Members of the Bangladeshi Army carry the body of a garment worker as heavy equipment is brought in to remove debris following an eight-story building collapse in Savar, on the outskirts of Dhaka, on April 30, 2013.; Credit: MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images

With the death toll well past 350 people and another 1,000 still missing after the Rana Plaza collapsed in Bangladesh, workers are now using heavy machinery to lift concrete slabs. Under those slabs, workers expect to find hundreds more dead bodies. Although this is not the first tragedy due to fatal building construction in Bangladesh, this has been the most severe. The Associated Press reports that even after a fire at Tazreen Fashions Ltd. that killed 112 people last  year, there have been another 41 “fire incidents” in Bangladesh factories. So, who is responsible for building safety and preventing future deaths?

International unions are going after the retailers who contract garment production in these buildings. Although private audits and checks already exist, the unions say it’s not enough and these international clothing brands need to be legally responsible for worker safety.

Or, should the burden rest on the Bangladeshi government? The garment industry is worth billions in Bangladesh, and citizens are demanding they invest more funds into factory inspections and audits. Retailers argue that the government is responsible for the lives of its citizens, and local factory owners need to keep their buildings up to code.

And do consumers bear responsibility? Retailers say that upgrading overseas building standards are financially detrimental because of the fierce competition for low prices. As a consumer, do these incidents affect your buying decisions? Would you pay more for clothing?

Guests:
Ben Hensler, Deputy Director and General Counsel for Worker Rights Consortium

Fred Smith, Founder and Chairman of the Competitive Enterprise Institute; Director of the Center for Advancing Capitalism

A sign at the entrance of Los Angeles International Airport in Los Angeles.; Credit: ROBYN BECK/AFP/Getty Images

President Obama mentioned on Tuesday that no U. S. airport has received accolades. However, LAX is going through almost $5 billion in improvements and renovations. How would you redesign LAX?

Guest:
Brian Sumers, Airports and Airlines Reporter, The Los Angeles News Group and a self-described aviation geek

Boston Police and Massachusetts State Police stand guard outside of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.; Credit: Jared Wickerham/Getty Images

Three people have been taken into custody in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings. The three people are allegedly connected to suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and two of them are also reported to be students at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, where Dzhokhar was a student. The suspects, who are said to be from Kazakhstan, allegedly helped Dzhokhar after the bombings. They are being held on immigration charges and are expected to be charged with obstruction of justice.

What do we know about these three arrests? Other new details have emerged too, such as the discovery of female DNA on the bombs. Have investigators spoken to Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s wife Katherine? What else do we know as the investigation moves forward?

Guest:
Sree Bhaktavatsalam, Bloomberg News Reporter

How can Los Angeles use traffic lights to manage its infamous traffic?; Credit: Scott Olson/Getty Images

L.A.’s infamous traffic problem has been unsolvable for decades. In the newest effort to alleviate gridlock, the city has synchronized over 4,300 traffic lights.

This system called the Automated Traffic Surveillance and Control system is a complex system that links all the traffic lights together. Sensors and transportation engineers will monitor traffic flow and operate the lights accordingly. Police can also use this system to control traffic for events. This $400 million network pushed by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa should save commuters time and gas, which in turn decreases L.A.’s equally infamous smog. Los Angeles is the first big city to integrate this technology.

Is it working? Is your commute time shorter? Should other cities consider traffic light syncing to avoid gridlock?

Guests:
Verej Janoyan, Senior Engineer at the Los Angeles Department of Transportation who has worked on the signal synchronization program

James Moore, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Southern California

Edwin, a 46-year-old naturalized US citizen from El Salvador, and Rodrigo Martinez, 34, an illegal resident from El Salvador, who have been together for ten years and got married in Washington, DC, in 2011 but for the Federal government, which does not recognize marriage between same-sex couples, they may as well just be housemates. Rodrigo is counting on US President Barack Obama's push for immigration reform to finally be able to become a legal resident. ; Credit: NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images

LGBT activists are diving into the immigration reform debate, arguing that the most recent bills proposed by the Gang of Eight unfairly exclude same-sex couples. The bill, introduced to the Senate in April by a group of bipartisan lawmakers, includes provisions to ease legal immigration for highly skilled workers, migrant farmworkers, and family members of U.S. citizens. It does not include measures to accommodate same-sex partners of American citizens.

