- Newsmaker: LA County Makes Deepest Cut Even in Health System
Faced with a $ 300 million deficit, LA County Supervisors have voted unanimously to make the deepest cut ever to a healthcare system that serves 800,000 people. Eleven of 18 public health clinics will be shut down, another will end inpatient services, and additional cuts are likely. Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, who represents Culver City, Carson and parts of South Central LA, explains. - Reporter-s Notebook: LA Meeting Precedes UN Summit on Sustainable Development
This year's Earth Summit is set for August in Johannesburg. With 100 heads of state and 60,000 delegates, it will be South Africa's biggest-ever international event. But, even some hopeful observers are predicting failure in light of rich and poor nations' failure to agree on the best way to manage the environment planet-wide. Lowell Flanders, who directs the UN's Division for Sustainable Development, is in LA for a pre-summit meeting.
Davis- Non-Stop Cash Machine Dictates State Policy
In a state where the median income is sh47,000 a year, Governor Gray Davis is averaging sh44,000 a day in political campaign contributions. His sh50 million war chest, the biggest in California political history, is roughly twice the amount that he and the Legislature are trying to cut out of next year's state budget. While Davis is on track become the biggest non-presidential campaign spender in American history, big Republican donors are beginning to pony up for the previously unknown underdog, Bill Simon. We talk about record political spending in a year of state government cutbacks and service reductions with Shawn Steel, the Governor's senior political advisor, and Garry South, chairman of the California Republican Party.