Supreme Court to hear arguments in Michigan affirmative action case; Why aren't the NFL's first minority Super Bowl winners in the Hall Of Fame?; Marine base expansion in Joshua Tree faces opposition; DNA from LA area immigrants could solve painful mysteries from Guatemala's civil war; The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta's fragile ecology, plus much more.
Supreme Court to hear arguments in Michigan affirmative action case
Today the U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in an affirmative action case involving the state of Michigan. But the decision could also affect the ban on affirmative action here in California.
USC law professor Jody Armour joins the show to explain the impact of this decision on California.
How close are the Senate and House to ending the shutdown?
There's continued confusion in the nation's capital over the government shutdown and borrowing limit.
The Senate is reportedly close to a deal that would reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling — at least until early next year. But the House is struggling to come up with a plan of its own because the two proposals appear to be pretty different.
Joining us now from Capitol Hill is Shane Goldmacher of National Journal.
DNA from LA area immigrants could solve painful mysteries from Guatemala's civil war
Los Angeles is home to Guatemala's largest ex-pat community. Recently, a forensic group headquartered in Guatemala collected DNA samples from the local community here in the hopes that they can solve painful mysteries about loved ones who either died or went missing during Guatemala's civil war.
KPCC's Leslie Berestein-Rojas has more.
Hunger in the Valley: Food banks face a dilemma
Food banks have become a primary source of nutrition for many families in the Central Valley.
The region ranks among the highest in the nation when it comes to hunger, as well as diseases linked to poor nutrition such as diabetes and obesity. In the second installment in the series, Hunger in the Valley of Plenty, we hear how food banks grapple with tough choices about what they offer.
The California Report's Sasha Khokha has the story.
Report: Kids in foster care do worse in school
California's foster kids are performing far worse than their peers academically.
New research finds these students have lower standardized test scores and the highest dropout rate. As the California Report's Tara Siler explains, the study comes as the state is trying to direct more resources to at-risk students.
Why aren't the NFL's first minority Super Bowl winners in the Hall Of Fame?
It's the last day of National Hispanic Heritage Month, a time celebrating the contributions of Latinos to the United States.
There have been concerts and art exhibits highlighting the accomplishments of Latinos past and present, but two trailblazing Chicanos have been all but forgotten.
In 1981, the Oakland Raiders' Tom Flores and Jim Plunkett became the first minorities to win a Super Bowl as a head coach and quarterback, respectively. Three years later they did it again when the Raiders played in Los Angeles.
They've got championships on their resumes and the distinction of being first, but neither is in the Pro Football Hall of Fame and — as time goes on — the memory of what they did gets even fainter.
ESPN.com's Paul Gutierrez joins the show with more.
Tuesday Reviewsday: Paul McCartney, TLC, Bad Things and more
Now it's time for Tuesday Reviewsday our weekly new music segment. Shirley Halperin, music editor of The Hollywood Reporter, and Chris Martins, senior writer with Spin Magazine join us today.
Shirley's Picks
Artist: Paul McCartney
Album: New
Release Date: Oct. 15
Songs: “New,” “Queenie Eye 1”
At 71 years old, McCartney is not yet done blowing our minds. He’s still touring — playing both to his biggest and smallest crowds — and he’s still holding the public’s attention and fascination and he continues to put out “records” in the classic sense.
"New" is his 16th album as a solo artist yet it has moments that feel like they could have been written in 1972. Take, for instance, the Beatle-esque charm of the title track.
That song was produced by Mark Ronson, who’s best known for his work with Amy Winehouse and for bringing back that retro-cool sound, which has been embraced by scores of pop artists, from Cee Lo Green to Bruno Mars.
The second track also sounds like a throwback:
McCartney has explained that Queenie Eye is a Tag-like game that the neighborhood kids used to play. Paul Epworth, who worked on Adele’s "21," including “Rollin in the Deep,” produced that one and did a stellar job, but it’s the lyrics that fascinate me more. It’s almost like McCartney has to go that far back, to childhood, to find a relatable topic or some sense of normalcy. Because the last 50 years had no such thing.
Artist: Bad Things
Album: Self-titled
Release Date: Oct. 29
Songs: “Caught Inside”
Confession: I took this disc home and had only skimmed over the promotional material. What stuck out: a rock band with “choirboy backing harmonies,” that Grantland had written a fawning, in-depth feature on the band after seeing them at Lollapalooza this summer, production by Rob Schnapf, who worked with Elliott Smith and the Vines and is based here in Silver Lake.
