KPCC's Frank Stoltze and Alice Walton join the show with an election roundup; Senate immigration bill approved by committee in bipartisan vote; Technology's role in saving lives before a natural disaster; UCLA study pinpoints which cities, states have the most gay parents; Telemundo and the future of Spanish-language TV in the US; Erika Aguilar reports on what's it like to fly on an LAPD helicopter patrol, plus much more.
LA Election: Garcetti wins, Measure D approved, and more
Los Angeles is waking up to a new mayor. Former City Councilman Eric Garcetti clinched 54 percent of the vote in yesterday's election.
RELATED: Eric Garcetti elected mayor of Los Angeles
The race was often contentious, and certainly expensive, with each candidate raising millions, and outside groups pouring in even more.
Los Angeles city voters Tuesday also decided to dramatically limit the number of medical marijuana dispensaries, approving Measure D by a 63 to 37 margin. Measure F, which would have allowed an unlimited number of dispensaries, failed 59 to 41 percent. Measure E, which was abandoned by supporters, also failed.
RELATED: LA voters opt to limit marijuana dispensaries
For more on just how many Angelenos actually turned out vote, how much money was spent on each vote, and a general report on the outcome of the election, we're joined by KPCC's political reporters Alice Walton and Frank Stoltze.
Senate immigration bill approved by committee in bipartisan vote
The Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday approved a massive plan for immigration reform. The rest of the Senate is now set to take up the bill after Memorial Day.
For more on this, we're joined now by Fawn Johnson, who covers immigration for the National Journal.
Telemundo and the future of Spanish-language TV in the US
Last week, you might remember we covered the television Upfronts, the annual event when all the big cable and broadcast networks present their programming for the coming year to advertisers.
It's an uphill battle for many stations, trying to get more advertiser dollars for a diminishing broadcast audience. Except in Spanish language media, where the number of viewers is holding steady and growing in some demographics.
Just like in politics, there's a rush to capture this fast-growing audience and the Spanish-language broadcaster Telemundo presented a bold plan to do just that.
Here to tell us more is Telemundo president, Emilio Romano.
LAFD chief on tornado relief effort in Oklahoma
The search for survivors continues in Moore, Oklahoma, where a massive tornado killed at least 24 people, nine of whom were children. Helping with the recovery effort are fire fighters from Los Angeles and Orange counties.
Chief Jack Wise with the LA Fire Department is currently in Moore leading a FEMA support team. He joins us with an update on the relief effort.
Technology's role in saving lives before a natural disaster
Sixteen minutes. That was about all the time that residents in Oklahoma had before the devestating tornado touched down on Monday.
While 16 minutes to prepare for a tornado doesn't seem like a lot of time, it's much more time than residents had 15 years ago. Developments in predicting disasters from tornadoes to hurricanes to tsunamis have improved to the point where they save lives on a regular basis. But what about earthquakes?
David Simpson, executive Director of the Center for Hazards Research at the University of Louisville, joins the show to fill us in on what new technologies could save us from a devastating natural disaster.
Sports Roundup: Vinny Del Negro dropped, LA Kings and more
Time to romp through sports with the Kamenetzky Brothers, Andy and Brian have covered the sports scene for ESPN and the L.A. Times.
Last night in San Jose, the Kings got beat by the Sharks 2-1. The series is tied at 2 as it shifts back to Staples Center tomorrow. The Angels pounded the Mariners and the Dodgers lost in Milwaukee.
Even though the season is over, the basketball drama continues. The Clippers arguably had the best season they've ever had. They won the Pacific Division and swept the Lakers, both franchise firsts, and yesterday the team dropped their coach, Vinny Del Negro.
Monica Ratliff elected to LA school board
Eric Garcetti has been elected mayor of Los Angeles, Mike Feuer is the city's new top attorney, and now a new face will join LA Unified's seven member board of education.
Voters yesterday elected Monica Ratliff to the school board by a slim margin.
It has been a closely watched race that some said would be pivotal for schools Superintendent John Deasy's education reform agenda. KPCC's Adolfo Guzman-Lopez followed the campaign and joins the show with more.
UCLA study pinpoints which cities, states have the most gay parents
Can you guess which U.S. city has the highest rate of gay residents who are parents? Los Angeles? San Francisco maybe? Nope, it's Salt Lake City, Utah.
Now can you guess the state with the highest rate of gay parents? California? Wrong again, it's Mississippi.
UCLA researcher Gary Gates took a new look at census data and found that small and often times more conservative towns like Visalia and Porterville, CA have higher concentrations of gay couples raising children.
"That's largely because in socially conservative areas, LGBT people tend to come out later in life," Gates says, "so they're more likely to have different sex relationship earlier in life which may have produced children."
Kristin Beasley is one of them. She and her partner Candi Hood grew up in the Visalia-Porterville area. But before they were out, they married men and had children. Now, however, they live together in nearby Reedley with the two youngest of their six children and have written about their experience in the book, From Privilege to Pride.
