The FBI announced yesterday that they were able to break into the phone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook without Apple’s help; discussing the health advantages of multiracial kids; affirming a California union fees law is the latest result of a 4-4 split in the Supreme Court; and leave your questions for the Democratic National Committee's CEO!
Cybersecurity expert on what’s next after FBI unlocks San Bernardino shooter’s iPhone without Apple
The case pitting Apple against the FBI in court is now effectively over after the Feds announced yesterday that they were able to break into the phone of San Bernardino shooter Syed Rizwan Farook without Apple’s help.
In a three sentence filing, the FBI said that it no longer required Apple to build a backdoor into its iOS operating system because they’d accessed it another way.
The filing did not, however, detail exactly how the FBI was able to access the iPhone. Some are speculating that an Israeli company called Cellebrite may have been the ones, but neither the company nor the U.S. government have confirmed a relationship.
Whether the government will ever tell Apple or the rest of us how they hacked the phone remains a mystery and hinges on whether the Feds decide to follow a little-known procedure called an equities review, which was created to determine whether the government should disclose security flaws.
While the court battle may be over, some say the Apple vs. FBI saga is far from finished. There are still concerns about iPhone security and workarounds, data privacy, and future searches.
Guest:
Jason Healey, senior research scholar at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, Founding Director of the Cyber Statecraft Initiative of the Atlantic Council, and the former Director of Critical Infrastructure Protection at the White House (2003-2005)
Debating Covered CA’s proposal to drop underperforming hospitals from network
(NPR) California's insurance exchange is threatening to cut hospitals from its networks for poor performance or high costs, a novel proposal that is drawing heavy fire from medical providers and insurers.
The goal is to boost the overall quality of patient care and make coverage more affordable, said Peter Lee, executive director of the Covered California exchange.
Read full story here.
Guests:
Gerald Kominski, Professor of Health Policy and Management and Director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research
Yevgeniy Feyman, fellow and deputy director of the Manhattan Institute’s Center for Medical Progress
The genetic advantages of being multiracial
A decade ago, Alon Ziv sought to prove that not only would America’s interracial boom occur, it would produce a healthier population. Now, it’s happening.
The year was 1967 when the U.S. Supreme Court legalized interracial marriages. Since 1980 the number of intermarriages has more than doubled, according to the Pew Research Center.
Ziv, author of “Breeding Between the Lines: Why Interracial People are Healthier and More Attractive,” says that one in 10 babies born today is of mixed race, and people with a diverse set of parents reap various physical benefits of their genetic assortment.
The first thing that often pops to mind regarding mix-race children is skin color but Ziv says this is just one of many characteristics a blended gene pool affects.
“All of our bodies are supposed to be symmetrical,” Ziv says. “Some of us get closer to that perfect ideal than others, and it turns out that the better your genes are the more symmetrical you are, and so symmetry is really a great indicator of genetic quality.”
Ziv says benefits of symmetry include being more attractive, fertile, intelligent and athletic, among others.
“Symmetry is definitely something that you want, and genetic diversity is how you get that,” Ziv says.
Diversifying gene pools, Ziv says, is important not just in humans but in animals and plants as well.
“If you cross two different strains of wheat, two different strains of cows, anything like that, you see a lot of virility, a lot of health, a lot of fast growth in their offspring,” Ziv says. “If you talk about that with farm animals, nobody bats an eye. If you talk about that with humans, people get very nervous.”
Ziv says he has riled up various groups, particularly what he describes as the “far left and the far right.”
A few AirTalk callers also pushed back against some of Ziv’s ideas.
“I have a quibble with the blanket statement diversity is great,” Mori from Northridge tells AirTalk. “That’s not true.”
Another caller raised the question of whether race is real, a question Ziv said is often raised from the “far left.”
“Race is not a social construct but racism is, and the way we approach race, there’s a ton of social baggage there, but race is real,” Ziv says.
Guest:
Alon Ziv, author of “Breeding Between the Lines: Why Interracial People are Healthier and More Attractive” (Barricade Books Inc., 2016)
Another 4-4 split from Supreme Court, affirms CA union fees law
A twist of fate has cost an Orange County schoolteacher her Supreme Court challenge.
Rebecca Friedrichs sued the California Teachers Association over a law that requires public-school teachers to financially contribute to unions in order to subsidize collective bargaining efforts.
