Today is Primary Election day! We'll check in on voter turnout so far at the polls. Then, rooftop solar could see boost after new EPA rules on carbon cuts. Plus, a surge of migrants in South Texas overwhelms federal facilities, what skills are lost as emphasis on handwriting fades? Medicare will now cover sex change surgery, and more.
Rooftop solar could see boost after new EPA rules on carbon cuts
The Obama Administration this week outlined new rules to combat climate change, including cuts to carbon emissions from existing power plants. The goal is to reduce emissions by 30 percent from 2005 levels before the year 2030.
This could mean big changes in the energy sector.
RELATED: FAQ: What do the EPA's new climate rules for existing power plants mean?
While much of the focus often goes to large-scale projects, such as wind and solar farms, some of the most promising changes could come at the local level, as more residents look to renewable sources.
"There's really a lot of movement on interconnecting solar installations to the grid and producing more and more of our energy close to home," Judith Lewis Mernit, reporter and contributing editor to High Country News, tells Take Two.
In California, rooftop solar has increased by more than 80 percent in the last year, says Mernit, due in large part to Chinese manufacturers flooding the market with cheap panels.
Mernit calls the new EPA rules a "technology-forcing regulation" that could spur the renewable energy sector.
Amateur astronomers take control of NASA's 36-year-old ISEE-3 satellite
Since the 1957 launch of the first space satellite, Sputnik, tens of thousands of spacecraft have been sent into space. Many of them are no longer in operation — they're basically zombies continuing to float through space with no purpose.
Last week, a group of citizen scientists was able to make contact with a satellite that hasn't been used in 17 years. It's called the International Sun Earth Explorer or ISEE-3 and it was launched by NASA in 1978.
Here to tell us why they made contact is Keith Cowing, co-founder of the ISEE-3 REBOOT Project and a former NASA scientist.
Reason for increase in SoCal quakes a mystery to scientists
As most Angelenos know, there have been a lot of earthquakes in Southern California lately.
Over the past five months, there have been five earthquakes measuring 4.0 or greater. A string of quakes like that hasn't occurred since 1994, the year of the Northridge Earthquake.
LA Times quake reporter Ron Lin joins the show with more. Click on "Listen Now" in the upper left to hear the interview.
Small California county is immune to voter apathy
Voters across the country are headed to the polls today, but in California, some speculate that turnout today could hit a record low.
RELATED: KPCC's MyBallot voters guide for the 2014 primary elections
The race for Governor is seemingly a done deal and there are no citizen-initiated statewide ballot measures to drive people to the polls, so experts are predicting many voters will stay home.
But there's one pocket of California that's the exception to the rule — in the small mountain community of Sierra County, 73 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the last gubernatorial primary, the highest percentage for any county in California.
Heather Foster, the county clerk-recorder in Sierra County, spoke with Take Two about why the residents of Sierra County are such reliable voters.
Using trauma-informed approach to help poor students
In the second part of our series “Teaching Through Trauma,” KPCC’s Annie Gilbertson visits Camino Nuevo, a charter school whose mission is to improve the grades—and lives—of disadvantaged students.
Los Angeles public schools — where more than 80 percent of students live in poverty — illustrate the challenges for these students. Less than half of third graders in L.A. Unified read at grade level and 20 percent of students will have dropped out by senior year.
But researchers also offer hope. They said the right interventions can make a difference. And one school in MacArthur Park is battling biology by helping children with life as well as school — to growing success.
Qatar's bid for World Cup 2022 in doubt after bribe allegations
The World Cup kicks off in less than two weeks, but FIFA, the governing body of soccer, is in the hot seat for a date down the line: Qatar in 2022.
Qatar is scheduled to host the coveted tournament that year, but new revelations on how FIFA awarded the bid to Qatar has prompted a storm of controversy.
Alex Capstick, sports correspondent with the BBC World Service, joins Take Two to talk about internal documents that came to light this week that allegedly show corruption and bribery in Qatar's bid.