"Nobody comes to the Central Valley because they're gay. You can put that on a bumper sticker! 'Don't come to the Central Valley if you're gay,'" Beasley jokes. "But people move to the Central Valley because there are economic reasons to live here, they have family reasons to live here, or if they have children in urban centers where they've been out and living, they're moving back home to their extended family."
People like Beasley and Hood are also changing attitudes towards LGBT families in these conservative areas. "It is prompting these conversations in parts of the country that haven't had them," says Gates. "As people come to know their LGBT neighbors, they tend to become more supportive."
Anthony Maldonado and his partner Brian Albertoni both moved to Visalia several decades ago, themselves, and they found many people were open to them starting a family through adoption.
"We had social workers that came to our house, our bio was sent out immediately, and it was, they felt, an opportunity," says Maldonado, whose adopted son Lincoln is almost 4-years-old. "I felt that in San Francisco, watching what my friends are going through, [social workers] were much more critical. There is a much larger community up there, and many more couples wanting a child. In Visalia, I felt we had it much easier."
But Maldonado admits that, given the chance, he would definitely want to move to a bigger city. "I would like a diverse groups of families of every culture, and I feel that Visalia is still a little limited in that."
However Beasley plans to stay. "We can go blend in and become invisible in a dense city like LA and San Francisco, but here in the Central Valley, we refuse to be treated as 2nd class citizens."
INFOGRAPHIC: % of Same-sex Couples Raising Children in Top Metro Areas (MSAs)
(Source)
New prostate cancer test designed to use urine instead of blood
Every year, about 240,000 men in the US are diagnosed with prostate cancer, but the current testing method often finds tumors that are low risk, and can lead patients to get dangerous and expensive surgeries they don't need.
A new study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society may present an alternative.
KPCC's Science Reporter Sanden Totten says, it'll test urine and cost only a few dollars.
The complicated ethics of genetic testing for cancer and preemptive surgery
Last week actress Angelina Jolie made headlines when she revealed that she underwent a voluntary double mastectomy because she found out that she was a carrier of the BRCA1 gene which gave her an 87 percent chance of developing breast cancer.
Now a man in the UK has become the first person to have pre-emptive surgery to remove his prostate because he carried the BRCA2 gene. This was after traditional test had not found evidence of pancreatic cancer.
So what does this say about the future of cancer care? Is there a danger associated with the genetic cancer tests? Will it cause people to request unnecessary surgeries?
Dr. Arthur Caplan, professor of Medical Ethics at New York University Langone Medical Center, joins the show to explain how these genetic tests work, and how you might be able to predict cancer by looking at your DNA.
What's it like to fly on an LAPD helicopter patrol?
At the end of the month, the FAA will propose new rules designed to reduce helicopter noise over Southern California , but don't expect it to go away entirely. The rules won't apply to medical or police choppers.
The nation’s largest police helicopter fleet lives in downtown Los Angeles. The L.A. Police Department owns and operates 17 helicopters that cover nearly 500 square miles of the city, from the San Fernando Valley to San Pedro.
Most of them launch and land around the clock from the police department’s spacious helipad, located just west of the Los Angeles River.
In the first of three reports, KPCC's Erika goes airborne on patrol.
The etiquette and rules of taking free samples (Poll)
On April 24, 2010, 68-year-old former laboratory machinist Erwin Lingitz walked into a Cub Foods in White Bear Township, MN and got into a bit of trouble for taking free samples.
According to Lingitz, store employees invited him to take more samples home to his wife, but store employees say that that's not quite the truth.
"They say he was warned in the past about taking too many samples, and in the 'straw that broke the camel's back' incident, he was found leaving the store with 14-16 packets of soy sauce, more than a half-pound of summer sausage in a plastic produce bag, and nearly a pound of beef stick," said Dan Pashman of The Sporkful blog and podcast. "They went ahead and had him arrested for shoplifting."
Lingitz is now suing Supervalu, claiming that his civil rights were violated when he was arrested. A spokesman for Supervalu said Lingitz "violated societal norms and common customer understanding regarding free sample practices" by taking more than customers are expected to.
But what does that mean? Is there a rule dictating how many samples is too many?
"The lawyer in me — and I'm not a lawyer — says that if the samples are free, and there's no stated limit, the store shouldn't stop you from taking as many as you like. If people get greedy, the store can put up a sign that says don't take too many," said Pashman. "That being said, from the standpoint of a food lover and relatively upstanding member of society, I think the limit is almost always two."
Pashman explains that you need one sample to taste it, a second to confirm your findings and a third, only if the sample is extremely delicious or you 're really hungry.
Those rules might work for supermarket samples, but what about ice cream? What if you're torn between five or six flavors that you want to try before you buy?
"I think there's a little more leeway, because each taste is a different flavor; it's essentially a different food that you're tasting. I think that you can stretch the bounds here," said Pashman. "If there's a massive line outside the door, then standing there and having 10 different samples is especially rude. Plus, each one of those samples can't cost the store more than a few cents. I mean, you're talking about one spoon's worth; it's more just putting the employee and the other customers through that inconvenience."
What do you think? Answer our poll!