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The start of the new year means that midsize employers must offer health insurance to workers or face a tax penalty. And the mandate has been in place for larger companies since last January, but employees often turn the coverage down because it's too expensive. We're going to hear now about a less-pricey plan, but it doesn't give workers the same benefits as their bosses. Fred Mogul of member station WNYC has the story.
FRED MOGUL, BYLINE: At a factory near Newark, N.J., Oasis Foods produces cooking oil, mayonnaise and other products that restaurants and distributors often purchase by the ton. Company president Duke Gillingham points to a steel vat emitting a familiar fragrance. He says right now, butter-flavored popcorn oil is in high demand.
DUKE GILLINGHAM: We get a rush this time of year with all the movie-going at the holidays.
MOGUL: So maybe some of what's in here is ending up on people's popcorn while they're watching "Star Wars?"
GILLINGHAM: Most definitely.
MOGUL: Gillingham pays close attention to the cost of raw materials, packaging and transportation. And like any employer, his workers payroll is his biggest overall expense, and that, of course, includes insurance, where...
GILLINGHAM: You know, double-digit health care cost increases have been the norm.
MOGUL: The Affordable Care Act required Oasis Foods to offer everyone insurance. That doubled the number of workers the company covers. And yet, around two-thirds of employees said no, thanks. For a family of four, insurance costs about $350 a month and has a $2,500 deductible - a lot of money for factory workers. Gillingham says he hasn't been able to find anything much cheaper than that, and he can only raise wages so much.
GILLINGHAM: The sad fact is that we're in a very competitive business, so if we don't watch what we're doing, we can be high-cost. And that doesn't serve any of the employees well.
MOGUL: Some of the workers who declined coverage are on spouse's health plans. Some are probably uninsured, and some have enrolled in Medicaid with the help of a startup Gillingham hired called Benestream.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Many of your employees and their families may be eligible for better health care provided by the government.
MOGUL: In its animated online ad, Benestream shows cartoon workers and managers being crushed by mountains of insurance paperwork and health care costs until Benestream steps in. CEO Ben Geyerhahn says moving workers from private insurance to Medicaid helps the firms that hire his company.
BEN GEYERHAHN: About two-and-a-half times the money you spend with us comes back to you in the form of saved premium.
MOGUL: Geyerhahn says going on to Medicaid, which is very close to free, is also a good deal for the workers because if they make so little that they're eligible for it, they most likely can't afford regular insurance premiums. Qualifying income for Medicaid is about $16,000 for a single person or 33,000 for a household of four. And those high deductibles they would also pay before conventional coverage really starts, those undermine much of the benefit of insurance.
GEYERHAHN: Yes, this is something that will help them if they get into a car accident or have a heart attack, but this isn't something that's going to help them manage their health over the course of a year.
MOGUL: Walmart, McDonald's and other companies have made headlines for not insuring workers and letting taxpayers pick up their health costs through Medicaid. Ken Jacobs, chair of the UC Berkeley Labor Center says companies whose employees get Medicaid should shoulder some of the government's costs.
KEN JACOBS: Those employers should also be then paying more into the general pot that helps pay for the cost of health care rather than putting those costs on everyone else.
MOGUL: At Oasis Foods, Duke Gillingham says his company pays a lot in taxes, so it's a fair deal to get back almost free health care for some workers for that money. He contrasts this system to one he's experienced elsewhere.
GILLINGHAM: I lived abroad and had access to more socialized medicine.
MOGUL: This was when he and his family of six were in England.
GILLINGHAM: My kids didn't suffer from having a five- or six-minute checkup.
MOGUL: Compared with twice as much doctor time in the United States at much higher cost but without any noticeable difference in results.
GILLINGHAM: We didn't see any of the demons that people speak of when they talk about socialized medicine. There were no lines. There were no poor standard of care.
MOGUL: Gillingham might be more open to government health care than many CEOs, but he acknowledges workers so far have given Medicaid mixed reviews. Some doctors and hospitals take it. Many don't. But he says that's insurance generally. A Gallup poll last month found 67 percent of Americans are satisfied with this country's health care system compared with 75 percent of people with Medicaid. For NPR News in New York, I'm Fred Mogul.
CORNISH: That story's part of a reporting partnership of NPR, WNYC and Kaiser Health News.
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It takes a lot of energy to produce the food we eat, and new technologies are beginning to give some of that energy back to us. Europe has been extracting natural gas from organic waste for about a decade. And as Dan Boyce of member station KUNC reports, this is starting to pick up in the U.S.
DAN BOYCE, BYLINE: If you can picture 8 million gallons of what people have flushed down their toilets, that's what I'm smelling right now.
DAN TONELLO: Yeah, there's - it does put off an odor.
BOYCE: That's Dan Tonello, manager of Grand Junction Colorado's Wastewater Treatment Plant. We're staring down at a brown torrent of flowing raw sewage. And the odor - it's starting to smell more like money to Tonello. Processing the sewage produces a lot of methane, which the plant used to just burn off into the air.
TONELLO: Not good for the environment and a waste of a wonderful resource.
BOYCE: Yet with more infrastructure to further refine it...
(SOUNDBITE OF TRUCK STARTING)
BOYCE: ...You get natural gas, chemically identical to what's drilled from underground. Grand Junction has been replacing an aging fleet of garbage trucks and buses with natural-gas vehicles, fueled mostly by the human-sourced gas from the treatment plant. Tonello says Grand Junction is the first city in the nation to do that.
TONELLO: We're looking at hundreds of thousands of dollars a year being saved by implementing this process.
JOANNA UNDERWOOD: That's a model for small wastewater treatment plants anywhere in the country.
BOYCE: Joanna Underwood is the president of Energy Vision, a nonprofit dedicated to expanding the use of this renewable natural gas. It's cleaner than diesel fuel and puts emissions that were heading for the atmosphere anyway to good use. And there are other sources beyond human waste. I met Underwood in the ground-floor restaurant of a Denver hotel, and she started walking among the tables pointing them out.
UNDERWOOD: You're looking at people eating ham and toast and eggs - all of this is organic.
BOYCE: Natural gas from food waste. Right now, food scraps from restaurants are being collected along with that from grocery stores and large food manufacturers all over Colorado's densely-populated front range. In just a few weeks, it will all be heading up to northern Colorado. The Heartland Biogas Facility is in its final stages of construction. It basically does the same thing the plant in Grand Junction does but on a much bigger scale, an enormous scale.
BOB YOST: It's one of the largest in North America.
BOYCE: Bob Yost's company A1 Organics is partnering with the facility to coordinate the delivery of all that food.
YOST: There could be 25, 30 semi loads per day of food waste coming in and then the manure is added to that.
BOYCE: Manure from a local dairy. Yost says the best way to get the most natural gas from waste is for your facility to have a balanced diet of both food scraps and manure.
YOST: After they've created the renewable natural gas, it's injected into the pipeline and then it's delivered to anywhere in the country.
BOYCE: The same pipelines used for fossil fuel natural gas. Joanna Underwood of Energy Vision - she says if all the organic waste in the country were gathered, current technologies could produce enough natural gas to replace about half of the diesel fuel used in U.S. transportation.
UNDERWOOD: For this sector, which in and of itself is big, it's not a small piece.
BOYCE: So not a replacement for the traditional oil and gas industry by a long shot. But Underwood argues practical solutions to climate change have to be assembled piece by piece. For NPR News, I'm Dan Boyce in Denver.
CORNISH: This story comes to us from Inside Energy, a public media collaboration focusing on America's energy issues.
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Up and down the West Coast, ski resorts are boasting some of their strongest early-season conditions on record. This is a big relief compared to last season when there were late openings, early closings, and some ski areas didn't open at all. NPR's Kirk Siegler reports on a resort that considered the drought a practice run for the future.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: The steep chutes and boulder-strewn glades served by Squaw Valley's KT-22 chair lift are legendary for extreme skiing enthusiasts and Tahoe locals like Laura Subotky.
LAURA SUBOTKY: Living the good life, for sure.
SIEGLER: Subotky is thrilled because these slopes right now have more snow on them than at any time last year.
SUBOTKY: I moved up here four years ago full-time, and we haven't had a super awesome season in all that time. So it's great to see it change.
SIEGLER: Last year, snowpack across the Sierra Nevada was just 5 percent of average. But this year's strong start will be good news for farms and cities down the mountain later, but it's especially promising right now for people like Andy Wirth.
ANDY WIRTH: It's been many, many years since KT's been open at all, and to be able to ski KT this early in the season is nothing short of remarkable.
SIEGLER: Wirth is Squaw Valley's CEO. He took over here in 2011, a record snowfall year, only to be followed by three dry years and then, in 2015, the driest in 1,200 years. It's the kind of season that leads to a lot of soul-searching, not to mention tough questions about whether skiing will even be viable much longer.
WIRTH: Mother Nature basically forced us to focus on every single element of our business from the revenue perspective, from the cost structure perspective, the service levels; you name it.
SIEGLER: To cope, Wirth redirected $8 million to new, more efficient automated snowmaking systems. The other big thing they did was pool together with other resorts around the country to sell a collective pass. That way, when it was dry in California, Squaw could still make some money from season pass sales elsewhere.
WIRTH: The past four years has been really tough, yet we've not only survived because of our capital structure, because of our work; we've done quite well.
SIEGLER: Season pass sales actually climbed during the drought, yet Squaw still saw a pretty brutal 25 percent drop in overall business. For a lot of people on this mountain, it was a glimpse of what skiing might be like with climate change.
JEREMY JONES: Let's go to chute 75. That's one of my favorite runs. It's...
SIEGLER: Extreme snowboarders like Jeremy Jones are already noticing the changes. A few years ago, he founded a group called Protect Our Winters. This group of professional skiers and riders lobbies Congress and tries to raise awareness about human-caused climate change.
JONES: As I've become more educated, I've realized that if we do get to a point where we can't operate a ski area, the least of our problems is going to be us skiers and snowboarders out there riding down these mountains.
SIEGLER: Jones says lower altitude mountains like this may have the toughest go. Things are already pretty fickle.
JONES: It is all about feast or famine these days. It's like record-breaking storm, record-breaking lows, snowing in June, 70 degrees in January. And so you have to adapt, and when the conditions do line up, take advantage of them.
SIEGLER: It's safe to say industry executives like Andy Wirth are counting on their customers being flexible in the years ahead. I met back up with him for a couple of runs by the resort's gondola.
WIRTH: It's going to take just a second to get here, though.
SIEGLER: Wirth is a self-described environmental, a one-time firefighter and forest ranger, even. His grandfather used to run the National Park Service. But he's also in the business of making money from snow, and it's his job to be optimistic.
WIRTH: There might be a year where the skiing starts here, but there's going to be years where it starts at lake level 2,000 feet below us.
SIEGLER: Clicking into our bindings, Wirth tells me ski resorts can be profitable as the climate changes. The business models just have to adapt to volatility.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Are we just taking a groomer down, probably?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Yeah, we're just...
SIEGLER: To that end, we ski down to a ribbon cutting for his resort's new $7 million upgrade to its Siberia Express lift. This lift now carries six skiers per chair up to the top of one of Squaw Valley's most consistently snowy peaks. It's also designed to keep running in high winds. After all, this might be where most of the skiing in the future happens.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Again, our CEO of Squaw Alpine joining us for our ribbon-cutting ceremony. So come on down. Be a part of history.
SIEGLER: Later, Wirth tells me he's confident there will be skiing here in 50 years. He knows climate change is real and seasons will be volatile, but he doesn't think it's going to be so dramatic as no snow at all.
WIRTH: It's rhetoric that's been used to bring attention to climate change. And I get it, and I support that. But there are - I have the obligation to run this business in a thoughtful and objective fashion, and that doesn't match with thoughtfulness, science and objectivity.
SIEGLER: It's a bet he and resorts like Squaw Valley are clearly hedging. Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Tahoe City, Calif.
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Washington state has been releasing convicted felons early, but it's not part of sentencing reform. State officials say the early releases have been happening by accident for more than 12 years because of a software glitch. NPR's Martin Kaste reports.
MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: It's tempting these days just to let the computers do the math, but on the important stuff, whether it's your bank balance or, in this case, the length of a prison sentence, sometimes it does pay to double check the results.
NICK BROWN: Approximately 3 percent of all released inmates since 2002 were released earlier than allowed by law.
KASTE: That's Nick Brown, the governor's general counsel, talking about a flaw in the software that Washington state uses to calculate prison sentences. He said the problem was first flagged three years ago when a crime victim's family was notified that the perpetrator was about to get out early.
BROWN: The family did its own calculation, determined that the offender was getting out earlier than the court had ordered and contacted the department to ask why this was happening.
KASTE: Turns out the software was improperly giving some inmates credit for good behavior. Even though the problem was discovered in 2012, the software was never fixed until the governor, Jay Inslee, says the problem finally reached his attention last month. And then he disclosed it to the media.
JAY INSLEE: That this problem was allowed to continue to exist for 13 years is deeply disappointing. It is totally unacceptable, and frankly, it is maddening.
KASTE: Washington state officials are now in full damage-control mode. Until the software's fixed, they say nobody's getting out of prison without a hand calculation of the release date. They say on average, convicts who got out early got out less than two months before the correct date. But still, General Counsel Brown acknowledged last week that some of those people probably committed crimes during the time they were supposed to be in prison.
BROWN: What we know is based on the law of averages. Approximately 10 percent of all inmates who are released from prison commit some new offense in the first year of their release.
KASTE: And sure enough, since last week, the Washington state Department of Corrections has been collecting the bad news. One convict has been charged with committing vehicular homicide after his early release. Another is charged with first-degree murder. In a conference call yesterday, secretary of corrections Dan Pacholke said the state is still digging into what crimes may have been committed by ex-cons in the period of time when they should have been in prison.
DAN PACHOLKE: I'm very concerned about what we will uncover as we move forward. You know, there's likely to be more crime that has been committed during that window, but I can't really speculate on the numbers. But it concerns me deeply about just the tragedy that is being produced.
KASTE: The state is now rounding people up. Convicts who were mistakenly released years ago and have stayed out of trouble don't have to worry about going back to prison. Instead, the state is focusing on people released more recently. At last count, 31 are back in custody. And it should be said that of those, most have not been accused of committing new crimes while on the outside. And for those who've been trying to hold on to jobs and restart their lives, this unexpected re-incarceration comes has come as an unwelcome shock. Martin Kaste, NPR News, Seattle.
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President Obama is preparing to take executive action on gun control when he returned from vacation next week. The president was rebuffed three years ago in his effort to push gun legislation through Congress. Now he's considering regulatory changes that would make it harder for would-be gun buyers to skirt the laws requiring background checks. NPR's Scott Horsley reports.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: President Obama has spoken out about gun violence more than a dozen times since taking office. Whether the trigger pullers are inspired by ISIS, racism or the demons of mental illness, for him, the mounting body count has become all too routine.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: As I said just a few months ago and I said a few months before that and I said each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough.
HORSLEY: Obama launched a major push for gun control legislation three years ago after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. But that bill stalled in the U.S. Senate, so after another mass shooting in October at an Oregon community college, the president asked his advisers about steps he could take on his own.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun.
HORSLEY: One recommendation is to tighten the rule government background checks. Under federal law, licensed gun dealers are required to check customers' background before selling a gun, but hobbyists and collectors are allowed to sell guns with no questions asked.
TED ALCORN: That is a huge loophole in the existing background check system which otherwise is a very useful system for keeping guns out of the hands of dangerous people.
HORSLEY: Research director Ted Alcorn of the advocacy group Every Town For Gun Safety says a small number of gun sellers have taken advantage of that loophole, selling large numbers of weapons at gun shows and online. Chelsea Parsons of the left-leaning Center for American Progress says these unlicensed dealers make it far too easy for felons, domestic abusers and the mentally ill to buy guns without any screening.
CHELSEA PARSONS: You have individuals who rent tables at gun shows, set up their wares right next to a licensed gun dealer, and in fact, they often advertise no paperwork, no background check.
HORSLEY: Gun control advocates say the administration could shrink that loophole by rewriting the rules so more gun dealers have to conduct background checks. Anyone selling large numbers of guns or turning them around quickly, for example, would have to screen their customers. Critics complain the Senate already considered and rejected a similar idea three years ago. Dudley Brown of the National Association for Gun Rights argues Obama is trying to side-step Congress.
DUDLEY BROWN: We don't have a king in America, but he's acting like it. We'll oppose it loudly and vociferously.
HORSLEY: Brown is based in Colorado, which passed its own law requiring more background checks in 2013 in response to the aurora movie theater shooting. Two state lawmakers who back that measure were later recalled. Brown predicts similar political pushback if Obama goes through with his plans.
BROWN: I think it is going to dramatically hurt Hillary Clinton, members of Congress and the Democrat Party if the White House does this.
HORSLEY: Despite the political fallout, though, Colorado still requires nearly all gun purchasers to go through a background check. Supporters say over the last two-and-a-half years, that's stopped more than 700 prohibited people from buying a gun. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
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And we're going to continue to spend a little time on politics with our Friday political commentators. Welcome back E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post. Hey there, E.J.
E.J. DIONNE: Good to be with you. Happy New Year.
CORNISH: And with us, Eliana Johnson of Washington, editor of National Review. Welcome, Eliana.
ELIANA JOHNSON: Thanks so much.
CORNISH: So as we just heard, President Obama's set to unveil this kind of raft of executive actions on Monday on gun control, and it's a reminder that he's, like, trying to push his agenda through as his time is winding down in the White House. E.J., are there other kind of agenda items or legacy builders that you're going to be watching for out of this White House?
DIONNE: Well, the president has said a lot of stuff happens in the fourth quarter. And we are in the end of the fourth quarter. I think the gun thing is very important because this is something he really wants. He's been very frustrated by the failure to have action, and he's been under pressure from supporters of gun control to do more, and now he's going to do it.
There were also some interesting options the Industrial Areas Foundation has talked about, about using the enormous purchasing power of guns by governments to try to get something back from the gun manufacturers. I don't know if he's going to go that far.
I think if you're looking at the last year, I think he's also going to really try on sentencing reform, where there is some left-right consensus. A lot of his - he's going to try to sell his approach to the Islamic State, to ISIS and say, we are making progress. And some of the legacy will hang on how he succeeds in that. And then finally, the legacy will hang on who wins the election. You know, Ronald Reagan's legacy was stronger because George H. W. Bush won in 1988. Barack Obama's legacy will be stronger if the Democrats win this selection.
CORNISH: Another angle I want to take on this - and bear with me - comes from Jeb Bush. He was speaking to NPR's Steve Inskeep this week, where Bush actually credited Donald Trump's sort of grip on the Republican primary to Barack Obama.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
JEB BUSH: I would argue that Donald Trump is, in fact, a creature of Barack Obama. But for Barack Obama, Donald Trump's effect would not be nearly as strong as it is. We are living in a divided country right now, and we need political leaders rather than continuing to divide us, as both president Obama and Donald Trump do, to unite us.
CORNISH: Eliana, I want to turn to you. You hear Jeb Bush talking about division but also the idea of Trump being something - where he's sort of being born out of the Obama era. What's your take on this?
JOHNSON: I don't think that's totally true. I actually think Donald Trump is really an embodiment of blue-collar frustration with what are really a bipartisan elite consensus on a number of issues that Republicans and Democrats in Washington agree on. One is free trade, and you see Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders taking similar positions there reflecting frustration. Another is immigration, where Donald Trump is an ardent opponent of letting more immigrants into the country. And I think you see the far left and the far right coming together on that issue.
And so Barack Obama is certainly an embodiment of elite Washington opinion, but it's really, I think, frustration among the grassroots of both parties about issues, really, that Republicans and Democrats agree on and where they feel they are not getting a hearing.
DIONNE: I got to say, I expect Republicans to blame Obama for almost everything, but I never expected a Republican to blame Obama for Donald Trump.
(LAUGHTER)
DIONNE: But it's out there. And I suppose - I agree, by the way, with Eliana that Trump really is the tribune of the Republican working class, which is peculiar given who he is. But I think that's really happening in this election. But it shows what Jeb is going to - Jeb Bush is going to try to do to come back. He is spending an enormous amount of money. He is going to use attacks on Trump to try to push himself back in the front. He's starting to go after some of his other opponents. And if you're a Republican, what's a better way to discredit Donald Trump than to try to find some kind of cockamamie link with Barack Obama?
CORNISH: Cockamamie link - OK (laughter).
DIONNE: Yeah (laughter).
CORNISH: Well, I want to come back to you, Eliana, because, you know, another two presidential hopefuls who also, in a way, were born out of the Obama era that - the Tea Party, in fact - Senator Cruz and Senator Rubio. I mean, where have they taken that kind of Tea Party agenda, and how are they using it in this primary?
JOHNSON: You know, the Tea Party, again, really, was frustration with both political parties. And Rubio and Cruz ran against the Washington establishment, the overspending of the Bush administration and the perceived lack of conservatism or conservative principles of George W. Bush and then the parade of liberal policies passed by the Obama administration.
And - but once in Washington, they've really taken different paths. I think Rubio has taken a more traditional path, believe that having been born of the Tea Party, he could really unite the moderates and conservatives in the party with a policy platform. Cruz, I think, early on, elected right after Mitt Romney lost - he was elected in 2012 - saw that the old rulebook perhaps didn't apply anymore and that there was a different path that other people didn't see out of the presidential level, where he didn't need to unite the establishment and the grassroots, but he could unite the party by eliminating the establishment altogether. And I think that's really what he's trying to do on the campaign trail now.
DIONNE: I think the problem - Rubio has a big upside but a big downside 'cause he's trying to appeal to all wings of the party simultaneously. But that requires him to do a little bit of twisting and turning, and it's not clear where he stands.
CORNISH: Yeah - hard to make that fly these days.
DIONNE: If he - Cruz knows who he need to get to win this nomination. And so if you were - if I were betting, I'd bet that the Cruz strategy has more possibility to it in terms of winning. If the Rubio strategy works, it's really going to work in a big way.
JOHNSON: Yeah. I think the troubled there is Cruz, who has courted the Republican grassroots, has done himself a lot of good in terms of perhaps winning the nomination but made himself a more limited candidate when the general election comes around. Rubio, on the other hand, may have more difficulty winning the nomination but is certainly probably a stronger candidate in the general election. So Republicans are in something of a bind in that regard (laughter).
DIONNE: Completely agree with that analysis. That's exactly right.
CORNISH: Well, we just have a few minutes left, and so I want to ask about 2016. Obviously we've heard some lessons about 2015 outside candidates and sort of how their approaching the party. Are there any sort of voting blocks, ideologies, ideas that you are going to be looking for in 2016? I'll start with you, Eliana.
JOHNSON: One thing - I think 2012 had a really psychologically damaging effect on the Republican grassroots and that that's - after Mitt Romney's loss, I don't think Republicans expected to win in 2008. I do think they expected to win in 2012, and that, really, was the catalyst for the grassroots turning against party leader. And I wonder, in 2016, if the result of the election will change that dynamic and the grassroots will turn their fury once again against Democrats or if that dynamic will continue. And I think it will have great implications for the party.
CORNISH: E.J., final word.
DIONNE: The social contract that allowed people to rise up from relatively modest circumstances is broken. What you might call the social Democratic bargain is broken, and that explains a lot of the discontent in the country. And the election should be about, how do we rewrite that social contract?
CORNISH: E.J. Dionne of the Washington Post and Eliana Johnson, Washington editor of National Review, thank you both for coming in, and happy New Year.
DIONNE: And to you, too. Thanks.
JOHNSON: Thank you. Happy New Year.
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The College Football Playoffs were on ESPN last night, and ESPN's parent company, Disney, wasn't about to let anyone forget it. The playoffs were even written into a soap opera. ABC's "General Hospital," also owned by Disney, had characters talking about what they'd be doing for New Year's Eve.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GENERAL HOSPITAL")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) I was planning on checking out The Floating Rib because they're playing the College Football Playoff.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Hey, Jason, you got anything going on tonight? Dante and I are going to go to The Floating Rib and watch the College Football Playoffs if you want to come along.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) I really enjoy watching football on New Year's.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) OK, well, you're in luck because ESPN's doing it again next year.
CORNISH: Hat tip to Deadspin for that amazing "GH" montage, by the way. So did ESPN get the ratings it hoped for? Well, let's ask John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal. And John Ourand, how is the network spinning these numbers this morning? How did they do?
JOHN OURAND: They're spinning them furiously, but this is about as worst a case scenario as ESPN could have come up with. Overnight, ratings are down about 35 percent from last year when the games were held on New Year's Day, much more than I was expecting.
CORNISH: But what is the reasoning behind all this? Why were these games moved to New Year's Eve?
OURAND: These games were moved to New Year's Eve as part of a plan by college football executives where they want to create a tradition of watching football on New Year's Eve. They take a look at what the NFL has done with Thanksgiving Day, what the NBA has done with Christmas Day and even what Major League Baseball has done with the July 4, and they think that that they can create New Year's Eve as the college football semifinal. It would be a great way to brand it, and they can really identify with New Year's Eve as much as college football's identified with New Year's Day.
CORNISH: Did it work in your house?
OURAND: Yes and no - went over to a friend's house. My wife and I went over to a friend's house, and we had dinner. The kids were watching television. We were getting the score reports, but we - I probably didn't see more than maybe three plays of the night game.
CORNISH: ESPN is spending a reported $7 billion to air College Football Playoffs. Could a bad showing on New Year's Eve force the network to try and move the games back to New Year's Day?
OURAND: New Year's Day probably is not going to work. And one of the main reasons it's not going to work is that the Rose Bowl is on New Year's Day, and it's not moving. So last year, they were able to have it on New Year's Day because the Rose Bowl hosted one of the semifinals. So it was able to do it on New Year's Day. But until that happens again, it's going to have to be on New Year's Eve or maybe the day after New Year's Day.
CORNISH: Were the numbers actually higher last year in part because it was the first time people had this kind of playoff?
OURAND: Yeah, I think that's one of the reasons that I would expect them to hold these games next New Year's Eve. Last year, we had big college football brands in the game. You had Ohio State playing Alabama. You had a couple of first-round draft picks playing in the other game. And there was a lot of excitement that came with it, and it was on New Year's Day when more people are watching television. So it was going to be a tough comparison this year, especially coming on New Year's Eve with brands and with teams that weren't necessarily as popular as they were last year.
CORNISH: John Ourand of the Sports Business Journal, thanks so much for speaking with us.
OURAND: Thank you very much, Audie.
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With the way things have been going in Oklahoma, this didn't come as a surprise. The state opened 2016 with a 4.2-magnitude earthquake this morning. There have been at least a dozen earthquakes in the state just since Tuesday. Now, for all of 2015, Oklahoma saw more than 800 earthquakes at magnitude 3.0 or greater. This is not the way it used to be. Regulators and researchers say the rise in quakes is due to oil and gas production that involves re-injecting vast amounts of salty water into the earth. To talk more, we turn to Todd Halihan. He's a professor in the School of Geology at Oklahoma State. Welcome to the program, Todd.
TODD HALIHAN: Thanks.
CORNISH: So what can you tell us about today's quake? I understand it happened about 15 miles outside of Oklahoma City.
HALIHAN: Right, so we've had a lot of seismicity that's happened out in rural areas, and the folks in the rural areas don't appreciate it very much. But we've had a couple recently right underneath Edmond, which is one of our very populated areas with a lot of people sitting on top of it. So it's made a lot of press lately.
CORNISH: We mentioned earlier about the quakes being connected to oil and gas production. Obviously, people have heard about fracking. Can you help us understand how this works? What's causing the quakes?
HALIHAN: So when you're producing oil and gas, you're actually pumping a water well, and you happen to get some oil and gas out of it. And so in some formations, you get mostly oil, which is a great thing to do. In ours, you're getting about 10 gallons of water per gallon of oil. And then you have this leftover salty water that you can't do much with. It's much saltier than ocean water, and so the only choice that they found was we could put it down to depth and dispose of it. That process, for a very long time, has worked very, very effectively. But in the modern day with higher volumes and higher rates, it's caused seismicity. For us, that's not been something we've had to deal with previously until a few years ago.
CORNISH: So what steps has the state taken to try and counter this pattern? What are they asking the companies to do differently?
HALIHAN: So when they design an injection well, it's designed to protect the fresh water up above and keep it from coming into the surface or coming into groundwater where people are drinking. When you design for seismicity, you want to design to protect the well from the water going down below where you're injecting. And so they've done a lot of changes to the wells to try to prevent water from getting down into the - what we call the granitic basement and finding faults down there that it can lubricate and move. And so that change from protecting the upper part of the well to changing the lower part of the well - they put out some mandates saying, we'd like you to modify your wells in these ways if you're in the seismically active areas.
CORNISH: Are there any seismologists or researchers out there who still say that the link isn't strong enough - who are denying a connection?
HALIHAN: There are still some people that the pattern for this type of activity is not a really clean one. It's not, hey, there's an injection well, and you made an earthquake right next to it. It's that there's an injection well, and miles away, there's an earthquake. And so the pattern isn't really simple. And in Okla., if you're miles away from an injection well, you're close to another injection well. And so figuring out what caused it and where - that pattern isn't simple. It's really difficult to say, yes, we're really, really certain about this and that. But what you can check is when the rates have been lowered or wells have been shut in, seismicity has dropped, so that's a pretty good indicator that there's that nice connection where you see that those changes and injection have resulted in less seismicity in some areas.
CORNISH: What does this mean for states who are watching Okla. and try to figure out how to regulate this kind of activity in their communities?
HALIHAN: Well, one of the tricks is - is that you need to get the technical components out in the front. And that's been done in the airline industry. And I talk about if you have a plane crash, they don't want that to happen, but there's a neutral technical group that can look at that and make a call on it. It's difficult in the oil industry because there's not that neutral ref to say, what's the next step? And so I think what we're going to be looking at is, how do we properly address these problems so the public is comfortable, but the energy industry can operate with some certainty? And that balance is something that's difficult in the energy industry because there's no referee.
CORNISH: Todd Halihan is a professor in the School of Geology at Oklahoma State. Thank you so much for speaking with us.
HALIHAN: Thanks for having me.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Japanese-style massage by blind South Sudanese - that was the painted wooden sign on our correspondent, Gregory Warner - that our correspondent, Gregory Warner, spotted in the South Sudanese capital of Juba. And he saw that side after a week of reporting on a civil war that still simmers there.
GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: It was my fifth day in South Sudan. I had taken cargo planes and helicopters to U.N. camps to talk with many people displaced by the last two years of conflict. And I needed a massage. I wasn't looking for Japanese-style massage by blind South Sudanese, but there was the sign, right by my hotel.
Hello.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Hello.
WARNER: How are you?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Fine.
WARNER: Thank you for coming so quickly.
We're in a kind of small house in a dusty compound off the main road. Juba these days seems peaceful - people are walking to work. But the conflict has split the city in two. A few miles away, in a U.N. camp, tens of thousands of people prefer the safety of tents to the homes they fled two years before. Here, I'm the only customer. The receptionist leads me into a second room, warm and dim, and hands me some bright green pajamas.
WARNER: I put this on?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yeah.
WARNER: So we do the interview first, or do we do the massage first? OK, we do the massage first. OK - OK, perfect.
My masseur is blind. And the Japanese style - that turns out to mean no oil. It's about pressure points. An hour later, I'm so relaxed that you'll hear the difference in my voice when I sit down to interview another masseur, named James.
JAMES PITIA: My name is James Pitia. I am a masseur, working with Seeing Hands massage.
WARNER: Seeing Hands massage.
PITIA: I became blind in 1997, when I was 13 years old.
WARNER: So the massage is 75 pounds. That's about $5. How much can that actually buy here in South Sudan?
PITIA: Seventy-five?
WARNER: Yeah.
PITIA: Before, the 75 was OK. But now, the money we are getting here, most of them are going for transport.
WARNER: James's life as a masseur began in 2012. He was plucked from a teaching job at a blind school in Juba by a visiting priest from New York City who offered a training course in massage. James was selected with four other blind people - four men and one woman - to take the course. He'd never thought about massage before. But this was in the optimistic year after South Sudan's independence. The capital was flooded with business people and American advisers - all potential clients. What they hadn't counted on was that political rivalries within the new government were about to erupt.
PITIA: We graduated on 13 of December, 2013, and then on 14 of December, 2013, we started our business.
WARNER: And the 15th of December, the war started.
PITIA: The war started, yeah.
WARNER: So tell me about that.
PITIA: It was terrible because most of the people of our clients are foreigners, and they went out.
WARNER: And there was also gunfire in the streets.
PITIA: Yeah, it was so terrible for us.
WARNER: When the war moved outside of Juba,, they opened shop again, this time with a new clientele - humanitarian aid workers and priests who work with displaced people. James tells me he didn't have to watch the war - he could feel it in the bodies of his clients.
PITIA: They are filled with distress, tension, and everything is not going well because of the war. So after I give them massage, I say, this massage has at least relieved their tension and their stress.
WARNER: So a peace agreement has been signed. There may be a future of peace - we don't know. But based on what you're feeling in people's bodies, do you think that the tension is lifting? Do you think that there's peace coming?
PITIA: Yeah, it will take time. It will take time to relieve the tension.
WARNER: James, thank you.
PITIA: OK, you're welcome.
WARNER: I'm Gregory Warner, NPR News, Juba.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
About a quarter of a million people work in slaughterhouses to prepare the beef, pork and chicken that ends up in America's dinner tables. Some of those jobs could eventually be replaced by robots. Luke Runyon from member station KUNC reports the world largest meatpacking company is looking at ways to automate the art of butchery.
LUKE RUNYON, BYLINE: We're walking through a meat-cutting line and through JBS here in Greeley, Colo. There are workers in white frocks and white hats using hooks and knives to trim up some of the meat and get rid of the fat.
BILL DANLEY: There's right now 850 people right out in this building alone. We're go down through some of the tables. We won't go in between them, but you'll get a good view of what we do out here on the floor.
RUNYON: That's the plant's manager, Bill Danley. He's on the floor - short for fabrication floor - where whole cattle carcasses become the neat and trim cuts of beef you get at the grocery store. Hundreds of workers in blood-spattered white jackets and protective chain mail stand along conveyor belts. Carcasses inch along, hanging from a track above.
DANLEY: That is a split carcass - that's a whole beef. And then we start the disassemble process out here on the fab (ph) floor.
RUNYON: The plant is a far cry from your grandfather's butcher shop, where a single person needed to know how to turn an entire animal into cuts of meat. Large beef companies, like JBS, Cargill and Tyson, have turned each minute step of the process into a job. Danley lists some of the titles - a chuck boner, tender puller, back splitter, a knuckle dropper.
DANLEY: There's a lot of jobs out here that prep for the other person.
RUNYON: Each year, this one plant pays out more than $100 million in paychecks to its 3,000 employees. It's a huge chunk of the company's operating costs. And while robots have revolutionized the manufacturing industry, meatpackers have stubbornly held on to workers. But that could be changing. Late this fall, JBS bought a controlling share of Scott Technology, a New Zealand-based robotics firm.
CAMERON BRUETT: This is a very innovative and exciting company that we invested in, and we're excited to see what they come up with.
RUNYON: That's JBS spokesman Cameron Bruett. He says the world's largest meatpacker is looking at how robots could fit into their lamb and pork plants first. Sheep and pigs tend to be more uniform than beef cattle.
BRUETT: Now, when it comes to beef packing, beef processing, the fabrication of the animal, it's very difficult to automate beef processing.
RUNYON: The meatpacking robots of today use vision technology to slice and dice. But the key to butchery is touch, not sight. And the company's beef division president, Bill Rupp, says right now, robots just can't feel how deep a bone is, or expertly remove a filet mignon.
BILL RUPP: When you get into that detailed, skilled cutting, robots aren't there yet. Someday, I'm sure they will be.
DON STULL: Workers are really cheaper than machines.
RUNYON: Don Stull studied the cultures of Midwest meatpacking towns at the University of Kansas for 30 years.
STULL: Machines have to be maintained; they have to be taken good care of. And that's not really true of workers. As long as there is a steady supply, the workers are relatively inexpensive.
RUNYON: Stull says turnover in the industry is high because of the physical demands. And there's a stream of immigrants and refugees to put on the chain mail and pick up the knife. Meatpacking jobs consistently rank among the most hazardous in the country. Increased automation could ease some of those injuries. But until technology catches up, meatpacking companies will continue hiring low-skill workers to cut meat. For NPR News, I'm Luke Runyon in Greeley, Colo.
CORNISH: That story came to us from Harvest Public Media, a reporting collaboration that focuses on agriculture and food.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The stage credited by many as America's first regional theater has been celebrating its 100th birthday. The Cleveland Play House has weathered two World Wars, the Depression and most recently the Great Recession. But it's always found a way to keep the lights on, as David C. Barnett from member station WCPN reports.
DAVID C. BARNETT, BYLINE: The walls of Otto Moser's Tavern in downtown Cleveland are lined with old glass cases displaying hundreds of autographed pictures of performers from a century ago - forgotten singers, jugglers, acrobats and assorted vaudevillians.
LAURA KEPLEY: We have a burlesque lady up here who's got a lot going on (laughter).
BARNETT: Laura Kepley is only the ninth artistic director in the 100-year history of the Cleveland Play House. In the fall of 1915, a motley group of artists and social activists was looking to engage the Cleveland community with an alternative to the mainstream fare on local stages.
JEFFREY ULLOM: Where you get the person strapped to the railroad tracks, the damsel in distress and the train barreling down to the person chained to the log that's going to get sawed in half.
BARNETT: Jeffrey Ullom wrote a history of the Cleveland Play House. He says in addition to presenting more serious work, it was one of the first places in the country to have lighting that did more than just turn on and off.
ULLOM: They can dim the lights over the audience. They can actually have mood created, atmosphere, you know, special effects with lights.
BARNETT: The Play House also turned those lights on the work of modern playwrights, ranging from Luigi Pirandello and Eugene O'Neill to George Bernard Shaw. In 1939, it mounted one of the first productions of Thornton Wilder's "Our Town."
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "OUR TOWN")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As Frank) Now, Julia, there's no sense in going over all that.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As Julia) Now, Frank, you are just unreasonable.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As Frank) Come on, Julia. It's getting late. Get in here.
BARNETT: The Cleveland Play House was followed by dozens of other regional theaters. The Guthrie in Minneapolis, the Alley Theatre in Houston and Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., were all modeled on the repertory theaters of Europe, which featured resident companies of actors. Sarah May joined the Play House company 50 years ago.
SARAH MAY: It was a time when young people going into theater really longed for an opportunity to work for one of the regional theaters like the Cleveland Play House, where they could live an artist life, be in a situation where you could be in three or four or five different plays within a year doing Shakespeare, doing Albee. It was very exciting.
BARNETT: She got her start in the Play House's children's theatre known back then as the Curtain Pullers. Joel Katz saw some of those kids on stage.
JOEL KATZ: I sat in the audience and watched something - I don't remember what it was - but I said I want to do that.
BARNETT: He joined the Curtain Pullers and before long landed a leading role.
KATZ: I was the wolf in "Red Riding Hood." It sort of presages a few villains that I played later on in life.
BARNETT: Like the sinister M.C. in the 1972 film "Cabaret." Today, Katz is better known as Joel Grey.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CABARET")
KATZ: (As M.C., singing in foreign language) welcome. (Singing in foreign language) stranger.
BARNETT: Grey is not alone. Paul Newman is another Clevelander who got his start at the Play House, as did Margaret Hamilton, who moved to Hollywood a few years after her 1923 stage debut and landed her most famous role.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE WIZARD OF OZ")
MARGARET HAMILTON: (As The Wicked Witch of the West) I'll get you my pretty and your little dog, too (laughter).
BARNETT: The Cleveland Play House has had some scary moments of its own over the years. In the early days, it was itinerant, moving from theater to theater, before eventually settling on a 12-acre site with three stages, but that became a financial burden. In 1988, the Play House dismissed its resident company. Historian Jeffrey Ullom says the Play House was staring down an uncertain future.
ULLOM: They survived. There's many other regional theaters throughout the country that failed. You know, they expanded in the early '80s, and they were defunct by '87, '88, '89.
BARNETT: Four years ago, the Cleveland Play House relocated once again to the city's current theater district named Play House Square, home to nine different theaters that host everything from college productions to Broadway road shows. This past June, the Cleveland Play House won a Tony Award for Best Regional Theater. Artistic director Laura Kepley helped accept the honor.
(SOUNDBITE OF 2015 TONY AWARDS)
KEPLEY: At age 100, we are determined as ever to tell stories that matter, to nurture artists at every stage of their career.
BARNETT: Artists like Joel Grey.
KATZ: It was the greatest learning experience that I still rely on, and it's made me what I am today.
BARNETT: And the Play House is still there for the next kid in the audience staring at the stage and saying, I want to do that. For NPR News, I'm David C. Barnett in Cleveland.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Some of you might be feeling a little, shall we say, over-served after last night, maybe a little draggy, not lot of pep in your step. It's OK, your superpowers will return. In the meantime, here's a Found Recipe classic that's all about one woman's super skills.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
CLAUDIA LUCERO: My name is Claudia Lucero, and I can make cheese in one hour.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CORNISH: That's right. Claudia Lucero of Portland, Ore., has the power of one-hour cheese.
LUCERO: Mozzarella, ricotta, paneer, goat cheese, queso blanco.
CORNISH: OK. All right - full disclosure - these are actually simple cheeses. Lucero, the woman behind urbancheesecraft.com says to make them, you don't need superpowers. You only need practice, and they're relatively easy to make in an hour or less. But cheddar...
LUCERO: Cheddar you age anywhere from two months to 10 years to make it really sharp. Crazy - I don't have that kind of time. I've got one hour (laughter).
CORNISH: Nonetheless, Claudia Lucero has created a 60-minute pseudocheddar. She calls it the smoky cheater. Here's how she did it.
LUCERO: What I want is a firm wheel that you can slice and have as a snack. It has that golden cheddar hue. And I wanted a really nice savory flavor with a little bit of tart aftertaste. I separate the curds from the whey after having added turmeric for color and smoked paprika. And then I kind of want to do a little bit of a cheddaring process. And what that normally is, is you press the curds together, stack them on top of each other, leave them for a while, come back do another folding and stacking.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LUCERO: Well, if we're doing cheddar in one hour, we've got to snap this up. And so I do that for about a minute and move along (laughter). And so, you know, I know at this point I'm very much drunk on my own power. I press it into my wheel mold, and it's looking amazing. I let it cool for a bit, pop it out and it's gorgeous. And I really think I did it. I'm a total genius. But then I go to slice it, and it feels a little squeaky. There's a little resistance, but that's OK. I keep going, and I try to melt it. And it's not melting; it's just kind of keeping its shape, but it's getting beautifully crusty and golden on the outside. And it turns into almost like its own grilled cheese sandwich. I taste it and it's delicious.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LUCERO: So it was a keeper, and I decided to call it smoky cheater because it's nice and savory and smoky with that smoked salt and paprika, but it's definitely not cheddar.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CORNISH: Claudia Lucero - she's the author of "One-Hour Cheese," and if you've ever dreamed of being a cheese maker, here is your chance. Lucero's recipe for the smoky cheater is on our Found Recipes page at npr.org.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Last spring, we asked something on social media not expecting to get much of a response. We asked if you enjoyed coloring, and we received hundreds of responses - adults saying, yes, I love coloring; I thought I was alone. This afternoon, we checked Amazon's list of best-selling books, and get this. Half of the top 20 are coloring books. Several are by an artist we spoke to last year. We're going to revisit that conversation, starting with our listener confessions. Here's 35-year-old Aleesha Zappata.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
ALEESHA ZAPPATA: First thing in the morning, my 3-year-old daughter and I sit at our kitchen table. I grab my cup of coffee, and we each have a coloring book.
CORNISH: Others don't need kids as an excuse to color.
TERRY FRIDAY: I think it's very soothing...
CORNISH: Terry Friday was one of several people who told us they picked up the hobby while laid up in the hospital.
FRIDAY: ...You know, when you're stuck in a hospital room where it's very sterile and fluorescent to have these gorgeous flowers and these neat trees to color.
CORNISH: And we even heard about coloring clubs, like Jenny Fennelson's in Minneapolis.
FENNELSON: I have always liked to color, and so I threw out the idea that we should start a ladies' coloring club. A bunch of people I don't even really know responded really favorably to the idea, so we meet, like, once a month and just color at a coffee shop.
CORNISH: All of these responses - again, we received hundreds - came after we noticed the incredibly popular and sold-out work of Johanna Basford.
JOHANNA BASFORD: What I wanted to do was to make a book where every page was just beautiful, so it was, you know, almost like an art book, not a children's coloring book, where the drawings were quite simple.
CORNISH: Basford is the illustrator of the new adult coloring book "Enchanted Forest." Her first, "Secret Garden," sold nearly one-and-a-half million copies worldwide. And she described for me the intricate black and white outlines featured in her book.
BASFORD: Everything is hand-drawn, just pen and ink. Every illustration has little things hidden in it, so it might be a rogue butterfly or, you know, a cheeky little squirrel gathering nuts, that, no matter what the picture, there is just layers of depth and detail.
CORNISH: People also send you copies of what they do, right?
BASFORD: Yeah, my inbox was getting absolutely jammed with people sending photographs of all the different pages of the coloring book. And it's just amazing to see how so many people can take the same collection of images and make them so different and unique.
CORNISH: What do you think the appeal is?
BASFORD: I think there's something quite charming and nostalgic about coloring in. And chances are last time you picked up pens and pencils, you didn't have a mortgage or, like, a really horrible boss or anything. it's just a really nice way to be creative. You don't have to sit down with a blank sheet of paper or, you know, have that scary moment of thinking, what can I draw? The outlines are already there for you.
CORNISH: Can you describe your favorite picture?
BASFORD: Sure. In "Secret Garden," there is an owl. And I don't know why, but he just reminds me of my husband's grandfather. I think it's something to do with his stature or pose. But I love that little owl.
CORNISH: Well, Johanna Basford, thank you so much for speaking with us. Best of luck with this next book.
BASFORD: Thank you so much. Thank you.
CORNISH: Scottish illustrator and author Johanna Basford - we spoke to her last spring, and her coloring books remain on Amazon's list of best-selling books.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
I'm Audie Cornish with this salient question - why do we make New Year's resolutions, especially if we know we're just going to break them? Here with some insight on this subject is NPR's social science correspondent Shankar Vedantam. And Shankar, you also are going to offer some advice - right? - on how to make these goals more achievable.
SHANKAR VEDANTAM, BYLINE: I'm going to try, Audie.
CORNISH: OK. Let's get this out of the way. First of all, why do we bother with New Year's resolutions? What's going on in our heads?
VEDANTAM: It's actually a great question, and I don't think we actually stop to ask that question very often. A few social science researchers recently did. Hengchen Dai, Katherine Milkman and Jason Riis at the Wharton School at the University Pennsylvania- they asked this question. Why do we make resolutions at the start of a new year? And they think New Year's resolutions are really a form of what they call mental accounting. They find that Google searches for the word diet go up dramatically at the start of a new year. But what's interesting is that it's not just at the start of the new year. Birthdays, the start of a new month, the start of a new week, federal holidays - all of these serve as what the researchers call temporal landmarks.
CORNISH: Temporal landmarks - OK, so it's our own way of marking sort of who we are, who we were and the beautiful butterfly we hope to emerge - right? - when we make all these changes.
VEDANTAM: (Laughter) Exactly. And now, you know, many religions actually have explicit language describing the very same thing. So Christians, for example, say someone is born again. And this squares very well with the psychological truth about human beings, Audie. Previous research by Anne Wilson and Michael Ross at the University of Waterloo show that people tend to look down on their past selves compared to who they are now. So they say, I used to be a chump, but now I'm a champ. So resolutions really are a way to mark this transition between the old inferior version of ourselves and the new and improved Audie Cornish 2.0.
CORNISH: A-ha. Well, what does this tell us about why the resolutions fail, then, right? We have the energy. We have the gumption. What happens?
VEDANTAM: Well, I mean, if we are biased to imagine that our present selves are superior to our past selves, this actually sets us up for failure, Audie. So if I think to myself that the new and improved Shankar will exercise every day and exercise self-control but I'm really the same person that I used to be, my resolutions are likely to fail.
CORNISH: You're basically saying, this is what makes it hard to fallow through - who we want to be versus who we kind of know we are.
VEDANTAM: That's exactly right. And when you come to sort of adressing these problems, I think the first thing to say is that awareness of the bias is actually helpful. But we can also take advantage of our tendency to see these temporal landmarks as fresh starts. So for example, one thing you can do is make changes that then work automatically. So if you boost automatic deductions from your paycheck to a retirement account, for example, you can make that change once on January 2, and it's going to last the rest of your - the year without you having to do anything about it.
The second thing you can do is take advantage of smaller temporal landmarks like a new month or a birthday. You can take advantage of that bias to basically say, when you hit February 1 - you can now say the January version of myself is the inferior version. I have a chance how to reinvent myself in February.
CORNISH: All right. So you know a lot about this. Does this mean that you have a seemingly achievable resolution for 2016 that you're willing to share?
VEDANTAM: (Laughter) While I have a resolution, I'm not sure how achievable it is, Audie. And I feel this resolution very keenly right now because like millions of other people, my sports team has done abysmally this past season.
CORNISH: (Laughter).
VEDANTAM: And my resolution for 2016 is to care less about football than I did in 2015.
CORNISH: Some would say that version of you is the superior version. You should know that.
VEDANTAM: (Laughter). And it's probably not achievable.
CORNISH: That's Shankar Vedantam, NPR's social science correspondent. He's also the host of a new podcast that explores the unseen patterns in human behavior. It's called HIDDEN BRAIN. Shankar, thanks so much.
VEDANTAM: Thanks so much for having me, Audie.
CORNISH: And we can't let go of this subject yet because we wanted to know if you had any stories about resolutions. We put out the call, and you answered.
AMANDA KIRSCHNER: My name is Amanda Kirschner (ph). I live in Washington, D.C., and my resolution was to not take any vacations so that I could pay off my student loans in two years.
KAYLA BEGGS: My name Kayla Beggs (ph), and my goal was to get in shape.
CORNISH: Oh, you guys are so good. We heard promises to eat less, floss more and, of course, this perennial.
KATE BERNSTEIN: I'm going to have one last cigarette. I'm going to go outside and take a break, have one last cigarette. And then I'm going to be done.
CORNISH: Kate Bernstein of Carlsbad, Calif., made that resolution 17 years ago. And for her, that required...
BERNSTEIN: A pound bag of baby carrots probably every two or three days.
CORNISH: She says the crunch of the carrots and the cigarette shape really calmed her nerves.
BERNSTEIN: And sometimes I would honestly just kind of carry a carrot, which looked ridiculous in the subway, I should tell you.
CORNISH: It worked. The carrots worked. All right, enough virtue. Here's one more.
DANIEL BRENT: My name is Daniel Brent. I'm from Madison Heights, Mich. And my resolution was to drink better liquor and smoke better cigars.
CORNISH: That was last year's promise. Daniel Brent is still sticking to it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FEELING GOOD")
NINA SIMONE: (Singing) It's a new dawn. It's a new day. It's a new life for me, and I'm feeling good.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
A fire is still smoldering in a 63-story luxury hotel in downtown Dubai. The fire broke out last night as crowds were gathering for New Year's celebrations. The huge flames made for a scary image, but fortunately no one was killed. Fourteen people were injured, but a spectacular fireworks display went on as planned nearby. This fire and another less than a year ago have raised the question - are Dubai skyscrapers the world's tallest fire hazards? NPR's Leila Fadel reports from Dubai.
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: Nearly 24 hours after the fire raged in downtown Dubai, smoke still billowed from The Address Hotel.
Emergency vehicles from Dubai's Civil Defense surrounded the building as firefighters continued to battle a small fire still burning on one of the top floors. They're working to cool the building, and the government has launched an investigation into what caused the furious blaze. Many praise the rescuers for safely evacuating hundreds of guests and hotel workers. The shiny skyscraper is one of the 100 tallest buildings in the world and is part of the futuristic and towering skyline of Dubai's downtown. This place is a tourist hub for luxury travelers, businesspeople and shoppers.
And today, the place was still bustling. But this fire is one of a series that have burned through Dubai's glitzy skyscrapers. In February, flames ravaged the tallest residential tower in the city, unfortunately named Torch Tower. In November, a blaze spread through three residential blocks. And in 2012, flames destroyed another skyscraper called Tamweel Tower. Beryl Awoura, a teaching assistant at a preschool, couldn't believe she was watching The Address Hotel burn.
BERYL AWOURA: I was shocked by how big the fire was. I - it's almost like telling somebody the Eiffel Tower is on fire.
FADEL: She was dressed up for New Year's Eve at a nearby restaurant when the blaze started. The police rushed in and yelled for everyone to evacuate. She saw panic, smoke and debris everywhere.
AWOURA: If that hotel went up in flames like that, I'm actually tempted to think that they used some really cheap stuff because such a place is not supposed to burn with such magnitude and with such intensity.
FADEL: Lots of people here are wondering about this. There's concern over the cladding panels used on the outside of these shiny buildings. A lot of them, experts say, are flammable. The 2012 fire that destroyed Tamweel Tower was in part caused by these panels because they act as fuel for the flames. The National, a government-owned newspaper, estimates upward of 70 percent of skyscrapers in Dubai are covered in these flammable panels. In 2013, the United Arab Emirates took steps to fix the problem and now require fire-resistant material be used on the outside of buildings over 49-feet high. But that doesn't fix the problem with the hundreds of buildings already in the sky. Leila Fadel, NPR News, Dubai.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
For football fans, it's an exciting time of year - college bowl games in full swing, the NFL heading for the playoffs. All eyes are on the field. And this year, many will be on movie screens, too. The new film "Concussion" brings a broader awareness to the issue of head trauma in football, even for those who play the game. Here's NPR's Tom Goldman.
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: I have tickets for "Concussion" at 7:45.
My movie date, in Grapevine, Texas, actually was with three people - Donovan Lee, a sophomore running back at the University of Colorado, his mom Angela and his younger brother, Dymond Lee, a high school senior quarterback and wide receiver whose career has been a veritable highlight reel.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTBALL GAME)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Here on fourth down - huge play, Kai to the end zone. The pass is caught for the touchdown by Dymond Lee.
GOLDMAN: Nineteen-year-old Lee goes to Chaminade College Prep in Los Angeles. On this night in Texas, where he was visiting his mom for the holidays, Lee sat in a theater getting another kind of education. "Concussion" is the story of Nigerian-born pathologist, Bennet Omalu. He was the first person to publish research on the brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy, CTE, a disease linked to football head trauma. In this scene from the movie, a character warns Omalu his research puts the future of the game in peril.
(SOUNDBITE FROM THE FILM "CONCUSSION")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Do you understand the impact of what you are doing? If just 10 percent of the mothers in America decide that football is too dangerous for their sons to play, that is it. It is the end of football.
GOLDMAN: Did you know about Bennet Omalu before tonight?
DYMOND LEE: Not at all. I had no idea any of that was happening.
GOLDMAN: We are now back at their mother's apartment after the film. For all three, not just Dymond, the story of Omalu and CTE was a revelation, even though they are football lifers. The boys have played tackle since they were 6 and 7 years old. And Angela has been there every step of the way, driving to and from practices and games, cheering and watching - kind of.
ANGELA LEE: When they were younger, I watched them. But high school on up into college, I have a hard time. And I was sharing with my son that I look across the field as though I'm looking at the field just so that, you know, I'm there, I can hear it.
(LAUGHTER)
A. LEE: I don't mind hearing it...
DONOVAN LEE: (Unintelligible).
A. LEE: ...But looking at it is a different monster for me.
GOLDMAN: Still, she never said no to football because she says the boys love it so much. But she worries, quietly. "Concussion," she says, made her reflect on her sons playing football and what could possibly happen. The film includes the story of Mike Webster. He was the Hall-of-Fame NFL player who died at 50, racked by dementia and self-destructive behavior. Omalu first found CTE in Webster's brain. Dymond Lee says he actually developed a headache watching Webster's agony.
LEE: Imagine living through that every day and not being able to just take a moment to breathe, not being able to just take a pill every day and it goes away, not being able to just live life and understand who he even was.
GOLDMAN: I asked Dymond Lee if he thought that could be him someday. Yes, he says. He thinks he's had concussions, although none has been diagnosed. And football for Lee is about to get more demanding. He signed with UCLA to play quarterback.
LEE: Speed is faster and the people are bigger. So, I mean, that impact is going to have a lot more g-force, as they were saying in the movie. So, I mean, having to protect myself is definitely a thought that's on my mind, but it's something that I can't play with.
GOLDMAN: On the other hand, Dymond and his brother think the story of Webster and the other players who suffer in the movie is more past tense than present and future. The Lees are playing football in an era of much greater awareness about head injury. Dymond's high school practices had less contact, as mandated now by California law. And he says there's more talk today about players personal responsibility.
LEE: We're the makers of our destinies, so we have to take the right steps to prevent injuring ourselves. And we've done a lot more in the training room with our trainers and stuff, just going over concussion protocol. Whenever we get hit and we look a little dazed, the trainer will come over and make sure we take the right steps in order to get back in the game or to pull us out if we need to.
GOLDMAN: Reduced contact and proper tackling techniques are an important part of Donovan Lee's college training as well, although he acknowledges the contradiction endures when it comes to safety in football.
LEE: I mean, I've always been taught to like, you don't come off the field unless you have to be dragged off the field.
GOLDMAN: The NFL gets blasted in the movie for its alleged cover-up of a concussion crisis. The league has been under fire for several years. Aware of the hypersensitivity to concussions, it has responded with reforms and rule changes. Both Dymond and Donovan Lee believe the game will continue to evolve even while they play. And while they do, Angela will keep going to games. She'll be the one in the stands not watching her boys. Tom Goldman, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
It's January 1 - so how are your New Year's resolutions going? Software developer Tami Reiss has one for you. In 2016, she wants you to think about how you write, especially if you're a woman. Her mission is to get women avoid using words like sorry, as in sorry to bother you or just, as in I was just reaching out because - you get the picture.
TAMI REISS: We edit ourselves out and we minimize ourselves. And these qualifiers we do because we're afraid of coming off as too strong when in reality, by adding them, in we're making ourselves come off as weak.
CORNISH: To help people stop using these words, Reiss' company, Cyrus Innovation, launched a plug-in that works on Gmail. It's called Just Not Sorry. It underlines such qualifiers so you can think twice about using them. It came out this week and already has about 15,000 users. Tami Reiss got the idea after watching Comedy Central's "Inside Amy Schumer." Here's a sketch from the show about a panel of women - top innovators in their respective fields - who have trouble talking about their work.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "INSIDE AMY SCHUMER")
DOUG MOE: (As Moderator) Do you need some water?
MANDY SCHMIEDER: (As Professor Sasha Baron) Yeah, sorry. That'd be great, but if you can't no worries. Don't worry about it.
MOE: (As Moderator) No, why don't we just come back to you?
SCHMIEDER: (As Professor Sasha Baron) Sorry.
MOE: (As Moderator) Amy, can you give us a little background on the research you're involved with?
AMY SCHUMER: (As Amy) Absolutely. I - well...
SCHMIEDER: (Professor Sasha Baron) Oh, thanks so much.
SCHUMER: (As Amy) Sorry.
SCHMIEDER: (As Professor Sasha Baron) Oh, no, no, I'm sorry.
SCHUMER: (As Amy) No, no, no, please - I...
SCHMIEDER: (As Professor Sasha Baron) I'm so sorry. I just thought that - yeah.
CORNISH: Ann Friedman has been thinking a lot about women and language, too.
ANN FRIEDMAN: Policing language is sort of like treating a symptom rather than the disease.
CORNISH: The New York Magazine columnist has been writing about this topic.
FRIEDMAN: Linguists that I interviewed about this said, you know, these words serve a purpose. They're not just filler. And so I think that when you look at the ways communication happens in the workplace, this is actually - can be frequently a positive. But because women sometimes have a hard time being taken seriously in this more general way, it becomes easier to focus on language as something that's kind of a quick fix toward being - I don't know - heard more clearly.
CORNISH: The take away - don't be sorry for saying you're sorry or for downloading a plug-in to help you stop saying it.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The singer Natalie Cole, the daughter of Nat King Cole, has died. Her family said in a statement today, our beloved mother and sister will be greatly missed and remain unforgettable in our hearts forever.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OUR LOVE IS HERE TO STAY")
NATALIE COLE: (Singing) It's very clear.
CORNISH: I'm joined now by Jason King. He's NPR Music's R&B expert. Hey there, Jason.
JASON KING, BYLINE: Hi, Audie.
CORNISH: So as we've been hearing throughout the day, Natalie Cole passed away in Los Angeles. She was 65. And she was really a part of jazz royalty, not just her dad.
KING: Yeah, and I would say not just even jazz royalty. I mean, she was part of the black pop tradition that goes back many, many years. But she came through her father, and of course was connected to him - met so many great long-standing figures in popular music through him. At home, they would come over and visit and so on, so she got to know popular music in a really interior way. And then she herself became this star in the 1970s, but in R&B.
CORNISH: Right, her first album came when she was 25. This came in 1975. And she had a really big single which I remember still dancing to, which is "This Will Be An Everlasting Love."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THIS WILL BE AN EVERLASTING LOVE")
COLE: (Singing) This will be an everlasting love. This will be the one I've waited for. This will be the first time anyone has loved me.
CORNISH: Jason King, tell us about her early career.
KING: Well, in the 1970s everybody wanted to be Aretha Franklin, but nobody was exactly Aretha Franklin. Franklin won almost every Grammy you could imagine. She kept winning the best female R&B vocal year after year. Nobody could dethrone her. And it wasn't until 1975, when Natalie Cole comes along with the "Inseparable" album, with the hit "This Will Be," among other hits, that she takes the Grammy for best female R&B vocal. And that's the first time in, I think, eight years that Aretha Franklin doesn't receive that award. And Natalie Cole really does ascend to this position of being one of the most sought-after R&B vocalists of her time.
CORNISH: Right, she's got these Grammies, a platinum album. And then her career begins to suffer in the '80s. And this is when - and she's written about this in more than one memoir, about her problems with hard drugs and alcohol, and that she had to go to rehab twice. Here's Natalie Cole speaking to NPR in 2006 about this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
COLE: I think probably one of the most difficult things that can happen to you when you're dealing either with an addiction or a depression - the hardest thing to do is to go out and sing music or to play music or to create music. I think it was just really difficult. I found myself in just too much of a dark place to want to be creative.
CORNISH: And yet, she did, right, Jason King? How did she bounce back from that?
KING: Sure, in the late '80s she started to have hits again. She recorded the song "Pink Cadillac," which was a big hit, I think, in 1988.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PINK CADILLAC")
COLE: (Singing) I love you for your pink Cadillac, fresh leather seats...
KING: And then she had a huge comeback in 1991 with the album "Unforgettable With Love," which was basically a jazz turn for her. But they were using technology so that she could actually record with her father, Nat Cole, who passed away the late 1960s. So it was this really interesting kind of reconciliation moment of Natalie Cole, the daughter of pop royalty, singing with her father in this really touching and sentimental way.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "UNFORGETTABLE")
NAT KING COLE: (Singing) Unforgettable, that's what you are.
COLE: (Singing) Unforgettable, though near or far.
