Today, we start with a discussion about the unrest between Palentine and Israel. Then, developers turn the Yo app into a tool that helps Israeli civilians. Plus, Time Warner and DirectTV continue their fight over the Dodgers, advice columnist Amy Alkon explains how to be a good person during a drought, creating patrons of the arts through crowdfunding, and much more.
What are the implications of Hamas's use of drones against Israel?
Hostilities in Israel have resumed after hopes for a cease fire were dashed earlier today.
Israel had agreed to an Egyptian proposed cease fire, but Hamas militants, who run Gaza, appeared to reject it. Hamas officials said their conditions were not met and they were not included in the discussions.
Now, rocket fire continues from the Gaza Strip and the Israeli military has resumed airstrikes against Hamas. Almost 200 Palestinians and no Israelis have been killed in the week-long conflict. Hamas and its allied militants have launched almost one thousand rockets at Israel since last Tuesday.
Yesterday, however, they launched something new...a drone. The device was shot down by Israel and it is unclear whether it was armed or being used for surveillance, but the incident grabbed headlines.
So, what does Hamas' use of a drone signal?
To talk about it, Dr. Gregory McNeal, military expert and professor at Pepperdine University's School of Law, joins Take Two.
Developers turn the glib Yo app into a tool that helps Israeli civilians
The app Yo was released last April Fools' Day and many saw it as a bad joke. After all, the app's only function was to send people the words "yo" as a text message.
But now, developers in Israel have found a very serious use for Yo. They've used the code to let people around the world know when rockets are heading into Israel.
Android developer Ari Sprung says his original app Red Alert was in high demand because it sent alerts to subscribers' phones telling them to take cover. However, its own servers wouldn't be able to the handle the volume of users if people around the globe subscribed, too.
"So therefore we interfaced with Yo where every time we get an alert here, we send a Yo to every single person that subscribes to Red Alert Israel," said Sprung on Take Two. By tapping into the Yo app and its open interface, Sprung says they are able to convey what it's like living in Israel during this time.
"For our use, it's definitely solving the issue that we had in order to get that quick notification out to people without a lot of technical development," he says.
Time Warner and DirectTV continue their fight over the Dodgers
Tonight is a rare chance for many non-Time-Warner-having Angelenos. Dodger fans will see superstars like Yaisel Puig and Clayton Kershaw live on their regular TV channels for today's MLB All-Star Game.
Its rare because the All Star Game is broadcast on Fox, whereas the Dodgers can be seen only for Time Warner Cable subscribers. But what are the chances of being able to see an actual Dodgers game on TV when they come back from the break?
KPCC's Ben Bergman has been reporting on the standoff between DirecTV and Time Warner for months and talks to A Martinez about the latest.
What's behind the dispute with the Dodgers channel.
This is the first year at least Dodger games aren't airing on free over the air TV. The Dodgers signed an $8 billion-plus contract with Time Warner cable to start their own regional sports network.
But not one major distributor has picked up the channel. They complain Time Warner is asking for too much money.
Only the 30 percent or so of the L.A. market that are Time Warner customers get to see Dodger games. In fact so few people are watching games on TV that it's not unusual for more fans to be watching in person at Dodger Stadium than at home.
The main antagonist of Time Warner is DirecTV, because every other provider — like Dish and Charter — is waiting until DirecTV makes a deal.
So is any closer to happening?
Unfortunately not. It's been weeks since Time Warner has had any negotiations with DirecTV and they seem to be as far apart as ever, remember that Time Warner has an incentive to make things sound as dire as possible. They want to mobilize DirecTV customers.
So they've been full-page ads in the L.A. Times, handing out rally towels at games, offering DirecTV customers hundreds of dollars to switch to Time Warner, and using social media to share their side of the story.
So none of this is working?
