Portfolio – Page 3 – Katherine Davis-Young

KPCC: Should farmers markets be required to accept food stamps? City Council weighs in

Posted on May 13, 2016May 16, 2016 by Katherine Davis-Young

Update: The Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to direct the city attorney to draft an ordinance making it mandatory for all farmers markets to accept EBT cards (the electronic equivalent of food stamps). The vote was 11-0 with four council members absent.

Every Sunday morning, the Hollywood Farmers Market pops up at the corner of Hollywood and Ivar. It’s one of about 60 farmers markets that regularly appears in the city of L.A.

Shopper Kris Jones is a regular at this market. “Vendors here have a lot more information about what makes their food healthy,” she said. “I like that you can ask questions and get answers. Going to your local grocery you don’t always get that.”

Another bonus for Jones–she’s able to pay for her produce at this market using CalFresh Electronic Benefits Transfer, or EBT, the government assistance program formerly known as food stamps.

According to County data, well over a million people in the L.A. area rely on CalFresh to buy groceries each month. Even more are eligible for the program but haven’t enrolled.

But according to the Los Angeles Food Policy Council, more than half of farmers markets in L.A. don’t accept EBT.

“It seemed very curious to us that farmers markets, which we all love, are not as inclusive to our low income neighbors as they could be,” said Clare Fox, executive director of the L.A. Food Policy Council.

Fox’s organization is working with the L.A. City Council to make EBT a requirement at all farmers markets in L.A.

Through the CalFresh program, farmers markets can get a no-cost, wireless point-of-sale device from the state–it’s a lot like a portable credit card reader. Shoppers can swipe their EBT card at the manager’s booth in exchange for vouchers that they can use at the market’s produce stalls.

Kate Miller (right) and Elizabeth Bowman (left) assist shoppers redeeming CalFresh benefits at the Hollywood Farmers Market. Shoppers visit the Farmers Market manager's table where they can swipe their EBT card in exchange for paper vouchers to use throughout the market. — Kate Miller (right) and Elizabeth Bowman (left) assist shoppers redeeming CalFresh benefits at the Hollywood Farmers Market. Shoppers visit the Farmers Market manager’s table where they can swipe their EBT card in exchange for paper vouchers to use throughout the market.

Albert Tlatoa, with the South Central Farmers Cooperative has been working at farmers markets throughout L.A. for 10 years. He’s worked at some that do accept EBT and some that don’t.

“It’s a different system for each market, each organization runs their farmers market differently. We would like to take it, but we don’t take it all the time,” he said.

He said when he can accept EBT, he definitely sees more business.

The Food Policy Council says that’s a common story. Their research suggests farmers markets that add EBT typically see an increase in revenue. Programs like Hunger Action Los Angeles’ Market Match, which provides matching funds to some EBT shoppers to incentivize shopping at farmers markets, often bring even more business to vendors, Fox said.

Even so, some markets have been reluctant to adopt EBT. Fox said many simply don’t know about the program. And getting the program set up takes a lot of paperwork.

“For farmers markets that have mostly volunteers, or a lot of turnover in staff, some of the smaller operations, that might be hard to do,” Fox said.

But City Councilman Jose Huizar, who’s backing the ordinance, said those are minor issues compared to citywide health concerns.

“If you have a farmer’s market that doesn’t have EBT, that individual who uses it is going to to go to a local store that perhaps doesn’t have fresh fruit and vegetables, so at the end of the day this is going to allow for a healthier individual with the use of EBT and a healthier Los Angeles,” Huizar said.

Huizar is optimistic that, if passed, the ordinance could go into effect within six months.

The City Council will face some challenges. Some farmers markets take place in parks, others on streets, and others on private property, so there’s no one-size-fits-all permitting process that would make it easy to enforce an EBT law across Los Angeles.

Fox said the law wouldn’t be a silver bullet solution to the city’s food access problems. There are still many more farmers markets in affluent neighborhoods than in low income areas. But Fox said, “It sends a very strong message that the city is taking proactive steps toward addressing the crisis that we see around obesity, diet-related disease, and access to healthy food facing low income communities and communities of color.”

For shoppers like Jones, the more healthy options, the better. “One of the big draws for me is being able to come here and get fresh local fruit and vegetables and all that and use my card,” she said.