CORNISH: She actually spoke to Weekend Edition Saturday about that in 2013.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
COLE: It was very, very difficult, very hard for me, because I'd never had the chance to really spend time working with him. The "Unforgettable" record was done in tribute to my dad. It was my way of saying goodbye because when he passed away, I was in school, actually, on the East Coast in boarding school when he passed.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "UNFORGETTABLE")
NATALIE COLE AND NAT KING COLE: (Singing) That's why, darling, it's incredible.
CORNISH: Jason King, "Unforgettable" obviously was such a big song, and people so tie her to her father. But how will you remember Natalie Cole. I mean, is there a song for you that really encapsulates her work?
KING: I look at Natalie Cole as one of the great R&B of the last 40 years. I think the legacy of hits that she's had is a testament to that. One of my favorite tracks from her is from her live album from the late 1970s, and it's a song that was very popular for her in the live arena. It's called "I'm Catching Hell." And the reason I love it so much is because it shows the incredible range that she had and the ability to soulfully dig deep into a song. But it's also autobiographical. And I think it was about the trials and tribulations that she was going through at the time.
(SOUNDBITE OF NATALIE COLE CONCERT)
COLE: It says, if I had the second chance, oh, I'd do it a whole lot differently. How many of us can say that tonight?
(APPLAUSE)
COLE: (Singing) Oh, yeah.
CORNISH: Jason, thanks so much for talking with us.
KING: Thank you, Audie.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'M CATCHING HELL")
COLE: (Singing) I'm catching hell, living here all alone.
CORNISH: That was music writer and producer Jason King, remembering Natalie Cole. Cole died yesterday at the age of 65.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I'M CATCHING HELL")
COLE: (Singing) ...Oh lord, that you mean so much to me.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Weather maps and satellites are essential tools for meteorologists. So are balloons. Twice a day, meteorologists around the world release balloons at the exact same time, like clockwork. This simple action has been critical to the science of weather forecasting for decades. In Alaska, John Ryan of member station KUCB tagged along with the scientist at one of America's most remote weather stations.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
JOHN RYAN, BYLINE: Three-hundred miles off Alaska's West Coast is St. Paul Island, and William Wells mans the weather station there. It's a few miles outside the village of 700 people who call the island home. Each afternoon, he walks from his office to a two-story cavernous garage. That's where he fills up a 6-foot-wide balloon. Helium is too expensive in the middle of the Bering Sea, so Wells uses explosive hydrogen that's generated right there in the garage.
WILLIAM WELLS: But we're under no threat right now 'cause it's contained safely within that latex.
RYAN: Once the big latex balloon is inflated, Wells ties a string and a small electronic gadget to the balloon.
WELLS: It tracks the temperature, relative humidity and wind speed and wind direction as it goes up through the atmosphere, and it's supposed to give us a relative atmospheric profile.
RYAN: He opens up a double-tall garage door. Then he grabs the balloon string. When the clock strikes 3...
WELLS: I'm going to run out.
RYAN: He sprints onto the tundra toward a gravel road. As the balloon clears the door, a 30-knot wind whips it to the east. The balloon is pummeled into a shape kind of like a 3-D comma. Once Wells reaches the road, he releases the balloon. It takes off more sideways than up. The gadget dangling below knocks his Carolina Panthers ski cap right of his head. He grabs his hat and returns to the garage.
WELLS: Now, I'm going to apologize to you, but I'm going to take off almost at full-bore sprint.
RYAN: He dashes a hundred yards back to his office to make sure the balloon is sending data.
WELLS: We are such a remote location. Our data is pretty precious.
RYAN: It gets used within the hour in the 4 p.m. forecast that mariners in the Bering Sea rely on.
COMPUTER-GENERATED VOICE: K-J-Y-73 on St. Paul Island - tonight, west wind, 30 knots - sea - 16 feet, snow showers.
RYAN: Wells is a continent away from his native North Carolina, but he says he couldn't be happier.
WELLS: I feel privileged to be doing this.
RYAN: He says his two-and-a-half years on the outer limits of the last frontier have been good for him.
WELLS: I lost 25 pounds after I moved up here because I didn't have the temptations of fast food restaurants.
RYAN: It's a different career path from his fellow meteorologists who put on makeup and sweep their arms in front of weather maps.
WELLS: They can have the TV and the radio. I'm stick with this.
RYAN: But Wells' gig might not last long. The National Weather Service is testing a device that would automatically launch the balloons. Soon, at weather stations across the country, machines could replace human balloon launchers. For NPR News, I'm John Ryan in St. Paul, Alaska.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now to Russia, where the collapse of the Soviet Union brought Russians the freedom to travel abroad, and in recent years, the prosperity to travel for fun. This holiday season, though, many Russians are foregoing winter getaways. Two of the most popular destinations - Egypt and Turkey - are off-limits. And a sagging economy is also keeping Russians at home. NPR's Corey Flintoff reports on how they're coping.
COREY FLINTOFF, BYLINE: Just last year, ads for vacation travel packages were everywhere on Russian television.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV AD)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (Speaking Russian).
FLINTOFF: Antalya, on Turkey's Mediterranean coast, was a favorite spot for Russian tourists with warm, sandy beaches of a kind hard to find in Russia. But after Turkey shot down a Russian warplane near the Syrian border in November, Russia banned tourists from traveling there. Travel to Egypt was also banned after terrorists blew up a Russian jetliner, bringing tourists home from holidays on the Red Sea. That was a heavy blow for travel agencies, since nearly 3 million Russians visited Egypt just last year.
ANDREY GAVRILOV: Travel agencies tried to suggest different destinations like Arab Emirates, like Israel.
FLINTOFF: That's Andrey Gavrilov, president of the Alliance of Tour Agencies, an industry lobby group. He says some Russian tourists are heading to Southeast Asia - Cambodia and Thailand.
GAVRILOV: But for shorter period of time and maybe different category of hotels - I mean, four stars instead five stars.
FLINTOFF: The devalued ruble, he says, has raised the cost of overseas travel by more than 30 percent. That makes domestic travel a lot more attractive. I went to Moscow's Domodedovo Airport to see where Russians are going to spend their New Year holidays. A couple of twenty-somethings with snowboards were checking in to a flight to Sochi.
ALEXANDER VASILIYEV: (Speaking Russian).
FLINTOFF: Alexander Vasiliyev planned to spend New Year's with friends at the new ski resorts built for the Winter Olympics. Vasiliyev says they would have gone to Europe but there's not much snow this year, so Sochi is just as good and, he says, much cheaper.
ANTON CHERNOYAROV: (Speaking Russian).
FLINTOFF: His buddy, Anton Chernoyarov, says they wouldn't go to Turkey on principle; they're patriots and the Turks shot down their plane.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: (Speaking Russian, over PA system).
FLINTOFF: Anna Kravchenko and Denis Belov are traveling on business today, but they're thinking about where to spend their holidays.
DENIS BELOV: England or Europe.
ANNA KRAVCHENKO: But it depends on the situation next year.
FLINTOFF: She's 32 and a homemaker. He's a realtor, age 44. Turkey and Egypt are not great losses to them because they've visited each several times. They've been to Europe, too, during their student days. But they're feeling a certain urgency about going back.
BELOV: Europe is changing now, and we don't know how it will be in 5 years or 10 years. I think Europe will change extremely.
KRAVCHENKO: Because we have heard from the friends that German cities - for example, Frankfurt is very changing because of the people with another culture.
FLINTOFF: What they're saying reflects what Russians are hearing on state-run television - that Europe is being degraded by the arrival of Muslim refugees. The official line promoted by Russia's tourism chief, Oleg Safonov, is that foreign beach vacations are alien to Russian tradition. His assertion proved embarrassing when it emerged that Safonov, himself, had owned two houses on the Seychelles Islands, a sunny paradise in the Indian Ocean. Corey Flintoff, NPR News, Moscow.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
So how about some music to start the new year off right? Before you know it, we will have a lot of brilliant new music to savor, including one of the brightest voices in jazz. Let's listen to this.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ONE")
ESPERANZA SPALDING: (Singing) I'm not lacking love, not haunted by its pain. Of romance, life's given me enough. I can't complain.
MARTIN: This is a new song from Esperanza Spalding. Her single is one that Stephen Thompson of NPR Music has been enjoying already. He's with us now to share some of the music that makes him excited about 2016. Hello, Stephen.
STEPHEN THOMPSON, BYLINE: Hello, Michel.
MARTIN: So Esperanza Spalding, she's a bass player. And she won the Best New Artist Grammy four years ago. I think a lot of people think she still hasn't had her big crossover moment. Do you think this might be it?
THOMPSON: I mean, I don't know if it's going to be necessarily a big pop crossover moment because this is a really artistically ambitious record. It's coming out, like, later in the spring - not for a few months. It's called "Esperanza Spalding Presents: Emily's D+Evolution."
MARTIN: OK.
THOMPSON: And Emily is kind of this persona that she's created. She's planning to stage these songs in a more theatrical setting. This is definitely not somebody who has seen a taste of mainstream success and decided to chase mainstream success.
MARTIN: Yeah, it doesn't sound like - sounds like she doesn't really care.
THOMPSON: Yeah, I mean, it's - you know, you refer to her as a jazz artist, and she's known as a jazz artist. But this record really brings in a lot of kind of a funky feel. But there's also a real theatrical quality as well, still with her gorgeous, really approachable vocals.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ONE")
SPALDING: (Singing) There could be one so strong, it stops the world and my heart's spinning. One to prove what I've always known. But couldn't see this modern mind...
MARTIN: So that was new music from Esperanza Spalding. That's a song called "One." And so we have another artist to talk to you about. I know you wrote about this artist recently, and you called his new album epic. Who is it?
THOMPSON: (Laughter). It's another record that comes out in March by a singer-songwriter name Damien Jurado. And I've always really responded to his music, but it's like sad dude with a guitar music, you know? Just kind of the big guy, like, flannel shirt, kind of hunched over and making people cry. His last few records are much more almost kind of psychedelic.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EXIT 353")
DAMIEN JURADO: (Singing) And when I was alive, you were alive, shining light. So when did you go away? Talking aloud...
THOMPSON: This album that's coming out in March is called "Visions Of Us On The Land," and it's like 17 songs and 53 minutes. You know, when you think of records getting shorter and shorter being more focused on, like, here's an MP3, here is a three-minute song, here's a four- minute song - this record really sprawls and sort of forces you to spend some time away with it unpacking.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EXIT 353")
JURADO: (Singing, unintelligible) ...It was with me all along.
MARTIN: So that's Damien Jurado. When are we going to hear this album?
THOMPSON: It comes out March 18.
MARTIN: March 18 - OK, we'll look forward to that. And I'm talking with Stephen Thompson from NPR Music about some of the big new releases of 2016. Anything else?
THOMPSON: Yeah. I've got a new record by Lucinda Williams. It's her 12th album. She just put out a record, like, a year ago that was a double-length album, like lots and lots and lots of songs that sprawled and sprawled. And this record that she's got coming out February 5 is called "The Ghosts Of Highway 20." And it's another double album, like, a year later. It's 14 songs but it sprawls out for, like, an hour and a half.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DUST")
LUCINDA WILLIAMS: (Singing) There's a sadness so deep, the song seems black. And you don't have to try to keep the tears back. Oh, you don't have to try to keep the tears back because you couldn't cry if you wanted to. You couldn't cry if you wanted to.
THOMPSON: It's a lot of road songs, a lot of epics. She's really - she's really become a master of the kind of country rock dirge.
MARTIN: Music to play as you pack up your apartment after a breakup.
THOMPSON: (Laughter).
MARTIN: I mean, get into the car and drive away.
THOMPSON: If you, like me, have enjoyed some long tear-streaked drives (laughter) this is the record for you. It's - again, it's like - you know, we've talked a lot about these albums that are cohesive statements and that are big and ambitious. And it's easy to think of albums getting smaller and smaller. But I love the fact that Lucinda Williams this far into her career - you know, she's like 35 years into her career - is still making statements that are bigger and grander and more unified.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DUST")
WILLIAMS: (Singing) Well, even your thoughts are dust. Even your thoughts are dust. Even your thoughts are dust.
MARTIN: I think you've got one more for us.
THOMPSON: Yeah, I've got David Bowie.
MARTIN: Living legend.
THOMPSON: Living legend David Bowie.
MARTIN: David Bowie, what's he up to?
THOMPSON: Well, it's really interesting because I heard this album - it's called "Blackstar." Actually, the title is a small black star, and you're just supposed to pronounce it "Blackstar." And I heard this record described as David Bowie's jazz record. And I was like oh, I don't know if I want to hear David Bowie doing a jazz record (laughter). But it's actually - it's not necessarily like rock musicians playing jazz as just musicians playing rock. He brought in jazz players. And listening to this song "Lazarus," I was really taken with how much it combines those two genres in a way that don't sound like people playing around in a genre they have no place in.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LAZARUS")
DAVID BOWIE: (Singing) Look up here, I'm in heaven. I've got scars that can't be seen. I've got drama - can't be stolen. Everybody knows me now.
MARTIN: The music is by David Bowie. His new album "Blackstar" comes out this Friday. I've been speaking with Stephen Thompson from NPR Music. Stephen, thanks so much. Happy New Year - come back and see us, OK?
THOMPSON: Oh, I will do that with pleasure. Thank you, Michel.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LAZARUS")
BOWIE: (Singing) Ain't just like me. By the time I got to New York, I was living like a king.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to take a few minutes to look into that new open-carry law in Texas. Dallas restaurant owner Jack Perkins tells us he usually has a handgun concealed in his front pocket. The Glock 43 is his choice at the moment as he handles the cash at his barbecue spot The Slow Bone, or his burger joint the Maple And Motor. But that doesn't mean he wants people openly carrying guns there. We called him at the Maple And Motor just before the lunch rush on New Year's Eve, the day before the new law took effect, so we could ask him why he's probably going to take advantage of a provision of the new law that allows him to ban openly-carried guns at his restaurants.
JACK PERKINS: I'm not sure many people are going to carry their guns on the outside of their clothes. But if you do - and there's a large amount of the population that - guns scare them. If there are three or four people in the restaurant all carrying guns, then you're going to be uncomfortable. And I'd just rather people not be uncomfortable.
MARTIN: So you don't have an objection to people carrying concealed weapons on your - in your businesses? It's just the open ones?
PERKINS: No, no, not at all, not at all.
MARTIN: How come?
PERKINS: It's not an overt threat. Carrying a concealed weapon is all about eventuality - things that might happen and protection. And in that case, carrying a gun outside on your person, where it's visible, is at least an implied threat. At its worst point, it's the final threat. So if there's a conflict, there's really no place else to go.
MARTIN: Why do you carry a gun all the time? You say you're carrying one right now.
PERKINS: I am. There's a lot of cash in my business. I mean, restaurants get robbed, businesses get robbed. I have employees that I would like to protect. Although, I've got to tell you, I don't know that I would get into a gunfight if provoked. But I like to have the option there to do that if I needed to.
MARTIN: But why have you though? Since you - you know, you've thought about this as a person who's kind of got a foot in both worlds. I mean, on the one hand, you are a gun owner yourself - and I presume you've taught yourself how to use it properly.
PERKINS: I have.
MARTIN: But you also have respect for people who don't have those feelings or who have different feelings about guns. You know, how would you mediate this? I mean, the fact is that there have been some truly terrible incidents in 2015 involving guns and particularly mass shootings. And, you know, a lot of people are looking for a way forward here. What's your idea?
PERKINS: Well, I believe completely in responsible gun ownership. And I believe completely in a dialogue that gets us to that point without rhetoric and venom. There's nothing in the Constitution, especially in the Second Amendment, that says we can't be smart about this. And I think if we check backgrounds, if we sell guns to people who are going to operate them responsibly and own them responsibly, I just don't understand why we can't think about it more than just feel about it.
MARTIN: I see. Before I let you go, do you think anybody's going to challenge you on your decision?
PERKINS: I don't think we're going to have confrontation. I think people will see it, they'll boycott us if they don't like it and we're fine with that. I was on the front page of the paper with this issue, and a neighborhood man knocked on the door of the restaurant because we weren't open yet and would not let my hand go as he shook it and thanked me for voicing my opinion and for it to be one of some sanity. So I don't think it's going to be a problem for us. I think the people who are rational and think things through will come and eat, enjoy themselves like they always do. And the people who aren't will just avoid us.
MARTIN: Well, good luck to you. Happy New Year.
PERKINS: Thank you. Happy New Year to you.
MARTIN: That's Jack Perkins - he owns The Slow Bone and a burger joint, the Maple And Motor, in Dallas - that's where we reached him. He's a gun-rights supporter, but we're talking to him about banning openly-carried guns in his restaurants. Mr. Perkins, thanks so much for speaking with us.
PERKINS: Thank you very much.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
With the new year comes a long list of new laws taking effect across the country. Those laws show states moving in starkly different directions on some polarizing issues, especially voting and gun rights, as NPR's Joel Rose reports.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: Of all the laws going into effect, the most contentious might be in North Carolina.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PAT MCCRORY: The integrity of our election process is vital to our democracy, which is why I've signed today several common-sense reforms.
ROSE: Republican Gov. Pat McCrory tried to downplay changes to the state's voter registration laws when he signed them back in 2013, including the most controversial part that takes effect this week - requiring North Carolinians to show photo ID at the polls.
MCCRORY: You need a photo ID to board an airplane, to cash a check, or even apply for most government benefits.
ROSE: But critics of the law say fears of vote fraud are overstated. Rev. William Barber is the head of North Carolina's NAACP. He says the law's real goal is to suppress turnout among core Democratic voters.
WILLIAM BARBER: The worst voter suppression law in the country - targeted in a way that it hurts African-Americans and women and the poor.
ROSE: North Carolina passed language softening the photo ID requirement last summer. But that has not satisfied the NAACP, which is still fighting the law in court. Across the country in Oregon, residents will now be able automatically registered to vote when they get a driver's license or a state ID card. Democratic Gov. Kate Brown signed that bill last March.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KATE BROWN: Oregon is a true leader in accessibility to voting, and I challenge every other state in this nation to ensure that there are as few barriers as possible in the way of a citizen's right to vote.
(APPLAUSE)
ROSE: The other hot-button issue is guns. Restrictions are getting tighter in California, where people can now ask a judge to temporarily seize weapons away from relatives who may pose a threat. Former State Assembly member Nancy Skinner, a Democrat, introduced the bill in 2014.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NANCY SKINNER: There are many emotionally-charged circumstances that can cause people to be temporarily deranged. Mix those emotionally-charged circumstances with a gun and we have potential for lethal consequences.
ROSE: Gun rights advocates say the California law is a major overreach. Contrast that with what's happening in Texas, which already has some of the most permissive gun laws of any state. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a law making it legal for citizens with permits to openly carry handguns.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GREG ABBOTT: I am proud to expand the rights of gun owners in the state of Texas by signing into law open carry in Texas.
ROSE: Critics say the law will make Texans less safe, not more. But despite opposition from many of the state's police chiefs, the open carry law passed easily. Joel Rose, NPR News.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to start the program today with international news. In a few minutes, we'll find out why Turkey is in the middle of a construction boom for mosques and why Russians are foregoing their beloved overseas beach vacations. But we start with disturbing news from the Middle East. Earlier today, Saudi Arabia executed some 47 people, including a top Shia cleric and government critic, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. The U.S. State Department released a statement late Saturday saying they are "concerned that the executions risk exacerbating sectarian tensions at a time when they urgently need to be reduced," unquote. NPR's Leila Fadel reports.
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: In the largely Shia eastern city of Qatif, protesters filled the streets.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTORS: (Chanting in foreign language).
FADEL: A video from a Shia activist in Qatif shows demonstrators pumping their fists in the air and chanting their support for Nimr.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Chanting in foreign language).
FADEL: Later, in Nimr's hometown of Awamiya, citizens grieved. All four of the Shia men executed are from there. The town is dark, everyone's in black and recitation of the Quran fills the air. Shia Muslims are a minority in the Sunni Muslim country of Saudi Arabia. Sunnis and Shias are different sects of Islam. And the battle for influence in the region between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shia Iran has inflamed sectarian tensions.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
FADEL: Protests also broke out in Bahrain. Pictures and videos show tear gas and burning tires in the streets while demonstrations also took place in other parts of the region. Saudi Arabia says the executions were to preserve the safety of the kingdom. Those executed were accused of radical ideology, terrorism or criminal plots. Besides the Shia Saudi citizens, a Saudi court convicted the 43 others on charges of working with al-Qaida. Adam Coogle is a Human Rights Watch researcher.
ADAM COOGLE: It's clear that the Saudi authorities are trying to send some sort of political message to Saudi society, whether it be, you know, don't be a jihadi, don't join a terrorist organization or, in the case of Nimr, don't got out and protest.
FADEL: He says Nimr's trial was flawed. He wasn't allowed a lawyer during his interrogation and for much of his trial. And some of the young Shia men executed or on death row say they were tortured and coerced into confessions of inciting violence. Iran reacted with anger. The foreign ministry spokesman told the Iranian Student News Agency that the Saudi government would pay. Similar condemnations rolled in from Shia clerics around the region. Human rights groups also condemned the execution. In Awamiyah, Nimr al-Nimr's brother, Mohammed (ph), grieved the loss.
MOHAMMED AL-NIMR: (Foreign language spoken).
FADEL: "It was a shock," he says. He called his brother's execution unjust and an assassination of a man who refused violence, sectarianism and demanded legitimate rights peacefully in a country where Shias say they're treated as second-class citizens.
AL-NIMR: (Foreign language spoken).
FADEL: He also called for self-control. He says the reaction to Nimr's death must follow the example of his brother's message of peaceful objection.
AL-NIMR: (Foreign language spoken).
FADEL: And he worries that his young son, Ali al-Nimr, will be next. He's on death row, arrested at 17 for taking part in protests. His father says he was tortured in detention and forced to confess to crimes he did not commit. There's been an international outcry over his death sentence. Today's mass execution is the largest in Saudi Arabia since 1980. Amnesty International says there's been a sharp uptick in executions since 2014.
Leila Fadel, NPR News, Dubai.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now we go to Istanbul, the ancient city known, among other things, for its breathtaking views, especially at the city's highest point a thousand feet above sea level. That idyllic scene is now punctuated by construction cranes building a massive new mosque - the largest in Turkey. It's part of an aggressive building spree that's stoking both pride and resentment across the country. Borzou Daragahi lives in Istanbul, and he's been writing about the construction boom for Buzzfeed News, and I asked him about the mosque on top of the city's most splendid hill.
BORZOU DARAGAHI: This is a place called Camlica Hill, and it's quite a famous spot on the Asian side of Istanbul. It's a very, very important recreational space where people would go to get some relief from the summer heat. It affords exceptional views of Istanbul and its environment.
MARTIN: Well, tell me about the mosque - how big is it?
DARAGAHI: It's about 160,000 square feet. I mean, that's the size of a stadium. It's very large. And it will be able to accommodate about 37,000 worshipers. They'll also include library, a museum, a cultural center, conference hall and, of course, an underground parking lot.
MARTIN: Well, that's not the only one though, right? There are other mosques being built - other large mosques being built. Can you give me a sense of how much building is going on?
DARAGAHI: There's literally hundreds of new mosques that have been built over the last few years. Many of them are these huge recreations of the famous Ottoman-style mosques. Sometimes they're just plopped in the middle of a new development or new housing development. And every single city, every single town in the country seems to be getting these new mosques.
MARTIN: Is there a need for new worship spaces? I think many people might remember that, you know, Turkey has accepted thousands of Syrian refugees. So is what's motivating this mosque building within Turkey a population boom and a need for more worship spaces or is there something else going on here?
DARAGAHI: I mean, that's the thing, it's hard to tell completely whether Turkey really needs these mosques. On the one hand, the population has increased dramatically over the last few years. On the other hand, many of the mosques, except for on Friday during Friday prayers - afternoon prayers - many of them are rather empty. So it's hard to tell whether they're needed. It was definitely a campaign promise of Turkey's Islamist party since the 1990s. The president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and his supporters, see this as a great era in Turkey's history. It's sort of linked to the reemergence of Turkey, in their eyes, from it's sort of sleepy years. For decades, it was very inward-looking. Now it's looking out at the rest of the world. They're not just building these mosques in Turkey; they're also building them abroad. They're building them, for example, in Romania, and they're in competition with the Saudi's to build the new mosque in Havana, in Cuba. So there's some really interesting sort of geopolitical, as well as domestic symbolic aspects to this mosque building.
MARTIN: So Borzou, before we let you go, what's been the reaction in Istanbul - where you live - to this building spree?
DARAGAHI: I think a lot of people really welcome it. A lot of people see this as very cool, and they're happy that these mosques are going up. But there's other people, including the preservationists and student activists and so on who see in these mosques an attempt to impose religious values and religious atmosphere on neighborhoods that don't really want it. And, you know, there's some really fierce attempts to fight these with whatever tools that are at people's disposal.
MARTIN: That's Borzou Daragahi joining us from Istanbul, where he works as a correspondent for Buzzfeed News. Borzou, thanks so much for speaking with us.
DARAGAHI: It's been a pleasure.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now it's time for our trip to the Barbershop - that's our weekly conversation about what's in the news and what's on our minds. Sitting in the chairs for a shapeup this week are Goldie Taylor. She's editor at large for The Daily Beast. She's with us from the Radio Foundation Studio in New York City. Hi, Goldie.
GOLDIE TAYLOR: Good afternoon. Hey, Michel.
MARTIN: Ann Hornaday is chief film critic for The Washington Post. She's here in Washington, D.C. Hi, Ann.
ANN HORNADAY: Hello, hello.
MARTIN: And last but not least, NPR's own TV critic Eric Deggans. I think you're in Florida, right? Happy New Year.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: Yep, I'm in my office in St. Petersburg, yep, yep.
MARTIN: All right, so maybe it's because we have a little time off over the holidays and I had some time to actually watch some things that I don't normally do, but, you know, I had pop culture on my mind. But there's nothing light or fluffy about the first big story I wanted to ask you about, and that's Bill Cosby. And I think by now you have to know that dozens of women have accused Bill Cosby of sexually assaulting them. And most of these cases, they say he gave them drugs without their consent to get them to submit. Now, Cosby's never been criminally charged until this past week, when, with only a couple of days left under the statute of limitations, Pennsylvania's incoming Montgomery County district attorney filed charges against him in connection with one of those cases. And he's been arrested, arraigned and released on bail. And he says - and his attorneys say he will vigorously contest these charges. But Goldie, you have been writing about this. In fact, when you wrote about this for the October Ebony magazine cover - cover showed a picture of "The Cosby Show" TV family seen through smashed glass - that really seemed to push people's buttons. It was almost as if people could not accept the idea that this was even, you know, possibly true, right?
TAYLOR: Oh, sure...
MARTIN: That seems to be the reaction that people have. What's your reaction to this now?
TAYLOR: You know, I think that, you know, especially with regard to that cover that we were out to push a conversation that really wasn't happening at the time, and that was what do these allegations mean to the broader culture? What did "The Cosby Show" mean to the culture? And we're still really having - grappling with that conversation, even as he faces, you know, these criminal charges. Bill Cosby deserves due process. He deserves his day in court. But so then do these women. They deserve their day in court, and so often victims of sexual violence don't get that day.
MARTIN: You wrote in a piece for The Daily Beast that you never believed Bill Cosby, and you say that the worst thing Bill Cosby ever said was nothing. Tell us a little bit more about that.
TAYLOR: You know, I just think that looking back on - you know, and I'm a survivor myself. And the very first thing that you hear from an abuser's lips were, you know, things like, you know, they asked for it or, you know, she shouldn't have been dressed like that or - you know, there are all kinds of victim shaming that we engaged in. Bill Cosby, on the other hand, didn't say a word. He went on about his life. I call it sort of whistling past the graveyard. And in his silence, I heard a lot of other things, a lot of other people speaking on his behalf. And those were people who were his agents, his publicist, his lawyers shaming these women in ways that, you know - you know, were simply untenable to me. And then to turn around and to sue them for daring come forward, you know, with these allegations.
MARTIN: Eric, jump in here. You've written about this, too.
DEGGANS: Yeah, if I can break in for a second. I mean, one of the things that's interesting to me - I'm helping NPR cover this, so I want to be careful about impugning guilt; you know, I have to try to be as evenhanded as possible. But if these allegations are true, that tactic that Goldie talked about has worked for him for a very long time. And I think Bill Cosby's downfall was when his public image began to become less laudatory. We want to believe that our movie stars and our TV stars are like the virtuous characters that they play on these TV shows and movies. And when he became the scold who was telling young black people and poor black people that they were the reason why they were having problems with the police or they were the reason why they were poor or they were the reason why they were being oppressed, suddenly, his public image became different. And he became much more vulnerable, and he never realized that...
MARTIN: But - wait a minute, are you saying he's vulnerable - because these are criminal acts - that the only reason that his...
DEGGANS: I'm not saying the only reason.
MARTIN: ...Criminal behavior is being pursued is that his public image is tarnished and - is that it?
DEGGANS: I'm not saying the only reason, but it seems obvious that he used his tremendous public image to deflect questions about his behavior. And when he got to the point where that image was not able to deflect those questions anymore, people really began to pay attention to them. And the reason why the Hannibal Burress standup routine - this young black comic who called him out for being accused of rape - the reason why that's so important is because that was the voice of a younger generation who didn't grow up necessarily lauding - you know, lionizing Bill Cosby in the same way that people my age did.
HORNADAY: And if I may...
DEGGANS: They weren't as - he didn't have that sort of hallowed space in their pop-culture lives that he may have had in our generation. And they felt, I think, freer to be harsher and look at him and say what's really going on here in a way that people who wanted to believe the Bill Cosby legend had more trouble doing.
MARTIN: Ann Hornaday?
HORNADAY: I also think that this is a part of a whole - this story could only have happened now in terms of technology, social media and as Eric said, the kind of cultural moment where we're seeing all sorts of instances where impunity is being challenged. And, you know, I am one of those people who, to my now shame and consternation, never knew about these allegations. And I know that sounds impossible to believe. But I think, you know, as Eric was saying about the different personae that Cosby was able to pull off, that's a degree of compartmentalization that now is just impossible in terms of Twitter and political activism. I mean, I really connect it to all sorts of things that happened in the last couple of years, including, you know, what we're seeing with police - over-policing in communities - even the Adam Sandler movie, where the extras, you know, walked off the set because they were unhappy with the roles. I mean, this is all connected to - to impunity. And...
MARTIN: So you're saying that what has been hidden cannot now be hidden.
HORNADAY: Right. I feel like it's definitely a changed game now.
MARTIN: What was - on a different note, Ann, I want to talk about something that you wrote about recently that really caught my attention. It's kind of the opposite point about how there's too much being seen. And you wrote this piece about the explicitness of violence in movies, especially recent movies that have been released. You said that you - you wrote about "The Hateful Eight" and "The Revenant," both of which have gotten, you know, a lot of attention for different reasons. And you said that, you know - that both traffic and lingering widescreen images of savage brutality and mortification - and you say that, you know, either way, whether it's kind of the artiness of it or the sort of ironic distance of Tarantino or Inarritu's artily masochistic extremes, you say genuine empathy and self-reflection are getting short-circuited by the surface values of aesthetics, technical achievement and shocking vicarious jolts. Is it - do you just feel that - what do you think - is it that our - extreme violence in films has become routine now, or is these particular examples that you want to call out?
HORNADAY: Well, it was a function of seeing these movies in such close proximity. I mean, they're opening within, you know, days and weeks of each other across the country. And it's just sort of - it was jolting to see this imagery that - you know, in such short succession. And it really - you know, violence has been a part of filmmaking since the medium's inception, so it's something as a critic that I always have to grapple with - is a piece of film grammar? And it's not just the violence, it's the suffering. You know, I wanted to kind of change the lens a little bit and look at the uses of human suffering and how it's depicted. I just wanted to look a little bit at how - what these filmmakers were asking of the audience. Are they asking us merely to be spectators and voyeurs, or are they asking us to do something more challenging?
MARTIN: Goldie, what do you think about this?
TAYLOR: You know, I think that the notion that human suffering is used as currency, you know, is as old as the medium itself. It's as old as, you know, stage plays themselves - that human suffering, whether it be internal or external, you know, is the very bedrock, the fiber of conflict that we see in drama or comedy or any other kind of genre. And raising those stakes is what keeps an audience moving along with the story. You know, both television and film are beginning to merge onto one platform. And in that, we see the stakes raised even further. But in that, we also find a brand-new thing happening - audience control unlike we have ever had truly, you know, in the history of mass distribution, where an audience can truly democratize the content - vote up or down what they want to see, what they don't want to see. They share culpability, I think, with some of these studios who are making it for - you know, for their consumption.
MARTIN: Well, tie a bow on it, Eric. We say we have a choice, but do you really have a choice when everything is this violent, or is your only choice...
DEGGANS: Oh, you can - I think you can...
MARTIN: I mean, I'm happy to read a book. I'm happy to turn it off and just read a book, everybody. Get your...
DEGGANS: You don't necessarily have to turn it off. There are plenty of shows that are - there are great thrillers, there are great action shows that don't have violence in them. You just have to work a little harder to find him. I'm always telling people with great power comes great responsibility. And as an audience, we have never had more choices. But that means you've got to find out what you're consuming, just like you can't eat at McDonald's every day, you can't consume, you know, trashy movies or television and expect it to not affect you. I in a weird way am less worried about movies like "Silence Of The Lambs" or "The Revenant," where the violence gets your attention. I'm more worried about superhero films. I'm more worried about cop films. I'm more worried about films where the violence doesn't even occur to you because it is so much a part of the genre. One of the - my big criticisms of the "Superman" movie "Man Of Steel" is that there are conflicts in which entire cities are leveled. We know that if that actually happened, you know, thousands of people would be dead. And they don't show that in the film because they know that it would derail the story they're trying to tell, and they want to try to pretend that nobody got hurt. But we know that when violence on this scale is perpetuated, there has to be a cost. They don't show that cost. And those are the kinds of films and TV shows that I'm really worried about.
MARTIN: That's all the time we have for today with NPR's Eric Deggans, Ann Hornaday of The Washington Post and The Daily Beast editor Goldie Taylor. Thank you, everybody and happy New Year.
HORNADAY: Thank you. Happy new year.
TAYLOR: Happy New Year.
DEGGANS: Happy 2016.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to close out the program today by telling you about some good music that you might want to catch in the upcoming year. And we'll remember a musical icon who just passed away. But first, NPR's Karen Grigsby Bates is going to tell us about an absorbing mystery novel set in Mormon Utah.
KAREN GRIGSBY BATES, BYLINE: Besides the fact that I cannot resist a good mystery, Mette Ivie Harrison's books had an added allure - most of what we non-Mormons know about members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is restricted to a few things - no Coke, coffee or booze, tithing. sacred undergarments. Harrison's books are rich with real-life details that often get lost in stereotypes. In addition to conservative Mormons, there are feminist Mormons and Mormons who support LGBT rights and who are advocating for them within the church. Last year, she published "The Bishop's Wife," a novel about a crime-solving feminist Mormon, to critical acclaim. Harrison says some Mormons were offended at her warts-and-all portrayal of their LDS community. She believes they're going to be unhappy with her new book, too.
METTE IVIE HARRISON: The second book is, if anything, more controversial and pushing a lot more boundaries.
BATES: Her heroine, Linda Wallheim, is back in "His Right Hand," and fans will rejoice to see she's still smart, observant and unbowed by her church's patriarchs. Linda and her husband, Kurt, the ward's bishop, are called to the home of the ward's second counselor late one night. Carl Ashby is bishop's right hand of the book's title. He never returned from church duties that evening, and his wife asked the Wallheims to find him. They start at church and, to their horror, discover Carl has been strangled in a church classroom. A few days later, his autopsy is released with another stunning surprise - Carl Ashby - upstanding, conservative husband and adoptive father - is transgender and apparently began life as Carla - don't worry, this happens really early in the book. So is it a crime of passion, a hate crime or something else? The church hierarchy wants to suppress the details of Carl's murder, even as Linda tries to resolve it for the sake of his family. Mette Ivie Harrison's own struggle to both answer her conscience and remain faithful are very much like Linda Wallheim's. And the fact that her opinions are anathema to some more traditional Mormons has cost her on a personal level.
HARRISON: My husband's very conservative, like Kurt in the book is very conservative, and it has certainly caused tension in our marriage.
BATES: For the record, both the fictional and the real-life couple are doing OK. "His Right Hand," has more surprises that we won't share here. But perhaps the biggest surprise is Harrison's empathy for all her characters, even ones whose beliefs she finds repugnant. Karen Grigsby Bates, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We want to end today's program talking about news that shocked and saddened music lovers.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MISS YOU LIKE CRAZY")
NATALIE COLE: (Singing) I miss you like crazy. I miss you like crazy.
MARTIN: On New Year's Eve, singer Natalie Cole died at the age of 65. She was the daughter of jazz icon Nat King Cole, but she went on to create her legacy. She sold millions of albums across a wide range of genres and had nine Grammy Awards on her shelf. You might know she comes from a musical family. Her mother Maria Cole performed with the Duke Ellington Orchestra. Her uncle Freddy Cole is a jazz musician in Atlanta. She also has several siblings, including younger twin sisters Casey and Timolin Cole, who run a nonprofit called the Nat King Cole Generation Hope, which is dedicated to supporting musical education in public schools. We wanted to learn more about Natalie Cole's contribution, so we've called Casey Cole, who lives in Boca Raton, Fla. Hello, Casey, and can I start by saying on behalf of all of us here and on behalf of your sister's fans how sorry I am for this loss. How are you and the rest of the family doing?
CASEY COLE: Well, I think it goes without saying that there's still just shock, airwaves of shock throughout the family and her close friends who are mourning such a tragic loss. And we are keeping each other supported in prayer and with loving thoughts of our sister and knowing that we're praying that she's finally at peace.
MARTIN: You know her as big sister, but what did you like about her as an artist?
C. COLE: Oh, my gosh. As an artist, I could go on and on. Her pitch was perfect. Her tone was amazing. When she sang, it was as if she was literally singing to you. So similarly to our father, she drew you in. She captivated you not only with her voice but with her charm, with her diction. You know, when she sang, it was as if she really, really, really had a part of her in every single - in every single lyric of that song. So you were right there with her if the feeling was joy or sadness. Oh, I think she just resonated that with her audience.
MARTIN: You mentioned the similarities with your father and the sense of his connection with the audience. One of the big moments obviously in her career was the release of "Unforgettable... With Love," which is an album of your father's hits which swept the awards at the Grammys in 1992. But I was always - you know, sometimes when you have a famous parent, it's a struggle trying to figure out how to balance honoring the legacy with forging their own way. Was that a struggle for her?
C. COLE: No, I don't think it was a struggle for her. I think it was a tribute and an honor. This is a way in which she was able to reconnect with her father and to share him again after so many years of his passing with the world.
MARTIN: She was also though very open about her struggles with drugs. I know she wrote about this in her autobiography "Angel On My Shoulder." And then later, she talked, you know, the health issues that she believes resulted, you know, from that. Can you talk about that a little bit?
C. COLE: I think that, first of all, Natalie had struggled very early in her career way back when she was - you're talking probably a span of over 30 years ago. Natalie conquered, if you will, those demons with her strength in God and with her faith and with the support of so many people around her. My sister was a warrior. She was like her father. She - she had some battles that she overcame. She - unfortunately, when she developed - and her hepatitis C came back after several years, her kidney had - was failing. And she - by the grace of God, she was able to receive the gift of a new kidney. Subsequent to that, she never stopped performing. She never stopped working. She was a true artist.
MARTIN: What would you want Natalie's fans to take away from her life or music? What would you want her legacy to be?
C. COLE: To dwell on the joyous moments. I think the joy that she brought to all of her fans, to understand that she would want us all to lean on our faith and to be reminded of her resolve and her stamina. I think that the world is grieving, perhaps some not even really knowing what they had. I mean, a lot of us are extremely blessed and lucky because we knew we had a glimpse into one of God's unforgettable gifted souls.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "UNFORGETTABLE")
COLE: (Singing) Unforgettable, though near or far.
MARTIN: Casey Cole is the younger sister of the late Natalie Cole, who died on Thursday at the age of 65. Casey Cole, thank you so much for speaking with us. And thank you so much for the gift of your sister. And we're so sorry for your loss.
C. COLE: Thank you, Michel, and happy and healthy New Year to you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "UNFORGETTABLE")
COLE: (Singing) Unforgettable in every way.
NAT KING COLE: (Singing) And forever more...
COLE: (Singing) And forever more...
NAT KING COLE: (Singing) That's how you'll stay.
COLE: (Singing) That's how you'll stay.
NATALIE COLE AND NAT KING COLE: (Singing) That's why, darling, it's incredible that someone so unforgettable thinks that I am unforgettable, too.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
So here's one more story from the sports world, and this one is part of our occasional series My Big Break. Imagine yourself a thousand feet off the ground, clinging to the side of a wind-blown cliff face. You're not sure how to make your next move. What you do know is that the only way out is up.
ALEX HONNOLD: Basically, I thought I was lost on the wall, which is pretty crazy when you're a thousand feet off the ground, and you think you're, like, adrift on this ocean of granite. You're suddenly like, where am I?
MARTIN: For most people, that sounds like something out of a nightmare, but for professional rock climber Alex Honnold, there's no place he'd rather be. Honnold has become one of the most famous living extreme athletes, climbing some of the tallest, most difficult rock faces in the world, many of them without the safety of a rope. So for him, a big break is usually something he tries to avoid at all cost.
HONNOLD: When I think big break, the first thing I think of is being featured in "60 Minutes."
(SOUNDBITE OF CLOCK TICKING)
HONNOLD: That was probably the one thing that set me down the path of devoting my life to being a professional rock climber.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "60 MINUTES")
LARA LOGAN: He scales walls higher than the Empire State building without any ropes or protection, and the penalty for error is certain death.
MARTIN: Ever since that appearance on "60 Minutes" in 2011, Honnold has been a regular media stand-in for the extreme sports set.
HONNOLD: I often joke that I've just become a professional schmoozer. Like, nobody cares how well I can rock climb anymore. It just has to do with how well I can schmooze.
MARTIN: But before the hype, Honnold was a college dropout living out of his mom's borrowed minivan, driving from climb to climb. And schmoozing didn't always come easily. As a kid growing up in Sacramento, Calif., he was too shy to approach climbing partners at the gym. One side effect that shyness - he got used to rock climbing by himself, without a rope.
HONNOLD: I suppose being a bit of an antisocial weirdo definitely honed my skills as a soloist. It gave me a lot more opportunities to solo lots of easy routes, which in turn broadened my comfort zone quite a bit and has allowed me to climb the harder things without a rope that I've done now.
MARTIN: One of those harder climbs was his unprecedented ascent of Half Dome in California's Yosemite Valley. The 2000-foot vertical rock face had never been climbed when Honnold set his sights on it in the fall of 2008. His attempt was a signal to the climbing community that he was a new force to be reckoned with.
HONNOLD: So when I freestyled Half Dome, I was listening to music, repeating these three Eminem songs off the "8 Mile" soundtrack.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOSE YOURSELF")
EMINEM: (Singing) His palms are sweaty, knees weak. Arms are heavy.
HONNOLD: I'd already made all the hard decisions, like I'm going to do this. I'm committed to doing this. I'm able to do this. I'm ready. And then you don't really have to reevaluate any of that. You can just, like, put yourself in autopilot and just cruise up the wall. But then my autopilot started to run out by the time I got to the top because I was just starting to get tired. And it was just hard to maintain that focus.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOSE YOURSELF")
EMINEM: (Singing) Man, back to reality. Oh, there goes gravity. Oh, there goes...
HONNOLD: At the crux of Half Dome, at the very top of the wall, imagine, like, a smooth wall of rock - a nearly vertical granite slap with tiny ripples for your hands and feet. And so you're really trusting the rubber on your shoes to stick to these ripples. And that's what made me so scared - was that I had to step onto a little, tiny ripple, and I just didn't want to trust my whole life to stepping onto this little thing. And then I started to hesitate, and then I got scared. And, you know, everything starts to cascade out of control a little bit.
While I was, you know, literally clinging for my life on the side of this cliff, I could hear all these tourists up on the summit, which was only a hundred feet away. I could hear people laughing and, like, talking on their cell phones and having a good time. It felt like there was, like, a mall scene right up above me. And finally I just took some deep breaths, and I was just like, you know what? This is what I have to do. I'm going to trust this foot. And then I just up on the foothold, and that was that. Thankfully, my foot stayed on. I made the move, and I was done.
So I climbed on to the summit. And then there were all these people hanging out eating lunch and taking pictures and things, which was this weird contrast because normally when you talk about Half Dome and you have a a partner and a rope, tourists just think it's outrageous. And they think it's so amazing that you climbed the wall, and they all flock around you and ask you questions. But when I topped out without a rope, nobody knew that I was even a climber. I'd just done one of the most personally significant climbs of my life, and there are all these people standing there. And none of them are like, oh, wow, good job or, like, that's great that you climbed that wall. They're just like, huh (ph), I wonder what that guy's doing.
MARTIN: That's professional rock climber Alex Honnold telling us about his big break. His new memoir "Alone On The Wall" is out now.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And now a word about what we know is many students' favorite subject - recess. You know - monkey bars, tag, kickball. It turns out that recess isn't just good for kids' bodies. It's also good for their minds. Still, over the last couple of decades, American public schools have cut recess time to make room for more tests and test prep. KERA's Christopher Connelly takes us to North Texas, where some schools are taking playtime more seriously.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHILDREN PLAYING)
CHRISTOPHER CONNELLY, BYLINE: Recess at Eagle Mountain Elementary School - it's pretty much the same here as any school. Kids run and squeal on the playground. Others swing while a half-dozen of their peers are bunched up on the slide.
CONNELLY: Six-year-old Journey Orebaugh, in an off-white princess dress, prefers to spend her time playing family.
JOURNEY: You just get a bunch of people, and then you just act like who you want to be.
CONNELLY: She likes to be the mom most times. Orebaugh gets more opportunity to role-play because recess happens a lot here - four times a day, 15 minutes a pop for kindergartners and first graders. Orebaugh says it's because kids here are lucky.
JOURNEY: Special.
(LAUGHTER)
CONNELLY: Actually, it's because Eagle Mountain Elementary joined a project designed by Texas Christian University kinesiologist Debbie Rhea. It's modeled roughly on the Finnish school system, which consistently scores at or near the top in international education rankings.
DEBBIE RHEA: I went over there to find out where they've come in the last 20, 25 years. Yes, their test scores are good, but they're also healthy in many regards.
CONNELLY: The biggest difference she noticed - Finnish kids get way more recess than American kids do.
RHEA: So I came back with the idea to bring recess back to the schools, but - not just one recess, but multiple recesses.
CONNELLY: Her program also focuses on character development - things like empathy and positive behavior. Rhea is working with a handful of local schools already. More will join next year in Texas and in California and Oklahoma.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Guys, guys.
CONNELLY: This year, Eagle Mountain Elementary started tripling recess time from 20 minutes to an hour every day. First grader Ben Parish says more recess gives him more time to do what he wants.
BEN: Mostly I'm running around, jumping off random stuff, just having fun.
CONNELLY: Teachers here say they've seen a huge transformation in their students. They're less distracted. They make more eye contact. They tattle less. First grade teacher Cathy Wells spends less time sharpening pencils.
CATHY WELLS: You know why I was sharpening them? Because they were grinding on them. They were breaking them. They were chewing on them. They're not doing that now. They're actually using their pencils for the way that they were designed - to write things.
CONNELLY: I caught up with Wells and her fellow first grade teacher Donna McBride on the playground. The two have six decades of teaching experience between them and say this year feels different. At the beginning of the year, they were nervous about fitting in all the extra recess and still covering the basics. But Wells says halfway through the school year, her kids are way ahead of schedule.
WELLS: When we teach them a new skill, it appears to me that they suck it in faster. That little sponge sucks it in faster.
DONNA MCBRIDE: And they hold onto it. They hold onto it.
CONNELLY: And there's research to back up what they're seeing in class. Ohio State University pediatrician Bob Murray says brain imaging has shown that kids learn better after a break for physical activity and unstructured play.
BOB MURRAY: If you want a child to be attentive and stay on task, and also if you want them to encode the information you're giving them in their memory, you've got to give them regular breaks.
CONNELLY: Murray wrote that up in a policy statement for the American Academy of Pediatrics. He and his colleagues found that kids with regular recess behave better, are physically healthier and exhibit stronger social and emotional development. But school districts nationwide have been taking recess out of the school day.
MURRAY: They want more academic time. They want more time to do the core subjects and work on those. And under the attitude that more is better, they have pretty much carved away anything that got in the way of those minutes for teaching.
CONNELLY: Debbie Rhea, the Texas Christian University kinesiologist, sees her program as a shift away from that thinking, toward giving kids more than just academics.
RHEA: We keep thinking as adults that we need to control the way they do things. I wish we'd get ourselves out of that. They know how to play. They know how to structure their own play. They need that time to grow responsibly. That builds their confidence. That builds their self-esteem. That builds resilience.
CONNELLY: When it comes down to it, Rhea says, our kids are better off if we just let them be kids. For NPR News, I'm Christopher Connelly.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We've been thinking about this new year which is now upon us, and we note that 2016 will be a critical year for many people who are residing in the U.S. without authorization. More than half a million people have been temporarily protected from deportation by President Obama's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. It's known as DACA. But how long that program lasts will likely depend on who wins the presidency. NPR's Hansi Lo Wang has more.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: Back in 2012, President Obama took executive action to create a program for unauthorized immigrants who entered the U.S. as children before 2007 and are currently under 34. It's called DACA. And now almost all of the Republicans running to replace Obama have been asked what would you do as the next president?
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MEGYN KELLY: Would you reverse President Obama's executive action on illegal immigration?
CHRIS CHRISTIE: Yes.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHUCK TODD: You'll rescind the Dream Act executive order or DACA.
DONALD TRUMP: We have to make a whole new set of standards.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARCO RUBIO: We're not going to extend the program. DACA is going to end.
WANG: That was New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Fox News, Donald Trump on NBC and Sen. Marco Rubio. Like most of their fellow GOP candidates, they say they would get rid of DACA. That's a scenario that immigrants like Valentina Garcia are preparing for. She's a sophomore at Dartmouth College.
VALENTINA GARCIA: I'm still trying to figure out if my major's going to work out, if my plan to go to medical school is going to work out. It all really depends on DACA.
WANG: Garcia was 6 when she and her family left your Uruguay by plane on tourist visas. After those expired, they stayed in the U.S. And in 2014, Garcia received DACA, and with it a Social Security number and then a drive license.
GARCIA: We've moved about four times in the past two years. And I've been the one that's been looking for houses. I've been the one that's transferred the utilities. I'm like the second dad, the second mom.
ROBERTO GONZALES: They're playing greater roles within their family, within their community. And so an elimination of DACA would have ripple effects that extend far beyond these individuals.
WANG: That was Roberto Gonzales, a sociologist at Harvard University. He's studied the lives of young immigrants without legal status. Gonzales says the temporary work permits they receive through DACA have allowed many to stop working under the table.
GONZALES: These young people have taken giant steps towards the American dream. They now have new jobs. They're getting health care. They're building credit.
WANG: But they're not on the path to citizenship, and their long-term future here in the U.S. is still a big question mark. The Obama administration has put DACA recipients at the bottom of its priority list for deportations. But Victor Nieblas of the American Immigration Lawyers Association says that could change under a new administration.
VICTOR NIEBLAS: We have to be honest here, and we have to indicate that it really all depends on who wins the presidency and the immigration policies of this new president.
WANG: Policies that could directly impact Jin Park, a 19-year-old student at Harvard, who was one of the first to receive DACA in 2012.
JIN PARK: Somebody can drag me out of my chemistry class at 10 a.m. and deport me. That is a real possibility, and it's scary, you know?
WANG: Park was born in South Korea. He was 7 when he took a plane to the U.S. with his parents. They overstayed their tourist visas. Now Park says he's paying close attention to the presidential race.
PARK: All the debates - all the Republican debates I really try to watch.
ANTONIA RIVERA: For me, surviving as a single mother with a child, you know, a 3-year-old, I definitely have to start thinking about my savings.
WANG: Thirty-three-year-old Antonia Rivera of Des Moines, Iowa, is also preparing for the possible ending of DACA. She walked across the border from Mexico illegally with her mother and younger sister when she was 6 years old.
RIVERA: I'm a survivor. I know how to survive without any sorts of legal document that allows me to work and drive legally in this country. But I know it's really, really hard to do.
WANG: And it's a challenge that more than a half-million DACA recipients may have to face when President Obama leaves the White House. Hansi Lo Wang, NPR News.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We often hear about school districts with high poverty, terrible test scores and budget problems. We often don't hear those words along with academic success used in the same sentence, but school superintendent Tiffany Anderson in Jennings, Mo., is determined to change that. Since she began leading the district of 3,000 students, she's opened a food pantry for poor students and their families, a shelter for homeless students and a district-based health clinic. With the help of grants, she's revived arts and other extracurricular programs, all while raising scores and expectations.
The turnaround story has turned Anderson into a national figure in education circles. She's spoken at the Aspen Ideas Festival, at Harvard University and was recently profiled in The Washington Post. And Jennings school superintendent Tiffany Anderson is with us now. Welcome, and thank you so much for speaking with us.
TIFFANY ANDERSON: Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: What is it that drew you to this school district?
ANDERSON: My mother actually was living in Jennings around the time that I was being recruited to come there, so that was part of the draw. The other part of the draw really are the challenges. You know, I believe that schools that are high poverty can perform at very high levels, and poverty does not have to be a factor that determines the quality of education that you receive. And so that was also a pretty significant draw for me.
MARTIN: One of the things that has gotten you a lot of national attention is the fact that the scores have moved up tremendously, but also schools that had kind of been on the border of accreditation have all been fully accredited now. What is the number or the metric that most pleases you?
ANDERSON: There are a couple of things. You know, one of the piece - certainly the academics. You know, we - no one person can do this, so I have to say that, you know, I'm most proud of the staff, the teachers, the board - how they have worked together collectively to demonstrate that our kids can succeed at very high levels.
This past year, we have met 81 percent of the state standards. And we have a hundred-percent college and career placement rate, meaning that when students graduate, a hundred percent of them will either attend a postsecondary institution - so it's college or some other postsecondary institution - or they will be placed in a job. When we talk about being proud of any of those things, it really starts with the people that we serve and the collective energy that has caused for a district to improve at very high levels rapidly, which we know can happen, and it's scalable in any district.
MARTIN: Can you just take us back to the roots of your philosophy here about what informs your - what's your North Star?
ANDERSON: I believe that poverty can be interrupted, and the best interrupter is education. You cannot expect children to learn at high levels if they come in hungry and tired, and so we remove those barriers. So the barrier of food - we have a food pantry, and we give out 8,000 pounds of food a month. The health care - if a child breaks an arm, come to school. We have a pediatrician there. I mean, so it's really understanding the needs of the community and then meeting those needs. That's what every child deserves. They deserve the very best.
MARTIN: A lot of times, though, when people raise these kinds of - these ideas, you hear people say, well, teachers there are there to teach. They're not social workers. Did you hear that, and what did you say?
ANDERSON: We spend a lot of time building relationships. You know, we change how we serve people. Recently, we just did a poverty simulation where many of our teachers were placed in poverty for what felt like an entire week. And many were ready to give up before the week was out. And so this idea of first training those that you're serving so that they understand the barriers that poverty creates. And so with building those relationships first, our teachers - they want our children to succeed. They really do, and we've given them a path to make that happen.
MARTIN: People might be familiar with the area near St. Louis where you are located because of all the attention on Ferguson, Mo., last year after the death of Michael Brown. And I do want to mention that there were controversies in some of the surrounding school districts because there were students who wanted to demonstrate or they wanted to somehow, you know, express their concern about what had happened to Michael Brown. You talked about this at the 2015 Aspen Ideas Festival. I just want to play a short clip from what you said.
(SOUNDBITE OF 2015 ASPEN IDEAS FESTIVAL)
ANDERSON: I told the students, we're going to march. They said, back down so you don't get fired. I said, I am? Well, this better be a good march. You all better show up. And the first thing was we do not walk out of school. We stay in school because you have to be educated in order to get the power that you need in order to make changes. And so we're going to march before school. So if you want to meet me at 6 a.m., you show up.
MARTIN: How did you come up with that?
ANDERSON: It's a teachable moment. And so you can't really prepare for students saying they're going to walk out. When they say they're going to walk out, however, again, it's a teachable moment. And the students - they showed up. We took a bus part of the way because we wanted to make sure that we got back to school on time, which we did. The students had three demands. They wanted body cameras, minorities on the police force, community policing. I think that's a pretty good list for kids. You know, our scholars - we just gave them a voice.
MARTIN: Were you worried about getting fired?
ANDERSON: No, I'm not worried about getting fired. I think if you worry about getting fired, you probably wouldn't do half of the things that we've done in Jennings. I this work is courageous, bold work. It takes risks. I'm not worried about that. My concern is serving the underserved.
MARTIN: You know, I appreciate your desire to share credit, but I still want to hear more about Tiffany Anderson. And I just - I still want to understand what's the source of this vision for you?
ANDERSON: You know, I live in Kansas, and so I drive about four hours every other day to work. And I often listen to books on tape and sermons, and I most enjoy, you know, Martin Luther King and listening to his old sermons. And there's one where he quotes John Donne. And the piece that he quotes - he talks about - I can't do well unless you do well, and you can't do well unless I do well. So until we see ourselves as interconnected individuals, change can't happen. My role as a teacher is to teach other ways to approach people. It's to teach how to break barriers. And so even now with Jennings, I suspect people will say it's not replicable. We can replicate this at any scale we choose if it is important enough to us to make it happen.
MARTIN: So what's your wish for the new year?
ANDERSON: From a spiritual perspective, I tend to say the Lord leads, and I follow, so we will see what's next. One of the things we've been talking about is having a dental clinic, you know, so we can give full dental care to all of our students. And then a lot of the programs that we currently have in place - just continuing to perfect those and grow those. Academically, we're a work in progress, and so we will continue to work towards ensuring all of our students exceed at high levels.
MARTIN: Tiffany Anderson is the superintendent of schools in Jennings, Mo. She joined us from Kansas City member station KCUR. Superintendent Anderson, thanks much for speaking with us, and happy New Year to you.
ANDERSON: Thank you, and happy New Year to you and your listeners.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Insert cliche about New Year's resolution here - gym and fitness center sign up, check; start working on taxes, check. But did you know that January is also the busiest month for new sign-ups on online dating sites? According to match.com and plentyoffish.com - two popular sites - today, January 3, is the busiest day of the year for new sign-ups on their sites. But our next guest decided to take things in a different direction altogether. She decided to quit using all of her dating apps for three months and meet her dates the old-fashioned way - in person - what a thought. Lisa Bonos writes and edits pieces about the single life for the Solo-ish blog in The Washington Post, which recently published a piece about her going without dating apps. And she's here to talk with us about it, too. Lisa, welcome - happy New Year to you.
LISA BONOS: Happy New Year to you, Michel.
MARTIN: First of all, I have to be your old-fashioned friend and say I had no idea there were so many dating apps.
BONOS: There are a lot, and I was on...
MARTIN: How many were you on?
BONOS: ...Five or six of them. I mean, part of that is I have to test new ones out for my job, right?
MARTIN: OK, sure...
BONOS: It's...
MARTIN: ...It's your job.
BONOS: ...For work. But there are even more.
MARTIN: Bumble, Hinge, Happn, JSwipe, Tinder - one, two, three, four - you were on five of these things?
BONOS: Yeah, I was on five but probably Bumble and Hinge were the ones I was using the most.
MARTIN: I guess the first revelation for me, these online apps are really important to your dating life.
BONOS: If you want to be meeting people and going on dates on a regular basis, yes, it's important. I think if you want to go on one date a week, you are going to have to enlist the Internet or all of your friends to set you up.
MARTIN: So why did you decide to delete your apps?
BONOS: I was out with a bunch of friends on a Friday night. And a friend of mine looked at me - I was showing people about all the apps, right? And she was like you can meet people in person. Why don't you go off of these things and meet people in person? And we were in an environment where there were theoretically a lot of single people, right? We were at a bar on a Friday night in September. And so I thought - like, I looked around - I was like there are people all around; I don't need these apps. And I said yes, I'm going off of these. And I struck up a conversation with someone that night to sort of prove to her that I could talk to people in real life.
MARTIN: Were you nervous about it?
BONOS: I wasn't nervous about it. At the time, I was pretty tired of online dating, and I needed a break.
MARTIN: What was it that was tedious or exhausting about the online - about using all these apps?
BONOS: Yeah.
MARTIN: And I have to say, I was dating in the pre-app era, and I found it exhausting and tedious, too...
BONOS: Oh, of course, yes.
MARTIN: OK, so...
BONOS: It can be exhausting and tedious no matter where you're finding your dates...
MARTIN: But what is it that you found sort of exhausting and tedious about it that you wanted to take a break from?
BONOS: Well, there are so many people on these apps, right? So there's all these potential matches, and then once you get a match, you might start a conversation with someone. Some of the apps have time limits to how long - once a match is initiated, you only have 24 hours - I think all of it was starting to make me feel overwhelmed as far as, like, how many people can I fit into my life as potentials, and how many conversations do I want to carry on with strangers because those conversations are not very interesting most of the time.
MARTIN: Well, so now that you've had your three-months app fast...
BONOS: Yes.
MARTIN: ...Say, what's your takeaway?
BONOS: The big revelation was that I probably liked them more than I thought I did. Trying to live without them was a little bit like trying to live without the Internet - that most singles now if you're out there dating and you're looking, you're probably going to be looking for dates online. And so to not look online made it feel like I was, like, living without the Internet. But my takeaway from the time away is that I might do it more often - just take a breath when I'm feeling overwhelmed - not say for three months I'm not going to use the apps, but maybe two days or three days. But I think I will probably consciously not rely on them as much.
MARTIN: Putting you on the spot here, Lisa.
BONOS: Yeah.
MARTIN: So are you going back on the apps?
BONOS: Of course I'm going back on the apps.
(LAUGHTER)
BONOS: January 3 is the big day.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: Lisa Bonos writes and edits the Solo-ish blog for The Washington Post. We're talking about her piece about taking a break from dating apps for the three months. She was kind enough to join us in our Washington, D.C., studios. Lisa, thank you so much for joining us.
BONOS: Thank you for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We start the program today in Oregon, where armed protesters have occupied the headquarters of a National Wildlife Refuge. The protesters, reacting to a social media call out to members of different militia groups say they are opposing what they call excessive government restrictions on the use of public land and say they plan to use the complex as a base for years if necessary. Amanda Peacher of Oregon Public Broadcasting is near the sight, and she's with us now. Amanda, how many protesters are on this complex, and have they made any specific demands?
AMANDA PEACHER, BYLINE: The protesters are not being clear about how many militiamen are on the complex in general. But I saw in person somewhere between 15 and 18 total here on the property. They say they want to return these federal lands, the Wildlife Refuge, to local control and to the people. They claim that the lands were unconstitutionally purchased by the federal government outside of its authority around 1998. Ammon Bundy, one of the leaders here of the protest, called the Refuge a tool of tyranny - though it's not exactly clear how they want to return the land and this facility to local control. But they do say that they intend to be here until they do whatever it takes to achieve that.
