The increased security on Metro due to a threat, 300 Muslim leaders collaborated to send the president-elect a message, hotels strategizing to lure in millennials.
Muslim American leaders to Trump: 'Ensure our collective safety and security'
This week, 300 Muslim leaders from across the country issued an open letter to Donald Trump. The letter expresses concerns about policies that the president-elect proposed during the campaign, some of his cabinet appointments, and the spike in anti-Muslim hate crimes.
For more, Take Two's Alex Cohen spoke with Edina Lekovic of the Muslim Public Affairs Council.
Highlights
The voices behind the letter:
The letter was instigated by a consultative group of about a dozen national Muslim organizations and organizers, unprecedented in and of itself to get organizations to coordinate. But the 300 plus people who have signed onto the letter represent leaders from small local mosques, to national advocacy groups, to academic leaders, to religious scholars, to entrepreneurs, to former NFL football player, Husain Abdullah, and many others. And they come from red states and blue states. They include Americans who are Muslim and who are also African American and Latino, women, religious and secular. They all share a fundamental belief in the equality of all Americans and are really alarmed in this transition period to our new president-elect.
The rise in anti-Muslim hate crimes:
It's the volume of the incidents that's truly alarming. We, since the election, have heard stories about Muslim women having their scarves ripped off on college campuses. A New York Police Department officer who wears hijab herself was assaulted in the subway just over this past weekend. There have been countless stories. But some of those most under reported include stories of our children in public schools. According to a report issued last year, half of Muslim students in California public schools reported some kind of bullying. And a fifth of those who got bullied said it came from a teacher or administrator.
Muslims' contributions to the U.S.:
We are starting from a point where we're assuming that President-Elect Trump clearly doesn't know our community. If he did, we do not believe he would be saying the things that he is saying, at least with some authenticity. American Muslims are among the most highly educated, have the lowest crime rates, the highest levels of entrepreneurship, and have the highest level of women's educational attainment of any faith community in our country. We have contributed not just as physicians and as business owners but also as the designer of the Chicago Tower.... The owner of the Panthers is a Muslim. The owner of Ethan Allen furniture is a Muslim. The owner of Chobani, the Greek yogurt, is a Muslim refugee. These are all people who by their Muslim-ness have contributed to the greatness of America. And it's critical that our president-elect see us for who we are.
Hope for a response:
We hope that the president-elect will take a more serious view of the American Muslim community. That he'll take a deeper, closer look at who we are and that he will hopefully reach out with a different course. At this point in time, it was a strategic decision not to ask for a meeting because 300 leaders have not been able to reach consensus about whether they're ready to meet with the new president. So, this is a first effort in an introduction in making clear who we are, what we care about, and that the constitution is the most important document to us as Americans. And we expect that President-Elect Trump will uphold that constitution and protect American Muslims as well as all Americans right now.
*Quotes edited for clarity.
To hear the full interview, click on the Blue Arrow above.
Metro steps up security in LA out of 'abundance of caution'
If you're riding LA Metro trains today, you may notice more security around the stations. That's because authorities say they're responding to a potential threat. According to city officials, an anonymous tip said there was a specific threat to the Universal City station on the Red Line today.
Read Metro's update on the situation here.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck said it has not yet been determined if the theat is credible, but out of "an abundance of caution," security has been stepped up.
For more, we're joined by Metro spokesperson, Rick Jager.
New music from Kate Bush, Emiliana Torrini and Alkibar Junior
If you love music, but don't have the time to keep up with what's new, you should listen to Tuesday Reviewsday. Every week our critics join our hosts in the studio to talk about what you should be listening to, in one short segment. This week, music journalist
Artist: Kate Bush
Album: "Before the Dawn"
Songs: "Hello Earth," "Cloudbusting"
Kate Bush probably could have stood stock still at a microphone on a bare stage, and fans still would have flown in from all over the world to snap up every ticket and lap up every note of what became her 22-show run at London’s Hammersmith Apollo two years ago. Such is the devotion of her fans, devotion that only grew over the course of the 35 years since she last performed full concerts.
