On Thursday, Take Two discusses possible actions President Obama could take on immigration and what's at stake for the White House, starfish appear to be coming back after a mysterious disease caused them to melt away, what parents do when there are no child care options available, and much more.
Obama's response to ISIS takes heat from both parties
President Barack Obama joins NATO leaders in Europe this week, addressing the crisis between Russia and Ukraine and discussing the future of Afghanistan. But, Obama is also seeking a response to the threat of Islamic militants in Iraq and Syria, where a group calling itself the Islamic State has killed two American journalists and is holding more hostages.
Though the president today is on the international scene, he's been getting plenty of criticism from back home where both Republican and Democratic leaders have been making judgement calls of their own.
National Journal reporter Daniel Newhauser writes that House Republicans are planning a series of hearings on the issue next week.
Obama walks a political tightrope on immigration reform
The pressure is building on the Obama Administration to take some action — any action — on immigration reform.
President Barack Obama has been mulling an executive order on the issue, but timing is everything, says TIME's Alex Altman. He has been sorting through the political calculus to find out what kind of blowback the White House might receive from both parties.
Undocumented immigrants add $130 billion to California's economy
Millions of people in California are watching to see what the White House and Congress might do on immigration reform — many of them are undocumented.
A new report by the California Immigrant Policy Center details how exactly they contribute to the state.
Jared Sanchez, analyst for the Center for Study of Immigrant Integration at USC and contributor to this report says they add $130 billion to California's GDP each year.
Looking Forward: Immigrant Contributions to the Golden State (2014) by CIPC2013
How parents cope in a child care wasteland
Many poor neighborhoods face a lack of infant, toddler and preschool options — making them child care wastelands.
The Advancement Project, a civil rights organization, has found that a number of Los Angeles County communities, like Huntington Park, could be described as just that.
"Despite years of gentrification, there are only enough child care spots for 19 percent of Huntington Park’s children under 5," reports KPCC's Deepa Fernandes. "Looking only at infants and toddlers, the area doesn't even have enough space in licensed childcare centers for 1 percent of the nearly 4,000 children 2 and younger who live here, according to the study."
The issue, like many things, is money.
Read the full story: Child care hard to find in parts of Los Angeles
Football season is here; should we even be watching?
A new book titled "Against Football: One Fan’s Reluctant Manifesto" argues why America's favorite game is laced with problems that can no longer be ignored.
It's written by Steve Almond who asks and responds to these three questions:
- What does it mean that our society has transmuted the intuitive physical joys of childhood—run, leap, throw, tackle—into a billion-dollar industry?
- How did a sport that causes brain damage become the leading signifier of our institutions of higher learning?
- Does our addiction to football foster a tolerance for violence, greed, racism, and homophobia?
Latest same-sex marriage court ruling and its impact on the rest of the country
A federal judge has upheld Louisiana’s ban on gay marriage – a big loss for same-sex marriage advocates who've seen courts legalize the practice in places like California, New Mexico, Oregon and Pennsylvania.
UC Irvine law professor Douglas NeJaime says state courts will continue to make their own decision on same-sex marriage until the final ruling ultimately comes from the United States Supreme Court.
New policy allows UC to invest directly in companies
There’s been changes to how UC Campuses can invest in start-ups.
"UC President Janet Napolitano made the change possible by removing guidelines for industry-academic relations. Her action is raising questions about ethics, funding and the future of basic research," reports Sam Harnett of the California Report from San Francisco Public Radio station KQED.
Read the full story: Janet Napolitano Hopes UC Can Cash In on Companies, Not Just Research
Lab notes: gecko sex, gambling pigeons and how looking forward to future experiences makes us happy
Scientists are often up to something odd. As the headline suggests, this week there's news about geckos in space having sex and pigeons learning to gamble.
KPCC science correspondent Sanden Totten joins Take Two to tell us more about why scientists care about these things:
- Four geckos - three male and one female - were put aboard a spacecraft with the hopes that Russian scientists could study the impact that zero gravity has on reproduction. Well, in the end all of the geckos died.
- If you give a mouse a cookie, he'll want a glass of milk. If you teach pigeons and humans to gamble at the same game, both parties will make similarly bad gambling decisions.
- As it turns out, experiences make us happier than objects, but that same thing holds true even before we experience them.
The Wheel Thing: Will electric cars save our shaky electrical grid?
Right now, electric cars are kind of a one-way street. They suck power from the grid, and then use it to power down the road.
But, a group of electric utilities and auto makers are working on systems that could allow all those electric cars use their stored power to help smooth out the peaks and valleys that are the bane of electric utilities.
