Why wildfires in the west may only get worse; Where do Bob Filner's border efforts stand in wake of his resignation?; Sexual harassment and why people react the way they do; After 20 years of metal detectors, are LAUSD schools safer?; On The Lot: Ben Affleck as Batman, Telluride Film Fest and more
Why wildfires in the west may only get worse
The massive Rim Fire that's scorched more than 225 square miles near Yosemite National Park is now the largest wildfire in state history.
Firefighters are worried that high temperatures and unpredictable winds could spread the fire as far as the Hetch Hetchy reservoir where it could possibly jeopardize San Francisco's water supply.
Close to the fire, in the Sierra community of Tuolumne, Ike Bunney and his wife Shary have been forced to evacuate more than a dozen horses from their dude ranch. Ike joins the show to talk about their experience.
Most experts agree the wildfire situation in the West is only going to get worse. A combination of climate change and greater populations in fire-prone areas almost certainly mean it will cost more to fight fires in the future.
Yet the funding for fighting wildfires — and it's almost all federal money — hasn't kept pace with the threat.
For the second straight year, the Forest Service has depleted its firefighting budget, and its been forced to use money targeted toward things like forest fire prevention. When a wildfire is blazing, no one wants the people who are managing the fire fighting effort to be thinking about dollars and cents, but that might be the case.
Bill Gabbert is a longtime wildland fire fighter, who worked in Southern California before moving to South Dakota, where he managed fire fighting efforts in national parks. He runs WildfireToday.com.
As overseas adoption becomes difficult, some parents skirt law
It's become more difficult to adopt a child from overseas. The number of international adoptions has dropped to its lowest level in almost a decade.
In 2004 23,000 children were adopted from other countries. Last year American families adopted 86,000 foreign-born children. The reasons for the decline are varied, but many families hoping to adopt are now going outside the international law regime that governs adoptions.
But the federal government says they need to be careful. Laurel Morales from the Fronteras Desk reports from Flagstaff, Arizona.
Where do Bob Filner's border efforts stand in wake of his resignation?
San Diego Mayor Bob Filner begins his last week as mayor of San Diego today. He announced his resignation on Friday and he will officially leave his post at the end of this week.
Filner agreed to resign as part of a settlement deal approved by the San Diego city council regarding his legal battle against accusations of sexual harassment. Eighteen women have come forward to accuse the mayor of inappropriate behavior.
But before these allegations surfaced, Filner was making headlines for very different reasons. He was being lauded for his efforts to create cross-border partnerships with Mexico. In addition to opening an office in Tijuana, back in May, Filner was named the co-chair of the U.S.- Mexico Border Mayors Association
So with the mayor on his way out, where do those bi-national efforts stand? And might his successor take them up?
Here with more is Lisa Halverstadt of the non-profit investigative news organization Voice of San Diego.
Sexual harassment and why people react the way they do
Many of the women who've made accusations against San Diego Mayor Bob Filner are in positions of considerable power, including prominent businesswomen, attorneys, a dean at San Diego State University.
Women who did not work directly for the mayor, but they all kept quiet about Filner's alleged behavior until they saw it had happened to others. We wondered what is it that stops women from just telling the guy off.
If it happened to you, you might think that you'd fight back against the offender right then and there. But if you've never been in that moment, it's hard to say whether embarrassment or shock might keep you from doing so.
We're joined now by Louise Fitzgerald, emeritus professor of women's studies and psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign who has done some of the leading research on this subject.
After 20 years of metal detectors, are LAUSD schools safer?
On January 21, 1993, Demetrius Rice was shot at Fairfax High School when a gun hidden away in a classmate's backpack accidentally fired. The bullet passed through another student before striking 16-year-old Rice, and killing him.
"It was a boom that you never forget," said David Tokofsky, a former Los Angeles Unified School District teacher and board member who as at Fairfax that day. “The first thought you came to was some joking kid throwing an M-80 firecracker in a trash can. You didn’t think that a gun was in the school.”
