AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish. It's time now for another installment in our series You Must Read This, where authors talk about a book they love. Author Julia Keller likes her fiction creepy, that's why she's recommending a forgotten American classic that she calls terrifying. It's "The Night of the Hunter" by Davis Grubb.
JULIA KELLER: You could call it good bad luck. It's what happened to Davis Grubb in 1955. A book he published - "The Night of the Hunter" - was turned into a movie, and it's a good one. Robert Mitchum is the sinister predator. He's got love, L-O-V-E, tattooed on one hand and hate, H-A-T-E, on the other. It's such a vivid, menacing movie, but a lot of people forgot all about the book. And that's a shame because it's a gorgeous novel. It's rough and raw and melodramatic with some social commentary tucked in there too.
Pearl and John are two small kids being raised by their mom, Willa. They live in a sorrowful speck of a town along the Ohio River in West Virginia. The father of this family has just been executed for a murder he committed during an armed robbery. Only his kids know where he hid the money. Then we meet a creepy, twisted waste of a man known as Preacher. Now, he's certain the kids can lead him to the dough, so Preacher woos and marries the widow, while the boy, John, watches in mounting terror.
Soon, John and his sister are on the run from their stepfather, escaping from what the book calls something as old as evil itself. Davis Grubb was born in Moundsville, West Virginia, in 1919, but he left for New York City when he was 21. He wanted to be a writer, and he had some real success. "The Night of the Hunter" was a huge hit, a bestseller. But by the time he died in 1980, Grubb was a forgotten man.
So if you like your stories blunt and unpolished, then get your hands on this novel. But beware: You may end up feeling a little like poor young John, who runs from the smell of dread in his nose until - doglike - his flesh gathered and bunched at the scent of it.
CORNISH: Julia Keller is the author of "A Killing in the Hills." The book she recommended was "The Night of the Hunter" by Davis Grubb. You can comment on this essay at nprbooks.org. You can also like us on Facebook for updates on books throughout the day.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Finally this hour, a fresh take on the science-fiction score. When you think about the music of great sci-fi, a few things likely come to mind. Perhaps this...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STAR WARS (MAIN THEME)")
SIEGEL: ...and probably this...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THEME FROM STAR TREK (TV SERIES)")
SIEGEL: That, of course, was the theme to the classic "Star Trek" TV series, and before that, some of John Williams' famous work for the "Star Wars" movies. Well, Nathan Johnson, the composer for the new time-travel thriller "Looper," wanted to break with tradition. Instead of that slick, orchestral sound, he used things like this...
(SOUNDBITE OF INDUSTRIAL FAN)
SIEGEL: ...an industrial fan to come up with this...
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
NATHAN JOHNSON: I actually moved down to New Orleans, where they were shooting the movie and just spent a month wandering around the city, walking around the sets, gathering anything that struck my ear. The sounds of fingers drumming on railings, music stands, treadmills in the hotel room, microwave oven, both...
(SOUNDBITE OF BEEP)
JOHNSON: ...the beeping of entering the numbers and also the hum of the engine rolling around.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINERY)
JOHNSON: I used software to turn those sounds into actual playable instruments.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
JOHNSON: One afternoon, I brought Noah Segan, the actor who plays Kid Blue, into the studio, and we recorded all the sounds of his gat gun from the movie...
(SOUNDBITE OF GAT GUN)
JOHNSON: ...so not just the firing of the gun, but the actual cocking mechanism, the way the barrel spun around...
(SOUNDBITE OF GAT GUN)
JOHNSON: ...all these little clicks and pops.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIEGEL: One of the other things you hear is the sound of car doors slamming.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOORS SLAMMING)
JOHNSON: We wanted to evoke a kettledrum, but rather than using a normal kettledrum, we were in this massive parking garage one day, and as we're shutting the car doors, the reverberation...
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOORS SLAMMING)
JOHNSON: ...was amazing. And the umph of the base when the door slammed just sounded fantastic.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
JOHNSON: We wanted to link these industrial-found sounds with traditional instruments as well, and we kind of used the software instruments that we created as the core fabric and then supplemented that with sometimes a piano, sometimes a cellist, some orchestral ensemble supplements as well.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
JOHNSON: I think, aesthetically, I'm really drawn to imperfection in music. So I took the same approach when I was gathering these sounds, rather than using a library where everything has been sampled perfectly and recorded in the studio. Part of it was just to get our own stamp on it so that the world of "Looper," auditorily, felt really unique.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIEGEL: That's composer Nathan Johnson talking about his found-sound score for the new film "Looper."
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIEGEL: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
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Tracy Chevalier, best known for writing "Girl with a Pearl Earring," has a new book out set in Ohio. It takes place as the Compromise of 1850 is about to pass. That, among other things, included crushing new controls on runaway slaves caught even in non-slave states.
Here's Dolen Perkins-Valdez with our review of the "The Last Runaway."
DOLEN PERKINS-VALDEZ, BYLINE: It's the story of the Underground Railroad experienced by a white Quaker woman whose name is Honor. Honor Bright grows up in England, but her fiance abandons her, and she decides to make the trip to the U.S. Everything is different here. The robins are bigger, roads and cities are spaced out. She tries corn on the cob and sees her first firefly. It's just as delightful for the reader as it is for her. But the story turns out to be much darker.
In America, Quakers face a tough choice. They're against slavery. But after the compromise, helping runaways could mean fines and jail time. For our heroine, it doesn't take much time before she's faced with the same dilemma. Should she protect the escapees running through the Ohio woods? You've heard this story before: the Underground Railroad, some people escaping slavery, some good people helping them. But what makes this story interesting is Honor's perspective. She's English. And in some ways, coming from far away helps her see American slavery in simpler terms.
"The Last Runaway" is a rich, well-researched novel. It's the story of one young woman becoming an American.
CORNISH: That was Dolen Perkins-Valdez. Her latest book "Wench" also deals with slavery and is set in Ohio. The book she reviewed is "The Last Runaway." You can find more reviews at our website, nprbooks.org. You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter, @nprbooks.
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South Dakota is famously home to Mount Rushmore. It's also home to a second colossal mountain carving that is 64 years in the making. When finished, the Crazy Horse Memorial will dwarf the four presidents. But problems in the underlying rock are now forcing its sculptors to deviate from the original model.
South Dakota public broadcasting's Charles Michael Ray has the story.
CHARLES MICHAEL RAY, BYLINE: If you're job is carving a mountain, you don't use a hammer and a chisel. You use this...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Fire in the hole. Fire in the hole. Fire in the hole.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSION)
RAY: A blast like this can remove over a thousand tons of rock at a time. The biggest mountain carving in the world is taller than the Washington Monument and well over two football fields wide. The sculpture in progress is of the Lakota warrior Chief Crazy Horse astride a stallion with his arm and pointed hand stretched out over the horse's mane. Sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski began the project 1948.
RUTH ZIOLKOWSKI: He believed that you can do anything in this world. Nothing is impossible as long as you're willing to work hard enough and pay the price.
RAY: The sculptor's wife, Ruth, is now 86 years old. Her long white hair is tied back, and despite her age, she still oversees all aspects of the work here. She and seven of her children took up the project after her husband's death in 1982. By the late '90s, the face of Crazy Horse emerged from the mountain carving. The last decade has been spent roughing out the horse's head. It's 22 stories high.
Today, mountain carving is high tech. Here, an engineer is using a laser measuring device to plot in a 3-D point on the side of the granite face. For years, the family followed their late father's model exactly. But Monique Ziolkowski, the sculptor's daughter, says seams and cracks in the rock pose new challenges.
MONIQUE ZIOLKOWSKI: He always said you had to work with Mother Nature because she'll beat you every time. And so that's why we're working with the engineers, and we will be putting bolts in for support, but the bulk of the mountain needs to stand on its own.
RAY: The changes include more rock left in place to support the outstretched arm and the horse's head. Teams of engineers and geologists carefully monitor each blast and help to plot the way forward. All of this is paid for through private funding managed by a nonprofit organization. The project uses no tax dollars. Some critics have questioned the snail's pace of the progress here. Matriarch Ruth Ziolkowski answers by quoting her late husband.
ZIOLKOWSKI: Well, he said, go slowly so you do it right. And, I, for one, would like to have it go faster, but there are so many things that you have to do in order to do it right that it takes the time.
RAY: This ambitious project has other critics, including some Native Americans who believe the humble Chief Crazy Horse would have never wanted his image carved into a sacred mountain. But supporters are quick to cite positive aspects of the memorial outside of the carving, including the first classes held at a new on-site university, an expansive museum and a Native American college scholarship program targeting Native high school kids like these...
This is a high school basketball team from the Rosebud Reservation. They're horsing around on the main observation deck below the huge sculpture of Crazy Horse. Coach Davis Reddest is Lakota. He brought his players here on side trip from a nearby tournament. Reddest looks up at the giant carving where construction excavators are removing recently blasted rock fragments.
DAVIS REDDEST: It's good. I just don't know if it's going to be completed in my lifetime. It's going to be a while. It's a lot of rock.
RAY: But others visiting this monument, including Bridget Martin from Wisconsin, are impressed with the progress. Martin remembers coming here as kid back before the sculpture took shape.
BRIDGET MARTIN: You kind of look forward to it for your kids to come back in 10 years or 20 years and see it finished.
RAY: But the sculptors in the Black Hills won't estimate when the carving will be complete. It's now more than six decades in the making. Compare that to Egypt's Great Pyramid, which most historians say took about 20 years to finish. This project could take another lifetime to complete, but its impact will likely extend long beyond that. For NPR News, I'm Charles Michael Ray in Rapid City, South Dakota.
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In Brazil, an epidemic is taking hold - an outbreak of crack cocaine use nationwide, even in cities in the Amazon. It's an image at odds with the one Brazil wants to project, as it prepares to host soccer's World Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympics two years later.
NPR's Juan Forero reports from the country's biggest open-air drug bazaar.
JUAN FORERO, BYLINE: The Luz District of central Sao Paulo was once grand, with its old train station and opulent buildings.
(SOUNDBITE OF CITY AMBIENCE)
FORERO: Now, this neighborhood is known as Cracolandia - Crackland. And on a recent night, skeletal figures in tattered, dirty clothes emerge - mostly men, but some women. They're glassy eyed and jumpy and looking for a quick fix, oblivious to the police helicopters overhead.
(SOUNDBITE OF A HELICOPTER)
FORERO: The only buffer between them and the rest of society this evening is Isabel Campos, a health worker who tries convincing addicts into seeking help.
ISABEL CAMPOS: (Foreign language spoken)
FORERO: They're here all day, she says, smoking crack.
Crack has been in Brazil since the 1990s but its use exploded in the past six years, say health and police officials. The reason, they say, has to do with proximity and porosity. Brazil is neighbor to the world's biggest cocaine-producing countries and its borders are vast, remote and largely unguarded.
Eloisa Arruda, secretary of justice for Sao Paulo State, says the market here is also alluring.
ELOISA ARRUDA: (Foreign language spoken)
FORERO: Brazil offers a big market of cocaine and crack consumers, says Arruda, and that's partly because people have more buying power. She also says the problem here is similar to the crack crisis in the United States in the 1980s, when the drug engulfed whole districts and generated waves of violence.
ARRUDA: (Foreign language spoken)
FORERO: It's a big growth of people using crack in public, Arruda says, people permanently in the streets consuming drugs day and night.
The Brazilian approach has been to treat the problem as a health care crisis. President Dilma Rousseff responded with a $2 billion drug prevention and treatment program. In Sao Paulo, addicts are urged to seek help at Psycho-Social Attention Centers, 80 clinics where addicts can receive a bed for the night.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FORERO: On a recent day, a group of crack users gathers at one center to watch a documentary and talk about drugs and society. A woman addict says the real enemy is the state.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Foreign language spoken)
FORERO: And she rattles off how low wages are in Brazil, how education is shoddy and opportunity scant.
Antonio Sergio Goncalves offers another reason. He's a psychoanalyst and has been working with addicts for 27 years.
ANTONIO SERGIO GONCALVES: (Foreign language spoken)
FORERO: It's the well-organized distribution of crack, he says, which can be found in most cities.
And then there's also crack's powerful addictive qualities. Marcelo Cordeiro is a crack addict.
MARCELO CORDEIRO: (Foreign language spoken)
FORERO: You feel instant ecstasy, he says, the only thing is the depression that comes when you don't have it.
Cordeiro says crack is so much more intense than cocaine, but dangerous - what he calls euphoria with morbidity.
(SOUNDBITE OF A VEHICLE)
FORERO: It's a euphoria the addicts in Sao Paulo's Cracolandia crave. One of them is Paulino, who won't give his last name. He's 50, very skinny, energetic and musically inclined, playing the harmonica.
(SOUNDBITE OF HARMONICA)
FORERO: He also uses crack every day.
PAULINO: (Foreign language spoken)
FORERO: I'm chemically dependent, he says, I need crack in my blood. Then he says that his illness is like a snake, and what's the medicine for a snake? He says its venom, crack.
Juan Forero, NPR News.
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Time now for our first home viewing recommendation of 2013 from film critic Bob Mondello. In case you missed it in theaters this fall, Bob suggests you head boldly into the future with the time travel thrill ride, "Looper," just released on video.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Welcome to a future when time travel has been outlawed, meaning only outlaws, like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, travel through time.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "LOOPER")
MONDELLO: Gordon-Levitt's been made up to look like a young Bruce Willis, who's playing a man he's supposed to kill because...
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "LOOPER")
MONDELLO: That's called closing the loop, in this case with young Joe meeting old Joe. And there you have director Rian Johnson's nifty premise.
"Looper" is plenty of fun on its own, but on Blu-ray, along with the usual commentary tracks, you'll find not two or three, but 22 deleted scenes. There's one that expands a nightclub sequence from the finished film's 12 seconds to well over a minute, including a blink-you'll-miss-it walk-through cameo by Tobey Maguire.
Another expands a diner conversation between the old and young Joes, explaining a line that flew right by me originally.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "LOOPER")
MONDELLO: Diagrams with straws. That was the set-up for a sequence you never see in the completed film. Bruce Willis takes the top off a salt shaker, and empties the salt on the table, with most of it ending up near one of two straws.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "LOOPER")
MONDELLO: The actors spent an entire weekend rehearsing this bit, so it's nice to see it play out, with the director and another cast member talking it through.
(SOUNDBITE OF DVD COMMENTARY)
MONDELLO: Not lost any more. Great fun to close that loop and a nice way to spend a little extra time with "Looper," a seriously cool time-travel movie.
I'm Bob Mondello.
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It's going to be another year before most of the really big changes coming with the 2010 health law known as Obamacare take effect. That includes things like the ban on denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and the requirement that most Americans have insurance. Still, as NPR's Julie Rovner reports, some notable changes are now under way.
JULIE ROVNER, BYLINE: One of the changes that will affect everyone with private health insurance actually took effect last September. But most people won't see it until they renew or apply for new health insurance. It's called a summary of benefits and coverage. And the idea, says former Health and Human Services official Jay Angoff, is to help people actually understand what's in their insurance policies.
JAY ANGOFF: There's a standard format that allows people to compare benefits to make apples-to-apples comparisons not just on price but on benefits.
ROVNER: Health plans will also have to provide consumers a glossary of insurance terms if they ask for it.
ANGOFF: Now, it's still harder than some people would want. It's still a complicated area. But I think HHS has really done a very good job in making it as simple and meaningful as possible.
ROVNER: Later in 2013 will also bring a key launch date for the law, says Angoff.
ANGOFF: October 1, 2013 is when open enrollment begins.
ROVNER: That's when people can start signing up for their 2014 coverage through the new health exchanges or marketplaces that the states and federal government are creating right now. Angoff, who used to head the office that's in charge of building those exchanges, says he's confident that things will happen on time.
ANGOFF: HHS has met all statutory deadlines until this point, and I have confidence that HHS will continue to meet those deadlines.
ROVNER: But most of what happens on January 1, 2013 are changes that pay for the changes in 2014, in other words, tax increases and cuts in tax deductions. People will only be able to put $2,500 pretax dollars into flexible spending accounts. Marilyn Moon of the American Institutes for Research explains that these accounts are generally used for items insurance doesn't cover.
DR. MARILYN MOON: So, for example, if they buy eyeglasses, if they pay co-pays on drug benefits or to their physician, they can submit those claims and be reimbursed from the pre-tax dollars that they set this up.
ROVNER: Moon says that while the change may hurt some people with very high out-of-pocket spending not covered by insurance, lawmakers decided this was a fair way to raise some of the money needed to pay for the rest of the law.
MOON: This is a benefit that largely accrues to higher-income individuals who can afford to set aside a certain amount of money every year to pay towards their health care spending.
ROVNER: There's another tax change for wealthy individuals earning more than $200,000 a year and couples earning more than $250,000. They'll see a nearly 1 percentage point increase in their Medicare payroll tax. And they'll also have to pay a 3.8 percent Medicare tax on their nonwage income. Moon says that represents a big change.
MOON: The payroll tax usually applies only to wages. And now, this law will extend it to investment income as well.
ROVNER: Those who take deductions for medical expenses on their income taxes will also see a change starting in 2013. Right now, expenses in excess of 7 1/2 percent of adjusted growth income are deductible. That's going up to 10 percent. It will impact some people who spend a lot on medical care, says Moon, but the new law should also reduce the number of people with those very large bills.
MOON: Because if everyone has health insurance, many fewer people should have to pay large amounts out of pocket on health care. Ten percent would not affect very many people in the future, one would hope, when they get better insurance coverage.
ROVNER: Finally, there is a key change made by the health law for 2013 that will affect only the poor. State Medicaid programs will be required to reimburse doctors who provide primary care at Medicare rates, which are substantially higher. The idea is to get more doctors into the Medicaid program, which will itself expand in 2014.
Julie Rovner, NPR News, Washington.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
On January 1, 1953, a woman set off from the Rose Bowl Parade, with a goal of walking the entire country for peace. She left behind her given name - Mildred Norman - and took up a new identity.
Independent producer Zak Rosen has been looking back on the remarkable life of Peace Pilgrim.
ZAK ROSEN, BYLINE: When Peace Pilgrim started out, the Korean War was still going on, and an ominous threat of a nuclear attack was on the mind of many Americans. And so with "Peace Pilgrim" written across her chest, she was walking, as she called it, coast to coast for peace.
For 28 years - the entire length of her journey - she never used money, ever. She gave new meaning to the word minimalist. She wore the same thing every day; blue pants and a blue tunic, which held everything she owned: a pen, a comb, a toothbrush and a map. That's it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED INTERVIEW)
ROSEN: In July of 1981, the day before she died, Peace Pilgrim was interviewed by Ted Hayes, the manager of a small radio station in Knox, Indiana.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED INTERVIEW)
RICHARD POLESE: I was driving along a road in Ohio at night, and I saw this figure; white hair, with some kind of white lettering, walking along the road and then as I drove by, kind of dashing a bit, out of the way of the traffic. And I had no idea who it was.
My name is Richard Polese. I'm a book publisher and editor.
ROSEN: Years after Polese saw her walking on the side of the road, he met Peace Pilgrim, and they became friends. A decade after she died, he and some other friends collected her writings in a book.
POLESE: Peace is what we called her. We called her by her first name, Peace. (LAUGHTER)
HELENE YOUNG: My name is Helene Young, and I am the sister of Peace Pilgrim. And I am 97 years old. I live in Cologne, New Jersey, two miles outside of Egg Harbor, where Peace Pilgrim and I were born and raised.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED INTERVIEW)
YOUNG: She was very much what they called a flapper, in those days. She had to have the latest clothing. So she made so many changes in her life to a very simple, basic life.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED INTERVIEW)
YOUNG: We were brought up without a formal religion or politics. We were taught to think for ourselves, not follow the sheep.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED INTERVIEW)
ROSEN: Fifteen years passed between this striking moment of clarity, and the official beginning of her pilgrimage. To prepare, one of the things she did was walk the entire length of the Appalachian Trail in one year. Peace Pilgrim was the first woman to do this.
YOUNG: She was not interested in being a mother. And that was why she knew that she could handle the pilgrimage - because she did not leave a family behind. She and her husband were divorced because she thought he should be a conscientious objector. And his sergeant told him that was grounds for divorce.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED INTERVIEW)
YOUNG: The first year, she was thrown in jail for vagrancy. And they found out she wasn't a commie, so they let her go.
POLESE: She would gather the women prisoners together, and teach them a little song and a little chant called "The Fountain of Love." And she'd had them do this. So she - her mission - she felt that prisons and jails were wonderful places to carry on a mission. She had no fear.
ROSEN: The motto she had sewn on the back of her tunic when she started out, walking coast to coast for peace, quickly became outdated. By 1964, she had already walked 25,000 miles. Eventually, she stopped counting. As she became more well-known, Peace Pilgrim began getting invitations to speak at schools and churches. That's what brought her to Knox, Indiana, in the summer of 1981.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC)
ROSEN: Was there anything about her that you remember?
TERRY BAU: We didn't know who it was, at first, not until it was in the paper.
My name is Terry Bau, and I'm just a housewife.
TONY BAU: And my name is Tony Bau, and I run the business here, Bau Collision Repair.
ROSEN: Peace Pilgrim, a woman who spent her life walking thousands of miles through every state and most of Canada, lost her life riding in a car.
POLESE: Tony and his wife, Terry, were outside in the yard when the accident occurred.
TONY BAU: About 75 to 100 feet up the road there, approximately - right where that utility pole is, there.
TERRY BAU: I got on the side of her. She was still alive when I got up there. I was talking to her, just telling her everything would be OK. That's about all I remember.
POLESE: Peace Pilgrim really ended up in the hands of the right people, just by serendipity.
TONY BAU: Even though we didn't know her - we didn't know any of her writings or anything like that - we still lived her life, you know, because I believe in exactly what she believes in; being free, and try to have a more peaceful world amongst people.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC)
ROSEN: Peace Pilgrim's journey ended on the side of that road in Indiana, 30 years ago. But her followers say they continue to find meaning in her message, and to be inspired by her example. For NPR News, I'm Zak Rosen.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED INTERVIEW)
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CORNISH: Zak Rosen is an independent producer based in Detroit.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CORNISH: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
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Now, our second profile of a new member of Congress, Arizona Democrat Krysten Sinema. She's a trained social worker who rose quickly to the state legislature. She also grew up homeless for a time.
Peter O'Dowd from member station KJZZ has the rest of her story.
PETER O'DOWD, BYLINE: Sinema is also young, just 36. And on this rainy, winter morning, she's holding a regular coffee meeting with voters in Central Arizona's new 9th Congressional District.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Hello. Congratulations.
O'DOWD: The next time they'll meet, she'll officially be Congresswoman Sinema.
REPRESENTATIVE-ELECT KYRSTEN SINEMA: So I want to start today by giving you a couple updates. So we won the election, right? That was good. Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
O'DOWD: Update number two, Sinema's got a place to live in D.C. and in office, plus she marvels at the number of women, minorities and members of the LGBT community that will join her in the freshman class. Sinema is the first openly bisexual member of Congress.
SINEMA: I'm just really proud of the Democratic caucus. I look around in our meetings, and I think we really look like America.
O'DOWD: For a while, it was unclear if the Democrat would make it this far. It took nearly a week after Election Day for Sinema to learn she'd beaten her Tea Party opponent by 10,000 votes.
SINEMA: How often can you say a kid who was homeless is going to Congress?
O'DOWD: Sinema grew up in a Mormon family. Though she's no longer affiliated with any religion, she says her family's conservative roots helped launch her career. Amid recession in the 1980s, her parents divorced. When the bank foreclosed on their home, Sinema moved into an abandoned gas station with her mom and stepdad. She says for two years, they had no toilet or electricity.
SINEMA: I kind of grew up with a mix of two things. One was kind of this individual work ethic that my father and my stepfather and my mother all taught me, which was never depend on anyone else to do things for you and work really hard on your own.
O'DOWD: And Sinema did work hard. She graduated from college at 18. She got a job as a social worker, then a law degree. In 2004, she ran for the state Legislature and won. This year, she threw in a Ph.D. for good measure.
SINEMA: At the same time, I benefited from the help of church and family and government my whole life.
O'DOWD: Democrat David Lujan was a colleague of Sinema's at the state Capitol. He says she was the smartest person there and the hardest working.
SENATOR DAVID LUJAN: I had no doubt she would be in Congress someday.
O'DOWD: Early on, Sinema formed a reputation as an outspoken advocate for women's rights and same-sex marriage. But Lujan says she also learned to moderate her tone and found Republicans to co-sponsor her bills. Even critics say they respect Sinema's charm and political skill. But Republican state Senator Frank Antenori says it's a masterful ruse.
SENATOR FRANK ANTENORI: She created this transformation as going from one of the most left-wing leftists of the state House into one of the more moderate Democrats in the state Senate, which she was a facade.
O'DOWD: And perhaps shrewd. Her district is made up of almost equal parts: Republicans, Democrats and independents. GOP political analyst Kris Mayes says to win, Sinema had to seek the middle.
KRISTIN MAYES: It is representative of a changing Arizona, such that you're going to see a much more diverse cast of characters go to Congress from Arizona than ever before.
O'DOWD: Back at the coffee shop, Sinema wraps up her hour-long chat with supporters that ranged from immigration reform to access to education. After they leave, I asked Sinema to consider the public's fascination with her.
SINEMA: I speak my mind. I'm not really afraid of things. I actually don't think that's that unusual. And I think it's not a surprise here in Arizona.
O'DOWD: The real surprise may come later. Will Sinema continue a path of moderation? Or will this new-generation congresswoman end up too liberal for Arizona voters?
For NPR News, I'm Peter O'Dowd in Phoenix.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
Out with the old, in with the new, that includes Congress. A new class will be sworn in Thursday, and we're taking time to meet some of the freshmen members. We have two profiles for you now. The first is of Republican Ted Cruz of Texas, a Tea Party favorite who won a seat in the Senate.
NPR's Wade Goodwyn says many in the GOP hope he'll be able to bring more Latino voters into their column.
WADE GOODWYN, BYLINE: Almost nobody had heard of Ted Cruz when he began his campaign in Texas for the U.S. Senate. But when he stepped in front of a microphone, he could light up a room in a way that made the other Republican candidates seem lifeless.
SENATOR-ELECT TED CRUZ: We're here to talk about politics. If you go back to the ancient Greek, politics had two parts: poly meaning many and ticks meaning bloodsucking parasites.
(LAUGHTER)
GOODWYN: Here's Cruz campaigning before a group of West Texas Republican women.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)
GOODWYN: Cruz has been speaking for just 40 seconds, but the West Texas women are nodding and laughing and offering amens. Cruz paces in front of them with a wireless microphone like a Cuban Tony Robbins - young, smart, good-looking, intense, no notes, no teleprompter, his words and ideas flowing seamlessly. He spends less time attacking President Obama than he does what he calls the sold-out Republican establishment. He campaigned as a Tea Party true believer, calling his followers to march with him to the barricades.
CRUZ: From Ed Meese to Phyllis Schlafly to Dr. James Dobson to the five strongest conservatives in the U.S. Senate - Jim DeMint, Mike Lee, Rand Paul, Pat Toomey and Tom Coburn - every one of them is united behind this campaign. If conservatives continue to unite - and I ask for your help - we're going to win this race. And when we win this race, Texas will lead the fight.
GOODWYN: With no money, having never run for office, Cruz crushed Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst by 14 points in the Republican Senate primary then sailed to victory by an even bigger margin in the general election.
In the 1950s, Cruz's father fought beside Fidel Castro in Cuba but became so disenchanted with the revolution's aftermath that he became a staunch conservative after moving to the U.S. His son has followed his father's footsteps becoming a strict constitutionalist. Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott was Cruz's boss and remains a good friend.
GREG ABBOTT: Ted Cruz is someone who believes firmly in the United States Constitution and what it was intended to achieve. But also, he was able to translate that into a unifying campaign across the state, unifying those who believe that America has lost its way, bringing along those who see a brighter future for tomorrow.
GOODWYN: Along with Florida Senator Marco Rubio, Cruz is a bright, young Hispanic star. And the Republican Party nationally hopes Cruz will be part of the solution to their growing problem luring Hispanic voters. But Cruz takes a Tea Party hard line on immigration. He's for bigger border walls patrolled by drones from above and is against the Dream Act. In the general election, Cruz did about as well as Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney did with Texas Hispanic voters, which is to say not very well. Ross Ramsey is the executive editor of The Texas Tribune.
ROSS RAMSEY: He's got a period here where he can figure out where he fits in the Washington spectrum, where he fits in the National Republican Party and how the Hispanic politics work. But I think he's clearly in place - if it develops right - to become a national player.
GOODWYN: If there's one thing political opponents have learned about Ted Cruz is that you underestimate him at your own peril.
Wade Goodwyn, NPR News, Dallas.
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Warning: We're about to give you a musical earwig fresh off the Internet. Not "Gangnam Style" - no, that is so 2012. This is from the video to a hit moving song called "One Pound Fish."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ONE POUND FISH")
CORNISH: You heard that right, "One Pound Fish." It is now stuck in your head. This song has made an unlikely star of the 31-year-old Pakistani man who worked as a fishmonger in London's Upton Park.
He returned to Pakistan recently to a hero's welcome, as NPR's Dina Temple-Raston reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ONE POUND FISH")
DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: This is Pakistan's first brush with Internet fame. The man at the center of it all is Shahaid Nazir, and the song that got him there is a catchy little ditty he made up while working at a fish stall at the Queen's Street Market in London.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ONE POUND FISH")
TEMPLE-RASTON: Nazir's virtually overnight fame is a testament to the powers of social media. He has never sung professionally before. But today, if you type One Pound into Google, the first result is Nazir's video. Warner Brothers has signed him to a contract, and now the song is available on iTunes in the U.K.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ONE POUND FISH")
TEMPLE-RASTON: When Nazir returned to Pakistan, just before the New Year, he was greeted at the airport by hundreds of supporters. In his hometown of Pattoki, banners in the streets welcomed the local hero, calling him "The One Pound Fish Man." All of this grew out of a reticence to yell. Nazir's boss at the fish market told him he had to shout to get customers' attention.
Instead, Nazir said, God put another thought in his head.
: God put the idea in my mind and I started on the spot: Come on ladies, come on ladies, one pound fish.
TEMPLE-RASTON: It had the desired effect, people started flocking to his stall.
: Even the customers said, if you don't sing the song, we will not buy the fish.
TEMPLE-RASTON: A freelance web designer filmed Nazir's song and put it up on YouTube and the rest, as they say, is history. Nazir found out he was a YouTube sensation from a friend.
: He said, Shahid where are you? I said I am at home. He said, You go to YouTube and just type One Pound Fish. I said what one pound fish? He said just type it. So I type it, so it's me. Within one week, 50,000 views on the YouTube.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Nazir had arrived in the U.K. to live what he called The London Dream. He got the job as a fishmonger and never expected to emerge as an entertainer. Over Christmas, he found himself up against the winner of the "X Factor" competition for the coveted Christmas number one spot. He got to number four. And now, the rapper Timbaland has done a "One Pound Fish" cover.
Not surprisingly, Nazir's four children, who have been living in Pakistan with their mother, have memorized the song, with various degrees of success.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD 1: (Singing) Come on, ladies. Come on, ladies, one pound fish.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD 2: (Singing) Have a, have a look, one pound fish. Very, very good, one pound fish.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD 3: (Singing) Very, very good and very, very cheap. Six for five, four...
TEMPLE-RASTON: Nazir is hoping to go to Paris for the song's French release soon. His video is almost exclusively on YouTube, so his fame at home is largely through word of mouth. That's because the Pakistani government started blocking YouTube four months ago, after an Egyptian-American posted an anti-Muslim film that sparked deadly riots here.
Soon after Nazir arrived home, Pakistani authorities lifted the ban. But when they discovered that the anti-Muslim film was still posted on the website, authorities shut it down again.
Dina Temple-Raston, NPR News, Islamabad.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ONE POUND FISH")
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'M SHIPPING UP TO BOSTON")
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They've been a local favorite for more than a decade, but the Dropkick Murphy's mixture of punk and Irish music has grown way beyond their Boston roots. Their reworking of the old Red Sox anthem "Tessie" served as a soundtrack to the team's 2004 World Series win, and their song "Shipping Up to Boston" became an anthem in Martin Scorsese's "The Departed."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'M SHIPPING UP TO BOSTON")
CORNISH: The latest album from the band is called "Signed and Sealed in Blood." The cover art includes a rose on a shield and has already inspired their fans to get it as a tattoo. We asked cofounder and lead singer Ken Casey to tell us about his own body art and how it inspired this song, "Rose Tattoo."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROSE TATTOO")
KEN CASEY: As a songwriter, I was talking about my life, you know, in a different way that kind of tell you my story in four minutes. And, you know, I happen to have a lot of tattoos on my body throughout the years from - since the age of 15, which is highly illegal. I probably shouldn't be saying that but...
(LAUGHTER)
CASEY: ...but, you know, I guess throughout life - trials, tribulations, dates, times, places, things that are important to you, family, you know, people who have passed away - I guess the tattoos on my body kind of document my life and what I've been through and things that have been important to me. And, you know, they're all a part of the story.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROSE TATTOO")
CORNISH: What's significant about the rose?
CASEY: Well, in particular, they're kind of - what I say in the song, this one means the most to me. And it's a tattoo on my arm that's a memorial to my grandfather. My father died when I was really, really young. And my grandfather kind of stepped in and raised me and taught me most things that make me who I am today. And, you know, he was a big kind of union guy in Boston. And, I don't know, it's in a visible place for me. And I look down, and I see it a lot. And, you know, he was such an inspiring man that it inspires me. And oftentimes, I just catch it out of the corner of my eye and literally changes my mood when I think of him and what a strong individual he was.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROSE TATTOO")
CORNISH: In watching the video for this song, it's clear that the fans also have gotten involved quite literally in terms of getting tattoos.
CASEY: Yeah. We're blessed to have the most dedicated fan base in the world. And over the years, we've seen probably 1,000-plus people with Dropkick Murphys-related tattoos. And when we looked at the finished artwork that we had created for this - long before the record, you know, was even done or the artwork was finished - we said this is something that a lot of fans are going to get tattooed. So we put it out on the website to show the new artwork. And within five days, we had had, you know, over 100 tattoo submissions, which really shows the ultimate dedication, because, you know, the people hadn't even heard the album, and they're getting a tattoo of the album artwork.
So I think that shows that our fans can trust us to deliver what, you know, they expect it to be and not like throw a disco album at them after 16 years or something, you know?
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CORNISH: It seems as though in the end, your band has become almost completely synonymous with Boston, specifically its Irish-American culture. And where do you see your place in all this? Do you think you're kind of marking something or the soundtrack to something?
CASEY: No. Definitely not. That would make us seem like we take ourselves way too seriously. But I do think the nature of what has inspired us as songwriters is, you know, traditional Irish music being one, especially in the lyrical front, you know, and the way traditional music tells a story that's potentially there to be passed down for generations.
And when you're writing songs about those that have come before you, family members, you're documenting history of your surroundings and your city and your friends and those that have passed, you know, long after you're gone, you know, there might be a CD kicking around in someone's attic that tells a story of both something or someone that was important to us.
And, you know, that is history. You know, it might not be huge. It not might be in the textbooks in school, but, you know, you're creating something that's probably going to outlive us, you know, that's important to us.
CORNISH: Well, Ken Casey, thank you so much for speaking with us and telling us the story behind the song.
CASEY: Oh, thanks for your help. And it was a pleasure talking to you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CORNISH: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish. And we begin this hour in limbo. Early this morning, barely two hours into the new year, the Senate voted 89 to 8 to keep tax rates just where they were last year for all household income up to $450,000. Midnight brought the expiration of those rates, along with a schedule of new, deep spending cuts that the Senate vote would delay. But that vote means nothing without the House acting as well.
And though the Senate bill passed with strong Republican support, it's not yet clear if the GOP will try to amend the Senate compromise. Joining me from the Capitol is NPR congressional correspondent David Welna. And David, I understand that the House is in session, and that it's going to be taking up the bill that the Senate passed earlier?
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: Well, Audie, the bill has formerly been sent to the House, but it has not yet been brought to the floor for debate in a vote. I think there's tremendous uncertainty despite the overwhelming bipartisan vote in the Senate about how House members would vote on this compromise that was forged by Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell.
Even among Democrats, things are unclear. The vice president met with the entire House Democratic caucus behind closed doors for hours earlier this afternoon to try to sell them on the deal. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi came out afterwards and she called on House Speaker John Boehner to put the bill on the House floor and hold a straight up or down vote on it with no amendments.
REPRESENTATIVE NANCY PELOSI: Whether we have an up or down vote shouldn't even be a question. There shouldn't even be a question. We were told when the - we would not have any legislation on the floor until and unless the Senate acted. And when they did, we would have a vote. And so, we want to have that vote.
WELNA: Now, Pelosi refused to say how many fellow Democrats she could count on to vote for the measure. She said they would all need some time to give it some consideration. But she also noted that time is quickly running out. A new Congress is being sworn in on Thursday and this legislation dies when that happens.
CORNISH: And on the other side of the aisle, what's been the reaction from House Republicans to this bill?
WELNA: Well, not very positive and in many cases, extremely negative. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's come out against the bill. He's often taken sides with the hard-line Tea Party-backed House Republicans, so that may not be such a surprise. But even moderate Republicans, such as Ohio's Steve LaTourette, who's about to retire, say they don't like the fact that the bill is only about extending benefits and raising some people's taxes.
REPRESENTATIVE STEVE LATOURETTE: This isn't a done deal, by a long stretch. I mean, this does nothing to cut spending and there are a lot of people, including me, that think that that's a big weakness.
WELNA: When LaTourette was asked what the alternative was, he said it's to mend the Senate bill and send it back there with some spending reductions. Of course, if he did that, if the House were to do that, it would effectively blow up the deal worked out by Biden and McConnell and the Senate would have to take yet another vote and all this would have to happen before noon Thursday when the new Congress is sworn in.
CORNISH: So will there be enough Republicans supporting this compromise to get it through the House?
WELNA: If it's not amended, I don't think there are enough GOP votes alone to get it through the House and it's not clear whether there would even be a majority of the GOP majority backing the deal. Oklahoma Republican Tom Cole, who's on the GOP vote counting team, thinks it will take a combination of votes from both parties to pass the Senate measure.
REPRESENTATIVE TOM COLE: I think more members want this to pass than are willing to vote for it, frankly. And that's fair enough. And some have principled opposition, but you also have to be practical about what's the best deal you can get, given the circumstances that you have. There's going to be a lot of Democratic votes for this. I think there will be a substantial number of Republican votes as well, and there should be.
CORNISH: Finally, David, what's at stake here for House Speaker John Boehner?
WELNA: You know, I think that we have here the most crucial test to date of the two-year-old speakership of John Boehner. He's stuck so far to a GOP policy of not bringing up any bill in the House that does not have the support of the majority of his fellow Republicans, but as I said, he may not have that majority for this bill.
So does he free up his members to vote as they wish and hope enough of them join Democrats to get the bill passed? If he does that, there may be some nasty consequences for him when House Republicans vote on Thursday for Speaker of the House. That's the first vote that the House will task in the new Congress.
Boehner doesn't have any clear rivals at this point for his job, but he may want to get reelected and keep his job before resolving this issue of the lapsed tax rates.
CORNISH: NPR's David Welna at the Capitol. David, thank you.
WELNA: You're welcome, Audie.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In covering this debate, much has been made of income tax rates and where exactly they should be raised. But one fact has gotten far less notice. Starting today, payroll taxes are going up two percentage points for nearly all American workers. NPR's John Ydstie joins us to talk about it. And John, this means lower take-home pay for a lot of workers starting very soon.
JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: That's right, Audie. If you're not getting a raise this year, your paycheck's not just going to stay the same, it's actually going to be a little smaller in 2013 and that's because for about two years now, the government has been collecting 2 percentage points less from you to fund Social Security. But that tax holiday expired at midnight last night, so in 2013, you once again will be paying 6.2 percent of your salary for the Social Security payroll tax.
And that, you know, really adds up to real money. Let's say you make a relatively modest income of about $30,000 a year. Your annual take-home pay will be $600 less as a result of this expiration. Or take a couple and say they each make at least $113,000 a year, that's the top amount subject to Social Security taxes. Their take-home pay would be $4500 less.
In fact, on average, workers will get around $960 less in take-home pay because the payroll tax holiday hasn't been extended.
CORNISH: But the idea behind the payroll tax holiday was to stimulate the economy. And by that measure, did it work?
YDSTIE: Yeah. I think most economists would agree it did. It was enacted in late 2010 when unemployment was very high and it raised take-home pay by around $100 billion a year. The economic research firm, Moody's Analytics, says for every dollar workers were able to keep in their pockets, $1.27 was added to U.S. GDP as the money circulated through the economy.
So it undoubtedly played a role in helping support growth in the last two years. Now, it wasn't the best way to stimulate the economy because it put money in the pockets of a lot of well-off people, many of whom saved it, didn't spend it. Ironically, it actually replaced a more stimulative tax break called the Making Work Pay tax cut, which targeted lower income people who would be more likely to spend it, providing more fuel for the economy.
But that tax cut was initiated by President Obama and Republicans wouldn't renew it back in 2010, but they did go along with this payroll tax break.
CORNISH: So help us understand, if most economists agree the payroll tax holiday has actually helped the economy, isn't allowing it to expire going to hurt the economy when the government starts taking this money out of people's pockets again?
YDSTIE: You're right. It very likely will hurt the economy. Economists say it could trim more than a half a percentage point off of growth in 2013. And when you're only growing in the range of around 2 percent or a little more than that a year, that's significant.
CORNISH: John, unemployment is still over 7.5 percent, why pull the plug on the payroll tax holiday now?
YDSTIE: Well, President Obama did propose extending it in his first offer during negotiations with House Speaker Boehner a couple weeks ago. But it came off the table relatively quickly. One reason is that it's adding to the deficit, which makes Republicans nervous. Also, some Democrats think the payroll tax holiday could undermine the Social Security system. Up to now, the government has been transferring money from its big general fund to the Social Security trust fund to make up for the money being lost to the tax break.
But these Democrats fear that could end some day and weaken the program.
CORNISH: That's NPR's John Ydstie. John, thank you.
YDSTIE: You're welcome, Audie.
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This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
The Israeli government has taken steps to ease its blockade of the Gaza Strip. For the first time in five years, Israel is allowing shipments of gravel, cement and other construction materials into Gaza. The move is meant to help Palestinians rebuild after November's brief war between Israeli forces and Hamas. [POST-BROADCAST CLARIFICATION: Previously, aid organizations had been allowed to import construction material into Gaza. The eased rules apply to private-sector builders.] Sheera Frenkel reports.
SHEERA FRENKEL, BYLINE: Throughout Gaza, construction work is in full swing, as many hasten to repair the damage caused during by Israel's eight-day aerial offensive in November. The announcement that Israel would begin allowing gravel and other construction materials into Gaza was welcomed here, in Ali Abdula'al's construction goods store. He says it's a good thing, but he's not sure it means real change quite yet.
ALI ABDULA'AL: (Through Translator) It is good but the cost is still very high.
FRENKEL: Abdula'al says that over the last five years, Gazans have perfected the art of smuggling in their own construction material through a network of tunnels that run between Gaza and Egypt. The newly available Israeli gravel costs more then the stuff he gets from the tunnels.
ABDULA'AL: (Through Translator) And the Egyptian gravel is just as good. There is also new Turkish gravel that is better and cheaper then the Israeli stuff.
FRENKEL: He says that for as long as the tunnels are operating, he'll continue to depend on them to get the material he needs.
Israel imposed a wide-ranging embargo on Gaza in 2007, after the militant Hamas movement seized control of the coastal strip. Hamas refuses to recognize Israel and has claimed responsibility for many terrorist attacks in the Jewish state. Israeli officials say they banned construction material because they feared Hamas would use the goods to build bunkers and tunnels.
Guy Inbar is a spokesman for Israel's Defense Ministry in the department of coordination with the Palestinian territories. He says that materials which are deemed dual use, or which could be used by militant groups, are still banned from Gaza.
GUY INBAR: These new steps are especially for the private sector for the population in Gaza, in order to distinct between the civilian population and the Hamas terrorist.
FRENKEL: Inbar says that the Defense Ministry decided to allow the new goods into Gaza due to the short-term success of the cease-fire agreement with Hamas. Egyptian mediators helped Israeli and Hamas officials reach that accord in November, after an eight-day conflict that left 133 Palestinians and six Israelis dead.
Inbar says there is ongoing dialogue through Egyptian mediators; and that if the quiet prevails, Israel will continue to increase the flow of goods to Gaza.
INBAR: If the calm will continue, Israel will consider to approve more measures and more steps.
FRENKEL: Sari Bashi, executive director of the Gisha Legal Center for Freedom of Movement in Tel Aviv, says allowing some construction materials into Gaza is a great step, because it shows that Israel is looking to remove restrictions that don't raise security concerns. But the Israeli activist says much more could be done.
SARI BASHI: People in Gaza should be able to build not just buildings, but also an economy and their professional aspirations. And to do that, they certainly need to be able to bring construction materials in. But people in Gaza also need to be able to travel and market goods, so that they can invest in their own economic and social future.
FRENKEL: She says that the last five years have created severe shortages across Gaza that will take years to overcome.
For NPR News, I'm Sheera Frenkel.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
Twenty-twelve was a year when we began hearing of a lost generation in Europe. Concerns about Europe's younger generation escalated as European unemployment reached a record high. A result of this year's European financial crisis: nearly 19 million people out of work across the eurozone, and hardest hit were those under 25. Nearly a quarter of young Europeans are jobless.
We're going to spend a few minutes today looking at the unemployment situation in Europe and how that might change in the new year.
Joining us now, NPR's Sylvia Poggioli in Rome, and NPR's London correspondent Philip Reeves. Both have traveled much of the year, reporting on the Euro crisis. Welcome to you, both.
PHILIP REEVES, BYLINE: Hi, Audie.
SYLVIA POGGIOLI: Hi.
CORNISH: And we'll start with you, Sylvia. The worst economic news from Europe came out of Spain and Greece, where overall unemployment stands around 25 percent. And among young people - is this right - 60 percent?
POGGIOLI: Yes, it's certainly closer to 60 than 50 percent in Greece and Spain. And it's over 30 percent in Italy and it's been growing across southern Europe every month. The major cause is, of course, three years of recession worsened by German-dictated draconian austerity measures, and rigid labor markets that make it hard to get full-time employment. And behind that is an outdated southern European welfare model that favors older workers, mostly men, with full-time jobs.
The mood across southern Europe is really very bleak. Everywhere I've gone, I've heard young people tell me they have no sense of future. And this is...
(LAUGHTER)
POGGIOLI: ...the best-educated generation ever throughout the region. They don't all react in the same way. In Italy, where there's been stagnant growth for a decade, there's a sense of fatalism. But in Spain and Greece, we've seen the loudest protests because they'd got from boom to bust much more rapidly than anywhere else.
CORNISH: Any sign of relief or reform from lawmakers in these countries for youth unemployment?
POGGIOLI: Well, not likely, unless there's a sudden and unexpected shift toward economic growth across the southern region of Europe. Meanwhile, the ripple effect will continue as the best educated young seek jobs in the more prosperous north. Already, some half-million southern Europeans have arrived in Germany this year.
Analysts are all warning that youth unemployment is Europe's ticking bomb. The longer young people stay jobless, the more they lose valuable opportunities to improve their skills. And this risks having a wider impact on southern European economies, which could fall behind even further once older workers retire over the next decade, to be replaced by today's young who will have had insufficient training and work experience.
CORNISH: Philip, looking at a country like Ireland - also has seen a debt crisis this year and the unemployment rate there is close to 15 percent, double what it is in the U.S. - what's the picture there for young workers?
REEVES: The picture has actually been very graphically illustrated by the scenes at the international airport in Ireland's capital, Dublin, in the last few days. Young people have been pouring in from as far afield as Australia and Canada. These arrivals are just some of the 150,000 young people who've emigrated from Ireland in the last few years - since the crisis began, really - because of the lack of jobs and opportunities at home.
They're returning home to Ireland, visiting for the holidays. And there is reportedly some pretty emotional moments in the arrivals hall at the airport, as they're reunited with their families. Some of them are bringing home babies born abroad who they're introducing to their grandparents for the first time.
The latest figures from a few months ago in Ireland show that an average of 1,600 people are emigrating every week. A lot of them are young people and that's an awful lot for country of four and a half million. It is counterbalanced to some degree by immigration. But basically this is a return to mass emigration that Ireland experienced during some of the bleakest periods in its history. And there are real concerns about the long-term damage this is doing to Ireland's economy and its society.
CORNISH: Philip, what does this mean for countries with healthier economies? For example, Germany, I mean, are they affected by this growing number of unemployed Europeans?
REEVES: Well, Germany's mighty economy is the engine that powers Europe. Unemployment there is low, around five and half percent, and just eight percent of the German young are jobless. This has a lot to do with a very strong apprenticeship system that's in Germany, whose roots go way back in history. About one and half million young people there go through the system every year. It would provide training in anything from engineering to violin making.
It's a collaboration between industry and vocational training schools. And the European Union is urging others, other nations to follow this example, so as that they do far more to enable young people to transition from school to work, or to training, or into further education.
CORNISH: Finally, a question for both of you. Are there any events coming up in 2013 that you think could have a big impact on the European labor market? Sylvia, I'll start with you.
POGGIOLI: Well, you know, with elections in Germany next fall, there's very little likelihood of a change or softening of Germany austerity policy toward southern Europe. As it stands now, Europe seems to be breeding a lost generation. And the only hope on the horizon is a revived American economy that would once again be a locomotive to the European and global economy.
CORNISH: Philip?
REEVES: I think it's also important to remember that at a lot of the austerity measures that were announced by various countries - as they tried to sort out their economic disarray, when the crisis first really hit and to stop their borrowing costs from spiraling further - have yet to kick in and they're going to hurt. Add to that, the unwillingness of the banks to lend is making it very hard for national governments, but for business and for the public to dig a path out of trouble.
And as for young people, you know, the big worry centers around the effect that long-term unemployment, long periods of unemployment which some of them are now experiencing in very large numbers, as we said, the effect that that's having on their future prospects. Being out of work for ages doesn't look good to a prospective employer. And it can be pretty damaging to long-term prospects for this young generation.
CORNISH: NPR's Philip Reeves. Philip, thank you.
REEVES: You're welcome.
CORNISH: And NPR's Sylvia Poggioli in Rome, thank you.
POGGIOLI: You're welcome.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish. New laws go into effect across the country today and we're going to look at a few of them that all struggle with the same problem, how to keep up with technology. We're going to hear about three of them now from Jon Kuhl of the National Conference of State Legislatures. The first deals with that perplexing new phenomenon, driverless cars.
JON KUHL: Starting today, autonomous vehicles will legally be able to drive on the road in California for testing purposes. California's the third state in the nation to have this kind of law. Nevada and Florida are the other two. And it was a pretty big deal in California. Governor Jerry Brown signed the law at Google's headquarters.
He said when he was there, this is another example of how California's laws are turning today's science fiction into tomorrow's reality. The California DMV has two years from today, so January 1st, 2015, to start figuring out how they can register and give licenses for driverless cars.
CORNISH: And, of course, Google a very important part of this because their driverless cars helped the creation of their Google maps software become so popular.
KUHL: Exactly.
CORNISH: Now, onto another law for 2013. It's actually about social media passwords and this one isn't just California that's doing it.
KUHL: That's right. There are two laws in California that go into effect today and one in Illinois. The one in California, one in Illinois are similar in that they deal with employers. And basically what it says is employers cannot ask either a job applicant or a current employee to give them the passwords to their social networking sites.
The second law in California has to do with colleges and universities and what that law says is that the colleges can't ask either the student who is applying to go to school there or a current student for their social media passwords. And I guess the law comes in response, there were some admissions offices that were asking prospective students for these passwords and then also student athletes.
In terms of other states that have these laws, California and Illinois joined Delaware, Maryland and New Jersey.
CORNISH: And is this part of a growing movement? Are there other states that are considering it?
KUHL: Yeah, we saw about 14 states that considered these types of laws in 2012, so I would expect that there will probably be more going into 2013.
CORNISH: Now, a third new law, again we're looking at California, it deals with text messaging, only there is, of course, a loophole, right? So tell us a little bit about this law.
KUHL: California is one of 39 states, along with the District of Columbia, that bans texting while driving. The law that goes into place today amends their existing law and basically what it does is it says you can text while driving, but only if you can do so using a voice-operated hands-free phone.
CORNISH: Now, we've heard a lot over the past year about texting and driving, and for a while it seemed like a very kind of hot button issue. But in other states, are people dealing with this or are there bills under consideration?
KUHL: Yeah. It's been a big issue for the past couple years. I suspect that as newer technology advances, the laws will be more amending existing laws than creating new ones, but yeah, it's been a big issue.
CORNISH: When it comes to tech, it's no surprise that California is at the forefront of some of these laws. Is there something that people often look to California in the way it deals with tech, other states end up emulating?
KUHL: Yeah. I mean, California does seem to be at the first for a lot of these laws, but I should note that there's three states where, unless it's otherwise specified in the law, their laws automatically go into effect today, on New Year's Day. So for California, Illinois and Oregon, most of their laws do go into effect today unless it specifies right in the law itself.
CORNISH: That's Jon Kuhl of the National Conference of State Legislatures. Jon, thanks so much for the tech law update.
KUHL: Thank you.
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This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
It looks like House lawmakers will take action on a compromise bill to avert the fiscal cliff. Early this morning, the Senate approved a compromise deal hammered out by Vice President Joe Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Now, it appears the House may follow suit, or at least they'll try. An up or down vote is scheduled later tonight.
The proposal would postpone deep spending cuts scheduled to take effect as part of the fiscal cliff and would let the Bush-era tax cuts expire on family income above $450,000. What's unclear is just how many House Republicans will balk at the deal and how many House Democrats will provide the votes needed to approve it. Even in the Senate, where it passed 89-8, there were lawmakers unhappy with it. Earlier, I spoke with one of those senators, a Democrat who voted against it.
Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, welcome to the program.
SENATOR TOM HARKIN: Audie, it's nice to be with you today.
CORNISH: So tell us, what was the argument that Vice President Joe Biden made to Democrats last night? Why did it convince so many of your colleagues in the Senate to vote yes on this but not you?
HARKIN: Well, I think Vice President Biden made an impassioned plea that this is the best deal we could get. They worked hard on it. There were good elements in it. We just can't go over the cliff because it will destroy the markets and everything will just go to heck and we can't put it back together again and on and on and on and on. And then a lot of our fellow senators got up and spoke. Senator Kerry spoke about how this would impact us around the world and that kind of thing. So there was quite a pressure put on a lot of senators.
CORNISH: And yet you voted no. Why?
HARKIN: Well, I voted no because of three basic reasons. One, it does not address the number one priority that we have in this country. And the number one priority is creating good jobs and putting people back to work. It's like, ever since the election, we forgot that we still had well over 7 percent unemployed in this country. So the thing that's holding back our economy is the fact that people aren't working.
CORNISH: And the other two reasons?
HARKIN: The second reason, it doesn't generate enough revenue that's needed to invest in the things like infrastructure, education, job retraining, research and development that will get the engine going again. And the third reason is because it's so discriminatory. All of the tax benefits that go to rich people and the high-income earners are made permanent. The tax benefits that we Democrats put in in 2009 to help modest-income people, those are made temporary. To me, that just stands logic on its head.
You should make the things that help modest-income earners permanent and the things that help high-income earners temporary. Vice President Biden and everyone in their speech, I think, kept referring to 400,000 as middle class. Well, if you're making $400,000, you're in the top 1 percent of income earners in America. So have we defined the new middle class as people making $400,000 a year?
CORNISH: But if this vote in the Senate had failed, Vice President Biden and others says that it could have sent the country back into recession, and Americans across the board would have been hit with this one-two punch of a hike in both the income tax and the payroll tax. So given that, how do you explain to your constituents your willingness to let that happen?
HARKIN: Well, I explain that I don't believe it. I don't think there's any empirical evidence whatsoever that shows that. In fact, many people, including Warren Buffett and a lot of others, have said the market's already discounted that. Now, the fact is if we had gone beyond, say, March, perhaps past the first quarter and not done something, things might start to unravel, but not today or not in the first week, not in the first month, not in the first couple of months. And, you know, it's the same kind of panic button that people push to get things happen sometimes.
I remember the TARP and the bailouts and all that, you know, that things were just going to fall apart unless we did something, and in retrospect, it just wasn't true. And I don't think it's true that the country would have gone to heck and everything would have crashed if we hadn't passed that bill last night. I think just the opposite is true. If you look at the other side of the ledger, had we not passed this and we've gone into this sequester and everything and the tax rates had gone up, we would have $4 trillion over the next 10 years in new revenue.
That means the deficit would come plunging down. That sends strong signals to the market also. So there's another side of that ledger that not too many people spoke about.
CORNISH: But it also would have meant $110 billion a year in spending cuts across the board, many to programs that you value as well.
HARKIN: Well, not again. That wouldn't have happened on day one. The sequester means you have to do it by the end of the year. There were plenty of gimmicks to be used and things to keep from cutting everything right now to give us time to work in January and in February to come up with a balance between spending cuts and revenue increases. I think what we have done as Democrats is we've given away all the revenue. And just as Mitch McConnell said last night on the floor, now we're going to go after spending. What bargaining do we have?
Paul Krugman, I think, said it best in his blog last night. He called President Obama the world's worst poker player. He just gave all of our bargaining chips away. I don't know what we have left to bargain with Republicans on now.
CORNISH: The White House has reportedly made assurances that President Obama will be tougher in future negotiations. It sounds like you don't believe that.
HARKIN: Well, I can only look at the past to make a judgment on that.
CORNISH: Senator Tom Harkin, thank you so much for speaking with us.
HARKIN: Thank you, Audie.
CORNISH: That's Senator Tom Harkin of Iowa, one of three Democrats who opposed the fiscal cliff deal in a vote early this morning. It passed the Senate 89-8.
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A massive deep-sea oil rig is still aground in shallow water near Kodiak Island in Alaska. The rig was being towed from its offshore drilling site in the Arctic to its winter harbor in Seattle when it broke loose in a fierce storm. It ran aground last night. Officials say the rig appears to be stable, and it does not leak any of its 150,000 gallons of diesel, lube oil or hydraulic fluids aboard.
But as NPR's Howard Berkes reports, there continues to be concern about potential environmental damage.
HOWARD BERKES, BYLINE: The oil rig Kulluk is key to Shell Oil's $4 billion Arctic oil and gas exploration effort in the Beaufort and Chukchi seas off Alaska. It's a specially designed rig, shaped round to deflect ice and built to withstand 40-foot seas when pulled from Seattle to the Arctic and back. But broken tow lines, stalled engines and failed attempts to attach and hold emergency lines sent the rig adrift yesterday. It crunched up against rocks in water as much as 48 feet deep and a third of a mile offshore.
LOIS EPSTEIN: The reality is that nature always wins in Alaska. And this incident clearly demonstrates that.
BERKES: Lois Epstein directs The Wilderness Society's Arctic program.
EPSTEIN: Shell thought they had everything under control. They thought they could move this $290 million piece of equipment under bad conditions, and they were wrong. That can certainly happen in the Arctic, and the repercussions could have been even more serious up there.
BERKES: The Kulluk ran aground in south central Alaska, far from its Arctic drilling site and close to company and Coast Guard assistance. But even that didn't help keep the drilling rig on course in a storm. Coast Guard aircraft flew above the rig today according to Captain Paul Mehler III who was coordinating the federal response.
CAPT. PAUL MEHLER III: The results of these overflights right now are showing us that Kulluk is sound. There is no sign of a breach at the hull, there is no sign of a release of any product.
BERKES: The rig has more than 150,000 gallons of diesel and other petroleum products aboard but no crude oil. Mehler says there is still risk of a spill, and he's trying to put salvage crews on the rig to get a better assessment of stability and any damage. Epstein of The Wilderness Society says endangered sea lions and other sensitive species and ecosystems are at risk. Curtis Smith is a spokesman for Shell Oil and asserts the incident does not diminish the company's commitment to drilling in the Arctic.
CURTIS SMITH: Obviously, this is a very unfortunate situation. But what would make it even more unfortunate is if we did not incorporate any learnings into our program going forward. And we're going to do that.
BERKES: But a forward Shell researcher says the incident is no surprise given the complexity of the task and the harshness of the Arctic and Alaska environments. Tad Patzek now chairs the Department of Petroleum Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin.
TAD PATZEK: My concern is that we are creating - or we have created - a complex system of multiple interlocking links in which everything has to work flawlessly for the whole system to execute properly. And as we know in practice, it never happens.
BERKES: More than 500 technicians and experts are now in Alaska, ready to respond to this incident to salvage the rig and to respond to any spill. Howard Berkes, NPR News.
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For our series You Must Read This, author Rosecrans Baldwin recommends a comic book by a French artist. His name is Jacques Tardi. And the book is set in a richly imagined Paris.
ROSECRANS BALDWIN: It's 1911, Paris' golden age. World War I hasn't started, but the city is being attacked by a pterodactyl with supernatural powers. And the only person who can save the French capital is a young writer with the brains of Sherlock Holmes, the body of Angelina Jolie and the fortitude of the Marlboro Man. Her name is Adele BlancSec, and she won't take no for an answer.
This is the kind of comic that Raymond Chandler might have created - gangsters, politicians and your typical bumbling, power-hungry police officers.
For me the best part isn't the story, it's exploring Tardi's recreation of Paris at the turn of the 20th century. We see the Orientalism craze that went through the city before World War I. We trip down the stairs of a secret cult's hideout. This is Paris not only as it existed, but as it might have, at least in my fantasy. In the extraordinary adventures of Adele BlancSec, the real and the imagined vigorously combined.
CORNISH: That was Rosecrans Baldwin. His latest book is called "Paris, I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down."
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The U.S. military is wrestling with the costs of what may be its most expensive program in history, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The new fighter plane for the Air Force, Navy and Marines could end up costing more than a trillion dollars over its lifetime. The Pentagon says the plane is absolutely essential to replace its aging fleet.
On MORNING EDITION today, you may have heard NPR's Larry Abramson examine why the military wants the F-35. Now, he looks at the cost of the program and why some people feel it must be stopped.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINERY)
LARRY ABRAMSON, BYLINE: In a mile-long building on the edge of Fort Worth, Texas, an assembly line is taking shape to build the F-35. Lockheed Martin, which got the contract to build the jet back in 2001, is slowly cranking up production. It's hard to keep a plane current when it takes so many years to develop. But Lockheed's Kevin McCormack says the F-35 is designed to change as technology evolves.
KEVIN MCCORMACK: It's essentially a flying computer and so we want to take advantage of what's going to be out there in the future and put it on board this airplane in an effective, cost-effective manner.
ABRAMSON: Many planes already rely heavily on computer code, but the F-35 is supposed to up the ante. With nine million lines of code, it's also open to faster chips and better software as they become available. But many budget hawks and defense geeks say, the problem is that this plane just keeps getting more expensive. Right now, the cost of the Air Force version is nearly $130 million a copy. The Marine version, which flies like a jet but can land like a helicopter, is over $160 million. Lockheed says don't look at today's price. The cost will come down when this assembly line ramps up to full production later in this decade.
Lockheed's Mike Rein says, as long as the militaries of the world keep buying planes, the average price will come down to an affordable $65 million per copy.
MIKE REIN: You have to also look at the costs to maintain the platforms that this aircraft is replacing. Many of the countries are already seeing that their fourth-generation airplanes, some of them 40 to 50 years old, are extremely expensive to maintain.
ABRAMSON: But to keep the price of this new plane low, Lockheed has to sell a lot of them, around 3,000. The military will get a volume discount. But right now, it's paying a high price. It's complicated, isn't it? Many say this program has set a new standard for pricing complexity, even for the Pentagon. Winslow Wheeler, a defense expert with the Project on Government Oversight, says Lockheed uses a pricing vocabulary that masks rising costs.
WINSLOW WHEELER: Flyaway costs, non-recurring and recurring costs and lots of gobblygook and they'll say that comes to a number like 60, $70 million, and it's complete baloney.
ABRAMSON: Wheeler says if you figure in all the research and fixes to the design, the price rises out of sight. No matter what the actual cost, the issue has turned into a public relations battle for the military. The Pentagon defends the F-35 in public, while chastising Lockheed Martin over costs and delays. The general who's taking over the lead of the program at the Pentagon recently said that the military's relationship with the company is, quote, "the worst I've ever seen."
F-35 critics say the basic concept was faulty from the start. This one plane is supposed to do the jobs of as many as 10 older airframes. Winslow Wheeler says the F-35 is stretched between too many tasks.
WHEELER: They also made it a short takeoff and vertical landing airplane that they call STOVL. That has lots of design requirements that contradict what you need for either a fighter or a bomber.
ABRAMSON: Wheeler says the result is a plane that is mediocre at everything. Questions about the F-35's cost and performance have created a new international sport: trashing the plane online. It's a particularly popular game in the eight partner nations scheduled to buy hundreds of F-35s in the coming years. Peter Goon of the think tank Air Power Australia says data on the Joint Strike Fighter, or JSF, as it's known, showed that it's unable to achieve its main goal - competing with similar advanced fighters from China and Russia.
PETER GOON: Other countries are doing what they should be doing, that is producing capabilities to defend their sovereign nations. But unfortunately, the capabilities they're presenting now are far superior to the JSF.
ABRAMSON: Australia said it would delay some of its F-35 purchases in order to save money. And in December, the Canadian government threw its buy into question. The Pentagon says budget numbers can't describe the huge return they expect from this plane. Air Force Lieutenant General Frank Gorenc says, sure, it's expensive...
LIEUTENANT GENERAL FRANK GORENC: But it's also a procurement package that will put iron on the ramp for the next 50 years.
ABRAMSON: The growing cost of the program may be tempting for a Congress looking for budget reductions. But the military's bizarre procurement system could also protect the F-35. If the military orders fewer planes, it will pay more for each copy. So the F-35 could be too expensive to buy and too expensive to cut. Larry Abramson, NPR News.
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I'm Robert Siegel.
And among the big news stories of last year was the shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman in Florida. That was back in February. And ever since, there's been heightened debate about Stand Your Ground Laws, which allow people to use deadly force to defend themselves. Social scientists are among those who've been studying the laws.
And NPR science correspondent Shankar Vedantam is going to tell us what they found.
SHANKAR VEDANTAM, BYLINE: If a stranger attacks you inside your own home, the law has always permitted you to defend yourself. On the other hand, if an altercation breaks out in public, the law requires you to try and retreat. At least, that's what it used to do.
In 2005, Florida became the first of nearly two dozen states to pass a Stand Your Ground law that removed the requirement to retreat. If you felt at risk of harm in a park or on the street, you could use lethal force to defend yourself.
Advocated for the law, like Representative Dennis Baxley, who sponsored Florida's law, said it allows good people to defend themselves.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE DENNIS BAXLEY: They're doing what they are supposed to do as a good citizen. They're stopping a violent act. And that's what I want the statute to do at the end of the day.
VEDANTAM: Marion Hammer, a former president of the National Rifle Association, told NPR the laws have been effective and are working exactly as designed. A committee analyzing the Florida statute has found no increase in violence as a result of the law.
Since murder is a rare phenomenon, the numbers in any given state can be hard to analyze. Until now, there has been little attempt to study these laws at a national level. At Texas A&M University, economist Mark Hoekstra recently decided to analyze national crime statistics to see what happens in states that pass Stand Your Ground laws. He found the laws are having an effect on the homicide rate.
MARK HOEKSTRA: Our study finds that homicides go up by seven to nine percent in states that pass the laws, relative to states that didn't pass the laws over the same time period. In contrast, we found no evidence of any deterrence effect over that same time period.
VEDANTAM: Hoekstra obtained this result by comparing the homicide rate in states before and after they passed the laws. He also compared states with the laws to states without the laws. Hoekstra said it was possible to quantify how many additional people were being killed as a result of Stand Your Ground laws.
HOEKSTRA: We find that there are 500 to 700 more homicides per year across the 23 states as a result of the laws.
VEDANTAM: That's out of about 14,000 homicides annually in the United States as a whole. Now, the fact more people are being killed doesn't automatically mean the law isn't working. Hoekstra said there were at least three possible explanations.
HOEKSTRA: It could be that these are self-defense killings. On the other hand, you know, the increase could be driven by an escalation of violence by criminals. Or it could be an escalation of violence in otherwise nonviolent situations.
VEDANTAM: But which is it? Hoekstra checked to see if police were listing more cases as justifiable homicides in states that passed Stand Your Ground laws. If there were more self-defense killings, this number should have gone up. He also examined whether more criminals were showing up armed.
In both cases, he found nothing. There were small increases in both numbers, but it was hard to tell if there was really any difference.
I asked Hoekstra where the increase in homicide was coming from.
HOEKSTRA: One possibility for the increase in homicide is that perhaps otherwise there would have been a fistfight. And now, because of Stand Your Ground laws, it's possible that those escalate into something much more violent and lethal.
VEDANTAM: In other words, crafters of these laws sought to give good guys more latitude to defend themselves against bad guys. But what Hoekstra's data suggests is that in real life conflicts, both sides think of the other guy as the bad guy. Both believe the law gives them the right to shoot.
In a separate analysis of death certificates before and after Stand Your Ground laws were passed in different states, economists at Georgia State University also found that states that passed the laws ended up with a higher homicide rate. This study also tracked the increased homicides by race. In contrast to the narrative established by the Trayvon Martin shooting, many people believe black men are likely to be the victims of Stand Your Ground laws, this analysis found the additional deaths caused by the laws were largely concentrated among white men.
The National Rifle Association, which has backed these laws, directed us to a critique of Hoekstra's paper. It was written by Howard Nemerov, a gun rights activist who often represents the NRA viewpoint on television. Nemerov's brief, which has not been reviewed by academic experts, said concerns about the law were flawed or overblown.
Stanford Law professor John Donohue, on the other hand, praised the study done by Texas A&M's Mark Hoekstra. Donohue has been studying crime and violence for two decades. He's working on his own independent analysis of Stand Your Ground laws. So far, he said, he's getting the same results Hoekstra did.
JOHN DONOHUE: The imperfect but growing evidence seems to suggest that the consequences of adopting Stand Your Ground laws are pernicious, in that they may lead to a greater number of homicides, thus going against the notion that they are serving some sort of protective function for society.
VEDANTAM: And in murder cases, Donohue said, the laws might end up being a refuge for some defendants.
DONOHUE: I've been hearing from defense lawyers around the country that if they happen to have a criminal defendant in a Stand Your Ground jurisdiction, pretty much no matter what happens, you can say, well, I shot the guy, but I felt threatened and had a reasonable basis for fearing injury to myself.
VEDANTAM: In Florida, George Zimmerman has maintained that he believed the unarmed Trayvon Martin posed a threat to his life, which is what prompted him to open fire. His lawyers have said they plan to use the Stand Your Ground defense at his upcoming trial.
Shankar Vedantam, NPR News.
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Gangsters are running huge sections of Pakistan's biggest city, Karachi. As violence has escalated, mob bosses have declared some neighborhoods no-go zones for police. NPR's Dina Temple-Raston met one of those mob leaders and she reports that gangsters in Karachi are a little different from the American variety.
DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: These days when we think about the mob, we think about one family.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, 'WOKE UP THIS MORNING')
A3: (Singing) Woke up this morning, got myself a gun...
TEMPLE-RASTON: "The Sopranos," and the gangster in charge was Tony Soprano.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE SOPRANOS")
JAMES GANDOLFINI: (as Tony Soprano) We want to stay Italian and preserve the things that meant something to us: honor and family and loyalty. And some of us wanted a piece of the action.
TEMPLE-RASTON: The man getting a piece of the action in Karachi is a 32-two-year-old named Uzair Baloch. He essentially runs a slum in south central Karachi called Lyari. Lyari is a warren of concrete tenements and narrow alleys that have been home to mobsters for 40 years. And it's been Uzair Baloch's base of operation for three of them.
UZAIR BALOCH: (Foreign language spoken)
TEMPLE-RASTON: The people here in Lyari support us, Uzair Baloch says. It's the people outside who are giving me a bad reputation, he adds. They call me a gangster.
BALOCH: (Foreign language spoken)
TEMPLE-RASTON: I'm a politician. I'm a social worker, he says, grinning.
ZORAH YUSUF: When he says that he's a social worker, to an extent, he's right.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Zorah Yusuf is the head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan.
YUSUF: Because, you know, they do provide for the community. So if, you know, the electric supply is bothering them, they'll go to Uzair Baloch rather than anyone else.
TEMPLE-RASTON: The government hasn't provided services for people in Lyari for years, she says. So in response, Baloch helped found an organization called the Peoples' Peace Committee. It's basically a paramilitary group tied to the current ruling party, the PPP, or Pakistan People's Party. All political parties in Pakistan have armed wings with various gentle sounding names, and they're all run by people like Baloch. To the PPP, he provides votes. And to the people of Lyari, he provides schools, hospital services and food stamps. And in return, he gets unquestioned loyalty.
Baloch controls Lyari Town so completely, the police no longer go into it. The last time they tried in April, they were met with a hail of bullets. The Lyari operation went on for days before the police returned to their posts. Again, Zorah Yusuf.
YUSUF: They were outgunned. You know, they even managed to destroy an armored personnel carrier and, you know, kill the soldier who was there.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Baloch emerged even stronger. Uzair Baloch lives near one of the dusty main drags in Lyari. You know you've arrived because there are literally two dozen guards with AK47s out front. Some of them are so young they don't look like they've learned to shave yet. Enter the house and the mood changes from noisy slum to tranquility. The doors open into an enormous room with an indoor lap pool and a six-foot flat-screen television.
There are murals of beach scenes on the walls. And a fish tank is embedded in the floor, filled with Japanese koi. Baloch is engaging and handsome. He has a Rolex on his wrist and a scar on his hand that looks like someone tried to chop it off with an axe and nearly succeeded. He said he got it running from the police. I asked him why people call him a gangster.
BALOCH: (Foreign language spoken)
TEMPLE-RASTON: People have only been calling me a gangster and a terrorist for the last three years, he says, ever since we started asking the government for services for the people of Lyari. So they're trying to ruin my reputation. The police say it's more than that. A court in Karachi issued a warrant for his arrest this week. This is the second one issued this year. But so far, no one has gone into Lyari to arrest him.
As we prepared to leave, Uzair Baloch was joined by another visitor. He was the government's top man in Lyari Town, the local administrator. He said he was there to discuss development projects with Baloch. Dina Temple-Raston, NPR News, Islamabad.
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A remarkable new drug appeared on the market this past year. It's called Kalydeco, and it's designed to treat people with a lung disease called cystic fibrosis. While not quite a cure, the drug is extremely effective for some patients. NPR's Joe Palca has this story of how Kalydeco came to be.
JOE PALCA, BYLINE: A good starting point for the story of Kalydeco is August 24, 1989.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NEWS BROADCAST)
LINDA WERTHEIMER, BYLINE: Scientists announced at a news conference today that they have found the gene that causes cystic fibrosis.
PALCA: That's how Linda Wertheimer began NPR's coverage of the story. It was the early days of gene hunting in 1989, and the CF gene was a big prize. Cystic fibrosis is the most common genetic disease in Caucasians. When people inherit a damaged form of the CF gene, a critical protein inside cells doesn't work properly. As a result, sticky mucus builds up in a patient's lungs, causing infections and making it hard to breathe.
My colleague Michelle Trudeau did the story of the gene discovery on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED back in 1989. She talked to scientists who predicted that a genetic test for cystic fibrosis was just around the corner. But they said there was more.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NEWS BROADCAST)
MICHELLE TRUDEAU, BYLINE: With the discovery of the gene, different drugs can be tested to see if any of them will get the defective protein to do what it's supposed to do. So an effective treatment is now within reach as well.
PALCA: The genetic test did come fairly quickly.
DR. FRED VAN GOOR: But it wasn't until 20 years later that we were able to find drugs that directly target the underlying cause of cystic fibrosis. So it was a long time between the discovery of the gene and the discovery of Kalydeco.
PALCA: Fred Van Goor led the team at what is now Vertex Pharmaceuticals that developed Kalydeco.
GOOR: We tested over 600,000 chemicals in cells with the defective protein that causes cystic fibrosis.
PALCA: One of those chemicals ultimately became a successful drug. But it was a long slog. The chemical had to be modified so patients could take it by mouth and so it would last the right length of time in a patient's body. From the start, Van Goor and his colleagues knew there was a problem with Kalydeco. It only works on a small subset of people with cystic fibrosis. They have to have a particular mutation in the cystic fibrosis gene or the drug is of little use. But for people who do have that mutation, the drug's impact is stunning.
Emily Schaller was in one of the early studies of Kalydeco. As part of the study, researchers first gave her a placebo, then switched her to the real drug. She knew within days that something was different.
EMILY SCHALLER: I was with my brother in Florida, and we were walking down the street. I was - I took a deep breath in. And when I took a deep breath in and I let it out, and I didn't cough. But not only did I not cough, I just felt like my lungs were clear, and that something huge had happened. It was just something I had never felt in my life before.
PALCA: Schaller isn't cured. She still has a damaged CF gene. The only way to fix that would be to replace the damaged gene with a healthy one, a process called gene therapy. Although it seems simple in theory, in practice, gene therapy has been incredibly difficult to accomplish. Schaller isn't particularly bothered by that.
SCHALLER: Everyone talks about curing a disease, cure cystic fibrosis, cure these other diseases. But Kalydeco controls CF, you know, at the basic defect. So I'm OK with the other C word, control, because I'm living it and it's - I've never felt better in my life.
PALCA: But even finding drugs that control genetic diseases has been extremely difficult, that's why Kalydeco is so noteworthy. Scientists hope there will soon be many more drugs that are based on understanding the genetics of the disease, but those drugs will likely be expensive. A year's supply of Kalydeco can cost around $300,000. Joe Palca, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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Israel was changed dramatically a couple of decades back with a wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union. Those immigrants now account for more than 15 percent of Israel's population.
NPR's Philip Reeves reports on the role they're playing today in shaping the country.
(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD CHATTER)
PHILIP REEVES, BYLINE: This bar could easily be in Moscow. A party is in full swing. Everyone's speaking Russian. The menu offers 15 brands of vodka. Yet we're just a stone's throw from the gates of Jerusalem's Old City. Some of the world's most religiously conservative people live in this neighborhood. That doesn't deter these revelers drinking and dancing the night away. They're part of one of the more unusual migrations of modern times.
When the Cold War ended, Israel's population was just under 5 million. The Russian speakers who poured in from the former Soviet Union added roughly another million to that number.
LILY GALILI: I think it's an unbelievable phenomena by all criteria. It's like America - United States - absorbing all of France, Belgium and Netherlands, I think.
REEVES: Lily Galili is an Israeli journalist who's just written a book about this. Jewish immigrants arrived from across the Soviet Union from Eastern Europe to Central Asia. But they're still widely referred to in Israel simply as Russians. Galili remembers that when this mass immigration began in 1989, Israel's leaders were eagerly looking forward to it for many reasons, including...
GALILI: To change demography - Arabs, Jews - they were saying, oh, this country is becoming part of the Levant. We need you with your culture and educated children, come.
REEVES: There were plenty of issues. Israel's Arab population was worried about becoming more marginalized. Some of Israel's Jewish majority also had concerns. The new arrivals qualified for citizenships under Israel's Law of Return if they had or were married to someone with one Jewish grandparent.
Rabbinical law, though, says that Jewishness passes through the maternal line. This defined more than 300,000 of the Russian-speaking immigrants as non-Jews. Galili says that was very tough for the new arrivals to accept.
GALILI: And they come here and they have the non-Jewish mother and the Jewish father. And suddenly, this motherland who's expecting them to come says, oh, I forgot to tell you, you are not Jewish here.
REEVES: There are no civil marriages in Israel. If Russian Israelis defined as non-Jews wish to marry, they must go abroad or convert. Galili says conversion is not a popular option.
GALILI: Because they find it offensive. They feel Jewish. They were raised Jewish. They have Jewish names. They once suffered from being Jewish in the Soviet Union. Now they suffer from being Russians in Israel.
REEVES: A lot of the Soviet immigrants ended up here, beside the Mediterranean in the port city of Ashdod. The influx was so great that after 1990 Ashdod more than doubled in size within a decade. It's now Israel's fifth largest city with a population of more than 200,000.
The Russians are making their mark. You only have to wander through town to see that. Many signs are in Cyrillic. There are Russian products, books, beer, pork sausages.
Stanislav Fishbein is a Ukrainian who migrated here 18 years ago. Becoming an Israeli wasn't easy, he explains speaking in Hebrew.
STANISLAV FISHBEIN: (Through Translator) In the beginning, of course, the language was a serious problem. And in addition to that, we didn't know about the tradition. I didn't know about the Judaism and about Hanukkah, for example. But now I do and I like it.
REEVES: Fishbein is in a restaurant, lunching with some clowns and acrobats from a Russian circus. He's the ringmaster. One reason the circus is in town, he says, is to cheer people up.
In November, Israel's military launched more than a week of missile and artillery strikes against the Gaza Strip to stop Palestinian militants firing rockets. Some of those rockets targeted Ashdod, which is about 15 miles from Gaza.
Twenty years ago, some of the new arrivals knew very little about the war simmering away in this region for decades. Inna Israeli says she came from St. Petersburg in 1990 so that her daughter could grow up in her own Jewish homeland. Back then, Inna wasn't even sure where Gaza was.
INNA ISRAELI: (Through Translator) We didn't know. We didn't think about that.
REEVES: Realtor Dima Esterman says he did know about the conflict when he arrived in the early '90s, but adds...
DIMA ESTERMAN: (Through Translator) When I arrived here, I thought this problem would soon be settled. I was on the left, and I thought it was possible to reach an agreement with the Arabs. But after 20 years, I no longer think an accord is possible.
REEVES: That worries Esterman. He has a young daughter who'll one day serve in the Israeli military.
ESTERMAN: (Foreign language spoken)
REEVES: He's not happy with the idea of young women going to war. Yet he believes in this region there will always be wars.
ESTERMAN: (Through Translator) Only war. Here, everything is decided through war from a position of strength.
REEVES: Esterman's now right wing. That's true of most Israeli Russians. Galili, the journalist and writer, says this is partly simply to do with being immigrants.
GALILI: Immigration is a tremendous crisis, and you have to restructure your identity because it's a crisis of your identity. So out of all - the many choices, they restructured their identity around national and nationalistic symbols.
REEVES: Galili also argues that the Russians associate the left with the Soviet Communism they left behind. Their arrival changed the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Galili says they came from an empire that was once so vast and powerful that they now inherently resist the idea of conceding land.
GALILI: They look at the size of this country and they say, what, that's it? And you mean you want to give back territories? You must be crazy.
REEVES: Israeli Russians form the electoral base of the influential nationalist party Yisrael Beiteinu. The party is allied with Likud, forming a bloc that's leading the polls ahead of this month's election.
One reason the Russians fascinate Galili is because their experience chimes with her own story. She moved to Israel from Poland in the '50s when she was 8. Back then, immigrants to Israel were dropped in the deep end, she says.
GALILI: You had to become an Israeli in a second: language, name, love of the country, the whole package. I had no contact with my culture, not even with my friends.
REEVES: Now it's different.
GALILI: They come. They have the Internet. They have satellite. They know everything that's going on in Russia.
REEVES: Galili thinks that's proving a major factor in defining the relationship between the Russian-speaking community and their fellow Israelis. She says the Russians are integrated into Israeli society and they're a big asset to the economy. Yet, some 20 years on, many of them still choose to remain culturally separate.
GALILI: And it applies to the younger generation as well, which never stops to amaze me. Because even people who are now, let's say, 30 and they've been here for 20 years, they grew up here, when they go home, most of their friends are still Russian-speaking.
REEVES: Back in Ashdod, a group of actors gathers in the city's Russian theater. Their playhouse is inside a bomb shelter. They include biologist Vladmir Dzyakevich.
VLADMIR DZYAKEVICH: I am 32 years old, and I came from Moscow 20 years ago.
REEVES: Dzyakevich holds strong views about this question of the Russian Israelis and their cultural identity.
DZYAKEVICH: Israel is my home and my only home. But I feel that, as a person, I'm -culturally, I'm torn inside because I feel a very deep connection with the Russian culture, with the Russian literature.
REEVES: Philip Reeves, NPR News.
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When Steve Jobs died, there was a lot of talk about who would be the next Steve Jobs. But the truth is, rarely can one person reshape the future, and breakthroughs are rarely the product of a corporate titan. Still, new technologies and the people that create them can give us a glimpse of what our future might look like. So as we head into 2013, we decided to ask Steve Henn, NPR's Silicon Valley correspondent, to tell us who he will be keeping an eye on in the coming year.
STEVE HENN, BYLINE: In Silicon Valley and around the world, there are hundreds, really thousands of folks who are toiling away on new technologies, convinced that the things they're building will transform the way we live. And sometimes, they're right. Regina Dugan says there's a lesson in that.
REGINA DUGAN: You should be nice to nerds.
HENN: Dugan used to run DARPA, the Defense Department's advanced research and projects agency.
DUGAN: In fact, I'd go so far as to say if you don't already have a nerd in your life, you should get one.
HENN: DARPA helped create self-driving cars and supported the invention of the Internet. Dugan is a huge fan of the nerd.
DUGAN: I'm just saying.
HENN: So I decided to take Dugan's advice and introduce you to five techies whose research and work I will be keeping a close eye on in the coming year. Nerd number one is Regina Dugan herself. At DARPA, she oversaw a diverse group of projects from developing a space glider that flies at 20 times the speed of sound to research into what it would take to bring high-tech manufacturing back to the United States. Now, Dugan is at Google, overseeing advanced research and technology for Motorola.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: She's keeping mum about what she's up to. I'm intensely curious, but in the meantime, on to nerd number two. His name is Babak Parviz. Ten years ago, when he was a newly minted professor working on nano technology, he would get up every morning thinking about his work and blindly grope his way to the bathroom to put on his contact lenses.
BABAK PARVIZ: So I had this always in my mind of how to make small things, how to put these small things into new places. And every morning, I was staring at this piece of plastic at the tip of my finger.
HENN: It wasn't long before he wondered if he could put tiny circuits on a contact lens itself.
PARVIZ: What would that enable? And that got us started in a pretty interesting journey.
HENN: Now, Parviz is developing smart lenses that can talk to devices like your phone and then display text. Others lenses could read body sugar levels someday, and a few are operated with such low power they can run on solar. Parviz now splits his time between the University of Washington and Google where he founded Google Glass. Google Glasses are smart, wirelessly connected glasses. Think of them as another tiny screen, but this one is less than an inch from your eye. So on to nerd number three.
(LAUGHTER)
ANDREAS RAPTOPOULOS: I'm Andreas Raptopoulos, the co-founder and CEO of Matternet.
HENN: His idea is kind of out there. In fact, it might be easier to grasp if we start with the problem he's trying to fix.
RAPTOPOULOS: So there's one billion people in the world today that do not have access to all-season roads. So that means that in the rainy season, when roads are washed out, there's 1 billion people in the world that are disconnected from all social and economic activity.
HENN: That means no medicine, no mail, no trade. So Raptopoulos wants to build an automated network of light-weight electric drones to carry small packages. He calls this idea Matternet. The drones would move matter like the Internet moves bits. And he argues the cost would be minuscule compared to paving over a huge portion of the planet to build new roads. But not all nerds are radicals. Some are just trying to tweak what already exists and make it more powerful. That's the case with nerd number four.
GINA BIANCHINI: My name is Gina Bianchini, and I'm the founder of Mightybell.
HENN: 2012 was tough on social Internet companies, but Bianchini believes this wave is just beginning. With Mightybell, she hopes to unlock social media's power by helping small groups of people organize easily and quickly in the real world. And my final nerd to watch, nerd number five, is Apple executive Eddie Cue. There's been endless speculation this year about how Apple could reshape how the world watches TV. If that vision comes to pass in 2013, Cue, who now runs software at Apple, will play a big role making it happen.
But he won't do it alone. In fact, none of the men and women I just mentioned do anything alone, as Babak Parviz pointed out in a recent Ted talk...
BABAK PARVIZ: I would hazard a guess that the era of solo star scientist is probably over.
HENN: Today's big problems are so complex, so interdisciplinary that all of these people make their mark working in teams. Steve Henn, NPR News, Silicon Valley.
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This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, from NPR News. I'm Robert Siegel.
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And I'm Audie Cornish. It's a new year, and on Wall Street and in official Washington, there is the ring of crisis averted. Long threatened across-the-board tax hikes and spending cuts did not materialize, but don't breathe too long a sigh of relief. We're about to look forward to the next few months.
SIEGEL: Joining us is Congressman Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, who cast his vote in favor of the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012. That is the get-us-off-the-fiscal-cliff compromise that was hammered out in the Senate. It was actually passed in the House in 2013. Representative Cole was very early among Republicans to acknowledge the inevitability of higher tax rates for the wealthy, and when many on Capitol Hill saw the sky falling yesterday in the House Republican caucus, he was rather calmly forecasting a late-night, up-or-down vote.
Welcome to the program.
REPRESENTATIVE TOM COLE: Hey, Robert. Good to be with you.
SIEGEL: We've come to rely so much on your powers of foresight. I'm going to ask you to try to look ahead two months now, this - when Washington is confronted with a couple of crises. The debt ceiling will need raising, and the sequestration, the across-the-board spending cuts have been...
COLE: That's - and I'll throw in one more for you: the continuing resolution which Congress is operating on now ends in three months. So this next 90 days is really a pretty critical period, and a lot depends - I expect it to be very contentious. A lot depends on what the president and my colleagues across the aisle want to do. The president's talked a great deal about having a balanced approach.
He got revenue last night on the income tax front. He's also gotten revenue by the expiration of the payroll tax holiday. So, a pretty significant sum of money, but it's nowhere near enough to cover our shortfall. So the next question is, okay, now that you've gotten revenue, what are the spending cuts, what are the entitlement reforms that you're willing to entertain?
SIEGEL: Well, would you foresee the same process in outline? Which is to say the Senate and the White House do a deal, and then the House gets a chance to vote up or down on it.
COLE: No, I think the House will probably be much more directly involved. It's the decisive arena in this, actually, more than the Senate is. And I think you'll also see probably a switch in the composition of votes. I would expect the deals going forward to be majority Republican and minority Democrat, as opposed to the other way around.
SIEGEL: To people on the outside, it looks as though Speaker Boehner was first unable to pass a Republican tax bill that he could bring to the table with President Obama. Next, his plan B failed, even after four Republican members were chastened for crossing the leadership. And then, last night, while he voted for the bill, as you did, the majority leader and the whip voted against him.
Given that record, why do you think he's so likely to get reelected speaker this week?
COLE: Well, first of all, there's no plausible alternative. Look, a lot of people that voted no last night wanted that bill to pass, but simply didn't have the courage or didn't feel the need to vote for it. And that's fair enough. We didn't need the votes. Obviously, we won substantially. I think the speaker showed real leadership last night and, honestly, put himself in a position to look the president in the eye and say, look, I worked with you to get this across. I provided the votes that you needed. I allowed the vote to occur. I took some considerable political risk in doing so. So now I expect you, Mr. President, to take some political risks of your own.
SIEGEL: There was some debate as to how bad going over the cliff with no bill would have been. I wonder, how do you regard, well, say, not raising the debt ceiling or the sequestration? Are those things so bad that they must be avoided, things you'd rather avoid or things that are better than the alternative of agreeing with the Democrats?
COLE: Well, I certainly would rather avoid them. Having said that, you avoid them not by simply voting for them, but by making sure that the reasons why people are concerned - and that's because our debt is mounting uncontrollably. This is four straight years of trillion-dollar-plus deficit, so we need to see the president lead on this issue. I think he has the ability to do that. I hope he does, and I'll work with him if does.
SIEGEL: But how bad is sequestration? If we just let that happen in two months, how terrible is that?
COLE: It's bad. It's not - I mean, it's bad mostly because it's mis-prioritized. I mean, across-the-board cuts, there's always areas that you want to hold harmless, areas that you maybe need more. So that's a better way to do it. But I would say sequestration, honestly, a lot of people would like to see across-the-board cuts. I was looking at a Rasmussen Poll earlier today that showed overwhelming support, in the 60s.
So that's actually from a Republican standpoint. There'd be a lot of concern over defense, and there should be. But politically, it's pretty easy ground to hold.
SIEGEL: OK. Congressman Cole, thank you. And again, when it comes to electing a speaker, you would say a vote against John Boehner is a...
COLE: Very stupid vote.
SIEGEL: OK.
COLE: John Boehner will be reelected easily.
SIEGEL: Okay. Congressman Tom Cole, Republican of Oklahoma, thanks a lot for talking with us.
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The American Taxpayer Relief Act is 157 pages long. It's not all about avoiding impending tax hikes. Some of it has to do with tax benefits for ceiling fans and tuna canneries. NPR's Ari Shapiro is here to explain.
And Ari, in spending bills, little weird provisions like this might be called pork-barrel spending or projects. Are we looking at a kind of earmark?
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: Not exactly. Congress has banned earmarks. It's helpful to quickly look back at why. For years, individual appropriations were the ways that laws got passed. Somebody might object to a bill, but say my district really needs a bridge. The bridge would get on the bill, you'd get enough votes to make a law, but the practice got out of hand. Earmarks exploded, in some cases involving conflicts of interests, campaign contributors, bribes.
I spoke with Scott Lilly, who spent decades on the House Appropriations Committee's Democratic staff. He's now at the Center for American Progress. He told me the low point in this story came in a 2005 highway bill.
SCOTT LILLY: That bill had $23 billion worth of earmarks in it. There were more than a dozen earmarks per member of House and Senate combined. I think there were six-and-half-thousand earmarks in that one bill.
SHAPIRO: So there was a huge backlash and Congress no longer allows that kind of pork. But this fiscal cliff bill still has tax provisions helping everything from race tracks to electric vehicles.
CORNISH: So if it's not pork, what is it?
SHAPIRO: Well, a lot of it's what's called extenders. Over the years, a series of tax cuts - mostly for businesses, but some for individuals - have been added to the tax code on a temporary basis, in theory. But in practice - according to Bob Greenstein, who's president of the Center for Budgetary and Policy Priorities - a lot of these provisions just don't go away.
BOB GREENSTEIN: Some were originally justified as just having a temporary need. Others, the people, the interests seeking the tax cuts really wanted them on a permanent basis, but the price tag was too high. So they were able to get them passed by doing them on a one-year basis. And this has become a bigger and bigger package of tax cuts.
SHAPIRO: So, Audie, right now the tax code includes about $75 billion a year in these so-called temporary provisions. Some of them sound ridiculous. Like there are sections related to Puerto Rican rum and tuna canneries in American Samoa, but actually, those were a very small amount of the total spending on temporary tax benefits. Most of them have some substance to them.
For example, the biggest is the research and development tax credit, which costs $14 billion a year. Everyone, for the most part, agrees that the R&D tax credit would be more effective at spurring innovation, if it were permanent and people could rely on it. Instead, like all the other temporary extensions, it just gets renewed year after year, along with everything else on the list.
CORNISH: So would an overhaul of the entire tax code actually help get rid of some of these provisions?
SHAPIRO: That's the Obama administration's hope. I spoke with a White House official today who said they would have preferred a detailed reevaluation of the tax code that could clear out some of the underbrush. And they still believe that's possible but there's another perspective, which is that each of these esoteric perks has a very highly paid lobbying team behind it.
And so, if you open everything up for analysis, some of these things are just going to become permanent at the end of a very long fight.
CORNISH: Now, another part of this deal seems to have not that much to do with the fiscal cliff.
(LAUGHTER)
CORNISH: Parts of the Farm Bill are in the package. What happened there?
SHAPIRO: Yeah. Well, along with the fiscal cliff, we were looking at something with a slightly absurd name: The Dairy Cliff. Farm subsidies were about to expire after five years and that could've doubled the price of a gallon of milk. So to keep that from happening, Congress included a nine-month extension of the subsidies in this fiscal cliff bill.
It did to go as far as some farmers wanted. For example, there's no disaster relief money for people who lost livestock in recent droughts. But the extension buys Congress more time to hopefully come up with another long-term solution, packed into this short-term solution they packed last night.
CORNISH: NPR's Ari Shapiro, Ari, good talking to you.
SHAPIRO: You too, Audie.
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A $60 billion federal aid package for states affected by Hurricane Sandy is moving forward, but it hasn't been an easy political process. There's been hot debate about it within the Republican Party. Last night, the GOP-controlled House of Representatives declined to vote on an aid package, and that infuriated lawmakers across New York and New Jersey.
Here's Republican representative Peter King of Long Island this morning on Fox News.
REPRESENTATIVE PETER KING: These Republicans have no problem finding New York when they're out raising millions of dollars. I'm saying right now, anyone from New York and New Jersey who contributes one penny to congressional Republicans is out of their minds because what they did last night was put a knife in the back of New Yorkers and New Jerseyans was absolute disgrace.
SIEGEL: But by this afternoon, King and other Republicans were striking a very different tone. King and the others met with speaker of the House John Boehner, and emerged with assurances that the emergency funding bill will go forward this month.
Joining me now is NPR's Joel Rose. And, Joel, when the vote going to happen?
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: Well, Representative King and Michael Grimm of Staten Island, and other lawmakers from New York and New Jersey, emerged from the speaker's office today saying they have assurances that the House will vote on the $60 billion funding package this month. They said that the House will vote, in fact, on Friday on $9 billion and that they'll vote on the remaining amount by January 15th.
We have another clip from Peter King. Here he is sounding much happier after meeting with the speaker, than he did in that first clip. Let's listen.
KING: That's in the past. All I care about is my constituents, the constituents in New York and New Jersey who are absolutely devastated. Clearly, the speaker responded and that's all. I take him at his word. Me and the majority leader both are in full agreement.
SIEGEL: Well, let's go back just a few hours into the past. Why were Peter King and other Republican so furious about the original decision not to vote on this bill last night?
ROSE: Well, these lawmakers say that the emergency funding is needed right now, and that it's important not to delay the passage of the vote - the arrival of this money for even a few weeks or months. You know, people can still apply for help from the Federal Emergency Management Agency even without the supplemental funding. But, you know, it's going to be hard for a wider recovery to take place in the region until this money is approved.
That's according to Governor Chris Christie and others who point out that it's now been more than two months since the storm. And local communities and state governments really need the money now so that they can start thinking about, you know, making the decisions and signing the contracts to rebuild roads and schools. And there's just a lot of things they can't do until they know that this federal money is coming.
SIEGEL: Why the delay?
ROSE: That's a really good question. You know, House Speaker John Boehner has not said very much about why this did not come up for vote last night. There has been speculation that it's more conservative members of the House who did not want to follow their other vote on the resolution of the fiscal cliff by then immediately turning around and adding $60 billion to the federal debt.
It's not entirely surprising that Republicans in New York and New Jersey would get very angry with this decision not to vote last night. But maybe that reaction was even louder and faster than the House leadership expected. But, yeah, we just don't know the exact answer to that.
SIEGEL: OK. Thank you, Joel.
ROSE: You're welcome.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Joel Rose.
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That squabble over aid related to Hurricane Sandy comes at a critical time for House Speaker John Boehner. Tomorrow, Congress is sworn in on Capitol Hill. And in the House, majority Republicans will decide if Boehner keeps his post.
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The speaker has had a rough ride the past two years. For example, last night, when the House voted to approve the compromise deal to avert the fiscal cliff, more than 60 percent of Republicans voted against it. And that included top lieutenants of speaker Boehner's, such as majority whip Kevin McCarthy, the man whose main job is to round up votes.
CORNISH: Here to talk about speaker Boehner's two years as leader and his chances of keeping the gavel is Manu Raju, senior congressional correspondent for Politico. Manu, welcome.
MANU RAJU: Hey, great to be here.
CORNISH: So tell us about the last couple of days. We saw Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accuse speaker Boehner of running, quote, "a dictatorship" in the House. How tense is it for Speaker Boehner and how has he react to all this?
RAJU: It's a very tense. I mean this has been a rough ride. And, as you mentioned, Audie, that Harry Reid did accuse him of being more concerned about the speaker gavel that cutting a fiscal deal. And that led to some profanity at the White House. In fact, Speaker Boehner used a profane word to cuss out Harry Reid when he saw him at the White House. So it's been a very, very rough ride for him. And he hopes to steady the ship come the new Congress.
CORNISH: It doesn't sound really like a dictatorship. And I'm wondering, when John Boehner became Speaker Boehner, back in 2010, how they vowed to do things differently? How did he want to lead?
RAJU: Well, he didn't want to lead at the top way in which Nancy Pelosi - the House Democrat from California, who was a speaker at the time - how she was known to rule the House really with an iron fist. Whereas Speaker Boehner really wanted to govern from the bottom-up and try to be more, you know, listen to his big band of freshmen lawmakers who rode on this Tea Party wave, who said that, you know, they wanted to change the way Washington worked.
And he was with them on it. He was with them on cutting spending and he had successes in doing that in the first fight over the government that nearly shut down the government back in 2011.
But what we saw that time and again that his rebellious conference was very hard for him to corral. And there were times in which he had to cut a deal with a Democratic president at a Democratic Senate. It was hard to keep those folks in line, and this has become so much more pronounced as the year moved along. And it culminated all in the fiscal cliff battle, what we saw on the House floor just yesterday.
CORNISH: Within the caucus, what do his defenders say? I mean, how are they sort of selling this, his leadership to other Republicans in the House?
RAJU: Well, they would say that they have had success this Congress. They would say that the speaker has really change the debate over cutting spending - this is something that really was ignored in previous speakerships - and to focus on the reducing of the size of the government.
But look, he only has one chamber. The Republicans are only in control of the House. And he has done what he can, given the situation at hand and they think they have had some success. And they'll say, look, we haven't done everything we wanted but, you know, I listened to your concerns and I make the case is vigorous as we can. And we win some and we don't win some.
You know, the speaker is a very affable guy. People like him personally. And I think that goes a long way because, you know, as you know, Audie, this is an institution that's designed and runs on relationships. And I think he's got a lot of really good ones and that really puts him in a secure spot with a lot of his members.
CORNISH: Manu, thank you so much for speaking with us.
RAJU: Anytime.
CORNISH: Manu Raju is senior congressional correspondent for Politico.
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And I'm Robert Siegel. The governor of Pennsylvania is stepping in on behalf of Penn State University. He's filing an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA for its sanctions against Penn State. The NCAA had imposed harsh penalties in response to the child sexual abuse case involving the school's former assistant football coach. We'll hear more now from NPR's Tom Goldman.
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: The NCAA didn't impose the so-called death penalty which would have shut down the storied Penn State football program for several years, but the association did levy what it called unprecedented sanctions, including a $60 million fine and a four-year bowl game ban for the football team. Today, Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett said the sanctions did nothing to punish Jerry Sandusky, who's serving a prison sentence, or others who've been criminally charged.
GOVERNOR TOM CORBETT: Rather, they punished the past, the present and the future students, current and former student athletes, local businesses and the citizens of Pennsylvania.
GOLDMAN: Corbett says the sanctions already have had a negative impact since the football program is such a powerful economic driver. Still, there was football in State College this season and while attendance was down, nearly 97,000 fans showed up, on average, at home games. That was fifth highest in division I college football. The lawsuit filed in federal court in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, asks the court to throw out all the sanctions.
The NCAA said in a statement, it is disappointed by Corbett's action, adding, the lawsuit is without merit and a setback to Penn State's efforts to move forward after it accepted the consequences of the Sandusky scandal. Today's announcement prompted questions about timing. The sanctions were handed down last July. Corbett gave two reasons.
CORBETT: First, I wanted to thoroughly research the issue to make sure that we were on solid legal footing. Two, I didn't want to file during the football season.
GOLDMAN: Several years ago, when Corbett was attorney general, he was blamed for dragging his feet on the Sandusky investigation. Critics say with today's announcement, Corbett, who's up for reelection next year, is trying to help his image. When asked about this, Corbett said the lawsuit is not about politics, but about the right thing to do. Tom Goldman, NPR News.
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Three years ago, writer Charlotte Druckman took to the pages of the journal Gastronomica with a question that shook up the online food world. Why are there no great women chefs?
CHARLOTTE DRUCKMAN: The point of that initial article that I wrote wasn't to say are there or aren't there 'cause we know that there are women chefs, it's just that they're not given the same respect and amount of attention as we give male chefs.
CORNISH: So why not? Druckman decided to find out in her new book "Skirt Steak." She spoke to over 70 women chefs and she joined us from New York to tell us about some of their diverse paths to the professional kitchen. And in a world of celebrity chefs and 24/7 food programming on the Food Network, how do you define a chef?
DRUCKMAN: It's this idea that you are the head of a professional galley kitchen. Someone like Rachel Ray doesn't work in restaurants. I mean, she doesn't have that experience of having gone through the ranks and slogged through the trenches and then become a leader in that space. You know, she prides herself on being a self-taught, almost professional home cook.
And I think she deserves so much respect for the success she's had as a businesswoman and as a brander of herself and of content but to say that that is a chef, I think, does quite a disservice to those people who are in fact actually chefs.
CORNISH: So let's talk about one of the women you featured, Naomi Pomeroy. Tell us about her.
DRUCKMAN: Yeah, Naomi, I think, is a wonderful example of someone who took her own path to get where she has. And I think that that is a theme that you see among women because they weren't necessarily welcome in the traditional ultimate restaurant experience. So, Naomi has no formal training in that she didn't go to culinary school and in order to teach herself, she would surround herself with professional cooks and chefs so that she could learn from them.
And I think that that's a really interesting way of looking at ego because you don't find that many men in the kitchen, I hate to say this, who would necessarily feel comfortable surrounding themselves by people who were in lesser positions but had more experience than they had.
CORNISH: She's also somebody who says that she doesn't call herself a chef and is self-perception part of the issue here for women?
DRUCKMAN: Yes. Because if you asked her what she did for a living, she would know that she is a chef. She is the head of her kitchen. She cooks in her restaurant. But she has a hard time with the title, which happened a lot with these women. And I think that when you've got a profession that has been so unwelcoming for so long then you start to associate the term with that kind of chauvinism and you feel reluctant or uncomfortable accepting that title.
On the other hand, it's a double-edged sword, especially for women, because if you say you're a chef and you're a woman, people already presume you mean that you're a home cook anyway. So if you use the word cook instead of chef, then no one's ever going to think that you are in charge of a restaurant kitchen or that you own a restaurant.
CORNISH: On another end of the spectrum is Michelle Bernstein.
DRUCKMAN: Yes. I think Michelle Bernstein had the experience that Naomi didn't have. So Michelle has a much more traditional - I was going to say, upbringing - in the professional culinary industry and having been in all of those very male, very traditional kitchens, got to her...
CORNISH: And we should say, for people who don't understand this, that kitchens are described as macho places, a lot of yelling, a lot of - it's hierarchical and kind of frat boy like.
DRUCKMAN: Yes. And it's set up traditionally as it was in France. It's set up the same way a barrack would be, so it follows the army method. So it really is hierarchical and tough and, yes, male. And you also find a lot of chefs who really do things like throw hot pans around and scream at people. And Michelle felt that she had to repeat that because it was the only way to show that she had chops and that, in a way, she wasn't just a girl.
And at some point, it really got to her and she talks about that moment of going into the pantry and crying because she felt so bad about how she behaved, but it was almost like she didn't know what else to do. And from then on, she started checking herself and she started behaving differently in the kitchen and she found that she was able to be quiet and still get her points across.
CORNISH: Since you first wrote your article and now the book, how have things changed in the industry? You were looking at all these different metrics of awards and James Beard nominations and things like that. And has this prompted any reevaluation?
DRUCKMAN: I don't - you know, we'll see. We'll see when the James Beard nominations come out this year. We'll see if there has been any impact on it. But I'd like to think that this was just a way to get the conversation started and it's not just women. It's just any chef that doesn't fit into that traditional stereotype, how do we give them the respect that they deserve as well? There's room for so many different models.
It seems completely ridiculous in a way that we're still holding up this one standard of restaurant that feels not necessarily relevant or timely and yet that's still the model that we hold everything up against.
CORNISH: Well, Charlotte Druckman, thank you for speaking with us.
DRUCKMAN: Thank you again for having me.
CORNISH: Charlotte Druckman is author of the book "Skirt Steak: Women Chefs On Standing The Heat And Staying In The Kitchen."
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The stock markets kicked the year off with a rally today. The Dow Industrials gained 308 points, about 2.3 percent. You might call that a relief rally following the passage of legislation in Washington to avoid big tax hikes and spending cuts. But action on the debt ceiling and automatic spending cuts is postponed for two months, and business leaders who had pushed hard for a breakthrough are expressing some frustration about that today. Here's NPR's Yuki Noguchi.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: In the last days of the year, and especially last night, John Engler remained tethered to his phone, fielding text messages from CEOs of major companies who were obsessing over hairpin turns and negotiations to resolve the fiscal cliff.
JOHN ENGLER: They're just amazed. They really are aghast at the procedure and the late-night negotiations and the way in which this is done.
NOGUCHI: Engler, formerly governor of Michigan, is now president of the Business Roundtable, an organization that represents CEOs. Engler says defining tax levels was important, but represents only half of the equation businesses were looking for. He says by not addressing questions of where to cut spending and by how much, Congress missed an opportunity to allay businesses' concerns with a more comprehensive, longer term bargain.
ENGLER: The potential for a bigger deal always seemed to be there, but it was a little bit of Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown, and different people took turns playing Lucy.
NOGUCHI: Prior to the deal, many executives put a hold on hiring and investment decisions while keeping a close eye on Washington. Today, business leaders say they are coming to grips with the fact that these kinds of fiscal negotiations are no longer acute periodic dramas but perhaps a more intractable part of business risk. Barry Habib is an executive with mortgage lender Residential Finance. He says his relief was short-lived.
BARRY HABIB: Overall, based on what happened last night, I don't think as a business leader you would be influenced in your decision-making process other than you'd feel better about that there's less uncertainty.
NOGUCHI: Habib says Congress's tax deal still leaves businesses like his looking ahead to the end of February to watch as the new Congress tries to tackle even more difficult issues of spending cuts and raising the debt ceiling again. And although yesterday's deal raised revenues by $650 billion over 10 years, that does very little to reduce the deficit.
HABIB: So when you break it down annually, it's roughly $60 billion a year. And in a hole that's 1.1 trillion, it's about 5 percent. It's not very large, and all of this circus to try and fix 5 percent of the problem. So my reaction is, is that it's disappointing.
NOGUCHI: Habib says for now his company plans to add to its base of a thousand employees. However, he says, yesterday's deal points to how unwilling elected officials are to make difficult choices and that that could mean investors in government bonds may eventually see the U.S. as an unsafe bet. That, Habib says, would force interest rates up, which would be bad for business.
HABIB: This is what everyone should be worried about. It's what we call the bang moment, and the bang moment comes when the bond market eventually says no.
NOGUCHI: He says the U.S. could be headed the same direction as Greece or Spain, and that is an anxiety that businesses will continue to have to cope with for at least another two months. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.
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President Obama praised the cliff-dodging deal last night, saying it delivers on a central promise of his campaign.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Thanks to the votes of Democrats and Republicans in Congress, I will sign a law that raises taxes on the wealthiest 2 percent of Americans.
SIEGEL: That 2 percent figure has long been the president's shorthand for Americans making more than $250,000 a year. As we've reported, the congressional compromise uses a higher threshold. Only income above $400,000 for individuals or $450,000 for couples will be subject to higher tax rates. Less than 1 percent of Americans fall into that higher income category. But the fine print of the deal will also mean higher taxes for a slightly larger group of wealthy Americans, keeping that $250,000 figure in play. NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now to explain that. And Scott, is the president therefore right when he says that he's raising taxes on the top 2 percent?
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Robert, yes, he is. Even though higher tax rates only kick in for income over 400 or 450 thousand dollars, this deal will raise tax bills for individuals making as little as a quarter million dollars. That's because it reinstates some old limits on tax breaks for people in that high income category, so more of their income will be subject to tax.
SIEGEL: And what tax breaks are we talking about here?
HORSLEY: Well, they're the same tax breaks that you and I receive, namely the personal exemption and itemized deductions for things like mortgage interest or gifts to charity. But historically those breaks have been limited for the very wealthy, the idea being they didn't need a tax break as much as the other 98 percent of us, and the extra revenue that the government would bring in would help to balance the budget. These limits go by the colorful names of PEP and Pease. PEP is an acronym. It stands for Personal Exemption Phaseout. So as your income goes up, that tax break gradually phases out. Pease is - that's P-E-A-S-E - it's named for former Ohio Congressman Don Pease. It whittles away at the value of itemized deductions. So the more money you make, the less of a tax break you get for your home mortgage interest or gifts to charity.
SIEGEL: This sounds a little bit like what Mitt Romney proposed during the presidential campaign - capping deductions, he said.
HORSLEY: Well, it works in a similar way, but unlike that cap that Governor Romney proposed, which could've had the effect that maybe you used up your entire allotment of itemized deductions just with your home mortgage interest and maybe your local and state taxes, and then you would get no tax break for charitable giving, for example; what this does is you still get a tax deduction for every dollar, but the value of that deduction slides down as your income goes up. And at the very high end, your deduction could be worth just maybe 20 cents on the dollar.
SIEGEL: So if you have, say, a total of $30,000 in itemized deductions, if you make less than a quarter of a million dollars a year, you may get the full benefit of those. If you make a lot more than that, you could get 90 or 70 percent of them and ultimately as little as 20 percent.
HORSLEY: That's right. It gets whittled away, but there's still an incentive for, for example, charitable giving. It's just a smaller incentive than there would be at a lower income level.
SIEGEL: Now, you said this deal reinstates these limits. They're not actually new.
HORSLEY: No, these were first put in place back in the '90s and then gradually phased out over the last decade as part of the Bush-era tax cuts. They were always due to come back into force with the new year, and under this deal they will come back into force. But they'll actually take effect at a higher income level than would've happened automatically and a higher level than the president first proposed. So here, as elsewhere in the tax deal, the president is actually settling for a smaller tax increase on the wealthy than he could've gotten automatically. But the White House can plausibly say Mr. Obama is insisting on a bigger tax contribution from the wealthiest 2 percent.
SIEGEL: Scott, thank you.
HORSLEY: My pleasure.
SIEGEL: NPR White House correspondent Scott Horsley.
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In Syria today, an airstrike by a government fighter jet on a gas station killed dozens of people. The attack happened in the capital city, Damascus. And it came as the United Nations released a detailed study documenting the deaths of almost 60,000 people since the Syrian uprising began nearly two years ago. NPR's Kelly McEvers is monitoring the conflict from Beirut.
KELLY MCEVERS, BYLINE: The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights says it's compiled a list of more than 59,000 names of people who've been killed in Syria since March 2011. That's when a mass protest movement across the country was met by a brutal government crackdown. Protesters and their supporters eventually took up arms, too, and the conflict now looks a lot like a civil war. The U.N. says this massive loss of life could have been avoided if the Syrian government had chosen a different path than what the U.N. calls the ruthless suppression of peaceful protests.
U.N. officials said they were shocked the death toll was so high. And the report doesn't include the tens of thousands of people who activists and human rights groups say have been detained for opposing the government and the millions of people now displaced from their homes by the fighting. Today was another bloody day in Syria, as activists say a government airstrike at a gas station just outside the capital, Damascus, killed at least 70 people.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: This video shows rebel fighters racing to the scene only to find cars and bodies on fire. Activists say the dead were all civilians, but at least one survivor in this video is wearing camouflage, suggesting he might be a rebel fighter. The attack came in Eastern Ghouta, a suburban area that's a known base for rebel fighters who recently launched an offensive at Damascus aimed at trying to take the capital's main airport. One activist inside Syria, who goes by the name Susan Ahmad, says the scene of the attack was horrific.
SUSAN AHMAD: Pieces of people, blood, burnt bodies and even people who are still alive but with burnt faces and burnt bodies.
MCEVERS: Ahmad says in another attack in Damascus today, 27 people were killed when two bakeries and a residential building were bombed by government aircraft. Syrian state media made no mention of either attack. There has been a flurry of diplomatic activity in recent days to try to find a solution to the Syrian conflict, but most reports coming out of these meetings are not optimistic that any deal can be reached. Speaking to reporters recently in Cairo, joint U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi says that's because the two sides in this conflict have two completely different world views. He says you can't solve a problem when the two sides can't even agree on what the problem is.
LAKHDAR BRAHIMI: On the one side, the government says we are doing our duty protecting our people against terrorists who are mostly foreigners. On the other side, people are saying this is an illegitimate government. This is a family that has been ruling our country for 40 years, and it's time for them to leave. So they are not talking about the same problem. They are talking about two different problems.
MCEVERS: Kelly McEvers, NPR News, Beirut.
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It's hardy, it's durable, and it's a superstar building material in the green movement, a renewable resource used in everything from bicycles to bathroom tissue. We're talking about bamboo. To meet growing demand, one group plans to make it a cash crop in Alabama. But as Gigi Douban reports from Birmingham, some foresters and area farmers are not wild about the idea.
GIGI DOUBAN, BYLINE: Patrick Kelly cuts down bamboo all the time. No guilt. Because in his little corner of Alabama, it seems like it's everywhere.
PATRICK KELLY: There's tons of it. Yeah. We're not too concerned about running out.
DOUBAN: Kelly manages HERObike, a company in Greensboro that makes bicycles out of bamboo. He grabs his Japanese pull saw, and we take a quick walk around the block to the back of someone's property.
KELLY: We're going to have to get in the woods a little bit.
DOUBAN: That's OK.
KELLY: Get dirty. You all right?
DOUBAN: That's all right.
KELLY: OK. This is one of the places that we use simply out of necessity. It's here, it's easy to get to. We can go in over here.
DOUBAN: He sees a nice, tall bamboo stalk and starts sawing.
(SOUNDBITE OF SAWING)
KELLY: All right. Timber.
DOUBAN: Back at the shop, Kelly tells me why it makes sense to build bikes out of bamboo.
KELLY: You can take resources, and with a little bit of ingenuity and hard work, you can build something. And you can do something with it that's transferable and hopefully helpful to society.
DOUBAN: This is the kind of feel-good attitude behind the recent push for not just bikes but all sorts of bamboo products. There's just one problem: Bamboo isn't grown in the U.S. on a large scale. So companies here that use lots of it have to import it, usually from Asia. But some manufacturers want more. A few months ago, paper products giant Kimberly-Clark announced it would partner with a biotechnology company called Booshoot to produce millions of bamboo plants a year. Similar efforts are under way in Washington state, but Alabama is set to be the launch pad.
MARSHA FOLSOM: We anticipate Alabama being the epicenter of the bamboo industry. And in 25 and 30 years from now, it'll be very commonplace.
DOUBAN: That's Marsha Folsom, wife of former Governor Jim Folsom. She and a group of investors in 2013 plan to build what she calls a bamboo innovation and industrial center. But first, how do you mass produce a plant that can take up to 120 years to reproduce? Folsom says her group has found a way. Growing it in a lab through tissue culture.
FOLSOM: And then they will go into the field and be planted, just like a pine tree is planted.
DOUBAN: But bamboo isn't the same as pine. The fact that it comes back year after year is great, until you don't want it to come back anymore. Rick Oates is with the Alabama Farmers Federation.
RICK OATES: My concern - and I would think I would be speaking for any landowner - is that, you know, you don't want to plant something on your land that you can't control the growth of.
DOUBAN: Talk to just about any forester or plant expert about bamboo, and you'll hear the same word come up over and over: invasive. In fact, lots of experts compare bamboo to kudzu, the vine that gobbled up the South. Stephen Enloe is one of them. He's an invasive plant specialist at Auburn University. He says plenty of crops made their way to the U.S. and have been really beneficial, like soybeans and potatoes. But others, despite good intentions, ended up doing more harm than good, he says.
STEPHEN ENLOE: We do know that bamboo, once it is established, often does tend to form very dense stands. So you get very dense bamboo thickets with nothing else growing in them.
DOUBAN: Enloe says he's not opposed to bringing new bioenergy crops to the U.S., but bamboo needs to be studied more. For NPR News, I'm Gigi Douban in Birmingham.
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I'm Robert Siegel. And here's a case of an old business colossus buying up a scrappy innovator. Avis, the traditional car rental company, is buying Zipcar for $500 million. Zipcar is the car-sharing company with the slogan: Wheels when you want them. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports the deal illustrates how car sharing is reshaping the rental business and drawing in a new demographic.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Avis CEO Ron Nelson told analysts today that he had long been skeptical about the car-sharing business. But as this deal suggests, he's come around to the idea.
RON NELSON: Like all businesses, we will need to evolve with changing consumer lifestyles. And Zipcar represents one of the best opportunities to capitalize on that dynamic today.
ZARROLI: Zipcar rents cars by the hour, and customers can pick them up at predetermined locations on the street instead of going to a rental agency. Zipcar has nearly 800,000 customers called zipsters, who pay an annual fee to use the service. It's been popular in big U.S. cities like New York and San Francisco, but in recent years, it's been expanding into Canada and Europe.
(SOUNDBITE OF ZIPCAR AD)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Zipcar is so easy.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: You sign up online.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: You type in the date and time.
ZARROLI: Until last year, Zipcar lost money almost every year it's been in business, which isn't unusual for a new company, but a lot of people think the Zipcar concept has potential. That's why it's generated a lot of competition. Hertz and Enterprise have started car-sharing subsidiaries, and there are a lot of smaller companies modeled on Zipcar in big cities such as Philadelphia. Steven Spivey is an auto analyst at Frost & Sullivan. He says linking up with a big company like Avis helps Zipcar fend off its rivals.
STEVEN SPIVEY: They're looking at the future and realizing this is going to be, you know, a very competitive marketplace, a very competitive industry, and we need to make sure that we're, you know, strongly positioned in terms of how we're capitalized and, you know, the resources that we have at our disposal to take advantage of the market opportunities that are coming.
ZARROLI: The acquisition will mean cost savings for both companies. For example, Avis tends to rent more vehicles during the week. Zipcar does more business over the weekend. Merging means the companies can share their fleets so their cars won't sit idle as much. More important, Avis is acquiring a car-sharing pioneer with an established brand name, one that's got a foothold with young wired customers. Jade Lewis(ph) is a Zipcar customer in Boston.
JADE LEWIS: And I only recently turned 25, so I wasn't able to rent a car before. So if I needed a car for a couple of hours to go pick up a piece of furniture or go out to IKEA or something like that, it was - so it's really a good deal.
ZARROLI: Still, there are questions about Zipcar's business model. The company has succeeded in big, densely populated cities where people can get by renting cars only occasionally. It's not clear how much of a market there is for the concept in other parts of the country that are more car dependent. But so far, Zipcar has gotten people to rethink their relationship to cars. And with this acquisition, Avis is betting that the Zipcar model has a lot of room to grow.
Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
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We're still dealing with the aftermath of this summer's devastating drought. It hurt corn and soybean crops and the farmers who depend on them. The lack of water and high temperatures also delivered a pricey punch to U.S. aquaculture - the business of raising fish for food, like bass and catfish. Worldwide, aquaculture has grown into a $119 billion industry. But U.S. fish farmers have struggled to compete on a global scale.
As Kristofor Husted, of member station KBIA in Colombia, Missouri reports, the drought made that even harder.
KRISTOFOR HUSTED, BYLINE: Dozens of rectangular ponds with rounded corners sit about one mile off the highway her in rural central Missouri. Some of them are empty, some have water, but not one is completely full.
STEVE KAHRS: This unit is a catfish production unit; fingerlings. These fish average eight to 12 inches long. And, you know, it's about little over an acre - about acre and a half unit.
HUSTED: Steve Kahrs, dons a pair of shorts on an unusually warm December day and surveys his ponds. Today, the water is fairly still with a few ripples from the warm breeze. He points to the dirty rings circling up a white PVC pipe, for about a foot, before it becomes white again.
KAHRS: They're out of the water a ways. Now, our average depth in this unit is probably still about five feet. But we're a good 10 to 12 inches down of where we usually would keep it.
HUSTED: Kahrs is the co-owner of Osage Catfisheries in Osage Beach, Missouri.
Kahrs' office sits in a small house next to two tiny ponds where his father first started raising fish more than 60 years ago. Scattered about the property are sinks and large tubs filled with catfish, bluegill and paddlefish. Kahrs says this year, the drought proved to be tough on the family business, one that sorely depends on water.
KAHRS: We did fall short on our production numbers that we wanted.
HUSTED: The dry conditions and high temperatures forced many fish farmers here to dig deep to keep their fish healthy and hungry. For Kahrs, that meant paying for more energy to pump clean, cool water out of his wells and into the ponds around-the-clock.
KAHRS: We probably chewed through about 30 percent more power than we did the year before. And the year before was not that good.
HUSTED: It wasn't just the water level, either. The soaring temperatures in the summer turned up the burner on the ponds. When that happens, oxygen levels in the water drop and the fish's metabolism slows down. To counteract this, Kahrs says he was pumping water nearly every day from April through September.
Farmers also saw the price of fish feed shoot up because it contains fish meal, soy bean and corn.
KAHRS: I would say we've probably seen an increase per ton over the last four years of probably close to 80 to $100. And we saw a huge jump just this summer of, I think it was like 16 to $17 a ton. Which, you know, there's only so long before you have to pass that along.
JOHN HARGREAVES: I think in 2001 there was something like 113,000 acres or so, and now there's like 50,000.
HUSTED: That's John Hargreaves, a former aquaculture professor at Mississippi State University, who now consults for global aquaculture development projects. He says the rising production costs of fish farming, erratic weather, and a less expensive type of catfish from Asia have all hurt the catfish industry here - essentially cutting it in half.
HARGREAVES: Production is down and one of the big drivers for that was the increase in imports of pangasius catfish from places like Vietnam, China, and so forth. So, those imports have basically substituted for domestic catfish.
HUSTED: Between 2010 and 2011, 20 percent of catfish farms shut down. So what can fish farmers do to survive the stiff competition and spells of inhospitable weather? Some researchers have been looking into modifying the pond system to make it more energy efficient. Others are experimenting with new feed recipes requiring less expensive ingredients.
But Hargreaves says even that might be not enough to save this domestic industry.
HARGREAVES: There's no silver bullet or game changer out there. That's for certain.
HUSTED: In the meantime, Steve Kahrs plans to repurpose at least 20 acres of catfish ponds to raise other species like paddlefish and bass. He hopes they'll be more lucrative. But most of all, he's hoping for a solid snow pack this winter and lots of rain in the spring.
For NPR News, I'm Kristofor Husted.
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The holidays can be a festive time of big indulgent meals, but roughly one in five families with children is not getting enough food. And for those kids, the holidays mean a brief stop to the free or reduced-price school meals they depend on for basic nutrition.
Dan Carsen of member station WBHM in Birmingham, Alabama, reports.
DAN CARSEN, BYLINE: Rachel Price works full time at a daycare center in Birmingham. She's a single mother and makes minimum wage, so she has full-time worries about keeping food on the table for her own children and grandchildren. I caught up with her on her lunch break.
RACHEL PRICE: It hurts as a mother, trying to tell your child they can't go into the kitchen and get something. It's definitely a struggle, you know? I have a lot of sleepless nights. I cry a lot.
CARSEN: That's because of practical details that some people never have to worry about, but for Price and others, those little things can get big, quickly, like on her kids' doctor visits or at the supermarket.
PRICE: A lot of times, you sit and you wonder, am I going to have enough? Do I go with cheap, you know? Do I go with noodles and sandwiches, or do I go with, you know, healthy meals? I've had them where their iron was low because you chose to go that noodle route.
CARSEN: Price has a somewhat easier time during the academic year when her kids get free breakfast and lunch. But what happens when school is on break?
KAREN KAPP: A lot of them do go hungry.
CARSEN: That's Karen Kapp, director of Better Basics, a children's literacy and enrichment program near Birmingham. She says as kids' brains mature, the ones who don't get enough food fall further behind better-fed peers. Linda Godfrey advises school districts on their meal operations. She's also run summer-school feeding programs.
LINDA GODFREY: Sometimes at six and 6:30 in the morning, they would have their faces to the door, and as soon as the doors would open at 11 o'clock, they would already be lined up, and they were extremely hungry, especially on Monday.
CARSEN: Even with school, food stamps and food banks, some kids just aren't getting enough to eat. A recent national survey found more than half of teachers have used their own money to buy food for hungry students. They know hunger increases the chances of academic failure, which pushes people toward unemployment or even crime. School systems and communities do have programs to get food to needy kids during breaks, but often, funding is short, and there are other problems. Summer programs especially rely on centralized feeding sites, but some families don't have cars. There are psychological obstacles too.
WARD WILLIAMS: There's been a lot of people who had never gotten help from any kind of agency before. They're too proud to ever ask for help, so the kids were struggling.
CARSEN: That's Ward Williams, founder of Vineyard Family Services, a small nonprofit tucked in the back of a church in Shelby County, Alabama. He and Stephanie Grissom run Backpack Buddies. It's one approach being tried across the country to fight weekend hunger, and it sidesteps the stigma of accepting help.
Here's Grissom packing up food.
STEPHANIE GRISSOM: We make sure we have two lunches, and we have two breakfasts. And then it all goes in the bag, and the bag is the way that it is because we want it to be discreet. It's not labeled, and they can't see through it.
CARSEN: Grissom and Williams drive the bags to elementary and middle schools, some of them an hour away. They unload it for school counselors like Valley Elementary's Kay McCrae, who get it to needy kids to take home on Fridays.
KAY MCCRAE: They'll wink at me in the hall or give me a thumbs-up, and sometimes, they even come up and give me a hug and whisper in my ear: Are you bringing my bag today? It almost brings tears to my eyes.
CARSEN: It also strengthens the counselor-student relationship, and staffers say the program is boosting grades. But McCrae and food-service expert Linda Godfrey understand the big picture, and the problems are bigger than backpacks.
Here's Godfrey.
GODFREY: I had children that would come up to me and say: I really don't want to be out of school for Christmas because we know we're not going to get much to eat. We can say over and over and over it's a parent's responsibility to feed their children, but the bottom line is they don't.
CARSEN: The reasons for that are complex, and the solutions are too. But for many families, especially the kids, holidays aren't all parties and lights; they're about hunger too.
For NPR News, I'm Dan Carsen in Birmingham.
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The number of pedestrians and cyclists dying on the nation's roadways is rising. That's according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The two biggest cities - New York and Los Angeles - have the highest rates of those deaths. Gloria Hillard has more from L.A.
GLORIA HILLARD, BYLINE: The flowers of this makeshift memorial along a busy street in south Los Angeles are wilting within a jagged circle of candles. A stuffed animal leans against a cardboard cross, and taped to poster board are family pictures of the disabled teen killed while crossing the street by a hit-and-run driver.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Roger 102 (unintelligible).
OFFICER CAROL MITCHELL: After he was struck, the vehicle slowed down momentarily and then proceeded south and never stopped, never came back.
HILLARD: Los Angeles police officer Carol Mitchell is the lead officer on the case.
MITCHELL: As long as I've, you know, been doing it, it still doesn't, you know, get easier. I mean, each one of these fatalities affects me.
HILLARD: The only clues available to investigators are the blurred, black-and-white images captured by a nearby business surveillance camera. They cannot identify the driver of the minivan or the license plate. On this day, Mitchell and her partner will spend hours canvassing the boulevard.
MITCHELL: There are more cameras here we're going to look at.
HILLARD: These cases can go cold very quickly. As with most crimes, the first 48 hours are crucial.
MITCHELL: This was at 7 p.m. Somebody saw this happen. And if they didn't see it, they have seen a car that fits that description with, you know, that traffic collision damage to it, and they're just not saying anything. People just don't want to get involved.
HILLARD: Mitchell's next stop is a body shop. Hit-and-run drivers will often try to repair collision damages or paint the vehicle another color.
MITCHELL: No vans have been brought here? Blue vans or green vans?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: No.
POLICE OFFICER CAROL MITCHELL: Let me tell you, I'm going to take a look in here.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: In here? OK.
HILLARD: In 2012, LAPD recorded more than 2,500 so-called motor vehicle versus pedestrian incidents. They range from minor injury to death. A study by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute found that pedestrian traffic fatalities in Los Angeles are nearly triple the national average.
DETECTIVE BILL BUSTOS: Just in the last few days, we had three pedestrians who were just killed when they were crossing the street.
HILLARD: Detective Bill Bustos is officer in charge of LAPD's Valley Traffic Division. He says, like many cities across the country, L.A. drivers and pedestrians are increasingly distracted by electronic devices. But here, the problem is even worse.
BUSTOS: Here, we live in our vehicle practically. We commute everywhere we go.
OFFICER RHIANNON TALLEY: William 53, I'm code 6 with 50.
HILLARD: LAPD Officer Rhiannon Talley and her partner, Detective Chris Laurino, have huge caseloads.
TALLEY: There's just so much, so many cases, so many victims and not enough hours in the day.
DETECTIVE CHRIS LAURINO: We handle as much if not more fatalities than most homicide units.
HILLARD: Arriving at a scene of a serious accident involving a pedestrian is not for the faint of heart. But one of the hardest things for investigators to deal with, Laurino says, is when the person responsible for the carnage has left the scene.
LAURINO: They'll drive their car home, and they'll wash the blood off, cover the car up and act like nothing happened. It's incredible the lack of conscience some people have.
HILLARD: This year, the Valley Traffic has solved roughly half of its pedestrian hit-and-run fatalities. Captain Jeff Bert.
CAPTAIN JEFF BERT: When there's a hit and run, unlike other crimes, the evidence, the primary evidence is gone, and what you're left with, if you look at a fatality, is a body. But I can imagine for families, for loved ones, for people that have lost the most precious thing in their life and then to have a department not be able to solve it, it must be maddening.
JERI DYE LYNCH: Anytime I go back to that day, it's a hard one.
HILLARD: Two years ago, Jeri Dye Lynch's 16-year-old son, Conor, was crossing a street near his school when he was struck and killed by a driver in an SUV.
LYNCH: In Conor's case, there were some great Samaritans, and it really, you know, that's that one thing that gives me a lot of comfort to know that he wasn't just there, you know, a 16-year-old on the street just dying with nobody there because the driver left.
HILLARD: Lynch says the 18-year-old unlicensed driver ended up turning herself in.
LYNCH: She plea-bargained, and her sentence was probably by any measure a slap on the wrist.
HILLARD: According to Lynch, the driver received 90 days community service and three years' probation. Even today, on the street where Conor was hit, few if any of the drivers pay attention to the posted school zone speed of 25 miles an hour or the hand-painted murals and fresh flowers of what is now the teen's permanent memorial. For NPR News, I'm Gloria Hillard.
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The Justice Department has announced a big settlement with the company that owned the Deepwater Horizon oil rig out in the Gulf of Mexico. Transocean will pay $1.4 billion to settle civil and criminal charges over the massive oil spill from that rig in 2010. A Transocean unit also agreed to plead guilty to violating the Clean Water Act.
Transocean is a Swiss company. The deal adds to the four-and-a-half billion dollar settlement with BP, which leased the rig from Transocean.
NPR's justice correspondent Carrie Johnson joins us now. And, Carrie, what does the Justice Department say Transocean did wrong and what did the company acknowledge today?
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: The heart of the matter, Robert, is that 11 workers died on that Deepwater Horizon rig on April 20th, 2010. And the Justice Department says Transocean acted negligently by, in the process of securing the oil well, moving ahead with some maneuvers in the face of clear signs that there was danger, and that oil and gas may have been leaking out of that well.
Transocean, also as you mentioned, acknowledged committing a misdemeanor criminal violation of the Clean Water Act. But there were no felony criminal charges in the settlement, no manslaughter charges in this settlement. And no individuals at Transocean were charged, unlike in the BP case you mentioned earlier. That's been a little bit controversial today.
SIEGEL: Where is that $1.4 billion going to go?
JOHNSON: Well, about $300 million of the criminal penalties are going to be going to restoration of the Gulf and trying to prevent future oil spills. Four hundred billion dollars are criminal fines, penalties. Another one billion are civil penalties. And much of that money is going to go to projects in the Gulf States under a law Congress passed in 2012 called the RESTORE Act.
SIEGEL: Well, is this the end of the federal case over this spill? Or if not, what happens next?
JOHNSON: It's the end for Transocean. Transocean pretty much has resolved a lot of the uncertainty hanging over it with this deal today, even though a federal judge still has to sign off on the settlement agreement.
Robert, but it's not the end for BP, who's always been the whale in this story. BP is still trying to settle with the Justice Department some huge remaining civil claims, over its violations - alleged violations of the Clean Water Act and the Oil Pollution Act. That law deals with ongoing damage to natural resources in the Gulf - to fish, to wildlife, to birds, and to the water and soil.
That case is scheduled to go to trial in New Orleans on February 25th. The company and the Justice Department will be engaged in negotiations, feverish negotiations, potentially right up to that date.
SIEGEL: OK. Thank you, Carrie.
JOHNSON: Thank you.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Carrie Johnson.
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While most working Americans will feel the payroll tax pinch, the fiscal cliff deal also included an important tax credit. It's for the U.S. wind energy industry which is facing tens of thousands of layoffs.
NPR's Sabri Ben-Achour has that story.
SABRI BEN-ACHOUR, BYLINE: The trouble with wind, as any sailor can attest, is that it can stop blowing. But people in the wind industry say they're dependent on something even more unpredictable than wind: Congress.
MARK GOODWIN: So we were definitely on pins and needles.
BEN-ACHOUR: That's Mark Goodwin, CEO of APEX, a wind developer based in Charlottesville, Virginia. He's talking about the fiscal cliff negotiations, specifically whether something called the Wind Energy Production Tax Credit would get extended. It's a subsidy for wind power that keeps it competitive with electricity produced from fossil fuels.
GOODWIN: Without the PTC, the cost of wind energy, you know, for, you know, a specific project is going to be about a third higher.
BEN-ACHOUR: Congress ended up at the last minute renewing the tax credit for a year, but the industry had no idea which way it would go, so they had to prepare for the worst. Nobody wanted to gamble on starting a project that wouldn't be competitive. So after rushing to complete as many projects as possible, before the tax credit expire, developers including APEX just stopped - stopped planning for the future.
Some companies had to lay off workers. Some manufacturers went bankrupt. APEX stopped hiring and tried to hold on to the workers it had.
GOODWIN: APEX had 60 people so we really had to push the I believe button to keep them on payroll that the policy would come back.
BEN-ACHOUR: So what this means is yes, there's a tax credit but there won't be many new wind farms coming online in 2013. That's the downside.
SCOTT CLAVENNA: It's still temporary damage.
BEN-ACHOUR: Scott Clavenna is CEO of Greentech Media, a renewable energy media and research firm. He says lawmakers changed the language in this year's tax credit, so that the wind industry could quickly recover from the crash. What's different now is that firms don't have to finish wind farms in 2013 to get the credit, they just have to start them. So as a result...
CLAVENNA: By 2014 and '15, I think look a lot better now.
BEN-ACHOUR: Firms can start planning again and it takes about a year and a half to build a wind farm. So a lot of wind farms might come online in 2014. But alongside all of this up and down, is a debate in Congress over whether the wind industry deserves to have a tax credit that's propped it up for two decades. And the industry, says energy analyst Clavenna, sees that writing on the wall.
CLAVENNA: Even the wind industry is saying we need these subsidies but it's OK to phase them out over six to 10 years. It is subsidy dependent, though it's getting very close to not being.
BEN-ACHOUR: Advances in technology have brought the price of wind down 25 percent since 2008. And firms say that if that continues the industry will be able to free itself from the boom and bust cycle of tax credit dependence. In the short-term, though, the credit still expires again at the end of 2013. So new wind farms started in 2013 are safe. But this time next year, new construction may be on hold all over again.
Sabri Ben-Achour, NPR News.
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I'm Robert Siegel. And we begin this hour in New Jersey. Tourism there is big business, and the Jersey shore accounted for most of the estimated $38 billion tourists spent in the state in 2011. In late October, Hurricane Sandy devastated long stretches of the shore. In some towns, entire business districts were wiped out.
As NPR's Jeff Brady reports, policymakers are now deciding how to rebuild those towns and who'll pay for it.
JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: Think about it, and you'll start to realize how important the Jersey shore is to American culture. Sure, there's the television show "Jersey Shore," but there are more enduring signs. Consider the board game "Monopoly." Properties are named after Atlantic City locations. And during a television fundraiser for Sandy victims in November, comedian Jimmy Fallon talked specifically about the Jersey Shore.
(SOUNDBITE OF TELEVISED SANDY FUNDRAISER)
BRADY: Along with rock star Steven Tyler, Fallon sang this song to commemorate all the good times people have had at the shore.
(SOUNDBITE OF TELEVISED SANDY FUNDRAISER)
BRADY: For millions of people, the Jersey Shore also is part of their personal story. Lisa Petrino is a nurse from Yardley, Pennsylvania.
LISA PETRINO: My parents tell me that I was conceived at the shore, in Lavallette. For a long time, they called me Little Lava. So I feel like it's in my blood.
BRADY: Petrino says the shore's been a place where families like hers who didn't have a lot of money could vacation. For most, the shore is not a high-brow getaway. We're talking hot dogs, fudge shops, carnivals and roller coasters - not the kinds of things many people would fight to preserve, let alone rebuild. But Petrino hopes the shore she remembers will return.
PETRINO: For so many people, that roller coaster was a first date or a first holding hands or a first kiss. So, do we get another roller coaster, so that the future generations could still have that as a first experience?
BRADY: As the Jersey shore rebuilds, it's becoming clear there are competing priorities that will have to be sorted out. In Long Branch, New Jersey, Maria Montanez has something else at the top of her priority list.
MARIA MONTANEZ: I'm concerned about making sure you build smartly - not so much rebuilding everything all over again, but rebuilding the area so hopefully it protects people for the future.
BRADY: In principle, many with fond memories of the Jersey Shore will agree with that statement, but this will change what the shore looks like. A roller coaster that prompts fond memories may be built again, but perhaps not on a pier out over the water.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINERY)
BRADY: In Sea Bright, New Jersey, dump trucks are still hauling away piles of what used to be homes and businesses.
The cleanup here has a long way to go. Even the town hall was damaged, so for weeks after the storm, Mayor Dina Long says various departments were housed together in a gymnasium.
MAYOR DINA LONG: One hundred percent of the businesses were lost in Sea Bright during the storm, and 75 percent of our homes, at this point, are not habitable, including my own.
BRADY: Long says the city recovery plan, called Sea Bright 2020, is based on the principle of never again, that the city will never be as vulnerable to a strong storm as it was before Sandy. That means a lot of changes.
LONG: What I like to say is we're putting Sea Bright up on high heels.
BRADY: Long says a key element is elevating homes so they're above flood levels.
LONG: Is it going to look like people remember from their childhoods? The answer is no, it's not. It's going to look different. It's going to look taller. But the idea is the next time a superstorm rolls through, we want to be able to pull down the hurricane shutters and wait for the power to come back on.
BRADY: That sounds simple, but dig a little deeper, and you'll find that there are some sticky issues that policymakers - like Mayor Long - will have to sort out. Here's just one: parking. As a tourist destination, the Jersey Shore needs lots of parking spaces in the summer, but huge parking lots lead to runoff and water pollution. That is a concern for Cindy Zipf. She's executive director of Clean Ocean Action. As the shore is rebuilt, she hopes improving water quality will be a priority.
CINDY ZIPF: Do we really need to put in a parking lot that has hard blacktop that all the water runs off? Or can we put pervious surface areas and make parking lots not as big and put more green spaces in them?
BRADY: Business owners like Ernie Giglio have a different vision when it comes to parking. He co-owns a bait-and-tackle shop in Sea Bright.
ERNIE GIGLIO: A lot of the things I'd want them to do: try to get us more parking areas, as long as they're going to redesign - if they're going to redesign the area - pick out more available for customers to park.
BRADY: Sea Bright's mayor says she thinks she can balance these competing priorities. But that's just one issue. There are also questions about how beaches should be engineered. It's clear that building up dunes can protect property, but that also blocks ocean views for expensive beachfront homes.
And then there's the question of who will pay the billions of dollars it will cost to rebuild damaged communities.
(SOUNDBITE OF PHONE RINGING)
BRADY: Back at Sea Bright's makeshift city hall, Mayor Long says her community of 1,500 people suffered about $400 million in damage.
LONG: Our annual budget is $5 million. And so we have a $2 million garbage bill so far.
BRADY: You have a garbage bill that's nearly half of your annual budget.
LONG: Yes, that's correct. This is bigger than we can handle on our own.
BRADY: Some shore towns are debating whether to increase their beach access fees to raise more money for recovery, but that won't be nearly enough. The federal government will have to help. New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez had this appeal to lawmakers at a congressional hearing in late November.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)
BRADY: The Democratically controlled Senate already has passed a relief package worth more than $60 billion. Under pressure from fellow Republicans, angry that a vote has not yet taken place, House Speaker John Boehner says his body will vote on part of the package Friday and the rest of it later this month. Jeff Brady, NPR News.
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Big change is happening right now at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The members aren't denying it. They're complaining about it. Voting for this year's Oscar nominations was supposed to have closed today. It's been bumped today because the Academy is trying out a new online voting system and members say it's got some hiccups. Scott Feinberg has been covering the story.
He's an awards analyst for the Hollywood Reporter and he joins us now. Welcome, Scott.
SCOTT FEINBERG: Thank you. It's an honor.
CORNISH: So how is this online system supposed to work?
FEINBERG: Well, it's supposed to make life easier in the sense that going to e-voting would allow voters to vote from anywhere in the world, if they're on vacation or whatever during the holidays, and just make the process itself streamlined and a little more efficient.
CORNISH: So what's been the problem?
FEINBERG: Well, you know, we heard little murmurs from various people that there were some issues with the new voting system. And so, about a week or 10 days ago, I began reaching out to a considerable number of members of the Academy just to find out what their experience had been. And what we found was consistent with what the Academy had said. There was a majority of them who had opted to use the e-voting, which is what they call it.
They did have an option this year to keep using a paper ballot, but the majority decided to use a e-ballot. But what members of all ages were finding was that they were having problems navigating the system, in particular, oddly enough, just logging in. And at first, it seemed it might be the result of the intricate passwords that the Academy required of them to create.
I think the stereotype of the Academy member is that they're elderly, and maybe not the most tech-savvy people. And there are certainly plenty of those in the Academy, among the 6,000 or so members. But this problem has been felt by members in their 30s, 40s, 50s who I spoke with. So my strong sense is that it's more just a glitch in the system.
CORNISH: But it's not necessarily a new system, right? I mean, I understand that the British Academy actually adopted it several years ago.
FEINBERG: I'm not sure that their system is the same, but yes, they and Screen Actors Guild and certain other voting organizations do use e-voting, but I think the concern of the Academy, rightfully so, is they would be a prime target for hackers. So in order to guard against that, what they have done is tried to create a system that is secure.
But as their spokesperson told us, you know, there's challenges. You can't have total convenience or total security. You need to sort of find a middle ground. And for members who have sort of thrown up their hands and said I give up on the e-voting, they have almost all been accommodated, from what I can tell, in terms of getting a paper ballot Fed-ex'd to them.
CORNISH: Scott, no offense, but, you know, people's job here is to basically watch the movies and then vote on the ones they like. I mean, this doesn't really sound like hard work. Okay. So I understand they're waiting till the last minute. But how can it really affect - is there any concern that this could actually affect what movies are nominated this year, what movies have a chance to win?
FEINBERG: There is concern and it's coming from the members, you know, who are telling us that they or people - other members that they know, have sort of eventually thrown up their hands in frustration, you know, and said, we may not vote at all because it's just too big a pain in the neck.
So, yeah, there's concern that voter participation could be down a lot this year. Although, the Academy says voting patterns are consistent with the way that they've been in years past, I don't know that they would have extended their deadline unless they saw that there was some sort of an issue.
CORNISH: Scott Feinberg is an awards analyst for the Hollywood Reporter. Scott, thank you for explaining it.
FEINBERG: My pleasure.
CORNISH: And we should say we put in a call to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. A spokesperson there told us most of the issues they've seen have been forgotten passwords and user Ids - in other words, user error - and that most of those problems have been resolved. They acknowledge logging into the voting system is more challenging than logging into most other websites. It was designed that way to protect the security and integrity of the vote.
The nominations for the 85th Academy Awards will be announced a week from today.
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A little more than a year ago, the Obama administration tried to reboot the practice of citizen petitions of the federal government for the 21st century with its We The People Initiative at the White House website. In its first year, the program generated more than three-and-a-half million signatures for various petitions. Until recently, though, the program hasn't generated much more than media attention.
From the successful petitions to release the White House beer recipe to the unsuccessful petitions to secede filed in all 50 states following the 2012 election. Petitions that garner at least 25,000 signatures within 30 days are supposed to earn a response from the administration.
And to look at how effective the program has been we turn to J.H. Snider. He's president of iSolon.org, a nonprofit public policy institute that examines democratic reform in the information age.
J.H., welcome to the program.
J.H. SNIDER: Thank you for having me here.
CORNISH: Now, when you look at the petitions - I went online and looked at some of the top signature getters, and I have some examples: A petition to legally recognize Westboro Baptist Church as a hate group, also one to request that President Obama be impeached.
Is it this wide an array of things? I mean, is this very typical of the kinds of petitions that have cropped up on the site over the last year?
SNIDER: Well, if you ever have an ability for anybody to speak up, and a petition is an open forum, you'll get a lot crazy ideas and hopefully a few useful ideas. This is just the nature of public speech. You know, what is the function of a petitioning website? I think it's to put new issues on the agenda.
But one of my disappointments is the great majority of petitions that have gotten the most publicity and the greatest response to the White House were issues that were already to be dealt with - Newtown shootings, student loan. Issues like that...
CORNISH: So you're referring to petitions in which the administration did issue a lengthy statement.
SNIDER: That's right and pointed to the legislation. The question is, in that case, is the petition really making a difference?
CORNISH: What are some other issues that the administration has actually responded to via the site? What is the quality of the responses? What's the range?
SNIDER: Well, there's a lot of variation. One of the petitions is, you know, please really respond to what we say rather than give us a political non-answer. For example...
CORNISH: So there's a petition for better answers to the petition?
(LAUGHTER)
SNIDER: That's right, yes. There's a lot of frustration. A lot of the responses are sort of political responses, where you're not quite sure what the person is saying. They say, on the one hand, we support and recognize your concerns. But on the other hand, nothing is really happening.
CORNISH: J.H., looking at the program, what are two or three things you think that would make it better?
SNIDER: Well, I'd like to see dates on the White House responses to petitions - they had them earlier on - then you can see how long they're taking to respond and when they're clustering, or are they waiting till after the election. I'd like to know how many people start filling out a petition and then they don't finish it. There's a huge drop-off, and maybe we can get a better understanding as to exactly, you know, where in the process they're getting tripped up.
What I would like to see is Congress develop some basic ground rules for how petitions should be used, some basic standards of disclosure, so that the political types who end up taking control of these type of websites are limited in their discretion, of how they can manipulate the site and present information to the public. So, just a little bit more accountability in the process.
CORNISH: Is this really necessary? I mean, in this day and age, if you want to get the attention of the government, there are special interest groups. I mean, what makes this worth pursuing?
SNIDER: Well, it can be highly motivating to advocacy groups who want to create a coalition. Because people don't want to get involved in politics unless they can have an impact and here you're promised to get some type of response. And to the extent that we don't discourage that, I think that's useful. That doesn't mean we have to pay attention to all of them.
But it's a forum to try to get heard and that's very valuable, especially - we are large country, it's just very difficult for the unorganized to get organized and be effective. So I think this could help move the ball forward. And the question is how could we fine-tune it to do that in the most effective way possible?
CORNISH: Well, J.H. Snyder, thank you so much for talking with me.
SNIDER: Great, nice to be here, thank you.
CORNISH: J.H. Snyder is a fellow at Harvard University and president of iSolon.org, a nonprofit public policy institute that looks at policy in the information age.
We reached out to the White House about the We The People site. They say citizen petitions have made a substantive impact. They point to petitions on online piracy legislation and regulating Internet puppy mills that they say have spurred action by the administration.
Moreover, White House officials in a statement said this: The goal of We The People is not to change policy based on reaching a petition threshold, but to create opportunities to organize around issues of common interest; and if successful, get the White House to engage through an official response, including on issues that might not otherwise be the subject of conversation in Washington.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
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And I'm Robert Siegel.
We may have avoided the fiscal cliff for the moment, but most Americans will still feel a dip in their take home pay this year. That's because payroll taxes that fund Social Security were not on the negotiating table this week in Congress. They are resetting back up to where they were at the end of 2010. It's an increase of two percentage points.
And as NPR's Kirk Siegler reports, that's a big deal for some middle class families in this sluggish economy.
(SOUNDBITE OF A BARKING DOG)
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Brandon and Theresa Reese feel like they did everything right. They waited until they felt financially secure enough to have a baby, and buy this modest house in a mostly working-class neighborhood in Encino, northwest of Los Angeles.
THERESA REESE: We're not poor but we're not rich. We're, you know, doing all right.
SIEGLER: The Reeses didn't overspend, so Theresa could afford to stay home part-time from her marketing job and raise their now eight-month-old son, Colin.
T. REESE: Instead of paying to have someone else raise him for us, which was our goal all along. We kind of, you know, waited until we were in our 30s and we have our house, and we kind of have our whole situation all set. And we really made our budget tight but we were able to pull it off.
SIEGLER: But the frustrated Reeses now feel they've been caught in the tangle of Washington politics. They followed the fiscal cliff drama closely, and are relieved their income taxes aren't going up, for now. That would have been the biggest hit, they say. But the couple makes just under the cap of $113,700, so all of their wages are now subject to a 6.2 percent payroll tax. People who earn more than the cap aren't taxed at the same rate.
BRANDON REESE: You know, it's not a huge amount of money but it's something we definitely rely on every month in order to cover all of our bills.
SIEGLER: The Reeses have done the math and they figure they'll have about a hundred bucks less each month toward their family budget.
T. REESE: I mean, we also refinanced our house already just so we could save about that much money that they would be now taking. Just, you know, every little cut that we could do, we've pretty much done it.
SIEGLER: Cuts, like move to a cheaper cell phone plan. Brandon may also start paying a little less each month toward his student loan debt. He's a business analyst at a nearby software company. What they want to avoid, though, and they're not sure they can, is Theresa going back to work full-time.
B. REESE: My wife working more than this little part-time hours that she does put in was something that we've kind of mentioned and we're really, really hoping to stay away from because we like the amount of time she's able to spend with our baby.
SIEGLER: While it's especially acute here in the sprawling San Fernando Valley, this kind of small but still significant squeeze is no doubt playing out in middle class pockets like this across the country. The payroll tax holiday was never meant to be permanent. It was passed in late 2010 as a stimulus, to put more money in workers' pockets while the economy was down. But people got used to it and now it's going away.
JORDANN BRADLEY: Oh hey, Kirk. I'll buzz you in, man.
SIEGLER: OK.
(SOUNDBITE OF A TONE AND MACHINERY)
SIEGLER: Thirty-year-old Jordann Bradley has lived in the Valley all his life. He and his wife currently share this apartment, though the two are rarely here. Both are putting themselves through college. She is still at work at a nearby jewelry store. Jordann is home from his IT job.
BRADLEY: For me, I think that two percent payroll tax really stuck with me, just because my wife and I, we are, you know, we're middle class. But most of all, we're the working class.
SIEGLER: The Bradley's figure, combined, they'll take home about $115 less a month.
BRADLEY: That's school books for a couple semesters. That's groceries for a few months. With the gas prices, that's gas for a few months.
SIEGLER: Bradley says he can see both sides of the argument. He understands keeping the taxes lower gives him a little bit more money, but there's also the debt to think about. Still, for he and his wife, the right now is most important, their day-to-day expenses and things they can't plan for.
BRADLEY: You know, what if the car breaks down? What if the transmission goes out? You know, what if something, you know, unforeseen medically happens that's not covered by insurance? Well, you know, that $700 that we could count on before suddenly becomes a vital part of, you know, of our survival.
SIEGLER: But it's a reality Bradley will have to deal with for now. There was little political support to extend the payroll tax holiday, especially with the national debt mounting. And a gridlocked Congress that only reached a temporarily deal on most other taxes and spending, after months of debate.
Kirk Siegler, NPR News.
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In 2009, a Topeka, Kansas man named William Marotta answered an ad on Craigslist. A lesbian couple, Angela Bauer and Jennifer Schreiner, wanted to have a child and needed a sperm donor. Marotta, who was a mechanic and married with no children, waived a $50 fee and signed an agreement with the women, relinquishing the rights and responsibilities of a parent.
Three years later, Schreiner, the baby's biological mother, had fallen on hard times and sought state assistance, including medical treatment for the toddler conceived with William Marotta's sperm. The Kansas Department for Children and Families pressed her for the name of the biological father. She identified Marotta. And now the question is: Is he responsible for child support?
Well, Tim Hrnechir has been covering this story for the Topeka Capitol-Journal and joins us now. Welcome to the program.
TIM HRENCHIR: Thanks.
SIEGEL: And first, sperm donors aren't exactly novel. What was it about this arrangement that lead the state to ignore that agreement that Mr. Marotta signed with the two women?
HRENCHIR: State law in Kansas says a man is considered a sperm donor if he makes a sperm donation and the artificial insemination is carried out by a physician. In this case, though, the insemination was not carried out by a physician and that's what the state of Kansas says is different here and why Mr. Marotta is a father and not a sperm donor.
SIEGEL: And what's the reasoning, apart from preferring to have a doctor do it than not. I mean, what does the doctor achieve in that case, according to the theory of the law.
HRENCHIR: When a doctor's involved, the state's able to talk to the doctor and confirm that this is a legitimate sperm donor and not, for example, a boyfriend who's posing as a sperm donor, but should actually be required to help support the child.
SIEGEL: Now, from what I read in your story, in this case, the women, Bauer and Schreiner, had been together for eight years and had adopted some children, had foster children before they tried artificial insemination. Since then, I gather, they've broken up.
HRENCHIR: Yes. They broke up in late 2010.
SIEGEL: But it doesn't seem to be in dispute that they had a real relationship together and that they raised, still, I guess a total of eight kids together.
HRENCHIR: Yes. They continue to co-parent those kids, even at this point.
SIEGEL: So in this case, the state would regard Angela Bauer, the woman who was not the biological parent, she's irrelevant, as far as the state's concerned to this child's case.
HRENCHIR: Right. She's considered a nonentity. She says she's willing to provide support for the child, but, A, she's not been working since early last year because of a medical problem and, B, the state of Kansas doesn't recognize same-sex marriages, so it lacks the authority to require her to pay child support.
SIEGEL: And Marotta, since the baby was born, did - was he a part of the family? Was he - did he take part, did he contribute money toward the upkeep of the child?
HRENCHIR: No. He contributed no money or anything like that. The only involvement that he had was passive. They sent him occasional emails with updates on the development of the child.
SIEGEL: So where does he stand right now, the notion of the state agency says he should be responsible for a child who they claim is his child?
HRENCHIR: Well, right now, the state's trying to have him declared the father of the child. If he is declared the father of the child, then they'll be able to collect child support from him. He is opposing that. A motion to dismiss the case will be heard next Tuesday in Shawnee County District Court.
SIEGEL: But what's at issue in determining whether he's the father of the child? Is it simply the DNA paternity test, which we think we know what the answer will be, or does it take into account the agreement that he signed with the women in which they all agreed that he would have no responsibility toward the child?
HRENCHIR: That's one of the things that the court will need to determine that I can't tell you an answer for sure. In 2007, we had a case involved where a guy who had been a sperm donor donated sperm for a woman to become pregnant and then decided afterwards that he wanted to be considered the father, wanted to have parental rights and responsibilities. That case went clear to the Kansas Supreme Court and they said that he doesn't get the parental rights and responsibilities.
He is a sperm donor because he donated for the reasons of being a sperm donor and it was carried out by a medical physician. So the state's saying that under that ruling, Marotta is a parent instead of a sperm donor because he didn't donate using a doctor. Marotta's attorney says, well, guess what? Marotta did exactly what the guy in the other case did. The only thing was, the mother took it to a doctor and in this case, they didn't.
SIEGEL: Tim Hrenchir, thank you very much for talking with us.
HRENCHIR: You're welcome.
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The 113th Congress was sworn in today, bringing with it a number of firsts. White men now make up a minority of the 200 members in the House Democratic Caucus.
CORNISH: In the Senate, there will be 20 women, an all-time high.
SIEGEL: Also, the first Republican African-American senator in more than three decades.
CORNISH: We'll hear more about the Senate in a moment. But first, some drama in the House on a day normally reserved for ceremony and celebration. As NPR's Tamara Keith reports, Ohio Congressman John Boehner kept the speaker's gavel but only after some tense moments during the roll call vote for re-election.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Boehner had already been picked by his fellow Republicans in a private vote. The vote of the full House today was essentially ceremonial. There shouldn't have been any question about Boehner winning the speakership. But as the fiscal cliff fight dragged on, conservatives in the conference became increasingly unhappy. The whispers got louder.
Out in the conservative blogosphere, it was more like shouts. If enough Republicans didn't vote or voted for someone else, election of the speaker would have to go to a second ballot. Boehner could be ousted. And so when the voting began, there was some suspense. With the third name called, the drama heightened.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Amash.
KEITH: Justin Amash is one of the most conservative members of the House, voted in as part of the Tea Party wave of 2010. His vote went to a fellow Tea Party conservative.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Labrador.
KEITH: Unlike most votes, which are electronic, for this one, each member had their name called. They stood and yelled out their choice. Democrats overwhelmingly voted for the minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, and the Republicans voted for Boehner. But in several cases, there was silence. Two voted for former Congressman Allen West, who recently lost his re-election bid. Kansas Republican Tim Huelskamp is one of those who voted against the speaker and has vocally questioned his leadership after being booted from a committee assignment last month.
REPRESENTATIVE TIM HUELSKAMP: I think it was, you know, a vote of no confidence. I mean, in this town, the intimidation and pressure was intense. There are a lot of people that wanted to vote no.
KEITH: Several Republicans milled around the chamber with what looked to be scorecards, counting the votes and the non-votes. There were serious faces and frenzied conversations.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: The reading clerk will now call the names of the representatives-elect who did not answer the first call of the roll.
KEITH: Slowly, and at least one case, reluctantly, a handful of non-votes spoke up and selected Boehner. The suspense was over.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Therefore, the Honorable John A. Boehner of the state of Ohio, having received the majority of the votes cast, is duly elected speaker of the House of Representatives for the 113th Congress.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING)
KEITH: It's not going to be an easy job. Boehner will lead a majority slightly smaller than the one he ushered in in 2011. Then Republicans had just notched a massive victory, largely a result of the success of Tea Party candidates. But it didn't take long for Boehner's newly, more conservative conference to start causing him trouble. Many of those people are back, and some of them just voted against him in the speakership election.
As he accepted the gavel for another term, Boehner talked about the challenges ahead. And, as he's known to do, choked back tears.
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: If you have come here humbled by the opportunity to serve, if you have come here to be the determined voice of the people, if you have come here to carry the standard of leadership demanded not just by our constituents but by the times, then you have come to the right place.
(APPLAUSE)
KEITH: Two years ago, the tone was very different.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED SPEECH)
KEITH: There was at least some nod to bipartisanship, a hope to get things done despite differences. That optimism was gone from today's remarks, with the speaker instead focusing on the fights ahead.
BOEHNER: It's a big job, and it comes with big challenges. Our government has built up too much debt. Our economy is not producing enough jobs, and these are not separate problems.
KEITH: There are potentially three big battles in the next three months - first, the debt ceiling, then the automatic spending cuts of the sequester, then the funding of the government - all big deadlines, all likely painful partisan feuds. Boehner may have won the speakership, but it may be a job he ultimately wishes he didn't have. Tamara Keith, NPR News, the Capitol.
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: I'm David Welna on the Senate side of the Capitol. The 113th Congress got started here with about 10 minutes of drama. That's how long it took Illinois Republican Senator Mark Kirk to struggle up the 45 steps on the east side of the Capitol.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING)
WELNA: It was Kirk's first time back since being sidelined by a stroke nearly a year ago. A crowd greeted him outside the Senate chamber.
SENATOR MARK STEVEN KIRK: Thank you. Thank you, guys. Good to see you, guys.
WELNA: Vice President Joe Biden had helped Kirk up the steps along with West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin. For North Dakota Republican John Hoeven, that bipartisan effort was a sign that this new Congress may actually bridge a deep partisan divide.
SENATOR JOHN HENRY HOEVEN: I think there is a growing sentiment that we have to do that. You have to be optimistic because we have to get things done.
WELNA: The Senate that may or may not get things done is unique in various ways. The 20 women who'll be part of it are the most ever to serve in the upper chamber. One of them, Wisconsin Democrat Tammy Baldwin, is the first openly gay senator. South Carolina Republican Tim Scott, who was appointed to fill the seat Jim DeMint resigned, is the first black senator from the South since Reconstruction. And Majority Leader Harry Reid appeared on the Senate floor with several newly acquired sores on his cheeks.
SENATOR HARRY REID: The marks that people see on my face, that has nothing to do with the fiscal cliff or the disagreements that Speaker Boehner and I had.
WELNA: They were instead the result of a visit to the dermatologist to have sun-damaged skin removed. But Reid did have some advice to offer Boehner: to keep allowing bipartisan bills passed by the Senate such as this week's fiscal cliff compromise to be voted on in the House.
REID: As Speaker Boehner saw on New Year's Day, when he allows every member of the House to vote - not only Republican members of the House to vote - Congress can enact bills into law.
WELNA: Reid also put colleagues on notice that any more budget deals will have to include additional revenues, as well as spending cuts.
REID: During this Congress, the 113th, Democrats will continue to stand strong for the principle of balance, and I'm hopeful and confident my Republican colleagues will do the same. Any future budget agreements must balance the need for thoughtful spending reductions with revenue from the wealthiest among us and closing wasteful tax loopholes.
WELNA: But Republican Leader Mitch McConnell wasn't buying it. Congress, he said, is through dealing with taxes.
SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL: The revenue debate is over. President Obama declared the other night that those he calls rich are now paying their fair share. So it's time to move on. The president got his revenue. Now it's time to turn squarely to the real problem, which we all know is spending.
WELNA: McConnell added that President Obama and Senate Democrats ought to start talking now about what kind of spending cuts they'll be making because Republicans won't agree to any more deals without them.
MCCONNELL: In a couple of months, the president will ask us to raise the nation's debt limit. We cannot agree to increase that borrowing limit without agreeing to reforms that lower the avalanche of spending that's creating this debt in the first place.
WELNA: In fact, the first legislation approved by the Senate is likely to be more spending. Majority Leader Reid said of the unfinished business left over from the last Congress, storm damage relief for states in the Northeast is at the top of his to-do list.
REID: The first crucial matter we'll address will be the long-overdue aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy. I'm hopeful that the House will act as they said on the 15th. And when we get back here, we'll move on it very, very quickly.
WELNA: Beyond that, Reid said the Senate has to do something to make things work more smoothly than they have in recent years. There are several proposals to limit the use of the filibuster. Reid said he won't officially end this first legislative day of the Senate until something is agreed on. David Welna, NPR News, the Capitol.
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The Federal Trade Commission has closed its long-running antitrust investigation of Google. The search giant avoided any financial penalties, and the FTC's move is widely seen as a victory for Google. NPR's Steve Henn has been following the story and joins us now to fill us in on the details. And, Steve, this investigation has been going on for years. And now that it's over, I mean, how big a victory is it really for Google?
STEVE HENN, BYLINE: Well, it's pretty enormous. For Google, the biggest treat to its business was that the FTC might decide to bring a formal antitrust case against Google or attempt to regulate how Google creates and displays its search results. Competitors like Microsoft and Yelp, a site which offers local restaurant reviews, have been arguing for years that Google tweaks its own search results to favor its own products and services. Last year, the FTC's own staff agreed. And they recommended bringing an antitrust case against Google. But today the FTC's commissioners decided to side with the search giant, so that's a pretty huge win.
CORNISH: What's been the reaction in the industry?
HENN: Well, obviously, Google's pretty pleased, but its competitors are furious. They immediately pointed out that both state attorneys general here in the U.S. and regulators in Europe are still investigating Google's search practices. And the FTC's already taking some heat for this decision. Here's FTC Chairman Jon Leibowitz defending the decision at a press conference this afternoon.
JON LEIBOWITZ: Many of Google's critics, including many of its competitors, wanted the commission to go further in this investigation and regulate the intricacies of Google's search engine algorithm. The commission exhaustively investigated allegations that Google unfairly manipulated its search engine results to harm its competitors. And today, the commission has voted to close this investigation unanimously.
HENN: Leibowitz said commissioners and staff reviewed close to 9 million pages of documents. And while there was some evidence that Google manipulated search results to benefit its own products, he and other commissioners were ultimately convinced Google's primary reason for changing the look and feel of its results was to enhance users' experience.
CORNISH: The search was just one part of the FTC's investigation. Did the commission forced Google to make any concessions?
HENN: It did. Google made some small voluntary concessions in search and advertising. It promised to make it easier for small businesses to advertise on competing search engines and pledged to stop copying content, or scraping content from other websites without permission, and then using that content in its own local search results.
Google also agreed to scale back its patent wars with rivals in the mobile phone industry. Last year when Google bought Motorola, it acquired a host of what are called standards essential patents. These are patents on basic technologies in mobile phones that are necessary for any mobile phone to work. Motorola and Google had refused to license some of these technologies to competitors on reasonable terms, and then they were suing those companies if they used these technologies in mobile phones sold in the U.S. As part of today's agreement, Google has promised to end that practice and drop those lawsuits.
CORNISH: NPR's Steve Henn. Steve, thank you for explaining it.
HENN: My pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
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You might remember actor Gerard Depardieu's role in the movie "Green Card." His character married a woman just to attain U.S. citizenship. Well, Depardieu is French. And these days he is fleeing his home country in real France, in real life to avoid a 75 percent super tax on millionaires. Before Christmas, he stirred outrage by moving to Belgium. And now, as NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports, he has an offer from Russia.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Foreign language spoken)
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Just when the French thought the Depardieu affair had died down, it came roaring back to life with a cold blast of air from Russia. The Kremlin announced that Vladimir Putin had signed a special decree granting Depardieu citizenship. As it turns out, that isn't so far fetched.
VLADIMIR FEDEROVSKI: You know, Depardieu is a great star in Russia. He had a lot of movies and the Russians love Depardieu.
BEARDSLEY: That's Vladimir Federovski, a Russian writer who lives in Paris. Federovski says Russia has a flat 13 percent income tax rate. While the Oscar nominee hasn't said whether he'll accept the Russian offer, in this advertisement for a Russian bank, Depardieu says I love Russia and Russia loves me.
(SOUNDBITE OF AD)
BEARDSLEY: The giant, bon vivant actor has starred in more than 150 films in the last four decades. Christophe de Voogd is a political analyst at Sciences Po University.
CHRISTOPHE DE VOOGD: Depardieu is, of course, first, a major French star, but also he's kind of symbol because the guy comes from a very low-class family. And he's a kind of example of self-made man, which is not very common in France.
BEARDSLEY: De Voogd says the French are divided by the Depardieu affair because they also have an egalitarian streak.
VOOGD: At the same time, many people are saying, well, the rich can pay, the rich must pay.
BEARDSLEY: Perhaps the actor will reconcile with his government. The wealth tax was struck down as unconstitutional this week, and the Elysee Palace confirmed that Depardieu called President Hollande on New Year's Day. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
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In New Delhi, five men have been formally charged with rape and murder in the assault of a young student last month. The case unleashed public anger across India, along with demands to overhaul the system that handles crimes against women. The suspects were also charged with the attempted murder of the young woman's companion who was beaten unconscious but survived the assault.
NPR's Julie McCarthy was at the courthouse today and sent this report.
JULIE MCCARTHY, BYLINE: The charges were filed after normal court hours were over. The police say the reason for the delay was a glitch in the electronic filing of what is a 1,000-page long charge sheet. It purports to lay out a grisly set of facts against five of the accused and is to remain sealed.
But local journalists who shared knowledge of its contents say that the prime accused in the attack on a moving bus was the driver, Ram Singh, reputed to be quick-tempered and a heavy drinker. He had regularly transported schoolchildren in the same bus. Ram Singh is alleged to have encouraged his brother, another defendant, to mow down the 23-year-old rape victim after she had been thrown from the bus along with her badly beaten male companion.
The couple were said to have been lured onto the bus, believing that three of the accused were simply passengers. Another issued them tickets to make the ride appear legitimate. Two of the charges are criminal conspiracy and a common intention to commit a crime.
The sixth accused is alleged to have been the most brutal of the group and the first to taunt the couple about being out together at night, but he is not being tried with the five other men. Police today said he was 17 years old and therefore a minor and cannot be tried for murder.
At the brief hearing, the police pressed for an in-camera trial, ostensibly to shield the victim's family from further anguish. But Ranjana Kumari, director of the Center for Social Research, says it is ill-advised in a case of such huge public interest.
RANJANA KUMARI: From our point of view, there is absolutely no reason why the trial should be held in secrecy. We are absolutely of the opinion that it should be open. People want to see. People want to know, hear. And everybody wants to know every detail of it. What is there to hide?
MCCARTHY: Had it not been for an aggressive Indian media that banged at the door of the sealed courtroom today and demanded entry, the charges would have been registered with no member of the public or press to witness it.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHANTING)
MCCARTHY: None of the accused was inside the court, but the passions they invoked were obvious outside where demonstrators cried: Guarantee punishment for the accused. Mass demonstrations moved India's Supreme Court to establish a special court to hear this and other cases of sexual violence.
Attorney Poonam Kaushik of the Progressive Women's Association says a fast-track court is imperative.
POONAM KAUSHIK: The fair and speedy trial in all sexual assault cases should be ensured. The long court procedures, the insensitive medical administration, the insensitive attitude of the police should be done away with.
MCCARTHY: Two women, Vinni and Tulsi, who offered their first names only, hoped for a glimpse at the case that could set precedents and a sense of accountability. They could not contain their fury. First Vinni, then Tulsi.
VINNI: (Foreign language spoken)
MCCARTHY: If it were in my power, says Vinni, I'd chop off the hands of those men and happily go to jail. No women will want to give birth to girls in this country, adds Tulsi. And then men, she says, will be left by themselves.
The case resumes Saturday.
Julie McCarthy, NPR News, New Delhi.
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After 10 years in power, Turkey's ruling AK Party, or the AKP, still defies easy categorization. It's an outlier on the political spectrum. To other Islamist parties in the region, it's too secular and pro-Western. But by secular Turkish standards, it's too religious.
As NPR's Peter Kenyon reports from Istanbul, the AKP has recently been shifting to the right, and that has some government supporters worried.
PETER KENYON, BYLINE: AKP is Turkish shorthand for the Justice and Development Party. It's a popular name among Islamist parties. There are versions in Morocco, Algeria, Libya, Pakistan and elsewhere.
But Turkey's rendition is by far the most successful. And part of that success, says analyst Ihsan Dagi, at Middle East Technical University in Ankara, lies in its elusive nature.
IHSAN DAGI: Sometimes it appears as a democratic party with ideas of reform; sometimes we see a party with conservative leaning, attempting to regulate social behavior. So it's really strange. I'm also trying to understand what they really stand for.
KENYON: News organizations have lobbed a series of adjectives at the party over the years without quite managing to pin it down. A brief survey turns up post-Islamist, Islamic-leaning, moderately Islamic, or a party with roots in political Islam. That last has been used by NPR, among others.
The party itself hates all of those phrases, insisting that it's simply a conservative democratic party. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has described himself as a religious man whose job is to defend Turkey's secular government, all of which sounded much more convincing several years ago when the AKP was leading Turkey on an unprecedented spate of democratic reforms with an eye toward joining the European Union.
Then the government began removing leading secular Turks known as Kemalists after Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey, from key positions in the military, the judiciary and elsewhere. Many wound up in jail awaiting conspiracy trials.
These moves, combined with years of solid economic growth, left the AKP utterly dominating the political landscape, says analyst Gokhan Bacik at Zirve University in Gaziantep.
GOKHAN BACIK: But especially since the last general elections, AKP is not facing a serious opposition.
KENYON: In the last 18 months, however, democratic reforms have virtually ground to a halt. Moreover, critics warn, Erdogan may have removed the secular elites from authority, but he has left the highly centralized mechanisms of Kemalist power in place and seems ready to put them to his own uses.
RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN: (Foreign language spoken)
KENYON: In recent remarks, Erdogan complained about the separation of powers that hindered his efforts. This thing called separation of powers, he said, comes and stands in your way as an obstacle.
While much of the world notices how different the AKP's agenda is from the old Kemalist vision, what Turks are seeing is another strong-willed leader ready to reshape the society - forcibly if need be.
Giving full voice to his conservative values, Erdogan has called abortion murder and threatened the makers of a popular soap opera for highlighting an Ottoman sultan's exploits in the harem instead of on the battlefield.
Turkey expert Soner Cagaptay at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy says there's some irony in seeing Erdogan develop something remarkably similar to the heavy-handed leadership style of Ataturk.
SONER CAGAPTAY: This was a party that wanted to go against establishment and state power in Turkey. I think Erdogan now seems comfortable with the idea that he is the state. And he's just happy to enjoy the reins of power.
KENYON: But when it comes to what to call the Justice and Development Party, there's another aspect to consider. Columnist Yavuz Baydar says as jackhammers and cranes multiply around Istanbul, it's easy to see why some want to call it the Development and Development Party.
(LAUGHTER)
YAVUZ BAYDAR: That's right. Many people argue these days that it can be called just the Development Party. It has focused more and more in terms of material modernization. But when it came to the, you know, sort of abstract modernization, you know, what Turkey needs really - facing the past, dealing with the present and designing the future - that is the part that has become troublesome.
KENYON: Some Turks say the justice side of the party's agenda could resurface. But with the lure of joining the EU now greatly dimmed, if not extinguished, the question is what will motivate Turkey's leaders to relinquish a measure of their power in the name of a democratic future.
Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Istanbul.
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The mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado, in July of last year left 12 people dead and 58 injured after a lone gunman opened fire on an early morning screening of "The Dark Knight Rises." Now the movie chain's owner, Cinemark, plans to re-open the theater later this month, a move that has outraged victims' families. . has outraged victims' families. Ryan Parker of The Denver Post was one of the first reporters on the scene after the shooting, and he's been covering the story ever since.
Ryan, there's been a lot of talk about what to do with the specific theater, theater number nine, where the shooting took place. And in the end, what was decided?
RYAN PARKER: We're being told that construction will combine theater eight and theater ndnine where the shooting took place. That will become an enormous XD theater with wall-to-wall, ceiling-to-floor screen. As far as any memorial goes, a plaque, a statue, nothing has been reported. We do know that on January 17th, the reopening will occur for the victims' families and for others who would wish to attend who were invited. That's being called a special evening of remembrance. That's also the evening and the invitation that infuriated family members of victims, saying that they would not want to return to the, quote and unquote, "slaughter house," is what they're calling the theater now.
CORNISH: When we last talked about this story, all of Aurora had been asked actually to weigh in, in a survey. Is this the result of that input? What was the result of that poll?
PARKER: That is correct. It seemed that for the most part, the residents of Aurora did want to see that the movie theater reopen, and Mayor Steve Hogan said that he believed that it was a step in the right direction as far as the healing process goes for the community, and he supports it fully. He and Governor John Hickenlooper will be attending the reopening ceremony that will be occurring on January 17th.
CORNISH: And as we mentioned, some of the victims' families have written the management of Cinemark and are calling for a boycott of what they call, quote, "the killing field of our children." What are some of the other issues that the families raised here?
PARKER: Well, one of the families that I spoke to yesterday said that they were outraged at the fact that Cinemark had extended no other communication to them, no condolences, nothing, other than this invitation, and they felt that that was very insulting. They felt that if the chain really wanted to do something to show compassion, what they would do is they would take a percentage of the profits and they would put it toward victims' funds, helping victims, victims' families and so forth.
CORNISH: You mentioned some of kind of fund, but are there outstanding legal issues against Cinemark?
PARKER: Yes, there are. There are a number of lawsuits that are ongoing as we speak concerning the security and staff training that night.
CORNISH: Now, is there a consensus on this issue among the families about what should happen to the building?
PARKER: You know, there's really not. I spoke to a few families yesterday who were very much against the reopening and the reopening ceremony that they were invited to, but then again, today, I received a letter from a different family member who read my piece yesterday, and they wrote that they support the theater reopening, that they understand that it's a process of the healing, and that they're going to attend it, and that they hope that their attendance will show the community that they need to be strong, and that they can't be afraid to go to theaters anymore.
They can't be afraid to enjoy theaters, and they can't be allowing folks who would do such an atrocity to win almost. The gentleman said that although the seat next to him will be vacant because he will be holding it for his slain son, he'll have a hand to hold if anybody needs to be comforted.
CORNISH: Ryan Parker is a reporter with The Denver Post. Ryan, thank you so much for speaking with us.
PARKER: Thank you very much for having me.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Anyone who grew up listening to the radio or putting vinyl discs on a record player in the early 1950s will recognize this tune instantly.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TENNESSEE WALTZ")
SIEGEL: "Tennessee Waltz" sung by Patti Page sold 10 million copies, and that was just one of her 15 gold records. Patti Page died on New Year's Day at age 85 in California. She is remembered as the biggest female singing star of the 1950s and in the state of Oklahoma as a native daughter who made good.
Dr. Hugh Foley was part of the committee that inducted her into the Oklahoma Music Hall of Fame, and he joins us now from Stillwater. Welcome.
DR. HUGH FOLEY: A pleasure to be with you, Robert.
SIEGEL: And Patti Page came from Oklahoma, with rather very modest Oklahoma roots, I gather.
FOLEY: Yes, Sir. She was born in Claremore, Oklahoma. That's about 15 miles northeast of Tulsa. It's also where Will Rogers called home.
SIEGEL: In the 1940s, late '40s, she made a song called "Confess" in which through the miracle of recording as it still seemed in those days, I guess, one could hear Patti Page singing with Patti Page.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CONFESS")
FOLEY: It was her idea, as I understand it, to add her own backup vocals to the track to create the impression of a vocal group, and as a matter of fact when they put the listing of performers on the record, it was the Patti Page Quartet.
SIEGEL: And I gather part of the virtue of it to the recording company was how cheap it was to have her do both parts.
FOLEY: Sure. You only have to pay one singer to do them all, so it worked out for her and for them.
SIEGEL: Patti Page will, I suppose, be remembered onto eternity for having recorded the great early '50s novelty tune "(How Much is That) Doggie in the Window."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "(HOW MUCH IS THAT) DOGGIE IN THE WINDOW")
FOLEY: She said that "Tennessee Waltz" was a much bigger hit and artistically very significant, but what she's often remembered for sometimes derisively is that "Doggie in the Window" song because what rock music writers talk about with the onset of rock in the early 1950s is that popular music had just gotten silly.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "(HOW MUCH IS THAT) DOGGIE IN THE WINDOW")
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TENNESSEE WALTZ")
FOLEY: One of the things I think is really interesting about, especially when you start to talk about "Tennessee Waltz," is just how popular that song was on several fronts. I mean it was a mega-crossover hit, and she was able to become a country music artist as well as a pop music artist, and even "Tennessee Waltz" was considered an R&B hit.
SIEGEL: I'm still trying to figure out that one, but I've read that in all the obits that "Tennessee Waltz" broke - just broke through all barriers.
FOLEY: Oh, it sure did. When you listen to Patti Page, I think you can hear in her voice a polished element that comes from years of being in the popular music environment, but she was also able to conjure up her Oklahoma-ness, and so there is an easy delivery to her "Tennessee Waltz" that transcends the genre boundaries.
SIEGEL: Dr. Foley, thank you very much for talking with us.
FOLEY: My pleasure.
SIEGEL: Dr. Hugh Foley is professor of fine arts at Rogers State University in Claremore, Oklahoma. We were talking about the late Patti Page.
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And I'm Robert Siegel. The beginning of the New Year is a time when people take stock of their lives. They reflect on the past and contemplate the future. Well, be advised, a recent study found that people generally fail to recognize just how much their personality and values will change in the years ahead. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce reports that no matter how old you are, you seem to believe that you are who you are today is who you'll be tomorrow.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: Daniel Gilbert is 55 years old. He says when he thinks about what he'll be like in the next decade, he has this feeling that he'll basically be the same person.
DANIEL GILBERT: I have this deep sense that although I will physically age, I'll have even less hair than I do and probably a few more pounds, that by and large, the core of me - my identity, my values, my personality, my deepest preferences - are not going to change from here on out.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Gilbert is a psychologist at Harvard University. It occurred to him that this feeling was rather odd. He knows he's changed a lot in the past. He's a different person now than he was when he was younger.
GILBERT: Is it really the case that we all think that development is a process that's brought us to this particular moment in time, but now we're pretty much done?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: He and his colleagues wanted to investigate this idea, but first they had to figure out how. One thing they could do was just ask people how much do you think you'll change in the next decade, then wait around to see if people's predictions were right.
GILBERT: The problem with that is, it takes 10 years.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: So Gilbert says they came up with a much quicker approach. The researchers got almost 20,000 people to take some surveys. There were questions about their personality traits, their core values, and preferences. Some people were asked to look back on how they changed over the last 10 years. Others were asked to predict how they thought they would change in the next decade. Then the scientists crunched the data.
GILBERT: We're able to determine whether, for example, 40-year-olds looking backwards remember changing more than 30-year-olds looking forwards predict they will change.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: They found that people underestimated how much they will change in the future. People just didn't recognize how much their seemingly essential selves would shift and grow. And this was true whether they were in their teen years or middle-aged like Gilbert.
GILBERT: Life is a process of growing and changing, and what our results suggest is that growth and change really never stops, despite the fact that at every age from 18 to 68, we think it's pretty much come to a close.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Now, Gilbert says personality changes do take place faster when people are younger.
GILBERT: A person who says I've changed more in the past decade than I expect to change in the future is not wrong. They are correct.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: But that doesn't mean they fully understand what's still to come.
GILBERT: Their estimates of how much they'll change in the future are under-estimates. They're going to change more than they realize. Change does slow, it just doesn't slow as much as we think it will.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: The studies are reported in the journal Science, and it impressed Nicholas Epley, a psychology researcher at the University of Chicago.
NICHOLAS EPLEY: And I think the finding that comes out of it is a really fundamentally interesting one, and in some ways, a really ironic one as well.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: He says everyone seemed to remember change in the past just fine.
EPLEY: What was bad, though, was what they predicted for the future.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: He says if you want to know what your next 10 years will be like, it's probably good to look at what your past 10 years were like, even though we seem to not want to do that. Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.
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The government took a big step today toward a new system for making sure that fresh fruit and vegetables are safe to eat. The Food and Drug Administration proposed new regulations that will cover many of the country's food processors and farmers who grow fresh produce. NPR's Dan Charles has that story.
DAN CHARLES, BYLINE: The federal government has never before laid out rules for how farmers should keep their fruit or vegetables free of dangerous bacteria. But those healthy foods can and do make people sick. Two years ago, cantaloupes that carried Listeria bacteria killed at least 33 people. Government scientists tracked the fruit to a farm in Colorado. But FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg says public health officials shouldn't just react to disease outbreaks. It should try to prevent them, and they can.
DR. MARGARET HAMBURG: Modern preventive standards will reduce outbreaks, will reduce illness, and will benefit American families and our food industry as well.
CHARLES: Congress asked for these regulations two years ago when it passed a far-reaching food safety law. Writing them took longer than expected because it's a complicated problem. Disease-causing bacteria can get into a field of fresh vegetables in lots of ways: through compost that hasn't been properly treated, irrigation water from contaminated ponds, farm workers who haven't washed their hands or wild animals who leave their droppings in fields.
The FDA's proposed rules deal with all of that and more. They're hundreds of pages long. Now, people on all sides of the safety debate are going through every page. David Gombas, a food safety expert for the United Fresh Produce Association, an industry group, actually welcomed the new regulations.
DR. DAVID GOMBAS: We are glad to see them.
CHARLES: Big vegetable growers and retailers already have come up with their own safety rules. Many of those rules are similar to what the FDA now says it will require. Some industry rules are actually tougher. And Gombas says having one nationwide standard is better than lots of different, private rules.
GOMBAS: What we've been saying all along is we need federally mandated rules that everyone can look at and say, yes, these are the procedures and practices that must be in place to assure that produce is grown safely.
CHARLES: But Gombas does plan to complain about one thing. He'd like the FDA's rules to apply to all farms, large and small. The FDA's proposal does not apply to farms that sell less than half a million dollars worth of food each year and sell to consumers or stores nearby. Congress specifically exempted these farms from the regulations, saying that small farmers cannot afford to comply with them. Food safety advocates, meanwhile, like Erik Olson, director of Food Programs for the Pew Charitable Trusts, were happy that the FDA finally had released something.
ERIK OLSON: This is a big deal. We're talking about the first major overhaul of our food safety controls for FDA, really, since the Great Depression.
CHARLES: But some food safety advocates have argued the rules should require fresh food producers to conduct random tests of their vegetables for harmful bacteria. The FDA's draft rules do not require this. The agency says such tests don't usually catch instances of contamination. Environmentalists, meanwhile, are encouraged by sections of the FDA's document that say you can produce safe food without getting rid of wild animals. Jennifer Biringer from The Nature Conservancy's office in California says some of the strict food safety rules set up by private companies have pushed farmers to get rid of habitat for animals.
JENNIFER BIRINGER: Farmers are, for example, being asked to create almost antiseptic conditions in their farm fields by doing things like removing vegetation along riverbeds.
CHARLES: Everybody has 120 days to comment on the draft regulations and propose changes. Dan Charles, NPR News.
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On Monday, Coptic Christians will celebrate Christmas and many of them will do so outside their native Egypt. Copts have practiced their faith there for nearly 2,000 years, but with the recent revolution, their future in the country looks uncertain. Many are resettling in the United States, where analysts estimate the population has grown by nearly 30 percent since the Arab Spring began. Reporter Bruce Wallace has the story of new immigrants flocking to a church in Queens, New York.
BRUCE WALLACE, BYLINE: Cymbals keep time with chanting at a recent service at St. Mary and St. Antonios Coptic Orthodox Church in Ridgewood, Queens. It's the end of Kiahk, the Coptic month before Christmas. A priest coaxes clouds of incense out of a golden censer. People file in and out. Children shuffle between moms sitting to the right of the church and dads across the aisle to the left.
UNIDENTIFIED TEACHER: They used to live in Nazareth. Because of the census they went to Bethlehem.
WALLACE: In the basement, a church elder walks 60 college-age churchgoers through stories of Jesus' birth. The small room is overflowing. So is the church.
FATHER MICHAEL SORIAL: I would say probably in the last two years our community has, if not doubled, quite possibly more than doubled in size.
WALLACE: Father Michael Sorial says the small church now has over a thousand members, its numbers ballooning with new arrivals from Egypt. [POST-BROADCAST CLARIFICATION: The church's membership is actually more than 1,000 families.]
The story is the same at churches around New York, New Jersey and Southern California, the centers of Coptic life in the U.S. since the early 1970s. Nationwide, researchers estimate that as many as 100,000 Copts have joined a pre-revolution population of around 350,000. They're leaving continued instability in Egypt, uncertain economic prospects combined with ongoing violence.
Mariana Bolis is from Assiut, home to a big concentration of Copts. Her father was a victim of this violence.
MARIANA BOLIS: He was a priest and he was killed at home. So after this accident I decided to leave Egypt and to go anywhere.
WALLACE: They call it an accident but the family is clear about what happened. They say he was murdered by Muslims. Bolis arrived in Queens with her husband and two children in the middle of October. Like many of the new arrivals, they came on tourist visas and applied for asylum. In 2011 the number of U.S. asylum cases from Egypt doubled over the previous year.
Expenses here are hard even for well-off families like Bolis'. Gameel Gergis is her husband.
GAMEEL GERGIS: The rent is very high here in New York, yeah. Around 80 percent of my savings will go to the rent. So it's a big problem for me.
WALLACE: He needs to get recertified to work as a pharmacist. Many other new arrivals end up taking jobs delivering food or stocking bodega shelves. The church expects a spike in immigration on the heels of a new constitution in Egypt that many say leaves Copts and other minorities unprotected. Ashraf Aweeda is a lay leader at St. Mary. He says his phone is ringing off the hook.
ASHRAF AWEEDA: I don't even know these people who call us. They getting the numbers from people they know in Egypt. And, yes, they calling to ask us, how much money we should bring with us? What do we need to bring with us? What type of paperwork we need? Everything. They want to know everything about living here.
WALLACE: The church is beefing up efforts to help people resettle, solve visa issues, get work and find housing. No small feat in this city's tight real estate market. Despite the challenges, most new arrivals plan to stay put. Many are from the educated middle classes that have traditionally anchored the community. But more and more are poorer, rural and less educated, facts that increase the struggle to start a new life.
At St. Mary and St. Antonios, the story of the Nativity has added poignancy this year.
UNIDENTIFIED TEACHER: She gave birth in Bethlehem and then the angel appeared to her to go where? Egypt.
WALLACE: Escaping danger, the story goes, Jesus, Mary and Joseph flee into Egypt. With a few days left before Coptic Christmas, many of these Copts are thanking God for helping them flee to the U.S. For NPR News, I'm Bruce Wallace in Queens.
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Recent data suggests South Korea is now the fastest-aging country on earth. By some estimates, nearly 40 percent of Koreans will be 65 years old or older, by midcentury. In a sense, the country is suffering from its own rapid development, which sent life expectancy soaring and birth rates plummeting. From Seoul, NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports on some novel ways the country is preparing for old age, and for the epidemic of dementia expected to come with it.
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ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Senior citizens and their families stand in a circle and sing Korean folks songs. Artworks made by the seniors decorate this clean and sunny community center. A sign on the wall identifies it as the Gangseo Center for Dementia. Gangseo is one of 25 urban districts in Seoul and since 2006, the city has put a dementia center in each of them.
This center helps to lighten Jeon Om-ryul's burden. Her husband was diagnosed with dementia, and she's been bringing him here to the center every week, for the past two years.
JEON OM-RYUL: (Through translator) For 12 years, I raised my granddaughter, until my husband got sick. Now I take care of him. I've never had the energy to think of myself. Whenever I think of what will happen to me, all I can do is cry. I wonder who will take care of me. I fear that only the government can.
KUHN: Last year, Korea passed a dementia-management law establishing the centers, and mandating that citizens over 65 be checked for dementia symptoms. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: The dementia-management law was passed in 2011.] Social worker Kim Dong-hun says that the most fulfilling part of his job at the center is helping the patients to imbue their activities with purpose and meaning. But he says the social stigma associated with dementia, makes it hard to reach out to the patients.
KIM DONG-HUN: (Through translator) We publicize our programs intensively, but one of the biggest challenges we face is that many people still have not changed their attitude towards dementia. Even if you go to their house to find them, they don't want to come out.
KUHN: Sung Mi-ra, secretary-general of the Seoul Metropolitan Center for Dementia, estimates that South Korea currently has about 530,000 dementia patients, out of a total population of 50 million. She estimates that there will be a million patients by 2025. She says that dementia costs South Korea the equivalent of $8 billion a year in hospital fees and lost income, and that figure will double every decade. Sung says that South Koreans need to start seeing dementia as a disease.
SUNG MI-RA: (Through translator) In the past, whenever someone got dementia, it was treated as a natural occurrence. If you get old, you lose your mind, went a common saying. Nobody treated this condition because people believed that's just the way it is.
KUHN: Compared to other developed countries, very few elderly South Koreans live in nursing homes. Confucian attitudes about filial piety are still prevalent here; and while they're less common now, many families still have three or more generations living in one home. Sung says South Korea's approach to aging assumes that family members - not the government - will provide most of the care to the elderly.
SUNG: (Through translator) Institutionalizing a demented parent is seen as unfilial. For this reason, dementia patients should be living at home with their families. So what's important is that the community creates an environment where this is possible. This is why centers like ours are being established all around the country.
KUHN: Another hallmark of South Korea's approach is to train young people to empathize with the elderly, and prepare for their own senescence.
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KUHN: Some students at a center for the elderly in suburban Seoul find the training rather fun. High school student Kim Dong-hyun finds out what it's like to be hoisted from his bed into a chair, using a winch and sling. His giggling classmates are wearing sandbags, to weigh down their limbs; back braces, which force them to stoop; and glasses, which impair their vision. Kim says he's still mulling over the implications of his training.
KIM DONG-HYUN: (Through translator) I am worried about the aging of our society. We need to get ready. I'm not sure what I, personally, can do to get ready; have a lot of children to take care of me in my old age, I guess.
KUHN: The class instructor says the training inspires some students to reconsider how they treat their elders. And it makes some others simply dread the coming of old age.
Anthony Kuhn, NPR News.
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And I'm Robert Siegel. Every once in a long while, a new technology comes along and changes our economy: the steam engine, the telegraph, the personal computer. Well, some people think the next thing on that list could be the three-dimensional printer. With our Planet Money team, Zoe Chace now takes a closer look at this new technology and whether it has the potential to be an economic game-changer.
ZOE CHACE, BYLINE: First the 3-D printer is the biggest misnomer ever. Do not think printer. Think magic box that creates whatever object you can imagine.
PETE WEIJMARSHAUSEN: Watch it, watch it, it will come. There it goes.
CHACE: Pete Weijmarshausen peers into one of the printers, about the size of a refrigerator. He's the CEO of Shapeways, a 3-D printing company in New York. Inside, razor-thin layers of raw material - powdered acrylic, powdered nylon, powdered silver, whatever - are deposited precisely one on top of the other. You look through the window like an oven window and see the object taking shape from the bottom up.
WEIJMARSHAUSEN: And this is how grows, layer by layer.
CHACE: Oh, I see. After a few hours, you've got stuff, all kinds of stuff.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: So here we have a shoe.
WEIJMARSHAUSEN: Rings, bracelets, pendants, iPhone cases, lots of them, iPad cases.
CORNISH: Seeing it in front of you, it's hard not to imagine this will have a radical impact on the economy. It's miraculous-looking: press a button to make an actual thing out of raw materials. That looks like a revolution. But the industrial revolutions we're familiar with, they're very different from what I'm seeing here. Say the steam engine, those technologies centralized production, made the mass production of stuff into huge business.
CHACE: Terry Wohlers is an analyst who's been watching 3-D printing technology since its inception 20 years ago, and he says that's not the right comparison to make. The 3-D printer does not replace what came before it.
TERRY WOHLERS: If you're producing, say, trash cans or stadium seats, you'll more than likely produce them the old way: in Asia using conventional methods of manufacturing.
CHACE: What it is revolutionary, or at least innovative, is how flexible this allows manufacturing to be. Right now, you can only 3-D print out of certain materials. But soon enough, you'll be able to make stuff out of anything. That's how Weijmarshausen, the 3-D printing CEO, sees it.
WEIJMARSHAUSEN: Say you want a T-shirt that is perfect for you. Now, I think in a few years, we can print clothing, and then you can have clothing without sizes, but you have the size that fits you.
CHACE: You don't order a small, medium or large, you order like a Zoe.
WEIJMARSHAUSEN: Yes.
CHACE: Just imagine for a second, everything you would want custom made, super cheap, and this is already happening. You fly in planes from Boeing and others with parts in them that have been 3-D printed. Right now there are 30,000 people walking around with 3-D-printed titanium hips inside, way less expensive than they used to be.
WOHLERS: And they're just getting started. The possibilities in orthopedic manufacturing really is almost limitless.
CHACE: In the future, analyst Terry Wohlers says forget about titanium or even cotton. Try human tissue.
WOHLERS: You lose a finger, you print out a new one.
CHACE: Yeah, like, actual body parts, printing out new fingers using your cells.
WOHLERS: Bones and bladders and eventually kidneys and so forth.
CHACE: There's another thing to keep in mind, though, about the arrival of 3-D printing. If the industrial revolutions that we know centralized things gave birth to enormous companies that make a massive amount of things, 3-D printing kind of reverses that process.
CHRIS ANDERSON: What's new is the fact that the most advanced, you know, machines are now as accessible to regular people as they are to the biggest companies.
CHACE: Chris Anderson is not strictly a regular guy. He's the former editor of Wired Magazine, now the CEO of a robotics company. He says the 3-D printer democratizes who gets to be in manufacturing. Anybody with a good idea can have a pretty good prototype really cheaply and then bring that product to the masses.
ANDERSON: Taking a product from one to many, taking a product through its entire cycle, from invention to creation and marketing and building a company around it, that just wasn't possible in most of the 20th century because manufacturing was just so hard and inaccessible.
CHACE: So if you want to go into business manufacturing stuff, there is a much lower barrier to entry. Soon enough, Anderson says, you might see 3-D printers showing up at Wal-Mart or Barnes & Noble, on desktops, in the office, whatever. That doesn't mean everybody will do it, but the fact that is now so easy to be the boss of your own factory, that is a pretty revolutionary idea.
ANDERSON: You know, Karl Marx's line that, you know, the power belongs to those who own the means of production. And regular people didn't own the means of production.
CHACE: And isn't it funny how it's working out? It's capitalism that's taken the means of production and turned it into a point-and-click experience for anyone. Zoe Chace, NPR News, New York.
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Baby boomers have always held sway in the marketplace. And as they age, their tastes are becoming more important when it comes to funerals. Graying boomers are driving a trend toward more personalized memorial services. Peter Gray, of member station WUIS, reports on how the funeral industry is responding.
PETER GRAY, BYLINE: Old Aristocracy Hill isn't a part of Springfield, Illinois, that draws a lot of attention. This quiet neighborhood dates back to before the Civil War, its historic homes now carefully preserved by proud businesses owners. It's about the last place you'd expect to hear this pulling out of the parking lot of a stately funeral home.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOTORCYCLE ENGINE)
GRAY: This black-and-chrome Harley Davidson motorcycle trike tows a matching casket in its glass-sided trailer. It's exactly what 67-year-old Lew Bird says his friend Dave Rondelli wanted - one last ride.
LEW BIRD: Our generation, the baby boomers, have really taken to motorcycles. We're retiring, and we can afford to do that type of thing, and he loved it. He retired, and he rode his bike a lot. You know, I guess if you're going to go out, go out the way you really like to go.
GRAY: Chris Butler is director of Butler Funeral Home; and says he bought the motorcycle funeral coach because increasingly, his customers are looking for a highly personal experience and something different.
CHRIS BUTLER: Funeral customs change over time, and they tend to reflect the culture in which they're practiced. And today, people are wanting, very much, their ceremonies to reflect their life; you know, the meaning of their life. So we can offer families the traditional as well as unique options for honoring and remembering their loved one.
GRAY: Butler says posting an obituary to his company's Facebook page is one option to get funeral information out to the community quickly. But not everyone in the business thinks that's a good idea. Randall Earl is the past president of the National Funeral Directors Association, which tracks trends in the industry. He's been in the business for 40 years and has concerns about some of the innovations, including using social media in the funeral planning and grieving process.
RANDALL EARL: It can be very harmful if you have family members that are angry with other family members, and they have a death.
GRAY: Earl believes it's just too hard to control what's said and done by mourners on social media platforms.
EARL: I would say we're just trying to protect our business as well as our families that we serve. And I do not have a Twitter or Facebook page, for those reasons.
GRAY: But Greg Young sure does. Five years ago, he left a job at IBM to launch funeralinnovations.com. The 32-year-old entrepreneur argues that careful use of social media can vastly improve the memorial experience while maintaining the appropriate level of privacy.
GREG YOUNG: Every funeral home needs to have their own strategy. There is no cookie-cutter approach. There may be some times where you do not want to post the obituary. We do have those cases that we work with.
GRAY: Young's company sells Web, mobile and social media marketing. He thinks that like so many other things, the future of funeral planning will be on tablets and smartphones. As families scatter across the globe, he says that often the best way for his clients to connect with mourners may, indeed, be online.
YOUNG: And we're really starting to push webcasting - which has been out there for years, but funeral homes typically have not accepted it. We think it's very important to preserve that moment; for generations to come to easily come back and access that information, learn more about their ancestors.
GRAY: Webcasting for genealogy; Facebook pages for grieving families; and mobile devices to plan a funeral or find an obituary, even a motorcycle hearse - they're all things that may or may not stand the test of time. But what's clear is whatever changes endure will likely be those sought by baby boomers, who continue to drive consumer trends in life and in death.
For NPR News, I'm Peter Gray in Springfield, Illinois.
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And I'm Audie Cornish. New York and New Jersey are getting some much needed federal disaster relief, but at least for now, it's far less than the states' leaders had requested. Today, Congress approved nearly $10 billion to replenish the National Flood Insurance Program. The move comes after a major blowup earlier this week when House leaders failed to act on a larger aid package. NPR's Tamara Keith has our story.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: It's been more than two months since Superstorm Sandy battered New York and New Jersey. And for much of that time, the state's governors and congressional delegations have been working on a $60 billion aid package. The Senate passed it last month, but the House never took it up, despite promises from leadership. With the start of the new Congress, that bill died.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie didn't hold back and blamed House Speaker John Boehner personally.
GOVERNOR CHRIS CHRISTIE: It is why the American people hate Congress. It's why they hate them. And Governor Cuomo and I are as frustrated as two people can be because unlike people in Congress, we have actual responsibilities.
KEITH: That was but one highlight of a long, angry press conference Christie held on Wednesday. He wasn't the only Republican openly criticizing the Republican leaders of the House. The outrage was deafening. And so, the very first bill passed by the new Congress is a peace offering - $9.7 billion in funding to the National Flood Insurance Program, which was set to run out of cash early next week.
New York Congressman Peter King is the most vocal advocate for Sandy funding among House Republicans.
REPRESENTATIVE PETER KING: This legislation is vital. This is not a handout. This is not something we're looking for as a favor. What we're asking for is to be treated the same as victims in all other storms, all other natural disasters have been treated.
KEITH: Disaster relief has typically breezed through Congress, but in the current deficit-conscious environment, it's become a harder sell, with some Republicans demanding offsetting spending cuts. Some argue the Senate bill was loaded up with pork. It's still not clear why Speaker Boehner decided to let the $60 billion aid bill die earlier this week, but he's pledged to take up additional funding later this month.
New York Democrat Gregory Meeks isn't going to be happy until the House comes through with the other $51 billion.
REPRESENTATIVE GREGORY MEEKS: I don't have any reasonable explanation for why it wasn't done and so I'm getting a promise that we're going to do something on the 15th. It's just a promise that's not backed by anything. I don't have - it's not a secured loan at this point, so I don't know what it is.
KEITH: The scaled-back bill passed the House easily and was approved by the Senate with unanimous consent. New York Senator, Democrat Chuck Schumer spoke on the Senate floor just before.
SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER: The major work of helping the victims of Sandy is still ahead of us. The bad news is that we even have to go through this dog and pony show in the first place.
KEITH: He reflected the real sense of mistrust after what happened earlier this week.
SCHUMER: To be a bride and left at the altar once is bad enough. To be left twice would be unconscionable.
KEITH: In a joint statement, Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York and New Jersey's Chris Christie called today's measure a down payment and said they are trusting Congress to act on the rest of the disaster aid on the 15th. Tamara Keith, NPR News, the Capitol.
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And now our Friday political observers, columnists E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and the Brookings Institution, and David Brooks of the New York Times. Happy New Year to both of you.
E.J. DIONNE: Happy New Year to you.
DAVID BROOKS: Happy New Year.
SIEGEL: Let's revisit the nation's climb down from the cliff this week. Here's a cynical view of what happened in the waning hours of the 112th Congress. Faced with a self-imposed deadline to address a projected long-term imbalance between federal spending and revenue, after much breast-beating, the Congress and the administration bit the bullet and gave 98 percent of Americans a permanent tax cut and kicked a can the size of Wyoming down the road for two or three months.
David Brooks, two cheers for Washington, one cheer?
BROOKS: That view is not cynical enough. This was a complete failure. You know, we could have had a balanced approach, which was what the president offered, which was some tax increases and some spending cuts. We didn't get that. We got no spending cuts. We could've taken care of our long-term debt problem. We did almost nothing for that. We could've had a short-term stimulus. We did almost nothing for that.
We could've cleared the decks of all this budget fighting and gotten on to immigration and gun control, the other stuff. Instead, we guaranteed several more months of more and more budget fighting. So I'd say this deal was a complete failure. And I actually don't blame Washington. I blame the American people. For the last couple generations, American voters want to spend money on themselves and take money from future generations and this continues the trend.
SIEGEL: And yet, E.J., you've managed to write optimistically about this very same deal. Tell us what you see full in the glass here.
DIONNE: What I see in the glass is that for the first time in over two decades, a whole - a significant number of Republicans in Congress were willing to say we need more revenue. They raised the top tax rate back up to where it was under Bill Clinton, and they did some other things in this deal that will - are just one more step down the road toward fiscal balance. And I think that's very important.
Are there shortcomings in this? Sure there are. There are certain taxes I think should be higher. It should've had stimulus. I don't disagree with that critique of it. The question is, what do you think it's going to have next - what is going to happen next? I think the biggest shortcoming is that this bill didn't take the debt ceiling off the table. President Obama is counting on pressure from the business community and others to push the Republicans to say, we're not going to risk wrecking the economy in order to win a few more spending cuts.
What he doesn't - it's not clear what his strategy to prevent that is.
SIEGEL: Well, let's look ahead then to what is going to be the next round in this battle over the budget. Who came out of round one strengthened or at least with a clear position, David?
BROOKS: Well, I mean, the president had the - this was his high-water mark. He had the prospect of big middle-class tax increase, the prospect of recession. This was his high-water mark. Next time we'll - I assume we'll have the same kind of fight we had this time. Why should we assume it'll be different? The politics are essentially the same. Somehow we'll punt. I really don't think we're going to be doing any entitlement reform.
I doubt there'll be much more spending - tax increases. There's just not much more room on the rich. For Democrats, it's - for Republicans, it's a short-term problem. For Democrats, it's a long-term problem. They need more tax revenue to pay for their programs. What's essentially happened, Obama asked for 1.6 trillion, Boehner offered 800 billion, they ended up with 600 billion. There's going to be no money to pay for Democratic programs, and domestic discretionary spending under the Obama budget is shrinking more than under the Paul Ryan budget.
SIEGEL: E.J.?
DIONNE: I think if you look at what Obama put on the table and I quite agree, that would have been better than this. What he proposed at the end was about a trillion-two in revenue and a trillion-two in cuts. What we have left to do if we want to get on a sustainable fiscal path for the next ten years, we need about a trillion-two more plus the interest savings you get from that.
In principle, we ought to be able to split that, 600 billion in cuts, 600 billion in new revenues from tax reform. I'd like a carbon tax or a tax on financial transactions. That's not going to happen. But you can get the money you need out of tax reform. But what I worry about is that we won't take that rational path. We're going to have a ridiculous fight over the debt ceiling, which we really have never done before except in 2011.
And we won't be able to pursue it. But it is a way in which we could put these problems behind us and we could view this deal as half the job done and do the other half in the next couple of months.
SIEGEL: Well, let me ask you about one thing that I think fits the Republican definition of entitlement reform. At one point, President Obama offered and then as the deal shrunk, he withdrew, the offer to change the way we calculate the cost of living from the current CPI to a changed CPI. It would reduce the way we describe inflation by about two-tenths of one percent per year and it wasn't very popular among Democrats.
By proposing that even briefly, has the president signaled this is a card that he's prepared to play at some point down the road as a spending cut?
DIONNE: I think the president is willing to do a little bit more than most Democrats or liberals would like done. The changed CPI proposal that you refer to, there were a fair number of liberals who don't like it, but if it included some protections for lower-income seniors down the road, I think that's the most legitimate fear.
I think something like that could end up in a deal someday. But the president put together some cuts in health care programs that are very doable and that I think could win support across the board, and we'll see if he tries them again.
BROOKS: Yeah, but this is trivial. By 2025, entitlement programs and interest on the debt will take up every single cent of federal revenue. There have to be gigantic cuts. According to the IMF, if we act today, we have to cut all benefits by a third, all federal benefits, and we have to raise all federal taxes by a third. This is a gigantic problem. The CPI, the changing of the CPI is a teeny, tiny step they couldn't even get through this time.
And the Republican problem is they want to cut spending, they want to reform entitlements, but they know these things are so unpopular they can't even ask for the things they want to do.
DIONNE: And what I want to say is we don't have to solve all the problems of 2025 now. If we can solve it for 10 years and try to deal with other problems like job creation, education, gun violence, we'd be much better off.
SIEGEL: E.J. Dionne, David Brooks, thanks to both of you.
DIONNE: Thank you.
BROOKS: Thank you.
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Now to a heroic kind of New Year's resolution.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
EVERETT DOWNING: My goal was to create 365, draw a super every day.
CORNISH: That's Everett Downing, a story artist at Pixar Animation Studios. He's worked on some of their best-known films, including "Wall-E," "Up," and "Toy Story 3." Three years ago, as a side project, Downing challenged himself to draw a superhero of his own making for every day of the year.
DOWNING: And I figured, eh, it'd be easy to belt out 365 supers, I think I have that many in my brain.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Well, like many New Year's resolutions, the effort started out well enough...
DOWNING: And then it was really, really hard.
(LAUGHTER)
SIEGEL: Downing stopped that first super-resolution around his 210th superhero. That's not bad. But as we recently read on the website of Wired, this year he's made a vow to finish what he started. Among Downing's creations so far...
CORNISH: Silent Knight. That's Knight with a K.
SIEGEL: Cable Guy.
CORNISH: XO-Skeleton.
SIEGEL: Shoulder Blades.
DOWNING: Death Ray, Cataclysm, Whipper Snapper - that's a duo, by the way - Fancy Pants, Superfreak, the Silencer, Kung Fu Hustler. You've got Quik Shogun, Ball and Chain - that's another duo.
SIEGEL: A married duo: Ball is a cannonball who propels himself at his enemies. His wife, Chain, frequently lashes out against her foes with mystical chains.
CORNISH: There's also Emoticon.
DOWNING: I think I wrote that he's, like, a disgruntled public worker.
CORNISH: A man more villain than superhero who leaves a trail of destruction and a winking smiley face.
SIEGEL: And another team of two: Dober-Man and the Pincher.
DOWNING: So the idea behind this guy is that he's actually, like, this exotic veterinarian who got bitten by a genetically altered Doberman, so he has Doberman-like powers. So he can run about as fast as a Doberman Pinscher and...
(LAUGHTER)
DOWNING: He can bite really hard.
SIEGEL: We presume the dog, on the other hand, inherited a mild disposition and lots of student loans.
CORNISH: As for the origin story behind Downing's love of superheroes...
DOWNING: You know, whenever we're faced with something that's kind of overwhelming, all of us wishes that we could have something that could make us larger than life, that we could make a lot of the problems go away.
CORNISH: Even after three years and hundreds of sketches, for artist Everett Downing superheroes will always have a special kind of draw.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
"Tenth of December" is the new collection of stories from MacArthur "genius" award-winner George Saunders. And our reviewer, Alan Cheuse, says it's a book for everyone from serious students of the American short story to those folks just looking for a good read.
ALAN CHEUSE, BYLINE: Saunders is one of the most gifted and seriously successful comic short story writers working in America today. And his comedy, like most great comedy, is dark, as in "Victory Lap," the opening story, in which a suburban teenage girl finds herself a kidnap victim. She's snatched from her front yard by a deranged Christian-minded sex creep and then rescued by a nerdy, dreamy teenage neighbor.
Dreamy might also describe the state of mind of the pale adolescent hero of the title story, "Tenth of December." He's a boy who wanders off into the winter woods in a fantasy about a miniature race of creatures that live in the rock wall in the park near his house, and in his heart, a girl named Suzanne.
In this story, another one about inadvertent heroism, the boy follows a would-be suicide until he himself finds his own life in danger, and the suicide takes preventative measures. The surge of the characters' thoughts carry the reader along in this one as if on a relentless flowing stream.
We discover in several of the other stories it's not only teenagers in the spotlight here, though Saunders does teenagers just brilliantly. In "Escape from Spiderhead" and "The Semplica Girl Diaries," two longer pieces, Saunders tilts adult reality just a touch to the side.
"Escape from Spiderhead" and "The Semplica Girl Diaries," just two odd names to you now, but after you read the stories, you won't forget them. George Saunders is the real thing, the successor to such dark comedians of ordinary speech as Donald Barthelme and Grace Paley. He's a Vonnegutian in his soul and, paradoxically, a writer like no one but himself.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CORNISH: That was Alan Cheuse reviewing the new story collection "Tenth of December" from George Saunders.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
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And I'm Audie Cornish. A newspaper in the normally sleepy suburbs of New York City is now at the center of a noisy debate over guns and privacy. After the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in neighboring Connecticut, the Journal News, in White Plains, published an interactive map. On the map - the names and addresses of local gun permit holders. As NPR's Joel Rose reports, local leaders are now trying to make sure the paper can't do it again.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: In New York state, the names and addresses of gun-permit holders are considered public information. So when the Journal News asked for them under the state's Freedom of Information law, county officials in Westchester and Rockland counties complied; turning over information for roughly 40,000 permit holders that the newspaper published on its website. But officials in Putnam County, a largely rural area about an hour north of Manhattan, did not.
DENNIS SANT: We're not talking about the rule of law anymore. We're talking about endangering our citizens.
ROSE: Dennis Sant is the Putnam County clerk. At a press conference yesterday, Sant explained why he will not comply with the Journal News' request.
SANT: I'm refusing because I could not live with myself if one of my pistol-permit holders in Putnam County had to face a dangerous situation.
ROSE: Dangerous, says State Sen. Greg Ball, because the online map makes it easy to find anyone with a gun permit, including victims of domestic violence who got that permit to protect themselves and their families.
STATE SEN. GREG BALL: ...and retired cops who put murderers and rapists and thugs and gang members in jail. And now their families are on an interactive map for some nutjob to get out of jail, and come kill him.
ROSE: Ball has introduced a bill that would make it illegal to disseminate information about gun permits. The Journal News declined repeated interview requests for this story, although the paper did release a statement saying it will push back aggressively to make Putnam County officials comply with their request.
The Journal News has received a flood of negative attention since publishing the map two weeks ago. The paper's offices in Westchester closed briefly on Wednesday because of an anthrax scare, and it's hired armed security guards to protect its staff - though the paper has its defenders, including Michael Sinclair, who works in the same White Plains office building where the paper is headquartered.
MICHAEL SINCLAIR: I don't see what the commotion's about. You know, if it's public information, you could look it up yourself. And what's the deal if it was posted in an article - I mean, unless these people feel that their neighbors are going to look at them differently. Then maybe they should rethink owning a gun.
ROSE: First Amendment advocates are quick to defend the Journal News' legal right to publish the gun-permit information. But some critics say the argument here isn't just over what is legal.
JULIE MOOS: They absolutely have a right to publish it. Unfortunately, that alone doesn't explain the value of publishing it.
ROSE: Julie Moos heads Poynter Online, the website of the nonprofit Poynter Institute for Journalism. She says the Journal News should have provided more analysis and reporting about what the data means; instead of leaving its readers to sort through the names and addresses, largely on their own.
MOOS: Particularly because they tied it to the Newtown shootings, the implication that you're left with is that there is some danger simply to people in this county owning guns. Without any supporting materials, people are left to draw their own conclusions about what it means. And people will draw those conclusions from their own experiences, their own biases and their own fears.
