Drought: Ranchers Already Making Tough Decisions
A warm, wet weather system could bring as much as a half-foot of rain to some parts of California this weekend. Even so, the state's top water official says we'd need to get significant precipitation every other day through May just to get back to normal. Despite the wet weather forecast, we're hearing things like "unprecedented" and "uncharted territory" to describe California's drought. Among the first and hardest-hit are ranchers and farmers who are now faced with some tough choices -- and the decisions they'll soon be making will have a ripple effect from the farm to the table.
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti on His First 6 Months
Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti took office last summer and wasted no time setting a different tone from the man he replaced, Antonio Villaraigosa. The former city councilman is L.A.'s first Jewish mayor -- but he's also half Latino and fluent in Spanish. The former Rhodes scholar can dance salsa, plays jazz piano and is a bit of a computer geek who designed a mobile app to improve city services. We sit down with Mayor Garcetti in his office to talk about his efforts to make local government more efficient.
In Oakland, Using Video Games to Build a Bridge to Silicon Valley
The high-tech industry does not look like the rest of California. There are very few African-Americans or Latinos working at tech companies. A small but important step toward changing that is happening this weekend in Oakland. An event billed as a global hackathon will bring together young students of color with techies to mentor them. Another effort to diversify the high-tech workforce is Project A Game. We head to East Oakland, where kids are learning how to make their own video games.
Richmond School Uses Mindfulness to Teach Coping Skills
Plenty of school kids deal with a world of emotional problems related to their lives outside the classroom, like drug abuse in the home, incarcerated parents or even homelessness. Across the state, some schools are experimenting with mindfulness training -- or meditation -- as a way to help students break out of destructive behavior cycles. We visit the Bay Area city of Richmond to find out how the new approach is working.
California Songs: Stompy Jones' 'New Direction'
Like many people, musician "Little David" Rose followed his dreams to San Francisco from a small town in Kansas. And when he got to the City by the Bay, Rose started his jazz and blues band, Stompy Jones. For our occasional series "California Songs," Rose talked to us about the backdrop to his song, "New Direction."