra precautions to try to stay healthy. Do you have any questions about how to avoid coronavirus? Today, we’ll have a medical expert on the show to answer your questions. Call AirTalk at 866-893-5722.
Guests:
Barbara Ferrer, Director, Los Angeles County Department Of Public Health
David Eisenman, M.D., professor of medicine and public health at UCLA; director of the university's Center for Public Health and Disasters; Associate Natural Scientist at RAND
Book Publisher Reverses Course On Woody Allen Memoir After Staff Walkout. Did They Make The Right Call?
Woody Allen’s publisher has decided to cancel the planned release of his memoir “Apropos of Nothing.”
The announcement Friday by Hachette Book Group followed days of criticism focused on allegations that Allen sexually abused his daughter Dylan Farrow. On Thursday, dozens of Hachette employees staged a walkout.
“The decision to cancel Mr. Allen’s book was a difficult one. At HBG we take our relationships with authors very seriously, and do not cancel books lightly,” the publisher announced. “We have published and will continue to publish many challenging books. As publishers, we make sure every day in our work that different voices and conflicting points of views can be heard.” Allen’s book was scheduled to come out next month.
Allen has denied any wrongdoing and was never charged after two separate investigations in the 1990s. But the allegations have received new attention in the #MeToo era. Allen's agreement with Hachette meant that he briefly shared a publisher with one of his biggest detractors, his son Ronan Farrow, whose “Catch and Kill” was released last year by the Hachette division Little, Brown and Company.
“Hachette’s publishing of Woody Allen’s memoir is deeply upsetting to me personally and an utter betrayal of my brother whose brave reporting, capitalized on by Hachette, gave voice to numerous survivors of sexual assault by powerful men," Dylan Farrow said in a statement Monday hours after details of the book were released by The Associated Press. Ronan Farrow followed up a day later, calling Hachette’s decision “wildly unprofessional.” Both he and his sister complained that the publisher had not reached out to fact check their father’s book.
Today on AirTalk, we’ll discuss the publisher’s decision to pull the memoir and take your calls. Do you agree with the book publisher's decision? Join the live conversation by calling 866-893-5722.
With files from the Associated Press
We reached out to Woody Allen and Hachette Book Group to invite them to participate in our discussion. As of the airing of this segment, we have not received a response. We will update this segment if and when we hear from them.
Note for AirTalk listeners: Please call in to talk about Hachette’s decision not to publish Woody Allen’s memoir. We cannot wade in thoughtfully on the guilt or innocence of anyone in the family. We want to know what you think of the choice of the book publisher not to publish the memoir.
Guests:
Alison Levine, mountaineer, keynote speaker and author; her book “On The Edge: Leadership Lessons from Mount Everest and Other Extreme Environments” was published by Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, the company that originally agreed to publish Woody Allen’s memoir; she tweets
Suzanne Nossel, chief executive officer of PEN America, a national organization of writing and publishing professionals that advocates for free expression in literature, and author of the upcoming book “Dare to Speak: Defending Free Speech for All” (Harper Collins, May 2020); she tweets
Rod Dreher, senior editor at The American Conservative and author of the piece “The Woody Allen Witch Hunt”; his book “The Little Way of Ruthie Leming” was published by Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, the company that originally agreed to publish Woody Allen’s memoir he tweets
2020 Primaries: Michigan The Biggest Prize Voters In Six States Hit The Polls
Bernie Sanders proved his 2016 presidential bid was serious with an upset victory in Michigan powered by his opposition to free trade and appeal among working-class voters. Four years later, the state could either revive the Vermont senator's campaign or relegate him to the role of protest candidate.
Michigan and five other states already began voting early Tuesday morning in what will be a critical point in the Democratic race. Former Vice President Joe Biden is looking to quash Sanders' hopes and cement his own front-runner status just a week after resurrecting his beleaguered White House bid with a delegate victory on Super Tuesday. He played up his underdog story on Monday as he campaigned across Michigan, reflecting on his stutter as a child and the deaths of his first wife and young daughter. And Biden wasn't alone. The former vice president courted the state's influential African American voters alongside the two most prominent black candidates previously in the 2020 race, Kamala Harris and Cory Booker, who endorsed Biden in recent days as part of a broader consolidation of support among party leaders. They all appeared hand-in-hand at Biden's final Michigan rally Monday night, also joined by the state's governor, Gretchen Whitmer, who also endorsed the former vice president.
