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If you try to run a program and receive an error stating that the api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll DLL is missing from your computer, you can use this guide to restore the missing DLL so that you program works again. [...]

If you start a program and receive an error that Windows is unable to find the vcruntime140.dll DLL or that it is missing, you can use this tutorial to restore the missing DLL so that your program works again [...]

This tutorial will explain how to install or uninstall Google Chrome in Windows. [...]

Peter Epstein of Epstein Research discusses the macro picture for precious metals prices and one junior that he believes will benefit from higher prices.

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President Trump speaks in the Oval Office Wednesday.; Credit: Evan Vucci/AP

In a whistleblower complaint filed this week, top federal scientist Rick Bright alleges he was removed from his post for failing to go along with the president's push to promote a drug as a cure for COVID-19.

On Wednesday, Trump dismissed the complaint, telling reporters Bright "seems like a disgruntled employee who's trying to help the Democrats win an election."

"I never met him, I know nothing about him," Trump said, adding that he didn't think "disgruntled people" should work for his administration.

Trump also observed that Bright is being represented by a legal team that represented "other people" – seemingly an allusion to lawyer Debra Katz's representation of Christine Blasey Ford, who testified against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation.

Bright's legal team declined to comment.

Bright says he was ousted from his position as director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority because he wanted to spend money on safe and vetted treatments for COVID-19 — not hydroxychloroquine. The president has called that common anti-malaria drug a possible "game-changer," but there is no proof that it works for COVID patients, and it has side effects. The Food and Drug Administration ultimately warned against using the drug to treat COVID-19 without "strict medical supervision."

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

Symend, a Canada-based digital engagement platform, has raised USD 52 million to identify customers having trouble with their bills to keep them from defaulting.

Henry E. Huntington in 1907.; Credit: Theo C. Marceau, New York City. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens

One of the most prized treasures of LA County is 100 years old this year.

The Huntington Library is beloved for its lush botanical gardens and fine art.

As KPCC's Brianna Flores reports, you can trace its origins to a pivotal moment in Southern California history.

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

The Blade Runner future that we haven't quite reached. ; Credit: Courtesy Warner Bros.

The biggest puzzler of Blade Runner is perhaps not whether Harrison Ford's character is a replicant, but what's up with all the Asian people wearing rice hats?

Asians heavily populate this cyberpunk version of L.A., their cultural and economic clout obvious in the graffiti and neon signs in Chinese and Japanese that crowd every streetscape. Building-size digital ads with a geisha flashes repeatedly throughout the film, her beatific smile increasingly at odds with the rising body count.

Read more at LAist.com.

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

David Biello; Credit: /Elizabeth Zeeuw / TED

About The Episode

There's so much we've yet to explore—from outer space to the deep ocean to our own brains. This hour, Manoush goes on a journey through those uncharted places, led by TED Science Curator David Biello.

About David Biello

As TED's Science Curator, David Biello finds scientists with spectacular stories of discovery and helps them bring those stories to life on the TED stage.

A science journalist by trade, he is also a contributing editor at Scientific American, where he's been since 2005. He has also written for Yale E360, Aeon, Foreign Policy, The New York Times and New Republic. David has been a guest on numerous television and radio shows, and he hosts the ongoing duPont-Columbia award-wining documentary "Beyond the Light Switch" as well as "The Ethanol Effect" for PBS.

Biello is the author of The Unnatural World: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth's Newest Age. He received a BA in English from Wesleyan University and a MS in Journalism from Columbia University.

Featured Speakers

Juna Kollmeier: The Most Detailed Map Of Galaxies, Black Holes And Stars Ever Made

Humans have charted stars for thousands of years, but Juna Kollmeier wants to make the most complete map of the universe ever concieved — by 3D imaging millions of stars, black holes, and galaxies.

Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz: Your Body Was Forged In The Spectacular Death Of Stars

Astrophysicist and self-proclaimed "stellar mortician" Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz takes us through the spectacular life and death of supernovas that make all living things the stuff of stars.

Karen Lloyd: The Mysterious Microbes Living Deep Inside The Earth — And How They Could Help Humanity

Deep beneath our feet and beyond the ocean floor, there is a world teeming with microbes that get their energy not from the sun but from rocks. Karen Lloyd leads us into the alien world below.

Victor Vescovo: What's At The Bottom Of The Ocean — And How We're Getting There

Victor Vescovo has a submarine that takes him further down into the ocean than the height of Mt. Everest. He's been to the deepest parts of our five oceans, revealing lifeforms that defy imagination.

Kay M. Tye: What Investigating Neural Pathways Can Reveal About Mental Health

Behavior, emotion ... it's all in our heads. Kay M. Tye has found neural pathways that create specific emotional or behavioral states — and she's made a switch to turn them on and off.

