California Governor Jerry Brown will release his new budget proposal today. Will is help shrink the state's deficit? Then, an autopsy on NFL star Junior Seau shows he suffered from a brain disease caused by head trauma. The Oscar noms are out, who came out on top and who got snubbed? Then, Anglers reel in thousands of 'red devil' jumbo squid in Orange County, we run down the top LA-based crime movies, a San Juan Capistrano woman is fighting to save her beloved dinosaur statue and much more.
California Gov. Jerry Brown to unveil new budget proposal
Today, Governor Jerry Brown will unveil his plans to close a $1.9 billion budget gap. That may sound like a lot of money, but $2 billion is practically peanuts compared with the fiscal mess Brown has faced in the past.
His announcement is expected to have a major impact on everything from courts to colleges
For a sneak peak we're joined by John Myers, political editor with News 10 the ABC affiliate in Sacramento.
Autopsy shows Junior Seau suffered from brain disease caused by head trauma
Today on Good Morning America, it was revealed that former USC and San Diego Chargers star Junior Seau had the degenerative brain disease called CTE when he committed suicide by shooting himself in the chest.
Doctors at the National Institutes of Health told Gina Seau that her ex-husband indeed was dealing with the same condition that's been associated with dozens of former professional football players.
Seau now becomes the biggest name to be linked to CTE.
Joining us to discuss the impact of the Seau findings is Dr. Robert Cantu, Co-director of Boston University's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy and a Senior Advisor to the NFL Head, Neck and Spine Committee.
Oscar nominations: Who came out on top and who got snubbed?
The big movie news is the Oscar nominations, and by now, you probably already know the big winner was a movie about a big guy, "Lincoln."
Daniel Day Lewis, as Abraham Lincoln, received a Best Actor nomination, one of 12 the film earned, including Best Picture. Close behind, "Life of Pi," "Zero Dark Thirty," "Argo" and "Les Miserables."
Studios spend millions on campaigns to secure nominations, and then millions more trying to win Oscars. So, in political terms, the primaries are now over, and we are into the general election campaign.
Joining us from her office at the Los Angeles Times, our regular entertainment analyst, Rebecca Keegan, who has been up since before dawn.
2013 Oscar nominees by scprweb
VIDEO: Anglers reel in thousands of jumbo squid off Orange County
Fishermen are reporting more and more huge catches of Humboldt squid off the coast of Orange County. The creatures used to be seen only in South America, but in the last decade, they’ve periodically shown up further north, including this week.
Humboldt squid can measure up to 6-feet long, weigh up to a 100 pounds, and, “feature probing arms and tooth-lined tentacles, a raptor-like beak and an insatiable craving for flesh,” writes Pete Thomas on his outdoors blog.
Sounds like you would want to stay away, right? Not Captain Brian Crooke and many other Orange County anglers.
“We caught 1,800 of them with three boats in about an hour,” said Crooke, speaking by telephone from his boat off the coast of San Clemente as he prepared for another squid expedition.
Nighttime is the best time for fishing these squid. That’s when they’re closest to the top, feeding on an abundance of krill that lures them from their normal habitat hundreds of feet below. The most important thing to know about jumbo squid fishing: Be prepared to get sprayed.
“The ink gets really messy,” said Crooke. “My crew wears full rain gear head to toe. Sometimes you’re lucky and get sprayed with water, but there’s an opportunity every night for a nice splashing of ink all over your face. The one part of your body that isn’t covered always gets inked.”
Outside Europe, jumbo squid generally aren’t a popular menu item, and in fact, we couldn’t find any Orange County seafood restaurants serving them. Most people prefer calamari, but not Crooke, who says bon appétit: Humboldt squid can be delicious.
“They’re actually very good to eat,” said Crooke. “Some people will take home 20-30. They’ll bake them, steam them, and BBQ them.”
Crooke has done a brisk business this week, bringing fishermen out on jumbo squid trips at Dana Point-based Dana Wharf Sportfishing. So has Thomas Sterner at Davey’s Locker in Newport Beach, which has been taking out 100-to-150 anglers a night.
“The last couple nights have been pretty incredible,” he said. “One of our boats had 600 squid.”
The Red Devil, as they are known in Mexico, have slowly been migrating North. First appearing a week ago near San Diego, Sterner says he’s now hearing about Humboldt squid as far north as Long Beach. His catches have ranged in size from three pounds up to 20 pounds, which is considered small. That’s a good thing, says Sterner.
