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Haiti Presidential Election Rescheduled For November

Haiti will hold the first round of its long-delayed presidential election on November 20, reports Reuters. The country's electoral council postponed the vote after Hurricane Matthew devastated the country last week. At least 500 people in Haiti died in the storm. Haiti's electoral council president Leopold Berlanger said, despite the storm damage, large portions of the population should be able to vote, according to Reuters. "We want to be able to organize elections in all regions for all citizens, especially at the presidential level," Berlanger told a news conference on Friday, according to the wire service. He said a second round runoff vote was scheduled for Jan. 29. As the Two-Way has reported, Haiti's presidential election has been postponed multiple times in the last year, and the country's interim president, Jocelerme Privert, has already outstayed his mandate to be in office. Here is a brief history of this year's election delays in Haiti, as we reported when last week's vote delay was announced: "According to the U.N., a first-round vote for president was held on Oct. 25, 2015. The U.S. spent $33 million to support the election, according to Kenneth Marten, the State Department's special coordinator for Haiti. ... "The second-round vote should have been held on Dec. 27, 2015, but it was delayed until January 2016, according to the U.N. The January election never happened... and on Feb. 7 the term of Haiti's president at the time, Michel Martelly, ended without an elected successor in place. The then-president of Haiti's Senate, Jocelerme Privert, took over as interim president. ... "Elections were rescheduled for Apr. 24. That day came and went without a vote." The vote had been rescheduled for Oct. 9, but Hurricane Matthew hit the island nation on Oct. 4.

Marine's Death Has Deep Impact on Ohio Town

Lance Cpl. Brett Wightman was one of 14 Marines killed in an Aug. 3 roadside bombing in northern Iraq. The 22-year-old Marine reservist's death touched many people in his hometown of Sabina, Ohio.

Goodbyes From Listeners: Amy Ignatow

Amy Ignatow has had her share of economic woes this year, but she's coming out on top. This week, she gets to say goodbye to her crummy old apartment and hello to a new life.

Supreme Court Takes Up Wal-Mart Bias Lawsuit

The largest sex discrimination lawsuit in U.S. history ran into a wall of doubt at the U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday. The class action lawsuit was filed against Wal-Mart 10 years ago on behalf of a half-dozen female workers and 1.5 million other women in similar situations. A federal judge, after hearing evidence, certified the class to proceed to trial, and Wal-Mart appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, contending that the case is simply too big to be handled in one fell swoop. Standing on the steps of the Supreme Court, Betty Dukes, the lead plaintiff, said Wal-Mart's appeal is an attempt to "keep us out of court so the facts will not be presented to the public at large or before a sitting jury." Those facts, say the plaintiffs, show that when the case was filed 10 years ago, women held two-thirds of the lowest-level hourly jobs and only one-third of the management jobs; and that women were paid on average $1.16 less per hour than men in the same jobs, despite having more seniority and higher performance ratings. Wal-Mart, however, hotly disputes those statistics, contending that there is no pay difference between men and women at 90 percent of its stores. And the company points to what it repeatedly calls its "strong policy" against discrimination. A Difference In Perception Those themes played out at the oral argument on Tuesday, where there was a clear difference between the perceptions of the three female justices and the six male justices. Yet even the women seemed to have reservations about how such a large employment discrimination case could be handled. When Wal-Mart's lawyer Theodore Boutrous contended that the lawsuit was unjustified in view of the company's clear policy against discrimination, the female justices put that argument to the test. If a company "gets reports month after month showing that women are disproportionately passed over for promotion, and there is a pay gap between men and women doing the same job," asked Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, "isn't there some responsibility on the company to say: Is gender discrimination at work? And if it is, isn't there an obligation to stop it?" Boutrous replied that the plaintiffs in this case had just "added up" all the statistics, some of which "mirror" national statistics. But Justice Sonia Sotomayor seemed to reject that assertion: "I thought their expert ... found that the disparity was significantly much higher than the 10 competitors of Wal-Mart." Ultimately, Wal-Mart may win, said Sotomayor, but the district court here found there was enough evidence to proceed to trial. So, "what's the standard that the court should use in upsetting that factual conclusion?" she asked. Boutrous responded that the plaintiffs had failed to point to any policy that applied to all the plaintiffs and resulted in discrimination. "I don't think that's quite fair," interjected Justice Elena Kagan. "I think their argument was that the common policy was one of complete subjectivity ... that allowed gender discrimination to come into all employment decisions." Justice Ginsburg picked up that thread, noting that in the 1970s, women employees won a class action against AT&T after showing that women scored competitively for promotion on objective tests but disproportionately flunked the final and subjective "total person" test, largely because "all other things being equal, decision-makers tend to prefer people like themselves." Said Ginsburg: "This sounds quite similar." 'Getting Whipsawed' If the female justices seemed to dominate for the first half of the argument, the reverse was true in the second half, when Joseph Sellers, representing the female plaintiffs, stepped to the lectern. "Is it true that Wal-Mart's pay disparity across the company was less than the national average?" asked Chief Justice John Roberts. Sellers responded that the relevant comparison is between the pay for men and women at Wal-Mart, rather than between Wal-Mart and the general population. Justice Anthony Kennedy: "It's not clear to me: What is the unlawful policy that Wal-Mart has adopted?" Sellers said the policy was that Wal-Mart provided its managers with unchecked discretion. "Your complaint faces in two directions," opined Kennedy. "No. 1, you said this is a culture where ... the headquarters knows everything that's going on. Then in the next breath, you say ... these supervisors have too much discretion. It seems to me there's an inconsistency there." Justice Antonin Scalia chimed in: "I'm getting whipsawed here." Sellers noted that a top Wal-Mart vice president had testified that the anti-discrimination policy was little more than lip service. And he pointed to training sessions for managers, where the standard reply as to why there are so few women in management is that men "are more aggressive in seeking advancement." Scalia discounted this last piece of evidence, suggesting that all the company was saying was, "if you have an aggressive woman, promote her." Determining

These Are The 21 People Receiving The Nation's Highest Civilian Honor

President Obama has announced the last group of people to whom he will award the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor. The group of 21 luminaries includes athletes Michael Jordan and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, musicians Diana Ross and Bruce Springsteen and actors Robert De Niro, Tom Hanks, Robert Redford and Cicely Tyson. The group also honors inspiring people who may not be household names, such as Native American community leader and advocate Elouise Cobell and computer code pioneer Grace Hopper, both of whom are deceased. "The Presidential Medal of Freedom is not just our nation's highest civilian honor — it's a tribute to the idea that all of us, no matter where we come from, have the opportunity to change this country for the better," Obama said. "From scientists, philanthropists, and public servants to activists, athletes and artists, these 21 individuals have helped push America forward, inspiring millions of people around the world along the way." Honorees also include comedian Ellen DeGeneres, philanthropists Bill and Melinda Gates, artist Maya Lin, architect Frank Gehry, legendary broadcaster Vin Scully and Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels. They will receive the medals at a ceremony at the White House on Nov. 22, and it will be streamed live. Obama has previously said the annual event is one of his favorites. Here's how the White House describes the 21 people who will receive the award, and their accomplishments: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is the National Basketball Association's all-time leading scorer who helped lead the Los Angeles Lakers to five championships and the Milwaukee Bucks to another. During his career, Abdul-Jabbar was a six-time NBA Most Valuable Player and a 19-time NBA All-Star. Before joining the NBA, he was a star player at UCLA, leading the Bruins to three consecutive championships. In addition to his legendary basketball career, Abdul-Jabbar has been an outspoken advocate for social justice. Elouise Cobell (posthumous) Elouise Cobell was a Blackfeet Tribal community leader and an advocate for Native American self-determination and financial independence. She used her expertise in accounting to champion a lawsuit that resulted in a historic settlement, restoring tribal homelands to her beloved Blackfeet Nation and many other tribes, and in so doing, inspired a new generation of Native Americans to fight for the rights of others. Cobell helped found the Native American Bank, served as director of the Native American Community Development Corporation, and inspired Native American women to seek leadership roles in their communities. Ellen DeGeneres Ellen DeGeneres is an award-winning comedian who has hosted her popular daytime talk show, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, since 2003 with her trademarked humor, humility, and optimism. In 2003 Ellen lent her voice to a forgetful but unforgettable little fish named Dory in Finding Nemo. She reprised her role again in 2016 with the hugely successful Finding Dory. Ellen also hosted the Academy Awards twice, in 2007 and 2014. In 1997, after coming out herself, DeGeneres made TV history when her character on Ellen revealed she was a lesbian. In her work and in her life, she has been a passionate advocate for equality and fairness. Robert De Niro Robert De Niro has brought to life some of the most memorable roles in American film during a career that spans five decades. His first major film roles were in the sports drama Bang the Drum Slowly and Martin Scorsese's crime film Mean Streets. He is a seven-time Academy Award nominee and two-time Oscar winner, and is also a Kennedy Center honoree. Richard Garwin Richard Garwin is a polymath physicist who earned a Ph.D. under Enrico Fermi at age 21 and subsequently made pioneering contributions to U.S. defense and intelligence technologies, low-temperature and nuclear physics, detection of gravitational radiation, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computer systems, laser printing, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. He directed Applied Research at IBM's Thomas J. Watson Research Center and taught at the University of Chicago, Columbia University, and Harvard University. The author of 500 technical papers and a winner of the National Medal of Science, Garwin holds 47 U.S. patents, and has advised numerous administrations. Bill and Melinda Gates Bill and Melinda Gates established the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000 to help all people lead healthy, productive lives. In developing countries, the foundation focuses on improving people's health and giving them the chance to lift themselves out of hunger and extreme poverty. In the United States, the mission is to ensure that all people—especially those with the fewest resources—have access to the opportunities they need to succeed in school and life. The Gates Foundation has provided more than $36 billion in grants since its inception. Frank Gehry Frank Gehry is one of the world's

Cherokee Nation Takes Drug Distributors To Tribal Court

As the nation’s opioid addiction and overdose crisis grows, the Cherokee Nation is launching the first-ever lawsuit against drug distributors that will be litigated in a tribal court. The suit takes on companies including pharmacies CVS Health, Walgreens and Wal-Mart, and drug distributors Cardinal Health, Inc. and McKesson Corporation, alleging that they didn’t properly monitor prescription painkillers, which eventually “flooded” every Cherokee county. Here & Now‘s Robin Young talks with Cherokee Nation Attorney General Todd Hembree (@toddhembree) about the lawsuit and about the toll of addiction in the Cherokee Nation. Interview Highlights On what laws the suit is based on “The laws that we are basing this on are the statutes of the Cherokee Nation itself. We have the Fair Practices Act — and it’s an act that is in several states and other jurisdictions — that what you put into the stream of commerce is not deceptive, not fraudulent. We have a nuisance and negligence civil conspiracy. One thing about the Cherokee Nation is that we have a very sophisticated court system, and I would say it is the best tribal court system in the nation, on par with any state that you could come across. We look forward to bringing this case in the Cherokee Nation as an act of our sovereignty and as an example of good due process that the Cherokee Nation provides. “We feel that the defendants have violated federal law with impunity. They regularly pay multi-million dollar fines as if they were parking tickets, and we intend to try to curb that action to change the culture here. And the best way that we feel that we can do that and protect our citizens is through this lawsuit.” On where the lawsuit alleges distributors and retailers are failing to uphold their responsibility “Each part of the system has specific duties and responsibilities. The doctors have the responsibility to write good prescriptions and not overprescribe. The retailers have the duty to point out suspicious prescriptions. The distributors have the duty to not oversupply a particular area. And the retailers and distributors have breached that duty. It’s sort of like if I owned a dam and I opened up the floodgates, I could reasonably expect people downstream to be flooded. And it doesn’t relieve you of any liability just to say, ‘Well, it’s not my fault. All I did was open the floodgates.’ So we intend to be able to prove that these distributors and retailers willingly opened these floodgates.” Array On how opioid addiction is affecting Cherokee communities “There’s not one aspect of our communities that opioids have not caused damage to. We see it in the health care that we have to provide, the additional expenditures in addiction and other related health matters that come on with that. We see it in our broken families with their increased Indian Child Welfare cases. With children being born addicted and parents being addicted that we have to put children in foster care. We see it in law enforcement cost. Every aspect of the nation is affected, but particularly our youth. We see a huge increase in addiction in Cherokee Nation youth. And it’s been said that the youth may be a quarter of your population but it’s 100 percent of your future. So we have to make great efforts to ensure that we don’t lose a generation here.” On why he thinks the opioid crisis is hitting so hard in Oklahoma and the Cherokee Nation “Well, Native Americans have a propensity to addiction twice that of the general population. We are an area that is not well-developed economically. The Cherokee Nation, as a community, has gone through generations of trauma. And that has, I believe, contributed to the propensity for addiction. So I do believe that, for a variety of reasons, and the statistics show this out, that it has hit Native American communities particularly hard, specifically the Cherokee Nation.” On the goals of this lawsuit “Well when we began this lawsuit, obviously, you know, we talked about money. But the goal of our lawsuit, from the inception of it, is to attempt to change the behavior of these corporations. And, as an attorney general, I can say that there’s two main ways that you can change a person’s behavior. No. 1 is put them in jail, which we can’t do in this instance. But, the second is to hit their bottom line hard enough that they rethink their actions. They have flooded their product — their dangerous product — to our communities here at the Cherokee Nation, so they shouldn’t be surprised that they find themselves in our courts.” Statements From Defendants Walgreens: Walgreens has declined comment. CVS Health: CVS Health is committed to the highest standards of ethics and business practices, including complying with all federal and state laws governing the dispensing of control

NPR: 11-08-2011 Fresh Air

Stories: 1) How Dogs Evolved Into 'Our Best Friends' 2) James Wolcott: 'Lucking Out' In 1970s New York

South Sudan Struggles 1 Year After Independence

One year ago, South Sudan declared its independence from Sudan. Since then, there have been tribal clashes in several areas of the new nation, and in April, there was a brief border war with Sudan.

'Pioneer Recording Bands 1917-1920'

Jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews <em>Pioneer Recording Bands 1917-1920</em>, a new collection of jazz recorded before 1920 by the Original Dixieland Jazz Band and the Earl Fuller Orchestra.

What It's Like To Be An Evacuee From Creek Fire

A few evacuees from California's massive Creek Fire are being allowed to return to their homes to assess the damage, but they need to be ready to leave again at any moment.

Murdoch Offers Record Amount for Triplex

News mogul Rupert Murdoch pays a record-setting $44 million for a three-story Fifth Avenue penthouse in Manhattan formerly inhabited by the late Laurance Rockefeller. NPR's Robert Smith reports.

Factory Output Flat Again In June

There was no change in output at the nation's manufacturers last month, the Federal Reserve just reported. A flat June followed a scant 0.1 percent increase in May and a 0.5 percent decline in output in April, the Fed adds. Another sign of sogginess in the factory sector: previously, the Fed had estimated that production rose 0.4 percent in May from April. The new estimate — of that 0.1 percent rise — marks a significant downward revision. Reuters says manufacturing is still being dragged down in part by "supply disruptions in the auto sector" after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Irish author, RODDY DOYLE, winner of the 1993 Booker Prize for his novel "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha H...

Irish author, RODDY DOYLE, winner of the 1993 Booker Prize for his novel "Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha" (Viking). Doyle taught school in Dublin for fourteen years; during that time he wrote and self-published his first novel, "The Commitments" about a band of musicians who bring soul music to Dublin. (It was made into a popular film here). Doyle's other novels include "The Snapper" (soon to be a film) and "The Van", all fictions which take place in a rough and tumble neighborhood of Dublin, and whose slang-filled dialogue has been hailed for its authenticity

All About The Baseline

The U.S. government has released more information about the stress tests it'll be preforming on the banking system in the coming weeks. The tests will measure a bank's situation against a pair of economic scenarios for the end of 2010 -- "baseline" and "more adverse" -- to see whether it can survive. In the baseline scenario, the economy is growing at 2.1 percent, unemployment's at 8.8 percent, and housing prices have fallen 4 percent from the end of 2009. In the adverse scenario, those numbers are .5, 10.3 and -7. Read More >> Which brings us to Simon Johnson, of Baseline Scenario. Johnson writes that the government's plan allows regulators to know the outcome of the stress tests already -- unless, somehow, its projections don't pan out. Johnson asks: How exactly do we get growth over 2 percent in 2010 (and after)? The global economy is getting worse, consumer and business confidence is weak everywhere (tell me if you know different). There is no sign of housing turning around, consumers are cutting back, and large organizations are all planning to trim costs for the next financial year. Our policy response so far: moderate fiscal stimulus, underfunded housing policy, and small potatoes for the banking system.

