Obama and Xi Jinping meet to talk North Korea, cyberattacks; Sunnylands: A desert retreat for presidents, politicians and movie stars; Rev. Guy Erwin on becoming the Evangelical Lutheran Church's first openly gay bishop; Delays in border trade cost the US billions of dollars, and more.
Obama and Xi Jinping meet in Calif. desert to talk North Korea, cyberattacks
President Obama is headed to Southern California this morning, but he won't be in L.A. long before he heads out to the desert for a summit with Chinese president Xi Jinping. They'll be meeting at the opulent Sunnylands estate out in Rancho Mirage.
This is the first time that President Obama will meet with China's new leader since he assumed the presidency in March. Here with more is Clayton Dube, director of the U.S.-China Institute at USC and he's actually headed out to Rancho Mirage later today.
Sunnylands: A desert retreat for presidents, politicians and movie stars
Chinese President Xi Jinping arrives in California on Friday, and over the weekend Jinping will hold a summit with President Obama. What the two world leaders make of their meetings is crucial, and a 20,000-square-foot residence in Rancho Mirage will play a role in hosting the discussions.
The Sunnylands estate is a mid-century modern architecture masterpiece, now doubling as a diplomatic host site. It was commissioned by Walter and Leonore Annenberg in 1963, and former president Dwight Eisenhower was among its first guests when it was completed in 1966.
To architectural and culture writer Edward Lifson, the '60s period during the building’s conception represented the best of American culture. “(It was) the height of American power, American optimism, and America’s message of democracy to the world,” he said. “I hope some of this rubs off on the summit."
Lifson says more important than the time period is the building’s unique structure. The estate’s architect, A. Quincy Jones, was what Lifson called “the quintessential Southern California mid-century modernist," and the building’s structure is marked by clean lines and extensive amounts of glass.
The building’s roof, known as a statement roof, is also special in that it makes a pyramid shape, a form derived from Mayan design. The building is also well in tune with the nature which envelops it. The area is surrounded by the San Jacinto Mountains, and according to Lifson, nearly every room in the house is connected to a garden, pond, or offers a scenic view of the mountainous backdrop.
Besides the eloquent views, the facility has precedent for playing host to America’s current and former leaders. Lifson said every president since Richard Nixon has visited the home, recollecting how George H.W. Bush enjoyed fishing on the grounds and that Ronald Reagan celebrated every New Year’s Eve of his presidency on site.
It makes poetic sense too for Obama to host the Chinese leader there as well, and Lifson hopes the open structure sends the correct message to its temporary residents.
“It fits in and it brings the outside in,” he said when talking Sunnylands hosting this weekend’s summit. “I hope that they understand here the value of transparency, and I hope some of that rubs off on the state leaders.”
Friday Flashback: Job numbers, San Onofre, NSA phone records and more
New job numbers show the economy is holding its own, but just barely. The Senate is set to debate an immigration reform bill next week, but Republicans in the House are pushing back against some key provisions.
As we've been reporting this morning, the troubled San Onofre nuclear plant is closing, but perhaps the biggest story this week — if not the month — is the revelation that the National Security Agency has been perusing millions of Americans' phone records.
We'll look into all this and more in today's Friday Flashback, featuring Matthew Cooper, national correspondent for the National Journal and James Rainey, political columnist for the LA Times.
Rev. Guy Erwin on becoming the Evangelical Lutheran Church's first openly gay bishop
Recently the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America elected its first openly gay bishop to oversee churches in Southern California. The move followed the church's decision nearly four years ago to allow openly gay men and lesbians to serve as clergy.
We'll talk with Reverend Guy Erwin about his new role, and what it means to be the first openly gay bishop.
Delays in border trade cost the US billions of dollars
Time is money anywhere, but especially at the US-Mexico border. The U.S. and Mexico trade more than a billion dollars in goods every day, and all that commerce comes through land crossings that spread from California to Texas.
The problem is once that commercial traffic reaches the border it runs into long bottlenecks. In part two of the Fronteras Desk's series on delays at the border, Mónica Ortiz Uribe reports on the economic consequences and reaction in the U.S. Congress.
RELATED: See part 1 of the Fronteras Desk's series
What the San Onofre closure means for the nuclear power industry
This morning, we're following breaking news on the San Onofre nuclear plant. Southern California Edison announced in a press release that it is closing the generating station due to uncertainty over the plant's future.