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KPCC: UCLA project puts LA indigenous communities on the map

Posted on April 19, 2016April 19, 2016 by Katherine Davis-Young

L.A. is home to one of the largest populations of indigenous people in the United States. That includes those who are native to Southern California and indigenous peoples who have relocated here.

Yet many of L.A.’s indigenous peoples find that awareness of their communities can be lacking among the general population.

“As a teenager I got really frustrated when people would ask me ‘Where are you from? What’s your heritage?’ and I would tell them, and they would know nothing about the indigenous people of this area. A lot of our own people didn’t even know,” said Craig Torres, a member of the Tongva community. His ancestors, sometimes called Gabrieleño, were native to the L.A. basin before European settlers arrived.

Since the Tongva people have never been federally recognized as a tribe, they have no reservation, no official cultural center, and only scattered resources for preserving their heritage. That lack of access to accurate information about L.A.’s Native American communities sparked an idea with a group of researchers at UCLA.

“Really what we wanted to do is create kind of a virtual world where people would have access to the different-layered indigenous L.A.,” said Mishuana Goeman, a member of the Tonawanda band of Seneca Indians, and a professor at UCLA.

Goeman and other faculty and student researchers are developing a new educational website called Mapping Indigenous LA. The site aims to be a comprehensive resource for information about L.A.’s indigenous groups. Goeman and the rest of the team collaborated with community members to piece together L.A.’s history told from the indigenous perspective.

“When we’re looking at everything around us in L.A., everything is fenced off, has boundaries, people own this, people own that,” said Desiree Martinez, a Tongva community member and an archaeologist. “But for native communities, when we look at the land, it’s all connected. So we’re trying to document the way native people look at the land.”

The site points out some L.A. places that indigenous people see differently, like the area of downtown L.A. where indigenous slaves were once traded, or Kuruvunga Springs near UCLA, which was once the center of a thriving Tongva village.

“Those places have been excavated archeologically, but you have to know where to find that information,” said Wendy Teeter, curator of archaeology for UCLA’s Fowler Museum and another researcher for the Mapping Indigenous L.A. project. “Los Angeles’ history really needs to be given back to people and we need to have those first-person stories from the communities talk about why these spaces are important and not to be forgotten.”

The site launched in October and is still in development, but the project goes beyond just information about the Tongva, Chumash, and other Southern California indigenous communities.

Los Angeles has become home to American Indians from across the country, as well as indigenous peoples from Latin America and Pacific Island nations, who relocated here voluntarily or through displacement over many generations. Goeman said each of those communities has its own history within L.A.

“That’s something we wanted to get at: how do you begin to make a place? It’s not like when you get here you forget all your old world.”

Goeman said the researchers are happy to provide the platform and hope community members will come forward to tell their own stories.

The site illustrates those stories through interactive maps, timelines, digitized historical documents, links to other educational resources, and video interviews with community members. Goeman and her team said most of this information was publicly available before, but it has never been conveniently compiled in one place. The team hopes the website will become a trustworthy resource for information that has been vetted by the communities represented.

Goeman said a major goal of the Mapping indigenous L.A. project is to get across the idea that indigenous communities are not a thing of the past in California. In fact, census data shows the state has the highest number of residents with American Indian or Alaska Native heritage in the country—over 700,000.

“If you’re there being presented with a live, living person, it really gets past that stereotype that Indian people are dead or still dying,” Goeman said. “What people don’t realize is we’ve actually increased in numbers, and we’ve increased in knowledge and we’ve increased in the recovery of our languages through revitalization, and that’s kind of what we want to show, that vibrancy.”

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KPCC: Clinton and Sanders make stops in Southern California

Posted on March 24, 2016March 29, 2016 by Katherine Davis-Young

With California’s primary about 10 weeks away, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders each set their sights west, and paid visits to Southern California this week.

Sanders visited San Diego Tuesday. He held a rally at Los Angeles’ Wiltern Theater Wednesday night. He also appeared on the late-night program “Jimmy Kimmel Live.”

“The road to the White House goes right through the west and right through California on June 7,” Sanders told a crowd at the Wiltern.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke Thursday morning to a small audience of students, administrators and media at the University of Southern California.