“They don’t do as much damage to the local fish population when we get the smaller squid in,” said Sterner, adding that the local fish population still hasn’t recovered from the 60-pounders that invaded a few summers back.
“We think that’s either because they scared the fish off and they didn’t want to return or there’s a chance they had a consumption rate on local fish populations because they will eat anything, given the opportunity,” said Sterner.
Like the worst kind of house guest, there’s no predicting how long these creatures will stick around. Some years they stay for days. Other years they stay for months.
The top 10 best LA-based crime movies
This weekend the movie "Gangster Squad," the latest in a long line of crime dramas set in Los Angeles, hits theaters. Film historian Mark Jordan Legan joins the show to talk about some of his favorite L.A. crime movies.
Mark Jordan Legan recommmends:
Obviously there are dozens upon dozens of really good crime films set in Los Angeles…but what I want to start with is a very underrated film make in 1948:
He Walked By Night:
"He Walked By Night" is a fascinating piece of cinema. It's based on a true story about a cop killer who kept eluding the authorities. The film is shot on location throughout the city and offers this amazing footage of 1940s Los Angeles.
Also this is considered one of the very first police procedurals and some of the opening voice over is a bit dated. The film is shot almost like a documentary and they're proudly showing all these advancements in police work.
One of the film's co-stars was a very young Jack Webb and he became friends with the technical advisor on this film, a police sergeant. The very next year Jack Webb launched the radio show "Dragnet," Then it went on to become his TV smash hit for decades. The film even starts with "This story is true and the names have been changed to protect the innocent,' just the way they would start "Dragnet."
Crime Wave:
"Crime Wave" is just a crackling good thriller with hard-bitten cops and desperate criminals and it's shot on the streets of Glendale and Los Angeles. It's amazing, the streets of L.A. are almost another character in this story.
The story is very basic, an ex-con is trying to stay straight and he's blackmailed into robbing one more bank with the old gang. There is amazing footage of Union Station, and City Hall and Chinatown. It was a big influence on Stanley Kubrick, who saw this movie and ended up hiring five or six of the actors and technical people from it to make his classic noir, 'The Killing.'
One of the stars is a very young Charles Bronson, and it's so early in his career that in the opening credits he's still billed by his real name Charles Buchinsky.
Who Framed Roger Rabbit:
A lot of people forget that the evil villain, played by Christopher Lloyd, wants to replace the transit trollies and replace them with…freeways. He certainly predicted how beautiful the freeways would be.
LA Confidential:
Based on the James Ellroy novel, the movie totally captures 1950s Los Angeles as it's being choked by political and police corruption. In fact, just like in "Gangster Squad," Mickey Cohen is an important character in this story as well.
The film's just filled with terrific performances, Russell Crowe, Kevin Spacey, James Cromwell. Throughout the film there's all these nice little things about the history of the city, they show the groundbreaking ceremony for the Santa Monica Freeway, a lot of scenes in the legendary Formosa Cafe which thank goodness is still standing.
In "Gangster Squad," Sean Penn plays Mickey Cohen, but it's a hard act to follow, Harvey Keitel chewed up the scenery as Mickey Cohen in Warren Beatty's 1991 'Bugsy' even earning a best supporting actor nomination.
Dark Blue:
Bugsy:
The Long Goodbye:
To Live and Die in LA:
Chinatown:
Kiss Me Deadly:
PHOTOS: San Juan Capistrano woman fights to save her dinosaur statue from extinction
In San Juan Capistrano, a heated battle has been raging between city planning commission and an unlikely duo — a woman and her dinosaur.
Carolyn Franks, owner of the Zoomars Petting Zoo in the historic Los Rios district, found that the pint-sized visitors to her zoo loved finding things in the gold and gem-panning sluice feature at her zoo. She wanted to incorporate something prehistoric and exploratory for her young visitors, and was told that a certain dinosaur statue was coming up for auction at a furniture warehouse in Anaheim.
"There were a bunch of crazy prices flying around that the dinosaur was worth everything from $30,000 to $100,000," said Franks on Take Two. "But I actually got him for $12,000 on a $1,000 a month finance plan…I couldn't resist that offer. So for $12,000 I bought a dinosaur."
The 40-foot-long, 13-foot-high fiberglass dinosaur was disassembled, so putting the towering creature back together took a couple of days. By the time the dinosaur was almost complete, Franks got a cease-and-desist letter from the city, ordering her to stop construction.
