A local pastor responds to the deadly shooting at a church in South Carolina, a look at the psychology of water conservation.
Orange County AME reverend reflects on South Carolina shooting
Three men and six women died in a shooting Wednesday night during a bible study session inside of the historic Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
The suspect of the shooting has been identified as 21-year-old Dylann Roof. Police are calling the shooting a hate crime.
Rev. Mark E. Whitlock, pastor at Christ Our Redeemer, African Methodist Episcopal Church in Irvine, shared his response to the shooting. Whitlock says at this time the church is praying for peace. “We must deal with gun control and making sure that the church is a place of peace and that the people who come to church are protected. We must not allow this to disturb the members of every congregation, because when the church is not a safe place where is?"
Click on the blue player above to listen to the interview
FCC moves ahead on plan to expand Internet to low-income households
The FCC took a step forward in bringing broadband Internet to millions of homes at a subsidized rate. Commissioners voted Thursday along party lines, 3-2, to review and modernize the federal program, known as Lifeline.
The proposal still needs to go through a lengthy process before taking effect, but supporters hailed it as a much-needed overhaul to a program that began in the 1980s to bring telephone access to the nation's poor.
Restricted access
"To not provide the Internet is like saying, here kids, you need to learn to read, but we’re not going to give you the book," said Jessica Gonzalez, executive vice president and general counsel for the National Hispanic Media Coalition. "People are getting access to healthcare, access to social services, access to really basic necessities via the Internet. And so, those without it are really being left behind."
That access is strongly linked to factors like income and education. Less than half, or 43 percent, of people making under $25,000 a year have broadband access, according to data from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. That compares to over 93 percent for households making more than $100,000.
Also, one in two low-income Americans have cancelled or suspended their smartphone service due to financial hardship.
"Lifeline is critical because it’s the only federal initiative that addresses the digital divide," said Gonzalez. "Yes, there are a few other private initiatives to get more people connected to the Internet, but those could go away at any moment, whereas Lifeline would be a sustained effort to connect people who find it hard to connect because of cost."
Calls for reform
Lifeline began in 1985 to provide discount phone service for low-income Americans. To qualify, a family of four must earn at or below 135 percent of federal poverty levels, or about $36,000. At its peak in 2012, about 18 million households subscribed to phone and Internet services through Lifeline. California has the highest number of households enrolled in Lifeline at 1.2 million.
But the program has come under scrutiny.
In 2012, the Government Accountability Office found evidence of waste and fraud, including examples where a household had signed up for more than one account.
Some lawmakers voiced concerns about Lifeline at a congressional hearing earlier this month.
Senator Kelly Ayotte, Republican of New Hampshire, questioned whether the physical nuts and bolts are in place to support a bigger program, especially for those living outside cities.
"You can expand it all you want, but if you don’t have the infrastructure in rural America, you’re not going to have an ability to expand broadband or access to broadband whatsoever," said Sen. Ayotte at the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on June 2.
In response, the FCC says it’s now on a more “stable footing” since putting reforms in place, to include cutting spending by nearly a quarter, or 24 percent. The number of enrolled households has also dropped, from 18 million in 2012 to 12 million in 2014, an indication, it says that the program has rooted out abuse. The GAO said in March 2015, that the agency had fully implemented seven of the 11 recommended reforms, with partial progress on the other four.
Closing the digital divide
On a recent afternoon at the Bell Technology Center, 7-year-old Madelyne Tenorio worked on a robotics project as two other girls tapped away on iPads.
They were taking part in a technology class aimed at boosting computer skills and getting more kids and families from the area online. According to census data on income, race and citizenship, Bell – and surrounding cities in Southeast L.A. – has one of the lowest connectivity rates in the county.
"It's important because everything these days is done through computers," said Mireya Lopez, Madelyne's mother, in Spanish. "I think it's best to start [teaching them] when they're young."
Madelyne's favorite reason for going online is "discovering new things," she said, and wants to teach tech classes one day herself.
