Today, we'll start out with a discussion about Obama's visit to Mexico. Then, changes to the LAPD's deadly force policy will impact how officers deals with the mentally ill. Plus, a salt shortage in Sochi almost impacts the Olympics, Trader Joe's is in the middle of a battle over its popular pretzel snacks, and much more.
Trade tops agenda during Obama's visit to Mexico
It's the meeting called "The Three Amigos." President Obama is in Toluca, Mexico today to meet with Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto.
Top of the agenda is economic growth and trade among the three nations, but some key obstacles remain.
Time cover of Mexico's Peña Nieto causes uproar
If you needed proof that President Peña Nieto and his program of reforms are not without controversy, you need only look to social media over the past few days.
There's been a mounting uproar over a Time magazine cover set for publication next week. It features a photo of a statuesque President Peña Nieto with the headline "Saving Mexico."
A lot of people, especially within Mexico, have taken issue with this glowing portrayal. Journalist Daniel Hernandez joins the show from Mexico City. He's a former Los Angeles Times writer and now an editor for Vice magazine there.
LAPD policy change to impact how officers deal with the mentally ill
Yesterday, the Los Angeles Police Commission made a dramatic change to existing policy.
The civilian oversight panel unanimously decided that what an officer does in the moments before a shooting will now be considered when investigating use of deadly force. Part of the reason for this decision relates to how the police deal with the mentally ill.
RELATED: LAPD to change review process for use of deadly force
For more, we're joined by Charles Lennon, he's the head of LA County's Department of Mental Health Emergency Outreach Bureau.
What's it like to be a black, female director in Hollywood?
Last week on the program, we talked about a new study out of UCLA which looked at diversity and the lack of it in Hollywood.
The report found that as lead actors in films, minorities were under-represented by a factor of more than 3 to 1. Things seem even worse behind the scenes, as film directors are underrepresented by a factor of 3 to 1. Female directors, for example, are underrepresented by a factor of 12 to 1.
So what is it like to be an African American woman trying to carve out a career as a director? We turn to Angela Robinson, who has worked as a director and producer of projects such as "The L Word" and "True Blood."
Interview Highlights:
Is there a lack of women and people of color in Hollywood?
"Oh yeah, it's crazy. It's actually weird. It's sometimes actually shocking because I feel like I live in fairly PC universe and that's kind of how I have crafted my life, but the sexism is kind of intense in that there are often like I go days and days without seeing a black person and years and years without encountering a woman director."
Why do you think this is?
"I feel like it is kind of a perfect storm of money and power, and that the culture of Hollywood is kind of a "our kind of people" type of place, for a lack of a better word…It's one of the rare professions where you give somebody a $1 million, $5 million, $10 million, $50-100 million dollars to go make something. It's kind of a terrifying endeavor for everybody to begin with. So there's kind of a culture of fear around relinquishing any sort of power around that and I feel like people are scared to kind of go even an inch outside of their comfort zone at all, literally for class, race, gender, sexuality, like anything.
"Then you'll find things, it's really bizarre. You'll be on set and somebody will say, "Oh, we don't hire women directors." And it's not even frowned upon. It's just a fact. In 2014 they will be like, "Oh yeah, we don't hire woman directors." Or they will say, "We tried them once." And the interesting thing is that I think in Hollywood in general it's a very liberal PC place, but everybody knows you're not suppose to be racist and everybody knows you're actually not suppose to be homophobic, but weirdly sexism is still pretty institutionalized.
Do you see many gays and lesbians in the direction chair?
"Actually yes. In a strange paradox, I see all that and in many respects actually being gay has helped me in Hollywood. I was once talking to woman director… she was saying that sometimes she felt at a disadvantage being a straight woman because there was always sex on the table, like 90 percent of who you're dealing with is men…When sex is off the table when you're gay, then strangely I feel like it's easier to communicate or weirdly the men you're working with kind of ascribe a masculinity to what you're doing, which they view kind of in sync with the role of director."
How do we fix this?
"I actually think this is a conundrum, which I do a lot of mentoring especially to women directors. This is kind of my bag. The main thing is I think women have to hire other women whenever they get into power and the difficult thing, I feel like quite technically, is that often women will get a shot, but they won't get a second shot. Whereas men often will. The strange thing about directing is there is not a lot of ways to practice without spending a lot of money so you basically kind of get times at bat, but the only way to get better at it is to do it a lot and men often get a lot more chances to 'fail' than women do."
