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Hello, I'm Juan Devis, Chief Creative Officer
at KCET and PBS SoCal, and I'm joined by the
newsroom of KPCC and LAist on a daily Reporter
Roundup.
Eric, let's start off with you.
You've been reporting on a tiny startup called
"Hood Renovationz" that has been raising money
to help small, free remodels for people in
low income communities.
-Yeah, "Hood Renovationz" with a Z.
They started in Huntington Park, these three
friends who went to UC Berkley who are Angelenos,
started this company where they take donations
from the community, micro donations, and they
use that to create things like a brand new
kitchen for someone, or build a new bedroom,
and just recently they started building these
collapsable desks that turn into a bookshelf
for kids who are stuck at home and don't really
have much space.
Everything is free they're giving away.
They're doing it all themselves.
There's a lawyer, a finance guy, and a poet,
but they've been able to figure it out and
they've been doing amazing work.
-The Port of Long Beach is doing some big
rebuilding of its own.
Sharon had a sneak peak at a massive new bridge,
and potentially, a new southern California
landmark.
-Right.
This new bridge is taking the place of the
old steel Gerald Desmond Bridge that opened
in 1968.
That old bridge is too narrow to carry all
the port traffic that's needed today, and
chunks of concrete have been falling off the
underside of the bridge for years.
The new bridge is a new sort of bridge.
It's got two towers about thirty six stories
high, and cables attached to the towers hold
up the road bed, so it will be wider, just
like a freeway.
It will also have a separate protective lane
for bicyclers and walkers, but the most fun
thing about the bridge is that the cables
will be lit up at night with different colors
themed to the seasons or sporting events like
the Olympic Games that are coming here to
LA.
The new bridge also needs a name, so if you've
got a suggestion, get in touch with your local
state legislator, because they're the ones
who get to decide.
-For people out there ready to start going
out to eat, there's a new color coded restaurant
plan.
Elina can explain how that works.
-Well, it's part of the recent color coded
four tier reopening plan that Governor Newsom
announced last week and that went into effect
this week.
Most of all the southern California counties,
except for San Diego, is in the purple, or
the most restricted tier, and that means outdoor
dining only for now.
Now, we're going to be in this tier for three
weeks minimum, so that's the near future.
Once we get to the slightly less restrictive
red tier, there will be limited outdoor dining
at twenty five percent of a restaurant's capacity
or one hundred diners, whichever is fewer.
After that, we will get to orange, where you'll
still have limited outdoor dining, but it's
slightly higher: fifty percent capacity or
two hundred diners, whichever's fewer, and
then finally, in the least restrictive or
yellow tier, there will be indoor dining at
fifty percent of capacity.
Boom.
-Finally today, the last episode of our podcast
"California City" is out, but the court case
against one of the companies we profiled isn't
even close to over.
Emily continues to follow that for us.
-So the company is called Silver Saddle Ranch
and Club, and they're just the latest company
to try to profit off of selling pretty overpriced
desert land in the small Mojave Desert town
of California City, and just a quick recap:
so the California Department of Business Oversight,
they actually shut Silver Saddle down last
September and charged them with securities
fraud.
They said Silver Saddle used high pressure
sales tactics to convince more than two thousand
people to spend up to thirty thousand dollars
on nearly worthless land, and finally a trial
date has been set in the case.
It's July 2021, and the date is so far out
in the future because the court is very backed
up due to the coronavirus, and either way,
it's looking really unlikely that people who
invested with Silver Saddle will actually
get their money back.
The ranch and the land around it is currently
for sale, but it's listed for a fraction of
what Silver Saddle's owners claimed it was
worth, which means that people who spent up
to thirty thousand dollars there might just
get a thousand dollars or so back.
-Thank you Emily, and please everybody go
and take a listen to this wonderful podcast,
and thank you all at the KPCC and LAist newsroom.
Thank you for tuning in.
Take care of your health, your family, your
neighbor, keep cool, and we will see you next
time.
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