Clinton was part of a panel about national security issues alongside Mayor Eric Garcetti who has endorsed her. The event allowed Clinton to address recent terror events, and to praise California’s policies that deal with threats, which she described as positive and even-handed.

“I really commend L.A. What you have been doing over a number of years, but also taking now to this new level, Mayor, sends a strong signal about what we need to do more of everywhere,” Clinton said.

Clinton used Los Angeles’ history with gang violence as an analogy for thinking about terrorist groups.

“People who feel marginalized, left out, left behind, are going to want to join something,” Clinton said.

Like Sanders, Clinton’s trip to Los Angeles is scheduled to include an appearance on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” She will also attend two fundraisers – one in Santa Monica and another fundraiser at the Avalon Nightclub in West Hollywood with appearances from music stars Estelle, Ben Harper and Russell Simmons.

Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, said now is a practical time for the candidates to come to California.

“We’re entering a relatively slow time on the primary calendar, and even though there will be primaries and caucuses over the next couple weeks, they’ll tend to be smaller states,” Schnur said. “Given the slower pace, it gives both candidates a chance to come out here and lay some groundwork for the California primary in June.”

Five-hundred and forty-eight delegates are at stake in California’s Democratic primary. A recent poll from the Public Policy Institute of California showed Clinton leading Sanders among likely primary voters in California. The poll shows her with 48 percent of the vote and him with 41.

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KPCC: Man paralyzed in LAPD shooting gets $5.7 million one decade later

Posted on March 24, 2016July 23, 2019 by Katherine Davis-Young

More than 10 years after LAPD officers shot him in the back leaving him paralyzed, Robert Contreras will receive compensation from the City of L.A.

The Los Angeles City Council Wednesday gave final approval to a jury-awarded payout of $5.7 million to Contreras. Including interest and attorneys fees, the total will amount to $6.9 million, the city attorney’s office said.

“We are so happy because this is going to make a huge difference in his life and in his family’s life,” said Dale Galipo, the lead attorney in Contreras’ case.

Payouts of this size are rare — just one LAPD shooting has led to larger settlement in recent years, according to data obtained by KPCC from the L.A. City Attorney. That was a $15 million payout to a 13 year-old who was shot by police in Glassell Park in 2010.

Overall, from fiscal years 2004 through 2015, LAPD-related settlements covering everything from wrongful death to traffic accidents have cost the city more than $320 million—more than $40 million of that from claims involving dozens of LAPD shootings, 22 of them fatal.

Closure for Contreras comes after years of legal wrangling over whether officers were in the right when they shot Contreras in the back in September 2005 as he fled the scene of a drive-by shooting.

Contreras was 19 at the time and a gang member. He was in a van in South L.A. with two other men when witnesses told police that gunfire had come from the van into the street. After a short pursuit, the three men got out of the vehicle and police chased them on foot. Police followed Contreras down a dark driveway and shot him four times.

Officers believed he had a gun, but Contreras was in fact, unarmed.

The bullet wounds left Contreras paralyzed from the waist down with just partial use of his arms.

In 2009, Contreras was convicted on attempted murder charges for his involvement in the drive-by shooting. He served time in prison, but after being released on parole, he filed a lawsuit in 2011 against the city and the two officers involved, saying the officers had used excessive force when they fired at him.

In 2012, the Los Angeles City Council had the chance to settle the case out of court for $4.5 million, but opted instead to take the case before a jury.

At the time, City Councilman Paul Krekorian told KPCC, “It’s really a question of trying to do what’s right in pursuing justice and to stand up for the officers who put their lives at risk.”

The city argued in court that the officers’ use of force was reasonable because Contreras was involved in a violent felony moments before he was shot, and was attempting to flee the scene. The city said the officers believed their lives were at risk because they believed Contreras was armed.

Contreras’ lawyers pointed out that he was shot in the back, so he could not have been facing the officers aggressively, as they claimed. Contreras’ lawyers also said the officers never warned Contreras that they were going to shoot.

The L.A. District Attorney declined to file criminal charges against the officers.

A jury awarded Contreras $5.7 million and the city appealed the decision, taking the case all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in December 2015.

The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal, so the award decided in lower courts held.

