Shop at Target lately? The store says 40 million customer may be affected by an account breach. Then, a new Pew study looks at what Asian and Latino immigrants find most important about reform. Also, tips on how to be a smart consumer in your doctor's office, Beyoncé reignites feminist debate, Brooklyn artists create gingerbread art museums and much more.
Target says up to 40 million people affected by account data breach
This week brings bad news if you shopped at Target over the past three weeks.
The company announced that up to 40 million people may have been affected by a security breach of credit and debit card data.
The chain said that accounts of customers who made purchases by swiping their cards at terminals in its U.S. stores between Nov. 27 and Dec. 15 may have been exposed. The stolen data includes customer names, credit and debit card numbers, card expiration dates and the three-digit security codes located on the backs of cards. The data breach did not affect online purchases.
The Minneapolis company said it immediately told authorities and financial institutions once it became aware of the breach and that it is teaming with a third-party forensics firm to investigate the matter and prevent future breaches. It said it is putting all "appropriate resources" toward the issue.
Target Corp. advised customers to check their statements carefully. Those who suspect there has been unauthorized activity on their cards should report it to their credit card companies and call Target at 866-852-8680. Cases of identity theft can also be reported to law enforcement or the Federal Trade Commission.
Clifford Neuman, director of the USC Center for Computer Systems Security, joins the show to talk about this latest data theft and how you can protect yourself.
RELATED: Target: 40M card accounts may be breached
With contributions from the Associated Press
Pew: Deportation relief most important among Latino and Asian immigrants
The LA City Council passed a resolution yesterday asking President Obama to halt the deportation of many immigrants. Similar resolutions are expected soon in San Francisco, San Jose and San Diego.
According to a new study out today from the Pew Research Center, deportation is one of the big sticking points in immigration reform, and it's also one of the most important issues to Latino immigrants here in the US. The report also looks at the differences in how Latinos and Asians feel about immigration reform.
Mark Lopez, associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center, joins the show to explain the findings.
Mexican state of Guanajuato suffering poor water quality, erosion issues
The Mexican state of Guanajuato is more than 1,500 miles from the border, but it's long been one of the biggest sources of migrants to the U.S. Most people are coming here for an obvious reason: Jobs. But there's another potential factor at play: water, or the lack of it.
More than 20% of Mexico’s wells are in Guanajuato, including thousands of wells in the Silao-Romita aquifer. Now much of that land is sinking – as much as two to three meters a year.
Dr. Francisco Martínez González, a scholar of Geomatics and Hydrology at the University of Guanajuato, visited Cal State Fullerton recently. He presented research from a group of a dozen professors in Guanajuato, who study among them surface hydrology, geohydrology, and water pollution and treatment technologies.
He says aquifer pumping, reaching deeper and deeper into the earth, is pulling up water of worsening quality.
“Water is deeper, we have problems with natural pollution because heavy metals come from rock at that levels,” Martínez González says. “Now we are researching how to take out that contaminant.”
Guanajuato’s an agricultural region, with some industry. But Martínez González says among those who have priority for pumping there are corporations from outside the state.
“People from rural communities don’t have the ability or supply for water for making another economic activities,” he says.
“That’s why this is a factor for migration,” says Martínez González. “I know migration have many other factors but water is one of them.”
Immigration in Mexico is well-studied territory, and Guanajuato’s a big part of the story. That state has long contributed to northward migration from Mexico to the United States.
But the stories Dr. Martínez González and his team have heard, of people emigrating from Guanajuato because of water shortages, are anecdotal.
Mikael Wolfe is an environmental historian of modern Mexico. His book Watering the Revolution, forthcoming from Duke University Press, deals with agrarian reform in La Laguna, a region in the north of the country. Through his studies of Laguna, he’s been able to assemble a pretty clear picture of Mexico’s water management policies over the last century.
He says demand from diverse sectors of Mexican society has long outstripped supply. “By the 1930s you already have engineers working in the government warning that there’s potential problems,” says Wolfe.
In an article, he documents the close connection between public officials managing water and the industry that exploited it. “The secretary of agriculture got involved in the business of groundwater pumping,” Wolfe says. “That is, setting up a company, a Mexican subsidiary of a major us multinational of groundwater pumps, Worthington. And he himself proudly talks about his access to the president because of his political connections.”
Reform attempts, he says, met strong and diverse thirsts from all sectors of water users. “Prohibitions were put in place but they found ways to violate them or not comply with them,” Wolfe says.
Wolfe concludes that social, economic, political and ecological forces brewed together to render groundwater conservation “almost impossible in twentieth-century Mexico – a legacy that tragically persists to this day.”
