What happens next if San Diego Mayor Bob Filner resigns?; Looking into the safety of LA-area tour bus companies; Chinese-run tour bus companies help fuel desert casino tourism; Several Iconic LA Case Study homes added to historic national registry; Oldest operating book store in LA closes, plus much more.
Looking into the safety of LA-area tour bus companies
Tour bus operators are once again under a microscope after yesterday's crash on the 210 in Irwindale that injured more than 50 people. Authorities say the bus clipped the back of another car while changing lanes, swerved and rolled over onto its side off the freeway.
The bus was on its way to the San Manuel Indian Casino in Highland, and most of the passengers were senior citizens. The accident comes six months after another tour bus crashed on state route 38 in Yucaipa, killing seven passengers and the driver of another car, and injuring nearly 40 people.
KPCC's investigative producer Karen Foshay joins the show with more.
RELATED: Planning a bus trip? Look before you book
Chinese-run tour bus companies help fuel desert casino tourism
We mentioned earlier that the bus involved in the recent crash in Irwindale carried mostly senior citizens, and most of the passengers were also of Chinese descent.
Part of a thriving business of Chinese-run bus tours that take customers to desert casinos every day. Dr. Timothy Fong is well-acquainted with these companies as co-director of the Gambling Studies program at UCLA.
What happens next if San Diego Mayor Bob Filner resigns?
Later today, San Diego's City Council will meet to vote on a deal about mayor Bob Filner's future. The mayor, who's facing multiple accusations of sexual harassment, is expected to resign.
But if there is anything we've learned over the past six weeks, it's to expect the unexpected. For more on what's at stake in today's meeting, we're joined by KPBS reporter Mark Sauer.
Friday Flashback: Chelsea Manning, student loans and more
It's Friday, and time for our weekly Friday Flashback, a look at the week's biggest news stories. Back in the saddle again here in studio is James Rainey of the L.A. Times, and in Washington, DC we've got The Atlantic's Molly Ball.
On Tap This Week:
One of the biggest headlines this week had to do with Bradley Manning, who announced that she is transgender. Manning wants to live the rest of her life as a woman named Chelsea. This came as a surprise to many, but the Army private convicted of leaking thousands of classified documents had spoken about his gender identity in the past.
She's been assigned to Fort Leavenworth Army Prison, which has already come out to say that it does not provide hormone therapy or sex-reassignment surgery for gender identity disorder. What is life for her going to be like there now?
President Obama was making another tour this week and made some pretty dramatic statements about education, like creating a federal rating systems to make it easier for parents and students to compare schools and the cost of higher education. Is this an issue he can win some bipartisan support on?
Eighty House Republicans this week also sent a letter to House speaker John Boehner saying they won't vote on the budget unless Obamacare is revoked. What kind of headache is this going to be when Congress returns in a week?
We saw horrific images this week coming out of Syria, where it's still unconfirmed whether President Bashar al Assad is responsible for a chemical weapons attack on civilians. Does it look like this is pushing the U.S. any closer to intervening?
It's also been another tumultuous week in Egypt, where former president Hosni Mubarak was released from prison.
The Koch brothers have announced they will not be buying the LA Times. What else do we know about this?
Beachcombing: A new generation of spearfishermen hunts conservatively (photos)
This story is part of our summer series "Beachcombing," in which KPCC reporters will explore the ecology, economy and culture of Southern California's beaches and coast. Let us know what you think in the comments below or on KPCC's Facebook page.
This summer, we've been exploring southern California's coast through the eyes of the people closest to it. But some get closer than mostby diving in deep water off places like Catalina and Palos Verdes.
In the latest story in our Beachcombing series, KPCC's Molly Peterson introduces us to local spearfishermen.
In 'The World's End,' director Edgar Wright laughs off the apocalypse
By now it's clear that British director Edgar Wright has a knack for making cult films, with "Shaun of the Dead," "Hot Fuzz" and "Scott Pilgrim Versus the World," to name a few.
His latest effort, "The World's End," is about five childhood friends who reunite as middle-aged men to re-live a notorious pub crawl from their school days. But, this being an Edgar Wright movie, nothing is quite as it seems.
