Congress receives scant sexual harassment training; Pasadena's Gamble House opens up servants quarters to public (Photos); DefCon brings together hackers and government organizations; Report: Climate change and California's rising sea levels; Study shows threat of arrest not deterring undocumented immigrants; Thousands of US veterans deported after service, plus much more.
Social media key in finding suspects in Huntington Beach riots
Police in Huntington Beach have arrested another man connected to the violent riots there last weekend following the US Open of Surfing.
RELATED: Do you know this bro? Huntington Beach police search social media for suspect tips
18-year-old Illario Niko Johnson was first falsely identified as the man smashing a window in a photo that went viral. Although police determined that that wasn't him, they still charged him on other counts, including inciting a riot.
Now, the work of finding other people directly involved with the riots is now a matter of using photos, tweets, and videos posted on the internet.
Lieutenant Mitchell O'Brian is with the Huntington Beach Police Department, and explained how the police are using social media to find suspects and delve further into Sunday's riots.
Congress receives scant sexual harassment training
If you work as a supervisor for a private company in California, it’s likely you’ve had several hours of training on how to identify and prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. That’s not the case in Congress.
The spotlight is now on human resources practices on Capitol Hill because most of the allegations of sexual harassment aimed at San Diego Mayor Bob Filner occurred when he was serving in Congress. But those elected officials receive a minimal amount of training around sexual harassment.
KPCC's Washington Correspondent Kitty Felde reports.
Five Catholic orders turn over priest files to public
The LA Times reports that confidential records from five Catholic orders have been turned over to victims of sexual abuse. It's part of a court ordered disclosure intended to reveal the role these groups played in Southern California's clergy molestation scandal.
For more on this we're joined by Ray Boucher, who represented victims in the 2007 class action lawsuit.
RELATED: Search through L.A. Archdiocese priest personnel files
DefCon brings together hackers and government organizations
A hacker, a journalist and an NSA agent all sit down for a game of black jack. That might sound like the opening line for a joke (and it probably would make a great one), but it's probably more like what's happening this week in Las Vegas.
Professional hackers and government entities from around the globe have gathered in the Sin City to compare notes and demonstrate their skills. There are two hacker conferences in the desert- BlackHat, which just concluded, and DefCon, which begins today.
Kim Zetter is a senior reporter for Wired who's attending both conferences, and she joins the show to explain what's going on at these conferences and what's at stake for hackers and the government organizations in attendance.
Study shows threat of arrest not deterring undocumented immigrants
Crossing the border into the U.S. without proper documentation is against the law. And as we know, there is plenty of security in place to arrest and deport those who break that law.
The immigration reform bill passed in the Senate would create significantly more security if it goes anywhere, but a new study from USC and Stanford finds that the threat of arrest and punishment is still not a deterrent for people to cross the border illegally.
Emily Ryo, a USC law professor and research fellow at Stanford who authored the study, joins the show to explain her findings.
Thousands of US veterans deported after service
It may come as a surprise to some, but you don't have to be a citizen to enlist in the U.S. military. Over the last decade, tens of thousands of non-citizens have volunteered to fight for their adopted country.
Many see service as a fast track to naturalization, but it doesn't always work out that way.
A new article in the current issue of Playboy magazine sheds light on the thousands of veterans who have been deported after serving in the US military. Reporter Erin Siegal McIntyre joins the show with more.
State Of Affairs: DWP contract, Anaheim voting and more
Time for State of Affairs, our look at politics throughout California with KPCC political reporters Frank Stoltze and Alice Walton.
This week, the Los Angeles City Council confirmed Mayor Eric Garcetti's five nominees to the Board of Public Works. This is the city's only paid commission — these folks will earn $136,000 a year. One of the nominees, former mayoral candidate Kevin James, had a bumpy confirmation hearing.
There's been a lot of ink lately on a proposed contract for employees with the Department of Water and Power. Folks may remember that the DWP's union spent millions to defeat Eric Garcetti in the mayor's race. That obviously didn't work and now many are saying this will be Eric Garcetti's first real test as mayor.
Officials in Anaheim are headed to court over the at-large voting system, which critics say disadvantages Latino residents. What's behind all of this?