“In terms of jury award, there are no further levels of appeal of the underlying case, so there’s nowhere left for [the city of Los Angeles] to go,” said Bill Schmidt, one of the attorneys representing Contreras.

Schmidt said Contreras needs 24-hour care and has been getting by with help from his family and public assistance.

“It’s been a struggle for the family. [Contreras] hasn’t seen one cent from the award,” Schmidt said.

The city attorney’s office declined to comment for this story. Galipo said he expects Contreras to receive his money within 90 days.

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KPCC: No weapon found in LA Sheriff Dept. shooting in Florence-Firestone

Posted on March 17, 2016March 18, 2016 by Katherine Davis-Young

A man shot by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies in Florence-Firestone early Wednesday morning appears to have been unarmed. Authorities have identified the man as 23-year-old Cristian Rene Medina.

The incident occurred around 4:30 a.m. near a payphone at the corner of 64th Street and Holmes Avenue.

Los Angeles Sheriff’s Deputy Guillermina Saldana said deputies from the Century Station were responding to a report of a robbery in progress nearby. When deputies arrived, Medina was standing alone near the payphone in front of a liquor store, she said. The department said Medina matched the description of the robbery suspect.

Guillermina said Medina took a “shooting stance” as though he were pointing a weapon. The deputies fired and Medina died on the scene. No weapon was found.

Manuel Romero, who lives near the corner where the shooting took place, said he heard the gunshots.

“I heard like maybe eight times,” Romero said. By the time he walked over to see what happened, authorities had blocked off the street.

Neighbors told KPCC Medina lived about a block away but many were reluctant to talk to a reporter about the incident.

A KPCC investigation into officer-involved-shootings in L.A. County found one in four people shot by police and deputies between 2010 and 2014 were unarmed.

KPCC’s data showed that in the five year period, at least eight people were shot by deputies in the slice of unincorporated Los Angeles where Medina died.

The area also has a high gang presence and a relatively high number of homicides, compared with other areas patrolled by the sheriff’s department. In 2015, Century Station has the third-highest homicide rate of any other sheriff’s patrol station.

Overall, crime has been dropping in the area. Violent and property crimes did rise about 6 percent in 2015, compared to the year before. But they’re still lower than they were five years ago.

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RNS: Netflix Introduces Televangelist Shows

Posted on January 30, 2016 by Katherine Davis-Young

LOS ANGELES (RNS) Alongside programs like “Orange Is the New Black” and “House of Cards,” Netflix now offers users another type of content: Christian sermons. The online video streaming service added lectures by four popular Christian pastors in early December.

“I believe if Jesus were on planet Earth today in the flesh he’d be on Netflix,” said Ed Young, one of the pastors, in a phone interview.

Young spearheaded the effort to get Christian talks onto Netflix. He said he believes, like Jesus, he should find ways to appeal to the masses. It’s that attitude that makes the partnership with Netflix an unsurprising, if unprecedented, convergence of evangelical faith and popular media.

“It fits with patterns that are long-established,” said Stewart M. Hoover, director of the Center for Media, Religion and Culture at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Hoover pointed out that evangelical churches have been quick to adapt to radio, then television and other technologies as they have developed.

Young’s Dallas area-based Fellowship Church is no exception. Young has penned more than a dozen books; he has had television programs on the E! network and other cable channels; he hosts iTunes podcasts and offers video content on YouTube and Roku. He has also gained attention for media stunts such as his 2012 “bed-in,” when he and his wife spent a day in a bed on the roof of their church to generate discussion around sexuality in Christianity.

“Jesus said that we should become fishers of men. If I’m going to catch the most fish, I’ve got to put a lot of hooks in the water,” Young said of his many media projects. “But I’m most excited about Netflix right now.”

Ed Young's "Fifty Shades of THEY" appears on Netflix. — Ed Young’s “Fifty Shades of THEY” appears on Netflix.

Young’s “Fifty Shades of THEY” Netflix series includes five episodes. The pastor paces a colorfully lit stage, offering jocular interpretations of Christian teachings to an audience of hundreds. The three other series have similar formats.

In “#DeathToSelfie,” young, T-shirt-clad pastor Steven Furtick talks identity. Georgia pastor Andy Stanley addresses working through challenges in “Starting Over.” And in “Winning Life’s Battles,” evangelical icon Joyce Meyer preaches to a massive auditorium.

