Today on the show, an ex-sheriff deputy describes culture of abuse at LA County jail. Then, children crossing the US-Mexico border alone are being sent to military bases for shelter. Plus, a new exhibit about children's author Ezra Jack Keats, a look at the strange world of agents who represent kid actors, the story behind Nike's #BeTrue line for LGBT athletes, and more.
Ex-sheriff deputy describes culture of abuse at LA County jail
More details are coming out about a culture of abuse at L.A. County Men's Central Jail, after former sheriff's deputy Gilbert Michel testified this week about his participation in that culture.
He described beating inmates for no reason, shooting them with a Taser gun and picking fights on purpose. His testimony is part of a broader probe into corruption within the Department.
"This is an ongoing investigation that remains open," LA Times reporter Victoria Kim tells Take Two. "It could lead to additional charges."
Car2Go hopes to help South Bay residents ditch their cars
What if you could rent a car by the minute and leave it in any parking space when you're done? That's the pitch behind a new car-sharing service, backed by German luxury carmaker Daimler.
KPCC's Ben Bergman says it launches in the South Bay tomorrow.
The story behind Nike's #BeTrue line for LGBT athletes
Nike debuts its new line of clothing today, #BeTrue, the slogan for its collection inspired by LGBT athletes. It's available in Nike stores throughout the country, but the story of how this line came to be started well before the names Jason Collins or Michael Sam made headlines.
"The LGBT sports movement wasn't really acting as a movement," says
, co-founder of OutSports. So three years ago, Nike, he and other activists got together to host the LGBT Sports Summit.
"We brought all of the top players to Portland during gay pride month to talk about how we can become a movement."
A coalition was formed that has met every year since, and Nike helped fund it through the sales of the #BeTrue line. But even then, the line was only available in just three stores throughout the country.
"They didn't know what the reaction was going to be," says Ziegler. "They were afraid of alienating their customer base."
That was in 2012, and the #BeTrue products were popular where they were sold. But this year, with LGBT pro athletes finding general acceptance among the public, Ziegler says Nike is doing what it can to spread the product even further.
"This year, they're diving in head first. They're realizing this isn't a hot button issue anymore, and they want to be the leaders on it."
The #BeTrue products are now available in four stores in Southern California, alone, and a more than a dozen more elsewhere around the country.
Italian court to decide if the 'Getty Bronze' will stay in LA
The Italian High Court is expected to rule soon on whether a 2,300-year-old statue should be returned to Italy.
The statue, known as both "Victorious Youth" and the "Getty Bronze," is on display at the J. Paul Getty Museum at the Getty Villa in Malibu. The Getty purchased the statue in 1977, but in 2012, a lower court in Italy ordered the statue be handed over. The Getty then appealed the decision to the higher court.
Wall Street Journal art market reporter Kelly Crow joins Take Two to talk about the significance of the statue and what the ruling could mean for the art world.
'The Snowy Day': The art of Ezra Jack Keats at the Skirball Center
Children's book author and illustrator Ezra Jack Keats grew up in a poor Jewish household in Brooklyn, New York in the early 1920s. A creative child, he spent his days cobbling together artwork with scraps and discarded paint his father brought home from his job as a waiter.
Growing up in a diverse, working class community gave Keats early exposure to people of many different races, and to the discrimination that people of color suffered in the early 20th century.
His early experiences and his natural talent lead Keats to create one of the most important children's books of the 20th century, "The Snowy Day."
The award-winning book, published in 1962, was the first full-color picture book to feature an African-American as the central character. The story follows a young boy named Peter, on an adventure after waking up to a winter wonderland out his apartment window.
"He understood a problem, in terms of representation of African-American children, and he wanted to solve it," said Skirball Center curator Erin Clancy. "He said himself that his goal was to give every child a feeling of genuine self acceptance."
Keats died after suffering a heart attack in 1983, but his legacy lives on. Now, L.A.'s Skirball Center is celebrating this book with a complete interactive exhibit. Clancy takes Take Two on a personal tour of the exhibit and explains why Keats was so important.