But, Kate Bush being Kate Bush, she rewarded those fans with what by all accounts was a supremely ambitious and vividly imaginative feast of theater, dance, film and, of course, music of the highest order of vision and execution. It not only fully brought to life the music she’s made, sporadically, in those years away from the stage (an absence attributed in part to a combination of stage fright and near-unachievable perfectionism), but affirmed the iconic, influential place she’s held as an inspiration for generations of artists, particularly women, from Bjork through Tune-Yards’ Merrill Garbus and St. Vincent’s Annie Clark, among many others.
So, it goes without saying that the audio-only document of the series that has just been released can’t come close to capturing the experience. And yey, as anyone who has followed Bush, whether relative newbies or those, including this writer, who were entranced from the start (a late-night U.S. TV airing of two of her videos, before she made her who-is-that 1979 appearance on "Saturday Night Live"), would expect, the "Before the Dawn" album is a distinctly dimensional, gripping work in its own right, not a mere souvenir for those who had been lucky enough to see the shows.
The show was structured in three acts, pointedly drawing on material released since her ’79 tour — so no "Wuthering Heights" or "Them Heavy People," songs written and recorded in her teens, when she was "discovered" by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour. This is a mature, experienced work in every sense, Act I sets the stage, so to speak, with a sequence of songs spanning the years, all given an immediacy, a sense of punchy power even in the most dreamy, poetic passages — highlights include two songs from her landmark 1985 album "Hounds of Love": the title song and her biggest hit, "Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)."
Act II, though, is a fully immersive experience, sonically and topically. "The Ninth Wave," as it’s titled, was a somewhat enigmatic suite when it appeared as side two of "Hounds of Love." In the concert she made it a full-blown art-theatre drama centered on a woman lost at sea, alone in the water after her boat sank. On stage, per the reports and confirmed by photos included in the album package, the visual presentation was astonishing, mixing innovate staging and lighting for a cast of performers including her son and filmed elements. She spent three days in a studio water tank shooting her ocean scenes. (A video of her singing "And Dream of Sheep," projected during the concerts, is the only visual element getting official release thus far — apparently there are no plans to release a concert film.)
Even without the visuals it’s commanding, gripping, in its depictions of the isolation, despair, hope, hallucination and surrender the woman experiences, linking passages of spoken word and depictions of her dreams and remembrances all vivid and involving as sound alone, from the somber ballad of "And Dream of Sheep" to the raucous fright of "Waking the Witch" to the spirited Celtic fiddle tune "Jig of Life" and the sweeping embrace of "Hello Earth." It’s a remarkable achievement by a singular artist.
Act III takes a contrastingly sunnier turn — it could hardly take a darker one — in another suite, "A Sky of Honey," drawn from her stellar 2005 comeback album "Aerial." And if by comparison isn’t as gripping as "The Ninth Wave," it’s still pretty thrilling in its pastoral tour through a summer day with birds (a lot of birds) and a painter among the prominent characters encountered. From the breathtaking (literally) water peril of "Wave" to the breathtaking (figuratively) joys of air and sunshine here.
And ending the album and concert was an encore of one more "Hounds of Love" track, "Cloudbusting," a cleansing rain leaving everything new and fresh — and maybe ready for whatever Bush may do next, whenever. As she sings in the song, "I just know that something good is gonna happen."
Artist: The Colorist & Emiliana Torrini
Album: "The Colorist & Emiliana Torrini"
Songs: "When We Dance," "Gun"
The shadow of Kate Bush is hard for any ambitiously artistic woman singer of recent generations to escape. Emiliana Torrini has had another one over her as well — that of her fellow Icelandian Bjork. Here’s the thing: She’s never really tried to escape it, even going back to her ‘90s sting with the band Gus Gus. Rather than worry about Bjork’s omnipresence, she’s seemingly shrugged and sung he own ways. Sure, there are some similarities in vocal tone and inflections, maybe something in the Icelandic water. But the purity of Torrini’s voice, the ease with which she trills along melodic contours, is all her own — and arguably attributes Bjork doesn’t possess.
That’s more apparent than ever in this album, a part-studio, part-live collaboration with the Belgian outfit the Colorist Orchestra, which for a few years has made its name by interpreting the music of various artists in classical settings. Here she and the eight-piece ensemble rework eight songs from her catalog, and offer two new songs, "Nightfall," which she co-wrote with EDM veteran Kid Koala, and "When We Dance," written by her with Colorist founders Kobe Proesmans and Aarich Jespers.