Paramount to Acquire DreamWorks Studio

Paramount Pictures will buy independent film studio DreamWorks SKG in a cash-and-debt deal worth more than $1.5 billion. It plans to sell a 59-film library, but keep the studio. DreamWorks' animation unit is not a part of the deal.

Excerpt: 'A Healing Touch: True Stories of Life, Death, and Hospice'

'You Know Who You Are' I met Lee Duff over a decade ago at a place called Champions when I was teaching at Colby College in Waterville. There were no champions at Champions, at least none I recall, but there were some pretty fair racquetball players. Lee was one, I another. Lee's game was a lot like Lee: pragmatic, resourceful, buoyantly optimistic. Beat him fifteen to two in the first game of the match and he'll take the ball, stride to the service line, point his racket at you and say, "Your ass is mine." Then, having served notice, he serves the ball, and if you're not ready, too damn bad. The last thing he wants is for you to savor your victory. There's work to be done and he's just the man to do it. When he gets the lead, he announces the score as if through a bullhorn, an unsubtle reminder of whose property your ass is (not yours). To his way of thinking, the fact that I'm fifteen years his junior is a minor inconvenience. He's beaten me before, so why not again? His joy in what transpires on that court, win or lose, is bounded only by its walls. "Trombones!" he bellows, when he goes ahead seven to six. I'd been playing with him a good month before I caught on to that particular allusion (76 Trombones, get it? get it?). It was clear from the start that we both derived the same benefit from sport in general, and racquetball in particular. "It drains the poison," was the way Lee liked to put it, and I knew just what he meant. As a writer and teacher, I spent most of my time living in my head and trying to get my students to live in theirs, or to at least visit those heads now and then. Lee spent much of his time suffering fools, something he didn't do gladly but was part of his unofficial job description as superintendent of schools in nearby China/Vassalboro/Winslow. In the winter (half the school year in central Maine) when snow was a possibility (often), his day began at four in the morning, by which time he had to be up listening to the weather service reports in order to decide whether circumstances warranted canceling school. Canceling and not canceling it got him pretty much the same reward, a torrent of abuse from parents, teachers, and bus drivers. When school got out, there'd be a different set of challenges: budget meetings, policy meetings, parent group meetings, individual parent meetings, school board meetings, disciplinary meetings (of both the student and teacher variety). As an academic, I knew all about meetings, and knew that Lee had it far worse than I did. In the middle of the day, though, three days a week, there was the oasis of racquetball, a quick, furious, very physical sport that demands concentration and anticipation. If you don't anticipate your opponent's forehand, for instance, and step in front of his shot, the ball will raise a welt the size of a small orange on your tender backside. It hurts like hell, but it's pleasurable indeed compared to an irate parent explaining why you're a moron for canceling school on a day when it didn't snow as much as predicted. Sympathy—Lee likes to remind me, is located in the dictionary between shit and syphilis. Lee grew up on a dairy and potato farm near Houlton, Maine, the ninth of ten siblings, facts that go a long way toward explaining his pragmatism, if not his optimism. I don't know where the latter comes from, and I doubt Lee does either. New England is not known for begetting optimists, and northern Maine's shallow, hardscrabble soil and long, bitter winters are more likely to make you a Calvinist or a Red Sox fan or, tragically, both. When Lee was seven, he already had adult responsibilities on the farm. Three of his older brothers and one sister were serving overseas in the Second World War, which meant that much of their work fell to him. Even at that young age, he worked six days a week. Up at the crack of dawn or before, he had to milk the cows before school started, and after school there were endless homework-preventing chores. He attended a one-room school that housed kindergarten through eighth grade, and like most farm kids, he lost two or three weeks every autumn to the harvest and another two or three in the spring to planting. All of which explains why Lee, despite having a genuinely curious mind and lively intellect, was a mediocre student. He tells a story that goes a long way toward explaining the kind of man he would later become. When he was ten, one of his many jobs was driving the tractor, and one particular autumn found him harrowing a field long after dark. It was bitter cold, frightening work for a kid, all alone on a tractor, traveling over unlevel terrain. The tractor's headlamp shone off into black woods that surrounded the sloping field on three sides, occasionally locating bright eyes among the trees. A cat's eyes? A dog's? A deer's? A bear's? No, probably not a bear's, but maybe. If it was a bear, could he outrun it? No. Even trying would risk death or dismemberment. You don't jump down from a tractor

READ: President Trump's Letter To Governors On New Coronavirus Guidelines

President Trump said in a letter to U.S. governors on Thursday that his administration is working to publish new guidelines for state and local governments to use when making decisions about "maintaining, increasing or relaxing social distancing and other mitigation measures" for the coronavirus epidemic. Trump said officials are gathering testing data that will suggest guidelines categorizing counties as "high risk, medium risk or low risk" for the virus. The data will drive "the next phase" of the response, he said. Trump has indicated that he wants to adjust his 15-day social distancing guidelines so that more parts of the stalled U.S. economy can reopen by April 12. The 15th day of the original guidelines is Monday. Read the full letter below, or click here: Trump's new letter echoes recent comments about the use of data made by his top advisers in recent days. On Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health, told the White House briefing that testing "has really changed the complexion of the approach that we're going to be able to take." Fauci told NPR's Noel King on Morning Edition on Thursday that the increased testing could help parts of the country not experiencing mass outbreaks to identify, test, trace and isolate cases. "We are quickly getting to the point where we will be able to get that data," Fauci said. But he acknowledged that more testing is still needed. "To be honest, we don't have all that data now uniformly throughout the country to make those determinations. But that's a major, primary goal that we have right now, is to get those data, because you have to make informed decisions and your decisions are informed by the information you have," he said. Trump held a videoconference call with governors on Thursday, and the White House is slated to give a briefing on the virus at 5 p.m. ET.

Russia Sees Staggering Income Inequality

In Russia today, 110 billionaires hold 35 percent of the nation's wealth. Host Arun Rath talks with the <em>Wall Street Journal</em>'s Lukas Alpert about this post-Soviet phenomenon.

'Lore': After Hitler, An Awakening For The Reich's Children

It took years for our fictions to consider the Holocaust narrative. And for an even longer time, a stunned silence hovered over the fate of "Hitler's children" — ordinary Germans during and after World War II. That embargo, too, is lifting, with a significant trickle of novels, movies and television dramas that imagine what it felt like to be the inheritors of the worst that humans can do to other humans. Lore, a new film by writer-director Cate Shortland (Somersault), is based on The Dark Room, a novel by Rachel Seiffert about the dilemmas faced by children of Nazis or Nazi collaborators. But Seiffert, who lives in England, drew sympathetically on her German grandmother's experiences in the immediate aftermath of World War II; Shortland, who's Australian, directs a less forgiving gaze on the eponymous teenage girl trying to steer her four younger siblings through a ravaged Germany in 1945. Abruptly separated from her Nazi parents when they are imprisoned after the German surrender, Lore (Saskia Rosendahl) gathers up her sister, her twin brothers and the family's new baby. Armed with little more than a fistful of her mother's jewelry, Lore struggles to make her way through a countryside in free fall, arbitrarily carved up into three zones by the Americans, the Russians and the British. The landscape they travel is lush and green — and littered with flyblown corpses, gutted ruins and temporary shelters overwhelmed by displaced refugees scrabbling for food, clothing and somewhere to sleep. Like Lore, they have little left to cling to but tattered illusions and their desperate efforts to explain away the damning photographs of emaciated Jewish bodies posted in plain sight by the Americans. Trying to shore up her belief in "the final victory" promised by her adored father (Hans-Jochen Wagner) and the Fuhrer himself, Lore encounters a bewildering mix of hostility, indifference and grudging kindness from her fellow casualties. Brutal barter is the order of the day, and when Thomas (Kai Malina) — an enigmatic young stranger carrying the papers of a Jew from the Buchenwald concentration camp — attaches himself to the bedraggled family, Lore finds herself caught between the reflexive anti-Semitism in which she's been schooled and the need for a protector to help ferry her siblings to safety at their grandmother's house in Hamburg. A twisted bond grows between Lore and Thomas, at once fragile and infused with a warped sexuality that's not in the original novel, compromised from one minute to the next by the possibility of abandonment or betrayal. Shortland's camera creates a world that's shockingly fractured, shot at weird angles and pocked with truncated body parts, heads hanging upside down and undefined realities filled with quiet dread. Never mind that we already know what Lore can't permit herself to discover: We see what she sees, and begin to comprehend as she does when no further denial is possible. Trying to make sense of this chaotic universe, Lore is filled with despair, not least at the small atrocities that she and Thomas are forced by their circumstances to commit. She knows; she doesn't know; and it's not until she and her depleted family reach the seeming haven of her grandmother's home that Lore gives vent to pent-up rage. Only now her anger is directed at its deserving source — the fallen idols she must now acknowledge as criminals. Unlike Seiffert's novel, Shortland's film ends in a minor orgy of destruction visited upon a sentimental symbol of Lore's shattered harmony. The climax Shortland offers us is much harder to take than Seiffert's gentler vision, yet far more evocative of the bitter price paid by the children of the Third Reich for the sins of their parents. One longs to know what becomes of Lore and her unenviable cohort. Here's some Monday-morning quarterbacking: Project Seiffert's Lore into her country's political future, and she's the equivocal voice of German social democracy — cautious, placatory, inclined to see all sides of the question. Pay Shortland's Lore forward, and she's running the Baader-Meinhof gang. (Recommended)

Songs We Love: José James, 'Better Off Dead'

José James, the eclectic, groove-minded jazz singer, has made no secret of his fondness for Bill Withers. There's a medley that James has been singing in concert for years, linking Withers' despondent anthem "Ain't No Sunshine" with an upturning grace note, "Grandma's Hands." Gradually a few other Withers classics, like "Just The Two Of Us," found their way into that medley, to an extravagant crowd response. Something about the mix of down-home truth-telling and elegant concision in Withers' songs was a natural fit for James, whose voice occupies a similar register, and whose profile has likewise cut across several subcategories of black music. So now James is making it official, announcing a new tour, "Lean On Me: José James Celebrates Bill Withers," that will culminate in a vinyl album next year. His band, made up of serious jazz musicians — Sullivan Fortner on keyboards, Brad Allen Williams on guitar, Ben Williams on bass and Nate Smith on drums — backs him in this video performance of "Better Off Dead." Withers, whose 80th birthday falls next year, never shied away from difficult subjects as a songwriter. His fans know "Better Off Dead" as the closing track of his landmark 1971 album Just As I Am. The song is a suicide note in verse form, left by an alcoholic despairing that his wife has deserted with their children. (The track ends with a gunshot.) The bleak pathos of the tune is tempered in this arrangement, which James bends into a funk jam: reshaping the contour and cadence of the melody, "remixing" his own phrases in real time. True to form, there's even a quotation of "Ain't No Sunshine" during an extended outro tag. The video was filmed at the Schott NYC factory, which explains the rack of motorcycle jackets at one end of the frame. Along with James' in-the-pocket vocal delivery, it's an effective showcase for the band. Fortner's Fender Rhodes solo is a study in churchly soul, and Smith delivers the same magnetic presence he brought to a recent Tiny Desk Concert. "Lean On Me: José James Celebrates Bill Withers" will have its premiere during the 2018 NYC Winter Jazzfest, on Jan. 11 at Le Poisson Rouge. For tour dates, visit josejamesmusic.com.

Electronic Music's Godfather Isn't Done Innovating

Morton Subotnick could fairly be called electronic music's first hitmaker. His 1967 album Silver Apples of the Moon was an international sensation. Or, in his words, "It was like a bombshell." Silver Apples was the first piece of electronic music commissioned by a record label and was created on the first synthesizer small enough to sit on a table. Subotnick's Greenwich Village workspace became a drop-in spot for musicians from The Mothers of Invention to The Grateful Dead to The Velvet Underground. One night, unfamiliar visitors arrived. "Some [club owners] came in and said, 'We just bought the name Electric Circus. We don't know exactly what it is, but we were told if anyone knows, you would know.' So I gave them a demonstration of an electric circus. They made me the director," Subotnick says. As that Manhattan nightclub's artistic director, Subotnick gave birth to electronic dance music. He says opening night at the Electric Circus was a big event. "[Japanese conductor] Seiji Ozawa came down; members of the Kennedy family were there," Subotnick says. "I played about a half-hour's worth of material starting with a heartbeat. ... It wasn't a beat that you would usually use in rock 'n' roll, but it was a strong pulse, and that's all they needed. And they ended up dancing to it." Subotnick's interest in new sounds goes back a long way. As a child prodigy in 1950s Los Angeles, playing clarinet with symphony orchestras, he sensed that something new was brewing. The miniaturization that led to things like the transistor radio meant you no longer needed a room full of equipment to make electronic sounds. Subotnick and Ramon Sender, his partner in the San Francisco Tape Center (a nonprofit dedicated to tape music), collaborated with electronics engineer Donald Buchla to develop the first compact analog electronic synthesizer. Their goal was to turn people's living rooms into concert halls. "What I loved about it was I could be in my studio and be the composer, the interpreter, the performer and the listener," Subotnick says. "It would be like being a painter. I could make my music until I really loved it, just perfect — and then it would become a record and go into someone's home. For me, it wasn't recording something; it was creating something new for that medium." Subotnick's interests in music and technology didn't end with the synthesizer: He's moved on into digital media and its interactive possibilities. In 1995, he released a CD-ROM titled Making Music for kids, ages 5 and up, to experiment with sounds on the computer. It sold in the hundreds of thousands. Early last year, he released an iPad app called Pitch Painter, which allows even very small children to "compose" by selecting instruments from different cultures and drawing on the screen. Subotnick says he believes the making of music can and should be easy and accessible. Even before Pitch Painter became an iPad app, a prototype was installed at the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, where it still delights student groups. Now 80, Subotnick says his goal has always been the same. "What we could do, what we could feel, what we could create, what we could imagine that was unimaginable before, or not easily imaginable before," he says. "Not just making music with technology, but trying to have it deliver new ideas and new feelings and new ways to think about things." When we have access to technology more compact, fluid and flexible than what we've got now, he'll get to work on that, too. SCOTT SIMON, HOST: One of the earliest composers to use computers to manipulate sound was Morton Subotnick. He celebrated his 80th birthday this year. He is one of the fathers of electronic dance music, and now he dedicates himself to projects making music and technology more accessible. Howard Mandel reports. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) HOWARD MANDEL, BYLINE: Morton Subotnick was the first hit-maker of electronic music - his 1967 album, "Silver Apples of the Moon," was an international sensation. MORTON SUBOTNICK: It was like a bombshell. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) MANDEL: It was the first piece of electronic music commissioned by a record label and created on the first synthesizer small enough to sit on a table. Subotnick's Greenwich Village workspace became a drop-in spot for musicians from the Mothers of Invention to the Grateful Dead to the Velvet Underground. One night, unfamiliar visitors arrived. SUBOTNICK: Some guys came in and said we just bought the name Electric Circus. We don't know exactly what it is but we were told if anyone knows, you would know. So I gave them a demonstration of an electric circus. They made me the director. MANDEL: And in the club, Subotnick gave birth to electronic dance music. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) SUBOTNICK: Opening night Seiji Ozawa came down, members of the Kennedy family were there. It was a big event. And I played about half hour's worth of material starting with a heartbeat - sort of big, down the floor vibrating. And then

Double Take 'Toons: New Monopoly Piece?

Hasbro announced it's replacing one of the oldest Monopoly pieces — the iron — with a cat. Steve Kelley is not feline good about the choice, while Nick Anderson reminded us back in 2008 that the financial game is still being played in the same old way.

Technology of War: Dramatic Improvements in 12 Years

Advances in precision weaponry since the 1991 Gulf War are beginning to show an effect in the current campaign. Satellite navigation helps U.S. forces accurately drop bombs on targets regardless of smoke, bad weather, and cloud cover. And microwave weapons are capable of blocking communications networks, although there's no evidence those are in use yet. Hear NPR's Lynn Neary and Robert Hewson, editor of <EM>Jane's Air-Launched Weapons</EM>.