By the end of the night, the quest to down 12 pints becomes a quest to save humanity.
The film marks the third of the Three Flavours Cornetto trilogy that started with "Shaun of the Dead" and "Hot Fuzz." The name is something of an inside joke: in each film a different flavor of Cornetto ice cream novelty appears, along with other repeated themes.
"If we wanted to get really pretentious, ... it's more of a triptych than a trilogy," said Wright on Take Two. "They're three standalone films, and you don't have to have seen the other two to enjoy 'The World's End.'"
Wright joined Take Two to talk about how he came up with this pub-crawling adventure, why we're obsessed with the apocalypse, and how Delta Airlines may have inspired his next film.
Interview Highlights:
On how he came up with the idea for "The World's End":
"I was 19. It's worth pointing out that the drinking age in the UK is 18. In my hometown, there were about 15 pubs, and the town is about a mile wide. I had the stupid idea — I was the instigator of the crawl that we should drink a pint at every one. I saw it as proving myself ... being a man, and I could take on the town and drink it dry. I managed a pathetic six out of those 15 pubs. Unlike in the movie, the pub crawl just stopped after pub six. I wandered off into the night to try and find the girl that I was seeing at the time. It was a spectacularly messy night, and it stuck with me enough that, when I was 21, I wrote a script about it, about teenagers going out drinking, which I never did anything with."
On the main theme of the film:
"In a way the whole theme of the film is you've got somebody who wants to be a teenager forever, who sees himself as a rebel, and sees his friends who have grown up as being sellouts."
On our obsession with the apocalypse:
"I think its been a thing that has been on people's minds since the millennium. What's interesting, I think, is that it comes from a general pessimism about our future as a race, that we are eating ourselves as a planet. I always attribute it to, when I was younger, sci-fi would be about going out there and exploring. I feel like a part of that died when the space race died. When you realize there is no space program anymore, and we're never going to live on another planet, and the aliens are not going to come to us, this is it. We've got to sort of figure it out for ourselves on Earth."
On balancing humor with dark themes, zombies and the end of the world:
"The characters can die, and they don't have to come back, but you want people to care about them. And so I think that's what makes the films work. There are real stakes in them. Most of the comedy comes from what we would think would be naturalistic reactions to extraordinary circumstances. One of the things in 'Shaun of the Dead,' we wanted the whole thing to have this sort of hungover feel to it, that the characters are hung over, so there's not nonchalance, but there's this delayed reaction."
On what connects the three films as a trilogy:
"I guess essentially if we wanted to get really pretentious, ... it's more of a triptych than a trilogy. They're three standalone films, and you don't have to have seen the other two to enjoy "The World's End.' But I think it came from the fact that we never wanted to do a sequel to 'Shaun of the Dead.' So the surface-level connections that people like to latch onto — the sillier things, like ice cream cropping up in all three of them, or fence jumping — in a way, when we were writing this movie, we had the idea for the story, and we realized that it actually tied up some themes that are in all three of them. Because all three of them are about growing up. All three of them are about perpetual adolescence and the dangers of that, and all of them are about an individual versus a collective."
On whether the team will be back with another film:
"One of the things we've tried to do with the three movies is get older onscreen, because I see so many comedies where people pretend to be 26 forever and pretend to be single, slacker guys when in truth they're husbands and fathers. I liked the idea with our movies that we play our own age. Usually we start talking about new ideas when we're waiting for a delayed domestic flight, so thanks, Delta Airlines, for helping us come up with our new movie."
Web Extra
Edgar Wright on how the film "Bugsy Malone" and the music of Paul Williams influenced his work:
"I love it, because I thought when I was a little kid, it seemed like the film I wanted to be in. There was a school production of 'Bugsy Malone' that I was in when I was 12, and I was one of Fat Sam's gang. The thing that I love about it still is that Paul Williams' songs are amazing.
"I've often thought, weirdly, when you get asked that morbid question, 'What would you like to have played at your funeral?' I always say, 'I'd like to have "So You Wanna Be A Boxer" play,' because I think when I'm dead it will be clear that I was never a boxer. So I think that's the song I'd like to have play at my funeral."
