A 23andMe genetic testing kit
; Credit: Pelle Sten

At-home genetic testing is about to get a little more difficult if the Food and Drug Administration has its way. The FDA issued a warning letter this week to the company 23andMe, a genetic test maker, to stop sales of its DNA testing kits consumers can order through the mail.

23andMe says its product can tell consumers if they’re at risk for more than 250 diseases and health conditions. For instance, the company says its kits are able to identify the BRCA gene mutation in women that significantly increases the risk of breast and ovarian cancer.

The company has been around for more than five years, but the FDA says 23andMe has failed to prove its testing kits to be safe or effective, even after numerous meetings and letters back and forth with the company.

In the warning letter, the FDA said it’s concerned about the public safety risk of inaccurate tests that could lead consumers to seek out unnecessary medical care and procedures.

23andMe has 15 days to respond to the FDA letter.

Should the FDA have halted the sale of 23andMe’s testing kits or is the move an act of unnecessary regulation? Have you ever used one of these kits? Did you find it to be accurate or helpful?

Guests:
Dr. Maren Scheuner, a clinical geneticist and associate professor at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

Nita Farahany, a bioethicist and professor of genome sciences and policy at Duke University

Arthur Caplan, professor of Medical Ethics at New York University Langone Medical Center

Pope Francis blesses the crowd during his general audience at St Peter's square on November 27, 2013 at the Vatican.; Credit: VINCENZO PINTO/AFP/Getty Images

Pope Francis continues to surprise Catholics and non-Catholics alike with his frank and unconventional ways. On Tuesday, the Pope released his theological manifesto, criticizing the “tyranny” of unchecked capitalism and calling for big changes in the Roman Catholic Church.

The document, known as Evangelii Gaudium in Latin, or The Joy of the Gospel, brings together much of what the Pope has been preaching and practicing over the last eight months of his papacy. It urges the church to end its obsession with culture war issues and move away from a focus on doctrine, towards one of joyful welcome in a bid to draw in the world’s 1.5 billion believers.

In the statement, the Pope denounced the global financial system “where the powerful feed upon the powerless” and reminded everyone “that the rich must help, respect and promote the poor.”

He also decried the church’s “obsession” with rules saying, “Some of these customs may be beautiful, but they no longer serve as means of communicating the Gospel. We should not be afraid to re-examine them. At the same time, the Church has rules or precepts which may have been quite effective in their time, but no longer have the same usefulness for directing and shaping people’s lives.”

Mostly, the document, which is the first written entirely by Pope Francis, argues that the Catholic church shouldn’t be afraid to get its hands dirty as it offers solace and mercy to society’s outcasts. Francis didn't mention specific reforms, but suggested the possibility of changes at the very top of the church.

How radical is this manifesto? How likely is it to lead to actual change in the church?

Guests:

Juan Martinez, PhD, Vice Provost at Fuller Theological Seminary

Jeff Dietrich, writer for the Catholic Agitator and advocate with LA Catholic Worker, an activist organization that feeds, shelters, clothes, and seeks justice for the homeless

A study found that Americans ages 65 and older reported being less tired than those ages 15 to 24.

Those who fear aging might find some inspiration from a new study out of the London School of Economics and Political Science. After analyzing data from 13,000 respondents, researchers found that Americans ages 65 and older reported being less tired than those ages 15 to 24.

The data for “More Years, Less Yawns” included study participants’ self-reported diary entries of a day’s activities along with tiredness levels for those activities. After controlling for gender, ethnicity, number of children, number of active hours, and the number of hours slept, the study’s authors still found that tiredness decreases with age. In other words, grandma’s energy can’t be explained by her sleeping more or doing less than you did.

The conclusion contradicts the popular notion that older folks are more frail and tired than their younger counterparts. Are you surprised by the study’s findings? What do you think explains the results of “More Years, Less Yawns”? Have you yourself experienced an increase in energy as you’ve moved on in your years?