MARTIN: What exactly set this off?
PEACHER: So there was an incident with two local rangers here in Harney County who were prosecuted for arson. And they were convicted under federal courts and are slated to go to prison on Monday. Now, many local people here felt that the five-year prison sentence they were convicted for was too harsh. And the protesters feel that the federal government has overreached in convicting these two ranchers of arson. So the ranchers scheduled to appear in prison on Monday is what brought the protesters here originally. Obviously, this is a much larger issue and a much larger point of contention for the protesters here now taking over a federal facility. The two rangers, I will point out, did not condone the acts of these protesters in taking over the National Wildlife Refuge facilities here.
MARTIN: Now, you mention the name of one person, Ammon Bundy. I understand that he's the son of Cliven Bundy, a name that many people might remember from a standoff with the federal government in 2014 over grazing rights. Tell me about them if you - what's their role in this? Are they from this area, or did they just travel there for the purpose of staging this standoff?
PEACHER: They are from southern Nevada. They traveled here specifically for this standoff and chose the Malheur Wildlife Refuge because of the history of this place and because they say that bringing it back into local control will bring economic wealth back to the area. There are three Bundy brothers here on site. Cliven Bundy, as far as I know, is not here. But he says that he is monitoring the situation here and is in contact with his sons.
MARTIN: Has there been any response from law enforcement or federal officials to this so far?
PEACHER: Well, I've been around the Refuge most of the morning and I have not seen a single law enforcement vehicle, although we are hearing that the state police is planning to respond to the incident sometime tomorrow. And county law enforcement here in Harney County has said that they discourage people from coming to the area and that they are monitoring the situation. But that's all we know about the response so far.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, Amanda, what's been the reaction to the community there as far as you can tell? Now, you already told us that the people at the center of this say that they don't condone this particular action. Have you had any sense of what other people in the area think about all this?
PEACHER: Well, there are some locals here in Harney County who support the group's anti-government message. And we have seen some folks dropping off food and even a pot of warm chili for the protesters here. But many, many local residents I've spoken with are very worried about this escalating into violence. They say they don't want this in their area, and they feel that Harney County - rural Harney County is an inappropriate place to take on the federal government.
MARTIN: Thanks, Amanda.
PEACHER: You're welcome.
MARTIN: That's reporter Amanda Peacher of Oregon Public Broadcasting.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're heading to Egypt now, where the government last week suddenly shut down a Facebook program that provides free but limited access to the Internet through its app and online partners. The government says it was a licensing issue, but others say it appears to be part of a widening crackdown on freedom of expression in Egypt. NPR's Leila Fadel sent this report.
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: Free Basics was launched in Egypt about two months ago. Three-million people were using it to get online. One-million of them had never accessed the Internet before. Then the government shut it down. An official from Egypt's telecommunications ministry told Reuters the permit was not renewed and the closure is not related to security concerns. But experts say it appears the suspension is part of the expanding efforts to stifle dissent ahead of the anniversary of the uprising that led to the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak in 2011. This year, Freedom House, a D.C.-based democracy advocacy group, listed Egypt as not free in its report on freedom of the net. Adrian Shahbaz is a research analyst at Freedom House.
ADRIAN SHAHBAZ: While no websites are actually blocked, there is an increasing crackdown on any type of dissent against the government and its policies.
FADEL: He says that's evident in the number of Facebook users arrested in the past year over posts about faith, sexual orientation or state policies. He says in the past week, three Facebook group administrators were arrested and accused of inciting protests against state institutions. Now, Free Basics is controversial. Facebook says the goal is to give Internet to those who don't have access. But it was recently stopped in India over concerns that as an Internet gatekeeper, Facebook's Free Basics program violates net neutrality - the concept of unfettered access to the Internet. Shahbaz says he doesn't think that was the case in Egypt.
SHAHBAZ: In the very local context in Egypt, it comes at a time when there's a crackdown on online dissent and on tools that are used for rallying people to protest.
FADEL: But Egyptians we reached who used Free Basics weren't particularly angry about its closure. They said it barely worked anyway. Leila Fadel, NPR News, Cairo.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now we'd like to go back to a story we brought you on Saturday. In a review of a new mystery novel set in Utah, reporter Karen Grigsby Bates said something that caught the attention of some careful listeners.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
KAREN GRIGSBY BATES, BYLINE: Most of what we non-Mormons know about members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is restricted to a few things - no Coke, coffee or booze, tithing, sacred undergarments.
MARTIN: No Coke, coffee or booze. Well, after that aired, we heard from folks who've said that's not quite right. While many Mormons avoid Coke, not all do. And avoiding caffeinated beverages is not church doctrine - wait, what? We had to call up historian Matthew Bowman, an authority on the history of the LDS church to set the record straight.
MATTHEW BOWMAN: There is a code that Mormons follow - a dietary code - called the Word of Wisdom. And its history is rather complex and a little bit ambiguous, which lends itself to this kind of individual interpretation.
MARTIN: Bowman says it goes back to Mormon Prophet Joseph Smith, who said he received a revelation from God forbidding Mormons to consume hot drinks, alcohol, tobacco or too much meat. Over the years, the meaning of hot drinks has come to mean tea and coffee.
BOWMAN: But many Mormons who read this as a health code look at tea and coffee and say well, what do these things have in common? And the conclusion is caffeine. So many Mormons then will say well, we should not drink any caffeinated beverages.
MARTIN: In 2012, the church released an official statement stating explicitly that caffeinated soda is allowed under church doctrine. Still, many Mormons will not consume caffeinated drinks.
BOWMAN: That's what happens when you have a religion like Mormonism that has no professional theologians, no kind of standardized doctrine, right? The lines what is explicit doctrine and what simply many Mormons believe then are fuzzier than many people would like.
MARTIN: So the confusion about whether Mormons can drink Coca-Cola seems understandable, but Mormons can drink Coke - now you know.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now some news from the world of sports. It's no secret that sports is about more than throwing, catching or hitting a ball. It's always been that way, but right now we're in a moment when the 360-degree reality of sports - health effects, racial issues, gender dynamics - are in the news as never before. That's one reason ESPN spent much of last year trying to get a new website up and running to focus on the intersection of race and sports called The Undefeated. It was supposed to have been led by a famously provocative sportswriter named Jason Whitlock, but he was removed. Now the site has a new leader, Kevin Merida, a former managing editor of The Washington Post. It's back on track for a 2016 launch. And I asked him - why leave a plum job at a prestige outlet like The Post for a venture some might consider risky?
KEVIN MERIDA: First of all, the subject matter interests me. And then it was just -I wanted to innovate all of these new websites - different digital properties. That's where the experimentation is going. We're not creating any more magazines or newspapers, but we are creating new properties, new ways to reach audiences.
MARTIN: Why do we need a site that focuses on race and sports, in your opinion?
MERIDA: I think that, as you've seen, the subject, the material just keeps coming at you, you know, whether it's - the athletes at the Missouri football program decided that they wanted some changes in the leadership, and they said they weren't going to play a game. We've seen recently with a campaign that's been on Twitter - a hashtag campaign - started to try to get LeBron James to sit out games because of the decision about Tamir Rice not to indict police officers. So, you know, I think that there will be lots of material, and there's an audience for it.
MARTIN: It's interesting that, you know, there may be an audience for it, but is there patronage for it? Because one of the arguments that athletes - not just African-American athletes have made to me, but athletes of all races have made to me is that the corporate owners are not interested in hearing the totality of views of these people - that they are very interested in sports as entertainment. And they are not very interested in anything that disturbs the equanimity of the consumers of sports because there are a lot of people who just don't want sort of the politics of the moment or these other issues interfering with their enjoyment of it. And a lot of people think that the sports media has been complicit in that - of sort of treating these athletes as commodities and not as people.
MERIDA: You're kind of helping them make the case for The Undefeated, I think, because athletes occupy such a great place in our imagination. They're heroes, leaders. And, you know, I would like to delve into more of how they think, how they feel beyond sports. You know, there are lots of subjects that deserve some particular attention, like black quarterbacks. We're seeing this year Cam Newton, who is having an MVP season. There's been a lot of discussion about everything from his dance moves to just how he goes about his business on the field. You know, there's a lot of territory. There's a lot of room for us to run. And it starts with me, the editor-in-chief - the sensibility and identity that I think is going to stand out.
MARTIN: When can we look forward to the first edition?
MERIDA: You know, I'm going to say this year.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: OK.
MERIDA: The year 2016.
MARTIN: All right.
MERIDA: But before the year is too old. It's like - you cook...
MARTIN: When the soup is done.
MERIDA: Yeah. You don't want to have the gumbo before the gumbo's ready.
MARTIN: That's Kevin Merida. He's the new editor-in-chief of the forthcoming website The Undefeated. It's dedicated to the intersection of race and sports. Kevin Merida, happy New Year. Thanks so much for joining us.
MERIDA: Thank you, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now it's time once again for our regular segment Words You'll Hear. That's where we try to understand stories we'll be hearing more about by parsing some of the words associated with those stories. Today, we're going to hear about the phrase substantially similar. That term is at the heart of a new law in California that requires employers to pay women the same as men when they do work that is substantially similar. It's called the new Fair Pay Act. It kicked in on January 1, and NPR's Laura Sydell is here to tell us more about it. Hi, Laura.
LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE: Hello.
MARTIN: So what exactly does substantially similar mean? And how does this actually advance this whole issue of equal pay for equal work?
SYDELL: So substantially similar is crucial to this law. And what it means is - let's take an example. For - in hotels, you have housekeepers, and you have janitors. Usually the janitors are men, and the housekeepers are women. The housekeepers tend to make less than the janitors, but really their work is substantially similar. Maybe the janitors are the ones who scrub the floors in the ballroom, and the housekeepers are the ones vacuuming the rugs in the room, but they really shouldn't be paid differently.
MARTIN: Now, I understand that there's another phrase that keeps popping up in connection with this, and that phrase is bona fide. So what does that mean in relation to this law?
SYDELL: There's a defense. You can have a bona fide business reason for paying men and women differently in a particular situation. So, for example, say, you have a man and a woman. They're both working in the IT department. The man has a master's. The woman doesn't. That would be a bona fide reason probably.
MARTIN: But, Laura, I wanted to ask you to tell us the story about how this - how this law suddenly got the wind under its sales because this issue of pay equity has been kicking around for years now. So why now?
SYDELL: Well, Hannah-Beth Jackson, who was the author of the law, had indeed been trying to get a law like this passed for years. When Patricia Arquette won the Oscar for "Boyhood," which was a movie that focused very much on her character, who was a single mom trying to raise a family, she got up there, and she made a statement about pay equity at the Oscars.
(SOUNDBITE OF 2015 ACADEMY AWARDS)
PATRICIA ARQUETTE: We have fought for everybody else's equal rights. It's our time to have wage equality once and for all, and equal rights for women in the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
SYDELL: Hannah-Beth Jackson said that was the wind in the sales that got this passed. As soon as she said that, finally, she was able to get it through the state legislature - not only get it through. It had bipartisan support, and it got the support of the California Chamber of Commerce.
MARTIN: Well, why is that? Is it because people saw the movie, and they thought, oh, I get it now? Or - what do you think it is that made the difference?
SYDELL: (Laughter) It's just the star power of Hollywood, really. You know, it got people talking. And Patricia Arquette actually did get involved. And she went out there, and she talked. And, of course, she can use Twitter, and she can use social media, and she can reach people. And people began to realize we've had to pay equity laws on the books for decades, and it hasn't solved the problem. We need to do something more.
MARTIN: And finally, before we let you go, how is this going to be enforced?
SYDELL: So, primarily, it will be enforced by women themselves coming forward. They'll be able to go to their employer and say something. If the problem isn't addressed, they can now take it to court. And in court, if they win, they'll be able to get their back wages and their attorneys' fees paid, but the state isn't going to go in and enforce it.
MARTIN: That's NPR's digital culture correspondent Laura Sydell, who talked to us about the new Fair Pay Act in California that requires that men and women doing substantially similar work be paid the same. Laura, thanks so much for speaking with us.
SYDELL: You're welcome.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Finally, today, because it's the beginning of a new year, I feel I should have some big thought, some overarching theory of everything, something like the idea shared with me by a woman I met at the Aspen Institute. She was a natural resources engineer who told me that in her line of work the thinking is that if money can fix a problem, it's not really a problem. Now, that strikes me as a big idea - if money can fix it, it's not a problem. Of course, if you have no money, you still have a problem. Nevertheless, it's one of those big thoughts you could chew on for a while. I don't have one of those today. What I have today are questions, such as why are several presidential candidates - and one in particular - being applauded for saying and doing things that would earn my middle-schoolers a suspension, or at the very least Saturday detention? Which is to say name-calling, attacking people's looks, trying to exclude people because of who they are rather than something they've done and attacking people they don't like when there's a crowd behind them. What happened to everything you need to know you learned in kindergarten? Another question I have - why is that police officers in Cleveland who killed 12-year-old Tamir Rice after an encounter of a few seconds have been deemed participants in a shared tragedy but not murderers, but a Northern Virginia mother whose baby died after she put him down for a nap on his stomach is considered a murderer and not part of a tragedy? This actually occurred a few months ago, but we just happened to find out about it in the very same week that a Cleveland grand jury decided not to press charges in the case of Tamir Rice, who was shot after police encountered him playing with a toy gun in the park. This is also about the time The Washington Post reported that a Prince William County woman had been charged with felony murder after she laid her 4-month-old down to sleep on his stomach on a makeshift bed made of a chair cushion and a blanket. She also took a nap, as new mothers are encouraged to do when their babies sleep. No drugs or alcohol were involved. But the baby suffocated. Felony murder, according to The Post, is the charge for a death that occurs in connection with a felony - in this case child neglect. The prosecutor's logic apparently that putting the baby to sleep on his stomach was so negligent, it amounts to murder. But according to The Daily Beast, which also wrote about this story, as recently as 1992, most people - 70 percent, in fact - used to put their babies to sleep on their stomachs. Just two years later, pediatricians began to encourage parents to set babies on their backs with the Back to Sleep campaign. This mother eventually pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and was sentenced to five years in prison with her sentence to be suspended after three years of probation. Can I just tell you I'm not re-litigating either decision but asking the question why, if every life is precious and split-second decisions under pressure are the issue - what makes one a tragedy but not a crime and the other a crime and not a tragedy? And that leads me to another question. Why is raising children considered an expensive hobby in this country and not a thankless and difficult job in the service of the country? And yes, it is a joy. But make no mistake, it's a job, one that is necessary to the successful functioning of any society, hence the desperation in places like Japan, where the birth rate has fallen so low there aren't enough people to replace the ones who are dying. And yet in this country, parenting is a job where training and support are haphazard, expensive and largely left to folklore and chance. Not convinced? Here's another study for you - in October, the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think-tank focused on workforce issues, found that the cost of childcare for two children exceeds rent in 500 of 616 communities surveyed. In many parts of the U.S., including Washington, D.C., the cost of childcare exceeds that of state college tuition. And so sure, we can get into arguments about the tax code and whether women should work at all, but when you can go to jail for not doing something according to other people's standards, then it strikes me that's something worthy of our focused attention. And that brings me back to the first idea - if money could fix it, it's not a problem. Could money fix the problems I just mentioned? That's something to chew on over the course of the new year. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In the audio of this story, as in a previous Web version, we say Tamir Rice was playing with a toy gun when he was shot and killed by a police officer in Cleveland. In fact, he was holding a pellet gun. Such guns can fire plastic pellets, BBs and other projectiles]
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
When it comes to human rights and civil rights abuses on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea gets most of the attention. But these days, democratic South Korea is being criticized for how its government deals with dissent. NPR's Elise Hu reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting in Korean).
ELISE HU, BYLINE: Sixty thousand people, or the seating capacity of Soldier Field, is how many South Koreans showed up for a mass protest against their president in November. One of them was labor group representative Ryu Mi-gyung.
RYU MI-GYUNG: Every issue that we are facing violates the core principles of democracy.
HU: The issues vary and include union-busting labor laws, attempts to ban protests, jailing journalists, using a Cold War-era national security law to criminalize certain kinds of speech, and a recent move to issue only state-written history textbooks to middle and high school students across the country.
PHIL ROBERTSON: A real sort of gamut of ongoing concerns about freedom of expression, freedom of association, freedom of peaceful public protest in South Korea.
HU: That's Phil Robertson, Asia director for Human Rights Watch. He's part of a wider international audience now paying closer attention to President Park Geun-hye's government and how it's handling dissent inside the country.
ROBERTSON: We don't take opinion, left or right. We just take opinion that there shouldn't be censorship. And the idea of, like, basically disallowing a number of different points of views and only allowing one specific textbook, you know, raises some serious concerns.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Speaking Korean).
HU: When protesters raised those concerns in street demonstrations, the national police force moved to quell the unrest with tear gas, paint and water cannons so strong that one demonstrator is still hospitalized in critical condition.
T. KUMAR: The police should use proportionate force, not excessive force.
HU: T. Kumar is international advocacy director for Amnesty International.
KUMAR: Our main concern is freedom of expression, as well as excessive use of force by the police officers against largely peaceful protest. The current president is going to fail if she tries to reverse the course to its democracy by using excuses to silence political critics.
HU: The presidential office and the president's ruling party counters that South Korea makes these moves because it's in a unique security situation.
KIM YONG-WOO: (Through interpreter) South Korea is still in conflict with North Korea. We're still living in the Cold War era.
HU: Kim Yong-woo is chief spokesman for the party.
YONG-WOO: (Through interpreter) South Korea respects the freedom of citizens to express themselves and assemble, but any activities that threaten the national security must be dealt with the National Security Law or else we may end up with very dangerous results.
HU: Kim says suppressing protests is justified since demonstrators have gotten violent, wielding lead pipes and breaking barricades, and because the government has to protect itself from North Korean sympathizers within its borders.
YONG-WOO: (Through interpreter) They're anti-government. They praise North Korea and bring all sort of political issues onto the table. These demonstrations don't have a just cause and are impure.
HU: But who gets to decide which causes are just? Politics and society are polarized along generational lines. A recent Gallup poll shows President Park's approval rating is 75 percent among voters over 60, but at only 16 percent among South Koreans under age 30. International groups are calling for the country's diplomatic allies, like the U.S., to raise rights issues with the Park government. Robertson.
ROBERTSON: South Korea doesn't get a free pass just because it's next to a very horrible, rights-abusing neighbor.
HU: In the most stinging criticism of South Korea's president, she's being compared to her father. That's not a compliment. He was a dictator who ruled South Korea with a heavy hand for nearly two decades. Elise Hu, NPR News, Seoul.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The Paris agreement to curb climate change calls for a dramatic shift away from fossil fuels and their greenhouse gas emissions. Switching to renewable energy could help. But taken alone, that won't keep temperatures from rising to dangerous levels, so scientists and researchers all over the world are working on other technological solutions, and that's our topic today for All Tech Considered.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
CORNISH: We're talking about ways to trap carbon down here on Earth and keep it out of the atmosphere. And we're going to take a quick trip around North America to hear some of the ways it's being done, starting with NPR's Jeff Brady in Alberta, Canada.
JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: We're at an industrial site north of Edmonton for a grand opening.
(APPLAUSE)
BRADY: Usually there's a ribbon-cutting, but here dignitaries turn a big, yellow, metal wheel to mark the opening of the Quest Carbon Capture and Storage Project. This is part of Royal Dutch Shell's oil sands business. Turning gooey oil sands into crude emits a lot of carbon dioxide. But here, Shell captures some of that greenhouse gas before it escapes into the air.
TIM WIWCHAR: With heat, we flash off the CO2. It goes over into the compressor building just behind me.
BRADY: Project manager Tim Wiwchar says the CO2 is compressed into a liquid.
WIWCHAR: And it's piped 65 kilometers away, down our 12-inch pipeline, to our three injection wells.
BRADY: Then it's permanently stored in those wells, 1.4 miles underground. The technology in the Quest project has been around for a while, but it's still not cheap. Just this one plant cost almost a $1 billion to build and operate over the next decade. And for all that money, it captures a only about a third of the CO2. Shell CEO Ben van Beurden says at this point, carbon capture and storage is not profitable.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BEN VAN BEURDEN: It creates maybe societal value, but it doesn't create commercial value. So we will need some sort of support mechanism to incentivize companies like ourselves to do that.
BRADY: Van Beurden says if there were a cost placed on carbon emissions, that could give oil companies the incentive they need to build more plants like Quest. Turns out just such a program is in the works, and Alberta Premier Rachel Notley announced it in November.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RACHEL NOTLEY: Alberta will be phasing in a $30-per-ton, economy-wide carbon price.
(APPLAUSE)
BRADY: Shell supports this and says the price should be even higher. So why would an oil company want the government to increase its cost? The key is increasing costs the same for all oil companies. That would level the playing field so Shell isn't the only one building plants like this. Van Beurden says he hopes other companies will follow. He's even offering to share what Shell learned here but so far, no takers. Jeff Brady, NPR News.
LAUREN SOMMER, BYLINE: I'm Lauren Sommer with KQED in California, where there's been a lot of excitement about capturing carbon. The state has a firm goal to cut carbon emissions. And six years ago, Keith Pronske was showing me a project he hoped would do just that. It was a power plant run by his company, Clean Energy Systems, that burns natural gas to make electricity, which creates carbon pollution. But his idea was to capture the carbon and put it underground to permanently trap it in rock layers underneath this dusty lot in the Central Valley.
KEITH PRONSKE: This is about changing the way that power is produced. If you bring the carbon up, use it and put it back is the basic idea.
SOMMER: It was meant to be a model project, a shining example of zero-emission energy. But that was six years ago.
PRONSKE: Well, it's been, I'd say, a wild ride, and we've had a few bumps.
SOMMER: When I met with Pronske last month, his plan had stalled. He tried to find a utility that would buy electricity from his plants, but the power is more expensive because he also has to cover the cost of burying the carbon. Utilities just weren't interested. Other carbon capture projects aren't faring any better. The federal government offered more than $3 billion in grants, but these projects are big and complicated, and they had to convince doubters who worry about environmental impacts. Many projects have been canceled altogether.
PRONSKE: The real issue is getting across this Valley of Death of how do we get these first plants built?
SOMMER: So some projects are looking to improve their economics. They make money off the carbon by using it.
STEPHANIE JOYCE, BYLINE: I'm Stephanie Joyce in Wyoming. Carbon capture and sequestration may be the gold standard for carbon management. But there's an alternative, if counterintuitive, way to sequester carbon; enhanced oil recovery, which is exactly what it sounds like. Oil is hard to get out of the ground, but carbon dioxide can help get that out.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Once delivered to the field, the CO2 is injected through a well and down into the reservoir.
JOYCE: That's from a promotional video for Denbury Resources, one of the country's biggest enhanced oil recovery companies. The CO2 bonds with the oil molecules trapped in the rock and acts like a detergent, washing the oil out. The oil comes up to the surface, but some of the CO2 ends up trapped, sequestered underground.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KIPP CODDINGTON: I think we are going to see more and more of these CO2 enhanced oil recovery projects go forward because there, there is an economic case to be made for that.
JOYCE: That's Kipp Coddington, head of the University of Wyoming's Carbon Management Institute. There's an economic case because that oil can be sold for money, but there's an accounting wrinkle. Burning the oil produced through enhanced oil recovery can actually emit more carbon than is sequestered. Even so, Coddington says it's better than a regular old barrel of oil.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CODDINGTON: If you can produce a lower-carbon-footprint oil and displace a higher-carbon-footprint oil, why wouldn't you do that? I mean, it's still progress.
JOYCE: But the question is not whether it's progress, but whether it's enough progress to meet the country's CO2 reduction goals.
LEIGH PATERSON, BYLINE: I'm Leigh Paterson from Inside Energy, also in Wyoming, a state that relies heavily on jobs and revenue from coal mining. So figuring out what to do with captured carbon is important here, whether it's used for enhanced oil recovery or something else.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MATT MEAD: I can't wait to see what great minds come up with to reimagine CO2.
PATERSON: That's Wyoming governor Matt Mead announcing the location of a carbon testing lab funded mostly by the state and a Denver-based utility. The goal? To turn harmful CO2 emissions into building blocks for useful products. Captured CO2 is already sold to make fertilizer, dry ice and plastics. It can even be used to carbonate your soda. It all sounds great, says Simon Bennett, an analyst for the International Energy Agency.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SIMON BENNETT: Technology gets provided, consumerism will do the rest. And that's a very, very attractive thing.
PATERSON: But Bennett points out that the demand for this kind of carbon is still really small. According to the IEA, the industrial market for captured CO2 is around 200 million tons per year. In comparison, global CO2 emissions from energy use in 2013 were around 175 times that. And to better those odds, researchers at the University of Wyoming are working on improving technologies that remove the carbon from coal to turn it into things like methanol, an ingredient in paints and plastics. For Mark Northam, the director of the School of Energy Resources, this would change the state's future.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARK NORTHAM: Twenty years from now, I would say fewer mines, more industry, the railcars full of products rather than coal cars hauling lumps of coal to power plants.
PATERSON: But finding the time, money and the political will to advance carbon capture technology are all serious barriers to preparing it for prime time. For NPR News, I'm Leigh Paterson.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Service dogs are invaluable for veterans who have physical disabilities. Now dogs are working with veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. From member station KERA, Lauren Silverman reports that the animals have been so successful that trainers can't keep up with the demand.
LAUREN SILVERMAN, BYLINE: At a warehouse near Dallas, black lab Papi tugs on a rope to open a fridge and passes his trainer a plastic water bottle with his mouth.
CHERYL WOOLNOUGH: Yes, good job. Close it.
SILVERMAN: Cheryl Woolnough is training director at Patriot PAWS, a nonprofit that provides service dogs to disabled veterans. She's taught Papi to pick up items you drop...
WOOLNOUGH: ...Uh oh...
SILVERMAN: ...Open and close drawers...
WOOLNOUGH: ...Good job, push...
SILVERMAN: ...Even get the phone for an emergency call. In all, the dogs learn 65 commands. Those that help veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder learn extra tricks, like how to sweep a house for intruders.
WOOLNOUGH: We teach them something called perimeter, where they go into the house and they check - they just touch all the doors and all the windows.
SILVERMAN: These dogs also know how to create personal space for a veteran by stepping in front or behind the owner to block people from approaching. Terri Stringer of Patriot PAWS says most veterans who apply for a service dog have PTSD, often on top of physical disabilities.
TERRI STRINGER: We have 100 veterans on our waiting list waiting for dogs, so we have to get more dogs.
SILVERMAN: She stands in a field where they'll build dozens of kennels in 2016. The training process is complex.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOG BARKING)
SILVERMAN: It starts with puppies, often labs, retrievers, poodles or doodles. The little guys get their shots and learn simple commands first. Then they go either to a puppy raiser who teaches them to behave in public places, or the dogs go to prison - seriously. Stringer calls it the big doghouse.
STRINGER: Prison is where they get their hardcore training. They're with the inmates 24 hours a day.
SILVERMAN: The inmates teach the dogs dozens of commands. Patriot PAWS relies on three Texas prisons for the type of intensive training the dogs need to be paired with veterans. It takes more than two years and costs about $30,000 each. The few veterans lucky enough to make it to the top of the list each year get dogs at no charge.
JAY SPRINGSTEAD: A service dog for post-traumatic stress can actually help you get out into the public and regain some of that independence that you've lost.
SILVERMAN: Jay Springstead, who lives outside of Dallas, still has nightmares from combat in Vietnam 40 years ago. He started volunteering at Patriot PAWS after his youngest son took his own life.
SPRINGSTEAD: Both my sons were Iraqi combat veterans. My youngest one had severe post-traumatic stress, so I'm very familiar with the symptoms. And I also know how important dogs are to anyone's recovery.
SILVERMAN: Springstead and many others are frustrated with the Department of Veterans Affairs for not providing financial assistance to veterans who use service dogs to cope with PTSD. It's a complaint Patricia Dorn, director of VA Rehabilitation Research and Development in Washington, has heard repeatedly.
PATRICIA DORN: So we understand veterans are not happy with the agency and that we're not just providing this benefit.
SILVERMAN: Dorn says they've never provided it because there's never been a definitive study, which they're doing now and hope to complete in three years. For NPR News, I'm Lauren Silverman in Dallas.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Now we're going to hear the story behind a popular song.
NATALIA LAFOURCADE: My name is Natalia Lafourcade. I'm a singer, songwriter from Mexico.
CORNISH: Natalia Lafourcade won four Latin Grammys back in November, including for this song, "Hasta La Raiz." It means to the roots.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HASTA LA RAIZ")
LAFOURCADE: (Singing in Spanish).
CORNISH: She explained how her hit song was made on Song Exploder, a podcast that unpacks songs with the musicians who created them. Natalia Lafourcade says this song started with a conversation.
LAFOURCADE: I went to my friend's house. His name is Leonel Garcia, and he's a great composer from Mexico as well. I know him since long ago. We were talking about the importance of keeping your roots and keeping all the things that build you - your home, your friends, your family, your experiences. I wanted to sing about something that will remind me of Mexico and home. So I was telling him, like, why don't we try a very traditional riff from Mexico - this huapango thing on the guitar? So he started, like, playing that huapango.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LAFOURCADE: There is huapangos in many areas in Mexico, but I never tried to put any music like that into my music and mix it with this pop sensation of a song.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LAFOURCADE: I started, like, trying to put the words together and to make the phrases of the song. So I went into the studio, and I started discovering the words by singing them.
(Singing in Spanish).
So I was getting these goosebumps and all that magic feelings that comes to you whenever you're singing a song that you're just discovering.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LAFOURCADE: So I called my friend Mariana Ruiz. So she came to my house, and we worked on the arrangements.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LAFOURCADE: I think that the strings give you the feeling of an epic feeling. And that's how you feel when you're flying away from something and you're - you are going through so many things that make you stronger. I wanted to have that emotion and that sensation in the arrangement.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LAFOURCADE: We were first doing that melody - pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa, pa (ph) - with a xylophone and with the steel drum. Then he put that melody into the guitar.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LAFOURCADE: There is this line...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HASTA LA RAIZ")
LAFOURCADE: (Singing in Spanish).
(Speaking Spanish). You are still inside of me because I am keeping you. I am not forgetting. I keep you inside of me. I mean many different things. It is love, but it is also all the things that built me and that help me to be who I am now. So I keep all that. I keep my home. I keep the place I come from. I keep my mother, my father. I keep my lovers. I keep my experiences. The good and the bad moments - I keep all that. It is important not to forget your roots. Keep that, and you can grow up. And you can fly far away, and you can be a big artist or whatever you want to be. But it is important, I think, to keep all that.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HASTA LA RAIZ")
LAFOURCADE: (Singing in Spanish).
CORNISH: That was Natalia Lafourcade talking about making her song, "Hasta La Raiz." This story came to us from the podcast Song Exploder. It's produced by Hrishikesh Hirway. You can hear other episodes at songexploder.net or wherever you get your podcasts. You'll also find it featured at earbud.fm, NPR's guide to great podcasts.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HASTA LA RAIZ")
LAFOURCADE: (Singing in Spanish).
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
What would you do if you called for a ride using an app on your phone and the car showed up without someone sitting behind the steering wheel? That's one of the projects the company Lyft is working on with General Motors - a fleet driverless cars. It made that and a related announcement today. Here's NPR's Aarti Shahani.
AARTI SHAHANI, BYLINE: GM is putting half a billion dollars into Lyft. And together, they'll work on two big projects. First and starting immediately, they're offering a new service that should make it easier for human beings to drive for Lyft. It's a very simple service.
JOHN ZIMMER: Rental hubs.
SHAHANI: Lyft CEO John Zimmer.
ZIMMER: Rental hubs for drivers to have short-term rental opportunities.
SHAHANI: To work for Lyft or its competitor Uber, many drivers have to undertake the big expense of buying a car, and many drivers lie to their insurance companies, claiming the car is for personal, not commercial, use. Now Lyft and GM are reducing the burden, killing a couple birds with one stone. You could do a short-term rental if you don't own a car at all or you don't have a nice car or...
ZIMMER: Or you know, potentially a Lyft driver whose car is in the shop and doesn't have access to earning income during that period. They can rent a car for a week and make sure that they continue to earn that income.
SHAHANI: In the long term, Lyft and GM plan to get rid of the need for human drivers altogether by building a vast network of driverless cars. The companies haven't released a specific timeline on when, though CEO Zimmer says the new fleet will have features to make it a better passenger experience. For example, business riders get wifi. A family on a weekend trip gets a Lyft with a TV.
ZIMMER: And you have the ability to watch a movie and relax and enjoy your time together with your family.
SHAHANI: For GM, this partnership is a radical departure from its traditional business. That is, selling cars to individuals - the owner-driver model. GM president Dan Amman says it's a way for his company to build business in big cities where people don't want to bother with insuring and parking cars.
DAN AMMAN: Well, fundamentally, we need to go where our customers want to go.
SHAHANI: This isn't the only team racing to build a self-driving fleet. Google and Ford are expected to announce their own joint venture, according to the Yahoo Autos, and Uber CEO said he expects a fleet by 2030. Aarti Shahani, NPR News, San Francisco.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The execution of a prominent Shiite cleric in Saudi Arabia over the weekend broke open long-standing sectarian tensions between that country and Iran. The diplomatic rift is spreading throughout the region. More on that in a moment. But first, that Shiite cleric - who was he, and how did he draw the ire of the Saudis? Well, in part by advocating for equal rights for Saudi's Shia minority. NPR's Leila Fadel has more in this profile.
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: In his hometown of Awamiya, Nimr al-Nimr was seen as a leader for young, disaffected Shia Muslims in the Eastern province Qatif who wanted change. An activist in Nimr's hometown using the nickname Abu Saleh to avoid arrest says by phone that Nimr was known for his bravery.
ABU SALEH: He say what we want to say. He reflects our demands. He reflects our ambition.
FADEL: On a recent visit to Nimr's hometown, the walls were covered in graffiti renderings of his face. He represented the new generation of Shia Saudis who were ready to risk arrest to demand their rights.
TOBY MATTHIESEN: He said things that other people would only say in private. And at the end the day, he urged his followers to go out and protest even though, you know, any form of public protest is illegal in Saudi Arabia.
FADEL: That's Toby Matthiesen. He wrote a book on Saudi Shias and is a senior research fellow at the University of Oxford. He says that Nimr openly supported peaceful protests in 2011 for dignity, freedom and equal rights both in Saudi's Eastern province and in neighboring Bahrain. Matthiesen quoted one of Nimr's famous lines. The roar of the word is more powerful than bullets. Here's Nimr in a speech posted online.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NIMR AL-NIMR: (Through interpreter) The oppressed should unite together against the oppressors instead of becoming tools in the hands of the oppressors.
FADEL: Nimr was born in the village of Awamiya around 1960. He spent some 15 year in exile, returning in the mid-'90s. After that, he was in and out of prison for calling for free elections, and at one point, he suggested that the Shia majority Eastern province Qatif secede from Saudi Arabia if demands weren't met. But Saudi's government painted him as a violent radical loyal to Iran. In one sermon, Nimr disputed that claim.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
AL-NIMR: (Through interpreter) We have no ties with Iran or any other country. We are connected to our values, and we will defend them.
FADEL: As U.S. embassy cable revealed by WikiLeaks says Nimr met with U.S. officials in 2008. In that meeting, he said he was not anti-American or pro-Iranian. He just wanted liberty in Saudi Arabia. Later, he would differ with Iran on the subject of Syria, where he denounced the oppression of the Syrian regime even though it's backed by Tehran.
In 2011, he became the leading figurehead for antigovernment protests demanding reforms that would allow Shias the same rights as all other citizens. He never backed down from his demands even when other Shia leaders did. Leila Fadel, NPR News, Cairo.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The diplomatic fallout continues after the execution of Nimr al-Nimr. Saudi Arabia has now suspended flights to Iran's capital. The Saudi's have cut diplomatic ties with Iran, and allies in Bahrain and Sudan have followed suit. The United Arab Emirates have downgraded relations with Iran. This is all after a mob in Tehran ransacked the Saudi embassy. The White House is calling for calm on both sides. NPR's Deborah Amos recently returned from Saudi Arabia and has been in touch with people there. And Deb, cutting off relations with Iran was a big move by the Saudis at a pretty important time. I mean, Saudi Arabia has a new leader - King Salman. What might be his goal here?
DEBORAH AMOS, BYLINE: What I heard today is the message is for two capitals. This is what regional analysts and Saudi sources say. For Tehran, the kingdom is saying you can't burn our embassy and expect us to do nothing. Yes, Saudi Arabia executed a prominent Shia cleric, but that was a domestic matter.
The other message from Saudi Arabia is for Washington. According to the Saudi's, they have to stand up to Iran because they say that Washington is not. And they have a long list. I'll give you one example. They say that last week the Obama administration hedged on imposing fresh sanctions after the Iranians did a ballistic missile test. Now, the Obama administration counters by saying, we support the Saudis in Yemen; we help them get a arms deal through Congress. Yes, we complained about the execution of a prominent Shia cleric, but that is a difference of opinion among allies.
MCEVERS: I mean, there is a pretty long history of enmity between these two big powers, between Saudi Arabia, which is seen and sees itself as the Sunni Muslim powerhouse, and Iran, the, you know, the sort of standard bearer of the Shiites in the region. I mean, what have been some of the problems between the two in the past?
AMOS: We can go back 35 years when Iran became an Islamic republic. That's when the political rivalry took on religious overtones. That's when the Sunni Shia divide became a political divide. It's not the first time Saudi Arabia has broken relations. It happened in 1988 after an uprising in the Hajj, the religious pilgrimage. That took more than a decade to repair. So this goes up and down, this relationship. It's now particularly fraught because Saudi and Iran are on opposing sides in a number of proxy wars in the region. There's Syria. There's Yemen. They disagree on what's happening in Iraq. There's Lebanon. And there's also oil. The Iranians see the Saudis flooding the market, and it's depressing prices. This is just at the moment that Iranians see sanctions. They're going to be lifted. They're going to be back in the oil market, and they are not going to be able to make the money that they expected.
MCEVERS: So does this dispute between Iran and Saudi Arabia have the potential to derail a U.S. effort for negotiations on Syria, negotiations that they long pushed to have Iran and Saudia Arabia at the table for?
AMOS: There is a lot of speculation about that today. You know, the high point was late last year. So what we say was the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia and Iran sitting across a negotiating table. That was amazing. It was seen as a breakthrough all for this preamble for peace talks that are scheduled later this month. It's not clear how that's going to go. In Yemen, a cease-fire was called off two days ago. The Saudis were scheduled to open an embassy in Baghdad. This would have been the first time since Saddam Hussein was removed by U.S. forces that an ambassador would be in Baghdad - not clear if that's going to go ahead. This rift has lots of regional implications. And you can see the alarm in Europe, at the White House where politicians are calling for both sides to show restraint.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's Deborah Amos. Thanks so much, Deb.
AMOS: Thank you.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Every presidential candidate needs surrogates to help make their case on the stump. It helps if the person is high profile - say, a past president of the United States. Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton just so happens to be married to one. Today in New Hampshire, Bill Clinton hit the trail for his wife. NPR's Tamara Keith joins us from Nashua Community College where the former president gave a speech earlier today. Hey there, Tamara.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hi, Audie.
CORNISH: All right. So looking back in 2008, I can remember when people worried that Bill Clinton might upstage his wife on the campaign trail. And then, of course, he actually angered some black voters when he criticized Barack Obama. Which Bill Clinton kind of showed up in New Hampshire today?
KEITH: It's a different Bill Clinton. It's been eight years, and that time seems to have had a mellowing effect on him. He was subdued and started out spending a surprising amount of time talking about various newspaper articles he's read lately. But then he rounded a corner and said that this campaign is personal to him. And he started telling stories about his wife, including his first impression of her when they met 45 years ago in law school.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BILL CLINTON: I thought she was the most amazing person because unlike now where more than half the law students in America are women, then, they were a distinct minority. And there she was at law school. She could've written her ticket to go anywhere she wanted. All she was really interested in was providing legal services to poor people.
KEITH: And then he walked through Hillary Clinton's career, listing accomplishments along the way. And he told several anecdotes about her getting things done against the odds, including getting China and Russia to sign onto Iran sanctions when she was secretary of state and even when she was first lady working on bipartisan legislation with Republicans in Congress.
CORNISH: Now, this might seem like an obvious question, but what are the risks for Hillary Clinton in bringing out Bill Clinton onto the campaign trail - right? - I mean, obviously a complicated legacy there.
KEITH: Yes. He presided over strong economic growth, but he also brought scandal to the White House. And since it was announced that he was going to be campaigning for his wife, Donald Trump has been tweeting like crazy about Clinton's past indiscretions. And Hillary Clinton yesterday got heckled here in New Hampshire where she was campaigning. The heckler told reporters that she was trying to ask Clinton about her husband's past sexual improprieties. The woman was shouted down by the audience, but Clinton made it clear there at that event that she was not going to respond.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HILLARY CLINTON: You are very rude, and I'm not going to ever call on you. Thank you.
(APPLAUSE)
KEITH: And despite that, the campaign has concluded that the positives of having Bill Clinton campaign for his wife clearly outweigh the negatives. He remains hugely popular among Democrats especially.
CORNISH: But let's get into this. What are those positives, right? What does she have to gain?
KEITH: Well, there are not a lot of surrogates who can draw a crowd of 700 people in the middle of a workday when it's freezing cold outside, but Bill Clinton can. And several of the people here who I interviewed said that they were leaving inspired, that they learned new things about Hillary Clinton that they can then use as ammunition to try to convince others to vote for her. And also, he's her husband. He can say things about her that she can't really say about herself. He can brag on her. And when he was at his best today, that's what he was doing.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
B. CLINTON: I do not believe in my lifetime anybody has run for this job at a moment of great importance who was better qualified by knowledge, experience and temperament to do what needs to be done now to restore prosperity.
(APPLAUSE)
KEITH: And if you're listening closely, you can hear jabs in there at Donald Trump, the Republican candidate, and even Bernie Sanders, her chief component on the Democratic side.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Tamara Keith on the trail with Bill Clinton in New Hampshire today. Tamara, thanks.
KEITH: You're welcome, Audie.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
There is about to be another political battle over gun control. President Obama is spelling out the steps he's taking to sidestep Congress and address gun violence.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: It will potentially save lives in this country and spare families the pain and the extraordinary loss that they've suffered as a consequence of a firearm being in the hands of the wrong people.
MCEVERS: He had that to say at a meeting today with the attorney general, the director of the FBI and the head of the ATF. When he has tried to pass gun control legislation in the past, he has been blocked by Congress, so he's turning to regulatory action instead. One proposal is designed to make it harder for gun buyers to avoid background checks. NPR's Scott Horsley reports that if history is any guide, the president's effort could have the unintended effect of increasing gun sales.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: 2015 was a banner year for gun sales, and already, 2016 looks to be off to a good start. John Lamplugh has been running gun shows for more than three decades in Maryland and Pennsylvania. He says last month's terrorist attack in California drove a lot of new customers his way.
JOHN LAMPLUGH: After San Bernardino, our business went up probably 50 percent just because of people being at a Christmas party and being shot. That makes people worry.
HORSLEY: And Lamplugh says ISIS-inspired attacks aren't the only thing gun buyers fear. They're also worried that a government crackdown could make it harder to buy guns in the future.
LAMPLUGH: It's either two things. They're scared and need to protect themselves, or they're afraid that they're going to take it from them. There's the two things that drive our business.
HORSLEY: Since the massacre at Sandy Hook elementary School three years ago, President Obama has spoken out repeatedly about his desire to make it harder for dangerous people to get their hands on guns. Dudley Brown of the National Association for Gun Rights says each time the president does so, cash registers start ringing at gun shops around the country.
DUDLEY BROWN: Yes, he is a good gun salesman.
HORSLEY: American gun makers churned out nearly 11 million guns in the year after Sandy Hook. That's twice as many as they made three years earlier. The U.S. now has twice as many guns per capita as it did in the late-1960s. Harvard researcher Deborah Azrael says there are about 300 million guns in all.
DEBORAH AZRAEL: There's a gun for every man, woman and child, more or less.
HORSLEY: But that doesn't mean every man, woman and child has one. Surveys suggest only about a third of American households have a gun these days, down from nearly half in the late-1970s. Researchers say a decline in hunting is partly responsible for that drop. Guns are increasingly concentrated in a shrinking number of households, and Azrael says statistical evidence makes it clear, the remaining gun owners are not any safer.
AZRAEL: Where access to guns is higher, more people die by suicide. More people die by homicides, and more people die from unintentional injuries.
HORSLEY: Indeed, the danger from suicide is two-and-a-half to five times higher in households with a gun. But gun show promoter John Lamplugh says that's not stopping people from stocking up.
LAMPLUGH: We've seen an increase in people that have never owned a gun. Right now, it's a protection thing 'cause we all know. You can call the police, and 14 minutes later, they get there. Well, these guys, in 14 minutes, can put down a lot of people.
HORSLEY: Lamplugh's hosting a gun show this weekend near Allentown, Pa. He's expecting a big crowd. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
It's Black Monday, the day after the end of the regular NFL season when teams that had disappointing seasons start firing coaches. We're going to talk about this and more with Emily Kaplan. She covers the NFL for Sports Illustrated, where she's a staff writer. Hey there, Emily
EMILY KAPLAN: Hey. How are you?
CORNISH: Good. So let's start with what's being describe as the end of an era. New York Giants' coach Tom Coughlin stepped down. And this is a guy who'd been with the team for 12 years, two Super Bowl titles under his belt, right? What happened?
KAPLAN: Yeah. Well, Tom Coughlin - yeah, it was a - kind of a long time coming, or everyone kind of knew it. He's 69 years old, and the bottom line is that six out of the last seven years, the Giants haven't been in the playoffs. And they kind of need to cut the cord, so it was a mutual parting.
CORNISH: Meanwhile, a team sort of jumping the gun on Black Monday - the Philadelphia Eagles, right? They're coaching change came early last week. Tell us what happened.
KAPLAN: Sure. They fired Chip Kelly, who, when he was hired three years ago, was the hot candidate. Everyone wanted him. He came from a super successful program at the University of Oregon and was seen as this offensive wizard. So them cutting ties with him kind of just admits that maybe they didn't have the patients to see if he could make it work.
CORNISH: Now, how much of a surprise is any of this, right? I mean, there are teams like the Cleveland Browns where there's, like, perennial change, and there's always speculation.
KAPLAN: Yeah. Well, you mentioned the Browns, and they're a model of inconsistency under owner Jimmy Haslam over the last three years. They've fired two presidents-slash-CEOs, three GMs and three head coaches. Then, on the other end of the spectrum, you have the Giants, who had a coach for 12 years and also a longstanding GM. So I think kind of what Black Monday always reminds us, is that, there really - it's so rare to have a happy ending in the NFL. It's just such a frail, you know, line of work, and you know, turnover's really high.
CORNISH: In order for all this to work, there needs to be a pipeline of editors, right? There needs to be applicants. In this gets to the idea of diversity in coaching, which is something the NFL's been talking about for a few years now. Give us the update. How well is the league doing on that note?
KAPLAN: Yeah. A couple years ago, they instituted something called the Rooney Rule, which really is affirmative action. It means that every NFL team with a head coaching vacancy must interview at least one minority candidate. Now, you'll never hear teams go out and, you know, kind of announce that, this is our Rooney Rule applicant, but sometimes, it's a little bit obvious. I think that we are seeing a little bit more diversity than we definitely have, especially before this rule was instituted. Earlier this year, you know, for the entire season, six out of the 32 NFL head coaches were minorities, either black or Hispanic. And I think that, you know, if you look at the reflection of the league, I think that that number should be probably higher.
CORNISH: Just to take a step back for a moment, I mean, for sports fans, people treat Black Monday kind of, you know, like an event, like the draft, and it can be funny, play for laughs. But for coaches, can this be traumatic? I mean, have you ever heard of coaches talking about what this experience is like going through this day?
KAPLAN: I think it's absolutely traumatic because the think about NFL coaches is that, you know, it's their life on the line. It's their career. But they're also responsible for a lot of people. When you hear about coaching trees, that means that there's a head coach, and they have five or six assistants under them who travel with them. So you know, when they're getting fired, it's not only their job and their family that has to uproot. They're responsible for five or six other men. And so if you think of how many lives are affected, that's a lot. So you know, I think this is a really high time of anxiety and a really stressful time for so many people.
CORNISH: Now, this is also the day that football fans basically digest the playoff matchups, right? They're either feeling really happy or probably bummed out by this point. What have been the highlights? What are the highlights for you, looking forward?
KAPLAN: Looking forward, I think that the NFC and AFC paint two really diverse pictures. The NFC has some of the most, you know, dominant teams all season. That's the Carolina Panthers, who almost went undefeated, and the Arizona Cardinals, who just have an absolutely fantastic offense and defense. Meanwhile, in the AFC, you have some teams that came in hot - Pittsburgh Steelers, the Kansas City Chiefs. Both come in on really ridiculous hot streaks. So there's going to be kind of a clash of a titans going forward.
CORNISH: That's Emily Kaplan. She covers the NFL for Sports Illustrated. Emily, thanks so much.
KAPLAN: Thanks for having me.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Last year was a pretty unimpressive one for the stock market, and 2016 isn't starting off so well either. All over the world today, in Asia, Europe and the U.S., stock prices were down. The Dow Jones Industrial average was down 276 points. That's more than 1-and-a-half percent. The S&P 500 was also down more than 1-and-a-half percent. It lost 31 points. We're joined now by NPR's Jim Zarroli. And Jim, what is the best explanation for what happened today?
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Well, yeah, it was a pretty bad day in the markets. It got better as time went on - as the afternoon went on, but for much of the day, it was just a route. Even the FANG stocks, which is an acronym for Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google, which are the stocks that did well last year, were down. What happened was - this appears to have started in China. A report came out saying manufacturing activity in China was worse than expected. The government of Beijing has been trying to stimulate the economy by cutting interest rates and doing more government spending. It hasn't really worked yet, so you saw this plunge in stocks - Chinese stock market down by 7 percent.
MCEVERS: I mean, how has...
ZARROLI: And the...
MCEVERS: Sorry. How is it that a downturn in Chinese manufacturing can have such an effect on everybody in the rest of the world?
ZARROLI: Well, I mean, it's sort of in the nature of the markets. This is not really about manufacturing. It's not about China. I think what investors are really worried about now is, you know, so much of the world is slowing down. You have really big slowdowns in places like Brazil and Russia. But even in the places that are still sort of holding their own, like the United States, like parts of Europe, there's this fear of a slowdown, really paralyzing fear. Demand isn't really strong right now in a lot of places. The fear is, it's going to weaken further. Now, China is still growing a lot. And objectively, you know, it's not in really bad shape. But China is a huge part of the global economy. And people look, and they say, well, if China keeps slowing down, what's going to happen to everyone else, you know? What's going to happen to Brazil and Russia?
MCEVERS: I mean, you talk about this slowdown in all these places around the world. What is that going to do to what, you know, we're feeling now is an economic recovery here in the U.S.?
ZARROLI: Well, one of the problems that the U.S. has right now is this - a dollar that's getting stronger against virtually every major currency. It makes it harder for exporters in the United States to sell products abroad. You saw a survey come out today that said U.S. manufacturing is suffering, and one of the reasons for that is exports are down. But here's the thing about the U.S. economy. Exports aren't as important as consumer spending. And right now, consumers are spending. They're - that consumer spending is still doing well. Unemployment has come down. So the U.S. is surviving, doing pretty well right now even with all these other countries in trouble. Now, at some point, if that changes, if, you know, other - begins to hurt the U.S. economy, enough companies feel the pain that the, you know, growth could slow here, but it doesn't seem like that's on the horizon right now.
MCEVERS: And quickly, we've been talking in the program today and in other places that we're seeing an escalating conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
ZARROLI: Yeah.
MCEVERS: Was this a factor at all to the markets today?
ZARROLI: You know, it might be something of a factor. Markets don't like uncertainty, and if this gets worse, it just makes everybody nervous. You know, this is an important part of the world as far as trade routes go. And of course, there's the oil market. We have a glut of oil right now, which is why prices have fallen so much. If tensions get too high, that could start to dry up, you know, which is why oil prices were actually up a bit more day. They'd fallen so much, but they actually crept up a bit.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's Jim Zarroli on the slide of stocks around the world in what was the first trading day of 2016. Thanks so much, Jim.
ZARROLI: You're welcome.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Chemistry junkies rejoice. The periodic table is getting four new elements. The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry - that's the group that makes the official call - has verified the discoveries.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The elements will eventually be named by the teams that discovered them. For now, they're known by their Latin placeholder names, which are kind of a mouthful. So for those of you following along on your periodic tables at home, just know that they are numbers 113, 115, 117 and 118. The announcement was especially exciting for Jim Roberto at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, part of the team that discovered 115 and 117.
JIM ROBERTO: Well, we got the news on New Year's Eve (laughter), so we were already celebrating.
CORNISH: The new elements are synthetic, very unstable and extremely rare.
ROBERTO: Over an experiment that lasted six months, we observed six atoms.
CORNISH: Those atoms had lifetimes between 20 and 40 milliseconds. That should give you a clue that there's not yet a practical application of this research on the horizon. But Roberto says it's an important step in our scientific understanding of atoms.
(SOUNDBITE OF TOM LEHRER SONG, "THE ELEMENTS")
MCEVERS: This news got us thinking about the all-but-official audio version of the periodic table which students use to memorize the elements.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE ELEMENTS")
TOM LEHRER: There's antimony, arsenic, aluminum, selenium and hydrogen and oxygen and nitrogen and rhenium and nickel, neodymium, neptunium, germanium and iron, americium, ruthenium, uranium...
MCEVERS: Tom Lehrer's "The Elements," of course - every known element circa 1959. Quite a few have been discovered since then, and we wondered if he had plans to update.
CORNISH: When we called him up, he said he didn't feel the need to add a new verse. There's no way to work in all those new names, he said. Although, many people who have a, quote, "elastic sense of rhyme" have tried.
MCEVERS: And maybe that's for the best. The hunt for element 119 is already underway.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
A small group of antigovernment militants say they have no intention of leaving the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Eastern Oregon. They've been occupying the refuge headquarters since Saturday. NPR's Martin Kaste reports from the scene.
MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: It's unclear how many protesters have taken this small collection of houses and sheds owned by the federal government. Judging by the numbers who've come out to the roadblock, it may not be more than a dozen. They're certainly outnumbered by the media who've camped out here along the road. Law enforcement, though, is nowhere to be seen, at least not out here on this snow-dusted hillside. When the protestors took it over this weekend, they said they were taking it back for all taxpaying Americans. Though at the moment, they're reserving access mostly for themselves.
JOHN RITZHEIMER: Nobody's allowed down there right now. Press conference will be up here at 11 o'clock.
KASTE: No one's allowed down there?
RITZHEIMER: Not right now. They may take people down there after, but...
KASTE: If you insist on your right as a taxpaying American to walk down there anyway, they let you, grudgingly. But they say it's a lack of respect, and they send along an escort. Mine was John Ritzheimer, a former Marine from Arizona who's attracted attention recently as an anti-Islam campaigner. In fact, all the occupiers are from somewhere else. They admit as much. This morning, most of them were inside a fieldstone building next to the maintenance yard.
KASTE: The door was opened by a big guy in camo with tattoos on his eyelids who made sure to block my view of the inside.
Morning
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Hey.
KASTE: My name's Martin Kaste. I'm a reporter for NPR. I...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Nice to meet you.
KASTE: Likewise.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Press conferences will be held at 11 o'clock up top.
KASTE: That press conference was run by Ammon Bundy, son of Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who got so much attention with his standoff with the feds over grazing fees. Now Ammon says he wants to help ranchers in Oregon, specifically a local ranching family by the name of Hammond. Bundy says the Hammonds have endured years of federal bullying because they won't sell their land to the government.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
AMMON BUNDY: The Hammond family have refused to sell it because they want to pass on the ranching heritage to their children and to their grandchildren. And because of that refusal to sell their ranch, these federal agencies began an attack on this family.
KASTE: All of this came to a head last fall when Dwight and Steven Hammond, father and son, were resentenced to five years in prison for setting illegal fires on federal land. The sentence was widely seen as excessive and possibly vindictive on the part of the feds. But the Hammond family has said it doesn't want the help of these out-of-town protesters. Nevertheless, a handful of local onlookers came by today, and while they mostly disagreed with the tactics here, they sympathized with the goals. Mitch Siegner ranches nearby.
MITCH SIEGNER: If they're bringing light to, you know, the overreach of the government, I think that's a good thing. I think that the government's too big, and they need to get some of these local decisions back to the local people making these decisions. And I'm all in support of that.
KASTE: The protestors are a little vague about they plan to do here now that they control these buildings. They say they're not holding out for demands here. Instead, they say they just plan to stay put and, as they put it, unwind the federal government's ownership of this wildlife refuge. Martin Kaste, NPR News, Hearney County, Ore.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
We turn now to John Sepulvado. He's a reporter with Oregon Public Broadcasting, and he's been covering the situation at the refuge. He's also written about how the Mormon faith has served as a powerful symbol to several protesters. John Sepulvado, welcome to the program.
JOHN SEPULVADO, BYLINE: Thanks for having me.
CORNISH: All right. So over the course of your reporting, you actually noticed certain symbols from the Mormon faith in the language of Ammon Bundy and also his father - right? - Cliven, going back to that confrontation with the Bureau of Land Management back in 2014. Give us an example of what you were seeing or hearing.
SEPULVADO: Well, that's right. At the time, I was living in Las Vegas. I was reporting there, and there was a very large Mormon community there. And the more mainstream Mormons would get very upset with Cliven Bundy and his family because Cliven Bundy actually would wrap himself in a lot of Mormon symbolism and a lot of Mormon belief. For example, one of the things that was on the flags at Cliven Bundy's ranch was this quote, "in memory of our God, our religion and freedom and our peace, our lives and our children." That comes from LDS Scripture. Now, I want to make it really clear. Mainstream Mormons don't advocate taking over people's land. But Cliven Bundy says that, you know, this is part of his destiny in large part because it's based on a story about a guy named Captain Moroni .
CORNISH: So Captain Moroni - who is this figure, and why would he inspire anti-Federalist militants?
SEPULVADO: Well, according to Latter-day Saints Scripture, Captain Moroni became a commander of his people, called the Nephites, when he turned 25. And he basically introduced a bunch of new tactics and new ways to think about fighting. And one day, this really kind of corrupt king comes to Captain Moroni, and he's basically telling him, we're going to take your people over. And Captain Moroni says, uh-uh, that's not going to happen. He takes his coat, tears a piece of it off. He scrawls that quote I just told you, puts that on a pole, and he calls this his title of liberty. People see this flag. They flock to him. So many people come to join him in the fight that the king gets scared and he moves and goes away without there ever being a confrontation.
CORNISH: So how does this play out today, looking around in this confrontation with Ammon Bundy?
SEPULVADO: Well, Ammon Bundy - this is exactly what he wants to do. So when Ammon Bundy says he's trying to be peaceful and he wants to be peaceful, it seems that he really means it, and he - it's 'cause he bases it on this idea of Captain Moroni, right? Like, it's - what he's doing is the same that Moroni's done. He says - Ammon Bundy says he's been moved by the Lord to come to Oregon, and he's hoping that people will hear his call and that they'll be so many people that the federal government will say, you know what; we're not even going to bother; we're going to cave to your demands.
CORNISH: So you talk about this tie between the kind of religious and the political, but where does this strain of Mormonism fall on the religious spectrum? I mean, is it peculiar to the Bundy family history?
SEPULVADO: Well, I think there are some things to remember. And I'm not a Mormon scholar. I want to make that really, really clear. But a lot of Mormons were persecuted when the religion first started. And when they came to Utah, they really were looking at starting their own country. In fact, there's an idea called the country of Deseret, which is this safe haven for folks who are Latter-day Saints. Mainstream Mormons have turned away from that, you know? Of course, you have Senator Harry Reid, who's a Mormon. You have Mitt Romney, the 2012 GOP nominee for president. He's a Mormon. They - they're not looking to break away, but there are still certain people who remember this tradition, who have always had beef with the federal government. And Cliven Bundy and his family are people who remember those stories, and they believe there is a destiny. And he'll tell you this. I've talked to Cliven about this. He believes his family has a destiny to resolve this issue.
CORNISH: That's OPB's John Sepulvado. Thanks so much, John.
SEPULVADO: Thank you, Audie.
CORNISH: And this afternoon, the LDS church issued a statement saying they, quote, "strongly condemn the armed seizure of the facility in Oregon." It goes on to say that this armed occupation can in no way be justified on a scriptural basis.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
This is a big week for Republican presidential candidates. The holidays are over, and there is now less than a month to go before the first round of voting in the election, the Iowa caucuses. And the Republican theme of how scary the world has become under President Obama's watch is only getting more intense. With us now to talk about this is NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson. And Mara, it really seems like almost all the Republican candidates are talking about the same thing right now. What's going on?
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Well, the theme is pretty clear. The world is on fire, and it's all President Obama's and Hillary Clinton's fault. Now national security and the fight against terrorism is an issue that almost always gives Republicans an advantage, and the president's numbers on this are very bad right now. People don't feel he's kept them safe. And not only is this an issue that's worked for the Republicans in the past, but it has the added value of uniting the Establishment and Grassroots Conservative wings of the GOP. And here's a sample of what we heard from Republicans just today. First, an ad from Jeb Bush airing in New Hampshire.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JEB BUSH: We are at war with radical Islamic terrorism. We have but one choice, to defeat it.
LIASSON: Here's Chris Christie giving a national security speech in New Hampshire today.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHRIS CHRISTIE: These are among the most dangerous and perilous times in our country's recent history. These times and these challenges demand a grown-up to be our candidate.
LIASSON: And Marco Rubio also giving a national security speech in New Hampshire.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARCO RUBIO: When America needed a bold plan of action from our commander-in-chief, we instead got a lecture on love and tolerance and gun control. It was designed to please the talking heads at MSNBC. The result of all this is that people are afraid, and they have every right to be.
LIASSON: So this is a theme that's been building for months in the GOP race. But as you can hear, this is a very, very dark picture they're painting of the state of the world. Voters are afraid and, says Marco Rubio, they should be afraid. This makes perfect political sense for an opposition party which is anticipating running against a de facto incumbent, Hillary Clinton, the former secretary of state of the current administration.
MCEVERS: With all this ominous language that we're hearing, there is one voice that I haven't heard yet and that's Donald Trump.
LIASSON: We did hear from him today. Donald Trump aired his first TV ad. He has rocketed to the top of the polls and stayed there without spending hardly any money on advertising, but now he says he's going to spend a couple million dollars a week to air this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: He'll quickly cut the head off ISIS and take their oil, and he'll stop illegal immigration by building a wall in our southern border that Mexico will pay for.
LIASSON: There's a little glitch in that ad when you hear that line about the border and the wall. You see footage of what turns out to be refugees in Morocco running to a border. But the point is Trump is doubling down here. There's nothing new in the ad. It's a kind of Donald Trump's greatest hits. But he is using a narrator, an outside voice, which is run-of-the-mill for most candidates, but Trump hasn't seemed to need anyone to vouch for him but himself. But here, the narrator's voice serves as a powerful outside validator. It makes Trump seem more like a typical candidate, something most politicians wouldn't want. But in Trump's case, it probably helps.
