Patt Morrison's outfit for March 26, 2013. ; Credit: Michelle Lanz/KPCC

For good or ill, I have six-months’ worth of winterish wardrobe in a part of the world with six weeks’ worth of winter. Indoors and AC are great equalizers, yet I am rushing to get in the wools and tweeds before we start sweating – probably in April. [President Richard Nixon loved to have a fire in the fireplace of the Lincoln Sitting Room in the White House, so much so that he cranked up the AC so he could enjoy a cozy fire even in August.]

So I had to give a season’s last hurrah to this Jacquard brocade coat with coppery embroidery and brown velvet piping, worn over your plain ol’ brand X brown jersey dress.

Rose-gold is such a flattering shade, hence the bracelets. [The lampshades at the Belle Epoque Paris restaurant Maxim’s were made of soft pink silk because it made ladies’ complexions look so much better.] 

Brown and orange doesn’t sound like a very tasty combination, but they do work, I think, in the subdued brown tartan shoes with rhinestone buckles the color of sunset. They put me in mind of the more prim Pilgrim buckles on Roger Vivier shoes like the ones Catherine Deneuve made famous in "Belle de Jour," a movie all about a young woman who was rather the opposite of prim behind closed doors.

The crosshairs tartan pattern in the center of the buckles make me think of a submarine periscope, which makes me think of the Lusitania — sunk 98 years ago this May 1 — which served to help nudge the United States into World War I. Now that I think of it, the brown felt and velvet hat is rather World War I-ish, too.

Hi, sailor!

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

Patt Morrison's outfit for May 20. ; Credit: Michelle Lanz/KPCC

Here’s another version of those capris – these are a lace print from H&M – and while I’ve seen women wearing them with high heels, it just doesn’t seem right somehow. It so sullies the legacies of Mary Tyler Moore and Audrey Hepburn to pair them with anything but flats!

This is my version of a cutaway coat. In a coat like this I could attend Royal Ascot, or invent the telegraph. Obviously it’s a girl version, but I feel empowered, even … princely. At least Fred Astaire-ish. Maybe a pair of spats would make me feel more so. And I could waltz facing forward, not dancing backward, a la Ginger.

As for the adornments, I am not a hearts-and-butterflies kind of girl, but I do like to wear themed brooches in clusters or multiples, and this pair of hearts – just like a poker hand – seemed to work. One is the arrow-pierced one [not to be confused with the Pierce-Arrow, one of the handsomest motorcars ever made].

And the other, the enormous bogus diamond heart, I got from Butler & Wilson, the imaginative London costume jewelry [or better yet ‘jewellery’] designer. It’s my homage to a recent auction of what may be the largest perfect diamond in the world, 101.73 carats.

Harry Winston, the legendary jeweler, bought it for nearly $24 million and has chosen to call it, I am sorry to say, the “Harry Legacy,” which is not the kind of name a diamond like this deserves, one redolent of romance and myth, like “the Hope Diamond” or “the Koh-I-Noor Diamond.”

If you have any suggestions about what to name this magnificent perfect diamond, I’d love to hear them.

My own faux diamond’s name, I have decided, is “The Rhinestone Corazon.” How do you like it?

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

Patt Morrison models a headdress from the movie "The Lone Ranger."; Credit: Michelle Lanz/KPCC

Trust me – you’re going to be seeing a lot of these between now and Halloween.

I went to “The Lone Ranger” premiere last month, and outside the theater, Disneyland began selling a version of the Tonto headdress dreamed up by Johnny Depp and his folks for his role in the film, which I found to be a rollicking, ironic version of the classic action adventure with some very sober scenes evoking Native Americans’ tragic history.

The inspiration, Depp says, was artist Kirby Sattler’s interpretive 2006 painting “I Am Crow.”

Depp himself has claimed Native American ancestry, and the bird atop his bean plays a substantial if silent role in the proceedings. It is an interpretive painting, as I said, not a literal rendering of any tribal makeup. In the Sattler painting, the bird is flying above the figure’s head, not perched on it.

But the movie’s invested in storytelling, not the fine points of accuracy. If it had been, it wouldn’t have made the historical solecisms of relocating both Monument Valley and the transcontinental railroad to … Texas.

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

LOS ANGELES, CA - SEPTEMBER 29: Yasiel Puig #66 of the Los Angeles Dodgers walks onto the field to start the game against the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium on September 29, 2013 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images); Credit: Lisa Blumenfeld/Getty Images

There are 162 games in the regular season of a major league baseball team, and I have watched exactly … hm … none. Spring, summer, autumn, as the Dodgers died and rose from the dead, I wasn’t looking.

But now, like almost everyone else in L.A., I will be cheering them in the playoffs, cheering them to their first World Series game since Michael Dukakis ran for president.

I am that deplorable creature: The fair-weather fan.

I like sports just fine, but my sport is football.

They say baseball is a relaxing game. Boy, is it!  You can eat, doze, eat again, and it’s still the fourth inning. I’ve tried to love baseball, I really have. But the diamond can’t beat the gridiron when it comes to football’s built-in thrill advantage: At any possible second, the football can change hands, the defense becomes the offense … and score!

Just about the best time I ever had at Dodger Stadium was watching the pope round the bases in his Popemobile, when he visited L.A. That was the year before the Dodgers won the World Series for the last time. I hear baseball players are superstitious; maybe it’s time to invite the new pope for a return engagement.

Kitty Felde – now there’s a fan. She’s even written plays about baseball! But she’s way back in the nation’s capital, stuck with the Washington Nationals to root for.

A paradox

It’s a paradox, really. I’ve interviewed the former Dodgers owner, Peter O’Malley, who is a truly wonderful man. I’ve interviewed Carl Erskine, the Dodgers pitcher who goes back to the Brooklyn days, and a sweeter guy you could never meet. I know Roz Wyman, the First Fan, the city councilwoman who worked the magic to bring the Dodgers here from Brooklyn.  I interviewed the McCourts, back when they were still a plural. The L.A. Times once sent me to write about Fernando Valenzuela’s hometown in Mexico, back when El Zurdo started burning up the mound at Chavez Ravine. And I sat with that gift of a man, Vin Scully, at Dodger Stadium, as the team warmed up on the jewel-box beautiful field.

None of that made a true baseball believer of me. Instead, I pine like Juliet for a pro football team. O Dodgers, Dodgers, wherefore art thou the Dodgers, and not the Green Bay Packers?

But I would be thrilled if the Dodgers took the whole baseball enchilada – thrilled, because I am an Angeleno, and the Dodgers are that rare civic institution that ties us all together, even if you don’t know a base hit from base ten.

And that makes me as entitled as the next local to put on my Dodger Blue and holler my heart out, and cheer them all the way to the World Series.

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

Jiro's Pick this week is joyPlot by Santiago Benito.I must admit that I was simply drawn by the visualization, rather than the name of the function, as I was not familiar with the band or the music... read more >>

Kunjue Li (L) and Hing Chi-Lee (R) in Tigertail.; Credit: Netflix/Tigertail (2020)

Larry Mantle and KPCC film critics Claudia Puig, Tim Cogshell and Charles Solomon review this weekend’s new movie releases and share their recommendations for what to binge-watch while you’re stuck at home during COVID-19.

