Today on the show, we start with a look at whether the House GOP will be able to pass migrant crisis legislation before August recess. Then, why aren't Nicaraguans migrating to the U.S.? Plus, you can now add whooping cough vaccination to your back-to-school list, frustrated, a young immigrant returns to Mexico, Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries on his meeting with President Obama and much more.
With recess looming, will House GOP pass plan to mitigate border crisis?
Congress is wrapping up business before members leave for the August recess on Friday.
Among the items on the agenda is legislation to deal with the surge of children crossing the U.S.- Mexico border. President Obama earlier proposed an almost $4 billion package to deal with the more than 57,000 migrants coming into the country from Central America in recent months.
House Republicans are looking to slim that proposal down.
Josh Gerstein, senior White House reporter for POLITICO, joins the show to explain.
Why Nicaraguans aren't migrating to the US
Over the last couple of months, the U.S. has experienced an upsurge in unaccompanied children from Central America crossing into the country illegally.
While most of these children come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, we've seen few children coming from Nicaragua, which is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere after Haiti.
Manuel Orozco, Senior Fellow at the Inter-American Dialogue in Washington DC, joins the show to explain.
CalArts residency program aims to turn artists into teachers
In the world of arts education, there are several kinds of arts educators. KPCC's Mary Plummer looks at the role of teaching artists and brings you this story on a new effort out of the California Institute of the Arts.
Father Greg Boyle on his meeting with President Obama
President Obama was in California last week for several big fundraisers, a speech at Los Angeles Trade Technical College and a brief meeting with Father Gregory Boyle.
Father Boyle is the founder of L.A.'s Homeboy Industries, an organization which helps former gang members turn their lives around with job training, counseling and tattoo removal. The president met with Father Boyle and four teens as part of his 'My Brother's Keeper' initiative aimed at improving opportunities for young men and boys of color.
Father Boyle joins Take Two to discuss his meeting with the president.
Add whooping cough vaccination to your back-to-school list
Believe it or not, Los Angeles Unified students head back to school in just two weeks.
As families prepare for the Back to School season, here’s another task to add to the list: Vaccinations against whooping cough. KPCC’s health reporter Rebecca Plevin joins us to talk about this, especially in the context of the state’s whooping cough epidemic.
Police searching for man with tuberculosis in Northern California
Police and public health officials in Northern California are on the hunt for a man with tuberculosis who's refused treatment and could be contagious.
Last week, San Joaquin County prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Eduardo Rosas Cruz, who went missing before completing treatment for the lung infection. He's also of particular concern to health officials because he's from a part of Mexico that's known for a drug-resistant strain of TB.
Law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, the founding dean of the University of California, Irvine School of Law, joins Take Two to discuss the legal issues that arise when a person refuses treatment for an illness that poses a public health threat.
On The Lot: 'Mad Max,' Comic-Con recap, Quentin Tarantino and more
Comic-Con came to an end this weekend, and we've got plenty of announcements to cover. One of them being the trailer for the new "Mad Max" movie, which made its way to the Internet yesterday.
Rebecca Keegan of the Los Angeles Times joins Take Two for the latest Hollywood news.
We start with a recap of Comic-Con. There were some big announcements around big projects this year, including "Mad Max."
Zack Snyder, who directed "300" and "Watchmen," also released stills of Wonder Woman from his upcoming movie "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice." What do you think? How does she look different than past Wonder Women?
Speaking of movies with a lot of violence, Quentin Tarantino is going to make the movie whose script leaked online, "The Hateful Eight." Did he ever figure out who leaked it? Do you think the leak could impact sales?
The trailer for the Batkid documentary also came out. The story is of a 5-year-old kid named Miles Scott who was diagnosed with Leukemia. The Make A Wish foundation turned San Francisco into Gotham City for him, and made him into Batman. Thousands of people showed up to watch.
Now they're trying to raise money to finish the documentary via a crowdfunding website. What was the reaction like at Comic-Con? Any update on how Batkid is doing?
The state of Florida is suing a visual FX company co-founded by James Cameron of "Avatar" fame for $82 million. Speaking of "Avatar," China wants to make its own. Why?
NY Times editorial board says US must repeal pot prohibition
Yesterday, the New York Times created quite a buzz by publishing an editorial titled "Repeal Prohibition, Again." Here's the argument they made:
"There are no perfect answers to people's legitimate concerns about marijuana use. But neither are there such answers about tobacco or alcohol, and we believe that on every level - health effects, the impact on society and law-and-order issues - the balance falls squarely on the side of national legalization."