What different perspectives do women and other ethnicities bring?
"This specific example happened on True Blood last year where there was this episode I was writing and there was a character who was being created, a white guy who was really eccentric and I guess went back and wrote it as a black woman. I just changed the character because it had to be a white guy. I was just like, "Why not just make this a black woman?" And I try to do that whenever I can. Just change it."
Sports Roundup: NBA draft, Yasiel Puig, Michael Sam and more
It's time for sports with Andy and Brian Kamenetzky, who have covered the sports scene for ESPN and the L.A. Times.
The NBA trade deadline is tomorrow at noon. Any teams looking to get better or get rid of players have just over 24 hours to get all that done. We start with the 7-foot elephant in the room, the Lakers Pau Gasol.
As good as the Clippers have been this season, last night's loss to defending Western Conference champion San Antonio Spurs showed that they may need a little something more to become a championship contender. Do the Clips need to do something? What about any block busters around the league? Will there be any big names moved?
Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig has a zest for life. He plays fast, he drives fast, but will we see a calmer, cooler Puig this season?
Speaking about being true to yourself, ESPN did a little survey of NFL players on Michael Sam.
It is not often that I will cite a biblical verse for sports with the Kamenetzky Brothers but today it applies. The gospel of Matthew 7:7: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will open to you."
American gold medal snowboarder Sage Kostenberg did just that and the blessings have been bestowed upon him. (wished Olympic medals were made out of bacon and a company made one for him).
Sochi officials scramble to avert disaster due to salt shortage
It wasn't a competition, but Olympic officials in Sochi deserve a gold medal for the effort to narrowly avoid a disappointment on the Alpine slopes.
They had to navigate a tricky obstacle course that involved sweet-talking a Swiss salesman, re-routing a plane from Bulgaria, and having the Russians strong-arm through customs, all for salt. Nineteen tons of it, to be exact.
The New York Times' Sam Dolnick explains why Sochi officials didn't get the needed salt beforehand, and what strings they pulled to fly it in from thousands of miles away in less than 24 hours.
LA archdiocese to settle with 17 alleged abuse victims
After more than a decade, the L.A. archdiocese is settling the last of its pending priest molestation lawsuits. In about an hour, lawyers will hold a press conference to discuss details of the settlement.
RELATED: Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony kept altar boy list from police
We turn now to Victoria Kim who has been covering this issue for the LA Times.
CBO report says raising minimum wage would cost jobs, decrease poverty
The Congressional Budget Office released a report this week on how increasing the federal minimum wage would affect workers and businesses across the country. Here in California, the minimum wage is set to increase to $9 per hour in July and $10 per hour in 2016.
Michael C. Bender wrote about this for Bloomberg and joined us to discuss the pros and cons within the report and how it's playing out politically.
Capital One updates terms and conditions to include home visits
Credit card issuer Capital One isn't just showing up in your wallet. They may show up at your front door or your office.
It's not a funky new ad campaign, it's actually part of their new terms of service agreement. The actual wording reads "We may contact you in any manner we choose." That means calls, e-mails, texts or a personal visit.
David Lazarus, consumer columnist for the LA Times pointed it out in his recent column and he joined us to talk more about it.
Fight over peanut butter pretzels creates a legal jam for Trader Joe's
A "peanut butter pretzel battle" sounds like it could be a Ben and Jerry's ice cream flavor, but it's actually the legal wrangling over a favorite snack at Trader Joe's.
In case you're not familiar with them, they're little nuggets of pretzels with a PB dollop baked right in. There's a fight over who invented them, who gets to make them for Trader Joe's and how TJ's own supply chain works.
The LA Business Journal's Alfred Lee tells this twisted story in which the snack is coming between a decades-long relationship between its original supplier and the store.
"There are two people who claim to have invented the peanut butter-filled pretzel, and they both told me it was very difficult to perfect the process," said Lee on Take Two. "There are a number of things that go into into it. The technology to make them didn't exist until the 1980s. There was this process called extrusion that is quite prevalent in the food industry today."
A company called Maxim claims that they were supplying Trader Joe's for some 25 years, before being cut out last year. They had been contracting with the manufacturer, which was bought up by a food giant, ConAgra.
