Gay marriage and gay conversion therapy will both get their days in court this week. Plus, the OC Register's new published emphasizes print and beefs up the newsroom, Congress fails to pass the Sportsman Act, leaving the Federal Duck Stamp in limbo and much more.
Constitutionality of gay marriage back on the table in Supreme Court
The Supreme Court meets tomorrow to decide whether now is the time to rule on the constitutionality of gay marriage.
The justices will hold their talks behind closed doors, and one of the cases they're looking closely at is California's Proposition 8. That's the 2008 law that bans same-sex marriage that was struck down in the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year
The court's decision on Friday has far-reaching and somewhat complicated implications for California as well as the rest of the nation. Here to explain is Amy Howe, editor of Scotusblog.
Gay conversion therapy gets its day in court
While we wait to see what the Supreme Court will do when it comes to gay marriage, a federal judge in Sacramento takes up another controversial issue tomorrow: gay conversion therapy.
Two months ago, Governor Jerry Brown signed a new law banning conversion therapy for minors, but conservative law groups have challenged the law.
On Friday, a federal judge will hear the first if two arguments brought by coversion therapy supporters claiming that the ban is unconstitutional, an infrigement on free speece, religion and privacy.
Proponents claim it can help people overcome their homosexual attractions, but critics say such treatments can be incredibly harmful.
Colorado think tank offers plan for filling the San Onofre power gap
The San Onofre nuclear plant has been shuttered for nearly a year. Regulators closed the plant in January after discovering a steam generator tube had leaked a small amount of radioactive gas.
As energy investigators decide the future of one of the state's biggest power sources, grid operators have patched together ways to replace the lost power, like by bringing back online a decommissioned gas plant at Huntingon Beach.
Now a think tank that focuses on alternative energy sources has released a new report offering long-term solutions should San Onofre be taken off-line permanently. The Rocky Mountain Institute, based in Boulder, Colorado draws strategies from around the world, including last year's Fukushima nuclear crisis.
The institute's program director James Newcombe joins the show to tell us more.
Start the presses! OC Register expands newsroom and emphasizes print, not digital
When you hear about newspapers these days, it’s usually the same story: They’re going out of business or slashing their budgets to try to hang on.
But at The Orange County Register, the new owners are trying something unique in the industry: They’re expanding the newsroom, and putting the emphasis on print, not digital.
In the last few weeks, longtime Register editor Ken Brusic has hired some two dozen newsroom positions: critics to review food, TV and cars, a society columnist, investigative reporters, and beat writers to cover the NFL and USC and UCLA sports.
He’s still looking for a movie critic, a magazine writer, and many more reporters.
“We haven’t seen this kind of hiring since the early ‘90s,” Brusic said. That was when newspapers were still hugely profitable, before the digital age.
The Register has recently added more color and two weekly high school sports sections, a daily business section, and a larger editorial section. Brusic doesn’t think people quit subscribing to newspapers because they didn’t want to read them. Instead, think of your morning coffee.
“You spend your four dollars and you get a cup of coffee and each time you go, if that coffee gets weaker and the amount of coffee in the cup gets smaller, you’re going to stop going to Starbucks and find someplace else to go,” Brusic said. “That’s essentially what publishers have been doing. They’ve been offering less and attempting in some cases to charge more for it. And people are smart. People won’t put up for that sort of thing. So we’re now offering more.”
The Register was founded in 1905 and bought 30 years later by Raymond Cyrus Hoiles, who wanted a platform for his libertarian views.
The Hoiles family owned the paper until its parent, Freedom Communications, filed for bankruptcy three years ago $770 million in debt.
Like other newspapers that have filed for Chapter 11, the changing economics of the industry were part of the problem. But the owners had also saddled the paper with unsustainable debt before they cashed out.
This summer when Boston-based investment firm, 2100 Trust, led by Aaron Kushner, bought Freedom Communications, there was no reason to think things would be different. Kushner, 39, had no newspaper experience. He had a run a greeting card company and a moving website.
“I’m not a media guru. I didn’t grow up in the business,” Kushner said, speaking in his spacious fifth floor, barely moved-in office. He said his team’s lack of newspaper experience could be an asset.
“We have been able to come in with a sense of optimism and a belief in what is possible. Perhaps we would have had a harder time maintaining that optimism if we had gone through everything major newspapers have been through,” said Kushner.
Since Kushner took over as publisher, the Register website has cut back its blogs. A paywall is on the way.
Kushner said he has nothing against digital. It’s just that for the foreseeable future the majority of his paying subscribers buy the print product. The Register is the country’s 20th most-read daily, with a circulation of about 285,000.
Kushner sees the number of digital subscribers increasing, but he said digital can never replace print.
“When we start up all of our presses here each night, what is in the paper each morning is definitive in a way that digital news will probably never be,” he said.
