A look at the tragic Palm Springs tour bus crash, Volkwagen's nearly $15 billion settlement, voter diversity in local contests.
Could technology have prevented the bus crash in Palm Springs?
Officials continue their investigation into the cause of a deadly tour bus crash that killed 12 people and the driver near Palm Springs early Sunday morning, One official from the California Highway Patrol says it appears the bus driver failed to brake before slamming into the rear of a big rig.
KPCC's Take Two spoke with a transportation expert on whether new transportation technology could have played a part in preventing the accident.
Sarah Catz, research associate at the UC-Irvine Institute of Transportation Studies, says technology already on roads might have helped if only it were integrated into most buses.
Volvo has developed a system that uses two sensors—a radar and a camera—to detect forward collisions.
"If a driver shows no sign reducing speed there's an automatic braking system that sets in and reduces the speed," Catz said.
She says it's also possible to take technology used in trains like Metrolink and modify it for buses.
Called Positive Train Control, GPS installed in train cars and tracks will communicate with each other, and send alerts if a train misses a signal, or if it's traveling too fast in a section of track.
Semi-trucks already use a similar system called Peloton Technology, where individual trucks will talk to each other through sensors, alerting others if there's an accident ahead and, if so, to slow down.
"This kind of technology I could see being used for buses as well," says Catz.
Another option is already on the roads in Singapore: self-driving buses.
Used primarily in airports and resort areas, they're smaller than typical tour buses, seating only 24 passengers. Catz says the research so far on self-driving vehicles indicates they are safer than driver-manned cars.
Before any of these technologies hit the road, she says it's already possible for drivers to use apps to stay more alert. Some will periodically warn drivers to make sure they aren't about to fall asleep, or can be positioned in such a way to use a phone's camera to monitor a driver's eye movements for exhaustion.
For any of these solutions, Catz says it's important that the government put its weight behind this issue.
"It's just a matter of support," she says. "We have two presidential candidates who are talking about infrastructure, and if they put their money where their mouth, we could definitely put together some type of commission to look into it."
Click the blue audio player to hear the full interview.
5 things to know about the largest auto scandal settlement in US history
Earlier this morning in San Francisco, a federal judge approved Volkwagen's nearly $15 billion dollar settlement with regulators and owners of its diesel vehicles.
It's been a little more than a year now since the German automaker first admitted to using secret software to cheat exhaust emissions tests.
Sue Carpenter, who covers mobility for KPCC, joined Alex Cohen to talk about the five main takeaways from the largest auto settlement in history.
1. Where's all that money going?
"Well, about $10 billion of that will go to the owners of these two liter affected diesels of VW and Audi cars. $2.7 billion dollars of that is supposed to go into an environmental trust. Another $2 billion is going to be invested over 10 years into zero emissions vehicle infrastructure access and awareness programs, so that's basically the whole kit and kaboodle right there."
2. How many car owners will this affect?
"475,000 cars, a lot of people have already put in for their buybacks, I think the most current figure is that 336,000 people have already opted for the settlement. About 3,300 have opted out. As soon as the preliminary approval was granted in July, people were already filing to get these settlements taken care of but they will start to become effective November 1st."
3. What options do car owners have other than buyback?
"You can have your lease bought out or you can have your car fixed. The thing is that we just don't know if there's ever going to be an appropriate fix for this car, it hasn't been put out there yet. It definitely has not been approved so that's just a big question mark right now."
4. It's no surprise the judge approved this plan.
"During the court hearing in July, he granted his preliminary approval which basically outlined everything that he definitively approved, just this morning."
5. Will VW weather this storm?
"Well, it seems like they're weathering it okay. Their sales are down but they have not been wiped out. They're sticking to the U.S. market and they're kind of pivoting away from diesel, they're embracing electric vehicles. I would expect to really see that in full force at the upcoming L.A. auto show."
To hear the full interview, click the blue play button above.
Familial DNA can help law enforcement catch criminals, but is it ethical?
In 2008, California Governor Jerry Brown enacted a comprehensive familial DNA policy, allowing law enforcement to use the DNA of a relative to track down a suspect.
Critics of this approach have voiced concerns about ethics and privacy, but it has occasionally proved successful when it comes to solving gruesome crimes.
