Father Cameron Faller (C), associate pastor at the Church of the Epiphany, conducts a prayer service at the site where 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle was killed on July 6, 2015 in San Francisco, California. According to police, Steinle was shot and killed by Francisco Sanchez as she walked with her father on San Francisco's Pier 14 on July 1. Sanchez had been previously deported five times. ; Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The debate over so-called ‘sanctuary cities’ has been shoved into the national spotlight after a 32-year-old woman was shot and killed last week as she walked along San Francisco’s Pier 14 with her father.

Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, the man who has confessed to the killing, is an undocumented immigrant with seven previous felony convictions who had been deported to his native Mexico numerous times since entering the U.S.

The San Francisco Sheriff’s Department cut Sanchez loose after dropping drug charges on which they had asked feds to turn him over. Though federal authorities asked SFSD to tell them when they released Sanchez, the Sheriff’s Department ignored the request in keeping with their 26-year-old sanctuary law, stemming from a 1989 policy that prevents local officials from helping the feds with immigration enforcement unless required by law.

Supporters of sanctuary laws say that communities are safer when immigrants are encouraged to work with police to help identify dangerous criminals without fear of deportation. Opponents say sanctuary laws create safe havens for undocumented citizens who might

What are the arguments for and against sanctuary cities? Given Mr. Sanchez’s history of crime and being deported, should the SFSD have contacted federal authorities when they released him? Does the sanctuary city policy do more harm than good or does it make cities safer?

Guests:

Lee Romney, San Francisco-based reporter for the Los Angeles Times; "LA Times: Fatal shooting of S.F. woman reveals disconnect between ICE, local police; 5-time deportee charged"

Joseph Villela, director of policy and advocacy at Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA).

Jessica Vaughan, Director of Policy Studies, Center for Immigration Studies

The Health Committee in the California State Assembly pulled the "End of Life Option Act" today; Credit: David Paul Morris/Getty Images

SB 128, a bill in the state legislature that would allow California physicians to help terminally ill patients end their lives, will no longer be considered this year.

Despite strong Democratic majorities in both the state Senate and Assembly, the bill could not get out of the health committee. At issue was a number of Southern California Democrats who withheld support, primarily Latinos who came under pressure from the Catholic Church to vote against the legislation. In addition, Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez, D-Los Angeles, cited concerns about a lack of safeguards for patients.

What recourse do supporters of the bill have now that it is no longer under consideration?

Guests:

Melody Gutierrez, Politics and state government reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle

Aaron Kheriaty M.D., a psychiatrist and director of medical ethics at UC Irvine Medical School

Toni Broaddus,  ‎California Campaign Director at Compassion & Choices, an advocacy organization supporting SB 128

Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas along with the four other Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors approved a plan Tuesday that would weaken the role of the County's chief executive officer. ; Credit: Lord Jim/Flickr

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a plan today to redistribute power from the county’s chief executive officer to themselves.

The vote shows a fundamental shift in opinion among the supervisors, who as recently as 2007 had voted to give more power to the county’s CEO.

While the board had hoped that empowering the CEO would streamline county processes, a 2008 assessment by a county advisory commission found that it had added a layer of bureaucracy and led to conflict between the supervisors and the CEO. Supervisors often continued to micromanage departments, even to the point of having their aides ghostwrite memos that had ostensibly come from department heads.

Will this new plan help to streamline county functioning? Is it important to have someone at the top to blame (or plaudit) for the state of the county? What effects will this have on an agency with a $27-billion budget and 100,000 employees?

STATEMENT OF PROCEEDINGS FOR FEBRUARY 24, 2015 (see p. 35)

L.A. County Revisions to County Governance

Guests:

Sheila Kuehl, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors representing District 3, which includes the San Fernando Valley, the Westside of Los Angeles and coastal areas between Venice and the Ventura Countyline. She is a former California State Senator.

Jessica Levinson, Professor of Law, at Loyola Law School where she specializes in governance issues; she’s also Vice President of the Los Angeles Ethics Commission

Zev Yaroslavsky, former Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, representing District 3, which includes the San Fernando Valley, the Westside of Los Angeles and coastal areas between Venice and the Ventura Countyline. His op-ed on ways to revamp the county government was recently published in the Los Angeles Times.

Larry Mantle and industry experts and workers discussed the impact and implementation of a $15 minimum wage hike in the City of Los Angeles at the El Portal Theatre in North Hollywood on July 7, 2015. ; Credit: Bill Youngblood/KPCC

Not even the current state of Hollywood’s film business can match the drama of the minimum wage debate in Los Angeles.

