The demand for family caregivers for adults who are 65 or older is increasing significantly, and family caregivers need more recognition, information, and support to fulfill their responsibilities and maintain their own health, financial security, and well-being, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Despite broad understanding of volcanoes, our ability to predict the timing, duration, type, size, and consequences of volcanic eruptions is limited, says a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Cognitive training, blood pressure management for people with hypertension, and increased physical activity all show modest but inconclusive evidence that they can help prevent cognitive decline and dementia, but there is insufficient evidence to support a public health campaign encouraging their adoption, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine proposes a strategy that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should use to evaluate the evidence of adverse human health effects from low doses of exposure to chemicals that can disrupt the endocrine system.

Although the process used to develop the Dietary Guidelines for Americans (DGA) has become more evidence-based since its inception more than 30 years ago, it is not currently positioned to effectively adapt to changes such as food diversity and chronic disease prevalence, while also ensuring the integrity of the process, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) should lead a collaborative effort with the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the states to establish and strengthen regional occupational safety and health surveillance programs, says a new report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

While the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) provides mental health care of comparable or superior quality to care provided in private and non-VA public sectors, accessibility and quality of services vary across the VA health system, leaving a substantial unmet need for mental health services among veterans of the recent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The current process for planetary protection policy development is inadequate to respond to increasingly complex solar system exploration missions, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine examines evidence on whether providing permanent supportive housing (PSH) – a combination of stable housing and supportive services -- to individuals who are experiencing homelessness improves their health.

Recent gains against the burden of illness, injury, and disability and commitment to universal health coverage (UHC) are insufficient to close the enormous gaps that remain between what is achievable in human health and where global health stands today, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

To ensure that U.S. agricultural policies are well-informed, data collection programs must be periodically revisited to reflect current realities of the agricultural sector, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Scientific research that involves nonscientists contributing to research processes – also known as ‘citizen science’ – supports participants’ learning, engages the public in science, contributes to community scientific literacy, and can serve as a valuable tool to facilitate larger scale research, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Over the next several decades as the global population grows, society will be faced with pressing challenges such as providing reliable supplies of food and water, diminishing climate change and adapting to its impacts, and building healthy, resilient cities.

Renewed interest in exploration of the moon has the potential to benefit lunar science greatly and could evolve into a program facilitated by partnerships between commercial companies and NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD), say companion reports by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommends changes in the way that the U.S. Department of Energy manages science and technology (S&T) development in order to accelerate the cleanup of radioactive waste and contaminated soil, groundwater, and facilities at U.S. nuclear weapons sites.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine reviews current evidence and updates intake recommendations known as the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs) for sodium and potassium that were established in 2005.

Current evidence supports the classification of the contemporary red wolf as a distinct species of wolf, although additional genomic evidence from historic wolf specimens could change that assessment, says Evaluating the Taxonomic Status of the Mexican Gray Wolf and the Red Wolf, a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The supercritical water oxidation (SCWO) system is a secondary waste processing reactor of the Blue Grass Chemical Agent Destruction Pilot Plant (BGCAPP). It is perhaps second in importance behind the agent neutralization reactors, which perform base hydrolysis of chemical warfare agents stored at the Blue Grass Army Depot.

The U.S. Department of Defense’s Military Family Readiness System (MFRS) — a network of agencies, programs, services, and individuals that promotes the well-being and quality of life of military service members and their families — lacks a comprehensive, coordinated framework to support well-being, resilience, and readiness, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

The lack of supportive policies for families in the United States, such as paid parental leave, has serious implications for health equity, as it affects families’ overall health and financial stability, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine – which reviews a separate report by a federally funded laboratory that examines options for treating low-activity radioactive waste at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation -- is available for public comment until Oct. 31.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommends ways to make supply chains -- the systems that provide populations with critical goods and services, such as food and water, gasoline, and pharmaceuticals and medical supplies – more resilient in the face of hurricanes and other disasters, drawing upon lessons learned from the 2017 hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria.

Rwanda’s Human Resources for Health (HRH) Program – funded in part by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) from 2012 to 2017 – more than tripled the country’s physician specialist workforce and produced major increases in the numbers and qualifications of nurses and midwives, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Engineering is emerging as an important topic in K-12 education in the U.S., and is being incorporated into education standards, instructional materials, and assessments.

In light of the present situation in the U.S., we believe that it is essential to explore a wide range of options for treating the increasing numbers of very ill patients with COVID-19 respiratory illness.

It is critical for the U.S. to continue its funding for the World Health Organization in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic given the WHO’s lead role in coordinating an international response, especially in developing countries.

Exide begins to remove lead-polluted soil on Monday morning at a house on the 1200 block of La Puerta Street in Boyle Heights.; Credit: Maya Sugarman/KPCC

All five members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors have signed a letter imploring California Gov. Jerry Brown to intervene in the state’s handling of contamination around the Exide Technologies plant in Vernon.

The letter criticizing the state’s “piecemeal approach to an urgent environmental hazard” comes as workers paid for by Exide are removing lead-contaminated topsoil from two homes near the intersection of Olympic and Indiana avenues in L.A. 

Signed Tuesday, the letter asks for “guaranteed state funding to immediately begin testing” at 37 more homes also sampled, but to less specific degrees, during November 2013. In the words of the board, “further testing and remediation of the other 37 homes has not been confirmed and may not begin until at least October 2014 because Exide has not yet agreed to comply with DTSC directives issued last March.”