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

Faced with financial issues, the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater closed its Chelsea location in 2017.; Credit: Andrew Toth/Getty Images

When the Upright Citizens Brigade announced plans to permanently close its New York bases last week, comedy lost a beloved home. The scrappy, alternative comedy troupe that grew into a school and theater revolutionized improv in New York and beyond with its embrace of "Yes, and ..."

The New York institution incubated the talents of stars such as Kate McKinnon, Aziz Ansari, Chris Gethard, Donald Glover, Aubrey Plaza and many others in the comedy world. A pillar of longform improv, UCB teachings have been brought into countless comedy writers' rooms and are etched into many successful TV shows.

Four of the company's founding members, known as the "UCB4" — Amy Poehler, Matt Besser, Matt Walsh and Ian Roberts — told staff in an email on April 21 that the organization couldn't afford to renew its leases on the group's two Manhattan locations: the UCB theater in Hell's Kitchen and a training center in the Garment District.

UCB also has two locations in Los Angeles where operations have been temporarily halted during the coronavirus outbreak, but there are currently no plans to close them.

Obits followed, marking the exit of UCB's physical presence in the city where it took off in the '90s, when the group turned a former strip club into its first theater.

"The guys that I came up with in New York at the UCB Theater — we made our bones there basically," said Rob Corddry, who went on to be a Daily Show correspondent and star in comedy films including Hot Tub Time Machine. "It's really sad. Sort of the end of an era."

The news comes a month after layoffs were announced at the group's New York and Los Angeles facilities in response to the coronavirus. A small number of staff were kept at training centers on both coasts.

But UCB was under financial strain long before the pandemic. Many UCBers cast the move as an example of an opaque, top-down decision-making that, over the years, they say has sowed distrust in UCB leadership among its members.

"The biggest issue with UCB was the lack of communication of the company and the owners to their employees," said Paris Adkins, a New York performer who was laid off from her administrative job with the company last month.

A previous round of layoffs took place at the end of 2018, mostly of New York employees. Adkins said the pandemic "is just the extenuating circumstance that put things over the edge."

As for the most recent closures, UCB's founders admitted to falling short of expectations.

"Look, we heard the community when they said, 'We're scared, too, and we want better communication,' " Amy Poehler told The Hollywood Reporter in an interview with the UCB4 after the announcement. "I think we did make mistakes, and we're trying to do better."

UCB has not responded to NPR's attempts to contact the organization.

Chris Renfro, an LA-based performer and show producer who relied on UCB as his main source of income, said that learning in March via a mass email that his 3-year career there had come to an end struck him as a betrayal of the values the UCB4 claimed to live by.

"UCB is about a community, it's about having each other's backs," he said, referencing the improv tradition UCB students learn of literally patting each other's backs and saying "Got your back."

"It felt like they had turned their backs on this massive community they had built up around them," he said. "So now there's a weird taste in a lot of peoples' mouths because of that."

According to a letter sent to staff addressing the layoffs, Poehler said she would pay for an additional month of health care for former full-time staff.

Much of the company's operations run on part-time staff, according to Adkins. She estimated that UCB cut a total of 45 New York-based employees across the city since last month.

Despite the community's frustrations, when the indefinite shutdown of the New York outposts turned definite, the tributes rolled in online.

Stephen Colbert, who studied at the peer improv hub Second City in Chicago before moving to New York, tweeted "I'll always be grateful" for the times he was roped in to perform with UCB during the '90s in the acclaimed sketch show mainstay Asssscat.

Daily Show correspondent Jordan Klepper added, "When I left Chicago, the people at UCB NY welcomed me, challenged me, and embodied the NY spirit of full commitment today because tomorrow you could run out of cash and life ships you back home."

Other dispatches on social media were less endearing.

Former students, many of whom shelled out several hundred dollars for improv classes, wrote about negative experiences and wasted money. Some revived longstanding criticism of the theater's policy to not pay its performers, unlike many of its improv peers.

Despite its problems, many felt a sense of community at UCB, Adkins said.

"I think people are grieving," she said. "It's pretty much my only community in New York and I think a lot of people feel that way. You don't get the support of a community like you do at UCB."

In an effort to financially support herself and her peers following the layoffs, Adkins started a GoFundMe page to raise money for New York staff. To date, the account has raised nearly $60,000. She's splitting the funds between staff members, who will receive a month's worth of pay. The rest will be divided among teachers who are in need, Adkins said.

In the THR interview, Amy Poehler assured the UCB community, "We're not leaving New York."

At least for the short-term, the company has moved both LA and New York classes online. For the long-term in New York, leadership has floated plans to return to the old days of renting other independent spaces to hold classes and performances.

Still, even some of its youngest members see the now-shuttered hubs as a piece of history.

"But that's replaceable and people are not," said former training center staff member Maicy Jo Schwartz, who began her UCB NY career in 2014.

Schwartz sees a silver lining.

