Program will measure smog per neighborhood, the LAPD police dogs trained to sniff bomb vapors, two local teens were top picks in the MLB draft.
'It tears your heart out.' Rep. Linda Sanchez on shootings
At least five people were hit Wednesday morning when a shooter opened fire at Republican members, who were practicing for Friday's annual Congressional baseball game.
They include Republican Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the House Majority Whip. He is reported to be in critical condition after surgery.
Also among those shot: two Capitol Hill police officers who were members of Scalise's security detail. Witnesses described the shooter as a man with white hair and a beard, who stood behind the dugout and fired as many as 50 shots from a rifle.
President Trump says the shooter died after engaging in a gunfight with officers at the scene.
Both the New York Times and Washington Post have identified him as sixty-six-year-old James T. Hodgkinson of Belleville, Illinois.
For reaction to the morning's events, Take Two spoke to California Congresswoman Linda Sanchez. She's on the Democrat's team that's scheduled to face off with Republicans in a game Thursday night. Sanchez was at a practice some miles away this morning. She says she was out on the field doing drills when she got the news:
The coach unexpectedly called us into the dugout. He had a really grave look on his face. I knew something serious had happened. I was expecting to hear something had been attacked or bombed when told us there had been a shooting at the Republican team's baseball practice in Virginia this morning.
Press the blue play button above to hear the full interview.
UC Riverside wants to map out your neighborhood's smog levels
California is at the beginning of what looks like a stretch of long, hot days. That probably means more smog alerts.
Now, a new program is underway that's aimed at better understanding smog at the neighborhood level. Researchers at UC Riverside got money from NASA to develop a new kind of air pollution monitor.
And they have the perfect place to put them.
"Where we want them to be is right in the middle of the backyard," Darrel Jenerette, UCR professor, told Take Two's A Martinez.
Jenerette is the lead scientist on the project. Jenerette says it's all about finding information about smog on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood level.
"We're trying to really estimate what is the human experience of smog."
Jenerette and his team begin by mapping out the areas that they are most interested in studying. After that, they search for volunteers to help install the ozone detection devices in their backyards.
"It's a little give-and-take between finding the best design for the research question and then finding the citizen scientists who will give us the opportunity to actually conduct the research, he says."
Once they're installed, the machines measure ozone and temperature dynamics every ten seconds. Then they researchers combine that information with satellite data that ozone concentration measurements throughout the Southern California region.
"That should give us a better opportunity to estimate neighborhood scale variation and ozone and smog concentrations," Jenerette said.
The hope is that this new data will provide ideas to combat the smog in problematic areas. For instance, people who want to exercise in smoggy locations may be advised to do so at a lower altitude area to avoid getting sick.
And it could also give scientists data to advise politicians on actions that would help curb the smog. "We want to make this a better Southern California and we want these results to contribute to improving urban lives throughout the world," Jenerette says.
To find out how you can get a smog detection device installed in your backyard, check for an upcoming workshop near you.
Or call the Riverside-Corona Resource Conservation District at 951-683-7691, ext 223 or 207; or the Chino Basin District at 909-626-2711.
Press the blue play button above to hear the full interview.
How air quality advocates are trying to win over truck drivers... again
A plan to build huge water tunnels gets September deadline
When Southern California needs water, it takes a big gulp from the streams and waterways of Northern California.
One of those is the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and a multi-billion dollar plan years in the making could overhaul how we get our water from there.
And officials have announced that it will make a decision on that plan by September.
Jeffrey Mount, senior fellow of the Water Policy Center at the Public Policy Institute of California, joins Take Two to explain what's at stake.
Listen to the full interview by clicking the audio player above.
Meet Nellie: LA's vapor-sniffing police dog
The increase in terrorist attacks abroad has law enforcement agencies looking to new measures for protecting the public.
The attacks in Nice, Paris and the assault last month outside a concert in Manchester all targeted open public spaces. Now, the focus is on better safeguarding this type of location, known as "soft targets."
