Today on the show, we'll start with an interview with House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. Then, Take Two's Jacob Margolis reviews Austin's breakfast tacos at SXSW. Plus, we learn how tsunami-prone California citied prepare for the next big wave, A restored Jackson Pollock "Mural" to be unveiled at Getty Museum, LA voters play a role in El Salvador elections and much more.
Nancy Pelosi talks immigration and midterm elections
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi was in town recently, for last weekend's Democratic Convention and to promote her Women's Economic Agenda. It's a way to reach single female voters, a group who tend to vote Democratic, but don't often turn out for midterm elections.
That makes them a particularly important demographic for the Democrats, who need to win 17 seats to win back a majority in the House.
"This message is not only a message, it's a statement of fact: when women succeed, American succeeds," said Pelosi. "The subtitle is, an economic agenda for women and families, and that's what it is, about fair pay in the work place, paid leave, and childcare."
Take Two's Alex Cohen recently sat down with Leader Pelosi and asked about the message of her Women's Economic Agenda.
On a discharge petition that would force a vote immigration in the House:
"We're going around listening to people in the organizations that have worked so hard for immigration reform to see if they'd be part of a campaign to say, 'Give us a vote now.' Discharge is one aspect of it, but give us a vote now. The votes are there in a bipartisan way to pass immigration reform. It's already passed in a bipartisan way in the Senate. We want a vote. And that will have an impact on people's lives, on America's success and of course also have an impact on our economy."
On whether that vote might be "no":
"It will be yes, it will be yes...We're just not going away until we pass this. I say all the time, I'd rather pass comprehensive immigration reform than win the election in November, because that is the most important thing, the most transformative thing that we can do for our society."
On people calling the President "Deporter-in-Chief
"On the deportation issue I share their concern and I myself have criticized some of the interpretation that the administration has of the law in terms of deportations I think they can be cut back, but the best way to eliminate them altogether is to pass comprehensive immigration reform."
On a shrinking Democratic delegation from California:
"Our California Democratic delegation is not shrinking. In fact, we added four new democrats to our delegation last time and this is the constant reinvigoration of Congress... Henry Waxman served magnificently for 40 years, how much more can you ask of someone?...New people come forward another generation of leadership for our state, we have enormous talent here."
New primary system adds challengers to Honda-Khanna House race
A Bay-Area congressional race got a bit more crowded last week. Thanks to the new "top two" primary system, Democratic incumbent Mike Honda is now facing four challengers, including three Republicans.
For more on how the recent changes to our primary system might impact other races in California, we're joined by Eric McGhee, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of CA.
How California's tsunami-prone cities plan for the next big wave
Three years ago today, a powerful earthquake and tsunami slammed into northeast Japan and laid waste to coastal towns in its path.
The tsunami's wide reach stretched all the way to northern California, and in Crescent City, one person was killed and the harbor was badly damaged.
Residents of the town weren't surprised by the tsunami. The town has been hit by 34 tsunamis in the last 80 years, so residents there have gotten used to them.
This month, Crescent City's harbor is reopening, and the city is commemorating the 50th anniversary of the tsunami that nearly destroyed the town.
Cindy Henderson is the Del Norte county emergency services manager. It's her job to prepare the community for the next big wave.
Obama extends protections for northern California coast
Today, President Obama will designate more that 1,600 acres of the northern California shore a National Monument. Here to tell us more about this move and this stretch of the Mendocino Coast, we're joined now Juliet Eilperin, White House reporter for the Washington Post.
SXSW 2014: How to make the perfect Austin breakfast taco (recipes)
While South by Southwest is all about the music, tech and film presentations, it's also about the food.
I've been trying to explore the city as much as possible, and even though I've eaten barbecue for breakfast, my biggest take away in terms of Austin cuisine has been the lack of breakfast burritos.
Unlike in California, they're all about the breakfast tacos in Austin.
As a native Los Angeleno and breakfast burrito consumer, I too was screaming "sacrilege!" when I heard this, but after tasting them, I realized I should give them a chance.
I went to Joe's Bakery with Armando Rayo, the Austin breakfast taco king, and author of "Austin Breakfast Tacos." The guy ate more than 200 breakfast tacos while writing his book, so he knows his stuff.
What can you expect when you order breakfast tacos at a place like Joe's? Well maybe some migas (corn chips mixed with eggs and veggies in a sort of scramble) or maybe just some straight forward beans and cheese and bacon, or barbacoa (we've got some recipes for tacos from Joe's below).
The thing about Joe's is that everything is homemade. The taco fillings, the tortillas. But when tourists come to Joe's, and they're from a place like California, where it's all about breakfast burritos. Like me, they have a hard time believing in the idea of breakfast tacos.