MCEVERS: And quickly, what is the state of play in the Republican primary? As you said, Trump is still on top, right?
LIASSON: Trump is still on top in most state polls, but not Iowa, where Cruz is ahead. But inside all those anti-Obama national security speeches today is a furious intramural battle. You heard both Christie and Rubio disparage a candidate who they said was running to be entertainer-in-chief. Translation? Donald Trump. Rubio said you can't defeat ISIS with a filibuster, that's a clear swipe at Ted Cruz. So here we are, 27 days from the first votes, and the race is still very, very unsettled on the Republican side.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Thanks so much.
LIASSON: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Volkswagen would probably like to start the new year with a clean slate, but that is not going to happen. Today, the Justice Department filed a civil lawsuit against VW for allegedly violating the U.S. Clean Air Act. The company faces billions in penalties. NPR's Sonari Glinton reports.
SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: The Volkswagen scandal where the company admitted to installing software that cheated during emissions tests? That part of the story may be unprecedented, but it's a part of a larger industry narrative. General Motors had its ignition scandal, Toyota, unintended acceleration and Takatas, faulty airbags. Carl Tobias with the University of Richmond School of Law says the Justice Department has become expert at dealing with car company misdeeds.
CARL TOBIAS: This is meant to send a message to the company and other companies that the U.S. government takes very seriously these defeat devices, and I think is meant to move VW to some resolution.
GLINTON: Volkswagen says it will continue to cooperate with the various criminal and civil investigations. Tobias says speed is of essence for VW.
TOBIAS: The longer it lingers, the worse it is because it drags the reputation of the company down.
GLINTON: Meanwhile, Steve Byars teaches ethics and corporate communications at the USC Marshall School of Business.
STEVE BYARS: The ethical hit to the company's reputation will outstrip even billions of dollars in fines or liabilities that might be assessed against the company over the years to come.
GLINTON: And if recent past is prologue, the monetary hit will likely be in the billions. Sonari Glinton, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
At 42 years old, Gene Luen Yang already has been a lot of things - a computer programmer, a teacher, a graphic novelist, a National Book Award finalist and soon, an ambassador. The Library of Congress has just named him the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. Yang is the first graphic novelist to hold the two-year job. And Gene Yang joins us now. Welcome to the show.
GENE LUEN YANG: Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
MCEVERS: Your 2006 book - it was called "American Born Chinese" - was the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award. And first of all, I was wondering if you would just tell us about that book.
YANG: Sure. "American Born Chinese" took me about five years to make. I started it as a self-published project. So I would finish a chapter, and then I would take it to my local Kinko's. I'd run off copies, staple them by hand and try to sell them at local comic book conventions. So I was working on a very small scale, and then eventually, all those little self-published comics got collected into this big graphic novel by First Second Books, which is my publisher.
"American Born Chinese" is all about the Asian-American experience. So when I started that project, I'd had these stories with Asian-American protagonists, but their cultural heritage never played an important part in the story. And because that's such an important part of how I find my identity, I wanted to do some kind of a book where that was the central focus. And that's what "American Born Chinese" is.
MCEVERS: Why do you think that graphic novels make sense for young readers? I mean, do we know if there's a lot of crossover from graphic novels to prose novels?
YANG: Nowadays, you know, there's this whole new category coming up of hybrid books. Kate DiCamillo, who is the preceding national ambassador to me - her most recent book was "Flora And Ulysesses," which tells the story using both prose and graphic novel formats. And I think the divide - like the historical divide between comics and prose novels in American culture has largely been artificial. There haven't really been good reasons for it to be there. And we're finally seeing that particular wall come down.
MCEVERS: And you have said that we are in a really important moment when it comes to diversity and literature. You say everyone is saying we need more diverse books with more diverse characters written by more diverse writers, but you say that has also given way to fear that people - that writers are afraid of getting it wrong if they step out of their own identity. Tell me what you mean by that.
YANG: Yeah, I think fear is my big bad, right? That's the one thing that I struggle with the most as a writer. And I think this is probably true of almost everybody in my profession. We all struggle with fear. When we portray our characters, we want to do it in a compassionate way, in a realistic way. So the easiest way to do that is to just write from our own experiences.
MCEVERS: Sure.
YANG: But we live in a diverse world, which means we need diverse characters. And I think the answer is you have to do it with humility and with homework. You really got to do your research, right? But at the same time, I think you have to fight that fear. Sometimes that fear will keep you away from a project that you know deep inside that you ought to take on.
MCEVERS: It sounds like it's a pep talk you give yourself, but is it one that you give to...
YANG: Oh, totally.
MCEVERS: Yeah (laughter).
YANG: It's a total pep talk I give myself, absolutely.
MCEVERS: And so now you have this platform you talk about with kids. You're going to have this platform going around and talking to kids and young adults about literature and reading. What do you feel like are the main things you're going to say to them?
YANG: Well, I came up with a platform that we wanted to talk about reading without walls. And that's just kind of a fancy way of telling kids and readers in general to read books that might be outside of who you think you are.
MCEVERS: Gene Luen Yang is the incoming National Ambassador for Young People's Literature. Mr. Yang, congratulations and thanks for being with us today.
YANG: Oh, thank you. Thank you so much. This was such a pleasure.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Last year, tens of thousands of Rohingya Muslims fled persecution in their home country of Myanmar, stripped of their citizenship and denied many rights. The U.N. calls them one of the most persecuted minority groups in the world. Their plight became world news when smugglers' boats full of Rohingya people were abandoned at sea and countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand were refusing to take them in. As the refugee crisis in the Middle East worsened, attention shifted away from the Rohingya. So to find out what happened, we called up Jennifer Rigby. She's a freelance journalist based in Yangon. And I started by asking her what happened to those Rohingya on those boats.
JENNIFER RIGBY: After quite a lot of international pressure and some really horrific stories about people in a - literally stranded on boats floating in the sea, most of the countries in the surrounding area in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia agreed to take in reasonable numbers of the refugees into their countries. But in some countries, they were then put in refugee camps. In other countries, they've managed to find some work, but recent reports about how some of the refugee camps in Indonesia, in particular - the U.N. has found that some of the refugees have just disappeared. They think they're still trying to reach Malaysia, still trying to find somewhere they can work and have a proper life.
CORNISH: And of course, things have not really changed for the Rohingya in Myanmar where, as we mentioned, they are stripped of citizenship. What are the other restrictions on this group?
RIGBY: There's kind of two things going on for the Rohingya who are left in Myanmar. There's about a million Rohingya altogether in the country. And for many of them, they face a kind of day-to-day oppression from the authorities. So they were unable to vote in the election. They struggle to access healthcare, education, things like that. They can't travel freely. But then there's about 140,000 of them who were forcibly moved into refugee camps, IDP camps and have been there since 2012 when there was violence between the communities in the area or in Rakhine where they're based. And they really feel like open-air prison camps. You know, the people in them can't leave. They're strapped in by checkpoints. To get in, you have to go through checkpoints. And you know, if you're inside, you can't get out, and that's why the checkpoints are there.
CORNISH: This stems from tensions between the Rohingya Muslims and the Buddhist majority, but has there been any hope with this election that things would change for the Rohingya?
RIGBY: Yeah, it's kind of sad because a lot of people did hope there would be some kind of change for the Rohingya. And as a result of the election, you know, Aung San Suu Kyi is a real emblem of hope and democracy not just in Myanmar but across the world. And I think a lot of people really hope something would change, but actually it hasn't so far. On the one hand, it's hard to blame Aung San Suu Kyi who hasn't formed a government yet because of the way the constitution works in Myanmar. But on the other hand after she won the election, one of her spokesman said they have other priorities rather than the Rohingya in the country. So it doesn't seem like it's going to be a situation she's going to try and fix anytime soon.
CORNISH: Finally, are there any concerns that there could be another wave of Rohingya trying to escape by sea?
RIGBY: I think it's a difficult question in a way because the situation hasn't improved. Their lives are still really desperate, and they've seen what happened, you know, earlier this year. They've heard that the reports - or rather not heard, you know, from their family members or their friends who didn't make it. And at the same time, they also are aware that now it's much harder to get to these other countries. So after the boat crisis earlier this year, a lot of the other neighboring countries, like Thailand, have effectively closed their borders to these boat people and - as they were called.
So, you know, even if people do get on the boats, there's a sense that they won't be able to land them anywhere, and that means as well that the smuggler gangs who basically were facilitating the journeys aren't very willing to do it either because they won't get their money.
CORNISH: That's Jennifer Rigby in Yangon, Myanmar. Thank you so much for your reporting.
RIGBY: Thank you very much.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
When A Tribe Called Quest's first album hit the record stores in April 1990, it immediately stood out - even the title, "People's Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm.
(SOUNDBITE OF A TRIBE CALLED QUEST SONG, "PUSH IT ALONG")
MCEVERS: It was the short life's work of four guys from New York City who got together in high school - Q-Tip, Phife Dawg, Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Jarobi White. They talked about stuff like oppression, same as groups like Public Enemy. But Tribe did it in a more loose and fun way.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PUSH IT ALONG")
A TRIBE CALLED QUEST: (Rapping) Q-Tip is my title. I don't think that is vital for me to be a idol, but dig this recital. If you can't envision a brother who ain't dissin', slingin' this and that 'cause this and and that was missin'. Instead, it's been injected. The Tribe has been perfected. Oh, yes, it's been selected. The art makes it protected. Afrocentric livin', Africans be givin' a lot to the cause 'cause the cause has been risen.
MCEVERS: A couple months ago, a remastered 25th anniversary edition of that first album was released. And we're going to listening again to my talk with Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Phife Dawg about "People's Instinctive Travels And The Paths Of Rhythm." Their older now, with grown-up problems, including some serious health issues Phife. That real-life stuff is something Phife says is missing in today's hip-hop.
PHIFE DAWG: We pretty much were always into being ourselves. We didn't want to be like anybody else. Back then, biting was forbidden. You pretty much get slapped up for biting.
MCEVERS: Explain biting for people who don't know what that is.
DAWG: OK. MC so-and-so has a line that he originated. Another MC comes along and takes it. Nowadays, it's pretty popular, unfortunately, but back then, that was a no-no.
MCEVERS: So yeah. You had to kind of do something that nobody else was doing, is what you're saying.
DAWG: We wouldn't have had it any other way anyway.
ALI SHAHEED MUHAMMAD: Hip-hop, at that point in time, was a lot of James Brown-sampled music. And we wanted the sound to be a journey, and we brought forth a lot of melodic-based music, sort of that more poetic but intellectual and fun aspect of creating music.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I LEFT MY WALLET IN EL SEGUNDO")
A TRIBE CALLED QUEST: (Rapping) I left my wallet in El Segundo, left my wallet in El Segundo, left my wallet in El Segundo. I got to get it, man. I got to get it. I got - got to get it. My mother went away for a month-long trip. Her and some friends on an ocean-liner ship. She made a big mistake by leaving me home. I had to roam, so I picked up the phone. Dialed Ali up to see what was going down, told him I pick him up so we could drive around.
MCEVERS: Yeah, one of the things the critics talk about a lot about this album is that it's fun, right? You were, like, talking about girls, talking about, I don't like to eat ham and eggs, you know, talking about losing your wallet.
MUHAMMAD: But it was real-life stuff, you know? When you're 18 - actually "Bonita Applebum" was written when we were 15, you know? But it was an infatuation-type song but in a flirty, fun way. And, you know, if you're 18, 15, 31, you still may have an attraction to someone...
MCEVERS: Sure.
MUHAMMAD: ...And you want to find a way to express it and to connect.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BONITA APPLEBUM")
A TRIBE CALLED QUEST: (Rapping) Hey, Bonita, glad to meet you. For the kind of stunning newness, I must beseech you. Hey, being with you is a top priority. Ain't no need to question the authority.
MCEVERS: The album has been remastered. There are also some remixes by J. Cole, CeeLo Green and Pharrell. He redid the song "Bonita Applebum." Let's hear the new version.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BONITA APPLEBUM PHARRELL WILLIAMS REMIX")
A TRIBE CALLED QUEST: (Rapping) Hey, Bonita, glad to meet you. For the kind of stunning newness, I must beseech you. Hey, being with you is a top priority. Ain't no need to question the authority.
MCEVERS: What do you think about this new one?
MUHAMMAD: I think it's good. It has a relationship with the now. But still, it does it in a tasteful way where it connects with the original which, again, had that chill, sort of melodic aspect to it.
DAWG: It's definitely cool. When I first heard it, I didn't know what to think. It was kind of difficult 'cause I was so used to the other two so much.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
DAWG: I mean, 25 years is, you know - he did a good job.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BONITA APPLEBUM PHARRELL WILLIAMS REMIX")
A TRIBE CALLED QUEST: (Rapping) Bonita Applebum, you got to put me on. Bonita Applebum, I said you got to put me on.
MCEVERS: Twenty-five years - this record captured a moment in time. Is that a moment in time that you think people still want to hear?
MUHAMMAD: I think so. The backdrop of hip-hop in the genre right now - some of it is a little humdrum. It's a little monotonous. And there are a group of a younger generation that wants more, and they're looking for those innovators to bring and deliver something different and fresh. And so that's the exact way that this album was created, with this same sort of setting and backdrop, where hip-hop was sort of humdrum. People were doing sort of the same thing. So some people may say, oh, that's old. But it's good old.
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CAN I KICK IT?")
A TRIBE CALLED QUEST: (Rapping) Bridge.
MCEVERS: You know, listening back to this original album, are there things that either of you hear that you think, I would've done that differently?
DAWG: My voice. I hated my voice back then.
MCEVERS: Really, why?
DAWG: That's the - yeah, I absolutely hate that high-pitch Mr. Dinkins...
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
DAWG: I hated my voice back then. So if there was one thing I could do over, it would definitely be that.
MCEVERS: And just have the deep voice that you have now 25 years later.
DAWG: Yeah, you know, little Billy Dee on them, you know?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CAN I KICK IT?")
A TRIBE CALLED QUEST: (Rapping) Can I kick it to my tribe that flows in layers? Right now, Phife is a poem sayer. At times, I'm a studio conveyor. Mr. Dinkins, would you please be my mayor? You'll be doing us a really big favor. Boy, this track really has a lot of flavor. When it comes to rhythms, Quest is your savior. Follow us for the funky behavior.
MCEVERS: Phife, you have had some struggles with your health over the years with diabetes, and you had a kidney transplant, right?
DAWG: Yep.
MCEVERS: How are you doing?
DAWG: I'm doing fine. I'm on a list to get another one - another kidney that is. But other than that, I'm doing fine. I really, really can't complain. I could, but I won't because God is really, really a good God, and I owe it all to him, you know?
MCEVERS: How has that experience made you think about, you know, the music and your commitment to it?
DAWG: When I was on the list from 2004 to 2008 waiting to get a kidney, I wasn't thinking about music, honestly, like...
MCEVERS: Sure.
DAWG: I thought it was over. I figured I'd maybe produce and put artists on or whatever, but as far as being on stage behind the mic, I really wasn't thinking about it. I really wasn't looking into that. Now I'm back in it full-fledged.
(SOUNDBITE OF A TRIBE CALLED QUEST SONG, "CAN I KICK IT?")
MCEVERS: Phife Dawg, thank you very much, and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, also, thank you.
DAWG: Aw, you're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CAN I KICK IT?")
A TRIBE CALLED QUEST: (Rapping) Can I kick it? Yes, you can. Can I kick it?
MCEVERS: Phife, can you do me a huge favor? I just need you to say one thing - microphone check - one, two. What is this? (Laughter).
DAWG: Exactly. That's exactly what I was thinking.
MCEVERS: You knew I was going to say that.
DAWG: Should I do the voice?
MCEVERS: (Laughter) Yeah, yeah, yeah - the voice you hate?
DAWG: Microphone check - one, two. What is this?
(LAUGHTER)
MCEVERS: Yes, you just made my life. Thank you so much.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CAN I KICK IT?")
A TRIBE CALLED QUEST: (Rapping) Come and spread your arms if you really need a hug. Afrocentric living is a big shrug, a life filled with - that's what I love.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
One of the most successful fast casual restaurant chains now faces the biggest challenge in its history. Hundreds of Chipotle Mexican Grill customers got sick last year after eating at branches across the country. The company's trying to determine the source of the foodborne illnesses. Once it does, it faces an even bigger challenge. As NPR's Jim Zarroli reports, it has to convince customers it's safe to come back.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Chipotle boasts that it serves food with integrity. Its meats are said to be naturally raised. It serves fresh ingredients and it hand-prepares food in front of its customers. This image has been a big part of Chipotle's remarkable growth over the years, says Andrew Alvarez, an analyst at IBISWorld.
ANDREW ALVAREZ: To eat at Chipotle was sort of the ethically and ecologically right thing to do, which resonated with a great deal of consumers.
ZARROLI: Then last year disaster struck. In December, dozens of customers in Boston were sickened by a norovirus outbreak. Before that came a salmonella outbreak in Minnesota and a pair of E. coli infections. Some 500 people in all were said to be sickened after eating at Chipotle. John Stanton, professor of food marketing at St. Joseph's University, says the company's image has taken a big hit.
JOHN STANTON: They've kind of positioned themselves as a special company, you know, that caters to the fresh and the delicious product, et cetera. And they've let people down. And when you let people down, they take that pretty seriously.
ZARROLI: In the wake of these outbreaks, Chipotle says its sales have fallen by as much as 11 percent. And the company, once a Wall Street favorite, has seen its stock price fall 33 percent in three months. Company officials say they are trying hard to discover the source of the outbreaks. They're promising a radical overhaul of their food preparation techniques and an expanded effort to train employees in food safety. Here was founder Steve Ells in an appearance on NBC's "Today" show last month.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TODAY")
STEVE ELLS: This was a very unfortunate incident, and I'm deeply sorry this happened. But the procedures we're putting in place today are so above industry norms that we are going to be the safest place to eat.
ZARROLI: But that message is something of a hard sell to customers, says John Stanton.
STANTON: I mean, my first question, as soon as he said that, was why didn't they do that originally? I mean, they obviously weren't doing all they could do to make their products so safe. And they're now paying the price for it.
ZARROLI: Stanton says Chipotle does deserve credit for quickly closing stores where the outbreaks occurred. But it has more to do. Tim Calkins, a professor of marketing at Northwestern's Kellogg School, says the most important task facing Chipotle right now is to discover the source of the various illnesses. Then it needs to work on repairing its image. Calkins says it will take time.
TIM CALKINS: They need to get out there and get people feeling good again about Chipotle. They've got to invest a lot in advertising so that when people think about Chipotle they're not thinking about food safety but they're thinking about all of that great brand and the food they love so much.
ZARROLI: Calkins says other companies, such as Toyota, have come back from big public relations disasters, so it is possible. But he says it will take time for Chipotle to crawl out of the hole it stumbled into. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
This next story is about a grim subject we don't hear about much in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it holds deep emotional weight for people there. Israel often keeps the remains of Palestinians, it says, were killed during attacks on Israelis, many going back decades. Last week, it returned dozens of corpses of Palestinians killed in the last few months. NPR's Emily Harris reports from the West Bank city of Ramallah. And a warning to our listeners - some of these details will be graphic.
EMILY HARRIS, BYLINE: Yellow metal double doors open off an alley into a Ramallah hospital morgue. Last Friday, scores of young Palestinian men gathered there for a first glimpse at corpses of friends or family members killed weeks before.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (Foreign language spoken).
HARRIS: Palestinian police let a few people at a time inside, then held the crowd back as another body arrived.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Chanting in foreign language).
UNIDENTIFIED MEN: (Chanting in foreign language).
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Chanting in foreign language).
UNIDENTIFIED MEN: (Chanting in foreign language).
HARRIS: Young Palestinian men praising God carried this corpse wrapped in black plastic on a stretcher up the alley. It had already been transferred that day from an Israeli morgue to an Israeli ambulance to a Palestinian ambulance at a military checkpoint. A Palestinian police officer let me in the morgue to see the three bodies still nearly frozen from storage in Israel.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: But please, without pictures.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: Oh, OK.
HARRIS: One young man's face is wrapped in a blue sheet. He's - they're opening the body for me now. His chest has at least three bullet holes in it. His - there's a wound on his chin. Here's another young man. His - his face is frosty. His eyes are closed.
Back outside the morgue, the crowd started to disperse. Burials were later. Getting bodies back is a potent issue for Palestinians who honor their dead as martyrs in a long-running struggle. But early in the recent surge of violence, Israel said no bodies would be handed back, in part to deter attackers looking for glory. At that time, cabinet member Yuval Steinitz also said experience shows Palestinian burials trigger more violence.
YUVAL STEINITZ: What we discover is that any such burial became a ceremony praising the terrorist act and calling other people to imitate. And therefore we decided not to return the bodies of dead terrorists until things will calm down.
HARRIS: But even though attacks continue almost daily, Israel has now returned almost all the remains of Palestinians killed while carrying out attacks against Israelis over the past three months. Analyst Ely Karmon of Israel's International Institute for Counter-Terrorism says this is because Israel's security establishment is divided on a body strategy.
ELY KARMON: Some said it is true that burials provoke incitement but not returning the bodies is also a trigger, and many families are really angry and, you know, large families sometimes.
HARRIS: Israel often hands back bodies on the condition that funerals be small, quick and private. But many families hold large public processions anyway. Last week at a funeral in Ramallah, one extended Palestinian family marched through the streets, singing loudly.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Chanting in foreign language).
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #5: (Chanting in foreign language).
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Chanting in foreign language).
HARRIS: Beyond the current wave of violence, human rights groups say Israel still holds nearly 300 bodies gathered over decades. Salwa Hammad heads a Palestinian campaign to return all bodies. Posters in her office list Palestinians whose corpses remain in Israeli hands. She reads some names.
SALWA HAMMAD: Ibrahim Yassar Ibrahim Naji Khalil. He’s from Nablus. He killed in the 17 of July 2002, the second intifada also. Here the 2003, 2004...
HARRIS: The list goes on. Some are buried in cemeteries like one I visited in a military area off-limits to the public - graves marked only with a number. Israel says it's been forced to keep some enemy remains for a long time in order to recover Israelis who get captured, dead or alive, by the other side. Retired Israeli general Yaakov Amidror.
YAAKOV AMIDROR: So slowly slowly begin to be kind of bodies market in which we didn't give back the bodies of killed terrorists, expecting if they get one of our bodies we will have enough to pay for that not by releasing a live terrorist but by giving them back bodies.
HARRIS: Israeli politicians can face pressure from Israeli families to not release Palestinian remains if their own loved ones are missing. Zehava Shaul's son Oron is believed to have been killed in Gaza in 2014, but no corpse was recovered. She watched Israel return Palestinian bodies now with sorrow.
ZEHAVA SHAUL: (Through interpreter) All of their dead the army returns. And I ask what about our children? Where are they in this deal?
HARRIS: And in Gaza, a Palestinian mother, Ibtisam al-Aghawani, is waiting for the body of her son. She says Israel has held his remains since he participated in a suicide attack almost eight years ago.
IBTISAM AL-AGHAWANI: (Through interpreter) It is like a fire inside that my son is not buried near me. To keep a dead body, why? It is bones now.
HARRIS: Both these parents - Israeli and Palestinian - say all they can do is wait. Emily Harris, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In the nearby town of Burns, some people have welcomed the occupation and the attention it's bringing to frustrations over the management of federal lands. Others reject the militants as outsiders. Here's Amelia Templeton of Oregon Public Broadcasting with that.
AMELIA TEMPLETON, BYLINE: Right at the entrance to the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, there's a small RV park and store called The Narrows. It's run by run by Ron Gainer and his wife, Linda. On Saturday, when Ammon Bundy's occupation started, a few of the men stopped by the store to buy ammunition and food, and Gainer packed up some leftovers for the occupiers.
RON GAINER: Chile and soup, I think.
LINDA GAINER: Yeah.
R. GAINER: And some rolls. They'll probably enjoy it, and that's what we do here.
TEMPLETON: Gainer says he thinks the federal government is too involved in local affairs.
R. GAINER: I kind of agree with a lot of this. I don't know why the federal government has to be here in the numbers that they are.
TEMPLETON: Like many people here, Gainer is angry that Dwight and Steven Hammond, local ranchers convicted of arson, received two different sentences for their crime. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that their original sentence was too short. It violated a five-year mandatory minimum for arson on federal land. To Gainer, that made the government seems vindictive.
R. GAINER: They did their time, and now they're back. And then all of a sudden, that wasn't good enough, so the government went around for round two to see if they can't get more time.
TEMPLETON: Hearney County is one of the largest in Oregon, but fewer than 8,000 people live scattered across it. The largest community, Burns, is a town of one-story wooden houses a half hour north of the wildlife refuge. People still haven't taken down their Christmas lights.
LARRY NORTHEY: I just don't want to see no bloodshed.
TEMPLETON: That's Larry Northey, a former mill worker and welder who's out in the snow working on his truck engine. He's worried police officers could get hurt.
NORTHEY: A lot of these officers here I know, I'm good friends with. I want them to all come back safe.
DEBBIE PFEIFFER: I don't like what's going on at the refuge.
TEMPLETON: A few blocks away, Debbie Pfeiffer was walking her dog.
PFEIFFER: It's a little unsettling to have these outsiders come in and try to co-opt the community and tell us what we should think.
TEMPLETON: Pfeiffer works part-time for the local library. She's spent time at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. One of the occupied buildings is a museum she likes to visit.
PFEIFFER: I am really hoping, crossing my fingers that none of that's getting destroyed.
TEMPLETON: All of the schools in Hearney County have been shut down for the week. Talia Ward's children are at home. She says it's hard to explain to them the very adult situation going on. At first, she was fearful.
TALIA WARD: I heard militia, and I think, like a lot of other people in town, just that word - I was terrified because I didn't know anything about it.
TEMPLETON: But Ward says her views have evolved as she's learned more.
WARD: I sat and listened. I marched in the rally for the Hammonds. I support them with all my heart, and I want something done.
TEMPLETON: Ward has lived in Burns her whole life. She says the town used to have a railroad and one of the largest sawmills in Oregon. That mill closed in the 1980s, and Ward blames the federal government and the Bureau of Land Management, or BLM.
WARD: It's sad to be a citizen here and know that so many amenities have been shut down in Hearney County, to sit and watch your friends move away because they don't have jobs here unless you go to work for the BLM.
TEMPLETON: Ward says she doesn't think the armed occupation is right, but for the first time, she feels like someone is standing up for her town. For NPR News, I'm Amelia Templeton in Burns, Ore.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Slovakia is one country that has resisted taking in a share of the refugees and migrants coming to Europe. And we're going to go now to the Slovak capital, Bratislava, where reporter Joanna Kakissis found a tiny immigrant community that arrived decades ago. As she learned, it's thrived by staying under the radar.
NGUYEN KIEN TRUNG: We can go to...
JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: There's a street in a warehouse district of Bratislava that's lined with Vietnamese businesses. Drive by and you'll see clothing outlets and a place to eat the famous Vietnamese noodle soup called pho.
TRUNG: You can go inside there so you can see.
KAKISSIS: Oh, there's a pho restaurant (laughter).
TRUNG: Yes, it's a good one.
KAKISSIS: Thirty-two-year-old Nguyen Kien Trung is showing me around. His family has imported and sold Vietnamese-made clothes in Slovakia for 18 years.
TRUNG: Slovak people perceive us as very, very hardworking people. We practically don't have holidays.
KAKISSIS: We stop by his family's warehouse where Trung's aunt and uncle greet us in Vietnamese. Trung's parents came to Slovakia about 30 years ago when it was still part of Czechoslovakia. Like others from North Vietnam, they found opportunities in communist Eastern Europe. Slovakia gained independence in 1993. At least 3,000 Vietnamese now live here. Claudia Tran was born and raised in Slovakia. She's 21, a university student who manages a nonprofit. I meet her at a hipster cafe in a cobblestoned old section of Bratislava.
CLAUDIA TRAN: Here in Bratislava, sometimes when I walk through the street, people will just look. I don't know if it's because, you know, they stare because I'm a woman or is it because I'm an Asian? But still they stare.
KAKISSIS: Her parents, top-notch students in Vietnam, came to Eastern Europe on university scholarships.
TRAN: And that's why my dad ended up in Poland and my mom ended up in Slovakia. And yeah, they are both engineers.
KAKISSIS: But it was hard to find work.
TRAN: The easiest way for them to earn money was just to sell everything they could, like, to do business and that's how they came to their current business. And they sell the clothing for children.
KAKISSIS: Tran is having hot chocolate with Lani Willmar, who's 22 and from Corona, Calif. Her parents fled South Vietnam by boat and came as refugees to the U.S.
LANI WILLMAR: I'm a first-generation college student.
KAKISSIS: Now this American is on a Fulbright, teaching English in a country where just a little over 1 percent of the population is foreign-born. She defends multiculturalism to skeptical young Slovaks.
WILLMAR: Yes, there are problems. Yes, there's racism. But it doesn't mean that's you should write off multiculturalism completely because if that were the case I wouldn't be there. My family wouldn't be there and life would be very different in the U.S.
KAKISSIS: But Europe is not the U.S., says Eva Kellerova, a retired scientist I met in Bratislava.
EVA KELLEROVA: (Foreign language spoken).
KAKISSIS: She says her heart breaks when she sees the thousands of Syrians and other refugees on TV, exhausted families trudging through the mud and cold. But she says it almost looks like an invasion. The Vietnamese came quietly, and she says it was a...
DANIELA KELLEROVA: Peaceful and calmer time then. And we took them in, and, like, it was OK, and it wasn't in such a, like, chaotic situation as it is nowadays.
KAKISSIS: That's her granddaughter, Daniela Kellerova, translating. Daniela, like many bright young Slovaks, is studying abroad in Scotland and does not plan to come home anytime soon. She's part of the brain drain that turning Slovakia into an aging society, a society that might benefit from an infusion of immigrants. For NPR News, I'm Joanna Kakissis in Bratislava, Slovakia.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The Homeland Security Department has begun rounding up Central American families whose asylum claims have been rejected. So far, DHS says it has picked up 121 people out of more than a hundred-thousand who have entered the U.S. illegally within the past two years. Those being deported are mainly young mothers with children. NPR's John Burnett visited some of them.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: (Speaking Spanish).
JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: When I arrive at the house in East Austin, there are kids playing outside and eyes peeking through curtains at the street. The ongoing raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, have terrified immigrants who lost their cases and await deportation, people like Hilda Ramirez.
Hola, Hilda.
HILDA RAMIREZ: Hola.
BURNETT: Como esta?
I'd met Hilda before. She's a diminutive 28-year-old Mayan mother from San Marcos, Guatemala, in a pink T-shirt and jean shorts. Her bright-eyed son Ivan is nine. She says they left Central America to flee Ivan's abusive grandparents. They crossed the Rio Grande in August 2014 and surrendered to the Border Patrol. They spent the next year-and-a-half in an ICE detention center and here in this shelter home run by an Austin nonprofit. Both her and her son's asylum requests were turned down. Hilda wears an electronic ankle monitor which is how ICE knows exactly where she is.
RAMIREZ: (Speaking Spanish).
BURNETT: Hilda says every time a car stops on this quiet cul-de-sac, she thinks it's federal agents who've come to take her away. She can't sleep. She's afraid. Ramirez has reason to be. Homeland Security secretary Jeh Johnson announced Monday that the roundup of Central American families has begun. I know there are many who loudly condemn our enforcement efforts as far too harsh, he says in a statement, while there will be others who say the actions don't go far enough. After they're picked up in the current raids, immigrant families are taken to a detention center in Dilley, Texas, to await deportation. Ana Urias is there now with her four children, ages 3 to 17.
ANA URIAS: (Speaking Spanish).
BURNETT: "I was easy to find because of the electronic ankle monitor on my legs," says Urias from a phone inside the building. She's a 32-year-old mother from Usulutan Province, El Salvador, who says she fled because murderous gangs were threatening her family. Urias says ICE agents showed up at the door of her apartment in Atlanta Sunday morning at 11 o'clock, but she wouldn't let them in. Then they called her and said they were actually there because her ankle monitor was broken, so she opened the door. Once inside, they told her to get her kids together and go with them.
URIAS: (Speaking Spanish).
BURNETT: "They were very angry," she says. "They didn't give me a chance to do anything. I was in my pajamas and slippers. I said I wanted to call my lawyer. I didn't even have a chance to brush my hair. It all happened to fast. They fingerprinted me and took us to the airport."
URIAS: (Speaking Spanish).
BURNETT: "When we got to the airplane, there were 20, 25 police waiting for four families," she says. "Four women with our children - why so much security? We're deportable families, not criminals."
URIAS: (Speaking Spanish).
BURNETT: Immigrant advocates are furious with the government. Though both women in this story had lawyers and still lost their asylum claims, advocates say that most applicants don't have representation and end up losing their cases. Cecilia Wang is director of the ACLU's Immigrants' Rights Project. She calls the sweeps by ICE an elaborate and unjust show.
CECILIA WANG: The federal government is going to engage in fear tactics, storming into people's homes in early morning hours in order to deter others.
BURNETT: Secretary Johnson says, quote, "our borders are not open to illegal immigration. If you come here illegally, we will send you back, consistent with our laws and values." John Burnett, NPR News, Austin.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President Obama gave an emotional and partisan speech on one of the most controversial subjects in American politics - guns. He was announcing a new set of executive actions to reduce gun violence. The proposals might be modest, but the response to the proposals in Washington and on the Republican presidential campaign trail is not. NPR's national political correspondent Mara Liasson reports.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: The president has called for stricter gun control legislation repeatedly and unsuccessfully. Now with about 12 months left in office, he's taking action on his own to tighten the background check system. He said the Second Amendment's right to bear arms had to be balanced with other rights, such as the right to worship freely taken away from the Christians gunned down at a church in Charleston or, he said...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: Our unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Those rights were stripped from college kids in Blacksburg, in Santa Barbara and from high schoolers at Columbine and from first graders in Newtown.
LIASSON: Then President Obama paused to wipe away tears.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad.
LIASSON: The president's critics were mad, too. In Congress, Republican House speaker Paul Ryan said Mr. Obama was governing by executive fiat. And Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump described the president's actions as the first step on a slippery slope.
DONALD TRUMP: Pretty soon, you won't be able to get guns. I mean, it's another step in the way of not getting guns.
LIASSON: Mr. Obama took on his critics directly.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: This is not a plot to take away everybody's guns. You pass a background check. You purchase a firearm. The problem is, some gun sellers have been operating under a different set of rules. A violent felon can buy the exact same weapon over the Internet with no background check, no questions asked.
LIASSON: The measures announced today would clarify who is in the business of selling guns. The goal is to require background checks wherever someone buys a gun - on the Internet, at a gun show or in a store. The president's new actions would also allow federal mental health records to be submitted to the background check system, and they would boost research on gun safety technology like fingerprint trigger locks and apps to track stolen or lost guns. Republican presidential candidates describe the president's actions as a threat to the Constitution. Marco Rubio said Barack Obama was obsessed with undermining the Second Amendment, and he promised, if elected, to reverse the measures.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARCO RUBIO: And so these new rulings that he's coming out with that limit and undermine the Second Amendment - on my first day in office, they're gone.
LIASSON: The president was equally partisan. He attacked Republicans in Congress who he said, even after the San Bernardino terrorist attacks, refused to make it harder for terror suspects who can't get on a plane to buy semiautomatic weapons.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: The gun lobby may be holding Congress hostage right now, but they cannot hold America hostage.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: We do not have to accept this carnage as the price of freedom.
LIASSON: Mr. Obama said gun-control supporters should vote against members of Congress who block expanded gun safety laws. If you make it harder to win an election, he said, they'll change course; promise you. Mara Liasson, NPR News, the White House.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
For reaction now, we turn to Congressman Bradley Byrne, a Republican from Alabama. He joins us from his office in D.C. Welcome to the program.
BRADLEY BYRNE: Audience good to be with you.
CORNISH: Now, for a long time, the president has been criticized for not enforcing laws that were already on the books, and here he comes with these executive actions which he argues will do just that - giving the FBI more money to, say, better monitor background checks. What's wrong with that?
BYRNE: Well, the executive action that is the biggest problem is he's trying to redefine law without going through Congress, which is not permissible under the Constitution.
CORNISH: And here, are you talking about the requirement for gun sellers who operate at gun shows, on the Internet to be licensed?
BYRNE: Right. The law does not apply to them. And I'm talking about a criminal statute, so in order for that statute to apply to them, that statute would have to be amended by the Congress. The president cannot do that unilaterally by an executive action. So in attempting to do that, he is, in fact, going around the Constitution, not enforcing the law.
CORNISH: What would you say to loyal, federally licensed gun sellers who are abiding by the law and think maybe these gun sellers who are trying to skirt the law should be caught?
BYRNE: Well, I've talked to a number of those licensed gun dealers in my own district, and I don't hear that concern from them. What I hear from them is concern there's an overreach by the federal government, and I hear that concern from a lot of my constituents who are just ordinary citizens.
If there's a problem here that we need to work on - and I think that there is - the problem is that we have too many people in America who have mental health problems, and they're able to get guns without getting the treatment that they should be getting to deal with their mental health problems. Let's deal with the mental health issue. And in the context of what happened in San Bernardino, let's tighten down on what we're able to do to stop lone-wolf attacks against American citizens.
CORNISH: Now, what the president says is that he is taking action, essentially, where Congress is not. And you know, there have been proposals in the House and in the Senate for, say, mental health care from Republicans, and they haven't gone anywhere. So why shouldn't the president do something like he's doing now - take executive action to request, you know, $500 million to increase access to mental health care?
BYRNE: Well, I share his frustration about that, but part of my frustration goes back at him and at Democrats in the Congress who simply have been unwilling to work with us on common sense changes to the mental health policy of the United States of America. So if he was really serious about this, he would work with us on that. Let's get over those differences, make those policy changes instead of trying to change the law that would have had no impact on the mass shootings that we've seen these last couple years because in each one of those cases, the shooter got a gun or somebody they got the gun from got a gun through a licensed gun dealer that, in fact, had to go through those background checks. So if you really want to get at the nub of the problem, let's deal with these mental health policies, get over our differences and do something about them.
CORNISH: So there are lots of Democrats who say, you know, every time Republicans have an issue with one of these gun-control proposals, they say, go back to mental health and, yet, no action on mental health. What's going on on the Republican side?
BYRNE: What's going on on the Republican side is we just don't have any good faith negotiating partners on the other side, and we don't have any negotiating going on with the White House. If the president really cared about this issue, then he would get personally involved, as he's made such a personal statement today. He would get personally involved in all of these efforts that we've had to try to get changes in the federal law that deals with mental health. If he would do that, I think he would find a lot of Republicans in Congress, me included, who would really like to work with him on that.
CORNISH: You know, when an issue like this comes up - a hot-button issue in an election year - can there ever really be any real discussion?
BYRNE: Yes, of course there can. And I don't think the fact that we're having a discussion is a bad thing at all. I think it's a good thing. I think there's lots of common ground, even in a presidential election year, for Republicans and Democrats to work together to defend the American people.
CORNISH: Congressman Bradley Byrne - he's a Republican from Alabama - thank you so much for speaking with us.
BYRNE: Audie, it's good to be with you.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Today is the first day of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, and this year, the talk of the show has not been about a Web-connected toaster or high-tech glasses. This year, it's the automobile. Digital technology has become an increasingly vital part of the car business. NPR's Sonari Glinton covers cars, and he's at CES.
Hey there, Sonari.
SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: Hey Audie.
CORNISH: So first, two big U.S. automakers are making moves into the ridesharing business. Tell us about it.
GLINTON: Well, GM announced yesterday that it was going to invest $500 million in the tech startup Lyft, the ridesharing company. And there were reports - and here is the big news that was supposed to come out of this show - that Ford and Google would announce a major partnership to build an autonomous car. That did not happen. It most certainly did not happen. But what did happen was Ford, in a major step, said that it wanted to be a transportation company, meaning it wants to do more than just make and sell cars. They want to get a piece of the action that is the Ubers of the world or the Zipcars - the ridesharing and the car sharing. It's unclear how far the talks between Google and Ford got or whether or not they happened at all, but we do know that Ford and General Motors desperately want to transform themselves so, as the head of Ford said, they won't be disrupted by new technologies like other industries have been.
CORNISH: Of course the car companies always like to make a big showing at CES, right? But what do you think is different about this year?
GLINTON: Well, if you think about it, your car is probably your biggest, most expensive gadget. What has changed is that consumers have changed. So recent surveys have shown that the most important thing to the consumer is not horsepower or fuel economy, it's the tech that's inside the car. Essentially, the consumer wants their car to be a rolling smartphone. And the car companies are a long way from making that happen, but they've woken up to the necessity to get there. And right now with record car sales and likely record profits, they have the money to invest in this new technology. And that's what's different - the money and the consumers.
CORNISH: You're describing this evolving consumer relationship, right, with cars, what we want out of cars. But what else is in the future of the car business?
GLINTON: Well, the future of the car business is in your pocket. It is definitely the smartphone. The convergence between the smartphone and the car is super important - that and the autonomous car. We are at a point where everyone realizes that autonomous cars or self-driving cars are in the really, really near future. It's how we're going to get there and what is that make up going to look like? And increasingly, CES and the Detroit Auto Show are places where the industry discusses and tries to figure out how are we going to get to a point where cars are going to be driving themselves and we can, like, kick back and listen to your great interview.
CORNISH: (Laughter). That's NPR's Sonari Glinton speaking to us from Las Vegas.
Sonari, thanks so much.
GLINTON: It's always a pleasure, Audie.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
2015 was a dark year for the city of Paris, with two major terrorist attacks that claimed a total of nearly 150 lives. Today, French President Francois Hollande marked the anniversary of the first of those attacks. He unveiled commemorative plaques at the former offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and at the kosher supermarket that was also attacked a year ago. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley sent this report from Paris.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Last January, two heavily armed men entered the offices of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and murdered 11 people.
The first plaque was unveiled there.
Journalists were kept back as the French president observed a moment of silence with family and close friends of the victims. Hollande then walked a few hundred feet to unveil another plaque where Muslim police officer Ahmed Merabet was gunned down by the extremists. The mayor of the district, Francois Vauglin, says the country needs these memorials.
FRANCOIS VAUGLIN: (Through interpreter) After all the grief and mourning we've gone through, these public plaques are important to engrave these events into our collective memory.
BEARDSLEY: The third plaque was placed at a kosher supermarket where another gunmen murdered four members of Paris's Jewish community.
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FRANCOIS HOLLANDE: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: Hollande warned the French in his New Year's address that they would have to learn to live with the threat of terrorism. But after two major attacks in 2015, the government is scrambling to deal with the new reality. France is in an extended state of emergency, and there are 10,000 soldiers patrolling the streets across the country.
Retired Parisian Alain Thomas says the events in January were bad enough, but the November attacks on cafes and a concert hall made the French feel that everyone is a target.
ALAIN THOMAS: The first event was - the target was precise, but the second event was - everybody are concerned by this because it could be their child or their neighbors and anybody.
BEARDSLEY: Later this month, the French Parliament plans to modify the country's constitution to make it easier to extend the state of emergency, which gives police the ability to carry out raids without a warrant. Normally, such a curtailment of individual rights would've provoked an outcry. But such is the state of fear in France today there's been only limited opposition to the government's plans. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Being deported from the U.S. is just the next chapter in the story for Central American migrants. What happens to them when they get back home? To find out, we called Natalia del Cid. She's a researcher of migration studies and an advocate for migrants' rights. She's in San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador. And I asked her what happens when deportees arrive at the international airport there.
NATALIA DEL CID: So when they get to the airport, the deportees are interviewed. It takes about two to three hours, and it's done by the Salvadoran government. If they have relatives picking them up at the airport, well, they are allowed to travel with them after they finish this process. And if not, the Salvadoran government would keep them a ride from the airport to the capital, San Salvador.
MCEVERS: And is the government adequately prepared to receive them?
DEL CID: In the airport, the place is really small so it gets crowded. The good thing is that they at least have air-conditioning because the weather is really warm. But they only provide them for basic needs at the moment. There's no, like, long-term strategy yet.
MCEVERS: You say that the government in El Salvador has no long-term plan for resettling these people. And we're talking about tens of thousands of people. Who does have a plan? And if there is one, what is it?
DEL CID: Well, the government is trying to come up with a plan. They started last year trying to draft a national policy of migration that includes return, and they even invited people to give their opinions about it. So right now it's a long process. They are trying to deal with international organizations and getting a lot of help in drafting a policy, but that it's going to be just a policy. So I'm kind of worried that it's going to stay on paper because it's going to need a lot of funding, especially if they want to address the long-term.
MCEVERS: And is there anybody else working on it?
DEL CID: There are NGOs.
MCEVERS: Nongovernmental organizations, yeah.
DEL CID: With the children, only the nuns - a group of, like, five nuns - are the ones that are basically dealing with the children. Last year, there were many NGOs and international organizations because there was a lot of funding...
MCEVERS: Right.
DEL CID: ...Due to the high hyping media attention. And that's an NGO that I know of, I used to work there. I got to organize a group of deportees, and we tried to channel the deportees so that they could have access to credit with a low interest and to set up their own businesses so that they could draw upon on their work experience in the U.S. and invest that here in El Salvador. Unfortunately though, in June, one of our founding members was killed due to the high insecurity of this country.
MCEVERS: Wow. I mean, you have been there when deportees returned to El Salvador many times. What do you say to people when they first come back to their country?
DEL CID: Well, I try to be upbeat and I try to thank them for having the courage to come back, just telling them that there are options here, that we are trying to organize deportees to get (unintelligible) in the agenda, in the national agenda. So I want them to know that they're not alone.
MCEVERS: Right. Do they believe you?
DEL CID: Well, it's - I think I'm the only person that tells them that so I think it's a relief at least to know that there is something to go to.
MCEVERS: That's Natalia del Cid. She is a researcher of migration studies and an advocate for migrants' rights in El Salvador. Thank you so much for your time today.
DEL CID: Thank you so much.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
This is Ted Cruz's goal in Iowa this week - organize and inspire the state's influential evangelical voters. More than half of Iowa's Republican caucus-goers are conservative Christians. The Cruz victory there hinges on his ability to win their support. NPR's Susan Davis reports from Iowa.
SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: At the kickoff of a six-day campaign swing through Iowa, there's no mistaking which voters Ted Cruz is trying to reach.
TED CRUZ: I'm thrilled to be here at this Christian bookstore.
DAVIS: It's Kings Christian Bookstore in Boone, the first of 28 stops this week across Iowa. Before he began his pitch, he cited the scripture he saw on the wall.
CRUZ: I was looking up and seeing Joshua 24:15 on the wall. Choose you this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
DAVIS: Cruz is here asking Iowa Republicans to vote for him in the caucuses next month. And at each and every campaign stop, he also asked them to pray.
CRUZ: Just one minute each day to lift up in prayer this country, that the awakening, that the spirit of revival that is sweeping this country, that it continue and in particular that conservatives continue to unite.
DAVIS: Cruz is campaigning hard to consolidate Iowa's conservative Christian vote. They usually make up over half of everyone who will show up at the Republican caucuses. The calculation is simple, says Bob Vander Plaats, the most prominent evangelical voice in Iowa politics. Cruz wins Iowa and then...
BOB VANDER PLAATS: Once we launch him out of Iowa, he's not going to flame out. He's actually going to, you know, propel further. And with the resources behind that, he could be the nominee.
DAVIS: And that's what Iowa's evangelical voters want the most in 2016 - a winner. They're tired of picking Christian conservative candidates who flame out in later contests, like Mike Huckabee in 2008 and Rick Santorum in 2012. Doc Ennenberg, a retired doctor, is 86 and he's been a caucus organizer since 1964. He waited for Cruz yesterday at a steakhouse in the town of Carroll to give him this warning.
DOC ENNENBERG: You better make it 'cause I don't want to die without seeing a [expletive] conservative in the White House.
DAVIS: Cruz isn't just asking for their votes, he's trying to fire up evangelicals, first here in Iowa, but with an eye on upcoming states like South Carolina and the big block of Southern states that vote on March 1, Super Tuesday. Cruz says in recent elections evangelicals haven't done enough to propel a conservative like himself to the White House.
CRUZ: Look, we allow non-believers to elect our leaders. We shouldn't be surprised when our government doesn't reflect our values.
DAVIS: That was last night in Winterset, Iowa, where Cruz added...
CRUZ: We have to bring back to the polls the millions of conservatives who stayed home. We have to awaken and energize the body of Christ.
DAVIS: His message worked for 44-year-old Michele Jones. She sat in the front row with her granddaughter on her lap at a cafe in Guthrie. This is the first time she's ever volunteered for any campaign. She first saw Cruz speak in Texas during his 2012 Senate race.
MICHELE JONES: That actually inspired me. I said, someday this man's going to run for president and when he does, I'm going to campaign.
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing) Here in America, in God we still trust.
DAVIS: That's a Christian bluegrass band in Winterset last night, where Cruz got a big public endorsement on stage from Dr. James Dobson, the iconic Christian broadcaster. Cruz may be inching ahead in the polls here, but he's taking nothing for granted. He's organized over 6,000 grassroots volunteers in Iowa. I asked veteran caucus-goer Doc Ennenberg for a caucus forecast.
How many do you think you can turn out?
ENNENBERG: God only knows.
DAVIS: (Laughter). So for Cruz to win Iowa, it's a question of organization and faith. Susan Davis, NPR News, Council Bluffs, Iowa.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Nearly a hundred women say they were sexually assaulted during New Year's Eve celebrations in Cologne, Germany. The city's police chief has been criticized for the slow response of his officers and for linking the assaults to Germany's influx of migrants. NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson sent this report from Berlin.
(CHEERING)
SORAYA SARHADDI NELSON, BYLINE: The sexual assaults in Cologne happened during a raucous New Year's Eve celebration in the area between the city's historic cathedral and main train station, as captured here on this video. City police say about a thousand men between the ages of 18 and 35 were in the square that night, many of them drunk and shooting fireworks.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
WOLFGANG ALBERS: (Speaking German).
NELSON: Cologne police chief Wolfgang Albers says his officers broke up the unruly crowd of men he described as Arab or North African in origin. He says police didn't learn of the sexual assaults until the next day. So far, 90 victims have stepped forward to file reports of being attacked and mugged that night. One victim was interviewed by German channel NTV, which identified her only by her first name, Michelle.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MICHELLE: (Speaking German).
NELSON: She says dozens of men surrounded her and her female friends, touching them everywhere and stealing her cell phone and another woman's wallet.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ALBERS: (Speaking German).
NELSON: Police Chief Albers says investigators haven't arrested anyone yet but that migrants who commit serious crimes should be deported. Cologne mayor Henriette Reker, however, warns against drawing any hasty conclusions.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HENRIETTE REKER: (Speaking German).
NELSON: She told reporters it is absolutely improper to link the attacks to refugees living in Cologne simply because the perpetrators are said to look North African. And Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded the attackers be swiftly brought to justice regardless of their origin or background. Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, NPR News, Berlin.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
A musician's life can be difficult. Perhaps no place knows this better than the city of Austin, Texas. It's where thousands of musicians have launched their careers. And for the last 20 years, the city's community of artists has subsidized mental health care for Austin musicians and their families through something called the SIMS Foundation. It's named for one of Austin's young musicians who took his own life. From Austin, NPR's Wade Goodwyn has more.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
WADE GOODWYN, BYLINE: It's a sold-out show at the KLRU studio. Some of Austin's finest musicians are here, on the same soundstage where "Austin City Limits" was filmed for decades. It's a labor of love. They're donating their time to raise money for an organization that attends to their psychological well-being.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CROSSFIRE")
SONYA MOORE: (Singing) Day by day, night after night, blinded by the neon lights.
GOODWYN: Sonya Moore can turn a Stevie Ray Vaughan song into a runaway train of Memphis blues.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CROSSFIRE")
MOORE: (Singing) Oh, I got stranded, yeah, caught in the crossfire.
GOODWYN: This astonishing assembly of talent has the power to amaze even veteran Austin musicians like Jimmie Dale Gilmore.
JIMMIE DALE GILMORE: Great music - some of these guys I haven't heard before - amazing.
(APPLAUSE)
GOODWYN: A country boy from Lubbock, Jimmie Dale Gilmore arrived in Austin back in the early 1970s with his Roy Orbison-like voice and not much else. As tough as it was back then, Gilmore says it's even harder to make it as a musician today.
GILMORE: Especially because Austin has become more difficult place to live in for musicians 'cause it's so expensive.
GOODWYN: A 2013 survey revealed that the median income for an Austin musician is around $10,000 a year. That's where the SIMS foundation comes in. A team of 70 musician-friendly therapists, psychologists and psychiatrists provide mental health services to 600 Austin musicians and their families every year. The providers have lowered their fees to just $50 a session. The musicians pay what they can and SIMS pays the rest. Gilbert Ramos is a SIMS therapist.
GILBERT RAMOS: When I see folks who are starting off in the business, they often come in because there's some depression, there's some anxiety, usually related to music life, not getting what it is that they want to get out of the music career.
GOODWYN: Ramos says substance abuse issues are ubiquitous. Bands play in bars. Musicians who sell a lot of drinks get invited back.
RAMOS: Musicians make money the more drinks they sell, and often in order to sell their drinks they have to have something in their hand to drink. It encourages the crowd to do so. That's one of the little tricks out there.
GOODWYN: Then there are the fans who show their appreciation by offering a hit of this or a line of that. If the crushing poverty and anonymity doesn't murder a musician's morale and self-esteem when they're starting out, perhaps fame and fortune will do the trick.
Austin singer-songwriter Nakia Reynoso, who goes by his first name, had a star run competing on the TV show "The Voice." He's ridden this roller coaster for two decades. His song at the SIMS benefit tells his story.
(SOUNDBITE OF NAKIA REYNOSO SONG)
NAKIA REYNOSO: (Singing) I shifted from left to right and back again, searching for my song. But there's a hole in my heart, got no shape at all. I stuffed with lust and drugs or anything but what really belongs.
GOODWYN: Nakia began seeing a SIMS counselor in 2002 after he'd attempted suicide.
REYNOSO: You know, SIMS saved my life and SIMS keeps me alive.
GOODWYN: Nakia says the therapy he gets every week has kept him from becoming depressed when things go badly. And of course go badly they sometimes do. Nakia says walking out on stage means revealing your most vulnerable self to a judgmental world.
REYNOSO: Here's my soul. Do you love me? Do you accept to me? Do you want me? I think most of us find ourselves in that position where we're there to give, but, you know, we want it back.
GOODWYN: A musician's insecurity is often the touchstone, the driving force of his or her ambition. And the industry feeds off it. Jimmie Dale Gilmore says SIMS speaks to a different set of values - that the making of music is sacred and the makers themselves divine.
GILMORE: The musicians are taking care of each other. It's really a beautiful thing.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GOODWYN: Wade Goodwyn, NPR News, Austin.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ANOTHER COLORADO")
GILMORE: (Singing) Down by the banks of the Colorado, my true love and I one night did lie and we laughed and played and made fun of the entire world spinning 'round the sun down by the banks of the Colorado. Down by the banks of the Colorado, night watchmen stood guard 'round the wagon yard...
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Armed protesters still control a group of buildings at a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon. It's the fourth day of their occupation. And here's a question many people have been asking. Why is there still no sign of law enforcement at the site? NPR's Martin Kaste explains.
MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: There's a kind of tactical vibe at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge where the men who've blocked the driveway address each other with radio codenames such as Infidel and Rogue. And they talk about maintaining OpSec. That's operational security to civilians. One of the men, who won't give his name, says if law enforcement shows up here, it'll show up big.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: You'll know when it happens because you'll hear the helicopters.
KASTE: But does he expect that kind of assault, with helicopters and guns? He says no.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: At this point in time and juncture, we're just fine. Nobody wants anything bad to happen on any side.
KASTE: And in fact, that seems to be the growing consensus here - that law enforcement has decided to just give this time.
STEVE IJAMES: Well, you better bring your lunch. I think you'll be there a while.
KASTE: That's Steve Ijames. He's a retired police chief who has decades of experience training SWAT teams as well as consulting on standoffs. He says the decision to raid a site isn't a tactical one.
IJAMES: There's no doubt that the government would have the tactical ability to exert their will on those men. The question is, how willing are we, those making decisions, to accept the potential negative outcomes?
KASTE: Ijames says the balance shifted dramatically after the deadly government raids of the 1990s, such as Ruby Ridge and Waco. There's less appetite now for force, especially in a situation like this one in Oregon. It's a remote site with no hostages, no children and where the occupiers say they're not even damaging government property. But he says sentiment could shift depending on the labels that the media use to describe the occupation.
IJAMES: If we demonize them, if we make them domestic terrorists, then the political ability to deal with them harshly increases.
KASTE: It also seems clear to him that the feds have made a strategic choice to stay behind the scenes. It's their jurisdiction, but they're also the political target in all this. Federal authority is exactly what these armed men oppose, so the emphasis has been on local law enforcement. Sheriffs and their deputies have been flocking to the area from across the state of Oregon. Brian Wolfe is sheriff of neighboring Malheur County.
BRIAN WOLFE: Anytime another sheriff in Oregon needs help and they call for help, all the sheriffs will go. And as long as it's lawful request, we'll go and help.
KASTE: That help right now consists of more patrols in Burns, the town half an hour from the refuge. One visiting deputy told NPR that there's a worry that some of the occupiers could come into town to cause trouble. They're still free to come and go. Law enforcement has not blocked any roads. That's a strategic decision, too, to prevent creating the impression of a siege. But that policy could also change if a lot of new supporters headed to the refuge to join the occupiers, and that's exactly what they're hoping for at the wildlife refuge.
RYAN BUNDY: Oh, hey, how you doing, brother?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Good. How're you?
KASTE: As a couple of pickup trucks pull up, the drivers are greeted enthusiastically by Ryan Bundy. He's one of the leaders here. He says they're local ranchers coming to support the movement.
BUNDY: They're just ranchers here. They're neighbors, and they're coming to help us out.
KASTE: But what are they doing? I mean, what are they going to do?
BUNDY: Be here.
KASTE: So they're going to stay.
BUNDY: They're - well, they might go.
KASTE: Right now, law enforcement seems willing to let Bundy's group wait in the snow and the cold to see just how many supporters show up to stay. Martin Kaste, NPR News, Hearney County, Ore.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Today at the White House, President Obama did something he's done many times before. He condemned gun violence in this country. But in today's speech, he also announced a series of new executive actions to deal with gun violence. They include changes to the country's system of background checks, more resources for mental health care and a push for gun safety technology. Republican leaders say the president's actions undermine Americans' constitutional rights.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The president's speech is being noted for those executive actions and for how he expressed his emotions. At one point, President Obama began to cry and, as you'll hear, it took him a few moments to compose himself.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: Our unalienable right to life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, those rights were stripped from college kids in Blacksburg and Santa Barbara and from high schoolers at Columbine and from first graders in Newtown - first graders - and from every family who never imagined that their loved one would be taken from our lives by a bullet from a gun. Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad. And, by the way, it happens on the streets of Chicago every day.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Now we're going to go inside a gun shop for a reaction to President Obama's speech. One of the things he said he wants is for commercial gun sellers to run background checks on their buyers and comply with other restrictions. You might think that licensed dealers who already have to comply might welcome such a directive. But as Frank Morris of member station KCUR reports, not so much.
FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE: At Centerfire Shooting Sports in Olathe, Kan., today, customers browsed racks of lethal-looking black rifles and semiautomatic handguns. But some, like Ginger Stiver, were more drawn by the colorful selection of conceal and carry handbags.
You're looking at the purses.
GINGER STIVER: I already picked out the purse, so I'll probably pick out the purse first and the gun - I don't know.
MORRIS: Stiver, who's middle aged and stylishly dressed, is from rural Stilwell, Kan., and says she's never shopped for a gun before.
STIVER: I never have. I never wanted one. I've never been anti-gun, but I was personally anti-gun, and now I've changed my mind.
MORRIS: Stiver says it was President Obama's gun control directive that finally pushed her to go gun shopping today.
STIVER: That's what's got me going. Any time a president's trying to take away our rights, that's scary.
MORRIS: President Obama says he's not trying to take anyone's rights and that the moves are commonsense efforts to tweak the gun control system, make it a little harder for criminals and those with mental illness to buy guns. In fact, Obama's face is right over Stiver's shoulder on a huge wall-mounted flat-screen TV broadcasting Fox News. One thing the president says he'll do is require unlicensed gun dealers to submit the names of buyers to the FBI for a background check. Most states don't require people selling guns informally or at gun shows to go to the trouble. But Jean Basore, the co-owner of this shop, says such checks are old hat for dealers already holding a federal firearms license, or FFL.
JEAN BASORE: With the background checks, we're a licensed FFL dealer, so we're already doing everything.
MORRIS: Basore does worry that casual gun owners could suddenly become illegal gun dealers in the eyes of the government.
Don Albrecht, a former FBI agent who teaches shooting here, says it's unclear who would fall under the licensing restriction.
DON ALBRECHT: You know, people trade guns left and right, you know, usually with friends and neighbors, relatives, that sort of thing. Now suddenly it's a federal crime. That's a bit scary.
MORRIS: But administration officials say the licensing requirement will be tailored only to people trading guns commercially. Though that's unlikely to assuage those to feel their Second Amendment rights are under attack. For NPR News, I'm Frank Morris in Kansas City.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The U.S. says it does not want to referee the current dispute between Saudi Arabia and Iran. The two countries have severed diplomatic relations. The tensions threaten to undermine U.S. goals throughout the region, including in Syria, Yemen and Iraq. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports on how the U.S. is walking a fine line.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Before he left the Obama administration last year, Philip Gordon was a White House adviser on the gulf, so he spent a lot of time trying to ease Saudi concerns about nuclear negotiations with Iran. The U.S. offered the Saudis massive arms deals, and it worked hard to get the Saudis and the Iranians to sit at the same table for peace talks on Syria. Now, Gordon says, the U.S. is back to the drawing board after the Saudis executed a Shiite cleric and Iranians torched the Saudi Embassy.
PHILIP GORDON: Sure, there's frustration in Washington at this step, which Saudi Arabia took knowing that it would inflame tensions even more and stand in the way of what the U.S. is trying to achieve.
KELEMEN: Gordon, who's now at the Council on Foreign Relations, doesn't expect the nuclear deal with Iran to be derailed. But he says the Saudis are clearly sending Washington a message that they don't think the U.S. is being tough enough with Iran on other issues. He says Riyadh will be disappointed if it's trying to force a change in the U.S. approach.
GORDON: Nobody knows really what it would take to genuinely reassure the Saudis and the others. The truth is Saudi Arabia's under a lot of pressure right now from very low oil prices, from its conflict with Iran, from a very costly war in Yemen that's not going very well, from the burdens of intervening in Syria and at a time when their questions about Saudi Arabia's own domestic transition.
KELEMEN: Secretary of State John Kerry has been working the phones, though his spokesman, John Kirby, says leaders in the region have to work through their own disputes.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN KIRBY: While we certainly want to foster that engagement, real long-term sustainable answers aren't going to be legislated from Washington, D.C.
KELEMEN: Kirby adds the U.S. doesn't want to be a referee. Saudi watcher Rachel Bronson understands why given the recent actions by the Saudis.