I listened to “Caught Inside” and it sounded good – anthemic, like a band raised on healthy helpings of Radiohead, Blur and Muse. Somehow I missed the part that said Shaun White, Olympic gold medalist for skateboarding and snowboarding, plays lead guitar in the Bad Things. Cue: the judgment. And it’s really not fair. These guys made a radio-friendly album that nods to power pop and arena-era U2 and I can’t disparage anyone for doing that. Check out the song “Anybody” to get my drift. Shaun White’s dayjob is the half-pipe, but who says he can’t have a night shift? Classic overachiever.
Chris's Picks
Artist: TLC
Album: 20 (best of compilation)
Release Date: October 15
Songs: "Meant to Be" ; J. Cole's "Crooked Smile"
"Meant" is TLC's first new song since 2005 and is perfect TLC comfort food — an easy-to-love ballad with positive vibes. The group actually re-emerged on J. Cole's "Crooked Smile," a sweet song about body-image positivity.
TLC emerged in the early '90s and were central to the R&B movement that's now being channeled back into the musical zeitgeist. Not just folks like Frank Ocean and Miguel, but that sound been embraced in dance-pop, with artists like Katy B, Jessie Ware, & others mixing that with house music.
Artist: Luke Temple (of Here We Go Magic)
Album: Good Mood Fool
Release Date: October 15
Songs: "Florida" ; "Katie"
Luke Temple is a NYC singer/songwriter/producer with David Byrne's restless art/pop ear. He rose to indie prominence with his group Here We Go Magic, who indeed owe to Talking Heads. His new work is very soulful, also very '80s indebted, with lush synth sounds and New Age ambience.
What I like to call "Gallery Funk," a style I love that we're also hearing from artists like Ducktails, DIANA, Julia Holter, Nedelle Torrisi, and Destroyer, who kinda kicked it all off.
Rep. Tom McClintock on government shutdown
California Representative Tom McClintock, a Republican who represents a district stretching from Lake Tahoe down to Kings Canyon National Park, joins the show to address what's happening on Capitol Hill.
40th anniversary: A look at how the 1973 oil embargo changed the way we feel about energy
Let's take a little trip back, 40 years back, to the fall of 1973.
The Rolling Stones held the number one spot on the Billboard charts, Archie Bunker was the king of television, and vice-president Spiro Agnew resigned amid charges of widespread political corruption.
Most Americans who were around back then will remember those things. They'll likely also remember long line at the gas station and the importance of odd and even days. 40 years ago, if your license plate ended in an even number, you could only fill your tank on even numbered days.
The country was struggling with the effects of an oil embargo imposed by Arab members of OPEC, and designed to punish America for supporting Israel in the 1973 war with Egypt and Syria. The embargo lasted just five months, but it forever changed our feeling about petroleum, and energy in general.
Michael Ross, a UCLA political scientist who focuses on the intersection of oil and politics, joins us to talk more about this.
Marine base expansion in Joshua Tree faces opposition
The Mojave Desert communities around Joshua Tree tend to be among the most pro-military in the state. Twenty-nine Palms, after all, is home to the world's largest US Marine base.
But, a controversial proposal that would expand the base by tens of thousands of acres is drawing fire from an army of opponents.
Steven Cuevas from The California Report has more.
UCLA study shows diversity in TV can lead to higher ratings
Television producers take note.
If you want more viewers, a racially diverse cast and racially diverse writers might lead to higher ratings. A new study from UCLA's Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies suggests there could be a link between ratings and diversity.
The study revealed that shows with a more ethnically diverse cast attracted more viewers.
Hollywood Diversity Brief Spotlight 2013
The Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta's fragile ecology
This is part II in a 5-part piece series by Amy Quinton at Capital Public Radio. Read/hear part I of the series here.
Suisun Marsh is the largest brackish water marsh on the West Coast. It’s at the Delta’s western most edge. University of California Davis researchers set out on a boat in Montezuma Slough, which connects the Sacramento River to Suisun Bay.
“It’s a place where fish can easily have access to if they’re migrating up and down the river,” says Peter Moyle, a professor of fish biology for UC Davis. He has been sampling fish in Suisun Marsh every month for the past 34 years. “This is same delivery system makes it possible for small fish to come and get in here to rear and move out again.”
