A judge rules that CIA torture testimony of 9/11 suspects will remain secret during trial. Plus, the Dept. of Interior releases a grim report about the Colorado River, what are the effects of older parenthood? Then, can MySpace's sexy new redesign entice users? Actor Alan Cumming joins the show to talk about his new film, and much more
CIA treatment of 9/11 suspects to be kept secret in court
New movement in the prosecution of alleged 9-11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four co-conspirators. Yesterday, the judge in the case said details about the harsh interrogation techniques used on the men will not be disclosed in court. Their military tribunal is scheduled to be held next year.
Human rights groups, including the American Civil Liberties Union, say the ruling is an attempt to hide the fact that the men were tortured.
Here with more is Mattathias Schwartz, contributor for the New Yorker who has been following the story.
Is Rwanda's President Paul Kagame a savior or authoritarian leader?
What do actor Don Cheadle, Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Pastor Rick Warren have in common? They are just the California contigent of a long line of American lunimaries who have made pilgrimages to visit Rwandan President Paul Kagame.
He has been the President of Rwanda since 2000, and is a leader of the Rwandan Patriotic Front, the group cited as reponsible for overthrowing the government in 1994 and ending the Rwandan Genocide.
But Kagame has become quite a controversial and polarizing figure. Human rights groups have criticized him for his military action in Congo, while ex-President Bill Clinton and President Obama have supported him.
Stephen Kinzer, professor of International Relations at Boston University and author of "A Thousand Hills," about the Rwandan leader joins the show to discuss his book.
Dept. of Interior releases grim report on sustainability of Colorado River
Yesterday, the federal government released the results of a three-year study on the Colorado River, a water source critical to Nevada, California and elsewhere.
The picture it paints is grim: demand is growing and supply is dwindling, and within 50 years the situation will be unsustainable.
Professor Jay Famiglietti, a hydrologist at UC Irvine and the director of the UC Center for Hydrolic Modeling joins the show to talk about the implications of the report.
Colorado River Basin Water Supply & Demand Study Final Study Reports
Univ. of Iowa asks incoming students to disclose sexual orientation
It's December and by now, kids headed for college — and their parents — have filled out countless admissions forms. Applications for financial aid mean gathering lots of information, like transcripts, essays...plus a lot of questions.
Now one school is asking students to state their sexual orientation, if they'd like to.
The University of Iowa is the first public institution in the U.S. to ask applicants to identify as gay, lesbian or transgender. Seems innocent enough, but the issue has divided the higher-ed community.
The board overseeing the Common Application, that's the admission form accepted by more than 400 schools, rejected a similar plan last year.
With more is Eric Hoover of the Chronicle of Higher Education.
The effects and consequences of older parenthood
Birth rates in the U.S. have been falling in the midst of the recession, except among one demographic: People over 40.
There is much to be said for starting a family at an older age, parents are more likely to be financially and emotionally prepared to have kids. But there are definitely negative effects as well, and mostly a lot of unknown consequences.
Judith Shulevitz wrote about these issues for this month's cover story in the New Republic called "How Older Parenthood Will Upend American Society: The Scary Consequences Of The Grayest Generation."
Cowboy Trevor Brazile wins record 10th all-around title in National Finals Rodeo
This week in Las Vegas, the world's top cowboys are gathered for the National Finals Rodeo, to compete for $6 million in prize money. So far, much of the limelight has gone to one man, Trevor Brazile, who broke a world record this week when he won his 10th all-around gold buckle. Brazile joins the show from Las Vegas.
On how it felt to win his 10th all-around title:
"Its a milestone that I really, to tell you the truth, i never even made it a goal just because it would have sounded ridiculous when I started out to think that we could have came this far. We're really excited."
