Today on the show, we'll take a look at a new Pew study that finds the majority of Hispanics in US say their community lacks a leader. Then, we talk to Frank Gehry about his iconic design for the Disney Concert Hall on it's 10th birthday. From the Fronteras Report, David Martin Davies reports on the popularity of Rep. Ted Cruz and his father in the Lone Star State, plus much more.
Pew: Majority of Hispanics in US say their community lacks a leader
Fully three-quarters of Hispanics living in the U.S. say their community needs a national leader. But the vast majority say they don't know who that person is, or say such a leader simply doesn't exist.
That's one key finding from a new survey conducted by the Pew Research Center.
According to Pew's Mark Hugo Lopez, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and U.S. Senator Marco Rubio (R- Fla.) were the most often mentioned as national leaders. But each were only cited by about 5 percent of survey respondents. Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was named by 3 percent.
Among the other findings: 78 percent of those surveyed says Latinos share at least some values in common. More than half refer to themselves by their country of origin, such as Salvadoran or Mexican. Still, nearly half say they consider themselves to be a typical American.
The Latino population in the U.S stands at more than 53 million, and it is among the nation's fastest-growing groups.
The Pew Center surveyed more than 5,000 people, conducting interviews in both Spanish and English.
Frank Gehry's iconic Disney Concert Hall turns 10
Tomorrow, one of LA's most iconic buildings celebrates a big birthday.
The Walt Disney Concert Hall turns 10 years old. The venue opened on October 24, 2003, and quickly became the beloved home of the LA Philharmonic and its executive director at the time, Ernest Fleischman.
The gleaming $274 million building on South Grand Avenue in downtown LA was designed by Frank Gehry. Take Two recently paid Gehry a visit at his offices in West LA, where he explained that when it came down to a list of four architects, he was the only American on the list, and a definite underdog.
Now known worldwide for its trademark curves, it's nearly impossible to imagine anybody but Frank Gehry designing Disney Hall. One critic recently lauded the exuberance of the building's design and "The way it seems eager to expand outward like a bunch of balloons in a child's fist."
Gehry called it a sailing ship.
“I like the image of it as something moving. Our culture is so filled with movement compared to a hundred years ago. Everything is moving or flying," said Gehry.
The basic notion of the hall catered to the mixed population of Los Angeles.
“We wanted to build a hall that was open to everybody. Ernest [Fleishmann] wanted all the seats to be equal, which again is a wonderful thing to say, but some people had to sit behind the orchestra, some people had to sit on the side," said Gehry. "I think we succeeded in making it so that nobody felt second-class no matter where they sat. The space would encourage or generate intimacy and interaction. In other words, create a room that felt good to be in to listen to classical music.”
Due to the nature of the building, nearby apartments started to get 15 degrees hotter.
"It was a minor blip in the world, and then it became a major PR thing, and I still get asked about it, obviously. When you make a reflective surface concave, it has a focal point and when the sun hits it in the right place it will send a beam of heat into wherever. We analyzed all the shapes on the computer to eliminate that," said Gehry. "When it was built, accidentally two or three pieces of metal came together and they were placed wrong and they created that focus — a little bit of the steel wall was gone. It didn't merit appearing on the History Channel as one of the ten most, biggest engineering disasters of the decade."
On whether the Grand Avenue area will ever become a rival to the Champs-Élysées or Fifth Avenue, as Eli Broad imagines, Gehry is skeptical.
"I wasn't on board with that in the beginning, thought it sounded good, its not going to happen in my lifetime or his," he said.
Both Rep. Ted Cruz and his father are popular in the Lone Star State
Texas Republican Ted Cruz, the freshman senator and Tea Party favorite, has gained national notoriety in recent weeks. He led the recent Republican attempt to de-fund and nullify the Affordable Care Act.
Although it ultimately failed, it didn't seem to tarnish his image in the Lone Star state. He's still popular with voters there and that popularity seems to extend even to his father, Rafael Cruz.
David Martin Davies from the Fronteras Desk reports.
Susan Orlean finds history and drama in LA's Central Library's past
Writer Susan Orlean has a knack for turning ordinary sounding subjects into extraordinary stories. Her inquiries into the arrest of an orchid thief in south Florida became a best-selling book that was eventually adapted into the film, "Adaptation," starring with Meryl Streep as Orlean.
In addition, her article about young surfer girls in Maui became the inspiration for the film "Blue Crush."
Recently, Susan Orlean relocated to Los Angeles where she's found the subject of her next book: The Central Library in downtown L.A.
"What made this the one that attracted me so much was, number one I love being contrarian, nobody thinks anyone in L.A. reads and of course that's not true, so it's much more fun to write a book about the L.A. Public Library," said Orlean. "This library has a fascinating history, most significantly is its near death experience is what made me think, 'wow this is a great story.'"
RELATED: Susan Orlean's next book to mine stories from LA's Central Library (Photos)
Orlean has been spending hours at the historic building on Flower Street in downtown L.A. studying the library's history and interviewing librarians past and present. She reminds us of a fire that ravaged the Central Library back in April 29, 1986.
Sports Roundup: World Series, Clippers & Lakers rivalry and more
It's time for the red, white and blue edition of the Take Two Sports Roundup.
Red is for the World Series which starts tonight, blue is for the Dodgers off-season so far and is white the color of a non-athlete? Joining us to answer that question is Andy and Brian Kamenetzsky, who have covered sports for ESPN and the L.A. Times.
