tonight california lawmakers propose new laws at a repeat of the college admiions scandal that has roots in the golden state. and new polls revealre wide discontent among bay area residents around housing and traffic and willing to do about it. zbliechlt also, the emotional lives of imals. a new book by a renowned psychologist says their emotions are just as rich and compl as humans. >> hello. yesterday several california lawmakers propose measures aimed at reforming how college admissions are done. ey include requiring that three administrators sign off on special admissions. meanwhile, in a surprise move this week the trump

administration decided to back a judge's decision to invalidate the entire act. it has sparked criticism and republicans, including. nd house they are leading to new legislation over vaccinations. here now with this weit's ps roundup are kqed senior editor of politics andme gove scott schaffer. hoover institution fellow and joining us viaskype from sacramento is alexeye, reproter "the san francisco chronicle." welcome you, to you all. let's talk about the new college admissions legislation. aside from reforms, what are some of the other changes lawmakers want? >> well, the biggest one would be tying pell higrants, is the state financial aid program to admission standards where any

college, public or private, that wants toet pell grant money couldn't use legacyadmissions, students who are tied to donors or alumni. tthat's goingbe difficult to enforce, but it's really laying down a clear marker saying that we don't agree that there should be a preference to students who have a connection, their families have a connection to the univere ty. the some others, including trying to register private college admissions counsellors pandbably in the most direct sort of poke at the individuals who participate in this scandal. they would not be able to write off those fake charitable done ags that they gave to william singer's fake charity as bribes. >> so a lot of ripplehiffects from they also went to public university admissions.

phase out college admission tests. is there a risk here, though, of going too ifar? mean, look, this is difficult to enforce, i think, as alexeye was saying. th challenge is that alumni preference is something thatti e and notion that particularly alumni who invest in a university. the universities are not going to want the source of income to be cut off, and so there are a whole host of questions about whether it does go too far, but fundamentally the idea of having toeo registere who advise on college admissions, that seems like a reasonable step, and rs there are othat are reasonable steps, but i think -- this is really a marker that's being laid down in terms oge trying to the process under control. >> and there's always unintended consequences of any lemaislatio, noer how well intended it is. i think there's a concern that the standards couldbecome too own russ. they may be deserving students, even though they also have parents who are alumni, andco get screened out. those sorts of things. this is really in some ways a politician's driem.

>> i think the people that have -- tha have more privilege to get their kids into these kooids schools, and so i think you're goingo see similar investigations. my guess is there may be other investigations underway already by the department of justice based on things that they've heard jus in h first round. >> i do want to move to health care as well because there's a lot to discuss there. a lot is at stake to dismantle the affordable care act. millions ofd americans colose health care if that happens. why is the president doing this nowd when he signalled earlier that he would be okay with just chippingay parts of the aca. now the administrationpis taking thition that the entirety of the law ought to be invalidated.

it's a relatively dubious legal argument. i think if you talk to people who follow this closely, why is the administration doing it? best as i can tell, it provides them with opportunity to signal their continued opposition to the affordable care act. this is well with the president's base going into an election year, thinking aboutys of continuing to signal to that base opposing the aca is something that is a winner with his base. >> although, you nknow,his last midterm elections, democrats were successful in picking up 40e seats la because they focused onealth care as time goes by, more and mo people are affected by it. when the law passed, it was maybe the benefits of it weren't as apparent as they are now. also in terms of the potential political ripples, which is why kevin mccarthy, you know, was really advising not to get into this. they lost seven seats in

california. no just because of healcare, but partly. >> not only that, but kevin mccarthy also. >> he has done that time and timesgain where economic n comes out. jobs reports. he goes off in some other direction and makes this other more controversial partisan thing the news and the story. >> what are democrats doing at this point in response to this. >> it allows them to shut the focus offll the m report which has turned on the not to be a beener fwor thej. pelosi is going to try to keep the caucus focused on those things, and the difficulty of saying we're going t the aca is always, okay, what are you going to replace it with, and what are you going toh replace it what can get through congress? >> the democrats have their own challenge, which isvhat they disagreements about how to

