A new survey shows today's young adults are different from their 1980s counterparts, the Serial podcast is having an impact on journalism, and what research says about the effectiveness of police body cameras.
How do Millennials stack up against their 1980 counterparts?
Young Americans are very different today from their counterparts in 1980, bad hair and suspect clothing aside. Millennials have better access to education and are more likely to be foreign born.
But they're also more likely to live in poverty and have lower rates of employment.
These, and other societal shifts are highlighted in the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, the nation's largest ongoing household survey.
The Bureau has created an interactive mapping tool -- "Young Adults: Then and Now" Census Explorer -- to help illustrate the characteristics of young adults ages 18-34 across the decades using data from the 1980, 1990, and 2000 Censuses and the 2009-2013 American Community Survey.
Some interesting findings:
- There are more young adults age 18-34 years old today than in the last three decades -- 73 million -- But their share of the population is actually smaller today than in 1980.
- The percentage of young adults today who are foreign born has more than doubled since 1980 (15% versus 6%).
- One in five young adults lives in poverty (13.5 million people), up from one in seven (8.4 million people) in 1980.
For more on the findings of the American Community Survey, Demographer Jonathan Vespa of the U.S. Census Bureau joined Take Two. Vespa explained that, nationally, young adults are more likely to have a college degree than their counterparts in 1980. But, they're also more likely to earn less.
Most Californian Millennials earn more than other young people their age across the nation, but the situation in Los Angeles County is more bleak. "In Los Angeles specifically, they're actually earning a little less," Vespa said.
What can the City Of Angels do to improve the situation for Millennials? Michael Lens is a Professor of Urban-planning at UCLA. He told Take Two that providing economic opportunity should be the County's top priority. "I think a lot of this has to do with the inability to attract and retain higher skilled industries, and that needs to be a focus," Lens said.
But he insists there's hope for the region. "I don't think we should be so fatalistic...I think the future is pretty bright generally speaking in California."
Check out the "Young Adults: Then and Now" Census Explorer to see how your state and county stack up.
Faster, Higher, Stronger: How Sports Science Is Creating a New Generation of Superathletes and What We Can Learn from Them
Usain Bolt is the fastest man on earth, running 100 meters in nine point five eight seconds. The Jamaican sprinter isn't the only one breaking records - we see athletes of all kinds pushing themselves in unimaginable ways in pursuit of glory... but have we, as humans, reached our limits?
Mark McClusky sets out to answer this in his new book "Faster, Higher, Stronger: How Sports Science is Creating a New Generation of Superathletes and What We Can Really Learn from Them."
Mark will also be talking about his book on Monday, December 8 at Red Bull headquarters in Santa Monica.
New study finds rates of child abuse in CA are higher than previously thought
Last year, more than five percent of children under the age of five were reported as subjects of child abuse or neglect in California.
But new research from the Children's Data Network finds that significantly more children experience abuse than the annual data shows.
The study finds that when children are followed from birth through age 5, the rate climbs to 1 in 7 children reported for abuse.
Daniel Heimple, founder of Fostering Media Connections and publisher of The Chronicle of Social Change wrote about the new research and joins Take Two for more.
Seattle nurse who smuggled AIDS drugs
A former nurse takes a look back at a time when AIDS ravaged Seattle, and she took big risks out of her sense of duty.
Carol Glenn would collect leftover HIV/AIDS drugs to send overseas.
KUOW reporter Jessica Partnow tells part one of a two-part story. You can read her story here: The Seattle Nurse Who Risked Everything To Smuggle AIDS drugs
Police body cameras and community interactions
The New York Police Department on Wednesday announced plans for a small pilot program that would outfit dozens of officers with body cameras to record their interactions.
But just hours later, a Grand Jury in New York declined to file charges against an officer who appeared -- in a cellphone video -- to use a choke hold on a suspect. His name was Eric Garner, and he died shortly after the incident.
It's making many wonder: Given the fact that the encounter between Garner and the police was recorded, are body cameras an effective tool for insuring that police are operating in a fair and lawful manner?
Lindsay Miller , a senior research associate with The Police Executive Research Forum, and recently recently analyzed camera programs for the U.S. Department of Justice.
Q - What were your findings about the use of the technology?
We spoke with agencies across the country and said that they made many benefits in terms of making their actions more transparent to the public ... one thing we've heard is that, in a lot of places, they've really improved the interactions between the police and the members public in the sense of improving behavior on both sides of the camera.
Q - What about when cops are behaving badly; how effective can body cameras be in respect to punishing officers?
We've seen several examples of agencies using them to identify officers who are engaging in misconduct ... In Phoenix, for example, they fired an officer who was caught on his own camera engaging in some misconduct and verbal abuse of the people he interacted with. They fired him, and released his camera footage to the media.
Q - As we saw with the Garner case, which was caught on a cellphone video camera, it didn't seem to sway the grand jury even though to most of us it looked like an excessive use of force. Does this situation undercut the argument for cameras?
No one is saying that cameras are going to eliminate all improper behavior by police ... This is a good example of how everyone needs to really manage expectations when it comes to the cameras. They can be a wonderful tool to help improve accountability and transparency, but they are just one tool.
Q - The Garner case has really struck a nerve with people. What's your take away from the Garner case?