The supervisors also say the state has “reneged” on its commitments to test for lead inside the homes as well as outside.

The Department of Toxic Substances Control says that the two homes workers are at this week will be cleaned inside and out — even without indoor testing.  The DTSC’s Rizgar Ghazi said Monday that crews will use HEPA filters, vacuums and shampooing equipment on “basically any flat surface” inside the two residences.

Read the L.A. Board of Supervisors’ letter to Gov. Brown here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/236655733/LA-County-Supervisors-Letter-to-Gov-Brown-8-12-14

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

File: Western monarch butterfly in Huntington Beach; Credit: Courtesy of Huntington Beach Tree Society

A group of conservation organizations teamed up with a leading monarch butterfly scientist on Tuesday to petition for protection of the monarch butterfly under the Endangered Species Act.

The monarch butterfly is one of the most iconic butterfly species in the country. But according to conservation group the Xerces Society, the monarch butterfly population is in trouble.

“Many scientists estimate that there are about 33 million monarchs. And just for comparison, in the past, researchers have estimated more than 1 billion monarchs,” said Sarina Jepsen, who directs the Endangered Species Program for the Xerces Society.

That’s a decline of about 90 percent in just fewer than 20 years, Jepsen said.

The main culprit in the monarch’s decline is the weed killer Roundup, Jepsen said. Most monarch caterpillars breed in the Midwest, and feed off of milkweed. While Roundup doesn’t kill genetically modified crops like soy and corn, it does kill milkweed.

“So, milkweed growing in a large agricultural landscape has largely disappeared in the last decade-and-a-half to two decades,” said Jepsen.

Other contributing factors include climate change and a general loss of habitat, Jepsen said. California’s drought might also play a role.

“There’s a real strong relationship between drought severity and the number of monarchs that we see in the winter on the California coast,” said Jepsen. “In years when droughts are worse, there are fewer monarchs.”

Thousands of the butterflies gather on California’s coast each winter. Spots locally includeLeo Carrillo Beach in Malibu and Doheny Beach in Dana Point, though the Xerces Society has observed a large decline in the butterflies at these locations in the last several decades.

More on the drought’s effect on the monarch population will be known around Thanksgiving, when a group of so-called "citizen scientists" with the Xerces Society perform an annual count of the monarchs.

Along with the Xerces Society, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Center for Food and Safety and leading monarch butterfly scientist Dr. Lincoln Brower filed the petition.

The Fish and Wildlife Service has 90 days to decide whether to go forward with a further review to potentially classify the monarch butterfly as threatened or endangered. 

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

The Critical Investor discusses recent developments at the company that is exploring the Goliath Gold Project in Ontario.

Visit the aureport.com for more information and for a free newsletter

Technical analyst Clive Maund charts the markets and discusses what he believes is ahead for stocks, the dollar and commodities.

Visit the aureport.com for more information and for a free newsletter

A woman passes a closed Social Security Administration office in Los Angeles in 2013. Some 53,000 of the agency's workers are now working from home.; Credit: Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

The coronavirus pandemic has forced many people to work from home, and that includes employees of the federal government. The numbers vary by agency, but at the Social Security Administration, some 53,000 workers are doing so.

Social Security field offices are closed. But the shutdown hasn't stopped the agency from processing claims for new benefits and appeals of benefit denials. And according to statistics that the SSA sent its workers, the agency has been doing so at a faster pace than before.

"Telework is proving a great boon to the service Social Security provides to the American people," says Ralph deJuliis, who works at the SSA's office in Tulsa, Okla. "We are getting the checks to people faster and quicker."

DeJuliis is president of the American Federation of Government Employees Council 220, which represents many Social Security workers. And he says he hopes the SSA will continue allowing employees to work from home.

Telework, he says, is "good for the employees, good for the public. We've got the work done. We kept the public out of harm's way because, let's face it, we deal with mostly people who are old or disabled. They are at the highest risk."

According to deJuliis, the SSA has found that its backlog of pending cases has fallen by 11% since March 23, when the agency instituted wide-scale telework, and that calls from recipients are answered more quickly.

Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, says it's not surprising that productivity is up.

"Actually, there are studies that have been done, including studies in government agencies — small-scale studies, to be sure — but they have shown that productivity does rise when people get to work from home," she says.

Jeff Neal, a former head of human resources at the Department of Homeland Security, says it's not surprising that people become more productive when they work from home.

"The really good workers might be sitting there at their home desk, wherever that is," he says. "And they're supposed to stop at 5 o'clock, and they look at their watch or their computer and they realize it's 7 o'clock and they've still been working, because they get into things and they start getting stuff done and they just keep on going."

It's unclear how many federal workers across the government are teleworking. According to the most recent statistics, from two years ago, 42% of the some 2.1 million government employees were eligible to telework, although only about half of those were in fact working from home.

The Trump administration had been hostile to teleworking, Neal says, because in its view it sees it as a benefit to federal workers. But Neal says it's also a benefit to taxpayers.

"If people view it as what it really is, which is something that is in the interest of the federal government to have, then they would continue it because it helps them hire. It helps them retain people," he says. "And most importantly, it helps them remain operational during a national emergency. So it's a very good thing."

And Sawhill at Brookings says she expects teleworking will continue to increase both in government and the private sector after the coronavirus crisis ends.

"This experience has showed us that we can get work done at home and that we can meet people's needs, the public's needs, by doing so," she says. "That doesn't mean there aren't lots of downsides. But overall, I think this is a trend that is going to accelerate sharply as a result of this recent experience."

