On Monday Take Two discusses the trend of DUIs rising among certain groups of women. Also, what effect do Michelle Obama and her style have in the U.S. and in China? Take Two will talk about Storybook houses that are scattered throughout Los Angeles and look like something from a fairy tale. And KPCC goes "On the Lot" to discuss the latest in film.
Increase in DUIs for women sheds light on why women drink, treatment options and more
A catastrophic wrong-way collision on the 60 freeway made headlines earlier this year.
Six people were killed after authorities say a young woman drove into oncoming traffic.
RELATED: CHP: 6 dead in wrong way crash on 60 Freeway; driver arrested on suspicion of DUI (Update)
Twenty-year-old Olivia Culbreath is due in court this week to enter a plea to murder charges.
Prosecutors have also charged her with driving under the influence.
Records show it wasn't her first offense.
The crash prompted KPCC to take a closer look at at the issue of women and drunk driving.
KPCC's Erika Aguilar found while DUI arrests overall are down in Southern California, they are rising among some groups of women.
RELATED: Women and alcohol: More arrested in LA and California, though reasons are unclear
Aguilar joined Take Two to discuss her challenges in getting the story, the gender differences when it comes to drinking and driving and possible solutions for those seeking treatments in the future.
FLOTUS in China: Promoting education, addressing freedom of expression
First lady, Michelle Obama is currently visiting China with her daughters, Sasha and Malia and her mother, Marian Robinson.
The trip marks the first ever made by a first lady to China without her husband in tow.
Mrs. Obama is there to promote educational exchanges between the U.S. and China but she has also subtly been addressing the issue of freedom of expression.
For a look at the substance of the first lady's trip, Laurie Burkitt, a reporter in the Beijing bureau of the Wall Street Journal, joined Take Two.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
What has the first lady been doing?
On Friday she visited with China’s first lady and visited schools together and she played pingpong, which she’s not too shabby at. Then she saw some robots. She also went to the forbidden city and then had a special performance. The Chinese side wouldn’t say what that was and the American side wouldn’t either but I’ll have you know that the Chinese first lady happens to sing so we’re wondering if maybe she didn’t give that performance herself.
Can you talk about the reception of her education talks?
They’ve latched onto that because it’s a pretty safe issue. They know they need to beef up innovation and give full access to rural and urban citizens so everyone can have education.
She apparently indirectly criticized China for severe restrictions in the media. Can you tell us what she said, how she said it and what the reaction has been?
She was giving a speech to Stanford University at Peking, one of China’s biggest and most important universities. She talked about the importance of overseas education to broaden the horizon of each individual and mixed in between that she mentioned freedom of speech and access to information. She used pretty strong language. She said something like, ‘Countries are stronger and more prosperous when everyone can be heard.’ She mentioned her own experience and said, ‘My husband and I are on the receiving end of a lot of criticism but we really wouldn’t trade it in for the world.’
Later this week she will be eating a Tibetan lunch in China. Can you explain the significance of this?
Tibetan food is not the world’s greatest, it’s mostly yak meat. So the reason to eat it would be to open discussion about a region of China that has really been fighting for independence. And President Obama recently met with the Dalai Lama, the religious leader who now lives in India and he’s not allowed to go back. It’s definitely contentious.
Michelle Obama's style in China offers message behind every outfit
With the first lady in China focusing on education and free internet, many in the US and abroad are focused on her wardrobe.
RELATED: FLOTUS in China: Promoting education, addressing freedom of expression
Kate Betts is a fashion writer and the author of "Everyday Icon: Michelle Obama and the Power of Style" and joined Take Two to talk about how the first lady's style is having a global impact.
On the Lot: 'Divergent,' 'God's Not Dead,' 'Jem and the Holograms'
On the Lot is Take Two's regular series of talks about the film business with LA Times reporter Rebecca Keegan.
This past weekend "Divergent," won the box office, but a small religious film called "God's Not Dead" was the big surprise.
Speaking of box office glory, "Need for Speed" hasn't had much in the US--after 10 days it's earned a disappointing $30 million--but oversees it is leading the box office and has already earned over $40 million in China.
With that box office performance it joins a legion of films that have outperformed their US box office numbers in China including “Pacific Rim,” “Escape Plan” and “Cloud Atlas.”
On a sad note, character actor James Rebhorn passed away on Friday. He was famous for his roles in “Independence Day,” “My Cousin Vinny" and most recently the Showtime hit "Homeland" as the father of CIA agent Carrie Mathison.