I think it does show that notions of privacy have changed in the sense that everyone is filming everyone these days. The NYPD didn't even have body cameras at that point, but the incident was still caught on camera. That's one thing we heard from the agencies we worked with. They realize that in this day and age, their actions are going to be public. So I think they really want to try to improve accountability and transparency on their end.
State of Affairs: Fight over Ontario Airport, regulation of Airbnb, and the minimum wage
Southern California Public Radio political reporter Alice Walton and business reporter Ben Bergman join Take Two for our weekly installment of State of Affairs.
Ben, let's begin with a story about a former politician turned businessman. Austin Buetner, L.A.'s first ever deputy mayor, recently has taken on a new role as the publisher of the L.A. Times. Yesterday he gave a big speech downtown about his plans for the paper. What did he say?
The Times has traditionally played a very large role in Southern California, setting the news agenda for many outlets. But like papers all over the country, they've really struggled. Can they continue to play that same leading role in this new digital era?
We are coming up on the holidays, a very busy time for travel, but right now also a contentious time at the Ontario airport. Ontario is controlled by Los Angeles World Airports but Inland Empire officials say they should be the ones overseeing the airport. In the latest chapter of this fight, Ontario airport commissioners are calling for a sit down meeting with Mayor Eric Garcetti. Alice, what's the latest?
The two of you have done reporting on L.A. City Hall's efforts to regulate sharing economy companies like Uber and Lyft. Now some council members are trying to take on websites like Airbnb and VRBO. These are sites that allow homeowners to rent out their apartments and homes on a short term basis. Alice, what is City Hall trying to do here? Ben, have other cities tried this?
Let's talk about another nationwide effort that is underway here in L.A. and that is the move to raise the minimum wage. Earlier this week, the Chicago city council overwhelmingly approved a minimum wage target of $13 an hour to be reached by the middle of 2019, joining cities like Seattle and San Francisco. Alice, has there been any movement here since we last talked about this?
New research points to over-treatment, misunderstandings of breast cancer
The U.S could save billions of dollars and better serve women by pushing back breast cancer screenings a decade – from the age of 40 to 50. That’s the theory of a leading breast cancer specialist Laura Esserman at UC San Francisco.
Esserman’s thoughts on the disease are sparking contentious debate within the medical community. Writer Peggy Orenstein profiled Esserman for the latest edition of California Sunday Magazine.
“The incidents of women presenting with late-stage cancer has not budged since the mid 1970s when mammography first began. That in itself is significant. We’re not seeing fewer women presenting with late-stage cancer, which is what you would expect if mammography worked the way it should,” Orenstein said.
Orenstein also says evidence shows women are being over-treated for breast cancer.
"Early detection is not going to be the panacea. We need to get off it already and figure out what we do need to do," she said.
Orenstein’s article appears in California Sunday Magazine, on stands this weekend. You can also read her story here: When Cancer is not Cancer
How 'Sonic Booms' make us think, feel, and buy
Think about the twinkling sound of the ice cream truck you chased after as a child.
What do you think of? Can you feel the heat of Summer? Can you taste refreshing ice-cream?
Or, if you're the owner of an Apple product, imagine the promising tone you hear when you start up your device.
What about the "Jaws" theme song? Duunnn-unn, duunnn-unn...
Feeling anxious?
Joel Beckerman is a strategic sound consultant, and he examines why sounds make us feel what we feel, and, often, act how we act, in his new book, "Sonic Boom: How Sound Transforms What We Think, Feel, and Buy." The book explores dozens of stories where sound and music create 'boom moments' in our lives, that transform our experiences in an instant.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
You're a strategic sound consultant. What does that mean?
That's a fancy word. Really what I am is I'm a composer and I'm a lover of music. I'm a life-long student of sound in all it's incarnations. And I guess that fancy term is a way of talking about somebody who takes all that knowledge and that thinking and applies that to brands and to products, and to how that connects with customers in all sorts of touch points and experiences.
What happens psychologically when we hear sound that evokes emotions in us?
The short-cut way of talking about this is to say that, when you hear sound, it triggers off this neurological constellation of activity in your brain and it triggers emotions very directly...and really it's the oldest parts of the brain that are triggered by sound. That's why it's at the subconscious level.
When you think about it, it makes sense just from a human evolution standpoint, that it's really important for us to be able to discern as a species whether what was behind the bush was going to eat us or that was our lunch. So, we really had to have an instinctual survival mechanism. In fact, it's interesting to note that we respond to sound much faster than any other sense, even touch.
When you think about it, there are so many different things we experience in life that are actually these multi-sensory chain reactions of multiple senses. We see, we hear, we smell. Sound, because we respond to that quickest, ends up actually being the sense that organizes all the other senses.
About our own human audio calling card -- our voice
Research...basically says that literally seventy percent of the information we glean from conversations has to do with the way something is expressed to us. Only about thirty percent of it is actually the words being said, the content. So it's not only about the words you say. Often, it's even more about the way that you say it.
Beckerman invites you to explore the hidden world of sound and music and it’s impact on your life in the Sonic Boom Interactive Experience. Feel for yourself how sound transforms the way you think, feel, and buy, even download a stress-relieving playlist Beckerman's created.