Doesn't seem to be. DirecTV says it's getting fewer cancellations than it expected and that most people who would have cancelled would have already done so. So they're not feeling a lot of urgency. Again, this is what you want to be saying if you're negotiating for their side, but if you talk to fans as I do a lot…they seem to blaming Time Warner more than DirecTV.
Some of them also blame the Dodgers, which seems fair since they're the ones that signed this monster deal with Time Warner when they could have kept the team with Fox for only slightly less money.
Would mandatory fines work better to deter water wasting?
The push is on to have Californians use less water.
Southern California Public Radio's Environment Correspondent Molly Peterson told us in yesterday's segment of her series, about how homeowners are being offered cash incentives to rip out their lawns.
This morning, Molly looks at how those programs might work better as California considers mandatory restrictions for outdoor watering.
If you want to see which parts of Southern California are doing better with lawn conversions than others, head to KPCC.org. You can also share photos of your yard, whether it's grass or otherwise, using the hashtag #MyYard.
Modern Manners: Tips for having good etiquette during a drought
By now, most Californians know we are in the midst of a long and severe drought, but how do we get through it?
Some people live by the mantra of "If it yellow, let it mellow," while other have no qualms about watering their lawns at high noon. What might be comfortable to some when it comes to conservation may be untenable for others.
For some tips on how to navigate the world of drought consciousness among our friends, coworkers and neighbors, we turn to advice columnist Amy Alkon, author of the book "Good Manners For Nice People Who Sometimes Say F*ck."
What do you do at home to conserve water on a daily basis?
"This is a big deal, one of the biggest places where we waste water is in the bathroom, and so to be quite frank, if I don't have guests coming over and there's nothing, uh, solid, in the toilet I don't flush very often."
What's the best way to navigate the "If it's yellow, let it mellow" mantra?
"The truth is we have a strong aversion to others' bodily fluids, we evolved this way as a way to protect ourselves against disease. This is why we're so grossed out by these things, it's a protective thing. So, it's very upsetting to some people if you do this and it's very important to balance that. If people are upset if you live in a household with a bunch of people who are grossed out, you might just have to flush."
What if you're in a public restroom. Is it OK to let the yellow mellow?
"Oh no. You absolutely flush. People get so upset by this. You're not leaving a Post-It note for the person behind you, so they don't know why you're doing that, they just think you're rude and it's disgusting. When you're in a public place, that's really something where you have to be considerate.
"But there are so many ways that we can be conservationist about this. For example, I don't leave the water running when I brush my teeth, and I'm 50, I have to dye my hair now. I use a low flow shower head except for that one time a month when I dye my hair and need that real power to rinse the stuff out. So I unscrew the low flow one and I screw in the old shower head.
"All these things — washing dishes in a basin — there are so many ways if you just think about it. Yes we may have aversions to leaving the yellow in the bowl, but there are so many ways to make up for that."
What about washing your hands after, that could be a needless use of water. There's gels you can use and other things you can clean your hands with!
"You're right, but the thing is we have to remember how other people have this strong aversion to disease and if you do that, you'll gross out anybody else in the bathroom. They're not going to want to shake your hand, do business with you. So there are these times where we have to balance other people's feelings. At root of manners is empathy, and so there are times you just have to waste a little water so people aren't made sick by you forever."
One of our listeners asked her work colleagues if they could designate a mellow yellow bathroom stall. Is that a good idea?
"I like the spirit of it, but the problem is that there are a few diseases, not many, spread by urine and immunocompromised people can get infected. You don't know who in your workplace is immunosuppressed, it upsets people, so you really need to flush in the workplace."
What about the guy who keeps his sprinklers running at high noon?
"Scolding people is not an effective way to get them to change. The truth is the best time to water is before 8 a.m. One way to get the message through to him – since many people don't actually realize there's a drought because their idea of media is "Keeping Up With The Karadashians" — you put out a flyer that does not target just one person. It's a helpful thing for the whole neighborhood that gives some tips about wasting water, how to save water, and you can also post it on phone poles and deliver it around. You could just deliver it to eight people in your block, just so that guy doesn't feel targeted. He's more likely to change."