Before the recent death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia's death, experts were certain Friedrichs would prevail and deal a costly blow to unions across the country. However, today the justices announced they were divided 4-4 - the split vote leaves in place an appeals court ruling that upheld the union fees practice.
What does another 4-4 split decision indicate about the rest of the term and the continued fight over a vacancy on the high court?
Guests:
Kyle Barry, Director of Justice Programs, Alliance for Justice - described as progressive advocates focused on the federal judiciary
Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the libertarian Cato Institute and editor-in-chief of the Cato Supreme Court Review; Shapiro co-authored an amicus brief in Friedrichs; he tweets from
Could better labels make us stop wasting food?
Ever wondered what those 'best if used by' dates on your food actually mean? One California lawmaker says not enough people do, and is proposing legislation he hopes will prevent people from throwing out food just because it's passed its 'best by' date.
Last week, Assemblyman David Chiu (D-San Francisco) introduced a bill that would limit food manufacturers to one of two options for indicating the expiration dates of food: The “best if used by” label would be used to identify when food is at its best quality and the “expires on” label would be placed on highly-perishable foods, which would pose a safety risk if consumed after the date indicated.
"The thing about a 'sell by' date is it’s really not meant for consumers to worry about," says Dana Gunders, a staff scientist with the National Resource Defense Council's (NRDC) food and agriculture program. "It’s earlier than a ‘best-by’ or ‘use-by’ date, normally, because it’s telling the grocery store that if you sell the product by this date, the consumer can get it home and have a good shelf life with it."
Gunders says the idea of the bill is to standardize food labeling to eliminate what they see as the confusion created by the wide variety of arbitrary expiration dates. They argue that commonly used labels such as “best before,” “freshest by” and “sell by,” among a few others are chosen based on a manufacturer's discretion, not federal mandate, and as a result lead many consumers to mistakenly discard edible foods.
As for whether there will be opposition to the law, Gunders says she can see grocery stores and companies pushing back because it's a state law and they don't want to have to navigate different laws in every state where they operate.
"My response to that is that a federal solution would be wonderful, but we all know how tricky it is to get anything through Congress right now, and California has an ability to set a model for the rest of the nation."
AirTalk reached out to several grocery stores and food manufacturers for their reaction, but none returned our request for comment.
Gunders says regardless of whether the law is passed, we can all do more to prevent food waste by being vigilant about buying what we'll eat and eating what we buy. She says just about anything can be frozen (milk, sliced bread, cheese, fruits and veggies), so make the most out of your freezer. Also, don't throw out canned food! Gunders says most canned foods can be eaten years after the date on the can without a safety risk. And what about smelling your food for freshness? Gunders says that most of the time, the smell test usually passes the smell test when it comes to deciding whether food is rotten, but that there are still some foods that could deceive you.
You can read the full text of Assemblyman Chiu's bill below:
Guests:
Dana Gunders, staff scientist in the food and agriculture program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a co-sponsor of the bill, and author of “The Waste-Free Kitchen Handbook”
Heads up! Distracted walking could land NJ residents a fine or even jail time if bill passes
We’ve all seen this person walking down the street, head buried in a smartphone screen, headphones firmly inserted into ears, and paying exactly zero attention to the rest of the world.
A New Jersey lawmaker has proposed a bill that, if passed, would treat distracted walking the same way jaywalking is treated in the Garden State: a $50 fine, 15 days in jail, or both. Assemblywoman Pamela Lampitt (D-Camden/Burlington) says the risks posed by a distracted walker are the same ones jaywalkers pose, so they should be treated similarly. Other states have proposed similar laws but thus far, none have passed.
The Governors Highway Safety Association released a report earlier this month showing pedestrian deaths went up ten percent in 2015 despite a 4 percent decrease in overall traffic deaths.
DNC executive talks Clinton-Sanders debate schedule, party politics
What are your questions for Amy Dacey, the chief executive officer of the Democratic National Committee?
Larry Mantle will interview Dacey this afternoon.
They will talk about how a competitive presidential primary battle between Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders impacts the Democratic party. Plus the ongoing controversy over how the DNC organized the primary debate schedule; ideological schisms between Sanders and Clinton supporters; and the power of superdelegates.