And Kushner has doubts about when, or whether, digital news will be ever profitable. Online readers, he said, avoid ads. Print readers seek them out. Kushner said he’s seeing his advertisers big and small decrease their online ad spending.
“When you see very smart people like Kohl’s or JC Penney who are actively reducing what they are doing digitally in order to do more in print, they’re not doing it because it’s trendy. They’re doing it because it’s valuable and it works,” he said.
Rick Edmunds, media business analyst at the Poynter Institute, agrees that advertisers are having second thoughts about digital. The problem is print advertising isn’t doing any better.
“The print numbers at most papers have continued falling something like eight percent a year,” Edmunds said.
Given that, Edmunds says the Register’s plan to expand its printed product is risky.
“I’d put it in the category of interesting experiment,” said Edmunds. “It’s not what most people are doing.”
Kushner isn’t interested in what most people are doing. He not only wants to prove his print-first model can work at the Register, he has his sights set on bigger papers.
He tried unsuccessfully to buy Maine’s largest newspaper and expressed interest in The Boston Globe. Now he has his eye on the L.A. Times, which is emerging from bankruptcy.
“We certainly have shown that we are capable of moving incredibly quickly with large amounts of capital and have a business model that if diligence ends up panning out, we might be able to try to turn the fortunes of the L.A. Times to where it’s growing on a similar trajectory to The Register,” said Kushner.
That’s a long way down the road, cautions Kushner, as is the ability to judge whether his model at the Register is a success. Early indications are positive.
Circulation numbers are up, which is good news for a paper that used to see double digit declines. Brusic was at the paper during those declines and survived huge staff cutbacks. He’s determined to show that expanding – rather than shrinking — the newspaper is a good idea.
“We certainly don’t want to screw up the opportunity,” said Brusic. “If we can show the way in which we go about building an audience, building loyal subscribers…if that works we can be a beacon for others in the industry.”
Chance of passing a broad immigration reform bill remains slim on Capitol Hill
Suddenly, immigration is the buzz word on Capitol Hill. A pair of Republican Senators floated their idea for giving legal status to young illegal immigrants, and the House may vote tomorrow on a visa bill. But KPCC's Washington Correspondent Kitty Felde says the chances of a comprehensive immigration bill passing both the House and Senate remain slim.
Shortly after the election, House Speaker John Boehner seemed to open the door to immigration reform.
“What I'm talking about is a common sense, step by step approach, it would secure our borders, allow us to enforce our laws and fix a broken immigration system.”
LA Congressman Xavier Becerra, a ranking Democrat in the House, says Boehner wasn't the only Republican talking immigration, citing both talk show host Sean Hannity and super PAC leader Karl Rove.
“The question is no longer if. It's when…will we get a solid, sensible bill done? That's the question,” Becerra said.
On Wednesday morning, Becerra and fellow Democrats in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus made it clear what "sensible" means to them. Congresswoman Grace Napolitano of El Monte listed the steps undocumented immigrants would take to become legal.
“To learn English and American civics, to pay taxes to contribute fully and legally to our economy, and earn their path to citizenship,” she said.
But citizenship is not acceptable to Republicans. A bill introduced this week by a pair of GOP Senators from border states, Kay Bailey Hutchison of Texas and Jon Kyle of Arizona, would give legal status, but not citizenship, to young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents.
Many Republicans — including Brian Bilbray of San Diego — say granting citizenship just encourages the next generation of undocumented immigrants to cross the border.
“You can't reward an illegal act and then expect people to think you really don't want them to do it,” said Bilbray.
But Bilbray, head of the conservative House Immigration Reform Caucus, lost his bid for re-election. So did Elton Gallegly of Simi Valley, who has been called, "one of the Top Ten Illegal Immigration Hawks" in Congress. Congressman Becerra says they weren't the only hard-liners to go.
“Do the numbers bode better for a reform within the House of Representatives? I think they do,” said Becerra. “Because I think the really virulent anti-immigrant voices in the House and the Senate, I think have diminished.”
Becerra says the GOP is opening the door to talk of immigration reform because of political reality.
“Undoubtedly I think the Republicans are looking at the electoral map and recognizing that they are committing political suicide by driving Latinos and quite honestly, communities that have large immigrant based populations away from the Republican party,” said Becerra.
Officially, Democrats say they are open to negotiation on what would be in a comprehensive immigration bill. But they draw the line in the sand over citizenship, saying granting legal status alone would create a permanent underclass in America, something that hasn't worked in Germany.
And they are united against a GOP visa bill expected to be voted on Friday. The measure increases the number of visas for highly educated workers — something Democrats support. But it doesn't contain provisions to help the workers' families. It's highly unlikely that any bill will get to the President's desk until the new Congress takes office in January.
Obama and Romney have lunch together at the White House
At this very moment, in a dining room at the White House, Mitt Romney is having lunch with President Obama. Of course, Romney hoped he'd be the one inviting former President over for a meal.
