Today on the show we'll hear from KPCC's Karen Foshay about $2.7 million missing from the Central Basin's trust fund. Then, how payday lenders turn quick cash into a mountain of debt, we'll look at the outrage surrounding anti-gay comments made by the patriarch of the A&E show, 'Duck Dynasty.' Plus, Carey Mulligan talks 'Inside Llewyn Davis,' Washoku Japanese cuisine and more.
What happened to $2.7m in Central Basin's trust fund?
The FBI is investigating the water district that serves much of southeast LA. The Central Basin Municipal Water District serves more than two-million people in 24 cities.
KPCC has learned part of the federal investigation is focused on finding out what happened to nearly $3 million slated for one project. KPCC's Karen Foshay is on the same trail.
How will the holiday break impact the Kelly Thomas trial?
Yesterday was the last day of testimony in the trial of two former Fullerton police officers charged with the death of Kelly Thomas, a mentally ill homeless man.
The defense rested its case on Wednesday, and prosecutors called their final rebuttal witness yesterday. Now , because of the holidays, the jury has been dismissed for a two-week break. We wondered what that might mean for the trial.
Loyola Law Professor Laurie Levenson joins the show to explain.
Friday Flashback: Obamacare, economic growth, stimulus and more
We've come to the end of the week. Christmas is just around the corner, and it's time for the Season's Greeting edition of The Friday Flashback. Joining us today our regular Flashback friends. Jim Rainey of the LA Times, and Nancy Cook, of National Journal.
Let's begin with health care, and yesterday's attempt to address the concerns of people who've had their coverage cancelled.
The key to Obamacare, most experts say, is the individual mandate, the idea that if everyone has coverage, overall rates will be lower. How much does this chip away at that?
Capitol Hill is shutting down for the holiday. Might be a good thing given the on-going battle between so-called establishment Republicans and hard-line, Tea Party conservatives. That really heated up this week, with Tea Party advocates going after House Speaker John Boehner.
Meanwhile, there's a split developing between the Obama Administration and some key Democrats on the Hill over Iran. What's the story there?
A little surprise under the tree from the economy. New, revised numbers from the Commerce Department say the economy grew four point one percent in the third quarter. What's driving this growth, and more importantly, is it going to last?
Also this week, the Federal Reserve announced it was going to begin reducing the $85 billion a month it's pumping into the economy. But after the announcement, the markets just shrugged. Why so little reaction?
More big money news this week. Attention, Target shoppers. Check your bank account. This is really hard to believe: data stolen from 40 million customers' credit cards. This seems like a watershed moment, or a tipping point or something. Should we cut up our cards and go back to cash?
In other insecurity news, a panel appointed by the White House was highly critical of many of the activities of the NSA, and recommends curbs on spying, both on Americans and foreign citizens. There are calls for reform from Democrats and Republicans. What will — or what should — the Obama Administration do about a spy program that seems out of control?
LA City Councilman Jose Huizar is being sued for sexual harassment by a former aide, and you've uncovered a police report of a previous incident. Tell us about that.
This is a pretty old incident, and charges were never filed. So one could say it's kind of an unsubstantiated allegation. Why did the LA Times decide to go with this story?
Is the outrage over 'Duck Dynasty' patriarch's anti-gay remarks overblown?
A&E's "Duck Dynasty" is one of the most popular programs on TV right now , with 11.8 million people caught its premiere last season. But the reality show about a Louisiana family and its duck call business has stirred up its own drama off screen.
Phil Robertson -- the family's patriarch -- gave an interview to GQ where he compared homosexuality to bestiality. He also said that, from his experience growing up in the pre-Civil-Rights South, he never saw racism towards black people.
The public outcry over his statements led A&E to suspend Robertson from the show, but now the rest of the family has threatened to quit as well.
Even if people disagree with what Phil said, others say he should have a right to be open with his views without fear of punishment. One of those people is TV producer Dillon Couvillon, who is gay himself. He wrote a piece that appeared on the Huffington Post, "A Gay Man's Open Letter to Phil Robertson of Duck Dynasty."
