We take a look at the trail mass shooters leave behind, USA and Mexico face off at the Rose Bowl and fun and almost free things to do this weekend
Finding and stopping the next mass shooter
It's been a little over a week after 26-year-old Christopher Harper Mercer opened fire on a college classroom killing nine people.
President Obama will be in Roseburg, Oregon today to meet with families of the victims. This is not the first time he's had to do this. There have been 11 mass shooting during his time in office.
But what if there was a way to stop mass shootings before they start? That's the goal of a team of mental health and law enforcement specialists who work with campuses and offices across the country.
Stephen White is a psychologist and president of Work Trauma Services in the San Francisco Bay area. He works with businesses and college campuses to assess threats.
White says detecting a dangerous person often means following your gut.
"It's a situation of awareness, just common sense knowledge if you see something, say something," he said. "Something of concern -- where a person may be talking about violence in a way that's inappropriate -- they may be considering it and they leak out that intent," he said.
White says risk assessment professionals are trained to follow a series of steps in order to determine whether someone is just having a bad day, or if there is legitimate cause for concern. Many of them look for something called "leakage."
"Somebody might make a reference to violence and say, 'You know, I understand how that guy in Oregon felt.' In fact, the guy in Oregon said he understood how the guy in Roanoke Virginia felt," he said. White says a troubled person might signal their intent more clearly in the days immediately leading up to a planned attack.
When a campus faculty member identifies a person of concern, White says school police might compare the student's behavior to a list of known risk factors.
"And then -- after perhaps doing some collateral interviews -- somebody with the skill set will ideally sit down with the student and say 'look, we're concerned about you, we're concerned about some of the things you're saying, and we need to talk to you.' "
White says risk assessment professionals are always respectful, but also direct.
"We don't avoid asking them, 'Do you have these kinds of thoughts? Are you thinking about this? Do you have any thoughts of hurting yourself as well as hurting others?' "
White says many shootings have been prevented using this approach, but he adds "you never hear about them."
Press the blue play button above to hear more about violence prevention and to find out how mental illness factors into an assessment.
Backlog at immigration courts could grow with a pay dispute by interpreters
The nation's busy immigration courts decide thousands of cases every day.
Court interpreters play a critical role in that process, ensuring that judges, lawyers and those facing deportation all understand each other.
But those interpreters may be headed for a steep decline because of a new contract and dispute over pay and other work conditions.
Buzzfeed reporter Adolfo Flores and court reporter Carmelina Cadena join Take Two to describe how it could increase the already-backlogged set of cases that face immigration courts.
Governor vetoes preschool measure
Gov. Jerry Brown vetoed a measure Friday that would have expanded preschool to all the state’s low-income four year-olds. Preschool advocates had hoped that AB 47 would become law.
Called the Preschool for All Act, the measure had a name that was a slight misnomer as it would have only provided preschool for children in families who have a low enough income to qualify for subsidized or free preschool.
Currently, there are estimated to be 32,000 low-income children who are not attending preschool because there are not enough seats.
The preschool bill had a pretty easy path through the legislature and it had many supporters outside of the state halls of power, including the editorial board of the Sacramento Bee, school districts, religious groups, and the L.A. Chamber of Commerce.
But opponents cited the cost -- about $300 million a year -- in opposing its passage.
Brown said in his veto message:
Last year's education omnibus trailer bill already codified the intent to make preschool and other full-day, full year early education and care opportunities available to all low-income children. The discussion on expanding state preschoool — which takes into account rates paid to providers as well as access and availability for families — should be considered in the budget process, as it is every year. A bill that sets an arbitrary deadline, contingent on a sufficient appropriation, is unnecessary.
The bill would have ensured that all income eligible four year-olds who are not enrolled in the state’s Transitional Kindergarten program would have a state preschool seat. It was contingent upon the state legislature appropriating the funds each year, which some say makes the bill mostly symbolic.
Deborah Kong, president of Early Edge California that had supported the measure, said in a statement:
"We had the opportunity to right a wrong in California where tens of thousands of kids from low income families were denied access to preschool. We're disappointed but not discouraged. We will continue to stand by the 30,000 low income 4 year olds who need and deserve the opportunity to start kindergarten ready to learn on day one."
Alex Johnson, executive director of the Children’s Defense Fund, said before the governor's action that despite the fact that no money was attached to the bill, it was still very important. “The bill lays out an essential blueprint to get to the place where all low-income children have access to high quality early education they need to thrive, and also reiterates the state’s commitment to our youngest children.”