"I wouldn't be surprised if in the future some people branch off and start their own theaters or their own training centers or their own underground improv and sketch, because New York is a perfect place to do that," she said. "And I do hope that the UCB4 — Amy, Matt, Matt and Ian — can be part of that and support that when there are future endeavors that their alumni take on."

NPR's Elizabeth Blair contributed to this story.

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

A new study has investigated the effects of set-aside management —when fields are taken out of agricultural production — on common invertebrate decomposers in soil. The diversity of woodlice species was higher in set-aside fields compared to neighbouring wheat fields and this effect increased in older set-asides. This study highlights the importance of set-aside areas as habitats for soil invertebrates, which are important for soil health.

Virus Melt

Frank Romero with one of his French paintings, in his home in the South of France. But every year, he and his wife Sharon throw a big studio sale for Christmas, and you're invited.; Credit: John Rabe

"Live! Life's a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!" - Auntie Mame.

Your calendar is filling up, but here are four holiday events you'll want to make room for:

Every year, pioneering Chicano artist Frank Romero and his wife Sharon throw a big studio sale that includes works by a wide group of artists, and a lot of food and drink. It's just as much a party as a sales event, and Frank and the other artists are always there to meet and greet. And now that the couple is spending more time at their home in France, it's a chance for their old friends to catch up with them, so who knows who you'll see from L.A.'s arts community.

RELATED: See Frank's new works - French scenes with an East LA flavor

The Romero Studio annual Christmas party and sale is Saturday, Dec. 6, 6-10pm; and Sunday, Dec. 7, 1-5pm, at Plaza de la Raza, Boathouse Gallery, 3540 North Mission Rd., LA CA 90031 (in Lincoln Park across from the DMV — which BTW is a very good DMV).

Then, on Sunday, Dec. 14, at 4:30pm,  it's the Advent Procession of Lessons and Carols, at St. James Episcopal Church, which a friend describes as "one of the truly beautiful choral events of the season," and the highlight of the Choir of St. James' season. It's free and it's at St. James' Episcopal Church in Koreatown (3903 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles 90010).
 

"Auntie Mame," the 1958 Rosalind Russell movie with more quotable quips than a weekend getaway with Oscar Wilde, has become something of a Christmas tradition. It's screening at the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre on Wednesday, Dec. 17, at 7:30. As delightful as this movie is any day of the week on your TV at home, this is a film to be seen in 35mm with a theater full of people reacting to every bon mot and heart-touching moment.

GO INSIDE: The Disney Hall organ, "Hurricane Mama," turns 10

Last year, my husband and I blindly went to Disney Hall for the Holiday Organ Spectacular. We expected some music and a little fun. But it really was spectacular. It's back this year, on Friday, Dec. 19, with organist David Higgs leading the evening from the console of Hurricane Mama.

If you've never seen or heard the organ in person, this is a great evening because Higgs — a teacher as well as master organist — gives you a guided tour of every stop, and every mood the organ can produce, from cathedral-loud to country-church-quiet. At the end of the night, he breaks the audience into parts to sing "The Twelve Days of Christmas," and you may sing as loud as you like.

These are just a few curated selections, but they're just the tip of the iceberg in Southern California; please make your own holiday event recommendations in the comments below. 

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

An aerial photograph of the San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California.; Credit: Bruce Perry, Department of Geological Sciences, CSU Long Beach; Courtesy National Park Service

A friend who has one of those cabins in the San Gabriels that you have to ride a mule into sent Off-Ramp a note about an event for fans of L.A.'s mountains ... which is pretty much everyone:

"The Sierra Madre Historical Preservation Society and First Water Design present the finest assembly of experts of our magnificent mountains and their impact on our history, culture, and way of life." It's a long list of historians, authors, and others who've spent their lives studying and writing about the mountains.

• John Robinson: "The San Gabriels," "Trails of the Angeles: 100 Hikes in the San Gabriels," "Sierra Madre’s Old Mount Wilson Trail"
• Michele Zack: "Southern California Story: Seeking the Better Life in Sierra Madre," "Altadena: Between Wilderness and City"
• Elizabeth Pomeroy: "John Muir: A Naturalist in Southern California," "San Marino: A Centennial History"
• Nat Read: "Don Benito Wilson: From Mountain Man to Mayor," "Los Angeles 1841 to 1878"
• Michael Patris:  "Mount Lowe Railway"
• Glen Owens: "The Heritage of the Big Santa Anita"
• Paul Rippens: " The Saint Francis Dam"
• Willis Osborne: "A Guide to Mt. Baldy & San Antonio Canyon"
• Christopher Nyerges: "Enter the Forest"
• Norma Rowley: "The Angeles Was Our Home"
• Chris Kasten: cartographer and former manager of Sturtevant Camp

The event takes place on Saturday, Jan. 24, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m, at Pritchard Hall at the Sierra Madre Congregational Church, 170 West Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre, CA 91024.