For more on the role familial DNA can play in an investigation, Take Two spoke to David Kaye, a professor of law at Penn State and an expert on scientific and forensic evidence.
Click the blue audio player to hear the full interview.
The Brood: Should parents post about their kids online?
For parents and non-parents alike, the internet can be a great place to share a cute photo, tell a funny story, or just vent.
But when it comes to parents posting about their kids, how much sharing is too much?
It's an issue that can arise even before a baby is born. Should you post your ultrasound on Facebook? What about sharing something cute your toddler said? Or even making them their own Instagram account?
There's even a term for sharing every little thing your kid does with the world-- it's called "sharenting." And it raises all sorts of concerns about privacy and consent.
Stacey Steinberg, Associate Director for the Center on Children and Families at the University of Florida Levin College of Law, and Dr. Bahareh Keith, a pediatrician at the University of Florida, have been sorting through some of those issues.
The two presented their research on the risks of sharenting last week at the national conference of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Steinberg says that when she looked into it, she found very little in the academic literature that discussed balancing a parent's interest in sharing with a child's interest in privacy.
In reviewing the research that is out there, Dr. Bahareh Keith says, they identified some concerning potential risks. One is that photos parents post of their kids online can be taken and posted on child pornography websites.
These photos can be "just normal daily things that we as parents post because we want Grandma to see it," Dr. Keith says. "But we don't realize that unfortunately it can get shared and reshared and it can get pirated and stolen."
There's also the potential for identity theft, bullies misusing information that a parent has shared, or "digital kidnapping," where someone takes an image of someone else's child and presents it as their own child.
So what should a parent consider when posting about their children online? Steinberg and Keith say there are ways for parents to share information responsibly:
- Think about how your child might one day feel when they come face-to-face with the information that you've posted about them online. If they're a baby or a toddler, imagine them as a teenager and what they might have to say about what you're about to post.
- Give older children veto power over photos or information that you post about them online.
- Look at your privacy settings and make sure you're aware of where that information is going before you press share.
- If you do share something publicly, consider setting up an alert system that will let you know if that information is reshared across other media platforms.
- If you're going to share something about a child's behavioral struggles, do it anonymously.
- Consider the risks before sharing photos of your children in any state of undress.
- If you do regret posting something, don't hesitate to take it down. Or if your child asks you to take something down, respect their wishes.
- Relax. In most circumstances, kids are going to be perfectly fine with the information their parents put out there.
Click the blue player to hear the full interview.
Getting beyond the buzzwords: Schools improvise as they add art to their STEM schools
Tuesday Reviewsday: Shirley Collins, Afro-Rock and West African tunes
If you love music, but don't have the time to keep up with what's new, you should listen to Tuesday Reviewsday. Every week our critics join our hosts in the studio to talk about what you should be listening to, in one short segment. This week, music journalist
Artist: The Lafayette Afro Rock Band vs. ICE
Album: "Afro Funk Explosion"
Songs: "Darkest Light," "Malik"
We’re going to say with some confidence that you’ve heard the Lafayette Afro Rock Band. We’re going to say with nearly the same level of confidence that you’ve never heard of the Lafayette Afro Rock Band.
Biz Markie, Janet Jackson, De La Soul, LL Cool J, the Wu-Tang Clan — you’ve heard of them — are among those who sampled the Lafayette Afro Rock Band’s 1974 song "Hihache." Public Enemy and Jay-Z — you’ve heard of them, too — used a bit of the group’s "Darkest Light," the former in the 1988 song "Show ‘Em Whatcha Got," the latter on the 2006 hit "Show Me What You Got." Yup, that forlorn saxophone wail? That’s theirs.
But as indelible as that short set of notes is, it’s not exactly representative of the LARB’s sound. As the name implies, and as track after track on a long-overdue, revelatory compilation just coming out now, this is some funky stuff, boisterous and burbly jazz-rock and dance-pop and eminently irresistible, though in fact it was largely resisted and left to obscurity.