Like Young, the other three pastors have media teams, YouTube videos, active social media accounts and personal websites to connect visitors to more content.

Young said he and his team started dreaming of Netflix about a year ago. Netflix was receptive to the idea, he said, and it was not hard to bring other Christian pastors on board with the plan either.

Paul Huse, executive director of marketing for Joyce Meyer Ministries, said Meyer’s team was pleased to take part.

“More and more people are cutting the cord,” Huse said. “Even though we’re on six or seven cable networks, more people are moving away from that and we want to be where they can still access us.”

Netflix did not provide many guidelines in terms of content for the episodes but did ask that the programs avoid product promotion or invitations for viewers to make donations, Huse said.

The move to Netflix made sense for the pastors, but for Netflix it’s a logical fit too, said Tom Nunan, lecturer at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and Television and longtime Hollywood producer.

“Most people perceive Netflix as a competitor to HBO or Showtime,” Nunan said, pointing to the original edgy, adult content that has earned the platform industrywide recognition. But in many ways, Netflix is the opposite of traditional networks, which target specific niche audiences, Nunan said. “Netflix is trying to be all things to all people.”

Nunan added that the entertainment industry has profited from religious content since the days of Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Ten Commandments.”

“Spirituality, generally speaking, is very good business,” Nunan said.

David Clark, executive media director for Ed Young’s Fellowship Church, said it has a two-year contract in which Netflix pays the churches for the shows. He declined to specify the amount, except to say that it was “nothing astronomical.” Still, he added that it was a much more preferable arrangement than the traditional cable TV model, which usually required large costs on the churches’ part.

Representatives from Netflix declined to give an interview for this story but issued a statement saying, “Titles are continuously being added to the service to meet the diverse tastes of our more than 75 million members around the world.”

Young hopes access to those users might attract new followers to Christ.

“We’re always working to try to market to the people who normally would not go to church,” Young said.

But Hoover predicts the new sermon series are more likely to attract Christian customers to Netflix than they are to convert Netflix users to Christianity.

“Evangelicals tend to think that because they are in the public media they’re going to cross over to more mainstream audiences, but evidence shows that they’re mostly just preaching to the choir, and I think that will be the case here,” Hoover said.

But for Young, the goal is clear: He plans to continue bringing Christianity to popular media in whatever forms technology provides.

“Jesus was the most creative communicator in history,” Young said. “If we’re taking a page from his playbook, the church should be the most creative entity in the universe.”

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RNS: Anti-Muslim Rhetoric puts Sikhs on Edge too

Posted on December 16, 2015January 19, 2016 by Katherine Davis-Young

(RNS) It’s a weekday afternoon, and Jaspreet Singh is usually at work, but power drill in hand, he’s attaching new “security cameras in use” signs to the outside of the Sikh temple in Buena Park, Calif.

Singh took the time off from his job as an information technology manager to protect the temple where he serves as a board member after he learned it had been vandalized.

“I was definitely shocked because our community is very peaceful. We don’t preach any hate. We respect all religions,” he said.

He was less surprised when he found out that the graffiti painted onto the walls of the temple’s parking lot and a truck parked there included slurs about “ISIS” and “Islam.” “Whenever terrorists attack, or any such incidents happen, there have always been backlashes,” he said.

And anti-Muslim backlashes have often targeted Sikhs, who are frequently mistaken for Muslims. The turbans worn by Sikh men in particular prompt the perpetrators of hate crimes to assume that their targets follow Islam.

Graffiti is seen on the walls of the parking lot at the Gurdwara Singh Sabha in Buena Park, California on Dec. 10, 2015. The vandalism was first reported on Dec. 6.

The graffiti at the temple, Gurdwara Singh Sabha, was discovered on Dec. 6, four days after terrorists with apparent connections to radical Islamists killed 14 people in San Bernardino, about 50 miles from Buena Park. Leaders of the gurdwara, or Sikh house of worship, asked authorities to investigate the vandalism as a hate crime.

The Sikhs in Buena Park, where the gurdwara serves 1,000 people, were hardly the only members of their faith targeted after the San Bernardino massacre.

