Twitter is the latest tech company to announce diversity employment plans, 'Straight Outta Compton' tops box office again, say goodbye to the Instagram square.
New database tracks undocumented immigrant deaths linked to law enforcement
For well over a year now, stories of fatal shootings of young African American men by police officers have been making the news.
But when it comes to similar conflicts between law enforcement and undocumented immigrants, not much is known, according to
.
Burghart is the editor of the Reno News Review, and he's created Encuentros Mortales. It's a Spanish-language website that will track these deadly episodes.
Burghart first noticed the lack of information about deadly encounters between undocumented immigrants and law enforcement when he was working on Fatal Encounters, a website that tracks officer-involved homicides.
"I realized through doing my research for that website, that there was no information from the federal government about undocumented immigrants who had been killed by primarily federal agents," he said.
While Encuentros Mortales is not yet complete, Burghart says it will be a more sophisticated place when all is said and done. Burghart is currently collecting information through news reports and Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests, but people will also be able to crowdsource incidents that will be verified through editors.
"Ultimately we hope that providing this information to the public will enable the public to modify police procedures so that fewer people are killed," he said.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above
Twitter pledges more diversity, but does it go far enough?
Twitter recently announced plans to bring more diversity to its workforce, saying it wants to become more inclusive and diverse and "a great place for both new and current employees to work and to grow."
So how exactly do they do that?
For more on the success rate of diversity plans in tech, we're joined now by Freada Kapor Klein. She's co-founder of Kapor Center for Social Impact.
On The Lot: faith-based film 'War Room' blows up the box office
As summer comes to an end
of the LA Times joins the show to talk about the best and worst movies from the past few months, how a religious film worked the box office and the legacy of Wes Craven. It's all part of our Monday Rebecca special that we call On The Lot, which covers the latest happenings in the film business.
Here's a list of what Rebecca talks about in this week's segment:
- Wes Craven, the man who brought us classic films like "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and "Scream," passed away on Sunday.
- "Straight Outta Compton" won the weekend for a third time, but a faith-based film called "War Room" was a close second. The film's creators could be considered the Spielbergs of Christian drama.
- Summer's wrapping up, so Rebecca and her colleague Mark Olsen put together a list of the highs and lows of the past few months.
- Spike Lee is going to be given an honorary Oscar and Rebecca spoke to him about it.
- The Venice and Telluride film festivals are coming up, signaling the beginning of Oscar season.
If you'd like to hear the entire chat, click on the audio embedded at the top of the post.
Here's the DJ who taught Zac Efron how to be a DJ in 'We Are Your Friends'
Being a DJ may seem pretty easy. You fiddle with a few knobs on a mixing board, push some buttons on a lap top, throw on a pair of headphones and you're good to go! Right? WRONG.
It takes really hard work to be a successful DJ, which is why the makers of "We Are Your Friends" put in a call to Jason Stewart, a real-life DJ known as Them Jeans. Stewart took Zac Efron under his wing to prepare him for the role of Cole, an aspiring DJ who wants to make it big in L.A.
"The first thing that went through my mind was, 'This is very strange, I don't know how I feel about it. But it sounds ridiculous and exciting and, why not?'" Stewart said, remembering back to when he was first called to work with Efron.
From there, Stewart was at Efron's house a few times a week. But Stewart says he didn't just have to teach Efron how to DJ -- but also, how to behave like one.
"A lot of it is the subtle nuances of how your body language is moving, how you're sort of fiddling with the nobs in a weird ADD motion that so many DJs do, and tapping of the foot to try to make sure that the two songs that are playing inside of your head are synching up, and for lack of a better phrase, get into the groove," he said.
Getting into the groove is no problem for Efron, whose early days involved singing and dancing on "High School Musical."
"He's a very skilled dancer, and he has a lot of rhythm and musicality in his bones," Stewart said. "But his role in the movie was sort of the timid, up-and-coming DJ guy who wasn't really, very confident in his work. So I had to sort of scale him down and say, 'Hey, don't dance around so much and don't get like too super funky because you need to rein it in and you're still a little unsure.' And then as the film progresses, he gets more confident," he said.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above
Instagram quits being square: Users can now post horizontal, vertical photos
Thanks to apps like Instagram and Hipstamatic, the square-shaped photo has had a renaissance over the last five years or so. That's because these apps demanded people use the format on on their platforms.
But late last week, Instagram decided to change things up. They are finally allowing users to post horizontal and vertical images online -- which is a big deal, considering users upload more than 70 million photos per day to the app.
, KPCC's photo video journalist, and avid Instagram user, says the idea of Instagram and Hipstamatic's square photos are the modern-day version of the instant Polaroid.
While going from strictly square to vertical and horizontal won't make a huge difference to photographers, Sugarman says it's more of a philosophical matter.
"We're seeing the rise of the vertical photo and vertical video, especially with apps like Snapchat and Periscope," she said.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue audio player above