And it's free! Email Jeff Lapides for more info, or call him at 626-695-8177.

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

New entrance at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. ; Credit: Tim Street-Porter/The Huntington

For years, I’d feared the worst. Behind that intrusive belt of chain link and green canvas fence, with all the hidden noise of power digging machines, smashing jackhammers and growling tractors going on behind it, and heaps of dirt piled high, I dreaded that something terrible was going on in the dark, hidden heart of our dear old Huntington.

We were promised a new visitor center, a new store, a new cafe and restaurant. I imagined the Disney-fied worst: Henry Huntington’s Roller Coaster Red Car Ride; Pinky’s Pinkberry Parlor. The Blue Boy Fashion Center. Maybe even a giant Rem Koolhaas-LACMA style amoeba of purple reinforced concrete sprawling all over the lawns between the library and the old gallery.

My fears were groundless. The $68 million (not much more than the Getty paid for its new Manet) 52,000 square foot Education and Visitor Center addition is in perfect harmony with the early 20th Century original library and art gallery, perhaps more so than some previous increments, such as the nearby and blankly imposing Munger Research Center. 

The addition is named after outgoing Huntington chief Steven S. Koblik, who engineered much of the funding and planning for the facility. He’s got something to be proud of in his retirement: a new garden-centered segment of new facilities that founder, pioneer transit tycoon Henry Huntington, would probably have enthused over.

(The Huntington Store at The Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens. Photo: Tim Porter-Street/The Huntington)

With its mighty $400 million endowment and the muscular fundraising power that enticed squillionaire Charlie Munger to donate hugely to this project (not to mention that research center), the venerable Huntington institution could have easily erected something expensively and grandiloquently modern.  

But its directorate and patrons seem to understand an important fact about the place: Most visitors don’t go there to be dazzled. We go there to be enthralled, even comforted by the century-old institution’s enduring and deeply reassuring ambiance that we are privileged to inhabit during our visits to its galleries of great art, its acreage of exquisite gardens and Arcadian vistas.

The Huntington possesses what designer Sheryl Barton, who co-created the new landscaping with the Huntington’s Jim Folsom, spoke of at the opening press conference as “the choreography of experience.”

That experience includes the new California-Mediterranean groves and gardens and the low-lying new structure that includes an expanded store, new classrooms, courts, cafes and an auditorium. With its simple, Tuscan-columned loggias and red-tiled roofs (and, oh, yes, even that showy glass dome on the Rose Hills Foundation Garden Court), it all effortlessly blends into the traditional whole.

Although the Huntington doesn’t seem to be planning on a new influx of visitors, it’s hard to see this new, more user-friendly front office isn’t going to attract more people to its San Marino location than the current 600,000 per year.

Particularly considering how regional museum attendance in general has boomed over recent decades. Will this abate the quiet private experience many of us Huntington fans have shared and treasured over the years?

(The Huntington will be installing this Alexander Calder sculpture, the  Jerusalem Stabile, this spring. Here, it's seen at the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Calder Foundation; gift of the Philip & Muriel Berman Foundation to the Calder Foundation. Copyright © 2015 Calder Foundation /Artists Rights Society (ARS) Used with permission of The Huntington)

Probably. But there will also be important new things to see — like  Alexander Calder’s 12-by-20-foot Jerusalem Stabile, which beckons you into the new addition, and two powerful, newly acquired murals by the great 20th Century California artists Millard Sheets and Doyle Lane. Plus a new and glorious vista from the cafe’s terrace over to the original old Huntington villa — now gallery — where all this began, over a century ago.

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

Two security guards talk on the campus of the closed McKinley School, part of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) system, in Compton, California.; Credit: ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images

Los Angeles Unified School District officials are making plans for summer — and for now, none of those plans involve reopening school campuses shuttered by the coronavirus pandemic.

In a video address Monday, Superintendent Austin Beutner said LAUSD leaders have "made no decisions" about whether the fall semester — still scheduled to begin on August 18 — will involve students in classrooms, online or both. He said it's not clear what the public health conditions will allow.

Last week, Governor Gavin Newsom surprised many educators when he suggested California schools could resume in-person instruction early — perhaps even as soon as mid-July. Newsom fears the longer students remain at home, the farther they'll fall behind academically. Read more about this on LAist. 

We get the latest on LAUSD’s plans (or lack of them) for the upcoming school year. Plus, if you’re an LAUSD parent or student, weigh in by calling 866-893-5722. 

With files from LAist.

Guest:

Kyle Stokes, education reporter for KPCC; he tweets @kystokes

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.

People wait in line to receive food at a food bank on April 28, 2020 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City.; Credit: Spencer Platt/Getty Images

United States unemployment has reached record numbers with more than 30 million Americans applying for benefits in just six weeks, according to the Guardian. Economists expect the labor market to take another unprecedented blow for the month of April. 