Wolfe doesn’t work on Guanajuato, and can’t say whether the hypothesis that region’s scholars are advancing is valid. Still, “I think it’s fair to say that there’s a correlation between groundwater depletion and certain patterns of outmigration from the countryside,” Wolfe says.
“It basically goes like this. No water, no crops, no livelihood. Well, what happens? Probably, you have to migrate,” he says.
[This post has been updated to reflect that La Laguna is a region, not a state.]
Ask Emily on Take Two: Health care exchange sign-up extension
Emily Bazar of the California Healthcare Foundation Center for Health Reporting joins guest host Ben Bergman to answer consumers’ questions about the Affordable Health Act.
This week we start with deadlines, which are changing. The last time Emily was on, December 15th was the final deadline to sign up for health care under the health insurance exchange, called Covered California. Now the deadline has been extended to December 23rd, if you want coverage to kick in January 1.
Interview Highlights:
On the changes to the deadline to sign up for healthcare:
"This is the ever evolving Obamacare landscape here. It used to be that you had to sign up by December 15 in order to have your insurance kick in by January 1st and again, we are talking about people who are buying on the exchange or on the individuals market only, basically. However, just because of all the troubles with the website and that sort of thing, the government has pushed back that deadline.
"You can now sign up by December 23, which is Monday and you will be able to have your insurance start January 1st. If you really, really want to wait to the last minute this year, and this year only, you have until March 31st of 2014 to sign up. I don't know that I would recommend waiting until March 31st itself, but that's the deadline, the drop-dead deadline for this open enrollment cycle."
What if your income is too high to qualify for any tax credits?
"That's an excellent question and it really depends on the individual as do most of the things on Obamacare. Anybody can purchase on the exchange or off the exchange. However, as you said, if you're eligible for tax credits you can only get them if you buy from the exchange, which is called Covered California. Now, if you make too much and you can't get those tax credits, listeners should know that the exact same plans that are offered on the exchange are also offered in the open or private market at the exact same price. But remember, that exact same price is the full retail price, basically, without tax credits so you would be paying the full price on or off the exchange."
Why would you choose one over the other?
"Here's a couple things to take into consideration. One is that you may be able to find insurance plans that aren't offered on the exchange in your region, but that depends on your region. Now, how might these plans be different? Well, we have heard a lot about how some of the Covered California plans don't offer certain doctors or access to certain hospitals.
"There may be plans that are sold in the private market that have different networks, different provider networks. So you can check that out. Also, there may be plans that have different kind of benefits, not necessarily the medical benefits because all plans sold from now on have to meet the Obamacare requirements. Like if you know you use a lot of prescription drugs for instance, there may be plans with, for instance, lower prescription drug cost, but then you might pay for that in the premium."
What if you're an unemployed adult living with your parents? Does that disqualify from getting low-income benefits?
" It's household income that counts when you're trying to figure whether you're eligible for tax credits. Now, if that child is claimed as a dependent by his or her parents then they're income would count towards that child's income for eligibility purposes, both for medical and for the tax credits and that may well price them out, basically, from those tax credits. So again, check out whether you're being claimed as a dependent. It will have a big effect."
There have been millions of people who had their health care cancelled because their plans didn't meet the standards of Obamacare. What are the options for these people? If your plan has been cancelled and you need help, Emily suggests calling 855-857-0445.
How to be a smart consumer in your doctor's office
When it comes to health care, there was some news that caught our eye this week.
First, a story that we brought you a few days ago: drug maker GlaxoSmithKline announced it will stop paying doctors to promote its drugs. Also, an article in Vanity Fair that detailed the health problems associated with the birth control Nuvaring.
It got us wondering how you can be a smart consumer about your health care when there may be uncertainty about the prescriptions you take and whether they are actually safe or necessary.
Joining us for some advice is Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog.
'Tis the season for college football bowl game overload
This weekend kicks off the college football bowl season, with 35 games broadcast through January's national championship at the Rose Bowl here in Pasadena. Why so many games?
Craig Harris, senior reporter at The Arizona Republic, joins us to explain.
Beyoncé album reignites feminism debate
Last week, Beyoncé bucked record label protocol by dropping a surprise album in the middle of the night.
Like everything Queen B does, her fifth self-titled album has been celebrated, scrutinized, criticized, chewed over and spit out. Lately most of the buzz on the Internet revolves around this question: Is Beyonce a feminist?
RELATED: Surprise! Beyonce drops new self-titled album with 17 music videos
Here to sort through this heated debate is writer Michelle Taylor who tweets and blogs under the name Feminista Jones.