26th May 1964: American film stars Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Taylor who were married in 1939 and divorced twelve years later at a press party to mark the start of production of their new film 'The Night Walker'. ; Credit: Keystone/Getty Images

She made eighty-eight movies in a career that spanned four decades and worked with some of Hollywood's most esteemed filmmakers: Cecil B. DeMille, Preston Sturges, King Vidor. Director Frank Capra called her the "greatest emotional actress the screen has yet know."

In "A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940," biographer Victoria Wilson gives readers a full-scale look into the life of the screen actress starting from her formative years growing up in Brooklyn to her storybook marriage to leading man Robert Taylor, to her maturation as a silver screen legend.

Guest:
Victoria Wilson, author of “A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940” (Simon & Schuster, 2013) and a vice president and senior editor at Knopf

Earlier this week, the Obama administration proposed a rule to limit the financial role non-profit, tax exempt organizations can play in political campaigns.; Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

The Obama administration this week unveiled a proposed rule that would limit the role tax-exempt, nonprofit groups play in politics and election campaigns. Under the proposed rule, “social welfare” groups like Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS and the pro-Obama outfit Priorities USA, which enjoy certain tax benefits under the 501(c)(4) designation but could raise millions of dollars for election campaigns, would be kept from engaging in political activities like running ads, registering voters or distributing campaign literature.

Currently, such social welfare groups are allowed to engage in some side political work. A long comment period awaits this newly proposed Treasury Department regulation and it won’t likely be finalized until after the 2014 elections.

Guests:
Jessica Levinson, Professor of Law at Loyola Law School. Her research focuses on election law and governance issues

Brad Smith, Professor of Law at the Capital University Law School in Ohio, and Chairman and Founder of the Center for Competitive Politics, a nonprofit organization dedicated solely to protecting First Amendment political rights

Director Michael Polish (L) talks with actor Jason Statham as they arrive at the Las Vegas premiere of Open Road Films'"Homefront" at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino on November 20, 2013 in Las Vegas, Nevada. ; Credit: Sam Morris/Getty Images

Larry is joined by KPCC critics Henry Sheehan and Peter Rainer to discuss this week’s releases, including Homefront, Oldboy, Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom and more! TGI-FilmWeek!

Homefront

Oldboy

Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom

Guests:

Henry Sheehan, film critic for KPCC and CriticsAGoGo.com

Peter Rainer, film critic for KPCC and the Christian Science Monitor; author of “Rainer on Film: Thirty Years of Film Writing in a Turbulent and Transformative Era”

Black Friday shoppers carry out a flat screen tv, seen here on Thursday November 28, 2013, at a Best Buy. More than a dozen US retailers opened their doors to shoppers one day ahead of the famed-Black Friday shopping day.; Credit: PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images

Wal-Mart, Macy’s, and Best Buy were just some of the retailers that decided to open their doors on Thanksgiving and deal-conscious shoppers apparently responded overwhelmingly. Wal-Mart said that its stores rang up more than 10 million transactions yesterday, and Target reported that its Thanksgiving figures were among the best single-day sales it has seen all year.

But Black Thursday hasn’t dampened consumer’s enthusiasm for Black Friday. There was the usual chaos and anticipation, and NBC reports that one fight had broken out last night in the parking lot of a Wal-Mart in San Bernardino County between irate shoppers.

How was your Thanksgiving? Did you feel like your Thanksgiving was under assault, even if you didn’t partake in Black Thursday?

Guest:
Sanden Totten, KPCC Reporter joins us from the Americana in Glendale

Diane Francis' "Merger of the Century: Why Canada and America Should Become One Country"

America has had it rough over the past decade. The nation is over $17 trillion in debt, the middle class is shrinking, and the country’s dysfunctional political system is getting in the way of solving the myriad of economic crises at hand. What’s a country to do? Merge, says geopolitics expert and author Diane Francis.

In her new book Merger of the Century: Why Canada and America Should Become One Country, Francis argues that both the U.S. and Canada have a lot to gain from joining forces. America would have access to the vast natural resources to the north, including land, water, oil, and gas -- something that would greatly help in paying down the nation’s debt.