Roughly one in five people in California's workforce have applied for initial unemployment insurance benefits, including a "staggering" 37% of workers with no more than a high school diploma. That's the estimate of a  study from the California Policy Lab that analyzed unemployment insurance claims from March 15-April 11. According to the California Economic Development Department (EDD), L.A. County's unemployment rate jumped from 4.3% in February to 6.3% in March. The state of California launched its Pandemic Unemployment Assistance program last week, giving many independent contractors their first chance to apply for benefits.But applicants have had a tough time getting through the system because of technical difficulties with the state's website.

Today on AirTalk we check in on unemployment in the state. Plus, some people are making more money through unemployment benefits than when they were working. We talk to the writer of a recent Wall Street Journal piece that looks at the challenges that presents for businesses as states look to slowly reopen. Do you have questions about unemployment across the state or the application process? Join the conversation by calling 866-893-5722. 

With files from LAist. Read more from David Wagner here. 

Guests:

Eric Morath, labor economics and policy reporter for the Wall Street Journal, he’s based in Washington D.C.; he tweets @EricMorath

George Warner, attorney in the Wage Protection Program at Legal Aid at Work, a San Francisco based nonprofit law firm that assists low-income, working families throughout California; he tweets @readerznriderz

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

A decade-by-decade display of how many active gas storage wells are still in use by Southern California Gas Company. Source: Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources and SoCalGas; Credit: Aaron Mendelson/KPCC

The Aliso Canyon gas leak broke out near Porter Ranch nearly four years ago. On Tuesday a City Councilman called for an investigation of a different underground gas field after troubling images surfaced on video. 

The video uses a special infrared camera to show a duck swimming in the Ballona Wetlands amid bubbles of gas. An environmental advocacy group, Food and Water Watch, says the gas is methane.  They released the video this week to push for the city to investigate the underground gas storage field in nearby Playa del Rey.

Southern California Gas Co. says the gas surfacing in the wetlands is naturally occurring and unrelated to its underground natural gas storage field in Playa del Rey.

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.

; 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: 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.

Gov. Ralph Northam, seen last month, was wrong to close gun ranges in response to the spread of the coronavirus, a state court ruled Monday.; Credit: Steve Helber/AP

A Virginia gun range can remain open, despite Gov. Ralph Northam's order closing nonessential businesses throughout the state in response to the coronavirus pandemic, a state judge ruled Monday.

In a March executive order, Northam had included indoor shooting ranges among the businesses to be temporarily shuttered to stop the spread of COVID-19. In response, the shooting range SafeSide sued, asking a court to block the order. Judge F. Patrick Yeatts granted the request, prohibiting law enforcement from blocking citizens' access to the gun range.

Northam lacks the authority to close gun ranges, Yeatts said, because of a state statute, modeled on the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, giving citizens the right to bear arms. "During an emergency, the governor is given great deference, but [the statute] specifically limits his authority in relation to the right to keep and bear arms," Yeatts wrote.

"The purpose of the right is to have a population trained with firearms in order to defend the Commonwealth," Yeatts wrote. "Proper training and practice at a range ... is fundamental to the right to keep and bear arms."

"The Court understands the Governor's desire to protect the citizens of our great commonwealth," Yeatts said. "But in taking steps to stop the spread of COVID-19, he took a step beyond what is allowed."

In a statement, Attorney General Mark Herring said that his office was considering how to respond. "Governor Northam's efforts to save lives and slow the spread of COVID-19 are necessary and proving to be effective, but unfortunately, the gun lobby believes the ability to shoot a gun indoors during this pandemic is worth risking further spread of the virus and making Virginia communities and families less safe," Herring said, according to the Associated Press.

University of Virginia law professor Richard Schragger told The Virginian-Pilot that the ruling only applies to the Lynchburg gun range — but the reasoning could apply to any subsequent lawsuits brought by other gun ranges in the state.

SafeSide was joined on the lawsuit by Gun Owners of America, the Association of Virginia Gun Ranges and the Virginia Citizens Defense League. Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League, told the AP his group would try to get a broader ruling that applied statewide.

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

The Supreme Court's second day of arguments by phone was devoted to a new version of a case it decided seven years ago involving federal money to fight AIDS around the world.; Credit: Andrew Harnik/AP

The Supreme Court kicked off a second day of telephone arguments Tuesday with a case that mingles sex, the HIV/AIDS epidemic and free speech.

At issue is whether the government can require private nonprofits to denounce prostitution in order to qualify for U.S foreign aid grants aimed at fighting the worldwide AIDS epidemic. This is the second time the court has faced this issue, but this time it comes with a twist.

In 2003, Congress, at the urging of President George W. Bush, enacted a major foreign aid program to fight the HIV/AIDS pandemic and prevent new infections worldwide. In appropriating the money, Congress included a provision requiring any private organization that received funding through the program to adopt an explicit policy denouncing prostitution and sex trafficking.