Tuesday Reviewsday: Jack White, Matisyahu, Parquet Courts and more
Time for Tuesday Reviewsday, our weekly new music segment. Joining us this week is Shirley Halperin, music editor at The Hollywood Reporter and Chris Martins, news editor at Spin Magazine
Shirley's Picks
Artist: Matisyahu
Album: Akeda (pronouncd ah-kay-duh)
Songs: “Watch the Walls Melt Down" “Confidence”
When Matisyahu first came on the scene a decade ago, his rap felt like a shtick — a Hasidic Jew singing Reggae – and his first album, live at Stubb’s, an iconic barbeque joint in Austin, an oxymoron.
In the five albums since, he’s dropped a lot of what first put him on the radar: he no longer sports the traditional beard and attire of the pious -- “Got it on the inside, don’t need to wear it out.”
And his brand of hip-hop has also evolved – but sonically. Check out the wall of horns that kicks off.
Have to give Matisyahu credit for being way ahead of the curve – right now on the pop charts pop-reggae is making its presence known with groups like Magic! and the Kongos. In a way, Matisyahu was truly prescient.
Elsewhere on Akeda, Matthew Miller, aka Matisyahu, looks inward with themes of isolation, emotional conflict -- the bio that accompanies the album doesn’t mince words. “Processing complex feelings of betrayal from former friends and fans, as well the breakdown of longstanding relationships.”
He still references his religion, name-checks Fred Flinstone (for keeping his feet planted to the ground) and comes full circle with a song like “Confidence” featuring reggae artist Collie Buddz.
Artist: Jack White
Album: Lazaretto
Songs: “Just One Drink” “Lazaretto”
And now for orthodoxy of another kind.
Jack White has taken upon himself to preserve the sanctity of music-making down to its most primitive form: analog on wax. But where he’ll usually spend only a few week making most of his records, this one took 18 months but actually goes back 19 years.
According to White’s own telling of how his “second LP as a solo artist and his 45th LP as a producer” came together, the album was inspired by a pile of one-page short stories and plays that he found in his attic. Written in Detroit when he was 19, half his current age of 38, Jack White reconstructed stories from snippets of these pages and transformed them into characters and songs.
In the notes that accompany the album, White goes to great pains to explain that the album is genre-less and that’s certainly true of the title track, "Lazaretto."
As if to try and entice you even more, White also presents part two of a three song trilogy, the first of which was heard on the White Stripes seminal album Icky Thump. “When the third song will appear is anyone’s guess,” he writes.
In fact, he does keep us guessing at every career turn. Now living in Nashville, where he’s set up shop with a record store, live space, record making operation, you can hear the city’s influence in songs like “Just One Drink."
What’s consistent here is the nonstop risk-taking which has become Jack White’s hallmark – and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
Chris's Picks
Artist: F--ked Up
Album: Glass Boys
Songs: "Paper the House" "Glass Boys"
Artist: Parquet Courts
Album: Sunbathing Animal (Mom+Pop)
Songs: "Duckin and Dodgin" "Instant Disassembly"
Surge of migrants in South Texas overwhelms federal facilities
A notable uptick in Central American families and unaccompanied children coming across the U.S.-Mexico border is overwhelming federal facilities in South Texas. As Jude Joffe-Block reports from the Fronteras Desk, border agents in Arizona are concerned about the safety of women and children coming through the desert.
At the Greyhound bus station in Tucson, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has dropped off about 100 migrant women and children in recent days.
One is Yesenia Flores from Honduras. She said she, her husband and her 14-year-old son were caught trying to cross through Texas illegally.
Flores said three relatives were just murdered.
“For that reason we came,” she said.
She said there were threats that her husband was going to be next.
He was sent to a detention facility in Texas. But Flores said she and her son were transferred several times and ultimately flown to Arizona, where federal agents are helping to relieve the strain on Texas.