RACHEL BRONSON: They are playing a very provocative game, and the Iranians are playing it right there with them.
KELEMEN: While the U.S. might not be able to resolve their deep animosities, it should at least work on the margins, says Bronson, who publishes the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
BRONSON: Washington is trying to tamp down that hatred by dealing with the periphery, right? They're trying to figure out if they can get this Iran deal through, maybe they can get Iran and Saudi Arabia to the table on Syria. If they can get a Syria deal through, maybe that'll help the issues in Yemen.
KELEMEN: The U.N. special envoys on Yemen and Syria are both scrambling now to keep their peace efforts on track. The Saudi ambassador to the U.N., Abdallah al-Mouallimi, says his country will stay at the table. But adds it's up to Iran to stop meddling.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ABDALLAH AL-MOUALLIMI: We are not natural born enemies with Iran. It is only the behavior of the Iranian government that continues to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, particularly other Arab countries.
KELEMEN: Former White House adviser Philip Gordon says the Saudis are obsessed with Iran and fearful of it. He says the break in relations is deeply troubling.
GORDON: They make what was very hard already on the diplomatic front now nearly impossible, at least for the time being.
KELEMEN: The State Department hopes Syria talks will go ahead as planned later this month. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
That dispute between Saudi Arabia and Iran has been characterized as the latest riff in a centuries-old conflict between Sunni and Shia Muslims. Sunnis are the majority in Saudi Arabia, but there is a significant minority of Shiites as well. Toby Craig Jones is a professor of history at Rutgers University who has written about this.
Welcome to the show.
TOBY CRAIG JONES: Hi Kelly, thanks.
MCEVERS: So let's start first with that Shiite community in Saudi Arabia. You've spent a lot of time there, I've spent a lot of time there. It's largely concentrated in the eastern part of the country. What percentage of Saudi Arabia is Shiite?
JONES: My best estimates are 10 percent to 15 percent. That probably puts them at somewhere between 2 million and 2.5 million, as you said, concentrated in communities across the eastern province.
MCEVERS: And this area has a history of protest and uprising that's not necessarily related to the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Is that right?
JONES: It certainly has a history of confrontation - especially from the 1970s going forward. Beginning in the early part of the decade, lots of young men from Saudi Shia communities traveled to Iraq or Kuwait where they began to study, embrace revolutionary policies and began advocating for all kinds of things from community rights to regime change in Saudi Arabia.
MCEVERS: Would they characterize what they're doing as sectarian?
JONES: No, I don't think so. They use a language of democracy, human rights and inclusion. The most prominent Saudi Shiites over the last decade or so have been involved in a national political reform movement that's not sectarian at all.
MCEVERS: I mean, the story that's being played out now is this very sectarian one - Sunni Saudi Arabia versus Shiite Iran. Is that the way you see the conflict?
JONES: No, that's the way the Saudis, it's the way the Bahrainis, the way their allies in the Arab world have framed the conflict. They see threats from below and they see it across the region. I mean, let's remember, five years ago at the start of the Arab uprisings, the Saudis were alarmed by the rapid fall of Mubarak, rapid change in Tunisia, shocks in Syria and Yemen. And then when the Bahraini protestors took to the streets, it seemed as though it was coming home. The Saudis responded in much the same way the Bahrainis did, and that's that they chose Shiites as the scapegoat because most of the protestors came from within the Shia community, which was really just the reflection Bahrain's demography. They characterized it as a sectarian event.
MCEVERS: But the majority of people in the country of Bahrain are actually Shiite.
JONES: That's right.
MCEVERS: So explain then how does Saudi Arabia benefit from characterizing this is as a sectarian battle?
JONES: Well, it's complicated.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
JONES: You know, right. The easiest way to explain it, but I think the most problematic one, is to say, well, Saudi Arabia is beholden and has embraced the kind of Sunni orthodoxy that - the convenient shorthand that we're accustomed to is to hear it called Wahhabism.
MCEVERS: Right.
JONES: Which is widely purported to be intolerant and discriminatory. And there are elements of truth to that. The Saudis have sought to balance that over time but are capitalizing on the most extreme variants of it today. This is not - you know, intolerance and discriminatory sensibilities are not as widespread in Saudi Arabia as we might like to think, and they're certainly not widespread historically. But once they're fueled and once they're encouraged, they come to have a grip over the mosque in the public sphere that takes on a life of its own.
MCEVERS: Don't we see Iran doing the same thing basically though, with Shiites around the region and sort of casting itself as the keeper of the faith and using sectarianism to its benefit?
JONES: It has historically. That's absolutely right. Certainly, Iran has allied itself and aligned itself with Shiite networks in Iraq and Lebanon. They've sought to do so in Bahrain and Saudi Arabia.
MCEVERS: I guess I want to ask, I mean when you've got these two big powerhouse countries, you know, fanning these sectarian flames for lack of a better phrase, that's got implications. You've got people burning things and protesting. You've got people angry, buying into this sectarian narrative around the region.
JONES: Yeah, Well, look, I would insist that the Saudis are primarily driving the sectarian issue here. Iran has not done enough to back away from it, and Iran is a complicated place. But I agree that this is impossible to control. It will lead to escalating tensions. It may not lead to war between Iran and Saudi Arabia...
MCEVERS: Right.
JONES: ...But it will certainly encourage like-minded sympathizers across the region, whether it's ISIS or whether it's al-Qaida in Yemen, to pursue and embrace a similar kind of line. It will fuel violence everywhere, and it will lend a veneer of credibility to those who say either the Sunnis our are enemies or the Shiites are our enemies and continue to see political conflict in those terms.
MCEVERS: That's Toby Craig Jones. He's a professor of history at Rutgers University and the author of, "Desert Kingdom: How Oil And Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia."
Thanks so much.
JONES: Thanks Kelly.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
For the first time in 50 years, anyone who wants to cross from Denmark into Sweden must show identification. The law went into effect yesterday. It's meant to try to reduce the number of asylum-seekers arriving in Sweden. The country has taken in more than any other in Europe per capita - some 160,000 in 2015. Denmark has also imposed short-term border controls. Charles Duxbury of The Wall Street Journal was on the Danish side of the border yesterday, and he joins us now from Stockholm. Welcome to the program.
CHARLES DUXBURY: Thanks.
CORNISH: So described this scene at the border.
DUXBURY: Well, where I was located was the last train stop on the Danish side before you reach the bridge to Sweden. It was quite busy, mainly commuters arriving over the bridge from Sweden. Under the new system, everybody arriving - or who's - who wants to go to Sweden has to get off the train in Denmark, go through sort of an airport-style passport control and get on a train which then takes them over the bridge which is - normally, you could go directly from Copenhagen's main station to Malmo, which is the Swedish city on the other side.
You had the occasional asylum seeker who these controls are meant to control the flow of appearing sometimes confused by the new controls, sometimes going up to the barriers and being turned back if they didn't have ID cards, which is what the new controls demand. If they had that, they could carry on to Sweden.
CORNISH: Can you talk a little bit about the impact that Sweden is hoping that this will have on their - on the number of people who are seeking asylum there 'cause politically, it's a little bit of a turnaround for this country, right?
DUXBURY: Yes, yes it is. It's a big turnaround, really 'cause Sweden, over the last two years, has sought to, in its own words, set an example for the rest of the European Union by opening its borders to asylum seekers who are seeking refuge from conflict. But then over this summer and into the autumn, the numbers of people arriving into Sweden spiked. And in the end, they decided that they needed to do something drastic, so they've imposed this control.
And they judge that somewhere around 60 percent of asylum seekers arriving in Sweden don't have ID papers of any form. So by denying entry for people without papers, you know, they expect to see a rapid decline in the number of asylum seekers arriving. And the early signs are that that is what's happening.
CORNISH: This bridge has also been a symbol when it comes to Europe's integration, right? I mean, tell us a little bit...
DUXBURY: Yeah.
CORNISH: ...About that and what that means now.
DUXBURY: Yeah. I mean, the Copenhagen and Malmo area, which is separated by water, which - huge investment made in a 5-mile-long bridge which spans the waterway there - was part of a big effort to create sort of integrated economic area. So these border controls and people in high-visibility jackets lining the border and checking passengers and so on sends out a very different message to the sort of integrated vision which Sweden and Denmark have hoped to project over recent years.
CORNISH: When people talk about what's going on in Denmark and Sweden, it again sort of raises concerns about whether or not that kind of open borders, passport-free system of the EU can be maintained through this crisis. What is the conversation like where you are?
DUXBURY: People have got used to the idea of not even having to take an ID card to the airport when they fly to Denmark or to Germany. They've got very used to the idea that they can just show up, buy a ticket and fly. So I think it's only really now that it's starting to dawn on people that we're setting the clock back a couple of decades here, and it's a very visible sign of the strain the European integration project is coming under now. I mean, there are few countries in Europe which are as close as Denmark and Sweden, and to have to show an ID document to travel between those two is something quite surprising for people here. And definitely people in the south of Sweden will be feeling that over the next few days.
CORNISH: Charles Duxbury is a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. He spoke to us from Stockholm. Thank you so much.
DUXBURY: Thanks.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
"The Hateful Eight" is a new Quentin Tarantino movie starring some big names - Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Kurt Russell. It's about a bunch of really bad people caught in a blizzard in Wyoming during the 1880s. It also stars Walton Goggins. That's a not so big name in a pretty big role. He's this lean and hungry-looking guy who early on in the film convinces the others to give him a ride in their stagecoach.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE HATEFUL EIGHT")
WALTON GOGGINS: (As Chris Mannix) Anyhoo (ph), I'm just trying to let y'all know how grateful I am. I was a goner, and you all saved me.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) You want to show me how grateful you are?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Get in there.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Shut up.
MCEVERS: Goggins plays the chatty guy, Chris Mannix. He's a Confederate. Goggins has played a lot of Southern characters in movies and on TV. He grew up in a small town outside of Atlanta, and he told us he used to spend a lot of time trying to not be that guy from the South. So when he first moved to LA at the age of 19, he went to an acting teacher.
GOGGINS: The first thing he handed me was a book of sonnets by Shakespeare and he said, you need to lose that accent. So I started a valet parking service and just, you know, sat outside in that chair after parking cars feverishly for a couple hours and just read those sonnets over and over and over and over again.
MCEVERS: Out loud.
GOGGINS: Out loud. It changed my life. He was right.
MCEVERS: How did you sound?
GOGGINS: Probably a little like - a little like, hello, my name's Walton Goggins. Nice to meet you. I'm from Lithia Springs, Ga. (Laughter).
GOGGINS: And that turned into, hi my name is Walton Goggins and I'm originally from Georgia, a little small town called Lithia Springs.
MCEVERS: (Laughter). That's awesome.
GOGGINS: That's what you get with Shakespeare's sonnets.
MCEVERS: (Laughter). So you just bought it. The guy's like, got to lose the accent, and you were like, OK, whatever you say, sir.
GOGGINS: Yeah.
MCEVERS: Was your accent ever a barrier to getting roles, to getting parts?
GOGGINS: No, I don't think so. I think when you first come into this business, it is very easy for people to put you in a box. And if you come from where I come from, you can bet you're going to play a racist. It's convenient. You can bet you're going to play someone that's stupid. That's just how this business sees people from the South - at least, early on. And I suppose it's no different than someone that's Italian from New York. You can bet you're going to be in the mafia. That's just an easy way to say a line and get a job and feed yourself. And eventually over time, you know, you hope that you earn the right through your work to actually be able to articulate a point of view about where you come from, and that's been my journey.
MCEVERS: That journey has included playing the character Shane Vendrell, the corrupt cop from the FX show "The Shield," a slave owner in "Django Unchained" and perhaps the most complicated of his bad Southerner roles, Boyd Crowder from another FX show, "Justified." In this scene, he explains to his nemesis, U.S. Marshal Raylan Givens, how he manipulates skinheads by using fake Bible stories.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "JUSTIFIED")
GOGGINS: (As Boyd Crowder) In the beginning, you had your mud people. Now, they were also referred to as beasts because they had no souls, see, they were soulless. And then Cain, he laid down with the mud people. And out of these fornications came the Edomites. Do you know who the Edomites are?
TIMOTHY OLYPHANT: (As Raylan Givens) Who?
GOGGINS: (As Boyd Crowder) They're the Jews, Raylan.
OLYPHANT: (As Raylan Givens) You're serious?
GOGGINS: (As Boyd Crowder) Read your Bible as interpreted by experts.
(LAUGHTER)
OLYPHANT: (As Raylan Givens) Oh, you know Boyd, I think you just use the Bible to do whatever the hell you like.
MCEVERS: Goggins says he actually turned down that role twice because it was supposed to be this one-dimensional character who dies in the pilot. He says he didn't want Boyd Crowder to be another stereotype.
GOGGINS: I said, you know, I've earned the right not to represent my culture in this way anymore and I refuse to do that...
MCEVERS: Oh.
GOGGINS: ...When that wasn't my experience growing up, and I don't need the money. And then they kind of kept coming back and we began having these conversations. And I said in order for me to do this, I have to have autonomy over this character. I want him to be someone that is self-taught that knows the classics backwards and forwards but didn't have the opportunity or the support to continue his education. And that's really, you know, where my journey as Boyd Crowder began in earnest.
MCEVERS: It sounds like it's difficult then to play a Southerner and have to bring these sort of despicable characteristics to the screen, and that you've pushed back against that with this character. But yet you keep getting asked to play these bad people, right? I mean, Boyd Crowder's not the last bad person you had to play.
GOGGINS: Yeah. I - for a long time, I just wanted to be in a romantic comedy. I said, what's wrong and why can't people just look at me and laugh in that way? Does that make me dirty, right, because I'm a bad guy? Am I dirty? You know, as this existential kind of conversation with yourself. And then I realized, no, man, no. You know what's happening right now? I'm getting an opportunity to take these characters that, on paper, should be sold down the river immediately and fully flesh out their humanity.
MCEVERS: Which brings us back to his role in Quentin Tarantino's new movie, "The Hateful Eight." Here he is again as Chris Mannix, the son of Confederate militia man Erskine Mannix, meeting a Southern general played by Bruce Dern.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE HATEFUL EIGHT")
GOGGINS: (As Chris Mannix) Boy, oh boy, did my daddy talk about you. I heard you gave those blue bellies sweet hell.
BRUCE DERN: (As Sandy Smithers) Me and my boys did our part just like Erskine and his boys did their part.
GOGGINS: (As Chris Mannix) Hell, yeah, we did. Yankee sons of [expletive].
MCEVERS: At this point, all the characters in the movie are trapped in a hostel during the snowstorm. Everybody has a past and everybody seems to be lying. Goggins's character, Chris Mannix, says he's the sheriff of a town called Red Rock. Goggins remembers when he first read the script in the director's backyard.
GOGGINS: I spent the better part of three hours saying, oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, God, oh, my God. And that's just kind of what you do when you're reading a Quentin Tarantino script, much like a viewer or an audience watching it.
MCEVERS: Yeah, I did that.
GOGGINS: Yeah. You could hear him inside just laughing, and at the end of it he walked out. And I said, Quentin, I just have one question for you. I said, am I, or am I not the sheriff of Red Rock? And he said, I need you to answer that question, and I don't want to know your answer to that question. And that was really, you know, the jumping-off point for me.
MCEVERS: Describe what he's like - Chris Mannix.
GOGGINS: You meet him and you think, wow, how - well, if that's Walton Goggins, this is going to be a pretty nasty guy. And then you quickly realize that could just blow him over with one exhale, that he's an unruly adolescent in an arrested state of development. And that's where you meet him. And he's just regurgitating a world view that was dictated by his father.
MCEVERS: Right.
GOGGINS: And over the course of this movie - without giving anything away - you know, he gets an opportunity to, after reverting to being a 4-year-old little boy at one moment, to actually becoming a man, you know, and making those decisions for himself.
MCEVERS: Now that "The Hateful Eight" is out, Goggins says he still doesn't have any plans to do a romantic comedy. He will be in a comedy soon, HBO's "Vice Principals," which means it's time to say goodbye to all those complicated Southern characters that first got him noticed.
GOGGINS: I haven't had an opportunity to really mourn letting go of Boyd Crowder or Chris Mannix. They're all there and maybe on the other side of talking to people like yourself, I'll take some time to let them go properly.
MCEVERS: That's actor Walton Goggins. His newest movie, "The Hateful Eight," is out now.
Thank you so much for your time.
GOGGINS: Really, really nice to chat with you.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
It's becoming easier for some temporary workers to form a union. That's because of a recent decision by the National Labor Relations Board. Undocumented immigrants are among those with a lot to gain. Simon Rios of member station WBUR went to meet a group of Guatemalans in New Bedford, Mass.
SIMON RIOS, BYLINE: Arriving from all over New England and New York, a fleet of trucks delivers endless loads of spent rubber to the New Bedford tire yard. A shredder feeds a conveyor belt that spits onto a mountain as black as coal, destined to be reused as heating fuel. Twenty-seven-year-old Tomas Ventura has worked at Bob's since he came to the U.S. from Guatemala at the age of 18.
TOMAS VENTURA: (Through interpreter) Basically, they treated us poorly, and we got together and asked for a dollar raise. Our boss said he'd give it to us in April. But time passed and we never got our raise.
RIOS: Ventura says most of the workers get no paid sick leave or vacation time. And after more than eight years working for the company, he earns $11 an hour. Bob's Tire Co. refused to comment for this story. But by Ventura's account, the owner of the company fired him and three others for demanding better wages.
VENTURA: (Through interpreter) I think he fired us to teach the other workers a lesson. That's why I said let's do something. This is the time.
RIOS: Ventura says they were returned to protest, threatening to file a grievance and pressuring the company to rehire them. And this past fall, shortly after the four workers were rehired, 65 of 70 voted to join the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. According to the census, New Bedford is home to 1,500 Guatemalans, though advocates estimate the real number could be three times that. Former National Labor Relations Board Chair Wilma Liebman says undocumented workers have the same rights under labor law as citizens, but there's a wrinkle.
WILMA LIEBMAN: Undocumented workers who are involved in an organizing effort risk, if they are fired, not being able to get their job back and not being able to get back pay for the time that they've been fired.
RIOS: Organizers in New Bedford estimate as many as three-quarters of the city's Guatemalans are undocumented, and the majority work through temp agencies. At the national level, it's difficult to measure how many undocumented workers work through temp agencies. But advocates say it's a common way companies avoid liability for employing undocumented workers. Now a change in federal labor law could make it easier for temp workers to unionize, undocumented or not. The Bob's Tire workers unionized as employees of both the tire company and the temp agency. Union organizers say this was hard to achieve before the National Labor Relations Board changed the definition of joint employment. Attorney Michael Harper teaches labor law at Boston University.
MICHAEL HARPER: Oh, you formed a union - your employees formed a union, a temp agency? We're going to cut you off. They're out of a job because they formed a union. Now, if they're a joint employer, if they do that, that's an unfair labor practice.
RIOS: Opponents of the decision on joint employment say it will subject companies to strikes, boycotts and pickets that were previously unlawful, as well as liability for unfair labor practices. Stephen Dwyer is general counsel at the American Staffing Association, a trade group that represents temp agencies. He says the decision was an overreach of the board's authority, though he doesn't expected to have much impact.
STEPHEN DWYER: The number of union workers in the private sector has declined. It's less than 7 percent. And we're talking about only 2 percent of workers being temporary workers. And when you factor in the fact that their average tenure is only about three months - historically, temporary workers haven't joined unions.
RIOS: The NLRB decision might not change much nationwide, but it could have big implications in places like New Bedford. For NPR News, I'm Simon Rios in Boston.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
For decades, if someone on Medicaid wanted treatment for drug or alcohol addiction, they almost always had to rely on money from state and local sources. Now a big change - the federal government is considering chipping in. In one state though, this isn't welcome news. Ben Allen of member station WITF explains.
BEN ALLEN, BYLINE: It always sounds bureaucratic to hear Medicaid rule change, but this could start to transform drug and alcohol addiction treatment. The federal agency that oversees Medicaid known as CMS is proposing to cover 15 days a month of inpatient treatment for anyone in a Medicaid managed care plan. That's a version of Medicaid managed by insurance companies.
CINDY MANN: This was a big step forward for CMS to get to the 15 days.
ALLEN: Cindy Mann is a former top administrator at CMS who now works for Manatt Health Solutions, a law and consulting firm. Insurance companies and states are all over the map for how many days they'll pay for, but federal law restricted Medicaid funding for any length of stay. So, Mann says...
MANN: Maybe it's half a loaf for somebody who needs 30 days but it's half a loaf of of new federal dollars coming in that could be available.
ALLEN: Most states will gladly take what they can. But this story gets more complicated in one state. For years, Pennsylvania has been using an obscure provision to get federal reimbursement for rehab stays much longer than 15 days. Take Chris Benedetto. He's 30 years old and started shooting heroin at age 13.
CHRIS BENEDETTO: I was really young, so I actually was arrested in school. I was doing outpatient, and then I went directly to inpatient because I had no way of stopping.
ALLEN: Growing up in Scranton, he bounced from school to probation to jail to rehabs. He knew how to play the treatment game.
BENEDETTO: I'm good at, like, putting on that mask. I'm good at, like, everybody around me - you know, my sibling, my dad - everybody was like man, he's doing good every time.
ALLEN: But then in 2009, he got into an inpatient facility and didn't have to leave before he was ready because of Pennsylvania's Medicaid maneuver, which state officials fear will no longer be an option if the proposed rules go through. Turns out he needed more than five months in rehab.
BENEDETTO: For that amount of time and in that type of environment, you know, I will show up.
ALLEN: Now he's been clean for more than five years and works as an assistant to an addiction counselor. Mike Harle is the head of treatment nonprofit Gaudenzia, which serves about 20,000 patients a year in Pennsylvania, Maryland and Delaware. He's thinking about Chris Benedetto and others when he says this...
MIKE HARLE: Where they came up with the 15 days, I don't - but it's not based on research. Fourteen days has no outcome. You know how expensive that would be with no outcome? We wouldn't want to do it. We would not want to do it.
ALLEN: Cindy Mann says the feds are trying to push the limit by allowing 15 days, and experts haven't found that magic number for treatment. Dr. Jeffrey Samet, a professor at Boston University's Clinical Addiction research unit, says no one really wants to fund studies looking at the best length for stays. Still, he likes the fed's idea. Samet just wants to make sure less-expensive outpatient treatment gets considered, too.
JEFFREY SAMET: It's the challenge of public policy. So I think this is why the feds go into this type of work because a lot of good can be done. But it can be edgy, and the risk of it being taken advantage of is real.
ALLEN: Cindy Mann says states can continue to pay for as much treatment as they think a patient needs just as they have been doing.
MANN: The state and the locals are completely free to continue to finance that stay if they think that it's the right place for somebody to be.
ALLEN: And if they're still not happy, states can put together innovative treatment programs to apply for more federal money. For NPR News, I'm Ben Allen in Harrisburg.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Steelworkers in Birmingham, Ala., are trying to figure out a new future. Last fall, U.S. Steel closed a big blast furnace that had been the center of the city's steel industry for nearly a century.
NPR's Debbie Elliott reports.
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Laid-off steelworker Siegfried Powell hefts cardboard boxes from a food pantry set up by his local United Steelworkers Union.
SIEGFRIED POWELL: Come on, sweetheart. Grab you a bag of potatoes, OK? We're going to the car.
ELLIOT: He's loading the groceries for people looking to stretch their unemployment benefits since layoffs started in August. His wife and fellow union member Vanessa Powell directs the operation.
VENESSA POWELL: I move fast. I'm a steelworker (laughter).
ELLIOT: She's worked at U.S. Steel for 18 years - her husband, even longer.
S. POWELL: Twenty-six, laid off. Laid off - this is what they do to you.
ELLIOT: About 1,100 people lost their jobs when U.S. Steel decided to permanently close its Fairfield Works mill, the last big blast furnace making steel in Birmingham. Vanessa Powell says it's a blow.
V. POWELL: So we're giving to keep us from sitting at home stressing over what to do.
ELLIOT: At 52, Siegfried Powell figures he needs more education to compete after 26 years in the same job.
S. POWELL: I'm going to upgrade a few skills. I'm not the number one draft pick anymore (laughter). So that means if I have to play ball, I have to really play for somebody. So I'm just going to go back to tech school and see what my options is, and then we'll go from there.
ELLIOT: Working at U.S. Steel has long been a source of pride in Birmingham. The Fairfield Works plant made steel used to build ships during World War II and has since produced steel for everything from bridge girders to railroads to household appliances.
DAVID CLARK: It's the end of an era.
ELLIOT: David Clark is the president of the United Steelworkers Local 1013.
CLARK: Birmingham was founded on iron and steel industry. It was known for years as the Pittsburgh of the South.
ELLIOT: Located in the Appalachian foothills, Birmingham has all the natural resources needed to make iron and steel - coal, limestone and iron ore. That led to a rich industrial heritage, and for a long time, U.S. Steel was the major player, says Karen Utz, curator of Sloss Furnaces, National Historic Landmark in Birmingham.
KAREN UTZ: It was kind of the glue that held the city together for many, many years.
ELLIOT: Utz says U.S. Steel was once the largest employer in Alabama. But with increased foreign competition, the iron and steel industry dwindled over the decades. Utz says smaller mini-mills have replaced the giant furnaces and smokestacks that once dominated the city skyline.
UTZ: It's a different type of industry today. It's probably not considered the heart and soul of Birmingham, Ala.
ELLIOT: The University of Alabama at Birmingham, with its medical center and research spinoffs, now drives the city's economy. At U.S. Steel, a pipe mill remains open. Union President Clark says that still leaves a void where generations have long counted on U.S. Steel to provide.
CLARK: We had grandparents, great-grandparents, fathers, sons, daughters, wives that worked here in some capacity or another. At one time, there was no way you lived in the area and you did not know someone who worked at United States Steel.
ELLIOT: The Kyzers are one such family. You could say U.S. Steel was a family affair.
DEBBIE KYZER: Brother-in-laws and nephews and brother.
ELLIOT: That's Debbie Kyzer. Her husband is retired from the mill. She's laid off, and so is her 25-year-old son Jonathan.
D. KYZER: Well, you was a steel mill child.
JONATHAN KYZER: Well, I know growing up, for me, it was kind of a goal to get to.
ELLIOT: He reached that goal when he was 21 and landed a job at the mill.
J. KYZER: So I kind of figured I had, you know, the next 30, 40 years set.
D. KYZER: He even, in kindergarten, wrote a thing to his - about his daddy. And he wrote he wanted to work at U.S. Steel like his daddy. And those were some big shoes to fill.
ELLIOT: The union has been hosting job fairs, but to find jobs comparable to the ones at U.S. Steel, workers may have to leave the area, for example, to the shipyards on the Gulf Coast, hours away. That's a hard call for families who've been rooted in U.S. Steel.
D. KYZER: We all thought we would finish up and retire and leave from here, not just be laid off and not know our future. The not knowing is what is so bad.
ELLIOT: Donald Ferrell is also wondering what the future holds. He's president of the Steelworkers local office and technical group. He's still working at U.S. Steel as an electric load dispatcher, basically the guy who keeps the lights on.
DONALD FERRELL: There's not as many lights, and they cut more off every day.
ELLIOT: He says it's a far cry from when he first started at the plant in the late 1970s, one of more than 12,000 workers.
FERRELL: Steel has always been an up and down business. And you'd get layoffs, but you knew you were coming back. Now with this, you're not coming back.
ELLIOT: He puts the blame on trade agreements that allow cheaper imported steel into the U.S.
FERRELL: Right now, because of all the foreign dumping that's going on, it's basically destroying the middle class here in this country.
ELLIOT: Steel is still an important business in Alabama, but today it's dominated by mini-mills that employ hundreds, not the hulking blast furnaces that provided thousands of jobs for generations.
Debbie Elliott, NPR News, Birmingham.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Being homeless is hard enough, but young adults that are homeless have their own set of challenges. For one thing, they're no longer eligible for family shelters. And experts say 18 to 24-year-olds can be targets of theft and assault by older homeless adults. In Boston, a new shelter has just opened for young adults only. Reporter Ari Daniel was there.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Tomorrow we're going to open.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: And we're just 24 hours away from opening our doors.
(APPLAUSE)
ARI DANIEL SHAPIRO, BYLINE: I'm at a celebratory dinner in the basement of the First Parish Church in Harvard Square. It's been through a $1.3 million renovation, with funds coming from foundations, grants and donations. The place looks like an upscale youth hostel. There's bright wood paneling, surfaces painted lime green. Twenty-two beds decorate the far wall like an elaborate tree house. This is the new location of Y2Y, a shelter for young adults only. And the next morning, it's open for business.
(SOUNDBITE OF TELEPHONE RINGING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Hi, are you calling for the lottery results?
Yep, you got a bad. We are...
DANIEL: One thing that makes Y2Y special is the staff. Every one of them is a young adult, a lot of them Harvard University students and almost all of them volunteers, like Needham Hurst and Ian Meyer who are staffing the lottery line this morning.
NEEDHAM HURST: You both won a bed.
IAN MEYER: You're number six...
HURST: Yup, three also won a bed.
MEYER: ...And you got a bed. Number seven - you have a bed.
DANIEL: All seven who enter the lottery get beds. They're just a handful of the hundreds of young adults in Boston who are homeless. It's a need that Sarah Rosenkrantz and Sam Greenberg, the 23-year-old Y2Y co-founders and co-directors are intent on addressing.
SARAH ROSENKRANTZ: Just telling our peers that we don't believe they should be homeless and we want to work together to fix this issue.
SAM GREENBERG: We have an obligation to insure that all of our peers are safe, warm, welcomed and supported.
DANIEL: So, besides being a place to sleep, Y2Y will offer other services.
GREENBERG: We have student case managers. We have volunteers who participate in legislative and public advocacy. We'll have workshops - things like financial literacy, storytelling, poetry, like, public speaking.
DANIEL: The other thing that's special about Y2Y is that at every turn, young adults who are or have been homeless have advised the shelter's planning as part of a youth advisory board. Ayala Livny, the only person I interviewed over 25, consults on programs related to homelessness.
AYALA LIVNY: I think that it'd be negligent (laughter) to try and create a shelter for young adults without getting the actual input of young adults who are going to be staying at the shelter.
DANIEL: Like 23-year-old Andrew Giampa, who serves on the youth advisory board.
ANDREW GIAMPA: We've come up with pretty much all aspects around Y2Y between policies, furniture, regulations...
DANIEL: Like length of stay, which is up to 30 days; like the drug and alcohol policy; like, whether you can have a pet. And it was this board that replaced a list of rules with a list of responsibilities to allow young people to feel ownership over this space.
But now, everyone's focused on the opening, just moments away. There's last-minute signs to post, vegetables to chop for dinner. Finally, the doors open. Twelve young people end up spending the night. Kayn, hair curly and dyed vibrant aqua is among them. Kayn's 21 and is relieved to have a place to stay. Having steered clear of other shelters these last several months while homeless, there's something about Y2Y that's special for Kayn.
KAYN: This space, at least - the way they designed it, it's like mind-blowing and beautiful and (laughter) absolutely, like, breathtaking.
DANIEL: I mean, it seems like it'd be fun to stay here.
KAYN: Oh, it does. It does. And that's what I'm saying. Like, the thought that they put into and the care of transforming a space - this whole new concept of how it means to live, even if you don't have a home, per se.
DANIEL: Just being here lifts Kayn's spirits.
KAYN: This place, it's different. It's warmth. It, like, brings me warmth - is the only way I can put it.
DANIEL: Bering surrounded by other young people gives Kayn hope that finding a way out of homelessness is a real possibility.
For NPR News, I'm Ari Daniel.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
A video recently popped up on Twitter from Tanzania. It shows a guy ironing his shirt with a hot kettle. He doesn't have an iron. And the hashtag that goes along with it - #WhatWouldMagufuliDo. Magufili is the new president of Tanzania. NPR's Gregory Warner reports that behind this joke is a serious campaign.
GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: It's a tough life for a Tanzanian public official these days. No more driving your limousine to villages. No more flying first class to meetings in Europe. You can't even send a Christmas card on the taxpayer's dime. President John Magufuli, elected in November, has banned these things. He canceled the country's Independence Day celebrations, saying it would be shameful to spend millions of dollars on military parades in a country battling cholera. And Magufuli is pro-austerity big and small. He even restricted the amount of refreshments allowed at official meetings.
EMMANUEL MAKUNDI: There will be only juices and water and maybe some bananas to entertain themselves during the meeting. But the president says you can take your breakfast at home.
WARNER: Emmanuel Makundi is journalist for Radio France International Swahili service in Dar es Salaam. He says the new president is also cracking down on corruption, and Makundi has seen the biggest change in public hospitals.
So we sent a reporter to be the Muhimbili National Hospital in the capital. It's a 1,000-bed university teaching hospital that's supposed to be subsidized, except there's a catch because typically, patients say, if you'd come here before and asked for medication, you'd be directed to an outside shop to pay inflated prices, a kind of back-channel bribe to hospital staff.
MINA CORINEL: OK, my name is Mina. Yeah, I can see some changes.
WARNER: Mina Corinel is a patient here. She says the changes came since a certain president made a surprise visit to this hospital. He found patients sleeping on the floor and fired the hospital director. Since then, she says the doctors have been noticeably more attentive.
CORINEL: They are passing by every time to see if any one of the patients need medicine or injections - yeah, like that.
WARNER: In his previous government post, Magufuli was nicknamed the Bulldozer. And a few weeks ago, he arrested 20 officials whose only crime was showing up late to a meeting. That cheered people here, tired of lackluster civil servants. But intimidation tactics can go only so far. There is a direct link between public corruption and the low pay of civil servants, and that's across the board, from police stations to public hospitals. Dr. Billy Haonga is the president of the Tanzanian Medical Association. He says two years ago, doctors protested in the streets over low salaries. He says the average public doctor takes home just $6,000 a year.
BILLY HAONGA: It has been a complaint for so long. Doctors are paid very little. We expect perhaps they'll increase the budget next year.
WARNER: Those expectations mean that President Magufuli is trying to increase tax collection as well as shave costs. Political analyst Abdulkarim Atiki says he's hoping the changes stick. But reformers have come and gone in Tanzania before. He says the opposition party has already coined a phrase in Swahili for the presidential reforms.
ABDULKARIM ATIKI: Nguvu Ya Soda.
WARNER: Nguvu Ya Soda - the power of soda.
ATIKI: The power of the soda. The power of Coca-Cola (laughter).
WARNER: They're making a bet that Magufuli's reforming spirit will fizzle out like an open bottle of soda in the hot African sun. Gregory Warner, NPR News, Nairobi.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
When President Obama announced new gun control measures yesterday, he said they were needed because Congress has failed to address gun violence. Gun control advocates are also frustrated with Congress. That's why they have been focusing on changing state laws. And as NPR's Jeff Brady reports, they're succeeding.
JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: Oregon is one state where gun control advocates won last year.
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KATE BROWN: Today, it's my great pleasure to sign into law Senate Bill 941.
BRADY: That's Oregon governor Kate Brown last May. The new law requires background checks for private-party gun sales.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BROWN: There you go.
(APPLAUSE)
BRADY: At that ceremony, Brown made special mention of gun control groups that campaigned for the law.
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BROWN: I also want to extend my thanks to the members of Everytown for Gun Safety, Americans for Responsible Solutions and the Brady Campaign.
BRADY: Supporters of stricter gun laws are starting to win more often at state capitals, and their opposition is taking notice. Kevin Starrett is executive director of the Oregon Firearms Federation.
KEVIN STARRETT: Oregon has been a blue state for a long time but a blue state that has passed virtually no gun control.
BRADY: Until now, says Starrett, what changed is money - lots of it. Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has pledged to spend at least $50 million of his own money to get tougher gun laws across the country. Some of that cash went to the Everytown for Gun Safety action fund. The group spent almost $800,000 on lobbying during Oregon's 2015 legislative session. That dwarfed the National Rifle Association and made the gun-control group the biggest spender in the state last year. And, Starrett says, there were lots of television ads, too.
STARRETT: When a New York billionaire comes to a state like Oregon with that much money, obviously it's a game changer.
BRADY: Aside from Oregon, gun-control supporters celebrated victories in other states last year. In October, Delaware became the ninth state to pass a law designed to prevent domestic abusers from getting guns. There were plenty of setbacks, too. Texas passed an open-carry law that allows handgun license-holders to carry their guns in visible holsters. Gun control advocates say what's important is now they're a force at state capitals that can begin to counter powerful groups like the NRA. Shannon Watts started the Moms Demand Action, which is part of Everytown for Gun Safety.
SHANNON WATTS: Finally, now that we have over three and a half million members and we have a chapter in every single state of the country, you know, we are going toe-to-toe with them. We are showing up at our state houses. We are pushing back against bad bills and supporting good bills.
BRADY: In her fight for tougher gun laws, Watts sees a model in the battle for same-sex marriage.
WATTS: This situation is very much like marriage equality in America. People felt like that happened overnight. But really there were activists on the ground for decades.
BRADY: Then, she says, states started approving gay marriage, and eventually it was made legal across the country. She predicts a series of state victories will eventually lead to stricter gun laws everywhere. That prospect has groups like the NRA preparing for battle. It looks like the next big fight will be in Nevada. Gun control advocates gathered enough signatures to put an initiative on next November's ballot that would require background checks for all gun sales in the state. Jeff Brady, NPR News.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking Korean).
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
That was an North Korean state television news reader announcing the country had tested a hydrogen bomb. If true, it would be a first for Pyongyang. Now, this afternoon, the White House cast doubt on the ability of the isolated nation to test such an advanced weapon. Here's Press Secretary Josh Earnest speaking to reporters.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
JOSH EARNEST: The initial analysis that's been conducted of the events that were reported overnight is not consistent with North Korean claims of a successful hydrogen bomb test.
CORNISH: Coming up, we'll speak to a former State Department official about what North Korea hopes to gain by conducting the nuclear test. First, joining me in the studio is NPR science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel to talk about the claims from Pyongyang. Geoff, welcome to the studio.
GEOFF BRUMFIEL, BYLINE: Thank you.
CORNISH: The White House sounds fairly confident there that this was not a hydrogen bomb test. What are they basing this on?
BRUMFIEL: Well, when a nuclear weapon is tested, it sends off a shockwave through the earth. It's basically like an earthquake. And seismic stations around the world can pick that up, and they can make some sort of estimate about the size. Based on what was observed, the unofficial estimates by the Pentagon say this was under 10 kilotons. That's 10,000 tons of TNT-equivalent explosives. But the bottom line is that seems too small to be a hydrogen bomb. Just for comparison here, the first hydrogen bomb was 10 megatons. That's 10 million tons of TNT - a thousand times more powerful. It would make this thing look like a firecracker.
CORNISH: We should note that North Korea has, as far as what's known, tested three atom bombs. Now, what makes hydrogen bombs harder to build?
BRUMFIEL: There's basically two ways to make a nuclear explosion. You can either split apart heavy atoms like uranium and plutonium, and that splitting apart, called fission, releases energy. Or you can fuse together light atoms such as hydrogen. That's where the hydrogen bomb comes from. Causing those atoms to stick together is a lot harder than splitting them apart. In fact, you have to set off a fission bomb to make a hydrogen bomb work, so it's technically much more complicated.
CORNISH: So if this wasn't an H-bomb, what was it? I mean, could it have been a replica of the previous atom bomb test?
BRUMFIEL: Yeah, it could have been a standard nuclear bomb. And I don't want to - I say standard. That kind of downplays it. I mean, this would still be a bomb roughly the size of those used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, so this is still a very serious thing. But there is another possibility, which is that North Korea put a little bit of hydrogen at the center of their bomb, and then they used that hydrogen to enhance the fission bomb. That would allow them to claim they had conducted an H-bomb test even though it wasn't quite what we would consider a hydrogen bomb.
CORNISH: We know what the White House thinks, but in the end, how will the international community verify what happened?
BRUMFIEL: Well, we may never be able to say much more, but there is a possibility that radioactive gases will leak out. These tests are conducted underground, and so we have to wait for that to happen. It could take days or even weeks. There are monitoring stations all around North Korea in Russia, China, places like that. And if they pick something up, if they catch a whiff, we may learn more about exactly what happened.
CORNISH: That's NPR science correspondent Geoff Brumfiel. Geoff, thanks.
BRUMFIEL: Thank you.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Next, we turn to Evans Revere. He's a former senior State Department official. Welcome to the program.
EVANS REVERE: Thank you. It's great to be here.
CORNISH: First, let me ask you about the timing of this by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. Why now?
REVERE: All of us are asking that same question. Many of us who follow this nuclear issue - North Korea nuclear issue closely have been expecting a nuclear weapons test and/or a medium- or long-range ballistic missile test for quite some time. But in terms of the specific timing of this, it came as a bit of a surprise, especially in light of the rather low-key, by North Korean standards, speech that Kim Jong-un gave on New Year's Day. And there was, quite frankly, no mention of nuclear weapons in that speech, and none of the table-pounding rhetoric that one hears out of North Korea.
CORNISH: In the past, there's been a kind of saber-rattling that might yield concessions or aid. Is that - any chance something like that happening here?
REVERE: Hope springs eternal, but I think there is good reason to be skeptical about this. The fact that North Koreans have been under considerable pressure by the Chinese, in particular, in recent months not to conducted a nuclear weapons test but went ahead and did so anyway in defiance of their only treaty ally and their, of course, their lifeline, China, suggests that there is a level of determination about North Korean intentions here that suggests to me, at least, that it's highly unlikely that this is a prelude to any sort of concession or diplomacy by the North Koreans.
CORNISH: In terms of long-term intentions or the ultimate goal here, I mean, how does this help North Korea?
REVERE: The North Koreans sometime ago decided that their continued existence as a state and the continued existence of their system depends on their acquisition of nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them and that the only way to get the attention of the United States and to prevent the United States from doing to the North Koreans what the North Koreans are convinced we intend to do to them is to have a nuclear weapons capability.
CORNISH: There's this scheduled emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. Talk about what their options are.
REVERE: North Korea is one of the most sanctioned countries in the world, which is not to say that there isn't more that can and probably should be done. But one of the big problems that we have here in terms of sanctions enforcement on North Korea is that we can have as many sanctions as we want, but if China is prepared to look the other way or is not prepared to enforce all of these sanctions or is not prepared to take steps with the rest of the international community to put the sort of pressure that probably needs to be put on North Korea, then it doesn't really matter what the U.N. Security Council does. There are limits to the amount of pressure that we'll be able to bring to bear on North Korea.
CORNISH: Given what you've told us about the relationship between North Korea and China, do you think that will be the case?
REVERE: It is to be hoped that that will be the case. This is a pretty egregious slap in the face against China. This detonation, this nuclear test, happened fairly close to the Chinese-North Korean border. The Chinese are certainly not happy about that. It happened despite all of the Chinese efforts to stop North Korea from conducting such tests. If there was ever a moment for the Chinese to reconsider their past support for and enabling of North Korea, this is that moment.
And let us hope that they do so because now more than ever, we need Chinese support on this. Chinese support together with the efforts of the United States and the rest of the international community, if we intensify the pressure on North Korea, if we collaborate in doing things like going after banking transactions and financial transactions and essentially putting a stranglehold on the financial and economic lifeline of North Korea, that might get their attention.
CORNISH: That's Evans Revere. He's a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and a former State Department official. Thanks so much for speaking with us.
REVERE: You're quite welcome.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
It's been five days now since armed militants began occupying a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon. The takeover has restarted a debate over federal land management. The militants have said they'll stay until the land is under local control. The sheriff of Harney County, David Ward, has pleaded with them to leave. NPR's Kirk Siegler is covering the dispute and is with us now from Burns, Ore. And Kirk, you've been out the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge today. Where do things stand right now?
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Well, Kelly, you do get the sense that some of the militants are maybe feeling a little bit jittery, like they feel as though the authorities are going to come in at any moment and there will be some sort of action, maybe even put a bulldozer in front of the driveway there. And some of that may be because as you mentioned, the local sheriff - he has said that he believes the federal government will bring charges against at least some of these men. And the occupiers keep telling us they want to resolve this peacefully. But remember, they are in some cases heavily armed.
MCEVERS: Right.
SIEGLER: And meanwhile, you know, it's actually turning into a bit of a circus-type atmosphere out there at times. I mean, there are a lot of people coming here from all over this region to crash the party. Today, even PETA, the animal-rights activist group even showed up and handed one of the leaders, Ammon Bundy, Tofurky-style jerky as he was walking up the snowy driveway to talk to us reporters.
MCEVERS: This occupation started last Saturday. I mean, do you - do you have a sense of - at all of how much longer this will last?
SIEGLER: Well, this is the big question, right? I mean, I asked Ammon Bundy that during their daily news conference today, and he wouldn't give us a firm answer. And to be clear, it's not really that big of a group. And unlike the standoff that we saw down on the Bundy ranch a year and a half ago, this is not southern Nevada in April. It's very cold; it's snowy; these are inhospitable conditions out here. And the local sheriff has pleaded repeatedly with these occupiers to leave town, saying they're not welcome.
MCEVERS: I mean, remind us of how we got to this point. What is at the heart of this conflict? What do they want?
SIEGLER: Well, this all comes down to access to public lands. If you look at the rhetoric - if you look past the rhetoric of the occupiers, there are some serious and long-simmering tensions here between the ranchers and the government. And when you think of ranching, it's important - you know, I think we all sort of think of this big iconic image of a rancher out on a huge, vast piece of private land. And, you know, that's not really the case in most of the West, especially here. Most ranchers have only small private lands with their house and maybe some buildings around it, and they're leasing all of this Bureau of Land Management land around them. And that's what they lease to graze. So some of these conflicts here stem from how this wildlife refuge has expanded over the years, and that's meant less public land available for other uses, like grazing, as the environment has become more important in some people's minds, especially the federal government. And then, Kelly, one final twist to this story today - you had the Burns' Paiute Tribe coming out and sounding fed up, saying if anyone can claim original jurisdiction over the land it's us.
MCEVERS: Wow. I mean, because this refuge is on federal land - and that means that the FBI is in charge of this investigation at this point - what are they telling you?
SIEGLER: They are not saying much. And it's maybe not surprising because there is precedent for some of these incidents going south.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
SIEGLER: There is a sense that the federal authorities want to keep a low profile and want this to sort of diffuse and resolve on its own. So again, we're not hearing anything yet from the FBI. All we have is what the local sheriff has said - that he thinks charges will be coming, so we'll have to be - we'll have to wait and see. And I think it's going to be interesting to see if this goes on much longer whether there will be more public pressure actually for the government to act in one way or another.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's Kirk Siegler in Burns, Ore., talking about the anti-government occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Thanks so much, Kirk.
SIEGLER: Glad to be here, Kelly.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The way things are playing out in Oregon - the fact that law enforcement wants to give this time - has prompted sharp criticism. A column in the Guardian featured this title, "If The Oregon Militiamen Were Muslim Or Black, They'd Probably Be Dead By Now." The same sentiment has been playing out all over social media with hashtags like #whiteprivilege, #YallQaeda and #VanillaISIS.
The chief political correspondent for Slate, Jamelle Bouie, has also written about this and has a different take. Jamelle, welcome to the program.
JAMELLE BOUIE: Thank you for having me.
CORNISH: So this idea that the law enforcement response or the lack thereof is some kind of evidence of a racial double standard, you're not buying it. How come?
BOUIE: I'd say I'm skeptical, and the big reason is that I think people are looking at this as another instance of law enforcement confronting a group of people, but that's not quite what it is.
This isn't a case of a city police force, or even a county police force, engaged in, like, a confrontation with criminals or suspects. This is a case of armed radicals versus federal law enforcement. And that specific kind of confrontation harkens back to incidents like Waco and Ruby Ridge and, thus, has a very different kind of valence to it for federal law enforcement.
CORNISH: But you're writing that the question that's being asked here - like, why won't people just kind of shoot at these guys? - isn't just the wrong question but a bad one. In what way?
BOUIE: I think those statements, even if the speakers do not mean them, implicitly suggest that if the government had used violence and force from the outset then there wouldn't be a complaint, that if they're equal opportunity violence, then, you know, there's no basis for grievance. And even if the speakers do not mean that, I think even rhetorically gesturing in that direction is not a place where you want to be because in saying that, it implicitly justifies the kind of violence that they're against.
CORNISH: Meanwhile, as we mentioned, on social media with these of these hashtags, people are making all kinds of jokes. But what does this reveal about, maybe, the frustration that these critics have about how the media or anyone else is kind of talking about what's going on in Oregon?
BOUIE: I think this is much more story about the media given the extent to which, in situations like in Ferguson or in Baltimore, protesters have been described as rioters, have been described in terms that many observers felt were very unfair. And so that frustration is carrying over to this situation where you have these actors, whatever you want to call them and a response, from the media at least, that seems much more gentle compared to what was seen with these other protests in other places.
CORNISH: But the images, say, that television has to show of what's going on in Oregon are markedly different from what they would have had to show on certain days of protests, say, in Baltimore.
BOUIE: I think there is a degree to which this may be apples and oranges. If you are talking about - for example, in Baltimore, there were a few fires the night of the riots, and I would call those riots. And obviously in Oregon, you have nothing like that.
But there's a lot that happens before we lead up to those points. And I think the complaint from critics is that before you got to the point where there were visible indications of rioting, you had descriptions of people as rioters or as disrupting - in a way that you have not seen with the folks in Oregon. And so in that regards, I think there's basis for saying that there's a bit of a double standard.
CORNISH: Jamelle Bouie is chief political correspondent for Slate. His article is called "Is The Oregon Standoff Evidence Of A Racial Double Standard?"
Thanks so much for talking with us.
BOUIE: Thank you for having me.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Every four years in Iowa, about a month before the caucuses, something happens. People turn on the TV, and they are inundated with these.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MCEVERS: Presidential campaign ads. NPR's Don Gonyea is one of those people. He's been watching a lot of TV in between campaign events, of course, and he joins us now from Des Moines to talk about it. Hi, Don.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: Kelly, I've become that guy who sits in his hotel watching TV for hours, just the ads.
MCEVERS: (Laughter) It's a tough one. So...
GONYEA: (Laughter) My mother would be ashamed.
MCEVERS: So give us a sense of some of these ads. I mean, what would I be seeing if I turned on the TV right now in Iowa?
GONYEA: Well, listen. Every commercial break, especially during local news or maybe sports or maybe Wheel of Fortune, you're going to see a political ad or two. There are still ads for mattress stores on and for the local sushi place and for the rodeo coming to Des Moines, but the political ads are really starting to crowd them out, and it's only going to get worse in the coming weeks.
MCEVERS: So let's look ads, especially in the big Republican field. Who's making the most noise there?
GONYEA: Well, there are two kinds of noise, right? The first, I guess, is who's been on the air the most, and so far for the GOP, that's been Jeb Bush. But he's still way down in the polls. I guess the other kind of noise is maybe more literal. It's the kind of noise that's meant to scare you with kind of big, scary ads. Here are some examples.
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JEB BUSH: We are at war with radical Islamic terrorism. We have but one choice - to defeat it. I'm Jeb Bush, and I approve this message.
GONYEA: So scary images, dire-sounding music. Now here's Marco Rubio's approach to the same topic. He goes specifically at President Obama - again, the logic being that any attack on Obama is also an attack on Hillary Clinton. Here you go.
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MARCO RUBIO: His plan after the attack in San Bernardino - take away our guns. And while ISIS is beheading people and burning them in cages, he says climate change is our greatest threat. I'm Marco Rubio. I approve this message because America needs a real commander-in-chief and a president who will keep us safe.
MCEVERS: OK, so what about, you know, Ronald Reagan's old 11th commandment of politics, you know? Thou shalt never speak ill of another Republican. I mean, how's that working out?
GONYEA: These candidates talk a lot about Ronald Reagan, but they're pretty much ignoring that advice from him. So Rubio and Bush have been bashing back and forth in ads. Then there's Ted Cruz. He is perhaps the frontrunner in Iowa right now. He's kind of looking over his shoulder at Rubio, so in this Cruz ad - it's actually a ad paid by a super PAC that backs Cruz. Rubio - Senator Rubio is portrayed as putting fantasy football above national security.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GONYEA: So there's dramatic music, and then bold letters appear onscreen, saying, ISIS - plotting to kill Americans and American enemies advancing. And then at the end, we see Rubio himself talking on the phone.
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RUBIO: Yeah, I know I have debate, but I got to get this fantasy football thing right, OK?
GONYEA: Fantasy football - so (laughter) playful but a pretty sharp dig. And then there's another ad - right? - where Cruz himself is the target. He's mocked in this one, an ad backing Senator Rick Santorum. So you remember when Cruz read "Green Eggs And Ham" on the Senate floor?
MCEVERS: Yeah.
GONYEA: Give a listen to this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TED CRUZ: I like green eggs and ham.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Ted Cruz is wonderful at reading children's fairytales on the Senate floor.
CRUZ: Sam, I am.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: If you want someone to read one hell of a bedtime story? Ted Cruz is your guy. If you want to protect America and defeat ISIS, Rick Santorum's your president because...
MCEVERS: So then what about Donald Trump? I mean, he has not spent that much on ads, as we know, but this week, we did get his very first for-real pay-for-the-airtime campaign advertisement. Let's take a listen to it.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Donald Trump calls it radical Islamic terrorism. That's why he's calling for a temporary shutdown of Muslims entering the United States until we can figure out what's going on.
MCEVERS: So what's going on in this ad?
GONYEA: Well, Donald Trump may not need this ad. But he's got the money, and he is spending it. It's a relatively small buy. But here's the thing. This ad, like just about everything he does, is getting exposure and free replays well beyond whatever it cost him. Those replays, of course, coming on cable television news. The big question this time with this election is whether TV ads do still influence voters. We know they did in 2012, but that was four years ago, and the whole media landscape has changed.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's Don Gonyea. Thanks so much.
GONYEA: My pleasure.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The millions of dollars presidential candidates spend on ads support an industry that doesn't get a whole lot of attention outside of campaign season. As part of our series Snapshots 2016, NPR's Tamara Keith introduces us to a man who helps give those ads their epic sound.
TODD HAHN: My name is Todd Hahn. I'm a composer.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Todd Hahn has been composing music for campaign ads for 25 years. But it's not what he imagined for himself when he was a budding musician growing up in the '70s. He wanted to write music for television and movies.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHN WILLIAMS SONG, "OVERTURE")
HAHN: Seeing those big, epic movies as a young person, like, you know, "Star Wars" or "The Magnificent Seven" - any of these big, epic movies and Westerns that had just these gorgeous scores. You'd say, I want to do that.
KEITH: Hahn studied composition at Juilliard but never finished. For a while, he was scoring documentaries for the Discovery Channel and National Geographic. And then a producer of campaign ads asked if he could score an ad for a down-ballot race in Pennsylvania. He did, and the rest is more or less history.
HAHN: One thing leads to the other, and if, you know, you're a composer or any sort of creative person and you have steady work, you know, and it's good work, you sort of stay with it.
KEITH: At the peak of the campaign season, Hanh says he'll score as many as 18 ads a day. Over the course of his career, he figures he's done 12,000 or 15,000.
HAHN: And most of them are, you know, during the election cycle, negative ads.
KEITH: He's a master at composing music that gives ads an emotional punch. For negative ads, Hahn says an ethereal sound works well.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HAHN: They work really nice for negative ads or - like a candidate could just be speaking, like, at 3 o'clock in the morning on, you know, September 4.
KEITH: But he gets to do positive ads, too, the kind of sweeping bio ads that introduce people to a candidate or reintroduce them.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
HAHN: Music needs to be a metaphor for what you're seeing and what you're hearing, you know? I mean, that works the analytical side of your brain. But then when you hear the music, you know, with the visuals, it - something inside you is tweaked.
KEITH: And the best ads, the most cinematic, get Hahn close to that thing he dreamed of when he was a kid.
HAHN: To me, they are like little film scores. In my humble way, I try to make that like a little film score. Those are the fun kind of jobs.
KEITH: Hahn works for both parties, which leads to some interesting contrasts. In 2004, he scored a Democratic Party ad for presidential candidate John Kerry.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN KERRY: I defended this country as a young man, and I will defend...
KEITH: A couple of weeks later...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: I served with John Kerry.
KEITH: ...He wrote the music for the now-infamous Swift Boat ad that helped sink Kerry's candidacy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: He is lying about his record.
KEITH: It might be surprising, but Todd Hahn says he's not a political person. He failed his high school government class. Hahn really sees himself working for the producers of the ads, not the candidates themselves.
HAHN: The candidates - to me, I've done it for so long that they're political candidates. They come and go (laughter), and God bless them.
KEITH: Because they pay the bills. Tamara Keith, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Prices for U.S. crude fell more than 5 percent today, to less than $34 a barrel. And if that sounds really low to you, you're right. Oil prices haven't been that low in years. NPR's John Ydstie has more.
JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: There were lots of reasons that oil prices fell sharply today. Fadel Gheit, an oil expert at Oppenheimer & Co. says, one factor was more evidence of a slowdown in China.
FADEL GHEIT: The economy is growing at a slower pace, and energy efficiency continue to pick up.
YDSTIE: And slower growth and greater efficiency means less demand for oil from a big consumer. And while global demand is weak, there's a glut of oil worldwide. A report today showed a big jump in U.S. stocks of distilled oil products like gasoline and diesel fuel. That surprised oil traders and sent crude prices sliding. Fadel Gheit says the broader context for the drop in oil - from more than a $100 a barrel a year and a half ago to just under $34 today is the U.S. shale oil boom.
GHEIT: Our shale production is 4.5 million barrel. For people to understand what that means, it is double the production of Kuwait.
YDSTIE: Gheit says that huge addition to global production has disrupted the OPEC cartel forever. Instead of cutting production to support prices, OPEC's leader, Saudi Arabia, is pumping freely to try to drive U.S. shale producers out of business.
GHEIT: There will be an industry shakeout.
YDSTIE: But the U.S. industry has proved more resilient than expected. Gheit says oil could go lower before it ultimately returns to sustainable levels of between $60 and $75 a barrel.
John Ydstie, NPR News, Washington.
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With a vote this afternoon, Congress is sending a bill to repeal Obamacare and defund Planned Parenthood to the president's desk. The House has just passed the measure. The Senate has already passed a version. In doing so, many Republican lawmakers are making good on their campaign promises. And yet, no one expects the bill to become law. Joining us to talk about this is NPR's Congressional correspondent Ailsa Chang. Hey there, Ailsa.
AILSA CHANG, BYLINE: Hey there.
CORNISH: So as we mentioned here, President Obama has vowed to veto this bill. And yet, Republicans spent a great deal of time and energy getting it through Congress. What's the point?
CHANG: The point of all of this is symbolism, pure and simple. Republicans want a direct confrontation with the president, and putting a bill repealing the health care law on his desk, forcing him to veto it and therefore making him defend the Affordable Care Act and Planned Parenthood, for that matter - that is the end game. What Republicans are trying to do is highlight the contrast between their party and Democrats and to make it clear to voters this year how life might be different under a Republican president with a Republican-led Congress. This is totally about messaging.
CORNISH: Right. But this is not an entirely new message, right? I mean, Republicans have voted dozens of times to repeal the health care law.
CHANG: Yes, but they've never been able to show their constituents that they can get the bill to the president's desk until now. You're right. In the House, Republicans have voted more than 50 times the last five years to repeal all or parts of the Affordable Care Act, but it's never been so easy in the Senate because in the Senate, you need 60 votes to pass most legislation. And Republicans have never had that, neither before nor after they took control of the chamber.
But in 2015, what Senate Republicans did have at their disposal was a special legislative process called reconciliation. It's a procedural tool that allows certain kinds of legislation to get through the Senate with only 51 votes instead of the usual 60. This is actually one of the tools Democrats used to pass the health care law in the first place. Ad now Senate Republicans are using it to repeal the law.
CORNISH: Meanwhile, you know, if President Obama plans to veto this bill, voters aren't actually going to get to see, like, an alternative health care regime - right? - like, something that Republicans have come up with and put into action.
CHANG: That's right. Neither the House nor the Senate has ever debated any bill to replace the Affordable Care Act. So what would that replacement look like? You know, Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell famously said that he wants to repeal Obamacare root and branch. But he's from a state - Kentucky - that's shown significant improvement to health care access because of Medicaid expansion under this law. In fact, a number of Republican lawmakers are from states that have chosen to expand Medicaid, so the question is, could voters actually stomach it if Republicans really wiped away Obamacare?
CORNISH: All right, Ailsa, so what kind of Republican health care proposals are we likely to see out of Congress this election year?
CHANG: Well, that's the question that still needs to be answered. House speaker Paul Ryan gave a speech last month at the Library of Congress. And in that speech, he promised to unveil a plan that would replace every word of Obamacare. It would be a plan that's more driven by free market principles, but so far, no plan has been set forth. Ryan says Republicans can't just be the party of opposition. They can't just let the presidential candidates dictate the Republican agenda. But so far, he's been skimpy on details about what that new agenda would look like. And maybe next week we'll have some better idea. Republican lawmakers will be meeting in Baltimore for their annual retreat, and perhaps some concrete ideas will be hashed out then.
CORNISH: That's NPR's congressional correspondent Ailsa Chang. Ailsa, thanks so much.
CHANG: You're welcome.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
This year, for the first time, millions of Americans with disabilities will be able to put money into savings accounts without fear of losing their government benefit. Advocates say this will transform the way many people with disabilities live. NPR's Pam Fessler reports.
PAM FESSLER, BYLINE: Here's an example of how ludicrous things have been until now for disabled individuals who've tried to save. When Emeka Nnaka's friends raised $20,000 to help him buy a wheelchair-accessible van a year ago, he stored some of the cash in his closet in Tulsa, Okla. Nnaka, a paraplegic, needed the van to finish college and get work, but he worried if he opened a bank account, he'd lose his Social Security and Medicaid.
EMEKA NNAKA: The system is set up to keep people under, and we've got to find a better way to make it work.
FESSLER: And it seems like that's about to happen. Several states are poised this year to begin offering what are called ABLE accounts. These will allow people with disabilities to save up to $14,000 a year, tax-free, to pay for disability related expenses, such as education, transportation and housing. More importantly, the money will not count against a $2000 asset limit for those receiving disability and other federal benefits.
AMANDA THOMPSON: That is going to have a huge impact on my life.
FESSLER: Twenty-four-year-old Amanda Thompson says she'll open an ABLE account as soon as she can. She's trying to complete a master's degree Fort Hays State University in Kansas, a challenge after she suffered a traumatic brain injury in a car accident five years ago. Thompson says Social Security benefits are helping her through school now, but the system limits her ability to plan ahead.
THOMPSON: I don't know. It's just really frustrating because it's, like, I want to build for my future, and who knows where the economy's going or the world or anything? And it's kind of terrifying to not have anything saved or put aside in case of an emergency.
FESSLER: And Congress, in a rare show of bipartisanship, has agreed. In 2014, it overwhelmingly approved legislation allowing ABLE accounts. Although, it required states to pass their own laws setting them up. Thirty-five states have done so with about five to 10 states expected to have accounts up and running this year. Sara Hart Weir is president of the National Down Syndrome Society.
SARA HART WEIR: It doesn't solve all of our problems, but it's probably the biggest leap we've taken in 25 years.
