Congress restructures a housing program for HIV patients, the Kamenetzky Brothers discuss balancing athletics with academics, timba music grows in popularity.
What Southern Californians should know about the war of words between the US and North Korea
Verbal sparring between the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea has escalated this week.
Rhetoric began to heat up after the U.N. Security Council approved a new round of sanctions targeting North Korea's nuclear program on Saturday.
On Monday, North Korea's official state news agency said, "there is no bigger mistake than the United States believing that its land is safe across the ocean," according to reports .
Then, President Trump issued a warning on Tuesday after reports surfaced that North Korea had developed a compact nuclear warhead, ahead of the expected timeline for the country to reach that capability milestone. Trump addressed the North Korean leader directly, saying threats to the United States would be met with "fire and fury."
Hours later, Pyonyang doubled down, announcing it was considering a strike on Guam that would create "an enveloping fire" around the Pacific island.
Wednesday morning, Rex Tillerson spoke to reporters while his plane was stopped in Guam to refuel. The Secretary of State struck a calming tone.
"I do not believe there is any imminent threat, in my own view,” Tillerson said. He later said, “Americans should sleep well at night. I have no concerns about this particular rhetoric over the last few days"
David Kang is a professor of International Relations and Business at USC. He follows the relationship between the U.S. and North Korea. He joined A Martinez on Take Two Wednesday.
What do you make of the latest round of tough talk and warnings between the U.S. and North Korea?
It's a little bit more elevated on our side. But this is all basically what we've done before. The thing that's always missed about the Guam incident, is North Korea always says "if you attack us first, we will take you out." And that's what they said about Guam. That was not a threat to fire first. And of course, the U.S. consistently says, "if North Korea attacks first, we will respond." So Trump was a little bit more colorful than most, but essentially deterrence is still solid on both sides.
I think most people want to believe this is bluster, and not real threats.
I'm not even sure if I would call it 'bluster,' because that means it's not real. It's communicating. It's diplomacy, although both sides could use calmer rhetoric. They are reminding us that they'll fight back, and we believe them. We remind them that we'll fight back, and they believe us. That's why deterrence has held for almost 70 years.
To hear the full interview, please click on the blue media player at the top of the screen.
Congress increases funding for HIV housing program
A bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress increased the funding for a program that gives housing assistance for people living with HIV, and those in L.A. County stand to gain the most out of anywhere in the country.
Called Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS, it helps those struggling to pay for rent.
Terry Goddard, executive director of the Alliance for Housing and Healing, explains how a bump in funding could be put to use in Los Angeles.
Listen to the whole interview by clicking the above audio player
Sports roundup: The new 'student-athlete' controversy
The term "student-athlete" has had a controversial history. It was popularized by Walter Byers, the first executive director of the NCAA, way back in 1964.
Years later, he said the term was created to insure universities would not have to pay long term disability payments to players injured while playing their sport.
But as NCAA sports has grown into a billion dollar business, some student-athletes are wondering if they've always been more athlete than student.
We'll talk about it, and a lot more with Andy and Brian Kamenetzky.
New authority for air regulators in California
This week Air regulators in California got a big boost from the state, as Governor Jerry Brown signed legislation that will give officials new authority to curtail polluters.
The law will go into effect January 1st and was sponsored by the South Coast Air Quality Management District. We spoke about it with Wayne Nastri, the Executive Officer of the SCAQMD.
Air filters aren't a cure-all for those living near SoCal freeways, experts say
Air quality experts have long maintained that living close to a highway can be bad for your health. In Southern California where space is limited, however, hundreds of thousands of people live within a quarter mile of a freeway. But a change in city building code enforcement might provide some relief.
Mayor Eric Garcetti's office announced yesterday that building inspectors must now check for air filtration systems in new homes built near freeways — but that's just new homes.
Even with filtration systems, Sean Hecht, a professor of environmental law at UCLA's Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, says people living near freeways are still at risk.
He shared his thoughts with Take Two.
What should people living near freeways be most concerned about?