On what it means to be an all-around champion:
"The all-around championship is for the cowboy who works more than one even. I do all the roping events, anything that has to do with the rope, that's my event. I do steer roping, tie-down roping and team roping. Team roping is the only true team event in pro rodeo, where you have a header and a heeler: Two cowboys, two horses and a 600-lb steer. You have to rope his horns the you turn him off and then my partner comes in and ropes his feet. That's is just like how they always doctored big cattle in pasture because they were too big to get down any other way."
On how dangerous rodeo is:
"Anything that has to do with animals is extremely dangerous. Just knowing that and never taking that for granted its probably one of the least dangerous events in rodeo. There's a lot of guys that lose a lot of fingers, because when you rope the steer you have to wrap the rope around the saddle horn and you're talking about a lot of weight with a 600-lb steer, and if your finger gets anywhere close to that its off no questions asked."
On his special relationship with his horse Sic Em:
"Siccem has just been a blessing in our family, just the fact that he babysits my little boy… Everything that I do involves the horse, so they're our partners, it's like a quarterback and receiver, the timing is so important and its crucial. Great horses make great ropers. It took a lot longer to trust him with my [5-year-old] son. The horse is so unique, most horses that are that intense, that have that kind of speed and athletic ability just can't snap out of it. But there's just something special about that horse that when I throw his little saddle on him he totally changes his demeanor.'"
On why rodeo is an important tradition to continue:
"I think modern America needs rodeo and the Western heritage as its rock. It just seems like our world keeps evolving further and further from the way it started. I think this industry is the cornerstone that keeps everything back to the basics and I just think its important in today's time more than any."
Orange County has one of the lowest unemployment rates in state
California’s unemployment rate is improving. It’s now at 10.2 percent, the lowest level in three years. The unemployment rate in Los Angeles County is slightly higher, at 10.6 percent.
But to the south, there’s a place with one of the lowest unemployment rates in the state. It’s Orange County – where the jobless rate is 7.1 percent.
To understand why it’s so low, start with a visit to Disneyland.
The new Cars Land at Disney California Adventure is a fantasyland that takes visitors back to 1920s L.A. – when Walt Disney arrived.
But for Orange County, the benefits of this $1.1 billion four-year expansion have been very real.
“We are the single largest employer in Orange County as far as a single site,” said Mary Niven, Vice-President of California Adventure. “We have over 25,000 cast members and because of the expansion, just since September 2011, we’ve grown by 5,000.”
"Cast members" is Disney-speak for "employees" - the people who do everything from heat your churro to singing those catchy songs to operating the rides.
After all, only so much can be automated.
Consider one of the most popular new rides at Cars Land, where you race through a strikingly realistic mountain range.
“Just Radiator Springs Racers, that one attraction, it takes about 150 people everyday to operate that for our guests,” said Niven.
Disneyland is only the largest example of Orange County hiring.
UC Irvine has added more than 500 positions in the last year. An expanded Children’s Hospital in Orange has hired 400. Santa Ana-based Universal Services of America, which provides cleaning and security services, has brought on about 300 staffers.
Orange County is booming so much that it drives growth for the whole region.
That’s what UC Irvine professor John Hipp found in a study looking at 50 years of socio-economic data.
“It was striking to me to see how much it has changed in Orange County,” said Hipp. “There was this dull sense of knowledge that Orange County had more jobs than it did before. But when you look at it on a map, it’s quite striking how rich in jobs it was, especially the Irvine area.”
The “Irvine cluster” includes Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach, San Joaquin Hills and the Newport Beach Coast. Hipps’ study found this part of Orange County had the highest jobs per capita in the region in the past two decades.
"We’re really kind of hitting on all cylinders here in Orange County,” said Dr. Wallace Walrod, chief economic advisor for the Orange County Business Council in Irvine.
He said the county’s unemployment rate has stayed low because it’s an easy place to do business. It’s centrally located; there’s a good transportation system; the schools are good and there’s an educated/skilled workforce; and government is business friendly.
“I think it’s the collobration that business, government, and academia have in Orange County that promotes a good environment that promotes economic growth,” said Walrod.
