Ebola. Some experts say a travel ban is a distraction. Genes protect some Latinas from breast cancer, and gun ranges with high levels of lead.
Ebola: 3 infected people could travel overseas from West Africa monthly, study projects
Clamping down on travelers from West Africa is a key strategy in stopping the killer virus in its tracks. Recent travel restrictions state that if you're planning a trip to the U.S. from Sierra Leone, Guinea or Liberia, you can only pass through one of five airports.
Passengers will be screened at Kennedy International in New York, Newark Liberty International, Washington Dulles International, O’Hare International in Chicago, and Hartsfield-Jackson International in Atlanta. And if some politicians had their way, you wouldn't be allowed to travel stateside from an Ebola-zone at all.
But a new study published in the Lancet adds fuel to this debate. It projects up to three Ebola-infected people a month could head overseas, escalating the fear of the virus jumping borders. Isaac Bogoch is one of the authors of the study and he joins us now to talk more about it.
Ebola: Would having a surgeon general make a difference?
The Ebola crisis highlights the fact that there is currently no surgeon general in office.
Last year, President Obama nominated Dr. Vivek Murthy.
Confirmation of the physician has been approved by a Senate committee but the full chamber has yet to take the issue up.
When it comes to Ebola, would having a confirmed surgeon general make a difference?
Absolutely not, Associated Press medical writer Mike Stobbe argues in Politico Magazine. Stobbe explains why.
Community group monitors border patrol amidst harassment claims
Some residents in the border town of Arivaca, Arizona have claimed that a local Border Patrol checkpoint does not make the community safer, but subjects people--especially Latinos--to unnecessary harassment.
Activists have asked the federal agency to turn over data about who is being stopped and detained at its interior checkpoint in Arivaca, about 25 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border.
So far the feds have refused to share that data.
A community group began monitoring the checkpoint themselves this year and just released their findings.
Reporter Kate Sheehy has the story for Fronteras Desk.
Genetic variant may protect some Latinas from breast cancer, new study finds
A new study has found that a genetic variant common in some Latina women significantly lowers the risk of breast cancer.
The international study, led by researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, found that women with one copy of the variant were 40 percent less likely to have breast cancer, and women with two copies (only about 1 percent of Latinas) were 80 percent less likely to have the disease.
Dr. Laura Fejerman, one of the authors of the study, joins Take Two to explain why Latinas have lower rates of breast cancer and possible implications for the development of future treatments for the disease.
Writer Daniel Alarcón on the strange, tragic story of 'The Contestant'
The game show "The Moment of Truth" dares contestants to reveal some of their deepest darkest secrets in exchange for big cash prizes. Here in the U.S., the program didn't fare too well, but it was a big deal when it came to Peru.
Their first contestant was a 19-year-old woman named Ruth Thalía Sayas Sánchez. What happened to her on the show changed her life forever.
It's a harrowing story Daniel Alarcón wrote about for the new publication California Sunday Magazine.
Alarcón is the author of "At Night We Walk in Circles," a finalist for the 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award, and the executive producer of Radio Ambulate.
Sports Roundup: Kobe speaks out, Mo'ne Davis, NCAA concussions
Kobe Bryant's nickname is Black Mamba but is he biting the hand that feeds him?
Plus, Mo'ne Davis gets together with Chevrolet.
That means it's time for sports with Andy and Brian Kamenetzky.
LA County jails report use of force up 11 percent
During the first nine months of this year, deputies in LA County jails used force more than 500 times.
That marks an increase of 11 percent compared with last year, according to a report.
Many of those instances involved the use of control holds and chemical agents such as Mace.
Assistant Sheriff Terri McDonald, who oversees the County's jail system, spoke to Take Two about the trend.
INTERVIEW HIGHLIGHTS
Did this report surprise you?
It did. Any time we have a change or uptick in numbers it's something we need to pay attention to carefully. But I've got to put it in perspective. You're talking about one additional use of force in the jail or two additional use of force in a jail over the course of a month, because use of force is already pretty low to begin with.
You've said you don’t know whether or not this signals an increase of force or increase in reporting. What has changed with reporting use of force incidents?
We changed the departmental policy to make it abundantly clear that any time you were required to use your physical force against a resistive inmate, even though the resistance may be relatively minor—no injuries or allegations of abuse of force—that you had to report that in writing. As a result I think some of the uptick is just people having a better understanding. If you are escorting an inmate, for example, and he begins to turn away from you or struggle with you and you use upper body strength to hold him steady or face him toward a wall you must do a report. That wouldn’t have been mandatory before and so that may account for some of the uptick.
