Italian manufacturing company AnsaldoBreda was 3 years behind schedule to deliver 50 rail cars to the Los Angeles MTA and the cars they had delivered were 6,000 pounds heavier than specified. Despite those details, they were still positioned to win a $300-million contract to build another 100 rail cars for LA county’s transit system and build a $70-million factory that would have created hundreds of local jobs. All that fell through on Friday night, though, when the company began raising new issues. Where does that leave LA?

It’s been a decades-long fight in the east San Fernando Valley—noise from airplanes heading into Bob Hope Airport in Burbank have tormented residents in the flight path, while commerce interests want to hang onto their profitable night-time flights. The FAA dealt what could be the final blow this morning to efforts to establish a permanent curfew on nigh-time flights. Did business trump ordinary residents in the airport fight?

The Obama Administration, legislative leaders and representatives of leading media outlets have reached a tentative agreement on new federal protections for journalists and unpaid bloggers who gather and report news. The pending legislation is being touted as a solid compromise between the public’s right to know and the federal government’s concerns over national security. The bill is scheduled to go before the Senate Judiciary Committee this week.

A grenade explosion in Vietnam left him a triple amputee, he lost his Senate seat in 2002 after his opponent’s ads suggested he was unpatriotic, and the U.S. invasion of Iraq awakened his long-dormant case of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Still, Senator Max Cleland remains a self-proclaimed patriot and veterans’ advocate. He talks with Patt about the costs and joy of serving one’s country no matter what the cost, the disillusionment of coming home from war and his own struggles, from PTSD to political opponents.

Arizona’s Joe Arpaio may indeed be America’s Toughest Sheriff but he is also among the most controversial sheriffs in all the land. What good does parading prisoners in pink underwear down hot pavement do? Where did the idea come from to turn condemned jails into no-kill animal shelters? How does he feel about getting the cold shoulder from I.C.E.? Would these tactics fly in the City of Angels? Patt talks to the five term Sheriff and takes your calls.