Patt Morrison

The mayor of Los Angeles is going abroad to go green—he joins us from the Global Climate Summit in Copenhagen to talk about his vision for a greener LA. So far he’s signed a Memorandum of Understanding between the Community Redevelopment Agency (CRA) and the Adlershof Technology Park to share best practices on the construction of clean technology clusters and to promote (green) economic growth in both cities. He joins Patt to talk about going green, starting with the city level, and then we move to the state level.

If Michael Jackson or Madonna were sick in a hospital in Paris, it’s safe to say that most of France would take notice; but when the “French Elvis” Johnny Hallyday comes to Los Angeles for a tricky operation at Cedars-Sinai, no local press seemed to notice. Meanwhile dozens of French and European news outlets haven taken up residence outside of Cedars awaiting word on Hallyday’s condition. Who is Johnny Hallyday and why hasn’t the French music superstar’s popularity crossed the Atlantic to American audiences?

Given all of the controversy and secrecy surrounding many of the Bush administration’s national security decisions over eight years, the White House email from 2000 – 2008 must contain some juicy reading. To that end, two advocacy groups had sued the former administration in search of some 22 million emails that the Executive Office of the President claimed were missing or destroyed. Turns out that the emails were retrievable (they were found) and that there are dozens more days’ worth of potentially lost email from the Bush years. How does all of that valuable information get lost, and what does this mean for presidential secrecy?

The number is surprising in this electronic age of debit cards, online banking and e-commerce: 17 million adult Americans do not have a bank account. In total 25.6% of all households in the U.S. are “unbanked” or “underbanked” and those households are disproportionately low-income and minority. Patt covered this story a few weeks ago but now we’re back to the FDIC response to this story, and to see how private banks and the government can draw more Americans into everyday banking.

A New York Times/CBS News poll of unemployed adults traces the painful personal conflict and strife that is caused by joblessness. Almost half of the respondents have suffered from depression or anxiety, and about four in ten parents have noticed behavioral changes in their children that they blame on their job struggles.

If you're a kid and poor, you're more likely to be prescribed antipsychotic drugs - four times more likely to be exact - than if you're a kid from a middle-income family. We check in with the study's lead author on this stark disparity and the reasons behind the numbers.