How secure is the US-Canada border?; Mexican immigrants hope reform will allow them to reunite with long lost loved ones; Is Kim Jong-Un's aunt actually calling the shots in North Korea?; Girl Scouts' LA chapter offers patch for video game development; How the Great Recession has affected young people's relationship with money, plus much more.
How secure is the US-Canada border?
While the immigration debate continues in Washington, most attention has been paid to the Mexican border. But just this week, Canadian authorities foiled a terrorist plot to blow up a VIA Rail passenger train traveling across the border from Canada to the US.
That incident has turned the spotlight back to our neighbor to the north and raised questions about how the two borders compare when it comes to safety.
Mexican immigrants hope reform will allow for reunion with loved ones
Mexico sends the most immigrants to the U.S., and is arguably the foreign country that has the most at stake should comprehensive immigration reform pass Congress. For many Mexicans, the most anticipated part of reform is the chance to reunite with family members living in the U.S. without papers who they haven't seen for years, and in some cases, decades.
From the Fronteras Desk, Jude Joffe-Block reports.
Is Kim Jong Un's aunt, Kim Kyong Hui, calling the shots in North Korea?
Kim Jong Un came into power in North Korea after the 2011 death of his father, Kim Jong-il, but in a recent article for The Atlantic, journalist Donald Kirk suggests that Kim Jong Un may not actually be calling the shots.
He writes that Kim's aunt, Kim Kyong Hui, is actually running the show from behind the scenes. Interestingly, Hui's rise parallels that of the South Korean president Park Geun Hye.
Donald Kirk joins the show to explain.
Girl Scouts LA chapter offers patch for video game development
Play a video game nowadays, and you can earn all sorts of of trophies and achievements. When you complete a mission in Call of Duty without dying? Get the "Still Ticking" award. Or you can earn a "Golden Touch" prize for amassing 100,000 gold pieces in Skyrim.
That's all virtual fun, but there's a special, real-life award that you can get, not just for playing video games, but for developing them. How do you get it? By being a Girl Scout in LA.
The Girl Scouts of Greater LA, in partnership with Women in Games International, are in the process of developing a new patch in video game development, available only to scouts in this Los Angeles area. This comes just a month after Boy Scouts announced a new badge for game design.
"The organization is really focused on having girls more involved in understanding careers in STEM, specifically in video gaming," said Carol Diedrich, spokesperson for the Girl Scouts of Greater LA. "Right now we're developing the curriculum for the patch, soon to be released. Part of this is looking for sponsorship so that we can take this more globally."
A Girl Scouts patch differs from a badge in that it is local, and gives councils the opportunity to work with organizations on initiatives specific to a particular geographical area. Badges are national in nature, and are accepted among all Girl Scouts chapters across the country.
Girls interested in earning the patch will have to design, develop and program a playable video game. In addition, girls will have the opportunity to learn more about possible professional opportunities in the industry.
"The biggest thing that the public doesn't realize about Girl Scouts today, they think of us as cookies, camping, and crafts, the traditional girl scouts, but real girl scouts are so much more," said Diedrich.
Sports Roundup: Clippers, Lakers, Lance Armstrong, Luis Suárez
It's time for our weekly romp through sports with Andy and Brian Kamenetzky. They've covered the L.A. sports scene for over a decade for the Times and ESPN.
The Clippers are having the best season they have ever had. They won the Pacific Division for the first time, they swept the Lakers for the first time, and now they have a two-game lead in their playoff series with Memphis.
The Lakers on the other hand, got into the playoffs on the final day of the season, they don't have Kobe Bryant who's injured and lost by 12 to the Spurs on Sunday yet despite all that, the game was the highest rated playoff opener in a decade. How will the injured, aging Lakers still the hottest TV ticket around?
Kobe Bryant, who is recovering from his torn Achilles, was tweeting up a storm. Apparently, it was enough of a big deal that he will stop tweeting during games.
The most famous biter in sports history was Mike Tyson when he chomped on Evander Holyfield's ear. Now, he might have some competition in Liverpool soccer player, Luis Suárez.
Navigating insurance coverage limits can be difficult for amputees
At least 13 victims of the Boston marathon bombing underwent amputation surgeries and must learn to navigate the world with a prosthetic device. Likewise, the obesity and diabetes epidemic in this country has increased the incidence of disease-related amputations.
But aside from the difficulty of surgery, it may also prove challenging for these patients to navigate the world of private insurance, which, unlike the military, can have spotty coverage for advanced prosthetic devices.
Dan Ignaszewski, director of government relations at the Amputee Coalition of America, joins the show with more.
How to build a better, smarter, hack-proof password
Yesterday, the Associated Press's Twitter account was hacked. Fake tweets from the account reported that two explosions went off at the White House. The AP and other news outlets were quick to say those tweets were false.