ROSE: Moos says there are 15 states, including New York, where information about gun-permit holders is now part of the public record. A lawmaker in Connecticut recently introduced a bill that would add that state to the list. But few news organizations seem to be racing to follow in the footsteps of the Journal News.
Joel Rose, NPR News, New York.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
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And I'm Audie Cornish. Scientists throughout the west are investigating a mysterious disappearance. Mule deer are vanishing. In Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, populations are half what they were in the 1970s. From Aspen Public Radio, Luke Runyon reports on some possible reasons.
LUKE RUNYON, BYLINE: When John Halandras was just a boy growing up on his family's ranch in the northwest corner of Colorado, his father would take him deer hunting. Back then, it wasn't even a challenge.
JOHN HALANDRAS: We had literally thousands of deer. There was just deer everywhere. It seemed like they were like rabbits.
RUNYON: That's not the case today. Mule deer throughout the West are becoming more and more scarce. Halandras runs his own outfitting business out of his family ranch. His customers used to bring back 12-point bucks, no problem. Now, weeks will go by before he sees a prize-winning animal.
HALANDRAS: In good conscience, a good ethical outfitter offering a trophy deer hunt should be careful 'cause it's not like it was.
RUNYON: About a dozen researchers huddle on a flat ridge, a 20-minute drive from the Halandras ranch. Today's task, tagging and studying female mule deer in the heavily-drilled Piceance Basin, an important area for both deer and humans.
HALANDRAS: Well, it's the largest migratory deer herd in the state and it's also one of the largest energy reserves in the state.
RUNYON: Colorado wildlife researcher Chuck Anderson is the leader of this study, paid for, in part, by drilling companies. He's trying to figure out the role oil and gas development plays in mule deer decline. Anderson says human sprawl has fractured the deer's migrating paths and diminished their food sources.
CHUCK ANDERSON: Obviously, the road construction, the path construction, the pipeline construction reduces, overall, the habitat for the animals.
RUNYON: That buzz you hear in the background is a small blue and yellow helicopter that's about ready to take off. It's the method of capture for gathering the mule deer out of this area in the Piceance Basin. This deer, which was captured nearby, is dropped off in a bright orange sling. She's blindfolded and sedated. The team rushes to the deer and places her on a stretcher...
Weighs her and takes her to a tent where she'll be measured and given an ultrasound. The whole process is stressful for the deer. The researchers do their best to calm her. Lisa Wolfe is a veterinarian with the state.
LISA WOLFE: Oh, I'm just rinsing her mouth out and just giving her a drink of water, just making her feel a little bit better.
RUNYON: Wolfe says does hold the clues to this mysterious disappearance. If the researchers figure out what's harming the female deer and their fawns, they can work to slow the decline.
WOLFE: And deer are pretty adaptable. It's just making sure they have plenty of good habitat.
RUNYON: Other states have been taking measures to control another possible cause of the dwindling mule deer herds. Researchers in Utah are examining coyote populations, which prey on the deer. Both Wyoming and Utah recently increased the bounty for each dead coyote brought in. Back at John Halandras' ranch, his seven- and eight-year-old sons play in the snow.
Whether it's coyotes or the oil and gas development, he says it'll be difficult to raise the next generation of hunters.
HALANDRAS: It's sad. My kids are growing up. They don't understand. They haven't a clue of what it used to be.
RUNYON: And Halandras says he doesn't expect the herds to look anything like they used to anytime soon. For NPR News, I'm Luke Runyon in Aspen, Colorado.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Now, evidence that size really doesn't matter - that is, size of audience. Al Gore sold the cable channel he started, Current TV, to Al-Jazeera for $500 million. How many eyeballs does the Qatari-owned news channel get for that money? Well, here's some context. Here are some TV audience numbers. When NBC came in first among the broadcast networks for viewers last week, Neilson estimated they had 7.3 million viewers.
CBS was second with 6.6 million. Among cable channels, the numbers are lower. ESPN was tops that week with 3.5 million viewers. In 25th place, Comedy Central averaged 855,000. So how many viewers watch Current TV in a week? Well, joining us is New York Times media reporter Brian Stelter, who writes the Media Decoder blog.
Brian, what is Current's estimated audience?
BRIAN STELTER: About 40,000 viewers a night.
SIEGEL: 40,000 viewers a night. How does that rank among cable channels?
STELTER: It's so far down the list, it's almost hard to find. Of about 96 cable channels that are publicly rated by the Neilson Company, which is really the only way to get the ratings, 93 of them have higher ratings than Current.
SIEGEL: I gather the Fox Soccer Channel comes in behind. Well, having worked in some local radio stations, I don't look down my nose at small audience numbers, but $500 million for 40,000 households. I mean, you can drive around in a sound truck and reach more people than that. What does Al-Jazeera get for all that money?
STELTER: Well, what Al-Jazeera is buying is not audience, per se. It's buying the opportunity to get an audience in the future. It's, I guess, providing access to that audience.
SIEGEL: You mean, because Current has space on local cable franchises?
STELTER: Right. It's buying access into the home, although not at all a guarantee that anyone will watch. But for Al-Jazeera, that's a big win because for years now it's been trying to figure out how to enter American living rooms and distributors like Direct TV and Comcast and Time Warner Cable have mostly resisted those efforts. So, by buying Current TV, it's found a way in.
SIEGEL: Now, by buying Current, has Al-Jazeera bought a guaranteed spot on all those cable systems reaching all those millions of households or could my local cable system decide that Channel 107, where Current is currently sitting largely unseen, would be better used by the Peruvian Chicken Channel?
STELTER: Which would be must-see TV, I'm sure. There are these stringed cable television contracts that govern carry-ance of channels. In most of these cases, the Current TV contracts are still in force so for a couple more years, at least, companies like Comcast and Direct TV will continue to carry it when it becomes Al-Jazeera.
But one of the biggest distributors in the country, Time Warner Cable, said, no, it's dropping Current because it had the right to do so when the channel changed owners. And we'll see in the future whether Time Warner Cable decides to pick up this new Al-Jazeera Americanized network or not.
SIEGEL: Now, we're talking about the English language, global Al-Jazeera that's available in some parts of this country. Is that what's going to be on the channels they're getting by buying Current or are they going to create a new bigger English language service?
STELTER: It seems it'll be a mixture of both. It'll have quite a number of newscasts from Doha, Qatar, where its headquarters are, but it'll also add a lot of newscasts from New York and the rest of the United States. It wants to be an Americanized version of Al-Jazeera, maybe because it believes that'll put it into closer competition with the CNNs of the world and the BBCs of the world.
SIEGEL: Are there comps here - that is, can we tell if $500 million squares with any recent sales of cable channels?
STELTER: Some of the recent sales have been private, so we don't know what the comps are. However, the number isn't as crazy as it might sound at first blush because Current was making about $100 million in revenue every year. It had really good contracts with cable operators. It was getting about 10 or 12 cents per subscriber per month. Even though most of those subscribers were never watching the channel, they were still getting a dime per person.
And that added up to a lot of revenue for Current.
SIEGEL: Brian, thank you for talking with us about it.
STELTER: Thank you.
SIEGEL: That's media reporter Brian Stelter of the New York Times.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And I'm Robert Siegel.
We got a snapshot of the economy at the end of 2012 today. And if you were hoping for a big change in this morning's jobs report, the picture is probably disappointing. In short, it's more of the same.
CORNISH: There was modest job growth in December, and the overall unemployment rate was unchanged, 7.8 percent. The job market grew despite Hurricane Sandy and the budget impasse in Washington. But as NPR's Jim Zarroli reports, there was nothing to suggest a major rebound in hiring anytime soon.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: The December employment report was remarkable only for how unremarkable it seemed. Economists such as Ken Mayland had expected a moderate increase in hiring, and that's what occurred.
KEN MAYLAND: It is an OK employment report, not a good one or a stellar one. But it's not a bad one either.
ZARROLI: The report indicated that hiring rose in the construction sector, one more sign of a healthier housing market. Manufacturing and health care were also up, but retail hiring was down. Overall, the economy added 155,000 jobs, continuing to lurch forward at a sluggish but steady pace. For 2012 as a whole, the economy added 1.8 million jobs. Ward McCarthy is chief economist at Jefferies and Company.
WARD MCCARTHY: The bottom line here, I think, is that we continue to make progress in the labor market. But it's still going to take us another year and a half to two years before we regain all of the jobs that we lost during the prior recession.
ZARROLI: The report showed a slight increase in average hourly wages, and Ken Mayland says that's pretty significant. He says economic growth was pretty weak during the last three months of the year. Normally, employers would be laying people off. They'd be trying to make do with fewer workers and paying them less. But Mayland says they've already trimmed their workforces to the bone.
MAYLAND: The low-hanging fruit has been picked. And now it's just tougher and tougher to get productivity increases. So if you want output increases, you have to actually add bodies to the workforce.
ZARROLI: The most surprising feature of the report may have been what wasn't there. There was no sign of a major loss of jobs as a result of Hurricane Sandy. In fact, the storm could have been a net plus. All of the rebuilding may have been part of the reason for the rebound in construction jobs. Alan Krueger, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, says there continues to be a basic resiliency to the U.S. economy.
ALAN KRUEGER: There's been a lot of healing taking place. That's the word I like to use. The job market is on the mend, but it's not at full health.
ZARROLI: Likewise, there was a considerable anxiety over the budget impasse in December. Consumer confidence took a hit, and business investment fell off. But job growth came in at about the same rate it had been coming in all year. Ward McCarthy says that doesn't mean there wasn't an impact.
MCCARTHY: I think that we would have had more robust hiring in the fourth quarter had there not been anxiety about the fiscal situation. But we're still not completely clear of the obstacles that the politicians can throw ahead of us.
ZARROLI: McCarthy points out that there's already a new budget impasse looming. Congress has to agree to raise the debt ceiling in the months to come, and congressional Republicans have signaled they may use the occasion to pressure the White House to make deep spending cuts. That means the uncertainty over fiscal matters is likely to drag on for the next few months. And the longer it does, the more cautious employers will become about how many new workers they want to bring on.
Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
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President Obama may be going into the next big budget fight without his longtime Treasury secretary. Timothy Geithner had been planning to leave before the start of the president's second term, but that would mean he is departing with the debt ceiling still looming and the Treasury scrambling to keep up with the government's bills.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now. And, Scott, Secretary Geithner has made no secret of his plans to leave the government, but it sounds like his departure could be complicated.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Well, it could be. As you say, he's wanted to leave for a long time. It is obviously a high-stress job, and his family moved back to New York in 2011. He's been anxious to rejoin them. He agreed to stay on two years ago, but said at the time that he would leave at the end of the president's first term.
The only reason there's even a question about now - that now is that the deal that we've just gotten through to resolve the fiscal cliff did not settle this question of what happens with the debt ceiling, as the White House had hoped it would. So the Treasury Department's now been using what it calls extraordinary measures to avoid a government default.
It can do that for a couple of months, but it's not easy, especially at this time of year when the government's cash flow is at its weakest state because they start paying out tax refunds, but the - a lot of the folks it owed taxes the government won't be paying until April. So this is a tricky period. Despite that, Bloomberg News reports Secretary Geithner wants out now.
SIEGEL: Let's go over Tim Geithner's record as secretary of the Treasury. He got off to a rocky start, first of all, we should say.
HORSLEY: He did. He was, of course, dogged during his confirmation hearings by tax problems. And then his first big moment in the spotlight as secretary, in which he outlined a plan to help banks deal with their toxic assets, was widely panned. Neither the plan nor the secretary seemed ready for prime time.
But as we slowly emerged from the financial crisis, the secretary's stewardship looks a lot better. For the most part, the big-bank bailouts have been repaid. The banking sector has been stabilized, although some critics say the government could and should have done more to encourage bank lending during this period.
The auto rescue, which was run out of Treasury, was, by most measures, a big success. The carmakers are profitable again. They have their best sales since 2007 last year. Even AIG, which was probably the ugliest part of the government bailout, is now running thank-you ads on television, noting that it's paid back what it owed in full, plus $22 billion in profit. So the secretary's record looks a little better with four years' hindsight.
SIEGEL: Well, assuming that he's leaving soon, who's likely to replace him at Treasury?
HORSLEY: Well, the first name you usually hear mentioned is Jack Lew. He's the president's chief of staff, and he's a veteran of the White House Budget Office, both in the Obama and Clinton administrations. Lew knows where all the bodies are buried on the government spreadsheets. In between government jobs, he had a short stint with Citigroup, but Jack Lew doesn't really have a lot of Wall Street experience, which could be a plus politically, but might mean he needs some backup at the Treasury Department.
One reason that a lot of people think Lew might get the nod, he didn't play a very conspicuous role in this most recent round of fiscal cliff negotiations even though he had a big hand in sort of setting the stage for the president's strong bargaining position. And some people think the White House didn't want Lew to perhaps alienate any senators if he was going to need their support in a confirmation battle.
Now he has not been formally nominated, and Bloomberg reports that the White House also sounded out the head of American Express, Ken Chenault, but he was not interested in the Treasury job. And there are other candidates such as Wall Street banker Roger Altman. He's another Clinton administration veteran who's sort of the Susan Lucci of Treasury appointments. He's a perpetual runner-up who never actually gets the nod.
SIEGEL: Well, Treasury is just actually one of the vacant seats to fill in the president's cabinet or soon-to-be-vacant seats. We know about State, where Senator Kerry awaits confirmation hearings, all the talk about Defense, of course, and the discussion of possibly former Senator Chuck Hagel being the nominee there.
HORSLEY: Right. We also still have an acting secretary at Commerce ever since John Bryson stepped down for health reasons last year. Those are just the vacant seats we know about. There could be others. Attorney General Eric Holder has said under no circumstances will he stay for four more years, although he may not be gone right away. We could be looking at a new Energy secretary, maybe others. So on top of all the other business Congress has staring in the face this spring, we could be looking a lot of cabinet confirmation hearings.
SIEGEL: And a vacancy at CIA to fill as well. Scott, thanks.
HORSLEY: My pleasure.
SIEGEL: That's NPR White House correspondent Scott Horsley.
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And I'm Audie Cornish. President Hugo Chavez was scheduled to be sworn in for his fourth term as president of Venezuela next week. But his inauguration - and the country's political future - is now up in the air. Yesterday, the Venezuelan government confirmed that the 58-year-old president is suffering from a severe respiratory infection, following his latest round of cancer surgery in Cuba. Critics argue his condition shows that Chavez is no longer fit to serve as president and the opposition is calling for a new presidential vote.
Joining us with more on the news, and its implications, is Ian James, Associated Press bureau chief in Caracas. And Ian, what more can you tell us about the president's health?
IAN JAMES: The latest we've heard from the government is that he has a severe respiratory infection. And when the government added the word "severe" yesterday, it was the first time it had done that, and also said that he has a respiratory deficiency. And what, precisely, that means, it's not entirely clear. But some medical experts say they think it sounds like pneumonia, but that it could be of various levels of severity.
CORNISH: And at this point, isn't it - entirely clear what cancer he's specifically suffering from?
JAMES: No. That has also not been revealed. He was diagnosed in June 2011. And since then, he has declined to say specifically what type of cancer it is, or the precise location of the tumors that have been removed.
CORNISH: Now, what happens if Chavez is not able to be there for the January 10 swearing-in? Are there legal or constitutional concerns?
JAMES: Yes. The opposition has said that they believe that if Chavez is not here in Caracas, to be sworn in on January 10, that at that point, the process should move toward the calling of new elections, which would be held within 30 days. And among politicians and constitutional scholars as well, there's disagreement about that point.
CORNISH: So it's not clear that that actually would happen, or it could happen?
JAMES: Right, it's not clear. And also, some of Chavez's allies have made the argument that they should be able to delay the inauguration, if necessary. And the Supreme Court has also said that - although this question hasn't been brought before the court yet, it could rule on such a question if it were brought before the court.
CORNISH: Now, who are some of the people who might be next in line for the presidency? Has Chavez, essentially, handpicked a successor?
JAMES: President Chavez has made clear that Vice President Nicolas Maduro is his chosen successor to run for office, to replace him. And the opposition, although it has not said, is expected to choose Henrique Capriles, who recently was defeated by Chavez in the October election.
CORNISH: Ian, what is the next step, then? Are people in a wait-and-see position, at this point?
JAMES: Yes, it's really a tense wait-and-see for people on both sides, at this point. And some of what the plans on the government side are, may start to become clear this Saturday, when the national assembly plans to hold a session and choose its new leaders. But we're less than a week away from the swearing-in, and it's still not at all clear what plans Chavez's political allies have in mind.
CORNISH: Ian James is Associated Press bureau chief in Caracas. Ian, thank you for speaking with us.
JAMES: Thank you.
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Hugo Chavez has dominated Venezuela for so long, it's hard to imagine what the country would be like without him in charge. Opposition leaders are hoping for a new, more democratic system. But powerful factions in Venezuela want things to stay just as they are. Because the country is a key player in the region, NPR's Tom Gjelten says the U.S. is now making its own plans for life after Chavez.
TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: There's one new sign of Hugo Chavez's weakness. Markets are guessing he will not return to power. The last few days have seen a rally in Venezuelan bonds. Some investors figure the Venezuelan economy would improve if Chavez were out of the picture. Whether that's a good bet is another matter. Risa Grais-Targow of the Eurasia Group Consultancy, says she's telling her clients not to get too excited about putting their money into Venezuela right now.
RISA GRAIS-TARGOW: Markets are consistently overly optimistic about a scenario without Chavez. I think investors tend to really under appreciate the risks involved with a transition scenario, particularly given the country's deep political polarization and also the dire shape of the economy.
GJELTEN: One big risk is that there'll be a power struggle over who runs Venezuela after Chavez. Within the regime, there are two main players. Vice President Maduro is said to be the leader of the pro-Cuba faction in the government. Diosdado Cabello, the head of the National Assembly, is considered close to the army. Risa Grais-Targow says they are longtime rivals.
GRAIS-TARGOW: Up until this point, Chavez's personality, his charisma, has been able to unify those two factions. Without him, it becomes a lot less certain.
GJELTEN: And those are just the players inside the government. Former assistant secretary of state Roger Noriega lists the outside actors with a stake in how things develop in Venezuela.
ROGER NORIEGA: You have the Cubans who are essentially managing this entire succession, as crazy as that sounds, the Russians, the Chinese who are bankrolling this thing, the Iranians who are complicit with this regime, and the narco-traffickers who have gotten very used to the use of Venezuelan territory with impunity.
GJELTEN: Those are some pretty formidable players. Outside the government, Venezuela's opposition movement is still weak.
NORIEGA: The opposition is up against a seven-headed hydra, and frankly, they don't even seem to be aware of what they're up against, let alone have a plan for dealing with it.
GJELTEN: U.S. policymakers, it seems, do have a plan for dealing with a post-Chavez Venezuela. Top State Department officials recently initiated a conversation with Nicolas Maduro, the man most likely to succeed Chavez. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said yesterday those contacts do not mean there's, quote, "a made in America" solution here.
VICTORIA NULAND: We seek a more functional, more productive relationship with Venezuela. We remain open to dialogue on a range of issues of mutual interest. But in terms of any transition, any succession, it's got to be constitutional and it's got to be decided by Venezuelans.
GJELTEN: Roger Noriega, who held the top Latin America job under George W. Bush, thinks even the contact with Maduro was a mistake. His idea: Let the Chavez factions fight it out.
NORIEGA: If you have a certain amount of instability, it will shake up the system, create doubts in the system, and it's a possibility that we'll have people defecting, people who are potential witnesses in the criminality of the regime. And I just think it doesn't make any sense whatsoever for us to be stepping in without any particular agenda into the middle of that fight.
GJELTEN: A senior U.S. government official who asked not to be identified disputes whether U.S. contacts could strengthen one rival or another in Venezuela, and he pushes back against the notion that the U.S. does not have a particular agenda with Venezuela. We have profound interests there, he says, against narcotics trafficking and terrorism. We're defending those interests.
We did not get traction with Chavez, he says. With Maduro, we're getting more traction. And now there could be a payoff. If Maduro replaces Hugo Chavez as president, U.S.-Venezuela relations might well improve. Tom Gjelten, NPR News, Washington.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
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And I'm Robert Siegel. The new last-minute tax deal cobbled together by Congress and the White House has produced at least one surprise winner, electric companies. That's because the two sides agreed not to increase the taxes that most people pay on dividends. NPR's Elizabeth Shogren explains why that is welcome news to the electricity business.
ELIZABETH SHOGREN, BYLINE: First, a little reminder about what a dividend is. Some stocks pay dividends. Some don't. Usually, people choose stocks that pay dividends because they want regular income from their stocks. In exchange for that reliable payout, they get a stock that might grow slower. Most electric company stocks pay dividends so these companies went all out to try to keep taxes low on the income people get from dividends.
They ran a nationwide campaign to get regular folks like this older couple riled up about the risk.
(SOUNDBITE OF AD)
SHOGREN: Members of Congress got hundreds of thousands of messages from constituents asking them not to raise dividend taxes. In the months leading up to the New Year's tax deal, CEOs from major power companies travel to Washington to make the case with members of Congress and top White House officials. Energy analyst Kevin Book says the strategy paid off big for electric companies.
KEVIN BOOK: They're the happy beneficiary of the perception on Capitol Hill that the dividend tax rate is all about fixed income seniors.
SHOGREN: Book says the electric companies, more than any other industry, rely on their relatively large dividends to attract buyers for their stocks.
BOOK: It's sort of abstruse, but if people couldn't get as much money from those stocks, then they wouldn't want to own those stocks and that, in turn, would take away the money the power utilities had to invest in generation and transmission equipment.
SHOGREN: Industry lobbyist Brian Wolff works for Edison Electric Institute, the utilities trade group. He says protecting retirement income for regular folks wasn't the only pitch that worked with members of Congress and the White House.
BRIAN WOLFF: This year alone, we're spending about $94 billion.
SHOGREN: That's $94 billion utilities are pumping into the economy. It's spent in communities all over the country to upgrade the grid, install pollution control equipment and repair damage done by big storms like Hurricane Sandy. Wolff says Congress and the White House didn't want to jeopardize the jobs that come with that kind of money.
WOLFF: So I think that that was the really important point that they understood.
SHOGREN: So if Congress made utility stock less attractive by raising the dividend tax, utilities would have less money to spend to help the economy recover. In the New Year's tax package, Congress made the 15 percent tax rate permanent on income from dividends for individuals who make less than $400,000 and couples that make less than $450,000.
The interest was increased slightly to 20 percent for people who make more than that. If the tax package hadn't passed and the Bush-era tax cuts had been allowed to expire, dividend income would have been taxed like regular income, up to 40 percent. Tom Williams from Duke Power says his company is tickled pink.
TOM WILLIAMS: It's a huge thing for our company.
SHOGREN: Duke is arguably the largest electric company in the country. It serves about 20 million people in six states, and its stock is worth $46 billion. Williams says the company's stock is so strong because shareholders get nearly 5 percent back in dividends. Nick Akins is the CEO of American Electric Power, another of the country's largest utilities.
He was one of the executive who trekked to Washington to plead with Congress and the White House.
NICK AKINS: It was scary and our stock value actually deteriorated in the industry before the end of the year in anticipation of some kind of imposition of a higher dividend tax rate.
SHOGREN: After the tax package was announced, American Electric Power stock jumped 2 percent. Akins says this was good news in an industry that had a tough year because demand for electricity still hasn't returned to pre-recession levels. Elizabeth Shogren, NPR News, Washington.
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A hilltop mansion in Chino Hills, California, is the latest battleground in the debate over birth tourism. That's when a pregnant woman from another country, in this case China, comes to the U.S. to give birth so that her child will be a U.S. citizen entitled to a free public education down the road. Many times these women stay in what are called maternity hotels, often not hotels at all, but large homes that have been renovated to accommodate multiple mothers.
The mansion in Chino Hills, one of these alleged maternity hotels, originally had seven bedrooms, but authorities claim it had been illegally subdivided into 17 bedrooms, along with 17 bathrooms. For more on the case and on birth tourism, we're joined by Cindy Chang. She's been covering the trend for the L.A. Times. And Cindy, what have you heard from federal immigration officials about this?
CINDY CHANG: They say that there is no law against pregnant women traveling to the United States. They do say that there could be an issue with fraud, for example, if you represent that you are coming here as a tourist, but you're actually coming for a different reason. But if they're using a single-family house in a residential zone, there are going to be local code enforcement issues.
CORNISH: So is this why authorities have been going after these maternity hotels?
CHANG: Right. I mean, typically, what happens is the neighbors complain because they notice a lot of comings and goings. In the Chino Hills case, they said there were cars speeding in and out. And there's also a huge sewage spill that probably resulted from the septic tank being overloaded with too many people in that house.
CORNISH: Give us a clearer sense of how birth tourism works. Are these deliveries happening at local hospitals? Are people paying out of pocket?
CHANG: If you look at the websites for the maternity hotel companies, often they will list local hospitals and even local doctors. And I've heard there may be some cases where the companies try to take advantage of government benefits, but I think in the typical case, they pay out of pocket for the medical care, which, in turn, is a boon for local hospitals and doctors.
CORNISH: Just how much does it cost such a family to have a child in the U.S.?
CHANG: It varies, but a typical price would be about $20,000 for the whole shebang. And, you know, it depends on how early you come, so how many months you would have to stay in the hotel before you give birth. And typically, they'll stay about a month after, which allows them to get the baby's U.S. passport. And also, there's a Chinese custom where in the month after you give birth, you sort of lie low and eat special foods.
CORNISH: So, Cindy, help us understand the scale of this. How big of a phenomenon, how many births are we talking about? Is it really a trend?
CHANG: There aren't hard numbers for something like this, but if you look at the Chinese language Yellow Pages, if you start looking at these websites, there are lots of these places. And I think they've flown under the radar to some extent. But since this Chino Hills case flared up and got a lot of media attention, Los Angeles County officials have gotten, they say, at least two dozen complaints.
CORNISH: Now, activists who want the U.S. to crack down on birth tourism argue that it's not just about the child, but about parents using the child down the road as a way to expedite their own U.S. citizenship. Based on your reporting, what did you learn from parents who do this, about why they're doing it?
CHANG: They'll say that it's an option that they'd like to have down the road for their child to come to the U.S., to have an education here. I think there's also a sense of insecurity about the future in some of these countries. Even though we think of China as booming and a place where you can get rich, you know, there are issues with corruption. The educational system is extremely competitive.
And people typically won't say that they would also like to piggyback on the child to come to the U.S. themselves, but if you look at the websites, some of them just say flat out that that is an added benefit of doing this.
CORNISH: Cindy Chang is a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. Cindy, thank you for talking with us.
CHANG: Thank you.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
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And I'm Robert Siegel. Over the past decade, more than 3,000 Pakistani soldiers have been killed in the war against Islamist militants along the border with Afghanistan. We're about to hear a story now about some of the nearly 10,000 who have come home but wounded. Many end up in the Armed Forces Institute for Rehabilitative Medicine in Rawalpindi. It's the top veterans hospital in Pakistan. As NPR's Dina Temple-Raston reports, the Pakistani military is doing its best to get the wounded back on their feet.
DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Twenty-three-year old Mohammed Yasin lost a leg in North Waziristan two years ago.
MOHAMMED YASIN: (Foreign language spoken)
TEMPLE-RASTON: We were trying to defuse a bomb, he says, and then it went off, detonated by remote control. IEDs in the tribal areas of Pakistan have robbed most of the men in this ward of their legs. About half of them are part of a tribal force called the Frontier Corps. Frontier corpsmen were on the front pages of the Pakistani newspapers just before New Year's Day. Nearly two dozen of them were captured by the Pakistani Taliban and taken hostage. Their bodies were found, two days later, shot execution style. Comparatively, these men are lucky.
YASIN: (Foreign language spoken)
TEMPLE-RASTON: When I first came to the rehab center, the doctors gave me a regular artificial leg, he says. Then several months ago, they offered him something new: a blade leg. Yasin says it changed his life.
YASIN: (Foreign language spoken)
TEMPLE-RASTON: I can run about as fast as I did before I lost my leg, he says. The blade leg, he adds smiling, has a lot of bounce. Dr. Ikram is one of the attending physicians on the ward.
DR. IKRAM: He's a patient with a single-limb loss, OK? Now, there's a patient have both legs - the both of his legs because he lost both of his legs. He's a patient like Oscar Pistorious.
TEMPLE-RASTON: South African Oscar Pistorius was the first double amputee to ever compete in the Olympics. That happened last year in London. He, too, was running on blade legs. This hospital ward's Pistorious is a 23-year-old Frontier corpsman named Aman Ullah. He looks more like a linebacker than a sprinter. He says he lost both his legs to an IED that was planted inside a car.
AMAN ULLAH: (Foreign language spoken)
TEMPLE-RASTON: It was in Kyber Agency, near the Afghan border, he says, on January 20, 2012. Most soldiers like Yasin and Aman Ullah are given desk jobs after injuries like these. But according to Dr. Ikram, the hospital has bigger plans for these two.
IKRAM: We are preparing our patients for Olympics, as well Paralympics, as well next Paralympics.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Yasin and Aman Ullah would be the first men the hospital have sponsored for the team. Pakistani athletes have been competing in the Paralympics since 1992, and they got their first silver medal in Beijing in 2008. The medical staff here is hoping these men can medal too. The next Paralympics are in Moscow in 2016. Dr. Ikram takes me to an outdoor track behind the hospital to show me what Yasin can do, and he asked me to race him.
IKRAM: If you want, you can compete with him.
TEMPLE-RASTON: I don't have my running shoes on.
(LAUGHTER)
IKRAM: We'll provide you.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Yeah, I'm sure.
(LAUGHTER)
TEMPLE-RASTON: We put an able-bodied driver up against him instead. On his blade leg, Yasin won with ease. Dina Temple-Raston, NPR News, Islamabad.
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Finally this hour, as we get ready to settle in for the NFL playoffs - that's four football games per weekend over the next two weekends - NPR's Mike Pesca is here to offer insight, analysis, and I understand a little cold water. Mike, what's your deal here?
MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Well, as the calendar turns to a new year, I suppose hope is supposed to spring eternal, but this is the NFL. We're not talking about hope. We're talking about crushing your opponent and grinding him up, so let's do that, I figured, with some of the teams who are in the playoffs but perhaps advanced statistics or the eye test suggest shouldn't be. I'd like to talk about some of the terrible teams that have made the postseason.
CORNISH: OK, against my better judgment, I will enable you. Which team in the wild card playoffs is the worst?
PESCA: Well, I'm going to pick on the Indianapolis Colts. When you think of the Colts, you think of some great things around them this year. They were 2-14 last year, so it's been a great bounce-back season. Their coach battled cancer. He's doing well now. It's inspiring. And their quarterback, Andrew Luck, one of the more exciting young players in the NFL, finds a way to win games. However, if you really dissect what's going on with the Colts this year, they've gotten extremely lucky, they've played a weak schedule.
There are a lot of computer rankings out there. Yeah, I know, everyone hates computers. It's just a bunch of guys keying in numbers, but sometimes they have something to tell us. And Jeff Sagarin, his computer ratings for USA Today say the Colts are the 23rd best team. Football Outsiders, they have a good set of ratings, ranks the Colts 25th. In reality, not a very good team.
CORNISH: Well, let me help out Colts fans here. I mean, the team was 11-5.
PESCA: Oh, you're saying those are the numbers that matter?
CORNISH: I'm just saying, you know, don't they deserve to be there?
PESCA: Yeah, of course, they do. They played the games in front of them, and that's the point. You have to realize what the NFL - so different from all the other sports. Other sports teams basically play the same schedule as their opponents. But in the NFL, there are only 16 games, and the Colts' schedule was so weak. It was the weakest schedule in the league. They do that on purpose to try to give a break to teams that were horrible one year. But it was so very weak that when we're comparing a Colts 11-5 record, it's really different from a lot of other teams that were, you know, 10-6 or even 9-7. They hugely benefited from an extremely weak schedule. And when they played good teams, they did not do well. But, hey, prove me wrong, Colts. Go out and beat the Ravens.
CORNISH: All right. Who is next worse?
(LAUGHTER)
PESCA: Well, I don't know if they're next worse, but let's talk about a team that's actually favored, the Houston Texans. They were cruising in the beginning of the season. They might have clinched the AFC's top seed, but they have lost three of their last four games, and it might be due to bad luck. They've had so many injuries. Their defense just isn't very good. They have an excellent rush game. But losing three out of four games that you want to win argues for being on a deep decline.
I know why they're favored because they have the same matchup as they did last year against Cincinnati. They blew out Cincinnati in this round of the playoffs last year. I guess people don't think Cincinnati is very good, and I agree. They're not very good, but perhaps they're good enough to beat this beaten-up Houston Texans team.
CORNISH: All right. So that was the AFC Conference. What about the NFC?
PESCA: Let's pick on the Vikings, why don't we? The Vikings have a great player in Adrian Peterson. He has a good line. Now, quick, name another player who's good on their offense. Not - there's not one other player in a skilled position who's even above average. And their quarterback is really so bad - Christian Ponder - that in the NFL, in this pass-happy NFL, it's very hard to think that they could mount a charge and beat the Packers. And I know you're going to say, wait a minute, the Packers were playing for a buy last week, and they lost to the Vikings last week.
It is true. Again, it's the vagaries of the NFL. Even if I'm telling you that statistically the Vikings aren't good, they could come up and win. Of course, they could win.
CORNISH: All right, Mike, if you're calling all these teams such losers...
PESCA: Losers.
CORNISH: ...who wins?
PESCA: What are they doing here? NFL wins. Last year, 35 million to 40 million people watched these games. The ratings are fantastic. If I told you, hey, you know what I'm going to do the next two weekends? I'm going to settle in and watch a doubleheader on Saturday and a doubleheader on Sunday and then do it again the next weekend. There's no other sport that someone could say that about. If someone said that to you about that's what I'm going to do with baseball games, just watch two games every weekend, you'd think they were actually a Major League Baseball scout, but it's just de rigueur with the NFL fans. It's an extremely popular sport. I don't know why with these 11-and-5 Colts. It makes no sense to me.
CORNISH: NPR's Mike Pesca. Thank you so much, Mike.
PESCA: You're welcome.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
When the photographer Eugene Richards was a young man, he left Massachusetts for the Arkansas Delta where he volunteered in the small city of Augusta. Though segregated and even dangerous, the Delta still had vibrant local traditions, which he documented with his camera. Decades later, industrial farming has emptied the Delta geographically, and, as he found through his lens, almost spiritually.
That's what was depicted in Richards's recent photo essay for National Geographic when he went back after 40 years. When we spoke, I asked him about first coming to Augusta, Arkansas.
EUGENE RICHARDS: It was a sharecropper culture, and there's a little romantization of things. You've got to be very, very careful because the people there were very poor and sometimes actually extremely hungry - lack of food, nutrition, all kinds of tragic underpinnings. But on the other hand, there was a spiritual largeness. And what we talked about is all the times, poor as people were, they always wanted - they were working their butts off in order for their kids to have a better life.
LYDEN: Right. I think it says in the National Geographic article that at the time, the per capita income of the people there was about $68 a year.
RICHARDS: Mm-hmm.
LYDEN: And, of course, we're talking just 40 years ago, not 100 years ago. So as you returned for this article with National Geographic in which you shot these wonderful pictures, what was flashing through your mind?
RICHARDS: I went back for a couple of reasons. I went back ostensibly - and this is what I persuaded the editors - to look at the culture and if there was anything left of it and had a lot of trouble, initially. Asked what it was like, I found out that I couldn't even find the places that I knew.
LYDEN: You mean they'd been wiped off the map?
RICHARDS: Yes. The sharecrop existence. The houses they lived in, the land they lived in has changed profoundly. The houses, they looked like, you know, the great Mississippi had washed them all away. They're gone. I recall the - one of the first times that I went back there, I went out on a road and there was these three houses that I used to visit regularly. It took me a long time to find the place that they were because now the old wooden bridge was now concrete bridge, on and on and on. But I found it, and I went around with my hands - it was early morning - and feeling around to try to find some remnant of these houses.
And I remember I couldn't find anything. And behind me, when I turned around - it was one of the nifty days in the Delta morning - there was a 40-year-old man standing there. That's what I figured he was. And I - he said: What are you doing? And I says: I'm trying to find - there was a plantation here and these houses are here. And he said: I lived here my whole life, and they've never been here. So there's a - in other words - and I know that they were. So there's a denial of a lifestyle. But it's also, on the other hand, the manifestations of that lifestyle were gone.
LYDEN: Yeah. Wow.. One of these pictures that you have - speaking of that place where the imagination borders and bleeds into reality - is a picture of ruby red slippers, as worn by Dorothy, and they're inside a Lucite box. And you write that they glowed like broken glass. Tell us about taking that picture, please.
RICHARDS: There were three little houses in the town of Lehigh, which were - turned out to be farm labor houses. And on the outside porch were these absolutely amazingly red glowing slippers that you recognized right away from "The Wizard of Oz." And they were sitting there, and so I made the photo rounds. You find these things, and in my - in your mind - because it's an - everything's empty, the houses are torn up - you say to yourself, maybe I should take them with me. But I've never been able to do that. These belong here.
A month later, I came back with my wife Jeanine, and I was looking for them. And as we arrived at the house, a van pulled up. And outside, about seven or eight - actually, I'm not exaggerating - huge men came out covered with tattoos, wearing torn T-shirts and military outfits, asked me what we were there for. And Jean pops up. She says: I'm here to see the red shoes. And this tough, armored man says: You mean Dorothy's shoes, maybe sort of internally smile. But they were gone. It was like one of those things that happen, surreal things that happen all the time to all us who go on the road where things don't make sense. But they do make sense later.
LYDEN: Where are all the people who came to work there, thousands of people who were the descendants of former slaves, sharecroppers who came from around the Delta region? How has big agriculture changed things, and where did those people go?
RICHARDS: It's been an outmigration - it's classic outmigration to Chicago, in many cases, in the people from the Delta where it just got to be too much. The schools weren't good for so many years. Racial separation was there. And people wanted to make life better. And also, there was no work because big machines came in. So now you have tractors when you had people working in the fields by hand. So there was no work. Right now, I feel, when I was there, that all you have left is a support group, you know, for a large mass of agricultural business. And in time, these people will go. Basically, they're not needed. It's a disposable population.
LYDEN: In one of your last pictures in the magazine, we do see young children there today from a family called Kern, the Kern family.
RICHARDS: Mm-hmm.
LYDEN: And they're walking down a road past a huge field petting their dogs. Is there anything traditional still there - used to be music and oral tales - that binds these communities together any longer?
RICHARDS: Yes. Well, everything exists but on a smaller scale. The churches exist. They're spread all over the place. But they might have six people in the church while the place would have been jammed before. The thing that doesn't exist is that feeling, at least in my mind, you know, you have an experience - you don't want to say that my experience down there even recently was everybody's experience. But there's not the sense of hope that there was before. And you could feel it.
The kids, you say, what do they want to do? And they shrug, and they say nothing. I just want to, you know, be - live my life out here. Before, there was always that the kids wanted to get out. They wanted to somehow help their parents succeed, move out into the world. And that seemed to be gone.
LYDEN: That's Eugene Richards. His photography was featured in the November issue of the National Geographic, and you can see the photos we talked about and others at our website, npr.org. Eugene Richards, thank you so much.
RICHARDS: Thanks so much.
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It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
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LYDEN: "Panic in Detroit," "The Detroit Breakdown," "Motor City Madhouse" - all songs Mark Binelli listened to while growing up in a Detroit in decline in the 1970s.
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LYDEN: Detroit is 139 square miles that used to embody the American dream: the auto industry, consumer culture, Motown, massive, beautiful buildings. So when Mark Binelli was asked to write about the Detroit Auto Show in January of 2009, he jumped. He then moved back to Motor City to chronicle a place that had lost over half its population since its peak. Over the next couple of years, he loomed the city from every angle, sometimes finding a dystopian moment, like the under-resourced, overworked firefighters of Highland Park.
MARK BINELLI: Firefighters are coming to places like Highland Park and Detroit from the Bronx because they don't see those sorts of spectacular fires anymore. And they come to take pictures in Detroit.
LYDEN: One of them asked him: What are you going to write? Fiction, nonfiction? Non, he said.
BINELLI: He laughs and says no one's going to believe it.
LYDEN: But despite an epic's worth of struggles, Mark Binelli says Detroit is an exciting place for dreamers.
BINELLI: It almost became a laboratory of things that become so desperate that you could try almost anything in Detroit.
LYDEN: So he wrote a book. It's called "Detroit City is the Place to Be: The Afterlife of an American Metropolis."
BINELLI: When I got there, I realized Detroit had become this poster city for the recession. I mean, reporters were coming from all over the country, all over the world, really, to look at the place. And I felt like, as someone who'd grown up there, I could really bring a little bit more nuance to the story and not tell the same stories that are being told over and over, and that includes things like humor. I mean, Detroit is a very surreal, weird place. And I thought a lot of that was being missed by reporters who were just coming in for an afternoon or a day or two.
LYDEN: The weirdness, the surreal quality, the vitality, I want you to describe what it was like to come back. You come to Service Street, not too far from where your father had a business. You meet these really wild neighbors. Take us into that time.
BINELLI: So I ended up moving onto this really strange and interesting block where my neighbors included some long-time Detroiters - a guy named Ron Scott, who was the founder of the Detroit chapter of the Black Panthers, and now he does lots of work with police brutality. And then there are also people like Steve and Deretta Coy(ph), who are these young artists who'd moved from Hawaii to Detroit. I joke in the book that that's possibly the first time in human history that that particular migration has been made.
(LAUGHTER)
BINELLI: It's in a neighborhood in Detroit called Eastern Market where there are still lots of working slaughterhouses and produce wholesalers. And I'd - my father was a knife grinder, so he'd make deliveries on that actual block. I remember pulling into that alley. So it was a very strange sensation to sort of so literally go back to a place from my teenage years.
LYDEN: In one chapter in this book, you take us into what is called the zone with a photographer. Could you tell us about that? What's the zone?
BINELLI: The - yes. That photographer is - she's a Dutch photographer named Corine Vermeulen. She's been in Detroit for about 10 years. And she's a big fan of a Russian film called "Stalker" that involves this mysterious area called the zone. And so she calls this area in Detroit the zone. And it's a huge swath of land - 190 acres - that had been a residential neighborhood once upon a time. It was razed by the city, and was supposed to become an industrial park. The idea was lots of factories would move in and nothing happened.
So it's hard to really convey what it's like. You're basically five minutes from downtown of a major American city, but you're standing in these fields that, I mean you could be in rural Arkansas. And you could still see traces of the old neighborhood. The sidewalks are so overgrown they're almost invisible. But if you look carefully, you can see the sidewalks are like - you'll notice a glimpse of red, and it turns out to be an old fire hydrant that's covered with grass that's three feet high. It's a surreal place.
LYDEN: So Detroit, as we know, is nearly 140 miles square. You talk about some of the schemes to try to reinvent the city, and they're pretty remarkable. Can you list a few?
BINELLI: Sure. Well, you know, one of the problems with Detroit is, you know, it was a city that at its peak, population was two million. Now, with this last census, in 2010, it's down to just over 700,000. So you have all this vacant land, all these abandoned buildings. What do you do with it? I mean, one of the more intriguing things that's been talked about - not much progress has been made so far - has been this sort of right-sizing initiative. That's the euphemistic term they have been using.
And it's - basically, the idea is to convince people, incentivize people, somehow, to move to denser urban cores so then you would have the vacant land concentrated, and you could turn that into parks, possibility into farms. The urban farming movement has been really big in Detroit. It has been getting a lot of press. When you look at some of these renderings that people make of potential Detroit, in say, 2030, and it's astounding. The big problem, of course, is there's no money.
LYDEN: Tell me about some of the attempts while you were there to carry on the basic services that sound like they're out of "Mad Max." You profiled the firefighters of Highland Park.
BINELLI: That was a crazy story. Yeah, Highland Park, I call it in the book the Detroit of Detroit. I mean, it's really this little tiny community entirely surrounded by Detroit. Once upon a time, the original Model T plant was housed there, so it was the center of the world. I mean, everybody was coming to Highland Park to look at this wondrous assembly line. Ford left, Chrysler's world headquarters left for the suburbs, so now it's a very abandoned city.
And the firefighters, their last remaining firehouse was condemned, and so they moved into an old Chrysler warehouse while the new firehouse was ostensibly being built. That was five or six years ago. Some of them are literally sleeping in tents. They're working with so few walkie-talkies that they've come up with a system of hand signals when they are at a fire so they can communicate with each other. The trucks break down. It's astounding circumstances they work under.
It's also somewhat inspirational because they still go to work every day, and they're still, you know, they're still doing this job. And you have to really look at them with awe and admiration. I mean, there are interns there working for free, risking their lives. And the paid firefighters are making 10 bucks an hour. It's unbelievable, unless you actually see it.
LYDEN: Well, you've given us a wonderful tour. I love being out on your bicycle with you as you rode through these neighborhoods on Sunday afternoons and recalled some of the great historical things that have been said about Detroit in a century gone by. Really gives us a vision. People were hopeful once.
BINELLI: Oh, yeah. You read some of these old guidebooks, and Detroit was called The City of Tomorrow. It was the city on the river. I mean, when business was booming, when the Model T plant was really at its peak, Detroit was the city. It was the city everyone was looking towards. It's one of the great stories of the 20th century. I mean, this wilderness city, basically, rising up out of nowhere, creating modern life in the 20th century, as we know it, in many ways: mass production, consumer culture, suburban sprawl, in many ways, the American middle class.
And then the fall from such great heights. It's classical tragedy in lots of ways. I mean, in this case, the character is the city. You see the seeds of the character's destruction. You see those tragic flaws early on, and it's completely undone. And now, we're at the third act, and we'll see what happens.
LYDEN: And that's why you've called it "Detroit City is the Place to Be: The Afterlife of an American Metropolis." Mark Binelli, thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure talking to you.
BINELLI: Oh, thank you, Jacki.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
On this show, we've been asking filmmakers about the movies they never get tired of watching, including this one from one of the stars of the TV show "The Good Wife."
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "WAITING FOR GUFFMAN")
CHRISTOPHER GUEST: (as Corky St. Clair) (Singing) When I see lips waiting to be kissed...
ALAN CUMMING: I'm Alan Cumming. I'm an actor. And the movie that I would watch a million times is "Waiting for Guffman." It's written by Christopher Guest and Eugene Levy. It's directed by Christopher Guest and it stars a cornucopia of genius actors.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "WAITING FOR GUFFMAN")
GUEST: (as Corky St. Clair) (Singing) ...again and again and again...
CUMMING: It's about a little town in Missouri - except they say Missouri - called Blaine...
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "WAITING FOR GUFFMAN")
GUEST: (as Corky St. Clair) There's an old saying in Missouri that if you don't like the weather, just wait five minutes. In Blaine, I honestly believe with hard work, we can get that done in three or four minutes.
CUMMING: And they are having their 150th anniversary. That's - I can't even say it.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "WAITING FOR GUFFMAN")
EUGENE LEVY: (as Dr. Allan Pearl) Here in our sesquicentennial year, we've got a lot to talk about. There's a...
CUMMING: And to celebrate, they decide to put on a show about the history of Blaine. Recently moved back from his heydays in New York to Blaine is a character called Corky St. Clair who has revitalized the town's amateur dramatic world.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "WAITING FOR GUFFMAN")
GUEST: (as Corky St. Clair) My production on stage of "Backdraft" was what really got them excited.
CUMMING: And he takes on the responsibility of producing the show, which will be the showcase of the celebrations.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "WAITING FOR GUFFMAN")
GUEST: (as Corky St. Clair) (Singing) By the pool, in the schools, by the fire of yule...
CUMMING: At one point, Corky sends out some letters to various people and producers and agent and a kind of a foundation in New York writes back and says they're going to send one of their representatives.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "WAITING FOR GUFFMAN")
GUEST: (as Corky St. Clair) The Oppenheimer organization is delighted to inform you that it will be sending a representative, Mr. Mort Guffman...
CUMMING: That letter is misinterpreted by Corky and the members of the cast of the show that they will be going to Broadway.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "WAITING FOR GUFFMAN")
GUEST: (as Corky St. Clair) What it means is we may be going to Broadway.
CUMMING: And so...
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "WAITING FOR GUFFMAN")
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (as Character) Praise you.
CUMMING: And then, of course, the title refers to the fact that Mr. Guffman doesn't turn up.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "WAITING FOR GUFFMAN")
GUEST: (as Corky St. Clair) Snowstorm in New York. All flights canceled, Mort Guffman.
CUMMING: You absolutely feel for Corky and for these other characters. You think - they really do believe they're going to Broadway. And the shock of realizing that's not going to happen is so awful for them. And you completely are there for them, even though you know they're insane to believe it.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "WAITING FOR GUFFMAN")
LEVY: (as Dr. Allan Pearl) Well, we've been coming here for many, many years.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (as Character) Oh, yeah.
CUMMING: The two, sort of, musical theater stars of the time are played by Fred Willard and Catherine O'Hara. Hilarious and brilliant performers. And there's a scene when they go to dinner with the newbie to the group played by Eugene Levy - who's the dentist - and his wife, and they go to this Chinese restaurant and hilarity ensues. That's all I can say.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "WAITING FOR GUFFMAN")
CATHERINE O'HARA: (as Sheila Albertson) Any kind of food in Blaine, you don't - you know you get Chinese here.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (as Character) No need to go...
FRED WILLARD: (as Ron Albertson) We're talking about Miami now, dear.
O'HARA: (as Sheila Albertson) Like there aren't any Chinese people in Miami.
WILLARD: (as Ron Albertson) What does that have to do with - of course, there are Chinese people in Miami.
O'HARA: (as Sheila Albertson) Yeah, we're talking about China now.
WILLARD: (as Ron Albertson) I'm talking about...
CUMMING: The people in this film, I have gushed to in a - really like a fan, crazy way, in the way that people do it to me. And I kind of think imagine behaving like that. And I do - I've done it to them. I did it to Eugene Levy. I did it to Fred Willard. I've never met Christopher Guest. I don't know if I could handle it.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "WAITING FOR GUFFMAN")
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing) Grab your fellas by the hand...
LYDEN: That's the Scottish actor Alan Cumming talking about the movie that he could watch a million times, Christopher Guest's "Waiting for Guffman." Cumming's new film, "Any Day Now," is currently in theaters.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
When Barack Obama first took office four years ago, many progressives were on cloud nine. Here was a president pledging to tackle some of the issues closest to the progressive base, like climate change, gun control and what he called our broken immigration system.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDINGS)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: And I will make it a top priority in my first year as president. We understand the gravity of the climate threat. We are determined to act. We can make certain that those who are mentally deranged are not getting hold of handguns.
LYDEN: And those comments came in 2008 and 2009. Today, they're just a few of the unresolved issues leaving progressives unsatisfied. Now, with a second Obama administration soon upon us, some progressives are wondering if President Obama will reboot in this term. That's our cover story today: progressives and the president. Will it always be a glass half full or even just a quarter?
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LYDEN: Shaun Johnson is one progressive voter heartily disappointed in President Barack Obama. He's an assistant professor of elementary education at Towson University in Maryland, and he writes for a blog called the Chalk Face. He wrote a column in 2011 called "Obama Lost My Vote," so we asked him to talk about why. He says that when President Obama first ran in 2008, he was an ardent supporter. He even knocked on doors.
SHAUN JOHNSON: I volunteered for the campaign in the state of Indiana, and I was completely elated when he won that state, the first time a Democrat's won it since '64. And so I was really excited by that. And I think at the time, a lot of people, especially within the education community, got all whipped up into anti-Bush sentiment and the anti-No Child Left Behind sentiment, and so they were really looking forward to a shift in education policy. But there's not a lot of daylight between traditional Democratic and Republican educational policies.
LYDEN: What other specific things in this column, "Obama Lost My Vote," disappointed you so deeply?
JOHNSON: There are sort of a lot of other decisions that he's made over his, you know, first term. I know a lot of progressives were upset about the health care negotiations that he came for...
LYDEN: Because you wanted it to be single-payer.
JOHNSON: Single-payer or a public option. And that was immediately negotiated away. I know a lot of people have been raising concerns over foreign policy in terms of drone strikes, in terms of surveillance, wiretapping. A lot of those programs have been continued. He's quite hawkish when it comes to a lot of his foreign policy. And, you know, I think he has been painted as this radical leftist by the extreme right, and he really isn't. I mean, to me, at least, he's more of a center-right president than otherwise.
LYDEN: Would a center-right president have repealed the Don't Ask, Don't Tell law? Would he have campaigned and passed a historic health care reform legislation? Would a center-right president have espoused and passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act?
JOHNSON: I think one way you can compare this is with Democrats and Republicans, it's all relative. And I think the conservative right has been pulled so far right that anyone evenly remotely centrist seems extreme left. And so I think he is looking in progressive directions. But to be called a progressive or a liberal for that matter, I think, is a bridge too far.
LYDEN: Shaun Johnson, a professor who blogs for the Chalk Face. Some progressives do, however, feel more optimistic about President Obama. It seems like a new day with the election handily won and Democrats like Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin moving to the Senate. But Molly Ball, a staff writer who covers national politics for The Atlantic says progressives are about to have their hopes dashed once again.
MOLLY BALL: It's truer now than it ever was that the math just hasn't really changed in Washington. The Congress is still constructed the way the Congress was constructed then. Democrats made incremental gains in the Senate and in the House, but they didn't change the basic math. And that means that these policy fights ahead are going to run up against exactly what they've run up against the last four years. Even if Obama is feeling newly liberated by his re-election, he's going to have to turn a lot of votes to make any of this possible.
And so, for example, climate change, people in the environmental community who lobby for these things, they don't even hope for climate change legislation out of this Congress. They have looked at the Republican House of Representatives, which, when it does anything on the environment, is trying to roll back the EPA or eliminate the EPA. And when they seek changes from Obama, they are seeking regulatory changes. They're seeking executive branch power to make changes. They don't even hope for a renewed push for climate change legislation for the most part.
LYDEN: Let's talk for the moment about Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. They have been spared in this fiscal cliff deal,, but perhaps not for long. What do you see with those programs?
BALL: What we saw in the fiscal cliff negotiations was that the president was open to changes on Social Security and on Medicare. And this is a way in which liberals are already seeing it come true, that some of their priorities may not be as sacred as they hoped. Now, the changes did not end up getting made, in part because the deal ended up being so much smaller than the negotiations originally were for, but they were definitely on the table.
It was only at the very last minute those - that last day of negotiations between Mitch McConnell and Joe Biden that Social Security was taken off the table and the president had offered changes to Medicare as part of his original offer to John Boehner. So for liberals whose priorities are protecting those entitlements, I think they've got to be very nervous about what lies ahead in future negotiations.
LYDEN: Mm-hmm. You know, when President Obama ran for office prior to his first term, much was made of his roots as a community organizer, and he wrote about that a lot in his own autobiography "The Audacity of Hope." He really comes off in that tone as a progressive thinker. Do you identify him that way?
BALL: That's a really interesting question. I think on the one hand, there's no question that he is a liberal. But on the other hand, you also see, even in his early writing, this strain of pragmatism. And part of what was so appealing about him originally back in 2008 was this bridge-building idea that he had and the speech he gave at the 2004 Democratic Convention about being inclusive and bringing everybody in.
Now, a lot of Republicans may not feel that he's done that in practice, but I think there's always been these dueling strains of Obama, on the one hand as a philosophical liberal, and on the other hand as someone who really seeks compromise. Some of his allies would argue to a fault that he tends to maybe give away the store because he's so interested in building bridges to the other side.
LYDEN: Molly Ball is a staff writer covering national politics for The Atlantic. Thanks very much for being here.
BALL: Thank you.
LYDEN: Bernie Sanders is one who knows about compromise. The independent senator from Vermont objected to the fiscal deal, but he voted for it anyway, saying it was better than the alternative. Sanders is cofounder of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, and he's the only Senate member. So I asked him, what does it mean to be a progressive?
SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: By being a progressive is about, right now, is standing up and fighting for working families, fighting for low-income people, being prepared to take on big oil and big coal to save the planet in terms of global warming, standing up for women and gay folks who are under attack all of the time by an increasingly militant right wing. Those are some of the aspects of being a progressive.
LYDEN: By your own standards, by the convictions to which you've hewn, do you think that President Obama merits the term progressive? Is he progressive?
SANDERS: No. I think he's a pretty honest guy. And the president, as you may recall just a few weeks ago, said that if we were in 1980's, he would have been considered something like a moderate Republican. And I think he's kind of a centrist, somewhere in the middle of the Democratic Party. But, no, I don't think he is a progressive.
LYDEN: How would you say his leadership style has changed since he took office?
SANDERS: Well, I was very disappointed in terms of his unwillingness to be more aggressive in standing up to what has increasingly become a right-wing extremist Republican Party. And we needed the president to really stand up tall against these guys in budget negotiations and in other ways, and he really hasn't, to my mind, done that effectively.
On the other hand, I thought that the much maligned stimulus package was very, very important for Vermont and important for America. I think that the priorities of that legislation were exactly right, rebuilding our infrastructure, helping to transform our energy system, paying attention to children, paying attention to veterans. I thought more money should have gone into that, but I think he deserves more credit than he got.
LYDEN: Would you have any advice - given your own background experience, for the White House and the president on something like compromise when you have, right now, the House Speaker saying no more direct negotiations with the president, we'll see, no president rules alone - any suggestions for how...
SANDERS: Yes.
LYDEN: ...he can hold to his ideals and negotiate at the same time?
SANDERS: If the president stands firm and says, you know what: I ain't going to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, I am going to ask corporations who are not paying any taxes to start paying their fair share, he will have the overwhelming majority of the American people behind him. And sooner or later, the Republicans will catch on that they are in danger of becoming a marginal fringe party, unless they get along with the program here and do what the American people want.
LYDEN: Can I gather that senators like you are going to be pressuring the president to do exactly that?
SANDERS: Oh, I think you can gather that absolutely.
LYDEN: Bernie Sanders is the independent senator from Vermont. Thank you very much for being with us.
SANDERS: Thank you.
LYDEN: Now back to Shaun Johnson, that progressive voter, blogger and teacher who wrote the column "Obama Lost My Vote." We wondered who he did wind up voting for in the last election.
JOHNSON: Ultimately, I did vote for the president. I think in the end, we have to be pragmatic when we go into the voting booth. And even though I'm heavily supportive of the Green Party's educational platform, ultimately, given the choices, I went for the president.
LYDEN: Yeah. But did you publish a comment that said, ultimately, Obama got my vote?
JOHNSON: I did not. And perhaps that's going to be a follow up.
LYDEN: And progressives are still looking for the president to follow up on the liberal agenda that he laid out in 2008.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
And if you're just tuning in, this is WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
A little more than 20 years ago, one of the most influential bands in the riot grrrl movement released its first album. Bikini Kill consisted of three women and one man and helped define a movement that grew up in the early 1990s as an offshoot of punk when many girls felt marginalized by society and, in some cases, even by the punk rock community. Sarah Ventre reports that Bikini Kill has re-released its iconic first record on the band's newly launched label.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "REBEL GIRL")
SARAH VENTRE, BYLINE: Bikini Kill's "Rebel Girl" is a riot grrrl anthem.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "REBEL GIRL")
BIKINI KILL: (Singing) That girl thinks she's the queen of the neighborhood. She's got the hottest trike in town.
VENTRE: In it, you can hear so much of what makes up the core of Bikini Kill's music: themes of camaraderie, rebellion and an unwillingness to be complacent.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "REBEL GIRL")
BIKINI KILL: (Singing) When she talks, I hear the revolution. In her hips, there's revolution. When she walks, the revolution's coming. In her kiss, I taste the revolution. Rebel girl. Rebel girl. Rebel girl you are the queen of my world.
KATHLEEN HANNA: When we started our band, a big part of it was to encourage more female participation in the punk scene.
VENTRE: That's Kathleen Hanna, the front woman of Bikini Kill.
HANNA: Selfishly, we wanted more women and girls to play music with when we went on tour. We wanted more women and girls to talk to about the experience of being in a band because we're constantly encountering sexism and having no one but each other to talk to about it.
VENTRE: Carrying that conversation to a wider audience was one of the reasons Bikini Kill was so influential, according to Molly Neuman. She's another riot grrrl musician who played in the bands Bratmobile and The Frumpies.
MOLLY NEUMAN: They were speaking about subjects that were specific to women and girls and the general disenfranchisement that a lot of us felt but maybe hadn't articulated in that way. But the music was - is incredible, you know? And I think it completely stands up.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DOUBLE DARE YA")
BIKINI KILL: Is that supposed to be doing that?
SARA MARCUS: The first thing that I heard starts out with a ton of feedback on an amp and Kathleen's voice saying: Is that supposed to be doing that?
VENTRE: Sara Marcus is the author of the book "Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution." She still remembers the first time she heard Bikini Kill.
MARCUS: So already, it begins with this sense that everything's provisional. You're learning this as you go along.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DOUBLE DARE YA")
BIKINI KILL: OK. Sorry. OK. We're starting now. We're Bikini Kill, and we want revolution. Girl-style now.
MARCUS: To have somebody sort of being like, all right, put your money where your mouth is. You want to do something? Go do it. You want to be someone? Go be it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DOUBLE DARE YA")
BIKINI KILL: (Singing) Dare ya to do what you want, dare ya to be who you will, dare ya to cry right out loud, you get so emotional, baby.
MARCUS: It's just this marvelous encouragement. It was huge for me.
VENTRE: It was huge for a lot of people - and not just women. Mark Andersen is the cofounder of a Washington, D.C.-area punk activist group called Positive Force.
MARK ANDERSEN: Immediately, I was transfixed because it's such a powerful, passionate female voice expressed through the music. And they were not scared at all about taking political stands, of confronting people, of challenging people.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIAR")
BIKINI KILL: (Singing) You profit from the lie, you prophet from the lie. You profit from the lie, you prophet from the lie, yeah. You profit from the lie, you prophet from the lie. You profit from the lie, you prophet from the lie.
VENTRE: While mainstream music works to sound polished and flawless, Kathleen Hanna says her goal was exactly the opposite.
HANNA: I always thought that putting tons of reverb on my voice was kind of the equivalent of airbrushing. And I wanted other girls and women to hear a real female voice that wasn't completely manipulated.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FEELS BLIND")
BIKINI KILL: (Singing) All the doves that fly past my eyes have a stickiness to their wings. In the doorway of my demise I stand encased in the whisper you taught me. How does it feel? It feels blind. How does it feel? Well, it feels blind. What have you taught me? Nothing. Look at what you've taught me. You've taught me nothing.
VENTRE: Bikini Kill's first record was produced by Ian MacKaye. He's a punk musician best known for the bands Minor Threat and Fugazi and for the label he cofounded, Dischord Records.
IAN MACKAYE: I actually think Bikini Kill and riot grrrl had a huge cultural impact on our society. They - I know it did, because I know that when I first started seeing shows in 1979, that if there was a band that had a woman member, it was notable. And I feel like women taking the stage had a huge effect on the way culture in this country worked.
VENTRE: And while fans from 20 years ago are excited about the Bikini Kill reissues, so are the band's more recent admirers, says Kathleen Hanna.
HANNA: I get so many letters from girls from 13 to 17 who just found out about Bikini Kill for the first time. And the thing that I really love is thinking of girls in high school who are organizing themselves kind of around our music and a lot of other girl bands' music, that they can make, like, a Bikini Kill jean jacket instead of a Motorhead jean jacket - which is what I had - is pretty great.
VENTRE: Kathleen Hanna thinks it's also great that these young fans are experiencing the music as if it's happening now. For NPR News, I'm Sarah Ventre.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FEELS BLIND")
BIKINI KILL: (Singing) As a woman I was taught...
LYDEN: And for Saturday, that's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden. Check out our weekly podcast. Search for WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED on iTunes and on the NPR smartphone app. Click on programs, scroll down. We're back on the radio tomorrow. Until then, thanks for listening. Have a good evening.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: If Congress refuses to give the United States the ability to pay its bills on time, the consequences for the entire global economy could be catastrophic. The last time Congress threatened this course of action, our entire economy suffered for it.
LYDEN: That was President Obama today speaking in his weekly address. Earlier this week, a Congress that seemed almost under siege from its own factions narrowly averted the fiscal cliff. The process is considered only a prelude to battles to come on various financial deadlines and might be expected to raise questions about America's economy and governance. James Fallows of The Atlantic joins us, as he does most Saturdays. Nice to have you back, Jim.
JAMES FALLOWS: Thank you, Jacki.
LYDEN: So I know that you caught a lot of this spectacle on television, and we were wondering and talking a bit about whether or not this has left the full faith and credit in the U.S. Treasury and government intact globally.
I think the world financial reaction this last week puts this whole question in a very different light from the way we're used to discussing it in American politics. We saw that in the immediate aftermath of the fiscal cliff averting deal the Congress and the president struck this past week, there was a stock market surge around the world. You know, the Dow Jones average went up 300 some points, and there were positive reactions in the European and Asian markets.
FALLOWS: And you would think that if the world's concern about the U.S. was what we had mainly heard over the last couple of years, which is that we're becoming too indebted, that we're not going to be able to meet our federal obligations, that we're becoming another Greece, the reaction would have been the reverse because the effect of this fiscal cliff deal was actually to make the federal deficit larger than it would've been if there was no agreement.
LYDEN: In fact, it actually added 4 trillion to our debt.
FALLOWS: Exactly. And so the fact, this positive response suggests that what the rest of the world was concerned about was not really the level of federal debt but whether we're going to sort of engineer our way into another recession, which would affect the rest of the world, and number two, the basic process of how the United States is able to do its public business. And I think this latter point is the one that really weighs on the rest of the world.
LYDEN: Jim, let me move to Afghanistan. I know you posted a blog post today in The Atlantic about the outcome there. I don't want to use the phrase graveyard of empires, but it seems as if the U.S. is facing a situation similar to what the Russians encountered.
FALLOWS: I will make clear that I am not an expert in Afghanistan. I've not been to visit the battlefield there over the past 10 years. But from having studied the American record in various wars of the past generation plus and read the history of that part of the world, anyone would have to be concerned about the omens coming out of Afghanistan over the last year or two.
Many people have noted that in 2012, twice as many U.S. troops were killed by the Afghan soldiers they were supposedly training as the year before, the level of hostility from the Karzai government itself, which is (unintelligible) our ally, and the Afghan public seems to be going up.
The oddest thing about this from American politics is that it's not a more central topic of discussion now of what the United States is going to be able to do to wind up its business there when we face this dilemma. It's difficult to get out when we haven't trained a successor force. But it also is very difficult and even impossible to stay when the hostility seems to be growing so quickly.
LYDEN: And speaking of underwhelming and less than dramatic outcomes, this week, the Arab news channel Al-Jazeera bought former Vice President Al Gore's cable network, Current TV. That was rather remarkable, $500 million deal.
FALLOWS: It was. And one often thinks of Al Gore as a person who, over the last 12 years, must have reflected on the injustice of life in various ways. But as a businessman, he's been phenomenally successful, including the $100 million that he personally reportedly will make from this deal. As somebody who's watched Al-Jazeera coverage a lot as I have from outside the United States over the last few years, I think American viewers will be positively surprised by what they see in the news coverage from this network. It's another strand of coverage and more informative than many people might think.
LYDEN: James Fallows is national correspondent with The Atlantic. And you can read his blog at jamesfallows.theatlantic.com. Jim, nice to have you with us.
FALLOWS: Thank you, Jacki.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
When Congress reconvened on January 3rd, it did so with 84 newly elected members. We've been profiling a few of the newcomers over the past week. Today, we'll learn a bit more about the latest Republican to join Kentucky delegation Andy Barr. Here's Kentucky Public Radio's Kenny Colston.
KENNY COLSTON, BYLINE: The halls of Henry Clay High School in Lexington aren't that much different than the halls of power its namesake served in: loud and busy. But this place brings back memories for Congressman-elect Andy Barr.
ANDY BARR: And it's great to be back in my alma mater, Henry Clay. Go Devils.
(APPLAUSE)
COLSTON: Barr moves around the room as he addresses a group of 70 people about his upcoming two-year term. Barr is a lawyer from central Kentucky. He defeated four-term Democrat Ben Chandler in November to win the seat. It was Barr's second run for the position. Barr will join some notable Republicans from his home state in Congress, including Senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul and Howell Rogers, the Chairman of the House Appropriations Committee.
While Barr's colleagues may not be known for compromise, Barr plans to take his cues from another Kentuckian Henry Clay. He was known as the great compromiser back in the early to mid 1800s.
(SOUNDBITE OF ANDY BARR AT HENRY CLAY HIGH SCHOOL)
BARR: But I don't believe the American people voted for the status quo. I think the American people want our leaders in Washington to work together to try to come to some consensus and solve these major problems.
COLSTON: Barr's first goal is to help community banks be released from recent regulations like Dodd-Frank. That was legislation from the bank bailouts which put tighter controls on how banks lend their money. Barr says those regulations are crippling smaller banks who have the cash to give but need to jump through too many hoops. Kentucky has more than 150 of these smaller chartered banks. And with the delegation already in multiple leadership positions, Barr sees his niche on the House Financial Services Committee.
BEN SWANSON: It is encouraging to me that Congressman-elect Andy Barr seem to embrace compromise. I was a little concerned that he didn't mention any specific proposals on which he would be willing to compromise.
COLSTON: That's Ben Swanson, president of the high school's Young Democrats. The school is known for its political activism and its academics. Barr's district is considered a swing district made up of a majority of Democrats. This is why Barr is talking up compromise and loyalty to his constituents and why another Henry Clay student Macy Early is giving Barr a chance to prove himself.
MACY EARLY: I think there's an old saying that says that a Kentucky Democrat is a New York Republican. And I think that regardless of politics, especially with the bipartisan block that we have going on in Washington and around the nation right now, we need to understand that we should supersede politics.
COLSTON: Which seem to be Barr's early goal, to rise above and in the gridlock.
BARR: And strip away the party labels. I think what the American people want are solutions. What they want - they care about the policy to get the country turned around.
COLSTON: As for which way it turns, that will be up to Barr and his colleagues in the House. For NPR News, I'm Kenny Colston in Louisville.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
If you're just tuning in, this is WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
In India, outrage continues unabated over sexual violence against women. A court in New Delhi has ordered five men charged in the murder and gang rape of a young woman last month to appear in court on Monday. The incident ignited demands for bringing the widespread nature of such assaults to light. NPR's Julie McCarthy joins us from New Delhi. Warning, some graphic language ahead. Julie, thanks for being here.
JULIE MCCARTHY, BYLINE: Thank you, Jacki.
LYDEN: So this has been a notorious case. Has the mood changed significantly in any way now that the trial seems to be getting underway?
MCCARTHY: Well, the case has tapped this deep vein of anger in India. The demonstrations are smaller, certainly, but the more that's learned, Jacki, about the horrific injuries inflicted on this young woman and her male companion who was beaten with an iron rod and survived, the more the public wants the five accused men to pay with their lives. There is mounting pressure here in India for the death penalty, and that's in a country that rarely carries it out. But the public is in a fury.
Her injuries were so grave that her intestines were destroyed. And after the attacks, she and her friend were thrown out onto the road naked where the defendant allegedly tried to run them over.
LYDEN: Very, very grim details. Julie, there is a sixth accused person, a minor. Tell us how old he is and what happens to him.
MCCARTHY: Well, this is a very tricky subject, Jacki. The sixth accused is said to be 17 1/2. He's a juvenile in the eyes of the law, and he can't be subjected to the same laws as the other defendants. He certainly can't face the death penalty. The maximum penalty he could serve is three years. He's also - and this is where it gets very delicate - he's also alleged to have been the most brutal of the attackers. And his treatment is generating this huge national controversy about whether the age of majority ought to be lowered in India from 18 to 16.
LYDEN: Julie, as you know, India seems to be having a major conversation with itself about charges of sexual violence against women and presumably against men. What's going on now? Is it going to have a lasting impact, do you think?
MCCARTHY: Well, I think the impact already has been huge. Millions of young women and young men want to end the cultural violence against women that's long been tolerated by a society that really equates sexual crimes with a woman's dishonor rather than the criminal behavior of the perpetrator. It's also unleashed, fair to say, a sea change in the coverage of sexual violence.
In the past three weeks, there's been a raft of cases about rapes and murders of women, young girls killing themselves over the shame of being molested. It's now on the front page. It's not buried anymore. And this case has also trained a spotlight on members of parliament who are under investigation for sexual offenses. So the problem is wide, and it's deep, but it's no longer being ignored.
LYDEN: NPR's Julie McCarthy speaking to us from New Delhi. Julie, thank you very much.
MCCARTHY: Thank you, Jacki.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
In Australia, a mineral mining boom is spawning another boom: the sex industry. Thousands of miners earning boom time pay has attracted prostitutes from around the world to Western Australia. Prostitution is legal there, but as reporter Sana Qadar reports from Sydney, the rise has led to calls for a change in the law.
SANA QADAR, BYLINE: It's 9 o'clock on a Wednesday evening, and the night shift has started work at Langtrees, a popular brothel in the city of Perth. Twenty-five-year-old Ruby, like other women at Langtrees, uses a working name out of concern for her safety. Ruby is from Spain, and tonight, she expects to earn at least $1,500.
RUBY: I work in many countries: in Europe, in Dubai. I work in Brazil. But I tell you, now that is the best.
QADAR: Australia is the best?
RUBY: And Europe is so bad.
QADAR: Perth is the gateway to the resource-rich state of Western Australia or WA. Sex workers can earn an average of $200,000 a year here - that's more than most miners.
MARY-ANNE KENWORTHY: It has been the best three, four years of trade. I've been here for, in WA, for 30 years, and it is booming.
QADAR: Mary-Anne Kenworthy is the madam of Langtrees, which charges clients a basic rate of $400 an hour, split evenly between the sex worker and the house. Kenworthy says she has women coming to work here from Cuba, Scotland, Brazil, even Canada and the U.S. That's because the clients are spending more than ever.
KENWORTHY: Across the board, all clientele would spend, you know, 100 percent more than they used to spend, so we get a lot of four-, five-, six-, 10-hour bookings.
QADAR: Most of the clients are younger men who live in the city but fly out to remote mining sites for shifts lasting several weeks. It's a grueling schedule, and it can make starting a relationship difficult. Twenty-three-year-old Leila from New Zealand says that's what brings them to Langtrees.
LEILA: Kind of most of them just want to have a good time. And this is the place to come for a girl that's ready to have a good time too.
QADAR: Prostitution is legal throughout Australia, although the details vary from state to state. But a bill before the Western Australian parliament this year proposed making it harder for sex workers to operate.
JANET WOOLLARD: This is not a job that any woman would select for their daughter.
QADAR: Independent member of Parliament Janet Woollard wants the bill to go even further and make all brothels in the state illegal.
WOOLLARD: Prostitution is very much exploitation of vulnerable young girls and young women.
QADAR: Many people in Western Australia know about the sex industry here, but they don't seem very concerned about stopping it, says Courtney Trenwith, a reporter with the news website WA Today.
COURTNEY TRENWITH: It was more of a government initiative than there necessarily being a huge outcry about it in the first place. And, in fact, the government is even struggling to get it through Parliament with the support of its own party, let alone the opposition.
QADAR: Critics of the bill say attempts to criminalize the sex industry will simply make it less safe. Here's brothel owner Mary-Anne Kenworthy again.
KENWORTHY: If they did get this law up, 50 percent of the industry would be forced underground.
QADAR: Kenworthy says authorities haven't been able to stamp out prostitution anywhere in the world, and they wouldn't succeed in doing so in Western Australia either. The legislation is stalled in Parliament for now but could be revived after state elections next year, although the sex industry is lobbying hard against it. Meanwhile, back at Langtrees, it's now 11 p.m. and the brothel is getting busier.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: How are you?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Good. How are you?
QADAR: For now, at least, business is booming. For NPR News, I'm Sana Qadar.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
One day in the spring in the early 1970s, a young American named David Esterly had one of those life-changing moments. Visiting a London church, he looked up at botanical garlands made of wood, flowers that seemed to hover in the air. This was the work of Grinling Gibbons, a carver who lived between 1648 and1721.
Gibbons was said to be the greatest wood carver of all time. Today, his work can be seen at St. Paul's Cathedral, Hampton Court and other British landmarks. Esterly, who was at the time a scholar at Cambridge University in England, trained himself to carve in the Gibbons style.
He has a new exhibition opening later this week in Manhattan, as well as a new book called "The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making." The book begins when he learns that a fire has destroyed a precious part of Gibbons' adornment at Hampton Court.
DAVID ESTERLY: I went into a state of grieving at this point, and I wrote a sort of obituary for the carvings and sent it off to a London weekly journal where it was published. And then I started receiving these wonderful phone calls from the palace authorities, saying: No. Actually, extraordinarily enough, the carvings had basically survived.
There were two or three which were badly damaged in parts, and only one carving that was completely destroyed, which was a seven-foot-long drop which flanked a painting over a door in the king's drawing room, as it was called.
LYDEN: And that becomes the carving that you eventually will recreate. But it wasn't a straight line. At first, somebody calls you up, and you said it was a great indignation. They wanted a British carver and not an American carver.
(LAUGHTER)
ESTERLY: Well, yes. I thought I was poised to be given the job, but there was a small group among the authorities who felt that they should be encouraging British carvings. I was really just about the only person who was doing this kind of work fulltime for a living from scratch.
It was a small field then, and it's a small field now. As a matter of fact, Jacki, you are talking to the field. The field is in this room sitting on this chair.
(LAUGHTER)
LYDEN: You know, that becomes something that sort of is the elegiac part of this. You will be able to restore the lost carving. However, one of your other aspirations was that you would also ignite the imaginations of other people to carve, to learn as you did.
You had to learn trial and error, ruining a lot of wood. There isn't anyone, really, around. You met a couple of old carvers, but they're not your teachers. And you have all these wonderful things to say about carving - that it's the art of subtraction, that wood carvers revere the god of unseen effort but they're also unseen. Why are you the only one?
ESTERLY: No, there's a phenomenon with carving, which is probably true of other things as well. You can achieve 90 percent of the effect with 50 percent of the effort. But the truth is, unless you do the final 10 percent, which takes another 50 percent of effort, you'll never achieve that fineness which is necessary if it's going to, you know, raise the hairs on the back of your neck. So it's a killingly time-consuming occupation.
LYDEN: Let's go back to Hampton Court. It's going to take you about a year to make this piece, and it's a lovely year. You're commuting down from Hampton to London every day. You describe it as another world when you open the gates. But human considerations being what they are, it's also in some ways kind of a stormy time.
ESTERLY: It was stormy. I mean, I had certain ideas about how the carving, for example, should be presented. Gibbons always left his carving completely plain. And limewood is the palest wood in the forest.
LYDEN: Almost white, like frosting. It's kind of like frosting.
ESTERLY: Absolutely. Ghostly pale. And it was attached to darker oak paneling. And the effect of this ghostly delicate carving floating above the darker paneling was astonishing. It was much commented on in Gibbons' time. It was a real innovation. So I thought it was necessary to the appearance of the carving.
And we had tremendous battles over how the carving should appear. You know, most of us think of wood as brown. We're accustomed, I suppose because of the influence of the Victorians, to think of it as brown. And I couldn't overcome that resistance in the end.
LYDEN: David Esterly, you have learned to carve with a long-dead master at your side. There's this invisible long-departed Grinling Gibbons. Did he make you a better carver?
ESTERLY: Well, he certainly did. Yes. You know, when I first saw Gibbons' work at close quarters, I visited the palace shortly after the fire and got up on the scaffolding. And the first time I saw Gibbons' work close up, I nearly came out in hives. I was so astonished by the flamboyance of his modeling and by the fineness of his cutting and undercutting. And then I went back to my workshop in upstate New York and stood at my desk - I remember with my hands on my hips - and I looked out at my own work, and I felt almost a sense of despair, because I thought I had carved my leaves, for example, with a holographic accuracy.
You know, I would bring a leaf in from outside and put it on the workbench, and I'd copy it. But you know something? They looked like wooden leaves as opposed to Gibbons' inaccurate leaves which looked like real leaves.
And it was the first lesson that he taught me. There always has to be a translation into this new medium, and that you could only make a wooden leaf look like a real leaf by certain selective exaggerations. So even this very realistic form of art actually is artificial in its way.
LYDEN: When your year was finished, and you had created this beautiful seven-foot drop, these rope of botanicals that you were working from charred lumps of wood to reconstruct and a very hazy photograph that you had had blown up to scale, were you satisfied with the way it was mounted and presented?
ESTERLY: Well, no, because, of course, it was darkened to look like the other carving which had darkened over the years. And so, no, I was not happy. As a matter of fact, I didn't go out of my way to see it on the wall.
LYDEN: Maybe someday they will lighten these pieces at Hampton Court in the way that Gibbons would have intended.
ESTERLY: I'm hoping so. I'm hoping that people will someday see the carvings as William III saw them, as these celestially white garlands that looked as if they'd been gathered in heaven. So, no, I haven't given up hope.
LYDEN: Well, David Esterly, it's been a great pleasure talking to you. David Esterly joined us to talk about his new book, "The Lost Carving: A Journey to the Heart of Making." David, thank you so much.
ESTERLY: It's my pleasure.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
This is WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
Deep in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, lumberjacks still cry timber, just not as often as they once did. Across the state, milling lumber into good paper, the kind called knowledge grade for books, has employed thousands for more than a century and created a cherished culture.
Then about six years ago, the mills started closing, one after the other, as a result of the twin threats of the iPad and China. Still, some hearty souls are surviving through grit and attitude.
JOHN SCHMID: When I wake up every morning and lace up my boots to go to work, come with the right attitude, that's the one thing that we can control every day.
LYDEN: "Paper Cuts" is the name of a series done last month by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Reporter John Schmid begins by saying it's hard to underestimate how iconic the lumber industry is in Wisconsin.
SCHMID: There is a town called Hayward, Wisconsin, where you can still go for the annual August international lumberjack competition. The entire reason that Wisconsin became the nation's leading papermaking state is because it's got the natural resources that you need for making paper. It's got a lot of rivers, which you need to power the mills.
In a town called Appleton, Wisconsin, they made the world's first operating hydroelectric dam to power the paper mills. And you've got hardwood forests, which have been a blessing for the industry in northern Wisconsin. These yield these fine, tough fibers that are great for books, magazines, encyclopedias. That's what Wisconsin specialized in for over 100 years.
LYDEN: So these wonderful pages survived a very long time. In your series, you start to really look at things from 2000 on, and then in 2006 on is when mills start to close. How did the paper industry survive the beginning of the digital age and then suddenly it didn't?
SCHMID: What happened was that with every recession that hit in the 1980s and throughout the 1990s and even into the past decade, the industry would bounce back and output and demand was greater than ever before. And a joke began to circulate: this paperless society sure is good for business.
Amazingly, astonishingly, the paper industry demand held up right up through about 2005, 2006. There is a beautiful, old 120-year-old mill on the Wisconsin River in a town called Nekoosa. It had to work extra shifts to make the paper for the recent biography of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. The irony, of course, is that no industrialist has done more than Steve Jobs to create the touch screens that are putting the pressure on these paper mills.
LYDEN: And, like a mighty oak, there is one survivor here who you profile of this decline. Let's hear just a little bit from your video story, John. This is Butch Johnson.
(SOUNDBITE OF SERIES, "PAPER CUTS")
BUTCH JOHNSON: We're now just celebrating today, I believe, our sixth year of keeping this mill open. And it hasn't been easy. We feel a lot of pride in what we've been able to do where other people have just sort of thrown in the towel.
LYDEN: Love everything, from his accent to his obvious pride. Tell us about Butch Johnson.
SCHMID: Butch Johnson is a second generation logger, dyed-in-the-wool northern Wisconsinite. And he's from the town called Hayward. What we wanted to do at the very onset was avoid the journalistic cliche of reporting on a dying Midwest industry. One of the first questions we asked was, have any of these mills that have closed down reopened?
There was just one. That's in Park Falls. Butch grew up there. It is the biggest employer in all the counties around it.
LYDEN: I imagine he's quite a hero in Park Falls.
SCHMID: He is a folk hero locally. He saved the town. As soon as the mill closed and pink slips went out, the anecdotes that I had heard was that just about every other house on some blocks put up a for sale sign, and you could just see the town's economy begin to collapse.
Banks did not want to extend any loans to Butch. So he scraped together a fairly complicated deal. It did involve some state subsidies from the state of Wisconsin, and then he had the mill back up and running within a couple of months of its closure.
LYDEN: So how are they doing?
SCHMID: Butch will be the first to admit that they might be the next mill to close. But for now, he added some long overdue automation on the big paper machine. So they make more paper than they ever did, a higher quality paper than they ever did.
They are eking out a thin operating profit. When you talk to folks in the Wisconsin paper industry, usually off the record, when you set aside your notebook and you ask them the question, where do you see this industry going, some of them will say: We're just waiting to see who the last man standing is going to be.
LYDEN: John, "Paper Cuts" the series follows the whole mill trail overseas to China. And it's kind of amazing because for a long time, papermakers in Wisconsin assumed that the Chinese market just didn't have enough wood to make paper. You go to China, and you find out that that's not true. What else do you find out?
SCHMID: No one expected them to dominate industry that's just not sexy, an industry that is so 18th century. What China has had for so many decades were these quaint, old, highly polluting mills that made flimsy paper out of things like straw and reeds and bamboo.
So it began to strategically nurture a paper industry. In China, in the classrooms, children grow up learning about the four great inventions. They included paper, printing, the compass and gun powder. It is a potent national symbol. And China felt like it was reclaiming an industry that belonged to China in the first place.
LYDEN: So one of the fascinating parts of your story is that a prominent Wisconsin paper mill executive named Jeff Lindsay leaves Kimberly-Clark, which gave the world Kleenex, to go to Shanghai. Let's hear Jeff Lindsay's take on things in his new role. And here he is from Shanghai.
JEFF LINDSAY: It's been an incredible learning experience seeing what China is actually like versus what the West thinks China is. So many fallacies and misconceptions. It's amazing.
LYDEN: What does he think that China has going for it that Wisconsin doesn't?
SCHMID: Jeff is a engineer. He's a man who's used to speaking in empirical terms. He's the sort of guy who got into the paper industry because you can do so much with cellulose fibers and innovate with them and invent dozens of endless new uses for cellulose fibers. My interpretation of listening to Jeff is that the innovation culture in China, in the Chinese paper mills, is very active. While Wisconsin was a leader in innovation in paper, it lost that about two decades ago.
LYDEN: You found that the Chinese government doled out at least $33 billion in subsidies to its paper industry between 2002 and 2009. That's more than $4 billion a year.
SCHMID: But it's not just subsidies that the Chinese have used as a competitive advantage. They are an innovation economy. They've had to compensate for a chronic timber deficit. And they are crossbreeding and hybridizing and cloning species of trees that can grow to full height in four to six years and yield the same pulp that a Wisconsin hardwood needs in 10 times that same period.
I think the greatest innovation that the Chinese have come up with, however, is that they've created the biggest and most efficient recycling scheme in the world. They scour the planet, literally, for recycled paper, which they then de-ink and re-pulp. The biggest supplier is the United States of America. So think of all those recycling bins in homes and offices from coast to coast.
Every time you recycle a piece of paper, there's a pretty decent chance that it's not ending up in the United States. Not only is Wisconsin losing an industry, but for all of its economic might, the biggest U.S. export is junk that we throw away.
LYDEN: That's John Schmid. He's a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. His series about the Wisconsin paper industry is called "Paper Cuts," and you can see more of it at npr.org. John, absolutely fascinating. Thank you very much.
SCHMID: Thank you so much for letting me be on your show.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LYDEN: This is NPR News.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
We're talking on this show about an old and cherished maxim of our republic: You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. In politics, that's called pork. You get a road or a monument, I get your vote.
Members of Congress and all of us have lived on this since the era of stovepipe hats. Lately, with the gridlock in Washington, the feeling is that some of that grease might help ease things. The political vogue, though, has been to repudiate this.
SARAH PALIN: I told Congress thanks but no thanks for that bridge to nowhere up in Alaska. If our state wanted a bridge, we were going to build it ourselves.
LYDEN: But long before Sarah Palin was talking about the infamous bridge to nowhere, long before Bill Clinton, John McCain and President Barack Obama, to name just a few, opposed earmarks, former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson recalls hearing about them in the 1960s.
ALAN SIMPSON: I remember my father was in the U.S. Senate, and when Lyndon Johnson was president, he came up to pop one time. He said, Milward, what can I do for you? I need your vote. And dad said, well, nothing. He said, oh, surely you must have a dam or a road or something out there in Wyoming. And the old man said, no, I don't. But anyway, that's - I'm not talking about purity. I'm just talking about reality.
LYDEN: Well, in 2010, that reality was banned. And now the question is whether the ban was a help or a hindrance to our political system.
SIMPSON: Did it do us any good to see them go away?
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LYDEN: Our cover story today: Pass the bacon or passing on the bacon?
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LYDEN: When Republican Senator Alan Simpson was in Congress, there was a lot of backroom dealing going on. If you wanted to whip people into voting a certain way, you might suggest that, hey, if you want that project of yours to be funded, we could maybe make that happen in the next appropriations cycle. You help us here, right?
SIMPSON: And there isn't a single person in Congress - not one, not me, not anybody - that didn't, when I was there, came there in '78, '79 that when they wrote and said we need this kind of a thing grants people writing day and night and you just had your staff throw it into the stack. And they always knew they wanted to hook up to a moving train.
So they'd wait for a bill that they knew damn well would pass, couldn't possibly not pass, and just hook it on. It was called linking up the train. The engine was moving, and you might have been in the caboose when you started, but at the end, you were right up there with the engine.
LYDEN: Until the 1990s, earmarks were used mostly by top dogs in Congress who sat in key Appropriations Committee seats. Then in 1995, when the Republicans took over Congress, lawmakers started to think of earmarks as a tool, a really effective one. Steve Ellis, vice president of the nonpartisan group Taxpayers for Common Sense.
STEVE ELLIS: This was something that the rank and file could use, particularly lawmakers in vulnerable districts, to help show that they could bring home the bacon and help them get re-elected.
LYDEN: Ellis says it touched off a frenzy of spending, Congress doubled the amount spent in earmarks to over $14 billion by 1998.
ELLIS: As you start opening that spigot, it's like chum in the water for Washington lobbyists. And so then you had more lobbyists because there were earmarks, and then more earmarks because there were more lobbyists.
LYDEN: And up and up and up the earmarks went on both sides of the aisle. When these oinkers come to Capitol Hill, they bring the pig book with them.
(SOUNDBITE OF NEWS REPORTS)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Congressional café, open for business (unintelligible).
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Four hundred thirteen thousand for peanut research in Alabama.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: (Unintelligible) with $24 billion worth of earmarks.
JONATHAN KARL: Two hundred thousand dollars for tattoo removal in Los Angeles.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: (Unintelligible) for Hawaiian canoe trips.
KARL: Old-fashioned pork.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #5: Pork will be paid for with your money.
ELLIS: You know, when people talk about earmarks, they talk about things like the Cowgirl Hall of Fame or the Teapot Museum or the statue of Vulcan or even bigger ones like the bridge to nowhere. But in my opinion, the more insidious ones are probably some of these smaller defense earmarks, where maybe a million dollars it's going to a defense contractor that's hired a lobbyist, that's made campaign contributions to a lawmaker. This is, you know, a pay-to-play type of environment, and those don't get caught as much and you have to do a lot of digging to get them. But those are really where, I think, it's more insidious.
LYDEN: Insidious and inefficient, says Ellis.
ELLIS: It is a broken system for allocating funding because we're awarding the money on the basis of political muscle, not project merit. And so especially when you have a very tight budget situation, we can only afford to be spending money on the best and the most important projects, not because they happen to be in the most important lawmakers' district.
LYDEN: In 2010, several senators introduced a bipartisan bill to end earmarks. Democratic Senator Mark Udall of Colorado was one of them.
SENATOR MARK UDALL: I had become more and more convinced during my service in the House as well that earmarks were unfairly apportioned and that the more senior and the more committees on which you sat, the more earmarks you were able to generate, and that just seemed to me to be fundamentally unfair. And it led to finally a pursuit, if you will, a mad pursuit, of earmarks at the expense of a lot of the other work we should be doing here in Congress.
My staff was dedicating an enormous amount of time to generating earmark requests that were leading, frankly in the end, to nowhere. It just seemed to me and the other three senators it was time to bring an end to the practice.
LYDEN: Nothing that's occurred recently has disabused him of the reform brought about by his legislation. However, after months of grim faces, foul language and frayed tempers, whispers are growing louder that it might be time to rethink the earmarks ban.
RICK UNGAR: As distasteful as we can all make arguments, you know, just showing how bad it is, you know, we got a lot more done.
LYDEN: Rick Ungar wrote a piece for Forbes making this case.
UNGAR: Earmarks served a purpose. Not necessarily the purpose they were intended to serve, but they did serve the purpose of bringing along votes that weren't coming along for the right reasons.
LYDEN: So you don't think they were getting out of control? Some of the numbers that have been tossed around in terms of how much was ascribed to earmarking, you know, some very significant dollars.
UNGAR: They were. And you could certainly make the argument that they were getting out of control, but then you could make the argument they were probably always out of control or at least since the time when they started using them as vote buyers as opposed to intelligent expenditures of federal money.
Look. You know, in 2010, the total bill for earmarks was roughly $15-point-somehting billion. Not chump change. No taxpayers should be happy to see their money be wasted on a project that maybe isn't deserving. But if the lack of having earmarks is a tool that the speaker or the president can use to bring along votes, if that would've made a difference in our current fiscal cliff fiasco or in the debt ceiling, then all the things that really cost us enormous sums of money, maybe $15 billion a year is a pretty tiny price to pay.
LYDEN: So what have you been hearing in response to this article? Have any legislative aides or politicians been back channeling to you and saying, you know, we need earmarks back?
UNGAR: I think we know the ones who would like to have them back. They're not back channeling so much because it's one of those topics that people don't like to really get involved with. Interestingly, I actually wrote a piece the other day where I pointed out the effective earmarks that were in the Sandy relief bill.
Harry Reid built in a rather large sum of money in the $60 billion Senate bill to bring relief to the folks here in New York and New Jersey. The largest chunk of earmarks went to projects to benefit the following states: Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.
Now, what do they all have in common? Two Republican senators in each of those states, except for Louisiana, that has won. And when you add them together, you get seven Republican senators who came along to vote for the Sandy bill, making it filibuster-proof. So I think what we find is that earmarks do still exist. They just exist in a different way.
LYDEN: So, Rick, would you say that we should bring earmarks back? Do we need them?
UNGAR: I think we have to have a discussion about it. It's so easy to make this argument from both sides. And I know that sounds like I could be waffling on it a bit, but, you know, just like everybody else, it bothers me that these things are used to buy votes when buying votes should not be necessary in Congress. That's the idealistic side speaking.
LYDEN: Gold standard?
UNGAR: Yeah. In reality, you know, I think it's something we should consider. We cannot handle too much more of the situation we currently face where you cannot get legislation through or legislation can only get through when it's done at truly the last hour or beyond. This is not a healthy way to run a government.
And if earmarks - returning earmarks can bring us back to a place where the president or the speaker, whoever it may be, is in a position to make deals to get important legislation through, well, maybe we just have to accept it. One other thing I'd quickly point out. In a system that very much favors incumbents - you know, whether it's the money we have and the political system - this is all designed to favor incumbents. That's what earmarks do.
So you have to ask the question, does it make sense to allow all this money to be spent on supporting the incumbency of our elected officials when they have to run for office? And then say, but on the other hand, we're not going to allow earmarks. It's immoral. It just doesn't make sense. If you want to get rid of all of that, boy, am I in favor of that. But if you're going to continue to have this enormous unlimited sum of money pouring into our political system, does it really make a lot of sense to take earmarks out of the equation?
LYDEN: Well, are you saying if you really want to clean it up in terms of eliminating earmarks, eliminate Citizens United as well?
UNGAR: There you go. If you're going to clean it up, clean it up.
LYDEN: That's Rick Ungar. He's a contributor for Forbes, and he joined us from our studios in New York. Rick, thanks very much.
UNGAR: A pleasure.
LYDEN: By the way, when I asked Senator Alan Simpson if earmarks might make a comeback, he said it's possible.
SIMPSON: Well, everything else seems to be making a comeback. There are no spending cuts on the horizon. No one wants to touch Social Security or precious health care, precious Medicaid, precious defense. So let me tell you: You know why that last highway bill was held up so long and they said this is a jobs bill, it is absolutely critical, and it's there, it's shovel-ready, all the rest of the stuff we heard? Why was it held up for months? It was held up for months so the guys could get their earmarks tacked back on it without ever getting any fingerprints.
LYDEN: Yeah. I guess the old phrase also used to be this bill is a Christmas tree.
SIMPSON: There's plenty of baubles on the Christmas tree and plenty of (unintelligible) out there ready to put them on.
(LAUGHTER)
LYDEN: Alan Simpson is a former Republican senator from Wyoming. We spoke to him at his home in Cody. Senator Simpson, thank you for joining us.
SIMPSON: Always a pleasure.
LYDEN: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
For the first time since 1994, the Violence Against Women Act has been allowed to expire. The law gives police and social service groups money to help fight domestic violence and sexual assault.
The sticking point for reauthorizing the measure was apparently new protections for Native American women - those drew objections from House Republicans. NPR's justice correspondent Carrie Johnson is here to talk about the law. Carrie, thanks for coming in.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Thank you.
LYDEN: So the Senate passed its version of a Violence Against Women law back in April and the House couldn't reach an agreement - a not unfamiliar script in D.C. these days. What went wrong?
JOHNSON: Jacki, the Senate actually had 68 votes for its version of this law, which means it was really a bipartisan measure in all respects. The House passed a different version, but it stripped some provisions from the Senate bill and, in some ways, according to advocates for victims of domestic violence, set back the clock a ways.
The White House said under no circumstances would it sign or approve the House measure, and that threw the process into chaos late last year. Vice President Joe Biden, who was a leading proponent of the Violence Against Women Act when it first passed in Congress, got involved. He tried to negotiate with House Majority leader Eric Cantor, but they could not come up with a deal.
LYDEN: But what had changed, Carrie, in the legislation?
JOHNSON: There were three new provisions in the Senate measure. This law dates back to 1994, and it's been reauthorized pretty much every five years without fail. And these three new provisions were more protection for victims who come from the LGBT community - gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered victims - and more protection for immigrants who may or may not be in the country legally, and finally, more protection for Native American women - women on reservations whose statistics show are the victim of violence most often from people who do not live on those reservations. And the tribal courts in Indian country currently are not empowered to hear those cases, which involve offenders from non-Native American communities. The Senate would have allowed that to happen for the first time.
LYDEN: We've heard a lot about sexual violence in Indian territory, as you say. What was the objection to extending protection to them under this law?
JOHNSON: The central nature of the objection was never fully specified in public. But from what I've been able to figure out from talking to people on the Hill, people in the Justice Department and people in the victims' advocacy community, it was this notion that expanding some jurisdiction for the tribal courts raised bigger questions about the authority of the tribal courts.
If you expand jurisdiction for one category, the category of, say, white men who rape or assault in some other way women on the reservation, where do you stop? Once you start changing the jurisdiction of those tribal courts, you could make an argument - and I think some House Republicans did - that there's no limit there.
LYDEN: So things got stalled in the House. Do we have any idea how this will impact women and victims of domestic violence?
JOHNSON: What I've been hearing from people in the victims' advocacy community and people at the Justice Department is that the Violence Against Women Act mostly provides money - grant money - for training police and courts and prosecutors and for social service organizations that help victims.
All of those protections will continue so long as Congress continues to appropriate money to the Justice Department and, Jacki, so long as Congress is able to come up with some solution to sequestration, which, as of now, is set to take effect in March.
LYDEN: Are you hearing anything, Carrie, about what might happen this year on Capitol Hill?
JOHNSON: Nancy Pelosi, the House Minority leader, says this is a top priority, and Senator Patrick Leahy, a Democrat from Vermont who sort of separated this bill through the Senate last year, calls it a disappointment and a tragedy that it was not reauthorized. He plans to introduce some comprehensive new legislation very soon.
LYDEN: That's NPR's justice correspondent Carrie Johnson. Thank you very much.
JOHNSON: Thank you.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
If you've just tuned in, this is WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Jacki Lyden.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
DANA SUZUKI-CULBERTSON: I'm Dana Suzuki-Culbertson(ph), and I live in Kaneohe, Oahu (unintelligible).
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SUZUKI-CULBERTSON: The night I went to see Elvis, I went with my mother. And I remember sitting up, and the moment I saw him with my binoculars, I was in such awe that I stopped and I was just staring at my mom, saying: Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And she told me: Stop looking at me and look at stage and watch.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LYDEN: Forty years ago this month, on January 14, 1973, Elvis Presley, perfectly tanned in his high-collared American Eagle jumpsuit, walked onstage at the Honolulu International Center to make history - the first solo entertainer to broadcast live via satellite.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LYDEN: More than 40 countries from Asia to Europe, 1 billion and a half viewers, watched the King in the historic concert called "Aloha from Hawaii." For fans in the audience like Dana Culbertson, the memory still shines.
SUZUKI-CULBERTSON: When he first came out on stage, you know, they start off with these drums: boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then da-da-da, da-da-da, and then out he comes, you know, "See See Rider."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SEE SEE RIDER")
ELVIS PRESLEY: (Singing) Oh, see. See see rider. Oh, see what you have done. I said see, see see rider. Oh, see what you have done. Girl, you made me love you. Now, now, now your lovin' man has gone. Hear what I say.
LYDEN: Also in the audience was a graduate student named Neil Abercrombie. He was (unintelligible).
GOVERNOR NEIL ABERCROMBIE: It was 12:30 a.m. when it started. The place was packed, about 6,000-plus people in our little arena here. And he was in his, you know, his white cape, and he had his semi-karate moves. And he sang at least 20, 25 songs in an hour.
(APPLAUSE)
PRESLEY: Thank you. Thank you very much. "Johnny B."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JOHNNY B. GOOD")
ABERCROMBIE: When he did "Hound Dog," you know, "Big Mama" Willie Mae Thornton's "Hound Dog"...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOUND DOG")
PRESLEY: (Singing) You ain't nothing but a hound dog, crying all the time. Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit and you ain't no friend of mine.
ABERCROMBIE: He did "Fever."
LYDEN: Dana Culbertson was just 17 at the time.
SUZUKI-CULBERTSON: You know, I was in my own world, swooning and wanting all that too. I just loved him.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FEVER")
PRESLEY: (Singing) Never know how much I love you. Never know how much I care. Oh, when you put your arms around me I get a fever that's so hard to bear. You give me fever.
LYDEN: Yes, Elvis charmed the girls, girls, girls, and the boys too. Neil Abercrombie became an Elvis fan after listening to R&B in his hometown of Buffalo, New York. So, of course, he was happy to see the king's genius on stage.
ABERCROMBIE: He did rhythm and blues stuff. And, of course, he did "I'll Remember You," Kui Lee.
LYDEN: Can you sing any of it?
ABERCROMBIE: (Singing) I'll remember you, da-da-da-da.
GOVERNOR: You all - yeah, that's it. The second he started it, people burst into tears.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'LL REMEMBER YOU")
PRESLEY: (Singing) I'll remember you long after this endless summer has gone. I'll be lonely, oh, so lonely, living only to remember you.
LYDEN: The reason behind the Hawaii concert was to commemorate the late Hawaiian composer Kui Lee who'd written the song "I'll Remember You," made famous by entertainer Don Ho. Presley recorded the song in June of 1966, the year Lee died.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'LL REMEMBER YOU")
PRESLEY: (Singing) As the warm summer breeze your sweet laughter, mornings after, ever after, I'll remember you. To your arms someday...
LYDEN: Elvis Presley loved Hawaii, and he was happy there. He made three movies in the state with titles like "Blue Hawaii." He held a benefit show for the USS Arizona Memorial, the shop destroyed in the Pearl Harbor.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LYDEN: As huge as the 1973 television event was, one irony is that in the United States, you couldn't see. John Jackson is vice president of Sony's Legacy Recordings.
JOHN JACKSON: It was the same day as the Super Bowl, you know, Super Bowl VII, Dolphins versus Redskins. Yeah, that was the season that the Dolphins went undefeated, which was a huge deal.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SUSPICIOUS MINDS")
PRESLEY: (Singing) What you're doing to me when you don't believe a word I say. We can't go on together with suspicious minds. And we can't build our dreams on suspicious minds. So if an old friend I know...
LYDEN: So I've seen your picture, John Jackson, and are you as old as Elvis was when he performed this concert?
JACKSON: That's funny you mentioned that. I actually am 38 years old right now. I haven't thought of that before (unintelligible). And thank you for reminding me, by the way.
LYDEN: And happy birthday, by the way.
(LAUGHTER)
LYDEN: But how do we explain your fascination for a performer you weren't even born when this concert took place? And you've become a, you know, an expert on Elvis.
JACKSON: I was fortunate enough to have attended Indiana University. I actually, for my thesis project, made a CD-ROM about Elvis' life where you could see clips and see photos and read about him and the argument being that Elvis really ushered in the age of the multimedia human being. And you couldn't just hear his music without seeing his photograph, or you couldn't see the photograph without seeing the motion of him on television, or you had to take in everything or he didn't make sense. And then after that, everything changed. And, you know, the world is now a multimedia place.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MY WAY")
PRESLEY: (Singing) ...and did it my way. The record shows I took the blows and did it my way.
JACKSON: Oh, I mean, the whole was just fantastic. I mean, you can tell when listening to the January 12th show, the sort of dress rehearsal show, he's a little bit loser, he's joking around with the band and stuff, which was what he was out to do. But the 14 show, he just absolutely kills it. And, you know, particularly the famous performances of "An American Trilogy," which was a favorite song of his that he did. And it's just one of the great performances of his entire career.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AN AMERICAN TRILOGY")
PRESLEY: (Singing) Glory, glory hallelujah.
LYDEN: As we know, the King still lives amongst diehard Elvis fans, but those fans haven't done so badly either. Neil Abercrombie is now Hawaii's governor, and he still loves Elvis.
ABERCROMBIE: He was a phenomenon. And we're talking about it 40 years later. You're not going to have the Justin Bieber world satellite concert 40 years from now, you know, or Beyonce or something like that. These are passing phenomenon. Presley was singular in that way. The word charisma was made for him.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CAN'T HELP FALLING IN LOVE")
PRESLEY: (Singing) Take my hand. Take my whole life too. For I can't help falling in love with you.
LYDEN: Fortieth anniversary celebrations of the concert are planned from Memphis to Honolulu with a rebroadcast of the 1973 show. If you're lucky enough to get there, you'll be joining Governor Abercrombie at the arena where it all took place on January 14th. You, too, can say what Elvis might say if he were there - "Aloha from Hawaii."
(SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING)
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
With the holidays over, hundreds of teachers, principals and lunchroom workers around the country are returning to school a bit more prepared. That's because some districts conducted school-shooter trainings, meant to prepare staff for a crisis like the recent shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. Gigi Douban attended one gathering in Alabama, and sent this report.
GIGI DOUBAN, BYLINE: It's almost instinct. Teachers want to protect kids in a school shooting, but a lot of them don't know how. So over the Christmas break, there were simulations like this, one near Birmingham in Jefferson County, Alabama.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHOUTING, SCREAMING)
DOUBAN: School staff took turns playing sheriff's deputies and teachers. They put on protective vests and dodged wax bullets. Their job? Get the kids to a classroom, lock the door, and turn off the lights.
More than a hundred school employees did this school-shooter training. That's five times as many as had signed up before the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings. Around the country, others did their own drills over the holidays. There were similar trainings last month near Nashville, Tennessee; Omaha, Nebraska; and another in Utah.
Coming out of the Alabama simulation, teacher Alanna Shankles was amped up. On a scale of one to 10, she rated her adrenalin a 12.
ALANNA SHANKLES: Like, I was like, really and truly, like, I had people that I was supposed to be protecting; very, very, very intense.
DOUBAN: It was chaotic - and pretty scary. People were running everywhere; there was screaming. Shankles wanted to do the training both as a teacher, and as a parent of four kids in the school system. An Alabama state lawmaker plans to file a bill to let some administrators and teachers carry guns. Shankles thinks that's a bad idea.
SHANKLES: It's scary. I know that I'm an emotionally stable person. But I don't know if the person teaching my son, or my daughter, is emotionally stable. And in a situation, you just - you don't know how you're going to react until you're in it. And I don't feel like, necessarily, teachers should be given that kind of power.
DOUBAN: Dale Stripling, student services supervisor in Jefferson County, says earlier, these kinds of trainings were limited. But the Connecticut shootings made one thing clear - everyone needs to know what to do, from the school secretary to the janitor.
DALE STRIPLING: In the old days, we used to just prepare teachers or just administrators, but now we understand that if a custodian's in the hall and he hears code red, he needs to get out of the hall also. So we try to better prepare all of our employees.
DOUBAN: And speaking of code red, at the Jefferson County training, there were also tips like instead of using confusing codes like code red, just say there's a shooter in the building. And another thing - don't go running at the police, or they might mistake you for the shooter.
Chances of that happening drop substantially if you're dealing with school resource officers. That's because they know the teachers and the kids, says Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource officers. Canady says his group has been inundated, in recent weeks, with requests for training like this. He says the difference between school resource officers and armed guards, is huge.
MO CANADY: When you're talking about an armed guard, you're talking about potentially a security guard, someone armed to stand guard at your front door. When we're talking about the concept of a school police officer, we're talking about someone who is ingrained into that school and that community.
DOUBAN: And that investment in the community, he says, goes a long way toward feelings of trust and security, a sentiment that's a little harder to come by in schools right now.
For NPR News, I'm Gigi Douban in Birmingham.
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Now to Italy, where national elections are a little over a month away. A key issue is austerity and measures the government has taken aimed at reducing the country's overwhelming debt. But it wouldn't be Italy without colorful politics to go along. Much attention is focused on two key candidates for parliament - the disgraced right wing former prime minister, Sylvio Berlusconi, is running again. Also in the race, the caretaker prime minister, Mario Monti, who waited until late in the election before he decided to run.
Here's NPR's Sylvia Poggioli in Rome.
SYLVIA POGGIOLI, BYLINE: A few weeks ago, 12 million Italian TV viewers tuned in to watch Oscar-winning comedian Roberto Benigni lampoon the former prime minister.
ROBERTO BENIGNI: (Foreign language spoken)
(LAUGHTER)
POGGIOLI: He's back. He's actually running again. Silvio, have mercy on us, Benigni pleaded, this is your sixth campaign.
This is how the increasingly cosmetically enhanced 76-year-old media tycoon responded.
SILVIO BERLUSCONI: (Foreign language spoken)
POGGIOLI: You Italians need me. I do not hold back when I feel the duty to help those in need.
Berlusconi is widely seen as an untenable candidate. He's been found guilty of corruption, and he's waiting for the verdict on charges of having paid for sex with a minor. But analyst Giulietto Chiesa says Berlusconi has hard-core supporters willing to forgive his so-called bunga bunga orgies and diplomatic gaffes.
GIULIETTO CHIESA: In the last 20 years, we had a very deep moral degeneration of the country. Mr. Berlusconi has obtained the very important result. He has changed the mood, not of the majority of the country, but of a large chunk of the population of Italy.
POGGIOLI: In a country with high tax evasion, many voters see Berlusconi as champion of their vested interests. That means sharply lowering - if not eliminating - a slew of property, gasoline and value-added taxes the Monti government imposed to try to lower Italy's massive debt. The country now has one of the highest taxation rates in Europe and it will rise more this year.
Berlusconi has revived his populist promise to cut back taxes. Appearing constantly on TV, he uses vitriol against his successor, calling him a pygmy leader and a liar who takes orders from German Chancellor Angela Merkel. In response, Monti adopted the ironic rhetorical style of Mark Antony in Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar."
MARIO MONTI: (Through translator) If Berlusconi believes I am not very credible, that means I'm not very credible. I respect his judgment. He's an authoritative person.
POGGIOLI: The tall, erudite Monti stands in sharp contrast to the short, pugnacious Berlusconi. But Monti, too, has sharpened his tone and seems to be enjoying the fight, reminding voters that it was Berlusconi who led the country to the edge of the financial abyss. Monti has also taken to the airwaves and has embraced Twitter as a campaign tool, telling his followers he feels like a pioneer.
His main aim is to bring members of civil society - young people and women in particular - into parliament. And he promises that none of his candidates will have issues with the law.
Gabriele Italiano is a young entrepreneur who has spent time working abroad. He's a strong Monti supporter.
GABRIELE ITALIANO: I'm in favor of the person. I'm in favor his professionalism, of his knowledge of the European Union mechanisms that I think are the base for the future of Italy, even though the majority of the people here do not understand the importance of them.
POGGIOLI: In fact, the Italian middle-class has suffered the brunt of Monti's austerity policies lower salaries and pensions, higher taxes and rising unemployment. And despite strong support for Monti from the Vatican and the international community, it's not surprising his popularity is dropping. Polls give him and his allies just 15 percent of the vote, compared with 20 percent for Berlusconi.
But the election is a three-way race and the expected election winner is the leftist Democratic Party. Political analyst Roberto D'Alimonte says the PD is staunchly pro-Europe.
ROBERTO D'ALIMONTE: The PD is not seen and will not do anything that will jeopardize Italy's position in the European Union, in my opinion, or jeopardize what Mr. Monti has achieved.
POGGIOLI: Most analysts believe the outcome will be a coalition between Monti and the Democratic Party, which wants more emphasis on growth stimulus and jobs creation. Only the final results would determine which party gets the prime minister job, and the upper hand in setting policy.
Sylvia Poggioli, NPR News, Rome.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
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And I'm Audie Cornish.
As of this month, abortion has been legal in the United States for 40 years. But across the country, states are working hard to restrict the procedure. Over the holidays, with little fanfare, two Republican governors signed new abortion bills into law. Both Virginia and Michigan set up new regulations for clinics where abortions are performed. Anti-abortion activists say they'll make clinics safer. But as NPR's Kathy Lohr reports, abortion providers say the rules are intended to shut clinics down.
KATHY LOHR, BYLINE: Virginia's GOP Governor Bob McDonnell quietly approved the clinic regulations, but he's long been a vocal supporter of regulating abortions and the facilities that perform them. Here's what the governor said at the beginning of the nearly two-year effort that basically requires clinics to be built like hospitals.
GOVERNOR BOB MCDONNELL: Obviously, I'm a pro-life governor. I believe that we ought to do everything we can to promote the sanctity of human life.
LOHR: In December, McDonnell issued a prepared statement saying the law will help ensure the safety of all patients. Twenty clinics in Virginia have to follow the new rules. In part, they say public hallways must be at least 5 feet wide, exam rooms must be at least 80 square feet, and there must be at least four parking spaces for each surgical room and additional staff spaces.
Julie Rikelman with the Center for Reproductive Rights says the law will force many clinics to rebuild or close.
JULIE RIKELMAN: These kinds of harsh, strict regulations are not applied in any other medical context. They're only applied to medical practices that also offer abortion services.
LOHR: Rikelman says the center is considering whether to file legal action in Virginia as the group did in Kansas where a court blocked that state's law that would have placed building regulations on existing clinics.
RIKELMAN: The types of services that these centers provide include family planning services, abortion services. They're the exact same type of medical services that you get from your regular primary care doctor, in his or her regular physician's office. And there's absolutely no reason for those services to have to be provided in a hospital-type setting.
LOHR: More of these laws are being passed across the country. In Michigan, about 30 clinics are affected by a law that, in part, calls for construction regulations on facilities that perform more than 120 abortions a year. In Pennsylvania, one clinic has stopped doing abortions after that state required clinics to be built like mini-surgical centers. Last year, Virginia caused an uproar by proposing the strictest ultrasound law in the country that would have required an invasive vaginal probe.
But the president of the Virginia Society for Human Life, Olivia Gans Turner, says the new clinic rules are necessary. She cites an infamous Philadelphia clinic run by Kermit Gosnell, which state officials called a house of horrors. Gosnell was charged with eight counts of murder after at least one woman and seven infants died in his office.
OLIVIA GANS TURNER: Are they all quite as bad as Gosnell? Perhaps not. But if one woman dies in a facility that could otherwise have been regulated and cared for in a way that provided some measure of protection, who is going to stand for justice for those women if it isn't the states and their responsibility under their Board of Health?
LOHR: Pennsylvania officials ignored numerous complaints about Gosnell. Abortion rights activists say his office was an aberration, that he clearly operated outside the law.
Elizabeth Nash with the Guttmacher Institute calls the clinic building codes a political maneuver.
ELIZABETH NASH: They're not about health and they're not about safety. It's a way to bypass a court case to overturn Roe v. Wade and simply eliminate access by regulating abortion providers out of business.
LOHR: Roe versus Wade is the decision that legalized abortion 40 years ago this month. In Virginia, even though the governor has signed the law, a two-month public comment period is just beginning. Still, that's unlikely to change any of the new clinic rules.
Kathy Lohr, NPR News.
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In Afghanistan, talk of peace is in the air. Recent discussions, hosted by France, have renewed hopes for some sort of reconciliation between the Taliban and the Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai. But after decades of war, many think the prospect of a negotiated peace deal is nothing but talk.
NPR's Sean Carberry has our story from Kabul.
SEAN CARBERRY, BYLINE: The on and off peace process has spent most of the last year off due to a set of seemingly irreconcilable differences. Taliban leaders have long rejected peace talks with the Karzai government, saying they will only negotiate with the U.S. The U.S., for its part, says the two sides should negotiate directly but the mood has changed since an informal meeting last month outside Paris.
For the first time, envoys from the Taliban sat at the same table with members of the Karzai-appointed Afghan High Peace Council as well as other Afghan politicians and members of parliament, including Nilofar Ibrahimi.
NILOFAR IBRAHIMI: (Through translator) It's the first time the Taliban accepted two women to join the peace talks. This is something very positive, and this is a very strong move towards peace.
CARBERRY: Ibrahimi says the Taliban delegates seemed ready to make some concessions on the question of women's rights once there is a peace settlement.
IBRAHIMI: (Through translator) The Taliban agreed that women will have the right to work, to study and to do business, but according to Islamic law.
CARBERRY: That's progress in Ibrahimi's view, but she's not fully convinced.
IBRAHIMI: (Through translator) I cannot say that I'm definitely optimistic about this meeting. There might be something that is still hidden behind the curtains.
MAWLAWI QALAMUDDIN: (Foreign language spoken)
CARBERRY: Mawlawi Qalamuddin is a former Taliban official and a member of the Afghan High Peace Council.
QALAMUDDIN: (Through translator) The most important part of the talks in France was the participation of the Taliban. For the two years the Peace Council has been in existence, no one from the Taliban has come to share their views with us.
CARBERRY: Kate Clark is senior analyst with the Afghanistan Analysts Network in Kabul.
KATE CLARK: I think peace is possible here.
CARBERRY: She says that one of the main challenges is that there are so many players, the U.S., the other NATO counties, Pakistan, the Taliban, the Afghan opposition and the Karzai government. And each has its own interests and needs to come away with some sort of victory they can take back to their respective constituencies.
CLARK: It's messy. It's really messy and, I think, to get beyond that requires a level of political seriousness that we have yet to see amongst the big players. Up until now, they've mainly been serious about waging war.
CARBERRY: Which explains why the attitude on the Afghan street is subdued, people hunger for peace, but they seem to think that one party or the other won't agree on a deal.
SAYED SHEKEIB: (Foreign language spoken)
CARBERRY: Sayed Shekeib, a 19-year-old student, says he doesn't trust the Taliban.
AHMAD: (Foreign language spoken)
CARBERRY: Ahmad, a 43-year-old shopkeeper, says only the U.S. can make peace happen. He doesn't think the Karzai government is looking out for the interests of the Afghan people. Wahid Mujdah agrees. He's a former Taliban official who now lives in Kabul.
WAHID MUJDAH: The Afghan government has no idea about this peace, not any plan and agenda about the peace process.
CARBERRY: He and others here say a recent plan drafted by the government is a half-hearted effort to exert control over the peace process. Mujdah says Taliban leaders have told him they still will not negotiate with Karzai.
MUJDAH: We prefer Americans, before they leave Afghanistan, they come and talk to resistance and we want to reach an agreement with the Americans on the future of Afghanistan.
CARBERRY: Which circles back to another apparent dead end since the U.S. says peace talks must be Afghan-led. So while in France, the parties agreed that there must be peace in Afghanistan, they still can't agree on a road map to get there. Sean Carberry, NPR News, Kabul.
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I'm Melissa Block.
And we begin this hour with testimony in court today about the mass shooting at an Aurora, Colorado movie theater last summer. Today, a series of police officers described the moments before and after the arrest of James Holmes, who's charged in the shootings. Holmes faces 166 counts of murder, attempted murder, and other offenses.
The July shooting left 12 dead and at least 58 injured. Victims and their families were in court today as prosecutors began laying out their case in the preliminary hearing. Colorado Public Radio's Megan Verlee was also in the courtroom and she joins me now. Megan, tell us more about what was presented at this hearing today.
MEGAN VERLEE, BYLINE: Well, today was really a parade of police officers who were on scene the night of the attack, laying out what happened. The officers who arrested Holmes described first seeing him outside the theater. Several of them mistook him for a police officer because he was wearing so much ballistic gear. They described that he was completely compliant when they did arrest him.
One officer actually described him as relaxed and disassociated from what was happening around him. So, for the first time, the public has gotten a sense of what the police officers saw that night. They also described truly horrific scenes within the theater itself, just massive amounts of blood and bodies and people running and screaming. It sounded like a tremendously chaotic and traumatizing evening. Several of the officers actually started crying on the stand as they described transporting victims.
BLOCK: And we mentioned, Megan, that some victims were in court for this testimony today. What was the scene inside the courtroom?
VERLEE: Well, it was quiet but emotional. Several people broke down and cried through the testimony. One woman hid her face in a scarf as officers described finding the body of Veronica Moser Sullivan. She was the youngest victim at six years old. There was also a lot of response when one officer described transporting her parents to the hospital. Apparently, Veronica's father tried to jump out of the moving police car to go back and find his daughter.
During testimony like that, you saw a lot of emotion on victims' faces. But for much of it, they just sat there very stoically, watching, taking a lot of notes, following very closely.
BLOCK: And apart from the police officers, who else is expected to testify at this hearing?
VERLEE: I believe it will mostly be law enforcement. That's pretty standard in this kind of hearing. The prosecution has to establish all the counts against Holmes, more than 150. And so we may at some point, I would guess, hear from somebody from one of the hospitals where people were admitted, just talking about how many wounded they treated. But mostly it will probably be officers from the scene that night and from the investigation afterward.
BLOCK: This pretrial hearing, Megan, is expected to last for about a week. And at the end, the judge issues a ruling, right, to say whether or not the case can go forward. What happens at that point?
VERLEE: Well, after that ruling and prosecutors almost always win pretrial hearings in Colorado, so it's a pretty foregone conclusion, it will be time to enter a plea. It will be the arraignment. It's widely expected that Holmes will plead not guilty by reason of insanity and that what we're hearing from the defense at this point is setting up that plea. But this trial has been delayed all the way down the line, so that could still be several months off.
BLOCK: OK. Meagan, thank you very much.
VERLEE: Thank you.
BLOCK: That's Megan Verlee of Colorado Public Radio reporting on the pretrial hearing of James Holmes. He's charged in the mass shooting at the Aurora, Colorado movie theater last July.
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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
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China has announced it will reform its controversial labor camps, although exactly what reform means is unclear. These camps are commonly referred to by the Chinese government as re-education centers. They allow detention without trial for up to four years. And according to Chinese media, they housed some 160,000 prisoners at the end of 2008. Pressure for reform increased after some of those prisoners went public with their stories. NPR's Louisa Lim spoke with one of them.
LOUISA LIM, BYLINE: Ren Jianyu had been a young village official. He became an outspoken critic of labor camps after spending 15 months in one. He was sent there by police at the age of 24 without trial or even seeing a lawyer. His crime? Criticizing the local government in Chongqing by re-tweeting or forwarding 100 messages containing negative information.
REN JIANYU: (Through Translator) By chance I had made a T-shirt saying give me liberty or give me death. They used this clothing as proof I was inciting subversion of the government. I kept thinking, why? What makes me different from the millions of other Internet users? They may have written tens of thousands of tweets and are fine, while I only sent 100.
LIM: He spent more than a year coiling wire in a labor camp. That's known as re-education through labor. His fellow prisoners were those who had fallen foul of the government: thieves, gamblers, petitioners with grievances against officials, those with political views like his. Today, he reacted to the news that the re-education through labor system will be reformed.
JIANYU: (Through Translator) When I first saw the news, I was very happy. At least, it's a small step towards reform. It shows a trend in the top leadership. But the road is still very long.
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LIM: In this unlikely propaganda feature about one labor camp, blue-suited inmates are shown bent over their work making electrical wiring. The inmates make computer cables and headphones for MP3 players. Ren Jianyu says he worked for about ten hours a day, during which he was not allowed to speak to fellow inmates. He seldom had a day off. Highly publicized cases like his have led to a groundswell of criticism of the system according to Josh Rosenzweig, a researcher at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
JOSH ROSENZWEIG: Particularly over the past year, the writing has been on the wall. Re-education through labor system is not only in violation of Chinese constitution, it's in violation of Chinese law. And this has been well-known and discussed for many years.
LIM: But even the way in which the news was released has raised questions. Earlier in the day, official micro blogs reported China would end the re-education through labor system. But that information was then deleted from the Internet and not repeated on the evening news. Lawyer Pu Zhiqiang has been campaigning for this moment. He says it's too early to celebrate.
PU ZHIQIANG: (Through Translator) I have been looking forward to this day, so I'm very happy. But I'm not very satisfied. It's not enough to just stop using re-education through labor. It should be abolished.
LIM: So what does this news say about China's new leaders? Optimists say it's come earlier than expected and could show new focus on rule-of-law issues. Pessimists point to continuing arbitrary detentions in other venues and the lack of clarity that is apparently intentional. The authoritative Xinhua News Agency had this to say: No further information on the reform was available for now. Louisa Lim, NPR News, Beijing.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And I'm Audie Cornish. And time now for All Tech Considered.
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CORNISH: The Consumer Electronics Show is kicking into gear this week. The annual bacchanal for gadget junkies takes place in early January every year in Las Vegas. The show floor doesn't open to the public until tomorrow, but media were given a sneak peak over the weekend, and many companies are unveiling the products they hope will find their way into our living rooms in the coming year.
NPR's Steve Henn is in Las Vegas and has been checking it all out. He joins us now. Hi there, Steve.
STEVE HENN, BYLINE: Hey.
CORNISH: So I'm jealous. What's the coolest gadget you've seen or heard about at the show so far this year?
HENN: Well, I don't know about coolest, but the oddest gadget might just be the HAPIfork and the HAPIspoon.
CORNISH: Is there any other kind? Is this...
(LAUGHTER)
CORNISH: They sound like nursery rhymes.
HENN: Yeah. Well, actually, HAPI is spelled H-A-P-I. It stands for Health API. And this fork-and-spoon set are connected to the Internet, and they monitor and record how you eat.
CORNISH: This sounds terrible, but I'm curious. How does it work?
HENN: Well, basically, they measure how long your meals last, the pauses you take between bites, how many mouthfuls you consume. And if the HAPIfork thinks you're eating too fast, it will vibrate to let you know to slow down.
CORNISH: Oh, God. Does it beep if you're chewing with your mouth open?
HENN: Not yet, although after you're done with your meal, you can plug it into a USB port on your computer and upload all the data about your meal.
CORNISH: So did anything else catch your attention? I know sometimes sort of themes emerge over the course of the show.
HENN: Yeah. Well, one of the interesting things is the HAPI utensils actually touch on a couple of big themes. One of them is that computers and sensors are being built into everything, from forks and spoons to ski goggles. The second trend that the HAPIfork is right in the middle of is this proliferation of gadgets that want you to monitor your weight, your exercise and diet, and then make it possible for you to post all of this information online. A company called Withings helped kick off this trend a couple of years ago by launching an Internet-connected scale.
They're back again this year with more monitoring devices. I actually spoke to a woman in their P.R. department who has now been posting her weight on Facebook every day for years.
CORNISH: That is brave. OK, what I mean, who else...
(LAUGHTER)
HENN: Right.
CORNISH: ...would this appeal to?
HENN: Well, you know, honestly, I'm not sure - dieters I guess and there are millions of those. And then hardcore athletes might want monitors to get all the data about their workouts, but I think this category has really struggled to break through to the mainstream. And I've heard recently that some of the companies that make these devices are talking to health insurers and employers about using these gadgets to create employee incentive programs, which at least, to me, sort of tiptoes into the creepy.
CORNISH: All right, Steve, we've been talking about food and exercise. Isn't there anything for the couch potato?
HENN: Yes. Yeah. There are acres and acres of televisions, and one of the trends I'm going to be following is this effort to get your TV to play nicely with your smartphone and your PC.
So one of the most interesting and surprising things I've seen so far at CES this year is a gadget for gamers called the Shield. It was introduced by Nvidia last night, and it lets gamers stream Android games or PC games from this little tablet, the Shield, right onto their big screen TVs. But that's not its only trick.
Here's Jen-Hsun Huang, Nvidia's co-founder and CEO, introducing it last night.
JEN-HSUN HUANG: Movies work. Frankly, it's a pretty terrific entertainment device. This set-top box, if you will, just can travel with me wherever I want to go, and with a connection to television, it replaces really just about everything I own.
HENN: Basically, this little thing is a just an Android tablet with game controllers attached, but it can also tap into your PC and access all the movies and content in Google's Play Store, and then it can throw all of that stuff up onto pretty much any TV.
HUANG: And so you should be able to sit on your couch, and if you decide that you would like to share the movie that you're watching on your Shield on television, you simply have to beam it to your television.
HENN: So I think for anything like this little Shield to become a commercial success, it has to be simple to use. It just has to work, right? And I don't think Nvidia is there yet. There were some pretty major hiccups last night during Nvidia's demo. But even if this particular gadget doesn't catch on, I think it pretty clearly points in the direction consumer electronics are going to be headed.
CORNISH: Steve, thank you.
HENN: Oh, my pleasure.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Steve Henn speaking to us from Las Vegas.
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We're going to explore now the social media equivalent of a scarlet letter. These days, it's called "slut-shaming," and it involves harassing and humiliating girls by posting explicit photos or videos of them online. Radio rookie Temitayo Fagbenle is 16 years old and she reports that among her contemporaries in New York, "slut-shaming" is all too common. A word of warning, this story includes sexually graphic descriptions.
TEMITAYO FAGBENLE, BYLINE: Back in 17th-century Puritan times, shaming women like Hester Prynne for their wanton acts was a whole-town effort.
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FAGBENLE: I was 10 when I read "The Scarlet Letter."
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FAGBENLE: Hester was cast out of the community and forced to wear a red letter A for adultery.
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FAGBENLE: Slut-shaming like this has been going on for centuries, but now there's a new tool. Instead of shaming hussies in the town square, people use social media sites to "expose hos."
All right, so there's this photo on Facebook of this girl. She's laying down on a bed. She seems to be half-naked.
All she had on was a white T-shirt and the boy tagged her in the picture so everybody could go to her page.
This picture was put up 43 minutes ago and it already has 443 likes and 261 comments.
People post pictures and videos and make "smut lists" for their neighborhood or school.
I'm just going to read some of the comments now: "Your life is officially shot. LMAO." One boy put: "I think she going to cut her veins when she see this."
As for the boy who put up the picture, the boy just actually posted a status. He said he has 2,000 friend requests because of the photo he just put up. And this is, like, a regular occurrence. Like, I'm sure it's going to be pulled down. Maybe I should report it right now, but I don't know.
Two years ago, when I was in ninth grade, a girl in my class faced a similar situation. Her boyfriend put an intimate video of them up on the Internet. It was the talk of the town.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: He was going around holding his head high saying, oh, well, I was able to do this with her, and he gave me a bad name. It was on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, WorldStar, everything.
FAGBENLE: So WorldStar is like the X-rated version of YouTube. It was on WorldStar?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: It was on everything.
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UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #4: Once it gets to a social media network, it's over for her life.
FAGBENLE: Yeah, I think that's wrong. Right?
I gathered a group of girls in my school to talk about slut-shaming online.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #4: They be getting exposed, like yesterday. Yesterday there was some girl. She was in a picture with, like, a...
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #5: Penis in her mouth.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #4: Yeah, smiling.
FAGBENLE: Girls often feel they need to shame other girls for their improper behavior.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #4: Girls do it to themselves. Half the time we can't even blame guys. Like, she was doing it looking into the camera smiling.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #5: She wasn't smiling.
FAGBENLE: But it's not always the girl's fault.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #6: There's people that, they don't know when they're taking the picture. There's people that don't know they're getting recorded. That's not fair that a guy can actually hide his phone, have sex with you and record you, and then show it to his friends, like, oh, look. They don't care.
FAGBENLE: When I was talking to the girl this happened to, she said she didn't know she was being recorded.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: I kind of had a feeling that something was wrong, but I didn't want to believe it.
FAGBENLE: Can you just, like, just walk me through the first day you came to school after it happened?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: Well, I came to school hoping that it wouldn't be too big of a deal. I was walking around the school with my hood on, trying to just, like, to get to class...
FAGBENLE: But even the principal already knew about the video. He brought her to his office and called her mom.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: I went back to class and, like, a half an hour later, my mother was in the school. And I couldn't even look at my mother because I felt hurt and I also felt like I disrespected her. And I didn't want kids in the school to look at my mother and be like, wow, she raised nothing.
FAGBENLE: I see girls get exposed on my Facebook newsfeed almost every day.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: It was about 7th grade and I'm in 12th grade now.
FAGBENLE: Back in middle school, this guy emailed a picture of his girlfriend without a shirt on to some of his friends. It spread around their entire school.
Did she transfer out of the school after it happened?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: No, she stayed and continued to be the smut, smitty, slide, skip-skap, skally-whap, you know, whore, slut...
FAGBENLE: I don't want to make an assumption because he's a friend of mine, but maybe he doesn't understand the seriousness over what he did. So did you intend it to be malicious?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: I guess I thought it would be cool or something. It took me a day to send it out and then from a day, it just went around, went around, went around, until it finally got back to the school and a teacher saw it.
FAGBENLE: Schools have had to take on a new role. Some students screenshot the cyberbullying they see online, print it out and bring it to their teachers as evidence. Can you tell me your name, please?
ERICA DOYLE: My name is Erica Doyle.
FAGBENLE: Erica is the assistant principal at my school. In cases where somebody might put up a sexually explicit video, is it necessary for you to contact the authorities?
DOYLE: Yes, absolutely, because once we're dealing with digital media that is sexually explicit that has been captured and shared with the public, that actually now is a criminal matter.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: I got arrested. They handcuffed me to a bench. That was pretty scary.
FAGBENLE: But most of the time, the police don't find out. Kids don't usually report it. You said that when you decided to do it, you thought it would make you cool so did it make you cool?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Yeah. After it happened, there was a lot of, like, yeah, man, that was awesome.
FAGBENLE: You sound pretty unremorseful right now.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: I regret doing it to her. But still, I didn't have to go to jail. Porn websites do it every day, so. Even the girls gave me props, but there was about, like, 1 percent of them that, you know, that thought I did the wrong thing.
FAGBENLE: Before you yourself were affected, what did you think of girls like that and what do you think now?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: Well, I would do the same thing that happened to me. Like, I was calling them names and I was judging them. But then, when it happened to me, there were situations, like, on Facebook where they'd be blowing up some other girl's spot and I'm like, wow, she screwed up the same way I did.
FAGBENLE: Teenagers today aren't more cruel than they were in the 1600s. It's just that now when we chastise each other, everybody that has access to the Internet can see it. And once that picture or video is out, you can't be completely safe in your mind that the past won't creep up on you at some random time.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: I saved the pictures. I know the teachers delete it. I still have them.
FAGBENLE: This is the new scarlet letter.
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FAGBENLE: For NPR News, I'm rookie reporter Temitayo Fagbenle.
CORNISH: Our story was produced by Radio Rookies, a training initiative at member station WNYC in New York. Tomorrow, Radio Rookies will host a live chat online about sexual cyberbullying. You can find out more at npr.org.
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CORNISH: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR.
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And as we heard, the president's choice of John Brennan to be CIA director is a less controversial pick. In a statement today, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee said he looks forward to working with Brennan in his new role. Still, as NPR's Tom Gjelten reports, Brennan's nomination will raise some fundamental questions about President Obama's national security policy.
TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: John Brennan was widely regarded as President Obama's choice to lead the CIA back in 2009, but his service at the agency under George W. Bush raised concerns among human rights groups. It came at a time when the agency was using what critics considered torture on suspected terrorists. So the president instead made Brennan his counterterrorism adviser. Serving at the president's right hand might be a heady experience, but in accepting the president's offer to head the CIA, Brennan said there's no place he'd rather work.
JOHN BRENNAN: Leading the agency in which I served for 25 years would be the greatest privilege as well as the greatest responsibility of my professional life.
GJELTEN: There American Civil Liberties Union today said it still has concerns about Brennan's counterterrorism work under the Bush administration. Plus, it raised a new issue: He's been the architect of the administration's use of unmanned drones to target suspected al-Qaida militants. Those strikes have been at the heart of the administration's counterterrorism strategy, but they have drawn some criticism even from inside the administration. Mr. Obama's first director of national intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, speaking shortly after he resigned, told the Aspen Security Summit in 2011 that he didn't think drone strikes are an effective strategy against al-Qaida groups in countries like Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.
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GJELTEN: In his CIA career, Brennan worked on the operations side. The president today noted how Brennan used to camp with tribesmen in the Arabian Desert. His main rival for the CIA director position was Michael Morell, who leads the analysis side of the agency. CIA analysts have rarely been chosen to lead the agency in the past. Amy Zegart, an intelligence expert at Stanford University, points out that President Obama has now continued that pattern.
AMY ZEGART: All presidents want action. And analysis takes time, and analysis is about threats that loom over the horizon. I am somewhat concerned that putting a person from the operations side at the head of the agency does run the risk of giving intelligence analysis short shrift.
GJELTEN: But CIA personnel from both the analytic and the operational sides are likely to welcome Brennan to the agency for reasons the president spelled out today.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: In Director John Brennan, you will have one of your own, a leader who knows you, who cares for you deeply and who will fight for you every single day. And you'll have a leader who has my complete confidence and my complete trust.
GJELTEN: Those are strong words, and they're notable because the CIA director is actually the number two intelligence official in the government. He serves under the director of national intelligence, currently James Clapper. But Amy Zegart says it's hard to see how Brennan will take a back seat in the intelligence world coming as he does straight from the White House.
ZEGART: Theoretically, he's taking a demotion, right, to go to CIA. But we all know that when you have the ear and trust of the president, that's the most valuable currency in Washington.
GJELTEN: It's possible the choice of Brennan to lead the CIA will boost the standing of the agency, even in relation to the Pentagon. The CIA under President Obama has taken on more paramilitary roles, while troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan may have diminished the Pentagon profile on national security issues. And Brennan's four years of services in the White House West Wing should give him clout in any Washington rivalries. Tom Gjelten, NPR News, Washington.
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After more than a decade of denying allegations that he used performance-enhancing drugs, seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong is considering a public confession. That's according to The New York Times, which cites several people with direct knowledge of the situation. The Times says Armstrong is weighing a doping confession if, in return, anti-doping officials would reverse his lifetime ban from competitive sports.
New York Times reporter Juliet Macur wrote the story and she joins me now here in the studio. Thanks for coming in.
JULIET MACUR: No problem.
BLOCK: What more can you tell us to explain why Lance Armstrong would consider admitting that he doped now, after he's denied it for so many years?
MACUR: Yes, he's denied it for more than a decade. What he wants to do is compete again. He's been competing since he was a teenager in triathlons and basically has defined himself as an athlete. He's been banned for life from all Olympic sports and a lot of people have the misconception that, that means he can't compete in the Olympics anymore - only.
But, while that is true, it also means he can't compete in any sport that follows the World Anti-Doping Code. So the New York City Marathon, the 10K in your local hometown, all these smaller races that he can't compete in now - including triathlons, which was his second coming of a professional career - he can't do that either.
BLOCK: Now, when you say he's considering this confession, what active steps has he taken that lead people to think that he may be considering doing this?
MACUR: Well, our sources are saying that his representatives have reached out to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency to ask them to have a meeting, to sit down and discuss the possibility of Lance coming forward in exchange for his lifetime ban being reduced or nullified completely, which I'm not sure would be possible. But they met last month. Travis Tygart, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, met with Lance and a bunch of their representatives to discuss those possibilities.
BLOCK: It's a really puzzling thing to think about, Juliet, because Lance Armstrong has testified under oath that he hasn't doped. He has sworn up and down that he never doped. This would undo all of that and conceivably open him up to charges of perjury, wouldn't it?
MACUR: Those are the huge obstacles that he's facing. There are three civil lawsuits that he is looking at currently and many more to come probably. But the biggest one is the federal whistleblower lawsuit, which was filed by Floyd Landis, one of his former teammates in 2010, claiming that Lance and some other officials on the U.S. Postal Service Team defrauded the government by basically using taxpayer dollars to fund their doping program.
And the government right now is mulling whether to join that lawsuit. And if they do, there's a good chance that they will win it. So Lance is waiting to hear whether the government will join the lawsuit as a plaintiff.
BLOCK: What has the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, USADA, said to you about whether they will entertain this notion, of a Lance Armstrong confession?
MACUR: They have not commented on our stories for the weekend. But we're hearing that they're certainly entertaining the hopes that Lance will come forward. What's in it for them is that they could get the information from Lance on how he skirted the doping rules for so long.
It's really amazing to have an athlete get away with all of the doping that he was doing for more than 10 years, with all of these people following this code of silence in cycling, without him getting caught. So they really want to know how he did it.
BLOCK: But USADA already put out a 1,000-page report. They have the testimony from many, many of his teammates. Do they really feel that there are things they don't know that Lance Armstrong could tell them?
MACUR: Even though 11 of Lance Armstrong's teammates came forward to give information about the case, Lance Armstrong knows much more than all of those people combined. He basically was the most powerful person in the sport for more than a decade. And so, he would be able to tell them which people at a very, very high level were involved.
And the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, in turn, would love to get that information. Because not only do they want Lance Armstrong to come forward, but they want to know if there is any corruption in the sport and Lance can help them do that.
BLOCK: Juliet Macur, thanks very much.
MACUR: Thanks for having me.
BLOCK: That's New York Times reporter Juliet Macur.
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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block.
Today, President Obama announced his nominees for two key national security posts. For CIA director, he picked John Brennan, now his top counterterrorism adviser. And for defense secretary, Chuck Hagel, a former senator from Nebraska, a Republican and a Vietnam War veteran.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Maybe most importantly, Chuck knows that war is not an abstraction. He understands that sending young Americans to fight and bleed in the dirt and mud, that's something we only do when it's absolutely necessary.
BLOCK: That choice of Chuck Hagel has generated strong criticism from a number of quarters, in particular for Hagel's positions on Israel, Iran and Iraq.
We're going to hear from one of those critics now, Elliott Abrams, who served in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations. He's a neoconservative on foreign policy, now a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Welcome to the program.
ELLIOTT ABRAMS: Thank you.
BLOCK: Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, over the weekend, said that Chuck Hagel if confirmed would be the most antagonistic secretary of defense toward the state of Israel in our nation's history. Do you share that view?
ABRAMS: Well, the history goes back a long time. But I think he's certainly quite antagonistic toward Israel. He's made a number of remarks over a period - long period of years that suggest a real lack of sympathy, and a kind of accusation that anyone who disagrees with him has a dual loyalty and is not really a loyal citizen.
BLOCK: One of those comments was a statement that Chuck Hagel made in a 2006 interview. He said: The Jewish lobby intimidates a lot of people up here. I'm a United States senator. I'm not an Israeli senator. But it's interesting because the interviewer, Aaron David Miller - the former Mideast peace negotiator with the State Department - says that using that phrase, "the Jewish lobby," to portray Hagel as anti-Semitic, which some have done, is in his words: shameful and scurrilous. What do you think?
ABRAMS: Well, I think you need to look at that full quote where he says: I support Israel but I take an oath to the Constitution of the United States. Who is he comparing himself to? He's also used terms beyond just Jewish lobby. There are some quotes from the Jewish community of Nebraska, the state for which he was a senator, that suggests a hostility toward that community - their word, not mine.
There's an incident where he's trying to close down the USO site in Haifa, Israel, where a lot of American ships were visiting. And he says to the Jewish organization that is trying to keep it open: Let the Jews pay for it. There's a pattern here and it's a very troubling pattern.
BLOCK: The comment that you attribute to Chuck Hagel, about the USO in Haifa, did not come directly from Chuck Hagel, is that correct? It was through someone who was talking to a reporter, paraphrasing what she said Chuck Hagel had told her.
ABRAMS: It is what she said Chuck Hagel had told her, that's right.
BLOCK: What are your concerns on Chuck Hagel's positions on Iran?
ABRAMS: Well, Chuck Hagel said in 2006: I would say that a military strike against Iran, a military option is not a viable, feasible, responsible option. He's also one of the only two senators who voted against the Iran/Libya Sanctions Act in 2001.
Now, the president's policy is supposed to be that we're going to use tougher and tougher and tougher sanctions in an effort to get a diplomatic settlement, to force Iran into a diplomatic settlement. And if we can't get that, then the military option is on the table. The president has said clearly, he is not for containment, he is for prevention. There's no evidence that Hagel supports that view. The evidence seems to suggest that he is neither for sanctions nor for a military strike.
What he's for seems to be immediate and unconditional talks with Iran which, indeed, he called for toward the end of the Bush administration. So the signal the president is sending is that he doesn't believe in his own Iran policy.
BLOCK: But Chuck Hagel as senator did, in fact, vote for sanctions on Iran numerous times; multilateral sanctions including nonproliferation acts.
ABRAMS: He voted for them and he voted against them. And he also said in that quote I gave you that he didn't even think a military option was viable, never mind as a matter of policy - wise or unwise. How does that fit with the president's really tough language, especially in 2012? I think this is at the very least a mixed message and the wrong message to send to Tehran right now.
BLOCK: I want to ask you about Iraq. Chuck Hagel, as senator, voted to give the president the authority to go to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. But he later was very critical of how those wars were being conducted. How much do you think of the Republican opposition to him now is because he's viewed as a turncoat; a Republican who bucked the party on those wars?
ABRAMS: Well, some of it I think is because of the way in which he did that. To change your mind is fine. But he said in 2007 that the surge was, quote, "the most dangerous foreign policy blunder in this country since Vietnam." Now, that's the kind of hyperbolic language that he used against the Bush administration. He didn't disagree. He campaigned against the Bush administration.
BLOCK: It is very rare for the Senate to vote to defeat a Cabinet nomination. As you know, it's happened just twice since World War II. The last time was in 1989 with John Tower, the defense secretary nominee then. Are you saying that you think Chuck Hagel should be defeated, should join that very small group of nominees who don't get past the Senate?
ABRAMS: I think he has a chance at his confirmation hearing to show that he is not what he appears to be, which is frankly an anti-Semite. It's not just being anti-Israel. He's got a problem with what he calls "the Jews," the Jewish lobby. I think if he cannot satisfy people that he is not, in fact, bigoted against Jews, he certainly should not be confirmed.
BLOCK: You're saying, Mr. Abrams, that you consider Chuck Hagel to be an anti-Semite, not just have to positions on Israel that you don't agree with, but that you consider him to be an anti-Semite.
ABRAMS: I think if you look at the statements by Hagel, and then you look at the statements by the Nebraska Jewish community - about his unresponsiveness to them, his dismissal of them, his hostility to them - I don't understand really how you can reach any other conclusion that he seems to have some kind of problem with Jews.
BLOCK: Chuck Hagel, though, in his defense, says he voted time and time again to provide billions of dollars of U.S. military and security aid to Israel. In his book, he wrote this: At its core, there will always be a special and historic bond with Israel, exemplified by our continued commitment to Israel's defense. That doesn't sound like an anti-Semitic statement.
ABRAMS: No, it sounds like the statement of somebody who had been considering running for president. I think it's very much like his apology when it comes to gay rights. This kind of stuff comes in a political context, not in the context of a real change in position. And you see that in the interview with Aaron Miller, again, the Jewish lobby and I'm not an Israeli senator.
There's an animus here, an animus that was visible to the Jews of Nebraska. And that's what the committee needs to look into.
BLOCK: Elliott Abrams is a senior fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Abrams, thank you very much.
ABRAMS: You're very welcome.
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The government has struck two big agreements with banks to help clean up the legal mess from the housing crisis. In one deal, 10 American banks agreed to pay a combined $8.5 billion to settle foreclosure abuse cases. Those banks include: Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, CitiGroup and Wells Fargo. And Bank of America has also agreed to a separate deal. It will pay an additional $11.6 billion to mortgage giant Fannie Mae, in part to buy back some troubled loans.
As NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports that while these are important deals, there's still lots more work left to do.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: Five years ago this week, Bank of America agreed to buy Countrywide, a one-time giant that underwrote many, many billions of dollars of troubled loans. Fannie Mae bought many of those loans and backed them with government guarantees. And that is how both Fannie and BofA wound up in a world of hurt.
KAREN SHAW PETROU: It was a failure of governance. It was a failure of regulation. It was a failure of deals that never should have been approved.
NOGUCHI: Karen Shaw Petrou is an analyst and managing partner at Federal Financial Analytics. She says the deal today goes a long way in resolving the bank's entanglements with Fannie Mae. BofA will pay Fannie nearly $5 billion in cash and compensatory fees and buy back an additional $6.75 billion worth of troubled loans.
PETROU: This was amongst the biggest of the disputes, if not the biggest.
NOGUCHI: Does this solve a lot of the problems that taxpayers have with Fannie Mae?
PETROU: No. No. No, we have billions to go there.
NOGUCHI: Petrou notes that while this deal helps, even with today's big payout, Fannie is nowhere near ready to pay off the tens of billions of dollars it owes taxpayers for a huge bailout.
Andrew Wilson is a spokesman for Fannie Mae. He says the deal curbs past and future losses for Fannie, and will prevent more foreclosures, because Bank of America agreed to sell a huge portfolio of its loans to outside companies that specialize in resolving troubled mortgages.
ANDREW WILSON: We've been able to have loans transferred to specialty servicers who can better work with homeowners to prevent foreclosure and reduce our losses.
NOGUCHI: Wilson says those specialty servicers do a better job of helping homeowners get loan modifications which, in turn, means more people stay in their homes.
But Bruce Marks disagrees. Marks is the CEO of the Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America, a consumer advocacy group. He says those servicers often simply rush loans to foreclosure.
BRUCE MARKS: As bad as it was when Bank of America was servicing it, it's even worse with these specialty servicers. They are much faster for foreclosure on and they're no better in terms of getting modification from.
NOGUCHI: Marks dismisses all of the major efforts to make banks pay for their mortgage misdeeds; whether it's the $25 billion settlement last year between state regulators and banks, or the separate $8.5 billion agreement between 10 banks and the Federal Reserve and other bank regulators.
Those regulators, however, said today their settlement is designed to help homeowners get loan modifications or cash compensation for mishandled foreclosures, faster. Under that deal, nearly four million borrowers will get payments ranging from a few hundred dollars up to $125,000.
Karen Shaw Petrou, the financial analyst, says banks still face other mortgage-related litigation that could last another decade. And it's not just the past they're struggling to redefine.
PETROU: What do these banks do going forward, as they each begin to clean up the past? The strategic path for BofA, for Chase, for Citi, I think is an unanswered question.
NOGUCHI: Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan said in a statement the company today is resolving some of its legacy issues. He will get a chance to discuss its future when the bank releases fourth-quarter results January 17th.
Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.
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President Obama rounded out his second-term national security team today. He nominated former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel to be his new secretary of defense and his top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, to lead the CIA. They join Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who was nominated in December as secretary of state. NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson has more on today's nominees and why Hagel's confirmation could mean a fight for the White House.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: The president made the announcements in the East Room, flanked by his nominees and the men that Hagel and Brennan will replace: retiring Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the acting head of the CIA, Michael Morell.
Mr. Obama said he was confident both men would do an outstanding job and that his only consideration in selecting them was who would do the best job securing America. He said Hagel would be a historic choice. If confirmed, he'd be the first person of enlisted rank to serve as secretary of defense and the first Vietnam vet.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Chuck knows that war is not an abstraction. He understands that sending young Americans to fight and bleed in the dirt and mud, that's something we only do when it's absolutely necessary. My frame of reference, he has said, is geared towards the guy at the bottom who's doing the fighting and the dying.
LIASSON: Brennan, like Hagel, has been close to the president for years. A CIA veteran, he's overseen all counterterrorism activities from the start of the Obama administration. Brennan is the official who tells the president first about attacks abroad and at home in places like Newtown, Connecticut. Mr. Obama praised Brennan's perspective and his ferocious work ethic.
OBAMA: When I was on Martha's Vineyard, John came and did the press briefing. It was in the summer. It's August. He's in full suit and tie. And one of the reporters asked him, don't you ever get any downtime? And John said, I don't do downtime. He's not even smiling now.
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LIASSON: The president urged the Senate to confirm both nominees as soon as possible. That's not expected to be a problem for Brennan, but there will be a fierce battle over Hagel, which the president seemed to acknowledge.
OBAMA: In the Senate, I came to admire his courage and his judgment, his willingness to speak his mind, even if it wasn't popular, even if it defied the conventional wisdom. And that's exactly the spirit I want on my national security team.
LIASSON: Hagel is a Republican, but he doesn't have strong support among his own party. Many consider him a turncoat for eventually opposing the Iraq War and for endorsing Mr. Obama in 2008. Leslie Gelb is the former president of the Council on Foreign Relations. He says the president's choice says a lot.
LESLIE GELB: It would have been easier to pick some others. But in the case of Hagel, I think he sees a kindred spirit, somebody who is very reluctant to get involved in new wars and somebody who wants to figure out ways to reduce military spending, and he feels that Hagel would be a strong ally on those key issues.
LIASSON: It might help, in other words, to have a Republican and a veteran to oversee the drawdown from Afghanistan and the shrinking of the military budget. Hagel's nomination comes after Mr. Obama floated and then withdrew the name of Susan Rice to replace Hillary Clinton at the State Department. Gelb says this confirmation fight will be different.
GELB: Susan had her opponents, and she had supporters, but they weren't as strong as Chuck Hagel's supporters. Hagel's been around for a while, and he's made a lot of friends, and he has a lot of admirers. So they are lining up on the other side, and you're actually going to have a battle.
LIASSON: Opposition to Hagel comes from several directions. There are pro-Israel groups unhappy about Hagel's statement that the, quote, "Jewish lobby" intimidates people in Washington, and gay groups angry over a remark he made 14 years ago calling one of President Clinton's ambassadors aggressively gay. Hagel has recently apologized for that. The White House considers both Jewish and gay opposition to be manageable and expects most Democrats to support the president. But the resistance from conservative Republicans is another matter. They say Hagel is out of the mainstream on Iran and Israel. It's not known yet how broad or strong that Republican opposition will turn out to be, but the White House believes Hagel's confirmation is a fight that, while difficult, can be won and at a price worth paying. Mara Liasson, NPR News, the White House.
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If you're in the market for a garage, a very large garage, say big enough to hold a space shuttle, well, you're in luck. A year and a half after the last shuttle landed, NASA is seeking renters or buyers for some of its shuttle facilities and equipment. That includes a hangar and even the launch pad of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Scott Powers is with us to tell us more about this unusual auction. He wrote about it for the Orlando Sentinel. Hi there, Scott.
SCOTT POWERS: Hi, Audie.
CORNISH: So basically, NASA is selling off anything that was made just for the shuttle program. Is that correct?
POWERS: Yeah. It's - most of the leased facilities are actually for rent at this point. They're everything from a parachute packing plant. There's an array of radar stations. There's a couple of buildings out there that are used to refurbish and install shuttle tiles. Those kinds of things have a lot of specialized equipment in them and they can be used for other things, I suppose. But NASA realizes their money is going to run out for these facilities soon, and they figured that they need to get partners to continue their use or shut them down and padlock them. They'd rather find partners.
CORNISH: So let's talk about that launch pad for a minute. Given that the shuttle program is over, who's going to want to use that?
POWERS: Probably no one. The problem is with all of the government launch pads out there, there are a lot of hoops that a private space company would have to jump through to use it. A lot of private industry would rather have their own launch pad out there. And there's some talk about building a private launch pad out there someday. And if that were the case, then many of those would work together with a new launch pad.
CORNISH: So other than commercial space flight companies, who else would want to buy some of this stuff? Who are the potential customers?
POWERS: Well, for example, one of the big things out there is the shuttle landing facility, which is basically a runway. It's 15,000 feet long. It's 300 feet wide. It's enormous. You can land any known air or spacecraft in the world there that can land horizontally, which means that it also has some appeal to non-space air traffic. Well, we're not seeing, you know, see that turned into an airport or anything like that. Right now, by the way, that strip has been used for all sorts of things, from testing NASCAR cars to - I understand there was recently an experimental vehicle that was running down that as a drag strip more than as a landing facility.
CORNISH: So in the future, will Kennedy Space Center be completely transformed into essentially a rental space?
POWERS: You know, there are a lot of people who'd like to see that happen because what that would mean is a lot of private rocket launches from there and a lot of jobs. And a lot of those jobs were lost a couple of years ago when the space shuttle program shut down. So people are thinking, you know, if this becomes a private space port in five or 10 years, and you see all sorts of private rockets going up, maybe that replaces the economy that was there under NASA during the shuttle program.
CORNISH: Scott Powers covers NASA for the Orlando Sentinel. Scott, thank you.
POWERS: Thanks so much, Audie.
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ALL THINGS CONSIDERED continues right after this.
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There will be an NHL season after all. The National Hockey League has reached a deal with its players, and play could begin within 10 days. The season will be severely shortened thanks to the lockout. Teams will probably play 48 games rather than the usual 82. As NPR's Mike Pesca reports, first, owners and players must vote to ratify the agreement, then training camps can open and cold steel can once again hit the ice.
MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Whether they're putting the biscuit in the basket, splitting the uprights or going swish, everyone in professional team sports has the same goal: to make money. The professional hockey, football and basketball leagues all locked their players out within the last two years, and all three have settled. In the players' cases, literally settled for less than what they would have made without the lockouts. Phoenix Coyotes defenseman Shane Doan said the recent NHL agreement was the best the players could hope for.
SHANE DOAN: It was the best deal for us that was available, and it's always tough because we're all fans of the game and you wish that you didn't have to go through this. But we did and, you know what, were on the other side now.
PESCA: They had to go through it because of the structure of NHL economics. The National Hockey League generates $3.3 billion a year in revenue. Forbes estimates that only three teams - the New York Rangers, Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadians - make huge profits, and the Vancouver Canucks and Edmonton Oilers - yes, the Edmonton Oilers - make decent money. The rest of the teams are losing money. So to even things up, the league locked out their players, demanding and ultimately getting half the revenue pie.
The leagues poorer teams will also, in effect, get more revenue from the wealthy teams. Wait a minute, you and every Canadian citizen might ask. Rich teams versus poor teams: Isn't this a problem within ownership, not between owners and players? It sure is, says Gabe Feldman, director of the sports law program at Tulane University. But that's the reality of pro sport lockouts these days.
GABE FELDMAN: If the owners are left to their own devices with no artificial restrictions, they will spend themselves to financial death.
PESCA: The union even negotiated away a contractual benefit that the rich teams were willing to reward some players with. Lengthy contracts, which would presumably last far beyond the years a player had retired, were being used to circumvent the salary cap. Now, contracts are seven years maximum. One concession the league did make concerned player suspensions. The NHL had hired former player Brendan Shanahan to review and mete out discipline for illegal hits. Shanahan also issues explanatory videos in which he discusses specific plays, like this one involving Marian Hossa of Chicago and Raffi Torres of Phoenix.
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PESCA: Now, an outside arbitrator will weigh in on any suspension of six games or more. But even if there is labor peace, does that mean that fans will eagerly return to the sport? In Canada, a group called Just Drop It is calling for a game boycott to punish league and players. David Carter, executive director of the Sports Business Institute at USC, says that the history of labor strife suggest fans do come back.
DAVID CARTER: They talk a big game about not wanting to re-engage. But ultimately, they do come back. They are a very forgiving customer base unlike maybe other industries.
PESCA: Yes, the forgiving Bruins fans who still stews over a too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty from the 1979, or the live and let live Flyers fans who will tell you that Nystrom was offside in 1980. These are the grudges that sustain the hockey fan. But they're against rivals, not the sport itself. Mike Pesca, NPR News.
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It's the Crimson Tide versus the Fighting Irish. Tonight's BCS college football championship in Miami promises to be a battle of top defenses as number one Notre Dame takes the field against number two Alabama. Naturally, fans are talking smack about who's best.
NPR's Tom Goldman has done his best to play diplomat. He's in Florida to cover the game and joins me now.
And, Tom, why don't you set up the game tonight? What do you expect to see?
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Well, Melissa, what we're expecting, of course, may be different from what we actually see. These are similar teams. As you mentioned, they rely on outstanding defenses in the running games. So the thought is it'll be a grind it out game, the kind of football that purists love, but not the kind that non-purists favor, you know, exciting, lots of long passes, big offensive plays and touchdowns.
But with the absurdly long wait until this game, teams have had over a month to plan. And you've got to really smart head coaches who may throw in some wrinkles; more passing than we're expecting, for instance. Brian Kelly has done a fantastic job getting Notre Dame to the title game in just his third year of coaching there.
Nick Saban, for Alabama, is legendary as a detail-oriented process kind of guy. You know, people criticize him for being robotic. We remember that sour look on his face when he won the title and got doused with Gatorade. But sour and robotic aside, the guy knows how to coach.
BLOCK: Well, Tom, we're talking with Alabama and Notre Dame, about two of the country's legendary football programs. Talk about the history of these teams and this rivalry.
GOLDMAN: You know, they've only played each other six times, all in the 1970s and '80s. And Notre Dame has won five of the games, so there's not a tremendous face-to-face history. But because legendary Alabama head coach Bear Bryant was never able to beat the Irish - because Notre Dame has this kind of favorite son aura while Alabama has a bit of an inferiority complex because of a lot of negative stereotypes about the South, because of these things, the rivalry is real and it involves cultures as much as football.
BLOCK: And you've been talking to fans on both sides about what a win would mean for each team. What have you heard?
GOLDMAN: Well, Notre Dame hasn't won a championship since 1988. The Fighting Irish are only the only bowl-eligible team this season to go undefeated. They're ranked number one in the nation. Yet still, they're up to a 10-point underdog. And they want to show they're for real.
Here is Notre Dame fan Mike Hennig. I spoke to him earlier today.
MIKE HENNIG: Notre Dame really wants to prove that we're back on top and, you know, we're not just relying on our history and things like that to be the favorite son. You know, we want to prove that we're back and we're an actual contender, and for many years.
GOLDMAN: Now, Melissa, you would think with two titles in the last three years, Alabama would be OK if they didn't win. But that's not the case, obviously. I also spoke to Eric Summers. He's a 45-year-old Alabama graduate. He mentions those five losses to Notre Dame, two of which he saw in person. And he says Alabama really can't afford another one.
ERIC SUMMERS: To lose to Notre Dame, especially being favored and with the talent that we have, if we lose to them again, then it becomes a stigma. Why can't we beat Notre Dame? Is Notre Dame more special than us? And so we need that. That is culturally very important, to beat Notre Dame, especially in a game of this magnitude. Think about the Sugar Bowl from '74 or the Orange Bowl back in the '70s. We lost those games, and we were favored. And so for us, I think, it's extremely important.
GOLDMAN: So a lot on the line for both, Melissa. It's going to be fun, this kind of new age version of the rivalry.
BLOCK: Tom, it goes without saying there is a huge amount of money involved in the championship game. The game, I think, could've been sold out many times over. How much are we talking about to get a seat?
GOLDMAN: Yeah. Well, you know, the are the usual mentions of thousands of dollars. But actually, interestingly, hours before the game, several news sources are reporting that individual seat ticket prices on the so-called secondary market are dropping. The cheapest were a little over $900. That's down nearly 50 percent from the Southeastern Conference title game last month. The average ticket price of a little over $1,700 is cheaper than the past two BCS championship games.
So there's a lot of hype about this game, but the ticket prices are reasonable. And, Melissa, reasonable is a very relative term here.
(LAUGHTER)
BLOCK: Yeah, I guess so. That's NPR's Tom Goldman covering tonight's BCS Championship football game in Miami.
Tom, thanks so much. Enjoy the game.
GOLDMAN: You're welcome. Thanks.
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The government of Myanmar, also known as Burma, has won international praise for signing cease-fire deals with all of the country's ethnic insurgent groups - except one. Fighting between the army and ethnic Kachin rebels has escalated in recent days. That has some observers questioning whether the new civilian government is in full control of the military, and whether its commitment to national reconciliation is real. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Yangon.
ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: The Kachin Independence Army, or KIA, claims that over the weekend, government troops bombarded Laiza, the city in northeastern Kachin State where they're headquartered. The government's chief negotiator with the rebels is former Major General Aung Min. He claims the shelling was not aimed at Laiza, but at relieving a nearby army outpost that the rebels had cut off and ringed with barbed wire.
MAJ. GEN. AUNG MIN: (Through translator) The military requested KIA to remove the barbed wires so that they could move in and deliver the food. But the KIA refused to remove them. So the shelling was mainly directed at those barbed wires, to make the supply of food ration possible.
KUHN: Aung Min repeats his government's pledges not to attack the KIA, or capture Laiza. Last week, the government at first denied launching air assaults at the KIA. It later admitted them, but said they were just warding off attacks on their supply lines. Aung Min says he's ready to resume peace talks with the KIA anytime. But the Kachin want assurances that a cease-fire will lead to real autonomy, and more revenue from local resources.
Min Zaw Oo, director of cease-fire negotiations and implementation at the Myanmar Peace Center, says the Kachin leaders don't want to be seen as selling out to a military regime that brutalized them for decades.
MIN ZAW OO: The Kachin leader has to play a very delicate role even if they are trying to come back to the table. They have to balance between some of their followers, who see the fighting as the only means.
KUHN: But Aung Min insists that the current administration is different from the military junta that preceded it. And when President Thein Sein orders the army not to attack the rebels, he says, the army will obey.
AUNG MIN: (Through translator) Our country now has a new political system. Under this system, the president is the chief executive and the most powerful government officer in the country, and the commander in chief will have to follow his order.
KUHN: Lashi Labya Hkawn Htoi is an activist with the Kachin Peace Network. She notes that it was this very administration that broke a 17-year-old cease-fire with the Kachin in 2011. She says that's why few Kachin are convinced that the former generals have done much more than exchange their uniforms for business suits.
LASHI LABYA HKAWN HTOI: Because, you know, everybody knows that they are just changing their clothes, and they are not actually changing. So we all are hoping that there will be a real change.
KUHN: For now, she is just worried about the tens of thousands of Kachin refugees huddled in camps. They're without adequate food or shelter, she says, and when bombs fall, they have nowhere to hide.
Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Yangon.
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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Now to an app review that may please both lovers of film and lovers of large soft drinks. The app is called RunPee. It began as a website several years ago, and listeners may remember we talked about it then. Now, you can take it with you into the theater. It lets you know when, during any given movie, you can run to the bathroom without missing an important plot point or a key scene. Take, for example, the blockbuster hit "Titanic."
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BLOCK: The app tells you to run around this time in the movie...
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BLOCK: Instead of, let's say, this time...
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BLOCK: Well, we asked The A.V. Club's Nathan Rabin to do a trial run of RunPee.
NATHAN RABIN: And I like to think that I was chosen both because I've been a film critic for about 15 years and I have a bladder of a small girl.
BLOCK: He sent us this review.
RABIN: So what this application does, and it leans very heavily towards recently released films, is it basically gives you two different pee times when you won't miss anything that they consider essential to the film. They have a brief nuts-and-bolts description of what happens during the times in which they tell you to go and pee, which is useful so you don't think you missed anything. They also have a feature where they describe what happened in the first three minutes of the movie...
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RABIN: ...and it also has a timer so that you can start the timer at the very beginning of the film, and it will go off. I tested out the app by watching the Robert Zemeckis-Denzel Washington movie "Flight."
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RABIN: And there are things in it that are absolutely crucial. For example, it's a film about plane crash. So, obviously, you wanted to be in the theater when the plane crash happens.
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RABIN: But what RunPee did was they kind of set two different times when the plot wasn't being forward, nothing terribly exciting was happening. There were kind of these nice little character moments. So one thing that is kind of interesting about RunPee is it's very subjective what is and what is not important. It's very charming. It's very useful, and it's also very much kind of a work in progress, like it's growing, it's evolving, the graphics are very low-fi, but it's very good at telling you what you absolutely can't miss, what you need to see and what is kind of inessential to the movie-going experience.
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BLOCK: That's Nathan Rabin of the entertainment newspaper and website The A.V. Club. He was reviewing the app called RunPee. It tells you the best times to make a run to the bathroom during a movie without missing any important scenes.
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BLOCK: And as we close this hour, Audie, we're giving you an official welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Melissa, this is an official thank you...
(LAUGHTER)
CORNISH: ...very, very excited.
BLOCK: Well, we're welcoming you, but, of course, listeners have been hearing you hosting this program for a year now. That was on an interim basis. Now, it's official. You're in that seat for the long haul, joining me and Robert Siegel, and it's great to have you with us.
CORNISH: I'm happy to join the team.
BLOCK: Our longtime co-host Michele Norris has a new assignment with NPR. We look forward to hearing her reports on all NPR programs, including here on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
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BLOCK: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
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It appears that several men accused in a horrific rape and murder case in India will have legal representation. The December 16 gang rape of a 23-year-old woman on a bus in New Delhi has generated worldwide outrage, and most of the lawyers in New Delhi have refused to take the case. Now, two attorneys have stepped forward to represent the men. Meanwhile, the case has raised questions about a need for reform in the legal system there, and we're joined now from New Delhi by Kiran Bedi to talk about that. Bedi is a former Indian police officer and activist who has worked on issues of crime prevention and justice worldwide. Welcome to the program.
KIRAN BEDI: Thank you.
CORNISH: Now, while this trial will be closed to the public, you're someone who obviously knows the justice system there very closely, and explain to us: How long will the trial proceed? What can the accused expect?
BEDI: Well, the evidence is like an open and a shut case. You have an eyewitness...
CORNISH: And the eyewitness is the gentleman who was there with the victim that night, who was also beaten.
BEDI: You have an eyewitness and you have a dying declaration. These are very (unintelligible) obviously you will have other supporting evidences. So it's an open and shut case when it comes to it. So it could go for the highest and the maximum penalty, which includes death penalty, because the murder charge has been added to this. Now, as far as how long it will take, it's gone to a fast-track court. So once the trial begins, it will be not more than a few months. But the accused has a right to go and appeal to the high court and Supreme Court and then for a mercy petition.
CORNISH: As we mentioned, this case has drawn worldwide attention. But for cases that don't, what are the conviction rates like for sex crimes in India?
BEDI: Exceedingly poor, and it also varies from state to state. Somewhere, like, for instance, Delhi, it could be more than 25 percent. For some, it is 6 percent. Some are delayed trials up to 12 years, 13 years. So it's varied from court to court, state to state.
CORNISH: What is the broader experience of women whose cases of sexual assault do make it to the Indian courts?
BEDI: The broader experiences of highly (unintelligible) trials, which is why the chief justice of the Supreme Court of India has directed all high courts to go in for a fast-track court. Now, India has fast-track courts, then a couple of years ago when, due to financial constraints, the government of India withdrew its financial support and the courts closed down. But now, with this direction by the Supreme Court, fast tracks will have to try rape cases and all other crimes against women in these courts.
CORNISH: After this trial has ended, what would you most like to see changed in how cases of sexual violence against women are addressed?
BEDI: I think that's been a silver lining. After the huge demonstrations by the youth of this country, the government of India was compelled to appoint a justice commission of inquiry to recommend improvements and changes that you require. I think it's been a blessing in disguise and a silver lining.
CORNISH: What are the kinds of things that are on the table for this commission? What are the ideas that have been floated around?
BEDI: Well, the terms of the commission are very, very clear. First, to provide for quicker trial and enhance punishment for criminals accused of committing sexual assault of extreme nature against them and - which will be historical.
CORNISH: You've been an activist on this issue for many years. Do you think that now is the time that there will actually be change?
BEDI: Yes. I do believe it's now or never. And if the government drags its feet on it, the youth is going to go back to the ground and demonstrate and agitate. And I don't think the government has any choice but to accept some of these radical reforms which will be proposed by the commission because they are heading for state elections and then they're heading for general elections next year. And if they want to return to power or get some votes, they cannot be hostile to these. They will have to address these issues.
CORNISH: Kiran Bedi, thank you so much for talking with me.
BEDI: My pleasure.
CORNISH: That's Kiran Bedi, an advocate for judicial reform in New Delhi. We were talking to her about the reaction to the gang rape and beatings that stirred protests there last month.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And now, we take a moment to commemorate the 78th birthday of Elvis Presley.
(SOUNDBITE OF "ALL SHOOK UP")
ELVIS PRESLEY: (Singing) Well, bless my soul, what's wrong with me? I'm itching like a man on a fuzzy tree...
BLOCK: Okay, okay. Seventy-eight is not exactly a milestone, but it's a good enough excuse to hear our latest found recipe, the Elvis Presley milkshake.
SEAN BROCK: It's peanut butter, banana, some cooked crispy bacon and we also used bacon fat and ice cream.
BLOCK: Wait, did he say bacon and bacon fat? Oh, yes, he did. There's also some bourbon in there.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BLOCK: To tell us all about the Elvis Presley milkshake is Chef Sean Brock, owner of the restaurant Husk and McCrady's in Charleston, South Carolina. It's something he concocted to share with his staff as a treat. It goes great with cheeseburgers, he says.
(SOUNDBITE OF "ALL SHOOK UP")
PRESLEY: (Singing) My heart beats so it scares me to death. Well, she touched my...
SEAN BROCK: I am a really big Elvis fan. One of his favorite things to eat was a peanut butter and banana sandwich that he would often fry in bacon fat or, like, tons and tons of butter.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
PRESLEY: (Singing) Well, I woke up this morning (unintelligible)
BROCK: One day, it was right around Elvis' birthday, I just wanted to do something unique and fun. And immediately thought of those flavors.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
PRESLEY: (Singing) I ain't had no milk and butter since that cow's been gone.
BROCK: So two very ripe bananas, vanilla ice cream, just straight peanut butter, some bacon that has been cooked crispy and there's also a little bacon fat. You want the bacon fat to be cold and solid. The bourbon is really my touch. A lot of people don't know that Elvis actually didn't drink. It's just something we added in there for our own personal amusement.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
PRESLEY: (Singing) Let's milk it.
BROCK: I don't even want to know what the calorie count is going to be. There you go, an Elvis Presley milkshake. And it has, like, chunks of bacon in it. So good. One of my favorite things.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
PRESLEY: (Singing) Well...
BLOCK: Chef Sean Brock is based in Charleston, South Carolina. You can get the recipe for the Elvis Presley milkshake at NPR's food blog "The Salt," and try it for yourself.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And just out of curiosity, between the bacon, peanut butter, bourbon, ice cream and bananas, we decided to figure a rough estimate of how many calories are in that recipe. And it's just under 2,400 calories. But break it up with six friends and you're looking at about 400 calories per serving.
BLOCK: Ooh, about an hour on the treadmill uphill.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And I'm Audie Cornish. Federal health officials issued a warning today about binge drinking among girls and young women. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says binge drinking is surprisingly common among female high school and college students. And experts warn that it can be even more dangerous for women and girls than for men and boys. NPR's Rob Stein has our report.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: When people think about binge drinking, it's usually associated with young men, like these fraternity brothers in the 1978 comedy "Animal House."
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, 'ANIMAL HOUSE')
JOHN BELUSHI: (as Bluto) Toga. Toga.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Toga. Toga. Toga. Toga.
STEIN: But according to Thomas Frieden of the CDC, the problem of binge drinking is hardly limited to boys.
DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN: Binge drinking is recognized as a serious problem for men and boys. It's also a serious and under-recognized problem for women and girls.
STEIN: Now, boys are still more likely than girls to binge, meaning they consume at least four drinks at a time. But according to the CDC's new analysis, one in five high school girls and one in eight women binge drink on a regular basis. Here's how much and how often.
FRIEDEN: Women who binge drink do so about three times a month with about six drinks on average per sitting.
STEIN: All together, the CDC estimates that there are about 14 million American women who binge drink three times every month. And who are the most likely binge drinkers?
FRIEDEN: Generally, these are younger women, white women and higher income women.
STEIN: That's women ages 18 to 34 who live in homes that earn at least $75,000 a year. Here's the concern: binge drinking is very risky behavior: drunken driving, accidents, increased risk for heart disease. But girls face even more risk than boys, most notably an increased risk for breast cancer.
FRIEDEN: There are about 23,000 deaths a year in women and girls due to drinking too much alcohol, including binge drinking.
STEIN: And there are still other additional risks for women and girls. When anyone drinks too much, they are more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, which means they could get a sexually transmitted disease. But girls can also end up with an unintended pregnancy. And if they're already pregnant when they binge, they could lose or hurt the baby. Now, the CDC didn't explore why women binge drink, but experts like David Jernigan at Johns Hopkins have and idea. They blame at least part of the problem on alcohol companies targeting women with advertising in new products.
DR. DAVID JERNIGAN: Virginia Slims was the beginning of an increase in cigarette smoking for women. The equivalent in alcohol has been the rise of these products we call alcopops. They're fruity, bubbly, brightly colored. On college campuses, they're known as chick beer.
STEIN: But Jernigan says these products are more like cocktails than beer.
JERNIGAN: The young women always used to drink beer. Now they're more likely to drink distilled spirits. This is a bad idea because the inexperienced drinkers are now experimenting with the strongest form of the drug out there.
STEIN: To counter binge drinking, Jernigan and others would like to see restrictions on advertising and marketing of these and other products, higher taxes on alcoholic beverages and limiting who can sell alcohol.
JERNIGAN: What the research finds is the fewer places there are to buy alcohol the less the population will drink.
STEIN: For their part, the alcoholic beverage industry disputes all this. They agree binge drinking is a problem, but point out drinking among teens is at an all-time low. Ralph Blackwell heads The Century Council, an industry funded group.
RALPH BLACKMAN: Underage drinking numbers have been going down steadily for many, many years.
STEIN: And Blackwell argues there's no evidence the marketing of specific products plays any role in binge drinking.
BLACKMAN: This is not about the product of choice here. This is about the pressures that young people - again, young men and young women - face in terms of the reasons they consume - stress, peer pressure - to fit in.
STEIN: Instead, Blackwell says, parents, especially mothers, need to play more of a role in discouraging alcohol abuse by their daughters. Rob Stein, NPR News.
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Saratoga Springs is a quiet town of about 27,000 people in upstate New York. It's known for its historic racetrack and its healing spring waters. But the usual winter calm has been broken by a spirited protest over a gun show scheduled for this coming weekend. Dale Willman has more.
DALE WILLMAN, BYLINE: Saratoga is the kind of town tourists visit and never want to leave. In winter, there are skiing and snowshoeing. And, of course, in summer, there's the horse racing season. But this idyllic town in the foothills of the Adirondacks is facing a bit of a crisis over the Saratoga gun fair, a regular event held several times a year at the city's public exhibition space.
DAVID PETRONIS: We started the shows in Saratoga in 1984.
WILLMAN: David Petronis is the show's promoter.
PETRONIS: I opened up the City Center with an antique show in August. And September, we did our first gun show. This coming up show in January 12th and 13th will be our 90th affair at the City Center. I've got to say, we got to be one of the oldest and best customers that they got.
WILLMAN: Petronis says the show has been a good event for Saratoga, bringing in hundreds of thousands of dollars to the city. But now, the show's tenure is being challenged. Not long after the school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, Saratoga resident Susan Steer learned about the show.
SUSAN STEER: I couldn't believe it. I was thinking, you know, haven't we had enough with guns? Isn't it time to maybe just take a step back?
WILLMAN: So Steer started an online petition on the website Change.org, asking that the show be canceled and that there be a community conversation about future gun shows. To date, some 1,300 people have signed the petition.
It didn't take long for another petition to be started - this one in support of the gun show. Written by Robert LeClair of nearby Hudson Falls, New York, it talks about what it calls the sudden knee-jerk need to ban a perceived threat by the uninformed, ignorant few. That petition has gotten about 1,800 signatures. Despite the petition's sometimes harsh language, LeClair says he agrees that something needs to be done about gun violence.
ROBERT LECLAIR: But what exactly. We can't make the decisions that need to be made at a point like this when everybody is still emotional, everybody is still very upset about what happened, and there - it continues to happen.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: We have to firm up the details for the gun show...
WILLMAN: While the gun show has gone on for years with little notice, now it seems almost everyone is talking about it. Twelve people spoke about the show during last week's city council meeting, all but one in favor of it being canceled. And last Saturday, about a dozen people gathered at a local hangout to plan a street action. Members of the Saratoga Peace Alliance say they support legal gun ownership - two members are gun owners - so their activity this weekend is not a protest. Rather, Linda LeTendre says they want to ask gun owners to help them figure out how to end gun violence.
LINDA LETENDRE: Well, you go to the gun show because that's where the gun owners are, and that's where we need to work together to address - really address the problem of gun violence so that it has a real impact.
WILLMAN: While some gun shows scheduled for towns close to Newtown have been canceled since the shooting, others haven't. Rochester, New York, hosted a show, even though the site was less than 25 miles from the town of Webster where two volunteer firefighters were fatally shot on December 24th as they responded to a house fire. David Petronis, the Saratoga gun promoter, was exhibiting a few tables of guns in Rochester this past Sunday.
PETRONIS: Busy place here. AR-15s all over the place. Everybody's happy. Nobody went home, shot anybody.
WILLMAN: Rather than cancel his show in Saratoga, Petronis has agreed to a compromise request from the city council to not display or sell weapons similar to those used at the Sandy Hook school, so he says exhibitors won't have some semiautomatic weapons or high-capacity magazines for sale at this show. But he hopes all the attention will end soon so his exhibitors can get back to offering their full array of guns and accessories. For NPR News, I'm Dale Willman in Saratoga Springs.
AUDIE CORNISH, BYLINE: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block. The West African nation of Mali is perhaps best known in this country for its music. Salif Keita and the late Ali Farka Toure have become international stars, but music is now banned inside much of Mali by the al-Qaida linked militants who control the north of the country, including Timbuktu. The only exception to the ban is Quranic verse.
The militants have also attempted to shut down Mali's Festival In The Desert, which for a decade has attracted the likes of Bono and Robert Plant. From the southern city of Bamako, Tamasin Ford has the story of some artists who are now fighting back.
AMKOULLEL: (Speaking foreign language)
TAMASIN FORD, BYLINE: Amkoullel steps up to the mic at Peli Peli(ph), little bar in the heart of the city known for attracting some of Mali's top musicians.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FORD: 33-year-old Amkoullel sings about self-image, immigration and respect. He's played all over the world, performing with Malian legends Salif Keita, Ali Farka Toure and Toumani Diabate. But it wasn't until last year, eight months before a military coup unseated the democratically-elected government in March that he caught the attention of authorities. Concerned about the Islamic insurgency already underway in the north, he created an association called Plus Jamais Ca, French for "never again" and recorded the song "SOS."
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FORD: In the song, you can hear the French lyrics "C'est un SOS, SOS," declaring Mali is in a state of emergency.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FORD: The music video shows footage of men with guns, women displaced from their homes, people marching, events that were happening in the north long before the military ousted a government that was seen as doing nothing about the insurgency.
AMKOULLEL: Everybody could feel that something would happen because people was hopeless, waiting after change.
FORD: Al-Qaida-linked militants have long been a threat in the north. Since the coup in March, they now occupy the entire area. Amkoullel wrote the song to grab attention, to stop this from happening, but since then, it's been banned by the government-controlled media.
AMKOULLEL: They just want me to do a video with flowers and butterflies, but we are not living with butterflies. We are living with guns, with al-Qaida, with Sharia, all those kind of things that are not Malian.
FORD: "SOS" has been banned, perhaps out of fear it could incite people to take action against the new government. And Amkoullel has received death threats. But in the north, a more sinister form of censorship is taking place. Al-Qaida-linked militants have banned music of any kind, even cellphone ringtones. It has put an end to the famous Festival in the Desert, in Timbuktu, organized by Manny Ansar.
MANNY ANSAR: This is why we are really sad, because we started to build something very important for Timbuktu, for Mali.
FORD: Ansar is from Timbuktu. His family are nomadic herders who roam the vast dunes north of the city. His life has been threatened if he goes back, but he hasn't given up. He's still organizing the festival, but at a different venue, with a different name, the Festival in Exile. It will be a caravan of artists traveling and performing through West Africa, culminating in a three-day event in Burkina Faso.
ANSAR: We can't fight with gun against them. For me, our only way to fight is to fight by culture, by music.
FORD: Music is at the heart of life in Mali, intrinsically connected to everything, celebrations, commemorations. History is told through songs.
ANSAR: Music really has a special place in Malian society. Our daily life has music everywhere. It's more power than law. It's a kind of social law, sometime more strong than the political or official law.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FORD: Back in Peli Peli, the club's resident (unintelligible) player, world famous (unintelligible) is on stage. The Reggae Sisters, Mali's only female reggae act, join in from their seats.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FORD: Music is very much alive here in the capital. Musicians here at Peli Peli are defiant against outsiders who report music in Mali is losing its voice. It is being silenced in the north of the country, but it's too much a part of the culture to ever disappear. For NPR News, this is Tamasin Ford.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
The U.S. is getting an increasingly large share of its oil from Canada's tar sands. Buying oil from a friendly neighbor is great for national security, but still comes with environmental consequences. NPR's Elizabeth Shogren reports on a new study that shows tar sands oil production in Alberta, Canada, is polluting area lakes.
ELIZABETH SHOGREN, BYLINE: The forested part of Western Canada where tar sands oil is produced is so rich and thick with the asphalt-like stuff that you can actually see it coming out of the ground all over the place. That's made it easy for the industry to claim that contaminants in the waterways got there naturally. To investigate that, researchers had to find a way to go back in time. John Smol is a biology professor at Queen's University in Ontario.
JOHN SMOL: Twenty-four hours a day, 365 days of the year, mud is accumulating at the bottom of a lake. It's like a history book. The deeper you go, the older it is.
SHOGREN: Smol and scientists from Canada's federal government environmental agency analyzed mud from the bottom of several lakes. They saw that the level of contaminants increased after the 1960s and 1970s when tar sands development started and then rose sharply in recent years when tar sands production spiked. The scientists also demonstrated that the source was not natural.
SMOL: So the types of contaminants could also sort of point the finger, if you like, at, yep, it's coming from the tar sands operation.
SHOGREN: The contaminants the researchers found are from air pollutants coming off the production and processing of the tar sands oil. These toxic chemicals are linked to cancer and other serious health problems, but the levels found in the lakes are not high enough to pose environmental or health problems.
SMOL: I'm not saying that these lakes are toxic pools. The contaminants in these lakes are now about the same level that you might see in a lake, you know, in an urban - like a city setting.
SHOGREN: Smol says he worries that as the industry ramps up production, the contamination will get worse. The research was published in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It notes that this pollution wasn't picked up by the industry funded monitoring program that was supposed to track environmental risks from tar sands over recent decades. University of Alberta Professor David Schindler is one of Canada's most esteemed ecologists. He was the first to tie the industry's air pollution to contamination of waterways a few years ago.
His research prompted the federal and regional governments to reconsider whether they should have been letting industry monitor the environmental effects of its own operations. Schindler says the old monitoring program sent his blood pressure up for decades.
DAVID SCHINDLER: It's a very disgusting history, I would say, that we now know that we've spent 30 years and millions of dollars on a monitoring program that has yielded very little of use.
SHOGREN: Schindler says because this evidence was absent, the industry didn't have to come up with cleaner ways to do its work.
SCHINDLER: The attitude has been, oh, this is a remote area. Nobody is going to care. I think that's going to change.
SHOGREN: But industry spokesman Travis Davies says the pollution levels shown by the new study aren't high enough to suggest that the industry needs to change.
TRAVIS DAVIES: You go back to the fact that you needed to find whether this has an impact, a negative impact on the environment, and this study shows it doesn't.
SHOGREN: And he says more studies are needed to pinpoint what aspect of the industry is responsible for the levels of pollution that were found.
DAVIES: Because until you know that, you don't know where to apply the technology, you don't know where to change your process, you don't know what regulations to change. So there's not a lot of point in running out and spending billions of dollars unless you know that it's going to work.
SHOGREN: The Canadian government has pledged to create a new monitoring program that is independent from industry and the government to try to get more answers. Elizabeth Shogren, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
One thing that's sure to come up in Vice President Biden's discussions is the role of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. The ATF is the primary enforcer of the nation's gun laws, but it hasn't had a full-fledged director in years. And advocates say the agency has been underfunded, understaffed and handcuffed in its abilities to go after gun crimes.
More on that now from NPR's Brian Naylor.
BRIAN NAYLOR, BYLINE: In an ad campaign launched today by the group Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Roxanna Green, whose child was killed two years ago, appeals directly to the camera.
(SOUNDBITE FROM AD)
ROXANNA GREEN: My nine-year-old daughter was murdered in the Tucson shooting. I have one question for our political leaders: When will you find the courage to stand up to the gun lobby?
NAYLOR: Standing up to the gun lobby is seen by gun control advocates to mean not only banning assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, but restoring some teeth to the ATF. Jon Lowy is with the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
JON LOWY: The restrictions on ATF are absurd. They're not allowed to use computers in doing their trace work. They're not allowed to do more than one spot inspection on a gun dealer.
NAYLOR: When looking at the problems facing the ATF, it's instructive to start at the top. The current acting director of the Washington agency is B. Todd Jones, who is juggling the ATF post with his other job, that of U.S. attorney in Minneapolis. It's been six years, since the Bush administration, that there has been a permanent ATF director. Michael Bouchard, a former ATF assistant director, says that lack of leadership has handicapped the agency.
MICHAEL BOUCHARD: You need somebody there who has ownership and is going to be there for the long haul and can start projecting a couple years out, versus people who are just brought in for a temporary fix.
NAYLOR: President Obama has nominated a permanent director, but there's not even been a hearing on the nomination because of opposition from the gun lobby. There are other administrative issues: funding has been relatively flat, and the agency has roughly the same number of agents today as it did a decade ago.
ATF agents face other issues with gun law. Congress refuses to allow a centralized gun database, so tracing a weapon used in a crime means a lot of legwork, says former ATF agent William Vizzard.
WILLIAM VIZZARD: They have to contact the manufacturer or importer, who tells them, oh, on July 14th, 2009, we shipped that gun to Buckeye Sporting Goods, a wholesaler. Then you contact Buckeye Sporting Goods, and they say, oh, yeah, we received that gun four days later and we shipped it out to Billy Bob's Bait and Tackle Shop. Then you go to Billy Bob and you say, OK, what do your records say?
NAYLOR: Another frustration, says former ATF assistant director Bouchard, is the lack of gun-trafficking statutes to charge those suspected of supplying guns to criminals.
BOUCHARD: It's very frustrating when you see people that you know are criminals and buying guns for the criminal element, and you don't have the ability to have a statute to prosecute them under. You have to be creative and try and make other statutes fit.
NAYLOR: Advocates also say the ATF should be allowed to inspect firearms dealers more than once a year, and that dealers should be required to keep track of their inventory. The Brady Center's Jon Lowy says over 100,000 guns are missing from dealers' shelves.
LOWY: There's a great likelihood that most of those guns were sold off the books to criminals. Easy way to fix that is to simply require dealers to do an inventory every year of their stock. ATF is prevented from even requiring dealers to do that. That makes absolutely no sense.
NAYLOR: Gun rights advocates say they're defending law-abiding dealers from overzealous government agents. Former ATF officials have written Vice President Biden with suggestions to correct what they see as the agency's problems. Lowy and other gun control advocates will be meeting with the vice president tomorrow to make their case for changes at ATF.
Brian Naylor, NPR News, Washington.
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One of the big challenges of our time is figuring out how to preserve our history. In Europe, that means protecting some glorious buildings that date back to the Dark Ages.
From London, NPR's Philip Reeves has the story of a team of scientists who hope to do just that, with a little help from one of the world's most basic cooking ingredients.
PHILIP REEVES, BYLINE: The British have some stunning cathedrals. York Minster, in the north of England, is one of the most magnificent of all. They began building it 800 years ago. Two-and-a-half centuries later, work was complete.
The result was one of Europe's largest Gothic cathedrals.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHURCH BELLS)
REEVES: There's something very confident about the sound the bells of York Minster, yet the cathedral has had a rough ride through history. It's been pillaged and looted. There have been devastating fires and lightning strikes. Today, there's another threat: acid rain.
The medieval craftsmen who built York Minster used rock from a nearby quarry. It's a type of limestone particularly vulnerable to damage by atmospheric pollution. The cathedral stones are decaying. British scientists and archaeologists have teamed up to try to find a solution.
We're not talking here just about the pollution created by this modern car-crazy age. You see, limestone has a memory. Locked within the stones of York Minister are the residues of pollution churned out in the 19th century, by the factories and power plants of Britain's Industrial Revolution. Those residues slowly permeate to the surface of the stone with alarming effect.
KAREN WILSON: All the salts can actually build up in the microstructure of the stone and eventually crack it, and large pieces will start to fall off the building.
REEVES: That's Dr. Karen Wilson from Cardiff University in Wales. She heads a research team trying to develop a protective coating for York Minster and other ancient buildings. They want something that's water-repellent and keeps out that acid rain. But they also need it to let the limestone breathe, allowing the nasty stuff from the Industrial Revolution to escape.
Protective coatings have been tried before over the last century or so. One idea was to oil York Minster. They experimented using linseed oil. This damaged and discolored the stone, making it darker. But it did give Wilson and her team an idea. They turned to the kitchen cupboard and came out with...
WILSON: Olive oil.
REEVES: That's right, olive oil. Wilson can explain the science.
WILSON: The main component of olive oil is something called oleic acid. And the nice thing with oleic acid is it has one end of it that will selectively react with the stone. And then another end - which is a very long hydrocarbon chain - will give you the hydrophobic properties to repel the water.
REEVES: The oleic acid gets mixed with another substance to create the protective coating. Tests have been carried out using samples of the cathedral's stone. Wilson says it's early days but the results are looking good.
What a nice thought: One of the world's greatest Gothic cathedrals somehow survived all that pillaging and all those fires. And now, maybe, it'll stand for another 800 years, thanks to a little salad dressing.
Philip Reeves, NPR News, London.
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We're going to hear now about the challenges of caring for a loved one with Alzheimer's. Nationwide, more than five million people struggle with the disease and most are cared for at home. The nation's largest provider of non-medical home care for seniors is now offering family caregivers training in dealing with Alzheimer's. Home Instead, as the company is called, makes the workshops available to anyone, for free, whether they're clients are not.
NPR's Ina Jaffe attended a workshop in Los Angeles.
INA JAFFE, BYLINE: It's the middle of the day in the middle of the week and half a dozen people are gathered in a nondescript meeting room. The need that brought them here can be as serious as it is undefined. Tina Stephenson says she's here.
TINA STEPHENSON: 'Cause I need help.
(LAUGHTER)
STEPHENSON: Bottom-line.
JAFFE: She's been with her partner Gino for 34 years. They live in a one-room apartment. And she says that certain ordinary things, like standing in front of the sink, just freak him out.
STEPHENSON: I mean, it's so weird. He just all of a sudden resists me and pulls the other way. So I'm looking for some help with that.
JOHN MOSER: Alright, let's get started. Everyone get some food and something to drink.
JAFFE: That's John Moser. He owns the Home Instead franchise in L.A., and he's leading the workshop. He got into the home care business after spending years as an elder abuse lawyer.
MOSER: I dealt with a lot of nursing homes and skilled nursing facilities. And I always thought at that time that: Is this really what is the only option for seniors?
JAFFE: Which led him to Home Instead. He explained that its employees help older adults with meals, grooming, transportation.
MOSER: And family members would be so surprised that our caregivers were able to get mom or dad to do certain things. So they would call the Home Instead offices and want to know more about this training.
JAFFE: The training was developed by Home Instead but it's based on ideas accepted by many Alzheimer's experts, like using long term memories and recognizing what triggers anxiety. The company spent about $3 million over the past three years making it available to family caregivers. Home Instead says it wants to be a community resource and maybe even get more clients.
The first thing that Moser tells the group is that when it comes to caring for Alzheimer's patients, knowledge is power.
MOSER: Know 100 things about the person you're providing care to. Take those 100 things and get them in the book.
JAFFE: The workbook is called "Capturing Life's Journey."
MOSER: Even though short-term memory goes, a lot of people with dementia, they retain those long-term memories.
JAFFE: And those long term memories and lifelong activities can be rekindled and used to give a person with Alzheimer's a better quality of life, or distract them from behaviors that could cause them physical or emotional harm. For example, Moser talks about an artist who just stopped painting when the disease took hold.
MOSER: So we ended up getting some canvases for the caregiver and she just started painting. And this happened for, you know, a few days - I think for about a week. And then all of a sudden he sat by her and that was for a couple of days. And then, all of a sudden he's grabbing the paint brush out of her hand. And now - I can't even tell you - he's got a wall of paintings that he has painted since he got this disease.
JAFFE: Arguing or reasoning or just saying no, that generally doesn't work, as Anton Vogt is finding out in caring for his friend Erica.
ANTON VOGT: If I put some money somewhere and she moves it around. She can't find it, then she thinks somebody stole it.
JAFFE: Moser says sometimes, especially if the person you're caring for has lost their short-term memory, deception is OK. It worked with another client of his who also liked to have money around.
MOSER: And she had access to money so she'd sometimes have hundreds and hundreds of dollars on her. And, of course, you know, get lost. And, you know, she'd start making false accusations. So we ended up just giving her a bunch of singles You know, and then eventually, really, "Monopoly" money when she really couldn't tell the difference.
JAFFE: But telling her she couldn't have money? That would have only upset her. Moser says you'll never be able to drag a person with Alzheimer's into the same world that you live in.
MOSER: It's really all about them and providing them the comfort and security of whatever they perceive as their current reality. You be present in their reality.
JAFFE: It's a reality where many caregivers may find themselves in years to come. With the population aging, cases of Alzheimer's in the United States are expected to double by the year 2050.
Ina Jaffe, NPR News.
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Now, from Syria's border with Jordan, now to its border with Turkey and a very different kind of safe haven. It's for Syrian activists once bent on building a democratic society. While they haven't yet given up that dream, many have been forced to flee Syria and are now doing their part from afar.
NPR's Kelly McEvers visited a house that's a way station for such exiles.
KELLY MCEVERS, BYLINE: It's called Beit Qamishlo or the House of Qamishli. It's named after a city in northeastern Syria. But the house isn't in Syria. It's in Turkey, not far from the Syrian border. The house is pretty humble; concrete blocks, tile floors, Arabic slogans taped on the walls, read here by an interpreter.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 1: (Reading) Beit Qamishlo is a house for everyone. It's a window to Syria's future. Under one roof we plant life together and freedom. We write on its wall together.
MCEVERS: More than just ideas, Beit Qamishlo is a hostel; a place for Syrians who've escaped their country to crash until they find more permanent digs. It's an education center where young Syrian refugees take English and art classes on the weekends. And it's a performance space, where readings, speeches, and debates fill the night.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 2: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: On this night, it's "Tales of a Prisoner," a recurring series featuring men and women from the previous generation of Syrians who opposed their government.
Young Syrians from around the country huddle to listen on couches and plastic chairs, in a spare and smoky room warmed by an electric heater.
MALIK DAGESTANI: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: The speaker is Malik Dagestani, a self-described communist who opposed the regime of Hafez al Assad, the father of Syria's current president, Bashar al-Assad. Dagestani was detained for his political activity in 1987 and held for nine years.
DAGESTANI: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: Dagestani says he was beaten and tortured so badly in the first days of his detention that he couldn't walk or even stand for weeks. He eventually was transferred to a prison he calls a storage place for thousands of others like him. A year later, he was able to pay someone to smuggle in letters. That's when he first saw a picture of his second daughter, who was born while he was away.
DAGESTANI: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: To pass the time in prison, Dagestani and his colleagues studied English, fashioned musical instruments out of wood scraps, made candles from marmalade jars and put on plays. By the time he got out, he didn't know what a fax machine was, was flabbergasted by the Windows Operating System. The day of his release, Dagestani called his house, but only his youngest daughter was at home.
DAGESTANI: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: This is your father. Who? Your father. Who?
He called his older daughter. I am your father, he said, I was released. But she just handed the phone to someone else. She didn't know what to do.
Like so many Syrians, the founder of Beit Qamishlo did time in prison, too. He's a jolly man with an infectious grin who goes by the name Abu Raman. Abu Raman's latest detention was just as Syria's uprising began back in March 2011. There, he met activists and political organizers from around the country.
ABU RAMAN: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: Abu Raman says he founded Beit Qamishlo to repeat what he learned in prison; that nationalism isn't something that comes from the state but rather something you learn from each other. He started the prison series so the older generation could finally speak out about what happened to them. He hopes young activists who crash at Beit Qamishlo can learn from people like Malik Dagestani.
DAGESTANI: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: After Dagestani's speech, an activist asks him if he thinks it was worth it to suffer for what he believed in, especially now the new generation has risen up with no intention of turning back.
DAGESTANI: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: If we knew how many people would die, he says, we might have told them not to start this uprising. Now the men with guns are the heroes. How will we go back from that?
It's people like Dagestani and places like Beit Qamishlo that Western countries say they hope to support. So far, Abu Raman says he relies on donations from friends.
RAMAN: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: He says the house costs about $400 a month in rent and about the same again for heat and electricity. But he says the money is about to run out.
The U.S. state department says it aims to provide, quote, "nonlethal assistance to unarmed civilians and grassroots organizations aimed at building a nationwide network of diverse activists."
So, Abu Raman says, what about us?
Kelly McEvers, NPR News.
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Businesses complained that the uncertainty surrounding the fiscal cliff debate kept them from hiring and expanding and hurt the economy. Washington has now managed half a deal, which settles tax issues, at least for the time being. NPR's John Ydstie reports now on whether that's enough to cut through the uncertainty and boost hiring and investment.
JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: Scott Dawson is the chief financial officer for Vickers Engineering in New Troy, Michigan. The company makes parts for auto companies, agricultural equipment manufacturers and the oil and gas industry. Dawson says the fiscal cliff deal on taxes did help his company move forward by extending a provision that allows firms to rapidly deduct the value of new equipment from their tax bill.
SCOTT DAWSON: Now we can invest in more equipment, which allows us to take on more projects, which allows us to hire more people, et cetera. That was one of the things that really we were waiting up until they came to this agreement on how we were going to pursue our capital plans for 2013.
YDSTIE: That said, Vickers Engineering was already in expansion mode, riding a revival of the auto industry. It's almost doubled its annual revenues to $30 million in the past two years. The fiscal cliff agreement will help the company complete a near-doubling of its workforce by the end of this year.
But Dawson says another part of the deal - the tax hike for people making over $450,000 a year - could be a drag. That's because the owners of Vickers Engineering will pay more in taxes and have less money to put into new equipment.
Dyke Messenger runs a small company called Power Curbers in Salisbury, North Carolina. It builds machines used to construct curbs and gutters for streets and highways, and Messenger is about to hire some workers.
DYKE MESSENGER: We're going to hire three and a likelihood or possibility of a fourth.
YDSTIE: But the reason Messenger is hiring is not the fiscal cliff deal, but rather because the construction industry is recovering.
MESSENGER: The company has strengthened enough in the construction sector that we can foresee increased business, which will allow us to bump up hiring, bump up our spending on a variety of things that we were holding back on before.
YDSTIE: Scott Shane, a professor of entrepreneurial studies at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, says the situation at Power Curbers underscores that what's most important to small businesses is what's happening in their sector of the economy.
SCOTT SHANE: You know, if demand is strong and the economy is growing and people are demanding products and services, then they feel confident on expanding. And when that's not happening, they don't feel confident.
YDSTIE: Shane says if you're not confident in the underlying economy, removing a little uncertainty about the government's fiscal situation may not be very helpful.
SHANE: You peel away all the uncertainty, the question is, well, is the underlying situation that's now certain good? And we don't really have a lot of evidence that the underlying situation, once we address the uncertainty, is going to be any good.
YDSTIE: Government contractors, especially in defense, may have the greatest uncertainty right now, says Stan Soloway of the Professional Services Council, an association of government contractors.
STAN SOLOWAY: For the most part, I think what we're seeing are companies being very, very conservative and very, very disciplined in terms of their investments in people and the technology and so forth.
YDSTIE: What these companies want, says Soloway, is for policymakers to get on with the second step in the fiscal cliff - cutting government spending even if it means some pain for them.
SOLOWAY: Rip the Band-Aid off and let's deal with this. If there's going to be substantially reduced spending, which we all expect, at least let's get it on the table, know what's coming so we can plan against it. That's when you'll start to see normalcy and investment decisions start to move forward.
YDSTIE: But most analysts expect negotiations over spending cuts and the debt ceiling will once again go right down to the wire. John Ydstie, NPR News, Washington.
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I'm Audie Cornish. And we begin this hour with developing efforts to combat gun violence in the United States.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
CORNISH: With recent mass killings in Colorado and Connecticut on their minds, residents of another place scarred by violence marked a somber anniversary today.
BLOCK: In Tucson, Arizona, a downtown fire station rang its bell 19 times. Today marks two years since a gunman killed six people and injured 13, including Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, in a supermarket parking lot.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
CORNISH: Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly, visited Newtown, Connecticut last week to meet some of the families who lost children in the school shooting there.
Speaking on ABC's "Good Morning, America," both said the visit wasn't easy.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GOOD MORNING AMERICA")
MARK KELLY: It brought back a lot of memories about what that was like for us some two years ago today. And you hope that this kind of thing doesn't happen again. But you know what? It does happen again.
BLOCK: Today the couple unveiled their political action committee called Americans for Responsible Solutions. They say it is focused on advocating gun violence protection and balancing the influence of the gun lobby.
CORNISH: That announcement comes while the White House is working on its own gun policy initiatives. After the Newtown shootings, President Obama tasked Vice President Biden with coming up with a new set of gun policies. Here to discuss that effort is NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson. And Mara, to start, do we have any way of knowing what kind of progress that the vice president is making?
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Well, the vice president has been meeting with stakeholders. Tomorrow, he's talking with victims' groups and gun safety organizations. Then, on Thursday, he's going to be talking to sportsmen's groups and gun ownership organizations. He's also going to hold meetings with representatives of the entertainment and video game industries. All this is meant to come up with a set of new gun policies this month that would be legislation as well as executive orders or new regulations that are aimed at preventing the kind of massacres we've seen in Newtown and Aurora and Tucson.
And by the way, advocates are no longer calling it gun control. They're calling it gun violence prevention.
CORNISH: And you mentioned gun owners. Will the National Rifle Association be involved in this?
LIASSON: Yes. On Thursday, they are coming to the White House. The NRA says that it's interested in listening to the White House and the White House says it's interested in listening to the stakeholders. But the NRA has been pretty clear that they think the solution to bad guys with guns is to arm good guys with guns.
In addition to that, there is a group, a coalition of gun owners' groups, that will be holding a gun appreciation day two days before President Barack Obama is inaugurated. And they are urging gun owners to turn out en masse at gun stores and shooting ranges to show their opposition to any new gun control legislation.
CORNISH: And, of course, policies are one thing, but what are the prospects for gun legislation this year?
LIASSON: Well, it's hard to imagine the House of Representatives passing or even bringing up gun control laws. I think this all depends on whether the shootings in Newtown were really a turning point in the way that other incidents like them haven't been. We also want to see if Gabby Giffords and her husband and Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire mayor of New York, can really create a counterweight to the NRA.
And we also need to see exactly how much of a priority the president is going to make this. The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence actually gave the president an F for his first term. They point to all the legislation that he signed that has made guns more accessible, allowing loaded firearms in checked baggage on Amtrak or loaded firearms in national parks.
CORNISH: Meanwhile, the president, of course, has a lot on his wish list for a second term. Immigration reform, the deficit, the debt ceiling discussions, climate change legislation. So where does gun policy fit into this?
LIASSON: Well, that is a pretty ambitious list. There is only so much bandwidth for an administration or a Congress to deal with. But that is why the administration is saying, this isn't just about legislation. No single action is going to solve the problems. I think you should expect some executive action. They want to go further than just the things the president has already advocated, which is a renewal of the assault weapons ban, a renewal of the ban on high-capacity magazines and a closing of the gun show loophole.
They're talking perhaps about a national database for tracking the sale of weapons, some way to strengthen mental health background checks, maybe regulations that would require universal background checks for gun buyers. So they're saying no single action is going to solve the problem, and it's not going to just focus on legislation.
CORNISH: NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Mara, thank you.
LIASSON: Thank you, Audie.
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It's official, federal scientists say 2012 was the hottest year on record for the Lower 48 States. In fact, the average shattered the previous record set in 1998.
Here's NPR science correspondent Richard Harris.
RICHARD HARRIS, BYLINE: We didn't need to wait for the end of the year to know that 2012 was miserably hot and miserably dry. Still, Jake Couch, at the National Climatic Data Center, put it on the record today.
JAKE COUCH: Two thousand twelve marked the warmest year on record for contiguous U.S., with the year consisting of a record warm spring, the second warmest summer, fourth warmest winter, and a warmer than average autumn.
HARRIS: Couch says the record wasn't even close. In more than 100 years of record keeping, the average stayed within a range of 4 degrees Fahrenheit. But 2012 was a full degree outside of that range and it was dry to boot. Many people suffered through a bad year of drought.
Couch says you may not be hearing so much about it now in the dead of winter...
COUCH: But we are still seeing impacts from the drought such as low water levels along the Mississippi, causing commercial shipping problems; near low-water levels in the Great Lakes. So we are still in the midst of this drought. It is not over and I foresee that it's going to be a big story moving forward in 2013.
HARRIS: One huge part of the United States did escape record heat and drought, Alaska was actually cooler and a bit wetter than average. But globally, the year was one of the 10 hottest on record.
Deke Arndt, at the Climate Data Center, says even though 2012 doesn't top the list globally don't shrug it off.
DEKE ARNDT: It's very easy to get very enamored with the records. You know, the biggest, the most, the highest. We've spent a lot of time in this kind of top 10 territory globally temperature-wise.
HARRIS: The world's climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that the Earth is getting warmer because human activities are pouring huge quantities of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. But Jake Couch says it's not a simple matter to say how much of the heat last year was caused by human activities and how much was part of the normal ups and downs.
COUCH: Climate change has had a role in this. The contiguous U.S. temperature has been increasing and is still increasing, and local variability and regional variability did play a role. But it's hard for us to say at this time what amount of the 2012 temperature was dependent on climate change and which part was dependent on that local variability.
HARRIS: Given the trends, it's very likely that we'll see a lot more heat records in the years to come.
Richard Harris, NPR News.
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Call it a stampede or a riot or the chaos born of desperation. Syrian refugees in a camp in northern Jordan attacked aid workers today, using sticks and stones, after a major winter storm blew down tents and flooded streets. Police say seven aid workers were injured in the attack.
I spoke earlier with Dale Gavlak, who reports for the AP and NPR. She was at the Zaatari refugee camp and described what led to the riot.
DALE GAVLAK, BYLINE: There's been severe weather that we've experienced these past three days. And tomorrow, it's predicted that there may be snow. Basically, the rain and the wind brought down tents at the Zaatari camp, as well as flooded tents, making the tents uninhabitable for the refugees. And some took to rioting when bread was being distributed by a group called the Jordan Hashemite Charity Organization. Now, that group, along with the U.N. refugee agency, actually administer the Zaatari camp.
BLOCK: And when you went to the today, what did it look like after the storm?
GAVLAK: Yeah, I mean, it was a big muddy mess. There were also huge puddles. I mean, there were actually small lakes in parts of the camp.
BLOCK: Now, how badly injured were those aid workers in this attack?
GAVLAK: Well, we were told that one was badly injured, that there was hemorrhaging from his head, but the others had lighter wounds. And, you know, of course, they were receiving treatment.
BLOCK: And the groups that are running the Zaatari camp, did they say: We're overwhelmed, we're doing the best we can or we need more help - what did they tell you?
GAVLAK: They do say that they are trying very hard. And, in fact, there have been real improvements. I mean there's a school at the camp. The U.N. refugee agency had provided a number of the refugees with trailers instead of tents, an extra tarp was put on top of the tents to, you know, try to keep out the rains.
But in this particular area that I witnessed, which to me seems to be the absolute worst, all of those factors were missing. There were no extra tarps. They weren't given heaters, so it means at night they just have blankets, which are insufficient to really keep out really freezing cold temperatures.
BLOCK: There have been riots at the Zaatari camp before this, I think, right?
GAVLAK: Yeah, that's correct. I mean, basically the refugees had complained that, you know, they were given meals which were inedible. And the camp is set on a desert plain, so during the summer months it was particularly windy; scorching temperatures and colder at night because it is desert. And there were also snakes and scorpions that they complained about, as well.
BLOCK: How many refugees are at this camp, Dale?
GAVLAK: OK, now nearly 50,000 refugees. And there have been more coming over in past days with, you know, increased violence taking place in Syria.
BLOCK: When you talked with the Syrian refugees who are living at the Zaatari camp, did anyone tell you, look, it's horrible, conditions are awful but at least we're out of a war zone?
GAVLAK: Yes, I mean, people do say that and many are very thankful not to be in Syria anymore; not to have to face bombings and shellings and, you know, witnessing family members being killed. But unfortunately, these people really found themselves in a very calamitous situation. I mean, humanly speaking, I could not imagine spending an hour under those circumstances. And you've got young kids to look after. I mean, it's impossible.
BLOCK: Well, Dale Gavlak, thanks for talking with us today.
GAVLAK: Thank you very much.
BLOCK: Dale Gavlak reports for NPR and the AP. We were talking about today's riots at the Zaatari camp for Syrian refugees in Jordan.
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If anyone knew what it took to cover a presidential campaign, it was Richard Ben Cramer. His book about the 1988 election, titled "What It Takes," was the defining campaign treatment of the last half century. Prior to that, Cramer was a Pulitzer-winning foreign correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer.
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Cramer died Monday of complications from lung cancer. He was 62. NPR's David Folkenflik has this remembrance.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: The conceit of "What It Takes" was deceivingly simple. Cramer, a former reporter for The Baltimore Sun and the Philadelphia Inquirer, would immerse himself in the campaigns of six candidates running for the nation's highest office and figure out the discipline and confidence that enabled them to run.
RICHARD BEN CRAMER: Alas, in the nature of the process, five out of six of them are doomed to fail. So it was really the internal monologue that I was trying to cover, whereby the person comes to the point where he thinks he ought to be president, then thinks he will be president and finally has to come off of that certainty.
FOLKENFLIK: Here, Cramer was speaking in June 1992 to John Hockenberry on NPR. When Hockenberry suggested that he seemed to fall for each of the candidates, Cramer was unapologetic.
CRAMER: I spent six years on this book, so at various times in it, you are viscerally connected to every one of these men. I think that, stepping back from it now, as for the first time in years I can, I think that all of these men deserve a book on their own. But it may be that Bob Dole deserves a Russian novel.
FOLKENFLIK: Over a thousand pages, "What It Takes" offered a sympathetic but unflinching sense of the aspirations, hopes, motivations, failings and even strengths of the various figures. Vice President Joe Biden, one of the book's unsuccessful candidates, released a statement today that was rare for a Washington politician in that it displayed self-reflection.
He wrote, quote, "It is a powerful thing to read a book someone has written about you and to find both the observations and criticisms so sharp and insightful that learn something new and meaningful about yourself."
ROBERT TIMBER: You know, there were times when you just knew that he was having fun.
FOLKENFLIK: Former Baltimore Sun reporter and author Robert Timber(ph) competed against Cramer at Baltimore city hall.
TIMBER: He would take something that I wouldn't even think about writing about and write about it and it was still not worth writing about, except the way Richard wrote about it, you couldn't not read it. I mean, it was just so colorful and so funny.
FOLKENFLIK: When Cramer profiled Baltimore's William Donald Schaefer for Esquire, he dubbed Schaefer Mayor Annoyed, as in the start of every newspaper headline. Mayor annoyed about potholes. Mayor annoyed about highway delays. Mayor annoyed about whatever caught his eye that day. Stu Seidel and Cramer met as undergraduates at Johns Hopkins University and became lifelong friends.
Seidel, now NPR's managing editor for standards and practices, said Cramer routinely kept him waiting for ball games and dinners, but for a reason.
STU SEIDEL: If he was talking to someone, he was absorbed in that conversation. He caused the people that he was talking to to be absorbed in talking with him and they told him stories. They took him places in their own minds and in their own hearts and in their own experience that other reporters just didn't manage.
FOLKENFLIK: Cramer never became a creature of Washington, writing books about baseball greats Joe DiMaggio and Ted Williams, yet he made his mark in D.C. Earlier today at the White House press room, a place in which, as far as we can tell, Cramer never posed a question, presidential spokesman Jay Carney recalled coming to Washington as a young reporter for Time magazine.
JAY CARNEY: A colleague of mine handed me that book as I began to cover politics and it was the best read imaginable. And if there is anyone in this room who has not read "What It Takes," run out and buy it now.
FOLKENFLIK: A rare literary endorsement from behind the White House lectern. Cramer is survived by his wife, Joan, and his daughter, Ruby. David Folkenflik, NPR News.
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It's time now for your letters. First, we want to expand on and clarify a story that aired on New Year's Day. It was about Israel's decision to ease restrictions on the shipment of construction materials to Gaza. Our story failed to note that Israel previously allowed aid organizations to ship construction material into Gaza. The eased rules apply to private sector builders.
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Now to some kudos for one of our radio rookies. Yesterday, we heard about a disturbing new trend called slut-shaming. It involves humiliating girls by posting explicit photos or videos of them online. We learned about it from 16-year-old Temitayo Fagbenle. And her reporting prompted Laura Kelly of Fayetteville, Arkansas to write this: I can hardly believe how mature and in-depth her story seemed to me. She captured some amazing first-hand comments by people who perhaps would have been reluctant to speak to most reporters. I hope she knows how well her story sounded to a middle-aged woman who had never even heard of the topic.
BLOCK: Finally now, many of you took issue with my interview yesterday with Elliot Abrams. He is a neoconservative on foreign policy who served in the Reagan and George W. Bush administrations. In our interview, Abrams was highly critical of former Senator Chuck Hagel, President Obama's nominee to be the next secretary of defense.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED INTERVIEW)
ELLIOTT ABRAMS: I think he has a chance at his confirmation hearing to show that he is not what he appears to be, which is frankly an anti-Semite. It's not just being anti-Israel. He's got a problem with what he calls the Jews, the Jewish lobby. I think if he cannot satisfy people that he is not, in fact, bigoted against Jews, he certainly should not be confirmed.
