Metro's Crenshaw line expansion causes closures on the 405 freeway, remembering American playwright Sam Shepard, a wave of scams hit Southern California.
What's going on with the 405 freeway this time?
It isn't quite Carmageddon, but tonight more construction is set to begin on the west side's most major freeway: The 405.
This time, it's part of Metro's expansion of the Crenshaw line.
"Those words just kind of bring a chill to our blood: '405 closure,'" KPCC transportation reporter, Meghan McCarty Carino told Take Two's A Martinez. "But this is actually a series of nighttime closures. So they won't affect the daily commute."
The 405 will shut down Monday through Friday from 10 p.m. to 5 a.m. beginning tonight and will continue until August 15th. McCarty Corino explained that most the construction will affect areas around LAX.
"Some nights it will be all of the lanes on the northbound or southbound lanes, some of the nights it will be just a few lanes or the HOV lanes."
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above
PR experts give USC an F in crisis management
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story mistakenly reported the University of Southern California knew about Dr. Puliafito's illicit drug use "for years". According to the university, USC had received a number of complaints about Dr. Puliafito over the years. But in 2016 when Puliafito resigned, "no university leader was aware of any illegal or illicit activities, which would have led to a review of his clinical responsibilities." KPCC sincerely regrets the error.
Just when you thought things couldn't get worse for USC, there's more news about how the school handled bad behavior from its former medical school dean.
"USC knew about a number of complaints against Puliafito throughout the years," according to the LA Times, though the university says no official was aware that any of his activities was illegal or illicit."
Now that the story has grown into a scandal, how should an institution like USC mitigate the blow back?
To find out, Take Two's A Martinez spoke with Dan Loeterman. He's Vice President of Public Relations and Crisis Management at Cerrell Associates, an LA based communications firm.
To hear the full talk with Dan Loeterman, click on the media player above.
UC Irvine faces backlash for rescinding admissions to nearly 500 students
Last week, nearly 500 incoming freshmen at UC Irvine were told their admissions were rescinded, two months before classes begin.
Many students were told their revoked admissions were because they didn't submit paperwork, or had poor senior year grades. Hundreds of students are now filing appeals.
But how does something like this even happen?
For answers, Take Two spoke with Scott Jaschik, Editor at Inside Higher Ed.
How common is it for students to have their admissions revoked?
"There are always a few cases of this, a student fails out senior year, or is found to have plagiarized a paper... this does happen. What's unusual here is the number, usually we're talking about a few, not hundreds. [500] is a lot, and it is true that when you're admitted to college you get a letter that says "to come here you have to send in your final transcript, and you have to fill out these forms." It is not at all unheard of to have students ignore those notes, but usually the process is they're pestered and they get the forms in, not that they have their admissions offers revoked."
What is the university's explanation?
"The university acknowledges that they are enforcing the rules more rigorously this year. They deny that it is because many more freshmen said they were going to come than the university expected. Many people find it more than a coincidence that in a year that they have so many more students coming, that they are moving to tougher enforcement - so they're not getting believed. They deny it is due to [over-enrollment], but they've got a lot of extra students. It is certainly true that no one knows exactly how many freshman will show up. But, typically there are formulas and patterns to follow, and you don't have this number. You read every fall about a college that has 50 extra freshmen, and so they turn doubles into triples and it all works out, because over the fall some students drop out. But this magnitude of change really is obviously problematic to a lot of people."
What's next for these students?
"The university has said it will look at every case of students who appeal. And some of the students say that they actually did submit the forms, that it is an error. So the university is promising to do something. They're getting an awful lot of bad publicity and angry parents, angry students, it would not shock me if we see some loosening of the rules, or perhaps extra efforts to help these students."
California 2018 health insurance rates come out Tuesday, and they'll likely be higher
How to protect yourself from online and phone scams
The LAPD and FBI joined forces last week to warn L.A. parents about a scam.
Dozens of U.S. families have gotten calls from strangers and those people claim to have kidnapped their children.
But the children aren't kidnapped.
These so-called "virtual kidnappings" for ransom are the latest scam to come to light in California, but it's been encountered in other parts of the country for years.
"Scams like this ... start in one part of the country and then they tend to migrate around ... This is just making it's way to California now.," Steven Weisman, told Take Two's A Martinez. Weisman head of the website Scamicide, which keeps track of the various modern con-jobs.
