A food fight of sorts is stewing between Mexico and the United States over tomatoes.; Headstart programs in South L.A. remain closed.; KPCCs Steven Cuevas reports there can be surprising rewards to doing business in one of the nation's poorest cities.; The operator of the San Onofre nuclear power plant formally submitted a plan to restart part of the shuttered station.; We talk to John Koza, chair of an organization lobbying to get rid of the Electoral College.; Officials in Iran attempted to halt the decline of their currency, due to the West’s economic sanctions.; Los Angeles has a sizable Iranian community, many worry about how the economic crisis will affect family members.; We talk with the filmmakers of the documentary "Last Call at the Oasis," about the global water crisis.; British scientists predict that robot bees are the answer to colony collapse, the epidemic killing honey bees and threatening agriculture around the world.; How exactly do you control your Klout score? And is it legal for employers to ask for it?
Mitt Romney gains momentum after first presidential debate
Last night's debate inspired headlines like, "Romney sets a winning tone," or "Obama snoozes and loses."
Many agree that Mitt Romney's surprisingly strong performance left Obama looking flat and added some much needed momentum to his campaign.
We'll talk about it with Ron Fournier, Editor-in-Chief of the National Journal.
Could you marry someone with opposite political views?
Opposites may attract but what about when it comes to politics?
Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver; James Carville and Mary Matalin have done it, but could you marry someone with opposite political views?
We talk to one politically divided couple who've managed to stay happily married through eight Presidential elections.
Tomato war stewing between the US and Mexico
A food fight of sorts is stewing between Mexico and the United States over tomatoes.
Mexico produces about half of the fresh tomatoes that Americans eat and the rest come from Florida and California.
The tomato industry is worth $3.5 billion between the two countries, and over the last decade Mexico has increased its tomato exports. That's got U.S. growers nervous
They say the Mexican crops are hurting their bottom line and now they want help from the federal government.
Reporter Michel Marizcoof the Fronteras Desk joins the show.
Delay in South LA Head Start schools opening frustrates parents
A month into the school year, the classroom doors remain closed for 700 young children in south Los Angeles County. Head Start preschools in Compton, Lynwood and Paramount have been taken over by non-profit agency, Volunteers of America (VOA).
The transition between the administering agencies occurred over the summer. In June, the federal government awarded VOA the grant to take over from the Community Development Institute, another non-profit that had been running the sites for the previous three years.
Frustrated parents are calling VOA daily, demanding to know when school will open. VOA spokesman Orlando Ward cannot give a date. He explains that his organization must comply with many federal regulations before it reopens the preschools.
From “parent orientations and home visits,” Ward explained, his staff is busy, “securing all the state licensing that is required to operate Head Start in this area.”
VOA is also hiring completely new staffs for all its preschool sites. The non-profit that used to run the preschool laid off teachers and aides who staffed these schools last year. Some of them had decades of experience.
The union that represents Head Start employees, SEIU Local 99, has been pushing to have teachers rehired. “The only reason folks were given for losing their jobs was that CDI was no longer their employer," union representative Terry Carter said.
"They were encouraged to re-apply for the centers where they had been working.” Carter added that "VOA has interviewed fewer than one-forth of the folks who have applied for their jobs. And they have hired fewer than 10 percent.”
Parents are fuming too. Many had already gone through the enrollment and eligibility process for their child in the previous school year, and are now being asked to do it all again.
“To enroll my child, I had to get the paperwork from the school — the dental records, immunization and physical records. Then you have to take that to the doctor. But first you have to make an appointment at the doctor’s office. Then you have to go to the dentists office, make an appointment for that... then you have to take it back to the school," said mother Tamara Jones. "Once you take it back to the school you have to have all your income, proof of residence, and that was sufficient enough for enrollment.“
For low-income parents like Jones, a single mother working two jobs, this means missing time at work.
Another Compton mother, Harvesha Knight, has her 4-year-old, Daryl Junior, in tow as she tries to figure out when his preschool, Small World, might reopen. She is one year away from getting her certification to be a licensed vocational nurse, but she's missing school to look after him. For Knight, making sure her son does not miss out on his education is more important than finishing hers.
“I have to be his teacher now,” she said. “I have to teach him how to spell his name. He already know his 1-2-3s and ABCs, but other stuff that he would learn from school, I have to teach him.”
As the days drag on, it's unclear when the schools might open. Parents and teachers are putting pressure on VOA to expedite the process, and to hire back their beloved teachers and classroom aides.