That incident led the district to begin performing random weapon screenings using metal detectors.
Twenty years later. Metal detectors are still in schools. KPCC's Jed Kim reports on whether these tools have made schools any safer.
On The Lot: Ben Affleck as Batman, Telluride Film Fest and more
Time for On the Lot, our weekly summary of news from the movie business with LA Times reporter Rebecca Keegan.
Batfleck. Or Benman. Whatever, people in Hollywood are still wagging about the announcement that Ben Affleck will be cast as Batman in the sequel to this summer's Superman movie, "Man of Steel." It sounds like there were months of secret talks and negotiations, right?
Affleck tried playing a superhero ten years ago in a movie he'd probably like to forget about, "Daredevil." A decade later, many people don't seem to be very excited about Affleck as Batman.
Affleck has established himself as a writer and director as well as an actor. So why do you think he wants to be Batman?
As if there isn't enough Ben Affleck news, his wife, Jennifer Garner, is publicly pushing for a law to protect the children of celebrities.
On to someone even more inscrutable. J.D. Salinger, and a documentary about him that's making some news.
This week, everyone in Hollywood either is or wants to be in Telluride, for the annual film festival there. Roger Ebert said it was "Like Cannes died and went to heaven." Really? What's so great about Telluride that makes it even better than watching movies on the French Riviera?
Odd Hollywood Jobs: Science adviser
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.
Time for another installment of Odd Hollywood Jobs, our series that looks at those gigs behind-the-scenes that help make the movies. Today's job: Science Advisor.
Seth Shostak is senior astronomer at the SETI Institute in Mountain View, California. When he's not too busy searching for life on other planets, he advises filmmakers on how to get the science right in their movies.
Shostak joins the show to talk about his Hollywood side gig.
RELATED: Odd Hollywood Jobs: Military liaison
RELATED: Odd Hollywood Jobs: US-China film ambassador
RELATED: Odd Hollywood Jobs: Dialect coach
RELATED: Odd Hollywood Jobs: Music supervisor
RELATED: Odd Hollywood Jobs: Science adviser
RELATED: Odd Hollywood Jobs: Looper
RELATED: Odd Hollywood Jobs: Set teacher
RELATED: Odd Hollywood Jobs: Costume designer
Pew Study: Half of US thinks racial equality not yet a reality
Wednesday marks the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King's famous "I Have A Dream" speech. About a quarter of a million people gathered at the Lincoln Memorial to hear him speak about equality between blacks and whites.
But according to a new study from the Pew Research Center, despite the half-century that's passed since those memorable words, less than half of Americans, black or white, believe the country has made substantial progress toward racial equality.
Rich Morin, senior editor at Pew, joins the show with more.
Governor Brown considers allowing 3.4M non-citizens to serve on juries
This is one part in a new KPCC series looking at the rights, responsibilities, traditions and privileges that come along with being a citizen. Let us know what you think.
California could become the first state to allow non-citizens to serve on criminal and civil juries, under legislation now on the governor’s desk
“The jury system is based on our peers judging us,” said Assemblyman Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont), one of the bill’s authors. “It's only fair, because so many people living in California are legal permanent residents.”
Under AB1401, non-citizen legal permanent residents would be allowed to serve on juries. Federal law allows such residents – sometimes called “Green Card Holders” – to stay in the country as long as they like.
Some are in the process of applying for citizenship. Others choose to remain citizens of other countries. KPCC's Frank Stoltze reports.
The contested murder of Latasha Harlins
The 1992 LA race riots and the name Rodney King are almost synonymous. It's understood that the violence was sparked when four of the CHP officers in King's case were acquitted of assault.
But several targets in the rioting were Korea-American owned shops for a very specific reason.
"I was at a book signing," says UCLA professor Brenda Stevenson, "And there was a young man who talked about being from South Central Los Angeles and he said, bravely, that, 'I went to Koreatown to burn it because of Latasha Harlins.'"