• "Tigertail" on Netflix

• "School Life" on Netflix

• "Love. Wedding. Repeat." on Netflix

• 'Stray Dolls" on VOD (AppleTV, Google Play Redbox * FandangoNOW

• "Sea Fever" on VOD (Spectrum On Demand, AppleTV, Google Play, Vudu, Redbox & FandangoNOW)

• "Strike" on VOD (Redbox, FandangoNOW & Vudu)

• "The Main Event" on Netflix

Guests:

Claudia Puig, film critic for KPCC and president of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA); she tweets @ClaudiaPuig

Tim Cogshell, film critic for KPCC, Alt-Film Guide and CineGods.com; he tweets @CinemaInMind

Charles Solomon, film critic for KPCC, Animation Scoop and Animation Magazine

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

Selective fishing aims to prevent the overexploitation of target fish species and to protect by-catch species, but recent research has indicated that it could be having the opposite effect by damaging biodiversity and sustainability. An alternative approach called 'balanced exploitation' works at the level of the ecosystem instead of selectively removing specific components from the ecosystem.

Data from studies monitoring the amount of plastic eaten by seabirds suggest that levels in the North Sea are well above targets established for the North East Atlantic Ocean by OSPAR (the Oslo and Paris Convention). For the most recent monitoring period, the target amount was exceeded in well over half the birds studied.

Between 10 and 50% of marine species and ecosystems are recovering from population declines and degradation, according to recent research, which identified five strategies for successful recoveries. Recoveries are often driven by a combination of factors, which include restricting exploitation, better protection of vulnerable habitats and greater political support and local involvement with conservation.

Some Marine and Coastal have been altered over long periods of time, resulting in a loss of knowledge of their true healthy state, new research suggests. In this UK study, researchers used historical records, samples of sediment and present-day diving surveys to reconstruct the true history of shellfish beds on the east coast of Scotland.

Image modeling for biomedical organs

New sensors to monitor storm surge on bridges

The National Science Foundation: Creating knowledge to transform our future

Last year was the second straight year the poverty rate stayed flat after four years of going up in the United States.; Credit: David McNew/Getty Images

Income in greater Los Angeles is rising – slightly - according to new American Community Survey numbers released Thursday from the Census Bureau, but greater L.A. still ranks as one of the poorest major metropolitan areas in the nation.

The L.A. area (defined as L.A., Long Beach and Anaheim) had a median household income of $58,869 last year, which is $804 more than the year before, but still $1540 under the 2010 level, during the first full year after the recession.

"These numbers paint a bleak picture for California,” said Marybeth Mattingly, a researcher at Stanford University’s Center on Poverty and Inequality.

Mattingly is particularly troubled by the child poverty rate, which was 25.3 percent in 2013, up from 22.6 percent in 2010.

“In the West, Hispanics have the highest poverty with nearly one in three Hispanic kids poor, and it's even a little higher for blacks” she said.

Nationally, last year was the second straight year the poverty rate stayed flat after four years of going up. Among big metro areas, the L.A. area had the highest poverty rate in the nation, tying Phoenix, Miami, and the Inland Empire. But that’s based upon a national poverty line of $23,550 for a family of four; When you take into account how much it really costs to live here, L.A. fares even worse.

“We find that Los Angeles stands out even more, unfortunately," said Sarah Bohn, a researcher at the Public Policy Institute of California. "Housing costs are really playing a big role in family budgets and being able to make ends meet.”

Bohn says these new numbers suggest we’re going in the right direction, but she wishes we’d move at a faster pace.

We reported last week that layoffs were coming soon to Warner Brothers, but how many positions will be cut is still unknown.  

A spokesman for Warner Brothers Entertainment, Paul McGuire, told KPCC there's no exact number yet. "There is no headcount reduction target, but there is a substantial financial target," Maguire said. 

“This is a budget issue, not a head count issue,” Dee Dee Myers, Warner Brothers Vice President of Corporation Communications told Variety.  The trade publication reports that Warner Brothers is expected to eliminate as many as 1,000 positions worldwide - or about 10 percent of its workforce:

Senior managers are currently assessing their businesses to come up with ways to trim overhead. Only at the end of that process will an exact reduction figure be known. It could be somewhat lower than the current numbers being speculated, but cuts are expected to be substantial.  

News of coming layoffs became public two weeks ago, when KPCC and other media outlets obtained an internal memo written by Warner Bros. Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Kevin Tsujihara.   

"It pains me to say this, positions will be eliminated—at every level—across the Studio," Tsujihara wrote in the memo. 

Morningstar Analyst Neil Macker told KPCC that management at Warner Brothers is trying to protect the company from another takeover play by Rupert Murdoch.  In July, Murdoch offered to buy parent company Time Warner for $80 billion. He withdrew the offer in August. 

Founder and Executive Chairman of Alibaba Group Jack Ma (L) attends the company's initial price offering (IPO) at the New York Stock Exchange on September 19, 2014 in New York City. ; Credit: Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Alibaba's stock is surging as the Chinese e-commerce powerhouse begins its first day trading as a public company.

The stock opened at $92.70 and nearly hit $100 on the New York Stock Exchange Friday, a gain of 46 percent from the initial $68 per share price set Thursday evening.

At Friday's opening price, the company is worth $228.5 billion, more than companies such as Amazon, Ebay and even Facebook.

Jubilant CEO Jack Ma stood on the NYSE trading floor Friday as eight Alibaba customers, including an American cherry farmer and a Chinese Olympian, rang the opening bell.

"We want to be bigger than Wal-Mart," Ma told CNBC shortly after the opening Bell. "We hope in 15 years people say this is a company like Microsoft, IBM, Wal-Mart, they changed, shaped the world."

On Thursday, Alibaba and the investment bankers arranging the initial public offering settled on a price of $68 per share. The company and its early investors raised $21.8 billion in the offering, which valued Alibaba at $168 billion in one of the world's biggest ever initial public offerings.

The company, which is trading under the symbol "BABA," has enjoyed a surge in U.S. popularity over the past two weeks as investors met with executives, including its colorful founder Jack Ma. As part of the so-called roadshow, would-be investors heard a sales pitch that centered on Alibaba's strong revenue growth and seemingly endless possibilities for expansion. Demand was so high that the company raised its offering price to $66 to $68 per share from $60 to $66 per share on Monday.

The main reason investors appear breathless about the 15-year old Alibaba: It offers an investment vehicle that taps into China's burgeoning middle-class.

Alibaba's Taobao, TMall and other platforms account for some 80 percent of Chinese online commerce. Most of Alibaba's 279 million active buyers visit the sites at least once a month on smartphones and other mobile devices, making the company attractive to investors as computing shifts away from laptop and desktop machines.

And the growth rate is not expected to mature anytime soon. Online spending by Chinese shoppers is forecast to triple from its 2011 size by 2015. Beyond that, Alibaba has said it plans to expand into emerging markets and eventually, Europe and the U.S.

"There are very few companies that are this big, grow this fast, and are this profitable," said Wedbush analyst Gil Luria.

Alibaba operates an online ecosystem that lets individuals and small businesses buy and sell. It doesn't directly sell anything, compete with its merchants, or hold inventory.

"The business model is really interesting. It's not just an eBay, it's not an Amazon, it's not a Paypal. It's all of that and much more," said Reena Aggarwal, a professor at Georgetown.

Like China's consumer and Internet market, Alibaba is still growing rapidly. The company's revenue in its latest quarter ending in June surged 46 percent from last year to $2.54 billion while its earnings climbed 60 percent to nearly $1.2 billion, after subtracting a one-time gain and certain other items.

In its last fiscal year ending March 31, Alibaba earned $3.7 billion, making it more profitable than eBay Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. combined. Amazon ended Thursday with a market value of about $150 billion while eBay's market value stood at $67 billion.

Alibaba, is based in Hangzhou in Eastern China, Ma's hometown. The company got started in 1999 when Ma and 17 friends developed a fledgling e-commerce company on the cusp of the Internet boom. Today, Alibaba's main platforms are its original business-to-business service Alibaba.com, consumer-to-consumer site Taobao and TMall, a place for brands to sell to consumers.