One new technique holds promise, capable of detecting explosives from a distance — and under the right conditions, with 98 percent accuracy.
Meet Nellie — a droopy eared, black Labrador Retriever and an important member of the LAPD's canine bomb-sniffing squad.
But these dogs don't identify potential dangers in the conventional way. They receive special training to small vapors emitted by explosives — a method considered much more effective than traditional means.
"She's a traditional and off-leash search dog. And a vapor-wake/person-borne dog," said Nellie's handler, Officer Tom Deluccia. That means Nellie can detect explosives on people who are moving by tracking microscopic and unseen particles of odor that travel through the air. "PB is the terminology we use for person-borne – meaning person-borne explosives or a person-borne bomber. In a nutshell, it's a suicide bomber."
Highlights
Training Nellie to find a bomb in a fixed location
So right now, I'm going to work her with a 6-foot-leash. We're going to do a 360 around this vehicle where I placed an explosive aid. And you're going to see how she alerts which is the passive alert where she's going to sit and state intently at the object. And I'm going to reward her and you're going to see the dynamic between us when she gets a find. You're going to see how animated she is. You'll also see how disciplined she in in her searching. How she doesn't pay attention to anything else but her work environment.
When I start working with her, I give her a basic command. I tell her, ‘search,’ ‘seek,’ ‘find it,’ so she know, that's what I'm suppose to do.
I don't have x-ray vision but her nose can smell thousands of times greater than a human's.
It helps us in the bomb squad know exactly where it is.... It narrows our search down to such a finite area where we can say, okay, I know it's in this car. But more importantly, I know it's in this part of the car.
I'll give her her Kong and at that point I'll say ‘what a good girl, good job, yeah buddy!’ And I'll pet her. Because she's got to know how grateful I am for the job she just did. This has to be fun for her because I ask her to do this thousands and thousands of times a year. So, it can't ever become mundane, or boring, or repetitive for her.
A change in environment, changes how Nellie and the team identify explosives
When we're in the PB or Vapor Wake mode, obviously she's not going to sit because that target is moving. So what happens is, she will actually dig her feet in, almost like she's in a full trot where she's running. And she will pull that leash so tight, it almost pulls my arm out of the socket. And she makes a B-line towards that subject.
Environmental factors are huge for us. If we're outside and there's not a lot of wind, it's a lot harder for us to work because we count on that... air current to help that odor travel into the dog's sniff zone.
If I'm indoors, the air is more confined but... you have air conditioning, air vents, things that can push that odor in another direction.
You have to become almost a tracker where you have to read the environmental signs.
The canine-handler bond
It takes a long time. And that's why, here at LAPD, we're fortunate that these dogs come home with us because the relationship doesn't just stop at work. It's a continual bonding process. So, when the dog comes home with me, I still play with her, pet her, love her. That rapport is continuing. She rides in the car with me in the morning when I come to work. She does home with me at night. So the bond, it's ongoing. After about 4 or 5 months, it's inseparable.
At home, Officer Deluccia is careful to set boundaries between Nellie and his family. Nellie does get to do "pet things" and gets to socialize with Deluccia's children, but at the end of the day, Nellie is property of the city and is used as as police "tool" to keep people safe.
And if Officer Deluccia leaves his current position, he also has to leave Nellie. But on the flip side, the handlers get to adopt the dogs when they reach retirement age.
Quotes edited for clarity and brevity.
To hear to entire visit with Nellie and Office Deluccia, click on the blue Media Player above.
Sports Roundup: a couple of California kids make it to the MLB
The Major League Baseball draft was held this week, and the top picks were both from California: Royce Lewis from Aliso Viejo and Hunter Greene from Sherman Oaks.
Last week we talked about Hunter Greene, and how he's a throwback to an earlier era of baseball because of his skill as a 2-way player ... one who is an equally good as hitter and pitcher.
We'll talk about the impact of a 2 way player, and what kind of an effect both Lewis and Greene may have with Andy and Brian Kamenetzky.