State of Affairs: LADWP, Garcetti on vacation, LA Sheriff Dept. and more
It's Thursday, which means it's time for State of Affairs, our look at politics and government throughout California. To help us with that we're joined in studio by KPCC political reporters Alice Walton and Frank Stoltze
Seems to me hardly a week goes by where we don't talk about LA's Department of Water and Power. And guess what, it's another one of those weeks!
Mayor Eric Garcetti also made some DWP-related news when he asked the Board of Water and Power Commissioners to hire an outside firm to look at the utility's labor practices. What's he hoping to find?
The Sheriff's Department acknowledged this week that it has hired deputies who were not qualified. Often times, in fact, these were deputies with criminal histories. How did this happen?
It was also reported that friends and family members of deputies received preferential treatment from the department when it came to hiring.
All eyes were on the L.A. Board of Education this week as members debated how to fill a vacancy left by the death of former Board Member Marguerite LaMotte. Much of the debate focused on filling the seat by appointment rather than a special election but there's a lot more going on here.
LaMotte represented a district that was historically African-American, and she was the ONLY African-American on the board...she was also a staunch support of the teacher's union. Alice, what else?
Mayor Eric Garcetti has already left for a two week vacation to Australia, but before he left, he took part in a long-standing City Hall tradition.
Finally, Christmas is less than a week away and one of our favorite traditions here is getting holiday cards from politicians.
Initiative gives hope to Californians with psychiatric emergencies
Hospitals have closed or cut back psych units, so if you experience a psychiatric emergency in California, it's hard to get fast care. Even tougher is getting stabilized and on the path to recovery.
The California Report's series on the state's mental health care safety net concludes this morning with good news. Elaine Korry reports.
Mountain Lions, Bighorn Sheep die in effort to restore nature
Last November, Arizona wildlife officials started to re-introduce bighorn sheep to the Santa Catalina mountains north of Tucson. Thirty-one of the iconic animals were trucked in from a wilderness area, fitted with tracking devices and offloaded into the mountains.
But after that, another iconic creature, the native mountain lion, stalked and killed two of the bighorns. Then those mountain lions were shot and killed by Arizona Fish and Game.
From Tucson, Fronteras correspondent Michel Marizco reports on the costs and benefits of human attempts to balance out nature.
CAIR releases report on bullying of Muslim students in California
Bullying, both at school and online, is a pretty common challenge for kids, let alone kids with religious or cultural traditions that set them apart.
Imagine having to go to school every day wearing the Muslim head covering known as a hijab, or having to explain to fellow students and teachers why you are fasting for Ramadan. That can bring on a whole new level or teasing, taunting, and sometimes even worse.
Today the Council on American Islamic Relations is releasing the first statewide survey of Muslim students in California. Here to discuss the results is Fatima Dadabhoy, civil rights manager for the Council on American-Islamic Relations Greater LA-area chapter.
Picture This: Artists use gingerbread to recreate famous art museums
As Christmas approaches, many families are getting into the holiday spirit, stringing up lights, decorating trees and, of course, making gingerbread houses.
The latter is an old tradition, one that can be traced back to medieval Europe. Now it's taking on a new form thanks to Brooklyn-based photographer Henry Hargreaves and food stylist Caitlin Levin, who are putting their own twist on gingerbread architecture.
The pair put together a delicious collection of photographs featuring landmark museums around the world. Think the Louvre in Paris and the Tate Modern in London, made completely out of gingerbread, licorice and hard candy.
The black and white pictures were displayed at Dylan's Candy Bar in Miami for Art Basel 2013, and if you didn't know any better you would think they were the real thing.
Henry and Caitlin join the show to talk about their project and how they managed to create gingerbread replicas of some of the world's most iconic museums.
Interview highlights:
On how they came up with the idea:
Caitlin: "We've been talking with Dylan Lauren from Dylan's Candy, and she came to us and said, 'Look, we would love to work with you on something that's candy related,' and she had opened up this new store in Miami, so we thought it could be a cool opportunity to do something to kind of bridge the candy, the art, and sort of the festive season. We thought gingerbread could be a great thing to do there, but let's not do gingerbread houses, let's do something that hasn't really been done or we haven't seen so we thought we do art galleries."
On other food art they've done:
Caitlin: "It runs the gamut. Henry and I love to get really creative so we did a project this year, we called it Rothkos, which we reinterpreted Rothkos out of rice that we hand-dyed, we deep fried all kinds of electronic gadgets, we have made Napoleon out of ketchup, we've done all kinds of crazy things.
On the time it took and construction:
Caitlin: "In general, they probably took about two days a piece. So we put a lot of hard work into this. They were very tedious and time consuming. It was actually a really fun project in that way because before we made the actual gingerbread houses or art galleries, we made models out of foamcore, we cut pieces and made models like architects would and it was really fun."
