Whose House?! Los Angeles Honors The Super Bowl-Champion Rams With Victory Parade And Rally
The party continues Wednesday for the Los Angeles Rams. The Super Bowl champions will get a victory parade and rally through South L.A. The parade starts at 11 a.m. at the intersection of Royal St. and W. Jefferson Blvd., then will wind its way to Exposition Park and Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum – the site of the very first Super Bowl in 1967 – where a championship rally will start at 12 p.m. It will be L.A.’s first chance to celebrate a sports championship during the pandemic: the Dodgers won the World Series and the Lakers won the NBA championship back in 2020 but neither team got a victory parade because of COVID.
Today on AirTalk, Larry talks with KPCC and LAist reporter Julia Paskin who’s along the parade route as fans get ready for the celebration.
Listeners Tell Us How They Feel About The Biggest Issues Facing California
A new poll from the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley found homelessness and crime are two of the biggest areas of concern among registered voters, and those issues are weighing down their opinions of Governor Gavin Newsom’s job performance. Pollsters found 48% of the state’s registered voters approve of the Governor’s performance overall while 47% disapprove. As we enter the third year of the pandemic, COVID-19 and the state’s response appear to be receding a bit as a top issue of concern: 66% of voters surveyed said they think the pandemic situation is getting better in their area, and 62% said the direction of the pandemic is getting better across the entire state. Meanwhile, 65% of voters believe crime in their community has increased over the past year, and 78% believe crime across California has been on the rise. Statistics show homicides have increased in California over the last couple years – but it’s still a fraction of the highs we saw in the 1990s, while property crimes were up in 2021 after a drop to historic lows during the first year of the pandemic.
The results of the poll made us curious: What do you think about the state of the state of California? What issues are most important to you right now and why? What do you think the state is doing well in addressing those issues, and what could state officials be doing better?
Today on AirTalk, Larry talks about the results of the new survey with Mark DiCamillo, director of the Berkeley IGS Poll, a non-partisan survey of California public opinion on matters of politics, public policy and public affairs.
Examining The Scope And Scale Of PG&E’s Plan To Bury 10,000 Miles Of Power Lines
Pacific Gas & Electric came out last week with a cost estimate for the first phase of its plan to put thousands of miles of power lines underground, ballparking it at $9 billion to $13.5 billion according to the San Jose Mercury News for the first 3,600 miles of lines it wants to bury by 2026. Last July, PG&E announced the plan to bury 10,000 miles of lines in total as part of its effort to address wildfires started by equipment it owned, among them the 2021 Dixie Fire that burned almost a million acres in the Sierra Nevada and the 2018 Camp Fire, which left the town of Paradise in ashes. The utility will ultimately have to submit its plan to the California Public Utilities Commission for approval before moving ahead with it, and it’s possible that the plan PG&E shows up with is different from what the regulator ultimately approves, but there’s no denying the sheer scale of the operation they’ll be undertaking in order to accomplish this goal. So, where do you even start with burying 10,000 miles of power lines? What are the economic, environmental and engineering challenges PG&E will have to navigate? And what are the tradeoffs to having power lines buried as opposed to suspended in the air?
Today on AirTalk, we’ll ask these questions and more of Ted Kury, director of energy studies for the Public Utility Research Center at the University of Florida, Sam Ariaratnam, professor of construction engineering at Arizona State University and April Maurath Sommer, executive and legal director of the Bay Area environmental group Wild Tree Foundation.
We invited PG&E to join our conversation but they said they did not have anyone available to go on air at this time.
Victory Parade For The Los Angeles Rams Gets Underway In South L.A.
The victory parade for the Los Angeles Rams is just getting underway in South L.A. The team will wind their way to Exposition Park and Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for a rally starting at noon. Larry checks in with KPCC and LAist reporter Julia Paskin, who’s along the parade route as the team gets ready to roll.
COVID-19 AMA: L.A. County Lifts Outdoor Mask Mandate, Disneyland Follows Suit For Vaccinated Guests, And More
In our continuing series looking at the latest medical research and news on COVID-19, Larry Mantle speaks with Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, infectious disease specialist and professor of medicine at the UCSF Medical Center.
Topics today include:
- L.A. County lifts outdoor mask mandate
- Disneyland lifts mask requirement for vaccinated guests
- C.D.C. expected to update mask guidance as early as next week
- Coachella, Stagecoach festivals won’t require COVID-19 vaccination, tests, or masks
Looking Into The Future Impact Of California’s ‘Lithium Valley’
California has ambitious renewable energy goals, and lithium is a key part of meeting those goals. Lithium can be used to power the batteries we’ll need for future electric vehicles, utilities, and more. So California officials are looking at ways to increase the state’s supply of the valuable element.
In 2017, the state began giving grants to companies like Berkshire Hathaway Energy and EnergySource Minerals to increase the extraction of lithium in the state. Both organizations have now set up shop in “Lithium Valley,’ a lithium-rich location in the Imperial Valley on the edge of the Salton Sea. “We have what some have described as the Saudi Arabia of lithium,” Newsom said at a news conference in January when he outlined his budget proposal, and his administration’s plans to help facilitate lithium extraction.
Today on AirTalk, Larry discusses the potential costs and benefits of increasing lithium extraction in the Salton Sea with Michael McKibben, Research Professor Emeritus of Geology at UC Riverside. We also talk to local stakeholders executive director of Comite Civico del Valle Luis Olmedo and Altrena Santillanes, secretary for the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians Tribal Council.