More details emerge from the Petraeus-Broadwell affair. Then, NASA is rumored to be planning a space station at the dark side of the moon, and eclipse chasers swarm Queensland, Australia to catch the first total solar eclipse in 10 years. Plus, we look at why health care is often a confusing and complex ground to traverse, even for those who work in the business, and Sophie B. Hawkins brings Janis Joplin back to life in the play 'Room 105.'
More bizarre details emerge in the Petraeus-Broadwell saga
Racy texts and emails, high-level officials and a jealous lover. There are more twists and turns being uncovered today following last Friday's resignation of CIA director and former General David Petraeus due to an extramarital affair. Now the man who replaced him as top commander in Afghanistan, is now under investigation.
FBI agents are poring through thousands of communications between General John Allen and Jill Kelley, the woman who allegedly sparked the Petraeus probe when she complained about threatening emails from Paula Broadwell.
Meanwhile there are questions about the FBI. Why didn't they inform the President, or leaders of Congress about the investigation until last week? Why did the FBI agent who initiated the investigation after Jill Kelley complained about harassment email Kelley pictures of himself, standing bare-chested?
On NBC's Today Show this morning, Republican Congressman Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee said the story sounded like a Hollywood movie, or a trashy novel.
With more on this, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tom Ricks, whose new book "The Generals" touches on Petraeus's career.
NASA may open deep space station on far side of the moon
NASA may be planning to build a base just outside the moon's orbit.
The deep space outpost would be the furthest humans have ever travelled from Earth, and it would serve as a launch pad for manned missions to asteroids and even Mars.
Here with more is KPCC's Sanden Totten.
Tell us about this moon base. What do we know about it?
"I should start by saying, this isn't a done deal. NASA isn't confirming or denying the plan. But we do know they are considering a bunch of different missions right now. The Orlando Sentinel got a hold of some of these plans and that's where the concept of this 'space base' came from. So it's far from a done deal, but the science behind it is very interesting and it's worth explaining."
So give us the gist of the plan as of now.
"Basically, it would be a manned-station 277,000 miles from Earth. Which is much farther than the International Space station; that's only 200 or so miles above Earth. They'd build it by sending up parts on a new rocket that NASA is already working on. Now, if you don't know about this rocket, it's called the Space Launch System or SLS. NASA is building it to replace the Space shuttle program. It's what's known as a heavy lifter - basically it's a really powerful rocket with a lot of cargo space. The SLS rocket should be ready by 2017 and, if this base gets the green light, you could see construction a few years after that."
The plan is for a base orbiting the moon. Why not just build it on the moon?
"For a number of reasons. First, landing anywhere in space is always tricky. You need specialized landing gear, extra fuel, all that adds to the weight and complexity of a vehicle. Plus, if you ever want to leave the base you need a whole other launching system. The place they picked isn't just some random spot in space either. It's just beyond the moon's far side in something called a Lagrangian point. A really strategic spot in space."
Lagrangian point, what is that?
"Imagine two big magnets, both pulling on a metal screw in different directions. If you place the screw just right, the pull of the magnets could suspend the screw in space. Lagrangian points are sort of like that, but not quite. They are a balance point, but rather than magnetic forces, Lagrangian points are created by the gravity of a large body, like the Earth or the Moon or Sun. Since the Earth and Moon are in orbit, these points move too. But once you've set up shop in a Lagrangian point, your base would essentially be parked in space; you won't have to continually adjust to keep it from being pulled into a planet. I spoke with Dr. Louis Friedman, former mission planner with NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab and director emeritus of the Planetary Society. He said these spots are perfect stepping stones for deep space travel."
'Space age is, as I said, 50 years. We've never gone beyond the moon. It's time to move out into the solar system. The first step would be a Lagrangian point just beyond the Moon, and then move out maybe to the Sun/Earth Lagrangian Points. These are points where we can do practical missions but they become milestones to go out into the solar system," said Friedman.
"Dr Friedman told me scientists have studied these Lagrange points for decades and the idea of putting a base in one has been around for a long time."
All this sounds incredibly expensive…Any idea what all this will cost?
"I reached out to NASA for a comment - they didn't reply. And since this proposal is still only speculation at this point - it's impossible to put a price tag on it. But we do know the International Space Station cost 100 billion dollars to get going. This could cost even more given how far out it is. There's also talk about NASA possible re-purposing spare parts from the International Space Station - which could cut costs a little bit. But until there is an official announcement - we won't know for sure."
California at center of solar power trade war with China
Solar panels are at the heart of a trade war between China and the United States. Federal trade officials recently authorized sanctions against China for "dumping" solar components on the U.S. market below cost. China is the world's biggest producer of solar panels, and yet, very few are installed there domestically.
In fact, many end up on rooftops here in California. "Cheap solar" has been good for consumers here but bad for the state's own makers of solar energy hardware.
The California Report's Marjorie Sun reports on China's solar ambitions.