Henry: What the foamcore allowed us to do is to see if we were actually making a building that would fit together and then once we had the foamcore model created, we would then basically supplement each piece with gingerbread so then the final piece was made of gingerbread, not foamcore."
On the challenges of making the gingerbread museums:
Caitlin: "Gingerbread shrinks and crumbs a lot. Lots of crumbling and lots of crumbs everywhere."
Henry: "It has also got quite a thin outer layer so when you also ice the side, suddenly just the exterior, it's usually the wallpaper, will come off. That kind of a thing so you often having to drill in little supports and things like that as well."
On the response so far:
Henry: "People have been really digging the series. One of those things I always get a kick out of, is when people look at pictures and they actually think they're looking at the art galleries and they're like, 'Well, what's so special about this?' And it's kind of one of those look a little closer and you'll see this is all candy and gingerbread. And I think when people do that and people's reaction is, 'Wow, how did you do it?' That's the reaction we aim to get."
On the process of photographing the gingerbread museums:
Henry: "We wanted to do something more interesting than just, 'OK, here's the building and let's take a picture from the front.' We were trying to look for really interesting angles so as we researched we found how people had shot it, then we were like, 'Let's try to get these angles and light it in the most interesting way possible.' So for something like the Louvre or the MAS in Antwerp where there was a lot of glass windows, we thought these would be much more interesting to show at night so we can actually light through the windows, but ultimately everything was photographed and lit the way that would be the most interesting, hopefully, for the viewer."
On the museums they couldn't make out of gingerbread:
Henry: "There were actually quite a few. We had to figure out that kind of balance between iconic ones, ones we were able to do, ones people knew, but also ones that were new to people. There was the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg, Florida. We actually started working on, but it has so much intricate glass work that it was just going to take us so, so long."
On working with candy and sugar:
Caitlin: "I think the thing that surprised us the most was how fun it could be. We really learned a lot of new techniques and got to make silicon molds for example or learned how to carve gingerbread and just learning new techniques, working with new materials is always fun for both of us."
On what's going to happen to the gingerbread museums after the holidays?
Caitlin: "Well, the pieces live on in photographs so the originals didn't make it to Miami because they are very difficult to transport. Unfortunately, we had to eat them all, and they live on in photographs and after the holidays we're hoping to maybe display them somewhere in New York, possibly again at Dylan's Candy."
Ask A Santa: Tips on how to take the perfect picture with Old St. Nick
Santa pictures can be daunting for parents during the holiday season. Whether it’s their first time or their tenth time, you never know how your child will react to the strange man in a white beard.
So how do you get your kids to flash their adorable smiles while on Santa's lap?
RELATED: Do you have an awkward Santa photo?
Who better to talk to us than Santa himself, the man who has taken pictures with hundreds of children around the coast. Santa Don White is a member of the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas (yes, that's a thing), and he's been playing Santa for 12 years.
In his long career as Old St. Nick, White has seen it all. From kids who are ecstatic to see him to those who will do anything to get away from him.
"I have been kicked in the groin on numerous occasions, I have had my glasses broken from a headbutt from a child, I almost dropped that child," said White on Take Two. "I ended up squeezing my legs together and the guy slid down my legs as if it was a slide. I had to take a few minutes to clear my head for that one."
He joins the show to offer some tips that he's gathered throughout his years as jolly Old St. Nick.
Interview Highlights:
How parents can help their kids be cool with Santa:
"Each child is different and each child has a different fear factor, and not knowing what runs through the child's mind, it's difficult to say. I know a lot of parents read stories about Santas, they watch movies about Santa, but there's something different about seeing Santa on the TV or in a book than the reality of turning the corner and here he is sitting live in front of them and they come to a dead stop. I suggest that parents come early in the season to get to know Santa in a casual way."
On what he does to put a kid at ease:
"I try to look at each child and see what kind of look they have on their face, and that will tell me how to react. Some kids, I can be overanimated, other children I have to be very calm and reserved and try to coax the child. Here we tell our kids, you don't take candy from strangers, but yet Santa's tempting that child with a candy cane. There's sometimes the child is just going to scream and there's nothing you can do about it, and I know some of the parents are frustrated and I feel for them, but I try to hold the child as calmly as I can without the fists and the hands going all over the place."
On how he stays jolly when dealing with a terrified child:
"I keep smiling and bite my tongue, seriously that's all you can do. The children aren't doing it maliciously, they in their own way they're telling mommy and daddy they don't really want to be there, and yet mom and dad really want to get their picture, so I want to be as helpful as I can and try to help out with that experience for them."