A chef in Los Angeles makes North African tacos, Trump's relationship with the GOP gets complicated and people debate recycling waste water from oil drilling.
Could Donald Trump blow it for the GOP with Latino voters?
Entrepreneur-turned-presidential hopeful Donald Trump is in L.A. Friday, less than a month after Trump found himself the object of public ire for calling Mexicans “rapists” and “murderers” at a campaign event.
The Washington Post reports that RNC head Reince Priebus recently asked Trump to “tone down” his remarks on Mexicans and immigration, as Latino voters will likely play an important role in deciding who takes the White House in 2016. But even if Trump doesn’t clinch the Republican nomination, his comments run the risk of turning a significant number of Latinos away from the GOP, regardless of the candidate on the ballot. The GOP is already at a disadvantage: Latinos voted Democrat 3-1 in 2012.
“We need to remember that party identification isn’t just about a conglomeration of policy positions. Party identification is a social identity. It’s an attachment that people feel to a particular group,” said Lisa Garcia Bedolla. She’s the chancellor’s professor of Latino politics at Berkley University. “[So] if you feel that that social group sees you with hostility and animosity and believes [that] you’re ‘rapists,’ then you’re much less likely to feel a positive connection to that party.”
That’s putting it lightly.
Despite the risk that Trump’s assertions pose for the party, however, the billionaire isn’t backing down. On Thursday, he denied the conversation with Priebus entirely, telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper, “I just don’t know how the story got out. Nobody called us for verification, and honestly, I can’t blame him, unless he gave out the story, which is possible. Probably, he did.”
Click the play button above to hear more about the lasting effects Donald Trump’s statements can have on the GOP.
CA Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez: A look at her progressive politics
California State Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez is fast becoming powerful political figure.
Gonzalez, who has served for only two years, has championed issues like paid sick days, voter registration and workplace protection for professional NFL cheerleaders. These issues have reverberated not only in California politics, but nationally as well.
Host Tess Vigeland spoke with Sara Libby, a contributor for the Atlantic, about Gonzalez's career.
Click on the blue player above to listen to the interview.
President Obama names 'City' sculpture a national monument
A "city" in Nevada is being honored with national monument status by President Barack Obama on Friday.
But it's no ordinary city. "City" is, in fact, a 1-mile long sculpture by the artist Michael Heizer. He's also the man behind the "Levitated Mass" at the L.A. County Museum of Art.
Jon Christensen, a columnist with LA Observed who has followed City's rise from sculpture to presidential recognition, joined the show with more.
Someone keeps on sabotaging the internet in Northern California
A lot of people these days talk about cutting the cord and by that they mean getting rid of expensive cable subscriptions and relying instead on Internet streaming.
But in Northern California, someone, or someone"s", are literally going around cutting cords that provide public utilities, including 9-1-1 emergency services.
wrote about this bizarre turn of events in The Daily Beast and talked to Tess Vigeland about the issue. Click on the audio embedded at the top of the post to hear the entire interview.
Drilling wastewater could be used on crops
With demand for water outstripping supply in the West, people are looking wherever they can find it.
In some cases, it doesn't matter whether it's clean and new or, like a sweater at Goodwill, gently used.
Enter Big Oil.
The industry uses billions of gallons of water every year to help pump crude oil out of the ground.
But in the near future, much of that water could be treated and used to grow crops.
Alex Nussbaum, energy reporter for Bloomberg Business, explains how that water is treated and if it's safe to use on the lettuce that might be in your next salad.
LA Aftershocks series: A look back at Wattstax
This summer marks 50 years since the Watts riots in Los Angeles.
The free concert series, Grand Performances is marking the anniversary with a spin-off series called 'Aftershocks.' featuring local artists exploring the intersection of social movements and the arts.
As part of the events, Take Two is hosting a series of pre-show conversations called "downSTAGE with Take Two." Host A Martinez will facilitate a discussion on Friday with hip hop duo, Dead Prez, and Mark Torres from the Pacifica Radio Archives.