While we don't know exactly how hackers got into the account, there is one big take away: the AP probably needed a better password.
They're not alone. A recent study showed that the 10,000 most common passwords would have accessed 98 percent of all accounts. It also showed that almost a third of users who had been hacked didn't even realize it.
Joining us to help you build a better password is Nicole Perlroth, technology and cybersecurity reporter for the New York Times.
Blame game takes off amid sequestration cuts to FAA
While all those passengers are waiting for their delayed flight, their hardworking politicians in Washington are playing the blame game. Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill have been lobbing shots at one another over who is responsible for sequestration, but so far, no one has stepped forward to try to fix it.
Burgess Everett, who wrote about this for Politico, fills us in on the partisan bickering.
While lawmakers in DC are arguing about the merits of sequestration, the impact it's had on people on the ground and in the air have been very real. There have been flight delays across the country as up to 10 percent of the air traffic controllers are on furlough at any given time.
That also accounts for about 10 percent of the staffing being gone at LAX every day. Mike Foote is the president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association at Los Angeles tower. He joins the show to offer his point of view on the FAA cuts to air traffic controllers at SoCal's largest and busiest airport.
Interview Highlights:
On how flights can become backed up to three hours:
"You've got to consider that all of the aircraft are already in the air, if you're flying from Australia or China, or Singapore, or someplace like that, you're already over the ocean flying to Los Angeles. What's going on is we have a fog bank that shows up called "marine layer" — around this time of the year it's very common. When it shows up we don't have the bodies to open up two position down in the radar room, then we have to cut our arrival more than in half. At that point you're stuck with all these aircraft up in the air and you have to deal with what's already in the air, and you ground stop everybody else until you can assimilate all the aircraft that are already flying into Los Angeles."
On what's its been like in the tower since the furlough set in:
"It's a helpless feeling. You're trained as an air traffic controller to move aircraft, 'minimum separation,' and 'go, go, go' all day long, and we have certain rules we to follow. Watching that marine layer rolling knowing that when it shows up we were going to drop our arrival rate down to 42, which is normally ninety on a nice day, then you're looking at that knowing what the impact is on the entire is just throw your hands up in the air type of stuff.
"It's just so unnecessary. You're just watching people you know are just trying to get home from wherever they've been or set themselves up for business whatever they're doing and they're stranded and there's nothing that can be done about it."
In South LA, the doctor might not be in, but the nurse will be
Many residents of South L.A struggle with chronic conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure but don't know how to deal with them. While they need a doctor's care, its often difficult to find one at community clinics, leaving the bulk of the care administered by another type of healthcare worker: nurses. KPCC's Jose Martinez reports.
How difficult is it for immigrant kids to assimilate in the US?
In the days following the capture of alleged Boston bombing suspect Dzokhar Tsarnaev and the death of his brother Tamerlan, authorities have been digging into their background in the search for answers. Dzokhar is 19 and Tamerlan was 26. Both came in to the United States as kids more than 10 years ago.
The younger Dzokhar reportedly had an easy time fitting in, but it was harder for his older brother. This insight has raised some question about how easy, and not so easy, it is for immigrant children to assimilate in the U.S.
Marcelo Suarez -Orozco, Dean of U.C.L.A.'s Graduate School of Education, has spent a good chunk of his career studying how immigrants kids adapt to society here. He co-wrote, with his wife and colleague Carola, an op-ed about it this week in the New York Times.
How the recession has impacted youth's view on cars, money
The latest federal transportation statistics show that Americans are driving less than ever before. One independent analysis found miles driven nationwide have dropped more than an estimated 8 percent since June 2005.
That drop-off is happening even here the car capital of Los Angeles. Professor Michael Smart who teaches transportation policy at UCLA says the recession is by far the biggest reason for the decline for everybody. Another reason is that younger drivers head out on the road less.
One reason why many young people may be driving less is that they're reluctant to actually buy a car. Or, for that matter, they might be reluctant to buy most anything. The reason may be the timing of the Great Recession.
In 2008 when many 20-somethings were in their teens, the country was in the midst of the economic downturn. How did that period affect how young people think about money and how they spend it?
Suzanne Shu, an Assistant Professor of Marketing at UCLA's Anderson School of Business and an expert on behavior, joins the show with some insight into this phenomenon.
New tool aims to pinpoint which cities have the worst air
California's Environmental Protection Agency is rolling out a new tool on Tuesday, to help pinpoint communities that may be particularly vulnerable to pollution. It's the first environmental index of its kind in the nation, measuring a broad range of pollutants and health indicators in every zip code across the state.
RELATED: California pollution map: LA has 3 of the top polluted areas
But the tool is already proving controversial, as the California Report's Central Valley Bureau Chief Sasha Khokha explains.