Today on the show, we'll discuss the LA City Council's decision to regulate e-cigs, and learn about how they work. Then, how can law enforcement better deal with mentally ill homeless people? Also, Mexican drug cartels are infiltrating the avocado farming industry, Emily Bazar discusses how Covered California will work for both legal and non-legal immigrants, and much more.
LA City Council votes to regulate e-cigarettes, 'vaping' devices
Sales of e-cigarettes and similar devices are expected to double this year to $1.7 billion, and these faux smokes could outsell their tobacco counterparts within a decade. Yesterday, the L.A. City Council voted to regulate the sale of e-cigarettes and other so-called vaping devices.
For more on this, we're joined by LA City Councilman Paul Koretz.
How can law enforcement better deal with the mentally ill homeless?
The trial of two police officers for the beating death of a 37-year-old homeless man continues.
According to his family, Kelly Thomas was diagnosed with schizophrenia and the prosecuting attorney say the police killed a "harmless" homeless man. Defense attorneys say Thomas was combative and the officer's actions did not violate any laws.
This is certainly not the first instance where authorities have clashed with a mentally ill homeless person.
For more on the challenges of dealing with the mentally ill homeless, we turn now to Michael Stoops, Director of Community Organizing for The National Coalition for the Homeless for some answers.
Ask Emily on Take Two: How does Obamacare work for immigrants?
Emily Bazar of the California Healthcare Foundation Center for Health Reporting joins host A Martinez to answer consumers’ questions about the Affordable Health Act.
This week she addresses questions of coverage for immigrants, both legal and not.
Interview Highlights:
Does Obamacare cover unauthorized or illegal immigrants?
"That's an easy answer. In this case, people who are in the country illegally are not eligible for any Obamacare benefits whether it's the health insurance exchanges or expansion of Medicaid. They're not eligible, but at the same time they don't have to meet the Obamacare requirement to carry health insurance."
What about those under the Deferred Action program?
"The answer to this one is a little bit more complicated. This answer has to do with the Dream Act, listeners probably remember that proposed legislation or remember hearing about it. And that would have allowed young people, like you said who were brought to the country illegally by their parents, to apply for temporary status that ultimately could lead to permanent legal status in the United States. Well, that was never passed in Washington D.C. and in the absence of any legislative action, President Obama created a new kind of status. It's called the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals and this provides these young people temporary status for two years and work authorization and this status can be renewed.
RELATED: Everything you need to know about Obamacare and Covered California
"Now, I have received questions from some of these young people about whether or not they can benefit from Obamacare. First off, they don't have to comply with the Obamacare insurance requirement either. So, they don't have to buy insurance, but if they want to they have some options. The health insurance exchange, which in California is called Covered California is not one of those options. They are barred from using our or any other health insurance exchange. However, they may be eligible for Medi-Cal, which is expanding on January 1st under Obamacare. And it depends on their income and California is allowing these youth to apply for Medi-Cal and get that program if they meet the requirements. Not all states are doing that."
Are naturalized citizens or those who have green cards required to be insured?
"Yes, it's just like peeling an onion. It just gets more and more complicated. The simple answer to that question is yes. Anybody who is a naturalized immigrant or a legal immigrant, and that isn't only green card holders, but if you're a legal immigrant you have to comply with the Obamacare requirement. You have to carry a minimum level of health insurance starting January 1st.
Do they qualify for subsidies, exchanges or Medi-Cal?
"Again, the simple answer is yes. Naturalized citizens qualify for everything. Medicaid expansion, the health insurance exchange and legal immigrants, most of them, we're talking about green card holder, people who are refugees, asylees and other classes of immigrants can actually qualify for the health insurance exchange. Now people in most of these categories also will be eligible for the expanded Medi-Cal, but to be sure they need to really check out if their legal status fits into Obamacare and if they have to consult an immigration attorney. And I'm sorry to say that, but just to be sure that will probably be the best thing to do.
"One thing I wanted to add is that even some people who are here in temporary visas, like work visas or student visas, they can purchase health insurance from the health insurance exchange, but whether or not they are actually required to meet the Obamacare requirement that is also kind of an open question that depends on their status. They should check with an immigration attorney."
What if you moved here from another country and you're still covered under an insurance in your home country, does that exempt you?