That's according to Regina Avila, whose family owns the restaurant. They've been making breakfast tacos and educating tourists since the 1960s.
"I get a lot of new faces, a lot of out of towners and they come and they want a burrito and I have to gently break it to them," said Avila. "We don't have burritos we have tacos, so that's kind of an education process in and of itself."
How did the breakfast taco come to be?
When immigrants came to Austin in the late 1800s, the tortilla, that perfectly edible Mexican tool, was eventually used to pick up the very Texan bacon and eggs.
But they didn't become a thing in the city until later.
Armando Rayo notes that they didn't pop up on menus in Austin until the 1970s, which was probably a result of needing to compete with fast food restaurants who had started serving breakfast.
After eating a few breakfast tacos, I'm certainly not an expert, but I can see an upside. You have more variety. More flavors. You don't have to commit to a giant gut bomb burrito, and that's quite nice.
But to be honest, Texas needs to take a page out of California's book and use more avocado.
AusTin Breakfast Taco Recipes:
Bacon and Egg Taco
1 tortilla of your choice
1 teaspoon oil in frying pan
1 egg, scrambled well with salt and pepper
1 bacon (coat it in all purpose flour before you put it on the grill).
Add bacon and egg to hot tortilla and fold.
Migas Con Todo Taco
1 teaspoon oil in frying pan
3/4 ounce onions
3/4 ounce tomatoes
3/4 ounce green jalapeno peppers
1/2 handful of corn tortilla chips
1 egg
1 tortilla of your choice
3/4 ounce shredded cheddar cheese
How to submit your cocktail to LA's signature drink search
London has the Pimm's Cup, New Orleans has the Sazerac, New York City has the Manhattan. Plenty of cities around the world proudly boast signature cocktails, but what about Los Angeles?
RELATED: Want a date? Learn to make classic cocktails!
Sure there is no shortage of fabulous libations to be found throughout the city, but what drink really says I love LA? The California Artisanal Distiller's Guild thinks it's high time for the city of Angels to have a drink of its own.
They've partnered up with the local Greenbar Distillery to sponsor a search for L.A.'s signature cocktail. For more on this, we're joined by Litty Matthews is one of Greenbar's founders.
RULES:
- Principal spirits must be vodka, gin, rum, whiskey or brandy and comprise more than half of all alcohol in the cocktail
- Secondary spirits can be any distilled spirit, liqueur or bitters and must comprise less than half of all alcohol in the cocktail
- All principal spirits must be made in LA county (qualifying distilleries: Greenbar ¦ greenbar.biz)
- Secondary spirits must be made in California (qualifying distilleries: members of the California Artisanal Distillers Guild ¦ cadsp.org)
- All fresh ingredients must be grown in California
- Drink must have 5 or fewer ingredients
- Drink must have a maximum of 2 oz alcohol, including spirits and liqueurs
- Drink must have at least 1 fresh ingredient other than citrus
- Recipe submission deadline is April 30, 2014 11:59 p.m.
More information about The Search for LA’s Signature cocktail and how to submit recipes is available at LAsCocktail.com. Spread the word on social media and share your thoughts using the hashtag
. And listen to our interview about the contest with the audio attached on the left.
Tuesday Reviewsday: Little Dragon, Moonchild, Dan Croll and more
It's Tuesday, which means that it's time for Tuesday Reviewsday, our weekly new music segment. This week we're joined by music supervisor Morgan Rhodes.
Artist: Moonchild
Album: "Please Rewind"
Song: "All the Joy"
Moonchild is made up of three SoCal kids, Amber, Andres and Max. They met at USC as they were studying jazz composition and started traveling together in 2011 as the horn section. They've been doing their thing ever since.
They released a project around 2012, got a little bit of buzz on Bandcamp and then got bigger buzz. In fact, they were ask by Stevie Wonder to open for his benefit concert. I had a chance to see them live and it's just great to see a band in this genre playing live instruments.
Amber's vocals are a perfect soft, just glides over the instruments, really jazzy. The soul influences is not lush. You can hear that on every song, in fact they had one of their songs remixed by DJ Jazzy Jeff and James Poyser. 'Be Free' was their first album and this one comes out soon, 'Please Rewind' comes out March 25th.
Artist: Dan Croll
Album: "Sweet Disarray"
Song: "Can You Hear Me?"
Dan Croll set out to be a rugby player and broke his leg and became a musician. This album is an electro-folk soul, sort of sounds like a cross between Boz Scagg's Lowdown, Paul Simon and a british artist named Phife. Really powerful lyrics. 'Sweet Disarray' is about his grandmother who has struggled with dementia and Alzheimers, so heavy lyrical content, but beautiful tenor to his voice.