Since 1996, a law defining marriage as between a man and woman has prevented same-sex married couples from applying for green cards for a foreign spouse – the immigration code does not recognize same-sex partners. Democrats in the Gang of Eight have been conflicted about whether to amend the new immigration bill to make provisions for same-sex couples – Republicans in the Senate who have expressed support for the current bill say that such measures would be a deal breaker.

How should the senate deal with LGBT rights as they relate to immigration reform? Is it worth trying to pass the immigration reform bill with an amendment to include same-sex partners even though it is more likely to fail?

Guests:
Carrie Budoff  Brown, a reporter at POLITICO

Ty Cobb, senior legislative counsel at Human Rights Campaign

Luis Alvarado, political strategist for Revolvis and former deputy press secretary for the California Republican Party

A runner passes by the San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant.; Credit: Grant Slater/KPCC

The costs associated with the shutdown of San Onofre nuclear plant has reached $553 million for Edison International. The parent company of Southern California Edison told investors the plant may have to be closed entirely without approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to restart its troubled reactor. The update comes as summer approaches. The plant hasn't generated electricity since January 2012, because damaged to tubes carrying radioactive water was discovered.

Where will California get its energy without San Onofre's plant? What would happen if the plant had to be mothballed entirely?

Guest:
Ben Bergman, Orange County Reporter, KPCC

Rapid Reality's staff are freshly inked -- would you get a tattoo if it came with a big raise?

A New York City company has found a way to offer its employees a 15 percent raise while picking up some free marketing - in the form of a company logo tattoo. Rapid Realty offered its 800 employees the option of getting a company logo tattoo in exchange for a raise. Forty of them are now sporting fresh new 'Rapid Realty' ink.

Would you get a company logo tattoo in exchange for a raise? How much would it take for you to get a company tattoo? Do you have any tattoos that you regret?

Guest:

Anthony Lolli, owner of Rapid Realty, a real estate company in New York City

A Los Angeles County Fire Department helicopter drops water on a fire burning on the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains in Monrovia, Calif., on Saturday, April 20, 2013. ; Credit: John Antczak/AP

Since it was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown in 2011, the rural fire fee has been dogged by criticism. The $150 fee affects some 825,000 homeowners in California and is supposed to pay for fire prevention services in rural and wildfire-prone areas.

Multiple legislature efforts have been raged to repeal the fee, with two current bills currently moving through the California legislature. This March, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, a libertarian organization, filed a lawsuit against the fee, arguing that it is essentially a tax, thus a two-thirds majority vote is needed in the legislature for its approval.

In April, the State Board of Equalization and the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection announced that they will postpone collecting the fee, after the state received close to 90,000 appeals from homeowners. Should rural homeowners pay more for fire prevention services? Is the $150 an unfair tax?

Guest: 

Marc Lifsher, reporter at the Los Angeles Times

How might the KALQ keyboard revolutionize the way we type on mobile phones?

The QWERTY keyboard is for big, chunky computers. But as more and more of us turn to our smartphones and tablets for daily computing, doesn’t it make more sense to come up with a new, smaller keyboard that is also more thumb-friendly?

That’s exactly what University of St Andrews lecturer Per Ola Kristensson and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and Montana Tech did.  It’s called KALQ, named for the last line of the letters on the keyboard. This invention is supposedly more ergonomic and efficient, but it takes at least 8 hours of practice to master its usage. Kristensson and his team plan to release the keyboard as an Android application in the next month or so.

Are you frustrated by the QWERTY keyboard on your tablet and smartphone? Would you switch to the new KALQ keyboard? What is the design principle behind KALQ?

Guest:

Per Ola Kristensson, Lecturer in Human Computer Interaction in the School of Computer Science at the University of St Andrews in the United Kingdom

Should alcoholism be considered a disability?; Credit: Getty Images

A police officer fired for driving drunk, while off duty, is suing his Oregon employer for discriminating against his alcoholism disability. In early 2011, Jason Servo, 43, was at a bar with colleagues after firearms training. He later crashed his unmarked police car in a ditch then was arrested.

Servo's lawyers say he immediately quit drinking, entered treatment then was diagnosed as an alcoholic. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) does apply to the disease of alcoholism, but does not prohibit employers from firing employees whose drinking problems interfere with work. When the ADA was drafted, negotiations went to pains to ensure that alcoholics were a protected class a people, but that the associated behaviors were not protected necessarily.

What if Servo had been an undiagnosed epileptic who crashed his car after a seizure? Could he still be fired? Are different disabilities treated differently? How far can employers stretch to accommodate employees with unpredictable disabilities?