It doesn’t have to be this way, said one teacher, who didn’t want to give her name because she feared retribution for speaking out. “When we transitioned from our previous employer to CDI, it was a smooth transition," she said. "Under this transition, I think they felt like the community was too poor, wasn’t going to stand up and fight back.”
VOA’s Orlando Ward asked patience from parents and teachers, saying his agency is ensuring they do everything by the book for “the longer term good of the children.”
Clarification: We removed the reference to VOA being a new non-profit. Although VOA is new to the area and the school system, it was founded in 1896.
San Bernardino businesses hit hard by bankruptcy
Six weeks ago, San Bernardino filed for bankruptcy being $50 million in the hole.
The city council cut jobs by the dozens, and, in fact, the woman who drew up the city's budget-cutting plan eliminated her own job.
The pain has spread beyond city hall, though. Companies that have contracts with the city are also taking hits.
Nevertheless, KPCCs Steven Cuevas reports there can be surprising rewards to doing business in one of the nation's poorest cities.
Official plan submitted to restart the San Onofre nuclear power plant
The San Onofre has been offline for most of the year. Southern California Edison, the plant's operator, shut it down in January citing safety concerns.
But this morning the company submitted a plan to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to restart part of the plant.
KPCC's Ed Joyce joins the show to update us on the status of the plant.
Do we still need the Electoral College?
Have you heard of a board game called "Consensus"?
The game came out in the 1960s and its goal was to teach people about the electoral college, the system we use to elect presidents.
This may not come as a big surprise, but the game never caught on. Like the electoral college itself, it's pretty dull and difficult to understand.
Dr. John Koza invented that board game, and he's been re-thinking the way we hold elections ever since.
He's now the chair of an organization called National Popular Vote, a group lobbying to scrap the electoral system.
We speak with him about the election, and why he thinks that ditching the electoral college is a good idea.
Western sanctions on Iran sparking civil unrest
This week officials in Iran attempted to halt the decline of their currency, due to the West's economic sanctions, by making arrests, vowing to stamp out sidewalk money changers and warning merchants against fanning public anger over the economy.
In the capital city of Tehran, riot police are patrolling the downtown and the city's ancient Bazaar after hundreds took to the streets yesterday to protest the government's handling of the economy.
It was the largest demonstrations seen in Iran since a government crackdown on protests after the flawed 2010 elections.
It appears that sanctions imposed on Iran by the U.S. and the European Union in an effort to curb the Iranian nuclear program are doing serious damage to the economy.
Alireza Nader, a senior analyst at the Rand Corporation in Washington DC., is with us to explain.
How economic sanctions affect Iranians living in LA
Now we turn to the Persian community in Los Angeles, or Tehrangeles as it is sometimes referred to.
It's the largest concentration of Persians outside of Iran.
The sanctions affect Iranians here, including the way they travel, the way they do business, and they also affect their families back home.
Siamak Kalhor is a businessman who also happens to have a radio call-in show in Farsi on KIRN Radio Iran here in L.A.
You could say has his ear to the ground in Tehrangeles.
New documentary examines the potential for a global water crisis
Everyone needs water everyday, so what would happen if water resources were seriously harmed?
That's the topic behind the new documentary, "Last Call at the Oasis."
Critics describe it as a powerful film that shatters myths behind our most precious resource. Producer Elise Pearlman joins the program to discuss the film.
You can see the film at a special screening at Burbank AMC theater tonight, 10/4. Purchase tickets here by 2 pm.
Scientists hope that robot bees could help fight colony collapse
Colony Collapse Disorder is how scientists describe the mysterious die off of honey bees around the globe. Honey bees pollinate lots of different types of crops and researchers are concerned that food supplies could be affected by the disorder. The cause of colony collapse is still unknown but scientists in England are working on a project that could mitigate its effects.
A Martinez talks with James Marshall, a computer scientist at the University of Sheffield, about how they'll endow the robotic bees with a sense of sight and smell to help them detect odors and gases from flowers.
Does your Klout score matter?
Last week, California passed a law that forbids potential employers from asking job applicants for access to their social media accounts.
Meanwhile, other employers are starting to ask applicants for something else — their "Klout" score.
It's a measure of your social media influence. Alex Cohen and A Martinez talk to Mark Schaefer, author of the book "Return on Influence, The Revolutionary Power of Klout, Social Scoring, and Influence Marketing."