And while there's plenty of growth left in China, Ma has recently hinted about plans to expand beyond those borders.

"We hope to become a global company, so after we go public in the U.S., we will expand strongly in Europe and America," Ma said to a group of reporters in Kowloon on Monday.

Alibaba offered 320.1 million shares for a total offering size of $21.77 billion. Underwriters have a 30-day option to buy up to about 48 million more shares. That means the offering size could be as much as $25 billion

The IPO's fundraising handily eclipses the $16 billion Facebook raised in 2012, the most for a technology IPO. If all of its underwriters' options are exercised, it would also top the all-time IPO fundraising record of $22.1 billion set by the Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. in 2010.

Yahoo, which has been struggling to grow for years, made a windfall $8.28 billion by selling 121.7 million of is Alibaba shares. And founder Jack Ma sold 12.75 million shares worth $867 million.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell talks during a press conference at the Hilton Hotel on Sept. 19, 2014 in New York City. Goodell spoke about the NFL's failure to address domestic violence, sexual assault and drug abuse in the league.; Credit: Elsa/Getty Images

Update 1:04 p.m. Goodell: 'Same mistakes can never be repeated'

Commissioner Roger Goodell says the NFL wants to implement new personal conduct policies by the Super Bowl. At a news conference Friday, Goodell made his first public statements in more than a week about the rash of NFL players involved in domestic violence. He did not announce any specific changes, but said he has not considered resigning.

"Unfortunately, over the past several weeks, we have seen all too much of the NFL doing wrong," he said. "That starts with me."

The league has faced increasing criticism that it has not acted quickly or emphatically enough concerning the domestic abuse cases.

The commissioner reiterated that he botched the handling of the Ray Rice case.

"The same mistakes can never be repeated," he said.

Goodell now oversees all personal conduct cases, deciding guilt and penalties.

He said he believes he has the support of the NFL's owners, his bosses.

"That has been clear to me," he said.

The Indianapolis Colts' Darius Butler was among those who tweeted criticism of the press conference:

Colts tweet 1

Colts tweet 2

The commissioner and some NFL teams have been heavily criticized for lenient or delayed punishment of Rice, Adrian Peterson and other players involved in recent domestic violence cases. Less than three weeks into the season, five such cases have made headlines, the others involving Greg Hardy, Ray McDonald and Jonathan Dwyer.

Vikings star running back Peterson, Carolina defensive end Hardy and Arizona running back Dwyer are on a special commissioner's exemption list and are being paid while they go through the legal process. McDonald, a defensive end for San Francisco, continues to practice and play while being investigated on suspicion of domestic violence.

As these cases have come to light, such groups as the National Organization of Women and league partners and sponsors have come down hard on the NFL to be more responsive in dealing with them. Congress also is watching to see how the NFL reacts.

In response to the criticism, the NFL announced it is partnering with a domestic violence hotline and a sexual violence resource center.

Goodell also said in a memo to the clubs late Thursday that within the next 30 days, all NFL and team personnel will participate in education sessions on domestic violence and sexual assault. The memo said the league will work with the union in providing the "information and tools to understand and recognize domestic violence and sexual assault."

The league will provide financial, operational and promotional support to the National Domestic Violence Hotline and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

12:07 p.m. Roger Goodell to break silence on domestic abuse and the NFL

Roger Goodell will make his first public statements in more than a week about the rash of NFL players involved in domestic violence when he holds a news conference Friday.

The NFL commissioner will address the league's personal conduct policy. The league has faced increasing criticism it has not acted quickly or emphatically enough concerning the domestic abuse cases.

His last public appearance was at a high school in North Carolina on Sept. 10.

The commissioner and some NFL teams have been heavily criticized for lenient or delayed punishment of Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and other players involved in recent domestic violence cases. Less than three weeks into the season, five such cases have made headlines, the others involving Greg Hardy, Ray McDonald and Jonathan Dwyer.

Vikings star running back Peterson, Carolina defensive end Hardy and Arizona running back Dwyer are on a special commissioner's exemption list and are being paid while they go through the legal process. McDonald, a defensive end for San Francisco, continues to practice and play while being investigated on suspicion of domestic violence.

As these cases have come to light, such groups as the National Organization of Women and league partners and sponsors have come down hard on the NFL to be more responsive in dealing with them. Congress also is watching to see how the NFL reacts.

In response to the criticism, the NFL announced it is partnering with a domestic violence hotline and a sexual violence resource center.

Goodell also said in a memo to the clubs late Thursday that within the next 30 days, all NFL and team personnel will participate in education sessions on domestic violence and sexual assault. The memo said the league will work with the union in providing the "information and tools to understand and recognize domestic violence and sexual assault."

The league will provide financial, operational and promotional support to the National Domestic Violence Hotline and the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

"These commitments will enable both the hotline and NSVRC to help more people affected by domestic violence and sexual assault," Goodell said in the memo.

The National Domestic Violence Hotline provides domestic violence victims and survivors access to a national network of resources and shelters. It is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week in 170 languages. Goodell noted that the hotline received 84 percent more calls from Sept. 8-15, and the organization said more than 50 percent of those calls went unanswered because of lack of staff.

"The hotline will add 25 full-time advocates over the next few weeks that will result in an additional 750 calls a day being answered," he said.

NSVRC supports sexual violence coalitions across the United States. The NFL's initial support will be directed toward state coalitions to provide additional resources to sexual assault hotlines.

This story has been updated.

; Credit: smartboy10/Getty Images

A for-profit college received millions of dollars from the federal government to help low-income students whose lives have been upended by the coronavirus outbreak, but that same school, Florida Career College (FCC), is also accused of defrauding students.

A federal class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of students in April calls FCC "a sham" and alleges that, long before the pandemic, the college was targeting economically vulnerable people of color. The plaintiffs say the vocational school enticed them with false promises of career training and job placement — but spent little on instruction while charging exorbitant prices and pushing students into loans they cannot repay.

The lawsuit comes as thousands of colleges across the country are receiving federal emergency relief in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Through the CARES Act, FCC has been allotted $17 million. The law requires that at least half of that money goes directly to students, but makes few stipulations for the rest of it.

Experts say the complaint against FCC raises serious concerns about the college's ability to safeguard taxpayer dollars, as well as its ability to serve its own students.

In a statement to NPR, Florida Career College General Counsel Aaron Mortensen says: "This lawsuit is baseless legally and factually. Though we cannot comment because the matter is in litigation, we will aggressively fight these false allegations."

Equipment was "at best limited, and at worse, nonexistent"

Plaintiff Kareem Britt was working as a cook when he noticed a Facebook ad for FCC.

"Are you tired of working minimum wage jobs? Eating ramen noodles?" the ad asked. "Are you ready to step up to steak? HVAC degrees make $16 to $23/hr."

An FCC representative told Britt that a degree could change his life and that the school would help him land a job. He qualified for a $6,000 federal Pell Grant and an FCC "scholarship loan" for $3,000. Britt decided to enroll in the HVAC training program.

After classes began, though, Britt says equipment necessary to learn the trade was in short supply. "Tools, machinery, and other learning devices were at best limited, and at worse, nonexistent," according to the complaint.

When it came time for the school to help Britt find a job, he says, FCC found him just two, two-week placements, and he failed to find HVAC work on his own. Making matters worse, once he'd finished school, Britt learned that he had also taken on federal loans worth $9,500, which he must now pay back as a hotel cook, the same kind of job he'd held before enrolling.

Reverse redlining

The complaint alleges that Florida Career College, along with its parent company, specifically targets economically vulnerable people of color.