"It does not. Actually, if you're here legally, again, if you're a legal immigrant you have to have insurance under Obamacare. Now then the question becomes does your insurance that is provided by a foreign insurer count? Probably not. What the federal government has said is that foreign insurers can come to us and ask for permission to be adequate under the Obamacare requirement, but they must get permission first.
Want more Ask Emily? We have all of her posts on KPCC.org.
Questions for Emily: AskEmily@usc.edu
The CHCF Center for Health Reporting partners with news organizations to cover California health policy. Located at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, it is funded by the nonpartisan California HealthCare Foundation.
California citrus growers battle against freezing temperatures
Citrus growers in Central California are feeling the low temperatures.
The hard freeze watch issued to citrus farmers in the central and southern San Joaquin Valley area yesterday has prompted them to take preventive measures to protect their crops from the chill. The low temperatures, which are expected to reach the low 30s, could potentially ruin citrus crops and cause a financial disaster for some of these growers.
Bob Knight, a citrus farmer in Redlands, joins the show to talk about how he's tackling the cold.
Mexican drug cartels and the avocado business
Like many businesses in the violence-plagued Mexican state of Michoacán, the avocado growing industry has become intertwined with powerful drug cartels.
The majority of the avocados that make their way to our supermarkets come from this region of Mexico, and the area become devastated by drug wars. They have become so pervasive that they control almost all facets of life there, including the booming avocado industry.
Sylvia Longmire, author of "Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico's Drug Wars," joins the show to talk about how gangs have taken control of this popular crop.
Anjelica Huston opens up about her early life in 'A Story Lately Told'
Anjelica Huston is Hollywood royalty.
Her father was the legendary Academy-Award winning director John Huston, her grandfather was actor Walter Huston, and it was her father that directed both Walter and Anjelica to Oscar wins in different films, "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" and "Prizzi's Honor."
In the first part of her new two-part memoir, "A Story Lately Told: Coming of Age in Ireland, London and New York," Huston says growing up with this pedigree can be a blessing and a curse.
Interview Highlights:
On her childhood in Ireland:
"It was the most beautiful place to grow up. Wonderful scenery, wild green fields full of horses. I think a children's paradise. For me, certainly, looking back on that time it is rather dreamlike, but as you say even with a book like The Remains of the Day they are also undercurrents of other things."
On her early childhood relationship with her father:
"My early upbringing was wonderful. He moved my mother, my brother and I to Ireland when I was about 2-years-old. We grew up surrounded by the local gentry. We rode ponies, we fox hunted, we took long trips into the country, picnics, we went to deserted castles. Dad was an adventurer and he loved new places. I think the whole atmosphere of Ireland appealed to him enormously."
On how the relationship evolved:
"Well, I think as with most fathers and daughters there's a moment around adolescence when they disapprove and we rebel or at least that was my instinct. I was very fond of makeup and of course it was the 60s so I was very influenced by Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy and all those pretty girls in the fashion magazines, which I don't think was all that welcomed by my father."
On what it was like to move to London from Ireland:
"I was a schoolgirl in London initially when my mother took there. My parents separated when I was about 10- or 11-years-old. I was put into the Lycée Français and my brother went to Westminster School. It wasn't really a question of who I was when I went to the Lycée, it was a question of not speaking good enough French and being sort of put in the back of the class. I had a hard time when I was first in London because I had just come from Ireland and I think, to all intents and purposes, I was considered backwards.
"But I soon learned to overcome those problems when I finally wound up at a school called Holland Park. I came into my own as a teenager, really, and I started to enjoy everything that London had to offer. But in those days we didn't use our cachet, those of us who had famous attachments, it was considered sort of low grade to use your name or to ride on anyone's coattails, and I always was very conscious of that."
On how her father's profile in Hollywood influenced her:
"My father was my father and I was very aware of what he did and the fact that important actors worked for him and he had a life that was very much apart from our domestic life in Ireland so he was away for long periods of time. Yes, things came easily to me because of who I was and because obviously I was my father's daughter. He put me in a film when I was 16 years old, that doesn't happen to everybody.