"It would really benefit this area, in particular, because we have a lot of families on the Lifeline phone program and they would qualify for the broadband program," said Cesar Zaldivar-Motts, executive director of the Southeast Community Development Corporation. The non-profit runs the classes at the Bell Technology Center, with support from the city of Bell.
"It will bring a lot of opportunity," he said.
Amazon may deliver to your doorstep...using drones
Amazon announced that it is working on a similar plan to deliver you certain, smaller items in a half hour or less. Just like pizza!
That's what the company told a House Oversight Committee on Wednesday, when it mentioned its idea of delivering items to people's doorsteps using drones.
Now, don't get too excited – the prospect of using commercial drones to deliver packages is probably years away. But it's never too early to start thinking about the implications.
Missy Cummings, director of Duke University's Humans and Autonomy Laboratory, teaches about drone technology. She explained more about the logistics and economics of how a system could work.
Drought psychology: Convincing wealthy communities to conserve
When Gov. Jerry Brown called for 25 percent water cutbacks in April, most communities complied.
One exception: Rancho Santa Fe, a very wealthy community in San Diego County where water consumption spiked nine percent after the request. As of July 1, residents there face water rationing for the first time ever. Water bills could triple for violators, and the water district might even install flow restrictors, or even turn off the water.
Residents are -- to put it mildly -- resistant to these new rules. So, how to get them on board? For the answer, we turned to Joe Priester, who teaches social psychology and marketing at USC's Marshall School of Business.
State of Affairs: State budget deal, Obama arrives in CA
On this week's State of Affairs, lawmakers reach a budget deal with Governor Brown, advocates for the developmentally disabled protest outside the state capitol, and President Obama arrives in CA.
Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, USC Professor of the Practice of Public Policy Communication, and Katie Orr, state government reporter for Capital Public Radio, join Take Two.
The Wheel Thing: Car makers find marketing tool in video games
Think E3, the big video game conference, and think masses of quasi-nerdy gamers drooling over ultra-high def screens.
They're ecstatic over shoot-em ups, wild about battling demons in fantasy worlds, and aching to explore the edges of space.
And they're nuts about racing cars.
As the OC Register's Susan Carpenter tells us, car companies now see video games as an important arrow in their marketing quiver, and they're hustling to make deals with video game producers.
Read Susan's OC Register story.
TV coverage of women's sports less than it was in 1989
Women's sports have come a very long way in the last quarter century. More women and girls are playing sports, and corporate interest in female athletes as pitch people has increased too.
But you wouldn't guess it from watching TV news.
Last year, Los Angeles local news affiliates dedicated a little over three percent of airtime to women's sports. That's down from five percent back in 1989. On ESPN's SportsCenter, women's sports made up just two percent of its coverage.
Researchers at the University of Southern California and Purdue University crunched the numbers for a new report on women's sports coverage dating back 25 years.
Michael Messner, co-author of the study and professor of sociology and gender studies at USC, and
, USA Today sports columnist and commentator, join Take Two for a discussion about media coverage of women's sports.
To hear the full interview, click the link above.
Watts Riots revisted with Grand Performances' Aftershocks series
This summer marks 50 years since the Watts Riots.
For six days, the neighborhood descended into chaos. Plumes of smokes billowed in the sky as buildings burned and stores were looted. The unrest resulted in the deaths of 34 people, and more than $40 million in damage.
It was all sparked by a routine traffic stop -- when a white California Highway Patrol officer pulled over a black motorist.
The events of 1965 marked a pivotal moment in U.S. race relations, and they'll be explored in a series of free events called 'Aftershocks.' It's part of the Grand Performances summer concert series, which begins this weekend in downtown L.A. Take Two will be part of the series, with pre-show conversations called "downSTAGE with Take Two" about the impact of the Watts unrest.
Alex Cohen speaks with Leigh Ann Hahn, director of programming for Grand Performances and Karl "Dice Raw" Jenkins from the Roots. He'll perform his hip hop musical "The Last Jimmy," on July 17.
Click on the blue player above to listen to the interview.