One funny story about him, he tells it often, that he released tickets to his tour or one of his shows before he had a lot of music online and it sold out, it just sold out crazy and he was like, "Great," until he found out most people thought that they were going to a Diana Croll concert. He said he ran into a photographer friend of his and he was like, "What are you doing here?" and he said, "I'm performing." And he's like, "This isn't Diana Croll?"
Artist: Little Dragon
Album: "Nabuma Rubberband"
Song: "Klapp Klapp"
Little Dragon has a forthcoming album called "Nabuma Rubberband." This is a great indie soul of funk jazz band from Sweden. This is their fourth album, and I am a genre junkie, so I'm always throwing genres on people. I think what you call them depends on which album you're talking about. This is a great band. They're not going to be indie darlings for long.
They've been placed in films. they've been placed in commercials, so I have a lot of hope for them. When they started out they were on a small label called Peace Frog and now they're on Republic so you can see there has been a change.
LA voters play role in tight El Salvador election
In El Salvador, votes are still being tallied in a narrow presidential election.
The outcome could be influenced by a small number of ballots from abroad, especially from the Los Angeles area, where a large number of Salvadorans live.
The election features two candidates with vastly different political platforms: former rebel leader Salvador Sanchez Ceren of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front, or FMLN, and Norman Quijano, of the Arena Party. According to local election officials, fewer than 7,000 votes separate the two candidates.
For more we go to Michael O'Boyle with Reuters. He's been covering the election from San Salvador.
Planned Parenthood sues over Arizona abortion restrictions
Now to the Southwest where a fight is unfolding over abortion rights.
Starting April 1st, Arizona's health department is poised to implement new abortion regulations, but Planned Parenthood is asking a judge to stop them. The Fronteras Desk's Jude Joffe-Block explains the debate is over how doctors perform one type of abortion.
At Planned Parenthood of Arizona’s Phoenix call center on a recent afternoon, half a dozen customer service representatives are answering phones. They are scheduling medical appointments, including abortions.
“Have you taken a positive pregnancy test?” asks one operator to the woman on the other end of the line.
Last year Planned Parenthood of Arizona did more than 2,500 medication abortions. Those are the type done with drugs — typically two pills — rather than surgery. Forty percent of Planned Parenthood patients chose the medication abortion if they were eligible for it.
“Normally they ask how far along you have to be for a medication abortion,” said Claudia, a customer service representative manning a phone.
Claudia said helping women get abortions could make her the target of violence, so we are not using her last name.
As for what she tells patients?
“It is recommend they be seen as soon as possible for the initial ultrasound because they do need to be under nine weeks for the medication abortion,” Claudia said.
But that window will become seven weeks starting April 1.
That’s because the Arizona Department of Health is putting out new regulations based on a 2012 state law.
One will require doctors doing medical abortions to follow the Food and Drug Administration’s instructions on the medication’s label. The FDA guidance for the drug mifepristone says it can be used until the seventh week of pregnancy.
But in a lawsuit filed this week, Planned Parenthood of Arizona is asking a judge to block the state's rule from from taking effect. The organization is joined in the lawsuit by a Tucson abortion provider.
They argue the FDA’s guidance on this drug from the year 2000 is outdated, and the state’s regulation would deprive women of their right to a safe abortion.
“Women will be required to receive 14-year-old health care,” said Bryan Howard, president of Planned Parenthood of Arizona.
Since the FDA’s instructions came out, a group of doctors came up with a medication abortion regimen they say is safer and more efficient. It’s currently used by abortion providers in Arizona and most parts of the country, and has been endorsed by various medical organizations.
That regimen, in addition to allowing the procedure up until the ninth week of pregnancy, significantly lightens the dose of the first pill, and permits the woman to take the second pill in her own home.
“Those are improvements that have been learned over past 14 years that under state law we’ll have to pretend never happened,” Howard said.
Howard said reverting back to the FDA instructions could increase the cost of the procedure by as much as $180 since it demands a larger dose.
He said the regulations could put medication abortions at risk at the Flagstaff Planned Parenthood clinic — which is the only site in the state offering any abortion services outside of Phoenix and Tucson.
Currently, one doctor visits the Flagstaff clinic only once a week. But the new rules will require women to come back to see the doctor an extra time.
“So unless we were able to find yet another physician for that second visit it could spell the end of abortion care in Northern Arizona,” Howard said.
The state already has in place a number of restrictions that have limited the availability of abortion in recent years. They include a rule that requires women to get counseling and an ultrasound 24 hours before an abortion, and another that prohibits nurses from providing medication abortions.