Johnson pointed out that in California it is children of color who are most dramatically impacted by poverty. “Today, one in four California children – and one in three Latino and African American children in California – lives in poverty,” he said.
“Studies show that disparities in cognitive development appear between children of higher and lower-income families early in life, and by the time children enter kindergarten, too many of our poor children and children of color are already behind their classmates – and it’s hard to catch up,” he said.
Currently in California, the state department of education provides funds for preschool through a state preschool program and the newer Transitional Kindergarten program, known as TK.
TK is part of the public school system, a preparatory grade preceding kindergarten. Teachers of TK must have higher educational credentials, and show credits in early childhood. They are also paid on par with kindergarten teachers and that often works out to more than state preschool teachers. Some say this makes TK a higher quality experience than state preschool, however, there have been no comparative studies to date.
A recent report from the New America Foundation laid out the differences between state preschool and TK, finding TK to be of higher quality.
This California legislation comes as a study out of Vanderbilt University showed Tennessee's state preschool program had impacts that faded by the early grades. In fact, researchers there discovered that children who had no preschool at all and come from comparable families slightly outperformed the kids who came through the state preschool program. It has been widely reported that the poorer quality of the Tennessee program might be the reason the impact waned as kids hit second and third grades.
Kong believes the Tennessee study cannot be used as a comparison to California’s program.
“We should see Tennessee as a call to invest in quality schools, not leave our vulnerable children behind—especially in the face of decades of research on the lasting benefits of quality preschool.”
This story has been updated.
Dive deep into the history of the LA river via audio tour
On a recent reporting trip I found myself standing right alongside the LA river in the area known as Frog Town. It's tucked between the 2 and 5 freeways, northeast of downtown LA.
It's a place you may have driven past plenty of times and never paid much attention to, but you'll be surprised by what's there. I know I was when I arrived at a dilapidated train yard for an audio tour.
Artist Rosten Woo has installed signs and posts that correspond with the audio embedded above. There are ten sites part of the LA River Interpretive Signage Program - an art installation designed to help people navigate a deserted industrial area along the LA river called the Bowtie Parcel.
(Gina Clyne for Clockshop)
Back in 2003 the California State Parks bought the land with the hopes of turning it into the first LA River State Park. However, the land hasn't changed much. There are still remnants of the old train yard with broken asphalt and plants growing everywhere.
But rather then let the land exist as it had, Clockshop, has worked with artists to design a series of programs to bring art and usability to the industrial area.
(Gina Clyne for Clockshop)
With Woo's tour, people can read signs and listen to narrations about the river, the city and the nature that surrounds it. If you'd like to take the audio tour you can click through here.
The final installation of Woo's project is opening up this weekend.
If you'd like a better idea of what the tour's about, you can listen to our full piece which is embedded at the top of this post.
Comedy meets horror in 'The Final Girls'
Halloween may be weeks away, but it's never too early for a scary movie.
Sort of.
"The Final Girls," is a scary movie wrapped in a comedy film.
The "fake" scary movie is called "Camp Bloodbath," set at – where else – a summer camp.
But in "The Final Girls," the characters are magically transported into that movie where they have to break the fourth wall to get out, and get out alive.
The film pokes fun at the tropes of horror films while also telling the story of a woman reconnecting with her late mother.
Alex Cohen talked with director Todd Strauss-Schulson about blending these genres together into a film that, at its heart, is a love-letter to scary movies.
Performances of tragic Greek plays help veterans heal
The "Theater of War" is a seven-year-old project that breathes new life into ancient Greek tragedies.
Although warfare has changed radically over the past thousand years, the experience of having been in combat has not. Southern California Public Radio's Veterans and Military Affairs reporter John Ismay joins us for more.
What you need to know about the USA vs. Mexico match
More than 90,000 soccer fans will pack Pasadena's Rose Bowl Saturday as the USA takes on Mexico.
The stakes are high for both teams. For Mexico, it will be the first important game since the team fired its controversial coach Miguel Herrera. For the US, coach Jurgen Klinsmann has faced growing criticism after some big losses.
The winner will advance to the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup in Russia. To break it all down we're joined by Andrea Canales, reporter with ESPN FC and Wiso Vazquez from Fút. Mex. Source.
What's at stake in the Dodgers vs. Mets game
The Dodgers host the New York Mets in Game 1 of the National League Division Series.