So what better place than North Hollywood's historic El Portal Theatre to stage multiple debates about the influential vote of the LA City Council to raise minimum wage in the city to $15 over the course of four years. AirTalk's special event  last night focused on the impact and implementation of a wage hike. Industry leaders most affected by the pay boost, plus  other brainiacs who gamed out the domino effect, discussed three key areas: impact on the restaurant industry; next steps for LA businesses, workers and government leaders; and how neighboring cities will respond to LA's bold experiment.

Whether fast food or fancy feasts, restaurant industry faces unique fate after wage hike

Restaurant owners who employ tipped wait staff lobbied City Councilemembers to account for the fact that servers' wages often amount to more than $15 an hour when including gratuities, thereby making a wage hike unnecessary. 

Even so, workers' representatives say yearly incomes for wait staff are near the poverty line and should not be treated differently than other low-wage workers.

"Seventy percent of hourly servers in restaurants earn less than $25,000 a year. This vote was passed to help those who need it most," argues Kathy Hoang, Director of Restaurant Opportunities Center of Los Angeles.

Restaurateurs George Abou-Daoud and Michaela Mendelsohn say the wage hike places too big a burden on small businesses to solve the nation's income gap.

"I want to keep my people, but to dramatically spike my prices to adjust for cost of labor just won't work," says Abou-Daoud who co-founded the Neighborhood Restaurant Coalition of LA.

"We can't go higher on prices, so how do we get through this? We could cut back labor hours, but we really don't want to do that," explains Mendelsohn who owns El Pollo Loco franchises in Southern California.

As for fast food restaurants, tensions exist between determining fair compensation for teenagers in their first jobs versus adults who need the service job as their primary, long-term employment.

Some franchise owners say they will have to cut staff and replace cashiers with self-serve automated kiosks. In a Jetsons-like move, McDonald's is testing cashier-free locations throughout the U.S., including a location in Downtown LA. Is that the inevitable future?

"Technology can't replace human interaction. We'll still be dependent on restaurant workers for their service,” says Hoang.

We heard multiple perspectives on how the wage hike is impacting this massive, motley industry that is critical to the LA economy.

Guests:

George Abou-Daoud, Restaurant Proprietor and Chef; Co-founder of The Neighborhood Restaurant Coalition of Los Angeles - representing over 1,000 independent LA restaurants

Kathy Hoang, Director, Restaurant Opportunities Center of Los Angeles

Michaela Mendelsohn, Owner of El Pollo Loco franchise locations with over 33 years of experience in the industry; transgender activist

The Raise the Wage campaign won an historic victory, what's next?

In the aftermath of the City Council's passage, national news called the wage hike a "bombshell" and some columnists characterized it as "an experiment" unleashed on one of the country's largest cities. Mayor Eric Garcetti trumpeted the historic law for “enabling working families in LA to lift themselves out of poverty and tying our minimum wage to the cost of living to make this justice last. LA as a whole will benefit from this boost: we have always prospered the most when everyone is able to spend money into our economy."

“Studies and economists have told the council that this will add 6 billion dollars per year to L.A.’s economy,” says LA City Councilmember Paul Krekorian. 

In the meantime, business leaders complain mom & pop operations will go bankrupt.

"It's too much too fast for the smaller businesses. We need a longer phase-in period,” says Nicole Shahenian of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce. She adds, "The only restaurants that will be able to survive this are the Applebees of the world.” 

Since the passage, companies and union leaders have sought to tailor its implementation, including a stymied first attempt to exclude workers who negotiate labor agreements, which some perceived as a strategy to drive more unionization in the city.

How are companies preparing for the hike? What effect will the wage hike have on the tumultuous housing market? What will be the long-term effect on the types of industries, and types of workers, that can thrive in Los Angeles?

Guests:

Paul Krekorian, City Councilmember for the 2nd district encompassing the San Fernando Valley

Nicole Shahenian, Vice President of Government Relations, Hollywood Chamber of Commerce   

Domino effect beyond the City of LA

Other cities in Southern California expected to adopt a higher wage soon are Santa Monica and West Hollywood. As well, LA County's Board of Supervisors is debating a wage hike that would be imposed on companies based in unincorporated parts of the county. While the California Senate passed a bill proposing a statewide increase to $13 an hour, analysts say it faces an unlikely fate in the Assembly and with Governor Jerry Brown. 

Places like Torrance, El Segundo, and Glendale have made no moves to raise their minimum wage.