"A couple of city trucks pulled up and it was quite a scene, they were out there with official gear and clipboards. I thought there were drugs in the dinosaur! I couldn't imagine why," said Franks. "This city official came over and he gives me this piece of paper with this big stop sign on it: cease-and-desist. Underneath it said, 'Unpermitted Brontosaurus.'"
The reaction from the city came from a complaint filed by the Capistrano Historical Alliance Committee, a group that ensures the maintenance of the historic Los Rios district. They argue that the prehistoric apatosaurus is inconsistent with the 230-year-old history of the area. In other words, the dinosaur was too old and didn't have a right to be there.
"Some of the work that they do is good, but I thought, 'Really? You're making all of this fuss over a plastic dinosaur for kids?' said Franks. "What a great educational thing for kids to learn about dinosaurs."
Franks applied for a conditional use permit to keep the dinosaur in a special area of the zoo specifically addressing the evolution of animals from prehistoric times to the present.
However, after fighting for months to keep the statue, the planning commission, with the exception of two commissioners, voted to have the dinosaur evicted once again.
A copy of the cease and desist letter:
CA insurance commissioner Dave Jones critical of Anthem Blue Cross rate hike
Thousands of small businesses may have to spend more on healthcare this year. Anthem Blue Cross says companies with fewer than 50 employees will see their premiums increase by an average of 6 percent in 2013.
In some cases it could be much higher, as much as 17 percent. Anthem says the higher premiums are necessary to cover rising medical costs
But Dave Jones, the state insurance commissioner, isn't so sure.
How will the CA Health Insurance Exchange work?
By the end of the year, there will be a new option for Californian's shopping for health care coverage. It's called a Health Insurance Exchange, and California was the first state in the nation to begin the process of creating one.
The exchanges are a key component of the Affordable Care Act, but they remain something of a mystery to most consumers.
Here to explain how it will work is KPCC health care reporter Stephanie O'Neill.
Yosemite plans to remove ice rink, swimming pools and limit visitors
The number of visitors to Yosemite National park has grown at a steady pace the last couple of years. In 2011, 4,098,648 campers, hikers, and climbers descended upon the landscape, coming close its record visitation year in 1996 with 4,190,557 visitors.
In short, that’s a lot of people tramping through one of the country’s most beloved parks.
For years, the park has been looking for ways to balance the interests of its 4-million annual visitors with preserving the environment, and last week the park unveiled how it plans to do so.
“What we've done is we've taken a hard look at the land base that we have to work with here in the valley," explained Yosemite's Chief of planning Kathleen Morse. "We have to look at what's the highest and best use of the land, and some of these services and some these operations take up a bit of the landscape."
The services and operations Morse is referring to are: bike rentals, raft rentals, an ice skating rink, the swimming pool at Yosemite lodge and day use horseback rides and others that will fall to the wayside.
Reasons for removal of these services started with the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, which asks park rangers to evaluate whether services in the Merced river corridor were necessary for public use. Litigation on past Merced River plans called out specific park services in the river valley, and gave strong hints for rangers to make a "conscious choice" about how much of these activities should be going on in the valley.
The new plans also call for reducing the park's human congestion, which eventually will mean limiting the number of visitors to Yosemite Valley.
"The capacity applies to the river corridor. The rest of the park is open and available, so the park is not being affected ... its the East Valley, primarily," said Morse. "Most of the year [the capacity limit] won't be a limiting factor, it will however prevent things from getting so congested, that the people who do get there on those busy days will not have a bad experience."
The park's plan has been under construction for the last 15 years and the process has not been without its challenges. An initial plan to protect and preserve the Merced river was published in 2000, but underwent litigations for a majority of the decade. A settlement was reached in 2009, but this plan however required, "extensive public engagement."
Once the public comment period that runs through the beginning of April ends, officials will take into consideration the comments and concerns from the public and adjust the plans.
"Every time we've had an engagement with the public, we've made adjustments," Morse said. "We've had over 40 public workshops, meetings, webinars, science presentations, even before the draft came on the street."
The final plans will debut in the summer of 2013. Immediately following this will be a 30-day "no action" period before the final plan is put into effect.
Study shows massive California-wide earthquake not unlikely
For a long time geologists believed it was unlikely that a massive quake in say, San Diego could reach all the way to San Francisco.
But a new study published by the journal Nature says that kind of mega-quake isn't out of the question.
Here to explain is Kate Hutton, a seismologist with the California Institute of Technology.