Rumors swirl that Jeffrey Deitch will resign as MOCA director; A new Pew study shows that a growing number of Latinos get their news in English. Can Univision's new English-language channel take off? Al-Jazeera hopes to break ground in American news market; USC under investigation for handling of sexual assault cases; Peña Nieto proposes opening Mexico's oil reserves to foreign companies, plue more.
Snowden to stay in Moscow airport for now
There were reports earlier today that NSA leaker Edward Snowden was preparing to leave the airport transit area where he has apparently been holed up for the last month. Right now it appears he, contrary to previous reports, doesn't have the paperwork to leave the airport and enter Russia.
Meanwhile, the US House of Representatives is preparing for a vote that would limit the National Security Agency's domestic spying program.
Rumors swirl that Jeffrey Deitch will resign as MOCA director
When the board of the Museum of Contemporary Art, or MOCA, meets today it's widely believed that the museum's director, Jeffrey Deitch, will resign. Rumors started swirling Tuesday that Deitch would be leaving his post, just three years into a five-year contract.
For more on this and what it means for L.A.'s art world, we're joined by Kelly Crow, a reporter who covers the art market for The Wall Street Journal.
Study: Growing number of Latinos get their news in English
A new study from the Pew Hispanic Center finds an ever increasing number of Latinos turn to English language news outlets. More than four out of five Hispanic adults now say they get at least some of their news in English.
As might be expected, second and third-generation Latinos are much more likely to consume news in English. We talk to the co-author of the study, Mark Hugo Lopez.
Fusion: Univision en Inglés
As the audience of English-speaking Latinos grows, Univision and ABC are banking on its viewing power. The two media giants are teaming up to create a new 24-hour cable channel called Fusion.
It's the first English-language effort for Univision, and it's also its first chance to stake a claim on this exploding demographic.
Six companies in some of the largest Hispanic markets have already signed on, including Cablevision, Charter, Cox, AT&T U-verse, Verizon FiOS and Google Fiber.
Jorge Ramos, Leon Krauze, Derrick Ashong and Alicia Menendez will all anchor shows covering news and lifestyle content, current events, pop culture, politics, food, tech, music, film, entertainment, health and wellness, etc.
Isaac Lee, president for news at Univision, joins the show from Miami with more.
Al-Jazeera hopes to break ground in American news market
The Qatar-based news network Al-Jazeera is coming to America.
Starting August 20th, Al-Jazeera America will begin broadcasting 24/7 live coverage of American news. In addition to around-the-clock news coverage, Al-Jazeera America executives say that the network will be an unbiased source of news.
In order to gain a foothold in the American market, Al-Jazeera America will have to establish itself as different from well-entrenched networks like CNN and FOX.
Here to discuss Al-Jazeera's future in America is NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik.
Sports Roundup: Ryan Braun, the Dodgers and more
Drugs, murder and ice cream can only mean one thing: It's time for a look at sports. We're joined by Andy and Brian Kamenetzky who've covered sports for the L.A. Times and ESPN.
Although his drug test for performance-enhancing drugs was invalidated, Milwaukee Brewers slugger Ryan Braun has been suspended for the rest of the season. Braun was the 2011 National League MVP, just barely beating Matt Kemp of the Dodgers.
The MLB is pushing to punish star players for using PEDs, but by doing so, the league is keeping the story in the headlines. Is punishing these players worth it?
Aaron Hernandez's situation keeps looking bleaker by the day. The former NFL star could be facing a double homicide charge from last year.
It's been almost 20 years since an NFL game was played in Los Angeles, but that dry spell could be coming to an end.
The Dodgers are in first place after winning 11 of their last 13 games. What does the hot streak mean for the team and their employees?
President Obama addresses the US economy in Illinois speech
This morning, President Obama traveled to Illinois to give what the White House billed as a major address on the economy.
Local Congresswoman Judy Chu represents the 27th district, which covers Pasadena all the way out to Upland and down to Monterey Park. She met with President Obama yesterday and joins us today to talk about Obama's message.
