A 6 bedroom, 7 bath property estimated at a little over 6 million USD sits for sale in Arcadia, where "mansionization" has become a flash point, houses torn down and mansions built, in a city where Chinese nationals have been investing heavily.; Credit: FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images

The National Association of Realtors released a survey Tuesday, which showed a surge in foreign home buyers - about a third more than last year.

As reported by the Los Angeles Times, Chinese nationals bought the most, with $31 billion worth of property purchases, an increase from $27.3 billion the previous year. Buyers from Canada, however, contributed to the largest overall increase according to the survey. This could be due to Chinese investment in Canada, where property prices have been rising. In California, 71 percent of foreign buyers were shown to be from Asia and Oceania. Last year, that number was 51 percent.

These survey results contradict what SoCal real estate agents have been seeing, as they’ve noticed a decrease in Chinese buyers. But nationally, the survey showed that foreign buyers still only account for 5 percent of sales from previously owned homes. So what are the factors of this potential boost? What causes outside the U.S. may be contributing? And how could all of this affect the housing market here in California?

Guests:

Ken Fears, director of housing finance and regional economics at the National Association of Realtors, which put out this new report

Jordan Levine, senior economist at the California Association of Realtors

Chris Thornberg, founding partner of Beacon Economics; his focus includes economic forecasting, employment and labor markets and economic policy

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

A Biologist releases genetically modified mosquitoes in the city on February 11, 2016 in Piracicaba, Brazil.; Credit: Victor Moriyama/Getty Images

Last Friday, July 14, the life science branch of Google’s parent company Verily launched its “Debug Fresno” plan, which aims to eliminate the Aedes aegypti mosquito by releasing 1 million bacteria-infected male mosquitoes into the County, over the course of 20 weeks.

More commonly known as the yellow fever mosquito, and known to spread diseases such as Zika and dengue, this mosquito arrived in Fresno in 2013. The plan to fight this dangerous mosquito is to release Wolbachia bacteria-infected mosquitoes into the population, which are sterile to female mosquitoes that don’t have the naturally occurring infection.

The technology for this was developed by the University of Kentucky and commercialized by Mosquito Mate, which released a smaller batch of these infected mosquito in Fresno last summer. Now the Consolidated Mosquito Abatement District, the government agency that provides mosquito control in portions of Fresno, has partnered with Verily for this 20-week release plan.

What’s the technology and science behind this bacteria-infected mosquito and the release plan? What can we expect over the course of these 20 weeks? What are the larger implications of this experiment?

Guests:

Steve Mulligan, district manager of the Consolidated Mosquito Abatement District

Stephen Dobson, professor of medical and veterinary entomology at the University of Kentucky; president of Mosquito Mate, the company that is commercializing the pesticide technology used in the Fresno release

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

The opioid crisis is so challenging in part because the drugs are often prescribed for legitimate reasons.; Credit: Photo by Ian Sheddan via Flickr Creative Commons

Opioid addiction has reached the level of public health crisis in America, necessitating a shift in how medical professionals approach their patient’s pain.  

The recent Vox article “The opioid crisis changed how doctors think about pain” traces the push in the 1990’s for doctors to take their patient’s pain more seriously, even elevating it to a vital sign, which coincided with pharmaceutical companies pushing opioids.

The subsequent opioid crisis has reversed the thinking about this painkiller’s efficacy and safety, but it has also spurred larger questions about the medical profession’s approach to pain.

In 2015, Dr. Jane Ballantyne co-wrote a controversial article that argued for a more pragmatic paint treatment approach, with a focus on a person’s function rather than the elimination of their pain.

As argued in the aforementioned Vox article, the medical profession has largely shifted towards her thinking. Subsequently, there have been calls for more transparency regarding medication, for changing patients’ overly-optimistic expectations regarding pain treatment and for more holistic approaches to pain, as well as concern that pain won’t be treated as effectively now.

Against the backdrop of the opioid crisis, we sit down with three doctors to explore the rise of opiates, and how pain treatment can move past them. What roles did a shifting approach to pain play in the rise of the opioid crisis? How should patients and doctors approach chronic pain treatment? And listeners, what conversations have you had with doctors and which approaches have you undertaken regarding chronic pain?  