FESSLER: When the landmark Americans With Disabilities Act was passed, Weir says that ABLE accounts will allow young disabled individuals to save for college and older ones to work and live on their own. It's expected to cost about $2 billion in lost tax revenue over 10 years, but one of her key selling points to Congress was that ABLE accounts will save money in the long run.
WEIR: To the extent we get more individuals with disabilities independent, you know, out in the workforce, less dependent on the federal government - and the 18-year-old or the 20-year-old that goes and gets a job 20 years from now doesn't necessarily need to be on Medicaid.
FESSLER: Under the law, anyone can contribute to an individual's ABLE account, but only those who become disabled before age 26 are eligible to have one - a concession to concerns about cost. Still, some 5 to 8 billion people are expected to qualify, and Michael Morris of the National Disability Institute thinks that's a good start.
MICHAEL MORRIS: People with disabilities in this country are twice as likely to be living at or below the poverty level. That's at a rate close to 30 percent.
FESSLER: He hopes the new accounts will help reduce those numbers. Both Amanda Thompson and Emeka Nnaka hope he's right. Pam Fessler, NPR News, Washington.
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North Korea says it's tested its first hydrogen bomb. World leaders are skeptical but worried. As NPR's Michele Kelemen reports, U.S. diplomats are struggling to figure out a way to pressure North Korea to change course.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: The condemnation was swift across the globe. At U.N. headquarters in New York, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon demanded that the North Koreans stop violating Security Council resolutions.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BAN KI-MOON: This act is profoundly destabilizing for regional security and seriously undermines international nonproliferation efforts.
KELEMEN: The Security Council is now working on more sanctions. Past U.N. resolutions don't seem to have worked, though, says a former White House adviser on North Korea, Georgetown professor Victor Cha. He says the only way for the U.S. to change North Korean behavior is to work much more closely with China, Pyongyang's main benefactor.
VICTOR CHA: The Obama administration has tried in various ways to entice the North into a negotiation, as they have done with Burma, Iran and Cuba, but they have been unsuccessful. So the North doesn't seem to be interested in negotiation. And in terms of China, they have not been willing to put the sort of pressure that's necessary to really cut off the North and get them to come back to the table for negotiation.
KELEMEN: He says it's an open question whether this latest nuclear test near the Chinese border will be enough to get Beijing to, in Cha's words, really step on North Korean necks. White House spokesman Josh Earnest says top U.S. officials are already reaching out to their Chinese counterparts. He calls the North Korean test provocative but cautions that Pyongyang may be overstating its capabilities.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOSH EARNEST: The initial analysis that's been conducted of events that were reported overnight is not consistent with North Korean claims of a successful hydrogen bomb test.
KELEMEN: It may be a while for experts to determine how advanced North Korea's nuclear program program really is, but Victor Cha, who's also at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, says the U.S. and its partners should be drawing lessons already.
CHA: North Korea is not sitting still. It is advancing to its best abilities to develop the most modern lethal nuclear weapons force that it can. It's not simply building a couple of bombs for the basement.
KELEMEN: The Obama administration is facing criticism from members of Congress for not doing enough to stop North Korea. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker, says the White House strategy has been to try to ignore the threat in hopes it goes away. The trouble is, says Joan Rohlfing, the U.S. can't deal with North Korea alone. She's the president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, an organization that works to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction.
JOAN ROHLFING: It's not good enough if we're working this alone and others are not on the same page as us because, you know, it takes all hands to create this global norm. There is a taboo against nuclear testing precisely because the rest of the world has come together and said, we aren't going to test anymore.
KELEMEN: And Rohlfing says the U.S. could set an example by ratifying the comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and relying less on its own nuclear arsenal. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
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There are two sides to El Nino's effect on California right now. On the one hand, it's bringing a lot of rain to the drought-stricken state - and that's the good part. On the other hand, it's a threat to areas that are below hillsides and extremely difficult for homeless people. NPR's Ina Jaffe reports.
INA JAFFE, BYLINE: After years of drought, Southern Californians aren't used to dealing with rain. But some people have no choice. Jesse Greenwald was standing on a street corner in his yellow slicker and big rubber boots doing a topographical survey for Culver City. How was he doing?
JESSE GREENWALD: Cold. Yeah, we're not prepared. I need better pants. Yesterday, I was completely soaked, and I should've learned my lesson. But I figured I'd tough it out for one more day.
JAFFE: Actually, he was hoping the rain would get worse.
GREENWALD: I'm hoping for it to really come down so we can call it a day and go home.
JAFFE: Oh, if it gets really bad, then you get to leave?
GREENWALD: Yeah.
JAFFE: Not bad enough.
GREENWALD: Not bad enough yet, but we're getting there.
JAFFE: Today will probably be the worst of it for this week. It'll keep raining but not as hard. One of the real dangers are hillsides that have burned and could send mud and rocks flowing into whatever is below. Actually, that's already happened on highway 101 in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles. The major thoroughfare had to be closed for several hours while the mud was cleaned off. There are also flood and high surf warnings up and down California's coast, says National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Wofford.
MIKE WOFFORD: We have high surf coming up to around 15 feet in some areas, maybe even up to 20 feet in some of our West-facing beaches up north. That, of course, will bring the potential for some coastal erosion right at the beaches.
JAFFE: In fact, there's a flash flood warning for the entire San Francisco Bay area, and motorists driving in the mountains are being warned of potential blizzard conditions. In the Los Angeles area, one of the biggest concerns is the thousands of people who are homeless, many of whom camp along the concrete channels where local rivers flow. Those can turn into rushing torrents when it rains. The city of LA has opened up more than 1,100 additional shelter beds, and outreach workers have been trying to convince homeless people to get out of harm's way since last July. Ruben Ayala waited until the rain began yesterday to move away from the Los Angeles River. It was just a little late.
RUBEN AYALA: Everything is getting wet - all my blankets, clothes, everything. All my personal items are getting wet. It's a great loss.
JAFFE: But he knew that the rain and the river posed a greater threat than just soaking his stuff.
AYALA: So I don't go near that water because I know once you go into that water, there's a very slim chance you'll make that way.
JAFFE: There are more storms forecast for next week. El Nino could continue to bring rain to California for at least a couple more months, though it's unlikely to make up for years of drought. Ina Jaffe, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
If you want to bet on who will be voted into Major League Baseball's Hall of Fame today, we have two scoops for you. First, gambling and the Hall of Fame do not exactly go together. And second, Ken Griffey Jr. is a lock to make it in his first year of eligibility. And if you need more than that, we have Jonah Keri formerly of grantland.com and now with Sports Illustrated. Welcome to the show.
JONAH KERI: Thanks for having me.
MCEVERS: All right. So Griffey is considered a sure thing. Can you remind us why?
KERI: Well, he's one of the greatest players of all time
MCEVERS: There's that.
KERI: Extremely popular, yeah. There is all that.
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
KERI: And the other thing is, he's not really linked to performance-enhancing drugs. And that's something that tends to wear on the resumes of some other players, such as Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens. So in the minds of voters, Griffey is viewed as not only one of the greats but that he did it clean.
MCEVERS: But unless you have a thing for closing pitchers, many of the first-time eligible players might not be known to some of our listeners. So tell us who else has a good shot to make it this year.
KERI: Well, you know, you talk about the closing pitchers. Trevor Hoffman is one of the greatest closers of all time, and he'll be in the mix. But he's probably not going to make it. Jim Edmonds, a very good player - centerfielder for many, many years - is a worthy candidate potentially, but he'll probably fall short just because there's so many other good players out there.
Honestly, the best players - the best candidates to make the Hall of Fame are holdovers from past ballots. One who's very likely to make it is Mike Piazza, a terrific catcher, arguably the greatest offensive catcher of all time. He's a very good bet to make it along with Griffey. And two guys that I have right now falling just short are Jeff Bagwell, an excellent first baseman for the Houston Astros, very much a star player, and Tim Raines, who was a great Montreal Expo and happens to have been my favorite player of all time as well.
MCEVERS: I mean, you mentioned performance-enhancing drugs, and this has obviously loomed over baseball's Hall of Fame for many years now. Most of this - of players who are associated with performance-enhancing drugs have not even come close to getting in. Do you see that changing at all this year?
KERI: Well, it's not going to change in the sense of guys that get in. The thing about Piazza is, he never failed a drug test. And it's all been hearsay, but there have been a few people who've whispered this and that about maybe this or maybe that. But that's about the extent of it. When you get to guys like Bonds and Clemens who are pretty widely known to have used, they have gotten more support this year. It's gotten a little more favorable for their numbers. But we're still not nearly at the point where they're getting the kind of numbers they would be getting if they weren't tainted with that, for better or for worse.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
KERI: I mean, for the record, if I had a ballot, I'd vote for all these guys, but I do understand the flipside of the argument.
MCEVERS: I mean, last year's class was pretty amazing. I mean, it's John Smoltz, Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson - are not, I mean, just Hall of Famer's, but, I mean, some people regard them as among the best ever. Does this year feel like it could be a letdown after that?
KERI: You could make that case. Craig Biggio also made it last year, so it was a four-man class. And it almost certainly is going to be only two this year. But you know, you have to just look at whatever the hand that you're dealt is. And in this case, this is the way the ballot fell. And you know, Ken Griffey Jr. truly - not only a great player but an iconic player. I mean, for goodness sake, he appeared on "The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air." You can't get much better than that.
MCEVERS: I mean...
KERI: So that's fantastic.
MCEVERS: What else do you need to have done in your life? Well, Jonah, thanks so much for the preview. We appreciate it.
KERI: Thank you.
MCEVERS: And that's Jonah Keri of Sports Illustrated. Major League Baseball will announce this year's Hall of Fame class later today.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Now we're going to switch to that other sport with balls and bats - cricket. For the millions of fans all over the world - basically everywhere that's not the U.S. - there was a huge record breaker yesterday.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Pranav Dhanawade, a 15-year-old cricket player from Mumbai, hit 1,009 runs in one school match.
ANDY BULL: No one has ever scored more in a competitive game of cricket.
MCEVERS: That's Andy Bull. He's senior sports writer for The Guardian.
BULL: Every club match, every school match, every professional match, every international match, every game ever played, no one has ever scored more than this boy did. And not only did he beat the record; he smashed it, you know? He almost doubled it.
MCEVERS: That previous record was set more than a hundred years ago in 1899 when an English player scored 628 runs. So yeah, this was a big deal.
BULL: Trying to think of an equivalent in American sport, I suppose it would be a bit like a basketballer scoring 250, 300 points in a game - something like that.
MCEVERS: Pranav Dhanawade, the 15-year-old who broke the record, is the son of a rickshaw driver, and he says he wants to play professionally. Andy Bull says breaking the record in a school match against a much younger team doesn't guarantee he'll get a shot at the pros.
CORNISH: Still, today, the Times of India is calling Dhanawade Mumbai's boy wonder. And Bull says regardless, he's definitely won a place in cricket history.
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Last summer, the United States Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is legal nationwide. But today, the chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court said that ruling doesn't apply to his state. In a defiant new order, Justice Roy Moore wrote that Alabama's probate judges must abide by the state's gay marriage ban already in place.
NPR's Debbie Elliott joins us now to explain. And Debbie, first, help us understand how a judge can rule that a U.S. Supreme Court decision just doesn't apply, in this case, to Alabama.
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Well, let's clarify here. This is not a ruling in any legal case. This is simply an administrative order by the Alabama chief justice, Roy Moore. He's a chief justice who's well known for his defiance of federal courts. So this is just another step in that mission that he seems to have. He is using this order to lay out his argument that the U.S. Supreme Court ruling only applies to the four states whose laws were actually at issue in the specific case that was before the high court.
CORNISH: So what precisely did he say, what kind of language?
ELLIOTT: Well, he said that he was trying to clear up some confusion and uncertainty. And let me just explain to you the lay of the land in Alabama. Since the Supreme Court ruling, most of Alabama's 67 probate judges have been issuing marriage licenses to all couples, regardless of their sexual orientation.
But according to the ACLU of Alabama, about nine had stopped issuing the documents altogether. They'd just gotten out of the business. Well, Moore wrote that that disparity was affecting the administration of justice in the state, so he felt the need to issue this opinion. And in it, he ordered, you know, reiterating his position that was first issued back in March, that state officials have, quote, "a ministerial duty to uphold Alabama's constitutional ban on same-sex marriages."
CORNISH: So, what are the legal ramifications for the state order?
ELLIOTT: You know, that's really not clear. Most legal scholars will tell you it, you know, really doesn't have any legal ramifications. It has, however, prompted three more probate judges, just today, since the order came out, to stop issuing marriage licenses again. You know, they're confused again. They have been asking for clarity ever since there was this conflict between what Judge Moore and the Alabama Supreme Court had ordered and what federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Order, had said. So now there's just, you know, more confusion out there. Now Alabama's attorney general, Luther Strange, had immediately said after the Supreme Court's ruling that it is binding on state officials, whether they agree with it or not, it was the law of the land.
CORNISH: So what's likely to happen if some local judges follow Justice Moore's order and, say, turn away a same-sex couple?
ELLIOTT: You know, I think that'll be the question. They'll end up in federal court. You know, groups including the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Human Rights Campaign who have been monitoring these cases say that, you know, you could be held in contempt of court if you don't honor the Supreme Court's ruling on marriage equality. So that's the question - what's going to happen if a couple goes in? They're going to have to go to the federal courts and try to clarify what is the actual law in Alabama.
CORNISH: Just a short time left, Debbie. The political reaction, what's going on in Alabama in response to this?
ELLIOTT: Well, right now just groups who are supportive of gay marriage say this means nothing. The Southern Poverty Law Center called it a dead letter. Other groups, including the lawyer for that Kentucky clerk who went to jail for refuse - (no audio) - sign same-sex marriage licenses, he applauded Judge Moore's stance.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Debbie Elliott in Orange Beach, Ala. Debbie, thanks so much.
ELLIOTT: Thank you.
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French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez was one of the most recognized figures in 20th century classical music. His outspoken advocacy for the music of his time earned him fans and detractors. He died yesterday at his home in Germany. He was 90 years old. NPR's Anastasia Tsioulcas has this appreciation.
ANASTASIA TSIOULCAS, BYLINE: Just as the chaos of World War II was coming to an end, Pierre Boulez was emerging into his life as an artist.
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PIERRE BOULEZ: At the beginning of the war, I was 14. And at the end of the war, I was 20. That's the main development years you have when you forge yourself.
TSIOULCAS: That's Boulez in a 2005 interview with WHYY's Fresh Air. What Boulez wanted to forge was not just his own creative identity. He wanted to liberate the sound of European music entirely.
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BOULEZ: Between 1945 and now, I think I tried through a certain discipline force to find a freedom.
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TSIOULCAS: After the war, Boulez worked with theater directors, poets and other young artists who wanted to overthrow the status quo. In his own music, he drew upon the energy and inspiration of all of those art forms, along with music from around the world.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
TSIOULCAS: In the late 1970s, he founded IRCAM, an institution dedicated to exploring all of the possibilities of contemporary music. Among the first composers to work there was American Tod Machover. He says that Boulez had gifts beyond music.
TOD MACHOVER: He was incredibly charming - the kind of person who could have a conversation with just about anybody.
TSIOULCAS: Over time, Boulez became part of the establishment - or maybe more correctly, the establishment embraced him and his ideas. He was invited to conduct major orchestras around the world. As music director of the New York Philharmonic, he had audiences sitting on rugs on the floor decades before classical musicians started playing in bars. And along the way, he won 26 Grammys.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
TSIOULCAS: Boulez was a singular figure, says conductor David Robertson, who led Boulez's group, the Ensemble Intercontemporain. Now he's music director of the St. Louis Symphony.
DAVID ROBERTSON: There was an incredible, exacting intellect, but it was combined with a marvelous sense of humor.
TSIOULCAS: But Boulez could be a quite a firebrand, too. His polemics became infamous. And even in his later years, he did not mince his words.
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BOULEZ: You must not really think of reaching an audience. You must think first to express yourself.
TSIOULCAS: That meant that he also conducted music from the past that he loved.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
TSIOULCAS: Boulez saw all of his work as part of a continuum, as he told NPR 2005.
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BOULEZ: Music is in constant evolution. And there is nothing absolutely fixed and rigidly determined. You have a concept of evolution, and you have to participate in your time.
TSIOULCAS: Composer and conductor Pierre Boulez was always ahead of his time. Anastasia Tsioulcas, NPR News, New York.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The votes are in, and to no one's surprise, Ken Griffey Jr. made it into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame. He got the nod from more than 99 percent of baseball writers. Who else made it? Who got snubbed? For that, we turn to Jonah Keri, who covers baseball for Sports Illustrated. Welcome back to the show.
JONAH KERI: Thanks for having me.
MCEVERS: And like we just said, Griffey got 99 percent of the vote. I mean, that means that three people didn't vote for him. What could possibly be their reasons for saying no?
KERI: I assume they all had lobotomies within the last couple of weeks.
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
KERI: That's the only logical explanation.
MCEVERS: Right.
KERI: No, I mean, you know, some people turn in blank ballots as a result of protest or do these kind of look-at-me votes. It's really hard to say, but, I mean, Griffey was obviously deserving and certainly should've had 100 percent.
MCEVERS: I mean, Mike Piazza, who's regarded as the best-hitting catcher of all time finally made it into the Hall of Fame in his fourth year of eligibility. Why did it take so long?
KERI: Yeah, it's a great question. You know, there were some people that were making kind of veiled accusations that maybe he had used performance-enhancing drugs at some point - hard to say. But in terms of merit anyway, I mean, absolutely the best offensive catcher of all time, just a titan in his day - and a 62nd round draft pick, too. This is history in that Griffey is the highest draft pick ever to get in - he was number one overall - and Piazza's by far the lowest - I mean, by far. He's a great, great player and a deserving Hall of Famer, along with Griffey.
MCEVERS: Now let's talk about the snubs. What was the most egregious omission here?
KERI: Well, Tim Raines and Jeff Bagwell certainly deserved to get in. They both came up a little bit short - Bagwell 71 percent and change, Raines just under 70 percent. But both of those guys made significant progress from last year - 15, 16, 17 percent jumps. That's a lot, and it bodes well for them both to get in next year. So I mean, if you view this thing as a process and you kind of need momentum and you have to change people's minds gradually, then you could say OK, these guys were snubbed, they're great candidates and I'm not happy about it. But you can turn around and say you know what? Next year looks good for both of them. So those would be two of the biggies. I guess the other one would be the PED guys, the performance-enhancing-drug guys. Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens specifically on merit absolutely should be in the Hall of Fame, but there a lot of voters that draw a line in the sand and won't vote for guys that are widely believed to have used performance-enhancing drugs.
MCEVERS: I mean, do you think voters have softened their stance at all on this?
KERI: They have because we've seen Bonds and Clemens go up 7 percent each this year on the ballot, so we're seeing that. And part of that is also a reflection of the changing electorate. There were only 440 voters this year because they chopped a bunch of people off of the rolls -some of the older voters, especially people who hadn't been voting for a while. And we're also seeing new voters come in, and those voters tend to be younger and more progressive, and they also tend to vote for people like Barry Bonds.
MCEVERS: I mean, how big of a deal is it still to get voted into the Hall of Fame? I mean, do players still consider it a hallowed ground, like, as much as those sportswriters and fans?
KERI: Oh, absolutely. It's a very big deal to them. It's affirmation for them. You know, this is the highest honor that a baseball player can have. And I would add, by the way, that if you want to get really pragmatic about it, especially if it's somebody who played in the '70s or the '80s, this is a chance for them to get well financially. The value of their autographs goes up. It's just kind of an honor, and it's something that can help them. Quite frankly, you know, a lot of these people are not necessarily that well-off because they didn't make 15 or $20 million a year. So just for them and their families and their children and grandchildren, what have you, that's a nice little edge as well.
MCEVERS: That's Jonah Keri. He covers baseball for Sports Illustrated, talking about the newest members of baseball's Hall of Fame - Ken Griffey Jr. and Mike Piazza. Thanks so much.
KERI: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
OK. Bear with me on this one. If you have hay fever or allergies, you might be able to blame a Neanderthal.
That is actually the conclusion of new research that came out today in The American Journal Of Human Genetics. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein reports.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: Neanderthals got a bad rap for a long time. We humans thought they were dumb, brutish creatures but then scientists realized we had a lot more in common than anyone thought. In fact, Janet Kelso of the Marx Planck Institute in Germany says a lot of us have Neanderthal DNA scattered throughout our genes.
JANET KELSO: When modern humans were coming out of Africa, they met the Neanderthals who were living at that time in Europe and western Asia, interbred with them and carried with them some of the Neanderthal DNA as they migrated out into wider parts of the continent.
STEIN: So scientists have been trying to figure out what our Neanderthal DNA may be doing. Kelso and her colleagues and a second team of scientists in France examined the DNA for more than 2,000 people from around the world, hunting for genes from Neanderthals and another extinct species that lived at the same time known as Denisovans.
KELSO: And what we found was a set of three genes and they're really responsible for what we call innate immunity. This is our very early immune response. When the body detects that there is some foreign substance in the body, these are the guys that react immediately and it kind of calls in the big guns.
STEIN: ...To fight off whatever virus, bacteria or other invader threatens us. And it looks like these three genes helped early humans survive new diseases that attacked them as they migrated around the world.
KELSO: Perhaps it's not surprising, right? Neanderthals are living in Europe and western Asia for 200,000 years before modern humans arrive on the scene. And that means that they'd had time to adapt to the local environment - the pathogens, the climate. And when humans come in and breed with them, the things that we take away and keep are those that allow us to do the same thing - to adapt quickly and rapidly to local pathogens.
STEIN: But it turns out there's a downside to this for people today.
KELSO: This is a trade-off of sorts. So what you have is - you have an increased reactivity to potential pathogens, but you also have, as a kind of consequence of that, an increased reactivity to things that are not pathogenic, things like pollen and pet hair. So I suppose that some of us can then blame Neanderthals for our susceptibility to common allergies like a hay fever.
STEIN: Now, this isn't the first time scientists have discovered that Neanderthal genes still play a role in our lives. Believe it or not, Neanderthal genes help shape our skin and our hair. And Josh Akey of the University of Washington says this is all probably just for starters.
JOSH AKEY: I think this is really just the tip of the iceberg about how mating with Neanderthals influences all sorts of traits today - things like disease susceptibility and many other characteristics of humans.
STEIN: Akey says he's found more clues about how our Neanderthal ancestors are still with us and plans to report the details about that soon.
Rob Stein, NPR News.
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Courts in Florida have approved new maps for congressional districts and the State Senate. The maps are the result of efforts to eliminate gerrymandering. That's where districts are drawn to benefit one party or another. Florida is one of the states where this has been most rampant. NPR's Greg Allen reports the changes could mean a shift in the balance of power between Florida's Republicans and Democrats.
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: It was an unusual scene at Florida's capitol building in Tallahassee this week.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JAY FERRIN: District One is now District Two. District Two is now District One.
ALLEN: To comply with a court order, legislative staffer Jay Ferrin used a computer program to assign new numbers to Florida's 40 State Senate districts. It's the latest in a series of moves that have reshaped politics in the sunshine state. Six years after voters approved constitutional amendments aimed at curbing gerrymandering, the courts say maps for Florida's congressional and state Senate states at last comply with the law.
MICHAEL MCDONALD: Florida was among the most effective gerrymanders for Republicans in the entire United States.
ALLEN: Michael McDonald is an associate professor at the University of Florida. Although Florida is a swing state, a state Barack Obama won twice, Republicans control the reins of power. Twenty of the state's 27 members of Congress are Republican. The GOP holds 26 of the 40 seats in the State Senate. Under the new maps, McDonald says those numbers are now likely to change slightly in Democrats' favor.
MCDONALD: We still have to have the final say of the election, so nothing's set in stone at this point. But expectations are that Democrats will probably win up to two, maybe three, seats out of Congress above where they are currently at. And they may win maybe three or four more seats out of the Senate.
ALLEN: A lot, of course, depends on the candidates and the campaigns they run. After seeing the map for his district, Republican Congressman David Jolly announced he won't seek reelection. Another Republican faced with a hard choice is Daniel Webster, the Orlando area congressman who gained attention when he ran for House speaker. His district has also been redrawn so it leans Democratic. The new maps were approved only after protracted legal battles and Republican opposition. One of the plaintiffs in the court cases was Florida's League of Women Voters. Pamela Goodman is president.
PAMELA GOODMAN: What has been occurring in Florida has been elected officials choosing their voters, drawing districts, choosing their voters instead of voters choosing their elected officials, which is the way it's supposed to work in our democracy.
ALLEN: Every 10 years after the census, all states are required to draw new congressional and legislative district maps. Under the law now in Florida, maps must be drawn without regard to politics, but the legislature controls the process. State Senator Jack Latvala, a Republican and political veteran, says this doesn't take politics out of redistricting.
JACK LATVALA: And it just shifted the playing field from Republican politics to Democrat politics, in my opinion. I've been involved in Florida politics for over 40 years, so I've seen a lot of this.
ALLEN: Because it's a presidential election year when voter turnout is highest, Democrats think the new maps will help them unseat some Republican incumbents both in Congress and in the state Legislature. But Latvala says Democrats who think they may regain a majority in Florida's Senate are wrong.
LATVALA: I think, you know, a one- or, at the most, two-seat pickup - I think that's a possibility, but it's not going to change control of Florida's Senate.
ALLEN: Other states besides Florida are also taking a look at how they conduct the politically charged once-every-decade redistricting prospects. North Dakota and possibly Illinois will have redistricting reform on the ballot in November. It's also being discussed in Ohio, New Jersey, Georgia and other states. Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami.
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At the end of every year, meteorologists look back at what the weather was like. And what they saw happen in the U.S. in 2015 was just weird. It was hot, and there were all kinds of extreme weather events. And as NPR's Christopher Joyce reports, all that heavy weather was getting extensive.
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE, BYLINE: December was a fitting end to a strange weather here.
JAKE CROUCH: This is the first time in our 121-year period of record that a month has been both the wettest and the warmest month on record.
JOYCE: Jake Crouch is a meteorologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He says the rest of the year was very wet and hot, too, the second-hottest on record. The cause - a warming climate and a super-strong El Nino. El Nino is a weather phenomenon out of the Pacific Ocean that hits every few years and affects weather globally. Together, climate and El Nino pushed the average temperature in the U.S. up over its 20th-century average by 2.4 degrees. NOAA scientist Deke Arndt puts that in perspective.
DEKE ARNDT: And if we all went home and reset our thermostat to 2.4 degrees higher in our homes for a year, we would certainly feel the difference.
JOYCE: And when the atmosphere is warmer, it holds more moisture, leading to record snows in the Northeast last February and March and record rain in the South and Midwest. Arndt says scientists expect more of the same.
ARNDT: The fact is we live in a warming world, and a warming world is bringing more big heat events and more big rain events to the United States.
JOYCE: All this weather led to 10 extreme events that each did at least $1 billion in damage. These include a drought, flooding, severe rainstorms, big wildfires and winter storms - a wider variety of costly weather events than usual. Insurance companies are paying for most of this damage. Surprisingly, payouts this year were lower than the previous few years. That, says Mark Bove, is due mostly to luck. Bove is a meteorologist at Munich Re, which insures insurance companies for their losses. He says no serious hurricanes hit the U.S. this year, but he says that's not likely to last. Moreover, he's noticing a trend that's been going on for years and likely will continue.
MARK BOVE: We seem to be seeing more extreme precipitation events. When it rains today, it seems to rain harder and heavier.
JOYCE: But even as the rain gets harder, Bove says people don't seem to be taking notice.
BOVE: We tend to not build buildings to withstand the storms that we already see, let alone how they might change in the future.
JOYCE: And that will mean higher costs in a future where weather appears to be more unpredictable than ever. Christopher Joyce, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Saudi Arabia caught the world's attention last week when it executed 47 people. The country had already seen a sharp increase in the use of the death penalty in 2015. NPR's Jackie Northam reports that it wasn't the only country that carried out a lot more executions last year.
JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: There are about two dozen countries that have the death penalty. Some rarely carry out or have a moratorium on executions. And then you have the other extreme. A handful of countries accelerated their rate of executions in 2015.
RICHARD CLARK: Executions have risen 70 percent over 2014.
NORTHAM: Seventy percent - seven zero?
CLARK: Seven zero, yeah.
NORTHAM: Richard Clark, the founder of Capital Punishment U.K., which charts executions around the world, says there was a spike in the number of executions in a few countries last year. He says Iran hanged at least 750 people - 270 more people than the previous year. Other human rights organizations say it could be as high as 1,000 people. But it's hard to know because Iran is one of the countries that doesn't give out a lot of information. Another is China, which might be the leader in executions says Maya Foa with Reprieve, a human rights organization based in London.
MAYA FOA: In China, executions are a state secret and so not only do they not publicly disclose when and where and how many executions take place, very often, as we understand it, they don't even tell family members. So it's very, very hard to get accurate figures. We do know that the numbers are in the thousands very often.
NORTHAM: We know executions in Pakistan are on the rise. It lifted a moratorium on the death penalty in December 2014 after a Taliban attack killed 148 people, mostly children. Last year, it executed more than 300 people. Saroop Ijaz is a researcher with Human Rights Watch in Pakistan. He says the government brought back the death penalty as a way to fight terrorism.
SAROOP IJAZ: And as it turns out, out of the more than 300 people that Pakistan has executed, only a very small minority are people who have been convicted of terrorism offenses.
NORTHAM: Ijaz says there are now at least 27 offenses for which you can be put to death in Pakistan, including murder, treason and blasphemy. He says the government is marketing the death penalty as a cure for the complex security situation that Pakistan faces.
IJAZ: There is this national security state narrative that the Pakistan government has constructed which is, you know, being tough and going to war - that entire rhetoric.
NORTHAM: Similarly, Saudi Arabia says most of people it executed last week were terrorists. But Clark with Capital Punishment U.K. says that wasn't the case last year.
CLARK: Saudi Arabia went up from 92 in 2014 to 155 in 2015. In 2015, the Saudi executions were pretty normal - drugs and murder or rape.
NORTHAM: For its part, the U.S. went the other way. Maya Foa with Reprieve says last year, the U.S. executed 28 people, down from 35 people the previous year.
FOA: We had fewer executions in the U.S. than we'd seen for the last 27 years, and that's in large part because of issues with the lethal injection and manufacturers not wanting to sell medicines for the purpose of executions.
NORTHAM: And there were a few nations that decided last year to abolish the death penalty, including Madagascar, Fiji and Suriname. Jackie Northam, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
NFL player Johnny Anonymous says the league can be broken down into a few kinds of players - the true believers, the ones in it for the money and the ones who don't know how to do anything else. Johnny Anonymous says he's another kind of player. He hates professional football. He's written a book called "NFL Confidential," and he talked this week to my co-host, Audie Cornish.
AUDIE CORNISH, BYLINE: As you might have guessed, Johnny Anonymous is a pseudonym. Though NPR has confirmed his identity, his voice will be disguised in the interview you're about to hear.
And I started that interview by asking him why he wants to be anonymous.
JOHNNY ANONYMOUS: (Through voice-over) It's either come come clean and tell all, as it stands from my mouth and my voice with my picture and my name and football ceased to exist in my life or I maintain my anonymous stature and I can really give the world a piece of what this game really is for the guys who don't mean anything to the game and continue to make money.
CORNISH: Your book covers this time in this very kind of (laughter) peculiar workplace, right, the locker room. And there are all kinds of stereotypes, like anyone else's office. You also talk about how there are divisions on the team by race. Talk about how that happens.
ANONYMOUS: So, race is kind of a funny thing in the NFL. And obviously guys come from different places in the country, and those normal racial stereotypes that you'll find in different people that come from different places and different cultures and different parts of our society, I mean, they'll carry that. It's not like it just doesn't exist.
And you'll have a guy walking in - into the lunchroom, and there'll be a table of all white guys. And, you know, they're going to make a joke about it. Hey, is this - you got a KKK meeting going on over here? And if it was anywhere else in the world, you'd stop and go - whoa, that's too far. That's very offensive. But in the NFL, it's kind of like - hey, that was kind of eh. And it just laughs it off. It's like you take all sensitivity out and throw it in a big building with a bunch of football players, and that's who you are.
CORNISH: Now, this also leads to another issue. One of the more interesting kind of portraits you paint in the book is of, like, the sensitivity trainings that the NFL will hold or a team will hold. In one case, it was after the aftermath of the Ray Rice scandal. He's the Baltimore Ravens player who lost his spot on the team after this video went public of him punching his then fiancee. Describe what happened in that meeting.
ANONYMOUS: Well, it was a guy who was underqualified to speak about the subject he was speaking about and a handful of guys - frankly, all the guys on the team sitting in their chairs on their phone, joking around. I don't think single thing touched any man in that room except for me because I was listening the entire time for this book.
CORNISH: But - I mean, I'm thinking - I know, obviously, I'm not in as (laughter) sort of physical a workplace, but if one of my coworkers was, like, very publicly accused of domestic violence and the company said we've got to talk about this - I don't know, I'd listen.
ANONYMOUS: I don't think that it's unnecessarily that it's not interesting as a topic. I think it's just a general acceptance of - I don't know - what is seemed normal, which is kind of sad to say. Obviously, when that came out, we were all sitting in the training room and it comes up, and it's disgusting. We all know it's disgusting. A handful of guys made remarks of - this guy shouldn't be in the league; this guy's disrespect to women. Ten minutes later, you have a guy making a joke about it. So there's different levels of respect that players will have. But I think, in general, they have a pretty short attention span.
CORNISH: Do you think some of that also comes from, you know, it's a physical game, right? I mean, essentially, you talk about in the book using your anger on the field. There's a lot of guys who have to learn how to use their anger, right?
ANONYMOUS: Yeah, I think one of the greatest therapy sessions any NFL player has is actually playing the game. You have guys that - they have demons. They've had things that they've dealt with in their life that make them who they are and make them angry, physical men. You can't just make that disappear. You know, that's literally what fuels a football player to put on a helmet, look at the guy across from him and literally hit him as hard as he possibly can.
CORNISH: That's the altered voice of Johnny Anonymous, the pseudonym of an NFL player who has written a new book called "NFL Confidential." He has more to say about his experience in the league, about concussions, playing through pain and his own conflicted feelings about playing such a dangerous sport.
ANONYMOUS: I can tell you right now, honestly, that if I'm playing a game, I cannot complete that game without painkillers. I will not be an effective player.
CORNISH: That's coming up tomorrow.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
2016 has gotten off to a rough start for stock markets around the world. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed down again today, and we can trace the problems to China where there has been another overnight selloff of Chinese stocks and a move by the central bank to devalue the currency. We'll have more on what's happening inside China's economy in a moment. But first, NPR's Yuki Noguchi looks at whether American investors should be worried.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: China's markets were open on Thursday for about a half an hour before a dramatic selloff suspended trading for the second time this week. There's very little foreign money invested in Chinese stock markets, yet markets around the world are reacting. Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst for bankrate.com, says part of the worry is lack of visibility into China's economy and monetary policy.
MARK HAMRICK: Well, it seems as if what we don't know about what is happening inside China is greater than what we actually know. And then there's the question of what China's leaders want to do or intend or are able to do, and those are all big questions.
NOGUCHI: This is potentially more than a question of stock prices. Hamrick says there's a lot at stake for the U.S. energy and manufacturing sectors.
HAMRICK: You also see that markets and commodities prices seem to be caught in a vicious cycle as China allows its currency to weaken. Commodities prices continue to sink. We see that, for example, in the price of crude oil in the United States. And then the dollar strengthens, and that has a dampening impact on global trade.
NOGUCHI: That view was backed up by another China economic policy expert, the aptly named David Dollar.
DAVID DOLLAR: All the news for the dollar's been positive. You know, I feel like my namesake is looking pretty good at the moment.
NOGUCHI: However, a strong dollar, he says, is not necessarily a good thing for the U.S. economy. A more expensive currency translates into less demand for U.S. products overseas. Dollar, who is with the Brookings Institution, says it's not the size of the Chinese market's drop that's catching investors' attention.
DOLLAR: Investors around the world are very nervous that there'll be a large devaluation of the Chinese currency, you know, which would be quite disruptive.
NOGUCHI: On the other hand, David Dollar notes the Chinese economy may not be in such bad shape. Its growth rate is slowing, but foreign demand for Chinese goods is higher than ever.
DOLLAR: You know, they had their largest trade surplus in history last year, the largest in human history - $600 billion trade surplus. So they obviously don't have any problem with competitiveness or on the trade side.
NOGUCHI: Ann Lee says the investors' reaction has been overblown. Lee is an author and New York University finance and economics professor. She says China had already announced plans to reform its currency by pegging it to a group of currencies, not just the dollar, so the weakening shouldn't have been a surprise.
ANN LEE: I think that China's already telegraphed their intentions.
NOGUCHI: Also, neighboring countries' currencies have recently lost value without causing the same panic.
LEE: There's such an overreaction to China's move in the currency given that, you know, South Korean currency and Japanese currency fell far more. And those are not small economies (laughter).
NOGUCHI: She says it might take a while for the markets and the currency question to subside, but she believes they will without leaving lasting marks.
LEE: Volatility may seem a little scary right now, and I think it's very oversold. Whenever things get oversold, then people will tend to come back in and start bargain hunting.
NOGUCHI: Investors looking for a bargain may get their chance. Chinese regulators now say they will not automatically halt trading if there's another selloff. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
To get a better understanding of what's going on inside China, we've called Jamie Metzl. He's an Asian expert with the Atlantic Council. And first, we heard about this lack of transparency in what's actually happening in China's economy. I mean, why don't we have a better idea of China's economic problems?
JAMIE METZL: Well, a lack of transparency is a problem across the board in China, not just in the economy but elsewhere. But in the economy, where the legitimacy of the Chinese government is in many ways pegged to economic growth, the government has is very careful about the kind of information that comes out. And that's why we've seen all kinds of situations where people giving just basic economic information that would be perfectly legal and normal elsewhere winds them up in jail in China. China is invested in these very high growth rates because of this connection to legitimacy.
MCEVERS: Right.
METZL: And when this bad news comes out, sometimes the government allows it to emerge, and sometimes it's suppressed. And when you multiply that across an economy, you get to a point where people don't really trust the numbers. And that's why when there are other indicators of economic growth or decline, people jump onto them because we don't know what to trust and what not to trust
MCEVERS: All right, so you're not going to go to jail for answering this question.
METZL: Yes.
MCEVERS: Explain to us why China's economy is slowing down.
METZL: First, the global economy is slowing, and so their export markets aren't as robust as they've previously been.
MCEVERS: Right.
METZL: But secondly, China is becoming less competitive as a global economy in part because they are trying to transition from a manufacturing and export economy into an economy that's focusing on innovation and higher-end products. And as they do that, as their cost of production goes up, they are competing with high-end economies like the United States, Japan, Germany, Korea. And that's a very, very difficult place to be. And so China knows what they need to do, but they're having a tough time enacting the structural reforms needed to get there.
MCEVERS: So it sounds like the slowdown itself isn't a surprise, but do you think that the reaction to it - some would say, as we heard, the overreaction to it - is that a surprise?
METZL: Well, everybody assumes that Chinese leaders are these incredible geniuses, but they're not. They're humans like leaders in any other countries, and they don't have a lot of experience in managing a complex capitalist economy. And so when push comes to shove, very often, although they recognize the need for market reforms, that's not what they do.
And six months ago in the middle of last year, when there was a major market crisis, rather than trusting in the market, which is what they said they were going to try to do, they created all of these controls, one of which was a limitation on how many shares of companies big investors could sell. And that was set to expire six months later, which is now. And there are all these pent-up misallocations of resources, valuations that don't make sense. And for China, like for everybody else, at the end of the day, gravity applies.
MCEVERS: And China has shut down trading twice already this week, but it says it won't do that tomorrow. I mean, have we seen the worst of this already?
METZL: I don't believe so. China established these so-called circuit breakers. And the goal is that when in a given day, if the stock market - the Shanghai stock market - falls by 7 percent, then it shuts down for the day. The problem is, China's stock market is very much like a casino. There's lots of wild swings up and down. And so investors, many of whom are retail investors, were gaming the system.
So when you get to 4 percent, rather than people calming down and taking a step back, people though, well, jeez, if we get to 5 percent, then I'm stuck; I better sell now. So even in this one week of these the circuit breakers, it was having the reverse effect of what they had intended.
But the core problem is that the valuations in the stock market today don't really correspond to the underlying fundamentals and to people's perceptions of where the Chinese economy is actually going. And so if you're going - if they're going to have a market economy, they need to have more faith in the market process. But that requires a very tough stomach.
MCEVERS: Jamie Metzl's a senior fellow with the Atlantic Council. Thank you very much.
METZL: My great pleasure.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
It's January, and everybody seems to have advice about what we should eat. The federal government has weighed in with its new dietary guidelines. The guidelines are updated every five years, and they are considered the government's official advice on what Americans should be eating. Here's NPR's Allison Aubrey.
ALLISON AUBREY, BYLINE: The advice to cut back on sugar isn't new, but what is is a specific recommendation on just how low you should go. At a time when many Americans are consuming up to 22 teaspoons of sugar a day, mostly in the form of sugary drinks and snacks, that new recommendation is to cut that in half. The guidelines say we should limit added sugars to no more than 10 percent of our daily calories. That's about 10 to 12 teaspoons. Obesity expert David Ludwig of Harvard University, who was not involved in crafting the new guidelines, says if people follow this advice and also limit highly-refined grains, it would be a big step in helping to reduce the risk of type-two diabetes and heart disease.
DAVID LUDWIG: The recommendation to decrease added sugar intake will today have about the biggest impact of any nutritional change imaginable.
AUBREY: Beyond sugar, another issue at play in developing these new guidelines was what to say about red meat and processed meat. A panel of nutrition experts that advised the administration on what to include had said that Americans should be told to eat less red meat not only for health reasons but for the health of the planet. That did not go over so well with the meat industry or with some lawmakers. Tom Brenna of Cornell University was on the advisory panel.
TOM BRENNA: The recommendation that our committee came up with to eat less meat was certainly controversial.
AUBREY: And ultimately did not make it into the guidelines. The new guidelines do not include a specific recommendation to cut consumption of red or processed meats. Instead, the guidelines call for making small shifts to alternative sources of protein including seafood, beans, nuts and seeds. Brenna says he's OK with how the recommendation turned out, even if it's a more indirect way to say that heavy meat eaters should cut back.
BRENNA: The message is, those people who are overeating meat, eat less of it.
AUBREY: And add more variety to your diet. But a number of nutrition researchers are crying foul. Dariush Mozaffarian is a cardiologist by training. He's now the dean of the Tufts University Friedman School of Nutrition.
DARIUSH MOZAFFARIAN: I think it's absolutely a mistake not to include specific language about limiting red meat and especially processed meat. Processed meat is linked to weight gain, stroke, heart disease and diabetes.
AUBREY: And major health organizations including the World Health Organization point to the cancer risks linked to heavy consumption of meat. But Mozaffarian says the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which plays a significant role in shaping the guidelines, is in a tough position.
MOZAFFARIAN: A challenge here is that the dietary guidelines come from USDA which is inherently conflicted. It wants to improve the health of Americans yet it also wants to promote farming and food industry.
AUBREY: The meat industry has signaled its pleased with the new guidelines. The North American Meat Institute released a statement saying that the recommendations affirm the role that meat plays in a healthy diet, pointing out the meat is a good source of protein and B vitamins. These new guidelines will be in place until 2020, when they're expected to be updated again. Allison Aubrey, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The New York Police Department has agreed to settle a pair of lawsuits that allege it illegally targeted Muslims in terrorism investigations. While the NYPD doesn't concede it did anything wrong, it has agreed to allow an independent monitor to scrutinize the department's counterterrorism efforts and to codify its investigation processes. NPR's Dina Temple-Raston has this report from New York.
DINA TEMPLE-RASTON, BYLINE: To hear Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union tell it, today's settlement, if approved by a judge, will protect New Yorkers from police surveillance based on their religion, ethnicity or political activity.
DONNA LIEBERMAN: It will be a win-win for New Yorkers because it will ensure and promote targeted, suspicion-based policing rather than discriminatory policing.
TEMPLE-RASTON: The settlement will, among other things, end a long-standing set of class-action suits which establish how the NYPD can conduct investigations. The lawsuits cite instances in which they allege Muslims became suspects simply because of their religion. And indeed, the NYPD did keep files on ethnic neighborhoods, conducted surveillance on Muslims for years without filing charges and dispatched plainclothes units to their neighborhoods for terrorism investigations. The intelligence unit responsible for that has since been disbanded. The NYPD's Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence John Miller says today's settlement codifies what's already been done.
JOHN MILLER: It actually doesn't change what we're doing now in any way. What it does, if anything, is it better memorializes the standards and best practices that we've been using.
TEMPLE-RASTON: Those standards and best practices now mirror FBI guidelines and they include things like using undercover officers only when other options are impractical or capping the length of investigations. To make sure those changes endure, the agreement will also restore outside oversight. The mayor will appoint an independent monitor. A judge is expected to approve the settlement in the coming weeks. Dina Temple-Raston, NPR News, New York.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
We here at ALL THINGS CONSIDERED have not yet reported on the following story, but now it's time - the monkey selfie.
Back in 2011, a monkey in Indonesia grabbed a camera, aimed it at himself and managed to take his own photos. The selfies of the grinning crested macaque went viral. Because it was the monkey who took the wildly popular pictures, the question became - who owns the photos? - and, more importantly - who gets the royalties? An animal rights group says the monkey does, so they filed a lawsuit on his behalf. And that's how his case ended up in court.
ANDREW DHUEY: (Reading) A monkey, an animal rights organization and a primatologist walk into federal court to sue for infringement of the monkey's claimed copyright.
What seems like the setup for a punch line is really happening.
MCEVERS: That's attorney Andrew Dhuey reading from his motion to dismiss the suit. His client is the photographer who owns the camera that the monkey used to take the selfie.
DHUEY: My client is a professional photographer, and he made a lot of artistic choices. And just because the monkey pressed the shutter button doesn't mean the monkey is the author. My client is the author.
MCEVERS: Yesterday, a federal judge agreed. He issued a tentative ruling that the monkey cannot own the copyright because - he's a monkey. Dhuey says it wasn't a tough case to win.
DHUEY: My tuxedo cats could have won this case.
MCEVERS: We were curious about copyright law as it applies to non-humans. So of course we asked our legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg to weigh in on the merits of the case.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: To put this in terms we all understand - we all love our animals, but I don't think the founding fathers actually thought that the copyright stuff that's in the Constitution, which it is, applied to non-human individuals.
MCEVERS: But Nina says the issue over animal rights and legal standing is an interesting one.
TOTENBERG: There's some areas of the law where animals do have certain rights. I mean, there have been cases where dogs or animals do inherent, and somebody or some organization is appointed as a guardian for that pet. So there are parts of the law where I suppose you could say that animals have some standing to sue.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
TOTENBERG: Monkey see, monkey sue.
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
TOTENBERG: We just had to say it.
MCEVERS: PETA, the animal rights group, says they will continue their fight, so we asked the photographer's lawyer if he thinks this case will drag through the courts.
DHUEY: I assure you Ms. Totenberg will not be covering this at the Supreme Court.
MCEVERS: But if it does, our fearless legal correspondent will bring you the story.
TOTENBERG: I'll be there barking right Supreme Court.
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
TOTENBERG: Or meowing - sorry, I left out the cat lovers.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
There are a lot of issues on the presidential campaign right now - ISIS, gun control, health care. And Hillary Clinton just added one more - autism. At an event in Iowa this week, Clinton announced a plan to fund research and support people with autism and their families.
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HILLARY CLINTON: A lot of those families are just at their wits' end trying to figure how to get the services, to figure out what to do for schooling and then, as a child becomes a young adult, what to do for housing and employment. I want to be the president who helps families in our country deal with some of those issues.
MCEVERS: Ron Fournier wrote about Clinton's plan for National Journal, and he also has a personal connection to this story. His a son Tyler has Asperger's. Ron, thanks for being on the show today.
RON FOURNIER: Thank you so much for having me on, Kelly.
MCEVERS: This is not really an issue that's gotten a lot of attention from presidential campaigns. I mean, how big of a deal is this announcement for autism advocates and for parents like you?
FOURNIER: Huge, huge.
MCEVERS: Really.
FOURNIER: Let me just talk about it just as a parent. When you first find out that - especially a son or daughter is - has autism, you know, first comes the tears, and then comes the fear. And then comes, really quickly, a feeling that you're alone, that nobody you know has dealt with this, that you don't really know what it is. It's a scary word, and it's a broad spectrum. And what she has done for people, the community - is saying, you know, you're not alone; at least I'm going to talk about this.
MCEVERS: What do you think about the substance of the plan?
FOURNIER: Well, again, if you take it without any skepticism or cynicism, which I can only do if I talk about it as a parent, it's impressive in the sense that it addresses - there's - oversimplifying, there's two general camps that parents tend to fall into. You can be the kind that want a lot of research to go into finding a cure or prevention of autism. There's a lot of people that that's their main and sometimes only focus.
And then there are folks who are more interested in finding ways that you can support people with autism, that - somebody like my son - he doesn't want to fight his autism. He wants help in dealing with his autism. If you could offer me - and I'm just one parent. If you could offer me a cure for my son's autism, I wouldn't take it because the way he's wired is what makes him so uniquely different. But I understand that not every parent is in the same boat. And apparently, so does secretary Clinton because her plan really does address the concerns of parents at both of those camps.
MCEVERS: So let's get to the skepticism now, though. I mean, you've covered Hillary Clinton for some time. You've been pretty critical of her in the past. I mean, what do you think about this as a campaign move?
FOURNIER: Yeah. And just, again - and more recently, I've been very critical of her on the email issue. I think that showed a lack of accountability and honesty. On this one, I think, in fairness, you've got to recognize that she has always been an advocate for children and families even before she moved up higher in the political spectrum. When she was back as a first lady in Arkansas - even before she was first lady of Arkansas, she was involved in these issues, working for the Children's Defense Fund. So there's a consistency here that I think gives her some credibility politically.
On the other hand, the Clintons, and Hillary in particular, can be awfully political and, you know, manipulative. And it can't escape their attention that because of the way we look at autism, and scientific community is changing, that more people now know somebody who has autism. So this is just - purely cynically, this is a great way to connect with voters.
MCEVERS: So her plan calls, among other things, for, you know, more access to insurance compliance with Medicaid, more outreach on autism, a national campaign, help for people with autism to transition from school into adult life. I mean, how likely do you think it is that this could actually happen?
FOURNIER: Probably not very likely because one, all of that is very expensive. Two, you would have to get a polarized Washington, D.C., working together to get it done. And three, you know, it's fair to have doubts about her ability to be able to bring a fractured Washington together. So my guess is it's not very likely, but even then, just the fact that she's put it on the national agenda is a big first step. And I hope I'm wrong. I hope she can get it done.
MCEVERS: That's Ron Fournier. He has an upcoming book about raising his son. It's called "Love That Boy." Thanks so much.
FOURNIER: Thank you very much.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
And the numbers are in - 2015 was the best sales year in the history of the car business. Most of the vehicles sold were trucks and SUVs, which means it wasn't a great year for hybrids. NPR's Sonari Glinton reports.
SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: The big car companies have been in a celebratory mood at this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Seventeen and a half million cars, trucks and SUVs were sold in 2015. On top was Toyota. Here's Bob Carter with Toyota Motor Sales.
BOB CARTER: The last time that we were close to these numbers, we did 17.4 million in 2006. But if you look, if you just compare 2006 to 2015, the dynamics of the car market have changed dramatically.
GLINTON: Since then, General Motors and Chrysler were bailed out, fuel economy standards have gotten really tough and gas plummeted in the last year. So while sales were up at Toyota, sales of their hybrid, Prius, have gone down.
CARTER: Fuel prices - when fuel prices go down in some parts of the country, it went under $2 a gallon. That lowers MPG on the shopping list of some consumers.
GLINTON: MPG, or miles per gallon, became less important to consumers so they bought a lot of trucks and SUVs. Trucks and SUVs were nearly 60 percent of overall sales.
ROLAND HWANG: Well, the problem is that the high sales of light trucks and SUVs is causing a backsliding in our fuel economy program.
GLINTON: Roland Hwang is with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental advocacy group. Hwang says he's worried that the carmakers have forgotten the recent past.
HWANG: They're putting their jobs at risk, they're putting their profits at risk. They're putting our nation's and our security at risk by pivoting to a near-term market condition which in the future can create a rather large liability like we saw in 2007 and 2008.
GLINTON: That said, the car companies are spending billions on alternative fuel vehicles and lighter materials. Mark Fields is the CEO of Ford Motor Company. He says even though Ford is selling more trucks than ever, the trucks they're selling are more fuel-efficient.
MARK FIELDS: Because we want people to see that we are very serious about this and we're making tangible - tangible progress to reposition our business and to satisfy customers in new ways than they never thought before from Ford.
GLINTON: It doesn't add up to me. How do you remain the leading truck-building company and then start to build, in a significant way, electric cars?
FIELDS: Well, it's very simple. You know, we're a leader in mobility. It's a natural extension of our business.
GLINTON: Meanwhile, Karl Brauer with Kelley Blue Book says the last thing the car companies want is to experience what happened seven years ago.
KARL BRAUER: A spike in gas prices, a drop in economic prosperity and a scramble to get away from any kind of large truck or SUV and not have an alternative in the pipeline.
GLINTON: Brauer says high truck sales mean high profitability.
BRAUER: That gives them the ability to invest in alternative fuel technology. So beyond the kind of hedging their bets for future market shifts, they also are required by government regulation to produce a certain amount of these cars. So they got to develop them whether they otherwise would or not.
GLINTON: Brauer says tomorrow's alternative fuel vehicles will be brought to you by today's trucks. Sonari Glinton, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Netflix was also a big thing at the Consumer Electronics Show. Here is CEO Reed Hastings speaking at the show yesterday morning.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
REED HASTINGS: While you have been listening to me talk, the Netflix service has gone live in nearly every country of the world but China, where we hope to also be in the future.
(LAUGHTER)
MCEVERS: People can now stream Netflix from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe and almost 200 countries in between. Hastings said this was the birth of a global TV network.
Gina Keating has been following Netflix for several years. She wrote the book "Netflixed: The Epic Battle For America's Eyeballs," and she is on the line now.
And Gina, it sounds like you might have to change your book's subtitle.
GINA KEATING: Yes, absolutely. And I was not surprised that they were going to be expanding internationally. I'm surprised that they went live in 130 countries on one day. They were planning to expand internationally and complete that expansion by the end of this year, but this is pretty amazing, by them, to be able to do that.
MCEVERS: I mean - so why does Netflix need to do this now?
KEATING: Well, they are slowing down their growth in the United States. And so in order to keep on growing, they're going to have to expand internationally. And in fact, they believe that at some point, international subscribers are going to far outweigh the American base.
MCEVERS: But when the CEO says things like birth of a global TV network - I mean, that sounds like pretty big talk. Are we - is this really a radical transformation of the company here?
KEATING: It's not really a radical transformation of the company because the model that they're bringing to all the countries that they enter is pretty much the same as what they pioneered in the United States.
MCEVERS: Right.
KEATING: The thing that they're going to have to do really well in these other countries is get the local content that people watch, which is what made them successful here. Now they're going into original content which is driving a lot of their growth, and I expect that's probably what will happen overseas. But what they have right now is an infrastructure that they're going to have to build out.
MCEVERS: I mean, you also think about countries like India and places where piracy is widespread. How do you think Netflix will have to change the way it does things to deal in that environment?
KEATING: They have talked about that, and I think their motto is just that if it's easy enough and it's compelling enough in terms of price and content, that people would rather do that than steal it because the quality is going to be better and it's just going to be simpler. But I don't know that they can do a whole lot about it except just encrypt it better.
MCEVERS: You know, some of the countries on this list, though, have pretty limited access to broadband. And we know Netflix takes a lot of bandwidth. How does that play into this announcement?
KEATING: You know, that is going to be really difficult. I mean, you can't imagine that there are going be a whole lot of subscribers in Afghanistan. But, you know, they stream on everything. You can get it on the phones and everything else. And they do actually have some political pull. In the United States, they got involved with broadband caps and net neutrality. They were a big player.
And every month, on their website, they put a report on ISP speeds that consumers can look at and switch to the fastest provider. I mean, they got involved in Canada in a huge broadband cap debate, so I wouldn't be surprised if they got involved in that sort of thing. But yeah, you're right. I mean, in some countries, it just - it's going to be a kind of a long wait.
MCEVERS: Right.
KEATING: But in other countries, where the broadband infrastructure is better developed, I imagine they're probably going to be growing quite fast enough to compensate for the ones where they won't grow fast.
MCEVERS: Yeah, you think South Korea - has faster than we do. I mean, you know.
KEATING: Yeah, me, too.
MCEVERS: You can imagine how many movies people will be able to watch.
That's Gina Keating. She's the author of the book "Netflixed." Thanks for being on the show today.
KEATING: Thanks for having me.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
They're called smart guns - weapons that can only be fired by their owners. President Obama is directing the Pentagon and other federal agencies to both develop and promote smart gun technology. Firearms manufacturers, though, have resisted adding these safety features. Gun safety advocates hope that will change with the president's new initiatives. NPR's David Welna reports.
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: In his executive order on guns earlier this week, President Obama tasked the departments of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security with getting smart gun technology out to the real world.
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BARACK OBAMA: We need to develop new technologies that make guns safer. If we can set it up so you can't unlock your phone unless you got the right fingerprint, why can't we do the same thing for our guns?
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WELNA: Here's the plan. The federal government is by far the nation's single largest purchaser of guns, so if it promotes and demands smart gun technology, firearms manufacturers would have a big economic incentive to make such guns.
LORETTA WEINBERG: I am absolutely delighted with what the president did.
WELNA: That's News Jersey State Senator Loretta Weinberg. A law she sponsored 14 years ago mandated that only smart guns be sold within three years of such guns becoming commercially available in the U.S. Gun advocates made sure no such guns were sold anywhere. And Weinberg's law is now being scaled back to require only that one smart gun model be available at gun dealers.
WEINBERG: So I would hope with us rolling back the mandate to purchase and certainly the president moving the whole idea of smart gun technology forward, that this is the right moment and the right time.
WELNA: But not for gun advocates like Alan Korwin. He's published 10 books on gun laws and fears the president's push for smart guns will lead to new restrictions.
ALAN KORWIN: Smart guns has arisen as a way the government is seeking to infringe on the public's rights. They meet incredible resistance when they do that.
WELNA: Margot Hirsch knows such resistance well. Two years ago, as president of the Smart Tech Challenges Foundation, she funded 15 innovators to develop smart gun technologies.
MARGOT HIRSCH: To this date, I am not aware of any of the gun manufacturers who are in the process of bringing any of these technologies to market.
WELNA: The only smart gun technology many people have actually seen was in the James Bond movie "Skyfall" when the hero addresses a bad guy who's just stolen his pistol.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SKYFALL")
DANIEL CRAIG: Good luck with that.
WELNA: As the villain squeezes the gun's trigger, three tiny red spots light up on the weapon.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SKYFALL")
WELNA: It's a smart gun that fires only when 007's palm contacts the handgrip. The New Jersey Institute of Technology has already patented such technology, but the Institute's Bill Marshall says no gun maker's been interested.
BILL MARSHALL: We had always looked to partner with one of the primes in the industry. And of course, that never came to fruition.
WELNA: And hopes that the Pentagon may soon adopt such personalized weapons may be misplaced, says Dave Broden of the National Defense Industrial Association.
DAVE BRODEN: The DOD community is certainly - I don't want to say anti but rather conservative about moving into smart guns because of not wanting to have an added function for the war-fighter when he's in combat.
WELNA: Just ask retired Army Colonel Peter Mansoor. He commanded a brigade in Iraq that saw more than a year of combat. Personalized weapons, he says, could've been a problem on the battlefield.
PETER MANSOOR: If your pistol breaks in combat, you want to be able to pick up someone else's, you know, if they've been wounded or dead. You can't simply match a weapon to a single soldier.
WELNA: Mansoor says smart guns could possibly be matched to an entire fighting unit to get around that. The Pentagon's been given three months to devise a plan for sorting out such issues as the federal government takes the lead in promoting smart guns. David Welna, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
So if not technology and smart guns, then what? Some would argue that public health campaigns could make a big difference when it comes to gun violence. After all, public health efforts around smoking and seatbelts have saved millions of lives. So why not billboards and public service announcements about guns? To explore this idea further, we called Daniel Webster. He's director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research in Baltimore, and he imagines that campaign against gun violence could look something like the very effective campaign waged against drunk driving.
DANIEL WEBSTER: When we made incredible reductions in drunk driving, it was a multifaceted effort. We were not only trying to change attitudes. We were trying to change - and we did change policies. We made penalties differ. We made threshold for drunk driving lower. So I could imagine something very similar with gun violence where we make a statement of, this is intolerable level of guy violence. We need to act individually and collectively and make transferring guns to someone who is dangerous socially costly and a bigger deal than it is right now.
MCEVERS: Is there research to show that public awareness campaigns like this or targeted education campaigns can help to curb gun violence?
WEBSTER: We do not have evidence that an awareness campaign will affect gun violence. I'm not saying it won't, but we don't have evidence right now. We do have evidence, however, that on the other side of the gun violence problem, individuals who might be prone to misuse guns - there have been public health efforts. We have them in Baltimore, and there are many other cities in which outreach workers reach out to the highest-risk individuals and do two things, basically. One, help in immediate crises to resolve conflicts that might otherwise lead to shootings and, secondly, through that process, also start to change social norms about what you do when someone provokes you, challenges you, does something. You don't have to pick up a gun to respond. What are the other ways? We've found that those types of interventions have been successful in reducing violence and even in changing attitudes.
MCEVERS: I mean, with 30,000 deaths from gun violence each year in this country, why aren't we seeing more public health officials taking this on?
WEBSTER: Well, I - sadly, I think there's been some political barriers to public health getting fully involved. The CDC has had budget cuts when it got involved in gun violence research. I think that that has been one aspect of it - that there's sort of concern that there isn't the support - literally, the financial support...
MCEVERS: Yeah.
WEBSTER: ...To do that kind of work by public health agencies and organizations. But I definitely see that changing. There's definitely more and more people in public health who are recognizing that this is a real crisis, that it affects communities beyond the gunshot wounds itself. There's an incredible amount of psychological trauma when you live in a neighborhood where people get shot on a regular basis.
MCEVERS: I mean, you're somebody who's devoted your career to studying gun policy and gun violence. What other research do you think needs to be done to tackle what President Obama calls an epidemic of gun violence in this country?
WEBSTER: Well, I'm afraid that would be a long list. But I think some of the most critical things that we really need to better understand is how dangerous people get access to guns when they are legally prohibited from having them and sort of tracing, in essence, the history of a gun. How does it start in this legal commerce and get into the most risky context? We know that social networks are incredibly important in gun violence. All of our behavior is very influenced by our close friends, family members and associates. And so how do we use that information with interventions that we can greatly reduce the risk?
MCEVERS: Daniel Webster is director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. He joined us from Baltimore. Thanks so much.
