More digital billboards will be seen around L.A. thanks to a court ruling striking down a ban previously in place. Also, the mayor of Guerrero and his wife are being held responsible for the 43 students who went missing in September. Then, can medical marijuana help treat children with epilepsy?
L.A. says ‘bye bye’ to billboard ban
Los Angeles may soon see a deluge of billboard applications after a ruling by Superior Court judge Luis A. Lavin struck down the city’s long-held ban. Concluding the ban violated California’s Constitutional promise of free speech, Judge Lavin ruled in favor of billboard giant Lamar Central Outdoor, granting them permission to build 45 digital billboards across the city. This ruling could open the door for more billboard companies hoping to blare their messages across L.A.’s skyline.
The company’s attorney Michael Wright challenged the ban by arguing city billboard laws were poorly written and regulated signs by message rather than by more reasonable attributes such as size, location and appearance. The ruling judge asserts that loopholes in the existing law would allow a business to erect a billboard reading “Joe’s Bagels sold here,” but would not permit the same business to post a billboard advertising “Joe’s Bagels--1 mile ahead.”
But City Attorney Mike Feuer vows to make an appeal, his spokesman Rob Wilcox tells the Los Angeles Times: “The judge’s decision is squarely at odds” with a ruling made by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2011. An appeal will likely mean that the ban will remain intact for now, although Lamar Central Outdoor say they plan to immediately begin rolling out billboards, anyway.
Would it bother you to see more digital billboards in Los Angeles? Was the judge right to strike down the law?
Guests:
Dennis Hathaway, President, Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight
Ray Baker, Vice President of Lamar Advertising in Los Angeles
Former Iguala, Mexico Mayor and Wife Suspected of Ordering Student Kidnapping
The top prosecutor in Mexico says the mayor of the town of Iguala and his wife are responsible for ordering the attack on 43 students who went missing in late September while traveling to the town in the southern state of Guerrero.
On Wednesday, Mexico's attorney general, Jesus Murillo Karam, announced that a warrant had been issued for the arrest of Mayor Jose Luis Abarca and his wife, Maria de los Angeles Pineda. The two are now fugitives and have not been seen since the attacks happened.
Murillo said that Abarca was concerned that the students, who were headed to Iguala on commandeered buses the night they were kidnapped, would disrupt a party and speech his wife was having to celebrate her accomplishments as head of a state social welfare agency.
According to the newspaper El Universal, Pineda told the local police chief to "teach them a lesson," referring to the students.
Murillo also said that Abarca and his wife were both connected to Guerreros Unidos, a criminal gang in Guerrero. He said that Pineda was related to high-ranking members of a drug gang and was the "principal operator" of Guerreros Unidos in Iguala.
The attacks on September 26th occurred when police intercepted and began shooting at the buses as they traveled to Iguala, which is located about 120 miles south of Mexico City. Six people were killed and dozens more were injured. More than 50 students from the same college originally went missing, but several have turned up since the attack. 43 others have not been seen since.
Guests:
Carrie Kahn, NPR Correspondent based in Mexico City
Octavio Rodriguez, Program Coordinator, Justice in Mexico, which examines rule of law and security issues in Mexico, at the University of San Diego
Pot and kids: what are the benefits (and dangers) of using medical marijuana to treat epilepsy?
Parents don’t typically encourage their young children to do drugs. But that’s now how Ray Mirzabegian thinks of it. His daughter is epileptic. As a young child, her seizures were growing more intense and much more frequent. Her mobility and speech development shut down.
“It was like hitting the mute button,” he told Time reporter Kate Pickert. Mirzabegian tried every kind of medication he could find.Then he heard about marijuana growers in Colorado who developed a strain that is high in cannaboids or CBD, thought to be the source of many of marijuana’s palliative effects, and low in THC, the chemical that gets you high. He sought a medical marijuana recommendation and began distilling the strain into an oil. His daughter’s seizures were dramatically reduced. He’s now the go-to person in California for parents who are seeking alternative treatments for their children -- often suffering from extreme cases of epilepsy.
How much research is there on the effect of pot on children? Is it worth the risk? What if the benefit was an entirely new course of treatment for kids who have trouble walking and talking and experience multiple seizures per day?
Guests:
Kate Pickert, Time reporter. Her recent article is “Medical Marijuana: Parents of Kids with Epilepsy Search for Cure.”
Ray Mirzabegian, owner of Realm of Care, sells distilled form of pot to treat childhood epilepsy. Began as a treatment for his daughter.
Dr. Eric A. Voth, MD., a doctor practicing internal medicine and pain specialist medicine in Kansas and Chairman of the Institute on Global Drug Policy. He has spent 35 years studying the effects of drugs and addiction
Election 2014: CA’s 33rd Congressional debate with Elan Carr and Ted Lieu
Henry Waxman was first elected to represent California's 33rd Congressional District almost thirty years ago, and his legacy casts a long and enduring shadow over the nation’s policies, from expanding health care coverage and curbing tobacco use, to restricting air and water pollution. Now two candidates, Democratic State Senator Ted Lieu and Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Elan Carr, a Republican, are vying to replace him. Join us on Wednesday, October 22nd, when they face off in one of their last debates before the November 4th election to discuss a full range of domestic and foreign policy challenges awaiting the next Congress.
Here’s a rebroadcast of the debate between Lieu and Carr that took place yesterday at The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. AirTalk’s Larry Mantle and Dan Schnur, Executive Director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, co-moderated the debate.
Guests:
Ted Lieu, Democratic candidate for California’s 33rd Congressional District; State Senator who has represented the 28th Senate District, which encompasses Hermosa Beach, Manhattan Beach and Torrance, since 2011
Elan Carr, Republican candidate for California’s 33rd Congressional District; Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney