U.S. women's soccer team players allege wage discrimination, the Charger's plan for a new stadium, a survivor of the deadliest U.S. avalanche recounts her story.
5 top female players accuse US Soccer of wage discrimination
If you think winning three World Cups and four Olympics means you'd get paid as much as your male colleagues who haven't achieved anything close to that level of success, you'd be wrong.
Five top players from the US women's soccer team announced today that they had filed a federal complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Alleging wage discrimination by the U.S. Soccer Federation, the women maintain they were paid nearly four times less than their male counterparts.
“The US women for so long have been told, and this goes back to the days when I was playing on the team.. that you don’t bring in money, you don’t bring in revenue and now of course with the popularity of the team, that equation has changed,” Said Julie Foudy, women's soccer analyst at espnW and former captain of the US Women's National Soccer Team.
Under the current USSF contract, if the women’s team wins the World Cup, each player can receive up to $75,000 per year in bonuses. For the men, each team player would earn $400,000 in bonuses.
The women’s national team is the defending Olympic champion and their match against Japan in last summer's World Cup finals was the most-watched soccer game of all time in the United States. The men’s team, on the other hand, hasn't made it past the World Cup quarterfinals since 1930.
This latest move comes in the midst of another ongoing lawsuit filed by the USSF against the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team Players Association, the union representing the players. USSF wants to clarify that the players’ current contract holds until December 31, 2016, while the union argues that the contract can be terminated at any time.
The U.S. Soccer Federation issued a statement following the federal complaint saying it is "disappointed" with the action.
In fairness to the USSF, Foudy said that, compared to the rest of the world, US Soccer is light years ahead in how they support the women’s team. She said the USSF is willing to negotiate with the union, but they want the players to keep to a clause in the current contract that says they won't go on strike.
Nevertheless, Foudy applauds the women filing the complaint because, now that "the government will be opening the books," a lot of questions will be answered about how much money is coming in, where the revenue is going and the different salaries men and women earn.
“There comes a point where you say enough is enough and we want to set an example not just with US soccer of course, but with other sports because you have a lot of women’s teams in the Olympic movement that are barely surviving on the salaries they get paid.” Said Foudy.
Guest:
Julie Foudy, former captain of the U-S Women's National Soccer Team and espnW's women’s soccer analyst.
San Diego Chargers seek hotel tax to help pay for new stadium
It's no secret the NFL is back in L.A.
The Rams will start the season in a few months at the Coliseum, and in a few years, the team will play at a new stadium in Inglewood.
However at the moment, it looks like they'll be the only NFL show in town.
The Chargers were given the option to move in with the Rams but instead chose to see if they could work out a deal to stay in San Diego. The deal might now be in the works but that's pending on voter approval.
The San Diego Union Tribune's Lori Weisberg joined the show to discuss the plan and what it could mean for San Diego residents.
To hear the full interview, click the blue play button above.
The Wheel Thing: Will Tesla's affordable Model 3 be a tipping point like Ford's Model T?
Since he became CEO of a fledgling auto company in 2008, Elon Musk has had a single-minded goal — build an electric automobile for the masses.
Tonight in Hawthorne, Musk's company, Tesla Motors, will reveal Musk's dream.
Priced at somewhere around $35,000 and with a range of 200 miles, the Model 3 is expected to go on sale next year, and Tesla hopes to sell a lot of them.
There have been a lot of comparisons to Henry Ford's Model T. It was the first truly affordable automobile. Between 1908 and 1927 Ford built and sold 15 million of them and established the internal combustion engine as a standard for vehicles.
Before the Model T, cars were out of reach for all but the wealthy. The T wasn't cheap. The first model cost $950, more than twice the average worker's annual earnings. But within a few years the price came down (and earnings went up), and very quickly automobile manufacturing became an important part of the U.S. and global economies.
Can the Model 3 be equally revolutionary? Will Tesla sell them at the level of volume that will erase all doubt that electric cars are here to stay?
None of those questions will be answered tonight at the company's design center in Hawthorne. It's not clear if Tesla will show a working model of the car that attendees might be able to drive or just a prototype that reveals the new car's design and functionality. Also unclear — when the car will actually be available. Right now, it's a rather vague "2017." But that hasn't stopped throngs of fans from plunking down $1,000 deposits.
And Tesla's success so far has almost certainly been a factor in pushing traditional automakers toward developing pure electric vehicles. Chevy's Bolt, due next year as well, promises the same 200-mile range as the Model 3. Virtually every car company is working on one or more electric model, including Volkswagen, which for years rejected electrics in favor of its "Clean Diesel" platform. We know how that turned out.