When it comes to marijuana, are there lessons to be learned from our country's experience with repealing alcohol prohibition?
For more on that, we're joined by Amanda Reiman, the marijuana policy manager for the Drug Policy Alliance.
Trade, migration and climate change top Gov. Brown's agenda in Mexico
California Governor Jerry Brown is in Mexico today promoting investment and trade. He's joined by about a hundred delegates representing various business interests.
But this trip isn't just about economic cooperation. Governor Brown is also expected to address climate change and the rise in unaccompanied children crossing the US-Mexico border. For more, we're joined by AP reporter Judy Lin.
Goodbye, America: Frustrated, a young immigrant returns to Mexico
During the 2012 presidential campaign, Republican candidate Mitt Romney proposed self-deportation as a solution for dealing with the millions of immigrants that are in this country without documentation.
Democrats pounced on this statement, and even some Romney supporters said it didn't seem like a well-thought out plan. But Pew Research Center, in the five years between 2005 and 2010, almost a million and a half Mexican citizens in the U.S. returned to their home country.
A key reason: they couldn't find suitable work.
From public station KUOW in Seattle, reporter Liz Jones offers this profile of one man in his early 30s, who's returning to Mexico after living here for almost half his life.
Market growing for GIS mapping systems
When fire departments prepare for rising temperatures or when Starbucks decides where to put a new location, they use maps. Not just any maps, computerized mapping called Geographical Information Systems or GIS. Over the years, the market for GIS has grown to between $3-4 billion a year.
KPCC's Business Reporter Brian Watt has the story.
Photos of 3 pups show lone wolf OR-7 is a father
On Take Two, we've talked a fair bit about the wolf known as OR-7. The wolf roamed alone for many miles through Oregon, into California, and back - his movements tracked by a GPS equipped collar.
Now, photos of three wolf pups have been taken in Oregon's Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest and U.S. Fish and Wildlife confirms, everyone's favorite wandering wolf — OR-7 — is indeed their dad.
For more on the pups and their pop, Take Two checks in with wolf expert David Moskowitz, who recently completed an expedition to retrace OR-7's journey through the California and Oregon wild.
Study: Does your pooch get jealous?
Dogs are known as man's best friend. They have always been known for their loyalty, but every now and then, even the most loyal dog gets bitten by the green-eyed monster.
Canine jealousy is something psychologist Christine Harris put to the test. Her recent study, "Jealousy in Dogs," demonstrated that it is possible for dogs to show signs of jealousy, indicating that jealousy is more primordial than recently believed. She joins Take Two to talk more about it.
Israeli creator of 'Homeland' moves new production from Jerusalem amid conflict
This fall, the USA network will premiere a new original series called "Dig." The show revolves around an FBI agent stationed in Jerusalem played by Jason Isaacs. While investigating a murder, he uncovers a conspiracy 2000 years in the making.
"Dig" is the first ever large-scale production to be filmed in Jerusalem, but recently they had to stop production due to the current conflict between Israel and Gaza.
Last Friday we talked to the show's creator, Gideon Raff, also the creator of the hit "Homeland," which returns for its fourth season this fall on Showtime.
Raff said having been born and raised in Jerusalem, he was excited to bring his city to American audiences in a new light. He was able to complete the pilot over three months of shooting before the conflict heated up and he had to call off production there.
Raff is now scouting other international locations to find a stand-in for the Holy City.
For more on this, you can listen to the segment in the upper lefthand corner.
Digging up history at Jerusalem's City of David
The upcoming USA series, "Dig," created by Gideon Raff, is a fictional drama about archaeology in Jerusalem. But there's plenty of real life drama in the world of archaeology there, especially at a dig site called the City of David.
It's one of the biggest tourist attractions in Jerusalem and it's become a flashpoint in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
The dig extends into a Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem, and sits in the shadow of some of the the holiest sites for Muslims and Jews, the Al Aqsa mosque and the temple mount.
Archaeologist Raphael Greenberg of Tel Aviv University said the field of archaeology in Jerusalem has never been an impartial science. Ever since the first archaeologists came from Europe to dig up the city's past, the puzzle of history has been interpreted through the ideas and beliefs of the people holding the shovel.
Now, the Israeli Antiquities Authority, which oversees archaeological digs in the country, has turned over the City of David site to an organization called Elad, which has a strong ideological objective to stake a biblical claim to ancient parts of the city and resettle those areas with Jews.
Greenberg said it is important for archaeologists to recognize their own bias as they uncover and present the past and for everyone at the negotiating table to be open to the other side's interpretation of history.