In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down that provision, declaring it unconstitutional because it compelled U.S. nonprofits to adopt an explicit policy as a condition for receiving grant money. By a 6-2 vote, the high court said such a requirement interfered with the free speech rights of private U.S. organizations engaged in the fight against AIDS.

The case was back Tuesday, but this time, the question was whether foreign organizations closely affiliated with those same U.S. nonprofits can be required to adopt the policy denouncing prostitution.

Defending the provision was Assistant to the Solicitor General Christopher Michel. He argued that foreign affiliates of U.S. organizations like Save The Children, CARE and WorldVision are separate legal entities from their parent U.S. organizations, and that as foreign entities, they have no rights under the U.S. Constitution.

Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the 2013 decision, seemed unpersuaded.

"Is it reasonable to insist on formal corporate ties in this context?" he asked. "It's undisputed that to be effective in many of the foreign countries involved here, you have to operate through a foreign entity."

Michel responded that if the U.S. nonprofits "make the choice to operate through a foreign entity because they decide that is more convenient or more effective, they have to accept the bitter with the sweet."

Roberts still seemed doubtful, noting that the U.S. nonprofits and their foreign affiliates "have the same name, the same logo, the same brand. And I wonder if it makes more sense to think of the foreign entity as simply another channel for the domestic entity's speech."

Representing the nonprofits was lawyer David Bowker. He maintained that for all practical purposes, there is no difference between the U.S. nonprofits and their foreign affiliates, so making the affiliate adopt an anti-prostitution message effectively puts words in the mouth of the U.S. nonprofit.

Questioned by Justice Clarence Thomas, Bowker said that the harm suffered by the U.S. nongovernmental organizations is that their foreign affiliates must either lose their funding by refusing to comply with the anti-prostitution policy or undermine their mission by denouncing the very people they need to work with — namely prostitutes. And if the foreign affiliates make the pledge needed to get funding, he said, the U.S. parent organizations have to disavow their own affiliates' anti-prostitution pledge, thus harming the entire anti-AIDS fight.

"It's a Catch-22 for these U.S. organizations," said Bowker.

Justice Stephen Breyer followed up: "So why don't you simply write a grant to get all the money yourself and then you give it to CARE India? Why doesn't that work?"

Because, replied Bowker, under the statute, CARE USA, in subcontracting a grant to CARE India, would be required to impose the anti-prostitution pledge on its own affiliate on behalf of the government.

Justice Samuel Alito, who signed on to the court's 2013 decision, said he had more concerns in this case — mainly "that it will force Congress to either withhold foreign aid entirely or allow foreign aid to be used in ways that are contrary to the interests of the people of this country."

Justice Brett Kavanaugh followed up: "Suppose the U.S. government wants to fund foreign NGOs that support peace in the Middle East but only if the NGOs explicitly recognize Israel as a legitimate state. Are you saying the U.S. can't impose that kind of speech restriction on foreign NGOs that are affiliated with U.S. organizations?"

Bowker said that kind of a restriction would likely be acceptable because the aid in that case would be tied to the U.S. relationship with Israel.

Kavanaugh moved on to another question, noting, "The government says your position would unleash foreign affiliates of U.S. corporations to pump money" into U.S. election campaigns, something that is explicitly barred under current law.

Bowker replied that U.S. campaign laws, as ruled on by the Supreme Court in prior cases, allow the ban on foreign contributions because they do not come from U.S. entities at all.

A decision in the case is expected some time this summer. While the court usually concludes its work by the end of June, it is expected that this term will extend into July because the arguments in this and nine other cases were postponed for more than a month because of the coronavirus.

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

In L.A., community leaders are working to prevent an undercount of Asian Angelenos. ; Credit: via NPR

The 2020 Census kicks off in a matter of weeks. Census officials say Asian immigrants are “hard-to-count” because many have limited English and distrust government. 

Leo Moon is learning about the census with friends at a city-led workshop in Koreatown. He didn’t fill out the form in 2010, mostly because he didn’t want the government knowing he’s undocumented. But Moon says he’ll take part next year because the census determines how much funding and representation people get.  

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

Mike Okamoto poses as Shogun Santa with visitors to Japanese Village. ; Credit: Chava Sanchez/KPCC

LA’s Asian Santa tradition is back. Shogun Santa has returned to Little Tokyo after a big loss in the community last year.  

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

Albert Rad, a mobile phone wholesaler who fled religious persecution in Iran decades ago, said that he fully backs President Trump's decision to assassinate Iran's top military commander. ; Credit: Josie Huang/LAist

Los Angeles is home to the largest Iranian population outside of Iran. The killing of top Iranian commander Qassem Suleimani is generating some strong emotions here. KPPC’s Josie Huang reports from Persian Square in Westwood. 

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

As millions of Americans have lost their jobs, Congress is trying to figure out what to do to help those who have also lost their health insurance.; Credit: South_agency/Getty Images

Mayra Jimenez had just lost the job she loved — and the health insurance that went along with it.

