Category: 1-HeadlineNews

Americans eat billions of dollars of Mexican avocados every year. Demand is such that drug cartels and other criminal elements have muscled in on the business, centered around the Mexican state of Michoacán. This reality got worldwide attention Super Bowl weekend, when the American government announced it was temporarily suspending any avocado imports from Mexico.

Today, we talk about this development — and why Americans are so obsessed with avocados in the first place.

Host: Gustavo Arellano

Guests: L.A. Times Mexico correspondent Leila Miller, and L.A. Times acting deputy food editor Daniel Hernandez.

More reading:

Avocado imports from Mexico are blocked. What does that mean for you?

 

How we got to peak avocado: Super Bowls to Mexico’s drug cartels

Inside the bloody cartel war for Mexico’s multibillion-dollar avocado industry

On Monday, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his country would recognize the independence of two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine and send Russian troops there for “peacekeeping” purposes. The move immediately drew worldwide condemnation — but signaled the culmination of a decades-long desire by Putin to bring Ukraine closer to Russia’s control.

Today, we talk to our reporter on the ground about this past, what’s happening now — and what’s next.

More reading:

Russian troops move into eastern Ukraine, EU says, as fear of war grows

Artillery fusillades from Russian-backed separatists set Ukraine’s east on edge

Will war come to a town called New York in Ukraine?

 

Uber’s under fire over its treatment of transgender drivers after the Los Angeles Times published a story about the alleged mistreatment.

Today, we’ll hear from the L.A. Times reporter who broke the story. And we’ll also hear more from an Uber driver who hopes other trans people won’t ever have to go through what she went through.

Host: Gustavo Arellano

Guests: L.A. Times business reporter Suhauna Hussain

More reading:

Uber blocks transgender drivers from signing up: ‘They didn’t believe me’

Uber faces ‘serious questions’ over transgender drivers’ treatment after Times report

Uber’s self-driving cars put tech’s ‘move fast, break things’ credo to the test

 

Marfa, Texas, is known internationally for its arts scene. But on the south side of the city, there’s this old school. It’s a school where teachers once paddled Latino students for speaking Spanish. Now, some of those same students — grandparents and retirees in their 80s — are working to save the long-shuttered segregated Blackwell School and make it a national historic site to teach the history of segregated schools for Latinos in the United States.

This episode has been updated. An earlier version included audio of Jessi Silva describing an integrated school she attended in addition to  the Blackwell School in Marfa, Texas. That school was in California, not Marfa.

More reading:

Saving the school where kids were paddled for speaking Spanish

Lorenzo Ramirez, late plaintiff in famed school desegregation case, honored by Orange

Mendez vs. segregation: 70 years later, famed case ‘isn’t just about Mexicans. It’s about everybody coming together’

A new podcast series from KPCC and LAist Studios called "Imperfect Paradise: Home Is Life" zeroes in on the battles over homelessness in suburban communities. Today, we air Episode 2 of this three-part series, which focuses on an effort in 2018 to build housing for unhoused people in the Orange County city of Fullerton.

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Listen to “Imperfect Paradise”

Fullerton will start enforcing parking regulations on street where homeless live in RVs

‘No place to go’: Fullerton ordinance, on hold for now, could force out homeless living in RVs

 

For decades, California voters and politicians have vacillated over the future of the death penalty. Currently, Gov. Gavin Newsom has put a moratorium on them and has ordered that death row at San Quentin State Prison — the largest in the United States — be emptied. Is this the end of the line for capital punishment in the Golden State — for real?

More reading:

California moves forward on plans to shut down death row

California is closing San Quentin’s death row. This is its gruesome history

Editorial: Dismantle death row, but don’t stop there

The U.S. labor movement has experienced a resurgence in recent years in sectors that historically have hired younger people. And one of the biggest battlegrounds is where you get your lattes. Today, we’re taking you to a Starbucks in Santa Cruz, where workers are demanding more from their corporate employer.

This episode has been updated to clarify when the Starbucks store in Buffalo, N.Y. filed its union petition, who resigned at the Starbucks in Santa Cruz, Calif. and to include a response from a Starbucks spokesperson about the conditions at the Santa Cruz outlet mentioned. 

More reading:

Starbucks workers at Santa Cruz store file union petition, joining a national push

Did baristas lose their jobs because of COVID-19 or because they tried to unionize?

Starbucks workers vote to unionize at a store in Buffalo, N.Y.

The Roots drummer and music legend Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson sifted through 40 hours of archival footage of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival for his documentary, “Summer of Soul.” It was a festival where legends like Nina Simone and Stevie Wonder performed in the same summer as Woodstock.

The film is now in the running for Best Original Documentary at this year’s Oscars. So today, we’re airing an episode with Questlove from our sister podcast, “The Envelope.”

More reading:

Review: ‘Summer of Soul’: A rousing cultural and musical revolution, now finally seen

Questlove’s ‘Summer of Soul’ is much more than a music documentary

Meet the archivist who saved the historic footage that became ‘Summer of Soul’

With more economic development and rents on the rise, Inglewood is struggling to meet its goal of encouraging more investment while trying to preserve one of California’s last remaining Black enclaves. Today, we examine this through the prism of SoFi Stadium, which is hosting the Super Bowl this Sunday.

More reading:

Op-Ed: For Inglewood, it won’t be a Super Sunday

‘A crisis for renters’: Football sent Inglewood home prices and rents skyrocketing

Must Reads: One of California’s last black enclaves threatened by Inglewood’s stadium deal

 Even if you don’t like football, you probably have opinions about the Super Bowl halftime show. Today, we look at the history of this curious spectacle, from its humble beginnings to the mega-star extravaganzas of today. And along the way, we’ll take a look at how this roughly 15-minute intermission became an unlikely reflection of American culture.

More reading:

At SoFi Stadium, Dr. Dre assembles a hip-hop dream team for Super Bowl halftime show

Janet Jackson says she and Timberlake ‘have moved on’ from Super Bowl scandal

Adam Levine thanks you for hating Maroon 5’s Super Bowl performance