Canada in turn would be able to draw upon the U.S.’s immense military, capital, and workforce. Together, the two countries would have an economy larger than that of the European Union, or of the economies of Japan, China, Germany, and France combined.

While Francis recognizes that an official merger might be a pipe dream, she points out that change of some kind needs to happen soon. At their current trajectories, both nations stand to lose out to the growing superpower to the east: China.

Could we be saying “U-S-Eh” anytime soon? Are you convinced by Diana Francis’s economic argument that the U.S. and Canada should merge? If not, would you at least support a joint venture between the two nations?

Guest:
Diane Francis, journalist, broadcaster, entrepreneur, and author of Merger of the Century: Why Canada and America Should Become One Country. She’s also a dual citizen of the U.S. and Canada.

Nursing students check blood pressure during Care Harbor's annual Los Angeles medical clinic at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena on Thursday, Oct. 31.; Credit: Maya Sugarman/KPCC

Thousands of nursing students are turned away from schools each year, not because they’re unqualified, but because there aren’t enough staff members to teach them. According to the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, in 2011 more than 75,000 qualified applicants were turned away from nursing schools across the U.S. The same organization found nearly 1,200 staffing vacancies at 662 nursing schools last year.

Colleges in California are especially feeling the shortage. Cal State Long Beach, Cal State Northridge, CSU Chico and CSU San Marcos all admitted 20 percent or less of applicants this past fall.

Part of the problem is that nurses who are qualified to teach are asked to do more for less money. A faculty nurse earns about $20,000 less than those who do clinical or hospital administration work.

How can we get more qualified nurses to become teachers? How will the healthcare system cope with a shortage of nurses as the system expands from the Affordable Care Act?  

Guests:

 Martin Gallegos, Senior Vice President of Healthcare Policy and Communications at Hospital Association of Southern California

Asma Taha, program director of the nursing program at Cal State University, San Bernardino

circa 1940: A pickpocket at work in New York. How much do you trust your fellow American?; Credit: William Davis/Getty Images

You might try to live by the old adage, "love thy neighbor," but do you trust him? According to a new AP-GfK poll, trust among Americans is waning to record low levels. Now only one-third of Americans think most people can be trusted, down from 50 percent in 1972.

The trend is troubling to social scientists, who say "social trust" helps make a cooperative and productive society. On the other hand, they say mistrust breeds corruption and leads to a less open society.

What's behind our growing mistrust in one another? Can this downward trend be reversed?  How does technology and income inequality factor into this decline?

Guest:
Jennifer Agiesta, Director of Polling for the Associated Press

Link

People taste Mexican cuisine at the sixth annual Mole Fair on October 6, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. ; Credit: John Moore/Getty Images

Street food vs. fine dining: some Mexican chefs argue food critics are biased against high-quality meals in favor of small, humble, places or hole-in-the-wall, street-cart-style fare.

Those are seen as authentic, while higher end Mexican places are dismissed as “inauthentic.”

When you go out for white-tablecloth meals, do you default toward French or Japanese instead of considering Mexican? If you normally pay a buck-fifty for a taco or tamale, would you shell out $15 or $20 if it used top-notch ingredients, organic and local to boot?

Guests:

Ricardo Cervantes, Proprietor, La Monarca Bakery; President of the Taste of Mexico Association - a restaurant association created in 2010 by LA’s top native Mexican restaurateurs. 

Jonathan Gold, Restaurant Critic, Los Angeles Times; Pulitzer Prize winning food writer

California Gov. Jerry Brown speaks during a news conference about the state budget on May 14, 2012 in Los Angeles, California.; Credit: Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images

California's growing surplus could lead to Democrat-on-Democrat budget battle in the coming months. Governor Jerry Brown has made cautious estimates about the state's finances, but the bean-counter-in-chief, Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor, projects year-over-year increases up to a nearly $10-billion surplus by July 2018. Plus he predicts the growth will head into 2020 at least.

Much of the current surplus will go to education spending, and while there are other government-financed programs in need and hard-hit by the recession (child care and welfare, for instance), some argue the extra cash should be saved for leaner years.

What do you want legislators to do? If voters are given a chance to expand California's reserve stash, will they?