The Joy Of Ella Fitzgerald's Accessible Elegance

Nana had a big wooden box of a television in the corner of her apartment along Van Aken Boulevard in Cleveland, Ohio, known as "the Widow's Block." Brick with plenty of sunlight, there were four or five buildings of 100 or so units that housed most of our grandmothers after their husbands passed in the late '60s, '70s and even '80s. Close to the places the elegant women knew – church, grocery, movie theater, drug store, Chinese restaurant and confectionary – they played bridge, hosted dinners and maintained their friendships. But even with that, few things tickled Nana more than when Ella Fitzgerald appeared on that chunky tube encased in heavy mahogany. With creamy perfection, the woman known as "The First Lady of Song" would bop, scat and sing. Cole Porter, Duke Ellington, Rodgers & Hart and Gershwin — alongside current hits — were the milieu of a woman who won her first Grammy Award the very first time they were given out. Those classics played as Marguerite Shannon Gleason fell in love, lived, married, raised two boys and buried a husband too young. Even more than the songs, though, Nana thrilled to see what the bespectacled songstress was wearing. Having always dressed for church in matching pastel coats and short-sleeved dresses, pocketbook in the crook of her arm, Nana didn't let her fashion sense slip because she was getting along in years – and was built more like the massive TV set in the front corner. In a time of Yves Saint Laurent gypsy dazzle, Christian Dior silhouettes and Bob Mackie's disco sizzle, there wasn't a lane for those whose bodies were miles from wide-eyed Brit supermodels like Twiggy or Chrissie Shrimpton. With First Lady Jackie Kennedy establishing high French style via Chanel, Balenciaga and Givenchy as a foundation of chic, plus Americans Oleg Cassini and Lilly Pulitzer, fashion seemed a bit beyond what many mere Midwestern mortals could pull off. Then came Diane Von Furstenberg's curve-clinging wrap dresses, which landed her on the cover of Newsweek in 1976 — and another unreachable design plateau beckoned. But if '70s fashion was about the body, Ella's success — and unstoppable joie de vivre — allowed her access to whatever made her happy. Feathers, sequins, chiffons, it was body consciousness in a succulent, fun way that gave license to me and my Nana to "have fun" with our clothes, love them like she did and watch the world fall in step. A large woman who'd grown up rough, Fitzgerald spent time in a New York State reformatory after the death of her mother, which had left her in the care of a stepfather who most biographers suspect was abusive, and then an aunt who struggled to support her. Painfully realizing beauty eases the way, she struggled in her shabby clothes, often dancing on street corners, running numbers and somehow getting by. When she won the Amateur Talent Night at Harlem's Apollo Theater in 1934, bringing down the house singing Hoagy Carmichael's "Judy," big-band leader Fletcher Henderson still declined to hire her. Even bandleader Chick Webb, who himself had a spinal deformity that put his looks outside the accepted norm, was reticent. In The New York Times' 1996 "Ella In Wonderland," Margo Jefferson posits: "Too ugly, said the band leader with the tubercular spine... Was he afraid the sight of two plain people onstage, one malformed, the other dowdy and gawky, presumed too much on the goodwill of his audience?" When your dream depends on looks, that knowledge scalds. Determined once she got her break to not look back, Fitzgerald recognized she didn't possess Billie Holiday's torchy allure, Eartha Kitt's feral sensuality or Carmen McRae's sex appeal. But that wouldn't stop the woman who took her vocal cues from the horns, as well as from jazz singer Connee Boswell. "I used to be very self-conscious. I used to wish I was pretty. My cousin Georgia always taught me that if you smile, people will like you," she was quoted in an appreciation The International Business Times published on the 101st anniversary of her birth. "Sometimes people will say something you don't like, and you get angry a bit, but you just smile. You let it go by, even if you really would like to choke 'em. By smiling, I think I've made more friends than if I was the other way." Her smile was delightful. It invited you in, made you want to listen. It didn't hurt that as her momentum with Webb's orchestra increased, she co-wrote and recorded "A-Tisket, A-Tasket," based on the children's nursery rhyme. In 1942, she sang her sunny breakthrough hit in Abbott & Costello's Ride' Em Cowboy. Though lacking funds for glamour, she wears a broad-brimmed hat that turns back from her glossy, high-wave bouffant. Her camel coat — with a clutch of fabric flowers on the notched lapel — falls open, revealing a draped suit with large buttons and a lace collar. And yes, that smile. Irrepressible and friendly, like the song. She could be any of us. By the time I was old enough to share Ella with my grandmothe

Inoculation Of 2nd Doses Of COVID-19 Vaccine Began This Week

It's now time for people in the U.S. who received the first doses of a coronavirus vaccine to start receiving the second dose. Orchestrating this two-shot vaccine is not as simple as it might seem.

How The 'Partisan Mind' Changes The National Debate

This lame-duck session of Congress has been marked by arguments over tax cuts, unemployment benefits, arms limitation and "Don't Ask Don't Tell" that seem to fall along partisan lines. But this week, <em>New York Times</em> columnist Ross Douthat wrote that there are some other significant issues on which the partisan divide has seemed to change. Host Scott Simon talks with Douthat about his latest op-ed, "The Partisan Mind."

On Death Penalty For Boston Bomber, Survivors Have Mixed Feelings

The Boston Marathon bombing trial now moves into the second phase. Yesterday, the jury found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty of all 30 charges against him. Early next week, the same jurors return to federal court to decide Tsarnaev&#8217;s fate: either life in prison without parole, or the death penalty. The people most affected by the Boston Marathon bombings say that for them, the conviction is another step towards closure. But as Jack Lepiarz from Here & Now contributor WBUR reports, survivors of the attack say they have mixed feelings on whether Tsarnaev should be put to death. Read more on this story via WBUR Reporter Jack Lepiarz, reporter for WBUR in Boston. He tweets @Lepiarz. RelatedThe 30 Charges And Verdicts Against Dzhokhar TsarnaevHere & Now's full coverage of the trial'Finish Line' Podcast: Inside The Boston Marathon Bombing Trial

From A June Performance

From a June performance at the University of Maryland, the National Orchestral Institute Brass and Percussion Ensemble offers up Dances from "The Danserye" by 16th-century composer Thielman Susato (TEEL-mun soo-SAH-toh). (Mobile Masters)

Dear Candidate, Beware What You Don't Say

Sen. Barack Obama's campaign is criticizing Sen. John McCain for never using the words "middle class" in Friday's first presidential debate. The McCain campaign is criticizing Obama for never using the word "victory". When voters begin judging their candidates not only by what they said — but by what they didn't say --- matters of concern are endless, says our resident humorist. MADELEINE BRAND, host: Back now with Day to Day. Last Friday's presidential debate was the first of three presidential debates and according to our humorist Brian Unger, it also marked a seminal change in both campaigns. As Brian explains in today's Unger Report. BRIAN UNGER: The day after the debate, Senator Obama was back on the campaign trail and this ad was on TV, taking Senator McCain to task for something he did not say. Unidentified Man: Number of times John McCain mentioned the middle class, zero. BRIAN UNGER: That which McCain did not mention was then repeated Sunday by Obama's chief strategist, David Axelrod, on NBC's "Meet The Press." Mr. DAVID AXELROD (Chief Strategist, Senator Barack Obama): Senator McCain never once mentioned the middle class. UNGER: Which invited this rebuttal from chief McCain strategist Steve Schmidt on the topic of the Iraq War. Mr. STEVE SMITH (Chief Strategist, Senator John McCain): In the debate you heard not one time from Senator Obama the words, victory. UNGER: This parsing of word not spoken makes choosing a president a lot tougher for voters, who must not only choose based on where both men stand on the issues but now, where both men don't stand on issues they've never stood on. This campaign is getting too deep without getting deep at all. If we're judging the candidates by what we don't hear them say, then we must either become a nation of mind readers or look up every word in the dictionary these men aren't saying. And that is a lot of bathroom reading. Scholars disagree, but most say there are between 500 and 750,000 words in the English language. So in each of the remaining days before election day, we must listen for, oh,15 or 20,000 words that don't cross these candidate's lips. Because it only takes one non-spoken omission to turn an election this tight. Furthermore, in addition to not hearing victory or middle class, here are some other words you did not hear during the debate. Regarding the $700 billion bailout, I did not hear a single utterance of the word bull (bleep). Mark my words, one of these guys will go down for not saying bull (bleep). I did not hear in the debate use the word fabulous, once, to describe anything. The bailout plan, their lapel pins or each other. You did not hear sorry, liar, geezer, or punk. But most glaringly omitted in the debate were the words, I love you. If you're like me, you always feel like you're the one to say it first and neither McCain or Obama has, unsolicited, looked us in the eye and said, I love you. So in the next two debates brace yourself for more words that won't shock you, because you didn't hear them including fabulous bull (bleep), sorry, liar, geezer punk, I love you. You didn't hear it here first. And that is today's Unger Report, I'm Brian Unger. BRAND: Can't get enough of Brian? A weekly podcast featuring the humor and satire of Brian Unger is available for download at npr.org.

How I Built Resilience: Live with Alli Webb and Andy Puddicombe & Rich Pierson

Alli Webb, co-founder of Drybar, talks with Guy about why she believes that investing time into fashion and beauty is still worthwhile, even though many of us aren't going out much. Founders of the meditation app Headspace, Andy Puddicombe and Rich Pierson, talk about taking their business remote, and give some tips on how to approach meditation, even with an unquiet mind. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Built Resilience series, where Guy talks online with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating these turbulent times.

Rep. Scott Talks About GOP Field In S.C.

Melissa Block is in Charleston, S.C., where she talks with freshman Republican Rep. Tim Scott. He's a Tea Party favorite, he's considered a rising star in the GOP, and he's one of just two African-American Republicans in Congress. The presidential contenders are actively pursuing Scott's endorsement, but so far, he hasn't endorsed. He talks with Melissa about Rick Perry's decision to drop out of the race and endorse Newt Gingrich — and how that might reshape the primary in South Carolina.

Peloton Says It's Been Subpoenaed By DOJ And DHS Over Its Product Injury Reporting

Exercise equipment company Peloton says it's being subpoenaed by the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security for documents and other information regarding its reporting of people's injuries associated with its products. In a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing Friday, the company also said the SEC was investigating public disclosures related to the injuries, and that it was the subject of several lawsuits. When reached by NPR, Peloton said it "cannot comment on active litigation." The Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. In May, the company announced it was recalling the Tread+ treadmill after 72 reports of people, objects and animals being pulled under the machine. Peloton says there were 29 reports of injuries to children that resulted in serious abrasions, broken bones, and lacerations — and one incident of a child dying. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a separate warning in April to consumers about the safety hazards associated with the Tread+ product. Peloton initially refused to recall the treadmill before changing course in early May. Peloton noted in the SEC filing that the CPSC's investigation is still ongoing. "We intend to cooperate fully with each of these investigations, and at this time, we are unable to predict the eventual scope, duration or outcome of the investigations," Peloton said in the SEC filing.

Lawyers Under Trump: Front and Center

Lawyers have accomplished a lot in Trump's first few months, overturning travel bans and fighting for free speech. But how are the lawyers themselves dealing with this new level of intensity?

Actor JASON ALEXANDER

2: Actor JASON ALEXANDER. He's best known as George Costanza on the NBC series "Seinfeld", where he plays Jerry Seinfeld's best friend. Alexander won a Tony Award in 1989 for his performance in "Jerome Robbin's Broadway." (REBROADCAST FROM 6/23/92).

Seattle Passes Smaller Corporate Tax, But Amazon Still Not Happy

The Seattle City Council voted unanimously on Monday to pass a new corporate head tax aimed at addressing the city&#8217;s problems with homelessness. Amazon, one of the companies that would be most affected, lobbied against the bill, and voiced its disappointment, despite the fact that the initial tax proposal was cut nearly in half. Here & Now&#8216;s Jeremy Hobson speaks with Edmund Lee (@edmundlee), managing editor of Recode, about the vote.

In Rio, Olympics Preparations Come Down To The Wire

The Summer Games in Brazil are days away, but at least half of the Olympic village — the luxury accommodation where the athletes are staying — has had to undergo last-minute repairs, officials say.

Minnesota Has A Lot To Offer But No Krispy Kreme Doughnuts

Jayson Gonzalez would drive 270 miles to a Krispy Kreme store in Iowa. He loaded up his cars with doughnuts, and delivered them to Twin Cities customers. Krispy Kreme told him to end his operation.

Somalis In America Strive To Help Those Back Home

As drought engulfs the Horn of Africa, Somalia is among the hardest-hit nations because of the ongoing civil war there. With few international aid groups or media on the ground, many Somalis living in the large refugee community in Minneapolis feel they must be the voice for famine victims. After all, many say, they have their own memories of the hunger and violence they escaped. Sultan Aliyoow is consumed by the suffering in his homeland. In this afternoon, he's going door to door to Somali-owned businesses in South Minneapolis. "So we have Somali tribes that own businesses, and I've got to talk to all of them also, one by one," he says. The Karmel Mall is a warren housing small merchants, travel agents, money transfers and tax offices. Shaking hands with everyone, Aliyoow reminds them to come to a weekend fundraiser. Speaking in Somali, he urges them to call their relatives back home to check on how they're doing. Wiring money to Somalia is an expected part of life in this new immigrant community, but Aliyoow is imploring them to do more. "Most [Somalians], they help their family, that's the reason the last 20 years we never had this kind of issue," he says. "But right now, there are some people, they don't have anybody in [or] out of the country. They don't have anybody who can help ... who's going to help those people?" Many of the hardest-hit areas are controlled by al-Shabaab, an Islamic militant group the U.S. government considers a terrorist organization. In the past two years, prosecutors have charged 20 Minnesota Somalis as part of the FBI's investigation of alleged sources of material support to al-Shabaab. One of the fears in the Somalia community is that money wired for famine relief could fall into the wrong hands. To try to avoid that, they're forging partnerships with humanitarian groups. Daniel Wordsworth heads the Minneapolis-based American Refugee Committee. Two years ago, he was approached by local Somalis who wanted ARC to go into Somalia. The U.N. World Food Program considers Somalia the most dangerous country in the world. And Wordsworth said he would go in — only with the help of local Somalis. After two years of planning, Wordsworth says, ARC now has a Somali team working in Mogadishu. "They have family members on the ground that they're talking to every single day, and many of these people have been here more than 10 years," Wordsworth says. "So they're trained doctors, they're trained engineers. They have skills that can be taken back to their country to make a difference." And there's a feeling in this immigrant community that they must make a difference. Fadumo Mohamed, 26, runs a home health-care business. She's haunted by thoughts of her elderly uncle, left alone in the drought. "After a couple days they found him, and he was blind. He lost his sight — lack of water," she says. "And I'm like, every single time I'm showering and I have all this water around me, I just thank God for what we have here." In a grocery store parking lot in south Minneapolis, Somali college students hold a fundraiser, offering car washes for $5. Ifrah Esse, 26, is one of the organizers. She graduated from the University of Minnesota and now works as an international sourcing specialist for Target. "Twenty years ago, I was in a predicament where I was in a refugee camp," she says. "And no one could imagine that here today, being a college graduate and working, that that was me, 20 years ago. But I know. That was my reality. When I see pictures, when I see people starving, when I see people that have no hope — I can relate to that." In this parking lot in Minneapolis, they earned $860 washing cars. The money went directly to the American Refugee Committee, to help those suffering from hunger in Mogadishu. STEVE INSKEEP, host: One place where those appeals are being heard is Minneapolis. The city has a large community of Somali immigrants, and some came following a devastating famine in their homeland two decades ago. Sasha Aslanian of Minnesota Public Radio reports on efforts there to mobilize help for Somalia. SASHA ASLANIAN: Sultan Aliyoow is consumed by the suffering in his homeland. This afternoon, he's going door-to-door to Somali-owned businesses in South Minneapolis. Mr. SULTAN ALIYOOW: So we have Somali tribes that own businesses, and I got to talk to them also, one by one, we'll go upstairs. ASLANIAN: The Karmel Mall is a warren housing small merchants, travel agents, money transfers and tax offices. Shaking hands with everyone, Aliyoow reminds them to come to a weekend fundraiser. Mr. ALIYOOW: (Foreign language spoken) ASLANIAN: He urges them to call relatives back home in Somalia to check on them. Wiring money is an expected part of life in this new immigrant community, but Aliyoow is imploring them to do more. Mr. ALIYOOW: Most of Somali, they help their family. That's the reason the last 20 years we never had this kind of issue. But right now, there are some people, they don't have

F-14 Recommendations

The Navy today said pilot error was to blame for last January's crash of an F-14 jet in Nashville. Five people were killed when the jet crashed into a residential area shortly after takeoff. The investigating board says the pilot took off at too steep and angle and suffered vertigo . The pilot had been involved in another crsh earlier and investigators quesitons whether he should have bene allowed back into the cockpit. NPR's Martha Raddatz reports. -b- 5. GOETZ TESTIFIES - NPR'S Melissa Block reports on the testimony of Bernhard Goetz (Bur-NAHRD Getz) in his civil trial in New York City. Goetz is being sued for 50 million dollars by one of the four youths he shot on a subway car in 1984. The youth, Darrell Cabey, was paralyzed and suffered brain damage as a result of the shooting. Goetz was acquitted of attempted murder and assault in his CRIMINAL trial. In his testimony, Goetz said he shot the four youths when one of them asked him for 5 dollars; that he "snapped" when he saw the smile on the face of one of his victims. And he confirmed statements he's made in interviews, that the shooting was in some ways a "public service" and that the mothers of the victims should have had abortions.