RELATED: 'Homeland' actor James Rebhorn dies at 65
CinemaCon, Hollywood's four-day convention for movie theater owners, starts Monday in Las Vegas. Keegan told Take Two what to expect.
And if you were a little girl in the 1980s, you may remember a cartoon called "Jem and the Holograms" about music company owner Jerrica Benton, her singer alter-ego Jem and her band the Holograms.
Last week Hasbro announced they're making Jem into a movie to be directed by Jon Chu.
River of mud: Death and destruction in a Washington state community
Officials in Washington state say at least eight people are dead and more than 100 missing after a wall of mud inundated a fishing community about 50 miles north of Seattle.
RELATED: 108 on list of missing in Washington mudslide
Area resident Sierra Sansaver heard sirens on Saturday morning. She rushed out to see what was happening and saw a house sitting in the middle of the main highway that runs through her community.
"It was torn to pieces," Sansaver told reporter Phyliss Fletcher at Seattle public station KUOW.
"There was belongings all over the road. And that's when everybody ran out there and they found a 6-month-old baby. The baby was blue when I saw it."
The infant was airlifted out and remains in critical condition.
Rescue efforts have been hampered by the muck, reported to be as deep as 15 feet in some areas.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee praised the first responders during a press conference held yesterday near the site.
"They rescued at least seven people, both through airlift and on the ground efforts," Inslee told reporters. But he noted that some rescuers got caught in up to their armpits and had to be dragged out by ropes themselves.
"It's just a physical impossibility of supporting the human weight in a slurry that is a problem right now," Gov. Inslee said.
DMV investigating possible credit card data breach
Standing in line at the DMV may seem a little more appealing today.
If you've ever made an online payment with the DMV-- maybe to register your car or buy a custom license plate-- you may have cause for concern.
Over the weekend, the California Department of Motor Vehicles said it's investigating a possible credit card data breach involving its online payment system.
RELATED: MasterCard investigates report of California DMV breach
KrebsOnSecurity.com was the first to report the possible breach, which it says involved online payments from Aug. 2, 2013, to Jan. 31, 2014.
DMV officials said that while so far there's no evidence that the department's computer system has been hacked, they are investigating the possibility of a data breach from the outside vendor they use to process online credit card payments or from the credit card companies themselves.
To talk about the potential security breach, William J. Kresse, a fraud and identity theft expert at St. Xavier University in Chicago, joined Take Two.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
What did the alert say?
There is a possibility that numerous credit cards issued by various banks had been compromised. The banks monitor credit card activity and there are also firms that monitor what are essentially black market sites on the Internet where credit card data is bought and sold. And when they find numbers or cards have been compromised they look at the activity on those cards and try to trace them back to a common denominator. And what they found was they had all been used on the California DMV website to renew licenses, etc.
So, essentially, there’s nothing to worry about but there might be?
We don’t know how they broke in or how they hacked the site or even what site got hacked. Was it the DMV site or was it the vendor that they use to process their credit card transactions? The DMV seemed to be indicating that it was their outside credit card processor, a division of US Bank, but we’re really not sure yet.
The DMV has a lot of other info: Driver’s License number, address, SSN. Any chance that might be compromised too?
Right now there’s no indication that has occurred but I will caution you that with the Target data breach there was first a report of stealing of the credit card data and then it was during the conduct of the forensic investigation that they realized someone broke into the Target database and stole names, addresses, email addresses, etc. Hopefully that won’t occur. In my opinion it hasn’t because if somebody had broken into the DMV’s database we’d see a lot more activity on these black market websites than we currently are seeing.
On where the breach originated:
Well the DMV seems to be pointing their finger at the credit card servicing firm they use and that might be it. It’s Elavon, a division of US Bank. If that’s where the problem is that would get the DMV a little off the hook, but if it’s Elavon, they service credit cards for lots of folks out there. So maybe an actual bigger problem than anyone anticipated.
So maybe it’s good to stand in line at the DMV once in a while?
You know, it’s funny, I’m ‘Professor Fraud’ the identity theft expert and I’ve been paying in cash a lot more lately.
Gonorrhea could soon be untreatable: CDC report
More than 300,000 people contract gonorrhea every year, making it the second most-common STD.
But treating it may soon be impossible.
The Centers for Disease Control now reports that the number of effective treatments for it have dwindled to just one and it's only a matter of time before gonorrhea becomes resistant to that option, too.