Guests:
Mac Taylor, Legislative Analyst, State of California

Chris Hoene, Executive Director, California Budget Project

Autumn Carter, Executive Director, California Common Sense

Denise Spellberg's "Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders"

Of the thousands of books in Thomas Jefferson’s personal library, can any one account for the Founding Father’s seminal ideas about religious freedom and plurality? In her book “Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders,” author Denise Spellberg singles out an English translation of the Muslim holy book acquired by Jefferson more than a decade before he wrote the Declaration of Independence.

Spellberg explores Islam’s role in the American model of religious freedom through the years, focusing on Jefferson’s 18th century notions. At a time when Islam and its adherents were viewed with suspicion by most Americans, Jefferson argued that America needed to make room for Muslim citizens in order for the religious liberty aspect of the American experiment to work.

Centuries later, as Muslims continue to face exclusion and discrimination in America’s post-9/11 era, Spellberg’s work takes a pertinent look back at America’s founding — and Jefferson’s enlightened case for Muslim inclusion within America’s definition of religious freedom.

Did you know that Jefferson had championed Muslim civil rights early on? Do you think Jefferson’s blueprint for religious pluralism is in place today? How do American perceptions of Islam and religious diversity today compare to those in place when the nation was founded?

Guest:

Denise A. Spellberg, author of “Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders”; Associate Professor of History and Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Texas at Austin

What happens to your productivity when the boss is watching?; Credit: Alex Grimm/Bongarts/Getty Images

When the boss is away, the workers will play, as the old saying goes, more or less. But new research out of Harvard Business School finds that productivity is actually increased when workers aren’t being closely monitored by managers.

Ethan Bernstein monitored a Chinese factory and found that when the bosses were watching, employees would do everything by the book to keep a low profile. But when the managers weren’t watching, the workers would use different tricks they had developed to work faster. In one study, using a curtain as a barrier between workers and managers increased productivity by 10 to 15 percent.

How much monitoring of workers is too much? Do you find that your work is more efficient when your boss isn’t hanging around?

Guest:
Ethan Bernstein, Assistant Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior, Harvard Business School; lead researcher of the paper titled “The Transparency Paradox”

A new study finds that gender plays a big role in how the human brain is hard-wired.; Credit: Matt Cardy/Getty Images

According to a new study published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, gender plays a big role in how the brain is hard-wired.

The study, "Sex differences in the structural connectome of the human brain," found that male brains exhibit stronger ties between action and perception, while female brains show more a more robust connection between reasoning and intuition.

The study has a sample size of close to 1,000 adolescents and young adults. The results could contribute to our understanding on how to treat certain neurological disorders like autism or alzheimer’s, which tend to affect one sex more than the other.

Guest:
Ragini Verma, Assistant Professor at the Department of Radiology at the University of Pennsylvania and the lead author of the study.

USC's former interim head coach Ed Orgeron. Orgeron left the school after Steve Sarkisian was offered the head coaching job following Saturday's loss to UCLA. ; Credit: Stephen Dunn/Getty Images

One thing that’s certain is that college sports are never lacking in drama. USC's announcement Monday that Washington Huskies coach Steve Sarkisian was hired to lead the school's beloved football team was met with shock for some, and with lukewarm excitement for others.

Interim coach Ed Orgeron had done a stand-out job as coach of the team, despite the team's loss to UCLA on Saturday, and many team members hoped he'd be given a shot at the big job. Orgeron abruptly quit when Sarkisian's hire was announced in the hunt for a head coaching job elsewhere.

What's behind the choice of Sarkisian? If the team would have won against UCLA on Saturday, would Orgeron have the job? How does Sarkisian's ties to USC factor into his hire? What obstacles and challenges does he face stepping into the current climate at USC's locker room?

Guest:
Gary Klein, USC Football beat writer for the L.A. Times

Andrew Zimbalist, Professor of Economics at Smith College and one of the country's top sports economists

Today the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in Northwest Airlines vs. Ginsburg; Credit: Win McNamee/Getty Images

Can an airline boot you from its frequent flyer program for complaining too much? What sort of rights do frequent flyers have when it comes to disputes about club membership? These questions are before the Supreme Court today, as it hears the case of a Minnesota Rabbi who sued Northwest Airlines for terminating his frequent flyer status and confiscating his miles.