Interview Highlights:
How African-Americans were portrayed in children's books before Ezra Jack Keats:
"We have just a few examples of the history of representation of African-American children in children's books, starting with the very first example, which was "Little Black Sambo" (1899). It is an example of the kinds of representation that you find, which are racially stereotyped, not positive images of African-American life. Until maybe the 1950s and '60s, it was a part of the American consciousness. Up until Keats' day, there was a push to have more positive reflections of African-American characters, but they were primarily through the lens of integration."
The inspiration for the little boy in "The Snowy Day":
One of the more controversial images from the book:
Keats makes use of collage:
What happens to unaccompanied children crossing the US-Mexico border?
The number of unaccompanied children coming across the U.S.-Mexico border has spiked in recent months.
As many as 60,000 kids could be apprehended crossing the border this year, officials say, which is nearly 10 times the number that came in 2011.
RELATED: Emergency shelter for unaccompanied migrant kids opening in Ventura County
Federal agents are having a tough time processing all of these kids and finding places to house them. One measure includes using two military bases as temporary shelters, and one is here in California's Ventura County.
KPCC's Immigration and Emerging Communities Reporter Leslie Berestein-Rojas explains to Alex Cohen what this facility looks like and what happens to children staying there.
Then, A Martinez speaks with Wendy Young of Kids in Need of Defense (KIND), which provides free legal support to these children. Young says that the number of kids is increasing so rapidly, her lawyers can't keep up.
Last original Navajo Code talker dies
The last original Navajo Code Talker died Wednesday. Chester Nez was one of the 29 men who used their native language to devise an unbreakable code that helped win World War II. From the Fronteras Desk, Laurel Morales has this remembrance.
During World War II the Japanese had cracked code after code the U.S. military devised. Then a Marine, who had been raised on the Navajo Nation by white missionaries, suggested enlisting the help of the Navajo tribe. They became known as the code talkers.
Navajo, or Dine as it’s called, is a spoken language. And few non-Navajos understand its complexities. Chester Nez and his fellow code talkers first developed an alphabet using every day Navajo words to represent letters, like the Navajo word for ant became “A.”
The platoon came up with words for military terms. In Navajo there is no word for bomb. So they called it an egg. A fighter plane was the Navajo word for hummingbird.
“The Japanese tried everything in their power to try to decipher our code but they never succeeded,” Nez said in a 2011 interview.
Nez and his fellow code talkers were faced with many cultural challenges at war. The Navajo believe when you encounter a dead body, that person’s spirit stays with you.
“They were all around me,” Nez said. “I actually see them alongside my bed.”
His family performed a ceremony called the “enemy way” to cleanse him.
When Nez and the others had arrived home in 1945 there was no fanfare because the code talker program was a secret. It was so successful the military continued to use the code until 1968.
Finally in 2000, then-New Mexico Sen. Jeff Bingaman introduced legislation to honor the code talkers. The following year — nearly six decades after the code was written — President George W. Bush awarded them Congressional Gold Medals.
“Today we give these exceptional marines the recognition they earned so long ago,” Bush said.
Chester Nez stood tall, puffed out his chest and saluted the president, while the crowd — including many code talker families — gave a standing ovation.
Growing up in New Mexico, Nez and many of his fellow Navajos were punished for speaking their language. Judith Avila helped Nez write his memoir titled "Code Talker."
In the 1920s she says Nez attended one of many government-run boarding schools that tried to erase Indian culture and language.
“And it was extremely ironic one of the very things they were forbidden to do — speak Navajo — ended up helping save us during the war,” Avila said.
Being asked asked to devise a code using the same language the government had tried to wipe out came as a shock to Nez.
“I often think about the things that I went through all the hardships and everything like that,” Nez said.
Today with so many people leaving the reservation, many fear their language is dying. Nez hoped Navajo children would learn the story of the code talkers, so they would understand just how critical it is to speak their own language.
Chester Nez was the father of six children. He died Wednesday at the age of 93.
San Gabriel Valley school district brings back clay art classes
In today's digital world, technology is increasingly the backdrop to everything that happens in high school. Many districts are heading toward tech plans that give each student a laptop or tablet, but as most schools push toward new technology, some are also embracing the old.
KPCC's Mary Plummer brings you this story from the San Gabriel Valley, just northeast of Los Angeles.
Could online poker become legal in California?