"They are recruiting at majority Black high schools," says Toby Merrill, director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending at the Legal Services Center of Harvard Law School, one of the organizations representing the plaintiffs. "They are putting up billboards in towns where the population is mostly Black. And they're doing a lot of advertising on social media where you can choose to target your ad essentially by race."

Stephen Stewart is Jamaican and says he was drawn to an FCC ad on Instagram. He decided to visit campus, and says one word captures his experience: "pressure."

Like Britt, Stewart was considering FCC's HVAC program. After his tour, when a representative told him the program would cost more than $20,000, Stewart balked. He remembers the representative pushed, telling him: "'I know so many students that have went here... I'm talking about people with five, six kids in a worse situation than you're in.'" Stewart was 20 at the time and childless. "'You're telling me that they can go through this, make their payments and pay off their tuition, and you can't?'"

Stewart enrolled in FCC's HVAC program after being promised that, within a year, the school would find him a job in his field.

The complaint takes aim at these recruiting practices. It alleges that FCC is selling the promise of a career and financial success to cash-strapped communities of color where college feels out of reach, "discriminating against students on the basis of race by inducing them to purchase a worthless product by taking on debt they cannot repay."

According to Education Department data, 85% of FCC's students are people of color.

This practice of discriminating by targeting students of color has a name: Reverse redlining — a reference to the historical practice of excluding African-American families from home ownership and denying them access to services. Reverse redlining is illegal, and it's what sets this suit apart from previous legal battles over alleged predatory practices by for-profit colleges.

"In a weekly memo to my board last Friday, I said, 'So the new angle of attack against our sector is that we are predatory to minority communities,'" says Steve Gunderson, head of Career Education Colleges and Universities, an organization that serves as the national voice for career education schools like FCC.

"We have always celebrated the fact that approximately 45 to 50% of the students in our schools are African American and Hispanic," he says. "We're proud of that."

"Classes were a scam"

Long before the federal government granted FCC $17 million in pandemic relief, the school was already largely government-dependent. According to federal data, the lion's share of FCC's revenue — 86% — comes from federal financial aid funds, namely Pell Grants and student loans.

At the same time, federal data also suggest that the college fails to prepare many students for their chosen professions. Under an Obama-era rule known as "gainful employment," schools could lose access to federal aid if graduates don't earn enough income to repay their student debts. According to the complaint, 16 of the 17 FCC programs evaluated under the gainful employment rule failed that metric, meaning graduates weren't able to repay their loans. (The gainful employment rule was repealed in 2019.)

The median annual earnings of FCC graduates who ultimately found employment ranged from $8,983 to $32,871, according to the suit, which helps explain why, according to the most recent federal data, just 23% of FCC students have been able to pay down any of their loans' original balance within three years of leaving.

"Classes were a scam, a waste of time," says Stephen Stewart. The equipment was "limited" and "outdated," he says, and the instructor admitted to the class that he had little experience with HVAC. Stewart's worst day, though, came near the end of his nine-month program when he visited the career services department to ask when they'd help him find a job as they had promised.

Stewart says he was given a list of possible HVAC companies and told, "'You gotta get your job.'" So he did, with no help. But Stewart says it was clear that FCC hadn't given him the skills he needed to keep up in the job, let alone succeed, and he ultimately left. Today, Stewart is $15,000 in debt and says he feels "shattered" by the whole experience.

"The thing that upsets me the most about this is how much it preys upon people's hopes and dreams," says Ben Miller, who studies higher education accountability at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. "You know, you have a lot of folks who want to make a better life for themselves. They have maybe one shot at college, and you rip them off and basically ruin it."

But Gunderson takes a very different view, as head of the national association for postsecondary career colleges.

"[This lawsuit] is so frustrating, because this is nothing more than an organized national effort to destroy the reputation of the [career college] sector," he says.

Gunderson insists that career colleges, including FCC, have been held to unrealistic standards. He points to the gainful employment rule, which he says measured students' incomes relatively soon after graduation. "You've got to go into the five- or 10-year mark before most of these occupations have what you and I would call our respectable salaries."

But federal data also show that, even 10 years after enrolling in FCC, more than half of its students still didn't earn more than the typical high school graduate.

Gunderson says this lawsuit is just the latest salvo in a decade-long fight to discredit for-profit, career colleges — a fight he calls "monotonous and disappointing."

"Even if you're doing a terrible job"

The law requires that at least half of the $17 million FCC is receiving through the CARES Act must go directly to students, but makes few stipulations for the rest of those funds. In a letter, U.S. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos said institutions have "significant discretion" on how to award the assistance to students.

"We stand ready to deliver these funds," said Fardad Fateri, the head of FCC and its parent company, International Education Corporation, in a press release. "It is important we get these grants into the hands of our students right away, so they can better deal with this crisis."

FCC's $17 million is a small piece of the more than $14 billion lawmakers set aside in the CARES Act to help colleges and vulnerable students during the coronavirus pandemic. But Ben Miller says, in Congress' haste to help schools that serve low-income students, lawmakers are giving money to many schools with questionable records like FCC's.

"When there's no consideration of quality or outcomes, it's potentially a big award, even if you're doing a terrible job," Miller says.

Meanwhile DeVos has also championed separate policies that have made it easier for schools like FCC to continue to enroll students and receive federal student aid even as their graduates struggle. In 2019, DeVos repealed the Obama-era gainful employment rule that would have denied low-performing schools access to federal student aid.

Under the Trump administration, the Education Department has also changed the College Scorecard, a website meant to help prospective students compare colleges by price and performance. The department has removed easy access to schools' loan repayment rates. In 2018, it also removed another important metric: How the earnings of a school's graduates compared to the earnings of high school grads.

"Rather than highlighting institutions that show the best employment and loan repayment outcomes for students, this administration has made a concerted effort to hide this information from students with no explanation as to why," says Michael Itzkowitz, who was director of the College Scorecard during the Obama administration. "What's become more transparent is their willingness to prioritize certain institutions — namely for-profits — even if those aren't the best options for students choosing to pursue a postsecondary education."

The Education Department did not respond in time to requests for comment.

When students filed suit against the now-defunct for-profit Corinthian Colleges, claiming, like Britt and Stewart, that their schools had made promises about job placement and future earnings that they simply did not keep, DeVos revised another rule, known as "borrower defense," to make it more difficult for defrauded borrowers to get their money back. But the revision was so strict that 10 Senate Republicans joined with Democrats in March to rebuke the education secretary and reverse her decision.

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

; Credit: LA Johnson/NPR

When Congress allocated money for higher education in the coronavirus rescue package, it set aside nearly $350 million for colleges that had "significant unmet needs."

Most of that money has now been allotted by the U.S. Department of Education to small, private colleges that serve just a fraction of U.S. college students. Meanwhile, public colleges — which serve more than 70% of all college students — are facing a steep drop in state funding.

The 20 institutions that received the most amount of money from the unmet-need fund serve less than 3,000 students combined, and about half are religious schools — including Bible colleges and seminaries — several of which serve less than 100 students.

Don't see the graphic above? Click here.

Lawmakers designed this unmet-need fund to give priority to any higher education institution that has received less than $500,000 through the CARES Act's other pots of funding. As a result, a school like Virginia Beach Theological Seminary, which serves 47 students, is eligible to receive $496,930 in federal aid.

"Imagine you had a special reserve fund to deal with a big crisis and you spent over 90% of that in one fell swoop on vacation tickets," or something that "wasn't as necessary in the moment," says Ben Miller, the vice president for postsecondary education at the left-leaning Center for American Progress. Miller argues larger public colleges, including community colleges that serve tens of thousands of students, should be getting more financial support. He calculates the department allocated more than $320 million of the $350 million on relief for small colleges, most of them private.