Stevenson explores Harlins' death on March 16, 1991, for her new book, "The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins."
Harlins was a 15-year-old African-American girl living with her grandmother in South Central.
On that day — less than two weeks after King was beaten — she walked into the Empire Liquor Market on South Figueroa Street. She grabbed orange juice from the refrigerator and placed it in her bag, $2 in her hands to pay for it.
However, the store's owner, Korean-American Soon Ja Du, believed that Harlins was stealing the juice.
A scuffle ensued at the register when Du tried to pull Harlins' bag across the counter. Meanwhile, Harlins fought back, knocking the then-51-year-old woman down.
Harlins took the orange juice out of her bag and put it back on the counter, and then turned to leave. However, Du picked herself off from the ground with a handgun from the counter, shooting Harlins in the back of the head from three feet away.
Harlins died with that $2 in her left hand.
The case exacerbated an already tense relationship between Korean-Americans and African-Americans in the community.
"From the perspective of Soon Ja Du and her family, they had a lot of trouble with some gang members in the neighborhood," says Stevenson. Harlins was not known to be a part of a gang.
"From the perspective of the community, however, they had not been very good shopkeepers. They were known to be rude and dismissive of customers," said Stevenson.
Du was tried and convicted of voluntary manslaughter. However, while the charge carried 16 years in prison, the judge opted to sentence her to five years probation, 400 hours of community service, and a $500 fine.
The sentence outraged members of the community, and over the course of a year Du's store was firebombed twice. Then on April 29, 1992, when the verdict in the case against the officer's in Rodney King's beating was announced, rioting started in South Central LA, but also Koreatown.
"I think [Latasha Harlins' death] is why 2,300 Korean shops are burned and damaged," says Stevenson. But as the riots' anniversaries come and go, they're more associated with the verdict in King's case rather than Harlins' death.
"The Rodney King case received so much more attention because it was conflict males. We just got into that tradition of looking at racial conflict in that way," said Stevenson. "Just looking at the Trayvon Martin case, for example, that was a typical scenario of a male who's biracial but part white, and an African-American. That resonated with people's sense of racial injustice."
By reinvestigating Harlins' death, Stevenson hopes to give her story new life and help LA to learn the background of race relations in the city.
"I want people to understand that African-American youths can be victims, that they're not always the aggressors."
Read an excerpt here:
The Contested Murder of Latasha Harlins: Justice, Gender, and the Origins of the LA Riots
Stovetop cooking spikes indoor air pollution
The thought of air pollution may conjure up images of a hazy skyline, but believe it or not, the air inside your kitchen can sometimes be just as harmful. Cooking fumes from your stove are supposed to be captured by a hood over the range, but even some expensive models just aren't that effective.
As KQED Science reporter Lauren Sommer tells us, that's something scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab are trying to fix.
In Las Vegas, the KoMex taco fuses Latin and Asian cultures
Las Vegas is a city of transplants, from all over the country and these days, all over the world. The influence of Asian immigrants has brought new tastes to the city and new flavors to Las Vegas tacos.
In the last story in our series on "Making The Taco Our Own," Fronteras Reporter Kate Sheehy introduces us to a Las Vegas native, the KoMex taco.
It seems like a lot of taco stories start this way:
“One day as we were making our lunch, somebody came in and said ‘Hey what is it you’re eating?’ And my husband said, ‘Well do you want to try it?’ So he gave him a sample and the guy liked it. Then he left and his cousin came back and said ‘Hey, sell me the same thing you just sold my cousin,’” Lynda Yi said.
She is a Korean immigrant who moved to Las Vegas 11 years ago from Los Angeles. Yi and her husband Sonny had taken over her father-in-law’s Mexican meat market and deli. She says while they loved Mexican food, they got tired of eating the same thing every day. Yi said they began putting Korean barbeque meats into a taco or burrito, and topping it off with salsa or guacamole.
