Today on the show, we'll hear about an effort to bring art back to California prisons, and we'll hear from State Sen. Ted Lieu about his support for the effort. Then, the ownerless LA Sparks and the future of the WNBA and Hollywood 'nomads' question the need and benefit of film tax credit. Plus, scientists seek to explain curious 'earthquake lights' phenomenon and in our latest Picture This, Angelo Merendino documents his wife's battle with cancer.
Freshman GOP Congressman David Valadao makes a mid-term assessment
After the holiday break, lawmakers are trickling back into the state capitol. The Assembly will convene today at noon and the Senate at 2 pm. They have a lot of big issues to tackle in the coming legislative year.
Like how to spend a fiscal windfall, California's ongoing water wars, the brouhaha over the FBI's investigation of senator Ron Calderon and the strength of the Democratic Party, as their supermajority gets puts to the test in this fall's election.
California lawmakers are also getting back to business in Washington, DC. The Senate returns to work today; the House returns Tuesday.
For California's 14 freshman members, it's the midway point of their first term, a time to assess what they've learned, and what they hope to accomplish this year. KPCC's Washington Correspondent Kitty Felde recently spoke with Central Valley Republican freshman David Valadao and brings us this report.
Effort emerging to bring arts back to California prisons
Art and Prisons. It may seem strange, but the two have a long history together in California. Back in the 1940s, prisoners at San Quentin participated in everything from radio to music to drawing programs.
RELATED: See more photos on KPCC's AudioVision blog.
More recently, California had a program known as Arts in Corrections. It was operating across the state until it was cut just a few years ago. KPCC's education reporter Mary Plummer caught up with one of the last remaining prison arts teachers in the state. She brings you this audio postcard.
State Sen. Ted Lieu on how art can help alleviate prison issues
Ted Lieu represents California's 28th district in the State Senate and he argues that bringing art back into prisons can help alleviate many of the problems that plague the state's corrections system.
The ownerless LA Sparks and the future of the WNBA
With the WNBA taking over the Los Angeles Sparks while they search for new ownership, some questions remain whether or not there is enough national interest in women's basketball to sustain the league.
Fran Harris joins us to discuss the health of these franchises and what this move means long-term for the WNBA.
General Mills says original Cheerios are now GMO-free
General Mills made a big announcement recently.
Cheerios is going GMO free. Now, if you know something about genetically modified crops, this may sound odd. Cheerios are mostly made of oats - a crop that isn't available as a GMO.
To find out what this announcement really means, we turn now to Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University.
California citrus growers assess damage of cold snap
Back in December, a deep freeze settled on the state of California. Most of us got away unscathed, but not California's $2 billion dollar citrus crop. A lot of fruit was damaged. The California Report's Central Valley Bureau Chief Sasha Khokha has the story from a packinghouse near Fresno.
On The Lot: 'Paranormal Activity', award nominees, Laemmle Theaters
Now it's time for On the Lot, our regular series of talks about the film biz with LA Times reporter Rebecca Keegan.
One of the big movies of the weekend, the fifth installment in the "Paranormal Activity" franchise, it was number two at the box office. This film was a little different than the previous ones in this series, the producers were actually targeting a Latino audience. It seems to have paid off
Historically, Latino audiences have turned out for horror movies and the "Paranormal" series in particular. Did they change anything about the formula here to make the appeal more specific?
Producer Saul Zaentz died at the age of 92 last week. He was behind three best picture Oscar winners, including the 1975 classic, "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next." He also produced winners "Amadeus" and "The English Patient." How will he be remembered in the industry?
On to this year's crop of award winners. We've got some more nominations from the Producer's and Writer's guilds rolling in. All the usual suspects and some dark horses in there.
"The Wolf of Wall Street" has broken the record for the number of F-bombs in a movie. There must be pretty steep competition out there.
Finally, the Laemmle Theaters is celebrating its 75th birthday. These theaters were some of the first to expose American audiences to great foreign films from the likes of Francois Truffaut and Akira Kurosawa. How have they fared in this digital era?
Odd Hollywood Jobs: Stuntwoman Zoë Bell
This is one in a series on Odd Hollywood Jobs — not acting or directing, but rather the tasks you haven't heard of. You can read other segments in this series at the links below the story.
Ever wonder how stars like Uma Thurman and Halle Berry can perform death defying feats in the movies? Well, the answer is usually its not really them doing it.
Although many actors like performing their own stunts, most of the dangerous scenes in movies are done by talented stunt performers. On our next installment of Odd Hollywood Jobs we talk to one of the best stuntwomen in the business, Zoë Bell. She stars in the upcoming film, Raze.
Interview Highlights:
On how she got into stunt work:
There's an obvious joke she likes to tell when people ask her that question: She "fell" into this line of work. But in reality, she was always involved with gymnastics and tumbling, but when she got too big for it, she turned to martial arts. Through that, she met people who did stunt work for a living and immediately knew this was the kind of work she had to do.
On how she deals with scary or intense stunts:
Zoe said that for the film "Catwoman", she was supposed to be suspended 22 stories above the air - only on wires. Once she was harnessed up, she sat on the edge of the building and just got herself used to being up so high and worked out the mechanics of the stunt in her head. She said that's what usually works for her, focusing on the science and mechanics of the stunt, allowing her mind to get ready for it.
On her favorite stunt:
The car chase scene from the Quentin Tarantino film "Grindhouse: Death Proof." In it she was strapped to the hood of a car that was traveling at speeds topping 90 mph. A few times the line between doing the stunt and avoiding real injury was a little blurry.