CORNISH: John Shrauger of Venice, Florida writes: Mr. Abrams did not convince me that Chuck Hagel is anti-Semitic, but he did convince me that anyone who is not unequivocally supportive of Israel's policies still risks being labeled as anti-Semitic. What seems to be clear about Mr. Hagel is that he has the courage to stand up to some of the most powerful lobbies in Washington: the defense contracting lobby as well as the right-wing pro-Israel lobby.
BLOCK: And many of you thought we should have told you more about Elliot Abrams' background. Derek Goldman of Missoula, Montana was among those who wrote to say we should have told listeners that Abrams pleaded guilty to withholding information from Congress in the Iran-Contra investigation. He writes: This information should have been highly important to the story, given the excessive strength of Mr. Abrams' criticism of Senator Hagel.
CORNISH: Thanks to all who wrote in, and please, keep your letters coming. You can write to us at npr.org. Just click on Contact Us.
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While violent crime has been dropping in many big cities, the city of Chicago saw a sharp increase in killings in 2012. So Chicago is beginning the New Year with a new approach. Mayor Rahm Emanuel and the police department have unveiled what they call a revitalization of community policing. They're re-emphasizing cooperation between cops and residents in certain high-crime neighborhoods. And they made that announcement today as it became clear that the mayor's gun control efforts were falling flat in the state legislature. Here's NPR'S David Schaper in Chicago.
DAVID SCHAPER, BYLINE: Chicago Police Superintendent Gary McCarthy stands over a long table, filled with high-capacity semiautomatic handguns, rifles with scopes, AR-15s and even an AK-47.
GARY MCCARTHY: Can you imagine facing that thing in an alleyway late at night - 7.62 rounds?
SCHAPER: McCarthy says all of these guns were confiscated by Chicago police officers just since the new year began.
MCCARTHY: By the way, this is only a snapshot of what we got last week: 180 guns, first six days. Believe it or not, it's actually down a little bit from last year.
SCHAPER: Through all of last year, McCarthy says his officers confiscated a record number of guns - more than 7,400. The vast majority, he says, were handguns and about 400 were assault rifles. McCarthy acknowledges that an assault weapons ban in Illinois would not do much to reduce gun violence on Chicago's streets.
MCCARTHY: So even an assault weapons ban has to go further.
SCHAPER: McCarthy says most guns used in shootings in Chicago are purchased legally initially, but then resold.
MCCARTHY: You go into a gun shop, you can purchase these firearms legally. What happens when you walk out the door, there's no accountability, and those guns end up illegally transferred on the streets in the hands of gangbangers.
SCHAPER: McCarthy says Illinois needs to require the reporting of every loss, theft or transfer of a firearm, as is required in many other states. He and Mayor Emanuel are also pushing for long mandatory minimum sentences when guns are involved, and closing the loophole that allows gun show purchases without background checks, in addition to an assault weapons ban and a limit on magazine clips.
But those issues aren't even on the table as the state legislature wraps up its lame-duck session today. So in a city that recorded 506 homicides in 2012, the highest number in four years, Chicago is seeking other ways to boost crime fighting.
(APPLAUSE)
SCHAPER: Standing alongside Mayor Emanuel, other police officials and community leaders in a south side police station, Superintendent McCarthy announced that his department will overhaul its community policing efforts.
MCCARTHY: No component or facet of this strategy is more important than engagement and community trust. A strong partnership with the community is a force multiplier.
SCHAPER: Relations between Chicago police officers and residents of many communities, especially in high-crime African-American and Latino neighborhoods, have long been strained. Residents often complain of an us-against-them attitude and point to past incidents of abuse. McCarthy, the former police chief in Newark, acknowledges that Chicago police are still being punished for incidents that happened long ago.
MCCARTHY: The fact is I can't fix that. What I can do is focus on the behavior of our officers today.
SCHAPER: And this new community policing strategy aims to do just that.
ART LURIGIO: Community policing is not just about doing traditional cops and robbers kind of policing.
SCHAPER: That's Art Lurigio, a criminologist at Loyola University of Chicago, who helped develop the city's first community policing program 20 years ago. He praises the new effort, especially the training of all Chicago police officers, to better engage, interact with and respect residents.
LURIGIO: All community policing models have at their core putting the police closer to residents. Like politics, all policing is local.
SCHAPER: But Lurigio cautions that efforts such as these often take time to pay off, and Chicagoans shouldn't expect a sudden decrease in shootings just because police are taking this new approach to crime. David Schaper, NPR News, Chicago.
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And I'm Audie Cornish. The University of Alabama won another football championship last night, dominating Notre Dame 42-14. It's the third title in four years for Alabama, a university with a history of football superiority. In Tuscaloosa, the victory wowed the hometown crowd, as NPR's Russell Lewis reports.
RUSSELL LEWIS, BYLINE: At Tuscaloosa's airport this afternoon, hundreds of fans gathered to welcome the team home.
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LEWIS: Regina Croft was here with a pompom and a smile. She was shaking and not because she was nervous.
REGINA CROFT: It's number 15. I'm going to cry. I mean, 15 national championships. It was the most awesome game to beat Notre Dame. I mean, I just - I love them. I love the Tide.
LEWIS: The crowd was packed. Alabama fans ranged from babies in strollers to the elderly in wheelchairs. Today, sports radio was abuzz about coach Nick Saban.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: ...and where does he, as far as his legacy, where does he rank amongst not only current coaches but also all coaches when it comes to college football? Phenomenal what he's done, three of the last four...
LEWIS: And it wasn't just on the radio where people were excited.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: What you having this morning?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Do you guys have biscuits and gravy?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Oh, yeah. We have white gravy, sausage, gravy and biscuits. What else you want?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: That would be great. Diet Coke, please.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: OK.
LEWIS: At Waysider Restaurant, business was a bit slow because so many people apparently stayed up late. Pat Sanders was in early, though, wearing an Alabama jacket and finishing up some grits and eggs.
PAT SANDERS: The team is embedded into the fabric of the state of Alabama. It gives us something to be proud of. I mean, it just - it's something that gives us so much pride.
LEWIS: A few tables over, Clara Cross was eating a plate of pancakes and bacon and washing it down with a cup of sweet tea. She's 27 and says her indoctrination to the Crimson Tide started early.
CLARA CROSS: Lifelong Alabama fan. Momma brought me home in crimson and white. Never stood a chance. Wouldn't change it. Will raise my babies the same way.
LEWIS: Even this restaurant is steeped in Alabama lore. It's where legendary former coach Paul "Bear" Bryant used to bring recruits. The walls are covered with pictures and paintings of famous gridiron moments. Cross says the football team helps energize the community, especially after the devastating 2011 tornadoes. But it goes beyond that, she says.
CROSS: It's - it defines who you are. You can go anywhere in the world, and when you see a fan and you're in Chicago or you're in Dubai and they say roll tide, you instantly have family there.
LEWIS: It was during the 1960s in the Bear Bryant heyday that the University of Alabama really flourished. It came during the civil rights era. Churches were bombed, the bloody march between Selma and Montgomery and the Montgomery bus boycott. Ken Gaddy is in charge of the Bear Bryant Museum. He says football was one of the few things happening in the state that many could feel good about.
KEN GADDY: You know, being a positive for the people of Alabama during that '60s time was important. It was something to cling on to. You know, success is a breeding ground for success. And, you know, the examples of coach Bryant, you know, what he taught and the things they did are exactly the same things that coach Saban does today.
LEWIS: There's little time to celebrate. Believe it or not, Tide fans are already looking ahead to this fall. It seems the start of football season can't come soon enough. Russell Lewis, NPR News, Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
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The architecture critic Ada Louise Huxtable had a pillow stitched with the words: Ada Louise Huxtable already doesn't like it. That was the zingy caption of a New Yorker cartoon from 1968. The cartoon showed a rough construction site with only a single column erected. A construction worker in a hardhat is holding a newspaper reading Huxtable's scathing critique to the architect. Ada Louise Huxtable, who pioneered architecture criticism, died yesterday in Manhattan. She was 91.
Starting in 1963 at The New York Times, she was the first full-time architecture critic at an American newspaper, and she didn't mince words. Poetic grotesquerie, she said, panning one New York building. A die-cut Venetian palazzo on lollypops. Huxtable's successor at The New York Times, critic Paul Goldberger, joins me to talk about her legacy. Paul, thanks for being with us.
PAUL GOLDBERGER: Sure. Good to be here.
BLOCK: How did she help make architecture matter, do you think, not just as abstraction on the newspaper page but out in the world?
GOLDBERGER: Well, she really understood that buildings affect people, and that the kind of city we have affects the kinds of lives we live and the way we feel, and that even ordinary buildings have an impact on our lives, and extraordinary buildings have an even greater impact on our lives. You know, she loved New York in particular. She loved all cities but New York, especially. And she was always a little bit disappointed in it, wanting it to be better. And so she kept pushing it the way you might almost push a child you believed in who wasn't performing well enough and just said you've got to do better over and over again.
BLOCK: Hmm. And when a building fell short, boy, did she let people know about it. I was reading her review of the Kennedy Center when it was built here in Washington. She called it a national tragedy, a cross between a concrete candy box and a marble sarcophagus in which the art of architecture lies buried. Ouch.
GOLDBERGER: That's one of the great architecture criticism lines of all time, I think.
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GOLDBERGER: And it's amazing that Edward Durell Stone, the architect of that building, ever recovered from that.
BLOCK: Yeah. And buildings that she loved, though, what were her favorite buildings? When would she say: This is an example of what I prize.
GOLDBERGER: She loved great modern buildings. It's important to remember that when you remember that she was also probably the most important force in America in helping the historic preservation movement get going and grow into the big thing that it is, she was a huge advocate of saving things. But she never wanted to go back into the past. She really wanted us to continue to create great new things, and she loved great modern buildings. She loved the Seagram Building in New York. She loved I.M. Pei's East Wing of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, which I recall her being more enthusiastic about perhaps than almost any other single building.
So when she saw an exciting, well-crafted, elegant, strong, modern building, she could be really impassioned and enthusiastic about it and could communicate her enthusiasm for it, as well as she could communicate her disapproval and unhappiness at a building that fell short.
BLOCK: Would Huxtable hear from architects or developers after an especially biting review?
GOLDBERGER: I think some of them would call her and argue. Some of them would call kind of sheepishly, and some of them would run in the other direction as fast as they could. I think it really depended on the temperament of whoever it was. And she was always courteous and respectful to anyone who approached her, even if they had a significant difference of opinion, but she understood at the end of the day her loyalty was to her readers and to the subject of architecture, not to the architects or developers she was writing about.
BLOCK: She must have loved that New Yorker cartoon that I mentioned.
GOLDBERGER: I think she did. In fact, I recall being in her apartment one day, and it was framed on the wall.
(LAUGHTER)
GOLDBERGER: So she was actually very, very proud of the fact that she was enough of a household word for The New Yorker to do a cartoon about her.
BLOCK: Well, Paul Goldberger, thanks very much for talking with us.
GOLDBERGER: Sure. Great pleasure to talk to you.
BLOCK: That's architecture critic Paul Goldberger who succeeded Ada Louise Huxtable at The New York Times. He's now at Vanity Fair. Huxtable died yesterday. She was 91. Her last essay as architecture critic for The Wall Street Journal was published just last month.
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And I'm Audie Cornish. The federal government does lots of things that free-market economists don't like. But it does at least one thing that they really despise - subsidies for farmers. These subsidies were up for renewal last year and the battle over them ended on New Year's Eve in a stalemate. As NPR's Dan Charles reports, Congress extended them - but for just nine months.
DAN CHARLES, BYLINE: It's amazing how many different kinds of people have been trying to abolish or make big changes in the federal government's support for farmers. There are economists, of course - like Barry Goodwin, of North Carolina State University - who say taking money from taxpayers to make life more secure for farmers, is wasteful and inefficient.
BARRY GOODWIN: There's seemingly an intent to remove as much risk out of agricultural production as is possible, with subsidies and subsidized insurance and revenue insurance. And you know, we typically don't see anything like that for other sectors of the economy - at least, not to that degree.
CHARLES: And there are environmentalists, like Scott Faber from the Environmental Working Group.
SCOTT FABER: Subsidies encourage farmers to plow up wetlands and grasslands that they wouldn't plant if they were simply responding to the market.
CHARLES: Because most subsidies go to big farms growing corn, soybeans, cotton and rice, other critics say the government programs help the wrong kind of agriculture. They say if there are subsidies, they should go to small farms, organic farms, fruit and vegetable farms. And global anti-hunger advocates argue that aid to American farmers makes it harder for farmers in poor countries to compete in the global marketplace.
So every five years - for the past 20 years, or so - when farm subsidies come up for renewal in a law called the Farm Bill, all of these groups have come together in a chorus of criticism.
FABER: Why are we giving 15 or more billion dollars a year to the largest farmers, to plow up big parts of our natural heritage, to drive their smaller neighbors out of business, to make it harder for poor countries to feed themselves?
CHARLES: The critics have had some successes. Farm payments went way up in the late 1990s, but they've been falling ever since. And last year, when the Farm Bill came up for renewal again, the anti-subsidy alliance saw a big opportunity. Farmers hardly needed help, especially when the government was cutting spending for other things. Apart from dairy and meat producers, who were hit hard by last summer's drought, farmers have been doing very well in recent years - better than most Americans.
So the negotiating and dealing started. The reformers got Congress to kill one, big subsidy program - so-called direct payments. That program amounts to more than $4 billion a year. But farm groups argued farming still is a risky business, and the nation depends on a stable supply of food. They persuaded Congress to increase subsidies for another kind of safety net: crop insurance programs.
And then, in the frantic rush to resolve the government's fiscal crisis, all of that just went out the window. House and Senate leaders simply extended the farm subsidies that have been in place for the past five years. They'll continue for another nine months, until September. Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who chairs the Senate Agriculture Committee, went to the floor on New Year's Eve to vent her outrage.
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SEN. DEBBIE STABENOW: Here's what happens under this extension: The subsidies we agreed to end, continue. It's amazing, you know, how it happens that the folks that want the government subsidies, find a way to try to keep them - at all costs.
CHARLES: Now, some of the reformers agreed it was a disaster. The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, which represents small, organic farmers, was angry because the coalition thought Congress was about to fund a bunch of small, new programs to support organic farming and local food production. But Scott Faber, from the Environmental Working Group, saw it as a partial victory. We didn't get what we wanted, he admits, but big farm lobbyists didn't manage to lock in their subsidies for another five years, either. He's looking forward to renewing the battle in the new Congress.
Dan Charles, NPR News.
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Since the recent mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, the community there has been so inundated with teddy bears and other donations that it has asked people to please stop sending gifts. The story is similar in New York and New Jersey. There, relief groups are still trying to figure out what to do with the piles of clothes and other items that were donated after superstorm Sandy.
It's understandable, in the aftermath of a disaster, people want to help, but they often donate things that turn out to be more of a burden. As NPR's Pam Fessler reports, aid groups are now trying to find a better way to channel so many good intentions.
PAM FESSLER, BYLINE: Juanita Rilling remembers it all too well. It was 1988 and she was a disaster specialist trying to get help to hurricane victims in Honduras.
JUANITA RILLING: And one morning I received a call from one of our logistics operators and he explained to me that they had a cargo plane loaded with medical supplies that needed to land.
FESSLER: But the tarmac was full, with piles of other donations that no one had requested. The plane that was really needed had to find some someplace else to go.
RILLING: And it ended up upending everyone's plans by about 48 hours, which is critical time in a disaster.
FESSLER: Rilling now runs the Center for International Disaster Information, which is trying to make sure that things like that don't happen again. But they do, over and over. By some estimates, about 60 percent of items donated after a disaster can't be used. Often it's clothing and food. But sometimes it's things that make you wonder, like chandeliers and high-heeled shoes.
When Superstorm Sandy hit, Rilling's group and others launched an ad campaign.
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FESSLER: The answer, the ad said, is cash.
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FESSLER: But Leah Feder says that's just not how things work.
LEAH FEDER: What we saw early is that people didn't want to just be sending cash.
FESSLER: She's with Occupy Sandy, the Occupy Wall Street offshoot that's been on the frontlines of providing relief to those affected by Superstorm Sandy.
FEDER: People's hearts cry out and they really want to be able to help and they want to be able to help in the way that feels as concrete as possible.
FESSLER: Which, of course, is a challenge. Like other relief groups, Occupy Sandy was quickly overwhelmed with used clothes. But no one wants to discourage donors. So a volunteer had an idea. Why not set up something like a wedding registry on Amazon.com, where people could buy items that were actually needed, like face masks and dehumidifiers and cleaning supplies.
Feder says it's worked so well that Occupy Sandy has now set up another registry with businesses in the disaster area, so they too can benefit.
FEDER: People still have that opportunity to choose what it is they're purchasing. So they're not just giving money to an amorphous, unidentifiable pool.
FESSLER: Meghan O'Hara, who handles in-kind donations for the American Red Cross, says it's an intriguing idea. She knows that some people are wary of giving cash, no matter how much groups like hers insist they can provide relief more effectively and at a lower cost. And she doesn't think that the urge to give something tangible can or should be completely stopped.
MEGHAN O'HARA: Part of what people are doing is they're helping, they're trying to help. What we need to figure out is how to effectively handle that.
FESSLER: So one thing the Red Cross has been doing, since Superstorm Sandy, is to monitor social media sites.
WENDY HARMAN: Here's one. So this person is asking are there any requests for this elemental formula.
FESSLER: Wendy Harman says if she sees someone, say, tweeting about filling a truck with donations, she'll contact that person to make sure they know that the items are really needed and where they should go.
HARMAN: So that they don't drive across the country and get really disappointed.
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FESSLER: The Red Cross will also suggest alternatives, such as holding a garage sale and sending the proceeds instead. In cases like the Newtown shootings, Meghan O'Hara says they suggest that people help one of their local charities in honor of the victims, rather than sending another teddy bear. But she admits it's not always an easy message to get across.
O'HARA: That's the tough part. How do you tell someone that's really not the best thing when all they want to do is help?
FESSLER: Pam Fessler, NPR News, Washington.
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A federal appeals court in Boston is considering whether reputed mobster James Whitey Bulger can get a fair trial with a judge who used to be the top federal prosecutor. Bulger is scheduled to be tried in June for 19 alleged murders committed during the 1970s and '80s. His lawyers argue that the judge on the case can't be impartial.
And as NPR's Tovia Smith reports, the court could decide any day whether to remove him from the case.
TOVIA SMITH, BYLINE: It's extremely unusual for a federal appeals court to force a judge off a case, but the trial of the notorious mobster Whitey Bulger is nothing if not unusual. Defense attorney JW Carney says Bulger's case cannot be handled by U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns who was a federal prosecutor at the same time that other prosecutors were engaged in a corrupt relationship with Bulger.
JW CARNEY: The trial must be overseen by a judge who is not connected to the most infamous period in federal law enforcement history in Boston.
SMITH: Judge Stearns has twice refused to step aside, insisting that as former chief of the U.S. Attorney's Criminal Division, he was separate from the organized crime task force that was dealing with Bulger and he never knew anything about the case. But Carney doubts that and wants to call Stearns as a witness to bolster claims that Bulger had a deal with prosecutors granting him immunity in exchange for being an informant.
Judge Stearns calls Carney's demands for recusal, quote, "gratuitous and overheated." Carney concedes the judge has not actually shown any bias. But experts say the real issue is whether people think he might.
HARVEY SILVERGLATE: As they say, there are times when you've got to be purer than Caesars' wife. And this is one of those times.
SMITH: Boston attorney Harvey Silverglate says the public is already distrustful since prosecutors' corruption was exposed. And federal law says a judge should be removed not only if there's a conflict but also even if there just appears to be one to a reasonable person - as there does, Silverglate says, in this case.
SILVERGLATE: It certainly raises eyebrows. And you are not only supposed to have justice but the appearance of justice. And if people's eyebrows are raised, it's the wrong judge for the case.
SMITH: But prosecutors in the case accuse the 83-year-old Bulger of delay tactics. Former U.S. Attorney Michael Connolly agrees there's no basis to remove Judge Stearns.
MICHAEL CONNOLLY: There is no evidence of impartiality on the part of Judge Stearns. I mean, there could be another motivation, obviously, in terms of delay.
SMITH: Federal rules on recusal deliberately leave a lot of wiggle room. But NYU law professor Stephen Gillers says it shouldn't be enough for defendants to simply raise questions about bias and then try and get a judge removed because there are questions about bias.
STEPHEN GILLERS: The back-story, which no one will really say, I think, is the litigant really thinks that this judge is a tough law and order judge in a case like this. We really like to have another judge and is looking around for a reason to get another judge.
SMITH: Relatives of Bulger's alleged victims have also accused him of playing games. But some say they're now persuaded that Judge Stearns should go, including Patricia Donahue whose husband Michael was killed in 1982.
PATRICIA DONAHUE: It's like a catch-22 for me, you know? I want to see Bulger going away, but I don't want people to say: Oh, you know, he didn't get a fair trial after the fact.
SMITH: After waiting decades to see Bulger brought to justice, Donahue says she wants to make sure any conviction is airtight. Tovia Smith, NPR News, Boston.
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Fearing a spillover from Syria's civil war, Israel has announced it will build a fence along its northern border with Syria. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is concerned about rebel groups that have captured areas close to the border, and that the fence is a necessary precaution. Sheera Frenkel reports.
SHEERA FRENKEL, BYLINE: Yael Saperia sits at a cafe just a few miles from the Syrian border. A few months ago, an errant shell fired by a Syrian tank landed in her neighbor's backyard. Their village, Alonei Habashan, is one of the closest to the Syrian border, but she says that the violence raging just across the border is still hardly felt in Israel.
YAEL SAPERIA: In the meantime, we're getting, you know, we're getting information through the army to go on with our regular lives, go to work, your kids go to school. I mean, we haven't changed anything.
FRENKEL: Despite the relative quiet, Prime Minister Netanyahu is going ahead with plans to build the new border fence. In a transcript released after last Sunday's cabinet meeting, Netanyahu is quoted as saying that the Syrian army has moved away from the border area while jihadist forces have moved in. Netanyahu adds that the Syrian regime is very unstable and that the fence will protect Israel from both infiltration and terrorism. In a recent tour along Israel's northern border in the Golan Heights, scattered gunfire and explosions could be heard coming from inside Syria.
Amos Harel, defense correspondent for the Haaretz newspaper, says that the Israeli defense establishment sees little chance that the Syrian army would launch an attack on Israel at this stage. But standing on the ruins of a bunker used by Israeli soldiers in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, he said a conventional attack is not the only concern.
AMOS HAREL: There is the problem I mentioned of al-Qaida, chemical weapons, whatever you'd like, but not the conventional warfare of divisions. In '73, this was the site of the greatest tank battle since World War II.
FRENKEL: Harel says Israel is concerned about the strengthening of various rebel groups along the frontier. He says the rebels have used the border with Israel to play cat-and-mouse games with the Syrian army.
HAREL: The presence of the Israeli forces close by is sort of a shield against Assad loyalists' military activity. This is not something Israel is happy about, but it's quite logical for the rebels to use this method to try to avoid being hurt by attacks from Syrian side.
FRENKEL: In a background briefing given to NPR, an Israeli intelligence officer in the north said Israel has increased efforts to gather intelligence about the Syrian rebel groups, especially those with links to hard-line Islamist movements. The officer said that in the past few months, rebels have managed to take control of large swaths of territory, including in areas close to the Israeli border. He said that while many groups seem focused solely on overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad, Israel is worried about a handful that have already promised to turn their attention to Israel once Assad is gone. Moshe Maoz is a professor of Middle Eastern studies at Jerusalem's Hebrew University. He says that the Israeli premier is rushing to build a fence.
MOSHE MAOZ: Mr. Netanyahu, our prime minister, wants to do it because he's afraid that if a radical Islam organization will take over, then Israel will be in danger, but my analysis is that we - the possibility of them taking over is slim.
FRENKEL: Maoz says Netanyahu's announcement of the border fence was well-timed, with parliamentary elections now less than two weeks away.
MAOZ: Thinking about the forthcoming elections, Netanyahu does everything possible in order to induce the public to vote for him, and this is one of his tricks.
FRENKEL: Maoz says that with the campaign in full swing, Netanyahu wants to reassure the country that he's strong on security issues. For NPR News, I'm Sheera Frenkel.
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We have some hopeful news now for people who like to crank their music up to 11. Researchers say they've discovered a drug that can partially reverse hearing loss caused by exposure to extremely loud sounds. So far, the drug has only been tried in mice. But NPR's Jon Hamilton reports that it's an important step toward a treatment that could help millions of people.
JON HAMILTON, BYLINE: The trouble with really loud sounds is that they can injure or kill cells in the inner ear known as hair cells. Albert Edge is a hearing researcher at Harvard. He says hair cells turn sounds into electrical signals that are sent to the brain.
DR. ALBERT EDGE: The unusual thing about these hair cells is that what you're born with is what you have throughout life, and there aren't very many of them. And once they're gone, that's why deafness tends to be permanent. It doesn't just go away.
HAMILTON: Hair cells can be damaged by diseases, certain medications or as a part of normal aging. And Edge says hearing specialists are seeing a new group of relatively young people who have lost hair cells.
EDGE: What's important in our society right now are a lot of the soldiers coming back from overseas who have been exposed to even a single loud noise which can seriously damage hearing.
HAMILTON: Tens of thousands of veterans have hearing loss because they were in a fire fight or near a bomb blast that produced a sound many times louder than even the loudest rock concert. Because permanent hearing loss is so common in people, scientists have been studying species in which deafness is only temporary. Fish, for example, can grow new hair cells to replace damaged ones. And Edge says in the 1980s, researchers showed that birds, warm-blooded creatures that are more like us, had the same ability.
EDGE: You can, in fact, deafen a chick, for example, and over the course of a couple of weeks they completely recover their hearing and the hair cells grow back.
HAMILTON: That finding got scientists looking for a way to accomplish the same feat in mammals, which don't naturally re-grow hair cells. And in the current issue of the journal Neuron, Edge and an international team report that they've partially succeeded. The team took a bunch of mice and exposed one ear to a very loud noise. Then they looked to see whether the ear was still producing electrical signals in response to a sound.
EDGE: And so these mice, when we start the experiments, no matter how loud we make the sound, there's no electrical signal. Their ear is essentially dead.
HAMILTON: Next, the team administered a drug to the inner ear. The drug, called a gamma secretase inhibitor, was developed to treat Alzheimer's disease. It never worked out for that purpose. But the drug turned out to have an interesting side effect in mice. Edge says it caused so-called support cells in the inner ear to transform into hair cells.
EDGE: And to our delight these hair cells were functioning hair cells that improved the hearing of the animal.
HAMILTON: Edge says this shows it is possible to grow new hair cells in a mammal. And because mice and humans have very similar hearing systems, he says, the approach is likely to work in people too. It's not a complete cure though. The mice got only about 20 percent of their hearing back, and they still couldn't hear certain sound frequencies. Even so, Ed Rubel at the University of Washington says the result is significant.
DR. ED RUBEL: In terms of the recovery of hearing, it's fairly modest. But it's real and it's a step in the right direction.
HAMILTON: Rubel is one of the scientists who discovered back in the 1980s that birds could create new hair cells. Ever since, he's been involved in the effort to restore hearing. And Rubel says the drug used in this experiment is just one approach. Other researchers are trying different methods including gene therapy. Rubel says he's pretty sure something is going to work.
RUBEL: Oh, I'm hugely optimistic. There's no question that sometime in the future, we will restore hearing in humans through regeneration.
HAMILTON: Rubel says the first treatments for people, though, may be a couple of decades off. Jon Hamilton, NPR News.
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Turning to Colorado, where the question of whether James Holmes should stand trial now rests with the judge. Holmes is accused of killing 12 people in an Aurora movie theater in July. Prosecutors wrapped up their presentations in a pretrial hearing today.
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Holmes defense had the opportunity to call witnesses about his mental state, but they declined to do that or even to make a statement. The judge could decide by Friday what happens next. Colorado Public Radio's Ben Markus was in the courtroom today and joins us now. And Ben, tell us some of what you heard in the court today.
BEN MARKUS, BYLINE: So an Aurora police sergeant was the only witness called this morning, the last witness for this pretrial hearing. He described how a forensics team downloaded photos from James Holmes' iPhone, which was recovered at the scene. Some of the photos were surveillance photos of the theater where the shooting happened, entrance and exit doors, some other photos, disturbing photos James Holmes took of himself.
He's in SWAT-like tactical gear. He has a rifle in some of the photos. He's wearing black contacts. Makes him look almost alien. Sticking his tongue out in some photos. He's got the bright orange hair. Some in the courtroom were disturbed by the photos and had to put their face in their hands.
CORNISH: And as we mentioned, the defense for James Holmes didn't call any witnesses. Is that correct?
MARKUS: No. And typically defenses don't call witnesses in these pretrial hearings. There was some thought that they would because they had asked permission to call two witnesses. But when the judged asked them if they had any witnesses to call this morning, they stood up and said no, that this was neither the time nor the place to explore Holmes' sanity. In some of the cross-examination this week of prosecution witnesses, Holmes attorney's focused on Holmes odd behavior during interrogation, doing strange things.
CORNISH: So what's the next step in the legal process?
MARKUS: So now we're awaiting the judge's order on whether or not Holmes' case will go to a full trial. He scheduled a court date for Friday morning. It's likely that his order will come down before that. If it does, then the Friday court date is an arraignment and James Holmes will have an opportunity to enter a plea; guilty, not guilty, or not guilty by reason of insanity. It's also possible that his attorneys can file a motion to delay that plea.
CORNISH: And have prosecutors said if they'll pursue the death penalty yet?
MARKUS: No, they haven't. If Holmes is arraigned on Friday, then prosecutors have 60 days to decide whether or not they'll pursue the death penalty. The new district attorney here in Arapaho County was sworn in just this week. During his campaign, he did not indicate whether or not he would pursue the death penalty.
CORNISH: That's Colorado Public Radio's Ben Markus. Ben, thank you.
MARKUS: You're welcome.
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The town of Steubenville, Ohio is reeling from a scandal that has tarnished the image of its beloved high school football team. Two players have been charged with raping a girl. And some in town worry that more players were involved, but that authorities are trying to protect the team.
Tim Rudell, of member station WKSU, reports on how this small town is reacting to big pressures, both from outside and from within.
TIM RUDELL, BYLINE: Steubenville is a small river town on the Ohio border in the foothills of Appalachia. To the west, reclaimed strip mines, woods and hills stretch a long way into rural Ohio. Thirty-seven miles to the east is Pittsburgh. This is football country - Steelers, Browns, and Steubenville Big Red, a legendary high school team ranked in the top 20 nationally in all time football victories.
And critics say football's dominance here makes them suspicious of the investigation into allegations involving Big Red players last August. That's when a 16-year-old West Virginia girl was allegedly carried unconscious from one teen party to another and sexually assaulted.
Two players were arrested and charged with the crime but many people think that other players were involved. That's certainly what some social media activists allege, as they post images purportedly of those parties. One video, of a now-former player joking about the girl's condition and treatment, sparked worldwide outrage when it went viral a few weeks ago.
Accusations, recriminations, and now threats are flying around this town.
CATHY DAVISON: There was a tweet to a student that there was going to be attempted violence at the school. So the school made the decision to lock all the school buildings down.
RUDELL: That's Cathy Davison, Steubenville's city manager. The all-clear was given a few hours later when no threat was found and things returned to normal. But there is a new normal in The Valley, as locals call the area - it's one of distrust.
Chasidy Corder lives Wintersville, Steubenville's suburb to the west. She's convinced by what she's seen on the Web that there is, indeed, a cover-up to protect some Big Red football players.
CHASIDY CORDER: I don't understand how football became so much more important than being a human being and respecting people. It's crazy. This town has nothing anymore. They have Big Red Football and it's a really big thing.
RUDELL: Others here strongly disagree. Even at a courthouse rally last weekend in support of the 16-year-old girl, there was considerable yelling back and forth, like this exchange between two women in the crowd, one admonishing the other not to automatically accept that other players had to be involved.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 1: Why is only two been prosecuted?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 2: There's only two because it's not the whole school district.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 1: Did I say it was?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 2: Yes, you did.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 1: (unintelligible)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN 2: Yes, you did.
RUDELL: Sitting in Yorgo's, a landmark store-front restaurant on North 4th Street, long-time local Ronald Greenburg urges caution when considering so-called evidence that has been posted on numerous logs and Web sites.
RONALD GREENBURG: A lot of people have said, we weren't there physically, we didn't view anything that happened. But many people in the community are aware of what they've seen on the Internet. Until the right people evaluate everything, tapes can be altered. So someone needs to professionally define what has happened.
RUDELL: The local prosecutor, Jane Hanlin, quickly recused herself from the case because her son plays on the Big Red team. Local police say they've interviewed nearly 60 people in the case and call their investigation thorough.
City manager Davison also defends the police. She says the city now has a website exclusively for images and information about the case that's been verified by the Ohio Bureau of Investigation, which she says was brought into the case just two days after the rape complaint was filed. She says the city was scrupulous in trying to make sure that there were investigators not influenced by a love of Big Red Football.
DAVISON: We didn't have the workforce to go through everything. We requested assistance from the state. And that was on the 17th of August. On the 22nd, we had charges against two individuals.
RUDELL: The trial of the two teens charged with rape was set for mid-February. But defense lawyers are now calling for a change of venue. They argue that the witnesses will not be forthcoming, if the trial is held in a town still under fire from outsiders and struggling with charges of a cover up.
For NPR News, I'm Tim Rudell.
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A new memoir explores one woman's life through her friendships with other women. It's called "She Matters: A Life in Friendships," by Susanna Sonnenberg. And Meg Wolitzer has our review.
MEG WOLITZER: You know how sometimes in life you make a friend, and at first it's really intense? You talk with your heads close together. You try to tell her everything about yourself over tea and white wine. And you think that all that sharing will make you close forever, but it doesn't really work that way. Friendships change a lot. And I think books can be like that, too. They can shift and then you have all these complicated feelings when you have to adjust your expectations.
I feel this way about Susanna Sonnenberg's memoir, "She Matters: A Life in Friendships." Her descriptions totally drew me in, like this friend from summer camp. She stood next to me and we held in our stomachs when Greg La Rosa ambled by and said, hi. She explained marshmallow spread as we sat down with trays of Fluffernutter sandwiches. Sonnenberg tells us, she made me a peach-pit ring and I made her a peach-pit ring. On my last day we said, how can I live without you?
It's like Judy Bloom perfection. When Sonnenberg gets older, she realizes some of her friends can live without her. There are some really bad breakups in this book. One is her college roommate from 25 years ago sends her a letter. What she remembered of our acquaintance was that she hated me, Sonnenberg writes.
Another time she has a relaxed lunch with a friend and then gets this email that's so blunt it's like a wartime telegram. I can't be friends with you anymore, it says. I felt sad for her. She has this really amazing lack of vanity that I loved, even if I was a little taken aback by her intensity.
She actually made me wonder about my own friendships. If I wrote them all down like this, would they look this fraught?
At first I thought the memoir was basically a beautifully written, emotional and nostalgic look at the way women become friends. In the end, it's also really a book about boundary issues. But in between is where all the meat is. It's the part that makes you question what a friend really is. You're not related to them and you're not married to them. So what exactly do you owe each other? What are the rules? Susanna Sonnenberg doesn't answer that.
But she has written something that manages to interest, to exhaust, to impress and, yes, to matter.
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BLOCK: Susanna Sonnenberg's new memoir is "She Matters: A Life in Friendships." Our reviewer is Meg Wolitzer. Her most recent novel is "The Uncoupling." For more news about books you can visit our NPR book page on Facebook.
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The mayor of Mexico City is offering his constituents a trade: cash, bicycles, even computers in exchange for their guns. He says the buyback program will make the streets safer but not all of his fellow mayors are rushing to copy the program. Some in cities overrun by drug traffickers say it's important for law abiding citizens to be able to protect themselves.
From Mexico City, NPR's Carrie Kahn reports.
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CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Florentino Olmos sat in a line of folding chairs on the huge esplanade of Mexico City's Basilica Catholic Church. On his lap, a .22-caliber automatic pistol. He and about two dozen other armed residents awaited their turn to hand over the weapons, no questions asked, to a member of the Mexican army.
FLORENTINO OLMOS: (Speaking foreign language)
KAHN: Olmos is 53 and drives a taxi for a living. He says he got the pistol about a year ago after a traffic accident. The guy who hit him couldn't pay for the damage to Olmos' car, so instead gave him the pistol as collateral. The guy never came back.
OLMOS: (Speaking foreign language)
KAHN: He says he heard about the buyback program on TV and brought it down. He's glad to get rid of it legally. Few guns are legally owned in Mexico, getting a permit is difficult. The buyback program started just three weeks ago and already authorities have retrieved nearly 1,500 weapons, including a grenade launcher. One man turned in 19 guns.
Mexico City's Mayor Miguel Angel Mancera told the crowd gathered on the Basilica church grounds that he hopes the program will bring peace to the city.
MAYOR MIGUEL ANGEL MANCERA: (Speaking foreign language)
KAHN: That's the message we are getting, says Mancera, we want to trade these weapons for computer tablets, for other goods that will bring education to our homes instead of violence. The program has been so successful, according to the mayor's office, that they've expanded it to other regions of the city and have even started sending brigades of workers door-to-door to urge residents to turn in their guns.
Mexico City's crime rate has been dropping in recent years, making it one of the safest in the country. But in towns overrun with drug violence, especially those near the U.S. border, some mayors are urging authorities to let residents own weapons.
MAYOR JOSE ELIGIO MEDINA: (Speaking foreign language)
KAHN: Jose Eligio Medina is the mayor of Concordia in the state of Sinaloa. It's home to the powerful cartel run by Mexico's most wanted trafficker, Joaquin Chapo Guzman. He says he thinks residents, especially those living in the rural and dangerous areas of Mexico, should be able to protect themselves.
MEDINA: (Speaking foreign language)
KAHN: He says he doesn't think everyone should have a gun, but that they should be able to form self-defense brigades. Eligio's proposal is gaining attention. But Luis Wertman, who runs a nonprofit citizen safety group in Mexico City and helped organize the gun buyback program, says arming citizens is not the solution.
LUIS WERTMAN: At the end, it works against the society. It doesn't bring you better quality of life, it doesn't give you more security. It generates worse things for the society.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking foreign language)
KAHN: A cashier counts out 3,000 pesos, about $250, for Florentino Olmos, who turned in his .22-caliber automatic.
OLMOS: (Speaking foreign language)
KAHN: Olmos says he could have gotten 4,000 pesos for the weapon on the black market. But this way, he knows that no one will be hurt, and that the gun is safely off the streets. Carrie Kahn, NPR News, Mexico City.
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And I'm Audie Cornish. The United States spends far more on health care than any other nation, but Americans are actually less healthy than citizens of other wealthy countries. That's the conclusion of a blue ribbon panel at the National Academy of Science. NPR's Richard Knox says the reasons for America's low rank go way beyond how much medical care we get.
RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: It's no news that the United States has lower life expectancy or higher infant mortality, but the lead author of the report says Americans have worse health than in 16 other countries across the whole span of their lives.
STEVEN WOOLF: What struck us - and it was quite sobering - was the recurring trend in which the U.S. seems to be slipping behind other high-income countries.
KNOX: That's Dr. Steven Woolf of Virginia Commonwealth University. He says Americans of all ages up to 75 have shorter lives and more illness and injury. Even Americans who are white, insured, college-educated and upper-income are worse off than their counterparts around the world.
WOOLF: People with seemingly everything going for them still live shorter lives and have higher disease rates than people in other countries.
KNOX: For starters, Americans consume nearly 4,000 calories a day on average, more than anyone else.
WOOLF: That wasn't always the case, but over the past 20 years, the consumption of high-calorie foods and refined sugars and other dietary causes of obesity has increased dramatically in the United States in comparison to these other countries.
KNOX: But it's not just disease that shortens Americans lives. Among American males under 50, well over half the deaths are from murder, accidents and suicide. Guns have a lot to do with that. The report notes that murder rates involving guns are four times higher in the Unites States than they are in 22 other rich countries.
WOOLF: Clearly, we need to do something about violence and firearm-related homicides if we're going to close the gap. It's a major contributor to the loss of years of life in our country among young people.
KNOX: Dr. David Kindig, at the University of Wisconsin, has spent his career studying the causes of poor health. But even he finds this report so persuasive that it shouldn't be ignored.
DAVID KINDIG: You know, it's not like we haven't known some of this yet, but it hasn't penetrated how serious it is. I hope that it would be a wake-up call, almost like Sputnik. You know, let's get going on this over the next decade.
KNOX: Kindig says some clues on what to do come from a state-by-state analysis of U.S. health problems that he and his colleagues do every year.
KINDIG: Some of the healthiest states, say, like Minnesota, they actually spend less on health care. And presumably that allows them to spend more on some of the other determinants of health.
KNOX: Like education. So he says it would be a mistake to cut spending on schools since education and health are tightly linked. Cuts there will just show up later in poorer health. Woolf, the panel chairman, says the nation's problems may be deeply rooted in Americans' love of personal choice and aversion to government regulation of health and safety. That won't be easy to change.
WOOLF: It is a difficult one to tackle. But we need to have a national discussion about whether we do or don't. We're living shorter lives and we're living sicker because of something we're doing in this country.
KNOX: He says Americans need to decide if they're OK with that or are prepared to make different choices. Richard Knox, NPR News.
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And I'm Melissa Block. President Obama's second term cabinet is taking shape. We now have nominations for secretaries of defense and state and as early as tomorrow, the president is expected to pick a new Treasury Secretary to replace Tim Geithner who's stepping down. There's been no official word on Geithner's successor, but all signs point to Jacob Lew, who goes by Jack.
He's a two-time budget director who now serves as the president's chief of staff. NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now for more on Jack Lew and the challenges he would face in the job. And Scott, what is it that the president sees in Jack Lew that makes him a good fit for the Treasury.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Well, he wouldn't need any on-the-job training. Jack Lew has been a key member of the administration, first as a director of the White House budget office and more recently as chief of staff. He also, during his career, has spent time on Capitol Hill. He's been steeped in the budget battles, not only the last couple of years, but really the last several decades. He began his political career as an aide to the late Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill.
And he remains a fierce defender of the social safety net, but like President Obama himself, Lew has shown a willingness to make modifications to that safety net that he sees as necessary to preserving it for the long term.
BLOCK: Now, Senate Republicans have expressed some reservations about Jack Lew. What are their objections?
HORSLEY: Well, some of their objections are really better aimed at President Obama. There are some Republicans you'll see quoted who don't like Mr. Obama's policies and so they're taking that out on Jack Lew and presumably if there is a confirmation hearing, that could be an opportunity to air some of the grievances that the congressional Republicans have with the administration economic policies, although it's not very likely the president would nominate someone who doesn't share his own views.
But Republicans have also complained about Lew as a negotiator. They've said that he has trouble getting to yes. In fact, Lew has not been the point person for the administration the last couple of rounds of negotiations with Republicans. Now, what Lew's defenders will say is that what the GOP really doesn't like is that he got the best of them in some of the earlier negotiations on a couple of occasions.
He was able to outfox them and if they don't like somebody like that running the treasury department.
BLOCK: Outfox them, how exactly?
HORSLEY: Well, just to give you one example, in the spring of 2011, the White House was negotiating with Republicans about an extension of the authority to keep the government's lights on basically. And the GOP was pushing for big spending cuts. They wanted more than $60 billion in spending cuts. They wound up compromising for what Republicans thought would be $38.5 billion in spending cuts, but when the Congressional Budget Office really dug into the details, they found that the short term spending cuts amounted to less than 1 percent of that.
Now, Jack Lew had been budget director. He knew the details of those spreadsheets in and out and Republicans felt like maybe he'd gotten the better of them.
BLOCK: Well, Scott, we're coming into a very busy time for the treasury department. They're scrambling to pay the government's bills, bumping up against the debt ceiling. What will the new secretary have to look forward to or to fear?
HORSLEY: Yeah, it's really going to be a frantic winter and early spring. The treasury department is already using what they call extraordinary measures just to keep paying the government's bills. Getting the debt ceiling raised is really going to be a top priority. The alternative to that would be a disaster. But then, in the next couple of months, we're also going to have those automatic spending cuts that were postponed as part of the fiscal cliff negotiations.
Those are going to bounce back at us. And by the way, Lew had a hand in crafting those automatic spending cuts so they fall harder on defense, which is a key Republican priority then, for example, healthcare programs that the government runs. But those are going to come back. And then, we also just have the challenge of keeping the government's authorization to keep doing all the things that it does.
That's going to come due this spring as well. So the new treasury secretary will have a pretty full plate.
BLOCK: A little footnote about Jack Lew that's kind of fun here, Scott. If he's confirmed, it's his name that will be on the dollar bill and his signature looks like just a loopdy-doo. It's just a series of loops. You can't tell what it is.
HORSLEY: He's described as a really smart guy, but penmanship is not Jack Lew's strong suit. He might have to make some changes to something that's recognizable as treasury secretary. He signs a lot of (unintelligible).
BLOCK: A little adaptation there. If Jack Lew is named to be treasury secretary and is confirmed, who then replaces him as chief of staff?
HORSLEY: Well, one man that you hear mentioned is Dennis McDonough. He's a deputy national security advisor who's been part of the president's sort of inner circle all the way back to the 2008 campaign. Another possibility, Ron Klain, he was Vice President Biden's chief of staff and also a key advisor on the president's reelection campaign.
BLOCK: Okay. NPR's Scott Horsley. Scott, thanks so much.
HORSLEY: My pleasure.
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And I'm Audie Cornish. A grass-roots indigenous movement is shaking up politics in Canada. It's called Idle No More. Like Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring, it spread quickly through social media. And it's now got the attention of Canada's leaders, thanks to the efforts of one chief from a tiny tribe whose hunger strike has galvanized the movement. David Sommerstein, of North Country Public Radio, has the story.
DAVID SOMMERSTEIN, BYLINE: Idle No More was born last fall. Four aboriginal women from Saskatchewan began emailing about a budget bill introduced by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. It makes changes to Canada's Indian Act. The women feared it would expose tribal lands to private developers, and erode aboriginal treaty rights. They spread the word on Facebook and Twitter, and Idle No More took off. Last weekend, protesters closed down several border crossings with the U.S.
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SOMMERSTEIN: Hundreds of people from the Akwesasne Mohawk Reserve marched across a bridge linking northern New York State to Ontario. Parents pulled their kids in wagons. Elders caught rides on four-wheelers. A woman burned ceremonial sage, and the smell carried over the whole march. Organizer Jose Verdugo uses the Mohawk word for original people to say the protests are bringing aboriginals together.
JOSE VERDUGO: As Onkwehonwe people, we're put here on this earth to protect the land, and that's what we're going to show today.
SOMMERSTEIN: Idle No More has rallied around one chief from the Attawapiskat First Nation in northern Ontario. Chief Theresa Spence is starting the fifth week of a partial hunger strike. She is consuming fish broth. Her tribe made headlines last year for suffering through poor living conditions. Muddying the waters, though, is an audit accusing her tribe's council of mismanagement. Still, she's living in a teepee on the Ottawa River right now, within sight of Canada's Parliament; demanding a meeting with Prime Minister Harper.
Mohawk Carolyn Francis says she's marching in solidarity with Chief Spence.
CAROLYN FRANCIS: We need to have the Canadian government listen to us; that we are still here, and we are still going to make them stand up to the treaties that were done a long time ago.
SOMMERSTEIN: Idle No More has reinvigorated the debate over Canada's contentious history with aboriginal tribes. Many Canadians associate aboriginal protests with violence - largely stemming from a 1990 standoff in the Quebec community of Oka.
ALLAN MOSCOVITCH: It was a famous confrontation between a masked aboriginal protester, and a member of the Canadian military.
SOMMERSTEIN: Allan Moscovitch teaches social policy at Carleton University in Ottawa. He says Idle No More is different. These protests have been peaceful, even when blocking roads or rail lines; and even playful at times, with flash mobs in malls doing traditional round dances. Moscovitch also says Idle No More's leaders are different - young and savvy.
MOSCOVITCH: Who do not, in any way, fit a stereotype from the past. They are aboriginal, but they walk in the mainstream society; and they bridge between the two.
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SOMMERSTEIN: Marching on the bridge between New York and Ontario, Margie Skidders looks down at the icy blue St. Lawrence River, and the wooded countryside of the Mohawk Reserve where she grew up. She says this is what's at stake.
MARGIE SKIDDERS: It was really powerful. It was just powerful walking over the bridge - and no cars - and to be able to enjoy the scenery and think, and this is where we live; this is what we're protecting.
SOMMERSTEIN: Prime Minister Harper has responded cautiously to Idle No More. He said he respects people's right to, quote, "express their point of view peacefully." But he had resisted meeting about aboriginal concerns. But late last week, facing Chief Spence's declining health, he gave in. A meeting is set for Friday.
For NPR News, I'm David Sommerstein in northern New York.
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JEFF IDELSON: Time to open up the envelope.
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BLOCK: The envelope revealing the results of this year's vote for baseball's Hall of Fame. We're hearing Jeff Idelson on the MLB Network. He's president of the Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York.
IDELSON: For only the eighth time since voting began in 1936, Brian, the voting membership did not elect anyone to Cooperstown.
BLOCK: And there you have it - a big fat zero for the Hall of Fame this year, the first time that's happened since 1996. And with that, a ringing verdict on the Steroid Era in baseball.
NPR's Mike Pesca joins me to talk this through. Hey, Mike.
MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Hi.
BLOCK: Well, home run king Barry Bonds was on the ballot, seven-time MVP. Pitcher Roger Clemens was on the ballot, seven-time Cy Young Award winner. Not only did they not make the Hall of Fame, they didn't even come close.
PESCA: No, swing and a miss. And wouldn't the Oscars get terrible ratings if when they open the envelope...
(LAUGHTER)
BLOCK: No one wins.
PESCA: Yeah. OK, so this is an entire consequence of what's known as the steroid era. And all of the players that we're talking about, and some that we will talk about, have different levels of connections to what's, you know, called steroids or performance-enhancing drugs. Barry Bonds went on trial for it, he was found not guilty on those charges except the minor charge.
However, the details of the trial revealed that he was rubbing The Clear and The Cream, a human growth hormone into his skin. And the dispute was did he know what that hormone was. And then, Roger Clemens also had a trial for perjury and he denied steroids. But the Mitchell Report indicates he did steroids. Many journalists have written extensively about his steroid use. And Sammy Sosa is in these categories. Other guys possibly did steroids. It is a mess, although I saw one baseball writer call it a process.
But it is the baseball writers who do have the vote - if you spend 10 years as a baseball writer in the Baseball Writers Association of America, you get to weigh in on who gets in the Hall of Fame. There is a clause, you've got to consider a player's character. And there are many ways to do it, but what we saw today is that none of the players on the ballot got the 75 percent of the vote necessary to get into the Hall; largely, in many cases, because of performance-enhancing drugs.
BLOCK: Does this mean, Mike, the players we've mentioned, who do have these connections or believed to have connections with the steroid, are they done? Will they never make it into the Hall of Fame?
PESCA: No, as a matter of fact, let's take the top vote getter was Craig Biggio of the Astros. And he actually doesn't have connections to steroids or no one really mentions this out loud and has made the case. He got 68 percent of the vote. And history shows that if you get that percentage, anyone who got more than 50 percent of the vote on his first ballot has always been elected in history. So there's a very good chance Craig Biggio will get in.
A very good chance that Jeff Bagwell and Mike Piazza, who got in the high 50s. Now, these are two guys with less tangible evidence that they did performance-enhancing drugs, than guys like Clemens and Bonds. But, at the same time, the voters could do whatever they want. And they saw that Bagwell was this huge, beefy guy who hit a lot of home runs. They saw the same about Piazza, who certainly should get in as the greatest offensive catcher in baseball's history.
And I think some of them - and many writers have explained their votes. Some just punted on the whole issue. Some said I had my suspicions. Some said I have very strong suspicions about Bonds. I have weaker suspicions about Piazza, but what if they both did it and I let one in and not the other, it wouldn't be right. This is why we call it a mess, by the way.
BLOCK: Yeah, and then there are players like Mark McGwire, for example, who admitted steroid use. And he said he knows he's never getting into the Hall of Fame.
PESCA: Yes, he says he's made his peace with that. And the vote would indicate that that's the case, and he keeps getting a lower percentage of the vote. At the same time the steroid issue is being reckoned with, there's also a statistical revolution in baseball. And so a lot of the statistic that normally were surefire Hall of Fame, like count home runs - if they're over 500, you automatically get in - that might not be the case. And I think some of those statistics are hurting McGwire.
Also, there's evidence with McGwire and Sosa - who only got 12 percent of the vote - that the time they were alleged to have done steroids coincides with the best years of their career. And if you take a guy like Barry Bonds, you know, you can make the case that before it was ever alleged by anyone to have done steroids, he had already won three MVP awards. Maybe he should have just gotten in, you know, based on the early years of his career.
BLOCK: Well, briefly, Mike, there's always next year. Are there players coming up who will be eligible next year, who have a stronger chance of getting into the Hall of Fame?
PESCA: There are. There are new players will probably be first ballot Hall of Famers. A pitcher like Greg Maddux, who's really kind of a scrawny guy and dominated pitching like no other did in this era, in the National League. He'll certainly get in. Tom Glavine may get in. Slugger Frank Thomas may get in. Those are unconnected to steroids and a few of these guys who came close this year will probably get in.
BLOCK: OK, NPR's Mike Pesca. Mike, thanks.
PESCA: You're welcome.
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Another milestone for same-sex marriage. Today, the Washington National Cathedral announced it will begin celebrating same-sex weddings. The soaring, neogothic cathedral has hosted presidential funerals, and prayer services for presidential inaugurations. Now, the dean of the cathedral, the Very Rev. Gary Hall, says his church will enthusiastically affirm each person as a beloved child of God, through the sacramental blessings of Christian marriage.
And Rev. Hall joins me from his office in the National Cathedral. Rev. Hall, welcome to the program.
THE VERY REV. GARY HALL: Thank you so much.
BLOCK: There are many other Episcopal churches that have already taken this step. How significant, or symbolic, do you think it is for the National Cathedral to follow suit?
HALL: Oh, I think that we are the most visible congregation faith community in the Episcopal Church. And so I think for us to take this stand, really says something about where not only Episcopal Church is, but where the - kind of the culture is going. And we are also cognizant of the fact that we have a role in the spiritual life of the nation that in some ways, transcends our role as an Episcopal Church institution. And so we're very aware, also, that this is a moment where we can really witness to marriage equality, in a way that's calling other faith communities to do it as well.
BLOCK: Rev. Hall, I gather that it was last year that the Episcopal bishops approved the rite for same-sex marriage - the language to be used at these ceremonies. How different is it from the language for heterosexual marriage, apart from the obvious gender references?
HALL: One of the things I think that same-sex marriage has to teach straight people is about the possibility of a totally equal and mutual relationship before God. Our marriage service that's in our prayer book - which, you know, has been revised several times since 1549 - carries with it the vestiges of a patriarchal society, so...
BLOCK: How so?
HALL: So, well - you know, for example, handing the bride over to the groom; the vows in the prayer book, up until 1928, were love, honor and obey for the woman. As much as we've tried to revise our marriage service to make everything equal and mutual, it still has with it some connotations and vestiges of pre-modern ways of understanding male-female relationships.
I think one of the ways in which gay and lesbian couples really can teach something to straight couples is the way in which they hold up the possibility of an absolute equality and mutuality in marriage. And so this new rite, it's entirely different than the old marriage service. It's really grounded in baptism, and the idea of a radical equality of all people in Christ and before God.
BLOCK: Rev. Hall, you're quite new to the Washington National Cathedral, but I've read that you have been performing same-sex blessings for more than 20 years now. What did you learn from that experience?
HALL: I think what I learned from that experience - are a couple things. One of them is that I had to learn that, you know, every relationship has its joys and its tensions; and the joys and tensions of same-sex couples are both similar to heterosexual joys and tensions, but they're also different. The other thing I'd say - that, just how much working with gay and lesbian couples has touched me. I've been a priest for 30-some-odd years now, and I didn't start as a big advocate of same-sex marriage. What helped me make my way, in the issue, was really coming to know LGBT people, and gay and lesbian couples, and being with them in their weddings; and being with them at their bedsides, when they were sick; and baptizing their kids; and really understanding that we're all basically one in the human community, and that we all basically face the same joys and challenges of life.
BLOCK: Have you been hearing opposition to this decision, from members of the congregation - or people outside the congregation?
HALL: We've gotten a few cranky and negative emails, none of them from people within our life. There's a really strong consensus, both within the Episcopal Church nationally, within the Diocese of Washington - and within the National Cathedral, as a faith community - that this is the right step.
BLOCK: Well, Rev. Hall, thanks so much for talking with us.
HALL: Oh, you're very welcome. It's been a pleasure.
BLOCK: That's Rev. Gary Hall. He's dean of the Washington National Cathedral; talking about his decision to host same-sex weddings there.
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On the national stage and in two state capitals, gun violence was at the top of the agenda today. In Washington, Vice President Joe Biden is conducting a wide-ranging series of conversations about how to make the nation safer. He met with gun safety advocates, mental health organizations and victims groups.
BLOCK: In Connecticut, where the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School is a vivid memory, Governor Dan Malloy gave his State of the State address. He rejected the National Rifle Association's call for more guns in schools. And in New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo also gave his annual address. He proposed the nation's toughest ban on assault weapons.
GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO: End the madness now. Pass safe, reasonable gun control in the state of New York. Make this state safer. Save lives. Set an example for the rest of the nation. Let them look at New York and say, this is what you can do, and this is what you should do.
CORNISH: Governor Cuomo today. We're joined now by NPR's Joel Rose. And, Joel, to start, New York already has some of the nation's toughest gun laws. How is Governor Cuomo proposing to strengthen them?
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: Well, as you said a moment ago, Audie, New York already has - or Governor Cuomo wants to pass the nation's toughest assault weapons ban. New York already has an assault weapons ban on paper, but Cuomo has compared that to Swiss cheese. The governor proposed a ban on all high-capacity magazines over 10 rounds. Some higher capacity rounds have been grandfathered in under current law.
And the governor also proposed closing loopholes on background checks. He proposed tougher penalties for using or selling illegal guns, which are used in the overwhelming number of crimes in New York. And the governor is also proposing to overhaul the state's mental health system in order to make it easier for mental health professionals to report people who they say may be a threat to public safety.
CORNISH: Now would that proposed assault weapons ban apply to the AR-15 assault rifle used in Newtown and other shootings?
ROSE: Governor Cuomo did not mention that gun by name in his speech, but the governor's office says that, in practice, yes, the governor's proposal would ban the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. It would ban the sale of the weapon, but the governor's office says gun owners will still get to keep their existing rifles.
The office says it will not confiscate existing weapons. That is an idea that Governor Cuomo floated earlier and then backed away from. And the governor's office says the state will not buy back those guns from owners, but they will have to register their guns. And going forward, it would be unlawful to buy or sell semi-automatic guns of that kind in New York.
CORNISH: Now Governor Cuomo says he wants New York to be an example for the whole country, but what are the odds of his actually passing this measure at home?
ROSE: Well, he has not passed it yet. There were rumors that the governor would be announcing a deal with the legislature today on these new gun proposals. He did not announce that. The governor used the bully pulpit to make a very forceful case for what he called common-sense gun reforms, but negotiations with the legislature are ongoing.
Cuomo is a Democrat, and in order to get this through the state Senate, he's going to need at least some support from Republicans. And they're going to be hearing a lot from people in upstate New York, where hunting is a major pastime, and gun rights advocates traditionally have a lot of pull with lawmakers from both parties.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Joel Rose in New York. Joel, thank you.
ROSE: You're welcome.
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All over the country, people are debating what role mental health policies can play in reducing gun violence. Researchers found that, broadly speaking, people with mental illness are not more likely to commit violence, but people with certain symptoms such as hallucinations may be more at risk of hurting themselves or others.
So could those people be more effectively screened or treated? Take, for example, the case of Jared Loughner, who killed six people and injured many others two years ago in Tucson, Arizona.
DR. JEFFREY LIEBERMAN: Jared Loughner was obviously suffering from schizophrenia and actively psychotic, who had been symptomatic and ill for not just weeks and months, but years and received no care.
CORNISH: That's Professor Jeffrey Lieberman, chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University. He's also the president-elect of the American Psychiatric Association. His group took part in today's meeting with Vice President Biden. Dr. Lieberman says Jared Loughner is a prime example of the inadequacy of mental health care services.
LIEBERMAN: An untreated patient who is actively symptomatic is at the highest risk for potentially harming themselves or harming others. So when we talk about training people to assess risk, we have to have services that are available to be able to conduct these assessments. Secondly, if we want to be able to educate our schools or our community-based organizations to be able to assess whether individuals may be at risk for violent behavior, we need to be willing to engage in a kind of surveillance of behavior and then requesting that individuals respond to a series of questions. And there's been a reluctance to infringe on people's personal rights, their autonomy, their confidentiality by doing these things. This becomes kind of a civil rights issue.
CORNISH: Are there good reasons for that? I mean, considering sort of the nation's history in terms of committing people against their will, but also the problem that we've heard other researchers say of false positives, essentially people finding any socially awkward person potentially a danger.
LIEBERMAN: Well, that's, I think, the key issue which is that you have to strike a balance between trying to not infringe upon somebody's individual rights to be the persons they are and not intrude on their privacy but at the same time protect society. When the deinstitutionalization movement occurred in the United States and the Homestead Act was - or decision was made by the Supreme Court, it enabled a lot of people who had serious mental illnesses to be discharged from hospitals and cared for in the community. And in doing so, it assumed there would be adequate resources to provide them with a good level of care to maintain them in a stable, supportive and safe fashion. Sadly, that never came to pass.
Now, because of the fact that our society is based on personal freedoms, that equates to right to refuse treatment, and the only standard for imposing treatment against someone's will or hospitalizing them against their will is if they are - meet a certain threshold of dangerousness. And that threshold of dangerousness is making a threat against somebody, having a plan for how they would do it or having engaged in violence themselves, in other words come close to where already sort of committed the violent act. We don't have...
CORNISH: So are you arguing to change that threshold, to make that a lower threshold?
LIEBERMAN: I'm not necessarily advocating we change it, but I think we have to deal with the issue of do we elevate the rights of the individual to a degree where, in protecting those, we potentially place at risk the well-being of our society as a whole and the collective population?
CORNISH: Now, the National Rifle Association has advocated some sort of national database of the mentally ill. Is that even feasible? Your response.
LIEBERMAN: Well, having a database to single out the people with mental illness for a national registry seems to me to be discriminatory. Why not have registries for other types of individuals also for different purposes? In Scandinavia, for example, they have national registries on all medical problems which are very helpful for health care policy in determining rates of illness and how to track efficacy of treatment. We don't do that effectively because of our fragment - the size of our country and the fragmentation of our health care system. But to have a registry that's imposed solely for mental illness in order to reduce the frequency of violent incidents, I think, would be discriminatory by itself and we can accomplish the same goal of reducing the likelihood of these incidents by other means that would be much more constructive.
CORNISH: Dr. Jeffrey Lieberman is professor and chairman of psychiatry at Columbia University and the incoming chief of the American Psychiatric Association. Dr. Lieberman, thank you for speaking with us.
LIEBERMAN: My pleasure.
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If you bank online and have had trouble logging in lately, maybe your bank has come under a cyber attack. In the last few months, hackers have disrupted operations of at least nine U.S. financial institutions and cyber-security experts are increasingly convinced the government of Iran is responsible. NPR's Tom Gjelten has been the following the story. He joins me now. And, Tom, what are we talking about here? How serious are these attacks?
TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: Melissa, these are what are called denial-of-service attacks. Basically, the hackers send so much traffic to a website that they just overwhelm it, shut it down. They actually hijack thousands of computers remotely and have them just barrage the bank with messages sent automatically all at once. So it disrupts operations, but there's no money taken. That's one reason experts don't think a criminal group has been behind these attacks.
Also, data aren't stolen. It doesn't seem like the object is espionage. That could steer you away from some other actors, China, for example. Hacktivist groups like Anonymous have done denial-of-service attacks like this before. But these bank attacks have been so widespread and so sophisticated that experts think a nation state is probably behind it. Plus, it's been happening a long time. I first heard of an attack on the Bank of America early last year. Officials were telling me even then about signs of Iranian involvement. And then the attacks ramped up again in September and again last month. So as you say, at least nine banks have been affected so far.
BLOCK: And if a nation state is in fact responsible, what's the evidence that that nation state is, in fact, Iran?
GJELTEN: There's nothing really hard that has been made public. In this area, it's very hard to identify the origin of an attack. There has been a claim of responsibility for these attacks from a group calling itself the al-Qassam Cyber Fighters. They say they're doing it in retaliation for that anti-Islam video on YouTube. They deny any government sponsorship. But as I say, the sophistication of the attacks leads experts to think a hacktivist group wouldn't do it on its own.
So that raises the question: What government would have the motivation to do this? And the Iranians have made it clear they hold the U.S. partly responsible for the cyber attacks directed against their nuclear facilities, the Stuxnet worm, for example. And one other thing, Melissa, these attacks have happened simultaneously with the big cyber attack on Aramco, the state oil company in Saudi Arabia which is an archrival of Iran, also attacks against the International Atomic Energy Agency which is monitoring Iran's nuclear program. So there's a pattern here of targets that have some kind of Iranian connection.
BLOCK: Well, let's walk that through. Why would Iran be going after these banks but just disrupting service, not taking anything?
GJELTEN: It seems like this is a political statement. The banks - this group that claimed responsibility for the attack said the banks represent material values as opposed to religious values. Now, if the attackers wanted to do actual damage, you might expect them, for example, to go after power plants, telecommunications facilities, critical infrastructure. So far, that does not seem to be the intent. Of course, it could come to that. These attacks on the oil company in Saudi Arabia, for example, did destroy data and equipment.
BLOCK: And how are the banks defending themselves?
GJELTEN: It's very hard to defend against this type of attacks. There are some cyber-security firms that are trying to develop new tools, new defense systems, but it's hard. Interestingly enough, some of these companies are actually interested in hitting back, trying to go on the offense. I've been told of at least one bank that actively looked to buy cyber-weapons to use against the hackers, they didn't get very far. That's a very risky thing to do legally.
BLOCK: OK. NPR's Tom Gjelten on our national security team. Tom, thanks so much.
GJELTEN: You bet.
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The president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, is supposed to be sworn in for a fourth term tomorrow. But that's not going to happen. Chavez is in Cuba where he's undergoing treatment for cancer. And there's a bitter dispute over whether the inauguration can be postponed. The government says yes it can. The opposition says Chavez loyalists are running roughshod over the constitution.
From Caracas, Venezuela, we're joined by NPR's Juan Forero for more on this story. And, Juan, tell us about Venezuela's supreme court. They weighed in on this controversy today. What did they say?
JUAN FORERO, BYLINE: Well, that was the big news today. The supreme court ruled that Chavez does not have to be inaugurated to remain as president. Luisa Morales, who's the president of the court, said that because Chavez was re-elected in October, then there's continuity from one term to the next. She says Chavez will have to take the oath, but it can be in the future when he comes back to Venezuela.
CORNISH: Of course, that's been a major question here, right, when Chavez might be well enough to return to Venezuela. Many in Venezuela are saying the government isn't being open about Chavez's health.
FORERO: That's the problem here. No one really knows about the president's health. He hasn't been seen in a month. Government officials have only provided, you know, very scant details. And the public doesn't know what kind of cancer he has or where he suffers from it in his body, what the prognosis is. The opposition has asked for a medical board to travel to Cuba to determine the president's health, but the court today said there was no merits for that. The opposition, though, says no one is in charge, that Chavez is simply not running the country.
CORNISH: So who is in charge? I mean, what happens next?
FORERO: Vice President Nicolas Maduro seems to be in charge. That's the man Chavez said would be his successor if he weren't to return. Also, there's another power broker here. The name of that guy is Diosdado Cabello. He's head of the Congress. They, of course, say Chavez is in charge and that the inauguration is simply a formality. They back up that position by saying that there is an article in the constitution that says that the president can be sworn in before the supreme court. But that article doesn't say what date he needs to be sworn in.
CORNISH: So how is the opposition responding to this? What's their next move?
FORERO: Well, they say that as of tomorrow, Chavez's government ends and that there should be an interim leader, the head of the National Assembly. That's Diosdado Cabello, the guy I just mentioned. They say that the president could come back, that he'd have up to 180 days to come back under the constitution. But they say that the country must first find out what his condition is. The opposition says they'll go to the Organization of American States in Washington to file a complaint. But that really won't do much good. The OAS is pretty weak and toothless.
CORNISH: And, Juan, in the meantime, how is the public reacting to all of this?
FORERO: Well, it's been interesting. Most of the people who've been out on the street so far have been pro-government people. The government has gotten together some rallies. There were rallies over the weekend, and people are out there. You see them on state television and they're in the Plaza Bolivar, which is the main public square here. And then the opposition, what they've been doing is, you know, basically going at it in the National Assembly, in the Congress. They, up to this point, say they're not going to convene protests. They - some of the leaders have said that that won't do any good. But we'll have to see. Tomorrow is another day, and it's the big day here in Venezuela.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Juan Forero in Caracas, Venezuela. Juan, thank you.
FORERO: Thank you.
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Let's say the police pulls someone over; they suspect drunken driving. Do they have to get a warrant before they can order a blood test? The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on that question today. The court has long held that, except in emergency situations, warrants are required when government officials order bodily intrusions like a blood draw. But in today's case, the state of Missouri contends that warrants should not be required when it comes to a blood test for suspected drunk driver. Here's NPR's legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Tyler McNeely was stopped in the predawn hours for speeding. He failed four field sobriety tests and refused to take a breathalyzer test or a blood test. At that point, highway patrolman Mark Winder took him to a nearby hospital, and without getting a warrant, ordered hospital technicians to draw blood from the handcuffed suspect. The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously threw out the blood test, noting that patrolman Winder had previously had no difficulty obtaining a warrant, and that there were no circumstances here that would have prevented getting one quickly.
The State of Missouri appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking the justices to create a new exception to the warrant requirement, a rule declaring that no warrant is required for a blood draw in drunk driving cases because alcohol dissipates in the blood over time. Prosecutor John Koester.
JOHN KOESTER: When we know for certain that important, reliable and probative evidence is in the process of being destroyed, a search warrant is not necessary.
TOTENBERG: But ACLU lawyer Steven Shapiro representing McNeely disagrees.
STEVEN SHAPIRO: Before the government can conduct a search, and especially a search as intrusive as a search that involves putting a needle in your arm, that decision ought to be reviewed and approved by a judge.
TOTENBERG: Inside the courtroom, the justices gave both sides a hard time but seemed more skeptical of the prosecution's demand for eliminating the warrant requirement altogether. Justice Sotomayor: I we rule in your favor, the court will be saying there's no warrant requirement for the most intrusive way to prove a case. Justice Scalia: Why don't you force him to take the breathalyzer test instead of forcing him to have a needle shoved in his arm?
Prosecutor Koester replied: That would be difficult. It's like putting a balloon in front of a person. You can put his mouth on it, but you can't force him to blow it up. Justice Kennedy, noting that 25 states have passed laws requiring a warrant, asked if the conviction rate is lower in states with a warrant requirement. Answer: No.
Justice Breyer: Why should it take a long time to get a warrant since the officer can call a magistrate and simply state what the facts are, which should only take a few minutes? Chief Justice Roberts interjected: In some cases, I suppose, the judges actually want to read the affidavit and give it some thought. Representing the federal government, Assistant Solicitor General Nicole Saharsky told the justices no warrant should be required because every minute counts.
To that, Justice Scalia replied: But once we say that you don't need a warrant, the game's up. Justice Ginsburg: A number of jurisdictions do this in a half hour. Why not initiate the process while you're going to the hospital and when a half hour is up, you can proceed. But at least there's been an effort to get a warrant.
Lawyer Saharsky said the suspect's repeated refusals may simply be aimed at delaying the whole process so his blood alcohol level goes down. Justice Kagan, puckishly: Or maybe he's drunk. On a more serious note, Kagan observed that if the whole idea is to get evidence as quickly as possible, why wouldn't the police not only forego a warrant but do the blood draw themselves at roadside?
Next up was the ACLU's Shapiro making his argument in favor of a warrant requirement. Justice Scalia: Is this a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing? What advantage would your client really get other than possibly delaying the test? Are any of these warrants ever turned down?
Shapiro conceded they rarely, if ever, are, but he added the court's whole Fourth Amendment jurisprudence is based on having a neutral magistrate review the evidence before the state does something as intrusive as putting a needle in somebody's arm. Justice Alito: What if the state has a form that just requires the policeman to check boxes? What kind of protection does that offer?
Answer: Missouri has standard forms for a warrant. But what that shows is that the process for obtaining a warrant is not very elaborate and can be quickly complied with. Perhaps the most uncomfortable moment for Shapiro came when Chief Justice Roberts asked whether police should also get a warrant for a breathalyzer test, something no state does. Yes, replied Shapiro. I think you probably do need a warrant, though a breathalyzer test is certainly less intrusive.
Justice Scalia, raising an eyebrow: I don't know why you want to bite off more than you can chew. What's reasonable for sticking a needle in your arm is not necessarily reasonable for asking you to blow up a balloon. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
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And I'm Melissa Block. What is the executive chairman of Google doing in North Korea? The high-profile visit of Eric Schmidt - on a trip led by former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson - has raised eyebrows and lots of questions. The U.S. has no diplomatic relations with the autocratic regime, and the State Department has called the venture unhelpful and ill-advised. Jean Lee is the Korea bureau chief with the Associated Press, and she's traveling with the delegation.
She joins me from just outside the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. Jean Lee, Bill Richardson has said this is not a Google trip, but North Korea calls this a Google delegation. It does raise lots of questions about just what is going on with this mission.
JEAN LEE: They're calling this a private humanitarian visit by private American citizens. This is something that Eric Schmidt was interested in doing, in making a trip to North Korea, and he has enlisted Bill Richardson, who has made at least half a dozen trips to North Korea, to help them. And he is here to meet with foreign policy officials, scientists to get a look at how the Internet works, get a look at their computer technology.
BLOCK: We did see photos coming out from visits yesterday to a North Korean computer center. They were watching a student Googling, but it is misleading to put it into context. I've read estimates that only 4,000 maybe North Koreans have Internet access out of 25 million, and that access is very, very tightly controlled.
LEE: It's extremely restrictive. They do have Internet access, but it's limited to the very top universities. Often, students have to apply in advance and provide a list of what it is they want to do online. People who do have access to computers can log on to an intranet site, but very few people can actually get onto the World Wide Web.
BLOCK: Jean, there's been a lot of criticism from many sides that this visit to North Korea lends legitimacy to a very brutal regime and that it undermines U.S. efforts to put pressure on North Korea at a time when there have been hostile acts taken: a long-range missile launch, the detention of a U.S. citizen born in Korea. What is the context behind all of this?
LEE: It is a very delicate time. The North Koreans launched a long-range rocket just less than a month ago. It was December 12. Now, this is something that the North Koreans are celebrating as a peaceful exploration of space, but that Washington considers a secret test of long-range missile technology. Also, with an American in detention in North Korea, it's just a very sensitive time when it comes to diplomacy. Now, I do know that this delegation had been planning this trip well before any of these developments came to light and that they decided to go ahead with the trip even though there were some concerns on the part of the State Department.
BLOCK: Do you know if Bill Richardson has raised those questions about the missile launch and the detention of this U.S. citizen? Has he raised those with North Korean officials on this trip?
LEE: He told me today that he has brought up the issue. I know that he was hoping to meet with the American who's in detention but won't have the time to do that and has been urging them to put a moratorium on future launches and any possible future nuclear tests.
BLOCK: And what else is on the agenda for this delegation to North Korea?
LEE: They leave tomorrow morning, so it's a very short trip, perhaps it's an introductory trip, perhaps it was just an opportunity for Eric Schmidt to get a look at this country that is a black hole when it comes to understanding how the Internet works, but they are pretty much done for this trip.
BLOCK: Jean Lee is the Korea bureau chief with the Associated Press. She spoke with me from just outside of Pyongyang, North Korea. Jean, thanks so much.
LEE: You're very welcome.
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From the high-tech black hole of North Korea to the bright lights and wow factor of the annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. There, more and more devices are coming with built-in computer chips and sensors. And as NPR's Steve Henn reports from CES, that's bound to change how we interact with the machines around us.
STEVE HENN, BYLINE: I was walking down a hallway yesterday at the Renaissance Hotel here, and this tiny little robot scooted out to meet me. It's sort of like a gosling, a little baby gosling that imprints or a puppy dog. Is that the idea? Oh, my God.
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HENN: It's following me. Now, if I just walk away, do I get to keep the robot? Without me doing anything, this robot named Turtle attached to me. It followed me through the crowed hallway, just me, no one else. It didn't get confused. He only loves me. I stopped walking, and Turtle came up and nudged my foot. You start to feel protective.
ANDREA TUNBRIDGE: Yeah. It's like they're a little pet, and it's just a piece of plastic.
HENN: He just drove over my foot. Andrea Tunbridge works for PrimeSense. This company doesn't make the robot, but PrimeSense makes the 3-D sensors which allow Turtle to see, navigate in space and ultimately recognize my particular gait. Basically, PrimeSense makes Turtle's eyes.
YANIV VAKRAT: It requires actually quite a bit of work.
HENN: Yaniv Vakrat is an executive VP at PrimeSense.
VAKRAT: You know, our regular cameras can see the world in two dimensions and can capture the color and the image. What PrimeSense has done is essentially turn that into a three-dimensional view which is the way we actually see the world as human beings.
HENN: PrimeSense's cameras have already been built into Microsoft's Kinect for the Xbox. That videogame controller allows you to play games and control your TV with gestures, but Vakrat believes games just scratch the surface of what these cameras can do.
VAKRAT: And we believe that it's as revolutionary as anything that you've seen because it really is changing the way machines perceive their environment.
HENN: Later this year, PrimeSense will begin selling a new 3-D sensor to gadget makers. It's smaller than my pinky and will cost less than a third of what the first-generation sensors cost. It's little enough to be built into tablets or smartphones, really almost anything you can imagine. Attach one to a projector, like a television projector...
VAKRAT: And we've turned what is essentially a wall, right, into an interactive screen.
HENN: The wall - just a regular wall - becomes a giant touch-screen that works like the screen on your smartphone or tablet. And when these sensors are built into tablets and phones, it suddenly becomes possible to create detailed, accurate 3-D models of your house just by walking through and filming your home with a mobile device. You could take that model with you when you go shopping for a couch. You could send it to a 3-D printer and create a dollhouse for your kid, or you could play a videogame where the digital monsters you're fighting are running around your living room.
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HENN: And big businesses are eyeing this technology too.
RAUL VERANO: OK. We're Shopperception. We provide retail analytics.
HENN: Raul Verano is the CEO of Shopperception. His company is mounting PrimeSense cameras in supermarkets. So if you're standing in the cereal aisle, he'll know when you reach for a box, and he'll know which box you're reaching for.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Wait. Did you try this cereal instead? It's 50 percent off.
HENN: So you reach for the Apple Jacks, and your mobile device, as you reach for it, deliver an ad for a different cereal.
VERANO: Yeah, exactly because, for example, Wal-Mart would be very interested in doing that because they take a higher margin from the Apple Blasts.
HENN: From the generic?
VERANO: Exactly.
HENN: Retailers are not doing anything like that yet, but right now, the biggest consumer products companies in the world spend millions every year sending researchers to supermarkets to track consumer choices. These cameras could automate all of that, and already, one of the world's biggest beverage companies has signed a deal to test them. Steve Henn, NPR News, Las Vegas.
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And I'm Melissa Block. Could a coin, a trillion dollar platinum coin, avert the next showdown on Capitol Hill? Very soon, the federal government will hit the debt ceiling. Republicans say they won't lift the ceiling unless Democrats agree to significant spending cuts. It's a drama we've watched before. Remember August of 2011? But now, the idea of creating a trillion dollar coin to save the day is gaining some traction.
It sounds fanciful, ridiculous even, but Joe Wiesenthal of the Business Insider website says, why not, and he joins me to talk about it. Hey, Joe.
JOE WIESENTHAL: How are you doing?
BLOCK: How would this trillion dollar coin work as a way around the debt ceiling? The Treasury secretary goes to the U.S. Mint, tells them to make a platinum coin and then what?
WIESENTHAL: Yeah, that's basically it. Tim Geithner mints a trillion dollar coin, tells the mint to, and then delivers it at the Treasury's bank account at the Federal Reserve. The Treasury can then go about continuing to make its payments, even though we haven't actually gone out and borrowed more money.
BLOCK: And the genesis of this authority you're talking about goes back to a law. It had to do with commemorative coins, right, to increase government revenue. This wasn't the idea. This is kind of an adaptation of an existing law?
WIESENTHAL: That's correct. But lawyers who have looked at this, including, you know, top constitutional minds like Laurence Tribe at Harvard Law School have concluded that it's fine.
BLOCK: And just to be clear, there is not one trillion dollars' worth of platinum in this hypothetical coin.
WIESENTHAL: That's right. This is one of the main confusions that people have. Yesterday, the National Republican Campaign Committee slammed the idea and they had this cartoonish version of a monster coin with a trillion dollars' worth of platinum in it sinking the Titanic, which is kind of amusing maybe from a political standpoint, but it's definitely not what the coin would be.
BLOCK: Here's another argument against the platinum coin, that this would be inflationary, the equivalent really of printing money. Why is it not inflationary?
WIESENTHAL: When you hear about the government creating high denomination currencies you obviously think about Zimbabwe and Weimar Germany and these trillion dollar bank notes floating around and destroying the dollar. But here's why it's different. What's usually happening in those countries is a government is running low on money and wants to boost the economy, so they just start pumping a lot of currency right into the economy.
This is not what would be happening here. We wouldn't be increasing our spending levels by any amount. It's just a different way of financing it.
BLOCK: You do hear people saying why not mint $16 trillion in coins, pay off the entire debt? Where does this end?
WIESENTHAL: That gets back to this question of why isn't it inflationary. And so if you start thinking of the coin, if the purpose is to pay off the debt, then you're actually talking about creating coinage so that we can spend a lot more money and that would be inflationary. The purpose of this is not to pay off the debt. It's a legal loophole essentially of debiting on $1 trillion to the Treasury's account at the Fed and then continuing normal spending.
BLOCK: This legal loophole that you're talking about, Joe, is really, in the end, it's a way to do an end run around Congress, right?
WIESENTHAL: Yes, but it's important to recognize what it is an end run around. It's specifically about allowing the government to pay bills which have already been accumulated. The idea of a trillion dollar coin, I think everyone recognizes that it's absurd, but the debt ceiling fight itself is absurd because it's basically a fight about whether we're going to pay our bills.
BLOCK: Joe Wiesenthal, deputy editor of the Business Insider website and a booster of the idea to mint a $1 trillion coin to bypass the fight over the debt ceiling. Joe, thanks so much.
WIESENTHAL: Thank you.
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These days, businesses face increasingly complex regulations and heightened scrutiny by prosecutors, and that's led companies to hire investigative firms to help them keep watch over their employees. The idea behind this business of corporate monitoring is to stop misconduct before law enforcement picks up on it. As NPR's Ailsa Chang reports, these corporate detectives for hire are seeing good business and finding new ways to snoop.
AILSA CHANG, BYLINE: We all know our employers have access to tons of data about us: every person we email from our company email account, every phone number we dial from our desk. But what if you found out every bit of that vast ocean of data was being analyzed so that your company could build a profile of you? That's what Matt Unger is hired to do.
MATT UNGER: So we've got a list of people here and we're highlighting in red the ones whose behavior is departing most from their usual baseline behavior.
CHANG: Unger is like the computer-geek-in-chief for K2 Intelligence. It's an investigative firm in Midtown Manhattan that specializes in the art of corporate monitoring. Unger is no ordinary gumshoe. What he's showing me now is literally counterterrorism software developed by the government that's been repurposed to catch insider traders.
UNGER: When we see here that this guy, Kevin, all of a sudden started calling the 410 area code where he never did that before, and he stopped answering emails. He's being less responsive to his peers.
CHANG: What Unger is looking for are sudden changes in behavior. Sometimes those changes don't mean anything. But when people are up to no good, they usually start acting a bit differently. His software can instantly see when two people who usually only email each other suddenly slips to phone communication for a few days. And if one of them does a big trade during that time, well, that's something to check out. Unger's boss, Jeremy Kroll, says more companies are asking for this monitoring especially with the uptick in insider trading convictions the last couple of years.
JEREMY KROLL: Two years ago, when we started to talk to clients about a preventive solution vis-a-vis insider trading, we got a lot of nodding heads and saying that's really interesting, but no one was biting.
CHANG: Now, what's emerged is a multibillion dollar corporate detective industry aimed at ferreting out not only insider trading but also money laundering, bribery, embezzlement and fraud. Kroll's firm is where former CIA agents find second careers. Same with ex-prosecutors, cops and investigative reporters. And they're landing big name clients like JP Morgan Chase and Brookfield Properties. The corporate monitoring business is looking so promising, K2 wants to expand. So this month, it acquired Thacher Associates, a company that has spent years monitoring construction projects for fraud. Toby Thacher is the CEO.
TOBY THACHER: There's no question today that corporate America is much more concerned about turning a lens on itself. This is not just out of a heightened level of concern about ethics, it's self-preservation.
CHANG: Fines for breaking the law can run into the billions of dollars. Look at HSBC. The bank agreed last month to pay a $2 billion fine to settle allegations it was helping Mexican drug cartels launder money. Jeremy Kroll says pay him the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars now and he'll help you save on the back end.
KROLL: I think the smart CEOs and boards are saying it's not a question of whether something naughty is going on in our company, it's a question of where and how often.
CHANG: These firms say most of their monitoring happens out in the open. Employees are informed about their presence. These monitors help companies design codes of ethics and financial controls to prevent waste and abuse. But some employment law experts say they're concerned these firms could be hired to do other things like spy on communications among union organizers or hunt down whistle-blowers. But K2 says they've never been hired to do that. In fact, Thacher says his business requires standing up to companies.
THACHER: There have been situations where we have found that principals of companies have engaged in kickbacks, embezzlements, fraud, steering of contracts, where the company felt that the principals involved were too important to the company to risk exposing this to law enforcement or regulatory entities.
CHANG: So Thacher says he resigned in at least two of those cases. Credibility is everything in the industry because so much business comes from the government. Sometimes companies are forced to hire outside monitors as a result of settlements with regulators. That happened to HSBC and to Standard Chartered, a London bank that was also accused of money laundering. Now the federal government is considering whether to require hedge funds to report suspicious transactions. And that will only mean more business for all the private corporate watchdogs out there. Ailsa Chang, NPR News.
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The Food and Drug Administration says people who take some of the most popular sleeping medicines should be taking much lower doses. The FDA points to new research showing that when people get up the next day, the drugs are still in their bodies and they can't drive as safely. Here's NPR's Rob Stein to report on the dangers.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: The FDA is changing the dose for drugs sold under the brand names Ambien, Zolpimist and Edluar, as well as generic forms of these medications. These are the most widely used insomnia treatments out there. Ellis Unger is an FDA scientist. He says the agency has known for a long time that there can be some dangerous side effects when people are on these drugs to try to sleep.
DR. ELLIS UNGER: We've known for years that all of these drugs sedate. That you should think about driving. You should understand how the drug works in you. You shouldn't operate heavy machinery.
STEIN: And this isn't the first time the agency has issued an alert about these medications. About five years ago, the FDA warned that these medicines can sometimes make people do strange things while they're sleeping.
UNGER: We're talking about cooking or driving or actually having sex while asleep.
STEIN: But now new studies say that these sleep aids can leave people groggy the next day because the medications are still in their bodies after they wake up in the morning.
UNGER: So this for us was a bit of a red flag.
STEIN: And driving tests confirmed that people taking these drugs can be dangerously impaired even after the medications have supposedly worn off.
UNGER: It wasn't until we received the new data where we got the blood levels and the driving simulation studies and we better identified the frequency of next morning impairment.
STEIN: It looks like this is a much bigger problem for women than men. The drugs just seem to hang around a lot longer in their bodies for some reason.
UNGER: The way the drug is metabolized in women is just slightly more slow.
STEIN: So the FDA ordered the companies that make them to cut the doses for women in half. But just to be on the safe side, the FDA is also recommending that doctors prescribe about half the dose for men too. And the worry isn't just for people driving or operating heavy machinery.
UNGER: A patient who is a lifeguard or, you know, runs a daycare and has a room of children, those activities require vigilance also.
STEIN: The FDA's decision came as a surprise to some doctors like Sam Fleishman, president of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine.
DR. SAM FLEISHMAN: It makes us all as providers think about caution before we start prescribing these medications at the doses that we routinely prescribe them.
STEIN: Fleishman says some patients who depend on the drugs to treat their insomnia are likely to get frustrated if the lower dose just doesn't work as well.
FLEISHMAN: Not only does it make them feel fatigued and tired the next day, but it can precipitate other medical problems. If people don't sleep well, sometimes it exacerbates their, for example, migraine headaches or, you know, their pain issues get worse.
STEIN: Some people even end up missing a lot of work. Another worry is that if the lower doses don't work as well, that could leave some people so tired from lack of sleep that they get into car accidents and have other problems.
FLEISHMAN: I am concerned there may be a little bit of a backfire with this report.
STEIN: The FDA stresses that patients should consult with their doctors to make sure they're getting the dose they need to sleep well but wake up alert and ready for the day. Now, the FDA hasn't cut the doses of other popular sleeping pills such as Lunesta and Sonata, but that's only because officials haven't taken a close look at those drugs yet. That's something they're planning to do now. Rob Stein, NPR News.
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Afghanistan is one of the most corrupt countries in the world. By all accounts that corruption is endemic at all levels of government. In an effort to curb graft, patronage and nepotism, the country has implemented a new program to select provincial and district officials based on their skills, not their connections. NPR's Sean Carberry attended a swearing-in ceremony and sent this report.
SEAN CARBERRY, BYLINE: Afghanistan has 34 provinces, sort of like states, each with a governor, but they're appointed by President Karzai rather than elected. Their deputies and lower level district governors are appointed by an agency called the Independent Directorate of Local Governance. For years, the agency's recruiting process has been less than transparent. But that's changed. Now governors win their positions by competing in a three-month evaluation process involving written and oral exams. And in true Afghan style, a change like this required a ceremony with speeches - lots of speeches.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Foreign language spoken)
CARBERRY: For nearly four hours, top public officials gathered in a gaudy function hall to decry corruption and praise the latest group of deputy and district governors.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Foreign language spoken)
CARBERRY: Afghanistan's second vice president, Karim Khalili, says he hopes these new officials will alleviate what he called the pain of corruption and bring good governance and positive change to the provinces. Then the new appointees took the oath of office.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Foreign language spoken)
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Foreign language spoken)
CARBERRY: One of them, Sahera Shekeib, outscored two other candidates in her district in northern Afghanistan. She's now the first female district governor in the country. She joins the politically appointed head of Bamyan Province as the only female governors in Afghanistan. Shekeib says that Afghan women have suffered for the last three decades.
SAHERA SHEKEIB: (Through Translator) By seeking this position, I paved a way to heal the pain of our mothers and sisters and help the upcoming generation.
CARBERRY: Shekeib has been working in different government offices for several years. Under the new system, a bachelor's degree and at least three years of work experience are required to become a district governor.
RENAUD MEYER: So I think we have a validation of why they're there, and it certainly increases the legitimacy of their work.
CARBERRY: Renaud Meyer is deputy country director for the UN Development Program, which helped implement the new recruiting process in collaboration with the Afghan government.
MEYER: I think ultimately one has to rely on the genuine belief that what people want is good public service delivery. And I think it will be very difficult for those old, traditional systems to win over efficient and productive delivery of services.
CARBERRY: It remains to be seen whether the new provincial officials can bring greater efficiency. The program calls for monitoring and an annual review of their performance. Sean Carberry, NPR News, Kabul.
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At this moment, several states are wrestling with a decision: Whether to expand Medicaid. When the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act last year, it said states could opt out of that part of the law. A Medicaid expansion would provide coverage to millions of low-income Americans who currently have no health insurance. And in Florida, that's led to a big fight over numbers. Governor Rick Scott has said the price tag is too high.
But as NPR's Greg Allen reports from Miami, others in the state say Scott is exaggerating the cost and that the move could ultimately save money.
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: No governor fought harder against the Affordable Care Act than Florida's Rick Scott. With President Obama's re-election, Scott says he now accepts that it is, in his words, the law of the land. But in an interview this week with a Jacksonville TV station, Scott talked about the area that still troubles him: Medicaid expansion.
GOVERNOR RICK SCOTT: Once you put somebody in a program, you can't undo it.
ALLEN: Under the Affordable Care Act, more than 21 million people across the country currently without insurance could be covered by Medicaid. Could, because the Supreme Court ruled that for states, expanding Medicaid is optional.
The Obama administration worked to make it an attractive option. Under the law, the federal government would pick up the entire cost of insuring new Medicaid recipients for the first three years, and 90 percent of the costs after that. Despite that, some states, like Texas, say they have no plans to expand Medicaid. That's also been Florida Governor Scott's position. He says because of its potential impact on the state's budget.
SCOTT: The Florida Agency for Healthcare Administration put out a report that says it will cost $26 billion over 10 years. There's going to be other studies. It's all tied to what assumptions you have. But here's what we know: It's not free.
ALLEN: But that estimate appears to be greatly inflated. Since the Scott administration first released those numbers last month, they've been panned by health care analysts and economists for ignoring the new, larger share of Medicaid costs being picked up under the Affordable Care Act by the federal government.
The governor's numbers are at least four times higher than estimates compiled by independent health care analysts and the Florida legislature.
Karen Woodall heads the Florida Center for Fiscal and Economic Policy. Rather that costing the state $26 billion, she says some independent estimates show Medicaid expansion may actually help Florida save money.
KAREN WOODALL: And that's because they are calculating the cost-benefit of expansion of Medicaid, in that we would be saving money that wouldn't have to be spent taking care of people who don't have insurance.
ALLEN: According to a report this week in Health News Florida, Republicans in the state legislature last month alerted Governor Scott's staff that his Medicaid expansion numbers were faulty. But Scott continued to use them, even in a meeting this week with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
That's troubling to Representative Mark Pafford, a Democrat who helps oversee health care spending in the State House.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE MARK PAFFORD: To me, it suggests that the governor is not having an honest conversation, not only with the folks who are going to depend on the Affordable Care Act, but also with, you know, major officials in Washington, D.C.
ALLEN: At first, Scott's office stood by his numbers saying they're one of a set of different cost estimates he'll consider going forward. But yesterday, the Republican chairman of Florida's House Appropriations Committee joined the criticism. A few hours later, the Scott administration released a new study that downgrades the cost of expanding Medicaid to $3 billion over 10 years, nearly one-tenth of his original estimate.
Ultimately, the decision about expanding Medicaid may be made, not by Scott, but the state legislature. Florida's House and Senate have set up special committees to begin working on the issue.
Karen Woodall says Medicaid expansion would bring $20 billion in federal health care funds to Florida over the next decade; a cash infusion that would help the economy, especially small businesses that rely on low wage workers.
WOODALL: So I think ultimately the legislature is going to see that this is a benefit for Florida and they'll move forward with it.
ALLEN: Governor Scott's decision then would be whether or not to sign it.
Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "THE THRILLING ADVENTURE HOUR")
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One of iTunes' most popular comedy podcast at the moment is decidedly old-fashioned.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "THE THRILLING ADVENTURE HOUR")
CORNISH: The show is recorded once a month in front of a live audience. NPR's Neda Ulaby recently caught a taping at a Hollywood nightclub.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: "The Thrilling Adventure Hour" proudly calls itself fake radio. It's less an homage to old-time radio and more of a clever update. So one of its heroes is a kind of mash-up Buck Rodgers and the Lone Ranger named Sparks Nevada, Marshall of Mars.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "THE THRILLING ADVENTURE HOUR")
ULABY: "The Thrilling Adventure Hour" is filled with original songs and special effects, like when Sparks and a cyborg break into the mainframe of a spaceship.
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ULABY: And he fights off evil aliens like the fearsome baddies the Murder Men.
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ULABY: "The Thrilling Adventure Hour" was created eight years ago by a pair of friends - Ben Blacker and Ben Acker - for real. They met standing in a line in college.
BEN BLACKER: Ben heard me say my name.
BEN ACKER: And I said that is a lot like my name, and he said, oh, you're a dope.
ULABY: The Bens studied film and scriptwriting. During Ben Acker's senior year, he was driving around and heard a drama on the radio. He was completely inspired.
ACKER: Wherever they're doing this, I'm going to go there. I'm going to sit here. I'm going to find out where that is. I'm going to help with this because this is great. And at the end, they said that was a rebroadcast of a 1950 episode of "The Shadow." And I was like, oh, well, now, I don't know what I'll do.
ULABY: Acker and Blacker went to Hollywood to become TV writers. They wrote "Sparks Nevada" as a movie and got a bunch of their actor friends to read the script together. They had so much fun they decided to keep it going as a pseudo radio show. First live and starting about five years ago as a podcast, too, with a growing fan base.
MARK WALLACE: It's an old-fashioned variety show for the nerd herd, for the geeks among us.
ULABY: Mark Wallace is heading into the nightclub where "The Thrilling Adventure Hour" is staged every month. He's seen the show live 10 times. He's here with a herd of guys who, like him, work for the space program.
WALLACE: I'm an interplanetary travel agent, basically. I figure out how to get spacecraft from point A and to point B in the solar system and then what to do with them when they get there.
ULABY: Wallace says the space program people are especially partial to Sparks Nevada, Marshal of Mars.
WALLACE: They made a joke about, you know, hyper cattle. I started laughing really hard because, you know, we're looking for methane on Mars, which is what cows produce. And, you know...
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: ...it was just brilliant, and it's hilarious.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "THE THRILLING ADVENTURE HOUR")
ULABY: This is a crowd also lured by frequent guest stars from such shows as "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Firefly." This show featured Jorge Garcia from "Lost" in an episode with two recurring characters, a pair of high society, married mediums named Frank and Sadie Doyle.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "THE THRILLING ADVENTURE HOUR")
ULABY: They're not just supernatural sleuths. They're martini swilling millionaires, happy to provide a very bloody Mary to Garcia as a visiting vampire.
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ULABY: Garcia says guesting on "The Thrilling Adventure Hour" is a cinch. You don't have to learn lines. Everyone uses a script. And that old-time aesthetic means wearing a suit on stage. It's fun to dress up to be on fake radio.
JORGE GARCIA: Well, I love the way it harkens back to a different time when they did this, did shows like having to put on the jacket and the ties and just kind of like actors back then acted for radio.
ULABY: Another key point of authenticity is the total lack of swearing. That's a point of pride for writers Ben Acker and Ben Blacker. Still, Acker says he occasionally has to reassure a parent wondering if an episode is really family friendly.
ACKER: It is, but we're going to kill a robot and a Martian, and there's going to be, yeah, a vampire-on-vampire crime and drinking. So, like, it's family friendly if you're OK with all that stuff.
ULABY: Enough to make "The Thrilling Adventure Hour" almost as popular on iTunes as its competitor "Prairie Home Companion."
ACKER: We used to try and start a beef with "Prairie Home Companion," like an East Coast-West Coast rapper feud to get us on the map. We would call those guys out...
BLACKER: (Unintelligible) West Coast, no coats.
(LAUGHTER)
ACKER: Yeah, that's right. That guy got no coats.
ULABY: Lake Woebegone, you're on notice. "The Thrilling Adventure Hour" recently branched out with some live shows in Brooklyn. This year brings new platforms: a graphic novel, Web series and a concert film.
Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "THE THRILLING ADVENTURE HOUR")
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In Venezuela, today was inauguration day for President Hugo Chavez. Foreign diplomats and three presidents showed up, and thousands of Chavez supporters flooded the streets outside the presidential palace. But Chavez himself didn't show. He's still in Cuba, incapacitated after cancer surgery. NPR's Juan Forero has the story from Caracas.
JUAN FORERO, BYLINE: As in all inaugurations, the scene was carefully...
CORNISH: in Cuba, incapacitated after cancer surgery. NPR's Juan Forero has the story from Caracas.
FORERO: As in all inaugurations, the scene was carefully choreographed.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FORERO: There was folkloric, guitar-laden music...
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FORERO: ...and the salsa that's much beloved in Venezuela. On a huge stage sat Venezuela's top leaders, who gave speeches, and so did the presidents of Bolivia and Nicaragua. There were also countless people like Florencio Rondon. He's 67 and came carrying a sign much like all the others people held. It said: I am Chavez.
FLORENCIO RONDON: (Foreign language spoken)
FORERO: He's not here, but we're all here as if he were with us, Rondon says. He's the greatest thing we have. He may not be here, but he lives in our hearts. The level of support on the streets reflected the strong backing Chavez's government still has after 14 years and three terms in office. On inauguration day, as on other big days in Venezuela's political calendar, Chavez usually gives a booming revolutionary speech from the balcony of the Miraflores palace.
Today, though, he's in Cuba, still. He left for Havana a month ago for a complex cancer surgery, and he hasn't been seen or heard from since. The government says he remains the president even though the constitution says he has to be sworn in today for a fourth term. The president's absence has generated what opposition leaders have been calling an institutional crisis.
JULIO BORGES: (Foreign language spoken)
FORERO: Earlier this week, opposition lawmaker Julio Borges said one government ends, and another is supposed to begin on this date. And if Chavez can't be here, Borges says, an official absence must be declared, and an interim leader must take over. The controversy dominated Venezuela this week. In a speech in the national assembly, Borges asked...
BORGES: (Foreign language spoken)
FORERO: Who's governing Venezuela? Chavista lawmakers quickly responded, drowning out Borges and yelling the president's name.
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FORERO: Lawmakers then voted to give Chavez the time he needs to get better and return to take the oath of office. And on Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled that the delay was fine.
LUISA MORALES: (Foreign language spoken)
FORERO: The president of the court, Luisa Morales, says there's no need now for a swearing in because he's a re-elected president, winner of an October election. The court argued that there's continuity from one government to the next, and that the swearing in is a formality.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FORERO: Back in front of the presidential palace, Edinson Romero, who's 22, said he came to show his support for Chavez and his self-styled revolution.
EDINSON ROMERO: (Foreign language spoken)
FORERO: He's a sitting president, elected by the people, says Romero. He said it's the same government, so the swearing-in can wait.
Juan Forero, NPR News, Caracas.
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Last week, when the House voted to give John Boehner a second-term as speaker, Michigan's Justin Amash was the first Republican not to back him. The conservative revolt against Boehner ultimately failed with less than a dozen following Amash's lead. The second-term congressman is now back in his Grand Rapids district for the first time since that drama.
Last night he took questions at a town hall meeting, and NPR's Don Gonyea was there.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: Congressman Amash was back in his district for an event at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Museum, a place that honors the presidency and long congressional career of a consummate party loyalist and legislative consensus builder. Amash, who was born three years after Ford left the White House, is taking a different path - bucking the GOP leadership on issue after issue, including last week's challenge to speaker Boehner's re-election.
A crowd of about 175 turned out for the town hall in downtown Grand Rapids.
(APPLAUSE)
REPRESENTATIVE JUSTIN AMASH: How is everyone doing?
CROWD: Good.
GONYEA: Amash alluded to his new-found notoriety.
AMASH: It's been a very eventful last month or two in Congress...
(LAUGHTER)
AMASH: ... to say the least. Yeah, even I am sick of seeing myself in the paper.
GONYEA: But the very warm reception was also a reminder that for a conservative Republican, elected from a conservative district, being labeled a troublemaker by the establishment is not necessarily bad politics back home.
Amash said his two main goals as a congressman are to get a handle on spending and to bring transparency to the process. He says Americans need to better understand how Washington works and what Congress does, in order to begin to fix things.
AMASH: There's a system in Washington D.C. that is not right. And it's not because people are Republican or Democrat. The whole thing is broken.
GONYEA: Last night he was again critical of the deal to address the so-called fiscal cliff. He was a no-vote, citing the lack of any serious attention to spending cuts. Amash is a Tea Party favorite, though he describes himself as a Libertarian. Both groups were well-represented at the town hall, and there was plenty of ire directed at both Washington in general.
There was this question about President Obama.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: You've been great in standing up in what you can do. But is there nobody in this Congress has got the guts to deal with this guy? He's scaring me to death.
AMASH: Let me say, I'm not a fan of President Obama. But I also want to reiterate what I said before, which is if we think that the problem is President Obama, then we have missed the point.
GONYEA: That kind of response does set Amash apart from a large portion of the Tea Party. The Tea Party does applaud the way he stood up to Speaker Boehner. Amash is one of four Republicans stripped of key committee assignments, a move seen a punishment for insufficient loyalty. Amash lost his seat on the Budget Committee.
That prompted the toughest question he got last night from college senior Zack Sikkema.
ZACK SIKKEMA: I'm very confused how getting kicked off the Budget Committee and voting against leadership, whether they're right or wrong, helps us as your constituents when you serve us.
AMASH: At the end of the day, the kind of where you go along with everyone just to get-along-politics, it doesn't really do much for the American people. It doesn't do much for you as my constituents - the people I'm representing.
GONYEA: Congressman Amash and the other Republican caucus rebels seem certain to remain a thorn in Speaker Boehner's side. David Rhode, a congressional scholar at Duke University, says it's a product of the very slim majority Republicans hold in Congress.
DAVID RHODE: But it just shows there is a group that is prepared to withhold their support from Boehner's initiatives in specific circumstances. Like the debt ceiling, for example. He may not have the votes among Republicans to do it.
GONYEA: Amash rejects any suggestion that his relationship with Speaker Boehner is a problem for him or for his district. He also makes it clear that he and the others who voted against Boehner last week will be watching the speaker closely in the coming months as new battles over the debt ceiling and automatic spending cuts approach.
Don Gonyea, NPR News.
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I'm Melissa Block. And in this part of the program, what Washington can do to reduce gun violence. Vice President Biden says he'll have his recommendations to the president by Tuesday. He held a second day of meetings on the subject today, conferring with gun rights advocates.
VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: There's an emerging set of recommendations, not coming from me but coming from the groups we've met with. And I'm going to focus on the ones that relate primarily to gun ownership and the type of weapons that can be owned.
BLOCK: Biden says he's looking at a full range of options, from new laws to executive action. It would take an act of Congress to expand background checks to all gun sales, but getting gun legislation enacted is challenging and this has the White House looking for what President Obama could do without Congress. NPR's Ari Shapiro has our first report.
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: Gun rights groups are hoping that Congress will stop President Obama from imposing any big new regulations. Gun control groups are hoping the president goes rogue. They have a list of things he could do on his own.
MARK GLAZE: We're working hard to get the president to do it and we think he'll do some, at least.
SHAPIRO: Mark Glaze is the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. He says there are many ways President Obama can tighten the laws that already exist without seeking new ones. For example, if you try to buy a gun at a firearms store and fail the background check, that's a felony. But Glaze says those people are almost never held to account.
GLAZE: A couple of years ago, 71,000 people were declined when they tried to buy a gun. They committed that felony and only somewhere around 45 were prosecuted.
SHAPIRO: There are also big holes in the existing background check database. It's called NICS, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. Winnie Stachelberg is with the Liberal Center for American Progress.
WINNIE STACHELBERG: Ten states have failed to provide any mental health records to NICS and 18 others have submitted fewer than 100 over the last year. And without a accurate background check system, guns will fall into the hands of dangerous individuals.
SHAPIRO: At the White House today, Vice President Biden talked about the need to fix that problem. Congress wouldn't have to do a thing.
BIDEN: Doesn't do a whole lot of good if in some states they have a backlog of 40, 50, 60 thousand felons that they never registered here. So we got to talk about - there's a lot to talk about how we entice or what is the impediment keeping states from relaying this information.
SHAPIRO: The talk about executive action worries gun rights supporters. One scenario they fear is that the Environmental Protection Agency could call lead ammunition a toxic pollutant and ban it. Beyond that, David Kopel of the libertarian Cato Institute says the president could also reclassify some guns as destructive devices. Then, those guns would be covered by the same rules as grenades, rockets and bombs.
DAVID KOPEL: It means if you want to continue to possess the gun, you've got to go pay the $200 tax, get permission from local law enforcement and get fingerprinted. And if you ever want to transfer the gun to someone else, that person needs to go through that same process and the $200 tax. And by the way, you can't ever take the gun out of state.
SHAPIRO: President Obama could also limit the import of guns, but Steven Halbrook, who's brought many lawsuits on behalf of gun owners, says that might not have a huge impact.
STEVE HALBROOK: They're mostly manufactured here. There's a substantial number that are imported, but ordinary firearms can be manufactured here without any kind of approval, like for imports.
SHAPIRO: There's another way the president could approach this. First Lady Michelle Obama persuaded restaurants to voluntarily reduce the amount of salt, fat and sugar in their food. Gun makers and sellers could theoretically agree to anything the White House wants to propose without an executive order or an act of Congress.
But criminology professor Gary Kleck of Florida State University says that seems unlikely.
GARY KLECK: I think the First Lady had a lot more influence within the fast food industry than President Obama has with the firearms industry.
SHAPIRO: The firearms industry doesn't exactly see the president as a source of useful suggestions. Kleck says mortal enemy is more like it. Ari Shapiro, NPR News, Washington.
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In a statement today, the National Rifle Association declared disappointment in the meeting with Vice President Biden. The NRA said, quote, "this task force spent most of its time on proposed restrictions on lawful firearms owners." Earlier in the day, I spoke with Sheriff Richard Stanek of Hennepin County, Minnesota. He's part of a group of law enforcement officials who met with the vice president about gun violence after the Newtown massacre. And he also emphasized the issue of the background checks that we just heard about in Ari Shapiro's report.
SHERIFF RICHARD STANEK: We don't think you can discuss gun control unless you also deal with the issue of untreated severe mental health issues, the federal databases, like NICs, the National Instant Criminal Background Check, and how only 12 states participate in that nationwide. And so what should be 100 million records in that database turn out to be very few.
CORNISH: When it comes to the database, I mean, right now, how useful is it to you, if at all?
STANEK: You know, the federal NICS database is not of much use to us right now. And the reason being is simple. Two things. One, felony convictions, that would be crimes prohibitive from owning a firearm - rape, robbery, even murder, aggravated assault, domestic violence - many of those convictions never end up in that federal database, but that's what law enforcement relies on before we grant these permits through the NICS system.
Secondly is mental health. What we're finding is that only 12 states on a regular basis, maybe up to 27 of 28 states on occasion, contribute their mental health records to the federal NICS database.
CORNISH: But what could the administration do, what would you call on them to do to actually remedy this problem of states and reporting and beefing up the database?
STANEK: Well, we think that they have the bully pulpit and that they could encourage states if not more aggressively to contribute to the NICS system.
CORNISH: Now, what do you say to these criticisms that none of these things would really have, say, prevented a massacre like what was seen at Newtown, Connecticut. I mean, in that example you had a shooter who had access to guns from a family member, a family member who wouldn't have had any kind of record and the shooter themselves didn't have any kind of record.
STANEK: Well, you're absolutely right. One of the things we talked about the vice president with was Secretary Napolitano from the Department of Homeland Security gave us a spreadsheet of the last nine mass shootings across the country. Eight of those nine shooters all had some form of mental illness...
CORNISH: But not involuntary commitments. I mean not, you know, not something that would have popped up.
STANEK: Well, and that's one - I mean, that's one of the gaping holes in this, but we still want to be able to check. And, you know, we're looking for a comprehensive system that works across the board. Mental health commitments, whether through the courts or voluntary, I think the American public thinks that law enforcement, when they do these background checks, have access to it, and the simple fact of the matter is we do not.
CORNISH: I'd also like to talk about some of the other gun control policies that are on the table. Certainly this idea of a new assault weapons ban. Where is the Major County Sheriffs on those issues?
STANEK: You know, previously in 2004, the Major County Sheriffs, and I believe National Sheriffs Association, the sheriffs in this country, supported that assault weapons ban. Now they're moving forward. We haven't seen a specific proposal on the table. We've heard a lot of rhetoric back and forth through the news.
The vice president was very clear that he's going to deliver his recommendations back to the president. We're waiting to see what that looks like. We told him America's sheriffs want to work with him, and be at the table and figure out something that is a comprehensive policy across the board.
CORNISH: Hennepin County Sheriff Richard Stanek is part of a group of law enforcement officials who have met with Vice President Biden about the issue of gun violence.
Thank you so much for talking with us, Richard Stanek.
STANEK: Thank you.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
We're going to talk now about the day's big Oscar news. Academy Award nominations were announced this morning. And leading the pack were "Lincoln," with 12 nominations, followed closely by "Life of Pi" with 11. Some far smaller films also did unexpectedly well.
Critic Bob Mondello is here to talk about the snubs and surprises, and also about Oscar campaigning. Bob, welcome back.
BOB MONDELLO: Hey, it's good to be here.
BLOCK: And let's start with the Best Picture nominations. There were nine, not 10.
(LAUGHTER)
MONDELLO: Yeah. Well, there's a fairly complicated algorithm to determine how many pictures make the cut these days. It can be anywhere from five to 10. It's not just what gets the most votes, but how the voters rank each of the pictures. But the results are mostly what observers were predicting anyway, except that Paul Thomas Anderson's drama, "The Master," got left out.
Steven Spielberg's biopic "Lincoln," the two real life CIA stories "Argo" and "Zero Dark Thirty," the musical "Les Miserables," the novel adaptations "Life of Pi," "Silver Linings Playbook," and "Beasts of the Southern Wild," Quentin Tarantino's slavery epic "Django Unchained," and the French film "Amour" about an elderly couple who are facing the end of their lives.
BLOCK: Yeah, and that film - the French language film, "Amour," made a lot of 10 best lists, but a lot of people still haven't heard much about it.
MONDELLO: That's true. It's a terrific movie. And I suppose it's also proof that you should not underestimate the interest of Oscar voters in pictures about aging. It got five nominations for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Original Screenplay and Foreign Language Film.
BLOCK: OK, snubs and surprises and two big omissions in the directing category. No nomination for Ben Affleck for "Argo" and Kathryn Bigelow for "Zero Dark Thirty."
MONDELLO: And there was another surprise. Tom Hooper, the director of "Les Mis," also got left out. It was widely assumed that Steven Spielberg would get the nod for "Lincoln" and maybe Ang Lee for "Life of Pi." But the other three were wild card choices: Michael Haenke for "Amour," Ben Zeitlin for "Beasts of the Southern Wild," and David O'Russell for "Silver Linings Playbook."
BLOCK: And, Bob, what about the acting categories?
MONDELLO: Well, there is a long-standing joke that if you want to an acting nomination, you should play a character with a life-threatening illness - not so much this year. John Hawks played a polio-stricken romantic in "The Sessions," Marion Cotillard lost both of her legs in "Rust and Bone," and neither one got nominated even though they were terrific performances.
The big acting story actually was "Silver Linings Playbook," which swept all four categories - leading man and leading lady, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence and Robert De Niro and Jackie Weaver as Cooper's parents.
BLOCK: I've got to mention here the youngest Best Actress nominee ever, nine-year-old Quvenzhane Wallis for "Beasts of the Southern Wild." She was just six when she shot that movie.
MONDELLO: Amazing, isn't it? She's wonderful, too. I was joking about the Oscar voters loving stories about aging. They also love their grandkids.
BLOCK: Bob, you have a stack of stuff sitting in front of you in the studio. What have you got there?
MONDELLO: I do.
BLOCK: (unintelligible) brand.
(LAUGHTER)
MONDELLO: ...for "Silver Linings Playbook." Several of the big studios have films in the running this year and they are really campaigning with promotional stuff, much more than usual. I got 14 coffee table books for everything from "Life of Pi" to "Wreck-It Ralph." From "Lincoln," I got a cookbook about White House recipes, an iPod shuffle loaded with music from "Les Mis," and I even got what appears to be - and you can take a look at this. What appears to be...
BLOCK: Oh, look at that.
MONDELLO: ...a handwritten note on stationary from Sally Field...
BLOCK: Sally Field.
MONDELLO: ...who was nominated for Best Supporting Actress in "Lincoln," emphasis on what appears to be handwritten. I'm not even an Oscar voter. I can just put this on my 10-best list. So just imagine what they're getting. The Academy has rules about what you can send to Oscar voters, but I'm guessing cookbooks are not on the list.
(LAUGHTER)
BLOCK: OK. Bob Mondello, thanks so much.
MONDELLO: It's always a pleasure.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.
And I'm Audie Cornish.
Jury selection began today in the terrorism trial of a young Somali-American. He's accused of trying to bomb a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Portland, Oregon two years ago. But the case is drawing attention for another reason: There was no bomb. The defendant was the target of an FBI sting operation.
And as NPR's Dina Temple-Raston reports, his lawyers are expected to argue their client was entrapped.
DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: Mohamed Mohamud was arrested in November 2010, for allegedly trying to detonate a car bomb he'd parked outside a Christmas tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland. If those were the only facts in the case, Mohamud's trial wouldn't be getting so much attention.
What makes this trial different is that the car bombing plot - the purchase of the car, the gathering of explosives, the plan itself - was orchestrated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mohamud was the target of an FBI sting and his lawyers say he was entrapped.
SAM RASCOFF: Well, there is a certain measure of truth to that.
TEMPLE-RASTON: That's Sam Rascoff. He teaches national security law at New York University. And he says Mohamud's lawyers may have a point.
RASCOFF: It's quite likely that this guy would not have actually gotten to a point where he would have been positioned, in his mind, to blow up the Pioneer Square Christmas tree lighting in Portland, but for the intervention of the Feds.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Legal experts are watching the Mohamud trial so closely because the facts in the case could lend themselves in a unique way to an entrapment defense. Mohamud was only 19 years old when he was arrested, making him one of the youngest people ever to be arrested on terrorism charges. And because of his youth, he could be positioned to convince a jury that he was manipulated by the FBI into committing a crime.
Rascoff says there is a problem with that argument, though. Mohamud actually dialed the cell phone code to detonate what he thought was a bomb.
RASCOFF: Here's someone who was minded to do it. So, yes, the Feds clearly played a role in getting him to the finish line. But he was someone who was predisposed, so it appears, to wanting to do it himself.
TEMPLE-RASTON: That's the FBI's argument. They say Mohamud drew their attention when he started writing articles for jihadi online publications. Prosecutors say Mohamud tried to contact terrorists overseas. He was dangerous, they claim, because he seemed determined to commit some sort of violence in the name of jihad.
Rascoff says being a misguided 19-year-old probably isn't enough to get Mohamud off.
RASCOFF: We all know that teenagers are teenagers and they're prone to doing some rash things every once in a while, but in the eyes of the American criminal law, a 19-year-old is an adult.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Mohamud's lawyers, who are not speaking on the record about the case, have made clear in court documents that part of their defense will be that the FBI confused teenage bravado with terrorism.
The trial also comes at a time when more than a decade after the 911 attacks, there's a growing skepticism about FBI stings. Providing fake explosives and detonating devices strikes many observers as overreach. And that argument could resonate, particularly in Portland. It is considered a liberal community, and some defense attorneys say it is one of the two or three best places to test this kind of defense.
That said, entrapment defenses in terrorism cases haven't worked. Since 2001, there have been entrapment defenses in 11 cases and none of them have succeeded in winning an acquittal.
Dina Temple-Raston, NPR News.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Three Kurdish women were killed this morning in downtown Paris, in what the French Interior Minister described as an execution. One of the women was a founder of the PKK, or Kurdish Workers Party. The group has been fighting for decades for an autonomous Kurdistan. The killings sent a shockwave through the large Kurdish Diaspora in Europe, and cast a shadow over peace talks between the PKK and the Turkish government.
From Paris, Eleanor Beardsley reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTESTERS)
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Word of the deaths spread quickly this morning, as hundreds of Kurds turned out at the information center where the women were killed. Their angry chants grew louder as the three bodies were wheeled out on stretchers. The French media says each woman was killed with a bullet to the head and from a gun with a silencer.
MANUEL VALLS: (Foreign language spoken)
BEARDSLEY: Quick to the scene, French Interior Minister Manuel Valls said there was no doubt it was an execution. He said French anti-terror units would help with the investigation. The bodies were discovered on the first floor of the building in Paris's 10th Arrondissement near the Gare du Nord, just before 2 A.M., after one woman's partner called the police when he could not get in touch with her.
One of the women killed was Sakine Cansiz, a co-founder of the PKK. Female militants have played a significant role in the PKK's insurgency, partly reflecting a principle of equality within the group's Marxist ideology. Cansiz was admired by Kurds, says demonstrator Eyup Doru.
EYUP DORU: (Through Translator) She's a historical and brave figure for us. She was imprisoned by the Turkish military regime in the '80s and tortured. She was a political refugee here in France.
BEARDSLEY: The 30-year-conflict between the PKK and the Turkish army has killed more than 40,000 people, mostly Kurdish militants and Turkish soldiers. The organization is banned in Turkey and considered a terrorist group by the United States and European Union.
The killings came just as the Turkish government took steps toward peace talks with the PKK. For the first time, the Turkish government is negotiating directly with the charismatic PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, who has been imprisoned since 1999 on an island off the coast of Istanbul. Ocalan is widely reviled by Turks, who hold him responsible for the conflict.
But the Turkish government denied any role in the Paris killings.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTESTERS)
BEARDSLEY: Kurdish demonstrators here in Paris accused the Turkish secret service. But Kendal Nezan, a Kurdish scholar in Paris, says both have reasons to sabotage the peace talks.
KENDAL NEZAN: Some hard-liners in both camps are not very happy with this peace initiative. Among the Turkish military, many people don't agree that a government should discuss with an organization labeled so far a terrorist.
BEARDSLEY: And Nezan says some in the PKK don't think the Kurdish community has obtained sufficient cultural rights or autonomy to go to the negotiating table.
The Kurdish question has taken on particular urgency with the rise of Kurdish groups in Iraq, and with the civil war in Syria and its significant Kurd population. Analysts say before today's killings, the Turkish government and the PKK had agreed to a framework for a peace plan, something unthinkable only a few years ago.
Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
When Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner travels to Asia and the Middle East this month, she won't be flying on the official presidential plane. That's because Argentina fears the Boeing 757 jet known as Tango 1 will be seized when it lands by creditors, bond holders who hold sovereign debt that Argentina has defaulted on. So, instead of taking that risk, President Fernandez will be flying on a rented charter plane at the cost of $880,000.
Shane Romig of The Wall Street Journal joins me from Buenos Aires to explain and Shane, who are these creditors? Argentina calls them vulture funds. Who are they?
SHANE ROMIG: There's a number of hedge funds who have purchased large shares of defaulted debt from Argentina. The leading one is called NML Capital, which is a unit of Elliot Management Corp, which is founded by the U.S. billionaire Paul Singer. And (unintelligible) Capitol is another large one of these funds and these are companies that hold these defaulted bonds and they have strategically decided to pursue Argentina for full compensation on these bonds and rejected a pair of offers that Argentina has made to bond holders for discounted credit swaps.
The vast majority of the people who held Argentina's defaulted bonds accepted those deals, about 93 percent, but about 7 percent of the bonds were not tendered and a large share of those are in the hands of these funds that are pursuing full compensation.
BLOCK: Overall, Shane, how much money are we talking about? What's the scale of the default by Argentina?
ROMIG: Well, the default in 2001 was on about - close to $100 billion worth of bonds. These hedge funds have received awards from U.S. courts for 1.6 billion. Argentina has steadfastly refused to pay up and is fighting this in every way it can and so the hedge funds on the other side are trying every way they can to try and actually collect on some of this.
BLOCK: And the fear is that these funds would take this opportunity to seize the plane to get compensation. Not a baseless fear, it sounds like. There was an Argentine Naval ship that was seized in Ghana last year for just these reasons, right?
ROMIG: Yes, exactly. For two and a half months, the ship was held in the Ghanaian port of Tema after NML Capital convinced a judge to seize the ship there. So, Argentina appealed that and appealed to a U.N. tribunal and the U.N. tribunal came down on Argentina's side saying that the ship couldn't be held to satisfy these kind of debts and the ship was released.
BLOCK: And the ship is now back home?
ROMIG: The ship is back home. It arrived on Wednesday to a big celebration with the president and military and government officials and fireworks.
BLOCK: Shane, has President Fernandez flown charter before for just this reason?
ROMIG: Yeah, well, there's been attempts to seize the Tango before and then the government has contracted a plane from this company before in 2010 and 2011 for trips to Guyana and Europe.
BLOCK: Is this all a point of national pride in Argentina somehow, that, yes, the president will fly charter to keep the official presidential plane from being seized?
ROMIG: The fight with the hedge funds and her calling them the vulture funds and their commitments to not pay these companies, this is definitely an issue of national pride. I think that renting this plane is just to avoid - it would be a terrible embarrassment if the president was on a trip and in the middle of this trip, had the plane seized and she's left to scramble and try and find an alternative to get out of whichever country she's in.
So I think they're just being - coming on the heels of the ship seizure, I think they're being a bit practical, saying let's not take a chance with this.
BLOCK: It would put her in a bit of a tight spot, wouldn't it?
ROMIG: Yes, definitely.
BLOCK: Shane Romig, it's good to talk to you. Thank you.
ROMIG: Thank you, Melissa. It's been a pleasure.
BLOCK: Shane Romig is a foreign correspondent with the Wall Street Journal in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Finally, this hour, we're going back to the future.
(SOUNDBITE FROM FILM "BACK TO THE FUTURE")
CORNISH: Oh, Marty McFly, so 1985. Actually, let's go even further back.
(SOUNDBITE FROM "THE JETSONS" THEME)
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And I'm Audie Cornish.
Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner looked relieved this afternoon in the East Room of the White House. Maybe that's because President Obama officially nominated his successor, Jack Lew. Lew is currently the White House chief of staff, and he's also been the president's budget director. As NPR's national political correspondent Mara Liasson reports, the selection of an administration insider to the nation's top financial post says a lot about the president's second-term priorities.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: President Obama said that Jack Lew has a lot in common with the man he's replacing, Tim Geithner, who, the president said, epitomizes his Treasury Department's motto: no peacocks, no jerks, no whiners.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: One reason Jack has been so effective in this town is because he is a low-key guy who prefers to surround himself with policy experts rather than television cameras. And over the years, he's built a reputation as a master of policy who can work with members of both parties and forge principled compromises.
LIASSON: And that's what the president wants Lew to do. While Geithner's tenure was consumed by the financial crisis, Lew's job will be to work with Congress on tax and budget issues, to try, if possible, to find the elusive grand bargain on the deficit. That's something Mr. Obama says that Lew has done before.
OBAMA: As a congressional staffer in the 1980s, he helped negotiate the deal between President Reagan and Tip O'Neill to save Social Security. Under President Clinton, he presided over three budget surpluses in a row. So for all the talk out there about deficit reduction, making sure our books are balanced, this is the guy who did it - three times.
LIASSON: Unlike many past Treasury secretaries, Lew is not a creature of Wall Street, although he did work as an investment banker after he left the Clinton administration. Lew is known as a deficit hawk who will also fight tooth and nail to protect Democratic priorities and safety net programs.
OBAMA: Jack knows that every number on a page, every dollar we budget, every decision we make has to be an expression of who we wish to be as a nation - our values, the values that say everybody gets a fair shot at opportunity and says that we expect all of us to fulfill our individual obligations as citizens in return.
LIASSON: There is one problem Lew might face. After the obligatory thanks to his parents and family, Lew disclosed that he and Tim Geithner share more than just a low-key personality.
JACOB LEW: It was only yesterday that I discovered that we both share a common challenge with penmanship.
(LAUGHTER)
LIASSON: There's nothing loopy about Jack Lew except his signature - a series of curlicues that look like an unspooled slinky, just an idiosyncrasy for an ordinary bureaucrat, but, as Mr. Obama suggests, maybe something more for the guy whose signature is on every single dollar bill.
OBAMA: Jack assures me that he is going to work to make at least one letter legible in order not to debase our currency.
LIASSON: Republicans, meanwhile, were focusing on Lew's policy signature. Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, the ranking member of the Budget Committee, said on CNN that Lew must never become secretary of the Treasury.
SENATOR JEFF SESSIONS: I believe this man has been the architect of the Obama budget policy. I believe it's very fundamentally wrong, and I do not believe he's been honest with the American people about it.
LIASSON: But Sessions wouldn't say he planned to put a hold on Lew's nomination or lead a filibuster, and all indications are that Jack Lew will be confirmed without a big fight. Mara Liasson, NPR News, the White House.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Round two of the National Football League playoffs are this weekend. But the NFL story of the week was about Robert Griffin III and his knee. The star rookie quarterback for the Washington Redskins blew it out during the wildcard playoff loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday. Of course, the howls of anguish came from Washingtonians as they saw their team's best player in years crumple up in a heap.
And the anguish turned to anger at the team for letting Griffin stay in the game when he was clearly hurt. Sportswriter Stefan Fatsis joins us most Fridays and some Thursdays to talk about sports and the business of sports. And, Stefan, Robert Griffin had surgery on that knee yesterday. How did it go?
STEFAN FATSIS, BYLINE: Well, it was performed by orthopedist James Andrews. He operated on two of the main ligaments in Griffin's right knee. Structurally, that's a lot of damage, and it certainly will extend his recovery time. Estimates from surgeons for his return to play seem to be eight to 12 months. How he will play when does return - speed, mobility, his propensity to take off and run - it's impossible to say. Regardless, what happened last Sunday to Robert Griffin was a career-changing event.
CORNISH: And maybe not just for him, right? The Redskins' head coach Mike Shanahan, he's had to defend his decision to let Griffin play on a knee that was injured earlier in the season. So, I mean, he's been criticized this week. How do you see it?
FATSIS: Well, there's no doubt in my mind that it was an irresponsible decision at the time and in hindsight: selfish, short-sighted, and depending on your standards for sports, possibly unethical. But I also understand how it happened. Rational decisions are seldom made in the chaos of the sidelines of an NFL game. Players are taught by coaches to believe the cliches - toughness, commitment, gutting it out, being a man - as Griffin himself said after the game.
Coaches are thinking, first and foremost, about the short term: How do I win this game? I'm sure that Mike Shanahan, in the moment, believed he needed Griffin, in almost any condition, to win that game. He wasn't thinking about the possibility of a devastating injury.
CORNISH: But shouldn't he have been?
FATSIS: Look, I spent a summer in training camp with one of Shanahan's teams. He is an exemplar of the culture of football in which perfection is expected, in which players are expendable, in which debates like this one are usually fleeting. He's not a bad guy at all. But as football faces increased scrutiny over concussions, long-term brain damage, other health issues, this short-term style of thinking is going to have to change.
And it's not just coaches. Sideline doctors - and what are they doing on the sidelines - team owners, players, media, fans. One former NFL player that I know told me that there are no adults down there on the sidelines during games. Surely, we can find a way to force this league and its teams to make sure that there are. Players need to stop playing through real injuries. Coaches need to stop encouraging them to do so.
CORNISH: And you mentioned concussions and long-term brain damage. Today, it was announced that former NFL linebacker Junior Seau had degenerative brain disease when he committed suicide in May.
FATSIS: Yeah, that announcement came from the National Institutes of Health, which was asked by Seau's family after his death to study his brain. Several neuropathologists did. The NIH said that Seau's brain tissue was consistent with the degenerative disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy, which has been found in the autopsies of other football players and other athletes who were exposed to repeated head injuries. Seau played 20 years in the NFL, and by the way, never had a diagnosed concussion.
At this point, that's no surprise, of course. Every case like Seau's confirms the long-term dangers in football, and it makes you wonder what's going to happen to the sport over time. It also makes it hard to segue to this weekend's games, but I will be watching and so will millions of other people. That's the lure of football.
CORNISH: And of course, eight teams on the road to the Super Bowl. Give us a quick analysis.
FATSIS: Two games on Saturday: Baltimore at Denver, Green Bay at San Francisco. Two games on Sunday: Seattle at Atlanta, Houston at New England. My summary: I hope these games are more competitive and interesting than the first round of the playoffs last weekend, and I hope next week we're not talking about some guy's devastating injury.
CORNISH: Stefan Fatsis is the author of "A Few Seconds of Panic: A Sportswriter Plays in the NFL." Stefan, thanks for talking with us.
FATSIS: Thanks, Audie.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And I'm Audie Cornish.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are putting some numbers behind something many of us have noticed: A lot of people are sick right now. Apparently, the flu season has started early. On a CDC map of the U.S., which tracks flu outbreaks, almost every state is colored brown, meaning flu there is widespread.
Dr. Thomas Frieden is the director of the CDC, and he join us now. And, Dr. Frieden, to begin, that CDC surveillance map, what does that map normally look like this time of year?
DR. THOMAS FRIEDEN: It wouldn't be as widely distributed. We wouldn't see flu everywhere this early. This is an early flu season. Usually, flu peaks in January or February. We don't know when the peak will be, but it looks like it's certainly started sooner, and the peak may go higher this year than most years.
CORNISH: Which states are hardest hit?
FRIEDEN: The South and Southeast have been hit first. And it's often the case that disease spreads across the country as it spreads across the globe. But it really is quite variable. Even within a state you can see very different levels of illness in different communities.
CORNISH: Do you have any sense yet of why it would start so early?
FRIEDEN: We really don't know what does result in flu being earlier or later in the season. The fact that it's an H3 year, a strain of the virus that hasn't been around in a while, is sometimes associated with earlier years. So that would be the leading hypothesis.
CORNISH: Now, what's the scope of this flu outbreak? Is it actually that it's more severe, the kind of flu you might catch than it's been in the past? Or is it just because it's infecting so many people?
FRIEDEN: We won't know until later in the season just how severe this year is. It is shaping up to be a moderate to severe year. That means that people who are very young or very old may be at higher risk of severe illness or hospitalization or even death from flu.
CORNISH: And is flu the only outbreak right now? It seems like everyone we know is sick with one thing or another.
FRIEDEN: Well, in the winter months we often do see an increase in various types of virus. We're also seeing an early season with a virus that causes diarrhea called norovirus. And like the flu, the norovirus evolves and changes from year to year. And this year, we're seeing a new type of norovirus. We don't yet know whether it will be more severe, but it certainly happened sooner this year than it often does.
CORNISH: Now, people hearing this story might be getting worried. And is it too late for them to go out and get a flu shot?
FRIEDEN: It's not too late to get a flu shot, although it takes about two weeks for immunity to kick in. If you get a flu shot today or soon - and flu hasn't hit your community or completely gone through your community yet - you will have some protection.
If you have been vaccinated, it doesn't mean you have no chance of getting the flu. So even if you've been vaccinated, and especially if you haven't been vaccinated, if you get symptoms of the flu and you're either severely ill or you have an underlying condition, like diabetes or are taking steroids for asthma, by all means, see your doctor promptly because treatment can reduce the severity of your illness.
CORNISH: Now, the CDC surveillance map, it certainly gives a lot of information. Also, google.org has its own flu trends map, which claims to be a good predictor of flu outbreaks, and they track it by essentially flu-related search terms that people type in. Is this helpful to people such as yourself?
FRIEDEN: It's great to have more sources of information on what people are concerned about and how it differs in different parts of the country. It doesn't substitute for needing to get the real data on what's happening, meaning for patients to see doctors, doctors to get laboratory tests, and laboratory tests to be analyzed so that we can know what is the bacteria or virus causing the illness, which strain, is it related to an outbreak?
So it's a great tool. It can complement, but it doesn't replace some of the traditional tools that we need to use.
CORNISH: Dr. Thomas Frieden is the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Frieden, thank you for speaking with us.
FRIEDEN: Thank you very much.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
In Chicago, what once looked like a death from natural causes now looks like a murder. And the Cook County state's attorney is asking to exhume a body to investigate. The victim is a 46-year-old man named Urooj Khan. He was a million-dollar lottery winner who died last summer before he could cash in. The medical examiner now says he was poisoned with cyanide.
NPR's Cheryl Corley has that story.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: That'll be lots of money.
CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: Even early in the morning, the lottery sales at this 7-Eleven convenience store in Chicago's Rogers Park neighborhood are brisk.
JIMMY GORELL: We do anywhere from five to 7,000 a day.
CORLEY: Store owner Jimmy Gorell says Urooj Khan was a regular here for a couple of years. Khan immigrated from India to the U.S. in 1989. He worked at a dry cleaners and ended up with three stores of his own. He used to come by this convenience store to buy a lottery ticket before or after work and had already won a sizable amount of about $5,000. After taking a pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia with his wife, though, Khan swore off buying lotto tickets.
That changed last June, though, when he just couldn't resist. Khan bought a couple of instant lottery tickets and ended up a big winner, a million dollars. Gorell says at the news conference announcing his win, Khan celebrated with his wife and daughter, a couple of his brothers, his father-in-law.
GORELL: He was very happy, very down-to-earth person. He was wishing that he could - when he collect his money that his wish is to help needy.
CORLEY: Lottery spokesman Michael Lang says Khan decided to take his winnings in a lump sum. So after taxes...
MICHAEL LANG: The actual check amount was 424,499 and 60 cents, 6-0.
CORLEY: So pretty close to 425,000.
LANG: Pretty close, yeah.
CORLEY: It was money that Khan never got to spend. The check was issued on July 19th and Khan died the following day. In Cook County, the sudden and unexpected death of an apparently healthy man falls under the jurisdiction of the Cook County Medical Examiner's office. That's where a pathologist will conduct an external exam of the body and run standard toxicology tests, looking for drugs like cocaine and opiates or carbon monoxide.
Medical Examiner Steven Cina says all those tests came back negative, so it was ruled that Khan died of natural causes. But Cina says a couple of days later, something unusual happened: a family member contacted his office with a request.
STEPHEN CINA: And asked that we look into it a little bit closer, maybe do some additional studies. So we always are open to listening to new information.
CORLEY: Cina would not identify the relative. But those new, more comprehensive tests of blood that was saved from the earlier investigation showed that Khan died from a lethal amount of cyanide - quite a surprise to the medical examiner.
CINA: Cyanide deaths, although they do occur, are pretty rare.
CORLEY: Khan's death was quickly reclassified as a homicide. Now Cina says he wants more information.
CINA: Anything I can do to get a more complete picture, I think may be or may not be beneficial to a jury. But the more data, I think, I can give them, the better it is for the legal system.
CORLEY: Khan shared his Rogers Park home with his wife of 12 years, 32-year-old Shabana Ansari, and his teenage daughter from a previous marriage. Ansari has reportedly been questioned by police, but authorities have not indicated whether she or anyone else is a suspect.
Today, Ansari was at work at one of the family's dry cleaners. A petite woman with long dark hair, a shawl over her shoulders, she stepped forward from a row of clothes draped in plastic. She said she did not want to be recorded. But as her eyes filled briefly with tears, she did say her husband was a good, kindhearted man whom she loved very much. She said nothing more.
Urooj Khan did not have a will and Ansari is now battling with Khan's siblings over control of her husband's estate, which now includes the lottery winnings.
Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy says the investigation continues. He also says that during all of his time as a police officer in New York, New Jersey and now Chicago, he's never encountered a case quite like this one.
GARRY MCCARTHY: Thirty-two years, I haven't seen it. So I'll never say that I've seen everything.
CORLEY: Officials hope now if a judge permits Khan's body to be exhumed, an autopsy will help provide more answers.
Cheryl Corley, NPR News, Chicago.
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It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
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And I'm Melissa Block.
2012 was the year of mobile commerce. That's according to some tech analysts. That means consumers weren't just browsing on their smartphones and tablets. As NPR's Laura Sydell reports, they were typing in their credit card numbers and hitting buy.
LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE: They knew it would happen eventually, says Clark Frederick of the research firm eMarketer, and last year, Frederick says consumers made the leap to mobile in record numbers.
CLARK FREDERICK: Mobile commerce went from a negligible portion of retail ecommerce sales a couple years ago to 11 percent in 2012, which is substantial.
SYDELL: Frederick says last year consumers hit the buy button on mobile devices to the tune of $25 billion. Part of the reason there was so much growth is that a lot more people have iPads, Kindles and other tablet computers.
FREDERICK: People like shopping on tablets. Tablets have a high-resolution display, fingertip browsibility, instant power on, and it makes them ideal devices for shopping.
SYDELL: Amazon has been a real leader in the mobile market. Its Kindle was the first tablet computer to excite consumers, though the original only made it easy to buy books. But now, the Kindle makes it easy to buy everything on the Amazon site from books to shoes, and Amazon has apps for iPads, iPhones, Android phones.
SAM HALL: Matter of fact, our goal is for someone to go from wanting something to buying it in under 30 seconds.
SYDELL: That's Sam Hall, who is the vice president of mobile shopping at Amazon. Hall says Amazon saw a big uptick in purchases made on mobile devices this past holiday season. He thinks mobile devices have changed the idea of what it means to go shopping.
HALL: Shopping doesn't need to be a single event where I'm sitting in front of my P.C. or going to a store. I can buy a gift for someone wherever I am. I can be in line at Starbucks. I can be in a boring meeting. I can be sitting on the couch.
SYDELL: Big companies like Amazon enjoy a large advantage in that they have the resources to make their mobile shopping experience easy. Andrew Gazdecki, the CEO of Bizness Apps, which helps build shopping apps, says small business are realizing they need to invest in mobile.
ANDREW GAZDECKI: If they don't have a mobile experience, there've been studies that show that customers will bounce over to competitors' websites.
SYDELL: Gazdecki says ease of use is crucial to success. He says everyone from restaurants to jewelry stores are getting into the mobile game. Clearly, we are reaching the point where if you can think it, you can buy it right then and there.
Laura Sydell, NPR News.
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This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block. A new novel leads readers on a journey through the life of a man struggling with bipolar disorder. The book is from writer Juliann Garey. Our reviewer, Ellen Forney, knows all too well the peaks and valleys of bipolar disorder, and she says the book rings true.
ELLEN FORNEY: I tend to get annoyed by books and movies with mentally ill characters. If the story doesn't make sense, well, they're crazy. Of course, it doesn't make sense. So I was skeptical when I picked up the novel "Too Bright to Hear, Too Loud to See" by Juliann Garey. It's about a Hollywood studio executive with untreated bipolar disorder. He leaves his wife and child, hits the road and goes on an international adventure.
I braced for another kooky, manic cliche. But this book's author isn't some outsider looking in. She's also bipolar. The character she creates is complex. And she really gets us inside his head. Each chapter starts with Greyson Todd's thoughts in the hospital, right before he goes under anesthesia. He's getting ECT, electroconvulsive therapy.
You'd think he would be a tough character to love. He abandons his family. He's unpredictable. But we get him. He's not a villain. He's trying to survive. The author's descriptions of mania and depression felt true to me, to my own bipolar disorder. In mania, the sensations are heightened. They feel like superpowers. Life is all typhoons and hurricanes. In depression, life is like drowning. Greyson describes how even breathing is exhausting. He says: I am no more up to the constant inhaling and exhaling than I am to running a marathon.
At one point, Greyson rides on the back of a stranger's motorcycle. As I read that part, I thought to myself, you know, that's what reading this whole book is like. Here's what he thinks to himself: No one here wears helmets. And on several sharp turns, I have to squeeze my thighs together to keep from becoming road kill. The experience is everything I had hoped for, he says. I am lost now and there is no going back.
BLOCK: The book is "Too Bright to Hear, Too Loud to See" by Juliann Garey. Our reviewer, Ellen Forney, is the author of the graphic memoir "Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me."
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Three years after a powerful earthquake destroyed much of Haiti's capital, hundreds of thousands of people there still live in squalid, makeshift camps. The anniversary of the quake is tomorrow. It killed roughly 200,000 people and left one and a half million homeless. Billions of dollars were pledged and spent to help Haiti rebuild, but as NPR's Jason Beaubien reports from Port-au-Prince, those donations produced very little new, permanent housing.
JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE: When the earthquake struck in January of 2010, Jacqueline Syra was nine months pregnant with her third child. Her house, near the sprawling slum of Cite Soleil, collapsed, she says, killing her husband. Syra, along with tens of thousands of other people, moved on to an abandoned military airport known as La Piste. Syra says she never expected that three years later, she'd still be living on the runway.
JACQUELINE SYRA: (Speaking foreign language).
BEAUBIEN: We are not living well in the tents, she says. Sometimes men get in here and attack me or rob my things.
Her shack is a patchwork of fraying tarps tied together with blankets strung over a skeleton of mismatched sticks. Two motorcycle tires on the roof keep the cloth from flapping in the wind. Her green plastic door used to be on the front of a portable toilet. There's no electricity and she cooks on the dirt floor. Syra shares this shelter with her three children.
SYRA: (Speaking foreign language).
BEAUBIEN: I don't sleep well, I don't eat well, says the rail-thin 49-year-old. I was a fat woman, and look at me now. I lost a lot of weight because I cannot sleep or eat well here.
At its peak in 2010, La Piste held roughly 50,000 residents, according to humanitarian officials. The camp is less crowded now but still holds tens of thousands of people. Women bathe naked with buckets at the public water taps. Kids scurry along trash-filled ditches.
SYRA: (Speaking foreign language).
BEAUBIEN: I don't know when I'll leave here, Syra says. I don't know how long I'm going to be here.
GEORGE NGWA: I do understand those who think that there isn't much to show for all that has happened since 2010, but there is - there's a lot that has happened.
BEAUBIEN: George Ngwa is the spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Haiti. Ngwa says after the quake, international aid agencies kept people alive, provided Haitians with basic tarps for shelter, removed most of the rubble, paved roads and, yes, even built some housing.
NGWA: In the rush to solve that problem, some mistakes were made. For example, housing solutions were found, new houses were built in areas that had no sustainability in terms of jobs for the people who were supposed to move there. So some of them abandoned the new houses and they're back in the camps.
BEAUBIEN: Immediately after the quake, billions of dollars were pledged by international donors to help Haitians recover. Despite this, only about 5,000 units of permanent housing have been built. The grand plans to build back better have evaporated.
Instead, President Martelly's administration launched a program to provide a $500 rental subsidy and $150 in cash to anyone willing to leave several public parks; 100 percent of the residents in all of the targeted camps agreed to the deal.
CLEMENT BELIZAIRE: The overall budget for this program was $78 million.
BEAUBIEN: Clement Belizaire is the director of relocation and rehabilitation for the government's reconstruction program. He says initially his office focused on trying to repair the damaged houses of camp residents. But Belizaire says this only affected about 10 percent of the camp population and only temporarily.
BELIZAIRE: So after a while, that 10 percent is replaced, the camp fills back up. So we came with a rental subsidy, and that's only when we started to see camps that were cleared completely.
BEAUBIEN: His program is also involved in building several dozen new houses and rehabilitating destroyed public infrastructure - roads, electricity lines, sewers - in neighborhoods that are receiving thousands of the former camp residents.
Fifty-two-year-old Rose Lermonis should be one of the success stories of Belizaire's resettlement program. When the quake hit in 2010, Lermonis' house on a steep hillside overlooking Port-au-Prince collapsed into the ravine below.
ROSE LERMONIS: (Speaking foreign language).
BEAUBIEN: After the quake it looked like a desert here, she says. Everyone was gone. Pointing at my feet, she adds, there were four bodies right there where you're standing. Lermonis moved with her family into a tarp-covered shack in a public park in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Petronville(ph). She spent more than a year in what she says were terrible and terrifying conditions in the camp.
Then in November 2011, she got a subsidy to rent a small cinder block hut. But once that money was gone, she could no longer pay the rent and had to move with her children into a room owned by her sister.
LERMONIS: (Speaking foreign language).
BEAUBIEN: You see, all the people who used to be in the tents are still living in misery, she says, because they don't have jobs. If they don't have a child or someone to support them, they have nothing.
Before the quake, Haiti was the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. As it moves on from the disaster, the nation is still burdened with all the problems it had before its capital was destroyed. Jason Beaubien, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
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Ciudad Juarez has been the epicenter of Mexico's cartel war, but lately, it's getting a reprieve. Violence is down sharply across the city: Children are playing outside again; shops and cafes have reopened; and some people are moving back. NPR's john Burnett visited with a Catholic priest whose parish was torn by the havoc. He's begun to reflect now that the worst appears to be over.
JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: Father Kevin Mullins steers his old Chevy pickup up a steep road to a hilltop dominated by a large statue of the virgin. She has a commanding view of this troubled corner of Christendom.
FATHER KEVIN MULLINS: Jump out and we'll look around for awhile if that's all right with you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINERY)
BURNETT: Here, the states of Texas, New Mexico and Chihuahua, Mexico, intersect amid barren hills freckled with ocotillo plants and greasewood. The graying priest with the kind, ruddy face squints north. He's Australian-born, a member of the Columban Fathers who are committed to social justice.
MULLINS: So you see the border fence down there, and then further to the south, you have Ciudad Juarez.
BURNETT: His Corpus Christi church is in Rancho Anapra, a hardscrabble barrio on the west side of Juarez that stares at El Paso across the sluggish Rio Grande. It's been a tough four years when massacres, beheadings and disappearances became as commonplace as dust storms in the Chihuahua Desert. As the cartels took over and security vanished, packs of freelance thugs roamed the city, extorting at will. No one was spared.
MULLINS: I heard on one occasion that a priest was threatened, his parents would be shot if the priest didn't pay up with the Sunday collection.
BURNETT: Giving last rites to bleeding bodies became as common as reciting the rosary. Father Mullins grew afraid, but he stayed. He says he wanted to be a witness to the suffering in his parish.
MULLINS: On average, we'd have one or two murder funerals a week for a couple of years, for at least three years, mainly young people, males between the ages of 15 and 25. I believe that we have seen a lessening of the violence. We haven't buried anyone because of the drug-related violence in I'd say about four months.
BURNETT: In 2010, there were more than 3,000 murders in Juarez, or one every three hours. It came to be called Murder City. Last year, there were fewer than 800 homicides, still high, but that counts as progress in Juarez. The government takes credit for jailing the gang leaders and for instituting social programs for at-risk youth. That's part of the explanation. But the word on the street is that the turf war is winding down because one side won: The interloping Sinaloa Cartel has all but defeated the local Juarez Cartel. Despite encouraging trends, the crime wave is by no means over.
JUAN PABLO PEREZ: (Foreign language spoken)
BURNETT: Juan Pablo Perez pays extortion every month to keep his meat market and grocery store open on Anapra's main street. He's a parishioner at Corpus Christi.
PEREZ: (Foreign language spoken)
BURNETT: Perez says a couple of years ago he paid $300 every month in protection money, which was collected by a 14-year-old girl who worked with the gangsters. Today, he pays them $120 every month. So, is that progress?
PEREZ: (Foreign language spoken)
BURNETT: No way, Perez says, it's a burden. In a neighborhood nearby, Reyna Hernandez sits by her gas heater bundled against the cold. Outside, the season's first snow carpets the muddy streets and rocky hillsides, turning them temporarily graceful. She works as a cook for the priests. She too has witnessed the tribulations the parish has gone through.
REYNA HERNANDEZ: (Through Translator) A lot of times, they lose their faith. Their faith weakens when they see so much death, so much blood. Some people who are in pain ask: Where is God? Why does he permit these things?
(SOUNDBITE OF CATHOLIC MASS)
BURNETT: The white-washed church, located on a dirt street off the main boulevard, became a refuge from the madness of the cartel war. A place of darkness in which evil thrives is how Juarez has been portrayed to the world. But Father Mullins sees another reality.
MULLINS: I see the results of darkness, but I also see the goodness and the courage and the bravery of people. I would see the hand of God in the midst of mayhem by people who were able to support each other, show great solidarity and kindness, love, hug, pray together.
BURNETT: In the past decade, some Catholic churches in Mexico have been criticized for accepting narco-limosnas, or drug money tithes. One chapel in Central Mexico bears a plaque honoring its patron: a late drug lord who led the ruthless Zetas Cartel. Father Mullins says that two years ago a woman with ties to a Juarez drug gang offered to pay for a youth center and basketball court next to his church. The long-planned project would give young people something to do besides joining a gang.
MULLINS: We couldn't accept what turns out to be blood money for works in the parish. We gratefully thanked her for her help and offer but politely refused.
BURNETT: Father Kevin Mullins is pleased to report that after he rejected the narco-tithe, other donors stepped forward and the spacious new youth center was completed last year. With violence decreasing all over this shell-shocked city, he prays the youth of Rancho Anapra will have a better chance to reach adulthood. John Burnett, NPR News.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block. When Congress passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, few would've predicted that one of the most contentious features would have to do with contraception. But today, there are more than 40 lawsuits challenging a requirement for most health plans to provide contraceptive coverage. The suits charge the government with violating religious freedom. And as NPR's Julie Rovner reports, it's not just religious groups making that claim.
JULIE ROVNER, BYLINE: Religious entities themselves, things like churches and groups that employ only members of a single faith, are exempt from the so-called contraceptive mandate. And the administration has promised to find a compromise to address the complaints of nonprofit groups like Catholic hospitals and universities. They employ people of many faiths but argue that providing contraception or sterilization services violates their beliefs. So, their lawsuits are on hold waiting until the administration acts.
But what about for-profit companies? David Green is the founder and CEO of Hobby Lobby, an arts and crafts chain with 500 stores in 41 states and more than 22,000 employees.
DAVID GREEN: Hobby Lobby has always been a tool for the Lord's work. For me and my family, charity equals ministry, which equals the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
ROVNER: Green said on a conference call last fall that he's always run his company in accordance with his Christian faith. His stores are not open on Sunday and his company contributes time and funds to Christian organizations, both in the U.S. and internationally. But he says the contraceptive requirement directly challenges that faith.
GREEN: And our family is now being forced to choose between following the laws of the land that we love or maintaining the religious beliefs that have made our business successful and has supported our family and thousands of our employees and their families.
ROVNER: But in the coming months, Green's choice will be to comply with the mandate or pay as much as $1.3 million a day in fines. That's because courts, including the Supreme Court, denied him an injunction that would've delayed the requirement while his lawsuit works its way through the courts. Hobby Lobby is one of four private companies that have sued but haven't been able to win a delay of the requirement. Ten other private lawsuits have been granted a temporary stay. But as Brigitte Amiri of the ACLU points out, only one of those cases so far has resulted in a decision on the religious discrimination arguments.
BRIGITTE AMIRI: And the court in that case held that the case should be dismissed because the plaintiff could not show that its religious liberty would be violated by the rule.
ROVNER: Amiri says she's hopeful and optimistic that in the end backers of the contraceptive coverage requirement will prevail, at least in the case of the private companies that are suing.
AMIRI: Once you enter the public sphere, and particularly when you operate a for-profit company, you can't impose your religious beliefs on your employees.
ROVNER: And she says there's plenty of court precedent to back that up.
AMIRI: The courts have routinely held that employers that have a religious objection, for example, to paying their female and male employees equally based on beliefs that the Bible says that men should be head of household, they still have to comply with federal law that says that you have to treat your male and female employees equally.
ROVNER: But Francis Manion, a senior counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, who is representing three of the for-profit companies suing over the mandate, says he thinks they have a good chance to prevail.
FRANCIS MANION: What all of these entities are arguing is that the mandate does in fact impose a substantial burden on their religious exercise or beliefs. And that the government cannot show a compelling interest in pursuing this mandate against these entities.
ROVNER: In other words, he says, the government might have other options to ensure that women get no-cost contraception.
MANION: For instance, we already have massive government programs that provide contraceptives for free.
ROVNER: Manion says one possibility would simply be to make that program universal, rather than limit it to people with low incomes. But that would likely raise the same fight that currently goes on over abortion, about whether people who object to something want their tax dollars used to pay for it. One thing those on both sides of the debate agree on, this is all likely to wind up before the Supreme Court probably next year. Julie Rovner, NPR News Washington.
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This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block. Thousands of victims of Hurricane Sandy are still out of their houses more than two months after the storm so some people in Connecticut hatched a plan. They've created a brand-new neighborhood with little homes just for people who are still displaced. Neena Satija of member station WNPR visited one family who lost everything on Staten Island.
They're now starting out over 100 miles north in New Milford, Connecticut.
NEENA SATIJA, BYLINE: Deborah Rassi is so happy to be unpacking. So what's in these bags here?
DEBORAH RASSI: Oh, your guess is as good as mine right now. Let's take a look.
SATIJA: Her brand-new home came with bags of donated clothing.
RASSI: One might be laundry. OK. This is a man's shirt and it looks like a pair of pants.
SATIJA: The Rassi's have been in New Milford for three days. John Hodge has been working on their little mobile home and 19 others like it for about two months.
JOHN HODGE: So the whole idea came together in about 20 minutes. Actually making it happen is another whole story.
SATIJA: Hodge is first selectman of a small town near New Milford. He was helping funnel donations into New York after Sandy and watching all these families get shuttled from one evacuation center to the next. So he got together with a mega-church in New Milford, which donated the use of four acres of land, and a New York foundation, which raised funds.
Hundreds more donated their time and money to put up a working neighborhood of 20 mobile homes, complete with wreaths on their doors, by Christmas. Hodge says he's never worked on anything like it.
HODGE: We had to put in sewer lines. We had to put in water lines, electric lines, cable, the whole works, telephone, the whole works.
SATIJA: Around 50 families have applied for 20 available spots. The Rassis are one of 13 families that have moved in so far. In their new neighborhood tucked into the hills, they were greeted with kitchen cupboards full of food and little bedrooms with fresh new linens. They can live here, rent free, for a year. After that, the land will go back to the church, and Hodge says the families will have a chance to buy the mobile homes.
ROBERT RASSI: This is really moving up in the world, you know, to have a place to sit down and everything.
SATIJA: Sixty-seven-year-old Robert Rassi is Deborah's husband. The two grew up in New York and they've lived on Staten Island for more than 30 years. Their daughter Leila had just moved back in with them and brought everything she owned along. Then, the house filled from floor to ceiling with water. The Rassis are hoping for some more money from FEMA, but at most, they'll get $30,000, not even a tenth of what they lost, says Leila Rassi.
Starting over here won't be easy. Unlike in Staten Island, nothing is within walking distance. The Rassis have one car, but they'll probably need another one. Still, some things are comfortingly familiar. And looking at the mountains in the distance, Deborah Rassi is flooded with memories of her old home.
RASSI: In the morning, like on a Saturday, I take my coffee, sit on the patio.
RASSI: Nature is really running wild through the area. Every kind of bird you can think of.
RASSI: I love nature. That's why being here, looking at the Berkshires, I'm very happy.
Deborah Rassi works in nursing administration. She just started to look for a job when the storm hit, and once she touches up her resume, she'll start looking again in the New Milford area. Leila Rassi is a researcher in Manhattan, a two-hour drive away, so she'll look for a new place closer to work. At the moment, she's just happy to have a place to breathe.
LEILA RASSI: And we're very lucky because there are neighbors of ours who are still sleeping in their moldy houses and sleeping in their cars overnight. So we recognize that this is truly a blessing.
SATIJA: The Rassis know this won't be a home forever. But with a place to get a good night's sleep, friendly neighbors and a closet of their own for what little they managed to salvage, they can finally start to rebuild. For NPR News, I'm Neena Satija in southern Connecticut.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block. And now, we'll check in on two of the big trends in energy production these days: first, the boom in natural gas and later the business of new oil exploration in the Arctic and some problems there. For decades, coal has been the king of electricity generation in the U.S. These days, natural gas is making a play for that title. And as NPR's Elizabeth Shogren reports, it's already scoring big wins in some unexpected places.
ELIZABETH SHOGREN, BYLINE: Just a few years ago, Georgia Power generated nearly three-quarters of its electricity with coal. Spokesman Mark Williams says those days are gone. Official data for 2012 isn't out yet.
MARK WILLIAMS: But we actually are going to see that we had more electricity produced from natural gas than from coal, which is a change for us.
SHOGREN: A big change, he says, brought about, largely, by low natural gas prices. This week, Georgia Power announced it wants to shut down 10 of its coal generators in the next few years. After that, coal plants would make up only a third of its fleet.
WILLIAMS: We do recognize this is a historic event for our company. We've never announced this many closings at one time.
SHOGREN: The company has already built three new natural gas plants. It's expanding a nuclear plant and going bigger into solar and wind. Industry experts say the switch from coal is a nationwide trend.
QUIN SHEA: We're seeing that across the board, regardless of the size of the companies.
SHOGREN: Quin Shea is vice president for environment at the Edison Electric Institute, the industry's trade group. He says in boardrooms across the country, electric companies are deciding that many coal plants, especially small, older ones, just don't make economic sense any more. Low price gas is only one factor. New federal rules require coal plants to clean up the mercury and other toxic chemicals in their exhausts. Installing those pollution controls makes no sense when gas is so cheap.
The shift has come faster than many electricity companies expected. Alan Beamon is an expert at the federal government's Energy Information Agency. He says, every year, utilities tell the government what their plans are for closing plants over the next decade.
ALAN BEAMON: A year ago those plans only included retirements of about 10- or 11,000 megawatts and now it's approaching 30,000 megawatts.
SHOGREN: That's nearly three times more plant closings than the companies predicted just a year earlier. Quin Shea, from the Edison Electric Institute, thinks even more coal plants will actually close over the next five years. He says whether the trend continues after 2018 depends on several factors: how much the economy and demand for electricity pick up, whether natural gas prices stay low, and if the federal government comes up with new regulations to limit greenhouse gases and clean up solid wastes from existing coal power plants.
Shea predicts there will be other losers in what he calls electric companies' dash to gas.
SHEA: We're not seeing any new coal built, we've talked about that. But we're also not seeing much occurring in the nuclear sphere. And importantly, the price of gas right now is really starting to freeze out demand for renewables.
SHOGREN: Still, natural gas is cleaner than coal, so greenhouse gas emissions from electricity generation are already decreasing. The Sierra Club's executive director, Michael Brune, predicts this good news will get even better as more coal plants close in the coming years.
MICHAEL BRUNE: So what that means is that those reductions will actually steepen over the next couple years. And it's happening in the absence of an overarching climate bill.
SHOGREN: But Brune says we can't rely on natural gas to stabilize the climate and stop the catastrophic effects of global warming that we got a taste of last year.
BRUNE: We're not even close to the pace of reductions that we need to see. If we really want to stop these droughts, wildfires and superstorms, we're going to have to accelerate the pace in which we move off of all fossil fuels.
SHOGREN: It's not just environmentalists who say this. Climate scientists agree. Brune says that means the country has to figure out a way to make the shift to natural gas a temporary one. Elizabeth Shogren, NPR News, Washington.
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It's been just a few years that the federal government has been in the business of approving how tobacco products are made and sold in this country. The Food and Drug Administration must review all new cigarettes or smokeless tobacco and any changes to existing brands. But the FDA has yet to clear any products under the new system. And NPR's Debbie Elliott reports some cigarette makers are frustrated with a backlog of applications.
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: The FDA typically evaluates new drugs and other products with a safe and defective standard.
LAWRENCE DEYTON: That standard doesn't work for tobacco products.
ELLIOTT: That's Lawrence Deyton. It's his job to figure out how a public health agency will regulate a consumer product that's proven to be addictive and deadly. He's director of FDA's new Center for Tobacco Products created by Congress in a 2009 law that gives FDA jurisdiction over tobacco. Deyton says because there's no safe way to smoke, for instance, the FDA is using what's calling a population health standard to evaluate tobacco.
DEYTON: I sort of think of it as a ceiling of harm. Things will get no worse and any changes or new products that come on the market have to be appropriate for the protection of public health or raise no different questions of public health.
ELLIOTT: Tobacco companies have not asked the agency to approve any new products so far, but have submitted more than 3,500 applications for changes to existing brands, changes that the companies say are so minor that they don't raise different questions of public health. The FDA has not approved any of the applications, some pending more than a year-and-a-half. Deyton says, they are getting the appropriate scientific scrutiny.
DEYTON: I'd rather get it right than get it fast.
ELLIOTT: Major cigarette makers declined to be interviewed by NPR for this story. But in a petition filed with the FDA, Lorillard calls the inaction a de facto embargo on new product introductions that hampers competition. Deyton says that's not the agency's intention.
DEYTON: We're absolutely not deliberately trying to slow products from getting to market.
ELLIOTT: But tobacco industry analyst Jack Russo of Edward Jones says the new regulatory framework is likely to slow the pace of getting products to the shelves.
JACK RUSSO: It's going to be tough to get really any new product through.
ELLIOTT: He says the apparent FDA logjam is frustrating for an industry looking to expand as more people quit smoking.
RUSSO: Anything you can get through to the public that could be new might help you outperform the competition a little bit in what is a very tough industry to grow. So every little bit helps, I guess is what I'm trying to say. But the FDA certainly isn't making it easy on anybody.
ELLIOTT: Anti-smoking activists believe the FDA hurdle is long overdue. Danny McGoldrick is vice president for research at the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids.
DANNY MCGOLDRICK: If it keeps the tobacco companies -- yeah, if they're going to whine about not being able to put their new products on the market as quickly as they would like, you know, the history of that, the history of their innovation shows us that it tends to make the products more addictive, more appealing and more harmful. And we don't need any more of that.
ELLIOTT: Some public health advocates would like to see FDA crack down even harder on the tobacco industry with actions like a ban on menthol-flavored cigarettes and tighter restrictions on advertising and marketing. The agency has tried to mandate harsh new warning labels, but cigarette makers have challenged them in court.
STANTON GLANTZ: It's not working very well at all.
ELLIOTT: Stan Glantz is the director of the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education at the University of California San Francisco. He thinks the FDA should reject all applications for changes to tobacco products.
GLANTZ: If making these changes wasn't doing something that was going to somehow positively affect sales, the companies wouldn't be doing it because they're in business to make money.
ELLIOTT: Money that is harder to make now that U.S. smoking rates have remained at about 20 percent for nearly ten years now. The question is whether FDA's new role can further curtail tobacco use, the leading preventable cause of death in the country. Debbie Elliott, NPR News.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block. The leader of Afghanistan has had a rocky relationship with the U.S., but today at the White House, President Hamid Karzai and President Obama spoke of progress. As NPR's Jackie Northam reports, today's discussion on what role the U.S. might play in Afghanistan in the future.
JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: The White House billed today's meeting as an opportunity for Presidents Obama and Karzai to discuss their vision for Afghanistan ahead of the withdrawal of the bulk of U.S. and NATO forces in 2014. At a joint news conference, President Obama said Afghan security forces have improved and that American and NATO forces will move to a support role this spring, several months earlier than planned.
Mr. Obama says accelerating that transition could affect the pace of the drawdown of U.S. troops.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I can't give you a precise number at this point. I'll probably make a separate announcement once I've gotten recommendations from troops - from the generals and our commanders in terms of what that drawdown might look like.
NORTHAM: President Karzai said he was happy with the decision to speed up the transition to Afghan control because it would satisfy one of his long held demands - that foreign forces move out of Afghan villages. Mr. Karzai also indicated another demand had been met.
PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI: We agreed on the complete return of detention centers and detainees to Afghan sovereignty and that this will be implemented soon after my return to Afghanistan.
NORTHAM: Till now, the U.S. had been reluctant to hand over full control of Afghan prisons for fear that some extremists could be released. One key issue that appeared not to be resolved concerns immunity for U.S. personnel remaining in Afghanistan after 2014. Mr. Obama stressed that any decision about a residual force hinges on an immunity agreement.
OBAMA: From my perspective, at least, it will not be possible for us to have any kind of U.S. troop presence post-2014 without assurances that our men and women who are operating there are in some way subject to the jurisdiction of another country.
NORTHAM: President Karzai said given the positive nature of today's meeting, he can now go back and make a case for immunity to his people. Jackie Northam, NPR News, Washington.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And now to our weekly political commentators, David Brooks of the New York Times and E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post and Brookings Institution. Welcome back to you both.
DAVID BROOKS: Good to be with you.
E.J. DIONNE: Good to be with you.
BLOCK: The meeting with the Afghan president, of course, comes at a time of a lot of transition for President Obama's second term cabinet. We had announcements this week of Chuck Hagel for secretary of Defense, John Brennan to head the CIA, and Jacob Lew to head Treasury, a number of other fit holes to fill. But I'm curious if, overall, you think those groups suggest any particular approach that the president will be taking in his second term. David, let's start with you.
BROOKS: Fifty shades of gray. You know, the president picks people who are safe. He picks people who are members of the establishment, the center left establishment. He picks people of integrity who aren't going to cause him any scandals. They're not going to cause any problems. But they're not fresh blood and I do think he's still within a pretty insular group. I think it's still something of a tired group.
I think, you know, we interview these people all the time. It's very hard to stay in these government jobs and stay intellectually fresh because the pace is so demanding. And so he hasn't really gone outside and surprised us with anybody. He's picked a lot of people who've been there for a long time. The other thing that strikes me as odd is that, especially among the Senators Hagel and Kerry, they're like Obama.
They were not particularly social senators. They're not particularly well connected. They're probably more intellectual than your average senators. He's gone from sort of team of rivals to a team of loners.
BLOCK: E.J.?
DIONNE: Safe, loyal, moderately progressive, male. I don't - I think Obama decided in his second term he wants people he's really comfortable with. Brennan is an interesting case in point. He's been very close to Obama on all the difficult decisions. He sends a guy to the CIA whom the CIA likes and Obama trusts. There's a lot of trust going on here. Obviously, we're going to talk about it, there is this perception and reality problem that he didn't name any women in this early group.
First, it tells us how much we've changed as a nation, that if he's confirmed, John Kerry will be the first white male secretary of state since Warren Christopher served in the early to mid-1990s. I think some of it is also a problem of timing, in the fact that Susan Rice as secretary of state got nixed by the opposition in the Senate.
BLOCK: One more thought in terms of the national security team, both Chuck Hagel and John Kerry, of course, served in Vietnam. And I wonder whether you think that experience of war bears on their approach to foreign policy and to U.S. might. David Brooks?
BROOKS: They are what we call realists, which is to say they're not particularly devoted to humanitarian or human rights interventions, the way Susan Rice was a little more. They're both very cautious about the use of American power and so I'm really struck by how both these decisions, especially the Hagel decision and how much of our foreign policy is really driven by money and notably our lack of money.
We have no money to do Afghanistan. We don't really have money to do Iraq. I'm not sure we have money to do much else, given the amount of defense cuts we're going to be facing because of the budget problems.
BLOCK: E.J.?
DIONNE: It's fascinating that Hagel and Kerry now have drawn broadly the same experiences from Vietnam in the sense that they were both very reluctant to commit American lives unless there is a very good reason for it. At the time, Kerry came out of the war as a strong anti-war voice, Hagel did not and his transition, the transition in his views happened over time.
But I think (unintelligible) Hagel will be the first former enlisted person to serve as secretary of defense. I think that will serve him well. I think it's going to be a real selling point in the hearings. But Obama is trying to remake American foreign policy, first and foremost, by getting our act together at home and he wants to get us out of Afghanistan.
He wants to do some trimming at the Defense Department and I think Hagel is somebody who is willing to do that, as a critic of, if you will, certain Pentagon bloat. That will be an issue when they argue about Hagel's confirmation.
BLOCK: And E.J., you mentioned the criticism that the new cabinet is shaping up to be not terribly diverse when you look at gender or race. Your colleague at the Washington Post op-ed page, Ruth Marcus, has said that it looks drearily disappointing. She says this lack of diversity, she says, it's "Mad Men" goes to Washington, except Peggy's leaving. Fair critique?
DIONNE: Well, she said also, I think President Obama should take a cue from Mitt Romney and get a binder full of women.
BLOCK: A binder full of women.
DIONNE: Some of it's - it's fair enough that you look at the way this has come out and these are all white guys. On the other hand, it is partly a matter of botched timing. You not only had all these males named, but you had Lisa Jackson leaving the EPA. You had Hilda Solis, the labor secretary, announcing her retirement. I think this bodes very well for women in future appointments.
For example, I think the solicitor at the labor department, Patricia Smith, is now mentioned as the leading candidate. I have a bias here 'cause I've known her for years. Rebecca Blank is the acting secretary of commerce. She might have a better shot at becoming secretary of commerce. I think you're going to see Obama do some correcting here.
BLOCK: David Brooks, is there a diversity problem, in your eyes?
BROOKS: A bit of one. There's still Valerie Jarrett, who is the most important person in the administration.
DIONNE: Yes, that's very important.
BROOKS: Which is worth pointing out. But would it kill him to have anybody who has any business experience or any significant business experience? They don't really do that. He doesn't have too many people who have served in their educational career outside of the Harvard/Yale axis. It would be a little nice to go outside that axis. I say that at the risk of saying that in this room, surrounded by you guys. But I'm saying it anyway.
DIONNE: I accept that point. By the way, it's got to be mentioned. Two appointees to the Supreme Court that were both women. That's not trivial.
BLOCK: I want to move on and talk about guns. Vice President Biden has been meeting with a number of stakeholders this week to discuss gun policy and I did speak today with the president of the NRA, David Keene. We're going to be hearing that interview elsewhere in the program.
And I want to play you a bit of what he said, one of the basic fundamental ideas that the NRA advocates.
DAVID KEENE: We believe that the problem is not the firearm, it's not the AR-15, it's not the pistol, or in the case of a killer with a knife, it's not the knife, it's the person wielding the firearm or wielding the knife. And what you have to do is punish those who would misuse these inanimate objects.
BLOCK: And David, the NRA came out of those meetings at the White House saying they felt they were basically useless. Do you see any progress toward any consensus on gun control or gun violence prevention?
BROOKS: Yeah, I actually think we're going to see something. I do not think we're going to see an armed - a weapons assault ban, the way Senator Dianne Feinstein would like. I do think we're going to close the gun-show loophole. I do think we're going to have a better registry, checking people, more background checks. So I can see a lot of sort of pro-gun senators not taking the absolutist line of the NRA and doing these modest reforms.
BLOCK: And E.J., very briefly?
DIONNE: It's not the car, it's the driver. So we shouldn't have seatbelt laws? I think that argument is getting very stale. I agree that there is going to be action, and I think one of the things to watch is what kind of moderate Northeastern Republicans, what do they do? You need Republican votes in the House. I think it's a real challenge to them to say we're going to break with ideology here and do something practical.
I do think there's a good chance on the magazines, on universal background checks. I hope the assault weapons ban isn't dead. That seems to be the one that is the hardest to pass.
BLOCK: OK, thanks so much to you both. Have a good weekend.
DIONNE: Thank you.
BROOKS: Thank you.
BLOCK: David Brooks of The New York Times and E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and Brookings Institution.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Earlier this week, the U.S. Department of Transportation finally got serious about something on hybrid cars that we highlighted six years ago on this program. My co-host Robert Siegel was the guide.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The once-predictable sounds of a traffic intersection are now changing. So, out to K Street behind our building in Washington, D.C. This is actually a pretty shabby patch of the street that's renowned for lobbyists a little farther west. On our bit of it, the prostitution is not figurative. And here is the sound of a car approaching.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR)
SIEGEL: Now here's the sound of a hybrid approaching and going past us. That was a pretty subtle sound. And the problem for people who are blind is that the hybrid is the motorized equivalent of a pair of sneakers.
BLOCK: Well, for the first time, on Monday, the Transportation Department proposed minimum sound standards for hybrid and electric vehicles. Cyclists and pedestrians, especially those who are visually impaired, have little warning of an approaching vehicle with a silent engine. So, the National Highway Safety Administration posted some possible sounds to its website, such as this...
(SOUNDBITE OF SOUND)
BLOCK: And this...
(SOUNDBITE OF SOUND)
BLOCK: And this...
(SOUNDBITE OF SOUND)
BLOCK: Well, we think that you, the listener, can come up with some far more interesting and creative sounds for hybrid and electric cars. Please send us your suggestions of existing sounds, perhaps of music...
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BLOCK: Or maybe a famous quote...
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "A STREETCAR NAMED DESIRE")
BLOCK: Or something completely different.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE)
BLOCK: Or you can email us your own suggested sounds for hybrid and electric cars. We ask that they be about 15 seconds long. Send them to alltech@npr.org. You can also go to our website, npr.org, and click on contact us.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block. France is rushing to the aid of the government in Mali. A group of radical Islamists has taken over the north of that African nation, which was once a French colony. French President Francois Hollande calls them terrorists who threaten the entire world, and he's sending in troops. He's NPR's Eleanor Beardsley.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Just after 6 p.m. this evening in France, President Hollande addressed the nation to confirm the rumors that had been circulating all day.
PRESIDENT FRANCOIS HOLLANDE: (Speaking foreign language).
BEARDSLEY: In the name of France, I answered the Malian president's call for help, said Hollande. French forces, this afternoon, began helping Malian units fight against these terrorist elements.
For the last year, the world has watched in horror as the Islamist radical group Ansar Dine took over northern Mali. The brutal fanatics, as Hollande called them, destroyed ancient tombs in Timbuktu, then went on to institute Sharia law, cutting off limbs and doling out public lashings as thousands of citizens fled to the south.
There has been talk of an international intervention for months, but the situation came to a head this week, says Francois Heisbourg with the Paris-based Foundation for Strategic Research.
FRANCOIS HEISBOURG: It's a sudden decision prompted by a sudden change on the ground in Mali. Yesterday, the jihadis started moving towards the second-largest city in the country. The alarm bells started ringing very, very loudly this morning.
BEARDSLEY: Heisbourg says France sent special forces and combat aircraft and transport helicopters that were stationed in neighboring Chad. Hollande said the terrorist group threatens not only Mali and West Africa but Europe and the international community, as well.
HOLLANDE: (Speaking foreign language).
BEARDSLEY: Terrorists must know that France will always be there when it comes to the rights of a people who want to live in freedom and democracy, said the French president. Hollande said the military operation would last as long as necessary, but he was careful to point out that France was fighting with its African partners under the legitimacy of a U.N. Security Council resolution. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
When the British TV star Sir Jimmy Savile died in 2011 at the age of 84, his country honored him as a hero. It was a national scandal last year when evidence emerged that Savile was, in fact, a sex criminal. And there was anger over the fact that he was never called to account. A three-month investigation ensued and today, those investigators spelled out the scale of Savile's abuses over six decades. NPR's Philip Reeves has the details.
PHILIP REEVES, BYLINE: Debra Coga had a troubled childhood. She ran away, and wound up in a children's home. Jimmy Savile was a regular visitor. Forty years have passed since then. Coga still remembers everything.
DEBRA COGA: He would bring records, sweets and cigarettes; and eat with us, give us our treats.
REEVES: Coga dreaded Savile's visits.
COGA: I hated him.
REEVES: Other girls in the home warned Coga that Savile was a sexual predator. Her description of him portrays a man confident he was famous enough to get away with it.
COGA: You know, you'd sort of look at him, out the corner of your eye, and see where he was; circling the room. He'd be like - I'd describe it as picking a chocolate, you know. He would sort of sidle around the room until he decided who he wanted to molest.
REEVES: One day, Savile picked her. She was 14. Coga became one of hundreds of Savile's victims.
(SOUNDBITE OF "TOP OF THE POPS")
REEVES: Savile was among Britain's best-known entertainers. He rose to fame in the '60s. His huge success in show biz, and particularly as a charity fundraiser, won him a knighthood. He was honored by the pope. Today, the scale of Savile's crimes was laid out in stark detail. London's Metropolitan Police, and a children's charity, published the results of a three-month, joint investigation.
This found most of his victims were children. Many, though far from all, were girls. Most were between 13 and 16. The youngest was 8. Police have logged more than 200 crimes committed by Savile over six decades, including 34 rapes. That makes him the most prolific sexual predator on police record, says Commander Peter Spindler(ph) of Scotland Yard.
CMDR. PETER SPINDLER: His footprints of offending across the U.K. is unprecedented, in our recording of so many crimes against so many people.
REEVES: Savile committed these abuses in hospitals, in schools, and on the premises of the British Broadcasting Corporation, his employer for decades. Revelations about his activities, last year, triggered a crisis at the BBC; made worse because it shelved an investigative story exposing Savile as a sex criminal.
The allegations against Savile have never been tested in court. Yet, says Spindler, so many victims separately tell the same story that Savile's criminality is beyond doubt.
SPINDLER: It would be beyond belief to say that they've all made it up. You can actually see his abuse in some of the TV programs. The victims have highlighted it. There's an example from "Top Of The Pops," where you can actually see him abusing on-camera.
REEVES: Numerous investigations are now under way in Britain, into why Savile was never brought to justice. Some of his victims did complain to the police. Police and prosecutors have vowed that sex abuse victims won't be ignored in future. Spindler again.
SPINDLER: This sordid affair shows the tragic consequences of what happens when vulnerability collides with power. And we need to learn the lessons from this, to make sure this never happens again.
REEVES: Police say they hope that by shining a light on Savile's crimes, today's report will bring some comfort to the many he abused. For at least one victim, that's worked. Debra Coga says she's glad that 40 years on, the truth about Savile is out.
COGA: It's helped me - and I'm sure it's helped a lot of others, too - just to be able to finally be believed.
REEVES: Philip Reeves, NPR News, London.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
All over Australia - Alice Springs, Adelaide, Sydney, Wagga Wagga - it's been an extremely hot summer and it's expected to get hotter. The continent is experiencing a record-breaking heat wave. Roads have melted in 108-degree temperatures in the Outback and wildfires are raging in New South Wales. The heat is so persistent that the Bureau of Meteorology added two new colors to its official maps - pink and deep purple.
Get into the purple and you could be talking 129 degrees. Joining me now from Melbourne to talk about Australia's heat wave is Karl Braganza. He's manager of climate monitoring at the bureau's national climate center. Mr. Braganza, what is the hottest that it's been there this week?
KARL BRAGANZA: The hottest temperature we recorded was on at night and that was 120 degrees.
BLOCK: 120?
BRAGANZA: That's right, 120. Actually, since the 2nd of January, somewhere in Australia, over quite a large area, actually, has recorded between 119 and 120 degrees.
BLOCK: And how unusual is that?
BRAGANZA: Typically, Australia's a bit like the U.S. There's some parts that will stay hot right throughout summer. These temperatures have basically been raging over about 1,000 kilometers. So we're talking a really large area of the continent has experienced temperatures above 102, about 70 percent of the continent.
BLOCK: This also has been going on for some time, right? This is a run of soaring temperatures that goes back to the spring.
BRAGANZA: Yeah. Look, Australia came out of, actually, quite a rainfall period over the last two years. That kind of died down in our autumn, which is March 2012. And from about June, yeah, we've had very dry conditions and record heat in the last four months of 2012.
BLOCK: And I did read that people trying to pump gasoline couldn't do it because of the extreme heat. The gas was evaporating, was vaporizing.
BRAGANZA: Yeah, there's all sorts of strange accounts from right in the interior. There are some towns in the hottest parts. Thankfully, they're sparsely populated.
BLOCK: What kinds of things are you seeing? I mean, how are people changing their routines there in Australia to beat the heat or adapt to it?
BRAGANZA: Yeah. Look, I think these days it involves staying inside. You know, air conditioning is accessible to most people, so some of the towns, like (unintelligible) which is a town in the middle of south Australia, people basically have been locking down during the day there, I think.
BLOCK: Just locking down. Just not going out.
BRAGANZA: Yeah. That's right.
BLOCK: What can you tell us about the wildfires that we mentioned? They've been called catastrophic and so intense, apparently, that they're visible from the space station. I've seen images of that.
BRAGANZA: Australia is normally fire-prone at this time of year. What we've got now is more than 100 fires burning in the southeast. Really, what we're seeing is temperatures in the record territory and it's the duration of this event combined with that flooding before that. We've basically got a really high forest flooded out there that's dried out now. So that's leading to catastrophic fire conditions when the wind is favorable.
BLOCK: So if somebody says to you, as the guy in charge of climate monitoring there, are we seeing the effects of global warming, what do you say?
BRAGANZA: Certainly, we are seeing the effects. It's not really the right question to ask, whether global warming caused this one event. The right question is, are we seeing a change in the frequency of these events as the planet warms. And that is certainly what we're seeing. Extreme heat events are becoming more frequent around the world and they're certainly becoming more frequent in Australia, particularly in the last decade or more.
BLOCK: Well, if you look at that map with these two new colors, pink and deep purple, what's the outlook going forward? Are you seeing any relief in sight or does it look like it's going to be getting hotter and hotter?
BRAGANZA: Certainly, in the interior part of the continent that heat looks like it's going to continue for the foreseeable future. We've got a tropical cyclone, what you guys call a hurricane, forming off our northwest coast. And another one may be following it in a few days' time and that is actually starting to bring some cloud across the continent.
Some of the coastal fringes and out west hopefully cooler temperatures through the next week or so. But some of those regions where the fires are already burning are predicted to be very hot, hovering around that 115, 119 mark through the next week at least.
BLOCK: Karl Braganza, thanks for talking to us about it.
BRAGANZA: No problem.
BLOCK: That's Karl Braganza with Australia's Bureau of Meteorology's National Climate Centre in Melbourne.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
It has been a week of talk about gun violence, and in this part of the program, we'll hear about the wrap-up of several days of White House meetings that are aimed at eventual action. We'll also hear from the president of the National Rifle Association about the NRA's views on gun laws.
First, the White House effort. Vice President Biden has been leading that. He's consulted with a wide array of stakeholders: advocates for and against gun control, victims, retailers and mental health organizations. And he's met with the entertainment industry; last night, a closed-door meeting with TV, movie and music producers. Today, the video game industry, as NPR's Ari Shapiro reports from the White House.
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: The rapper M.I.A. discovered something catchy with her megahit "Paper Planes." The sound of gunfire makes a tight hook.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PAPER PLANES")
SHAPIRO: The group Foster the People had a sunnier-sounding hit with their song "Pumped Up Kicks." You can listen to it a bunch of times before realizing the lyrics describe a kid with a gun walking into a school and opening fire.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PUMPED UP KICKS")
SHAPIRO: While it's easy to find violence in movies and music, video games are even less subtle.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO GAME, "BULLETSTORM")
SHAPIRO: That's from the game "Bulletstorm," one of several that the National Rifle Association's Wayne LaPierre called out last month, saying they contribute to a culture of violence.
WAYNE LAPIERRE: And they play murder, portray murder as a way of life, and then they all have the nerve to call it entertainment.
SHAPIRO: This is a rare precinct within the gun debate where the White House and the NRA actually agree. The Obama administration believes the entertainment industry has an important role to play in the conversation about gun violence. But at the start of his meeting with video game executives this afternoon, Vice President Biden said he's not targeting them per se.
VICE PRESIDENT JOSEPH BIDEN: I want you to know you have not been, quote, "singled out for help."
SHAPIRO: David Horowitz is executive director of the Media Coalition. It's a group that advocates for entertainment producers' freedom of speech. He says the government should not be deciding what's acceptable entertainment.
DAVID HOROWITZ: The discretion is left to the consumer to decide what he or she thinks is appropriate for him or herself or, in the case of a parent, for a child.
SHAPIRO: He says stories of violence have been used as entertainment for all of human history. "The Iliad" is one long chronicle of blood and violence. And Horowitz noted...
HOROWITZ: The second story in the Bible is the story of fratricide.
SHAPIRO: The entertainment industry is just one part of the conversation about guns. The White House is looking at legislative and executive options that could help limit gun violence, and Biden said today he's keeping an open mind.
BIDEN: We know there's no single answer, and quite frankly, we don't even know whether some of the things people think impact on this actually impact on it or not.
SHAPIRO: The vice president plans to present a package of gun control recommendations to President Obama on Tuesday. Ari Shapiro, NPR News, the White House.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
The National Rifle Association was highly critical of the administration after its meeting yesterday with Vice President Biden. In a statement afterward, the NRA said the meeting was part of an agenda to attack the Second Amendment. The group added: We will not allow law-abiding gun owners to be blamed for the acts of criminals and madmen.
I'm joined now by NRA President David Keene. Mr. Keene, welcome to the program.
DAVID KEENE: It's a pleasure to be with you.
BLOCK: I know the NRA has said, we should put armed guards in schools; we need to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. But apart from those measures, I wonder if you can accept any limitations at all on the sale of guns and ammunition; starting, for example, with universal background checks for gun purchases, including private sales at gun shows.
KEENE: Yeah, I've said earlier that the problem with that - and I'd like to see the administration's proposal because it's very, very difficult to do. Relatively few guns, in spite of some wild numbers that you see thrown around, are sold privately. Let me explain what a private sale is. If you purchase a gun either from a dealer or at a gun show, or anywhere else from a federally licensed firearms dealer, you have to go - undergo a background check.
BLOCK: Right.
KEENE: Now, if you and I - if I sell you my shotgun personally, I don't need a license anymore than I need a dealer's license to sell you my car. The problem was trying to check those people. You can do it at a gun show. You can't legally now because I can't check you - because I can't legally access, as an individual, that system. That has to be done by a dealer.
BLOCK: If you saw a proposal that satisfied you, in some way; that yes, they figured out a way that they could facilitate background checks through dealers, through the ATF for private sales - theoretically - would you support that?
KEENE: We'd have to see it because one of the things that we are adamantly opposed to and presently, something which is prohibited, is the keeping of a national registry of firearms.
BLOCK: And why are you so opposed to that? Why shouldn't there be a registry of people who own firearms?
KEENE: A registry of people who own firearms - citizens who've broken no law, who are not prohibited from owning firearms - would be very dangerous because it can easily result in confiscation of those firearms. For example, both Sen. Feinstein of California, and Gov. Cuomo of New York, have suggested what they call a forced buyback. In other words, if they know that you have a gun - and this has happened in other countries - you can be required to turn it in and be sold, you know, for a hundred bucks or 50 bucks, back to the government.
You know, the right to own a firearm privately, in this country, is guaranteed by the Constitution. And making it difficult, or putting conditions on it other than those that are legitimate under constitutional interpretation, is very difficult.
BLOCK: Let me ask you about another idea ...
KEENE: Sure.
BLOCK: ...that's under consideration by Vice President Biden; which would be to restrict the purchase of high-capacity magazines, which have been used in many of the mass shootings that we've seen recently. Why is that not a good idea?
KEENE: Well, there are a couple of reasons. It sounds like a good idea. The fact is that it doesn't make very much difference. It takes anybody who's familiar with any of these firearms maybe a second to change the magazine. They're also very difficult to restrict. There are millions of them out there. They cost virtually nothing to produce. There are no serial numbers on them.
And the real question, in our minds, is people who shouldn't have firearms - and this includes, frankly, virtually all of the people who've been involved in these mass shootings. Virtually all of them have displayed to others - who have either ignored the signs or just let it go - have shown signs of being potentially, dangerously, violently mentally ill. Those people shouldn't have any firearms.
BLOCK: Let me ask you this: The man who's charged with the mass shooting at the Aurora, Colo., movie theater had built up an arsenal totaling 6,000 rounds in just four months. He also had a high-capacity drum magazine that could hold 100 rounds. And he could get those with no background check. There's no limit on purchases, no reporting requirement. Do you see anything wrong with that? Should anyone be allowed to amass that kind of arsenal?
KEENE: That's not - for people who are in sport shooting, that's not a particularly significant quantity of ammunition.
BLOCK: That's not much, you're saying.
KEENE: That's not much. And what's the difference between the 20 shells or so that you might use to shoot someone, and the hundred or 3,000, or whatever he could - you can't carry those around. You buy those, particularly if you're going to the range a lot because you can use up a lot of ammunition in sport and competitive shooting.
Now, interestingly, this guy that was in the Aurora shooting - his nature, and the fact that there might be something wrong with him, was spotted by a lot of people. The only person who acted on that was a firearms dealer who looked at him and said, I think this guy's crazy, and I'm not going to sell him a gun.
BLOCK: One other provision or idea that's out there, that I just wanted to run by you - why should there not be a background check for ammunition sales? If you do background checks for gun sales, why not for ammunition?
KEENE: Well, it's very different because gun sales have serial numbers. Gun sales are checked. They're sold at gun dealers. You know, it's onerous, on the one hand. That would be very expensive, in terms of bureaucracy, on the other - and would accomplish nothing, or next to nothing. So you know, when you talk about regulations, and when you talk about laws to get citizens to do one thing or the other, you have to ask yourself, what would that accomplish? Would that prevent this kind of shooting? And there's no reason to believe that it would, so why would you do it?
BLOCK: You know, a lot of folks on the other side, though, Mr. Keene, would say, you can't say that it won't accomplish anything because we haven't really tried before. And when the assault weapons ban was in effect, it was watered down to the point of being ineffective.
KEENE: Well, the fact of the matter is that unless you're talking about the confiscation and elimination of firearms, none of these things are going to make much difference. They haven't made much of a difference elsewhere, and they aren't going to make much difference here. So when you combine the fact that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of people who are not breaking any laws to own and enjoy firearms in this country, for self-protection; to collect them; to use them in sport shooting, for hunting and the like; when you combine all those things, there is no effective reason for doing what these folks suggest.
Most of these are what I called feel-good laws. I mean, if you're a member of Congress, you could go back and say, you know, I banned assault weapons. I banned magazines. I made them register this or register that. But in the final analysis, the question then is, and is that going to prevent the kind of violence we're trying to prevent? And the answer to that demonstrably, historically and empirically, is no, it doesn't.
BLOCK: Mr. Keene, let me ask you this...
KEENE: Sure.
BLOCK: The homicide rate by firearms in this country is nearly 20 times higher than other wealthy countries. We have the highest gun ownership rate in the world, and we have the most permissive gun laws in - these same countries. Why are we so out of whack? And are you saying there's no connection between the number of guns, and the number of deaths by guns?
KEENE: Well, interestingly, the homicide rate in this country, over the last couple of decades, has been cut in half while the number of guns has virtually doubled. So in that sense, it's difficult to make a statistical correlation between the two...
BLOCK: But we're still very skewed, when you look at the...
KEENE: Just a second now - if you go to some of these other countries, you know, they'll say, well, there are not as many people killed with guns because there aren't guns available. That doesn't mean there aren't as many people killed. They may be killed for other reasons. Just as an example, if we look at statistics here in this country, in 2010 - which was the last year that the FBI has the published figures for - more people were beaten to death than were killed by all long arms, including so-called assault rifles, in total.
We believe that the problem is not the firearm. It's not the AR-15. It's not the pistol. Or in the case of a killer with a knife, it's not the knife. It's the person wielding the firearm, or wielding the knife. And what you have to do is punish those who would misuse these inanimate objects.
BLOCK: I want to go back to the statistics you were talking about, in terms of long arms and beatings. Mr. Keene, I'm looking at those same numbers, I think, from the FBI. And for 2011, 728 murder victims due to beatings; 8,583 from firearms, including long arms, handguns and others.
KEENE: That's including....
BLOCK: More than 10 times.
KEENE: That number includes all people that were killed by firearms...
BLOCK: Correct.
KEENE: ...including pistols. Most were killed by pistols. It includes justifiable homicides. It includes self-defense. So that's a raw number. When it's broken down - and I was talking about long arms, which is what the administration is talking about banning - you find out that it's - I don't know the exact number, but it's 236, or something of that sort.
BLOCK: David Keene is president of the National Rifle Association. Mr. Keene, thank you.
KEENE: My pleasure, anytime.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
Boeing's celebrated but troubled jumbo jet, the 787 Dreamliner, has been having more troubles. And today, the Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Transportation said they will review the plane's design, manufacturing and assembly. This comes after a series of problems, including a fuel leak and a battery fire. Here's Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood speaking on a conference call today.
SECRETARY RAY LAHOOD: We will look for the root causes of recent events and do everything we can to ensure these events don't happen again.
BLOCK: NPR's Yuki Noguchi has this story about what the government review means.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: When it launched the aircraft three years ago, Boeing hosted global Dream Tours of the 787.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: An around-the-world flight that set records for speed and distance for its weight class. In just...
NOGUCHI: It had been more than 15 years since a new aircraft had gone through a regulatory certification process that requires some 200,000 hours of tests. Regulators took pains to stand by the safety of the airplane, at the same time acknowledging it wanted to delve deeper into recent incidents. Boeing executives compared the 787's recent stumbles to teething problems, standard growing pains of a young plane. Richard Aboulafia is a vice president with Teal Group, an aviation analysis firm.
RICHARD ABOULAFIA: This is a much greater level of troubles than are typical. But on the other hand, there are a lot more new, innovative technologies on board.
NOGUCHI: Aboulafia says the plane relies on more complex electrical systems that use lithium-ion batteries and is built of a new carbon-fiber composite. Also, following a three-year production delay, Boeing rapidly ramped up assembly, much of which was outsourced. Aboulafia says any of these factors could be contributing to the hiccups.
ABOULAFIA: I think plane was in danger going from buzzed to concern in the minds of the traveling public. And upfront, a review like this only heightens those anxieties. But on the other hand, it's really important to make certain that people know that everything is being handled.
NOGUCHI: Carter Leake is senior equity analyst with BB&T Capital Markets. Leake says, likely, the 787's problems won't threaten public safety. Part of the problem, he says, is that the 787 is such a high-profile plane, its stumbles attract scrutiny that other planes wouldn't.
CARTER LEAKE: If you were to look around the world any given day, there are failures for gear to come down, engine failures. This is a normal course of business. You just don't hear about it.
NOGUCHI: He says the review is still a headache for Boeing, which will have the FAA looking over its shoulder. The company will also have to appease its airline customers, which, in addition to safety, care about keeping their planes running on time.
Have you ever flown on one of these?
LEAKE: I have not. I have not.
NOGUCHI: Would you?
LEAKE: I would. I would. You know, I was a former military and commercial pilot and also ran a small airline. So I get how airplanes behave, and I fully understand, you know, the redundancy built in. So I'm comfortable with it and really so should the public.
NOGUCHI: The FAA did not say how long its review might take. It will depend on what the investigation uncovers. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
A company that sells weight loss shakes and vitamins has found itself the subject of a billion-dollar wager. The company is Herbalife, and two hedge fund titans are making huge bets about it. One says Herbalife is a pyramid scheme that's bound to collapse. The other says it's a great company. So what's going on? NPR's David Kestenbaum with our Planet Money team joins us to explain. And, David, tell us more about this company and this billion-dollar wager about it.
DAVID KESTENBAUM, BYLINE: Herbalife is a - it's a pretty big company. It's been around for over 30 years, currently worth around $4 billion. And it sells weight loss shakes and nutrition bars and that kind of stuff all around the world. And the way it sells is really interesting. Have ever you been to a Tupperware party?
BLOCK: I have not, no.
KESTENBAUM: But it's basically like that. It's a - the company relies on people who use and love the products to sell them mostly out of their homes, stuff like that. And they reward people for recruiting more sellers. The technical term for this is multilevel marketing. It's the way Tupperware, Amway and Avon, companies like that work.
BLOCK: OK. So that's the company. And then in come these two hedge fund managers. Tell us more about them.
KESTENBAUM: So the first guy who says this is a pyramid scheme, his name is Bill Ackman, and he runs a very well-known hedge fund, Pershing Square Capital Management. And last month, he announced that his fund has taken out a $1 billion short position, basically betting that the stock is going to collapse all the way to zero. And if that happens, his hedge fund will make $1 billion.
BLOCK: Mm-hmm.
KESTENBAUM: So on the other side is another hedge fund manager, Dan Loeb. He runs a fund called Third Point, and he says it's preposterous. This is not a pyramid scheme. He is also betting that he is right. This week, he says his fund owns 8 percent of the company's entire stock because he thinks the stock is actually going to go up. So you have two really accomplished investors who've studied this. They come to opposite conclusions, and only one of them can be right.
BLOCK: And what's the argument behind the claim that Herbalife is a pyramid scheme? It's a really strong charge to make, a company that's survived for 30 years, as you say.
KESTENBAUM: Pyramid schemes can go on for years and years before they do collapse. But, I mean, the classic pyramid scheme, right, is like one of those chain letter scams. You get a letter that says, hey, here's a way to make $50,000 quick. Just pass this letter on to five of your friends. Each of your five friends will pass it on to five of their friends. They will pass it on to five of their friends and we'll each send $1 in the mail to some of people before us. And because the number of people involved grows exponentially, you will get thousands of $1 bills in the mail. But really, this only works for so long until you run out of people and you're just passing money up the pyramid to the earlier people who started it. And that's a classic pyramid scheme. That's illegal. And what Bill Ackman says, who's shorting the company...
BLOCK: Yeah.
KESTENBAUM: ...is that that what he think is happening here. The company, he says, is recruiting a pyramid of sellers. But they aren't really selling a lot outside the pyramid. He says they're basically just trying to recruit other people to get money, and he figures eventually the whole thing will eventually collapse.
BLOCK: Well, Herbalife is trying to debunk the claim that it's a pyramid scheme. They held a special investor meeting this week. You went to the meeting. Did it seem to make a difference?
KESTENBAUM: It was at the New York Four Seasons Hotel here and I went. And while the presentations were happening, I watched on my phone the stock price just to see how the markets were reacting to, you know, every word. And stock went up a bit, went down a bit, basically closed unchanged. Overall, since questions started being raised about the company, which was actually back in May, stock price is down significantly. It's lost about 40 percent of its value since then.
BLOCK: And is there any way, David, to say when we find might find out which of these two hedge fund managers is right about Herbalife?
KESTENBAUM: Pyramid schemes, you know, they are illegal, right? So the Federal Trade Commission could look into Herbalife. And if it can show this it's a pyramid scheme, it could shut the company down. There are news reports this week that the SEC has opened an investigation. I talked to Bill Ackman, the guy who's shorting the company, this week, and he says he thinks - I said, you know, when will we know? And he said, I think you will know within the year who is right. And he said, you know, of course, he thinks it's him who's right.
BLOCK: And one little footnote here. These two hedge fund managers are both friends, right?
KESTENBAUM: They definitely travel in the same circles and know each other.
BLOCK: Friends and rivals, I think.
KESTENBAUM: They just have very different opinions on this one matter.
BLOCK: OK. David Kestenbaum with NPR's Planet Money team. David, thanks so much.
KESTENBAUM: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BLOCK: This is NPR.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
The U.S. government has begun an urgent high level review of drilling operations in the Arctic Ocean run by the Shell Oil Company. The move follows a series of accidents and trouble with Shell's drilling rigs and oil spill response equipment. Shell is a major presence in the Arctic. The company has spent more than $4.5 billion on exploration there. NPR science correspondent Richard Harris has been reporting on Shell's efforts and he joins me now.
And Richard, let's start with what's happening right now. One of Shell's oil rigs ran aground on New Year's Eve off the coast of Alaska. What's the status of that rig now?
RICHARD HARRIS, BYLINE: Well, the Kulluk, yeah, did hit the rocks off of Kodiak Island after the tugboats that were carrying it lost control of it in a big storm. Not unusual storm, but a bit storm for Alaska and after sitting on the rocks for a week, they've towed it into a quiet bay. It's now being examined by unmanned underwater submarines and Shell hopes that if it is all OK that it will tow it to Seattle for repairs.
But if those repairs are extensive, which is possible, that could set them back. They might not be able to drill next season.
BLOCK: And there was concern about an oil spill from that rig. That didn't happen, right?
HARRIS: There was no oil spill, that's correct.
BLOCK: That is just the latest of Shell's troubles, though, Richard. What else has gone wrong for them?
HARRIS: Well, last summer, the other drilling rig that Shell was using broke its moorings at a harbor in the Aleutian Islands. Shell says it didn't actually come aground, but it was certainly close, when you look at the pictures. Also, the oil spill equipment that was being tested in Puget Sound by Shell and its contractors failed spectacularly. One huge piece that was sort of a capping dome ended up crushed like a beer can in the words of one of the federal observers onboard.
Another oil response vessel has actually had a huge amount of trouble getting certified by the Coast Guard and as a result of that, last summer, Shell could drill a little bit into the ocean, but they couldn't drill into oil bearing rock. And on top of all that, just yesterday, the EPA said that Shell's scaled back operations in the Arctic still violated their air pollution permits and so they got a bunch of violations they have to sort out as well.
BLOCK: We mentioned a multi-billion dollar investment by Shell in the Arctic. They obviously see huge potential for what's in those waters.
HARRIS: Shell obviously believes there's a lot of oil down there, so do many other geologists and Shell paid more than $2 billion to the federal government just for leases, just the right to explore down there. And once they got those leases, they've invested more than $2 billion in all sorts of other equipment and getting everything geared up ready to go.
So that's a big investment to being with, plus if they find oil, it will take another decade, probably, to build the pipelines and the other mechanism you need to get the oil to market. So this investment is just the beginning.
BLOCK: Now, environmental groups have sued to slow or stop this offshore drilling in the Arctic. What are they saying? What's their argument?
HARRIS: Their argument is, first of all, that Shell doesn't seem to be able to do the basics here. But even with that, they note that this is a very harsh environment. It's 1,000 miles, really, from major Coast Guard facilities. There's very few resources up there if there is a spill and it's icy waters and it would be difficult to deal with a spill anyway in icy waters.
And on top of all of that, the native Alaskans rely on these waters for subsistence, fisheries and for traditional hunting and so on. So there's a lot at stake.
BLOCK: And we mentioned this urgent high level review now that the U.S. Interior Department has begun. What impact could that have, both on Shell and on other oil companies?
HARRIS: Well, the administration clearly could say no to Shell to stop oil drilling up there, but the reality, I think, is that the administration is strongly stating its all-of-the-above energy strategy and it's inalterably opposed to drilling in the Arctic Ocean. So they're unlikely just to shut the whole operation down. But Shell's tale of woe has triggered this 60-day review and serious questions about whether the company really is in a position to drill safely up there.
And I think the results of this could have somewhat of a ripple effect. Shell is not the only company that's interested in the Arctic. ConocoPhillips and (unintelligible) Oil also have leases in federal waters up there. It is worth noting one that one French company, Total, says they've decided not to drill in the Arctic because they think that the risks of a spill are so bad that they just don't want to give it a try.
BLOCK: OK. NPR's Richard Harris. Richard, thanks.
HARRIS: My pleasure.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Cyprus, the tiny Mediterranean island nation, is torn between two allies: Russia and the European Union, and the trouble is money. Cyprus needs a bailout that could come from the eurozone, perhaps after Cyprus' presidential election next month, but it's not a given. There are some concerns in the EU that bailing out the Cypriots will end up bailing out some Russian oligarchs. It seems they've been keeping money in Cypriot banks. Joanna Kakissis has our report.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: We welcome you to the official opening ceremony of the 7th Cyprus-Russian Festival.
JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: Every summer, the Cypriot port city of Limassol co-hosts the Russian-Cyprus Festival, a bicultural program of dancing and singing. The Russians love Limassol. They own multimillion dollar beachfront homes here, as well as a newspaper and restaurants.
MAYOR ANDREAS CHRISTOU: (Foreign language spoken)
KAKISSIS: Limassol's mayor, Andreas Christou, even speaks Russian. Russia and Cyprus strengthened their business ties after the Soviet Union unraveled in 1991, says Costas Apostolides, an economist in the Cypriot capital, Nicosia.
COSTAS APOSTOLIDES: Many Russian companies took advantage of what was then offshore company status, which was very low taxation of 4 percent.
KAKISSIS: Today, there are hundreds of Russian companies in Cyprus, and Russians hold about a fifth of deposits in Cypriot banks. Dimitris Christofias, the Moscow-educated president of Cyprus and the only Communist leader in the European Union, even secured a loan from Russia when Cyprus first started having debt problems.
But then Christofias turned to the EU for up to $22 billion, mainly for the country's ailing banks. And all the Russian cash in Cyprus suddenly became a problem. Here's how German lawmaker Joachim Pores(ph) described Cyprus on German Public Radio this week.
JOACHIM PORES: (Through Translator) This a country whose business model is based upon economic crime, money laundering and tax evasion. With the best will in the world, that's simply not acceptable.
KAKISSIS: The Cypriots say they have attracted foreign investment for decades and that the money is legitimate. Former Finance Minister Michalis Sarris warns against vilifying depositors in Cypriot banks.
MICHALIS SARRIS: Penalizing depositors because you have some sort of theory of where they got their money doesn't seem to make sense to me. And even if there was some grounds to do it, one would also ask, where does that stop?
KAKISSIS: It could stop with Russians pulling their money out of Cypriot banks. And that would be a disaster, says Guntram Wolff, deputy director of the Bruegel Institute in Brussels.
GUNTRAM WOLFF: I mean, if Russia pulled out their deposits, the Cypriot banks would have a huge balance sheet problem, and of course, they would have to find other sources of financing.
KAKISSIS: As Cyprus waits for EU financing, their president, Christofias, has resisted austerity measures. But he's not running for re-election on February 17.
PRESIDENT DIMITRIS CHRISTOFIAS: (Foreign language spoken)
KAKISSIS: Polls say his replacement will likely be conservative lawmaker Nicos Anastasiades, whose campaign commercials portray him as a strong ally of the EU. Anastasiades promises to expedite the bailout but not at the risk of damaging business relations with the Russians. For NPR News, I'm Joanna Kakissis.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "COMPLIANCE")
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (as Character) Sandra, you got a phone call in the back. A policeman.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
This is how the story begins in the indie film "Compliance." Ann Dowd plays the manager of a fast food restaurant who receives what turns out to be a sadistic prank call that changes her life.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "COMPLIANCE")
ANN DOWD: (as Sandra) Hello, South End.
PAT HEALY: (as Officer Daniels) Yeah, this is Officer Daniels with the police department. Are you the supervisor?
DOWD: (as Sandra) Yes, I am. I'm the manager.
HEALY: (as Officer Daniels) What's your name again, ma'am?
LYDEN: But in real life, Dowd did not receive a call that she did she really want from the Academy Awards. That's just by doing something rare. She spent $13,000 of her own money on a campaign to nominate herself for an Oscar. It's not exactly verboten to campaign on your own behalf. Actress Melissa Leo did the same thing two years ago, causing quite a stir among the Hollywood glitterati. It's just not really done.
Ann Dowd joins us now to talk about her campaign for an Oscar. But first, I asked her why she took on the role of Sandra in the film "Compliance," which has been called shocking, disturbing and hard to watch.
DOWD: I understood it on a gut level immediately, made me very sad, because I think at the core of that person, Sandra, is shame. Meaning, you know, here she is, late 40s, 50s, managing a fast food restaurant, out of her league in terms of being able to relate to anybody there. They're all young people. I think her self-esteem is very low. I think she lives externally to please, and that's how she knows whether it's been a good day or not a good day.
LYDEN: Well, it's so interesting, Ann Dowd, because as you got buzz for that, what you're getting buzz for now is the fact that you've kind of taken on the Academy. You've been campaigning on your own behalf to get a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. This is because Magnolia, the studio that released "Compliance," didn't spend any money to campaign for you, so you've done it yourself.
DOWD: Well, it's funny. I - that surprised me too - buzz about that - because to me, it was a very simple decision. Magnolia is a, they're a small film company. They don't have that budget. I said: OK, well then, I need to go to the next step, which is how do I do that myself? But it didn't occur to me to spend a lot of time, saying: Hey, you know, they should, because what is that? You know what I mean? It's a waste of time.
LYDEN: Ann, what do you make of that fact that really, this is a very rare thing to have done and the - one of the few other times it's been done was by Melissa Leo who campaigned for the Best Supporting Actress role...
DOWD: Yes, for "The Fighter."
LYDEN: Mm-hmm.
DOWD: Mm-hmm.
LYDEN: And so what do you make of the fact that it is two females who've done this?
DOWD: I think women are used to stepping up and getting the job done when you need to. That's all. Because that's the world we're in. If you don't get the material out there, if people don't see it, and if - you're going to - it's not going to happen. Very simple decision.
LYDEN: Absolutely. So as we know, the Oscar nominations were announced this past week. And I don't think I'll surprise you, and I'm sad to say that you didn't receive a nomination.
DOWD: Right.
LYDEN: So I'm wondering what it means - if you were disappointed and if in any sense you think you might suffer a backlash?
DOWD: Hey, it's a dream, you know? You want your name to be called, and you want to be in that group. So the initial response is disappointment. Not unfamiliar to an actor. That's the great thing. Actors get a lot of disappointments: roles, attention, et cetera. That's our terrain. So I sat with the disappointment and then got to a place where I could say, "Good for those who are on the list. Congratulations. That's terrific."
LYDEN: That's actress Ann Dowd. She won the National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in the film "Compliance," which you can see on DVD. Ann Dowd, it really has been a pleasure. Thank you for being with us.
DOWD: Thank you so very much.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LYDEN: It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
In 2007, David Goldhill's 82-year-old father who was in otherwise good health checked into the hospital with a minor case of pneumonia. Once there, he caught a series of infections and died. Shortly thereafter, Goldhill read an article that changed his life. He learned just how common it is for hospital infections to result in death, up to 100,000 such cases each year. He also learned how simple it can be to prevent them. In some cases, as simple as regulating that physicians wash their hands.
So Goldhill set out to learn as much as he could about our convoluted insurance-based health care system, and he found that much of it is broken. His new book is called "Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father and How We Can Fix It." Goldhill, who is president of the Game Show Network, approaches the topic from a business perspective, and that's why, he says, the more he learned about the industry, the stranger it all seemed.
DAVID GOLDHILL: It felt strange that any industry could have a relatively simple low-cost way of significantly improving its customer experience - and here the customer is a patient and then - the experience is a life or death one - and it would be hard to get the industry to adopt it. A hundred thousand deaths is an extraordinary number. And there are estimates of up to 200,000 people are killed by error in a given year, a variety of errors in addition to infection. And a recent study that Medicare did suggested that one out of four hospital admissions of a Medicare beneficiary involved some type of error that had a meaningful impact on that patient's health.
LYDEN: Why do you suppose we don't hear more about this?
GOLDHILL: There is a sense that there is something uniquely different about health care. You'll often hear people say that health care shouldn't be a business, as if 15 million people can perform this service without caring about their economic interests. We fund all of health care through insurance. We, as consumers, are extraordinarily passive on health care. We think because our insurer or Medicare will reimburse something, we probably should do it. It's one of the explanations why there's so much waste in health care.
And then another point in which we hold health care very different than everything else is we almost always think more of it is better. What I find extraordinary is almost anybody who looks at the Medicare program sees an enormous amount of waste. And what's interesting is we talk about the waste in terms of money. That's not the right way to think of it.
These are treatments and tests and surgeries done on people who didn't need them, shouldn't have had them. It's an assault on their bodies. And yet that kind of accountability is something that we've given health care a pass on because we feel it's just so different from any other human activity.
LYDEN: How much are we going to pay for health care over our lifetimes?
GOLDHILL: In my book, I looked at an actual entry-level employee at my company. She's earning about $35,000 a year. And I said let's look at her life. Let's assume that she's the breadwinner of the family. She does well, has a nice middle-class income. And she lives till 80, and she has a couple of kid. What is that young woman going to put into our health care system over her lifetime?
Well, the number's incredibly shocking. If there's zero growth in health care costs, she will put in - between insurance premium, taxes, Medicare, Medicare premiums out of pocket - and I should point out this is assuming she never gets really sick - she'll put in over 1 million dollars over her life to support her and her family's health care. If health care costs grow by only what the Affordable Care Act estimates, then the number is a million-nine.
But one of the foundations of our health care system is that everybody thinks there's somebody else out there paying for our health care. You know, it's one of the illusions of our insurance system. Almost everybody in the system gets in health care a lot less than they put in over their lifetime. And what we've done is we've created the scheme where nobody knows what they pay for anything.
LYDEN: Because it's so nebulous.
GOLDHILL: Because it's so nebulous and because you're never the payer. There's always an intermediary actually writing the check. And nobody knows how much they're putting in.
LYDEN: Well, where do we think the money comes from? I mean, do we think it comes from the government? Do we think it comes from the ether? Do we think it comes from Ponce de Leon's well in Florida that pulls up a fountain of youth?
GOLDHILL: Those are probably as likely a places as anywhere else. Most of us don't understand that our employer isn't really paying for health insurance, we aren't. Every economist will tell you that money, which has grown so enormously, is just coming out of our paychecks. It's a major reason that wage rates in the United States flattened in the last decade and are expected to stay flat is because your employer is paying more and more for your health care instead of paying more and more to you.
Many people think that, you know, if they're seniors, that Medicare is paying for their health care. What's interesting about seniors and what almost no one understands about Medicare is in 1965, when seniors paid for almost all of their health care themselves, roughly 10 to 12 percent of their income was spent on health care. This year, when seniors pay almost none of their health care themselves - Medicare pays 95 percent of the bill - that little 5 percent they pay now accounts for 20 percent of their income.
So what you have is people who think they're being protected by having these big intermediaries between them and the price of health care, in fact, what those intermediaries are doing is so inflating prices, so inflating demand, building so much waste and complexity into the system that all of us are bearing this extraordinary cost. We just don't see it because it's so many different hands into our pocket. But there is no other place for the money to come from.
LYDEN: We can't talk about this, David Goldhill, without mentioning health care reform. And you argue that 2010's Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, really isn't much of an improvement, that it's more of an extension of what's going wrong with the system. And we should note - as you do in your article and book - that you're a Democrat.
GOLDHILL: Well, I'm a Democrat, and I share what I think the administration's goal was of creating a national cradle-to-grave safety net. The problem is I think the Affordable Care Act is fundamentally old fashioned in what it understood about the health care system. It saw the big divide as being between the insured and the uninsured. And I think that's a very simplistic and probably inaccurate evaluation of what the key problems are in health care: ever greater price inflation, care that is more expensive over care that is less expensive, care that is wasteful and therefore harmful over that that is needed.
The idea of adding 16 million more people to Medicaid and the difficulty with the Affordable Care Act - like so much of the political discussion of health care - is it's all about insurance, as if insurance is health care and as if health care is health. What we have in this country is a system that is already hazardous to your health and your pocketbook.
LYDEN: What about solutions? Do we realistically think that we can improve the system that we have now?
GOLDHILL: Well, I think we see green chutes all the time in the system. And the question is not just how are we going to pay for it but how are we going to make sure that innovation, service, quality and safety in health care are truly accountable. I think we've gone through 50 years of relying on intermediaries to drive those things, and I think they failed. And so as a businessperson, I look at them and say there is no other business like that. And we give it a pass because we say health care's so complicated that's why it's like that.
I spent a lot of time in hospitals. One thing has nothing to do with another. It's the simplest thing. You go to a dry cleaner, your bill's computerized. They've been using electronic records in dry cleaners for 10 years, right? It's not because they only hired guys with computer science to be at the counter at the dry cleaner, it's that it's expensive to lose a shirt. Almost no technology in hospitals is interoperable. They don't buy interoperable technology, even information technology, which is why you fill out the same form, you know, 200 feet from where you filled it out last time.
That stuff is all about lack of accountability. The social returns to investing in technology, to information technology in health care are gigantic. But since nobody can capture those returns in a business, they're just not made. I think we need a greater role for the patient as consumer. We're going to have to take more responsibility. It probably means taking some of the 2.7 trillion that we're flowing through in insurance system and flowing it back through us as individuals so that we are the customers the system needs to chase, we are the customers the system needs to satisfy.
LYDEN: David Goldhill. He's the author of the new book "Catastrophic Care: How American Health Care Killed My Father and How We Can Fix It." David, thank you very much.
GOLDHILL: Thanks, Jacki.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
And if you're just joining us, this is WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden. And it's time now for a musician with an amazing story of transformation from a childhood spent trapped in a cult to becoming the toast of the indie rock world.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CHRISTOPHER OWENS: (Singing) (Unintelligible)
LYDEN: As a boy, Christopher Owens was raised by a single mother, a follower of the nomadic religious cult called Children of God. They skipped across continents - no telephones, no TV, no outside books, just their tight-knit community of hippie expatriates. Restricted, yet the Children of God taught Owens and the other kids in the cult to sing and play guitar on the street for spare change. That's even partially how they supported themselves. It's also how Christopher Owens found a way out. He turned his busking into a one-way ticket back to the States. And before he knew it, he was playing before packed houses with his band called Girls.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
OWENS: (Singing) I'm gonna get you, honey...