Guests:

Anna Lembke, M.D., program director for the Stanford University Addiction Medicine Fellowship and Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic; her latest book is “Drug Dealer, MD: How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop” (Johns Hopkins University Press, October 2016)

Jane C. Ballantyne,  M.D., Professor, Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine at the University of Washington; she co-wrote the 2015 New England Journal of Medicine Article “Intensity of Chronic Pain – The Wrong Metric?”

Michael Clark, M.D., vice chair for clinical affairs and director of the pain treatment program in the department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins Hospital

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

A woman holds a sign while attending a public hearing before the South Coast Air Quality Management District regarding a proposed stipulated abatement order to stop a nearby massive natural gas leak, on January 16, 2016 in Granada Hills, near Porter Ranch, California. ; Credit: David McNew/Getty Images

Two state agencies cleared the Aliso Canyon gas storage field to resume operations on Wednesday, while the same afternoon Governor Jerry Brown called for it to eventually close.

It's an odd juxtaposition of different state entities acting simultaneously on the controversial gas storage field, where a well ruptured in late 2015 and drove thousands of people from their homes.
The well could soon resume operations, according to a joint announcement by officials of the California Public Utilities Commission and the state Department of Conservation's Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources.

Read the full story here. 

Guest:

Sharon McNary, KPCC’s infrastructure reporter who’s been following the story

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) addresses the Heritage Foundation December 15, 2009 in Washington, DC. Sen.; Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images

War hero. Maverick Republican. John McCain is a politician like no other.

The senator from Arizona has been diagnosed with a brain tumor after doctors removed a blood clot above his left eye last week, his office said in a statement Wednesday. The 80-year-old Republican has glioblastoma, an aggressive cancer, according to doctors at the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix. The senator and his family are reviewing further treatment, including a combination of chemotherapy and radiation.

Doctors say McCain is recovering from his surgery amazingly well and his underlying health is excellent, according to the statement. On AirTalk today, a look at McCain’s career and role in the Senate.

With AP files.

Guests:

Lisa Mascaro, Los Angeles Times congressional reporter; she tweets @LisaMascaro

Bill Jones, former California Secretary of State and former Republican Assembly Minority Leader; he was John McCain’s campaign chair for California in 2008; he was also worked as one of the chairs on McCain’s 2000 campaign

Dan Schnur, director of AJC Los Angeles, a Jewish advocacy group; he was the communications director for Sen. John McCain in 2000

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Volunteer teacher Andrea Urban, who is also the mother of two of her pupils, teaches a technology class as 6th graders Sarah Scheibe (L), Sophie Urban and Benno Bluhm look on at the Middle School.; Credit: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

In an attempt to remedy the gap for disadvantaged students under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, each state is required to report whether disadvantaged students have less qualified teachers.

In response, California may have a new definition for effective teaching, defining an “ineffective teacher” as someone who is improperly assigned or does not have proper credentials. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, the plan, which was approved last week by the Board of Education, is raising controversy over quantifying performance based on these criteria, and leaving little room for interpretation. The board has less than two months before a deadline to submit its plan to the federal government. The proposal to define “ineffective teacher” in the state was drawn using language from a California Teachers Assn. union proposal. Critics of the new definition argue that it doesn’t quantify educators impact on students or hold ineffective credentialed teachers responsible.

Larry speaks to two education experts today to find out the pros and cons of using credentials as a barometer for teaching effectiveness.

Correction: We originally stated that we reached out to the California Board of Education. We incorrectly reached out to the California Dept. of Education. KPCC regrets the error.

Guests:

Joy Resmovits, education reporter for the Los Angeles Times; she has been following the story

Pedro Noguera, Ph.D., distinguished professor of education at the UCLA Graduate School of Education

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Ships wait to be loaded at the Port of Los Angeles in Long Beach on February 13, 2015.; Credit: MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images

The largest port complex in the United States has released a draft of a plan to modernize port technology to help clean up the air and combat climate change at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

The projected cost of the Clean Air Action Plan is $14 billion in public and private funding, and some following the story have said they expect that number to increase. The plan has the ports switching to zero-emission technology for handling cargo by 2030 and zero-emission trucks by 2035. It also sets a goal of emissions below 40 percent of 1990 levels by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050.