handle health care going forward. you have some percentage of them who are saying we ought to have medicare for all, a single payer system. pelosi's position is, let's have the aca, and let's improve upon this. how is she gog to moderate the effects of those in the paert who wa to go to the left, and the presidential campaign now that it's beginning,ave a number of key candidates, including pamela harris and others who say we want medicare for all. that's a discussion worth watching in the democrati party as well. >> are there any proposal prosecutes state lawmakers that would prectalifornians if the aca goes away? >> absolutely. the a's actually quite bit moving its way through the legislature right now, including probably the biggest thing which would be a state mandate similat one that was repealed at the national level, requiringry ev californian to have health insurance. that's something that gavin i newsome actualtroduced on his first day as governor in january. he said he wants to do it as a way to use the money from fees

on those who decline health insurance to pay for expanding subsidies to those w can't afford it. he is trying to create his own sort of v replacemesion here in california, and there's tons of other kinds of proposals as well, including expanding health care to undocumented immigrants. cafornia has been all in on the affordable care acts from day one and has really seen the uninsured rates. >> californiag is tak big step on the measles controversy. this week new york's rockland county barred children who aren't vaccinated from from public places and then you've got the situation in santa clara county now where teere was inf tourists who visited a number of places, and that had to -- tha ledcounty health officials to issue a warning about that. so we have new legislation now from richard pan, state senator richard pan on this. what would that law do? at would the bill do? a so this is a follow-up to

pretty controversial law that california passed about four years ago that required every private or public school student to be vaccinated, and that left indilace a l exemption for students which certain individuals who are opposed to vaccinating their children seem to be taking advantage of as a loophole to that law. richard pan's new bill would pus more restricti on the medical exempti >> selling them for $100 per exemption. providing the oversight by the state heal officials.

e bay area is actually one of the areas that has the wiggest issues with medical exemptions, particularly inhe east bay or the north bay and communities like sonoma county and berkeley. you see some schools wherea mor half of kindergarten gardeners are coming in with medical exemptions. statewidet's less than 1%, so some things really offthere. >> what kind of pushback are we likely to see from conservative groups and anti-vaccine groups on this? because the whole anti-vaccine mooumt has really taken off. it's big on social media. >> on social media. that's exactly right. the challenge here is when does the right of an individual to exercise certain preferences run up against a public health problem? i think we're seeing that in spades with this issue.

the question will become, you know, how much is the public health standard going to outweigh the needs and desiress of tfolks. there's no question that more oversight is necessary. >> the existing law did increase the vaccination rate to 95%, ich is really good. now they just have to kind of shore up this loophole. i thinkp.hat will h california is also one of three states that don't have religious exemptions, so that's one loophole that's not available. >> all right.ll thank youor being with us. >> thank you. >> thank you. turning now to some of the bay area'sgh tst challenges. two polls released this week found 65% of the voters surveyed feel the quality of lifn i the region has gotten worse in the last five years. 44% are considering leaving the area in the nea future. among their top sources of frustration, homelessness, the high cost of living, and traffic congestion. but they're also willing to dig

nto their wallets to help find solutions. joining me now to discuss what this means for the future of the bay area are kqed politics and government reporter guy, and carl bordino, prosecute ez and ceo ofil theon valley leadership group. great to have both of you here. >> great to be here. >> carl krks your group conducted the polls. why do so many people nearly two-thirds of those surveyed think the bay area's quality of ife has gotten rse? >> our silicon valley poll with the leadership group in the bay area news gup was actually quite surprised with the findings that 65% of us say that the quality of life has eclined, and even more troubling, 44% say over thenext several years they are likely to leave the bay area. nely 30% strongly feeling they'll leave. what was most concerning was that 6% said i'm packing. i'm leaving in 2019. six of every 00 bay area

residents. >> what does this mean for the bay area? at are your biggest concerns resulting from the findings? >>l, we we dug deeper into the why, and whats we found 83% said the why is the high cost of housing here. 81% their ongoing concern about our homelessness crisis kwsh 79 terz terz, the overall cost of living here. that doubles as the high cost of housing. 76% are that frustrated with the crumbling conditions of our roads and bridges and the commutes that have grinded to a crawl. >> and, guy, let's dig deeper because if you look at some of the other questionsed, the poll also reveals that 83% of voters view the cost of housing as an etremely or very serious problem that covers everything from renter protections to dense