"Whenever you get a phone call from someone that asks for personal information, and it can be 'Oh there's been a problem with your bank account, there's been a problem with your credit card account.' They'll make it seem like an emergency, you have to respond, provide them the information. But you can never be sure who really is calling."
On how these sorts of crimes are carried out.
"Identity is hi-tech low-tech and no-tech. Much of it is done over the phone calling people ... Some people will steal mail from your mailbox or even steal mail from postal service mailboxes looking for checks that they can wash and counterfeit. They're looking for credit card statements and information like that. Right now cyber criminals can operate from anywhere."
On the sort of people that can be affected by this
"There are people who are on social security and getting phone scams in a way that it is someone calling, purportedly from the social security organizations, saying they are not going to be getting living adjustment unless they provide confirming information including a social security number.
"Millenials on the other hand, who are pretty savvy, quite often are also too trusting of technology and are not taking the steps they need to protect themselves from particularly cyber related crimes. Clicking on links to download malware that can steal their information from their portable devices."
On the options that are available to you if you are the victim of a scam
"In California, you've got the Consumer Protection Division of your Attorney General's office, which is very very helpful. The Federal Trade Commission is probably the largest and best organization, as far as the federal government goes, to deal with these. They'll have regional offices. Those would be the two best bets. But the best thing is to avoid these scams."
Answers have been edited for clarity.
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above.
On the Lot: Remembering Sam Shepard
Sam Shepard, Pulitzer prize winning playwright, screenwriter, actor and director, passed away last Thursday. News of his death broke this morning. His work spans over half a century, but perhaps his most iconic role was in "The Right Stuff," where he plays the legendary test pilot, Chuck Yeager:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0fY2GZ6Fg8
Vanity Fair's Hollywood correspondent reflects with A Martinez on Shepard's legacy, for this week's On the Lot.
Plus, Dunkirk dominated the box office once again, but there's another Oscar contender in its midst: Kathyrn Bigelow's "Detroit."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-2_1tUnIWM
To listen to the full segment, click the blue play button above.
‘If He Hollers Let Him Go’ captures the maddening racism of WW II-era LA
When author Chester Himes came to L.A. in the early 1940's, the city was bustling.
People from all over the country migrated here to help the war effort and many expected L.A. to accept them. Los Angeles had the reputation as a place they could live without prejudice.
The truth was that the city was hardly devoid of racism, and the heartbreak of that realization led Chester Himes to write the seminal novel, "If He Hollers Let Him Go."
That's the subject of Take Two's newest installment of "The California Canon: Great books from the Golden State," as told by
. He's a book editor and critic, and founder of the Libros Schmibros Lending Library.
Working in the LA shipyard as a black worker
It's about a guy names Bob Jones. He's an African American. He's arrived, fairy recently, in Los Angeles. The war has just begun and he's got a job in a shipyard down in the harbor. He's just been promoted to what they call leaderman, meaning he's supervising other people, including many, if not most of them, a lot of white racists who don't particularly love this. He's got a fancier title but no power whatsoever.
The prejudice that Bob Jones experiences on the job goes well beyond whispers behind his back or even name calling. You're talking about a confined space in the bowels of a half built ship and men working with heavy tools. There is the threat, more often unstated but at times quite overt, of physical violence. And there's a lot of sexual tension because this one woman, Madge, is flirting with Bob but there's almost a hostility behind the flirting.... This would be an incredibly claustrophobic place for him to try and earn a living and even retain a shred of dignity.
So fast-paced, it reads like an action movie
This is a punchy, staccato, propulsive novel.... And then, the book ends in a chase in which the physics of it, the sheer spatial design of it, it is instantly visual in a reader's brain.... Bob is simmering and at a certain point, he can't take it anymore. And so the novel heads toward a real eruption of a climax. It's a picture of Los Angeles that seems familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
To understand the present, we look to the past
There are at least two ways to look at this. You could look back at the Los Angeles of "If He Hollers Let Him Go" and think, oh my god, what an absolutely, starkly, violently divided city that was. As bad as things may sometimes look nowadays, look at the progress we've made. Then again, one could look at the same milieu and think, are we still dealing with this now? Are we not passed this now? And so for that reason, this is a book that I think we can read today not just as Angelenos with affection but also as people living in a flawed society looking for antecedents from which to find some sort of bumbling way forward.
Quotes edited for clarity and brevity.