"There's one other thing you can do, which is use people's desire to be seen going green, there's actually a status thing, so if you can come up with a sticker people can put on their mailbox with the ways they've gone green, that's a way that people can feel they want to join that and look good."
One of our listeners wrote in and said she stopped watering her lawn to save water, but now her neighbors are complaining that her brown lawn is lowering their home values. What should she do?
"Her neighbors' worry is understandable. This is great what she's doing, but at root of manners is empathy, so she needs to care about her neighbors' fear. This is the emotional and social environments, these are environments, too, so you show concern by tearing up your lawn and planting native plants and using mulch and sand to landscape. This is a new way of thinking and there's stuff on the DWP's website, some photos, and they'll even give you financial credit for doing it, but you have to apply for it first."
Listener Jill Johnson says she recently told some college students who were running the water in a public restroom while applying their makeup that there is a drought. Their response was "We don't care, we're not from here." How do we deal with this rampant entitlement when it comes to water?
"There are times when its effective to tell people what to do, or to suggest that they do the right thing — and there are times that it isn't effective. This is basically like saying don't you idiots know there's a drought on? So of course they're going to respond like that. Maybe they don't care. So we need to focus on what we can change, not scolding people in the moment who don't care, which does feel really good. What you can do is when you see something like that, use that moment to incite yourself to positive action somewhere else. You do an extra thing to conserve, you put out the word about artificial grass, you do something positive instead of just telling them off."
Thanks for all who contributed questions for our Modern Manners segment!
'La Bestia': Central American radio hit is actually a US government PSA
Turn on the radio in Honduras, Guatemala or El Salvador today and you might hear this song.
It's called "La Bestia" (or "The Beast") by singer Eddie Ganz.
If you speak Spanish, you might be able to tell that despite the upbeat sound, the lyrics are actually quite dark:
"Migrants from everywhere, entrenched along the rail ties. Far away from where they come, farther away from where they go... They call her the Beast from the South, this wretched train of death. With the devil in the boiler, it whistles, roars, twists and turns."
One thing you wouldn't know is that the song is part of a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) campaign to discourage people from attempting to cross into the United States illegally.
Caitlin Dickson, a reporter at The Daily Beast, first reported the story about "La Bestia" and joins Take Two to explain more about it.
The lyrics of the full version of the song, airing in Central America:
Spanish:
Migrantes de todas partes
Se atrincheran en los durmientes,
Muy lejos de donde vienen
Más lejos de adonde van.
Esperan el temblar de tierra
Y el chillido de los ruedas.
Aparece tras la montaña
La amenazadora serpiente.
De acero son sus escamas,
también de acero su vientre.
La bestia del sur le llaman
Al maldito tren de la muerte.
Con el diablo en la caldera,
Pita, ruge y se retuerce.
Colgados en sus vagones
De la serpiente de acero
van migrantes como reses.
en camino al matadero,
por la ruta del infierno
entre humos de dolores.
Este trueno que estremece
No conoce de favores
Lleva tres seises tatuados
En sus ruedas y su frente
La bestia del sur le llaman
Al maldito tren de la muerte.
Con el diablo en la caldera,
Pita, ruge y se retuerce.
Feudo mara salvatrucha,
La quincena de coyotes.
Un mortero que machaca,
un machete que desgaja.
La bestia del sur le llaman
Al maldito tren de la muerte.
Con el diablo en la caldera,
Pita, ruge y se retuerce.
English:
Migrants from everywhere
Entrenched among the rail ties.
Far away from where they come,
Farther away from where they go.
Waiting for earth’s shaking
And the wheels’ screeching.
Behind the mountains
The menacing snake appears,
Her scales are made out of iron
Her womb of iron as well,
They call her The Beast from the South
This wretched train of death,
With the devil in the boiler
Whistles, roars, twists and turns.