The irony, perhaps, is that the band went to great lengths to avoid obscurity, leaving its Long Island birthplace and the American proliferation of funk bands to relocate in Paris. Having originated as the Bobby Boyd Congress (Boyd being the founding singer) and then named Ice, the group went to France under the guidance of jazz producer Pierre Jaubert in 1971. Boyd left soon thereafter, but the group continued and became part of the eclectic, international Paris circuit. There they heard, and sometimes played with, Cameroonian saxophonist Manu Dibango, who was living in Paris, and embraced elements of his African fusion sound, changing the group name to reflect that (Lafayette coming from the name of bassist Lafayette Hudson) and even recording a fairly straight version of his iconic 1972 song "Soul Makossa" as the title track of the debut LARB album. The LARB recordings that came in the early and mid-‘70s which make up the bulk of this compilation’s first of two discs, features that approach prominently, but not exclusively, with some tracks leaning more toward party funk a la Kool & the Gang, others veering into the jazzier side of things comparable to what the Crusaders, Ramsey Lewis and Average White Band were doing at the time. "Malik," the title song of the followup (and final LARB) album, holds up really well both in context of its time and today.
Sales were minimal, and outside of the Paris region the band remained largely unknown, though it did draw the attention of American jazz pianist Mal Waldron, who hired them to back him on an album that never got released, though one track, "Red Matchbox," is heard here — Maldron playing some lively electric piano. Things got scattered from there, LARB morphing back to Ice (represented on Disc 2) and several other alternative disco-era names, including Crispy and Co., under which there was some mild European club success. Then it was back to America and the inevitable disbanding before finding new life through samples. But there’s much more to it than those snippets, well worth discovering in full.
Artist: Shirley Collins
Album: "Lodestar"
Songs: "Awake Awake," "Death and the Lady"
The last new music from English folk legend Shirley Collins came around 1980. No big deal. The first song on her return album, "Lodestar," was written around 1580. "Awake Awake" was penned by one Thomas Deloney following the 1580 London Earthquake in which part of St,Paul’s Cathedral crumbled — a sign to him that God was displeased with the woeful, sinful ways of the people of England. Well, perhaps there’s some cosmic concern about England crumbling in the Brexit era, so it’s easy to imagine this octogenarian winking slyly as she sings this.
Whether that’s the case or not, this album’s look back through the centuries is not about spotlighting music that is archaic, but showing it as living and thriving. And that has been Collins’ life work, a life for which this album serves as summary and recap, and more. Before her retirement (or merely long hiatus) after losing her voice to the condition dysphonia, she had a remarkable career, reshaping awareness and approach to English folk music and its various tendrils. In the late ‘50s, she traveled with Alan Lomax to research and collect songs of the American south and throughout the UK. In the early ‘60s in partnership with guitarist Davy Graham, she helped open a new golden era of English folk music. From there she expanded the range and concept of just what folk music is, diving into everything from burgeoning, electric folk-rock and reaching further back than most folkies, into medieval songs and sounds for some of the most moving, epiphanies-filled recordings of her era.
And all this with a voice as distinct as they come — at once rural and rough, sophisticated and true, understated and reserved and yet conveying the drama and passion inherent in the songs and the generations through which they have lived. Even through her retirement she remained hugely influential on and beloved by artists from Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, Current 93’s David Tibet (who was able to talk her out of retirement to sing in public in 2014) and singer-songwriter Angel Olsen, as well as a new generation of folk musicians, including Stewart Lee, Olivia Chaney and Alasdair Roberts, all of whom performed at an 80th birthday tribute concert to her last year.
All that is here on "Lodestar." The 11-minute suite started by "Awake Awake," with its hurdy-gurdy interlude and rustic chamber-music underpinnings, echoes the late-‘70s album "Anthems of Eden," which featured not just her sister Dolly, a frequent collaborator, on "portative organ," but some of the top "early" music artists of that time. "Cruel Lincoln" brings it home, sounding like it may have been recorded at her home — bird’s singing audibly in the track. Elsewhere she goes back to her Lomax years with the classic Appalachians murder ballad "Pretty Polly," which she first recorded in 1959 — and which has its own roots in English folk. Also from this side of the Atlantic — though also with some European roots — is the sorrowful Cajun French song "Sur Le Bord de L’eau," which she learned from a 1929 recording by Louisiana singer Bind Uncle Gaspard.