In a statement, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Tucson Sector said it is "assisting with the processing of illegal immigrants, many of whom are family units, apprehended in South Texas."
Migrants are then transferred to ICE where that agency decides whether they should be held in a detention facility. According to ICE, those who are released must report to their nearest ICE office within 15 days.
On Monday, ICE released Flores and her son to stay with family members in Maryland. There they must attend their deportation court hearings in immigration court.
But there was a problem. Flores was released to the bus station, but did not have money for a ticket, or even food.
“Not even a cent,” Flores said.
Local immigrant rights advocates have been coming here with food and phones to help recently released migrants contact family members who can buy their bus tickets.
One advocate, Jim Steinman, said there are just too many migrants to help.
“It is just overwhelming,” Steinman said. “We can't deal with it as just a few volunteers.”
The large number of migrants dropped here on Monday night prompted Greyhound to dispatch an extra bus.
The station closes from 12:30 a.m. to 4:30 a.m., which means those waiting for morning buses would have had to wait outside for the night or find shelter in Tucson.
LA County urged to get more unauthorized immigrants insured
The millions of people in the U.S. illegally are not covered by the Affordable Care Act.
Until a couple of weeks ago, immigrants in California had hoped a bill in the state legislature would let them get Medi-Cal or a state subsidy to buy private health insurance. But that bill has stalled and its future is uncertain.
As KPCC's Adrian Florido reports, immigrant advocates in southern California are now looking more locally for help. Advocates push L.A. County to insure more unauthorized immigrants
Transgender Victory: Medicare now covers gender reassignment surgery
Medicare will now cover gender reassignment surgery, ending a 33-year ban.
It's a legal victory for transgender people, and the decision means the government recognizes the procedures are medically necessary for those who don't identify with their biological sex.
It's the latest in a string of cases that have moved the ball forward for transgender rights advocates.
Ilona Turner, legal director at the Transgender Law Center, talks with Alex Cohen for more of the case that prompted the change.
Will Seattle's plan to raise minimum wage spur increases elsewhere?
The Seattle city council has voted to raise the minimum wage in that city to $15 an hour, the highest minimum wage in the country by far.
So what effect could this have in Seattle and beyond? For more we're joined by Chris Tilly, director for the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.
What skills are lost as handwriting instruction fades?
With our reliance on smart phones, tablets and laptops we've gained a lot of conveniences, but could it be that we're also loosing a key developmental tool?
That's what many researchers are beginning to believe, and there's growing evidence that there's a huge link between handwriting and they way we learn, not only as children, but as adults.
We talk about the disappearance of handwriting, and what we should do with Maria Konnikova, a contributing writer for The New Yorker online, who wrote about this topic recently in the New York Times.
After remarkable recovery, injured pelican will be released today
"Pink" the pelican made headlines back in April when he was found severely injured in Long Beach, with his throat pouch almost completely sliced from his bill.
The California brown pelican was weak and starving when he arrived at International Bird Rescue's bird hospital in San Pedro, but after two surgeries he's made a remarkable recovery. Today, he's scheduled to be released back into the wild.
Erica Lander, Wildlife Center Manager with International Bird Rescue, joins Take Two for more on the pelican's recovery and release.
'The Worst Haircut Ever': A viral sensation and now a children's book
We're all familiar with viral videos — Gangnam Style, Rebecca Black's Friday — But viral audio? That's a much less common phenomenon.
One great example is public radio reporter Jeff Cohen's Two Little Girls Explain The Worst Haircut Ever. It told the tale of his two daughters, 5-year-old Sadie and 3-year-old Eva, and what happened when one of them gives the other a haircut. Cohen taped an interview with them about their story, which has now been turned into a picture book.
Jeff Cohen joins Alex Cohen to share more of the story behind the book, "Eva and Sadie and the Worst Haircut EVER!” Hear the interview by clicking "Listen Now" in the upper left.