Californians are dealing with a patchwork of policies that push and pull on workers and business owners. 

“It will be a bit crazy because one side of the road to the other, there’s going to be different rules of the road,” said Tracy Rafter, CEO of the Los Angeles County Business Federation. “Many businesses operate in different cities, different jurisdictions. How they’re going to navigate managing that—recruiting, hiring, selling, and competing—is going to be tricky.”

UCLA labor expert Chris Tilly  says studies show something different:  “In most cases, the effects of raising the minimum wage in one county and not the surrounding ones are very small, not statistically significant, it nets to close to zero change in jobs.” 

Some cities aim to lure LA businesses away from the new ordinance, while other cities worry their best workers will focus on LA jobs for the higher wage.

How will your city respond?

Guests:

Tracy Rafter, Founding CEO, Los Angeles County Business Federation, also known as BizFed

Chris Tilly, Director of UCLA's Institute for Research on Labor and Employment

Actress/comedian Amy Schumer accepts the Breakthrough Performer of the Year Award during The CinemaCon Big Screen Achievement Awards at Caesars Palace during CinemaCon on April 23, 2015 in Las Vegas, Nevada.; Credit: Ethan Miller

Comedians have long grappled with how to joke about race.

While strides have been made socially in how we talk about race, racism is still present in our media and comedy, consciously and not.

Recently comedian Amy Schumer took heat for jokes she made in her early stand up career about hispanic men as well as some jokes she made at this year’s MTV Awards about Latina women. Just this week, Schumer apologized for what she called “dumb jokes” and said she does not consider herself a racist.

A Washington Post article compared Schumer’s jokes to comments made by Donald Trump about Mexican immigrants during his presidential campaign.

What racial humor is  acceptable today and how does that compare to what was acceptable in the past?

Guests:

Stacey Patton, a contributor to PostEverything at The Washington Post, where she recently co-authored the piece "Don’t believe her defenders. Amy Schumer’s jokes are racist."

Andrew Wallenstein, Co-Editor-in-Chief of Variety, where he recently authored the piece "Amy Schumer Says She's Sorry. Don't Believe It."

Alonzo Bodden, comedian and winner of the third season of the reality television series, Last Comic Standing

This above blotchy rash spreading across Los Angeles represents Yelp reviews that mention the word "hipster." Imagine if noise in L.A. (or across the country) could be seen by heat map too.; Credit: Screenshot via Yelp

The campaign is called HowLoud, and they want to give every location in Southern California a score based on the sound profile of the location.

That means taking into account multiple factors, from intensity and volume to frequency and duration. With a databank of scores, HowLoud then makes a heatmap of noise across the region. Currently the campaign is focused on Los Angeles and Orange County, but the project hopes to map across the country.

Would you factor sound into considerations of real estate and commercial property purchases? How important is sound to you when exploring a neighborhood? What potential is there for such data to become widely used across the country?

Guest:

Brendan Farrell, former researcher at Caltech and founder of the Kickstarter campaign HowLoud

Same-sex marriage supporters wear equality shirts while celebrating the U.S Supreme Court ruling regarding same-sex marriage on June 26, 2015 in San Francisco, California. The high court ruled that same-sex couples have the right to marry in all 50 states. ; Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The documentary is appropriately titled, “Do I Sound Gay?,” where filmmaker David Thorpe explores the cultural and sociological meanings behind the linguistic phenomenon known as the “gay voice.”

The film features conversations between Thorpe and a range of people, including gay cultural icons George Takei and Dan Savage, to linguists, to a speech pathologist to total strangers. Some say the gay voice is an affectation, some say it’s an expression of one’s sexual identity, some say they have no idea why the gay voice exists.

Is there a fundamental “gay voice?” What are the features of a gay voice?

Guests:

Benjamin Munson, Professor in the Department of Speech, Language, Hearing Sciences at the University of Minnesota. One of his research foci is on gay speech styles, and he is featured in the documentary, “Do I Sound Gay?”

The Reflecting Pool surrounds Los Angeles Department of Water and Power's headquarters in Downtown Los Angeles; Credit: Kevin Ferguson/KPCC

The LADWP wants to raise rates over the next five years to encourage water conservation and expand infrastructural repairs.

Under the proposal, the heaviest water users would see the biggest price increases, to the tune of 34 percent more by 2021.