While many involved stakeholders like environmentalists, the trucking lines, port truckers and the shipping lines have highlighted things they like in the draft, like the fact that it's a major statement to the rest of the country from the largest port complex in the U.S., they also say there is room for improvement. Concerns range from the timeline being too ambitious to questions about whether the zero-emissions technology will be ready by 2030 and what this means for port truckers, many of whom operate independently and could have to shoulder the cost of getting and maintaining a zero-emissions truck.

For more on this story from KPCC's Emily Guerin, click here.

Guests:

Chris Cannon, director of environmental management for the Port of Los Angeles

Rick Cameron, managing director of planning and environmental affairs for the Port of Long Beach

Melissa Lin Perella, co-director of the Environmental Justice program for the Natural Resources Defense Council

Weston LaBar, executive director of the Harbor Trucking Association

Fred Potter, international vice president and director of the ports division for the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents port truck drivers

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

During the Great Depression, 79 people committed suicide from the bridge.; Credit: Genji Arakaki/flickr via Creative Commons

After an uptick in deaths to start this year, including six deaths since March, the city of Pasadena is once again looking at a permanent fix to the problem of jumpers on the Colorado Street Bridge.

At a meeting of Pasadena’s Public Safety Committee on Wednesday, officials heard a presentation on the bridge’s history, the suicide barriers already in place and the temporary mesh fencing that’s being installed now while a permanent solution is devised. City officials say their area of focus are alcoves in the bridge, which offer beautiful views but also easier access for potential jumpers. Solutions include increasing bridge patrols, installing suicide help line call boxes, putting up a mesh barrier or safety netting and even planting trees below the bridge to put an obstacle in the way of a clear path to the bottom.

Not long after construction of the iconic Colorado Street Bridge in Pasadena was completed in 1913, city officials realized they had a problem: people were leaping off of it to their deaths. It began during the Great Depression in the 1930s, during which time 79 people committed suicide from the bridge. City officials quickly began designing mitigation techniques and have updated them through the years, but the problem still exists. From 2006-2016 there have been 28 people who jumped from the bridge to their deaths.

How can the city of Pasadena stop people from jumping from the Colorado Street Bridge? Do you think a solution like a mesh fence or a safety net below the bridge take away from the historical and scenic value of the bridge? What would you suggest the city do to mitigate this issue?

If you or someone you know are considering suicide or need support or assistance, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255.

Guest:

Michael Johnson, director of the Department of Public Health for the City of Pasadena

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Sean Spicer speaks during the daily briefing at the White House.; Credit: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images

The White House’s embattled press secretary is out, according to multiple sources.

New York Times White House reporter Glenn Thrush first broke the story, tweeting that Spicer resigned this morning following White House appointed Anthony Scaramucci as White House communications director on Friday morning. Scaramucci, a financier and global investment firm founder from Long Island, was offered the job around 10 a.m. Eastern Time. The New York Times reports that President Trump asked Spicer to stay on the staff, but Spicer felt that Trump was making a mistake appointing Scaramucci and resigned. Neither the White House nor Spicer himself have confirmed the reports.

.@PressSec resigned after vehemently objecting to appointment at 10 a.m. Friday of Anthony Scaramucci as WH Communications director, per SAO

— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) July 21, 2017

Rumors that Spicer was on the outs at the White House have been circulating for some time, though the White House has never said this was the case. Spicer’s resignation also creates questions about the future of the White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, who brought Spicer onto the transition team.

Spicer tweeted that he will be staying on through August. 

It's been an honor & a privilege to serve @POTUS@realDonaldTrump& this amazing country. I will continue my service through August

— Sean Spicer (@PressSec) July 21, 2017

So, who exactly is Anthony Scaramucci? Why did Sean Spicer disagree so strongly with his appointment? Will other White House staff members follow suit? What happens next for Sean Spicer? How much of a distraction will this prove to be for the White House?

Guests:

Josh Dawsey, White House reporter for Politico; he tweets @jdawsey1  

Erik Wemple, media critic for the Washington Post; he tweets @ErikWemple  

Sean T. Walsh, Republican political analyst and partner at Wilson Walsh George Ross Consulting in San Francisco; he is a former adviser to California Governors Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger and a former White House staffer for Presidents Reagan and H.W. Bush

Lanhee Chen, research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and former policy director for the Romney-Ryan 2012 presidential campaign; he tweets @lanheechen

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Cars on Highway 101 in Los Angeles.; Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Californians are going to be paying more at the pump.