Guest:  

Shawn Kollie,  Attorney with Short Law Group - the firm representing Jason Servo - based in Portland

Karla Lopez, Staff Attorney, Legal Action Center based in NYC; Lopez specializes in legal issues surrounding substance abuse

How will the ACA affect part time workers? ; Credit: William Thomas Cain/Getty Images

The Affordable Care Act requires large employers to offer health insurance to part-timers working 30 hours a week or more. But, as the Los Angeles Times reported this morning, more and more large employers are opting to take hours away from part-time workers so they won’t have to provide them with healthcare.

“Not only will these workers earn less money, but they'll also miss out on health insurance at work,” Chad Terhune writes in the Times. To combat this practice, Assembly Bill 880, which is being considered by the Assembly Health Committee in Sacramento, would discourage companies like Walmart and Darden restaurants (think Olive Garden) from dumping their part-time employees from company healthcare.

Are employers wrong to cut employees hours so they won’t have to cover the cost of their healthcare coverage? Or are businesses entitled to take advantage of the language of the ACA?

Guests:

Jimmy Gomez, California Assembly member - D, for California's 51st District including Eagle Rock, East LA, Echo Park, Silver Lake and more; Gomez authored AB 880 to penalize employers who have employees on Medi-Cal

 Dierdre “Dede” Kennedy-Simington, Insurance Broker and Advisor, Vice President of Polenzani Benefits in Pasadena which advises employers on insurance coverage and legal compliance; President-Elect - LAAHU (Los Angeles Association of Health Underwriters)

An Orange County Fire Authority helicopter takes off to assist in the search for Kyndall Jack, the 18-year-old hiker who was lost while hiking in the Cleveland National Forest.; Credit: Ben Bergman/KPCC

It took four days and services from six agencies to rescue Kyndall Jack and Nicolas Cendoya, the two teens who got lost in Trabuco Canyon in April. The tab of the rescue is calculated to be over $160,000 and officials are saying they won’t be billed for the rescue. An Orange County reserve deputy fell 60 feet during the rescue. And yesterday, one of the two teenageers was charged with felony methamphetamine possession.

“Why do I have to pay for someone’s negligence?" Orange County Supervisor Todd Spitzer told NBC LA. "We want government services when accidents happen. We don't want people to pay for government services when 'on purposes' happen.” Spitzer has launched an investigation looking into whether the teens should be held liable.

Should taxpayers foot the bill for these costly rescues? Should hikers be held responsible financially?

Guest:

Steve Casimiro, editor of Adventure Journal, an online adventure magazine.

Todd Spitzer, Orange County Supervisor.

The fire in Camarillo near Hueneme Road at Saviers Road.; Credit: Courtesy of Troy Corley

Wildfires in Ventura County have consumed nearly 3000 acres and forced evacuations. We have the latest updates from the Ventura County Fire Department and reporters on the scene. 

Bill Nash, public information officer - Ventura County Fire Department

John Cadiz Klemack, local NBC reporter 

RELATED: UPDATE: Camarillo Springs fire shuts stretch of PCH, spreads to 6,500 acres (map)

Actor Robert Downey Jr rings the opening bell at New York Stock Exchange on April 30, 2013 in New York City. ; Credit: Taylor Hill/Getty Images

Larry and KPCC critics Wade Major and Henry Sheehan review this week’s releases, including Iron Man 3, Midnight’s Children, The Iceman, and more. TGI-FilmWeek!

Iron Man 3

Midnight's Children

The Iceman

Guest:

Wade Major, film critic for KPCC and Host/Producer at DigiGods.com

Henry Sheehan, film critic for KPCC and dearhenrysheehan.com

A police cruiser is parked outside a police department in Riverside. Should videos taken from police cruiser footage be used by the media? ; Credit: Grant Slater/KPCC

On Monday, the local ABC News in Michigan ran footage of  Deerfield Elementary School principal Kim Warren in the backseat of a police cruiser after being picked up on the suspicion of drunk driving when she was swerving in her car on the way back to school at lunchtime. The video, shot by a camera mounted in the rear area of the cruiser, shows Warren crying and the officer trying to console her.

The video is compelling enough that a story which would have been little more that a quickly forgotten local news mention found traction at the national level, but watching it feels somehow like a violation of Warren’s personal space, if not her rights.

Though the video is public record, should journalists be broadcasting video shot inside police cruisers? Does it work to inform the population, or is it just sensationalistic?

