On Thursday Take Two discusses the significance of 100 women in Congress simultaneously, CSU schools implementing a a student "success fee" that can cost up to $800 per year and why no candidates campaigned on net neutrality.
Congress makes history with 100 women serving at same time
Democrat Alma Adams of North Carolina will be sworn into office Thursday and she’ll be making history when she does.
She won a special election, so she will not have to wait for January’s swearing-in ceremony, and after her swearing in she’ll become the 100th woman currently sitting in Congress.
It’s the first time ever that 100 women have served at the same time.
Host Alex Cohen talks to Debbie Walsh, the Director of the Center for American Women and Politics, a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University.
California voters break an all-time record and it's nothing to boast about
Californian voters broke a new all-time record this election, but it's not one to boast about. Voter turn-out was abysmal in the Golden State.
According to the California Secretary of State website, less than a third of eligible voters took to the polls in Tuesday's election.
Of course, there are still provisional and mail-in ballots to be counted -- but even as those outstanding ballots are processed, the Field Poll predicts that this election still saw the lowest turnout to date.
Barbara O'Connor is an Emeritus Professor of Communications and the Director of the Institute for the Study of Politics and Media at California State University, Sacramento. She says California saw the impact of campaign money being spent by Political Action Committees on negative advertising in the state, and that the "overkill on fear appeals" had voters feeling hopeless this year.
Cal State students speak out against 'student success fees'
These days a college degree can be expensive, even one from a public university.
This week, University of California officials proposed raising tuition by as much as 5 percent each year for the next five years. The California State University system has always been considered a less expensive alternative, but prices are on the rise there, too.
A few years back, some CSU campuses started introducing what they dubbed "student success fees," which run anywhere from $30 to nearly $800 a year, to make up for budget cuts.
Administrators say the fees are necessary for things like longer library hours, more classes, and more advisors. But some faculty and students say the fees are just a way to shift more costs to the students without technically raising tuition.
Jesse Brown, a senior at California State University, East Bay, pays $240 a year in "success fees."
He says most students on campus aren't aware of the fees and "there's no real effort made to inform the students of where these fees go."
Kristal Raheem, a senior at Sonoma State University, says she was concerned when she first became aware of the fees.
"They were not going to be covered by financial aid," Raheem says. "Low income, first-generation students and working students were going to have to pay out of pocket for these fees or take out extra loans."
She and other students successfully petitioned Sonoma State to drop the fees earlier this year.
Deportations down at New Mexico detention facility
Fewer immigrant women and children are being deported from a remote detention center in New Mexico.
A new immigration court is hearing cases from that facility and its judges are setting lower bonds, allowing more immigrants to leave detention.
Mónica Ortiz Uribe reports it's a departure from the government's initial message that those who enter the country illegally can expect a speedy deportation.
Ebola orphans several children in West African village
Here in the U.S., there's been something of a panic over the appearance of a few cases of Ebola.
But in West Africa, the disease is decimating communities.
BBC correspondent Andrew Harding visited a village in Sierra Leone, where he found dozens of children - orphans of the epidemic.
The Wheel Thing: Crazy custom cars, 'On Any Sunday' rebooted, glow-in-the-dark bicycles
Take Two's car critic Susan Carpenter is just back from Las Vegas, where she was at the SEMA show. It's a trade exhibition for car customizers and specialty parts companies. SEMA is all about tricking out cars, and Carpenter tells Take Two there were some radical ones, including a 1958 Jeep, perfectly restored and sporting tank-like tracks rather than tires.
Carpenter also gives her review of a new motorcycle documentary. It's an update of the classic Bruce Brown film, "On Any Sunday." Brown is perhaps best known for his surfing film, "Endless Summer." Now his son has taken his father's template, and made a motorcycle documentary for the 21st Century.
Finally, it's getting darker earlier, and that spells danger for bicyclists. Carpenter points out most bikes aren't sold with head and tail lights. And that's a problem because safety studies show an increase in cyclist fatalities after dark. An LA-area firm has come to the rescue with a couple of interesting innovations. One is a bike that glows in the dark. The company also sells bikes that use LEDs to illuminate the bike from the front, back and sides. Carpenter says not only does it make the bike stand out to nearby vehicles, it also increases the rider's visibility on poorly lit streets.
Susan Carpenter is auto and motorcycle critic for the OC Register. She joins Take Two on Thursdays for The Wheel Thing.
Nationwide protests planned as FCC nears decision on net neutrality
Net neutrality is a phrase that doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. Perhaps that's one reason why most candidates in this week's election pretty much ignored it on the campaign trail, despite it being one of the most important tech issues of our time.
The issue has to do with how information flows over the Internet and it could have broad implications for our daily use.
Thursday night, advocates are planning rallies in more than a dozen cities across the U.S., including the nation's capitol. The FCC is also nearing an important decision on net neutrality.
For more, Take Two is joined by Brian Fung, tech reporter with the Washington Post.
LACMA scores an art donation worth a half-billion dollars
In a major coup for the LA County Museum of Art, private art collector Jerry Perenchio announced he will donate his vast collection to the institution.
How vast? It's valued to be worth a half-billion dollars.
To put that in context, the building that LACMA needs to complete to get its hands on those works will cost $600 million.
Suzanne Muchnic, former art critic for the LA Times, explains why Perenchio chose to leave his prized works with LACMA and what some of the gems are.