The 35-year-old San Francisco server needed coverage. Jimenez has ulcerative colitis, a chronic condition. Just one of her medications costs $18,000 per year.

"I was just in panic mode, scrambling to get coverage," Jimenez said.

A recent estimate suggests the pandemic has cost more than 9 million Americans both their jobs and their health insurance.

"Those numbers are just going to go up," MIT economist Jon Gruber said. "We've never seen such a dramatic increase in such a short period of time."

House Democrats introduced a bill in mid-April to help the millions of people, like Jimenez, who find themselves unsure of where to turn.

The Worker Health Coverage Protection Act would fully fund the cost of COBRA, a program that allows workers who leave or lose a job to stay on their former employer's insurance plan. COBRA currently requires workers to pay for their entire premium, including their employer's share.

The Worker Health Coverage Protection Act is one bill being considered as Congress tries to figure out what to do about the very real health care gap for those millions who have lost their jobs. Sponsors of the COBRA legislation say they hope their plan gets rolled into the next relief bill. But it's unclear when, how and whether the problem will get addressed in upcoming coronavirus relief measures.

Jimenez learned COBRA would run her $426 a month.

"I was kind of shocked to hear the number," she said. "That's almost half my rent."

The idea of allowing laid-off workers to stick with their coverage at no cost in a pandemic has clear appeal, says Gruber.

But he warns, "COBRA is expensive, and for many employees, it won't be there."

Only workers who get insurance through their employer are eligible for COBRA, leaving out more than half of the 26 million who have lost jobs in the last few weeks. Many of the industries hit hardest by COVID-19, including retail and hospitality, are among those least likely to offer employees insurance.

And even if someone had insurance through work, the person loses COBRA coverage if the former employer goes out of business.

Funding COBRA costs, federal dollars also wouldn't go as far as they could. Unpublished Urban Institute estimates show that an employer plan costs, on average, about 25% more than a Gold plan on the Affordable Care Act exchanges.

"We need to be all hands on deck, spending whatever we can to help people," Gruber said. "But that doesn't mean we shouldn't be thinking about efficient ways to do it."

Congress has tried this move before. In response to the Great Recession, lawmakers tucked a similar COBRA subsidy into the massive stimulus bill a decade ago. That legislation paid for 65% of COBRA premiums, leaving laid-off workers to cover the rest.

A federally commissioned study found that COBRA enrollment increased by just 15%. Mathematica senior researcher and study co-author Jill Berk said workers skipped the subsidy for two main reasons.

First, only about 30% of eligible workers even knew the subsidy existed.

"For those that were aware," Berk said, "their overwhelming response was that COBRA was still too expensive."

At that time, the average premium for a single worker — even with the subsidy — ran about $400 per month for a worker with family coverage.

"When you're actually facing those choices, choosing between rent and food and other bills," Berk said, "that COBRA bill looks quite high."

Berk's team also discovered that people who reported using the subsidy were four times more likely to have a college degree and a higher income than those who passed on it. In other words, Berk found that the COBRA subsidy was least helpful to those with the greatest need.

Several economists, including Gruber, and some Democrats in Washington are kicking around alternatives to COBRA. Among their ideas is a plan to have the federal government pick up more of a person's premium and other expenses on the Affordable Care Act exchanges. Another proposal would extend ACA subsidies to people who earn too much to qualify for any aid and to lower-income people who live in states yet to expand Medicaid.

Compared with funding COBRA, beefing up ACA subsidies could potentially help millions more people, including the pool of laid-off workers who did not get health insurance from their employer.

The ACA ties subsidies to people's income, giving more help to those at the bottom end of the wage scale and spending less on those who are better off. In contrast, the current COBRA plan would cover 100% of COBRA for everyone, regardless of the person's income.

There are some downsides to this approach. Making ACA subsidies more generous could end up costing the federal government more overall, because it gives more help to a lot more people.

Chris Holt from the American Action Forum, a conservative think tank, points out that the ACA already increases federal support when people's earnings fall and questions how much more of the tab Washington should pick up.

"If that subsidy would have been good enough for someone six months ago, why is it not good enough now?" he asked.

Maybe the biggest challenge to building on the ACA: The 10-year-old law remains a political football.

"There's just so much both emotion and, frankly, bitterness tied up in debates," Holt said, adding that this makes it hard to move anything forward.

Holt notes that COBRA is not free of political hang-ups either. He expects a fight over whether subsidy money can be spent on employer plans that cover abortion services, for example.

Holt and Gruber agree that perhaps the easiest idea is to leave the ACA alone with one minor tweak: allow people to take the ACA subsidy they're already eligible for and use it on COBRA if they choose.