That’s because of the transportation bill recently passed by the California Legislature. But the tax also means changes are coming to state roads in need of repair. At least, that’s the thought behind an ambitious plan from the California Department of Transportation, or Caltrans.

Plans include a $2.6 million project starting this month to resurface more than three miles of the 605, or San Gabriel Freeway, between El Monte and West Covina. L.A. County’s Route 1 will get $7.2 million towards a pavement preservation project, and Route 14, also known as the Antelope Valley Freeway, will take $3.5 million to resurface roads between Newhall Avenue and Friendly Valley Parkway. Ventura County will see a $2.8 million road resurfacing project for Highway 101. Interstate 710 in Long Beach was promised a similar plan for $2.3 million.

Larry speaks to the director of Caltrans to find out more.

Guest: 

Malcom Dougherty, director of the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans)

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

O.J. Simpson (R) attends his parole hearing with his attorney Malcolm LaVergne at Lovelock Correctional Center July 20, 2017 in Lovelock, Nevada.; Credit: Pool/Getty Images

It’s been more than 20 years since the former NFL running back and Heisman Trophy winner O.J. Simpson was found not guilty of a double-murder at the L.A. Superior Courthouse.

Conflict with the law didn’t end after Simpson was found not guilty of a double murder. He was incarcerated in 2008 for kidnapping and armed robbery. Simpson was freed Thursday on parole from a Las Vegas medium security prison. And perhaps the most interesting thing about Simpson's story is the public's continuing fascination over his career, trial and famous Bronco chase.

So given Simpson’s release, has your opinion of him changed? Are you more or less sympathetic to him now than during the 1995 trial? And why is Simpson's story so gripping after all these years?

Guest:

Laurie L. Levenson, former federal prosecutor and a professor of law at Loyola Law School; she was an analyst for CBS during the O.J. Simpson trial

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Comedy Central's "The President Show" Premiere on April 27, 2017 in New York City.; Credit: Brad Barket/Getty Images for Comedy Central

The election of Donald Trump energized the stand-up and comedy world.

President Trump has inspired many impersonations, and one of them (and arguably the best in AirTalk’s humble opinion) is by stand-up comedian Anthony Atamanuik.

Atamanuik started his Trump impersonation as a one-off gag, and it quickly went viral. Now, Atamanuik is starring in his own Comedy Central show built around the act.

Guest host Libby Denkmann speaks with Atamanuik on playing Trump, and more.

Guest:

Anthony Atamanuik, stand-up comedian and star of Comedy Central’s “The President Show”

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Carmen A. Puliafito, M.D., M.B.A. arrives at Changing Lives And Creating Cures Gala at The Beverly Wilshire Hotel on Thursday, Nov. 20, 2014, in Beverly Hills.; Credit: Tonya Wise/Invision/AP

Last week, the LA Times broke a story about the clandestine exploits of USC’s former medical school dean, Dr. Carmen A. Puliafito.

Four days later, USC announced its plans to fire Puliafito for his conduct, which allegedly included methamphetamine use while overseeing medical students, professors and clinicians, according to the Times investigation. He was also a prolific fundraiser for the university, with estimated donations totaling more than $1 billion. Arguably one of the most egregious allegations against Puliafito is his presence with a 21-year-old woman who overdosed in a Pasadena hotel room. She later recovered.

The L.A. Times said in a recent article that they had reached out to USC repeatedly over the course of the last 15 months. The university never responded to the Times’ inquiries. It’s unclear whether the Times investigation led to the end of Puliafito’s role as dean.

So what do you think of USC’s handling of Puliafito’s conduct? Will this hurt USC’s brand in the future?

We reached out to USC’s Office of the President, as well as their media relations office. They were unable to join us on-air, but provided the following statement:

The University of Southern California (USC) believes it is imperative to let the inquiry by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher run its course so as to not impede its progress or cloud the recollections of those who may have information to share. Our priority now is to obtain a clear picture of exactly what happened and to ensure the well-being and trust of our students at USC, the patients at the Keck School and our entire university community.