The federal government has not given any guidance as to when it expects all federal workers to return to their offices.

The SSA issued a statement saying it continues to monitor the COVID-19 situation across the nation, promising that when it does reopen offices, it will provide a safe environment for the people it serves and its employees.

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

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, seen in February, has been released from the hospital after treatment for a gallbladder condition.; Credit: Patrick Semansky/AP

After being treated on Tuesday for a gallbladder infection at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was discharged on Wednesday.

"She is doing well and glad to be home," according to a Supreme Court press release.

The court said over the next few weeks Ginsburg will return to Johns Hopkins Hospital for follow-up outpatient visits, and for a nonsurgical procedure to remove the gallstone.

Ginsburg, 87, participated in a virtual Supreme Court hearing on Wednesday from her hospital room. The justices and lawyers held unique oral argument sessions by phone all week because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Last year Ginsburg underwent three weeks of radiation for a cancerous tumor on her pancreas, and in December she was operated on for lung cancer.

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

The Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to block Congress from seeking the materials, saying, "The government will suffer irreparable harm absent a stay."; Credit: Andrew Harnik/AP

The Supreme Court has temporarily put on hold the release of redacted grand jury material from the Russia investigation to a House panel.

The Trump administration is trying to block the release.

Last October, a district court judge ruled the Justice Department had to turn over the materials, which were blacked out, from former special counsel Robert Mueller's report into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

An appeals court upheld the decision, but the Trump administration, hoping to keep the evidence secret, appealed to the Supreme Court.

Chief Justice John Roberts' order temporarily stops the process. Lawyers for the House Judiciary Committee have until May 18 to file their response to the Justice Department's attempts to keep the materials from the House panel.

The Justice Department had until Monday to turn over the material following the appeals court order. But on Thursday, the Trump administration asked the Supreme Court to block Congress from seeking it, saying, "The government will suffer irreparable harm absent a stay."

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

Director Michael Apted (L) with Larry Mantle in the AirTalk studio.

This past Wednesday on "AirTalk," film director Michael Apted came in to talk with us about his eighth documentary in the series that's followed the lives of 13 people, beginning in 1964 when the kids were seven.  They've shared their stories with Apted every seven years, and he's clearly invested a lot of emotion into this project.

"56 Up" is wonderful for how it shows the mid-life evolution of the participants.  Apted includes scenes from earlier interviews, so that we see what aspects of today's 56-year-olds were present in childhood and what turns their lives have made over these years. 

"56 Up" is showing at the Nuart in West Los Angeles, and Apted will be doing Q-and-A at some of the screenings.

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

Pictured: Larry broadcasting AirTalk from the Mantle household for the first time last Friday.; Credit: Larry Mantle/KPCC

Dear KPCC Listener,

I hope you and your family are staying safe and healthy during this pandemic. We’re doing well at the Mantle house, but with Kristen and our son Desmond working and studying at home, we’re experiencing some of the same daily logistical challenges you likely are. With that in mind, I’d like to update you on the dramatic changes that have occurred with AirTalk during this time of COVID-19.

Every day a noted medical expert is joining us to answer listener questions. It’s allowed us to stay on the cutting edge of COVID-19 and public health developments.

We’re also continuing to convene the largest conversation anywhere in Southern California, but with a new focus. Each day listeners are describing how they’re dealing with the coronavirus, whether staying at home or providing essential services to our community. We’ve heard from students studying online, truck drivers looking for open restrooms on the highway, restaurant owners and employees wondering when, or if, they’ll be able to reopen, and listeners living in their cars seeking a hotel room or shower. In 35 years of hosting AirTalk, I’ve never experienced a time of greater importance for bringing Angelenos together. It’s vital that we talk with - and hear from - each other as we meet this experience together.

This wasn’t how I’d anticipated the 35th anniversary month of AirTalk, but I’m deeply appreciative of the work our dedicated producers are doing while they work from home. A prime example came last week when a hospital emergency forced our physician guest to cancel shortly before airtime. Our producers leapt to action, quickly finding noted infectious disease specialist Dr. Peter Chin-Hong to step right in.

When we finished the live segment, I thanked Dr. Chin-Hong for dropping his important work at UCSF Medical Center to join us. He replied that it’s always a pleasure to speak to one of his favorite audiences.

I couldn’t agree more. KPCC listeners are deeply devoted, not just to their favorite programs, but to the irreplaceable mission of KPCC. We’ll do everything we can during this difficult time to serve that mission – by serving you. Thank you for giving us that opportunity.

Sincerely,
Larry Mantle
Host, AirTalk

P.S. KPCC has always been funded by listeners, and member support is truly critical at this time. With recent substantial losses of sponsor support related to the pandemic, every donation makes a tremendous impact for this vital public service. If you can, please make a gift today to sustain the journalism you and your community needs.

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

Actors Benedict Cumberbatch and Sophie Hunter arrive at the 26th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival Film Festival Awards Gala at Palm Springs Convention Center on January 3, 2015 in Palm Springs, California.; Credit: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

The 26th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival opened this weekend, distinguished by robust audience turnouts, megawatt celebrity visitations and constant reminders of the unique space PSIFF occupies and the specialized services it provides to Hollywood.

Falling as it does just before Sundance and just after the Golden Globes nominations, Palm Springs is as much a part of the awards season calendar as it is the festival circuit. Big ticket screenings are presented with all the photo op pomp that would greet a major world premiere at, say, the Los Angeles Film Festival, but in many cases this is to build buzz for (or to re-energize) films that are already in theaters.