There is much sadness in the album, and much death — the traditional "Death and the Lady," for which she’s done a "Seventh Seal"-inspired video, explicitly so. And she closes with "The Silver Swan," a 17th century madrigal by Orlando Gibbons, in which the titular bird "thus sung her first and last and sung no more." But in her song notes accompanying the album, Collins thinks back to nights in the early ‘50s at home in Hastings around the piano, singing that song with her sister and their mother, the three collapsing in laughter at their vain attempts to get through the intricate parts. The version here is sparer, just her voice, a harmonium and a viola. But for the song’s twilight melancholy, you can almost hear that laughter still in her voice these decades later.
Artist: Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo de Cotonou
Album: "Madjafalao"
Songs: "Madjafalao," "Africa"
Looking for acts for the next Oldchella? Artists rooted in the ‘60s with legacies on par with Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones and the Who? How about Le Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo de Cotonou?
Well, for a West African Oldchella for sure. Founded by leader Melome Clement in 1968 in, as the name suggest, the capital of Benin, Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo was one of the most dynamic and popular bands of the region, synthesizing many styles of the region, again as the name suggests, into a new and vibrant sound. Rhumbas from the Congo, highlife from Ghana, Afrobeat from Nigeria, the Afro-Cuban sounds that had made their ways back and forth across the Atlantic and American R&B as well were all folded into sensibilities forged by traditional Beninese music in ways rivaling, but distinct from, the groundbreaking excitement of Fela Kuti and a handful of others in that part of the continent. The group was dominant through the ‘70s, recording dozens of albums.
But with economic decline and a harsh dictatorship restricting cultural life in Benin in the ‘80s, the band was discontinued. Later, though, many of the original recordings were reissued to ravenous fans both new and old, and with renewed interest, Clement brought the band back in 2008, with long-time bassist Gustave Bentho and singer Vincent Ahehehinnou in the fold, for acclaimed tours around the world and in 2011 a new album, "Cotonou Club," that carried all the excitement and power of the original incarnations. Clement died in 2012, but the band continued on and returns with "Madjafalao." The title means "Watch Out," and you’d better. This is exciting music, the rhythms as poly as ever, percussion and brass as vibrant as the classic recordings, punchy guitar lines and vocals and, track after track, carry a mix of sadness for what has passed and joy for what is here.
The full name of the group, by the way, is Le Tout-Puissant Orchestre Poly-Rhythmo de Cotonou — tout-puissant meaning all-powerful, almighty, omnipotent. And that it is. Watch out!
Will new voters in Central California take aim at local races?
Voter outreach groups are hoping that Latino, Asian and young voters will turn out in big numbers on November 8. But with all the attention on a contentious presidential race, will that interest carry over to the local races and issues on the ballot?
Fresno Bee reporter Andrea Castillo said that based on primary election outcomes, more voters could be heading to the polls, but some still face obstacles.
Click the blue audio player to hear the full interview.
READ: ‘Trump factor’ inspires Latino, Asian voters, but will they vote in local races? in the Fresno Bee
Advocacy groups plan to keep an eye on polling places
California voting rights advocates will step up their poll monitoring this November.
Their effort comes just in time as officials expect a record voter turnout.
With more than 18 million people registered to vote in the Golden State, campaign rhetoric around a rigged election has watchdog groups worried.
While California doesn't have strict voter ID laws or long waits at the polling places, advocacy groups want to prevent illegal activities that may intimidate and disenfranchise voters.
For more, Take Two spoke with Jonathan Stein, staff attorney and manager of voting rights program at the Asian Americans Advancing Justice, a non-profit legal aid and civil rights organization.
Click the blue audio player to hear the full interview.
People called me 'monkey': Journalists covering the campaign face insults, threats
Think running for president is grueling work? How about covering the people running for president?
On the surface it may seem like a glamorous job, traveling all over the country, talking to the people about issues that matter, and watching first-hand the twists and turns of the biggest political contest in the land.
It's also really hard work. Particularly in this year's election.
A Gallup poll released last month revealed the public trust in the media has reached its lowest point in nearly five decades — it's dipped 32 percent in the last year. Threats against reporters have become so intense that the Secret Service has been called in on occasion.