How sequestration cuts are affecting California's Head Start program
Automatic federal spending cuts known as the sequester are starting to hit programs for the poor. The Obama Administration announced this week that 57,000 children nationwide will lose out on free preschool classes as a result.
California is among the hardest hit, losing over 5,000 slots to Head Start programs.
RELATED: How sequestration Head Start cuts ripple through a community
Joining us to talk about those numbers and the families they will affect is KPCC's Early Childhood Development correspondent Deepa Fernandes.
National Parks waive fees on Aug. 25 to celebrate 97 years in service
Congratulations and happy birthday to the National Park Service, which celebrates 97 years this weekend. Here in California, we boast 26 national parks including a couple of the most famous, Yosemite and Death Valley.
There's also Point Reyes and the Redwoods up north, Devil's Postpile in Mammoth, and right here in L.A. the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.
If any or all of those sound like a fun weekend outing, you're in luck. As part of the birthday celebration, all national parks across the country are free on Sunday, Aug, 25.
That means no entrance fees anywhere.
For more we're joined by Scott Gediman a representative with Yosemite National Park and a longtime ranger.
Several Iconic LA Case Study homes added to historic national registry
Now to another icon of Southern California life, the Case Study Homes.
These are the mid-century modern homes of your dreams. Think glass boxes with clean lines and swimming pools perched over hillside cliffs. They were designed by architects like the Charles and Ray Eames and Richard Neutra.
At one time there were several dozen of them scattered around southern California, now eleven of them in the L.A. area have been added to the National Register of Historic Places under the National Park System. Cultural critic Edward Lifson joins the show to explain their significance.
A list of the houses included in the registry:
L.A. County
Case Study House #1, 10152 Toluca Lake Ave., Los Angeles
Case Study House #9, 205 Chautauqua Blvd., Los Angeles
Case Study House #10, 711 S. San Rafael Ave., Pasadena
Case Study House #16, 1811 Bel Air Rd., Los Angeles
Case Study House #18, 199 Chautauqua Blvd., Los Angeles
Case Study House #20, 2275 N. Santa Rosa Ave., Altadena
Case Study House #21, 9038 Wonderland Park Ave., Los Angeles
Case Study House #22, 1635 Woods Dr., Los Angeles
San Diego County
Case Study House #23A, 2342 Rue de Anne, La Jolla, San Diego (determined eligible)
Case Study House #23C, 2339 Rue de Anne, La Jolla, San Diego
Ventura County
Case Study House #28, 91 Inverness Rd., Thousand Oaks
Williams' Book Store in San Pedro closes after 104 years in business
After 104 years in business, San Pedro's Williams' Book Store — the oldest operating bookstore in the city of L.A. — is closing.
The store has survived two world wars, recessions, and the expansion of big box book stores, but in the past few years, it's found it increasingly difficult to pay the rent.
Several months ago the wholesale book supplier cut the store's credit limit. Williams' Book Store owner Gerry Gusha says the wholesalers have become more strict as business from Amazon and major stores have come on the market.
The store was originally started by Welsh immigrant E.T. Williams, who lived in nearby Bell. He opened the shop in 1909 and one of his two daughters took it over after him. Gusha's family bought the store from her in 1980.
The Williams' bookstore has always served as a general bookstore for the community and in the recent years became known for featuring local authors.
Gusha has worked here full-time for 42 years, and it's the only full-time job he's ever known. But he’s seen this coming for a long time. In fact, he says he wishes he’d closed down even earlier:
“I’d be $50,000 less in debt,” he said.
He even bought an extensive comic book collection, but they didn’t sell. He even offered to buy customers books after they’d found them on Amazon. People have offered to pay to keep it open, but the answer’s always the same.
“We’re so far in debt and I didn’t want to borrow money from anyone and not be able to pay them back – that’d be stupid,” said Gusha.
Instead, he's declaring bankruptcy.
The Williams' book store closes at the end of the month.
How fish tacos crossed the border
The fish taco is San Diego's most famous contribution to the taco canon. You can get one at fast food joints, taco trucks, and more than a few high-end restaurants. But the fish taco didn't begin in San Diego, as Adrian Florido reports in the latest in our Fronteras series on how tacos are transforming the American palate.
