The Electoral College meets in state capitols around the country on Monday, Donald Trump's unprecedented security move, do celebrity medical endorsements matter?
Why we have the Electoral College and how it works in California
The 45th President of the United States will be officially elected today.
Across the country, the 538 members of the Electoral College will meet at state capitols to cast their votes for the next U.S. President.
Here in California, the state's 55 electors (the most of any state) will meet in Sacramento on Monday to cast their votes for Hillary Clinton. And while many Clinton supporters may be hoping that today's Electoral College vote will change the outcome of the election, that's unlikely to happen.
Donald Trump lost the popular vote, but he's expected to win the majority of electoral votes, and that's what will determine the final outcome of the election. For Trump to lose the electoral vote, 37 electors would have to switch their loyalties from Trump to Clinton or another candidate.
So how was the Electoral College process decided on in the first place?
, an associate law professor at Pepperdine University, says the framers of the Constitution weighed a lot of different options before they came up with "this somewhat unusual system where the state legislatures would choose electors, these dispassionate individuals who would then gather for a temporary meeting and cast votes for the next president and vice president of the United States."
The idea behind a temporary meeting in state capitols all over the country instead of in one central place, Muller explains, was so "there wouldn't be corruption, or intrigue, or the concern that these people would expect some kind of political favors from others. They were just ordinary citizens put in for a temporary job to select the next president."
Those "ordinary people" who are chosen to be electors in California are picked by the political parties. California's 55 Democratic electors are chosen by the leading Democrats in each Congressional District and the two most recent Democratic nominees for the Senate.
Raymond Cordova, a union leader in Garden Grove who's serving as an elector for the fourth time, says he considers it an honor to be selected: "It was important for me to be [an elector] for Barack Obama to elect the first African American, and also for Hillary Clinton, the first female."
U.S. Marine Corps veteran Shawn Terris, chair of the Veteran's Caucus of the California Democratic Party, says she was surprised and honored to be selected as an elector. But she believes the original purpose of the Electoral College process has been lost.
"I think when Madison and the founding fathers put this [process] together, they created these electors in order to have a fail-safe process to prevent a demagogue from being elected," Terris says. "What has happened over the last hundred plus years is that it's just an automatic vote by the electors instead of evaluating whether the person is competent and fit to lead our country."
So could the Electoral College process ever be amended or abolished? Derek Muller says it's a very unlikely proposition, but there might be momentum behind the idea now.
"Donald Trump has inconsistently, but occasionally suggested that he opposes the Electoral College," Muller says. "And it might be a time for some discussion, especially given all of the concerns of electors voting for somebody else today, that perhaps there will be some reform efforts in the years ahead."
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue media player above.
Expert: Trump's personal security doesn't compare to Secret Service
It's pretty much a given now: Donald Trump is not approaching the presidency in a traditional manner.
He's rejected daily security briefings that are standard at the White House. It's not clear, even, if he will be staying at the White House since he seems to prefer working from his office in New York.
And, even though he gets around the clock protection from the Secret Service, he seems determined to keep some of his private security on the payroll once he's sworn in as President.
That's raising some alarm bells.
For more, Take Two spoke to Joseph Funk, a Secret Service agent for 21 years. Funk retired in 2005.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue media player above.
'SING' is about more than just a singing competition
Just in time for Christmas.... the animated musical SING.
The film is about a koala bear named Buster, played by Matthew McConaughey, who runs a dilapidated and not particularly profitable theater. On the verge of bankruptcy, Buster decides to host a singing competition.
He holds open auditions for all the animals in the land and picks the best of the bunch - including two pigs, a gorilla, a mouse and a porcupine named ASH played by Scarlett Johansson.
ASH is a punk rock guitarist who rebels against Buster's song selection for the show:
For more on film and it's musical choices, Alex Cohen spoke to SING's writer and director, Garth Jennings.
To hear the full segment, click the blue play button above.
A complete genetic profile for you and your doctor, and science
Over the years, a handful of direct-to-consumer genetic testing kits have come on the market. You take a swab, run it inside your cheek, send it to to a company, and they send back a breakdown of your genes.
But once you have your genes on paper, what do you do next?
One new company, Genos, is producing a more detailed profile for customers and they're giving them the ability to forward on their genetic information in the interest of science and research.
