About 90,000 people filled the stands for the LA Rams preseason opener, the water contamination in CA caused by synthetic fertilizer, a look at Latino lending.
Latinos are denied mortgages because they're great savers. Really.
Latinos are great at saving money, but that's caused a surprising problem: they can't get mortgage loans.
One out of every 5 mortgage applications by Latinos are denied, which is twice the rate that non-Hispanics can't get a loan.
That's in part because lenders rely heavily on credit scores to make their decisions, and Latinos don't build up a good score when they avoid credit cards in favor of cash built up in their savings.
"We have so many of them that are credit invisible," says Richard Green, director and chair of the Lusk Center for Real Estate at USC and formerly with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. "They don't have a credit score at all."
He adds, "They are uncomfortable with the idea of credit, but ironically in the U.S., in order to get credit you have to use credit."
Green specifically points out Latinos in his research because they are a booming demographic – there are currently 55 million in the U.S.
"It's not unique to Latinos," he says. "If you look at other cultures, debt is just considered a bad thing. It's as if there's something morally wrong with you."
Lenders will miss out on these new customers if they don't update their formulas, he argues.
"They're reluctant to do anything creative to bring into the market people that are very good credit risks," says Green.
He advocates that banks develop new ways to examine a person's reliability, perhaps by assessing their past history with paying rent and utilities on time, having a steady job or calculating how much they currently have saved.
"You could bring millions, if not tens of millions, of people into the mortgage market if you did that," he says.
Hear more of Take Two's conversation with Richard Green by clicking the blue audio player.
Is there ever a good case for a journalist to out someone?
While Olympic athletes were going for gold in Rio, The Daily Beast was gay-baiting.
Last week, reporter Nico Hines wrote a story about how athletes hook up in the Olympic Village, but ended up focusing just on the gay athletes who contacted him on apps like Grindr.
Hines did not name names but gave just enough detail so their identities could be figured out.
The internet lashed out at the ethical lapse of The Daily Beast, which later retracted the story.
Take Two looks at the ethics of outing – and whether journalists should out anyone at all – with Ken Miguel, VP of broadcast at the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association.
Study identifies the profile of the average pot user
Come November, at least nine states will vote on marijuana initiatives. Five of those states, including California, will decide whether to legalize the recreational use of pot.
Who might vote in favor of such laws? Perhaps you picture the typical stoner types like Cheech and Chong, Jeff Spicoli, or the Dude from The Big Lebowski. Pop culture has certainly fostered stereotypes about marijuana users. Now, a new study published this month in the Journal of Drug Issues gives us a more accurate picture of who really uses pot.
Steven Davenport co-authored the study. He's also a Ph.D. student at Pardee RAND Graduate School. Alex Cohen talked to him about what he learned from the working on the study.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above.
Synthetic fertilizers have oozed into CA groundwater for decades
Synthetic fertilizer has been used by California farmers for nearly seven decades.
The main ingredient in that fertilizer, nitrogen, helps the Golden State produce more than half of the country's fruits and vegetables. Growers use more than 500 tons of it every year.
But new research is shedding light on the environmental impact of the practice. The study says that much of the nitrogen eventually ends up in local groundwater, and that's creating a big problem for farmers and nearby residents alike.
The Agricultural Sustainability Institute at UC Davis conducted the study. Institute director Tom Tomich joined Take Two to explain the impact the seepage could have on nearby communities if action isn't taken.
Press the blue play button above to hear the full interview.
Team USA marathon runner on her Rio redemption: 'I hope we inspire a lot of runners out there'
Leading up to the Rio Olympics, we've been following the journey of one Team USA athlete: Desiree Linden.
She hails from Southern California and ran for Team USA at the women's marathon event in London at the 2012 games and in Rio Sunday. Linden placed seventh, crossing the finish line in an impressive 2:26:08.
It was a pretty close race: the first, second and third place runners finished within thirty seconds of each other. Linden finished about two minutes behind the first place finisher. Her teammates Amy Cragg and Shalane Flanagan placed sixth and ninth, making Team USA's effort the strongest showing from any country at the event.
For more, Desiree Linden spoke to Take Two host A Martinez from Rio.
To hear the full interview, click the blue play button above.
For this Rams fan, preseason game was 'surreal'
Nearly 90,000.
That's how many people showed up to cheer on the LA Rams for their preseason opener against the Dallas Cowboys. That also set a new NFL record.
The game didn't start too great, though. On the very first play, the opening kickoff, the Cowboys ran it back 101 yards for a touchdown.
But the Rams shook it off, and came back to win the game, sending the fans home happy.
Tom Bateman was one of those thousands of fans present. Bateman is the director of a group that used to be called Bring Back the Los Angeles Rams. Now, they've transformed into fearsomefootball.com, a news website for Rams fans with a Southern California perspective.
Bateman told Take Two what it felt like to be in the Coliseum on the night some have been anticipating for more than 20 years.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above.
Albuquerque pays homeless people to work. Could LA do the same?
According to the latest count, there are nearly 47,000 homeless people living unsheltered in Los Angeles County.
Reducing homelessness is a vexing problem with few easy answers. But the city of Albuquerque may have stumbled onto a promising solution.
They're putting those living on the streets to work through a program called "There's a Better Way."
Kellie Tillerson, director of housing and employment at the non-profit St. Martin's Hospitality Center in New Mexico, joined Take Two to explain how the program works and whether it could be replicated in other cities like LA.
Could trampoline fitness be LA's newest workout craze?
Whatever your usual workout routine may be, doing too much of any one type of exercise can get a little boring.
What better way to keep things fun than by bouncing up and down on a trampoline?
We're not talking Olympics-style trampoline here. Flying up high in the air and flipping around isn't something just anybody can do, but anyone can vary up their normal fitness routine at Jumping Fitness in Redondo Beach.
The classes are kind of like spinning, except instead of hopping on a bike, you get your own small trampoline, complete with handlebars in the front for certain moves.
As part of Take Two's series on alternative forms of fitness, Alex Cohen recently dropped by to see what it's like to bounce to the beats of Latin music, electronic dance tracks and even a little Justin Timberlake.
Jumping Fitness co-owner and class instructor Jakub Novotny explained how group trampoline classes got started in his native Czech Republic and why he thinks it's poised to take off big in the U.S.
To hear the full interview, click the blue player above.