Rabbi S. Binyomin Ginsberg was a frequent Northwest passenger with top Platinum Elite Status and 75 flights per year. According to Northwest, in just 8 months, Ginsberg registered 24 complaints—concerning things like late luggage and long delays on the tarmac. At first, Northwest offered the disgruntled customer travel vouchers and bonus miles, but then they removed him from the program, claiming he’d abused his frequent flyer status. Ginsberg is suing the airline for $5 million, saying his removal was a breach of good faith.

Northwest, which has become part of Delta Airlines, argues that it did not violate its contract and that Ginsberg’s case is invalid under the 1978 Airline Deregulation Act, which prohibits any lawsuits regarding the “price, route, or service of an air carrier.”

Now the Court will address the validity of Ginsberg’s suit and the contractual responsibilities of the airline when it comes to miles programs.

Have you ever been penalized for complaining? What justifies an airline dropping a frequent flyer? What rights should frequent flyers have?

Guests:

Lisa McElroy, Associate Professor of Law, Earle Mack School of Law, Drexel University; Visiting Associate Professor , University of Denver’s Sturm College of Law

Jamie Court, President, Consumer Watchdog; Author of "Corporateering: How Corporations Steal Your Personal Freedom… And What You Can Do About It"

A copy of former President George Washington's personal copy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. ; Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

Fights in the U.S. Senate over filibusters exploded into the nuclear option last month - when Democrats voted to change the threshold for passing political appointments from 60 votes to a simple majority. It was only the latest dispute in a hundreds-year old debate over the power and composition of the Senate.

Political pundits on both sides of the aisle argue Congress is broken, but some go further blaming the U.S. Constitution for Congress' failures. In the latest "New Yorker," legal writer Jeffrey Toobin speaks with conservatives and liberals about how the country's founders envisioned the structure of our government.

"This [the Senate] has never been a democracy," Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) told Toobin. "This is a representative republic with heightened democratic principles." That is one interpretation of many, which prompts the question of whether the Constitution is clear in its guidance on how best to run this country.

Does the current Senate serve its original role? If not, is debating the Constitution even an option?

Guest:
Jeffrey Toobin, a staff writer for The New Yorker and author of many books, including “The Oath: The Obama White House and The Supreme Court” (Anchor, 2013)

Edward Humes' "A Man and His Mountain: The Everyman Who Created Kendall Jackson and Became America's Greatest Wine Entrepreneur"

Before Jess Jackson became the billionaire who transformed the landscape of California wine production, he was a police officer. And a prosecutor. And a real-estate lawyer. “A Man and His Mountain” delves into the life of Jackson and his quest to make Americans appreciate good wine.

From his first vineyard in Lakeport, California to the creation of Kendall-Jackson, one of the biggest brands of premium wines in the US, author Edward Humes explores the innovative, and initially derided decisions of the man he describes as this country’s greatest wine entrepreneur.

Guest:
Edward Humes, author, “A Man and His Mountain”

What's your favorite fancy word?; Credit: Hugh Pinney/Getty Images

It’s a well-known fact that most magazines and newspapers, including The New York Times, the so-called “Paper of Record,” is written to a 9th or 10th grade level. This preference for simpler words applies to radio writing as well.

But as Mark Bowden wrote in this month’s Atlantic, there’s a certain undeniable joy in reading and using words that aren’t in everyday currency. Wordsmiths don’t amass a wealth of vocabularies for browbeating, they do it because these impressive words give them a more complex understanding of the world.

What is your favorite fancy word? What has our culture of instantaneous communication done to our diction? When we lose our love for words and language, what else do we lose?

Guests:

Geoff Nunberg, a linguist and an adjunct professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information

Stephen Dodson, a blogger who runs the Language Hat blog www.languagehat.com and a copy editor in Massachusetts