Today on the show, we talk about whether ending mandatory minimum sentences can help California's prison overcrowding problems. Plus, embattled San Diego Mayor Bob Filner leaves therapy early, we debate whether Elon Musk's Hyperloop transportation system actually work?, we learn about a program that keeps lesser-used languages alive by teaching immigrants' kids, plus much more.
Will ending mandatory minimum sentences fix California's prison problems?
Prison overcrowding has become such a problem nationwide that the Obama administration is making a move to rein it in.
Today in San Francisco, Attorney General Eric Holder will tell the American Bar Association how his department plans to reduce sentences for low-level and non-violent drug offenders.
What would this mean for California, which has the largest prison population in the nation?
With more is Keramet Reiter, assistant professor of criminology at the University of California, Irvine.
Embattled San Diego Mayor Bob Filner leaves therapy early
The saga of San Diego mayor Bob Filner continues.
Filner's lawyers said this weekend he's wrapped up the therapy he sought after several women accused him of sexual harassment. He's left therapy a week earlier than expected, although it remains unclear when he went into treatment.
He is set to return to City Hall next Monday, but a rally is already being planned for noon today in front of his office. It's being called a "Not Welcome Back" rally.
Today is the day that Filner is supposed to respond with a statement to the organizers of a recall effort. For more on all of this is Sandhya Dirks from KPBS in San Diego.
Can Elon Musk's Hyperloop transportation system actually work?
He's called it a cross between a Concorde, a rail gun and an air hockey table, but that's pretty much all we know about Elon Musk's mysterious Hyperloop.
The entrepreneur behind Tesla and SpaceX is expected to announce today how he plans to get travelers between L.A. and San Francisco in 30 minutes. Physicists and tinkerers have been coming up with their own ideas about how this futuristic transportation system might work.
Physics professor and Wired magazine blogger Rhett Allain joins the show to break down some of these ideas.
RELATED: Inventor Musk shares plans for high-speed 'Hyperloop' travel (PDF)
Judge orders 60-day 'cooling off period' for striking BART workers
The standoff between the Bay Area Rapid Transit system and its union workers continues.
There was concern BART workers would go on strike if talks hadn't progressed, but yesterday, a judge ordered a 60-day 'cooling off period,' and no strikes can be implemented until October 10th.
That's good news for BART riders. The injunction prevents a repeat of the scene from last month, when BART workers walked out of their jobs and increased traffic across the Bay Area. But if officials and unions can't come to an agreement, union members would be free to strike after October 10.
For more on the BART labor standoff, Kevin Roose, a Bay-Area-based writer for New York Magazine joins the show with more.
LA-to-SF high-speed rail plan delayed again
The long-awaited high speed rail that is supposed to connect LA to San Francisco looks like it's delayed again. Fresno Bee reporter Tim Sheehan joins the show with an update.
On The Lot: 'Elysium', 'World War Z' and more
Time for On The Lot, our weekly summary of news from the movie business with LA Times reporter Rebecca Keegan.
This weekend's box office winner was Matt Damon's new movie, 'Elysium.' The film earned over $30 million over its opening weekend, but it's not the revenue story.
Brad Pitt's 'World War Z' broke the $500 million dollar barrier over the weekend, making it the movie star's highest grossing film ever. Why have fans flocked to see Pitt's newest flick in such great numbers?
Disney just wrapped up its annual D23 Expo in Anaheim. It's basically Comic-Con for Disney fans. The big story at D23 was the new Star Wars movie, set to release in 2015.
Star Wars isn't Disney's only project in the works. A sequel to the 2003 hit 'Finding Nemo' is also in the works.
Odd Hollywood Jobs: Music supervisor
This is one in a series on Odd Hollywood Jobs — not acting or directing, but rather the tasks you haven't heard of. You can read other segments in this series at the links below the story.
Sometimes a song fits so perfectly into a movie scene that its almost as if it were written just for that moment. But finding the perfect song doesn't just happen magically, it's the work of people like Michael Turner.
As a music supervisor, it's Turner's job to help source and procure the rights to music that fits the tone and identity of a visual medium. While his job can be quite creative, Turner says a lot of the job is about making sure a production has the rights to use a certain song or piece of music.
"I like to tell people that it's basically keeping everybody from getting sued," said Turner on Take Two. "Music is expensive, and there's a lot of people involved in owning those copyrights. As volatile as you might imagine artist to be in their exploits in hotel rooms, they're equally as protective of their music. When people start using music without asking, or not paying enough money, people get very upset. You just make sure everything is on the up-and-up."
Turner joins Take Two to talk about how he got into the business, what it's like to work with film directors, and what part he likes best about his job.