To get a sense of what it's been like to cover presidential politics in 2016, Take Two spoke to three reporters:
- Jamelle Bouie, chief political correspondent for Slate Magazine.
- Robert Samuels, national political reporter for the Washington Post.
- Israel Ortega, senior writer for the conservative publication Opportunity Lives
(Questions and answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.)
Highlights
What has been your approach when covering this election cycle?
Jamelle Bouie: My strategy for this particular campaign is to approach voters and approach people with as open a mind as possible and to try as hard as I possibly can to listen to their concerns and their interests with open ears. What's made that difficult this particular year is that—especially covering Trump events—I have spoken to quite a few voters who have said or articulated things which are, frankly, quite racist. It kind of gets harder and harder to engage in dialogue with voters when you know there's a non-trivial chance they will say something to you like 'I don't understand what people are always complaining about. Police are just doing their jobs.'
Take me to one of those moments, Jamelle. How does that feel to you, what do you say back?
The moment that comes immediately to mind is last fall when I was at a Trump rally in Dallas, and I was speaking to a middle-aged woman, and we were having a good conversation and out of nowhere, unprompted by me, she starts going on about Black Lives Matter and how Black Lives Matter is actually racist and how we have to remember there's this problem with black-on-black crime and there are a lot of criminals. Kind of all of the keywords for this kind of discussion. I'm a professional, so I kind of just nodded my head and said 'yes, of course, I hear what you're saying.' But the whole time I was working hard to hide the external representation of my internal annoyance, anger, desire to want to correct this person. After a couple of months of this, it just gets tiring. You just don't want to do it anymore.
Robert Samuels, you work for the Washington Post, one of the many papers Donald Trump has railed against. What kind of position does that put you in as a journalist on the ground trying to be fair and balanced?
It can be really tough, but I think a lot of us don't get into this profession because it's easy. Most of the work that I do deals with people who don't look like me or have my experience: I was a black kid, born of Jamaican immigrants who grew up in New York City.
When minorities enter into journalism, there's a feeling that their best use is to go to minority communities, but I must say, I've found my conversations with people who don't look like me to be some of the most fruitful conversation that we've had. There's almost a sense that—because I'm black and they're white—that they really want to explain to me why their positions are not racist, why they feel the way they feel, and why it's never taken as anything personal. That said, some personal things have happened to me during a Trump rally in Louisville, Kentucky.
I was doing a story on some protestors, and as they were getting kicked out of the rally, someone noted that there were not three protestors, but four protestors. As the police pushed me out of that rally, people started calling me 'monkey,' a person tried to trip me, they shouted 'all lives matter' at me. It was one of the most frightening experiences that I've ever had as a reporter.
You were called a monkey.
Yes.
Israel Ortega, it would seem that the American public does not have a lot of faith in the press in us right now. Where do you think that lack of faith is coming from and what can we do to change that?
It's not just a lack of trust in the press that is a problem: it's also a lack of trust in a whole host of institutions. People feel as if information that used to be reliable is no longer reliable and that's — I think — the detriment of a free society like ours.
I think as long as the media is asking the right questions and the tough questions on all sides, I would like to hope that trust in the media would rise.
Click the blue audio player to hear the full interview.
Mavericks surf contest to allow women to compete for the first time
Women have been breaking through all kinds of glass ceilings this year. This one is in the ocean.
For the first time ever, women will be among the surfers competing in the annual big wave surf contest at Mavericks this year.
Though women have surfed the famous Northern California break for years, the Titans of Mavericks surf contest has only been open to men. The invitational event brings together the some of the best big wave surfers in the world. Women have been named as alternates in the past, but this year, six women will compete in a separate hour-long heat for a $30,000 prize.
The change came about through an application process with the California Coastal Commission. When the contest organizers applied for the permit, a motion was made to open the event to women. The permit application is up for final consideration in the Coastal Commission's Nov. 2 meeting.
Meanwhile, the Titans of Mavericks competition announced the women's division in a tweet.
is proud to announce the Women's Division of the 2016/17 season.