As for Jimenez, she did not have time to wait for Congress. She brought in too much from unemployment to qualify for Medicaid. And she couldn't afford COBRA, so she picked out a plan on the ACA exchange, where she's eligible for generous existing subsidies. It will cost her $79.17 per month, and she gets to keep her doctors. Not everyone does.

This is the first time she has ever purchased insurance on her own, rather than gotten it through work — and that has delivered one other unexpected benefit.

"Freedom," Jimenez said. "It feels so freeing to take charge of my health care and to know that no one can take this away from me. I don't have to rely on a job to give me what they want to give me. I can make my own choices."

Policymakers, providers, employers and health-industry executives have been fighting over whether the United States should tie insurance to work since the end of World War II.

Subsidizing COBRA preserves the status quo, while doubling down on the ACA might just start to drive a real wedge between work and health insurance.

As states begin reopening businesses, some laid-off workers will get back their jobs, as well as their insurance. But many will remain unemployed and uninsured. A decade ago, faced with the same challenge, Congress chose to subsidize COBRA. It proved to be a narrow solution with limited impact.

Lawmakers now have the ACA at their disposal, a tool that may be a better fit for this moment. Whether they choose to use it may be a choice grounded more in political realism than policy idealism.

Dan Gorenstein is the creator and co-host of the Tradeoffs podcast, and Leslie Walker is a producer on the show, which ran a version of this story on April 23.

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

Two workers approach the entrance to Life Care Center in Kirkland, Wash., on March 13. An association that represents nursing homes is asking for billions of dollars in federal relief funds to cope with the coronavirus crisis.; Credit: Ted S. Warren/AP

With more than 11,000 resident deaths, nursing homes have become the epicenter of the COVID-19 crisis. Now, they're asking the federal government for help — $10 billion worth of help.

The American Health Care Association, the trade organization for most nursing homes, called the impact on long-term care facilities "devastating." In a letter sent this week to the Federal Emergency Management Agency and Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, they ask for the federal government to designate relief funding from the CARES Act for nursing homes the way it has for hospitals.

The money would be used for personal protective equipment, salaries for expanded staff, and hazard pay. In addition, some of the funds would make up lost revenue for nursing homes that have been unable to admit new residents because of the outbreak.

The AHCA also wants nursing homes to have more access to testing and some members of Congress want that too. This week, 87 members of the House of Representatives sent their own letter to Azar, as well as to Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which regulates nursing homes. The letter asks those agencies to direct states — which have received billions of dollars for increased testing — to give priority to long-term care facilities.

The letter also notes that nursing homes are now required to report their numbers of COVID-19 infections and deaths to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but that they can't meaningfully do this unless they can test everyone in the facility.

Democrats in both the House and the Senate have also introduced legislation intended to make things safer for both nursing home staff and residents. The bill would require nursing homes to take a range of actions, from providing better infection prevention, to supplying sufficient protective gear, to protecting a resident's right to return to the nursing home after they've been treated for COVID-19 at a hospital.

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

President Trump has said he wants to see the country begin to reopen. The pandemic crashed the economy by keeping people at home, leading to millions of job losses.; Credit: Pool/Getty Images

The White House coronavirus task force rejected detailed guidance drafted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on how workplaces ranging from schools to bars to churches should resume operations to prevent the spread of the virus because it was viewed as "overly prescriptive."

President Trump has said he wants to see the country begin to reopen. The pandemic crashed the economy by keeping people at home, leading to millions of job losses. The White House task force issued guidelines on how to gradually and safely reopen but left decisions up to governors based on conditions in their states.

Experts have warned that a rush to reopen could have disastrous implications for containing COVID-19. Many businesses have said they want more details about how to do things safely.

The draft detailed guidance was provided to the task force in late April, a couple of weeks after it released its April 16 guidance to states for reopening.

The task force sought "certain revisions" to the CDC's detailed guidance, two administration officials told NPR. But revised recommendations were never returned to the task force.

The Associated Press first reported on the task force decision to shelve the detailed guidance. Copies obtained and published by the AP, The New York Times and The Washington Post revealed detailed, staged directions for child care centers, schools, camps, restaurants and bars, churches and mass transit providers about how to safely resume operations.

"I think many people would argue that it is not the role of the federal government to tell specific entities — whether they be schools or churches or businesses — how they should go about doing things because the nation is so diverse," one of the administration officials said.

The task force said that some of the points may be helpful, but they needed to "zoom out a little bit and not be so prescriptive," according to the official. The task force said they would welcome a new set of recommendations, but that never happened, the official said.

"Issuing overly specific instructions — that CDC leadership never cleared — for how various types of businesses open up would be overly prescriptive and broad for the various circumstances states are experiencing throughout the country," the second administration official said. "Guidance in rural Tennessee shouldn't be the same guidance for urban New York City."

The United States last month reached 1 million known coronavirus cases, representing one-third of all coronavirus cases worldwide. Nearly 74,000 Americans have been felled by the disease as of Thursday, according to data compiled by the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center.

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