Headlines From The Times

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Saving segregated 'Mexican' schools Feb 18, 2022

Show notes

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.

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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’

Homeless prisoners of the suburban dream Feb 17, 2022

Show notes

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

California's death penalty flip-flops Feb 16, 2022

Show notes

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

A labor union with your latte? Feb 15, 2022

Show notes

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.

Black joy in Questlove's "Summer of Soul" Feb 14, 2022

Show notes

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’

Will the Super Bowl change Inglewood? Feb 11, 2022

Show notes

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

Let's get loud, Super Bowl halftime show Feb 10, 2022

Show notes

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.

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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

Why the NFL doesn't hire Black coaches Feb 09, 2022

Show notes

In a league where Black players make up 70% of active rosters, the NFL currently has only two Black head coaches. League officials and even fans have offered all sorts of excuses about this discrepancy for decades. But now there’s an explosive federal lawsuit about the matter. It was filed this month by former Miami Dolphins head coach Brian Flores. In it, he puts this persistent and longstanding problem on stage.

Today, we dive into why the NFL just can’t seem to hire Black head coaches.

More reading:

Seven things you need to know about Brian Flores’ lawsuit against the NFL

Op-Ed: The NFL fails on Black leadership. So do most institutions in America

Column: Brian Flores’ lawsuit features memorable receipts that could force the NFL to change

The triple terror of tsunamis Feb 08, 2022

Show notes

For the latest installment of our “Masters of Disasters” series, we talk tsunamis in the wake of a volcanic eruption near Tonga last month that caused waves felt across the Pacific. There was none of the devastation like the world saw in Fukushima in 2011, or across the Indian Ocean in 2004. But what happened in Tonga got us thinking: How are the effects of tsunamis so devastating, yet so little is known about them?

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The tsunami that battered Santa Cruz highlights the threat facing California’s coast

Can a tsunami happen in Southern California? What should you do about it?

Surprising tsunami triggers may lurk off California’s coast, scientists say

We enter the metaverse — and return Feb 07, 2022

Show notes

Everybody is talking about the metaverse right now. But Times host Gustavo Arellano didn’t want to just talk about it; he wanted to experience it firsthand.

And so off he went inside the metaverse with a guide. Is it all it’s cracked up to be?

More reading:

Explainer: What is the metaverse and how will it work?

Want to glimpse our metaverse future? Theme parks are already on the case

Op-Ed: Mark Zuckerberg makes a ‘mwahahaha’ metaverse move