LYDEN: Christopher Owens joined me from member station KQED in San Francisco, and I asked about growing up in this globetrotting and medically sealed community.
OWENS: Sometimes I'd be in a house with 500 other people, sometimes just a couple other families. But always, it was the same group and the same beliefs. So I kind of grew up being very indoctrinated by these beliefs that were very important to the people in my mother's generation that joined this group. And it wasn't necessarily the case for the second generation. The kids kind of had a hard time just accepting blindly that we were supposed to live in the same way that they had chose to live in. And we really wanted to experience the world for ourselves and make our own decisions. And, you know, by the time they had their first crop of teenagers, they really ran into a lot of problems because we all wanted to watch television and listen to the radio and just do regular things.
LYDEN: You wanted to be part of a wider world.
OWENS: Yes.
LYDEN: So, what did you do? I know you left when you were in your mid-teens - pretty early.
OWENS: Yeah, I was 16. I wanted to leave probably by the time I was 14 really badly. But my oldest sister left first, and that helped me to be able to leave. And I - that's when I moved to the United States for the first time.
LYDEN: Where had you been living?
OWENS: I moved from Slovenia. But I was in Asia - all over Asia until 1990 when I was 10 and then spent the next six years all over Europe.
LYDEN: But when did music kind of thread it all through and thread it together for you?
OWENS: Well, music was always a big part of my life. I mean, that was part of my education. We weren't really schooled in a regular way, but we all learned to sing. And so I had a lot of musical experience in my life, but I didn't view it as some kind of career or as trying to be a rock star. It was more of a religious background for me.
But many years later, by the time I moved here to San Francisco, I met some young guys who were playing rock and roll music, and I became friends with them. I wanted to be around them. I really liked their band. They let me kind of travel with them a little bit, and that's really what got music back in my life. That really brought out the background that I had, you know? But by 27, it was back in full force for me, and that's when I started to write songs.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LUST FOR LIFE")
OWENS: (Singing) Oh, I wish I had a boyfriend. I wish that loving man in my life. I wish I had a father maybe then I would've turned out right. But now I'm just crazy...
LYDEN: Christopher Owens then formed his own band called Girls. You're listening to some of their music now. And once their first album came out in 2009, their momentum was hard to stop. Rapturous reviews and world tours followed. Owens left Girls not long ago, and he's using his first solo album as a way to look back at that experience.
OWENS: Oh, it's really just a day-by-day account of the first tour that I went on with a girl.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG)
OWENS: (Singing) So here we go with my faith and my hands really shook up. Airplane, take us all away to New York City.
LYDEN: The album is named after a woman he fell in love with in France at the end of that tour. And she had a name befitting an album title, Lysandre.
OWENS: She was a girl that I met working at the festival that we played at in the South of France (unintelligible).
LYDEN: Great name.
OWENS: Yes, very classic name. The name has a lot of appeal, for me, anyway. It's kind of a romantic, special name.
LYDEN: And I love the way that you commemorate your story with this young woman, Lysandre - who seems, you know, both like a real person - and with that fantastic, classical name, some kind of iconic young woman and almost sort of Hellenic. Just tell us just a little bit about, you know, even if the romance is long over and you remember it this way, what it was like.
OWENS: Yeah. Well, I mean, really, she was very normal. It wasn't that she was super dynamic. I mean, her name is great. But realistically, she was a teenage girl from this beach town, you know, and just very normal. And I think that's why I was able to have a very meaningful experience with her.
LYDEN: Because she wasn't overwhelmed.
OWENS: Yeah. I mean, of course, it's very exciting to be an American guy in a band from California and travel that far to the Riviera and meet a young girl and have a romantic experience. It's very nice.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EVERYWHERE YOU KNEW")
OWENS: (Singing) Just when I thought it was over I said come sit on my lap...
LYDEN: This is the song "Everywhere You Knew." It's a great story about this courtship in the music festival where you met.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EVERYWHERE YOU KNEW")
OWENS: (Singing) You said let's get up and go somewhere no one would be around. I said okay and we got up and ran right out through the crowd. And when I took your hands in mine and I kissed you I don't think there was anybody else in the world. When you said I should kiss you forever, I said that I would.
LYDEN: Christopher, presumably, you've had a few romances through the years. Why did this one stick with you?
OWENS: To be honest, it's really more about the time period that I wanted to talk about. And then the fact that at the end of the whole thing there's a beautiful, romantic story is just the best way that I could think of presenting the album. But it's a record about the way I was feeling in a time that was very new.
LYDEN: And the last song on the record is called "Part of Me," and it's where you say goodbye to this Lysandre.
OWENS: Yeah.
LYDEN: And, you know, one hears it as a wishful ending. And perhaps you are saying goodbye to that first debut into the world that you had.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PART OF ME")
OWENS: (Singing) Attention, just thinking about you, (unintelligible). Every time I think about you (unintelligible). You were a part of me, such a great big part of me.
It's not meant to be at all sad or heavy. And, you know, it's not like a breakup song. It's more of a song about being OK with the fact that people move on, that you don't always stay with every single person you meet and like. And sometimes you have a nice experience with somebody, but then that's it.
LYDEN: Has this woman heard the album or heard even of the album?
OWENS: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We've always stayed friends. I went back to France maybe a dozen times. And she was always around, and she always stayed a friend.
LYDEN: Pretty great. I wish, you know, I love that kind of homage.
OWENS: Yeah.
LYDEN: That's Christopher Owens. He's formerly of the band Girls, and his first solo album is called "Lysandre." It comes out Tuesday. And you can sample a few tracks at our website, nprmusic.org. Christopher Owens, thank you very much for your time. And congratulations.
OWENS: Thank you very much.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PART OF ME")
OWENS: (Singing) You were part of me, such a great big part of me. Oh, you were a part of me, but that part of me is gone.
LYDEN: And for Saturday, that's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden. Check out weekly podcast. Search for WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED on iTunes or on the NPR smartphone app. Click on programs, scroll down. We're back on the radio tomorrow. Until then, thanks for listening. Have a great night.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
Tens of thousands of people have downloaded two apps from the Google Store that are sparking accusations of racism. "Make me Asian" and "Make me Indian" apps allow Android smartphone users to take a photo of someone then add characteristics to the person's face the app's developer determined relate to those ethnic groups. But NPR's Allison Keyes reports, an online petition is urging Google to remove the apps.
ALLISON KEYES, BYLINE: The "Make me Asian" app lets you manipulate a phone picture and give yourself yellow-tinged skin, narrow eyes, one of those conical rice paddy hats, and a Fu Manchu mustache taken from a fictional Chinese villain. Washington, D.C., pastor Peter Chin is succinct about why he objects to the app.
PETER CHIN: It's really "Make me an Asian Stereotype."
KEYES: Chin started a petition at change.org against the "Make me Asian" app and a similar one for Native Americans. The latter app adorns users with a Native American headband, complete with a feather; long, dark hair; and war paint under the eyes.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE LONE RANGER")
KEYES: That's from the broken-English-speaking, buckskin-wearing sidekick to the hero, in the 1950s "Lone Ranger" TV series; which illustrates that there's nothing new about unflattering portrayals of Native Americans and Asians. Remember those slant-eyed, buck-toothed, evil cats from Disney's "Lady and the Tramp"?
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LADY AND THE TRAMP")
KEYES: Chin says the Google Play apps are dangerous.
CHIN: My fear was that these kind of characterizations would similarly, kind of become mainstream by virtue of Google's immense - kind of - cultural influence.
KEYES: A Google spokeswoman said via email that the company removes apps that violate its policies. Google does have a policy against hate speech. But a source familiar with Google practices says the company considers the intent of an app when reviewing it, and few violate its policies. The developer of the "Make me Asian" app, whom NPR was unable to identify or reach, also created similar apps that make one appear to be Frankenstein, or bald, or fat.
The apps have caused a firestorm online, and some bloggers have been tweeting and Facebooking their outrage over the apps. But Wall Street Journal columnist Jeff Yang isn't shocked because he thinks...
JEFF YANG: There's a kind of cultural programming that makes it more acceptable to racially mock Asians and Native Americans than - other groups.
KEYES: Yang says that's partly because there are fewer Asian and Native Americans in this country than there are African- or Latino-Americans; which means...
YANG: There is less inherent social and political power associated with these groups. There's fewer consequences, as a result, if you parody, satire, or mock or offend these communities.
KEYES: Yang thinks this app is just the latest platform on which racism is playing out. But some users who commented on the "Make me Asian" app said their issue is it just doesn't work very well.
ALI ETEZADKHAH: It was junk.
KEYES: Junk - but not racist, says user Ali Etezadkhah. He says that people shouldn't overreact to such things.
ETEZADKHAH: If you make a big deal out of it, you're actually giving more power to the person who made it.
KEYES: Etezadkhah says as an Iranian who moved to the U.S. as a child, he learned to deal with racism by ignoring it. But Peter Chin, and the more than 8,000 who have signed his petition, believe by allowing apps like these in the Google Play store, the company is giving stereotypes a lasting foothold.
Allison Keyes, NPR News, Washington.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
Earlier this week, we lost an important figure in the gay rights movement. Jeanne Manford was a shy, petite lady - only 5 foot 2 - from Flushing, Queens. A mother and an elementary school teacher, she became an activist for gay rights, drawn in by her son's involvement in the 1970s. She realized children like her son couldn't do it alone; they needed their families to be involved, too. She founded PFLAG, the national support group better known as Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays. NPR's Lily Percy brings us this remembrance.
LILY PERCY, BYLINE: In 2009, President Obama made a speech at his annual Human Rights Campaign dinner.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Soon after the protests at Stonewall 40 years ago, the phone rang in the home of a soft-spoken, elementary school teacher named Jeanne Manford.
PERCY: In his speech, the president told the story of Jeanne Manford, whose son Morty was an out gay man and an important figure in New York's gay community during the turbulent 1970s. The phone call Manford received was from a police officer, who told her that Morty had been arrested for protesting at Stonewall.
OBAMA: And then the officer added one more thing. "And you know? He's homosexual."
(AUDIENCE LAUGHTER)
OBAMA: Well, that police officer sure was surprised when Jeanne responded, "Yes, I know. Why are you bothering him?"
(AUDIENCE CHEERS, APPLAUSE)
PERCY: Jeanne Manford always supported her son, Morty.
SUZANNE MANFORD: When my brother needed her, she just dropped everything for him. She was like a mother bear.
PERCY: That's Manford's daughter, Suzanne. Suzanne was 21 when Morty came out. A few years earlier, Manford's oldest son, Charles, had died from an accidental drug overdose. So when Morty ended up in the hospital in 1972, after being brutally beaten at a protest rally, Jeanne Manford knew that she had to act.
MANFORD: My mother was beside herself with rage, that anybody could hurt her child. She had already lost one, and the fact that she could have lost another - she was seething.
PERCY: After the attack, Manford wrote a letter to the editor of the New York Post, criticizing the police for not protecting him. She said, "I have a homosexual son, and I love him." Two months later, she marched alongside Morty in what would eventually become New York's Pride March - an unprecedented move, according to writer Eric Marcus. He wrote an oral history of the gay rights movement in the U.S., called "Making History."
ERIC MARCUS: It's a little hard to imagine now what that period was like; how revolutionary it was for a parent to walk in the gay Pride March in New York City, carrying a sign that said, "Parents Unite In Support Of Our Gay Children." The timing was right. The time really called for someone like Jeanne, and Jeanne was there.
PERCY: In 1973, Manford organized the first formal meeting of PFLAG, which took place at a local church in Greenwich Village. Twenty people gathered and soon after, she began to receive calls from other parents all across the country, who wanted to start groups in their own communities. They now have more than 350 groups nationwide. One member says that as a parent, a support group just makes sense.
PAUL TAGLIABUE: She thought it was just a normal thing to do, as a mother; and that's true of most all the parents who get involved.
PERCY: That's former NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, whose son Drew is gay. He and his wife joined PFLAG, seeking support and guidance from other parents in similar situations.
TAGLIABUE: They don't think they're going out there to become politicians, or advocates, in a unique way. They're doing what parents should do - which is care for their kids, and keep their family together. And it's pretty simple, when you think about it at its core.
DAN SAVAGE: One of the things my mom talked about being so valuable for her was - in a way - to go to a PFLAG meeting, and see her pain affirmed; see her pain reflected.
PERCY: Writer Dan Savage's mother was also a PFLAG member. Savage says that his mother found solace in the group because it helped her understand what it means to be gay, and to be the parent of a gay child.
SAVAGE: What Jeanne Manford did was, she put it in people's heads that gay and lesbian people have parents; that we were somebody's children. And that was the first real, big step in the movement toward full acceptance of lesbian, gay, bi and trans people.
PERCY: New York City Council member Daniel Dromm is another child of a PFLAG mom. Dromm was friends with Morty Manford. And when Morty passed away in 1992 of complications from AIDS, he reached out to Jeanne Manford, who he had never met. The two became fast friends from the first time that he ever set foot in her house.
DANIEL DROMM: The day I first went there, the house wreaked of history. I walked in, and Jeanne had pictures of Morty on the mantelpiece. And she took them down and she's showing, to me, them. As a matter of fact, there's a famous photo of Jeanne marching in that first pride parade. And she was so proud of having that photo, that that moment was recorded in history.
PERCY: Manford received letters from gay people all over the world; thanking her for standing up for them, and for loving them unconditionally. It is this love, Dromm says, that he will remember most.
DROMM: Jeanne Manford is like the Rosa Parks of the gay rights movement. She is the mother to all gay people, but she's particularly the mother to gay people whose parents have rejected them.
PERCY: Jeanne Manford died this past Tuesday, at the age of 92. She's survived by her daughter, Suzanne, and the thousands of children whose families she influenced.
Lily Percy, NPR News.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
Feeling the heat, 2012 was the hottest year ever on record in the U.S. And together with the lack of rain, it's brought on an historic drought.
(SOUNDBITE OF NEWS REPORT)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: The worst drought since 1956.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Every plant, corn plant out here has these dead dry leaves attached to it.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: ...likely mean higher food prices.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: ...drought disaster of 2012 has far reaching effects...
LYDEN: Drought is devastating. Think hundreds of forest fires, drought is costly. Think low crop yields. It will break your water main or your home foundation. It will ruin your holiday, drive up your grocery bill. Just ask a climatologist.
MARK SVOBODA: This drought could end up dwarfing the drought of record economically, which was the drought of like 1988, 1989, and it's not over. So to put it into context, I can't even do that yet. But we're hearing early estimates of anywhere from 50 to $80 billion.
LYDEN: The U.S. Department of Agriculture has declared a disaster area in over 1,000 counties now. So whether you're a dry land farmer in Texas...
DORIS SMITH: We have never been in such an extended drought or as extreme as it is in these last three years.
LYDEN: ...or an Illinois Senator like Dick Durbin talking about how low the water is on the Mississippi.
SENATOR DICK DURBIN: This is critically important to the economy of the Midwest and of the nation. Literally, billions of dollars worth of goods travel that Mississippi River.
LYDEN: This drought is coming to your front door. Our cover story today: the ripple effects of drought.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LYDEN: Even if it doesn't look dry outside, even if you're in a wet spot right now, an historic drought is seeing us into this new year. Let's start with the low water on the Mississippi. It hasn't been this low since 1989. Marty Hettel is a manager for AEP River Operations. That's a St. Louis-based barge company, and its hundreds of barges and towboats are traveling in sort of convoys that sit higher in the water.
MARTY HETTEL: With the drought scenario we're in on the Mississippi, the low water conditions has just about brought the river to a close.
LYDEN: To open the Mississippi and its billions of dollars of freight, the Army Corps of Engineers turns to dredging to deepen the river bottom, putting places like Thebes, Illinois, on the map.
HETTEL: Well, in these type of conditions, we're limited to a 15-barge tow, so we're actually operating at less than 45 percent of our capacity right now.
LYDEN: The Corps of Engineers has been working hard to deepen the shipping channel. What's happening?
HETTEL: That's a great story we got last week. Originally, the Corps wasn't going to be able to be on site down at Thebes, Illinois, to remove the rock pinnacles before February 4th.
LYDEN: What are the rock pinnacles at Thebes, and what do they have to do with the story?
HETTEL: Well, normally, the river's a sandy type bottom. However, you get down to the actual rock bottom of the river at Thebes and a pinnacle is like a boulder of rocks on the bottom of the river, rather than sand or mud that the Corps can dredge. So hence, they have to manually remove it.
LYDEN: I see. So is that what they did?
HETTEL: That's what they have been doing since about, I believe, December 16th they got in there. So that, in effect, gives us two more feet of depth in the river by removing these rock pinnacles that stick out above the bottom of the river.
LYDEN: So how do you think things look moving ahead? Are you optimistic?
HETTEL: I am a lot more optimistic from the word we received from the Corps last week. Long-term predictions for Thebes looks like we'll have enough water to operate at least through February 7th or 8th right now. And I'm really thinking it's going to be beyond that, you know, at least through the 15th of February. What happens from that point forward is up to Mother Nature and how much rain she can give us.
LYDEN: That's Marty Hettel. He's manager of bulk sales for AEP River Operations, a St. Louis-based barge company. Mr. Hettel, thank you for being with us.
HETTEL: Happy to be here.
LYDEN: Everything works together. One of the biggest commodities shipped on the Mississippi is grain. But in some parts of the country, like the Texas Panhandle, there's a lot less grain to ship. The Texas Panhandle is still in the grip of a drought. For the third year now, ranchers and farmers in Amarillo have been searching for signs of moisture. Last year was the second record low, 12 inches of rain, up a little from the year before but not enough.
PHILLIP SMITH: If this drought continues on, we're going to be forced to sell our cows this next spring.
LYDEN: That's Phillip Smith. He's already sold off a lot of his herd. This year might be the last for the Sunshine Ranch - that's what he and his wife, Doris Smith, call their family place.
SMITH: We've had a decent livelihood, yes, ma'am, until the drought hit us about three years ago.
LYDEN: I understand that you've been in this house since 1964. Tell me, if you would, Phil, what changed three years ago, the drought came. How did things change?
SMITH: Well, Doris has been in this house all her life. We married and moved into her folks' property. The drought, as it came on, well, we were fortunate enough to have some moisture and were able to produce a less than average crop for two years. But this year, we're probably not going to produce anything. And that is our livelihood.
LYDEN: Are you entirely dependent on rainfall? And if you are, what kind of crops are you growing?
SMITH: We're growing hard red winter wheat, grain sorghum or milo and then a hay forage crop for our cattle.
LYDEN: Doris, what do your fields look like now?
SMITH: There is nothing growing on them. It's pretty much bare ground, which is the reason why we're having to feed up the hay bales, which Phillip had purchased in the summertime, because Phillip is feeding every single thing that the cattle eat. So there is nothing left for the cattle to graze on. And then even the crops that we did plant in the late summer and early fall, because of the lack of moisture, those crops have died.
LYDEN: I am so sorry to hear that.
SMITH: Jacki, I want you to understand that we're not just an individual farming unit that is out here that is suffering from the drought. I mean, this is very widespread. And when you consider that if you eat, you are involved in agriculture, this is really affecting the whole nation. It affects everybody. When agriculture is down, and agriculture is being depressed, the entire world is affected by that.
LYDEN: That's Doris and Phillip Smith. We reach them at their ranch, the Sunshine Ranch in Amarillo. And we really want to wish you very good luck. And thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story.
SMITH: Thank you very much. We appreciate it.
SMITH: Thank you. You come and visit us anytime you want to.
LYDEN: Climatologists are hesitant to link any one drought to climate change, but there is consensus that there will be more severe dry spells in the years to come.
Mark Svoboda is a climatologist with the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Nebraska. And about a decade ago, he helped create an international drought tracking system. You can click on the map and see how your county is doing.
SVOBODA: When we first started the idea conceptually, people didn't realize the drought on average is the number one cause of economic loss in the country or at least on par in rivaling hurricanes. And when you went around the country and talk to folks, they just weren't aware of that fact. So the main goal was to heighten visibility of drought as a natural hazard that affects millions of people covering millions of square miles across our country.
LYDEN: So this past summer, as we know, droughts across the Midwest and the Southwest were as bad as they've been in 50 years. How bad was the drought overall in the U.S. last year?
SVOBODA: We saw over 60 percent of the country, nearly two-thirds, at its peak there in August, September, depending on where you were. The thing that differentiates this year's drought from, say, the 1950s or the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, right now, anyway, is the duration component. The large part of this affected area really is just going into year two now. When you do look at the Southern Plains or the Southeastern United States where they are having issues again, like around Atlanta with Lake Lanier, Texas to Mexico, Oklahoma, you do see that being a year three drought.
LYDEN: Mark, you talk about hoping that the two-year cycle has completed itself in - with 2012 passing, but what do you see when you look ahead?
SVOBODA: You know, everywhere, say, east of the Rockies, this is the dry time of year, so you're not going to expect to see major recovery at least during the winter months. Unfortunately, it wasn't an overly wet fall, so I think we're going to be locked into this drought until spring. When you get that rain, it isn't just one inch, if that's normal, per week. That sounds great. What we really need is two inches per week.
LYDEN: Mark, you're out in the center of the country, but we know that people are affected besides just, say, agricultural people. Who does drought impact?
SVOBODA: Well, that's the thing about drought. It is very crosscutting across many economic sectors, which makes it one of the most costliest hazards that we see out there. Obviously, people see it sort of in the grocery store when they talk about food prices, but there's a lot of other things we're seeing happen. Things like physical and mental health are a big thing. You know, we saw a lot more complaints of allergies and respiratory illness given the kicking up of dust and winds with the heat waves. That's been a big thing.
You see increased suicides with people that are literally losing their livelihoods if they've had a farm or ranch through multiple generations that's been lost. It's a tragic thing. Droughts are very local in their impacts. And, you know, we've seen a lot of issues with water main breaks across the U.S., especially in the midsection, from Minnesota, Wisconsin, all the way down to Texas.
For example, in Houston, normally, they might see 200 breaks a day. They were seeing 700 a day during the summer months due to the dryness of the soil as well as the aging infrastructure. It's not just the drought, but a lot of these things are wreaking havoc on our infrastructure.
LYDEN: Mark Svoboda, job projections are getting more severe. Is there any kind of preparation? Many cities are accustomed to preparing to some degree. For tornadoes, you can build a shelter. For hurricanes, you absolutely vacate, things like that. What about drought? Is there any way to prepare for it?
SVOBODA: Yeah. I don't like the word drought-proofing because you can't stop droughts from occurring. What you can do is reduce your risk to those droughts. And, you know, even the ability to catch rain off your roof and use it for a garden, to reuse it for those types of purposes a lot of places that's not allowed. So we have to think out of the box a little bit and become a little bit more flexible on how to maximize and capture as much of that water as we can to reuse locally.
Those types of steps are things, I think, that we can do. The basic infrastructure ones are the easy ones. It's the more conservation mentality that even when times are good, you know, let's preserve that water, get it back in the ground so that we can tap into it when things go dry like they are now.
LYDEN: That's Mark Svoboda. He's a climatologist at the National Drought Mitigation Center in Lincoln, Nebraska. And he joined us from member station KUT in Austin, Texas. Mark, thank you very much.
SVOBODA: My pleasure, Jackie.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LYDEN: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
(SOUNDBITE OF NEWS REPORTS)
LYDEN: Cable news had a field day with the trillion-dollar coin solution to the debt ceiling standoff. But today, we learned it was a coin tossed. James Fallows of The Atlantic joins us, as he does most Saturdays. Hello there, Jim.
JAMES FALLOWS: Hello, Jacki.
LYDEN: Well, Jim, the Treasury Department finally weighed in on this. I'll mentioned the Federal Reserve as well. I guess we're not going to have a platinum coin solution to the debt ceiling standoff.
FALLOWS: We're not, and it's actual news, you know, late this Saturday afternoon in that the executive branch the Obama administration is saying it's not going to use two of the possible loopholes that would avoid an outright showdown with the Congress over this debt ceiling fight, which we remember from back in 2011. One of them, which was surreal sounding but technically legal, would've been the trillion-dollar coin option where they just would invent money, and now that's not going to happen. We don't need to go into all of its ramifications.
The other is the administration reaffirmed that the president would not do something he is theoretically able to do, which is simply to go ahead and pay bills as they come in under his executive power through the 14th Amendment of the Constitution. He says he's not going to do that either. And that means we're headed for a flat-out showdown - the same kind we had back in 2011 - between a Congress that will not authorize an increase in the debt ceiling and the rest of the government, which has these bills coming due.
LYDEN: Why would the White House and the executive authority have done that, Jim? Pretty bitter fight, August of 2011, a really grueling one just over the holidays, and now another?
FALLOWS: I guess you could argue, number one, that the trillion-dollar coin idea was just too bizarre to pass the straight-face test. And the executive authority option, perhaps the president felt that there was some precedent he did not want to go down if they went that way. And because it was so damaging to the country, to world financial markets and to the president himself that they had the showdown a year and a half ago, the president must have recalculated that his bargaining position is stronger at this time. And that in the end, he can convince members of the Republican majority in the House that they should go ahead and actually pay the bills that have already been authorized by previous legislation the Congress has voted for. So I suppose that must be the reasoning.
LYDEN: Jim, more soberly here now, a young man named Aaron Swartz committed suicide yesterday. Outside of tech circles, perhaps not so widely known, but inside, a huge dynamic presence. You write about him on your blog today. Would you tell us more?
FALLOWS: Yes. In this past week, there have been two passings of different source that I've paid a lot of attention to. One is the writer Richard Ben Cramer, who was in his early 60s and died of cancer. And one of his most influential works was 20 years ago. Aaron Swartz, on the other hand, was 26. And over the past 12 years, since he was 14, he made an enormous following of - and mentors of people in the technology world who, number one, admired his technological virtuosity.
If you'll look at the founding of Reddit and a lot of other social media, he played an important role there. The other way in which he was seen as more influential and really has provoked this outsurge of tragedy in the technology world - in the last four or five years, he's been one of the most influential figures in talking about technology's social, cultural and political effect - how we can make sure that the communication technologies that have revolutionized all of our lives are used for more individual connection, more individual freedom, more of the good things in life and less of sort of the governmental and corporate controls. And so if people look for Aaron Swartz's obituaries on the Internet, they'll find out more about him.
LYDEN: James Fallows is national correspondent with The Atlantic. And you can read his blog at jamesfallows.theatlantic.com. It's a pleasure, Jim. Thanks.
FALLOWS: My pleasure, Jacki.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden. The poem by Emily Dickenson - I died for beauty, but was scarce adjusted in the tomb, when one who died for truth was lain in an adjoining room - inspires the title of a new biography of Dorothy Wrinch, a path-breaking mathematician who faced in her life the kind of tumult that scientific inquiry sometimes inspires.
Few people outside the sciences have heard of Dorothy Wrinch. In 1929, she became the first woman ever to receive a doctorate of science from Oxford University. That only begins her largely unknown story. Smith College professor Marjorie Senechal's new book is called "I Died For Beauty: Dorothy Wrinch and the Cultures of Science." Senechal begins by telling us about their relationship.
She was old enough to be my grandmother. But I met her because I had trained as a mathematician. But I became very interested in crystals, and I didn't know anybody who knew anything about that. And by a long route, I found her because she had gone the same path.
MARJORIE SENECHAL: And she had taught at Smith for many years now. She was retired, and she still had her office. She worked every day, all day, and someone told me I should go see her. And so I did. I knocked on her door, and it changed my life.
LYDEN: You know, I just have to say the two of you bond over the most wonderful book, which I'm so pleased to know about, called "The Ornament of Grammar" by Owen Jones. This is actually going to lead you to studying stylography. Tell us about how the two of you were fascinated by that book.
SENECHAL: This book is a book that was published in 1865. It's so heavy that you can hardly lift it up. It's 100 beautiful plates of ornaments, like wallpaper and rugs and tiles on walls and ceilings from all over the world and all different eras. And this had been complied in the 1860s by Owen Jones, and the only way to really reach the true sense of ornament was to go to the rest of the world and see how they did things there.
LYDEN: And she's using it to draw her models, and that's also what's drawing you in.
SENECHAL: These particular beautiful ornaments are analogous to the way that atoms are arranged in crystals. And that's why we were fascinated.
LYDEN: So Dorothy Wrinch - to set back a bit - she's born in 1894 in South America, but she grows up in a nearly rural suburb of London. She goes to a wonderful school for girls, a special school, and she becomes one of Girton College's first pupils when Girton is still a brand-new school. It will later become part of Cambridge University. What is she like, this young woman? Why is she remarkable?
SENECHAL: Well, her determination was certainly one thing. I mean, she was determined to be a mathematician. She worked her head off. She was known - everyone consider her the biggest workaholic they ever had known. But at the same time, she was very vivacious and gregarious. She had a knack for making friends. Her best friend, Dora Black, said that she was, in fact, the most driven and - person who had the clearest sense of what she wanted to do of anybody.
LYDEN: She develops a theory of the way proteins are formed, the architecture of proteins. Could you tell us about that?
SENECHAL: They had just discovered - they being the protein chemists - the chemists in general had just discovered that proteins were molecules. And this is so taken for granted today that it's hard to imagine a time when they didn't understand that.
When it became clear that they were molecules, meaning that there was a definite structure, that the atoms were in particular places, their role in our lives keeping us alive had to do with where those places were. Then the question is, well, where are those places? And the one theory that had been proposed before was that it makes a long chain.
That's still what people believe. But she said, no, that that's not the way it is. So she proposed, instead, that the chains form rings, and the rings join together, and she came up with a model that looked like lace. It was absolutely beautiful. And then she would have the lace fold up so as if you're making an origami cage.
LYDEN: You have many pictures of that in the book, and you describe her as going to the grocery store to buy tapioca balls and then dyeing them and sticking them together. And she told you what store you could go to in Cambridge to do this.
SENECHAL: It was very funny because she dyed them with food dye - I still have all that stuff - and then use Elmer's glue to stick them together with a piece of toothpick for the applicators. It was very funny. But I - they work. I mean, you can make beautiful models that way.
LYDEN: All this beauty - there's so many ways that you play on that concept of beauty as truth or beauty as a science. The subtitle of this book is "The Culture of Science." And in the '30s and '40s, this is such a male-dominated culture within our male-dominated culture.
SENECHAL: Yes.
LYDEN: I love your sentence. You take her to Cold Spring Harbor, a very important scientific conference in 1940, and you say: What is she doing here? What is she doing here? What is she doing here?
SENECHAL: And then later, I have: What is she doing here? And every single way that you could read it is what people were saying about her.
LYDEN: And then, not long thereafter, science being a world that is now supported by grants, torn by rivalries, she's attacked by another scientist, Linus Pauling. Now, we know now that Linus Pauling will go on to win two Nobel Prizes, but he is utterly vicious to her.
SENECHAL: And he thought it was perfectly fine to be that way, because here she was, she was a mathematician. She didn't know what she was doing. It's true she didn't know very much chemistry, and he can always nail her on the details, but she had a beautiful vision that had excited many, many people - many, many scientists - many of them Nobel Prize winners - thinking that she had - there must be something to what she's saying because - in her model because it explained things so well, so many of the properties that they had wanted to have explanations for.
And Linus Pauling thought she's wrong because she doesn't have the chemistry right. She was assuming there was a bond that he didn't think existed, although it did, and so he just decided to do her in - it was literally that - and to march into this fray and get rid of her by laughing her out of the profession.
LYDEN: What impact does it have on her career?
SENECHAL: It destroyed it. It just destroyed it. She pulled herself together and began working on X-ray diffraction theory.
LYDEN: She becomes an academic. And I think you could say it's certainly not a bad thing to wind up teaching at Smith College, but that was not the life that she'd envisioned.
SENECHAL: It's just that she was so marginalized. And she never gave up. She kept on working to the very end.
LYDEN: Did Dorothy Wrinch think she was a failure at the end?
SENECHAL: There's some very touching notes that she left. She said: It's really OK not to be protein's Newton. There are other things. You can make other contributions. And she's writing these notes to herself. So I think she had hoped to be somehow the one who really, really brought Newton's kind of light to the whole subject of biology, and she didn't, and then she's trying to console herself that she'd done some things.
But I wanted to write about her because it - she'd always stayed with me. After she died, I thought about her a lot.
LYDEN: What does the theme "I Died for Beauty" suggest to you?
SENECHAL: It suggests to me the struggle that she had with Linus Pauling. You read at the beginning the first stanza of the poem. And let me read the second one, which is the one that I think that touched me the most and made me realize this had to be the title.
I was scarce adjusted in the tomb when one who died for truth was lain in an adjoining room. And then the next stanza: He questioned softly why I failed. For beauty, I replied. And I for truth, the two are one, we brethren are, he said.
And this is what I think the whole story is about on the intellectual level, is the struggle to look for simple answers to complex questions. And we do this all the time. We try to wade through the data, wade through the complexity and see what is really going on here. But sometimes we don't find that. This is an ongoing sort of dialogue between truth and beauty that I think is continuing in science everywhere else today.
LYDEN: Marjorie Senechal. Her new book is called "I Died For Beauty: Dorothy Wrinch and the Cultures of Science." Thank you, Marjorie.
SENECHAL: Oh, thank you so much, Jacki.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden. And now, it's time for some music.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SON & KETE")
LYDEN: And today, global music DJ Betto Arcos is back to share some of his favorite new music from Spain, including this track from flamenco guitarist Jose Luis Monton.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SON & KETE")
LYDEN: Betto is the host of "Global Village" on KPFK in Los Angeles where he joins us from our studios at NPR West. Betto, thanks for being here.
BETTO ARCOS: Oh, pleasure to be with you, Jacki.
LYDEN: Nice to start the New Year this way with you. So this song is really, really luscious. We're hearing this music by Jose Luis Monton. He has a new solo CD out, and this Barcelona-born flamenco guitarist is really wonderful to listen to.
ARCOS: Yeah. He's a really special guitarist because in this record, he brings flamenco to a different level of musicianship. And what he does in this particular tune is he takes one of the many palos - or standards - of playing flamenco, and he sort of deconstructs it. What you hear is this kind of very soulful, heartfelt approach to a typically very high energy tune but still keeping that energy in there.
He brings his music to almost a classical approach, almost like a Baroque-inspired type of music. And it just brings the soul of the music out.
LYDEN: Tell us the name of this particular track.
ARCOS: It's a tune called "Son & Kete." And sonikete in the flamenco language means to have rhythm, to have the energy to play the music. And this is what he gives us in this tune.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SON & KETE")
LYDEN: That's flamenco guitarist Jose Luis Monton. And, Betto, the next artist that you've brought is the female quartet - I really like this one - Las Migas. I really love the sounds of the women's voices, Betto, lots of soul, passion. Tell us more about them.
ARCOS: This group is composed of four women: one from Germany, one from France and two from Andalusia, from southern Spain, the cradle of flamenco. What they do in this particular case is they reinvent a traditional cante, a traditional tangos from Sevilla, from Seville, and they make it their own.
They add something that's unique to this particular group, the violin, but you also hear in this case the wonderful foot tapping of the singer in this band, Alba Carmona. Fantastic, fantastic singer.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LA GUITARRINA")
LYDEN: That's the Spanish flamenco quartet Las Migas. And my guest is Betto Arcos, host of KPFK's "Global Village" in Los Angeles, and we're listening to some of his favorite new songs from Spain. Now, here's another.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NANA DE CHOCOLATE Y LECHE")
LYDEN: Betto, this next song that you brought us is a change of tempo. Now, I might be wrong, but it almost sounds like something you could rock a cradle to.
ARCOS: It's interesting you say that because it's a song called "Nana de Chocolate y Leche" which means "Lullaby of Chocolate and Milk." It's a song by Lara Bello. And she says this is her favorite track in the record because it has to do with the cycle of life and death. She wrote this song around the time her dad passed away.
And the next day after he passed away, one of her good friends had two babies and one was darker than the other, hence the title chocolate and milk. It's a beautiful song. It's a song that's not much to do with Spain as it does with the Americas because it has a - an Afro-Peruvian dance rhythm here called lando.
And then the Columbian harpist, fantastic musician Edmar Castaneda plays this incredible solo, and it just grounds this tune down to the earth, Fantastic approach of mixing these two traditions together, the Peruvian and the Colombian, and of course, that very soulful, very Spanish singing of Lara Bello.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NANA DE CHOCOLATE Y LECHE")
LYDEN: "Nana de Chocolate y Leche." Really nice. Now, this next one, let's listen to "Jigs and Bulls."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JIGS AND BULLS")
LYDEN: Now, I was given this, Betto, and I thought that maybe there'd been a mistake, that someone had handed me a piece of Irish music.
(LAUGHTER)
ARCOS: You're right. This is the Galician bagpipe. Now, you know that Spain is not just about flamenco, right? This is music from another part of Spain. It's from Galicia in the northwest corner of Spain. It's music with ancient Celtic roots and modern Spanish energy.
And the man behind this tune is none other than the giant of Celtic music, Carlos Nunez. He is the master of Galicia's bagpipes, the gaita, as they are called in Spain. And, man, I have to say this is an incredible tune, not only because of the amazing playing of Carlos Nunez, but because he's bringing north and south together.
The music of Spain, you hear that in the guitar playing and the way in which he mixes the sort of flamenco rhythms here, but he's also mixing the Galician style of music called muneda. As you know, Galician music is very much about the spirit of the Earth. And this is what the song brings out. It's so heavenly.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JIGS AND BULLS")
LYDEN: You know, I've looked at his name, and I realized that what confused me was I have seen that man on Chieftains albums. He's played with Paddy Moloney and The Chieftains.
ARCOS: That's right. He's enormously popular across the rest of Spain and Europe. And, in fact, The Chieftains call him the seventh Chieftain. He's recorded with them so many times, including the Grammy-winning recording "Santiago" inspired by Galician music.
And I thought this is a great way to kind of close this segment because it just shows you the incredible range of musics in Spain. It's not just flamenco. It's not just Galician. It's everything. And this is a fantastic way to bring the culture of Spain together in one tune.
LYDEN: So that's Spanish piper Carlos Nunez, and he's just one of the many artists that you can hear on Betto Arcos' show "Global Village" on KPFK in Los Angeles. You know, I'm not going to have time to go to Spain any time very soon, but thank you for bringing it here to all of us. (Foreign language spoken)
ARCOS: My pleasure, Jacki. (Foreign language spoken)
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JIGS AND BULLS")
LYDEN: And for Sunday, that's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
For thousands of years, sailors told stories of giant squid. In myth and cinema, it was the most terrible of sea monsters with a terrifying moniker of kraken.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "CLASH OF THE TITANS")
LIAM NEESON: (as Zeus) Release the kraken.
LYDEN: "Clash of the Titans." But outside of mythology, the giant squid is very real, although until recently, we'd only seen them in still photographs. After decades of searching the seas, scientists have captured the first video of a live giant squid thousands of feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
Edie Widder is the ocean researcher who took the footage. Welcome. And, Edie, congratulations.
EDIE WIDDER: Oh, thank you, Jacki. It's a long time coming.
LYDEN: These images are really fascinating, and the camera that took the pictures was your brain child. How did you attract the squid towards the camera?
WIDDER: I had been wanting for a long time to explore the ocean in a different way because I've always been concerned about how much stuff we must be scaring away with bright, noisy submersibles. Any animal with any sense is going to get away from that. So I wanted to develop a stealthy system.
And besides having a stealthy camera, I wanted to not just put down bait the way normally people do to attract animals, because dead bait is just going to attract scavengers. And so I wanted to attract active predators. And so I developed an optical lure that imitates a particular type of bioluminescent display that I thought should be attractive to large predators.
LYDEN: So I have a really sort of silly question. How did we know the giant squid exists if nobody had seen it?
WIDDER: It's not a silly question at all. Actually, the reason we know giant squids exist is they happen to float when they die. But we really only explored 5 percent of the ocean, and I think we've explored that in the wrong way. I think we've been scaring a lot of animals away. So what about the stuff that doesn't float when it dies?
LYDEN: So what does a giant squid look like? I mean, on the video, you have this just sort of gorgeous - it almost looks like a water lily folding and unfolding, only of course, much bigger.
WIDDER: The footage I got, yes, was just amazing to see it come in. The first few times that we saw it on camera, it just was like it was kind of doing a fan dance and just showing us little bits of itself. We'd see the arms kind of wave by the camera. And we did see one long shot of it. But the most spectacular shot was when it came in on the attack. And you'll note that it comes up over that sphere, which is the optical lure, and attacks the camera system itself.
LYDEN: What color are they?
WIDDER: On my camera system, you can't tell what color because it's black and white, but on the imagery that was shot from the submersible - it was a high-resolution camera - and the color was utterly different than any of us expected.
The one that had been brought to the surface and that there's pictures of on the Web was red, and a lot of deep-sea squid are red. But this was a spectacular silver and gold. And just - it looks like it's carved out of metal. It's just absolutely breathtaking and completely unexpected.
LYDEN: How large do they get, and how deep are they found in the ocean?
WIDDER: The giant squid from the tip of the mantle to the tip of the tentacles, I think the longest one ever measured was supposedly 55 feet. The ones we were finding from the tip of the mantle to the tip of the arms were between 10 and 12 feet. And then the tentacles are usually another two-thirds of that. So they could have been as much as 30 feet.
LYDEN: Wow. How did you feel when you saw this creature on the video?
WIDDER: Oh, the excitement was incredible. It's just amazing to be able to have a moment like that and realize you've done something that people have been trying to do for decades. And that was what - actually what got me into science in the first place, this opportunity to explore a frontier. But I never, never imagined that I'd get an opportunity like this.
LYDEN: Edie Widder is a deep sea explorer. She's the founder of the Ocean Research and Conservation Association. She captured the first video of a giant squid swimming. And that video will air on the Discovery Channel on the 27th of January. She spoke to us in member station WQCS in Fort Pierce, Florida. Edie Widder, what an exciting discovery.
WIDDER: It was the excitement of my life.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
America's military future is decidedly undecided. Looming sequestration cuts of massive proportions, coupled with a U.S. troop drawdown in Afghanistan, add to that the boiling partisanship over Chuck Hagel's nomination as Defense secretary, and it's hard to avoid the conclusion that some of the Department of Defense's biggest challenges come from inside U.S. borders.
Still, the job of the DOD is to anticipate what threats to national security might look like - and prepare. Rob Wittman chairs the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Readiness.
REPRESENTATIVE ROB WITTMAN: We have increasing risks from nuclear powers like North Korea and Iran. Also, we have increased presence of the non-state actors in the area of terrorism. All those things are going to be critical. And obviously, now the question is not only how do we structure our conventional forces, but how do we structure those other forces? Those cyber forces, those asymmetric forces, those special operators? Those are all going to be critical questions that we have to ask in the years to come.
LYDEN: That's our cover story today: unease, the future of the American military.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDINGS)
PRESIDENT DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER: In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex.
PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON: In the past five years, we have steadily reduced the burden of national defense.
PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON: It is true that we can responsibly reduce our defense budget.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: ...a new defense strategy that ensures we maintain the finest military in the world while saving nearly half a trillion dollars in our budget.
LYDEN: The end of every war brings new predicaments in Washington. Budgets have to be weighed against potential threats.
GORDON ADAMS: We have had three major defense build-downs since we got out of the Second World War: one after Korea, one after Vietnam, one at the end of the Cold War.
LYDEN: That's Gordon Adams, a professor of international relations at American University and the former senior White House official for the national security budget in the Clinton administration. He says history tells us there's plenty of room to cut the defense budget while still keeping us safe.
ADAMS: Every time if you start in the year where we were spending the most and went 10 years out, you found that we had reduced the defense budget 30 percent in constant dollars, every single time. Right now, we haven't yet significantly reduced the defense budget at all. So my guess is that sometime over the next 10 years, we'll see something like a trillion to a trillion and a half dollars come out of defense from what we would've had if you'd gone from fiscal '10 when we spent the most and just give them inflation every year after that. It will be - it will look like very big cuts.
LYDEN: What can we expect the military to look like in the next 10 to 15 years, and how large has the military budget grown?
ADAMS: The defense budget today is somewhere in the range of $650 billion. That's more than doubled since 2001. Including the war cost, it's about 4.2, 4.3 percent of the gross domestic product, and it's probably the highest number in constant dollars that we've spent on the military ever since the end of the Second World War.
LYDEN: And I'm imaging that that is attributable to our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
ADAMS: It is, in large part, attributable to it but in an interesting way. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan probably added between 100 and $150 billion a year to what we would've otherwise spent on defense. But that said, nobody was going to question the basic defense budget while we were at war. So it is the engine that pulled a very, very large train.
LYDEN: You know, when we talk about the billions of dollars that have been spent on the wars, you know, one wonders what sort of military moment we are in right now. There has been a lot of discussion about rejiggering the military to fight the long war, the anti-insurgent war, and I'm wondering what we've learned from that.
ADAMS: I think there's a fundamental change in the reality of how the military might be used, which is in much smaller units, in much smaller areas for very temporary periods of time with a lot of training of local forces when they go in and go out. And all of that says to me it is perfectly safe and sustainable to bring down the size, particularly of the ground force, quite sharply in the process of doing a build-down.
LYDEN: What does President Obama's nomination of Chuck Hagel suggest about what he intends for defense spending?
ADAMS: I think in terms of the overall approach to the use of the military, it suggests caution about where we send and deploy and how we use America's military. It also suggests the budget is going down, not necessarily because President Obama has decided to push down the defense budget, but because we're out of Iraq, out of Afghanistan. Other issues like our fiscal situation are more important, and the defense budget is going to accommodate that in order to get to some kind of a fiscal solution.
So the biggest challenge that Secretary Hagel will face at the Defense Department isn't Iraq. It isn't Israel. It isn't Afghanistan. It isn't Iran. It is managing a defense drawdown.
LYDEN: You know, when we talk about the billions of dollars that have been spent on the wars, do you think, in the day and age we're in, does it keep us safe in the current global security situation?
ADAMS: Absolutely. I think what's unique about the situation we're in right now is in the wake of Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of America's national security interests, we have never been safer than we are today. We don't face an existential threat. We don't face a major power that can extend its reach to the United States. The Chinese are a long time off before that's a serious challenge to the United States in a military sense.
There are very few challenges that we face that are as stunningly dangerous as the ones that I grew up with, which was the Cold War and the risk of a nuclear Armageddon with the Soviet Union. We're not there. We're way away from there. And in many respects, in many regions of the world, this has become a safer, not a more dangerous, world.
LYDEN: You're saying, Gordon Adams, that this is a relatively secure time if we're talking about conventional warfare. But predictions in the past have sometimes misjudged what seems to be the best line of attack for the moment. You make new ballistic missiles, and then it turns out that maybe you're going to go the route of drones. You make drones, and then it turns out that maybe you need some kind of land defensive unit. Are we prepared?
ADAMS: Yeah. We are entirely prepared for most of the challenges that you can imagine today. The pieces that people talk about when they say what are the black swans, what are the things that'll come at you and you don't know that they're going to come at you, right, they typically fall into the zones of terrorism or cyber. Most of the response to a cyber-offense is not a military response.
Terror is the kind of attack that requires a very small handful of people. We have today in the Special Operations Forces 68,000 people. That's the very precision-oriented kind of capability that you're going to use to deal with that black swan attack. It's not going to be a ground invasion of Pakistan.
LYDEN: Gordon Adams is professor of international relations at American University.
Of course, the character of future wars is notoriously difficult to predict. Mackenzie Eaglen studies security at the American Enterprise Institute.
MACKENZIE EAGLEN: Those are the wars America would choose if we're the only ones who have to make that decision. Everybody wants shorter wars, more bloodless wars, wars that avoid boots on the ground, things that can be done, you know, not kinetically, through cyber and air power and other things. But unfortunately, wars tend to have shown us that they are messy, and they often involve the loss of life and treasure. And so we just live in a more complicated and unpredictable world where hedging against one type of threat would certainly buy us the wrong military.
LYDEN: Mackenzie, we've been talking about cutting, cutting, cutting. Is there some area in which actually you think we should be growing the defense budget?
EAGLEN: Well, there are areas that are going to maintain stability, if not grow. So, for example, the cyber threat. That's a pot of money that's going to maintain itself. Of course, special forces, the demand has only gone up, you know, 12 years after 9/11, and this very small group of warriors needs more bodies. And they're going to continue to grow. Unmanned systems - whether that's robotics, whether that's drones, for example - that whole class and field of technology will continue to be in high demand for the U.S. military.
LYDEN: Can you grow those kinds of programs, though, and still cut the budget, Mackenzie?
EAGLEN: It seems that that is an obvious thing that you can do, but, in fact, what we find is, for example, take special forces. This group of warriors often recruits from the general purpose forces. So the standing Army and Marine Corps, for example, you count on those guys to provide a lot of support and in other missions and operations around the world. So as the big military goes, so eventually will go the special forces. It will be very hard to grow them organically while the rest of the force is shrinking.
LYDEN: I want to ask you a little bit about the nomination of Chuck Hagel for secretary of Defense. What kind of signal does his selection send, do you think, from the Obama administration?
EAGLEN: To me, it manifests a reality that's been under way for the last five or so years, which is the growing friendship between the libertarian worldview and the liberal worldview. Their means are very different, but their ends are ultimately very, very similar in a more isolationist foreign policy and a smaller military and fewer options for how you use them. So basically restricting foreign policy by cutting back on defense.
Those two factions are a voting majority of Congress. It's why we've seen significant defense cuts before we even had the fiscal cliff and the sequester. There's a widespread sentiment among people in those two groups that they've seen the militarization of foreign policy and the lack of emphasis on softer, smart power or other tools of statecraft. That wars of choice, you know, need not be part of the future and that we shouldn't do as much with our military. Therefore, it can be much, much smaller.
LYDEN: That's Mackenzie Eaglen, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Great pleasure to have you in. Thanks for coming.
EAGLEN: My pleasure. Thank you.
LYDEN: The political reality in Congress will inevitably mean less money for defense contractors. We thought we'd talk to a couple of them to find out how they're planning to adapt to a smaller military budget.
Eric Basu is CEO of Sentek Global, a California cybersecurity company. He doesn't like the idea of sequestration, but he's planning for fewer defense dollars.
ERIC BASU: The nice thing about the rational, long-term cuts is they generally give you a little more lead time. If companies can plan in advance, then people can move on to other industries and move on to other companies fairly easily.
LYDEN: Rodney Hudson's strategy for lean times is to diversify. He owns a company in Maryland.
RODNEY HUDSON: I am looking to other markets - Indonesia, Malaysia, the UAE. Turkey's looking at it, the United Kingdom, just to name a few.
LYDEN: So whether we're talking big armies or long wars, a military-industrial complex or a complex military industry, it's Congress which ultimately decides how big our military really needs to be. And those battle lines are now being drawn.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
Last Friday, the future of Afghanistan was once again front and center in Washington. Afghan President Hamid Karzai met with President Obama who confirmed the U.S. will be withdrawing all combat forces there by 2014. President Karzai said it's time for Afghanistan, in his words, to regain sovereignty.
History is thus repeating itself. Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is a senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He says there are, however, more similarities than you might expect between the U.S. and Soviet withdrawal of 1989.
DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: I think it's an apt comparison because when the Soviets left, there was this conception that Najibullah's regime that was the Communist regime that was left there was going to collapse basically imminently.
LYDEN: Because it had been supported by the Russians.
GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: Absolutely. And they thought that with the Russians out of the country, this regime was not long for the world. What was interesting is that Najibullah's regime did much better than people anticipated. It survived for several years. He used patronage networks. And in that way, it may have been sustainable, absent the collapse of the Soviet Union.
So when people are looking at the U.S.' withdrawal and what will happen to Karzai's regime, understanding what happened in this very understudied period - 1989 to 1992 - is a very important thing to look to for historical lessons.
LYDEN: I want to stick with President Najibullah for just a few moments. As I recall, going to Afghanistan in 2001, one of the first things I was shown - and language warning here - was the lamppost from which his much-mutilated body was hung, and that was back in 1996. Do you see any comparison between his end and what the future could hold in Afghanistan? Or is that not an apt comparison?
GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: Well, it's a possibility. You know, it's hard to say what the future will hold in Afghanistan. One thing that we can certainly draw from Afghan history - not just recent history but 2,600 years of history - is that the country has its way of surprising both foreign powers and also its own leaders. I think that, in fact, you're much more likely to see a regime that's able to survive in Kabul and look much like Najibullah's regime did prior to the Soviet Union's collapse.
One thing we can draw from that, though, is Najibullah's regime was not a regime that was able to extend its writ throughout the country and to really take care of the kind of concerns that we have today, concerns, for example, about a terrorist safe haven, about the expansion of the Taliban, things that perhaps are likely to happen post-U.S. withdrawal.
LYDEN: I just don't want to leave our conversation, David Gartenstein-Ross, without talking about Pakistan a little. It's not as if Afghanistan exists in isolation. How do you think that relationship will change once the U.S. presence is diminished?
GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: Pakistan has really been a significant part of the story over the past decade. And the U.S. has, frankly, never really had a Pakistan policy. It's very difficult for the leader of Pakistan to exert control over the country. And this is a significant dynamic and one that will probably continue after the U.S. leaves.
LYDEN: And speaking of the U.S. departure, do you think the likelihood is that there could be a kind of civil war as there was at the end of the 1990s?
GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: Certainly, there's going to be a lot of violence within the country. Whether it's civil war-type violence with ethnic factions actually fighting each other or whether it's more routine struggle for control is a good question. I would guess it would be the latter type. I don't expect the country to simply descend into civil war as the U.S. leaves.
LYDEN: Your expertise is on defense, but I don't want to overlook completely. You hear from Afghan civilians, particularly those who are educated and who've worked so hard to try to stabilize the country or contribute to a civil society: Don't forget us. Do you think we will?
GARTENSTEIN-ROSS: Yes. Regrettably, I do think that we're going to forget them. Both the Iraq War and the war in Afghanistan are at this point incredibly unpopular - things that we would like to forget. And it's going to be very difficult to operate within that country, especially given budget constraints. I really wish that the answer was no. But if you look at our own history, we have a tendency to forget our allies. We've done that before. We did that with the Vietnamese. We have largely done that with Iraq. And I expect that we will sadly do the same thing with Afghanistan.
LYDEN: That's Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
Of course, there are Afghans determined to help their country build its future - a young technocrat class, some of them the sons of warlords. Ahmad Shafi is an Afghan journalist based in the U.S., and he's hopeful about changes he's witnessed amongst the young and educated, putting country over tribe.
AHMAD SHAFI: They called themselves the survivalists. These are the generation who grew up witnessing the communist struggle in the 1980s, then they went through the civil war in the 1990s. Then in 2001, they had an opportunity to go to the West and they had their education and they returned to Afghanistan. These are people from Karzai's office and also some of the sons of the former warlords who were sent by their fathers to go and receive some education because they thought their sons would come back and help them consolidate their power base.
What happened is the sons got exposed to much larger ideas and they came back more Afghan than being Tajik or Pashtun. My own prediction is that they would lead Afghanistan towards a much more open society.
LYDEN: Afghan journalist Ahmad Shafi, who's worked with NPR in the past, shared his thoughts on the future of Afghanistan from our bureau in New York.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
Let's move from exploring the depths of the ocean to orbiting the Earth's thermosphere. Have you ever wondered what life in outer space actually sounds like? Well, as it turns out, it's really pretty noisy.
(SOUNDBITE OF WHIRRING)
LYDEN: That's ambient noise - roaring fans and air pumps - aboard the International Space Station recorded by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. We didn't ask the astronaut to record anything, but he has the makings of a fine NPR producer.
Since arriving at the satellite a few weeks ago, he's kept his 200,000-plus Twitter followers up-to-date with a constant stream of information: stunning photos of the Earth, tweets to William Shatner and sound recordings of everyday life aboard the satellite, no detail too small for Hadfield. He's even filled us in on the whoosh of a space toilet.
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LYDEN: And that's the vroom of a vacuum helping move things along. Hadfield doesn't just vacuum up sounds. He makes them. Here he is strumming and singing a ditty.
CHRIS HADFIELD: "Jewel in the Night," the first recording from Space Station.
LYDEN: That he wrote with his brother about this cool, little planet.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JEWEL IN THE NIGHT")
HADFIELD: (Singing) So bright jewel in the night...
The favorite past time of astronauts is looking at the world out the window. It is so fundamentally beautiful and mesmerizing.
LYDEN: Poet-philosopher, I mean, astronaut Hadfield spoke this week at a press conference beamed down to Earth, and he reflected on the serenity of an image of Syria he took from Space.
HADFIELD: To go around the world in just slightly over 90 minutes, the world just unrolls itself for you, and you see it absolutely discreetly as one place. And so when we do look down on a place that is currently in great turmoil or strife, it's hard to reconcile the inherent patience and beauty of the world with the terrible things that we can do to each other.
And that's part of the reason that we work so hard to communicate what we're doing up here, is to try and just give people a little glimpse at the fact that we're all in this together.
LYDEN: And for most of us, following Chris Hadfield's tweets, listening to his recordings and seeing his photographs is our best way of getting into space.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JEWEL IN THE NIGHT")
HADFIELD: (Singing) With all of our cities aglow...
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
Now, to New York. Printed Matter is a bookstore in Manhattan's Chelsea district. But it's not just any bookstore. The nonprofit works with artists to create, publish and sell their work in book form. It also hosts exhibitions and performances. Over the course of nearly four decades, it's become a beloved institution in New York's art community.
So when the store was flooded during Hurricane Sandy, volunteers - some of whom didn't even have power themselves - descended on Chelsea to help the store salvage what it could. Jon Kalish has the story of the ongoing recovery effort.
JON KALISH, BYLINE: Six feet of water filled Printed Matter's basement, its primary storage area. Around 9,000 books were destroyed. They comprised a kind of archive, says James Jenkin, the executive director of the nonprofit store.
JAMES JENKIN: This was stuff that we had created with artists over the years and years and years. It's not something you can easily replace. And it was stuff that actually generates income for the organization.
MAX SCHUMANN: Artist books, experimental book projects by artists, book works as art works but done in large editions meant to be affordable and accessible art works.
KALISH: Max Schumann stood outside Printed Matter about a week after the hurricane.
SCHUMANN: Some editions were entirely wiped out. Like, they are now out of print as of the flood or the one or two copies we happen to have in the store are the last copies of that edition. So it was a real tragedy in that sense.
KALISH: The founders of the organization included critic and activist Lucy Lippard and artist Sol LeWitt. David Senior stands amid the Printed Matter stacks.
DAVID SENIOR: We're in Chelsea, where there's a lot of blue chip art galleries where things are very expensive. And this is sort of the other end of the spectrum when you think about what's available, what people can own, what can exist in their homes as art.
KALISH: Senior is a bibliographer in the acquisitions department of the Museum of Modern Art. He says one of the things that makes Printed Matter so beloved is its effort to make art accessible.
SENIOR: A lot of the material here has a resonance not only with the art world but also that sort of world of zines and sort of a punk rock ethos of doing it yourself and putting work out in the world as just a form of personal expression through little Xeroxed books, that kind of scrappy art practice that you can see all along the shelves here.
KALISH: When Senior learned that Printed Matter's archive was under water after the hurricane, he rode his bicycle into Manhattan from Queens and helped clean out the store's basement. He was part of a small army of volunteers in the days following Sandy that boxed up what might be salvaged.
Twenty of those boxes are now with a disaster restoration company called Polygon. First, they were frozen, then sent to the Boston area and placed inside a vacuum freeze dried chamber. Summer Street is with Polygon's document recovery division.
SUMMER STREET: We put in the frozen materials. And once we close the chamber, we have a vacuum pump that actually brings down the atmospheric pressure. And in that process, the solid water will actually skip the wet phase and turn right into a vapor. It would not be something anyone would ever want to experience.
KALISH: Street says that because Printed Matter's archive was frozen so soon after being soaked, it has an excellent chance of being salvaged. This is costing thousands of dollars, but a couple of foundations have awarded grants for the archive restoration. The bookstore is now faced with finding an alternative to its basement for storage. Not easy in the gentrified Chelsea neighborhood, says Printed Matter's James Jenkin.
JENKIN: We are trying to sell obscure things for as cheaply as possible, so it's not the most successful business model in a lot of respects. And, yeah, you could change that by changing what we do and the type of stock we have and changing pricing, but that's not what we're about.
KALISH: A benefit art auction for Printed Matter will take place in the spring at a Chelsea gallery space donated by the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation. For NPR News, I'm Jon Kalish in New York.
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LYDEN: And you're listening to WEEKEND ALL THINGS CONSIDERED on NPR News.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
"Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" - it was just a single line in a speech given 50 years ago today. But it's remembered as one of the most vehement rallying cries against racial equality, in American history. The year was 1963. Civil rights activists were fighting for equal access to schools and the voting booth, and the federal government was preparing to intervene in many Southern states. In Montgomery, Alabama, newly elected Gov. George Wallace stepped to the podium to deliver his inaugural address. Producers Samara Freemark and Joe Richman, of Radio Dairies, have this audio history.
WAYNE GREENHAW: My name is Wayne Greenhaw. I was a newspaper reporter in Montgomery, Alabama, back in the 1960s.
DR. JAMES V. POE JR.: I was a student activist, and my name is Dr. James V. Poe Jr.
DAN CARTER: My name is Dan Carter. I wrote a biography of George Wallace.
REP. JOHN LEWIS: My name is John Lewis. I'm a member of the House of Representatives. And I remember the speech very well.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
(APPLAUSE)
GOV. GEORGE WALLACE: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. This - this is the inaugurate - day of my inauguration as governor of the state of Alabama...
CARTER: George Wallace was inaugurated on the steps of the Capitol. The streets were packed; all his followers - from all over the state - crowding around the platform; and many of them wearing these white flowers, which were meant to symbolize their commitment to white supremacy.
LEWIS: Blacks were not invited to attend. It was open to the public, anyone in the public; but we were not the public.
CARTER: All of the major networks cover his inaugural address on national television. And that really catapulted him onto the national scene. So he proceeds to milk that, for everything that he can.
WALLACE: Let us send this message back to Washington by our representatives who are here with us today; that from this day we are standing up, and the heel of tyranny does not fit the neck of an upright man.
GREENHAW: He was putting on a show. He marched back and forth; shook his fist. He was promising that he was going to stand alone for the Southern cause, the cause of the white people.
WALLACE: That we, not the insipid black...
GREENHAW: It's vehement. It's mean-spirited. It's hateful. But how he said it was magnificent.
WALLACE: But if we amalgamate into the one unit, as advocated by the communist philosophers, then the enrichment of our lives, the freedom of our development is gone forever. We become, therefore, a mongrel unit of one, under a single...
CARTER: For the white Southerners who were standing out there in that freezing cold and stomping their feet, finally there was somebody who was saying what they felt; who was expressing their deepest fears about what was going to happen.
WALLACE: We can no longer hide our head...
CARTER: They wanted that anger; they wanted somebody to express it. And Wallace was the one that did it.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING)
POE: He said no matter what the Supreme Court said in Brown v. the Board of Education, no matter what the federal government is saying, we will continue to exercise state's rights. And we will continue to segregate.
WALLACE: Let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us, and send our answer to the tyranny that clanks its chains upon the South...
LEWIS: I took it very personal. My governor - this elected official - was saying, in effect, you are not welcome. You are not welcome.
WALLACE: In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust, and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny. And I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.
(CHEERS, APPLAUSE)
LEWIS: Words can be very powerful. Words can be dangerous. Governor Wallace never pulled a trigger. He never fired a gun. But in his speech, he created the environment for others to pull the trigger in the days, the weeks and months to come.
POE: We began to feel the sting of the speech - people night-riding and burning crosses; the police beat down people and ran over them with horses, put tear gas on them.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: This march will not continue.
LEWIS: And later during this same year, we witnessed the bombing of a church, where four little girls were killed on a Sunday morning. This was a very difficult and dark time in the American South.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED POLITICAL AD)
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing) Let's win, win, win, win, Wallace. And help him pave the way...
GREENHAW: Segregation now, segregation forever became Wallace's symbol. Before Wallace made that speech, the editorial page editor of the Montgomery Advertiser tried to get Wallace to take out that part. Much later in life, he probably wished he had taken it out.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing) Let's win, win, win, win...
CARTER: George Wallace was elected governor in the next election - and would continue to be, over much of his lifetime. He ran for president four times, and he did very well. Whether it was racial backlash or hostility to the national government, the social issues, no one played it better than Wallace did. But he would never hold national political office.
Most Americans, what they know about George Wallace is, "segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." That line is so iconic, so important. And George Wallace was on the wrong side of history.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDINGS)
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOTS, SCREAMS)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Stand back, ladies and gentlemen. Get out of the way! Move!
UNIDENTIFIED BROADCASTER #1: George Wallace was shot down this afternoon as he campaigned in Maryland, not far from Washington.
UNIDENTIFIED BROADCASTER #2: The 52-year-old Wallace had just finished talking to a crowd at a shopping center, and had stepped from behind a bulletproof podium when the shots rang out.
CARTER: In May of 1972, George Wallace is shot five times. His spinal cord was badly damaged by one of the bullets, and he's paralyzed.
POE: One has to wonder if, sitting in that wheelchair, maybe he had a chance to contemplate.
LEWIS: A few short years later, after I got to Congress, Gov. Wallace heard that I was going to be in Alabama. He said, John Lewis, will you come by, talk with me? And I remember the occasion so well. It was like someone confessing to their priest, or to a minister. He wanted people to forgive him. He said, I never hated anybody. I never hated any black people. He said, Mr. Lewis, I'm sorry. And I said, well, Governor, I accept your apology.
POE: Being the type of person I am, out of my heart, out of my soul, I can forgive George Wallace. Yes. Heaven's sakes, I forgive him. But forget? No. Never. Never.
WALLACE: I draw the line in the dust, and toss the gauntlet...
LEWIS: I tell you, since then, I often think about what Gov. Wallace said in that speech.
WALLACE: ...segregation tomorrow and segregation forever.
LEWIS: Does it hurt me? No. In the end, I think George Wallace was one of the signs on this long journey toward the creation of a better America; toward the creation of a more perfect union. It was just one of the stumbling blocks along the way.
CORNISH: In his later years, George Wallace reached out to civil rights activists and appeared in black churches, to ask forgiveness. In his last election as governor of Alabama, in 1982, he won with more than 90 percent of the black vote.
Our story was produced by Samara Freemark and Joe Richman, of Radio Dairies; with help from Ben Shapiro, and edited by Deborah George.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
The movie award season is upon us and historical dramas are once again front and center. One of the films now in theaters comes from Germany, a country with a long tortured history that's inspired many movies. The new film is called "Barbara." And as NPR's Bilal Qureshi reports, it explores questions that a lot of German filmmakers are asking today.
BILAL QURESHI, BYLINE: World War II epics and Holocaust memoirs have become standard fare in the award season. But today's generation of German directors is working through the more recent history of East and West. For director Christian Petzold, it's also a personal history.
CHRISTIAN PETZOLD: My parents, they're refugees, from the German Democratic Republic, my first two years in the West, I'm living in a camp for displaced person.
QURESHI: Petzold says he still remembers going to visit his family while the country was divided.
PETZOLD: They're talking the same language than me, the cousins and all the people around me, I can talk to them, but they are totally different at the same moment. And for me, it was a very mysterious time. And so I start o remember this time when I start to make this movie.
QURESHI: The star of Petzold's movie is Nina Hoss. She was born in the West and was 14 when the wall came down in 1989.
NINA HOSS: When my parents said, why don't we go and have a look at this country, I always said, no, no, no. Why, why? Maybe they won't let me out again or - so I had this horror vision of the other part of Germany in my mind. But that, of course, changed. Once the wall came down, I went to East Berlin to study acting and in East Berlin school and I wanted to live in the east part of Berlin.
QURESHI: The new film "Barbara" is about a woman who wants to get out of East Germany. And for that, she's punished. She's a talented doctor who's banished to work in a rural village under constant surveillance. She's angry and on edge. This is different from the menacing oppression of the Stasi shown in the Oscar-winning "The Lives of Others."
The handlers and watchers in "Barbara" are equally vulnerable, human. And Nina Hoss says it was important to show both the ambiguity and the ordinariness of life in the former German Democratic Republic.
HOSS: If you talk to the people who lived in the GDR, they always tell you, we loved, we had kids, the grass was green, I had a wonderful childhood. So I thought it was very important for "Barbara" also to be able to show that it's hard to leave your home behind, however cruel the system is you live in.
QURESHI: However cruel, director Christian Petzold points out there were also accomplishments like those of the Agfa film company.
PETZOLD: Technicolor techniques, they were invented in the part of East Germany near Beterfeld and the German Democratic Republic has pictures of itself always very, very colorful. It's like a Jerry Lewis movie in the '50s, very fantastic red, fantastic blue. But we in the West, we make pictures of them like our imagination of socialism - gray, dirty light.
QURESHI: "Barbara" is trying to address the stereotype without glossing over the reality of that period. It's one of a series of new German films that have taken up the ghosts of a once divided country. Laurence Kardish is the former film curator at the Museum of Modern Art. He presented an annual survey of German cinema at MoMA and he says the country's filmmakers can't escape their past.
LAURENCE KARDISH: There are so many issues. It is such a turbulent history that contemporary filmmakers have to and do often refer to the events of the past hundred years, 150 years.
QURESHI: "Barbara" premiered at the Berlin Film Festival last year and both Nina Hoss and Christian Petzold live in the new German capital. It's a city that symbolizes German division and reunification. And Nina Hoss says for the artists who've made their homes there, the time to tell stories like "Barbara" is now.
HOSS: If we would have done this movie 10 years ago, it would've been very difficult to get the acceptance from the Eastern part because it was sure that if you come from the West, you can't tell our story because you didn't know anything about it. And I think Westerners also didn't even try to do it. Now, I think, by having a distance, the distance is actually quite helpful.
QURESHI: "Barbara" was filmed on location in a small town and hospital in the former East. Nina Hoss says she spoke at length with the locals and says they were grateful that Westerners came and tried to get it right.
HOSS: They were and they are still very happy that they live in a democracy now. But the way it went and that no one actually asked questions of how they lived, the West kind of got there and said, well, now you can be happy. You must be happy now. And what happened and what you went through or how beautiful it was, also, I mean, it's 40 years of their life. They can't be in vain, you know. And no one asked and that was very hurtful, I think.
QURESHI: And by getting beyond the gray stereotypes, "Barbara" is emblematic of a new generation of German films and how they're asking about their country's past to better understand its future. Bilal Qureshi, NPR News.
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When it comes to staying healthy, most of us know we're supposed to eat our five a day. But not all fruits and veggies were created nutritionally equal. New evidence today suggests some may give us more bang for our buck.
NPR's Allison Aubrey reports on a study that finds women who ate at least three servings per week of blueberries and strawberries, had fewer heart attacks.
ALLISON AUBREY, BYLINE: When it comes to foods that are thought to be supernutritious, the blueberry has long had a health halo floating over it. Going back centuries, when blueberries grew wild all over American colonies, foodways historian Kathleen Wall says they were considered an important part of the diet.
KATHLEEN WALL: Going back to Colonial times, Native Americans and the English colonists were eating blueberries. They were drying them. They would pound them into a paste. They would add them to their porridge.
AUBREY: Not so different from us topping off our oatmeal with berries. Now, Native Americans may have had some clues and beliefs about the health-promoting effects of berries. But it's only in recent years that scientists have started to really try to nail them down. For instance, research suggests that berry consumption may be good for the brain. And one large study links berries to a decreased risk of Type 2 diabetes.
Today, researchers add another finding to the growing body of evidence. A study published in the journal "Circulation" finds blueberries, as well as strawberries, seem to help cut the risk of heart disease in some women. Aedin Cassidy, of the University of East Anglia, is the study author.
AEDIN CASSIDY: We showed, for the first time, that a regular intake of substances that are naturally present in red-, blue-colored fruits and vegetables can reduce the risk of a heart attack by about 32 percent, in young and middle-aged women.
AUBREY: The findings come from the huge Harvard study of some 90,000 nurses in the U.S., who for years have reported details about their diets and lifestyles to researchers. At the same time, researchers have monitored the nurses' health, to see which diseases they go on to develop - or not. It's certainly not a perfect way to detect how certain foods may influence health. But Cassidy says in this instance, the association was strengthened when she ruled out other reasons that the blueberry-eating nurses didn't have heart attacks.
CASSIDY: Even when we adjusted for things like fat intake, fiber intake or medication use; or body size and, for example, exercise; we still got the strong reductions in risk.
AUBREY: So what is it about berries that could explain such an effect? In lab experiments, researchers have pinpointed a class of plant compounds, known as anthocyanins. They give the red and blue color to everything from berries to eggplants to cherries. And Cassidy says when you eat a lot of them, they seem to work in a number ways.
CASSIDY: They have effects on blood pressure in animal models. And they do things like exert anti-inflammatory effects, for example.
AUBREY: Which may help keep arteries more elastic and flexible. Dr. Robert Eckel, a preventive cardiologist at the University of Colorado, says that's a good thing. But he says there is a caveat here. The women in this study were not prime candidates for heart attacks.
DR. ROBERT ECKEL: Having a heart attack when you're a woman between the ages of 45 and 60, is distinctly unusual.
AUBREY: So does the protective effect hold up for older women? Eckel says it's not clear.
ECKEL: But nevertheless, for the first time, I think we have some evidence that the intake of these anthocyanins may have a protective effect.
AUBREY: So, Eckel says, go ahead - add in more berries. It can't hurt. And if they're out of season - like now - studies show frozen berries have similar levels of beneficial compounds.
Allison Aubrey, NPR News
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2012 may have been the hottest year on record for the Lower 48 States, but don't tell that to the people of Phoenix. For several nights in a row now, Arizona and Southern California both have suffered through rare sub-freezing temperatures.
From member station KJZZ in Phoenix, Peter O'Dowd reports.
PETER O'DOWD, BYLINE: We Phoenixians know a thing or two about 40-degree winters. But it hasn't been cold like this for a long time.
TONI ESKELI: We've got a two-man tent and we've got, like, five more sleeping bags and about 10 blankets.
O'DOWD: Toni Eskeli is wrapped in a scarf and a peacoat near downtown Phoenix. She and her boyfriend huddle around a picnic table, rolling cigarettes, doing what they can to stay warm. Sunday morning greeted them and many other homeless people with below-freezing temperatures, something they're not used to in a city that's known for its heat.
ESKELI: It just makes it harder because you get up and it's cold and you got to drag everything in the bush. And it's just - you're freezing. The heat at least - I don't know, I just think the heat is easier to deal with.
DOUGLAS BACHMAN: Freezing cold. I mean, it's like cold being in Michigan without the snow.
O'DOWD: Douglas Bachman gave up after his sleeping bag was stolen. This weekend, he got a spot at a men's overflow shelter where administrators have set up an extra 50 to 75 beds. But Central Arizona Shelter Services Irene Agustin, says the shelter is short on socks and jackets.
IRENE AUSTIN: In the summertime, we're a little bit more prepared. But, yeah, this is kind of throwing us a curve ball because we're not used to having consecutive days of cold.
O'DOWD: Agustin says adding more beds for several days will stretch the shelter's $3 million annual budget.
HECTOR VASQUEZ: I want it to warm up.
O'DOWD: National Weather Service meteorologist Hector Vasquez says cold air from Canada is stuck over Arizona and parts of California. He says that air won't go anywhere until Wednesday, which means Phoenix is flirting with a streak it hasn't seen in 35 years.
VASQUEZ: That goes back to 1978, when we had four days under 32 degrees.
O'DOWD: That may not sound like much for all you thick-skinned folks from Minnesota or Maine. But consider this, Arizona and Southern California produce more than 90 percent of the country's winter lettuce. An extension agent based in Yuma, Arizona, says the freeze will affect the quality and size of this year's crop. The price of Yuma-grown lettuce has tripled since Thanksgiving and this cold snap could send it higher.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINERY)
JAMES TRUMAN: Bubbling and gurgling in the background is air coming out of the subterranean pipes.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER)
O'DOWD: The freeze could also wipe out James Truman's citrus farm on the outskirts of Phoenix. Truman is unleashing 500 gallons of water a minute onto his mandarin orange trees. He says this steady stream of relatively warm water should be enough to stop the fruit from freezing overnight.
TRUMAN: It might boost the temperature three to five degrees, we hope.
O'DOWD: So far, he's been lucky. A few of his trees are suffering with limp leaves, but when he cuts the top off an orange, the flesh shows no sign of frost. He'll stay up all night and late into the morning adjusting irrigation valves like this one.
(SOUNDBITE OF A VALVE)
TRUMAN: You grow these things all year. You irrigate, fertilize, do other maintenance expenses. You have land taxes, insurance, and all those costs go into your crop. And if your crop freezes and you can't harvest it, it's no good, you have no income.
O'DOWD: All told, a bad freeze could cost Truman $80,000. For NPR News, I'm Peter O'Dowd in Phoenix.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CORNISH: You are listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
We begin this hour with the end of President Obama's first term. He's got less than a week before next Monday's inauguration. This morning, he capped things off with an hour-long news conference in the White House East Room. As NPR's Ari Shapiro reports, most of the focus was on a rash of recent financial crises that Washington itself has created.
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: This was far from a first term victory lap. The president's tone was measured and somber. He was full of warnings, threats and lines in the sand all aimed at the same audience, congressional Republicans.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: They will not collect a ransom in exchange for not crashing the American economy.
SHAPIRO: He seemed disdainful of threats from the GOP saying twice: We are not a deadbeat nation.
OBAMA: What I will not do is to have that negotiation with a gun at the head of the American people.
SHAPIRO: That negotiation is about raising the debt ceiling. Next month, the federal government hits its borrowing limit. President Obama repeatedly said raising the debt ceiling does not authorize new spending, it just lets the government pay the bills that Congress has already racked up. If Congress doesn't raise it, a litany of bad things could begin to happen.
OBAMA: If congressional Republicans refuse to pay America's bills on time, Social Security checks and veterans benefits will be delayed. We might not be able to pay our troops or honor our contracts with small business owners.
SHAPIRO: Last time the debt ceiling came up, this debate cost the U.S. its AAA credit rating and helped create the so-called fiscal cliff. Now Republicans again insist they will not raise the debt ceiling unless they get spending cuts of equal size. President Obama says he'll talk about cuts, but he won't play this game of chicken anymore.
OBAMA: You don't go out to dinner and then, you know, eat all you want and then leave without paying the check. And if you do, you're breaking the law.
SHAPIRO: He said if Congress wants to have a debate about maybe we shouldn't go out to dinner next time or go to a more modest restaurant, that's fine.
OBAMA: That's a debate that we should have. But you don't say, in order for me to control my appetites, I'm going to not pay the people who already provided me services.
SHAPIRO: More broadly, President Obama's frustration was about much more than the debt ceiling, it was about the new normal in Washington. The sense that this country is forever teetering on the precipice of financial disasters created by the country's leaders, whether it's the fiscal cliff, a government shutdown, sequester spending cuts or the debt limit.
OBAMA: We've got to stop lurching from crisis to crisis to crisis when there's this clear path ahead of us that simply requires some discipline, some responsibility and some compromise.
SHAPIRO: Even with Congress out of town, Republicans were quick to respond with written statements. House Speaker John Boehner said the American people do not support raising the debt ceiling without reducing government spending and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said the president and his allies need to get serious about spending and the debt limit debate is the perfect time for it.
The president's desire to change this pattern is clear, but his ability to do it is more uncertain. During last month's fiscal cliff talks, President Obama had a lot of leverage. Taxes would have gone up on everyone if Congress did nothing. But in the upcoming debates, the White House has less power. The president says one thing he does have on his side is public opinion.
OBAMA: They've got a particular view of what government should do and should be and, you know, that view was rejected by the American people when it was debated during the presidential campaign.
SHAPIRO: One other topic that came up in the news conference was stopping gun violence. President Obama said he's getting recommendations from the vice president today on the one month anniversary of the Newtown shooting.
OBAMA: The belief that we have to have stronger background checks, that we can do a much better job in terms of keeping these magazine clips with high capacity out of the hands of folks who shouldn't have them, an assault weapons ban that is meaningful, that - those are things I continue to believe make sense.
SHAPIRO: The president said he'll give a more detailed presentation about what he'll do to address gun violence later this week. Ari Shapiro, NPR News, the White House.
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We're going to hear more now about something the president just said, about needing stronger background checks. At the heart of the system and to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals is something called the NICS. That's the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. The Justice Department created the NICS in response to the Brady Bill and implemented it in 1998.
It requires every licensed gun dealer in every state to contact an FBI office in West Virginia every time some attempts to purchase a gun. If the individual props up on a prohibited list, if they're a violent felon, have been placed in a mental institution by a court order or are subject to a restraining order, they are denied. No gun. But there's a big problem, which is that a majority of states don't contribute that information to the database in the first place.
One state that does participate fully is California and Steve Buford is the assistant bureau chief at the California Bureau of Firearms. He joins me now from Sacramento. Welcome to the program, Steve.
STEVE BUFORD: Thank you. Hi, Audie. How are you?
CORNISH: Good. So to start, what happens in the instance of, say, a conviction? How do the records get from, I guess, the court to the database? How does that work?
BUFORD: In California, the courts are required to send that information to us electronically and, in some cases, on paper. We take that information. We upload it to our California system, and then the California system also feeds into the federal system.
CORNISH: And over time, we've heard about several obstacles that some states may have in terms of keeping their databases current. For instance, mental health records. Now, California had had a central records keeping for mental health records since 1991. But it took you guys more than a decade to actually start sending those to the federal government. What were some of the obstacles and what do you think other states are facing?
BUFORD: I think the obstacles are, one, confidentiality of the data. I think there's concern about how those records will be used, especially when you're talking about sending those records to the federal government. In California, we have a very restrictive law that says those records can only be used for purposes of that background check. And I think, over time, you know, before we sent those records to the feds, we were very concerned about that. And we had to get those assurances out of the way.
CORNISH: Another obstacle states have discussed is in terms of getting up-to-speed, they might want help or grant money from the federal government. And yet, because of the gun restoration policy, this is the policy that allows people who have been blocked because of mental health records, to have their gun rights reinstated. Some states have - that's actually been an impediment to them applying for funding. Can you talk about why that is?
BUFORD: A little bit, you know. I think the big issue there is, you know, who bears the burden of implementing and maintaining that restitution program? The grant monies that the feds have placed out there for these particular programs just aren't sufficient enough to fund the program. So there has to be a sufficient, you know, you can't just lay it out there and say, go implement this program. There has to be sufficient funding and it can't be small amounts of funding. It has to be sufficient to fund the entire program.
CORNISH: Now, with all of the advances that California has made in its background checks and its databases, does it matter if the federal database, NICS, is still problematic?
BUFORD: There are some gaps in the system, but I'd rather have the system with the gaps than no system at all, no federal system at all. You know, we use federal records all the time to deny people the legal and lawful aliens, you know, here illegally and unlawfully, they could be criminals. We use it to deny people that are mental defectives in other states and people that are under restraining orders.
So I think it's important to have that information regardless of the gaps. I think we should focus on how do we build that system out, how do we eliminate those gaps. That's where the discussion should start at is eliminating the gaps, providing sufficient funding for all states to contribute and participate. I think that's the best thing that we can do as a nation, you know, and as a people.
CORNISH: Steve Buford is the assistant bureau chief at the California Bureau of Firearms. He spoke to me from Sacramento. Steve, thank you so much for speaking with us.
BUFORD: Thanks for having me.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
The influenza virus is on a lot of minds today. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says 47 states are reporting widespread outbreaks. The flu was even mentioned several times during last night's Golden Globe Awards in Beverly Hills. Here's comedian Amy Poehler joking about one star who stayed home.
AMY POEHLER: Meryl Streep is not here tonight. She has the flu. And I hear she's amazing in it.
(LAUGHTER)
CORNISH: For tens of thousands of people, though, the flu this year is no joke. The season started earlier than normal across the country. We're going to check in now with one city that's been hit hard, Philadelphia. NPR's Jeff Brady is there and has the latest.
JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: At a health clinic in Philadelphia's Germantown neighborhood there's a big orange sign on the door announcing that flu vaccinations are available today. Phyllis Rembert is concerned about the virus and doing what she can to stay healthy.
PHYLLIS REMBERT: I even carry hand sanitizer with me, because people don't realize how dangerous it can be. I have a friend now who's in the hospital that got the flu. Now she has pneumonia.
BRADY: There's a big push encouraging more people to get vaccinated. We're well into the current season and it takes a couple weeks before the vaccination can protect you. But health officials say it's still worthwhile. Philadelphia resident Lena Mercer says she tries to spread that message.
LENA MERCER: And the people that I know, I ask them. I say, did you get the flu shot? No. I say, well, that's why you got the flu. I say, go get the flu shot. It works.
BRADY: That's true most of the time. Influenza vaccine isn't perfect, but it does boost your chances of not getting sick.
DR. JOE DIMINO: The one this year is 62, 63 percent effective against what's out there.
BRADY: Dr. Joe DiMino is with the Montgomery County Health Department in suburban Philadelphia. He says Pennsylvania has plenty of vaccine on hand. Some locations around the country are reporting shortages, but those appear to be localized supply problems and not a national problem.
This has been a busy flu season and it started earlier than typical, says Mike Baysinger also with Montgomery County.
C. MICHAEL BAYSINGER: Average years, we expect to see 200 to 300 cases of influenza in Montgomery County, that's our average year. And if you look at what we have right now, it's 814.
BRADY: Baysinger says 115 people have been hospitalized and four have died because of the flu in Montgomery County. Last year's season was much lighter, only four were hospitalized and no deaths were reported. The young, the elderly and those with compromised immune systems are a particular concern for health officials. In Montgomery County, Baysinger says there are eight long-term care facilities with confirmed flu outbreaks. He says there are procedures to protect the other residents when an outbreak happens.
BAYSINGER: Once a facility has two or more cases of influenza in their facility, it's an automatic recommendation that they have their foods in their own rooms - they're not out in their public dining areas or their community dining areas so they can stop the spread. So it's a level of protection that we try to give these nursing home facilities.
BRADY: Baysinger says it's too soon to know if the flu season has peaked yet, since it started earlier, it may end earlier too. But he says it typically lasts well into March or April.
Jeff Brady, NPR News, Philadelphia.
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President Obama says he'll lay out his plans for new gun control measures in the next few days. At his White House news conference today, Mr. Obama said he was looking at actions he could take on his own, in addition to those that would involve Congress. Weeks of gun control talk has sent demand for firearms and ammunition sky-high.
NPR's Richard Gonzales went to one of the largest traveling gun shows in the country this weekend, as it stopped in San Francisco, and sent this report.
(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD)
RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE: I'm standing in front of the Cow Palace. It's one of San Francisco's oldest public venues, and it's hosting the San Francisco Gun Show. There's a line of a couple thousand people winding through the parking lot. And the line of cars just to get into the parking lot, is about six blocks long.
ROBERT GONZALES: Yeah, it's packed in there. It's bumper to bumper in there.
RICHARD GONZALES: This gun show doesn't allow recording inside. So I talked with people coming out; like Robert Gonzales, a truck driver and hunter.
ROBERT GONZALES: Everybody's freaked out right now. So who knows?
RICHARD GONZALES: So what are they freaked out about?
ROBERT GONZALES: They're just - they are freaked out that they're not going to be able to buy, you know, weapons, I guess - you know? Because I've been coming to this Cow Palace for years, and I've never seen it this bad.
RICHARD GONZALES: Gun dealers say sales jumped just after President Obama was re-elected; and they took off in the wake of the Newtown, Connecticut, school shootings. Now, as the president is preparing to outline his gun control proposals, the demand is red hot.
ROBERT TEMPLETON: Never have we seen a surge like this.
RICHARD GONZALES: That's Bob Templeton, owner of the company called Crossroads of the West, which operates this gun show here in California as well as others in Arizona, Nevada and Utah.
TEMPLETON: Most of the stores - most of the retail stores, in most areas that we've been doing shows in, have been sold out. The Wal-Marts, and the Big 5s, and the other sporting goods stores don't have any of the more popular rounds of ammunition on their shelves. And so people are coming out to the gun shows in order to get their ammunition.
RICHARD GONZALES: In fact, I saw people coming out of this gun show with so much ammo, they needed a dolly to wheel it back to their cars. This run on guns and ammo is happening across the country. At Jefferson Gun Outlet in Metairie, Louisiana, owner Mike Mayer says buyers are mainly looking for AR-15s, the semiautomatic rifle used in the Newtown shootings.
MIKE MAYER: They're just worried that something's going to change legally, where they can't go out and buy something like that. They can possibly get it now, and have it and keep it, and then not have to worry about any future legislation.
RICHARD GONZALES: Mayer says ammo and high-capacity magazines for the AR-15 sell out as soon as he puts them on the shelf. As for the AR itself, it's a seller's market.
MAYER: For a standard AR, they - something that we would sell normally for $899, is selling right now for about 1,850 - give or take.
RICHARD GONZALES: The most widely used, although not perfect, measure for tracking gun sales is the FBI's national database on criminal background checks. According to an analysis by the National Shooting Sports Foundation - a gun industry trade group - there were more than 2.2 million background checks in December of last year. That's an increase of more than 58 percent over a year earlier. Nima Samadi, a gun industry analyst for the research firm IBISWorld, says gun makers are scrambling to keep up with demand.
NIMA SAMADI: They've kind of turned to increasing their number of shifts, giving current employees overtime; and even they've had some struggles with their supply chain trying to get, you know, all the necessary supplies to build the guns and ammunition as quickly as possible.
(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD CHATTER)
RICHARD GONZALES: Back in San Francisco, gun show operator Bob Templeton says the diminishing supply could hurt his show in the short term, but he sees no end in sight to the demand, even in a liberal region like the San Francisco Bay area.
TEMPLETON: I think it's driving that surge - is people's concern that they won't be able to exercise their hobby, or they won't be able to exercise their Second Amendment rights if the politicians - some of the politicians in Washington have their way.
RICHARD GONZALES: Attendance at gun shows like this one are way up, and Templeton says he expects his final tally will be about 18,000 people - or three times the number of people he would see normally.
Richard Gonzales, NPR News, San Francisco.
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Now the results of a call-out to listeners from Friday's program. We asked you to help the U.S. Department of Transportation - and who doesn't want to do that? You see, DOT wants those silent hybrid and electric cars travelling 18 miles per hour or less to emit some sort of sound to alert pedestrians and cyclists. The Feds posted their own examples of what that sound might be, but frankly, they were a bit conventional.
We thought you could do better. And indeed, you have. We got a car load of responses. The most popular suggestion, by far, is one many of you might be familiar with, the sound of the family's flying car in the animated 1960s TV series, "The Jetsons." It was suggested by Tom McGuinness of Indianapolis and several others. McGuinness writes: It is the one singular, immediately communicated sound that will instantly convey through foggy of night or most profound blindness, the nature of the approaching hybrid vehicle to all pedestrians and possibly to neighborhood dogs as well.
And there were plenty of other creative ideas, including this childhood favorite...
(SOUNDBITE OF CARD IN SPOKES)
CORNISH: ...the sound of playing cards attached to bicycle spokes was suggested by Dean Meredith of St. Louis, Missouri and others. Trevor Staples of Ann Arbor borrowed from a different non-motorized vehicle for his suggested hybrid warning sound.
(SOUNDBITE OF SKATEBOARD)
CORNISH: Mr. Staples writes about his skateboard sound: Most pedestrians find it so unsettling that they nearly jump out of their shoes when they hear it. Then there were the musical suggestions. Chuck Ingersoll of Penfield, New York, thinks The Beatles were on the right track decades ago.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG)
CORNISH: Another musical choice from Vickie Hall of Jacksonville, Florida. She thinks adding a sound to hybrids will make being green tougher, so bring in Kermit the Frog.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG)
KERMIT THE FROG: (Singing) It's not easy being green.
CORNISH: And finally, from Josh Graciano of Concord, New Hampshire, who gives us the ultimate and familiar automotive sound courtesy of the American toddler.
(SOUNDBITE OF TODDLER)
CORNISH: Thanks for all your suggestions to help make our streets safe from the threat of all too silent hybrid cars.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CORNISH: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
France has opened the gates of hell - those words from the spokesman from an al-Qaida-linked militant group in the West African nation of Mali. The warning comes after four days of extensive French airstrikes on rebel strongholds in the north of the country.
France has pledged to help Mali's weak central government defeat Islamist insurgents, who have been slowly fighting their way south toward the capital city, Bamako. Today, even after those French airstrikes, insurgents are reported to have seized a town in central Mali.
Adam Nossiter is the West Africa bureau chief for The New York Times, and he joins us now from Bamako. And, Adam, to start, give us a little context. Just how much of the country is under the control of rebels, and where were these French airstrikes focused?
ADAM NOSSITER: Well, the northern half of the country is still in control of the Islamist rebels. They've taken some serious hits from the French, but they're still in place, and there are no French forces on the ground in the northern half of the country.
CORNISH: At this point, does Mali's army actually have the ability to follow up on this military support from the French and actually make headway against the Islamist-backed fighters?
NOSSITER: That's pretty doubtful. They've managed to lose two strategic villages in less than a week despite having had months to prepare their defenses. So the only thing one can conclude from this is that they are every bit as weak as they were nine months ago when they were overrun by a coalition of Islamist and nomadic rebel forces.
CORNISH: In your coverage of what's been happening in Mali, you write that the collapse of Mali's government and the rise of Islamist militants, they're coincided with the fall of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya. Explain that link.
NOSSITER: Well, when Gadhafi fell, his extensive arsenals in the south of Libya were left totally unguarded, unprotected by the Western forces that brought him down. Gadhafi had fighting for him a number of ethnic nomad fighters from Mali, the Tuaregs. And so when Gadhafi fell, these Tuaregs returned to Mali, where their group had been conducting a rebellion for almost 60 years against the Malian state.
They took with them a lot of the weapons that were in Gadhafi's arsenal. So for the first time in their long history of rebellion against Mali, they were properly armed and equipped thanks to Moammar Gadhafi. And it was those weapons that allowed these nomadic rebels to crush the Malian army in January, February and March of 2012.
Al-Qaida was already installed in the desert and they made a sort of tactical alliance with these nomadic rebels. But the al-Qaida forces, being tougher, took the upper hand, and so now they're the ones in control.
CORNISH: As we mentioned, you're speaking to us from Bamako now, the capital city. What is it like there, and do people there consider a fight inevitable?
NOSSITER: I think there's a huge sense of relief in the population that some resolution might be at hand, and there's huge gratitude towards the French for having finally stepped in. In fact, you can see people waving French flags and posting French flags and headlines saying vive la France. So I think there is recognition that the Malian army itself was incapable of resolving the situation and there's thanks to the French.
CORNISH: But is it entirely clear that this is going to be successful?
NOSSITER: Nothing is entirely clear. The Islamists have taken a serious hit in the last few days, but they're not a conventional enemy. And it's one thing to bomb a few installations from the air, but it's another to wipe out a force that is very good at hiding itself in the desert and is perfectly adapted to that terrain. So I don't think this is going to be an easy enemy to defeat.
CORNISH: Adam Nossiter is the West Africa bureau chief for The New York Times. Adam, thank you for speaking with us.
NOSSITER: My pleasure.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
With the situation getting worse in Mali, the U.N. Security Council called an emergency meeting for this afternoon. France has been seeking help from its partners. The U.S. is considering the request but wants to make sure that African countries take the lead in restoring order in Mali. The trouble, as NPR's Michele Kelemen reports, is that those African troops need training.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: The United Nations was already working with West African states on an intervention plan to oust al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb from northern Mali, but everyone got a wake-up call last week when rebels started moving south. France quickly stepped in and now State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland says the U.S. is trying to figure out how best to help.
VICTORIA NULAND: We share the French goal of denying terrorists a safe haven. We are in consultation with the French now on a number of requests that they have made for support.
KELEMEN: She didn't give details. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta told reporters that the U.S. plans to help France gather intelligence and offer airlift capabilities because, in his words, the U.S. has a responsibility to go after al-Qaida wherever they are.
SECRETARY LEON PANETTA: The fact is we have made a commitment that al-Qaida is not going to find any place to hide.
KELEMEN: The British Minister for Africa, Mark Simmonds, echoed that sentiment when he informed his parliament that Britain is offering limited logistical support but won't take part in combat.
MARK SIMMONDS: We must not allow northern Mali to become a springboard for extremism and create instability in the wider West African region. The ferocity and fanaticism of the extremists in northern Mali must not be allowed to sweep unchecked into the country's capital.
KELEMEN: It will take much more than French bombing raids to help Mali restore order in the north, says Nuland of the U.S. State Department. She says the West African group known as ECOWAS was too leisurely in planning its intervention but is holding a key meeting later this week.
NULAND: Our sense from our ECOWAS contacts is that they are rolling up their sleeves now to try to get in as quickly as they can.
KELEMEN: Nuland says the U.S. is poised to send trainers to any African country willing to participate but there is no military solution to the crisis in Mali, she acknowledges. Retired U.S. Army Colonel Thomas Dempsey of the Africa Center for Strategic Studies agrees.
THOMAS DEMPSEY: We need to recognize that there were legitimate grievances among the northern peoples that led to this in the first place. And we need to take care not to drive the people of the north into the arms of the violent extremists through injudicious military solutions.
KELEMEN: Extremists took over northern Mali after a coup toppled the government in the capital, Bamako, and Dempsey thinks that's where U.S. diplomats can play a role trying to help the country restore constitutional order. And he says much is at stake for the entire region, a drought-prone part of Africa known as the Sahel.
DEMPSEY: As you follow from eastern Mauritania across northern Mali into northern Burkina Faso, Niger, northern Nigeria, that whole area is chronically sensitive to this kind of destabilization, and this could turn into a much, much larger problem politically, economically and in humanitarian terms.
KELEMEN: Human Rights Watch has been raising alarms about the threats to civilians as the fighting intensifies. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
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The natural gas boom here in the U.S. and the controversial process known as fracking have brought jobs and growth to local businesses around the country. But five years into the boom, one northeast Pennsylvania community finds itself at a turning point. The town of Towanda, population 2,900, has seen some of its drilling, and the money that came with it head elsewhere. As NPR's Scott Detrow reports, the community is trying to figure out whether the slowdown is a temporary pause or the beginning of a bust.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: You want to know how natural gas drilling has changed Towanda, Pennsylvania? Start with traffic. That's the first thing everyone who lives here will tell you about.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: The traffic has gotten a lot worse.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: The traffic here is horrendous.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: It's heavy-duty truck traffic.
DETROW: But since the spring, there have been fewer trucks on Towanda's roads. That's because drilling in surrounding Bradford County has slowed down. All that fracking in Pennsylvania, Colorado and other states has driven the price of natural gas down to record lows. So energy companies have either moved on to western Pennsylvania or Ohio, where the gas is more lucrative, or just slowed down operations. That means business has fallen off in Towanda. Karen Parkhurst says there aren't as many people coming into her restaurant.
KAREN PARKHURST: Which is why never complained about the traffic because, you know, where there's traffic, there's people to come in your restaurant.
DETROW: Parkhurst's place, the Weigh Station, still does steady business, but it's pretty easy to find an empty table these days. She's had to scale back on some employees' hours. Parkhurst remembers the drilling boom's early days, when gasmen just poured into the restaurant.
PARKHURST: People just kept coming - drill bit sharpeners, drillers, Chesapeake people, Southwest Energy, all kinds of them.
DETROW: She and her business partner, Barbara Keeney, were shocked.
BARBARA KEENEY: Wow.
(LAUGHTER)
PARKHURST: And it just kept getting better, actually.
KEENEY: Yeah. Better and better and better.
PARKHURST: And it just stayed better. They just - stuff just kept falling in our laps.
DETROW: Other stores on Towanda's main drag benefitted too. Jan Millard works at a place called the New Shoe Store. She says the drillers who moved to Towanda from the South brought their culture and their money with them.
JAN MILLARD: About, oh, probably three years ago now, I had a guy come in, and he said: Well, he said, where are all your pull-on boots? And I said: Oh, I hardly ever sell a pull-on boot. And he said: Well, you better get some then, he said, because you're going to need them. And the very next customer that came in after him asked for pull-on boots again. And I thought, holy smokes, we better get some pull-on boots.
DETROW: But a boom has a downside too. More people will lead to more crime. Police Chief Randy Epler says his force has had its hands full.
RANDY EPLER: DUIs, bar fights, domestic issues.
DETROW: And rent soared too. Apartments that went for $300 a month in 2008 cost more than $1,000 these days. The rent has stayed high, even though the rate of drilling has fallen. Bradford County's gas is what's considered dry. That means it doesn't contain valuable byproducts like ethane and butane that drillers can separate and sell. So as drilling companies have focused on western Pennsylvania and Ohio, where the gas is more valuable, the number of new wells has fallen. Jan Millard at the boot store says the shift was sudden.
MILLARD: I had so many regulars. The same guys would come in every week. It's like they didn't have any place else to go but the shoe store. And they'd come in, and, you know, you'd get kind of friendly with them. And it seems like so many of them have gone, just gone.
DETROW: Nobody in Towanda thinks the drillers are gone for good. The town has seen booms and busts before - coal a century ago, timber a few decades later. Towanda's economic fortunes now lie with something beyond the town's control: the price of natural gas. If prices increase enough to spur more drilling, the current slowdown may just be a lull in Towanda's latest boom. If they stay low, however, it could be the beginning of Towanda's next bust. Scott Detrow, NPR News.
CORNISH: This report comes to us from StateImpact, a collaborative project between NPR and member stations examining the effect of state policy and issues on people's lives.
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CORNISH: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
Family members of those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut, have spent the past month grieving. Now, some of them have banded together and say they're ready to be part of a national discussion about how to make our communities safer. They call themselves the Sandy Hook Promise. Jeff Cohen, of member station WNPR, has the story.
JEFF COHEN, BYLINE: The auditorium in Newtown went quiet when family members of victims took the stage. As they found their seats, some held up pictures of their children; others passed tissues. Nicole Hockley stood in front of a throng of reporters, and said it was a sad honor to speak. She lost her son Dylan.
NICOLE HOCKLEY: At times, it feels like only yesterday. And at other times, it feels as if many years have passed. I still find myself reaching for Dylan's hand, to walk through a car parking lot; or expecting him to crawl into bed beside me, for early morning cuddles before we get ready for school. It's so hard to believe he's gone.
NELBA MARQUEZ-GREENE: I'm Ana's mom.
COHEN: That's Nelba Marquez-Greene, whose first-grade daughter was also killed at Sandy Hook. She spoke of her faith in Jesus, and of how she doesn't fear darkness or evil or hate.
MARQUEZ-GREENE: We are choosing love. In this way, we are honoring Ana's life, and the legacy of love and faith. Love wins. Love wins in Newtown, and may love win in America.
COHEN: The two mothers were the first of several families to speak, as members of a new nonprofit focused on supporting each other and making the country safer. They described the Sandy Hook Promise as the beginning of some sort of change. They didn't put forward any specific policy proposals. For now, they want it known that they will be part of a national discussion on guns, mental health and public safety. The two mothers then read the promise itself. It includes a pledge to support each other, a pledge to turn the tragedy into what they called a moment of transformation, a pledge to listen as much as they speak. Again, Nicole Hockley.
HOCKLEY: This is a promise to do everything in our power to be remembered not as the town filled with grief and victims, but as the place where real change began. Our hearts are broken; our spirit is not. This is our promise, the Sandy Hook promise.
COHEN: Finally came David Wheeler. He and his wife, Francine, lost their son Ben. David Wheeler spoke of the importance of parents.
DAVID WHEELER: I would respectfully request that every parent in this country who hears these words, simply pause for a moment and think. Ask yourself, what is it worth doing to keep your children safe?
COHEN: That question being asked in Newtown, is now being asked across the country. For NPR News, I'm Jeff Cohen.
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Since the shootings in Newtown, there's been talk of shifting attitudes toward gun control. Today, the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press released a new survey on public attitudes. A key finding: There is broad bipartisan support for some gun control policies but also a partisan divide over others. For more, we're joined by Pew Director Michael Dimock. Michael, welcome.
MICHAEL DIMOCK: Hi.
CORNISH: So tell us a little bit about the areas where people did agree.
DIMOCK: Yeah. Well, gun control is typically a divisive issue, but there are some ideas that get very broad support. The poll that we just finished found 85 percent in favor of expanding background checks to include private and gun show sales. And that crossed party lines, a very broad level of support. The same was true in terms of establishing stricter laws to prevent people with mental illnesses from being able to purchase guns. 80 percent, and again across party lines, favor that idea, so not all laws or proposals are equally divisive right now.
CORNISH: So where does that bipartisan support actually breakdown with proposals?
DIMOCK: On pretty much everything else. You see broad support, for example, for a federal database to track gun sales. 67 percent overall favor this. That's widely supported by Democrats, 84 percent. But among Republicans, you get fewer than half who would favor a federal government database on guns.
CORNISH: And then looking at another proposal related to schools, for instance, increasing security, armed or otherwise, where was the public support on that?
DIMOCK: It's an interesting issue. If it's about having armed security or police in schools, you get about two-thirds in support of that. The other option of having teachers and school officials carry arms is far less popular. Only 40 percent favor that. A majority are opposed to that idea. And there is very strong opposition from some groups, Democrats, women and some other groups about that idea.
CORNISH: Now, you're survey also looked at how gun owners themselves view gun policy. Were there any surprises there?
DIMOCK: I think it might surprise some that gun owners are not uniformly against any kind of gun control. I think there's a misperception perhaps that gun owners don't want to see any infringements on the rights to own guns. But you don't see that. You see a slim majority of gun owners who support the idea of a federal database to track gun sales. You see some support, about half, for assault weapons bans even among gun owners. So it's not that all gun owners see guns as a black-and-white issue.
CORNISH: Of course, major legislation getting through Congress is going to rely on public opinion but the survey found some interesting things about how active people are on one side or another when it comes to kind of engaging their congressmen or trying to do some advocacy, right?
DIMOCK: Yes, yes. The political activity on this is very different among those who support gun rights and those who support gun control. Gun rights advocates tend to be much more engaged. 23 percent of people who favor gun rights say that they've contributed money to a group about that issue. Only 5 percent of gun control advocates have done the same. 15 percent of gun rights advocates say they've contacted an elected official to address the issue. That's twice the number as you have among gun control supporters. So you see a big gap in the level of activism on this issue, and that is a big factor in driving who the politicians are listening to.
CORNISH: Now, how much of a shift did you see in kind of overall attitudes since Pew last surveyed this topic or even going further back?
DIMOCK: Yeah. The evolution of attitudes on guns have been very interesting. We saw a modest shift in the direction of gun control following the shootings in Newtown in December, the poll that we did the week after those shootings. But it wasn't overwhelming. And in fact, even at the time, at that dramatic moment, you had fewer saying that gun control should be our priority than what's the case even five or six years ago when we had as many as 60 percent saying gun control should be our priority.
The current poll, now a month after the Newtown shootings, doesn't really see any shift in opinion from right after the shootings. You have a slim plurality saying that gun control should be our focus with the remainder saying that protecting gun rights should be our focus. But over the long course of history, you see a lot more support for gun control in past periods. When Bill Clinton was president and passed an assault weapons ban, you had margins close to 2-1 saying that gun control, not gun rights should be the priority. So we're in a much tighter division of opinion today than we've been at in previous periods.
CORNISH: Michael Dimock is director of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Michael, thank you for speaking with me.
DIMOCK: Thank you.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish. When President Obama nominated Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court, supporters and opponents drew two very different portraits of her. Now, Sotomayor offers her own with a new autobiography, called "My Beloved World." In an interview with NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg, she talked about her transition in elementary school from middle of the class, to overachiever.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Sotomayor says she was a C student until fifth grade, and then the nuns started giving out gold stars.
JUSTICE SONIA SOTOMAYOR: I wanted some of those gold stars. I found my competitive spirit. And I went to one of my classmates who was receiving more gold stars than anybody else, and just said to her: Please teach me. How do you study and get all those gold stars?
TOTENBERG: And so Sonia Sotomayor learned how to take notes; she learned about memory cues; she learned the skills of studying. And she got lots of gold stars, eventually graduating as valedictorian from Cardinal Spellman High School. She was toying with the idea of going to college when one of her friends told her she had to apply to the Ivies. She didn't know what the Ivies were, but she applied - Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Princeton - eventually, getting into all of them.
Her first choice, she thought, was Harvard, which she'd fallen in love with from the movies. But her interview was a disaster. The perfectly coiffed admissions officer brought her into a beautiful room, and sat down on a white couch with two yippy dogs, one on each side.
SOTOMAYOR: I became dumbfounded. I looked at this image, and it was something I had never, ever seen before. I simply had never seen a couch that didn't have plastic on it, to protect it.
TOTENBERG: The whole scene was so foreign that she quickly finished the interview and fled, picking Princeton instead. Once there, however, academic life was not all roses. She got a C on her first paper.
SOTOMAYOR: It was the first C since fourth grade, and I was devastated. I picked myself up; I marched into the professor's office and said, please explain what's wrong with my paper.
TOTENBERG: The first thing the professor said was that the paper lacked any analytical structure.
SOTOMAYOR: That, I got.
TOTENBERG: But the next thing was a surprise.
SOTOMAYOR: She then said to me that I wasn't writing in complete sentences. That certainly shook me because I had been an A student in high school.
TOTENBERG: The next semester, Sotomayor didn't take classes that required papers; and that summer, she went on a crash self-improvement program to fix her writing. She went to the place she was told was the best bookstore in New York - Barnes & Noble, on Fifth Avenue; an area this Bronx native, amazingly, had never ventured to. Once there, she piled up books about grammar, from first grade through high school; and for good measure, she added vocabulary books, too.
SOTOMAYOR: And I took them home, and I spent the whole summer reading those books, and beginning the process of teaching myself how to write again.
TOTENBERG: The next semester, a different professor sent her first paper back; commenting how well she'd done in her analytical structure, but that she seemed to have some writing difficulties. So once again, she went to see the professor. He pointed out she was using adjectives as they're used in Spanish, not English; and he circled examples. The next paper, he circled verb tenses that were wrong. For the next three years, Sotomayor would take a course with the professor each semester, and he would help her to improve the way she wrote in her second language, English. Her improved writing was just one example of her stubbornness.
SOTOMAYOR: You know, failure hurts. Any kind of failure stings. If you live in the sting, you will - undoubtedly - fail. My way of getting past the sting is to say no, I'm just not going to let this get me down.
TOTENBERG: Sotomayor, of course, turned into a spectacular student; graduating summa cum laude, winning the coveted Pyne Prize, and going on to Yale Law School. In between, she got married to her high school sweetheart, a marriage that later ended in amicable divorce. But at the time, living together was not an option.
SOTOMAYOR: Oh, my God. Nina, I'm a Catholic Puerto Rican. Do you think my family would have ever tolerated us living together? As independent as I am, I was not going to be thrown out of my family.
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TOTENBERG: At Princeton, she does not deny and indeed, embraces the fact that she was the beneficiary of affirmative action. And so I asked her why her view of such admissions preferences is so different from that of Justice Clarence Thomas, who felt victimized by affirmative action and saw it as a scarring experience.
SOTOMAYOR: I can't explain that - why, because as much as I know Clarence, admire him, and have grown to appreciate him and his views, we're different people. I have never, ever focused on the negative of things. I always look at the positive. And I know one thing - if affirmative action opened the doors for me at Princeton, once I got in, I did the work. I proved myself worthy. So I don't look at how the door got opened.
TOTENBERG: Doors open for people in different ways, she observes; noting that kids who've gone to prep schools, and know what an Ivy League school is, all have a leg up to begin with.
SOTOMAYOR: They had read children's classics. I hadn't. They had lived in a society where writing was the norm - in English. They knew what to do when they got to school. Is that a fair advantage? No. It is life. And so the affirmative action I was familiar with, is not quotas. It was an affirmative action that was saying, don't take your kids only from the prep schools. Start looking at these other schools - like my high school, whose students have the potential to master your environment.
TOTENBERG: Unlike her colleague Justice Thomas, Sotomayor says she did not feel stigmatized in college or law school except once, when she attended a recruiting dinner at Yale Law School with a partner from a Washington, D.C., firm.
SOTOMAYOR: The partner looked at me and said, did you get into Yale only because you're Puerto Rican? It stunned me. It took me aback, to think that someone was actually looking at me that way. Now, that's the price of affirmative action that Clarence Thomas talks about, and it's one that can lead to the sense that the benefits might be outweighed by the negative impressions it leaves. But that was my first moment experiencing that kind of overt discrimination.
TOTENBERG: The day after the dinner, Sotomayor went to talk to the man. After recounting her academic achievements, she asked him why he had asked the question before he knew anything about her.
SOTOMAYOR: And his response was, you didn't seem upset. You handled it very well. And I almost exploded - inside of me. I looked at him, and I said, if the question was born from a stereotype that every affirmative action admittee is unqualified, then you're also judging a response from a stereotype; that I'm an emotional Latina, and I'm going to make a scene. I'm much more polite than that, but don't mistake politeness for lack of strength.
TOTENBERG: Indeed, Sotomayor filed a complaint against the firm with the school, but she didn't want to become a symbol for a crusade. She still wanted, as she put it, a career in the law - not a place on every firm's blacklist. Eventually, the student-faculty tribunal negotiated a settlement. The firm was not barred from recruiting, but it did extend a full apology.
In the end, Sotomayor went not to a firm, but the Manhattan District Attorney's Office. Tomorrow on MORNING EDITION, more on her professional career and her appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
CORNISH: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, from NPR News.
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The war in Afghanistan may be winding down, but the toll on soldiers and Marines back home is not. The military has tallied suicides among active-duty troops last year, and the number is at a record level.
NPR's Pentagon correspondent, Tom Bowman, joins us now. And Tom, suicides were up again among troops in 2012.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: That's right, Audie. In 2012, there were 349 suicides. That's up from 301 in 2011. Now, that's more than the military lost in Afghanistan, in all of last year. These numbers were first reported by the Associated Press, and we've confirmed them. Now, that number includes active-duty as well as Guard and Reserve members. The largest portion were the active-duty Army; 182 took their own lives in 2012.
CORNISH: And what are the theories, at this point, or explanations for the increase; especially given that fewer troops are seeing combat.
BOWMAN: Well, it's really complicated, and they're finding out that a suicide isn't simply connected to deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan. And you'd think there'd be a clear link here, but there isn't. Now, many who took their own lives did see combat. But a large number - a third or more - of those who commit suicide, never deployed. So why? It's often, they're finding, failed relationships; financial burdens - of course, made worse by the poor economy recently; and you also have problems at home, or just adjusting back to domestic life.
CORNISH: And the Army, in particular, has tried to intervene for several years now. Remind us of some of the reforms they've been making.
BOWMAN: You know, they've really pushed this from the top down. They now have resiliency training in basic training; which is basically, teaching people how to deal with stress, and saying the strong ones are those who seek help when they need it. They've come up with hotlines. They've had stand-downs, showing soldiers videos with the warning signs of potential suicide. So they've done quite a bit.
CORNISH: But is there any idea about why this effort hasn't really worked?
BOWMAN: Well, most people say there's still a stigma about getting help. And most of those who commit suicide are young men, 18 to 24. They don't want to admit that they have a problem, or they're afraid it'll hurt their career. So the problem is, most of the people - those in need are the ones least likely to seek help. And here's the other thing, Audie. If they did want to seek help, there aren't enough mental health experts and counselors able to see them. There's a huge shortage out there. And veterans groups - like the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America - they've suggested that the president, and other national leaders, need to urge people to get degrees in counseling so they can help.
The other thing is, Congress is getting involved more so now. Sen. Perry - Sen. Patty Murray, from Washington, helped push a measure into law recently that calls for better oversight of some of the mental health programs; more education for people like chaplains and medics, who might help, who might spot those at risk. And also, she's calling for what's - this is interesting - peer counselors to fellow Afghan and Iraq veterans; basically, fellow combat veterans who served, who might be able to reach these people better than psychologists - at least, get them to seek help.
CORNISH: And just a short time left, Tom, but these reforms, how long will they - take effect?
BOWMAN: Well, some of the - some of them are just going into effect; this measure pushed by Sen. Patty Murray is just going into effect now. But it's going to take some time. Everyone is grappling with this - from the top on down - and the numbers are still going up.
CORNISH: NPR's Pentagon correspondent, Tom Bowman. Tom, thank you.
BOWMAN: You're welcome.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish. And it's time now for All Tech Considered.
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CORNISH: We're going to start things off today talking about a tech convergence between Silicon Valley and Detroit's auto industry. For many drivers, the apps available inside new cars are becoming just as important as what's under the hood. That trend can be seen at this year's North American International Auto Show. The show kicks off this week, and NPR's Sonari Glinton is in Detroit and joins us now. Hey there, Sonari.
SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: Hey, Audie.
CORNISH: So tell me, what are the big tech advances that you're seeing in Detroit this year?
GLINTON: Well, being a radio dude, one of the big ones is that Pandora, which is an Internet radio app, announced deals to go directly into cars, so we're going to see Internet radio in cars soon. That's a big deal. But moving beyond, you know, our radio world and into the tech here, I think the most important things are autonomy and electricity. Cadillac is introducing an electric plug-in car, and you really can't exaggerate how important fuel economy is. By 2025, we're going to have to get to 55 miles a gallon, and fuel standards are pushing every single part of the car from the wheels to the seats.
Everyone is pushing to get this higher fuel economy. And then this really awesome thing is that Audi and Toyota especially are making inroads into bringing us driverless cars, you know, cars that drive themselves.
CORNISH: And we hear so much about driverless cars, but how far away are we from actually seeing one on the showroom floor?
GLINTON: We're pretty far. I mean, a lot of cars have features that have some autonomy, you know, park assist, then lane assist where, you know, that's all there. But Audi, which is a subsidiary of Volkswagen, just got the go-ahead to get driverless cars on the street. And Toyota announced that it's going to be doing research into autonomous vehicles. So when you have the two of the three biggest car companies in the world that are getting behind autonomy, that means that, you know, these companies don't do vanity projects so that means they're serious about them.
But the real roadblocks ahead for autonomy is really you and me and the legal system. You know, if you get into an accident with a car that was driverless, well, who's to blame and, you know, who gets insured? And there's going to be a time, some time in the future where we're going to have regular drivers and autonomous vehicles, and that is going to be a really, really difficult time, and we haven't even touched on any of those issues. And all of the car companies and the governments and local governments are going to have to deal with that before we get driverless cars out there. But the technology is coming. It's, you know, we have to get behind that.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Sonari Glinton at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Sonari, thank you.
GLINTON: It's great to be here.
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We're going to follow up now on a tech story that erupted over the weekend, after news of the death of Aaron Swartz. He was a computer prodigy and an activist, who committed suicide on Friday. He was only 26. Swartz is being memorialized as the leader of the free culture movement, which believes in an open Internet where all information is accessible.
We wanted to know more about the movement, so we contacted Declan McCullagh. He's the chief political correspondent at CNet. Welcome to the program, Declan.
DECLAN MCCULLAGH: Hi there. It's a pleasure to be here.
CORNISH: So who - and how and what gave birth to the free culture movement?
MCCULLAGH: The free culture movement really stemmed out of a hacker culture from a generation or more ago. And I'm not talking hacker culture as in, we'll break into things; we'll disrupt things; we'll destroy things. This is the original meaning of the word hacker; and this is a desire to learn more about things; to almost liberate knowledge, maybe it lot stand in the way, maybe they don't, but the quest is not a malicious one. It's doing what they think is best for society.
CORNISH: And Aaron Swartz may not have been a household name, but there are some other free culture adherents out there who are well-known for being very aggressive, such as WikiLeaks and the hacker group Anonymous, right?
MCCULLAGH: That's right. And those are kind of the pointed end of the free culture movement, but there are folks who are much more mainstream. I mean, Larry Lessig, the author and the law professor, would be one of them; Richard Stallman, who gave birth to the term free software, who coined the term, free as in freedom, not free as in no cost. There's a little bit - might have that as well. And so there are - this is the culmination of decades of work by a lot of folks straddling the line between hackerdom and law and politics.
CORNISH: And Aaron Swartz was a sort of leading advocate and voice for this. In 2008, Swartz wrote something he called the "Guerilla Open Access Manifesto," and in it, he was addressing students, librarians and scientists in this way. He said: You get to feed at this banquet of knowledge while the rest of the world is locked out, but you need not. Indeed, morally, you cannot keep this privilege for yourselves. You have a duty to share it with the world. And he saw this cause as civil disobedience essentially, right?
MCCULLAGH: I think that's right, and that's what he did when trying to do it, what in his terms would have been to liberate knowledge, liberate data, especially data that taxpayers have already paid for. He downloaded a large percentage of federal court decisions that are available for a fee through the PACER federal court website with the intent to make those available to the public at no cost instead of charging 10 cents a page, which is what the federal courts like to do, which is well above what they need to do to break even.
And he was trying the same thing. This was what he was accused of doing when he was at Harvard and set up a computer allegedly in a wiring closet at MIT to download large portions of the JSTOR database where academics publish their articles. His idea is that these should be available to the public.
CORNISH: And as you mentioned, because of his actions, Swartz was about to be the subject of a federal trial. He was facing up to 35 years in prison. This really put him at the center of this debate about information and free information. But who was winning that debate? I mean, was it the hacktivists? Was it the companies and the government?
MCCULLAGH: The debate has been going on for I can think offhand at least 15 years, but it really depends. It's a battle of offense and defense. The high-water mark perhaps for the open culture movement was when they defeated the Stop Online Piracy Act last year. It was just a year ago, in fact, next week. You had corporations coming together with activists and academics saying this bill that Hollywood wanted that would force allegedly infringing copyright, infringing websites to disappear from the Internet.
That went too far. And they won. Hollywood was put on the defensive. The law went away - the proposed law. And we have - it has not resurfaced since then.
CORNISH: Already, there's an outpouring online about Aaron Swartz, including professors who are actually tweeting their scholarly articles as a sort of protest. They're tweeting free links, essentially, to their work. Could you see a day when the ideas of the free culture movement are essentially mainstream in the U.S.?
MCCULLAGH: It's a generational thing. If you talk to students, undergraduate students, they're much more willing to be part of this movement. They understand it. They've grown up with it in part. But it's going to take some time. I mean, it's really - when the folks in their teens and 20s get into positions of power in their 30s and 40s.
CORNISH: Declan McCullagh, he's the chief political correspondent at CNet. Declan, thank you for speaking with us.
MCCULLAGH: Thanks for having me on today.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And I'm Robert Siegel. It appears that even in Southern California, the fitness craze has its limits. The city of Santa Monica is considering a crackdown on yoga teachers and fitness coaches who are taking up a lot of space in the city's famous oceanfront park. NPR's Kirk Siegler takes us there.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: If you haven't been to Palisades Park in Santa Monica, chances are you've still seen its swaying palm trees and sweeping ocean vistas in movies and commercials. Running up the wooden stairs that plunge to the beach is the workout to do in this city where it seems like you have to be fit to fit in. In fact, most mornings, this park is more outdoor gym than park.
ANGELA PARKER: As fast as you can to the map; please make sure feet are forward. Please be aware of other people, as fast as you can go. Nice, well done.
SIEGLER: Running clubs, weight training, kickboxing, this park is dominated by professional fitness trainers like Angela Parker, coaching clients.
PARKER: We're going to do 20 circles in one direction, 20 circles in the other. You will wake up tomorrow and have an ass you can bounce a quarter off of. Are you ready?
SIEGLER: Parker, who owns Body Inspired group fitness here in town, says her clients don't want to be inside a gym. And who can blame them?
PARKER: People flock here from all over the world and from all over this country because of the weather, and part of that is because people want to be outdoors. We want to live a green lifestyle, and that involves not using machines. It involves being outside.
SIEGLER: But the problem is some trainers bring machines and, frankly, all sorts of gear to parks like this.
KAREN GINSBERG: Massage tables, weight equipment, even little spinning bikes we've seen in the park.
SIEGLER: Karen Ginsberg is director of community and cultural services for the city of Santa Monica. She wonders why trainers can't just take advantage of the huge beaches nearby.
GINSBERG: Santa Monica State Beach is probably one of the widest beaches on the California coast. It has plenty of space for group activities.
SIEGLER: Ginsberg is writing a slate of new regulations that could include levying higher fees on trainers or a flat 15 percent tax on private fitness companies that operate in public spaces. The Santa Monica City Council may even consider banning classes all together from Palisades Park. That would suit residents like Marek Probosz just fine. He was out on a recent afternoon kicking a soccer ball with his son.
MAREK PROBOSZ: It belongs to us, it belongs to the public. It doesn't belong to a corporation or organization which thinks, oh, that's great, the city made it for us, we can sell it and use it as a property.
SIEGLER: Probosz says residents who come to enjoy this narrow strip of green above the ocean are being crowded out by trainers and boot camps.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Now, take a deep breath and relax. All right, great job, you guys. Have a great day. I'll see you on Wednesday.
SIEGLER: But in the end, this is Santa Monica. The city's own motto, translated from Latin, "fortunate people in a fortunate land," the fitness and living a healthy lifestyle is considered a community good here.
LINDSEY STAIR: I'm over 30 and I feel like I'm 17 or 18, I have energy all day long.
SIEGLER: Lindsey Stair lives near Palisades Park and drags herself out of bed before work most mornings to make a 6:30 class.
STAIR: It helps me at work all day. People tell me I have like an energy, and it all comes from coming to this boot camp and being around these really cool people. It just changed my life for sure.
SIEGLER: Stair says it's also changed the parks themselves, which she says used to be unsafe. The fitness classes and all the joggers now outnumber the homeless, another thing Santa Monica is well-known for. Kirk Siegler, NPR News.
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As college students return to class from winter break, campuses around the country are bracing for outbreaks of the flu. It's already been a bad flu season, as we've been reporting. And now, there is special concern in Boston, where the mayor has already declared a health emergency and the student population is large.
NPR's Tovia Smith has that story.
TOVIA SMITH, BYLINE: Healthy 20-year-olds are hardly the type you'd consider most vulnerable to the flu in normal circumstances.
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SMITH: But living 40 to a bathroom, for example, is not quite normal circumstances.
DEREK HOUSEKNECH: Like, when you are in a dorm, it's just kind of...
(LAUGHTER)
HOUSEKNECH: It's pretty gross to think about.
LINDSEY CELLER: I actually think it's a germ-fest - disgusting.
SMITH: Students like Boston College freshman Lindsey Cellar, senior Derek Houseknech, and senior Mike Judd, say things can get even worse, after-hours.
MIKE JUDD: Yeah. Oh, yeah. People are grimy. I mean like, if you're at a party, like playing beer pong and stuff, people are going to be sharing cups. Plus, people are making out and passing germs left and right, all over the place.
SMITH: It all becomes a perfect storm for a flu outbreak when you also consider that young people are among the least likely to worry about getting the flu or getting the flu shot.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: I didn't get it.
SMITH: Better things to do?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Yeah, not a priority.
SMITH: Well, I just have never got the flu before, so why am I going to get it this year? You know? I mean what's the worst? You get the flu and it goes away in like two days, right?
DR. TOM NARY: There's a "what, me worry?"
SMITH: BC's director of health services, Dr. Tom Nary, says colleges learned a lot from the H1N1 pandemic a few years ago about what they need to do. For example, moving sick students out of dorms and urging everyone to get the vaccine. BC emailed students over the break, imploring them not to leave home without it. Shots are also free on campus now, but so far...
NARY: It just hasn't been as busy or overwhelming as we might have expected.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: OK. All right, so how about the left arm?
KARINA DORENTES: Perfect.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Just relax.
SMITH: Senior Karina Dorentes says her mom made her promise to get a shot after they couldn't find one at home in Maryland.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Ready 1, 2, 3, a little pinch. All set.
SMITH: Dorentes says she learned her lesson last semester.
DORENTES: I was actually really sick. I got the fever and I was living off of Advil, studying up until like three or four or five in the morning. It was just terrible and that's why I was - I really need to get this.
SMITH: Boston College is also wiping down doorknobs and banisters. Posters remind students to cough into their sleeves with all-too-vivid photos of what bursts out with a cough. No one aspires to totally prevent the flu. Rather, as the chief of medicine Howard Heller, across town at MIT, puts it, it's all about minimizing the severity.
HOWARD HELLER: We set our goals realistically. So, you know, if we go through a flu season and nobody has been hospitalized, that's great.
SMITH: MIT gave out a record 9,000 flu shots before winter break, through a kind of MASH unit set up in the student center.
HELLER: It is a military-style operation that was a dozen or more nurses and doctors just nonstop for hours giving thousands in two days.
SMITH: On campuses, it may turn out that this year's early onset of the flu helps more than it hurts. Colleges have had weeks to prepare while students were away and may have missed the worst of it.
Craig Roberts is an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and with the American College Health Association.
CRAIG ROBERTS: Certainly on college campuses we're preparing for another wave, in the sense that people are returning to their schools infectious. But it's also possible that all these students got sick over break and they're better now.
(SOUNDBITE OF COUGHING)
SMITH: Back at BC, a student using a public computer in the library coughs, not into her sleeve.
BC seniors Mike Judd and Mike McCarter say students are not always the most responsible. And when feeling under the weather, they may be reluctant to skip a class or a party.
JUDD: People are so afraid to miss a Friday night that they don't realize that they might be passing it along to 30 other people at the same party.
MIKE MCCARTER: We have to take advantage of all our weekends. You know?
SMITH: Thank you for sharing. I'm not shaking your hands.
MCCARTER: All right, you're welcome.
JUDD: Yeah.
SMITH: I'm not shaking your hands.
(LAUGHTER)
SMITH: Tovia Smith, NPR News, Boston.
MCCARTER: I just sneezed anyway.
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Now to an American political dynasty that's getting larger. Another member of the Bush family is throwing his hat into the ring. George Prescott Bush has announced he's running for office in Texas. He is the 36-year-old son of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.
As NPR's Wade Goodwyn reports, the Bush name is still strong in Texas. George P. has already raised nearly $1.4 million but he still hasn't said which statewide office he's seeking.
WADE GOODWYN, BYLINE: Growing up a Bush is a little different than growing up you or me. At the age of 12 years old, George Prescott Bush led the Pledge of Allegiance before the 1988 Republican National Convention, when his grandfather, Bush 41, was nominated.
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GEORGE PRESCOTT BUSH: I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.
GOODWYN: Now he's all grown up and campaigning for himself. Here he is in south Texas laying some groundwork.
BUSH: I think more than anything else, it's the values that the party stands for, whether it's on questions of life or questions of marriage.
GOODWYN: But being the fourth generation of politicians has its pluses and its minuses.
STEVE MUNISTERI: Well, having the Bush last name, you know, will be a double-edged sword.
GOODWYN: Steve Munisteri is the chairman of the Texas GOP.
MUNISTERI: It certainly gives him instant credibility. He'll have a network of not only fundraisers but political advisers that can help guide him. The negative is that there are some people that will judge him by what their opinion is of his uncle or his grandfather or his father.
GOODWYN: For some conservatives, the Bush legacy is one of broken promises: Read my lips, no new taxes and big government spending. After George W. Bush's two terms, the rallying cry for the Republican Party was that it was time to get back to conservative values, implying the president had strayed.
Perhaps with that in mind, George P. Bush has staked out his political territory with the right wing of the Texas GOP, supporting Tea Party candidates.
Again, Steve Munisteri.
MUNISTERI: I know him. I know he's a solid conservative. He supported Ted Cruz in the most recent primary. And I think that that decision on his part to be an early supporter of Ted Cruz will go a long way into assuring those of our party members and our conservative base that he certainly is a solid conservative himself.
GOODWYN: Ted Cruz is the Texas Tea Party favorite who just cruised to victory in the U.S. Senate.
With the Bush name and the dominant Republican Party position in Texas, the young Bush can pretty much name his office and start picking out the drapes. Well, perhaps not Rick Perry's governor's office, but he's looking at Texas land commissioner and Texas attorney general.
Mark Jones is the chairman of the political science department at Rice University.
MARK JONES: If he wants to be land commissioner, I think it's his for the taking. There's also, though, a very good chance that he could run for attorney general. In the event that Attorney General Greg Abbott decides to go for the governor's spot or for the lieutenant governor's spot, that would open up the position of attorney general.
GOODWYN: George P. Bush is half Hispanic; his mother is from Mexico. Running for statewide office, that's not expected to come into play. Bush won't need the Hispanic vote to win in Texas. But down the road, who knows? The young Bush, along with Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, could be part of the new face of the Republican Party.
Wade Goodwyn, NPR News, Dallas.
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Criticism is raining down on federal prosecutors after the suicide of 26-year-old computer prodigy Aaron Swartz. Swartz had been facing trial on 13 felony charges. He allegedly broke into the MIT network and downloaded millions of documents. His family says Swartz was the victim of Justice Department overreach.
As NPR's Carrie Johnson reports, the case is more complicated than that.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: The grand jury indictment against Aaron Swartz speaks in cold hard facts. Here's what they say. For several months in 2010 and 2011, Swartz broke into a closet at MIT, accessed the school's computer network without authorization and downloaded a major portion of an archive of scholarly articles. And just before he was caught, prosecutors say Swartz tried to elude cameras by holding a bicycle helmet to shield his face.
Jeff Ifrah is a defense lawyer in Washington.
JEFF IFRAH: I'm really not sure that anyone in this country would disagree that computer hacking is a problem. Should it be a crime? That's an issue for Congress. But Congress decided to make it a crime, and prosecutors have an obligation to enforce those crimes.
JOHNSON: Prosecutors in Massachusetts who brought the case charged him with wire and computer fraud, violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act that could have carried decades in prison. Harvard law professor Lawrence Lessig was a friend of Aaron Swartz. He told NPR making a big federal case over the computer hack was out of hand.
LAWRENCE LESSIG: We live in a world where the architects of the financial crisis dine at the White House regularly. The idea that the government felt it so essential to insist that this behavior be marked as a felony is just unfathomable.
JOHNSON: Swartz's supporters say he wanted information to be free, not to make money or commit fraud, but the law is a blunt instrument - some say too blunt. Orin Kerr is a professor at George Washington University.
ORIN KERR: It's at the outset clearly a stupid idea to do what he did, and the criminal justice system doesn't really have great answers for what to do in this sort of situation.
JOHNSON: Kerr, a former computer crimes prosecutor, says the charges against Swartz are based on a fair reading of the law.
KERR: We're very familiar with laws on trespass and laws on burglary and laws on murder. Those laws have been on the books for hundreds if not thousands of years. But we've entered a new world of digital crimes, and we're still trying to figure out what should be punished and how severe those punishments should be.
JOHNSON: Swartz's former lawyers say they had been trying to negotiate a plea deal with prosecutors several times since the charges came to light, but they couldn't reach a satisfactory agreement. No surprise, says defense lawyer Jeff Ifrah.
IFRAH: By the time an indictment is handed down, absolutely, it's the prosecutors' show now. And trying to negotiate a deal in those circumstances, where there might be other defendants who are cooperating against you, where there might be some conduct that you're actually a little ashamed of and can't really truly explain, when the stakes are that high, it's very, very depressing.
JOHNSON: But Ifrah says he's never had a client take his own life before trial. Friends of Aaron Swartz say he suffered from depression. Swartz, recognized all over the world for his technical prowess, was remarkable in another way too. Every day, criminal defendants and their friends argue the justice system is out of whack. Those arguments generally go nowhere. But the Swartz case, which ended in tragedy, could actually start a dialogue about what's fair. Orin Kerr.
KERR: We need a public conversation about what the laws should prohibit and how severe they should be.
JOHNSON: Aaron Swartz's friends say that would be a fitting legacy. Carrie Johnson, NPR News, Washington.
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Finally this hour, some electronic music built around a very old instrument. The music comes from an artist who records under the name Pantha du Prince and his instrument of choice is the carillon, essentially large bells often heard in churches. His new album is a collaboration with the percussion ensemble The Bell Laboratory. It's called "Elements of Light," and Will Hermes has this review.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
WILL HERMES, BYLINE: It's a point of pride for electronic musicians to come up with novel sounds. So I was duly impressed to hear that one of my favorites had made a new record in which his laptop plays second fiddle to an ancient instrument he heard ringing out from the city hall in Oslo, Norway.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HERMES: I've been entranced by this record ever since I first heard it, which maybe isn't surprising. The power of bell tones cuts across cultures. Tibetan bells are used for meditation and healing, and the carillon used by Pantha du Prince and his collaborators on "Elements of Light" has its roots in European culture. But the album also reminded me of Mike Oldfield's unlikely 1973 hit "Tubular Bells," which also combined the structure of classical music with the melodic and rhythmic directness of pop.
Pantha du Prince's record features tubular bells, too, alongside the carillon, hand bells, rack bells, choir chimes, vibraphones, gongs and more, all yoked together with, but not overwhelmed by, electronics.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HERMES: The rhythms form patterns that thicken and then decay, taking just enough left turns to keep things interesting, while the bell reverberations add natural drones and an inescapable sense of history.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HERMES: To perform "Elements of Light," Pantha du Prince is planning site-specific shows, since touring with a carillon would be difficult at best. Maybe he'll make it to New York's Riverside Church, which has a carillon with one bell weighing in at 20 tons. In an era when the history of recorded music is available on our cellphones, it's an interesting idea, music that can only be made in a fixed location.
And you have to go to it, not the other way around. Anyway, while Pantha du Prince works that out, I'm happy to have this recording of "Elements of Light" and its truckload of gorgeous percussion right here in my pocket.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CORNISH: The new album by Pantha du Prince and The Bell Laboratory is called "Elements of Light." Our critic, Will Hermes, is author of the book, "Love Goes To Buildings On Fire."
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On Election Day last year, voters in Los Angeles County approved a measure that requires actors in pornographic films to wear condoms while working. Now, lawyers for the adult entertainment industry are challenging the law.
NPR's Mandalit del Barco has this story about the issue and the new lawsuit.
MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: In November, more than a million and a half voters in Los Angeles County passed the Safer Sex in the Adult Industry Act. Michael Weinstein heads the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, which sponsored the measure.
MICHAEL WEINSTEIN: The porn industry has been sending a very bad message in saying that the only kind of sex that's hot is unsafe.
DEL BARCO: Weinstein says the new law was meant to protect performers and those who watch the movies.
WEINSTEIN: I've been called a condom Nazi, so be it. I mean, the reality of the matter is the most effective method we have of preventing sexually transmitted disease are condoms. This lowly piece of latex, it's amazing that it's still so controversial.
DEL BARCO: But porn producers such as Steven Hirsch plan to argue in district court that the new law violates their First Amendment rights.
STEVEN HIRSCH: We do produce constitutionally protected material. We just don't believe that there's any compelling government interest to come in and take away our freedom of expression, considering the fact that over the last eight years, there have been over 300,000 adult scenes shot with not a single transmission of HIV.
DEL BARCO: Hirsch heads the production company Vivid Entertainment. He argues that viewers don't want to watch performers using the latex barrier devices; 12 years ago, when his company was condom-mandatory, he says sales dropped by 30 percent.
HIRSCH: Performers don't want it, the producers don't want it, and clearly, the fans don't want it.
DEL BARCO: Another plaintiff in the lawsuit, adult star Kayden Kross, says every performer she knows agrees that condoms are extremely irritating during shoots.
KAYDEN KROSS: We've had the right to use condoms. I did my first scene in 2006 with condoms, and that was the last scene I did with condoms because it was so uncomfortable.
DEL BARCO: Kross says, like her co-workers, she gets tested for sexually transmitted diseases regularly - in her case, every 15 days. She says before every shoot, they show their test results to the producers and to each other. Kross says they don't feel they need to be protected by a voter-mandated law.
KROSS: We eat organically and work out, and we take care of ourselves and take care of ourselves and take care of ourselves, and obviously an extension of that is making sure that we are sexually free of diseases at all times.
DEL BARCO: While the new law goes through the courts, L.A. County officials are struggling with how they might enforce it. So far, the county health department has sent letters asking producers to apply for special film permits. Actress Kross and producer Hirsch make fun of the idea of a condom unit policing every porn set. For the past few years, the state has been working with adult film producers on how to follow protocols.
DEBORAH GOLD: They could do simulation so that there wasn't any exposure, right, or they can use condoms.
DEL BARCO: Deborah Gold is the deputy chief for health and engineering services for Cal/OSHA, which regulates occupational safety and health for California.
GOLD: It's a requirement to use engineering and work practice controls to prevent this contact, and where the contact still exists, to use personal protective equipment.
DEL BARCO: Gold says her department will respond to complaints on porn shoots, but there are no spot inspections.
GOLD: We have to find the actual employer, so, you know, the name on the DVD box or the website, it may require a substantial investigation on our part to get down to who is the employer.
DEL BARCO: Vivid Entertainment's Steven Hirsch says production companies are not going to pay L.A. County for any special permits, and Kross says producers will go underground or move out of California rather than comply with any condom laws.
KROSS: Part of the culture of porn is, ah, we'll see if they catch us, which is terrible to say but also true. We're kind of like the renegade. We do what we want. We're the Wild West.
DEL BARCO: Attorneys for the pornography industry expect to move the case to the courts within the next month. Mandalit del Barco, NPR News.
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And I'm Robert Siegel. It's been two and a half months since Hurricane Sandy crashed into the East Coast and since then, federal disaster relief funds have gotten wrapped up in politics. At the end of the last Congress, House leaders faced strong criticism from within their own party for letting a relief bill die. Well, after a series of votes today, they approved as much as $50 billion for New York and New Jersey.
For more on this story, we're joined now by NPR congressional correspondent Tamara Keith. Hi, Tamara.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hi, Robert.
SIEGEL: This measure is coming in multiple parts. I want you to explain what's going on here.
KEITH: I will do my best. In short, House Republicans want lots of opportunities to vote on various aspects of the Sandy funding measure so that they can take a stand and then not necessarily take a stand on the next part or basically vote for it before they're against it, kind of a thing. So there's a base bill. It's $17 billion in funding and then there's an amendment that would and another $33 billion getting us up to that 50 billion mark.
And in there about a dozen other amendments, some of which would remove funding from very specific things, like the National Weather Service Ground Readiness Program. And right now, as we speak, there are votes happening on another amendment that would basically require offsets, spending cuts, to match the $17 billion in disaster funding.
SIEGEL: Tamara, this is disaster aid, which is not usually so controversial. Why such a complicated dance on this particular measure?
KEITH: The Republican mantra for the past several months or probably more than that has been we have a spending problem and this is spending. Yes, it's spending that's traditionally been untouchable, but it's still spending. And one theory of why House leaders let the Sandy funding bill die at the end of the last Congress was because they had just voted on this fiscal cliff deal, which was something that most Republicans hated.
It didn't deal with spending and it allowed taxes to rise. And then, you know, the very next bill to come up was going to ask them to approve tens of billions of dollars in new spending. You know, it's been two weeks now, but there's still many - House Republicans are very uncomfortable with this. But then there are others, like New Jersey's Frank LoBiondo, who say we need to do this.
REPRESENTATIVE FRANK LOBIONDO: I've asked my colleagues, because we seem to be very mixed and divided on some of this, think of the human face. My constituents, the constituents of the Northeast, they're not just whining. They're not just uncomfortable. They are devastated.
SIEGEL: Now, Tamara, the Northeast is not the Republican heartland, so what are you watching for in today's votes and what do you think House Speaker John Boehner might be looking for?
KEITH: The real question is how many House Republicans will vote against this measure. Most congressional watchers, most people believe that this will pass somehow, some way, with strong support from Democrats. But you could see 60, 70, maybe more House Republicans peel off. And the question is whether John Boehner will get the majority of the majority, whether a majority of House Republicans will support this measure.
In the past, he said he wouldn't bring a bill up unless it had that level of support, but then with the fiscal cliff deal, very few Republicans supported it and it passed because of Democrats. And the question now is whether he is going to have to keep breaking his rule.
SIEGEL: And we'll see what happens this evening. NPR's Tamara Keith speaking with us from the Capitol. Thank you.
KEITH: Thank you, Robert.
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Over the next few weeks, Congress and the White House face three deadlines, each with huge potential consequences for the government's finances. In March, the automatic deep spending cuts in non-entitlement spending, known as sequestration, come due. Later that month, the continuing resolution that funds the government expires, and according to the Treasury, before those deadlines, the U.S. is likely to exceed its current borrowing limit, and unless Congress raises the debt ceiling, Washington won't be able to pay its bills.
President Obama says he won't even negotiate on the debt ceiling. What do House Republicans say? Well, Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington State is the House Republican Conference chair - that is, she's a member of the House GOP leadership - and she joins us from her office. Welcome to the program.
REPRESENTATIVE CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS: Great to be with you.
SIEGEL: The president says, you folks in Congress passed the bills that caused us to spend what we spent and to bring in the taxes that we bring in, so to abide by your laws, the government has to borrow to make up the difference. To make a political fight over that, he would say, just doesn't make any sense. What do you say?
RODGERS: I would remind President Obama that the spending has skyrocketed under his administration. When you look at just the last four years, we've seen record deficits, trillion-dollar deficits. That was new to America when President Obama took office. And so, what we need to be doing is rolling back some of President Obama's spending increases.
SIEGEL: But Representative Rogers, the debt limit that's now being exceeded is the one that was just set in 2011. You voted for it. You've been there for all the spending and taxes that have been voted on since. How can you now say you can't raise it again?
RODGERS: When we voted to raise the debt ceiling, when I voted to raise the debt ceiling and we agreed, we also voted, at the same time, to cut an equal amount in federal spending. So we raised the debt ceiling 1.2 trillion - well, I guess it was a $2.4 trillion increase, but we took 1.2 in immediate cuts and then there's an additional 1.2 trillion that takes effect. You're hearing about it because it's called the sequester.
It's the across-the-board cuts that are going to take effect now on March 1st. And that was an important agreement, that we weren't just continuing to spend on the credit card and rack up the bills, but that we were also looking at where we could cut federal spending.
SIEGEL: So you're saying enacting the sequestration would satisfy your demands in that case - if the president said, okay, cut the rest.
RODGERS: Well, the sequestration and those across-the-board cuts were actually a part of the deal from last summer. So I believe that we need to have additional spending cuts. It is unacceptable to me that President Obama, yesterday, said that he wasn't going to meet the budget deadline. This is a law that is in place that says he has to submit a budget by a certain date. We're going into the fourth year now that the Senate, under Democrat majority, has not even submitted a budget. That is irresponsible.
SIEGEL: This is something that former Speaker Newt Gingrich said recently. He said you Republicans in the House have the continuing resolution to battle over, and the sequestration, but the debt ceiling, he said, guarantees a crisis. It guarantees that the markets will cave in on Republicans and the Republicans, in the end, will give up. Is he wrong? And if he's right, why not fight over the continuing resolution and give in on the debt ceiling, which the markets will come down on you for?
RODGERS: Well, let me be clear. No one wants a government shutdown and that is not what we are encouraging. We want to...
SIEGEL: Aren't you threatening that, though?
RODGERS: We are saying that if the president won't get serious about cutting spending, over the course of these fiscal fights we may reach that point. But that is not what we're encouraging, and especially when it relates to the debt ceiling, we recognize that there are further ramifications. But I think it's important - it doesn't mean a default.
SIEGEL: And if you saw some prospect for some serious spending negotiations, could you see dropping the objections to raising the debt ceiling?
RODGERS: We're serious about cutting spending and the need to get our fiscal house in order. We also recognize there needs to be a way forward, and so we're going to work to make that happen.
SIEGEL: I hear you being less than absolute, less than saying this is an article of faith, you block the debt ceiling if you don't have something in hand by that time. Am I misreading what you're saying?
RODGERS: Well, you know, there's going to be some - we're working internally right now to put forward our strategy to figure out the way forward. And in the House, we're going to be putting forward a proposal for the debt ceiling, for the CR, and for sequestration. All of those details have not yet been decided.
SIEGEL: Well, Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington State, thank you very much for talking with us about it.
RODGERS: Thank you.
SIEGEL: Representative Rodgers is the chair of the House Republican Conference.
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Wal-Mart said today that it will soon begin offering a job to any newly discharged veteran who wants one. The offer comes at a time when new veterans are having a tough time finding work. Also, Wal-Mart CEO Bill Simon promised the company will increase the amount of products it buys from domestic sources.
NPR's Jim Zarroli tells us more about both announcements.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: A lot of U.S. companies have programs to hire veterans but none has made the kind of commitment that Wal-Mart made today. Speaking at a National Retail Federation convention in New York, Simon said that starting on Memorial Day, Wal-Mart would guarantee a job to any veteran who was honorably discharged within the past year.
BILL SIMON: We know not every veteran wants to work in retail and that's OK. But every veteran who does will have a place to go. And we project that we'll hire more than 100,000 veterans over the next five years.
ZARROLI: Simon says most of the jobs will be in Wal-Mart stores and discount clubs. Wal-Mart's offer comes at a time when the company is still reeling from reports of bribery in Mexico. And more recently, it's faced protests over gun sales at its stores. But Wal-Mart has a history of hiring vets that predates those controversies.
And Phillip Carter of the Center for a New American Security says Wal-Mart's program ought to make a difference to those veterans who are struggling to find work.
PHILLIP CARTER: The veterans who are are the younger, junior enlisted personnel who separate and don't yet have a college degree, and don't have the workforce experience they need to get a job. Wal-Mart's effort goes after those veterans. And I think that many will take advantage of this.
ZARROLI: Carter says Wal-Mart is a big logistics company and, in some ways, so is the military. So the giant retailer is a good fit for vets. On the other hand, he notes that Wal-Mart is unlikely to offer new vets the pay and benefits they're used to and need to raise a family.
Simon also made a second promise at the convention. He said Wal-Mart would commit to spending $50 billion more on domestic sources of products over the next decade.
SIMON: Through our buying power, we can give manufacturers the confidence to invest capital here in the United States, and play a role in revitalizing the communities that we all serve.
ZARROLI: Simon didn't provide a lot of details but he said the money would go toward a range of U.S.-made products, such as sporting goods, apparel, games, paper products and high-end appliances. But not everyone is impressed.
CHARLES FISHMAN: It does not represent a huge commitment.
ZARROLI: Charles Fishman, author of the book "The Wal-Mart Effect," notes $50 billion a decade works out to $5 billion a year, a small fraction of Wal-Mart's $260 billion in annual retail sales. Fishman also notes that Wal-Mart has been a big purchaser of Chinese-made goods over the years.
FISHMAN: There was a very powerful business logic behind that: it's cheaper over there and we like things cheaper. I don't see the business logic in simply saying we're going to try and persuade people to make stuff here.
ZARROLI: But Wal-Mart officials say they believe the economies of manufacturing are changing, and they expect more U.S. companies to bring some of their production back home. And Simon told the audience this morning that retailers such as Wal-Mart can play a role in making that happen a bit faster.
Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
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After years of denial, former cycling champion Lance Armstrong has reportedly admitted that he used performance-enhancing drugs. He made the admission as part of an extensive interview with Oprah Winfrey. It's scheduled to air over two nights beginning on Thursday. Few details have been released so far. On "CBS News This Morning," Oprah described the interview as difficult but said Armstrong was forthcoming.
The cyclist also met yesterday with the staff at Livestrong, the cancer charity he helped found. He is said to have apologized to them for any stress they endured over the past several months.
NPR's Tom Goldman has followed Armstrong's career and his fall from grace. He joins us now. Hey there, Tom.
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Hi, Audie.
CORNISH: So tell us more about what Oprah had to say today.
GOLDMAN: Well, not a lot of substance at least, as in what exactly did Armstrong say in the interview. Obviously that's by design. This is all a tease until Thursday night, when Armstrong will, we are told and as you said, admit that he used banned drugs during his cycling career. Now that still may be a shock to some, although a growing number of people have a similar reaction as Lynn Zinser of The New York Times, who wrote today: Lance Armstrong admitted using banned drugs; in other news, the world is round.
So this morning, Oprah wouldn't give details or say if Armstrong was contrite in their two and a half hour interview. She did answer why she thought he decided to do this now.
OPRAH WINFREY: I think he was just - he was just ready. I think the velocity of everything that's come at him in the past several months, and particularly in the past several weeks, he was just ready.
CORNISH: Tom, what would be the benefits to Lance Armstrong of confessing?
GOLDMAN: It depends on how deep this confession goes. Now, Winfrey said today that Armstrong, as you mentioned, was forthcoming; that he met the moment; that she was satisfied by the answers. The New York Times is reporting that in the interview, Armstrong rebuts the claim that he was leader of a doping program; that he merely did what his teammates were doing.
Now, of course, the massive U.S. Anti-Doping Agency report from late last year laid out in great detail how Armstrong, in fact, was the team leader, who encouraged and even told his teammates they needed to get on a doping program if they wanted to stay on his teams.
So there is a great interest to see just how forthcoming he is. It'll determine several things, Audie: what kind of personal redemption he'll achieve through this; if he's light on details and negates a lot of the USADA report, the public may not react favorably. If he hopes a confession will help get a lifetime ban reduced, as far as competing in marathons and triathlons, anti-doping bodies say he has to be extremely forthcoming and helpful as far as, you know, providing evidence and testimony against other people and organizations that aided in his doping.
CORNISH: And what about those lawsuits that Lance Armstrong has been facing? Where do those stand?
GOLDMAN: Yeah, there are unconfirmed reports that the Justice Department is recommending joining a federal whistleblower lawsuit brought by former cyclist and teammate Floyd Landis, as a way of reclaiming tens of million of dollars in sponsorship money, when Armstrong rode for the U.S. Postal Service teams. A person familiar with the lawsuit tells NPR it's not clear that DOJ will do anything public on Thursday; that's the purported deadline for Justice to intervene.
That's the most significant of the cases facing him. Another one involves him possibly having to repay a reported half a million dollars from a libel suit with the Sunday Times of London. So there's a lot of potential liability that comes with the confession. Makes you wonder again why he's doing it.
CORNISH: That was NPR's Tom Goldman, talking about Lance Armstrong and his reported admission to using performance-enhancing drugs. Tom, thank you.
GOLDMAN: You're welcome.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Now, Tom mentioned the Sunday Times of London. And earlier today, I spoke with the paper's chief sportswriter. His name is David Walsh and he was one of Lance Armstrong's primary targets among journalists who investigated doping. Armstrong called Walsh a troll, and the worst journalist in the world. Walsh has written four books on the cyclist, the most recent one titled "Seven Deadly Sins: My Pursuit of Lance Armstrong."
Today, I asked Walsh if he feels vindicated.
DAVID WALSH: It's satisfying because a lot of people helped me. When I say they helped me, they were my sources, they went out on a limb to tell the truth solely for the sake of telling the truth. So I felt a tremendous satisfaction that people could at last see that these people had been telling the truth all along.
CORNISH: And you mentioned on your Twitter feed today that Armstrong has been reaching out to people you would not expect. You write: Even I'm astonished. Are you one of those people he's reaching out to?
WALSH: No. No, and I don't expect him to, and not because he mightn't want to in the way that he's been reaching out to others. But my newspaper, the Sunday Times, has got a legal case against Lance Armstrong now. Because he sued us in 2004. It was settled in 2006, but it was settled at a cost of $1.5 million. And the Sunday Times are now looking for their money back.
CORNISH: Now, Armstrong has been accused of using his fame, his money and, of course, his legal team to attack people who questioned him. What was it like being a target of that?
WALSH: I didn't mind it. I mean, it was - it seemed like at the time, and I know this might sound ridiculous, but it seemed like all was fair in love and war. And I was trying to say this guy, whom you, the world, regard as a cancer icon and the greatest cyclist in the history of the Tour de France - in my view, he's a fraud.
Well, of course Armstrong is going to be pretty upset at that, and he did react with tremendous aggression towards me. And it always kind of intrigued me, I'd say, that he could call me in print the worst journalist who ever existed, a journalist who, he said, who would lie, who would steal, who would do anything to bring me that down - and everybody seemed to think that was fine. So what? Walsh is only a blooming journalist.
But now, of course, in fairness, lots of people have tweeted me to say, look, I'm sorry I doubted you. I thought you were wrong, I now realize you were right. And that has been, I suppose, satisfying in a way. But honestly, I didn't ever for a moment think I was getting this story wrong.
CORNISH: David, at this point in looking at what Lance Armstrong is trying to do, why do you think he's doing it now?
WALSH: Because I think his life is in a kind of a purgatory now. And he can't move it out of there until he makes this confession. He couldn't begin to rebuild his life while still professing the greatest lie that sport has ever seen. Because when you hold yourself up as an icon to the cancer community, and you've built your platform - the thing that got you up there so high that everybody could see you - that platform is an entire lie. But you stand there and you accept all the applause.
And you basically go on oath and say, I never doped, I would never dope. And people believe you and they invest their trust, their love, their faith in you. Whoo, well, the only way that - when that platform crumbles, as it did with the USADA report, the only way for Lance Armstrong to begin some kind of rehabilitation was to confess to what he had done and see how people would react.
CORNISH: David Walsh, you've covered Armstrong for 13 years. Do you think that this is going to bring you closure and are you going to move on from this story?
WALSH: Well, I mean, in many ways, I did, Audie, because all the time that I was covering Lance Armstrong, I was still chief sportswriter at the Sunday Times, covering other sports. And, in a way, I kind of look forward to it, you know, not having to do all the interviews and write about Lance so much. Because it's not exactly a life-affirming story, even though I will always remember it as the most satisfying thing that I will have done in my working life.
CORNISH: David Walsh, thank you for speaking with us.
WALSH: It's been a pleasure.
CORNISH: David Walsh is the chief sportswriter for the Sunday Times of London and the author of four books on Lance Armstrong.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The government of Turkey is vowing to push ahead with efforts to end its long-running conflict with Kurdish militants. That's despite the killings last week of three female Kurdish activists that were shot in Paris. The murders are seen as an effort to derail the peace talks before they gain traction.
As NPR's Peter Kenyon reports from Istanbul, Turkey, Turkey has pushed for peace before. But many wonder if the lessons from past failures have been absorbed.
PETER KENYON, BYLINE: The battle between the Turkish army and the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, has killed an estimated 40,000 people, mostly PKK militants. To put that in perspective, that's more than 10 times the number of dead in the IRA fight against British forces.
The most recent period of bloody stalemate was capped with two surprises: Turks learned that the head of intelligence had met with PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan in his island prison on the Sea of Marmara; and soon after, followed the execution-style killings in Paris that claimed the life of a PKK co-founder and two other activists.
As to who did it, there's no shortage of candidates. Ruling party official Huseyin Celik said internal PKK divisions may be the answer or perhaps the murders were carried out at the request of foreign powers, such as Syria or Iran.
HUSEYIN CELIK: (Through translator) Is there one PKK? I'm not sure of that. Within the PKK, there are groups that act as subcontractors to certain powers. What the goal is, we can't be sure, but there may be more attempts to sabotage the process, so we must all remain focused and vigilant.
KENYON: But the Kurdish population has its own theories, with many at this Istanbul rally blaming elements within the government that oppose Kurdish rights. Many Turks and Kurds are hearing strong echoes of the peace effort that failed a few years ago and the question is, what has the government learned from that failure? Starting in 2009, the Kurdish Initiative saw reforms pushed through parliament and some PKK militants were given amnesty and allowed back into Turkey from their bases in the mountains of northern Iraq.
At that point, says writer and columnist Mustafa Akyol, the politicians in the ruling AK party realized too late that Turkish public opinion had not been early well enough prepared to accept the hard reality of making peace with the enemy.
MUSTAFA AKYOL: But then, suddenly, there was so much reaction on the Turkish side to this forgiving of the terrorists. When AKP halted the process, then the PKK said this is just an illusion, they're fooling us. Then they began fighting. In the past two years, we had a vicious cycle of violence.
KENYON: There is reason to hope this peace effort will avoid past mistakes. The 2009 peace talks were held in secret in Oslo, but this time, there's more transparency. And Kurdish aspirations appear to be focused on greater rights and freedoms within a Turkish state, not full autonomy. Turkey's main opposition party is cautiously on board, leaving only the nationalist hard-liners to condemn the talks.
Selahattin Demirtas, head of the main Kurdish-aligned party in Turkey, said recently that a century of Kurdish grievances won't be resolved in this process, but perhaps Turks and Kurds can find a solution without blood, guns and violence.
SELAHATTIN DEMIRTAS: (Speaking foreign language)
KENYON: The only permanent, ethical and logical solution is through negotiations, he said, adding: if we can believe today that the government also shares this approach, we can only be glad about it. Analyst Mustafa Akyol says another new development is Turkey's warming relationship with Kurdish leaders in northern Iraq, such as Massoud Barzani. That's a connection Ankara may be eager to maintain, especially if neighboring Syria continues to fall apart, possibly leading to a de facto autonomous Kurdish region on another of Turkey's borders.
AKYOL: In Iraq, right now, the best ally Turkey has is Barzani, whereas the central government in Baghdad, which is very much in line with Iran, there are big disputes between Turkey and the central government of Iraq. But as Kurds are coming to the fore as a political reality in the Middle East, will Turkey befriend them and maybe turn them into an ally of Turkey or keep on fighting the Kurds?
KENYON: For now, at least, the answer to that question is clear. Turkish fighter jets reportedly struck PKK targets in northern Iraq overnight. In southeast Turkey, Kurds are planning for this week's funerals for the victims of the Paris murders and both sides are wondering how many more people will die as another peace effort lurches into gear. Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Istanbul.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And I'm Audie Cornish.
Tomorrow, President Obama is scheduled to unveil a much-anticipated plan to combat gun violence, but New York couldn't wait.
GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO: We can strike back and we can defend ourselves, but we're going to do it intelligently. And we're going to put rules in place that actually protect innocent people and society.
CORNISH: That voice was Governor Andrew Cuomo. He signed a bill into law this afternoon, making New York the first state to pass gun control measures since the mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. As NPR's Joel Rose reports, the legislation came together fast - a bit too fast for some.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: Ever since the shootings in Connecticut and, a few days later, in Webster, New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo has been pushing lawmakers to act quickly.
CUOMO: We all know we don't need another tragedy to point out the problems in the system, right? We understand them. Enough people have lost their lives. Let's act.
ROSE: Last night, Cuomo officially unveiled the New York SAFE Act after weeks of backroom negotiations. The law mandates background checks for all gun purchases, and it requires mental health professionals to report people they consider to be potentially dangerous to law enforcement, who could revoke their gun permits. And Governor Cuomo says the law places a new lower limit on the size of ammunition magazines.
CUOMO: Ban on magazines that can hold over seven rounds. Many of the other jurisdictions passed have been talking about 10 rounds. This, we believe, would be the most aggressive limit in the country at seven.
ROSE: The law also requires tougher penalties for using illegal guns. That was a top priority for Senate Republican Leader Dean Skelos of Long Island, who voted for the law.
STATE SENATOR DEAN SKELOS: I think, on balance, the Second Amendment is protected, but also there are incredibly enhanced criminal penalties to keep people off the street that do not belong on the street and really attacks the issue of illegal guns.
ROSE: New York's law also widens the state ban on the sale of assault weapons to include semiautomatic rifles such as the AR-15 rifle used by shooters in Newtown, Webster and elsewhere. Gun owners will be allowed to keep the assault weapons they already own - perhaps roughly a million statewide - but they'll have to register those guns with the state and they won't be allowed to sell them legally in New York. That provision does not sit well with many Republicans from rural areas in upstate New York, where hunters and gun owners are an important constituency.
MARC BUTLER: We're taking up a bill that, number one, tramples on the constitutional rights of our constituents to legally possess firearms.
ROSE: Assemblyman Marc Butler represents a district near the plant in Ilion, New York, where some of the weapons the law bans are made. Butler and others were furious that the bill was unveiled at a news conference last night, then rammed quickly through the legislature with little opportunity for debate.
BUTLER: Where were the public hearings? Where was the vetting process? Where is the give and take of a healthy democratic process?
ROSE: But gun control advocates seem largely pleased with the final product. Laura Cutilletta is with the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence in California, which tracks state gun laws.
LAURA CUTILLETTA: They're very tough laws. It would make for the most comprehensive regulation in the country if you looked at ammo and firearms together. And we really applaud Governor Cuomo for taking leadership on this.
ROSE: When he introduced the bill last night, Governor Cuomo said he would be proud if New York was the first state to pass new gun control measures in the wake of Newtown. But even some of the governor's allies could be heard to wonder if more public discussion might have led to a better law. Joel Rose, NPR News, New York.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
More now on the provision of the New York state law regarding psychiatrists and other mental health professionals. As Joel Rose mentioned, the law says that they must report a patient to mental health authorities if they reasonably judge the patient is likely to do something that would seriously harm himself or others. Those authorities can then decide to take their concerns to law enforcement.
Dr. Paul Appelbaum is a professor of psychiatry, medicine and law at Columbia University. He's quoted in today's New York Times, calling that provision a major change in the presumption of confidentiality inherent in mental health treatment. I spoke with Dr. Appelbaum today and I asked him how he understands what he's obligated to do under this new provision.
DR. PAUL APPELBAUM: It would require me or any other mental health professional to report, essentially, to an agent of the state any of my patients who have suicidal or homicidal thoughts and about whom I'm concerned that they're possibly going to act on those thoughts.
SIEGEL: And from your standpoint, as a psychiatrist, what's problematic with that compromise of confidentiality?
APPELBAUM: My concern is that there are many patients who come into a consulting room thinking of hurting themselves, less commonly thinking of hurting other people. And in general, they tell me about those ideas or thoughts that they're having in private and I do my best to help them deal with those thoughts.
Under the new law, it's no longer a matter between the patient and me or any other therapist. It's now something that is revealed to the state. And when that happens, I'm afraid - and I know many of my colleagues share this concern - that patients simply won't come. Or if they do come, they won't tell us what's on their mind because they know that that will trigger an obligation to break their confidentiality and let the state in on their secrets as well.
SIEGEL: Is a psychiatrist or a psychologist, for that matter, obliged to report a patient who, say, is troubled by pedophile impulses that he hasn't acted on but conceivably might or a patient who expresses feelings toward a parent that verge on the murderous?
APPELBAUM: No. In the current situation, therapists are obliged to do their best to try to help their patients deal with their thoughts and impulses rather than acting on them. And they are free to use any means at their disposal to do that. But all of that remains within the therapist-patient dyad. The state doesn't get involved at any point. That's what would change under the current bill.
SIEGEL: Yeah. The current bill holds the psychiatrist, or the other mental health professional, legally blameless if he decides not to report a patient if that decision is reasonable and made in good faith. Does that language open the psychiatrist's reasonableness to judicial scrutiny if a patient goes on to commit a violent crime?
APPELBAUM: I think inevitably when a tragic outcome occurs, there will be a retrospective effort to try to discern just how reasonable a therapist's decision was. And since the act has already occurred, inevitably in hindsight it will look not to have been reasonable at all. So the immunity provisions of the statute, although they sound good on paper, are likely to be somewhat less than effective in practice.
SIEGEL: In your experience, let's say outside the context of consulting for a presentencing examination or parole or probation hearing, how good is psychiatry at predicting violent behavior of people the psychiatrists interview?
APPELBAUM: It's very difficult for any mental health professional to know with any degree of certainty what patients are going to do in the future, whether that's a matter of hurting themselves or attempting to hurt someone else. And inevitably, overprediction occurs. Many patients come into treatment talking about suicidal or homicidal thoughts. Very few of them ever intend to act on those thoughts. And yet distinguishing between those who will and those who won't act is a nearly impossible task.
SIEGEL: You know, it's interesting that for all the emphasis on mental health that we've heard since the terrible killings in Connecticut, the concern of mental health professionals like yourself is much more commonly about suicidal tendencies than about homicidal tendencies.
APPELBAUM: That's absolutely right. There are double the number of suicides compared with homicides each year. And suicidal ideation is one of the most common symptom that we treat. So although in this bill it may have been thrown in as an afterthought, it is where the likely greatest impact of this legislation will be.
SIEGEL: Suicide prevention?
APPELBAUM: On people who come in to the office with suicidal ideation.
SIEGEL: Could you, as a psychiatrist and somebody very involved in psychiatry and the law, could you imagine a counterproposal that would somehow address people's anxiety about what seems to be a rash of those with mental illness committing mass murder with guns and the concerns of the confidentiality of the psychiatrist's office?
APPELBAUM: We have two contrasting policy directions that lie before us here. We can try to identify people who we think are dangerous and to keep guns from them, or we could try to reduce the availability of guns in our society in general, particularly weapons that are designed for the purpose of killing large numbers of people.
Unfortunately, I think the approach that calls on us to identify dangerous people is inevitably going to fail. That's an impossible task, at least given our current state of knowledge. And so a much more reasonable set of approaches would focus on decreasing the availability of means of mass violence rather than trying to identify every person who's likely to get behind an automatic weapon and start pulling the trigger.
SIEGEL: Well, Dr. Appelbaum, thank you very much for talking with us about it today.
APPELBAUM: You're welcome.
SIEGEL: That's Dr. Paul Appelbaum, who is director of the division of law, ethics and psychiatry in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Time now for your letters. And we received many on the topic of gun policies, following our conversation last week with the president of the National Rifle Association, David Keene. Many of you were critical of the interview.
For example, Carolyn Law of Seattle, who writes this: What is the point of interviewing him if he is able to spout off the NRA's standard spiel? There are real pressing questions that should be asked, and he should be pressed and pressed again to consider and answer them or be called out for not answering them.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And John Godfrey of Ann Arbor, Michigan writes that he winced his way through the interview. He continues: We long for aggressive questioning of those such as Keene, who are advocates of any side in important national debates. Where are the counters, the follow-ups, the calling out of unsubstantiated assertions? Keene had a great day. He got to read a PR statement to ATC's audience.
CORNISH: Still, a number of you wrote to say you were grateful for our interview with the NRA president. That includes Jason Myers of Boise, Idaho, who says this: As a lover of both guns and NPR News, I appreciated Melissa Block's interview with NRA president David Keene. So many interviews become heated, resulting in people talking over one another. Melissa allowed Mr. Keene to make his points and finish his answers before going on to another question.
SIEGEL: And April Walden of Laguna Beach, California, called the interview thoughtful and compelling. And she writes this: Thank you for this alternative to the emotional, reactionary gun debate that we're left with elsewhere. I only wish that more of this sort of level-headed conversation could occur across the country. This is not a binary issue. There's a lot to consider, and you've helped me to see another side.
CORNISH: We welcome your comments. And you can send them our way at npr.org.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And I'm Robert Siegel.
We have two stories now about Mali, where France has intervened to stop al-Qaida-linked rebels who've taken over the north of the country. First, how this fight could have consequences for the United States. One lesson the U.S. has learned from fighting al-Qaida for more than a decade is this: Never underestimate the group's terrorist affiliates. These local groups in places such as Yemen start out with local agendas, but often they go global. The al-Qaida group in Mali, al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, is no different. NPR's Dina Temple-Raston explains why.
DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: The U.S. learned its lesson about underestimating al-Qaida affiliates three years ago on Christmas Day.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED VIDEO)
TEMPLE-RASTON: That's from a British reenactment of the terrorist bombing attempt on Christmas Day 2009. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was sent on that suicide mission by al-Qaida's arm in Yemen. The bomb failed to go off, and Abdulmutallab was arrested. But before that day, the United States had assumed that a local al-Qaida group in Yemen would never be able to attack the U.S.
BRUCE HOFFMAN: We were monitoring the growth of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, but didn't understand that it'd become far more formidable, far more threatening in a much shorter period of time than we imagined.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Bruce Hoffman is a terrorism expert at Georgetown University.
HOFFMAN: I think that's very much in everyone's mind as these local groups gain power that eventually they will become more ambitious.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Al-Qaida affiliates rarely keep the fight local, which is why the events in Mali are of so much concern to U.S. officials now. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta spoke about the challenge earlier today.
SECRETARY LEON PANETTA: We have to continue the effort to go after al-Qaida, where it decides to locate. There's an al-Qaida presence in Syria that concerns us, and there is the AQIM version of al-Qaida in Mali.
TEMPLE-RASTON: AQIM, that's al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, and it may be leading the fight in Mali today, but it's unlikely to restrict itself to the conflict there. U.S. intelligence officials now consider AQIM the best armed and fastest-growing al-Qaida franchise in the world. Over the past decade, the group has earned literally tens of millions of dollars, kidnapping westerners and collecting ransoms for their return. When weapons started flowing out of Libya after the fall of Moammar Gadhafi, AQIM used its money to buy them and stockpiled them. Then the group did one more thing.
J. PETER PHAM: It's also gotten itself very much grafted into the social network of northern Mali.
TEMPLE-RASTON: J. Peter Pham is the director of the Africa Center at the Atlantic Council.
PHAM: Its fighters have married into local tribes and it's used local people for its operations and gained a good knowledge of the terrain and the people.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Which is exactly what al-Qaida's arm in Yemen did. AQIM clearly tore a page out of the Yemen playbook and is applying it to Mali. U.S. officials say hardcore AQIM members in Mali probably number in the low hundreds. Fighters with other local Islamist groups are in the low thousands. The concern is that that's only the beginning. The introduction of French troops and air power is expected to attract more foreign fighters to northern Mali. Already, U.S. officials say there are Somalis and Algerians and even Europeans showing up to join the battle. Dina Temple-Raston, NPR News.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
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I'm Robert Siegel.
And now to a decision today from the Supreme Court that could affect houseboat owners across the country. The court ruled in the case of a Florida man. It said his floating home is a house, not a boat. And therefore, the city marina where he kept it docked could not seize the structure under federal maritime law.
NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Actually, the facts of Fane Lozman's case sound like something from "The People's Court," not the Supreme Court. Lozman bought a 60-by-12-foot floating home for $17,000 and then totally remodeled it to look and feel like a house on water. It had French doors on three sides, a sitting room, bedroom, closet, bathroom and kitchen, along with a stairway leading to a second level with an office where Lozman worked as a commodities trader.
The structure had no self-propulsion, no independent electricity, not even a rudder. To move it on water, it had to be towed.
In 2006, after Hurricane Wilma destroyed the marina where Lozman kept his floating home, he moved it to a marina in Riviera Beach, Florida, about 80 miles north of Miami. Now, this is where the story gets dicey.
Lozman soon became something of a gadfly, challenging the city's plans to build a $2.4 billion luxury development in the marina. As a result, Lozman says, the development project fell apart and the city tried to evict him, contending that - he says erroneously - he owed docking fees and that his 10-pound dachshund was a public danger.
FANE LOZMAN: They went through the eviction proceeding, and we had a three-day jury trial and I won that. The jury came back and said, you know, there was no grounds for the eviction, that this was, you know, purely retaliatory based on fighting to keep the marina a public facility.
TOTENBERG: In 2008, the city came up with a new redevelopment plan and Lozman again said he would fight it. This time the city went to federal court, seeking to have the floating home declared a vessel under federal maritime law. The city could then put a lien on the structure until he paid the fees it claimed he owed.
A federal judge ruled against Lozman, declared the structure a vessel and ordered him to pay roughly $3,000 in docking fees. After a federal appeals court agreed, Lozman's floating home was put up for public auction and the city bought it.
LOZMAN: The city of Riviera Beach went to the auction, outbid the public that attended, purchased my home, and then the next day immediately started destroying it, along with all my furniture at taxpayer's expense.
TOTENBERG: Lozman appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, and today the high court, by a 7-to-2 vote, said the city had no right to put a lien against Lozman's floating home under federal maritime law because it's not a vessel. Therefore, the city improperly seized the structure.
Writing for the court majority, Justice Stephen Breyer said: not every floating structure is a vessel. To state the obvious, a wooden washtub, a plastic dishpan, a swimming platform on pontoons, or Pinocchio when inside the whale - none of these, he said, are vessels, even though they're artificial contrivances capable of floating, moving under tow, and incidentally even carrying a fair-sized item or two when they do so.
But none of these meet the statutory definition of also being used as a means of transportation, Breyer said. No reasonable observer looking at Lozman's floating home, quote, "would consider it designed to a practical degree for carrying people or things over water."
In a written statement, the city of Riviera Beach said it would soon clarify its marina rules to comply with the Supreme Court decision and would reimburse Lozman $300 for his filing fee and printing costs in the Supreme Court case. Dream on.
Lozman made clear today he intends to seek a lot more. He maintains that he put $50,000 into his floating home altogether.
LOZMAN: A determination will have to be made, you know, what was the value of my floating home and my attorney's fees. And I'm going to, you know, look for monetary compensation.
TOTENBERG: Right now, he says, he lives part-time on land and part-time on a houseboat in Miami.
LOZMAN: Once you live on a floating home, it gets in your blood.
TOTENBERG: And would he think of having his new floating home towed to Riviera Beach?
LOZMAN: Yeah, I'm seriously considering doing that.
TOTENBERG: So, stay tuned.
Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
It won't take a Supreme Court ruling to declare the winner of the next big contest in Florida. When Sunday, February 10th rolls around, only size and quantity will matter. That's when the 2013 Python Challenge ends. No chads this time, just dead pythons.
And that's why we've contacted humorist and Florida resident Dave Barry to guide us through the rules established by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
Welcome, Dave.
DAVE BARRY: Good to be here.
CORNISH: So when did this competition start?
BARRY: It started last weekend. It runs for a month.
CORNISH: And any reports from the field just yet?
BARRY: I'm not going anywhere near the field, personally. The field is full of people who have come from other states to try to kill large non-native snakes with guns. So I'm staying away from the field. But as far as I know, no humans have died yet. I assume some snakes have.
CORNISH: I mean, what are the rules actually, like how does this work?
BARRY: Well, you have to catch - excuse me, I don't mean catch. The actual expression used by the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission is trying to raise public awareness about the Burmese pythons. That means kill. And you have to kill as many as you can in this month. There's a prize of, I think, $1,500 for the most pythons. And there's a price of $1,000 for the longest Python. But you can't cut your long Python into several smaller pythons. That's against the rules.
(LAUGHTER)
CORNISH: There's actually a serious reason why they're doing this, right? I mean, this isn't just about randomly killing pythons.
BARRY: No, they're kind of like taking over the Everglades. They don't have any enemies down here. Apparently, they were pets at one point. And I'm not going to say that the people who had these pets were stupid, but apparently they didn't look up what happens to the Burmese python as it gets to become more mature, which is it gets to be really, really huge. They caught one not too long ago. I think it was like 17 feet long.
CORNISH: Oh.
BARRY: So the idea is to get people to come in and raise public awareness about them.
CORNISH: And, of course, this is a state-sponsored event. So I assume there must be some rules about how you kill a python.
BARRY: Yeah, you have to kill the pythons in an ethical manner, which is described in some detail in the pythonchallenge.org website. But the main thing is you can't let your pythons suffer too much. You have to get the brain of the python. Apparently, they do have brains.
CORNISH: And I see the term captive bolt is thrown around regarding that.
BARRY: Captive bolt, I don't really know what a captive bolt is, but it's a thing you attach to the head of an animal to destroy its brain. Now, I don't want to be second-guessing anybody here, but you've got amateurs from other states here who are suddenly going to come in contact with maybe a, I don't know, 10, 15-foot-long carnivorous snake out there. I don't really know when they're going to find the time...
(LAUGHTER)
BARRY: ...to attach the bolt to the head of the python. I think there's going to be - to be honest, I think there's going to be a lot of just shooting going on out there.
CORNISH: Now, you were joking that you're not going to go out there. But, you know, you're having fun at people's expense. I mean, do you have any experience with pythons yourself?
BARRY: Not pythons, but I do live in the Miami area, which is basically a swamp. We don't admit it, but the animals know it. And I had an experience several years ago. I had a number of snakes on my property. But several years ago, I was in my office, which is next to our swimming pool, and I reached for my diet soda and there was - I heard a hissing sound. And there was a snake that at the time I would've estimated at probably 30 to 40 feet.
It was probably actually, really, in real life about 2 feet long, but it was a snake right next to my soda can. And so I made a really un-masculine - I made a sound like a recently castrated Teletubby. And I jumped out and ran out onto the patio and got the first weapon I came across, which was barbecue tongs.
(LAUGHTER)
CORNISH: What else?
(LAUGHTER)
BARRY: So I go running out with this thing riding at the end of my barbecue tongs and dropped it. And as it happened, it fell into the swimming pool. It made a rookie snake error, which is it swam into the filter basket.
CORNISH: Ugh.
BARRY: And it was exciting, and that was just a little snake that wasn't even a python. I don't know what people are going to do when they encounter actual pythons out there.
CORNISH: That was Dave Barry, humorist, novelist and herpetologist. His comedy novel "Insane City" will be published at the end of this month.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Facebook is trying to make it easier for users to do more detailed searches. Today, the company unveiled what it calls graph search. It lets users search within their friend network for things like restaurants, photos and travel tips.
And as NPR's Laura Sydell reports, the new feature is likely to help Facebook sell more personalized ads.
LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE: Until now, search on Facebook was limited to looking up someone else's page by typing in their name. But now, say you want to go out for dinner and try somewhere new. You could check on Yelp or, as Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed off, you can search your friends on Facebook and see what they like.
MARK ZUCKERBERG: You can see right here which friends have been to each of the restaurants and which ones have liked it and also information about the restaurant and a rating.
SYDELL: Zuckerberg says the new search feature will also let you find out which of your friends has visited a certain country or which television shows they like. You can narrow the search to find out who lives near you so you can find out if they might want to come over and, say, watch "Game of Thrones." Zuckerberg demonstrated.
ZUCKERBERG: And this is great. I mean I just clicked on a bunch of them, invited them over, and we had a small Dothraki party.
SYDELL: Many people will certainly find this convenient, though Facebook is also a company that really has one product - its users. The company sells ads based on what it knows about you. If it knows you live in San Francisco and like Mexican food, you're the perfect target for a new Mexican restaurant. Facebook software engineer Tom Stocky says the new service should help the company find out more about its users.
TOM STOCKY: We do think that people will, you know, maybe want to fill out their favorite sports teams and TV shows and stuff because they want to help their friends find cool stuff.
SYDELL: Part of the new search tool is a partnership with Microsoft's Bing search. If you can't find it among your friends, Bing will go out to the wider Web for you. No doubt, Silicon Valley neighbor Google, which is also trying to make search more personal, is watching the new features carefully. Facebook says its graph search will roll out slowly over the coming months.
Laura Sydell, NPR News, San Francisco.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Finally this hour, a note on the value of a letter.
In the game of Scrabble, the letter Z is worth 10 points. The letter X is worth eight and the letter V is worth four. That is, unless you're playing with Joshua Lewis.
JOSHUA LEWIS: Z goes from 10 to six, and X goes from eight to five. And then a letter like V, which is actually quite difficult to play, goes up from four to five.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
That's Lewis, a post-doctoral scholar at the University of California, San Diego's Cognitive Science Department.
As a side project, Lewis recently created a system that would assign new values to 14 Scrabble letters based on the ease and the frequency with which they appear in the list of official Scrabble words.
LEWIS: And I was interested in this because as an enthusiastic amateur player, I thought, you know, since the corpus of legal words has changed in Scrabble, maybe the tile values should change as well.
CORNISH: Well, we ran this by our resident Scrabble expert Stefan Fatsis, who appears on this program frequently talking about sports. He's also the author of "Word Freak: Heartbreak, Triumph, Genius and Obsession in the World of Competitive Scrabble Players." He says a new value system is fun to think about.
STEFAN FATSIS, BYLINE: But ultimately, what you'd be doing is you'd be making the game more boring. It would be less fun to play because it would flatten out the values. And the great thing about a game like Scrabble is that there is this element of luck and there's this element of strategy. And part of the strategy is understanding how the letters are valued and what you should do with them.
SIEGEL: And in response to this idea, Scrabble's manufacturer says it knows exactly what to do with the values of its tiles: not change a thing.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The French defense minister says France is preparing for a possible land assault in Mali, so it plans to increase its troop levels to 2,500. Back home in France, authorities are girding for possible terrorist attacks in response to their intervention. Eleanor Beardsley has that story from Paris.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (French spoken)
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: For the fifth day, France awoke to news about French bombing raids against Islamist radicals overnight in Mali. French President Francois Hollande launched an attack on Mali's al-Qaida-linked rebels last Friday after the insurgents began advancing south toward the capital. A U.N.-backed African force is being prepared to come to Mali's aid, but until it does, France is on the front line. The country is now a top target of terrorists. A French radio aired an interview with one of the jihadist leaders in Mali. What do you have to say to France, asked the journalist.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (French spoken)
OMAR OULD HAMAHA: (French spoken)
BEARDSLEY: France has opened the gates of hell for all its citizens, said Omar Ould Hamaha. This trap will be much bigger than Iraq or Somalia. Al-Shabab radicals in Somalia, where France launched a separate failed raid to rescue a hostage on Saturday, tweeted macabre photos of a dead French soldier. Because of France's fight against terrorists across Africa, the country is on heightened alert back home. French authorities have raised the threat level to red plus, just under the top level of scarlet. Seven hundred armed soldiers are patrolling the French capital. There is extra security in train stations, at public shopping spaces and around iconic monuments like this one.
Well, I'm standing under the Eiffel Tower. It's a cold day, so there aren't that many visitors. But there are six - one, two, three, four, five, six - soldiers with automatic weapons patrolling here.
In a radio interview this morning, Interior Minister Manuel Valls was asked if the jihadists could strike at the heart of France.
MANUEL VALLS: (Through translator) We have to be careful. I'd like to give you a definitive no. But the only way to keep terrorist acts from happening on our soil is to maintain the greatest vigilance.
BEARDSLEY: Valls said French police were fighting terrorism with new laws and methods, some adopted since homegrown radical Mohammed Merah killed three soldiers, two Jewish students and a teacher last spring in the city of Toulouse. Another problem France faces in Mali is hostages. Eight French citizens have been held for nearly three years there by a group called al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. The kidnappers have always said they would kill the hostages if France ever intervened. French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said letting Mali become a terrorist sanctuary would not protect the hostages.
LAURENT FABIUS: (French spoken)
BEARDSLEY: The people holding our hostages would have become the masters of Mali if we had not intervened, said Fabius.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BEARDSLEY: Today, the first French casualty from Mali was honored in a solemn ceremony at Les Invalides war memorial in Paris. The train station at Saint Michel in Paris has already been the scene of a terrorist attack. It was here in 1995 that a bomb set by an Algerian Islamist group killed eight people and wounded 117. Tonight, it's bustling. Marc Dechaux is on his way home.
MARC DECHAUX: (Through translator) We're glad France went into Mali. Something had to be done about that nest of radicals. The local population was suffering, and it would have eventually affected the West.
BEARDSLEY: Dechaux and every other commuter I interviewed said they back France's involvement in Mali and they're not worried about a terrorist attack. Polls show that 63 percent of the French support the military operation. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
This is NPR News.
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Time now for our latest home-viewing recommendation from movie critic Bob Mondello. "Slings & Arrows," the Shakespeare-centric comedy from Canadian TV has just been released in a new DVD collection. Bob recently re-watched an episode and says it reminded him how much he liked the whole series.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Even though he's going to be a major character in the series, Oliver, a flamboyant theater fest director...
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SLINGS & ARROWS")
MONDELLO: ...gets killed by a truck in the very first episode of the first season of "Slings & Arrows," a truck labeled Canada's Best Hams, appropriate for a guy who deals with actors. Of course, if you know your Shakespeare, you know death won't keep Oliver down.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SLINGS & ARROWS")
MONDELLO: Ghosts pop up all the time in Shakespeare, especially in "Hamlet," the show Oliver was about to stage for the New Burbage Festival. Now, it'll go on with an even more flamboyant director, who takes that line about there being something rotten in the state of Denmark seriously.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SLINGS & ARROWS)
MONDELLO: "Slings & Arrows" isn't just a backstage comedy. It's a romp about the whole business of running a theater festival, from fundraising fiasco to opening night meltdown, also about the movie stars who drop in and the egos and feuds that make live theater so quixotic.
(SOUNDBITE TV SHOW, "SLINGS & ARROWS")
MONDELLO: Think of it as kind of a predecessor, though funnier and more sophisticated, for the musical series "Smash," with the advantage that "Slings & Arrows" has not musical comedy but the Bard's plays to hold the mirror up to nature. And happily, it gets the Shakespeare right.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SLINGS & ARROWS")
MONDELLO: "Slings & Arrows" was a cult hit for three seasons, each of which found fresh comedy in the producing of a tragedy: "Hamlet," then "Macbeth" and finally "Lear." Surprising fun, even as it illuminates the plays, the series will prove downright addictive if you happen to be a theater nut. And if you're not, it may help you become one. I'm Bob Mondello.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SLINGS & ARROWS")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
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Next week, President Obama will take the oath of office and begin his second term. As he acknowledged after his reelection, the job demands that he work for all Americans, not just those who voted for him.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: There are people all across this country, millions of folks who worked so hard to help us get elected, but there are also millions of people who may not have voted for us, but are also counting on us.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Counting on us, but to do what? Well, to answer that question, we recently went over to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to the street in front of the White House. The inaugural parade stands were being built nearby. And we asked Americans what they would say to the president, whether or not they voted for him. What did they want him to accomplish in the next four years? Here's some of what they told us.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Dear Mr. President...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Dear Mr. President...
EMILY PARVATI: Dear Mr. President, I voted for you both in 2008 and in 2012. I'm happy that you're coming back and I think that the most important issue facing our generation right now and the United States generally is marriage equality. I think that it's important for children of same-sex parents to know that they're equal. I think it's important for GLBT youth to know that they're equal and I think that it really is going to be the human rights campaign for our generation. I hope that you'll take that into consideration as you move forward. Sincerely, Emily Parvati(ph), Washington, D.C.
JUSTIN COOPER: I did not vote for you. Stop raising my taxes. I barely make enough money as it is. Thank you. Justin Cooper, Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
WILLIAM STACEY: I did not vote for you. I was a former sergeant in the U.S. military. I was in the Army. And one of the problems I think you should really focus on is veterans' affairs this term. We have a lot of veterans that are going through psychological issues, dealing with the things they saw overseas. There's a lot of stuff that I'm sure you yourself have not seen, sir. This is William Stacey(ph) from Columbia, South Carolina signing off. Thank you.
JILL LAMBERT: Dear Mr. President, I did vote for you in this past election, even though my family didn't want me to. But I know that you're going to continue strengthening the health care bill. Jill Lambert(ph), Lake City, Florida.
AMED ALARVEY: Dear Mr. President, I voted for you because I believe in diplomacy, whether it's working with members of the House and Senate on bipartisan initiatives to resolve our issues domestically or working to strengthen our strategic relationships abroad, I believe in you. My name is Amed Alarvey(ph) and I'm from King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
CATHY MURPHY: Mr. President, Happy New Year. Congratulations. I'm so excited for you and your family and this is my first visit to the White House, which is beautiful. You have a beautiful home. I did not vote for you. I'm sorry, but I am concerned about our country and where we are financially. I was raised in a family where if you don't have money, you don't spend it. And right now, I'm on a budget and there are lots of things that I want, but don't get because I just can't afford it. Cathy Murphy(ph), Houston, Texas.
JACOB JOHNSON: Dear Mr. President, I didn't vote for you because I'm underage and this is one of the important things I want you to do for the nation is to have a better education system. I love you with all my heart, Mr. President. My name is Jacob Johnson(ph) and I'm from Brooklyn, New York.
CORNISH: Those audio postcards gathered outside the White House. We want to hear from you, too. What do you want the president to remember as he begins his second term? What should rise to the top of his to-do list? Go to NPR.org to add your own postcards. While you're there, you can also see the video that got us started.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In Syria, the staple of most meals is bread; thin, round, flat bread that we would probably call pita. Back in November, as fierce fighting raged across Syria, people started to run out of bread. Government forces were attacking bakeries in rebel-held areas, and cutting off electricity so mills couldn't grind flour. By late last year, Syrians were desperate. Now, the crisis has been somewhat alleviated, surprisingly by a group the U.S. government has designated as terrorist. NPR's Kelly McEvers sent this report from Aleppo.
[POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In the original production of the audio for this piece, a number of elements were inadvertently placed in the wrong sequence. The incorrect audio version has been replaced with one that is accurate. This transcript reflects the corrected audio.]
KELLY MCEVERS, BYLINE: Let's start this story with one of the most interesting people we met in Aleppo. His name is Raafat al-Rifai. Raafat is a journalist. But like a lot of young Syrians, he's also an activist. Raafat is part of Aleppo's Transitional Revolutionary Council. It's basically a group of civilian leaders trying to solve Aleppo's problems.
Raafat has taken up residence in an abandoned bank on the outskirts of the city. There's no electricity. It's dark and cold. All he has are cigarettes.
(SOUNDBITE OF VOICES)
MCEVERS: Pretty soon after we sit down, some guys come to the door. They tell Raafat they need bread. Raafat says there are four main grain compounds in Aleppo Province. These compounds grind grain into flour, and store the flour in silos. Back in November, they all shut down.
RAAFAT AL-RIFAI: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: Raafat says rebel fighters known as the Free Syrian Army - or FSA - along with civilian leaders, went and convinced two of the compounds to re-open. With aid money they'd collected, the council helped the compounds get fuel for generators, and they offered protection. Flour made it to some of Aleppo's bakeries, and the bread crisis started to ease.
(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD CHATTER)
MCEVERS: Still, though, in neighborhoods like this one, a woman waiting in a long line says she waits for days to get bread. Rebels in the FSA get to jump to the front of the line.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (Through Translator) It's been three days that I've been coming, and I didn't get bread. That's - wait; when you will see the FSA coming, they just get the bread. They get what they want, and they just leave. And we tell them; we tell them, give us, also, some bread - we are the same as you.
MCEVERS: People all over the city have been getting frustrated with the FSA rebels. Then about a month ago, something happened. That's when armed Islamist fighters, with a group called Jabhat Al-Nusra, took over all four grain compounds. They provided fuel and protection. More bakeries opened.
When the group was first formed about a year ago, Jabhat Al-Nusra said its aim was to create an Islamic state in Syria. Back then, it carried out Al-Qaida-style suicide attacks on Syrian government interests. Then the group changed tactics, and began fighting alongside FSA rebels on the ground. It's thought the well-trained and well-equipped Jabhat Al-Nusra is why rebels have succeeded in taking government military bases. Now, Jabhat Al-Nusra is all about winning hearts and minds.
(SOUNDBITE OF GENERATOR)
MCEVERS: It's about noon at this bakery in Aleppo. The noise is from an enormous generator that powers the place. Bread is usually sold in the morning. The few people gathered outside the closed gate are late.
So the gate is opening?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Foreign language spoken)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: (Translating) Give us bread.
MCEVERS: The guys who have bread, have guns. They also wear black headbands with an Islamic creed written in white.
(SOUNDBITE OF GENERATOR, KNOCKING)
MCEVERS: The fighters invite us inside, then immediately disappear. The customers keep knocking on the gate. We're taken upstairs to meet the owner, Abu Kamel.
ABU KAMEL: (Foreign language spoken)
MCEVERS: Abu Kamel says Jabhat Al-Nusra fighters came to him about a month ago, to sell him flour. They helped him get fuel for the generator, and offered him protection. His bakery used to make fine pastries. But he switched to bread when the fighting got heavy. He says Jabhat al Nusra saved his business.
KAMEL: (Through translator) They came to me and offered me because they knew that I would have been forced to close it.
MCEVERS: Now, back to Raafat. It turns out that in addition to his work with the Revolutionary Council, he's one of the few journalists who's been granted extensive access to Jabhat al Nusra. Raafat was able to meet the group several hours a day, several days in a row. He says the hardest thing was not being able to smoke his unholy cigarettes. Western journalists are almost always denied access to the group.
Raafat says because Syrians see so little support from the international community, and because FSA rebels are seen as corrupt and disorganized, Jabhat al Nusra is filling the gap.
AL-RIFAI: (Through translator) The Jabhat al Nusra is not only trying to provide religious alternative, it is trying to provide an alternative for the government, an alternative for the Transitional Revolutionary Council, and also an alternative for the international community.
MCEVERS: So they don't like this council, this Transitional Revolutionary Council.
AL-RIFAI: (Through translator) They don't like anyone.
MCEVERS: Especially Alawites, who adhere to an obscure version of Islam, and many of whom support Syria's government. It's clear not everyone in Aleppo is happy with how Jabhat al Nusra is doing.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHANTING PROTESTERS)
MCEVERS: In the Bustan al Qasr neighborhood, people march past Jabhat al Nusra's base, demanding electricity and flour. We later saw people arguing with a Jabhat al Nusra fighter. Requests at the door were referred to another office.
And in that same neighborhood, civilians are trying to work with FSA rebels, to clean up their act. Mohammad Aoun al Maarouf is a former P.E. teacher who now heads a kind of community policing center, in a building that used to be a kindergarten. Teletubbies and flowers are painted on the walls of the courtyard.
This is the prison.
UNIDENTIFIED MEN: Yes.
MCEVERS: Is anybody in there?
(SOUNDBITE OF KEYS, DOORS OPENING)
MCEVERS: The prison is really just a small storage room. Three guys lie on mattresses, in the dark. One says he was roughed up by FSA rebels.
MOHAMMED AOUN AL MAAROUF: (Speaking foreign language)
MCEVERS: Maarouf says he runs a unit of about 32 men who police the neighborhood. If they see FSA rebels abusing people at checkpoints or bakeries, or looting, they detain them and call them in for questioning. If there's enough evidence, they send them to civil court. We ask Maarouf about Jabhat al Nusra. He's tight-lipped. Our work is separate from them, he says. He says his group has received its own donations of flour, and is giving it directly to the people. We ask him why men with guns should listen to him.
I would say, well, who appointed you? Who gave you this power? Where did it come from, you know?
MAAROUF: (Speaking foreign language)
MCEVERS: Here's what I tell them, he says. It's the same power that made you think you could carry weapons in the first place. Kelly McEvers, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
By the age of 2, children in the U.S. are supposed to have gotten a grand total of 24 vaccines. While individual vaccines have repeatedly been proved safe and effective, some parents worry that the vaccination schedule can be dangerous.
As NPR's Patti Neighmond reports, the Institute of Medicine is now weighing in on the debate with a comprehensive review of the evidence.
PATTI NEIGHMOND, BYLINE: The Institute of Medicine was asked to examine the safety of the timing and number of vaccines children receive against diseases like measles, polio and whooping cough. Dr. Allan Berg is a family physician at the University of Washington. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: The doctor's first name was misstated. He is Alfred Berg.]
DR. ALFRED BERG: Children sometimes can get as many as five immunizations at a single visit, and the total number of vaccines, the timing of the vaccines, so we were looking at elements of the entire schedule rather than adverse effects of individual vaccines.
NEIGHMOND: Berg was also a member of the IOM investigative committee. He says after a yearlong review of all available scientific evidence, parents should be reassured. There was no evidence of any adverse health effects related to the vaccine schedule.
BERG: That included things like autoimmune diseases, which even captures diabetes, asthma, hypersensitivity - that's allergies - seizures, epilepsy, child developmental disorders and that includes things like autism, other kinds of learning disorders, communication disorders, other kinds of intellectual disabilities, even rare things like tics or Tourette syndrome.
NEIGHMOND: But at the same time, Berg says, when it comes to the timing and number of vaccines given, current research isn't as comprehensive as it could be. For example, there's been little research into whether it's still safe and just as effective when vaccines are spread over a longer period of time than is currently recommended.
BERG: Once the schedule has been set, though, no one has studied whether moving a vaccine forward two weeks or backward two weeks or adding two vaccines together or splitting them apart would be better than the current schedule.
NEIGHMOND: So the committee suggests federal researchers could collect data and follow health outcomes among children whose vaccines are delayed for any number of reasons. In some cases, children get sick and can't get their vaccine on schedule. In other cases, parents choose to space out vaccines because they're worried about the safety of getting a number of vaccines at the same time. Even though this review finds no reason to worry and that the current recommended schedule is completely safe, Berg says it still might be useful to know what happens to children who don't get their vaccinations on time by comparing them to children who do.
Preliminary research does show children who don't get vaccinated on time are hospitalized more often than children who are vaccinated on time. Further monitoring and research is needed. In any case, some parents remain skeptical. Barbara Loe Fisher is president of the nonprofit advocacy group National Vaccine Information Center.
BARBARA LOE FISHER: We do not have the scientific evidence to assure doctors and parents that the current vaccine schedule is safe. They make statements like we are reassured, but there are less than 40 studies that they had to look at. That's not nearly enough science to give parents confidence that the current vaccine schedule is safe.
NEIGHMOND: Despite Fisher's concerns, federal health officials say most parents adhere to the recommended vaccine schedule and that 90 percent of all children are fully vaccinated by the time they enter kindergarten. Only about 1 percent of parents refuse all vaccines.
Patti Neighmond, NPR News.
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Oprah Winfrey says viewers who tune in to her cable talk show this Thursday and Friday will witness the confession of former cycling champion Lance Armstrong. The interview is just the latest chapter in Armstrong's long and complicated history with the media.
As NPR's David Folkenflik reports, Armstrong has spent his career alternately charming, manipulating and stiff-arming journalists.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Americans don't pay much attention to cycling as a sport - a bit during the 1980s, when American cyclist Greg LeMond won the Tour de France three times. But that interest soared in the 1990s, when an intriguing former triathlete cycled furiously, and overcame testicular cancer to win his first Tour de France.
ESPN correspondent Jeremy Schaap recalls covering Armstrong back then, and being impressed by his charisma and insight.
JEREMY SCHAAP: In many ways, Lance Armstrong was the most compelling and interesting athlete I've been around. He had this way about him; this confidence, this arrogance that was, in a way, appealing, and he was also extraordinarily thoughtful.
FOLKENFLIK: But there was another side, too. His cycling performance was so extraordinary, it was almost as though he were riding in a different race from his competitors. And that triggered suspicion about Armstrong, in a sport that had already proven rife with doping. Armstrong's denials were adamant and categorical; and he often invoked his comeback from cancer, as he did here.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LANCE ARMSTRONG: I was on my deathbed. You think I'm going to come back into a sport and say, OK - OK, doctor, give me everything you've got; I just want to go fast. No way. I would never do that.
FOLKENFLIK: Armstrong had become a hero, to many Americans, and was able to circumvent the cycling press corps as he promoted his cancer research foundation and talked directly to the public through his own books and commercials, such as this one for Nike.
(SOUNDBITE OF NIKE AD)
FOLKENFLIK: Even so, ESPN's Schaap says, Armstrong vigorously courted the reporters who covered him, trying to turn them against their skeptical peers even in the face of allegations from former cyclists or colleagues that he had been cheating.
SCHAAP: In terms of dealing with Armstrong, you know, it was always a very carefully choreographed dance because he did have this way - and has this way - of talking to members of the media, in trying to enlist your support.
FOLKENFLIK: Armstrong transcended the world of cycling, and much of the coverage from nonsports media was adulatory. NBC's Ann Curry flew to Paris to interview Armstrong after each of his seven victories. And though in 2002 she got him to empathetically deny ever doping, her interview after his 2005 retirement went more like this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
FOLKENFLIK: But in recent years, the conversation has turned almost exclusively to the accusations, accreting like snowdrifts in a blizzard. And now that he has been expelled from the sport and stripped of his titles, Armstrong has turned to Oprah Winfrey. She needs the ratings help for her cable channel, called OWN.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CBS THIS MORNING")
FOLKENFLIK: The ad time has sold out at premium rates, for both nights of the interview. On Tuesday, Winfrey told close friend Gayle King and the other hosts of "CBS This Morning" that Armstrong was forthcoming. But she said...
: I would say he did not come clean in the manner that I expected. We were mesmerized and riveted by some of his answers.
FOLKENFLIK: Washington Post sports columnist Sally Jenkins has written two books with Armstrong, and she says his life shouldn't be judged solely by his actions as an athlete.
SALLY JENKINS: I think it's just common sense that, you know, when other people are talking about you and what you've done, your best side doesn't show.
FOLKENFLIK: In a column last month, Jenkins wrote she's not angry at her friend and collaborator. But, she says, some of the evidence in the report released last fall by the United States Anti-Doping Agency is pretty damning.
JENKINS: I think he hopes that by talking, people will see the real Lance Armstrong. I think he feels that the portrait of him is, in some ways, very overdrawn; and he'd like to counter, you know, some of the nastier implications in that report.
FOLKENFLIK: Winfrey often asks sharp questions, but she is equally known as an empathetic interviewer, one who relates to her fellow celebrities, and her shows have frequently served as a platform from which people seek public redemption. Winfrey told CBS that she had taken the assignment of interviewing Armstrong seriously.
: I had prepared. I'd read the recent decision. I watched all of Scott Pelley's reports. I read David Walsh's books. I had prepared and prepared, like it was a college exam.
FOLKENFLIK: Again, ESPN's Jeremy Schaap.
SCHAAP: It is very telling, I think, that after having dealt with so many people in the media so closely, for so long - in the sports media, that when he ultimately decides to come clean, he does it with someone who's not from that world.
FOLKENFLIK: This week, Lance Armstrong has much riding on his performance off the bike. David Folkenflik, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And I'm Robert Siegel.
Another member of President Obama's cabinet has announced that he won't stick around for a second term. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar plans to leave Washington at the end of March and return home to Colorado.
NPR's Jeff Brady has this look back at Salazar's tenure.
JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: The Department of the Interior is huge; more than 70,000 employees manage a half-billion acres of public land, mostly in the West. The department does everything from operate National Parks to administer Native American social programs and manage wild horses. But Ken Salazar's tenure as Interior Secretary has been dominated by his department's role in the oil business. Interior oversees oil and natural gas drilling on public land and offshore.
After BP's 2010 accident and spill in the Gulf of Mexico, Salazar said this on CNN.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED INTERVIEW)
BRADY: That boot-on-the-neck comment startled many in the oil industry. Jim Noe is an executive at Hercules Offshore. He says the comment set the tone for future meetings between Salazar and the industry.
JIM NOE: His demeanor and attitude towards the oil and gas industry was much the same. It seemed adversarial. Every time we met with Secretary Salazar, it always seemed that we were the teenage kid that had done something wrong.
BRADY: After the Bush administration years, when allies ran the department, the industry had difficulty adjusting to a more vigorous regulator. But now, Noe says business is good and obtaining drilling permits in the Gulf is getting easier.
That is not the direction environmental groups were hoping for. They tend to criticize Salazar for allowing too much drilling. Jackie Savitz, with the group Oceana, wants the U.S. to move more quickly away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy. Still, Savitz says one good thing the Interior Department did under Salazar was to streamline how offshore wind energy projects are licensed.
JACKIE SAVITZ: Rather than letting people guess at what the department might approve or might not, it says, these are the areas we're most likely to approve, so how about you focus in there. And then that saves a lot of time.
BRADY: Before Salazar became secretary, the Interior Department was hit by a scandal in its Minerals Management Service. Investigators found a few employees were partying and having sex with people in the industry. Under Salazar, the department got rid of the MMS and created new agencies. Now revenue collection is separate from environmental and safety regulation.
Salazar came to Washington in 2005, as a U.S. senator. After four years in Congress and four as Interior Secretary, Salazar says he'll return home to Colorado at the end of March.
Jeff Brady, NPR News.
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And I'm Robert Siegel. Since President Obama announced his deferred action plan for immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, more than 355,000 young illegal immigrants have gotten permission to work in the U.S. And as Craig LeMoult of member station WSHU reports, many states have begun issuing them driver's licenses.
CRAIG LEMOULT, BYLINE: Lucas Codognolla's hands are shaking as he waits on line at the Bridgeport, Connecticut DMV for his turn to take the road test.
LUCAS CODOGNOLLA: I don't know if it's nerves or the excitement, you know?
LEMOULT: The 22-year-old's family emigrated from Brazil when he was just 9. When he turned 16 and wanted to get his driver's license, his parents sat him down and told him the truth - he was in the country illegally. He says initially, he lied to his friends about why he couldn't drive. But then, as he got older, driving simply became necessary.
CODOGNOLLA: I had to drive because I had a job. I had to go to school. There was no way for me to rely on my parents to take me everywhere.
LEMOULT: He says his friends gave him a hard time for always driving slowly. But he was petrified of being pulled over.
CODOGNOLLA: Not putting your signals on, or whatever, and that could lead to being an immigration problem.
LEMOULT: Last summer, President Obama announced a new federal immigration policy for young people like Codognolla, who were brought to this country before they turned 16. If they're in school or have a high school diploma and meet other requirements, they're allowed to stay in the U.S. for at least two years and get working papers.
And now, many states like Connecticut are allowing immigrants with this new designation to receive driver's licenses.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: This road test is going to take about 20 minutes or so.
LEMOULT: Codognolla sits behind the wheel of a Chrysler Voyager.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Take your time, don't rush with the test. It's not how fast you go, that you do it right, okay? All right. Okay.
LEMOULT: The National Immigration Law Center, which advocates for immigrant rights, says at least 30 states are now offering licenses to this group. Attorney Tanya Broder with the center says access to driver's licenses is a matter of state law.
TANYA BRODER: But the way that most state laws are written is that as long as somebody is authorized by federal law to be present in the United States, then they are eligible for a driver's license.
LEMOULT: Some states, though, have decided that the people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program don't qualify. Matthew Benson is a spokesman for Arizona Governor Jan Brewer.
MATTHEW BENSON: It wasn't approved through Congress. It's represented nowhere in the law. And for that reason we believe that these individuals don't qualify for a driver's license in the state of Arizona.
LEMOULT: Like most states, Arizona does offers licenses to some immigrants who qualify for other deferred action programs, including victims of domestic abuse and political refugees. But Benson says President Obama's new program for young people is different. The federal agency that oversees lawful immigration sees things differently. Chris Bentley is a press secretary for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
CHRIS BENTLEY: The relief an individual receives through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals process is the same for immigration purposes as that obtained by any other person who receives deferred action.
LEMOULT: The National Immigration Law Center has filed legal challenges over the issue in Arizona and Michigan. Even in states like Connecticut, officials aren't just giving away licenses. Lucas Codognolla still has to pass his road test. He pulls the Chrysler back up to the DMV. He made a couple of mistakes, but not enough to fail.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Okay? So you do pass. You got to go inside now and get your license.
LEMOULT: Back inside the DMV, there's paperwork, paying the fee and a photo. And then, it's handed to him.
CODOGNOLLA: All set? Okay. Wow, I got my license.
LEMOULT: He grips it in both hands and just stares at it for awhile.
CODOGNOLLA: See, I'm a little speechless.
LEMOULT: Codognolla says it is more than just the ability to drive without looking over his shoulder for police. Having a license in the U.S. means having an identity. For NPR News, I'm Craig Lemoult in Fairfield, Connecticut.
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While Congress let its ban on the sale of semiautomatic, assault-style weapons lapse, we're going to hear now about one major gun ban that has stayed on the books. It's a measure Congress passed a quarter-century ago, making it illegal for civilians to buy or sell any fully automatic weapon made from that date forward. And as NPR's David Welna reports, the legislation passed with the blessing of none other than the National Rifle Association.
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: It was April of 1986; and after months of efforts, the NRA had finally rallied enough support in the House to force a bill onto the floor in that Democratic-controlled chamber. The so-called Firearms Owners' Protection Act would undo many of the provisions in the 1968 Gun Control Act, passed shortly after Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were shot dead.
But just as the bill was about to come to a final vote in that tumultuous House session, New Jersey Democrat William Hughes introduced an amendment. It would forbid the sale to civilians of all machine guns made after the law took effect.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
WELNA: There were enough Democrats to pass the amendment. So nobody objected when the presiding officer, New York Democrat Charles Rangel, called for a voice vote - rather than a roll call vote - on the machine gun ban.
REP. CHARLES RANGEL: ...the question is on the adoption of the Hughes amendment to the Volcker substitute. All in favor, indicate by saying aye.
UNIDENTIFIED REPRESENTATIVES: Aye!
RANGEL: All opposed, nay.
UNIDENTIFIED REPRESENTATIVES: Nay!
RANGEL: The ayes have it.
(CROWD CHATTER)
RANGEL: RANGEL: The ayes have it...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Let it go. Let it go.
WELNA: Those words - let it go, let it go - might also have been spoken by the NRA's own lobbyists. One of them was Richard Feldman, who has since parted ways with the NRA. In an interview with NPR, Feldman says Wayne LaPierre, who's currently the NRA's executive vice president, was willing to let the machine gun ban go forward, if it meant the larger bill it was attached to would pass.
RICHARD FELDMAN: I remember very well having dinner with Wayne LaPierre on the big victory, after it passed the House. And we weren't too concerned about the machine gun issue, but it came back to haunt Warren Cassidy.
WELNA: Warren Cassidy, at the time, headed the NRA's lobby, the Institute For Legislative Action. He confirms now that LaPierre, who did not respond to a request for comment, pushed hard to let the machine gun ban stand.
WARREN CASSIDY: He said, I want to do it; I think we have to do it. So I said yes, and that was the end of the story. It passed. And as we learned immediately, an element of NRA - a very vociferous element of NRA and - determined that it just couldn't be that way; we couldn't give an inch. I don't think they ever forgave me for it.
WELNA: Gun laws expert Robert Spitzer, of the State University of New York at Cortland, says the bill Ronald Reagan signed into law was more significant than it was perceived at the time.
ROBERT SPITZER: One can view the Congress' action in 1986, to ban civilian possession of fully automatic weapons, as something of a - kind of a precedent that would open the door for restricting civilian access to semiautomatic, assault-style weapons.
WELNA: Spitzer says a major reason the machine gun ban met so little resistance was a 1934 law, passed a month after outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow were killed in a hail of machine gun bullets. It required machine gun owners to pay a hefty tax, be fingerprinted, and be listed on a national registry. As a result, he says, sales of machine guns plummeted.
SPITZER: It is a good example of something that is little known - which is, a gun control law that was pretty effective in keeping such weapons out of civilian hands. So by 1986, when the provision was added to the Firearm Owners Protection Act to bar any newly produced, fully automatic weapon from possession by civilians, it was really a fairly small step to make because so few of them were in circulation to begin with.
WELNA: Which is, clearly, not the case with the semiautomatic guns that polls show a majority want banned today.
David Welna, NPR News, the Capitol.
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As President Obama unveiled his gun control proposals today, he highlighted mass shootings at schools in Colorado, Virginia and Connecticut. But he also mentioned another group of children, not in schools, but he said on the street corners of Chicago. More than 500 people were murdered in Chicago last year, many of them teenagers or young adults who were killed with a gun.
As NPR's Cheryl Corley reports, many in the city are counting on the president to bring that number down.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Raise your right hand and repeat after me.
CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: A few hours after President Obama outlined his gun measures, Chicago police officers, outfitted in dress blues, filled an assembly hall for a graduation. The department's top brass congratulated the police recruits joining the department. Leading the event was Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the point man for President Clinton's push for gun control in the 1990s and more recently President Obama's chief of staff. Emanuel noted that the class was graduating the same day the president was offering them more tools to fight crime.
MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL: We're only as good as we have a comprehensive strategy about putting more police on the street and getting kids, guns and drugs off the street.
CORLEY: Chicagoan Annette Holt was at the White House during President Obama's address. Her teenage son, Blair, was shot to death five years ago on a Chicago bus when he shielded a fellow student from a spray of bullets.
ANNETTE HOLT: I think I've been waiting on this day since my son was killed. After we buried him, we've been on a mission to change what happens to young people, especially in the city of Chicago, because we don't want other parents to be like us.
CORLEY: Every year, the Chicago Police Department seizes more guns than any other police department in the United States - more than 7,400 guns last year. Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy says nearly 300 guns have been collected so far this year. A minority of them are assault weapons. But McCarthy has consistently called for banning those weapons and says the president is right to try that.
GARRY MCCARTHY: I submit that assault weapons and high-capacity magazines are military-grade weapons that do not have a place in our society, except for in the military.
CORLEY: Activists like Colleen Daley with the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence says the Obama measures also address an enduring problem for the city, the widespread sale of handguns.
COLLEEN DALEY: We're thrilled.
CORLEY: Daley says the group's number one priority has been making sure there's a background check for the sale of every single gun.
DALEY: We have 120,000 mental health records in the state of Illinois that have not been put in the federal background check system. That's not due to lack of effort to do it. There hasn't been funding there.
CORLEY: Harold Pollack with the Chicago Crime Lab was encouraged by the proposals too. He's one of several researchers who asked the president to loosen restrictions so researchers would be able to collect more data about guns and homicides.
HAROLD POLLACK: We need to investigate when a violent incident occurs to see if there are common patterns, you know, with other kinds of violent acts. And there's just a number of things where we have not been able to deploy the full force of the research enterprise, of the public health enterprise, to really attack gun violence with the seriousness that this subject deserves.
CORLEY: If there is anything that can help to reduce the number of gang-related shootings in Chicago, says Tio Hardiman, it's a more scientific approach. Hardiman is the head of Illinois CeaseFire, where former gang members work to intervene in tense situations. Hardiman says he's pleased with the Obama measures but thinks there still needs to be a greater push to treat Chicago violence like an epidemic.
TIO HARDIMAN: Some of the guys that shoot and kill people on the streets of Chicago, their behavior is condoned by their peers. I've heard people say: Look, I'm going to be with you whether you're right or wrong.
CORLEY: And perhaps mindful that's an attitude in some city neighborhoods where guns and gangs prevail, Chicago Mayor Emanuel plans to present a set of his own gun measures to the city council tomorrow. Cheryl Corley, NPR News, Chicago.
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The gas you put in your car is 10 percent ethanol, which comes from corn, but it doesn't have to. A federal law from 2007 is pushing gas refiners to start using ethanol from sources that aren't grain crops. The government wants us to import less oil but also to reduce carbon emissions. A study in Nature magazine suggests that vegetation on marginal farmland could play a role.
As NPR's Richard Harris reports, it's at best a small part of the solution.
RICHARD HARRIS, BYLINE: Biofuels sound like a great idea. Why not grow fuel instead of importing oil? But that's more easily said than done. For one thing, if you tear up crops used for food and instead plant crops for fuel, you reduce food supplies and drive up prices. So Phil Robertson and colleagues at Michigan State University have been looking at plants that don't require farm fields.
PHIL ROBERTSON: First we discovered that the grasses and flowers that take over fields once you stop farming produce a fair amount of biomass, especially if you provide them a little bit of fertilizer.
HARRIS: That sounds promising. The next question is about climate change. Would using these crops help reduce the amount of carbon dioxide that ends up in our atmosphere? After all, if you leave those lands alone, the plants will soak up carbon dioxide and store it in the soil.
ROBERTSON: Is there truly a climate benefit to doing this or are we just robbing Peter to pay Paul?
HARRIS: The answer in his study is using these crops for fuel is better for the atmosphere than burning gasoline. Robertson and his colleagues surveyed the Midwest and identified 27 million acres of marginal farmland, where these plants could grow and where the acreage falls into a compact enough area that someone might want to build a refinery to produce biofuel.
ROBERTSON: At the end of the day, we discovered we could produce enough biomass to supply 30 or so of these potential bio-refineries.
HARRIS: Robertson likes this idea because the land could be harvested once a year but would otherwise be left as wildlife habitat. Sounds pretty good, but some people in the field aren't convinced the resource is nearly that big.
Adam Liska, at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, says a lot of this acreage is in the Great Plains, which wouldn't produce a reliable crop year after year.
ADAM LISKA: One year, you may have high rainfall and high crop yields and be able to sustain your facility. The next year you may have a drought, low crop yields, and your profit margins will go down or be negative.
HARRIS: So Liska doubts that anyone would ever build a biofuels refinery to reap this unpredictable harvest.
Indeed, Brent Erickson at the Biotechnology Industry Organization says nobody has plans just yet to use this kind of plant material to make bio-fuel. Instead, the young industry is eyeing other sources of material to use as a feedstock.