Hanging on the railcars
Of this iron beast
Migrants go as cattle
To the slaughterhouse
Taking hell’s route
Within a cloud of pain.
This shuddering thunder
Does not know about favors
It wears three sixes tattooed
On her wheels and her head.
They call her The Beast from the South
This wretched train of death,
With the devil in the boiler
Whistles, roars, twists and turns.
Mara Salvatrucha feud,
Coyotes’ payday.
A crushing mortar,
A slicing machete.
They call her The Beast from the South
This wretched train of death,
With the devil in the boiler
Whistles, roars, twists and turns.
Tuesday Reviewsday: Bleachers, Madlib, remembering Charlie Haden and more
A local rapper creates a strange brew of psych, kraut and prog music and we bid farewell to jazz legend Charlie Haden, it's Tuesday Reviewsday, our weekly music segment.
Chris Martins from Spin Magazine and music critic Steve Hochman are in on the ones and twos this week.
Chris Martins' Picks
Artist: Bleachers
Album: Strange Desire
Songs: "I Wanna Get Better," "Rollercoaster"
Summary: Bleachers is the first side project to emerge from the world-conquering, Grammy-stacking, New Jersey band - Fun. They are a band of dudes from other bands in the first place — singer Nate Ruess came from the Format; multi-instrumentalist Andrew Dost from Anathallo; and guitarist Jack Antonoff used to front his own group, Steel Train. Now he's back as Bleachers.
The new LP is Strange Desire and it's out today.
On the track "I Wanna Get Better," if you strain you'll hear a little bit of Steel Train's earnestness — a kinda of rootsy earnest heartland rock for the emo set. But also, it's a lot of loud, unabashed, rock-flavored pop. I had the chance to visit Antonoff in the studio while he was finishing the record, and he said he wasn't interested in making something that seemed like a refutation of the massive music fun. makes. So many side projects sound like apologies for the success of the main thing, but the men of fun have never been shy about being good at pop. Now that's not to say Bleachers doesn't have its own sound.
Strange Desire features a couple of guiding sonic lights. On the one hand, it's both the soundtracks and character-driven world of John Hughes. Which is not a surprise coming from Antonoff, the boyfriend of 'Girls' star/creator Lena Dunham. (She directed the video for that song we heard as well.) He even brought in an '80s icon to help out in the studio: Vince Clarke, of Depeche Mode, Erasure, and Yaz co-produces some songs. Bleachers' hyper-modern side, on the other hand, comes in part from co-producer John Hill. He's worked with M.I.A., Phantogram, and Shakira, and his sample-strong approach complements Antonoff's own micro-chopped cut-and-paste approach to building songs.
But those guys came into the picture later. The most interesting thing, to me, about this album, is that Antonoff wrote and sketched it out all over the world while touring with fun. Despite his rigorous schedule, the music started pouring out, and instead of sleeping or sight-seeing, he'd hit the studio in Sweden or Malaysia, or stay in his hotel room in South Korea to document every little idea he had. Though he cleaned it up later, with help, there are artifacts both heard and felt in the final project which I think lend more depth and heart to the man's work. At 30, Antonoff has already co-written hits for Taylor Swift and Sara Bareilles. And you can really hear the '80s influence in the track "Rollercoaster."
Artist: Madlib
Album: Rock Konducta Pt. 1&2
Songs: "Black Dreams (Sludge Fight)," "Black Widow"
If our listeners aren't already familiar with Madlib, this is long overdue. The Oxnard native born Otis Jackson Jr. is a revered underground rap producer. He's a cornerstone of the locally based, internationally revered, Stones Throw label, and an incredibly prolific musician who's made songs with everyone from Erykah Badu to Ghostface Killah, to Snoop Dogg, to the late, great J Dilla — arguably his only real peer. He's even made entire albums as a fictional jazz quintet. But his latest project has a rock bent. Which you can really hear on the track "Black Dreams (Sludge Fight)."