VIDEO: Watch the total solar eclipse in Australia that attracted many US tourists
Tens of thousands of people have gathered in Northern Australia Tuesday to see the first total solar eclipse in a decade.
The moon blocked out all the light at 12:30 p.m PST, and total darkness only lasted a couple of minutes. A partial solar eclipse was also be visible in parts of New Zealand, Chile and Antarctica.
New Yorker Rick Brown organized a trip for dozens of people from New York to Queensland, Australia just to catch the eclipse.
"By trade, I'm a commodities trader, but in my past time, I chase eclipses," said Brown.
Saying that it's a past time is a bit of an understatement. Rick has traveled to Asia, the Middle East and Africa in search of solar eclipses. He even chartered his own jet with a group of people to follow the path of an eclipse.
"We got an A-319 Airbus. We took the seats out of the left side of the airplane so that people could get down and sit on the floor and set up their telescopes and binoculars and cameras and videos and recorders and all types of stuff," said Brown. "But, effectively, we were moving at about 700kph and that slowed the shadow for us, so we were able to get a nine-minute-and-23-second eclipse out of that."
Watch archived video of the eclipse:
This story has been updated.
Why is the US health care system so complicated?
If your job is to understand and analyze health insurance in America, getting care should be a snap. But that's not the case for Dahlia Remler.
She's a health economist and professor of public affairs at the City University of New York, but her struggle with her plan put her health and finances in jeopardy.
What was your health condition?
“My condition was something called Cushing’s disease, a little benign tumor in the pituitary gland, a very slow-moving disease, when I was diagnosed I probably had it at least 10 to 15 years. The only real cure to the disease is neurosurgery, they go through your nostril to take out this little benign tumor, it’s a very delicate surgery and it’s a very rare condition.”
What troubles did you have in choosing between two insurance plans?
“Couple of years earlier I had switched jobs and me and my husband both had to pick new plans, just months later his insurance premium spiked. He had to decide are we going to pay that much more money, even though it wasn’t open enrollment they would have let him switch to the HMO, the good insurers HMO but with no out of network benefits.
"We investigated the network, we asked people with all kind of conditions, and so we put him on this plan. As clues came in that I might have Cushing’s, I went to my endocrinologist, I said, 'Its open enrollment, I am so frustrated with my old insurer and dealing with their network, what do you think?' They said, 'Oh, we have this great new surgeon here who is specialized in the basal-cranial region,' which is right by the pituitary gland, so I checked that he was in the other plan, and I switched. A few weeks later the diagnoses was confirmed, I knew I needed neurosurgery, and what I discovered was that this spectacular neurosurgeon, who was in my network now, no one had ever heard of him as a pituitary surgeon.
"Honestly I was very lucky to discover that in network I could go to another city and get a well-known expert in my disease. So I didn’t have to make this agonizing trade off, you know, should I spend my own money out of pocket, to get this clearly unambiguous expert in this? I couldn’t figure it out because no one could tell me how to translate the surgeons reputation into how much better it was likely to be for me and my condition.”
If you get thrown for a loop how can we figure it out?
“Every one says if we have informed consumer shopping that will make for better quality products produced more cheaply and that will work for healthcare. And we all think that because for the overwhelming majority of stuff in the world it’s true. Choice may be valuable for other things but if you are thinking about how we are going to contain cost in our system, how are we going to deal with some of the quality failures, lack of coordination of care that we have in our system, counting on poor informed consumers, I mean this is hard and time consuming and takes a lot of effort. I’m a health economist. I had a slow moving condition, I had good insurance, we had money, I had a flexible job so I could investigate things in the middle of the day, I had job security, I mean I would be in sort of the ideal position and that is sort of the point, is we can’t just count on informed consumers.”
Confusion over what is covered is very common, Heather in Vanburren Arkansas is part of the Pubic Insight Network and tells her story:
"I became pregnant with my second child, and I did have insurance through my employer so went through the whole 9 months with midwife care and then afterwards, midwives usually charge a global fee of around $2,500 to $3,ooo, we were expecting to get our full $2,500 back but we got back maybe $700 or $800, and honestly I just finally gave up I was sick of messing with it, it had me in tears at times, I probably could have kept going and contacted an attorney but I just gave up," she said.
Heather had contacted her insurer just to make sure her midwife was fully covered. Is this an anomaly, Dahlia? Can you do your homework only to be told something else right after that?
“The problem is that it is so complicated there are all sorts of things I can think of that could be an issue. The problem is again I could have made a mistake listing them all. How is this woman supposed to find out about all the different things she could have asked for. She could have asked the midwife did you have experience with this insurer? Have you dealt with them before, this is my employer’s plan… but again even if she has experience with that insurer, her employer’s plan or her individual plan can be different, so you need to check for a lot of things and it is hard to know how to ask all of them.”
Everyone is waiting for the affordable care act to kick in; do you think it will make any difference?