'Inside Llewyn Davis': Carey Mulligan on singing and working with the Coens
Actress Carey Mulligan joins host Alex Cohen to discuss her new film, "Inside Llewyn Davis", by filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen. It's about a struggling folk singer named Llewyn Davis, who just can't seem to catch a break. Mulligan plays a fellow folkie along with co-star Justin Timberlake.
RELATED: Dave Van Ronk, the real-life inspiration for Coen Bros' 'Inside Llewyn Davis'
Interview Highlights:
On singing for the role:
"When we got together to talk about the song I understood that I was just harmonizing the whole way through, but when got to filming on the day, Joel came up to me and said, just sing that one line on your own. And I was like, no! That isn't part of the deal, you didn't tell me I was going to do that. But I did. There ya go."
On performing the music for a live audience:
"I think it was great for us, because we were performing live to the camera and to a bunch of people that we'd never met and what felt like an audience. But we sort of relished that opportunity as opposed to being fearful of it. We loved our trio and we loved our little homage to Peter, Paul and Mary, and we sort of played that up and had fun with it."
On learning about the New York folk scene:
"It was so interesting to learn about these people because they were so solely driven to do this thing, so passionate to be authentic, but no one was watching. No one cared. The outside world was not remotely interested in folk music. They had to battle to be put on stage. They were only given gigs at the gaslight in between beat poet performances and they were used at a change over. They were only allowed to play as long as it took to clear out people to bring in the next crowd to listen to the poetry.
"It wasn't popular at all, and that was so interesting to learn about, because you see what they started and all the people that followed them and the musicians that I listen to now that were so influenced by them. So it was a part of history that completely passed me by until I got to work on this film."
On how her parents reacted to her pursuit of acting:
"I decided I wanted to be an actor when I was quite young and then sort of started pursuing it. I was dying to go to drama school, I wanted to train to be a theater actress. My parents felt nervous about it, understandably, and in retrospect of course they did. At the time I was incensed and furious and couldn't understand why they weren't immediately supportive and sent me to drama school, but they certainly didn't want to encourage me into a career that was potentially so unstable."
On playing a rougher female role in "Llewyn":
"I came straight off Gatsby, got off a plane to Australia and flew to New York and started filming there, so it's always the case that when you're doing a play you want desperately to do a film and vice versa. It's the same with doing Gatsby, when I finished that I felt the perfect contradiction was to go on and play this character in the Coen Bros film. After six months of dressing up in beautiful dresses and hair and makeup and wearing diamonds to throw on a dark wig and no makeup and march around and swear and scream at the top of my lungs.
"It always seemed to be the case on set that I would try something and they would encourage me to be more unpleasant, or swear more. I think they got a kick out of it. Also I'd worked with Oscar Isaacs before, we played husband and wife in Drive a couple of years ago, so I had a comfort level with him to know and actor then to go and work with them again, so that was enormously helpful.'
California inmate isolation case goes to judge
A federal judge abruptly interrupted a weeks long hearing so that he could begin considering whether the prolonged solitary confinement of mentally ill inmates in California prisons violates their civil rights.
RELATED: California judge orders improved care for mentally ill death row inmates
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Lawrence Karlton in Sacramento ordered attorneys representing inmates and the state to submit written closing arguments instead of hearing oral arguments as scheduled.
"I can't possibly absorb any more," Karlton said, expressing impatience with the volume of testimony that followed his April decision to reject Gov. Jerry Brown's attempt to end court oversight of prison mental health programs.
The solitary confinement issue is the last of four questions surrounding the treatment ofmentally ill inmates that are before the judge. He already has ruled against Brown's administration on two others: He decided that mentally ill inmates on death row lack proper care and that the Department of State Hospitals also provides substandard treatment to mentally ill prisoners.
Karlton said he is still struggling to decide on the third, which focuses on use of force by prison guards. That question hinges in large part on the guards' use of heavy amounts of pepper spray on the mentally ill.
While hearing the latest dispute, the judge said earlier Thursday that he is considering ordering mental health professionals to examine each mentally ill inmate before they can be put into isolation units.