At Sundance or Tribeca, the suspense is usually about whether the films in competition will get good reviews and/or find distribution. At Palm Springs, especially on opening weekend, it's more about whether you'll run into Brad Pitt in the guest and industry suite at the Renaissance Hotel.

At the PSIFF awards gala, Golden Globe nominee Reese Witherspoon took home the oddly gender specific Chairman's Award for her performance in "Wild."

J.K. Simmons received something called a Spotlight Award for his superb turn as the menacing music instructor in "Whiplash."

David Oyelowo grabbed the "Breakthrough Performance Award (Male)" for depicting Martin Luther King Jr. in "Selma." Brad Pitt's sing-along presentation of Oyelowo's award became the meme for much of the post-event press coverage.

Sing-a-long with Brad Pitt

Rosamund Pike got the "Breakthrough Performance Award (Female)" for "Gone Girl."

Michael Keaton presented the Director of the Year award to his "Birdman" collaborator Alejandro G. Iñárritu.

And the Palm Spring Convention Center stage was home to two young British heartthrobs who are in Oscar contention this year for period biopics about scientific genius: Eddie Redmayne, who grabbed the Desert Palm Achievement Award (Male) for portraying ALS sufferer Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything," and Benedict Cumberbatch, who split glory with the cast of the Alan Turing biography "The Imitation Game" as co-winner of the Ensemble Performance Award.

The Desert Palm Achievement Award (Female) went to Julianne Moore in the Alzheimer's drama "Still Alice."

Every single one of the movies honored is in theaters now, almost all of them in the midst of slowly expanding release patterns as they mount their long slow march toward the Academy Awards.

The generous "one award per movie" policy and the care with which PSIFF avoids alienating celebrity affections by giving out trophies with such blunt and unequivocal titles as "Best Actress" or "Best Actor" mark the PSIFF awards gala as a psuedo-event: a kind of open-armed Hollywood team huddle before things get grim and serious with the Oscar announcements at the end of the month.

Even an Oscar-worthy oddity like Richard Linklater's "Boyhood" managed to find a place in the parade, with Linklater, who directed Shirley MacLaine in the 2010 black comedy "Bernie," presenting the 80-year-old actress with the Sonny Bono Visionary Award, essentially for career achievement.

Meanwhile, the festival's generous supply of indie, studio and foreign movies churned away in various local movie theaters, a really quite remarkable cluster of buzzworthy pictures, almost all of which have played elsewhere, including at Sundance and Toronto and Tribeca, and in many cases at your local multiplex.

This programming approach can be a double-edged sword. Director Ava DuVernay, whose civil rights-era epic "Selma" opened the festival, was unable to stay for her full run of Palm Springs personal appearances because her movie has been out long enough to spark a rather bitter controversy over its depiction of President Lyndon Johnson. DuVernay abandoned a Palm Springs Q and A in order to defend her film on Charlie Rose. 

While some audience members were bitterly disappointed at missing the chance to hear one of this year's golden ones, I'm sure the PSIFF Board of Governors understood completely. This time of year, you have to play the long game, and, in the words of the civil rights anthem, "keep your eyes on the prize."

Off-Ramp contributor R.H. Greene, former editor of Boxoffice Magazine, is in Palm Spring this week to cover the 26th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival. Look for his missives here, and listen Saturday to Off-Ramp for his report on the festival.

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

Actors Carla Gugino, Matthew Lillard and Sir Patrick Stewart pose at the "Match" screening during the Palm Springs International Film Festival on January 3, 2015 in Palm Springs, California. ; Credit: Chelsea Lauren/Getty Images for PSIFF

Is there a happier star in Hollywood than Patrick Stewart?

Certainly no one seems to be having more fun than the onetime Star Trek captain and current (and seemingly permanent) X-Man. And why shouldn't Sir Patrick be pleased with himself? He really has got it all: a thriving stage profile in both New York and London, the unconditional love of a vast and loyal fan base, and a film career that oscillates freely between franchise blockbusters and the small, character-driven chamber pieces Stewart so clearly relishes.

"Match" is about as small a movie as Stewart has ever appeared in: a well-intentioned three-character film studded with very funny dialogue courtesy of writer/director Stephen Belber, upon whose play "Match" is based.

Stewart plays an aging gay dance instructor named Tobi Powell, who may or may not have sired a child back in the swinging 60s – an era movies now take to have been 10 years of uninterrupted orgy punctuated by Beatles records and gunshots aimed at the Kennedy brothers.

As the saying goes, "If you can remember the '60s, you weren't there." Stewart's Tobi Powell was vibrantly there at the time, so it's perhaps natural that he can't seem to recall whether or not one of his rare couplings with a female partner might have had some unintended consequences.

Mincing slightly and speaking in an accent that sounds Midwestern by way of Wales, Stewart is an absolute blast to watch. His genuine (and usually underutilized) flair for comedy is roguishly on display, allowing "Match" to shift between pathos and farce with an assurance born more of the performer's bravado than the emotional contours of Belber's somewhat overeager text.

Though allegedly a bit of a shut-in, Tobi is a minor masterpiece of a lost and exuberant art form: the exaggerated star turn. It's unsurprising Frank Langella got a Tony nomination for playing him on Broadway a decade ago, and at least a bit unexpected that Stewart has gone completely unnoticed this awards season, even by the nomination-happy Golden Globes.