The proposal comes in the recent wake of a court decision earlier this year in which a state appellate court ruled that the tiered pricing rate structure used by San Juan Capistrano was unfair to consumers. Although tier-pricing isn't illegal in and of itself, the court ruled that the tiers have to be justified by the actual cost of the water to the district.

Does the LADWP's proposal satisfy the condition laid out in the earlier court decision?

Read on for more coverage

Guests:

Sanjay Gaur, Senior Manager, Raftelis Financial Consultants, a utility consulting firm

Tim Quinn, Director of the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA), which filed an amicus brief on behalf of the appellant, the City of San Juan Capistrano

After more than a decade of a decline in reported crimes in Los Angeles, crime has surged 12% in the last six months. Mayor Eric Garcetti and Chief Charlie Beck cited a rise in gang violence and homelessness may be factors. ; Credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

After a decade-long decline, criminal activity in Los Angeles spiked for the first half of this year by 12.7 % across nearly every category.

Analysts say it is too soon to determine the cause for upswings in aggravated assaults, robberies, gang shootings, domestic violence and property crime, but Mayor Eric Garcetti said there may be a link to Proposition 47. Last year's ballot measure downgraded felony drug possession and thefts to misdemeanors spurring the release of a few thousand California inmates.

Peter Moskos, former police officer and associate professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, says, "While I’m not convinced these stats on property crime can justify - or are even linked to - policy changes in fair sentencing, I think it’s disingenuous to believe we can achieve a utopia of lower crime and more just sentencing." He says it's worth asking what strikes the right balance.

Acknowledging that the correlation of this crime spike and the implementation of sentencing reforms does not prove causality, what trade-off would Californians bear to achieve less punitive sentencing for minor offenses?

Guests:

Peter Moskos, Associate professor in the Department of Law, Police Science, and Criminal Justice Administration at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, former police officer

Actress Sandra Bullock arrives at the premiere of Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment's "Minions" at the Shrine Auditorium on June 27, 2015 in Los Angeles, California.; Credit: Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Larry Mantle and KPCC film critics Amy Nicholson, Wade Major, and Charles Solomon review this week’s new releases including the animated feature, “Minions,” Rosamund Pike in “What We Did on Our Holiday,” the filmed-on-an-iPhone, LA-set indie, “Tangerine,” and more. TGI-Filmweek!

Guests:

Amy Nicholson, film critic for KPCC and chief film critic for LA Weekly

Wade Major, film critic for KPCC and host for IGN’s DigiGods.com

Charles Solomon, film critic for KPCC and Animation Scoop and Animation Magazine

Pump jacks and wells are seen in an oil field on the Monterey Shale formation where gas and oil extraction using hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is on the verge of a boom on March 23, 2014 near McKittrick, California. ; Credit: David McNew/Getty Images

A state-commissioned study of fracking in California contains both good and bad environmental news.

The good is that scientists found no evidence of groundwater contamination or widespread health effects. The bad is that they had so little data to consider when looking for problems. The report’s critical of oversight, record-keeping, and study of fracking chemicals. What effect will the report have on California fracking? Today on AirTalk, Larry Mantle talks to experts on both sides of the issue.  

An Independent Scientific Assessment of Well Stimulation in California

Guests:

Jane Long, Chairman and Lead Scientist for the study by the California Council on Science and Technology

David Quast, California director of Energy in Depth, an oil and gas industry lobbying group

US Secretary of Energy Ernest Moniz (R) and Head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi (L) meet at a hotel where the Iran nuclear talks meetings are being held in Vienna, Austria, July 9, 2015.; Credit: CARLOS BARRIA/AFP/Getty Images

It looks as though diplomats won't conclude an Iran nuclear deal by today’s deadline.

Under U.S. law, the seven nations negotiating in Vienna needed to complete the agreement before the end of Thursday in Washington. Now that it has been missed, it activates a 60-day mandatory period of sanctions. The extended time period is important as Iran is requesting prompt easing of economic penalties for nuclear concessions. 

Guests:

Robert Kaufman, a political scientist and professor of public policy at Pepperdine University specializing in American foreign policy, national security, international relations, and various aspects of American politics

Josh Lockman, International Law Professor and expert on U.S. Foreign Policy at the USC Gould School of Law

Local politicians, human rights leaders and immigrant advocates gather to protest against billionaire Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump outside the Trump International Hotel, currently under construction on Pennsylvania avenue between the U.S. Capitol and the White House, July 9, 2015 in Washington, DC.; Credit: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

GOP presidential hopeful Donald Trump is visiting Los Angeles today, and according to one national poll at least the real estate tycoon is leading the Republican presidential field.