Percussive sounds are the main thread through the arrangements — glass bowls, marimba, hand drums, hammered strings — providing equal measures of brittleness and momentum. But of course it’s Torrini’s singing that marks this, her clearly delighting in exploring the possibilities the settings offer. And in the course some very new things emerge, or at least are revealed, new depths to her art, more than may have met the ear before. There’s unsettling danger in the beauty of Bjork’s art is right up front, part and parcel of it. With Torrini it’s sneakier, catches you by surprise, and is harder to put a finger on. But it is there.
Okay, it’s not always so hidden. There is "Gun," which bring the edge right up to the front, though in its shifting rhythms also presents something of a moving target. Which is a good analogy to the teaming of these artists.
Artist: Alkibar Junior
Album: "Jamal"
Songs:"Suka Selenon," "Soore"
Don’t know how many garages there are in the small town of Niafunke in Mali, but when the group Alkibar Gignor (pronounced "junior," more or less, and meaning the same thing) first emerged a few years back, it was calling its style "African garage." And so it was, raucous, energetic takes on West African traditions in much the same way American garage bands reworked blues, soul and rock traditions over the years.
That said, tradition in Mali means something a bit deeper than it does in America. There, many musicians trace their lineage back through many generations, many centuries of troubadours. And as this band’s name suggests, Alkibar Junior (as it’s billing itself internationally with this album) represents a new generation. Alkibar senior is not a person, though, but another band — the outfit that has played with Niafunke star Afel Bocoum for a couple of decades now, the name itself suggesting an unbroken flow of culture in its meaning in the Sonrai language: "messenger of the great river."
There is a blood relation in Junior guitarist Diadlé Bocoum, Afel’s youngest brother, while singer Sekou Touré has toured with Vieux Farka Touré as well as the elder Bocoum brother. But the newer band as a whole grew as an apprentice outfit to the elder’s group, now fully matured and ready to stand on its own.
And it comes at a time when those traditions are under peril, a time in which jihadi destruction and brutal civil wars have torn Mali apart. That seems to have given Alkibar Junior new purpose, a mission to honor and renew the traditions with fervor and force. They do that here with one of the key traditions of the West African troubadours, tribute songs, in this case honoring those who have led the Malian communities in a time of crisis in the wake of jihadi brutality and fractious civil wars in the beleaguered nation.
And while like the older Bocoum’s Alkibar, the young one draws not just on Sonrai culture and language but also that of their region’s Tuareg and Fula people, here it takes on a sense of unity held fiercely in the face of the divisions tearing their world apart. To that end, the seven-piece band welcomes guest appearances the cross both cultures and generations to create a sound that is a coherent whole, not a collage, as electric guitar bounces with gourd percussion and the spritely vocals weave with the ancient desert fiddle known as the sokou.
That violin, played both by band member Salah Guindo and mentor Zoumana Tereta, marks both such electric songs as opener "Suka Selenon" and the folkier closer "Soore." It’s a sound of joy, a sense of hope that what has lasted this long in West Africa, through so many times of strife, will survive whatever it faces now and come out even stronger.
Investigative report reveals dangers at Ghost Ship Collective were ignored
In Oakland, crews continue to look for victims of the fire that ripped through the Ghost Ship Collective last weekend.
The total number of victims who lost their lives while attending a party in the warehouse that housed the collective remains at 36 today. This morning, the Oakland Fire Department's Batallion Chief said that roughly 85 percent of the building has been cleared out.
Reporting by the Bay Area News Group finds that dangers at the warehouse were repeatedly ignored by the building's manager, owner, and the city.
For the latest on what may have led to the fatal blaze, Take Two's Alex Cohen spoke with investigative journalists, Thomas Peele.
To hear the full interview, click on the Blue Arrow above.
High-achieving black and Latino boys redefining success, writing new narratives
Famous abolitionist Frederick Douglass once said that it is "easier to build strong children than to repair broken men." But how exactly do you build strong children?
A new report out from UCLA's Black Male Institute explores that question. Researchers surveyed more than 200 black and Latino teenage boys living in L.A. County to find out how they defined success and how they feel they achieved it.
For more on the study, Take Two spoke to Tyrone Howard, director of the Black Male Institute at UCLA.
Highlights
There's an interesting line in the introduction to this report from Robert Ross, president of the California Endowment. He writes that civic leaders tend to suffer from something he calls "deficit attention disorder," focusing only on what's broken. Can you explain that?