In the 1970s, Ralph Rubio and a bunch of college friends from San Diego State University took a camping trip to a small Baja California beach town called San Felipe.
They ate fish tacos morning, noon and night. And one day, Rubio approached a man working at one of his favorite taco stands.
"His name was Carlos, an older gentleman. I asked him what goes in the beer batter," Rubio said. "He told me oregano, mustard, garlic salt, black pepper, salt. I wrote down the ingredients and I carried it around with me for years."
When Rubio decided to open his first restaurant near a San Diego beach a few years later, that recipe, after some experimenting with ingredient proportions, would be the gold mine that's allowed the Rubio's Fresh Mexican Grill to become a 195-restaurant chain.
Rubio's was not the first San Diego restaurant to serve a fish taco, but it's generally credited with popularizing it and turning it into one of the region’s favorite fast foods.
On a recent morning, one of a Rubio's employee dropped a few strips of battered fish into a deep fryer, then wrapped it in a corn tortilla and topped it with cabbage, tomato, onion and cream sauce.
Rubio said as the restaurant chain's menu and recipes have evolved to more than 50 items since 1983, the fish taco is the one item that hasn't changed.
"We kept it as authentic as possible," he said.
It's hard to imagine that San Felipe — a scorching, dusty speck of a town perched on the coast of the Sea of Cortez about four hours south of San Diego — could have been the inspiration for the fish taco's explosion north of the border.
But stroll the boardwalk and allow Alejandra Sanchez to lure you into El Guero seafood restaurant, and any doubt melts away with the first bite.
On a recent afternoon Sanchez said she'd never heard of Rubio's or its story, but said many Americans visit the restaurant, and after tasting the tacos, ask for the batter recipe.
"We give it to them," she said. "And sometimes they come back and I ask how they turned out. Some of them say delicious, others, not so good. They didn't get the proportions right."
Cook Gloria Camacho said she gives her batter recipe out too, but never the exact recipe. It's a business, after all.
"We're glad they were able to take something good from San Felipe to the other side of the border. It helps promote us, and make us famous," Sanchez said.
Back in San Diego, Geoff Northrop was certainly happy about that as well. On a recent morning he was eating two fish tacos at Rubio's after his swimming workout.
"And it's good for you!" he said, between bites. "It's not high cholesterol, like hamburgers."
Indeed, more recently fish tacos have been marketed as health food. Rubio said that as health consciousness continues to becomes a more important part of Americans' food consumption habits, that's a message they plan to bank on.
“It’s just a delicious, fresh light way to eat, which is what American consumers are gravitating to. So it’s a good thing," Rubio said.
Chula Vista team competes in Little League World Series
The Little League World Series is underway in South Williamsport Pennsylvania, and playing in the series is Chula Vista's Eastlake Little League team. For more on this, we're joined now by the team manager, Doug Holman.
Nike's iconic 'Just Do It' campaign turns 25
Think about the pantheon of famous advertising tag lines:
Where's the beef.
Milk -- it does a body good.
Coke Is It.
Right up there near or at the top is an exhortation from an athletic wear company: Just Do It.
This month marks the 25th anniversary of that iconic Nike slogan. The ad campaign is where Charles Barkley told us he wasn't a role model:
And the only time you'll see Kenyan distance runners, Kobe Bryant, Rafael Nadal, Wayne Rooney and few black belts in a room together working out:
The first "Just Do It" TV ad featured a lesser-known athlete, Walt Stack:
In it, the 80-year-old runner jogs shirtless across the Golden Gate bridge, his voiceover explaining that he runs 17 miles per day.
Ken Wheaton, managing editor of Advertising Age, joins the show to talk about the effect of the Just Do It ad campaign.
Booker T changes pace with 'Sound the Alarm'
In 1962, the band Booker T. & The M.G.'s released their first hit: "Green Onions." Since then, the sound of the B3 Hammond Organ has become a hallmark of Booker T's music.
However, the B3 is just one of many sounds you'll hear on his new album "Sound the Alarm." Booker T. joins us from the studios of NPR West in Culver City.