WEBSTER: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Three black pastors who support Donald Trump are filing a lawsuit against the Virginia Board of Elections. The issue is a new rule that requires all Republican primary voters to sign a loyalty pledge. The pastors say it's discrimination. NPR's Asma Khalid reports that it's a sign of the ongoing battle between Trump and the Republican establishment.
ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: Remember that black ministers meeting Donald Trump held in New York City back in November? Well, the lead plaintiff in this case, Stephen Parson, was there.
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STEPHEN PARSON: And I tell you - we need jobs. We need employment. We need businesses. And I tell you - who better can help us help ourself than Donald Trump?
(APPLAUSE)
KHALID: That's Parson speaking at a Trump rally in Virginia. He's a minister from Richmond and an evangelist for Donald Trump. On Wednesday, Parson filed a lawsuit over a new requirement from his state's Republican Party. Virginia has an open primary, but this year, GOP voters must sign a nine-word statement that reads, quote, "my signature below indicates that I am a Republican."
CHESTER SMITH: I think that's a clear violation of people who would otherwise expect to be equally protected.
KHALID: That's Parson's lawyer Chester Smith. He argues this rule violates the 14th Amendment and the Voting Rights Act. And given Virginia's history of racial discrimination, the Trump supporters claim it imposes a burden of fear for black voters and has the potential for backlash in their communities.
But Rick Hasen is skeptical this lawsuit has any real legal muscle. He's an expert in elections law at the University of California, Irvine.
RICK HASEN: I don't think that having people sign the loyalty oath is any kind of legally binding requirement.
KHALID: Hasen also points out that lots of states have closed primaries, where only registered members of the party can vote, and that's totally constitutional. Hasen says the real issue here seems political.
HASEN: It does sound like a kind of make way to try to use the Voting Rights Act as a tool to try to actually achieve a different goal, which is to allow those people who don't want to express loyalty to the Republican Party but want to express loyalty to Donald Trump to be able to vote in the election.
KHALID: In a series of tweets, Trump blasted the loyalty pledge, saying the party needs to stop excluding new voters. Otherwise, it won't win. The Virginia GOP declined to comment.
But Dan Takaji a professor at Ohio State who focuses on election law believes the politics of this are clear.
DAN TAKAJI: I don't think there's much doubt that at least a part of the reason behind the Republican Party of Virginia's decision is a desire to make it more difficult for Trump supporters to vote in the Republican primary.
KHALID: But, Takaji adds, that doesn't mean the rule is illegal or unconstitutional. In fact, he thinks the lawsuit is weak. Still, he says, it's a sign - a warning of the growing battle between Trump and the GOP establishment. Asma Khalid, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
An armed group has occupied a federal wildlife refuge in Southeast organ for six days now. The militants take issue with U.S. government's management of public lands. Local ranchers have long worked and sometimes struggled with the Bureau of Land Management. Oregon Public Broadcasting's Amanda Peacher has more from Hearney County, Ore.
AMANDA PEACHER, BYLINE: Surrounded by her five children, rancher Debbie Johnson walks through the occupied Malheur Refuge. She's talking with the militants who want an end to federal management of public lands.
DEBBIE JOHNSON: I brought my kids down because I didn't believe that it was something that needed to be feared in our community. And so fair, I've been very impressed with how well-spoken these guys are, shaking our hands and answering all of our questions.
PEACHER: Johnson and her husband live in Hearney Country. She says people in cities may not understand what it's like to be a cowboy.
JOHNSON: It is the dirtiest, nastiest job you've ever done in your life. Come snow or sleet or hail or rain, it doesn't matter. They're out there feeding the cows, pampering them
PEACHER: Johnson is undecided if the militants' approach is a good thing, but she appreciates that they're shining light on some ranchers' frustrations. Ranchers who graze cows on public lands have to meet BLM rules designed to protect things like water quality and fish and wildlife habitat.
JOHNSON: Every year, it seems like it's a little bit harder, another regulation, another rule. The red tape is unbelievable.
PEACHER: The BLM regulates the number of cows allowed in an area, how much they can graze, how many cows can be clustered around a stream.
JOHNSON: We definitely feel like it's only a matter of time before they shut our lands down and shut us out of it.
PEACHER: Those frustrations are shared by Republican Congressman Greg Walden, whose Oregon district includes the occupied refugee. On the House floor this week, Walden said he doesn't condone the occupation, but he understands the militants' frustration.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GREG WALDEN: This is a government that has gone too far for too long.
PEACHER: Walden spoke about what he sees as the arrogance of bureaucrats in interpreting laws.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
WALDEN: Do you understand how frustrated I am at this? Can you imagine how the people on the ground feel?
PEACHER: But not all in Hearney County have an antagonistic view of the BLM. Tom Sharp shows me around his ranch, a remote snow-covered expanse of sagebrush and Juniper. About a dozen pregnant cows lumber toward a stack of hay. His horse Buck watches us curiously.
TOM SHARP: The best way to get around on your property and check things is on horseback.
PEACHER: Sharp doesn't agree with the occupiers of the refuge, and he's generally in favor of how the BLM manages lands. But he says that policies that come out of Washington, D.C., don't always work.
SHARP: There will always, I think, be a certain amount of tension between the real communities and the rancher and any federal agency like that. I think what's important is how you resolve those difference when they occur.
PEACHER: Sharp says, take, for example, a threatened bird. One of those collaborations with the BLM involved protecting the greater sage-grouse. He and other ranchers wanted to prove that they could conserve the grouse without an Endangered Species Act listing.
SHARP: And it wanted to protect and do things right in conservation actions to protect the species so that restrictions wouldn't be applied to my operation.
PEACHER: He thinks that collaborative plan crafted by ranchers, the local BLM and conservationists works well, and he thinks federal agencies usually do a good job.
SHARP: It would be difficult for the state or for the county just to simply take back from the federal government all of this landmass area that we have and manage it as well as the BLM.
PEACHER: But Sharp says if anything good can come of the refuge occupation, he hopes that it's that more people understand the nuances and challenges in the rural West. For NPR News, I'm Amanda Peacher in Hearney County, Ore.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In the past year and a half, the price of oil has fallen dramatically, from over a hundred dollars a barrel to less than $40 a barrel. That one number, the price of oil, has consequences for countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran but also for some towns here in the United States. David Kestenbaum, with our Planet Money podcast, checked in with Williston, N.D.
DAVID KESTENBAUM, BYLINE: I visited Williston three years ago. Back then Williston was this perfect example of a fracking boomtown - thousands of workers flooding into this little town to drill wells. The population had doubled, and in the early days, there was not space for everyone to sleep. Back then, Rich Vestal, who runs a supply company in town, needed some place for his new workers to stay so he bought an extra house. That's how it started.
RICH VESTAL: It was down by our old warehouse. We paid about $10,000 for it.
KESTENBAUM: Then he bought another one.
VESTAL: We bought the house right next door from the lady that lived there. She passed away so we bought it from her estate.
KESTENBAUM: Also one by the cemetery.
VESTAL: We bought 14 trailer houses up in a trailer park.
KESTENBAUM: There's more.
VESTAL: We bought some condos.
KESTENBAUM: Grand total.
VESTAL: We got 68 now.
KESTENBAUM: You own 68 houses.
VESTAL: Yep.
KESTENBAUM: One other sign of a boomtown back then - to keep all the residents happy during the cold winters, the city was planning to build this gigantic gym. By some measure or other, it was going to be one of the largest of its kind in the country, built in this tiny little town.
SHAWN WENKO: Workout facilities, golf simulators, batting cages.
KESTENBAUM: Shawn Wenko, with Williston's Economic Development Department, went over the plans with me.
WENKO: Tennis courts, racquetball courts, basketball courts. A turf field, running track. It's got three swimming pools in there.
KESTENBAUM: Three swimming pools?
WENKO: It's got three. It's got an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a dive pool and a lazy river.
KESTENBAUM: What's that?
WENKO: A kind of an inner-tubing style of river.
KESTENBAUM: Indoors, up here in North Dakota?
WENKO: Indoors, correct.
KESTENBAUM: So that was Williston, N.D., three years ago, an empire being built solely on the price of oil. The price of oil since then, of course, has plunged. To see how things are today, I called up Ward Koeser, who, when I visited, was the mayor. He was mayor for 20 years. I asked him how it feels walking around town now.
WARD KOESER: Well, it feels good, to be honest with you. I mean, I wish it was busier, don't get me wrong. I have a small business, and we certainly aren't as busy as I'd like us to be. But the town itself is doing OK.
KESTENBAUM: I remember you saying something like, everything is going to be fine as long as the price of oil doesn't drop by 50 percent. And it basically has dropped by 50 percent.
KOESER: Oh, yeah. I'll be honest with you. I never expected it to go down this low.
KESTENBAUM: The city's finances seem OK, he says. It didn't take on more debt than it could handle. Property values have dropped, he says, which is bad news if you built a big housing development. But on the flipside, visitors can now find a place to stay. The new restaurants that opened, they are still open, and for once not so crowded. The town is bigger and the population seems stable. Someone has to stick around to keep the existing wells running. Overall, he says, it is as if someone pressed a giant pause button because the oil has not run out. It is still there in the ground. It just doesn't make economic sense to be drilling so many new wells right now.
KOESER: The oil is there. Everybody knows it's there now. And it's just a matter of trying to figure out when it's going to become profitable again. But, you know, will it happen in 2017 or will it happen in 2027? I - you know, no one knows with oil, that's the challenge.
KESTENBAUM: If the price of oil goes back up, Williston could be a boomtown again. In the meantime, they do have a great new gym. Yep, it got built - lazy river and all. David Kestenbaum, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In Paris, police have killed a man who rushed into their station wearing a fake explosive belt. French authorities say they believe the man was a Moroccan named Ali Salah. This happened just as French President Francois Hollande was honoring the victims of the terrorist attacks in Paris one year ago. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports.
(MUSIC)
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: The day began with a solemn ceremony as President Francois Hollande paid tribute to the three police officers killed in last January's attacks that began at the offices of satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)
FRANCOIS HOLLANDE: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: Speaking at the city's main police precinct, Hollande told officers France owed them a debt of gratitude for putting their lives on the line to protect citizens.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)
HOLLANDE: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: The ceremony had barely ended when news channels went live with reports from another police precinct just a few miles away. A man who appeared to be wearing an explosive belt and carrying a knife had tried to get in. The Paris prosecutor says the man yelled, God is great in Arabic. Police shot him dead and a bomb expert found the belt to be a fake. The Paris prosecutor says a paper with a picture of the black flag of ISIS was found on his body.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)
HOLLANDE: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: In his speech this morning, Hollande says the country would recruit thousands more police, intelligence officers and judges to fight terrorism. France is currently in a prolonged state of emergency until March. This allows police to search homes and take people in for questioning without a warrant. Hollande wants to give police more powers even after the state of emergency ends, including loosening the rules about when they can open fire.
In Paris's 18th arrondissement where today's drama took place, streets were still blocked-off all day and local schools were on lockdown. Melina Jault is a teacher at a preschool on this street.
MELINA JAULT: (Through interpreter) We confined the kids today, just like we learned to do in all the exercises since the attacks last year. The kids weren't scared at all. They've been practicing and they were excited.
BEARDSLEY: Jeanne Toure, who emigrated to France from the Ivory Coast 30 years ago, says she loves to come shopping in this vibrant neighborhood. She just found out what happened in this street today.
JEANNE TOURE: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "Oh, my God," she says, "not again. Well, it's his fault if he got killed. You can't get around." she says. "Who are these people ruining all of our lives?"
Danielle Guibon kisses a friend goodbye as she heads to her apartment on the blocked-off street where the precinct is located.
DANIELLE GUIBON: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: The high school history teacher says everything has changed since last year's terrorist attacks and that people are sad and traumatized. But when I ask her if she lives her life differently, she lights up with a defiant smile.
GUIBON: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "Of course I live my life as usual," she says. "It would be a terrible failure not to live one's life because of these people. Parisians keep the memory of the attacks inside their heart and will never forget," Guibon says, "but we have to go on living our normal lives." Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The new movie "Carol" is a love story between two women set in 1952. It stars Cate Blanchett as society woman Carol Aird and Rooney Mara as department store saleswoman Therese Belivet.
It's based on a novel by Patricia Highsmith, originally published as "The Price Of Salt." Cate Blanchett told me she read it years ago when she was working on the thriller "The Talented Mr. Ripley," based on another of Highsmith's novels.
CATE BLANCHETT: And the interesting thing, I think, about "Price Of Salt" is that it was a very personal novel for her. It was obviously written when she was quite young under a pseudonym, so it's - if you can imagine Patricia Highsmith writing a romance, this is it.
MCEVERS: I mean, the book basically happens because, you know, Highsmith was working at a toy counter, and she sees this blonde woman in a fur coat walk into the store and just the sight of this woman immediately makes her feel something. That scene, of course, is the scene in the movie the first time we see you as Carol. You're shopping for a Christmas present for your daughter, and your character meets Therese, the young salesman who's played by Rooney Mara.
BLANCHETT: Yes.
MCEVERS: Let's listen to that scene just for a second.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CAROL")
BLANCHETT: (As Carol) I love Christmas, wrapping presents and all that. And then somehow you wind up overcooking the turkey anyway. Where'd you learn so much about train sets?
ROONEY MARA: (As Therese) Oh, I read - too much, probably.
BLANCHETT: (As Carol) That's refreshing.
MARA: (As Therese) Thank you.
BLANCHETT: (As Carol) Merry Christmas.
MARA: (As Therese) Merry Christmas.
MCEVERS: It's basically just this small talk between these two women, but there is clearly an electricity already between the two of them.
BLANCHETT: I mean, that's where it was, as an actor, it was such a blessing to sort of sit halfway between the screenplay and the novel. Because there's so many - in the novel, there's so many observations that Therese makes about Carol - the way she seems preternaturally preoccupied and the way she flicks her hair, the way she'll suddenly, midsentence, gaze off into something other outside the room that is away from Therese.
And she's constantly grasping for this almost unattainable creature. And the challenge for me - the joy for me, I think - was to try and play that ambiguity and that elusive quality that Carol has but also ground her in a reality. And this scene was one of those
MCEVERS: Carol is married to a man but is in the process of separating from him. And there are a lot of conversations right now about who should play lesbian, gay, bi and trans characters. You, yourself - you're married to a man, but you've also said that you've had relationships with women.
BLANCHETT: (Laughter) Who cares?
MCEVERS: I know - well, right. I mean, that's...
BLANCHETT: Really? I mean, what century are we in? I find it so fascinating. I mean, I just played a journalist Mary Mapes. Not one person asked me how many years of journalism school I'd undertaken or how many articles I'd written or whether you play a mother - had you actually been a mother? The whole process of being an actor is one of - it's an empathetic connection. And so you have to place yourself in someone else's shoes. And there seems to be an increasing obsession, which perhaps says a lot about the age we're in...
MCEVERS: Yeah.
BLANCHETT: ...That one can only portray what one has experienced. And certainly, I'm not at all interested in putting my life, my experience, my ideas, my politics up on the screen.
MCEVERS: Sure.
BLANCHETT: It's about, you know, the joy of living many, many different lives.
BLANCHETT: Does one need to be - have murdered to play a murderer? I mean, we all have fantasies, don't we?
MCEVERS: Sure.
One of the reasons this story has such resonance in the LGBT community is that the characters aren't portrayed as disturbed or deranged. They're not, you know, stuck in their straight relationships as other stories from this period have done.
BLANCHETT: Yeah.
MCEVERS: Is that one thing that attracted you to the story?
BLANCHETT: Yes, I mean, I - it's the slippery sexuality and morality that Patricia Highsmith writes about that is so attractive, I think. Because it's - I mean, if you look at, say, Carol's relationship with her husband, it's not clear-cut. They have been in love. They have had a child together. The relationship is complicated. You see the men as entrapped by their 1950s identities and the cookie-cutter figures they're meant to inhabit as much as the women are.
MCEVERS: Eventually, it becomes clear that Carol's husband is going to fight her for custody of their young daughter Rindy, in part because of Carol's sexuality.
Let's listen to a scene between you as Carol and her lawyer.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CAROL")
BLANCHETT: (As Carol) Can he do this? Is it right?
JOHN CROWLEY: (As Fred) I don't know if it's right, but it's legal.
BLANCHETT: (As Carol) On what grounds?
CROWLEY: (As Fred) Listen, let's wait till after Christmas to...
BLANCHETT: (As Carol) Fred, on what grounds?
CROWLEY: (As Fred) They're petitioning the judge to consider a morality clause.
BLANCHETT: (As Carol) A morality - what the hell does that mean?
MCEVERS: It's this moment where he says that and then you - it slowly starts to dawn on you. I mean you're keeping your composure while you also fall apart at the same time. That must have been so - I know that must be much harder to do than just totally falling apart.
BLANCHETT: (Laughter) Well, I mean, we do it on a daily bases. But it's - the interesting thing - and I think the important thing - people have often asked - had there been any discussion about contemporizing the setting of the film? But I think it's really important that it takes place in the 1950s because there's a sense of propriety. And not only is the love between the two women considered a criminal act, but it's also a time where one's emotions are not front and center. You don't have the right or the space to discuss or express those things. So the volcanic emotions that the women are experiencing - the rage and the injustice but also that incredible desire for one another - has no outlet.
MCEVERS: And the ending of the film is surprising. I mean, we're not going to give it away.
BLANCHETT: (Laughter).
MCEVERS: But it's one of these moments where you're not saying anything. And your face - there's a lot of different choices you could make. You could do a - you know, leave us with a lot of ambiguity or you could sort of give us a more definitive this-is-how-it-ends face.
And I feel like you went with the slightly more definitive version. How did you make that decision? Again, did you go back to the novel?
BLANCHETT: Oh, it's interesting because some lesbian friends of mine and have said, oh, this is going to be rocky.
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
BLANCHETT: And then another lesbian friend of mine said that was great that it had a happy ending. I think I wanted to keep it as open as possible, you know, so that people could read it whichever way, you know.
MCEVERS: (Laughter) That funny because after some of the storms that I had seen pass on your face before, this would - this was a moment...
BLANCHETT: Relatively pleasant (laughter).
MCEVERS: Right. Where this is a moment where Carol seems just a little more settled into at least something, at least this is the next chapter.
BLANCHETT: Yes. I mean, I think I wanted to create a sense of - are you ready? - whether that's ready for - well, the challenge, really. And just to remember what Rooney has done throughout the whole film and then to see this very subtle process of maturing - it is an astonishing walk that she makes towards Carol. Did I just give that away?
MCEVERS: No, I don't think so. She makes a walk.
BLANCHETT: OK. Positively or - who knows what's going to happen?
(LAUGHTER)
MCEVERS: Exactly. And we don't know.
BLANCHETT: It's a tricky thing, isn't it? Talking about a film or a book or an exhibition is that it's so personal, isn't it? And I'm always cautious to not sort of interfere too much with an audience's experience.
MCEVERS: Well, thank you very much a Cate Blanchett.
BLANCHETT: Thank you.
MCEVERS: Cate Blanchett stars in the new film "Carol."
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
New research seems to support what some teachers and parents have been saying for years - kindergarten has become the new first grade. That means more time spent on reading and math and less time for the arts, science and just play. Elissa Nadworny of the NPR Ed team has the story.
ELISSA NADWORNY, BYLINE: Twenty years ago, only 30 percent of kindergarten teachers said reading was important in their classroom. Today, it's a different story.
MARISA MCGEE: So what are some of the things that the monsters like to eat in this story? Yes?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: They like to eat cake.
NADWORNY: Three girls with beads and braids are in a guided reading group with kindergarten teacher Marisa McGee. They're discussing the book "What Do Monsters Eat?" at Walker Jones Elementary in Washington, D.C.
MCGEE: I noticed you answered in a complete sentence. Can you tell us something else?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: They like to eat stinky socks.
MCGEE: They like to eat stinky socks. Can you show me the page where you found that?
NADWORNY: Textual evidence and complete sentences in kindergarten. McGee says it's not what she expected when she changed classrooms.
MCGEE: When I came into kindergarten down from first grade, I was like, yes, what can I order for dramatic play? And I was told, oh, kindergartners don't do dramatic play anymore.
NADWORNY: A new study finds lots of classrooms making the shift away from play. Researchers at the University of Virginia compared surveys for more than 2,500 kindergarten and first grade teachers given in 1998 and 2010. Study author Daphna Bassok says teachers reported working on skills that were much more advanced than what they were doing in 1998 with a big focus on literacy and math. At the same time, she says...
DAPHNA BASSOK: We saw drops in the time they were spending on any art activities, music activities, kind of applied experiences and also science activities like dinosaurs or outer space or things like that.
NADWORNY: Another big change since 1998 - many more teachers in 2010 expected students to know the alphabet and how to count to 10 before stepping into a kindergarten classroom. The vast majority also expected students to read by the end of the year. Bassok says there are some good reasons for this. Many more students in 2010 came to kindergarten from preschool. Also in 1998, the federal No Child Left Behind law hadn't yet passed. Bassok says teachers in 2010 felt pressure from the law's emphasis on testing. So are these shifts inherently bad?
SONJA SANTELISES: Let's not over-romanticize what was going on in urban classrooms previous to these discussions.
NADWORNY: That's Sonja Santelises, VP for K-12 policy and practice at The Education Trust.
SANTELISES: People are going to interpret learning to read in kindergarten as the evil when that's not really the issue.
NADWORNY: The issue, she says, is how to shrink the achievement gap and that it doesn't have to come at the expense of fun.
SANTELISES: Rigor does not have to mean, you know, kids are beat down and are like worker bees.
NADWORNY: Now, she says, the challenge is getting teachers the tools they need to make instruction both rigorous and fun, a balance teachers like McGee are trying to strike, sneaking in a little play with a little reading and math.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (Singing) You check, check, check your work before you turned it in, happily, happily, happily, happily in the finished bin.
NADWORNY: Elissa Nadworny, NPR News, Washington.
MCGEE: One, two three.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (Singing) Clap, clap, clap...
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
An American Green Beret died in Afghanistan this week. Staff Sgt. Matthew McClintock was 30. He leaves behind a wife and infant son. McClintock was there to train and advise, but he died fighting the Taliban alongside Afghan troops. As NPR's Tom Bowman reports, American forces are increasingly being drawn into the fight.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: McClintock and his fellow Green Berets went to Marjah Helmand province, a town grimly familiar to American troops. Dozens of Marines were killed there five years ago. And since then, the Taliban have slipped back in. So the Americans once again came to help. In the gun battle that killed McClintock on Tuesday, two other Americans were wounded, along with three Afghan troops.
DAVE BARNO: They are forward deployed with commando units, and they're very much in the thick of these fights.
BOWMAN: That's retired Lt. Gen. Dave Barno, who once led U.S. forces in Afghanistan and now teaches at American University.
BARNO: Special operations forces are going to be very much in the thick of this coming battle, whether we want to talk about it that way or not.
BOWMAN: But administration officials choose their words carefully when they talk about it. That's because, back in October, President Obama insisted America's combat mission was over, and Afghan troops were now in the lead.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: Our forces, therefore, remain engaged in two narrow but critical missions - training Afghan forces and supporting counterterrorism operations against the remnants of al-Qaida.
BOWMAN: Al-Qaida, not the Taliban. But it appears that training mission is becoming more of a partnering effort with Afghan forces battling Taliban fighters. And that makes things more difficult for officials like Pentagon spokesman Peter Cook. He was asked this question by a reporter - does the combat mission continue for American troops? He said they were in harm's way. Two days later, he was asked again.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PETER COOK: This was clearly a combat situation. They are - their mission is to assist the Afghan forces, to train, advise and assist. They play a support role, but they are - they're able to defend themselves and at risk, as we have seen, painfully, in this particular instance.
BOWMAN: This week's firefight by American and Afghan commandos in Marjah was not the first. Back in October, American special operators headed to Kunduz after the Taliban seized the northern city and scattered the police force. The Afghan troops needed American help once more. The top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Campbell, described what happened next. It wasn't a narrow mission. Afghan commandos streamed into a police compound in Kunduz with American special operations forces, known as SOF.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN CAMPBELL: By the early morning hours of October 3, U.S. SOF at the compound had been engaged in heavy fighting for nearly five consecutive days and nights.
BOWMAN: Heavy fighting for five days and nights - that's not unusual. Throughout the country, the Taliban are gaining ground. Casualties are increasing by double digits among Afghan forces. Dave Barno, the retired general, said it's likely more American troops will be drawn into such battles.
BARNO: So I think the American people are grown up enough to accept this if we're willing to talk about it honestly by our political leadership. And that's, unfortunately, not entirely been the case so far.
BOWMAN: There's still time for that talk. The traditional fighting season doesn't even begin for another three months. Tom Bowman, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Questions about the U.S. refugee screening program are surfacing again. This, after two Iraqi-born men were arrested on terrorism-related charges in Texas and California. They came to this country as refugees. Republicans in Congress are pushing for changes in the system, and two Republican governors have now sued the federal government over the resettlement of refugees. The latest lawsuit comes from Alabama, which is seeking details about refugees placed within its borders. NPR's Debbie Elliott has the story.
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, BYLINE: Republican Governor Robert Bentley says the refugees arrested yesterday are proof the system is broken. He says the Obama administration is blatantly excluding the states from critical information about refugees.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)
ROBERT BENTLEY: I cannot do my job as governor of protecting the people of this state and making them secure if we don't know who is coming into our state.
ELLIOTT: The lawsuit alleges the federal government is in violation of the Refugee Act of 1980 by not consulting with state and local governments about refugees settled within their borders. Texas filed a similar lawsuit late last year. After the November attacks in Paris, Bentley and several other governors opposed the settlement of Syrian refugees in their states. Bentley issued an executive order to block them. He says the new lawsuit is not about Syrian refugees or any individuals but about fixing a flawed process. It asks for a complete file on refugees and a certification that they pose no security risk.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)
BENTLEY: The purpose of our lawsuit is to make sure that any refugee that comes into Alabama, they notify us on the front end so that we know who they are, where they are, where they're going to go and so that we can track these individuals. Not to try to harm them in any way but just to make sure that these individuals do not bring in any type of terrorist act or any kind of communicable disease.
CECILLIA WANG: The state of Alabama just has the law completely wrong.
ELLIOTT: Cecillia Wang is director of the national ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project.
WANG: They're completely wrong on the law and are trying to turn our national refugee resettlement policy into a political football.
ELLIOTT: The Justice Department declined to comment on the Alabama lawsuit, but in a court filing in response to the Texas case, the Justice Department said the federal government has exclusive constitutional authority over immigration. The Obama administration said the refugee law does not create any obligation to provide advanced consultation regarding individual settlement decisions. Lavinia Limon is president of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, one of the organizations that resettles refugees. She's troubled by the idea that states could be privy to private information and then be able to track refugee movement.
LAVINIA LIMON: Refugees are, once they land in the United States, are legally admitted and are legal residents. And as such, just like you and I, they can live wherever they want to.
ELLIOTT: Limon says she believes fear is motivating the lawsuits. She calls it unfounded given that only about a hundred or so refugees a year are settled in Alabama, and none of them thus far has been from Syria. Debbie Elliott, NPR News, Orange Beach, Ala.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
For the first time since World War II, you can walk into a bookstore in Germany and buy a copy of Adolf Hitler's autobiography, "Mein Kampf," or, my struggle. The new annotated edition points out historical inaccuracies. It includes critical commentary on the original version's role in Nazi atrocities. But as NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports from Berlin, many Germans don't want the manifesto reprinted at all.
SORAYA SARHADDI NELSON, BYLINE: It's hard to imagine "Mein Kampf," becoming a German best-seller, at least not here in the German capital.
At Berlin's largest bookstore, called Dussmann, there is only one copy of the annotated reprint on the shelf. That shelf, which is for books dealing with Nazism, is located on a back wall of the top floor. Even so, the fact any version of "Mein Kampf," is for sale irritates many Dussmann customers, including Ulrich Ripke.
ULRICH RIPKE: (Speaking German).
NELSON: He calls it rubbish and says reprints should be limited to books that are worth reading, which Hitler's book isn't. Customer Karl-Sigurd Hesse says he won't buy a copy either. But the Madison, Wis., native says it's OK for the Nazi-era best-seller to be sold in bookstores now that a Bavarian ban on reprinting "Mein Kampf," that had been in effect since 1945 has expired.
KARL-SIGURD HESSE: This is a really bad analogy, but book burning is book burning whether you do it through a law or whether you do it personally.
NELSON: His German wife, Sieglind, shoots him a worried glance.
SIEGLIND: (Speaking German).
HESSE: (Speaking German).
NELSON: She asks him, "we don't plan to read it, right?" Hesse assures her they won't. Historian Magnus Brechtken says there's no reason to be concerned about the annotated version being published by his Institute for Contemporary History in Munich. He points out that Hitler's autobiography long been available online, at many antique bookshops and even in some libraries.
MAGNUS BRECHTKEN: It was never a forbidden book. It was only forbidden to reprint it in German. So what we are doing is just giving anyone who is interested in "Mein Kampf," the necessary information to counter, so to speak, the misinformation which is deriving from having only the copy itself.
NELSON: For example, Hitler claimed in the book that he became an anti-Semite while he lived in Vienna. Brechtken the Fuehrer's hatred of Jews didn't develop until later in post-World War I Munich. Brechtken says another inaccuracy is Hitler's claim that the Weimar Republic government mistreated crippled World War I veterans. The historian says it was the Nazis who actually killed thousands of those veterans years later. Brechtken says "Mein Kampf," is the only book from the Nazi era for which there has been no annotated version.
BRECHTKEN: And we are just filling this gap, so to speak, so that there is full overview on this historical text.
NELSON: Josef Schuster, who heads the Jewish Central Council in Germany, says he plans to read the annotated reprint.
JOSEF SCHUSTER: (Speaking German).
NELSON: The German Jewish leader says he doesn't think the reprint is going to find a big following, but he says far right factions that embrace anti-Semitic and anti-foreigner views could try and use it to promote their agenda. He says while "Mein Kampf," may have been available before, reprinting it will make it more accessible. Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, NPR News, Berlin.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Kelly McEvers.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And I'm Audie Cornish.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM TRAILER, "STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS")
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (As narrator) There's been an awakening. Have you felt it?
CORNISH: Fans have felt it. "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" has already broken all sorts of box office records around the world. Just this week, it beat "Avatar" as the fastest highest-grossing film in the U.S. So, J.J. Abrams, is the pressure finally off now?
J.J. ABRAMS: (Laughter). I feel enormous relief that this movie's finally out in the world.
CORNISH: J.J. Abrams is, of course, the director of the new "Star Wars" movie. He joins us now from NPR West for what I'm afraid to say is definitely not a spoiler-free conversation.
J.J. Abrams, welcome to the program.
ABRAMS: Thanks for having me.
CORNISH: Have you actually taken a moment to, like, go to the movies yourself and, like, sit in an audience?
ABRAMS: We went on the opening weekend, a group of us went out and just popped into a couple theaters just to see people in the theater watching the movie, and it was incredibly gratifying just to see the thing out there being watched by people. And the reaction was more than we could've expected.
CORNISH: At the same time, people have commented on the look of it, maybe made the critique that it's almost too retro and too faithful to kind of the nostalgia people have for the earlier films.
ABRAMS: Well, you know, going into any project, especially with a fan base as vocal and passionate as something as "Star Wars," you will have groups of people who will find issues with whatever it is you're doing. But our job was to tell the best story we could about characters that we loved, and we knew that we needed to go backwards to go forwards, and we needed to go back to a feeling and a place and a time. And I think that the success of the film is as much about it being something that families could share as anything else. And the parents who knew "Star Wars" could take kids and feel like they've gone back to a place that is familiar and yet found brand-new characters that took them somewhere they'd never been. And it was important me that we embrace that feeling, and you can call it retro, but I think it's what "Star Wars" is.
CORNISH: You have developed a kind of expertise in this, right? I mean, people have responded well to these films and all of these franchises. And, you know, with "Star Wars," for instance, and the storm trooper being played by John Boyega, you know, that was sort of a bit of "Star Wars" you could mess with because they don't take off their helmets so it seemed to be on the list of, like, mess with that, (laughter), you know? And then you do something like, kill Han Solo. And I wonder, how do you, (laughter), you know, make that kind of decision?
ABRAMS: Well, we knew that we wanted to tell a story that made bold choices, and one of those bold choices was meeting a storm trooper and seeing who this person was. That's something that had never been done. You know, we didn't want to kill anyone, but we knew that "Star Wars" is a generational tale. It always is. And for it to have some guts and some resonance and true stakes, I don't think that everyone could have come through the story unscathed.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS")
JOHN BOYEGA: (As Finn) We can't outrun them.
DAISY RIDLEY: (As Rey) We might. In that quad jumper.
BOYEGA: (As Finn) We need a pilot.
RIDLEY: (As Rey) We've got one.
CORNISH: So I feel like we see a lot of evidence of your touch in the casting. Can you talk a little bit about having a young black actor as a storm trooper, say, with John Boyega, or Daisy Ridley, right, as this very key scrappy young scavenger, Rey, who really holds her own?
ABRAMS: Well, when Kathy Kennedy, who is the president of Lucasfilm, came to me to ask if I'd be interested in working on this "Star Wars" movie, we talked about a young woman at the center of the story from the outset. And it was something that was always an important part of this movie. So when working on casting this movie and finding someone like Daisy, who - she's like, if sunshine was talented, and John Boyega, who is seemingly limitless in his ability - to get these two unique faces at the center of this movie was kind of a great find - and Oscar Isaac and Adam Driver. We were just very lucky to put together this incredible group. And it was really important to me - and I know it was to Kathy as well - that we make this movie look more the way the world looks than not and that we didn't write any character to look a certain way. We didn't know that Finn would be black or that Poe would be a Latino actor. We just - we knew we wanted this movie to feel inclusive. And I'm really happy that kids of color and girls can see that there isn't a place where they're not important, where they're not valued and needed, and it was exciting to do that in the "Star Wars" universe.
CORNISH: What kind of conversations or response have you had in the last few weeks to comments from George Lucas about the film? I mean, putting aside he already had to sort of apologize for this analogy he made comparing the "Star Wars" movies to his kids and Disney to white slavers, but he's also kind of said, like, look, this is a retro movie and I want to make movies that are different - different planets, different spaceships, make it new.
ABRAMS: You know, look, George Lucas is the reason that we got to make this movie, you know, he was the man that created this whole galaxy, and I am incredibly grateful to him. He's an artist and he's a grown-up. And I take him at his word, and it doesn't mean I agree with everything he says, but I respect, you know, his right to his opinion.
CORNISH: Now, you produced two films I really, really enjoyed - "Cloverfield" in 2008 and directed "Super 8" in 2011. And they were original movies, kind of sci-fi thrillers. I think it's OK to say they're alien movies, right?
ABRAMS: (Laughter).
CORNISH: But fewer movies are being made like that, you know, or even drawing an audience when they are. What is the lesson to take from this? I mean, can original storytelling survive?
ABRAMS: Oh, well, I think that the reason you keep hearing that it's the golden age of TV is because original storytelling is happening all the time in that medium, and people are hungry for it. And I'm as guilty as anyone for being part of an industry that is capitalizing on existing stories, sequels, these things that we are seeing again and again and again.
CORNISH: Yeah, I was reading, there were 27 films last year based on kind of previously existing characters or properties. Next year, there are going to be 40.
ABRAMS: Really? (Laughter) Oh, my Lord.
CORNISH: For a guy like you, are you basically better off doing reboots and sequels?
ABRAMS: Well, I'm done with that.
CORNISH: Oh, really?
ABRAMS: Well, I've done them and I'm so grateful, and I feel like when - when Kathy Kennedy asked if I would do "Star Wars," my knee-jerk reaction was no thank you because I didn't want to jump into another sequel. But of course because of what this was and the opportunity and the people involved, it was almost an impossible thing for me to not to sign on. But I do think that at a certain point, the reboot sequel mode has to give way to original ideas and back to a place where, you know, films are, you know, a medium and the cinema is a place you go to see something that is, you know, wholly new.
CORNISH: So J.J. Abrams, what is next? What kind of story would you like to tell?
ABRAMS: Honestly I'm excited about the possibilities of what comes next, and the funny thing is, that is sort of what "Star Wars" is kind of about. I mean, I remember being 10 years old and seeing that movie and leaving the theater and feeling like, oh, my God, anything is possible. And I feel like anything is possible right now. I don't know what's next, but I look forward to it.
CORNISH: J.J. Abrams. He's the director of "Star Wars: The Force Awakens."
Thank you for speaking with us.
ABRAMS: My pleasure, thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
When this news first broke today, some people thought it might be a hoax. It's not. The drug kingpin known as El Chapo is in custody again. He escaped six months ago from a maximum-security prison in Mexico. NPR's Carrie Kahn is on the line from Mexico City.
And Carrie, what do we know so far?
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Well, we're seeing a lot of images of Guzman on Mexican TV alive and in custody. He was captured this morning in the city of Los Mochis, which is in his home state of Sinaloa which also bears the name of his cartel which is one of the largest and most powerful in Mexico and in many parts of the world. And there was a shootout with Marines in Los Mochis this morning. Five people were killed and a Marine was injured. Authorities also confiscated an amazing arsenal during the arrest of the drug kingpin. And as you said, the news of Guzman's capture was made by the president himself via Twitter. And he tweeted this afternoon, mission accomplished - we got him. And so there was some skepticism over this tweet, but his capture has been confirmed by various agencies including the U.S. DEA.
Chapo's arrest earlier this year was a great victory for the president and not only - and then it was only to become a huge embarrassment when Chapo escaped through this unbelievable tunnel right out of the cell in a maximum security prison.
MCEVERS: Right. I mean, what's the Mexican government going to do with El Chapo Guzman now? I think they won't send him back to that same prison.
KAHN: That is the million-dollar question, what are they going to do with him? It's just - we've seen him being shipped, taken away, with a towel over his head and stuffed into a small plane on his way here to Mexico City. What happens now is for great discussion. There is an extradition order in place from the U.S., but in Mexican law, there are still some legal maneuvers and Chapo's lawyers can do a lot before he's on that plane to the U.S. so...
MCEVERS: And, very quickly, Carrie, this is the third time he's been captured, right?
KAHN: Yes, it is, and just - he got out six months ago. So we'll see where they're going to put him and how they're going to hold onto him until they decide that extradition question. That's what everybody's talking about right now in Mexico.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's Carrie Kahn in Mexico City.
Thanks very much.
KAHN: You're welcome.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In Philadelphia, the police commissioner says it's a miracle that an officer survived an attack last night. The officer was shot in his squad car last night. And the suspect, Edward Archer, was taken into custody immediately after the incident. This is being investigated as a possible terrorist attack. Reporter Bobby Allyn of member station WHYY joins us with more. And, Bobby, what did police say about how this unfolded?
BOBBY ALLYN, BYLINE: So surveillance footage depicts the officer, Jesse Hartnett, driving in west Philadelphia in his squad car around 11:40 last night when a suspect started shooting. The shooter's been identified as Edward Archer. And he was wearing a white, kind of sheer robe and fired 13 times as he approached the driver side of the car. After the officer returned fire, the suspect fled and then was taken into custody shortly after. The officer was hit three times and sustained a broken arm and nerve damage in the barrage of fire but is now in stable condition.
CORNISH: Why is this being investigated as a possible terrorist attack?
ALLYN: Well, right now, it's important to emphasize that the case is riddled with unknowns. Under questioning, Archer told investigators that he attacked in the name of Islam, but that connection shouldn't be overblown at this point in the investigation. Local reports are saying that his name was not immediately known to local imams. So the extent of even his religion is kind of sketchy right now. And it really speaks to a point underscored by Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney that the shooting shouldn't be seen as representative of Muslims or the faith of Islam. And again, no direct link to a terrorist organization has been established so far.
CORNISH: Is there any more known about Archer at this point?
ALLYN: The - kind of a rough sketch is slowly emerging of him. He has a criminal history, has been convicted of charges, including assault, and actually had a court date, a sentencing hearing, scheduled for this coming Monday on another incident. His mother has said that he's been hearing voices in his head and acting peculiar lately, but why and what's been going on in his life lately is still largely unknown.
CORNISH: That's the suspect's mom speaking to a newspaper.
ALLYN: Yeah, exactly.
CORNISH: Where does the investigation go from here?
ALLYN: Well, state and federal authorities are still kind of in the evidence-gathering stage right now, so much more could emerge in the coming weeks. But charges are very likely forthcoming, though prosecutors won't yet elaborate on what exactly Archer might be facing.
CORNISH: That's WHYY's Bobby Allyn. Bobby, thank you.
ALLYN: Thank you so much.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
There's still no resolution to the armed occupation of a national wildlife refuge in Oregon. The militants there say they are protesting the imprisonment of two local ranchers. They say they'll stay on the refuge until all federal land in the county is under local control. To help us understand why the federal government owns and manages so much public land in the West, we're joined by NPR's Kirk Siegler. He's at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon. And, Kirk, to get past the rhetoric of the militants and understand why their cause has gotten some support where you are, give us a little history. I mean, how did the federal government end up owning so much land in the West?
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Sure. Well, Kelly, answering this involves literally a tangle of treaties, land swaps, backdoor business deals that go back more than a century. A lot of the territory in this region was once part of Mexico. It then later ended up under U.S. government control. And unlike in a lot of the East, the federal government retained control of most of the public lands out here. When these territories became states, there was this sense that there were so many timberlands and ranges were being carved up and developed. And really beginning under Present Teddy Roosevelt, we saw the government trying to keep control of what it owned and begin to balance all of this for a lot of different uses. Case in point - the wildlife refuge in question that's now in the international spotlight that I'm talking to you from - you know, this is surrounded by, and in places, mixed with land. Originally, the Native Americans were here, then came the cattle barons up from California, as well as the homesteading ranchers. And you can imagine we've got a lot of competing ideas and interests. You had these for so long, and they are still brewing and still very heated today.
MCEVERS: You talk about Teddy Roosevelt - I mean, how does this whole independent streak that a lot of people in the West identify with play into this conflict right now?
SIEGLER: This plays into almost everything we're talking about it here. It's huge. I mean, just consider how remote and sparsely populated Harney County is. It's a three-and-a-half hours drive. It took me three-and-a-half hours to get over here from Boise. It's a very harsh landscape, but people love it, and they're very proud to live out here. And they feel very independent, and you can imagine why. I mean, there's this geographical divide, if nothing else. Washington, D.C., from here seems like a world away. Now, the relationship is tricky. It's complicated because ranchers do get federal subsidies. They get disaster assistance and help with, you know, things like predator control. But locals out here do feel this sense that they're being either pushed off the land or somehow their voices aren't being heard in decisions that are made a long ways away.
MCEVERS: I mean, we're almost a week into this armed occupation at the refuge where you are. What's the latest?
SIEGLER: Well, yesterday, the sheriff met with Ammon Bundy at a very, very remote location, not here at the refuge. He offered to escort him out of the county. Ammon Bundy again told us today that he's not ready to do that. He did say that he plans to leave and his followers plan to leave as, quote, "free men." And, you know, it was a pretty tense atmosphere, actually - one of the more tense atmospheres. There's a daily news conference here. At the end of the press conference, some environmentalists who had driven down from Montana kind of crashed it. And I watched kind of what appeared to be a truck racing after them as they were chased out of here. I mean, it's a very tense situation here still. In the broader community, there's a lot of anxiety. Remember that there are a lot of locals who actually work for the federal government. And so I think there's a lot of people that want this resolved and resolved quickly and peacefully.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's Kirk Siegler. Kirk, thanks so much.
SIEGLER: Glad to do it.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Travelers from five states got a reprieve today. Those states' driver's licenses do not meet federal security standards. The Department of Homeland Security had been hinting that it would start rejecting those licenses as proper identification at airport checkpoints. But now, DHS says it will give those states two more years to get on board. NPR's Brian Naylor reports.
BRIAN NAYLOR, BYLINE: The federal standards were set by Congress as part of the Real ID Act, which passed back in 2005. It's aimed at making it harder for terrorists to get valid government IDs. People now are supposed to show their birth certificates and U.S. citizenship before getting a driver's license. In addition, the licenses must contain a digital picture, be tamperproof and be readable by a machine. And all of this data is supposed to be available to be shared with other states. And that's where the objections start.
WARREN LIMMER: We take our data privacy very seriously in this state.
NAYLOR: That's Minnesota State Sen. Warren Limmer, a Republican. He was the lead sponsor of a law approved by the state legislature in 2009 that prohibits Minnesota from complying with the Real ID Act. Minnesota is one of five states that are still not in compliance with the law and that have not been given waivers by the Department of Homeland Security. Today, the department said it is giving those states, which also include Illinois, Missouri, Washington and New Mexico, two more years to comply with the law, meaning residents could no longer use their driver's licenses to board flights after January 2018. Warren Limmer says he thinks the federal officials have their priorities wrong.
LIMMER: Now we're more concerned about the efficiency of getting on an airliner rather than protecting the data privacy rights of our citizens. And I'm somewhat taken aback because, quite honestly, I think the federal government is using a heavy club to bring the states into submission.
NAYLOR: There have been other objections to the Real ID Act. Critics like Jim Harper of the Libertarian Cato Institute say Real ID is akin to a national ID card.
JIM HARPER: A national ID is antithetical to American values. It would plunge us forward even further and faster into the surveillance state that we're already adopting quite well enough on our own.
NAYLOR: And he says it makes little sense to entrust the federal government with more personal information at a time when hackers have proven their ability to steal data from government computers. Homeland Security insists Real ID is not a national ID card. In a statement issued this afternoon, Homeland Security stressed no one needs to adjust travel plans or rush out to get a new driver's license or passport. Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson is urging government leaders in those states that are not in compliance with Real ID to use the two years to change their laws, adding it's time to move toward final compliance. One final note - driver's licenses from those five noncompliant states will not be sufficient for people who wish to access federal facilities, including military bases, starting this Sunday. You'll have to bring a passport or other acceptable ID. Brian Naylor, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
It was an interesting week in politics with lots of examples of how the presidential campaign is heating up, so let's get right to it. Our Friday regulars are here - David Brooks of The New York Times and E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post. Good to see you both.
DAVID BROOKS, BYLINE: Good to see you.
E J DIONNE, BYLINE: Good to be with you.
MCEVERS: I want to talk first about New Hampshire - the Republican primaries next month - again, a lot of campaigning going on. E. J., you just got back from New Hampshire. You spent some time with Marco Rubio. What struck you about him?
DIONNE: Well, what's really striking about Rubio now, since the first of the year, really, is that a guy who was known for optimism and youthfulness and thinking America can really lick his problems has been very gloomy. I - we saw him at a lovely event in a classic living room event in Bedford, N.H., where he just sounded like he was channeling Trump a little bit and Cruz a little bit in terms of all that has gone wrong with Obama. He quoted voters saying, this doesn't look like my country anymore, I don't recognize America and so on. Now, I think one of the things this represents is the fact that this idea of candidates running in political lanes, you know - the Trump lane and the right-wing lane and the center-right lane - that exists in the minds of journalists and regretted pundits. It doesn't exist in the mind of voters. And in that room, I noticed - I talked to voters who were choosing between Rubio, who's usually put in the establishment lane, but they were picking between Rubio and Trump or Rubio and Cruz. And I also think this reflects the fact that Rubio is very worried about Cruz, that Cruz has taken some real leaps forward. He's even ahead in a poll out in California, where there's been no campaign to speak of. But it also, I think, should tell the pundits to be careful about not applying our categories to actual human beings.
MCEVERS: Well, David, I mean, it is helpful, though, sometimes to think about lanes, right, because we got the Trump lane, right, which is sort of a lane in and of itself, and then there's the more establishment lane. And the reason it's helpful to think about it, right, is if Trump does win New Hampshire, the person who comes in second place - that's important because that's the person who the establishment could coalesce around and then say this is the, you know, the...
BROOKS: Not if it's Ted Cruz.
MCEVERS: (Laughter) Right, OK.
BROOKS: Yeah, I think E. J.'s right. The voters do have not quite the same lanes, and so I'm not sure I totally believe in lanes. I do believe in souls though, and people have different identities. And I've rarely seen an inauthentic candidate win. And so Ted Cruz is being authentic. He is authentically nasty, egomaniacal, combative. If you watch his speeches, he wants to stomp on those people, bomb those people, shoot those people. That's authentic to him. It's not authentic to Marco Rubio. And so he was the candidate of a tendency which has been eclipsed called reform conservatism, which was actually about programs and policies and improving your life. And I would go back to that if I were him. I think he's making a big mistake in being un-himself. And, as I say, I rarely see an inauthentic candidate win.
MCEVERS: I mean, there's been some criticism of Rubio lately, right? That he doesn't seem like a candidate right now who really wants this, that he's not getting out there and making personal contacts, especially with folks in New Hampshire in, say, the way Chris Christie is doing. E. J., did you see that? I mean, did you see that he's committed to this?
DIONNE: Well, he certainly looked very committed at this event. He was talking to voters. I broadly agree with what David said, by the way. I think that inauthenticity - you get caught out because the process is very, very long. But tactically, he may be doing what he has to do. What he hasn't done is the amount of - the number of town meetings that both Chris Christie and John Kasich have done. And Jeb Bush has actually done quite a lot of those. And so in that sense, he is playing catch-up. I think one of the biggest surprises so far is the resurrection of Chris Christie. He's really put himself back in the race by running in New Hampshire as if he were running for governor of New Hampshire, which is how you have to do it. And I think the sure sign that Christie is getting somewhere is he's come under a lot of attack from a lot of the candidates, but so also has Rubio. I think a lot of the candidates are worried about him, too.
MCEVERS: Right. David, sense that Christie could come ahead of Trump?
BROOKS: No.
(LAUGHTER)
BROOKS: I don't have that sense. I've been wrong before. But, you know, Christie works because he's a genius for political formulation. I remember watching John McCain do this in 2008, where he was in - his campaign was dead. And he did what Christie was doing, and it totally worked for him. But McCain also had just a genius for being spontaneous with playing political jazz. I don't think Rubio has that. I, by the way, think the big events of the - on the campaign is just the rise of Cruz. I do think we're beginning to see Trump either sealing out or fade. Rubio not taking off the way some of us thought he would...
MCEVERS: Yeah.
BROOKS: ...and it really - lanes - let's use that word - opening up for Cruz to go straight to the nomination. I think that's a prospect we got to see a little more than at least I thought a few weeks ago.
MCEVERS: Well, let's look ahead a bit. Obama is president. Obama's eighth and final State of the Union is on Tuesday. It sounds like, rather than focusing on a legislative agenda, it's going to be a more sort of thematic and future-oriented speech in. One message we know that they've - the Obama administration's been testing this week is guns. He gave a very emotional speech. E. J., is this a different moment on guns?
DIONNE: I think it's the beginning of a different moment on guns. I mean, if you look at this just narrowly legislatively, obviously this Republican Congress is not going to do very much. And there's a structural problem that advocates of background checks and other forms of reform have, which is that the Senate is gerrymandered by the Constitution to favor rural states - equal representation of New York and South Dakota, say. That's problematic. But I think you're - you've seen a level of frustration on the reform side, on the gun-control side that you've never seen before, and people aren't as afraid of the NRA. They're not trimming the way they used to. And I think it was - what was, in a way, most important about that speech by President Obama is he talked about voting on guns. He talked about organizing. And it's sort of saying that supporters of gun reform have to be as smart politically as the NRA has been, and I think you're finally seeing something break on this.
MCEVERS: David?
BROOKS: If they want it to break, they have to make it not a cultural issue. The problem is it's not really about guns for a lot of people. It's - I'm rural; are you city people insulting my lifestyle?
MCEVERS: Yeah.
BROOKS: And so if they change that language, which would take a long time, then possibly you could get something done.
DIONNE: But, of course, that's always been the language imposed by the gun lobby. And I think that supporters of reform have never been effective at fighting that language, but I don't think that's - was an invention of people who want gun control.
BROOKS: Yeah. I support every piece of gun control legislation you can imagine. I just don't think it will do much good. I mean, the research has shown that it had - controlling guns, even in a radical way, can reduce suicides, and that's a great thing. It doesn't seem to have a huge effect on homicide rates because there are 300 million guns in this country.
MCEVERS: Looking forward to the State of the Union speech, quickly, what do you think Obama needs to accomplish here, if anything? It's his last one.
DIONNE: I think he's - this is about the future, about how people are going to look at him. I think he's got another shot at explaining his policy on ISIS, which I think is important. And I think he wants to lay down some markers on inequality.
BROOKS: Yeah. And I would just say be a little optimistic, which is what he says he's going to be. People are so down on this country, whether you're Bernie Sanders or Donald Trump. That's just crazy. We have a better economy than just about anybody in the world. The society's in - you know, we have our troubles like we always do, but look at what's happening in China. Look at the Middle East. Look at Europe. We're in better shape than just about any place I can see on the planet, and so a little optimism would actually be realistic in this context.
DIONNE: And David is too optimistic to run in a Republican primary this year.
(LAUGHTER)
MCEVERS: That's E. J. Dionne of The Washington Post and David Brooks for The New York Times. Thank you both so much.
BROOKS: Thank you.
DIONNE: Good to be with you.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
With this week's rough stock market performance, Americans needed some assurance that the economy is still on track. That came today in the monthly jobs report. The Labor Department said in December employers added roughly 300,000 jobs. NPR's John Ydstie reports.
JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: China worries have been at the center of this whirlwind. Its stock market sold off this week, and its currency fell as concerns mounted about a slowdown in its economy. U.S. investors feared China's problems could threaten growth here, too. But the report that the U.S. economy added 292,000 jobs in December demonstrates the staying power of U.S. growth, says Rob Martin, chief U.S. economist at Barclays Investment Bank.
ROB MARTIN: We feel confident that the economy is in a great spot, and it is very likely to withstand any kind of headwinds coming from turbulence in the Chinese economy.
YDSTIE: While some U.S. exporters could be hurt, Martin thinks the money U.S. consumers save from lower prices for imported Chinese goods will boost economic activity and more than offset any drag on U.S. growth. Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, says there's another positive sign in this report.
DEAN BAKER: Many of the people who dropped out of the labor force may now finally be coming back.
YDSTIE: The labor force grew by almost 470,000 workers in December after a big gain in November. That suggests workers have more confidence that the economy will provide them a job. One negative in the jobs report today was wages. They were flat in December. Baker says they're not growing at a healthy pace because there are still millions of people out of work who are competing for jobs. And there are other concerns, says Baker. Many economists have trimmed their estimates for U.S. growth because of data showing a slowdown in manufacturing and construction.
BAKER: So I worry that we might see some slowing of the economy, and, of course, the fallout from China would be another factor. So that's one issue. The other is the response of the Fed.
YDSTIE: After today's strong jobs report, many economists are predicting the Fed will remain on track to boost interest rates another full percentage point during 2016. Baker fears that could slow economic growth, hurt job seekers and deprive workers of higher wages. John Ydstie, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Laurie Harvey works with people who aren't usually counted in the official unemployment numbers. She is president and CEO of the Center for Work Education and Employment. It's an organization that helps low income, single parents get jobs. And she joins us from Denver, Colo. Laurie, tell us why parents that you work with aren't counted in these numbers.
LAURIE HARVEY: Well, the parents that we're working with are receiving public assistance or TANF, which is Temporary Assistance to Needy Families, so most of them have not been employed long enough to have received unemployment. So the unemployment figures and the employment figures are built off of those who have received unemployment, so they're somewhat of a subset and quite a vulnerable population in terms of those who need a lot of special work and assistance to get into the job market.
MCEVERS: When we look at today's jobs report, I mean, there's an interesting figure showing that the unemployment rate for single mothers is actually the lowest it's been in 15 years. It's at 5.8 percent. Does that sound right to you?
HARVEY: You know, it does, although we do know that there's a lot of single parents who still are not able to access even public assistance. But I do think those numbers should be lower because, comparing the first six months to the second six months of last year, our full-time placements increased by 9 percent. Our overall placements increased by 10 percent.
MCEVERS: You talked about the numbers and the increases. But, like, are you seeing people's lives change because wages are going up?
HARVEY: Yes, I think that those - we see a lot of our individuals who really don't have a lot of skills. These are not individuals who have been working in a corporation or a business and now are just unemployed. These are individuals who dropped out of high school, probably in ninth grade, and have, generally, retail, housekeeping, kind of stopgap jobs. And interestingly enough, we're seeing some of those who decide not to take the first job that comes along and being a little more picky and realizing that there are better jobs for them and trying to focus on those quality jobs that have higher salaries, better benefits and have a career potential.
MCEVERS: Is there a story of someone you can talk about maybe who you've served recently as you've seen these changes sort of play out in their life?
HARVEY: We had an individual recently who came to us and didn't have any experience. And what she decided to do was take a job in fast food and look at getting her resume built up while, at the same time, really looking at a customer service job. It took her a month or two, but she then received a customer service job with Dish Network, which is paying much higher, of course. And I think that shows that the participants themselves realize that there are more opportunities for them to grow and get those good jobs that are more quality.
MCEVERS: What kind of salary increase are we talking about?
HARVEY: Oh, she would've been making probably $8 dollars an hour, maybe $9 an hour, if that, in her job with fast food. And the entry-level - or jobs for customer service are in that $13, $14 an hour range.
MCEVERS: That's Laurie Harvey. She's president and CEO of the Center for Work Education and Employment in Denver, Colo. Thanks so much.
HARVEY: Thank you for having me.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
There's a game many of you may be playing in your heads right now, fantasy lottery.
(SOUNDBITE OF POWERBALL AD)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Across the country, it's time for America's favorite jackpot game. Get ready everybody. This is Powerball.
CORNISH: Oh, think what you could do with $800 million after taxes. The Powerball jackpot has been climbing rapidly since there were no winners Wednesday night.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The next drawing is tomorrow so dream on, tiny dancer. Just realize your odds are miniscule. We're talking 1 in 292 million.
CORNISH: But wait. Let's say you do get lucky. Along with screaming your head off and, you know, hyperventilating, what else should you do?
MCEVERS: Jon Ogg of 247wallst.com has some practical advice.
JON C. OGG: If you drive a 10-year-old car, why would you not go buy a new car? If you have a mortgage on your house, why not, at a minimum, would you not at least pay off your mortgage? But the idea is to not go crazy, as they would say.
CORNISH: And what does crazy look like with, say, $800 million?
OGG: You can go buy a 150-foot yacht, a private business jet and you can also go out and buy your own private island.
MCEVERS: But before you do that, think it through. There are always hidden costs.
OGG: Think about all of the service staff that you have to have. Most people that buy those mega yachts, they're not cleaning it themselves, they're not filling up the gas themselves.
CORNISH: And you're not going to fill it up or clean it either - let's be honest.
MCEVERS: Jon Ogg says get real about something else. You need to protect your mega millions from you. That means getting a good, solid financial advisor.
OGG: You know absolutely, positively that that money's not going to disappear on you.
CORNISH: To review - step one, win $800 million.
MCEVERS: Check.
CORNISH: Step two, don't go crazy with it. And step three, get a trusted money manager and listen to that person.
MCEVERS: And if you do blow it all, don't come crying to Jon Ogg.
OGG: I'm sorry to say it, but you do deserve to be the laughingstock of every party that you go to. It's pretty hard to explain that one away. You can't say, well, that one just sort of got away from me. Maybe I'll win again.
MCEVERS: Got it? Good.
CORNISH: The next drawing for Powerball, now with an $800 million jackpot, is tomorrow night.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LET'S GO CRAZY")
PRINCE: (Singing) Let's go crazy. Let's get nuts.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The forecast calls for temperatures to be around zero degrees in Minnesota on Sunday, when the Vikings host the Seattle Seahawks in the NFL playoffs. Of course, that's practically shorts weather compared to the conditions at the Freezer Bowl in Cincinnati 34 years ago.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The coldest day on this date in the history of this city, perhaps the coldest an NFL game has ever been played - minus 59 wind chill.
MCEVERS: Minus 59 degrees - that AFC championship between the Cincinnati Bengals and the San Diego Chargers was merely the second coldest game in NFL history by four degrees. And that suits Dave Lapham just fine. He was an offensive lineman for the Bengals that day. And today, he's the color analyst for the Bengals' radio broadcast. Welcome to the show.
DAVE LAPHAM: Thanks very much, Kelly.
MCEVERS: That morning when you woke up and you saw cold it was going to be, what were you thinking?
LAPHAM: Boy, I was thinking, I'm going to be crazy playing in this football game. We woke up and walked outside from the hotel that we stayed in the night before the game, and half the cars wouldn't start for the players. And at that point we knew it was going to be a different day.
MCEVERS: I mean, a lot of people who are listening probably haven't really even experienced that kind of cold before. Like, I've been in some cold places, but nothing like that. I mean, not just playing football, but, like, what is it like to just be walking around and breathing the air?
LAPHAM: Yeah, it's tough. You know, it almost burns your lungs when you breathe in that cold air. And we had practiced in it the day before that football game. It was brutally cold as well. But, you know, we didn't expect 59 below. But if it's 20 below, 30 below, 40, 50, 60 below, what's the difference?
MCEVERS: Right, at the point.
LAPHAM: When it's that cold, it's that cold.
MCEVERS: Did anyone ever suggest, like, postponing the game?
LAPHAM: The league contemplated that, and they decided to go ahead and let us play. And the officials said that we could put Vaseline on exposed skin, so I put it on my face. And at that point, you know, I thought, I'm not going to wear anything on my sleeves on. I'm going to go sleeveless, just go bare skin on my arms.
MCEVERS: What?
LAPHAM: Yeah, because I didn't want my opponent grabbing cloth. I had a guy that was a grabber and pass rush, and he'd grab and try to pull. So I didn't want any extra cloth on my arms, and so I went sleeveless. And all the offensive linemen, we all decided to go out there sleeveless. And it would help us block a little bit, and it would be a psychological advantage. They let us put Vaseline on our arms, and out there we went sleeveless. And it was quite a scene.
MCEVERS: So how did that work out you? I mean, what was it like to play in that game when it was that cold and nothing on your arms?
LAPHAM: Yeah, it was crazy. There's no question. I remember the first time I came off the line of scrimmage to throw a block in the running game, I thought I broke my arm in about seven places. It felt like it was so brittle. You know, I ran around for three-and-a-half, four hours that day and never broke a sweat. They had some heaters on the sideline, but I didn't want to get too close to that because I did after first time we are on the field and I wanted to marry it. I didn't want to go back out on the football field, so I stayed away from that. And it was just very tough. The hardest part, though, Kelly, was going in at halftime and getting warmed up and knowing how bad it was going to be when you went out there for the second half.
MCEVERS: What's your advice for the players in Sunday's game in Minneapolis?
LAPHAM: Just try to block it out, you know? Try to think warm thoughts (laughter). That's pretty much what we tried to do. And Forrest Gregg, our head coach, played in the coldest game by temperature. It was 13 below - Green Bay and Dallas. And he was an offensive lineman for the Green Bay Packers. And he was our head coach for this football game, so his advice to us was, guys, this is going to be like going to the dentist. You don't really want to do it, but you've got to do it. You've got to go out there and play. Go out there and play as best you possibly can. That was his message.
MCEVERS: Nice. That's Dave Lapham, who played for the Cincinnati Bengals during 1982's Freezer Bowl. Thanks so much.