While the Boys in Blue have won their division the past 3 seasons, they have fallen short of reaching the World Series for 27 years. David Vassegh, host of Dodger Talk on Fox Sports Radio, joins us for more.
'The Oyster War' reveals what really happened to Drakes Bay farm
After a long battle with The National Parks Service, the Drakes Bay Oyster Company in Point Reyes, California shut down for good.
The oyster farm had been there for 80 years, but lost its lease with the federal government after the Park Service decided the land should be returned to nature.
Writer Summer Brennan has captured the dispute over Drakes Bay in a new book called "The Oyster War: The True Story of a small farm, big politics, and the future of Wilderness in America."
But as Brennan explained, there has always been a debate around the scientific basis for the decision to close down the farm.
OC thrift fashion gets the high-end boutique treatment
Goodwill of Orange County’s Huntington Beach location has all the hallmarks of a typical thrift store. There are the shelves of used kitchen appliances and stacks of pictures frames, racks of clothes and, of course, bargain hunters.
But this Goodwill location, which is known as an OC Goodwill Boutique, has a notably different ambiance than most thrift stores. It’s one of a handful of “boutique” stores that Goodwill has been opening throughout Orange County since 2012. The goal is to attract more Orange County shoppers by offering a glamorous retail experience.
“[The Huntington Beach OC Goodwill Boutique] has a completely different feel, it’s much more open, we’re not using kind of the mass capacity fixtures that you’d find in a regular store,” said Eric Smissen, visual specialist for Goodwill of Orange County.
Smissen spent more than 20 years working for Nordstrom before moving to Goodwill. Now he’s putting his knowledge of higher-end retail design and merchandising to use. His job is to help dress formerly run-of-the-mill thrift stores with design touches like cleverly outfitted mannequins, exposed brick walls and well-lit dressing rooms.
And it’s not just the layout that’s a little different in OC Goodwill Boutiques. On the racks, shoppers are likely to find highly sought-after labels like Coach, Michael Kors or Marc Jacobs.
The Orange County boutique stores are not the first of their kind. Goodwill Industries operates across the country taking donations of items like clothing and house wares and selling them to raise money for programs to assist disabled workers, veterans and other job seekers with barriers to employment. There are about 60 “boutique” Goodwill stores nationwide, but each one is a little different.
Frank Talarico Jr., president and CEO of Goodwill of Orange County, said when his branch decided to start opening high-end thrift stores in 2012, they wanted to take the concept further than other branches had.
They opened their first OC Goodwill Boutique in Tustin. In the years since, the nonprofit has opened three more in Lake Forest, Anaheim, and now the Huntington Beach store, which was remodeled in June.
“As a matter of strategy we need to make sure that we’re using the boutique model to expand into those ZIP codes simply because to do it with a traditional store is just not going to happen,” Talarico said.
For Talarico, the most obvious way to reach out to more donors and customers and serve more people in need in Orange County is to appeal to the county’s more affluent residents. Now, Goodwill employees in Orange County do an extra round of sorting when items get donated. They pull out name brands to supply a more curated collection to the four boutique stores.
“We took a real hard look at who our market is and understood that they are not just after real good bargains and shopping value, but the shopping experience is one that we have to be really competitive in,” Talarico said.
Customers in the Huntington Beach boutique seem to notice the difference in the store’s layout and selection.
Local resident Camille Hoffman was visiting the OC Goodwill Boutique for the first time. “Everything looks a little more organized. It looks better, it looks nicer,” she said.
Regina Cox, who is a regular Goodwill shopper, said, “I actually found a Michael Kors [purse] it was like $24. It was practically brand new—a real Michael Kors. So you find bargains.”
Even though the added design elements mean the boutiques cost more to build and launch than traditional Goodwill stores, Talarico said the investment has paid off.
“The market likes it, they enjoy it, they come more often and buy more when they do come,” Talarico said.
According to Goodwill, customers to the Huntington Beach boutique spend nearly $10 dollars more in each transaction than they do at other Orange County locations. And in its first full month after its remodel this summer, the boutique’s sales were up nearly 10 percent compared to the same period last year.
Talarico says he hopes to keep expanding the concept. He’s set a goal to open two boutiques per year in Orange County for the foreseeable future.
Weekend on the cheap: Sour beer and JPL open house
You survived the rain, now get ready for record-breaking heat.
KPCC's social media producer Kristen Lepore joins Take Two every Friday with a handful of fun and almost-free events to fill our weekend.
For even more weekend events, click here. And tweet @kristenleporeto let her know what's happening in your hood.