I think Dr. Ross' point is so critical because I think we get conditioned to always see the glass as half-empty and not seeing that it is half-full. And I think, when it comes to black and Latino boys, we really do that.
I think we are so locked in on what we think they can't do, what they don't do, where they fall short, where they're not reaching certain standards, that I think part of what we have to do is re-shift our focus and change our paradigm to not look only at those challenges that many of our young men have, but to also identify, look at and further understand how they're striving: how they're showing uncanny resilience, and how they're overcoming lots of obstacles to do some really amazing things. That story's not told as much as it needs to be.
You identified about 200 of these young Latino and African American men. What sort of questions did you ask them? How did you go about ascertaining how they define success and how they achieved it?
We basically wanted to find out from them, you know, tell us your story. You've been identified by teachers, or administrators, or counselors as young men who really were doing well in school in multiple ways. Not just with test scores and grades, but also in terms of leadership, in terms of volunteering in their communities, in terms of working jobs as well as being full-time students. So we asked them, 'how do you define success in your eyes?' And they gave us a lot of different ways in which they define success.
We wanted to find who they credited their success to and we found some really powerful things. These young people felt like they were the products of other people's expectations. That they had supportive and loving and nurturing homes. That there were parents or grandparents who played a big role in their success. There were also school personnel in that success: teachers and administrators who really saw something in them that many said they didn't see in themselves.
I think it speaks to the importance of expectations. Whenever we set these expectations at high levels for any group of students, especially those who have been historically marginalized, I think we can begin to see that they will rise to the occasion.
Press the blue play button above to hear the full interview.
How the CalGang database can play a role in Trump's plan to deport millions of immigrants
President-elect Donald Trump promised to deport anywhere from two to three million undocumented immigrants.
Saying that is one thing but following through could be challenging - especially since some police departments in large cities, such as the LAPD, have said they will not help the federal government carry out deportations.
One tool that Trump might use is a database of alleged gang members, which includes some people who are not in the country legally. However, some say the database is not without its problems.
For more, A Martinez spoke with Ali Winston. He's written about the so-called CalGang database for The Intercept.
To hear the full segment, click the blue play button above.
The Brood: Teaching kids the importance of giving
The holidays are upon us and 'tis the season for gift-giving and, of course, gift-getting.
For little ones, with all the focus on Santa Claus, and toy-making elves, and presents, presents, PRESENTS, the gift-giving aspect can get a little lost in the mix.
So how can parents re-focus their kids on the importance of giving? Parenting coach Vicki Hoefle, author of "The Straight Talk on Parenting," offered some advice:
Introduce the idea of giving early, in small ways
There are some really easy ways to start to introduce the idea of empathy, kindness and giving. It starts when little children want to help their parents (with things like washing dishes), and that in and of itself is the act of giving— giving of their time, giving of their skills, but we oftentimes turn kids away. And that's their first sense that maybe giving isn't so important.
If a child offers to help a parent with the dishes, for example, let them. If you say to them, 'Thank you for giving me your cooperation. Thank you for giving me your time up here at the sink," then the child will begin to connect the act of giving to what it does for the person they're giving to.
Make giving something you talk about and practice all year round
Often there's a younger child who will give their allowance to an older sibling and very quickly they hear mom and dad say, "No no, you keep your money, don't give it to your older brother." Or a child will say they want to pay for the ice cream if we go out tonight, and a parent will say "No no, don't spend your money, let us." And so those messages get very confusing for children. And then suddenly as the holidays approach, they're bombarded with these messages of being grateful, that it's the season of giving, and we should give to those less fortunate, but there's no context. It's not a part of their daily life, it's suddenly a message that they can't relate to.
Don't beat yourself up if your kid is more interested in getting than giving
There's so much pressure on parents and their children to suddenly have this abundance of a giving nature, and we want our little children to go out and be generous and have more fun giving than getting, but the truth is, it doesn't happen just because it's November. We have to look at in terms of what's the daily exposure to the kinds of character traits that include kindness, giving and gratitude. But if your child isn't demonstrating a generous nature all the time, don't beat yourself up. A little is enough. We're looking at the long-term growth of a child and that they grow into a person who's a giving, generous, empathetic human being.