The hypnotic loop-work makes this decided hip-hop, but the source material is all psych, sludge, metal, prog, and other guitar-driven weirdness from his massive vinyl collection. The album is called 'Rock Konducta, Pt. 1&2,' and it's a continuation of Madlib's beat tape series, where he crafts a staggering number of stone-cold (and often stoner-y) grooves and compiles them for us to hear.
This kind of stuff would normally go to a potential collaborator so that Snoop or someone else could pick a loop to rap over. But the cult of Madlib is such that there's no lack of demand for every little hiccup the man commits to tape.
And the guy doesn't take advantage of that. Or, if he does, I can't tell — his cutting room scraps are gems. Every. Single. One.
There are 52 tracks here spread across two discs. It's great driving music, or headphones music, or a good 79-minute slow sink into the couch following a visit to a local dispensary music. For those looking to geek out over the references, you'll find a whole lot of Krautrock (there's a song called "Ra Ash," and one names "Motorik Matching"). Plus, we're told by the label, Spanish prog-rock and synthy early '80s oddities." Most of it, though pulls from the '60s and '70s, as is clear in the song "Black Widow," as it samples the short-lived psych band Tomorrow, who had zero hits but live on in record collections of those in the know.
Steve Hochman's Picks:
Artists: Keith Jarrett / Charlie Haden
Album: Last Dance
Songs: "It Might As Well Be Spring," "Goodbye"
Last Friday saw the passing of two giants of modern music: jazz bassist Charlie Haden, and founding drummer of the Ramones, Tommy Ramone. Some people seemed confounded in any attempt to relate the two seemingly contrasting musicians. But it's not hard at all: Both had significant roles in revolutions, key in rewriting the rules of their respective genres, and yet upholding the core values and aesthetics. Or, more accurately, by upholding those values.
Haden was part of Ornette Coleman's groundbreaking quartet, leading the way in what was somewhat inaccurately called "free jazz." It was not completely unstructured as some often assumed, but rather created a framework in which both the individual musicians' talents and their collective chemistry could be maximized — the essential nature of jazz from its very beginnings, just given some new approaches.
Following that, he began a long-running collaboration with pianist Keith Jarrett, resulting in music of equal measures beauty and power, and no restrictions of direction. He also led various groups of his own, perhaps most notably the large Liberation Music Orchestra, with music fueled by his commitment to social justice and a global perspective.
It's his partnership with Jarrett that provides the final release of Haden's lifetime, the new, fittingly titled Last Dance. Recorded in sessions a few years ago, it's a conversation, indeed a dance, of two supreme talents and two supreme friends, a testimony to both artistry and, well, love. There's a playful, lighthearted quality to much of it, notably in Rodgers and Hammerstein's "It Might As Well Be Spring." But there's much joy to be found in even the somber moments, all coming together in the album's closer, the elegant elegy, "Goodbye."
Haden's last public performance came in December at the REDCAT in the Walt Disney Concert Hall complex in Downtown Los Angeles, conducting students of his from CalArts in a program built on the Liberation Music ensemble repertoire. He seemed frail and weak as he came on stage, using a walker, and could hardly speak to make song introductions, all the result of Post-Polio Syndrome — the return of symptoms from the disease he'd had as a child. But when he took up the baton to lead the young musicians, he was vibrant, fully engaged, fully energized.
And then, for an encore of the Miles Davis - Bill Evans classic ballad "Blue in Green," he took up his double bass. There was no concession to illness in what he played. Mid-song the rest of the group quieted and Haden started a bass solo, spinning exquisite themes of great beauty. Several times the pianist, serving as the group's director, made starts to bring the ensemble back in, but each time Haden waved him off and continued his solo, extending it out to more than six sublime minutes. For those of us privileged to be there, it's a memory we will treasure, though one of many treasures from Charlie Haden's legacy.