Zoë Bell teaches host Alex Cohen a simple stunt:
RELATED: Odd Hollywood Jobs: Military liaison
RELATED: Odd Hollywood Jobs: US-China film ambassador
RELATED: Odd Hollywood Jobs: Dialect coach
RELATED: Odd Hollywood Jobs: Music supervisor
RELATED: Odd Hollywood Jobs: Science adviser
RELATED: Odd Hollywood Jobs: Looper
RELATED: Odd Hollywood Jobs: Set teacher
RELATED: Odd Hollywood Jobs: Costume designer
Supreme Court puts hold on same-sex marriages in Utah
This morning, the U.S. Supreme Court put a temporary hold on same-sex marriage licenses in Utah. The hold will last until the 10th Circuit court in Denver makes a decision on a state appeal arguing against gay marriage.
For more on what this means, we turn to Jennifer Epstein, a White House reporter for Politico.
Brain dead teen Jahi McMath released from California hospital
It's been almost a month since 13-year-old Jahi McMath's tonsil surgery complications led doctors to declare her brain dead. That set off a legal and ethical battle between the teenager's family and the hospital, which felt it could do nothing more for her.
Jahi has been released into her mother's custody but the family is not saying where she will receive long-term care. Hailey Branson-Potts has been writing about this for the Los Angeles Times and joins us now.
Even from state’s best high schools, Latinos mostly go to community college
Educators in California have been trying to close the achievement gap between Latinos and their white and Asian classmates. Latinos do worse on standardized tests, and are less likely to go to college.
But new statistics show the gap isn't a product of just poor neighborhoods and low performing schools. KPCC's Adolfo Guzman-Lopez finds it's also abundant in public schools with strong reputations.
Washington State machinists union approves new Boeing contract
In a very close vote -- 51 to 49 -- the powerful machinists union in Washington State agreed to a new, 8-year contract with Boeing. The contract keeps production in Washington, but the union conceded a lot of benefits in the deal.
For more on this we turn to Carolyn Adolph, economic reporter for KUOW in Seattle.
Picture This: Angelo Merendino documents his wife's battle with cancer
For our occasional series, Picture This, we've talked with photographers who've been in war zones or far off lands. But our next installment is far more personal.
Angelo Merendino's wife Jennifer had a long and tough fight with breast cancer, and he used his camera to share his wife struggles with family and friends. He had no idea how they would impact the world.
He joined us to describe how and why he created these powerful images.
Interview Highlights:
On the day his wife, Jennifer, was first diagnosed:
"Jen was diagnosed in 2008, it was five months after our wedding. We were living in Manhattan, and I was back in Ohio, visiting my family. We both grew up in Akron, Ohio. Jen went in to see her general practitioner and the doctor felt something that she was not comfortable with and told Jen that she should have a mammogram immediately. Jen called me, I was coming home the next day, but she was really upset and she felt that this was different than other scares she had had in the past.
"The last thing I thought was that she would have breast cancer. A few days later Jen had a mammogram and Jen called me and I remember the sound of her voice, I remember her saying "I have breast cancer." I was numb immediately and I really still am. Life has been very different since then. Probably the last thing that I expected to hear from Jennifer, especially at that point in our marriage."
On the idea to photograph Jennifer's experience:
"The photographs really didn't start until 2010. I always photograph Jennifer, but after her initial diagnosis, our family and friends were really incredible and came to see us when Jen was up for it, and they sent cards and flowers and dinner and had fundraisers and it was really amazing to have that kind of support. But when Jen's cancer metastisized in April of 2010, and we started treatment again, we noticed that most people didn't understand how serious Jen's illness had become…That's when I started making photographs and it was more about survival than it was anything else. There was no intention to show this to a large audience. It was just for family and friends to say to them, Look this is what's really going on."
On how he decided what photos to put on the blog:
"I didn't really have any kind of process, it was much more of this is how I feel right now. Even when I was making the photographs I didn't want to think, I just wanted to make a photograph when I felt something in my gut, so, I've tried my best to not make this a thought process, really, and to just be as honest and open as I possibly can be."
On photographing the people around her:
"In May of 2011, Jen was hospitalized. We were in the hospital for about two weeks, and when we came home, Jen had to use a walker because the cancer had spread to her hip and she was having difficulty walking. She used that walker for the rest of her life and we would go for daily walks. It was part exercise for Jen, part to get her out of the apartment, and a time for us to just be a young couple going for a walk. We live near central park and it was our daily thing. When we would go out to walk I would immediately notice that people would stare, and it didn't seem like it was malicious or any bad intention, but it was a reminder to us that Jennifer was sick."
Hollywood 'nomads' question need for film tax credits
Three years ago, 33-year-old hair and clothing special effects director Daniel Lay started the blog VFX Soldier.
It was a space for fellow film workers to vent their frustrations over the longterm trends they were seeing in the industry, as locales around the globe compete for production through tax incentives.
He noticed that his friends and colleagues constantly had to uproot their lives in Los Angeles to move to New Zealand or Vancouver, sometimes both in the same year, as they followed production lured away from Hollywood by tax credits in far away locations.
Alex Cohen speaks with Lay about what he calls "the cycle of displacement," and why he says bolstered tax credits aren't the answer to curbing Hollywood's runaway production.
Scientists seek to explain curious 'earthquake lights' phenomenon
A new study on the curious phenomenon known as earthquake lights posits some causes for the strange glowing lights that have been seen before earthquakes for centuries but have remained a mystery of science.
Observers describe seeing glowing patches in the sky just before or during an earthquake and photographic evidence seems to support those descriptions.
Scientists looked at reports of earthquake lights from around the world going back several centuries. What they found is that the lights are most correlated with seismic rift zones where the earth is pulling apart. Researchers theorize that the stress on the rocks associated with an earthquake creates an electric field that accounts for the glow.
SETI researcher and study co-author Friedemann Freund joins the show to discuss the research.