— Titans of Mavericks (@titansofmavs)
#titansofmavericks is proud to announce the Women's Division of the 2016/17 season. #waterwomen #titans pic.twitter.com/mliNHliqyK
— Titans of Mavericks (@titansofmavs) October 19, 2016
Big wave surfer Bianca Valenti is a regular at Mavericks, one of the best renowned big wave surfers in the world,
"Mavericks is like Mount Everest of waves," Valenti said. The water is cold and dark, and the waves can be brutal, reaching 15 feet to higher than 60 feet high during big winter swells. They can also be deadly: experienced surfers have been killed at the break.
Valenti is also part of Committee for Equity in Women's Surfing, which advocates for the inclusion of women in surfing competitions around the world. The group also includes renowned big wave surfers Keala Kennelly, Paige Alms and Andrea Moller.
"If you look at competition worldwide, there's just less opportunity for women surfers on the world scale," Valenti said.
Valenti told Alex Cohen competitions are an important of moving a sport forward and encouraging participation.
"There haven't been a ton of women who have committed themselves to surfing Mavericks over the past years but I think when given an opportunity to compete in a world-class event like this, we're going to see a lot more women stepping up to the plate and getting out there and getting after it," Valenti said. "That's what it's all about: building the community, sharing the magic and spreading the stoke."
Titans of Mavericks is held sometime between Nov. 1 and March 31, 2017—it all depends on how good the surf is.
Click the blue audio player to hear the full interview.
Can you do a yoga headstand on a paddle board? A Martinez tried it
You may remember Take Two's hosts trying out some wacky workouts lately. Alex Cohen experimented with pole dancing. Libby Dennkman let it all out at POUND Fitness.
When it was finally A Martinez's turn to try something new, he embarked on a yoga session... on the waters of Marina del Rey.
Sarah Tiefenthaler founded YOGAqua. She's been teaching adventurous Angelenos how to do yoga on the water for about six years.
While she says she was ridiculed at first, she kept at it, and eventually mastered traditional studio moves on a paddle board.
She showed A Martinez how to downward dog, and more.
She was a patient teacher, even when he did this:
(He might have made friends with a sting ray.)
But there's a rule in YOGAqua: You're not really initiated until you fall in. Tiefenthaler's work was done.
'Rejected Princesses': women in history who are anything but G-rated
Author and illustrator Jason Porath will give a talk and signing at Book Soup (8818 Sunset Boulevard, West Hollywood) on Tuesday, October 25th at 7 p.m.
Well-behaved women rarely make history, but they're often the stars of kids' films.
Princess Jasmine flew away with Aladdin in a Disney movie, and the only rules she really broke were sneaking out of the house for a day and falling in love with a commoner.
Meanwhile, Mary Bowser has yet to have her story told on screen.
During the Civil War, she was a Union spy who infiltrated the Confederate White House of President Jefferson Davis as a servant, and then when her identity was about to be uncovered, she fled and set his home ablaze.
But Bowser and many more real-life women are now getting the star treatment in the blog and new book by Jason Porath, "Rejected Princesses: Tales of the History's Boldest Heroines, Hellions and Heretics."
He's a former Dreamworks animator who researched rebellious women throughout history and from many different cultures, some princesses and some not.
Then he illustrated their portraits in the style of kids' films to give them their due, even if their stories might be too complex or troubling for some children to grasp.
"It's not a book that censors history," he says. "It's doing all of these woman and, really, all of our society a disservice if you sweep them under the rug or don't get these stories told because they've got something in them that people find distasteful."
Among the stars of "Rejected Princesses" is Khutulun, the 13th century great-great-granddaughter of Genghis Khan. To marry her, you needed to defeat her in wrestling. Lose, and you forfeit 100 horses.
At the end of her life, she had 10,000 horses and no husband.
Porath believes filmmakers are trying to introduce more firebrand, female characters like Khutulun in movies – it's the audiences who are doing the rejection.
"Animation studios have put out a lot of really interesting women in different movies that people just haven't gone to see," he says.
With "Rejected Princesses," Porath is preserving these women's stories even if they end up getting the G-rated treatment in films and history books to give them mass appeal.
"There's been a ton of women throughout history who are fiery iconoclasts who just don't make the final cut," he says, "or if they do, they're whittled down."
See more samples from Rejected Princesses by visiting Jason Porath's blog.
Click the blue audio player to hear the full interview.