housing around trance it. why is that. >> when you ask voters about gh that, they hear one specific thing. renter protection, rent caps or maybe an idea to ha more dens housing around transit and say, no, i'm against that. realistical realistically, though, casa is not going to go before the ball ballot. a transit track. casa is a bunch of different iideas that are really to play out, and i think the question that really is re specific, the housing solution on the ballot. >> casa itself is controvrsial. >> absolutely. just individual pieces of casa are incredibly controversial. this idea of gettingf rid real density limits around transit, very controversial. rent control, we saw howdi sive that was on the ballot -st year. just putting casa is definitely a group of ideas that it will have an uphill climb to past. i think comparing it one on one

with transit --in >> i t we should be proud of the wo. >> the number of -- trying to figure out a way to solve it.>> hat kind of boldness is part of what we need to address the housing crisis. >> it's still when it comes down to individual tys of proposals, right, it's hard to get everybody to ce over an agree on this. let's take, for example, state senator scott weiner's bill. getting a lot of attention. it will boost housing.

sarnd major transit hubs and employers. it's facing opposition from a number of supervisors in senator weiner's own homewn of san francisco. cou that type of opposition undercut this bill and what he is trying to do?>> his is an incredibly type of legislation. we saw last year it didn even on the politics, he has gotten a lot of endorsement from labor groups, the chamber of commerce, the o leadership gro board with this bill, and one thing, the housing committee, whicwion tuesday take up this piece of legislation. the chair of the housesing committee is senat weiner. a bit of a home court vaeng there. >> what is your group? the sill von valleyip leader group stand on it? >> we support what theno are

is trying to do. we support senate bill 50. here's why. we are 3.5 million homes short in california. it calls for within ahalf mile radius of a fixed rail transit station ideall where we should be building around bart, cal train, sf, smart, ace, and vta's light rail system 250 stations and opportunities. that's where weshould be making these investments to get people out of their cars on to railcars, helping with the housing crisis and our commute and traffic crisis. there are other cities against the senate bill, including the

mayors of palo alto, loss although yoes, and beverly hills. t a second quote that your group did that reveals what voters are willing to do in terms of trying to support highway improvements andan t. what are they willing to do? >> what's wonderful about this shea, an i'll quote the eng author samuel johnson. my friend, rid yourself of the word "cannot." in this region weon't just se problems to whine about. we look for winning solutions. one of those is recognizing we're a regional economy here in te nine-county bay area. we have regionffic patterns, and we need regional solutions. when wesked about the concept of let's build a world class integratedeamless transit system, would you reach into your own llet instead of your neighbor's with a 1 cent sales tax. 71%y said . >> that's a big number. >> yes. >> and, guy, in 2016 los angeles did something simila

it passed a permanent 1 cent sales tax to fund transit. how has iten working out in l.a., and is that something that could be a model for the bay area? >> well, i think i absolutely is the model here, and, in fact, 71% of voters in l angeles approved that tax back in 2016. i think here's another room for optimismregionally. on that 2016 los angeles ballot, you had an ineased sales tax. you aan increased parcel tax and a homeless bond that all passed with more than two-thirds of the vote. i think it showedat regionally there is a template for getting multiple things done on the baot in a single year. i think that's definitely the mogds that a potential transportation pack in the bay area would build off of. >> okay. there is optimism.e peore unhappy about what's going on in the bay area, but they're also willing totep up and tax themselves to do something about it. >> yes. >> all riht. ca with the silicon valley leadership group and guy with kqed, thank you, both. >> thank you. >>. now to the emotional life of anims. for more than 40 years dutch

scientist has been studying primates like chimps, our closest biological relatives. he has tracked and do you meaned their social behavior from acts of cooperation to fierce power struggles between rivals. it was a moving embrace shared between his mentor and an elderly chimp named mama that inspiredim to write about emotions in the animal ash he says it's n just humansho are capable of joy, guilt, other complex emotions. >> proerch, thank you so much for coming >> you center this book around a chimpanzee ned mama. specifically, mama's's good-bye with somebody who h studied her for a very long time. can you talk about why you chose mama specifically and why you use this interaction? >> well, mama has a sense that

olony is a very large colony on an island, and she was a sort of central figure who kept the group together, and actually, you're noticing now she has died two years ago under some turmoil in the group as a result of her absence. she was the she was very powerful. she was not necessarily physically dominant over the males, but she was a very powerful figure. when she died, she was so imporevnt to yone. my professor who was 80 at the time, and she was 59, whichrys also veld for a chimpanzee. he decided to go into her night cage to visit her. it's a dangerous thing to do, but wee was so ened, and he had known her for 40 years. he wentin, and she had a very emotional exchange with him, and she embraced him and a of that. what struck me because this was show on dutch national tv and all of this, how surprise people were.