The World Series starts tonight in Boston between the Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals, and while it's not the sexy match-up that many wanted (Dodgers vs Red Sox) it really reflects two of the most successful baseball teams of the last decade. The Red Sox swept the Cardinals in 2004, and between the two they have won four of the last nine World Series.
Just days after wrapping up a playoff run, the Dodgers seem to be coming apart at the seams? What's going on at the Ravine? What could that mean for next year? Or will this blow over?
Moving on to basketball. The NBA season is less than a week away, and while the Lakers and Clippers have developed a healthy rivalry lately. The Clippers have riled up some Purple and Gold anger with a move that some say is just sports blasphemy: Ex-Celtics coach and new Clippers coach Doc Rivers has arranged for the Lakers championship banners and retired jerseys to be covered during Clippers home games in Staples.
Every year the NBA does a survey of the league's general managers asking boring questions such as 'which team will the Finals,' or 'who will be the MVP?' Way at the bottom of the survey, the answers to one seemingly innocent question are getting a lot of attention: Which player makes the most of limited natural ability?
Top voter getter was Kevin Love which he tweeted "It's the White Guy Award!" In fact, 9 of the 15 players mentioned were either white or at least not African American. Never mind the fact that Kevin Love's father played in the NBA and comes from an athletic family, his uncle is also Mike Love lead singer of the Beach Boys.
While blatant racism seems to be shrinking more and more in the sports world, when it comes to evaluating an athlete's athleticism, it can be difficult for some to take race out of the equation.
Downtown LA streetcar plan mired by multimillion-dollar funding gap
Last year, when voters signed off on a proposal to bring streetcars to downtown L.A. they were told the project would cost $125 million. Some cost overruns are to be expected, but a new estimate puts the price of the streetcars to more than $325 million.
RELATED: Report: Staffers kept mum on LA streetcar problems
For more on what this means for the fate of the streetcar, we're joined by L.A. Times reporter Laura Nelson.
Mexico outraged at NSA spying by the US
More fallout and condemnation stemming from the NSA spying scandal, now it's Mexico's turn at outrage.
According to the German news outlet Der Spiegel, the NSA eavesdropped and hacked into high level e-mail accounts, including the account of current president Enrique Pena Nieto and former Mexican President Felipe Calderón. Mexican officials are warning that this could sour security operations with the U.S.
For more on this we turn to Tim Johnson, he's a reporter for McClatchy Newspapers, based in Mexico City.
Calif. high-speed rail construction begins with search of artifacts
This week, work finally began on California's high speed rail. Crews started digging up a parking lot in downtown Fresno. They're looking for artifacts and underground tunnels that were once part of the city's Chinatown more than a century ago.
Here with more is AP reporter Juliet Williams.
App Chat: Use your phone to woo the opposite sex
This week on App Chat, we'll fill you on the latest apps to help you find that special someone. App Chat regular Jacqui Cheng, editor at large for Ars Technica joins us this week.
Remember from the late '90s or early 2000s when there was a site called 'HotorNot.com? Tinder actually kind of takes that idea and spins it off into an app. What you do is you sign in with Facebook so it brings in your photos and info automatically. What it does is show you a lot of photos from people near you. Then you can basically just sort of rate them: 'Yes,' you think they look good. 'No,' you are not interested.
It also shows you things like how many interests you have in common and how many friends you have in common, which it pulls in from Facebook. Then you kind of get to go through and really fast sort of decide if you like people or not. If both sides decide they like each other then they will put you in touch with each other to start chatting. So you would have to rate someone with a thumbs-up and they would have to rate you a thumbs-up, and then you can start talking.
Carrot is really a very strange app, but I guess it works. The idea is that you are offering a carrot, a bribe basically, to people to go out with you. It is sort of similar in that when you load it up, it shows you a lot of photos of people who are near you. Then you look at them and if you think they are cute or you are interested, you can tap on them and then offer them something.
So you can offer them, say, dinner or coffee. Or if you want to start getting crazy, you can offer them a vacation or a spa day. Then on the other side, they see that and then they decide whether they want to take you up on this offer to go for dinner or something and then go on a date.
These apps, especially Tinder, are a little more toward the younger crowd. Tinder has an age limit that only goes up to like 44. The more traditional apps like Match and OkCupid probably are better for the older crowd because then you can sort of be a little more traditional in what you are looking for.
LA schools get greening grants but officials put projects on ice
Seven years ago, voters approved millions of dollars in bonds for Proposition 84. The money would fund new community gardens, wetlands renewal, and tree planting in public spaces.
Since then, the state's received more than a-dozen proposals for greening projects at public schools. The first of these made it to the ribbon-cutting stage, but others face obstacles. KPCC's Adolfo Guzman-Lopez reports.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos gets into civilian space flight race with 'Blue Origin'
If you've seen the film "Gravity", you might not be in a rush to travel to outer space any time soon. But for some companies, space tourism may eventually prove to be big business.
The Wall Street Journal reports a projected $1.5 billion in revenue for the space tourism industry by the middle of the next decade. Part of that estimate is based on the potential success of companies run by Tesla Motors CEO, Elon Musk, and Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos.
The two businessmen have been in a sort of competition. Ashlee Vance, a technology writer for Bloomberg BusinessWeek, joins the show with more.
Report finds antibiotics in food poses health risk for humans
A new report finds some troubling data about the amount of antibiotics found in our food and warns of an increased public health risk as a result. The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future discovered that as much as 80 percent of the antibiotics sold in this country are fed to food animals.
Bob Martin, director for food system policy at the Johns Hopkins Center joins the show with more.