Living near a freeway means you're exposed to ultrafine particulate matter that comes from diesel exhaust that comes from other combustion from vehicles on the freeway. There's also oxides of nitrogen, which create ground-level ozone.
Particulate matter is especially dangerous for folks who live or work or play within a short distance of a freeway.
What kind of health effects are we talking about here?
There's been a lot of research on asthma and other respiratory diseases and heart disease. With children, asthma is a particularly terrible problem for people who live near freeways, and it's very well documented about what the impact of particulate matter is.
Ultrafine particles can penetrate the cell walls in people's lungs and create more long-term heart and lung related problems. And there's additional cancer risk because of those same types of pollutants.
Say I live right next to a freeway and I put an air filter right by a window...
The high-efficiency filters can make a difference with particulate matter. You always have to have your windows and doors closed for it to work properly. It can have an impact. As I mentioned, that's not what public health officials recommend. They don't believe it's adequate. It only protects against the particulate matter and not against the other pollutants, so you're still getting contaminants.
If you live near a freeway, you're going to be outside sometimes. You're gonna be walking to or from your car. You might be exercising. It doesn't protect people — but it helps. It's better than not having those filters.
So, it sounds like no one big solution can take care of everything.
No, and unfortunately, we have a housing crisis in California, and it's motivated a lot of units to be built without regard to how close they are to a freeway. It's a very tough problem. The best answer from a health standpoint is not to build near the freeways.
Press the blue play button above to hear more.
Answers have been edited for clarity.
Local band tries to expose Salsa dancers to its Cuban relative, Timba
In the early 1990s, “Timba”, a new style of dance music from Cuba, began to make its way around the world. Unlike Salsa, “Timba” has not taken root in LA. But that might change soon thanks to Rumbankete, an LA band specializing in original “Timba”.
To understand the difference between Salsa and Timba, you have to listen to both styles. Rumbankete percussionist Alberto López says Timba is a more complex dance music. “Timba is kind of like an updated version of “quote-unquote Salsa” but with more folkloric elements and a richer base to draw upon.”
Trombonist Jim Miller says Timba breaks down the barriers between the dancer and the band. “I feel it’s more like a connection between the audience and the musicians, rather than dancers and a jukebox.”
Rumbankete was founded in 2004. In the beginning, the band was kind of like a jukebox, a Salsa cover band. They played music by Eddie Palmieri’s band La Perfecta, Manny Oquendo’s Libre and other groups from the 1970s and 80s. Then in 2009, when Cuban singers Gonzalo Chomat and Iris Cepeda joined the band, they decided to record and play only their own original Timba compositions.
In the past few years, Rumbankete has been playing for large crowds at the Music Center’s Dance Downtown series and more recently at Union Station, drawing hundreds of dancers. But playing original Timba in Los Angeles has its challenges. It’s hard for the band to get gigs at the local Salsa clubs. Why?
Singer Gonzalo Chomat says it's all about economics. “The club owners don’t understand what this music is about. What they understand is that they want to see their 500, 200, 60 people dancing Salsa. It doesn’t matter if it’s from 1932. It doesn’t matter.”
Percussionist Alberto Lopez has a simple theory to explain why Timba has not taken root in LA - because people don’t know how to dance to it. “Timba is something that came out specifically out of Cuban dancers. Cuban audiences that danced a certain way, that asked for music to be played a certain way, so that they could move in a certain way and they invented a whole language of movement that doesn’t exist here.”
But maybe things are beginning to change. Singer Iris Cepeda says, in the past couple of years, she’s been noticing a difference in the way people are dancing to their music. “I’ve been seeing a lot of groups of Salsa dancers that have become Timba dancers. Yeah, actually, they were like just Salsa, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.”
Lopez says it’s been happening naturally. “They’re already hooked and they don’t even know it. They’re already moving their hips in a different way, they’re doing all this stuff and they’re like “oh my God”. But then, that’s our aim. Musically, we aim to create that transition for the dancers, from a regular “Salsa” thing, to where they can feel good while their dancing Timba.”
That’s Rumbankete’s mission: to create a more nuanced musical language for Salsa dancers... so they’ll be inspired to try out a little Timba.