BRENT ERICKSON: Every region of the country has some form of biomass. So the Northwest would have sawdust and wood waste, the California area might have rice straw or wheat straw.
HARRIS: Refiners in the Midwest are looking at corn cobs. And there's a plant that's actually operating in Florida that uses dead citrus trees.
ERICKSON: As this technology progresses we're going to see a great diversification of biomass supply.
HARRIS: But Tim Searchinger, at Princeton University, says biofuels could at best provide only a tiny fraction of our energy needs. Plants are very inefficient when it comes to capturing solar energy.
TIM SEARCHINGER: If you were to take every gram of crops produced anywhere in the world for all purposes - and that includes every grape, every ton of wheat, every ton of soybeans and corn - and you were to use that for biofuels and essentially stop eating, those crops would produce about 14 percent of world energy.
HARRIS: The 27 million acres identified in the latest study would provide less than half of one percent of our national energy demand, he says. And the more we try to expand biofuels, the more we risk displacing crops for food, or chopping down forests, which store a huge amount of carbon.
Searchinger says Europe has recently recognized those potential hazards and is scaling back its biofuels ambitions.
SEARCHINGER: They realize that it was a mistake. And their compromise for the moment is essentially to cap what they're doing. And then, they promise by 2020 to phase out all government support for biofuels.
HARRIS: But the U.S. government continues to push ahead. It may be creating a new industry, but Searchinger says it's also creating new risks.
Richard Harris, NPR News.
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And I'm Robert Siegel. If there is even one life that can be saved, then we've got an obligation to try - those words today from President Obama, as he unveiled a far-reaching package of new gun control measures. They fall into two categories: those that require congressional approval, and those that don't.
CORNISH: Among the executive orders, an effort to make it easier for states to contribute information to the nation's background-check system, and a move to require the federal tracing of guns recovered in criminal investigations.
SIEGEL: But the president's most ambitious proposals must go through Congress. Those include requiring criminal background checks on all gun sales, and renewing the federal assault weapons ban. Mr. Obama acknowledged that some of those ideas would be a tough sell, especially in the Republican-controlled House.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: This will not happen unless the American people demand it. If parents and teachers, police officers and pastors; if hunters and sportsmen; if responsible gun owners; if Americans of every background stand up and say enough, we've suffered too much pain and care too much about our children to allow this continue, then change will - change will come.
CORNISH: If anyone knows how hard it is to change the nation's gun laws, it's Carolyn McCarthy. In 1993, her husband was killed; and her son, gravely injured; in a mass shooting on the Long Island Rail Road. When a representative voted to repeal the 1994 assault weapons ban, McCarthy ran against him - and has been in Congress ever since. You'll find her name on a long list of gun control measures that haven't made it out of Congress.
Democratic Congressman McCarthy, of New York, joins me now. Welcome, Congresswoman.
REP. CAROLYN MCCARTHY: Thank you, and thank you for having me.
CORNISH: Now, there's lots of support - studies have shown, surveys have shown recently - for things like background checks, tightening background checks. And renewing this ban on semiautomatic weapons finds a real divide. Just 55 percent of Americans support such a ban, the Pew Research Center found recently. What are the chances of such a ban seeing the light of day, in Congress?
MCCARTHY: Well, I think that we, you know, have a chance. And I do believe - you know, what the president said this afternoon was it's going to be up to all of us, not those just here, in Congress; but the grass-roots organizations, the people that are answering these poll questions and saying, this is what we want. They have to go to their member of Congress and say, where are you on the gun issue?
And they shouldn't be deterred when they say, well - you know - I'm going to support some stuff. We have to look at this as a whole package, a holistic way of looking at it; getting rid of the large magazine, getting - certainly - rid of the assault weapons, making sure that our schools are safe, making sure that we can deal with those that are mentally ill.
So there's a lot of things to do, but I'd like to remind people that we can get things done, here in Washington. It was a very, very tough fight when President Clinton got the assault weapons bill and the Brady Bill passed back in 1994. I was involved in that. I was not a member of Congress, but we came down here and we lobbied, and we fought.
CORNISH: But at the same time, Congresswoman, I want to say - in that recent study, there was an activism gap among everyday voters. People who support gun rights, they actually called their members of Congress, donated money to related causes. People who support gun control were far less active. Why do you think that is?
MCCARTHY: Well, I think that is because they kind of trust us to do - get it done. And then they're always surprised when we - when they hear that they - we haven't gotten anything done. I think it's a little bit different this time, too. You know, everytime we've tried before, we never had, you know, a president behind us, leading the way.
CORNISH: Has it become more difficult as - for advocates, such as yourself - as there are fewer and fewer moderates, especially Democrats from pro-gun districts who might have supported something like this in the past?
MCCARTHY: Well, I'm definitely - I'm a moderate Democrat. And we do, actually, have moderate conservatives; and we also have moderate Democrats, you know, that come from gun states.
CORNISH: But it's been a dwindling caucus, in recent years, right?
MCCARTHY: It has been a dwindling caucus but, you know, there are a lot of members here in Congress - on the right side, and on the left side - that are very frustrated that, you know, we are not looking at serious things that can help our country. I believe many of my colleagues do want to do something. We have to break the myth of the NRA. With them doing that advertisement today on the president and his two daughters, you know, that was basically for their more radical members.
CORNISH: And this is the ad where they called the president an elite hypocrite for allowing his daughters...
MCCARTHY: Exactly.
CORNISH: ...to be protected by armed Secret Service.
MCCARTHY: Absolutely. When you think about the amount of NRA members that believe that we should be doing universal background checks; many of them have come out in support of getting rid of the large magazine clips. We - our group here, in Washington - are going to be meeting with the NRA in supporting hunters - and everybody else, next week. We believe in trying to work with everybody.
And I do believe, as we go forward - and the president certainly is going to go into full campaign mode on bringing this issue to the American people, and have the American people make their calls. You know, shows like - yourself - getting the message out. They need to stand up. They can't count on the next person to call their member of Congress. If they believe in what we're trying to do - which is saving our children, making our communities safer - they have to be able to be active and make that phone call, or send an email or a fax.
CORNISH: Democratic Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy of New York, thank you so much for speaking with us.
MCCARTHY: Anytime. Thank you very much.
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A new book exploring Zen Buddhism comes from an unlikely place, Hollywood. And the Zen master at the center of the book is the cardigan-wearing, White Russian-swilling Jeff Lewbowski.
Reviewer Adam Frank explains.
ADAM FRANK, BYLINE: You know, The Dude.
JEFF BRIDGES: That or His Dudeness or Duder or, you know, El Duderino - if you're not into the whole brevity thing.
FRANK: Now, if you think the Dude, the main character in "The Big Lebowski," is no Zen Master, then Bernie Glassman and Jeff Bridges would like a word with you. That's because one, a well-known Zen teacher and the other, the guy who brought Lewbowski to life, have written a new book together, titled, appropriately "The Dude and the Zen Master." It's a delightful, whimsical little text with a very serious intention.
Their book's gentle conceit is to use The Dude and his response to situations thrown out in "The Big Lewbowski," to impart the essence of Zen's promise. With chapter titles ranging from "The Dude is Not In" to "Sorry, I Wasn't Listening," they show us The Dude is a kind of intuitive Zen master. I dig The Dude, says Bridges at one point in the book. He's very authentic. He can be angry and upset but he's very comfortable in his own skin. And in his inimitable way, he has grace.
No matter what happens, Bridges explains, The Dude is there, he shows up. And in Zen that is what really matters, just showing up. As Glassman writes: Trillions of years of DNA, the flow of the entire universe all lead up to this moment. So what do you do? You just do.
Having experienced my share own of seven-day Zen intensives, I can vouch for the fact that a big chunk of Buddhism lies in a daily practice that can, sometimes, be intense. This book doesn't really touch that aspect of Zen but that's OK. Glassman and Bridge are trying to show us that the real truth is we have no other choice. We, like The Dude, must always learn to abide.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CORNISH: "The Dude and the Zen Master," written by Jeff Bridges and Bernie Glassman, and reviewed by Adam Frank. His most recent book is called "About Time: Cosmology and Culture at the Twilight of the Big Bang."
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
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And I'm Audie Cornish.
Algerian Islamists attacked an oil and gas field at dawn this morning in the desert on the border with Libya. They claim to have taken nearly 200 people hostage. In addition to Algerians, they claim to hold seven Americans, as well as French, British and Japanese citizens.
NPR's Eleanor Beardsley in Paris reports the hostage-taking appears to be the first act of retaliation for France's actions in Mali.
(SOUNDBITE OF NEWS BROADCAST)
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: The Algeria hostage taking is huge news in France, as it is seen as payback for France helping to oust Islamists in Mali. More than 15 hours after the Algerian Islamists overran the facility, which was partly run by British Petroleum, there is still confusion over what happened. The governments of Norway, Japan and Ireland have confirmed that their citizens were taken. The White House, too, said there are Americans among the hostages.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta spoke from Rome.
SECRETARY LEON PANETTA: We do believe that there are Americans involved here. But I don't know the number of hostages that have been taken.
BEARDSLEY: Panetta said he didn't know if the action was related to Mali, but analysts in France were sure it was.
(SOUNDBITE OF NEWS BROADCAST)
BEARDSLEY: This French news analyst says the kidnapping was a reaction to the Algerian government allowing French planes into its airspace, to launch raids on northern Mali.
In a statement, a spokesman for the Islamists called Algeria's attitude a betrayal for the blood of Algerian martyrs slain by the French colonists.
Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
ROBERT SIEGEL: The head of the United Nations has harsh words for whoever carried out an attack on Syrian University students, as they were taking exams. Two explosions at the university in Aleppo killed more than 80 people yesterday and injured some 200. Today, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said such heinous attacks are unacceptable. And he added that deliberate targeting of civilians constitutes a war crime. But who carried out that attack is very much in question.
We're joined now from Aleppo by Martin Chulov of the British newspaper the Guardian. And first, you report today that after the university explosions, they were followed today by a government defensive in the city. What's going on?
MARTIN CHULOV: The government was trying to push towards the east from the west, they were pushing into rebel-held territory, planning that this was direct reprisal for what had taken place at the university yesterday.
We are in Aleppo. We heard those explosions yesterday afternoon. We knew something significant had taken place. But we weren't able to establish what it was until students started to stream out of the university and tell their stories to us last night and this morning.
: Well, from what you've been able to glean from their stories and from any other evidence that you've had access to, what happened at the university? Do we know who was responsible for those two explosions?
CHULOV: You know, we don't at this point. We do know that two explosions struck buildings on the western side of the campus. And that's significant for two reasons. First, it does tend to suggest that whatever it was that hit the building came from west of the city. Now, west of the city is contested territory. It is partly held by opposition groups, some jihadi elements amongst them, and there's also a regime presence there.
Students who did come to talk to us did say that they were just about to start to sit exams when the first explosion hit. A second explosion hit the building three minutes later. Now, they are claiming that rockets hit their campus. Some other students that we did speak to said that they'd heard planes above the campus. And some their colleagues said that that just wasn't the case. And suspicion really is affirming now on rockets being fired from west of the city. By who, we don't yet know.
: Now, as I mentioned, Ban Ki-moon reminded all that deliberate targeting of civilians is a war crime. Is it clear that this was a deliberate attack on the university? Or, as I read, there's a building adjacent to the university that might also have been a target here.
CHULOV: The suspicion is that the university was deliberately targeted. It's in the part of the city which is firmly controlled by the regime. Even after the seven-month siege of east of the city, it's very difficult to anybody with hostile intention to get into anywhere near the university and cause any trouble there. Whoever fired those rockets was likely intending to hit the campus.
: The place of this attack - a university - the number of dead, the number of injured seems shocking. I wonder, are people in Aleppo capable of any more shock given what they have already experienced in this war or did this have any special import for them?
CHULOV: It has resonated. You know, the city had been abandoned. It had a foreboding sense for many, many months now. And I guess a relative normalcy had returned in the past week or so, when there had been this infusion of fresh food for the first time.
But today, things were different. People were talking about what had taken place and flagging this as a potential tipping point, which really could chip away at whatever it is that has taken place in the city and certainly shape the narrative of the battle one way or another.
: Martin Chulov, thank you very much for talking with us.
CHULOV: You're welcome.
: Martin Chulov covers the Middle East for the Guardian and he spoke to us from the city of Aleppo in Syria.
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After weeks of intensive discussion and debate, there is now a $500 million plan. President Obama unveiled a far-reaching agenda today to address gun violence. He spoke to a packed auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and he referenced a string of recent mass shootings, most prominently last month's attack in Newtown, Connecticut. Let's do the right thing, the president said. But the NRA was quick to reject Mr. Obama's plan, and we'll hear from a representative for the firearms industry after this report from NPR's Ari Shapiro.
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: This event began and ended with memories of the kids who were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School a month ago. President Obama talked about them and about the many Americans who've been shot to death since then.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Nine hundred in the past month. And every day we wait, that number will keep growing.
SHAPIRO: The president made it clear that this issue is more than just one thing on his radar. He promised to use whatever weight his office holds to pass this agenda.
OBAMA: This is our first task as a society, keeping our children safe. This is how we will be judged.
SHAPIRO: In the last month, his administration met with more than 220 interest groups. The recommendations led to the steps the president announced today, starting with 23 executive actions he's taking on his own. They range from strengthening the background check system to helping schools develop emergency preparedness plans. Some of these steps will be controversial, Mr. Obama said.
OBAMA: While year after year, those who oppose even modest gun safety measures have threatened to defund scientific or medical research into the causes of gun violence, I will direct the Centers for Disease Control to go ahead and study the best ways to reduce it.
SHAPIRO: These steps are the relatively easy stuff and also, the president acknowledged, small stuff.
OBAMA: As important as these steps are, they are in no way a substitute for action from members of Congress.
SHAPIRO: His list for Congress includes a lot of things gun control advocates have failed to accomplish for years: expanding background checks to cover every gun purchase, not just those from licensed dealers; stopping the sale of assault weapons and ammunition clips that hold more than 10 bullets.
He also called on Congress to confirm a leader for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms for the first time in six years. Again and again, the president described these as common-sense measures with support from a majority of Americans. And yet, he said, if they were easy, they'd be done already.
OBAMA: There will be pundits and politicians and special interest lobbyists publicly warning of a tyrannical, all-out assault on liberty - not because that's true, but because they want to gin up fear or higher ratings or revenue for themselves.
SHAPIRO: The response from Republicans in Congress was tepid. House leaders said they'll consider whatever comes over from the Senate. And in the Senate, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, Chuck Grassley, accused the president of, quote, "using executive action to attempt to poke holes in the Second Amendment."
Outside of Congress, the pushback was even more intense. The NRA released an ad that begins with the image of a kid's lunchbox bearing the presidential seal.
(SOUNDBITE OF AD)
SHAPIRO: White House spokesman Jay Carney called the ad repugnant and cowardly. Children were a big focus today on all sides. Four kids who wrote letters to the president about gun violence sat on the stage next to him with their parents. Mr. Obama talked about their concerns, and he ended with a story about seven-year-old Grace McDonald, who was killed at Sandy Hook last month.
The president met with her parents in Connecticut after the shooting. They told him that Grace dreamed of becoming an artist and gave Mr. Obama one of her paintings.
OBAMA: And I hung it in my private study just off the Oval Office. And every time I look at that painting, I think about Grace, and I think about the life that she lived and the life that lay ahead of her. And most of all, I think about how, when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable among us, we must act now, for Grace.
SHAPIRO: With that, President Obama signed the executive orders. And now, the action moves to Congress. Ari Shapiro, NPR News, the White House.
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Joining me from Las Vegas, where he's attending the annual SHOT Show, a firearms industry trade convention, is retired Army Major General D. Allen Youngman. He is now the executive director of the Defense Small Arms Advisory Council. Welcome to the program, General Youngman.
DEAN ALLEN YOUNGMAN: Thank you, Robert. Good to be here.
SIEGEL: You've taken part in some of the meetings with Vice President Biden in recent weeks. Your organization is made up of companies that manufacture weapons both for military and civilian purchase. First, generally, what do you think of what the president proposes on military-style guns?
YOUNGMAN: Well, I thought it was interesting that he didn't lead with that. He'd led with the idea of making the National Instant Check System broader and more accessible to those who want to determine if the person they're selling a firearm to is legally prohibited from buying or owning one.
In terms of the assault weapons ban, obviously, we need to see what the details look like. It's a little bit kind of a retro thing. If you look at the ban in 1994, I think the dominant factor in Congress not taking it up again is the fact that as the National Institute of Justice's 2004 study showed there was just no particular benefit from it.
SIEGEL: You spent a career in the military. Do you see legitimate uses for AK-47 and M16 derivatives in civilian hands?
YOUNGMAN: Robert, I think we have to start in that issue by looking at, you know, the fundamental nature of firearms. At one level or another, all firearms were designed for war.
SIEGEL: But there are boundaries here. For example, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher is a weapon designed for war. There seems to be a broad consensus that it shouldn't be available to any consumer to buy in the country. When we come down to the semiautomatic weapons derived from combat rifles, can one draw a line that excludes those from the consumer market?
YOUNGMAN: Well, I think there is some hint that the answer to that question was in the Supreme Court decision Heller v. District of Columbia. I think Justice Scalia talked in terms of those that are unusual, uncommon as opposed to those that are in common usage. Our meeting this morning, we did an informal estimate of, you know, how many semiautomatic, magazine-fed rifles do we think there are out there currently in this country. Depending on how you define it, the answer is probably somewhere between four and eight million. And that obviously means that they are very, you know, very common. These are not unusual weapons.
SIEGEL: But your members sell these weapons in the U.S. consumer market. There's a pitch for them, obviously. There's advertising for them. Are they needed? Are they necessary for some people?
YOUNGMAN: Are they necessary? I think you open an element of the dialogue there that just really doesn't help, you know? Somebody who is going to - you ask them that and they're going to say, whether I need it or not is no one else's business. The question is can I own it responsibly, legally? Am I hurting anybody with it? And if the answer is no, then that tends to end their participation in the debate, you know? Four to eight million of them are already out there. How many are used in crimes? Well, if you look at last year, some 6,000 firearms homicides.
The FBI figure for 2011 was 323 homicides were accomplished with any form of rifle, semiautomatic or otherwise. You know, that's cold comfort to the parents of Sandy Hook, obviously. There's nothing we can say to them that would, you know, take away the hurt. But you start looking at society-wide solutions, is that a high payoff target?
SIEGEL: What do you say to a listener who hears you and says the gun manufacturers on your council, they don't care about the Second Amendment. What they really care about is they don't want to see a market of 300 million guns in private hands in the U.S. start shrinking because their sales and profits will shrink. This is just about money. It's about business.
YOUNGMAN: Well, I think we can anticipate some people are going to say that. And honestly, there's a couple of ways to look at it. One is that our primary customers are the United States military. And our number one goal as an industry is to ensure that they have the best available small arms to employ in defense of this country.
But the second point is that we, you know, we're citizens too. We're parents. We're grandparents. We have the same shared sense of devastation after Sandy Hook. In fact, that's why I accepted the invitation to go to the White House. We were hoping to hear new and more effective ideas on how we can reduce that.
One of the points of discussion with the vice president was that he had said he had met with the other side the day before. And we took issue with that. You know, there is no other side in this debate, and we all would like to see effective means of keeping guns out of the wrong hands. We may just disagree on what, you know, what those most effective means are.
SIEGEL: Well, Major General Youngman, thank you very much for talking with us today.
YOUNGMAN: OK. Well, thank you, Robert.
SIEGEL: D. Allen Youngman is executive director of the Defense Small Arms Advisory Council. That's a group which represents gun manufacturers.
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There are new and bigger troubles today for the Boeing 787, the airplane known as the Dreamliner. Late today, the FAA grounded the U.S. fleet of 787s for safety checks. The grounding and inspection order will likely be implemented around the world. The move comes after two serious battery-related problems occurred on two different Dreamliners in the past 10 days. Here's NPR's Wendy Kaufman.
WENDY KAUFMAN, BYLINE: The electrical system on Boeing's new flagship airliner is now under intense scrutiny. The focus is on what the FAA describes as a potential battery fire risk. Planes must be inspected and, before they can return to service, must demonstrate the batteries are safe. United Airlines is the only U.S. carrier operating Boeing's new jet. It has six of them. Worldwide, there are 50 787s in service.
In the latest incident, an All Nippon Airlines jet took off for Tokyo on a domestic flight Wednesday morning. Fifteen minutes later, the cockpit display indicated a problem with the jet's main battery. Soon, a burning smell began to drift through the aircraft. The crew made an emergency landing, and all 137 people on board were evacuated.
After examining the battery in the forward compartment, ANA said the battery's blue cover had turned black as though it had burned. The 787 is the most technologically advanced and innovative aircraft in the world. It's electronics are far more complex than in previous airplanes. It's not surprising then to see problems crop up in the first year and a half of commercial flight. Indeed, problems are to be expected in any new airplane program. Still, aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia says...
RICHARD ABOULAFIA: This is way beyond normal problems. These are serious concerns that need to be address right away.
KAUFMAN: And that's what the FAA and probably aviation authorities around the world are doing now. To save weight while producing extra power, Boeing chose lithium ion batteries for use in the 787. Guy Norris, a senior editor at Aviation Week, says those batteries have a history of problems.
GUY NORRIS: It's a very energetic battery, which uses lithium inside of it. And the problem is that batteries of this nature have been known to ignite if they're either overcharged or if they fall undercharged or if they overheat.
KAUFMAN: It's a problem that Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration are well aware of. Veteran aviation safety expert Hans Weber says both Boeing and the FAA assumed a fire could occur, so Boeing had to prove any fire could be quickly and effectively contained. Weber adds that the FAA imposed special conditions on Boeing before approving the battery's use.
HANS WEBER: Which really means much more severe design requirements, much more extensive analysis, especially testing. They're much more extensive testing regimen.
KAUFMAN: But all that analysis and testing may not have been enough. Weber says if additional safety measures for the battery are necessary, they could be added and, in the most extreme case, Boeing could replace those batteries with a different type. Boeing currently has 800 orders on its books for the jet and so far aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia says, no airline customer has canceled because of safety concerns.
ABOULAFIA: But on the other hand, you never know where you're going to get to a tipping point where enough customers associate this plane with trouble and you might begin to see cancelations. We're not there yet, but if these keep up, you could see it.
KAUFMAN: Investigations by U.S. and Japanese officials are now underway. As for Boeing, the company has insisted its flagship jetliner is safe and that it's working with airlines and government officials to address the problems. Wendy Kaufman, NPR News.
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Investigators are trying to figure out why a helicopter crashed in Central London today. Two people were killed including the pilot. Yet the death toll could have been much, much worse. As NPR's Philip Reeves reports, the aircraft came down in the heart of the British capital during rush hour.
(SOUNDBITE OF SIRENS WAILING)
PHILIP REEVES, BYLINE: The crash happened as Londoners were beginning their working day. It was a freezing morning. The city lay beneath a blanket of very low cloud. Andrew Beadle was nearby when the helicopter hit a crane.
ANDREW BEADLE: I heard an almighty bang, which really shocked me. You could feel the actual floor move. And I looked and I literally saw the helicopter and just the blades, just evaporate and it hit the center of the crane. And the chopper just came down.
REEVES: The crane was on a huge luxury residential tower block being built on the south banks of the Thames. Wreckage from the aircraft fell into the street.
(SOUNDBITE OF MAN SHOUTING)
REEVES: Passersby, using mobile phones, captured footage of flames engulfing the street and setting several cars alight. Bernie Bullen was delivering material to a nearby building site.
BERNIE BULLEN: It nosedived just over there, and then a big explosion. And then we heard metal falling. That was the jib of the crane falling down. And everybody was running.
REEVES: The twin-engined helicopter came down around 8 a.m., at peak commuting time. It crashed close to Vauxhall rail station. The area is a major transport hub. The main rail line to Waterloo runs through it. There's an underground station. The headquarters of Britain's foreign intelligence service, MI6, is close by. Britain's parliament is about a mile away.
NEIL BASU: It is something of a miracle that this was not many, many times worse, given the time of day that this happened.
REEVES: That's Police Commander Neil Basu. He briefed the media.
BASU: At this stage what we believe has happened is that a commercial helicopter on a scheduled flight has collided with a crane on top of a building under construction in 9 Elms Road, South West 8.
REEVES: Reports say one of the two dead was killed on the ground. The other was the pilot, Peter Barnes. Barnes was a highly experienced aviator, who's flown in Britain and the United States. He's flown air ambulances and in the movies, including the James Bond thriller "Die Another Day." Today, he was heading for an airfield north of London but diverted, possibly because of bad weather. This is London's first recorded fatal chopper crash.
There are many hundreds of helicopter flights every month over this densely populated capital. Aviation authorities say strict rules apply. They say they regularly warn pilots about tall structures. Kate Hoey is the member of Parliament for the area where the crash happened. She says those rules may need reviewing.
KATE HOEY: We will need a real inquiry into the increasing numbers of helicopters that are flying around London, coupled with the fact that there are so many new tall buildings.
REEVES: Philip Reeves, NPR News, London.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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Among the many changes President Obama called for today to prevent future school shootings and other gun violence were four measures to strengthen background checks to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. NPR's science correspondent Shankar Vedantam has been tracking the history of our efforts to keep guns out of the hands of specifically the mentally ill. And he joins us in the studio now. Shankar, welcome.
SHANKAR VEDANTAM, BYLINE: Hello, Audie.
CORNISH: So to start - to many Americans, this might seem straightforward - when someone is deeply troubled and their parents or teachers know something is wrong, that there ought to be some way to keep that person from owning weapons. But why is this difficult?
VEDANTAM: You know, once a shooting takes place, Audie, it seems obvious that this person was troubled and shouldn't have been allowed to own guns. But, in fact, in real time, it's very hard to identify these people. If you look at recent cases of mass shooters - Seung-Hui Cho, who was the shooter in Virginia Tech, or Jared Loughner, who was the shooter in Arizona, or even James Holmes was the shooter in Colorado - experts have reached very different conclusions about how troubled these individuals were.
The truth is there are very large number of people who could potentially commit violence and a very small number of people who actually do, and science does not have a very good way of spotting the needles in the haystacks. And you can see this reflected in the policy, because if you look at the national language we use to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people, we say people who are mentally defective are not supposed to have their hands on guns. That isn't just a crude term. It's a very imprecise term.
CORNISH: And the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, right now, the president says he wants to change it to make sure that instead of just applying to dealers that have to run these checks, that it would apply to anyone selling a gun, say, people at gun shows as well. Would this solve the problem?
VEDANTAM: Well, it would certainly address a loophole in the current system, which is that 40 percent of guns are sold outside of dealerships. But remember, the current system relies on states reporting cases to the federal database, cases where they have involuntarily committed a patient who seems really troubled to psychiatric care. Many states end up not reporting their cases to the federal government. They have different reporting standards. They also have different standards in terms of thresholds about what constitutes somebody who is dangerous enough to be kept from owning weapons.
Now, even if you could get all of the states to cooperate, there are a couple of really big problems. I spoke with James Jacobs. He's a Columbia University law professor. He notes that most people with serious mental illnesses get treated voluntarily. They don't get treated involuntarily. And if you're treated voluntarily, you don't end up in this federal database.
The second big problem is there are 300 million guns in circulation in the United States today. Think about it this way. Imagine there's a swimming pool that has 300 million drops of water, and every drop of water is a gun. Next to that swimming pool is another pool - and this also has 300 million drops - but now, each of these drops is a person - that's the population of the United States. What we've done in this country is mix these two swimming pools together.
You now have 600 million drops sloshing around. Somewhere in there is the next Adam Lanza. Somewhere in there is the next gun that's going to get used in a mass shooting. Most of the current background check system only addresses new guns coming into the system. The idea that it can prevent one of those Adam Lanzas from getting access to one of those guns really seems fanciful.
CORNISH: Now, as the president notes, there are many other aspects of gun violence besides mass shootings. I mean, he's looking at better background checks that would essentially help reduce street corner homicides and suicides. But it seems as though you're saying that when it comes to mass shootings, there's a question here about the affects.
VEDANTAM: Well, I think when it comes to mass shootings, the truth is we really don't know. We know when the system breaks down. We don't know when the system works. We don't know when the system has kept guns out of the hands of somebody who could have become a mass shooter. Every time there's a mass shooting, the intuitively appealing thing to do is to focus on background checks and focus on people with mental illness. These seem to be the lowest hanging fruits.
The truth is there isn't a lot of leverage here because of the number of guns that are sloshing around the system. Now, it's possible that policies that affect guns in general, or that restrict access to high-capacity magazines in general, could potentially have an effect. But the idea that you can single out dangerous people and keep guns away from them, that's really a stretch when you look at the scientific data.
One way we have to evaluate many of these policies is to ask would the policies have made a difference to the shooters who we've had in recent memory. Seung-Hui Cho, Jared Loughner, James Holmes all bought their guns legally from dealers. The Columbine shooters and Adam Lanza in Connecticut didn't buy their guns at all. They just took their guns from relatives, and they would have been completely outside this factual evaluation system.
CORNISH: That's NPR's science correspondent Shankar Vedantam. Shankar, thank you for speaking with us.
Thanks, Audie.
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In Afghanistan today, Taliban militants staged a brazen attack in the heart of Kabul. Their target was the headquarters of the National Directorate of Security or NDS - it's Afghanistan's equivalent of the FBI.
As NPR's Sean Carberry reports, the attack began with a suicide bombing, then five militants tried to storm the compound.
(SOUNDBITE OF SIRENS AND GUNFIRE)
SEAN CARBERRY, BYLINE: It was shortly after noon in the Afghan capital when an explosion rocked the center of the city. Then gunfire rang out. People ran for cover. Security guards barricaded the gates of nearby government offices.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: At this time, Camp Eggers is on lockdown.
CARBERRY: The explosion triggered a security warning at a nearby NATO compound. The blast radius stretched for blocks. Car parts were strewn all along the street. Shopkeepers - some hundreds of yards from the scene - swept away broken glass and shuttered their stores. Several people with light injuries made their way from the epicenter of the blast.
ATEF KHAN: (Foreign language spoken)
CARBERRY: Blood trickled down Atef Khan's face. He says he was driving by the NDS compound at the time of the attack. He ran from his damaged car and huddled at a nearby shop with other wounded people. While they prayed for the shooting to stop, he says they called relatives to say goodbye. Government spokesman Sediq Sediqi gave reporters the official version of the assault.
SEDIQ SEDIQI: One person with one vehicle full of explosive, they were able to explode the vehicle near the gate, so that the other five could go inside. But fortunately, they were identified. All of them were killed. Unfortunately, we lost one soldier from NDS.
SHAFIQULLAH TAHIRI: (Foreign language spoken)
CARBERRY: Shafiqullah Tahiri, the spokesman for the intelligence service, said the assailants had a second minivan. It was packed with AK-47s, grenades and explosives set on a timer. The NDS bomb squad discovered the van and defused the explosives with just three minutes to spare.
TAHIRI: (Foreign language spoken)
CARBERRY: Tahiri said the explosives were some sort of water gel material that the security forces haven't seen before. He said he doesn't know where they could have come from. The Taliban were quick to claim responsibility for the attack. Sediqi acknowledged that Kabul and other Afghan cities are still vulnerable to terrorist attacks, but he said that despite the loss of a security officer and the injuries to more than 30 people, he considers the response to today's attack a success.
SEDIQI: If even they organize a very severe attack, they can be killed in a matter of minutes, and that was showed today by the security forces.
KHAN: (Foreign language spoken)
CARBERRY: But none of the shopkeepers or victims, like Atef Khan, had anything positive to say about the day's events.
Sean Carberry, NPR News, Kabul.
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The North American International Auto Show in Detroit opens to the public this weekend. It's often a showcase for new technology.
As NPR's Sonari Glinton reports, many car companies are rolling out features that bring us closer to the ultimate in automotive tech, cars that drive themselves.
SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: When you watch science fiction movies, you'll notice there are two things it's seems like we'll get in the future. At some point we'll all switch to that one silver jumpsuit and our cars will drive themselves.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "I, ROBOT")
GLINTON: In the movie "I, Robot," which is set in a futuristic 2035, Will Smith is sitting in the driver's seat of his Audi, relaxing and reading a magazine. Then, he gets attacked by robots.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "I, ROBOT")
FILIP BRABEC: From "I, Robot," I think we're a couple of decades.
GLINTON: Filip Brabec is with Audi. Now, Audi is the first car company to test driverless cars in Nevada. Now, Google has been working on this for years with actual self-driving cars on the road, but Google is a tech company, not a car company - yet.
Brabec says Audi is getting in on the game because they already have most of the building blocks for driverless cars.
BRABEC: Adaptive cruise control, which now has a stop-and-go feature. We have a lane-departure warning. We have a lane-change warning. So we have a lot of systems inside the car that are sort of headed in the direction of assisting the driver.
GLINTON: Brabec says the company is moving towards the next step, getting all those features to talk to each other. Audi is working on eliminating some of the most mundane driving tasks like parking.
BRABEC: You come to a valet situation. You get out of your car. You push a button on your smartphone. And then the car will basically go by itself into a parking structure. It will find a parking spot and it will park itself.
GLINTON: That technology is here right now and is likely to be available in just a few short years. But what's keeping all the cool stuff away from us? Well, we are. For instance, Toyota, like many car companies, has adaptive cruise control. It allows you to follow at a safe distance in traffic without the using the brakes or gas.
Brian Lyons is with Toyota.
BRIAN LYONS: I've driven it. It is very, very hard not to touch the gas pedal and not to touch the brake pedal.
GLINTON: Lyons says most of us will have a hard time giving up control but he says Toyota is working on technology that you won't necessarily notice when driving. The key is to make driving easier and safer.
LYONS: The first autonomous driving feature was antilock brakes. So, what it did was it stopped up from skidding in slippery conditions, right? So there's a thousand times a second it's pulsing the brakes for you. Things we as a human cannot even do, the car can do for us.
GLINTON: That's the kind of stuff Toyota is working on. Toyota is advancing systems to keep you from hitting objects or infrared cameras that allow the car to see much farther down the road or to sense when other cars are or aren't braking.
Jeremy Anwyl is with Edmunds.com. He says in the coming years, we're going to do less and less driving, and our cars are going to do more and more of the mundane predictable tasks.
JEREMY ANWYL: But what about the unpredictable? And this is where human beings still have an advantage over technology and computers, is that we deal with ambiguity or unexpected situations much better than machines.
GLINTON: Anwyl says in the coming years, our insurance and legal systems are going to have to work out the questions of liability.
ANWYL: To make driverless cars really work, every car needs to be driverless and they all need to be communicating, so that they can sort of parse, hey, we're coming to an intersection, who's going to go first and who's going to brake. And you need sort of rules and technology that can enforce that. Doesn't work too well when you're the only driverless car on the road and nobody else has that technology.
GLINTON: Every car exec I've talked to says the switch will take at least 30 years. Now, that's the bad news. The good news, those scary robots, they'll have to wait, too.
Sonari Glinton, NPR News.
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People who volunteer to participate in medical research usually expect to remain anonymous. That includes those who donate DNA for use in genetic studies. But now, researchers have shown that, in some cases, they can trace a research subject's DNA back to them.
NPR's Veronique LaCapra reports that with more and more personal information available online, the risk of being identified from our genetic information will only increase.
VERONIQUE LACAPRA, BYLINE: An international team of scientists wondered how easy it would be to identify people whose DNA had been posted anonymously on the Internet. They decided to focus on 10 men whose genetic blueprints had been made public for research purposes. By plugging a bit of the men's genetic information into an online service that helps people trace their family histories, they got back a list of possible relatives.
With that list, and information about the age and home state of the men, Yaniv Erlich, of the Whitehead Institute, says his team identified five of them.
YANIV ERLICH: We could actually identify all the other people in the family, basically by looking at public websites, looking at public records of these people, at Facebook and other websites, and be able to connect and to identify all the other people.
LACAPRA: They were able to identify about 50 people in all. Erlich says his study raises big questions about whether it's possible to protect the anonymity of genetic information.
ERLICH: Now, I don't say that everyone now can do this type of study, but it suggests that there is a privacy issue that can be exploited.
LACAPRA: And he's not the only one worried about genetic privacy. Jim Evans, who's a medical geneticist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says right now, the risk of privacy violations is relatively low. But he says it's only going to get worse.
JIM EVANS: We can't put the genie back in the bottle. Privacy has been continually eroded in the digital universe in which we live. That's just a fact of life.
LACAPRA: Evans says there needs to be a balance between making genetic data available to researchers and protecting people's privacy. For him, that means limiting who can access genetic information.
EVANS: We need clear policies for how data are handled, with whom they're shared, and importantly, there need to be penalties for violating those policies.
LACAPRA: The fear is that people who volunteer to provide their DNA for research may be vulnerable to genetic discrimination. But even with the risks, some people are OK with putting their genetic data out there for everyone to see.
Harvard Medical School genetics professor George Church runs a genetic database that anybody, not just scientists, can access. People who want their DNA in the database are told about the possible privacy risks up front. Church says, even so, many people still want to participate.
GEORGE CHURCH: I think people are more trusting if you're open and transparent with them about what the risks are.
LACAPRA: In their paper published today in the journal Science, Yaniv Erlich and his colleagues don't reveal the names of the people they identified or the details of how they did it. But they did contact the National Institutes of Health. That's the agency that funded project that posted the genetic information online in the first place.
The NIH's Laura Lyman Rodriguez says most genetic data is more tightly protected. But she acknowledges the new study shows that the privacy of research subjects can't be guaranteed.
LAURA LYMAN RODRIQUEZ: And what we really think needs to happen at this point in time, now that this threshold has been reached where individuals have been identified through the connection of research and non-research information, is to have a public dialogue.
LACAPRA: A public dialogue about how best to protect privacy without inhibiting research. In the meantime, the NIH has removed some details about the people whose genetic data is on the Internet, in an effort to keep a similar privacy breach from happening again.
Veronique LaCapra, NPR News.
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The construction industry in the U.S. is staging a comeback. One of the strongest indicators of that came today, when the Commerce Department said new home building reached its highest level in nearly five years, but more than two million construction jobs have been lost since the beginning of the real estate collapse. You might think that means plenty of people are ready to fill all the new jobs, but that's not the case.
As NPR's Yuki Noguchi explains, in many parts of the country, there is a shortage of construction workers.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: When Debbie Bowman left the Army three years ago, the Floridian enrolled in a program with the Home Builders Institute to train to become an electrician.
DEBBIE BOWMAN: And when economy pick back up, people are going to purchase more houses, and everyone need an electrician.
NOGUCHI: Indeed, across the country, there is plenty of demand for people like Bowman. David Crowe is chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders.
DAVID CROWE: I have heard many reports from builders who say they can't hire enough people. They can't find the subcontractors. They're unable to get labor necessary to build the homes that they do have on order, even at the low level of building that's occurring right now.
NOGUCHI: Many of those laborers went back to their home countries or got jobs elsewhere.
CROWE: All of that has to be reversed. That labor has to either come back from wherever it went or whatever job it found instead.
NOGUCHI: And Crowe says the sharp crash didn't just force construction workers out. It killed lumber-supply companies. Raw land stopped getting prepped for development. So all up and down the supply chain, there are fewer companies and fewer workers, and already, he says the modest level of demand is beginning to push up prices for everything.
MIKE HOLLAND: We can't get this industry working too fast too quickly, or prices would go out of sight.
NOGUCHI: Mike Holland is regional president for Marek Brothers, a construction firm based in Houston. He says decades ago, unions trained workers in the trades, skills like plumbing or electrical wiring. But now, companies typically rely on independent contractors, and the companies themselves are reluctant to invest in worker training.
HOLLAND: People have completely abandoned any notion of true workforce development. In the professional level, people are thinking about developing their team and recruiting and hiring practices and all things that any good business has to hold very dear to their heart. Those just don't exist in the craft world.
NOGUCHI: And for that, Holland says the whole industry and eventually consumers may pay the price.
HOLLAND: If all of their subcontractors cost them 10 percent more money, then the cost of the house has got to go up. It's not because of a higher quality. It's purely driven by supply and demand. So we'll have less good workers, less quality but higher cost because of it.
NOGUCHI: But builders don't always have the flexibility to pass along the higher costs onto their customers. Jan Maly is CEO of a specialty contractor in Houston who says finding skilled labor is his number one problem. He pins a lot of the blame on the fact that young workers aren't coming into the field to replace all the boomers who are retiring. The reason, he says, is a cultural and political bias in favor of sending all kids to college. He says there's also a stigma against blue-collar work.
JAN MALY: My father used to tell me this: You need to go to school, or you're going to be a ditch digger. Well, right now, we need ditch diggers.
NOGUCHI: Maly says many people don't make the first round cut of passing the drug and criminal checks, let alone have the skills necessary to do the job.
MALY: We have to do background and drug checks on just about everybody. You'd be quite amazed if you knew how many people were disqualified. 60 percent fail.
NOGUCHI: Sixty percent.
MALY: Yes.
NOGUCHI: Maly says competition for local workers is reaching a fever pitch in part because ExxonMobil is building massive new headquarters. It costs him $10,000 to train each worker. And frequently, when labor is short, poaching becomes a big concern.
MALY: It probably means somebody is going to try to steal our folks.
NOGUCHI: Maly says in the face of that, he hopes to hang on to his quality people, and hope they will refer him to other workers to fill his ranks. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.
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Teachers at a school in Seattle have had enough. They're refusing to give their students a standardized test that's required by the district. The reason: The test is useless, they say, and wastes valuable time. But district leaders disagree and the two sides now find themselves at an impasse.
From member station KUOW in Seattle, Ann Dornfeld has the story.
ANN DORNFELD, BYLINE: Students in Seattle Public Schools take the Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP test, up to three times a year, from kindergarten through at least ninth grade. The school district requires the test to measure how well students are doing in reading and math. That's in addition to annual standardized tests required by the state.
The MAP test is used as part of the teacher evaluation process, and it's supposed to help teachers gauge students' progress.
KIT MCCORMICK: We've lost a whole lot of class time. I don't know what the test was about, and I just see no use for it at all.
DORNFELD: Garfield High School English teacher Kit McCormick says teachers are never allowed to see the test, so she has no idea how to interpret her students' scores.
MCCORMICK: And so I'm not going to do it. But I'd be happy to have my students evaluated in a way that would be meaningful for both them and me.
DORNFELD: Instead of this kind of high-stakes testing, teachers at Garfield propose that student learning be judged by portfolios of their work. The school's academic dean, Kris McBride, was supposed to administer the test this week. Instead, she's standing behind the teachers. McBride says a major problem with the test is that it doesn't seem to align with district or state curricula.
KRIS MCBRIDE: In fact, our Algebra 1 students go in, sit in front of a computer and take this math test. It's filled with geometry; it's filled with probability and statistics and other things that aren't a part of the curriculum at all.
JOSE BANDA: The expectation is that they fulfill their responsibilities as teachers.
DORNFELD: That's Seattle Public Schools Superintendent Jose Banda. He says the MAP test's frequency is useful in making sure students are learning what they should be, but he's invited teachers to take part in a formal district review of its effectiveness. That still doesn't let them off the hook from administering the test.
BANDA: In the meantime, they have duties they're supposed to complete, making sure that this assessment is given.
DORNFELD: Banda says instead of boycotting the MAP test, teachers should work with the district to find solutions to their concerns. Diane Ravitch is an education professor at New York University and a critic of the nationwide trend of high-stakes standardized testing. Ravitch says, in recent years, individual teachers around the country have refused to give standardized tests. But she says this move by entire school of teachers is unusually gutsy.
DIANE RAVITCH: No one likes what's going on, but no one has really found a mechanism to stand up and say, this is wrong. So I think this is incredibly encouraging, too, and I am sure that they will be applauded by teachers around the country. They may even have a ripple effect on other schools.
DORNFELD: That's already happening in Seattle. Now, a group of elementary teachers at another school here say they'll boycott the MAP test, too. Not surprisingly, students also support the test boycott.
ALICIA BUTLER: I don't like any standardized tests, but I feel like some may be necessary.
DORNFELD: Sixteen-year-old Alicia Butler is a junior at Garfield. She says she's OK with taking the state tests to graduate, or the SATs to get into college. But she says students don't take the MAP test seriously, and that could hurt good teachers.
BUTLER: And since people are aware that we don't need it to graduate, they'll just start clicking on things. A lot of these teachers here are good, so they'll get lower evaluations, and it's not fair.
DORNFELD: The school district hasn't said what it will do to any teacher who fails to give students the MAP test. The superintendent has given them until February 22nd to comply. For NPR News, I'm Ann Dornfeld in Seattle.
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The movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, where 12 people were killed in a mass shooting last summer, reopens this evening. It's a special event for victims' families and first responders.
But Colorado Public Radio's Ben Markus reports that some of those families won't be going because they say the decision to reopen is insensitive.
BEN MARKUS, BYLINE: Jessica Watts lives just a few miles from the theater where her cousin Jonathan Blunk and 11 others were killed and dozens more wounded.
JESSICA WATTS: Basically, anytime I want to go shopping, yes, I have to see that theater. I drive by it numerous times a week, and it's one of those very, you know, sad, hard realizations that there's 12 people that are no longer here.
MARKUS: Watts says Cinemark Corporation should move the theater elsewhere and turn the site into a memorial. What's worse, she says, is the way Cinemark has handled the victims' families: Refusing to communicate or meet with them since the shooting, until they got an invitation to tonight's reopening.
WATTS: Two days after Christmas, we receive this invitation, and it was extremely disheartening because we had just gone through the holidays without our loved ones for the very first time. You know, we had an empty place at the dinner table, and it was very, very hard for each of the families and then just to get this invitation like it's no big deal.
MARKUS: She and other family members of victims sent an open letter to Cinemark accusing the company of putting profits ahead of their anguish. Several families are suing Cinemark, alleging that security at the theater was lax the night of the shooting. Cinemark declined to comment for this story. Back in August, the company asked Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan to poll residents to gauge how they feel about reopening the theater.
MAYOR STEVE HOGAN: And they overwhelmingly said yes. We need this. The community needs this. We need to move forward.
MARKUS: About 2,000 invites went out for tonight's reopening event. Cinemark wouldn't say what movie it's showing. Besides victims and their families, first responders and hospital workers are also expected, as is Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper and Mayor Steve Hogan.
HOGAN: I'm happy to be there. My personal opinion is I do not want the shooter to win, and I will be there.
MARKUS: In part, Hogan says, to honor the first responders and doctors who saved so many lives, doctors like Comilla Sasson who also got an invite. She was in the E.R. that night at the University of Colorado Hospital where 23 gunshot victims were taken.
DR. COMILLA SASSON: You know, I'm excited to think that maybe life is going back to normal for us here in Colorado. I, myself, personally am not quite ready yet to be in a theater. Since July, I haven't actually gone to the theater yet and definitely not quite ready to go to the theater.
MARKUS: Since the July 20th shootings, the Aurora theater has undergone a facelift. Outside, the bright colors and neon lights have been replaced with a more muted dark green. Inside, the infamous theater nine has reportedly been converted into a supersized screen called XD or extreme digital. Strong feelings about the theater reopening aren't exclusive to the victims' families and first responders.
A few steps away at the nearby shopping mall, Maurice Sharp takes a look at the theater and says there's no way he'd step foot in there.
MAURICE SHARP: Just because who wants to go to a movie theater where people got shot and died, you know what I mean? They're remodeling for a reason.
MARKUS: But Aurora resident Angelica McDonald says for many others, the reopening will be therapeutic.
ANGELICA MCDONALD: I think it's good for our community to just show that we're strong, and we're coming back.
MARKUS: The theater officially opens to the public Friday with all movies free of charge through the weekend. For NPR News, I'm Ben Markus in Denver.
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Getting the results of a genetic test can be like opening Pandora's box. You might learn something useful or interesting, or you might learn that you're likely to develop an incurable disease. The Genetic Information Non-discrimination Act, or GINA, is meant to protect people from having that kind of information used against them. Under GINA, it's illegal for an employer to fire someone based on their genetic code, and for health insurers to raise rates or to deny coverage because of it. But the law has a loophole.
And as David Schultz reports, it could have a big effect on people who want to buy other kinds of insurance.
DAVID SCHULTZ, BYLINE: A couple years ago, Tanya Zucconi enrolled in a scientific study that involved taking a genetic test to see if she has a gene that dramatically raises the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. She did it for two reasons. One, her father was a scientist.
TANYA ZUCCONI: And as someone who was always raised to respect science and to participate and to help out when you can, it just made sense to me.
SCHULTZ: And two, her mother had just been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. So, Zucconi wanted to find out what the odds were that she would get the disease, too.
Now, some people don't want to get their genes tested. They worry that what they'll find out would be too difficult to handle or that the test will make it harder to buy insurance. After all, companies might be reluctant to insure someone who knew they would probably develop Alzheimer's.
But Tanya says the doctors who gave her the test told her not to worry about that.
ZUCCONI: I did talk about that, both with the folks who ran the project and with other people around me - family and friends. And I was assured that there is a federal law that would protect against any discrimination.
SCHULTZ: That federal law prohibiting discrimination, known as GINA, was passed by Congress and signed by President Bush in 2008. And Tanya's only partially correct. GINA prevents some insurance companies from discriminating based on genetic information, but the law only applies to health insurance. Companies that sell life insurance, disability insurance, long-term care insurance, the law doesn't say anything about them.
ROBERT GREEN: I do think this is a loophole in GINA.
SCHULTZ: Robert Green is a researcher in the genetics department at Harvard Medical School. He was the leader of the study that Tanya participated in.
GREEN: GINA was a fabulous accomplishment. It was long in coming and much needed. But I think that it was not perfect.
SCHULTZ: Green says it's especially ironic that this law does not apply to long-term care insurance policies, since they cover the costs of nursing homes, assisted living facilities, home health aides, and other things that people suffering from Alzheimer's often need to use.
Green's study examined how people react after they learn they have this gene associated with Alzheimer's, a gene known as ApoE4. He found that people who discover they have the gene are five times more likely than the average person to go out and buy long-term care insurance.
GREEN: So it would be a natural thing that people might consider if they find out they are at an increased risk for Alzheimer's disease. This is a logical outcome to getting genetic risk information.
SCHULTZ: And when they go make that logical decision there's nothing stopping the insurance companies from demanding to see the results of their genetic test. Actually, a long-term care company could require someone to take a genetic test before selling them a policy - that's totally legal.
Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, a Democrat from western New York, introduced GINA in the House back in 2007. She says she fought hard for the law because she didn't think it was fair that a few wayward strands of DNA could make you essentially uninsurable.
REPRESENTATIVE LOUISE SLAUGHTER: There are countless people in this country who were not eligible for insurance at all, simply by the way they were born.
SCHULTZ: But she acknowledges the law's got a few gaps.
SLAUGHTER: We've been talking about this since we passed the last one; that we would need to upgrade it. And we plan to do that.
SCHULTZ: If they do, the insurance industry might have a thing or two to say about it. Insurance works best when lots of people purchase policies but only a few actually need to use them. If genetic testing becomes widespread and most, or even all, of the people who buy long-term care policies do so knowing they're probably going to develop Alzheimer's sometime down the road, selling these kinds of policies suddenly becomes unsustainable.
When Robert Green talked about his study to a room full of insurance executives a few years ago, he found out just how frightened the insurance industry is of this scenario.
GREEN: And these very mild mannered people in the audience got very, very heated. They were standing up and saying, this kind of situation is going to put us out of business.
SCHULTZ: A spokesman with the company Genworth, the largest seller of long-term care policies in the U.S., said in an email to NPR that it doesn't want to lose its ability to, quote, "utilize all information." Genworth isn't restricted by the law now and it doesn't want that to change.
For NPR News, I'm David Schultz.
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The federal government hit its debt limit at the end of last year. Since then, the Treasury Department has been taking what it calls extraordinary measures to fund the government and avoid defaulting on its obligations. But those measures will run out some time between the middle of February and early March.
CORNISH: It's up to Congress to raise the debt limit and negotiations with the White House are sure to be contentious. Republicans are now at a retreat in Virginia, talking over their debt limit strategy. In a moment, we'll hear from NPR's David Welna, who's at that retreat.
But first, NPR congressional correspondent Tamara Keith explores one idea that's been making the rounds.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: President Obama has made it clear: The debt ceiling needs to be raised as soon as possible.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The issue here is whether or not America pays its bills. We are not a deadbeat nation.
KEITH: The consequences of not raising the debt ceiling, he says, would be dire. And on this point, it's worth noting that the vast majority of economists and business leaders agree. But earlier this week in the speaker's lobby, a bustling room just off the House floor, a very different narrative could be heard.
Tim Huelskamp is a Republican from Kansas.
REPRESENTATIVE TIM HUELSKAMP: There is not going to be a default unless the president of the United States chooses. He's threatening folks with a very empty threat.
KEITH: And Pat Tiberi, an Ohio Republican.
REPRESENTATIVE PAT TIBERI: Nobody is talking default except for the president. He doesn't need to default.
KEITH: Let me translate. When Huelskamp and Tiberi talk about default, what they mean is missing debt payments, failing to pay the nation's creditors. What they're arguing is that the president and treasury will have to set priorities. Tiberi says the top priority would have to be paying interest on the national debt.
TIBERI: Defaulting is something that we can't do. So it's got to be a priority.
KEITH: Under this theory, Social Security recipients, veterans, employees, contractors and all the rest would get lower priority, though with whatever is left after interest payments, Tiberi says seniors and veterans should get paid first. But many government payments would be delayed or canceled. This is sometimes called technical default.
Congressman Huelskamp doesn't seem particularly worried about that.
HUELSKAMP: I think it's an incredible lever that should be used. I mean, we have a spending problem. The debt ceiling is a great indicator we've got a spending problem and - but default is not going to happen. It's not about default. It's about pressuring the White House to come to the table with some actual spending reductions.
KEITH: The Treasury Department argues this isn't a viable alternative and would simply be default by another name. And it isn't just the Obama administration saying this.
TONY FRATTO: It's like having a credit score.
KEITH: Tony Fratto is with Hamilton Place Strategies and was an official in the Treasury Department under President George W. Bush.
FRATTO: The credit score firms out there, they see across all of your bills and they see that you failed to pay some bills even if you paid other bills, and that damages your credit score. And it's the same way for a government.
KEITH: This would be uncharted territory, so no one knows for sure what might happen. But many believe that just like a borrower who misses a few cable bills ends up paying a higher interest rate on his credit card, the government's cost of borrowing could rise.
As for the whole idea of prioritizing debt payments, even assuming it would be possible, Randy Kroszner, a University of Chicago economist and former Federal Reserve governor, says it isn't a great idea.
RANDY KROSZNER: A slowing of payments to the non-debt holders is unlikely to cause economic Armageddon. But that said, it's not a good position to be in.
KEITH: Kroszner says risking default - technical or otherwise - isn't a winner economically or politically. On that point, Republican consultant Fratto agrees. Just imagine the message.
FRATTO: Wait to get paid because we have to pay the debt service that we owe the Chinese and the Japanese. I think that's just an absolutely unsustainable political place to be. And so I don't see this at all as a likely outcome.
KEITH: Members of the House Republican Conference are weighing whether the debt ceiling is where they want to take their stand on spending - prioritization or not.
Tamara Keith, NPR News, Washington.
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Modern scientists trying to understand climate change are engaged in an unlikely collaboration with two beloved but long-dead nature writers, Henry David Thoreau and Aldo Leopold. NPR's Elizabeth Shogren reports that the authors of "Walden" and "A Sandy County Almanac" are helping today's scientists predict how global warming will affect spring.
ELIZABETH SHOGREN, BYLINE: Boston University biology professor Richard Primack has been taking a cue from Henry David Thoreau.
RICHARD PRIMACK: So what Thoreau would do is he would go out for walks almost every day for about four hours and he would record in the spring when he saw the first open flower of particular species.
SHOGREN: Hundreds of different flowers around Walden Pond and elsewhere in Concord, Massachusetts, 160 years ago. Primack quotes Thoreau.
PRIMACK: "I often visited a particular plant four or five miles distant half a dozen times within a fortnight that I might know exactly when it opens."
And we do the same thing today.
SHOGREN: Over the past several years, Primack's team has recorded when these same flowers bloom. They learned that, on an average year, flowers will bloom about 11 days earlier than in Thoreau's time. Then something happened last year that made them ask a bigger question. Harvard biology professor Charles Davis is part of the team.
CHARLES DAVIS: In late December 2011 and January 2012, I started seeing irises blooming in the Boston area. And, you know, this is the dead of winter, and you can imagine it sort of rocked my world.
SHOGREN: This bizarre spring made them wonder. Is it possible to use historical records to predict when flowers will bloom during, especially, hot years? It turns out in Wisconsin, biologist Stanley Temple was working on a similar analysis using Aldo Leopold's journal entries, like this one.
DR. STANLEY TEMPLE: (Reading) Pasque flowers are blooming. Lilac leaves...
SHOGREN: Temple reads from the first week of May in 1940.
TEMPLE: (Reading) Service berry, choke berry are breaking buds. Pussy willows...
SHOGREN: Temple gathered lots of data over recent decades to compare with Leopold's. When last spring's temperatures in Wisconsin hit new highs, he was ready.
TEMPLE: It was when we realized, wow, 2012 is going to be a record setter, we decided to ask the question: Could we have predicted the flowering date given what was known about temperature? And indeed, we could have.
SHOGREN: The scientists in Massachusetts and Wisconsin combined their information and jointly published these findings this week in the journal PLOS ONE. They also showed that record temperatures last spring resulted in the earliest known flowering times for dozens of plants. Richard Primack says Thoreau would be amazed. Thoreau's records showed the first highbush blueberries always flowered in mid-May. But last year...
PRIMACK: It was actually flowering during the first week of April. So this was a plant species which has shifted its flowering time by five or six weeks from the time of Thoreau. So this is really quite unbelievable.
SHOGREN: Stanford biology professor Terry Root wasn't part of the study. She says before this study, scientists didn't know that plants would be able to keep blooming earlier and earlier as the globe warms. Now they do.
DR. TERRY ROOT: Is that good news or bad news? The answer to that is yes.
SHOGREN: Plants might benefit from longer growing seasons. But they could suffer if the insects that pollinate them don't adjust at the same rate. Root says since the unusually high temperatures last spring could be normal in a few decades...
ROOT: This is kind of a peek into the future.
SHOGREN: The scientists say they don't know yet whether spring flowers will be able to keep matching the pace if the planet gets even hotter. Elizabeth Shogren, NPR News.
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I'm Robert Siegel. And we begin this hour with a brazen rescue attempt in Algeria. Government forces launched an assault today on an oil and gas facility in the remote Algerian desert. There, Islamist militants had been holding hundreds of hostages, including 41 Westerners, since yesterday. The Algerian military went in swiftly and decisively, stunning Western governments, who might have handled such a hostage drama more delicately.
The result has largely been confusion, with conflicting reports about hostages escaping and being killed as the assault progressed. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley followed the day's events in Paris and she sent this report.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: It's only this evening that the media is beginning to piece together what happened today. The assault apparently began around 1:30 p.m. Algerian time when Algerian army attack helicopters and soldiers on the ground bombed and opened fire on the site.
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BEARDSLEY: The news all day was coming from the Algerian media and Islamist websites, but was difficult to confirm with other sources because of the remote location of the facility. Most French stations were getting information and reports from phone calls with local journalists hundreds of miles away from the site in the capital of Algiers. Sahid ben Ali(ph) was reporting on the incident for RTE Irish radio.
SAHID BEN ALI: It's not clear at all. It's very confusing because the camp is a huge camp. This camp is the middle of nowhere in the middle of the Algerian desert. It was in extreme desert, 1600 kilometers southeast near the Libyan border.
BEARDSLEY: Around 6:00 p.m., French President Francois Hollande spoke to the nation to confirm that the assault was taking place. France only learned today that it had hostages at the facility.
PRESIDENT FRANCOIS HOLLANDE: (Speaking foreign language)
BEARDSLEY: At this moment, as I speak to you, the end of this hostage is coming to a head in an incredibly dramatic fashion, said Hollande. What's happening in Algeria justifies even more the decision France made to come to the aid of Mali against these extremists. Hollande dispatched his foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, to Brussels today to try to enlist European firepower. Germany, Britain, Denmark and Spain have committed equipment to the mission and European leaders agreed to send trainers for the Malian army, yet no combat role is envisioned for the EU troops.
France is out alone on the front lines, at least so far.
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BEARDSLEY: French TV showed footage of French soldiers being welcomed with open arms by the Malian people, but French officials say the opposition they've encountered has been fiercer and more heavily armed than they had expected. As the Algerian situation raged on throughout the day, Britain expressed consternation that it was not given prior notice of the assault. Prime Minister David Cameron said he was extremely concerned about the very grave and serious situation.
Interviewed on French television today, Algeria expert Jean Pierre Filiu said Algeria has its own way of handling terrorists.
JEAN PIERRE FILIU: (Through translator) The Algerian authorities wanted to get a firm message across during the decade of the '90s when they were confronted with the terrorist jihadists. They never negotiated a single thing. They want to remain completely inflexible so as not to encourage these types of situations in the future. So we can truly fear the worst.
BEARDSLEY: Towards the end of the day, some of the hostages, both Algerian and foreign, began to make it out. The Irish government said one its citizens, Steven McFall(ph), had contacted his wife and Irish diplomats to say that he was safe. McFall's brother, Connor, expressed his relief.
CONNOR MCFALL: In the past 48 hours, it's been the toughest in my life. I'm so sorry for all the families involved. There is (unintelligible).
BEARDSLEY: At around 9:00 p.m. this evening, the Algerian government announced that the assault had come to an end. They said they killed dozens of Islamists, including key leaders. The number of dead and freed hostages remains to be established. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
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The turmoil in Algeria, as well as in Mali, is a reminder of the complicated relationship that still exists between France and many of its former African colonies. Howard French has spent many years thinking and writing about that relationship. He's an associate professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism; and a former, longtime foreign correspondent for The New York Times. Mr. French, welcome to the program.
HOWARD FRENCH: Good afternoon.
CORNISH: So it was just - I think less than six months ago that French President Francois Hollande vowed that the country would reset its relationship with its former colonies in Africa. And he said he would help bring an end to something called Francafrique. What is Francafrique?
FRENCH: Francafrique is a dense network of political ties, patronage, business interests and corruption that link - in surprisingly resilient ways - France to its former African possessions.
CORNISH: And so how does that play out in France interventionism?
FRENCH: France's hold on these former possessions has been very important to France's sense of itself, as a nation; to its global ambitions; to its pretentions as a near superpower; and to employment in France, as well as to things like political patronage. Hollande is not the first of the French leaders to vow to reinvent or break away from the old patterns. But the old patterns tend to cling, or to persist, because of these sort of fundamental qualities that they have, which are so hard to get away from.
CORNISH: So Howard French, can you give us an example of a moment in history which really shows France swooping into a nation; and either propping up a government, or backing one they like, or getting rid of one they don't?
FRENCH: Sure. My very first experience - dramatic experience - as a foreign correspondent was in 1983, in Chad; which was under attack, at the time, by an insurgency backed by Libya under Moammar Gadhafi. And France intervened to prop up the state, which would certainly have fallen, had they not done so. France has done this time and again, in one country after another - Central African Republic, in the past; in repeated instances in Gambol, in Ivory Coast. It has helped in civil wars in Senegal, and in various other places. So this is - Mali is part of a big, broad pattern of French involvement and as a kind of guarantor - in the last instance - of the integrity of the states that France itself created.
CORNISH: Now, put this in the context, then, of what's happening in Mali right now. Is this different from the old Francafrique model?
FRENCH: Yes and no. So France is responding to an acute crisis in Mali. There was an advance, very dramatically and somewhat unexpected, by the - sort of coalition of Islamic rebel movements, toward the capital; and France felt that it had to act in an emergency fashion, to stop that advance. However, in a longer-term sense, what this crisis demonstrates is that France has not managed to foster the creation of states that can stand on their own.
Throughout this French-speaking zone of former French colonies, the national currency of almost all of these countries is, in fact, itself a derivative of the French franc. That shows the degree to which the interests of France, and the interests of these countries, are intermingled.
CORNISH: From the point of view of African people in these nations, is there a kind of suspicion, or worry, when France comes to intervene?
FRENCH: In Mali itself, I think there's an overwhelming feeling of relief that France may perhaps save the day - is the best way to put it - against this Islamic extreme insurgency. However, I think all around French-speaking West Africa, even people who are cheering this - in this first, instant sort of response - will be saying to themselves, here we go again. Here's a reminder, once more, of how we can never really escape the embrace of France; how we can never really achieve true independence.
CORNISH: Howard French, thank you so much for speaking with us.
FRENCH: Thank you very much.
CORNISH: That's Howard French, associate professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and author of the book "A Continent For The Taking: The Tragedy And Hope Of Africa."
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Here's something we haven't bee able to report for a while: State budgets are looking better. Thanks to an improving economy, spending cuts and some tax increases, more than 33 states and the District of Columbia report their financial condition is stabilizing. Even California, the poster child for the budget mess, is looking OK, at least in the short run.
Here's NPR's Richard Gonzales.
RICHARD GONZALES, BYLINE: When Jerry Brown became governor two years ago, California faced a $27 billion budget deficit. Last week, when he unveiled his new budget proposals for fiscal year 2013, he surprised many by showing not only a balanced budget, but one that projects a surplus by next year.
GOVERNOR JERRY BROWN: We've cut massively. We've cut 25 percent out of the colleges and universities. We cut health care. We cut the aged, blind and disabled, families on CalWorks. We did things that were never done before. Plus, we have the new taxes for seven years, so we're in a better place.
GONZALES: The new taxes Brown mentions came thanks to voters who approved them in November. The governor's budget proposals have attracted almost universal, if tentative, applause, from Republicans who agree with his message of fiscal restraint, to Democrats who support Brown's plan for a modest increase in money for education.
MIKE HEARLD: The big picture view, he's really done an outstanding job in bringing back some stability to the state finances and a rosier future than the one that we've had over the last decade.
GONZALES: Mike Herald is a legislative advocate for the Western Center on Law and Poverty. He says unlike in previous years, Brown's budget contains no new cuts to social service programs. That's the good news.
HEARLD: But if you define bad news as we're not doing anything to make up for all the stuff that we've cut before, then that would be the bad news definition.
GONZALES: Brown says he'll resist any pressure from his fellow Democrats, who control both legislative Houses, to restore cuts to social service benefits. Yet, even if he does hold the line, there are other potential storms on the budget horizon. One of them is the so-called wall of debt.
MICHAEL GENEST: We got that from years of desperate or just flat out bad budgeting practice. And so he's having to dig out of that.
GONZALES: Michael Genest was former governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's budget chief. He says the state has to pay about $28 billion that it withheld from schools, local governments, and health care providers in past years. Brown's budget proposes to pay back most of that money over the next four years.
But that's not the end of California's long term debt obligations, says Genest.
GENEST: But even beyond the wall of debt that we can identify, you've got three huge problems facing us in the future. And he knows very well about them.
GONZALES: The first, says Genest, is the bill for California State employee's retiree health care costs that are completely unfunded right now. That's about $62 billion and growing over the next 30 years.
The second problem is a projected shortfall of more than $60 billion in the teachers' pension system. And finally, there are rising health care costs associated with MediCal, the state' system for the poor, elderly and disabled.
GENEST: Those three pressures are very real. And if something isn't done about them very soon they will put us right back in the soup, worse than we've ever been. And in each case, doing something about them is very, very controversial and very difficult politically.
GONZALES: But fiscal discipline is key as California repays the billions it has borrowed from Wall Street in recent years. Moody's estimates that the per capita cost of repaying that debt is more than $2,500. Compare that to Texas, where the per capita cost of its debt is only $588.
Richard Gonzales, NPR News, San Francisco.
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Kansas lawmakers have been trying to apply some of that fiscal discipline, too. The economy has been growing and the unemployment rate is down, but the projected budget deficit in Kansas is still more than $250 million for the coming fiscal year. And more deficits are projected after that.
Kansas Public Radio's Stephen Koranda reports on what the state is looking to do about that problem in the future and what they've already done.
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STEPHEN KORANDA, BYLINE: Here at Meadows Elementary School in Topeka, Kansas, around 40 first graders are in PE. They're bowling today. The kids line up the pins and knock them down with a rubber bowling ball.
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UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Alright, there you go. You can get back on.
KORANDA: At some schools across Kansas, PE has been cut back. At this school they've had to eliminate staff and reduce art and music classes. Meadows' principal, Nicole Dial, says she was sad to see the music program trimmed back, because many families can't supplement it.
NICOLE DIAL: Especially a low-income family that maybe can't pay for private lessons. Our kiddos that are in a lower-income family aren't going to get that opportunity unless it happens at school.
KORANDA: In recent years, lawmakers here cut hundreds of millions of dollars from the base funding per pupil that schools receive. In Topeka, that means eliminating about 100 teachers. School board member Nancy Kirk says they've tried to keep classes small, so they've had to cut specialized help for students in areas like math and reading.
NANCY KIRK: We are hurting kids because our resources to provide extra kinds of supports, children who come to us with significant challenges, whether it's poverty, whether it's English language, all these extra supports, and we don't have the dollars to do that anymore.
KORANDA: The state has also slashed agency budgets, cut back services, and laid off workers. When Kansas legislators passed a large personal and business income tax cut last year, the deficit projections ballooned. This week, Republican Governor Sam Brownback laid out plans for dealing with the deficit. And he made an announcement some consider counterintuitive: Proposing some tax increases but also a large income tax cut.
GOVERNOR SAM BROWNBACK: Tonight, we're here to take another step on our path to no state income taxes. This will create jobs and opportunities in our state.
KORANDA: The hope is the tax cuts will spur economic growth. Governor Brownback says there will likely be a downturn in tax collections first before the economy grows, but the state can manage it.
BROWNBACK: This glide path to zero will not cut funding to schools, higher education or essential safety net programs.
KORANDA: But the crux of the argument is this: Will the tax cuts spur enough economic growth in the coming years to offset the loss of revenue? If they don't, that will likely mean more and deeper cuts to things like education and mental health services.
Kansas House minority leader Paul Davis calls the tax cutting a huge gamble. He doesn't believe cutting taxes will stimulate enough economic growth to prevent cuts to state services.
STATE REPRESENTATIVE PAUL DAVIS: When you tell people that that will require us to make huge cuts to education, huge cuts to mental health programs, I don't think that people are going to be very receptive to that at all.
KORANDA: Brownback's tax plans may be controversial, but they're likely to receive a warm welcome in the legislature, with conservative Republicans now in control of both chambers.
For NPR news, I'm Stephen Koranda in Topeka, Kansas.
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And I'm Robert Siegel. The University of Notre Dame is defending its star linebacker, Manti Te'o, even as Te'o's story of triumph in the face of personal loss quickly unravels. Te'o's gridiron achievements this year, following the reported death of his girlfriend, captivated the world of college football. The tale added to his prominence as a contender for the Heisman Trophy.
But in the last 36 hours, it has become clear that Te'o's long-distance heartthrob, Lennay Kekua, never existed. She was a fiction of the Internet. And now there are questions about whether Te'o was in on the hoax or duped by it, not to mention questions about why reporters didn't figure it out sooner. Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick says Te'o was a victim.
JACK SWARBRICK: The pain was real. The grief was real. The affection was real and that's the nature of this sad, cruel game.
SIEGEL: NPR's Mike Pesca joins us now to talk about this. And, Mike, are we to believe the Notre Dame version of the story?
MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Well, we would have to buy just the very basic premise that someone could know a fictitious person for years - and not just know them but by the end of their relationship, have such in-depth interactions, be on the phone for hours a day with a person, not just texting, not just sending Twitter accounts, but having all this discussion and having it affect him so emotionally and yet, at the same time, he never met the person in real life and didn't disclose that.
And then there are more specific details that just don't make sense unless they're somehow squared later. In October of this year, the South Bend Tribune did a story detailing the relationship and Brian Te'o, Manti's father, was quoted in-depth talking about how they had met in person, although Manti's quotes, if you parse them, never talks about in-person meeting. So why was Brian Te'o saying that?
And then there is also the question - and I think there's no way to square this part, it doesn't mean that it was all a lie - but by his own timeline, Manti Te'o found out about the hoax essentially on December 6th and after that point, he did give interviews where he talked about his girlfriend dying of cancer. So maybe that could be explained with, I was nervous or I tripped up or I didn't know what to say, but yeah, those two things can't exist at the same time.
SIEGEL: So there are questions for Manti Te'o. There are questions for Notre Dame. How about the questions for sports journalism?
PESCA: Well, you know, let's be fair. In sports journalism, there is sort of a trend towards geography at times. And, you know, if the criticism of political journalism is that they tear their subjects, I.E. politicians, down, sports journalism does tend to build them up, especially when a lot of the times that we're seeing these stories on network television that are broadcast partners with college football.
I do have to say, though, that if you just look at a fact that gets repeated and repeated, I wouldn't maybe cry foul every time it's repeated. In my own life as a reporter and your own life as a reporter, we've probably said things like, just to pick some example, the Manning brothers. Well, I've never seen a paternity test, right? I just kind of assume they're brothers. Or we talk about Lou Gehrig's 2,130 straight games. I didn't go back and look at the box score.
So sometimes there's just this fact that gets put out there and gets solidified and never checked, but I would say that there are a couple of examples of journalists who did big takeout stories like Gene Wojciechowski of ESPN or Pete Thamel of Sports Illustrated, where they had a lot of access to Manti Te'o and did report this story and never caught the fact that Lennay Kekua was a fiction.
SIEGEL: Might have gone for a quote from someone in her family, let's say. How did they get duped? What was wrong there?
PESCA: I've heard both of these - let's say, Gene Wojciechowski. He said he looked up Lennay Kekua and he didn't find an obituary and he didn't find evidence of her and he asked Manti Te'o about this. And Manti Te'o just said leave it alone, the family doesn't want to talk about it. And he went ahead with reporting the story of her tragic death.
And, you know, I wouldn't fault him. He wasn't lazy. He wasn't venal. He maybe was just a little bit - he was maybe had a too much heart in that instance. Pete Thamel says he went to Notre Dame for four days, talked to dozens of people who talked about how Manti was affected by the death of his girlfriend. And, of course, according to Manti's story, then he would've believed that his girlfriend really existed.
Pete Thamel talked to a priest who talked about - said that he once met her. And he used the phrase, there were little red flags that were raised, but I guess not good enough to thoroughly check things like is she in the Stanford directory or why is there no reference to her online outside of the world of Manti Te'o. And he regrets it now.
SIEGEL: So what are we still trying to find out about this story?
PESCA: You know, so much and some of the questions that can't be squared. But I really think we need to know about the hoaxers - who were they, what was their motivation, what was Manti Te'o's thinking when he really found out about the story.
SIEGEL: Okay. Thanks, Mike.
PESCA: You're welcome.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Mike Pesca.
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American Airlines is getting a makeover. Today, it unveiled a new logo and a new paint job for its airplanes. The airline is in bankruptcy and discussing a merger with U.S. Airways. As NPR's Wade Goodwyn reports, American's management hopes the move will be symbolic for a company that badly needs a fresh start.
WADE GOODWYN, BYLINE: For more than 50 years, American Airlines jets have sported a sleek silver aluminum body with red, white and blue stripes front to back. The stripes flowing along the windows hinted of the flag, but also gave the plane a certain corporate feel - the jets' blue suit and red tie, as it were. For those who grew up with these aircraft, the look was iconic. No matter where in the world you might be, when you saw the silver jet with the eagle on the tail, you felt closer to home.
In a slickly produced video, American unveiled its new look today. The new livery takes what was good about the old and builds upon it. The silver paint remains, but it's brighter, wider. The red, white and blue stripes along the body are gone, moved to the tail where they come together to scream the American flag. The jet is now entirely silver. The eagle logo moved from the tail to the front door, reduced to a small red and blue slash, bisected by the eagle's head.
The jet looks fast, modern and with the vibrantly-colored tail, bolder. Here's CEO Tom Horton in the video that unveiled the new livery.
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GOODWYN: But while the airline may be beautiful on the outside, it's still corrupted on the inside by decades of bitter fighting between American's management and workers.
TOM HOBAN: They want to get people to forget about the old and get on with the new here and that's why we've got a new paint job here. But it just doesn't fix the toxic culture that we've got.
GOODWYN: Tom Hoban is a 22-year veteran pilot with American and an officer in the Allied Pilots Association. They're pushing for a merger with U.S. Airways as a means to jettison American's current management.
HOBAN: We've got to start to emulate those airlines that provide a higher level of customer service that we've seen at Southwest, for example, where the employees are empowered and trusted as opposed to being micromanaged. And that's what the strategy at American Airlines, you know, the beatings will continue until morale improves.
GOODWYN: The pilots, mechanics and flight attendants wishes may well come true. Documents emerging from the negotiations this week indicate the merger is well on its way. Wade Goodwyn, NPR News, Dallas.
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The Obama administration is pushing forward with its ambitious, if uphill, effort to reduce gun violence. I will put everything I've got into this, the president said, when he outlined his agenda yesterday. Today, Vice President Joe Biden addressed the nation's mayors at their winter meeting here in Washington. And NPR's Brian Naylor reports, the mayors, who deal with the effects of gun violence every day, made a receptive audience.
BRIAN NAYLOR, BYLINE: The nation's consciousness about gun violence has been raised in recent months by the killing of 20 first-graders in Newtown, Connecticut, and 12 moviegoers in Aurora, Colorado. But it's the gun violence that occurs each day on city street corners that is the prime concern of the nation's mayors. Vice President Biden framed the issue this way.
VICE PRESIDENT JOSEPH BIDEN: Over the last several years, about 25 people die of gun-related homicide in this country every single day, every day, which is the equivalent of the third most deadly mass shooting in history.
NAYLOR: Biden renewed the administration's pitch for its agenda to overhaul the nation's gun laws. He touched on many things - what he termed the woefully incomplete system by which mental health records are reported and the so-called gun show loophole, which allows some gun buyers to bypass background checks entirely.
BIDEN: Imagine you get to the airport and there are two lines for security. One of them, you have to go through the metal detector, empty your pockets, take off your shoes. And the other one, you can go straight through to the plane. Where are you going to go, especially if you're carrying something you're not supposed to?
NAYLOR: Biden acknowledged there were disagreements about the precise steps to take, but said, in his words, we can't wait any longer to act. In that there's little disagreement among the mayors who are on the front lines of gun violence. Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter is president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
MAYOR MICHAEL NUTTER: Many of us deal with these kinds of issues on a day-to-day basis. It may not be 20 children in a school. But in Philadelphia last year, unfortunately, I had 331 murders throughout the course of the year. That's a whole lot of people.
NAYLOR: Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Sly James says his city averages just over a hundred murders a year, 80 percent of whom are young black men. He says there's little he can do to stem gun violence because he's handcuffed.
MAYOR SYLVESTER JAMES: Our city can't act on the issue of guns at all. The state has pre-empted the area with their laws, and the only people who can preempt the state is the federal government. We, as a city, have to deal with the murders and the weapons and the illegal guns on the street. We have absolutely no ability to control them.
NAYLOR: James says what he calls slow motion mass murder has been going on in the nation's cities for years. But Mayor Scott Smith of Mesa, Arizona, where guns are an accepted part of the culture, says the administration is too focused on what he called the faux solution of more gun control.
MAYOR SCOTT SMITH: The people I represent are law-abiding citizens who are exercising their Second Amendment rights. So they're a little miffed as to why they, individually - and they take this personally - are being concentrated on and saying somehow they must give up their rights so we can solve another problem. That - I think that's a legitimate concern of people.
NAYLOR: Smith says there needs to be more of a focus on why young men think they can solve a dispute by killing someone and preventing the dangerously mentally ill from acquiring guns. But that's clearly not the priority of many in the mayors group, which is already on record in favor of banning assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines and wants Congress to act quickly on the administration's agenda. Brian Naylor, NPR News, Washington.
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Gun control is just one of the issues where President Obama faces stiff opposition in Congress. When he was sworn in four years ago, Mr. Obama celebrated, saying, Americans had chosen unity of purpose over conflict and discord. But as NPR's Scott Horsley reports, the president will begin his second term with conflict and discord still very much the rule in Washington.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: President Obama first made his name in national politics with his 2004 appeal to bridge the divide between red America and blue America. He renewed that promise last summer at a campaign rally in Cleveland.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I will work with anyone of any party who believes that we're in this together, who believes that we rise or fall as one nation and as one people.
HORSLEY: Irma McQueen, who is in the audience that day, observed that Mr. Obama hadn't found many Republican takers for that offer during his first four years in the White House.
IRMA MCQUEEN: I think the Republicans, some of them, whatever he says, they will say the opposite just because of who he is.
HORSLEY: Jane Arrington, who was also there, agreed, but she still held out hope.
JANE ARRINGTON: Maybe somebody will get wise and say: OK, we're all Americans. We don't want our country to go down into nothing. And maybe they'll start cooperating with him.
HORSLEY: That was the president's message that day as well. He told voters the November election was their opportunity to end the political paralysis in Washington.
OBAMA: The only thing that can break the stalemate is you.
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HORSLEY: Mr. Obama went on to win Ohio and the national election, but Republicans won three-quarters of Ohio's congressional seats and kept their majority in the House. Last month, Mr. Obama acknowledged the stalemate has not broken yet.
OBAMA: I'm often reminded when I speak to the Republican leadership that the majority of their caucus' membership come from districts that I lost.
HORSLEY: Political scientist Ross Baker of Rutgers University says those lawmakers and the people who elected them are not likely to find much common ground with the president, whether the issue is gun control, taxes, or the size of the federal budget.
ROSS BAKER: The thing that people who are hopeful about bipartisanship sometimes overlook is the fact that there are real political differences in the country.
HORSLEY: If anything, the geographic differences between states, counties and congressional districts appear to be growing sharper. Some of that results from partisan redistricting, with politicians drawing political boundaries to favor their own party. That helped Republicans keep control of the House even though Democrats outpolled them by more than a million votes nationwide. But voters themselves are also redrawing the map and adding to the polarization with their choices of where to live. They're voting with their feet, in a process that Bill Bishop describes in his book "The Big Sort."
BILL BISHOP: People are moving to be around others who are like themselves. When they find a place where they feel comfortable, where the shops look like they ought to be, then those people vote the same.
HORSLEY: Nationwide, Mr. Obama beat Mitt Romney by a little over 3 percentage points, a reasonably close race. But in more than half the counties in the country, the race was not close at all. One candidate or the other won by at least 20 points. Without more cross-pollination, Bishop says, political views tend to harden, making compromise more difficult.
BISHOP: Like-minded groups tend to move to the extreme while mixed groups tend to moderate. And as increasing parts of the United States become more extreme, then attitudes become more extreme.
HORSLEY: President Obama and members of Congress are sometimes criticized for not spending more time with members of the opposite party. But in that respect, they are no different than most Americans. Political scientist Baker says on issues from gun control to deficit reduction, it's a recipe for continued gridlock.
BAKER: The lines are just so firmly drawn that even the considerable powers of the president to persuade runs up against a fairly large number of people who are basically unpersuadable.
HORSLEY: This week, Mr. Obama scoffed at the suggestion he could advance his political agenda by schmoozing more with members of Congress.
OBAMA: Most people who know me know I'm a pretty friendly guy. And I like a good party.
HORSLEY: On Monday, the president will be guest of honor at a giant party here in Washington. But not all Americans will be celebrating. Mr. Obama's challenge, as he begins his second term, is presiding over not just divided government but a deeply divided country. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
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The French say they have 1,400 troops in Mali battling to keep al-Qaida affiliated militants from taking over the country. Most of the French action has involved airstrikes. Mali is the new front line in the war on terror, writes Alan Boswell, who is in that country for McClatchy Newspapers, and joins us now. And, Alan Boswell, can you tell us where you've been and what you've seen?
ALAN BOSWELL: Sure. Right now, I'm close to the front line in Niono, which is about 40 miles south from a town called Diabaly. And that town was taken on Monday by a part of the Islamist coalition of rebels. And that capture of Diabaly really kind of shook the French and their Malian counterparts here and basically created a new front line here on the western side of the Niger River, whereas they expected most of the fighting to be on the eastern side.
SIEGEL: You've been interviewing people who have fled the fighting, I gather. What do they say? What happened?
BOSWELL: Well, what they say basically happened, as the rebels swooped in, and they caught the Malian army by surprise. They basically outfight them. They snuck through the bush and attacked them from behind. And another group kind of walked on foot across swamp and hit them from the side while they were actually expecting them to come down the road instead. The battle lasted a fair amount of time, a few hours, but then the Malian troops fled.
And then what happened is the other Malian units stationed in the area all withdrew also. And they basically left a giant no-man's land between Niono, the front line, and the Diabaly, which is where the rebels hit. And in that giant no-man's land, the rebels have been slowly expanding day by day and increasing their control over the villages.
SIEGEL: Talking about a giant no-man's-land, by my arithmetic, Mali is twice the size of Texas. In such a country, the presence of 1,400 French troops doesn't sound likely to be overwhelming. What do we know about what they've actually done in Mali?
BOSWELL: Well, so far the French have done a lot of airstrikes, and there's some Special Forces activity, which is going on mostly invisibly. But beyond that, there hasn't been a lot. I think they hoped when they came in that they'd be able to hit with some airstrikes, and the Malian army would be able to move forward on its own and capture some ground or at least stand its own.
And what's happened is the airstrikes were fairly successful at first. But without ground troops that are able to stay on the ground in the form of the Malian army, it hasn't really mattered a lot. And what you see happening now is that the Islamist rebels have been pretty quick to adjust and are doing things like using human shields and sleeping in people's homes and putting their anti-aircraft next to houses and things like that to almost neutralize the French airstrikes.
SIEGEL: Tell us a bit about this region. You know, we hear Sub-Saharan, and there's an impression that this is a desert war going on in some case. What's the area like?
BOSWELL: Well, I think the French hope that soon it will become a desert war because the northern part of the country is very deep, very duney(ph) Saharan land. But actually this area right now where they're fighting in is basically a crisscrossing land of canals and dikes and bridges. It's a bunch of rice fields. You have planted eucalyptus.
It would be an area which would probably be a pretty difficult place to engage in counter-insurgency operations. There seem to be a completely, almost innumerous amount of ways to get from point A to point B but often don't even involve going down the main road.
SIEGEL: Well, Alan Boswell, thank you very much for talking with us today.
BOSWELL: Thanks, Robert.
SIEGEL: That's Alan Boswell, Africa correspondent for McClatchy Newspapers. He spoke to us from Mali near the conflict zone.
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The United States is supporting the French operation in Mali, according to the State Department, and the U.S. reviewing security across North Africa in light of that crisis and the hostage taking by militants at a natural gas plant in Algeria. The Algerian military stormed that plant today, ending the standoff.
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But as Secretary of State Clinton said today, the work of countering violent extremism in Africa goes on.
SECRETARY HILLARY CLINTON: We know we face a continuing, ongoing problem. And we're going to do everything we can to work together to confront and disrupt al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. We're going to be working with our friends and partners in North Africa.
SIEGEL: Secretary Clinton was meeting with the president of another African Nation. Somalia is also confronting an al-Qaida-linked group and grappling with many other problems.
CORNISH: As NPR's Michele Kelemen reports, the U.S. is opening a new chapter in diplomatic relations with Somalia, hoping to boost the new government's chances of success.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: U.S. officials say Somalia has come a long way from the days of Black Hawk Down, when Somali warlords shot down two U.S. helicopters in 1993 after a failed humanitarian intervention. Somalia has lurched from crisis to crisis since then. But the newly elected president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, calls this a new era for his country.
PRESIDENT HASSAN SHEIKH MOHAMUD: Somalia is emerging from a very long, difficult period, and we are now moving away from instability, extremism, piracy, an era - to an era of peaceful and development.
KELEMEN: Secretary Clinton says for the first time since 1991 the U.S. is recognizing the government in Somalia.
CLINTON: So today is a milestone. It's not the end of the journey, but it's an important milestone to that end.
KELEMEN: The diplomatic recognition means that Somalia can get support from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and have a new relationship with the USAID agency.
CLINTON: Our diplomats, our development experts are traveling more frequently there, and I do look forward to the day when we can re-establish a permanent U.S. diplomatic presence in Mogadishu.
KELEMEN: Though that's still a ways off, Ken Menkhaus of Davidson College calls this new relationship a real break from the past, pointing out that Somalia's previous governments were transitional, dysfunctional and corrupt.
DR. KEN MENKHAUS: Providing a lot of direct governance, rule of law and other support to previous governments in Somalia has been risky and problematic. Now this sends a signal that we are going to be prepared to work more directly with the government and not just around it.
KELEMEN: Menkhaus says President Mohamud has a good reputation. He's someone who stayed in Somalia throughout these decades of conflict, worked with international aid groups, helped establish a university and has street credibility.
MENKHAUS: I think he's an excellent investment in the international community. Now, the reputation of the government that he presides over is still that it is very weak, and we have to be frank about that. It does not control much territory at all. It has very limited functionality.
KELEMEN: And Menkhaus says the president will need financial assistance just to pay salaries of security forces who are still battling an al-Qaida-linked group known as the Al-Shabaab. U.S. officials say Somali and African peacekeeping forces have broken the back of that rebel group. Menkhaus says Al-Shabaab is weaker but can still do a lot of mischief. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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That three-day retreat of Republican House members is under way right now at a resort on the outskirts of Williamsburg, Virginia.
NPR congressional correspondent David Welna is there too. He's spoken with a number of GOP leaders and other members this afternoon. Hey there, David.
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: Hi, Audie.
CORNISH: So, to start, what is the mood there? I mean, we're just a few days ahead of President Obama's inauguration.
WELNA: Yes, that's right. I'd say the mood is edgy. I think House Republican leadership is being very cautious about showing any signs of disunity here. And one of the best ways of doing that is keeping us reporters here at more than arm's length. We're actually corralled here in a separate building from where they're meeting.
That said, it's clear these are turbulent times for House Republicans. We saw speaker John Boehner humiliated last month when he couldn't get enough Republicans to back his proposal for extending the Bush tax cuts for income under a million dollars. And then Boehner had to rely on the votes of most House Democrats to get most of those tax cuts extended. And this week, he once again needed the votes of Democrats to get a relief package approved for victims of Superstorm Sandy.
Boehner did get re-elected as speaker, but there was a small insurrection of House Republicans in the process of that. But, you know, the kind of cockiness that you saw two years ago when Republicans first took back control of the House is gone now. And in its place, I think, are a lot of doubts about just where this unruly caucus is headed.
CORNISH: And so, as they huddle, are they doing so under some big theme...
(LAUGHTER)
CORNISH: ...of this retreat?
WELNA: Well, this retreat is almost entirely about the leadership trying to get House Republicans on to the same page when it comes to the three big showdowns that are now looming: the debt ceiling that needs to be raised probably by mid-February; the more than $100 billion in automatic across-the-board spending cuts known as the sequester, which kicks in March 1st; and the expiration of government funding in late March, which could lead to a government shutdown if it's not worked out by then.
Right now, it appears House Republicans are sort of backing away from pushing the nation into default over the debt ceiling deadline. I think many of them felt their party paid a big price at the polls for the last debt ceiling showdown in August of 2011 when U.S. debt was downgraded for the first time.
I spoke this afternoon with a Tea Party-backed Republican, John Fleming of Louisiana. And he told me the thinking now is that the debt ceiling should be raised at least in the short term.
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN FLEMING: We're talking about as little as three months, and it could be longer, but three months - three, six months, depending.
WELNA: Depending, he added, on how many cuts in spending Democrats agree to. Republicans still want a dollar in cuts for every dollar the debt ceiling is raised.
CORNISH: And as Tamara just mentioned, several prominent House Republicans have been talking about prioritizing obligations the treasury would honor if the debt ceiling is not raised. What's happened to that talk?
WELNA: Well, we're still hearing some of that talk. Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan spoke with some of us this afternoon. And he said he thought that the Obama administration should prioritize payments. And he'd like Congress to lay out just what those priorities should be. But while all this is still being debated here and nothing is really resolved, there does seem to be a consensus emerging that a debt ceiling fight is a loser for Republicans.
Here's Tea Party-backed Louisiana Republican John Fleming again.
FLEMING: Are we going to let the debt ceiling hit and close down government and checks don't go out? No, that's not going to happen. But where we have the real - I mean, think about it, the sequestration. Those cuts are going to go into effect by law. And it's going to hit a lot of programs that Obama favors. And even though we don't want defense to be cut, we just may have to hang tough.
WELNA: Republicans think they have the upper hand when it comes to the sequester. They compare that to President Obama having had the upper hand when it came to the expiring Bush tax cuts.
CORNISH: And just a little time left, David. But are Republicans talking about appealing to different voter groups, groups that went to President Obama last time around?
WELNA: Yes, women and minorities to be specific. Yeah, a discussion is planned here tomorrow morning that's being called Successful Communication with Minorities and Women. On it are three Hispanic women, but there are also three white male lawmakers.
And maybe even more curious is the fact that this discussion is taking place in a room at this resort that's called the Burwell Plantation. It's named after a plantation owned by a former British slaveholder who relocated from the North to the South, sort of a story of what's happened with the Republican Party.
CORNISH: NPR's David Welna reporting from the House Republican retreat near Williamsburg, Virginia. David, thank you.
WELNA: You're welcome, Audie.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Her real name was Pauline Friedman Phillips, and she was one of the most widely read advice columnists in the world. You probably recognize her as Dear Abby.
Phillips died yesterday at a hospital in Minneapolis. She was 94 and had struggled for many years with Alzheimer's.
NPR's Neda Ulaby has this remembrance.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: She picked her nom de advice, Abigail Van Buren, after President Martin Van Buren and Abigail after the biblical figure who gives advice to King David. It's likely David shared few of the concerns of her readers, like one she discussed on MORNING EDITION with musical accompaniment back in 1981.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
ULABY: At their peak, Dear Abby and her advice columnist sister Ann Landers appeared in over 2,000 newspapers around the country. For many, "Dear Abby" was the very first part of the paper they read or the very last, like a treat.
Advice Columnist Amy Dickenson took over Ann Landers' syndicated column, but she grew up reading "Dear Abby's."
AMY DICKENSON: I think reading "Dear Abby" made me, you know, smart enough to do this job.
ULABY: Dickenson says the women known as Dear Abby and Ann Landers were twin sisters born in Sioux City, Iowa. They went to the same college, both worked on the school weekly and even had a double wedding and a double honeymoon. Things went south when they both decided to become advice columnists.
DICKENSON: And this created a very famous feud, you know, between the sisters where they didn't speak for many years because they were competitors.
ULABY: Dear Abby started writing her column in 1956 for the San Francisco Chronicle, just a few months after her sister started at the Chicago Sun Times. She blended common sense and Midwestern relatability. At her peak, she got over 12,000 letters a day and employed a staff of eight. And she said over three decades of column writing some of her views evolved.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
ULABY: That's Abigail Van Buren on NPR 31 years ago.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
ULABY: Van Buren also was an early advocate for gay and lesbian readers, says Amy Dickenson.
DICKENSON: This is a big part of her legacy. She said every time I mention gays in my advice column, I get lambasted, but I don't care.
ULABY: Over the years, Abigail Van Buren would also change her mind about divorce, and she answered questions about everything from teenage girls wanting to pierce their ears to pornography. She guided readers through the social tumult of the 1960s and '70s and sometimes personally called people asking her advice. She and her sister eventually reconciled. In 2000, her daughter officially took over her column. Oh, and remember that confidential inquiry about sex after 50? Dear Abby got a range of responses, but this is the one she liked best.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
ULABY: It was this kind of sensibility, says Amy Dickenson, that made "Dear Abby" such a joy to read.
DICKENSON: She was really good with the snappy one-liner. If you did something well, you were a smart cookie.
ULABY: Confidential to listeners:
DICKENSON: She was one smart cookie.
ULABY: Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: Last night, a confession that surprised few finally came.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "OPRAH'S NEXT CHAPTER")
HOST: That's Lance Armstrong with Oprah Winfrey during the primetime special. Armstrong admitted that the allegations he aggressively fought against for over a decade were true. The now-disgraced, seven-time Tour de France winner acknowledged that he has both disappointed and angered many, many people.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "OPRAH'S NEXT CHAPTER")
HOST: Some of those people are on the staff of Livestrong. That's the cancer foundation started by Armstrong, who survived testicular cancer. Livestrong CEO Doug Ulman joins us once again. And first, I'm curious, do you feel betrayed?
DOUG ULMAN: You know, Robert, I am at a place now where, as hard as it was to watch last night and as hard as it was to see Lance come to the foundation earlier this week, I'm at a place where I have accepted his apology to the team here. And in order for us to further our mission and continue to move forward, that was a necessary step.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
But you seem to face a problem here. The foundation obviously benefited from the very positive image of Lance Armstrong some years ago. Now that that image is, to put it mildly, tarnished and quite negative, doesn't that have consequences for the foundation as well?
ULMAN: Well, you know, as you well know, we as an organization have been sort of operating with this cloud, so to speak, for several years. You know, Lance obviously founded the organization. And his story, his cancer journey, resonated with millions of people. And the Livestrong Foundation and Livestrong Movement is now at a point where it is moved beyond any one individual, and it's about literally millions of people who, unfortunately, are facing or have faced this illness themselves.
SIEGEL: Just this week, the Major League Soccer franchise in Kansas City, Sporting Kansas City, ended its contract with you, removing the name Livestrong from its stadium. That suggests the team believe that the taint of this scandal outweighs the good that would be associated with it. Are you concerned that they're not the only people who hold that belief now?
ULMAN: Well, obviously, given the attention, you know, I think there will be some who question the relationship with the organization. I mean, we have to be realistic about the challenges that we will face. And yet at the same time, this week, we had a recommitment from our great partners at Nike. And so on the surface there might be some negative news or connotations. Ultimately, I think, there's a lot of opportunity ahead.
SIEGEL: You spoke with my colleague, Melissa Block, on this program back in October. And you said that in all your time running the foundation, you never asked Armstrong whether he took performance-enhancing drugs. Do you now regret never having asked him that?
ULMAN: You know, I don't know, Robert. I thought a lot about that, and that's a difficult question. But I didn't come to Austin, Texas, or to this organization because of cycling. I'm not a cyclist. But it just didn't have a bearing on the day-to-day work of the organization until more recently.
SIEGEL: But didn't it have a bearing on it in the sense that if much of this was true that was being said about him, that Livestrong - Armstrong and, perhaps, Livestrong with it were riding for a fall and that there could be disastrous consequences for the institution?
ULMAN: You know, I think that was raised on occasion externally. But we operate at such a start-up environment, and we were growing so fast, and we were pursuing so many opportunities, and we were just busy fulfilling our mission. And it just didn't cross my mind that that was something that truly impacted the work of the organization.
SIEGEL: As you know, there's another night of Oprah Winfrey and Lance Armstrong. First of all, are you going to watch and are you concerned that there might be still more cause for upset, anger, or a sense of betrayal in what you hear?
ULMAN: Well, I'll definitely watch because it's important to me and to the organization. And I think it's going to take a while for people of all walks of life to process this. But ultimately, come Tuesday, this foundation is going to be, again, 100 percent focused on fulfilling our mission of serving those with cancer.
SIEGEL: Mr. Ulman, thanks a lot for talking with us today.
ULMAN: Thank you so much.
SIEGEL: That's Doug Ulman, the CEO of Livestrong, the foundation created by Lance Armstrong, speaking with us about Armstrong's admissions to Oprah Winfrey this week.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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A team of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency - the IAEA - has completed two days of talks in Tehran. But they did not get to visit a site that might have revealed whether Iran plans to build a nuclear bomb. It's just the latest complication in the conflict over Iran's nuclear ambitions. More talks are scheduled, but NPR's Tom Gjelten says 2013 is likely to be the year the U.S. decides whether to go to war with Iran.
TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: For more than five years now, U.S. intelligence agencies have said they don't know whether Iran wants to develop a nuclear weapon. President Obama has promised he won't allow it. The implied threat is that he's prepared to order military strikes to block Iran from building a bomb. And the president should know the moment Iran makes that move. The sign would be when it starts enriching uranium to the level of purity necessary for a bomb. So far, Iran has not crossed that line. David Albright is a nuclear ex pert who has worked with the IAEA.
DAVID ALBRIGHT: It's the time once they decide, OK, we're going to start making weapon grade uranium, before they have enough for a bomb. Even when you have 13,000 centrifuges, it just takes time to make that material. We think the president would know in time to take military action.
GJELTEN: But that's based on the inspectors' view of the situation now. There's concern that Iran has a secret underground facility where additional enrichment may take place. Plus, the Iranians are building more and more centrifuges; those are the machines used to enrich uranium. It wouldn't take the Iranians as much time now to produce enough material for a bomb as it would have taken them a year or two ago.
ALBRIGHT: There's worry that Iran will reach a point of capability, and we would estimate mid-2014 right now, that they will be able to break out so quickly that the IAEA may not be able to sound a warning in time to take preventive action.
GJELTEN: If that timeline is right, the United States and its allies have only about a year and a half before they'll have no opportunity to block Iran from building a bomb, should it decide to do so. The hope is that in the meantime a deal can be struck, that the pain of sanctions will induce the Iranians to suspend some of their enrichment activity. They've already purified some uranium to the 20 percent level - unacceptable, in the Western view. Reza Marashi, research director at the National Iranian American council, says a deal should be possible.
REZA MARASHI: Whether it's enriching to the 20 percent level, their underground nuclear facility, those things can all be negotiated, but for the right price.
GJELTEN: An end to sanctions, perhaps. But negotiations take trust. Marashi says Iranians fear that U.S. hard-liners don't actually want a deal, that they see the current government in Tehran as a repressive regime and want it overthrown.
MARASHI: That's the overarching concern of the Iranian government, that the policy of the United States is regime change. There are key officials in the regime that have thought since day one after the 1979 revolution. So, disproving that theory in their mind is a Herculean task.
GJELTEN: If the Iranians think the United States is just out to smash their government, they have little reason to give up the option of building a nuclear weapon and negotiate. David Albright says the United States and Western governments need to make clear their goal is not regime change.
ALBRIGHT: The threat of military strikes is that if you build the bomb you will get struck militarily, not if you have 10,000 more centrifuges, or we don't like what you've just done to part of your population.
GJELTEN: There wasn't much progress on negotiations during the U.S. presidential campaign, when President Obama had to worry about not appearing tough. And in June, Iran is set to have a presidential election of its own. Politics, says Reza Marashi, has a way of interfering.
MARASHI: When you have over three decades of not talking, when you have over three decades of politicians in both Washington and Tehran making careers out of proving how nasty they can be to the other side, it gets very difficult for leaders, both in a democracy like ours and in an authoritarian regime like theirs, to be willing to take risks for peace. It's much easier to escalate the conflict.
GJELTEN: What's worrisome, Marashi says, is that both sides are now running out of escalation options and they're running out of time. Tom Gjelten, NPR News, Washington.
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If you live along the East Coast, there's a pretty good chance that there's something lurking in your attic or behind your curtains. I'm talking about stink bugs - invasive insects from Asia that smell terrible when you crush them. They're a nuisance for many of us but they're a serious pest for farmers. And while farmers got a reprieve from the bugs last year, reporter Sabri Ben-Achour of member station WAMU reports that this year could get ugly.
SABRI BEN-ACHOUR, BYLINE: A year and a half ago when I talked to Bob Black, he was not in a good place.
BOB BLACK: This thing is going to put a big chapter in my book of life. I've never had anything affect me like this.
BEN-ACHOUR: Black runs Catoctin Mountain Orchards in Thurmont, Maryland, and like farmers across the region, he was being assaulted by brown marmorated stinkbugs. They disfigure all kinds of crops, ranging from corn to peaches. One year, they got Black's apples pretty bad.
BLACK: One of our late varieties, Pink Lady, which a lot of people like - that's the latest apple - we had up to 50 percent damage on that.
BEN-ACHOUR: Fast forward to this past year and things were better but...
BLACK: Unfortunately, they're still around here. And we do have some damage again but nothing like the 2010, which I never want to go through that again.
BEN-ACHOUR: Stink bug attacks can be impossible to predict. They can come out of nowhere, because they can live just about anywhere - a wheat field, a patch of woods. Overall, though, 2012 wasn't so bad. There are two reasons for that. One, an early spring gave crops a head start against the bugs. And, two, a bunch of the bugs died in 2011. Chris Bergh is an entomologist at Virginia Tech.
CHRIS BERGH: For some reason that we don't fully understand, there was high nymphal mortality in the fall of 2011. So that translated into fewer adult bugs in spring 2012.
BEN-ACHOUR: That's little comfort, though, because like he said nobody's entirely sure why they all died. And besides, they're back. Tracy Leskey is an entomologist with the U.S. Agricultural Research Service.
TRACY LESKEY: What was interesting was those populations have essentially recovered and we're seeing populations that are about six times larger than they were the previous year.
BEN-ACHOUR: They're hibernating now - in barns and fields and people's attics. When they emerge this spring, farmers will have a few weapons ready - new pheromone traps to give an early warning and some pesticides the EPA's approved on an emergency basis. Researchers are still considering bringing in the bug's natural parasites over from China. But until a more permanent solution is found, farmers will be keeping their eyes on their fields, and their spray tanks full. For NPR News, I'm Sabri Ben-Achour.
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New York became the first state in the nation to pass tough new gun control laws earlier this week. Governor Andrew Cuomo convinced his state legislature to act even before President Obama unveiled his own gun control plan. This isn't the only time the first-term governor has pulled off a major legislative victory. In 2011, New York approved gay marriage. Karen DeWitt of New York State Public Radio takes a closer look now at how the new gun bill came together.
KAREN DEWITT, BYLINE: On the first day of the 2013 legislative session, Governor Andrew Cuomo gave an impassioned State of the State address. The governor, who owns a hunting rifle, exhorted the legislature to act quickly.
GOVERNOR ANDREW CUOMO: No one hunts with an assault rifle. No one needs 10 bullets to kill a deer.
DEWITT: Less than a week later, Cuomo was signing the bill into law, calling it commonsense.
CUOMO: We understand. No one else has to die. No more innocent loss of life.
DEWITT: Cuomo has translated his consistently high popularity ratings into political capital to achieve big changes in a state government that not very many years ago was dubbed the most dysfunctional in the nation.
STEVE GREENBERG: Steve Greenberg is with Siena College, which conducted a poll that found the majority of New Yorkers, Democrats and Republicans back the stronger assault weapons ban.
This governor has demonstrated that he knows how to use the carrot-and-stick approach to governing and to getting the legislature to do what he wants to do, and that's why he'd been so successful in his first two years in office.
DEWITT: Other observers say there's another reason: driving ambition. Cuomo wanted to be first. Fred LeBrun is a longtime writer with the Albany Times Union, who describes himself as a gun-owning liberal Democrat. He says New York's previous laws were sufficient.
FRED LEBRUN: We already have an assault weapons ban. We're already down to the 10 rounds that the president is seeking to get for the rest of the country. We already have these things. Why do we need to do better than that? Only because the governor, driven by his own ambitions on the national scene, is saying: I want to be fastest and bestest and make everybody look at me, look at me.
DEWITT: LeBrun says Cuomo had a head start in trying to understand the byzantine Albany culture. He's the son of former New York governor and Democratic icon Mario Cuomo. Andrew Cuomo managed his father's campaign, and just out of law school, he served as a dollar-a-year top adviser during Mario Cuomo's early time in office.
LEBRUN: He was not the most pleasant person, but then again, no one should be held accountable for the way they are in their 20s. But he was forming himself, and he was difficult to deal with. He could be nasty and aggressive, but he got things done.
DEWITT: When Cuomo finally became governor himself, he was uniquely prepared to exploit weaknesses in New York's waning Republican Party. He agreed to let the GOP have some provisions in the bill that they could take credit for. Senate Republican leader Dean Skelos touted the stiffer penalties for use of illegal guns.
STATE SENATOR DEAN SKELOS: This is going to go after those who are bringing illegal guns into the state, who are slaughtering people in New York City in particular.
DEWITT: But conservative Senator Greg Ball expressed some bitterness.
STATE SENATOR GREG BALL: We haven't saved any lives tonight, except for one: the political life of a governor who wants to be president.
DEWITT: But Cuomo says he's focusing for now on being the best governor he can be. But should he seek higher office, he might find that what plays in New York might be harder to sell to the rest of the nation.
For NPR News, I'm Karen DeWitt in Albany.
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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And I'm Robert Siegel. Lance Armstrong's televised interview with Oprah Winfrey made for must-see TV last night. After years of denials, the now disgraced cyclist admitted doping throughout much of his career. As Zoe Chace from NPR's Planet Money reports, his confession won't simply hurt his already tarnished reputation, it could also end up costing him tens of millions of dollars.
ZOE CHACE, BYLINE: For all the lawyers watching last night, and there were lots of lawyers watching, this was the moment.
(SOUNDBITE OF TELEVISION INTERVIEW)
DANIEL COYLE: There's a price tag to this confession. I think Armstrong's lawyers are keenly aware of exactly what that price tag is because you can figure it out.
CHACE: Daniel Coyle says there are lots of different kinds of people who could stand to make money here. He's been writing about Lance Armstrong for years. One of those with the biggest claim, he says, is the company called SCA.
COYLE: You've got about $12 million going to the SCA, a company that underwrote a bunch of Lance's bonuses.
CHACE: This gets complicated, but there was a company who had to pay out what amounts to insurance every time Armstrong won the Tour de France.
JEFF DOROUGH: By the 2004 Tour de France, we had already paid him, let's see, I want to say 4.5 million.
CHACE: 4.5 million they wouldn't have had to pay if he hadn't won. That's SCA lawyer Jeff Dorough. And now that he's been stripped of his titles, he hasn't won after all and they want their money back. SCA had this lawsuit all prepared and then they heard about Oprah.
DOROUGH: With news that he was going to do this interview kind of put things on hold.
CHACE: They watched, watching for specific phrases that would make their case even tighter. For example...
: I doped.
CHACE: Check. The SCA lawyer would also be looking for another phrase.
: I hid that fact.
CHACE: This could show fraudulent concealment.
: There wasn't that much out of competition testing, so you're not going to get caught.
CHACE: So check, but there was something else.
DOROUGH: I think we're also interested in who else he might implicate. You know, we feel like anybody who was involved in this conspiracy to defraud our company would be fair game.
CHACE: That one, no dice, at least not last night.
: I'm not comfortable talking about other people. I'm not. And it's all out there.
CHACE: But SCA is filing suit very soon. Another group that was probably watching, lawyers for the government. The U.S. Postal Service, remember, spent around $30 million sponsoring Lance Armstrong's team. Rick Morgan is a lawyer who specializes in government fraud cases.
RICK MORGAN: The money that was paid was paid under false pretences and in violation of the contract and so, that times three would be recoverable under the law.
CHACE: Potentially, $90 million at stake. The third group that's watching very carefully, people sued by Lance Armstrong. Remember, during the years when the allegations were swirling, many people came forward to say, yes, he was doping. In many cases, Armstrong would sue or threaten legal action. In one case, he actually won damages from a newspaper for printing what he now admits is the truth.
(SOUNDBITE OF TELEVISION INTERVIEW)
CHACE: A character flaw and a legal blunder. So far, at least one target of Armstrong's legal bullying is planning to sue him back, the Sunday Times of London. That could cost Armstrong a million-five. Others may follow. Forbes has estimated Armstrong's net worth at around $100 million. After Oprah, they have some recalculating to do. Zoe Chace, NPR News.
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And I'm Audie Cornish. We are three days from the presidential inauguration, an event defined by sweeping imagery that includes the National Mall full of cheering Americans, a grandiose platform in front of the Capitol building, the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue. And at the center of it all, a speech, President Obama's second inaugural address. NPR's Ari Shapiro has been talking to former White House speechwriters about the challenge of crafting a speech for this moment.
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: The last time Barack Obama gave an inaugural address, millions of joyous people tuned in around the world, ready to be inspired by a man who rose to prominence on the incredible power of his words. The president knew that the American economy was teetering on the brink of disaster. And four years later, the verdict on that address is pretty unanimous from former White House speechwriters of both parties.
MARY KATE CARY: I think most people would have a hard time quoting you a line back from it.
JEFF SHESOL: There really aren't very many lines in President Obama's first inaugural address that stood out even in the moment.
CARY: It just seems like there were a lot of platitudes.
JOHN MCCONNELL: You know, I had to go back and look at Obama's inaugural address to really remember lines that I had, at the time, paused over. It didn't have (unintelligible) idea. It didn't have a clear theme.
MICHAEL WALDMAN: There's the old adage, you only get once chance to make a first impression. And I think President Obama might hope that's not true.
SHAPIRO: That's George H.W. Bush speechwriter Mary Kate Cary, Clinton's speechwriter Jeff Shesol, George W. Bush speechwriter John McConnell and Clinton speechwriter Michael Waldman. They all know firsthand that one of the toughest speeches to write for any president is also one of the most high-profile addresses he'll give. They generally agree that the closest thing President Obama had to a standout line four years ago was not even an original.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: In the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things.
SHAPIRO: The blandness of the president's first inaugural reminds Mary Kate Cary of the game speechwriters sometimes play, inspired by wine drinkers who cover a label and try to guess the grape by its taste.
CARY: They take a sip of the wine and they could say, that's a 2009 Pinot from Napa Valley, right. So I'll take a speech and put my hand over the top of the speech. And if I can reach the speech and say, this was Barack Obama, inaugural address 2009, Washington, D.C. then I know it's a well-written speech.
SHAPIRO: By that test the president fumbled on his first go round. And Clinton speechwriter Waldman says his challenge this time is even greater.
WALDMAN: First inaugurals often mark a change. They're easier to write and easier to give. It's harder to give a good second inaugural because, in fact, there's continuity.
SHAPIRO: People have been listening to this president talk for years. It's hard to come up with something new to say. And many of the crutches that speechwriters often turn to are off limits in an inaugural address. Jokes are no-no. Statistics don't belong there. Quotes by the likes of Mark Twain and Yogi Berra are out of place. Most importantly, says Clinton speechwriter Shesol, inaugural addresses should look relentlessly forward.
SHESOL: More than probably in any other speech a president will give, people want the vision. They want to know where we're headed and what it looks like when we get there.
SHAPIRO: Vision, yes, but policy, no. Save the laundry list for the State of the Union next month, says Bush speechwriter McConnell.
MCCONNELL: Look, President Obama is going to make more news in his next press conference than he's going to with his second inaugural address. It's just the nature of things.
SHAPIRO: So what does that leave? A very high bar, for one. All of these speechwriters agree that the key to cracking an inaugural address is to remember that this is the opposite of a campaign speech. It's the democratic equivalent of a coronation.
MCCONNELL: An inauguration is not a political event. It is an official event.
SHAPIRO: This is a moment when the country wants to feel unified, even if the country is divided by bitter partisanship. Clinton speechwriter Shesol says, on Monday, President Obama must acknowledge both realities.
SHESOL: He's got to be inclusive in his rhetoric and not divisive, and I'm sure he will. But he's also got to seem realistic and not naive. And that's a difficult balancing act to pull off.
SHAPIRO: White House Press Secretary Jay Carney refused to preview Monday's address, but he said the president generally writes his speeches in longhand on a yellow pad, quote, "and I've seen some yellow pads filled with writing of late." Ari Shapiro, NPR News, the White House.
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Four years ago, a group of people known for being irreverent created some unusually reverent drawings. Editorial cartoonists, the jokes and critiques on hold as they mark the inauguration of the first African-American president. Now, four years later, those same cartoonists are figuring out how to depict Barack Obama's second inauguration. And we asked two of them to join us. Matt Wuerker is editorial cartoonist for Politico, and he's the 2012 recipient of the Pulitzer Prize. Matt, welcome.
MATT WUERKER: Hi.
CORNISH: And Scott Stantis comes to us from the president's adopted hometown, Chicago, where he is editorial cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune. Hi there, Scott.
SCOTT STANTIS: Hey. Thanks for having me.
CORNISH: So to start, I'm going to ask you both to describe your drawings from four years ago. And, Scott, starting with you, you described yourself as a conservative, not exactly an Obama supporter, but you did draw a cartoon - I have the image here - that is honoring the moment. Describe it to me.
STANTIS: Well, I think there are times in our history where we can just take half a step back from our partisanship and revel in the history and the wonder of something. And this was a cartoon - I actually drawn for USA Today. And it's Uncle Sam looking at a big screen TV, and there is President Obama being sworn in, and Uncle Sam is simply saying wow.
CORNISH: And he has his hat off, and the drawing is still pretty, you know, it's still kind of a caricature image of President Obama.
STANTIS: Yeah. That...
CORNISH: The ears are very prominent.
(LAUGHTER)
STANTIS: That's as close as I can come to reverence. I'm sorry. It comes with the territory.
CORNISH: And, Matt, for you, you drew something that is sort of, in a way, depicting the inaugural scene outside the Capitol.
WUERKER: Yes. It's the swearing-in, and it was, again, sort of, you know, it was a very epic moment. I think it's interesting how quickly we moved on from it. But I depicted the swearing-in, and Obama is standing there on the platform and is a cutaway, and you can see inside the platform. And he's literally standing on the shoulders of MLK, the civil rights workers, Abraham Lincoln, abolitionists and all of the people who sort of led to that historic moment.
CORNISH: Though as you kind of look back on your art from that period, what most strikes you about the evolution of the Obama image because his image was such a big part of the pop culture feeling around him? I mean, Matt, what's different this time around?
WUERKER: Oh, boy, it's so entirely different. I mean, four years ago, I think the country was sort of stunned. We are coming out, frankly, from eight years of Bush-Cheney. You know, we forget. The economy was cratering. It was a moment where I think that everybody was really suddenly embracing this moment of idealism. And I think four years later, so much of that is gone for different reasons. And there's just this drumbeat of hysteria, and I think that politically it boxes Obama in, in a way.
CORNISH: But at the same time, if you look at this - and I don't know. Scott, if you want to jump in here, you know...
STANTIS: Sure.
CORNISH: ...the Obama campaign courted this. You know, there was Obama kind of iconography.
WUERKER: Oh, yeah.
CORNISH: There's lots of images and the art of Obama and the pop stars and...
STANTIS: Well, the first...
CORNISH: ...there was a lot of...
STANTIS: He has a logo.
CORNISH: Right. Exactly.
(LAUGHTER)
STANTIS: He has a logo, a registered trademark. What I find interesting, as a cartoonist, is the evolution or lack thereof of his images over the last four years. I mean, you look at four years of, well, Jimmy Carter would be one example, where he, you know, was diminished to about - he was standing like three and a half feet tall. You had Bill Clinton who just became this big, doughy, sort of, you know, sensualist kind of character. You had, you know Richard Nixon, of course. And you had George W. Bush devolved into, like, a demonic Keebler elf.
(LAUGHTER)
STANTIS: This caricature has not - what's interesting to me looking at my work, looking at Matt's work and looking at work of other cartoonists over the last four years, the caricature - and, Matt, tell me if you disagree with me - I don't think the caricature has changed dramatically from four years ago, has it?
WUERKER: I think it's changed a little bit. I think that one of the changes that happened in the beginning I think the first years of the administration, a lot of cartoonists were very careful about dealing with the caricature of an African-American.
STANTIS: Absolutely.
WUERKER: And it was a minefield that people were tiptoeing across in a lot of ways. And a couple of people stepped on some mines and some - one of our boneheaded brethren drew him as a monkey for Rupert Murdoch or something. And people began to have to sort of, you know, you had to deal with the legacy of some really virulent racist imagery in American cartoons going back centuries. But we got over it. And the cartoon gods work in mysterious ways, just as we're having to grapple with drawing the first black president. The cartoon gods gave us the first orange house speaker so...
(LAUGHTER)
WUERKER: And so...
CORNISH: I'm sure John Boehner would quibble with that description.
(LAUGHTER)
WUERKER: Well - but it was suddenly, you know, it was like, OK, we're drawing people of color here, so this is fun and...
(LAUGHTER)
WUERKER: ...everyone has been having a good time, and I think actually there's this evolution in the Obama caricature that I think is all perfectly healthy and gets back to the significance of the second inaugural in some ways. And what was extraordinary four years ago is ordinary, and I think that the caricature has actually sort of evolved. And Obama is now just another goofy guy that we get to have fun with and, you know, play with his big smile and make his ears bigger and all that kind of stuff.
CORNISH: Yeah. I have to say the ears on Scott's alone in each of his drawings...
(LAUGHTER)
CORNISH: ...the ears are a little bit bigger. I'm looking at one where in your art, Scott, it's Obama smoking like four, five cigarettes at once, and he's holding a box of cigarettes that says unfiltered spending, and he thinks to himself I can't seem to quit. But his ears...
(LAUGHTER)
CORNISH: ...take up I think fully 40 percent of his head in this picture.
(LAUGHTER)
STANTIS: Well, you know, here's the thing. Here's - let me give you a quick...
(LAUGHTER)
STANTIS: ...a quick lesson on caricature is what human beings find attractive in each other and this crosses ethnic lines, preference - sexual preference lines, all lines is that we like symmetry. And the fact of the matter is this president is actually a pretty good-looking fellow, except for those big jug handles on either side of his head. And so I can talk to grade schools. I could talk to colleges or rotary clubs. I draw just an outline of his head and if you put those ears on, instantaneously, people know who he is. So, of course, yeah, we're going to jump all over that.
WUERKER: I think that cartoonists have gotten lazy, too, because I mean, in all fairness or in our defense a little bit, I mean, we did the same thing to George W. Bush. I mean, by the end of his administration, he was just Dumbo.
(LAUGHTER)
WUERKER: I mean, his ears were just immense.
CORNISH: Now, going into the inauguration then, can you guys give us a preview of what you're thinking of drawing? I know actually on the way in here, Matt, you were doing some sketching in the studio.
WUERKER: I'm still flummoxed. I don't quite know what to do. I'm playing with an idea of everybody on the inaugural standing extremely well-armed with assault rifles and whatnot, and it's something about the way the NRA would like to see the inauguration. But my wife actually had a good idea. I should probably do something ripping off of - remember Aretha's hat at the last inauguration?
CORNISH: Yes, yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
WUERKER: I think that there's something about inaugural bonnets out there that would be really fun to do, but I've got to figure that out this afternoon.
CORNISH: And, Scott, for you?
STANTIS: Oh, my gosh, it's not 20 minutes before deadline, so I really don't have anything solid.
(LAUGHTER)
STANTIS: But I would go, you know, some of the stuff - I love drawing critters. I mean - so - and just innocuous, almost non sequitur, so I would have like a rhinoceros or a hippopotamus, and, you know, it could be - I think he is still facing - frankly, still facing the same issues he did four years ago. Unemployment is still unacceptably high even though it's going down slightly. We've got debt. We've got war. We've got Guantanamo. We've got civil liberties. We've got all those things, and they were, you know, I'd love having them in the stands, and they're saying, yeah, we're here four years ago.
(LAUGHTER)
WUERKER: That's good. I'm going to steal that.
(LAUGHTER)
WUERKER: Dang it.
(LAUGHTER)
CORNISH: Well, Scott Stantis, thank you so much for speaking with me.
STANTIS: Well, thanks for having me.
CORNISH: And, Matt Wuerker, thank you for coming in to talk to us.
WUERKER: Thanks, Audie.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CORNISH: Editorial cartoonists Matt Wuerker of Politico and Scott Stantis of the Chicago Tribune. You can see drawings by both of them at npr.org, including their cartoons from the inauguration four years ago.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Boeing announced late today that it's postponing deliveries of its new 787 Dreamliner because of problems with the aircraft's big batteries. Aviation authorities in the U.S. and abroad grounded the new plane this week after those batteries failed, possibly overheating, on two planes operated by Japanese airlines. One battery burned while the plane was on the ground. These lithium-ion batteries are new to jetliners.
As NPR's Christopher Joyce reports, they are powerful, lightweight and fragile.
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE, BYLINE: Lithium-ion batteries are all around us.
VINCE BATTAGLIA: Everyone's carrying a lithium ion battery in their pocket today and there's not a big issue.
JOYCE: Vince Battaglia is a chemical engineer at Lawrence Berkeley Lab in California. The batteries are in cell phones, laptops, cameras. They produce twice the voltage traditional batteries do. And when they go bad, that power turns into heat. Battaglia says this is not a big issue because the batteries usually are smaller than your pinkie.
BATTAGLIA: The energy is small. It's easy to get the heat out of that little battery.
JOYCE: A small battery loses its heat quickly. But if you supersize that battery, up to, say, the size of a big suitcase...
BATTAGLIA: When you go to these bigger cells, you've got all the heat in one cell. You've got to get it out.
JOYCE: You do that with fans or circulating a coolant around the battery. That works fine so long as the battery is intact. But chemical engineers know that lithium-ion batteries have an Achilles' heel. Well, more like an Achilles' ankle than heel, two weak spots. One is the fluid inside the battery called the electrolyte. Positive and negative ions flow back and forth through the electrolyte, creating electricity. In normal batteries, the electrolyte is an acidic water. In lithium-ion batteries, it's a flammable organic compound. Donald Sadoway is an engineer with MIT.
DONALD SADOWAY: And so if you do get up to temperature, you've got fuel there. It'll burn.
JOYCE: And you can get high temperature because of the second weakness. It's a thin membrane inside the battery. It regulates the flow of ions in that electrolyte fluid. But if that membrane breaks, the fluid heats up.
SADOWAY: You breach that membrane and now you've got two compounds that want to react with each other violently, and there's nothing to prevent them from doing so.
JOYCE: If it gets hot enough, the electrolyte fluid vaporizes and escapes. Think of that brandy you pour into a hot skillet and light up for a little flambe. Laptop batteries sometimes burn like this. And one of Chevrolet's Volt electric cars did. After a controlled crash test, the battery's electrolyte got loose and burned the car to a crisp. Berkeley's Vince Battaglia says these batteries are pretty delicate. He says he'd drive a car with a lithium-ion battery, but he worries about what happens when the internal membrane gets damaged.
BATTAGLIA: If I got in an accident, I wouldn't take it into my garage and plug it in.
JOYCE: But Sadoway at MIT says these batteries certainly can be used safely.
SADOWAY: You know, we know what the possible failure modes are, and they are defendable. You can make these lithium-ion batteries absolutely bulletproof, safe and everything else. But, you know, the question is what's your price point?
JOYCE: That price point may be too high for the auto industry. John Hanson, Toyota's environment and safety manager, says the company uses them in its all-electric vehicles and trusts them. But Toyota is looking for alternatives.
JOHN HANSON: The only thing that we have against lithium is that in order to go to the next step in developing vehicles that the mass market will buy, they have to be less expensive and they have to deliver more range. And we can't get that from lithium.
JOYCE: Their future in airplanes, however, likely hangs on what engineers learn from the two incidents on the Dreamliner. Christopher Joyce, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
This is NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And I'm Robert Siegel. A congressional showdown over the nation's debt limit may not happen as soon as expected. That's because House Republican leaders announced today that they are taking up legislation next week to extend the Treasury's borrowing limit for three more months. The surprise move comes at the end of the two-day House GOP retreat at a resort outside colonial Williamsburg in Virginia. NPR congressional correspondent David Welna is there and joins us now.
And David, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner said the Treasury could run out of ways to pay the bills by mid-February unless the debt ceiling is raised. What does this extension, assuming it happens, what does it mean for that deadline and why the sudden turn from Republicans who seemed eager for a fight over the debt limit?
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: Well, Robert, it would do away with that deadline, assuming such a measure does get passed by both chambers of Congress and signed into law by President Obama. If that happens, the big showdown over longer term raising of the debt ceiling, say, another two years, would be put off until April. I think what we're seeing here is a kind of a political blink, a recognition by House Republicans that while they may want a lot of concessions from Democrats, such as big spending cuts and entitlement reforms in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, they're not in a very good political position to get those concessions at a time when Democrats have just expanded their numbers in both the House and Senate and President Obama's won a second term.
I also think just not that many Republicans have the stomach to see what might happen should the country actually go into default. Republicans have already taken the blame for the debt ratings downgrade in the last debt ceiling debacle.
SIEGEL: Well, the last time that we had a showdown over the debt ceiling, it was August, 2011, and the Republicans were talking about a dollar for dollar - every dollar the debt ceiling was raised, a dollar's worth of spending had to be cut. Are they making the same kinds of demand for this short term extension?
WELNA: Not for this three month extension and that won some praise today from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, but Reid can't be happy about a demand House Republicans are making for this short term measure. They're going to include language that says until the Senate passes a budget, which it hasn't done for the past three years, the paychecks of all Senators will be withheld until a budget is passed.
Don't look for a lot of votes from Senate Democrats for that one. Also, an aide to Speaker John Boehner told me today that House Republicans won't agree to a longer term increase in the debt ceiling until a budget is passed. And April 15th, the day the short-term extension would run out is the same day a budget is due by law, so I would not rule out another Donnybrook over the debt ceiling around then.
SIEGEL: Now, there's another deadline looming out there, March 1st. On that date, the massive automatic spending cuts, which were delayed just last month, are set to kick in. Also, the government will run out of funding by the end of March, risking a possible shutdown. What's the Republican thinking, pushing the debt ceiling debate to the last of these big fights instead of the first?
WELNA: Well, I think it's mainly because Republicans realize they may not get much in exchange for raising the debt ceiling and so they think that they can - they have a stronger hand to play in these other fiscal fights that you just mentioned. They think that they can get concessions from President Obama both on spending cuts and possibly on entitlement reform. And those would be trophies for them to sort of brandish. If they're forced to fold in the debt ceiling fight in April, they could say we got something, at least.
SIEGEL: Okay, thank you, David. NPR congressional correspondent, David Welna.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And we turn now to our regular Friday political commentators, E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post and Brookings Institution and David Brooks of the New York Times. Gentlemen, hello.
E.J. DIONNE: Good to be with you.
DAVID BROOKS: Good to be here.
CORNISH: So let's jump right into what David and Robert were discussing. David mentioned - described it as a political blink by the GOP. Is that an apt description?
BROOKS: I would say return to sanity, you know. And this is John Boehner's victory. There were a lot of people who thought the debt ceiling fight was the way to do it and I think Boehner's successfully persuaded them that this was the worst place to do it. They'd really be endangering the global economy and they should do it on actual budget grounds, rather than doing something that would really be ruinous.
And I do think the centerpiece for them is getting the Senate to adopt a budget. Republicans in the House are on the record, they pass budgets and they'd like the Senate to be on the record, too.
CORNISH: And, of course, they are trying to put some skin in the game with a proposal that says lawmakers won't be paid if they do not pass a budget. I wonder if that makes a difference when the median net worth of congressional lawmakers is almost a million dollars.
BROOKS: With the Obama tax increases, it's worth nothing.
CORNISH: Right, okay. But E.J.?
DIONNE: First of all, it's so astonishing to me still, let's have all these stupid artificial fights over long term deficits when millions of people still don't have jobs and that's where the focus should be. And I just wanted to start there. This is a political blink and their eyes, I think, are going to keep fluttering. They haven't - I'm sort of less optimistic than David is that this is a final victory for John Boehner.
The big showdown was put off until April 15th, tax day, but I think the Republicans are just going to have to put the debt ceiling aside all together. This time it's different because you've got Republicans finally speaking out - Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska is a good example - saying this is really crazy. Why are we doing this? Why are we endangering the full faith and credit of the U.S. and maybe tanking...
CORNISH: Well, we have another date being pushed to April. We've got these dates in March. I mean, pretty soon we're going to be up to midterm elections. I think they think they're kind taking these deadlines further and further away.
DIONNE: Right. And there's a real opportunity. Obama put some proposals on the table. They could get enough deficit reduction to keep us stable for, you know, a decade and I think we've got to stop just pretending that Washington is all about one budget deal after another.
CORNISH: I want to come back to the House Republicans in a bit, but first, something that was - the news story from earlier in the week, the announcement finally of the antigun violence policies from President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden. A little combination of things they hope Congress could pass and executive orders that the president could sign right then and there.
Given what finally came out of Vice President Biden, what do you think of the direction that this took? Stronger than you'd like to have seen, weaker than you'd like to have seen?
BROOKS: Well, for me, I thought they were pretty much good measures. You know, I think there's no cost to them. Let's put it that way. I think they may introduce some friction into the gun markets so it's harder to get them. I guess I don't hold that much hope they'll have a huge effect. We've had a whole series of gun control measures - '68, the Brady Act, the Weapons Assault Act, and not of them have really moved the needle on gun violence.
Nonetheless, the idea of having waiting lists, I think it does have some potential to control suicides. Most gun violence is suicide, not murder. A lot of it is impulsive and people who shoot themselves are much more likely to actually kill themselves than people who try to commit suicide another way.
So the idea of putting in a seven-day or some other waiting period seems to me has some potential to control the number of suicides. As for the evidence of the social science, there's really very little evidence to do much good. Nonetheless, these laws don't do any harm, so I think we should pass them.
CORNISH: And E.J., for you?
DIONNE: This was one of my favorite moments of the Obama presidency, I have to say. These are sensible proposals. I think there's a lot of evidence that some of them will do a lot of good, notably making sure everyone gets a background check. We got about 40 percent of gun sales that are out of the main system, out of license gun dealers and so I think these could have a real effect.
But what I particularly liked is President Obama didn't prenegotiate this and put together a package trying to guess what Congress would pass or try to look bipartisan. I mean, some of these ideas should be bipartisan, but he and Joe Biden just laid out there a lot of good ideas that they want to get through and we'll see what Congress will do.
And one other thing I liked, stop this ban on research into gun violence. I mean, why was the NRA so afraid of research by the Centers for Disease Control that they basically put a ban on research? At least let's try to learn more about what works.
CORNISH: And we'll see where this squeeze in in the next term agenda, which is what I want to spend the last just two minutes on. House Republicans and President Obama are going into the second term for Inauguration Day, coming up on Monday. Essentially, what is the one thing, the takeaway lesson it seems, that the House has learned from the last couple weeks, specifically Republicans, and that President Obama appears has learned from the last few weeks?
BROOKS: I think the Republicans have definitely learned that you can't get much done on your own if all you do is control the House. I think the White House has probably learned or in the process of learning is you can't get much done if you don't control the House. And so I think they both are acknowledging they're probably not going to get big things substantively done over the next couple of years, so they should work hard to win the next election. So, I think the next two years will mostly be about politics.
CORNISH: E.J., last minute to you.
DIONNE: You get a lot done in the House if a certain number of Republicans join the majority of Democrats to pass stuff. We could get a lot done. That's how they passed Sandy Aid. It only had, I think, 46 Republican votes, but most Democrats were for it. That's how we passed the deal on the debt ceiling. Eighty-five Republicans voted with most of the Democrats. So, you can get things done. And I think President Obama is finally getting out of the habit of - as he did on guns - of pre-negotiating. He's getting out there and saying, look, this is what I'd like to do, let's move forward. He's not trying to pretend that he can be the great creator of bipartisanship. It takes two to work, and in the meantime he might as well just say what he wants to do. And that could be his great strength in the second term.
CORNISH: Well, we're going to have many high-stakes negotiations over the next couple of weeks to see if these lessons actually play out. Thank you both for speaking with me.
DIONNE: Good to be with you.
BROOKS: Thank you.
CORNISH: E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post and Brookings Institution and David Brooks of the New York Times.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And I'm Audie Cornish. President Obama likes to point out he'll never run for office again. And today, his campaign announced that it's essentially morphing into a new advocacy group, called Organizing for Action. It will lease the campaign's donor files, with more than 4 million names as well as its other data-mined information on voters. As NPR's Peter Overby reports, the new effort raises serious questions about the way tax-exempt groups now work in American politics.
PETER OVERBY, BYLINE: In a video released this morning, first lady Michelle Obama laid out the mission of the new organization.
(SOUNDBITE OF ORGANIZING FOR ACTION VIDEO)
OVERBY: Leading Organizing for Action is the campaign's brain trust - campaign manager Jim Messina, chief fundraiser Julianna Smoot and consultant David Axelrod, among others. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: Axelrod is not involved with Organizing for Action.] It's set up as a 501(c)(4) social-welfare organization. The tax law says 501(c)(4)s cannot have electoral politics as their primary purpose. But besides its grassroots work, it appears that the new OFA would be well-positioned to run so-called issue ads in the midterm elections. Those ads generally don't count as expressly political - as conservative 501(c)(4)s proved last year, to the distress of the Obama campaign.
A forthcoming analysis by the Wesleyan Media Project says that one of those social-welfare groups, Crossroads GPS, was the fourth-largest TV advertiser of the election season. Groups that are seeking tighter campaign-finance laws want the IRS to investigate Crossroads GPS. This morning on Fox News, strategist Karl Rove, a co-founder of Crossroads GPS, said Organizing for Action may face scrutiny but for its issue-advocacy work.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOX NEWS BROADCAST)
KARL ROVE: This is fraught will all kinds of ethical perils.
OVERBY: But Robert Kelner, one of Washington's top campaign-finance lawyers, says he's hard-pressed to see those perils.
ROBERT KELNER: None of these issues are issues that smart lawyers can't find a way to resolve.
OVERBY: OFA officials say they're giving up one of the advantages of 501(c)(4) status. They say they will voluntary disclose their donors, something few other 501(c)(4)s do. And unlike the Obama campaign, the new OFA can raise unlimited money, including cash from corporations, unions and the wealthy. It's that unregulated fundraising that makes 501(c)(4)s so desirable. Kelner says the creation of Organizing for Action may be another sign that the Republican and Democratic national committees are being eclipsed by social-welfare groups.
KELNER: The RNC and the DNC just can't keep up; just can't compete, in relative terms, with these extremely well-funded, unregulated, outside groups.
OVERBY: That would shift power away from the nationally organized party committees, toward small groups of consultants organized around individual politicians.
Peter Overby, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Well, before we get to hear that speech, whatever's in it, President Obama will take the oath of office. Presumably, the oath taking will go more smoothly than it did last time. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg will be part of our inaugural coverage team. And she joins us now to talk about what happened four years ago. And, Nina, I gather this is a tale of intended screw ups.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Yep. And you know, Robert, I think to understand this we should play the whole oath taking for our listeners beginning with Chief Justice John Roberts.
SIEGEL: Okay.
(SOUNDBITE OF OBAMA'S FIRST OATH TAKING)
(APPLAUSE)
SIEGEL: Well, I guess the first 44 times are the toughest. Not very smooth, that oath taking. What happened?
TOTENBERG: Well, it boils down to the modern version of the old adage, there's many a slip between cub and lip. This was not only Barack Obama's first inaugural, it was Chief Justice John Robert's first, too. And so, Roberts looked to the way it had been done by his predecessor and one-time boss, Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Rehnquist, who swore in five presidents, took a methodical approach to the whole business to ensure that he and the president were on the same page, as it were.
He would write out the oath, indicating where he planned to pause for the president to repeat the words, and then have it conveyed through the congressional Sergeant of Arms office to the president's staff. Chief Justice Roberts followed that example and emailed the final draft of the oath as it was to be administered to Cami Morrison, the staffer who had previously handled the oath taking and was detailed to do so again.
SIEGEL: But the proverbial cup never got to the lip?
TOTENBERG: You got it. According to Jeffrey Toobin's book "The Oath," where I got this information, nobody is quite clear as to why Ms. Morrison didn't receive this email or a previous one, or whether she overlooked it, didn't open it or what. Nobody on the president's staff, however, ever saw this oath with the marked pauses.
So with that in mind, let's listen to the oath and unpack what happened.
(SOUNDBITE OF OBAMA'S FIRST OATH TAKING)
SIEGEL: So Robert's plan for the first phrase to be, I, Barack Hussein Obama do solemnly swear, but Obama obviously thought the Chief Justice was going to pause after his name.
TOTENBERG: That's it. And Obama started his part early and then it got worse because, you see, John Roberts is famous for his memory. And he'd memorized the oath, rehearsing it often in chambers, and he did not bring a copy of the oath card with him. Now, even a man as confident a memorizer as the Chief Justice can be thrown when he appears before a crowd of 2 million people and a verbal wrench gets thrown into the works. So the next phrase the Chief Justice is to say, that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, here's what happens.
(SOUNDBITE OF OBAMA'S FIRST OATH TAKING)
TOTENBERG: And so what you hear there is the usually cool Chief Justice getting flustered. He put the word faithfully in the wrong place and said, after that, I will execute the office of President to the United States instead of of the United States. Now, Mr. Obama knows faithfully is in the wrong place and he pauses, leading to a further muddle. Thankfully, the final phrases go fine.
(SOUNDBITE OF OBAMA'S FIRST OATH TAKING)
(APPLAUSE)
SIEGEL: As a measure of the best of someone's ability there, this was not the end of the story of the oath.
TOTENBERG: No. The blogosphere began opining that Barack Obama was not really president because the oath, which is specified in the Constitution, was not correctly taken. Now, in truth, it turns out that over the course of time the oath has been muddled far worse than it was here. But the new president was about to sign a bunch of important executive orders. And remember, there were people who, throughout the campaign, kept claiming that Barack Obama was not born in the United States and couldn't be president.
So with an abundance of caution, as the White House counselor Gregory Craig put it, they decided to do it again. And on January 22nd, John Roberts, Chief Justice of the United States, stopped by the White House on his way home and administered the oath again correctly.
SIEGEL: So, Nina, is the chief justice going to carry an oath card with him this time for good measure?
TOTENBERG: Well, Robert, he's not saying.
SIEGEL: Okay. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In Mali, government forces backed by French troops have halted an advance by al-Qaida linked Islamist fighters. Militants already control the north of the country and last week, they launched a surprise offensive south toward government-controlled territory. As NPR's Offeibea Quist-Arcton reports, African troop reinforcements have begun arriving in the capital.
OFFEIBEA QUIST-ARCTON, BYLINE: First, 100 troops from (unintelligible), then a modest advance contingent from Nigeria flew into Mali's capital Bamako yesterday to a warm welcome from the U.N.-mandated African force commander Nigerian Major General Shehu Usman Abdulkadir.
MAJOR GENERAL SHEHU USMAN ABDULKADIR: I'm happy to have them on ground because I've been eager to have my troops on ground so that we can go into action.
QUIST-ARCTON: General, how tough is this mission going to be? Because the insurgents seem to be very well armed, very well trained and pretty well organized.
ABDULKADIR: And that's why we're here now. We have to react to what's happening in northern Mali and quickly, too. We are well trained, well armed and well equipped, too, to face the challenge I believe is (unintelligible).
QUIST-ARCTON: The French were the first to come to Mali's aid. This was at the request of the government, after al-Qaida linked Islamists left their strongholds in the northern desert region that they seized last year and headed south. French air strikes with fighter jets and attack helicopters halted that advance and many Malians are saying, thank goodness.
I'm in downtown Bamako with a roadside donut seller and let's find out what her view is about the French intervention. (unintelligible) is throwing the dough into hot oil. Let's find out what she thinks.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking foreign language)
QUIST-ARCTON: The donut seller says she's really pleased about the French intervention. She says long live the French for having come to Mali's rescue. She hopes that there's going to be peace in Mali and that the country will be reunified and that there'll be peace and unity. Merci, madam.
Mali's minister of territorial administration, (unintelligible), says it's going to require a collective effort to defeat the rebels.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We are trying to make sure that we have the support of the whole population of Mali. Everyone, we need everybody, every Malian. We need support from people inside Mali, people outside. We need support from the international community. So we are trying to bring everybody together.
QUIST-ARCTON: Regional leaders who are deploying West African troops to Mali are to meet for a crisis summit tomorrow. Offeibea Quist-Arcton, NPR News, Bamako.
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In two weeks, New Orleans will host the 2013 Super Bowl and a pair of NFL playoff games this Sunday will determine who heads to New Orleans and who goes home. It's deja vu for three of these four football teams who also made it to the conference finals last year. NPR's Mike Pesca joins us now to talk about this weekend's match-ups. And Mike, in Atlanta, the Falcons host the San Francisco 49ers and the Falcons, of course, have never won a Super Bowl.
So could this be their year?
MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: It could. Notice my intonation.
CORNISH: Yeah.
PESCA: But they have to contend - yeah, so Colin Kaepernick who is the quarterback, the mobile quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers set a record, not just a playoff record, an every time ever record for quarterback rushing yards last week. Now, part of that is the fact that his last opponent, the Green Bay Packers, simply didn't honor the thing that Colin Kaepernick does well, which is scramble. And it was a very odd game plan.
It's quite clear that Atlanta will not be relying on a similar game plan. We know this because their last opponent was the Seattle Seahawks, who also has a mobile quarterback, Russell Wilson. And Atlanta really did things like stay home and make sure they always had a spy on Russell Wilson. In fact, you can even make the case that they so overplayed Russell Wilson's running ability that they gave up a lot of passing plays.
But this is just one of the wrinkles in the game. The San Francisco 49ers have a really good defense, so did the Seattle Seahawks. So it'll probably be a game where both teams are able to score and this X factor of Colin Kaepernick could very well be the difference.
CORNISH: And then, in New England, the Baltimore Raven got to be seeking revenge for last year's AFC Championship loss, right?
PESCA: Yeah, and this is a rematch. This is the first time there's been a rematch in a championship game since 1994, which is a little unusual, especially in the AFC 'cause you always think of Pittsburgh and Indianapolis and New England kind of rotating. But there's never been the same match-up year after year. The Ravens have a similar situation not only to last year, when they were big underdogs and came within a play, a couple of plays, of winning that game on a cold New England field, but it's very much like last week's game where the Ravens were big underdogs against the Broncos.
And the Ravens pulled it out, especially thanks to Joe Flacco, who has been criticized a lot, but that guy can throw it long and he does throw it long and that is a vulnerability of the Patriots' defense.
CORNISH: Okay. You're talking about New England having a kind of weak defense here, but, you know, we always hear that defense wins championships. And still, New England's favored to win. So, I mean, is their offense just that good?
PESCA: Their offense is great and they're favored not just this week, but to win the Super Bowl. And I'd also look at, yes, they have a bad defense and maybe on the screen they'll tell you that - during the game, they'll tell you New England was a bottom 10 defense. But they judge that based on yards allowed. Now, even if you don't know much about football, you know the score does not depend on yards allowed, it depends on scoring.
And even though New England gives up all these yards, they actually suppress the other team's scoring pretty well 'cause they're really good at getting interceptions and getting turnovers. Add that to their masterful offense, they could be one of the worst defenses ever to win a Super Bowl is what I'm saying.
CORNISH: Okay. And just a little time left, Mike, but before you go, I want to talk about the NFL coaches who have been hired recently. I hear about eight of them. Who are they?
PESCA: Yeah. Well, they range from Marc Trestman of the Bears, who was coaching in the Canadian Football League last year, to Chip Kelly, who was coaching the Oregon Ducks and he's probably the highest profile hire. Bruce Arians will be going to the Cardinals. He was essentially a head coach this year because Chuck Pagano, the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts got sick and Bruce Arians stepped in for him.
We should say there are no new black head coaches and the NFL has put out a statement saying that, you know, that is disappointing, especially since two African-Americans were among the eight fired.
CORNISH: NPR's Mike Pesca. Mike, enjoy the games this weekend.
PESCA: Oh, I will. I'll be there.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And I'm Robert Siegel.
We begin this hour with the ongoing hostage drama at an oil and gas facility in the Algerian Desert. We've got some clarity at this hour about where things stand and still plenty of confusion. The Algerian state news agency confirms that 650 people have safely made it out of the facility and that at least 12 hostages are confirmed dead. According to the State Department, one American was among those who died. We're also hearing reports of a standoff now between the last remaining jihadists and the Algerian army.
NPR's Eleanor Beardsley has our report.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (Foreign language spoken)
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: French news is reporting that Algerian soldiers have cornered about 10 jihadists still holding hostages in the heart of the gas facility. The French media also say the militants are demanding a kind of prisoner swap - two American hostages for two convicted militants in U.S. jails, one of whom was involved in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Foreign language spoken)
BEARDSLEY: Meanwhile, television showed the first footage of Algerian hostages stepping off buses to hug relieved family members. This engineer, who would not give his name, described how the harrowing experience began.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: (Through translator) We were changing shifts when, all of a sudden, there was firing and explosions. Then we were plunged into the dark. The militants came through our rooms, breaking down doors, looking for the foreigners. They rounded them up, bound them and took them away.
BEARDSLEY: Nations with hostages in Algeria have reacted with muted anger to the North African country's decision to launch a military rescue mission without consultation, but France reserved its criticism.
MANUEL VALLS: (Foreign language spoken)
BEARDSLEY: Speaking on the radio, French Interior Minister Manuel Valls said if any country knew about terrorism, it was Algeria, and he saluted their courage. How is it that you don't have more information, asked the interviewer. Because it's far and confused and the terrorists are fanatics, said Valls. France has never had anything like that.
France is in a delicate position because Algeria, for the first time since it won independence from France, has given the green light for French planes to use its airspace for bombing missions to Mali. That decision is said to be controversial among the Algerian population and one of the first reasons the terrorists cite for the attack.
Algeria fought a brutal civil war through the 1990s against Islamist militants. More than 100,000 Algerians lost their lives. Jean-Pierre Filiu says even in the worst days of that civil war, never had a jihadi group attacked an oil facility.
JEAN-PIERRE FILIU: The Algerian regime was struck at the very heart. No matter how bloody is the outcome of the hostage taking, already it's a historical failure of the Algerian security system.
BEARDSLEY: Algerian journalist Atmane Tazaghart is an expert in the workings of al-Qaida in the Maghreb. He says another reason the army went in so fast was because the jihadists were moving the hostages.
ATMANE TAZAGHART: (Through translator) The jihadists wanted to get the hostages out of Algeria because they know the government never negotiates with terrorists. They wanted to take the hostages to Libya or Mali and negotiate a ransom.
BEARDSLEY: Tazaghart says the West may be shocked by the bloodbath, but he thinks there is also relief over Algeria's quick response, even if no one can say so. A protracted hostage drama in a lawless place like Libya, says Tazaghart, would not only complicate the war in Mali, it would be the West's worst nightmare. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
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One big reason news of this crisis has been hard to come by is that the media's access to the remote facility has been limited, both by the Algerian government and by the desert itself. The resulting blackout has been agonizing for families with loved ones in danger.
NPR's Philip Reeves says that it is beginning to change.
PHILIP REEVES, BYLINE: Piece by piece, a picture of what happened in the distant heart of the Sahara Desert is taking shape. Alexandre Berceaux from France worked at the giant gas plant for a catering company. He told Europe 1 radio that when the jihadists attacked, he hid under his bed.
ALEXANDRE BERCEAUX: (Through translator) I stayed hidden for almost 40 hours in my room, under the bed. I put boards everywhere.
REEVES: Berceaux says when Algerian soldiers finally arrived to rescue him, he wasn't sure what to do.
BERCEAUX: (Through translator) When the military arrived yesterday, I didn't even know that it was over. They were with some of my colleagues. Otherwise, I would never have opened the door.
PRIME MINISTER DAVID CAMERON: The terrorists first attacked two buses en route to the Aminas airfield before attacking the residential compound and the gas facility at the installation. It appears to have been a large, well-coordinated and heavily armed assault.
REEVES: Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron is also piecing together the story. Around 10 Britons, I believe, still unaccounted for.
Speaking to parliament, Cameron said that when the crisis began Wednesday, he urged Algeria's prime minister, Abdelmalek Sellal, to consult him and other nations involved before taking any military action. Yesterday, Algerian forces launched an assault.
CAMERON: Mr. Speaker, we were not informed of this in advance. I was told by the Algerian prime minister while it was taking place. He said that the terrorists had tried to flee, that they judged there to be an immediate threat to the lives of the hostages and had felt obliged to respond.
REEVES: That lack of consultation also seems to have caused frustration among other nations caught up in the crisis, that includes Japan that has 10 workers still unaccounted for, and Norway, which is anxiously awaiting news of eight missing nationals. Norway's foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, was clearly irked.
ESPEN BARTH EIDE: We have also been very clear in pointing out that we would like to be informed before the operation started, which we clearly we're not.
REEVES: Algeria is widely being criticized for launching the assault and for declining offers of technical and intelligence support from other nations. Some analysts, though, argue that Algeria's military had little choice other than to act swiftly.
As they were driven away in buses, several British workers freed from the plant were interviewed by Algerian state TV, which did not get their names. The Britons spoke approvingly of the part played by the Algerian military.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: I think they did a fantastic job. I was very impressed with the Algerian army. I feel sorry for anybody who's been hurt.
REEVES: Another man was clearly still piecing together events.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: We still don't really know what's happened.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yeah.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: I couldn't say. So as much as we're glad to be out and our thoughts are with colleagues that are still there at the moment.
REEVES: This incident has underscored for Western powers the threat presented by Islamists sympathetic to al-Qaida's ideology in the vast, remote sweep of Africa.
Western intelligence services, including America's, will now channel more attention and resources in that direction. Philip Reeves, NPR News, London.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And I'm Audie Cornish.
The man who was the face and the voice of New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was indicted today by a federal grand jury. He is former Mayor Ray Nagin. Prosecutors alleged Nagin used his office for personal gain. Among the charges: that he accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and kickbacks, and was given free trips from contractors in exchange for city business. Most of this happened as New Orleans struggled to recover from Katrina.
NPR's Russell Lewis joins us now from member station WWNO. And, Russell, to begin, what exactly are the prosecutors saying happened? How did this bribery and kickback scheme allegedly work?
RUSSELL LEWIS, BYLINE: You know, it's a complicated matrix as, you know, as these things often are. Prosecutors say the scheme started in 2004. It involved the awarding of city contracts and favorable treatment. You know, some of it, though, was not big ticket corruption. One company owner is alleged to have paid cellphone bills for the mayor's family and flown Nagin to Saints football playoff games.
The indictment also accuses Nagin of accepting more than $160,000 in bribes and a truckload of free granite for his family business. The government says this was in exchange for Nagin promoting the interests of the businessman who ended up getting millions of dollars in city contract work after Katrina in 2005.
CORNISH: Now, does Ray Nagin's indictment actually come as a surprise?
LEWIS: No, not really. People here really had been expecting this for months. In fact, five of his associates and people named in the indictment have either already pleaded guilty or were convicted, and they pledged to testify against Nagin. But here's the thing, Nagin was elected in 2002. He was swept into office because he said he was not a politician. He was a cable TV executive who pledged to bring a businessman's savvy to the mayor's office. And he even said that he wanted root out public corruption.
CORNISH: And then this is alleged to have happened while Nagin was dealing with Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, right?
LEWIS: Yeah. I mean, you know, he really made a name for himself. You might remember some of those news conferences he held as that massive storm approached New Orleans. He warned residents. He told them to evacuate. And then after the storm swamped and overwhelmed the levee and floodwall system, he pleaded for federal help and even cursed the federal government during one radio interview where he demanded, ordered help almost.
You know, that outspokenness also got him into trouble. There was one point in 2006 where he predicted that when New Orleans rebuilt, it would once again become a chocolate city and that God was mad at America. Nagin, though, he was re-elected in 2006, just a year after Katrina, despite criticism of his post-hurricane leadership, which some viewed as too slow and bogged down in bureaucracy. But he had a - he was a huge advocate for rebuilding the city despite calls from some around the country to basically abandon the place.
CORNISH: Unfortunately, public corruption is nothing new in New Orleans or Louisiana. What are people saying about it today?
LEWIS: You know, interestingly, you know, there have been no news conferences today, not from city officials, not prosecutors. The current mayor, Mitch Landrieu, did release a statement that basically said, quoting, that this is a "sad day for the city of New Orleans and that public corruption cannot and will not be tolerated." You know, there have been any number of elected officials and city employees in New Orleans over the years who have been mired in public corruption scandals. And, on some levels, people just come to expect it here.
CORNISH: So what's happening next in this case?
LEWIS: Well, Ray Nagin, he's got a court date, January 31st at the federal courthouse here in New Orleans. He'll be expected to enter a plea to these charges. If convicted, Nagin would face decades in prison and millions of dollars in fines.
CORNISH: NPR's Russell Lewis in New Orleans. Russell, thank you.
LEWIS: You're welcome, Audie.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
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And I'm Audie Cornish. In Israel, the latest polls before Tuesday's parliamentary election show that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's lead is shrinking. While Netanyahu's Likud Party is still expected to form the next government, his party could be weakened and forced to seek support from parties it doesn't see eye to eye with. And as NPR's Larry Abramson reports from Jerusalem, there are already signs Israel's government will be pushed significantly to the right.
LARRY ABRAMSON, BYLINE: The man who is stealing votes from Benjamin Netanyahu gets whoops and hollers when introduced at debates in Israel.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Naftali Bennett is head of the Bayit Yehudi or Jewish Home Party.
ABRAMSON: Naftali Bennett is sucking voters away from Netanyahu's Likud-Beiteinu alliance. He's doing it with a no nonsense speaking style and a clear message that he says sets him apart from the major parties.
NAFTALI BENNETT: The Likuds, the Yesh Atid, et cetera, all support establishing a Palestinian state within the land of Israel. I vehemently oppose it. I think it would...
ABRAMSON: Netanyahu has said he supports a two-state solution, although many peace activists blame him for a yearlong stalemate in negotiations. For many voters, that difference alone makes Bennett a useful tool for keeping Netanyahu on a rightward track.
GLADYS CARLIN: I want a check on him. I think he gets into office and he goes a little far to the left.
ABRAMSON: Voter Gladys Carlin says Naftali Bennett understands who's to blame for the failure to find peace with the Palestinians.
CARLIN: It's the Arabs who won't come to the table and it's the Arabs who really hate us and don't want to make peace. And nobody seems to get that.
ABRAMSON: Some analysts here question whether the electorate really has shifted opinion on the peace process. A majority of Israelis now support a two-state solution. But there are signs that whatever voters believe, the party slates this time around has slid right. David Horovitz, founder of The Times of Israel, says the ruling Likud party has pushed out its more moderate representatives in favor of the extreme right-wingers.
DAVID HOROVITZ: Netanyahu, by virtue of his support in principle for Palestinian statehood, is now one of the most moderate politicians there.
ABRAMSON: During the campaign, Netanyahu has focused on security, visiting troops at the Syrian border or near the Gaza Strip. He has also tried to burnish his credentials with the right by evicting Palestinian demonstrators who protested controversial plans to expand settlements in occupied territory near Jerusalem.
This week, he faced reports that President Obama views Netanyahu as a coward who doesn't know what is in Israel's best interests.
BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: (Foreign language spoken)
ABRAMSON: The citizens of Israel are the only ones who will decide who loyally represents the vital interests of the state of Israel, Netanyahu said in response. Opponents on the left seized on the reported Obama statement as another sign that Israel is becoming internationally isolated. At a debate on foreign affairs, Labor's Yitzhak Herzog said both Netanyahu and Naftali Bennett stand for the same thing.
YITZHAK HERZOG: Is total isolation and further international failures as we have seen in the U.N. vote.
ABRAMSON: Referring to the United Nations vote in November to upgrade the status of the Palestinian Authority over Israel's strong objections. But those assaults against Netanyahu from Labor and other center or left-wing parties may have a limited impact. The left tried and failed to form a united front against Netanyahu. Netanyahu's best hope is the huge number of undecided voters still out there.
If they swing his way, he won't have to swing as far to the right or to the left to form a new government. Larry Abramson, NPR News, Jerusalem.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
More now on the Israeli election from Atlantic magazine national correspondent Jeffrey Goldberg. He's in Amman, Jordan. He's there for a reporting trip to cover both the Jordanian and Israeli elections next week. His column in Bloomberg News this week called "Israel Doesn't Know What Its Best Interests Are" caused a stir in Israel this week just days before the election, and he joins us now. Jeffrey, what did that title mean, first of all?
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, that's a quote from President Obama, who has said that repeatedly in recent weeks privately to different groupings of people. And what he means by that is that the settlement policies that the government of Benjamin Netanyahu are pursuing run counter to his vision of what Israel should be doing to preserve itself as a Jewish majority democracy.
SIEGEL: Now, given the potential coalition partners that Benjamin Netanyahu sees to his right, it would only appear that policies of annexation would get more aggressive. Do you see that as well?
GOLDBERG: Well, I think if you're a settler, you're feeling pretty good about this election. Netanyahu has been very explicit about saying that there will be no bulldozers coming for any settlements whatsoever. And remember, he's competing right now, not against the left, as he used to compete, but he's competing against his own right.
The party called the Jewish Home Party run by Naftali Bennett is surging. It came from nowhere to become a very powerful force, at least in the polls. And they're appealing to the same settler base. So the settlers should be very happy at this moment.
SIEGEL: Jeffrey Goldberg, if, in fact, Israeli politics were to toughen up on the West Bank and leaves still less room for any possible Palestinian state there, do Israelis assume that their relationship with Washington would be unaffected by that?
GOLDBERG: That's the key question. Obviously, there are people in the center in Israel, on the left in Israel who are warning that you can't keep pursuing these policies counter to the vision that Barack Obama has for the Middle East and not expect some sort of consequence. Now, we're not talking about a consequence like cutting aid or stopping or lowering military support, but there are a lot of ways that Israel is dependent on the United States.
And after a while, I think you're going to see some impact in the relationship. On the right, they're arguing that Israel is an independent country and should do whatever it wants to do. And on the left, they're saying, hey, let's deal with reality, which is America is our best friend and, increasingly, our only friend.
SIEGEL: There are polls which show that most Israelis favor a two-state solution to their problems with the Palestinians. How do you reconcile that information with policies which don't seem to go in that direction at all?
GOLDBERG: Well, you're dealing with a highly theoretical concept at the moment, and this is where it becomes difficult for Israel. Israelis don't see - and they have good reason not to see a viable Palestinian partner for peace. After all, the Palestinian political movement is divided between Hamas and Gaza and the Palestinian Authority on the West Bank. Hamas is obviously opposed to the existence of the state of Israel.
You don't see strong leadership on the Palestinian side, and so a lot of Israelis are saying, hey, you know what, we pulled out of Gaza in 2005, we pulled all our settlements out and our soldiers, and Hamas filled the vacuum, so we're not going to go down that road again. However, if a more viable Palestinian leadership emerged and if the Israeli government encouraged that through action, I think you would see a shift in - those people who are saying they want a two-state option do represent the majority. They just don't believe that it's possible right now, I think, is a fair way to put it.
SIEGEL: So just another Israeli election or one that's more of a watershed than others?
GOLDBERG: Well, they're all the most crucial election of our time, right?
SIEGEL: Mm-hmm.
GOLDBERG: But this one does seem to suggest that Israel is making a rightward shift. The left parties and the center parties will still get a significant chunk of the vote. What's most interesting to me is that the right-wing block has become more right wing. In other words, the policies that it's advancing are much more right wing than the policies it advanced four years ago.
This is not to say that it's going to get the overwhelming majority of Israeli voters. It's just that those people who do vote for them are voting for something that's much more right wing than it used to be.
SIEGEL: Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic magazine, thanks for talking with us.
GOLDBERG: Thank you.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
The scene: Paris in the '20s. There are three women: Esther Murphy, a product of New York high society who wrote madly but could never finish a book; Mercedes de Acosta, an insatiable collector and writer infatuated with Greta Garbo; and Madge Garland, a self-made Australian fashion editor at British Vogue. All are lesbians.
Their history burst onto the literary scene this summer in Wesleyan University professor Lisa Cohen's biography. It's called "All We Know: Three Lives," and has just been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Cohen's biography inverts the usual raison d'etre. Though between the three, they knew virtually everybody who was anybody from the 1920s to the '50s, they're not famous. We spoke to Lisa Cohen from - where else - Paris. She tells us how she came upon these three extraordinary lives.
LISA COHEN: I first read about Madge Garland in Virginia Woolf's diaries, and I thought: What an extraordinary life. She intersected with so many people. She was involved with the magazine - with British Vogue magazine in the 1920s when it became a kind of center for art, literature. But somewhere along the way, early on, I realized I encountered these other two women.
Mercedes de Acosta I had already heard of. She has a certain notoriety. But Esther Murphy, I'd only known her name but not really taken in the - her brilliance, her tragedy.
LYDEN: She is the sister of Gerald Murphy, the painter and patron of Leger and Picasso, but she's not like her brother.
COHEN: Not at all. She's awkward, inelegant, anxious and absolutely, rivetingly brilliant to everyone who meets her. She was intensely voluble and deeply interested in the history of the world and in contemporary politics. She was very close friends with Edmund Wilson when he was young, with the young and just-starting-out F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos - every interesting American writer, just about - and it seemed to all of them that Esther would go far.
LYDEN: Did people know that she hadn't actually finished a book?
COHEN: Everyone knew, everyone worried, and she went on worrying about herself - that was the idea I had about Esther, that she became a kind of repository of others' anxieties about what it meant to fail and what it meant to succeed.
LYDEN: Let's get to Madge Garland since she is the self-made one of this group. I mean, she doesn't come from money. And in some ways, I found her the most fascinating. Tell me about her.
COHEN: She came from a little bit of money. Her father was a successful businessman in the textile business in Australia, and he moved his family to London. But she lost that family connection, she lost that family money, when she decided that she wanted to work. She wanted to be a journalist. She was not going to submit to the constraints of her family. She was not going to get married. She was going to go out into the world and learn how to write.
And she took what she knew, as the daughter of someone who was in the business of selling clothes and accessories and fabrics, and she made that into her - into a career. She became a quite brilliant writer on the history of fashion and on contemporary fashion, on contemporary haute couture.
LYDEN: Mercedes de Acosta - I wanted to know why did you include her? One of the reviews mentions that she was so beautiful, loved Greta Garbo, was a lover of Greta Garbo's and slept with every famous girl on the bus between 1900 and 1980.
COHEN: I included her because she was also a very passionate collector, and I felt that part of what I was doing with this book was thinking about different kinds of archives, the kinds of material that we call evidence, that we call biographical evidence. What is a fact? What is the kind of fact that goes into telling someone's life story? And Mercedes de Acosta's - and her collection, her very rich collection, which is held at the Rosenbach Museum and Library in Philadelphia, gave me access to a kind of world of passionate collecting and raised very interesting questions about how you tell a life and how these women, in each case, told their own stories, made themselves entirely visible, collected their own documentation about their lives and yet also rendered themselves invisible in all kinds of ways.
LYDEN: All these women marry briefly because that's what you do. But I want to ask how does their lesbianism factor into this entire collection? Why does it matter?
COHEN: I was interested in showing this world of women that I learned about. It was a world of women who acknowledged their debts to one another. They were intellectual debts and emotional debts and material debts also, and they really depended on one another. And they loved other women. They also sometimes loved other men.
But they were committed to these kinds of communities of women. They were committed to supporting other women. Each of these three women knew one another. And I wanted to try to write a book that wasn't just about one great person but about a kind of collectivity and about these interdependencies.
LYDEN: Conversely, why do you think they became rather overlooked?
COHEN: There's a kind of historical amnesia. Feminism didn't start in the 1970s. It started, at least, in the teens and '20s. I think that your question is also a question about the genre of biography. And putting these three lives together also forced me to reflect on the genre, on its kind of constraints and its possibilities, and there was a way that each of their loves, as I say about Esther Murphy, both call for biography and suggest the futility of that genre. And I really like that paradox. I like trying to write about what's hard to pin down, what's just out of my reach.
LYDEN: Lisa Cohen, we spoke to her in Paris. She's the author of the new biography "All We Know." You have given us - and rescued - three remarkable lives. And I'm so very glad that you did. Thank you so much.
COHEN: Thank you, Jacki, for having me.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
Where would those two cowboys from "Brokeback Mountain" live if they could choose any place to be together in connubial bliss today? Every year, The Advocate magazine publishes their list of the gayest cities in America. At the top of the list this year: Tacoma, Washington.
That struck us as a tad surprising, so we called up a few Tacomans.
(SOUNDBITE OF PHONE RINGING)
MARGARET JACKSON: Hello.
LYDEN: And we asked them to describe their city in just a few words.
JACKSON: Family-oriented.
SWEET PEA FLAHERTY: Working class.
ELLEN COHEN: Rain.
(LAUGHTER)
COHEN: Tacoma is rain.
LINDA HOWELL: Tacoma has everything you need to have a happy life.
LYDEN: But Tacoma as the gayest city in the country?
HOWELL: I never heard such a thing.
COHEN: Yeah. Wow. They picked Tacoma to be the gay city, huh? Wow.
(LAUGHTER)
HOWELL: That's fine with me. I don't care.
FLAHERTY: Does it surprise me? No. It's not like it's like: What? Yeah. There's all sorts of reasons.
LYDEN: The voices of Tacoma residents: Margaret Jackson, Ellen Cohen, Linda Howell and Sweet Pea Flaherty. Advocate editor Matthew Breen put together this year's list of America's gayest cities, and he stopped by our studio to tell us how Tacoma ended up at the top of the list.
MATTHEW BREEN: Tacoma was the right blend of the right size and had the factors that we looked for in the criteria, like whether a city has LGBT elected officials, whether this city has transgender protections and things like marriage equality, of course. Washington with marriage equality this year; we kind of heavily weighted marriage-equality states.
LYDEN: You're not, for example, looking at restaurants or places to vacation or nightlife among other things.
BREEN: We know that a list that said New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco are gay-friendly places would be rather obvious.
LYDEN: Would be old news?
BREEN: Yes. It wouldn't be particularly interesting. I don't know why people would be excited about reading that list. And so we take a sidelong look at criteria. We start with a baseline with what constitutes a city. We looked at a population of 150,000 or more.
LYDEN: OK.
BREEN: Then we add in the sort of serious criteria that I mentioned. And then we take a look at criteria that are a little off-the-wall. This year, we looked at whether a city has a gay rugby team, whether a city has fabulous shopping, cities that had concerts by the Scissor Sisters, Uh Huh Her and Girl in a Coma, and then, of course, cities that had a concert with the Glee cast, which is just such a gay - popular gay-friendly show.
LYDEN: So I don't think Tacoma has - did it have a concert by Glee cast members?
BREEN: No. Tacoma in particular had roller derby teams. It had the benefit of Washington state's marriage-equality laws. And the state has three LGBT elected officials. So we divide all of that by the population and you get a per-capita gayness, which put Tacoma way at the top of the list.
LYDEN: So one of the things you're saying is, look, there isn't a magic city where people who are LGBT might live. They live everywhere because they're your friends and neighbors.
BREEN: We do indeed live everywhere. We're in all parts of this country. We know that the metropolitan areas are - have a draw for a lot of LGBT people, but a lot of people stay in their hometowns or move to small towns or prefer a, you know, a medium-sized city life. You know, there are a lot of LGBT-friendly churches that we looked at in Salem, Oregon. You know, there are places where people would prefer to raise their families than in a large metropolitan area.
LYDEN: So I just have to ask, Matthew Breen, did you call any city officials in - or the Chamber of Commerce in Tacoma to announce the Advocate's results?
BREEN: We didn't call them specifically, but we do send out, you know, press release when the story goes up online. We see instant response. Cities across the country have been really excited about being named on a list. There are a lot of cities and residents who have been very confused by having been on the list.
Last year, for example, Salt Lake City was the top of the list. You know, the Salt Lake City mayor tweeted out that they're sorry to have lost their top spot, which I thought was hilarious. I'm delighted to see that people really take an interest in it.
LYDEN: Matthew, this is so much fun. But why do you think this list is important?
BREEN: We realize the list is tongue-in-cheek to a degree. But the most important thing that comes out of this list each year, people start having a conversation about whether their city is actually LGBT-friendly. If it's not, they want to talk about why that is. The dialogue really opens up immediately. If it is an LGBT-friendly place that people just have not thought was so, they get to maybe look at dimensions to that city that they hadn't considered in the past. The conversation is really what I'm after here, and I'm just finding it happen, you know, all over the place every year, so I'm really excited about that.
LYDEN: Matthew Breen is the editor of The Advocate magazine, which is based in L.A. Every year, The Advocate puts together a list of the gayest cities in America. Matthew, thank you.
BREEN: Thank you very much.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
This is WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
Once upon a time, in the long-ago world of high school reading on a hilltop far, far away, Holden Caulfield was perhaps the epitome of angst, a young man suddenly an outcast in the world he thought he knew. J.D. Salinger's anti-hero was about to enter a perilous journey of self-discovery.
Today, down from the hilltop, high school English teachers may identify with Holden because reading scores for American students have dropped precipitously. How much? David Coleman, president of the College Board, says it's alarming.
DAVID COLEMAN: We have a crisis in the country around remediation rates. What I mean by that is so many kids, often as many as 50 percent, graduate high school in this country visibly, demonstrably not ready for the demands of a first-year college course or a career training program, which means they enter remediation courses in college, which they don't get credit. And that's often a path to not completing college, particularly for low-income children.
LYDEN: David Coleman is the lead architect of the Common Core, a sweeping new curricula change, which integrates nonfiction into the English program. Only one problem: Where does it leave The Catcher in the Rye? That's our cover story today: fiction, nonfiction and the great debate.
The Common Core is an ambitious realignment of school curricula. With remarkable unity, it's been touted by the Obama administration and Republicans and by the two largest teachers unions. States receive federal money to opt in, and only four states have not.
At the heart of the debate, though, is the requirement over exactly how fiction will fare in this brave new world. By the last couple of years of high school, 70 percent of what students will be reading across all subjects must be nonfiction. I asked David Coleman what this achieves.
COLEMAN: Fiction remains at the heart of the Common Core standards in English language arts classrooms. For example, Shakespeare is twice required; there's a focus on American literature. What changes instead is that high-quality nonfiction becomes an essential part of the history and social studies curriculum as well as science and technical subjects.
Within English language arts, the only shift is that there's some entry of high-quality literary nonfiction, such as the founding documents and the great conversation they inspired. The idea is that things like Lincoln's second inaugural, Martin Luther King's magnificent Letter from Birmingham Jail, these documents are worthy of close attention, not just in a historical context, but also for the interweaving of thought and language. And in that way, they are appropriate for studying English language arts as well.
LYDEN: I don't think anyone would disagree that Letter from Birmingham Jail isn't an important historical document, but I wanted to ask, when those are incorporated into the English class, isn't this something that students should actually be required to read in either history or American studies or social studies?
COLEMAN: The idea is that in English language arts, there's a wonderful attention paid, not only to the historical impact of such a work, but its use of language, the expression of language through rhetoric. And so what English teachers throughout this country as well as other teachers talk to us about is, for kids to be ready for the demands of college and career, they should attentively read literature and understand the force of language in that context to convey ideas, to debate them, to distill them. That is also a part of the essential work of preparation and a wonderful part of the force of English language.
LYDEN: How will you know, as a person who has developed this curricula, if it's working?
COLEMAN: I think if the Common Core standards are successful, we should see a world in which remediation rates at colleges, in other words, where kids enter college after receiving a high school degree and still need remediation, we need those rates to go down. So that would be a visible victory. In this country, for the past 14 years, the scores on the national assessment of educational progress in reading in eighth grade have been flat.
If we can't have a breakthrough in this country in reading performance, particularly in later grades, so many students will be consigned to a world where they can't read the texts in front of them and hence grow and learn. So success in performance terms would look like breakthroughs in those areas of achievement. Those aren't - happen in a moment but over time.
LYDEN: That's David Coleman, the lead architect behind new guidelines. Before the Common Core, most high school English classes read mostly literature. The reality now is that students must split their time between fiction and nonfiction. There are even some school districts where teachers have been asked to drop novels to meet the new requirements. And that's exactly what Azar Nafisi is afraid of.
Nafisi is the author of the critically acclaimed "Reading Lolita in Tehran," a nonfiction book. In Iran, she used Western literature to challenge autocratic thinking. Now, she's worried that in America, the great novels will inevitably be sacrificed.
AZAR NAFISI: Imaginative knowledge is a way of perceiving the world, relating to the world and changing the world. And nothing can replace it. So where I disagree with Mr. Coleman is trying to replace fiction with nonfiction rather than finding creative ways of teaching students a very creative interdisciplinary program where you could teach them side by side and focus on quality rather than on bringing about these sort of changes.
LYDEN: And according to Nafisi, the value of getting lost in a really good novel can't be overstated.
NAFISI: When you look at a documentary or read a real-life story, you can understand the experiences that that person went through. When you read Zora Neale Hurston, you not only do not understand that particular person's experiences, but you also are able to empathize and become that person. You put yourself in that person's mind and heart. And so the experience is completely different. And that is why I think from time immemorial, human beings have had the need to understand the world through telling the story.
LYDEN: Writer Azar Nafisi. Her new book called "Dispatches from the Republic of Imagination" talks about the necessity of fiction.
However, almost the entire country - 46 states and Washington, D.C. - have already signed on to the Common Core. While some states won't adopt the guidelines for several years, others already have. Kentucky was the first.
Angela Gunter teaches English at Daviess County High School in Owensboro. Gunter says that at first, many of her colleagues opposed the changes.
ANGELA GUNTER: As you can imagine, we English teachers love our literature. And the greater emphasis on nonfiction text was uncomfortable for some of us.
LYDEN: Now, Gunter says her students actually like it. She kept them in the loop the whole way, beginning by showing them their own reading level scores.
GUNTER: When they realized how relatively low they were, it was a real wake-up call for them. They were very upset, and I told them they should feel like they should've been cheated. They've not been taught this. And we understood at that point that we needed to start challenging the students more.
LYDEN: Take, say, "To Kill a Mockingbird." That's a novel, she says, with deceptively simple language.
GUNTER: However, there are so many themes that are much more complex that required mature thinking that we want to keep it at the high school level. So we paired it with Malcolm Gladwell's piece, which alleges that it's an elitist story. And the kids have never heard that. So the students find that there's a purpose in the reading that may not have been as apparent before.
LYDEN: The downside?
GUNTER: We can't read everything. We can't fit everything in. So we have had to deal with abridging a bit.
LYDEN: Take Shakespeare. Instead of reading all five acts of Julius Caesar, her freshmen now read only the speeches delivered by Brutus and Mark Antony after Caesar's execution, rather than reading the play as a whole. And that's the problem, according to Mark Bauerlein. He's an English professor at Emory University.
A few years ago, he helped the team developing the Common Core. But he eventually parted ways with David Coleman mainly because he disagrees with the attempts to standardize learning. Mark Bauerlein says the standards pile so much onto English teachers, but the cultivation of critical, passionate reading is in jeopardy.
MARK BAUERLEIN: When you interpret these standards at the state level, when you try to develop lesson plans, when you select works to be assigned, when you find the assignments that people have, one can interpret those so broadly that we actually end up with a lot of weak practices.
LYDEN: So what happens to the classic novels, Mark Bauerlein, when we're reducing the amount of fiction students are reading? Is that a concern?
BAUERLEIN: It is a concern. Now, the Common Core has a wonderful standard for 11 and 12th grade English, which runs: demonstrate knowledge of 18th, 19th and early 20th century foundational works of American literature. But you've got so many other pressures on English teachers in Common Core - the teaching of writing, of nonfiction texts, you have research skills that they're supposed to develop. And the problem is that all those classics, they take a lot of time, especially in the hustling, bustling, hyper-digital world of 17-year-olds.
I worry that we're just going to find that teachers will teach shorter works, they will spend less time on those classics, and they'll tend to orient them more toward topical, relevant concerns.
LYDEN: Do you think that students and teachers will both, in some ways, evaluate the entire experience of literature quite differently so that they're reading with some sort of purpose to fit a curriculum and perhaps "oh, I just want to fall into the world of this novel" may be getting left out?
BAUERLEIN: The sort of free-floating, open-ended literary intellectual experience simply is hard to fit into the achievement orientation and accountability system. So if the English class does not hold the line against the kid who has a curiosity, who is really struck by Quentin Compson in "The Sound and the Fury," the kid who gets taken up with Ivan Karamazov in "The Brothers Karamazov," that bright kid who's having issues with atheism or with despair, things that happen often during those years, well, that area in which you want to cultivate the intellect of that thoughtful 18-year-old who often isn't oriented toward grades but who often ends up being the kind of thoughtful intelligence that ends up doing something extraordinary 10 years later, are we losing the support or at least the conditions that will prompt that student to continue reading and thinking?
LYDEN: That's Mark Bauerlein, an English professor at Emory University and an opponent of the Common Core State Standards. You're listening to NPR News.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden. An international hostage drama has come to an end in Algeria. After four days, the Algerian army ended the bloody siege of a remote oil and gas facility where Islamist militants were holding dozens of Western hostages. The brutal assault was launched Thursday morning. Many people are dead, up to 23 captives and at least 30 Islamists, according to the Algerian state media.
The real numbers could be far higher, analysts say. The Algerian operation was chaotic, confusing and shrouded in secrecy. We go now to NPR correspondent Eleanor Beardsley who's been following the drama from Paris. Hello, Eleanor.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Good evening, Jacki.
LYDEN: So the world has been waiting for this to end. How did it end today?
BEARDSLEY: Well, it ended in a final siege. We got word of - midmorning that the Algerian army was, you know, bearing down on a last 10 to 12 Islamists, hardcore Islamist militants who were at the center of this gas facility with their hostages. Apparently, they were holding seven - last hostages on the site. And, you know, they killed every one of those hostages before being blown up themselves by the Algerian forces. So it ended in a huge battle at the center of the oil and gas facility.
LYDEN: So we'll be sorting the consequences of that out, I'm sure, for days to come. Remind us why the Islamists attacked the facility in the first place.
BEARDSLEY: Right. Well, they attacked, and the first thing they said was they wanted France out of Mali. Because remember, just a week ago, France intervened to help the Malian army defeat Islamists that had taken over the north of that country, which borders Algeria. So the first thing they said was they want France out of Mali, and they also said they were angry at Algeria for letting France use its airspace for French planes to bomb Mali. Why, because France is also a former colonizer of Algeria.
And apparently, it did divide public opinion. But, of course, Islamists in Algeria were furious. They said that the country had betrayed the blood of the martyrs who had fought the French colonizers in the 1950s and '60s. So that's what they were saying. But you know what, these Islamists, they're described as roving bandits. They traffic, they smuggle. The leader of the group was called Mr. Marlboro because of his illicit cigarette trading.
So they're also looking for opportunities, and they found this gas and oil site in the middle of the Saharan Desert, literally a thousand miles from the Algerian capital and from anywhere else, with dozens - hundreds of people and dozens and dozens of foreigners there. It was a perfect opportunity for them.
LYDEN: A big target. And now, as you just mentioned, we know that a number of these hostages were killed along with their captors. Why did the Algerian army do this? It's already received criticism for not alerting other countries.
BEARDSLEY: Right. Everyone was kind of shocked by the brutality and the rapidity. They just went in. And no one knew what was going on. They didn't tell France, Britain or the U.S. or Japan. They told no one what was going on because the Algerian army, they - this is a thing - this is an issue of national pride and survival for Algeria. These terrorists struck the heart of the country, the economic heart, oil and gas.
And Algeria fought a 10-year civil war with these same people, these Islamists. It was a brutal war. Up to 200,000 Algerian citizens died. Their doctrine of the Algerian state is to never negotiate with terrorists. For the Algerian state, this was an absolute catastrophe. Even in the worst days of the civil war in the '90s, no Jihadist ever seized an energy facility. So they had to strike back. They had to end it fast. And this is the way they react against their terrorists.
LYDEN: That's NPR's Eleanor Beardsley. Eleanor, thank you for following this for us.
BEARDSLEY: It was great to be with you, Jacki.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESIDENT OBAMA'S 2009 INAUGURAL ADDRESS)
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
The newly minted President Obama from his 2009 inaugural address. Another speech is surely coming together right now for Monday's inauguration. James Fallows of The Atlantic joins us, as he does most Saturdays. Hello there, Jim.
JAMES FALLOWS: Hello, Jacki.
LYDEN: You know, you and I were talking earlier, and you have this really interesting theory. You say there are two big constants in modern second-term presidencies.
FALLOWS: Yes. The first of them is that a president who is often frustrated by all the sort of tedium of dealing in domestic politics turns his eyes internationally and tries to spend more and more of his time solving problems around the world. The other big constant is how many more scandals seem to crop up in a two-term-president's second term.
Of course, all presidents look for a second term, but when they get one, we see things like the Sherman Adams scandal back in the Eisenhower era, of course, the Watergate trials and resignation for Richard Nixon. Ronald Reagan had his Iran-Contra problems then, and, of course, Bill Clinton was impeached and had the Monica Lewinsky situation.
LYDEN: Well, how does the Obama administration compare? So far, the president's done a pretty good job on the scandal side of things in the sense that not too many: Solyndra comes to mind; of course, more recently, Benghazi, the attacks on Libya that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens.
FALLOWS: Yes. There certainly is a critique by much of the Republican opposition and by Fox News, et cetera, that the combination of the Fast and Furious issue with gunrunning to Mexico and Benghazi and Solyndra together constitute some kind of grand scandal. But by historical standards, or by the measure of people in jail or large-scale congressional hearings, there's not been much there, there for the administration so far.
LYDEN: As far as foreign affairs in the president's second term, so far, it seems like we are really concentrating on the domestic picture, the budget, gun policy, immigration.
FALLOWS: Yes. And I think that this is where the second Obama term may actually differ from what I was saying is the pattern before, because when President Obama initially ran for president on opposition to the Iraq War, and as soon as he became president, he was, of course, engulfed by this global financial scandal. And a larger than normal proportion of what he did in his first term was international in its nature, including this odd winning of the Nobel Peace Prize with less than a year in office.
And so, I think that his second term might see more of a domestic focus. As you say, the gun issue is very high on his agenda, the implementation of his medical care plan. Immigration reform is probably the initiative he's going to try hardest to push, and so we see a time of comparative calm on the global statesman front and have a lot of business to do domestically. And so barring the external surprises that always happen and barring the tensions in Iran and Syria and elsewhere, which certainly will demand his attention, this may be a more domestically oriented second term, breaking that recent pattern.
LYDEN: Finally, Jim, this was a bad week for the Boeing Company. Japan keeps reporting problems with their fleet of - I love this name - Dreamliner airplanes. And things seem to be getting really tense between Japan and Boeing.
FALLOWS: Yes. I think the way to think of the problem with the Dreamliner is that it is urgent but not serious. Urgent in the sense that there's something wrong with these lithium ion batteries in the plane - which are overheating and sometimes bursting into flames, which is why the FAA and many other authorities have grounded the plane - but not serious in the sense that there's almost no suggestion that this could jeopardize the project as a whole. It's one apparently known problem in one confined component of the plane, so everybody is trying to fix it now.
LYDEN: And when getting to those planes, Jim, apparently, we won't be getting the full body screen any longer.
FALLOWS: Well, one kind of these full body screeners, the ones by Rapiscan that use a very sort of weak X-ray, those are finally being phased out by the TSA. They're the ones with the big, opaque square boxes you walk through. Some of the other ones that use radio waves, millimeter waves to scan you will still be there. But I think this is a positive step in reducing one intrusive security measure.
LYDEN: James Fallows is national correspondent with The Atlantic. And you can read his blog at jamesfallows.theatlantic.com. Jim, as usual, thank you so much.
FALLOWS: My pleasure, Jacki.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
From time to time on this show, we ask actors and filmmakers this question: What's the one movie you watch again and again? This week, we're revisiting one of the most enthusiastic responses.
ANTHONY MACKIE: My name's Anthony Mackie. I'm an actor. The movie I've seen a million times is "Top Gun," directed by Tony Scott, starring Tom Cruise, Val Kilmer, the beautiful Kelly McGillis and Anthony Edwards. I was about 11 or 12. I was really into airplanes the first time I saw "Top Gun," and it was on TV. And all I see are these Tomcats, like, falling into the frame.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "TOP GUN")
MACKIE: I was like, this is amazing. I was completely just enthralled by it.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "TOP GUN")
MACKIE: The movie's about a young, hot pilot named Maverick. Maverick and Goose are partners, and Goose is his spotter. He's the guy in the back of the jet that tells him what's going on, but he's also his best friend.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "TOP GUN")
MACKIE: You have Val Kilmer who's Iceman, who's the other hot pilot.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "TOP GUN")
MACKIE: There's this scene where he bites at Maverick. And it's the weirdest moment in film history, but it works. When he bites in his face, you're like, oh, that guy is sleazy.
(LAUGHTER)
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "TOP GUN")
MACKIE: They go to an academy called Top Gun where the Navy invites all of the best pilots so that they can compete and try to win this honor of being the top gun.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "TOP GUN")
MACKIE: Cut to music. (Singing) Brana, pum-pum, pum-pum, pum, pum, pum, pum, pum. Heaven on the edge, living on the eyes, no. Right?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DANGER ZONE")
MACKIE: Tom Cruise and Goose goes to a bar and meet this beautiful woman. And they sing a rendition of "You've Lost That Loving Feeling," a capella, to where the entire bar starts singing to this woman.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "TOP GUN")
MACKIE: Tom Cruise then learns in the next scene that Kelly McGillis is his instructor, so they have this brief love affair. (Singing) Take my breath away.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TAKE MY BREATH AWAY")
MACKIE: There's one scene where Tom Cruise goes over to her house, and they get in this big fight. He goes out on his motorcycle, and she's like...
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "TOP GUN")
MACKIE: And he's revving his motorcycle.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "TOP GUN")
MACKIE: And then he rides off. It's, oh, pure drama.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "TOP GUN")
MACKIE: I think the older I get, the more corny it gets. Because now, I just watch it, and I laugh at it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TAKE MY BREATH AWAY")
LYDEN: He feels the need, the need for speed. That's actor Anthony Mackie talking about the movie that he could watch a million times, "Top Gun."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DANGER ZONE")
MACKIE: You like that? That's really my ringtone. If you call me, that's what comes on on my phone. That's weird, right?
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
If you're just tuning in, this is WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden. And it's time now for music. Today, a major musical birthday.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PIECE OF MY HEART")
LYDEN: Janis Joplin would have turned 70 years old on this day.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PIECE OF MY HEART")
LYDEN: Janis Joplin died in 1970 at the age of just 27. She left behind a regrettably short yet incomparable catalog. NPR's Laura Sydell has this remembrance.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PIECE OF MY HEART")
LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE: In the mid-1960s, San Francisco was a Mecca for counterculture musicians. Many became megastars: Jimi Hendrix, the Grateful Dead, Santana. But when singer and songwriter Tracy Nelson arrived in 1966, it wasn't so open for her.
TRACY NELSON: I had I don't know how many musicians tell me: Why do you want to do this? This is no business for a woman. You know, why not just stay home, find a man, love, you know, just this kind of (bleep) that I didn't even think I was ever going to hear again.
SYDELL: That same year, another woman artist was trying to bust through the paternalistic San Francisco culture.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WOMEN IS LOSERS")
SYDELL: Janis Joplin and Tracy Nelson shared a bill at the Avalon Ballroom.
NELSON: I had to follow Janis Joplin. And I'm standing out there listening to her, and I was just thinking: Man, this is a force of nature.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WOMEN IS LOSERS")
SYDELL: Joplin was fronting a group called Big Brother and The Holding Company. They were pretty much a local San Francisco band until they played the Monterey Pop Festival in June of 1967.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BALL AND CHAIN")
SYDELL: Among the 1,200 journalists covering the festival was critic Robert Christgau, who was then writing for Esquire magazine.
ROBERT CHRISTGAU: I very much remember her playing in the sunshine, and everyone really not just excited but kind of flabbergasted at how intense it was.
SYDELL: Like a lot of white musicians at the time, Joplin was trying to sing like a black blues musician.
CHRISTGAU: Not too many of them were very convincing in that role. She was convincing in that role.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BALL AND CHAIN")
SYDELL: It's not how Joplin started out singing. She grew up in Port Arthur, Texas. She was a featured singer in the church choir. When she left for college in 1960, her models were folkies - singers like Joan Baez and Judy Collins. Initially, Joplin tried to imitate them.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SAD TO BE ALONE")
SYDELL: But the young singer didn't believe she could make it as a folkie, says Alice Echols, the author of a Joplin biography called "Scars of Sweet Paradise."
ALICE ECHOLS: Janis Joplin made a calculation. And the calculation was, you know what, I'm not pretty like Judy Collins or Maria Muldaur. And using that pretty voice is not going to get me very far.
SYDELL: In fact, Joplin had a hard time growing up in Texas. She didn't fit in to the conformist 1950s. She was a painter. She was chubby. She had bad skin, and she wasn't conventionally pretty. In an appearance in 1970 on "The Dick Cavett Show," she spoke bitterly about her adolescence.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DICK CAVETT SHOW")
SYDELL: So maybe it's not surprising that Joplin fell in love with the blues, especially Bessie Smith, Leadbelly and Big Mama Thornton. As she told Cavett, singing was the only way she could express how she felt.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE DICK CAVETT SHOW")
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ALL IS LONELINESS")
SYDELL: Unfortunately, many of the artists of the 1960s who emulated the blues also emulated the drug habits of blues musicians. In early October of 1970, just a little over three years since she hit it big, Joplin was making an album with a new band. One night, she went back to her Los Angeles hotel room and shot up. She was found dead the next day. Tracy Nelson remembers hearing the news.
NELSON: I was kind of pissed off, because she had gone beyond that. She was really beginning to be a really serious musician and singer. And it was just so dumb.
SYDELL: That winter, Joplin's record label released her last album, "Pearl." "Me and Bobby McGee" topped the charts.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ME AND BOBBY MCGEE")
SYDELL: Many critics say it was Joplin's best album. She began to take more control of her voice. She was the first woman to make it big in rock. Yet, biographer Alice Echols says she really has no imitators.
ECHOLS: Nobody has come close to capturing the way that that girl sang. And I don't think they ever will, because there's something in her voice that can't be replicated.
SYDELL: Echols thinks it's no accident that they've been trying to make a movie about Joplin for years but still haven't found anyone who can play the part. Laura Sydell, NPR News, San Francisco.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ME AND BOBBY MCGEE")
LYDEN: Today would have been Janis Joplin's 70th birthday.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ME AND BOBBY MCGEE")
LYDEN: And for Saturday, that's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden. Check out our weekly podcast. Check for WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED on iTunes or on the NPR app. Click on programs, scroll down. We're back on the radio tomorrow. Until then, thanks for listening and have a great night.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ME AND BOBBY MCGEE")
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
If you've just tuned in, this is WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Jacki Lyden. We've been discussing the scope of President Obama's second term, but PolitiFact has been keeping a list, a very long list on the president's first term. PolitiFact, as you may know, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning organization which assesses the veracity of political claims. This week, PolitiFact released the president's final report card on campaign promises kept and broken. Deputy Editor Angie Holan says, PolitiFact started tracking the president back in 2007. And fact checking has really become part of the political scene since then.
ANGIE HOLAN: We wanted to do something to bring that fact-checking style of reporting to the presidency. And we decided to look at campaign promises and we created a new meter - we call it the Obameter - and we rate the campaign promises to see if the candidate is keeping his promises.
LYDEN: Well, first, let's look at the rating, and then maybe we'll bear down on a couple of individual promises. So how well on the Obameter did Barack Obama, the president, do?
HOLAN: He did pretty well. He made 508 promises. And we found that he kept 47 percent of those, so almost half. Another 26 percent, he made partial progress on. We rate those promises a compromise. And then in the promise broken category, we found just about a quarter of his promises; it ended up at 23 percent of his promises we rated promise broken.
LYDEN: So give me an example of a promise that President Barack Obama has kept.
HOLAN: The economic stimulus law was something that allowed Obama to keep many, many promises. And there, the topics ranged everything from energy, to transportation, to education. The Race to the Top program that set up states in competition for federal money ended up prompting states to do all kinds of things to meet goals that Obama said he wanted to meet. And this - these are things like getting more teachers into the classroom, getting kids interested in math and science, a lot of technology-related promises. So that stimulus really reflected Obama's campaign agenda in very detailed ways.
LYDEN: The president, of course, had some very high-profile broken promises, and closing Guantanamo Bay certainly springs to mind. What happened there?
HOLAN: Well, what happened there was that Congress said, you can't spend any money to bring any remaining prisoners to the United States, so they weren't able to close Guantanamo Bay. Now, I should add, we rate promises just based on fulfillment, which our readers sometimes don't like that. But if he tried really hard and it didn't happen, we gave it a promise broken.
LYDEN: One of the promises the president made when he was campaigning, most ardently, was that he was going to bring a new bipartisan tone to Washington, and that has not, in fact, occurred.
HOLAN: He wanted to get a lot of things done. And so the health care law got him a lot of promise kepts on our meter, but that may also have contributed to Republicans who didn't want to work with him. So I think there might be a tension there between bipartisan compromise and trying to pursue a legislative agenda.
LYDEN: So with the president's second term approaching, what's the future of your project?
HOLAN: We are preparing to add some new promises that we found during the 2012 campaign, and then we'll - we're going to keep following his 2008 promises for the next four years and see if any of them change rating, if maybe there's a promise broken that he'll end up keeping or maybe there's a kept that will go to broken, but we're going to be watching and see what happens.
LYDEN: Angie Holan is the deputy editor of PolitiFact and the editor of PolitiFact Florida. And you can see the article we've been discussing at politifact.com.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
This is WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
For 20 years, George Saunders has been writing short stories. Once a geological engineer who traveled the world, he started crafting wondrous short stories that combine the absurd and fantastic with the mundane realities of everyday life. One story, about a professional caveman inspired those iconic Geico commercials.
In 2006, he won the MacArthur fellowship. This month, his new collection of stories came out. It's called "Tenth of December" and its reception has been nothing short of incredible. Reviewers have raved and The New York Times magazine called it, quote, "The best book you'll read this year." George Saunders joins me now. George, thanks for being with us.
GEORGE SAUNDERS: Thank you for having me.
LYDEN: Wow. What a reception to this book.
SAUNDERS: Yeah, it's been a pretty good week.
(LAUGHTER)
LYDEN: So let's talk about the craft of the short story because, as I mentioned, you've been working a long time at this. You teach at Syracuse University. Why the short story form?
SAUNDERS: Well, a kind of dumb answer is I just find it so beautiful. And I have not figured it out yet. I started maybe in my middle 20s trying a crack at it, and it's just a deep, deep well, you know? So when you get it right, it can be such a beautiful explosion of submerged meaning.
So, really, I'm just - I kind of thought, well, I'll work on a few of these and then I'll write a novel. And it's just gone deeper and deeper over the years.
LYDEN: Because there are people who may not have read you, let's take a look at your work. And let's take a look at "Victory Lap," which introduces us to two teenage characters. One of the things I love about your stories is these are very ordinary people. And we can relate to those people.
They then get entangled in very extraordinary circumstances at times, but this is a girl who's imagining herself as a princess meeting her suitor at a ball - as many young girls do - and her counterpoint here is a skinny boy, a neighbor, terrified of his very strict parents. Let's start by meeting Kyle. His really strict father has left him a work notice.
SAUNDERS: Sure. Scout: New geode on deck. Place in yard per included drawing. No goofing. Rake areas first, put down plastic as I've shown you, then lay in white rock. This geode expensive. Please take seriously. No reason should not be done by time I get home. This is equal to five work points.
Gar, Dad, do you honestly feel it fair that I should have to slave in the yard until dark after a rigorous cross-country practice that included 16 440s, eight 880s, a mile-for-time, a kajillion Drake sprints and a five-mile Indian relay? Oh, shoes off, mister. Yoinks, too late. He was already at the TV and had left an incriminating trail of microclods. Way verboten.
Could the microclods be hand-plucked? Although, problem: if he went back to hand-pluck the microclods, he'd leave an incriminating new trail of micro-clods. He took of his shoes and stood mentally rehearsing a little show he liked to call What if Right Now? What if they came home right now?
LYDEN: So, George Saunders, this is so delicious because I'm just immediately in Kyle's head with him. And that's not a space that a reader always gets to inhabit with an author. And I was thinking you've been a geophysicist. And I thought, you know, geode is perfect because so many of your people are under these tectonic pressures of absolute rigidity - the rigidity of mortality, which we're all going to face, debt, which a lot of us face, futility, which I think most people feel at least once a day.
SAUNDERS: Right. For me, if I think about all those things, I kind of block up. But if I just concentrate on a human voice - I do this thing that I call third-person ventriloquist, which is it's kind of a standard third-person voice at first. And then, as quickly as I can, I try to get into the person's thoughts but then with the extra kicker of trying to really use/restrict myself to his or her diction.
When you're thinking in someone else's voice, you sort of do become them. So what I'm doing is kind of tapping into a part of me as a 15 year old boy, or in this case, a 15 year old girl. So it gets really psychologically complex. What I found is this technique really makes me love these characters a lot, even when they're kind of messed up or they're doing things that are evil or questionable.
Because you're entering the imaginative process through their doorway, it shifts the world a little bit on its axis.
LYDEN: Yeah. Another story in this book, you know, we mentioned a moment ago the way that you burnish your language by using the voice of people who find themselves in over their heads. I'm thinking of "The Semplica-Girl Diaries." Is that the one that took you 12 years to write?
SAUNDERS: That is. You know, I dreamed the basic image of the story, which is really disturbing. In the dream, I went to this window in our house and looked out in our yard and there were these four, five - I knew them to be sort of Third World women hanging on a kind of clothesline. And the clothesline actually went through their heads. And I understood these to be kind of lawn ornaments. They had on these beautiful white smocks. Welcome to my dream life.
LYDEN: Mm-hmm.
SAUNDERS: But the person I was - who was seeing this disturbing image - was actually kind of overjoyed and happy at the thing that he should have been disgusted by. I thought: Oh, my God. I am so lucky. I finally arrived, you know, and just this feeling of gratitude that I've been able to do this wonderful thing for my family.
So I kind of woke up from that dream, and it had some obvious, you know, kind of political, metaphorical implications. And so then, the trick for the next 12 years was to kind of preserve the intensity of that first thing without having it just merely be a kind of propagandistic preaching job.
LYDEN: Let's go to a story that I think is really accessible, George, and that would be the title story of this collection, "Tenth of December." I quite loved it, and I thought, you know, there's almost a '50s feeling in here. This is about a boy who goes into the woods. He's kind of a misfit. He's going to encounter a very sick old man who is thinking about ending his life. And that, to me, is almost classic. Like, I could see Timmy in "Lassie Come Home" and, you know?
(LAUGHTER)
LYDEN: But you've given it a complete, you know, contemporary twist. This is sort of near the end of the story where the little boy Robin has been saved but his savior hasn't. Would you begin there?
SAUNDERS: Sure. With a shock, he remembered the old guy. What the heck? An image flashed of the old guy standing bereft and blue-skinned in his tidy whities like a POW abandoned at the barbwire due to no room on the truck or a sad, traumatized stork bidding farewell to its young.
He bolted. He bolted on the old guy, hadn't even given him a thought. Blimey. What a chicken (bleep) thing to do. He had to go back right now. Help the old guy hobble out. But he was so tired. He wasn't sure he could do it. Probably the old guy was fine. Probably he had some sort of old guy plan.
But he'd bolted. He couldn't live with that. His mind was telling him that the only way to undo the bolting was to go back now, save the day. His body was saying something else: It's too far. You're just a kid. Get Mom. Mom will know what to do. He stood paralyzed at the edge of the soccer field like a scarecrow in huge flowing clothes.
LYDEN: A sad, traumatized stork bidding farewell to its young, a scarecrow in huge flowing clothes. I think one of the things that really hits me in your language is that it seems simple but you have such a way with image.
SAUNDERS: Oh, thanks. You know, honestly, so much of this stuff happens on the fly. And for me, one of the deepest pleasures is going into my little writing shed day after day and, like, OK, today, I have to write that scene where Robin makes a decision.
And you're just kind of waiting for one little detail to come in that will liven it up. Like that stork thing was something that I - it wouldn't have been a natural thing. I think it would've come after many drafts. You know, when you do interviews, you get a chance to talk about your work. You sort of want to jump to the safety place which is the concept. Like, yeah, that's what I do. I often think about image, and image is something that - but in truth, the real artistic process, as I've understood it, is 95 percent intuitive, like seat-of-the-pants, at-the-moment decisions that you can't even explain, you know?
LYDEN: Although again and again and again, which is why it can take 12 years...
SAUNDERS: Exactly.
LYDEN: ...to write a 24-page story.
SAUNDERS: Exactly. I always compare it to, you know, the process of if somebody gave you a furnished apartment that they had furnished, your first impression would be, well, thanks, but also, this doesn't feel like me. But then if you're allowed to replace one item a day for seven years with an item that you liked better, after that seven years, that place would have you all over it in ways that you couldn't have anticipate at the beginning.
So likewise, in a story, if you're doing hundreds of drafts and each time you're micro-exerting your taste, that thing is going to start to look like more and more and more like you. In fact, I feel like my stories are much more indicative of me than this guy here talking to you or me on even my best day as a person. The story's a chance to sort of super compress whoever you are and present it in this slightly elevated way.
LYDEN: George Saunders is the author of the new collection "Tenth of December." George, it really has been fun. Thank you.
SAUNDERS: It was a total pleasure. Thank you.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
Contact with nature is not some magical elixir, writes Stephen Kellert, but the natural world is the substrate on which we must build our existence. Kellert writes about the environment and its effect on us and ours on it, building on the traditions of Thoreau and John Muir and Rachel Carson.
Kellert is professor emeritus at the Yale School of Forestry and the author of many books. His newest is called "Birthright: People and Nature in the Modern World." Dr. Kellert, welcome to the program.
STEPHEN KELLERT: It's nice to be here.
LYDEN: So, Stephen Kellert, you've written that our capacity, even to be human, to think and feel and communicate and create, depend on this relationship to nature. Can you elaborate on that a little and tell us how?
KELLERT: Well, it's a fairly simple concept. For more than 99 percent of our history as a species, we evolved in a natural - not in an artificial or human constructed or created - world, and therefore we became deeply attuned to the resident rhythms and stimuli that originate in the natural world. And it reveals itself in many ways.
Our attraction to nature, our inclination to find meaning and purpose in life to a relationship to the world beyond ourselves, which is another way of saying nature, and the way in which we symbolize nature and incorporate that into our ability to communicate through language and story and other ways. All these are, you know, very fundamental capacities, and they reflect our affinity for nature, but all these are basic capacities of being a human being.
LYDEN: What about a city street? Are we more likely now to recognize that we need to have at least some contact with a tree canopy, for example?
KELLERT: I think so. We love cities. Eighty-two percent of us in America live in an urban environment, which is the most built and transformed of all habitats. But it's about creating good habitat for people even in our urban settings. Tree planting is part of that, but also the interior of buildings and the facades of buildings can be inspired and mimic and simulate natural patterns and processes, and use materials that remind us of nature and have natural lighting in such a way that even the deepest interior spaces of an urban, built environment can still provoke satisfying experiences of natural patterns.
LYDEN: One of the things you talk about in this book is aversion. And in the 19th century, there was a lot of aversion for, say, wolves because they were perceived as destructive to farms, the passenger pigeon was hunted to extinction. Have we reversed that feeling?
KELLERT: Well, you know, any of these tendencies can be exaggerated to a point where they become dysfunctional. Certainly, our fear of large predators such as wolves was an example of a loathing, a hating of a particular species that went beyond a reasonable response to a threat to perhaps growing livestock or to - settlement on the wilderness. And we made this species an object of fear and loathing to the point where it became an expression of what could be called specicide. We weren't happy until we actually wiped out this creature altogether.
LYDEN: Although you do have a great example in here where you and a colleague are courting a wolf pack. And it is terrifying when you actually begin to hear them.
KELLERT: Well, absolutely. We were out in the deep of night in northern Minnesota. Eventually, we were surrounded by wolves, and I could, you know, feel the terror of being a relatively vulnerable prey species with this large predator. And it, you know, it was a very humbling experience, but at the same time it was an awesome experience. I came to appreciate the wolf in a way that I never had before through my intellectual studies by recognizing its power.
LYDEN: You have written an entire chapter here about children, and you say that a lack of exposure to the natural world really dulls our senses, if you talk about the effect of the natural world on attraction and reason and exploitation. How about children? How much time today do children spend out of doors having contact with nature?
KELLERT: Well, there has been a profound change in this regard, and the average child today spends 52 hours in an average week engaged in electronic media of one sort or another, whether it be television or computer or games. And in an average week, less than 40 minutes outside. And, you know, I'm not - this is not to say that electronic media is bad.
Again, it's a balance. And the experience of the out of doors for children is a richly stimulating one. It's the most information-rich stimulating environment that children will ever encounter and will continue to be integral to their, you know, healthy physical and mental maturation.
LYDEN: Stephen Kellert. He is professor emeritus and senior research scholar at the School of Forestry and Environmental Studies at Yale and the author of his new book "Birthright: People in Nature and the Modern World." It's been a great pleasure. Thank you.
KELLERT: You're welcome, Jacki.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
And if you're just tuning in, this is WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden. And it's time now for music.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "MECHANICAL MAMMOTH")
LYDEN: You're listening to some new music from Sean Lennon. Yes, that Lennon, the son of John and Yoko. And as a composer, he's just as much his mother's son as his father's. As a matter of fact, he may lean more heavily toward the New York City avant garde scene his mother helped to popularize.
You can hear the result in two new albums he's just released. One, you're listening to right now, is an improvisational duo called "Mystical Weapons." And the other album is a score to an independent film called "Alter Egos."
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "THE KILLER")
LYDEN: I asked Sean Lennon to briefly sum up this strange little film he worked on.
SEAN LENNON: It's sort of a superhero comedy, and the director and writer is one of my best friends, this guy Jordan Galland.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "ALTER EGOS")
LENNON: "Alter Egos" is his sort of parody of superhero films. It's not a true superhero film. There's not a lot of action. It's more like a romantic comedy that just happens to use superhero costumes as a metaphor for being misunderstood, you know? So the girls fall in love with the persona of the sort of the front that these guys put on.
LYDEN: Oh.
LENNON: But inside, they feel like, you know, they're not loved for who they really are.
LYDEN: And the grim, sad struggle to deliver, huh?
LENNON: Indeed.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "ALTER EGOS")
LYDEN: So this film score, you know, what really intrigued me about it was that it wasn't just one style of music, that it did demand the coherence, if you will, of going all over the map so that the film could have, you know, a propulsion and motion. And I'm just wondering if you and the director, Jordan Galland, collaborated about that before you sat down to write it.
LENNON: Well, what actually happened was I had been working on a bunch of cues while he was shooting that were in this direction that we wound up scratching. And it was more of a kitsch direction. We were sort of modeling the music - or I was - after films like "Barbarella" and "Danger: Diabolik," the sort of kitsch Italian superhero world.
And we thought that that would work because the movie was a sort of kitsch comedy about superheroes. But ultimately, when we laid in that music over the footage, it really didn't work because somehow it was just redundant because the scene was already kind of a joke and then the music was sort of indicating that it was a joke. So it just felt less funny.
So then we had to scratch, actually, about 15 cues that I'd done. And we were trying to edit for some kind of screening deadline, and so we only had three or four days to do the entire thing over again. So that was actually very daunting. But we realized at that point that we need the music to contrast for this film and be completely different in that it should be dramatic and kind of grandiose and melodramatic. And that sort of made the characters seem funnier. The more serious the music got, the funnier the character's performance seemed.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "THE KILLER")
LYDEN: And you can get that film, by the way, "Alter Egos," on Netflix. So...
LENNON: Well, you can get the score at chimeramusic.com.
LYDEN: All right. Good.
LENNON: And you can order it from me directly.
LYDEN: All right.
LENNON: I'll package it up myself and mail it off.
LYDEN: Ah. Listen, you'll be having everybody doing that. I'm speaking with musician Sean Lennon. He's got two - not one, but two new albums. One is a score to the film we've been talking about, "Alter Egos," and the other is an improvisational duo known as "Mystical Weapons."
So let's talk about "Mystical Weapons." Now, this project is with Greg Saunier of the band Deerhoof, totally improvisational. So what was the mission statement, if you will, before you started on this piece of work?
LENNON: Well, I'd always wanted to play with Greg. I was a huge fan of his band after Deerhoof opened for Yoko Ono Plastic Ono band show that I was music directing in Oakland. And, you know, we knew we were going to hang out then, so we wound up booking a small improv gig where we could open for some other band, just Greg and I jamming together. And that turned out to be one of those, sort of memorable moments where we just felt, wow, this is meant to happen. Let's do this again.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "MECHANICAL MAMMOTH")
LYDEN: One I particularly like, "Colony Collapse Disorder."
LENNON: Mm-hmm.
LYDEN: And that feels to me like the beginning of some really epic rock song, actually.
LENNON: Well, it is an epic rock song, I think. That song - the fun thing about that is that the basic track, the concept for that song was how many instruments can I, you know, put within arm's reach to manage to play at the same time.
So I was sitting in front of the rows. My left foot - I had put a bass drum pedal on an actual bass guitar to hit the lowest thing with my foot. And then I had a guitar in my lap, obviously. There was a synthesizer to my right, and I also had another guitar laying on a bench and an open tuning that I would just hit with this violin bow in the distance.
When I wanted to play these big open chords that are like dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-dat-dat, it kind of rang through. It had trembles that are really good on this one.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "MECHANICAL MAMMOTH")
LYDEN: You seem to be a really enthusiastic and meaningful collaborator with a lot of people. We've been speaking of, you know, different folks throughout this interview, and it seems to make you happy.
LENNON: Yeah. I - that's interesting. I mean, I've never really thought about it, but I do probably prefer collaborating to being alone in a sort of vacuum. I don't know why. It's - either it's an inherent part of his personality, but I think it's also maybe because I always knew that my dad was like that. I mean, I'd always heard about it, that, you know, he wanted to have writing partners, like, and that was one of the reasons that he tried to get my mom to write with him.
And she was more of an island and is more of - one of those kind of, you know, an artist as an island kind of people where she likes to do everything by herself. And I know that my dad always felt sort of like, maybe a little bit lonely in terms of the songwriting element. He was like, why don't you write with me more? And she's like, well, I don't do that.
LYDEN: In his early days, of course, he wrote with Paul McCartney. Right.
LENNON: Exactly. So I always grew up thinking, like, you know, maybe that's how you're supposed to do it, because I always knew that he wrote a lot of those songs, you know, with Paul. And so I was always looking for people to collaborate with.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LYDEN: Sean Lennon. He just released two new albums - one with his avant garde duo, "Mystical Weapons," and the other the score to the film "Alter Egos." To hear a few samples, please go to our website, nprmusic.org. Well, Sean, it's just been a real pleasure.
LENNON: It's been awesome to be here. I'm a huge fan of the show.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LYDEN: And for Sunday that's WEEKEND ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
As we discussed, the president's inauguration isn't until tomorrow. But here in Washington, a lot of parties are already starting, with a blast of something. We're talking about inaugural celebrations: balls, galas, cocktail parties. Emphasis on the cocktail.
The Round Robin Bar is just a stone's throw from the White House, and it's a Washington mainstay. At the moment, it's bedecked in red, white and blue bunting. And Jim Hewes is a veteran bartender there of nearly 30 years standing. He's wearing a matching bow tie. Dapper.
JIM HEWES: Welcome to the Round Robin Bar at the Willard Intercontinental Hotel. And you are standing here in the oldest bar in continuous operation in Washington, D.C.
LYDEN: A capital fixture since the mid-1800s, the Willard Hotel is synonymous with presidential history. Abraham Lincoln slept in the original Willard the night before his inauguration. President Grant enjoyed drinks in the lobby. Today, the bar is adorned with portraits of past presidents, and Jim Hewes is inspired.
HEWES: You hear these stories, and that legacy continues. You know, the history is all around us. I'll say to people, you know, you're walking in a shadow of giants.
LYDEN: In honor of the inauguration, Jim Hewes has come up with a very special drinks menu distilling that presidential history into 44 cocktails. Our first president, George Washington, favored Madeira, a fortified wine from the Mediterranean. President number 35, John F. Kennedy, would kick back with a Beefeater martini served with olives.
And as for our current president, his drink, the Blue Hawaiian, is more of an homage to his homeland than something we have even one scintilla of evidence showing he actually enjoys.
HEWES: This is a beautiful drink. You know, you feel like you're, you know, looking at the beautiful blue waters of the Pacific. And, of course, this honors the president's heritage in terms of growing up in Hawaii.
LYDEN: Absolutely. I can almost hear the surf moving.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HEWES: I had heard that the president has a taste for fine-aged tequila. So we've taken a little bit of Patron tequila with some blue Curacao and some fresh lime juice, and then rigorously shake this up. And then I'll actually strain this over crushed ice and, of course, serve it with fresh lime and some pineapple.
LYDEN: Mm.
HEWES: It's a wonderful cocktail, a light libation of extraordinary character.
(LAUGHTER)
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LYDEN: Tell me about the Orange Blossom. Who's that for?
HEWES: Rutherford B. Hayes. And in 1877, he enters the White House. Thing is is that he was a teetotaler. He did not drink. In fact, his wife was known as Lemonade Lucy because she was always serving lemonade at functions. So the gentleman who was the head of the Washington Press Corps actually bribed White House staffers to spike the oranges with distilled spirits.
LYDEN: So they'd actually drink gin inside oranges?
HEWES: They would actually do - they would actually cut a hole, dig it out a little bit and pour a little gin in there and then put the plug back in.
LYDEN: Wow. Wow.
HEWES: And there you go. You got yourself a - an Orange Blossom special, which is gin. We're going to use Plymouth gin, and I'm going to use fresh squeezed orange juice. It's a very simple drink.
LYDEN: Fresh squeezed. Mm.
HEWES: So a little bit of an orange liqueur and a dash of orange bitters. Vigorously shake this, marrying all the flavors. And there we have it.
LYDEN: I'm going to sample it. Mm. That is lovely. Thank you very, very much.
HEWES: Let's try a hot buttered rum.
LYDEN: Great.
HEWES: And a hot buttered rum is a cocktail in our collection for John Quincy Adams.
LYDEN: Our sixth president. He becomes president in 1825.
HEWES: This is a wonderful cocktail, especially at the time of inaugurals, weather tended to be rather inclement. A hot toddy or a hot buttered rum was a very, very popular drink at the time made with Caribbean rum, fresh spices from the islands and fresh fruit.
LYDEN: OK.
HEWES: I've added my dark aged...
LYDEN: Cruzan rum.
HEWES: ...Cruzan rum, pat of butter.
LYDEN: A generous, beautiful pat of butter.
HEWES: And what we have is a hot buttered rum...
LYDEN: Wow. That is lovely.
HEWES: ...which President Adams would have enjoyed in the morning.
LYDEN: Oh, this is just delicious, Jim. This drink is like hot apple pie.
HEWES: And where's the ice cream?
(LAUGHTER)
LYDEN: So do you have a presidential hangover cure?
HEWES: I've been making this for years. Fresh lemon, fresh ground ginger - or you can use ginger ale - and soda water and then top it off with bitters, either Angostura bitters or my preference is Peychaud bitters, which is the Louisiana bitters. Can't beat it.
LYDEN: Well, Jim Hewes, you have made our visit to the Round Robin bar at the Willard Hotel here in Washington, D. C., on this inaugural weekend so much fun.
HEWES: Thank you for joining us here.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DRINKING WINE SPO-DEE-O-DEE")
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
And surely, the bubbly was pouring 148 years ago after Abraham Lincoln took his second oath of office. Recently, the Smithsonian did a bit of a document deep dive and came up with the menu for Lincoln's lavish inaugural ball.
MEGAN GAMBINO: There were Oyster stews, roast beef, leg of veal, roast turkey...
LYDEN: That's Megan Gambino. She wrote about the affair for smithsonian.com.
GAMBINO: And lots and lots of dessert - almond sponge cake, macaroon tarts.
LYDEN: The bill of fare, as it's called, provides an exquisite look at how different these presidential balls were just seven score and eight years ago. The food was served buffet style. And as Yale food historian Paul Freedman described it to Megan Gambino, the cuisine could best be described as French via England with some American ingredients.
GAMBINO: Oyster stew and pickled oysters. You wouldn't have found those in France as much.