Digital vs. Drawn Animation

Alex Cohen of member station KQED in San Francisco reports that the new Disney movie <EM>Lilo and Stitch</EM> features old-fashioned, hand-rendered animation. This craft is being combined with computerized animation in a technique dubbed "tradigital."

The Paralympics Finally Get To Prime Time

This week marks the start of the Paralympic Games in Tokyo. And while the audience for the games is large, equal treatment for the athletes has taken time. It took until this year for the Paralympics to be covered on prime-time television and for Paralympians to be paid comparably to their Olympic counterparts. This year, over 4,000 athletes with a range of disabilities from all over the globe will compete in 28 Paralympic sports. Of course, it's a little different during the pandemic. Spectators are banned just as they were during the Olympic Games. Japan's Covid-19 cases hit a record high just days before the opening ceremony. We talk through what to expect this year and why it's taken so long for the Paralympics to make it to prime time. Brad Snyder, Ahmed Fareed, Caroline Casey, and Julie Dussliere join us for the conversation. Like what you hear? Find more of our programs online.

After Doctor Said Trump Doing Well, Source Familiar With His Health Said Otherwise

Muddled messaging from the White House has sent confusing signals about the president's well-being. We talk about what we know about his condition and treatment.Connect:Subscribe to the NPR Politics Podcast here.Email the show at [email protected] the NPR Politics Podcast Facebook Group.Listen to our playlist The NPR Politics Daily Workout.Subscribe to the NPR Politics Newsletter.Find and support your local public radio station.

Shiite Muslims & Iraq's Future

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shiite Muslims this week gathered in the city of Karbala to celebrate religious rituals banned under Saddam Hussein. And they're expressing their political goals for a new Iraq. Join guest host John Ydstie for the discussion.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions Testifies on Russian Inquiry

Attorney General Jeff Sessions started his testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee by calling any suggestion that he colluded with Russians during the election a "detestable" lie. But Democrats challenged Sessions' denials and some accused him of impeding the Senate investigation by not answering questions about his direct conversations with President Trump. Did the AG's answers shed any light, or just add heat? Our guests are Carrie Johnson, justice correspondent for NPR; Josh Gerstein, senior reporter for Politico; John Dean, legal counsel to President Nixon during Watergate and a political analyst for CNN; and Walter Dellinger, a partner at the law firm O'Melveny and former solicitor general, assistant attorney general and head of the Office of Legal Counsel during the Clinton administration.

Roadblocks on Health Care for Palestinians

NPR's Peter Kenyon reports on the difficulty of giving medical and psychological care to Palestinians in occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip towns. In Jenin, sometimes just getting antibiotics and basic medical care to residents has become a long, tedious and unpredictable process. (4:41)<br /> <A href="http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/transcripts/2002/sep/020916.kenyon.html">Read the Transcript</a>

Culturetopia: The Paint By Numbers Edition

will.i.am takes the crooning R&B sound of Usher and turns him into another Black Eyed Pea-- and scores another chart topping hit with "OMG".

Boy Scouts Panel Adopts Resolution To Allow Gay Scout Leaders

The executive committee of the Boy Scouts of America has unanimously adopted a resolution that would allow gay adults to serve as Scout leaders, ending a longstanding ban on gay leaders in the organization. "This resolution will allow chartered organizations to select adult leaders without regard to sexual orientation, continuing Scouting's longstanding policy of chartered organizations selecting their leaders," the Boy Scouts of America said in a statement. The vote was held last Friday, and the organization announced the results Monday. The organization's National Executive Board will meet July 27 to ratify the resolution. The Boy Scouts attributed the resolution to "rapid changes in society and increasing legal challenges at the federal, state, and local levels." The move comes months after Robert Gates, the president of the Boy Scouts of America, called on the organization to reassess its ban on gay adults, saying, "We must deal with the world as it is, not as we might wish it to be." The former CIA director, who previously served as defense secretary, warned officials in the organization in May that failure to make changes quickly could spell "the end of us as a national movement." He also told NPR "gays would be permitted in units that want to have them," but churches that sponsor Scout units would be allowed to exercise their religious freedom and ensure leaders in troops they sponsor, or units that they sponsor, reflect the faith of the sponsoring institution. Some 70 percent of Scout units are sponsored by churches. The BSA voted in 2013 to allow gay members, but not scoutmasters.

The California Report Magazine

Strong Swedish Coffee and Poppy's Potato Latkes — The show visits a bustling Swedish village in the heart of the Central Valley to celebrate a festival of lights — and stays warm in the kitchen to learn the family secrets to Poppy's potato latkes, just in time for Hanukkah.

Here and Now for Friday, March 16, 2007

A string of e-mails is beginning to tie the White House, specifically political advisor Karl Rove, to inquiries about the firing of 8 U.S. attorneys. Meanwhile, a second republican, Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon, has called for U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to step down. Mark Halperin, ABC news political director, joins us to discuss the latest revelations. We talk with John Sedgwick about his new book, "In My Blood" in which he chronicles 6 generations of his famous family's contributions to American politics and society, along with their triumphs and tribulations. Coal plants produce more than fifty percent of the electricity we use. They also produce greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming. We talk with New York Times reporter Matt Wald about one company planning to build a coal fired power plant that doesn't emit carbon dioxide. Instead it will capture emissions from coal fired power plants and seal them thousands of feet underground. Our listeners ge

Canada Hosts A Pride House At The Winter Olympics In South Korea

It's not the only Pride House in South Korea, but it's the first in the world to be embraced by a national Olympic committee: Alongside poutine and beer, Canada Olympic House offers a message of inclusion and gender diversity by hosting a space for LGBTQ fans, athletes and friends. The idea for this Pride House, organized in collaboration with South Korean activists, is based on the tradition of Olympic delegations opening hospitality houses to showcase their home nations' culture and history and welcome fans. Rather than focusing on a particular nationality or team, the Pride House welcomes all. "The mission of Pride House," says Keph Senett, a trustee with Scottish-based Pride House International, is to create a "place where people can go and watch games, and hang out and eat food and all that — sort of experience the games in a safe and welcoming way." As for Team Canada, Senett said, "They are saying very clearly, 'We support this mission.' " Canada's hospitality house — created out of a gateball clubhouse (a game similar to cricket) — has a ski-lodge vibe. It offers lounge chairs, fire pits and table hockey games outside. When we visited, a capacity crowd had gathered in a pub-like area inside to watch Team Canada play (and defeat) the U.S. women's hockey team. The Pride House team and activists from the Korean Sexual-Minority Culture and Rights Center created the welcome message that greets visitors: "This is your house no matter who you are or where you come from. You are at home, regardless of your sex, sexual orientation, race, marital or family status, gender identity or expression, sex characteristics, creed, age, color, disability, political or religious belief." The message concludes, "Be proud. Be you. Be Olympic!" The Korean Sexual-Minority Culture and Rights Center started preparing to open a Pride House three years ago. The group is staffing a section of Canada House, with a representative on hand to talk with visitors — and a cutout rainbow house for people to pose with for selfies. The group is also operating a separate Pride House in Seoul, hosting Olympic watch parties and other events in the capital. Senett's group has helped local activists form a Pride House at all but one Olympics since 2010, when the first Pride House opened at the Vancouver Winter Games as an inclusive spot for sports fans to gather. Since then, there have been 13 Pride Houses at big sporting events from the World Cup to the Pan American Games. Pride House International is a Scottish charity, formed by a coalition of LGBT sports and human rights groups. Senett says local groups normally do their own fundraising that includes donations and some grants. Until now, every Pride House has been held outside of the official bubble that surrounds mammoth events such as the Olympics, World Cup and other events. But this time, Team Canada offered to host it within its Canada House in Gangneung, site of the flat-ice events at the Pyeongchang Games. In a statement, Chris Overholt of Canada's Olympic Committee said that Canada "stands behind its commitment of inclusion and diversity in the global sport landscape. We recognize that diversity is our greatest strength... Team Canada is proud to embrace its diversity at Canada House ... as a team, we are stronger when we celebrate our differences." "It's super-exciting, because it's the first time that a national Olympic committee has officially affiliated themselves," Senett said, "so people are really excited about that, because it's the organization and so forth." When it comes to social and cultural attitudes about LGBTQ issues in South Korea, a report by Gallup Korea last year found mixed results – including greater tolerance among people under 30 than among those who are older. In that survey, 34 percent of South Korean respondents said they support same-sex marriages, while 58 percent said they oppose it. Among people younger than 30, the number in favor rose to 66 percent. "As far as the laws go, there's no same-sex marriage here. You just don't live out of the closet. There are no protections for losing your job or losing your housing, based on either sexual orientation or gender identity," Senett said. But, Senett says, things may be changing. In 2017, Gallup also reported broad and strong support in South Korea for workplace protections, with 90 percent of the survey's respondents — regardless of how they viewed homosexuality — saying sexual minorities should have the same chances to work. As for the sporting environment around gender issues in South Korea, an ugly episode made international headlines a few years ago, when a female soccer player's gender was questioned by rival coaches in her pro league. At the time, the player, Park Eun-seon, had competed for the national women's team for more than a decade. She had also undergone a gender test before playing in the 2004 Athens Olympics. The only time since 2010 that Senett's group has been unable to create an Olympi

BETTE MIDLER continued

BETTE MIDLER continued. <A HREF="http://whyy.org/cgi-bin/bookdisplay.cgi?2007"><IMG SRC="http://whyy.org/logos/BOOK.GIF" border=0 ALIGN=RIGHT></A>Critic MAUREEN CORRIGAN reviews "The Hours" (FS&amp;G) Michael Cunningham's literary tribute to Virgina Woolf. 12:58:30 NEXT SHOW PROMO (:29) PROMO COPY On today's Fresh air....a conversation with BETTE MIDLER. She has a new recording called "Bathhouse Bette." That and more coming up on the next Fresh Air.

Saudi Women Sell Cars -- but Can't Drive Them

Women have opened a car dealership in Saudi Arabia, where women do not have the right to drive. Women can buy cars but they must hire a chauffer to drive them. The women at the car dealership say just want to provide an place for women who are uncomfortable haggling with a man.

Brian Fallon Loves Bruce Springsteen, Just Please Don't Leave It At That

Brian Fallon starts to answer the question. "It's funny, because..." He trails off, and then tries again. "And it... uh..." He laughs. Fallon has a solo record out. His band, The Gaslight Anthem, went on hiatus last year, and since then he's fathered a second child. The question was about how having children changed him and his songwriting. A softball question, sure, and one any songwriter would've been asked enough times in interviews to make them question their decision to procreate at all. Fallon, after all, has been doing interviews for a decade, since The Gaslight Anthem's debut in 2007. And yet he pauses. "No one has ever asked me this question." It's the perfect reflection of the over-simplification Fallon has endured since he became a notable figure in rock music. He's become almost a caricature of himself: classic cars and radios and Springsteen. So much Springsteen. "The Gaslight Anthem is a band almost exclusively defined by their relationship with Bruce Springsteen," Pitchfork wrote in a scathing review of The Gaslight Anthem's Get Hurt. Fallon admits that the review cut him deep. Springsteen is a huge influence on Fallon; he just isn't the only one. "It really does frustrate me, and it's harder because I love Bruce Springsteen," Fallon says. "And I don't want to say anything negative about it, because I love him so much, musically and personally. "But I don't want to get lost — I don't want my career to be lost in a Bruce Springsteen comparison." Still, there's no sense pretending that Fallon is blameless here. On Gaslight's breakthrough record, The '59 Sound, Fallon name-drops a number of artists, but none more prominently than Springsteen. "We tattooed lines beneath our skin," he sings at one point, adding, "No surrender, my Bobby Jean." Also, Fallon and Springsteen are both from New Jersey, and both occasionally sing like they've got throats full of sawdust and forgotten dreams. The comparison obviously helped in The Gaslight Anthem's rise, but at some point it became a burden for Fallon to bear as he tried to evolve and experiment. "I didn't say I was the next Bruce Springsteen; you said that," Fallon says, referring to music journalists. "This is not my claim. I'm not the savior of rock 'n' roll; you said that. And, as a matter of fact, I think it's ridiculous." Fallon's solo debut, Painkillers, is more folk-influenced and noticeably quieter than any album Fallon has released before. There are Gaslight Anthem fans, and rock purists, who simply aren't going to like it. He worked with producer Butch Walker, who told him to not "give a s*** what the fans are gonna think." Some people, Walker says, will be unhappy whenever things change. "There's a lot of people who want to eat the same thing off the value menu every day the rest of their life and come home and watch Fox News the rest of their life," Walker says. "And listen to the records they liked whenever things were simpler for them and their life didn't suck. And you know what? That's cool, but as an artist you can't stay in that box the rest of your life, because we grow, man." Earlier this summer, at Shaky Knees Music Festival in Atlanta, Fallon sat wearing a dark denim jacket, sipping a coffee around noon. Two years prior, The Gaslight Anthem played the 8 p.m. Friday slot at this festival, opposite Spoon. Today, Fallon is sandwiched into a 2:30 p.m. set that he'll play alone, with just an acoustic guitar and a harmonica. "There are some things that are whispered and some things that are shouted, and I'm not in a shouting place right now," he says. Fallon mentions The Felice Brothers' 2008 ballad "Wonderful Life" as he talks about the kind of songs and lyrics he's looking to write these days. "That's the thing about telling the truth," he says, after quoting the song's third verse word-for-word. "You don't have to yell to be angry, and you don't have to cry to be sad. You can just say things." Painkillers has brightness, to be sure, even as it deals with themes Fallon has written about his whole career: jealousy, regret, mistrust. Themes that were "embedded" in him when he was born into a single-parent household. "That was the first lesson I learned — that nothing is permanent," Fallon says. "There's even an old Bible verse that comes to mind; like, if the foundation be destroyed, what can the righteous do? What happens, who do you trust? When you're born and it's smashed up like that... I don't.... I don't know." As his band was going through its final years (at least for now), so was his marriage. Fallon and his wife of more than 10 years divorced, and since then he's found a new relationship and had a second child. They're life changes that might be interesting to hear about, if someone would just ask him about something other than Bruce Springsteen. "I feel like I don't even live on the same planet that the person five years ago lived on," he says. Listen to a Spotify tour through the best of Fallon's career:

Former CIA Agent Pleads Guilty To Leaking Info

A former CIA agent who was charged with leaking classified information to reporters has pleaded guilty. The deal with John Kiriakou came after the judge dealt the defense a big blow by saying prosecutors did not have to prove Kiriakou intended to harm the United States when he revealed the name of a covert operative.