The investment community seems to think that Elon Musk and his team can meet their goals, deliver Model 3's in quantity, and hold onto some decent margins doing it. And while it's doubtful that anyone will ever eclipse Ford's Model T for raw sales and impact, this new Tesla could give it an electrified run for its money.
Our motor critic Susan Carpenter will have a preview of the car and a look at competing electric models coming from other automakers.
Saudi dairy company looks to parched California to grow crops
In the last few years, Saudi Arabia has been experiencing a severe drought, like California.
The country has been cracking down on crops that consume a lot of water, like alfalfa, in an effort to conserve. But one Saudi dairy company, Almarai, still needs the crop to feed its thousands of cows. So the company is setting its eyes on California's Palo Verde Valley to grow it.
Under a Gold Rush-era doctrine the Palo Verde Valley has senior rights, beating Los Angeles and San Diego. Almarai is also purchasing land in Arizona.
We turned to Elliot Spagat reporter for the Associated Press to talk more about this.
Lab Notes: Accents in animals, allergies may have ties to birthdays and more
On this week's segment of lab notes:
Are allergies driving you nuts lately? Your sensitivity to stuff in the air may have something to with when you were born.
What we might and might not inherit from our parents: A new study out this week has some good news.
Accents in animals? Swedish scientists think cats might have accents.
As always, Sanden Totten, KPCC's science reporter, joined the show to break down the latest in science news.
To hear the full segment, click the blue play button above.
How a Calif. avalanche survivor never lost hope in 5 day ordeal
34 years ago ago today, the deadliest avalanche in U.S. history hit California's Sierra Mountains near Lake Tahoe.
Seven people lost their lives to the devastating snow storm, four people survived. One of them was Anna Allen. For five days she lived in the wreckage of the disaster before she was finally rescued.
On March 31, 1982, 22-year-old Allen was working at the Alpine Meadows ski resort as a lift operator. A storm had been swirling around the area for days.
"Temperature was probably close to freezing so it was a very wet snow storm," Allen told Take Two's A Martinez. "Visibility is maybe a few feet."
The harsh conditions had already forced the resort to close. Allen and her boyfriend Frank Yeatman were staying in her cabin, about a mile away from the Alpine Meadows ski resort.
"We just ... decided that it was important for us to go to Alpine Meadows to pick up my ski pants so that we could dig his car out which was buried by almost six feet of snow," Allen said.
The ski pants were in a locker room in the operations building of the resort. Allen and Yeatman made it there when disaster struck.
Trapped
The avalanche thundered down the mountainside with the force of a 200-mile-per-hour wind. It blasted through the building that Allen and Yeatman were in. The force of the fast moving snow immediately knocked her unconscious.
"It caught me completely by surprise," said Allen.
She came to in the dark, buried and alone.
"It happened to be a spot where the lockers, when they were knocked over, fell on top of a bench and that held them up and created a small space," Allen recalls. "It was pitch black, I had no recollection of what I was doing, where I had been. I was cold, obviously. And I had horrible concussion."
Ironically, in the space that was shaped by an avalanche, Anna had trouble finding snow for sustenance. She was buried in mostly building debris.
" I was looking for any kind of water I could find. When I’d find something cold, I’d put it in my mouth. And the last few days ... just mud and dirt and grime, yucky. It was just disgusting."
Despite her injuries and dehydration, Allen never gave up hope of making it out alive.
" I knew that [the rescue team] would do everything they could to find me. And I had no reason not to keep living. I never questioned whether or not I was going to survive."
The rescue
Five days after the avalanche, weather conditions finally stabilized. Rescue teams continued to dig through the wreckage to find Allen. They weren't expecting to find her alive.
"They called out ... 'Anna is that you?' My response was 'Of course it is!'"
After the rescue, Anna was immediately transported to a hospital in Truckee, California where she was reunited with her friends and family.
Her boyfriend Frank Yeatman didn’t survive.
While the doctors were able to save her life, Anna was left with a permanent reminder of the incident.
"I lost my right leg below the knee. On my left foot, I lost all my toes."
Allen was hospitalized for two months. But while she was there, she set a firm goal to ski again. She got some help with that just months after the accident.
"I had a call from a man who was an amputee and a prosthetist," she recalls. "He was building his own special leg for skiing and offered to build me one as well. I took him up on the offer. By the end of the year I was actually skiing better than before my accident."
34 years after the avalanche, Anna has had a lot of time to reflect on what happened.
"People were shocked that I survived, but in my mind I think anyone could have survived. I do think it's just a matter of having the confidence in yourself and the perseverance of everybody else. You can use that strength that people are pulling for you. Five days seems like a long time, but it's an okay time to be able to be by yourself."
Anna Allen is now in charge of the host program at Mammoth ski resort. When she’s able to get away from the desk job, you’ll see her out on the slopes.