LYDEN: Because people were catching oysters in the Potomac, so it was easy. And terrapin, too, I understand, turtle stew.
GAMBINO: Exactly. Locavores would be excited about seeing terrapin stew on the menu. Actually, I read in an article from The Washington Post from 1880 that any pretentious affair in Washington had to have Maryland-style terrapin stew.
LYDEN: On March 6, 1865, somewhere between four and 6,000 guests packed into the U.S. Patent Office building, The partygoers arrived around nine. The president and Mrs. Lincoln showed up around 10:30.
GAMBINO: President Lincoln was wearing a black suit and white gloves. Mary Todd Lincoln had this off the shoulder satin white gown. And she had flowers - jasmine and violet - woven in her hair.
LYDEN: A sight to behold, certainly. But soon, the attention turned to the buffet table, which was empty until midnight.
GAMBINO: So they had been dancing for a couple of hours and were probably getting really hungry.
LYDEN: And then midnight struck.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LYDEN: The decorum of the evening began to degrade rather quickly.
GAMBINO: The buffet table was meant to only serve 300 people at a time, but everyone sort of rushed at once.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GAMBINO: So...
LYDEN: Food fight. I think we call that a food fight.
GAMBINO: Exactly. It wasn't quite a food fight. As far as we know, people weren't tossing food around intentionally. Men would go over to the buffet table, and they'd fill a tray of food to bring back to their dates and their friends. And they'd, you know, maybe hoist it above the rest of the crowd.
And what happened was the food just slopped all over the floor and probably over people. There was actually a really, really interesting quote in the Washington Evening Star: The floor of the supper room was soon sticky, pasty and oily with wasted confections, mashed cake and debris of fowl and meat.
LYDEN: Well, here's to hoping President Obama's caterers can take a lesson from one of our forefathers'.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LYDEN: Megan Gambino wrote about Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural ball for smithsonian.com. And you can see that menu at our website, npr.org.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LYDEN: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
For years, British environmental activist Mark Lynas says he vandalized genetically modified food crops in a campaign to force the business of agriculture to be more holistic and ecological in its practices. His target were international companies like Monsanto and Syngenta, leaders in developing genetically modified organism for crops. But earlier this month, Lynas went in front of the world to reverse his position.
At the Oxford Farming Conference, Mark Lynas said that he was sorry for what he called helping to start the anti-GMO movement. He talks to us now about why he changed his mind. Mark Lynas, welcome to the program.
MARK LYNAS: Hello, Jacki. Thanks for having me on.
LYDEN: Mark Lynas, in the response to the question of why you've changed your mind, you said: I discovered science. What did you mean by that?
LYNAS: When I started off as an anti-GMO activist, it was very much an ideological position. I was scared of the new technology. You know, it just seemed to be messing with the basic building blocks of life. But what happened in the sort of 10, 15 years since then is that I've written a couple of books on climate change, and I really fell in love with the scientific method and - as a way of establishing knowledge about the world. It eventually dawned on me way too late that I was actually being anti-science in the way that I was talking about GMOs, and that there are many ways a stronger scientific consensus on the safety of GMOs than there is about the reality of climate change.
LYDEN: In terms of the science of enhancing a crop genetically, one of the things you say is that you realize this is actually helping make food sustainable in places like Asia and Africa where people are at risk of famine or other scarcities.
LYNAS: One of the case studies that really changed my mind about this was the whole saga of golden rice, which was developed to be vitamin A-enhanced because something like a quarter million children per year die from a vitamin A deficiency in developing countries, particularly in South Asia. And Greenpeace has been waging a campaign to stop this rice ever being developed.
And you can make a pretty strong case that as a result, you know, thousands - tens of thousands of children have died because they were denied access to this purely because it's GM, and there's a kind of ideological bias against that. You know, you look at this, it's nothing to do with Monsanto. It's nothing to do with most of the common concerns about GMOs. It would actually be there to, you know, to save lives in the developing world.
LYDEN: Have you heard anything from Monsanto?
LYNAS: I'm constantly accused of taking money from them. They've never offered me a penny. I've never asked for a penny, and I've never received a penny. And, you know, it's just a way of attacking my arguments without engaging with them.
LYDEN: I want to ask you about one specific Internet rebuttal to one of your claims. And this one comes from John Vandermeer at the University of Michigan who wrote that this level of understanding about science is elementary and that possibly you are now wrong about your reversal. What do you have to say about that?
LYNAS: Well, I'd be the first one to say that having been wrong before, I'm not infallible now. For me, it's important to look at what the mainstream science is saying. We need to get on with developing more biotech crops because they potentially can be an enormous boon environmentally, and I think that's a message, which has been lost in this debate so far.
LYDEN: Mark Lynas is an environmentalist who earlier this month apologized at the Oxford Farming Conference for his long campaign against genetically modified food. Mark Lynas, thank you and good luck.
LYNAS: Thank you very much, Jacki.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We want our children to live in America that isn't burdened by debt, that isn't weakened by inequality, that isn't threatened by the destructive power of a warming planet.
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
One of the chief expectations by those who voted for President Obama was that he would move assertively on climate change whatever the political climate in Washington. Environmental groups say they're hopeful that in President Obama's second term, he'll make good on promises to pass climate change legislation. Michael Brune is the executive director of the Sierra Club.
MICHAEL BRUNE: We have a bipartisan common interest in moving away from fossil fuels. And the sooner that members of both parties in Congress realize that and develop common solutions, the better off we'll all be.
LYDEN: But bipartisan support is an elusive national beast these days. Harvard political scientist Theda Skocpol published a report this past week, which says that environmental groups doomed their 2009 carbon emissions program, called cap-and-trade, by failing to recognize the divided reality of today's Washington.
THEDA SKOCPOL: People still were thinking as late as 2009 when Obama moved into the White House that the fact that this idea had originated with some conservative, market-oriented economists in the past meant that you might be able to get bipartisan coalitions to get it through the House and especially the Senate.
What I argue in my report is that unbeknownst to the supporters who were trying to put together a coalition of environmentalists and business people was the radicalization of the Republican Party. And, you know, already by 2006 and '07, my research shows they had a sort of pincer movement in place that was going to discourage Republican politicians from going along with any kind of cap-and-trade compromise.
LYDEN: So how unlikely is it that climate change legislation will be signed into the law in the next four years? What are the lessons from that particular time?
SKOCPOL: Well, I mean, we have a situation right now where there's extreme partisan polarization, so nothing like this is going to get through Congress in the next two years. But the point that I think everybody needs to keep in mind is that campaigns for big changes, like comprehensive health reform, which squeaked through in 2010, or cap-and-trade, it would be the same kind of thing, changing incentives in the entire economy.
Those take years of preparation. So part of the purpose of my report is to encourage environmentalists at the national level to start talking with state and local groups to form a broader coalition to engage the American populous as a whole.
LYDEN: Let me ask you to draw that out a little bit further. You're suggesting that they might take a lesson from the campaign for Obamacare or even the campaign that will be forthcoming on gun control that they need to sort of micromanage it, that they need to make micro-connections state to state.
SKOCPOL: Well, manage isn't quite the right word because, of course, political coalitions that involve grassroots groups are unwieldy. Now, I did make a comparison in my report between organized efforts that went into preparing for the Obamacare push in 2009 and 2010 and the organized efforts that went into the push for cap-and-trade. And it's really striking.
The cap-and-trade efforts were mainly working out bargains inside the beltway. There was not much effort made to explain what they were actually trying to pass to average Americans, and there was very little roping in of local and state groups. In health care, on the other hand, the Health Care for America Now network put together a capacity to do things across all 50 states. And that was pretty important in the final push for health care reforms that there were state and local people pushing on their congressional representatives.
LYDEN: Theda Skocpol of Harvard University. In the past, the United States has often been quite successful at uniting behind ideas of conservation. In the first part of the 20th century, business and environmentalists agreed. Take the national parks. Paul Sabin studies American environmental history at Yale. He says things changed with the rise of the middle class.
PAUL SABIN: I think you see quite a substantial change after World War II. One element of that is an increasing focus on quality of life issues and health issues. And in that sense, it was also a product of new affluence that people were more willing to look out for the quality of life.
LYDEN: I'd like for us to listen to a clip, Paul, of the news special. And this is from 1970, none other than the great Walter Cronkite. And he's explaining the purpose of the very first Earth Day.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LYDEN: You know, I listen to that - first of all, my goodness, what an authoritative voice - but also you don't hear this kind of stern warning, this kind of scary rhetoric in quite the same way anymore.
SABIN: No. I think it's become much less in the environmental discourse. There is - been a scaling back on the part of the environmental movement of trying to address the issue of consumption, which, I think, in the early 1970s, there was more of a sense of a need for a dramatic personal shift. And this is maybe connected to the broader ideas about the personal being political, but that in your everyday life that you had to make changes.
LYDEN: So not 10 years after Earth Day comes Ronald Reagan. How did that change things?
SABIN: Well, I think Reagan really marks a major break with the environmental sentiments of the 1970s. Even Richard Nixon shifted during his presidency from early on. You know, his January 1970 State of the Union address, he talks about environmental restoration as a cause beyond party and beyond factions.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SABIN: But relatively quickly, he starts to express concerns, particularly with the rise of the energy crisis about the economic consequences of environmental regulation, environmental law.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SABIN: So what's interesting about Reagan is that, literally, his announcement of his candidacy in November of 1979 really marks a major breaking point.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SABIN: What I think that represents is part of the emerging split between the parties in some sense over their relationship to environmental science. And you can see that more recently with debate about climate change and whether it's really happening and the idea that scientists might be misrepresenting what the environmental problems really are.
LYDEN: Well, let's talk about today because, today, we have a president who, during the campaign, had vowed to make climate change a top priority. It certainly has, at times, been a polarizing issue. What else do you notice are features of the way we talk about the environment and climate today?
SABIN: Well, I think one of the interesting things about the climate discussion that has developed is part of a representation of how the environmental movement has changed and how people's thinking about environmental problems has changed.
And one element that I would emphasize is the way that climate change has been recast as a national security issue, as an economic threat, as a public health risk. The idea that climate change is not an environmental problem - it's a much broader type of problem.
And I think that is representative of something that goes beyond climate change as an issue itself because it's true more broadly about other kinds of environmental problems that they're not exclusively environmental, either.
LYDEN: Paul Sabin of Yale University. Coming up, international environmentalist Stephen Kellert on his new book "Birthright: People and Nature in the Modern World."
JACKI LYDEN, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.
President Obama has officially begun his second term. Shortly before noon today, he was cited the 35-word oath of office with Chief Justice John Roberts.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear...
LYDEN: After the oath, he thanked the chief justice, hugged his wife and daughters and said: I did it. NPR's Ari Shapiro is at the White House and joins us now. Hi, Ari.
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: Hi, Jacki.
LYDEN: So the public inaugural ceremonies are tomorrow. Remind us why the president took the oath of office today.
SHAPIRO: Well, basically because the Constitution requires. The Constitute says the president needs to be sworn in on January 20th before noon. He was just a couple of minutes before noon. But there is a long tradition that when Inauguration Day falls on a Sunday, the public events happen on Monday. This started almost 200 years ago in 1821 when James Monroe was being sworn in for a second term.
Inauguration Day was in March back then. But after consulting with the Supreme Court, he decided to have all of the public events on a day when the public offices and courts would be open, moving it to Monday. That's been the tradition ever since - most recently, in 1985 when Ronald Reagan was sworn in for his second term.
LYDEN: Now, memorably, the president also took the oath twice just before his first inauguration, and that put him in rare company. Take us back there.
SHAPIRO: Yeah. As you're referencing, in 2009, Chief Justice John Roberts stumbled on Inauguration Day, administering the oath, and the White House wanted to make sure that there was no question that the president had been sworn in legitimately. So they took what Roberts described as a belt-and-suspenders approach.
They brought the chief back to the White House the next day for a second swearing-in. And the fact that President Obama has had his third swearing-in today and will have his fourth tomorrow makes him only one of two presidents to take the oath of office as president four times. The other one, of course, is FDR. Franklin Delano Roosevelt served four terms as president.
LYDEN: Let's not forget the vice president, also sworn in. What happened?
SHAPIRO: Yeah. First thing this morning at the vice president's mansion a couple of miles from the White House, Sonia Sotomayor, the Supreme Court justice, swore in Vice President Biden, making her the first Hispanic and fourth woman ever to swear in a president or vice president. Of course, Sonia Sotomayor was President Obama's first appointee to the Supreme Court his first year in office. So there's a lot of significance there.
The vice president explained that they had to do it early because Sotomayor had to go off to New York. After she administered the oath, he kissed her on the cheek. President Obama did not kiss Chief Justice Roberts on the cheek.
(LAUGHTER)
LYDEN: And besides these oaths, there were a few other traditional inauguration events. And I'm just talking about the official ones.
SHAPIRO: Right. And there is a tradition that the president and vice president lay a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns. They did that today. The first family also went to church today, and the Reverend Ronald Braxton delivered a sermon with a theme tied to forward, which was, of course, the Obama re-election campaign's theme. The reverend talked about the Israelites leaving Egypt and the need to move forward, as he put it, when forward is the only option.
LYDEN: NPR's Ari Shapiro. I know that everyone will be looking forward to your coverage tomorrow. Thank you.
SHAPIRO: Thank you, Jacki. Great to talk to you.
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Since the end of the Second World War, a tantalizing tale has lived on among veterans and aviation buffs. It goes like this. British troops, leaving Burma in 1945, buried dozens of Spitfire fighter planes in several locations around the country also known as Myanmar. From Yangon, NPR's Anthony Kuhn has the story of an English farmer who has spent the past 16 years hunting for the buried Spitfires.
(SOUNDBITE OF METAL DETECTOR)
ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Something is buried underground, and it's setting off metal detectors, a team of scientists and archeologists who's here at Yangon's Mingaladon Airport, to find out if it's the Spitfires. The site is also a military airbase and getting permission to dig here is difficult.
There's an 86-year-old British veteran named Stanley Coombe with the team. He was here in Burma for the final chaotic days of the war. Japan had been defeated. British and American troops were eager to go home. They were getting rid of surplus military hardware any way they could. Coombe recalls driving past the British air force or RAF airfield at Mingaladon one day, when something caught his eye.
STANLEY COOMBE: Well, as we got to the end of the road, I saw these big crates, and we didn't know what was in them at the time. But the next day, I said to an RAF man, what was in those crates down there? And he said, would you believe Spitfires?
KUHN: Coombe told his story to David Cundall, a farmer from North Lincolnshire in England. Cundall says he's been flying airplanes and digging them up for nearly four decades.
DAVID CUNDALL: And around Lincolnshire, there's lots and lots of World War II airfields, and I've dug quite a few up over the years. And I've found engines and propellers and spare parts and spanners. And I have dug up Spitfires, Hurricanes and Lancasters.
KUHN: Cundall believed the legend of the buried Spitfires. Since 1996, he's traveled to Myanmar many times in search of them. It wasn't until the European Union suspended its sanctions on Myanmar last year that its government agreed to let Cundall dig for the planes. Cundall believes his search team is getting close. They used ground radar mapping and other techniques to pinpoint the location of their dig here at Yangon's airport.
Burmese geologist U Soe Thein has worked with David Cundall. He says he believes he has located a trove of planes in Northern Kachin state, and he is sure they're Spitfires.
U SOE THEIN: (Foreign language spoken).
KUHN: I discovered 18 boxes, he says, all of them the same size: 11 feet high and 40 feet long. By using advanced technology, we can see the shape of the metal in the boxes. Soe Thein says there could be as many as 140 planes at around 10 sites. Cundall says the buried planes were disassembled and greased, so they could be in excellent condition. There are now only a few dozen Spitfires in the world that are still airworthy.
Britons are still familiar with the drone of the Spitfire's engines and the silhouette of its elliptical wings. It's more than just the plane that helped win the Battle of Britain, says the project's lead archaeologist, Andy Brockman. It's a national icon.
ANDY BROCKMAN: It's not just a superb fighting airplane, it's a superb piece of art deco sculpture. It's a superb piece of engineering. And it has a cultural resonance that goes beyond just, you know, the artifact of an airplane.
KUHN: He says the problem is that there's no documentary evidence that any Spitfires were buried. And if there were, it's not clear whether it was just to get rid of them or to be dug up and used again.
BROCKMAN: There's no treasure map saying X marks the spot. What we have is a collection of material, circumstantial evidence, witness statements, reports.
KUHN: The quest for the Spitfires is being bankrolled by a video game company called wargaming.net. The company's special projects director, Tracy Spaight, says his firm has modest expectations for the search.
TRACY SPAIGHT: We did not approach this as a money-making venture. In fact, if we do make any money from it, we'll probably donate it to organizations involved in historic preservation of aircraft. Our motivations are primarily to tell a great story.
KUHN: Even as the excavators dig, many skeptics are questioning whether the buried planes really exist. British media reported Friday that the team had failed to find any planes. But Cundall says he's determined to find the Spitfires.
CUNDALL: They are coming back to the U.K. I'm going to make that perfectly clear. They will generate jobs. And hopefully, in three years' time, we'll see them at air shows. But that has taken me about a quarter of my life to achieve. We're nearly there, but not yet.
KUHN: Anthony Kuhn, NPR News.
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As President Obama begins his second term, one of his top priorities is gun control. While Americans may be deeply divided on the issue, at least one of the president's proposals seems to have widespread support, his call for background checks on all gun purchases.
NPR's Steve Henn reports on how a universal system would work.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOOR BELL)
STEVE HENN, BYLINE: When you walk into Kerley's Hunting and Outfitting in Cupertino, California, you're greeted by a roaring stuffed lion that's leaping at the door. There are rows of rifles along the walls, but the owner isn't quite as fierce as his mascot.
HARRY DWYER III: My name is Harry Dwyer III.
HENN: Dwyer's business is just around the corner from Apple's headquarters, but his shop is much older than Apple.
And how long has Kerley's been here?
DWYER: Since 1969.
HENN: It's an old neighborhood gun shop. To the left of the door is a weathered NRA sign, but there's one thing Dwyer and some gun control advocates might just agree on. He doesn't think convicted criminals or the mentally ill should have easy access to weapons.
DWYER: Certainly, yeah.
HENN: And unlike most states, California has universal background checks for gun buyers.
DWYER: It's been decades that California has had it.
HENN: Here's how it works here. Say I want to sell someone my old shotgun, before we can close the deal, both of us have to go into a federally licensed shop like Kerley's.
DWYER: Both parties are to bring the firearm and all the required documentation to purchase it to a licensed dealer like myself. We run the background check on the buyer and retain the gun for 10 days while that happens.
HENN: California has some of the strictest gun control laws in the country, and gun control advocates argue they've been effective in keeping thousands of guns out of the hands of criminals here. Federal law is supposed to keep guns out of the hands of the dangerously mentally ill, but many say the language in the current law is outdated and confusing at best.
RON HONBERG: People adjudicated as mentally defective is one category. And the second category are people committed to mental institutions. And that's the terminology that's used in that law.
HENN: Ron Honberg is the director of policy and legal affairs at the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.
HONBERG: Well, the language is horribly stigmatizing. And, in fact, so offensive that it is hard to even discuss the substantive aspects of the law, and it's never been changed.
HENN: Honberg also says it's not particularly helpful to officials who have to decide who should and shouldn't be allowed to buy a gun.
HONBERG: It's very unhelpful. And the reason its unhelpful is because no one really understands what it means.
HENN: In 2007, the shooter at Virginia Tech passed two separate background checks without a problem, even though two years earlier he had been found to be a danger to himself and others. Confusion over the language in the law meant his name was never added to the federal database. After those shootings, Congress took steps to encourage states to beef up reporting.
But Philip Cook who studies gun violence at Duke says...
PHILIP COOK: Mental health records are woefully incomplete. There are something like 30 states that do not submit records.
HENN: Even now, six years after Virginia Tech. Criminal reporting is better but it's still not perfect. And Cook says even when all these records are accurate and up to date, the current system doesn't do a very good job predicting and preventing future gun crime. He recently completed a study of alleged murderers in the in Chicago.
COOK: What we found was that only 40 percent of them had a felony conviction in the preceding 10 years.
HENN: Most of these people could legally buy guns. Cook argues if background checks are going to be effective, they'll have to become more robust. He believes background checks should examine juvenile records, any violent crimes, even histories of alcohol abuse.
Steve Henn, NPR News.
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Today, the poet Richard Blanco joined an elite club, becoming only the nation's fifth inaugural poet. It's a tradition begun by John F. Kennedy, revived by Bill Clinton and carried on by President Obama.
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Blanco's family fled Cuba in 1968. He grew up in Miami and he is openly gay. Earlier this month on MORNING EDITION, he said writing a poem for the inauguration is a difficult assignment. But, he added, writing about America is not an unfamiliar topic for him.
RICHARD BLANCO: It was subject I felt somewhat comfortable, but the challenge of it was how to maintain sort of that sense of intimacy and that conversational tone in a poem that obviously has to sort of encompass a whole lot more than just my family, my experience.
BLOCK: We're going to listen now to some of what Richard Blanco came up with. His inaugural poem is called "One Today."
BLANCO: One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores, peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies. One light, waking up rooftops. Under each one, a story told by our silent gestures moving behind windows. My face, your face, millions of faces in morning's mirrors, each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day. The pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights, fruit stands - apples, limes, and oranges, arrayed like rainbows begging our praise.
Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper, bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us, on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives, to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did for 20 years so I could write this poem for all of us today.
BLOCK: Richard Blanco's poem concludes with this refrain.
BLANCO: One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes tired from work. Some days guessing at the weather of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother who knew how to give, or forgiving a father who couldn't give what you wanted. We head home through the gloss of rain or weight of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always, always home, always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop and every window, of one country, all of us, facing the stars, hope, a new constellation, waiting for us to name it together.
(APPLAUSE)
SIEGEL: Richard Blanco, delivering his inaugural poem today before a crowd of hundreds of thousands on the National Mall.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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Scientists are concerned about dropping populations of martens, a member of the weasel family, in coastal mountain ranges like Washington's Olympic National Forest. But martens can be tricky to study. These elusive animals live in the most remote parts of the forest, and they're not threatened throughout most of their range, which means they're a low priority for research funding. So as Ashley Ahearn of member station KUOW reports, some biologists are recruiting volunteers to help them learn about martens.
ASHLEY AHEARN, BYLINE: When most people go hiking, they probably don't bring...
GREGG TREINISH: Clippers.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Clippers, yes.
TREINISH: All right. Do we have a folding saw?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yes.
AHEARN: It's about 25 degrees on a clear Saturday morning when Gregg Treinish gathers a small group of volunteers around him.
TREINISH: Do we have a hammer?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yes.
AHEARN: Treinish is the executive director of Adventurers and Scientists for Conservation. It's a nonprofit that puts avid outdoors people to work gathering data for scientists around the world.
TREINISH: Do we have a roll of chicken wire?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yes.
AHEARN: The mission for this group, help biologists in the Olympic National Forest figure out if there are any martens left in this coastal mountain range and see if there's a threat of extinction. Betsy Howell stands nearby. She's a biologist with the Forest Service who brought Treinish's group here to help with the research.
BETSY HOWELL: We can do so much more together than we can do separately. I mean, the partnership is a great way to get work done that otherwise, you know, we just really don't have funding or staff for anymore.
AHEARN: The group will be setting up motion-sensing cameras in some of the most inaccessible parts of the forest at this time of year.
They're extremely cute little animals, if I may be so unscientific.
Martens are smaller than your typical house cat with a long, weasely body, short legs and a bushy tail. They're usually a tawny brown with an orange throat patch. Martens make their home in old growth forest. Howell explains that in the coastal region, much of that habitat has disappeared. The chances of catching one on camera here are incredibly slim.
HOWELL: For about the last 25 years, we've had three sightings. Two were photographs, and one was an animal caught in a trap.
AHEARN: Martens may be rare here, but until scientists know that for sure, these animals can't be recommended for protection under the Endangered Species Act. That's where these volunteers come in.
(SOUNDBITE OF ZIPPER)
AHEARN: All right. Everyone finishes packing up, and Gregg Treinish leads the group into the woods at a brisk pace. He and Betsy Howell point out the tracks of mountain lion, elk, coyote, bobcat and a host of rodents along the snowy trail. No martens.
TREINISH: Notice the track off to your left here, see if you can figure out what's using this little run here.
AHEARN: The volunteers hike for several hours before they get to what looks like a good place to put a marten camera. To the untrained eye, it looks like every other snowy section of alpine forest, but not to Gregg Treinish.
TREINISH: To the right of Betsy right now is a cedar tree, and then to the left of Betsy is a fir tree. I kind of like that how it funnels everything right into there, so we'll go with that spot. Sound good?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: All right.
AHEARN: All right.
TREINISH: Cool.
AHEARN: The group unloads its gear and starts setting up the station. Jenna Walenga is a barista from Seattle. A few years ago, she hiked Kilimanjaro. Right now, her job is to pull a bloody piece of beaver carcass about the size of a soccer ball out of its plastic garbage bag and attach it to one of the trees.
JENNA WALENGA: Oh.
(LAUGHTER)
WALENGA: Yeah, this is a nice piece of meat.
(SOUNDBITE OF HAMMER)
TREINISH: And really, what we're doing is we're luring them into this area so that they'll go and try to get our bait, which is really what we're hoping for so that we can get a photograph of them.
AHEARN: On the opposite tree, the team sets up the motion-sensing camera and aims it at the beaver carcass. The volunteers will set up 11 other stations like this one throughout the forest. Then they'll come back in smaller groups to check the cameras every month or so to see if any martens show up to have their picture taken. And if they do, there might be a chance that they could be better protected in the future. For NPR News, I'm Ashley Ahearn in Seattle.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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If it had been up to the voters of Louisa, Kentucky, Barack Obama wouldn't have a second term. Louisa is in Eastern Kentucky where the top concern going into November's election could be summed up in one word: Coal. President Obama is seen as an enemy of coal mining and he only got 27 percent of the vote in the county. And now comes word that Louisa is going to lose its biggest industry, a power-generating plant that's been burning coal since 1962.
NPR's Noah Adams visited the town as it faces an uncertain future.
NOAH ADAMS, BYLINE: Stand outside the courthouse in Louisa - it's a small town, 2,000 people - and you'll see it's easy to meet a coal miner. Mitchell Maynard is a third-generation miner, not happy with the president.
MITCHELL MAYNARD: Anything to do with coal, Obama is against it. So that hurt us real bad. I mean, everybody is losing their job. I just got back to work just two weeks ago from being laid off. Everybody you talk to is against coal anymore.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC AND MACHINERY)
ADAMS: Four miles north of Louisa, on some days, 200 coal trucks will arrive to unload at the big Sandy Electric Power Plant.
DAVID MILL: You see that red cab on that truck down there?
ADAMS: Yeah.
MILL: He's getting ready to raise his bed and he's gonna dump his coal that he's brought in here from a local mine.
ADAMS: Our view is from the roof of the plant. This is David Mill, the operating supervisor. This power plant has been online for 50 years, sending electricity through the grid even to New York City. Now the emission technology is out of date. The EPA, pushed by the White House, wants cleaner-burning plants. And the company says they'll shut this one down in 2015. American Electric Power does say that one of the furnaces might be converted to natural gas.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing) God bless America, land that I love. Stand beside her and guide her...
ADAMS: The Louisa Rotary Club meets at the First Baptist Church and has Kentucky Fried Chicken. Lots of Big Sandy Power people here, including retired engineer Bill England.
BILL ENGLAND: We moved here in 1962 when they opened up Unit 1. We raised a family, they're both UK college graduates; they both have jobs. Louisa's still a small town. It's a friendly town and I love it here.
DOCTOR ELAINE DESARIO: My great-grandfather ran a depot when the trains started coming in with all the coal on them.
ADAMS: Elaine DeSario, rotarian, has a long Louisa family history. She's moved back to town after earning three degrees. Dr. DeSario is an optometrist.
DESARIO: It's scary now. I've just hired three new people at my business. A large percentage of my patients come from the power plant. I provide their safety glasses, their regular glasses. I know that I'm going to lose a lot of them. My appointment book is not nearly as backed up as it used to be.
ADAMS: In downtown Louisa, watching the big trucks rumble past all day, you wouldn't think the industry is slowing down.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRUCKS)
ADAMS: Here's a truck coming through town right on the main street, going over the railroad crossing here. These drivers, they look so determined. They're sure not stopping for lunch.
If the Big Sandy Power Plant indeed closes two years from now, more than 100 jobs go away and the tax money, $400,000 a year for the county schools and $60,000 a year for the new library. Actually, it's a new building. The library dates to the 1930s when they used packhorses. Evie Burchett showed me that scene in a library mural.
AMY BURCHETT: They had, like, a small collection of books that they would pack up in their saddlebags and ride out to the rural people and deliver books to be read.
ADAMS: A basketball, a driveway, teenagers. Cody Endicott is 16. The family job is coal.
CODY ENDICOTT: My dad's a highwall miner. My uncle works on the strip mine. My pa-paw runs a 475 Komatsu dozer. Then the rest of them work in coal too, but I'm not sure what their jobs are.
ADAMS: Cody Endicott will finish growing up as Louisa, Kentucky starts another new chapter. He says he won't work in coal. It will be health care. He plans to go to college and train to be a nurse. Noah Adams, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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(SOUNDBITE OF INAUGURATION CEREMONY)
CHIEF JUSTICE JOHN ROBERTS: Please raise your right hand, and repeat after me. I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear...
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I, Barack Hussein Obama, do solemnly swear...
ROBERTS: ...that I will faithfully execute...
OBAMA: ...that I will faithfully execute...
ROBERTS: ...the office of President of the United States.
OBAMA: ...the office of President of the United States.
ROBERTS: ...and will, to the best of my ability...
OBAMA: ...and will, to the best of my ability...
ROBERTS: ...preserve, protect and defend...
OBAMA: ...preserve, protect and defend...
ROBERTS: ...the Constitution of the United States.
OBAMA: ...the Constitution of the United States.
ROBERTS: So help you God?
OBAMA: So help me God.
ROBERTS: Congratulations, Mr. President.
(CHEERS, APPLAUSE)
SIEGEL: And so shortly before noon, his hair flecked with gray this time, Barack Obama was publicly sworn in to his second term by Chief Justice John Roberts.
President Obama's second Inaugural Address was rooted in the fundamental texts of American democracy - the declaration's insistence on the self-evident truth of human equality, the preamble to the Constitution's voice of "we the people." But it was very much a speech about these times; about the issues the country faces today and the priorities of the second Obama administration, one of them addressing the inequality of wealth.
OBAMA: For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.
(CHEERS, APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: We believe that America's prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class. We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work, when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship.
We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else because she is an American. She is free and she is equal not just in the eyes of God, but also in our own.
(CHEERS, APPLAUSE)
SIEGEL: The president stressed our obligations to one another, acting together. And looking ahead to the budget arguments that are likely to dominate the coming months, he made a vigorous defense of the social safety net.
OBAMA: We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, anyone of us - at any time - may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm. The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security - these things do not sap our initiative; they strengthen us. They do not make us a nation of takers. They free us to take the risks that make this country great.
(CHEERS, APPLAUSE)
SIEGEL: Addressing another issue that's expected to figure in his second term, the president said that our obligations are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity.
OBAMA: We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.
(CHEERS, APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms. The path toward sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But American cannot resist this transition. We must lead it.
SIEGEL: When he addressed civil rights, President Obama added another sign of the times - a reference to Stonewall, the gay club in Greenwich Village where in 1969, police and protesters clashed, and a movement for gay equality was born.
OBAMA: We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths - that all of us are created equal- is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forbearers through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great mall to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on earth.
SIEGEL: The president indirectly acknowledged the stalemate that has claimed the federal government for months and years, and he made an appeal to make decisions, even knowing that those decisions will inevitably be flawed.
OBAMA: We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.
(CHEERS, APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: We must act. We must act knowing that our work will be imperfect. We must act knowing that today's victories will be only partial; and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years and 40 years and 400 years hence, to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.
SIEGEL: An inaugural speech inevitably elevates the president like no other event. With the Capitol dome for a backdrop, he is flanked by the most powerful office-holders of both parties, and all branches of government. Beneath him, hundreds of thousands of flag-waving supporters extend westward along the National Mall.
Barack Obama acknowledged that his oath recited today, was like the oath recited by all the nation's leaders.
OBAMA: But the words I spoke today are not so different from the oath that is taken each time a soldier signs up for duty, or an immigrant realizes her dream. My oath is not so different from the pledge we all make to the flag that waves above, and that fills our hearts with pride. They are the words of citizens, and they represent our greatest hope. You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country's course. You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time; not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideals.
(CHEERS, APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: Let us - each of us - now embrace with solemn duty and awesome joy, what is our lasting birthright. With common effort and common purpose, with passion and dedication, let us answer the call of history; and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom.
Thank you. God bless you. And may he forever bless these United States of America.
(CHEERS)
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
After President Obama's inaugural address today, the crowd heard from Beyonce singing the national anthem. We're going to hear now from Mara Liasson, NPR's national political correspondent. Hi.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi, Robert.
SIEGEL: And let's start with the big differences between the inaugural address today and the one that we heard four years ago back in 2009.
LIASSON: Well, the differences are huge and there's a lot - a lot has made of the fact that the crowds are much smaller and it's a more somber, less euphoric event. But the thing that struck me is just how happy and relaxed the Obamas looked, and I think the president is relieved not to be taking his second oath of office, as he did when he took his first, at a time of complete financial collapse and economic crisis.
Politics in Washington might look more broken than it ever has. On the other hand, things look a lot better than they did in 2009.
SIEGEL: What surprised you in this speech today?
LIASSON: Well, what surprised me is I thought the speech was very substantive, not purely thematic. Somebody today described it as more of a State of the Union address, almost like a little preview for the State of the Union. He was very specific about what he wants to get done. He talked about climate change. We will respond to the threat of climate change.
He talked about immigration, how he wants bright, young students to be getting an engineering degree rather than being expelled from the country. He talked about Medicare and Social Security. And I think he really laid out what he wants to do in the next four years.
SIEGEL: But you say it sounded like a State of the Union. By talking about Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid the way that he did, it was as if to say it's not just a legislative agenda for me, that's what our democracy is all about.
LIASSON: That's right. One of the things he did, and I thought this was a very political part of the speech, but it's also where he wraps every one of his programmatic priorities into an American value. As we just heard the president say, he said the commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things don't sap our initiative. They strengthen us. They don't make us a nation of takers. They free us to take the risks that make this country great. And, of course, takers was the unfortunate phrase that Mitt Romney used in the campaign.
And he believes that this is the basis of providing security to the middle class. He said the prosperity has to rise on the shoulders of a rising middle-class. And this is where he is anchoring his programmatic agenda in age-old American theme.
SIEGEL: Considering that the president spoke about redressing the inequality of wealth in the country, dealing with climate change and, as you said, with immigration, he doesn't have a lot of time to act on all of these things, does he?
LIASSON: No. He doesn't have a lot of time, whether he has six months or a year or two years before the midterm elections. And I think that he has a sense of urgency about this. He even said at one point, he said we don't have to resolve the centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time. But we do have to act in our time. And he says, the decisions are upon us, we cannot afford delay.
I think the president is very aware of the short, small window of time that he has to act. He wants to get these things done before he turns into a complete lame duck.
SIEGEL: And he was saying the things we do now, they're going to be compromised. They're not going to be perfect. It'll be up to future congresses and presidents to do more on it. But the idea of not doing anything is unacceptable.
LIASSON: That's right. He says we know our work will be imperfect. We know that today's victories will only be partial. And I think that's says the president, he's in a hurry, he wants to get some things done, and he isn't going to make the perfect the enemy of the good.
SIEGEL: So bottom line, a successful second inaugural, you think?
LIASSON: Yes, a successful second inaugural. Now the hard work begins. He has to work with a fractured, divisive Congress and see if he can get some of these things done.
SIEGEL: NPR's Mara Liasson. Thank you, Mara.
Thank you.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Finally, moments hear the music of the inauguration. As Robert mentioned, Beyonce had the honor of singing the national anthem today. She was the closing act in a memorable line up that began with the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir.
BROOKLYN TABERNACLE CHOIR: (Singing) Glory, glory hallelujah. Glory, glory hallelujah...
JAMES TAYLOR: (Singing) America, America, God shed his grace on the...
KELLY CLARKSON: (Singing) My country 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty of thee I sing...
BEYONCE: (Singing) Oh, say does that star spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
BLOCK: That's Beyonce, and before her Kelly Clarkson, James Taylor, and the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, all performing at today's inauguration.
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Over the past couple of centuries, opera has drawn on a great variety of sources for material: Norse legend, the Book of Judges, the diplomatic travels of Richard Nixon. But even in the eclectic company of incestuous Teutonics, anvil-crashing Italian gypsies and consumptive Bohemian Parisians, a forthcoming operatic piece - granted, a short one - has an unusual basis. It is based on a blog and Twitter feud between a New York Times columnist and the president of a Baltic Republic.
The composer of this work, Eugene Birman, joins us from Oxford where he's pursuing an advanced degree in musical composition. Mr. Birman, welcome to the program.
EUGENE BIRMAN: Thank you very much. It's great to be on. Thank you.
SIEGEL: I want you to tell us about the premise of your composition, the "Nostra Culpa." Latin for "Our Fault"?
BIRMAN: Yes, correct.
SIEGEL: Which, I guess, begins with a New York Times economics columnist Paul Krugman, Nobel laureate, writing a column saying: Everything you've heard about the success of Estonia's policy of austerity leading to great growth is overstated. It really isn't working that well.
BIRMAN: And President Ilves responded by saying that essentially Professor Krugman was pontificating on a matter that he had no authority to discuss, but this has worked for us and we're not so much interested in what you have to say because you're not on the ground. Of course, the response is a lot more colorful and interesting.
SIEGEL: President Ilves of Estonia actually engaged in some vulgarity in responding ultimately to Paul Krugman.
BIRMAN: There was some color, but this is why it makes great drama because people are naturally attracted to arguments. We try, you know, when we're eavesdropping and the arguments are the best kind of subject matter for that. And in a way, he was seen as defending the honor of Estonia's policies, that people in Estonia have lived through so much; through the occupation of Soviet Union and many other things. And that austerity for them was a piece of cake, while for other countries in the world perhaps they couldn't stomach it.
SIEGEL: I would sort of have expected you to have written this for a tenor and a baritone. But unexpectedly, for me at least, the two characters - Paul Krugman and President Ilves of Estonia - are both sung by the same mezzo-soprano.
BIRMAN: Right. Well, the mezzo-soprano is somebody I've worked with before and she's, I think, one of the greatest talents in Estonia as a dramatic singer. And my idea - my sort of inspiration to set these words was not so much to make some kind of argument, but to have the singer portray the people themselves who are stuck in this - between these two sides.
SIEGEL: Now, one writer observed that the entire exchange between Krugman and Ilves consisted of a 70-word blog post with chart, and then four tweets. Puccini had a lot more to work with when he sat down to write "Tosca," let's say.
BIRMAN: Well, one could write an opera, a full-length two-hour opera, using just this content, in my opinion. Because, in a way, why is the story interesting? To me it's interesting because we have been discussing this ever since 2008, 2009 - what to do and how to get out of this, and we're still not out. And the story is being written as we go.
SIEGEL: Well, Eugene Birman, a composer, thank you very much for talking with us about your forthcoming piece.
BIRMAN: Thank you very much. It's really been an honor and thank you for having me.
SIEGEL: "Nostra Culpa," a 16-minute opera in two acts will debut April 7th during music week in the Estonia capital, Tallinn.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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The coincidence that Barack Obama, the nation's first black president, begins his second term on the day that commemorates Martin Luther King poses this question: In the pantheon of African-American leaders, on some imaginary Black Mount Rushmore where Frederick Douglass and Dr. King's images would be carved for the mind's eye; perhaps Harriet Tubman and Malcolm X too, is Barack Obama up there? How large does he stand in black history? I asked four African-American thinkers and activists.
ROGER WILKINS: He's not there yet. That he is the president is an extraordinary achievement for an African-American. But he's still a young man and it's clear that's going to go for big things.
SIEGEL: That's Roger Wilkins who's been a civil rights activist, history professor and journalist. One big thing he foresees President Obama doing is something about guns.
WILKINS: If he does that, he'll certainly be up on that mountain.
SIEGEL: How would you describe today his importance to African-Americans?
WILKINS: I'm 80 years old, so people like me who were born into official segregation, and then came the wars and the blacks were asked to do as much fighting and dying as white people. But the reward was not sufficient. And I think there is huge change when Truman desegregated the military, then led to the civil rights movement. But all of that wash came along and President Obama is the biggest winner.
SIEGEL: Roger Wilkins says Barack Obama's presidency has changed how African-Americans see themselves.
WILKINS: I think the feeling of being an American and seeing your president the same color as you suggests that your grandchildren may be members of the Senate; maybe great grandchild could even be running for president. That is to say you really feel American.
SIEGEL: Washington, D.C. Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton says Barack Obama's presidency has also changed the way the white majority regards itself.
REPRESENTATIVE ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON: I think there's a pride white Americans feel in themselves that they did it. They know that African-Americans could not have done it by themselves. And they feel that they have shed some of the racism that was their legacy as white people. And black people simply feel (unintelligible) by the notion that black man could - it's just enough for black people to identify with the notion that a black man could rise to the very top of the country.
SIEGEL: Part of what you're saying is that black America, to speak schematically, in effect, perhaps underestimated white America when it came to electing this man.
NORTON: There is no question about that.
SIEGEL: In the anteroom to your office, there are many photographs on the wall. One of them is of Martin Luther King standing with Malcolm X. We're talking about the African-American Rushmore - the Frederick Douglass, MLK. Is Barack Obama up there? For being elected president, is he up there as well in your mind?
NORTON: He's up there on that mountain top for being elected president and for what he did during his first term as president. It would truly not have been enough just to be elected. That firecracker stuff is really is heard around the world. But after the firecrackers burn out, then you want to know, well, what did he really do in his first term? What did he really do in his second term? What difference did he make?
SIEGEL: And Eleanor Holmes Norton says, he has already done things that have disproportionate benefit for blacks: the recent tax bill, health care, avoiding a Great Depression.
Writer Shelby Steele, who's based at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, says he didn't vote for Barack Obama either time, but he sees his election as a remarkable event.
SHELBY STEELE: I mean this is the certainly the first black leader in all of history for any Western nation. And so, it symbolizes a kind of human breakthrough that I don't think many of us actually expected to see this soon.
SIEGEL: Barack Obama's two elections are a measure, Steele says, of the moral evolution of America. As for how whites and blacks view one another, I reminded Shelby Steele of what he wrote around 20 years ago about the phenomenon of "The Cosby Show." That it conferred on its white viewers a sense they were innocent of racism. He speaks similarly about Barack Obama, as a black man who has made a bargain with the majority society.
STEELE: When minorities enter the American mainstream, they invariably wear a mask of one kind or another that they hope will bring them some advantage. And "The Cosby Show" is a perfect example of that. Bill Cosby said if, you know, I will not assume that you are a racist if you will not hold my race against me; and you will sit down once a week and you will watch my television show, enjoy it, and you'll be able to feel comfortable that I'm not going to challenge you with America's ugly racial past. You can be comfortable and you can get to know us as human beings, rather than just as blacks.
And certainly, Barack Obama took that one step further into the political arena. Bargainers do very well in American life because they inspire in whites what I call a gratitude factor, where whites who live under the stigma of being seen as racist, well, here's somebody who is going to spare you that and not stigmatize you.
SIEGEL: And Barack Obama is part of that bargain.
STEELE: He is just the archetype of bargaining.
SIEGEL: Shelby Steele says, Barack Obama isn't the same as Frederick Douglass or Martin Luther King, but he exemplifies the result of their great work.
Civil rights lawyer Sherrilyn Ifill is the new head of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. She says it's fashionable to underestimate Barack Obama's policy accomplishments, but she says they're important. For example, supporting voting rights which are vital to African-Americans.
As for my notion of an African-American Mount Rushmore and Obama's claim to a place among the great civil rights leaders. Well, Ifil reminded me that iconic stature among black leaders isn't easily achieved during their lifetimes. Malcolm X and even Martin Luther King were controversial figures in their day.
Barack Obama, she says, enjoys great popularity among blacks for being elected, for what he's done, and for how he has done it.
SHERRILYN IFILL: He demonstrates himself to be a powerful family man, a man of integrity, and so forth. And I think that's very important in terms of lifting up the image of black men and of the black family. I think that's been, you know, powerful and important.
SIEGEL: People commonly remark on how the economy has recovered a lot better on Wall Street than on Main Street.
IFILL: No question.
SIEGEL: If you want to find a street where it really hasn't recovered all that well, you can go to Martin Luther King Boulevard all around the country.
IFILL: Yes. We have one here in Baltimore. Absolutely true. And I think that's going to be the focus of a great deal of attention. The reality is that most African-Americans hold their wealth, such as it is, in their homes. And so, the foreclosure crisis essentially has wiped out the wealth of too many African-American families.
And so, the question remains what happens for the future? What happens in terms of access to credit? What happens in terms of student loans? And most of all, what happens in terms of jobs, particularly in our cities, where the jobless rate for African-Americans - particularly for African-American men and for African-American young men - is reaching as high as 30, 40 percent?
SIEGEL: Sherrilyn Ifill, like the other African-American thinkers we heard from, said that will be among the challenges facing Barack Obama in his second term.
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Many of the people who poured into the streets of Washington, D.C. today to mark President Obama's inauguration did so without tickets to official viewing areas. Some even headed in the opposite direction from the Capitol to the other side of the National Mall and the Lincoln Memorial.
Lincoln is often invoked by President Obama. That, and the Memorial's role in the civil rights movement made it a powerful draw on a day that was not just inauguration day, but also Martin Luther King Day. NPR national political correspondent Don Gonyea has that story.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: I'm standing on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial just a few feet away from the spot where in 1963 Dr. Martin Luther King delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech. And all morning long on this Inauguration Day, people have been coming up here, stopping for just a few moments, standing in that spot, in essence paying their respects before heading off to hear the president's speech at the other end of the Mall.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG "TROUBLE OF THE WORLD")
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Soon I will be done with the troubles of the world, the troubles of the world...
GONYEA: That choir performing an impromptu concert on the steps before eight o'clock this morning featured young people from a group called Christian Community Youth. Like many, they felt the day would not be complete without a visit to the Lincoln Memorial. That's what brought five students from Saginaw, Michigan here as well, early this morning.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yeah, we took a picture. It's not really good, but we took a picture. We stood there.
GONYEA: Among them, 22-year-old Stacy Reed.
STACY REED: This is - it was meant for him to be president, to be on Martin Luther King's Day, sworn in and everything. Like, I feel this is, like, I'm part of something really, like she said, historical. I'm proud. Like, don't make me cry.
GONYEA: Moments later, a family from Hanover, Pennsylvania, strolled past. Erin and Keith Smith were here with their three kids and her parents. Here's Keith.
KEITH SMITH: I just thought it was important for our children on this day, just the day falling on the inauguration, Martin Luther King Day, that we do pay our respects. You know, we kind of - like, this is an important day and we don't complain about walking. We don't complain about the cold. We just enjoy being here.
GONYEA: I asked 12-year-old Henry if it was fun history or not so much.
HENRY SMITH: Some of it is history, but then some of the time you're having fun walking around and exploring.
GONYEA: Later in the morning, as the ceremony at the Capitol approached, 67-year-old Cookie Taylor of Dayton, Ohio, walked from the Lincoln Memorial along the reflecting pool. She says she missed the inauguration four years ago. During the campaign, the battleground state of Ohio, she says she personally knocked on 1,000 doors. Taylor says she remembers the "I Have A Dream" speech well and the things Dr. King was fighting to change.
COOKIE TAYLOR: As a kid, as a teenager, I lived in a place where I suffered through it. So it is really important to me at this point because I can remember all the stuff I went through.
GONYEA: Another visitor to the Lincoln Memorial today was 71-year-old Mary Mudd of Omaha. She says she found inspiration on this day seeing Lincoln and thinking about Dr. King.
MARY MUDD: Being Martin Luther King Day has a special meaning for the inauguration. We've got Americans who were courageous in decision-making as they tried to make our country a better country.
GONYEA: All morning, the Lincoln Memorial was busy, if not crowded, as people paused and moved on. During the president's speech, though, they mostly stayed, sitting quietly on the steps not far from where Dr. King spoke. They listened on radios and watched using the latest technology, smartphones and tablets. But they were thinking about history. Don Gonyea, NPR News.
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I'm Melissa Block on this inaugural Monday, and let's head out and join the hundreds of thousands of people who were streaming down to the National Mall this cold January morning.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Get your inaugurational programs, people. If you do not have your program, you are uncool people.
BLOCK: Walk past the vendors hawking inaugural programs, inaugural poems, bookmarks.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Bookmarkers, bookmarkers, moving forward, cheapest souvenir on the block.
BLOCK: Past the buttons and posters and plastic Barack Obama heads, and, of course, T-shirts, one saying, yes, we did times two.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Ten-dollar T-shirts, long sleeve, short sleeve.
BLOCK: And follow the perky volunteers directing the crowds.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Woo-hoo. Guess what. You guys are going in the right direction: thataway. Small kids. They're cute. Hold on to them. You don't want someone thinking they're theirs.
TANIYA WASHINGTON: I can't see anybody and Obama.
BLOCK: In the heart of the packed mall, I spotted 2-year-old Taniya Washington(ph). She was clutching a small American flag in each hand and waving them gleefully. She had a great view - high up on her uncle Chise Nicholson's(ph) shoulders.
CHISE NICHOLSON: History in the making. I say, right here, this is the first steps, T.T. Y'all next. Y'all next. That's what I'm telling them. You guys are the future.
BLOCK: It was hard to miss Reverend Dolly Jones in the crowd. She was wearing a fabulous wide-brimmed hat, an explosion of fuchsia and black feathers.
REVEREND DOLLY JONES: It's one of those hats that you normally wear - you wouldn't wear to church, of course, because it would be too abstract.
BLOCK: Jones was holding a sign that said: Pray for President and first lady Obama. She had come up on a bus from Augusta, Georgia.
JONES: I felt that I must come here to be of support because it was a much different election. You know, what I'm so grateful for, as I walk through, is to see these young people - all ages, black, white, Hispanics - and this encourages me to see these young people coming to support the president.
BLOCK: Tim Eatman(ph) drove down from Syracuse, New York, with his wife and two daughters. They were here four years ago for the first Obama inauguration and felt it was important to come back for this one. I asked him if he has one wish for President Obama's second term.
TIM EATMAN: My initial reaction as an African-American man is that he be able to live, honestly.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: Do you mean...
EATMAN: Survive, right. That was my thought in '09. I thought we were going to see an assassination. That's my reality. In my circles, it's one of the first conversations we have, just about him being able to avoid something like that.
BLOCK: I asked Rosanne(ph) and Ron Norwood(ph), an interracial couple here from Milwaukee, what they're most concerned about for the next four years. Gun control, Roseanne said first.
ROSANNE NORWOOD: You know, I guess I think about the economy the most, you know, I guess. I work with homeless people, so I see people at their worst, and there's just so - there's so much inequality, I think, as a country still, so equality for me and any number of deals. But racial, you know, it's not where obviously it should be. But people think - a lot of people, white people - think it's, yeah, you know, it is where it should be, but I don't think it is.
RON NORWOOD: It's all about what people think is possible. And if the kids see this president, I hope they understand that it's - it is historical and they don't take it for granted. It's important. It truly is historic.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Obama. Obama.
BLOCK: As the president took the stage, the crowd came alive.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING)
BLOCK: And as James Taylor sang "America, the Beautiful," voices lifted to join him.
UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: (Singing) From sea to shining sea.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
From the throngs on the mall to NPR's Ari Shapiro now, who is up on the viewing stand, watching the inauguration at the Capitol.
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: Today's program began with a reminder of the distance this country has traveled. Myrlie Evers-Williams delivered the invocation. Her late husband was the civil rights leader Medgar Evers, shot and killed 50 years ago in Mississippi. Half a century later, as President Obama was inaugurated on Martin Luther King Day, she looked back at the road gone by 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation and 50 years from the march on Washington.
MYRLIE EVERS-WILLIAMS: We celebrate the spirit of our ancestors which has allowed us to move from a nation of unborn hopes and a history of disenfranchised votes to today's expression of a more perfect union.
SHAPIRO: To continue the message of unity, Senator Lamar Alexander of Tennessee took the microphone. He's a Republican, and he talked about the uniqueness of this American tradition when people who may disagree about everything join together to start a new chapter of the American story.
SENATOR LAMAR ALEXANDER: There is no mob, no coup, no insurrection. This is a moment when millions stop and watch.
SHAPIRO: President Obama and Vice President Biden each took a ceremonial oath of office, then the president stepped to the lectern and described how he wants the country to look four years from now, in contrast to how it looked four years ago.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Together, we determined that a modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce, schools and colleges to train our workers. Together, we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play.
SHAPIRO: His second inaugural address used the word together seven times in 15 minutes. It could've been a preamble to the State of the Union Address he'll deliver next month setting out specific priorities from climate change to immigration reform. And despite the message of togetherness, the president used this speech to defy his critics and defend his philosophy of government.
OBAMA: The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: They do not make us a nation of takers, they free us to take the risks that make this country great.
SHAPIRO: On foreign policy, the president seemed to speak directly to people who accuse him of appeasement and weakness on the world stage.
OBAMA: We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully, not because we are naive about the dangers we face but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear.
SHAPIRO: And finally, the president included a call that has become a regular feature of his speeches on everything from the debt ceiling to gun control. Like the community organizer he used to be, he once again asked everyone listening to act.
OBAMA: You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time, not only with the votes we cast but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideas.
SHAPIRO: Poet Richard Blanco spoke to those values and ideals, describing one sun rising over the many faces of America.
RICHARD BLANCO: ...on our way to clean tables, read ledgers or save lives, to teach geometry or ring up groceries as my mother did for 20 years so I could write this poem for all of us today.
SHAPIRO: Blanco is the son of Cuban immigrants and one of many Latino voices today. Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic Supreme Court justice, swore in the vice president, and Dr. Luis Leon delivered the benediction, asking in Spanish and English for the country to come together.
DR. LUIS LEON: With the blessing of your presence, we know that we can renew the ties of mutual regard which can best form our civic life.
SHAPIRO: Finally, Beyonce sang the national anthem backed by the U.S. Marine band.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STAR-SPANGLED BANNER")
BEYONCE: (Singing) Oh, say, can you see...
SHAPIRO: Four years ago, Aretha Franklin sang at President Obama's first inauguration. She was born in 1942 when her hometown of Memphis was still segregated. Beyonce was born four decades later into a different United States. That evolution from one America to another is part of what the country marked today on this Martin Luther King Day inaugural celebration.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER")
BEYONCE: (Singing) ...the brave.
SHAPIRO: Ari Shapiro, NPR News, Washington.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Now, at the end of the ceremony, after the president's speech, after Beyonce, I caught up with Carrie Freeman of Omaha, Nebraska, as she headed off the Mall. She said this second Obama inauguration had a different feel.
CARRIE FREEMAN: Four years ago, we cheered a lot. We were just gala. We were celebrating. We weren't actually concentrating on the word. As you see, I'm black. And so I was very proud that it took us 400 years to get a black president. But now, we're celebrating because he brings more. And so we were actually listening to what he was saying. The urgency was there for me and for everybody that was there, I felt, to listen to what he said, to take in, to soak up the things that he was saying.
BLOCK: And one last thought from Chandra Knabel of Millersville, Maryland, who was soaking in the inauguration with her 9-year-old daughter Lauren.
CHANDRA KNABEL: What did you tell - say about next time, maybe?
LAUREN KNABEL: That it might be a girl president next time.
KNABEL: Which would be even more awesome, right?
KNABEL: Mm-hmm.
KNABEL: We'd definitely come for that one, wouldn't we?
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
So, Robert, 9-year-old Lauren Kanabel there has a dream, a girl president elected in 2016.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A girl president. Well, if that happens, you can be pretty sure that she will have an inaugural parade. Inauguration Day has featured a parade of one kind or another since the days of George Washington, and today was no exception. NPR's Brian Naylor is on Pennsylvania Avenue where the procession is making its way from the Capitol to the White House. Brian, describe the scene. How is the parade going?
BRIAN NAYLOR, BYLINE: Well, it's going well. It's a lot of fun, actually. There's lots of different bands from lots of different states. The inaugural theme is our people, our future, and so there have been - there is just an incredible diversity of bands. There have been bands from Hawaii and President Obama's school where he attended in Honolulu, the Punahou School. They went by, and the president did one of those little hang loose signs to them. So the whole family is there waving along with the Bidens, and everybody is having a great time.
SIEGEL: And how did the president make his way from the Capitol to the White House?
NAYLOR: Well, there was a long parade of limousines, as you might expect. And not once but twice, the president and Mrs. Obama stepped out of theirs and walked alongside for awhile around the Commerce Department building for those familiar in Washington and the FBI, sort of part of the federal bureaucracy, the buildings downtown. They waved to the crowd, and then they stepped out once again on Pennsylvania Avenue right in front of the White House. Crowds, you know, not an empty spot on the sidewalk. People leaning off of the railings of tall buildings and shouting Obama, Obama and cheering and having a great time.
SIEGEL: So their reaction is very enthusiastic, you're saying?
NAYLOR: Yeah. There's no - there are no - I haven't seen any signs of protests at all. People are just - are very happy to be part of this historic day, the second inauguration of President Obama. The weather held up. It's been a quite lovely afternoon.
SIEGEL: Oh, thank you, Brian.
NAYLOR: Thank you, Robert.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Brian Naylor out on Pennsylvania Avenue watching the inaugural parade through Washington.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Almost 9,000 people marched in today's inaugural parade: military units, cultural groups, marching bands, more marching bands. NPR's Neda Ulaby got up early to visit the parade staging area, and she has this report.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: The Palm Springs High School marching band from California strutted around in their flashy red capes, warming up in the vast Pentagon parking lot. It's hard to overstate what a big deal this is to drum major, 17-year-old Robbie Towner.
ROBBIE TOWNER: I'm so excited to be here. It's an honor.
ULABY: Do you have like anxiety dreams about dropping your baton?
TOWNER: Yes I do. I do, but I know it won't happen if I stay confident and know what I'm here for and do my job right.
ULABY: Spoken like a pro. Even the old-timers were all revved up. Sergeant First Class Brian Sacawa plays saxophone with the U.S. Army Field Band. He marched in the parade for the last inauguration. The weather then was so horribly cold, he could barely move his hands by the end.
SERGEANT FIRST CLASS BRIAN SACAWA: Some of the brass players, if it gets too cold their instruments will freeze. Their valves won't be able to move, and the trombones won't be able to move their slides. And we do actually have a march that we play in those situations. It's called the freeze march.
ULABY: Sacawa was kind enough to sing it.
(LAUGHTER)
SACAWA: (Singing) Dum, pam, pam, param, pam, pam, pampam, param(ph).
ULABY: No freeze march was needed today. But even the relatively balmy 34 degrees shocked 18-year-old Hawaiian, Christopher Mooney. He feels a connection to President Obama as a member of the Punahou High School marching band from Honolulu.
CHRISTOPHER MOONEY: Oh, he went to our high school. There's no way to describe the sense of pride that you get knowing that the president comes from your school and your state, especially when you're state is so small and kind of out of the national limelight a lot of the time.
ULABY: Mooney is a drum major, so he'll be in the limelight. His job, he said, is to march at the front, give commands and keep morale high, another connection Mooney shares with the 44th president of the United States. Neda Ulaby, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block.
After the inauguration ceremony today came the inaugural luncheon, held every four years in Statuary Hall of the Capitol. Imagine a wedding reception where someone gets a little creative with the seating chart. As NPR's Tamara Keith reports, the luncheon was one big mixer for a sprawling bipartisan group.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: As with so many things on this day, the luncheon was packed with formality and also tradition. The linens were cream with brown and teal polka dots, which matched the teal accent plates. The centerpieces spilling over with bold orange flowers. The menu, lobster tails, bison and a Hudson Valley apple pie with sour cream ice cream, aged cheese and honey. And at the front of the room, two large crystal vases.
REPRESENTATIVE ERIC CANTOR: The vases are the finest quality full lead crystal from Lenox china and crystal.
KEITH: That's House Majority Leader Eric Cantor who presented these traditional gifts from the American people.
CANTOR: At this time, my wife Diana and I invite the president and Mrs. Obama and vice president and Dr. Biden to join us in looking at the beautiful vases.
KEITH: The room, Statuary Hall, where the luncheon was held, used to be where the House of Representatives met before the Civil War. As he gave his toast, House Speaker John Boehner talked about the room's horrible acoustics to make a larger point about the need for leaders in Washington to hear each other.
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: It's a century and a half, and many architectural improvements later, and we gather in the Old Hall to better hear one another and to renew the appeal to better angels.
KEITH: There's just something about Inauguration Day that seems to make politicians want to hear those better angels. President Obama hit the same note in his remarks at the luncheon.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I recognize that democracy's not always easy. And I recognize there are profound differences in this room. But I just want to say thank you for your service. And I want to thank your families for their service, because regardless of our political persuasions and perspectives, I know that all of us serve because we believe that we can make America for future generations.
KEITH: When the luncheon was winding down, the president walked out of the room and into the ornate Capitol Rotunda. The first lady and vice president were there with him, as were congressional leaders from both parties. They paused together in front of a large bust of Martin Luther King Jr. - on this the King Holiday - before moving on.
As members of Congress and the executive branch filed out of Statuary Hall, the mood was friendly and upbeat. The menu did also feature a Finger Lakes Dry Riesling and a California sparkling wine.
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN KLINE: It's not a day for a partisan fight.
KEITH: Minnesota Republican Representative John Kline says he was seated between two Democratic senators, and they talked about wanting to get things done.
KLINE: It's nice to have an opportunity to sit and talk, and to not sharpen the partisan knives and have this feeling of celebration, which, I think, there was in the room. I didn't see anything other than that.
KEITH: There will be plenty of opportunity to sharpen those partisan knives starting, oh, maybe as early as tomorrow. This week, House Republicans plan to bring up a bill to extend the debt ceiling into May and to push the Democratic-controlled Senate to pass a budget, something that hasn't happened in four years.
Congressman Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, also seemed reluctant to dwell on that fight, though, as he left the luncheon.
REPRESENTATIVE CHRIS VAN HOLLEN: Hey, look. The luncheon was great. I mean, really. I mean, it was - I think there was a genuine spirit of the need to work together. You know, hopefully it will last.
KEITH: When one Republican senator was asked how long he thought the buzz of bipartisanship coming out of the inauguration would last, he looked at his watch. Tamara Keith, NPR News, the Capitol.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
We're going to get some reaction now to President Obama's speech today from a speechwriter. Mary Kate Cary is a former speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush. She's now a contributing editor to U.S. News & World Report, and also a political analyst for the NPR program TELL ME MORE. Welcome to the program.
MARY KATE CARY: Thank you.
SIEGEL: First, what do you think a president should strive for in his second inaugural? And did President Obama do it?
CARY: Well, the first rule of any speechwriter is to craft a speech that gets the listeners off the couch. Get them to donate their time, buy your product - whatever it is. President Obama's first inaugural ended with this very moving story about the soldiers in Valley Forge and George Washington reading this letter. And he says to the audience at the inaugural, you know, join me as we carry forth the light of freedom forever. And this one, he didn't have that moving story. To me, he didn't get that motivational get-off-the-couch-with-me moment. He actually ended it with a line about embracing our lasting birthright and answering the call of history. And I'm like, well, what does that mean?
It's interesting. Most inaugural addresses are not written the way people speak. And so you're at a bit of a disadvantage as a speechwriter because you can't use statistics and Yogi Berra quotes and all the things that we all love as speechwriters. And so it's a difficult job. I mean, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy, so I hate to criticize.
(LAUGHTER)
SIEGEL: Well, let's talk about some moments that were pretty noteworthy in any case. In talking about equality, he mentioned three places where equality has been challenged and moved forward: Seneca Falls, meaning women's suffrage; Selma, civil rights; Stonewall, gays and lesbians...
CARY: Right.
SIEGEL: ...something we haven't heard before in an inaugural.
CARY: No. I think it's the first time ever. And what was smart to me is the way the president, in the next paragraph after that, couched it all in terms of the most evident of truths that we're all created equal. I think if you're going to make an argument - to social conservatives to support gay rights - that is the winning argument, and he was smart to use it.
SIEGEL: He had a pretty strong paragraph in support of doing something about climate change, which has been a controversial subject in Washington. What do you think?
CARY: I thought it was a little too far left. For most, I think people probably tuned it out a little. But the broader point about the climate change, along with some of the other issues that he ticked through, most of the stuff that he had on there that are big parts of the liberal agenda, he couched in terms of the Founding Fathers and our Constitution. That was an olive branch, I think, to the Tea Partiers, to the strict constructionists, you know, Justice Scalia sitting right there next to him.
I think that was smart to couch it in terms of the values that we hold as a nation going back to our founding. You know, I don't agree with everything in the liberal agenda, but I liked the arguments about American values.
SIEGEL: Speaking of which, we all know what the current state of bipartisan cooperation in Washington is, it's not very much.
CARY: Mm-mm.
SIEGEL: But when President Obama defended Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare, he seemed to be saying those aren't just programs that I'm going to talk about in the State of the Union. They're not just pieces of legislation. These are part of the fabric of democracy, as I understand it.
CARY: Right. I think that was very wise because it allowed people to remind ourselves why we're trying to save Social Security and Medicare. And I think, hopefully, the right will use that same language as we go forward into the fight that I think is facing us on spending cuts.
SIEGEL: It occurred to me, as you said, that people don't speak in an inaugural address as they do normally.
CARY: Right.
SIEGEL: It would be impossible to do so. The president is standing up there with the Capitol behind them, with everybody who's anybody in Washington, seated around him, choirs, the Marine Band, and out in front of him hundreds of thousands of people loving him. Did he get the tone right for this occasion?
CARY: I think he did. The most noticeable thing to me was, you know, President Bush, 41, the first day we were in office, told us his mother had taught him not to use the word I. And so whenever we wrote speeches for him, if you had too many I's in there, he'd crossed them out and change them to we. He felt in a democracy, the president should use we. And I think the most used word probably in the speech was we. And that to me was a very good tone.
I wish he had a little more outreach to Republicans. You know, my boss, 41 again, said a new breeze is blowing. To my friends in the loyal opposition - and yes, I do mean friends and I do mean loyal - I offer you my hand. And something a little more specific like that in such divided times, I think, would've bought him a lot of goodwill, along with pointing out that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. I think that would've bought us a lot of goodwill too. But, yeah, he chose not to do that.
SIEGEL: Mary Kate Cary, thanks for talking with us.
CARY: Thank you.
SIEGEL: That's Mary Kate Cary of U.S. News & World Report and also of the NPR program TELL ME MORE.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
I'm Robert Siegel. And it's time now for All Tech Considered.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIEGEL: We start things off today with our quick look ahead to the week in tech. First up, Kim Dotcom, founder of the file-hosting service Megaupload, is back in the news. Last year, the U.S. Justice Department charged the New Zealand resident with online copyright infringement, but that hasn't stopped him from launching a new website just last night. It's called simply Mega. Here's NPR technology correspondent Laura Sydell.
LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE: And this site will let people store 50 gigabytes of stuff for free in the cloud.
SIEGEL: That stuff includes photos, music and videos.
SYDELL: So, you know, there are services - what he's doing is he's getting into the market of services like Dropbox, which lets you, for example, if you have a big file to send to somebody of a whole bunch of pictures or video or a huge amount of documents, instead of emailing it to them, you can just send them a note and say: Go to Dropbox and store the file there, and then they can download it.
SIEGEL: But Mega's 50 gigabytes of free storage is more space than services such as Dropbox currently offer. Kim Dotcom tweeted that Mega had received 250,000 user registrations within just a few hours of the site's launch. Also in our tech look ahead, a note on what Facebook calls its new graph search. It's a tool that will allow users to search for, say, a restaurant and show results based on their friends' preferences.
SYDELL: Search is incredibly important. And if you add sort of social relationships to search, you can get results that might be more meaningful to you than they would be if you're just doing a random search.
SIEGEL: The new feature was unveiled last Tuesday and starts rolling out to the public this week. And that's our look ahead to the week in tech news with NPR's Laura Sydell.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And we have some tech news now to mark today's inauguration. The Presidential Inaugural Committee recently released a smartphone app to help people follow the day's events in real time. It has maps of the parade route, volunteer opportunities and real-time updates. As NPR's Brenda Salinas reports, it also has an invisible feature that could help Democrats mine data from users.
BRENDA SALINAS, BYLINE: It's the first app you see when you open the iTunes store: Inauguration 2013. The welcome page asks for your phone number. Below that, a link to terms and services. You can skip both and go straight to the features.
JUSTIN BROOKMAN: It's actually a really good-looking app. I mean, it does seem useful.
SALINAS: That's Jason Brookman. He's a director of consumer privacy for the nonprofit Center of Democracy and Technology. He likes the app's features but not its terms of service. That link - the one most users probably ignore - takes you to a document on the committee's website, and it's the website that opens up a loophole for Brookman. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: We misidentified the director of the Center for Democracy and Technology's Project on Consumer Privacy. He is Justin Brookman.]
BROOKMAN: So it says, you know, we may collect email addresses and cell phone data and, you know, your location information, and we reserve the right to sell that to or give it to other candidates and to use it in, you know, ways that you might not necessarily expect when you're just trying to install an application to, you know, to figure out where to go on Inauguration Day.
SALINAS: The Presidential Inaugural Committee would not comment publicly, but it did defend its app in a statement, saying it had no way to collect emails, names or other personal information. It also defended the terms of service on its website, saying it's appropriate for a president's inaugural committee to support and reflect their party's ideals and causes. And that's a problem, says Brookman. The app links to services like Facebook, Twitter and its own website where the rules aren't so clear.
BROOKMAN: If you go to a different service, the privacy policy does reserve pretty broad rights to do lots of stuff with that.
SALINAS: Stuff that's catching the attention of both parties. Dan Morgan is a GOP fundraising consultant. While he doesn't like the idea of data-mining apps, he says we'll be seeing more of them, from Democrats and Republicans.
DAN MORGAN: We're a pack of dogs in this business. Whatever one does, the other one wants to quickly follow. And I can guarantee Republicans are out there looking at what the Democrats are doing and saying: Hey, how do we do the same thing?
SALINAS: Morgan predicts a future where political groups mine more data than Google. Campaigns will make special apps for town halls and public appearances, and then the data will be mined for fundraising. To him, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Brenda Salinas, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The Presidential Inaugural Committee might have its first-ever smartphone app, but for the hundreds of thousands of onlookers who flooded the National Mall today, there were plenty of other reasons to be clutching a mobile device. As NPR's Ailsa Chang reports, many of them just wanted to say: We came.
AILSA CHANG, BYLINE: All you need to do is look at Tommy Alter's iPhone case and you can tell right away who he voted for. It's emblazoned with the red, white and blue campaign logo of President Obama. Even the button on the bottom of his iPhone is wearing its own Obama logo. Alter is a senior at George Washington University, and he's standing near the Washington Monument posting photos on Instagram with his friends.
TOMMY ALTER: We've all done one.
AUSTIN WENDER: It's a multiple Instagram day.
ALEX GRIFFITH: This is a two-a-day for sure.
ALTER: No, this is probably four or five, honestly.
CHANG: With Alter are Austin Wender and Alex Griffith. They all say, yeah, the people at the Capitol look like tiny ants from this distance, and, yeah, what we're seeing on the Jumbotron is probably what we'd be watching on TV anyway if we were at home. But Wender says today is about telling the world: Look at me. I was here.
WENDER: It's so other people can live vicariously through my amazing life, seriously.
CHANG: The inauguration of 2013 is the smartphone inauguration. The website for the congressional committee in charge of the inauguration used GPS technology to direct ticketholders to their seats, and even the Secret Service was tweeting up a storm about street closures and parade routes. But it was hard to find anyone using any of that. Mostly, people were just using their phones as public diaries, like Evelyn Quinn.
EVELYN QUINN: No, no regular cameras. No pen and paper. Just our phones. And we don't even think we're going to make phone calls. It's purely for documentation.
CHANG: Of course, part of that documentation means reporting on the reporters themselves. Tommy Alter and his friends asked me to pose with them for their latest Instagram photo. Alter starts pounding out the photo caption with his thumbs.
ALTER: Chilling with Ailsa Chang from #NPR and then maybe just say: Great times, something like that? No, not great times. Not great time.
WENDER: Chilling on the grass during inauguration.
CHANG: Why wasn't it great? You haven't had a great time with me?
ALTER: Not great, not - no. We did have a great time. But, yeah, that sounds, like...
WENDER: Chilling on the grass during inauguration.
ALTER: That sounds kind of lame.
CHANG: I called Alter on the phone a little while after that. He informed me that group photo on Instagram had already received dozens of likes, and someone had posted a comment that read: I love your life. Ailsa Chang, NPR News, on the National Mall.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Finally, after today's inaugural activities, there was a brief tussle over a basic piece of technology: a pen. President Obama sat down at a desk to sign some official documents using an official-looking set of pens.
(APPLAUSE)
SIEGEL: He was flanked by leaders of the House and Senate.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And just as the president finished and got up to leave, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid leaned in and grabbed a pen.
SENATOR CHUCK SCHUMER: No, no, no, Harry. Harry.
BLOCK: That's Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer scolding his majority leader. Reid put the pen back.
SIEGEL: As you may recall, pens that are used to sign major legislation are sometimes handed out as souvenirs, but this was not apparently one of those times.
BLOCK: Then the president stepped in.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I can get you one, man.
(LAUGHTER)
OBAMA: I'm going to get you - this is a nice one.
BLOCK: Obama reached inside his jacket pocket and handed a pen to Senator Reid, a little piece of history from Inauguration Day 2013.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
So 9-year-old Lauren Kanabel there has a dream: a girl president elected in 2016. And whether or not that dream comes true, there will be inaugural balls. The tradition dates back to George Washington. Four years ago, President Obama attended ten inaugural balls, this year only two, both at the convention center here in Washington. And NPR's Allison Aubrey is there. She joins us by phone. Allison, the ball has been going on for a few hours now. What's the scene?
ALLISON AUBREY, BYLINE: (Unintelligible) absolutely packed in here. You might be able to (unintelligible). I have to say, being here, I'm not sure the term ball (unintelligible) people are dressed up (unintelligible) and there's a lot of glamour. But really what's happening here (unintelligible)elbow to elbow. And while there's supposed to be (unintelligible) there's not (unintelligible). And there is no sign of the president and first lady yet, that is what everyone here is waiting for.
BLOCK: OK. Now, Allison, your line is breaking up. You're saying there's no sign of the president and first lady at the ball where you are, and it's jam-packed. Not much dancing you're saying, right?
AUBREY: That's exactly right. Not much dancing (unintelligible) for that. (Unintelligible). People are sort of elbow to elbow.
BLOCK: Well that might be part of the problem if you reduce the balls from 10 to two. I don't know if they're packing in just huge numbers of people into the two that do exist. Talk a bit, Allison, about the musical acts who are performing tonight.
AUBREY: OK. Well, actually we've had - I mentioned (unintelligible) country music star was here. He said something like (unintelligible) our democracy here in the United States is the envy of the world. (Unintelligible) getting drunk in a convention hall, (unintelligible)quite a few laughs. (Unintelligible) on the stage (unintelligible).
BLOCK: OK. NPR's Allison Aubrey. We apologize for the phone line. She is at the Washington Convention Center where there are two inaugural balls tonight. She was talking about the musical entertainment: Brad Paisley, Alicia Keys, Stevie Wonder coming up, and they're waiting for President and Mrs. Obama.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
I'm Robert Siegel. And now, a train ride to a fabled destination, which marks its 100th birthday on February 2nd.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "GRAND CENTRAL STATION")
SIEGEL: That's a fictional version of our subject, complete with an inaccurate title - we'll explain that in a moment. With a breathlessness that only old-time radio could manage, this show focused on a grandiose rail hub in the heart of Manhattan.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "GRAND CENTRAL STATION")
SIEGEL: In real life these days, it's a little less dramatic than that.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: May I ask from which track is Bridgeport?
AUDREY JOHNSON GORDON: We've got that 207 train (unintelligible).
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I'm going to take for the 230 something. Could I take the 207?
GORDON: You can take either one of them. The 207 leaves first. The next one is that 234 train, 105.
SIEGEL: That's information booth officer Audrey Johnson Gordon at her post in the center of the terminal's main concourse under a great four-sided clock.
GORDON: Yes, Sir.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Greenwich, Connecticut.
GORDON: Track 102A, downstairs.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: 102A.
GORDON: Mm-hmm.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Thank you.
SIEGEL: So what are the most common questions you're asked here at the information booth?
GORDON: One lady wanted to know if she went outside of Grand Central, how much would it cost to come back in?
SIEGEL: Aha.
GORDON: I said I'll be at the door.
(LAUGHTER)
SIEGEL: That obviously was unusual.
GORDON: Very unusual.
SIEGEL: More common requests? Where's the Apple store?
GORDON: Where's the Apple store and where's the bathroom and how do I get out of here.
SIEGEL: That's really not such a strange question. There are passages and ramps, restaurants and stores, subway connections and more passages, and it is, after all, a temple of transit, full of people going somewhere else in a hurry.
GORDON: This train is receiving passengers, lower level, 102.
SIEGEL: A new book tells the story of this majestic place. It's called "Grand Central: How a Train Station Transformed America." Its author is New York Times reporter Sam Roberts. Roberts tells the story of the rapacious robber baron, Cornelius Vanderbilt, who built it for his railroad, the story of the long forgotten William Wilgus, who figured out that the trains had to be electrified, and the story of how the historic preservation movement got under way to save the place from the wrecking ball that had claimed New York's Penn Station.
When we met Sam Roberts outside Audrey Gordon's information booth, we first dispensed with that widely ignored bit of Grand Central pedantry: That it is Grand Central Terminal, not Grand Central Station. It was originally called a depot, and then when passengers used to continue downtown on horse-drawn trains, it was a station.
SAM ROBERTS: And finally in 1913, it became a terminal because the trains terminated here.
SIEGEL: But I just took the subway here from the west side, and the shuttle says Grand Central Station.
ROBERTS: It does. And, in fact, there are two Grand Central Stations. There's a Grand Central Station on the subway, and there's also a Grand Central Station that's the post office. But this is officially - although I think most New Yorkers probably don't know it for sure - this is Grand Central Terminal.
SIEGEL: The depot was there for decades before 1913. What forced construction of Vanderbilt's palatial terminal was a catastrophic underground train crash in 1902.
ROBERTS: A fatal accident, a commuter train, a train coming out of the tunnel under Park Avenue - under steam control - couldn't see because of the steam, the cinders, the heat, the fog, the snow and wound up crashing into another train with multiple fatalities. And the railroad, if not the politicians who licensed it, in effect, said we can't go on with this anymore, we've got to make a change, otherwise we're going to ban your railroad from Manhattan. So instead, they switched to electricity, which allowed them to get rid of the steam, get rid of the smoke, build the two-level station for incoming and outgoing trains and deck over Park Avenue and create some of the most valuable real estate in the world.
SIEGEL: As Sam Roberts tells it, that phrase that he just used a moment ago, commuter train, owes it life to a Mr. Sloat, a superintendent on Vanderbilt's New York Central Railroad, who back in the 19th century came up with a brilliant marketing scheme and an unusual word for it.
ROBERTS: He noticed that lots of people from Westchester, from Connecticut were taking the train back and forth. So instead of charging the full fare, they decided they would commute the fare, much like, I guess, you would commute someone's sentence if they were on death row. But that's how commuter, the term, was actually born.
SIEGEL: As Sam Roberts recounts its story, Grand Central gave us the principle of air rights when it created Park Avenue over what had been an open train yard and people built on top of railroad property. It effectively gave New York midtown Manhattan - the heart of the city used to be farther downtown. It also epitomized innovation 100 years ago. With trains making long-distance trips in those days, people had lots of luggage that had to be moved onto the trains by cart. Hence, all those ramps.
ROBERTS: And when these ramps opened, they were really innovation at Grand Central Terminal because the place has virtually no staircases. People realized that particularly long-distance travelers were coming in with suitcases, lots of luggage, and the ramps were built to accommodate them. Lots of people didn't know what a ramp was, interestingly enough, so there was one explanation that pointed out that the word comes from ramparts.
SIEGEL: So where are we now?
ROBERTS: We now walk up from the lower level to the upper level, the main concourse level without going up one step.
SIEGEL: And when Grand Central Terminal opened in 1913, it was virtually a massive advertisement for electricity and for the Vanderbilts.
ROBERTS: Look around you and look at all those bare electric light bulbs.
SIEGEL: Yeah.
ROBERTS: You wonder why there were not more ornate lighting fixtures. It's because they were showing off electricity. This was the first electric terminal, both the tracks and the lighting of the whole terminal itself. And if you look very carefully on some of the finer artwork, you will see lots of acorns and oak leaves. The acorn and the oak leaf was on the Vanderbilt family crest. You know, little acorns, mighty oaks, like the Vanderbilts grew. And they had an enormous influence on the development of this terminal.
SIEGEL: Grand Central is home to commuter trains these days, no more luxury train to Chicago, like the one Cary Grant took in "North by Northwest."
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "NORTH BY NORTHWEST")
SIEGEL: The 20th century was the train for which they literally rolled out a red carpet every time it boarded - another Grand Central contribution to the Lexicon. Grand Central is such a bright open space - with at least one original tenant left - the famed Oyster Bar - and so many other amenities, you can sympathize with the woman whom Audrey Johnson Gordon at the information booth talked about, the woman who asked do you have to pay to get in. Sam Roberts thinks it's a bargain.
ROBERTS: It is like being in a cathedral. It's like being in an art museum. And to think this is something that's being made available to the public at large; not for an elite group of people, but anyone who wants to travel anywhere can walk into Grand Central and partake of it. That's a great New York City institution.
SIEGEL: Sam Roberts, author of "Grand Central: How a Train Station Transformed America," thank you very much for talking with us.
ROBERTS: Robert, thank you for inviting me.
GORDON: 210, Sanford local. This train will be receiving passengers, lower level.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "GRAND CENTRAL STATION")
SIEGEL: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block. The voice of Jose James snakes and winds and wraps itself around a lyric. The effect is funky and soulful and hypnotic.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BLOCK: Jose James is rooted in jazz. He grew up in Minneapolis, the son of a Panamanian jazz saxophonist. He studied jazz at the prestigious New School in New York, was a finalist in the Thelonious Monk International Vocal Competition in 2004. And a couple of years ago, he toured with the legendary jazz pianist McCoy Tyner.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BLOCK: Now, Jose James is out with a new album titled "No Beginning, No End." He told me this song, "Trouble," started out on the New York City subway, the Q train.
: I literally just had the intro out and the beat in my head. I was on my way to the studio to write the song, so I just did like a beat box and just was doing it for, like, 20 minutes to myself until I could get to the studio.
BLOCK: So what did it sound like on the subway when you started out?
: Just (making noise) again and again and again, you know. That's all you need to get the - you know, right there, like, the kind of beat is there, the swagger is there, the key. You know, there's a lot of musical information. And like a lot of people in my generation, we use hip-hop as a - act just as a tool to compose and then it's the jazz training that let me turn that into a full song.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TROUBLE")
BLOCK: Where did your love of jazz come from in the first place?
: I think my first musical memory is actually listening to Billie Holiday, you know. I think I must have been, like, 3 or 4 years old. I can just remember hearing, "God bless a child that's got his own," which I didn't know what she was singing about, and I actually thought she was saying, That's got hizzo, because of her kind of slangy Baltimore accent. I was like, what's hizzo? God bless a child that's got hizzo?
You know, it sounds like some Jay-Z slang now, right? And her voice just kind of made an impression. I feel like her voice has been with me my whole life. And then, like everybody else, listen to 10,000 Maniacs, Beastie Boys, Nirvana, Soundgarden, Tribe Called Quest. And all the '90s hip-hop, even, like, the really hardcore gangster rap had jazz in it. It was upright bass and flute and, you know, being a child of the CD era, they had to list all the sample clearances.
So I'd say, okay, used as a sample by Miles Davis and I'd be like, oh, who's Miles Davis? Who's Roy Aris(ph)? Who's Eric Dolphy(ph)? And that's sort of how the journey began.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BLOCK: I'm talking to Jose James. His new album is "No Beginning, No End." One of the songs that I keep coming back to, which has so much going on is a song that features a Moroccan vocalist, Hindi Zahra. It's called "Sword + Gun."
: This was the first song that I recorded for the album and because of visa issues, it's very difficult for African artists to travel to the U.K. and the U.S. She had like a four-day gap on her tour. She said, Jose, I have four days off in Paris, can you come? So I flew there without a song or a band to do some writing. And we booked a studio and had a little sketch just with this beat.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
: Boom, boom, boom. And she really liked that. She said, okay, we don't need a band, like start recording. She grabbed a djimbe(ph) and says, okay, play something. And I started playing (unintelligible) and we actually used the number one hip-hop compositional tool sampling. You know, we sampled ourselves playing the percussion and then she brought in an element of Gnawa music and...
BLOCK: The what music?
: Gnawa. It's a special, sacred Moroccan music. There's usually one or two-string instruments and a lot of this super-complicated polyrhythmical clapping.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BLOCK: Well, it's a pretty great adventure.
: Thank you.
BLOCK: Jose James, it's great to talk to you. Thank you so much.
: Thank you so much.
BLOCK: You can hear the entire Jose James album, "No Beginning, No End," and more from our interview at NPRMusic.org.
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Today marks the 40th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion. Thousands of activists on both sides of the issue are holding rallies this week at state capitals across the country. Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, who opposes abortion, spoke before a crowd in Topeka today.
GOVERNOR SAM BROWNBACK: Keep marching. Keep moving. Keep fighting for life.
SIEGEL: Since Roe v. Wade, abortion has been one of the most debated and legislated issues in the nation. As NPR's Kathy Lohr reports, state legislatures have become key battlegrounds in the fight as many are now passing laws to restrict access to the procedure.
KATHY LOHR, BYLINE: In Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a bit of snow surrounds a small, tan brick building along a busy thoroughfare that houses a Planned Parenthood clinic. The staff now uses informed consent procedures mandated by state law.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: All right, dear. So did you get a chance to read through all of this?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Mm-hmm.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Did you have any questions on it at all?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: No questions.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: OK. We'll go over that...
LOHR: A nurse and patient discuss pages of forms required before an abortion. With the end of one legal challenge here, a mandatory 24-hour waiting period is about to increase to 72 hours. The law says a woman must be allowed to see an ultrasound and that the doctor must record any response. And there's more.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: And these last three are on our South Dakota disclosure, which is this four-page document right here. You'll be going over this with Dr. Moore. And at the bottom...
LOHR: A doctor must read a statement saying abortion causes an increased risk of suicide, a claim that abortion rights groups say is not backed by medical evidence. The doctor must also tell patients that an abortion will, quote, "terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being," unquote.
SARAH STOESZ: It's language that is designed to demean and degrade and shame a woman. The situation in that state is becoming increasingly more difficult.
LOHR: Sarah Stoesz is with Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota. The group is battling legislation that it says is intended to intimidate women. The latest flashpoint is a provision that requires patients to get counseling from crisis pregnancy centers that oppose abortions and try to discourage them.
STOESZ: We will never give up on that because it is so heinous and it is so degrading and it is so wrong to put a woman in that position.
LOHR: Several crisis pregnancy centers in town would not provide anyone to talk about the law. In part, it says the centers will assess the mother's health and judge whether she is being coerced into having an abortion. Mary Spaulding Balch monitors and directs state legislation for the National Right to Life Committee.
MARY SPAULDING BALCH: What the state is trying to do is to ensure that the mother has an informed decision. They're not banning the abortion, but they certainly can make sure that prior to making this life-and-death decision that the mother knows the full and complete consequences of that decision.
LOHR: The movement has momentum in the states where more are passing restrictions. The laws, about 130 in the past two years alone, include stronger informed consent measures, parental notification, ultrasound requirements, clinic regulations. And more than half a dozen states now restrict abortion after 20 weeks based on the theory that fetuses can feel pain.
Four decades after Roe, five states including Mississippi, North Dakota and South Dakota have just one clinic that performs abortion. Again, Mary Spaulding Balch with the National Right to Life Committee.
BALCH: The states reflect the people more closely, and they have an ability to respond to what the people in the state thinks is reasonable.
LOHR: After four decades, both sides say the American people back them. National Right to Life points to a recent Gallup poll that shows half of those surveyed identify themselves as quote, "pro-life versus pro-choice." But abortion rights groups say that same poll shows that more than three-fourths of Americans think abortion should be legal in some or all circumstances.
Another focal point in the abortion debate has been Wichita, Kansas, where second and third trimester abortions were performed for years at a clinic owned by Dr. George Tiller. An avowed abortion opponent murdered Tiller in 2009 and his clinic has remained vacant since then. Abortion rights activists are now trying to re-open it.
JULIE BURKHART: Here we have the operating rooms, and we have our sterile and soiled rooms there.
LOHR: Julie Burkhart ran Tiller's political action committee in Kansas and says she formed the Trust Women Foundation to find doctors willing to perform first-trimester abortions in this city that's been so divided and has been without an abortion provider for three and a half years.
BURKHART: We did a lot of soul searching and decided that what we needed to do in this part of the country in order to honor him but also to honor the women who live in this area was to re-establish abortion care, which we are doing with a new model of practice. We will be offering full-spectrum OB-GYN care.
LOHR: Burkhart says she's found three out-of-town doctors willing to come to Wichita, and the clinic is expected to open in the next couple of months. Tiller recognized regulations might be passed to try to close the facility so he built large operating rooms and wide hallways, similar to what you'd see in a minor emergency center. Regulations requiring clinics to meet these standards did eventually pass in Kansas and are now in court.
Abortion rights activists see re-opening the clinic as a bright spot in this debate, but those opposed to abortion vow to do everything they can to keep it closed. David Gittrich with Kansans for Life started a petition drive to convince the city to rezone the area. Volunteer Beverly Klag stops by for a moment to drop off the latest batch of petitions.
DAVID GITTRICH: Hello, Beverly.
BEVERLY KLAG: Hi, David.
GITTRICH: Wow, nice. Thank you very much.
KLAG: I think there's 174 signatures there.
GITTRICH: Excellent.
LOHR: Gittrich and others who oppose abortion say they'll keep fighting.
GITTRICH: We need to continue being pro-life until we reverse the Roe v. Wade decision and have opportunity to make it illegal in our state and in other states. Things don't change and get solved unless you're in the race for a long haul.
LOHR: But after so many years bickering about the laws and the social divide, Sarah Stoesz with Planned Parenthood says the issue is not only about abortion, but about how women feel about their autonomy and what's best for their families.
STOESZ: I just think the country is tired of this. It's been 40 years since Roe and people want to move on.
LOHR: Stoesz says she'd like to see real dialogue and common ground on issues like reducing the need for abortion and ending child hunger. But the question is whether two sides are too far apart for any real discussion. Kathy Lohr, NPR News.
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The slate at this year's Sundance Film Festival in Utah is raising some eyebrows. The Sutherland Institute, a conservative think-tank, says some of the films do not reflect Utah values. And they're raising questions about the tax dollars that go to support the festival.
More from Terry Gildea of member station KUER in Salt Lake City.
TERRY GILDEA, BYLINE: The controversy began with a blog post on the Sutherland Institute's website. Writer Derek Monson called on Utah to end its sponsorship of Sundance because some of the movies shown there portrayed sexual promiscuity.
Paul Mero is the president of the Sutherland, based in Salt Lake City. He says the state should spend money on other priorities. Mero says it should not subsidize the financially successful film festival founded by actor Robert Redford.
PAUL MERO: So it's almost like we're buying a friendship that doesn't naturally exist between Mr. Redford and the state of Utah. If that's the case, that's pretty pathetic.
GILDEA: Mero says his organization is uniformly opposed to any kind of business subsidy, and that some of the films screened this year - like a bio-pic of the late porn star Linda Lovelace - cast an immoral shadow over the festival no matter how much money it brings in.
MERO: A lot of these film festivals are held in major cities and elite enclaves. In those circles, maybe it complements their values. But these highly sexualized films don't complement the values of most Americans, let alone Utahans.
GILDEA: On Main Street in Park City this weekend, festival-goers visited the Hub, a state office set up to act as an information center about making movies here. On the walls are posters of films shot in Utah, including "127 Hours" and the upcoming rendition of "The Lone Ranger." The state invested $300,000 in the festival this year. For that commitment, Utah's tourism logo is branded on everything, from signs to brochures to lanyards.
And Marshall Moore, director of the Utah Film Commission, says the logo is on screen credits before each film.
MARSHALL MOORE: We were a significant contributor in terms of sponsorship. But it's, you know, something that we build into our budget every year and that allows Sundance to realize that the festival is important to the state.
GILDEA: Moore says the festival introduces many filmmakers to Utah.
MOORE: We maybe, when we make trips to Los Angeles to promote Utah, talk to 20 filmmakers in a week. We're getting hundreds of people through our Hub every day. And it's not just film. It's tourism and it's business, and it's new businesses considering moving their companies here.
GILDEA: Moore says if Utah lost the Sundance Film Festival it would be devastating to the state, but it doesn't look like Robert Redford is ready to leave yet. During a press conference on the opening day of Sundance, he said he's not swayed by Sutherland.
ROBERT REDFORD: If they'd like us to go away, we'd probably take, what, 70, $80 million with us. Eighty million dollars comes to the local economy in 10 days - pretty good.
GILDEA: And for the Utah's Film Commission, $80 million is an excellent return on that $300,000 investment.
For NPR News, I'm Terry Gildea in Salt Lake City.
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Information technology has revolutionized much of the American economy. Retailers keep all kinds of computerized records, for example, everything from their customers' purchases to their inventory. But one industry lags noticeably in the information age, health care providers. A majority of American doctors weren't even using electronic health records until last year. The White House has made IT a priority as part of its healthcare overhaul.
And as Eric Whitney of Colorado Public Radio reports, it's a big lift that's going to take some time.
ERIC WHITNEY, BYLINE: Dr. Allison Kempe is a researcher at the University of Colorado. Her challenge is keeping kids' immunizations on track. That's hard if children see different doctors every year.
DR. ALLISON KEMPE: That happens a lot. They get seen at one site, then their insurance changes, they go to another site.
WHITNEY: Colorado has a place to pull all those scattered records together, a computerized central registry where any provider who gives a kid vaccine can enter that information. So if the kid shows up in a different clinic later, staff can log in to the registry and make sure they're not doubling up or missing critical booster shots.
But here's what drives Kempe crazy. The state's computer system is incompatible with most of the systems doctors use. So even though a lot of clinics now have electronic records systems, they don't update the central database. It's just too much extra work.
KEMPE: A very small minority of practices can actually automatically upload their records. Most practices are having to do double data entry where they enter information manually into the registry.
WHITNEY: And if it's not current, doctors can't rely on it as a kids' vaccination record. This is just one small example of the digital disconnect that's holding healthcare back, says Dr. Art Kellerman, a policy analyst with the RAND Corporation. He says the ability for doctors to easily share information is the exception in America, not the rule. The result is that the health care industry isn't benefitting from the computer networks that have transformed industries like manufacturing, retail and banking.
DR. ART KELLERMAN: You think about it. You can take you ATM card and go to any ATM in the country - and in many cases in other countries - and withdraw money or even move your accounts from one account to another. You can't do that with health information technology today.
WHITNEY: Kellerman published an article in this month's Health Affairs reflecting on a study from 2005 that said information technology could save America $81 billion a year by making healthcare more efficient. He found actual savings scant and that many doctors complain electronic records make them less efficient. Some of Kellerman's criticism is valid but some of it's not, says the doctor charged with leading American medicine's digital transformation.
DR. FARZAD MOSTASHARI: People talk about the ATM, and that's seven-data elements, and they charge you 2.50 for shipping those seven data, you know, data fields over. We're talking thousands of data fields around things that are life and death.
WHITNEY: Dr. Farzad Mostashari is the White House's National Coordinator for Health Information Technology. His office meets constantly with software vendors. They're trying to hammer out the basic industry standards necessary to make sharing health information as easy as bank records or other important information.
MOSTASHARI: But we have actually these meetings on average every three-and-a-half hours for the past three years.
WHITNEY: Mostashari says the number of doctors and hospitals using electronic records has doubled in the last two years. He admits there are growing pains but says the government's strategy is helping.
MOSTASHARI: It is a work in progress. And, you know, it's going to be hard work. But it is way, I think, too soon to be saying, oh, this is such a disappointment.
WHITNEY: Mostashari says it'll be another six years before the government's IT strategy starts showing significant savings. Both he and Kellerman agree patients would get better care at lower cost if healthcare could share patient records easily. But that won't happen until doctors and hospitals start getting paid for being IT smart. Right now, duplicative testing also means duplicative payments. Kellerman is optimistic the Affordable Care Act's payment reforms can change that.
KELLERMAN: As we shift American healthcare and start paying for value rather than volume, start paying for the best quality care and the best outcomes rather than who does the most stuff, who orders the most tests or who does the most operations or who orders the most consultations from other doctors, then I think you'll see IT becoming a tool for efficiency and high performance.
WHITNEY: Kellerman says there will be setbacks, but the health industry has got to catch up. For NPR News, I'm Eric Whitney in Denver.
SIEGEL: And that story is part of a partnership of NPR, Colorado Public Radio and Kaiser Health News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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That wasn't the only surprise in yesterday's inaugural address. After barely mentioning climate change in his campaign, President Obama put it on a short list of priorities for his second term.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We will respond to the threat of climate change knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.
SIEGEL: Today, the White House had scant detail on what the president plans to do. But NPR's Elizabeth Shogren reports that his rhetoric was music to the ears of some environmental leaders.
ELIZABETH SHOGREN, BYLINE: Frances Beinecke, president of the Natural Resources Defense Fund(ph), was listening to the president's speech while standing behind him on the platform at the Capitol.
FRANCES BEINECKE: When I heard the president make that statement, I let out a shout because I was so excited.
SHOGREN: She says the president made a strong case that the droughts, forest fires and superstorms of 2012 compel action.
BEINECKE: He recognized that climate change is a problem of now. It's not a problem of the future.
SHOGREN: At the White House today, spokesman Jay Carney refused to give any detail about what new plans the president has to fight climate change.
JAY CARNEY: I'm not going to speculate for you about future actions. The president made clear that he believes it's a priority. He has a record already of historic accomplishments in this area, but more needs to be done.
SHOGREN: Although Carney wouldn't say it, former White House officials, environmental leaders and representatives of the electricity industry all believe they know what the president has in mind. He's already reduced the greenhouse gases that come from cars. Now, they expect he'll use the Environmental Protection Agency to ramp up his efforts to reduce greenhouse gases from power plants. The EPA already proposed a rule that would make it virtually impossible to build new coal-fired power plants. Carol Browner is the former EPA chief and former assistant to President Obama. She says, next, the agency will use its authority to reduce greenhouse gas pollution from existing power plants.
CAROL BROWNER: Yes, people should expect it. It is a very important tool that the president has available to him.
SHOGREN: Quin Shea is a vice president for environment at the Edison Electric Institute, the industry's trade group. He says electric companies are expecting this.
QUIN SHEA: We're definitely ready to engage.
SHOGREN: Shea says electric companies are already reducing their greenhouse gas emissions. That's in large part due to a big shift from coal to cheaper natural gas.
The coming months are not likely to be a love fest between the president and environmental groups because of an upcoming decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. The pipeline would carry tar sands oil from Canada to U.S. refineries. It takes so much energy to produce this heavy oil that it has a larger greenhouse gas footprint. Today, Nebraska's governor gave his go-ahead to the massive pipeline. Now, environmental groups fear the president will approve the Keystone XL.
MICHAEL BRUNE: We can't expand production of the dirtiest source of oil on the planet if we want to reduce carbon pollution.
SHOGREN: Michael Brune is chairman of the Sierra Club. He says the nation's oldest and largest environmental group is so worried that the president will give his OK that it's planning to make an exception to its historic ban on participating in acts of civil disobedience. That means they're going try to get arrested at an upcoming protest. Brune says the Sierra Club's decision shows...
BRUNE: That there's a new level of urgency regarding climate change and a growing impatience about the lack of political courage that we're seeing from the president and from leaders in Congress.
SHOGREN: He says civil disobedience helped women get the vote and African-Americans get equal rights. He says he hopes this move will turn up the pressure on President Obama to follow through with his rhetoric and make hard decisions to fight global warming. Elizabeth Shogren, NPR News, Washington.
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The coming battle over new gun laws could be the biggest in a generation. Leading the charge for gun rights, the National Rifle Association with its huge budget and grassroots operations. On the other side, a new leader has emerged in recent years. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is not only outspoken on gun control, he's also opened his substantial wallet for the cause. NPR's Peter Overby has this report.
PETER OVERBY, BYLINE: President Obama has proposed big changes in federal gun laws. But in his inaugural speech yesterday, he mentioned them only obliquely.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.
OVERBY: Mayor Against Illegal Guns, one of the groups backed by Michael Bloomberg, isn't speaking so softly.
JOHN FEINBLATT: Newtown broke America's heart. And everything is different since then.
OVERBY: That's John Feinblatt, chief policy advisor to the mayor and also chairman of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. He was on Capitol Hill last week, barely a month after 20 elementary school students were shot to death at a school in Newtown, Connecticut. And how much will Bloomberg spend on this fight?
FEINBLATT: The mayor will do what it takes to save lives.
OVERBY: Which could be a lot of money. The National Rifle Association's annual budget surpasses $200 million. And it's only the biggest of many pro-gun groups. On the other hand, Michael Bloomberg is a billionaire 25 times over according to Forbes magazine. That puts him a few notches below conservative industrialist David Koch and his brother, Charles, and a few steps above liberal financier George Soros. Leslie Lenkowsky is a professor of Public Affairs & Philanthropic Studies at Indiana University.
LESLIE LENKOWSKY: People like the Kochs, Mayor Bloomberg and many others have learned that success in the public arena depends on using multiple avenues.
OVERBY: And here, Bloomberg's using two avenues. First is Mayors Against Illegal Guns. He's a cochairman and the biggest funder. In 2009, Mayors Against Illegal Guns helped engineer a rare defeat in Congress for the NRA. The Senate rejected a proposal that would have made states honor concealed carry permits from other states.
The NRA unleashed its grassroots network on some of the mayors in Mayors Against Illegal Guns. Here's a video from 2009, NRA spokeswoman Rachel Parsons talking to a program host on the American Trigger Sports Network.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW)
OVERBY: Maybe. But the mayors group has now nearly doubled. It claims more than 800 members. On Bloomberg's other avenue of political influence, he's the only funder of a superPAC new last year, Independence USA PAC. The PAC got started late, spent a relatively puny $8 million and still helped several pro-gun control candidates win.
Democrat Joe Baca, a vulnerable pro-gun incumbent in Southern California, was knocked from office by a $3 million ad blitz from Bloomberg. Baca didn't take it well.
JOE BACCA: Mayor Michael Bloomberg should be ashamed of himself for lowering himself to the level of dirty politics by his operatives.
OVERBY: The NRA didn't respond today to a request for comment about Bloomberg and his tactics. This winter, those tactics will include this Web video featuring Beyonce, Jamie Foxx and 51 other entertainment artists.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUN CONTROL PSA)
OVERBY: Perhaps more to the point for Congress, Mayors Against Illegal Guns is organizing waves of lobbying visits to Capitol Hill from mayors, police chiefs and survivors of gun violence. And behind that, there's the prospect of midterm campaign spending by Michael Bloomberg. Peter Overby, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Well, it didn't take long. We learned today that one of the performances at yesterday's inauguration ceremony was not as it seemed. Beyonce lip-synced her rendition of "The National Anthem," that's according to a spokesman for the U.S. Marine Band, which played live over Beyonce prerecorded track.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
The spokesman said today it is standard practice for inaugural music to be prerecorded in case weather gets in the way. At the 2009 inaugural, an all-star quartet, including cellist Yo-Yo Ma, famously faked their performance because of the frigid and windy weather.
SIEGEL: Well, Beyonce chose not to risk it yesterday. Other performers did. A representative for Kelly Clarkson, who sang "My Country 'Tis Of Thee" after President Obama's speech, told the Associated Press that Clarkson sang her part live, cold and all.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
This week, a French judge will decide if Twitter must hand over the identities of users who are sending anti-Semitic tweets in French. The case was brought against the social media giant by a Jewish student organization.
And as NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports, it pits America's free speech guarantees against Europe's laws banning hate speech.
ELIE PETIT: If I type - un bon Juif - which means a good Jew, I can see it was full of tweets against Jews. And it was written, for example: A good Jew is a dead Jew; A good Jew is a burned Jew.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: That's Elie Petit, vice president of the Union of Jewish Students last October, when his group threatened to sue Twitter to get the names of the people posting those tweets. Since then, a spate of racist and homophobic tweets have followed, trending among the most popular in France. These include: If my son was gay, and If my daughter brought home a black man.
Petit's group has filed its suit, which is now backed by the country's biggest anti-racism groups and the French government. Petit says they're hopeful about the judge's decision.
PETIT: We know that we'll create a precedent in justice and make all these hateful speeches will be condemned, and this feeling of impunity for the people that posted these tweets will be erased.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO PROGRAM)
BEARDSLEY: Guy Birenbaum is a commentator on Internet issues for Europe 1 Radio. He calls the lawsuit completely unrealistic.
: (Through Translator) Of course, people say atrocious things on Twitter. But the question is not to keep them from talking. The real issue is, technically, how can you tell the difference between real racists and fascists and those simply talking or joking about the racist tweets? No machine can do this.
BEARDSLEY: Birenbaum says for some people sending shocking tweets is a game and taking them seriously simply gives them importance. With 500 million tweets a day in the world, he says, it is absurd to put in place a censure system for a couple thousand.
CHRISTOPHER MESNOOH: This is a classic example of a clash of cultures that shows up in the way different legal systems deal with the same issue.
BEARDSLEY: That's Christopher Mesnooh, an American lawyer who practices in Paris.
MESNOOH: In the United States, we give virtually absolute protection to free speech, even if it's offensive to different minorities. In Europe, France, and Germany, in particular, have taken a different direction. What they have decided is that because of what happened during the Holocaust, and World War II more generally, that certain kinds of speech, when directed at minorities, has to be circumscribed or even prevented.
BEARDSLEY: In October, Twitter agreed to remove the anti-Semitic tweets. But it would not hand over the identities of the users. Twitter says data on users is collected and stocked in California, where French law cannot be applied. A lawyer for Twitter said the only way the site could be forced to hand over details would be if the French justice system appealed to American judges to push for the data.
Manuel Diaz runs a company that advises corporations on how to adapt to the digital era. He says it doesn't make good business sense for Twitter to say it's going to ignore a French judge, especially as the company is planning to open an office in Paris. Diaz says Twitter should be asking itself the following question...
MANUEL DIAZ: How do I deal with the different laws in the different countries, as I am being now a global media, a worldwide media, and I need to have some strategy and agreements with the governments in the different countries I'm based in.
PETIT: (Foreign language spoken)
BEARDSLEY: Back in the office of the Jewish student organization, Petit says if the judge rules in their favor and Twitter doesn't comply, they will take their case to American courts. They did it 10 years ago with Yahoo, he says, and won, forcing the search engine to remove neo-Nazi articles for sale on its website.
Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block. Congress eased back into session today, its first working day of President Obama's second term. But at this point, its priorities bear little resemblance to the president's. Of the big issues he raised yesterday in his inaugural address, climate change, gay rights, immigration, school safety - none appeared to top the agenda of the GOP-controlled House or the Democratic-lead Senate.
Instead, as NPR's David Welna reports, Congress is still fighting several battles left over from last year.
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: The Senate picked up today exactly where it left off nearly three weeks ago. By a twist of the rules, that chamber remains in its first legislative day. Majority Leader Harry Reid said today he's kept things at the starting point so that he and his fellow Democrats have the option of changing the rules on a filibuster by a simple majority vote.
SENATOR HARRY REID: The Senate will take action to make this institution that we all love, the United States Senate, work more effectively will consider changes to the Senate rules.
WELNA: Reid said he hoped to reach agreement with Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in the next day or so on modifying the filibuster rules to make things work more smoothly. But if there's no agreement, Reid said he's ready to use what Republicans are calling the nuclear option, changing the rules with 51 votes instead of the usual 67 votes. Reid said the Senate's first order of business, aside from the filibuster maneuvering, would be to get final passage to a $60 billion disaster relief package for the victims of Superstorm Sandy.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Capitol, the House also came back in session.
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: The House will be in order.
WELNA: House Speaker John Boehner gaveled in the session just days after he and his fellow Republicans decided to raise the debt ceiling enough to keep the Treasury meeting its obligations until May 19th. But as Colorado House Republican Scott Tipton noted, there would be a condition attached to such a short extension of the debt ceiling.
REPRESENTATIVE SCOTT TIPTON: That this House and our counterparts in the United States Senate actually pass a budget for the American people. If we can't do that, then we, as members of Congress, don't deserve to be paid. No budget, no pay.
WELNA: Senate Republicans applauded their House colleague's initiative. John Cornyn is the Senate's number two Republican.
SENATOR JOHN CORNYN: I want to congratulate the House for directing people's attention to the failure of the Senate under Leader Reid to bring a budget to the floor. And I think the appropriate sanction is no budget, no pay. That's just me talking, but I believe that's the - it sends a good message.
WELNA: Some Democrats say they're fine with having their pay docked if there's no budget, but Iowa Senator Tom Harkin says House Republicans are going too far.
SENATOR TOM HARKIN: I think that's ridiculous because their premise is that we haven't passed a budget, but we did, as you know, in the budget control act. We passed, as Senator Conrad can tell you, we are operating under limits right now. It may not be the, quote, "budget," but it is a budget control act and which we passed.
WELNA: Democratic Leader Reid emphasized the positive when asked about the House bill raising the debt ceiling which is to be voted on tomorrow.
REID: I'm happy to set us a debt ceiling with not entitlement cuts and dollar for dollar, so that's a big step in the right direction.
WELNA: The White House issued a statement today saying it will not oppose the short-term raising of the debt ceiling proposed by House Republicans. But spokesman Jay Carney said the president will not negotiate with Congress over the debt ceiling, either in the short term or the long term.
JAY CARNEY: The president takes some of the statements by Republican leaders and important and prominent Republicans about the absolute folly of pursuing a strategy that ties raising the debt ceiling to demands on spending cuts. The fact that it is folly, you know, we take heart in that because we believe it's good for the economy to cease that practice. We're not going to engage in it any more in three months than we were going to engage in it now.
WELNA: Carney added the president will address deficit reduction separately, as long as it's fair and balanced. David Welna, NPR News, the Capitol.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
The prime minister of Algeria is defending his government's response to last week's attack, which left at least 37 hostages dead. He says militants would have killed far more people if they hadn't been stopped. The attack happened at a huge, internationally-operated facility in the Sahara Desert.
And as NPR's Jim Zarroli reports, it underscores the dangers energy companies face when they do business in unstable places.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: A few years ago, Luke Janger went to work helping to monitor oil wells at a base camp run by a major energy company in Chad. Security at the camp was minimal, just locals carrying billy clubs.
LUKE JANGER: There was no question in your mind that if the base was actually attacked in any way, especially by something similar to what's going on in Algeria, there is no way that we could have defended against them.
ZARROLI: The fifth week he was there, rebels attacked the capital 60 miles away. And for several days, employees at the camp were unable to find out what was happening. The oil fields were a huge source of revenue for the government and Janger knew they were vulnerable.
JANGER: Since the Chadian government couldn't keep the rebels out of the capital, it was clear that they weren't going to be able to keep them out of base, either.
ZARROLI: Eventually the company evacuated its employees, but Janger says for a year afterward he had trouble sleeping and drank a bit more than normal. And the recent attack in Algeria brought some of the fear back to him.
JANGER: Immediately, I think that there but for the grace of God went I, because it definitely could have happened. The location of the base, someone could have hit us hard and fast.
ZARROLI: For as long as big energy companies have been doing business in foreign lands, they have had to contend with occasional instances of political instability. It's the price they pay for the riches they pull out of the ground in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. And companies pour a lot of resources into security measures.
STEVEN COLVILLE: There are people in our companies who think about this all the time; that's what they do.
ZARROLI: Steven Colville, president of the International Association of Drilling Contractors, says the incident in Algeria is forcing companies to take another look at security.
COLVILLE: It makes everybody look again at what they're doing. It makes everyone reassess those challenges. Let's add this into the scenario.
ZARROLI: And attacks are virtually certain to happen again, says Jim Reese, president of the security company TigerSwan, which has a lot of experience overseas. Reese says plants like the one in Algeria can be hard to protect. He says you have to set up concentric rings of security, fences inside fences. You have to use security cameras and dogs. It can be tough to do, he says.
JIM REESE: The size of these organizations are very difficult to secure. You know, security can be a very expensive line item in a budget for a lot of corporations. But it's got to be done.
ZARROLI: And even fences aren't enough. He points out that members of terrorist groups have sometimes managed to infiltrate plants by getting hired. Reese says the local population can help alert a company to threats it faces, but the company needs to stay in the community's good graces. That means providing jobs to locals and being a good steward of the environment.
REESE: So it's not just putting a fence up and, OK, we're safe now. There's a very holistic approach, what I would call the unblinking eye, that needs to be put in the approach for your security.
ZARROLI: At the same time, there are limits to what a big energy company can do to protect itself. Companies doing business overseas are at the mercy of their host governments. And as the Algeria incident suggests, the outcome of an attack can sometimes be outside their hands.
Jim Zarroli, NPR News.
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And that's not the only fight brewing in Washington. President Obama's inaugural address may have Democrats singing his praises, but not Republicans. In his first term, the president tried without success to bring a new post-partisan era to Washington. As NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson reports, Mr. Obama used yesterday's speech to change course, laying out a liberal agenda and signaling his intent to fight for it.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Republicans didn't just object to President Obama's speech, they were affronted by it. Whit Ayres is a Republican pollster and strategist.
WHIT AYRES: Republicans were hoping for something akin to the president's 2004 convention speech where he talked about there being no red America or blue America, but a United States of America. But his tone yesterday was 180 degrees away from that tone in 2004. It was graceless, confrontational, combative, in your face.
LIASSON: It was the tone, even more than the substance, that bothered Republicans. House Budget Committee chair Paul Ryan, who was Mitt Romney's running mate, told the Laura Ingraham Show today that Mr. Obama's speech departed from the approach of a traditional inaugural address.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW)
LIASSON: Ron Bonjean, a former House Republican leadership aide, said the absence of any olive branches indicates how the president sees the way forward.
RON BONJEAN: There is no, you know, let's be nonpartisan, let's be bipartisan. This is a I am - it's my way or the highway and I'm moving forward with it, and we're going to roll over Republicans in the process, if that's what has to happen.
LIASSON: It's not news that gun control, climate change and immigration reform will all be part of the president's agenda this term. But what surprised Republicans was what they saw as a retreat from any notion of compromise on the budget deficit, which will be the biggest fight this year. Ron Bonjean.
BONJEAN: The president seemed to put up a barrier around Social Security and Medicare to say that, you know, these programs work and we're not going to touch them.
LIASSON: Here's what Mr. Obama said.
(SOUNDBITE OF INAUGURAL ADDRESS)
LIASSON: The conventional wisdom in Washington says that in order to resolve our fiscal problems, everybody has to give up something. But, says Whit Ayres, that's not what he heard from Mr. Obama.
AYRES: The tone we heard yesterday from the president was that if anyone voted for me, you don't have to give up anything and if anybody voted for Mr. Romney, we're coming after you. That's not a tone that is likely to engender a bipartisan compromise.
LIASSON: But the White House insists that the president's most recent offer to trim entitlements, which he put on the table in the unsuccessful talks with House Speaker John Boehner in December, is still there. Maybe the president's new harder-edged tone comes from four years of learning that it's better to compromise at the end of a negotiation instead of at the beginning. Ron Bonjean.
BONJEAN: I feel like the president used his inauguration speech to stake out exactly what he wants, as opposed to offering his willingness to negotiate, which I think will come later, either in the sequester or funding the government or on the debt ceiling. But at some point, there is going to be some type of negotiation over entitlement reform.
LIASSON: It's kind of like haggling over the price of a car, says Bonjean, and that's the most charitable interpretation of the president's speech from the Republican point of view. Mara Liasson, NPR News, Washington.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Now to some of the films being showcased at this year's Sundance Festival and what's been getting early buzz.
Steven Zeitchik is in Park City, Utah, covering the festival for the Los Angeles Times. Steven, welcome back to the program.
STEVEN ZEITCHIK: Good to be here, Melissa.
BLOCK: And let's start off with that controversy we were just hearing about, the conservative group there in Utah complaining about highly sexualized films at Sundance. And it sounds like there are a lot of them this year.
(LAUGHTER)
ZEITCHIK: You're absolutely right. There is really no shortage of films that deal with all manner of taboo here at the film festival, among those, "Don Jon's Addiction," which is that kind of porn comedy - a porn addiction comedy - directed by Joseph Gordon Levitt. There are a number of very kind of serious, rigorous relationship movies, one called "Two Mothers" about two mothers, each one sleeping with the other's son. A movie called "A Teacher," which is about a teacher-student relationship.
James Franco has two films here. He's never one who's shy about shocking us. He directed one, produced another, and one of the films is called "Kink," about an S&M porn website based out of San Francisco.
So, really, if you look around this festival you'd think we were living in a pretty debaucherous(ph) time; certainly a time more interesting than one most of us are familiar with in our daily lives.
BLOCK: And another trend, Steven, that's been noted this year, is a very strong representation of women directors at the festival.
ZEITCHIK: It's absolutely right and a trend that I think a lot of people have been prominently picking up on; the U.S. dramatic competition at the festival, which is sort of the movies that are competing for prizes coming out of America. Sixteen films make it in, fully eight of them this year are directed by women. Movies of all shapes and sizes, some of the movies are relationship movies, we were just talking about. Another one that comes to mind is called "In a World," which is Lake Bell, the actress Lake Bell, she has a directorial debut here. And it's about a kind of a second string voiceover artist.
So, comedies, dramas, but a lot of films coming from women. And I think that's a good and notable trend.
BLOCK: One film that's gotten a lot of attention at Sundance sounds intriguing and it's gotten attention for the way it was made; it was made on the sly. It's called "Escape from Tomorrow." Tell us about that.
ZEITCHIK: This is one of the most unusual and provocative films I've ever seen in all my years coming to Sundance. And it's set and shot at the Disney parks, both in Orlando and Anaheim. First-time filmmaker named Randy Moore snuck in, guerrilla-style, these very small cameras and would have his actors - this is a scripted featured, not a documentary - but he'd have his actors moving around the park, often very far away from him because he didn't want to look like he was shooting a movie. This was not done with Disney's permission.
And he would kind of, on his iPhone, tell them where to go and direct them, and they would be running around amid not extras, but everyday tourists at the park. And it's really something. It's completely guerrilla-style. And it's something I've never seen before.
BLOCK: You said it wasn't done with Disney's permission. Not only that, it sounds like this movie may never actually get to theaters precisely because Disney may stop it.
ZEITCHIK: Absolutely, every distributor I've talked to has said, look, we're interested in this film - it's a provocative film, it's got a lot of media attention - but can we release the thing? And I think even if there are some clauses that indemnify them, they're still going to be bracing for a big legal fight, an expensive legal fight with Disney in terms of getting it out there. So this may be a film that lives on in a kind of underground, mixed tape, pirate website sort of way, but we may never see it in theaters.
BLOCK: Well, before we let you go, Steven, what else has been really catching your imagination out there?
ZEITCHIK: Well, a lot of interesting and unusual films. One of them that I think maybe listeners will remember - or at least a franchise they'll remember - is "Before Midnight." This is the third in a now trilogy of films from Richard Linklater, began with "Before Sunrise" in 1995, continued with "Before Sunset" in 2004. And it sort of looks at the romance that has blossomed between Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy's characters, getting some strong reviews. Really great writing and I think that's one to look out for.
Another movie, a drama that's been getting a lot of attention is called "Fruitvale." It's about a real-life - it's a scripted movie - but it's about a real-life shooting at a San Francisco BART station in 2009. And that movie will be released by the Weinstein Company.
And finally, there's a documentary called "Inequality for All," which is a kind of - I would say it seeks to do for the economy what "Inconvenient Truth" did for the environment. Robert Reich, labor secretary under Bill Clinton in the '90s, kind of taking on the Al Gore role, teaching a class about wealth inequality. And it's a little bit wonky but I think it makes some of these very esoteric issues very accessible to those of us who don't follow them on a daily basis.
BLOCK: Steven Zeitchik, thanks so much for talking with us.
ZEITCHIK: Thank you, Melissa.
BLOCK: Steven Zeitchik covering the Sundance Film Festival for the Los Angeles times.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And I'm Robert Siegel.
The deadly hostage crisis at an Algerian gas plant last week could be an early indication of big changes in Al-Qaida. America's chief concern used to be the core of al-Qaida, led by Osama bin Laden. Then, the country's focus shifted to the group's affiliates like its arm in Yemen when they began targeting the United States.
NPR's Dina Temple-Raston reports, officials now say the Algerian hostage crisis may be the next stage in the terrorist group's evolution.
DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: The man who says he masterminded last week's attack on a BP gas facility in Algeria claimed responsibility in a video.
MOKHTAR BELMOKHTAR: (Foreign language spoken)
TEMPLE-RASTON: We are behind the blessed daring operation in Algeria, says Mokhtar Belmokhtar, a former member of Al-Qaida's arm in North Africa. Forty men from Muslim and Western countries took part in the operation, he says in the video.
Then he pauses and says into the camera...
BELMOKHTAR: (Foreign language spoken)
TEMPLE-RASTON: We did it for Al-Qaida.
The video is dated January 17th, a day after the hostage siege began. But it was only posted yesterday on a website that often carries jihadi messages. There are all the familiar signals in the video. Belmokhtar is standing in front of an Islamist black banner associated with Al-Qaida. He talks about the crusaders and exacting revenge against France and the United States.
But analysts say he's a different kind of terrorist because he appears to be as motivated by criminality as he is ideology.
RUDY ATTALLAH: Belmokhtar's number one goal has always been making money, he's an opportunist.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Rudy Attallah is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and used to advise the secretary of defense on counter-terrorism efforts in Africa.
ATTALLAH: He's gone off on his own. He still has his own katiba, his own battalion, with his own men. He's just making sure that everyone knows that he is still a viable threat out there.
TEMPLE-RASTON: A viable threat, even though last month, U.S. intelligence officials say he left Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb to start his own group. That's added to confusion. If he left Al-Qaida's affiliate, why is he saying he launched the attack for Al-Qaida in the video? Experts think they have an answer.
JUAN ZARATE: What you will have are ideologically aligned splinter groups that have the Al-Qaida DNA embedded in them but may be operating quite independently.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Juan Zarate is a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and he used to track transnational crime at the Treasury Department.
ZARATE: Well, I think what you will see and continue to see is a splintering and factionalization of the Al-Qaida movement around the world. And its going to grow more and more difficult to be able to put a pin on the map to determine which group is actually Al-Qaida or not.
TEMPLE-RASTON: It appears that Belmokhtar is testing that new model. U.S. officials say since his split with AQIM, he's made clear that he wants to go around Al-Qaida's local affiliates and report only to the group's founding leaders, like Ayman al-Zawahiri. It provides a new tool because Al-Qaida central now has people like Belmokhtar and its traditional affiliates. That's why there's been some confusion about whether Al-Qaida was directly involved in the Algeria attack.
But analysts say the labels don't really matter. Whether it was Belmokhtar acting on his own or on behalf of al-Qaida, the end result is just the same.
Dina Temple-Raston, NPR News.
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As a teenager, John Thomas was a superstar.
(SOUNDBITE OF A SPORTSCAST)
SIEGEL: In the 1960 Summer Olympics, in Rome, Thomas was 19 years old and he was the surest of sure things. Instead, Thomas ran up against two terrific Soviet high jumpers who placed ahead of him. And one of them became his rival of several years and his friend for several more. John Thomas died this week at age 71.
And joining us now to talk about him is Bill Littlefield, long time host of the NRP program, ONLY A GAME. Hi, Bill.
BILL LITTLEFIELD, BYLINE: Hello, Robert.
SIEGEL: And first, tell us about John Thomas, the high jump and the Olympics.
LITTLEFIELD: Well, I think you've encapsulated it quite well. He was the surest of sure things. He was only 19 years old, everybody thought that he would be the guy who would beat the Soviets - which, of course, at that point was a very important thing to do - and he came in third, which is extraordinary, I mean quite a great performance for anybody to win an Olympic medal.
But in the context of the expectations, many writers here in the U.S. said he choked, he blew it at the most important possible time. And he was a great disappointment.
SIEGEL: He had been the first man to clear seven feet indoors.
LITTLEFIELD: Right. And said after that, as a matter of fact, I wondered if I'd ever do anything that great again.
(LAUGHTER)
LITTLEFIELD: He was aware of the enormity of what he had done.
(LAUGHTER)
SIEGEL: Now, in Rome, he took the bronze. Two Soviets, Chavlakadze and Valery Brumel, came in ahead of him. But it was Brumel who emerged as the other great high jumper of the 1960s.
LITTLEFIELD: Yes, exactly. And interestingly, again, in the context of the Cold War, they became friends and continued to correspond for some time after the Olympics. And John Thomas proudly claimed that he and Brumel had a fine relationship, which, again, nowadays might not seem like such a big deal, but at a time when Americans were being encouraged to regard the Soviets as evil incarnate, it was quite an extraordinary thing.
SIEGEL: He also had some bad luck. He had a terrible injury that hurt his game a lot.
LITTLEFIELD: Numbers of injuries and bad luck and I think also psychological bad luck where, you know, a 19-year-old is told that he's let his nation down. I mean, that's not an easy thing for anyone to bear.
SIEGEL: Well, you met him years later in the Boston area. Tell us about him.
LITTLEFIELD: Well, John was the athletic director at Roxbury Community College in Boston and I met him about 12 years ago. I was doing a story on the basketball team there, the men's' basketball team and the coach of that team. And John was about as gracious and pleasant as he could possibly be, a great sense of humor and incredibly proud of the achievements of those young men.
These are guys who would never had gone to college if it hadn't been for Roxbury Community College and John and the head coach, Malcolm Wynn, managed to get every single one of them into a four-year school. Some of them have gone on to have extraordinary lives, fellows who were, in many cases, the only or first people in their families ever to go to college. And I think John was as proud of that achievement as he would have been of gold medals several decades before.
SIEGEL: And by that time, deep into adulthood, how had he processed the events of 1960 and then another disappointment in 1964 at the games?
LITTLEFIELD: Yeah, slightly less of a disappointment 'cause he got a silver instead of a bronze the second time around, but I remember a conversation I had with him in 2003. I was writing an essay about the Olympics and he said, you know, the Olympics has really changed since I was in there. He said, now it's become such a television spectacle and television, all they want is the good, the bad and the ugly so that they'll have storylines.
And I said, that's an interesting way to put it, John. How would you consider yourself, the good, the bad or the ugly? And he paused for a minute and then he smiled and he said, I've come around to thinking of myself as the good. I thought that was very nice.
SIEGEL: Well, Bill Littlefield, thanks a lot for talking with us.
LITTLEFIELD: Thank you. Thanks, Robert.
SIEGEL: We've been talking about John Thomas, the great high-jumper of the 1960s who died on Tuesday. He was 71.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Today was election day in Israel and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been re-elected to lead the Israeli parliament, but his right-wing alliance lost at least 10 seats in the 120-seat Knesset. The Likud-Beitenu bloc gave up ground both to the far right and to the center left. And that means Netanyahu could have a tough time building a stable coalition government.
Joining me now to talk about today's election results is NPR's Larry Abramson who is in Tel Aviv. And, Larry, help us understand first why Likud did so badly, and who took those seats?
LARRY ABRAMSON, BYLINE: Well, it was actually two parties from different parts of the spectrum. First, there's the Jewish Home Party, which kind of came out of nowhere. They seemed to have won 12 seats. This party is led by Naftali Bennett. He's a really dynamic campaigner who said he does not want peace talks with the Palestinians and actually wants to annex parts of the West Bank.
But the big surprise tonight is Yesh Atid. That's a centrist party and it's now heading to be the second-biggest party in the Knessett, or the parliament. It's led by Yair Lapid, a TV journalist whose father went from TV into politics, just like he's doing. And Yesh Atid's strength is really going to make it very tough for Netanyahu to build the traditional right-wing coalition that he's used to.
BLOCK: Now, Netanyahu has been slipping in the polls since this campaign got underway a few weeks ago. What happened? Why did they slip?
ABRAMSON: Some people here are blaming his decision to run a join slate with Yisrael Beiteinu. That's a party that was founded with the support of Russian immigrants. And they ran a joint slate with the goal of gaining more seats, instead they lost a bunch. And many people feel the alliance diluted Likud's message and that some people who are loyal Likud people just didn't turn out, and turnout, in fact, was a big problem for Likud at the polls. Netanyahu also does have a strong opposition here from young people who are angry about the cost of living in this country. So that pushed voters on the left to actually show up, and their turnout was quite a bit higher.
Anyway, it's all a big surprise in an election that was supposed to push the Israeli government further to the right.
BLOCK: And Larry, if new alliances result from these elections, what would those mean for the possibility of peace talks with the Palestinians?
ABRAMSON: Well, a senior person in Yesh Atid, this new centrist party, said again tonight they want a coalition that they join to be committed to restarting peace talks with the Palestinians. Now, of course, officially Netanyahu - Prime Minister Netanyahu - is for a two-state solution and for negotiating, but he has let those talks stall for many, many years. So this strong push from the center left could lead to new talks, but it depends on how hard Yesh Atid pushes, and of course Benjamin Netanyahu is still the prime minister. It's his call.
BLOCK: And what happens next?
ABRAMSON: Netanyahu has to get on the phone and start bargaining with all these parties and see if he can glue together a coalition out of what seemed to be a bunch of diametrically opposed parties, and he's going to have to make some promises and parcel out power and put something together and then present that proposed coalition to President Shimon Peres, who has the final say, really. You know, in the last election in 2009, the biggest party, Kadima, was not able to form a coalition, and then Netanyahu's party actually came in second but they ended up in charge. That could happen again, but it's pretty unlikely because Netanyahu's slate is still way out in front of the other parties. But like I said, he's still going to have a hard time dealing with these results.
BLOCK: OK. NPR's Larry Abramson in Tel Aviv. Larry, thanks so much.
ABRAMSON: All right. Thank you.
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A recent report by the International Rescue Committee sheds light on an alarming trend in Syria, a surge in sexual violence. Rape is a significant and disturbing feature of the Syrian war, according to the IRC report, which was based on interviews with hundreds of Syrian refugees in Jordan and Lebanon. The report includes the stories of a 9-year-old girl who was raped and of a father who shot his own daughter to prevent her from being, in his words, shamed. Sheera Frenkel visited a clinic in Jordan that provides counseling for some of these victims. She sent this report.
SHEERA FRENKEL, BYLINE: In a small apartment on a nondescript street in the Jordanian city of Ramthe, Syrian refugees come to get help. The clinic is run by the International Rescue Committee, and it's a place where Syrian refugees share their stories of horror and war.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Through Translator) They really raped women and killed children.
FRENKEL: The women in the clinic asked that their identities be kept private to protect themselves and their families. Saher, a 42-year-old mother, comes each week with her 18-month-old baby. She says she fled Syria when soldiers ransacked her home and put a gun to her infant daughter's head.
SAHER: (Through Translator) I told them there was no man in the house, so please don't come in. They pushed me down. I begged for mercy. They started to say bad words, and I began to cry.
FRENKEL: Saher doesn't say what happened next. Instead, she speaks about the traumas of other women in her hometown.
SAHER: (Through Translator) Yes, there was rape, and they would even kidnap a woman if her relative is a defector. They would take his sister or his wife. In Daraa, that really happened.
FRENKEL: Nawall Mohammed is the psychologist who leads the weekly sessions with Saher and others. Previously, she worked with Iraqi and Palestinian refugees, but she says she's never heard stories that affected her as much as those from the Syrian refugees.
NAWALL MOHAMMED: I remember a client. He is a man, Syrian man. He said the army, they collect the women, just the women and girls, and they took off their clothes and put them in big cars in the streets in front of their relatives and husbands and brothers naked. So it is like their weapon.
FRENKEL: Nawall says that the women find it easier to share their stories when they can attribute them to other people. Some of the stories are about rape by soldiers or security servicemen. Others are about daily beatings by husbands frustrated that their families have suddenly become refugees. Melanie Megevand oversees the programs for female refugees for the International Rescue Committee. In the IRC's report, the New York-based NGO revealed that women gave sexual violence as a primary reason for fleeing Syria.
MELANIE MEGEVAND: Given the cultural taboos, particularly in the context of the Middle East, it's been extremely telling to hear so many stories of sexual violence occurring and having that being explained by both men and women, including children.
FRENKEL: Saher says that she never thought she would become a refugee, and it scares her to think about what's happening back in her hometown of Daraa. She says she's heard from neighbors that her home has been destroyed. She's thankful that she got her family out in time.
SAHER: (Through Translator) We only have our own dignity. A house is a minor thing, but our dignity is a basic thing. That's the reason that pushed us to come to Jordan.
FRENKEL: She says she hopes to return to Daraa and rebuild one day. For now, she just wants to focus on getting better. For NPR News, I'm Sheera Frenkel.
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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block. Today, considering an artist and activist whose work asks these questions: How do we honor the dead? How do we commit them to memory?
(SOUNDBITE OF RECORDING)
BLOCK: And how do we come to terms with the way they died?
(SOUNDBITE OF RECORDING)
BLOCK: We're listening to the names of children, children from Sichuan, China. They were among the tens of thousands of people killed in the massive earthquake there in 2008.
(SOUNDBITE OF RECORDING)
BLOCK: This is a sound installation created by the Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei. He ran afoul of Chinese authorities by having citizen investigators collect the names of more than 5,000 children who were killed when their schools collapsed in the earthquake, victims of shoddy construction. When Ai Weiwei published those names on his popular blog, government censors shut it down. A few months later, he was beaten by police and had to have emergency brain surgery.
Ai Weiwei also asked his Twitter followers to record the names of the dead students and email them to him. The compiled recording goes on for three hours, 41 minutes.
(SOUNDBITE OF RECORDING)
BLOCK: The sound installation is now part of an exhibition of Ai Weiwei's work at the Hirshhorn Museum here in Washington, D.C. One of those names, number 2,241 on Ai Weiwei's list belongs to Liu Qiang, who was killed when the Juyuan Middle School collapsed.
(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD CHATTER)
BLOCK: I was at that ruined school in Sichuan the night of the earthquake as small, limp bodies were carried out of the wreckage. And I met Liu Qiang's grieving family at their home a few days after. His ashes had been placed on a makeshift altar in a small box wrapped in a white silk scarf.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Foreign language spoken)
BLOCK: This woman has just handed me a picture of a young boy who was killed in this middle school. His name is Liu Qiang. This is the stepmother right here.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Foreign language spoken)
BLOCK: She's picking up his school ID. He's beautiful. He's wearing a white dress shirt.
(SOUNDBITE OF RECORDING)
BLOCK: I went to the Ai Weiwei show to see how he has turned that earthquake and these thousands of deaths into art. In particular, I wanted to see a massive floor piece titled simply "Straight." It's 20 feet wide and 58 feet long. I watched museum visitors crouch down and get close to see how it's put together. What does it look like? How would you describe it to somebody who hasn't seen it?
JACQUELYN BAAS: It's rods of rebar lain out in a kind of a wave-like form.
TOM CARTER: It's like a giant array of rusted rebar, steel rebar poles.
KAREN CARTER: Thirty-eight tons in this kind of undulating shape.
MARIAN HOLTZ: It's not tall. It's close to the floor, but it has a rolling effect.
CARTER: If you looked at it from the side, it would look like maybe a Richter scale graph of an earthquake.
ANH NGUYEN: It looks like a fault, an earthquake fault. That's what it reminds me of and just how like it shifted.
HELEN DICKERSON: It's a beautiful piece, and it's also that sense of helplessness. Because here, you have all this material, and what did it do? It caused no protection for anybody. I mean, it's frightening when you look at it that way.
AI WEIWEI: (Foreign language spoken)
BLOCK: In a video with the show, Ai Weiwei explains how he made the piece: After the earthquake, he went to Sichuan and bought tons of the mangled rebar that I saw everywhere in the earthquake debris, the useless bones of all those schools that collapsed.
His workers pounded the twisted rebar straight, piece by piece. They kept on hammering, even when he was detained for nearly three months by Chinese authorities. When he was released, Ai Weiwei mapped the rusted rods into stacks of varying heights - from a few inches to a foot or so off the floor. It forms a 38-ton carpet of steel.
KERRY BROUGHER: That waves across the floor with multiple layers of rebar, almost as if it's an earthquake, as if the quake is waving through the gallery floors.
BLOCK: That's the show's curator, Kerry Brougher.
BROUGHER: And we actually had to do a lot of engineering on this piece because the actual weight is considerable, and the floors will only hold so much weight. So we had to have engineers involved to see how high we could get with the stacked rebar.
BLOCK: And running down the middle is where these two halves of the piece collide.
BROUGHER: Yes.
BLOCK: It looks very much like a fault line, doesn't it?
BROUGHER: Very much like a fault line, like a fissure.
BLOCK: It is quite striking having seen what happened to those buildings in Sichuan, having seen the schools that were destroyed and the rebar that was just twisted...
BROUGHER: Yes, you were there. You saw it.
BLOCK: ...and to see it now laid out like this, it really does - it takes your breath away.
BROUGHER: It's a very compelling piece. And he has a quote we put up on the wall right over here. He says, "The tragic reality of today is reflected in the true plight of our spiritual existence. We are spineless and cannot stand straight."
BLOCK: What does that say to you, that quote from Ai Weiwei?
BROUGHER: It says to me that people are not standing up to corruption, they're not standing up for human rights, that our politicians don't always do the right thing. We have to stop being so spineless, and we have to get a real spine. We have to stand straight against corruption. That's what this piece is ultimately about.
BLOCK: Kerry Brougher of the Hirshhorn Museum, he's curator of the exhibition of Ai Weiwei's work titled "According to What?" After the show closes here in Washington next month, it will travel to Indianapolis, Toronto, Miami and Brooklyn. Chinese authorities have seized Ai Weiwei's passport so he can't travel with the show. Just before I left the Hirshhorn, I was reminded of something Ai Weiwei has said that his art flows from his search for the value of life and individual rights.
I noticed a young woman, her head cocked to the side, looking intently at the thousands of steel rods that make up the "Straight" installation.
RASHITA CONNELLY: Just noticing each bar because they're all, like, different shades and tints of brown so - but they're - none of them look alike. It reminds me of, like, individuals because usually when something happens en masse, people tend to just group it together and forget about it. But the artist doesn't want you to forget what happened. It's a piece that you can let it simmer and think about it and come back and look at it a couple times, definitely.
BLOCK: That's Hirshhorn Museum visitor Rashita Connelly. She's getting her MFA from Howard University. Earlier, we heard from visitors Jacquelyn Baas, Tom and Karen Carter, Marian Holtz, Anh Nguyen and Helen Dickerson. And at our website, you can watch Ai Weiwei's film that I mentioned earlier about the ruined schools and how he turned that wreckage into art. That's at npr.org.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Norwegian TV probably said it best in their first reports from the seen of last week's goat cheese fire in a road tunnel in the Arctic.
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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
That's right, a goat cheese fire. Call it the fondue heard round the world. The incident - and, Robert, it's the first of its kind in anyone's memory - occurred late last week near the city of Narvik. Twenty tons of brown cheese were on a truck when it ignited. It took four days to extinguish the blaze. Fortunately, no one was hurt but the road tunnel remains closed and will be for about a week. So far, no official word yet on what started the fire burning.
SIEGEL: So, what is this combustible brown cheese, we wondered? Are we safe? Does the U.N. know about this?
ROLLEIV SOLHOLM: Well, we call in Brunost.
BLOCK: That's Rolleiv Solholm, chief editor of the Norway Post in Oslo.
SOLHOLM: It's very unusual. I can't remember myself having heard ever that a load of brown cheese was caught fire in a tunnel.
SIEGEL: Brunost is unique to Norway, Solholm says. And creating the product requires several steps.
SOLHOLM: It is made by boiling over a long time cow's milk or goat's milk. And then it becomes more or less like a caramel substance. And it is then poured into containers that makes it usually a square block, like a brick.
BLOCK: Solholm says the brown cheese is a hit with tourists, who usually leave Norway with one of those bricks. It's served on rye crisp or bread, and sold around the world in gourmet cheese stores.
As to the cheese as a flammable substance...
SOLHOLM: Of course the thing that makes it burn for so long is the fact that it is a sugar-caramel substance, which of course would just keep on burning for days, you know.
SIEGEL: A spokesman for the Norwegian Public Roads Administration says that in his 15 years in the department, this incident was the first cheese-related fire to close a road. He says he didn't know cheese burned so well.
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BLOCK: This is NPR.
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Controversial experiments on bird flu viruses could resume within weeks. They've been on hold for just over a year. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce reports that today, influenza experts around the world declared an end to an unusual research moratorium.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: Last January, flu experts agreed to hold off on some studies that had caused a public outcry. The bird flu virus H5N1 isn't contagious in people, but scientists had genetically altered it. So it spread through the coughs and sneezes of ferrets, the lab stand-in for people. Critics charged that if these man-made germs escaped, they could potentially cause a pandemic.
Ron Fouchier is a virologist at Erasmus Medical Center in the Netherlands. He says everyone who signed on to the moratorium has now agreed to end it. The 40 scientists have published a letter saying so in the Journal of Science and Nature.
RON FOUCHIER: It means that 40 of the leading - world leading experts in influenza research seem to think that the benefits outweigh the risks.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Fouchier and others originally did the experiment to understand the threat posed by H5N1. This virus circulates in poultry in parts of Asia and the Middle East. It rarely makes people sick. But over half of those known to have gotten sick have died. Researchers say in order to be prepared, it's vital to know how this virus could mutate in the wild and cause a natural pandemic. Yoshihiro Kawaoka is a scientist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
YOSHIHIRO KAWAOKA: The risk exists in nature already, and not doing the research is really putting us in danger.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Kawaoka can't restart his experiments yet because he depends on funding from the U.S. government. And officials are still working out what experiments like this could be done with federal funding in the future and under what lab conditions. Still, scientists decided to lift the moratorium now because some countries have already completed biosafety and biosecurity reviews. And Fouchier says U.S. officials couldn't say how long their reviews would take.
FOUCHIER: And so as a consequence, it might take another one, two, three years. So how long do you want us to wait?
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Fouchier did his earlier experiments with U.S. funding but plans to restart soon, using money from other sources. One of the people who initially raised red flags about this work is Tom Inglesby. He's director of the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.
TOM INGLESBY: I don't think they should resume. I think the moratorium should go on because I think a number of questions remain unanswered.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: He says he's not convinced these experiments are necessary.
INGLESBY: There could be a time in the future where there is a highly compelling rationale to proceed which justifies the risks. I just personally have not seen that yet.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: And he worries about the risks that new flu viruses will get out of the lab if more scientists around the world start to do this type of research. Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.
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It's almost 10 years since the end of the hit TV series "Friends," but the show and, in particular, the Central Perk Cafe, where much of the action took place, are enjoying an afterlife in the capital of China. In this postcard from Beijing, NPR's Louisa Lim introduces us to some Chinese fans of Chandler, Joey and the gang.
LOUISA LIM, BYLINE: I'm in a normal apartment block in Beijing and I'm going up to the sixth floor, where something quite surprising awaits. Oh, my goodness, here it is. It is a replica of Central Perk from "Friends." It has the same window, the same doorway. And just walking in the door, there's even the same orange sofa fill with people watching "Friends" reruns.
DU XIN: My name is Du Xin. Everyone calls me Gunther here.
LIM: So I'm now with the Chinese Gunther. He's the owner of the Central Perk Cafe in Beijing.
XIN: I'm crazy about "Friends." I'm a huge fan. For me, it's like a religion. It's my life.
LIM: I just wonder, though, 'cause I think for young Chinese people, life is really competitive, you know, getting an education, passing your exams, finding a job, finding an partner. It's all like a big competition. With "Friends," they're never worrying about money. They're never worrying about jobs and things like that.
XIN: So that's why we like "Friends." We're looking for this kind of a life. Maybe one day if you like you can find a good job you like, just like Chandler. He quit the job he hated, and he find another one he liked. So I think this TV show also told us you have to choose a living way which you like.
LIM: For the Chinese Gunther, the lifestyle has turned into a business with a second Central Perk in Shanghai. The cafe serves the snacks mentioned in "Friends," the menus even annotated so you know which show Rachel mentions cheesecake and what she said. We sit in the next room to the cafe, where Du Xin's built a replica of Joey's apartment, complete with foosball table.
As we chat, we're interrupted by visitors wanting to see Joey's apartment, including Calvin Le, an English teacher from California.
CALVIN LE: It's really cool. How long did it take you to put this all together?
XIN: About half a year. Everything you have to find a carpenter to make it together.
LE: It's so funny. This is exactly how it's like in the show, too. You know how it's like too big, TV frame thing 'cause Joey built it and he didn't really do the measurements right.
(SOUNDBITE FROM TV SHOW, "FRIENDS")
LIM: Strange as it may sound, "Friends" is an English language teaching tool in Chinese universities. So, "Friends" fans come from far and wide to visit the cafe. Today, Beijing Qiu Yu has brought a friend visiting from Taiyuan, more than 300 miles away. It's her first stop in Beijing. What Qiu Yu likes about "Friends" is the sense of freedom from responsibility.
QIU YU: (Through translator) I think their lives are very free, very happy. They can do whatever they like. For Chinese people, the influence of our families is quite big, so we yearn for that lifestyle.
LIM: To some, that yearning also extends to the world of casual sexual encounters, as depicted on "Friends." Over the series lifetime, the "Friends" characters hooked up with at least 85 other people, according to one estimate.
(SOUNDBITE FROM TV SERIES, "FRIENDS")
LIM: Such scenes win giggles from the devoted Chinese fans at the cafe. So before I leave Central Perk Beijing, I'm just going to sit down on the orange couch and catch up with a few "Friends" episodes. Louisa Lim, NPR News, Beijing.
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Staten Island and the Rockaways, two places hit hard by Superstorm Sandy, are on the long path to recovery. But New York's struggle to rebuild isn't limited to those shore communities.
NPR's Margot Adler reports that many businesses in Lower Manhattan are still working hard to put Sandy behind them.
MARGOT ADLER, BYLINE: On a cold January evening, about 800 people pack into the lobby and the upstairs galleries of the South Street Seaport Museum. The museum houses a maritime library and the largest collection of privately owned historic ships in the country. Almost three months after Superstorm Sandy, it's finally reopening, and Mayor Michael Bloomberg is there to celebrate it. The best days are yet ahead, he says, and pulls out various sailing references.
MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: We did not crash on the shoals and the river finally went down. God bless, let's all get back to work.
(APPLAUSE)
ADLER: Seeing these crowds, you might think you were in a vibrant, active neighborhood. But except for the museum, every single store on this block on Fulton Street - Ann Taylor, Brookstone, The Body Shop - is closed and boarded up. Even the museum is limping along. Water from the East River came up to six feet in the lobby; it took out the elevators, heating, air-conditioning.
The escalator was under water, says museum general manager Jerry Gallagher.
JERRY GALLAGHER: But the worst of everything is that the basement was completely submerged in water and that's where all of our electrical equipment comes in, the water pumps...
ADLER: Is that we're hearing what looks like a generator or something, right outside?
(LAUGHTER)
GALLAGHER: That is correct. Because we don't have our normal heat system up and running, the museum is able to reopen because we have temporary heaters powered by kerosene on the back of the building. And we're inducting the hot air into the gallery spaces and the lobby space. And that's the noise that we're listening to right now.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINERY)
ADLER: Most nights outside on this street, all you hear are the generators. Some places are open. Gallagher takes me into the Bowne and Company Print Shop.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINERY)
ADLER: It's a glorious space, filled with 19th century presses, hand printed stationary, and shelves of wooden and metal type.
GALLAGHER: There's nothing quite like the small of the ink and the sound of a 19th century machine at work. Master printer Robert Warner has his foot is on the treadle of a press from 1901. And he's printing cards with the simple word Love for Valentines Day.
ADLER: The company was founded in 1775, a year before the American Revolution.
ROBERT WARNER: Making it New York's oldest company that operates under the same name in New York City.
ADLER: But if it survived the revolution and 9/11, it almost ended with Sandy.
Jerry Gallagher.
GALLAGHER: There were about 200 cases of type that had been submerged in the water. And they immediately gathered everybody up who was around, about 100 volunteers who came in over the course of the next several weeks.
ADLER: To help dry everything out; much of it very old, very rare, wooden type.
ALI OSBORN: We've had people cleaning every individual letter.
ADLER: Ali Osborn is a printer with the Bowne and Company shop.
OSBORN: And then they had to all dry and, of course, that was hard 'cause we had no power or electricity for a couple of weeks.
ADLER: Some stores still don't have power or phones. Most copper wiring was destroyed, so it may take Verizon months to replace it. Many stores are still relying on cash only. The Downtown Alliance - which manages the Business Improvement District for Lower Manhattan - gave out nearly a hundred of those little attachments that turn your Smartphone into a credit card machine.
Marco Pasanella is a local vintner. He says most Manhattanites don't have a clue.
MARCO PASANELLA: Friends of mine who live even five or six blocks away can't really believe it. And then they come down to the neighborhood and they say, well, I mean it really looks like a disaster area.
ADLER: Pasanella is the owner of Pasanella and Sons, a beautiful store on South Street filled with bottles of wine.
PASANELLA: Ten thousand bottles of which was floating around the next day, after Sandy.
ADLER: Was floating in the water?
PASANELLA: It was kind of actually floating in sort of a romantic way. It was sort of just like suspended in gunk.
ADLER: The water came up six and a half feet into the store. They spent six figures renovating quickly, he says, in three weeks. Terror was the motivation. He says, being a wine shop...
PASANELLA: The holiday season can be up to 60 percent of your year. That helped motivate us.
ADLER: And with a lot of corporate clients they did OK. But now it's January and he's the only shop open on his block. He takes me outside and shows me a closed corner restaurant, The Paris Cafe.
PASANELLA: A favorite hangout of Thomas Edison, amongst others. Above the cafe is 17 apartments, all empty.
ADLER: There's also a 52-story building nearby with no tenants. Con Edison says there are 22 large buildings still without power, or only partial power, and some smaller ones. So for Pasanella and Sons, and other small businesses, there are no people on the street.
PASANELLA: With no neighbors, nobody nearby, there is no one to buy wine.
ADLER: Well, looking outside, I notice all the stores all around you are all boarded up what were they.
PASANELLA: Oh, they were restaurants - it was a whole neighborhood. It's dark outside and very quiet. It's eerie.
ADLER: There are more tourists beginning to come to the area. And The Downtown Alliance says that over 87 percent of Lower Manhattan businesses were back by the first of the year. But some stores may not open until late spring, and financially are barely holding on. For now, at night, in this beautiful, old historic downtown area, almost three months after Sandy, there is often only the sound of generators.
Margot Adler, NPR News, New York.
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It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Siegel.
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And I'm Melissa Block.
The recent crises in Northern Africa - Libya, Mali and Algeria - have turned the spotlight on AFRICOM. That's the United States Africa Command. Created five years ago, its chief mission was to train African militaries so U.S. troops wouldn't be called on.
As NPR's Tom Bowman reports, the effort was controversial from day one.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Africa Command was barely up and running in 2008 when President George W. Bush visited Ghana. President John Kufuor pointed at him and bluntly said, you're not going to build any bases in Ghana. An exasperated Bush then met with the press.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: We do not contemplate adding new bases. In other words, the purpose of this is not to add military bases. I know there's rumors in Ghana, all Bush is coming to do is try to convince you to put a big military base here. That's baloney.
(LAUGHTER)
BUSH: Or as we say in Texas, that's bull.
BOWMAN: The U.S. got similar receptions elsewhere in Africa. So, the headquarters for U.S. Africa Command ended up in Stuttgart, Germany.
RICHARD DOWNIE: U.S. Africa Command had a sort of messy birth. African leaders weren't exactly lining up to volunteer their territory for AFRICOM.
BOWMAN: That's Richard Downie, an Africa analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
DOWNIE: Africans rightly have long memories of colonial on their continent which was so brutal in the way it was applied. It's very, very sensitive to the anything that smacks of neo-colonialism.
BOWMAN: They weren't the only ones concerned. State Department officials complained that the new AFRICOM would militarize foreign policy in Africa. Aid groups worried their work would be confused with U.S. military activities.
So now it has fallen to General Carter Ham, the second officer to run AFRICOM, to explain its role. His message? He just wants to help. General Ham spoke in Washington in December.
GENERAL CARTER HAM: We think we think our best efforts are when we are supporting and enabling African nations and African regional organizations to achieve their ends. That often gets condensed into the short-hand of African solutions to African problems.
BOWMAN: African leaders tell the U.S. military that real African problems are poverty, food shortages, a lack of education. U.S. Africa Command sees a different African problem: terrorism.
Again, General Ham.
HAM: Unsurprisingly, at the top of the list is countering violent extremist organizations.
BOWMAN: Countering violent extremists with what the military calls Phase Zero, training and equipping African militaries before a crisis begins. That way, the theory goes, the Africans can handle it and the U.S. doesn't have to send in combat troops.
Peter Pham is an Africa analyst who serves on AFRICOM's senior advisory board.
PETER PHAM: The idea that if we could engage African governments and militaries, there would be fewer calls for U.S. intervention when the conflicts broke out into serious conflagrations.
BOWMAN: But that doesn't always work. Michael Brenner teaches international relations at the University of Texas at Austin. He notes that in Mali some American-trained troops joined the enemy. The reason, he says, is that the U.S. fails to understand local political dynamics.
MICHAEL BRENNER: And we weren't doing the job we're supposed to be doing.
BOWMAN: So we're blundering into some of these countries.
BRENNER: We're blundering into something.
BOWMAN: Now Mali has deteriorated so much that France sent warplanes and troops to fight the rebels in its former colony, because government troops weren't up to the job. The U.S. helped France with cargo aircraft and could provide refueling planes and surveillance equipment.
DOWNIE: The U.S. is in a tricky position now.
BOWMAN: Again, Africa analyst Richard Downie.
DOWNIE: It wants to support the French, its ally in Africa, in defeating these Islamist terrorist groups in Mali. But, at the same time, it wants to stick to its Phase Zero formula and its core mandate, which is training and equipping and professionalizing African militaries.
BOWMAN: U.S. Africa Command may find itself in tricky positions throughout Africa. It wants to focus on training but may find itself drawn into conflict.
Tom Bowman, NPR News, Washington.
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Israel's surprisingly close parliamentary elections yesterday have brought political power to a man accustomed to the bright lights of television, former journalist and media personality Yair Lapid. His Yesh Atid party, which means There is a Future, got 19 seats in the parliament, making it the second-largest voting bloc.
From Jerusalem, NPR's Larry Abramson has this profile of the new force in Israeli politics.
LARRY ABRAMSON, BYLINE: Watching a video of Yair Lapid talking to English-speaking voters in Tel Aviv last month, you can almost feel the audience fall under his spell. Prowling the stage in a black T-shirt and sport coat, the 49-year-old former TV anchor warns this mostly young crowd that Israel's high cost of living is taking away their future.
YAIR LAPID: I have some bad news. You will never have an apartment.
(LAUGHTER)
ABRAMSON: Because they will never be able to afford a mortgage in Israel's out-of-control real estate market. The crowd seems to understand instantly that this is what they should be worried about. He moves on to another threat, the rapid growth in the number of Orthodox Jews who don't serve in the army and often rely on government support so they can study the Torah.
LAPID: And this will be the end of Israel. No country on Earth can survive if 50 percent or more of its population are not participating, neither in defense or in the economy.
ABRAMSON: Lapid is adept at delivering dire messages like this with a cool demeanor that says, I can fix it. Yair Lapid comes from media and political royalty. His father, Tommy Lapid, survived the Holocaust, moved to Israel and became a journalist, then turned the Shinui party into a major force in parliament in 2003. But Shinui quickly disappeared. Longtime friend and author Amnon Dankner says Yair Lapid felt a responsibility to pick up the mantle.
AMNON DANKNER: And enter political life and try to do his best to - well, to save the country.
ABRAMSON: Dankner says Yair Lapid also decided to learn from his father's mistakes. Tommy Lapid was known for being passionate and not so diplomatic in his efforts to reduce the power of Orthodox Judaism in this country.
DANKNER: Yair is not given to these moods of hatred. It's not to his taste.
ABRAMSON: Dankner says he believes Yair Lapid's cooler approach won the trust of voters concerned about voting for a newly minted candidate with no voting record. He's billed himself as an outsider ready to clean house. Just days ago, Lapid was expected to make a weaker showing and was overshadowed by another new face, right-wing upstart Naftali Bennett.
But polling stops in Israel four days before the election. In that short space of time, voters may have jumped to Lapid out of concern that a right-wing victory was coming, says Professor Gideon Rahat of the Israel Democracy Institute.
DR. GIDEON RAHAT: They felt like Bennett was going to be strong, Netanyahu was going to have the same old coalition with the religious forces strong within and outside his party, and people maybe wanted to balance it with Lapid.
ABRAMSON: Even before final returns were in, Prime Minister Netanyahu gave Lapid a call. His participation may be indispensable to building a stable coalition now that Israel's parliament appears evenly divided between right- and left-wing blocks.
Up till now, Lapid has tiptoed away from association with either end of the political spectrum, as in this recent online interview with The Jerusalem Post.
LAPID: We are not a center-left party. We are a center-center party. We are the party of the Israeli middleclass.
ABRAMSON: Tonight, Lapid announced he would not joint left-wing parties seeking to build an anti-Netanyahu bloc. So this outsider may be on his way to a view from the inside. Larry Abramson, NPR News, Jerusalem.
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Two days ago, in his inaugural address, President Obama recited the famous line from the Declaration of Independence: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.
Well, today, at the Pentagon, another group of Americans found a barrier to equal opportunity suddenly lifted. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ended the military's ban on women serving in combat. That means more than 200,000 positions in the infantry and the artillery could ultimately open to women.
To learn more about what this might mean, we're joined by NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman. And, Tom, what exactly does Secretary Panetta's action today do?
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Well, Melissa, he lifted what's called a combat exclusion policy. So it basically scraps the policy that bars women from serving directly in ground combat jobs. And he also asked the armed services to develop plans for allowing women to seek these positions and basically telling the services to put it into effect. Now we're talking about really the Army and the Marine Corps here almost exclusively, and it's nearly a quarter million jobs between them that could be open to women.
BLOCK: And what types of jobs would those be?
BOWMAN: Well, this - ground combat, so we're talking about armor, infantry, artillery. So on the battlefield, these would be the people driving tanks, going on patrols through villages in Afghanistan, let's say, and firing Howitzers, basically those involved in the fight on the ground.
BLOCK: Tom, a lot of people would say, look, women have effectively been not just serving in combat already, but dying in combat and in Iraq and Afghanistan.
BOWMAN: Yeah. No, I've seen women in Afghanistan providing security for officers out on patrol or in meetings, carrying M4 assault rifles just like the men, and if they're under fire, they would have to react. And I've seen women in small combat outposts, working alongside men as medics or training Afghan forces. And the thing is, in these counterinsurgencies today, the front lines aren't as clear as they used to be.
BLOCK: Tom, what's the practical effect of this policy, and does it mean that women would move into these roles, these jobs that you're talking about, right away?
BOWMAN: No. Nothing will happen right away. The services have to figure out how to make it happen and, again, put together some sort of a plan. So they might come up, for example, with some sort of physical requirements, like you have to lift 50 pounds over your head. You have to run a mile in X amount of time, for example. So that could mean a lot of women who want to serve just can't pass these physical tests.
And the secretary also is giving the military roughly three years to identify what are called special exceptions, and that could mean like the Green Berets, Navy SEALs, for example. They might bar women because of their extremely tough physical standards.
BLOCK: Talk a bit, Tom, about what opponents of having women in combat positions, what they say.
BOWMAN: Well, you know, for years now, they've been saying that, listen, women aren't physically able to do these combat jobs. They aren't able to carry the weight of full packs, the weapons for long periods of time, aren't able to climb over walls in places like Iraq or Afghanistan. But clearly, Secretary Panetta wants to give them this chance.
BLOCK: And on the other hand, folks who think this is a good idea say this is the way for women, really, to advance through the ranks of the military?
BOWMAN: Right. That's been one of the problems over the years. You know, some women have died in combat. Some have received Purple Hearts and other medals for bravery, but they haven't been able to be in these jobs and get promotions that they need, and that's been one of the issues here. It's really a fairness issue. It helps them in their careers. So that's been one of the driving points on this whole scrapping the ground combat exclusion policy.
BLOCK: OK. Tom, thanks so much.
BOWMAN: You're welcome.
BLOCK: That's NPR's Tom Bowman with the news that Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta has lifted the military's ban on women serving in combat.
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It's been a week since FAA officials grounded Boeing's newest jet, the 787. Today, the head of the FAA said he couldn't speculate on when a review of the plane would end. Investigators in the U.S. and in Japan remained perplexed as to why batteries on two planes suffered serious failures. As NPR's Wendy Kaufman reports, Boeing, the 787 and the certification process used to approve it are all now under intense scrutiny.
WENDY KAUFMAN, BYLINE: Everyone working on the 787 knew that lithium-ion batteries pack an enormous amount of power into the small package and require special care. They have a history of fires. Still, Boeing and government regulators thought they had the 787 batteries under control.
But a little more than two weeks ago, a battery on a brand-new Japan Airlines jet caught fire. And less than 48 hours later, a battery on an All Nippon Airlines 787 overheated and sustained major damage. The pilot on that flight had to make an emergency landing.
JOHN GOGLIA: There's at least three things on the top of the pile of things to look at.
KAUFMAN: The first one, suggests John Goglia, a former member of the National Transportation Safety Board is, was there a design or manufacturing defect in the batteries themselves? It appears the two batteries may have come from the same production batch. Goglia says investigators are looking at other parts of the electrical system too.
GOGLIA: They're looking at the battery charger, the circuitry and the protections the charging system has. And they're looking at the electronics system in general for the airplane because it could be possible that additional current was coming in from another source on the airplane.
KAUFMAN: Boeing outsourced the design, engineering and production of the 787 to an unprecedented degree. Sixty-five percent of the plane is not made by Boeing. The batteries, for example, were made by a Japanese company as part of the electrical system supplied by a French firm. And attorney Kenneth Quinn of the Pillsbury law firm and a former chief counsel of the FAA says...
KENNETH QUINN: It's always a difficult challenge to ensure that subcontractors are implementing the same high standards for quality assurance and quality control in their individual components.
KAUFMAN: There's another quality issue, too, and this one involves the FAA's certification process itself. While there's no evidence that the recent incidents can be linked to insufficient oversight, people are asking just how does the approval process work. The FAA is responsible for certifying new planes, but the agency is chronically understaffed and, to some extent, lacking depth and expertise in some of the latest technologies. John McGraw, the former deputy director of flight standards at the agency explains that the FAA relies heavily on manufacturers such as Boeing.
JOHN MCGRAW: The thing that people don't understand is the FAA does not generate any of the data for any airplane that's certificated. It's all generated by the manufacturer.
KAUFMAN: McGraw, now an aviation consultant, explains that certain Boeing employees are aligned to sign off on some performance tests on behalf of the FAA. The idea of delegation has been around for decades, though beginning in about 2005, manufacturers were given more authority. Still, McGraw says much of what is delegated is relatively routine work.
MCGRAW: The more cutting-edge, latest-technology systems and items are reserved for the FAA to actually get involved with.
KAUFMAN: And the battery was in that category. Overall, the FAA says its technical experts logged about 200,000 hours testing and reviewing the 787's design. The Federal Aviation Administration is now conducting a high-level review of the plane's electrical system and its own role in certifying the new jet. Meanwhile, Boeing is continuing to produce the airplane but is not delivering any new ones. Wendy Kaufman, NPR News, Seattle.
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And I'm Melissa Block. Today the House of Representatives passed a bill to put off a fight over the debt ceiling at least until the middle of May. It's part of a new strategy for House Republicans. In the past, they've insisted that any rise in the debt limit come with spending cuts. Not so, this time. Instead, this bill comes with a threat to lawmakers, fail to pass a budget by April 15th and you won't get paid. NPR's Tamara Keith begins our coverage.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: The House has just approved a no-strings-attached temporary rise in the debt limit, but what House Republicans want everyone to know is that the bill also prods both the House and the Senate to pass budget resolutions this year. So much so that they named it the no budget no pay act. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin chairs the House Budget Committee.
REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN: Local government has budget, business has budget, the federal government ought to have a budget. The Senate hasn't passed a budget in four years. That's wrong.
KEITH: For the record, Democrats in the Senate argued the 2011 agreement that ended the debt ceiling fight replaced the need for a budget for the past two years. But that argument doesn't fly with House Republicans like Jeff Duncan from South Carolina.
REPRESENTATIVE JEFF DUNCAN: Every day on my appointment card that my staff gives me, we have at the top how many days it's been since the Senate's passed a budget.
KEITH: Duncan was speaking yesterday at a forum sponsored by the Heritage Foundation. For Duncan, who ran a small business before getting elected two years ago, the budget is a big deal.
DUNCAN: To come to Washington and see a dysfunctional Senate, to see a Harry Reid-led Senate that won't even do the most basic thing of governing and that is plan for the future and for it to be 1,364 days...
KEITH: In reality, federal budgets are non-binding resolutions and weren't even required by law until 1974. The president doesn't sign them. They're a blueprint. And if everything's working like it's supposed to, they set limits that the real spending bills, the appropriations bills, flush out. But the budget process very rarely works like it's supposed to.
REPRESENTATIVE HENRY WAXMAN: We've often gone for years without passing budgets and we still fund the government and still continue Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid payments.
KEITH: California Democrat Henry Waxman has been in Congress for virtually the whole time the modern budget process has existed.
WAXMAN: The budget is a way to set out the plan to discipline all the other spending and legislative activities and it's a good thing to do.
KEITH: But practically, budgets are more often than not simply political documents. Trey Gowdy, also a Republican from South Carolina, says his caucus has put out difficult budgets year after year.
REPRESENTATIVE TREY GOWDY: We have a budget which is alternatively called Draconian, mean-spirited, decimates this group or the other. They have a (unintelligible) we prefer a balanced (unintelligible). Let them come up with their plan and then we can have a debate. I'm tired of debating against the (unintelligible).
KEITH: And now, House Republicans appear to be getting what they've been asking for. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, is chair of the Senate Budget Committee.
SENATOR PATTY MURRAY: The Senate will be moving a pro-growth, pro-middle class budget resolution through the committee and to the Senate floor.
KEITH: And though it was announced today, Murray insists this has long been the plan. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says the Senate will take up the House debt limit bill quickly without making any changes.
SENATOR HARRY REID: And I thank Speaker Boehner for his leadership in defusing a fight over the debt ceiling debate. See, as I've said before, not everything here has to be a big fight.
KEITH: The White House says the president would prefer a more lasting fix to the debt ceiling, but won't stand in the way if this bill makes it to his desk. It seems about half of House Democrats are the only ones putting up a fight. California Democrat George Miller took to the floor to complain that this bill puts another three months of uncertainty on an economy finally showing signs of life.
REPRESENTATIVE GEORGE MILLER: And all of a sudden, enter the Congress of the United States and says that we're going to put the full faith and credit of the United States of America on a 90-day lease.
KEITH: And then, possibly, we can watch Congress fight over the debt ceiling once again. But first, there's the automatic spending cuts of the sequester March 1st, followed by the possibility of a government shutdown at the end of March. Tamara Keith, NPR News, the Capitol.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Joining us now is the Senate Majority Whip, the number two Democrat in the leadership, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois. Welcome to the program once again.
SENATOR DICK DURBIN: Good to be with you.
SIEGEL: You and other Senate Democratic leaders seem to regard the House deferring action on the debt ceiling as an olive branch. Meanwhile, House Democrats like George Miller say they're tied to a three-month leash. What's the good part of this deal that House Democrats don't get?
DURBIN: Well, I don't disagree with my friend George. It is something that should be resolved on a longer term basis. How many times have we been lectured to by the Republicans about creating uncertainty in the future of the economy? Well, now we've extended by about 90 days a decision on the debt ceiling. From the Senate Democratic point of view, we're buying what we could get, 90 days of grace, 90 days of opportunity to resolve some differences.
SIEGEL: And what you've bought is a reasonably good deal, you're saying?
DURBIN: It's fair in this respect. Instead of requiring, as some House Republicans wanted, deep cuts in entitlement programs, what they're requiring of us is what we're already going to do, pass a Senate budget resolution. That will be done. And then, we'll have to face this debt ceiling question again.
SIEGEL: As Senate Democrats prepare a budget resolution, first of all, do you assume that tax increases are all finished? That was December. No more of them.
DURBIN: There are different approaches to revenue. Of course, raising tax rates as we did on the top two percent of wage earners at the end of the fiscal cliff negotiation is one way. The other, of course, is to look at the tax code. Each year, we forego about $1.3 trillion in what's called tax expenditures - credits, deductions, special treatments for businesses, individuals. I hope the Senate Finance Committee can find in that $1.3 trillion money to be saved for deficit reduction.
That would be new revenue toward deficit reduction, taken through tax reform.
SIEGEL: Do you assume that a deal with the Republicans this year will have to include some kind of increased revenues of that sort?
DURBIN: If we're serious about more deficit reduction, it has to include more than just spending cuts, it has to include revenue. I was on Simpson-Bowles. I voted for it. Forty percent of deficit reduction came from revenue. At this point, we've done about $800 billion of revenue for $2.6 trillion in deficit reduction. We still have a ways to go here for revenue to be a part of our deficit solution.
SIEGEL: The debt ceiling crisis of 2011 lead to the Budget Control Act, which included, among other things, the supercommittee that failed, the sequestration plan that's terrified Washington ever since. Otherwise there's been no proper budget for four years. Why is it suddenly possible? You're speaking very hopefully about the ability to put together a budget plan in the next couple of months.
Why couldn't you do that over the past few years?
DURBIN: But, keep in mind, August of 2011 when we faced the debt ceiling crisis, the president stepped in and said we will not have a budget resolution, we will have a budget law. And we did. It was voted on by Democrats and Republicans, signed by the president into law. It literally mandated our budget expenditures for two years.
SIEGEL: But before that, you were incapable of approving a budget. Why is it so much easier now than it was then?
DURBIN: I'm not going to say it's easy. It's never easy and no tough choices lie ahead. But I think there is a feeling, and Patty Murray, the new chairman of our Senate Budget Committee, is meeting with her colleagues to put together a budget resolution. It's going to be a fulsome debate and not easy by any stretch. But I think we can get it done this year. I feel more positive about it.
SIEGEL: I just want to ask you about defense cuts. If the sequester took effect, the across-the-board cuts, half a trillion dollars would be cut from defense over 10 years starting March 1st. If that's an excessive amount or if it's too rapid a schedule of cuts, what strikes you as a reasonable amount over how much time to cut defense spending?
DURBIN: Well, I voted for Simpson-Bowles. It called for virtually the same amount of money to be cut over 10 years. Of course, it would call for some sacrifice and change. But winding down our second war here, we face a different threat in the future; we need to be prepared for it. But in terms of saving money within the Department of Defense, I think we can.
What bothers me on sequestration is the across the board, automatic, mindless cuts. It really doesn't take into account some spending that should be virtually eliminated and some that should remain untouched.
SIEGEL: But that level of defense spending cut, as is included in the sequestered, that's OK with you?
DURBIN: It is, if we can do it in a thoughtful, sensible way.
SIEGEL: Well, Senator Durbin, thank you very much for talking with us once again.
DURBIN: Good talking with you. Thanks
SIEGEL: That's Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Senate majority whip.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
The British people should have their say on their country's continued membership in the European Union - that declaration today from British Prime Minister David Cameron. His speech was welcomed by euro skeptics in Cameron's own Conservative Party, but some EU leaders are furious.
And Britain's American allies may have cause for concern, as Vicki Barker reports from London.
VICKI BARKER, BYLINE: In a speech that was big on breadth, light on particulars, David Cameron pictured a more competitive, flexible and democratic European Union with Britain occupying a newly-won position of strength at its very heart. And if his Conservative Party wins reelection in 2015, Cameron said, the British people will then get to decide if they want all that.
DAVID CAMERON: We will give the British people a referendum with a very simple in or out choice, to stay in the European Union on these new terms or to come out all together.
BARKER: Later, in a raucous session in Parliament, opposition Labour Party leader Ed Miliband charged Cameron has been thrown onto the defensive by the growing U.K. Independence Party. It's been wooing disaffected conservatives with its strong anti-EU stance. Cameron's speech, Miliband said, a mere attempt to throw that dog a bone.
ED MILIBAND: Can he name one thing - just one thing - that if he doesn't get, he'll recommend leaving the European Union?
(SOUNDBITE OF SHOUTING)
CAMERON: I don't want Britain to leave the European Union. I want Britain to reform the European Union.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHOUTING)
BARKER: Both the Labour Party and Cameron's coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, call renegotiating Britain's place in the EU a gamble not worth taking, not when British business is already grappling with so much economic uncertainty. And several European politicians wondered aloud just how Cameron thought he could go about single-handedly reforming the 27-nation institution.
Sharon Bowles is a member of the European Parliament for Britain's Liberal Democrats.
SHARON BOWLES: I think there is agreement that we do need some reforms within Europe, in particular, to make it more competitive. But it's far better to negotiate those on a multi-lateral basis.
BARKER: French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius is among those who've suggested the EU could and would be open to future reforms. But individual states negotiating their own special relationships to the body? Non, he said.
LAURENT FABIUS: (Through Translator) You can't do Europe a la carte. Imagine Europe as a football club when you join. Once you're in, you can't then say: Let's play rugby.
BARKER: And then there's America. Sir Nigel Sheinwald is a former British ambassador to the U.S. He says the White House relies on Britain to fight its corner at European summits. A British exit would not be in Washington's best interests, Sheinwald said.
SIR NIGEL SHEINWALD: America will be concerned that any loss of British influence will be to their detriment.
BARKER: The next test of British influence will come in two weeks, when EU leaders make a second attempt to agree on a new seven-year budget. Cameron was able to push through several budget cuts in the first round. But this week, Germany and France announced they're working on their own compromise proposals - a possible attempt to freeze out their intractable neighbor across the Channel.
For NPR News, I'm Vicki Barker in London.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Ever since the Libyan rebellion that ousted Moammar Gadhafi, and more recently with the fighting in Mali, we've heard occasional mention of the Tuareg people, nomadic people of the Sahara, who are sometimes called the Blue Men of the Sahara. Last year, a Tuareg group seized a large section of Mali and declared it an independent Tuareg country they call Azawad.
Who are the Tuareg? And how do they fit into the tapestry of peoples and movements in that troubled part of Africa?
Well, joining us to address those questions is Bruce Whitehouse, assistant professor of anthropology at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Welcome to the program.
BRUCE WHITEHOUSE: Thank you.
SIEGEL: And first, in a nutshell, who are the Tuareg people?
WHITEHOUSE: Well, the Tuareg people are members of a group who speak a Berber dialect known as Tomashek. They're a semi-nomadic, desert dwelling people. And they inhabit a large band of territory which stretches from Mauritania in the west through Mali, Algeria, Burkina Faso, Niger and Libya.
Some of them are of Berber origin and very light-skinned. Some of them have more African blood and are much darker skin. So there's a broad range. It's one of those ethno names like Arab or Latino that encompasses a broad range of physical types.
And this is a people with a long history of resistance to centralized rule, from the Roman Empire to Arab conquest and French colonization and then, since 1960, the independent state of Mali.
SIEGEL: And by religion?
WHITEHOUSE: They are Muslim and have been for several centuries. But they practice a brand of Islam that's rather unlike the hard-line version that's now emanating out of the Arabian Peninsula and has its adherents in the Islamist movements in the Sahel region.
SIEGEL: What was their relationship to the Gadhafi regime?
WHITEHOUSE: In the 1970s, there were terrible droughts in the Tuareg home region that decimated their livestock and really made it impossible for many of them to live in that region. So, thousands of Tuareg at that point left their homeland for Libya, which had oil and which needed workers. And in 1982, Gadhafi declared Libya to be the home country and place of origin of all Tuaregs, so his rhetoric was very sympathetic.
But even in Libya, the Tuareg were still subject to discrimination and not many of them chose to adopt Libyan citizenship. Many thousands of them were recruited into Gadhafi's armed forces. And so, in their home countries they sometimes bore the label of Gadhafi's mercenaries.
SIEGEL: We're talking about a number of countries that border one another, that have been independent now for about half a century or so. I mean, have these identities become at least as meaningful to Tuareg people as being Tuareg?
WHITEHOUSE: Well, that's a great question. And I think there are many Tuareg who would like to identify with a particular nation-state. But there are certainly many Tuareg who would love to have an independent homeland that they can call their own.
SIEGEL: In trying to understand how the Tuareg fit into the current crisis in Mali or, for that matter, perhaps in Algeria - I don't know - is it simply that in the instability, all of the potential for Tuareg instability comes to the fore? Or are they driving the situation? How would you describe their role?
WHITEHOUSE: I think it's a very unstable alliance that various groups of Tuareg people have entered into with Islamist groups, with criminal networks, with smugglers in the last several years. And, initially, the separatist group, the MNLA, last year was working hand-in-hand with the Islamist armed groups to take over this territory that they came to control from the Malian government.
But very quickly, that alliance fell apart because the MNLA wanted secular independent state. And the Islamists weren't interested in that, they didn't care about independence. They just wanted the establishment of Islamic rule.
There's a dynamic at work here where different factions within the Tuareg population have competing agendas. And the micro-politics of the situation is extremely important in determining where their loyalties lie. I think over the next several months, we're going to see a real conflict playing out within this community.
SIEGEL: Well, Professor Whitehouse, thanks a lot for talking with us.
WHITEHOUSE: Thank you, Robert.
SIEGEL: That's anthropologist Bruce Whitehouse of Lehigh University, talking to us about the Tuareg.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
A stunning upset in Australia and a huge moment for a 19-year-old American tennis player. Sloan Stephens, who has never won any title, knocked out the powerhouse Serena Williams to a chance at the semifinals at the Australian Open.
SLOANE STEPHENS: This morning when I got up, I was like, look, dude, like, you can do this. Like, just go out and play and do your best.
BLOCK: That's Sloane Stephens after the match in Melbourne. Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated is there covering the Open. Jon Wertheim, dude, Sloane Stephens was down a set. She came back to win. How did she do it?
JON WERTHEIM: Dude.
BLOCK: Dude.
WERTHEIM: She can really play tennis. She did what so few have done against Serena Williams and neutralized her power. In fairness, she did benefit from - Serena had a bit of an injury. But this was a very poised, unflustered performance. There's a nice mix of offense and defense in here game. She really, trite as it sounds, she really did meet the moment yesterday. Big, big win for her.
BLOCK: Worth noting, too, that these are both African-American women and the hyperbole around Sloane Stephens' victory is huge so this - she has ignited a bomb under women's tennis. Make no mistake, a star is born.
WERTHEIM: Hey, we've dudes and bombs in our story. That's rare. But no, I mean, I think you know, it's funny is the racial subtext of this is something that will be explored. Already we're hearing about how Serena was Sloane Stephens' hero and idol when, in fact, in truth, that's really not the case at all. Inevitably, there're going to be comparisons, but the truth is that Sloane Stephens is a very talented player who happens to be African-American.
But any notion that she was inspired by Serena Williams, that she took up the sport because of her, as has already been reported, is patently false. And I think, if anything, the fact that there isn't this obvious cause and effect I think is actually grounds for celebration.
BLOCK: How would you describe Sloane Stephens' style of play? What makes her so great?
WERTHEIM: She's very quick on the court. She's not all large. She's not a big intimidating physical presence, but she hits with deceptive power. She moves very well. She has a very outgoing personality, as we heard. She's really been endearing and she's very social. And I think that really is an asset when she plays. That really came to bear yesterday.
I mean, she's playing Serena Williams. She'd never been this far in a major tournament. She's only 19 and the first three times she served for three games, she did not lose a point. She was the more composed player at the end and I think her love of the stage is really something that's going to be an asset to her career.
BLOCK: I read that after the match, Sloane Stephens rushed over to her cellphone to see whether her mom had sent her a text. Her mother is not there with her in Melbourne.
WERTHEIM: And then she checked her Twitter following, which, of course, if the great currency when you're 19 years old. You know, I talked to Sloane Stephens after the match and she said, do you know how much prize money you get for reaching the semifinals of a grand slam tournament? So she didn't know about her prize money, but she did know her Twitter following. Sign of the times.
But her mother and also her grandparents who she says were watching on the box, which is what they call a computer, are not here with her. You can be assured that they will most likely be present at the next big event she plays.
BLOCK: And she reported that she had gotten a tweet from John Legend. Is that right?
WERTHEIM: She would like John Legend to sing at her wedding. And there's something very endearing about this. I mean, sometimes you see these players and even as teenagers, they're fairly jaded and they're cautious about what they say and they don't necessarily exude much joy and Sloane Stephens is completely unplugged. And who knows how long it will last, but she's really enjoying the occasion and it makes it very easy to root for her as well.
BLOCK: That's Jon Wertheim of Sports Illustrated. We've been talking about Sloane Stephens, the 19-year-old who beat Serena Williams to advance to the semi-finals at the Australian Open. Jon, thanks so much.
WERTHEIM: Thanks, Melissa.
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And I'm Melissa Block. They say there's no such thing as bad publicity. Well, that's how three standup comedians felt today after learning they were mentioned during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing about the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, Libya. NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports that as part of its cultural diplomacy, the State Department sent the three Indian-American comedians to India last year.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: At the hearing today, Senator Rand Paul from Kentucky told Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that he could understand that she might not know everything going on in her department. One of his examples was this.
SENATOR RAND PAUL: I can understand that maybe you're not aware that your department spent $100,000 on three comedians who went to India on a promotional tour called "Make Chai, Not War."
BLAIR: That tour was created in the U.S. by Rajiv Satyal about five years ago to give Indian-American standup comedians like him a platform.
RAJIV SATYAL: Hindus get all up in arms, like six arms, if you...
BLAIR: The other two comedians are Hari Kondabolu...
HARI KONDABOLU: We saw this exhibit about ivory. On one of the shelves I saw elephants carved out of ivory. Did you miss it? Elephants carved out of ivory.
BLAIR: And Azhar Usman.
AZHAR USMAN: Me walking into the airport, heads turn simultaneously. Security guy's like, we got a Mohamed at 4 o'clock.
BLAIR: The show caught the attention of the State Department, which has, for years, sent American artists abroad. Rajiv Satyal says their tour was public diplomacy.
SATYAL: Kind of like ping-pong diplomacy with China back in - I think it was the '70s, a little bit before my time. But that was the reasoning. It was so show democracy, tolerance, diversity. And specifically, when you send Indian-Americans to India, it's funny because we're like them, but we're not like them.
BLAIR: Satyal believes their seven-city tour of India was a hit. After the shows, the comedians did Q&As with the audience, which was often several hundred people. But he also knows that a lot of people will be surprised to find out that the State Department paid almost $100,000 to send them.
SATYAL: In my standup act for the last year, I've been doing that as a joke. I've said that the State Department sent three comedians to India, which sounds like the beginning of a joke.
BLAIR: One final note, in the hearing today, Senator Paul called the tour "Make A Chi, Not War." Chi, not chai. Satyal says he thought that was interesting coming from a member of the Tea Party. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News, Washington.
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On Capitol Hill today, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was both emotional and angry. Testifying before a Senate committee, she spoke passionately about the attack last September that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans. She said she's taking seriously the recommendations of her review panel to better protect U.S. diplomats around the world.
But as NPR's Michele Kelemen reports, Clinton insisted the U.S. can't retreat, especially from a region now in so much turmoil.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Secretary Clinton, as she took the death of Chris Stevens personally, she nearly broke down as she spoke about that day she greeted the coffins of Ambassador Stevens, Sean Smith, Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.
SECRETARY HILLARY CLINTON: I stood next to President Obama as the Marines carried those flag-draped caskets off the plane at Andrews. I put my arms around the mothers and fathers, the sisters and brothers, the sons and daughters and the wives left alone to raise their children.
KELEMEN: The hearing in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee took more emotional turns as senators pressed her on how much she knew about the dangers in Benghazi before the September 11 attack. Clinton angrily dismissed Senator Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, who complained that the Obama administration initially described the attack as a protest over an anti-Islam video.
SENATOR RON JOHNSON: Again, we were misled that there was supposedly protests and then something spraying out of that - an assault sprang out of that. And that was easily ascertained that was not the fact...
CLINTON: But, you know...
JOHNSON: ...and the American people could have known that within days...
CLINTON: And...
JOHNSON: ...and they didn't know that.
CLINTON: With all due respect, the fact is we had four dead Americans.
JOHNSON: I understand.
CLINTON: Was it because of a protest or was it because of guys out for a walk one night who decided they'd go kill some Americans? What difference, at this point, does it make?
KELEMEN: Senator John McCain, a new member of the Foreign Relations Committee, sounded frustrated with that answer, saying he knew Ambassador Stevens and personally heard his concerns about security in Benghazi. McCain says the Obama administration simply tried to have, as he put it, a light footprint in Libya after Moammar Gadhafi was toppled.
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: We did not provide the security that was needed. We did not help them with border security. We did not give them the kind of assistance that would have been necessary to help dismantle these militias that still, to this day, remain a challenge to democracy in Libya and freedom.
KELEMEN: No one has been brought to justice for carrying out the attack in Benghazi - a fact many lawmakers pointed out in a long day of hearings. And Clinton says the U.S. is now investigating news from Algeria, that some of people who attacked the mission in Benghazi were also involved in the deadly hostage-taking at a remote gas field in Algeria last week. She says weapons that flowed out of Libya have fueled conflicts across the region, including in northern Mali, were al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb has found safe haven.
CLINTON: This Pandora's box, if you will, of weapons coming of these countries in the Middle East and North Africa is the source of one of our biggest threats. There's no doubt that the Algerian terrorists had weapons from Libya.
KELEMEN: Her testimony delayed for a month because she was ill in December comes as Hillary Clinton is wrapping up her time as secretary of state. Senator John Kerry's confirmation hearing to replace her is to be held tomorrow, and she seemed to be offering him a bit of advice.
CLINTON: We've come a long way in the past four years, and we cannot afford to retreat now. When America is absent, especially from unstable environments, there are consequences. Extremism takes root, our interests suffer, our security at home is threatened.
KELEMEN: We are in for a struggle, she warns, but it's a necessary one to counter al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb and give new democracies in the region a chance.
Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
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And as we just heard, Algeria is among the hot spots in North Africa. At least 70 people, including 37 foreign hostages, were killed last week after Algerian special forces stormed a natural gas facility that have been seized by Islamist militants. Among the dead were three Americans.
Since the raid, a debate has raged about Algeria's response. Its tactics were seen as harsh. But some analysts say Algeria probably couldn't have done much more to prevent the bloodshed, as NPR's Jackie Northam reports.
JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: In the opening stage of the hostage drama, Algeria says it did what most other governments in the world would do. It tried to negotiate with the captors. But then the heavily armed militants started to make demands. They wanted Islamists held in Algerian prisons released. At that point, the Algerian government cut off negotiations prematurely, according to John Nagl, a research professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and an expert in counterinsurgency.
DR. JOHN NAGL: I think the United States and many of our allies around the globe would have preferred that they would have held off a while longer, perhaps brought some experienced hostage negotiators in. You could have had surveillance of it for some time to determine the patterns, the habits of the kidnappers.
NORTHAM: The U.S., the U.K., France and other nations urged Algeria to be cautious and strongly encouraged it to make the safety of the hostages its top priority. But Algeria appeared not to heed those appeals, says George Joffe, a professor of international studies at Cambridge University.
He says Algeria has had plenty of experience with these types of situations, especially during its brutal civil war in the 1990s, and that it doesn't need or like outsiders interfering in its business. Joffe says he wasn't surprised Algerian security forces responded with maximum force when kidnappers first tried to flee the natural gas facility with hostages as human shields.
DR. GEORGE JOFFE: The Algerians responded very violently. They stopped any move. They shot up a series of vehicles that have tried to make the breakthrough and in the process killed not any hijackers but also some hostages.
NORTHAM: Algerian security forces launched another assault on Saturday, killing the last of the kidnappers and more hostages. Earlier this week, Algeria's Prime Minister, Abdelmalek Sellal, held a press conference to give the government's side of the story.
PRIME MINISTER ABDELMALEK SELLAL: (Foreign language spoken)
NORTHAM: Sellal said the militants came from many places - Mali, Niger, Canada - and that they attacked not only the natural gas facility but also the stability of Algeria itself. Sellal made no apologies for his government's handling of the crisis, that's because Prime Minister Sellal believes he achieved his goal, says Montana State Senator Ryan Zinke, himself a former U.S. Navy SEAL.
STATE SENATOR RYAN ZINKE: I think the Algerians, while they've been, you know, criticized, they definitely had made a statement. And now, it seems their statement is if you take one of our facilities, we are coming after you immediately.
NORTHAM: Zinke says comparing Algeria's approach to the crisis to the US approach is like comparing a sledgehammer to a surgeon's scalpel. But Zinke says any hostage situation is challenging, this Algerian one, particularly so.
ZINKE: From a former SEAL's perspective, any time you have hostages that are taken in a desert scenario like that, it's very difficult problem to respond to in a military fashion because you - the element of surprise is very difficult.
NORTHAM: Zinke says it's difficult to tell if Algeria's violent response to the hostage situation will deter terrorists in the future. Cambridge University's Joffe doubts it.
JOFFE: We're talking about a group of people dedicated to a particular ideology who've made it quite clear that they have no problem about the idea of sacrificing their hostages.
NORTHAM: And, Joffe says, in those circumstances, Algeria would argue its approach is the best way to deal with hostage taking. Jackie Northam, NPR News, Washington.
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There's also an election in Jordan this week. It's today. And joining us now is Jordan's Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh. Welcome to the program, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER NASSER JUDEH: Thank you. Great to talk to you, Robert.
SIEGEL: Jordanians like to say that they've somehow avoided the tumult of the Arab Spring. But you've had protests, you have parties boycotting the elections, you have complaints that Jordanian elections are run in such a way to favor the so-called East Bankers, the Bedouin tribes that back the king. How fair is today's election going to be?
JUDEH: Well, the ballot boxes have just closed. The - and today's election, I think, has been a milestone in terms of the procedure leading up to the elections, the transparency and the openness of the election process itself. And democracy, at the end of the day, Robert, is about participation not boycott. You mentioned some parties that boycotted, but the vast majority of Jordanians went out and cast their vote today to exercise their constitutional right. Don't forget that...
SIEGEL: But, you know, the complaint is in part that the districts that they vote in are drawn in such a way as to under-represent those West Bankers, the people descended from families of Palestinians who...
JUDEH: Well, I think...
SIEGEL: ...fled from Israel or the West Bank to Jordan.
JUDEH: I think you have to wait a couple of hours until the votes are counted, and then we'll be able to judge that. But I can tell you for sure that there's no gerrymandering that is designed to do that whatsoever by anybody. And don't forget that this time around, for the first time in Jordan's electoral history, you have an independent electoral commission that has not only overseen the preparations for the elections but conducted the elections themselves.
Now, this is a body that's totally independent - does not report to the government, does not report to parliament, does not report to the judiciary, even. Totally independent, has its own rules and mandated to carry out these elections.
SIEGEL: Foreign Minister Judeh, I'd like you to talk a bit about your refugee problem. Jordan has 300,000 new arrivals from Syria. The population of the country is about six million, so it's an additional five percent of the population. How long can they remain in your country? Until when?
JUDEH: Well, I mean, hopefully, until the situation in Syria is resolved and they can go back to their homes and to their livelihoods. I mean, the numbers, particularly in the last three or four days, have been alarming. We have, on average, about four, 5,000 people coming in every day. And you're absolutely right. It's over 300,000 Syrians who have come into Jordan since March 2011.
At the end of the day, a political decision to allow them in because they're seeking a safe haven is still in place, but it doesn't come without a cost to our already burdened economy.
SIEGEL: But when you speak of those Syrian refugees remaining in Jordan - until the situation is resolved in Syria - when you think in terms of resolution, what does that mean, Bashar al-Assad is thrown out, or the war that might erupt after he's thrown out is settled and peace returns to all of Syria?
JUDEH: Well, we - our position is very, very clear, Robert, and has been constant. And that is that we believe in the political solution that ends the violence immediately, that marks the beginning of a transition where Syrians decide on their future which hopefully will be a pluralistic, open, democratic Syria and where everybody is included.
SIEGEL: Foreign Minister, one last question about what we at least used to call the Arab Spring. Do you really think that the hereditary monarchy in Jordan, and with its authority over the elected parliament, can really survive the wave of democratization movements and rebellions that Arab countries have witnessed from North Africa all the way to the Persian Gulf?
JUDEH: I beg to differ with your description of hereditary monarchy that controls parliament. In Jordan, at least, the hereditary monarchy does not control parliament. There's a clear separation of powers.
SIEGEL: But can't he and the appointed upper chamber, can't they override the vote of the people's elected assembly?
JUDEH: The - well, the elected House of Representatives is the one that hopefully will bring about a parliamentary government. And at the end of the day, the government has to gain the vote of confidence of the elected house, not the senate, which is appointed. And secondly, which is most important, I think, it is the king who is leading the reform process here. It is the king who is saying that we want to see a parliamentary government that is elected by the people taking shape and running the affairs of the country.
So the king does not have a holdover parliament, and governments from now on will be parliamentary governments.
SIEGEL: Well, Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh, thank you very much for talking with us today.
JUDEH: Thank you very much.
SIEGEL: And Minister Judeh spoke to was from Amman, the Jordanian capital.
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In the U.S., most Latino children begin school without some of the basic skills necessary to do well in the classroom. Some never catch up. But as NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports, a recent study found that many of these kids also have unique strengths that could help them make up the difference.
CLAUDIO SANCHEZ, BYLINE: By the time Rolling Terrace Elementary at Tacoma Park, Maryland, opened its doors this particular morning, dozens of parents and their children had already been hovering, shivering outside in the frigid winter air. About 60 percent of the kids at this school are Latino.
LESVIA SALAZAR: (Foreign language spoken)
SANCHEZ: Lesvia Salazar, 27, is from Guatemala. She has two daughters, a kindergartner and a preschooler.
SALAZAR: (Foreign language spoken)
SANCHEZ: She says that before her daughters started school, she tried really hard to prepare them, playing word games, teaching them the colors and numbers, reading to them.
Mrs. Salazar is typical of the mostly working-class Latino moms who gather for coffee at the school every morning. They don't speak English, but they're constantly checking in on their kids who seem to be doing fine. Researchers say they're the exception, not the rule. Most Latino children start school at least seven months behind when compared to white children. Their vocabulary is smaller. Their familiarity with text and math concepts is weaker. Claudia Galindo is a sociologist at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.
CLAUDIA GALINDO: We're talking about preschoolers, so being able to identify shapes, classifying, identifying, counting, like when you set the table, for example, how many people are in the family, OK, how many plates do we need, all these very basic things.
SANCHEZ: Galindo was part of a team of researchers who recently finished a groundbreaking study led by UCLA and UC Berkeley. They tracked 4,700 working-class Latino parents with children ages 2 to 5, wanting to know how parents were preparing their kids for school. But here's what was startling, says Galindo.
GALINDO: We found that Latino kids bring to school strong emotional skills and strong social skills, which means they know how to share with their peers. They know how to follow instructions. They know how to listen. And one other thing that we found is that these kids are being raised in very supportive and warm family environments.
SANCHEZ: Galindo says these kids' remarkable emotional maturity and social agility have been the missing link when devising strategies to help Latino children catch up academically, because when teachers take into account these kids' eagerness to learn and get along, it's much easier for them to adapt to the classroom quickly and learn English quickly. So there's no reason why they can't succeed academically just as quickly, says Galindo, unless teachers assume that Latino children can't and parents can't help.
GALINDO: Not all schools are open to really understanding where families are coming from.
SANCHEZ: Schools' definition of readiness, says Galindo, is too narrow and often rooted in the view that Latino children are deficient, too slow, too far behind, so they need to be coddled rather than challenged. The research now shows that's a big mistake, says Bruce Fuller, one of the main authors of the UCLA-UC Berkeley study.
BRUCE FULLER: We've got to move education policymakers away from the assumption that we need to fix these kids, we need to fix the parenting skills, not simply assume that they have weaknesses that need to be tinkered with and corrected.
SANCHEZ: The big question is: Can these findings change both teachers' expectations and how they teach Latino children? Researchers say yes, first, because research is now driving some important changes in teaching and learning and more importantly because it's urgent. Claudio Sanchez, NPR News.
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And now for some reaction to that decision, we turn to Anne Coughlin. She's a professor at the University of Virginia Law School, and her research inspired a lawsuit brought by two women in the Army Reserve seeking to reverse that ban. The suit argues the ban is unconstitutional. Anne Coughlin, welcome to the program.
ANNE COUGHLIN: Thank you so much, Melissa. I'm happy to be here.
BLOCK: And first, your thoughts when you heard this decision from Secretary Panetta today.
COUGHLIN: My first reaction was that this is just a huge development, really significant statement by the secretary that the combat exclusion policy is a violation of the equality rights of female service members. At the same time, we are cautious and will remain cautious until we've actually read the text of his order and see precisely what it provides in terms of the directions that it gives the military in terms of implementing the new order and also in terms of giving them the opportunity to identify certain jobs that should continue to be off-limits to women.
BLOCK: Would you accept the notion that there would be some jobs that would be off-limits, as you say?
COUGHLIN: I guess that it would be really difficult to convince me of that case. You know, our legal position is that the equal protection clause forbids the government to say to a woman: You can't do this job merely because you're a woman. Instead, what the government has to do, like every other employer, is identify the precise characteristics, job qualifications and so forth, and then let individual people - male and female - compete for those jobs. So as long as the government sets the correct standards, criteria for performance in these jobs, why not open them up and let women compete?
BLOCK: The two women I mentioned in the Army Reserve, Command Sergeant Major Jane Baldwin and Colonel Ellen Haring, what have they told you about why they think the ban on women in combat has been discriminatory? How has it affected them?
COUGHLIN: Both of these women are well along into their careers. There's jobs advancement that they just can't have. So 80 percent of the leadership positions in the military are drawn from the combat arms specialties. And women just can't have those specialties. And so that means that they just can't advance through the ranks and up the hierarchy in the same way that their male counterparts can.
BLOCK: It sounds like you're describing a glass ceiling or, I guess, in the military, it would be a brass ceiling.
COUGHLIN: A brass ceiling, yes. It's not glass because it's absolutely bulletproof. And again, this is a very extraordinary thing for the federal government to have been doing in the 21st century, saying to people you cannot have this job because of your sex. You might fit, you might be strong, you might be psychologically durable, but you're a woman, and you just can't do it.
BLOCK: What about the argument, though, from people who are saying this idea woman in combat is a bad idea, that unit cohesion could be really put at risk with this?
COUGHLIN: That's one of the arguments that the government has advanced. It's one of the arguments that we were expecting to hear in response to our lawsuit. And I take it that Secretary Panetta has been persuaded that the argument is without merit. So I'll have to say I agree with him. I think that that argument rests on stereotypes about the appropriate roles for males and females and for the kinds of friendships that we can imagine rise between men and women. It rests on the idea that if you put men and women together in closed quarters, there's necessarily going to be some kind of rivalry, perhaps some kind of sexual flirtation that will arise, and they just can't bond in the same way that a single-sex unit can.
BLOCK: Mm-hmm.
COUGHLIN: That argument is based on stereotypes. And the work that we've seen women doing in Afghanistan and Iraq gives the lie to that argument as well as to others.
BLOCK: Well, Anne Coughlin, thanks so much for talking with us.
COUGHLIN: Thank you. It's been an honor to be here.
BLOCK: That's Professor Anne Coughlin, professor at the University of Virginia law school. She heads the Molly Pitcher Project whose research inspired a lawsuit filed by two women in the Army Reserve seeking to overturn the military's policy excluding women from combat.
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And it's time now for a home-viewing recommendation from our movie critic Bob Mondello. A quiet recommendation, because Bob is touting "The Ultimate Buster Keaton Collection," a 14-disc set of classic silent comedies.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Silent film had three great clowns: Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp is the one everyone remembers, all-American daredevil Harold Lloyd is the one who made the most money, and Buster Keaton, known as The Great Stone Face because he never smiled, was the genius.
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MONDELLO: Keaton figured out early how to manipulate this new medium of film, how to use its flatness and silence for sight gags that would astonish even other filmmakers. While his peers were slipping on banana peels, he'd leap through windows that always seemed to line up uncannily with something unexpected in the street. And when he whacked a grizzly bear over the head with a rifle, it was apt to shoot between his legs on impact and kill a second grizzly that he didn't realize was behind him.
In real life, when Keaton was a toddler, a cyclone had plucked him from a hotel window and deposited him unhurt three blocks away, which may be why his gags on screen so often incorporate a cooperative universe: a hurricane blowing down the whole front wall of a building on top of him, for instance, in "Steamboat Bill Jr.," but providing one small open window on an upper floor so he could emerge unscathed. Keaton wanted that collapse to look real in a high wind, so he had the wall built of brick and mortar, which made the stunt so dangerous that even the guy cranking the camera turned his eyes away when they filmed it.
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MONDELLO: The coming of sound and the interference of producers who thought they knew comedy better than he did all but killed Keaton's career when he was barely in his 30s, but not before he'd made his great Civil War classic "The General" and the 10 other feature-length comedies in this ultimate Keaton collection. The boxed set from Kino Classics includes all of his independently produced features, all of the silent shorts he starred in, five hours of his seldom-seen sound comedies, and even rare audio of the great clown...
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MONDELLO: ...clowning around, remembering his childhood in vaudeville.
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MONDELLO: The Blu-ray prints are high-def but not pristine, taken from the best copies that remain of films Keaton made almost a century ago, and there are two MGM comedies you'll have to catch elsewhere, but Kino's 14 discs of preserved Buster Keaton is a treasure trove of silent comedy that, even in a digital age, will prompt a joyful noise from anyone who watches. I'm Bob Mondello.
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When it comes to violent crime, the nation's biggest metropolis is safer than it has been in half a century. There were 418 murders last year in New York, a city of more than eight million people, and that is the lowest total since the early 1960s.
As to the reason why and who should get the credit, well, there's debate about that, as NPR's Joel Rose reports.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: No part of New York saw a more dramatic decline in murders last year than the 61st Precinct.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Give me one more meat and another potato.
ROSE: The Sultan Meat Market and Deli is on the ground floor of a high-rise in Sheepshead Bay, a middle-class neighborhood in South Brooklyn. Ajar Isabekova works behind the counter. She says she feels safe in the neighborhood even when she leaves the store late at night.
AJAR ISABEKOVA: All the time when I come walk to my job, it's about like 10 o'clock, I see on every corner police workers and I feel safe. And I live alone here, so - more cops, more safety.
(LAUGHTER)
ROSE: Two years ago, there were 14 murders in the precinct. Last year, it had only three. Citywide, the murder rate dropped 18 percent compared with 2011, and a remarkable 80 percent compared to the bad old days of the early 1990s. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been happy to talk about that decline, as he did at a graduation ceremony for New York Police Department recruits last month.
MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG: The number of murders this year will be lower than it has been at any time since records started to be kept some 50 years ago. Yes, they deserve a round of applause.
ROSE: The numbers for New York are especially striking next to those for cities like Chicago and Detroit, which saw their murder rates go up last year. But experts say we should be cautious about jumping to conclusions about what is really happening in New York.
FRANKLIN ZIMRING: Homicide goes down and the mayor turns to his police chief and he says, hey, what did we do last year? It worked.
ROSE: Franklin Zimring is a law professor at UC Berkeley, and the author of a book about New York, called "The City That Became Safe." He says it's a mistake to think that yearly fluctuations in the murder rate always have a cause in specific policies.
ZIMRING: If you're gonna make the assumption that the changes in crime rates all was responding to policies, then why shouldn't we be blaming the police for the slight increases in 2010 and 2011?
ROSE: The NYPD declined interview requests for this story, although police commissioner Ray Kelly has frequently tied the drop in shootings and homicides to the department's aggressive tactics, including the controversial practice known as "stop-and-frisk," in which police officers can stop, question and frisk anyone they consider suspicious, without a warrant.
Polls show that the practice has support from a majority of New Yorkers, including former police officer Martin Golden, who's now a state senator representing South Brooklyn.
STATE SENATOR MARTIN GOLDEN: If anybody doesn't think stop-and-frisk played a role here, they're fooling themselves. Stop-and-frisk gives you the ability, if you see something, you know, a bulge, you see somebody moving in a certain direction, you would be wrong not to jump on that individual, not to toss that individual.
ROSE: But critics of the practice say stop-and-frisk violates the Constitution and that it's not necessary to fight crime. Jeffrey Fagan teaches law at Columbia University. He says other big cities like Los Angeles and Houston have also seen violent crime decline to levels not seen in decades.
JEFFREY FAGAN: If you look at the 50-year perspective, and there are cities across the spectrum that their crime rates have gone back to what their 1960 levels were, without having to resort to these tactics. Some of them are using targeted hot-spots policing, problem-oriented policing where they identify particular crime locations, you go in and try to reduce the opportunities for crime in those places.
ROSE: Fagan says that's sometimes a matter of just putting more police on the streets as a visible deterrent to crime. New York has used all of those tactics, too. Though, Fagan thinks policing is only part of a much bigger story, one that includes the gentrification of inner cities and the end of the crack epidemic.
FAGAN: These are big social forces, big economic forces, big demographic forces. I think it's a bit of a conceit to think that what the police can do can actually have the kind of leverage to move the needle on crime up and down.
ROSE: But as long as the murder rate continues to decline, it's inevitable to wonder what New York is doing right and what, if anything, other cities can learn from it. Joel Rose, NPR News, New York.
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And I'm Robert Siegel.
"The Gatekeepers" is an Israeli documentary that's up for an Academy Award. It's based on long and very rare interviews with the six surviving heads of the Shin Bet. That's Israel's domestic security service, it's their FBI. The Mossad would be Israel's CIA. These six gatekeepers were in charge for over 30 years.
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SIEGEL: That's the eldest of the group, Avraham Shalom, who quit during a scandal. He'd ordered the killings without trial of two Palestinians who'd hijacked a bus.
All of these six men made life-and-death decisions over Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. They arrested and interrogated thousands. They also tried to contain the radical Jewish underground. In the film, they describe what they did and why, and they come out sounding more like advocates of an Israeli peace movement than veterans spoiling for another fight.
Dror Moreh made this film and joins us now. Welcome to the program.
DROR MOREH: Thank you very much.
SIEGEL: This entire film is built around the confessions and ruminations of these six heads. I want you to walk us through the process by which you got these interviews.
MOREH: I wanted to tell a story which will be told for the first time from the heads of the Israeli secret service. So it wasn't an easy task because, as you said, it's a secret service, which secret is very, very apparent word in that they're in the shadows. But I think that, you know, like everything else in life, timing is the best thing. And I think that when I approached one of them, Ami Ayalon, I found out that he is a very worried person about the outcome of where Israel is heading towards and he was willing to come aboard this film.
And then I asked him very shyly, can you give me the numbers of the rest of those group? And he said, I will give you whoever I have and I will recommend them to participate. And this is how this amazing journey started.
SIEGEL: We should say, Ami Ayalon had become a Labor member of the Israeli Parliament, of the Knesset. He was very public figure. And another of these six, Yaakov Peri, was just elected this week to parliament on the new party There is a Future. So these are people who also have a public life in Israel.
MOREH: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Not all of them but some of them have a public life, yeah.
SIEGEL: To a man, they seem to say, there's no way that Israel can simply defeat the Palestinians by force. You've got to negotiate with these people.
MOREH: What does it mean, victory? I mean, defeat Palestinians by force? Yes, we can. We did that a long time. We did that many times. But at the end of the day, what do we want? And this is something that they accuse the leadership of Israel that the leadership of Israel was acting tactically and not strategically. And this is a very core issue in the movie. Where do we take those victories - numerous victories - to a better future for the Israeli people?
SIEGEL: This is a clip I want to play of Yuval Diskin, who was head of the agency from 2005 until 2011. I'll read the subtitles. He was talking about making a decision. A car is spotted believed to be carrying terrorists. He orders it to be blown up.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "THE GATEKEEPERS")
SIEGEL: He says, sometimes it's a super clean operation. No one was hurt except the terrorists. And then, later, life stops - at night, in the day, when you're shaving. We all have our moments; on vacation.
He's talking about moments of doubt, moments of perhaps even remorse.
MOREH: Yeah, absolutely. Look, those people headed operations, which at the end of that, people died. Terrorists, sometimes innocent people died. And I'm very keen on psychology, how does a person deal with that kind of moments when you know that you have ordered a targeted assassination and while you did that, innocent people died in that event. And this is what he spoke about, that it doesn't come to them very easy - on the contrary.
SIEGEL: Although I think he was actually still serving when you interviewed him.
MOREH: Yeah, he was still. The interview was in the headquarter of the Shin Bet in Tel Aviv.
SIEGEL: The other men are all reflecting in retirement on what they did and the decisions they made. And did you come away from this project convinced that they were reflective and feeling some doubt and some ambivalence in the days when they were making the decisions, or that came with hindsight?
MOREH: Look, any defense officer - whatever it is, intelligence or whatever - has one job and that's to maintain security. And to reach better security for the state of Israel or for the Americans, for all it matters. And while doing that you are using force. You are using intelligence. You are using all the tools that are in front of you to maintain security.
And at the end of the day, when you reach home, you ask yourself: Did it lead our country to a better place or not? And I think they feel that it didn't. And I can only say to you now that when you look at the last five years, the security forces has managed to bring Israel and the Palestinian Authority to a place where the leaders can sit and talk without the threat of terror, but nothing happened.
And those five years shouldn't have been lost. It's a crime that they were lost like that.
SIEGEL: Yeah, there's a moment in your film when the head of the Shin Bet - this is in the period after the Oslo Accords - talks about the very real effective cooperation he was getting from Palestinian security people on the West Bank. And he recalls one of those Palestinians telling him, we're not doing this for Israel's good; we're doing this to get a state.
MOREH: Exactly, and I am so sad to tell you this is exactly, exactly what happened in the last four years. The security forces has managed to create a bridge of silence or a bridge without terror, from Judea and Samaria, from the West Bank and the leaders didn't do anything with that.
Barack Obama pushed as much as he could. But at the end of the day, he's the leader of America. He's not the leader of the Palestinian and the Israelis. They have to do that themselves.
SIEGEL: You've said that you wanted to make this film because, in your words, Israel is losing. What do you mean by that?
MOREH: Look, I think that when you look at the last 45 years, the situation in Israel is only deteriorating. I don't think the Israeli citizens feel more secure now, on the contrary. And I feel that if unless the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will be solved, Israel will found itself isolated - not talking about the ramification of this conflict on the Israeli society now. So leaders has to lead. This is their job. They have to do that.
And I wanted, in a way, to create a mirror in front of the Israeli public, told by those people most responsible for the security. And that, the words they say cannot be washed way like they don't understand or they are leftists. This is the center of the defense establishment of Israel who are saying those clear and very, very harsh words to the Israeli public. And I think the people should listen to that.
SIEGEL: Dror Moreh, thank you very much for talking with us.
MOREH: It's been a pleasure.
SIEGEL: Dror Moreh is a filmmaker. His documentary featuring six former heads of the Israeli security service, the Shin Bet, is called "The Gatekeepers."
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The November elections were a big disappointment for Republicans. The party failed in its number one goal: capturing the White House. And it lost seats in the U.S. House and Senate. On top of that, exit polling shows the party with a problem attracting young voters and minority groups, even as the nation becomes steadily more diverse.
Well, this week, the Republican National Committee is holding its winter meetings in Charlotte and some soul-searching is on the agenda.
NPR national political correspondent Don Gonyea is there.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: There are lots of bad numbers for the GOP. The party has lost the popular vote in five of the past six presidential elections. Republican voters are older and more white than the nation as a whole. And a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll gives the GOP an approval rating of just 26 percent.
So, chairman Reince Priebus poses some questions to party members nationally in a video posted online.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)
GONYEA: But in a brief chat with reporters here at the RNC, Priebus made it clear that the party is not suddenly going to make an about-face on policy, from federal spending to guns to same-sex marriage.
: Absolutely not. I mean, we put together the most conservative platform that we've ever seen at the RNC. So listen, we've got to grow our party without compromising our principles. That's the bottom line.
GONYEA: So how do you do that? Veteran Republican activist and former RNC national committeeman from Michigan, Saul Anuzis says a lot of it is tone.
SAUL ANUZIS: Tone matters. It's not only what you say, it's how you say it.
GONYEA: And while Republicans have alienated a lot of voters who might be fiscally conservative but don't like the party's positions on social issues, Anuzis says...
ANUZIS: I just think we have to be cognizant of the fact that you can approach it in such a way that is open and inclusive and tolerant and understanding of other people's positions.
GONYEA: Ada Fisher is a GOP national committeewoman from North Carolina. A conservative African-American, she insists the party is not in crisis, that it can reach blacks and Hispanics and other minorities with a sound economic message. But she says candidates need to be smart and not shoot themselves in the foot. She cited remarks made about rape by failed GOP Senate hopefuls Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock last year.
ADA FISHER: You just can't go off half-cocked saying stupid things. And when you say stupid things, you got to pay a penalty for that.
GONYEA: Fisher says it's wise to have a debriefing after such an election but she cautions against overreacting. It seems unlikely the party will do that. Its discussions are focused mostly on message and mechanics, including how to improve a grassroots campaign operation, and how to better use technology and social media. In all of these areas they lag far behind the Democrats.
Jack Pitney, of Claremont McKenna College, says there's also a recognition that the RNC cannot dictate any kind of new policy approach, even if it wants to. Evangelicals can't be told to soften views on same-sex marriage, nor can Tea Partiers be told to compromise on taxes and spending.
JACK PITNEY: As John Boehner found out in the not-too-distant past, he can't tell members of his own conference how to vote on economic issues. And there's no Republican out there who can give orders to the party saying, you must take this position or that.
GONYEA: To do so would likely prompt an internal backlash, which the party doesn't need.
Don Gonyea, NPR News, Charlotte.
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Finally, this hour, musical anthems that mark South Africa's rise from apartheid to democracy. The musician Vusi Mahlasela is known simply as The Voice. His new live album looks back on a more than two-decade career. Banning Eyre has this review.
BANNING EYRE, BYLINE: Vusi Mahlasela came of age during the violent era of the Soweto student uprising in the '70s. From the start, his musical expression has been all about his love and hopes for his country.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
EYRE: The title of this song translates as "crushing corn." It's a metaphor for getting down to work to fight poverty. And it reveals a lot about this globetrotting folk troubadour - his connection to the land, his lyrical musicality, his deep commitment to uplifting Africa. On this concert CD, Vusi is looking back, performing the songs that made him a South African musical icon.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
EYRE: In this song, another ode to his beautiful homeland, Vusi's voice and guitar complete one another perfectly, nothing else needed.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
EYRE: Vusi's concert retrospective is loaded with heartfelt, elegant passion. The personal weight of the singer's emotions can be overwhelming. But here and there, he and his band just cut loose and have fun, as on this township romp with powerful gospel overtones, "Tswang Tswang Tswang."
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
EYRE: Near the end of the set, Vusi sings the song that first put him on the map in South Africa. It's called "When You Come Back." When it debuted in 1990, the song played as a fanciful dream, a vision of a time when exiles would return to help build the nation.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
EYRE: Today, that message resonates for much of the African continent. Quietly, behind grim headlines, some African economies are on the rise. And Vusi is not alone in urging African exiles to think about coming home. The notion could hardly have a more appealing messenger.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIEGEL: The album is called "Sing To The People" by Vusi Mahlasela. Banning Eyre is senior editor at AfroPop.org.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
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And I'm Robert Siegel. Should a pipeline be built across the U.S./Canadian border to carry oil from the sands of northern Alberta to refineries in Texas? We're talking about the proposed Keystone XL pipeline in this part of the program. A decision about its fate rests with the State Department. President Obama had held up the project, citing environmental concerns in Nebraska.
BLOCK: But this week, Nebraska's Republican governor approved an alternate route for the pipeline, putting the approval process back on track. And it was on the agenda today as the Senate held a confirmation hearing for John Kerry to become secretary of state. Here's NPR's Jeff Brady.
JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: Because the Keystone XL would cross an international boundary between Saskatchewan and Montana, it requires review by the State Department. Environmental groups oppose the pipeline because of where the oil comes from - Canada's tar sands. Producing that oil emits more pollution than traditional methods.
At a hearing today, secretary of state nominee Senator John Kerry was asked how he'll weigh the environmental consequences of the pipeline. He didn't answer the question but said the State Department is working on the application.
SENATOR JOHN KERRY: And I've already checked into it. It's under way. It will not be long before that comes across my desk, and at that time, I'll make the appropriate judgments about it.
BRADY: The Keystone XL ultimately would move crude from Alberta south to the Gulf Coast. The original route through Nebraska's Sand Hills region was controversial. The company behind the project, TransCanada, proposed an alternative route. Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman signed off on it, but not everyone in Nebraska shares his view.
Jane Kleeb heads the group Bold Nebraska, which still opposes the Keystone XL. She hopes President Obama, who has final say over the pipeline, will reject it. She points to the president's inaugural address Monday.
JANE KLEEB: And I was so excited to hear him talk about climate change.
BRADY: At the U.S. Capitol, Obama said the country should lead the world's transition to sustainable sources of energy.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.
BRADY: Obama made no mention of the Keystone XL. Still, Kleeb took that statement as evidence he may reject it.
KLEEB: President Obama can't say those deep words about climate change and then turn around, with a straight face, and approve this pipeline.
BRADY: At TransCanada's headquarters in Calgary, spokesman Shawn Howard doesn't want to predict how smoothly the approval process will go from here.
SHAWN HOWARD: You know, we don't entirely know what to expect. We know that there's still a lot of work to do, even though we just received that approval out of Nebraska, which was a really important part of the process.
BRADY: Howard says the best his company can do is present its case to the State Department and the American public.
HOWARD: I guess the question comes down to, if you're going to rely on oil for decades to come as a key part of your economy, would you rather get it from the Middle East, where you've got to move it by tanker, which isn't as safe as a pipeline?
BRADY: And he repeats a point TransCanada has frequently made, that it's preferable to get oil from a friendly neighbor than from countries far away that may not share the U.S.' interests. Along with environmental concerns, that issue likely will weigh heavily on the future secretary of state and President Obama in coming months. Jeff Brady, NPR News.
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For the first time in its 120-year history, the Sierra Club has said it will officially participate in civil disobedience to protest tar sands oil and the Keystone XL pipeline. The environmental group's leaders say they plan to risk arrest or even provoke arrest next month at an unspecified protest here in Washington. The Sierra Club's executive director Michael Brune joins me to talk about that decision and more. Michael Brune, welcome to the program.