Trump’s L.A. stop comes in the wake of a series of inflammatory remarks he made about immigrants from Mexico, which has resulted in a number of American companies – including Univision and Macy’s – severing business ties with him.

Local immigrant rights group the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA) is planning a protest outside of the Luxe Sunset Boulevard Hotel, where Trump will be delivering a speech to the group, Friends of Abe, later today.

What’s the best way for the immigration rights movement to deal with a provocateur like Trump?

Guests:

Diana Colin, program director at the CHIRLA Action Fund, the political action arm of CHIRLA, The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles. She is the lead organizer of the protests today

Ed Espinoza, Executive Director of strategy firm, Progress Texas; From 2009-2011, Espinoza served as Western States Director at the Democratic National Committee; California Superdelegate for Barack Obama in 2008

Actors costumed in the full regalia of the Ku Klux Klan chase down a white actor in blackface in a still from 'The Birth of a Nation,' the first-ever feature-length film, directed by D. W. Griffith, California, 1914.; Credit: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

After the successful bid to tear down the Confederate flag from sites across the country, petitioners in LA want an iconic filmmaker's name, D.W. Griffith, scrubbed from an East LA school because of his 1915 epic that glorified the Civil War-era Ku Klux Klan.

Film critics are torn over the matter.

KPCC critic Tim Cogshell argues "Birth of a Nation" did not just spur a resurgence of the white supremacist group, but it also fell short of a being a great film. Still it was Hollywood's first blockbuster and broke new ground in its technique and style.

Wade Major, critic for IGN’s Digigods.com and KPCC, is loathe to revise history by removing Griffith's name. Major says concealing all evidence of the Confederacy and the Civil War ignores how the North and South came together after the war - honoring the dead on both sides.

After "Birth of a Nation," Griffith sought redemption with "Intolerance" - a film showing the damage and dangers of racial intolerance. By 1939, after Griffith's career had fizzled, Los Angeles school officials named the East L.A. school David Wark Griffith.

This controversy is similar to one that has dogged the 1939 epic, "Gone with the Wind." Some have called for the film to be excluded from the canon of American cinema for its derogatory depiction of blacks during the Civil War. Major protests, saying director David O. Selznick worked "in careful and close consultation with the NAACP(National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) precisely because he did not want to face the same outrage that greeted Birth of a Nation."

With files from Adolfo Guzman-Lopez

Guests:

Tim Cogshell, Film Critic for KPCC and the Alt-Film Guide

Wade Major, film critic for KPCC and host for IGN’s DigiGods.com

Jay-Z performs during TIDAL X: Jay-Z B-sides in NYC on May 17, 2015 in New York City.; Credit: Theo Wargo

Once upon a time, it was considered controversial for a band or a musician to pitch products made by giant corporations.

Think Bob Dylan and the Chrysler Super Bowl ad. But the millennial generation has little qualms with seeing their favorite artists “sell  out.” As a matter of fact, most don’t know what the term means.

Frontline correspondent Douglas Rushkoff and Washington Post pop music critic have respectively looked at some of the reasons behind this shift.

Guests:

Douglas Rushkoff, media theorist and correspondent of the recent FRONTLINE documentary, “Generation Like.”

Chris Richards, pop music critic at the Washington Post and author of the recent piece, “Is it even still possible to ‘sell out’?”

Guatemalan migration director Carlos Pac shows a picture of Mexican drug trafficker Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman Loera during a press conference in Guatemala City on July 12, 2015.; Credit: JOHAN ORDONEZ/AFP/Getty Images

Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Mexico’s infamous drug lord, escaped from a maximum-security Altiplano prison Saturday night through passageway in his prison cell shower.

The tunnel he escaped through was nearly a mile long and authorities believe his escape has been in the works for months.  This is Guzman’s second escape. His first escape was from a different prison in 2001. He remained a fugitive until he was captured just last year.

During his time as a fugitive, Guzman became one of the most powerful drug lords in the world with his fortune estimated at more than $1 billion.  Guzman is an international criminal with many drug-trafficking and organized-crime charges against him in the United States.

U.S. Attorney  General Loretta Lynch said in a statement, “the U.S. government stands ready to work with our Mexican partners to provide any assistance that may help support his swift recapture.”

What should the U.S. role be in the effort to clean up corruption in Mexico?