Guests:

Paul Pringle, Los Angeles times investigative reporter; he is the lead reporter on this story; he tweets at @PringleLATimes

Simon Barker, managing partner at Blue Moon Consulting Group, crisis management firm based in Denver; he focuses on crisis management and reputational risk in higher education

Ann Fromholz, a Pasadena-based employment lawyer who has conducted hundreds of workplace investigations; she is also a USC law school alumna

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

White House senior adviser Jared Kushner is set to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee this morning.; Credit: Evan Vucci/AP

It’s a busy week on Capitol Hill and it got started in full force Monday morning as President Trump’s senior adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner testified in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee in a closed door hearing.

He released a prepared statement as well, denying any collusion with Russia in order to affect the 2016 election. Kushner will testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday. Also set to be questioned this week are former Trump campaign director Paul Manafort and the president’s son, Donald Trump Jr., though their hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee will be private after the two reached a deal with Senators on Friday to keep the hearings private.

Meanwhile, President Trump is doing his own digging into the probe into potential ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government during the 2016 election. His aides are looking into special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators, hoping to gain some leverage. In a wide-ranging interview last week with the New York Times, Trump wouldn’t go as far as to say he’d fire Mueller but has said that it’d be a ‘violation’ of the scope of the probe if Mueller dug into his business transaction records.

Following Friday's shakeup in the White House communications department that saw the resignation of now former press secretary Sean Spicer after the White House announced New York financier Anthony Scaramucci as the new communications director, we'll also look at how the new White House comms team will look to reshape the president's message and what, if anything, the media can expect to see change. Scaramucci made the rounds on the Sunday talk shows this past weekend.

We’ll also hear the latest on what’s happening this week with regards to an Affordable Care Act repeal vote and preview an announcement set for this week regarding a ban on U.S. tourism to North Korea.

Guests:

Caroline Heldman, associate professor of politics at Occidental College and author of the forthcoming book, “Protest Politics in the Marketplace: Consumer Activism in the Corporate Age” (Cornell University Press, 2017); she tweets @carolineheldman

Lanhee Chen, research fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and former policy director for the Romney-Ryan 2012 presidential campaign; he tweets @lanheechen

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Maschinenmensch (machine-human) on display at the Science Museum at Preview Of The Science Museum's Robots Exhibition at Science Museum.; Credit: Ming Yeung/Getty Images Entertainment Video

Ideally, predictive algorithms are stone-cold, rational, big data-crunching tools that can assist humans in their flawed decision-making process, but the caveat is that they can often reflect the biases of their creators.

According to Laura Hudson in her FiveThirtyEight piece “Technology Is Biased Too. How Do We Fix it?” algorithmic bias is a growing problem, as organizations increasingly use algorithms as a factor in deciding whether to give someone a loan, offer someone a job or even whether to convict a defendant or grant them parole.

But fixing these algorithms presents a philosophical quandary: how to define fairness? And if biases are impossible to avoid, then which ones are less harmful than others?

So how are problematic algorithms already being used today? How, if at all, can they be made “fair?” And in what way can we use algorithms responsibly?

Guest:

Suresh Venkatasubramanian, professor of computing at the University of Utah and a member of the board of directors for the ACLU Utah; he studies algorithmic fairness

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

; Credit: Stock photo by Shannan Muskopf/flickr Creative Commons

The state bar exam for California has long been known in legal circles to be one of the toughest in the country to pass.

California’s ‘cut score,’ the grade required to pass the exam, is higher than all other states except one: Delaware. But a debate has been raging in legal circles across the Golden State about whether California’s cut score for the bar was realistic. Now, the state’s high court is taking action.

The California Supreme Court has amended the state's ‘Rules of Court’ to say that the supreme court, not a State Bar of California board, will be the body to decide what a passing score is. This follows a 2016 that saw just 62 percent of test-takers from American Bar Association accredited schools pass the test. Under New York State’s cut score, 87 percent would have passed.

The discrepancy has alarmed some in the legal profession. In February, deans from 20 ABA-accredited schools wrote the Supreme Court of California and requested that it lower the cut score. They argue that the pass-fail rate is a result of the cut score being arbitrarily high, not a sign that the people taking the test aren’t qualified to be lawyers. Others disagree, saying that the Supreme Court is rushing to change the score without looking at all the evidence, and point to law schools lowering admission standards to keep tuition dollars flowing.

Should California lower the cut score of its bar exam? How would this impact the legal profession?