Howard said the intent of this rule is to make abortions less accessible in Arizona.
But backers of the change deny that is the motivation behind the regulation.
“This is not about putting an undue burden on a woman’s right to an abortion,” said Josh Kredit, a lawyer with the Center for Arizona Policy, a pro-life think tank that pushed the law.
“It is simply about making sure the abortion medication is used consistent with how the FDA approved it.”
Kredit said the requirement to follow FDA guidelines is about safety.
“We are as concerned about the health and safety of women entering abortion clinics as we are about the preborn children,” Kredit said.
But this would be the first time the state requires doctors to follow the FDA instructions for a particular drug. Why make an exception for this one?
Kredit said the FDA put the abortion drug mifepristone in a high-risk category.
“It is not like this is Tylenol that was approved and can be used for anything,” Kredit said.
But professional medical organizations disagree with Kredit’s analysis.
“It is very concerning that state legislatures that don’t have any medical training are trying to dictate what doctors can actually do,” said Dan Grossman, a member of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
ACOG, along with the American Medical Association, came out against this type of regulation in other states.
Grossman said the FDA did put mifepristone in a strict category for how it could be distributed. But he said it is standard for the medical community to establish evidence-based protocols for administering drugs that differ from the FDA label.
“I think medical professionals should be concerned about this, because this is attacking the practice of off-label use of medication that is exceedingly common in the practice of medicine,” Grossman said.
The Arizona Department of Health’s director is the named defendant in the lawsuit. The agency has not yet issued a comment.
Meanwhile, the Arizona legislature continues to work on other ways to regulate abortion in the state. Earlier this week the House of Representatives passed a bill that would allow health officials to conduct surprise visits at abortion clinics.
Many observers believe it is likely that law will wind up in court, too.
Did the end of California's redevelopment agencies hurt affordable housing?
There's new evidence every day of the brutal housing market in parts of California.
Many housing experts think the short supply of affordable rental units is likely to get worse, at least partly because the state did away with Redevelopment Agencies two years ago. For all their faults, the agencies were legally required to devote a fifth of their revenue to affordable housing -- about a $1 billion a year.
What happens now that the money is gone?
For the California Report, Cy Musiker has the story.
Restored Jackson Pollock 'Mural' to be unveiled at Getty Museum
L.A. is a great place to go when you're looking for a makeover, not just for people, but also for great works of art. Today, a Jackson Pollock painting titled "Mural" will be unveiled at the J. Paul Getty Museum with a brand new look.
For more on this, we're joined by Laura Rivers, associate conservator at the Getty.
Holocaust survivor sues Germany for delay in returning stolen art
Yesterday, an 88-year-old New York man sued the country of Germany in U.S. court to try to get back a piece of art stolen from his family by the Nazis.
David Toren, a Holocaust survivor, claims that Germany has been too slow to recognize the painting belongs to him, after it was discovered two years ago in a Munich apartment that was full of looted art.
Here to tell us more is Anne Webber, chair for the Commission For Looted Art in Europe.
For aspiring ballerinas, summer intensives can provide a leg up
Minutes before her audition with Boston Ballet, 16-year-old Anna Barnes ran through her list of things to remember: Shoulders down, legs turned out, stretch. Oh, and keep the nerves in check.
"It's really hard," she said. "You can just go crazy in your mind and that never helps."
Barnes was one of about 90 aspiring dancers who gathered at Westside Ballet in
Santa Monica in late January to try out for Boston Ballet's summer intensive program.
Summer intensives, which run for several weeks at ballet companies across the country, are seen as a critical stepping stone for young dancers wanting make it in the ultra competitive professional ballet world.
KPCC's Mary Plummer has the story.
LA County unhappy about changes to black infant health program
African-American infants are more than twice as likely as white ones to die within their first year.
California has long had a program designed to help black women have healthy babies but the state changed the program in recent years. All of the participating cities and counties have adopted those changes - except for one: Los Angeles County.
KPCC's Adrian Florido explains why it has resisted moving to the state's new model.
California DMV holds driverless car workshop
California's DMV is hosting a driverless car workshop today in Sacramento. The department wants input from the public on how to regulate the vehicles in the state. For more is Bernard Soriano, deputy director of the DMV. He's in charge of the autonomous vehicles project, and he joins us from outside the meeting room.
Tesla takes direct sales model to chagrin of auto dealers
Consumer Reports has ranked Tesla's Model S as the best car of 2014.
The California based company wants to make it a bit easier for customers to get their hands on these electric sedans by offering them customized vehicles straight from the showroom. But that idea isn't going over too well with car dealers across the country.