Storm hits Oroville Dam area, is racial bias causing the high number of black children in foster care, medical marijuana mold may be dangerous for cancer patients.
The latest in Oroville: how they're preparing for oncoming storm
The situation up north continues to be shaky in Oroville. There were heavy rains in the area this morning, and more storms are on the way.
Crews have been working around the clock in an effort to prepare while residents in the area continue to settle into their homes after the mandatory evacuation order has been lifted.
For the latest, we've reached Chris Orrock, Public information officer for the department of water resources.
To hear the full segment, click the blue play button above.
How a child abuse hotline is landing black kids in foster care
LA County's Department of Children and Family Services is the largest child welfare system in the nation. It serves roughly 36, 000 children a year, many of them children of color.
Here's a possible reason why.
A new investigation in the Los Angeles Times says roughly one in three black children are reported to the department's child protection hotline - before the age of five.
These calls are concentrated in South Los Angeles and the Antelope Valley, areas with large African-American communities.
But what happens to the children once the call is made, and the social worker arrives to check on the abuse claim?
Garrett Therolf looked in to this issue. He's a reporter for the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley and Common Sense News. An account of his investigation appears in today's LA Times.
A Martinez also spoke with the subject of Garrett's piece, Monique Baker, a mother of four who fought for 10 months to regain custody of her children after facing allegations of child abuse.
To hear the interview, click the Media Player above.
Auto makers lobby for relaxed rules on self-driving cars
Like it or not, self-driving cars are likely to become a reality -- and more quickly than most people think. Many auto makers say they will have cars fully capable of driving themselves available to the public in less than five years.
More real-world testing is needed in order to make that happen, however. This week several car companies were on Capitol Hill lobbying for new safety rules that will allow self-driving cars on public roads across the country. Right now, only a handful of states, including California, allow autonomous vehicles on public roads.
"It is important that the federal government begin looking beyond testing to deployment of these systems," Toyota Research Institute chief executive Gill Pratt testified, according to a Reuters report.
General Motors, Volvo and the ride-hailing company Lyft also gave statements to a U.S. House panel Tuesday.
Federal motor vehicle standards currently in place "do not contemplate vehicles without human drivers," according to a prepared statement from General Motors' Vice President for Global Strategy, Michael Abelson.
Under current law, vehicles are required to have steering wheels and brake pedals before they're sold to the public. Last September, the National Highway and Transportation Safety Administration issued guidelines about self-driving cars, but they haven't yet taken effect.
“Current automotive safety laws, which were written specifically with human operators in mind, are choking autonomous development," said Michael Harley, executive analyst for Kelley Blue Book. "Removing the hindering training wheels, and allowing automakers to comprehensively test, is the next step towards making our roads significantly safer.”
The Dodgers are still behind the count on a new TV deal
Sure it's only the middle of February, but baseball season is just around the corner.
Yesterday the Dodgers pitchers and catchers reported for Spring training.
Meanwhile, back in LA, it's looking like another season when most of us won't be able to watch the Dodgers on TV.
That's thanks to Charter Communications. For the fourth year in a row, they've been unable to reach an agreement with DirecTV or any other cable/satellite providers to broadcast Dodgers games.
Meg James has been covering this story for years now for the LA Times. She spoke with Take Two's A Martinez for more.
The new players in this situation
We have different players here. Now the distributor who carries the channel is not Time Warner Cable; it's a company out of Connecticut called Charter, which bought Time Warner Cable last year and sort of inherited this problem of an automatic contract for the Dodger's Channel.
On the optimism that this would finally be the season a deal would be reached
I think there was a lot of optimism largely because the games were available on broadcast over the air TV channel 5 at the end of last season. Because the companies really wanted to allow long-time fans who did not have time warner cable or charter spectrum service to see Vin Scully's last few games so this deal was reached that Channel 5 broadcast the last few games of Scully's career. People thought, 'Oh! This might be a signal that come next Spring we'll get the Dodgers on broadcast TV,' but that's not the case.
On why the Dodgers would want to make this deal happen
The Dodgers have been hammered PR wise for the channel. They own the channel but their channel is not widely seen in LA. keep in mind there are more than 2 million homes in LA that do have the channel. So it's not like it's a total blackout. But the Dodgers are in an awkward spot because they made this very lucrative deal with Time Warner. They're making hundreds of millions of dollars a year, their revenue is guaranteed from Charter. So they don't have a business incentive to change the deal because the revenue is guaranteed. Long term, it's not a great proposition for the Dodgers because as time goes on and people don't watch the product, it becomes less valuable for them.
So... are we going to see Dodger baseball on the homes that have been in the dark so far?
It's not going to happen, at least at the front part of this season.
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above