"A decade ago, physicians may have had upwards of five different treatments to choose from," said Dr. Robert Kirkcaldy, who tracks the spread of gonorrhea for the CDC. "This bacteria is very good at mutating and being able to develop antibiotic resistance."
While he stresses that the current treatment is still effective, Dr. Kirkcaldy said there is evidence worldwide that the bacteria is developing a resistance to that.
"We do think that because of this, it is indeed a wake-up call," he said, adding that drug manufacturers may not be fast enough in developing a treatment before the bacteria out-speeds that, too.
This means that it's more imperative for people to avoid contracting it in the first place.
"Protecting yourself from gonorrhea has never been more important," said Dr. Kirkcaldy, "and if someone is infected, it's important that they get treated and also that their sexual partner gets treated. This helps gonorrhea from spreading in the community. It also helps prevent people from getting reinfected."
For information on recognizing and treating gonorrhea, you can find more through the CDC.
Unique ways to prevent STD infections in Los Angeles
In LA, the rates of gonorrhea cases among men have jumped by 50 percent over the past decade. The story is similar when it comes to cases of syphilis and chlamydia, too.
RELATED: Gonorrhea could soon be untreatable: CDC report
The diverse communities and languages spread throughout the area creates a challenge for health care workers hoping to prevent STDs.
Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, professor of infectious diseases at UCLA, explained what the city could be doing better, as well the unique programs that are tailored to specific communities.
Is Twitter phasing out hashtags? #SeeYouLater
#ChangeIsOnTheWay?
At a media news conference last week, Twitter's head of news Vivian Schiller dropped hints about the company's future: no more #s or @s.
According to Buzzfeed, the idea is that tossing out the site's unique grammar could make it more accessible to the general public and give it the growth spurt it needs, as adoption rates have slowed.
"There's a bit of an entrance ramp to get onto it," said KPCC digital producer Mike Roe. "When I signed up for Twitter, it took me months before I tweeted my first thing, then a long time after that before I got basically addicted to it."
Twitter could look like what Facebook looks like now. For example, on Twitter, if you want to write to someone, you use "@" plus their username, if you know it. Like
or
Meanwhile, on Facebook, typing @ plus their name or handle replaces that with their full name in an easier-to-read fashion.
(via Buzzfeed)
Tests of the new system are already being alpha-tested out on the devices of some Android users.
"Twitter sort of sees this as an opportunity to make things easier," Roe said. "They want to create something that isn't for the core users that are already there, but for new people coming on board."
But Roe said that the outcry by Twitter's core users probably won't be enough to dissuade the company from pressing ahead with this potential change.
"Someone I talked to over the weekend was worried: 'Oh, great, this means my grandmother is going to be on Twitter,'" said Roe. "Some people are worried that it's taking away the cool clubs feel of Twitter."
What's your take? Does Twitter's unique "grammar" make it harder for you to use? Or do you love it, and don't want it to change? Here's what folks on Twitter had to say when they heard the news.
What?! No more #hashtags on @twitter?! Say it ain’t so! @taketwo @kpcc
— Karianna (@Kariannafrey) March 24, 2014
Storybook homes: How Hollywood made its mark on Southern California architecture
Most of the homes in Beverly Hills are large grandiose affairs, except for the one on the corner of Walden Drive and Carmelita. It's much smaller than its neighbors and looks like the kind of house Hansel and Gretel might have visited in a Brothers Grimm tale.
In fact, residents in the area often refer to it as "the Witch's House." Its real name is the Spadena home, and it is the creation of Hollywood art director Harry Oliver, who built the home in 1921.
It's a model of Storybook architecture, something author Douglas Keister knows quite a bit about and has documented in his new book, "Storybook Style: America's Whimsical Homes of the Twenties."
While there's no strictly defined style for Storybook architecture the way there is for Victorian or Bungalow, Keister says the homes are usually characterized by sloped roofs, artificial aging and a reduced scale.
There's one other way to identify them, says Keister. "When you see it, it makes you smile."
Keister says it's no coincidence that the homes look like what you'd expect to see in an old European village. They sprang up right after World War I, after returning servicemen, influenced by the architecture of the European villages they had seen in war, returned home and some began building sets for Hollywood.
Storybook homes can be found in Long Beach and are concentrated in Beverly Hills and the Hancock Park and Los Feliz neighborhoods of Los Angeles. They can also be found as far away as Oakland and Alameda.