RELATED: SoCal Edison plans to permanently shut down San Onofre nuclear plant (photos)
KPCC's Ed Joyce fills us in on the latest. Then, David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer who once worked for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and who directs the nuclear safety program for the Union of Concerned Scientists, joins the show with more on what closure of the San Onofre plant means for the nuclear power industry.
RELATED: Opponents, critics cheer San Onofre nuclear plant shutdown
Picture This: Seeing the world through photographer Koci Hernandez's iPhone
Time now for another installment of Picture This, our regular series of talks with photographers about their craft. This time we look at the world through the lens of an iPhone.
RELATED: AudioVision — Follow This @Koci
If you're on the photo-sharing app Instagram, chances are you've come across the work of Richard Koci Hernandez. He has more than 160,000 followers and he's become something of an evangelist of a new form of "mobile social photography."
RELATED: The 24 Hour Project/Workshop - A New World of Social Photography
Richard Koci Hernandez joins the show from UC Berkeley, where he teaches new media in the school of journalism.
Natural History Museum asks Angelenos to be scientists in new learning lab (Photos)
LA's Natural History Museum is celebrating its 100th anniversary with new exhibits, parties, and an expansive outdoor garden. The new green space is more than a new attraction, and it'll also function as a research laboratory.
As KPCC's Hayley Fox reports, it is part of a project called Bioscan, and they are looking for some new recruits.
What it was like to cover the trial of 'Night Stalker' Richard Ramirez
Serial killer Richard Ramirez died this morning of natural causes at Marin General Hospital while awaiting execution on death row at San Quentin State Prison. Ramirez, dubbed the Night Stalker, had been convicted of murdering thirteen people in Southern California in 1984 and 1985.
LAPD Chief Charlie Beck released an official statement on Ramirez's death:
"The death of Richard Ramirez in prison today closes a dark chapter in the history of Los Angeles. Let's not forget the victims who suffered at his hands and the victims' families who are still suffering with the memories of their lost loved ones."
For more on Richard Ramirez, we're joined by Pasadena Star-News editor Frank Girardot, who covered the trial for the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner.
RELATED: 'Night Stalker' Richard Ramirez dies of natural causes; serial killer terrorized SoCal in '80s
Interview Highlights:
What the atmosphere was like in Los Angeles during the time:
"In the '80s, it certainly was not like today, there weren't pagers and cell phones and all these ways of communicating socially instantly, people lived almost like they did in the "Mad Men" era, so newspapers drove a lot of the coverage of this. From March to June it became increasingly more horrible as women were turning up dead in apartments and old people were turning up dead after break-ins and satanic symbols were being left behind at some of these crime scenes."
On why it took so long to figure out that the killings were connected:
"Initially it was unexplainable, a coroner's investigator — talking to homicide investigators, who weren't talking to each other — was able to say, 'Hey you know a lot of these crimes have some similarity to them and perhaps they're related.' At that point the sheriff's department, the LAPD, the coroner, the Glendale PD, put together a task force that was devoted to tracking down Ramirez and putting him behind bars."
How Ramirez finally got caught:
"At first the clues were not great at the crime scene, in fact, I think the only thing that they had was a shoe print. But as more and more of these crimes occurred they were able to get more defining information. In late August, the police finally figured out that the guy they were looking for was named Richard Ramirez.
"What they did was put out a photograph of him to the newspapers. The newspapers were on a rack at a liquor store. Ramirez walks in sees a picture of him, mumbles something about it being him, runs out of the liquor store, goes to steal a car and everybody in the neighborhood has this idea that there's this guy stealing a car, he's probably the Night Stalker because he looks like this picture I just saw in the newspaper. They grabbed him, beat him and held him for the police."
What it was like to cover the Ramirez trial:
"Trial itself was pretty crazy, it's certainly like nothing you can imagine happening here today. It was televised, it lasted several weeks, it involved a lot of gruesome testimony and a lot of theatrics from the defendant. He would draw pentagrams on his hand, and hold it up for the cameras, he would smile at people.
"At one point a juror was killed, turns out it was by her boyfriend, but it was certainly a scary time. Ultimately, in October he was found guilty and sentenced to death. Then you have this whole story about the death penalty. Here is this guy who's been on death row since almost 1989 and he dies by natural causes. It's an unusual end to this long saga of terror that really gripped Southern California in 1985."