The 61,000 acre Valley Fire now encompasses Napa, Sonoma and Lake counties and has forced more than 17,000 people to evacuate their homes. Also, as critics and proponents fight, should the EB-5 program be renewed? Then, on Thursday, the Fed will decide whether to raise interest rates, which is often seen as an economic harbinger for what the state of the economy looks like.
On the ground at the Valley Fire, plus fire risks in SoCal for 2015
The 61,000 acre Valley Fire now encompasses Napa, Sonoma and Lake counties and has forced more than 17,000 people to evacuate their homes.
Yesterday, Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency in Lake and Napa counties. Captain Buck Condit of the Butte Fire incident management team says crews have the fire 30 percent contained, but the fire has now covered over 110 square miles.
Listen to Larry’s conversation with Kristen Hanes of KGO Radio in San Francisco as she reports from the ground at Hidden Valley Lake, one of the hardest hit communities of the Valley Fire.
Guests:
Kristin Hanes, Reporter with KGO Radio in San Francisco. At Hidden Valley Lake
John Heil, spokesperson with the Pacific Southwest Region with the US Forest Service
Karen North, Ph.D., Director, Annenberg Program on Online Communities, and professor at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism; psychologist specializing in online communities
Janet Upton, Deputy Director, Communications, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection
As EB-5 investor visa program faces sunset, should it be renewed?
Critics call it the “cash for green card” program, proponents say it’s a job booster that the US economy desperately needs.
The EB-5 visa program grants permanent resident status to foreign investors who inject $500,000 into a US business that leads to the creation of at least 10 jobs. Implemented in 1990, the program is set to sunset on Sept. 30.
As Congress prepares to take up its reauthorization, many opponents of the programs are asking whether it should be scrapped entirely.
EB-5 Immigrant Investor Program
Guests:
Leslie Berestein Rojas, KPCC's Immigration and Emerging Communities Reporter. Her recent pieces have looked at the impact of the EB-5 program in the San Gabriel Valley
Peter Joseph, Executive Director of Invest in USA, the national nonproft industry trade association for the EB-5 Regional Center Program
John Vogel, Associate Faculty Director of the Center for Business & Society at Dartmouth University who has written about the EB-5 program
Evaluating the state of the US economy as Fed considers interest rate hike this week
On Thursday, the Fed will decide whether to raise interest rates, which is often seen as an economic harbinger for what the state of the economy looks like.
Ahead of this, AirTalk takes a look at the current state of the U.S. economy, how it got to where it is, what lies ahead in the remainder of 2015, and whether HSBC Bank researchers were right in their recent research note, when they suggested that the world economy is “like an ocean liner without lifeboats” and that the U.S. may not be prepared to handle another economic downturn when it happens.
Guests:
Lisa Cook, Ph.D., associate professor of economics and international relations at Michigan State University
Josh Bivens, research and policy director at the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C.
Jeffrey Miron, Ph.D., senior lecturer on economics and director of undergraduate studies at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Cato Institute
Sacramento roundup: The home stretch for a panoply of bills
With the legislative deadline passed, Governor Brown now faces hundreds of bills, many of which have significant implications for the Golden State.
Among the most high-profile of the bills are: ABX2-15, a bill pushed in committee to legalize the right-to-die for certain terminally ill patients; SB350, a measure to boost renewable electricity use in the state to 50% by 2050 that was attacked by the business and petroleum lobbies; and AB266, legislation to establish a statewide licensure and operation program for medical marijuana, which would be the first of its kind in California.
Other less notable bills include SB295, a bill to further regulate oil pipelines that arrived as a response to the Santa Barbara oil spill earlier this year, and SB 695, a mandate that sexual violence prevention (including “Yes means Yes” training) is included in school district curriculum if health education is required to graduate.
Legal technicalities aside, for each bill, Governor Brown has 12 days after its passage in the legislature to sign or veto. The California legislature may override a veto with a two-thirds vote in both the Assembly and the Senate.
Which bills are you most excited or apprehensive about? Do you think vetoed bills will show up in next year’s legislative session or the 2016 ballot? And how will these bills affect the most pressing issues facing Californians?
Guest:
Patrick McGreevy, Capitol Reporter, Los Angeles Times; “Legislature Leaves Anti-Tobacco Measures and Health Plan Tax on the Table”
How likely is it that your athletic kid will go pro?
A new poll from NPR, Harvard and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows that just over a fourth of American parents whose kids play high school sports hope their child will go pro.
That number jumps to 40 percent among families with household incomes of less than $50,000 a year. But will one in four high school athletes hit the big leagues? Turns out, not so much: according to the National Collegiate Athletics Association, that number is more like 1 in 168 (for baseball players). Or 1 in 2,451 if your teenaged son plays basketball.
So what’s with the expectation gap? And why is it so much worse for families that make less money?
Sports and Health in America Poll
Guest:
Tom Farrey, director of the Sports and Society Program at the Aspen Institute. He’s also the author of “Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of our Children.”