"As a result, they only have about 8% of the dollars they originally got here left to help any other college in the country that might be most affected," he says.

As with other CARES Act funding, in order to receive the money, an institution would still need to request it from the Department of Education.

Much of the CARES Act's more than $14 billion for higher education is being distributed according to the number of full-time low-income students a college serves, which is measured through federal Pell Grants.

The $350-million unmet-need fund followed a different formula. Miller says for this particular pot, schools that did not receive $500,000 or more from other available CARES Act funds were given the difference between what they did receive and $500,000 limit.

"So the result is that the smaller you are and the less money you've already gotten, the more you get from this program," Miller says.

But $350 million can only go so far. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was given the discretion to choose which schools would benefit from the fund, and by how much.

Some schools were baffled when they learned they had been allotted hundreds of thousands of dollars in relief, and many weren't aware they were even eligible for the money. Brad Smith, the president of Bakke Graduate University in Dallas, which was allotted $497,338 in federal aid, says he didn't learn of his school's eligibility until he was contacted by NPR.

"I don't know anything about this," Smith says, noting that his school hadn't asked for additional federal help. "I'm taking responsibility to find out what it means."

An Education Department spokesperson tells NPR, "In order to receive this funding, an institution will need to request it. Any institution that does not need this money should simply decline to request it so schools will not be in the position of having to return unneeded funds."

The department says, once the requests are processed, any remaining funds will be redistributed through competitive grants.

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

"For Sale By Owner" and "Closed Due to Virus" signs are displayed in the window of Images On Mack in Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich. Congress is considering ways to help those struggling during the economic downturn and stabilize businesses hoping to reopen.; Credit: Paul Sancya/AP

Updated at 3:20 p.m. ET

Democrats and some Republicans are considering ways for the federal government to get money into people's pockets while the coronavirus is keeping much of the economy on ice.

Proposals for the next round of aid are being floated, and Democrats in the House are prepping another relief package as jobless claims continue to rise in the country. The Labor Department announced Friday that 20.5 million jobs were lost in April, pushing the overall unemployment rate to 14.7 %.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., hopes to release another bill, which is being crafted without the input of Republicans or the White House as early as next week.

"This is a reflection of the needs of the American people," Pelosi said Thursday. "We have to start someplace and, rather than starting in a way that does not meet the needs of the American people, want to set a standard."

The latest proposal from Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif., Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Ed Markey D-Mass., is a plan for the federal government to provide $2,000 a month for every individual earning less than $120,000, including children and other dependents. The draft legislation would extend the payments until three months after the public health emergency is lifted.

The proposal is a vast expansion on the recovery rebate program that sent a one-time payment of $1200 to every person earning less than $75,000 and an additional $500 for every child.

The trio of Democratic senators wants to make the payments, which would be available to every U.S. resident, retroactive to March. They didn't provide a cost estimate for the ambitious proposal, and it's unclear whether Senate leaders have an appetite for payments like these.

Official scorekeepers at the Congressional Budget Office estimate that the existing one-time $1200 payment program in the CARES Act package enacted in March could cost around $300 billion. Republican leaders have signaled concerns with the growing cost of the relief bills that have already passed.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has called for a pause on any new aid.

"Let's see what we are doing that is succeeding, what is not succeeding, what needs less, what needs more," McConnell told reporters in April. "Let's weigh this very carefully because the future of our country in terms of the amount of debt that we are adding up is a matter of genuine concern."

Not all Republicans agree. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has introduced a comprehensive response plan that includes a proposal to cover 80 percent of payroll for companies that rehire workers and a bonus for the companies that take advantage of the program.

"The federal government should cover 80 percent of wages for workers at any U.S. business, up to the national median wage, until this emergency is over," Hawley wrote in an editorial in The Washington Post. "The goal must be to get unemployment down — now — to secure American workers and their families, and to help businesses get ready to restart as soon as possible."

Hawley's proposal would cap payments at the national median income level. The median income can be calculated in several different ways. Hawley told St. Louis Public radio the payments could be as high as $50,000. Other calculation set the figure at roughly $33,000, a figure many Democrats say is not sufficient in higher-cost areas like cities.

House Progressive Caucus co-chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., has a separate version that would guarantee a worker's full salary up to $100,000 for three months. Jayapal's plan would automatically renew the payments on a monthly basis until consumer demand returns to pre-crisis levels.

The proposal has nearly two dozen co-sponsors but has not received an endorsement from party leadership.

Pelosi has not ruled out the possibility of including some minimum income payments in an upcoming coronavirus aid bill.

"We may have to think in terms of some different ways to put money in people's pockets," Pelosi said in an interview with MSNBC. "Let's see what works, what is operational and what needs other attention."

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

Vehicles sit in a near empty parking lot outside the Tyson Foods plant in Waterloo, Iowa, on May 1.; Credit: Charlie Neibergall/AP

A meat-packing plant in Waterloo, Iowa, where a coronavirus outbreak exploded a few weeks ago, resumed operations on Thursday after a two-week closure.

The reopening of Tyson Foods' largest U.S. pork plant came the same day that health officials in Black Hawk County, where the plant is located, announced that 1,031 of the plant's estimated 2,800 employees have tested positive for the virus. That's higher than previous estimates by state officials.

Tony Thompson, sheriff of Black Hawk County, was among the public officials who called for the Waterloo facility to shut down temporarily. His call to close the plant came after he first toured the facility on April 10.

Thompson says that when he toured the plant then, he "fully expected" to see barriers, masks and other personal protective equipment in place. That wasn't the case.

"What I saw when we went into that plant was an absolute free-for-all," he says. "Some people were wearing bandannas. Some people were wearing surgical masks. .... Most people weren't wearing anything. People working on the line were working elbow to elbow, sometimes reaching over each other, processing the meat that was coming down the line.

"There was absolutely no opportunity for social distancing," he says. "We left the plant thinking, 'oh, my gosh, we've got a huge problem here.'"

Health officials say 90% of the cases of coronavirus in the county are linked to the Tyson facility.

During the closure, Tyson installed clear plastic mats to divide workstations and hand sanitizing stations. The plant has also instituted temperature checks and provides workers with surgical masks when they arrive and when they leave.

After touring the facility last week, Thompson is in cautious support of the reopening, saying he feels "reserved encouragement" after seeing the new safety measures.

If, however, the outbreak continues at this facility, Thompson says he would support a second shutdown.

Thompson's primary focus is on the safety and security of the roughly 131,000 citizens of Black Hawk County — and he says he feels especially responsible for the Tyson workers.

"We like our bacon, but we don't want to think about how it's actually done. When you got a carcass hanging there, bleeding on the floor, you don't want to think about that ... a byproduct of that is the people that actually do that work," he says.

"Unfortunately, these are oftentimes marginalized citizens because they are refugees, because they don't speak English, because they do a job that not many people want to do," he continues. "So there's something inherent there that was not right that I hope that they have corrected. And I'll hold my breath and pray that that is true. If it's not, we'll back up, regroup and go at this again."

Listen to the full interview with NPR's Ailsa Chang at the audio link above.

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

Birth control pills in 1976 in New York. The birth control pill was approved by the FDA 60 years ago this week.; Credit: /Bettmann/Getty Images

Updated at 9:44 a.m. ET

As a young woman growing up in a poor farming community in Virginia in the 1940 and '50s, with little information about sex or contraception, sexuality was a frightening thing for Carole Cato and her female friends.

"We lived in constant fear, I mean all of us," she said. "It was like a tightrope. always wondering, is this going to be the time [I get pregnant]?"