Meanwhile, Bernie Sanders is in an urgent fight to turn things around as the primary calendar quickly shifts to other states that could favor Biden and narrow his path to the nomination. The senator countered the parade of Democratic firepower lining up behind Biden by securing the endorsement of the Rev. Jesse Jackson and deploying Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., on his behalf.
Today on AirTalk, we’ll preview what’s at stake as voters in Michigan and five other states cast their ballots, talk about who stands to win and lose the most
With files from the Associated Press
Guest:
Wendy Benjaminson, lead 2020 campaign editor for Bloomberg News; she tweets
Ex-Los Angeles Councilman Indicted In City Hall Corruption Probe
A former Los Angeles city councilman has been indicted on charges that he obstructed an investigation into whether he took thousands of dollars, female escort services and other gifts from a businessman involved in major developments, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Monday.
Mitch Englander, 49, surrendered to FBI agents Monday morning to face arraignment. He is charged with one count of participating in a scheme to falsify material facts, three counts of making false statements and three counts of witness tampering, prosecutors said. Englander, who represented a council district from July 2011 until he resigned on Dec. 31, 2018, was scheduled for an afternoon appearance in federal court. Englander's attorney Janet Levine said in an email she would comment after her client's arraignment.
Prosecutors allege he tried to cover up gifts given to him during June 2017 trips to Las Vegas and Palm Springs by a person identified in the indictment as “Businessperson A,” who operates companies involving major development projects. “Two months after the Las Vegas trip, Businessperson A began cooperating with the FBI in a public corruption investigation focused on suspected `pay-to-play’ schemes involving Los Angeles public officials,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office press release said. In Las Vegas, Englander allegedly received an envelope containing $10,000 in cash, services from a female escort, hotel rooms, $1,000 in casino gambling chips, $34,000 in bottle service at a nightclub and a $2,481 dinner. In Palm Springs, he allegedly received $5,000 in an envelope. The indictment alleges that after discovering the investigation, Englander made multiple efforts to get Businessperson A to give false information to the FBI and also directly lied to the FBI and federal prosecutors.
The indictment comes amid an ongoing FBI probe into public corruption at Los Angeles City Hall where officials are looking into possible “pay to play” schemes involving city officials, investors, lobbyists, developers and others. Last summer, the FBI served search warrants at City Hall, the Department of Water and Power, as well as the home and office of City Councilmember Jose Huizar, though he has not been charged publicly in the probe.
With files from the Associated Press
Guests:
Libby Denkmann, KPCC senior politics reporter who has been following the story; she tweets
Study Finds Babies Give Up Their Food Even When Hungry
We’ve all heard about the terrible twos - but a new study from the University of Washington has found that young children might not be so terrible after all.
The study, published last month in the journal Nature, found that infants show altruistic behavior when they are as young as 19 months old. However, humans’ closest living primate relatives, chimpanzees and bonobos, are less likely to share food as infants.
Researchers found that toddlers were willing to give up their food to a hungry stranger. Furthermore, the experiment found that the 19-month-old children would give up nutrient-rich food when they were themselves hungry.
Guest:
Rodolfo Cortes Barragan, lead author of the study on babies and altruism; a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Washington
Education Activist Diane Ravitch Celebrates The ‘Resistance’ In Public Schools
The 2010s were banner years for public education. Even as prominent philanthropists - including billionaire presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg - have advocated for privatization and increased focus on test scores, teachers took to the streets from Arizona to West Virginia in defense of their model of public education.
That tension is at the center of education expert and activist Diane Ravitch’s new book, Staying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools. She defends the United States’ education system, arguing for the teachers “being forced out of needy school districts” and advocating against corporate privatization in the nation’s schools.
Ravitch, a former assistant secretary of education under George H.W. Bush, once supported school reform and privatization, including the introduction of charter schools. Since then, she has reconsidered her position on school reform, as well as on federal education initiatives that focus on test results, like President George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind and President Barack Obama’s Race to the Top.
Ravitch has a new word for the the billionaires who push education reforms - figures like Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and the DeVos family are her “Disrupters.” Meanwhile, her “Resisters” are the families, teachers, and community members, and online advocates who have united to advocate for greater public funding for their schools across the country.
Guest:
Diane Ravitch, former assistant secretary of education (1991 to 1993); author of a number of books on education, her latest is “Staying Goliath: The Passionate Resistance to Privatization and the Fight to Save America’s Public Schools” (Knopf, 2020); research professor of Applied Statistics, Social Science, and Humanities at NYU