Artist: OBN III's
Album: Live in San Francisco
Songs: "Off the Grid," "No Time for the Blues"
Tommy Ramone (born Tamás Erdélyi in Budapest in 1952) left the band in 1978, just four years after he and three pals from Queens started playing together. But what a time that was! Dismissed as barely musical, as cartoon toughs in their leather jackets and pseudo-sibling last name singing such silliness as "Beat on the Brat With a Baseball Bat" — well, they were those things. And that was the whole point. The loved rock, the visceral, dangerous, romantic and stupid spirit of the rock of their childhoods. Pop music at that time had lost a lot of that, and for those kids had lost its fun. So the mission was clear: Spirit means more than skills.
The spark took and the impact was profound, and quick, reverberating in London, Los Angeles, pretty much everywhere, and well beyond music easily labeled as punk.
But this isn't about history — you know all that. This is about today, and the impact that is still being felt, 40 years after the band began, nearly 20 since it played its last show in 1996 and, with Tommy's passing, after all the originals have died, the drummer preceded by singer Joey in 2001, bassist Dee Dee in 2002 and guitarist Johnny in 2004.
Right now there's a punk-fueled garage-rock renaissance happening, a community of young bands and artists embracing those same values, with their own fresh spirit.
One of the best is the Texas-originated OBN III's, named for singer Orville Bateman Neeley III. Their latest album, a quickie concert recording that's part of a Live in San Francisco series documenting the new garage-rock scene, shows a lot of pre-Ramones influence, notably from Iggy & the Stooges and the MC5. But without the Ramones you wonder if this band and others of their generation would ever have even heard that earlier music. And there's no doubt from a listen that the Ramones are a very heavy presence, starting with the power-chorded rush of "Off the Grid."
Hold on to your hats!
But if you want irrefutable evidence of the Ramones' presence here, just listen to the start of the album's last song, "No Time for the Blues," reprised from the recent studio album Third Time to Harm. Every time a band starts a song with a rapid-fire "1-2-3-4" it's a hearty toast to those four young men from Queens.
Plane lands in Honduras with women, children migrants from US
The most recent plane of migrants deported from the U.S. landed in Honduras Monday.
The plane carried 38 women and children who had been held at a detention center in New Mexico. U.S. officials say there are many more to come. L.A. Times reporter Cindy Carcamo was at the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula when the plane arrived.
"They were processed through the center, put on a bus to be taken into other areas of the city, such as a shelter, a bus terminal," Carcamo told Take Two.
Rift widens between Michelle Obama and school officials on lunch reforms
This week, the School Nutrition Association is holding its annual convention in Boston.
Thousands of school nutrition professionals from across the country will be there, '80s rockers "Huey Lewis and the News" will perform, but one key player in the good nutrition movement will not be there, even though he specifically asked to speak at the conference — he's celebrity chef Sam Kass, first lady Michelle Obama's food policy czar.
Politico's food and agriculture reporter Helena Bottemiller Evich joins Take Two for more on why he was snubbed and the heated battle over school lunches.
Archie dies taking a bullet for his gay friend in next 'Life With Archie' comic
"Archie" fans are in for a shock Wednesday: The Riverdale redhead will die.
In the upcoming issue of "Life with Archie," Archie dies trying to save his openly gay friend Kevin Keller — who's married, a military veteran, U.S. Senator and gun control supporter — from an assassination attempt by a stalker.
It's way more heavy stuff than whether Archie will choose Betty or Veronica. (But don't worry: this is all in a parallel universe. That contest of love still happens in the series, "Archie.")
Turns out that Take Two producer Courtney Cox is a huge Archie fan, and had mixed feelings about the news.
"Couldn't be my Archie," she told A Martinez, "My Archie's not going to die unless he's deciding between his two loves, and he decides to save them instead of himself."
"I couldn't imagine such a dark theme, and it weaves in every major kind of story line that we've talked about in the news the past couple of years," she said.