Cato, 78, now lives in Columbia, S.C. She grew up in the years before the birth control pill was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, on May 9, 1960. She said teenage girls in her community were told very little about how their bodies worked.

"I was very fortunate; I did not get pregnant, but a lot of my friends did. And of course, they just got married and went into their little farmhouses," she said. "But I just felt I just had to get out."

At 23, Cato married a widower who already had seven children. They decided seven was enough.

By that time, Cato said, the pill allowed the couple to avoid having more babies — and she eventually was able to go on to college.

"It was just like going from night to day, as far as the freedom of it," Cato said. "And to know that I had control, that I had choice, that I controlled my body. It gave me a whole new lease on life."

Loretta Ross, an activist and visiting women's studies professor at Smith College, was among the first generation of young women to have access to the birth control pill throughout their reproductive years.

Ross, now 66, said by the time she came of age around 1970, the pill was giving young women more control over their fertility than previous generations had enjoyed.

"We could talk about having sex – not without consequences, because there were still STDS ... but at the same time, with more freedom than our foremothers had," Ross said. "So it changed the world."

For all it's done for women, Ross said that the pill has a complex and controversial history; it was first tested on low-income women in Puerto Rico. Ross said the pill also has limitations; she'd like to see it made available over the counter, as it is in some countries – not to mention, a pill for men.

When the pill was approved in 1960, women had few relatively few contraceptive options, and the pill offered more reliability and convenience than methods like condoms or diaphragms, said Dr. Eve Espey, chair of the Department of Ob/Gyn and Family Planning at the University of New Mexico.

"There was a huge, pent-up desire for a truly effective form of contraception, which had been lacking up to that point," Espey said.

By 1965, she said, 40% of young married women were on the pill.

For Pat Fishback, now 80 and living in Richmond, Va., the newly-available pill allowed her to delay having children in her early 20s until she'd been married for a couple of years.

"It also made having children a positive experience," Fishback said. "Because we had actually, emotionally and intellectually, gotten to the point where we really desired to have children."

It took a bit longer for unmarried women to gain widespread access to the pill and other forms of contraception: Linda Gordon, 80, a historian at New York University, remembers the stigma around single women and contraception at the time.

"When I was in college, a number of women had a wedding ring – a gold ring –that we would pass around and use when we wanted to go see a doctor to get fitted for a diaphragm," Gordon said. "In other words, there were people finding their way to do that, even then."

The pill also gave rise to a variety of other forms of hormonal contraception, many of which are popular today, Gordon said. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 13% of American women of reproductive age use the pill — making it the second most popular form of contraception, after female sterilization.

Gordon said that 60 years after the pill's approval, contraception remains a contentious political issue.

Just this week, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in a case involving the birth control mandate in the Affordable Care Act. A decision on whether some institutions with religious or moral objections can deny contraceptive coverage to their employees is expected in the months to come.

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

David Rolf, International Vice President of the Service Employees International Union, stands in his downtown Seattle office. Rolf led the campaign to bring a $15 minimum wage to Seatac, Washington in 2013.; Credit: Ben Bergman/KPCC

As Los Angeles mulls a law that would raise the minimum wage above the current California minimum of $9 an hour, it's the latest city to jump on a trend that started as the by-product of a failed labor negotiation in the state of Washington.

The first city to enact a $15-per-hour minimum wage was SeaTac, Wash., — a tiny airport town outside Seattle. "SeaTac will be viewed someday as the vanguard, as the place where the fight started," the lead organizer of SeaTac's $15 campaign, David Rolf, told supporters in November 2013 after a ballot measure there barely passed.

Rolf never set out to raise SeaTac’s minimum wage, much less start a national movement. Speaking from a sparse corner office in downtown Seattle at the Service Employees International Union 775, which he founded in 2002, Rolf told KPCC that his original goal in 2010 was to unionize workers at SeaTac airport.

When employers – led by Alaska Airlines — played hardball, Rolf put the $15 minimum wage on the ballot as leverage. “We had some polling in SeaTac that it could pass, but it was not at all definitive,” Rolf said.

That proved prescient: In a city of just 12,108 registered voters, Rolf's staff signed up around 1,000 new voters, many of them immigrants who had never cast a ballot. The measure won by just 77 votes.

It's an irony that the new law doesn't apply to workers at the center of the minimum wage campaign: The airport workers at SeaTac. That's because the Port of Seattle, which oversees the airport, challenged the initiative, arguing that the city's new minimum wage should not apply to the nearly 5,000 workers at the airport. A county judge agreed. Supporters of the $15 wage have appealed.

Still, Rolf said, "I think people are proud that that’s what happening. There are leaders of the movement in Seattle, including our mayor, that said shortly after the victory, 'Now we have to take it everywhere else.'"

The $15 minimum wage spread to Seattle last June and to San Francisco in November. 

Why $15 an hour?

The $15 figure first came to people’s attention in a series of strikes by fast food workers that started two years ago in New York. 

“I think it’s aspirational, and it provides a clean and easy-to-understand number," Rolf said. "You can debate whether it ought to really be $14.89 or $17.12, and based upon the cost of living in different cities, you could have a different answer. But in the late 19th and early 20th century, American workers didn’t rally for 7.9 or 8.1 hour working day. They rallied for an eight-hour day.”

“What’s really remarkable about social protest movements in American history is that the radical ideas of one group are often the common sense ideas of another group in a matter of a few years," said Peter Dreier, professor of politics at Occidental College.

Rolf is hopeful the $15 minimum wage can spread to every state. But Nelson Lichtenstein, Director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is skeptical.

“I don’t think having high wages in a few cities will mean it will spread to red state America,” he said. 

Lichtenstein said cities like L.A. have become more labor friendly, thanks largely to an influx of immigrants, but that’s not the case in the South. Oklahoma recently banned any city from setting its own minimum wage, joining at least 12 other states with similar laws, according to Paul Sonn, general counsel and program director at the National Employment Law Project.

In November, voters in four Republican-leaning states — Alaska, Arkansas, South Dakota, and Nebraska — approved higher minimum wages, but they weren’t close to $15.

A $15 dollar wage would have a much greater impact in Los Angeles than Seattle or San Francisco because the average income here is much lower than in those cities. Post-recession, income inequality has become much more of a concern for voters, which has made $15 more palatable, Sonn said.

This fall, the Los Angeles City Council enacted a $15.37 minimum wage for hotel workers that takes effect next year. A similar law has been in effect around LAX since 2007. 

But even though California cities have been allowed to set their own minimum wages for more than a decade, L.A. has never come close to doing so.

Until now.

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

Finding affordable apartments is especially tough in Los Angeles, where 52 percent of people are renters, according to a new study.; Credit: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

You need to earn at least $33 an hour — $68,640 a year — to be able to afford the average apartment in Los Angeles County, according to Matt Schwartz, president and chief executive of the California Housing Partnership, which advocates for affordable housing. 

That's more than double the level of the highest minimum wage being proposed by Mayor Eric Garcetti, which he argued would make it easier for workers to afford to live here. “If we pass this, this will allow more people to live their American Dream here in L.A.," Garcetti proclaimed when he announced his plan to raise the minimum wage to $13.25 by 2017. 

The $33 an hour figure is based on the average L.A. County apartment rental price of $1,716 a month, from USC's 2014 Casden Multifamily Forecast. An apartment is considered affordable when you spend no more than 30 percent of your paycheck on rent.