Belber's best writing is mostly his comedic stuff. One aria comparing cunnilingus to knitting may just be the best scene of its type since Meg Ryan faked an orgasm in "When Harry Met Sally" a quarter century ago.

Solid and believable supporting turns from Carla Gugino and Matthew Lillard add to the fun until Belber's script bogs down in the third act into the kind of paint-by-numbers epiphany shtick even TV has given up on at this point.

WATCH: The official trailer for "Match," starring Patrick Stewart

Everybody cries. Everybody changes. Everybody yawns.  Or I did anyway.

Still, go see this movie — or better yet, watch it on your phone, since it's shot almost entirely in close up — to see a grand and gracefully aging actor strut his stuff with contagious delight. You will definitely laugh, and, God, does this movie hope you'll also cry.

But if you do weep, don't be surprised if, like Tobi himself, you hate yourself in the morning.

Off-Ramp contributor R. H. Greene is covering the 26th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival, where he recently saw the new comedy "Match" starring Patrick Stewart. "Match" comes to theaters and video-on-demand on Jan. 14.

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

I got the word this week from The Crest of Westwood that they'll be streaming coverage of the Golden Globes at The Crest on Sunday.

It's free and open to the public; doors open at 4:30 and the event starts at 5pm.

The Crest's Virginia Chavez writes, "We're encouraging formal attire, but it's not required for entrance."

But Off-Ramp says, "Phooey! Dress up. It's what classy people do." Like this stunning couple:

(Anne Knudsen/LA Public Library Herald-Examiner collection)

The caption of this 1985 photo reads, "David Hasselhoff in a burgundy-and-black striped tuxedo kept pace with wife Catherine Hickland's high fashion style: Ellene Warren's silk shoulder-beaded jacket, silk jacquard pants and matching evening bra. Hasselhoff and Hickland attended the Emmy Awards at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

There's such a thing as an "evening bra?" I don't think so.

The Crest - 1262 Westwood Blvd. LA, CA 90024 - (323) 553 - 3500

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

Police and lifeguards patrol as people walk on the beach south of Newport Pier on May 3, 2020 in Newport Beach, California. ; Credit: Michael Heiman/Getty Images

After the cities of San Clemente and Laguna Beach were given the OK by state officials on Monday to reopen beaches with limited conditions, the California Natural Resources Agency gave Dana Point, Seal Beach and Huntington Beach the green light on Tuesday after approving the plans they submitted for safe reopening.

The plans vary as far as when the beach can be used, but the common thread through each is that leisure activities like sunbathing or large gatherings of people would not be allowed, and that beachgoers will be required to remain active while on the sand. 

The news comes as Orange County Supervisors voted 3-2 on Tuesday to submit a plan to submit to Sacramento that would create a set of uniform rules for reopening beaches countywide. Supervisor Lisa Bartlett spearheaded the proposal, which received pushback from Supervisors Don Wagner and Michelle Steel who argue that after being singled out by Governor Gavin Newsom last week when he ordered a “hard close” on all state and local beaches in Orange County, taking issue with the idea of the county bowing to pressure from the state.

Today on AirTalk, we’ll check back in with Supervisor Bartlett, who joined us Monday on AirTalk, to find out more about the specifics of the county’s plan to reopen its beaches.

Guest:

Lisa Bartlett, Orange County Supervisor representing the Fifth County District, which encompasses South County cities like Aliso Viejo, San Clemente, Laguna Beach, Dana Point and more; she tweets @OCSupBartlett

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

The engineered Dominguez Gap Wetlands in Long Beach filters stormwater and runoff from the Los Angeles River, then the water is siphoned under the river to a spreading ground to the west.; Credit: Sharon McNary/KPCC

Angelenos are used to looking up Heal the Bay's annual beach water quality report card each May as we search out the cleanest places to swim and surf.

Now, the environmental advocacy group is focusing on a new target — the often polluted water that flows into the ocean from the mountains and across the L.A. Basin.

In a first-ever report, it concludes the managers of 12 watersheds from Malibu to Long Beach are making too little progress toward cleaning up this major source of pollution in the Pacific.

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

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott signed an executive order banning all elective medical procedures, including abortions, during the coronavirus outbreak. The ban extends to medication abortions.; Credit: Eric Gay/AP

Governors across the country are banning elective surgery as a means of halting the spread of the coronavirus. But in a handful of states that ban is being extended to include a ban on all abortions.

So far the courts have intervened to keep most clinics open. The outlier is Texas, where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit this week upheld the governor's abortion ban.

Four years ago, Texas was also the focus of a fierce legal fight that ultimately led to a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in which the justices struck down a Texas law purportedly aimed at protecting women's health. The court ruled the law was medically unnecessary and unconstitutional.

Now Texas is once again the epicenter of the legal fight around abortion. In other states--Ohio, Iowa, Alabama, and Oklahoma--the courts so far have sided with abortion providers and their patients.

Not so in Texas where Gov. Greg Abbott signed an executive order barring all "non-essential" medical procedures in the state, including abortion. The executive order was temporarily blocked in the district court, but the Fifth Circuit subsequently upheld the governor's order by a 2-to-1 vote, declaring that "all public constitutional rights may be reasonably restricted to combat a public health emergency."

"No more elective medical procedures can be done in the state because of the potential of needing both people ... beds and supplies, and obviously doctors and nurses," said Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in an interview with NPR.

'Exploiting This Crisis'

Nancy Northrup, CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, sees things very differently. "It is very clear that anti-abortion rights politicians are shamelessly exploiting this crisis to achieve what has been their longstanding ideological goal to ban abortion in the U.S.," she said.