Grammy President Neil Portnow To Step Down In 2019

Neil Portnow's next speech at the Grammys will be his last as The Recording Academy's president. The National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences — better known as The Recording Academy and the parent organization to the Grammy Awards — announced Thursday that Portnow, who has helmed the organization since 2002, would be stepping down at the end of his current contract, which expires in July 2019. The decision comes four months after Portnow suggested that women need to "step up" to be recognized at the Grammy Awards, and a little more than a week after a Variety report alleged Portnow siphoned funds from a Recording Academy charity to pay for this year's Grammys ceremony. "When I had the honor of being selected to lead this great organization in 2002, I vowed that on my watch, for the first time in our history, we would have a thoughtful, well-planned, and collegial transition," Portnow said in a statement. "With a little more than a year remaining on my current contract, I've decided that this is an appropriate time to deliver on that promise." Most people are likely familiar with Portnow for a couple of reasons. First, his annual mid-Grammy Awards address, which Portnow has used to highlight issues affecting the recorded music industry, such as reforms around how music is treated legislatively or the payments music stakeholders receive on digital platforms like Spotify and YouTube. The second would be the criticism Portnow received earlier this year over a statement he later walked back and stressed was taken out of context at the time. Asked by Variety just after this year's Grammy Awards about the gender imbalance of its winners — only one solo female artist received a trophy during this year's telecast — Portnow said that women needed "to step up." He continued, "I think it's upon us — us as an industry — to make the welcome mat very obvious, breeding opportunities for all people who want to be creative and paying it forward and creating that next generation of artists." Those two words — "step up" — caused a flurry of bad press and calls for Portnow to step down. "Women have been stepping up since the beginning of time," Pink wrote, while Sheryl Crow tweeted "I'm not sure it is about women needing to 'step up.'" A group of women executives in the business released a joint letter that same week calling for his resignation. Two days later, Portnow released a statement saying the two words did "not convey my beliefs and the point I was trying to make." Last month, Variety obtained a letter to the Recording Academy Board of Trustees by former MusiCares vice president Dana Tomarken claiming that Portnow used money intended for the Academy's charity for struggling musicians to offset losses associated with January's Grammy Awards broadcast. Tomarken, who was fired April 16, also made accusations of "workplace abuse and harassment," according to Variety. Portnow is no stranger to crises at The Recording Academy. Portnow's predecessor as president, C. Michael Greene, resigned in 2002 following allegations of misconduct, though an internal investigation at the time found no wrongdoing. "Neil took the helm of the Recording Academy at a difficult time," said Cary Sherman, president of the Recording Industry Association of America in a statement, "and not only rebuilt the organization but also grew it into an international brand. He is a dear friend, a tireless advocate for music, and a champion for musicians." Prior to being named the Recording Academy's president, Portnow was an executive at Jive Records from 1989-2002, when the label was home to Britney Spears, NSYNC and Backstreet Boys.

Show 360: Feat Jazz Pianist Fred Hersch and Guest Host Yuga Cohler

This week on From the Top, legendary jazz pianist Fred Hersch collaborates with young performers with guest host Yuga Cohler. We hear a teenage pianist join Hersch in a piano duo performance of Samuel Barber, an award-winning string quartet wows the audience with Mendelssohn, and a young cellist performs one of Hersch's original compositions, "Bittersweet Tango". PERFORMERS: 14-year-old violinist Hina Khuong-Huu, 17-year-old pianist Avik Sarkar, The Kairos String Quartet, 19-year-old cellist Lydia Rhea.

History of the Hmong Refugees

On Internet blogs and chatrooms, Hmong in America are referring to Vang Pao and the other suspects in an alleged plot to overthrow the Laotian government as heroes and martyrs. The incident calls for a review of how exactly the Hmong ended up as refugees.

Clinton Takes Final World Trek With Virtual Townhall

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had been hoping to take an around the world trip as she wraps up her time as secretary of state. But recent health troubles grounded her. Instead she bid farewell by taking questions from around the world in a "Global Townterview" at the Newseum on Tuesday.

'WaMu Wake' Lets Workers Mark End Of Era

When the giant savings and loan Washington Mutual failed in September and had to be bought by JPMorgan Chase, not much changed for its clients. But its employees were laid off by the thousands. The WaMu workers in Seattle, the site of the S&L's headquarters, decided to throw themselves a party — a festive "WaMu Wake." "I wanted so much to retire with this company," says Iris Glaze, a WaMu employee who will lose her job at the end of January. "And to think that I am going to be unemployed with so many wonderfully qualified people. I have to tell you, I have my bad thoughts, but why bother? Why would I want to dwell on the bad thoughts?" Those would be bad thoughts about her job in investor relations, where people used to call Glaze to thank her. Now they call everyday to say things she can't say out loud. JPMorgan Chase will lay off 9,200 Washington Mutual employees this year, so Iris says it's time to have fun together, relax, and get drunk with your boss. She heads off dispensing hugs as a Beatles cover band takes the stage. The club fills up with WaMu casualties — and they are shouting along and bouncing. Throughout the set they are literally high-fiving each other while yelling lyrics to the songs: "Tell me why you cry, and why you lied to me" and the emcee even joins in with his own words: "I should have known better than to hold that stock." The room is full of people who lost their jobs in a dramatic way. Their employer disappeared overnight in the middle of a global economic collapse. They are hundreds of people from human resources, technical support and investor relations who, for the most part, had nothing to do with the sub-prime loans that brought WaMu down. But the place is full of love and sentimental affection for the company that gambled employees' savings and jobs on risky loans, a company many of them really loved and devoted their lives to. When an auction of Washington Mutual paraphernalia begins, people rush to bid: "This is quite a collector's item. Let's start the bidding at $25 and see where it takes us," the emcee says. A "free checking sign" goes for $55; a Kerry Killinger bobble head doll (he's the former WaMu CEO) fetches $225; and a bidding war starts for over 20 years of annual reports, which also sell for $225. The money will go to a WaMu alumni fund for education. "Perhaps," the emcee says, "your kids really will be able to go to college." Kaisa Sidell is sitting towards the back of the club. She's been with Washington Mutual for more than 27 years. "I think most people need a way to have some closure when they've invested a lot of time, as I have," Sidell says. "A lot of my identity has been associated with this company. Been proud of it for most of its existence, and I'm sad to see it go." For WaMu lifers like Sidell and Glaze, their legacy is now attached to the largest bank failure in history and the celebration seems to be about reclaiming the story and leaving with heads held high. The very last act of the night is more music — two employees with a special song written for the evening. This is when Glaze — up on stage with the band, covers her mouth, turns her back to the audience — and starts to cry. MICHELE NORRIS, host: When the giant bank Washington Mutual failed in September and was bought by JPMorgan, not much changed for the bank's clients, but its employees were laid off by the thousands. This week, some of the workers in Seattle where the bank has its headquarters decided to throw themselves a party, a WaMu Wake. And reporter Chana Joffe-Walt was there. CHANA JOFFE-WALT: Iris Glaze told me to find her at the bar before the party. Look for the short, gray, round, and very cute woman, she told me. And there she was, hugging me and telling me she really hopes she won't cry like an idiot all night. Ms. IRIS GLAZE (Employee, Washington Mutual): I wanted so much to retire with this company. And to think that I am going to be unemployed soon with so many other wonderfully qualified people, I have to tell you honestly that I have my bad thoughts. But why bother? Why would I want to dwell on the bad thoughts? JOFFE-WALT: Thoughts, for instance, about her job in investor relations where people used to call her to thank her, and now they call to say things she can't say on the radio. End of January, Iris is out of a job. JPMorgan will lay off 9,200 Washington Mutual people this year. So, Iris says, time to have fun together, relax, get drunk with your boss. She heads off dispensing hugs, and a Beatles cover band takes the stage. Now, as it turns out, when your company fails and you're jobless in a recession, the Beatles is apparently just the thing. (Soundbite of song "Help") Unidentified Cover Band: (Singing) Help, I need somebody. Help, not just anybody. JOFFE-WALT: The club fills up with WaMu casualties, and they are shouting along, bouncing. Throughout the set, they are literally high-fiving each other while yelling, "Tell me why you cry, and why y

Talking Head Helper with Juan Williams

NPR's Karen Grigsby Bates talks to NPR's Juan Williams about what the hot topics are likely to be on Sunday morning television talk shows this weekend.

Coronavirus FAQ: Why Am I Suddenly Hearing So Much About KF94 Masks?

Each week, we answer "frequently asked questions" about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at [email protected] with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." Nearly a year into the pandemic, the most talked about piece of apparel is an item that folks barely even thought about back in the early days of 2020. Yes, we're talking about masks. They come in all shapes and sizes, and you've probably got your preference. Some are scratchy; some are soft. There's cotton and polyester, the standard ear-loop model and sleek neck gaiters. Not to mention the designer mask Jill Biden wore that matched her sparkling blue inaugural coat. And, of course, there's the ever-ubiquitous pastel blue surgical mask – a fan favorite, I daresay, based on how many are seen lying around on city streets. Plus your good-ol' N95 — the medical-caliber mask that is still in short supply for health workers. Now add another player to the mix – the KF94. This mask has been getting increasing buzz these days, with at least one media outlet calling it a "highly protective" option to look into at a time when emerging coronavirus variants appear to be more contagious. So — what's the deal with the KF94? As Stephen Morse, an epidemiology professor at Columbia University, puts it, a KF94 is essentially the South Korean equivalent of the N95. They're "pretty comparable," he says. For a visual image, you can think of a mash between an N95 and a typical cloth mask. The KF94 comes with side flaps, which mold to the contour of your face, and an adjustable band around the bridge of your nose. To understand how it works, all you have to do is investigate those mysterious initials. Sonali Advani, an assistant professor of medicine at Duke University, explains that KF stands for "Korean filter." And 94 refers to its filtration efficiency (basically, just how good the mask is at filtering out particles we don't like), which is 94%. Not surprisingly then, an N95's filtration efficiency is 95%. A limited study published last year showed that the KF94 was comparable to the N95 in blocking SARS-CoV-2 particles. But Advani doesn't think the KF94 is a game changer for how we should all approach mask strategy. "While there are minor differences, those differences are rather small in general," Advani says. "It's negligible." But they are easy to come by. Says Morse: "KF94s seem to be more readily available than the N95, less expensive [generally under $2 each] and easier to use for many people," Morse explains. "KF94 is actually intended for public use. In Korea they are often worn by ordinary citizens to filter out dust or pollution." But is the KF94 a better option than other masks available to consumers? "When it comes to use in day-to-day activities, overall surgical masks and three-layered cloth masks perform pretty well," Advani says. As far as protection goes, masks with multiple layers will do you better in staving off potentially infectious particles than thin ones – and studies have shown that three layers is typically the sweet spot. In other words, she says, there's no need to go out and buy up medical-grade KF94s — especially, she says, since some wearers have said the South Korean mask is less comfortable or harder to breathe out of than the alternatives. Of course, this is all subjective — so you'd have to try one yourself. The bottom line is this: "It's not always just about filtration efficiency," Advani says. "While these masks [such as the KF94] may be better for use in a hospital [because they're designed for medical settings], in the real world, it may be the case that they are hard to wear through the course of the whole day. And the best mask is the one you can wear all the time." What's most important, she emphasizes, is compliance with existing mask guidelines — and recommitting to earnest and consistent mask-wearing. If you do end up choosing to invest in a KF94 mask, Morse warns to be wary of counterfeits. "Not all KF94 masks are made in Korea — many are manufactured in China — [but] KF94s manufactured in Korea may be less prone to counterfeiting," he says. Or you can use a quick, expert-approved trick to test the mask's effectiveness. Try blowing out a candle while you've got it on. If you can't, you're probably good to go! Pranav Baskar is a freelance journalist who regularly answers coronavirus FAQs for NPR.

Ticket Scalping in Russia

A listener has a question of conscience for Randy Cohen, author of The Ethicist column in the <EM>The New York Times Magazine</EM>. Is it wrong for an American to pay half price for Russian opera tickets? Hear Cohen and NPR's Jennifer Ludden.

Author Examines the Lives of Pioneering Geneticists

Science writer David Ewing Duncan talks about his new book profiling some of the most prominent scientists working today, <EM>The Geneticist who Played Hoops With My DNA and Other Masterminds from the Frontiers of Biotech.</EM>

Stitch Fix: Katrina Lake

In 2010, Katrina Lake recruited 20 friends for an experiment: she wanted to see if she could choose clothes for them that accurately matched their style and personality. That idea sparked Stitch Fix, an online personal shopping service that aims to take the guesswork out of shopping. Today, it has about three million customers and brings in more than a billion dollars in annual revenue. How You Built That: IcePlate We check back with Justin Li, who created wearable equipment to keep cool and hydrated called IcePlate.

Turkey Refuses to Budge on U.S. Troop Request

Turkey's new prime minister refuses to rush a parliamentary vote on allowing U.S. forces to use Turkish soil -- or fly over Turkish territory -- to attack Iraq. U.S. commanders prepare to do without a "northern front." NPR's Lynn Neary talks to NPR's Tom Gjelten.

Feminist Theologian Mary Daly Remembered

The feminist theologian Mary Daly, one of the most influential feminist thinkers of the 20th century, died Monday in Massachusetts. She was 81. Her first book, <em>The Church and the Second Sex</em>, got her fired from Boston College, but student and public outcry led the Jesuit college to rehire her. She taught there for 33 years.

Letters: Robots, Race And Retail

NPR's Neal Conan reads from listener comments on past <em>Talk of the Nation</em> shows, including the emergence of robots across the country, the racial history of Sanford, Florida, and the new balance of power in retail.

Decoding Encrypted Internet Messages

Talk about co-dependent! You think your on-line purchase or medical records are safe? You better hope the math was right that assembled the computer chip. Weekend Edition's Math Guy explains to Scott Simon. SCOTT SIMON, host: Many students who don't exactly take to math will ask, but, like, when will we actually ever need to know this? Well, there's a new answer — because it could be a matter of national security. Last week, a prominent cryptographer warned that a mere math error could have dangerous consequences. Our math guy Keith Devlin joins from Stanford University. Keith, thanks very much for being with us. Dr. KEITH DEVLIN (Director, Center for Study of Language and Information, Stanford): Hi, Scott. Good to be here again. SIMON: Now, the cryptographer is a very imminent mathematician named Adi Shamir. DR. DEVLIN: Correct. SIMON: And tell us what triggered his concern and what he said? DR. DEVLIN: Okay. So we have to realize that Shamir, together with a couple of colleagues — Ron Rivest and Leonard Adelman who were then all at MIT back in the '70s — they came up with what's now the standard method for encrypting messages sent over the Internet. It's called the RSA System, after their initials of Rivest, Shamir and Adelman, and the clever thing about this system is it allows two computers that have never been in communication before to establish a secure communication link. And Here's essentially how it works. Supposing I wanted to go online and order something from the Car Talk Web site using my credit card. My computer would send… SIMON: I would never use my credit card on the Car Talk Web site of all Web sites. DR. DEVLIN: (Unintelligible) SIMON: Yeah, exactly. But go ahead, forgive me. Yeah. DR. DEVLIN: This is hypothetical. SIMON: Yeah, yeah. DR. DEVLIN: So I give my credit card to my computer, my computer connects with Click & Clack's computer and gets from them a public encoding key for encoding messages. My credit card details are then encoded, sent over the Internet. When that message arrives at Click & Clack's Car Talk computer, they use a secret key that only their computer knows to decode that message. And anybody that picks up the message on transit - and lots of people will pick it up or can pick it up in transit - won't be able to decode it because they might have access or they can have access to the public encoding key, but the decryption key is a secret one that's different from the encoding key. This means computers can communicate securely even though they've never previously been in communication. SIMON: What's Mr. Shamir worried about then? DR. DEVLIN: Okay. So… SIMON: Dr. Shamir probably. DR. DEVLIN: Right. Well, the weird thing about this system, the thing that was surprising when it was first proposed in the 1970s was the number you used to unlock the message is not the same as the number you use to lock it. And people first thought, well, how can that be? Because with a physical padlock, the same key that locks it unlocks it because you just turn the key the other way. However, it turns out to be different when you're using mathematical keys. The keys in this case are large numbers. The secret decoding key that each computer generates consists of two very large prime numbers of the order of a hundred or more digits. The public encoding key that anybody can get hold of or anybody's computer can get hold of is the product of those prime numbers. Now, in principle, given a large 200-digit number, which is made up by multiplying two large prime numbers, in principle, you could find what those prime factors are. However, the fastest computers in the world would take hundreds of years to solve that one problem, so the system is secure not because you can't, in principle, find the key to unlock the message, but it would take the fastest computer hundreds of years to do so; that's the system security. There are two dangers to this system. One is that some smart mathematician, probably here at Stanford, would one day come up with a very, very fast method of finding prime factors. Now, that hasn't been done, and the experts believe that it won't be done, but it's a possibility. Shamir has pointed out that there's a much more likely danger out there. If there is a new computer chip that comes out that has a single arithmetical flaw in it so that for two numbers - when it multiples them together - it gives the wrong answer, then using that information, a hacker could crack any RSA cryptogram system in any computer anywhere in the world. In fact, the hacker could simultaneously crack millions of computer security systems - unlock all of the credit card and banking information for millions of customers. All it would take is one arithmetical error in one computer chip, and the game is over as far as Internet security is concerned. SIMON: Now that you've said it, it could be an intentional mistake. DR. DEVLIN: It's always possible. I mean, when you consider that w

The Head And The Heart On World Cafe

The Seattle band The Head and the Heart had major success with its second album, Let's Be Still, which came out on Sub Pop in 2013. Its folk-pop sound, superior harmonies and fine writing struck a chord with audiences and sent the band on the road for over a year. Now, after a year-long break, The Head and the Heart is getting ready to release Signs Of Light, its first album on a major label (Warner Brothers). In this session, the band performs onstage at World Cafe Live and discusses its surprising role in the Cameron Crowe-produced Showtime series Roadies.