“We’re already seeing a spike in incidents. We’ve had several reports of community members experiencing hate speech,” said Gurjot Kaur, attorney with the Sikh Coalition, a national organization that provides legal assistance to Sikhs facing discrimination.

Sikhism is the world’s fifth-largest religion, with about 25 million practitioners, including more than 500,000 in the U.S. It originated in Northern India independently from Hinduism, Islam and other religions. Most Sikh men wear turbans and beards as signifiers of faith.

Their style of dress lines up with stereotypical symbols of terrorism, said Simran Jeet Singh, professor of religion at Trinity University. (He is not related to Jaspreet Singh; many Sikh men use the surname Singh.)

“My father came to this country in the 1970s. Back then, he was called ‘ayatollah.’ When I was a kid I got called ‘Osama bin Laden.’ Now we’re being called ‘ISIS,’” he said. “All of these xenophobic slurs come from a misunderstanding of who Sikhs are.”

Simran Jeet Singh said often anti-Muslim political rhetoric lumps together unique religions and Middle Eastern and South Asian ethnic groups, he said.

Soon after terrorists linked to the Islamic State group attacked in Paris in November, for example, Canadian Sikh journalist Veerender Jubbal was photoshopped to appear as one of the suicide bombers. The image spread widely around the Internet and some news media even published the image, believing it to be authentic.

Sikhs have also often been targets of violence. Days after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a man ranting about “towel heads” shot and killed a Sikh gas station owner in Mesa, Ariz. In 2012, a white supremacist killed six Sikh worshippers in their Wisconsin gurdwara. And in September, a man shouting “terrorist” beat a Sikh man unconscious outside Chicago.

That perpetrators of these crimes should attack Sikhs, mistaking them for Muslims, is not surprising, said Randy Blazak, a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon who researches hate crimes.

“The notion of hate crime is always based on not just who the target is, but the perception of who the target is,” Blazak said. “There are often anti-gay attacks where the victim isn’t gay or anti-illegal immigrant attacks where the victim is not actually an illegal immigrant.”

Simran Jeet Singh said excusing discriminatory acts as cases of mistaken identity skirts the larger issue.

“By framing it as mistaken, there’s an implication that there’s a correct identity who should be targeted,” he said. “And it takes away agency and accountability from perpetrators, like it should, in some way, be forgivable.”

Whether or not attackers strike their intended targets, Simran Jeet Singh sees anti-Muslim sentiment and actions as evidence of a larger problem. “Political rhetoric now is certainly fanning the flames of ignorance and fear,” he said.

Buena Park’s Sikh community understands that firsthand.

When Jaspreet Singh headed to the store to buy security equipment and supplies to clean up his vandalized gurdwara, he said a woman in the store’s parking lot shouted expletives at him, telling him to get out of the U.S. Still, he said he has loved living in the U.S. since arriving from India 12 years ago, despite the bigotry directed at him and his community.

The teachings of his faith remind him to stay optimistic.

“If a tragedy happens,” he said, “all the communities should come close and protect each other rather than splitting ourselves and hating each other and blaming each other.”

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KPCC: OC Thrift Fashion Gets the High-End Boutique Treatment

Posted on October 9, 2015October 30, 2015 by Katherine Davis-Young

Goodwill of Orange County’s Huntington Beach location has all the hallmarks of a typical thrift store. There are the shelves of used kitchen appliances and stacks of pictures frames, racks of clothes and, of course, bargain hunters.

But this Goodwill location, which is known as an OC Goodwill Boutique, has a notably different ambiance than most thrift stores. It’s one of a handful of “boutique” stores that Goodwill has been opening throughout Orange County since 2012. The goal is to attract more Orange County shoppers by offering a glamorous retail experience.

“[The Huntington Beach OC Goodwill Boutique] has a completely different feel, it’s much more open, we’re not using kind of the mass capacity fixtures that you’d find in a regular store,” said Eric Smissen, visual specialist for Goodwill of Orange County.

Smissen spent more than 20 years working for Nordstrom before moving to Goodwill. Now he’s putting his knowledge of higher-end retail design and merchandising to use. His job is to help dress formerly run-of-the-mill thrift stores with design touches like cleverly outfitted mannequins, exposed brick walls and well-lit dressing rooms.