To earn $33 an hour or more, you'd need to have a Los Angeles job like one of the following occupations: 

• Marketing manager: $66,538 (average in L.A., according to Payscale.com)
• LAUSD teacher: $70,000 (average salary, according to LAUSD)
• Software engineer: $82,669 (average according to Payscale.com)
• Lawyer: $104,249 (average according to Payscale.com)

But many occupations typically earn far below that $33 an hour threshold in L.A. County, according to the California Housing Partnership:

• Secretaries: $36,000 ($17 an hour)
• EMT Paramedics: $25,00 ($12 an hour)
• Preschool teachers: $29,000 ($14 an hour)

That's why L.A. residents wind up spending an average of 47 percent of their income on rent, which is the highest percentage in the nation, according to UCLA's Ziman Center for Real Estate.

Naturally, people who earn the current California minimum wage of $9 an hour ($18,720 a year) would fare even worse in trying to afford an average apartment.

Raising the minimum wage to $13.25 would equal a $27,560 salary; raising it to $15.25 an hour totals $31,720 a year.

What about buying a home?

In order to afford to purchase the median-priced home in Los Angeles, you'd need to earn $96,513 a year, according to HSH.com, a mortgage information website. 

The median home price in Los Angeles is $570,500, according to the real estate website, Trulia.com.

But consider that the median income in Los Angeles is about half that: $49,497, according to census numbers from 2009-2013.

So it's no surprise that Los Angeles has been rated as the most unaffordable city to rent in America by Harvard and UCLA. 

The cost of housing has gone up so much that even raising the minimum wage to $15.25 an hour – as some on the city council have proposed doing by 2019– would not go very far in solving the problem.

“Every little bit helps, but even if you doubled the minimum wage, it wouldn’t help most low-income families find affordable rental housing in Los Angeles,” said Schwartz.

What percentage of your income to you spend on housing in Los Angeles? Let us know in the comments, on our Facebook page or on Twitter (@KPCC). You can see how affordable your neighborhood is with our interactive map.

An earlier version of this story incorrectly calculated the hourly pay rate, based on the estimated $68,640 annual pay needed to afford the average rent in L.A. County. KPCC regrets the error.

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

“Union members and non-union members have a strong interest in seeing our economy grow," said Rusty Hicks, the new head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which represents over 300 unions.; Credit: Ben Bergman/KPCC

Labor unions have led the fight to raise the minimum wage in several American cities, including Los Angeles, where the City Council is considering two proposals right now that would give raises to hundreds of thousands of workers (to $13.25 an hour by 2017 and $15.25 an hour by 2019).

But few of the unions' members have benefited directly from the initiatives. So why do unions care about a $15 wage for non-union workers? 

It’s part of a long-term strategy to protect the interests of their members, labor leaders say. They also see an opportunity to raise the profile of unions after years of falling membership.

"We can’t be the movement that’s just about us," said David Rolf, an international vice-president of SEIU, who led the first successful $15 minimum wage campaign in SeaTac, the town in Washington that is home to the region's similarly named airport. 

“We have to be the movement that’s about justice for all," Rolf added. "The labor movement that people flocked to by the tens of millions in the 1930s wasn’t known for fighting for 500-page contracts. They were known for fighting for the eight-hour day, fighting to end child labor.”

The idea that workers should earn $15 dollars an hour first came to the public’s attention during a series of fast food strikes that started in New York City in late 2012. Those workers didn’t just walk off the job by themselves. They were part of a campaign organized by unions, led by SEIU, which is made up mostly of public sector and health care workers.

$10 million fast-food strikes

The Service Employees International Union spent $10 million dollars on the fast food strikes, according to The New York Times. But none of those restaurants have unionized, and because it’s been so hard to form private sector union these days, they probably never will, said labor historian Nelson Lichtenstein.

“In effect what you have now is the SEIU – its hospital membership or its members working at the Department of Motor Vehicles – helping to raise the wages of fast food workers, but not their own wages,” Lichtenstein said.

That's because unionized workers earn far more than the current or proposed new minimum wages, in L.A. an average of more than $27 an hour, according to UCLA's Center for Research on Employment and Labor. 

The spread of the $15 minimum wage from SeaTac to Seattle to San Francisco — and now possibly Los Angeles — is a huge victory for labor unions, but it’s unlikely most of the people getting raises will ever be part of organized labor.

Still, the rank and file seem to support their unions' efforts.

“I personally support using our organization as a way to advocate for those who don’t have a voice," said Rafael Sanchez III, a teacher's assistant at Bell High School who's a member of SEIU Local 99. 

A challenging time for the labor movement

In the 1950’s, about one in three American workers belonged to a union. Last year, just 11 percent did – or 6 percent of private sector workers – the lowest numbers in nearly a century.

Rolf says the minimum wage campaigns mark a change in tactics for organized labor; Rather than the shop floor, the focus is on the ballot box and city hall.

“Since at least the 1980s, winning unions in the private sector has been a Herculean task," Rolf said. "The political process provides an alternative vehicle.”

And an increasingly successful one. It was voters who approved the first $15 wage, in Washington state in 2013, and another one in San Francisco last year.  

In Los Angeles, the issue is before the city council. Mayor Eric Garcetti opened the bidding, proposing a raise of $13.25 on Labor Day before six council members countered with $15.25.

The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor – lead by Rusty Hicks — is pushing for the higher option.

“Union members and non-union members have an interest in seeing our economy grow," said Hicks. "You can’t continue to have a strong, vibrant economy if in fact folks don’t have money in their pockets.”

Other benefits for unions: A safety net and a higher floor

Some union members see a higher minimum wage as a safety net.

Robert Matsuda is a studio violinist represented by the American Federation of Musicians, part of the AFL-CIO. Even though he’s not working for the minimum wage now, he worries that may not last: He’s getting fewer and fewer gigs as more film and TV scoring is outsourced overseas.

“I might have to take a minimum wage job in the near future, so it might directly affect me,” said Matsuda.

There’s also a more tangible benefit for unions, says Nelson Lichtenstein, the labor historian: A higher minimum wage means a higher wage floor to negotiate with in future contracts.

“It’s one labor market, and if you can raise the wages in those sectors that have been pulling down the general wage level – i.e: fast food and retail – then it makes it easier for unions to create a higher standard and go on and get more stuff,” said Lichtenstein.

On Friday morning, union members will rally in front of Los Angeles City Hall, calling on the council to enact a $15.25 an hour minimum wage as soon as possible.

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

More than 70 passengers travelled through LAX last year, an all-time record.; Credit: Photo by monkeytime | brachiator via Flickr Creative Commons

Here’s a pop quiz: What is the world’s busiest airport?

Almost two weeks ago, Chicago's O'Hare International claimed the honor.

"As Chicago reclaims its place with the world’s busiest airport, it speaks to the strength of our city’s economy," bragged Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

Not so fast, said Dubai, which last week said it was number one.

“This historic milestone is the culmination of over five decades of double-digit average growth," announced HH Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman of Dubai Airports.

Then, on Wednesday, Atlanta weighed in, and yes, it also claimed to be the champion.

“I am pleased to announce that once again – for the 17th year in a row – Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport is the busiest airport on Planet Earth, with more than 96.1 million passengers,” Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said. 

Airports Council International ranks Atlanta as number one in passenger traffic, but those are based on 2013 numbers. The group's 2014 numbers will be out in a few months, but until then we know that LAX proudly takes an undisputed sixth place.

Gina Marie Lindsey, Executive Director of the Los Angeles World Airports, announced her retirement Tuesday after a 33-year career in the aviation industry. Since Lindsey started in 2007, passenger traffic has grown by 15 percent. 

Aviation consultant Jack Keady doesn’t think LAX stands a chance of competing with rapidly expanding Dubai, which state-owned Emirates airlines has made its glitzy global hub.

"Dubai has bumped everyone down,” said Keady.

