Press Play with Madeleine Brand
What Big Layoffs at American Apparel Mean for Manufacturing in Los Angeles?
The 1990s are coming back to haunt Hillary Clinton. What’s the legacy of her husband’s 1996 welfare reform act?
By Madeleine Brand • • 50m ListenAmerican Apparel just laid off 500 workers. Are the company’s troubles a cautionary tale about local manufacturing or simply a story of bad management? Then, the 1990s are coming back to haunt Hillary Clinton. What’s the legacy of her husband’s 1996 welfare reform act? Next, a profile of Silicon Valley billionaire Sean Parker, who announced today he’s donating $250 million to cancer research. After that, Madeleine speaks to the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright who wrote a show currently running at the Mark Taper Forum. And finally, a cooking debate. What’s better, making food from the head or from the heart?
In this episode
5 storiesAmerican Apparel and Manufacturing in L.A.
Dov Charney, the founder and former CEO of American Apparel, built a brand partly around the fact that his clothes were made here in L.A. It was a great idea. But these days, American Apparel is in trouble. It emerged from bankruptcy in February but its stock is still trading for about a dime. Last week, the company laid off 500 workers.
Read the story8 minThe Clintons and the Legacy of Welfare Reform
The ‘90s are coming back to haunt Hillary Clinton. Last week, Black Lives Matter activists interrupted her husband, Bill Clinton, at a Hillary rally. The activists were there to protest the former president’s 1994 crime bill, which contributed to the mass incarceration of minorities.
Read the story9 minWho is Sean Parker?
Silicon Valley billionaire Sean Parker announced today that he’ll give $250 million to study cancer treatments. The cash infusion is the largest ever toward cancer immunotherapy. Parker, of Napster and Facebook fame, is known as a partier and an eccentric.
Read the story8 minFather Comes Home From the Wars
Who tells the stories of our history? As the saying goes, it’s usually the winners. A new play at the Mark Taper Forum, however, subverts that idea. It’s called “Father Comes Home From the Wars, Parts 1, 2 and 3.” It’s about a slave named Hero who goes off with his master to fight for the confederacy in the civil war.
Read the story14 minCooking: Art or Science?
If the way to our hearts is through our stomachs, what happens when you bring the brain into it? That’s what the cooking show “America’s Test Kitchen” has built its brand on: ultra specific, scientifically-tested methods that favor exact formulas over imprecise, dash-of-this, dash-of-that cooking.
Read the story8 min