Peña Nieto proposes opening Mexico's oil reserves to foreign companies
Mexico sits on nearly 14 billion barrels of oil, and for more than 75 years, only the country's government-owned oil company PEMEX could tap it. But oil production has been slipping, and in just a few years the country could end up having to import more oil than in exports.
President Enrique Peña Nieto is proposing something radical: opening up Mexico's oil reserves to exploration by foreign companies. That move is a major political gamble.
Tim Johnson, a Mexico City-based reporter for McClatchy newspapers joins the show to explain.
Students campaigning against sexual assault join forces online
This week, USC joined a growing list of colleges under federal investigation for its handling of sexual assault on campus.
One of the women who filed a federal complaint has blogged about being raped by an ex-boyfriend, and she's not alone. Students across the country are using the Internet to bring attention to sexual assault cases they believe are being ignored by their schools.
Many of these women are part of a group called the IX Network. It's a coalition of students across the nation who are demanding their colleges change the way they deal with sexual violence.
We're joined by Annie Clark, a recent graduate from University of North Carolina and a member of the IX Network.
App Chat: The latest and greatest summer eating apps
Today we're launching a new segment about useful smartphones apps for everyday life, and we're using summertime as inspiration to kick it off.
If you're like us, your favorite thing to do on a hot day isn't sitting by the pool or playing in the park, it's eating. Everything from salads of fresh fruits and vegetables, to grilled meats and delicious drinks.
It's all so lovely, except for the whole shopping, cooking and organization part. Jacqui Cheng is Editor at Large with Ars Technica, she joined us with recommendations with her favorite summer cooking apps.
Basil:
This is a great all-around cooking app that's useful if you tend to collect recipes from all over the web. If people are like me, I have a million bookmarks to different recipes I've found online and they're not really collected in a central, easy-to-use place.
This app lets you search among the major recipe sites, but also has a browser bookmarklet so you can send recipes to Basil when you come across them while surfing the Web. Then you can load up Basil on your iPhone/iPad and the recipes will be there, and you can edit them to fit your own preferences. If you like to substitute things (I do) or leave certain ingredients out, you can basically customize all these recipes within Basil and still keep them organized in one app. -- Jacqui Cheng
Grill-it!:
This app is cool for a few reasons. First, it lets you search by different kinds of meats & vegetables (beef, pork, vegetables, seafood) and learn how to best season & grill each different cut so it turns out perfectly. Everyone loves grilling in the summer (and it's not something most of us can do during any other part of the year), but not everyone knows how to treat meat on the grill differently than they would indoors. You can also share recipes via e-mail or Facebook, or save them to your favorites so you can come back to them later. Always nice features.
Secondly, if you have questions about any techniques or recipes, there's a button built-in that allows you to ask a question via e-mail or Twitter, and the app's creators will give you some grilling advice directly. This is amazing, to be honest. Most app developers would never do this because it would mean too many e-mails/tweets to respond to, but these guys do it for some reason and it has helped out a lot of people. -- Jacqui Cheng
Food Intolerances:
This app is one that a friend recommended to me. It basically allows you to look up each type of food and see exactly what's in it (including fruits and vegetables), and the purpose is obviously so you can be extra-careful if you're cooking or preparing food for someone with intolerances.
I think the reason this is useful for summer is because there are always a ton of cookouts and family gatherings in the summer, so we're always cooking or going to a pot luck with a bunch of other people who might have intolerances. Also, my friend pointed out that this app is cool because it's not US-centric, so there are some diverse foods included like pickled eggs and whatnot. -- Jacqui Cheng
Big Oven:
This is a cool app I just started using. At its base, it's another app like Basil that lets you enter your own recipes or import recipes from the Web. One of the features I like a lot is the menu planning feature. I like to plan out an entire week's worth of meals before I go shopping (or even just so I can plan my day), and this app lays it out for you so you can make notes for each day on the calendar and reference back to it when you're shopping or looking for ideas.