MICHAEL BRUNE: Hi, Melissa. Thanks for having me on.
BLOCK: And I know you have said that you won't reveal specifics about the protest, but you have said it will be in advance of the very large Keystone protest planned for over President's Day weekend. Is this a message that you are directing directly at President Obama?
BRUNE: It is. You know, I was at the inauguration and was very inspired by the president's speech where he outlined the threats that we face from a destabilizing climate, but also the benefits that come from a clean energy transition. And so we want the president's ambition to match the scale of this challenge. And the civil disobedience that we'll be doing in February is designed to both support and challenge the president to do all that he can to meet this moment.
BLOCK: But why do you think that civil disobedience would make a difference in his mind in a way that lobbying, political pressure, all sorts of outside pressures wouldn't?
BRUNE: It's a fair question, you know, but civil disobedience is part of a great American tradition. It's helped to bring our country out of its darkest hours. And so we believe that civil disobedience will help us to create really a breakthrough political environment where we're able to achieve solutions to climate change that have eluded policy makers over the last several years.
BLOCK: And if it's so important, if you think it can be so vital in changing people's minds, why just a one-time protest, which is what the Sierra Club has authorized here?
BRUNE: Well, you start with a single action, really. You know, what we're facing right now is the tar sands pipeline, which is the dirtiest fuel source on the planet. The pipeline itself would carry about a million barrels of highly carbon-intensive oil down into the U.S., most likely to be exported. There's simply no way for us to cut our greenhouse gas emissions and simultaneously expand development of this carbon-intensive fuel source.
BLOCK: It sounds, from what you just told me, that your main problem isn't necessarily with the pipeline itself. In other words, the transport. It's really the extraction of the tar sands oil from Canada in the first place.
BRUNE: Sure. We have to decrease our greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as we can in order to stabilize our climate. We should not be developing these extreme sources of energy. And the tar sands is probably the most potent example of a kind of development of fossil fuels that, as a society, we need to turn away from.
BLOCK: How much of a setback is it for you and the Sierra Club that the governor of Nebraska has now said he's satisfied the pipeline can be built and operated safely and that the new route avoids the most ecologically sensitive areas in that state?
BRUNE: Well, what can I say? We were surprised by the governor's statement, because he was opposed to the pipeline before now being in favor of it, particularly since the facts of the pipeline hasn't really changed. But the fundamental concern that we have about this pipeline is that it should not be built.
BLOCK: Well, the Obama administration has already approved the southern portion of this pipeline, right, from Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast. Realistically, do you think that the pipeline can be turned around when a good portion of it is already under way?
BRUNE: We wouldn't be doing this if we didn't think we had a realistic chance at victory. And I'll tell you there's two reasons why we think we have a good shot. First, the president made a very firm and clear commitment to making fighting climate change a top priority of his administration. You really can't reconcile a firm commitment to taking climate change by the horns and then simultaneously build a pipeline that would take a million barrels of oil into the U.S. for the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years.
The second reason is the southern portion of this pipeline has a lot of resistance from local communities and it will only go to Oklahoma. This is not yet built to take oil from the tar sands. This is - at a minimum, it will alleviate a glut that we're finding in the middle part of the country. So there's a lot of reason for optimism and there's a lot of work to be done to make sure that the president has full support of the public to reject this pipeline altogether.
BLOCK: Michael Brune is executive director of the Sierra Club. He joined me from San Francisco. Michael, thanks very much.
BRUNE: Thank you, Melissa.
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This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.
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I'm Robert Siegel.
And it was a big day for Senator John Kerry. The Massachusetts Democrat took a step closer to what many in Washington say is his dream job, becoming secretary of state. Kerry went before the committee he's long chaired for his confirmation hearing.
And it was a love-fest, as NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: As the ranking Republican, Bob Corker of Tennessee, was quick to point out, Kerry seems to have been grooming himself to become secretary of state all his life.
SENATOR BOB CORKER: I look at you, in being nominated for this, as someone who has almost lived their entire life, if you will, for this moment, being able to serve in this capacity.
KELEMEN: Kerry has spent decades on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. He helped the Obama administration on tricky diplomatic missions to Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan. And he grew up in a Foreign Service family. Kerry choked up a bit when talking about his father.
SENATOR JOHN KERRY: My father's work under presidents, both Democratic and Republican, took me and my siblings around the world for a personal journey that brought home the sacrifices and the commitment the men and women of the Foreign Service make every day on behalf of America.
KELEMEN: Kerry was diplomatic, even when a protester briefly interrupted him to raise concerns about U.S. policy in the Middle East.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I'm tired of my friends in the Middle East dying. I don't know if they're alive or not dead...
KELEMEN: As a Vietnam War veteran turned anti-war activist, he seemed sympathetic.
KERRY: When I first came to Washington and testified, I obviously was testifying as part of a group of people who came here to have their voices heard. And that is, above all, what this place is about.
KELEMEN: Senator Kerry spent weeks preparing for this hearing and he has clearly been thinking a lot about America's role in the world.
KERRY: We can't be strong in the world unless we're strong at home. And the first priority of business - which will affect my credibility as a diplomat and our credibility as a nation - as we work to help other countries create order, the first priority will be that America at last puts its own fiscal house in order.
KELEMEN: His colleagues on the committee asked about a range of issues. New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez, who chaired the hearing, made clear he'd like to see the Obama administration get much tougher with Iran.
SENATOR ROBERT MENENDEZ: Will the department be committed to the full enforcement of the sanctions passed by the Congress, and to multilateral efforts to ensure the adherence of other nations to these sanction?
KERRY: Yes. Totally.
KELEMEN: Though Kerry says the administration's policy is to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, not to contain a nuclear-armed Iran, he says he and President Obama prefer a diplomatic solution.
KERRY: I think everybody is very hopeful that we can make some progress on the diplomatic front now.
KELEMEN: While senators went easy on Kerry, some were highly critical of the Obama administration's foreign policy. Florida Republican Marco Rubio offered a scathing review of policies from the Middle East to Latin America. Senator John McCain of Arizona spoke about the rising death toll in Syria and an expanding refugee crisis. He accused the Obama administration of inaction there.
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: We can do a lot more without putting American boots on the ground. And we can prevent this further slaughter and massacre and inhumanity. Otherwise, we will be judged very, very harshly by history.
KELEMEN: Kerry told McCain that you have to make sure if you do something, you make things better.
KERRY: What I think everyone worries about, John, is that if you have a complete implosion of the state, nobody has clear definition of how you put those pieces back together, number one. And number two, you have a much greater risk with respect to the chemical weapons.
KELEMEN: Ever the cautious diplomat, Kerry didn't lock himself into many policy prescriptions. He spoke about his hopes to deal with climate change, do more to help failing states and to try to revive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations before, he says, the window closes on a two-state solution.
Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
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The Senate is known for its special rules, none of them more famous than the filibuster. The practice was once called talking a bill to death and some of the classic filibusters went on for months. More recently, the filibuster has functioned more as a very effective threat. Those threats have proliferated to the point that they largely govern the flow of bills and nominations through the Senate. Now, the Senate has agreed on a deal to limit those threats.
And NPR's David Welna joins us to explain. David, here's your challenge: in as few words as possible, and without using a clip of Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," define a filibuster.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: Well, Melissa, a filibuster occurs when a senator uses his or her right to object to moving ahead with a bill or nomination, insisting that more debate is needed. And it takes the votes of at least 60 senators to overcome such an objection, and dozens of hours have to transpire as well, both before and after such a vote, even if that vote succeeds in breaking the filibuster.
BLOCK: That was very well done, David.
(LAUGHTER)
BLOCK: You met the challenge. Well, there's been talk for years about limiting the power to filibuster. Is the Senate really going to do it this time?
WELNA: The Senate really is making some changes that will diminish the power to filibuster in some circumstances, but by no means are senators getting rid of the filibuster altogether. I doubt that the Republicans in the minority would have agreed even to these relatively small changes, since they are the minority and the filibuster is the minority's most potent weapon.
But Majority Leader Harry Reid said yesterday that if he and Republican leader Mitch McConnell could not agree on some changes to the filibuster, Democrats would sidestep the rule requiring a two-thirds majority to change the rules and make those changes with a simple 51-vote majority. And apparently Reid had the votes to do that.
BLOCK: Well, do the changes, David, really mean that more bills will eventually get to the floor, where they can be debated?
WELNA: I think so. Republicans have used filibusters, or the threat to filibuster, hundreds of times in recent years to keep legislation and nominations from even reaching the Senate floor. And under this rules change, the so-called motion to proceed to a bill or nomination cannot be blocked. But in exchange, the minority gets to offer at least two amendments.
So there actually is something in these rules changes for the minority, which right now happens to be the Republicans. But it could sooner or later be the Democrats.
BLOCK: And once the items got past the filibuster, less time would actually be devoted to debate? Is that right?
WELNA: That's right. Typically, even after 60 senators vote to end debate and go to a vote, another 30 hours of debate - which usually ends up being 30 hours of quorum calls - is required before that vote could happen.
With this rules change only one quorum call is allowed, and unless a senator who opposes the vote is able to get his colleagues to help him or her go out and hold the floor, during those 30 hours - and senators can only speak for up to an hour each - a vote would be held immediately. And that would certainly speed up what's often the glacial pace of business in the Senate.
BLOCK: And this was not the big change that reformers were looking for today, right? This is a smaller step.
WELNA: Yes, these rules changes on the filibuster do fall short of what many Democrats had hoped for. None of them wanted to do away with the filibuster altogether, lest the Senate end up being like the House where the minority has virtually no power.
But Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin, for example, wanted to progressively lower the threshold of 60 votes on the matter, to eventually get to a simple majority of 51. And that did not happen. Harry Reid, the majority leader, wanted to put the onus on the minority to come up with 41 votes to sustain a filibuster, rather than make the majority find 60 votes to move ahead. That remains unchanged.
And in most cases it's still going to be possible to filibuster in absentia. That is, senators won't be required to go out and hold the floor, to keep something from coming to a vote. That was a big disappointment to some of the newer senators, who wanted to revise what they call the talking filibuster.
BLOCK: OK, the Jimmy Stewart model.
WELNA: James Stewart model.
BLOCK: NPR's David Welna at the Capitol. David, thanks so much.
WELNA: You're welcome, Melissa.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
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I'm Melissa Block. And now, some perspective on France's intervention in Mali, from Malians who live in France. Their home country was a French colony until 1960. And today, France is home to about 120,000 people from Mali. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley visited a neighborhood that goes by the moniker Little Bamako, after Mali's capital city. She talked with residents about what they think of French troops' return to their country.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: If it weren't for the frigid temperatures when you step into the courtyard of this apartment block on the eastern edge of Paris, you'd almost believe you were in Bamako.
There's like a market set up, a Malian market, where they're selling everything from, you know, roasted peanuts to Coke to cigarettes. There's two barbers who've set up their chairs here with mirrors and they're cutting people's hair. It's a freezing cold day, but a lot of people are in flip-flops out here.
Most of these Malians have been here for at least a decade, many longer. Some have families here in France, others left them back home. Some work legally, others, no. But everyone here is exuberant that France is back in Mali, says 25-year-old Sekou Simaga.
SEKOU SIMAGA: (Through translator) We're very happy that France is leading this war against the Islamists. The French president struck hard and just at the right time. Otherwise they would have gone all the way to Bamako. Thank you, France.
BEARDSLEY: Just off the inner courtyard, but still in the building complex is a bar where dozens of Malian men stand around drinking coffee and watching the war unfold on the television set mounted to the wall.
SALIMOU DRAME: (Speaking French)
BEARDSLEY: Salimou Drame says the Islamist militants have been in northern Mali for years and everyone knew it, but no one did anything about it. The Algerians chased them out in the 1990s and they just set up shop next door in Mali, says Drame. He calls them bandits and criminals. French President Francois Hollande is the new hero around here. Drame flashes an iPhone photo of himself posing with Hollande at a political rally a few months ago.
KARIM DRAME: (Speaking French)
BEARDSLEY: Hollande brought France in at exactly the right time says 55-year-old Karim, whose last name is also Drame. But Karim Drame, like others here, doesn't understand President Obama's hesitancy.
K. DRAME: (Through translator) All of Africa's disappointed in Obama. America spent billions fighting terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. There's no difference between the war against terrorists there and in Mali, yet he does nothing for us.
BEARDSLEY: People here say the fall of Moammar Gadhafi in Libya helped swell the number of militant Islamists in Mali. This tenement house, which houses about 400 Malians, is like a human beehive, humming with activity. In the central courtyard behind the market, blacksmiths hammer out traditional silver jewelry and in a large dining hall, a dozen women in traditional dress serve hot, home-cooked African meals.
There is rice, semoule, all kinds of sauces, chicken and even black-eyed peas, something I've never been able to find in France before. Thirty-five-year-old Mariam Traore is serving up plates. She's from the north of Mali, where the Islamists have taken control.
MARIAM TRAORE: (Through translator) They don't even consider women as human beings. They take away all our freedoms and they want us to cover our faces.
BEARDSLEY: Traore, who has been in France for five years, says it was a complete shock to come here and be free and at ease, but she worries about her family back home.
(SOUNDBITE OF CALL TO PRAYER)
BEARDSLEY: Suddenly, the Muslim call to prayer blares out through the dining room from speakers on the walls, but no one here pays any attention. They seem more interested in eating and watching a television in the back of the room.
Though Mali is a Muslim country, everyone here says theirs is a faith of respect and tolerance, nothing to do, they say, with the fanatics who are trying to take over their country. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
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President Obama has tapped a former prosecutor to take over at the Securities and Exchange Commission. That's a first. Mary Jo White has a record of high-profile convictions as a U.S. attorney in Manhattan and if she's confirmed, she would be the top cop on Wall Street.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: You don't want to mess with Mary Jo. As one former SEC chairman said, Mary Jo does not intimidate easily.
BLOCK: NPR's Ailsa Chang reports that White has a no-nonsense reputation, but little is known about her views on financial regulation.
AILSA CHANG, BYLINE: The Securities and Exchange Commission took a lot of heat for missing early clues about the financial crisis and Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. So in nominating someone like Mary Jo White, the White House is sending a message to Wall Street, watch yourself now or you will pay. White herself has said it: she's not one to back down.
MARY JO WHITE: Your job is to do the right thing in every situation. And I guess the phrase is that you, you know, you investigate and you prosecute without fear or favor.
CHANG: That's White talking about her former role as a U.S. attorney when she sat down for an interview two years ago with New York City's public radio station WNYC. She won fame prosecuting terrorists like Ramzi Yousef for the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and mobsters like John Gotti. But White said, when it comes to Wall Street, law enforcement can deter misconduct there more than anywhere else.
WHITE: You have a group of people and an industry that pays a lot of attention to what enforcement actions are brought in what areas. You know, what kinds of things get investigated, people pay attention to; what kinds of things get charged, people pay attention on Wall Street. So I think uniquely white-collar crime is susceptible to deterrence.
CHANG: But the SEC doesn't just crack down on bad behavior. It also issues regulations. It makes policy, and that's what worries some consumer advocates about White. They say they have no idea where she stands on the issues that have been most vexing to the SEC in the past couple years. Issues like the Volcker Rule, which largely bans banks from trading with their own funds. Barbara Roper is from the Consumer Federation of America.
BARBARA ROPER: I don't think there's ever been a case where we've known as little about an SEC chairman nominee as we do in this case.
CHANG: Part of that may be because White has played for both sides. Many lawyers do that. She's now a defense attorney at Debevoise & Plimpton, where she has represented big fish, like former Bank of America chief Ken Lewis. He was investigated for securities fraud. White's colleagues say the reason she's not readable now is because she's always been so independent. Tony Barkow, a former federal prosecutor in Manhattan, says White's someone who doesn't bend to political pressure.
TONY BARKOW: When she ran the Southern District of New York, it was one of, kind of, the high points of the office's reputation as the sovereign district of New York. And what that meant is that Mary Jo was fiercely independent even from main justice.
CHANG: Barkow says that reputation for independence was largely why White was chosen to investigate how financier Marc Rich got a last-minute pardon out of Bill Clinton. It meant going head to head with the president who appointed her. And then, when the Justice Department under George W. Bush had suddenly dismissed several U.S. attorneys, White testified on the importance of independence among federal prosecutors.
Preet Bharara, who's the current U.S. attorney in Manhattan, helped lead that congressional investigation. He remembers exchanging emails with White about the matter at 1 a.m. one night.
PREET BHARARA: And then, you know, normal people sleep at that time and sleep for a period of hours. She restarted the email exchange at 4 o'clock in the morning the next day. And it made me think, you know, what is it about this woman that allows her to defy the space-time continuum? Because, clearly, you know, the laws of physics and sleep requirements don't apply to her.
CHANG: At barely 5 feet tall, White is a bundle of energy. She often skips breakfast. And colleagues say she prepares monumentally for nearly everything because she doesn't like leaving anything to chance. But they point out a down-to-earth side too. White will take a beer over a glass of wine and loves to talk baseball, especially the Yankees. That's the thing, her friends say. She's a straightforward person with no hidden agenda, and Washington isn't used to people like that. Ailsa Chang, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The share of the U.S. workforce that belongs to a union has dropped to a 97-year low. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported yesterday that 11.3 percent of American workers belong to a union. That's down from 11.8 percent last year.
We are now incredibly far removed from the heyday of unionization, the 1950s, when over a third of private jobs were unionized. That figure is now down to 6.6 percent. Unionized America these days is public sector America, where 35.9 percent of workers belong to a union.
Well, joining us to talk about this now is Professor Anthony Carnevale, who runs the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University. Good to see you again.
ANTHONY CARNEVALE: Good to see you.
SIEGEL: Let's parse these numbers a little. There's a general trend of declining union membership, which I'd like to hear from you about. But first, there were two big drops this year, in Wisconsin and Indiana. Tell us about them.
CARNEVALE: In the case - in both cases, it's essentially legislative changes and changes in collective bargaining. That is, membership declined because of both budget cuts and a change in the rules of the game in those states. So, to some extent, those drops are a product of our politics, less a product of the way the economy is organized.
SIEGEL: But do those drops suggest that, as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce would have it, that if union members are permitted to leave and they're no longer hostage to a union shop, they will?
CARNEVALE: Sure. One of the harsh realities of organizing in a union is that if people can free-ride on a membership, they will.
SIEGEL: Why is the U.S. economy today so much less fertile ground for unions than it was, say, 50 years ago? What's the big difference?
CARNEVALE: The big difference, ultimately, resides in the economy itself. There was a day when if you wanted to organize workers, you - all you had to do is show up at the factories in America three times a day. There were three shifts. Shifts changed three times a day. You stood there and talked to the workers when they came out.
Then the second act in labor was the organization of the public employees. There, you didn't go to a factory, but there was a governor, a legislature, a county exec, a mayor. And they all had the same boss, so they were easy to organize.
There is no third act. There's nowhere to go anymore where you can get large numbers of workers. In Washington, D.C., where we live, if you wanted to organize the workers, the factory gate is really the subway. That's where they come out in the morning, but they go to thousands of different offices. You couldn't write thousands of agreements.
SIEGEL: But you're also - you're not looking for Joe Lunchbox anymore. You're looking for Joe Briefcase, who's going to work to a white-collar job. I'll put my cards on the table. I, like nearly all the people who work on this program and at this network, am a member of an AFL-CIO member union, which seems to be part of the problem. If I'm the face of organized labor, we're talking about the relatively comfortable middle class that's now in the unions, not the struggling workers.
CARNEVALE: Labor missed two other opportunities. One was there was always a coalition. The AFL-CIO, after all, was the AFL, which were skilled workers, and the CIO, which were unskilled. That coalition has collapsed long ago. The new skilled workers go to college and take a briefcase to work.
The second problem was that the AFL-CIO never reached out to the growing service economy, which was female and minority and diverse, and labor's had its problems with dealing with diversity and with women.
SIEGEL: Do you just assume this is an irreversible trend, that the heyday of unions is behind us or that something might happen to push the numbers up?
CARNEVALE: I hate to say so because it's part of my own history, but I think the bottom line is it's hard to organize. It's hard to find the people in one place with one boss that you can sign up. And what's happened as a result of that is that the government has become the union of last resort. This is where we fight out the issues. National health care is a bargaining issue. But it was a bargain - it is a bargain between the government and the private sector, not between bosses and workers.
SIEGEL: Tony Carnevale, thanks a lot for talking with us.
CARNEVALE: Thank you.
SIEGEL: Professor Anthony Carnevale runs the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block.
It's been more than a month since the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The horrific attack shocked the country and reignited a national debate about gun violence. But investigators have released little information that might explain a motive: What drove Adam Lanza to shoot and kill 20 first-graders and six educators, as well as his own mother, before taking his own life? As Jeff Cohen of member station WNPR reports, it looks as though formal answers won't come until summer.
JEFF COHEN, BYLINE: Governor Dannel Malloy sat in front of what's called the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission. It's a panel he assembled with the goal of coming up with public policy recommendations after Newtown. The focus is on mental health, public safety and guns. This was the commission's first meeting, and Malloy underscored the gravity of its purpose.
GOVERNOR DANNEL MALLOY: This is an extremely important commission report that each and every one of you will own for the rest of your lives.
COHEN: But the commission will also face a big hurdle. It probably won't have any more information than it does now about exactly what happened at Sandy Hook, nor will state lawmakers who are now in session and are looking to act. Stephen Sedensky lives in Newtown. He is also the state's attorney responsible for the investigation into what happened there on December 14th.
STEPHEN SEDENSKY: Our current estimate is that it will take several months for the state police portion of the criminal investigation to be completed. We are hoping for sometime this summer, perhaps in June.
COHEN: Once the state police are done, Sedensky says his job will be to decide if any prosecutions are warranted.
SEDENSKY: Though no such prosecution currently appears on the horizon, I am sure that you can appreciate that all leads need to be investigated and evidence examined before final decisions and statements are made. The families and the public deserve nothing less.
COHEN: There are a few details we do know. Adam Lanza's computer, which police reportedly found heavily damaged in the Lanzas' home after the shooting, is being analyzed by the FBI according to sources aware of the investigation. We also know that guns were legally purchased. And we know specifically which guns were used.
The state police recently issued a press release saying Lanza left a 12-gauge shotgun in his car. Inside the school were the Bushmaster rifle with a high-capacity magazine and two handguns. State police say Lanza killed his victims at the school with the rifle, and he killed himself with a handgun.
But none of that gets to Lanza's motive or to his mental state. And Sedensky says he likely won't be able to discuss Lanza's medical history with the commission at all because that information is protected by privacy laws. The commission also heard from former Colorado Governor Bill Ritter, who sat on a similar panel following the Columbine shootings in 1999. He said public policy recommendations are important. But he also said this.
BILL RITTER: When there's no criminal trial, when the perpetrators have taken their own life, in a sense, the commission becomes a place where people air their grievances, where they publicly grieve and just understand that they may be at a place where they're very angry, they may be at a place where they're very vulnerable. They may be at a place where they're still wrestling with why and how. And that's just the way it is.
COHEN: And Ritter says that means it's the commission's job to allow victims to be victims. For NPR news, I'm Jeff Cohen in Hartford.
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Boeing's flagship jetliner, the 787, has been stuck on the ground lately. The FAA and safety authorities around the world grounded the fleet after battery problems. And today we have an update on the investigation of a battery fire onboard a Japan Airlines 787 this month in Boston.
NPR's Wendy Kaufman has been following this story and joins us now for an update. And, Wendy, what did the National Transportation Safety Board have to say today?
WENDY KAUFMAN, BYLINE: What they had to say, Robert, was not good news for Boeing. This plane is going to be grounded for a long time. They still don't know what happened or why it happened. I should say there have been some expectations that we were going to hear something a little bit definitive today. But mostly, what we heard was all the things the Safety Board doesn't know or understand. The one thing we did hear over and over again was the Safety Board chairwoman Deborah Hersman saying what happened in Boston just should not have happened.
DEBORAH HERSMAN: We are very concerned. We do not expect to see fire events onboard aircrafts - onboard aircraft. This is a very serious air safety concern. The FAA has taken very serious action. And we are all responding to try to address what happened, why it happened, and to make sure that the aircraft that fly are safe.
SIEGEL: So the message here is all about what we don't know. What do we know about what happened?
KAUFMAN: We do know, and we've talked a lot about the fact that the battery used on the 787 were lithium-ion batteries. And they'd never been used on a commercial jet in the way they were used on this Boeing 787. The risk of fire with these batteries was well known. And indeed, as you know, the FAA impose special conditions before the agency would approve the battery for use. The battery was tested and retest and tested some more. But in this case, there was, in the Boston case, there was a fire. There were signs of what's described as thermal runaway. It's a high-temperature, uncontrolled chemical reaction between electrolytes and electrodes within the battery. There were also short circuits within the electrical system.
Now, of course, the, you know $64,000 question is why. Was there a manufacturing defect in the battery? Was the battery contaminated in some way? Was the battery charger defective? Was the electrical system software faulty? Was there a problem with the wiring bundle? I mean, you can see there's just a lot of questions still to be answered here.
SIEGEL: But even after the flaw is discovered, aren't there supposed to be fail-safe mechanisms to cope with that and prevent things like a fire?
KAUFMAN: Yeah. Of course, there are. And the NTSB was really pretty harsh about that. She said basically, you know, you would expect that there would've been fail-safe mechanisms in place that would've prevented it from happening in the first place. But even once the event started to unfold, there should have been a mechanism to basically shut that battery down. And that didn't happen. I mean, they just - they don't know.
SIEGEL: Now you have been talking about the battery on the Japan Airlines plane in Boston. But what do we know about the battery problem on the other jet, the one that made an emergency landing in Japan?
KAUFMAN: Well, what we do know was that that battery also suffered some severe damage. We know there was smoke and fumes in the cabin and the flight deck of the - air traffic controllers reported there was smoke coming out of the front of the plane as it made its emergency landing, pretty scary stuff. So we don't know what happened there, except there was a severe battery problem there. The U.S. authorities and the Japanese authorities are working together very, very closely. And we don't know if these problems are related.
SIEGEL: So what happens next, and how long will this likely take?
KAUFMAN: The NTSB is working with NASA, with the Naval Research group. It's been studying batteries for a long time. It's working with Boeing, with the Japanese battery maker, with the French firm that supplied the electrical system. They say they've got all hands on deck. But this could take a really long time. They have to figure out what went wrong. And then Boeing has to come up with a fix, and then the FAA has to certify it, and everybody is going to be, you know, pretty much under the gun here. But it could take a long time.
SIEGEL: OK. Thank you, Wendy.
KAUFMAN: Thank you, Robert.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Wendy Kaufman in Seattle.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.
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And I'm Robert Siegel.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta is set to leave his job at the Pentagon, and it seems he saved one very big initiative for his final days. Panetta has ordered an end to the ban on women in ground combat. And that, he says, could open tens of thousands of jobs to women in the military.
SECRETARY LEON PANETTA: The bottom line is that further integration of women will occur expeditiously.
SIEGEL: Secretary Panetta gave the Armed Services until mid-May to submit detailed plans about how they'll implement the change.
In a few moments, we'll hear from a woman who filed suit against the Pentagon to end the rule about women in combat. That's after this report on today's announcement by NPR's Tom Bowman.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Secretary Panetta announced the decision at the Pentagon, seated next to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Martin Dempsey. And Dempsey recalled his time as a commander in Iraq in 2003. One day he hopped into a Humvee and slapped the leg of the soldier standing above him and manning the turret machine gun.
GENERAL MARTIN DEMPSEY: And I said, who are you, and she leaned down and said, I'm Amanda. And I said, oh, OK.
(LAUGHTER)
DEMPSEY: So female turret gunner protecting division commander. And it's from that point on that I realized something had changed.
BOWMAN: Now, the Pentagon wants to change even more, opening up jobs that have been barred to women in the infantry, armor and artillery fields, nearly all in the Army and Marine Corps.
Secretary Panetta made clear that he would not be lowering any standards in opening up jobs to women.
PANETTA: Not everyone is going to be able to be a combat soldier, but everyone is entitled to a chance.
BOWMAN: And the secretary said the services will now determine which physical requirements both men and women must meet.
PANETTA: If they can meet the qualification for the job, then they should have the right to serve, regardless of creed or color or gender or sexual orientation.
BOWMAN: Now, the question comes down to what qualifications are needed for each ground combat job. Figuring out standards that are fair but don't lower the quality of the force could prove a challenge. The Marine Corps, for example, has a grueling 12-week course for officers, a prerequisite for leading infantry units.
The first two women tried to make it through the course last year and failed. No other women have tried the course since, and a defense official said the standards would not change. But General Dempsey said that as the services work to include women, officials will question whether some standards are too high.
DEMPSEY: If we do decide that a particular standard is so high that a woman couldn't make it, the burden is now on the service to come back and explain to the secretary why is it that high? Does it really have to be that high? With the direct combat exclusion provision in place, we never had to have that conversation.
BOWMAN: The services can seek special exceptions that would continue to bar women from certain jobs, most likely Green Berets or Navy SEALS, which demand especially rigorous training. That exception would require the personal approval of the defense secretary.
While the joint chiefs have all signed off on the plan, there is some grumbling in the ranks. Former Marine infantryman Ryan Smith, writing in the Wall Street Journal, wondered whether women could make it in the dirty and dismal world of combat. But many already have.
Air Force Major Mary Jennings Hegar served in Afghanistan. She filed suit to overturn the combat exclusion policy for women.
MAJOR MARY JENNINGS HEGAR: Big picture, I would like for people to be making choices based on capability instead of gender.
BOWMAN: In 2009, Major Hegar's helicopter crashed. She was wounded but shielded other Americans and fired on the Taliban. She earned the Distinguished Flying Cross with valor and a Purple Heart. Later, she wanted a job as a combat controller, working on the ground with infantry units and calling in air strikes. She didn't get it. That job was closed to women.
Tom Bowman, NPR News, Washington.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Joining us now to talk about that decision is Colonel Ellen Haring, who's had a 28-year career with the Army. She's one of two women who filed the first lawsuit against the Pentagon to reverse the ban on women in combat.
Colonel Haring, welcome to the program.
COLONEL ELLEN HARING: Thank you.
BLOCK: And first, your reaction to this announcement from Secretary Panetta.
HARING: Well, I was stunned and then ecstatic. I think that all of us who have worked so hard to make this happen, we're just thrilled and just in shock, really surprised that it happened when it did. And we were concerned yesterday that there might be some caveats, but it sounds today like they plan to open everything to women.
BLOCK: Assuming they can meet a certain standard, yeah.
HARING: Right, of course, and that's all anybody ever asked for. Nobody ever asked for special considerations or reduced standards, just let us compete at the standards as they exist.
BLOCK: When you talk to some of the members of the military, do they share your view? Are you hearing any hesitation?
HARING: I'd say 98 percent share my view. There's a tiny percentage who don't. But largely, I'm hearing from supporters or people that are really - see this as a really positive change.
BLOCK: I understand you have a daughter who's a lieutenant in the Army. Is that right?
HARING: I do.
BLOCK: And how does she feel about this?
(LAUGHTER)
HARING: That's funny that you ask. I talked to her about it yesterday, and she's very excited about it happening. She's a little...
(LAUGHTER)
HARING: ...concerned about possible blowback in her direction - her mother stepping out and doing this. But she's really proud that I did it even though, you know, as a young lieutenant you're in a much more vulnerable position in the military. So having her name associated with this, which is also why many of the younger women that we were considering with the lawsuit, eventually we didn't include because they were just in a more vulnerable position.
BLOCK: You do hear this from people on your side who say women should be allowed to have combat positions in the military, that not letting them do that prevents them from advancing in the ranks. Does that ring true in your experience? Can you think of things you were not allowed to pursue specifically because you didn't have combat experience?
HARING: Well, yes. So I graduated from West Point in 1984 and all the combat branches were pretty much off-limits to me and my fellow female classmates. And what's not readily apparent is that when you get in the higher ranks, almost all the highest positions all the general officers are pulled from - actually, 80 percent is the percentage - are pulled from those combat specialties that women are excluded from holding.
And so, the result is that women at the senior levels of leadership in the Army comprise only 4 percent of our generals, even though we hold about 16 percent of the positions. You don't realize it when you first come on active duty and in the early years of your career. And, in fact, I didn't know it until recently that our chances, women's chances are almost zero to make it into the general officer pool relative to our male counterparts.
BLOCK: And do you feel that in the overall attitude as well?
HARING: Well, yes. I do think that there's an attitude that because we don't perform the core missions of the military - the combat missions - that we're not valued equally to our male counterparts.
BLOCK: Secretary Panetta today said he thinks this will make the military stronger. But, of course, opponents have real concerns about unit cohesion, about privacy. They say standards inevitably are going to be lowered and that the military will be weakened. What would you say to them?
HARING: Well, I strongly agree with the secretary that this will strengthen our military. I don't think that anybody plans to reduce any standards. And we've done a very good job as we've opened previous positions to women, for instance, the female fighter pilots. We didn't change any standards. We held standards the same, and they performed and continue to perform extremely well.
So as far as reducing standards or lowering standards, I don't see that happening. I think women will be required to meet the same standards and they'll perform extremely well at that.
BLOCK: And as the mother of a young lieutenant in the Army, you wouldn't have qualms about her signing up for a combat position?
HARING: I would definitely have qualms with my son or my daughter signing up for combat positions. And I have two sons also. But I don't think you can place more value on one of your children versus the other simply because of their gender. So, like I said, I've got a daughter and two sons, I don't - I would be worried about all of them.
BLOCK: Yeah. Well, Colonel Haring, it's good to talk to you. Thank you so much.
HARING: Thank you.
BLOCK: That's Colonel Ellen Haring. She is one of two women who filed the first lawsuit against the Pentagon seeking to overturn the ban on women in combat.
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Prosecutors in California say they're looking into newly released files about abusive priests. The files were kept by the Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles. The prosecutors are not yet saying whether they may try to build a case against church officials for covering up evidence of abuse.
As NPR's Tovia Smith reports, victims are calling for criminal prosecution of the retired leader of the archdiocese, Cardinal Roger Mahony.
TOVIA SMITH, BYLINE: Documents released this week paint a vivid picture of church leaders shuffling around priests suspected of sexual abuse - sometimes out of the country - to duck legal action. Notes also show them steering abusive priests away from therapists required to report to police. In one 2002 memo, Cardinal Mahony insisted a case be kept quiet so as not to, quote, "open up another firestorm."
ANTHONY DEMARCO: I was - even after working on these files for as long as I have - still surprised to see how express those intents were.
SMITH: Victims' attorney Anthony DeMarco says the files show church leaders knew they were helping to cover up a crime, and he says they need to be held accountable. He concedes that the statute of limitations makes it hard to bring charges like child endangerment, obstruction of justice or conspiracy. But as Barbara Dorris, from the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, puts it: Prosecutors just need to get more creative.
BARBARA DORRIS: If you got Al Capone on tax evasion, prosecutors can find a way to prosecute this criminal behavior. There has to be a way.
SMITH: One way might be perjury. John Manley, attorney for another abuse victim, deposed Cardinal Mahony in a civil suit in 2010.
(SOUNDBITE OF TAPE)
SMITH: Manley says Cardinal Mahony's own memo proves it, but the cardinal's attorneys reject any suggestion of perjury.
J. MICHAEL HENNIGAN: I don't think you're going to find any crimes here.
SMITH: Attorney J. Michael Hennigan says no one failed to report for fear of scandal. Church leaders, he says, simply didn't see it as their role. In a statement this week, Mahony apologized for, quote, "ignorance, bad decisions and moral failings." And while the cardinal took, quote, "full responsibility for his failure to fully protect children," Hennigan says that's different from committing a crime.
HENNIGAN: There was never any action that intentionally put children in harm's way. There were naive, sometimes, efforts to correct the problem that then inadvertently put children in harm's way, but that's the difference between civil and criminal liability.
SMITH: The first case of a church higher-up in the U.S. being convicted of a crime for covering up abuse was just six months ago, when Monsignor William Lynn in Philadelphia was sentenced to three to six years in prison for child endangerment. The second case came some six weeks later, when Bishop Robert Finn of Kansas City was convicted of a misdemeanor for failing to report suspected abuse.
MARCI HAMILTON: Once those two convictions were announced, you knew that we were in a new era.
SMITH: That's Cardozo Law School professor Marci Hamilton.
HAMILTON: The story was really about if you put children at risk whether you're the abuser or the institution, you're going to go to jail.
SMITH: More documents covering more recent cases of abuse will be released in coming days, possibly giving prosecutors a better opening to pursue charges. Victims say even the possibility represents progress. As one recalled, 10 years ago in Boston, it was considered out there to be demanding just the resignation of Cardinal Bernard Law. Back then, as she puts it, even I wondered if we were being too extreme.
Tovia Smith, NPR News.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.
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And I'm Melissa Block.
It is January, and it is cold in much of the country. In New York tonight, the temperature is supposed to hit the low teens, and that's especially hard for many people who are still without heat after Hurricane Sandy. More than 8,000 homes and businesses are without power in the Rockaway section of Queens. And as Stephen Nessen reports from member station WNYC, people there are relying on creative and sometimes dangerous ways to stay warm.
(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD)
STEPHEN NESSEN, BYLINE: At a bodega in Rockaway Park, residents grab dollar coffees, swap stories and try to stay warm. Louis DeCarolis' family lives in this dust-swept stretch of Queens just a block from the ocean. His son and grandkids are living without heat. So how do they survive? The oven.
LOUIS DECAROLIS: He's piled everybody into the kitchen. We put a sheet up over the kitchen door, and we use the oven. And that's where the three dogs, the wife, my ex-wife, I mean, my son, my daughter-in-law and both my grandkids sleep. Yeah, I know it's pretty rough, man, since Sandy hit us.
NESSEN: Down the block is a drycleaners, one of the few open in this area. Owner Xiao Mei Zhang and her 20-month-year-old son are bundled in quilted jackets. It's below freezing in here.
XIAO MEI ZHANG: No heat, no electric.
NESSEN: OK.
ZHANG: Right now, I can't do anything.
NESSEN: The thermometer above her door confirms it's 20 degrees indoors. She uses a generator that's slurping $40 worth of gas a day. She's still waiting for the landlord to restore heat and power.
ZHANG: I don't know what he do. He says you need to wait, maybe one month, maybe two months. I don't know. Still, I need to pay bills, yeah. I don't know. It drives me crazy.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR HORN)
NESSEN: Follow the white contractor vans down the street, and you see they're fixing one house at a time, but not Alex Ocasio's.
ALEX OCASIO: The landlord pretty much has nothing to say other than he wants rent, and we want utilities, and so that's the standstill we're at.
NESSEN: While Ocasio has power, he has no heat. His neighbors have no heat or electricity. The Long Island Power Authority says it can't restore power until owners obtain proper electrical certificates. Meanwhile, residents of the Rockaways continue to brace for more frigid weather.
For NPR News, I'm Stephen Nessen in New York.
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Heat is a problem in Greece, too, this winter. The issue there is not a literal storm, but an economic one. Greece is entering its sixth year of recession. And with the government adding a hefty tax to heating oil, many newly impoverished Greeks can't afford to stay warm.
NPR's Sylvia Poggioli tells us how some Greeks are turning to desperate measures.
SYLVIA POGGIOLI, BYLINE: Athenians come to the top of Lycabettus Hill for the best panoramic view of their city, but on these cold winter nights, a forgotten nemesis has returned. The nefos, a black cloud of smog, looms over the city as it did decades ago when Greek cars spouted billows of smelly, black exhaust.
JOHN LAPAZANIS: I smell it. I can't do anything else but smell it.
POGGIOLI: John Lapazanis runs the Lycabettus kiosk that's been in his family for 38 years.
LAPAZANIS: In my neighborhood also smells too much. I live far from here. I believe all Athens smells burning wood.
POGGIOLI: Burning wood has increasingly become a major source of household heating. Heating oil became prohibitive after the government raised the price of a liter from 95 cents a year ago to $1.76 today.
(SOUNDBITE OF CASH REGISTER)
POGGIOLI: Business is brisk at this warehouse where chopped wood is sold. Owner Gyorgas Petrakis says most of his customers used to buy just a few logs and just occasionally.
GYORGAS PETRAKIS: (Through Translator) But my clients tell me personally these days when they meet me that now they do it just to get a bit warm. So in the past, it was for the coziness, and now, it's for survival.
POGGIOLI: On very cold days, air pollution in Athens has been measured at three times above the danger level. It's even worse in some parts of northern Greece where temperatures are much lower. The Greek health ministry has started warning citizens of the dangers of wood burning. Stefanos Sabatakakis, environmental health official at the Hellenic Center for Disease Control and Prevention, says the effects of surging air pollution are already present.
STEFANOS SABATAKAKIS: The first symptoms that people have mentioned is inflammation of their eyes, difficulty of breathing, along with nausea and headaches.
POGGIOLI: Sabatakakis says those most susceptible are children, pregnant women, old people and people with breathing and heart problems. Three years of austerity imposed by Greece's international lenders, known as the Troika, have had devastating economic and social effects. Unemployment is at a record 25 percent, and economic output has dropped 20 percent. The numbers of newly poor are soaring. It's not just wood that's being burned but just about everything, including books, newspapers and plastic whose chemical components are released into the atmosphere. Health officer Sabatakakis says the paradox is that it's happening in some of the city's best neighborhoods, like Vrilissia.
SABATAKAKIS: And I live there, so I see it with my own eyes, and upper- and middle-class people who live in Vrilissia are the ones who are mostly struck by the economic crisis. As a result, people at these kind of suburbs who are not accustomed to burn firewood suddenly start burning it. That's how smog is caused.
POGGIOLI: Tasos Krommydas, spokesman for the Green Party, says the black cloud of smog is the most recent and most visible consequence of the impact budget-cutting measures have had on the environment. He says the huge increase in demand for firewood has led to a surge of illegal logging. But more importantly, Krommydas says, austerity has led to the dismantling of decades of environmental legislation. So-called green funds, he says, are being channeled away from the environment to cover the national debt.
TASOS KROMMYDAS: It's a typical example of the austerity, and the fiscal consolidation is decreasing the protection of the environment.
POGGIOLI: Already last year in a letter to the European Union, the global conservation organization World Wildlife Fund highlighted a series of significant environmental setbacks resulting from the austerity measures. Among these, the bypassing of environmental impact assessments for new investments, the legalization of illegal construction in protected areas and hasty and uncontrolled sale of public lands. Again, Tasos Krommydas.
KROMMYDAS: As a result of the crisis, the environmental protection has - in Greece has gone decades back, a development model that no longer has the environment as a criterion.
POGGIOLI: Environmentalists are most worried about the controversial Canadian project for an open-pit gold mine in a virgin forest in northern Greece. A decade ago, the Supreme Court ruled the project's environmental damage outweighed the potential profit. That view no longer holds.
Sylvia Poggioli, NPR News, Athens.
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For two decades, a music teacher, from a small town in southern Italy has been hunting for and resurrecting the music of the dead. Francesco Lotoro has found thousands of songs, symphonies and operas written by prisoners in the Nazi's many POW, labor and concentration camps. His mission, as NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports, is twofold: to fill the hole that the Holocaust created in Europe's musical history and to show how art can thrive even in the worst conditions.
SYLVIA POGGIOLI, BYLINE: Francesco Lotoro lives in a modest ground-floor apartment on the outskirts of the small Adriatic town of Barletta. The self-effacing music teacher has embarked on a solitary quest. Since his first visit to a concentration camp in 1991, he has travelled from his native Italy to more than a dozen countries, searching through old bookshops and archives, and interviewing Holocaust survivors. He has collected 4,000 pieces - original scores and copies of compositions - some scribbled on scraps of paper and even newsprint.
His home is filled with bookshelves, and musical scores are piled high. Lotoro believes that whenever a human being is deported and imprisoned, music is born.
FRANCESCO LOTORO: I think it's an almost automatic response to a situation of detention. They wanted to leave a testament. They leave to us music.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NONETT")
POGGIOLI: Lotoro moves over to his piano and plays an excerpt from "Nonett," a composition for nine instruments the Czech composer Rudolf Karel wrote in Prague's Pankrac prison.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NONETT")
LOTORO: There is like a telegraph - di-di-ti-ti di-di-ti-ti. At a certain moment, I imagine that this is a Morse code.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NONETT")
POGGIOLI: As an anti-Nazi political prisoner, Karel was a not allowed access to note paper, but he was able to use toilet paper for his compositions. He died at the Terezin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia in 1945. Decades later, Lotoro was able to track down pieces of the original score and has reconstructed it for the first time since Karel conceived it. Some compositions were smuggled out and preserved by survivors. Others were simply found after the camps were liberated.
Lotoro's mission, to find the lost music of the Holocaust, was one reason he converted to Judaism in 2004. He later learned his great-grandfather was Jewish. Lotoro has arranged and recorded 400 works. A selection was released last year in a box set of 24 CDs called "Encyclopedia of Concentration Camp Music." The compositions he has resurrected were written in conditions of intense suffering. In this work by Viktor Ullmann, Lotoro senses the composer's anguish at not having enough time to complete his work.
LOTORO: Viktor Ullmann.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LOTORO: Also, here we have a sense of urgency.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
POGGIOLI: Ullmann studied with Arnold Schoenberg and has long been recognized as a prominent composer. Confinement in the Terezin camp made him prolific. In captivity, he composed more than 20 operas. Lotoro quotes from an essay left by Ullmann before he was moved to Auschwitz where he died in the gas chambers in 1944.
LOTORO: By no means did we sit weeping on the banks of the waters of Babylon, and our endeavor with respect to arts was commensurate with our will to live.
POGGIOLI: The Third Reich banned the performance of all Jewish music, from Mendelssohn to cabaret. But at the camps - with the notable exception of the extermination camps - musicians were allowed a degree of artistic freedom. The Terezin camp was unique. It was ghetto, concentration and transit camp all in one that the Nazis used as a cultural showcase to deceive the Red Cross and for propaganda purposes. Terezin, Lotoro says, became a crossroads of contemporary music before its inmates were transferred to the gas chambers. The same day Viktor Ullmann was killed, a dozen other prominent musicians were also gassed.
LOTORO: In a few hours in Auschwitz, an entire generation of musicians, composers, famous piano virtuosos, the fifth column of the Jewish musical elite of Central and Eastern Europe disappeared.
POGGIOLI: The compositions rescued by Lotoro cover the entire musical range - classical, folk, swing and some disconcertingly lively tunes.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
POGGIOLI: This cabaret song was written in a camp in Riga by a 19-year-old Lithuanian Jew, Ljova Berniker. Its carefree tone belies lyrics describing the miserable treatment of Jews in the camp. Berniker died of exhaustion at the Stutthof camp in Poland in April 1945. Bret Werb, curator of music at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, says it's not surprising prisoners could write upbeat tunes.
BRET WERB: For them, time had pretty much stopped at the time of their incarceration, and music became a great escape hatch for them. There are really hundreds if not thousands of topical songs, original songs, in the style of light music, cabaret music, and so this is what these young people had in their heads.
POGGIOLI: Not all the music composed in captivity was the result of free expression. The Nazis often corralled musician inmates into orchestras at camps like Auschwitz and ordered them to perform while other prisoners were marched out for forced labor, or they forced inmates to write compositions.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
POGGIOLI: At the Sobibor camp in Poland, when a cobbler named Shaul Flajszhakier of Lublin refused to beat other prisoners, he was beaten and ordered by the Nazi commandant to compose a song praising the camp's living conditions. According to Yiddish scholars, the word fahijad in this song could be a disguised expletive to hide its meaning from the German guards. In many cases, compositions were never written down, but the melodies and lyrics were passed on from prisoner to prisoner.
In Israel, Lotoro tracked down the words of a tune that had been sung by women prisoners. Esther Refael, a Jew from the Greek island of Corfu, remembered by heart the lyrics written by her fellow Auschwitz inmate Frida Misul.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
POGGIOLI: Writing here in Italian, the singer Frida Misul penned scathing new lyrics to the tune of what was then a popular polka, and the women prisoners in block 31 defied the Nazi ban and sang that one day they would take their vengeance on the brutal guards at Auschwitz. Here in the town of Barletta, after two decades hunting for the lost music of the Holocaust, Francesco Lotoro is now deeply in debt, but he's determined to carry on what he sees as his life's mission: to right a historical wrong and help rewrite the history of 20th century European music. He also wants to demonstrate that the creative mind cannot be imprisoned even in conditions of brutality.
LOTORO: The artist is able to separate the external situation from the creativity that belongs to the mind, to the heart.
POGGIOLI: Sylvia Poggioli, NPR News.
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And I'm Melissa Block. We begin this hour with a number - 349. That's how many service members, both active duty and reservists, took their own lives last year. The Army has been the branch hardest hit by suicide, and soldiers seem to be most hazardous to themselves not when they're deployed, but when they're home. So that's where additional psychiatrists are now being deployed. Blake Farmer, of member station WPLN, has the story from Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
BLAKE FARMER, BYLINE: When Sgt. Brandon McCoy returned from Iraq, he showed signs of post-traumatic stress disorder, on edge in public.
ALICIA MCCOY: I'm watching him, and his trigger finger never stopped moving - constantly.
FARMER: McCoy's wife, Alicia, says after returning from a tour in Afghanistan, she'd wake up with his hands wrapped around her throat. She told him: Get help, or get a divorce. So he scheduled an appointment and along with Alicia, trekked to the Fort Campbell hospital located on the Tennessee-Kentucky border.
MCCOY: I sat there and watched this person ask my husband: Do you feel like hurting yourself today? No, sir. Do you feel like hurting anybody else today? No, sir. And I went, are you kidding me?
FARMER: Brandon McCoy was given sleeping pills and antidepressants. But more than a year later, he was found dead in a west Tennessee motel room, with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.
MCCOY: I wear his dog tags every day.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOG TAGS CLINKING TOGETHER)
MCCOY: They were hanging on the rearview mirror in his car. It is what it is. I can't change what happened.
FARMER: But Alicia McCoy says more could have been done. The Army has admitted to being overwhelmed by this multiyear mental health crisis, and concedes a shortage of counselors and psychiatrists. But a recent hiring spree has helped with that, and psychiatrists are now being deployed to the front lines of the suicide fight - Army posts. And instead of locating in the post hospital, they're setting up shop where soldiers live and work.
ARMY MAJ. ASHLEY CHATIGNY: The DFAC, that's where all the soldiers go and eat; kind of dorm-looking things are barracks.
FARMER: Major Ashley Chatigny heads a counseling team situated in a place that soldiers with the 101st Airborne's 4th Brigade walk by every day. As a Blackhawk helicopter flies overhead, Chatigny says soldiers can drop in for a chat any morning, without an appointment. Maybe they'll see someone they know, and that's OK. After a decade of war, everyone's got cumulative stress.
CHATIGNY: It's almost like a street credibility. You know, you bring your buddy in, and you kind of see that there's really nothing to be afraid of.
FARMER: While having what are known as embedded counselors isn't new when soldiers are deployed, it is when they return from war. And since the homefront is where so many suicides occur, the Army is trying these embedded teams stateside, too. Fort Carson, Colo., was the first and now, more than half a dozen posts are following suit. Chatigny calls it primary care for the brain.
CHATIGNY: I mean, we say the heart attack of psychiatry is a suicide, and that if we can prevent - right, just like with hypertension or high cholesterol - prevent them from actually having this disorder for a long time, we can prevent a heart attack. possibly.
FARMER: There's a term used when counselors or chaplains have to swoop in to rescue a suicidal soldier. It's called a diving catch. Fort Campbell's head psychiatrist, Joe Wise, says there have been fewer since mental health teams began rubbing elbows with this brigade.
ARMY MAJ. JOE WISE: That's what we're seeing, as we stand up the embedded teams - is, we're able to prevent more of these diving catches.
FARMER: Wise concedes it's too early to give all the credit to this effort at making psychiatrists more familiar faces around Fort Campbell. But the post has tried it all - hotlines, buddy systems, and training for spouses. In 2009, all combat preparation stopped for days, just to focus on suicide prevention. Alicia McCoy's husband sat through those special briefings, and knew the warning signs. Military suicide numbers will determine whether the latest prevention efforts are effective.
For NPR News, I'm Blake Farmer in Nashville.
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And I'm Melissa Block. The play "Doubt," about a priest suspected of sexually abusing a child, won a Pulitzer and a Tony. As a movie, four of its actors earned Oscar nominations. Well, this weekend, "Doubt" gets its world premiere as an opera. Minnesota Public Radio's Euan Kerr reports, the creator of all three says this just might be his story's fullest telling.
EUAN KERR, BYLINE: As the opera opens, Father Flynn leads his congregation in mass and in asking a question which will come back to haunt him.
(SOUNDBITE FROM OPERA "DOUBT")
KERR: The question is the basis of his sermon, but it becomes the theme of the story, as suspicions arise about his relationship with one of the altar boys. John Patrick Shanley admits he was dubious when composer Douglas Cuomo first suggested he adapt this unsettling story for opera.
JOHN PATRICK SHANLEY: Being a mook from the Bronx, my initial attitude towards opera was like Bugs Bunny's, why are those people singing that way?
KERR: But today, Shanley, who wrote the screenplay for the movie based on his original play, and now the libretto for the opera, sees things differently.
SHANLEY: With opera, I have a new set of materials available to me in addition to the ones that I've employed so far. And so I took the materials of film and of stage and of music, and can tell an ever more three-dimensional story and that's a fun and compelling challenge.
KERR: Shanley's collaborators credit the musicality of his writing style for making it such a natural fit for opera. Composer Douglas Cuomo says he still had the challenge of coming up with a score which produces a sense of unease, of doubt. Is Father Flynn innocent or guilty? Cuomo creates an extra edge by playing with tonality.
DOUGLAS CUOMO: Sometimes, it's just a matter of adding just even one note to kind of unsettle some more sort of traditional-sounding major chord. You add a note that's not in the chord. And so you get a sense of familiarity, because here's a nice, you know, C major chord, but there's also this other note that doesn't belong in there. And so you have these two things happening at once that together add up to something that's slightly unsettling and slightly off-kilter.
(SOUNDBITE FROM OPERA "DOUBT")
KERR: The overall result is what John Patrick Shanley calls a "Hitchcockian" score.
SHANLEY: That takes the best of the two previous mediums and adds to it this whole crayon box of audio color and it becomes something, a third thing, and maybe the most beautiful thing.
(SOUNDBITE FROM OPERA "DOUBT")
KERR: The combination of music, words and story has sparked some doubt in the Minnesota Opera's cast. Soprano Christine Brewer sings the role of Sister Aloysius, the school principal who becomes Father Flynn's accuser. Brewer is a former teacher herself and says she's seen the play a couple of times. The first time, she came away feeling he was guilty.
CHRISTINE BREWER: And the next time I thought, wow, maybe not, you know. And certainly to play this role, I have to believe he's guilty.
(SOUNDBITE FROM OPERA "DOUBT")
KERR: Another key role is Mrs. Miller, the mother of the boy at the center of the firestorm of suspicion. Mezzo-soprano Denyce Graves plays that role. Coming out of a rehearsal, Graves said on that particular day she believed the priest might be guilty. But as an actor, she has to convey how her character is torn between what may have happened to her son and the need to get him through the school year and on to better things.
DENYCE GRAVES: I think the fact that also she is an African-American is an important layer in this story. She's dealing with a lot here and trying to hold everybody together, and herself included.
KERR: When asked directly, John Patrick Shanley says he doesn't know whether Father Flynn is guilty, but he does know that the operatic form allows the shades of gray in the story to come through.
SHANLEY: Two people in the scene can be at complete disagreement, but on musical terms they are very much in agreement. And that's a fascinating, different kind of a subtext for me. It's sort of like, in other words, we may on the face of it differ on many things, but we very much inhabit the same world with the same laws of the universe.
KERR: John Patrick Shanley says he wants to do more opera, including an operatic adaptation of one of his early screenplays, "Moonstruck." For NPR News, I'm Euan Kerr in St. Paul.
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And I'm Melissa Block. A Food and Drug Administration panel has endorsed new restrictions on Vicodin and similar prescription painkillers. This is a recommendation, not yet policy. Supporters say the new restrictions are needed to fight rising abuse of these drugs. Addiction to painkillers is widespread, and there are thousands of overdose deaths every year.
But there are those who oppose limiting access to these drugs; among them, some doctors and their patients who suffer from debilitating pain. NPR's Rob Stein joins us now to explain the debate and today's vote. And Rob, the DEA and others call prescription painkiller abuse an epidemic in this country. How big a problem is it and who, exactly, is abusing these drugs?
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: It's really two different kinds of patients. One of them are patients who get prescribed these drugs for legitimate medical reasons. They have an operation, or they have back pain, and they end up getting addicted; these drugs can be highly addictive. And the second group are people who are just kind of looking to get high - you know, teenagers who are rummaging through their parents' medicine cabinets - and they start taking these drugs, and they get addicted.
And everybody agrees that it's a really big problem that's getting a lot worse. There are millions of people who are estimated to abuse these drugs, and millions who are addicted. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates there are at least 15,000 deaths from overdoses occurring every year, and that's more than cocaine and heroin combined.
BLOCK: Now, we mentioned Vicodin as one of these drugs, but that's not the only drug that they're talking about here, right?
STEIN: Right. They're talking about any drug that includes hydrocodone - that's an opioid, with another product that - they're called combination hydrocodone products. And there are lots of products like this that - on the market. They have names like Lortab. And their - estimate is that there are about 136 million prescriptions written for these every year, and that's the most widely prescribed prescription drug of any kind.
BLOCK: Now, what does the Drug Enforcement Agency want to happen with these drugs?
STEIN: Right. What they want to happen is, they want these drugs put in the same legal category as other prescription painkillers, like Oxycontin and Percocet. And that would have fairly wide-scale implications. It would have all sorts of new restrictions; including, for example, doctors would be limited in how much of the pills they could prescribe at any one prescription. And certain medical professionals, like physician assistants and nurse practitioners, would no longer be able to prescribe these drugs.
BLOCK: We mentioned, Rob, that some doctors and their patients are quite concerned about this. What is their concern, exactly?
STEIN: The concern is that there are an estimated 100 million Americans out there who suffer from chronic pain. And this can be quite debilitating. These are people who have terrible pain all day long - never goes away - and they are really dependent on these drugs to exist, to function on a daily basis. And they're worried that these restrictions really could make it difficult - if not impossible - for them to get drugs they need. It could mean that they could not afford the extra visits to the doctor that they would need; that some doctors may just stop prescribing them because they're afraid of getting into trouble with the DEA; or insurance companies might stop paying for them.
BLOCK: And what do the people who are pushing for the restrictions say to that?
STEIN: What they say is that, you know, if a doctor has a patient who really needs these drugs, they still could get them the drugs. They'd still be able to prescribe them. They could do things like give them several prescriptions at one time, that are dated in the future. So they couldn't fill it all at once, but they could - when they run out, they could fill the next one and then the next one.
BLOCK: OK. Well, the FDA was hearing this today. What happened at that hearing?
STEIN: You know, I've covered a lot of these hearings; and this was one of the most intense, one of the most emotional hearings that I've actually encountered. You know, there were the usual experts - the pain specialists, the addiction specialists, the government officials. But then there were - lots of testimony from individual patients; you know, parents who lost their children through overdoses and, you know, recounted the stories, and they were crying, and very angry and upset; and also, lots of pain patients who were describing what it's like to live with this terrible pain, and the fears that they had, that what they would do if they just couldn't get the drugs they needed?
But in the end, the committee voted fairly lopsided - 19 to 10 - to endorse the new restrictions; and they decided that the benefits of that would outweigh the risks.
BLOCK: OK. NPR's Rob Stein. Rob, thanks so much.
STEIN: Oh, sure. Thanks for having me.
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A rush is on among new mothers to buy a big ticket item that is suddenly free. Breast pumps are now 100 percent covered by health insurance. That's thanks to a provision tucked inside the Affordable Care Act. As NPR's Zoe Chace of our Planet Money team explains, a gift like this can come with some unexpected consequences.
ZOE CHACE, BYLINE: First thing, and this part is obvious, when something that used to cost you hundreds of dollars is now available for free, a lot more people want to get one.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
AMANDA COLE: Ringing. It's a little crazy.
CHACE: Meet Amanda Cole, the CEO of Yummy Mummy. Her store specializes in breastfeeding and her life has totally changed because of this new provision. Just in the last few weeks, because so many people are ordering breast pumps...
AMANDA COLE: We are opening a call center. We now have a warehouse in Illinois. We're doubling the number of employees, like within a two-week time frame, doubling the number of employees we have.
CHACE: Yummy Mummy now takes your insurance. This little boutique on New York's Upper East Side has become a health care provider/online superstore. Business is booming. The assistant manager is boxing up breast pumps to ship across the country. Behind her, the women who now sit on the phone all day dealing only with insurance requests...
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: I can definitely take all the information right now, call Aetna and verify your coverage.
CHACE: So breast pump coverage in the new health care law makes things crazy for new breast pump sellers. Some of her competitors are totally sold out. Things are also different for another group, new moms. Take Caroline Shany, Yummy Mummy customer, taking a break from shopping to nurse her baby on the couch in the back. She already has a breast pump, which she paid for out of pocket. But now...
CAROLINE SHANY: I don't know. I'm thinking it's good to have another one. Why not? So...
CHACE: Weird things happen when you take the price out. Why not start a whole collection? And these days, breast pumps are super fancy. There's this one that supposedly really feels like a baby drinking.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: And it's (unintelligible).
CHACE: The expression phase. If you don't have to pay for it, why not get the nicest one?
Thanks to the new health care law, the experience of getting a pump is more like filling a prescription at the pharmacy. You just go and get the drugs. You don't shop around for the cheapest pill. Why would you if you have insurance? The thing is, when you talk to economists, nothing's free. We are all paying for the breast pumps, actually, if we have health insurance.
KATHERINE BAICKER: That's why you can skip the baby gift. You got them a breast pump.
CHACE: Katherine Baicker works at the Harvard Center for Public Health. She says insurance companies get the money from the insurance premiums that we pay every month.
BAICKER: Health insurance premiums are driven by how much we spend on health care. So the more things that are covered by health insurance policies, the more premiums have to rise to cover that spending.
CHACE: OK, sure, we're spending up front, but the argument goes, it's worth it if it results in more breastfeeding. Linda Rosenstock is a professor at the School of Public Health at UCLA. And she chaired the team that recommended this provision to the government. She says the science is unequivocal, that preventative care spending up front leads to fewer health problems down the road.
LINDA ROSENSTOCK: It's the basis of much of the Affordable Care Act is to recognize that if you can prevent a disease or an injury before it starts, it is virtually always going to save you money than if you have to treat it after the fact.
CHACE: But our economist, Katherine Baicker, isn't so sure that eliminating the cost of the breast pumps really induces much extra breastfeeding. Rather, she thinks most of the money spent will go towards people who would have been breastfeeding anyway.
BAICKER: So the question is whether the value that those people get from the breast pumps is worth the cost in terms of increased health spending and increased premiums.
CHACE: For the record, Baicker thinks there are better ways to get more people to breastfeed, cheaper ways that don't include encouraging women who already have a working breast pump to go out and get a second one for example. The details of the new provision are still to come, like which pumps, the expensive gold-plated versions, accessories? Which ones?
At this point, insurance companies are still figuring out what, if any, cost controls to build in to deal with breast pumps' newfound popularity. Zoe Chace, NPR News.
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Across Europe, bankrupt municipalities are looking for new sources of revenue and some are eyeing the Catholic Church. In Spain, the church is the country's largest and richest landowner, but its non-profit status means it's exempt from paying most taxes. Lauren Frayer takes us now to a college town near Madrid that's trying to change that.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: Off a cobblestone street in Alcala de Henares, an ancient Roman town about 20 miles from Madrid, there is a 400-year-old convent, El Convento de Clarisas de San Diego. If you ring the doorbell, one of the nuns calls out from behind a wooden shutter.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Ave Maria Purissima.
FRAYER: Ave Maria Purissima, Holy Mary, the most pure, she yells, by way of answering the bell. Then, you place your order.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Foreign language spoken)
FRAYER: Good afternoon, this customer says. May I have four boxes of roasted almonds, please?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Foreign language spoken)
FRAYER: That'll be 19 euros - about $25 - the nun says, shoving four delicately wrapped almond tins through a turnstile. In addition to prayer and charity, the nuns here run a side business selling candied almonds from this tiny window in their convent. Their vow of chastity means they cannot be seen in public, so they sell their goodies through a rotating wooden screen.
The nuns' profits from their almond enterprise are probably meager, but that's beside the point, say some local lawmakers. The nuns are using at least part of this convent for commercial purposes, and for that, they must pay.
COUNCILMAN ANSELMO AVENDANO: (Through Translator) We're studying whether any church properties that have been long listed as charities are actually being used for commercial activities. If that's the case, they'll have to start paying tax.
FRAYER: City Councilman Anselmo Avendano passed a motion last summer to re-evaluate church holdings by square footage. So if one out of 30 rooms in a convent is selling sweets, it'll have to pay tax on that one room. That's how the system is supposed to work already, but it's not always enforced. Alcala's campaign has ruffled feathers on high.
PRIME MINISTER MARIANO RAJOY: (Foreign language spoken)
FRAYER: I insist we will not denounce an international agreement. It would be irresponsible, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told reporters last year. He says any efforts to press the church for more tax violate a 1979 treaty with the Vatican. On one side of this disagreement are cash-strapped municipalities and on the other, centuries of tradition. Councilman Avendano says he's a Catholic himself.
AVENDANO: (Through Translator) We're not questioning the church's good works: charity for the elderly or poor or ill. We're not criticizing that at all. What we want is to re-examine property the church uses to make a profit. For example, rental apartments, parking lots and garages that it owns. Those are businesses.
FRAYER: The Catholic Church owns about half of this city. Sometimes people die and leave their house or business to the church, which then becomes the landlord. Another councilman, Ricardo Rubio, takes me on a walking tour of church holdings in town.
COUNCILMAN RICARDO RUBIO ALCALA DE HENARES: (Through Translators) Some of the Catholic schools have swimming pools, and they charge a fee to area residents to swim there on weekends. So the school should be paying tax on that activity. But they haven't been.
FRAYER: Incidentally, we're walking down Calle Tercio, One-Third Street. The name dates back to the Middle Ages when vendors here were required to give one-third of their profits to the Catholic Church. Nowadays, there's a different tax man in town who happens to be broke. The city of Alcala de Henares is $400 million in debt.
Meanwhile, if the Catholic Church had to pay tax on all its property in Spain, it could owe up to $4 billion a year. Juanjo Pico, a spokesman for Europa Laica, a Spanish group that lobbies for the separation of church and state.
JUANJO PICO: (Through Translator) These days, towns are cutting their budgets for health care, education, infrastructure and welfare. But the Catholic Church hasn't had to make a single cut because it gets money from the state.
FRAYER: When Spaniards file their tax returns, they can check a box to donate money to the church and the state deducts it automatically. That and the church's tax breaks are coming under scrutiny. But church officials question why this seems to be only about them.
FERNANDO GIMENEZ BARRIOCANAL: (Through Translator) Why isn't this debate about all non-profit groups?
FRAYER: Fernando Gimenez Barriocanal is the financial director at Spain's Council of Bishops. He says the church has the same tax deal as the Red Cross and other NGOs. He also hints at what could happen if the Catholic Church were to have to pay more.
BARRIOCANAL: (Through Translator) Obviously, we'd have to direct more of our money to pay those taxes. The church would still want to help those in need, but we'd have less money to do that.
FRAYER: The church may be Spain's biggest landowner, but it's also the biggest charity here, at a time when public welfare programs are being cut and unemployment tops 26 percent. The Alcala town council aims to complete its land survey by the end of the year and possibly serve the Catholic Church with a slightly updated tax bill. For NPR News, I'm Lauren Frayer, in Madrid.
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Nearly 50 years ago, white supremacists bombed a church in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young girls. It was an act of terror that shocked the country and propelled Congress to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This week, a bipartisan group of lawmakers in Washington announced plans to pursue a Congressional Gold Medal for the girls. That's the highest civilian honor Congress can bestow. But as Tanya Ott reports from member station WBHM, there is another victim of the bombing who feels left behind.
TANYA OTT, BYLINE: In Birmingham these days, signs of 1963 are everywhere. The city is commemorating the events of that year - the children who marched until police turned fire hoses and dogs on them, Martin Luther King Jr.'s Letter from a Birmingham jail, the bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church. When Mayor William Bell publicly announced the effort, he drew special attention to the attack.
MAYOR WILLIAM BELL: At the time that the bombing took place in September of 1963, the four little girls were brought here.
OTT: Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair, Addie Mae Collins, they are the subject of books, movies and documentaries, many of which include a footnote indicating a fifth girl survived the attack. That girl - now 62 years old - lives in a modest ranch-style house just north of Birmingham. She remembers the bombing like it was yesterday.
SARAH COLLINS RUDOLPH: I was standing there, just standing there bleeding, and somebody came, and they just picked me up and took me out through the hole and put me in a ambulance.
OTT: Sarah Collins Rudolph was just 12, the younger sister of Addie Mae, who died in the blast. Rudolph was sprayed with glass. She lost an eye. She was hospitalized months and then, she says, told to put it behind her. But she can't.
RUDOLPH: I still shake. I still jump when I hear loud sounds. Every day, I think about it, just looking in the mirror and seeing still the scars, you know, on my face. I'm reminded of it every day.
OTT: The scars are physical, mental and financial - medical bills that have mounted over the years as she worked in factories and cleaning houses, mostly without health insurance. She has insurance now through her husband George, but there are still out-of-pocket medical expenses. In October, Rudolph went before the Birmingham City Council to ask for help. Her husband says the city ignored her.
GEORGE RUDOLPH: If you look back at the people in the Trade Towers, each one of those victims got paid. The families got, you know, they got paid. But my wife, she didn't get anything. She should be compensated.
OTT: Birmingham Mayor William Bell says he's not insensitive. He appreciates the trauma Sarah Rudolph has been through, but he says the city cannot just write her a check.
BELL: When you say reparation, that puts a whole different legal terminology in place that we're not capable nor are we legally obligated to do.
OTT: Dorothy Inman-Johnson knows the dilemma from both sides. As a teenager, she participated in the children's marches in Birmingham. As an adult, she became the first black female mayor of Tallahassee, Florida.
DOROTHY INMAN-JOHNSON: But the city could have taken the lead in creating some kind of foundation or fund that other people could contribute to that would have helped her in some way. It would have been an important statement.
OTT: But that hasn't happened, and it doesn't seem like it will. Over the past 50 years, Sarah Collins Rudolph has been left out of many events commemorating the tragedy at 16th Street Baptist Church. Even many longtime Birmingham residents didn't know her story until recently. As the eyes of the world are trained on Birmingham this year, Rudolph says she'll watch from the comfort of her home. It's all she feels up to, after 50 years forgotten.
For NPR News, I'm Tanya Ott in Birmingham, Alabama.
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And I'm Robert Siegel. A bombshell decision today on the limits of executive power. A federal appeals court panel in Washington, D.C. has invalidated President Obama's recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board. Legal experts say the court's reasoning upends decades of conventional wisdom and deals a big victory to Senate Republicans. NPR's Carrie Johnson reports.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: The case was brought by a Pepsi-Cola bottling company in a fight with the union. The company, Noel Canning, sued to challenge a decision by the Labor Relations Board, arguing three board members were appointed in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Without those three members who arrived in January 2012, the board would have no quorum and essentially be out of business.
Noel Francisco argued the case for the company in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
NOEL FRANCISCO: We have a system of rules in this country that confine executive power and the courts stand ready to enforce those lines when they're crossed.
JOHNSON: The judges on the appeals court panel all named by Republican presidents answered two big questions.
FRANCISCO: The first is when is the recess appointment power triggered in the first place? And there, what the court said was that it only is triggered during intersession recesses.
JOHNSON: Recesses between annual sessions of Congress, not those short breaks so common these days. And the court said the Senate, not the president, got to decide what it meant by a recess. The court's next holding went even further.
FRANCISCO: The second part of the decision goes to what types of vacancies are eligible for recess appointments in the first place?
JOHNSON: Two judges on the panel, David Sentelle and Karen Henderson, said under their reading of the Constitution, the vacancy had to actually arise during the recess or else no dice. The third judge, Thomas Griffith, said the court didn't need to go that far. He pointed out that until today's ruling, the understanding about the kinds of vacancies open to recess appointments dated all the way back to the 1820s.
He wrote, quote, "We should not dismiss another branch's longstanding interpretation of the Constitution when the case before us does not demand it." John Elwood is a Washington lawyer who has studied the recess appointment power for years. His take...
JOHN ELWOOD: A very, very broad ruling that, if it stands, will significantly diminish the president's recess appointment power.
JOHNSON: Elwood says the decision unsettles decades of conventional wisdom about the practice used by both Republican and Democratic presidents at least 280 times to get around Senate gridlock and appoint agency heads and other executive branch officials. The ruling also puts a legal cloud over more than 100 actions the Labor Relations Board has taken since last year. But each company involved would have to file its own lawsuit to throw out those actions, which could take some time.
The uncertainty extends to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, whose leader, Richard Cordray, was appointed on the same day as the NLRB members. White House spokesman Jay Carney says the president disagrees with the ruling.
JAY CARNEY: It basically calls into question 150 years of precedent.
JOHNSON: The Justice Department had no immediate word on an appeal. But Lynn Rhinehart, the general counsel at the AFL-CIO, had this to say.
LYNN RHINEHART: This is one decision that we think is so far out there that we really expect to see it reversed.
JOHNSON: Lawyers for both sides expect the case to wind up in the U.S. Supreme Court. Carrie Johnson, NPR News, Washington.
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President Obama does not need the Senate's say-so to replace his chief of staff, Jack Lew. And today, the president confirmed what he called one of the worst kept secrets in Washington. He's chosen long time advisor Denis McDonough for the job. Meanwhile, Lew isn't going far. He's been nominated as Treasury secretary. NPR's Scott Horsley reports it's all part of the musical chairs game that marks the beginning of Obama's second term.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Denis McDonough has been a key member of the president's national security team. More importantly, he's also a close friend and trusted confidante. The veteran congressional staffer has played that role since Obama first came to Washington as a freshman senator.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: He, you know, was able to show me where the restrooms were and, you know, how you passed a bill. I should point out that even then, Denis had gray hair. I've been trying to catch up to him. But at that time, I relied on his intellect and his good judgment and that has continued ever since.
HORSLEY: McDonough can be tough, Obama says, a product of growing up as one of 11 children in Stillwater, Minnesota. But he's also a good listener whose low-key style fits the president's own. His promotion was a popular choice with the White House team he'll be supervising. The announcement was met with an extended round of applause from the assembled staff.
OBAMA: Denis is still the first to think about a colleague or to write a handwritten note saying thank you, to ask about your family. That's the spirit that I wanted in this White House.
HORSLEY: The White House announced a series of other personnel moves today and like many of the president's second term appointments, most involved shuffling people around who are already part of the team. At this point, the president seems at least as concerned with familiarity as he is with bringing in fresh blood. While some loyal staffers are getting new titles, others are leaving the White House.
Today was the last day on the job for Obama's top political advisor and reelection guru, David Plouffe. Were it not for him, Obama said, I probably wouldn't be here. Scott Horsley, NPR News, the White House.
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A new chief of staff, new secretaries of State and Defense, how different is the second Obama administration going to be? The inaugural address was received by Michael Tanner of the National Review Online as a clarion call for America to return to 1965, as if all we had learned about social and economic policy over the last 50 years had suddenly vanished.
Timothy Noah, in The New Republic wrote, Obama's second inaugural speech can be read as a sort of pledge that he'll do better on the equality front during his second term. Let's hear what our Friday regulars, David Brooks of the New York Times and E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post and the Brookings Institution, have to say. Good to see you both.
E.J. DIONNE: Good to see you.
DAVID BROOKS: Good to see you.
SIEGEL: E.J., was Barack Obama on Monday the Barack Obama you've been waiting to hear?
DIONNE: It's the Barack Obama I thought was always there. And, you know, for people who say this is somehow a radical speech, there was nothing radical in this speech. Ken Bahr(ph) who worked in O and B in the first Obama administration noted this speech only looks really, really liberal when compared with how far right the Republican Party has been. But it was a speech in which Obama, like Ronald Reagan, in his first inaugural, like Franklin Roosevelt in his second inaugural, chose to make a case for what he believes and where he wants to move the country.
I think the new Obama is not going to pre-negotiate everything. I think he's going to say, here's what I want. Here's what I believe. Now, let's talk.
SIEGEL: David, what do you think of the new Obama and what's wrong with 1965?
BROOKS: It's, you know, it's the doom of the Republic.
DIONNE: That makes me feel good.
BROOKS: No, he came out and he made E.J. very happy. You know, I used to like the moderate or transcendent Obama. That guy has left the building. You know, he took a document, the U.S. Constitution, and he portrayed it as a great force for centralizing power. He takes James Madison, turned him into, you know, Leon Trotsky or something, so his years at Harvard Law School were not in vain, you know.
DIONNE: I think the David Brooks I used to like has disappeared today.
BROOKS: He's pushed me to the edge. No, okay, Bernie Sanders. And I do think actually it is - there are sort of two types of liberalism. There's the Catholic social values, which emphasize community, labor unions, things like that. He spoke much more in favor of a centralized more progressive version, progressive era, which was smart people from Harvard come in and make decisions, where I think he fundamentally gets things wrong.
And again, this is in tribute to him 'cause he does make an argument. I think he misunderstands where the country is. The New Deal, the Great Society, the progressive era, those were instituted in a time when we were young country, under-institutionalized. Now we're an old, aging country winding down and we need to be revitalized, not filled with more institutions.
DIONNE: Could I just say as a pro-labor Catholic, that I find...
SIEGEL: So, you speak as a Harvard...
DIONNE: Yes.
SIEGEL: Graying Harvard man, also.
DIONNE: Yeah, no, more of a - I guess I'm a Harvard pro-labor Catholic, if you must. But, you know, I thought this speech was very much in the tradition of old-fashioned Catholic social thought. That's why he laid so much stress on equality and on social justice. And even he explicitly said government can't solve everything. He explicitly praised entrepreneurship.
This wasn't some kind of Leon Trotsky speech, as - or even a Bernie Sanders speech.
SIEGEL: Trotsky's off the table.
BROOKS: I withdraw Trotsky.
DIONNE: (Unintelligible) Stalin, that was good.
BROOKS: Democrats always say government can't solve everything before they suggest it's about to solve everything. Here's why I say that about the technocratic rather than the Catholic social teaching. Throughout the speech, there are two things in American society, there's the individual, and there's the state. There's no mention of intermediary institutions like labor unions, like community groups. And that's where I think we have a problem as a society.
We have one party that talks confidently about government, the Democrats, one party that talks confidently about the market, Republicans, nobody talking about the stuff in between.
SIEGEL: OK, let's talk about the Republicans for a moment. This is the traditional season of soul-searching for the party that doesn't win the White House or that loses seats in Congress. I gather the Republicans are searching. David, what are they likely to find?
BROOKS: So far there has been some tepid ideas of new thinking. Bobby Jindal gave a speech yesterday which I think was symptomatic.
SIEGEL: The governor of Louisiana.
BROOKS: The governor of Louisiana. And he wanted to rethink the Republican Party. But he's been so steeped in the language of Rush Limbaugh, the Heritage Foundation, the conservative movement, it's a language that doesn't touch concrete reality. So it's a series of phrases about - against the liberal media, against government dysfunction, anti-Washington. It doesn't really connect. It's all very abstract.
And it's code words for other conservatives. It doesn't connect with somebody who's in Ohio, who's struggling to find a job. And so, there's a long way to go.
SIEGEL: E.J.?
DIONNE: Glad to hear that Catholic social thought from David. I think that you're seeing from some Republicans in Congress more of a struggle to come to a different place. I thought it was significant that we passed two bills with votes of mostly Democrats but with a bunch of Republicans choosing to go to the middle to vote with the Democrats. I think you're going to see that on gun control.
And so I think there is, beneath the surface, a real debate going on among Republicans to move them away from a place that lost them this election.
SIEGEL: What do you make of the deferring on the debt ceiling until May? Is that a sign of goodwill? Is it an assumption that the second honeymoon will be over by May or that there are so many other deadlines between now and then it doesn't matter? What do you make of it?
BROOKS: Well, I think John Boehner's really good at averting catastrophe. He's not so good at getting much done positively. I think it's bad for the country. You know, the overhang of insecurity is just terrible for the country.
SIEGEL: You mean the debt ceiling argument?
BROOKS: The debt ceiling argument. We're going to keep coming back to it for at least three or four months. These are the most precious months of a new administration, and it's going to get sucked up by these sorts of budget fights.
DIONNE: We're going to have a carnival of contrived crises just because John Boehner is having so much trouble controlling his party. They - if they were going to give up on the debt ceiling, they should have just said we're not going to fight on this ground. And to have one artificial deadline after another is just nuts, and it's not a way to govern ourselves.
SIEGEL: Well, they jointly created the artificial deadline of the sequester. That was something that the administration and the Republicans did together.
DIONNE: Right, and - but the debt ceiling is something, to take the debt ceiling and not just take that off the table when you've got all these other artificial crises there is just very unfortunate. But I think it's a sign that Boehner knows the debt ceiling is not something you want to fight on.
BROOKS: Yeah, I agree, the Republicans took a look at that and they said: We don't want to push the country over the edge. But the sequestration fight will be just as bad. It's just as much insecurity. It's economically stagnation.
SIEGEL: David Brooks and E.J. Dionne, thanks to both of you.
DIONNE: Thank you.
BROOKS: Thank you.
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And I'm Robert Siegel. This winter, a nasty infection has been sweeping the land. It's a stomach bug called norovirus. And now the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says this year's strain is entirely new and has overtaken one that emerged three years ago, which may explain why this seems to be a particularly bad year for intestinal illness, as NPR's Richard Knox reports.
RICHARD KNOX, BYLINE: You can't mistake norovirus. It causes two or three days of severe vomiting and diarrhea, and although a lot of people call it stomach flu, it has nothing to do with influenza. That's a respiratory virus. Norovirus attacks the small intestine.
Every year, it infects 21 million Americans, making it by far the most common intestinal illness. Jan Vinje of the CDC says this year's model is one that's never been seen before.
JAN VINJE: It popped up in Australia, and it was characterized in a laboratory in Sydney in March of 2012. It was exactly the time that we anticipated a new strain to emerge.
KNOX: That's because a new norovirus strain comes around every few years. And right now, the Australian strain is scoring a decisive victory in this survival of the fittest contest.
VINJE: This virus spreads very rapidly and emerges as the winner of the battle. It really is, it's a battle between the most fit strain and most virulent that wins the game here.
KNOX: Vinje says you can get a raging norovirus infection if you're exposed to as few as 17 virus particles.
VINJE: So a few droplets, invisible droplets on a surface or on a doorknob can get you sick.
KNOX: And unlike many, this virus can survive outside the human body for long periods.
VINJE: So on surfaces, it can survive for sometimes for a couple of weeks.
KNOX: Really? So one of the most contagious viruses out there.
VINJE: Yes.
KNOX: You can avoid it, but the best way is not by squirting a lot of those sanitizing gels on your hands.
VINJE: We don't recommend to use only hand sanitizers. We think that the physical removal is the most efficient.
KNOX: That means scrubbing vigorously and often with soap and water for longer than you ordinarily do. Twenty seconds is good. That's about how long it takes to hum "Happy Birthday" to yourself twice. And if you get the stomach bug anyway, try to drink as many fluids as you can manage to keep down. The big problem with these infections is dehydration, which can sneak up on you. That's why norovirus puts nearly 70,000 Americans in the hospital every year and kills about 800, most of them people over 65. Richard Knox, NPR News.
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Detailed satellite images are helping to expose a system of huge prison camps in North Korea, camps that North Korea says don't even exist. Western governments and human rights groups estimate that as many as 200,000 political prisoners are held in these camps under horrific conditions. And a small contingent of Western bloggers is scrutinizing the satellite images, trying to map the camps and look for new detail.
Curtis Melvin is among them. He started the website North Korean Economy Watch. Thanks for coming in.
CURTIS MELVIN: Hi, how are you doing?
BLOCK: You have a recent discovery based on new Google Earth images, a possible new camp. What did you see that struck you?
MELVIN: So in January, Google uploaded lots of new satellite imagery from all over North Korea. And I have the ambition to go through all of it and check for what's new, things that have changed, look for developments within the country.
And a colleague of mine contacted me and asked me a question about Camp 18 because there is actually a debate as to whether Camp 18 has been closed.
BLOCK: These numbered camps, who numbers the camps? Where do these numbers come from?
MELVIN: Those would be set by the Ministry for State Security in North Korea, essentially the KGB of North Korea. And as I began to look around Camp 18 and Camp 14, which are right next to each other, I noticed a new security perimeter had gone up approximately 20 kilometers in circumference next to the existing Camp 14.
BLOCK: How could you tell? What did the perimeter look like?
MELVIN: Well, in the past, in 2006, when we had the last available satellite image of the location, there is no security perimeter at all. There's a village there, there's a coalmine that had fallen into disuse. And with the new satellite imagery, we can see where they've actually carved out a clearing, making a very visible straight lines with positions for guard posts stationed at regular intervals.
BLOCK: Can you see a detail as granular as, say, there are guard houses along this perimeter? What does it look like? How can you tell?
MELVIN: Yes. Little squares. The big tell is, one, they're right up next to the border. Two, they're identical all the way around, for the most part.
BLOCK: When you and other people who are studying these images try to corroborate them, what do you do to try to flesh out what you're seeing in these images?
MELVIN: Initially, the hard work was done by the Committee For Human Rights in North Korea in 2003 because when they published the initial reports with the satellite imagery, then we had a base to work from. And so - in North Korea, they tend to do everything the same way. And once you know what a particular kind of place looks like in North Korea, it's very easy to spot that same kind of thing.
BLOCK: What tells you this is a camp?
MELVIN: Oh, it's a security perimeter guarding nothing in particular except what appears to be a regular village. Most of the factories, military factories in North Korea have walls on them. A lot of them even have guard turrets on them. But there's something going on inside that's very obvious that they're protecting.
And in the case of these labor camps, there's nothing inside. You see regular houses, maybe some fish ponds or something like that there. But there's nothing that tells you there's anything special or horrible about it.
But ultimately for me to be convinced, we have to have eyewitness accounts.
BLOCK: And by eyewitness accounts, you're talking about defectors, people who had been in North Korea, in many - some of them in these camps who have managed to get out.
MELVIN: Or have had relatives who have been put in there or had experience dealing with some of the guards or might have been guards.
BLOCK: How would those accounts back up what you see in these images, exactly?
MELVIN: Well, if they can describe the place- which has been done many times in the past - they can usually describe the area without looking at a satellite image and then there's an amazing overlap between what they describe and draw, physically draw, with the satellite imagery. And that's been done a number of times. I actually identified a regular prison that someone had testified about this place and drawn a picture of it. And I was actually able to look at the satellite imagery on Google Earth and match the hand drawing with the satellite pictures.
BLOCK: Lined up?
MELVIN: Yeah.
BLOCK: You devote a lot of time to poring over these images and trying to figure out just what's going in North Korea. Why do you do it? What keeps you going?
MELVIN: At this point, North Korea is a very exciting country because it's undergone a radical amount of change in the last 10 years. And satellite imagery is one of the few ways that we can get eyes on the ground in North Korea because there's simply no other way to visualize or brings these things to bare in the West.
BLOCK: Curtis Melvin, thanks for coming in.
MELVIN: Thank you.
BLOCK: Curtis Melvin started the website North Korean Economy Watch. We were talking about satellite images of North Korean prison camps as seen on Google Earth.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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And I'm Robert Siegel. Protests and violence mark the day in Egypt. It is the second anniversary of the revolt that led to the ouster of former President Hosni Mubarak. And demonstrators are calling for a new revolution. They want to oust Mubarak's successor, President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Liberals, leftists and secularists filled Cairo's Tahrir Square.
Meanwhile, as NPR's Leila Fadel reports, the Brotherhood was doing what it does best, drumming up support for parliamentary elections by providing services to the poor.
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: Women pick up cucumbers, tomatoes, onions and other vegetables and drop them on a scale at this wholesale market run by the Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party in a Cairo suburb. One woman excitedly rattles off the list of what she bought, all at half price. It will feed her family for five days. On this day, Brotherhood supporters stayed away from Tahrir Square, where demonstrators cursed the government, demanded a new constitution and the end of Brotherhood rule.
But at this market the patrons blame the protestors for Egypt's turmoil. Haitham Maleh, one of the Freedom and Justice Party organizers says this is how he chose to commemorate Egypt's revolution. It's part of a service campaign launched two days ago by the Islamist movement and it will go on for weeks.
HAITHAM MALEH: Everyone can do what he thinks is the best for this country. We think this is the best approach to serve people. Others want to express their opinions. They have the freedom and right to express those opinions.
FADEL: Meanwhile, across town streams of people flooded into Tahrir Square.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTESTORS)
FADEL: Their frustration was palpable. Almost two years after the revolution, Egypt's economy is close to imploding. The political transition has polarized the nation along secular and Islamist lines and the revolutionary ideals of economic equality and civil liberties seem distant. Emad Amis walked to the square with his wife and daughter. Today is also the anniversary of the day he lost his job as a cook on a cruise ship. He said he's gotten no help from the government since then.
EMAD ANIS: Where is the government? You think if you go to government, it will (unintelligible)? Think not.
FADEL: Anis, like others here, says the Brotherhood is run by power-hungry dictators that have silenced their critics as they seek to dominate every Egyptian institution. But even protestors on this day seem deflated, unsure that anything will change. Tony Sabry, a young activist I met multiple times in the square over the past year is angry. Nothing has changed in two years, he says. The time for peaceful revolution is over. Too many people have died and almost no one has been held accountable, he says.
Sabry points to a group of young men and women dressed in black, their faces covered in masks. They're new on the scene and call themselves the black bloc. One of them carries a stick with spikes at the end. Sabry calls them the armed resistance. Nearby protestors try to storm a Brotherhood office only to be sprayed with birdshot fired by local street vendors, according to eyewitnesses. One young man sits just outside Tahrir Square with pellets in his leg and face as a girl bandages his wounds.
Clashes also broke out in Alexandria, where protestors stormed the courthouse and Brotherhood offices were broken into across the country. One was set on fire.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTESTORS)
FADEL: Leila Fadel, NPR News, Cairo.
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The Obama administration is closely watching political developments in Israel. This week's elections there surprised many analysts in Washington. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is trying to build a new center-right coalition. His party lost some seats in parliament to a new centrist challenger. The White House has had a rough relationship with Netanyahu, and so Washington is looking for a new opportunity now to promote peace. Here's NPR's Michele Kelemen.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: In its first term, the Obama administration failed repeatedly to get Israelis and Palestinians to the negotiating table. Officials are still sounding cautious about the possibilities. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland says the U.S. will wait and see what kind of coalition government emerges in Israel.
VICTORIA NULAND: As soon as the parties are ready we want to make a renewed push to try to get them back to the table.
KELEMEN: And that will likely fall to Senator John Kerry, who addressed the issue in his confirmation hearing to become secretary of State.
SENATOR JOHN KERRY: My prayer is that, you know, perhaps this can be a moment where we can renew some kind of effort to get the parties into a discussion to have, you know, a different track than we've been on over the course of the last couple of years.
KELEMEN: And he seemed hopeful given the elections in Israel. Martin Indyk of the Brookings Institution, though, says the U.S. shouldn't get its hopes up too high. Most Israeli politicians stayed away from the Palestinian issue during the campaign. And that includes centrist Yair Lapid, whose surprise showing has made him a key player in coalition talks.
MARTIN INDYK: There's a sliver of hope, no more than that, that with a more centrist coalition than we had expected that there will be a greater willingness to move forward on the Palestinian issue.
KELEMEN: But it won't top anyone's agenda, Indyk says. He predicts Lapid will be more focused on what his voters want, jobs and housing. As for the U.S., Indyk thinks there is a sense of relief in Washington that the Obama administration won't have to deal with a far right government in Israel. But he doesn't think President Obama is making Middle East peace a priority.
INDYK: He's ending wars in the Middle East, he'll be ending America's dependence on Middle Eastern oil. And I sense that he's basically ending American leadership in the Israeli-Palestinian arena. His secretary of State will have a different thing in mind.
KELEMEN: Senator Kerry, who's expected to be confirmed as secretary of State next week, says the stakes are high in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
KERRY: So much of what we aspired to achieve and what we need to do globally, what we need to do in the Maghreb and South Asia, South Central Asia, throughout the Gulf - all of this is tied to what can or doesn't happen with respect to Israel and Palestine.
KELEMEN: And Kerry has had a long interest in these issues, says former ambassador to Israel, Daniel Kurtzer, who now teaches at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School.
DANIEL KURTZER: I'm not surprised that he interested in this. I think he's also aware how challenging it will be but that's not going to stop him from at least giving it a shot at the beginning.
KELEMEN: Kurtzer warns it won't be enough just to get Israelis and Palestinians talking again. He suggests in a new book called "Pathways to Peace" that the U.S. needs to review its own policy first and spell out clear ideas on how to resolve the core issues dividing Israelis and Palestinians.
KURTZER: So I think in the first instance we ought to get our own house in order and understand what it is we believe that constitutes a fair and reasonable outcome, and then decide how to use that tactically in bringing the parties together.
KELEMEN: The Obama administration may have other priorities around the world but Kurtzer says this is an issue that the U.S. ignores at its peril. And he says Kerry understands that. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
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Turn on the TV, listen to sports radio, check the Web, even pick up one of those old-fashioned sports pages I think they're called, and you're sure to find an opinion about the Los Angeles Lakers. With the addition of big man Dwight Howard and the great point guard Steve Nash, the Lakers were billed as the new NBA super team at the beginning of the season. But now, as the All-Star break approaches, it is clear the team is a mess. NPR's Mike Pesca joins us now to talk about the Lakers and some of the other surprises of the pro basketball season. Hi, Mike.
MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Hi. Thanks. I think Laker outrage and glee is keeping some of those sports pages a-printing.
SIEGEL: The Lakers, they've been close to awful this season. What's going on?
PESCA: They have been and there was a time it looked like they were going to struggle to respectability. Now the struggle will be to make the playoffs. And statistically speaking, it probably won't happen. They will be on the outside looking in. And this is a shocking development because in the off-season they, an already team that's stocked with a lot of talent signed Steve Nash, very good point guard, former couple-time MVP, and Dwight Howard.
Now Dwight Howard is a 7-foot center who plays like a pogo stick. And when the pogo stick's 7 feet tall, he should be blocking every shot. He should be making such a huge difference on defense but he isn't. I think a lot of the analysis of why the Lakers have gone wrong is correct in that it talks about the personalities involved and players not buying into a system. But I think the health of Dwight Howard also has a big role.
This was a team that was going to get by on having just so much star power, it will win out over the fact that a lot of these guys actually play the same position. But that's clearly not going to happen. It seems like their coach, Mike D'Antoni, ill-suited to the roster. I think he's in a mess. I think I would agree with that word.
SIEGEL: Go along with that, okay.
PESCA: Yeah.
SIEGEL: All right. So the Lakers are a mess and may not even make the playoffs. Their famous rivals, the Boston Celtics, actually aren't looking much better. What's their problem?
PESCA: Yeah, they're 20 and 22 right now and if the playoffs started today, people would be surprised but the Celtics would be out of the playoffs. And so I think what happened with them is it's not so much that they're excellent core of stars is aging, two-thirds of them are, Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce, they're 35 and 36 years old, which qualifies you to be president, but not an NBA All-Star, although Garnett is.
They're actually pretty good for guys who are getting up there in age. They're giving you, like, an A minus, B plus performance. And Rajon Rondo, their point guard, has added some dimension to his offensive game. He's not so great at defense, but it's everyone else. It's everyone else on the Celtics, other than their rookie, Jared Sullinger. They are just - their role players are not playing the roles that they need to play.
They can't shoot. They can't fill out the roster with any sort of aplomb that the Celtics are going to need 'cause their aging stars are playing fewer minutes and that's why it's a below 500 team.
SIEGEL: Well, changing coasts once again here, Los Angeles does have a playoff contender this year. It's the Clippers, who they were expected to be good but this good?
PESCA: Yeah, a title contender, I'd say. And Chris Paul, their transcendent point guard, is hurt. He has sore knees. They've been on a little bit of a losing streak, but for most of the NBA season, they've had the best record and they look like absolutely legitimate title contenders to go against a team like Oklahoma City or the Miami Heat if it came to it in the finals.
SIEGEL: Well, a season with surprises should be a good season. Tell us about some other surprises in the NBA.
PESCA: Well, one of the surprises is in the smallest market. The Milwaukee Bucks, I just thought I'd pick them because they're an above 500 team. They would be one of these teams making the playoffs and the Celtics wouldn't. They were predicted to have only 37 wins on the year, if you wanted to bet on it in Las Vegas. But they're already 22 and 18 and they fired their coach. They fired Scottie Skiles and replaced him with Jim Boylan.
They're six and two since they did that. And another team that's very surprising, the Brooklyn Nets also fired their coach. They fired Avery Johnson when they were 14 and 14. And at that point, I think the sports cognoscenti chimed in and said, how can you fire Avery Johnson? It's not his fault. Well, it might not have been his fault, but P.J. Carlesimo, who's taken over for Johnson, has helmed the team to a 12 and two record.
So for whatever reason, it turned out to have been a good firing.
SIEGEL: Okay. Now, finally, the New Orleans Hornets are not going to be the Hornets much longer. They're going to be the New Orleans Pelicans?
PESCA: Yeah. And I think that tone of voice was echoed throughout the NBA. But I think Pelicans is a good name. It's not a unique name. I have a database of about five high school teams named the Pelicans and a couple minor league baseball teams. The house of Pelham, a couple of British prime ministers were - their shield is pelicans. I just think it's their logo that's freaking people out because it doesn't show that pelican pouch that they're so famous for.
If you look at all the other pelican logos, they always show the pouch, the head-on shot of the pelican. It looks a little too fierce and not cuddly enough.
SIEGEL: Okay. We'll watch that space. Mike, thank you.
PESCA: You're welcome.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Mike Pesca.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
While we're on the subject of reinvention, science fiction geeks were thrown into a tizzy of intergalactic proportions yesterday because of this news. Director J.J. Abrams is set to direct the next movie in the "Star Wars" franchise. NPR's Neda Ulaby says this is a perfect storm for fans.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: A perfect storm because we're talking about J.J. Abrams. His TV show "Lost" drove fans to obsessive distraction with its arcane mythology.
(SOUNDBITE FROM TV SHOW "LOST")
ULABY: Then, he thrilled even hardcore Trekkies with his reboot of "Star Trek" a few years ago.
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ULABY: But here's how cultural critic Alyssa Rosenberg describes her response to the news.
ALYSSA ROSENBERG: I will admit to doing a somewhat Dart Vader-like wail of despair.
ULABY: J.J. Abrams is a safe choice, but so, so boring, Rosenberg says. They could have picked Chris Nolan, who brought such style and unsettling intelligence to "The Dark Knight" or fanboy favorite Joss Whedon, who resurrected "The Avengers." She blames the corporate media consolidation that happened when Disney bought Marvel and Lucasfilm.
ROSENBERG: This is making decisions on directors as quality control.
ULABY: And how unfair, Rosenberg says, for one person to control two of the biggest science fiction franchises in the world. And especially since she does not think that Abrams seems interested in plumbing issues science fiction has explored so brilliantly.
ROSENBERG: Torture and commitment to causes and what happens when people have access to certain kinds of weapons, as well as about magic and small furry creatures running around Moon-like planets.
ULABY: Look on the bright side, says comedian Andre Meadows. J.J. Abrams could unleash the ultimate fan fiction crossover. Just imagine, "Star Wars" and "Star Trek" mashed up together.
ANDRE MEADOWS: Make Kirk a Jedi and then just all of a sudden the Enterprise goes by, like you don't even mention it. Like, you just - it just flies in the background. You're just like, what, wait a second. What was that?
ULABY: Meadows says no matter what, Abrams is sure to deliver a better picture than the last three "Star Wars" disasters. Still, Abrams would not have been his first choice.
MEADOWS: I would love to have seen Tyler Perry's Madea Goes To Star Wars, Madea the Jedi.
TYLER PERRY: (As Madea) Say something. Say one more thing. I will pimp slap you. Say it again.
MEADOWS: I think there is some good story lines in that, you know. I'm just saying, if this doesn't work out, if episode 7 ends up being a disappointment, Tyler Perry's Madea Goes To Space.
ULABY: May the force be with her. Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Over the past couple of years, we've reported on the alarming rate of suicide in the armed forces. As we've heard, it's mostly at home, not on deployment; and a prior study found that the incidence of suicide in the military isn't related to being deployed several times, or even once. I wondered how the suicide rate in the military, which has led to the initiative that Blake Farmer just reported on, compares to the rate in society at large. I asked Dr. Alex Crosby, who's a medical epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He says men between the ages of 17 and 60 are about as likely to die by suicide in civilian life, as they are in the military.
DR. ALEX CROSBY: One of the things that we have been looking at is, the suicide rate in the United States has been increasing. And as the rates in the military had been going up, it actually - for a long time, it had been lower than the civilian rate - but actually equaled the civilian rate, matched for that age and sex group, just last year.
SIEGEL: So now, they're about the same. But as you say, there's been a rise in recent years. Why?
CROSBY: I can't comment on what's been going on in the military, as to why they think the increase is occurring. But within the civilian population, we think that there are multiple factors that play a role. There are factors at the individual level - things like substance abuse, like mental illness; at the family level - like family dysfunction or exposure to violence within the family, like intimate partner violence or child maltreatment; or in the society - things like social isolation.
SIEGEL: How much of a factor is the recession?
CROSBY: There had - definitely - been some studies that have shown a - association between the economy and suicide rates. You know, some of the early studies had just looked at the Great Depression, and found that those were where we had the highest suicide rates, historically - ever - in the United States.
There was a recent study done by several of - scientists at CDC, in which we looked at what are called business cycles - the economy goes up, or the economy goes down; these business cycles - over about a 70-year period, from the late 1920s up to the early 2000s; and found that there was a consistent pattern, especially among working-age adults - those 25 to 64; that when the economy went down, suicide rates went up. Now, we know that there are multiple factors but definitely, that can be one of the influences on suicide rates in the United States.
SIEGEL: The current discussion of gun control, and the talk of mental health professionals identifying people who pose a danger to themselves - or others - so that they might be barred from gun ownership, has been nearly all about preventing homicide. But among gun deaths, how many are suicides as opposed to homicides?
CROSBY: Well, in the year 2010, there were slightly over 38,000 suicide deaths in the United States; and just over half of them, the firearm was a mechanism.
SIEGEL: I've heard one figure - that that accounts for over 60 percent of deaths by firearms, generally.
CROSBY: Yes, the overall deaths that are firearm-related, the majority of them are actually due to suicide deaths.
SIEGEL: In Britain, where - I gather - a common means of suicide was a particular drug, a rather simple step lowered the rate of suicide.
CROSBY: A leading mechanism for suicide attempts there was paracetamol; which, in the United States, is acetaminophen. And what they did is, they changed the packaging. So instead of someone being able to go to a store and buy a bottle of - you know, a hundred pills, in which all you have to do is open the top of the bottle and try to ingest them; what they did is, they started having them packaged in blister packs, which are the ones where you have to push out a pill. And what they found was a dramatic decrease in the number of suicide attempts that were due to that paracetamol. And so what they found is that that method decreased; other methods did not go up concurrently - at the same time.
One study that we did that confirms that, is we had looked at - in Harris County, Texas, we looked at near-lethal suicide attempts for which had there not been a medical intervention, they would have died. What we found is in this age group - especially those adolescents and young adults, 15 to 34 - is that a little over 20 percent said less than five minutes had transpired between when they thought about suicide, and when they did the act. We call that impulsive suicide. If you're talking about over a fifth - almost a quarter - of people making an impulsive suicide attempt, if you can remove that means from that group, it may be that they'd never go back to attempting suicide.
SIEGEL: Dr. Crosby, thank you very much for talking with us about it.
CROSBY: You're quite welcome.
SIEGEL: That's Dr. Alex Crosby, medical epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
We go now to Arizona, a magnet for retirees, and for some the answer to the question how should I spend my spare time is this: How about swinging a pick axe in the desert? NPR's Ted Robbins sent this postcard from Ironwood Forest National Monument.
TED ROBBINS, BYLINE: This must be Gary Borax's idea of a good time because he keeps coming back.
GARY BORAX: I've probably been out here 30, 40 times over the years and nearly half of those buffel grass-related.
ROBBINS: The former software developer is hacking away at a clump of tall brown buffel grass, a species from Africa introduced by the government decades ago as forage for cattle. Now, it's crowding out the native plants. Another one of those stories of good intentions gone bad. This clump is stuck between prickly pear cactus and an ironwood tree.
BORAX: They always seem to grow in heavy vegetation. They're hard to get at.
ROBBINS: And it keeps growing back. Buffel grass is all over southern Arizona, which could make this effort feel a bit Sisyphean.
JOHN SCHEURING: Not if you take it in small chunks.
ROBBINS: John Scheuring is a retired plant scientist who's leading the effort.
SCHEURING: Basically, our group has adopted this little mountain range, and we revisit this area a couple times a week. And so it becomes familiar territory.
ROBBINS: Their little mountain range is 1,500 acres in the 188,000-acre Ironwood Forest National Monument, northwest of Tucson. Today's volunteers are mostly with the Dove Mountain Hikers out of Tucson. They're from New York, Chicago, Canada. We're at an abandoned airstrip on public land. By airstrip, I really mean a gravel scar.
As we walk over the airstrip, we come across small basins volunteers have dug to hold what little rain comes down here. Knee-high trees are growing: ironwood, paloverde, ocotillo. Gary Borax has been coming here since the project began.
BORAX: You know, it doesn't look all that great now, but you should've seen it four years ago. It was just stripped of stone and natural desert.
ROBBINS: The natural Sonoran Desert is actually pretty diverse. Buffel grass also threatens that diversity because it burns hot. If a fire starts here, it'll spread quickly to cactus, like the giant saguaro, which are not adapted to fire. John Scheuring says he's starting to feel some satisfaction after coming back over and over again.
SCHEURING: We're starting to see black-throated sparrows starting to nest in the trees on the restoration site itself. And we saw black-tailed rattlesnakes last year, meaning that there are rodents starting to come back in. And so little by little the desert is healing itself and we're just helping it along.
ROBBINS: When they could be relaxing.
Well, but I mean, geez, you're standing out here in the desert with a pickax. It's - how easy is that?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: You want to try it?
(LAUGHTER)
ROBBINS: Not this time. But I admire the dedication. Ted Robbins, NPR News, Tucson.
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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And I'm Robert Siegel.
Pro-life activists from across the country hit the National Mall in Washington, D.C., today for the annual March for Life. The event comes as the nation commemorates the 40th anniversary of Roe versus Wade. And NPR's Allison Keyes reports that marchers this year believe public opinion is shifting in their favor.
ALLISON KEYES, BYLINE: There was an undulating sea of demonstrators stretching for several blocks along the mall: Parents with strollers, people pouring from lines of buses, senior citizens in wheelchairs and groups of young people looking as determined as they were fired up.
RUBEN VERASTIGUI: We need to get out there and make change happen.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING)
KEYES: Youth activist Ruben Verastigui told the crowd his is the chosen generation.
VERASTIGUI: And we will abolish abortion and change history.
KEYES: Eighteen-year-old Emily Hastings has been involved in fund-raising and 24-hour prayer for the unborn at Catholic University. She says she thinks there are so many young people here because...
EMILY HASTINGS: When you're young, you can really, like, feel support and feel that passion to fight for your cause. You know what I mean?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Hats, gloves, sweatshirt.
KEYES: Adam Urbaniak, wearing the flowing black robes of a Catholic seminary student, says he believes the activism of people like Emily shows the nation is changing the way it thinks. He looked at the streams of chattering students winding by.
ADAM URBANIAK: They came to fight for life. And I think the community fighting for life, fighting against abortion is growing.
KEYES: There were many Christian communities among the marchers from New York and California and other states. And they cheered speakers like Republican Tennessee Representative Diane Black, a registered nurse who told the crowd a fetus is a life.
REPRESENTATIVE DIANE BLACK: He is not a blob of tissue. It's a human being.
KEYES: Organizers made a determined effort to reach out to supporters via Twitter and Facebook. Even Pope Benedict sent out a tweet in support of the march, saying he prays that political leaders will protect the unborn and promote a culture of life. Allison Keyes, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SMITH, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Smith.
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SMITH: Every era has its seemingly surefire way for a young person to get rich quick. In the '80s, you went to Wall Street. In the late '90s, you could join a dot-com firm. And the odds, after the year 2000, the dream for greedy college students everywhere was to flop a full boat against a made flush. I'm referring here to poker, of course, specifically online poker. And for a few years, it was a national obsession on college campuses. People lost a lot of money, but a few - often young, social misfits - they made a killing. They used their brains and some introductory statistics courses to make millions. Jonathan Grotenstein is an author who followed a crew of these young people. And I feel like I should yell the title of your book.
JONATHAN GROTENSTEIN: It certainly sounds better when it's yelled.
SMITH: Yeah, do it.
GROTENSTEIN: "Ship it Holla Ballas!"
SMITH: Oh, I like you put the comma in there too. "Ship it Holla Ballas!" And what does this mean? Break it down for us. It's slang.
GROTENSTEIN: It is a combination of three different terms. The first part, ship it, is an expression that you'll hear at the poker table often, generally to express your pleasure when the chips are moving your way. Ship me that pot. Ship it to me. Holla is actually...
SMITH: A traditional greeting among young people.
GROTENSTEIN: ...a - yes. Among old people too. Actually, it came out of Shakespeare, but that was sort of latched on as a way of saying, you know, right on when somebody said ship it. So ship it holla. A balla was sort of urban parlance for someone who was very good at basketball but has sort of grown to being someone who's good at anything. So these kids were the Ship It Holla Ballas, a name that they chose, both to separate themselves from the old farts who were already playing poker, and kind of an inside joke for themselves to seem a little bit more arrogant and maybe a little more extroverted than they actually were.
SMITH: Yeah. I feel like a square just explaining this stuff.
GROTENSTEIN: Me too.
SMITH: So you and your co-author followed a group of young people who decided to forego college. They decided they didn't want to get a job. They decided they wanted to play online poker and make millions. And you describe them as the loudest, craziest and richest crew in poker. Tell me about a few of them.
GROTENSTEIN: Well, our book mostly concentrates on two of the kids. One of them was a high school athlete whose pitching career was cut short by a separated shoulder and kind of turned to poker as a way - an outlet for that same kind of competitive energy that he had used on the baseball field. The name that he chose for himself was Raptor, which had originally been the name that he used on AOL's instant messenger.
The other kid that we follow was named Good2cu. Good2cu was a kid from Michigan who grew up in a family that was kind of dissipating around him - his parents were going through a divorce - and was also suffering from kind of the typical awkward teenage stuff that a lot of kids go through - acne, trying to fit in, trying to find a girlfriend, loving computer games a lot more than he loved his schoolwork, and poker seemed like a dream for him, a chance to become the kind of, you know, cool rock star/poker player that he was seeing on TV.
SMITH: So over the course of the book, you follow Raptor and Good2cu as they make enormous sums of money. Were they geniuses?
GROTENSTEIN: Geniuses is a tough term to apply to these kids. They were highly intelligent. I'm not sure that either kid would qualify as a genius in any sort of traditional sense.
SMITH: So what gave them the edge?
GROTENSTEIN: Timing, more than anything else. Nobody was yet treating the Internet as a completely different way of playing the game. So they turned to a site called Two Plus Two, which was a message board, slash, kind of clearinghouse for information about poker that was shared by a hive mind, a community of people who were really thinking about the game.
And when they stumbled into the area that was dedicated to these tournaments called Sit N' Gos, they discovered that a lot of people claimed they were almost literally minting money at Sit N' Gos, that they were looking at the game in terms of how much am I going to win today as opposed to, ha, I wonder if I'm going to be able to beat this game.
SMITH: Well, there was something else about their timing. Not only were they there when Internet poker just started out, but this is also a moment when poker in general sort of entered the popular consciousness. 2003, there was an event that these young people looked at as sort of transformative.
GROTENSTEIN: Yes. In 2003, a guy named Chris Moneymaker, who was sort of, you know, the American everyman. He was an accountant from Tennessee who had won his way into the World Series of Poker in a $27 tournament that eventually got him onto poker's biggest stage.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: This is the World Series of Poker. Chris Moneymaker going all-in with nothing.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: A stunning play for Moneymaker.
GROTENSTEIN: When Moneymaker beat a very well-known professional player named Sammy Barha on national TV, it kind of set the world on fire.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: And considering this situation - I know we're early in the century - but that's the bluff of the century.
GROTENSTEIN: Suddenly, everybody realized that, you know, they could be the next Chris Moneymaker. And online poker seems to be the path to getting there.
SMITH: You know, you have this great moment in the book where Good2cu, who's a college student at the time, talks to his father about quitting college to play poker. And it reminded me of every moment at which a young person says, no, no, no, you don't understand. The world is changing. I have a way to make money you may not approve of.
GROTENSTEIN: Yes. I - that was exactly what it was. And to Good2cu's father's credit, he understood. He didn't necessarily approve but realized that his son had developed his dreams sitting on the couch watching the World Series of Poker with him. And to sort of make his case, Good2cu showed his father all of the meticulous records he had kept on his poker playing.
SMITH: He had spreadsheets, like, showing how much he was winning and losing every day with each game, his strategies, how many games he could play at the same time. I mean, he was running this like a business playing online poker.
GROTENSTEIN: That's exactly right. What sort of united all of these kids is that they all treated poker like a business. When they talked about winning at the poker table, they didn't talk about it in terms of, hey, I won this much today, but in terms of return on investment. If I invest this much time and this much money into a game, I can expect to see this kind of rate of return on that particular investment.
SMITH: And, you know, if they had been 30, 35, 40 years old, they would have been sober, smart businessmen, but they were not. They were 18, 19, 20 years old making a ton of money, and they acted like adolescents. True?
GROTENSTEIN: Yes. There is a scene in our book where in between throwing pieces of furniture off of a Mediterranean hotel window into the sea below, these kids are literally burning euros to light cigars.
SMITH: You know, well, people may have noticed that we're talking about this in the past tense. This was a limited era, the online poker playing era. What happened?
GROTENSTEIN: It lasted almost exactly 10 years. The United States government cracked down originally in 2008 with a set of laws that were tacked on to a Homeland Security bill that essentially outlawed online poker. And by the year 2010, online poker was effectively shut down in the United States and these kids were all forced to find something else to do with their time.
SMITH: So where did these kids that we follow in this book, where'd they go?
GROTENSTEIN: Some of them went back to school. Some of them went back home and found real jobs in family businesses. Some of them were able to hold onto some of their money and used that to fund startup companies or do other things. And some of them decided that they had, at this point, become legitimate poker players and were ready to compete in the biggest games in the world and are still playing in those games and succeeding at those games.
SMITH: Jonathan Grotenstein is one of the authors of "Ship It Holla Ballas!" Jonathan, thanks for speaking with us.
GROTENSTEIN: Thank you, Robert.
ROBERT SMITH, HOST:
If you're just tuning in, you are listening to WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Smith. And now, it's time for a little music.
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SMITH: I have always wanted to talk over this beat. In fact, growing up in Utah in the 1980s, I imagined that this song would play over the opening credits if they ever made a movie out of my life.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOODY TWO SHOES")
ADAM ANT: (Singing) Goody two, goody two, goody, goody two shoes, goody two, goody two, goody, goody two shoes, don't drink, don't smoke...
SMITH: I should remind you that is Adam Ant. If you watched MTV in its early years, when it was still Music Television, you know Adam Ant - swashbuckling military jacket, white stripe of makeup right across the middle of his face. They had a whole pirate complex. He was a man of the '80s, a man of the moment. Now, after nearly two-decade hiatus, Adam Ant is back with his first new album in 17 years. The title is a bit of a mouthful: "Adam Ant is the BlueBlack Hussar in Marrying the Gunner's Daughter."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MARRYING THE GUNNER'S DAUGHTER")
ANT: (Singing) Marrying the gunner's daughter...
SMITH: New sound, new album, and, it turns out, a new fashion statement for Adam Ant. He described it from our London studio.
ANT: Well, it's a kind of a Napoleonic hat with a sort of about 1854 British kind of brocade waistcoat that is exactly the same design worn by Lord Byron. Sexy with a kind of cavalry trousers and then high boots with a tricolor bandana around the middle. And now I'm sporting a sort of, a moustache and a small goatee. So it's got a kind of slight Victorian feel to it.
SMITH: So this is your first album in 17 years. Where have you been? What have you been doing?
ANT: I started, you know, in the music business since '77, so I - pretty much doing music solidly till '85. And after that time, I got asked to do a Joe Orton play in Manchester at the Royal Exchange Theater, so there's an opportunity to get involved in this other art form of acting, this other creative avenue. I sort of fell in love with it, so I took about five years out just doing that.
I did a couple of plays in TVs in the States, you know, "Northern Exposure" and "Equalizer" and such, moved to Los Angeles. And then I went to live in Tennessee, where my daughter was conceived, and then I started to get the pangs of wanting to get back into songwriting and performing again, which took, you know, about three to four years to put that together. So, add that all up, plus being a house dad for about four years, it flew by.
SMITH: Well, it's interesting, because the first song off your new album is a surprising one because it's about Tennessee. It's sort of the last place you would expect to picture Adam Ant in rural Tennessee. Let's listen to a little bit of the song. It's called "Cool Zombie."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COOL ZOMBIE")
ANT: (Singing) For a time he lived in Tennessee, a brilliant hillbilly, a cool zombie now, na-now, na-now, now, na-now, na-now, now, now. The people there were real friendly...
SMITH: Well, tell me the story of this song.
ANT: I was getting married - unfortunately, we're not married anymore - but the plan was to drive from Miami up to Las Vegas and get married in the Elvis chapel. And we're driving along, and we stopped off in a small town in Tennessee. And, as I always do, I look at the locals - magazines and what have you, and there was an advertisement for an A-framed house on the Vale of Tennessee.
So we had a few hours, and before I knew it, I was up there looking at this most beautiful view. So, suddenly, the plans changed, and I thought: If I don't take this opportunity to buy this, I'm not going to do it. So we bought the house, got married there instead and spent two and a half years sort of very, very peaceful time there.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COOL ZOMBIE")
ANT: (Singing) I bought an A-framed house for you and me on the top of the Vale of Tennessee...
And Tennessee is a marvelous place to experience.
SMITH: Adam, you came out of the punk scene in the 1970s in Britain. And when we first sort of see you over here in the United States, you seem sort of far from punk. You had this iconic pop presence. The song I remember, "Stand and Deliver."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STAND AND DELIVER")
ANT: (Singing) Stand and deliver, stand and deliver your money or your life...
SMITH: An amazing sound, because it was like this whole pop package. It was the persona, it was the music, it was this perfect little pop song.
ANT: Having come out of the kind of punk rock, which is really catalyst, really, just of breaking down a wall of kind of music, quite simplistic songs, art folks really matter across the songwriting structural singles and learning a bit about scanning, and also, this revolution come along, unbeknownst to everybody - the video. So suddenly, my art school training - I'd been to Hornsey College of Art - I was out to storyboard my own videos and sort of get involved with the direction as well. So with the birth of MTV, the two came together.
SMITH: Is there a downside to this video era in that you had locked yourself into a very particular image and persona? And once MTV came out, people expected you to sort of replay that role constantly, like, no matter where you showed up. Did that ever end up being difficult?
ANT: Not really for me. But what you do on stage is a presentation. Like an actor would get ready for a play, you know, I go in and you prepare, and then off, and then it's really for me a bath and go to bed.
SMITH: So, wait, you would take the makeup off?
ANT: Oh yeah.
SMITH: When you go to Starbucks, you don't wear the hat?
ANT: Absolutely not. No, no.
(LAUGHTER)
ANT: But with every album, there was definitely an effort on my part to change everything - musically, visually. Every album had a new look and a new sound. That was something that I was very deliberate about in order to avoid just being associated with one particular look. That isn't necessarily the best way of having a long career in the music business, because it's better to be much slower than that, you know, just take it very gradually. But with me, I had a very low boredom threshold.
SMITH: Well, it's interesting. As you would put on different images, you could see the stylistic things you were doing move quickly through the culture - the military-style jacket shows up on Prince, on Michael Jackson. Do you know how they got it from you?
ANT: I did, actually, receive a phone call from Michael Jackson, and I thought it was a joke. I thought it was my drama (unintelligible), so I wasn't particularly polite. But it was actually Michael. He basically just came out and said: Where did you get the jacket from? You know, I'd like to have a look at one.
So I gave him the details, and I think he went and had one made in white. And eventually, when I went to Los Angeles, we met up, and we talked about clothes quite a great length over the course of a day at his home. He was still living with his parents.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MAN IN THE MIRROR")
MICHAEL JACKSON: (Singing) I'm starting with the man in the mirror...
SMITH: I'm speaking with musician Adam Ant. He's out with his first new album in 17 years. There's a song in the album that I really like called "Shrink." And let's hear a little bit of it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SHRINK")
ANT: (Singing) Is it just me or is it just medication...
SMITH: You write: Is it just me or it just medication? Now, you've been very public about struggling with mental illness, with bipolar disorder. Is that line a question you've asked yourself - is it just me or is it just medication?
ANT: I think that's the question about the kind of finding the right formula, the right kind of medication for you, because there are many medications dealing with this problem. We don't know enough about the brain at this point in history to be able to, you know, get inside it. And one day, hopefully, we'll be much more educated about it, and the medications will be more pinpointed.
You have to embrace the medication and try it on the recommendation of your doctor and be honest and tell them how you feel. Without that, the biggest danger is people just stop taking it because they feel OK. But there are other methods that compliment this: Getting out of the house - you really know who your friends are - speaking to your family as much as you can and just stop feeling the sense of shame.
SMITH: The life of a rock and roll musician is tough enough. It's tough enough without having to deal with this. This must make it much more difficult to figure out how to pace yourself.
ANT: Well, yeah. That was the biggest issue with me. I think the biggest lesson I've learned is to say no. Before, I felt having had three years of playing clubs and pubs and bringing out an independent album that was kind of not a big seller, and then you suddenly get your chance, suddenly, you're a pop singer, it's almost like, you know, being told, no, no, no, no, no, and then it's like, yes.
So I really just didn't stop work for seven or eight years. And that was, I think, the key problem. I've learned to say, you know, I don't feel comfortable with this. I want to take my time. I want to pace it. And I have my own record label now, so pretty much, the buck stops with me.
SMITH: That was Adam Ant. His new album's called "Adam Ant is the BlueBlack Hussar in Marrying the Gunner's Daughter." Thank you so much for being with us.
ANT: My pleasure.
SMITH: And I do have to say to all my high school girlfriends in the 1980s, eat your heart out. I got to speak to Adam Ant before you did, so...
(LAUGHTER)
SMITH: Your poster was in all their bedrooms. You know how intimidating that is, sir?
ANT: Oh, yeah. Well, I'm sure it will be again with their kids or their grandkids. Who knows?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "VINCE TAYLOR")
ANT: (Singing) A girl we call French Valerie, uh-oh, gave a gold plate chain to me. Meant to grill who had given it her an old flame named Vince Taylor.
SMITH: For the record, I didn't have that many girlfriends. And for Saturday, that's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Smith. Check out our weekly podcast. Search for WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED on iTunes or on the NPR smartphone app. You click on programs, then you scroll down. We're back on the radio, of all places, tomorrow. Until then, thanks for listening. Have a great night.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "VINCE TAYLOR")
ROBERT SMITH, HOST:
On this show, we've been asking filmmakers about the movies they never get tired of watching, the ones they could watch over and over again, including this one from the star of the film "Basquiat."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE END")
JEFFREY WRIGHT: Hi. I'm Jeffrey Wright, and I'm an actor. And the film that I have seen a million times is "Apocalypse Now," directed by Francis Ford Coppola, starring Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Albert Hall, Larry Fishburne, Robert Duvall and God knows all of the other greatest actors in the world giving some of the greatest portrayals ever seen in cinema.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE END")
WRIGHT: I guess I was maybe 16 or 17 when I first saw it. And, you know, for, you know, a teenager, you know, becoming a man, there's, I think, to some extent, a kind of natural fascination with conflict and war for a young man. And so this movie, in some ways, was kind of the closest that, you know, I had to a war experience.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "APOCALYPSE NOW")
ROBERT DUVALL: (as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore) I love the smell of Napalm in the morning.
WRIGHT: It's the story of, you know, a young soldier who's given a mission, and he goes on an epic, you know, hero's journey through madness and horror.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
WRIGHT: To choose one scene, why don't I just keep it simple and just start with the beginning, where we find, you know, Martin Sheen, you know, Captain Willard, lying in bed in Saigon and the journey begins.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "APOCALYPSE NOW")
WRIGHT: It probably features the most effective narration of any film in the history of cinema.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "APOCALYPSE NOW")
WRIGHT: The end of this day, we find, you know, Marlon Brando in just one of the most powerful, strange, kind of wonderfully indulgent performances imaginable. You know, he says - asks Martin Sheen, you know, are you an assassin?
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "APOCALYPSE NOW")
WRIGHT: His face peers out finally into the light, and he says: You're neither.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "APOCALYPSE NOW")
WRIGHT: Grocery clerks, he says...
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "APOCALYPSE NOW")
WRIGHT: ...to collect the bill, you know, and it's just staggering poetry. It's just magic.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "APOCALYPSE NOW")
WRIGHT: The first movie I ever did was a miniseries called "Separate but Equal" with Sidney Poitier and Albert Hall, who played Chief in "Apocalypse Now." And I said: Hey, Albert, oh, man, you know, I've seen "Apocalypse Now," I don't know, probably 163 times. And it's just the most meaningful thing to me. And when we finished filming, he gave me a book, and he wrote inside: Jeffrey, evolution is when a young actor comes up to you and says: I've seen your work, you know, 100-so times. And it has meaning to me. And so, I don't know, that's just kind of an antidote of what it - of what the film meant to me.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SMITH: That's actor Jeffrey Wright talking about the movie that he could watch a million times, Francis Ford Coppola's "Apocalypse Now." Wright's new film, "Broken City," is in theaters now.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SMITH: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
ROBERT SMITH, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Smith.
Well, it's been the first week of President Obama's second term, and I think we can kind of figure out how this is going to go. President Obama started with a progressive message on Inauguration Day. Republicans got into a defensive crouch almost immediately. And James Fallows of The Atlantic is here to sort out the fallout. Hello, Jim.
JAMES FALLOWS: Hello, Robert.
SMITH: So lay out the situation for us, the battle lines being drawn.
FALLOWS: Some of the battle lines are the familiar ones over taxes and spending and foreign policy and all of that. But I think there's a different kind of battle that's beginning to emerge, which is essentially about the proper rules of engagement for a political competition, discussions about the filibuster and about the recent court ruling on recess appointments and even in a proposal to change the way the electoral college works.
SMITH: Well, it makes total sense. I mean, both sides have figured out they are not going to convince anyone of anything. So if you know that's how the game is played, changing the rules is really your best option to win.
FALLOWS: That certainly has been the case at certain eras in American politics where that kind of standoff has occurred. You do see a lot of the action shifting to these procedural issues during the 1960s, especially in the South. Part of - a lot of the battle over the civil rights was for rules of voting and rules of political engagement, back in Reconstruction the time of Andrew Jackson, through the Gilded Age and progressive reforms. So this is a recurring theme in American life.
SMITH: So let's go over a few of the points that you mentioned. The federal appeals court ruling, which unanimously said that the president overstepped his authority when he made recess appointments on the National Labor Relations Board. Now, this is where the president circumvents the regular Senate confirmation process. He puts in his own nominees. What was the problem with this?
FALLOWS: Presidents for a very long time have assumed the Constitution gave them the legal power to name people to post if the Senate was not in session. And it's originally came into the Constitution because the Senate back in the olden days would go away for quite a long time.
SMITH: In horse and buggy.
FALLOWS: Exactly. So it could take weeks or months to convene people from up and down the East Coast. In recent years, there was a trick that the Democrats under Harry Reid began using under President George W. Bush, and that was the comment of these pro forma tricky sessions where they convened and then almost immediately adjourned so that the Senate would never technically be in recess.
And so recent presidents, including President Obama, have said: This isn't a real recess. I'm going to go ahead and make the appointment. This panel of the D.C. Appeals Court essentially said: No, that's not the case. You can't do it. It's too much chicanery. It's been a long-standing practice. And if this ruling stands, it will be quite a change.
SMITH: Well, another story you mentioned earlier about quibbling over the rules involved the GOP Electoral College plan. And I love talking about this one because I picture Republicans in a room looking at a map of the last election and going: I got a great idea.
FALLOWS: Well, you know, the proposal being aired in Virginia and Michigan and Ohio and a few other states is to allot each state's electoral votes - not on a winner-take-all basis - but you do it congressional district by congressional district. Now, this seems as if it would be closer to the popular vote model. But actually, congressional districts are now heavily skewed to overrepresent Republicans. More voters voted for Democratic House candidates than Republican ones during this last election, but the Republicans still have a 30-odd vote majority in the House of Representatives.
So if this scheme had been in effect during the past election, President Obama would still have had a several million vote margin in the popular vote, but Mitt Romney would've been our president.
SMITH: James Fallows is national correspondent with The Atlantic. You can read his blog at jamesfallows.theatlantic.com. Jim, thanks so much.
FALLOWS: My pleasure, Robert.
ROBERT SMITH, HOST:
I don't know about you, but there's been something wrong in the United States this week. It felt a little bit - I don't know - more poor, less fabulous. Ah, of course, of course, the rich and powerful folks of the world and the United States are all in Davos, Switzerland, attending the World Economic Forum. That's where the big names in business and politics get together in the Alps.
Of course, I'm not invited, but Andrew Ross Sorkin is. He's the editor at large for The New York Times' DealBook session. It's the last day of Davos, so he's probably sipping champagne right now.
ANDREW ROSS SORKIN: I have a glass of Cristal in one hand and caviar in the other.
(LAUGHTER)
SMITH: Of course. Well, one of the hobbies there in the Alps during Davos is to make these grand predictions, like they're all standing around, they're going to parties, so they're like: We know more than the rest of the world. We are going to tell you exactly what's going to happen in the economy. And you wrote a piece this week that said they are wrong.
SORKIN: Davos is traditionally, actually, oddly a confer indicator of what's about to happen. If you go back and look at many of the observations and predictions that have been made over the past decade here in the Alps, they have been wrong. The most famous being Bill Gates back in 2004 when he announced that spam would be eradicated in two years. That has not happened.
SMITH: And, of course, Bill Gates famously in 2003 dismissed Google. Yeah, I'm glad he didn't take investment advice from Davos.
SORKIN: Pretty much. Having said that, when you think about who are the kind of people who should know what's about to happen next in the economy, who should have a better sense in pulse of where the action is, these people should. They are in the boardroom, in the corner offices and in the political appointments, and so at some level gauging the mood. If you believe in the wisdom of crowds, there is a value to speaking to these people, to hearing what they have to say and to being here in the Alps.
SMITH: You're just saying that because you want to go.
SORKIN: You know, you got to justify it somehow.
SMITH: So what are the predictions this year that we will be disproving over years to come?
SORKIN: Well, I would say the biggest takeaway - and again, get out your salt shaker because we don't know if it's going to be true - is this idea that maybe things are actually a lot better than we think. There's so much cash on the sidelines around the globe, people just sitting on their hands, stuffing it under their mattresses. And at some point - and the view is that this point is going to come perhaps in 2013 - they're going to actually get off their hands and actually put that money to work. And that's going to actually lead to a boost in the economy.
SMITH: We should just say just because billionaires in Davos are optimistic and politicians there, maybe the rest of us shouldn't go out and blow our entire emergency fund on corvettes.
SORKIN: I would caution all the listeners on that exact score. You know, the only thing that gives me some pause is having been here for now several years, these same individuals were traditionally pessimistic, especially post-crisis. So to see the shift actually is valuable. Now, again, whether they're right, we just don't know yet.
SMITH: Andrew Ross Sorkin is editor at large of DealBook at The New York Times. Thank you very much.
SORKIN: Thank you.
ROBERT SMITH, HOST:
Hey, thanks for sticking with us. It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Smith.
Opening this week in New York City, you can see a musical that demands a little something extra from its audience: endurance. The show is called "Life and Times," and it is more than 10 hours from start to finish. It's a production of Soho Rep at the Public Theater. And before the musical starts, the audience has that focus that you only see in marathon runners, preparing for the long haul.
I notice you are fiercely shoving sushi into your mouth because this is going to be a long performance.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Yes. There's been a lot of coffee.
SMITH: Did you stretch?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: I went for a long walk right before this.
SMITH: The lines for the restrooms go around the corner. Nobody was quite sure if...
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: We're getting breaks, right, to use the bathroom?
SMITH: Yeah, yeah, you'll get breaks. So what epic tale could take more than 10 hours to tell? Henry V? The Bible? Not quite. "Life and Times" is the story of one average woman's life. The creators of the musical called her on the phone a few years ago out of the blue and they said: Tell me your life story - all of it - from the very beginning. And they recorded every stutter, every false start.
(SOUNDBITE OF RECORDING)
SMITH: And that right there? That's the script.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "LIFE AND TIMES")
SMITH: One cast member after another picks up the remembrance.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "LIFE AND TIMES")
SMITH: And once the words finally start flowing, we are inside the memories of Kristin Worrall, child of suburban Providence, Rhode Island.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "LIFE AND TIMES")
SMITH: We hear about first grade teachers, art projects, a very dramatic dance class. But even the cast admits at one point...
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "LIFE AND TIMES")
SMITH: And, yes, yes, it can sometimes be mind-crushingly dull.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "LIFE AND TIMES")
SMITH: Surprisingly, most of the time, no apology is needed. The stories are hilarious, and the language is addictive. It's like listening in on someone's secret thoughts. Pavol Liska is the co-creator of the work. His company is called the Nature Theater of Oklahoma. And Pavol says he never intended this to be quite the epic it turned out to be.
PAVOL LISKA: Originally, I was going to talk to several people and ask them to tell me their life story and compile one project out of multiple stories.
SMITH: Pavol wasn't interested in any particular story but the way we tell stories - the rhythm of, you know, how we, like, speak today. Kristin Worrall just happened to be first on Pavol's list. She says he didn't tell her at first what the project was really about.
: I assumed I was going to, you know, just be edited with a bunch of other people, and it was going to be a montage, and I'd be anonymous. So, yes, I was completely speaking off the cuff and, you know, telling him about 17 crushes I had in elementary school. I mean, who cares about that stuff?
SMITH: Turns out Pavol did. At the end of a two-hour phone call, they had only made up to year eight of her life. So he called her back, over and over, recording each time. Pavol and his co-creator, Kelly Copper, say what they loved about Kristin's life was the exact opposite of what Hollywood looks for. It was fairly unremarkable, no major trauma, no life-altering romance, no explosions. It's life as most of us remember.
LISKA: What we were interested in is to take something that's not art at all, that's not even close to art, and beat our heads against the wall to figure out how the hell do we make this into art.
KELLY COPPER: And in a way, music is the most formally challenging thing you could do to it. It's the least realistic.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "LIFE AND TIMES")
SMITH: The music gets more complex. A disco beat hits as Kristin enters adolescence. We get first kisses, sneaking cigarettes, heartbreak at the school dance. All these trivial stories start to add up, though. They start to become a moving portrait of how serious everything seemed when we were teenagers.
The musical started at 2 p.m. There are a couple breaks - cast serves dinner, dessert. It is almost midnight when Kristin gets through high school. And there it ends, with the ominous words: to be continued. I asked Pavol Liska: As enjoyable as this all is, did it really have to be this much of a marathon? He said he thinks of it like going to the gym.
LISKA: You're not going to go to a gym and get a good workout if somehow you're not sweating and have - be in a little bit of pain afterwards. This is the same thing to me. It's a total body workout, even for your, you know...
SMITH: Yeah - my back...
LISKA: Yeah.
SMITH: ...hurt a little bit after this.
LISKA: It's a workout for your body, you know? I feel like I won that for myself.
SMITH: Pavol Liska is the director, along with Kelly Copper, of "Life and Times." If you are weak of fortitude, I suggest watching it in shorter sections - they do offer that option. The marathon sessions go on Saturdays. In fact, they're all trapped there right now, as we speak, probably somewhere around eighth grade.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "LIFE AND TIMES")
ROBERT SMITH, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, from NPR News. I'm Robert Smith. We are all familiar with the traditional immigrant story - leaving a tough life somewhere, to find something better in the United States. Well, today, we tell the story of a very different kind of immigrant, those with lots of money to spare.
ANTHONY KORDA: Yes, I was a barrister in the United Kingdom. Actually, I should say England and Wales. We had a vacation home here, in Florida. And we - I say we; my wife and I, and my two children - we came here frequently. And each time we left the nice weather of Florida, we were more and more depressed about having to leave.
SMITH: Because Anthony Korda didn't like the London rain. And so he made a lifestyle choice. He was going to immigrate to the United States, and live in a place where you can get a real tan. But Korda found out pretty quickly that the last thing the United States needs is more lawyers.
KORDA: There are, obviously, professional visas; there are employment-based visas. But they are difficult to qualify for.
SMITH: Korda could have waited in line for a regular visa. But then he saw something - a shortcut, really, to becoming an American; a small, obscure, federal program designed for people like him to get into the country, if they had enough money.
KORDA: Truthfully, it looked too good to be true; you know, the idea that you would pay somebody either a million dollars or $500,000, and then be able to come and live here. It sounded to me, at that time, to be fanciful. So I did more research, and realized that it actually was a genuine program.
SMITH: All Korda had to do was cash out most of his savings, invest in an American business. And if he could help create 10 jobs - 10 jobs - he would get a green card. And oh, yeah, the investment that Korda picked?
KORDA: It was a ski resort that already existed, up in Vermont; that was looking for funding to improve its infrastructure.
SMITH: Korda plunked down his money, got to move to Florida, vacation in Vermont, and is on the road to citizenship. He got the American dream. But what did America get back in return? That's our cover story today - buying citizenship.
The immigration program for the rich was designed to provide a boost to the U.S. economy. Makes sense. Bring an investment, real money from around the world to help businesses grow, create jobs. But try to figure out if it's actually working - ask how many real, permanent jobs were created - and nobody has good figures.
First, let's show you how the program works. It's officially called an EB-5 visa. We let 10,000 people apply here, if they have the cash. Last year, 7,600 took us up on the offer. If you want to see the kind of places where the money goes, you can turn on your TV set when the Brooklyn Nets are playing hoops.
(SOUNDBITE OF BASKETBALL BROADCAST)
SMITH: The team just moved to Brooklyn, and they needed a place to play; and the developer had a plan. Take a crummy neighborhood with abandoned railroad tracks; put in housing, offices, and that glorious new stadium for the Nets, Barclays Center. Bloomberg News reports that more than $200 million of the loans to build the project came from foreigners who were using the investment to get into the United States. The business plan predicts that in the end, it will create more than 5,000 jobs. That's how it's supposed to work.
But often, the projects funded by the EB-5 visas - they're not quite as glamorous. David North is with the Center for Immigration Studies, which often advocates for lower immigration levels. He says that the rules that the federal government set up for these visas encourage the investment in depressed areas: rural places, inner cities, places where private investment is scarce. But the result is, these are often risky loans.
DAVID NORTH: The investments that are open to an EB-5 investor are really rock-bottom, marginal investments.
SMITH: Well, what do you mean rock-bottom, marginal investments? It's not...
NORTH: Well...
SMITH: ...it's not the IBMs; it's not the gold-star companies?
NORTH: Certainly, it's not that. It's none of the above. These are essentially, small - usually real estate investments of some kind, small construction investments.
SMITH: North says one of the other problems with the rules is that the investor - the one who wants to move to the United States - has very few responsibilities to make sure the project works, in the end.
NORTH: We're not bringing entrepreneurs to this country, in this program. We're bringing passive investors. Now, I was retained by the Australian embassy, at one point. And they demanded that you speak English, that you be relatively young, that you run a company, and you put in some money. OK? We don't do any of those things. All we care about is just the money. And we don't care whether they start a business, or they just sign a check.
SMITH: The federal government doesn't release numbers, to tell us how many of these investments succeed or fail. Dune Lawrence, an investigative reporter with Bloomberg News, spent months trying to figure it out.
DUNE LAWRENCE: The basic problem starts with the fact that it's an economic development program run by an immigration agency. And the immigration agency is focused on immigration. So their big concern is - sort of handling the applications from each immigrant. And this whole economic development side of it has grown up that - I think they're pretty unprepared to handle.
SMITH: So as an investigative reporter, you're looking to see this basic question, how's the economic side of this working? You know, is it, in fact, you know, creating jobs; is it, in fact, creating successful businesses. What data was available to you? There's not an end-of-the-year, annual report that the immigration agency puts out that says, we were good - or we weren't?
LAWRENCE: You know, they'll tell you how many of these immigrant investors actually got the green card, which would imply that their money was spent properly and created the proper number of jobs. But there's, literally, no one going out and saying oh, this actually happened; or, this has actually created any jobs. I mean, it's all based on the economic assumptions that were made at the beginning of the project. And if they can show that they're in the process of spending the money, then that's that.
SMITH: Yeah. So in your research - because there's not any official way to do this, you did something very smart. You went out and looked for lawsuits, which, of course, tells you what went wrong; what is the worst-case scenario. And you mentioned the South Dakota dairy farm. There's just nothing more American to me, than a South Dakota dairy farm. Explain to me what the plan was.
[POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: The question about a dairy farm investment in South Dakota is answered with information regarding another, unrelated lawsuit. The dairy farm lawsuit was brought by South Korean investors. The lawsuit described below involved Chinese investors and a cattle-processing plant.]
LAWRENCE: This involved Chinese investors. In that lawsuit, it seemed to come down to a dispute with the agent. The agent who had gone and solicited these Chinese investors wanted more money. And that was my understanding - is that there was a dispute over the fee. And so the agent then - and this gives you a sense of how little the investors in these projects understand - the agent was then going back to the Chinese investors and saying look, you've totally been duped. You've got to sue this guy. He didn't tell you what was going on.
And if you're a Chinese person, and all you want to do is buy a visa and move to the United States so your kids can get an education here - you don't have the means, likely, to really understand all that, especially if you're going through all these layers. You've got the agent who recruited you and then their international office somewhere, and then the regional center and the immigration authority in the U.S. I mean, it's a really confusing process.
SMITH: And there's no information on what's working, and what's not.
LAWRENCE: Yeah. I mean, it's definitely a complex process. Something called the North American Securities Administrators Association, they put EB-5 investment scams as one of their top five new threats to investors. That's not so good, not a good sign for the program.
SMITH: That's Dune Lawrence, investigative reporter with Bloomberg News. Despite all the questions, defenders of the program say look, money is money. Maybe some rich foreigners could lose their stake. Maybe some won't create the right number of jobs. Maybe a lot of the projects don't make sense. But it is a real - if relatively tiny - bump in investment. Mark Jones is a political science professor at the Baker Institute, at Rice University in Texas.
MARK JONES: Overall, I think it's good for the economy because it is bringing in money to the United States, and bringing in investment to the United States, that may not otherwise have come here; people who are overall making a contribution to the United States both directly via these investments but as well through other spending, once they actually arrive here.
SMITH: You know, if you weren't talking about investment - you were talking about gambling, there's a word for this in Las Vegas. They're whales.
JONES: Well, in many way - they are whales. And just like with Las Vegas, you have competition from Atlantic City; casinos in New Orleans, and elsewhere in Louisiana. There's a lot of competition for these investors. The United States isn't the only country that's trying to lure them with the promise of some type of residency status. The United Kingdom does it. New Zealand does it. Canada does it. The Bahamas does it. In the Bahamas, it's a lot easier because there, all you have to do is build a $1.5 million house, and you're done.
SMITH: So if the U.S. reaches the cap, if they end up giving away or selling - depending on how you want to look at it - the 10,000 visas, then is there a possibility that they could just make more of them?
JONES: It would require new legislation, or at least an amendment to the existing legislation by Congress; say, raising the cap from 10,000 to 15-, at which time, they may also raise the price. So there are sort of two ways Congress could address this. One is to raise the amount of visas; say, from 10,000 to 15-. The other is to raise the minimum amount, from 500,000 to a million or 1.5 million. I think either of those options would reduce the numbers below 10,000.
SMITH: But there's a political problem about expanding this program, isn't there? I mean, for a lot of people, this looks bad. It feels bad to be essentially, selling U.S. citizenship.
JONES: I think this legislation was passed in a different political climate related to immigration, back in 1990. It would be a tougher sell today, unless it was put as part of a broader, comprehensive immigration reform - in which case, it may disappear into the weeds in terms of being a relatively minor component of a much broader type of reform.
SMITH: That's Mark Jones from Rice University. He says just as you can find anecdotal evidence of failure, you can find a bunch of examples of successful projects funded with these kind of visas. In Texas, he's looked at strip malls, horse-racing enterprises, even real estate projects that were funded by immigrants, that seem to be working.
But what about Anthony Korda? He's the British lawyer who wanted to live by the beach. He invested half a million dollars in a ski resort, to get his visa. So how did it work out?
KORDA: It's been a fairly modest return on investment. I would say, maybe over the six years that we've been invested, we've maybe had about 1.5 to 2 percent back.
SMITH: OK, Korda could have done much better in the stock market or bonds. But then, he would have been living in the gloom of London instead of on the beach in Florida, where he wants to be.
KORDA: It's a trade-off. I mean, this is why I say, in answer to the critics, you have to be able to offer these investors something in return because they are investing in industries that the banks don't want to invest in but, you know, U.S. investors may not be looking at as a great rate of return. You're certainly not going to find investors at the - you know, the 500,000 or a million-dollar level who are going to be satisfied with, you know, between naught and 1 or 2 percent, and who are going to have their money tied up for indefinite period.
SMITH: By the way, Korda has found another way to make that initial investment pay off. As a lawyer, he now consults with other wealthy foreigners wanting to use the program to come to America.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SMITH: This is NPR News.
ROBERT SMITH, HOST:
You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Smith.
In 1962, a school bus full of kids spotted a mysterious crime scene in the Arizona desert: an abandoned car, a man and a woman shot in the head. And police were baffled. The case went unsolved for a decade, stone cold, until they arrested a man that no one would have suspected, a man who swore he was innocent, Bill Macumber.
BARRY SIEGEL: He was a pillar of his community, married, three young sons, no criminal record - not even the proverbial traffic ticket. Not just a spotless record, he was one of the most admired and revered people in his community.
SMITH: That's Barry Siegel. He's the author of a new book about the Macumber case called "Manifest Injustice." The injustice in the title refers to something that the jury in Bill Macumber's trial never learned: someone else had confessed to this crime. A sociopath named Ernest Valenzuela told his lawyer: I committed those murders. I killed that couple. But the lawyer couldn't say anything - attorney/client privilege. And Valenzuela couldn't say anything because he died in jail.
SIEGEL: The law says that a dead client's right - attorney/client privilege - trumps the rights of a defendant in a murder trial.
SMITH: Nobody could help Bill Macumber. The man who did not admit to the crime went to jail for life. And author Barry Siegel says this was one of those cases where there wasn't enough evidence to prove Macumber's innocence.
SIEGEL: They didn't use DNA in evidence back in the time he was arrested, of course, but you could've still gone to the physical evidence now and tested it for DNA, except for the fact that all the physical evidence in Macumber's trial was ordered destroyed a few years after his conviction just as a matter of housekeeping in Maricopa County.
SMITH: So let's go forward 21 years later. Bill Macumber has been in prison for two decades, and by all accounts, he is a model prisoner, he is in the local Jaycees. He's sort of a legend in prison, but mostly forgotten about outside of prison. So 21 years later, what happens?
SIEGEL: Tom O'Toole was the lawyer who heard Ernest Valenzuela's confession to the murders way, way back in the 1960s. He had always been haunted by the case, always been haunted by his inability to get up and testify about what he had heard.
So in 1998, he picked up the phone and called Larry Hammond, the founding director of the Arizona Justice Project, told Larry Hammond: I heard the confession of the true killer in the Macumber case. Macumber is innocent. You need to take up his case. And that's how the Arizona Justice Project entered the case.
SMITH: Now, this book was going to have an unhappy ending. The Justice Project tried a couple of times to introduce new evidence to get Bill Macumber out of jail, and for various legal reasons and politics, they never managed to do it. You were set, really, to end this book with a man who says he's innocent spending the rest of his life in prison.
SIEGEL: I just wanted to see the insides of this case. I wanted to use this story as a window onto the legal system. And a Hollywood ending doesn't happen that often in the legal system, and so I was satisfied to just be able to tell the story of this case, however it ended.
SMITH: And then?
SIEGEL: And then the most remarkable turn of events. A couple months ago, I had actually finished writing my book. Bill Macumber had tried one last clemency hearing, hadn't succeeded. Then they finally were able to file the petition for post-conviction release that they had never been able to complete because they just didn't have the right assembly of evidence.
And lo and behold, it went to a sympathetic judge. Out of the blue, he granted an evidentiary hearing. That put pressure on the Maricopa County prosecutor's office. If Bill got a new trial, they would never be able to prosecute him because all the evidence had been destroyed. Suddenly, the state wanted to bargain.
In early November last year, I flew out to Phoenix to see one of the most remarkable moments of my life. Bill Macumber was brought into the courtroom. He was allowed to plead no contest. And for that, he was released. I watched as the guards unlocked the cuffs, the shackles, the chains, and Bill walked free out of the courtroom - 38 years in prison, 77 years old. Never thought I'd see that day.
SMITH: Joining us now is Bill Macumber, who is speaking to us from his home. That must feel good, to be able to say you're speaking to us from your home.
BILL MACUMBER: Most certainly.
SMITH: Describe what you see outside your home right now. You have picked a place as different as possible from prison.
MACUMBER: Well, I'm approximately five miles south of the Colorado line in New Mexico, and I'm looking out the kitchen window at the moment. I'm looking across a valley filled with juniper and cedar trees to a range of mountains over about 10 miles away, snow on the slopes, snow on the ground, and no barbed wire or no wire of any kind interfering with the view.
SMITH: Now, you were allowed out of prison in the end by pleading no contest. And no contest is a term of technical art, which means that in the eyes of the law, they can still consider you guilty, but you did not admit guilt. How did you decide in your own head that this is the best way to go?
MACUMBER: Had I not had any family to consider, if I had only considered myself, I would have never entered the no contest plea. I would have followed the post-conviction release through to its end, whatever that end might have been.
SMITH: So you would have died in prison.
MACUMBER: I could've, yes. But I did have a family to consider. I had a family who has endured the same thing I have endured for 38 years. I, through the no contest plea, had the option then of spending whatever time I had left with my family, particularly my children, my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren. So it was not really an option. It was something that I could not not take advantage of.
SMITH: It seemed like in the end your story really showed each and every flaw in the U.S. justice system, from the beginning when you were convicted, to the end when you got out, but even got out, sort of on this strange, almost technical decision.
MACUMBER: Our justice system is severely flawed. There's not liberty and justice for all. There's liberty and justice for those who can afford it. But for the average man, there's no guarantee they're going to get it. All of the legal assistance that I received over the last 12 years since the Justice Project became involved, if it was totaled up, we'd be talking millions and millions and millions of dollars.
And it would have been totally impossible to do that had it not been for the gracious efforts of the Justice Project, of the volunteers. It just would not have been possible. That's all there is to it.
SMITH: So do you feel bitterness about this whole process?
MACUMBER: No, no. Bitterness is for fools. Bitterness, vengeance, all of that, there's no saving grace in those things. What I'm doing is looking ahead down the road. I don't look back. It doesn't produce any positive results.
SMITH: Bill Macumber, now free from prison, is the subject of the new book "Manifest Injustice" written by Barry Siegel, whom we heard from a bit earlier. Bill, thank you so much.
MACUMBER: Thank you very much, Robert, for your interest.
SMITH: And what are you going to do with the rest of today?
MACUMBER: I'm working on a little story for my great-granddaughters. I'm going to finish that up. Then we'll just see what the day brings.
SMITH: Wow. An unpredictable day. That's a nice change.
(LAUGHTER)
MACUMBER: Yes, it is.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ROBERT SMITH, HOST:
Hey, thanks for sticking with us. It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Smith. And now, time for some music.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BIG FREEDIA: (Singing) Big Freedia coming one more time. Big Freedia coming one more time.
My name is Big Freedia the Queen Diva. I'm a bounce artist, straight born and raised from New Orleans, Louisiana, and I love what I do.
SMITH: And what she does is to roll into a town, set up at a club and drive the audience wild. You can't just listen to Big Freedia. You have to be there to experience Big Freedia.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Just get out there and get sweaty, get dirty, dance.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Bootylicious, shaking everything, everywhere, every body.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: We are older group. That's what we call working your body.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: I did what was called a handstand. What you do is get on your hands, you put both legs in the air, you just shake until you fall down.
SMITH: There has been so much discussion here at WEEKEND ALL THINGS CONSIDERED about how to refer exactly to the thing which you shake. And we know we're a family friendly program, so there's many different words we can use.
FREEDIA: I would say booty shaking.
SMITH: OK.
FREEDIA: How that sound?
SMITH: Booty? Behind? Or does that, like, does that make me sound like a square?
FREEDIA: Yeah, definitely.
(LAUGHTER)
SMITH: You're looking at me like this is the worst thing ever.
FREEDIA: You know, you're like, you come shake your booty, come and shake your rump shaker.
SMITH: All right. OK. Now, that we've settled the matter of terminology, let me tell you a little about Big Freedia. Big Freedia's name during the day is Freddie Ross when he is an interior decorator. But at night, he is a she - Big Freedia. And that's how she arrived at our studios - six-foot-something, hair down her back, earrings. Big Freedia is the queen of bounce music.
Describe to me bounce music. It's more than just the sound, right?
FREEDIA: My definition of bounce music is up tempo, heavy bass, call-and-respond type music. It's strictly in - born and raised out in New Orleans, and they love it. Like, they listen to it morning, noon and night.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FREEDIA: (Rapping) Now, now, now, now, now, now...
It has a lot to do with dancing, as well, call and respond, you know, where if I will say, (singing) I got that gin in my system. And then the crowd would say, (singing) somebody going to be my victim.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GIN IN MY SYSTEM")
FREEDIA: (Singing) I got that gin in my system. Somebody gonna be my victim. I got that gin in my system. Somebody gonna be my victim...
SMITH: Now, these lyrics are pretty simple, but that's intentional, right?
FREEDIA: Oh, yeah, definitely.
SMITH: Why? Because you want to leave room for the bass?
FREEDIA: You've got to leave room for the bass and the boom and the knock and just for people to be able to just free themselves and express themselves through dance.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FREEDIA: (Rapping) Do you enjoy your baby daddy? Shake it like your baby daddy. Want it, want it like your baby daddy, shake it like your baby daddy. Go pow. These songs never beat...
You know, lately, they say Big Freedia has the best dance party going on around the world right now. So I definitely want to leave that open for a lot of dancing.
SMITH: So describe to me the history of bounce music.
FREEDIA: It started about two decades ago, two DJs out of New Orleans. And they started, like, colliding these two beats, which was the Triggerman beat by the Showboys and the Brown beat. And the Triggerman is that (humming) dum-du-dum-dum.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DRAG RAP")
THE SHOWBOYS: The rhymes you are about to hear are true. MC's names have been changed to protect the innocent.
FREEDIA: When you would hear that come on, everybody in the whole club just rocking and jumping. I would be at middle school dances, high school dances, and that would be something that was very epic to the sound when they would put on The Showboys or there would be Brown beat. And we used those beats in just a lot of our music. And we know how to flip it a million and one ways. And the producers, they know what to do with it to make the crowd jump.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FREEDIA: (Rapping) This is Big Freedia, the Queen Diva, you best'a believe her. And I wanna thank all my fans and all my haters for making me famous.
About 1998, my best friend, Katey Red, was the first transsexual male to come out with bounce music. And I background Katey for about two years. And then that's when the game totally switched when me and Katey jumped in it. And, yeah, we messed their heads up big time.
SMITH: Wait. Why? Why? New Orleans has a rich gay culture. Why was it unusual for two gay guys to be doing bounce music?
FREEDIA: Because it was a new music, you know, a new sound. And New Orleans does have a very rich gay culture, but that wasn't something new for everybody.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FREEDIA: (Rapping)(Unintelligible)
SMITH: When you're up on stage, when you do the bounce music, there is a particular kind of dance that goes with this. Describe the scene for me. Like, what does it look like?
FREEDIA: Well, you have a lot of butt shaking going on, you know, definitely onstage. You have guys on stage doing the shoulder hustle where you're like kind of moving your shoulders and you're, like, moving them side to side and you're making them jump up and down, and you're moving your arms with it and your legs. That's kind of what the fellows do.
The girls kind of, you know, hands on the floor, butt in the air, bent over, shaking up and down like a basketball, you know, kind of round in a circle like a mixing bowl, you know? So they do it a little different. They swivel their bodies a little different like a snake while they're dancing. We go in all different kind of ways. Everyone is unique to the way that they dance in New Orleans.
SMITH: You actually bring dancers with you. Like, you say this is how it's supposed to look.
FREEDIA: Right. I have my divas, and I have my dudes. That's the Big Freedia team. And we definitely have to show them exactly how it go. And, you know, in some of the cities that I go to, I offer my dance class that I, you know, do before the show. The video is coming soon, too, workout video.
SMITH: There's a workout video, or this is the way you have to prepare to go to your show?
FREEDIA: Well, there's going to be a workout video, too, because a lot of people use it at home to work out. This definitely will get you moving.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU ALREADY KNOW")
SMITH: Now - not to get personal here - but, like, I don't have much of a butt.
FREEDIA: Everyone has a butt. No matter what size it is, you can work it.
(LAUGHTER)
FREEDIA: That's my motto.
SMITH: No, you think anyone can do it.
FREEDIA: Anyone can do it. I saw the skinniest girl to the biggest girl do it, as well as the guy. And everyone can do it.
SMITH: You know, when I talk to people about Big Freedia, about yourself, they say: Oh, you have to see her live. It's all about seeing her live, which is great, but where does the music go from here? Do you have to convert people, sort of, one fan at a time, one show at a time?
FREEDIA: I don't say it'd be one at a time, because people who come to the show, they all bring their friends, and they come in numbers. So I'm picking up a dozen of fans at a time, yes.
SMITH: But that's a lot of hard work rather than shipping out CDs to every radio station in the country.
FREEDIA: That's why I'm the hardest working girl in bounce music.
SMITH: I don't deny it. Big Freedia the Queen Diva is on tour, coming to a town near you. She also has a documentary coming out about her life and a dance instruction DVD so you, too, can bounce in your own home.
FREEDIA: Yes.
SMITH: Thanks for coming in.
FREEDIA: Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SMITH: Very nicely done, and we didn't have use the terms caboose, tush or derriere or fanny. Would you use fanny?
FREEDIA: No. That's like a fanny pack. Why would I use fanny? They'd be having the fanny packs in the front. I wouldn't use fanny at all.
SMITH: Now, derriere. That's...
FREEDIA: Yeah.
SMITH: You got the French thing with New Orleans? Like, derriere, maybe?
FREEDIA: Yeah.
That's Beyonce, though, derriere.
SMITH: Oh, Beyonce owns derriere.
FREEDIA: Yeah. Yes.
SMITH: She'll sue you if you use that.
FREEDIA: Exactly.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
FREEDIA: (Rapping) Boom, she taking in. Boom, she marveling in. Boom, she wiggle in. Boom, she's all here. Here, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock, rock. Queen Diva. You are ready now.
ROBERT SMITH, HOST:
As US magazine likes to say: Celebrities, they're just like us. They watch movies like us. They like movies like us. And on this show, we ask them about the movies they never get tired of watching, the ones they know by heart, including this one from a Grammy Award-winning hip-hop star.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
COMMON: Peace. This is Common, and I'm an artist and actor. And the movie I've seen a million times is "Coming to America," directed by John Landis, starring Eddie Murphy, Arsenio Hall and James Earl Jones.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
COMMON: I first saw "Coming to America" when it was released in theaters. I went to the movies with some friends of mine, and we loved it. No matter how many times I've seen it, I still laugh.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "COMING TO AMERICA")
SMITH: I would say it's about an African prince who - the way his tradition in his life is, is that he was set up to be married by his parents, and that's just the way it usually is.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "COMING TO AMERICA")
COMMON: But he decided to go find a wife that he really would love and somebody he chose to be his wife. So he left from a country in Africa to come to America to find his queen, his lady. And he actually came to New York, ironically enough, to Queens, New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "COMING TO AMERICA")
COMMON: First of all, it was just funny. And Eddie Murphy was already one of my favorite actors because he just is so funny. When I see him, it's like he had a certain natural thing about him that just was great. And you don't even, like, try to pay attention to, like, well, is his accent, does it really sound African or not? You just were in it from the beginning.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "COMING TO AMERICA")
COMMON: You know, you can't help but love some of the barbershop scenes when Eddie Murphy first - his character first came in.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "COMING TO AMERICA")
COMMON: He had a tail, and he decided to get that cut. And, you know, the barbers in there who were played by Eddie Murphy and Arsenio Hall, they were just talking, you know, about these guys from Africa, like, just kind of looking at them strange.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "COMING TO AMERICA")
COMMON: Seeing somebody as great as Eddie Murphy do what he does.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "COMING TO AMERICA")
COMMON: His acting influenced me in a way that made me want to be a star.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COMING TO AMERICA")
SMITH: That's rapper and actor Common talking about the movie that he could watch a million times, the Eddie Murphy comedy "Coming to America." Common's new film, "Luv" spelled L-U-V, is currently in theaters.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COMING TO AMERICA")
SMITH: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
ROBERT SMITH, HOST:
This past week, one of our producers read a story in the Los Angeles Times that seemed almost like a movie pitch. Fade in - interior - California, early 1980s. Mike Williams is an inventor without an invention. A cracked tooth has sent him to the dentist's office, and he asked if he can see it.
MIKE WILLIAMS: Don't you have any cameras or anything to really show people their teeth? And he goes, no, no, we don't need that. We've got a mirror. And I'm going, well, how are you going to show me my teeth then? And he goes, you know what, Mike, that's an excellent idea.
SMITH: Eureka. Mike Williams set about inventing the first intraoral camera, and it was a big success. From there, he formed a company and sold it.
WILLIAMS: For about a million dollars.
SMITH: Other medical inventions followed.
WILLIAMS: And from there, my career took off. One day, David Letterman called me and said, I just read about your little camera. Can you come on down to Rockefeller Center in New York and bring your cameras to the studios and set them up?
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN")
SMITH: I forgot about the monkey cam. The monkey cam was amazing.
WILLIAMS: Yup.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LATE SHOW WITH DAVID LETTERMAN")
SMITH: Mike Williams was successful, appreciated, in demand. But just like in a movie, it wouldn't last. Jump cut to the 2000s.
WILLIAMS: The real estate market destroyed a lot of my financial capabilities, and my home went into foreclosure. I had a group that defrauded me in Florida, took about $2.5 million from me in a scam. And it just kept going and kept going, and I couldn't stop it. Just everything crumbled. And then my wife asked for a divorce. And when she asked for a divorce, I packed my car and told my kids to come and get what they wanted, and I basically hit the streets.
SMITH: Mike Williams, successful inventor, was now homeless. For a while, he lived out of his car, kept a journal on a laptop. But once he fell behind on his car payments, he took shelter in a dumpster.
WILLIAMS: I found out that I was really nothing, and that was very hard for me to grasp, the fact that nobody wanted me around. They really didn't want me sleeping next to their cars or in their backyards or out in the parks. That I was something nobody wanted to see or could - even be involved in. And that crushed me.
SMITH: And I understand that one night, you were sleeping in the park and - well, tell me the story.
WILLIAMS: Well, this particular night, I was roaming the streets of Sacramento. And down on the capital city state mall, there's a very large rose garden there. And I thought, man, this would really be a nice place to just hang out. So I hid underneath the fountain of the rose garden. I had my laptop in a bag. And about 1 o'clock in the morning, I was woken up with two guys that were kicking me and trying to pull me out and grabbing me. And I fought as best I could, but they kicked me so hard that I passed out. They gave me severe hernias and destroyed my prostate.
And I laid there. I just laid there and cried. And, of course, I lost my laptop. I lost all of my notes and all of my pictures from the streets and whatever. I got up, and I walked to Sutter emergency room. And I waited there for 19 hours. I was a homeless guy, didn't look too good, didn't smell too good, and in a lot of pain and no insurance. And finally, they took me in. And little did I know that that beating was truly the beating that changed my life.
SMITH: It changed his life because Mike Williams' injury would eventually lead him to Dr. Jong Chen.
DR. JONG CHEN: He come into my office complaining all of the pain in the lower abdomen.
SMITH: Before Dr. Chen performed surgery on Williams' damaged prostate, the two struck up a conversation.
WILLIAMS: He asked me, he says, well, what did you do with your life? How did you become homeless? And I started telling him the story. And I said, as a matter of fact, I'm the inventor of that little wire catheter that you're using.
CHEN: And I asked about his education background. I said, well, what a waste - this gentleman, you know, walking on the street.
SMITH: What a waste. Dr. Chen saw a way to help Mike Williams get off the street.
WILLIAMS: And he called me at the shelter one day, and he asked me out for breakfast.
CHEN: He almost cried, you know? I said, oh, go ahead. It'll be on me.
(LAUGHTER)
WILLIAMS: So he said, I want you to bring your patents. I want you to bring whatever you're working on. And so he picked me up. We went to McDonald's. And he said, well, what are you doing now? What's your new invention? And I told him I want to invent for the first time a secure, safe place for homeless people and people that are displaced in our society. I want to give them a safe place to live.
SMITH: Mike Williams came up with this idea while resting in one of the only safe places he could find: a dumpster. He'd drawn up plans for a self-contained survival pod.
WILLIAMS: It's six feet wide, six feet tall. It's got a single bed in it. It's got a chemical toilet.
SMITH: And Dr. Chen signed on. He agreed to form a company with Mike Williams and start creating a prototype pod. They envision other applications too. FEMA could use these shelters for emergency housing. Airports could rent them to travelers with long layovers. And it all got started with an unusually generous contribution.
CHEN: To me, a patient is a patient no matter what kind of status you have. They need the help, we can give him the help.
WILLIAMS: Dr. Chen not only took me out of the shelter, he took me downtown and got me a really nice apartment. He took me to Macy's and bought me all new clothes, a whole new wardrobe. He still treats me for free. He just can't do enough. Truly an amazing, amazing man.
SMITH: So, Mr. Williams, this is an amazing opportunity. Very few people get even the first chance that you got to invent something and build a company around it. You've been given another chance with a new business partner, a new idea, a new start on life. How do you personally change the way you approach the world?
WILLIAMS: With humility and prayer every day.
SMITH: You weren't humble before?
WILLIAMS: I was humble, but I was rich. And I think that's probably what the problem is with our leaders, is that once you have a separation of class and you're rich, you can be humble, you can say all the right things, you can pretend like you care, but are these people really the ones that are pulling people out of the streets, give them a second chance, give them a job, loving them the way Dr. Chen love me because they're rich. And I'm just telling you that Dr. Chen is the example for America.
SMITH: That's inventor Mike Williams who, along with Dr. Jon Chen, is developing a portable housing pod for the homeless.
ROBERT SMITH, HOST:
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Smith.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SMITH: This is tape of former New York Senator Alfonse D'Amato from 1992 on the floor of the Senate. He was trying to stop a tax bill. Believe it or not, he was trying to save a typewriter factory.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SMITH: Senator D'Amato spoke for 15 hours on the floor of the Senate to keep the bill from passing. We have a name for this technique, when one person talks so much that nothing else can get done. We call it being a jerk. But in the Senate, it's an old tradition, and they call it the filibuster. And I believe that the good gentleman from New York is now trying to filibuster my program. Sir, I demand that you yield the floor.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SMITH: The problem I'm facing right here is the same one they have in the Senate. It's almost impossible to stop someone who wants to filibuster. When we talk about a do-nothing Congress, well, filibuster is one of the reasons. A lot of people are fed up with this.
In fact, a group of relatively new senators came up with a plan to make the filibuster much more difficult, to allow Senators to do what they came to Washington, D.C., to do: legislate.
And this week, the long-awaited reforms were announced. It ended up being a compromise, but one that Senator John McCain has high hopes for.
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: I believe that the object and I believe the outcome of this hard-earned compromise would allow us to achieve the legislative goals that all of us seek.
SMITH: It became fairly obvious that the changes to the rules of the Senate did not go as far as the reformers wanted. It did not end the filibuster. In fact, the changes might not make much of a difference at all. Today's cover story: Trying to kill the filibuster.
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SMITH: OK. When you heard the word filibuster, it's easy to think of Alfonse D'Amato, talking himself hoarse to help out a factory in his state. The principled filibuster, arguing all night long to protect something you believe in, even newly elected senators had this dreamy idea.
SENATOR JEFF MERKLEY: I pictured filibustering as something that occurred on a rare issue that goes deep in your heart or deep to the interest of your state that you do once or twice in your career.
SMITH: This is Democratic Senator Jeff Merkley from Oregon. He's in his first term. But it didn't take long after he arrived to see that times had changed.
MERKLEY: And suddenly, every vote, every bill was filibustered.
SMITH: And you can go down a list of things that would probably be law today if not for the constant filibustering in the Senate. Whatever you care about, probably filibustered at some point. Take the DREAM Act. That allows children of undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship. That was blocked by a filibuster twice in the Senate, even though it had a majority of votes needed to pass.
OK. That's a Democratic proposal. But it works the other way too. I remember back in 2005, the Republicans wanted to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, NWAR. That was stopped by a filibuster from the Democrats.
And the stunning thing for Senator Merkley when he got here was that to do all these filibusters, you don't need to actually walk out on the floor of the U.S. Senate. You don't need to talk all night like Alfonse D'Amato. That doesn't happen anymore. You don't need to talk at all to filibuster. All you do is pick up the phone.
MERKLEY: Any senator can object to a unanimous consent to get to a final vote. That's it. An objection. Call up the floor leader and say if there's unanimous consent, object on my behalf. I'm not going to let us go to final vote. And so everything's objected to, which means that you're wasting enormous amounts of time.
You'd start to see why we aren't getting appropriation bills done, why we don't get nominations done, why - for judges or for executive appointments. It means that we are deeply, deeply dysfunctional and paralyzed.
SMITH: So how did this happen? There's no mention of the filibuster in the Constitution. In most instances, the Senate is supposed to work on majority rule. But way back, 200 years ago, one guy screwed up, made this all possible. That man? He's our villain today. Aaron Burr, the third vice president of the United States and the stone-cold killer of Alexander Hamilton. Sarah Binder teaches political science at George Washington University, and she picks up our story.
SARAH BINDER: Aaron Burr has just shot Alexander Hamilton. He's been indicted, but he gives his farewell speech to the Senate because he's still the vice president. And one of the things he does is he says: You are a great deliberative body, but great legislatures have really nice rule books, and yours is a mess.
And he proceeds to walk through the rules of the Senate, pointing out the ones, which hadn't been used, or there's duplicative. And he singles out a rule called the Previous Question Motion. He singles it out and said: This one - you're not using it really. We don't really know what it means. You should drop it. And they drop it. They clean up the rule book, and that motion's gone.
SMITH: This is how you decided we've had enough. We've all talked. We should really vote.
BINDER: Absolutely. You know, they hadn't used it that way. They hadn't quite figured out how powerful the rule could be. But once you get rid of the Previous Question Motion, that's the only way for a majority to decide to cut off debate and move to a vote. Not because senators thought we need to filibuster, we need extended debate; they didn't know how to use the rule. I think it was, at best, a mistake, right? The unintended consequence was that they created a chamber with no rule to cut off debate.
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SMITH: It took decades before anyone realized that this was an amazing new loophole. If one senator can keep the debate going, then every senator functionally has a veto. Any senator can grind down or even stop the process by simply saying: I'm not ready to vote quite yet.
The filibuster, as we know it, was first used in the mid-1800s, mostly as a threat. It was perfected in the civil rights era as senators from the South tried to stop civil rights legislation. Senator Strom Thurmond once talked on the Senate floor for more than 24 hours. He was infamous.
But at least in those days, it didn't happen that often. These days, over the last few years, there have been hundreds of filibusters - big and small - over just about everything, which brings us to the reform efforts and this week's compromise. Senator Jeff Merkley and a number of other recently elected Democratic senators pushed hard late last year - and this month, too - for a plan that would make the filibuster much harder to pull off.
For instance, part of the plan: No more phone call. If you want to filibuster, you've got to do it. You have to take the floor of the Senate, and you need to start talking and keep talking. Now, the Republicans didn't like this. They're in the minority. They want the power of the filibuster.
And the proposal was especially hated by those who had been in the Senate a long time. I talked with Republican Senator Lamar Alexander last month, and he thought these newly elected Democratic senators didn't understand the traditions of the Senate.
SENATOR LAMAR ALEXANDER: It's important to have a Senate that slows things down and arrives at a consensus before we make a big change in American life.
SMITH: It seems too slow.
ALEXANDER: Well, we live in a speeded-up world. But it doesn't seem too slow when a king or a mob come in and do something to you you don't like.
SMITH: But there's no kings. There's no mobs.
ALEXANDER: Well, if you have a sudden infusion of passion into the electorate - whether it's Occupy Wall Street or whether it's the Tea Party or whether it's any group - you don't necessarily want all of that to change American life in 30 days by majority rule.
SMITH: And Senator Alexander says he frequently reminds his Democratic colleagues of this fact. They will be in the minority again someday. And when that day comes, the Democrats may want the easy filibuster back again.
ALEXANDER: And what I've said to them before is, I mean, you might like the idea of a freight train running through the Senate like it runs through the House, but you're not going to like it as well if the freight train is the Tea Party Express when the Republicans are in the majority.
SMITH: And you say I've been there.
ALEXANDER: Well, that's what I say to them.
SMITH: This week, when the Senate announced its new rules, it was clear that the old guard had won the battle. The rules had minor tweaks to the filibuster. It will make it easier for the majority to get a bill to the floor for debate, but it won't make it much easier to get that legislation passed. We ran it by our filibuster expert Sarah Binder.
BINDER: So these reforms tinkered at the edges to speed up the Senate when they've agreed we're ready to vote.
SMITH: Well, bottom line, if legislation used to move through the Senate as quickly as a snail, what are we at now? Are we at a turtle?
(LAUGHTER)
BINDER: We're no faster than a turtle in most cases. There's one little rule change that will speed up putting judges onto the federal bench, and that might be a little hop, skip and jump of a little bunny who doesn't - who can't go very far. But by and large, we're in the world of the turtles. We're taking advantage of some - cutting away the underbrush and moving ahead a little quicker.
SMITH: We reached Senator Merkley, the guy who had supported the far more sweeping reforms, by cellphone. He said he was hopeful something good could come of it. His colleague in the reform effort, Senator Tom Udall, also tried to stay positive about the changes.
SENATOR TOM UDALL: I think these rules changes are a hint that we're going to move in a new direction.
SMITH: That's an optimistic way to put it, but some might say you tried to change everything and you lost.
(LAUGHTER)
UDALL: Well, my Uncle Mo, this Morris Udall - he was a congressman from - 30 years from Arizona. And he was a great reformer. He used to say reform is not for the short-winded. You don't get everything you want the first time around, sometimes the second time around. I wish we had gone a little bit further, but we didn't have the votes.
SMITH: The Senate will revisit the filibuster rules in another two years, and that's when the votes might change. To peer into the congressional future, we brought in Manu Raju. He's a senior congressional correspondent for POLITICO. He says the fight over the filibuster was sort of a generational split. And the Senate? The Senate is changing.
MANU RAJU: What you're seeing in the Senate as a whole, it is becoming a more junior, younger institution. There are probably about half of the Senate right now has not even served a full term. So you're seeing a big shift in the way that the Senate operates. And so you're going to see a fight over the rules probably in the next Congress, especially if Democrats keep control the Senate and there are more and more folks in the Democratic caucus who have never served in the minority. They're going to be a big push to change it to make the majority be able to move a little quicker.
SMITH: Senators have promised that they will use these next two years to try to get along better, to ease up a little bit on the filibuster. They don't want the American public to get as fed up as Alfonse D'Amato during his filibuster.
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SMITH: This is NPR News.
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It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Smith.
Friday was the second anniversary of the uprising in Egypt, the topple of the president there, Hosni Mubarak. The anniversary sparked massive protests against the new government, the Islamist government. The violence has left more than 40 people dead.
In a forceful address to the nation earlier today, Egypt's president declared a 30-day state of emergency in three Egyptian cities. NPR's Leila Fadel joins us to discuss the latest. Hey, Leila.
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: Hi.
SMITH: Why don't you start by telling us exactly what President Mohammed Morsi means by a state of emergency?
FADEL: Well, basically, he's imposed the emergency law of Hosni Mubarak's era again in these three cities for a limited time - for 30 days. But it means that there's carte blanche. They can arrest anybody they want if they look a little bit fishy, and they can use the full force of the state to try to quell the city.
So for some, you know, human rights groups are saying it's a little concerning that they're employing what they call Mubarak era's tactics to try to calm the protests that have turned so violent.
SMITH: Well, I'm sure he's justifying it by the level of violence that's been seen in Port Said. Tell us about what's happening there.
FADEL: Well, Port Said, in some ways, is a bit of a separate issue than the anti-government protests that we've been seeing since Friday. There was a court ruling that sentenced 21 soccer fans to death over soccer-related riots that happened last year that killed 74 people. While some people were happy, Port Said erupted.
SMITH: Well, you talk about the situation in Port Said. The protesters there, do they have a political agenda also?
FADEL: I think there is a general discontent, a general anger, towards how this transition has gone over the last two years. Not only is there no political stability, but the economy keeps getting worse. And so people feel that since these promises of economic equality and gender equality, civil liberties, happened two years ago, nothing has come to a fruition.
So there is an undercurrent of just general discontent, and then this court ruling, many people feel, is rushed and politicized away to placate some people because many soccer fans known as ultra - Al-Ahly - that are here in Cairo were saying if the full extent of the law is not served, we will set Cairo on fire. And so people feel that this sentencing was actually politicized, that these young men are being scapegoated.
SMITH: I'm sure you've talked to people who two years ago had such high hopes for the future of Egypt, and now they're seeing all this on their television. They hear about the state of emergency. What are they saying?
FADEL: I think people are just disappointed. You know, there was so much promise, there was so much hope two years ago, and none of that really has come to pass. None of the potential of that promise has come to pass, and there's a lot of discontent with this government. But it's also a country that is so polarized right now between those that want to give the Islamist president more of a chance and those who feel that he's just failing to fulfill any promise that he's ever made and also feel that he is serving more of an Islamist agenda than an Egyptian agenda.
So this is a country deeply divided. And although we're seeing thousands of people on the streets, so many people are not on the streets, and so many people don't want these protests to continue. They feel they are just stifling any progress. And every time there is a step forward, there are 10 steps back.
SMITH: You're headed up now to Port Said. You said the situation is still very dangerous there.
FADEL: It is very dangerous. This is an extremely enraged city. And speaking to residents up there by phone, they feel abandoned by the rest of Egypt. They feel that they're being allowed to be scapegoated in this way, and it's really come unleashed. From what I understand, the - on Saturday, many of these supporters and family members of the 21 men tried to storm the prison, pulled out weapons, and it's continuing until today.
And there's a lot of suspicion of anybody outside of Port Said coming into the city because there is such anger. So now that this message has been delivered from the president, we'll see how the city reacts.
SMITH: Leila Fadel is the Cairo bureau chief for NPR. Thanks, Leila.
FADEL: Thank you.
ROBERT SMITH, HOST:
The Sundance Film Festival is wrapping up today in my hometown, Park City, Utah. But even though those movies have made it into the festival, there's no guarantee they'll be seen on the big screen any place else. Some companies are trying to change that. NPR's Acacia Squires reports.
ACACIA SQUIRES, BYLINE: The golden age of Hollywood: when Americans flocked to theaters for a chance to see their favorite stars on the silver screen.
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SQUIRES: Big studios held a virtual monopoly over every step of the process, from grooming the stars to distribution. And the industry was booming. But fast forward to today and it's a different picture. With movies on demand, Netflix, and iTunes, more people are customizing their experience and watching from home.
Today, theaters fill up at a rate of only about 15 perfect. As a result, audiences and filmmakers are missing out on that big screen experience. So film producer Nicolas Gonda, who produced the Oscar-nominated "Tree of Life," started a company, tugg.com, where audiences and filmmakers themselves - not studios - decide where and when movies play.
NICOLAS GONDA: It's not as though people aren't wanting to see movies anymore. People are just more selective than ever of the films they want to see.
SQUIRES: So how does it work? Take independent filmmaker Clay Broga.
CLAY BROGA: We are one-man bands, you know, in training. We taught ourselves video production. Our whole staff, you can sort of say the same thing.
SQUIRES: Broga and his partner, Dan Hayes, made the independent documentary "Honor Flight" And like many documentaries, it didn't have a big name studio behind it to get theatrical distribution. To them, Tugg seemed like an interesting idea.
So they added their movie to the over 1,000 titles already in the Tugg library, chose theaters across the country where they wanted it to screen, set specific dates, then they reached out to everyone they knew over social media to promote the screenings. There's a catch, though. Broga and Hayes have to fill the seats or the show doesn't go on. Dan Hayes.
DAN HAYES: This is still an experiment for us, and I think it's an experiment for everybody.
SQUIRES: Sebastian Twardosz, who teaches film at the University of Southern California, is skeptical tugg.com or any service like it might actually be the answer to the complicated and expensive process of film distribution.
SEBASTIAN TWARDOSZ: There is really no one distributor that will do it all. They are just part of the puzzle in actually distributing true independent movies today.
SQUIRES: So far, for Clay Broga and Dan Hayes, that's a big piece of the puzzle. They've run 19 Tugg screenings of their documentary and 40 more are expected, just as long as they sell all of those seats. For NPR News, I'm Acacia Squires.
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Gold mines are reopening in California, some dating all the way back to the Gold Rush. Soaring gold prices are drawing mining companies back into the Sierra Nevada foothills. While some communities aren't happy to see gold mining return, others see a chance for a greener gold rush. We hear that story from Lauren Sommer of member station KQED.
LAUREN SOMMER, BYLINE: Just a few years ago, Dan Boitano was a tour guide in California's historic gold country.
DAN BOITANO: We would start out by lining everybody up on the side of the old shop building and getting them into hard hats and...
SOMMER: Boitano led tourists into an empty underground gold mine, the Lincoln Project Mine in Sutter Creek, California. In the late 1840s, miners flooded into these foothills when gold was discovered nearby. Today, Boitano still works in the same mine, but he's not leading tours anymore.
BOITANO: I'm actually a fifth-generation miner in the area. My family came here for the Gold Rush.
SOMMER: The mine is back in the gold business.
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SOMMER: Hundreds of feet below ground inside a jagged tunnel, two miners drill into a solid face of rock. Matt Collins looks on. He's with Sutter Gold Mining, the company that's reopening this mine.
MATT COLLINS: This is a 135-pound drill. This one is muffled. It's a pneumatic drill.
SOMMER: Collins pulls a small sample of gold out of his pocket, about the size of button.
COLLINS: This is the first of what we hope will be many, many, many, many ounces of gold.
SOMMER: Almost $200 million of gold over the next five years. The company is just starting production in these narrow tunnels - tunnels that only get darker and narrower the deeper we go. The only light is from our head lamps.
COLLINS: Go ahead and turn your light off for a second and you can see how dark it really gets underground.
SOMMER: It's pitch black.
COLLINS: This is about as dark as it can get. Remember that when they first started mining in here, they would have been mining with candles.
SOMMER: We're inside the mother lode the most legendary gold deposit in the state. Mines here produced millions of ounces of gold up until World War II when the industry was suspended during the war effort.
COLLINS: After having let the mines flood, let the timbers rot, the neglect and the lack of maintenance, it became very expensive to reopen the mines.
SOMMER: But Collins says there's still plenty of gold here. And with gold prices around $1,700 an ounce, reopening old mines has become lucrative but not necessarily easy.
COLLINS: California is burdensome. I would say this is one of the toughest regulatory climates there is on the planet.
SOMMER: Those regulations come from mining's legacy of environmental damage in the state. Early miners processed gold with mercury, dumping millions of pounds of it into the watershed. Some fish still aren't safe to eat. Hard rock mines in California don't use mercury anymore, but that's not the case in other countries.
IZZY MARTIN: Gold mining around the world is heartbreaking to think about.
SOMMER: Izzy Martin is with the nonprofit Sierra Fund. She says toxic chemicals are common in places like South America.
MARTIN: There's no doubt that if we could open a mine in California that met our environmental quality act standards, it would be the cleanest, greenest gold in the world.
SOMMER: But that doesn't mean gold mining comes without environmental risks in California, she says. Some communities are still feeling the effects of recent mining.
KURT LORENZ: Oh, the well is - well, you see the end of the sports field right there.
SOMMER: Kurt Lorenz is walking across the blacktop at Grizzly Hill Elementary School in Nevada City. He was on the school board in the 1990s when the San Juan Ridge gold mine started up nearby. The miners accidentally hit groundwater and had to pump millions of gallons out of the mine as water flooded in.
LORENZ: My wells right around us here in the north Columbia area started to go dry.
SOMMER: In all, 14 neighborhood wells dried up. The mine paid for deeper wells and a water treatment plant, but Lorenz says the problems continued.
LORENZ: The school was told: You can't drink the water. The solution was that the mine started paying for bottled water to be delivered to the school.
SOMMER: The mine shut down after only a few years, but now, it's looking to reopen.
TIM CALLAWAY: I don't expect the community to take any significant risks, you know, for the benefit of my operation.
SOMMER: Tim Callaway is the CEO of San Juan Mining Corporation. He says the risks are lower this time because the mine will use better surveying and engineering. Callaway knows it's a tough sell in this town, but...
CALLAWAY: What this project offers is really high-paying jobs. There are very, very few industries or jobs, you know, in rural communities.
SOMMER: Callaway says gold mining deserves a place in California. It's a legacy that his mine and several other proposed mines are hoping to continue. For NPR News, I'm Lauren Sommer in Nevada City.
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AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
In the past year or so, we've reported on lots of problems caused by a lack of rain. And for good reason, the historic drought plaguing much of the nation is hurting crops, killing fish, changing ecosystems. Still, even with the drought, there can be a silver lining. In fact, Sarah McCammon of Iowa Public Radio found more than one.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Remember last summer when it seemed like all Midwestern farmers were upset over the lack of rain? Well, actually, not all of them were. Those growing grapes were embracing the drought.
JOHN LARSON: What you see is actually carbon dioxide that's in the wine that's being shaken out by the pump.
MCCAMMON: John Larson makes wine at Snus Hill Winery in Madrid, Iowa. This time of year, he's not growing grapes, but he is mixing wine in giant, silver tanks.
LARSON: Much like taking a soda and shaking it and then watching it fizz.
MCCAMMON: While his corn and soybean-growing neighbors were anxiously watching their thirsty crops, Larson's vineyards were looking great, and his grapes were ripening two to three weeks early. Now, Iowa isn't Napa Valley. Larson says the damp weather here can breed mold and insects and some generally funky flavors.
LARSON: I wouldn't wish the drought to continue for the general agriculture here. But it was really good for grapes.
MCCAMMON: Do you feel guilty at all?
LARSON: No.
(LAUGHTER)
MCCAMMON: Another upside of the drought: Fewer pests. And not just those plaguing grapes but fewer bugs that, well, bug humans.
MIKE MCCLAIN: I'm Mike McClain at Metropolitan Mosquito Control District in the Twin Cities. The mosquitoes are something that we live with in the summertime here.
MCCAMMON: But not so much this past summer. McClain says the types of mosquitoes that drive people crazy tend to multiply after it rains.
MCCLAIN: And when you have real dry conditions, like we did the last half of 2012, the actual number of complaints about mosquitoes and the number of mosquitoes that are biting people tends to go way down. And that's a good thing. And people are a little less irritated by mosquitoes during drought.
MCCAMMON: Although, he cautions, the less obnoxious, but more dangerous mosquitoes - the ones that spread West Nile virus - continue to thrive especially in a drought. Also benefitting from the dry, hot weather are some birds and the people who like to hunt them.
KEVIN BASKINS: 2012 was a real break for us.
MCCAMMON: Kevin Baskins is with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources. He says extreme weather of any kind is generally hard on wildlife, but the region's pheasant population, for instance, has been suffering under a series of damp, chilly springs.
BASKINS: They basically freeze to death. They can't survive the colder, more wetter conditions right after hatching. So they need a little bit of time to kind of dry out and warm up.
MCCAMMON: Another benefit of drier weather is that there's less agricultural runoff. Nancy Rabalais heads Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium. In normal years, she says freshwater from streams and rivers combines with pollutants like nitrogen fertilizer to fuel the Gulf of Mexico's dead zone.
Rabalais says less of that mix flowing into the ocean is a good thing.
DR. NANCY RABALAIS: Well, a temporary positive because the area was smaller this year. Not as many nutrients and not as much freshwater.
MCCAMMON: Last year, the area was the fourth smallest since researchers started measuring it in 1985.
Another benefit of sustained drought is that it raises awareness of severe weather. Ann Owen is a former Federal Reserve economist who now teaches at Hamilton College in Upstate New York. She studied the attitudes of people living in areas affected by extreme weather conditions. Owen says they're often more willing to support efforts to curb climate change.
ANN OWEN: If you lived through a severe weather event, that you're more likely then to say that you're concerned about these issues and we're inferring that, OK, they're now getting more information.
MCCAMMON: So Owen says the biggest upside of drought could be getting people thinking about the downside of doing nothing to try to prevent it in the future. For NPR News, I'm Sarah McCammon in Des Moines.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Reading used to be a private act, just you and your imagination immersed in another world. But now, if you curl up with an e-reader, you're not alone. Data is being collected about your reading habits and that information belongs to the companies who sell e-readers, like Amazon or Barnes & Noble. And they can also share or sell that information. One Barnes & Noble official has said that sharing that data with publishers might help authors create even better books.
Well, that got NPR's Lynn Neary wondering what do novelists think of that decision.
LYNN NEARY, BYLINE: People who buy electronic readers may think it's a great way to read a book, but they might not realize it's also a brilliant marketing tool. E-readers, says best-selling author Scott Turow can glean a lot of information about their owners.
SCOTT TUROW: You can tell everything about how somebody reads a book, you know, whether they are the kind that skips to the end, how fast they read, what they skip. So, you know, they can give the author specifically the feedback. You know, 35 percent of the people who bought this book quit after the first two chapters.
NEARY: Turow, who is also president of the Authors Guild, says this kind of information can be very useful to a writer.
TUROW: I mean, I would love to know if 35 percent of my readers were quitting after the first two chapters because that frankly strikes me as, sometimes, a problem I could fix. But, yeah, would I love to hitch the equivalent of a polygraph to my readers and know how they are responding word by word? That would be quite interesting.
NEARY: There's no question, says novelist Jonathan Evison, that writers are keenly interested in how readers respond to their work. But, he says, that doesn't mean a writer wants to tailor his work just to please the reader.
JONATHAN EVISON: I'd be lying if I said I wasn't thinking about the reader all the time. I always think about the reader, you know. I'm trying to create an effect for the reader, and sort of engage them in a sort of collaborative dance, I guess it is. But I'm still trying to be the leader.
NEARY: The idea that data collected from e-readers might be used by publishers to improve a writer's work strikes Evison as wrong. It feels like creating by committee, he says, and reminds him of the days when he worked in commercial radio and met with general managers and program directors.
EVISON: And they'd show me just thick packets of research that we're all demographics. We did, you know, with focus groups, we did studies. These are the 100 songs we want you to play for your bumpers because these are the ones people like best. And this is what we want you to talk about, these are the sort of evergreen subjects that people like. People like topical.
They would tell me all this, and what would happen is my show started to lose its voice.
NEARY: What would have happened, asks Evison, if this kind of research had been around when some of the world's greatest and most challenging books have been written, "War and Peace," "Ulysses," "Moby Dick"?
EVISON: I mean, "Moby Dick" is one of my favorite books, but let's face it, it's a hot mess, you know what I mean? If I had software that said, look, maybe this four-page, you know, essay on scrimshaw isn't gonna fly with your 28 to 40 male demo, you know, what would we have lost with that? Sometimes, you know, it's got to be a little bit of a dictatorship.
NEARY: There is nothing collaborative about writing a novel, says Scott Turow. It's one person's vision. On the other hand, he says, it makes sense for publishers to try to figure out what readers want. After all, publishers are trying to make money.
TUROW: You know, there's a certain logic to that from the business side. Why should we publish this book if 11 readers out of 12 can't make through page 36? But the 12th reader may be more discerning in her tastes and, you know, it could turn out that what the people are thumbing their nose at is "Ulysses" or the novels of Faulkner.
NEARY: Of course, there are different kinds of novels. Turow writes best-selling legal thrillers. Jennifer Egan writes literary fiction. In her book, "A Visit From The Goon Squad," Egan played with the form of the novel. Although it was commercially successful and critically well-received, Egan knows for some readers, the novel just didn't work.
JENNIFER EGAN: When I hear that someone couldn't connect with "Goon Squad," or found it too far out or couldn't get traction with it, I really do feel I failed that person. I don't at all subscribe to this idea that somehow they didn't, quote-unquote, "get it." And I'm sorry about it. That being said, I think it is silly and kind of childish to expect to write a book like "Goon Squad," which is kind of idiosyncratic, does not follow a lot of the narrative conventions we've come to expect from contemporary novels, is not straightforward. I think one can't do all that and then expect to be loved by everyone.
NEARY: Egan suspects that information drawn from an e-book would show that a lot of readers skipped over one chapter in particular. It was written as a PowerPoint presentation.
EGAN: While I respect the opinions of those who didn't connect with that PowerPoint chapter, and I really am sympathetic as someone who is kind of alienated by PowerPoint, I believe that chapter is the heart of the book. And I think without it, the experience of the book is not complete. And I say that knowing that many people were alienated by it. And I guess this speaks to the question of how important market research really would be for me as a, you know, as a creative person - interesting to know, but should not really be predictive or part of the creative process.
NEARY: And anyway, Egan says, she doubts Faulkner would have changed one word of "Absalom, Absalom!" on the basis of market research. Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.
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You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
In Kentucky, a push is on to remake the state's image. A couple of marketers say they're not satisfied with the state's slogan, Unbridled Spirit. They say Kentucky needs something edgier, something a little more direct. Here's Brenna Angel of member station WUKY.
BRENNA ANGEL, BYLINE: The Bluegrass State is known for its horse racing...
(SOUNDBITE OF HORSE RACING)
ANGEL: ...its bourbon...
(SOUNDBITE OF COMMERCIAL AD)
(SOUNDBITE OF HORSE RACING)
ANGEL: ...its bourbon...
(SOUNDBITE OF COMMERCIAL AD)
ANGEL: ...college basketball...
(SOUNDBITE OF BASKETBALL GAME)
ANGEL: And if a couple of creative advertising pros have any say in the matter, Kentucky will be world renowned for something else.
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ANGEL: In a five-minute online video, two guys standing on the steps of the State Capitol make their case for the new slogan. That three-letter word stirs up a lot of emotion and gets attention. And the slogan is far different from the current one.
(SOUNDBITE OF COMMERCIAL AD)
ANGEL: Kentucky natives Griffin VanMeter and Whit Hiler created the video. They both work for different advertising firms. Two years ago, they, along with another friend, started a Facebook page called Kentucky for Kentucky with the goal of crowdfunding a Super Bowl ad focused entirely on the Bluegrass State. They weren't able to reach the $3.5 million needed for the commercial, but Hiler considers the project a success.
WHIT HILER: Everybody was saying kick ass. That was our thing on our Facebook page and - so that seemed logical when we came up with the idea of rebranding the state.
ANGEL: Kentucky adopted the Unbridled Spirit slogan in 2004 and incorporated it into marketing materials, government stationary and license plates. But Griffin VanMeter says that's the state's message, not something people would actually use in normal conversation.
: You have to stand out, and you have to take risks if you want to do this branding and to get noticed. And you need mantras that people can rally behind.
ANGEL: Tourism slogans come and go. Last year, Florida unveiled Must Be the Sunshine, and Connecticut wants you to know that it's Still Revolutionary. When the Kentucky campaign launched, VanMeter wasn't sure how officials would respond.
: Maybe the state will just write us a check and be like, you guys are awesome, and give us a key to the state of Kentucky.
(LAUGHTER)
ANGEL: They didn't get a key to the state, but the guys did catch the attention of national press. A state tourism spokesman told USA Today that officials would not endorse the phraseology because the campaign organizers have a, quote, "different constituency, which is no one."
GOVERNOR STEVE BESHEAR: I think that they probably have a pretty good constituency.
ANGEL: That's Steve Beshear, the governor of Kentucky. Fans of the edgy campaign fired back at the state for its stiff response, and officials have softened their opinion.
BESHEAR: I think it's fun. I think these guys are very innovative, and they're attracting a lot of attention for the Commonwealth of Kentucky. So I urge them on in all of their innovative thinking.
ANGEL: Officially, Kentucky's sticking with Unbridled Spirit, but VanMeter and Hiler were able to sit down and discuss their campaign with the state tourism cabinet. They're now selling T-shirts and prints of their slogan to customers all over the world. Apparently, there are people in England and Japan who also think Kentucky kicks ass. For NPR News, I'm Brenna Angel in Lexington.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CORNISH: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST: We're going to shift our tech attention now to the latest phase in the smartphone revolution. While the idea of having a small high-powered computer in your pocket is old news here in the U.S., smartphone is only beginning to crack lots of other markets around the world, big markets. The next billion people who get online are likely to do it on a mobile device.
As NPR's Steve Henn reports, this trend has left Apple, the company that more or less created the modern smartphone, in an awkward spot.
STEVE HENN, BYLINE: For me, a good number can sing. And the numbers about smartphones in China are kind of amazing. Next year, analysts expect Chinese consumers to buy 235 million new smartphones. Think about that. It's roughly twice as many as Americans are likely to buy. Almost as many smartphones are going to be sold in China this year as PCs sold anywhere in the world. And this mobile revolution won't just be happening in China,
CHRIS JONES: China, Brazil, Russia, India.
HENN: Chris Jones is a global market analyst at Canalys.
JONES: Those are the four obvious emerging markets, and they're the biggest ones. But it's also in places like Indonesia and Southeast Asia.
HENN: In the next few years, hundreds of millions of people in these countries will be getting smartphones and getting online for the first time.
JONES: And so is the rest of Latin America and Africa. So there's an enormous opportunity there in the emerging markets.
HENN: The social implications of this are going to be enormous. But all of this begins as a business proposition. And for Apple, this opportunity is, well, complicated.
(SOUNDBITE OF IPHONE ADVERTISEMENT)
HENN: Apple's business model is kind of like Tiffany's. Basically, it makes expensive luxury goods.
(SOUNDBITE OF IPHONE ADVERTISEMENT)
HENN: By catering to desires many of us didn't even know we had, Apple makes a big profit on every iPhone and iPad it sells. And this model works great in the U.S. or, say, Germany.
(SOUNDBITE OF IPHONE ADVERTISEMENT)
HENN: But the vast majority of the next billion people who buy smartphones are probably not going to be able to afford one of Apple's current products.
SARAH ROTMAN EPPS: They don't really have products that regular people, on the streets of Vietnam or Indonesia or the Philippines or Turkey, can afford.
HENN: So Sarah Rotman Epps, an analyst at Forrester says, Apple faces a choice.
EPPS: Apple sells luxury within reach. And the question is, will they extend that reach to customers in the developing world?
HENN: Apple could create a line of products that are more affordable, but that's not such a simple business decision. Right now, Apple makes hundreds of dollars on almost every gadget it sells. Selling millions or hundreds of millions of cut-price iPhones would push Apple's margins down. It might have to compromise on quality. It could damage its brand.
But the other option, largely turning its back on almost a billion people who are about to get online for the first time, isn't really very appealing, either.
EPPS: Of course, you can build a successful business targeting a very small number of consumers, if that's what you want to do. I don't think, though, that that jives with how Apple sees itself as a company.
HENN: And to be fair, Apple sells a lot more stuff in the developing world than it used to. In 2007, it did just over $1 billion of business in the developing world. In 2011, sales there broke 20 billion. And last year, sales in China rose more than 67 percent. But as big as those numbers are, these markets are growing even faster. Globally, Apple has not gone after the masses.
EPPS: I think Apple has been sending very clear signals that they don't expect the rate of growth that they have had to continue forever. At the same time, I don't think it's reasonable to assume that Apple is done innovating. And I think you have to expect that they'll have new products out.
HENN: And Sarah Rotman Epps says, maybe some of those products will be focused on a different kind of global customer than Apple has targeted in the past. Steve Henn, NPR News, Silicon Valley.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
The new U.S. Defense Department policy allowing women to serve in combat roles may have been crafted in Washington, but it will play out in places like Afghanistan. There's no shortage of debate among troops there about what this decision could mean for women and men serving on the front lines. NPR's Sean Carberry sat down with a group of U.S. troops in Kabul and sent this report.
SEAN CARBERRY, BYLINE: Sitting outside on the military base at Kabul airport, a group of male and female troops digs into the issue of whether lifting the ban on women in combat will change the Army or them.
CAPTAIN MONICA PADEN: My name is Captain Monica Paden. I'm a military intelligence officer from San Diego, California. I wasn't completely surprised with it. It's not anything that we haven't discussed before. We have been slowly being integrated into combat arms and into units in support roles.
CARBERRY: She admits there is a little bit of a careful-what-you-wish-for element to this.
PADEN: And, OK, women want equality, and we cannot discriminate at this point now. You know, we can't ask for one thing and not another. We've got to be able to jump in all roles. It's expected at this point.
SERGEANT STEPHANIE SANTOYO: I'm Sergeant Stephanie Santoyo. I'm from Oregon stationed with V Corps. I don't think it will impact me currently. But going to different units, it could impact - there'll be more challenges. You'll have more expectations than you currently would, especially if you go to combat arm, infantry unit. The bar is going to rise on this.
CARBERRY: For Captain Paden, this is the central issue.
PADEN: We will have a tough time with the physical portion of this, that's why we have to be completely honest with ourselves. When we talk about standards and changing it, is there going to be animosity that grows because we can't do the same things physically.
CARBERRY: She concedes that she might not have joined the military if the new policy had been in place then. She says she didn't join to fight on the front lines. Sergeant Santoyo says it's not just going to be the physical challenge.
SANTOYO: The atmosphere in an infantry unit's a lot different than specific units. Some females just don't want to be in that type of atmosphere is another concern that comes up as well.
CARBERRY: Though she says she can handle anything the guys will dish out.
SANTOYO: They want to test you emotionally, physically, see, you know, can you keep up with us. They challenge you. I'm a little competitive, so I'm like, all right, game on.
CARBERRY: Specialist Charles Lencioni has several concerns about the policy change.
SPECIALIST CHARLES LENCIONI: I'm going to say as someone who's in combat arms and is going to have this most affect their job, I was very, very against this when I heard it come out. I know it's not a popular opinion, but I feel like we're breaking a system that already works, and we're going to break it for the worst.
CARBERRY: He says that only a very small percentage of women could meet the physical standards for infantry positions, and lowering the standards would be harmful to the military.
LENCIONI: I don't see it as an equality issue. I don't see it as females and males, you know, work as one team. I feel like we already do that.
CARBERRY: Lencioni worries that the American public will feel it's discriminatory if only a few women make it in to combat ranks, and he believes the public won't like seeing women being treated the way men are sometimes treated in the infantry. But, First Sergeant Keith Williams thinks the new policy presents a great opportunity for women.
FIRST SERGEANT KEITH WILLIAMS: Women are tough. Women can do the job. My thing is if you've got my back, you've been through training I've been through, you are qualified, you can hit that target like I can, then I want to have the female soldier with me. Let the females prove that they can hold this standard. My hat's off to that first female that makes it all the way through, and that is doing the training and doing the same thing that guys do.
CARBERRY: Sean Carberry, NPR News, Kabul.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish with music from the Ebene Quartet...
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "MISALU")
CORNISH: ...which, as you can hear, doesn't always fit the traditional definition of a string quartet. They tackle chamber music, sure, but they also perform jazz or even surf rock tunes like this one, "Misalu," from the movie "Pulp Fiction."
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "MISALU")
CORNISH: We sat down with two members of the quartet, violist Mathieu Herzog, and cellist Raphael Merlin. On their latest album, the quartet pays homage to one of the most celebrated classical composers of the 19th century, Felix Mendelssohn.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
RAPHAEL MERLIN: He was unbelievably young. He was not more than 17, I think. And it's very touching to feel how convinced he was himself of the deep meaning music could have. It's very surprising what kind of mastership and what kind of large knowledge of music emotion fields Mendelssohn already had.
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CORNISH: For Raphael Merlin and the other members of his quartet, Mendelssohn was an obvious choice. What's surprising on this album was their choice to highlight the work of Mendelssohn's older sister and confidante, Fanny Mendelssohn. She was an accomplished composer in her own right.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "STRING QUARTET IN E-FLAT: ALLEGRO MOLTO VIVACE")
CORNISH: Why did you want to highlight work by Fanny Mendelssohn?
MATHIEU HERZOG: So it's Mathieu answering. It's a short and long story. Actually, we have a very good friend, which is a lady in Germany, who told us about this piece because she heard it in a concert. And she told us: You have to play it. And we respect this lady so much that we thought we have to play it one day - only for her, maybe - but we have to do it. And actually, we were delighted that it was not a bad piece at all.
To be honest, it's not maybe the same level than Felix, but it's really great music. So we started to work on it, and also, we decided to record the first one - first he wrote - and the last one he wrote, the "Opus 80," dedicated to Fanny's memory.
CORNISH: Ah. So the one he did at 17...
HERZOG: Yeah.
CORNISH: ..."Opus 13," as a young man, but "Opus 80" comes after her death, and he died soon after.
HERZOG: Yeah, absolutely. So we thought it would be great to put Fanny in the middle, like a sandwich of Mendelssohn. And, yeah, it's also our gift to her, if I may say that, if the way I'll say that this girl was a great composer. And everybody knows her because of the sister half, Felix, but she's also a great composer.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "STRING QUARTET IN E-FLAT: ALLEGRO MOLTO VIVACE")
CORNISH: And at the time, as they were growing up, Fanny was actually discouraged by her father, of course, of going into music. And he wrote to her once saying that music may become Felix's - his profession, but for you, it can and must only be an ornament. But she went on to compose great many works. Is that true?
MERLIN: So Raphael answering. When I read that kind of stories about their childhood, it's actually traumatic, because what Mathieu just told about the fact that maybe Fanny's quartet is not that perfect than the - Felix's works are, it's a tiny difference. I think in Fanny's music, you can feel even a larger inspiration and imagination. There is a lot of freedom and sensitivity here.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "STRING QUARTET IN E-FLAT: ALLEGRO MOLTO VIVACE")
MERLIN: It's so energetic. And on the other side, there is also this very classical, harmonic style. It's kind of unique, in a way, but you can totally feel they compose the same spirit and same material like they have the same blood. It's very, very similar.
CORNISH: Raphael, I get the sense that you're a bigger champion of Fanny here.
(LAUGHTER)
MERLIN: Yeah. I think Mathieu doesn't show enough respect to her.
(LAUGHTER)
MERLIN: I'm a big fan of this music, anyway. Even if I admit, it's maybe even more difficult to bring into the stage just because of the fourth movement, which is so physical.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "STRING QUARTET IN E-FLAT: ALLEGRO MOLTO VIVACE")
MERLIN: There is something fighting in here between contradictory emotions. It's very close to what Schumann could do at this time.
CORNISH: Now, before I let you go, I was hoping that you could walk us through one more song. So you discuss it. There's - "Opus 80" is the one that Felix Mendelssohn wrote after his sister had died. Walk us through what we're hearing.
MERLIN: Felix was, at this time, probably feeling he could not survive - his sister, that some kind of a testament piece. It's very touching. Everybody calls it "Requiem for Fanny."
HERZOG: Yeah, sure.
MERLIN: That's something he very - probably he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "OPUS 80")
HERZOG: Felix Mendelssohn music, normally, it's always a joy or something like that. He's an optimistic guy. So in this quartet, you can feel immediately that there is something strange. If you know Felix Mendelssohn, you don't know the story about - it's for death, you will be shocked by the music with so much power and drama and everything. So...
MERLIN: Violence. It's violent.
HERZOG: And violence. Yeah, that's right. Because he was so sad.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "OPUS 80")
MERLIN: The connection between Fanny and Felix was more than brother and sister. It was soul mate, almost soul mates. So, of course, when she died - and Mendelssohn died like three, four, six months after that. And we think that he died because of sadness.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "OPUS 80")
CORNISH: Well, Mathieu Herzog and Raphael Merlin, thank you so much for speaking with us.
MERLIN: Thank you.
HERZOG: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "OPUS 80")
CORNISH: You can see Raphael and Mathieu and the rest of the quartet perform music by Felix Mendelssohn at npr.org.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, "OPUS 80")
CORNISH: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
And we begin this hour with talk of America's cybersecurity and All Tech Considered.
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CORNISH: The U.S. military is facing the prospect of serious budget cuts in the coming months, but one area is set to grow. Defense officials say they are planning a huge increase in its force of cyber warriors.
Right now, about 900 troops and civilians are assigned to Cyber Command. The Pentagon intends to boost that number to nearly 5,000, making the Cyber Command a major war-fighting force.
Joining us now to talk more about it is NPR's Tom Gjelten. And, Tom, to start, why the big increase and why now?
TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: Well, Audie, it's really the culmination of a couple of ideas. One, this notion that the country is really vulnerable to cyberattack. Second, that wars, from here on, are likely to involve a lot of cyber combat. One Pentagon official told me today that this plan responds to the reality that the country could soon face a cyberattack as destructive as the terrorist attack on 9/11. In other words, one that would paralyze the nation.
We're seeing more of these attacks every day, against both civilian and military networks. And then, the second thing, is this recognition that the military needs to be able to carry out offensive operations in cyber. It needs to add cyberattacks to part of its general war fighting capabilities. You would need a lot more cyber warriors if you were going to be serious about that.
CORNISH: So what exactly would these 4,000 additional cyber warriors be doing?
GJELTEN: The plan is to organize this force into three so-called mission areas. There would be a national mission to protect the computer networks that now control operations in power plants, transportation systems, telecommunication, basically the country's critical infrastructure, helping to defend those networks in particular from attacks that originate abroad.
Then, there would be these combat mission teams that would have the military responsibility to go on the attack against enemy computer networks. And finally, third, there would be a so-called cyber protection force. They'd be responsible specifically for protecting military networks.
CORNISH: So are we talking about adding additional military personnel or actually additional civilian personnel?
GJELTEN: That's not clear yet. Presumably both. But, you know, Audie, this raises the question, where is the Pentagon going to find these people? Because unless you have a massive new training program, essentially you're playing a zero sum game here. You're talking about cyberpersonnel who would have really advanced skills and there's already a shortage of these people in the country.
Every bank and power company is looking to hire these people. You know, it's said that the country needs altogether, Audie, as many as 30 or 40,000 of these people. One specialist told me today we have about 1,000.
CORNISH: So you're saying someone's going to be short-changed.
GJELTEN: Inevitably, there's going to be competition between agencies, competition between the government and the private sector, you know, likely to get into a bidding war. You know, the Department of Homeland Security, for example, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says she wants to hire 600 additional people. So you're going to have agencies competing with each other for a limited number of cyberspecialists.
CORNISH: But realistically how far along is the plan. I mean, will Congress actually need to approve it, I assume?
GJELTEN: That depends on how exactly it's implemented. The Pentagon says this plan is, quote, "pre-decisional." I'm not sure exactly what the means, but it means that a lot of the details haven't been ironed out, I guess. If it's a matter of reducing numbers in the non-cyber area of the military in order to create new positions in the cyber area with no net change in the total numbers, then presumably the military could just go ahead, the Pentagon could go ahead on its own. If what you're talking about is really major, then presumably Congress would want to have a say.
CORNISH: NPR's Tom Gjelten. Tom, thank you.
GJELTEN: Thank you, Audie.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The debate in Washington over immigration reform is underway. Today, a bipartisan group of senators released a framework for sweeping changes to the nation's immigration laws. President Obama is scheduled to unveil his own plan in Nevada tomorrow. The Senate outline includes, among other things, a path to citizenship for the roughly 11 million immigrants now living in the U.S. illegally. It also calls for stricter border security and employment verification.
As NPR's Debbie Elliott reports, the plan is already getting mixed reviews.
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: In recent years, states have been at the forefront of immigration reform, some crafting strict new controls on illegal immigration. In Alabama, which has one of the harshest laws, sponsors like State Senator Scott Beason say they had to act because the federal government wasn't enforcing the nation's immigration laws. He's glad to see Washington ready to tackle the problem.
STATE SENATOR SCOTT BEASON: I think they have put something forth that is deserving of debate.
ELLIOTT: Beason says he's anxious to see the details, but thinks it's key to include border security measures in any comprehensive deal.
BEASON: You can't begin to deal with the illegal immigration problem until you cut off the flow of people into the country illegally. And I think that was one of the important parts.
ELLIOTT: Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is a chief architect of state immigration laws. He's disappointed to see a path to citizenship tied to border security and job verification measures.
KRIS KOBACH: Why in the world would we grant an amnesty now before we try a law enforcement approach first?
ELLIOTT: Kobach prefers passing incremental changes that have bipartisan support rather than a sweeping reform bill. Don't tie every good idea to amnesty, he says.
KOBACH: The last time the United States tried an amnesty, it caused a surge of new illegal immigration as aliens came across the border, saying - wanting to wait for the next amnesty. Even though we said this was the one and only time, back in 1986, they came knowing - and they were right - that another amnesty would be proposed. The same thing is going to happen again.
ELLIOTT: Civil rights groups, on the other hand, welcome the citizenship provisions in the deal but question the tighter border controls. Laura Murphy is with the ACLU in Washington.
LAURA MURPHY: I would hate to see the Congress waste money on unnecessary enforcement. But I am overjoyed that people understand that we need to embrace a path to citizenship.
ELLIOTT: Murphy says the employment verification system is a thinly disguised national ID card that undermines the privacy of American workers. She's hoping the president's proposal tomorrow will be more focused on getting immigrants out of the shadows, and less about what she calls militarizing the border.
But some advocates are glad to see enforcement combined with a path to citizenship. Randy Brinson is president of the Christian Coalition of Alabama. He calls the bipartisan Senate deal a good start and a balanced approach. His concern is with practical matters. For instance, how quickly will immigrants be able to obtain citizenship and what will happen in the meantime?
RANDY BRINSON: Can we assure immigrants that are here, that may not be documented, that are law-abiding, that they won't be deported or their families be separated?
ELLIOTT: Brinson says working out practical reform is not only important for immigrants, but also for industries like agriculture that have come to depend on their labor.
Debbie Elliott, NPR News, Orange Beach, Alabama.
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CORNISH: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From NPR News, This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
We're going to take you now inside one of the busiest hospital trauma centers in the country to hear how care has improved for the victims of gun violence. As the country debates guns and gun control, it's worth noting that advances in trauma care have coincided with decreases in gun deaths and homicides. Researchers are studying what the relationship between those trends may be. But one thing is clear, by changing a few simple-sounding practices, doctors have increased survival rates for trauma, including gunshots, by double digits.
NPR's Kirk Siegler has our story. But first, a warning, this report contains some graphic sound and descriptions.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Mr. Acres, please return to 7D, Room 134. Mr. Acres, please return to unit 7D, Room 134. Thank you.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: It's Saturday night at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. It's early in Dr. Elizabeth Benjamin's shift. With a large coffee in hand, she makes her rounds in the ICU.
DR. ELIZABTH BENJAMIN: Can you squeeze my hand? Squeeze my hand. Squeeze. Squeeze. Good. Good.
SIEGLER: This woman was shot in the head last night. Dr. Benjamin says she's lucky to be alive. It's an injury that could have been fatal, if not for the quick assessment and treatment of her injuries.
BENJAMIN: The key in a trauma center is you have people that see these injuries every day. So, people are used to the flow of what needs to happen and how quickly it needs to happen.
SIEGLER: Located in East L.A., County-USC is one of the nation's largest and busiest trauma centers. If you want to learn how to treat trauma victims, this is the place to be.
BENJAMIN: And here in sunny California, we happen to get a lot of gunshots and stab wounds. So...
(LAUGHTER)
SIEGLER: Moments later, almost as if on cue, a call comes in, a victim of multiple gunshot wounds is arriving by helicopter.
(SOUNDBITE OF HELICOPTER)
SIEGLER: Up on the seventh floor, a team of paramedics jump out of the chopper and unload a 19-year-old man who's been shot in the leg.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: I've got two gunshot wounds, one to the right - this side here - and the other one is to the right leg.
BENJAMIN: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: He's got motor and neural...
SIEGLER: The victim's pants are torn off. You can see his bloody leg and the two wounds where the bullets hit. He's quickly whisked downstairs to the ER. He's conscious but writhing in pain.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOANING MAN)
BENJAMIN: You can see in there?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: No...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Nope, I can't.
BENJAMIN: All right.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Let's roll him.
BENJAMIN: Can put this leg down?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: Jaime. Jaime...
SIEGLER: As tonight's trauma team leader, Dr. Benjamin hovers over a group of about a dozen physicians and nurses now working on the victim.
BENJAMIN: OK, we're going to get you some pain medication right now. OK?
SIEGLER: Everything that's happened to this point represents a major advancement in trauma care. Instead of trying to stabilize or even save a victim on site, EMTs just get them to a trauma center as quickly as possible, even if that means passing right by the closest hospital. They call it Scoop and Run.
BENJAMIN: This idea of don't try to save the life in the field, get them to somewhere that has, you know, 50 people waiting and ready as quickly as you can is key.
SIEGLER: This young man's injuries aren't life-threatening. That allows the team to turn its attention to a second call that's just come in, another gunshot victim, ETA by ambulance five minutes. This patient much more serious, a five alarm fire they call it.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #5: Where are we going?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #6: Recess 10, second left.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #5: Second left. Second left.
BENJAMIN: Five minutes.
SIEGLER: Paramedics rush the victim to the E.R. and the tension is now way up.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: One, two...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #6: You got the sheet? Got the sheet?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: One, two, three, one two three...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #7: Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: It's all right. Carol...
SIEGLER: It takes six people to hoist the patient from the stretcher to the table. Dr. Benjamin is no longer hovering. She's right in the middle of things. This man's wounds are so severe they'll need to open his chest right here in the E.R.
(SOUNDBITE OF EMERGENCY ROOM)
SIEGLER: It's gory. Blood is everywhere. And every one has a job. One person holds down the victim's legs. Another grips huge clamps to pry his chest open so a doctor can reach in and grab hold of his heart.
BENJAMIN: Evacuate your cloth, bring your lung down, Go. Go. Go.
SIEGLER: They do a few brief repairs, which work, buying them enough time to x-ray his chest and pelvis, before they wheel him up to the operating room.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALARMS)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #8: Ready, x-Ray.