On being directed by her father in "A Walk with Love and Death"
"It was very difficult for me. First of all, a school search had gone out to find Juliet for "Romeo and Juliet," which was about to be directed by Franco Zeffirelli and I had been called back a couple of times to meet with the producers and was going to meet Franco Zeffirelli, and was pretty excited about that, when my father announced I was going to be working for him. So, it was a time when my father was particularly critical of me and I was rather into avoidance so I would have preferred to have done Franco Zeffirelli movie, but instead I found myself in Austria being directed by my father in a piece that I wasn't that struck by in the first place. I didn't know that I would be very good in it and as it turns out, I wasn't."
On the difference between today's Hollywood spotlight and her childhood
"Well, I think my father was very correct in taking us out of the limelight. I think a lot of children of celebrities get immeasurable amounts of attention for doing absolutely nothing and I'm glad I allowed to be a child and I'm glad that I wasn't concerned with a lot of the things that kids in Hollywood seem to be brought up with. There's a sort of superficiality to it. I think it was important to my parents to make sure we had a childhood. That we were sort of unfettered by those rather questionable standards that come up in the lives of children who are raised here in Hollywood."
State of Affairs: Bill Bratton, LA Sheriff hiring and more
It's Thursday, which means it's time for State of Affairs, our look at politics and government throughout California. To help us with that we're joined in studio by KPCC political reporters Alice Walton and Frank Stoltze.
The big news today is that former LAPD chief Bill Bratton has been chosen by New York mayor-elect Bill de Blasio as the next NYPD commissioner. To help us put that in some context, we're joined by WNYC Metro Editor Andrea Bernstein.
What's defined its policing philosophy? How does the LAPD's mission compare to the NYPD? What does de Blasio's choice signal?
Two members of the L.A. County Board of Supervisors this week called for a probe into the hiring practices of the Sheriff’s Department. This was in response to a Los Angeles Times article found sheriff’s deputies had been hired despite histories of misconduct. What's the latest with this story?
Speaking of Sheriff Lee Baca, he is running for reelection and on Monday he’ll be at a fundraiser hosted by a few famous friends. Who is behind this fundraiser and what does it mean for the sheriff’s reelection?
We joke that every time the two of you are here we talk about a special election and this week it’s not joke. Tuesday was the special election to fill Holly Mitchell’s old Assembly seat. The winner has a famous name, at least here in Southern California.
Should schools teach kids how to be responsible on social media?
People, whether they're kids, teens or adults, post a lot of dumb stuff online: selfies from funerals, snapshots of teens drinking alcohol tagged with screen names.
Most of it disappears into the endless stream of noise we've come to expect from social media, but some of it can lead to tragic consequences, even suicide. Some say schools ought to teach kids how to behave online.
But the California Report's Aarti Shahani says educators aren't so sure.
Mysterious Google barge in San Francisco under investigation
In recent weeks, there's been all sorts of rumors swirling around a mysterious barge being built near Treasure Island in San Francisco. Google is the company behind the barge, but they're not saying too much about it.
Now there's word the agency that oversees development in the Bay has begun a formal investigation into the barge's construction. For more on this we're joined by Alexei Oreskovic, technology reporter for Reuters.
Dinner Party Download: Swearing by state, disposable razors and more
Every week we get your weekend conversation starters with Rico Gagliano and Brendan Newnam, the hosts of the Dinner Party Download podcast and radio show.
Here's a cool study of the “sweariest” states. Turns out Ohio is most vulgar. There are other interesting rubrics in it, too, like which states are most polite.
The Birth of the Disposable Razor
This week in 1901, King Gillette patented the disposable razor. It was previously thought to be impossible to create a blade thin enough, strong enough, and cheap enough to work.
Chef Susan Feniger on her new restaurant, Mud Hen Tavern
We end today with a little something to whet your appetite.
Chef Susan Feniger has been cooking up delicious food for more than three decades. Earlier this year, she won a Lifetime Achievement Award by the California Restaurant Association.
Along with partner Mary Sue Miliken, she's run the Border Grill in Santa Monica, Downtown LA and Vegas. They've authored several cookbooks together and appeared on numerous TV cooking shows.
This weekend, Susan Feniger is opening her own joint, it's called Mud Hen Tavern. She recently took a break to drop by our studios looking the part of a busy cook — wearing her signature lime green chef's jacket.