Drug Industry Clout Eroding on Capitol Hill

Some of the drug industry's most influential congressional allies are turning against it. A leading Republican in the House says prescription drug prices are too high, while another says it might be time to reconsider laws allowing drugs to be re-imported from Canada.

Court Upholds 'Show Me Your Papers' In Arizona

The Supreme Court has delivered a split ruling on Arizona's immigration law, striking down several key elements but upholding the "show me your papers" provision. The controversial provision allows local police to check the immigration status of people they stop in the normal course of their duties.

New Tapes Offer Unvarnished View of Nixon

Newly released tapes and documents offer fresh insights into the character of former President Richard Nixon. The tapes reveal details of Nixon's interactions with his wife and staff, and his views on African-Americans and Jews.

Shock, Forgiveness, Grief: A Profound Week For South Carolina

South Carolina grieved this week for the 9 people murdered by an avowed white supremacist. But grief turned gradually to hope, as President Obama delivered a rousing eulogy for one of the deceased.

Amid Breakdown In Nuclear Talks, North Korea Threatens U.S. With 'Christmas Gift'

In what could be a reference to a new missile test, North Korea is threatening to give the U.S. a "Christmas gift" unless Washington abides by an end-of-year deadline set by Pyongyang for concessions in exchange for a possible deal to curb its nuclear weapons program. North Korea accused the U.S. of stalling on diplomatic efforts between the two countries because of the upcoming U.S. presidential election. "The dialogue touted by the U.S. is, in essence, nothing but a foolish trick hatched to keep [North Korea] bound to dialogue and use it in favor of the political situation and election in the U.S.," the statement from Ri Thae Song, North Korea's vice minister of foreign affairs, said. The statement, published in North Korean state media on Tuesday, said it was up to Washington "what Christmas gift it will select to get." It did not clarify what the statement meant. However, on July 4, 2017, Kim successfully carried out North Korea's first test of an intercontinental ballistic missile. According to The Associated Press, he described it at the time as part of a "package of gifts" on the U.S. Independence Day holiday. Speaking on Tuesday, President Trump said he hoped that Kim would get rid of his country's nuclear weapons. Kim "likes sending rockets up, doesn't he? ... That's why I call him Rocket Man," the president said at a NATO meeting in London, reprising a pejorative he first used for Kim during a period of especially tense relations that began in 2017. The two leaders first met in June 2018 in Singapore. They expressed mutual admiration, and Trump announced that Kim had agreed in principle to denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. However, a second summit in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February ended abruptly, with Kim and Trump leaving with no agreement. Since then, working-level talks aimed at resolving the nuclear issue have all but broken down. As NPR's Anthony Kuhn has reported, the basic disagreement is this: "The U.S. wants North Korea to give up its nukes first, and North Korea wants the U.S. to lift sanctions first." In May, after news that North Korea tested new ballistic weapons, Trump said, "North Korea fired off some small weapons, which disturbed some of my people, and others, but not me." He expressed "confidence that Chairman Kim will keep his promise to me." Trump made the statement after his national security adviser at the time, John Bolton, warned that the tests violated U.N. Security Council resolutions. In recent weeks, senior State Department officials have downplayed the seriousness of North Korea's year-end deadline. For example, special envoy on North Korea Stephen Biegun told lawmakers last month that "we do not have a year-end deadline." He described it as an "artificial deadline set by the North Koreans, and unfortunately, it's a deadline that they've set upon themselves now." The statement from Ri said North Korea "has heard more than enough dialogue rhetoric raised by the U.S. whenever it is driven into a tight corner. So, no one will lend an ear to the U.S. any longer." Last week, North Korea fired two projectiles as it tested what it called a "super-large multiple-rocket launcher," as the BBC reported. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe described them as ballistic missiles, but North Korean state media mocked him, saying Japan "may see what a real ballistic missile is in the not-distant future." Kim has warned that if the U.S. does not come up with a more attractive offer to North Korea by the end of the year, his country will adopt a policy he's calling the "new way." While it's not clear what he means exactly, a researcher at a think tank affiliated with South Korea's intelligence services recently told Kuhn that the options are worrying. Choi Yong-hwan, from the Institute for National Security Strategy, said, "North Korea may choose to strengthen its nuclear capabilities, deploy nuclear weapons they already have or work on completing advanced missile technologies they haven't completed yet."

Bush Bids Farewell At News Conference

President Bush have given his last news conference, bidding farewell to the journalists who have peppered him with questions over the past eight years. Unlike four years ago, he seemed prepared Monday to talk about what he sees as his biggest mistakes while in office.

Trade Is An Identity Issue, And Trump Knows It

There is little question that when President Trump holds a rally in Moon Township, Pa., on Saturday night, he will tout the tariffs he imposed on imported steel and aluminum this week. Western Pennsylvania is steel country, after all, so his message should play well there. But it will likely resonate with millions of other Americans, well beyond steel plants. That is because, on top of all the economic implications of new tariffs, trade is also an identity issue. That doesn't mean it's overtly a race or gender issue, as the phrase "identity politics" tends to evoke — rather, it taps into a specific idea of what it means to be American. That identity is loaded with nostalgia and emotion, which together have been at the core of Trump's message since Day 1 and appealed to millions of white, working-class voters who supported his campaign. Trade taps into America's identity as a country that makes things. Political discourse surrounding trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership has a tendency to focus heavily on manufacturing, even though TPP also dealt in large ways with intellectual property, environmental regulations and labor standards. And that means that messages surrounding these tariffs may resonate deeply with some voters. "People — especially when you go to Trump voters — they have this view of manufacturing that's really emotionally packed," said Jeremy Rosner, executive vice president at Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. "There's definitely a huge, nostalgic '50s, '60s, heyday-of-America, Rosie-the-Riveter-laden kind of thing around manufacturing. So people in those communities who hear Trump or whoever it is talking about protecting those jobs, there's a lot of emotional overtones." To be clear, trade packs far more than nostalgic resonance for some voters. Those who work in manufacturing and manufacturing-adjacent industries and fear that their jobs or cities will be hurt by offshoring have much more concrete fears and hopes surrounding these types of policy proposals. But for many other Americans, championing manufacturing evokes an America that — at least, in the rearview mirror — looks rosier. "Manufacturing is who we thought we were not all that long ago. Think of World War II, right? 'The arsenal of democracy,' " said Thomas Frank, political analyst and author, referencing President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1940 speech encouraging the United States to ramp up manufacturing. "That's who we thought we were not all that long ago. That's what the prosperity of lots of places depended on." Manufacturing is strong ... but not manufacturing jobs Note the past tense Frank uses there — depended. When Trump (or any other politician) laments the decline in manufacturing, he is talking about a decline in manufacturing employment, which has dropped precipitously since its height in the 1970s. But importantly, manufacturing output has grown in recent decades. This is in large part about automation. America has been able to crank out a wealth of manufactured goods with fewer and fewer workers, meaning trade won't bring many of those jobs back. And that means, strictly by the employment numbers, America is far from being the manufacturing country it once was. Rather, it has become an office-worker country, a health care country, a retail country and a government worker country. Those industries that have surpassed manufacturing employment since its heyday. But regardless of all that, the industry has maintained a hold on the American psyche, says one GOP strategist. "It wasn't that long ago that you couldn't find a politician who [would] drive a foreign car. Every car had to be made in America," said Republican strategist Alex Conant. "That sent an important signal to voters that they respected the American manufacturing." "And then I think culturally, certainly the blue-collar jobs where you punch in and punch out and wear a hard hat or work on the factory floor, those are core parts of the American identity, as opposed to sitting in the office," Conant said. America's businesses know this, too. In 2013, AdAge declared it "cool again to be 'Made in America.' " The CEO of a metal stamping company wrote in 2015 at Industry Week that one reason Americans want to buy American-made products goes beyond patriotism — rather, it's that they "evoke our nation's rugged individualism or imply an artisanal mystique." And these businesses are happy to advertise their potential to boost American manufacturing. When ExxonMobil in 2017 made an ad burnishing the company's image — touting emissions reductions and supporting jobs — it led with a message that it was "powering a manufacturing revival." Companies further removed from goods production know this, as well. Walmart, which has long championed "made in America" products, singled out its hopes to boost manufacturing in a 2013 campaign. Economists disagree on whether there is something inherently beneficial to manufacturing jobs, as opposed to well-p

China Panda Center Copes With Sagging Tourism

Two months after a massive earthquake struck China, a panda research base is struggling with major losses in revenues caused by a slowdown in tourism. A new book about a panda named Jingjing is being launched to help raise money for the center. The Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding hasn't suffered any physical damage from the earthquake, which left almost 90,000 people dead and missing. But visitor numbers plummeted, with many tourists cancelling trips to the region after the earthquake. Now just 300 people visit every day, about a tenth of the normal number. The center predicts it will lose more than $1 million in revenue this year. Cutting Back On Bamboo "Economically, it is a disaster," says Zhang Zhihe, the center's director. He says the facility is reducing costs wherever it can — including cutting the amount of food the pandas are given. "Before we [could] provide our pandas five kinds of bamboo in a day," Zhang says. "Right now, we can just only provide two or at most three. Before we [could] give our pandas 80 to 100 kilos [176 to 220 pounds] of bamboo; right now we can only give them 50 [110 pounds]." As pandas munch their bamboo, he says that the animals are not going hungry. In an effort to raise money for the center, the publisher of a new book, Panda: Watch Me Grow, is donating the book's profits — so far $30,000 from U.S. sales — to the facility. The book tells the story of probably the world's most watched 2-year-old: Panda Jingjing. The Olympic mascot's home is at the Chengdu Research Base. The center's habitat conservation programs have all been halted. Like many others, the staffers are taking recovery a day at a time and still figuring out how to get by in this new post-quake world. Uncertainty For Wild Pandas This center has been much luckier than the other main panda base, up the mountains in Wolong. It was destroyed. Five staffers were killed, one panda died and another is still missing. The government has announced a $290 million plan to rebuild that center. And two months on, much is still unknown about how the earthquake affected the 1,600 wild pandas, Sarah Bexell, director of conservation education, says. "We do have a lot of worries about the wild population and of course all the other plants and animals in the region," Bexell says. "As people saw [on] television, entire sides of mountains collapsed, and this is prime habitat for giant pandas and their habitat's already so extremely limited." Bexell says it's still not safe for researchers to assess the panda habitat. "So we're just now waiting to hear when we can go out and start looking at these areas," she adds. ROBERT SIEGEL, host: Now we revisit a place we featured two months ago during our coverage of the massive earthquake in southwestern China. The quake killed tens of thousands of people, and it caused a scare for the panda base in Chengdu. Today, NPR's Louisa Lim returned there on a special day for the center. Unidentified Children: (Speaking foreign language) LOUISA LIM: A gaggle of nine-year-olds has been practicing for this moment. It's the Chinese launch of a book called "Watch Me Grow." This tells the story so far of probably the world's most-watched two-year-old, panda Jingjing, who's also an Olympic mascot. Her home is here at the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding, where the buzz of cicadas vibrates through the bamboo. Jo Lusby, general manager of the publisher, Penguin China, says it's donating the book's profits - so far $30,000 from U.S. sales - to the center. Ms. JO LUSBY (Penguin China): We really decided to launch it here now to partly highlight the problems the center here are having in terms of lost revenue from tourism. LIM: The base hasn't suffered any physical damage, but visitor numbers plummeted, with many tourists canceling trips to the region after the earthquake. Now just 300 people visit every day, about a tenth of the normal number. The center predicts it will lose more than $1 million in revenue this year. Mr. ZHANG ZHIHE (Director, Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda Breeding): Economically, it is a disaster. LIM: Zhang Zhihe, the center's director, says it's cost-cutting wherever it can. Mr. ZHIHE: Before we can provide our pandas five kinds of bamboo in a day. Right now we can just only provide two. Before, you know, we can give the pandas 80 to 100 kilos bamboo; right now we can only give them 50. (Soundbite of panda bear eating) LIM: As pandas munch their bamboo, he stresses the animals are not going hungry. This center has been much luckier than the other main panda base, up the mountains in Wolong. It was destroyed. Five staffers were killed, one panda died, and another is still missing. The government's just announced a $290 million plan to rebuild that center. And two months on much is still unknown about how the earthquake affected the 1,600 wild pandas, according to Sarah Bexell, director of conservation education. Ms. SARAH BEXE

Slate's Medical Examiner: Cold from the Cold?

New research looks at whether you can catch a cold from being physically chilled. Madeleine Brand talks to Dr. Sydney Spiesel, Yale Medical School professor and <em>Slate</em> contributor about the likelihood of a chill causing an infection.

Mideast Peace Talks Resume, U.S. Envoy Arrives in Israel

Israeli and Palestinian security officials resume talks in a bid to finalize a deal for an Israeli withdrawal from the northern Gaza Strip. And U.S. envoy John Wolf arrives in Israel to monitor implementation of the U.S.-backed "road map" to Mideast peace. The renewed efforts follow a week of Palestinian bombings and Israeli raids that left almost 60 people dead. Hear NPR's Linda Gradstein.

Netanyahu To Preview Speech To Congress Before AIPAC Conference

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington, D.C, where he is expected to give a contentious speech before Congress on Tuesday. He appears before a powerful pro-Israeli lobby on Monday.