Paxton denies that, saying Texas "is not targeting any particular group."
The state's the "only goal is to protect people from dying," he said.

Yet the American Medical Association just last week filed a brief in this case in support of abortion providers, as did 18 states, led by New York, which is the state that has been the hardest hit by the coronavirus.

They maintain that banning abortion is far more dangerous,because it will force women to travel long distances to get one. A study from the Guttmacher Institute found that people seeking abortions during the COVID-19 outbreak would have to travel up to 20 times farther than normal if states successfully ban abortion care during the pandemic. The AMA also notes that pregnant women do not stop needing medical care if they don't get an abortion.

Northrup, of the Center for Reproductive Rights, sees this as more evidence that the ban is a calculated move by the state: what "puts the lie to this is the fact that they're trying to ban medication, abortion as well; that's the use of pills for abortion.

"Those do not need to take place in a clinic and they can be done, taken effectively by tele-medicine. So it shows that the real goal here, tragically, is shutting down one's right to make the decision to end the pregnancy, not a legitimate public health response."

'I Was Desperate'

Affidavits filed in the Texas case tell of harrowing experiences already happening as the result of the Texas ban. One declaration was filed by a 24-year-old college student. The week she lost her part-time job as a waitress, she found out she was pregnant. She and her partner agreed they wanted to terminate the pregnancy, and on March 20 she went to a clinic in Forth Worth alone; because of social distancing rules, her partner was not allowed to go with her.

Since she was 10 weeks pregnant, still in her first trimester, she was eligible for a medication abortion. Under state law, she had to wait 24 hours before getting the pills at the clinic, but the night before her scheduled appointment, the clinic called to cancel because of Abbott's executive order.

He partner was with her and we "cried together," she wrote in her declaration. "I couldn't risk the possibility that I would run out of time to have an abortion while the outbreak continued," and it "seemed to be getting more and more difficult to travel."

She made many calls to clinics in New Mexico and Oklahoma. The quickest option was Denver--a 12-hour drive, 780-mile drive from where she lives. Her partner was still working, so her best friend agreed to go with her. They packed sanitizing supplies and food in the car for the long drive and arrived at the Denver Clinic on March 26, where she noticed other cars with Texas plates in the parking lot, according to the affidavit.

At the clinic, she was examined, given a sonogram again, and because Colorado does not have a 24-hour waiting requirement, she was given her first abortion pill without delay and told she should try to get home within 30 hours to take the second pill.

She and her friend then turned around to go home. They were terrified she would have the abortion in the car, and tried to drive through without taking breaks. But after six hours, when it turned dark they were so exhausted they had to stop at a motel to catch some sleep. The woman finally got home and took the second pill just within the 30-hour window.

She said that despite the ordeal she was grateful she had the money, the car, the friend, and the supportive partner with a job, to make the abortion possible. Others will not be so lucky, she wrote. But "I was desperate and desperate people take desperate steps to protect themselves."

A 'Narrative' Of Choice

Paxton, the Texas attorney general, does not seem moved by the time limitations that pregnancy imposes, or the hardships of traveling out of state to get an abortion. He told NPR "the narrative has always been 'It's a choice' ... that's the whole narrative. I'm a little surprised by the question, given that's always been the thing."

On Thursday abortion providers and their patients returned to the district court in Texas instead of appealing directly to the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the Fifth Circuit's ruling from earlier this week. The district court judge, who originally blocked the governor's ban, instead narrowed the governor's order so that medical abortions--with pills--would be exempt from the ban, as well as abortions for women who are up against the state-imposed deadline. Abortions in Texas are banned after 22 weeks.

In the end, though, this case may well be headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. And because of the addition of two Trump appointees since 2016--the composition of the court is a lot more hostile to abortion rights.

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

; Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

What does the right to a unanimous jury verdict have to do with abortion, or school prayer, or federal environmental regulations? Stay tuned.

The U.S. Supreme Court Monday struck down state laws in Louisiana and Oregon that allowed people accused of serious crimes to be convicted by a non-unanimous jury vote. The 6-to-3 decision overturned a longstanding prior ruling from 1972, which had upheld such non-unanimous verdicts in state courts.

And these days, any decision to overturn a longstanding precedent rings the alarm bells in the Supreme Court.

In the short run, Monday's decision was a victory for Evangelisto Ramos, who in 2016 was convicted of second-degree murder by a jury vote of 10-to-2 in Louisiana.

Only two states--Louisiana and Oregon--had provisions allowing non-unanimous verdicts, and Louisiana just recently changed its law to be like those in 48 other states and the federal government.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the majority, laid out the history behind the laws in both states. Gorsuch noted that the measure was first added to the Louisiana state constitution in 1898, after the Supreme Court ruled that racial minorities could not be barred from juries; that same year, Louisiana added the non-unanimous jury provision to its state constitution as part of a package of amendments that deliberately made it difficult for black citizens to vote or otherwise participate meaningfully in the state's governance. Specifically, Gorsuch said, the non-unanimous jury provision was a way to ensure that even if one or two African Americans made it on to a jury, their participation would be "meaningless."

The adoption of the non-unanimous jury rule in Oregon, Gorsuch wrote, "can similarly be traced to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and efforts to dilute the influence of racial and ethnic and religious minorities on Oregon juries."

Despite these state provisions, there has never been any dispute that the unanimous jury requirement applies to the federal government. The question in this case was whether that aspect of the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial applied to the states as well.

