CA Sets New Record For Power Use As Brutal Heat Wave Continues. How Are You Dealing?
Despite calls to conserve power, California's energy demands were at an all-time high Tuesday. The extreme heat wave is creating a big need for power, so much that we blew past a record set during a heat wave 16 years ago. Cal-ISO, which operates the state's power grid, first reported that energy use in the state surpassed more than 50,300 megawatts as of 3:09 p.m. Tuesday. That was 68 megawatts above the 2006 record. Ultimately it hit 52,061 megawatts. Cal-ISO typically calls an alert when temperatures are hot. Energy consumption runs higher during these times, so people need to cut down. But heat isn’t the only factor. All of these issues can put a strain on our state’s power grid. Meanwhile, the Fairview Fire in Hemet exploded over Labor Day weekend killing two residents as they were trying to flee. Today on AirTalk, we’re joined by Eric Boldt, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Oxnard, Daniel Kammen, professor of energy at UC Berkeley, and Jon Heggie, battalion chief with Cal Fire, to discuss the latest on SoCal’s heat wave, the fire raging in Hemet, and the new power use record set last night by Californians.
With files from LAist
“The Chaos Machine” Chronicles The Unseen Ways Social Media Has Engineered Our Lives
We’ve all been there -- you’re talking with someone about a product you recently considered buying or a service you thought you might try, and the next time you pull out your phone to go on Instagram, you notice an ad for the very thing you were just talking about.
Could it be your phone listening in on you, or is it the result of a carefully tailored algorithm designed to push posts, products and more to the top of your feed based on things you’ve liked or looked at in the past? In his new book “The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds And Our World,” New York Times Investigative Reporter Max Fisher shares his findings from traveling the globe searching for answers to how the extreme speech often seen on social media devolved into real life acts of violence and what role social media platforms can and do play in trying to moderate and prevent it.
Today on AirTalk, Max is with us to talk about the unseen and possibly unknown ways that social media and the algorithms they employ have engineered our lives and likes, and how these platforms have driven some to the extreme.
Unaddressed Dyslexia Can Wreak Havoc On People’s Lives And Lead To Higher Risk Of Incarceration. What Resources Are Available?
Dyslexia is the nation’s most common learning disability, affecting up to 20 percent of the population. Still, California is one of 10 states that doesn’t require schools to screen for dyslexia. Unlike many other states, California does not yet require training for pre-service or in-service teachers on how to teach reading in a way that helps dyslexic students.
A 2020 report on the economic impact of dyslexia on California published by Boston Consulting Group in collaboration with the UCSF Dyslexia Center found that through early intervention methods would result in less needed funds later in life for those most prone to being in the welfare and criminal justice systems. Today on AirTalk we discuss the impacts of unaddressed dyslexia for adults, the school-to-prison pipeline, and the best resources for tackling the problem, with KPCC & LAist reporter Robert Garrova and Maryanne Wolf, director of the newly created Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.
Each week for the last six weeks, reporters have been joining us to talk about their reporting on dyslexia and how it’s being screened and managed in California. This is the final week in the series. You can find Robert’s story and the rest of the series here.
Judge Orders Removal Of Three Mission Viejo City Councilmembers Saying They Violated Voters’ Trust. What Happens Now?
The majority of the city council in the Orange County burb of Mission Viejo has been making decisions for its nearly 100,000 residents since 2020 without having been elected to do so. That's the upshot of a legal decision handed down this week in a convoluted case with roots in a statewide effort to bolster the voting power of Latinos and other historically marginalized groups.
The case is raising uncommon questions for local government, like: how to function when the majority of elected officials have been removed? Others say this is a case about “how government is supposed to work in America.” In the latest in a string of lawsuits over elections in Mission Viejo, a resident alleged that three council members have illegally remained in office well past the two-year term (2018-2020) for which they were elected. Last week, a judge agreed (and another judge stood by that decision) and ordered the council members — Ed Sachs, Wendy Bucknum and Greg Raths — to vacate their seats. Joining AirTalk to explain the legal battle and discuss what it means for the community is Jill Replogle, KPCC/LAist reporter covering Orange County, and Fernando Guerra, professor of political science and Chicana/o Studies at Loyola Marymount University, where he is also the founding director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles; he is a life trustee on the KPCC Board of Trustees.
Read Jill Replogle’s full piece here
Jimi Hendrix Experience’s 1969 LA Forum Show, Never Before Released, Debuts On KPCC And LAist
On April 26th, 1969, the Jimi Hendrix Experience put on a raucous show at the L.A. Forum in Inglewood -- just the third rock concert to take place at the venue. It was recorded, but never released. More than half a century later, KPCC and LAist are proud to be debuting for the first time ever, the Jimi Hendrix Experience, Live At Los Angeles Forum. The album itself doesn’t come out until later this year, but we’ve got an early all-access pass to share some of the songs a full day before the rest of the world gets word!
Today on AirTalk, we’ll celebrate the album’s upcoming release with ZZ Top Guitarist Billy Gibbons, whose pre-ZZ band “The Moving Sidewalks” opened for Jimi in Texas earlier that year, and former Los Angeles Times Music Writer and Critic Randy Lewis, who wrote the liner notes for the release of the box set.
You can hear the advance track from the album “I Don’t Live Today” and find out more about our exclusive preview of this release at LAist, click here.