The city of Los Angeles is suing Wells Fargo Bank for allegedly fostering a culture where employees frequently opened bogus customer accounts. Also, a poll of emergency room doctors, released Monday, finds that visits to the ER have increased since the Affordable Care Act came into effect. Then, should full liquor licenses be more accessible for restaurant and bar proprietors in California?
LA City Attorney details lawsuit against Wells Fargo
The city of Los Angeles is suing Wells Fargo Bank for allegedly fostering a culture in which employees frequently opened bogus customer accounts.
The suit alleges Wells put so much pressure on its staff that quotas were met by signing up customers for additional accounts they never authorized.
If you are a Wells Fargo customer and have noticed unusual activity with your account, call the City Attorney’s office at 213 978 8359.
Guests:
Mike Feuer, City Attorney of Los Angeles
Hollywood struggles to adapt to life with Meerkat and Periscope
The fight between Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather was over in less than an hour. But the battle over how fans watched the fight will continue for months.
It cost $100, in theory, in order to see the “fight of the century” between Mayweather and Pacquiao but for those who didn’t or couldn’t afford to pay, they had another option: watch live streams of the events via rival smartphone apps, Meerkat and the Twitter-owned Periscope. At one point, 10,000 people tuned into one Periscope video stream. Most viewers admit the quality of the footage wasn’t great, but it allowed them to take part in a very hyped event.
The promoters of the fight demanded the streams be taken down and have threatened legal action, but that's a game of whack-a-mole. The apps are being compared to Napster, the peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that encoded audio files in MP3 format. Of course, Meerkat and Periscope are different: they let users livestream, not upload content after it's been recorded.
How are providers of live events going to adapt to these new streaming apps? Are some piracy offenses worse than others?
Guests:
Andrew Wallenstein, Co-Editor-in-Chief of Variety
Lance Ulanoff, Chief Correspondent, Mashable
LA councilmembers question ticketing pedestrians for jaywalking
If you enter a crosswalk when the red hand is flashing you could be fined a whopping $197 ticket.
In downtown LA, where the neighborhood is experiencing a boom of new residents and building, more and more people are walking, making them more susceptible to jaywalking tickets. The issue caught the attention of the LA city council, and a motion by Councilmember Mike Bonin, seconded by Councilmember Jose Huizar, asks the Los Angeles Police Department to give them more information about why vehicle code section #21456, increases pedestrian safety.
Critics of the code say it favors cars, making it archaic. Supporters say it makes pedestrians safer.
Could police use more discretion when giving out jaywalking tickets? Is it a one size fits all law? Are pedestrians made safer by not stepping into the crosswalk when the red hand is flashing? Have you recently gotten a jaywalking ticket for this offense?
Guest:
Mike Bonin, Councilmember for district 11 which encompasses Brentwood, Del Rey, Mar Vista, Pacific Palisades, Playa del Rey, Playa Vista, Venice, West LA, and Westchester
Are emergency room visits up under Obamacare?
A poll of emergency room doctors, released Monday, finds that visits to the ER have increased since January 2014, when the Affordable Care Act came into effect.
Reducing ER visits, costs, and wait times was one of the main arguments by Obamacare’s supporters in pushing for the legislation.
It’s not the first indication that ER visits may go up after Medicaid expands. A Harvard study looked at Oregon’s expanding Medicaid pool from 2008-2011 and found a similar jump.
Health policy experts are divided on the reasons why. Proponents of the health care reform law say that there’s pent-up demand, and with time, the ER numbers will fall. Opponents see it as a sign of Obamacare’s failure.
The latest poll tracked physician perception, not the statistics kept by hospitals, but Oregon’s experience may be instructive for other states and the federal exchanges.
How well is Obamacare working to control ER visits?
2015 ACEP Poll Affordable Care Act Research Results
Guests:
Katherine Baicker, chair of the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Harvard School of Public Health and co-author of a 2014 study that found a jump in ER visits following Oregon’s Medicaid expansion.
Dylan Roby, Director of Health Economics and evaluation Research at the UCLA Center for Health Policy
Yevgeniy Feyman, fellow at the Center for Medical Progress at the Manhattan Institute
Bell Gardens sordid murder case could vex jury selection
The son of murdered Bell Gardens Mayor Daniel Crespo told a police officer that his mother shot his father three times in the side last fall during an argument that he tried to break up but couldn't after his father punched him in the eye, according to grand jury testimony revealed yesterday.
Last month, the wife of Crespo pleaded not guilty to voluntary manslaughter. Prosecutors claim Lyvette Crespo shot her husband three times in the chest during an argument at their home in Bell Gardens. Her attorney, Eber Bayona, told reporters, "I want to ask the public to maintain an open mind and to wait until all the evidence has been presented before they make a final opinion about what happened. I'm asking you not to try Ms. Crespo in the media."
However, more sordid details about the couple's marriage emerged yesterday. Text messages show the mayor bragged to his co-workers and his wife about extramarital affairs and held a "faux wedding" for a girlfriend in Las Vegas last year.
Could these revelations taint jury selection? What are the right types of jurors to try a case with a seemingly unsympathetic victim?
Craft cocktails and specialty liquors decrease negative stigma surrounding booze
On Cinco de Mayo, if tequila is your drink instead of beer, in most of America you'll have a harder time finding a restaurant or store that sells Don Julio instead of just Corona.
Full liquor licenses are more limited and more expensive than beer & wine licenses, plus some states still observe "Sunday laws" - that restrict the sale of all alcohol, but are more restrictive of alcohol containing more than four percent alcohol by weight. Experts in the booze business say there is a leftover stigma from the days of prohibition.
For most of the 20th Century, companies making hard liquor followed a self-imposed ban on advertising. That meant commercials for beer and wine flooded American culture in a way that whiskey, vodka and the like did not.
Arthur Shapiro, a former marketing chief of Seagram who blogs at Booze Business, says that distinction was dangerous and caused Americans to perceive the consumption of a few bottles of beer as harmless compared to a few shots of bourbon. He writes "In my view, any restrictions - voluntary or imposed - on liquor remain hypercritical, in as much as wine and beer (mainly) do not face comparable constraints in the US."
Should full liquor licenses be more accessible for restaurant and bar proprietors in California? How have craft and artisanal cocktails changed your perception of booze?
Guests:
Arthur Shapiro, blogs at boozebusiness.com; former head of marketing for the U.S. at Seagram Spirits and Wine - now defunct, Seagram was once the largest alcohol distiller in the world.
Allison Evanow, Owner of Square One Organic Spirits