"There are people who are clearly very ill, and the likelihood of their being unable to cope with administrative segregation is very high," Karlton said.
His comments came the same day as state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, proposed creating a $50 million competitive grant program to help counties provide more mental health treatment as one way of reducing the criminal population. Half the money would go to aid juvenile offenders and half for adults, and it could be used in part for special mental health diversion courts.
The court hearing is the latest development in a 23-year-old lawsuit that helped lead to sweeping changes in the state prison system, including a sharp reduction in overcrowding.
Karlton and two other federal judges, with backing from the U.S. Supreme Court, have ruled that reducing the prison population is necessary to improve inmate medical andmental health treatment.
The crowding debate overlapped into Karlton's hearing on the segregation of mentally illinmates, after the judge demanded that the administration limit the time that some troubled inmates spend in isolation. Once the administration complied, Karlton and the other judges last week gave the state until April to meet a court-ordered population cap, extending what once was a year-end deadline.
Attorneys representing inmates said the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sometimes keeps mentally ill inmates in segregation because they lack space in treatment facilities. To satisfy the judge, the state issued a new policy earlier this month setting a 30-day limit on housing severely mentally ill prisoners in isolation units if they have not violated prison rules. The limit is 60 days for those with mental illnesses deemed less severe.
Michael Bien, an attorney representing inmates, said keeping mentally ill inmates in isolation for any reason does more harm than good. He and fellow attorney Jane Kahn said after the hearing that most prison suicides are in administrative segregation units or on death row, and most of those are by inmates already diagnosed as mentally ill.
Patrick McKinney, a lawyer for the state, said California provides proper care and treatment within the isolation units.
The state said in court documents that inmates are transferred to other facilities if they need more intensive care. Lawyers for the state argued that there is insufficient proof to conclude that segregation causes or exacerbates mental illness and the prison system follows national psychiatric standards.
Nearly 11,000 California inmates, or about 9 percent of the prison population, are held in isolation units, prison consultant and sociologist James Austin said in written testimony. Other states have recently reduced their rate to less than 5 percent and limited the length of solitary confinement, both to save money and because it was having the same detrimental effect as is alleged in the California case, Austin said.
ProPublica: How short-term loans turn into life-long debt
Five years ago in St. Louis, a single mother took out a payday loan for $1,000. That small-scale loan ballooned rapidly, and became a $40,000 debt.
She's certainly not alone. Thousands of Americans have similar stories of how high-interest loans spiraled out of control. Now, a Propublica investigation looks at how lenders are turning to legal action to collect on those debts. For more, we're joined by Paul Kiel, reporter with Propublica.
Kobe Bryant injured: Did he come back to the court too soon?
The Lakers get back on the Staples Center floor tonight when they host the Minnesota Timberwolves. The team has had some bad luck with injuries this season but it got even worse this past Tuesday when they were Memphis playing the Grizzlies.
Bryant twisted his knee. He eventually got up and finished the game but while it seemed innocent at the time it turned out to be fracture. Now he's expected to be out of action for a minimum of six weeks.
The injury happened on the same leg that he tore his Achilles tendon, which raises a few questions such as: Did Kobe attempt to come back too early and what do the Lakers do now?
To help us answer these and many more is Dave Miller, basketball analyst for Time Warner Cable Sports and a former NBA assistant coach with the New Orleans Hornets.
Hollywood Park: Bugler Jay Cohen looks back at 25 years of calling the races
This Sunday, Hollywood Park — the 75-year-old horse racing track in Inglewood — will host its final race. The park's closure comes as its fan base ages and attendance dwindles. Before the final race kicks off, fans for one last time will hear the music of Jay Cohen, the track's official bugler. KPCC's Kevin Ferguson reports.
The "Call to the Post" is the eight-second song that starts every horse race. Jay Cohen says he's played it more than 87,000 times.
For 25 years, Cohen, 57, has performed the call to the post at race tracks all over Southern California: Santa Anita, Los Alamitos, Hollywood Park. For Cohen, it's an opportunity to people watch.
"When I walk on the track, it's very interesting, because then, I watch the people walking towards the tunnel cause they want to watch the horses come out," Cohen said.