As of now, online poker is legal in just three states - Nevada, New Jersey and Delaware, but this type of gaming could be coming to California.
After years of disagreements, 13 major California tribes have finally settled on legislation that would legalize poker online. But one major tribe isn't in on the deal: Southern California's Morongo, says Jonathan Grotenstein from All In Magazine.
"This is a response in many ways to an announcement that took place a couple of weeks ago... where lawmakers sat down with different parties who are interested in the poker outcome to sort of figure out a plan of attack for getting something done."
"One of the news stories that came out of that was an alliance that was formed between Morongo, which is one of the bigger indian casinos, with PokerStars, who is the biggest online poker room in the world, catering only to clients outside of the United States. They also teamed up with a couple of old brick and mortar casinos... to form an alliance that would then create the legislation that would go into practice. The 13... indian casinos... were left out of that compact. So this is their opportunity to come in and say no, this is our plan."
So, the back and forth has become a battle between tribes with different interests.
"One of the interesting characteristics of the plan that they presented was that poker stars... would be excluded from operating in California, at least at the onset, so that would give them a chance to create some sort of market advantage before poker stars is allowed to come in as the 800 pound gorilla."
While online poker is only legal in a few places in the U.S., according to Grotenstein, the entire world is watching to see how this shakes out in California, because it has the potential to be such a big market for online gambling.
"One of the big issues that's facing online poker... is that there needs to be a large enough player pool to have it make sense for people. They need to know that when they log onto the Internet that there's going to be a game going whether it's the middle of the night or the middle of the day... PokerStars allows that to happen. PokerStars has a huge pool of players that they can immediately introduce into the market. It's one of the reasons that everybody wants to get into California. California will immediately have the largest pool of players of any state in the union once it begins."
There are also plenty of interests, besides the tribes who are interested in this deal.
"What makes it particularly complicated is that California is also facing opposition from outside the state. Sheldon Adelson, who's a big republican fundraiser has spent a lot of money trying to make sure that online poker does not pass in California."
Adelson is also the CEO of Las Vegas Sands Corporation. They own casinos around the world, including the Venetian. So, he has a vested interested in keeping people showing up at his casinos doors, rather than getting their gambling fix online.
But if people can open up their computer's browser and start gambling, could it keep them from heading to already established casinos? Grotenstein says that casinos did see an uptick in foot traffic when online gambling was shut down in 2011. However, it's unclear whether they'll be cannibalizing themselves by pushing forward legislation like this.
"Quick answer to that is we don't know. The people who are involved in the brick and mortar casinos and indian casinos are all worried that this is going to damage their business, but there is some credibility to the idea that a rising tide will help all boats that are involved in everything that's going on. That is, more and more people are interested in poker and playing poker again online. Those people are also going to make trips to their local casinos to play tournaments and have the experience of a live game."
Bottom line... is online poker going to become legal in California?
"I do believe it's going to happen and I believe it'll happen by the end of this year."
The dramatic story behind the creation of FX's new show 'Tyrant'
The buzz surrounding FX's new show "Tyrant" started even before the pilot script was written. The brainchild of the Emmy-winning producers of Showtime's big hit "Homeland," the show set off a bidding war among TV networks.
Billed as "The Godfather" set in the Middle East, the tense drama follows the story of the son of a dictator drawn back into the ancestral and national politics of a fictional Middle Eastern country:
"Tyrant" looks and sounds incredibly dramatic, but it apparently has nothing on all the drama that's gone on behind the scenes. Since going into production, the show has been hit with a seemingly endless series of setbacks and controversies.
The Hollywood Reporter's Lacey Rose has been writing about the show's backstory and joins Take Two for more.
'Trust Me' explores the dark side of being a child actor
The new film "Trust Me" focuses on a struggling agent for child actors named Howard Holloway. He comes across a teenage girl names Lydia with a tremendous amount of talent, and tries to persuade her to let him represent her.
He makes his pitch to Lydia and her reluctant father over dinner, winning them over. But that isn't the end of his troubles, in fact, it's just the beginning.
The film was written and directed by Clark Gregg, who also stars in the film. He's also starred as Agent Phil Coulson in "The Avengers," "Thor" and in the TV show "Agents of Shield."