Key to that growth has been the diversity of industries.
“We have everything from Blizzard, which is a computer game manufacturer, to medical device companies, to Oakley making sunglasses, to Fisker making advance transportation electric cars,” said Walrod.
With everything from tourism to manufacturing, Orange County doesn’t rise and fall with one industry.
“As maybe one particular industry sector gets very hard hit – like the construction industry was very hard hit – there are other industries that are picking up as well,” said Walrod.
But as well as Orange County is doing relative to the rest of Southern California, its 7.1 percent unemployment rate is still more than twice what it used to be. Back in the good ol' days, the rate was just 3.2 percent.
Fed uses 'Evan's Rule' to tie interest rates to unemployment, inflation
Yesterday the Federal Reserve announced it will now tie interest rates to the unemployment rate. Under something called the "Evans Rule," interest rates will remain as they are until unemployment goes below 6.5 percent and if inflation is projected to be no more than 2.5 percent.
Here to help us understand more is Paddy Hirsch, the Senior Producer of Personal Finance at Marketplace.
Can your deleted tweets be used against you in court?
Last year an Occupy Wall Street protestor named Malcolm Harris was arrested for unruly conduct during a march in New York City. Harris claims he did nothing wrong, prosecutors say his tweets tell a different story.
The problem is, Harris deleted those tweets, and the only remaining copies are in Twitter's archive. The question now: Who owns those tweets, Twitter or Harris?
If something is deleted from the Web, can you expect it to be off the record or can prosecutors still use it against you?
To explain we're joined by Jennifer Granick, director of Civil Liberties at Stanford's Center for Internet and Society.
Can MySpace rise from the ashes with new ownership and huge redesign?
Believe it or not, MySpace is gearing up for its third relaunch since its beginning in 2003. Before the days of Facebook, MySpace was the most popular social networking site in the world and throughout that time grew a significant popularity among musicians and bands looking to get noticed.
As we all know MySpace has seen better days now that Facebook is on top, but under new ownership and with the street cred of pop star Justin Timberlake, the site has a whole new look and hopes to position itself to compete with not only Facebook, but also music sharing and discovering sites like Pandora and Spotify.
So will third time be a charm for MySpace? Gizmodo writer Sam Biddle got to take the new site out for a test drive. He joins the show to tell us what's good, what's bad, and whether he thinks this new MySpace will catch on.
Urban Air project gets funding to create floating billboard garden in LA
We have an update to a previous story we reported about the Kickstarter campaign for Urban Air, sculpture artist Stephen Glassman's effort to replace a billboard in Los Angeles with a bamboo garden.
The campaign ended Tuesday night, successfully reaching its $100,000 goal with more than 1,500 people contributing to the effort.
Glassman says most of the money will go to building the prototype, that includes retrofitting the billboard structure, sourcing the bamboo, and constructing sensors inside to monitor the air quality along the road.
See where the billboard will be located here.
Alan Cumming on gay marriage, photography and 'Any Day Now'
Fans of the actor Alan Cumming can now see him in two very political roles.
Sunday nights on CBS he appears as the merciless campaign manager Eli Gold in "The Good Wife," and starting tomorrow, you can see him as Rudy Donatello, a gay man fighting for the right to adopt a teenage boy in the film "Any Day Now."
Set in West Hollywood in the 1970, Cumming's character Rudy is a singer who works in a drag night club, who catches the eye of Paul, a lawyer played by Garrett Dillahunt.
When Rudy's junkie neighbor is carted off to jail, he discovers her teenage son Marco has been left behind with nothing but his favorite toy: a small blonde doll.
Eventually Rudy and Paul fall in love and the couple tries to adopt Marco, who has Down Syndrome, but the court finds them unfit to be parents because they're gay.
Cumming joins the show to talk about his new role, the gay marriage issue, his passion for photography and much more.