"They claim that at a certain point last year, ConAgra went behind their back and contracted directly with Trader Joe's," said Lee. "This kind of fits into what other people have said about Trader Joe's in the past, in terms of them dealing directly with suppliers as opposed to, essentially, middle men. That's one way that Trader Joe's is able to keep their cost so low."
Trader Joe's has not responded in court and also declined to be interviewed for the story. The company has a reputation for not talking to the press. ConAgra, which is also named in the suit, released a general statement saying that the lawsuit was without merit and that they would fight it, but did decline to comment further.
So what will this fight mean for consumers? Not much, says Lee.
"This is mostly a fight for who gets to supply these things to Trader Joe's, and kind of the drama behind the different claims to its inventions," said Lee. "I don't think there's any risk of these things being off the shelves soon, so you can rest assured."
Damaging exotic mussels in area lake are impossible to eradicate
Stories about invasive species are nothing new to California. Researchers at UC Riverside estimate a new exotic species gets established somewhere in the state every 60 days.
A small, freshwater mussel called the Quagga has moved into a Southland waterway, and it's particularly damaging. KPCC's Jed Kim says they traveled a long way to get here, and we better get used to them.
Devo's Bob Casale dies from heart failure at 61
Today we bid farewell to Bob Casale, a musician best know for his work with DEVO, a band which started making a name for itself in 1977 with this version of the Rolling Stones' classic "Satisfaction."
Casale died suddenly of heart failure earlier this week at 61 years old. His brother and bandmate, Gerald Casale, said in a statement that his younger brother's death Monday was "sudden" and "a total shock."
"As an original member of Devo, Bob Casale was there in the trenches with me from the beginning," Casale said. "He was my level-headed brother, a solid performer and talented audio engineer, always giving more than he got."
No further details on his death were provided.
The new wave band released its Brian Eno-produced debut, "Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!," in 1978 and reached platinum status with 1980's "Freedom of Choice," which featured "Whip It."
Gerald Casale formed Devo with lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh. Alan Myers, the group's drummer, died last year after a battle with cancer age at 58. Devo is short for devolution, the idea that man was regressing into an earlier state.
Gerald Casale joined Take Two today to talk about how crucial his brother was to the band and he recalls some of his favorite memories.
Interview Highlights:
On the beginning of Bob's career with Devo:
"We each had a brother named Bob. I had Bob and Mark [Mothersbaugh] had Bob, and both of them played guitars. As you can imagine it was pretty hard to talk anybody into what was considered ridiculous and far out at the time…into cooperating to take an idea and make it real. So, it worked very well to have brothers who understood your quirks and aesthetics and trusted you to go along and become part of the creative process. That's exactly what happened."
On why working with a brother was so great:
"It was like mental shorthand, you didn't have to explain everything and they completely understood the aesthetic and started contributing in so many ways. We were like a machine, a good machine, like the five musketeers. Even though Bob wasn't a songwriter, when you're working together every day, everybody's energy and everybody's contributions are important to fleshing out an idea. Bob had great ideas and great taste on guitar. The song you just played, "Satisfaction," he created that guitar line and we all started playing with the guitar line. It became "Satisfaction." He would do that many times and then he became a super technician, he became a great audio engineer."
On convincing Bob to leave his career and join Devo:
"He was always interested in music, but he was more of a technical guy. He was a radiologist before we talked him into joining Devo. That's how much he loved music. I also was very persuasive."
On Bob's contributions to the band:
"Starting some time after our "Freedom Of Choice" record, basically he would be the primary person responsible for recording all of our instruments, and oftentimes did mixes that became final mixes, even if were working with a name producer. It became really obvious how he excelled at that by the time we were doing "Oh No It's Devo," with Roy Thomas Baker and things weren't going well. Bob saved the day."
On his favorite memory of Bob and Devo:
"Of course, beginnings are always the best. Before there's any differences or any sense of who you are other than the energy and the excitement of being new and loving what you do. I think our summer of '77 in California where we just started to break wide open and play all the clubs from San Francisco to L.A. to San Diego, and spent 3 1/2 months here just escalating through the ranks was probably one of the most memorable experiences of any beginning anyone could have.
"Bob's a solid, even keeled, level-headed guy. He was the nice guy when everyone else was going off the rails, or being excessive artists, he would keep a cool temperament and he's slow to anger, so he became like an emotional anchor."
With contributions from the Associated Press.