Genos says it returns 50 times more data than other genetic testing companies, and it has the price tag to match: $499. Once you have your profile, you can connect with a genetic counselor either through Genos or through your primary care physician. The goal isn't necessarily diagnostic, said Megan Molteni, who wrote about Genos for Wired.
"You can sequence the data now and as more information comes online five or ten years from now, you're going to be able to go back to that...renewable resource. It can be a tool that you can use year over year," Molteni said.
Genos takes it a step further — it also helps customers sell their genetic data to researchers, leveraging their healthy genetic data to scientists looking for cures, effectively creating a research pipeline, Molteni said. This is new and desirable because most advances in cures and treatments come from genetic information of people who are already sick or in treatment. With a database of healthy people's genetic information, it's possible—Genos contends—to find people who have protective mutations for diseases.
"They're really very forward-looking in thinking about patients being able to own this data and give it back to science," Molteni said.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue media player above.
Your Genos kits are on their way!
— Genos (@GenosResearch)
'The Jolie effect': how celebrity health news impacts our medical choices
Just a couple of years ago, a lot of people would never have thought to shell out the bucks needed to take a genetic test. Then along came a New York Times op-ed by Angeline Jolie.
It was published in May 2013 with the title "My Medical Choice."
The headline refers to Jolie's decision to undergo both a radical mastectomy and a hysterectomy. She made that choice after she took a genetic test revealing she was carrying a gene that put her at an increased risk of breast and ovarian cancers.
That editorial had a profound effect. According to a study published in the medical journal BMJ, Jolie's piece may have spurred $14 million worth of unnecessary medical tests.
For more on the effect celebrities can have on our health choices, Alex Cohen spoke with Anupam Jena, one of the authors of the study and a professor of health care policy and medicine at Harvard Medical School.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue media player above.
Amid growing opioid risk, pharma makes push to market OxyContin abroad
It's probably the most notorious prescription drug of our times – OxyContin.
Here in the US, because of widespread abuse and addiction, authorities are clamping down on it, and other opium-based painkillers. So the companies that make opioid drugs are looking overseas boost sales, and that's causing concern among medical officials.
The international push is coming from a group of companies, known as Mundipharma.
Los Angeles Times journalist Harriet Ryan spoke with A Martinez about her reporting.
READ: OxyContin goes global — “We’re only just getting started” in the L.A. Times
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue media player above.
Why threats to oysters could mean trouble for California's coast
Fried, grilled, or raw on the half-shell, oyster lovers will eat them whenever they can get them. But oysters are more than a delicacy: they play a vital role in the health of ocean shorelines.
Now a new study finds that climate change could be behind an increasing threat to their health.
"We saw probably on the order of over 100,000 oysters that perished in northern San Francisco Bay [in 2011]," said Brian Cheng. He's a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Institution and lead author of the study just published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society.
The study looks at plumes of intense water vapor, known as atmospheric rivers, that travel long distances and deliver a lot of moisture. As climate change warms the atmosphere, it holds more water, making the phenomena more extreme. That all maters to oysters, said Cheng, because the increased rainfall flows into the Bay, giving the water a lower salinity and threatening the habitat for oysters. This led to a massive die-off of oysters in 2011, which the study focused on.
Cheng said there are three main reasons why oysters are so important to California's coast:
Building habitat. "You might be familiar with examples, such as coral reefs. They build structures for all the colorful fish to live in and around. Oysters are similar in that way – they build habitat for all these other animals and plants."
Preventing erosion and protecting the shoreline. "There's some evidence that they might actually reduce erosion and the effect of storm surge, and actually buffer the shoreline. So that's a good thing when we think of sea level rise and extreme storm events."
Culinary industry. "These oysters that we studied are wild oysters. They're the only native oyster on the West Coast. So understanding how these atmospheric rivers affect native oysters might also tell us how aquaculture might be affected."
View the study: Atmospheric rivers and the mass mortality of wild oysters: insight into an extreme future?
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue media player above.
Program for formerly incarcerated students expands in CSU schools
For people recently released from prison, it can be tough to get a job, and finding employment is one of the major factors that keep the formerly incarcerated from ending up behind bars again.
Since 1967, a program at San Francisco State University has been trying to break that cycle by helping former inmates earn degrees and land good jobs.
Now, six other Cal State schools are adopting the program, called Project Rebound.
Romarilyn Ralston, Project Rebound program coordinator at Cal State Fullerton, joined A Martinez to talk about the program's history and its future on campus.