The hurdles fact-checkers face in the digital age, following up with CA's park promise 10 years later, marathon swimmers share their experience on the Catalina swim.
When an airline cancels mass flights, what are your rights as a traveler?
More flights from Delta airlines are facing cancellations and delays today as passengers scramble to re-book. According to the airline, an outage knocked out its ticketing and booking system early Monday morning.
But the airline is not the only carrier to have trouble with technology during the busy summer travel system. Southwest had to cancel hundreds of flights last month after a router failed.
So what's going on? And what are your rights as a traveller when mass flights are cancelled?
George Hobica, founder of airfarewatchdog.com, has a few points to keep in mind the next time your flight gets cancelled:
- If you have travel insurance, some polices do cover cancellations. For example, if you missed a cruise, be sure to look into the fine print of your insurance policy.
- Some credit card companies will cover delays under certain circumstances, so you can take a look back at your latest credit card statement to see what your consumer protection covers.
- And if your flight connects to a European destination, the EU has a policy to compensate a traveler up to 600 Euros and may include hotel accommodations.
You can check out more tips from Hobica's latest post here.
Fact-checking candidates who sometimes 'struggle' with the truth
Political fact-checkers have been hard at work this election cycle, researching claims made by the different campaigns.
On the website Politifact, both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have their pages dedicated to the task. But even with scholarly scrutiny, misinformation continues to find a way out.
For a look at how fact checkers are tackling this ongoing problem, Take Two spoke to Katie Sanders, deputy editor for Politifact.
Press the blue play button above to hear the full interview.
New research reveals what's threatening the California condor
The California condor went from being nearly extinct in the 1980s, to having a strong recovery today.
But new research has exposed a new threat to the population, and it has to do with contamination of sea lions, the birds' food source.
Carolyn Kurle is an assistant professor of ecology at UC San Diego. She's also one of the authors of this new research.
"California condors up in Big Sur that are foraging on the coast frequently come into contact with California sea lion carcasses, and other marine mammals but primarily sea lions, and the sea lions are actually contaminated with several types of contaminants," including DDEs, which is a metabolite of the pesticide DDT, Kurle said. When the condors eat from these carcasses, the contamination weakens their offsprings' egg shells.
Joe Burnett, senior biologist with the Big Sur Condor Project at the Ventana Wildlife Society said this impacts birth rates.
"The coastal flock is just one-third of the entire wild flock in California, because you also have birds free-flying birds down in Southern California. So as an overall flock and their reproductive success, it's slightly diminished," Burnett said. "While it is a significant problem, it pales in comparison to our biggest obstacle, which is lead poisoning... Condors are basically ingesting lead when they forage inland. "
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above.
'The Little Prince' director on the gender imbalance in animated films
We hear all the time about the disparity between roles for men and women in film.
Turns out, gender inequality is an issue within many kid's movies, too.
For example, in many Disney animated princess films, male characters often speak more than female ones. In "The Little Mermaid" guys speak 68 percent of the time, even though it's a film about… a mermaid.
Recently one filmmaker, who's also a dad, decided to reboot a classic story for the big screen by giving more parts to girls.
Mark Osborne is the director of the new Netflix film "The Little Prince," which features not only a little prince and an aviator, but also a little girl and her mother.
Interview highlights:
How fear of tackling such a beloved story lead to the new plot line
I was asked if I wanted to make an adaptation of this book and I was quite stumped. And I really felt like there was no way to approach it that wasn't going to create problems and I was really looking for some inspiration. And that was right around the time that I'd participated in the Geena Davis Institute study you that really put a spotlight on the issue of the imbalance and the inequity in sort of women's roles, especially in animated films. So I had this notion that I wanted to tell a larger story around the book, but I really didn't know what that was. And I feel like that study really pushed me to think in a very very different way. And I just looked my daughter and just really found inspiration in her to say well I should just create a little girl character that is reading the story and let her be the one that brings the story into our experience. We're seeing it in her imagination.
How living in Los Angeles helped inspire the story of an overscheduled little girl and her mother's determination to get her into the "right" school
I think we felt very pressured and as young parents the joke was if they don't get into the right kindergarten it's like everything's done. They're done for the rest of their lives. And it's kind of ridiculous, so we were trying to shine a spotlight on that and be satirical and kind of make fun of that. But the biggest, craziest idea in the movie, the "life plan," actually came about when my writer Irena Brignull was driving her kids and some of his schoolmates home one day and from the back of the car she heard this seven-year-old kid say something about his future. And she said 'How do you know that?' And he said 'Oh it's in my mom's life plan.' And there was no chart, it was just this notion of a life plan, and we kind of ran with it. And she kept saying 'No no no there wasn't a chart.' And we're like 'I don't care! We're making a giant chart!'