Moyle says it’s also one of the most biologically productive areas, not just for fish, but for otters, birds, and all kinds of invertebrates.
“It’s used by sturgeon and salmon and many other species,” he says. “Over the years we’ve gotten 50 species of fish out here on a typical sampling day we’ll get 15 to 20 species of fish, and about half of them are native, half of them are non-native.”
Researchers pull traps used to catch small bottom-dwelling fish.
Invasive species problem for Delta
“This right here is a Siberian prawn, invaded about 10 years ago from China," says Moyle as he holds up the shrimp. He then picks up a clear jellyfish a little bigger than a quarter. “This is a jellyfish that’s native to the Black Sea,” he laughs.
Most of the invasives come into the estuary through ship ballast water. Moyle says the Delta’s ecosystem is complex and constantly changing.
Over the years, he’s made troubling discoveries.
“I was tracking the Delta smelt as one of the many species that we were catching here and I noticed that in the mid-1980’s that their populations had started to go into decline,” he says. “Then in a couple of years they just about disappeared from our samples.”
The Delta smelt was soon listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
It joined other Delta species, including winter-run chinook salmon, longfin smelt and green sturgeon. The reasons for the population declines vary.
Invasives are part of the problem. The overbite clam consumes the Delta smelt’s food. Sewage treatment plants have polluted the water.
And then there are the pumping plants in the south Delta.
“You remember the scene in Star Wars where the Millenium Falcon and Han Solo are flying by the Death Star?” asks Chuck Bonham, director of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “And all of sudden the tractor beam force-field comes out of the Death Star and it just pulls the Millenium Falcon in? We’ve got that same scenario going on with these large pumps. They literally pull the fish off their natural migration paths, down to the pumps, and when they get down there, two out of three of them die.”
Salmon Fishermen Affected by Delta
Salmon fishermen have seen the results first hand. Pietro Parravano was a commercial salmon fisherman for 20 years before becoming President of the Institute for Fisheries Resources. He sits on his boat in Half Moon Bay.
“Salmon is a perfect example of what happens when things change or altered in terms of habitat. There are still hundreds of thousands of salmon that die because of the dams and the pumps,” says Parravano.
The pumps cause reverse flows in the estuary.
That confuses salmon whose natural instinct is to follow the flow.
Zeke Grader with the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations says the Delta and Central Valley provide about 90 percent of California’s overall salmon production.
He says any changes there can affect salmon fishing from the Santa Barbara coast to Crescent City.
“The state water project and the federal water project combined have made a big hit on the whole ecosystem whether it’s a direct changing of flows in the system or affecting the habitat or viability of this estuary,” says Grader.
The Bay Delta Conservation Plan proposes two tunnels that would pump water out of the Sacramento River instead of the southern Delta.
“The bigger run in the Central Valley system comes out of the Sacramento, not the San Joaquin,” says Grader. “So you’re potentially putting at risk of your bigger salmon population.”
It also has the potential to increase the Delta’s salinity.
“We worry about it,” says Chuck Bonham, with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “Those potential new diversions from the Sacramento, they’re going to have to be up to snuff. And that’s a regulatory burden we expect the Department of Water Resources and the Bureau [of Reclamation] to understand and then work with us on meeting.”
Peter Moyle says in theory the tunnels could work. “The assurances are always given that if we build these tunnels they’ll be operated in a fish-friendly way,” says Moyle. “Maybe we just have to believe that. But that’s a big ‘if’,” says Moyle.
He says successful habitat restoration for fish and other species will be crucial. The Bay Delta Conservation Plan proposes to restore 145,000 acres.
Hundreds protest deportations in Phoenix
Hundreds marched in Phoenix on Monday to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement office to protest the Obama administration's deportation policies. The march came days after a group of activists chained themselves to buses carrying immigrant detainees in Tucson and halted a court hearing there.
As Jude Joffe-Block reports, these activists are calling on the President to take administrative action on immigration as the chance of Congress passing a reform bill this year wanes.
New show 'Knife Fight' features local chefs in cooking competition
The cooking competition show has become a well-worn format on TV, but a new program on the brand new Esquire network has something special for local audiences: local chefs.
"Knife Fight", as it’s called, is hosted by Top Chef winner and LA restaurant owner Ilan Hall. His downtown eatery, The Gorbals, serves as the set for a series of rowdy throw downs between LA chefs.
Chef Ilan Hall joins us with more