And it’s not just the layout that’s a little different in OC Goodwill Boutiques. On the racks, shoppers are likely to find highly sought-after labels like Coach, Michael Kors or Marc Jacobs.

The Orange County boutique stores are not the first of their kind. Goodwill Industries operates across the country taking donations of items like clothing and house wares and selling them to raise money for programs to assist disabled workers, veterans and other job seekers with barriers to employment. There are about 60 “boutique” Goodwill stores nationwide, but each one is a little different.

Frank Talarico Jr., president and CEO of Goodwill of Orange County, said when his branch decided to start opening high-end thrift stores in 2012, they wanted to take the concept further than other branches had.

They opened their first OC Goodwill Boutique in Tustin. In the years since, the nonprofit has opened three more in Lake Forest, Anaheim, and now the Huntington Beach store, which was remodeled in June.

“As a matter of strategy we need to make sure that we’re using the boutique model to expand into those ZIP codes simply because to do it with a traditional store is just not going to happen,” Talarico said.

For Talarico, the most obvious way to reach out to more donors and customers and serve more people in need in Orange County is to appeal to the county’s more affluent residents. Now, Goodwill employees in Orange County do an extra round of sorting when items get donated. They pull out name brands to supply a more curated collection to the four boutique stores.

“We took a real hard look at who our market is and understood that they are not just after real good bargains and shopping value, but the shopping experience is one that we have to be really competitive in,” Talarico said.

Customers in the Huntington Beach boutique seem to notice the difference in the store’s layout and selection.

Local resident Camille Hoffman was visiting the OC Goodwill Boutique for the first time. “Everything looks a little more organized. It looks better, it looks nicer,” she said.

Regina Cox, who is a regular Goodwill shopper, said, “I actually found a Michael Kors [purse] it was like $24. It was practically brand new—a real Michael Kors. So you find bargains.”

Even though the added design elements mean the boutiques cost more to build and launch than traditional Goodwill stores, Talarico said the investment has paid off.

“The market likes it, they enjoy it, they come more often and buy more when they do come,” Talarico said.

According to Goodwill, customers to the Huntington Beach boutique spend nearly $10 dollars more in each transaction than they do at other Orange County locations. And in its first full month after its remodel this summer, the boutique’s sales were up nearly 10 percent compared to the same period last year.

Talarico says he hopes to keep expanding the concept. He’s set a goal to open two boutiques per year in Orange County for the foreseeable future.

Listen to this story at KPCC

REUTERS: Three more women accuse Bill Cosby of decades-old assaults

Posted on August 12, 2015August 26, 2015 by Katherine Davis-Young

(With Piya Sinha-Roy and David Gregorio)

Three more women accused comedian Bill Cosby of sexual assault on Wednesday, providing detailed allegations of abuse they said the veteran television star subjected them to decades ago.

Colleen Hughes and Linda Ridgeway Whitedeer said Cosby, 78, had sexually assaulted them in the early 1970s, while Eden Tirl said he sexually harassed her on “The Cosby Show” set in 1989.

The women were speaking at a press conference hosted by celebrity attorney Gloria Allred, who represents 21 of the more than 40 women who have come forward in the past year accusing Cosby of drugging and sexually assaulting them.

New York Magazine interviewed and profiled 35 of Cosby’s accusers in a July cover story that featured an empty chair next to the rows of women. The chair sparked questions on how many more women may have similar allegations against the comedian.

Ridgeway Whitedeer said Cosby forced her into a sex act in 1971 when she met him for an interview on a movie set. At the time, she said, she was an aspiring actress and had been married for a while to a television agent who also worked for the comedian.

“As undignified as this is, it is my turn to take the empty chair that I saw on the cover of the New York Magazine, because I was assaulted sitting in a chair on a job interview and I was not drugged,” she said.

Representatives for Cosby did not respond for comment on Wednesday, and Cosby has never been charged.

Hughes, a former American Airlines flight attendant, said she encountered Cosby on a flight to Los Angeles in the early 1970s, and he accompanied her to her hotel. She said she lost consciousness for a few hours after drinking champagne with the comedian and confronted him about the incident a year later.

Tirl, a former model, said she was guest-starring as a police officer on “The Cosby Show” in 1989 when Cosby sexually harassed her in his dressing room.