Compton is a city that actually just elected its first Latino councilman Issac Galvan, but he's having a shaky transition into office. What is he accused of doing, or maybe not doing?
Congressman Tony Cardenas is teaming with a Central Valley Republican to talk about immigration. That seems like an unlikely union.
The LA City Council has rescinded a policy that ticketed cars left at inoperable meters. Is this progress?
Utilities commission says it will regulate app-based ridesharing services like Uber, Lyft
You can't get a parking ticket if you don't drive, and one way to avoid that here in southern California is to take advantage of ride-shares companies like Sidecar, Lyft and Uber.
These internet-based services connect drivers with riders and their popularity has been growing fast, much to the chagrin of taxi drivers. The city of L.A. has tried to regulate them but on Tuesday, the California Public Utilities Commission — or PUC — said back off.
KPCC's Brian Watt reports that decision could put the services in the mainstream.
Two mothers hope to end the breast vs. formula feeding war
Breastfeeding is making a comeback. In the United States, a new study from the Centers for Disease Control shows that three-quarters of new mothers breastfeed and that 50 percent of six-month-old babies are being breast fed, up from 35 percent in 2000.
Today marks the beginning on World Breastfeeding Week, a time to promote breastfeeding and provide support to mothers worldwide.
This year's theme is peer counseling, and here in Southern California, two mothers are teaming up with a message that women should be more supportive for those that choose to breastfeed their babies.
Jamie Lynne Grumet made headlines last year when she appeared on the cover of TIME Magazine breastfeeding her then 3-year-old son, while Suzanne Barston is the author of the book "Bottled Up: How the Way We Feed Babies Has Come to Define Motherhood, and Why It Shouldn't" and recently launched the "I Support You" Movement with Grumet to support their cause.
They both join 'Take Two' today to share their movement and its message.
Report: Climate change and California's rising sea levels
More Californians than ever say the state should take action immediately on climate change, according to a new poll from the Public Policy Institute of California.
Many of those surveyed believe the effects of climate change are already here, with a quarter of Californians saying their biggest weather worry is flooding or rising seas. Scientists studying sea level rising are working hard to get the rest of society to pay more attention to the issue.
KPCC's environmental reporter, Molly Peterson, shares a couple of new studies with Take Two.
Interview Q & A
Part of the perception problem of rising seas is that it's difficult to notice sea level changes. Do these studies help with that issue?
Yes and no. We can't solve the basic problem: sea levels don't behave like they do in disaster movies. Scientists measure sea level rise in a lot of ways - tidal gauges, sediment cores and satellite measurements.
Another problem is that it's still hard to predict short-term sea level rise, which means with a century. One scientist in the area says it is much easier to know that a pile of ice in a warm room will melt than to know exactly how fast it will melt. The process is not always linear.
What are the two recent studies you found that explain why what's happening now is going to be an even bigger deal down the road?
The first study, from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said that once greenhouse gas is put in the atmosphere, it hangs around for effectively forever. We know that carbon emissions raise the temperature a given amount and that sea levels will eventually adjust to that rise.
International Energy Agency, which has 28 member nations including the U.S., figured in its most recent annual report that we're on track for a 3 degree Celsius temperature rise by the end of the century if we don't change. Emissions are like the water in the bathtub. We've got a weak drain, so the water leaving the tub is a smaller stream than the water coming in.
The second study, from the nonprofit website Climate Central, blended the first study with elevation data and census population figures from the U.S.'s mainland coastlines. The scientist behind it made a tool on the website that shows how much sea level rise we've locked in already as well as the percentage of vulnerable coastal communities that would be put underwater.
Who's the most vulnerable, nationally and in California?
I wouldn't buy property in coastal Florida if I was you. It's low lying all the way around. On the current trend, Florida cities that are home to half a million people will be all the way underwater by the turn of the century. Nationally, we're talking about 18 million people in thousands of cities.
In California, we're not talking about just Malibu or Santa Monica. Big time sea level rise - the long term kind - would put at least a quarter of 85 California cities underwater at high tide. That includes Huntington Beach, Long Beach, Carson, Marina del Rey, and Seal Beach.
What would happen if we really clamped down greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible?
The deep cuts scenario is that if we could freeze global emissions growth by 2020, with that followed by rapid global emissions reductions and a massive program to remove carbon from the atmosphere in net negative emissions, there could be atmospheric clean-up late in the century.
If it's like a disaster movie, it might be like Speed 2 - when Sandra Bullock is on a cruise ship that bashes into a port. Or Titanic. It's about trying to slow down something that's already happening, and advocates for action say it's something still worth doing.
First school to reorganize under parent trigger law reopens
This week, a little elementary school in Adelanto, Calif., opened its doors for the first time under new management, thanks to the so-called parent trigger law. It's the first public school in the state to do so, after two years of conflict and court battles. Expectations are running high.
For the California Report, Ana Tintocalis has the story.
Dinner Party Download: Bug incubators, match-making rewards and Mona Lisa theft
Every week we get your weekend conversation starters with Rico Gagliano and Brendan Newnam, the hosts of the Dinner Party Download podcast and radio show.
On tap this week:
Tabletop bug incubators: Kitchen appliance of the future?
"The U.N. says that because there's going to be such an increased need for protein, that we should start getting used to eating bugs. An Austrian industrial designer has come up with 'Farm 432', which is a large kitchen appliance that holds black soldier flies, who lay their larvae and the machine harvests their larvae."
Matchmaker, Matchmaker, make me a match...for some cash
"A woman from a prominent New York advertising agency sent an email to her friends, which was a proposal that if one of her friends introduces her to her husband, she will give them $10,000 cash. She was inspired by the book "Lean In" by Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg, and decided to make an action plan on finding a husband. She tells her friends that there's three steps. Step one- you set me up on a date with a man. Step two- I marry that man. Step three- I give you $10,000 on my wedding day. According to agency spies, she's already been set up on over 100 dates."
This Week in History: Stealing the world's most famous painting
"It's the 102nd anniversary of the theft of the Mona Lisa by Vincenzo Peruggia. He hid overnight in a closet at The Louvre and then on Monday, when the museum closed, he came out in the morning and took the thing off the wall, tucked it under the smock he was wearing, and walked out. People started lining up to see the empty space.
"It was, in a way, the first conceptual art piece. The cops had no lead on it. At one point, they suspected Pablo Picasso. The Mona Lisa finally showed up in Italy, where Peruggia tried to sell it for half-a-million lira, and they caught him."
Pasadena's Gamble House opens up servants quarters to public (Photos)
The Gamble House in Pasadena is known worldwide as an exemplar of the Craftsman style. It's an unpretentious bungalow designed by architect brothers Greene & Greene for the Gamble family of Proctor & Gamble fame.
Thousands of visitors walk through each year, but there's always been a part of the house that's been shut off to them: the servants' quarters. Until now.
The Gamble House is opening the doors to its servants' hall and rooms for the first time in its history, as other rooms undergo renovation.
The servants quarters are usually not on display because they're inhabited by two USC School of Architecture students most of the year. The students usually vacate in August, and this year with renovations closing part of the house, curators decided it was a perfect time to let the public into this exclusive area.
But those thinking the Gamble House servants lived like those in PBS's hit show "Downton Abbey" will learn otherwise.
"The service spaces were designed as much for use as for beauty," said Gamble House curator Anne Mallek. "There was a real detail in the servants space as there is in the rest of the house. The materials change, but they're still attentive to how the space was being used by the servants."
For instance, the Greene Brothers designed the house using different kinds of wood for the daily areas and that of the servants. The family rooms had more expensive materials like white cedar, mahogany and teak, while the servants quarters were built with maple and sugarpine.
"It's coding, so these are social codes in a way, but their rooms as well are very functional," said said Mallek. "There's enough space for a bed and a chest of drawers and there are windows for light and ventilation."
The original owners of the house, Mary and David Gamble, came to Pasadena in the early 1900s, as many midwestern and easterners did, to escape the harsh winters. They decided to commission a vacation house in 1907 and employ local architects Charles and Henry Greene, who had already done a number of houses in the area.
"The Gamble House is really one of the great works of the Greene brothers," said Mallek.
The Upstairs Downstairs Gamble House tour runs through August 18. Get tickets here.