The event is closed to the press, but we've asked Dan Pashman, proprietor of Sporkful.com, to imagine a menu.
Union strike at Port of Los Angeles enters third day
Most of the terminals at the Port of Los Angeles are shut down this week after clerical workers went on strike, and other workers refused to cross picket lines. The port is the nation's busiest combined cargo complex, and officials say it's the biggest work stoppage in nearly ten years. KPCC's Brian Watt reports.
UPDATE 9:01 a.m.: By Thursday morning, at least 18 ships docked at the Port of Los Angeles and inside the adjacent harbors were not being serviced, port spokesmen said.
"Basically, we're not moving cargo in and out here," Los Angeles port spokesman Phillip Sanfield said.
No new contract talks were scheduled for Thursday.
PREVIOUSLY: A handful of clerical workers continued to walk the picket lines Thursday morning, the third day of a strike that shut down the largest terminal at the Port of Los Angeles.
Nearby were a couple dozen longshoremen who honored the strike by refusing to cross the picket lines. Idle cranes loomed in the background.
Port spokesmen say seven of eight Los Angeles terminals and three of six at the Port of Long Beach are closed. In L.A., 14 ships in dock and in the harbor are not being serviced.
On Wednesday, the workers ignored an arbitrator’s order to return to work and raised the possibility of a larger job action that could paralyze the nation’s busiest port complex. The strike has already spread to six other terminals and is affecting the Port of Long Beach.
About 70 clerical workers struck the APM Terminals operations on Pier 400 Tuesday, raising the ante in a 2½-year-old contract battle over union claims that management has been outsourcing well-paid jobs out of state and overseas. Harbor Employers Association maintains the outsourcing charges are not true.
The strikers are from the Office Clerical Unit of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union’s Local 63. Their contracts with 14 companies who operate most of the terminals at the twin ports expired in June 2010.
An arbitrator ruled Tuesday night that the union was negotiating in bad faith with shippers and the strike was invalid. However, the order was ignored pending a planned meeting between the union and shippers. A second arbitrator also was expected to rule this week on whether to uphold that order.
Other areas of the port continue to operate normally. The port is not operating at its peak because shipment of holiday goods ended several weeks ago.
Los Angeles and Long Beach together have the nation’s busiest port complex. The twin harbors handled $273 billion worth of cargo last year.
Fate of Duck Stamp unsure as Congress votes down Sportsman Act
This week Congress voted down the Sportsmen's Act of 2012, which had proposed to raise the cost of the Federal Duck Stamp from $15 to $25.
Since the 1930s, the stamp has been sold to hunters 16 and older as a mandatory part of their license, and all proceeds go to wetlands conservation. It was a rare marriage of conservation activists vying for the protection of natual resources, and hunters passionate about their hunting tradition.
The $15 price tag for the stamp has not been changed since 1991, despite inflation and the rising cost of land.
Each year, artists across the country compete to get their portrayals of waterfowl on the stamp. That contest — sponsored by the Interior Department — was made famous in the Oscar-winning film, "Fargo."
Here to talk about the issue is Martin Smith, author of "The Wild Duck Chase: Inside the Strange and Wonderful World of the Federal Duck Stamp Contest"
Mexicans hopeful that Pena Nieto can quell drug violence
Mexican President Elect, Enrique Pena Nieto, will be sworn into office on Saturday in Mexico City. After the ceremony, he'll deliver an address to the country and then meet with a small group of foreign leaders, including Vice President Joe Biden
Mexicans are hopeful that Pena Nieto will be able to boost the economy and reduce drug related violence. Both goals could be achieved if the nation ends its war on the drug cartels.
From the Fronteras Desk, Lorne Matalon has the story from Northern Chihuahua.
Medicare officials plan to incentivize use of electronic records
One of the basic building blocks of the Obama administration's health care reform plan involves converting old fashioned paper patient records to electronic form.
Medicare officials plan to spend $7 billion dollars over the next 5 years to encourage doctors and hospitals to make this change. Advocates say that electronic records will improve patient care, streamline medical services, and lower costs.
But a new report by the Office of the Inspector General warns that the rush to implement these changes is creating an opening to fraud and abuse. Joining us is Scot Silverstein, adjunct professor at Drexel University, and consultant in health care information technology.
California facing shortage of primary-care doctors
The conversion to electrical medical records isn't the only challenge the nation faces as President Obama's health care law kicks into gear. The nation is also having a hard time finding family doctors, especially here in California.
The California Report's Susan Valot reports the healthcare industry is trying to shore up the number of such physicians, but the fruits of that effort might not come soon enough.
New law will allow gay couples easier access to fertility services
There's a baby boom going on in the lesbian and gay community, a 'gay-by' boom, as some like to call it. But a number of LGBT couples who have trouble conceiving find they don't enjoy the same access to fertility services heterosexual couples do.