To listen to the full interview, click on the blue media player above.
Supreme Court sides with Samsung in patent dispute with Apple
The Supreme Court has unanimously backed Samsung in a patent dispute filed by Apple over the design of the two companies' flagship smartphones.
Here's more from the Associated Press:
The justices said Samsung may not be required to pay all the profits it earned from 11 phone models because the features at issue are only a tiny part of the devices.
Apple had won a $399 million judgment against Samsung for copying parts of the iPhone's patented design, but the case now returns to a lower court to decide what Samsung must pay.
The case is part of a series of disputes between the technology rivals that began in 2011. Apple accused Samsung of duplicating a handful of distinctive iPhone features for which Apple holds patents: the flat screen, the rounded rectangle shape of the phone, and the layout of icons on the screen.
At issue was how much Samsung is required to compensate Apple under an 1887 law that requires patent infringers to pay "total profit." Apple said that meant all the profits from the phone sales, while Samsung argued it was limited to profits related to the specific components that were copied.
Wall Street Journal legal affairs reporter Brent Kendall joins Take Two to discuss.
Stars in disrepair: Neglect on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
There are nearly 2600 stars on the walk of fame in Hollywood. These star-studded blocks attract roughly 10 million visitors each year.
But all that wear and tear has taken its toll.
Nearly one-fifth of these tributes to the legends of film, T.V., theater, radio and music are in some sort of state of disrepair.
Writer Gary Baum has been looking into this for the Hollywood Reporter, he spoke with Alex Cohen about the neglect, damage and money questions.
To hear the full segment, click the blue play button above.
Bibles go bye-bye in some hotels, and it's because of millennials
Check into a hotel and you'll get the usual amenities – a nice terry cloth robe, a well-stocked minibar and maybe a chance to order room service.
But something will be missing at San Diego's Moxy Hotel opening next year and at the Edition Hotel debuting 2018 in West Hollywood.
The Word of God.
Neither will have rooms pre-stocked with Bibles or religious books for guests, according to parent company Marriott.
Religious materials will still appear in Marriott's other brands – like Courtyard and Fairfield – but the company says Moxy and Edition are aimed at millennial guests.
And religious books don't fit in with those brands nor what they say millennials want.
"Our society has become more secular," says religion expert Diane Winston from USC.
It's a paradox because while 90 percent of Americans believe in God, Winston says a vast majority of people are also religiously unaffiliated.
"I don't think the students I run into are going to be very offended to find a Bible in their room. I think they'd be more like, 'Why is this here?' and 'Who cares?'" she says. "My experience of millennials is that it's more 'whatever' than actual hostility."
The trend is bigger than these specific hotels, however.
In the decade between 2006 and now, the percentage of hotels with religious books dropped from 95 percent to just 48 percent according to the hospitality research firm STR.
It's a marked shift from when Bibles first started appearing in rooms a century ago.
Most hotel Bibles come from Gideons International, founded in 1899 by two men traveling in Wisconsin who shared a hotel room as well as a faith.
They thought a great way to spread Christianity was to distribute copies of the book to inns across the country free of charge.
If fewer rooms offer them now, however, it might not be solely due to faith in America, but because of the growth of technology with phones and tablets.
"There are plenty of Bible apps available, so you don't really need a hard copy," says Winston.
So what DO millennials want in a hotel?
There's a big slice of the hotel market that's all about catering to young people, and companies are trying to understand what lures them in.
"They are seeking more of an experience," says San Diego State University hotel expert Carl Winston. "I think they're seeking bragging rights via social media."
So places with colorful, sleek and Instagrammable design win out. Also a plus are hotels with spacious lobbies where guests can see, be seen AND get great wifi for their laptops.
"It's a very public lobby that feels like a cool living room," he says. "Those are the shared experiences that millennials are seeking."
Meanwhile, older generations might make their hotel choices based on things like location, comfort and loyalty points.
But Winston says companies like Marriott are creating different hotels for all those different crowds – while Moxy may be for Millennials, there will still be Ritz Carlton for the monied set, for example, and Fairfield Inn for families with small children.
So take heart, Baby Boomers: Winston is in your generation, too, and he says hotels will still try to earn your business.
"While there's a lot of millennials, I still have a lot more money than they do," he says.
Hear the full conversation by clicking the audio player above.