“I think it is a step forward in some ways but on this no, for good reasons. You don’t want to change a system too much. This is a sixth of our economy, it’s a matter of life and death, and you don’t want to change everything at once so they didn’t. The kinds of problems that I had with understanding information will be pretty much the same in employer provided insurance but I hope that the people working on the exchanges will be aware of just how hard these things are, so they will work to simplify the choices and things like that.
How is your health today?
“My health is actually fantastic, Cushing’s disease is not easy to recover from but once I’m cured I’m fantastic, I have a ton of energy I am so much healthier it is really wonderful.”
Tell us your health care story. Become a source for KPCC journalists through our Public Insight Network.
Violence in Syria spreads closer to Israeli and Turkish borders
The civil war in Syria threatens to widen beyond its borders following the latest actions by the military. Turkey is protesting a bombing in a rebel-held Syrian town near the Turkish border.
Meanwhile, Israel is expressing concern about mortar fire spilling over from the Syrian side of the Syrian-Israeli armistice line.
We talk with Liz Sly, foreign correspondent for the Washington Post, who is currently in Iraq.
Do urban public schools provide a strong enough education?
Parents in Southern California face a lot of choices when it comes to schools.
If they have the right admissions connections and about $30,000 a year to spend on tuition, there's the private school option. For families that can't afford that, there are several well-performing charter and magnet schools to consider, if your child can get in and you can make the commute work.
And then there are the neighborhood public schools, which for the price and the convenience, can't be beat.
Many parents fret about low test scores, shrinking arts programs and the facilities themselves, many of which pale in comparison to private schools. They're left with a choice: Do they move to a suburb with better schools, but farther away from things they love about the city? Or do they take their chances with public school?
Michael Petrilli understands the dilemma all too well. He's the executive vice president of a DC think tank focused on education policy, and the father of two young boys. His new book is called the "Diverse School Dilemma: A Parent's Guide to Socioeconomically Mixed Public Schools."
Singer Sophie B Hawkins brings Janis Joplin back to life in 'Room 105'
Singer Sophie B. Hawkins has had her share of hits in the music world, but now she's trying to score in another medium ... Acting.
She plays Janis Joplin in a new play, “Room 105: The Highs and Lows of Janis Joplin,” which covers Joplin’s entire life and ends with her overdose in room 105 of the Highland Gardens Hotel in Los Angeles.
Can you tell us the significance of “Room 105”?
“I think that it's significant because I don’t think Janis intended to die. And so the whole play, it’s not just about her career—it’s about her childhood, it’s about her inner life. This play, more than anything I’ve ever heard of, deals with Janis’s feelings about her life, and her feelings about things as they went by…In “Room 105”... as I’m about to overdose, I’m telling the story of how I got to this point... I’m talking about how I might have felt at that moment, what I was thinking about, what I was feeling. And the greatest thing is the last song I do a Janis [version] of ‘Feeling Good’ from Nina Simone. And the anger, that I'm dying, it's just great, because I don’t believe that Janis intended to go, and I think that she was almost at the point of breaking through in her life.”
What are some of the things about her life that you didn’t know before?
“What I have learned was how much of an artist Janis was all the time. I knew she was an intellectual, but I didn’t know how much she fed her intellect all the time. She was never without a book…she would argue, she would challenge...And Janis’s whole life was about trying to be as present as possible, because I have a feeling that Janis suffered so much when she was lonely and ostracized that when she began to have people who understood her brilliant mind, it’s like if suddenly Van Gogh was appreciated during his lifetime. Janis had this moment where suddenly people got it.”
What was her early life like?
“Well, Janis’s early life, she actually had a very warm and supportive family. They were very disciplined. Her mother was a great opera singer... But her father was also a great intellect, and they read seven books a weekend and discussed them. They didn’t watch TV. Janis was an A student. She started singing with her mother at 6 years old at the piano! So she went from being this really kind of coddled child who knew she was on top of her game and at the top of her class, and suddenly puberty hit and it’s like they threw acid in her face. She was socially unacceptable, and she started reading the Beats… She started realizing that this society was completely unacceptable and backwards...She went to being socially unacceptable physically, emotionally, intellectually. She was ostracized, she was marginalized, butit’s even worse in a way having been so embraced—it was like going to Siberia.”
What were your goals in this play?:
“My goal was to understand, to walk in her shoes. Elvis Presley said you never know aman’s life ‘til you walk a mile in his shoes. So I started studying everybody she studied first—Leadbelly, Bessie Smith, and Ma Rainey. And I didn’t just study them, I actually wrote out the melodies and the phrasing, everything. And when I got to Janis, I thought, ‘Wow! I really have her in my guts, under my belt.’ And then I started studying Janis, and I learned so much about Janis that I never would have known because of the perspective of studying where she came from.”
Plus, check out this song Sophie B. Hawkins recorded just for our pledge drive!