Susan Carpenter, motorcycle critic for the LA Register and regular contributor to Take Two's Wheel Thing, says such systems are already used in Japan. She describes one pilot project in which electric cars, parked in an office building during the day, draw power during periods of slow demand, give some back when demand peaks, and still are fully charged when workers drive them home.
Carpenter says the idea appeals to utilities, who might be able to avoid having to build new, and costly power plants to help them meet peak demand.
State of Affairs: Who's Neel Kashkari, LA minimum wage, Prop. 46
KPCC’s political reporters Alice Walton and Frank Stoltze join Take Two to discuss the latest news coming out of Los Angeles and California.
Who's Neel Kashkari?
Gov. Jerry Brown has maintained a comfortable lead ahead of his GOP challenger Neel Kashkari, who's 16 percentage points behind Brown. It was 20 percentage points in June.
"Kashkari still has this huge problem besides the fact he's a republican in overwhelmingly democratic California — less than 60 percent of likely voters have an opinion of Neel Kashkari, so they don't even know who he is," says KPCC's Frank Stoltze, adding that Kashkari hasn't been able to raise enough money.
Today's gubernatorial debate is an opportunity for Kashkari to show undecided voters what he has to offer. That may prove to be difficult considering the NFL football game that takes place at the same time, Stoltze said.
Los Angeles minimum wage
When Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that he wants to gradually raise the minimum wage to $13.25 an hour by 2017, he was joined by seven members in support of the plan. He needs eight votes from the council to get it approved.
But, KPCC's Alice Walton says "the business community has not been supportive of this so far... I've gotten emails from small business owners who are concerned they'll really feel the crush of this. It's not a slam dunk, but there is tremendous support for proposal at city hall."
Proposition 46
This is a proposition that has to do with medical malpractice and whether patients in these cases should be able to recover more money from doctors.
Two months out to elections and the "No on 46" campaign has already raised $55 million to defeat the proposition; on the other side, "Yes on 46" has raised just $5 million.
Critics of Proposition 46 say the law would only benefit lawyers and consequentially increase health care costs.
50 years since President Lyndon Johnson signed the Wilderness Act
Fifty years ago this week, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Wilderness Act, placing more than 9 million acres of federal land under protection. That protected area has grown to more than a 100 million acres over the decade and it includes The Goat Rocks in Washington's Cascade Mountains.
"Fifty years later, wilderness has proven to be an attractive destination for countless people – so attractive that one of the challenges of the law is to maintain wilderness areas as both destinations for people and as fragile ecosystems that should be left untrammeled by those two-legged visitors," reports David Steves, of Oregon Public Broadcasting.
Read the full story: The Golden Anniversary For Wilderness In America
Failure to restore Salton Sea could cost the state billions
The Salton Sea, the largest body of water in California, was once a tourist hot spot during the 1950s — that has since changed with it drying up, leaving a nasty stench.
The Riverside County Supervisors asked Congress to keep language in a bill that could funnel millions of dollars towards restoring the Salton Sea. Supervisors said the sea is at a point where it will either devolve “into an ecological and economic disaster,” or be transformed into a “healthy, attractive environment,” KPCC reported in March.
If something isn't done soon, California may wind up paying as much as $70 billion over the next few decades, according to a new report from the Pacific Institute.
Michael Cohen is the author of that report and warns about the ecological, environmental and economical consequences that could arise from inaction.
Hazard’s Toll: The Costs of Inaction at the Salton Sea
Sea star population slowly recovers from wasting syndrome
Over the last year, sea stars have been devastated by a syndrome that turns their bodies into goo. The Sea Star Wasting Syndrome has decimated populations up and down the West Coast, but they might be making a comeback.
Pete Raimondi, chairman of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the UC Santa Cruz Long Marine Lab, brings us the latest on how the species is faring.
Patricia Clarkson on her role in the film 'Last Weekend'
In the new film "Last Weekend," a wealthy family gathers one Labor Day weekend at their stunning vacation home in Lake Tahoe. The mother, Celia, played by Patricia Clarkson, is a tightly-wound matriarch trying her best to let go — let go of perfection, let go of her adult children and let go of her prized vacation property.
"I wanted their last summer weekend to be like every other weekend," Clarkson's character says in the trailer for "Last Weekend."
Like she did with her fellow cast, Clarkson said she wanted to intimately know the home that played a central role in the movie and came early to Lake Tahoe to do so.
"I [had] to know it. It's my house. It's the love of my life," Clarkson said, describing how she tapped into the character she had to become.
Clarkson is also known for her roles in TV's "Six Feet Under" and films like "The Station Agent" and "Pieces of April."
To hear our interview with Clarkson, click on "Listen Now" above.