people were moved by it. i can understand everyone was moved by that video clip, but they were surprised how human-like her expression was and her gestures, and i thought, well, we all know that cmps are our closest relatives, so why would you be surprised that they express their emotions in similar ways, and s that's why decided to take that as the basically. >> your thesis is this idea that animals have emotions so similar e the s ours. it's actually very controversial in the scientific community. i'm curious sort of what e action has been to this. >> in science we had a taboo on the emotions. you don't talk about emotions in animals. you talk about motivations and -- like that one. >> you transte everything. laughing becomes vocalized panting and a i learned all of that. the neuroscientists, they have broken up to the box to some degree because they study, for

example, fear in the rat, and they say it is in -- it's activated. then they put huma in a scanner in a brain scanner, says and they show them pictures that inde fear, and your -- is activated. the neuroientists started to make all these connections between human emotions and animal emotions, and that's where we are now. we are much more open about it, and yes, there will be s tance in the scientific community, but not in the younger skrrgs. the younger skrrgs of scientists is much more open. >> why do you think it matters? what does it tell us about oursepees, and what do you h to sort of bring to the world by making this argument? >> wema underes the amount of emotions we have. we like to present ourselves as rationale beings. especially man -- that we want to be distant from our and our emotions. is makinge thing i do all these comparisons. it's to show how similar our a emotional liually is to

that of other primates. also, i feel we need to look at nature as we are part of it. instead of this attitude we are outside of nature and we can control it and we are the last of nature, that has given us a lot of trouble. also ec logical trouble in the world, and it's the wrong attitude, and i want toiz emphwe are part of it and connected to other species. >> one of they reaonderful examples is of another female chimp at the same zoo who couldn't lactate. couldn't -- you had an interaction and taught her something that changed. can you tell us abo that? >> -- she would try and not eat. i decided to at some pointince had a baby up for adoption, a baby chimp to teach her how to t bottle feed and for a chimp to hold the bottle and a baby is really no big deal for them.

it's no big deal for humans. we tdoght her highway to that, and since that time because before she was obnoxious to me. from that time she really loved me, and i'm part of the family, and she was grateful for rest of her life. she also raised her own off string on the bottle because of this. it your oaks have run counter to that. >> one of the things people think is that animals are slaves of their emotions. they have to run after their emowings. that's not really true. animals control their emotions. if a cat would go after a chipmunk as soon as it sees it, it will t never cat chipmunk. it has to control the impulses and sneak up on it, and asany examples, i don't know if you know the marshm owaaest where you give them one, and they have to wait, and then they get a second one. that same test has been done with apes and parrots, and have

just the same emotional control that whave. this idea that they are the slaves of emotions doesn't really fit. w i k sometimes we compare apes and primates to toddlous. its like they've developed beyond sort of that o sta human emotion. >> i never liked those comparisons because the adult -- an adult chimpanzeeis interested in power and sex. that's not very child-like, i would say, and the adult females are very interested in the offspring and how to care for them, an their interests are don't really fit. i think the whole psychology is different om those of t kids who play around and fool around. >> so you've sort of built your life around this work. what's next and what dhope people are taking away from it? >> i think that the next phase is actually we do a lot more research on emotions. it's just started from the animals since we were not allowed talk abo it. in humans also -- human emotions are often studied verbally.

i think human emotions also need to be studied more and more foeked on theace than wha we're doing now. >> professor, thank you so much for coming i >> you're welcome. >> and that will do it for us. as always, can reou find f our coverage at kqed.org/newsroom. thank you for joining us.

>> the mueller report, coming soon. acco to the attorney general. i'm robert costa. welcome to "washington week." >> total exoneration. the collusion delusion is over! >>resident trump claims vindication, as the attorney general prepares to release a redacted version of the mueller report. plus, the president revives the health care debate. s alarmie republicans and uniting democrats. >> the president wants to go back to repeal and replace again. make our day! >> next. ♪[music] >> this is "washington week." funding is pvided by... ♪[music]