LA has its own 'people walker,' Colombia voters fail to end longest-running armed conflict in Latin America, is the Latino community big enough to sway the election?
Do videos of police shootings impact public opinion?
This weekend another black man was shot and killed by police officers and this time it happened in South Los Angeles.
The man's been identified as 18 year old Carnell Snell Jr, who's the third black man in five days to die after confrontations with police in Southern California. In each incident, eyewitness accounts or video have proven important to showing what happened in the moments before the confrontations, but the graphic accounts can also add to the pain for friends or family.
Do the recordings also change public opinion at all?
Jody Armour is a professor of law at the University of Southern California and he joins A Martinez for a discussion on the topic.
The decision to publish Trump's tax info
Republican nominee Donald Trump's massive loss of income over 20 years ago may have allowed him to avoid paying income taxes for years to come, according to a report from the New York Times published over the weekend.
According to the Times, the tip came from an anonymous source mailed from within Trump Tower in New York. That package contained part of Trump's 1995 tax records showing that he claimed a loss of $916 million.
For more, we're joined by Robert Rosenthal, executive director of the Center for Investigative Reporting. He was also part of the team that put together the Pentagon Papers prior to publication.
How an LA actor is using theater to foster peace in his native Colombia
In Colombia, voters narrowly defeated a peace deal that would have ended the longest-running armed conflict in Latin America. The rebels, known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, already agreed to the pact with Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos, but it still had to be approved by a vote.
That vote Sunday showed 50.2 percent of Colombians rejecting the deal, a razor thin margin that now casts the process into uncertainty. The conflict has gone on for more than half a century, devastating tens of thousands of families with killings, kidnappings and a violent drug trade.
"I was speechless," said Hector Aristizábal, an actor who grew up in Medellín and now lives in L.A. and supported the peace deal. "We really felt that the country was moving in a different direction."
Like many Colombians, his own life and family were shaped in profound ways by the war. His brother was killed by paramilitary forces and he himself was detained and tortured while a student, he said.
Aristizábal has taken these experiences and led reconciliation efforts, producing a play about his life. Last month, during a visit to Colombia, he invited people from all sides of the conflict to sit together and share their stories. They included former guerrilla fighters, military soldiers and victims of the war.
"It was a very intense process, it was incredibly emotional," said Aristizábal. "But what you notice is when you hear the story of 'the other,' you don't justify what they have done, but you start understanding that for many people, they thought that there was no other option."
Colombian President Santos and FARC leaders have vowed to continue the peace process, though the next steps are still not clear. For Aristizábal, his efforts to end the conflict will continue and he hopes his work in theater and reconciliation will aid the process – and, eventually, lead to a peace deal that Colombians will accept.
"It's not perfect," he said. "There's still a lot of work that needs to be done."
The wage gap is narrowing in California, so why is that a mixed blessing?
Guys make 20 percent more than women on average. But not everywhere...
There are a few congressional districts throughout the country where women make as much, if not more, than men. One of them, California's 37th congressional district, is right here in LA.
This data comes from an annual report on the state of wage equality from the American Association of University Women, but the news isn't all good.
The report shows pay equality was achieved in areas where the median income was lower. Contrastingly, Silicon Valley, with some of the highest wages in the state, has the greatest wage disparity.
"Ironically the gender pay gap is largest among the most educated workers," says Catherine Hill, vice present of research at the American Association of Women. "So unfortunately, this is not a success story."
Click here to view the report.
Supreme Court will not consider 'O'Bannon v. NCAA' appeals
The Supreme Court has decided not to weigh in on the legal questions surrounding pay for college athletes.
Today, the high court said it would not consider appeals from either side in O'Bannon v. NCAA, a case involving former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon.
By not taking up the case, the high court left in place a lower court's ruling that the NCAA's amateurism rules for college basketball and football violated federal antitrust law. That ruling also said that the NCAA could restrict colleges from paying student athletes.
Brent Kendall, legal affairs reporter for The Wall Street Journal, joined Take Two to discuss.
To hear the full interview, click the blue player above.
The new novel 'Pasadena' brings a dark noir tale to the land of sun and roses
"Bad things happen everywhere. Even in the land of sun and roses."
That's the tagline for a new young adult novel set right here in our very backyard, it's called "Pasadena."
The book is about a girl named Maggie who turns up dead in her family's swimming pool. The death is dubbed a suicide, but her best friend Jude has her doubts.
"Pasadena" was penned by Sherri L. Smith. She dropped by and spoke with Take Two's Alex Cohen about the inspiration behind the novel, diversity in literature and more.
Interview Highlights
Why make a noir novel in such a bright and sunny place?
"For exactly that reason. I was visiting someone who lived in a guest house, in one of the big houses here in Pasadena and I drove onto his block and got really creeped out. There is sort of a Southern California gothic feel to some of these places, they're very stately and old money. But they're also sort of faded starlets and really struck me as a great setting. There's something here...underneath..."
If you were to describe Maggie, the main character, at a cocktail party...how would you describe her?
"Really nice and dangerous. She's a glamour girl. She is performance art in a lot of ways. She's somebody who will turn your head, but she's also surprisingly human. She's one of those people who...when they talk to you, they make eye contact, and suddenly you feel seen...and like, the most important person in the room, to the most important person in the room who is them...she makes people feel special but she also treats herself like something special."
When and how do you want to inject race into your writing?
"In this story, the main character Jude is probably the few characters that doesn't have an ethnic designation and originally because the story is first person and told from her point of view I actually didn't even want to give her a name. I wanted her to be the camera and the thing that you move through this world in. Race is mentioned for other characters for a variety of reasons, there's sort of a class issue in this book, but much like Southern California it's not necessarily all along racial lines and that was important to me. And just to reflect what I see when I walk down the street..."
To hear the full interview, click the blue play button above.
(Answers have been edited for clarity.)
LA's 'People Walker' will charge you $7 per mile, and save you from the 'unknown future'
You've heard the old stereotype that no one walks in Los Angeles?
It's a pretty widespread myth. There's even a song called "Walking in L.A." all about how nobody walks in L.A.
So maybe that's why the story of L.A.'s first "people walker" seems to have struck such a nerve.
It started as a bit of a joke, with some flyers up on light poles in Los Feliz that read:
Actor Chuck McCarthy is the man behind "The People Walker." He says the idea came to him when he noticed how many dog walkers and personal trainers were out and about in Griffith Park.
Looking to make some extra money, and not too keen to get into dog-walking or personal training himself, he thought, "I'm just going to walk people."
A few flyers, a homemade T-shirt, and a Facebook page later, requests for McCarthy's services started pouring in. People interested in becoming "people walkers" started contacting him too, so he put together a crew to handle parts of L.A. that would take too long for him to drive to.
For folks who do enjoy walking alone (for free), McCarthy says, that's fine by him too.
"Somebody made a comment [online] that I was demonizing people that like to walk alone, treating them like left-handed people were treated hundreds of years ago," McCarthy says. "That's not what this is about."
So who is "The People Walker" service designed for? McCarthy says it's for "people that can't coordinate with friends and family, or don't have friends and family around them, people who just need motivation, or people that just want to meet someone that's not connected to them."
And if you're interested just because you think it sounds funny, that works for McCarthy too-- just as long as you're willing to part with $7 per mile for a laugh.
To hear the full interview, click the blue player above.