Can you tell us the whole range of what constitutes use of force these days?
Most force used in jails results in no injuries. Well over 70 percent of physical contact with inmates is kind of resistive force—handcuffing, escorting, maybe team takedowns, where they have to take people to the ground.
The next range is where an inmate has a minor injury or allegation of an injury or in which we deployed a Taser. That accounts for 25 percent. Only three incidents this year was there substantial injury to the inmate and that would mean a fracture or significant head injury. So only three of those 500 or so events were those type of force.
And yet in 53 of these cases in this report inmates accuse deputies of excessive force. What happened with those allegations?
An inmate can allege we either used force and did not report it or the force used exceeded what was necessary to deal with the problem. Any time we have an allegation we investigate that allegation. The vast majority have been found to be unfounded. Sometimes we can't prove whether it was true or untrue and those lead to kind of unsustained. We can't say it didn’t happen but there are no cameras, no witnesses no injury, nothing else that would indicate whether there was truth in that allegation. And then there are those in which we believe that's true. So of the 53 in 2014, at least one we believe the employee used unnecessary or excessive force.
Can you talk about the training deputies receive when dealing with use of force for mentally ill inmates and if you think that is adequate?
The good news about the force trends is the use of force trends in our mental health facility actually went down and I believe that's partially targeted with us improving our training for the deputies in how to interact with the mentally ill. Because many of our deputies, this may be new to them. They may have never encountered someone with acute mental health issues and training them in a scenario-type training to help improve their skills, I look forward to doing in 2015.
Other concerns LA County jails face are inmate suicides, unsanitary conditions, vermin-infested jails. The U.S. Department of Justice is seeking a consent decree to take over the jails. How do you handle this situation, especially in an interim capacity?
I'm not really here in an interim capacity. I was hired in March 2013 to come help the jails. I think some of the things being reported are a little exaggerative, like vermin-infested cells. There aren't vermin-infested cells, although all large correctional systems, this one included, have vector control issues. You can have cockroach problems in a kitchen here just like in a kitchen down the street. I'm not saying it's not an issue, though sometimes media and others grab onto individual sections of a report and explode them. I am not saying there aren’t challenges because there are—overcrowding, the conditions and design and staffing levels of Men's Central Jail. These are all issues we continue to work through and I think we're going to challenge the new sheriff to come forward to help continue to refine and reform the jail systems here.
California drought: The tough, complicated battle for cheap water
Traveling along Interstate 5 in central California, it's nearly impossible to miss the signs - "Congress Created Dustbowl" reads one. "No Water, No Jobs Equals higher food costs" reads another.
These banners make bold claims condemning politicians to those traveling through the dry and dusty region. But behind these declarations is a complicated story.
Bettina Boxall pored through that story for the Los Angeles Times and explains more.
Gun ranges pose lead risks to children and workers, report finds
Lead poisoning can be dangerous to anyone. But it's especially harmful to children.
Their smaller, growing bodies make them more susceptible to absorbing and retaining lead.
Recently, kids and teenagers across the country have exposed themselves to the poisonous metals by participating in gun clubs.
The Seattle Times looked into the issue after unsafe levels of lead were found in blood tests of 20 young people shooting at a gun club in Vancouver, Washington.
As one of the teenagers recalled, "We would get lead on our hands and eat finger food."
The investigation also found that employees of the gun ranges were at risk and little was being done to monitor or ensure safety.
Read the series, Loaded with Lead from the Seattle Times.
Republicans battle for seats in former Orange County stronghold
There's a battle in Orange County over two seats in the state legislature.
The California Report's John Myers looks at how the fight is taking shape in this former Republican stronghold.
Are you scared of clowns just to be cool?
"It just seems fashionable, right now," says Guilford Adams aka Gilly the Clown, chief executive clown for Los Angeles Clown.
But that hasn't stopped some people from saying that they're deathly afraid of him.
The fear of clowns like Gilly actually has a name: coulrophobia. The phenomenon goes back centuries, says historian and writer Linda Rodriguez McRobbie.
"There's been a general uncomfortability with clowns for as long as that character has existed," she says.
The idea that clowns had a dark side first came to prominence with Joseph Grimaldi, a famous London clown during the early 1800s.
He was so popular that an eighth of the city had seen him on stage at some point.
But behind the scenes he had a tragic life: his wife died in childbirth, his son drank himself to death at 31, and his acrobatic tricks and tumbles left him with debilitating pain and prematurely disabled.