What the process of making the film taught him about parenting
In the beginning, when we were developing the story, the little girl had both a mom and a dad that were present, and it actually made it more difficult to tell the story and there was a point where we had to really condense things down and simplify and we had to drastically change things. And by making the dad sort of more of a ghost and to kind of pull him out of the story, it actually helped us focus more on the core ideas in the book about abandonment and that love is never easy and relationships are never easy... But what it actually ended up doing was it got to me at a much deeper level because I became the dad that wasn't there for my family and I was working a lot. It was really difficult because I felt like I was kind of experiencing this thing that I was asking this little girl in this movie to deal with. And I think really helped me focus and it helped me stay as close to them as I could be. But it really hit home when my daughter was asked to do a family portrait for her art class. And she showed me the portrait when it was done and it was these amazing cutout characters. And I could see my wife Kim and I could see Riley and Maddy and our two little dogs. And they're all encircling and holding this laptop. And it took me a minute to realize that my picture was on the laptop. I was Skyping in. So by the time I kind of got what I was seeing, it was beautiful but it was also really sad at the same time. It was this expression of love because I was still there, and it was understanding, but I think that's why this project is really such a family project, because they were incredibly supportive throughout and incredibly understanding.
To hear the full interview with Mark Osborne, click the blue player above.
Tuesday Reviewsday: Angie Stone, Flamingosis and music from The Suicide Squad
Oliver Wang and Morgan Rhodes join the show for our weekly new music segment, Tuesday Reviewsday.
Below are their picks.
MORGAN
Lil Wayne, Wiz Khalifa and Imagine Dragons (album - Suicide Squad: The Album)
Sucker for Pain - For what it's worth, I thought the movie was good, but perhaps my opinion is skewed by my love for the soundtrack which kept the hype and excitement going in key scenes. This song is one of the best.
- Nao (album - For All We Know)
Trophy (feat. A.K. Paul) - Funky electronic soul from East London. Tastemakers introduced her. An apple commercial made her popular and she is back with a full length debut which showcases a gorgeous soprano voice and her ability to body all tempos.
- Flamingosis (album - Bright Moments)
All Natural feat. Tom Ribbons - Flamingos may or may not be a real symptom. Aaron Velasquez, the artist known as Flamingosis, however is a real talent and real nice with the beats and loops, especially on this song which features a well placed sample from one of my favorite 90's R&B songs.
OLIVER
- Frankie Reyes (album - Boleros Valses y Mas)
Flor De Azalea - I love this project so much…Frankie Reyes is the nom de plume of L.A.-based musician Gabriel Reyes-Whittaker and a while back, he was invited to participate in a Latin modernism music performance with the folks over at Dublab. And what Reyes did was to rework classic Mexican and Latin ballads and waltzes using a vintage Oberheim synthesizer. Reyes's arrangements are, apparently, quite loyal to their source material but between the Oberheim's unnatural sound and Reyes's lo-fi production approach, there's something otherworldly, and incredibly haunting about the tunes here. I imagine it being played for someone's quincinera that also happens to land on the Day of the Dead. Gorgeous and ghostly.
- Angie Stone (album - Covered In Soul)
These Eyes - This is Angie Stone's 8th studio album and she records an LP of covers alongside producers like Germany's Jurgen Engler who worked on that cover of The Guess Who's 1969 hit, "These Eyes." Maybe it's Engler's influence but it does have a very Euro disco vibe to it; not what you'd expect and it's welcome for that. It's not unusual for older R&B artists to turn in what amounts to a soul songbook album but I think Angie Stone makes really interesting choices here, including covers of Phil Collins' classic "In the Air Tonight" and UB40's "Red Red Wine." It's also interesting to hear Angie's voice hit middle age. It feels rougher here, a bit more worn, but it becomes more interesting as a result compared to the over-processed perfection of most young voices these days.
- Lyn Christopher (album: Ladies of Too Slow To Disco)
Take Me With You and New York Bars - I admit, I was initially drawn to check out this new compilation because of its subtitle: "More Late 70s West Coast Yachtpop You Can Almost Dance To"…which is a mouthful but only semi-accurate since I do think you could do a slow groove to a few of these. But this is the third in the "Too Slow for Disco" series and they finally turn their attention to female artists. What we heard was Lyn Christopher, featuring members of KISS before they were KISS backing her up, from her self-titled 1973 album. You'll also hear some marina funk from Carly Simon, Carole King and the incomparable Brenda Russell with a lovely little groover I had never heard until now: "New York Bars"
More parks were promised for California. What happened?