Interview Highlights:
On the fun part of his job:
"I love putting the perfect song in the perfect scene. I also really enjoy being able to make money for independent artists. If you're able to use a song from a baby band and pay them a few thousand dollars, that might finance their tour or their next record. They're beside themselves with the exposure opportunity as well, and that's very gratifying."
On directors not especially liking suggestions:
"There is a bit of an art around that. It depends on the personality of the director, but yes, sometimes you need to make them feel like it's all their idea. You suggest things in a way where they'd maybe come back later and be like, 'You know what would be great? This thing,' and you're kind of like, 'Yeah, I brought that up weeks ago, but great idea!' In some ways, I have to do that for every director. These are very creative people who are very passionate about what they do. In close quarters, over a long period of time, you go through these love/hate cycles with people. You're just like, 'I cannot believe this guy! I want to rip his head off!' Three weeks later you're drinking buddies again. It's a passionate field."
On how he got into his line of work:
"I've been a musician my whole life. I still write and record music on my own. After college, I went back to school for audio engineering, started working in recording studios and ultimately ended up working in music publishing. Publishing is the intellectual side of the industry. That's where you have to go to get clearances to use songs in movies. From working there, I realized that maybe I'd rather be a buyer than a seller. I wanted to do the creative aspect of placing stuff as opposed to selling music to people."
On possibly putting his own music into movies:
"I'm actually pretty shy about pitching my own music. To some extent, I feel like it can be a conflict of interest. I feel like I kind of owe my services to the artistic community. The record labels, the publishers and the artists I'm sourcing material from. To be putting my own music in there seem a little iffy. Maybe I'm the one person in Hollywood that has some ethical quandary about that."
On the music for "The Canyons":
"The tone definitely encapsulates the tone of the film. The score is done by Brendan Canning, who is a really amazing Canadian producer. He's a founding member of the band Broken Social Scene, and his score is very chilly, icy, pulsating and electronic. There isn't much other outside music besides his score in the film. That's one, and that one did end up in the trailer, but it fits in with that soundscape that Brendan created. It worked really well."
On the music for "Portrait of a Pimp":
"The main trailer queue that was used in there is a song called 'My Habit' by Cunninlynguists, who are phenomenal, by the way. They were a big part of the score for the film. They took a lot of their existing tracks and remixed them custom for the film. They were really excited because they're huge Ice-T fans. They became the de facto composers of that film. A huge part of Iceberg Slim is tracks and remixed tracks by Cunninlynguists, and they were pretty psyched to be involved with one of their idols, Ice-T. Ice-T found a new hip-hop group that he really likes, so I like to feel that I can take some credit for that."
On the effect of music on a movie:
"You can have a terrible lifeless scene, but if you put the right track over it without changing anything else, people are like, "Hey, that's not so bad." It's very powerful, but also, because of that, can be abused because sometimes people rely on it too much. You need to wield it carefully."
On a good transition from his segment:
"I've always wanted to be played off by keyboard cat, to be honest."
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Report shows 1,800 doctors may have recklessly prescribed Oxycontin
The drug Oxycontin has been in the headlines recently for all the wrong reasons.
The L.A. Times reports that Purdue Pharma has identified roughly 1,800 doctors who may have recklessly prescribed the painkiller to addicts and dealers. Despite the health and legal ramifications, Purdue has only released the names of about 150 doctors to authorities.
L.A. Times reporter Scott Glover joins the show with more.
Mexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero released from prison 14 years early
Last Friday, a Mexican federal court released an infamous drug lord convicted of killing a U.S. drug enforcement agent nearly three decades ago.
Rafael Caro Quintero was a founding member of the Guadalajara cartel, one of the earliest drug cartels in Mexico. He was sentenced to 40 years in prison for the kidnapping and brutal murder of undercover DEA agent Enrique Camarena in 1985.
The episode was a turning point in U.S.-Mexican relations and Quintero's release now — just 26 years into his sentence — is re-opening old wounds. But why would Mexican authorities release a convicted killer and drug lord 14 years early?
"It was basically a technicality," said Sylvia Longmire, author of "Cartel: The Coming Invasion of Mexico's Drug War," on Take Two. "At the time, 28 years ago, they tried the men under federal statutes, whereas the charges they were brought up against were actually state level crimes, so they should have been tried in a state court instead of a federal court. That's why Quintero's conviction was overturned and he was released."
Quintero's release is part of current Mexican president Enrique Pena Nieto's effort to straighten out a system that has long been out of order. Even though Quintero and his cartel partners were wrongly prosecuted under federal law, his release from prison is seen as unacceptable by the U.S.