Take Two editor Joanne Griffith kicked things off a few weeks back with a discussion about the anniversary of the Watts Riots, and a look back at the Wattstax music festival. Also known as the "black Woodstock," the event took place on Aug. 20, 1972 -- seven years after the Watts Riots. More than 100,000 people packed the L.A. Coliseum for music and healing.
Wattstax was hosted by the influential Stax Records and featured the likes of Isaac Hayes, the Staples Singers and the Emotions. Joanne sat down Tim Watkins, a long time Watts resident and CEO of the Watts Labor Community Action Committee and Lucien "Fiyeh" Smith, a cameraman who worked on the 1973 Wattstax documentary produced by Mel Stuart.
"When you're in the middle of something historic, like Wattstax, you don't really know it," said Smith, "You have a sense of a feeling. But there was 100,000 black people congregated in one place at one time, to have a celebration. Unheard of, just unheard of in this country."
The event with A Martinez kicks off at 7:30 p.m. at Grand Performances. For more information, click here.
What's up with gas prices in California?
If you pay attention when you go to fill up your tank you might have noticed you're paying significantly different prices from week to week. And in fact, some experts say you might see a price spike of 50 cents a gallon in the next week or so.
Now, California is always an outlier when it comes to gas prices. Cross the state border and you will most assuredly pay less, but there are also now allegations of price manipulation on the part of oil refiners.
Tiffany Hsu joins Tess Vigeland to talk about why gas prices in California are such a mess. She recently wrote about this topic for the LA Times.
If you'd like to hear the entire interview, click on the audio embedded in the link above.
How one LA chef invented the North African taco at his new restaurant Revolutionario
Los Angeles and tacos go together like, well, carne asada and corn tortillas. Here in LA we've got everything from the classic dollar tacos with al pastor for sale at little stands. To the expensive restaurants that slip things like kale into their tacos. And who can forget Roy Choi's Kogi tacos? They blend together traditional Korean and Mexican flavors. What else could we want from a taco when we're so spoiled already? Well, how about some flavors from North Africa?
That's what classically trained
is doing at his recently opened restaurant Revolutionario, which is located on West Jefferson Boulevard, just down the street from USC.
In it he's serving up things like smoked lamb tacos, cilantro yogurt chicken tacos and black eyed pea falafel tacos.
Click on the audio embedded above to hear the conversation between Chef Zadi and A Martinez.
Latino students seeing more success at California's community colleges, study finds
With census data this week showing that Latinos now outnumber whites in California, how are colleges managing the boom of Latino students?
A study from a Washington non-profit organization called New America has found that California's community colleges have been successful at helping Latino students excel academically. In particular, Cerritos College stood out from other schools.
Ben Miller, who is now the executive director of post-secondary education at the Center for American Progress, authored the study, and he joined the show with Joanna Schilling, vice president of academic affairs at Cerritos College.
Listen to the full interview by clicking the blue audio player above.
Should networks pull reruns of 'The Cosby Show' and 'The Dukes of Hazzard'?
The revelation this week that Bill Cosby admitted to obtaining drugs, with the intent of giving them to women he wanted to have sex with, has again raised the question— what to do with "The Cosby Show"?
Cable channels Bounce TV and Centric Network dropped reruns of the show this week. TV Land had already pulled The Cosby Show from its lineup back in November.
The network also took reruns of "The Dukes of Hazzard" off the air last week amid the Confederate flag controversy.
TIME magazine columnist James Poniewozik joins Take Two to discuss the ethics of TV reruns.
Weekend on the cheap: Renegade Craft Fair, Hot Sauce Expo and free Slurpees
It's going to be a sweet and spicy weekend in Southern California. Whether you want film, food or fashion, we've got you covered.
Southern California Public Radio's social media producer Kristen Lepore has the low down on cheap things to do this weekend including California's first-ever Hot Sauce Expo, free Slurpee day at 7-Eleven and Renegade Craft Fair in Grand Park.
Free weekend? Find details on these events and even more things to do here.