How artichoke water wants to steal coconut water's throne
It's good to be coconut water. The slightly salty, slightly sweet drink, wasn't even a blip on the beverage industry's radar 10 years ago, but now, it's worth $400 million, annually. But since the market is dominated by the likes of Zico and Vita Coco, entrepreneurs are trying to find a new way into the mouths of the health conscious, drink buying crowds. And they're doing that with things like cactus water, artichoke water and maple water.
Courtney Rubin details the battle to capture the health conscious, coconut water buying crowd for Fast Company:
There are also several entrepreneurs vying to become the leader in maple water, which is water that flows through maple trees in the spring, delivering vitamins and minerals from the ground up. Boil down 40 gallons of it—it’s roughly 98% water and 2% sugar—and you get maple syrup. North American explorers drank the sap, calling it “the wholesomest drink in the world,” or so the lore goes, and it’s long been drunk in rural villages in South Korea, where the tree is called the “gorosoe,” or “good for the bones.”
Rubin says all of these novel types of water, like artichoke water, sprung from the desire to make a better plant water than coconut water.
"So they (the artichoke water creators) looked for the plant with the highest nutritional profile. I'm not sure if they thought about if you should be putting a straw in it," Rubin said.
For those who are curious, artichoke water is made using an extraction process of the whole artichoke, and not just the heart. Then, monk fruit and Stevia are added for sweetening.
This rise in popularity of specialty water is partly a stroke of marketing genius, Rubin says.
"I think they're trying to appeal to the coconut water crowd that wants something that supposedly has more health benefits. Every single one of these waters claims that it has more benefits and/or less sugar and/or less calories than coconut water. What they're gearing toward is consumers who want a recovery drink that they think is healthier," she said. "Some of it I think is the American craving for health-conscious, better-for-you beverages."
Which raises the question: Are these waters worth spending the extra cash? Rubin says at the end of the day, drinks like artichoke water and maple water simply offer more electrolytes than coconut water.
"You don’t need all those electrolytes unless you’re exercising more than an hour, or it’s really, really hot out," Rubin said. "These extra benefits, like the vitamins and the things that a lot of these drinks claim, your body can only use so much of a certain vitamin. So everything else just basically gets washed out. So in some cases, with some of these things, you’re basically buying expensive pee."
Inglewood Unified: Rats, unsafe conditions despite millions in state funds
More than two years after the state took over Inglewood Unified School District, there are questions about how successful that takeover has been.
The district is on its third trustee and enrollment is down.
And, as KPCC has found, conditions inside some schools are unsanitary and in some cases, unsafe.
KPCC's Investigative Producer Karen Foshay reports.
State School Superintendent Tom Torlakson talks Democratic divisions, teacher tenure, Inglewood Unified
Voters elected State School Superintendent Tom Torlakson to a second term on Tuesday after one of the most expensive and tightest races for office in California.
The competition for the job generated about $30 million from donors all over the country.
Both candidates - Torlakson and his rival Marshall Tuck - are Democrats but have very different ideas about education.
Torlakson is a long time educator and is backed by the Teachers Union and Tuck ran a charter school chain and once worked on Wall Street. He took the job with 52 percent of the vote.
The millions spent on Torlakson’s campaign drew criticism, with some saying that money would have been better spent on the schools themselves. But Torlakson said that his he feels his re-election wasn’t based on that.
“I think this election was more about getting someone who could continue the momentum forward, doing some exciting and historic changes to education in California,” he said. “I believe the voters wanted someone with experience and I have that.”
Torlakson said his accomplishments as state superintendent include a reduction in class sizes and an increase in graduation rates. However, a KPCC report released Thursday about unsanitary and unsafe conditions at Inglewood High School could present a shadow in the bright spot of his track record. He says the issue comes down to funding.
“These are serious issues, and it’s one reason I’ve made it my top priority to stabilize the funding in our schools,” he said, citing a reduction in the school district's debt from about $19 million to $2 million a year when the state took over. “I’ve asked my team to look at the report you’re referring to from top to bottom and address every single issue in it, and I take it very seriously. We’ve made significant progress, we’ve seen some academic improvements, fiscally we’re bringing the district back to the place where it should be, but some of these sanitary or other particular issues in terms of the conditions of the building, those need to be addressed immediately and I’m going to ask my team to accomplish that.”
Bring Your Parents To Work Day: A new twist on an old workplace tradition
At more than 50 workplaces in 16 countries across the globe, employees got to bringing special visitors into work on Thursday: Their moms and dads.
Bring Your Parents to Work Day is an unconventional twist on Bring Your Kids to Work Day.
The event started at LinkedIn last year.
LinkedIn employee Sheera Selkovitz and her dad, Bernie, explain more about the new tradition and why the company is doing it.
Saving the Rio Grande: Man hopes his journey will help endangered river
As the West struggles with drought and an increasing demand for water, one river stands outs - the Rio Grande.
The river has been endangered for years, and attempts to rescue it are often stymied by lack of information.
One man hopes to change that.
He's in the middle of a seven month long journey down what's left of the Rio Grande.
And he hopes the information he gathers will spur action to save the river that provides water to millions in the U.S. and Mexico.
Kipen by Moonlight: The latest in literary news
If you look up in the sky tonight you'll notice it's a full moon.
And that means it's time to bring back our literary contributor David Kipen.
He's the founder of the lending library Libros Schmibros in Boyle Heights.
And he joins Take Two not once in a blue moon but every full moon for his segment Reading by Moonlight.
One literary news tidbit Kipen shares is that LA writer John Fante and his novel "Ask the Dust" are having a birthday. So how is Kipen celebrating?