"So as far as I can tell, they are actually following the rules by doing this, unfortunately, the questions arise, why now?" said Longmire. "This is having a negative impact on US-Mexico relations. The White House is upset about it, the DEA is extremely angered by it, but it seems for now to be on the up and up."
Program keeps lesser-used languages alive by teaching immigrants' kids
Over the past few weeks, KPCC's education team has been looking at what students are learning during summer vacation. Today, we bring you a report on a cultural immersion experience for children of immigrants, but not in their parents' home country.
In the final part of our Summer Learning Series, KPCC's Deepa Fernandes visits a special month-long language course for kids.
'Wild Ones' examines the relationship between human and animal
Half of the world's 9-million species could go extinct by the end of this century.
That's a pretty startling idea, but what exactly does that mean? Should we intervene and try to save these species or should we just let nature take its course?
These are some of the questions New York Times magazine writer Jon Mooallem explores in his book. It's called "Wild Ones: A Sometimes Dismaying, Weirdly Reassuring Story about Looking at People Looking at Animals in America."
Interview Highlights:
On our changing opinions on polar bears:
"The polar bear is a prime case where the reputation has done a complete 180 in our minds. You've got this interesting situation where it's been a very shrewd and purposeful move by environmentalists to capitalize on the polar bear as a victim of climate change. [It's] something that is going to be cuddly and friendly enough for us to get our heads around as a harbinger of some very scary things that are going to happen in the future because of climate change. As sea ice disappears, the polar bear is basically going to lose its habitat. Environmentalists like to use this story as a canary in the coalmine."
On the butterfly found in northern California:
"This is a butterfly called the Lange's Metalmark Butterfly. It's pretty small, about the size of a dime. It lives on a little scrap of land called the Antioch Dunes, which is midway between San Francisco and Sacramento. It's sandwiched between a waste transfer station and a water treatment facility. It's a grim place. Somehow the butterfly has survived here. I really wanted to go there, and I wanted to trace what happened over the last 100 years to this property and all the people who's stories came in and out of the story of the butterfly. People who cared about or fought for it and would eventually become disillusioned just in time for another generation to come along with the same idealism that they once felt."
On the kind of people who fight for the butterfly:
"Butterfly people in particular, I was completely fascinated by them. I never knew such a subculture existed, but it's a lot like bird-watching people. They'll go out and they've got a huge mental database of different species and subspecies, what they look like and even what their flight patterns look like so they can pick out these things as they go whizzing by. But really, I just found it inspiring that here were people who were still out at the Antioch Dunes pulling weeds and trying to make a better habitat for this butterfly in this place where I think a lot of people would've given up."
Read an excerpt of the book:
Picture This: Documenting grandma's home cooking from around the world
When Italian photographer Gabriele Galimberti set off around the world to photograph his adventures couch surfing, his grandmother Marisa became worried.
"She said, 'Are you sure you're going to eat well when you're so far from home? You should stay here, I can cook for you,'" he said on Take Two. "I said, 'You know, grandma, I think I can find a lot of other grandmothers around the world and they probably cook well for me.'"
PHOTOS: See more pictures from Galimberti's series on AudioVision
As he journeyed from couch to couch, he asked his host to meet their grandmother and have her cook something special. He took a photo of each one, and it became part of his other series, "Delicatessen With Love," because that's the special ingredients all grandmothers add: love.
"My mother is a good cook and she tried to make the same ravioli as my grandmother," says Galimberti, "But the one my grandmother used to make is for sure much better."
While his own grandmother made that dish from scratch, he enjoyed watching Melanie Hill from Utah her own speciality, chocolate coffee trifle, all from boxes.
"It was fun the way she prepared because everything was already made. She took it out of packages and cans," he says, and loved it. "It was really good."
Meanwhile in Malawi, he had trouble stomaching the cuisine made my Regina Lifumbo: caterpillars.
"I tried just one bug. It wasn't really good, so I said to her, 'I'm sorry, I already had my lunch,'" he said.
Whether or not he could keep all his dishes down, Gabriele wrapped up his travel being a guest of 60 different grandmothers. His grandmother Marisa said she didn't believe the pictures of what he ate at first, but that was beside the point.
"She saw that I'm back home, I survived, I didn't lose weight, and she trusts that I was eating well," he said.
What's the special food that only your grandmother could make? Tell us in the comments.
LA-based Superhumanoids release debut album, 'Exhibitionists'
Three summers ago, L.A. musicians Cameron Parkins, Max St. John and Sarah Chernoff came together to form a band called Superhumanoids. They've just released their debut album called "Exhibitionists."
Parkins sits with Alex Cohen to talk about forming the band and finally releasing their first full album.