My second favorite feature is the "use up leftovers" button, which lets you select ingredients that you have leftover or sitting in your fridge, and then it suggests recipes to you that use those ingredients. This is really useful if you're trying to use anything (not just leftovers), cuz we've all been there with a ton of beets or something, trying to figure out what to make with it. Again, this could be useful for after cookouts or parties, when you have a ton of stuff leftover and want ideas for how to put it together later. -- Jacqui Cheng
'Fairyland': Memoir of a girl raised in San Francisco's gay community
In 1973, when she was just two years old, Alysia Abbott's mother was killed in a car accident. Her father, bisexual writer and activist Steve Abbott, decided to raise her on his own in San Francisco as a single parent in the midst of a cultural revolution.
Alysia Abbott writes about their relationship and what it was like growing up in San Francisco during the height of the AIDS crisis in her new book, "Fairyland: A Memoir of My Father."
Abbott joins the show to talk about how she first learned her father was gay, what it was like growing up with a single gay father and why she chose that particular image for the cover of her book.
Interview Highlights:
On the photo on the cover of her book:
"It reminds me a bit of Tatum and Ryan O'Neal from 'Paper Moon,'" a father-daughter story. He takes her and they live on the road pulling schemes. I felt that was a little bit like my father and I. We were living outside the rules of society in our own private relationship and romance. So I see that romance in the photograph."
On when she first understood that her father was gay:
"Once I entered school, I started really taking notice of what families looked like and how they looked on television and how they looked in magazines. This is what a family looked like. I knew that I didn't have a mother, which I really wanted, so I, even at some points as a child, asked my dad why he couldn't date girls. He said that he had friends who were girls but he was more interested in boys, and that was a little hard for me...felt that I wanted a family that mirrored the families I saw around me.
On her parents' relationship:
"It was difficult for me when I found the journals showing the last year of my mother's life…I was too young when she died. So here I had this opportunity to see her living, but what I was seeing was a lot of tension between my parents. That he was in love with another man, and they were still together, but this love he had for this other man was so profound for my father that he would write love letters and poems to him. I think in my mind, growing up I had believed that my mother was the one he was madly in love with. Somehow, as a child, I foolishly believed that he was so in love with her that it turned him gay. He couldn't be with another woman because my mother died and it broke his heart so much."
On imagining what her live would've been like had her mother lived:
"I spent a lot of time imagining that as a child because I believed that it was more convenient for me to imagine an alternative world where my mother had lived, my parents would stay together, my father wouldn't be gay…But if she had lived, they may have divorced. If they had divorced, I may have lived with her…I wouldn't have lived with my father, and so much of who I am today is a product of being raised by my father. And I'm happy. It was a wonderful world that he created and brought me into."
On taking care of her father after he got AIDS:
"That chapter in our lives was coming off of my spending three and-a-half years abroad…I wasn't watching him decline, so by the time he wanted me to move out, I had a very hard time processing the reality that he was so sick he could die within six months to a year, because he was my everything. He was my mother, my father, my brother, my sister, he was my whole family. Ultimately, I'm really glad I had that opportunity."
Chris' Collection: 'Retro' tissue box
Chris Nichols is an editor at L.A. Magazine, but he's also a walking encyclopedia when it comes to Southern California's history. Every so often, he comes by and he brings in one of his treasures and gives us the backstory on it.
This week, he brings in a retro-looking tissue box that's not as old school as it looks. It was created by a local prop house, History for Hire, which specializes in making all kinds of historically accurate props. It was featured in the 2004 film, "The Aviator" starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
In addition to the production of the cardboard cutouts, History for Hire produces props for some of today's most popular TV shows and movies. Anything not currently in production or readily available is created from scratch.
"For 'Mad Men,' they said they had to make a can of shaving cream — the actual can didn't exist anymore — and they fashioned something out of a ping pong ball [can]," Nichols said.
But how close are these props to the real thing? Nichols is convinced that their props do justice to the saddles, cigarette packs or bottles of old.
"These guys are sticklers. Everything is just completely perfect, the stuff they do for these movies and the elaborate detail they go to," he said.
Want your own faux-vintage Kleenex box? You're in luck. Due to the numerous takes that require multiple fresh props, History for Hire often ends up with a surplus after the film or show wraps.
"They have a bunch of extras, so you can go in there and buy them for just a few bucks," Nichols said.
Certainly nothing to sneeze at.