BENJAMIN: (Unintelligible) for X-Ray.
SIEGLER: Before hurrying into the O.R., Dr Benjamin stops to scrub her arms and hands.
BENJAMIN: His heart stopped multiple times during that. We were doing intra-cardiac - we're doing cardiac massage. So that means basically somebody has their hands in his heart, inside the chest, in the emergency room, helping it pump as his heart is not pumping on its own, so it needs somebody to pump it for him.
SIEGLER: What the doctor is describing could never have been done by an EMT in the field, and it wouldn't have happened anywhere 20 years ago. It's a vivid example of just how aggressive trauma treatment has become at hospitals like County-USC.
DR. DEMETRIOS DEMETRIADES: And because it's a trauma team activation, it takes full priority; priority over all other patients. Even if the hospital is very busy, you drop everything, you go for this patient.
SIEGLER: Dr. Demetrios Demetriades has driven a lot of these changes since taking over County-USC's trauma unit in 1992. Improved CT scans have helped doctors quickly pin point the extent of injuries. Blood and plasma are used liberally to try and stabilize the patient, a lesson learned from the military. But Demetriades says the biggest improvement is that there are simply more trauma centers like this available to more people.
DEMETRIADES: If you have severe trauma and you are admitted to a trauma center, your chances of survival are about 25 percent higher. This is a major progress. It makes a big difference in a big scale.
SIEGLER: Dr. Demetriades is currently studying what role the recent advancements in trauma care are playing in the declining U.S. homicide rate.
BENJAMIN: OK. Can I get a valve core retractor please? And we need some wraps - a ton of wraps, just keep them coming.
SIEGLER: Still, even the most experienced and aggressive trauma centers like County-USC can't save everyone. The man with multiple gunshot wounds to his chest has been in the O.R. for more than an hour. Dr. Elizabeth Benjamin is still in her scrubs when she walks out to deliver the bad news to two cops, who have been waiting outside.
BENJAMIN: We're done.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #9: Did he make it?
BENJAMIN: No.
SIEGLER: The man had no pulse when he arrived at the hospital. And his chances of survival were slim.
BENJAMIN: But they're not zero. So that's why we do it for those few people that we can save with that. Unfortunately, for him, his injuries were just so broad over too many different organ systems that that was not possible.
SIEGLER: Benjamin then gets ready for the other most difficult part of her job. She has to deliver the news to the victim's wife. It's 1:00 A.M., six more hours to go on her shift.
Kirk Siegler, NPR News.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
The political crisis in Egypt is deepening. Today, as violence flared in multiple cities, the main opposition coalition rejected President Mohammed Morsi's call for dialogue. The worst clashes have been in Port Said, on the Mediterranean. Over the past three days, at least 43 people have been killed there. The rioting was sparked by death sentences handed down against 21 local soccer fans. They were convicted of murder, for dozens of deaths in a post-game brawl last year.
But the anger is not only directed at that court ruling. Two years after Egypt's revolution, Port Said is becoming a symbol of Egyptians' loss of faith in state institutions. NPR's Leila Fadel traveled there today.
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LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: Helicopters buzzed overhead as residents of Port Said buried seven more people, killed in violence here.
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FADEL: With our blood, with our soul, we'll sacrifice for you, Port Said, men yelled; waving their fists in the air, outside the cemetery.
The city is one of three that embattled President Mohammed Morsi placed under emergency rule for 30 days. That means that anyone can be arrested at any time, for any reason, with no due process. It is a move Morsi said he was forced to take because of what he called counter-revolutionaries using violence to undermine the state. Residents in Port Said vowed to defy that curfew.
MOHAMMED AL SABA: We didn't want Mohammed Morsi anymore. We hate him. We want to be independent city. We will not go home.
FADEL: Mohammed al Saba watched Morsi's speech Sunday night, and took it as a threat of collective punishment for Port Said. He and others say that the police are committing a massacre, while the state paints demonstrators as armed thugs. Rage against the government runs deep here.
FATMA AHMED: (Foreign language spoken)
FADEL: Fatma Ahmed weeps near Mariam Mosque, where the dead are washed and prepared for burial. The mourners pray, and then crowds of young men carry the coffins to the cemetery. These are innocents, cries Fatma Ahmed. A crowd gathers around her, and the message is uniform.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (Foreign language spoken)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Foreign language spoken)
FADEL: Morsi must go, for the bloodshed to end, says one man. Morsi should be tried for murder, says another. Some call for his execution; others demand a foreign force to protect them from the police.
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FADEL: The roads in central Port Said are covered in shattered glass and burned tires, evidence of the violence over the past three days. Most shops and restaurants in the city center are closed, the word "mourning" written on the storefronts. Verses of the Quran are played for the dead, over loudspeakers.
HESHAM MOHAMMED: (Foreign language spoken)
FADEL: Nothing will calm us down, Hesham Mohammed says. He holds out his hands and says: I wish I could cut it off. It is the hand I used to vote for Morsi.
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FADEL: People here feel the state has abandoned them. The police, they say, are as brutal as ever. The corrupt bureaucratic institutions are the same, and unemployment is rising. They ridicule Morsi for asking them to respect the judiciary when only two months ago, he briefly put himself above judicial oversight because, he claimed, the top courts were corrupt.
MOHAMMED WAHDA: (Foreign language spoken)
FADEL: In the Port Said cemetery, Mohammed Wahda points to the latest grave. In two days, he has helped bury 43 people. Morsi must find a solution quickly, he says, because the people are growing more angry by the minute. Clashes resumed in the city on Monday night, and Wahda will likely bury more people tomorrow.
Leila Fadel, NPR News.
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This month's hostage taking at a natural gas plant in Algeria shows how international terrorism is evolving. Groups such as al-Qaida have long been motivated by radical ideology. What's happening now in North Africa is a little different. For groups there, there's also a financial motive.
NPR's Dina Temple-Raston reports on the dangerous intersection of terrorism and syndicated crime.
DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: For years, al-Qaida's arm in North Africa, known as Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, was seen as the black sheep of the al-Qaida organization. Osama bin Laden told the group to stop smuggling and kidnapping. Bin Laden worried all that criminal activity would detract from al-Qaida's ideological mission. But AQIM wouldn't stop. It kept snatching Westerners in North Africa and holding them for ransom.
JUAN ZARATE: And, of course, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb has made a fortune out of this practice.
TEMPLE-RASTON: That's Juan Zarate, a senior advisor at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. He used to track AQIM's money-making operations when he was at the Treasury Department.
ZARATE: The ransoms for the hostages they've taken is in part what has made them so lethal, has allowed them to survive, and has allowed them to take full advantage of a bit of the chaos and tumult of the post-Arab revolution environment in North Africa, and certainly in West Africa.
TEMPLE-RASTON: North Africa and West Africa, specifically he's referring to Libya and Mali and Algeria. Since the fall of Moammar Gadhafi, Libya has become an arms bazaar for the world's terrorists. In testimony last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that the weapons used in the attack on the gas facility in Algeria came from Libya. And the plot itself is thought to have been planned in Mali. So that's one reason Defense Department officials are focusing on the West African nation.
GENERAL CARTER HAM: We would all like to see the elimination of al-Qaida and others from Northern Mali.
TEMPLE-RASTON: That's General Carter Ham, the head of the U.S. Africa Command.
HAM: Realistically, probably the best you can get is containment and disruption so that al-Qaida is no longer able to control territory as they do today.
TEMPLE-RASTON: By controlling territory, Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb has a base from which to conduct its crime spree. Take that away and working with criminal syndicates gets harder, the thinking goes. General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, said that the U.S. military is watching the growing intersection between terrorism and crime.
GENERAL MARTIN DEMPSEY: And I think the way to think about the North Africa and West Africa as a syndicate of groups who come together episodically when it is convenient to them in order to advance their cause. Sometimes their cause is terrorism, sometimes it's criminal, sometimes it's arms trafficking.
TEMPLE-RASTON: And sometimes, in the case of al-Qaida's affiliate in Iraq, it is even robbing banks. The crimes vary. For example, al-Qaida and the Taliban are kidnapping and extorting locals in Afghanistan. Al-Shabab in Somalia has been laundering money to raise funds.
CSIS' Juan Zarate says that while Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb was at the forefront of the criminalization of al-Qaida, other affiliates are catching up.
ZARATE: The reality is that al-Qaida groups have determined and found that they can act a criminal enterprises and use that as a way of funding their operations, extending their influence and, frankly, melding with locals and insurgents that add weight and reach to their operations.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Which suggests that fighting terrorism won't be just about combating ideology going forward, it's going to be about combating local crime syndicates as well.
On one hand, it's a challenge. Terrorists can keep funding themselves through criminal networks. On the other hand, it could be an opportunity. One of the things U.S. law enforcement is good at is dismantling crime syndicates, which might give them a new way to go after terrorists.
Dina Temple-Raston, NPR News.
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It's not every day we report that a queen is abdicating her throne, but we get to do that today. The royal transition is happening in the House of Orange in the Netherlands. After 33 years, Queen Beatrix is ready to hand things over to her son.
The announcement does not come as a surprise to the Dutch. But as Teri Schultz reports, there is nonetheless some sadness at the departure of the much-loved monarch.
TERI SCHULTZ, BYLINE: Queen Beatrix, often affectionately just referred to as Bea by the Dutch, is following family tradition in handing over the throne to her oldest child.
Here's the BBC from 1980 when Beatrix's mother handed her the crown.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Queen Juliana of the Netherlands is to abdicate on April 30th, her 71st birthday. The queen who...
SCHULTZ: Now Queen Beatrix is making way for her son, Prince Willem-Alexander, on the national holiday commemorating her mother's birthday, April 30th. Beatrix made the announcement on national television, noting this year marks 200 years of the Dutch monarchy and her own 75th birthday.
QUEEN BEATRIX: (Foreign language spoken)
SCHULTZ: It's provided me the occasion, she said, to step down from my office. Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte paid respects on behalf of the nation.
PRIME MINISTER MARK RUTTE: (Foreign language spoken)
SCHULTZ: Since taking the throne, Rutte said, she has been dedicated heart and soul to Dutch society. Beatrix says the job didn't get too heavy for her, she just believes it's time to let the younger generation take over. That generation exploded in discussion about the events on Twitter. The news quickly got its own hashtag. Like the shorthand term Greece's possible departure from the Eurozone, a Grexit, or the planned British referendum on quitting the European Union, a Brixit, Beatrix's abdication has been crowned by Twitterers, the Trixit.
For NPR News, I'm Teri Shultz.
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Time now for your comments about two reports from Friday's program. First, our Planet Money story on the rising demand for breast pumps. The portable machines can cost several hundred dollars and make it easier for new mothers to continue nursing. The pumps are in the news because they're now covered by insurers, thanks to the Affordable Care Act. As we heard Friday, that's caused a boom in business for stores like Yummy Mummy in New York City.
Here's CEO Amanda Cole.
AMANDA COLE: We are opening a call center. We now have a warehouse in Illinois. We're doubling the number of employees. Like, within a two-week timeframe, doubling the number of employees we have.
CORNISH: Well, Dana Quealy is a lactation consultant in Honolulu and she did not like the tone of our report. She thought we presented breast pumps as a novelty rather than as an important medical device. Instead of spending time in a boutique, Quealy writes, that we should have gone NICU at any NYC hospital and we would have appreciated the expensive health care dollars at work and would have heard from any neonatologist, nurse, or mother the benefits of breast milk and the value of a breast pump.
Onto your letters about a different subject now.
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CORNISH: Sylvia Poggioli's report on the work of Italian music teacher Francesco Lotoro. Over the last two decades, Lotoro has collected 4,000 pieces of music - songs, symphonies, operas written by concentration camp prisoners during the Holocaust.
FRANCESCO LOTORO: The artist is able to separate the external situation from the creativity that belongs to the mind, to the heart.
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CORNISH: Many of you were moved by this story. Sam Rickless of San Diego writes that he was close to tears. He says, a large number of my extended family died in the concentration camps. My mother was an opera singer and this is a subject that is dear to my heart. Sandra Erlanger of Solon, Ohio, writes: This was an amazing moving story for anyone, not just people like me whose grandparents were killed in Theresienstadt. I want to thank Sylvia Poggioli for reporting this story so well.
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CORNISH: To tell us what you think about a story you hear on our program, write us at npr.org. Just click on Contact Us at the bottom of the page.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
Jim Harrison, the writer best known for his 1979 collection of novellas, "Legends of the Fall" is at it again. His latest book, "The River Swimmer," is a pair of new novellas, and Alan Cheuse has our review.
ALAN CHEUSE, BYLINE: In the title piece, "The River Swimmer," the main character, a young Midwestern guy named Thad swims great lakes and rivers, becomes involved with beautiful, attractive and willing girls. In his outsized and almost cartoon-like philosophical ambition, Thad declares, I just want to feel at home on earth. He has quite some distance to go.
In the other novella that Harrison calls, "The Land of Unlikeness," he comes mighty close to achieving this end, feeling at home on earth. In a fine parade of neatly made, apt and deeply-felt sentences, this novella deepens and enlarges an emotion-charged couple of weeks in the life of Clive. Clive's a Midwestern painter turned critic, for many decades now, a resident of New York City.
Long divorced and an estranged father of a grown daughter now living further west, he's returned to his old rural northern Michigan haunts to keep company with his aging mother, an ardent bird-watcher and churchgoer, while his sister, mom's usual caretaker, travels in Europe. Clive discovers almost immediately that he's wildly underestimated the power of the home place and the Proustian sense of how memories, as he puts it, how memories reside in the landscape and arise when you revisit an area.
Mooning over Laurette, his first girlfriend, long divorced herself now and living nearby in her old family farmhouse with a flirtatious female companion, Clive takes up painting again in order to recreate the grandest erotic encounter of his early manhood. In this way, Clive, eccentric and still gifted after all these years, inches forward towards some new peace with himself and his family.
And, I have to say, it's quite a struggle, no two ways about it. But by the end, you'll feel a little bit closer to home yourself.
CORNISH: Jim Harrison's new book is called "The River Swimmer." Our reviewer is Alan Cheuse. His most recent book is also a collection of novellas called "Paradise."
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
Try and try again. After years of failed attempts to overhaul the nation's immigration laws, a new bipartisan push got going today on Capitol Hill. Eight senators - four of them Democrats, four Republicans - have put together a broad proposal and unveiled it today. The plan would curb illegal immigration and give a path to citizenship to those already here illegally.
We begin our coverage with NPR's David Welna, who reports the GOP's poor showing among Latino voters in November has given the party a new incentive to back immigration reform.
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: As five of the eight senators working on immigration reform gathered in a room just off the Senate floor this afternoon, New York Democrat Charles Schumer declared that while they still had a long way to go, their bipartisan blueprint for reform was what he called a major breakthrough.
SENATOR CHARLES SCHUMER: Other bipartisan groups of senators have stood in the same spot before, trumpeting similar proposals. But we believe this will be the year Congress finally gets it done.
WELNA: The group's plan addresses four issues. One is border security. Nothing can move forward with the rest of the plan until it's been determined the borders are secure and visitors are no longer overstaying their visas. Another is to expand opportunities for legal immigrants, especially those with skills or who meet labor shortfalls in the U.S. And it calls for an effective employee identification system.
But as Florida Republican Marco Rubio noted, the biggest and most difficult issue is finding a way to legal status for those who are already in the country illegally.
SENATOR MARCO RUBIO: None of this is possible if we don't address the reality that there are 11 million human beings in this country today that are undocumented. That's not something that anyone is happy about. That's not something anyone wanted to see happen, but it is what has happened. And we have an obligation and the need to address the reality of the situation that we face.
WELNA: Tough but fair is how several senators described the road to citizenship the blueprint lays out for undocumented immigrants. Robert Menendez is a New Jersey Democrat.
SENATOR ROBERT MENENDEZ: This will be an arduous pathway, but it will be a fair one. It will be one in which those who have come to this country to achieve the American dream will come forth, will - must register with the government or they'll lose their opportunities - will have to go through a criminal background check, will have to pay any previous taxes they did not pay.
WELNA: And for the first time, such immigrants will have to learn English to qualify for resident status. But if the immigration proposal becomes law, all undocumented immigrants will be allowed immediately to stay in the country if they pursue becoming citizens. This is tantamount to amnesty for some GOP lawmakers.
But Arizona Republican John McCain says his party cannot afford to ignore one of the central concerns of Latino voters, who chose Democrats over Republicans by a 3-to-1 margin in November.
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: The Republican Party is losing the support of our Hispanic citizens, and we realize that there are many issues in which we think we are in agreement with our Hispanic citizens, but this is a pre-eminent issue with those citizens.
WELNA: McCain said he's encouraged that Speaker John Boehner has promised the House will take up immigration reform as well. On the Senate floor this afternoon, majority leader Harry Reid praised his GOP colleagues.
SENATOR HARRY REID: For years, Democrats have been eager to pass comprehensive immigration reform, but the Republicans have been unwilling to work to find common ground. I'm glad things have changed. I am so happy to see my Republican colleagues - at least some of them - finally seem ready to find a bipartisan way to correct the flaws in this nation's immigration system instead of just complaining.
WELNA: Senate Democrats hope to pass a bill in their chamber by late spring or summer. It's not clear when the House might act. In the meantime, outside pro-immigrant groups are planning a march on the Capitol for April 10. Tomorrow, President Obama keeps the pressure on for an immigration overhaul. He'll be speaking in Las Vegas about his own ideas for reform. David Welna, NPR News, the Capitol.
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We're going to go back in time now, more than 100 years, to another moment when the country was struggling with how to manage its immigrant population. In the early 1900s, immigrants were pouring into American cities. Lawmakers fretted over assimilation, urban poverty and crime. So Congress did what it does best: It created a bipartisan commission to sort it all out. The results: one of the largest investigative surveys Congress ever conducted, a massive report on the American immigrant population
BETTY KOED: Well, it says here that a commission is hereby created consisting of three senators...
CORNISH: That's Betty Koed, associate historian for the Senate. I visited her in her Capitol Hill office. On a library card set, what's known as the Dillingham Commission report, more than 40 dusty, fabric-bound volumes, spines imprinted in gold lettering with the dates 1909, 1910 and 1911. It looks like a set of encyclopedias, and it took a small army of researchers to pull together.
KOED: This is part of the progressive era. And the progressive era was in love with social science. They thought in social science they will discover the solutions to modern society's problems.
CORNISH: The commission conducted hundreds of surveys: immigrants in agriculture, in schools, in mining, in crime.
KOED: This is one on the iron and steel manufacturing. There are things in glass manufacturing, soap goods, cotton mills...
CORNISH: Stats, door-to-door surveys, you name it. Lawmakers wanted to figure out who could and should be welcomed on American shores. There is even a dictionary of racial definitions. But the word race, as Koed says, had a different connotation then.
KOED: When we use the word race in modern parlance, we think of white, African-American, Asian-American, that type of thing. But back in 1907, when the commission began their work, when they were talking about racial differences, they were thinking about the differences between Greeks and Italians or the differences between Germans and Irish, that type of thing.
CORNISH: And in the thinking of the time, some of those so-called races were considered inferior to others. The Dillingham Commission was motivated by a sense of urgency about America's growing immigrant population. Now, the words congressional panel may not sound, well, urgent. Senate historian Betty Koed calls the mood...
KOED: Studied panic. There's certainly a panic about immigration by 1907, 1908, and that's partly because the numbers are very high, more than a million immigrants coming in, mostly settling in urban centers. And so for the first time, really, in the early 20th century, the U.S. is facing problems that many policymakers had already - had always thought were an old-world problem, problems of urban poverty. So there's a sense of that - there's a sense of losing control, but there's also at the same time this great confidence and hope that if we study the problems carefully and we apply all these wonderful new sciences we have that we can solve the problem by policymaking.
CORNISH: Of course, now, we can look back and say with confidence the problem was not solved. So listen carefully to some of the Dillingham Commission's conclusions.
KOED: Number one, while the American people, as in the past, welcome the oppressed of other lands, care should be taken that immigration be such both in quality and quantity as not to make it too difficult to process assimilation. So that's their principal concern. The number has to be manageable. It has to be an immigration that is literate and can bring something to society.
CORNISH: In the next decade or so, these principles form the basis of the country's first broad-based immigration restrictions, for instance, in 1917 a literacy test to ensure immigrants had at least some schooling. 1921 and then 1924, a quota system which severely limited the numbers and kinds of people who could enter the country. Now, all this may sound antiquated, but the Dillingham report is still worth considering today as policymakers try to solve today's immigration issues. After I left Betty Koed's Senate office, I spoke with Richard Alba. He's a professor of sociology who studies the immigrant experience.
RICHARD ALBA: I think the kind of thinking that undergirds the Dillingham Commission report that we can, if you will, rank groups in terms of their desirability, in terms of their ability to assimilate, that kind of thinking is still present and I think is likely to shape, in one way or another, the legislation that presumably is going to be proposed by the president and considered by the Congress in the near future.
CORNISH: So is there language of the Dillingham report, do you think, that kind of echoes the kinds of language that we use today in the debate over immigration?
ALBA: Well, I think the Dillingham Commission report was certainly focused on the question of whether the chances of immigrants to assimilate into the American mainstream - and they didn't use the word mainstream but that was really what they meant - and also today a lot of Americans think in terms of the ability of immigrants to assimilate into the American mainstream. You know, for example, it wasn't very long ago that the late Harvard political scientist Samuel Huntington published his book "Who Are We?," which argued that Latin American immigrants are failing to assimilate into the United States.
CORNISH: Richard Alba, I get the sense that people look at the Dillingham report with a kind of suspicion as though somehow these ideas are tainted. And I didn't know if you've got that sense as well. I mean, is it something people look...
ALBA: Well, they are tainted. I mean, they were overtly racist.
(LAUGHTER)
ALBA: I mean, there can be little question about the, you know, the importance of scientific racism in the early 20th century and the degree to which it shaped the thinking that went into the Dillingham Commission report. And we are not as racist today, but that doesn't mean that we are altogether free of this kind of thinking that some groups are superior as immigrants than other groups are.
CORNISH: In your sense, are we learning anything? You know, the commission at the time or...
ALBA: We could learn a lot more. One thing that concerns me is that we may not be confident enough about our own ability to integrate the children of the new immigrants, including the children coming from the homes of undocumented immigrants. You know, I think if we look back after World War II, the United States invested really in education in a way that opened up opportunities for these groups, and they really took advantage of them. And I think we need to remember that history and to recognize that we can invest in education again in a way that will speed the integration of the children of today's immigrants.
CORNISH: Richard Alba, when you - I don't know your personal history, but when you look back at this kind of history, do you wonder where you would fit in? I mean, is there anything that you kind of take away about how we look at our own family histories when you look at a report like this?
ALBA: Yeah. Sure. That's a good question. Well, actually, you know, I'm the grandson of southern Italian immigrants, at least, on my father's side. And my grandfather was illiterate, and I'm a university professor. And, you know, I think that's a kind of remarkable accomplishment. And I want to find ways to open up those pathways for the descendants of new immigrants. And I believe we can.
CORNISH: Richard Alba, thank you so much for speaking with us.
ALBA: Thank you, Audie. I enjoyed our conversation.
CORNISH: Richard Alba studies immigration. He's a professor of sociology at The City University of New York's Graduate Center.
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Long before the recent shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, school administrators and teachers across the country had been thinking hard about how to respond to danger on campus. Lockdowns are one technique that school safety experts say have become more common since the Columbine shooting, in 1999. Robyn Gee spent two years as a teacher in San Francisco before becoming a reporter for Youth Radio. We asked her to look into how lockdowns are being used in the Bay Area.
ROBYN GEE, BYLINE: I never did lockdown drills with my eighth-grade students but now, lockdowns are becoming standard.
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GEE: Julia Gelormino has a game she plays with her first-graders. She calls it hide-and-seek. It starts with an announcement on the P.A. that Dr. Lock is in the building.
JULIA GELORMINO: That's our special code. We need to make sure your eyes are on Miss G., and you're looking to her for directions.
GEE: Next, all 21 kids - in their uniforms - head to the bathroom and one by one, they line up and squish inside the small room.
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GELORMINO: There is no talking. There is no talking.
GEE: On her cue...
GELORMINO: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
GEE: All her students crouch down on the floor and become silent - well, almost all of them.
GELORMINO: So right now, I don't want to scare you but Lily(ph), if somebody was trying to harm us and you were making that much sound, guess where they're going to go first? Here. So right now, you aren't helping us to be safe.
GEE: These kids are used to drills. They're used to real lockdowns, too. Gelormino says she never knows the reasons until afterwards. It could be a robbery in the neighborhood, or something more serious. Since the shooting in Newtown, the lockdowns have meant some really hard conversations with her first-graders.
GELORMINO: How do we stay safe when someone else is trying to harm us? And they started talking about how, you know, we kind of play our game of like, hide-and-seek. And ... (crying) one of my kids asked what would happen if they shot through the door. And so she had, obviously, watched the things on the news.
GEE: It's the end of the day now, and the tension of the school day fills this teacher's classroom. On average, at least three schools are shut down in Oakland every week. Neighboring cities, like Berkeley and San Jose, also use lockdowns; sometimes, even for preschoolers. Often, teachers, parents and students are unaware of the severity of the situation. Some parents receive a text when a lockdown is in progress. Other parents get the news through a note in their kid's backpack, the next day. Troy Flint, of the Oakland Unified School District, says parents are demanding even more security.
TROY FLINT: I've received many unsolicited emails from parents, which were also sent to the superintendent and board members, asking for increased police presence.
GEE: But how does that feel to a 6-and-a-half-year old? I asked Gustavo Hernandez about the drills in his elementary school.
GUSTAVO HERNANDEZ: I feel kind of - like, scared.
GEE: Can you tell me why?
GUSTAVO: Because if we forgot like, to close everything, the strangers could get us.
GEE: But Hernandez says he understands they need to practice.
GUSTAVO: You need to like, lose your fear.
GEE: How do you lose your fear?
GUSTAVO: Like, if you want to lose your fear, you could do this: (takes deep breath).
GEE: Good advice for anyone trying to stay calm in a classroom. For NPR News, I'm Robyn Gee.
CORNISH: That story was produced by Youth Radio.
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Haiti has long been viewed as the basket case of the Americas - plagued by political unrest, hurricanes and chronic poverty. A massive earthquake three years ago destroyed much of its capital. But the Haitian government is hoping to remake its image, marketing the country as a tourist destination. President Michel Martelly says Haiti can use tourism as a way to fight poverty.
But NPR's Jason Beaubien reports this kind of image makeover won't be easy.
JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE: Haiti used to be a Caribbean hotspot. Bill Clinton regularly recounts how he and Hillary honeymooned here in 1975. There used to be a hopping Club Med just outside the capital. Before HIV, Haiti also had a reputation as a sex tourism destination.
The country now still has a lot to offer. It's got warm weather, miles and miles of undeveloped Caribbean coastline, rich history. Because of this, officials now are revamping the Cap-Haitien International Airport as a gateway to the country's potential tourist attractions.
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BEAUBIEN: Unfortunately, any tourist landing here in Cap-Haitien would have to fight their way through this slum that is downtown to get to any of it. The filthy streets here are not only jammed with overloaded motorbikes, there's sludge overflowing from open sewers. Piles of trash are burning by the airport. The roads are pocked with jagged potholes and missing manhole covers that could doom a family's vacation before they even reach the hotel.
STEPHANIE VILLEDROUIN: My goal is to reposition Haiti as a tourism destination and attract the leisure tourism.
BEAUBIEN: Stephanie Villedrouin became Haiti's Minister of Tourism about a year and a half ago. She's become a barnstorming advocate for the country, touting its food, its beaches and its culture to anyone who will listen. Villedrouin acknowledges that Haiti's tourism industry needs to be rebuilt and it's tiny compared to the multi-billion dollars generated each year in the neighboring Dominican Republic. But she says tourism could be a major economic development tool for the country.
VILLEDROUIN: These revenues for our economy will help us eradicate poverty, and take out people from the tents. So that's the message. Don't just send money through a wire or through an NGO for us. Come and experience Haiti because we have so much to showcase.
BEAUBIEN: Visitors to Port-au-Prince, she suggests, can stop by the National Museum, attend a voodoo ceremony and dine on griot, a Creole dish of fried goat. The problem, however, is that Port-au-Prince isn't geared for tourists. Traffic in the capital can be hellish, streets are unmarked, hotel rooms are hard to come by and expensive. Just last month, the U.S. State Department issued a stern warning for Haiti, noting the lack of adequate medical facilities, the presence of cholera and limited police protection, quote, "no one is safe from kidnapping," the document warns.
In recent months, travelers arriving in Port-au-Prince on flights from the United States were attacked and robbed shortly after departing the airport. It's in part because of these difficult conditions in the capital, that two-thirds of the foreign visitors to Haiti each year never leave a fenced-off, private beach on the northern coast.
This is the resort of Labadee, just up the coast from Cap-Haitien. It's reachable only by a 4X4 over a terrible road or by cruise ship.
JUAN BELIZAIRE: I don't like it, I don't like it.
BEAUBIEN: Juan Belizaire is standing outside the black fence of the beach resort. Behind him, the largest cruise ship in the world, Royal Caribbean's The Allure of the Seas, is docked in the cove. Belizaire drives a motorcycle taxi between Labadee and Cap-Haitien. But he says the thousands of cruise ship passengers don't help this deeply impoverished corner of Haiti because they aren't allowed out of the resort.
BELIZAIRE: When the passenger comes in, he stays only on the beach. The company takes the passengers to stay only behind the fence. I don't like it like that.
BEAUBIEN: At Labadee, the first and the third world slam up against each other. Inside the fence, cruise ship passengers lounge in bikinis on the pristine tropical beach. There's a roller coaster, a waterslide, a zip line. Outside the fence, a woman cooks rice and beans over an open fire. She sells lukewarm drinks out of a broken refrigerator that's been laid on its back in the dirt.
Labadee is just six miles from Cap-Haitien, but the road is in such bad shape that it takes 45 minutes in a four-wheel-drive to get there. The resort does generate revenue for the federal government and it provides jobs and some prescreened souvenir vendors are allowed in. Supporters of the project also note that Royal Caribbean built a school in the area.
President Michel Martelly talking to foreign reporters earlier this month said that despite its poverty and misery, Haiti offers visitors something different.
PRESIDENT MICHEL MARTELLY: I'm sure you come here, you feel it. You not just for the news, you have a feeling when you come here to Haiti, I'm going to Haiti.
BEAUBIEN: Martelly says tourism is a promising sector for the Haitian economy and the government is spending millions on new airports, hotels and a hospitality training school to try to tap into the multi-billion dollar Caribbean tourism market.
MARTELLY: I invite you to come and enjoy Carnival next month.
BEAUBIEN: The musician-turned-politician says Haiti's pre-Lent Carnival is the worst organized in the Caribbean, but the most fun. He adds you can get married three times in one night at the raucous street party. Joking aside, the Haitian president says his government is aware of Haiti's challenges, but he sees tourism as a major growth opportunity for the country. Jason Beaubien, NPR News.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Now to a story that has us seeing double. Several years ago, French Canadian photographer Francois Brunelle started a project documenting doppelgangers. He's on a quest to snap 200 portraits of people who aren't related but just happened to look uncannily alike.
Francois Brunelle joins us now from Montreal. Welcome to the program.
FRANCOIS BRUNELLE: Well, I'm glad to be here today.
BLOCK: I've been looking through a lot of these portraits. They're up on our website, npr.org. And they're just strikingly close in appearance, these two people, and you can't believe that they're not related. I'm looking at a pair from Toronto, Sarah Fournier and Alan Madill. They both have these long faces and very strong jaw. They look exactly like a brother and sister, and they're not. They're not related.
BRUNELLE: No, not at all. The - in fact, it's a friend of mine who has a company in Toronto, he told me, oh, you're looking for look-alikes? There are two people. They work at my office, and they look the same, and you should see them. So I went to Toronto, and they came to the place I had found in Toronto to do the picture. And when I saw them, I said, oh, my God, look at the jaws, you know? And the skin is the same, so that was one of my first that I did. And I was very proud of this one, a man and a woman, which was uncanny at the time for me because since then, I've - a couple that are men and women, but the first one, not the same sex, so I thought it was weird. But then it worked.
BLOCK: You know, the skeptic in me does wonder if you do any checking to see whether they might just possibly be related after all, and that's why they look alike.
BRUNELLE: Yeah. It's a good question because I personally ask this question myself every time. But I ask them for, you know, information, and I make sure before they show up that they are not related at all.
BLOCK: And how are you finding the people for these photographs, these doppelgangers?
BRUNELLE: Well, at first, I would know some people, you know, that I met over the years, and then I would try to reach them. I remember there was the husband of a friend of mine. I think he worked at the bank once because I worked at the bank, and I saw this man and I say, oh, my God, that must be him. But, hmm, maybe he's the same. Finally, I call my friend, I say, your husband finally switched jobs for - to be banker. She said, no - what are you talking about?
BLOCK: Ha, wrong guy.
BRUNELLE: Yeah, wrong guy. So finally, I - it took me about six months to find the guy. Finally, he showed up, and I did the picture with the two men, you know, first time to see them. And each one, as the pictures were in, they were about the same age. And they were looking for a new spouse, both of them. So they are (unintelligible) you know? It was very, very, very funny.
But after a couple of good pairs that I found by myself, I was short of people, so I decided to ask the media for help. And people hear about my project and then they just go to my website, which bears my name francoisbrunelle.com, and then they can register and send me a little note about who they are and who is their doppelganger because I'm looking for pairs of existing doppelgangers and not trying to match people with other people in the world. I do not do that. I got a lot of email, especially from Brazil, and they say, oh, please find my lookalike.
(LAUGHTER)
BLOCK: Oh, they want to have a doppelganger. They don't know of one.
BRUNELLE: Oh, yeah. It's - you would be surprised how many people on this planet are looking for their doppelganger. And the most interesting example, I guess, would be the Chinese people. I've got many emails over the years from Chinese people who are asking me, could you please find my lookalike, please, so I can have something to relate to? So this is quite amazing. And some of them, they write from Beijing, China. So...
BLOCK: What do you think that says?
BRUNELLE: Well, I think that we live in a world where people are more alone than ever because we're more in contact with people with Facebook and the smartphones and everything. But at the end of the day, you're alone in your room and you're thinking about your life, and it's - you would like to have someone, I guess, to relate to, that could be your partner or your best friend. So someone who looks like you, at least you can share some of your misery, I guess. I don't know. It's a good question.
BLOCK: Well, Mr. Brunelle, good luck with your doppelganger project, and thanks for talking to us about it.
BRUNELLE: Thank you very much, Melissa. That was great.
BLOCK: That's photographer Francois Brunelle of Montreal. He's on a quest to document 200 portraits of doppelgangers. And you can check out the images yourself at npr.org.
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BLOCK: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
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And I'm Melissa Block.
The Spanish region of Valencia was once called the California of Spain for its gorgeous Mediterranean coastline and modern architecture. But now, it epitomizes the worst of Spain's problems. Valencia had the country's most inflated property market and suffered its biggest crash. Its landscape is now littered with empty and half-finished buildings. Valencia has also had an unusually high number of politicians indicted for corruption. Lauren Frayer traveled to the sparkling coastal city to investigate what went wrong.
LAUREN FRAYER, BYLINE: In 2007, Valencia spent $730 million on a Formula One street circuit hugging its Mediterranean shores.
Two years later, Valencia's regional president, Francisco Camps, did a victory lap in a $200,000 Ferrari. He just hosted the European Grand Prix and the America's Cup yacht race. Construction was booming. But that infamous Ferrari ride was the beginning of the end. Francisco Camps has resigned from office to defend himself full time against corruption allegations. Thirteen others await trial. And Valencia is Spain's most indebted province now.
VICENTE PALLARDO: Probably we are the main example of every single sin that has been committed in the Spanish economy for the - maybe the last 15 years.
FRAYER: Vicente Pallardo is an economist who raised alarms before the crash. He says cheap credit and EU development funds let Valencia build infrastructure too quickly. The region now has more miles of high-speed train tracks per capita than anywhere else in the world. U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood visited in 2009, and Pallardo recalls his reaction.
PALLARDO: He was very surprised. And he said, oh, you are very rich. We are not able to spend so much money building. Come on, it's the U.S. We are not richer. Our per capita income is about 60 percent of that of the U.S.
FRAYER: To understand why Valencia's politicians acted like they were so rich, you have to go back to the 1980s, when this region was relatively poor. Economist Elias Amor worked for Valencia's government back then.
ELIAS AMOR: We hadn't a highway to Madrid until 1996 or 1997. There was a road, a terrible road. The investments of the central government in Valencia were very low, were the lowest in Spain.
FRAYER: So when cheap credit started flowing, politicians set out to right past wrongs and put Valencia on the map.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Valencia's goal is to become one of the most important urban tourism destinations in Europe.
FRAYER: That goal from a 2008 tourist ad for Valencia was achieved. The biggest landmark here is the City of Arts and Sciences, a complex of museums that cost more than $1.5 billion to build. Amor says locals are proud.
AMOR: I remember my father - my father died in 2004 - and he came every morning here to observe the construction of the City of Arts and Sciences. And when we met him in the evening, he used to tell me that this was the most important thing that was done here in Valencia since the time of the Miguelete. You know, the Miguelete?
FRAYER: The Miguelete is a medieval church in Valencia's center. The city hadn't seen a building boom like this since the Middle Ages. But Valencia's citizens will be paying for it for years. Miguel Angel Ferris Gil is a former journalist who runs alternative tours of Valencia to show citizens just what they've paid for. He drives me out to the Formula One track, and I asked him about the regional president's iconic Ferrari ride here.
MIGUEL ANGEL FERRIS GIL: This is our symbol, the luxury and the political corruption. They were enjoying his power in Valencia, their impunity with the media and other things.
FRAYER: An abandoned tramway leads to the fenced-off race track. So there are tracks but no trains?
GIL: Yes, it finishes here. It don't arrive until the neighborhood. It's finished. It's all like that because they have no money to finish.
FRAYER: Valencia still hosts Formula One. But the regional government has run out of funds to repair schools, and some kids have been attending class in trailers for years. Politicians are thinking twice about Ferrari photos these days. For NPR News, I'm Lauren Frayer.
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And I'm Melissa Block. Congress has now agreed to give some $60 billion to states damaged by Hurricane Sandy. One of the hardest-hit areas is Long Island. The storm not only destroyed homes and businesses there, but also washed away part of the system of protective barrier islands and beaches.
As NPR's Christopher Joyce reports, scientists are now trying to find out where that sand and sediment went, and whether it can be used to rebuild Long Island's defenses.
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE, BYLINE: January's hardly a time to go boating on Long Island's south shore. But to ocean scientists, this is a crime scene. If you want fingerprints, you've got to move fast.
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JOYCE: That's why a team of them has driven an SUV all the way from the University of Texas to this snow-covered dock. As boats bob in the waves, the team unpacks gear. A 25-knot wind blows across the water.
Beth Christensen is a local with the team. She's from Long Island's Adelphi University. She's huddled inside her car with a map.
BETH CHRISTENSEN: We're looking for the sand that got removed both by the wash-over as the surge moved through, but also the extended period of time that that storm was sitting here.
JOYCE: Long Island juts out into the Atlantic like New York City's thumb. On the south shore, sand dunes and barrier islands protect it. Sandy robbed those islands of sand and sediment. That makes Long Island more vulnerable. If that sand lies just offshore, it could wash back up and restore beaches on its own. If not, someone will have to either dredge it up or replace it - a very expensive prospect.
And the team is also searching for sediment that picked up toxic chemicals during the storm.
CHRISTENSEN: This is a power plant. Here's sewage treatment. Here's another sewage treatment plant, another sewage treatment plant. Here's runoff coming in from the streets through all of those creeks. And so, all of that combined ends up in these sediments.
JOYCE: Out on the dock, the 27-foot work-boat idles in a slip. Its sonar instruments capture images of the sea floor, images so clear you can tell the difference between sand and mud and rock, even the type of sand grain. That's important if that sand gets put back on the beaches.
CHRISTENSEN: If you can't find the right grain size, you're going to change the whole character of your beach. So if you walk the beach and you find piles of, you know, stinking, rotting organic rich mud on the beach, that's not really going to enhance tourism.
JOYCE: Once we're out in the bay, chief scientist John Goff turns on one of its sonar scanners called a CHIRP.
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JOHN GOFF: That's the CHIRP.
(LAUGHTER)
GOFF: That's what you get to listen to all...
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JOYCE: We drive back and forth in the sound. Goff calls it mowing the lawn.
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JOYCE: He admits this part of sea-floor mapping is boring. What's interesting is the interaction between the shore and the sea floor.
GOFF: They feed off each other. You know, the sea floor sand could be a source for replenishing the beach, you know, naturally as well as artificially. Or the beach can be sending sediment to the ocean. So it goes back and forth.
JOYCE: Goff learned to do this in the Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Ike in 2008. He's trying to perfect the method.
GOFF: And we're going to expect more storms in the future if global warming continues. And so, understanding the impact of these storms is really important.
JOYCE: Not long into the day, though, things start to go awry. The gear shift breaks. The team fixes that but then the sonar computers mysteriously quit. We call it a day finally and swing into the dock. A stiff breeze pushes the boat around like a cork until we run into another docked boat.
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JOYCE: No damage, just part of doing seat-of-the-pants research in a freezing windstorm on an unfamiliar boat.
GOFF: Frustrating, we got a little bit of data. It's not a great morning, but in the scheme of things it wasn't too bad.
JOYCE: A lot of that data ends up at Beth Christensen's lab at Adelphi University. The team is here to help figure out how to rebuild these barrier islands and what that will cost. But they're also a bit dubious that anything will be able to protect people living right on the shore.
Christensen says it's clear that the coastline here is dangerous. But how do you convince people to move?
CHRISTENSEN: That's a different story...
(LAUGHTER)
CHRISTENSEN: ...whether or not politicians are as interested in understanding the science behind the problem as they are in getting reelected. And, in order to do that, pleasing a constituency that probably doesn't really want a lot to change.
JOYCE: And that bothers Midwesterner Cassandra Browne, another team member. Browne grew up with tornados in Missouri. She says a tornado can hit anywhere but hurricanes hit coastlines.
CASSANDRA BROWNE: I have very little sympathy for people who...
(LAUGHTER)
BROWNE: ...choose to go out there and rebuild and then get smashed and then use taxpayer's money from all over the nation to rebuild and put more sand on their beaches, when we're sitting here telling them, look, that's a stupid idea.
JOYCE: Someone who knows what it's like to get smashed is Rob Weltner, a retired builder, electrician and lifelong Long Islander. He shows me around the echoing hulk of a maritime museum he runs in the coastal town of Freeport. The museum was damaged by Hurricane Irene in 2011. Then, Sandy hit it again a year later.
ROB WELTNER: And here's the high water mark from Sandy.
(LAUGHTER)
JOYCE: Whoa, chest high on me.
WELTNER: Chest high, yep.
JOYCE: Most everything - exhibits, furniture, walls - is ruined. He says peoples' attitudes here are different now like, whether the climate is really changing.
WELTNER: Man, like overnight they went from hell no to hell yes. That's the surprise that I saw was all these people who used to give me a lot of grief for even mentioning, you know, sea level rise and climate change, are now asking me what they can do.
(LAUGHTER)
JOYCE: And they really don't know what to do.
WELTNER: They're completely freaked out. Nobody seems to have real a good grip on what to do and how to fix this. Because people think it's going to happen again - should they rebuild - but they don't have any other place to go.
JOYCE: This is where science should have answers, like what's the best way to prepare for the next one. At least, that's the view of Jamie Austin, the senior member of the Texas team who's thawing out in a motel room after a cold day on the water.
JAMIE AUSTIN: We need to show society they can use science to help them prepare for what will inevitably be the next cataclysm.
JOYCE: Austin says teams like this one need to parachute in after a big storm to figure out what happened - fast.
AUSTIN: The notion that the coast is a constant is a lie. It's a myth. This coastline is the frontline. It's the battleground.
JOYCE: Christopher Joyce, NPR News.
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A moment now to remember an inventor and engineer who revolutionized sound recording for film, television, radio and helped shaped how this program sounded for many years - Stefan Kudelski, the inventor of the Nagra professional tape recorder, died over the weekend at age 84. His invention was portable, using quarter-inch magnetic tape, battery-powered and the quality was fantastic. Stefan Kudelski was born in Poland.
In fact, the word Nagra in Polish means will record. His family fled the Nazi occupation and ended up in Switzerland, which is where he created his line of tape recorders. And here to talk about why they're so revered is Randy Thom, director of sound design at Skywalker Sound. Randy, thanks so much for being with us.
RANDY THOM: You're welcome.
CORNISH: Stefan Kudelski came up with the prototype in 1951 and then the machines evolved in quality over the years. What made them so revolutionary for film?
THOM: Well, for film, the Nagra opened up a whole kind of shooting and kind of sound recording because it was so small and so portable. Before the Nagra showed up, the audio recorders that were used to record the actors speaking on movie sets were huge. They typically had to be transported on a truck and so it limited the kinds of locations that you could easily record sound for a film.
CORNISH: So you could be nimble with a Nagra.
THOM: Absolutely. You could say that it was one of the tools that made the French new wave possible by allowing the young directors in the late '50s and early '60s in France and elsewhere to shoot a scene almost anywhere they could think of shooting one because they had this beautiful little Swiss-made recorder made by Mr. Kudelski.
CORNISH: You know, it's funny, we're talking about them as little and portable. I'm old enough to remember when Nagras were used here at NPR by engineers out in the field and, yes, they were portable, but by today's standards, they were big, heavy contraptions. You needed sort of a brace to hold it on your body if you didn't want to kill your back and it took how many batteries to run one?
THOM: A dozen batteries, D-cells.
CORNISH: So it was a pretty heavy proposition.
THOM: Way heavier than what we're used to now. Now you can have a great recorder that literally fits in the palm of your hand and just weighs a few ounces. The Nagra weighed, you know, somewhere between eight and, you know, 15 pounds, maybe 20 pounds if you had a bunch of accessories to go with it, as I usually did when I was recording sound on location for "Apocalypse Now" and "The Empire Strikes Back," 25 years ago.
CORNISH: And the cost? All that quality came with a price.
THOM: All of us coveted the Nagra so much. We wanted to have a Nagra. But they were really expensive. They were several thousand dollars.
CORNISH: I remember it being more. I think I remember being told on one gig, that's basically the equivalent of a small car that we have with us right now.
THOM: Yeah, I think that's right.
CORNISH: Were they finicky machines, Randy, or tough? Did they hold up to lots of wear?
THOM: The great things about the Nagra was that they were tough and you could drop them and they would still run. They would run in very cold weather. They'd run in the Amazon, humid conditions. You could take them just about anywhere and they would record sound for you.
CORNISH: The Nagras that you used recording for film, how long would the tape be that it would hold?
THOM: Well, it would depend on the speed at which you recorded. If you recorded at 7 and a half inches per second a reel of tape would last about 30 minutes.
CORNISH: And do you remember a moment when you were shooting when, ahh, the tape ran out just at a key moment?
THOM: Yes. You had to bring that up, didn't you? Well, I remember we were doing a pickup shoot on "Apocalypse Now" and a very long take in the middle of one very long take, the tape ran out and I heard that little fwap, fwap, fwap of the end of the tape inside the Nagra about five seconds before Mr. Sheen finished his performance.
CORNISH: Well, Randy Thom, thanks so much for talking with us.
THOM: Oh, you're welcome.
CORNISH: That's Randy Thom, director of sound design at Skywalker Sound. We were remembering Stefan Kudelski, the inventor of the Nagra professional tape recorder. Mr. Kudelski died over the weekend. He was 84.
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You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
Most teachers and education experts agree preparation and licensing for teachers in this country is in disarray. The problem is so serious, the American Federation of Teachers is proposing a bar exam akin to the one lawyers have to pass before they can practice.
But as NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports, that proposal raises more questions than answers.
CLAUDIO SANCHEZ, BYLINE: Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, says the system for admitting, preparing and selecting teachers is broken.
RANDI WEINGARTEN: How do you deal with the patchwork we have in the United States of 50 different states, lots of different certification requirements?
SANCHEZ: And no single standard to determine who's fit and who's not fit to teach. It's an archaic system that Weingarten says must be replaced with one question in mind.
WEINGARTEN: How do you ensure that an individual teacher walking into her classroom the first day is confident and competent? What happens in other professions?
SANCHEZ: Like law and medicine. Weingarten, who was a lawyer before she was a classroom teacher, is convinced that something akin to a bar exam for teachers is the answer. It would test the person's knowledge based on what he was hired to teach - math, English, history, science. It would gauge his understanding of how children learn. And third...
WEINGARTEN: There had to be some residency or actual classroom practice beforehand, some real internship before you walked into teaching.
SANCHEZ: Weingarten isn't the only one pushing a bar-like exam for teachers. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan supports it, and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo wants his state to adopt the idea. But there are huge differences in how we attract and select people to become teachers and lawyers or doctors. Law schools and medical schools, for example, have really tough admission standards. Education schools don't.
SANDRA STOTSKY: You have more problems today with ineffective teachers because we've had virtually open admissions into the profession.
SANCHEZ: Sandra Stotsky once oversaw the licensing of teachers for the state of Massachusetts. She says too many people who graduate with a teaching degree can't teach because the standards are so low. But it's just one of many problems, says Arthur Levine, former president of Teacher's College, Columbia University.
ARTHUR LEVINE: At the moment, clinical education and academic programs are entirely disconnected. People in the profession don't even agree on how to prepare people for this field.
SANCHEZ: Maybe, says Levine, just maybe a bar exam for teachers could have a positive impact.
LEVINE: The effect it could have is that standards in ed schools are really low. It could force them to raise them.
SANCHEZ: If you're going to have something like a bar exam for teachers, Levine says, you need a clear definition of how to become a teacher. You need a higher quality of students and better programs to prepare them. And you need political support to make sure all these things are aligned.
LEVINE: It's primarily states that have to get on board.
SANCHEZ: Which means there are lots of turf battles out there. The purpose of most state licensure tests after all is, first and foremost, to protect children from incompetent teachers not license only the smartest, most competent people. AFT president Randi Weingarten says everybody should be fed up with the disarray in how this country prepares and hires teachers.
WEINGARTEN: It's demeaning to our profession. It's demeaning to our practice. And no one would ever think that a lawyer who's not prepared should go into a courtroom and try a case without any preparation.
SANCHEZ: Weingarten says a bar exam for teachers could be ready in five years. Claudio Sanchez, NPR News.
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And I'm Melissa Block.
China's demand for natural resources is being felt in a big way in the Southeast Asian nation of Cambodia. Illegal logging and economic land concessions awarded to businesses are threatening Cambodia's dwindling forests, which, as Michael Sullivan reports, now echo with the sound of chain saws.
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MICHAEL SULLIVAN, BYLINE: This is the sound of one of Southeast Asia's largest lowland forests dying one tree at a time.
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SULLIVAN: This is Prey Lang Forest, an eight-hour journey north and east of the capital. And illegal loggers see forests like this one as cash cows.
Suwanna Gauntlett heads the Phnom Penh office of Wildlife Alliance.
SUWANNA GAUNTLETT: It is just like in the United States in the '60s when every single redwood tree was the target for an illegal logger. It's the same thing in Cambodia. It's a natural resource that's worth a lot of money.
SULLIVAN: And plenty of people with money in China's growing middle class in particular, says Conservation International's Tracy Farrell, eager to spend it on furniture made of luxury hardwood.
TRACY FARRELL: You also have the fact that other countries have been culling or reducing the extraction of their own luxury wood. Like Thailand has been becoming much more strict about illegal wood leaking out of the country. So that puts the pressure on the countries who are less strict. So Laos and Cambodia are really, really struggling.
SULLIVAN: Both Conservation International and Wildlife Alliance have been working with Cambodia's government to protect some of the forests. And those efforts have been hugely successful in slowing the rate of forest decline there. But without this protection, Suwanna Gauntlett says...
GAUNTLETT: Six months - six to eight months, it'd be all gone. It all be wiped out, believe me.
SULLIVAN: But Prey Lang Forest to the north doesn't have the same kind of protection. And forests threatened not just by illegal loggers but by so-called economic concessions, large tracts of land awarded by the government to agribusinesses on the forests' borders, land often used to launder wood taken out of the forest illegally.
Eoun Sopapheap is tired of watching the forest disappear. He's part of a local activist network in Sandan. And he and a few others are gassing up their motorcycles for a journey into the forest to catch illegal loggers in the act.
EOUN SOPAPHEAP: (Through Translator) The forest is our rice bowl. We all depend on it to live. We tap the resin trees and sell the sap in the market. And we use the money to buy rice and to pay for our children's school fees. If we lose those trees, we lose everything. So it's up to us.
SULLIVAN: He fires up his motorcycle and starts the journey into the forest. In less than an hour, we find the first of many newly felled trees not far from the road, a chain saw humming in the distance.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (Foreign language spoken)
SULLIVAN: It's a resin tree, one of the men explains. Its trunk still oozing sap. It's worth about $750 to a logger, he says. But for those who live here, a source of sustainable income has now been eliminated forever. The chain saw draws us deeper into the forest.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHAIN SAW)
SULLIVAN: The underbrush is thick and rips at the flesh. It takes about 30 minutes to go 100 yards and then a clearing and a glum-looking logger. He says he's not from around here and that his boss offered him $10 to cut this tree.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Foreign language spoken)
SULLIVAN: I know it's illegal, he says, but what can I do? I don't have any other work, and I have to support my family. The activists let him go but keep his chain saw. They're after bigger fish and find one on the road a few miles further in.
It's a tractor pulling a large stack of freshly cut timber. And the guy who owns it, the driver claims, is the district deputy police chief who shows up not long after, looking annoyed. The activists tell him they're burning the wood and reporting him to the Interior Ministry. The policeman protests, claiming the wood was legally cut and belongs not to him but to the owner of a land concession in the district.
Chhim Savuth is having none of it. He's with the Cambodian Center for Human Rights and knows the area well.
CHHIM SAVUTH: (Foreign language spoken)
SULLIVAN: First, he says, that land concession is some 30 miles from here and, he says, their license expired a year ago. Exasperated, the police chief whips out his phone and says he's calling his boss. But he's not talking about his police superior. He's talking about the owner of the company, the man paying him to protect the illegal shipment. He walks away a bit but is still within earshot.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: (Foreign language spoken)
SULLIVAN: The human rights activist listens in and, he says, overhears the boss telling the cop to offer the activists money to make the problem go away. But it doesn't come to that because, just then, several hard-looking men on motorbikes pull up, gun thugs here to back up the chief.
The activists are suddenly outnumbered in the middle of the forest and it's getting dark. They decide to retreat. Back in the capital, Ou Virak, who heads the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, says that was a good call, especially with the police involved.
OU VIRAK: In any of these situations - in the middle of nowhere, with so much money and so much interests at stake - they're willing to do quite a lot. So it could turn ugly pretty quickly. And if anything happened, they could just blame anybody.
SULLIVAN: Ou Virak says the incident perfectly illustrates the extent of the collusion between local officials and the illegal logging trade in many parts of the country and how difficult it will be to stop the practice.
For NPR News, I'm Michael Sullivan.
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Can you imagine calling up the cafeteria of one of your local public schools and asking for a recipe? Now, we understand this does happen sometimes in Japan. We read this week in the Washington Post that Japanese school lunches are a point of national pride. Students eat locally grown food - almost never frozen - usually made from scratch. These are meals so good kids want to have them at home. To learn more, we turn to chef and author Debra Samuels, who lived in Japan and sent her son through the public school system. She's also author of "My Japanese Table." Debra, welcome to the program.
DEBRA SAMUELS: Thank you, Audie. Nice to be here.
CORNISH: So start by telling us what happened when you first sent your son to school in Japan. What lunch did you lovingly pack for him that day? And what did he encounter at school?
SAMUELS: Well, like a good American mom, I got out a brown paper bag, peanut butter and jelly sandwich, carrot sticks, a whole apple, cookies, grapes. And I packed it in the bag and said good-bye. And he came home that day crying that his lunch wasn't cute. At that point, I realized that I had to learn what Japanese moms were sending their kids to school with. And it was the obento or the bento box, which are these very well-balanced nutritional meals in a box, a cute box. I went out and got a book, 101 ways to make obento, and we went through it for the rest of the year.
CORNISH: So what are the rules for making these lunches? Because when you talked about your American lunch, you know, it had carrot sticks and an apple and things that sounded fairly healthy. What makes these different?
SAMUELS: They look like you want to eat them. I just cut my carrots into the shape of a flower or I made the sandwich, you know, with baloney bangs. I mean, there are many numbers that - instead of one...
CORNISH: Did you say baloney bangs?
SAMUELS: That's what I said.
CORNISH: What does that mean?
(LAUGHTER)
SAMUELS: Instead of the baloney inside the sandwich - this little round face and the bangs on the face were made of baloney. But it was still a sandwich, but it looked good. He wanted to eat it. You can present anything, sort of a bento style. And the Japanese kids are not just eating Japanese foods. These are Western foods that are incorporated into their diet, school and home and everywhere.
CORNISH: So, Debra, that's an occasion when you sent your son to school with lunch. But we hear that, you know, the Japanese cafeteria, the lunches they serve in schools is a completely different affair. Tell us what it's like.
SAMUELS: Well, it's actually not a cafeteria because the children tend to eat in their classrooms. They have carts that are brought into the classroom by kids, and they will pass out the lunch, and they all eat the exact same thing.
CORNISH: And this is a freshly cooked meal, correct?
SAMUELS: This is very often - yes, it's a freshly cooked meal. Foods that they would find at home. They all, you know, rather tasty. My son remembers particularly these things that are called korokke. And they're like a potato croquette that might have been filled with minced meat, and they've got the panko bread crumbs on top of them. So they're kind of crispy and covered with a sauce, and then there would be a salad, and then there would be a miso soup and some kind of fruit. And then there would usually be milk.
CORNISH: Of course, Debra, here in the U.S., there has been so much talk lately about childhood obesity and also about improving nutrition in school lunch programs. And Japan has one of the lowest obesity rates in the world. Do you think that's because of school lunches?
SAMUELS: I don't think it's just because of school lunches. I think it's because their portions of food that they are served at home and in school are much smaller than ours. They also eat a variety of foods, usually at least five different kinds at a meal. So they're eating a larger variety but a smaller portion size.
CORNISH: And, Debra, every once in a while, do you miss carving carrots into flowers?
SAMUELS: I don't miss it. I still do it.
(LAUGHTER)
SAMUELS: I do it for myself. And that whole apple, it turns into the ubiquitous apple bunny in the bento. That's one of the things that goes into every little child's bento box.
CORNISH: Debra Samuels, she's the author of "My Japanese Table." We spoke to her about public school lunches in Japan. Debra, thank you so much for speaking with us.
SAMUELS: Thank you very much, Audie. It was really enjoyable.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And ALL THINGS CONSIDERED continues in a moment.
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This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
I'm Audie Cornish. And we begin this hour in Egypt, where there were ominous words today from the country's military chief. He said the conflict between Egypt's political forces could lead to the collapse of the state. There have been intense anti-government protests across the country over the past few days and there has been violence. The main opposition group in Egypt has rejected dialogue to calm the situation.
NPR's Leila Fadel joins us to discuss the latest. And Leila, to start, tell us what's going on. How chaotic is the situation there?
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: Well, they're coming to the end of the fifth day of anti-government protests and it is a lot calmer compared to what we saw over the weekend and the past two days, where more than 50 people have been killed in violence. Things seem calmer, but there still seems to be no real solution of how to placate protestors, how to stop this violence. And a lot of people saying in parts of Egypt, it seems that the rule of law is breaking down.
CORNISH: Now, Egyptians are questioning the president's ability to lead the country out of this crisis. What steps has he taken so far?
FADEL: Over the weekend, he declared a state of emergency in three of the most restive cities, canal cities Port Said, Suez, Ismailia, and also a curfew. But people have been defiant, saying they no longer respect his authority among these protestors. We did an interview with senior Muslim Brotherhood advisor Gehad al-Haddad today, who talked about not only the anti-government protests being challenging, but also just generally that this is a new president dealing with an old bureaucracy.
This is what he had to say.
GEHAD AL-HADDAD: The president is doing his best. We have to understand that the bureaucracy of Egypt is about seven million men strong. It's infested with corruption and most of that corruption is controlled by the previous regime members still running many of the institutions and bodies within the state, and they are acting against the will of the president.
FADEL: In some ways this is one of the biggest tests to Morsi's rule so far. He's a new president. We do have to remember that - seven months in - and he's dealing with quite violent protests, people saying they will use violence now, frustrated with the situation in Egypt, the economic turmoil, the inability for things to progress.
CORNISH: Egypt's top military chief, General Abdul Fatah al-Sisi, warned of a collapse of the state. I mean, is that a real danger and is there a danger that the military would again want to take control if violence persists?
FADEL: I think there's a major concern that the government is not governing, is unable to govern, not only because of these protests but the fact that the economy is faltering so badly, the fact that they're unable to work with this old and aging bureaucracy. But I don't think that concerns of a military coup, that they will step in and retake power, is a real danger.
I think that many people saw that during the military rule after former President Hosni Mubarak's ouster, they were unable to placate protestors themselves. They were uncomfortable being responsible and accountable, and they don't want that to happen again. Sisi today was warning that political factions need to agree on something, need to lead the state out of this crisis.
There's been a lot of finger-pointing, the opposition saying the Brotherhood-led government is disingenuous when it's calling for dialogue, the Brotherhood saying how can we solve this if the dialogue won't happen. Let's hear again from Gehad al-Haddad, the Muslim Brotherhood advisor.
AL-HADDAD: They have to offer alternative policies. It's not a good policy to stand on the sideline, point to the guy in charge and say he's a bad guy. You have to offer something different.
FADEL: Right now it's just very difficult to predict what will happen next.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Leila Fadel in Cairo. Leila, thank you.
FADEL: Thank you.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
We're going to head west now, from Egypt across Libya to Niger. The Pentagon has signed a deal with the government there. The agreement could allow the U.S. to establish a forward base in Niger so that it could operate drone aircraft across northern and western Africa. NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman has been reporting on the U.S. military's growing presence on the continent. He joins me now here in the studio.
And Tom, how close is the U.S. to actually setting up a drone base in Niger?
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Well, it doesn't seem to be that close. The New York Times first reported this. The Pentagon today wouldn't comment on a drone base. They would only say, listen, there's a new military agreement with Niger. Other officials I spoke with say, listen, if we do create a drone base, it'll be a ways off. But it does seem to make sense, and the big reason is for surveillance of Islamist militants, not only in northern Mali, where the French are fighting now, but really throughout this whole region, where there are growing numbers of Islamist militants.
And this is the top concern of U.S. officials in the region, that these militants, they say, are getting stronger and they're beginning to coordinate, share information and arms. And obviously there's a concern about destabilizing governments in west Africa, but it also extends to Europe because some of these militant groups do, you know, have criminal networks, moving drugs, money laundering, diamonds, even people and terrorists into Europe. So, it's a real concern.
BLOCK: Now, the U.S. already has a base in Djibouti, just north of Somalia. It can operate drones from there. So why a base in Niger?
BOWMAN: Well, the U.S. base in Djibouti is 3,000 miles away. This one, of course, would be a lot closer to where the fighting is, particularly in Mali. And also, the French have intervened in Mali, of course, and they're desperate for the kind of intelligence that the U.S. drones can provide.
Another reason for working with Niger is the U.S. wants to build up African troops and eventually get them in the lead. So a basing agreement isn't necessarily just about drones. It's also being able to put U.S. trainers on the ground to professionalize African forces, so that'd be another reason for this military agreement with Niger.
BLOCK: And the mission, exactly, Tom, you mentioned surveillance, but would the drones also conduct airstrikes?
BOWMAN: No. At this point, we're just talking about surveillance, and again, it's needed because it's a huge area here. Northern Mali is roughly the size of Texas, so you would use these drones to take pictures of where the militants are and also, maybe more importantly, pick up their radio and telephone conversations, which could help in the targeting of them and also provide useful information.
At this point, the only use of armed drones is on the other side of the continent against insurgents in Somalia, and also from African bases to strike against Yemen.
BLOCK: Tom, this is all coming on top of other assistance that the U.S. is already providing to the French in their campaign in Mali - cargo planes, refueling, I think, right?
BOWMAN: That's right. The U.S. has already provided C-17 cargo planes to carry French troops and equipment to Mali. Also, refueling aircraft for the French fighter jets. And the French say they've received intelligence assistance as well. Again, you know, likely satellite or some sort of photo reconnaissance; also again intercepts we think they're already getting of the Islamist insurgents.
BLOCK: Tom, are you hearing people express concerns about blowback from this? In other words, would this be seen as further Western provocation or a creeping military role on the continent?
BOWMAN: You know, that has been a concern for some time. Even when they created African Command five years ago, there was a fear that they would militarize foreign policy in Africa. Even the State Department officials talked about that. And if they're joining with the French on actual military attacks in northern Mali, it could be a boon to the al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, getting them to recruit more people saying, listen, here comes one more Western country to kill you people.
So there is a concern here that, you know, the U.S. could get dragged further into this and it could militarize foreign policy throughout Africa.
BLOCK: Okay. NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman. Tom, thanks so much.
BOWMAN: You're welcome, Melissa.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
It's official - Democratic Senator John Kerry will be the next secretary of State. The Senate voted 94-3 in favor of his confirmation today. Kerry will replace Hillary Clinton, who had been hoping to spend her final days at the State Department on the road, but recent health scares have grounded her. So on this, her last week, Secretary Clinton decided to go around the world virtually. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports on a global town hall where Clinton spoke with students and journalists over a video hookup.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Clinton likes these town halls, saying it gives her a better sense of what issues are on people's minds. Today, she heard that Latin Americans still feel ignored; some in Europe are worried that U.S. relations with Russia are in the tank; and there's a lot of concern about extremism spreading across North Africa. A questioner in Nigeria raised the common critique that the Obama administration has led from behind in Libya and now in Mali.
SECRETARY HILLARY CLINTON: We believe that, of course, the United States remains the paramount military and economic power in the world. But the future we want to see are more nations taking responsibility and playing a role. And I think that is visionary leadership.
KELEMEN: So she says the U.S. is trying to encourage African countries to step up and deal with issues in their region, as they did in Somalia.
Clinton is leaving with a lot of unfinished business. The Obama administration failed to forge peace between Israelis and Palestinians, an early priority. Clinton says her successor, John Kerry, might have some opportunities in the wake of elections in Israel.
CLINTON: I actually think that the selection opens doors not nails them shut.
KELEMEN: The administration's efforts to reach out to Iran have also failed so far. The host of the town hall, Leigh Sales, of the Australian Broadcasting Company, read out one question from an Iranian about that.
LEIGH SALES: My only question is, if you have issues with the government of Iran, why destroy the people with the current sanctions in place? It's very difficult to find medicine in Iran. Where is your sense of humanity?
CLINTON: Well, first, let me say on the medicine and on food and other necessities, there are no sanctions.
KELEMEN: Clinton calls this a dilemma for the administration. She says Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon would be incredibly dangerous, so her message to Iranians is do something about this in the upcoming elections.
CLINTON: Iranian people are educated, intelligent, historically significant; they deserve to have a government that integrates them into the world, not isolates them from the world. So we hope that the Iranian people will speak out and make known their views to their own government.
KELEMEN: As she reflected on her time as America's top diplomat, Clinton said there are many crises the U.S. can't control, and there are places where there are simply no easy answers - look at Syria and Congo.
SAHIR SAWAH: My name is Sahir Sawah(ph). I'm from Dubai but a British Pakistani. My biggest question to you was, firstly, are you planning on writing your memoirs already? And if you are, following in the footsteps of Madeleine Albright in hers, where she said that her lasting regret was what happened in Rwanda, what would you say was your lasting regret?
CLINTON: Well, certainly the loss of American lives in Benghazi was something that I deeply regret.
KELEMEN: She also told a Japanese questioner that she had hoped North Korea's new leader would take a different course. But instead, she says, Pyongyang continues to take provocative steps and the U.S. is on its same course piling on more sanctions.
While she talked about world politics, Clinton carefully dodged questions about her political future. Indian television journalist Barkha Dutt tried a different approach.
BARKHA DUTT: I know despite all your denials, all of us are waiting to see you back in political action in 2016...
(LAUGHTER)
DUTT: ...as possibly the United States' first woman president. So, I'm not saying that as a question, I'm just observing that we think that might happen.
(LAUGHTER)
KELEMEN: Secretary Clinton didn't bite but later said her first plans are to catch up on 20 years of sleep deprivation.
Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department.
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From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block.
President Obama was in Las Vegas today, making the case for one of his key campaign issues.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: The time has come for common sense, comprehensive immigration reform.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: The time has come.
BLOCK: We're covering specifics of the president's plan elsewhere in the program. Some elements dovetail with the plan announced yesterday by a bipartisan group of senators. For the next few minutes, we're going to talk about current border security. One key claim the president made is that his administration has already strengthened the border.
OBAMA: We put more boots on the ground on the southern border than at any time in history. And today, illegal crossings are down nearly 80 percent from their peak in 2000.
CORNISH: NPR's Ted Robbins joins us now. And, Ted, to start, the Senate plan demands that borders be more secure before any citizenship process is actually put in place. And, of course, the White House says that border is already much more secure than it used to be. How do we know?
TED ROBBINS, BYLINE: Well, we don't. But it's hard to believe that with all the money spent and the tens of thousands of Border Patrol agents and aircraft that it is less secure. And some numbers support that contention that it's more secure. The question is, what is secure enough and how do we know when we get there? And the big problem has been that the Department of Homeland Security does not have a measurement to say how effective it's been or what is secure.
It's been working on a measurement called the Border Security Index for three years, still not ready. And some people in Congress wanted to go back to an old thing called Operational Control - how many miles do agents hold.
CORNISH: So help us understand in numbers that we do know.
ROBBINS: Yeah, the numbers definitely show something. The recent high point was in 2005, 1.1 million people were apprehended crossing illegally. Well, the last numbers were for fiscal year 2011. That number went for 1.1 million to 340,000. So we're down two-thirds and the lowest levels in 40 years.
CORNISH: And, of course, research has shown that illegal immigration into the U.S. has slowed in recent years for a number of reasons. Talk about those reasons and how that affects border enforcement.
ROBBINS: Well, the primary reason the numbers have gone down, everybody agrees, is that the U.S. economy tanked in 2008; lack of jobs, lack of a magnet to bring people here. The other reason is that there are 11 million people already here illegally, and they used to migrate - go back and forth. Now, with all the enforcement, it's harder to come and go and so many have stayed here in the U.S.
And lastly, the Mexican economy is improving. It's growing at a faster rate than the U.S. economy and so there may be less of a need for people to leave.
CORNISH: One thing, Ted, is back in 2006, the Secure Fence Act implemented a plan to fortify the southern border of the U.S. What's the status of that fence? Do people think it worked?
ROBBINS: Well, the fence, it seems to be working very well keeping illegal traffic out in urban areas, like San Diego and Nogales, El Paso. Not as well if you go a few miles outside of the urban areas. It has to be regarded in some ways with bodies, cameras, aircraft, and maintained pretty much 24/7 as crossers breach it.
Remember, the border is 2,000 miles long. There are 700 miles of fencing and nobody thinks that there's going to be fencing over mountain ranges, rivers and cities and Indian nations.
So the other fence, quote, in quotes, is a series of towers, you know, with cameras, radar sensors, and there's been some mixed success with that, and the thousands of ground sensors along the border.
CORNISH: And lastly, Ted, we've been talking about border security but what about the ports of entry - noncitizens who enter legally?
ROBBINS: Right, and the estimates there are from a third to a half of all the people in the United States illegally now came in legally and overstayed their visas. No amount of border security is going to solve that problem.
CORNISH: NPR's Ted Robbins, Ted, thank you.
ROBBINS: You're welcome.
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And the borders are not the only focus of immigration enforcement. More and more businesses are using a system called E-Verify to check whether employees are legally authorized to work in the U.S. Both President Obama and the bipartisan working group of senators want to expand that, to make electronic verification mandatory nationwide.
For more on E-Verify, I spoke with Muzaffar Chishti. He's with the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute and he told us E-Verify has come a long way.
MUZAFFAR CHISHTI: I think I'm a convert on this issue. I was skeptical about employer sanctions as the right tool to enforce immigration law. And I think the pilot initially showed lots of error rates and we thought they would never be improved. And I think systematically they have been improving.
CORNISH: What were some of those initial concerns with E-Verify when it first started?
CHISHTI: E-Verify is a database that combines Social Security's database with the Immigration database. In the past, there were a lot of errors, so you would get false negatives or false positives. False negative would be if someone would actually be authorized to work but the system would say that he or she is not. And the false positive would be when someone actually is not authorized and the system would say they were authorized.
CORNISH: So let's explain briefly how it does work. Right now, if you're being hired by an employer who uses E-Verify, you present them with some form of ID. And then it gets checked in a computerized database. And what happens next?
CHISHTI: The employer looks at that and he feeds that information into the electronic database and eventually responds back, like your credit card company would respond back with an approval saying that, yes, this person is authorized or say that it's not authorized. And if it says it's not authorized, then the employee is given the right to go to Social Security Administration and get a verification that he or she is actually authorized to work.
CORNISH: Now, are there still problems with E-Verify, kind of loopholes? I mean, I can imagine that one could hand and employer any ID and say its them, and the employer doesn't necessarily know if you are the person who belongs to that particular ID.
CHISHTI: Exactly. The basic remaining drawback in E-Verify is about the identity. There is no way for the system to know that the person whose document is being presented is the person who is applying for the job. We haven't been able to perfect the biometric photo ability of the system. And for this to be a truly effective, foolproof system, the photo verification system has to improve.
CORNISH: Now, some are proposing that in the new immigration legislation E-Verify be expanded, possibly mandatory. What would that take?
CHISHTI: I think we are heading in that direction but it can't happen in a full sweep. I don't think E-Verify is ready for primetime. To say that we're going to move from 350,000 employers to eight million employers in the country is a big leap. And I don't think we're quite ready for that in one jump.
CORNISH: Muzaffar Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute, thank you so much for speaking with us.
CHISHTI: Thank you so much for having me.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And I'm Audie Cornish. And we have a story now about celestial navigation - that is, looking to the sky for guidance.
BLOCK: But before we get too lofty, this story also happens to be about dung beetles. And so we start with this lowly central unpleasant fact about dung beetles.
ERIC WARRANT: Dung beetles and their grubs eat dung and everything about dung beetles has to do with dung in some form.
BLOCK: That's professor Eric Warrant. He's an Australian professor of zoology teaching at the University of Lund in Sweden.
CORNISH: Five years ago, he and a group of other scientists began studying the remarkable navigational skills of dung beetles. These insects harvest material from a fresh pile of feces in the desert. They shape their bounty into a sphere and roll it away.
WARRANT: They have to get away from the pile of dung as fast as they can and as efficiently as they can because the dung pile is a very, very competitive place with lots and lots of beetles all competing for the same dung. And there's very many lazy beetles that are just waiting around to steal the balls of other industrious beetles and often there are big fights in the dung piles.
BLOCK: That's right - lazy dung beetles. Now, the dung beetles need to plot a direct course or they might accidentally circle back and thus lose a precious dung ball to another beetle.
WARRANT: It's a little bit like kicking the ball back into your own goal posts.
BLOCK: Which means no food to feed the next generation. As you can see, there's a lot riding on the beetles making a beeline to the place they hope to roll their ball.
CORNISH: Beeline it, wrong bug, I think.
BLOCK: Yeah, maybe a beetle line. Anyway, professor Eric Warrant and his colleague have just published conclusion about how the dung beetles keep to a straight path.
WARRANT: What we discovered was that dung beetles can roll their balls of dung in straight lines by using the Milky Way as a compass queue.
BLOCK: The Milky Way, billions of stars that form a white streak across the sky, serve as a guide for these little harvesters of waste. It was understood earlier that both the sun and the moon serve as guides, but no one knew how dung beetles could follow a straight path when the moon isn't out. So at the edge of the Kalahari, professor Warrant and the team built a small arena.
WARRANT: We tested them with and without a little cardboard hat, which we put on top of their head with a piece of tape. And this little cardboard hat effectively blocked out the view of the starry sky. And when we did this, they rolled around and around and around in circles. They couldn't keep a straight path.
BLOCK: The Swedish scientists also tested dung beetles at a planetarium. They altered the star pattern on the ceiling and watched what the beetles did. Without the Milky Way, the beetles could not walk the straight and narrow.
CORNISH: Professor Warrant suspects other creatures also navigate using the Milky Way, but currently only dung beetles are known to do so.
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It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block.
Today, President Obama renewed his push for an overhaul of the nation's immigration laws. He told an audience in Las Vegas that it's time to finally deal with the millions of undocumented immigrants who are living in the shadows now. The president's speech comes one day after a bipartisan group of senators outlined their own plan for immigration reform.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Now the good news is that, for the first time in many years, Republicans and Democrats seem ready to tackle this problem together. Members of both parties in both chambers are actively working on a solution.
BLOCK: Both the president's proposal and the Senate version include a qualified path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now from Las Vegas. And, Scott, it's no accident that the president chose to give this speech there in Las Vegas.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: That's right, Melissa. Obviously, there's places he could have gone closer to Washington that have plenty of immigrants, but this is really meant to underscore the new electoral map that Latinos are helping to draw in this country. President Obama won 70 percent Latino vote nationwide, an even higher percentage here in Nevada, and this is one of the states where that lopsided margin helped carry the president to re-election.
And that flexing of political muscle by Latinos is why immigration is suddenly on the front burner not only for Democrats, but also Republicans, who don't want to let this fast-growing voting bloc slip away to the Democrats for possibly years to come.
BLOCK: Now the political calculation is interesting here. There was a comprehensive overhaul of immigration laws that languished during the president's first term, and one key question is does the electoral math predict a different outcome this time?
HORSLEY: Yeah, there's no guarantees. I mean, it obviously will need support from some Senate Republicans to get out of the Senate. Interestingly, two of the four Republicans who are part of the bipartisan group - John McCain and Jeff Flake - are from nearby Arizona, which is seeing some of the same demographic trends we saw here in Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico.
A big question mark is what's going to happen in the Republican-controlled House of Representatives. A lot of GOP House members still represent districts that are whiter than the rest of the country, and they may not feel the same sense of political urgency, at least for themselves, and may feel it on behalf of their party in national elections. So a question mark is what might happen in the House of Representatives.
BLOCK: Well, Scott, what are some of the details? What does the president's plan include?
HORSLEY: Well, the president really hasn't changed a lot of his plan since he talked about it back in 2011. It continued improvements to border security, coupled with better work site enforcement and an improved system for employers to check the immigration status of their workers. The president also wants to update legal immigration, make it easier, for example, for high-skilled workers to get into the country.
But the big-ticket item, of course, is that path to citizenship for the millions who are in the country illegally. That's also in the Senate proposal, although in the Senate proposal, that would be conditioned on a certification that border security had been achieved. That's not part of the president's plan, and the White House has not said whether the president would make an issue over that.
BLOCK: When you talked to people in the audience there today in Las Vegas, Scott, how did they respond? These are the president's supporters there, but what did they tell you?
HORSLEY: Supporters of the president and supporters of an overhaul of the immigration law, and they are cautiously optimistic. I spoke to one activist who said when they were marching in the streets back in 2006, a lot of people didn't take them seriously. But now that they've flexed their muscle at the ballot box, they are being taken seriously, and they feel good about that. At the same time, a lot of these activists are veterans of Bush-era fights over immigration when the reforms were beaten back. And so they're not counting any chickens just yet.
BLOCK: OK. NPR White House correspondent Scott Horsley traveling today with the president. Scott, thanks so much.
HORSLEY: You're welcome.
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For the past four years, Ambassador Daniel Fried has been working hard to keep a promise President Obama made on his first day in office: to close the prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The detention center is still open, but now it's Fried's office that is closing. NPR's Ari Shapiro has the story.
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: Karen Greenberg runs the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School, and she's invested a lot of energy in Guantanamo Bay Prison. On any given day, she can tell you exactly how many detainees are there: 166 today. And she can dive even deeper than that.
KAREN GREENBERG: Eighty-six individuals of that 166 has been cleared for release. Fifty-six of them are Yemenis.
SHAPIRO: Guantanamo has filled her life for more than a decade as suspected terrorists have been picked up from around the world, shipped to Cuba and shipped off again by the hundreds. To her, the closing of Ambassador Daniel Fried's office at the State Department feels like the end of a chapter.
GREENBERG: And I think that's probably the correct move. You know, this is the, you know, how does it end not with a bang but a whimper? This is an example of that kind of ending.
SHAPIRO: Guantanamo's prisoner population has shrunk by roughly a third under President Obama. And Ben Wittes of the Brookings Institution says that's largely thanks to the work of Ambassador Fried.
BEN WITTES: When they set out to convince a whole lot of European countries to take a lot of Guantanamo detainees, I kind of snickered into my sleeve a little bit because, you know, who wants a bunch of Guantanamo detainees, right?
SHAPIRO: Fried used every tool in the diplomat's handbook: flattery, warnings, playing one country off against another.
WITTES: He logged a lot of miles and spent a huge amount of time with, you know, foreign governments and managed to convince a bunch to take a lot of people.
SHAPIRO: But after the first couple of years, the flood slowed to a trickle. Many of the detainees left can't go anywhere. For example, the U.S. refuses to send Yemenis home because Yemen is too unstable. Third countries won't take those prisoners, and they can't come to the United States because Congress won't let them. Lawmakers have put up one roadblock after another to keep the Guantanamo detainees in Cuba. Bobby Chesney at the University of Texas Law School says closing this office at the State Department just confirms what everyone's known for years.
BOBBY CHESNEY: The fact of the matter is that the project of shuttering Guantanamo has been dead in the water for a very long time, and that's been clear to anyone who's paying close attention to the issue.
SHAPIRO: The Obama administration insists that's not true. White House Spokesman Tommy Vietor said in a statement, quote, "The administration has made clear that closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility is in the interest of our national security and is continuing its efforts to close it." But over the 12 years that Guantanamo has been open, some things have changed. No new prisoners have arrived in years, and its symbolic potency has diminished. This was a major national security speech President Obama delivered four years ago.
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PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Meanwhile, instead of serving as a tool to counterterrorism, Guantanamo became a symbol that helped al-Qaida recruit terrorists to its cause.
WITTES: It's kind of an old and stale symbol at this point.
SHAPIRO: Ben Wittes of Brookings and many other national security experts agree terrorists no longer focus on Guantanamo the way they once did.
WITTES: They've moved on to drone strikes and civilian casualties, which is a fresher and more significant day-to-day thumb-in-the-eye for some of the peoples that they are trying to appeal to.
SHAPIRO: In pop culture, the best representation of America's national security mindset today may be "Homeland" on Showtime. In a key plot point on that show, a drone strike becomes a terrorist recruiting tool. And in two seasons, Guantanamo Bay has not come up at all. Ari Shapiro, NPR News, Washington.
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The battle between cat lovers and bird lovers has been going on for a long time. But researchers haven't really been able to put a good number on how many birds, and other small animals, cats kill each year. As NPR's Veronique LaCapra reports, a new study suggests cats may be having a bigger impact on wildlife populations than previously thought.
VERONIQUE LACAPRA, BYLINE: Trying to get a handle on how many birds, and other animals, are being killed by cats isn't easy. Just figuring out how many cats there are, is tough enough.
PETE MARRA: Cats are really hard to count.
LACAPRA: Pete Marra is an animal ecologist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute. He and his colleagues actually got a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to try to estimate the number of animals being killed by people, their activities, their buildings and their pets. They looked at things like the effects of wind turbines, cars, pesticides and domestic cats. Marra says Americans own about 84 million of them.
MARRA: And of those, about 40 to 70 percent are allowed to go outside. And we estimate that about 50 to 80 percent of those are actually hunters.
LACAPRA: That means as many as 47 million pet cats are out there killing prey. Marra says they also looked at cats he calls unowned - feral cats, barn cats and strays. Based on previous studies, he estimates there could be anywhere from 30 to 80 million of those in the U.S., most of them out hunting. The next challenge was to try to figure out how many birds, and small animals, all these cats were killing. They looked at all the available data. And when they finished crunching the numbers...
MARRA: We were shocked. We were shocked.
LACAPRA: Previous studies had suggested that cats killed about 500 million birds a year. Marra's group came up with something very different.
MARRA: We estimate that cats kill somewhere between 1.4 and 3.7 billion birds a year. For mammals, it's upwards of about 15 billion.
LACAPRA: Marra says based on those new figures, cat-caused mortality far exceeds deaths from other sources, like collisions with cars or wind turbines. And even though the new numbers are much higher than anything calculated before, he thinks they're in the right ballpark.
MARRA: We're pretty confident. We felt like we only used the best studies out there. We eliminated studies that had small sample sizes, or were only conducted for short durations. And we eliminated studies that had really, really high estimates or really, really low estimates. So we tried to be as conservative as possible.
LACAPRA: Marra says most of the deaths are being caused by feral cats, but pet cats do play a role. According to his calculations, pet cats are responsible for about a tenth of the cat-related mammal deaths, and close to a third of the bird deaths. He says overall, the number of birds and small animals being killed are high enough that cats and their hunting could be causing some wildlife populations to decline, in some areas.
But he says it will take more work to figure out which species are being most affected. His study is published in the journal "Nature Communications."
Veronique LaCapra, NPR News.
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We have a very different take, now, on the allure of the forest. It comes from the commentator Andrei Codrescu, who sought refuge in the woods of the Ozarks and found blissful silence.
ANDREI CODRESCU: You probably haven't heard me in a while because I haven't heard myself in a while. You've heard the sage advice to keep your thoughts to yourself. But I decided to go a step farther and tell my thoughts to keep themselves to themselves, so that not even I - the host of these unknown thoughts - would have an inkling as to what they are. It's a wonderful discipline. It's like the silence of a silent monk, times two.
I don't miss my thoughts. Whatever they are thinking in there, hidden from my awareness, don't harm me and no one else - far as I can tell. If an unbidden thought makes its way to me through some unsealed crack, I shove it back with a whack of the ax.
I've chopped a lot of wood this week. It's been cold, and we need wood for the woodstove. The rhythmic exercise is a wonderful thought suppressant.
I don't hold much with people who accuse other people of not thinking, as if that was some kind of crime. All I have to do is point to my hillock of split wood that will keep the house warm for a month. What's more satisfying - thinking and freezing to death, or being warm and not thinking?
I'm not cheating, either. I'm not on Facebook or in any other face, so I can't even pretend that I'm not thinking because other people are doing all my thinking for me.
I don't read or listen to opinion pieces, either. Everyone with Wi-Fi is an opinion maker these days. There are a lot more opinions than people now, which just about fills humanity's total mental space with opinions.
It used to be that there were two, three, maybe four different opinions for a single item of news. Now, there are millions - maybe billions - of opinions on every puny news item. In fact, most opinion makers don't need any news to have opinions about something. They just have them, and if there is no news to base them on, they make it up. News made up by opinions looks just like news, only they aren't in the first-person.
I chop wood. I also do other things to keep thoughts from finding themselves or, God forbid, say themselves out loud. But I won't say what they are. People might opinionate and go blogging on them.
CORNISH: Commentator Andrei Codrescu lives in the Arkansas Ozarks, near the Buffalo River.
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Home prices were either up or down, depending on how you read the latest Case-Shiller survey, which was released this morning. Prices were down a bit in November from the previous month, but up sharply compared to the previous year. Taken together, most analysts say the housing recovery is still on track. And joining us now to discuss the housing market is NPR's Yuki Noguchi. Hi there, Yuki.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: Hello.
CORNISH: So help me understand what the heck is going on here? What's going on with home prices compared to recent years?
Well, you know, the survey you mentioned, the Case-Shiller index, looks at the 10 and 20 largest metro areas. And the last time average prices were this high was 2010, but of course prices fell from that point. So the last time prices were at this level and climbing was in the fall of 2003, so a decade ago. But they're still off about a third from their peak in 2006.
But the 2006 prices, of course, that would be what the market produced just as the real estate bubble was about to come to an end, right?
NOGUCHI: Right. So it's safe to assume that those prices were inflated.
CORNISH: All right. Well, back to 2012 then. In half of the cities surveyed, prices fell from October to November. How do you explain that?
NOGUCHI: Well, the report says that's less about a downward trend and more about the fact that housing just tends to be weaker in the winter. It's not a hot time to buy or sell a house. And if you adjust for that seasonality, the only market that fell was New York City. And New York City was, in fact, the only market where prices fell year over year. Prices in Phoenix, meanwhile, jumped 23 percent in the last year.
CORNISH: At the same time, in the last week we've seen data about existing and new home sales and also pending home sales. And none of them were as robust as expected, as people said they would be. I mean, why are most analysts saying that housing is really strong?
NOGUCHI: Right. It seems sort of counterintuitive. The issue is that in a lot of markets, like all across California, Washington, D.C., and a number of other markets, there's actually very little inventory. Inventory is below normal levels, especially at the low end of the market. I was looking at a chart yesterday from the online realty firm Redfin. And if you'll look at the houses listed below $200,000, there are far fewer listings this year than last year. So although interest rates are incredibly low, although the job market is improving, although people are gaining confidence and buying again, there's just not a lot to buy.
CORNISH: So does that mean that there's a corresponding boom in construction?
NOGUCHI: Well, in some areas, there is a lot boom for - and there is a lot of demand for new housing. And new home starts, you're seeing rebounding. But it's not an all-out boom. Home builders that I've talked to recently still have a lot of concerns. Some say banks are still reluctant to sign off on construction loans necessary to build. And some say that their suppliers have gone out of business in recent years and, with less supply, prices for equipment and materials are up. This is an industry, you have to remember, that was really, really badly burned. A lot of people have left the business. A lot of people have left the business. And a lot of businesses have failed. It's going to take a very long time to reverse all that.
CORNISH: So I got to ask, since we have a little time left, when all the dust settles, does this mean fewer people will also be able to qualify to buy homes?
NOGUCHI: Yeah, fewer buyers will be able to qualify for loans than several years ago and that's probably a good thing. Clearly, we went through a period where there was too many mortgages granted to too many people. And a lot of those people are now in foreclosure. We also have a new set of rules from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau that were announced recently that are designed to make sure that lenders don't get into that position again with borrowers.
CORNISH: Yuki, thanks so much.
NOGUCHI: Thank you.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Yuki Noguchi.
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In the words of Mark Twain: The Mississippi River will always have its own way; no engineering skill can persuade it to do otherwise. Well, the way of the Mississippi of late has been drought. And while the traffic problems created upriver have gotten lots of attention, the drought is also creating a different set of problems down-river. So we're going to focus our attention now in a place where the mighty Mississippi empties into the Gulf of Mexico.
Here's NPR's Debbie Elliott.
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DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: An old-fashioned staff river gauge, behind the New Orleans district office of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, shows the Mississippi is running just shy of six feet above sea level at the river bend.
MIKE STACK: Just about back to normal at this point. But it's only done that really since Christmas.
ELLIOTT: Mike Stack is chief of emergency management for the Corps. He's been dealing with near historic lows on the river here since August. The biggest problem is saltwater from the Gulf of Mexico coming up the mouth of the Mississippi, and threatening industrial and municipal water intakes more than 60 miles inland.
STACK: Saltwater is denser than freshwater and so it travels on the bottom. So as the Mississippi River flows, the flows coming down from the north, the Mississippi River is trying to push the water out to the Gulf of Mexico. As the flows get low enough, the Gulf of Mexico starts to push the water up the Mississippi River along the bottom. And so it travels in what we call a wedge.
ELLIOTT: To stop the encroaching wedge, the Corps built a $5.8 million sill on the bottom of the river. It's like a deep underwater levee designed to hold the saltwater at bay. The sill has held since September and the wedge is now receding. But it wasn't enough to prevent the saltwater from reaching the drinking water intakes for Plaquemines Parish, the parish south of New Orleans that stretches all the way to the mouth of the Mississippi.
Billy Nungesser is parish president.
BILLY NUNGESSER: We've been through five hurricanes and an oil spill. We had a couple of chemical spills. And right before this saltwater intrusion, I said what's next?
ELLIOTT: The parish had to barge in fresh water from upriver and buy drinking water from neighboring Orleans Parish. Nungesser is worried about next time.
NUNGESSER: The real challenge will be if we see a worse situation than we saw last year, where that wedge reaches New Orleans, because you couldn't barge in enough water to satisfy the needs of the city of New Orleans.
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ELLIOTT: The river is deep and wide here with at least a 45-foot deep channel. Combine that with the proximity to the Gulf and you have an ideal shipping gateway.
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ELLIOTT: At the busy Port of New Orleans, stevedores use cranes to load crates of chicken onto the Skulptor Tomskiy, a hulking white ship bound for Eastern Europe.
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ELLIOTT: Ships come in from the Gulf bringing everything from rubber and steel to coffee and twine. Barges come down river carrying grain, fertilizer and other goods.
GARY LAGRANGE: Oh, it's huge.
ELLIOTT: Gary LaGrange is president and CEO of the Port of New Orleans.
LAGRANGE: It's a huge convergence point in the sense that the Lower Mississippi River, as an example, 291 miles from Baton Rouge to the mouth of the river constitutes the largest port system in the world - bigger than Rotterdam, Singapore, Shanghai, or any of those.
ELLIOTT: LaGrange says the drought hasn't hurt the Port of New Orleans yet. But upriver, where the channel gets shallow north of Baton Rouge, barge loads are lighter.
LAGRANGE: Anything that's got to go in transit between Cairo and St. Louis, we're concerned - but so far so good.
ELLIOTT: But the drought does raise more complicated questions for Louisiana's deteriorating coast. The Delta depends on high water to bring sediment that helps rebuild coastline, sediment that's choked off in a drought.
Mark Davis heads the Tulane's Institute on Water Resources Law and Policy. He says with persistent drought and sea level rise, the future of Louisiana's fragile coast is at best uncertain.
MARK DAVIS: Things won't be the same. We will have to be real clear on what kind of river we need delivered here. We have no idea at this point how big a river we're going to need 20 years from now to maintain, you know, the viability of this lower end.
ELLIOTT: Davis says talk of diverting water from the Mississippi system to help arid Western states has officials up and down the river talking about the need for comprehensive water resources plan for the mighty river.
DAVIS: It's the sort of thing that the Great Lakes did when they did their compact not so long ago, when they essentially declared we're not sure what we need water for but we're pretty sure we're not a mine.
ELLIOTT: America's Wetland Foundation director Val Marmillion says the sheer size and scope of issues confronting the river make consensus hard to come by.
VAL MARMILLION: The Mississippi basin is an orphan. It has a lot of users and a lot of interests who have found the Mississippi very beneficial to their various interests. But no one is taking care of the whole.
ELLIOTT: Whether it's drought now or flood next year, Marmillion says it's time to treat managing the Mississippi as a legacy issue.
Debbie Elliott, NPR News.
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In Israel, the rise of a new political party after last week's elections has set the stage for renewed conflict over the country's military draft. That new party, Yesh Atid or There is a Future, campaigned on a promise to draft thousands of ultra-Orthodox students into the army. They're currently exempt.
As NPR's Larry Abramson reports, that pledge has turned this longstanding debate into a critical post-election issue.
LARRY ABRAMSON, BYLINE: It's a standard scene most Sundays in Israel: At bus stops around the country, young men and women in uniform wait for buses that will take them back to military bases after visits home. But you will see few Orthodox Jews or Haredim as they're known. A young paratrooper named Elia says it's not right.
ELIA: Everybody has to serve in the army. This is Israel. We live in a very difficult situation, and everybody should give his part and go to the army.
ABRAMSON: Polls show most Israelis agree. But the issue of drafting the ultra-Orthodox has been stuck in the courts and in the legislature for years. A growing number of Haredim now join up voluntarily or do national service. Another soldier from a religious family says he's in a special unit for Haredi soliders. Speaking through a translator, Elishama Cohen says his friends joined up despite the objections of their families.
ELISHAMA COHEN: (Through translator) I have friends who the army actually had to rent an apartment for in Jerusalem because his family wouldn't accept it at all. I have a friend who comes to Jerusalem and he takes his uniform off from the bus before he goes home.
ABRAMSON: Voluntary enlistment won't be enough if Israel's new government follows the platform of Yesh Atid, a new party which captured 19 seats with a campaign focused on conscription for all. The party says this is a campaign promise they can't compromise on. But many Orthodox see this proposal as a direct threat.
Rabbi Shmuel Jacobowitz is dean of the Harav Lord Jacobowitz Torah Institute of Contemporary Issues, kind of a Haredi think tank. He says that nurturing a devoted cadre of Torah scholars is the anchor of the Jewish people.
RABBI SHMUEL JACOBOWITZ: We, as a community, feel that the survival of the Jewish people depends on this no less - in many senses more - than on the physical protection of the state of Israel.
ABRAMSON: In the Rav Shefa Mall, many of the customers are Haredim. The men wear long dark coats, broad-brimmed hats and sport payot, kind of like pigtails grown from the corners of the forehead. Few want to talk with outsiders. But one who would, Andre Atwood, says he would like to see more Haredi young people in the army. But, he says, it can't be forced. It has to be voluntary.
ANDRE ATWOOD: Not take the total Haredi community and put them into a difficult situation. It's not something they're used to, and it's not something which - I believe if those want to study and to learn Torah, they can do it. If those don't want to do it, they have time to study one hour a day and then work and contribute to society, which I think is good.
ABRAMSON: Yesh Atid, the new political party pushing this issue, envisions a phase-in period of perhaps five years. But eventually, many of the Orthodox would face possible conscription. Figuring out who has to serve could be painful. Uri Regev, head of a group called Hiddush for Religious Freedom and Equality, says there's only one way to avoid favoritism: A small group of Torah scholars should be chosen strictly based on academic ability.
URI REGEV: The selection should be done by an objective board and not by the Yeshiva heads or the political ultra-Orthodox leadership.
ABRAMSON: Untangling this knot will be central to ongoing discussions about forming a new government. Two religious parties that have been part of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's ruling coalition hold nearly as many seats as Yesh Atid, the new party that is backing universal service. Netanyahu is trying to keep both sides inside the next government to help his own party recover from serious losses in the election. Larry Abramson, NPR News, Jerusalem.
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There's a part of our biology that's only now being explored. It is the trillions of microbes, mostly bacteria, that live in our guts. Some scientists say, taken together, these microbes are like a vital organ. They play a role in how quickly we gain weight and how often we get sick. A new study released today by the journal Science suggests they may also cause a kind of deadly malnutrition. Here's NPR's Dan Charles to tell us about it.
DAN CHARLES, BYLINE: If you've seen the horrifying pictures of famine - listless children with swollen bellies - that's the face of a disease called kwashiorkor. It's not the most prevalent kind of malnutrition, but it's the most deadly. It can hit a child quickly.
And Rebecca Stoltzfus, a specialist in nutrition at Cornell University in New York, says there's something baffling about this disease. Some children get it while others, who seem to be eating the same diet, do not.
REBECCA STOLTZFUS: What causes some malnourished children to transition into kwashiorkor remarkably remains a mystery after all these years.
CHARLES: There are suspicions, she says. A lot of people think there's something going on in the gut. There are now new tools for studying that. And Jeffrey Gordon, from the school of medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, invented a lot of those tools. So Gordon decided to investigate kwashiokor.
JEFFREY GORDON: We turned to a country where malnutrition, tragically, is all too common a problem.
CHARLES: The country of Malawi in southern Africa. He and his collaborators decided to study twins so they could compare children who were genetically similar and living in similar environments.
GORDON: We recruited a group of over 300 twin pairs, identical and fraternal, and followed them in their first three years of life.
CHARLES: None of these twins at the beginning were malnourished. But when they came back for checkups, a pattern emerged in almost half of the pairs of twins.
GORDON: One twin remained healthy in the pair and one twin developed either moderate or severe acute malnutrition.
CHARLES: These children immediately got concentrated therapeutic food. But before they were treated, and then for several weeks afterward, the scientists took samples of their feces to study the makeup of the bacteria that lived in the gut. Gordon says the children with kwashiorkor had a different population of microbes than their healthy twins. Treatment with better food did start to create a healthier community of microbes, but the improvement didn't last. And Gordon wondered, could this abnormal community of microbes actually be causing kwashiorkor in these children? How could he test that?
GORDON: Could we transmit some features of their disease via their microbial community to mice that had been raised under entirely sterile conditions?
CHARLES: He transplanted samples of the microbes from just three pairs of twins into mice. The mice got food similar to what children in Malawi eat. And in two out of the three cases, mice that got microbes from the sick children started to lose weight. It makes Gordon think that maybe down the road we might be able to treat severe malnutrition with better food and also new intestinal microbes.
GORDON: Next-generation probiotics.
CHARLES: Now, other scientists aren't ready to go that far. A couple of mice losing weight is not very strong evidence, they say. But they agree this hint of a link between microbes and malnutrition is certainly worth pursuing. Cornell University's Rebecca Stoltzfus, meanwhile, was struck by something else in Gordon's study.
STOLTZFUS: The twin study makes it all the more perplexing. Well, then how did these babies get so different?
CHARLES: They're genetically the same, growing up in the same home, yet it was generally just one child who had kwashiorkor, rarely both twins together.
STOLTZFUS: How are these babies being cared for? What's going on between these two twins? How are they having such different life experiences?
CHARLES: Stoltzfus says figuring this out means getting into homes and understanding how families work. This is something we can do right away, she says, and it might prevent kwashiorkor in the first place. Dan Charles, NPR News.
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People in Charlottesville, Virginia, are still buzzing about a recent gun scare. This past weekend, a young man walked into a supermarket with a loaded rifle, an AR-15. Shoppers called 911, police rushed to the store but made no arrest. Reporter Sandy Hausman of member station WVTF has more on what some are calling a dangerous stunt.
SANDY HAUSMAN, BYLINE: It was 5 p.m. Sunday and Bob Girard, who makes T-shirts, was on his way home from work. He had a craving for ice cream. But when he stopped at his neighborhood grocery store, he got a shock. A 22-year-old man wearing a baseball cap and a blue jacket was strolling through Kroger with a rifle slung from his shoulder.
BOB GIRARD: People saw the gun. It was pretty easy to spot. He wasn't concealing it. It was right out in the open, and he created a reaction in the store.
HAUSMAN: Some customers bolted for the door. Others grabbed their cell phones and called 911. Lieutenant Ronnie Roberts, a 30-year veteran of the Charlottesville police force, says eight officers went to the scene, ordered the man to drop his gun and searched him.
LIEUTENANT RONNIE ROBERTS: There was a note that was discovered during the investigative detention that reflected that he was exercising his First and Second Amendment rights.
HAUSMAN: In other words, the guy wanted to make a point, that the law allowed him to carry a loaded weapon, and he had a right to show his support for the Second Amendment by bringing his gun to a grocery store. The cops were not impressed.
ROBERTS: What was the necessity of carrying it in there and alarming, you know, mothers, fathers and their children? And it alarmed us. I mean, it alarms law enforcement.
HAUSMAN: But Steve Sellers, the chief of police for rural Albemarle County, surrounding the city, was unfazed.
POLICE CHIEF STEVE SELLERS: Unconcealed weapons have been permitted in the state of Virginia. So wearing it out in the open in the rural parts of the state, that's pretty common to see somebody wearing a gun.
HAUSMAN: In 44 states, people are allowed to openly carry weapons in certain public places. Virginia gets a gold star from the advocacy group opencarry.org, which considers it wholesome to wear a properly holstered gun. John Pierce founded the group.
JOHN PIERCE: By not having people carry openly, but by forcing them to conceal their firearm, we're treating them as somehow unwholesome. We're treating gun owners like some kind of a criminal. What the open carry movement is trying to do is to normalize the presence of firearms in daily life.
HAUSMAN: It's not clear whether the man at the grocery store was on a mission to achieve that goal. And since no charges were filed, police will not give his name. But Bob Girard hopes the state legislature will take another look at its open-carry law.
GIRARD: If this person can walk into the Kroger in Charlottesville with a loaded weapon, can he walk into the store where the governor is shopping or where the attorney general is shopping?
HAUSMAN: In the meantime, John Pierce of opencarry.org expects more incidents of this kind.
PIERCE: I think what we're seeing there is some spontaneous reactions by gun owners to what they see as a constant attack by the media and by politicians on what they see as their fundamental rights.
HAUSMAN: Kroger has banned the man with a rifle from its premises and has posted an armed guard at the door. But the chain will not prohibit loaded guns in all of its stores. For NPR News, I'm Sandy Hausman in Charlottesville, Virginia.
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When Hurricane Sandy struck last October, the storm knocked out four hospitals in Manhattan, including Bellevue, the nation's oldest public hospital. Last month, Bellevue reopened limited emergency services. But if patients need advanced care or an overnight stay, they have to go elsewhere. Well, that may be about to change.
As Fred Mogul of member station WNYC reports, inspectors are set to visit Bellevue next week to decide when it can fully reopen.
FRED MOGUL, BYLINE: Earlier this month, a ferry crash in Lower Manhattan sent dozens of people to nearby hospitals. News reporters descended on the scene.
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MOGUL: Four miles north, the Bellevue Hospital emergency room, one of the biggest in the city and usually one of the busiest, went into high gear. Thirty-one injured passengers were brought in for treatment. But despite all their bruises and bandages, Dr. Suzi Vassallo says if Bellevue hadn't still been recovering from Sandy, the scene would've been quite different.
DR. SUZI VASSALLO: We would've had the most critical patients. In this case, we had the lesser injured patients.
MOGUL: Currently, Bellevue can't handle serious traumatic injuries.
VASSALLO: We don't have an operating room yet. And you always have to have that kind of backup for any critical trauma.
MOGUL: Vassallo is standing in the ER on a quiet weekday morning as patients file in with flu symptoms. Since reopening in December, the Bellevue ER has been doing only partial duty. For the moment, it doesn't have an upstairs to send patients for surgery or to keep them overnight for observation.
DR. WILLIAM GOLDBERG: I'm concerned about her 'cause I think she's infirm, but...
MOGUL: Recently, Dr. William Goldberg arrived on his ER shift to find a stabbing victim had come in and been transferred to another hospital.
GOLDBERG: He was probably fine, but because we don't have the all resources we normally have, they basically just packaged him up and shipped him over to Cornell.
MOGUL: It's a point of pride among staffers that Bellevue usually takes all comers, whether they have a bad stomachache or a gunshot wound. Goldberg says not being at full capacity, even temporarily, stings a little.
GOLDBERG: It's frustrating for us 'cause we want to do everything that we're trained to do. And when you can't do it, you feel a little disabled.
MOGUL: To operate on patients, to house them overnight and monitor them in the ICU, or deliver their babies, you need rock-solid electrical and fuel systems. You need heating and cooling. You need pumps to move water and fuel, and elevators to move people around a 22-story complex. All of these were lost in Sandy.
Chief engineer Patrick O'Brien is one of the people in charge of bringing them back.
PATRICK O'BRIEN: All right, they just need okay to go ahead and do that.
MOGUL: O'Brien takes me around the basement. He starts with the pump room and points out the flood line marked by FEMA with bright orange spray paint about six feet high on the wall.
O'BRIEN: As you can see, the water line is above the motor, so that was our problem. So we lost these pumps.
MOGUL: Flooding wrecked the pump motors, leaving no way to replenish the huge rooftop towers that supply water to the hospital. Only one out of four pumps has been restored, enough to get things going for now.
O'BRIEN: A new pumping system is being designed, you know, to place two house pumps on the second floor for our flood, so we will not lose water again.
MOGUL: Reconstruction is costing hundreds of millions of dollars, and is a series of compromises between what can be done now and what will have to wait. While some systems are being moved to higher ground, others will stay put and could be damaged again.
O'BRIEN: At some point, you have to just make priorities, you just can't move every single thing, it's just not feasible.
MOGUL: Bellevue's reopening will be welcomed by other nearby hospitals, many of whose ERs are also being slammed by seasonal flu. At New York-Presbyterian's Cornell campus, CEO Dr. Steven Corwin says twice the usual number of trauma patients are coming into the ER, putting a strain on the area's only other full-fledged trauma center.
DR. STEVEN CORWIN: You could be talking about 10 or 15 doctors, allied health personnel, in a trauma room, to stabilize somebody to have multiple operations. So that's a big burden on an emergency system, especially if you're getting routine visits and influenza visits as well.
MOGUL: Back at Bellevue, state health inspectors come next week to test newly repaired systems. And they'll declare whether Bellevue is restored enough to take in patients and keep them overnight or whether O'Brien and others will need to keep working around the clock, and the ER staff will need to keep dispatching patients to other hospitals. For NPR News in New York, I'm Fred Mogul.
BLOCK: This story is part of a collaboration between NPR, WNYC and Kaiser Health News.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Since trumpeter Miles Davis died in 1991, Columbia Records has aggressively combed its vaults for unreleased music. This week, it put out a three-disc, one-DVD set devoted to the jazz maverick's so-called Lost Quintet, his touring band from 1969. Critic Tom Moon says "Live in Europe 1969" captures Miles Davis at a critical moment of transition.
TOM MOON, BYLINE: You'd think there'd be nothing left.
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MOON: After a slew of multi-disc sets devoted to key points in the career of Miles Davis, by now, surely Columbia would have put out every speck of consequential music. Turns out, not quite.
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MOON: Playing hard, and pivoting between moods and meters with whiplash-inducing quickness, the members of Miles Davis' little-heard third quintet are breathing a brand of fire that's clearly time-stamped 1969. The touring group, saxophonist Wayne Shorter, keyboardist Chick Corea, bassist Dave Holland and drummer Jack DeJohnette, sounds like it's energized by developments in music that go far beyond jazz.
But they're still playing tunes that were part of Miles' repertoire in the late 1950s, like this standard, "I Fall in Love Too Easily."
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MOON: The tune might be old, but the treatment isn't. Miles was determined to be part of the new music that was erupting, and he recognized that he'd have to jettison most traces of swing to do it. The first concert in this set was recorded in July 1969, just a month before the recording sessions for his groundbreaking jazz-rock experiment "Bitches Brew." The band can be heard working on several of those long-form vamp-based tunes.
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MOON: Until now, this short-lived version of the Miles Davis Quintet has been a phantom; it never made a studio recording. After "Bitches Brew" came out in January 1970, Miles expanded his band and became fully immersed in his next phase, mixing improvisation with rock, R&B and spacey funk rhythms.
"Live in Europe 1969" catches the moment of transition. A profoundly new non-jazz landscape is coming into view. The territory hasn't been mapped yet. There are no rules and very few structures or signposts. That can sometimes be terrifying, but it sounds like these five intense musicians like it that way.
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BLOCK: That was Tom Moon reviewing "Miles Davis Quintet Live in Europe 1969 - the bootleg series, volume 2."
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Today, Boeing offered its first financial update since the company's recent trouble with its flagship plane, the 787 Dreamliner. The planes have been grounded while investigators try to figure out what's causing battery failures. Boeing says it does not think the problems will have a big effect on its profit forecast. And it still plans to make more than 60 Dreamliners this year.
But as NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports, the real focus remains on the 787's batteries and the prospects for a quick solution.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: Boeing generated more cash than expected last year and reclaimed the top spot over rival Airbus as the world's biggest airplane maker. But, of course, all that was overshadowed by the fact that its entire fleet of Dreamliners is grounded after batteries on two of its planes either overheated or caught fire.
James McNerney is CEO of Boeing.
JAMES MCNERNEY: For 2013, our first order of business, obviously, is getting the 787 back into service.
NOGUCHI: With the National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration investigating the incidents, McNerney said repeatedly on a conference call he could not hazard any guesses about how and when the review might resolve.
MCNERNEY: I can't predict an outcome, and I'm not going to. We're in the middle of an investigation. We're making progress in the investigation. We have got every expert in the world looking at this issue.
NOGUCHI: In the meantime, McNerney said Boeing plans to keep building the planes right on schedule.
MCNERNEY: Business as usual. Let's keep building airplanes, and then let's ramp up as we've planned.
SCOTT HAMILTON: I'm skeptical only because we don't know what we don't know.
NOGUCHI: Scott Hamilton is an aviation industry consultant. With no new information, he says it's impossible to gauge the potential impact of the Dreamliner grounding on Boeing.
HAMILTON: We don't know what the problem is, we don't know what the solution is, we don't know what the design of the fix will be, we don't know how long the airplanes will be on the ground. We don't know more than we do know.
NOGUCHI: The focus of the investigations, however, have centered around the plane's new lithium-ion batteries, notable for both their power and volatility. Several media reports said airlines had returned large numbers of faulty batteries. In today's call, however, Boeing's McNerney dismissed those issues as routine maintenance unrelated to the recent overheating incidents.
Again, Scott Hamilton.
HAMILTON: I'm a little surprised that McNerney was so definitive in dismissing the possible connection because I don't think we know.
NOGUCHI: Boeing's struggles with the Dreamliner go back years. Initial production faced over three years of delays and billions in extra cost. The complexities stem in part from the use of new, more fuel-efficient technology and materials and the fact that the plane is made from thousands of components made by over 100 manufacturers.
So far, the planes have been grounded for two weeks. And Oppenheimer aviation analyst Yair Reiner says the longer the investigation drags out, the more it's an indication the problem is complicated, perhaps going beyond just battery issues and therefore more expensive to fix.
YAIR REINER: That progress seems to be evolving a bit more slowly than they might have earlier expected.
NOGUCHI: Reiner says coming off a strong 2012 puts Boeing in a good position heading into difficulties. Still, he says, the company really wants to avoid slowing its manufacturing schedule, which could anger airline customers waiting for their new fleets.
REINER: Boeing still has a leash of several weeks, maybe a couple of months to resolve this before it will likely have to slow down production.
NOGUCHI: Boeing stock closed up 1 percent today and is down 3 percent since its planes were grounded.
Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.
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CORNISH: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
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When it comes to the Super Bowl, food is just as important as a big-screen TV on Super Bowl Sunday, which just happens to be four days away. Buffalo wings, if you can find them, nachos, seven-layer dip, pizza, all football game day favorites. But for Chef Jose Garces, football means empanadas.
JOSE GARCES: Growing up in Chicago on a cold winter day, typically on a Sunday afternoon while my dad and two brothers and I were watching a Bears football game, empanadas would just appear in front of my lap, and I would be like, wow, thank you.
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CORNISH: Empanadas: baked or fried pockets of dough, stuffed with cheese or meat or some other filling. Jose Garces says they're basically turnovers And every Latin-American country boasts their own variety. Garces owns a number of restaurants, including Amada in Philadelphia. He's one of the Food Network's Iron Chefs and the author of "The Latin Road Home." His parents are from Ecuador. And for our Found Recipe series, Garces wanted to share the two types of empanadas he grew up with, starting with the one he enjoyed on those snowy football Sundays in Chicago.
GARCES: So my mom's empanadas were known as Empanadas de Viento, literally turnovers from the air. They're meant to be nice and light and airy. They're a flour-based dough and usually have a cheese filling. The shell gets all bubbly and crispy on the outside when it fries. Then it gets sprinkled with sugar, which makes it an even more heavenly vehicle for the savory, gooey cheese filling.
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GARCES: The other empanada that I really like to go back to is my grandma's empanada. Her name is Mamita Amada. She's a 91-year-old gal. She lives in Ecuador. She grew up on the coast in Manabi. Very opinionated. She will be the first to tell you if things need salt, herbs or more aromatic vegetables. And she makes a fantastic Empanada de Verde, which is a green plantain-dough empanada.
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GARCES: The plantains are cooked in water until they're almost falling apart. Then they're drained and riced. Once they're riced, they're filled with cheese, and then they're fried and they're crispy. And when I went to open Amada, which I named after my grandma Mamita Amada, I put Amada's empanada on the menu. I brought Mamita Amada to my prep kitchen with my prep staff and I asked her to make these empanadas.
Five to 10 minutes into it, I see her there and she's got the empanadas working, but she has a beer in her hand. She's having a great time with the staff. Five to 10 minutes later, she's rolling out 30 of these things at a clip. Her, just, attitude towards flavor and food has been a huge inspiration. And even at 91, you know, it just means to me that I can cook for a long time hopefully as well.
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CORNISH: Chef Jose Garces. To find his recipes for empanadas, visit the ALL THINGS CONSIDERED page at npr.org.
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It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
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And I'm Melissa Block.
Butch Morris was beloved by fellow jazz musicians and fans for his ability to conduct improvisation. That might sound like a contradiction, but Morris pulled it off with jazz ensembles and symphony orchestras around the world. Butch Morris died yesterday of cancer. He was 65. Howard Mandel has this appreciation.
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HOWARD MANDEL, BYLINE: Lawrence Douglas "Butch" Morris was a Vietnam War veteran and an experimental cornetist when he arrived in New York City from California in the early 1980s with his friend, saxophonist David Murray. Together they came up with a style dubbed avant-gutbucket.
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MANDEL: But in 1985, Morris introduced a new approach to music with far-reaching implications. Conduction, he called it, a method of composing by conducting, using well-defined hand gestures to summon sounds from musicians, singers and sometimes poets, too, as he told NPR's NEWS & NOTES in 2008.
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MANDEL: Seldom using scores or preconceived motifs, Morris constructed spontaneous compositions from what the artists he gathered came up with in response to his cues. Here's Morris in rehearsal, captured in the documentary film about him, "Black February: Music Is An Open Door."
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MANDEL: Morris made music happen with ensembles of every type, all over the world: from classical musicians for whom any sort of improvisation was a foreign language, to free jazz musicians who balked at following any rules, to groups that used instruments of their native lands. He didn't care about boundaries or labels.
: I'm a jazz musician. I know what I am. Whether the music you think I'm playing or professing is jazz or not is not - kind of not my problem, you know what I mean? I'm a jazz musician, and this is what I do. I do conduction. And it doesn't matter whether I do it with classical musicians or jazz musicians or traditional Japanese instruments, Korean instruments, Turkish instruments. It doesn't matter. This is what I do.
MANDEL: When he conducted, musicians poured forth their personal sounds, became expansive upon command, provided counterpoint, recapitulated and unfolded works that were always fresh, new and unrepeatable. Even when he wrote beautiful melodies, he treated them as raw materials, useful for orchestration in the moment.
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MANDEL: His influence has spread widely. Today, many musicians try to do what Butch Morris started, though seldom with equal results. For NPR News, I'm Howard Mandel in New York.
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And I'm Melissa Block. The U.S. economy unexpectedly slammed to a halt in the last quarter of 2012. The Commerce Department said today that the nation's growth rate shrank during the last three months of the year, falling a tenth of a percentage point. That decline raises big questions about the strength of the economy going forward.
We're joined now by NPR's Jim Zarroli. And Jim, these numbers we're talking about for the fourth quarter seem to have caught everyone by surprise. Put it into some context of the year overall. How big a slowdown does this represent?
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Well, it was a surprise. I mean, nobody predicted this. In the third quarter of the year, the economy was growing 3.1 percent and we knew that growth wouldn't keep up at that pace, but if you believe the numbers that the Commerce Department put out, we actually saw a slight contraction. I mean, growth reversed course.
BLOCK: And when you think about what was going on at the end of the year, you can think of a lot of factors that might have played into that. Did the Commerce Department say, in particular, what they think was behind this big drop in GDP?
ZARROLI: Yeah, there were several factors. I mean, there was a big drop in government spending, especially in defense. Defense spending fell by 22 percent. Now, that was partly because of the fiscal cliff, apparently. In other words, you had government agencies that were facing spending cuts and, you know, the idea is maybe they cut back in spending sort of in anticipation of that.
You also had companies cutting back on inventories, producing less because they didn't think there would be demand for their products. And then, the other thing that happened, there was a big drop in exports, which was at least partly because of the slowdown in Europe.
BLOCK: Well, we have an economy that's not growing. At least, it wasn't at the end of last year. Does that mean that the outlook for the year ahead is worse than we thought?
ZARROLI: Well, you know, on the face of it, I guess it's not a good sign, but a lot of economists were sort of downplaying the numbers today. I mean, they say, you know, there were some very specific things that happened at the end of 2012. One of them was Hurricane Sandy and then there was the fiscal cliff crisis, which probably had a big impact on federal spending.
And these are the things that affect the growth rate, but they are unlikely to be repeated and you also have to say that there were good things going on in the economy. I mean, the housing market was doing better, consumer spending was up a bit. Now, you know, how can you have consumer spending going up when the economy is shrinking? It's really one of the paradoxes here.
BLOCK: Well, officials from the Federal Reserve met today. After that meeting, did they give any sign that the weak growth rate we saw in the last quarter is going to have an impact on their policy?
ZARROLI: Yeah, I mean, Fed officials have sort of been proceeding as if the economy is already too weak. I mean, they've been pursuing these quantitative easing measures, which basically amount to buying a lot of Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities and then the idea is they put money into the financial system, which brings interest rates down.
And Fed officials have been saying that they're going to keep doing this until the unemployment rate hits 6 and a half percent. It's now 7.8. So after the meeting, they basically came out and said they were staying the course.
BLOCK: On Friday, Jim, the Labor Department is supposed to release the January unemployment report. Does this slowdown in growth foreshadow, do you think, a disappointing jobs report at the end of the week?
ZARROLI: Well, I think the jobs report will certainly tell us something about how weak the economy really is, I mean, whether the decline in growth that the Commerce Department is talking about was an aberration or not, because there's a lot of other evidence right now that the labor market is doing okay. We've had a drop in first-time unemployment claims. We had an increase in payroll numbers from the payroll company ADP.
So if the economy were really beginning to contract, you wouldn't see that kind of a thing happening.
BLOCK: Okay. NPR's Jim Zarroli in New York. Jim, thanks so much.
ZARROLI: You're welcome.
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This week, the Senate is expected to delay a political fight over the debt limit, the kind of brawl that could hurt the slowing economy. But they're really just putting off one fight for another, a debate over whether to avert the upcoming sequester. That's the only in Washington term for across-the-board spending cuts set to hit March 1st. The cuts would be severe and have few supporters.
But as NPR congressional correspondent Tamara Keith reports, lawmakers still can't seem to find a way around them.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: These across-the-board cuts are set to hit everything from defense to education. The only things largely unscathed are Medicare and Social Security. Furloughs are likely. Layoffs, too. And to many, the worst part is they'll be indiscriminate. No vital program spared, no low-priority spending, even wasteful spending, specifically targeted for cuts.
The Senate's number two Democrat, Dick Durbin of Illinois, says this was by design.
SENATOR DICK DURBIN: Some pretty harsh things will occur. These across-the-board cuts in agencies are mindless. It was supposed to be such an outrageous penalty, we'd never reach it. Looks like we're going to reach it.
KEITH: And he's not the only one saying these cuts are inevitable.
REPRESENTATIVE PAUL RYAN: I think the sequester is going to happen.
KEITH: This is Paul Ryan, the Republican chair of the House Budget Committee, speaking on NBC's "Meet The Press," over the weekend.
RYAN: Because the Democrats have opposed our efforts to replace those cuts with others and they've offered no alternatives.
KEITH: More precisely, Democrats haven't offered any alternatives the Republicans are willing to accept. The $1.2 trillion sequester was created as part of the agreement to raise the debt ceiling back in 2011. It split the cuts between defense and non-defense. House Republicans have passed two bills that would replace the sequester with different cuts, cuts Democrats like even less.
Democrats haven't passed any bills on the topic, but they argue it shouldn't be all cuts, that, for instance, tax loopholes should be eliminated, too. Again, Senator Durbin.
DURBIN: I think that if we are going to have any substitute for sequester, it's going to have to include revenue, so that may explain why Mr. Ryan and others are saying it's inevitable to go to sequester.
KEITH: So far, there hasn't been much compromise and while many members of Congress say these cuts are going to happen, a lot of them are worried about the consequences. Take South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham.
SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM: If you don't have a bipartisan solution, it will happen. And I don't know how to explain this to anybody back home.
KEITH: Graham is concerned about the defense cuts, which this year, would amount to a more than 7 percent hit on DOD.
GRAHAM: What kind of signal are we sending to devastate the military, according to Leon Panetta, shoot ourselves in the head from a national security point of view and nobody seems to be too energized about it. We're four weeks away.
KEITH: House Republicans, especially those affiliated with the Tea Party, believe the cuts of the sequester are necessary.
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN FLEMING: Now the problem is the cuts won't be where we want them to be, but they won't be where the Democrats want them, either.
KEITH: John Fleming is a Republican Congressman from Louisiana.
FLEMING: The sequester is law. Those cuts happen no matter what. We're willing to hang in there and insist that those cuts go into place, but we'd rather have them redistributed in a way that would be much more beneficial.
KEITH: So what are the consequences if this disagreement glides right past the March 1st deadline? Joel Prakkin, senior managing director of Macroeconomic Advisors, a forecasting firm, says if the cuts stayed in place through the year, it would reduce economic growth by seven-tenths of a percentage point.
JOEL PRAKKIN: It's not catastrophic, but it is a fiscal drag in an already weak economy and so it would concern me. It would be a downside risk to the economic outlook.
KEITH: He says the sequester is bad policy implemented in a bad way, and economist Diane Swonk at Mesirow Financial agrees.
DIANE SWONK: This economy is already dangerously close to a stall speed and certainly the sequester could definitely stall things out.
KEITH: Whether the economy stalls may just depend on whether Congress and the president can find some common ground in the next four weeks and beyond, and whether they can finally put an end to this long stalemate over the proper balance of revenues and spending cuts. Tamara Keith, NPR News, the Capitol.
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The U.N. estimates four million people inside Syria are in need of humanitarian assistance. Add to that up to a million more Syrian refugees who fled to neighboring countries, also in need of help. The U.S. government has pledged tens of millions of dollars in aid, but that hasn't stopped some Syrian-Americans from taking matters into their own hands.
Ben Bergman, of member station KPCC, introduces us to some sending aid from Southern California.
BEN BERGMAN, BYLINE: When Omar Chamma recently traveled to the Syrian-Turkish border, he packed so many bags of food and medical supplies that he incurred $1,600 in baggage fees on American Airlines. He also brought a quarter of a million dollars in donated money to buy more supplies when he arrived. It was his seventh trip in the past year.
OMAR CHAMMA: Every time I fly out of Istanbul, I will say, you know, this is my last time - I'm not going to go back again. Then I sit down and think about what I've seen. I've seen the desperation in their eyes down there. And every time I come back there, there is nobody there showing up to help them.
BERGMAN: Chamma isn't a doctor or an aid worker. He's in real estate investment and apparently is apparently quite skillful at raising money.
He was born and raised in Damascus before moving to the U.S. to study engineering at Louisiana State University in the '80s. He estimates he's collected more than a million and a half dollars - mostly from Syrian friends in Southern California - to help refugees. The money has gone to buy blankets, sleeping bags, kids' shoes, medicine, and hundreds of boxes of sutures. That's because Chamma saw refugees rolling up plastic bags to try to bind their wounds.
CHAMMA: They have no bandages. They have no medication. They have no antibiotics. I went to a house one day and there were 55 people living in one two-bedroom home and there's no doctors between them. And most of the people who come through the border, they're civilian - injured civilian, from bombing or shooting or burn victims.
MAVIS BENTON CHAMMA: Not every wife would support their husband going into a war zone.
BERGMAN: Mavis Benton Chamma serves us coffee and cake in her Orange County home, where an entire room is devoted to storing relief supplies. Her husband says he will keep going to the border as long as Syrians need help.
BENTON CHAMMA: Every time he goes I just leave it to God. If it's something is going to happen, at least I know he's doing what he believes in.
BERGMAN: As hard as it for her and their three children to see their father leave every few weeks, she knows why he has to go.
BENTON CHAMMA: I'm from Louisiana. If somebody was invading Louisiana, I'm going to go there.
BERGMAN: That sense of solidarity has led dozens of other Syrian-Americans to the border. One of them is Sama Wareh, a 29-year-old artist who also lives in Orange County, California. Her parents are from Damascus. And before the war, she visited her cousins in the capital city many times. In November, Wareh backpacked by herself to the same border town Chamma goes to, Reyhanli.
She sold her motorcycle and paintings to pay for the trip, and raised thousands of dollars from friends.
SAMA WAREH: My thinking was that if there are thousands of refugees in Turkey right now, and more are crossing the border every day, there's got to be a lot that are not in the refugee camps, that nobody knows about. So my whole thing was I'm going to go look for those people.
BERGMAN: She found plenty of people who needed help. She took them grocery shopping, bought them blankets and heaters, and paid their rent.
When we met next to the gallery where she works, Wareh was wearing her usual wardrobe - that's a cowboy hat covering her hijab, and cowboy boots. They were the same boots she wore on the border. Only then, she slipped in a knife for security. She didn't have to use it and she never crossed over to the Syrian side, because of a promise she made to her parents.
WAREH: They were like, please, we're already terrified you're going by yourself - just at least don't go into Syria. Everyday people would tell me, I can get you in; I can get you out, it'll be safe. And it was hard to tell them no, I promised my parents I wouldn't do it.
BERGMAN: Wareh is planning to return to the Syrian-Turkish border later this year. This time, she will make no such promise to her parents.
For NPR News, I'm Ben Bergman in Los Angeles.
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This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.
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And I'm Audie Cornish.
Today, many in Massachusetts are asking themselves, who is Mo Cowan? That's because he'll soon be the state's newest senator. William "Mo" Cowan is former chief of staff to Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, who chose him to take the seat being vacated by Senator John Kerry, the incoming secretary of state.
As NPR's Tovia Smith reports, Cowan will serve on an interim basis until a special election in June.
TOVIA SMITH, BYLINE: After spending years as legal counsel and top advisor to Governor Patrick, Mo Cowan was on his way out to the private sector, but he's now delaying that for six months for what he calls this privilege.
SENATOR WILLIAM 'MO' COWAN: Listen, Massachusetts has been a land of opportunity for me. There is no greater calling than to be able to give back to a state that's given so much to me.
SMITH: Raised in a small town in North Carolina, Cowan moved to Boston for law school and worked in a big downtown law firm before the statehouse. He'll now become the second African-American senator from Massachusetts, a point he says means a lot to him and his mother.
COWAN: She is a child of the segregated South. A single mother to my sisters and me, after my father died when I was a teenager. A woman who did not have the opportunity to attend college, but my mother told me days like today were possible.
SMITH: Cowan is described as extremely competent, cool under pressure, and just plain cool in his trademark bow-tie.
In choosing Cowan, Governor Patrick passed over some bigger names who would have wielded more immediate influence. Most notably perhaps, recently retired Congressman Barney Frank. But Patrick says he's not concerned that Massachusetts will go from two veteran senators just a few years ago, to two freshmen first-time office holders.
GOVERNOR DEVAL PATRICK: And I do get that part of clout is seniority. But I'm confident that this is the right and best choice for us.
SMITH: Cowan concedes he faces a learning curve in Washington, but he says he'll be helped along by Kerry's staff. He says don't expect much daylight between where Kerry stood and where he'll stand on issues like health care, education and gun control.
But Cowan says do expect his to be a very short career in elected politics. He's promised the governor he's not running to keep the seat.
Tovia Smith, NPR News, Boston.
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The end of the ban on women in combat will make it tough for the military to keep any jobs off limits to women. That's what Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said today. He told NPR's Rachel Martin that physical standards for troops may be re-evaluated.
SECRETARY LEON PANETTA: We are going to have to have high standards in order to ensure that these soldiers can do what we ask, that the country asks them to do.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:
But it'll be OK with you if someone in the services come back and say, these jobs, we're not going to let women in?
PANETTA: You know, I think getting rid of the barrier makes it a little tougher for them to come back and ask for exceptions.
BLOCK: We'll hear more of that interview with Panetta this Sunday on NPR's WEEKEND EDITION.
CORNISH: With the news that women in the military will no longer be excluded from combat comes this question: Should women be eligible for the draft? The United States has recruited an all-volunteer force since the draft ended back in 1973. But men between the ages of 18 and 25 are still required to register with the Selective Service, just in case the need for a draft should ever arise again.
Historically, women have been excluded from that list. So, does that change now? We turn to Larry Romo; he's director of the Selective Service System, to answer that question.
Welcome, Larry.
LARRY ROMO: Thank you. I'm happy to be here today.
CORNISH: So, to start, we don't have an involuntary draft today. But give us a little history of the Selective Service, how it came to be and why were women excluded.
ROMO: Yes, we obviously had the draft in the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam. And there was a suspension. But back in 1980, the most recent military Selective Service Act was passed when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. President Carter asked to start the registration phase up again.
CORNISH: So once the Selective Service is established, why is it that women are excluded from registering?
ROMO: In 1980, Congress and the president decided that they should not include women because they were not included in the combat positions. That was reaffirmed by the Supreme Court case that was voted on in 1981, 6-to-3, where some men sued Selective Service, saying that they violated the Fifth Amendment.
CORNISH: And so how does this new move by the Defense Department change things?
ROMO: What's going to be required is the Defense Department has to submit a report to Congress and the president, saying how that would affect the military Selective Service Act. And based on that, Congress and the president can either continue the military Selective Service Act as is or they can pass a new law.
CORNISH: What kind of, do you think, cultural shift would this take? I mean, you would all of a sudden be looking at a nation of young women and saying, you need to get down here and sign up. I mean, do you think that would take some kind of outreach?
ROMO: Oh, significantly outreach, we would definitely get the word out, like we do with the men. And hopefully within a year or two, we would get the same percentage of women registering that we have with men, the compliance rate.
CORNISH: What is the compliance rate? Is it difficult to get men to actually sign?
ROMO: Up to age 25, for peacetime, it's 92 percent right now.
CORNISH: Now, what have you heard from lawmakers or the executive office about what will happen next?
ROMO: We actually didn't find anything out till I read about it in the media.
CORNISH: Really?
(LAUGHTER)
ROMO: Yes. So I haven't got any information from any lawmakers. Nobody has asked us anything. We have engaged the Defense Department, saying that we're here if you need any information or guidance from us.
CORNISH: You mentioned that the decision would be up to Congress, essentially. Do you sense any momentum to get those changes going yet?
ROMO: The reports that I read, the Defense Department has till 2016 to implement these changes. So I don't see a sudden rush to do this. So I think Congress and the president will look at it. And I understand that the new secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel, is supposed to have his confirmation hearings tomorrow. So I'm pretty sure that'll probably be addressed.
CORNISH: Well, Larry Romo, thank you so much for speaking with me.
ROMO: Thank you very much. You have a wonderful day.
CORNISH: Larry Romo is the director of the Selective Service System.
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In today's volunteer force, when women sign up, they may have questions about military life that are different from the ones men would ask.
NPR's Brenda Salinas has discovered one place where female recruits are turning for help. They're going to video blogs.
BRENDA SALINAS, BYLINE: If you want to be let in on a military secret, go to YouTube and search for Sock Bun.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEOS)
SALINAS: That last blogger is a woman named Dolly Marie Spice. She's a senior airman in the Air Force Reserves, so she knows from experience that women in uniform need sturdy hairstyles that can be executed quickly and neatly. When she first enlisted, she was looking for a little advice and not just about hair styles. She turned to YouTube and even there, her search turned up empty.
: I had a hard time finding a lot of stuff on YouTube, especially women. You know, from women maybe fresh out of basic training, that was hard to come by.
SALINAS: So she started blogging about her own experiences. So far, she has made 30 videos where she talks to her 2,000 followers.
Usually, when recruits want to find out what life in the military is really going to be like, they go to their recruiter. But women who are signing up face different challenges, have different questions and men don't always have the answers.
SERGEANT BRIDGET JACKSON: Kids of today, they want to go in depth.
SALINAS: That's Sergeant Bridget Jackson. She's works in an Army recruiting station in Largo, Maryland. All the female recruits in the area get forwarded to her.
JACKSON: They want to know how do I feel about leaving my family; are we able to wash our hair and take a shower. And I don't know what myths they heard of but they want to know, as a female, if I'm out there in Afghanistan, am I out there in the middle of nowhere not taking a shower.
SALINAS: Her newest recruit, Erica Mason, has those doubts, too, though she's not completely uninitiated; she comes from a military family and she did Junior ROTC. That means she's ready for the culture shock. But she'll be away from her two kids for 17 weeks. When she talks to her husband, a retired Marine, there are things he just doesn't understand.
ERICA MASON: I always tell him, you know, you went in right after high school. You had no family. You've never left, you know, kids that you gave birth to or your spouse. That's pretty much like nothing that anybody can understand, unless you went through it and you're a mom and you left your kids for boot camp or you left, you know, for deployment or something. Nobody understands.
SALINAS: Sergeant Jackson, her recruiter, understands. She was a single mom when she deployed. Now she talks to her recruits about everything, from how she used to get her nails done on base in Afghanistan to how she advanced in her military career. The men in her recruiting office can't do what she does.
JACKSON: I'm a hot commodity.
SALINAS: How many female recruiters does the Army have?
JACKSON: Not enough, I can tell you that. I'm not sure about the numbers but for our company, our company has over 40 soldiers. Out of the 40, as of last week, it was only three of us.
SALINAS: That means most women have men for recruiters. So when they want advice from women already in the military, they go online.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)
SALINAS: Dolly Marie isn't the only blogger on YouTube. There are more than 20 others like her. They're from every branch of service, active duty and reserves. They answer private questions and offer support.
: So I figured just kind of help the next group of people going in, I was going to document every step, you know, of the process of me joining, just to help other people wanting to join.
SALINAS: Video bloggers aren't recruiters but they fill a void for women signing up with questions about everything, from what to do with their hair to how to say goodbye to their kids when they go off to war.
Brenda Salinas, NPR News.
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And I'm Audie Cornish. And we swear this is not a headline from 2009 or 2005 or 2003. Several Major League Baseball players have been linked to performance-enhancing drugs, again. And one of those players is New York Yankee star Alex Rodriguez, again. But what really caught our eyes about this latest revelation is the Miami anti-aging clinic where the players allegedly got their drugs.
The place was called Biogenesis and its owner, Anthony Bosch, kept meticulous records. The Miami New Times got those records from a former Biogenesis employee and Tim Elfrink, managing editor for the New Times, joins us now. Welcome, Tim.
TIM ELFRINK: Thanks a lot for having me.
CORNISH: So this seems like an obvious question, but really what is an anti-aging clinic? I mean, what do they offer?
ELFRINK: Well, it's an industry that's really blown up just in the last decade or so. And by and large, the biggest part of their business is selling HGH, or human growth hormone, to clients for, you know, a variety of reasons that pretty much add up to wanting to feel younger.
CORNISH: And we should note that it's not just pro athletes who were clients for Biogenesis, correct?
ELFRINK: No, not by a long shot. I mean, the vast majority of folks who were going to this clinic were, you know, your ordinary Miami residents, just the folks you live next-door to.
CORNISH: So as you looked into Biogenesis, what did you find?
ELFRINK: Well, we found a couple things. You know, first, from interviewing clients of the firm and former employees, we found that, you know, like, a lot of anti-aging clinics, the primary business of Biogenesis was selling HGH, as well as a variety of other drugs, including anabolic steroids, testosterone - all drugs that are, you know, far and away banned in professional sports.
What's more, you know, when we delved into these records, you know, we were able to verify that quite a few professional athletes, included seven professional baseball players, including quite a few who had been caught just in the past year for violating baseball substance policies, including Melky Cabrera, Bartolo Colon, and a rookie for the Padres named Yasmani Grandal were listed on client lists and were written about frequently in some business journals kept by the firm's owner.
CORNISH: When you talked to customers, what did they say to you? How did they explain kind of how they came to Biogenesis and what they expected out of it?
ELFRINK: You know, the clients I spoke to and I think it's pretty typical for anti-aging clinics, you know, they typically had entered their 40s. They were feeling a little less energy, a little, you know, harder time getting to the gym, getting the routines and, you know, once they started getting on these regimens - and for some I talked to, it was much more than HGH, you know, they started taking actually anabolic steroids...
CORNISH: So they were taking a cocktail of things?
ELFRINK: Yeah. And you can't deny if you start taking drugs like that, you certainly feel a very serious difference. So, you know, once they bought in, once they were willing to give this a try, it's not an easy thing to step away from because you do notice really striking results really quickly in a way that you can't replicate, especially, you know, if you're in your 40s and your 50s, naturally.
CORNISH: Now that Biogenesis is gone, are there kind of clinics ready to step in and take its place? And could Major League Baseball or Justice officials for that matter really do anything about it?
ELFRINK: Well, baseball's taken a step. This year for the first time they're going to be testing for HGH during the regular season, which they've never done before. So, that alone, obviously, should make a serious stride toward taking HGH out of baseball, assuming the tests are accurate. You know, federal officials, I think it's become a tough industry to regulate, partially because there's so much money being spent.
There was a large operation in 2007 against some clinics down here in Florida, but we haven't really seen a big crackdown like that in the six years since then.
CORNISH: Tim Elfrink is managing editor for the Miami New Times. Tim, thank you so much for speaking with us.
ELFRINK: Thanks a lot for having me.
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We begin this hour with emotional testimony today at a Senate hearing on gun violence. Former Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords made a surprise appearance before the panel. Two years ago, Giffords was shot in the head while meeting with constituents in Tucson. As NPR's Brian Naylor reports, today's hearing was the first time Congress has addressed gun violence since the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut.
BRIAN NAYLOR, BYLINE: The packed hearing room was silent but for the clicks of photographers' cameras as Giffords was escorted to the witness table by her husband, former shuttle commander Mark Kelly. Dressed in an orange suit, her hair carefully styled, Giffords looked nearly recovered from her wounds, but it's clearly an ongoing process, as Giffords acknowledged at the start of her brief testimony.
GABRIELLE GIFFORDS: Speaking is difficult, but I need to say something important. Violence is a big problem. Too many children are dying, too many children. We must do something.
NAYLOR: Giffords told senators they must act now.
GIFFORDS: Be bold. Be courageous. Americans are counting on you. Thank you.
NAYLOR: Giffords then left the hearing room. Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat, spoke next. He has proposed legislation to toughen laws forbidding illegal gun purchases. Leahy said no one was trying to take away gun owners' Second Amendment rights.
SENATOR PATRICK LEAHY: Second Amendment rights are the foundation on which our discussion rests. They're not at risk. But what is at risk are lives. Lives are at risk when responsible people fail to stand up for laws that will keep guns out of the hands of those who will use them to commit murder, especially mass murders.
NAYLOR: The top Republican on the committee, Iowa's Charles Grassley, said the shootings at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, in which 20 first-graders and six adult educators were slain, shocked the nation. But he added...
SENATOR CHARLES GRASSLEY: The deaths in Newtown should not be used to put forward every gun control measure that's been floating around for years, because the problem is greater than just guns alone.
NAYLOR: Grassley blamed violent video games for acting as triggers for mass murders. He and other Republicans also charged the Obama administration with failing to prosecute gun-related crimes. The panelists offered a variety of proposals. Mark Kelly - who, along with Giffords, formed a political action committee to support candidates who favor gun controls - called for universal background checks.
MARK KELLY: And in my opinion and in Gabby's opinion, this is one of the most important things that we must do to prevent criminals, terrorists and the mentally ill from having easy access to guns.
NAYLOR: Some senators are backing a renewal of the ban on assault-style weapons in the wake of the recent shootings. But Gayle Trotter, an attorney with the Independent Women's Forum, spoke out against a ban, saying guns make women safer.
GAYLE TROTTER: The peace of mind that a woman has as she's facing three, four, five violent attackers, intruders in her home, with her children screaming in the background, the peace of mind that she has knowing that she has a scary-looking gun gives her more courage when she's fighting hardened, violent criminals.
NAYLOR: Wayne LaPierre, the head of the NRA, called for better enforcement of gun laws now on the books. He asserted the current system of background checks was a failure.
WAYNE LAPIERRE: We got to get in the real world on what works and what doesn't work. My problem with background checks is you're never going to get criminals to go through universal background checks.
NAYLOR: Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois said LaPierre had it wrong.
SENATOR RICHARD DURBIN: Mr. LaPierre, that's the point. The criminals won't go to purchase the guns because there'll be a background check. We'll stop them from the original purchase. You missed that point completely, and I think it's - it's basic.
LAPIERRE: Senator, I think you missed the point.
(SOUNDBITE OF GAVEL BEING BANGED)
LEAHY: Let there be order. There will be order.
LAPIERRE: I think you're missing it.
NAYLOR: Today's four-hour long session was just the first of what's likely to be a series of hearings on curbing gun violence. It played out as a gunman opened fire at a Phoenix office building, shooting three people. Brian Naylor, NPR News, Washington.
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The last five years have been brutal for the company that makes the BlackBerry, Research In Motion. Today, with its future at stake, the company unveiled two new smartphones and said it's changing its name to BlackBerry.
NPR's Steve Henn joins us now. He's been watching BlackBerry's long fall as well as the ups and downs in the global mobile industry.
Hey, Steve.
STEVE HENN, BYLINE: Hi. So I know you usually ask the questions.
(LAUGHTER)
HENN: But I was curious if you were ever a BlackBerry addict.
BLOCK: I confess. I did succumb to the powers of the crackberry, yes, in my day.
HENN: Yeah. And do you remember when you got rid of it?
BLOCK: Gosh, it was probably a few years ago. But I don't remember exactly.
HENN: Yeah, it kind of feels like ages ago. But, you know, as recently as 2009, BlackBerry still dominated the smartphone market. They commanded more than half of all smartphone sales. And their collapse has just been incredibly fast and enormous. This year, the company's global market share fell below 5 percent, you know.
And if you look at their stock price before the financial crisis, a single share of Research In Motion stock sold for something like $140. In September, a share sold for 5.
BLOCK: Wow. And then today, this big announcement hoping to turn those fortunes around.
HENN: Right. And this really might be the company's last best chance. So BlackBerry, as it's now known, unveiled two new phones: one with their famous keyboard and one is sort of a pure touchscreen. BlackBerry is going to have a Super Bowl ad this weekend, and executives have said the company will spend hundreds of millions of dollars marketing these new phones.
But one of the interesting things they've done is to make it really easy for Android app developers to move their games, their apps and their tools over into BlackBerry's ecosystem. So the new BlackBerry 10 phones that are launching today will have more than 70,000 apps available right now. And that had been really an Achilles' heel for BlackBerry.
BLOCK: And what's the reaction been to the relaunch?
HENN: Well, from business analysts, there was a lot of excitement building for the last few months. Since September, the company's stock price has actually almost tripled because there were indications that these phones were going to be credible competitors and BlackBerry is still a strong brand.
But it turns out these phones won't be available in the U.S. until March at the earliest. That's six weeks after BlackBerry's Super Bowl ad. And by that time, there will be other new smartphones in the market that are likely to attract a lot of consumer attention, including the latest offering by Samsung.
BLOCK: And let's talk about Samsung because they are on a tear. They passed Apple in smartphone sales, profits grew 76 percent last quarter. How has Samsung managed to thrive while BlackBerry has been struggling?
HENN: Well, I think one of the biggest reasons Samsung is succeeding is that it's so incredibly prolific. The company offers all kinds of different smartphones at different price points. You know, their phones run both Android and Microsoft Windows. Unlike Apple or, say, BlackBerry, Samsung has been willing to put down lots of different bets in the marketplace and to see what works. And the company moves very, very quickly.
BLOCK: You know, Apple, of course, has argued that one big key to Samsung's success is its willingness to copy Apple. They won that case in court. Is there something to that argument that Samsung is thriving as a fast follower?
HENN: Sure. And that's probably the nicest way to put it. But in fairness, Samsung does innovate as well. It brought the first phone to market that had a front facing camera. You know, more recently it's created the sort of a new category in phones, supersized phones. These are phones that are half tablet-half phone. People call them phablets.
(LAUGHTER)
HENN: Phablets could have flopped. And when they were first launched, they were widely ridiculed, but they found a niche. It turns out millions of people like them. And now, in places like Hong Kong and Singapore, which tend to be sort of on the cutting edge in the global consumer electronics market and in the smartphone market, Samsung's high-end products are more popular than the iPhone.
BLOCK: OK. NPR tech correspondent Steve Henn. Steve, thanks.
HENN: Oh, my pleasure.
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And I'm Audie Cornish.
Cambodia's forests are dwindling, and China's insatiable demand for timber of any sort and luxury wood in particular isn't helping. Environmental groups say China is now the world's number one importer of illegal timber.
Yesterday, we heard how activists are trying to stop the practice. Today, Michael Sullivan reports from Cambodia on the human toll of the illegal timber trade.
MICHAEL SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Rosewood furniture is hot in this part of the world, but you won't find any at Phnom Penh's Lay Laing furniture store on Monivong Boulevard. Too expensive for our customers, the owner's son says, and it's illegal and, he says, all of Cambodia's rosewood goes straight to China anyway, where a rosewood living room set can cost 100,000 bucks or more.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: I don't think that no one will stop it, either, because the people who should stop it is the people who may be blocking it. That's what I think. But for now, we can do nothing about it.
SULLIVAN: One man, Chut Wutty, was trying to do something about it. Cambodia's best-known conservationist, he was passionate about protecting the country's forest, which is how journalist Olesia Plokhii and a colleague found themselves with Wutty in Cambodia's southern Cardamom Mountains in April.
OLESIA PLOKHII: The first two days of our trip, nothing happened. We didn't feel any ominous energy or anything like that until the third day. I definitely felt something was off because of the way Wutty was acting. And it's almost as if though he sensed something in the air. And I could see that his tone just changed, and he kind of, you know, hurried us along and he said that this was a military-controlled illegal logging site. And so this was the reason that we had to hurry.
SULLIVAN: They weren't fast enough. A man in uniform showed up, then two military policemen. They demanded the group's cameras. Wutty at first resisted, then relented and eventually got into the car to leave, Plokhii says, urging the two women to get into.
PLOKHII: I ran around the front. I pulled the door handle to get in. But before the door even opened, I heard shots. I ducked. I ran into the forest. We came back. I came around the back. I knew he was shot. But he didn't look ghastly because there was not a lot of blood, and I thought he would live. I thought he was just unconscious but alive. And when I realized his chest was cold and he was motionless, I realized that he was gone.
SULLIVAN: One of the military policemen was also dead even though Wutty was unarmed. Plokhii and her companion listened, she says, as the men in uniform discussed a cover-up. Just kill them both, they heard one say. But eventually, the women were released. In the next week or so, the government came up with four different explanations of what happened that day. But in the end, the case was closed with no charges filed against anyone.
TRACY FARRELL: It was really disheartening to me to see that there wasn't even a decent investigation.
SULLIVAN: That's Tracy Farrell, who heads Conservation International's Greater Mekong Program in Phnom Penh.
FARRELL: I'm really disappointed with the fact that the case was closed so fast and there were so many different accounts, and none of them were even consistent day to day.
SULLIVAN: In September, another murder. This time, in the remote northern province of Ratanakiri. Hang Serei Oudom, a local journalist, was found hacked to death and stuffed into the trunk of his own car. The week before, he'd written a story implicating a local military official in a scheme to export illegal wood into neighboring Vietnam. Ou Virak, the president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, has investigated both cases and has an explanation. Illegal loggers, he says, don't have much patience for whistleblowers.
OU VIRAK: Well, if they believe that you have an intention to do that or you threaten to do that and they cannot just simply pay you small amount of fee to not do that, then they need to shut you out completely.
SULLIVAN: And you believe that's what happened to Wutty, and you believe that's what happened to Oudom.
VIRAK: Yes. That's right. And I think that's what happened to both case and probably other people that we, you know, that we don't know. I mean, there's accident case of journalist recently that we don't know whether it is actually related to his work or not.
SULLIVAN: Ou Virak says there's simply too much money to be made and too many stakeholders, many of them, he says, well connected to powerful people in government and not afraid of being punished. But government spokesman Phay Siphan flatly rejects any suggestion of collusion or any suggestion of a cover-up in the deaths of Wutty or the journalist Oudom.
PHAY SIPHAN: We don't have such a policy...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: We don't have a policy to encourage people to kill each other, but some NGO's have a hidden agenda: to make a case and put the blame on the government.
SULLIVAN: He says the government is working hard to protect Cambodia's remaining forest, but concedes there may be a few bad apples in the bunch. Olesia Plokhii suggests it's more than just the fruit but the whole tree. After her experience, and what's happened since, she's now calling Cambodia's illegally exported timber bloodwood.
SULLIVAN: For NPR News, I'm Michael Sullivan.
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Finally this hour, your comments about yesterday's program, which included a report about a proposal for a national standardized test, a kind of bar exam for teachers.
Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers is one of those pushing the idea because she says the current system of preparing and evaluating new teachers is broken.
RANDI WEINGARTEN: It's demeaning to our profession, it's demeaning to our practice, and no one would ever think that a lawyer who's not prepared should go into a courtroom and try a case without any preparation.
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Well, Sally Beaupre of Sunnyvale, California, has been teaching for 30 years and tells us she was offended by that statement. Beaupre writes this. I earned a bachelor's degree in my field equal to that of all the bachelor students. I spent a year in a Master's in Education program. She goes on to say she spent time interning in a classroom before she was allowed to teach, and had to take multiple qualifying exams.
Beaupre adds, newer teachers have even more rigorous requirements than I had in the past, and all of this for a salary that neither a lawyer nor a doctor would ever look at.
CORNISH: Many of you echoed that sentiment, including Nicole Cerqueira(ph), a teacher from Newark, Delaware. She writes, I am all for raising the standards for teacher certification. But until states agree to pay teachers a salary that is commensurate with their level of preparation, no major changes can occur.
BLOCK: On a lighter note, several of you wrote in about my chat yesterday with a French Canadian photographer who's been taking pictures of doppelgangers, people who look very much alike but aren't related.
Kenny Nottingham of Anderson, Indiana, writes, for most of my adult life, I've been cheerfully, then apologetically, greeted by people who thought they recognized somebody else who looks like me. I just shrug and quote Tom McCahill who said, "They say grandpa really got around when he had that motor scooter."
CORNISH: Finally, my interview with chef Debra Samuels about making school lunches in Japan, particularly the art of the bento box.
DEBRA SAMUELS: I just cut my carrots into the shape of a flower, or I made the sandwich, you know, with baloney bangs. I mean, there are any number of things that...
CORNISH: Did you say baloney bangs?
SAMUELS: That's what I said.
CORNISH: What does that mean?
(LAUGHTER)
SAMUELS: Instead of the baloney inside the sandwich, the - it was a little, round face, and the bangs on the face were made of baloney.
CORNISH: Well, Roxane Ronca of Prescott, Arizona, said this story should have come with a warning. Her suggestion, this material may be inappropriate for children whose parents make their lunches every morning.
Ronca asks, how can I keep up with the meat fringes, flower carrots, et cetera? She then answers her own question: my kids will have to be content with whole apples, whole carrots and whole grain sandwiches and the occasional I love you note.
BLOCK: We enjoy your notes. Please keep them coming at npr.org. Click on Contact Us at the bottom of the page.
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Stephen King once wrote that if you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. Most writers try to follow that advice. And in our series You Must Read This, we ask authors to tell us about the books they loved to read.
Adam Mansbach is the author of a book about parents' frustrations in getting their kids to sleep. We can't say the full title on the radio, but it was a bestseller and you may have heard of it. Well, today, he is recommending a book that he loved as a child.
ADAM MANSBACH: Last summer I stole something from a kid, and I felt pretty good about it. The thing was a copy of "The Pushcart War" by Jean Merrill, and the kid was my 9-year-old nephew. I was his age the first time I read the book, and I'm four times his age now. But I still love it just as much. Merrill begins by explaining that most wars are massive, too big and too complicated to understand. But the pushcart war is different.
On one side are the three biggest trucking companies in the city. They're run by a trio of tough, cigar-chomping businessmen. And they've got the mayor in their pocket. On the other side of the conflict are a motley collection of pushcart peddlers. They're old school and old world. There's Morris the Florist, Harry the Hotdog.
When the trucks threaten to wipe them out, they take the fighting to the streets. Their weapon of choice: Pea shooters laced with pins. They take aim at the truck tires and soon dead trucks litter every street in the city. "The Pushcart War" is a book about conflict, but it's hilarious. It's full of reversals and understated witticisms, brilliant strategies that pay off in unexpected ways. And it ends the way you wish all wars ended: with a deeply reasonable compromise that all sides can live with.
CORNISH: That was Adam Mansbach. His recommendation is called "The Pushcart War." And his own new book is called "Rage is Back." To comment on this essay at our website, go to nprbooks.org. You can also follow NPR Books on Facebook and Twitter. That's @nprbooks.
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One of the stars in this Sunday's Super Bowl will be making just his 10th NFL start. He's a quarterback, Colin Kaepernick. He can both pass and run, and those skills have frustrated opposing defenses and helped lead the San Francisco 49ers to the championship game. NPR's Mike Pesca asks what it will take for the Baltimore Ravens to stop Kaepernick or at least slow him down.
MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Colin Kaepernick courts questions. The first question was, will this talented athlete be good enough to start in college? He turned out to be good enough to star. Question answered Re: Colin Kaepernick, college quarterback. Then there was the question of what role he would play in the NFL. After the 49ers took him in the second round, there was, once more, the old question of if he could throw enough to be more than a backup. Once more, the answer was yes. Now, the only question is how do you stop Colin Kaepernick? SMU coach June Jones came up with this strategy.
JUNE JONES: Make him throw the ball to beat us, don't let him run.
PESCA: Jones' 2009 Southern Methodist team handed Kaepernick a bowl game loss during his junior year. And going back to Kaepernick's freshman year, June Jones, then head coach of Hawaii, was once again the architect of a game plan which committed to stopping the run at the risk of leaving receivers open, but Kaepernick couldn't connect. Still, Jones says Kaepernick can do so many things that a defense must pick its poison. But even with Kaepernick's passing success, Jones still fears the quarterback's running ability.
JONES: There's never been a guy with his size, speed and now his throwing ability, which, to be quite honest, even though he is throwing the ball very, very good the last six or eight weeks, I still think you cannot let him beat you running the ball.
PESCA: Kaepernick's throwing mechanics aren't textbook. But Roger Theder, a former college and NFL coach, who is now something of a quarterback guru, says that Kaepernick makes up for his quirks.
ROGER THEDER: I definitely see him getting better. And they talked about his release being bad. I think one thing he does, he doesn't keep his left hand on the ball. He throws like a pitcher. But I like the fact that the point is always facing forward and he throws the ball very accurately, very, very good.
PESCA: Theder, who worked with Kaepernick a bit in high school and prepped him after college for the NFL draft, notes his improvement since coming into the NFL. And the 49ers don't just have a weapon in Kaepernick, they have a delivery system known as the pistol offense. From this formation, Kaepernick can throw to three or four receivers, run the ball himself, hand off to a back or fake the handoff and then throw. If he makes the right choice, he has the skill to hurt the defense in so many ways.
Chris Brown, who analyzes the game at smartfootball.com, marvels at Kaepernick's ability to come to the line of scrimmage, change the play before it's snapped, and then...
CHRIS BROWN: He makes that decision. Then after the snap, he's got to make another decision about where to go with the ball even on a run play. So I think it's really impressive, and that's what's really difficult to defend if the guy is making those good decisions.
PESCA: Kaepernick's athleticism will be countered by the Ravens' speed and skill, but the game will come down to a battle of wits, or at least lightning-quick mental moves between the quarterback and Ravens safeties, like Ed Reed. On every play, Reed will be figuring out whether to tear off against the right ball carrier or whether to drop into coverage having sussed out a pass play. The mental game thrills an aficionado like Brown.
BROWN: Kaepernick's an unbelievable player, but you're still talking about a guy in his, you know, who hasn't even started a full season versus Ed Reed, whose one of the craftiest defensive players around.
PESCA: Of course, even if the defenders are at the top of their game cerebrally, they still have to execute that task that could sway the Super Bowl: catching the quixotic Colin Kaepernick. Mike Pesca, NPR News, New Orleans.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And I'm Audie Cornish.
When it comes to courtroom antics, some of you may think of Al Pacino in "And Justice for All."
(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "AND JUSTICE FOR ALL")
CORNISH: While that makes for good drama, lawyers have been worried about a growing lack of basic civility in the courtroom. The American Inns of Court is an organization devoted to, among other things, promoting professionalism among lawyers. One branch in New York City recently held a courtroom behavior refresher course, put to song.
(APPLAUSE)
CORNISH: And called it "A Civility Seder."
JUDGE RICHARD SULLIVAN: (Singing) If lawyers were more civil, yazzel, daddle-daddle, daddle, daddle, daddle, daddle, dum. They would treat their brethren with respect, wouldn't always yell, object. Oy.
CORNISH: Joining me now is Bruce Turkle, a lawyer and the man behind "The Civility Seder." Bruce, welcome.
BRUCE TURKLE: Thank you.
CORNISH: So this song that you guys played in the course was called "If Lawyers Were More Civil." People might remember the tune from the musical "Fiddler On The Roof." What's the point you're trying to drive home here?
TURKLE: I think the point was, I actually had written that with Judge Sullivan in mind, who performed it, who's an amazing jurist as well as a real talent. This song, like many of the songs in that presentation, we're approaching civility in the courtroom and among attorneys from different angles.
And what he was trying to get across was from a view from the bench, that if lawyers behave more properly - if there was more decorum, if there wasn't so much infighting amongst themselves - that judges could get on with the business at hand and not have to bother themselves with things like a denial of a request for a short adjournment or a very basic discovery dispute that really takes the judges time and really should be resolved between the attorneys.
CORNISH: So help us understand, for those of us who aren't totally familiar with some of these legal terms, what kind of behavior is considered rude in court or otherwise?
TURKLE: I think in court, the types of things that judges typically, you know, do not like to see is instead of addressing the judge, attorneys start sort of hectoring with each other; that the subject matter of why you came to court that day was something that they thought could be resolved between the attorneys. It didn't warrant having to take the judge's time with. You know, it has to be within the limits of professionalism.
CORNISH: Here's the thing, does anyone want a polite lawyer? I mean, isn't the whole point of having one who's going to be a kind of bulldog on your behalf?
TURKLE: Well, I think that's, you know, those who write about this talk about the fact that many times, the contentiousness, the nature of the adversarial system isn't in response to what clients are looking for. But I think that what I am speaking of is acting in a civil and professional manner.
I'm not saying that they have to be polite and be opening the doors for people. But I think that they have to respond, they have to wait their turn, they shouldn't be speaking all over the other attorney. I think that they shouldn't be involved in, you know, sort of name calling or are editorializing about, you know, the arguments that are being raised. And that's different than merely being polite.
CORNISH: Bruce, so another song that you play your presentation...
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Singing) There was no hector in the land of civility, land of...
CORNISH: And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the lyrics. Would you talk about in this song?
TURKLE: Sure. That was our finale. It's to a song from "Hair," "Aquarius." And the nature of "The Civility Seder, which it was a presentation we made at our end of court, is that it was the Exodus as you find in the Seder, the Passover Seder. But our exodus was from the land of Scorched Earth, where you had these no-holds-barred attorneys and they find, you know, righteousness. And so, by the end of our presentation, they are now able to exodus from the Land of Scorched Earth into the Land of Civility.
CORNISH: That sounds epic. Bruce Turkle, a lawyer and the man behind "The Civility Seder." Bruce, thanks so much for talking with us.
TURKLE: My pleasure.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And I'm Audie Cornish.
And there is a big sports championship this weekend. No, we're not talking about the Super Bowl, it's the Cyclo-Cross World Championships. Now you may not have heard of cyclo-cross, but it is the fastest growing bicycle sport in the U.S., and it's grueling. Riders traverse mud, sand, and other obstacles. For the first time in it's 60-year history, the world championships will be held outside of Europe, in Louisville, Kentucky.
And so, Louisville is where we're going now with Devin Katayama of member station WFPL.
DEVIN KATAYAMA, BYLINE: The first thing you have to know about cyclo-cross is the fans are a bit crazy.
(SOUNDBITE OF CROWD)
KATAYAMA: This is at last year's Louisville Derby City Cup. Hundreds of people, some in costumes, packed onto the course to cheer the riders on. It's not like the Tour de France. It's an off-road course but they use similar bikes with tough tires and deep treads. Racers carry their bikes up steps. In other parts, they pedal through mud, often in cold wet conditions.
JEREMY POWERS: For people that don't know anything about cyclo-cross, it's kind of like when everyone drinks a bunch at a college football game, when they're tailgating just before they go in.
KATAYAMA: That's Jeremy Powers. He's the top-ranked U.S. cyclo-cross racer. Internationally, he's 11th. Last year, Belgian racers took the top seven spots in the world championships. That's because the sport has deep roots in Europe.
POWERS: There were tires that they would use that were like handmade, hand-sewn cotton tires basically with, like, rubber, you know, put on them. You know, even five years ago those were very, very hard to get in the United States.
KATAYAMA: Cyclo-cross began as a way for cyclists to stay in shape during winter months. As the sport developed, courses added certain features to make them challenging. This week in Louisville, riders shared the course with workers as they put on the finishing touches. Event director Joan Hanscom says the sport is growing quickly and the international cycling body, the UCI, wants to expand globally.
JOAN HANSCOM: So they had a vision for what other markets would work. And the U.S. is the fastest growing market for cyclo-cross in the world.
KATAYAMA: In the past few years, the number of riders at cyclo-cross events has tripled to 100,000 according to USA Cycling. But Hanscom says, U.S. fans haven't shown up yet.
HANSCOM: We don't have the spectator base, we don't have the football fan watching our sport here, but we have the participation base. And I think for the sport to grow long-term, you need to have both.
KATAYAMA: In Europe, it's the opposite. Cyclo-cross racers are celebrities. Sven Nys is one of Belgium's most well-known cyclists. He says he's adjusted to Louisville, but says traveling is a challenge.
SVEN NYS: At the normal race, we have - I have five bikes with me and more wheels.
KATAYAMA: How many bikes do you need?
NYS: Normally, over here three or four. I have three with me, so I hope it's enough.
KATAYAMA: Nys says if the sport's popularity does continue abroad, it's something he'll have to get used to. But some things are likely to remain the same, such as loud fans and beer. Jeremy Powers, the top-ranked American, agrees it doesn't matter what country he races in, the fans are always supportive. And there will be the occasional costume, or not.
POWERS: I came around a corner at a race in Colorado and this guy said to me: Hey, look over here, Powers. And I was like: Oh, what, oh my gosh. This guy is just butt naked in the woods. A dude that I kind of knew was butt naked in the woods.
KATAYAMA: Powers says even that won't throw his attention, but he can't count on the Belgians budging either. For NPR News, I'm Devin Katayama in Louisville.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
In the world of cocaine trafficking, there are a couple of surprising trends that are having a big impact in South America. One is that cocaine consumption in the U.S. has been dropping fast. The other is that cocaine production in Colombia is declining significantly. But cocaine traffickers in South America are adjusting.
As NPR's Juan Forero reports, they found a new target for their product - Brazil
JUAN FORERO, BYLINE: Like other rivers here in Rondonia State, the Mamore flows north, from Bolivia into the heart of Brazil's Amazon. A perfect path to transport Bolivian products, people and cocaine, so say the Brazilian cops who use a speedboat to patrol this wide, slow-moving river.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOTORBOATS)
FORERO: Welcome to the latest front in the war on drugs. This time, the 2,100-mile border Brazil shares with Bolivia in the center of South America. A porous, remote and rugged frontier, one longer than the U.S.-Mexico border and one that, in many ways, is harder to secure.
Alexandre Nascimento, a federal police agent, pilots a speedboat near the Brazilian Port of Guajara-Mirim.
ALEXANDRE MASCIMENTO: (Foreign language spoken)
FORERO: Here we patrol at dawn and at night, looking to ambush the boats that cross with drugs, Nascimento says. But it's difficult and dangerous and you have to have patience.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOTORBOATS)
FORERO: You also have to have luck to decipher which of the countless small boats that cross the Mamore from Bolivia is carrying drugs. Brazilian and U.N. counter drug officials say those little boats and small planes that make 20-minute flights are flooding Brazil with Bolivian cocaine. The reasons are simple: Brazil, long the world's number two consumer of cocaine after the United States, is seeing consumption rise fast. And Bolivia is responding to the demand, according to U.N. and U.S. data.
Bo Mathiasen is a senior U.N. drug official who tracks the cocaine trade, and he says traffickers are pioneering new markets.
BO MATHIASEN: And clearly, Brazil and, for that sake, also other Southern Cone countries have been an increasingly interesting market for cocaine. And so, the traffickers have been focusing on trying to ship more cocaine over towards Brazil, to Argentina, and down to Chile.
FORERO: Brazil has lifted 30 million people into the middle-class in recent years. And for traffickers, that's particularly alluring, Mathiasen says.
MATHIASEN: Brazil is, in a way, victim of its own success. Clearly, the economic success and the rising purchasing power and the growth of the economy turned it more attractive also for drug trafficking.
FORERO: The turn toward Brazil comes as cocaine use in the United States has fallen by two-thirds since 1982. It's a trend the U.N. says has been especially notable since 2006.
Meanwhile, Colombia, which has historically supplied cocaine to the U.S., has seen the amount of land dedicated to drug crops reduced by half since 2001. Cocaine production has also fallen steeply. Peru and Bolivia have picked up the slack. And those two countries share a frontier with Brazil that's 4,000 miles long.
PRESIDENT DILMA ROUSSEFF: (Foreign language spoken)
FORERO: All together, Brazil has 10,000 miles of border, a great challenge to patrol, President Dilma Rousseff said in announcing her strategy to secure the frontier. That was in 2011. Since then, Brazil has been deploying thousands of troops. The government is also assigning more and better equipped police to the border. And there are plans for a fleet of aerial drones to patrol the most remote sectors.
In a hearing in Brasilia, Justice Minister Jose Eduardo Cardozo said Brazil moved fast and aggressively.
JOSE EDUARDO CARDOZO: (Foreign language spoken)
FORERO: It's impossible to have a border that's invulnerable, he said. But our frontiers are much better controlled than in the past.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOAT TRAFFIC)
FORERO: At the Brazilian Port of Guajara-Mirim, boats drop off people arriving from Bolivia with boxes and suitcases.
(SOUNDBITE OF PORT AMBIENCE)
FORERO: Everything they carry goes through a new X-ray machine, another tool provided to detect drugs. But the police say it's out on the Mamore or its tributaries where the cocaine is being moved.
(SOUNDBITE OF HEAVY RAIN)
FORERO: Heavy rains kept the waterways to the brim as four federal agents motored down a tributary. Along the way, they point out creeks that lead into the thick forest, creeks that weren't navigable before the rain started falling.
ALLAN OLIVEIRA: (Foreign language spoken)
FORERO: Allan Oliveira, one of the agents, says this is where they bring in the contraband - guns, fuel and drugs. Juan Forero, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block.
In many American cities, the national dialogue about gun violence is taking place against a backdrop of decreasing violent crime. That's true in Los Angeles where there's been a drop in murders and assaults with firearms. But, of course, L.A. is a big city and there are still large parts of it where people are shot and killed on a regular basis. And in those neighborhoods, the policy debates in Washington and statehouses seem far, far away. Here's NPR's Mandalit del Barco from South L.A.
MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: Here on 53rd Street and Vermont Avenue, where I'm standing, violent members of at least six gangs run the streets. A landmark church in front of me is boarded up and tagged. There are liquor stores and abandoned lots. There was a shooting two nights ago, just two blocks down. This is an area where murders, burglaries, robberies and rapes are common. And so are guns.
RANDOLPH WRIGHT: There's too many guns out here. I can tell you right now, every hood has an AK in they hood. Regardless, whatever the gun they got, they have AK.
MALAK ROGERS: One person in the neighborhood got a big gun, somewhere in that neighborhood where you can just look through it and just really blow somebody's brains out.
BARCO: Randolph Wright is 18 years old. Malak Rogers is 17. They seriously doubt much can be done about so much weaponry in their neighborhoods.
ROGERS: A lot of people do like their guns, like to show off. And they show people like, don't bother me, I got a gun, I'll do something with it.
BARCO: Around here, there are no mass shootings on school campuses or in movie theaters. Instead, men, women and children are shot one, two, three at a time. And it happens all the time. Just three days ago, Malak was shot at in front of his home by a rival gang. Here's Malak, Randolph and 18-year-old Donna Lowe.
WRIGHT: I had lost one of my friends from a stray bullet to the chest from gang violence. So it's hard because that was my best friend. And I seen him die in front of me.
DONNA LOWE: When I was in second grade, my friend got killed because of his older brother. They came and shot up the house, and he got killed. And he was only in second grade with me. And his little sister, her hand got shot off. And his older cousin had to get a hip replacement. They were laying in the living room watching TV on the floor.
ROGERS: I mean, I was chilling with my friends, you know, was chilling on my block. Some guys came through and I got hit. Boom, my homey got hit in his neck. Boom, my other homey got hit in his arm and his stomach.
LOWE: We're so used to this. This is everyday life for us.
BARCO: These teens say the proposed federal gun laws, the background checks on buyers, limits on ammunition magazines, a ban on assault weapon sales, these ideas don't seem so relevant in the neighborhood, not when so many old guns are passed around or stolen, not when serial numbers are filed off, not when guns aren't registered or bought at a store.
MICHAEL TREJO: I can say it's very easy to get a gun out here. It's one phone call away. And that's how all these kids are getting these guns. And they don't have to be background checked or nothing.
BARCO: Fifteen-year-old Michael Trejo says he affiliates with a local gang. He's on probation now and was once shot at in an alley during a robbery. He doesn't want to give every detail, but he says he and his family are in what they call the lifestyle.
TREJO: You just go to your friend, you know what, these people are bothering me. I need a gun. And that's how easy it is.
BARCO: So this proposal President Obama says is not going to get to those people that can just make a phone call and get a gun.
TREJO: Yeah.
BARCO: Well, what do you think could be done about it?
TREJO: I think more enforcement, more...
BARCO: You think more cops would be the answer.
TREJO: Mm-hmm, more cops.
BARCO: The young people I met with for this story say proposals to beef up security at schools are good. But what about all the areas outside of school grounds, the ganglands they have to walk through? Things are so bad that students get bussed for just two blocks to an afterschool program run by the Brotherhood Crusade. It offers afterschool tutoring, sports and other activities to keep them busy and away from the streets.
They have thoughtful discussions about the conditions they live with. But Malak Rogers, who's on probation and under house arrest, says he can only do so much to change the mentality of his hood.
ROGERS: I just tell my friends, like, you know, hey, if you got a gun, just be careful, man. Don't just go out and kill nobody. If somebody going to try to do something to you, then you handle them. Use your gun for a good reason. Say somebody's trying to kill you or somebody's trying shooting at you, then use your gun. But just using your gun just because, that's not a good reason, you know?
BARCO: You tell that to your friends?
ROGERS: I tell that to all my homies. None of my friends just go out killing nobody. None of my friends do none of that.
BARCO: So what do your friends say when you say that?
ROGERS: They'd be cool with that. They carry they gun with them, you know, if something happens, they're going to do they're thing, you know?
BARCO: They don't solve their - they wouldn't think of solving their problems...
ROGERS: I mean some of them, they'll talk it out, you know? Some people talk it out. But some people, they can't talk it out too much. Their brain get too tired. You know, people, like, get fed up and they just explode.
BARCO: Malak and the others I talked to here say they're working on changing their lives. But the gun culture of South L.A.? Well, this is still a place where you always have to watch your back. Mandalit del Barco, NPR News, Los Angeles.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block.
Somehow, the Canadian singer-songwriter Ron Sexsmith manages to make a case of the deep blues sound sweet.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NOWHERE TO GO")
RON SEXSMITH: (Singing) I heard the thunder, so I braced for the rain. I tried to get out from under, but all was in vain. There's no way to stop it from pouring, buckets down from the sky, when you're stuck in a cloud, and there's nowhere to go but down.
BLOCK: Ron Sexsmith's new album "Forever Endeavour" comes out next week. It's his 13th album. And the songs show him at midlife reflecting a lot on the passage of time.
Ron Sexsmith joins me now from NPR West. Ron, welcome to the program.
SEXSMITH: Thanks for having me.
BLOCK: You know, in the song, you're saying nowhere to go but down, but the song feels so buoyant.
(LAUGHTER)
SEXSMITH: You know, I was trying to write it almost like a Chaplin-esque kind of sad clown song, you know? And I always try to infuse some kind of hope or humor in there if possible.
BLOCK: Is there something about that tension between sadness and light or humor that you really like?
SEXSMITH: Well, I think there's always something comforting about sad songs. It's like when Bing Crosby sang all those Depression-era songs, you know? It's, you know, an emotion that I, you know, I think it's a shared thing that everyone can relate to. And, you know, I wrote that song basically because I've made my last album when I was feeling pretty good about things, and then when we started shopping it around, we've got so much rejection for it. And so I just, you know, I remember thinking nowhere to go but down and then, you know? But as I wrote the song, it made me feel better, you know...
(LAUGHTER)
SEXSMITH: ...as sad songs do, you know?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NOWHERE TO GO")
SEXSMITH: (Singing) It's like you're stuck in a painting, unable to cry or to make a sound, and there's nowhere to go but down.
BLOCK: A number of these songs I've read were written at a time when you were thinking a lot about your own mortality because you had a health scare.
SEXSMITH: Yeah, I had a bit of a few months of not really freaking out, but they found this lump in my throat which is always, you know, when you're a singer, it's like...
(LAUGHTER)
SEXSMITH: ...the worst news you can get. And so I was just waiting around for tests and waiting around for results and - but thankfully, I got good news. It was a benign thing.
(LAUGHTER)
BLOCK: That's great news.
SEXSMITH: Yes.
BLOCK: But it did end up in the song somehow that period.
SEXSMITH: It did. I have a song called the "Morning Light," which is the last song on the record that, you know, it's just so great to wake up every day, you know?
(LAUGHTER)
SEXSMITH: It's, you know, and we're still here - hooray. And then I remember I was waking up. I was looking out, the light coming in the bedroom window, and there was dust, you know? And there's dust dancing around in the light, and I was thinking, well, you know, there was the ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Well, maybe that's what happens when we die. We just become this dust that joins the sunlight.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MORNING LIGHT")
BLOCK: Is it hard to write when you are so anxious about your health?
SEXSMITH: Well, when you're a writer, you kind of take everything, you know? And every little - whatever you're going through, it's kind of convenient actually when - to have an outlet like that, whatever it is. If you're in love, you can write a happy, romantic song or if you're feeling down - and I wonder what other people do that don't write. You know, they must - maybe go play golf or something. But, yeah, I just - it was on my mind. And so naturally, being a songwriter, it sort of worked its way into some of the lyrics.
BLOCK: Worked its way in, but, again, and often in a pretty jaunty way, I'm thinking about the song "Sneak Out the Backdoor"...
SEXSMITH: Oh, yeah.
BLOCK: ...which was about goodbyes of all kinds but certainly has shades of talking about - too, about saying a final goodbye.
SEXSMITH: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SNEAK OUT THE BACKDOOR")
BLOCK: Ron Sexsmith, talk a bit about this song.
SEXSMITH: Well, it was kind of written around the time of "Nowhere to Go" where I was feeling a bit rejected by the music industry. It's a feeling that comes and goes that I find. And I was just thinking about disappearing or wanting - and not wanting to make a spectacle of myself.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SNEAK OUT THE BACKDOOR")
(LAUGHTER)
SEXSMITH: ...where did that Ron guy go?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SNEAK OUT THE BACKDOOR")
(LAUGHTER)
BLOCK: With better result, though.
SEXSMITH: Yeah, I hope so.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SNEAK OUT THE BACKDOOR")
BLOCK: Let's talk about the title of the album. A play on words, "Forever Endeavour," endeavor being one word in the title, but it sounds like...
SEXSMITH: Yeah.
BLOCK: ...forever and ever.
SEXSMITH: Yeah. I just thought, you know, when you're a songwriter, it is a bit like a forever endeavor because you're trying to do something or write a piece of music that maybe will outlive you, or, you know, it's like the Stephen Foster songs. Everybody still knows "Camptown Races"...
(LAUGHTER)
SEXSMITH: ...or something, you know? That's the kind of - when you're a songwriter, you have a shot at immortality if you're lucky, you know?
BLOCK: I want to end by asking you about the song "Deepens with Time"...
SEXSMITH: OK.
BLOCK: ...which starts with memories from childhood. It's like a bittersweet look backward.
SEXSMITH: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DEEPENS WITH TIME")
BLOCK: And, Ron, by the end of the song, we're in a very different place. Where are we?
SEXSMITH: Well, by the end, I'm just - I say through our hands, it slips away. Through our hair, a touch of gray. And in the back of our minds, you know, and it just - it's something that you don't think about, but every now and then, you realize you're having a good time, and then it hits you that, wow, this is all maybe going to end some day, you know? And it just - it's the stuff of what we make movies and writes songs about, you know? It's like the terms of endearment. I don't know why, you know? I mean - so, yeah, it's a bittersweet song for sure. And, yeah, I'm really glad that we made it on this record.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DEEPENS WITH TIME")
BLOCK: Ron Sexsmith, it's great to talk to you. Thank you.
SEXSMITH: Always. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
BLOCK: The new album from Ron Sexsmith is "Forever Endeavour." It's out next week.
You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
As hard as it's been lately to find jobs in this country, it's especially hard for people who have committed crimes. An estimated one in five Americans has a criminal record. And while punishment is usually temporary, those records can last forever.
Our story comes from reporter Stan Alcorn.
STAN ALCORN, BYLINE: To find companies in New York breaking state and federal employment discrimination law, all you need is the Internet.
SALLY FRIEDMAN: Is it going to look for felony if I type felon?
ALCORN: Uh...
FRIEDMAN: Or do I have to do this?
ALCORN: I asked Sally Friedman, a lawyer at the Legal Action Center, to search job postings with me on Craigslist.
FRIEDMAN: Oh, here. Here we go. Here we go. First one. OK.
ALCORN: In about two minutes, we found a job posting for a lobby attendant, with a catch.
FRIEDMAN: And it says absolutely no felony convictions.
ALCORN: And so your legal opinion on this would be?
FRIEDMAN: This is blatantly illegal hiring practice.
ALCORN: It's not that it's against the law to consider a job applicant's past convictions. In fact, it's kind of the opposite. The problem with this kind of no-criminal-records-allowed policy is that it means not looking at those records and throwing out good candidates just because they got caught with marijuana when they were teenagers. New York goes even further by spelling out what employers have to consider, things like the seriousness of the offense and its relevance to the job.
FRIEDMAN: They have to look at each person individually. That's New York's law.
ALCORN: Hi.
MELISSA: Hi.
ALCORN: Nice to meet you.
MELISSA: Nice to meet you.
ALCORN: Thanks for letting me in.
I met Melissa outside her welfare-to-work program in downtown Brooklyn. She was about to go to a job interview.
MELISSA: The address, do you have your resume, go in with a smile on your face and good luck.
(LAUGHTER)
MELISSA: That's basically it.
ALCORN: And do you go here every day?
MELISSA: Yes, every day, Monday through Friday, 9:00 to 4:00. So that's dedication.
ALCORN: She has plenty of job experience, and she says she aces every interview. But the problem for Melissa and the reason she asked us not to use her last name is her past. She says that as a rebellious 15-year-old, she started hanging out with an older man who manipulated her and eventually became her pimp. She was 19 when she pled guilty to her third and final conviction of loitering for prostitution.
MELISSA: I had no knowledge. I was young. And I was like, OK, whatever. Yes, just let me go home.
ALCORN: You had no idea that it would be, six years later, keeping you from jobs?
MELISSA: Yeah, no idea at all.
ALCORN: She recently got a job selling tickets at a local tourist attraction. But on what she says was the day before she was supposed to go in for orientation, she got an email. We must withdraw our offer, it said, due to the background check.
MELISSA: That had me upset also. Like, wow, I can't even get a job doing cashiering. Like, what kind of work can I do?
ALCORN: That employer didn't respond to our requests for comment, but Melissa says that kind of direct rejection was common. Even more common: A job application would ask if she had any convictions. She'd put yes, and then she wouldn't get called back. But is that actually discrimination?
Princeton professor Devah Pager has researched the question.
DEVAH PAGER: We hired groups of young men to pose as job applicants, and we sent them all over New York City, applying for real low-wage, entry level job openings.
ALCORN: Those young men were identical in job experience, education, skills, except that one of them had an old, minor drug possession charge. The study found that that job applicant was half as likely to get called back.
PAGER: It's clear that simply having a criminal record, irrespective of any other personal characteristics about the candidates, had a huge negative impact on their likelihood of finding work, even in these low-wage, low-skill kinds of positions.
ALCORN: Melissa's strategy for dealing with that bias has been to try to avoid the issue entirely.
MELISSA: So, yeah, I basically had it in my mind, OK, if I get a job, I need a place that's not going to run a background check because if they do, I'm not getting hired.
(LAUGHTER)
MELISSA: So that was my new game plan.
ALCORN: It's a plan that has real costs. According to a survey by the Society for Human Resources Management, two out of three employers require a background check for every single hire. But for Melissa, at least, it seems to have paid off.
That afternoon at the welfare-to-work center, she told me that she and another woman had gotten jobs at a supermarket.
MELISSA: Getting the feel of, you know, receiving a paycheck, that's the best thing, really.
(LAUGHTER)
ALCORN: A paycheck that comes out to about $175 a week to support her, her 19-year-old brother and her 2-year-old daughter.
For NPR News, I'm Stan Alcorn in New York.
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It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And I'm Audie Cornish.
The immigration plans proposed by both President Obama and a group of senators call for a new and improved guest worker program. Currently, the system the U.S. uses, especially for agriculture, is slow and fraught with abuse. But the shape of a new guest worker program is still being hashed out. Some say the U.S. should import temporary workers the same way that Canada does.
For more than three decades, the governments of Canada and Mexico have cooperated to fill agriculture jobs that Canadian citizens won't do and Mexicans are clamoring to get.
From Mexico, NPR's Carrie Kahn tells us more.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: The line outside the state labor office in downtown Puebla, Mexico, is long. About 15 men, many of whom have traveled several hours from rural towns to get here, listen for their names to be called. Juan Carlos Corona is next.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Foreign language spoken)
JUAN CARLOS CORONA: (Foreign language spoken)
KAHN: A state worker enters his name and file number into the computer. She prints out his latest application, staples photos of Corona to his file and tells him to come back in two months for a medical exam.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Foreign language spoken)
CORONA: (Foreign language spoken)
KAHN: If everything checks out, Corona will get his visa, a plane ticket to Canada and six months of full-time work. This is the third year he's worked legally in Canada's broccoli fields. Before that, he says, he would sneak into the U.S. to find work.
CORONA: (Through Translator) It was really tough. We would have to hike over mountains, cross at night in the cold. It would take 10 days and cost thousands of dollars. This way, I take a comfortable plane ride and I'm there in four hours. I really like this program.
KAHN: In Canada, Corona works 14 hours a day, six days a week. His daily pay: about $120.
CORONA: (Foreign language spoken)
(LAUGHTER)
KAHN: At home, he says, he makes 120 pesos a day, about $10.
Mexico has been sending workers to Canada for nearly four decades. Bianca Garcia administers the program for the state of Puebla. She says it's a win-win for both countries.
BIANCA GARCIA: (Foreign language spoken)
KAHN: She says Mexican workers are poor, with little job prospects in their hometowns. And in Canada, farmers need workers. Mexico sends about 17,000 workers a year north. Garcia says every year she turns away applicants.
And those who do get a chance to go almost always come back home. The Mexican government closely screens applicants, mostly men between the ages 22 and 40, with small children at home.
Farmers have been advocating for such a guest worker program for years in the U.S. Manuel Cunha, who heads a growers group in California, says the current U.S. guest worker program, known as H2-A, doesn't work. He says it's too bureaucratic, costly, and farmers can't get workers fast enough.
MANUEL CUNHA: That's why the H2-A program over the past 30 years, 40 years has not been a solution for agriculture when we run a shortage of labor.
KAHN: He says many aspects of the Canadian program could be a model for U.S. lawmakers as they craft a new guest worker program.
Farm worker advocates aren't as convinced. The United Farm Workers' vice president, Erik Nicholson, says in Canada, Mexican guest workers are tied to one employer. If the worker complains, the employer just sends him back home.
ERIK NICHOLSON: We want workers that are able to work wherever they can get the best return on their day's labor, that they are recruited fairly and will not be put into debt peonage and having to pay thousands of dollars, that they have the required skills and training to produce quality product in a safe and just way.
KAHN: At the Puebla state employment office, Marcelo Ramirez Garcia says he's anxious to get all his paperwork done and go back to Canada. This will be his 23rd trip. He's 60 years old.
MARCELO RAMIREZ GARCIA: (Foreign language spoken)
KAHN: He says, of course, it's hard to leave his family for such long stretches of time. But he's glad he's been able to give them a better life in Mexico, something he couldn't have done without the work in Canada.
Carrie Kahn, NPR News, Mexico City.
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Over the last year, small whimsical creatures have been springing up all around Oakland, California. They're gnomes hand-painted on wooden boards. Really cute little guys about six inches high with red hats, brown boots and white beards. They're bits of urban folk art from an anonymous painter who surreptitiously screws them onto the base of utility poles.
Well, Pacific Gas and Electric decided that was a bad idea. The company vowed to remove the gnomes. But this week after a surge of popular gnome support, PG&E had a change of heart and that's great news for the gnomes' creator. We've agreed to preserve his anonymity for this conversation. He joins us from Oakland. And I'll just call you the gnome representative for this conversation. Why don't you explain, first of all, why you want to remain anonymous.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Because I really think that this is so much more than about an individual. It's not so much a concern about my own anonymity as it is I don't really want anybody associated with the gnomes. As I've gone through this project, it really is an Oakland thing. I feel like they're not my gnomes, they're Oakland's gnomes. It gives people the opportunity to tell their own stories about them and see them as they are.
BLOCK: Why did you start with gnomes? How did this all come about?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I had the book. I think most people had that wonderful book from the Dutch (unintelligible).
BLOCK: Oh, "The Book of Gnomes."
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yes, from the '70s and had that as a child. I was just sitting around thinking one day what could I do to make my little community a little better.
BLOCK: And you started with one?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: I started with one, and I did my entire street in front of my house. And then I just started hearing these wonderful stories of what people thought of them. And from there it just dawned on me that it wasn't about my street, it needed to be about my neighborhood. Well, once I was done with my neighborhood, it suddenly turned into about my city as a whole.
BLOCK: What were you hearing from people when they were talking about the gnomes?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Well, you know, the best is - I have a small preschool across the street from me. And I would hear them as they would walk up and down the street and they had made names up for each of the gnomes. But then there would be stories that they would be telling each other about the gnomes. And then this one particular day, there was this girl who was walking home and her father, it became apparent to me that he had come to pick her up at the school for the very first time. And she was so excited. And the main thing that she was excited about was taking him to each of the gnomes and explaining to him about why each of them was there.
BLOCK: But it's not just the kids who are really enchanted by them, it sounds like. I was reading a blog from a guy who noted that the gnomes that are at higher elevations in Oakland are wearing kilts. So he says they're plainly Highlanders, a big of dry humor...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Oh, they most certainly are.
BLOCK: ...we heartily appreciate. And he's named the one that he took a picture of. He says, I call him Angus.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yes, I've seen Angus. And Angus is an earlier home gnome and he's really excited. But there's a little controversy going on there, because some are in royal Stewart and some are in the Black Watch. So they kind of have the 1745 going on in the hills of Oakland as well.
BLOCK: So you're trying to put in little changes in them that you hope people will notice.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: It goes beyond that, I'd like to think a little bit, because it has to relate with the community as a whole. Down on 3rd Avenue, there's a tattoo shop. The gnomes in front of that shop, one has an anchor tattooed on his arm, one has a heart tattooed on his arm. There's a section down by the water, each of the gnomes there are in Bermuda shorts with tattoos as well.
BLOCK: Well, I don't want you to have to reveal your trade secrets here, but how do you manage to install all these gnomes, screw them onto these utility poles without people noticing what you're doing?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Well, it's a night kind of thing because I go out late at night with my terrier. She provides some cover because I can always yell at her if anybody's walking around. But I get to walk the streets of Oakland at 11:00, 12:00, 1:00 in the morning and see the houses and see the gardens and see the paintings that people are doing.
BLOCK: But nobody ever noticed what you're doing when you're out there?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: When I'm out there I have not been caught once, no. If something's going on, you stop, you pull out a little bag, pretend like you're picking up something, a gift that the terrier left behind. You play the part. It's part of the joy of actually interacting with the community, not with individuals.
BLOCK: Well, it's been so nice to have something to take a little break from the dark and dreary news that we've had this week. So thanks so much for talking to us about your gnome project.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Melissa, thank you so much for your time. And thank you for taking some interest in Oakland, not just the gnomes, but in Oakland itself.
BLOCK: That's the creator of the Oakland gnomes. We've agreed to preserve his anonymity.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
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I'm Melissa Block. And we begin this hour asking you to think about this startling fact: Every day, some 3,000 Syrian refugees are fleeing across the border into Jordan. It's a huge increase from just a few weeks ago. It means the tide of refugees from Syria has become a flood. Hundreds of thousands are making their way through rain and snow, seeking safety in Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon. The government of Jordan says it is stretched to the limit.
I spoke earlier today with Andrew Harper, head of the U.N.'s refugee agency in Jordan, about the growing number of Syrians pouring into the country.
ANDREW HARPER: What we're seeing, at the moment, is trending upwards. About two weeks ago, it was about 700 to 800 per day, Then it went to 2,000; then about 3,000. And the issue is, we just do not know where this is going to end up at.
BLOCK: They're going to one huge refugee camp - the Zaatari camp. What's the total number of refugees in that camp now?
HARPER: It's probably getting close to about 70,000 because we're just receiving so many people per day. It's impossible to sort of say, oh, this is the exact number. But what we had originally planned for is about 60,000. We're now having to revise it up to 90,000. And we're having to move forward very quickly on establishing a second camp, and then probably a third and a fourth camp.
BLOCK: The 70,000 people at this camp - the vast majority of them, I think, are in tents, right? They're not winterized.
HARPER: Yeah, that's correct. The vast majority are in tents. Also, the vast majority are children; probably 60 percent of those people coming across the border every night are children. And the remaining are often elderly, the sick, or single women. So you start getting an idea of the challenge that we've got. When you've got 70,000 basically vulnerable people in a refugee camp, which was set up in the desert, and the enormous amount of support and assistance that we need to put into that - 20 percent of the entire population in the camp is less than 4 years old. This makes an enormous challenge for us - keeping them alive, making sure they're protected, and ensuring that they're well until they can actually return back to Syria.
BLOCK: And give us a sense of scale, in terms of the supplies that you have to keep them fed and clothed and hopefully, warm.
HARPER: You know, anything less than 10,000 pieces of anything is really not even worth talking about. We had eight semi-trailers arriving today with tents. Every day, we've got 4,000 mattresses being made, and transported to the camp. We've probably got about a hundred trucks taking sewage out of the camp every day. We're putting in about a million and a half liters of water into the camp every day.
And this is just into the camp. People often forget, also, that there's probably about 250,000 Syrians who are in the urban environment, who are often forgotten. So it's a challenge trying to maintain a holistic approach to the refugee crisis that currently exists in Jordan, while also looking across the border into Southern Syria. And it's the same - oh, we've got to be prepared for 100-, 200-, 300,000 more coming across because there is less and less reason for this population to stay there.
BLOCK: What are the refugees saying about the most recent violence that's happened in Syria, that's caused them to flee in these ever-greater numbers?
HARPER: The security situation is deteriorating on the other side. There's more and more villages which are being bombarded. In many cases, people have lost hope in seeing any sort of resolution to the conflict there. That, combined with a decrease in access to health care, schools being closed, food becoming unaffordable, decreased access to fuel - they're just sort of saying, like, what else do we do? How do we protect our families; how do we keep our families alive and well?
And then people making the choice that it's better to become a refugee - no matter how difficult that is - than staying in Southern Syria. And that's why we are seeing tens of thousands of people leaving Syria, at the moment. And I'm afraid that no one can give me any positive indicators in relation to the situation in Syria, which would lead me to believe that this flow is not going to become, as you said, a flood.
BLOCK: I wonder, Mr. Harper - among those tens of thousands of Syrian refugees whom you've been dealing with, if there's one family, or one story, that really sticks with you, more than any other.
HARPER: I'd like to sort of say there's one, but there's not one. Every family that comes across is unique. They've suffered so much. There was a small child that came across - 3 years old - last night. She had lost her mother and her father, and had just been sort of evacuated by her neighbor. And she - what does she - having brought up with? Like, she's got nothing for her.
BLOCK: Andrew Harper - he's with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan. Mr. Harper, thank you.
HARPER: Thank you very much.
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In Egypt today, rival political factions met with the nation's highest religious official. They were searching for ways to end the violence of the past week that has left some 60 people dead. The Sheikh of Al-Azhar secured pledges of non-violence, and a commitment to dialogue, from Egypt's ruling party and key opposition groups.
As we hear from NPR's Leila Fadel, this news will come as a relief to some Egyptians, who are exhausted and frustrated by the turmoil.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACHINERY)
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: Karim Mohammed repairs tires at his workshop in the working-class Cairo district of Imbaba. Business is bad, he says; very bad. With violent, anti-government protests in Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said and elsewhere, taxi drivers aren't driving as much. Families are staying at home, and Karim's business is about half as much as usual.
KARIM MOHAMMED: (Foreign language spoken)
FADEL: People aren't buying or selling, Karim says. But this isn't President Mohammed Morsi's fault, he says. It's because of the protests, and the general stagnation of the Egyptian state. He, like many others Egyptians, feels tired. He says he's tired of every political dispute turning into disruptive protests in the center of the city; tired of people dying; tired of rising prices; and tired of an opposition that condemns the leadership, but offers no solution.
MOHAMMED: (Foreign language spoken)
FADEL: If we topple the president now, then what? he asks. Every time there's a problem we'll change the president? Why don't we just let democracy happen? he adds. Whoever wants anything should say it - but with the ballot box, not violence.
And Karim knows that the latest violence can't be good for Egypt's image abroad. When they turn on their televisions, people must think this...
MOHAMMED: Wow. Egypt is war.
FADEL: And that means less tourism, less investment, and an even worse economy; all bad things for the average Egyptian trying to make it, he says. The polarization of Egyptian society is clear. But it isn't as simple as the old refrain of Islamist versus secular. People are divided about who to blame for the volatile nature of Egypt's transition, and who is to blame for those who have been killed in the past six days. Karim's friend, Ahmed Sayed, has pretty much the same complaints. But he, instead, blames the new Muslim Brotherhood leadership.
AHMED SAYED: (Foreign language spoken)
FADEL: The country is a mess, he says. Yes, indeed, these protests are destroying the country. But people are angry. And why have so many been killed? he asks. If Morsi can't fix it, he needs to get out, he says. And in a country that has only so recently toppled a dictator, some people are now nostalgic for his rule. Ahmed agrees that Hosni Mubarak was better than this. Then they robbed from us, he says, but I still had money in my pockets.
(SOUNDBITE OF STREET TRAFFIC)
FADEL: Just down the road, Mohammed Abdel Salam shakes out a carpet outside his car accessory shop. If he had his way, every protester would be arrested.
MOHAMMED ABDEL SALAM: (Foreign language spoken)
FADEL: They're destroying the country, he says. They can't possibly be from Egypt.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC)
FADEL: In the heart of Cairo, shattered glass and debris cover the streets, and stinging tear gas still hangs in the air. People walk by with their faces covered.
NAGWA IBRAHIM: (Foreign language spoken)
FADEL: Nagwa Ibrahim shields her face from the stinging gas, and surveys the damage. My solution, she says, is to pretend it's not happening; and we no longer watch the news on TV.
Leila Fadel, NPR News, Cairo.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Now to politics in the U.S. and one of those ethical storms that can blow over in a few weeks or end a career. This time, the storm clouds are hovering over Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey. Tomorrow, he'll officially take on a prominent chairmanship in the Senate. So what's all the ethical fuss about?
NPR congressional correspondent Tamara Keith explains.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: This should have been a good week for Senator Menendez. He was selected by his peers to take over as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee when John Kerry leaves to become Secretary of State. But instead, his staff is scrambling to explain his friendship with a West Palm Beach ophthalmologist whose office was raided yesterday by the FBI.
The doctor, Salomon Melgen, is a political donor and personal friend of the senator. Over the years, Menendez has visited the doctor at a home he owns in the Dominican Republic. It turns out, on at least two occasions, he flew on the doctor's private plane, without paying for it or reporting it as a gift as required under law.
Melanie Sloan is executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.
MELANIE SLOAN: You can accept gifts of travel from a personal friend. But if it's going to be valued at more than $250, you have to get clearance from the Ethics Committee beforehand, and then you would have to disclose it on your financial disclosure form as a gift.
KEITH: On these two occasions, Menendez didn't do that. A spokesman for the senator says, his staff recently discovered two un-reconciled trips. On January 4th, the senator paid $58,000 out of his own pocket to reimburse Dr. Melgen for the cost of the flights. According to the spokesman, the mistake was rectified as quickly as it could be. Sloan says this is concerning.
SLOAN: He tried to get away with it and now he's caught. And so, he paid the money back and he's trying to clean it up that way, and pretend that it all is fine. But it isn't fine.
KEITH: That said, she doesn't expect him to face censure from the Senate Ethics Committee or legal trouble, because he paid for the flights retroactively.
There are also questions about what the senator may have been doing on these trips. Just before the November election, when he was re-elected, a conservative website began reporting that Menendez, who is divorced, used the services of prostitutes. His office put out a statement yesterday saying, quote, "Any allegations of engaging with prostitutes are manufactured by a politically motivated right-wing blog and are false."
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stood by Menendez.
SENATOR HARRY REID: Bob Menendez is my friend. He's an outstanding senator.
KEITH: As for the FBI, it isn't saying much except to confirm that it conducted law enforcement activity yesterday at the address where Dr. Melgen has a medical office. Agents were seen carrying many file boxes out of the office. Over the years, Melgen and his family have given hundreds of thousands of dollars to mostly Democratic candidates and party committees.
Tamara Keith, NPR News, the Capitol.
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Now some page-turners for the winter months. Our reviewer Alan Cheuse found three new thrillers that he says will keep you entertained through snow and storms.
ALAN CHEUSE, BYLINE: Ireland serves as the setting for two of these In journalist Gene Kerrigan's "The Rage," Dublin becomes the focus of an engrossing police procedural After a botched armored car holdup, a minor criminal named Vincent Naylor goes on a killing rampage. A good Dublin cop appropriately named Bob Tidey tries, in the face of frustrating police bureaucracy and corruption, to put a stop to the rising tide of blood.
Novelist Stuart Neville, in his new book called "Ratlines," sends us to Belfast and back to 1963, when Northern Ireland had become an asylum of choice for some Nazis on the run. A crime fighter and ex-war hero named Albert Ryan, this guy a government intelligence agent, gets called in by the corrupt minister for justice to investigate the murders of some of these nasty types, in what seems like a plot to get to a former ex-SS man and presumed embezzler. Some terrible things happen as Ryan tries to serve two masters, his government and his conscience
The crime at the center of "The Third Bullet," journalist Stephen Hunter's intelligent new thriller also carries us back to 1963; to the traumatic day in Dallas when President John Kennedy took a bullet to his brain. As Hunter dramatizes, this is the third and fatal bullet on that day. His main character, an ex-war hero named Bob Lee Swagger, is a man of great nerve and ballistic skills. As his nemesis in this high stakes forensic mystery puts it: He's Ole Miss quarterback, every NASCAR driver, every tiny-town police chief or state trooper rolled into one.
Bob Lee Swagger, he takes on an investigation that carries us to Russia, to Texas and deep into the heart of a murder conspiracy against the young president. In a novel, like the other two books, that will make you oblivious to everything else in the world
BLOCK: That's reviewer Alan Cheuse recommending some winter thrillers. They are "The Rage" by Gene Kerrigan, "Ratlines" by Stuart Neville, and "The Third Bullet" by Stephen Hunter.
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The New York Times revealed today that it was the target of a month's long cyber attack. The paper believes the attack came from Chinese authorities in response to an expose of cronyism among China's ruling elite. The hackers were able to breach The Times entire system and swipe passwords for every employee.
As we hear from NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik, this cyber attack illustrates China's extreme distrust of the independent media.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Times Shanghai bureau chief David Barboza's expose hit the website on October 25th, the newspaper on October 26th, and the headlines followed all over the world.
(SOUNDBITE OF NEWS CLIP)
FOLKENFLIK: That clip from CNN, just one of many international news outlets to cover the scandal. Lawrence Ingrassia is assistant managing editor at The New York Times, and edited Barboza's story.
LAWRENCE INGRASSIA: Deep dive into documents - public documents - which no body else had looked at and which were actually pretty hard to decipher. They were, you know, very embarrassing to the Chinese government, particularly to Mr. Wen, but we felt we needed to do it because that's what we do and that's what people here and in China need to know.
FOLKENFLIK: There were two almost immediate consequences. Chinese authorities blocked all access to the newspaper's new Mandarin language site from any computer inside China - a development that was widely reported and has happened to other news organizations previously.
The Times says its traffic to its Mandarin language site has plunged by about 80 percent since the authorities blocked it.
But, as Larry Ingrassia recounts, there was another telltale development, one not revealed until now. Its computer system had been comprehensively compromised. The paper had asked AT&T to monitor its computer system for any infiltration, as the story was released.
RICHARD BEJTLICH: It spiked the day it was posted online, October 25th.
FOLKENFLIK: In early November, The New York Times turned to a consulting firm that handles computer security called Mandiant for help. Richard Bejtlich is Mandiant's chief security officer. He says the infiltrators were clearly from China and had tricked a Times user into opening a malicious email.
BEJTLICH: They got some unauthorized software to run on that individual's computer. And that software allows someone who's sitting thousands of miles away to interact with that computer, as if they were sitting at it.
FOLKENFLIK: The hackers ultimately penetrated the computers of 53 employees at The Times. But the focus was on two reporters, David Barboza and his predecessor in Shanghai, Jim Yardley. Bejtlich says, the attack was highly focused.
BEJTLICH: It appears they were looking for any documents associated with the Wen family - resources, financials, that sort of thing.
FOLKENFLIK: The Times says no secret sources for the story were revealed. Ironically, the scoop largely relied on publicly available records rather than clandestine contacts.
Chinese officials have denied that their government had any involvement in the hacking. But officials at The Times say this represents the first time a foreign government has sought to breach their computer systems or succeeded in doing so.
Mandiant's Richard Bejtlich.
BEJTLICH: But to see the resources of a country like China going after a respected news organization, I see that as an abuse of power and, really, just an extension of Chinese government's lack of respect for human rights and freedom of the press.
FOLKENFLIK: It's worth remembering that the Chinese Communist ruling party only opened up to the West and the outside world in 1979. But the journalist and author Orville Schell says, the notion of the role of the media has not changed.
ORVILLE SCHELL: This was a designation made very early in the '40s by Mao. And in a word, it is that the media should be the megaphone of the party and the state. And that sort of underlying principle continues to today. And it collides rather relentlessly with the notion that we are accustomed to in the West, that the media is an independent kind of watchdog.
FOLKENFLIK: Schell says this tension plays out every day for foreign correspondents operating in China. He says these journalists know what stories will lead to a crack down.
SCHELL: We always know what the reaction is going to be. I think it does, in certain ways, influence what you say, because you're calculating your ability in the future to continue doing what you do.
FOLKENFLIK: In this case, Lawrence Ingrassia of The New York Times says it was the right call, and the paper would make it again.
INGRASSIA: We don't be intimidated. We don't worry that they shut down access to our website. We continue doing it and we hope and fervently believe that at some point they recognize that, you know, their country, their citizens, will be better off with the free flow of information.
FOLKENFLIK: The Chinese seem unfazed. CNN says its transmission was blocked in the country today for six minutes - during a six-minute segment on the hacking of The New York Times.
David Folkenflik, NPR News.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
You may have heard already that Patty Andrews has died. She was the last surviving member of the hugely popular, 1940s trio, the Andrew Sisters.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BEI MIR BIST DU SCHOEN")
BLOCK: Well, we have a brief footnote to that news.
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It's an only-in-America tale of how three Minnesota sisters of Norwegian-Greek heritage came to have a huge hit with a Yiddish song. And it came to them by way of two African-American performers.
BLOCK: "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" was issued in 1937.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BEI MIR BIST DU SCHOEN")
SHERYL KASKOWITZ: Sholom Secunda wrote the song in 1932 for a Yiddish theater musical, called "I Would if I Could," with lyrics by Jacob Jacobs.
CORNISH: That's ethnomusicologist Sheryl Kaskowitz. She says the song lived on after the show closed. Jewish American hotel guests in New York's Catskill Mountains were taken by it.
BLOCK: And so was a black singing duo known as Johnny and George. They took "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" to the stage of the Apollo Theater in Harlem, performing it in the original Yiddish.
CORNISH: There, songwriter Sammy Cahn and Lou Levy heard it; loved it. They brought it to the attention of Decca Records, where the Andrews were just getting started.
KASKOWITZ: The Andrews Sisters were going to record it in Yiddish and they were, apparently, beginning to do that - to record it in Yiddish. And the story goes that the president of Decca, Jack Kapp, came rushing into the recording studio, telling them to stop and saying that he didn't want to make a race record, and that it needed to be in English.
BLOCK: Sammy Cahn quickly wrote English lyrics, and a gold record was born. "Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen" was a B side - the back of the record - featuring "Nice Work If You Can Get it," by George and Ira Gershwin. But that B side became the Andrews Sisters' first hit.
CORNISH: It did the original composer little good. Sholom Secunda had sold the tune for just 30 bucks, and he later reflected on that decision.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SHOLOM SECUNDA: I thought that $30 was a pretty good sum of money for a song that's not doing anyway. So I told her, give me the $30; here's the song.
CORNISH: In 1961, the copyright expired, and the rights reverted to Secunda and Jacobs.
BLOCK: They finally got more than $30 for the song that launched the phenomenal career of Patty Andrews and her two sisters.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BEI MIR BIST DU SCHOEN")
: (Singing) I could say bella, bella, even say wunderbar. Each language only helps me tell you how grand you are. I've tried to explain bei mir bist du schoen. So kiss me and say that you will understand.
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President Obama's nominee to lead the Pentagon spent the day getting grilled by his former colleagues in the Senate. Chuck Hagel is a Republican and President Obama picked him in part as a gesture to the GOP. But today's hearing did not feature a lot of bipartisan warmth. As NPR's Tom Bowman reports, it was Hagel's stellar Republicans who gave him the toughest time and forced him to defend his record.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Hagel got right to the point today, taking on the main arguments against him step by step in a carefully scripted statement. First, that he is not a strong enough friend of Israel. Hagel has been critical of that country's treatment of Palestinians and of pro-Israel lobbying groups.
CHUCK HAGEL: I will ensure our friend and ally, Israel, maintains its qualitative military edge in the region and will continue to support systems like Iron Dome, which is today saving Israeli lives from terrorist rocket attacks.
BOWMAN: Next, Pentagon spending. Hagel avoided what he said in the past, that the defense budget is bloated. Today, he was more diplomatic.
HAGEL: If confirmed, I am committed to effectively and efficiently using every single taxpayer's dollar the right way.
BOWMAN: Finally, that he is soft in Iran. His critics complained he voted against some sanctions when he was a senator and has favored negotiation rather than harsher tactics.
HAGEL: I am fully committed to the president's goal of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
BOWMAN: Hagel acknowledged that as a senator more than a decade ago, he voted against U.S.-only or unilateral sanctions on Iran rather than what he has called more effective sanctions that includes cooperation with allies.
HAGEL: Matter of fact, I recall the Bush administration did not want a renewal during that time because they weren't sure of the effectiveness of sanctions.
BOWMAN: That wasn't the only time Hagel looked for a lifeline from former Republican presidents. When pressed by Republican James Inhofe of Oklahoma about his calls for cuts in the U.S. nuclear arsenal, Hagel said he was not for unilateral cuts, and said Washington must take the lead and seek further reductions.
HAGEL: There was no more significant voice for that than Ronald Reagan. Paraphrasing President Reagan: We must eliminate nuclear warheads from the face of the Earth.
BOWMAN: Democrats today didn't so much defend Hagel on all these points, instead they wanted to focus on Hagel's military record and service in Vietnam. Here's Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island.
SENATOR JACK REED: There are very few people in this country with the experience as a combat infantryman, decorated and wounded, as someone who every day understands that the decisions we make will be carried out by young Americans.
BOWMAN: And Senator Bill Nelson of Florida.
SENATOR BILL NELSON: There are a few of us in this room that served in the military during the Vietnam era, and you clearly had that experience in combat.
BOWMAN: Experience that left him seriously wounded and the recipient of two Purple Hearts. Hagel easily parried with the Republicans today, until he faced Senator John McCain of Arizona. McCain questioned what he called the quality of Hagel's professional judgment. McCain supported the surge of troops in Iraq back in 2007, which helped tamped down violence there. Hagel opposed the surge.
SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN: You stand by that - those comments, Senator Hagel?
HAGEL: Well, Senator, I stand by them because I made them and...
MCCAIN: You stand by - were you right?
HAGEL: Well...
MCCAIN: Were you correct in your assessment?
HAGEL: Well, I would defer to the judgment of history to sort that out, but I'll...
MCCAIN: I think the committee deserves your judgment as to whether you were right or wrong about the surge.
BOWMAN: Hagel wouldn't answer. And he said the issue wasn't the surge, it was what he called the war of choice in Iraq.
HAGEL: Our war in Iraq, I think, was the most fundamentally bad, dangerous decision since Vietnam.
BOWMAN: Hagel has also been wary of the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, again citing Vietnam. Senator McCain asked Hagel if he supported President Obama's decision to surge forces in Afghanistan three years ago. Hagel said no. The question now is whether the Senate will say yes and confirm Hagel as the next secretary of defense. Tom Bowman, NPR News, Washington.
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Who should take over in Mali? That question is before the international community now that French and Malian government forces have retaken northern cities from Islamic insurgents. It's been three weeks since the French stepped in. Now they're looking for an exit, and getting out will not be as easy as dropping in.
The French have said it will be up to African forces to take over as they step back. But today, the French defense minister also endorsed the idea of a United Nations peacekeeping force. Here to talk more about the next step in Mali is Rudolph Atallah. He is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Africa Center. Welcome to the program.
RUDOLPH ATALLAH: Thank you.
CORNISH: Now, first, it appears that in the end, Islamic militants didn't put up that much of a fight. The French were able to make a lot of progress very quickly. But I've also read that people think that these militants may have retreated into the desert or into villages. So how big a concern is it that they'll just rebound once the French leave?
ATALLAH: I think it's a major concern, and the reason why is, from the time the militants took control of northern Mali in June of last year to the French intervention, they were prepping themselves for an insurgency war. So some of them have fled into the hills, into the northeast quadrant of Mali, some have fled probably across the border into Algeria, and some have gone westward towards Mauritania. So they're - they've atomized themselves in the region. Now as France draws down or pulls back and the African-led intervention force remains, we may see an uptick of insurgency-type operations against these forces.
CORNISH: You talked about African-led forces, but help us understand. In an African-led coalition, which countries are we talking about? What are some of the concerns there?
ATALLAH: The countries that'll be involved primarily would be West African countries, countries like Nigeria, Niger, Senegal, all contributors to Mali's intervention operation. In terms of ethnic tension, some of these countries like Niger or Chad have had some differences with ethnic groups from the north - in the case of Niger, like the Tuareg.
So anytime there's been a rebellion or a Tuareg uprising in Mali, shortly after there was one in Niger. So as these contributing countries go into Mali, there's got to be some concern taken over causing some additional flare-up or tension with the Tuareg that are in the north that see this as a threat.
CORNISH: So, today, it appears that there's talk at the United Nations of a broader U.N. peacekeeping force rather than just this African-led coalition. I mean, is that any better? We know that, of course, the French defense minister seemed to like it.
ATALLAH: Sure. And the reason why is he's looking for additional donor nations and funds for this operation so France can slowly pull out and take a more of a backseat role in the operations going forward. But the U.N. is very busy right now with other places to include Somalia, where they're seeing some successes. So it may be an uphill battle for France to kind of win that fight, but it may happen.
CORNISH: Can the French simply pull away from this? I mean, can they extricate themselves so simply?
ATALLAH: That's a great question. France has made it clear that they wanted three things. Number one was to protect their citizens in Mali and in the region. Number two, to push back the Islamists to the north. And number three, create enough space for the intervention force to come in and take over so they can slowly withdraw out.
But I think what's going to happen in the long term is, God forbid if there's any retaliation against the French, then that's going to draw the French further into the fight versus allowing them to pull out and stay out of the fray.
CORNISH: Rudolph Atallah is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Africa Center. Rudolph, thank you so much for talking with us.
ATALLAH: Thank you.
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Making a living in commercial fishing in the Northeast has gotten tougher with each passing year. Now, regulators have announced strict new limits on the amount of cod fishermen can haul in from Massachusetts to Maine. It's part of an effort to rebuild severely depleted fish stocks.
As Maine Public Radio's Jay Field reports, some fishermen worry the new restrictions may finally put them out of business for good.
JAY FIELD, BYLINE: In Port Clyde, on Maine's midcoast, boats named Day Star, Sinful, Amazing Grace and Yankee Pride sit in driveways on the road into this small fishing village. A driving wind turns the gray water off the town wharf into a tapestry of white caps that crest and break against the last five fishing trawlers left in the harbor.
GARY LIBBY: We're probably at the lowest level of ground fish boats that's ever been.
FIELD: Gary Libby, whose family owns three of the remaining five boats, sits in his pickup truck, near the wharf.
LIBBY: Back when I first fished, 30-plus years ago, most of the lobster boats put nets on in the spring and went fishing.
FIELD: Cod and other species of ground fish in the Gulf of Maine were plentiful, a seemingly endless bounty. In 1990, around 350 boats in Maine caught over 15 million pounds of cod alone. But as the years passed, overfishing caused stocks to decline. Regulators imposed stricter and stricter catch limits to prop up a fishery in freefall. By 2011, the 40 or so remaining fishing trawlers in Maine hauled in just 750,000 pounds of cod.
John Bullard is the top federal fisheries regulator at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
JOHN BULLARD: No young fish are being born and recruiting into the fishery, so the stock is not rebuilding. This is a real problem.
FIELD: And a serious enough one that Bullard says regulators have no choice but to take drastic action.
Yesterday, the New England Fisheries Management Council voted to cut the cod catch in the waters off Maine by 77 percent over the next two years. There was bad news, too, for fishermen in New Hampshire and in the Massachusetts fishing meccas of Gloucester and New Bedford. The catch along the George's Bank will drop by 61 percent. Bullard says the cuts are necessary to save the cod fishery over the long term.
BULLARD: And that's going to have a significant economic impact on fishermen, on their families and on fishing communities.
RANDY CUSHMAN: If I could find a job for 25, $30,000 a year with benefits, I'd walk away from this fishery tomorrow. I really would.
FIELD: I meet Randy Cushman in his basement, where he's fixing up a 100-foot long trawling net. In the winter, Cushman has to travel 75 miles out to sea to catch anything. The last few trips, he says, were money losers.
CUSHMAN: Right now, my wife and I are $1,000 in fuel negative. There's going to come a point that I'm going to need to put fuel in that boat, and the money is not going to be there, in other words.
FIELD: Cushman's boat is the collateral he used to get the mortgage on his house. Melanie Cushman is Randy's wife.
MELANIE CUSHMAN: I've got a lot of physical issues, and we have no insurance. We've worked hard all of our lives, and to be in this situation, it's beyond me.
FIELD: The Cushmans say they'll decide in the coming months whether to keep fishing or close up shop for good.
For NPR News, I'm Jay Field.