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Podcasts Take Two
Election 2020: Voters Expect Difficulties in November, L.A's Tourism Board Promotes Staycations, Hollywood, The Sequel
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Aug 25, 2020
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Election 2020: Voters Expect Difficulties in November, L.A's Tourism Board Promotes Staycations, Hollywood, The Sequel

Registered voters expect November to be difficult at the polls, L.A.'s tourism board promotes staycations and the latest on Hollywood, The Sequel.

Sample ballots for Los Angeles County are finished and ready to be packaged for shipment. The Los Angeles County Registrar/Recorder-Clerk began mailing some 4.8 million booklets this week.
Sample ballots for Los Angeles County are finished and ready to be packaged for shipment. The Los Angeles County Registrar/Recorder-Clerk began mailing some 4.8 million booklets this week.
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Maya Sugarman/KPCC
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Election 2020: Voters Expect Difficulties in November

We start with the upcoming election and the mail. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy wrapped up two days of testimony, yesterday, before members of Congress. Before those hearings, he said the Postal Service will suspend any cutbacks to services and operations until after the November election … to avoid any appearance of impact on the election. And in comments to the members of the House on Monday, he tried to reassure the public that the Postal Service will place the utmost priority on the mail-in ballots it handles. But the damage may have already been done. Even before this fight over the post office, a poll by Pew Research Center found that nearly half of registered voters said they expect voting to be difficult this November. So to rebuild voters’ confidence in mail-in ballots, we turn to a recent study that examined what campaign messages have worked before ….to persuade some of California’s voters LEAST likely to participate in an election to do so.

Guest:

  • Francisco Pedraza,  Professor of Public Policy and Political Science at UC Riverside 

Census Race Against the Clock

Earlier this month the Trump administration suddenly announced it would cut the 2020 census short. Instead of ending on October 31st, as the Census Bureau had planned for months… the counting phase is now set to end September 30th. KPCC’s Caroline Champlin has more on what's become the race against the clock to get Angelenos counted.

CA Unemployment Help

In case you missed it - over the weekend California got approved for 4.5 billion dollars in unemployment benefits through something called the Federal Lost Wages Assistance Program. That will pay out an extra 300 dollars a week to those who are eligible. For more and how it will work and when it might kick in.

Guest:

  • David Wagner, KPCC Business Reporter 

BCD Tofu House

LA institution BCD Tofu House lost its founder Hee Sook Lee to cancer last month. KPCC's Josie Huang has a remembrance of Lee, and how she created a chain restaurant -- and a cultural phenomenon. 

Bridge Homes

You may remember a couple of years ago, there were some explosive protests about temporary “bridge housing” homeless shelters in Koreatown and Venice. Well now, despite some objections, almost two dozen of those sites have actually opened around the city. But new reporting by KPCC  finds that people are not moving into housing in the volume politicians expected when the program launched.

Guest:

  • Matt Tinoco, KPCC’s Homelessness Reporter

L.A. Tourism

Tourism to LA has fallen off a cliff because of the pandemic, but LA's tourism board has been trying to promote a stop-gap measure: convincing Angelenos to take more staycations in the city. Take Two talks with the board's president and CEO Adam Burke.

Hollywood, The Sequel

When KPCC's daily arts and entertainment show, The Frame, went on hiatus at the start of the pandemic...host John Horn launched a podcast called Hollywood The Sequel...in it, he's tracking how the coronavirus and the racial justice movement are impacting the industry.  Each week he gives us a preview of his latest episode but today he also brings us a story about the first movie to be shot in L.A. since the lockdown.

Guest:

  • John Horn, Hollywood, The Sequel Host