A Tradition: National Guard Marches To Train Station

Since the Civil War, a National Guard unit in Bellefonte, Pa., has marched to the local train station to deploy to battle. Soldiers in the 2nd battalion, 112th regiment, who are headed to Iraq, are keeping the tradition alive — even though passenger trains no longer stop at the Bellefont station. Cynthia Berger reports for member station WPSU in University Park, Pa. LIANE HANSEN, host: In small town America, the deployment of National Guard troops to Iraq and Afghanistan has a big impact. Members of the Guard are not just soldiers, but firefighters, teachers, grocery store owners, people who are sorely missed in close-knit communities. So this week, when a National Guard company left Bellefonte, Pennsylvania, the soldiers and their community decided to say a proper farewell. WPSU's Cynthia Berger reports. CYNTHIA BERGER: The Pennsylvania National Guard's 56th Stryker Brigade deploys to Iraq this winter. But first, the various units will cycle through training at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. This week it was time for the 2nd Battalion 112th Regiment to fly south. But Charger Company, as the unit is called, decided not to board the airplane until they'd followed tradition. Sergeant MATTHEW NEDROW (Charger Company, Stryker Brigade, National Guard): The unit was organized during the Civil War. And as far as I can tell, every major deployment we've had, they've marched to the train station. BERGER: On a sparkling September morning, Sergeant Matt Nedrow stands before rows of men in camouflage fatigues behind the Bellefonte Armory. These days, the town's vintage Victorian train station only sees the occasional excursion train. But at 10:30 sharp, Charger Company steps off from the armory grounds, marching to the train. Sgt. NEDROW: Company! CHARGER COMPANY: Platoon! Sgt. NEDROW: Attention! Right... CHARGER COMPANY: Right. Sgt. NEDROW: Face. Forward... CHARGER COMPANY: Forward. Sgt. NEDROW: March. Left, left, left, right… BERGER: The Bald Eagle Area High School Marching Band falls into line with baton twirlers in gold spangles. (Soundbite of marching band) BERGER: Specialist Brian O'Neil, a tall Penn State sophomore, has the honor of carrying the company flag. Specialist BRIAN O'NEIL (Flag Carrier, Charger Company, Stryker Brigade, National Guard): It's good to keep up tradition, you know what I mean? And it's good to honor that tradition. BERGER: Four veterans from VFW Post 1600 serve as Color guard. Mr. ANDY HILLENGAS(ph) (Veteran, VFW Post 1600): We've officially adopted this unit. So they've asked us to lead the parade. BERGER: Andy Hillengas served in Korea. He says Post 1600 will be sending Charger Company lots of care packages in the months to come. So, what are you thinking about when you see these guys go out? Mr. HILLENGAS: Well, I'm thinking, I hope they all can come back. BERGER: On the upper end of Bishop Street, employees from a grocery store line the curb in matching red aprons, waving American flags. Bellefonte High School is on Bishop Street, and all the students are here, middle schoolers too. Stephen Pollack(ph), a middle school teacher's assistant, is surrounded by kids waving flags. Mr. STEPHEN POLLACK (Teacher's Assistant, Bellefonte Middle School): They served during the Vietnam era, and we didn't get much of a parade. So I'm really proud about this. BERGER: Beyond the high school, Bishop Street swoops down into town. Here, the street is lined with Victorian houses, many draped with bunting or flying flags. Mr. JIM WILSON(ph) (Veteran, World War II; Resident, Bellefonte, Pennsylvania): January 1941, I did that. I marched down the street to the station to get to the train and ended up at Camp Shelby, Mississippi... BERGER: Jim Wilson and his wife, Dale(ph), parked their Sedan head out to watch the parade from comfortable seats. Ms. DALE WILSON: Here they come, Jeff. Mr. WILSON: Here they come. Ms. WILSON: Yeah, that's what you looked like. (Soundbite of car horn) Ms. WILSON: I feel bad when I see them go, though. I never approved of this war. We had no reason to go over there. (Soundbite of car horn) BERGER: The men march two abreast, the better for family members to see their soldiers. (Soundbite of applause) BERGER: They make the turn from Bishop Street to Allegheny... Sgt. NEDROW: Company, halt! BERGER: In front of the Greek Revival courthouse with its white columns. Sgt. NEDROW: Forward... CHARGER COMPANY: Forward. Sgt. NEDROW: March. Left, right... BERGER: Finally, at the foot of the High Street hill, just before the train station, they pass under an arch formed by two fire truck ladders and come to a halt. Sgt. NEDROW: Company, halt. (Soundbite of applause) Sgt. NEDROW: Left... CHARGER COMPANY: Left. Sgt. NEDROW: Face. (Soundbite of speech) Unidentified Man: Although we at times, God forgive us, forget these sacrifices made by our troops. ..TEXT: BERGER: After speeches by local dignitaries, a picnic in the park awaits the men of Charger C

Texas 'Bathroom Bill' Dies In House Without Vote

The so-called Texas &#8220;bathroom bill&#8221; that would have forced people to use the public restroom, shower or locker room matching the sex on their birth certificate died quietly without a vote Tuesday when the Texas legislature adjourned its 30-day special session a day early. The failure to pass the bill marks the second time a bathroom restriction bill has collapsed in Texas, despite strong support from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott. Ben Philpott (@BenPhilpottKUT) of Here & Now contributor KUT in Austin joins Here & Now&#8216;s Robin Young to discuss the bill&#8217;s collapse and its significance.

How Presidential Election Could Reshape Medicaid

Medicaid provides health care for millions of low-income Americans. The presidential election could reshape Medicaid — at a critical moment for health care.

Mideast Players to Washington

NPR's Jennifer Ludden reports from Jerusalem on the latest preparations for a new round of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in Washington.

Balún: Tiny Desk Concert

It's impossible to not be drawn in by the visual specter of Balún. The band has refined their electronic roots with their turn toward self-discovery on beautifully crafted studio albums, and this set behind the Tiny Desk shows how expertly they deliver the same meticulous, artful music live. Their mix of traditional instruments with electronics creates not just a sonic treat but also a visual feast, as our eyes dart from one instrument to the other, drawn in by a Puerto Rican cuatro and a makeshift drum set. But I didn't expect to be greeted by a mysterious, eighth member who made an appearance at the start of "El Espanto" in the form of programmed solenoids that struck the bottoms of pots and pans to create a rhythmic intro to one of their brilliantly crafted songs, mixing the folkloric with the modern. Balún is part of a vanguard of bands that is expanding the musical landscape of Puerto Rico and it is a treat to watch them up close as they create an actual bridge between the ancient and the modern, set against a rich tapestry of vocals that extoll the virtues and challenges facing their beloved island these days. Much like an island in the ocean, this performance is just the tip of the magic this band offers. Hopefully you'll be pulled into their visual and musical attractions as much as they have for me. SET LIST "Vaivén" "La Nueva Ciudad" "El Espanto" "Punto De Encuentro" MUSICIANS Angélica Negrón: vocals, samples, loops; Raúl Reymundi: guitar, vocals; Noraliz Ruiz: Puerto Rican cuatro, bass, güiro, vocals; Enrique Bayoán Ríos-Escribano: Charango, zampoña, bass synth, percussion, vocals; Darian Thomas: violin , synth; Shayna Dunkelman: drums, electronic percussion; José A. Olivares: electronic percussion, samples, loops, synth; Bricolo: calderos CREDITS Producers: Felix Contreras, Morgan Noelle Smith; Creative director: Bob Boilen; Audio engineer: Josh Rogosin; Videographers: Morgan Noelle Smith, Maia Stern, Beck Harlan, CJ Riculan; Associate producer: Bobby Carter; Executive producer: Lauren Onkey; VP, programming: Anya Grundmann; Photo: Claire Harbage/NPR

Renee Rosnes Quartet Live In Concert

Just an announcement that tomorrow, Wednesday, Sept. 15, NPR Music and WBGO are teaming up for our monthly live webcast from the Village Vanguard (npr.org/villagevanguard) in New York. This week, we present pianist Renee Rosnes' quartet, which is staffed with fellow veteran killa-dillas Steve Nelson (vibes), Peter Washington (bass) and Lewis Nash (drums). Rock-solid postbop lies ahead. Show's at 9 p.m. ET, and as always, if you miss it, we'll archive the recorded audio. Host Josh Jackson has already done a "pre-game" interview with Rosnes, which you'll find on the concert page. Speaking of which ... [Live At The Village Vanguard: Renee Rosnes Quartet: Live At The Village Vanguard]

Democratic Debates, Round 5: The Moments That Mattered Most

After Round 5 of the Democratic presidential debates, we add up the political scorecard. Winners, losers, breakout moments and the issues that dominate. Guests Ginger Gibson, national political correspondent for Reuters. (@GingerGibson) Aisha Moodie-Mills, Democratic political strategist. Former executive director of the Congressional Black Caucus PAC, former regional finance director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and former political adviser to over a dozen members of Congress. (@AishaMoodMills) Megan Messerly, political reporter for the Nevada Independent. (@meganmesserly) From The Reading List &nbsp; Washington Post: &#8220;What happened in the Democratic debate: Candidates squabble over black voters, draw contrasts with Trump&#8221; &#8212; &#8220;The top candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination largely sought to speak directly to the American people rather than to draw contrasts with one another Wednesday night, in a wide-ranging presidential debate that came at a critical point in the party’s nominating contest. &#8220;For much of the debate, the candidates shied from the biting exchanges and intraparty contrasts that marked the first four gatherings, opening new lines of conversation on issues as disparate as racial justice, marijuana policy and child care. But there were also pointed if brief disputes as the night wore on, some of them focused on black voters, a key Democratic constituency. &#8220;The fifth Democratic primary debate, sponsored by The Washington Post and MSNBC, was the first since South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg showed signs of surging in several polls, and Sen. Kamala D. Harris (Calif.) obliquely criticized him for his lack of support among black voters.&#8221; New York Times: &#8220;With Impeachment as Backdrop, Democrats Direct Fire at Trump in Debate&#8221; &#8212; &#8220;The Democratic presidential candidates yielded to the furor surrounding the impeachment inquiry in Washington in their primary debate on Wednesday, for the first time training their fire more steadily on President Trump than on one another and presenting a largely united front on vital issues like climate change and abortion rights. &#8220;One month after the party’s moderate wing led a ferocious attack against Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts at the previous debate, the leading Democrats opted to mute their rivalries and restrain their language, mainly detailing their disagreements in gentle or at most passive-aggressive terms. There were moments of direct friction, especially in the final minutes of the debate over matters of national security, but in many cases the candidates’ criticism was couched within jocular one-liners or pragmatic arguments about electability. &#8220;Most telling were a handful of sharper exchanges among the 10 candidates onstage in Atlanta related to matters of race and gender. Several expressed concerns about the prospect of nominating a white man, like former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. or Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Ind. Senators Cory Booker of New Jersey and Kamala Harris of California both warned that the party could not afford to select a candidate who was not capable of exciting African-American voters, and Ms. Harris repeatedly invoked &#8216;the Obama coalition&#8217; as the Democrats’ best hope for electoral success.&#8221; ABC News: &#8220;5 takeaways from the 5th Democratic debate&#8221; &#8212; &#8220;The Democratic primary&#8217;s top 10 polling candidates appeared in Atlanta and the debate matchup featured a night of mostly civil exchanges over the party’s policy rifts and plenty of tailored pitches as the candidates continued to court a still unsettled electorate less than three months before the first primaries. &#8220;In one of the last primary debates of 2019, hosted by MSNBC and The Washington Post, the contenders continued to boast a united front on one of the key dominating external forces looming over the primary &#8212; the impeachment investigation into President Donald Trump &#8212; but the splintered field still showcased their differences over issues including health care, climate change and foreign policy over two hours of debate. &#8220;Here are five key takeaways from Wednesday night&#8217;s fifth Democratic debate.&#8221; This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Ebola Outbreak Kills At Least 14 In Uganda

An outbreak of the Ebola virus has emerged in western Uganda. Twenty cases were reported by the World Health Organization yesterday. At least 14 people have died. The number of Ebola infections is expected to rise in the next few days, as more patients are admitted to hospitals. The outbreak began in a rural district of Uganda about 125 miles west of the Uganda capital, Kampala. WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have dispatched teams to the region to investigate and help contain the outbreak. Physicians from Doctors Without Borders are also helping to set up quarantine centers. Continue Reading The Wall Street Journal reports one infected person was transferred to a hospital in Kamapala, raising fears that the virus has spread to the capital city. But the WHO said today on its Twitter account, "No infections occurred in Kampala." CDC spokesman Tom Skinner told CNN yesterday that "these outbreaks have a tendency to stamp themselves out, if you will, if we can get in and...stop the chain of transmission." Nevertheless, in a state broadcast this morning, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni urged people to avoid touching each other, the BBC reports. Ebola spreads by direct contact with bodily fluids, such as saliva and blood. Uganda has suffered through three major outbreaks of Ebola in the past 12 years, including one that claimed 224 lives in 2000. Ebola, which is named after a small river in central Africa, is a deadly virus that causes sudden fever, muscle weakness, vomiting, diarrhea, and kidney problems. The death rate from Ebola depends on the specific strain of the virus, but it has ranged between about 30 to 50 percent in Uganda. There is no cure or vaccine for Ebola.

Civil Rights March To Inauguration: King's Legacy

Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. became a household name during the bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., an action that forced politicians to end segregation on the bus lines. It was the start of a public career that pointed the nation towards change. Host Liane Hansen and NPR News Analyst Juan Williams continue their series of discussions about the civil rights milestones that led to the election of Barack Obama. LIANE HANSEN, host: This is Weekend Edition from NPR News. I'm Liane Hansen. In a little more than two weeks, Barack Obama will be sworn in as president of the United States. We've been holding a series of conversations with NPR News analyst Juan Williams about milestones in civil rights. And on this first Sunday of the new year, we are going to talk about the legacy of the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. (Soundbite of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" Speech) Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. (Civil Rights Leader): It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds. HANSEN: That's Dr. King in his 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech. And NPR's Juan Williams is in the studio. Welcome back, Juan. JUAN WILLIAMS: Good morning, Liane. HANSEN: Dr. King really became a household name during the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama. Black bus riders throughout Alabama were pressured to sit at the back of the bus, but why was Montgomery the center of the storm? WILLIAMS: Well, a good question, Liane. You know, in fact, in '53, 1953, there was a one-week bus boycott in Baton Rouge, Louisiana led by Reverend T.J. Jemison. And it had some limited success, and it could have been really a starting point because, as I say, they only had limited success. The difference with Montgomery is that you had a state capital, Baton Rouge being a state capital, but Montgomery a state capital with a substantial presence of black people. You had Alabama State University. You had a substantial network of black churches. And as a result, you had the opportunity on those bus lines, to work with a population of bus riders that were 70 percent black. So, it really was a threat to the economic viability of the bus lines. Dr. KING, JR.: I don't have but one message as I journey around this country, and it is a message which says that I am convinced that the most potent weapon available to oppressed people as they struggle for freedom and justice is the weapon of non-violence. WILLIAMS: You had Dr. King understanding, and I think many people associated him right from the start in Montgomery with Gandhi, understanding the power of non-violent political action. Clearly blacks were the minority, did not have the militia, did not have the power of police forces. But what they did have was the power of conscience and you see this. I mean Rosa Parks refusing to give up the seat, willing to go to jail. All the rest, the whole notion being that what blacks had and what minorities had - Jews and others who were fighting against the power of, let's say, organized corporations in Appalachia, what you had was the power to organize, organize and protest. And Dr. King really was the epitome of that. HANSEN: Was Martin Luther King engaging in any dialogue with the president at the time? WILLIAMS: He did, he did have some dialogue with President Kennedy, even after the march on Washington. You know, Kennedy initially have been opposed to their, to bringing such a large group of black people to the capital. There was fear that if you had so many blacks in the capital, it could lead to rioting. They surrounded the capital with military forces in case of just such an eventuality, Liane. But afterwards, seeing that it had been a peaceful protest, that it had come off successfully, President Kennedy invited Dr. King and other leaders of the march over to the White House for lemonade and spoke to them about the need for change in terms of civil rights in the country. And you start to see, for the first time, and this is the overarching, I think, aim of Dr. King during this period, is to get the federal government, because of the protest, to get the federal government into a posture of having to enforce civil rights laws rather than, and this had been Kennedy's inclination, simply wait. Kennedy had thought, you know what, we've got some things in motion. We've already had the tumult surrounding the Brown decision. Let things settle down. Here was King pushing the envelope and saying to Kennedy, you've got to enforce civil rights laws. Blacks had voted overwhelmingly for Kennedy in the '60 election, and yet, Kennedy had not proposed any civil rights legislation and had not acted aggressively to enforce civil rights laws. HANSEN: Of course, we know, President Kennedy wasn't able to fulfill his term of office. Then Presid

Prolific Conductor Neville Marriner Has Died

Neville Marriner died overnight at age 92. The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields conductor was famous for his score to the Academy Award-winning film <em>Amadeus</em>.

Video: Anna Calvi In Concert

I remember first hearing Bob Boilen gush about Anna Calvi back in January. He'd discovered her ethereal and soulful music late one cold winter night on headphones and had fallen head-over-heels in love. Since then, we've featured her new, self-titled album as part of our First Listen series, and Calvi appeared on Weekend Edition Sunday with guest host Lynn Neary. Anna Calvi has drawn a strange mix of comparisons. She's an alluring singer, often equated with Edith Piaf and opera singer Maria Callas. She's also a powerful, carefully articulated guitarist with a style compared to that of Tom Verlaine from the band Television, but with PJ Harvey's crunchy rock riffs. You can see in this full concert, recorded live in Paris, what a force Calvi is on stage. Here are a few more dates for her U.S. tour. You should see her if she plays nearby. 5/23 Philadelphia, PA Johnny Brenda's5/25 New York, NY Bowery Ballroom5/27 Toronto, ON El Mocambo5/28 Chicago, IL Schubas Tavern5/29 Minneapolis, MN Triple Rock Social Club6/1 Seattle, WA The Crocodile6/2 Vancouver, BC Biltmore Cabaret6/5 San Francisco, CA Café Du Nord6/7 Los Angeles, CA Troubadour

Unemployment Hits 9.7 Percent, Underemployment At 16.8 Percent

Unemployment rose to 9.7 percent in August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports. That's up 0.3 percent over the July rate of 9.4 percent. Analysts had expected a bump back up to the June level of 9.5 percent, so the actual number is solidly grimmer news for workers. (The stock market, on the other hand liked it.) Last month's small dip was the first decrease in 15 months, and it apparently didn't start a new trend. Employers in August cut fewer jobs than expected, with 216,000 lost overall as opposed to 276,000 in July. Unemployment is now at a 26-year high. White House spokesperson Robert Gibbs told reporters this morning that President Obama still expects unemployment to exceed 10 percent at some point this year. The labor force grew by 73,000 people last month, which shows that some of those who'd dropped out of looking went back to the hunt. The July report showed that 422,000 people left the job market for whatever reason, which helped account for the month's slightly lower unemployment rate. The ranks of the unemployed now include 14.9 million people in the U.S., up by 466,000 since last month. The average monthly job loss for May through July was 331,000, about half the rate of 645,000 from November through April. Since the beginning of the recession, 6.9 million jobs have been lost. The broadest measure of unemployment -- U6, which includes discouraged workers and those working part-time because all they can get -- hit 16.8 percent. That's up from 16.3 percent in July. After the jump, a look at the broadest measure of unemployment. Read More >> Often called the underemployment rate, U6 combines the count of people who've been laid off and are looking for work with those who have given up or resorted to part-time jobs.

Tied To Trade, Dutch Economy Falls With The Tide

The debt crisis in Europe got under way in small, heavily indebted countries like Greece and Ireland, but these days it's also being felt in the wealthy heartland. The Dutch government says the country probably slipped into a recession at the end of this year, and like other countries, it's having to consider budget cuts. With a population of just 16 million, the Netherlands is one of the most vital economies in the West. It has low unemployment, a high savings rate and a strong export base, in addition to world-class companies like Phillips and Unilever. But these days, the mood in the country is gloomy. At rush hour on a weekday in the Amsterdam central train station, it isn't hard to find people who are worried about losing their jobs — like Ada Beukelman. "Now many companies are letting go of people because there is no employment anymore, because there's no finance, and I think of the number of unemployed people is increasing," Beukelman says. "I've seen that in my own company." Or another man, Peter, who didn't want his last name used because he works for the government and doesn't want to jeopardize his job. "People are waiting for what's coming," he says. "It's difficult to buy new houses, to get new jobs, so it's affecting everyone." World Trade Worries Unemployment was very much on the mind of Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte last month when he paid a call on President Obama at the White House to discuss a familiar subject. "I came to the United States basically to discuss three issues: jobs, jobs and jobs," Rutte said to Obama. "These are the main issues at the moment." Simply put, the Netherlands is feeling the brunt of the debt troubles plaguing Europe. "The economic forecasts are deteriorating a lot, and this has everything to do with the euro crisis," says Bas Jacobs, an economist at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Jacobs says most of Dutch trade is with other European countries, and as they head into a recession, the Netherlands will follow. "The Dutch economy is a small economy and it's extremely reliant on world trade. We cannot, like the U.S., largely control our own economic destiny. We are going up and down with the tides in world trade," Jacobs says. The unemployment rate is still just 5.8 percent, but it's rising fast. With the economy slowing, Holland's small budget deficit is widening and Rutte's government is pushing through tax hikes and cuts in areas like education and transportation. Fear Of A Housing Crisis There's been talk of reducing the lavish tax deductions that the government allows on mortgage interest. The Dutch are a thrifty people, but they have amassed some of the highest levels of mortgage debt in Europe. Hans de la Porte, a spokesman for the homeowners' lobby, concedes that the deductions encouraged people to buy houses they couldn't afford. "We've had this belief that housing prices can only go up. We've [forgotten] that anything that goes up can go down," he says. That's a big risk for the banks, he adds. They're saddled with big mortgage debts that could sour if the recession lasts too long — a problem that should sound all too familiar to Americans. But de la Porte says cutting the deduction now would be the wrong thing to do. "If you do away with it altogether at once, then you have the biggest economic crisis and crash that you can ever imagine," he says. Mortgage interest isn't the only issue on the table. Some politicians want to cut the country's generous foreign aid budget. One government official has proposed scaling back unemployment benefits for people who refuse to move for a job. But for Bas Jacobs it's unclear whether any of this will be enough because the future is so murky. "Everything is now critically determined by the question [of] whether our leaders are able to devise plans to stop this euro crisis or not, and things are rather scary at the moment, I must admit," Jacobs says. The Netherlands is a country that consistently punches above its weight economically. But the truth is that as the debt crisis drags on, its fate is very much outside its hands. LYNN NEARY, HOST: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Lynn Neary. ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST: And I'm Robert Siegel. In Europe, the financial crisis was first felt in small, heavily indebted countries - countries such as Greece and Ireland. But these days, wealthy countries are feeling more pain, and that includes the Netherlands. The Dutch government says the country has probably slipped into a recession. NPR's Jim Zarroli has our story. JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: With a population of just 16 and a half million people, the Netherlands is one of the most vital economies in the West. It has low unemployment, a high savings rate and a strong export base. It has world class companies like Phillips and Unilever. But these days, the mood in the country is gloomy. At the Amsterdam Centraal Train Station at a rush hour on a weekday, it isn't hard to find people who are worried about losing their job

Senate Confirms Gina Haspel As CIA Director

The Senate on Thursday confirmed Gina Haspel as CIA director, making her the first woman to lead the spy agency, despite the controversy surrounding her role in the waterboarding program. The Senate vote of 54-45 in favor of Haspel came mostly along party lines. She needed support from several Democratic senators to win confirmation. Her confirmation effectively completes President Trump's shake-up of his national security and foreign policy teams. In recent weeks, John Bolton became the national security adviser, Mike Pompeo became secretary of state, and Haspel now takes over for Pompeo at CIA. In addition to being the CIA's first female director, Haspel is also the first career CIA officer to lead the agency since William Colby did so in the 1970s. Haspel, 61, is widely respected in the intelligence community. Since joining the CIA in 1985, just a few years out of college, she has held some 20 jobs at the agency, including seven postings abroad. The CIA said those foreign postings include Europe, Eurasia and Africa, though it has declined to name the countries, saying it is classified information. Haspel was undercover for her first 32 years at the agency, a status lifted just last year when she became deputy director to Pompeo. Trump then picked Pompeo to be secretary of state in March and chose Haspel to replace him as the spy chief. Haspel immediately came under intense scrutiny for two specific episodes in her long career. One was in 2002, when she ran a black site prison in Thailand where officers carried out waterboarding and other harsh tactics to extract information from suspected al-Qaida militants. The other was in 2005, when she was based at CIA headquarters outside Washington and wrote a cable calling for videotapes of the waterboardings to be destroyed. Democratic senators grilled Haspel on these events at her confirmation hearing before the Senate intelligence committee on May 9. In several sharp exchanges with the senators, Haspel said she would not initiate any new detention and interrogation programs as CIA director. But she did not disavow the previous program, which ran from 2002 to 2008. After that hearing, several senators said they needed additional information from Haspel. In a letter on Monday, she went beyond what she said in her public testimony. "With the benefit of hindsight and my experience as a senior agency leader, the enhanced interrogation program is not one the CIA should have undertaken," she wrote in a letter to Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., vice chairman of the intelligence committee. Shortly after her letter became public Tuesday, three Democratic senators, including Warner, announced their support for Haspel. "I believe she is someone who can and will stand up to the president if ordered to do something illegal or immoral — like a return to torture," Warner said in a statement. Haspel needed Democratic support to win confirmation because two Republican senators, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Jeff Flake of Arizona, opposed her over her role in the interrogation program. John McCain of Arizona also opposed Haspel but was not present for the vote.

Letters: April Fools!

Liane Hansen reads excerpts from listeners' letters regarding last week's April Fools' Day segments. Yes, that story about a cell-phone ringtone initiative in New York City was a hoax. And so was the funder for Soylent Green.

Roundtable: Who Speaks for Black America?

A recent Gallup poll shows many African Americans reject the idea of having one person speak for them on issues of race. Our panel of bloggers discusses the poll's results and considers a recent string of "unwanted" presidential endorsements. Today, NPR's Tony Cox talks with Amani Channel of My Urban Report, Carmen Van Kerckhove of Racialicious, and Aaron Laramore of Political Season. TONY COX, host: I'm Tony Cox and this is News & Notes. Now, onto our Bloggers' Roundtable. Here's what's hot online, unwanted political endorsements. Plus, who speaks for black America? And if you saw someone in distress, would you help them or do nothing? With us, writer Amani Channel, who blogs at My Urban Report, Carmen Van Kerckhove, she blogs at Racialicious and is also the cofounder and president of the New Demographic, an anti-racism training company, and Aaron Laramore, who blogs at Political Season. Hello, everybody. Ms. CARMEN VAN KERCKHOVE (Blogger, racialicious.com; Cofounder and President, New Demographic): Hi there. Mr. AMANI CHANNEL (Blogger, myurbanreport.com): Hey. Mr. AARON LARAMORE (Blogger, politicalseason.blogspot.com): Hello. COX: Let's begin with this. Both John McCain and Barack Obama have racked up their fair share of endorsements for president. But sometimes, sometimes, the candidates get unsolicited and presumably undesired ones. Obama's most recent is from rapper Ludacris. I'm sure you've heard of it by now. He's got a new song called "Politics (Obama is Here)." It alludes to an imminent victory for Obama while dissing Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Here's a listen. (Soundbite of song "Politics (Obama is Here)") LUDACRIS: (Rapping) You can't stop what's 'bout to happen. We 'bout to make history. The first black president is destined, and it's meant to be. The threats ain't fazing us, the nooses or the jokes. So, get off your (beep), black people. It's time to get out and vote! Paint the White House black, and I'm sure that's got 'em terrified. McCain don't belong in any chair unless he's paralyzed. Yeah, I said it, 'cause Bush is mentally handicapped. Ball up all of his speeches and just throw 'em like candy wrap... COX: Now, for his part, Barack Obama said he has been a Ludacris fan in the past, but quickly distanced himself from this musical endorsement, calling it outrageously offensive, and saying, Ludacris should be ashamed of these lyrics. Amani, what are the bloggers saying about it? Mr. CHANNEL: Well, I can only speak for myself. I just listened to the song. As you were playing it, actually, my head was nodding, and I'm, of course, a rap fan. I've met Ludacris and his mother, and I know that he does positive work in the community. However, in light of these lyrics, I believe that Obama probably had to distance himself in this situation, because of just the political implications of some of the things that Ludacris said, obviously. But what do you expect from rappers? I mean, they're rappers. His name is Ludacris. He's going to speak - he speaks for a segment of society. There're probably those out there who agree with the things he was saying. Was this a good time to say it? I don't know. Will it reflect badly or poorly on Obama? I don't know. I mean, you know, Obama didn't sit up here and endorse this song by Ludacris. So, I don't know what the damage is going to be. But it's definitely a song that'll get your head nodding. That's what I know about it. COX: Well, it did that for me as well, I will admit. Carmen, you know, Ludacris isn't the first black entertainer whose support for Obama has caused a stir. Comedian Bernie Mac's reference to hos in a routine he did before an appearance by Obama at a fundraising event caused the senator to chastise Mac for using such language. The question, though, is, isn't this the price a candidate pays for bringing in new people to the political process? Ms. VAN KERCKHOVE: It is the price, to some degree, but I think it's especially difficult for Obama because he is black. He has to constantly walk this racial tightrope, where he has to show that he is black enough so that he can, you know, reassure black voters that he has their best interests at heart, but then not appear too black to really scare off white people. And I think that in this - in these two cases, with Ludacris and Bernie Mac, because there is so much misogyny and, you know, various words and insults being used, because of the genres that these two artists work in, it becomes an especially tricky situation for Obama. COX: I would imagine, Aaron, that it's also tricky for Obama to figure out a way to distance himself from remarks, like these by Ludacris, without offending the people who really like Ludacris and who, like Amani and myself, had our heads, you know, bopping to the music despite what was being said. Mr. LARAMORE: Well, in that event - I mean, his problem is that there's really not much help to be done for that. You know, these incidents, like this with Bernie

Legendary Jazz Drummer Dies at 83

<em>News & Notes</em> pays tribute to pioneering jazz drummer Max Roach, one of the fathers of the bebop jazz style. Roach's biographer, Amiri Baraka, discusses the drummer's career as a musician and an unflinching civil rights activist.

GM to Debut 'Volt' Hybrid by 2010

General Motors says it plans to have its next-generation hybrid car, the Volt, on the market by 2010. But GM is taking a major gamble. The battery that will power the car doesn't exist yet.

First Round At Masters, Tiger Woods' Best Ever

Tiger Woods had two eagles in a round for the first time in his Masters career, firing a 4-under 68. That has him in the hunt at the first major golf tournament of the year. It's his lowest score ever in an opening round at the Masters; and it came in Woods' first competitive round of golf since his self-imposed exile after a sex scandal. Fred Couples has the lead.

New Novel Explores 'What We Lose' When We Lose A Parent

Who do we become when we lose a parent? That transformation and the loss of identity and the security that surrounds it is at the heart of Zinzi Clemmons' novel What We Lose. The main character Thandi struggles with the illness and death of her mother and her place in the world as the daughter of an African-American father and a mixed-race South African mother. Thandi does not handle her mother's death well, Clemmons says. "She internalizes a lot of it, but kind of puts a lid on it, and I think what you kind of see happening over time is this sort of dislocated grief kind of manifests in various different decisions that are maybe not the best for her future." Interview Highlights On her relationship with her mother and the beginnings of her book I had always written about my mother ... some of the first stories I wrote were talking about different disagreements that we had. But what was important was the kind of larger struggles that were embodied in those arguments. ... So I had always written about my mother as a way to write about these larger issues, about immigration and gender and motherhood. And during the time that my mother's health took a turn for the worse, I was a grad student at Columbia, in their MFA program, and actually, it was the last day of school, and we had our graduation ceremony. And I found out that my mom had a few months to live. So I pretty immediately, because I was done with school, packed my things up. I quit the job that I had and moved back to Philadelphia and basically spent the last six months with her. It's an around-the-clock job, it's very draining, and at the end of the day, the only thing I had time to write were basically one-paragraph, or sometimes a sentence, reflections. And I just started collecting them in this folder, and I didn't intend to do anything with them. But they all started to fit together in this large story. On writing about her feeling of rootlessness as a light-skinned black woman I've never had, or maybe never felt that I've had, a group that I could belong to without question to it. And even though that statement is absolutely true, and being someone like me feels lonely, I do want to say that loneliness is very different from being harassed or being dismissed or abused because of the color of your skin. And I think what I would like people to take away from this book ... [is] that I don't ever mean to engage in oppression Olympics. But I think that that has unfortunately been the conversation when we talk about colorism in black communities — so it's just a statement of what that feels like, but it's not an effort to place it above anyone else's struggle. On defining yourself after a parent has gone I think that the loss of a parent sort of forced that definition, right? Because your parents are almost like a physical embodiment of your genetics and all of your roots. At the same time, it's very hard, when you have a really long relationship with your parents, to see them from the outside and to see them as people. And so I think when you have a parent pass away, you bookend their life, and you're able to see them from a different perspective, and to separate yourself from those visible roots. And it's also something that you're forced to do, because as a woman, especially, I've sort of found out in my own life that, especially when it comes to questions of family, and of whether I want to become a mother myself ... all of those things are things that I would have loved to be able to talk to my mother about, but I have to figure them out on my own. So I do have to define myself much more strongly now, because I don't have another choice, really. Samantha Balaban and Barrie Hardymon produced and edited the audio of this interview. Petra Mayer adapted it for the Web.