Guests:

Sam Quinones, Journalist and author of Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic

Andrew Selee, Director of the Mexico Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C

Pedestrians in Downtown Los Angles on June 12, 2014. ; Credit: Ryan Vaarsi/FLICKR

Hollywood, Koreatown, and Downtown are the areas with some of the county’s most dangerous traffic intersections, according to the analysis undertaken by the LA Times. 

The paper finds that even though pedestrians were involved in 1 in 10 road accidents, they accounted for over 35 percent of traffic deaths.

As Los Angeles strives to get people out of their cars and increase travel by bike or public transport, ensuring the safety of pedestrians is going to be paramount for the city.

What can be done to make the streets safer for everyone?

Guests:

Laura Nelson, one of the reporters behind “Walking in L.A.: Times analysis finds the county’s 817 most dangerous intersections” published over the weekend in the LA Times

Deborah Murphy, Executive Director of Los Angeles Walks, a pedestrian advocacy group; Chair of City of Los Angeles Pedestrian Advisory Committee

Landscaper David Puac installs a succulent plant during the installation of a drought-tolerant landscape in the front yard of Larry and Barbara Hall's home in the San Fernando Valley area of the city of Los Angeles, July 17, 2014. ; Credit: ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

You’ve probably seen the ads on TV for Turf Terminators, the most popular company in the contractor direct-rebate program offered by the the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California’s (MWD) for lawn removal.

Once a homeowner has successfully applied for a rebate, the contractor fills out the paperwork, tears out the lawn, and replaces it with a drought tolerant landscape, and in turn, receives the entire rebate.

Turf Terminators won the business of 97% of the 15% of applicants that participate in the contractor direct rebate program and has earned $5.8 million through May for replacing people’s lawns. But some accuse the company of using the cheapest elements available to make the most money. Their signature look is to replace grass with white rock and a couple of plants.

Those plants may not be native, and the white rock’s reflective nature can create hot spots of urban heat island effect, preventing the earth beneath it from absorbing water because it evaporates so quickly off its bright surface. So while removing the lawn results in a lower water bill, it might be causing greater problems down the road as it creates hotter urban spots that can’t collect water.

14,000 households across Los Angeles have received MWD rebates so far. The program ran out of money earlier this month, but not before approving 45,000 applicants for the process of removing their lawns and replacing them with drought tolerant landscapes.

Have you decided to replace your lawn recently? If so, how did you do it? And with what material?

Guests:

Lili Singer, Director of Special Projects and Adult Education, Theodore Payne Foundation, a native plant nursery in Sun Valley

Mia Lehrer, Owner of Mia Lehrer + Associates, a landscape architecture firm She wrote an op-ed for the LA Times this summer, "Don't gravelscape L.A."

Camel cigarettes, manufactured by Reynolds Amercian, are displayed at a tobacco shop on July 11, 2014 in San Francisco, California.; Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Just three years after a similar ballot measure was narrowly defeated, a new ballot initiative gathering signatures is asking California voters to support a $2 per-pack cigarette tax.

The effort being backed form the California Medical Association, the American Lung Association, and the Service Employees International Union seeks revenue for health care programs and services, to the tune of $1.1 billion in its first year.

Analysis by the California Budget and Policy Center of 2012's Proposition 29 tobacco tax initiative found a tobacco tax increase would disproportionately affect low-income Californians, who spend a larger share of their incomes on tobacco products.

The ballot's backers argue increasing the cost of cigarettes and tobacco products is widely recognized as the most effective way to reduce smoking across California.

What are the chances of this new initiative compared to 2012's Proposition 29?

California Healthcare, Research and Prevention Tobacco Tax Act of 2016

PROPOSITION 29: SHOULD CALIFORNIA INCREASE THE CIGARETTE TAX?

Guests:

Anthony Wright, Executive Director for Health Access California - a statewide health care consumer advocacy coalition

David Kline, Vice President of Communications and Research, California Taxpayers Association

Cancer is bad enough - but imagine having to fight it while pregnant; Credit: /iStockphoto

Being pregnant is hard enough. But pregnant and battling cancer, that is almost unthinkable.

In the book “Bald, Fat & Crazy: How I Beat Cancer While Pregnant with One Daughter and Adopting Another” author Stephanie Hosford shares her experience of getting two big doses of news within days of each other. The first, she has cancer. The second, she was going to have a baby.

Hosford describes her nine-month ordeal and how she found the strength to beat the odds and take on the obstacles thrown her way.

Guest:

Stephanie Hosford, author of “Bald, Fat & Crazy: How I Beat Cancer While Pregnant with One Daughter and Adopting Another” (Nothing But The Truth, 2015)