Sabeel Rahman

Since March some 387 Boeing 737 Max jets have been grounded by regulators and airlines with no end in sight. Boeing profits have tanked. Last month the company recorded its biggest ever quarterly loss and deliveries are at their lowest since 2012. Boeing says it expects the plane to return to service by the end of this year, as it continues to focus on the plane’s software system, thought to be the cause of both plane crashes. Boeing’s crisis highlights a problem beyond flight safety. The aircraft manufacturer chose to prioritize big spending on CEO compensation and stock buybacks rather than reinvest profits on its employees, infrastructure and R and D. Last year alone, Boeing’s chief executive Dennis Muilenburg took home $30 in compensation and gains from options. Buybacks over investment; the financial strategy that’s great for shareholders but may well have cost Boeing the public’s trust.

A new investigative report uncovers rampant exploitation of caregivers at residential care homes across the nation, many of them poor immigrants who work for a pittance around the…

Host Steve Chiotakis goes on a grunion run. Embattled LA County Sheriff Alex Villanueva takes tough questions from KCRW's Warren Olney.

California’s relentless clean-air enforcer, Mary Nichols, has divided the automobile industry. After weeks of secret negotiations, the Chair of the State’s Air Resources Board has announced that Ford, Honda VW and BMW of America won’t go along with President Trump’s rollback of Barack Obama’s fuel-economy standards. Nichols claims it’s an “olive branch,” giving car makers the “flexibility” to clean up the air at the same time they continue to market vehicles that make the most money. Brady Dennis of the Washington Post calls it a “big deal,” even if Toyota, GM and 11 other companies revert to Trump’s new federal standards--at least for the moment. Alan Baum is a consultant for both the industry and environmental organizations. He says the four who made the deal with California have a slight lead on their competitors in developing the technology of the future, with China currently far ahead of them all. He says the western car makers are doing a poor job of educating consumers about the benefits of hybrids and electrics. Nichols’s history with the Air Resources Board goes back to the 1970’s. She was named Chair by Republican Governor Arnold Schwartenegger and reappointed by Democrats Jerry Brown and Gavin Newsom. She made an international name for herself for years ago when she blew the whistle on Volkswagen for faking emissions tests on the diesel cars it sold for decades all over the world.

The annual Iowa State Fair is known as the unofficial start to campaign season.

Three shootings in the span of one week in California, Texas, and Ohio have community members and political leaders speaking out against gun violence and hateful rhetoric toward the…

President Trump infuriated a fractured Democratic party this week by telling four of its newest members to go back to where they came from, but did his statement galvanize his base or…

Jeffrey Epstein was found dead in his cell at the Manhattan Correctional Center on Saturday, as he awaited trial. What happens next in the investigation?

President Trump says negative economic forecasts are fake news, but he’s also making nervous calls to his friends in the business world to ask if they’re true.