Over the last 75 years or so, the court has applied just about every other provision of the Bill of Rights to the states, but in 1972 it deviated from that practice, declining to apply the unanimous jury requirement in a similar fashion.

On Monday, however, the 1972 decision came tumbling down. The six-justice court majority — composed of conservatives and liberals — said the earlier ruling was a mistake.

The decision, written by the conservative Gorsuch, was joined in whole or in part by liberal Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Justice Clarence Thomas, another conservative, agreed with the result, but on entirely different grounds.

Writing for the dissenters, Justice Samuel Alito — joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and for the most part, Justice Elena Kagan — maintained that the principle of adhering to precedent should be followed in this case because to do otherwise would require "a potentially crushing" number of new trials for people currently imprisoned under the old rule.

"Where is the justice in that?" replied Justice Gorsuch. "Not a single member of this court" is prepared to say that the 1972 decision was correct, he noted. "Every judge must learn to live with the fact that he or she will make mistakes ... But it is something else entirely to perpetuate" a wrong "only because we fear the consequences of being right."

The consequences of Monday's decision will likely be felt more in Louisiana, which allowed non-unanimous verdicts for more serious crimes than Oregon. The court's decision will require retrials for any prisoner who still has appeals pending.

There are about 100 of those cases in Louisiana, says Jamila Johnson, the managing attorney at the Promise of Justice Initiative, which represented Ramos. But there are also at least 1,700 prisoners in the state who might qualify for a new trial if the court eventually holds that Monday's decision is retroactive.

The high court left that question open for another day.

Altogether the majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions totaled a whopping 86 pages and reflected an important subtext--divergent views about when the court should follow its usual rule of adhering to precedent and when it should not.

It's important because, the new ultra-conservative court majority has very different views than the courts of the last 75 years on topics as diverse as abortion, voting rights, federal regulation, and the clash between religious views and generally applicable laws.

"The court's views about when it's OK to overrule prior precedent have always been more about the eye of the beholder than they have been about a rule that is easy or straightforward to apply," says Deborah Pearlstein, professor and co-director of the Floersheimer Center for Constitutional Democracy at Cardozo School of Law. Ultimately, she said, "all of these major questions that are coming before the court are going to be fought along these lines."

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

; Credit: J. Scott Applewhite/AP

The U.S. Supreme Court is no stranger to controversy, but it still gets higher marks in public opinion polls than the other branches of government. Now though, for the first time in memory, the court is not just split along ideological lines, but along political lines as well: All the conservatives are Republican appointees, all the liberals Democratic appointees. That division could put the court in the crosshairs of public opinion if it is forced to make decisions that affect the 2020 election.

Chief Justice John Roberts has worked hard to persuade the public that the justices are fair-minded legal umpires--not politicians in robes. That image got pretty scuffed up earlier this month when the conservative court majority shot down accommodations for the coronavirus that would have allowed six more days for absentee ballots to be received in Wisconsin's election for 500 school board seats, over 100 judicial seats, and thousands of other state and local positions.

In the weeks leading up to the election, the COVID-19 pandemic had become a public health crisis. Encouraged by local officials, about a million more voters than usual requested absentee ballots, and local officials were unable to keep up with the surge. To mitigate that problem, the lower courts allowed an extra six days for election officials to receive completed absentee ballots.

But the day before the election, the Supreme Court overturned the lower court ruling by a 5-to-4 vote. The result was that tens of thousands of people who had not yet even received their absentee ballots were forced to, as the dissenters put it, choose between their health and their right to vote.

The TV footage of people wearing masks waiting for hours to vote at the very few precincts that were open amid the pandemic was, to say the least, not a good look. Health officials in Milwaukee have since identified six voters and one poll worker who appear to have contracted the virus during the election.

The majority opinion was unsigned, so no one knows who the principal author was. But we do know some things.

First, the emergency appeal in the case came through the justice assigned to that region of the country, Brett Kavanaugh. Typically, when a justice refers a case to the full court, he or she writes a memo about the issues, likely with a recommendation. Kavanaugh almost certainly did that. But other justices would then chime in. And in a voting case, Chief Justice Roberts assuredly would have played a pivotal role.

"John Roberts' fingerprints are on this as chief justice and as someone who has owned this area of the law," says Joan Biskupic, a Supreme Court biographer and CNN legal analyst who is the author of a critically acclaimed biography about Roberts.

Indeed, Roberts was invested in voting-rights law as far back as 1982 when he was a staffer in the Reagan administration. Back then, he led the effort to narrow the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act. When that failed, President Reagan signed the broad extension of the law, rejecting advice to veto it. But years later, on the Supreme Court, Roberts wrote the decision in Shelby County v. Holder, gutting a key provision of that law.

So, it was no surprise when the conservative majority refused to make even a modest accommodation to the pandemic. What was surprising was the tone of the opinion. Critics of the opinion, including some Roberts defenders, called the language "callous," "cynical," and "unfortunate."

In fact, the word "pandemic" appears not once in the court's unsigned opinion. Rather, the majority sought to portray the issue before the court as a "narrow, technical question." The majority said the lower court had overstepped the Supreme Court's established rule that courts should "ordinarily not alter the election rules on the eve of an election."

The dissenters replied that the court's treatment of the current situation as ordinary "boggles the mind." Writing for the dissenters, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg opined that "a voter cannot deliver...a ballot she has not yet received. Yet tens of thousands of voters who timely requested absentee ballots" are being asked to do just that.