Californians promised a decade ago to spend $400 million into building parks and green spaces in some of the state's poorest areas.
But that promise has not been kept, with many neighborhoods still waiting for a nearby park to break ground.
It's in part because of a bureaucracy that has dramatically slowed down the approval and funding process.
Lawmakers are now looking to ask voters for an additional $1 billion for the program, too.
Associated Press reporter Alison Noon joined Take Two to explain.
Who are the doctors prescribing powerful drugs to foster kids?
Children in California's foster care system are prescribed powerful psychotropic meds more than three times the rate of other kids.
Investigative reporter Karen de Sá has been examining the practice for her series "Drugged Kids" at the San Jose Mercury News.
She's spoken with former foster kids who said these medications posed serious problems for them, and dug deep into the pharmaceutical companies making these drugs.
Her investigations have even inspired lawmakers to pass legislation limiting psychotropic drugs in foster homes, including a group of bills in the state senate right now.
Take Two talks with de Sá, now at the San Francisco Chronicle, for her latest installment that focused on the doctors who are prescribing these medications, as well as psychiatrist Dr. Michael Barrett who explains why he recommends these drugs for some patients.
Gotta represent them all: Mobile games and avatar diversity
It's been a whole month since Pokemon Go was released. That's right, a month since our lives were changed forever by wild Bulbasaurs and Pikachus popping up all over the place. And while the mobile app has become a cultural phenomenon, it hasn't been without its critics.
The latest complaints are about the game's avatars and the lack of customization features it has for minorities. Specifically, curly hair and dark skin. So, how important is it to have a wide range of these kinds of features in video and mobile games? And what's the impact?
For more Dmitri Williams, associate professor at USC who compiled the survey "The virtual census: representations of gender, race and age in video games".
Interview Highlights
Your survey on diverse representation in games was the first of its kind. What were your main takeaways?
"We were curious for whether the audience looked like the players, I mean the actual characters. If you looked at the universe of playable and non-playable character in the games. Where did they come from? Were they a mirror of the real world? Were they something fantastical? Were they systematically off? We wanted to know what the gaps were so we compared it to census data and we found in terms of gender, race and age it wasn't very representative at all at the time, though this study is getting a little dated now.
The thing that predicted the character base the best were the developers themselves. In other words, a survey of who the developers were was, with the exception of sports games, a pretty accurate read of what kind characters get made. In other words, creators make games about themselves as kind of a default state."
Why is there a difference between the avatars offered in mobile games versus games on other platforms?
"When you have a small screen like on a cell phone it's hard to have really great resolution and so, it's a question of pixel count...
It's a combination of screen size but it's also about the budget and mobile games are much less expensive to make, that's why there are a billion of them suddenly popping up whereas a AAA game on a console might cost $50-100 million dollars to make in some cases and when you spend that much money, of course, you're going to have great customizable avatars and what not. But if you're a developer and you're doing this in your dorm room and you're doing it by borrowing five grand from your dad or mom or something, then you're probably not going to have this amazing rendering engine and so it's a technical issue in that case. But you know, at least there's more awareness and I think it really goes back to, who is the kid in the dorm room? If it's a girl and if it's a person of color with kinky hair then it's probably going to matter more."
To hear the full segment, click the blue play button above.
Swimmers face dark, cold ocean in 20-mile swim from Catalina to Palos Verdes
Catalina Island is a popular Southern California day trip. Catch a ferry to the island, and in about an hour, you're there, looking back at the mainland about 20 miles away.
But Catalina is also a destination for a feat of athletic endurance: a very long, cold, dark ocean swim from the island back to the shores of Palos Verdes.
Few attempt this swim, because it is not easy. The water is cold, and no wetsuits are allowed for an official attempt. Swimmers make the journey overnight, only with the light from glowsticks until the sun rises. They're accompanied by a support boat and crew, including pacers and kayakers, and they're allowed to eat and drink regularly.
Besides that—and the occasional wildlife encounter—it's just them and twenty miles of open ocean.
Take Two's Libby Denkmann spoke to two marathon swimmers. Kerry Yonushonis, who completed her Catalina Channel swim Sunday morning, and Natalie Radtke of Hermosa Beach. Radtke helped pace Yonushonis during her swim, and she will be doing her own solo Catalina Channel swim Tuesday night.
To hear the full interview, click the blue audio player above.
Here's video of Kerry Yonushonis beginning her swim from Catalina Island to Palos Verdes. She began her swim at 10:52pm Saturday.
Here's video of Natalie Radtke swimming out to pace Kerry Yonushonis closer to the shore.
Here's video of Yonushonis finishing her swim at the beach near Terranea Resort in Palos Verdes.
To see more videos from Yonushonis' swim, click here.