But Jon Goldwater, publisher and co-CEO of Archie Comics and son to Archie's creator John Goldwater, says this series was developed because older readers liked the stories that went beyond between Team Betty and Team Veronica.
"It's really all the fans — some of which have stopped, like Courtney, reading Archie when they were 14, 15, 16 years old — who were able to pick it back up again because at least there were some other interesting story lines," said Goldwater.
This issue also lays down some heavily liberal undertones — a stalker tries to kill Kevin Keller, a gay U.S. Senator who supports gun control.
"We have a point of view here at Archie. I wouldn't say it's liberal, I would just say it's inclusive," says Goldwater. "I thought there were opportunities to show what Riverdale is all about. Riverdale is absolutely an open and welcoming place."
Goldwater also says the way Archie dies stays true to Riverdale's spirit and Archie as a character.
"This really is meant to be a positive story. Yes, he meets his demise, but he shows you he would take the bullet for you if he was your friend. Even if you’re a stranger, that’s just the kind of guy he is," he said.
"Life with Archie," #36 hits stores on Wednesday.
BP ends program to pay some who say they were affected by 2010 spill
The BP oil spill is considered the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
Four years ago, more than 200 million gallons of crude oil pumped into the Gulf of Mexico for a total of 87 days. In the wake of the spill, the British oil giant has been making payments to those affected by the incident.
But last month, BP stopped some of the payments they were making through an internal program.
Here with more is Jennifer Larino, business reporter at the Times-Picayune.
Geoff Morrell, BP America's Senior Vice President of U.S. Communications and External Affairs, said in a statement sent to Take Two:
“After four years, BP has concluded its formal claims programs. You'll recall that these programs were established immediately after the accident to process claims by individuals, businesses and governments. The individual and business claims program was later closed when the GCCF took over processing those claims. When the CSSP began operating in June 2012, the BP Claims Program for individual and business claims re-opened in order to process claims from claimants that are not members of the class established by the PSC settlement; that opted out of the settlement; or that wished to pursue certain types of claims reserved to them by the settlement.
Since the CSSP began operating in June 2012, the majority of individual and business claims that have been filed have been submitted to the CSSP. Indeed, very few claims were being submitted through the BP Claims Programs when this decision was made. And the fact is that 99% of the claims received by the BP Claims Program have been resolved as of June 22, 2014.
Importantly, the conclusion of the formal claims programs does not terminate any claimant's rights. It does not in any way affect the Court Supervised Settlement Program, which is managed independently under the supervision of the District Court and is accepting claims from class members. And anybody wishing to communicate with BP can do so directly, through the contacts noted on the website.
BP remains committed to paying all legitimate claims and to date has paid nearly $13 billion in claims and other payments to individuals, businesses and government entities.”
New study shows organic foods are more nutritious than nonorganic
There's a new study out of Washington State University that's come to the conclusion that organic fruits and veggies are actually healthier for you than conventionally grown food. While this might sound like the headline from every one of your activist friend's forwarded e-mails, it actually might be true.
On the line to explain is Chuck Benbrook who co-authored the study.
Creating patrons of the arts through crowdfunding
Artists who publish their work on the Internet might hit it big and find thousands, even millions of fans. But, in a world where online content has become virtually free, those supporters might not produce a penny for the artist.
Grace Rubenstein explains how a new company in San Francisco is helping creative people turn art lovers' affection into cash.
Feathered fossil shines light on dinosaur flight
A new discovery was announced today that sounds like something straight out of science fiction: A four-winged dinosaur.
A paper published today in Nature Communications describes a fossil of a 125 million-year-old flying dinosaur. Its discovery provides new insight into dinosaur flight. The fossil was discovered by local people in a forested area of northeastern China and an international team led by a local paleontologist stepped in to study it.
That paleontologist is Dr. Luis Chiappe of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. He joins Take Two to talk about the discovery.