"I do think there's something to this idea that we need to stick with the rules even in the context of an emergency," says law professor Rick Hasen, an election expert at the University of California, Irvine.

He and others see the legal question before the court as a close call, but say the decision was, at the very least, tone deaf in light of the reality of a pandemic.

Hasen says that the court could have recognized "the inhumanity of making people vote in this way," but that instead the tone of the opinion was "really dismissive of the entire threat facing these voters."

Chief Justice Roberts has, on some occasions tried to bridge the two wings of the court, in a couple of big cases siding with the court's liberals, or sometimes trying to fashion a compromise. But as Hasen observes, "there really is not any case I can think of involving elections where Roberts has forged a larger consensus."

Roberts must have anticipated at least some of the outcry over the Wisconsin decision. He is, after all, an astute political observer.

But as any student of the court knows, Roberts is a reliable, and often leading member of the conservative majority when it comes to a whole host of issues involving campaigns, voting and elections. That includes decisions he has written striking down laws aimed at limiting the role of big money in campaigns and decisions upholding partisan gerrymanders. Moreover voting rights in particular "is an area of the law where John Roberts has not been deterred by anticipated public criticism," says Biskupic, his biographer.

For the chief, says Biskupic, "It's not just voting rights. It's a broader overlay of representation" in his decisions, a pattern that "often will favor Republicans, but more fundamentally, it seems to favor entrenched powers, the status quo in many states, against ordinary citizens. And we certainly saw that in Wisconsin."

Uncertainties around COVID-19 remain, with states facing decisions about when to reopen and what size of public gatherings are safe. As November inches closer, those decisions could affect the 2020 election. Who gets to vote, when, and how, are unanswered questions and states are surely exploring different plans to keep voters safe. But Roberts' Supreme Court may be the ultimate arbiter of what changes and accommodations to voting are allowed.

The majority opinion "tried to tell the public that this was a very small decision," says Biskupic. "But as the dissent pointed out, it laid down a very serious marker about how voters will be accommodated in the middle of the coronavirus crisis."

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

; Credit: Patrick Semansky/AP

The U.S. Supreme Court has once again punted on the question of gun rights, throwing out as moot a challenge to New York City's strict gun regulations on transporting licensed guns outside the home.

New York City, in the name of public safety, has very strict gun regulations. It allows people to have a permit for guns in their homes, but those regulations originally barred people from transporting their guns anywhere except shooting ranges within the city. The New York State Rifle & Pistol Association challenged the regulation as a violation of the Second Amendment right to bear arms and lost in the lower courts.

But, after the Supreme Court agreed to review the case, New York state and New York City changed their laws to allow gun owners to transport their guns outside the city to shooting ranges, to competitions, and to second homes. That gave the challengers exactly what they asked for in their lawsuit, and so on Monday, the court, by a 6-to-3 vote, dismissed the case as moot--in short, it no longer presented a live controversy.

The unsigned opinion was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts, the court's four liberals, and Trump appointee Brett Kavanaugh.

But Kavanaugh wrote separately to stress that while he agreed with the majority on procedural grounds, he agreed with the dissenters--Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil Gorsuch--on one key issue.

Those three said that the lower courts were using the wrong test to evaluate gun laws, a test that is far too deferential to gun regulators. The dissenters mainly argued however, that the court essentially had been gamed on the mootness question, and that the justices should have decided the case, and decided it for the gun owners.

Gun-safety advocates breathed a sigh of relief that there was no decision adverse to gun regulations. But they worry that gains they are making in some state legislatures may be taken away by a conservative court majority.

"The reality is that the gun-safety movement is winning in state houses and at the ballot box, so the NRA is turning to the court to try to change the tide," says Eric Tirschwell, managing mirector of Everytown for Gun Safety.

Monday's decision was the first in a major gun case in 10 years, the first since a landmark set of decisions in 2008 and 2010. In those cases, a sharply divided court ruled that the Second Amendment right to bear arms is an individual right, not a right associated with the militia, as the court had previously implied. Those decisions marked a huge victory for the NRA and other gun-rights organizations.

In the decade following that decision, however, the court did not agree to hear any of the dozens of challenges to gun restrictions in cases appealed to the court. In part because the composition of the court made outcomes uncertain.

The previous big gun cases were decided by 5-to-4 votes, with Justice Anthony Kennedy casting the fifth and decisive vote. Kennedy, according to court sources, insisted, as the price of his vote, on adding limiting language that likely would have resulted in some, maybe even most, gun restrictions being upheld. With neither side of the court sure how Kennedy would vote on most regulations, neither the pro-gun, nor the pro-gun-control side wanted to risk an adverse ruling.

That changed when Kennedy retired in 2018 to be replaced by Justice Kavanaugh, who has a much more gun-friendly record than Kennedy did.

Nothing Kavanaugh said in his concurring opinion Monday would dissuade anyone from thinking he has changed his mind.

Bottom line here is that when it comes to gun control, there look to be four pretty solid votes against a lot of the measures enacted in recent years after mass shootings. Specifically, laws that bar carrying weapons in public places, and bans on assault weapons and large ammo magazines. All these, plus so called red-flag laws and other measures could be in jeopardy.

The question is where Chief Justice Roberts will be on these and other gun-control questions. To date, he has never been much of a supporter of gun-control laws, but he hasn't been an outspoken opponent, either. All we really know is that he was part of the 2008 and 2010 majority that for the first time declared that the Second Amendment is an individual right, not, as the court had previously implied, a collective right that was attached to the colonial militia.

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