Los Angeles police are currently conducting a criminal investigation into a complaint brought against Cosby, who has canceled TV projects and live shows due to the momentum of allegations.

Last month, Cosby lost a bid to fend off a lawsuit that accused him of sexually abusing a 15-year-old girl at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles in 1974. He will answer questions under oath at a deposition on Oct. 9.

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KPCC: Teddi Boston recalls historic solo hike on the PCT

Posted on August 3, 2015October 30, 2015 by Katherine Davis-Young

Every summer, hundreds of hikers make their way from the Mexican border to the Canadian border on the Pacific Crest Trail. This year the Pacific Crest Trail Association estimates there are well over 1,000 hikers attempting the walk through California, Oregon and Washington, making it one of the busiest years the trail has ever seen.

Much of that traffic is inspired by Cheryl Strayed’s 2012 memoir “Wild,” and the recent Reese Witherspoon film of the same name. But long before there was Cheryl Strayed, there was another woman making a splash on the PCT: Teddi Boston.

Teddi Boston hiked from Canada to Mexico on the PCT in 1976 at age of 49. She was one of the first women to ever hike the trail alone.

Jack Haskel of the Pacific Crest Trail Association says Boston has a lasting legacy in the hiking community.

“People recognize her as one of the early solo female hikers, and today there’s a lot of solo women out on the PCT, and Teddi is one of them that pioneered that,” he said.

Boston credits her childhood in rural Maine with giving her a love of the outdoors. By the mid 1970s, she had four children and was living in Anaheim. She always loved to take her kids camping in Yosemite, and it was during one of those trips that she first got the idea to try a longer outdoor adventure.

“I started meeting people talking about the Pacific Crest Trail,” Boston said. “So when I got home I had to start doing research… And it took me two years before I accomplished it.”

There were obstacles to the challenge. The trail wasn’t officially completed until 1993. Boston didn’t let that stop her. She set out on May 1, 1976, with just a pair of boots and a 65-pound backpack.

“Today, hikers have things like smartphone apps and resupply plans, Teddi would have had to do a whole lot more research,” Haskel said.

But Boston says her plan was pretty simple.

“I was on map and compass. Point the compass south and say, ‘That’s where I want to go.’ Follow the jackrabbit, he’s headed south,” Boston said, with a laugh.

There weren’t many hikers attempting the PCT when Boston did. And among those few, she was unique.

“Most hikers in the 1970s, sort of like most hikers today, are young white guys, pretty physically fit, right out of college, with a lot of time and money and passion on their hands. And Teddi was a mother in her 40s and that was unusual,” Haskel said.

Boston says when she started planning her trek, not everyone took her seriously. One male friend who told her, “‘Teddi, you just can’t do this. A woman alone cannot do this trail.’” Boston said she looked at him and said, “‘Bet-me-binky, you are going to owe me the most expensive steak in Orange County when I get back.’”

Boston did finish her historic hike on October 16, 1976. Family, friends and supporters were there to celebrate with her at the end of the trail. Her accomplishment even made news headlines.

“One of them said, ‘Mother of Four Braves the Wild!’” Boston recalled.

Boston makes her five-and-a-half month journey sound easy. But she faced plenty of challenges along the way. She injured her eye in Oregon, she hiked through heavy snow in the Sierra Nevada, she nearly ran out of water in Northern California. And then, she found herself with too much water in Southern California, when Tropical Storm Kathleen flooded the Mojave and washed away large sections of the trail.

“The desert just filled up, it was like a big lake. Oh my God, was I wet,” Boston said. “I looked like a drowned rat. So I slogged across the desert to Mojave and ended up in front of a motel and I went in and said, ‘You better have a room, I don’t care if it’s a broom closet. I need a place to stay!’”

But even during close calls, Boston said she never thought about giving up.

“You had to get out of the situation. It’s going to be better down the road. You’re here. Buck up, and go ahead!” Boston said.

At 88, Boston is still active in the outdoors. She volunteers with several outdoor organizations and she still loves hiking. In fact, last year, she trekked more than 300 miles on the PCT, just to see if she could still do it. Turns out, she can. And, she says as long as her legs keep working, she’ll still be out on the trail.

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