Still, Keady says LAX will keep growing, even though it’s going to be working with the same number of runways for the foreseeable future.

“Instead of running 30-passenger turboprops and 100-passenger planes, you start bringing in the heavy metal,” said Keady.

Bigger planes are especially important because under a 2006 settlement with airport neighbors, once LAX hits 75 million passengers, it has to start closing gates.

More than 70 million passengers travelled through LAX last year, an all-time record.

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

In this Jan. 14, 2015, photo, shipping containers are stacked up waiting for truck transport at the Port of Los Angeles.; Credit: Damian Dovarganes/AP

The Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach reopened Monday after ship loading and unloading was suspended this weekend because of a long-running labor dispute, which caused the worst delays the ports have seen in more than a decade.

The stoppage led to a queue of 31 ships, according to Kip Louttit, Executive Director of the Marine Exchange of Southern California, the agency that manages ship traffic.

“It’s quite unusual,” said Louttit.

There was a 10-day lockout at the ports in 2002, and an eight-day strike by port clerks in 2012, but even during those standoffs, the queue never exceeded 30 vessels.

The last time that happened was in 2004, because of staffing shortages at the Union Pacific Railroad. Some 65 ships were anchored, "backed up halfway down to San Diego, like 50 miles down the coast," Art Wong, spokesperson for the Port of Long Beach, told JOC.com, a container shipping and international supply chain industry website.

By Monday afternoon, the situation had improved some: 24 vessels were waiting to dock.

Louttit says all those ships waiting at sea means cargo is not getting where it needs to be.

“We had an automaker from the Midwest stop by, trying to get an idea of what the flow would be, because their plants are running out of parts to make cars,” he said.

Los Angeles Councilman Joe Buscaino, who supports the dockworkers union, called on both sides to reach an agreement quickly. To underscore the delays the dispute is having, he travelled a mile and a half out to sea Monday morning to count the number of anchored ships for himself. He posted a video of his trip on Youtube:

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

Full Text:

A National Science Foundation-funded study found that Charles Darwin's famous finches defy what has long been considered a key to evolutionary success: genetic diversity. The research on finches of the Galapagos Islands could change the way conservation biologists think about a species' potential for extinction in naturally fragmented populations. Researchers examined 212 tissue samples from museum specimens and living birds. Some of the museum specimens in the study were collected by Darwin himself in 1835. Only one of the extinct populations, a species called the vegetarian finch, had lower genetic diversity compared to modern survivors. Specifically, researchers believe a biological phenomenon called sink-source dynamics is at play in which larger populations of birds from other islands act as a "source" of immigrants to the island population that is naturally shrinking, the "sink." Without these immigrant individuals, the natural population on the island likely would continue to dwindle to local extinction. The immigrants have diverse genetics because they are coming from a variety of healthier islands, giving this struggling "sink" population inflated genetic diversity.

Image credit: Jose Barreiro

Full Text:

The molecular mechanism used by many bacteria to kill neighboring cells has redundancy built into its genetic makeup, which could allow for the mechanism to be expressed in different environments, say researchers at Penn State and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Their new study provides insights into the molecular mechanisms of competition among bacteria. "Many organisms, including humans, acquire bacteria from their environment," said Tim Miyashiro, a biochemist and molecular biologist at Penn State and the leader of the research team. "These bacteria can contribute to functions within the host organism, like how our gut bacteria help us digest food. We're interested in the interactions among bacteria cells, and between bacteria and their hosts, to better understand these mutually beneficial symbiotic relationships." Cells of the bioluminescent bacteria Vibrio fisheri take up residence in the light organ of newly hatched bobtail squid. At night, the bacteria produce a blue glow that researchers believe obscures a squid's silhouette and helps protect it from predators. The light organ has pockets, or crypts, in the squid's skin that provide nutrients and a safe environment for the bacteria. "When the squid hatches, it doesn't yet have any bacteria in its light organ," said Miyashiro. "But bacteria in the environment quickly colonize the squid's light organ." Some of these different bacteria strains can coexist, but others can't. "Microbial symbioses are essentially universal in animals, and are crucial to the health and development of both partners," says Irwin Forseth, a program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Integrative Organismal Systems, which funded the research. "The results from this study highlight the role small genetic changes can play in microbe interactions. Increased understanding will allow us to better predict organisms' performance in changing environments."

Image credit: Andrew Cecere

Full Text:

Scientists have recovered the first genetic data from an extinct bird in the Caribbean, thanks to the remarkably preserved bones of a Creighton's caracara in a flooded sinkhole on Great Abaco Island in the Bahamas. Studies of ancient DNA from tropical birds have faced two formidable obstacles. Organic material quickly degrades when exposed to heat, light and oxygen. And birds' lightweight, hollow bones break easily, accelerating the decay of the DNA within. But the dark, oxygen-free depths of a 100-foot blue hole known as Sawmill Sink provided ideal preservation conditions for the bones of Caracara creightoni, a species of large carrion-eating falcon that disappeared soon after humans arrived in the Bahamas about 1,000 years ago. Florida Museum of Natural History researcher Jessica Oswald and her colleagues extracted and sequenced genetic material from the 2,500-year-old C. creightoni femur. Because ancient DNA is often fragmented or missing, the team had modest expectations for what they would find –- maybe one or two genes. But instead, the bone yielded 98.7% of the bird's mitochondrial genome, the DNA most living things inherit from their mothers. The mitochondrial genome showed that C. creightoni is closely related to the two remaining caracara species alive today: the crested caracara and the southern caracara. The three species last shared a common ancestor between 1.2 and 0.4 million years ago. "This project enhanced our understanding of the ecological and evolutionary implications of extinction, forged strong international partnerships, and trained the next generation of researchers," says Jessica Robin, a program director in National Science Foundation's Office of International Science and Engineering, which funded the study.

Image credit: Florida Museum photo by Kristen Grace

New sensors to monitor storm surge on bridges

The National Science Foundation: Creating knowledge to transform our future

Full Text:

Bridges make travel faster and more convenient, but, in an earthquake, these structures are subject to forces that can cause extensive damage and make them unsafe. Now civil and environmental engineer Petros Sideris of Texas A&M University is leading a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded research project to investigate the performance of hybrid sliding-rocking (HSR) columns. HSR columns provide the same support as conventional bridge infrastructure columns but are more earthquake-resistant. HSR columns are a series of individual concrete segments held together by steel cables that allow for controlled sliding and rocking. This allows the columns to shift without damage, while post-tensioning strands ensure that at the end of an earthquake the columns are pushed back to their original position. Conventional bridges are cast-in-place monolithic concrete elements that are strong but inflexible. Structural damage in these bridge columns, typically caused by a natural disaster, often forces a bridge to close until repairs are completed. But bridges with HSR columns can withstand large earthquakes with minimal damage and require minor repairs, likely without bridge closures. Such infrastructure helps with post-disaster response and recovery and can save thousands in taxpayer dollars. In an earthquake, HSR columns provide "multiple advantages to the public," Sideris said. "By preventing bridge damage, we can maintain access to affected areas immediately after an event for response teams to be easily deployed, and help affected communities recover faster. In mitigating losses related to post-event bridge repairs and bridge closures, more funds can be potentially directed to supporting the recovery of the affected communities." According to Joy Pauschke, NSF program director for natural hazards engineering, "NSF invests in fundamental engineering research so that, in the future, the nation's infrastructure can be more resilient to earthquakes, hurricanes, and other forces of nature."

Image credit: Texas A&M University

Tradeshift, a supply...

Here’s how you can greatly improve your Zoom privacy and security in a few simple steps

The post Zoom security: Getting the settings right appeared first on WeLiveSecurity