Guest:

David Faigman, Chancellor and Dean of the UC Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco

Robert Anderson, associate professor of law at Pepperdine University School of Law in Malibu

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

A breast cancer patient receives a trial medication treatment in the infusion center at the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center August 18, 2005 in San Francisco, California.; Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

A new gene therapy could be approved for certain leukemia patients. And that may open doors for a new swath of cancer treatments using the same science.

As reported by the New York Times, the approval would likely spark new ways to use the technology for breast, prostate, ovary, lung and pancreatic cancers. It is also being studied for glioblastoma, the brain tumor John McCain was recently diagnosed with.

A new method uses immune cells extracted from donated samples of umbilical-cord blood, and are combined with other types of cell therapy. Researchers are also trying to administer these treatments in the early stages of leukemia. Another approach uses cells from components of the immune system known as killer cells which fight foreign threats in the body.

So what are the risks involved in these new therapies? How would they potentially increase the survival rate? When can we expect them to go into effect?

Libby Denkmann speaks to a developer of one of these new therapies to find out more.

Guests:

Stephen Forman, M.D., lead researcher at City of Hope’s T-Cell immunotherapy research laboratory; his focus includes immunotherapy cancer treatment, and stem cell transplantation research

Katy Rezvani, M.D., Ph.D., professor and researcher of stem cell transplantation and cellular therapy at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions testified before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday afternoon.; Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

President Trump went on Twitter and continued his attacks on Attorney General Jeff Sessions, criticizing the Department of Justice for not doing more to investigate alleged “Hillary Clinton crimes” and leakers of sensitive US intelligence.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 25, 2017

It’s the latest in a series of tweets the President had sent out in the last week or so. His displeasure with the Attorney General first surfaced in an interview he did with the New York Times earlier this month. In the interview, Trump criticized Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia probe.

The sustained attack has many wondering whether Sessions’ days as attorney general may be numbered.

What, if anything, would happen to the Russia investigation if Sessions was to vacate or be removed from his post?

Guests:

Larry Liebert, a national security editor at Bloomberg

Andy Wright, associate professor at Savannah Law School in Georgia; he is a former Associate Counsel to the President in the White House Counsel’s Office under President Barack Obama (2011-12)

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Solid friendships can help buffer life's stress.; Credit: /iStockphoto

Amy Silverstein got her first heart transplant when she was twenty-four years old. That heart lasted almost twice as long as doctors anticipated, but by the time she was fifty it had begun to fail.

She debated whether a second transplant, and all that it required, was worthwhile. She had already beaten the odds once and, during that time, attended law school, married her husband, and raised her son. And the most likely option for a successful second transplant involved leaving New York and moving to Los Angeles.

As Silverstein debated whether or not to wait for a new match, her friends refused to take no for an answer. They drew up spreadsheets, collected decorations, and organized their schedules so that they could effectively move with Silverstein to Los Angeles while she needed to be there. Her new book,“My Glory Was I Had Such Friends: A Memoir,” tells the story of how these friendships saved her life as she waited for (and finally got) a match.

AirTalk sits down with Silverstein to discuss her experiences as a patient and the influences of her friends along the way.

Guest:

Amy Silverstein, author of the new book, “My Glory Was I Had Such Friends” (HarperCollins, 2017)

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Senate Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., on his to his office on Thursday at the Capitol in Washington, D.C.; Credit: Alex Wong/Getty Images

A procedural health care vote is set for Tuesday in the Senate.

And if successful, the vote could lead to the start of a repeal and replacement of the Affordable Care Act. As reported by the New York Times, GOP leaders can only afford to lose two Republican votes, one of which is already a “no” from Senator Susan Collins of Maine. Senator John McCain of Arizona, who was diagnosed last week with brain cancer, returns for the vote today. He is expected to be in favor of an ACA repeal. But the path to a repeal won’t be straightforward. A Senate debate will first have to happen. That means the question of repeal without replacement will be on the table, which is unlikely to happen. A vote on a repeal and replacement will then move forward, leading to a myriad of options.

So what can the public expect out of the Senate health care vote today? Libby Denkmann talks to guests to take a deep dive into the future of the ACA.

Guests:

Adriel Bettelheim, health care editor at POLITICO; he tweets @abettel

Kevin Whitelaw, Congress editor at Bloomberg; he tweets @kevinwhitelaw1

Nathan W. Monroe, associate professor of political science at UC Merced; his focus includes Senate history

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.