Guests:

Judy Muller, Journalist and Professor, USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism; an Emmy, duPont-Columbia and Peabody Award-winning television correspondent and NPR commentator.

Ms. Kelly McBride, Senior Faculty for Ethics, Poynter Institute

Would a better-feeling condom result in lower numbers of STDs? ; Credit: Photo by Robert Elyov via Flickr Creative Commons

Personal computer. Philanthropy. And now, you can add prophylactic to the list of things Bill Gates is working to revolutionize. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as part of its Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative, is offering a $100,000 grant for any organization or aspirant engineer to design a next generation condom to make it more widely-used.

RELATED: Develop the Next Generation of Condom

It’s part of the foundation’s efforts to prevent unwanted pregnancies and the transmission of AIDS and other sexually-transmitted diseases. "The primary drawback from the male perspective is that condoms decrease pleasure as compared to no condom, creating a trade-off that many men find unacceptable, particularly given that the decisions about use must be made just prior to intercourse," the challenge read. "Is it possible to develop a product without this stigma, or better, one that is felt to enhance pleasure?" The challenge ends May 7.

Guests:

Davin Wedel, President and Founder of Global Protection Corp. and ONE Condoms in Boston, Mass.

Sarah MacCarthy, Global Health and Human Rights fellow at the Program of Global Health and Human Rights at the Institute of Global Health at USC. Fellow at Brown University.

A helicopter from Kern County drops water on a brushfire in the unincorporated Newbury Park neighborhood west of Thousand Oaks in Ventura County.; Credit: Grant Slater/KPCC

The risks and technologies behind night-time fire-fighting: The Summit fire continues to rage across Ventura County as high winds and low humidity fuel the flames. So far the fire has burned more than 10,000 acres from Camarillo south of the 101 Freeway all the way to the Pacific Coast Highway.

The blaze is only 10 percent contained as firefighters battle tough conditions. Overnight, firefighters suspended aerial drops of water and were fighting the fire from the ground. The aerial drops resumed at sunrise this morning.

What are the special challenges of fighting a fire at night? When do firefighters use nighttime water drops from small planes or helicopters?   

Guest:

Corey Moore, KPCC reporter at the Camarillo command center

Daniel Berlant, spokesman for the California Department of Forestry and Fire (CalFire)

Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark in "Iron Man 3."; Credit: Marvel Studios

China places a strict quota on foreign film imports. For Hollywood, the most popular way to bypass that quota has been to co-produce films with Chinese companies. But that means giving China’s state film more control over a film’s creative process. And some Hollywood filmmakers are wondering if it’s worth the sacrifice.

“Iron Man 3,” the new Robert Downey Jr. tent pole provided by Walk Disney Co., Marvel Pictures and Beijing-based DMG, has gotten a lot of attention in terms of how it has gained entry into the world’s second-biggest film market. The film is not a co-production, but is enjoying some of the privileges of one and has just set a new box office record in China, having brought in over $21 million on its opening day.

Guests:

Clayton Dube, Executive Director of the US-China Institute at USC

Michael Peyser, Producer and Professor at The school of Cinematic Arts at USC. 

On a cloudy Sunday afternoon, two dozen photography enthusiasts trudge along the muddy banks of the L.A. River. Though not always known for its beauty, the river provides no shortage of photo ops...; Credit: KPCC

The L.A River is undergoing a series of improvements and upgrades that have Angelenos taking a new look at its shores.

Several events have taken place along the river in Studio City, Atwater, Highland Park and Glendale. Bike and walking paths are open, film screenings will show in parks along the water, and kayakers have paddled the length of the river.

Things are changing at the river and Los Angeles residents are starting to take notice.  If the river was utilized better and developed a bit more, could it be more like New York’s successful Highline Park?  What is the best way to revitalize the L.A. River? Can it be transformed into a more community connected L.A. landmark? What are the best ways to take advantage of the L.A. River in the summer season?

Two-week-old puppies play -- what are the best ways to keep your pets safe in the summer heat? ; Credit: FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP/Getty Images

With summer right around the corner and temperatures heating up it’s important to remember to take time to make sure your pets stay cool too. When it’s hot for you, it’s even hotter for them. Too much heat can be extremely dangerous and even fatal for animals.

Most of the advice is common sense, but it’s always good to get a refresher course. How can you tell if your dog is having a heatstroke? If your pet is breathing heavily is that a sign of danger? Are cats susceptible to heat stroke too?

Guest:

Michael Chill, dog trainer, behavior specialist