And thus was born the KoMex taco. The Yis opened their doors in February 2011. The wildly popular Korean Mexican Fusion restaurant is tucked away in an unassuming corner of a small strip mall on North Decatur Boulevard.
Waitress Shawna Duncan explains to customers the various Korean and Mexican hot sauces available. She juggles the cultures as she juggles the tacos, burritos and nachos that pack a surprising punch to the taste buds of first-time diners at KoMex.
KoMex adds the distinct flavors of Korean barbeque called bulgogi to traditional Mexican-style tacos and other typical dishes. The beef is marinated with sesame oil, soy sauce and sugar. Lynda Yi says it is similar to Teriyaki but not as sweet, and the pork is made with a sweet chili paste.
Customers can also choose pork belly or calamari. Pico de gallo goes on top of the tacos, along with a cabbage slaw that is tossed with sesame oil and soy sauce.
“Kimchi on request, kimchi only on request, nothing really comes with kimchi unless you ask for it,” Duncan said.
But she said a lot of people do ask for the slightly sour Korean side dish of fermented vegetables and spices.
Curtis Platte travels to Las Vegas often from California. He said he and his family always stop at KoMex when they’re in town.
“I get the beef or the pork, there’s just something about thekimchi with everything else, the sweet and hot that I like. It’s a little different than regular Mexican food,” he said.
A few tables down, Billie Ann Watanabe eats with a group of fellow teachers she brought in for lunch.
“I mean it’s unique for Korean and Mexican fusion and their bulgogi beef is awesome. I’m half-Korean, it’s pretty good,” she said.
Lynda Yi said the success of KoMex shows how the United States is changing.
“Because we’re such a big melting pot here in America, people are recognizing that, oh it’s OK to have a hot dog that’s made a little differently, or a taco that’s made differently, it tastes just as good as what you’re used to,” she said.
Still, Yi says she never imagined people would love this fusion as much as she and her husband did. Yi said they plan to open a second KoMex location in the southwest part of the city by October.
Riverside teacher's show-stopping duet with Kristin Chenoweth goes viral
If you were lucky enough to be at the Hollywood Bowl on Friday, night you probably thought Kristin Chenoweth would be the highlight of the evening. The Emmy-and-Tony-award-winning Broadway star performed a medley of songs with the LA Phil.
But about two-thirds of the way through, she did something that doesn't always end up the way a performer hopes. She called up an audience member, Sarah Horn, to the stage to sing a duet of "For Good," from the hit musical "Wicked."
Little did she know that this randomly selected audience member could really sing:
Horn had originally had tickets in the bench section at the back of the Bowl, but her father surprised her with box seats. By coincidence, Horn had ended up in the front row of the venue.
"There was a ticket mixup and we ended up trading boxes with someone else that put us right up front," said Horn on Take Two.
When Kristin Chenoweth asked the woman in front of Horn if she knew "For Good," and the woman declined, Horn impulsively stood up, raised her hand and said "I do!"
"As soon as I realized what I had done by raising my voice at a celebrity in the middle of the Hollywood Bowl in front of thousands of people, I immediately sat down," said Horn.
Horn is a voice teacher and instructor at California Baptist University and the Riverside Youth Theatre, but Chenoweth didn't know anything about her before pulling her up on stage.
"She had no idea that I could actually sing," said Horn. "There's really nothing that could prepare someone to randomly be brought up on stage in front of thousands and thousands of people. My mind was completely blank and all I could think is 'God help me.'"
Chenoweth and even the conductor of the LA Phil had surprised reactions when Horn finally belted out her first note.
"I don't quite remember what I was thinking, but I do remember that as soon as I started singing, I was just making eye contact with Kristin and saw her reaction, and just kept going," said Horn. "That laugh that she let out almost made me laugh, but I realized I need to keep singing."
The crowd went wild and Chenoweth was stunned as Horn hit every note and lyric.
"It was unlike anything I had ever experienced," said Horn. "There was just electricity and joy in that moment, connecting with my musical idol and having this musical moment that I will never forget."