Grimaldi, himself, died alcoholic and penniless.
"That's where Dickens came in," says Rodriguez McRobbie.
Charles Dickens edited Grimaldi's memoirs and, in typical Dickensian fashion, suggested that for every laugh on the outside Grimaldi was anguished on the inside.
That set the stage for the menacing image of clowns.
"It wasn't until the 20th century that we made clowns kids' entertainment," she says, "and that's when we started getting really, actively scared of them."
But Gilly the clown says many of you aren't REALLY scared.
Stephen King didn't do Bozo any favors
Popular culture has a lot to do with why certain generations come to fear clowns. For example...
Pennywise the Dancing Clown introduced coulrophobia to many people in Stephen King's novel and miniseries, "It."
Meanwhile, people tuning into FX lately have to endure Twisty the Clown, this season's villain on, "American Horror Story: Freak Show."
Also in Kern County, California, clowns have been roaming the streets at night. The first bozos to hit the street were for a photo project, but all the rest: copycats. And these ones are brandishing weapons.
These examples aren't really doing much good PR for clowns, but Gilly the clown says people who are unnerved by him aren't really that scared.
"When I walked in here today [to KPCC], there's a lady at reception," he says. "She seems like a really sweet girl, but I didn't catch her face because she was terrified."
As in, she hid her face and needed someone else to usher him to the studio. He says she's the one percent.
Most of the time, though, Gilly says people who say they're scared are doing it to impress their friends.
"Like they've got a commonality with those people because this the population that's grown up with It and the John Wayne Gacys and Krusty," he says. "Every image of clown that you have is kind of a crusty type of individual."
Historian Linda Rodriguez McRobbie agrees. "Are you really, really afraid of clowns? Probably not as much as you are afraid of your friends."
Gilly also says he's noticed something about the people in LA who say they're scared: they're mostly white and into mainstream culture.
"If you're any of the minorities or one that has any ethnicity, they tend not to be scared of clowns," he says. "There's less of stigma."
He suggests that perhaps it's because they didn't grow up watching clowns like Tim Curry as Pennywise.
"It's something in modern caucasian culture or American white suburban culture that clowns tend to play more of a negative stereotype than if you look at, for example, the [hispanic] community."
The science behind the scare
Historian Linda Rodriguez McRobbie says there is some real science behind the fear: the Uncanny Valley.
It's a theory that's usually applied to robotics, and it states that when something is human-like but whose features are a little off and not exact, it makes real humans unnerved and repulsed.
When clowns put on face paint, says Rodriguez McRobbie, it clouds our ability to read their facial cues and expressions.
"When someone's got their smile painted on their sad face, it's hard to see what's going on beneath the make-up," she says. "People are just never really certain of a clown's motives."
Gilly is aware of that, and in his own practice he'll wear less clown make-up when around children.
He'll also use clever psychology so a crying child won't find him scary.
"I try not to give him too much attention," he says, "but I'll corral the other kids and let him, through example, know that the other kids aren't scared of me: that he will come around."
However, he admits that there are some people who are genuinely scared of clowns, and that any of us can be scared under the right circumstances, too.
"If I got out of my car in a parking garage and there was a clown with just three balloons standing in the corner, it would freak me out! And I'm a clown myself," he says. "We can all be scared of clowns, too, if the clown is scary-looking enough."
Wildfires inspire new technologies to fight and predict fire
The increased threat of wildfires is inspiring new technologies to both fight and predict fire, from satellites in the sky to virtual firefighting on the ground.
Amy Quinton takes a look at some of these new tools as part of her "California Burning" series for Capital Public Radio.
Tenacious D adds spooky Circus of Death to this year's Festival Supreme
Last fall, the rock duo Tenacious D came up with a wacky idea. They brought together all sorts of comedians and musicians at the Santa Monica Pier and held a day long celebration. They called it Festival Supreme.
The show sold out and was such a big hit, the fellas decided to do it all again this year. Like last year, the event is going to feature some great acts. Margaret Cho, Fred Armisen, Cheech and Chong, and Eagles of Death Metal are on the lineup. But this year's show will be at The Shrine instead and there will be a Circus of Death — like a spooky Disneyland for adults. And this year, Tenacious D — Jack Black and Kyle Gass — say Andy Dick will NOT be getting a backstage pass.
Festival Supreme will be held Oct. 25 at Shrine Expo Hall and Grounds in Downtown LA. See more information at the event website.
Some spookiness: