On Wednesday, Take Two discusses the logic behind #ISISMediaBlackout, the child migrant crisis through the eyes of sisters, salvaging and digitizing historic UCLA speeches, how special clinics keep mentally ill patients out of jail and much more.
Islamic State vs Al Qaeda: How to differentiate these two terrorist groups
For the past decade, there has been a single name at the top of the list of global terrorist threats: Al Qaeda. Now, the world is watching a new group that calls itself the Islamic State, also known as ISIS and sometimes ISIL.
Both are considered terrorist organizations, according to the U.S. government, but Al Qaeda's leadership actually disavowed the Islamic State back in February.
"There's a theological difference between these two groups and, then going back to the origins, there are also personality clashes and cultural clashes. You can think of the Islamic State as being younger, more cutting edge, whereas Al Qaeda is a generation older and represents the old guard of the movement," says Douglas Ollivant, Senior National Security Fellow with the New America Foundation.
Difficult decisions media organizations make when handling graphic images
Today, American intelligence officials said they've determined that a video showing the killing of journalist Steven Sotloff is authentic. The video was made public yesterday and images quickly drew attention online, both on news outlets and social media.
The news raises questions about how media should responsibly cover violent incidents like this.
"There is a general sense of mission and purpose where it's our job as journalists to let the American public and the world know what's really going on," said Roy Peter Clark of the Poynter Institute.
But, he added, there is a balance to be struck.
"I don't think that always requires the most graphic images or details that are available to the journalists as evidence," he said.
Deported families return to El Salvador and an uncertain future
From KJZZ's Fronteras Desk Jude Joffe-Block reports.
On a weekday morning in late August, an American plane arrived at the airport outside of El Salvador’s capital, bringing back deportees from the United States.
Among them were nine children and their mothers who had been held in a family detention facility in the remote town of Artesia, N.M.
Relatives of the deportees gathered outside the terminal. An orange awning shielded them from the bright morning sun as birds chirped loudly from nearby trees.
So far this summer, 288 women and children border crossers have been deported from the facility in Artesia. This flight was the third to land in El Salvador.
Jose Angel waited with his mother-in-law to pick up his 23-year-old wife Sonia and 5-year-old son. The two were detained in Artesia for the last month and a half. They left El Salvador on July 4.
“More than anything she went to ask for asylum,” Jose Angel said in Spanish. “Because she was being threatened.”
Sonia had a small chicken farm here that her family said made her a target for extortion by local gang members.
Sonia’s mother, Judith, said it is common for gangs to charge business owners “rent.” She said her family had already fled this situation once before. They used to run a tortilla business in a different area but left because of those threats, only to find the same problems in their new town.
Judith said she knows several people who have been killed for not cooperating with gang demands for money.
It’s risky to talk about, which is why the family didn’t want their last names used in this report. Still, Sonia’s story didn’t impress the asylum officer who interviewed her in Artesia.
“They said in an interview there that her case wasn’t credible,” Judith said in Spanish.
Arriving border crossers who are held in detention and placed in expedited removal proceedings — as Sonia was — must prove they have a credible fear of persecution back home in order to pursue an asylum claim in the U.S.
“There were a lot of people who had good luck,” Judith said. “Where we live a lot of women with kids went [to the US] and they made it through. Sadly, she was not one of them.”
Almost 63,000 migrant family units — mostly from Central America — have arrived at the Southwest border since October, a 471 percent increase from last year. The vast majority crossed into Texas' Rio Grande Valley.
Many turned themselves in to U.S. Border Patrol agents and were released to bus stations to join relatives while they await deportation hearings.
But the Obama administration is trying to discourage these border crossers. One way is by detaining more arriving families and expediting their deportations.
The federal government opened the Artesia Family Residential Center in late June. It’s on the grounds of a federal law enforcement training center, and has capacity of up to 700 women and children.
An immigration detention facility in Karnes City, Texas, outside of San Antonio, also started holding arriving families this summer.
Back at the airport, a government official told Sonia's relatives that she and her son would be released next. The family allowed me to join them in their car to pick them up in a secured parking lot in front of the terminal.
On our way in, an official spotted me in the back of the vehicle. He ordered me out of the car, saying only family members were allowed in. I lost my chance to meet Sonia that day. But we connected later by cell phone.
Sonia said she left Artesia voluntarily once she was told she wasn’t likely to win her asylum case. A Salvadoran migration official said the other women returned from Artesia had also agreed to voluntary departure.
In Sonia's case, she could have waited to see an immigration judge to ask for a second credible fear ruling, but she felt it was hopeless and was anxious to leave.
“I left because my son wasn’t eating,” Sonia said. “The chicken was raw, it was even bloody.”
She said her son had a fever for eight days and she couldn’t get him medicine at first. Other detainees have made similar claims.
Sonia also said she wasn’t able to talk to an attorney until after she had already had her interview with an asylum officer. Allegations like that, along with several others, have been compiled into a recent federal lawsuit claiming a lack of due process for women and children in Artesia.
A coalition of organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Immigration Law Center, are behind the suit. They filed it in federal court in Washington, D.C. on Aug. 22, the day after the plane carrying Sonia and other women and children landed in El Salvador.
“The fundamental issue at the facility is that it is not giving those women and their kids a fair day in court,” said Karen Tumlin, an attorney with the National Immigration Law Center.
It’s not clear if Sonia had a winning asylum case or not, but Tumlin said many women and kids held in Artesia do, and would face grave danger if they are returned home.
But detainees in Artesia may be held to a stricter standard.
According to data from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, fewer than 38 percent of Artesia detainees were found to have credible fear, versus an average national rate of about 72 percent this spring.
The lawsuit alleges that Artesia detainees do not have adequate access to legal help, and volunteer lawyers who come to the facility have trouble visiting clients and gaining access to proceedings. It also alleges that women must recount stories of abuse to asylum officers and judges in front of their children since there are no childcare services at the facility.
At the same time, other recent developments in immigration law could allow more Central American women to prevail in their asylum claims. In a precedent-setting decision last week, the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled that Guatemalan women who flee life-threatening domestic abuse can be eligible for asylum.
That decision could have implications for recent female border crossers from Central America, including women held in Artesia.
But Tumlin said the immigration court system in Artesia is speeding up proceedings to the point that there is not sufficient time for attorneys to prepare their client’s cases.
Instead, she said there is a “rush to judgment to deport as many these women and kids as quickly as possible.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which oversees the Artesia center, maintains it is facilitating volunteer attorneys to provide free legal services in Artesia.
"The inter-agency response to this unprecedented surge has been both humane and lawful," ICE spokeswoman Amber Cargile wrote in an emailed statement. "As a matter of policy, we do not specifically comment on pending litigation."
In a separate email, ICE spokeswoman Leticia Zamarripa, said the food served at the Artesia Family Residential Center is the same food served to students and staff at the adjoining law enforcement academy and is not used as punishment or a reward.
Meanwhile, Sonia and her family are back living in the same house in El Salvador where she was threatened.
“I haven’t left the house except to go to the store just now,” Sonia said by phone a few days after she was deported. “Because it’s scary.”
She’s also broke.
She said the gang had told her to pay $7,000. She only paid part of it before she left for the U.S. and still owes the rest. Plus she paid $6,000 trying to get to the US. That’s all gone.
Sonia said if she’s threatened again, she’ll likely move.
She said they might try another Latin American country, since now it’s clear there’s no future for her family in the United States.
Recent UCLA graduate salvages history through sound
Many dignitaries have spoken at UCLA — British royalty, Ethiopian leaders, Muhammad Ali, Jane Fonda, Joan Rivers. Until now, many of those speeches were only been accessible to people who could come to the campus.
Nearly $13,000 in alumni donations have made it possible for recent UCLA grad Derek Bolin to salvage and digitize more than of those 300 speeches given since the 1950s. Some of them were in better condition than others.
"It was really great listening to some of these old tapes and listening to the 60s sort of happen on audio," said Bolin, who recently graduated with his bachelor's in mass communications. "From the 60s to the end, you can sort of see this change among the students that were listening. In the beginning of the 60s, they were very respectful and quiet and clapped when appropriate, by the end of the early 70s they were a bit more rambunctious."
One of his favorite moments was when George Wallace came to speak in favor of segregation. At the end of the speech there was some applause and then students began singing "We Shall Overcome."
Sports Roundup: Seattle Seahawks, Colts' Jim Irsay suspension, Ethan Westbrooks face tattoo
Andy and Brian Kamenetzky join host A Martinez for Take Two’s weekly sports update segment.
Researcher studies impact movies have on brain
When people watch movies together, they oftentimes blink in unison and their brain activity is almost mirrored. That came out in a study back in 2004.
Well, now the researcher at the head of that project is looking at the impact of movies have on the human brain, again, by using his knowledge to track audience engagement in films. Whether this'll be put to the actual test during screenings is another story.
Princeton psychology professor Uri Hasson says this research could be used for screenplay writers who are trying to get a specific reaction from viewers or, on the flip side, hoping viewers will have different interpretations of the same movie.
Northern California tribe feud continues
In the midst of a huge feud between warring factions of a Northern California tribe, an audit of the tribe's spending has brought to light even more problems.
"If you believe what the auditors say, there was a complete lack of normal book keeping practices, very few records were kept and millions of dollars are missing," says Sam Stanton who has been covering the story for the Sacramento Bee.
The audit is just the latest problem facing the Paskenta Band of Nomlaki Indians, which runs the Rolling Hills Casino near Corning, Calif.
Problems started in April, when tribal Chairman Andrew Freeman decided he would suspend three council members and dozens of others over questions whether they belonged to the tribe. Each adult member of the tribe, about 216 of them, receives $54,000 annually in casino revenue, according to Stanton, and the council oversees the distribution of that money.
"The whole thing blew apart. There was an armed confrontation in front of the casino between the two factions and it ended up in federal court," Stanton said.
Read the full story: Audit finds Corning tribe mismanaged millions in casino funds
Grand Canyon debt could cause cuts to educational programs
The Grand Canyon has become known as a place of breathtaking beauty. It also offers a slew of environmental, educational and science programs.
But, in coming months, park officials are making widespread cuts to those programs. And it's not due to federal funding cutbacks this time. It's something much more complicated.
Read the full story: Grand Canyon Debt Could Cause Cuts
Los Angeles Unified School District superintendent responds to accusations regarding iPad program
Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District John Deasy has released a six page memo responding to accusations that the district mishandled the bidding process when it awarded a contract for providing students with iPads to Apple and publisher Pearson.
"I am often times asked to meet with current or potential vendors by Board Members – all appropriate in my responsibility to become aware of the best products and services for LAUSD," Deasy wrote in the memo.
Read the full story: LA schools iPads: Superintendent Deasy explains Pearson, Apple meetings
More rockfish on your plate? West Coast species make a come back
More than 20 different kinds of West Coast fish, known as groundfish, have just been declared a "good alternative" or "best choice" by the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Watch. That's a guide for consumers and chefs that takes into account the health and sustainability of fish.
The news comes earlier than expected and is due to better fishing practices and education, said Sheila Bowman, manager of culinary and strategic initiatives at Seafood Watch.
"It's a pretty exciting success story for things like rockfish, which sometimes gets sold as a Pacific red snapper," Bowman said.
Find the full list of recommended fish here.
Highlights from Seafood Watch's September 2014 updates:
- All trawl- and longline-caught rockfish have been upgraded from “Avoid” to either “Good Alternative” or “Best Choice”
- Major flatfish species—including Dover sole, English sole, Pacific sanddab and rex sole—have been upgraded from “Good Alternative” to “Best Choice”
- Pacific grenadier has been upgraded from “Avoid” to “Good Alternative”
- U.S. Pacific spiny dogfish has been upgraded from “Avoid” to “Best Choice”
- 13 of the species in this report are certified by the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC)
Transient orca whale sightings hit record high in Puget Sound
There have been a record number of sightings of so-called "transient" orca whales this year in the Puget Sound area of Washington.
The mammal-eating orcas have been putting on quite a show for whale watchers as they hunt and capture their prey. But, while the transient orcas are thriving, the fish-eating resident orcas in the area are struggling to survive.
Ken Balcomb, a whale biologist and the director of the Center for Whale Research, explains one theory for the uptick in transient whale sightings is that they've been called in by the resident orcas to get rid of some of seals who are competing with the orcas over a dwindling supply of fish.
Data shows special clinics keep mental health patients out of jail, ER
Los Angeles County mental health clinics are keeping patients from ending up in jail or an emergency room, according to data collected by the county and an agency that runs two of the clinics.
Currently, there are four mental health urgent care clinics that collectively serve 23,000 Los Angeles County patients a year. A fifth is expected to open on Thursday on the campus of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital.
Almost all county mental health patients who visited an urgent care clinic stayed out of jail and psychiatric emergency rooms for the following month, according to county data.
Read the full story: Special clinics help keep mentally ill out of jail and ERs
Public Enemy, En Vogue, others to play in celebration of black music at Hollywood Bowl
A group of musicians were working out the kinks to the tune "Freddy's Dead" from the 1972 Blaxploitation film "Super Fly" Tuesday at the musician's union in Hollywood.
"Freddie's Dead" is one of many songs that will be included in a concert titled "The Academy Celebrates The Black Movie Soundtrack" Wednesday at the Hollywood Bowl. Performers include Public Enemy, En Vogue, and Princess — a Prince cover band helmed by none other than comedian Maya Rudolph.
The program was put together by Grammy-winning musician Marcus Miller and producer and director Reginald Hudlin, whose credits include "Django Unchained," "The Boondocks" and "The Bernie Mac Show."
In addition to performing a series of songs from black films, there will also be a visual element in the form of video clips from various movies.
To hear our interview, click on "Listen Now" above.