RELATED: Farewell Hollywood Park: A look back at the historic track in archival photos
Cohen came to L.A. from New Jersey in 1987 for his wife's job. At the time he was music director at a local high school and a lifelong trumpet player. Moving to L.A. provided him an opportunity to freelance.
He performed a few random gigs, studied with a few veteran Los Angeles trumpet players. Cohen stumbled into performing at race tracks through a referral from a colleague. Cohen thought to himself, "Well, what does someone do with a trumpet at a race track?"
Today, Cohen's the default bugler for race tracks all over California. And he isn't just the bugler for Hollywood Park, but in many ways he's the bugler for Hollywood — you can see him in the 2003 film "Seabiscuit."
Technically, though, he doesn't play a bugle. Depending on the gig, he'll either use a coach horn ("a 5-foot-long straight horn," Cohen said) or a herald trumpet, basically a longer version of a standard trumpet.
Call it anything you like, it's how Cohen makes his living: at races, parties and other events. His horn was made for him in Anaheim. His uniform — a bright red jacket that looks like a Victorian take on Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band — is custom made as well.
Cohen's performed at Hollywood Park since the beginning of his bugling career. He likes the scenery, the lakes. He likes seeing planes fly overhead from nearby LAX. But mostly he likes its history — it's Hollywood Park, after all.
Movies stars and celebrities
"The thing that was great about Hollywood Park were the amount of movie stars and celebrities," said Cohen. "I remember the early days: There was always Milton Berle, ... Jack Lemmon."
Cohen remembers playing happy birthday for Fay Wray, the star of "King Kong." He wore a gorilla mask with a hole cut in the mouth, because how else could he use the horn?
The news that Hollywood Park was closing came last May, though it had been rumored ever since the racetrack changed owners in 2005. In the last 30 years, attendance has dropped 90 percent. Cohen was devastated. He's taking out a new mortgage on his own home to adjust for the loss in income, but he says he's one of the lucky ones.
"I have some very good friends that I've made from working there for 25 years that are looking to be unemployed," said Cohen. "They've been looking for jobs now since May and have been unable to find anything."
During our interview, Cohen's optimism shines through constantly — this was despite having just performed at a memorial service at Santa Anita Park. When I first called him, he said he was happy to talk with me. But he wished the media had been there to report on the good times, too.
"I have never cried because something's over," said Cohen. "I only laugh because it happened."
When bulldozers meet birds: One year later
When conservationist Kris Ohlenkamp last year stumbled across the bulldozed fields of the South Reserve at the Sepulveda Basin Recreation Area — a wooded area popular spot among birders and nature enthusiasts — he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
“I was just dumbfounded. I mean, shocked. It looked like a hurricane hit the area. It was just unbelievable. I didn’t know what to say. It was very emotional for all of us that were here,” Ohlenkamp said. “The extent of what they did was all out of bounds.”
Ohlenkamp, conservation chair for the San Fernando Valley Audubon Society, had been leading a group in the annual Christmas bird count when they discovered that the Army Corps of Engineers had plowed over the Sepulveda Basin preserve.
The Army Corps had undertaken the action about a week beforehand as part of a five-year plan to control non-native vegetation and stop the spread of homeless encampments in the area.
KPCC's Jed Kim reports.
American tax dollars change lives In Mexican border cities
A little known infusion of American tax dollars has played a part in the fight against organized crime in two Mexican border cities: Ciudad Juárez and Tijuana. The money comes from the Merida Initiative, a multinational pact signed six years ago.
Fronteras reporter Mónica Ortiz Uribe explored a few examples of what that money has accomplished.
Lucky Diaz Family Jam Band on making kid-friendly tunes for the whole family
New Year's Eve can always be a predicament when you have kids. You want to go out and have fun, but most parties and concerts aren't exactly family friendly.
The band Lucky Diaz and the Family Jam Band hope to change that. The band will be performing at Legoland on New Year's eve.
The band recently won the Latin Grammy for best kid's album. Lucky Diaz and his wife Alisha Gaddis join the show to talk about making music for little ones.