A new law kicking in next year could help change that. Reporter Mina Kim has the story.
'Bottled Up' looks at how baby-feeding methods have come to define motherhood
Gay or straight, parents inevitably face a host of really tough questions: hospital or home birth, cloth or disposable diapers, co-sleeping or a crib. But perhaps one of the most controversial choices is how to feed your baby. Breastfeeding versus formula is a debate that can spur the ugliest of mommy wars.
That's what writer Suzanne Barston discovered first hand when she became a mother. There are countless benefits to breastfeeding and Barston says before she had her son Leo, she didn't feel like she wanted to breastfeed, she felt like she had to.
Her new book is called "Bottled Up: How The Way We Feed Babies Has Come To Define Motherhood And Why It Shouldn't."
Interview Highlights:
What were some of the preconceived notions you had about breast-feeding?
"I took all of the same infant courses that everybody does at the hospital recommended by my obstetrician...The way it was presented to me was that this was something extremely natural and should come relatively easily…but nobody talked about any of the physical discomfort that many women experience at the beginning, nor did they touch upon the surprising challenges that many women come up against.
"I was under the impression that if I did formula feed my child at all, that if I was even given one relief bottle in the hospital, that it not only was going to ruin our breast-feeding relationship, but it was going to ruin him. It was going to make him majorly unhealthy it was going to take off a couple of IQ points and we weren’t going to bond the way that I really desperately wanted to bond with him."
What were the challenges that you faced when you tried breast-feeding your son?
"We faced a whole slew of challenges but most of them were on my son’s part and not on mine...he couldn’t latch, and no one could figure out why. It took about a week to see that he had a tongue-tie, so we fixed that but by that point he I think had just lost interest. He had lost a large amount of weight and was very tired and the work it was going to take him to breast feed no matter what we tried, and we tried it all, it just wasn’t going to happen.
"So I ended up pumping for him exclusively, which was great for a while because I felt like I was giving him this liquid gold, but I still was able to do it and adequately nourish him, instead of watching him starve because he couldn’t latch. But then he started showing these really curious symptoms, which turned out to be a severe milk and soy allergy. And I cut everything out of my diet that they told me too, but nothing helped, so I tried this for about three weeks, nothing changed.
"So at that point they advised us to try hypoallergenic formula, and within 12 hours we had a completely different child. And that was my first clue that something was amiss with these message that were given. Here I was, an educated mom that really cared for her child and I was really making him suffer to sort of pray to this alter of milky goodness, even seeing how well he was doing on the formula it still took me several days to stop feeding him breast milk, even when I saw his symptoms return and he was miserable…For a mom to watch her child suffer and knowingly make the choice not to do something for him that was going to relieve that suffering, that speaks to the brainwashing that we have been experiencing here.”
Did you feel any judgment from other mothers?
"This is such a heated topic. It depends where you are in the country...In the middle of the country, formula feeding is very much the norm, so the pressure you are going to feel is from your doctors and the Internet. Where I live in Southern California, breast-feeding is very much the norm. So when I walked into mommy and me classes or any kind of baby-related activity, I was typically the only formula feeding, and I did get dirty looks.
"I don’t think they were worse than the dirty looks that most moms have to deal with at malls, but I feel like you could justify those looks, you could hold on to that knowledge that you were doing the best thing for your baby. For me, I already felt this internal guilt, so any judgment I felt form other moms and any dirty looks I got from people in the grocery store when I was buying formula, that just compounded my own guilt. There was nothing that told me I was doing this right. Nothing told me that my choice was justified, I felt very lost.”
Is there anything that surprised you in your subsequent research?
"Over all its pretty clear that breast feeding is better. What’s surprising was the concept of how much better it is we’ve really blown out of proportion. Even though I personally in my gut believe that breast feeding is best in the health sense, the nutritional sense, it makes sense biologically, human milk is made for human infants… however I think that the way that the information is presented to us a lot of times can sort of freak parents out unnecessarily. They might say you have a 200 percent higher chance of getting SIDS, but when you actually look at the numbers, that chance of SIDS is .001, so I think we forget that statistics are just that and you need to look at them in a real world context."
What do you think is the best way to deal with this pressure?
"We should be supporting breast feeding because women want to do it. It is important, it’s important to feel that connection with our bodies. We should have that right, the right to do it that works for us, so I think that the pressure to exclusively breast-feed discourages a lot of moms who know that they have to return to work several weeks after giving birth and women who have supply issues, because they think they should throw in the towel because if its not exclusive for a year it’s not worth it. I think if we could meet women where they are at and help them feed their children in a way that feels right for them in the healthiest way possible for that given scenario we would probably breast feeding rates go up, we would definitely see happier moms, and we would probably happier babies because of it too.”