LAPHAM: You got it, Kelly.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Happy birthday to David Bowie. He turned 69 today. The pop icon hasn't performed in public for nearly a decade, but he's in the midst of a creative rebirth. His off-Broadway musical, "Lazarus," opened last month in New York City. And he released a new album today - "Blackstar," recorded with some of the sharpest young players in jazz. Our critic, Will Hermes, has this review.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BLACKSTAR")
DAVID BOWIE: (Singing) In the villa of Ormen, in the villa of Ormen stands a solitary candle. In the center of it all, in the center of it all.
WILL HERMES, BYLINE: David Bowie likes to work between the familiar and the strange, which is one reason he makes such a compelling space alien. That's the territory of his new musical, a sequel to his 1976 film "The Man Who Fell To Earth." And it extends to his new album, which features the play's signature song.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LAZARUS")
BOWIE: (Singing) Look up here, man. I'm in danger. I've got nothing left to lose. I am so high it makes my brain whirl. Dropped my cell phone down below.
HERMES: Bowie helped pioneer the use of electronics in rock 'n roll, and he uses them extensively here. But what makes "Blackstar" radical is how human it sounds. The dazzling quartet of saxophonist Donny McCaslin defines this album. They sound like hyper-evolved cyborgs.
(SOUNDBITE OF DAVID BOWIE SONG)
HERMES: It's this mix of familiar and strange that makes "Blackstar" so rewarding. Bowie's an old guy who's digested a lot of music, and he somehow manages to transform old school R&B, modern Jazz and weird progressive rock into a single language here, one that's as visceral as it is cerebral.
(SOUNDBITE OF DAVID BOWIE SONG)
HERMES: Bowie reportedly listened a lot to Kendrick Lamar's jazz-rap fusion while making this record, and that makes sense. Like Lamar, he's upping the ante on what constitutes pop music, giving his audience some credit. It's what David Bowie has always done. And unlike the work of most of his contemporaries, it's why his work still matters.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I CAN'T GIVE EVERYTHING AWAY")
BOWIE: (Singing) I can't give everything away.
CORNISH: David Bowie's album "Blackstar" came out today. Our critic, Will Hermes, is author of the book "Love Goes To Buildings On Fire."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I CAN'T GIVE EVERYTHING AWAY")
BOWIE: (Singing) ....Away.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
With the U.S. in the middle of an epidemic of heroin and prescription drug abuse, Congress just changed a policy that was in place for much of the last three decades. They effectively ended a ban on federal funding for needle exchanges. Those exchanges allowed drug users to get free sterile needles and help prevent the spread of disease. Just last year, almost 200 people were diagnosed with HIV in the small town of Austin, Ind., largely because people were sharing needles.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Now with this change, federal dollars still cannot go towards buying needles themselves, but they can go to things like staff salaries and counseling. Republican Congressman Hal Rogers of Kentucky used to support a total ban on funding these exchanges, but he helped lead this latest change.
HAL ROGERS: In my own district, we've have a severe problem with OxyContin abuse and overdose deaths, and I've been in those emergency rooms and seen these young people die of overdose of OxyContin and other opioids. But now it's shifting toward heroin. And that brings us to a different problem. And that is needles are used. We've got a needle problem. So we will allow funding for state and local organizations that are approved by CDC to receive monies for all of the programs that they have related to counseling and treatment but not the exchange of the needle itself.
CORNISH: Why make that distinction that the funding can't go for the syringes themselves?
ROGERS: Because we've always had a policy on the federal level of not providing needles. Now, if the state and locals want to do this and buy into the program, that's their decision and we will support that.
CORNISH: What, if any, pushback have you gotten from your colleagues? Scientific reviews have said that there's no evidence to support the idea that needle exchange actually encourage people to use drugs, but some people still politically feel like that's the message that's being sent.
ROGERS: Well, that's the prevailing viewpoint, I think, is that it does promote the use of needles. But, you know, the world that we live in these days, this problem is so widespread. In fact, CDC calls the problem the national epidemic. So we're facing with a real problem here. I think what really brought it to our attention was the problem of that small community in Indiana which had a severe outbreak of hepatitis C and HIV around needles. And it was a phenomenon that I think woke a lot of people up to the problem that the nation faces and the CDC has been warning us about for a long time.
CORNISH: Congressman Rogers, hearing you talk about emergency rooms and bringing up Indiana, do you feel like you've had a personal change of heart here as you've heard these stories?
ROGERS: Well, I'll tell you what, over the years when we saw the people that were being affected, it can't help but make a huge impact on you, and it has me. This is a national problem. It's a sickness that infects almost every family in the country - drug addiction and overdose deaths. So this problem is not going to go away. It's going to require even more and more attention as time passes.
CORNISH: That's Congressman Hal Rogers of Kentucky. He's head of the House Appropriations Committee.
Thank you so much for your time.
ROGERS: Thank you.
CORNISH: For more on what this means for needle exchange programs around the country, I'm joined by Daniel Raymond. He's policy director for the Harm Reduction Coalition. He helps communities establish and expand needle exchanges. He's been advocating for this change in law for many years. Daniel, welcome to the program.
DANIEL RAYMOND: Thank you so much.
CORNISH: All right, you've been in this business a long time. How big a deal is this change?
RAYMOND: We were thrilled when we got the news. This is something that we've wanted to see happen for years and years, and it always seemed like there was a wall, that there was an entrenched opposition, there was a polarization on this issue that we just couldn't get past. I remember back in the height of the AIDS epidemic, 25 years ago, that was the first wave of establishing needle exchange programs, mostly in the larger urban areas - the New Yorks, the Baltimores, the Chicagos, the San Franciscos - where HIV was taking a huge toll. And we saw a wave of new programs, and then a lot of that progress stalled out because it got bogged down in political controversy over use of federal funds. So the idea that we're revisiting this in the midst of another crisis, the overdose crisis, just shows how far we've come and how much further we need to go.
CORNISH: This doesn't open up any new funding, right? It just kind of unlocks access to the federal funding that already exists?
RAYMOND: That's right. It's a shift in funding policy, it's not an addition of new funds. But what that means is that if you're a state that receives federal treatment dollars then you suddenly have more options. The absence of federal funds - especially in the rural areas, smaller cities, suburban areas - has meant that a lot of good intentions have never been able to get off the ground. So my hope is that this is going have a transformative effect outside of the bigger cities which were often the first to move and spread better programs into areas that have been hard-hit by the heroin and opioid crisis.
CORNISH: Now, as we mentioned earlier, as part of the law, Congress said money can't go directly to buying the needles themselves, basically just everything else to make the exchange happen. Does that make a difference?
RAYMOND: From my point of view, that's a compromise that we can work with. I reached out to my colleagues who've been working around the country on syringe exchange programs, and I asked them, is this a deal breaker? And they said no. One of our biggest challenges is, how do we provide the funding for staff? How do we provide the funding for transportation, for facilities? So I think the message that I've gotten from the broader syringe exchange program community is that they'll find a way to purchase the syringes, but they really need the help in these other areas.
CORNISH: You've devoted much of your career to this issue. What do you say to the criticism - I also put to the Congressman - the idea that needle exchanges don't encourage people to get treatment and actually stop injecting drugs?
RAYMOND: I've worked in and with needle exchange programs over 25 years, and I can say from my own experience if I saw that happening then I would've had second thoughts about what I was doing. Instead what I see is that we're not seeing new people coming and say, I want to start injecting. We are seeing many people who've been struggling often for years say, thank you for being here, I came for the syringe but what I really want to talk about is getting help with drug treatment. And the people that we're reaching, nobody else is reaching. Those are the people who are asking us for help, and Congress's action is letting us expand our abilities to do that.
CORNISH: That's Daniel Raymond. He's policy director for the Harm Reduction Coalition. He spoke to us from New York.
Daniel Raymond, thanks so much.
RAYMOND: Thank you, my pleasure.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
It's unusual for an NFL player - a current player - to criticize the league, especially its handling of controversial issues like concussions or domestic violence, but author Johnny Anonymous has done just that. He's an offensive lineman who's written a book under that pseudonym. It's called "NFL Confidential." In it, he details his 2014 season, including training camp and his big break after a starting player gets injured. He's worried about being fired, so we've masked his voice. First, Johnny Anonymous says getting hurt is always on the mind of the player.
ANONYMOUS: It's absolutely constant. The NFL's the only league, the only job you'll find in the world where we have a 100 percent injury rate.
CORNISH: So walk us through the questions that come to mind for a player when they first hear that, you know, sickening sound and they're lying there on the field. What are you thinking?
ANONYMOUS: For some guys, it's fear, which is why you'll see them kicking and screaming and crying, and some guys it's shock. I know for most of us - and probably all of us - the first thing you think is, I'm done; that's it. You think the injury's going to take the game away from you.
CORNISH: So in a way, you know, this is how it happens, right, this discussion of, like, why do people take all the painkillers, you know, like, why do people defy doctors?
ANONYMOUS: You have to. It's the only way you make it through. I can tell you right now, honestly, that if I am playing a game, I cannot complete that game without painkillers. I will not be an effective player.
CORNISH: When did you start playing? You know, how did you fall into a game that you've really come to dislike in a lot of ways?
ANONYMOUS: Well, it's not that I don't like the game. I love the game - absolutely love it. I love every second I can play. And I mean play as in physically play on the field. It's really my distaste for what the NFL strives to be and what they actually are. So, I mean, I can look back to when I started in high school and college, and that's truly a time where I loved everything about it. It's something that I needed to be and that it needed to be a part of me. And then you get the NFL and you realize that the only reason that you're there and the only reason that they want you there is to make money for the NFL, and they'll compensate you for that.
CORNISH: You write in the book that the league is an expert at manipulating people - players, fans, coaches, and you say even me, referring to yourself.
ANONYMOUS: No doubt.
CORNISH: Well, how do you see it as manipulating players?
ANONYMOUS: Well, I mean it's - as far as manipulating a player, it's fairly easy. It's your livelihood. I mean, you grew up being a football player. I went to grade as a football player. I went to high school as a football player to become a college football player. I was in college not to go to college; I was in college to be a football player in the NFL. So you find yourself sitting in my shoes, and you realize that you don't have anything else. This is all I know how to do.
CORNISH: I want to note, though, players like Chris Borland. He retired from the San Francisco 49ers at age 24 because of concussion fears. You write in the book of meeting older players who you describe as being, you know, clearly damaged from their years of play. I mean, what is that like?
ANONYMOUS: It's - I remember recently I had this conversation with a guy that played eight years as an offensive lineman and was told to me as being a very intelligent guy, and I was actually excited to talk to him. And within seconds of speaking to him, his eyes hung heavy, his voice was slurred. The effects were apparent. He could barely walk. It's terrifying. I mean, there's all the talk about CTE and what brain damage can do to you, but you can't forget about arthritis. And just really the downside of every surgery you've had is going to play out when you're 35, whereas in normal people, that arthritic nature of your body won't hit until your - I don't know - late 50s.
CORNISH: So what kind of message are you getting from the NFL about this issue about concussions specifically?
ANONYMOUS: I think there's concern, but I think the concern only exists to combat the negative publicity they are getting. There's concussion protocol that they're putting in. And sure, they'll have to evaluate every player that has a possible head injury. But at the same time, once you can pass your test - your little computer test that they put you through - you're ready to get back on the field, and there's no negative thought. But at the same time, if you have too many concussions on your list and your medical records, they'll weight that against you and not sign you back when your contract's up just out of risk.
CORNISH: So you're saying, on the one hand, maybe they are being more active in checking these things. But on the other hand, the players feel pressured, right? They don't want to be labeled injury-prone.
ANONYMOUS: One hundred percent.
CORNISH: You know, when you introduce yourself in the book, you say that you, quote, "flat out hate professional football, resent it, loathe it." Now, there's got to be something that attracted you to the game initially. What was it?
ANONYMOUS: Well, I do hate the NFL. I love football. It's truly - it's like a drug. I mean, you find yourself placed inside of a game. In those split seconds before and during the play of - you're completely stuck in it. And you thrive in every second that it takes. And it's everything that I want. It's everything I could ever want. And it's part of me now, and it will always be a part of me. But you compound that with all of the mess that is the NFL and the portrayal that the media and the people get, and it's really - it's not what it truly is.
CORNISH: You describe the reason why you initially started playing - that it came after your mother's death. Tell us about her.
ANONYMOUS: She was everything, you know? And she was - I was a mama's boy, which is kind of funny. It was - football was something she never wanted me to do. Growing up, my entire life - you'll never play football. Go play baseball. And I played baseball. And really, I did that until I couldn't play baseball because of another injury. And football was what I wanted to try. And at that time in my life, I needed something like football. And I do think the game still carries a strong connection between me, through the game, to her, just because of everything that we had together.
CORNISH: And how old were you at that time?
ANONYMOUS: I was young. I was young. It was before 10.
CORNISH: You mentioned your mom growing up, that she wouldn't have wanted you to play football. What do you think she would think of your career that you have had and what you're doing now?
ANONYMOUS: I don't know. I think I've had a fairly successful career. And in the same breath, I think she'd look at it go, what are you doing? There's so much more for you out there.
CORNISH: At the end of the day, do think you're going to keep playing? And if so, for how long?
ANONYMOUS: I couldn't answer that. This world move on for me, and every year, at the end of every season and at the beginning of every season when I have to go back, the question will linger the back of my mind of - what the hell am I doing, and why am I playing this game? Do I still need this game? And it just sucks you in. It sucks you back, and you just find yourself moving on.
CORNISH: Well, Johnny Anonymous, thank you so much for your time.
ANONYMOUS: Thank you. Thanks for having me.
CORNISH: That was a voiceover covering the altered voice of Johnny Anonymous. It's the pseudonym of a current NFL player. His real identity has been confirmed by NPR. His new book is called "NFL Confidential." And there's more of our conversation online at npr.org.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is in the fight of his political life. Some want him to resign. Others want a recall election. Allies, including the governor of Illinois, have distanced themselves from him. Things came to a head over the police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in 2014. It took more than a year for the city to release a video of the shooting, which showed McDonald was walking away as he was shot. To talk about how Rahm Emanuel ended up in this bind, we called Jim Warren. He's the former managing editor of the Chicago Tribune. And he says criticism of Emanuel goes way beyond that one shooting.
JIM WARREN: I think it's about sort of a visceral mistrust that people have and a lack of emotional connection they feel Emanuel has to them. He's Rahmbo, the smartest guy in the room, former chief of staff to the president of the United States. He makes clear that he knows what's best, thank you very much. It's a person who's, you know, famous for F-bombs. It's a person who would pick up the phone to me when he worked for Bill Clinton in the '90s during the Monica Lewinsky scandal and yell at me for various things. I think, at heart, his biggest problem is he just doesn't have what a good friend of mine calls the, quote, "protective issue" that his legendary predecessor, Richard M. Daley - he was mayor for 22 years - had. Even when Daley screwed up, there was a sense among many here that he had the city's best interest at heart. With Emanuel, right or wrong, too many people tend to think he only thinks about himself. That's the image. And I think it partly explains the media piling on right now. I mean, he's a two-legged political pinata.
MCEVERS: I mean, it's not just, though, his style and his personality. People are upset with his policies. I mean, he took on the Chicago Teachers Union. He lengthened the school day. He closed 49 schools. He increased property taxes, right?
WARREN: Yeah, he did all that. And, you know, you can argue whether he's made tough decisions or he's made a whole bunch of decisions that were absolutely, totally unavoidable. I think it's perhaps the latter, and a lot of those were things that miffed a lot of people. And when you throw in the personal style and people not cutting him any slack because of that, you've got a mess.
MCEVERS: I mean, it's an approach that worked for him for years in Washington. This is a guy who could raise a lot of money, who could push things through Congress, which is - we all know is no small feat - and who can run a White House. Is this just not how it works in Chicago?
WARREN: It's not how it works if you're an elected official. It's one thing to be a take-no-prisoners chief of staff for the president of the United States. But now, having perhaps the toughest job one can have in America - a big city mayor - and then when you throw in all the systemic problems and institutional conditions which he inherits, fueled in many cases by poverty, segregation, it's way, way different.
MCEVERS: Let's talk of this video of the shooting of Laquan McDonald. Doesn't the buck stop with the mayor?
WARREN: Yeah. I mean, I think so. I mean - and this, again, is all a window onto very systemic problems - the police code of silence, using endless alleged investigations as some bone-wearying way to cover things up, private financial settlements by governments to avoid a larger public scrutiny. That's all stuff that's part of the governmental fabric in Chicago, which he inherited. And while he didn't create the basic problems in the department, it's still verged on the absurd to stand up, as he did, at a press conference after that video was disclosed, and say, I've never seen this video. He knew exactly what was in that video, whether he'd actually watched it or not, which is why he got the Chicago City Council to approve a $5 million payment to the victim's family just a few days after his own reelection runoff victory this year.
MCEVERS: What does he have to do to survive?
WARREN: You know, he's a guy who thinks what's, you know, good for him is good for the city, rather than the other way around. I think he now has to change, step up and be part of what amounts to an incredibly painful, profound process of truth and reconciliation when it comes to the relationship between the police department and the communities that have felt aggrieved, notably poor black and Latino ones.
MCEVERS: That's Jim Warren, former managing editor for the Chicago Tribune. He's now the chief media correspondent for the Poynter Institute and a columnist for U.S. News & World Report. Thank you so much.
WARREN: My pleasure.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
When the news first broke today, some people thought it might be a hoax. It's not. The Mexican drug lord Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman is in custody again. He escaped six months ago from a maximum-security prison in Mexico. NPR's Carrie Kahn joins us from Mexico City. And Carrie, what do we know so far?
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Well, Mexican Television here has been awash of images of Guzman alive and in custody. He was captured this morning in the city of Los Mochis, which is in his home state of Sinaloa, which is also the name of his cartel, the largest and most powerful in Mexico. He was caught in a very simple motel outside the city. The president gave the news today, tweeting this afternoon mission accomplished. We got him. Chapo's escape last July, if you remember, was a major embarrassment to the president.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
KAHN: And today, later in the afternoon, we saw him on TV, was all full of smiles with a full flank of officials around him. And he told Mexicans personally about the capture. And he said repeatedly that his promise to get Guzman was fulfilled, and it proved that the rule of law in Mexico's institutions are solid.
MCEVERS: What is the Mexican government planning to do with El Chapo now? I mean, I would think they're not going to send him back to the same prison that he escaped from before, right?
KAHN: (Laughter). I don't think - it's unclear now what's going to happen.
MCEVERS: OK.
KAHN: He's been flown out of Sinaloa and presumably to Mexico City here. But, you know, where are they going to put him? Who knows? That's the million-dollar question. He did escape from Mexico's maximum-security prison. And he - they made a spectacular tunnel that went straight out of the cell, stretched a mile long, and exited at a farmhouse. And then he flew away. So there is an extradition order in place from the U.S. But in Mexican law, there are still many, many legal maneuvers Chapo's lawyers can do before he's on a plane to the U.S. And so what they're going to do with him in the meantime and whether they're going to extradite him, that is a great question, and we'll just have to wait and see.
MCEVERS: And quickly, Carrie, I mean, this is the third time he's been captured, right?
KAHN: Yes, it is. It's amazing. He's very slippery. The U.S. is not commenting on extradition, but there is an order in place for him to go to the U.S., so we'll see.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's Carrie Kahn in Mexico City. Thank you very much.
KAHN: You're welcome.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Finally, today, a story about just how far people are willing to go for the love of music. I'm talking about the Soviet Union in the 1950s, a time when Western music was changing the world. But it was forbidden in Russia. Sneaking in a pile of records was dangerous, pressing your own vinyl almost impossible. But some industrious music fans found out that they could etch grooves into used x-rays - you know, pictures of bones - and the music would play. Let's listen and imagine an x-rayed rib cage or ankle bone spinning on a turntable.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LULLABY OF BIRDLAND")
ELLA FITZGERALD: (Singing) Oh, lullaby of birdland, that's what I always hear when you sigh. Never in my worldland could there be words to reveal in a phrase how I feel...
MARTIN: Not bad. Rudy Fuchs was one of the makers of these bootleg recordings that came to be called bone records.
(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED DOCUMENTARY FILM)
RUDY FUCHS: I heard my first rock 'n' roll "Rock Around The Clock."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK")
BILL HALEY AND HIS COMETS: (Singing) One, 2, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock, 5...
(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED DOCUMENTARY FILM)
FUCHS: I would like to show that music to my friends. There is no magnetic tape, nothing else. And I tried recording the hand-made machine, which I have.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK")
BILL HALEY AND HIS COMETS: (Singing) We're going to rock around the clock tonight...
MARTIN: Fuchs was interviewed for a forthcoming documentary by Stephen Coates.
STEPHEN COATES: One o'clock, two o'clock, three o'clock rock - it's not deeply anti-Soviet stuff. It's not deeply anything, is it, you know? But, actually, of course, contained in it is this instruction actually to drop everything else and dance. And, of course, that was regarded as being deeply off-message.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK")
BILL HALEY AND HIS COMETS: (Singing) We're going to rock, going to rock around the clock tonight.
MARTIN: Stephen Coates fronts a band called The Real Tuesday Weld. During a tour stop in St. Petersburg a few years ago, he discovered one of the few remaining bone records in a flea market. And ever since then, he's been obsessed.
COATES: I came across this stall. There's lots of strange things on it. And one of them, I saw and I thought, is that a record or is it an x-ray? And I picked up and it seemed to be both. And I asked my friends about it - my Russian friends - they didn't know anything about it whatsoever. The guy whose store it was, was a bit dismissive. I think he wanted me to buy something else, you know? But I brought it back to London, and I was fascinated by it. So I started to dig, and that has led me on a very strange journey.
MARTIN: Were they cut round, like records are?
COATES: Yeah, so, I mean, they would start off with a square or rectangular x-ray and then literally, you know, probably, put a plate on it and draw around it with a pen and cut it out by hand. I mean, often the circumference is quite ragged.
MARTIN: What occurred to you to play it? I'm not sure if I came across a scratched-up x-ray in a flea market - you know, I have been known to buy a few things - but that it would occur to me play it as a record (laughter).
COATES: Well, the thing is it looks like a record. I mean, if you see these things, you know, they've got a hole in the middle. They've got a groove on them. It's often very faint because it's very shallow, the groove. But you can see there's a groove on there. It plays at 78 - that was the first thing to find out. So you've got to play it on a record player that's 78. It's only one-sided as well. So - but I found all these things out by discovery, you know, and went from there.
MARTIN: What can you tell us about how they figured out how to do this and how widespread this was?
COATES: Well, what happened was that it's - as you mentioned - it's 1946 also - the Second World War is over, but a much colder war has begun. And in the Soviet Union, you know, a lot of culture was subject to a censor - you know, art, paintings, architecture, film and, of course, music. And, as you mentioned, American music, British music became forbidden because it was the music of the enemy. But also a lot of Russian music became forbidden in St. Petersburg - Leningrad as it was then. A guy turned up, and he had a war trophy with him. And that war trophy was what's called a recording lathe. It's like a gramophone in reverse. It's a device which you can use to write the grooves of music onto plastic. And then people who came into his shop observed what he was doing and, as is the Russian way, they bootlegged his machine and they made their own machines. And it was a bit like dealing or buying drugs, actually. You know, these records were bought and sold on street corners, you know, in dark alleyways, in the park, you know? You would go and you would meet the dealer. You could maybe ask for, like, "Rock Around The Clock." But we did hear a funny thing, which was that if you asked for a particular song, say "Rock Around The Clock," and the dealer didn't have it, quite often they would say, yeah, I've got that. And they would go around the corner, and they would write "Rock Around The Clock," on one of their other records and bring back and give it to you. So there's lots of stories about people buying these records and getting home, and they may not have even known what "Rock Around The Clock," sounded like, so they got home and put on and it could've been anything. And they were like, yeah, that's Bill Haley. It's great.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MAMBO ITALIANO")
MARTIN: Do you recognize that one - what is that?
COATES: It's a mambo.
MARTIN: It's a mambo?
COATES: It's "Mambo Italiano," yeah.
MARTIN: You know, it's not bad, right? I mean, considering.
COATES: It's pretty good, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, they do vary in quality hugely. I mean, some were, you know, virtually unlistenable but that didn't seem to matter actually in some ways. I mean, talking to people who bought these records when they were young, it was just this - even the tiniest thread of melody of this forbidden sound was so exciting. It led to, you know, a different world really - a world of freedom - not obviously anti-Soviet, you would think. I mean, you know, why would that mambo be regarded as something worth forbidding?
MARTIN: You know, you're right, I was actually thinking that myself, like, what's the deal with that? I mean, it opens up all kinds of questions about what people think is dangerous, doesn't it, right?
COATES: It really does. It really does. And, of course, you know, it's obvious in some ways to think, well, rock 'n' roll, jazz - the music of American, music of the U.K. But with other stuff, it got very strange in the Soviet Union. I mean, Latin rhythms - the mambo, the tango - were forbidden because they were seen as being sort of overly sensuous, if you like, encouraging the wrong sort of passions in young people. I mean, the saxophone became forbidden for a while.
MARTIN: Wow.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MAMBO ITALIANO")
MARTIN: As a musician, yourself, you have to be - I don't know - this gives you, probably, a lot of food for thought, right, about so many things, like what people consider OK and not OK and how - the lengths that people will go to - just how important music is to people that they would go to such lengths.
COATES: Well, I think, you know, for me, the thing which is really poignant is that some of these people went to prison for doing this. They were punished quite severely for it. And, you know, this was a time when music mattered so much that people would risk that. They would risk public sanction; they would risk imprisonment. And, of course, we live in a time when you can get anything you want immediately. Music is abundant, and that's great, of course. But I wonder, as a musician, somebody who makes music, how much does music matter now? You know, does it is a matter as much as it used to? And this is a time - this was a time when it mattered immensely. And that's food for thought for all of us, I think.
MARTIN: Stephen Coates is a bone record enthusiast. He's the author of the book "X-Ray Audio: The Strange Story Of Soviet Music On The Bone." Mr. Coates, thanks so much for speaking with us.
COATES: It was a pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF UNIDENTIFIED SONG)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Singing in foreign language).
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Another big story we're watching today is out of Germany. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Cologne today and clashed with police, triggered by a series of sexual assaults and robberies that happened on New Year's Eve.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTORS: (Chanting in foreign language).
MARTIN: Authorities and eyewitnesses differ on what motivated these attacks. Some believe they were part of an organized pickpocket ring using the attacks as a diversion. Others say the men were drunk. But most of those involved appeared to be North African or Arab. Thirty-one suspects have been taken in for questioning. More than half were asylum-seekers, and all of that has set off a debate over whether the influx of refugees and migrants is changing Germany in unacceptable ways. Some of that debate played out in the anti-immigrant protests today, but there are other opinions. We called writer and feminist activist Anne Wizorek to hear some of those views. She spoke with us from Berlin. And I started by asking her to describe what she knew about the attacks.
ANNE WIZOREK: Women have been touched and sometimes their clothes been torn apart, and they have been insulted. And they have been surrounded by this group of men and attacking them. So this is, of course, a very gruesome situation. We just feel powerless and just hope that it's all over basically very soon.
MARTIN: So how has Germany's political leadership responded to this?
WIZOREK: Well, Haiko Maas, the minister of justice, he was one of the first ones to respond to this and say that this is a kind of violence that will not be tolerated, of course. And now he's also pushed to get the law change that is addressing sexual violence and sexual assault. But I think the most important one was, of course, issued by Angela Merkel, our chancellor. She now wants to see if it's possible to send the people who came here as asylum-seekers and who commit crimes like this back to their home countries, which of course is something that causes another debate on whether or not we should take this incident and change a whole lot and a whole situation for so many more people
MARTIN: You wrote an article on Vice this week with Stefanie Louhaus saying that the German media have been reporting the violence in terms of a rape culture that was imported in Germany. And - editing a little bit - but you say, in fact, Germany's rape culture is deeply rooted in our collective psyche. What do you mean by that? What are you trying to say here?
WIZOREK: Well, the problem of sexism and sexual violence, especially against women has already been there and has nothing to do with any people who come here as refugees or are growing up as people of color in general. So we have to address this problem finally because right now we are only focusing on sexism and sexual assault when it is perpetrated by men of color. And that sets a wrong focus on the problem that we actually have to talk about.
MARTIN: To that end though, one of the reasons we called you is that you are the initiator of a hashtag which has gone viral in Germany called #aufschrei, which means outcry. And you started this well before this. What were some of the kinds of issues that you wanted to surface with #aufschrei?
WIZOREK: #Aufschrei was an ad hoc campaign, so it wasn't really planned. We were just in the situation on Twitter where one of my friends started sharing her own experience with sexual assault. And I just wanted to have some - something to make us all able to vent about this. So I suggested the hashtag. And then we started tweeting about everything from sexual remarks at the working place, from being stalked, from men following us home, touching us on public transport. People were also sharing their stories about how they have been raped by friends and family. So already under the hashtag, you saw the whole range of sexism and sexual violence happening.
MARTIN: Including in big public events. I mean, that's one of the things you wrote about...
WIZOREK: Yeah.
MARTIN: ...In your piece is that people at Oktoberfest events - women were routinely reporting being groped and having beer poured down their shirts and things of that sort - you know, this kind of similar behavior. Are you saying that you don't think this kind of public street harassment has gotten any attention until it was perpetrated by immigrants or by people perceived to be of color?
WIZOREK: Well, let's just say it's very astonishing to see the people who back then when #aufschrei was big in the media and people talked about it that a lot of people also tried to downplay the problems. They were saying, like, well, but we've gotten so far and we have - and gender equity in Germany right now - we have a female chancellor, so what do you want? All that kind of argument was going on. And those people are the ones who are now talking a lot about what has happened in Cologne. So they are using this - these stories and these experiences of the people who have been attacked in Cologne to only push forward with their racist agenda against migrants and refugees in Germany, and I think that's a huge problem.
MARTIN: That's writer and feminist activist Anne Wizorek. She's the initiator of the hashtag #aufschrei, which is meant to call attention to the problem of sexual violence and sexual assault in Germany. We reached her in Berlin. Anne, thank you so much for speaking with us.
WIZOREK: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Earlier today, six Republican presidential candidates all travelled to South Carolina to talk about a topic many do not consider a priority in politics today. The subject was fighting poverty and how best to help the 46 million Americans still living in poverty. Dr. Ben Carson, governors Chris Christie and John Kasich, Sen. Marco Rubio, former governors Jeb Bush and Mike Huckabee all made it to Columbia, S.C., for the forum. Notably absent were frontrunner Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz. Carly Fiorina also missed the event due to a travel snag. But the poverty forum was organized by Sen. Tim Scott and the new speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. Sen. Scott might be particularly well-suited to leading this conversation. Raised by single mom who worked as a nurse's aide, he's now considered a rising star in the GOP. When he first came to Congress in 2010, he made history as the first black Congressional Republican to be elected from the Deep South since Reconstruction. And now he's one of only two African-Americans in the Senate. We reached Sen. Scott just after the forum ended at the Columbia Convention Center in Columbia, S.C. Sen. Scott, thanks so much for speaking with us.
TIM SCOTT: Absolutely, Michel, it's kind of you to have me back on the show. I thought you had forgotten about me.
MARTIN: Never - never that - never that. Well, how did it go in your assessment? Was it what you hoped for?
SCOTT: I thought it certainly met my expectations and perhaps exceeded it. It was a wonderful opportunity for us to engage both the heart and the mind. And the candidates who were on stage did a fabulous job of presenting multiple solutions to the - what I consider one of the most challenging issues - the issue of poverty.
MARTIN: You know, it's no secret that many people consider that poverty is not a priority for either of the major political parties today. But I don't think you would disagree with me that perhaps many feel that it's even less of a priority for the Republicans than the Democrats. Do you think that's a fair assessment and is it, in part, the purpose of this forum to change that?
SCOTT: I wouldn't go that far. I do believe that the number one issue of the day has been national security, and will probably remain so for months to come and rightly so. I do believe that both parties struggle with how to present real solutions to the issue of poverty. On one side, we have the Democrats, who continue to look for ways to increase spending so that we can solve the problem. Those of us on the right, we continue to talk about free-market economies and how to build the right economy. But the fact of the matter is, we have not translated that into how does that impact the individual living in poverty. We can do a better job.
MARTIN: What does it say, though, that the person that many consider the frontrunner in the current presidential campaign, Donald Trump, did not attend? Does that mean something?
SCOTT: Not to me, it doesn't. I mean, what it says to me is that we had six candidates - leading candidates from my perspective - who were all present and talking about a very important issue. And I believe that if we are not clear and concise with a real plan on the issue of poverty, it's going to be very, very difficult to be successful in the November election.
MARTIN: You wrote a piece, along with Speaker Ryan, in The Wall Street Journal. It was posted on January 7, saying that we see Saturday's forum as our party's chance to stop carping from the cheap seats and to get into the driver's seat on this issue. I understand that you feel it's important public policy - but is it important as a method of being credible with people who you hope will join the party at some point? And if so, some might argue, you know, why, if this is not a group of people who have traditionally voted Republican?
SCOTT: Well, I think it's more important for us to spend time trying to attract good ideas that solve problems for anyone who has challenges in this country, if we can do so. I don't see the federal government as a panacea to all problems. So I think it's very important for us - not as a party but for us as Americans - to work together on solving issues that have been so difficult to solve. And when that happens - and it typically happens in a bipartisan fashion - the country is better.
MARTIN: But to that end, though, I mean, you said that this is an issue on which both parties really need to work together. There's a line also in your piece that you wrote with Paul Ryan that you said that we expect the candidates will have their differences, but that's only because they have ideas, which is more than the other party is offering. Is that really fair?
SCOTT: Well, I've listened to the other side critique where we are on the issue of poverty, too, so I'm not going to really speak to the issue of fairness because I think that the fact of the matter is that when you're in a competition for the hearts and the minds of voters that you're going to do all that you can to encourage and persuade them your way.
MARTIN: OK. But I think the other say would say that supporting increases in the minimum wage, addressing the issues around childcare, things of that sort, are also ideas - they happen to be different ideas.
SCOTT: Michel, I think you're right. I think those are ideas, and I'm open to a debate on those ideas. I am suggesting that we have had seven years of experimentation, and it has not produced results that have lowered the percentage of Americans stuck in poverty. And, frankly, the number of Americans depending more on the government has increased. I think we can do better.
MARTIN: That was Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican of South Carolina. He moderated the Jack Kemp Forum on Expanding Opportunity. It was held in Columbia, S.C., today and six Republican presidential candidates attended and talked about the policies toward poverty in the United States. Senator Scott, thanks so much for speaking with us.
SCOTT: Yes, ma'am, Michel. God bless. Have a good day.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now it's time for our trip to the Barbershop. That's our weekly conversation where we talk about what's in the news and what's on our minds. Sitting in the chairs for a shapeup this week are tech writer and tech entrepreneur Anil Dash. He's with us from The Radio Foundation Studio in New York City. Hi, Anil.
ANIL DASH: Hello.
MARTIN: And here with us in our studios in Washington, D.C., are the Rev. Kenn Blanchard. He's an ordained Baptist minister and a pro-gun activist. And he has a blog and a podcast called Black Man With A Gun. Welcome back. Thanks for joining us once again. It's been awhile.
KENN BLANCHARD: Thank you so much for the invitation.
MARTIN: Last but certainly not least, Gene Demby. He's the lead blogger for NPR's Code Switch team, which, as you know, focuses on race and ethnicity. Nice to have you back with us, too.
GENE DEMBY, BYLINE: Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: So here's what we - the first thing we wanted to talk about is something that a lot of people have been paying attention to. Earlier this week, President Obama announced that he's going to pursue executive action on a number of gun safety measures. But that news was - I don't know, almost overcome I might say by something else that happened in the press conference. And this was - you know, we're on the radio so you can't see this, but there were some tears running down the president's cheek as he talked about meeting with the families of mass-shooting victims, some of whom were there with him at the event. And this set off all this speculation about whether or not this was crocodile tears and so forth. So Rev. Blanchard, I'm going to start with you 'cause I know you have a different opinion than the president does about gun safety measures, gun control measures. What did you think about that?
BLANCHARD: If I was in the president's shoes right now, the tears would be appropriate. I would cry, too, because people like my aunt Bert (ph) who actually love him to tears, will not listen to anything else that anybody else says because her president means this stuff and he was crying and he's sincere. And it hit home with the people who love him.
MARTIN: But not you. I'm asking about...
BLANCHARD: No.
MARTIN: ...You...
BLANCHARD: No...
MARTIN: ...Because...
BLANCHARD: ...No...
MARTIN: ...You...
BLANCHARD: No, I'd do it if - if I was in his shoes. I don't think - I think it was crocodile tears, actually.
MARTIN: You do?
BLANCHARD: Yeah.
MARTIN: You think it was fake.
BLANCHARD: Yeah.
MARTIN: Really? Why do you think that?
BLANCHARD: You're the leader of the free world. You are a manager bar none. You are on the top of your game. That guy, that woman, that - whoever's in that spot does not cry.
MARTIN: Does not cry.
BLANCHARD: Does not cry.
MARTIN: OK. Anil, what do you think?
DASH: Well, you know, I watched a little bit of the conversation and the speech that he did. And I think right before that, he had referenced one of the dads who was there had been the father of one of the kids killed in Newtown, and, you know, I have a little boy who's 4 almost. He's going to be 5 in a few weeks, the same age as those kids were. And I know that the president spent time with the parents at Newtown - and, I mean, obviously, you know, Gabby Giffords was there, a lot of folks who had been victims of gun violence were there. But, you know, he's there with one of these dads who lost their kid, and I think anybody who has a kid - if you can stand next to somebody who is telling the story of losing their child by - for any reason, let alone losing a child to violence - and not tear up, boy, I don't know what you're made out of because, I mean - and I think this is a conversation about, you know, guns in particular but broaden it out to masculinity and what it is to be a man in the public sphere and what tears mean. Boy, I think we can do with a lot more leaders in - on a big stage who are not afraid to cry when talking about something like children dying, like, talk about things actually impact people's lives. I think - I don't - I never questioned it. You know, I'm, of course, a big-city liberal and all those other things, but every time I saw, you know, John Boehner cry, I thought - I think it's sincere. I think it's actually - for as much as I disagree with his policies or whatever else he brought up, I never questioned that that was not only real but I think probably the best thing about him. And it's very human and thoughtful.
MARTIN: Well, what about that? Gene, you want a piece of this?
DEMBY: Sure. It seems like, you know, how much you respond to this as crocodile tears depends on sort your partisan affiliation. But it seems like some of this is about Obama himself, right? He's a self-described...
MARTIN: Yeah, I was going to say why - like, I don't remember people saying that John Boehner was crying crocodile tears. He used to cry all the time. In fact, let me have a - I'll just play a short clip of this. This is one of his more famous moments. He was doing an interview on "60 Minutes." Let's - can we play that?
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "60 MINUTES")
JOHN BOEHNER: Making sure that these kids have a shot at the American dream, like I did, is important.
MARTIN: Did you - I want to - did you think - Kenn, did you - Rev. Kenn, did you think that John Boehner was faking?
BLANCHARD: That didn't even feel right. I mean, if I - as a Marine, if my commander starts to weep, I'm looking at him like, what's wrong? I - I am a dad. I understand the love, of loss and grief like anybody. I weep in the pulpit. But there's a time and a place for everything. So...
MARTIN: Gene, what do you think?
DEMBY: How is that different from being in the pulpit, though? If you're weeping in the pulpit, that's both sincere but it's also rhetorical, right? I mean, you're trying to get across - that you're trying to get across how sincere that you feel this thing you're saying. So is that artificial, or is that just sort of a magnification of the way you feel as a way to broadcast...
BLANCHARD: On that one, I agree with you.
DEMBY: So is that different then if Obama's doing - if the president is doing it in this press conference? Is that sort of different from what you're doing in the pulpit?
BLANCHARD: Yeah, only because if you're set up for press, you know why you're there. It's not - with Mr. Boehner, I might have to disagree now that I say that. But it's - press releases - you know you're going to be in the media. You know folks are going to take your stuff left and right and in a circle. You're not on that same magnifying glass as the pulpit...
MARTIN: So are you saying - wait a minute, are you saying that you think it was fake because you - because you assume that if you're in the media, you've got yourself under control, or is it that...
BLANCHARD: No, you know where you're at.
MARTIN: Yeah, so...
BLANCHARD: You know all your stuff's going to be out there. So everything you do has to be planned. You've probably got five people...
MARTIN: So John Boehner was fake, too.
BLANCHARD: Yeah. Now...
MARTIN: You do? Now that you think about it, you do, too? And you think - or actually, really what I was wondering is does this offend your idea what it means to be a leader? Is that really, like, the issue is for you?
BLANCHARD: No.
MARTIN: No.
BLANCHARD: No.
MARTIN: OK.
DEMBY: I mean, Obama's...
MARTIN: Final thought, Gene...
DEMBY: You know, his whole demeanor is that he's stoic. So I wonder how much of this is about sort of just him - this is not emotion. I think the only time I remember him crying was I think when his grandmother died. I think just before...
MARTIN: Well, no, at Sandy Hook, I mean, there was...
DEMBY: At Sandy Hook, correct.
MARTIN: Just before he was elected, but during Sandy Hook. It's the same sort of issue. That's what I find so fascinating is people...
BLANCHARD: Only gun stuff.
MARTIN: ...Criticize him for being too cool, and then, you know, when he's...
DASH: Well...
MARTIN: ...Upset about something, but I don't know.
DASH: I think the only gun stuff thing is an interesting comment because I think we all have things that are - that move us and that are powerful and that might not fit into a logical framework, right? And, I mean, I think of, like, the - whatever - the months after my son was born - I was on a plane watching some bad movie, and I just started getting choked up, you know? And it was like - it wasn't like oh, this movie is so touching that they have, you know, emotionally got me. It's like oh, now it's going to be kid stuff. Anything with fathers and sons is going to touch me in a different way. And I think there are things that people respond to - this is what I'd say more broadly - separate from any of these political leaders and what we think about them, I think there is no man in the public sphere that doesn't understand how some people think a man crying in public is bad, period - doesn't matter if you're a leader, an artist, whatever you do, an activist, anything.
MARTIN: Well, some people think women and crying in public, too, if they're leaders is bad, too. I mean, you remember...
DASH: Yes, yeah, exactly, where it's just a different - a different...
MARTIN: ...There are women candidates - people have not been pleased to see that either. So anyway - look, you know what? I cry at Sprint commercials, so I have nothing to say about this. So I guess it's a good thing I'm not president - for Kenn, anyway. So let me move on to something else that the White House had to weigh in on this, and that's that Netflix series "Making A Murderer..."
DEMBY: Oh, man.
MARTIN: It's this latest criminal justice docu-drama. It picks apart the case of Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man who was imprisoned for 18 years. Then they let him out, and then he's put back in prison for murder, which they think he might have been framed for because he was about to get some big settlement. So, you know, Gene, you've been watching this. I just wondered if you had some thoughts about this. This along with, you know, Serial, which was a very popular podcast that NPR had, you know...
DEMBY: Right.
MARTIN: ...NPR thing - "The Jinx" on HBO - but, you know, some people are starting to feel kind of feel a little icky about this, like this is entertainment. So how is it entertainment when some people's lives - what do you think about this?
DEMBY: Right, these are real people's lives...
MARTIN: Right.
DEMBY: ...And them being sort of crushed by the criminal justice system. You know, it's weird. It seems like there's a pendulum swing. So much of our popular culture when we see the criminal justice system has been really pro-prosecution for, like, a long time, right? You've got "Law & Order" - the cops are always right, the judge is always right. Everyone gets - the bad guys get convicted. I think maybe it's because there are different voices in the media conversation now, where people have more skepticism towards the way that process works. But it seems like we're having - like, Serial is sort of about, you know, the integrity of this case. Like, did this cat really do this, right? And this is - in this case - this case - and "Making A Murderer" is even more extreme because it seemed like he was framed. But as Kenn and I were talking before, just before we came in here, you know, there are so many ways that people get railroaded by the criminal justice system that don't need to be this egregious, right? I mean, if you get hit with six charges, right - I think somebody says that in "Making A Murderer" - one of the defense attorneys says, you know, you have to run the table if you get - if you go to court, right? Because if you get convicted on one of those charges, you're going to jail. So you have to decide whether you want to go to court and fight these charges or you want to take a plea deal and go to jail anyway.
MARTIN: So do you think it's a good thing that there are all of these vehicles right now to talk about this?
DEMBY: I think we should be talking about our criminal justice system. It has such consequences for so many Americans, right? And we tend to look at it - it tends to be treated with, like - with...
MARTIN: Kid gloves.
DEMBY: ...Kid gloves and, like - and looked at through the rose-colored glasses and justice and all this stuff like that. And I think over the last year, especially when we talk about Black Lives Matter and all this other stuff, we've seen - so how much - you know, how much the country's divided on these issues.
MARTIN: What do you think about it, Kenn?
BLANCHARD: I realize recently that justice is expensive. If you really want to have the justice system work for you, you can't be poor. You'll get railroaded really, really fast. You won't have the education. You want know all the rights. Nobody will have the time to talk to you and...
MARTIN: So what do you think about this as in entertainment vehicles?
BLANCHARD: I think it's always been there. I remember there were, like - it was paperback before - crime novels, the "True Detectives." And it was kind of almost pornography at one time, but it is kind of pornography now. It's so graphic, you can kind of put it there.
MARTIN: Do you watch it?
BLANCHARD: No.
MARTIN: You don't watch it.
BLANCHARD: I had to do a crash course before I came here today...
MARTIN: OK.
BLANCHARD: ...Because I wanted to, like, see what you all are talking about. I was like oh, no, this is another one of those situations where the world is just starting to catch up to how our system is.
MARTIN: OK. Anil, what do you think?
DASH: Yeah, you know, I think the justice system broadly has always been entertainment. I mean, everybody who's ever said oh, I love "The Wire," I mean, a lot of what you're talking about there is the justice system and how it works and how it doesn't work. The damning thing is that usually we're watching a fictitious version. You know, when "Law & Order" says ripped from the headlines, what they mean is we're doing everything we can not to tell a real story. We're going to evoke all the emotion of a real story and not give you the real story.
MARTIN: OK.
DASH: For me, I think it's huge progress if what is actually engaging people is true stories and people that were actually negatively impacted by this. Like, I actually can't think of anything better for - especially, you know, those of us that are very fortunate in our lives to choose to...
MARTIN: OK.
DASH: ...Even if it's in the framework of entertainment...
MARTIN: OK.
DASH: ...To choose to listen to somebody's story of somebody on the margins...
MARTIN: I've got to leave it there for now. But Gene, I have to ask you though, you know Powerball's tonight, right?
DEMBY: Right, right.
MARTIN: I know you have a ticket.
DEMBY: Yeah.
MARTIN: What are you going to do if you win?
DEMBY: I've got to say the rap thing. I got to buy my mama a house, right? That's the first thing. And then I would give money to my local NPR member station, right? (Laughter). And then I would probably just turn up and act stupid. That would definitely happen.
MARTIN: Well, I'll call you from my private island next week because I'm going to win. That's Kenn Blanchard - Rev. Kenn Blanchard, Gene Demby and Anil Dash, thank you all so much.
DEMBY: Thank you so much.
BLANCHARD: Thank you.
DASH: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Did we happen to mention the Powerball jackpot is up to almost a billion dollars? It's the biggest prize in U.S. history, big enough to get the attention of people who say they've never bought a lottery ticket before in their lives. Case in point, our staff - they practically forced me to create an office pool. What could I do? So we went to pick up our tickets at a couple of vendors near the office. And while we were there, we talked to a few people who were also there with the same prize in mind. In line, I met Angela Moses. She said she rarely plays the lottery. But this year, the hype and the payout were just too big to ignore.
ANGELA MOSES: It's everywhere and everyone's talking about it, so it makes you just want to come out and give it a try, even though you don't usually do this.
MARTIN: Well, what are you going to do if you win?
MOSES: Find a very good investment firm to give me some instructions and probably go on a trip and pay off some college tuition.
MARTIN: Sounds like a plan, sounds very responsible.
MOSES: Yes, yes. Well, if you read all about it, it tells you about all the people who lose all their money in the first five years, and I would never want to be one of those people (laughter).
UNIDENTIFIED VENDOR: It's $2.
MARTIN: Interestingly enough, some of the more seasoned lottery players seemed unfazed by the record pool. Luther Ruth said he plays whenever it's convenient and that the size of the prize has nothing to do with it.
LUTHER RUTH: You can't spend it all, so it doesn't mean anything. It's the same as 100 million to me.
MARTIN: But Edward Tan bought five tickets because he just didn't want to miss out.
EDWARD TAN: This is the biggest in the nation, right, in history, right? Yeah, it's all over the news. I'm going to take this one, all right? (Laughter).
MARTIN: Meanwhile, the lottery-ticket machine was busy at work, pumping out the tickets for the steady stream of would-be multimillionaires. Even the manager of one store we visited, Capital City Wine and Spirits' Damien Glascon couldn't resist getting in on the action.
DAMIEN GLASCON: Because if I can win and don't have to work anymore, that'll be a definite plus.
MARTIN: Well, what are your plans? What's your plan?
GLASCON: First thing I'd do is come in and lock the doors down, and me and my buddies will start popping these bottles open (laughter). It's a celebration, you know? That would be the first thing...
MARTIN: (Laughter) What's going to be the beverage of choice?
GLASCON: We'll go up there with the top shelves (laughter).
MARTIN: Not if we get there first.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MONEY - THAT'S WHAT I WANT")
BARRETT STRONG: (Singing) The best things in life are free, but you give them to the birds and bees. I need money. That's what I want.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now we'd like to tell you about the latest chapter in a saga that's frustrated Mexican and U.S. authorities alike. We're talking about the drug kingpin, Joaquin Guzman, known as El Chapo. He was recaptured Friday. He'd been missing since July, and that was his second escape from prison. Guzman's being held in Mexico for crimes there, but he's also wanted for several drug trafficking charges in multiple U.S. states. Now Mexican officials say they are willing to consider extradition to the United States. Here to tell us more about this case is Jimmy Gurule. He teaches global criminal law at the University of Notre Dame. Thanks so much for speaking with us.
JIMMY GURULE: It's my pleasure.
MARTIN: We understand that he is to be returned to the same prison from which he escaped last July. Why would that be?
GURULE: Well, it's perplexing to me because as you know that was the prison from which he escaped, and it was a very bold effort on his behalf that involved a tunnel that went under the prison yard. It took one year to construct and as much as a million dollars. So the question now is why does the Mexican government believe that his security will be anymore guaranteed there now than it was before?
MARTIN: One of the things, I think, that's adding to the - kind of the friction between the U.S. and Mexico on this point is that we understand that the U.S. had issued an extradition request to prosecute Mr. Guzman in the United States some three weeks prior to his escape. And we also understand that there was some intelligence that they say was shared with Mexican authorities that this escape was planned. You know, so given all that, what is the likelihood that he will now be extradited to the U.S.?
GURULE: I think it's unlikely. Now, it's certainly possible, but I think it's highly unlikely for a couple of reasons. First, extradition involves important issues of sovereignty. And in this particular case, El Chapo was tried, convicted and sentenced in Mexico, and therefore should serve his prison sentence in Mexico. At the same time, I don't think that Mexico wants to be perceived as being dictated to by the United States and caving into U.S. extradition demands.
Further, I think that if Mexico surrenders El Chapo to the United States, that could be perceived as a tacit admission that Mexicans' criminal justice system is broken and it cannot hold major drug pins accountable such as El Chapo.
MARTIN: But is there any precedent though for extraditing an individual, even perhaps to a third country if it's been demonstrated that, for whatever reason, the legal system - the criminal justice system is not capable of incarcerating this person? I mean, is there any precedent for that based on the fact that he has two prior escapes?
GURULE: There certainly is. I mean, there's no question that Mexico has the authority, I think, the legal authority to go ahead and extradite him. There is an extradition treaty between the United States and Mexico. The drug offenses for which the United States is seeking to hold El Chapo accountable were extraditable offenses within that treaty, so the legal authority is there. I think the more interesting question is whether the political will is there. Having said that, I think that there is one compelling argument in favor of extradition and that is this - if he's returned to the same prison where he escaped and if he escapes again, this would be the third escape. That would be so embarrassing. That would be so humiliating to the Mexican government that their concerns regarding whether they can guarantee that he will not escape again may dictate that it would be better to release him - surrender him to U.S. authorities.
MARTIN: Jimmy Gurule is a professor of criminal law the University of Notre Dame. He joined us from South Bend. Professor Gurule, thanks so much for speaking with us.
GURULE: My pleasure. Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to spend the next several minutes talking about that group of armed men who took over federal buildings in a national wildlife refuge in Oregon nearly a week ago. They say they are protesting federal land use policies. Law enforcement and many locals hope they'll decide to leave on their own. In a few minutes, though, we'll speak to a tribal leader whose tribe has a particular interest in what's going on on that wildlife refuge. But first, Dave Blanchard of Oregon Public Broadcasting reports that even if the group does leave on their own, new supporters are arriving in Harney County ready to take up the anti-federalist cause themselves.
DAVE BLANCHARD, BYLINE: Local allies of protest leader Ammon Bundy have called on him to end the occupation at the refuge. One of the six members of the Committee of Safety, Melodi Molt, explained their reason.
MELODI MOLT: We feel that any good which may come out of this event has reached its full potential.
BLANCHARD: The occupiers offered no immediate plans to leave the refuge. Meanwhile, other groups that oppose federal ownership of land are arriving in Harney County. Brandon Curtiss is founder of the Pacific Patriots Network. He says members came from Oregon, Idaho and Washington state, though he wouldn't disclose how many.
BRANDON CURTISS: We're here to establish a security buffer between the gentlemen here at the refuge, the community citizens, as well as law enforcement.
BLANCHARD: A representative of Bundy, LaVoy Finicum, says they were grateful for their presence, though he urged them to put away their guns.
LAVOY FINICUM: We want the long guns put away. We want those put up, OK? We don't want things to look threatening. This thing is not to be threatening. This is to be peaceful.
BLANCHARD: Law enforcement in the area has yet to comment. There remains no law enforcement presence at the site of the occupation. For NPR News, I'm Dave Blanchard in Burns, Ore.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
There is a group that already feels threatened. The give back our land rallying cry made by the armed occupiers is not sitting well with Native Americans, especially the Burns Paiute Tribe. The wildlife refuge is part of the Paiute's ancestral lands.
CHARLOTTE RODRIQUE: I was offended because they think that there was no life here prior to the ranchers being here.
MARTIN: That's Charlotte Rodrique, chair of the Burns Paiute Tribal Council. We called her at home to hear how she and the tribe are addressing the occupation. I started by asking her how she first heard the news that an armed group had taken over the wildlife preserve with ties to her tribe.
RODRIQUE: We're a very small community, and there's been talk and they advertised that they were having a rally downtown. And it didn't really occur to me that they were going to do something of this nature. But I just kind of let it go because as a tribal person, I need to go through channels and get the feeling of the tribal community before I go out under the pretense of speaking for the tribe.
MARTIN: But, presumably, you've done that now, so what is the feeling of the tribal people?
RODRIQUE: The tribe is very offended. During the rally, a faction of the militia were on their way out to the wildlife refuge. And their theme, of course, was that, you know, we're going to give it back to the original owners, which were the ranchers. Of course, that rubbed me the wrong way because that's our aboriginal territory.
MARTIN: Can you talk little more about what is there? Are there relics that are in place that you feel - are they not respecting those things? Are they not taking care of them?
RODRIQUE: Well, at this point, they're probably under 2 feet of snow. But we do have burial sites. We have artifacts. We have petroglyphs. We have resources there that we utilize as a tribe. And we've always had a good - not always, I'd say in the last 25 years, we've developed a real good working relationship with the people at the refuge. And we go out, we take our children out to teach them traditional lifestyle - identifying plants and medicines that are traditional to our people. In fact, our band of Paiute people is named after that seed that grows on the shores there at the marsh. It's called wada, and we're called the Wada band.
MARTIN: So the idea of contesting with these people to have access to this is offensive to you...
RODRIQUE: Yes.
MARTIN: ...The idea that you might be confronting an armed person while you're going about trying to pass on heritage is beyond - is not something you feel you should have to do. Could I just ask you one thing, though? The Paiute had a treaty with the federal government in 1868, but it was never ratified. What is the formal relationship between the Paiute people and this land at the moment?
RODRIQUE: Well, I think, even though the treaty wasn't ratified, we continued as though there were a treaty between the department - the Army and the tribal people for the last hundred and, I don't know, 30 years.
MARTIN: There's a man named Ammon Bundy, who is the - kind of one of the leaders of this group that are occupying the wildlife refuge. Have any of them tried to speak with you or have you tried to speak with any of them?
RODRIQUE: No, I just don't feel that we need to dignify what they're doing with a face-to-face - a negotiation or what have you. But there hasn't been any confrontation. I don't expect any and, certainly, I hope won't be initiated by tribal people.
MARTIN: It does seem, though, that law enforcement's strategy is to wait it out. How does that sit with you?
RODRIQUE: I don't like it. And the thing is that these people are not going to get hungry. Law enforcement lets them come into town, go to the grocery store, you know, get gas for their heaters. They did disconnect their utilities and things like that, but it's not really forcing them out. You know, in our history, that was how the military got us. They basically starved us into submission. And you could do the same thing with these occupiers.
MARTIN: What would you like to have happen?
RODRIQUE: Right now, I'd like to have those people leave. And I'd like to see the federal agency, the FBI, remove this people. As a tribal person, I'm also offended by the fact that if I, as a native person, a person of color, were to go down there and do the same thing, they would've hit me on the forehead with a baton and said, what are you doing here? And the next thing I know, they would've probably handcuffed me, hit me again and drug me off. And because they're white people, I feel that they're being treated differently.
MARTIN: Well, thank you so much for speaking with us. I understand that I've caught you in the middle of a family day, and you've got your grandkids and doing a lot of other things. So we very much appreciate it.
RODRIQUE: OK, well, thank you.
MARTIN: That's Charlotte Rodrique. She chairs the Burns Paiute Tribal Council.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And now we want to take a look at another issue that's making waves in the world of education. Teachers around the country are being told that they need to be tougher on students in the classroom - more scripted directions, less praise. It's a method called No-Nonsense Nurturing, and it is designed to help teachers with classroom management. WFAE's Lisa Worf in Charlotte is telling us how it works.
LISA WORF, BYLINE: First, drop the niceties and give specific instructions. Druid Hills Academy math teacher Jonnecia Alford has it down pat.
JONNECIA ALFORD: Your pencil is in your hand. Your voice is on the zero. If you have the problem correct, you're following along and checking off your answer.
WORF: Then Alford describes to her sixth-graders what their peers are doing.
ALFORD: Vonetia's looking at me. Denario put her pencils down - good indicator. Monica put hers down and she's looking at me.
WORF: No-Nonsense Nurturing is in part the brainchild of former principal Kristyn Klei Borrero. She's now CEO of the Center for Transformative Teacher Training, an education consulting company based in San Francisco. Klei Borrero says the foundation of the program isn't new. It just puts into practice what she's observed from high-performing teachers - keeping expectations high by only praising outstanding effort.
KRISTYN KLEI BORRERO: It notices students that are doing the right things, so it creates this positive momentum. But it also gives the students who might have missed the directions another way of hearing it without it being nagging and also seeing it in action.
WORF: The center has worked with more than 250 schools across the country since 2009. All of them have similar populations - students from low-income families, many of them black and Hispanic. Nine of those schools are in Charlotte. So is this helping students, or does it just bring more rules into the classroom? Barb Stengel, an education professor at Vanderbilt University, isn't sure. No-Nonsense Nurturing makes her uncomfortable.
BARB STENGEL: Maybe we are doing them a favor by teaching them codes of power. But maybe we are also participating in some kind of, I don't know, colonization, that we're simply teaching kids to look like me.
WORF: She worries there's too much emphasis on compliance, not engagement. But school leaders in Charlotte say No-Nonsense Nurturing gives their students the structure they need. They say they've noticed kids are more engaged since the district began using that approach. Teachers like Kelly McManus at Druid Hills Academy go through several weeks of training.
KELLY MCMANUS: I would say, students, please raise your hand on a level zero if you...
VANETIA HOWARD: Let me stop you.
MCMANUS: OK.
HOWARD: Please.
MCMANUS: OK.
HOWARD: You want them to do it. There's no opt-out.
MCMANUS: OK.
HOWARD: Drop the please.
MCMANUS: OK.
WORF: That last voice is her colleague and coach Vanetia Howard. After this one-on-one session, it's time to put what McManus has learned into action while still being coached. McManus wears an earbud. Howard stands in the back of the class. She whispers directions to McManus through a walkie-talkie.
HOWARD: Ask force complete sentences when respond.
MCMANUS: We're going to respond now in complete sentences.
WORF: McManus feels stressed but finds it valuable.
MCMANUS: I have never gotten so much feedback from a coach like that before. I mean intentional feedback where I can take it right back to my room and use it.
WORF: Her complaint - and you hear this a lot - is that she feels like a robot at times. Stengel, the Vanderbilt professor, sees how the scripted directions and narration help. But...
STENGEL: I just don't want these teachers - particularly if they're going to stay in the profession - to think that this is all there is to developing children toward autonomy and responsibility.
WORF: No-Nonsense Nurturing acknowledges this and encourages teachers to lay off that robotic voice over time. The hope is by then, students don't need it. For NPR News, I'm Lisa Worf in Charlotte.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now we're going to head to West Africa, where Ghana is enjoying a revival of live theater. When the military took power and imposed a curfew in the 1980s, theaters went dark. By the time elected civilian government was restored in 1992, Ghanaians had lost the habit of going out to watch a play. NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton found a businessman-turned-playwright who is luring his compatriots away from television, videos and tablets. Here's her report from the capital, Accra.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Unintelligible).
OFEIBEA QUIST-ARCTON, BYLINE: A buzz of excitement ripples through the audience perched on plush, red seats at Ghana's sleek, modern National Theater. The smartly dressed, mainly middle-class crowd nearly fills the Chinese-built auditorium. It's here that the plays of Ebo Whyte are performed every three months, and you can't miss him.
JAMES EBO WHYTE: My name is James Ebo Whyte, but everyone in Ghana calls me Uncle Ebo Whyte.
QUIST-ARCTON: The dynamic 70-year-old Ghanaian playwright is smallish and a natty dresser with a big smile. The one-time marketing executive regularly leaps onstage to talk to the audience, to apologize for a power cut or encourage theatergoers to buy tickets for his next play.
WHYTE: I've been writing, directing and producing a play every quarter for the last seven years.
QUIST-ARCTON: Ebo Whyte says Ghana once had a thriving and serious theater industry. Productions were hugely popular, mostly in English, with a smattering of pidgin, local English and the occasional indigenous language. Works by Ghanaian playwrights were regularly performed in this former British colony, as well as an established British repertoire. The vibrant Ghanaian theater tradition covered a wide range, from life in post-independence Africa to more traditional tales, says Ebo Whyte.
WHYTE: When I was growing up, theater was very big. I remember the drama studio - there was a production there every weekend, but then came the curfew. That killed all night life.
QUIST-ARCTON: Whyte says after the curfew was lifted, other nightlife rebounded.
WHYTE: Night clubs came back. Discos came back. But theater did not come back because we had lost most of the human resource to the new emerging video film production market. So we didn't have the people in the theater anymore.
QUIST-ARCTON: To revive live theater, Whyte hit on a simple formula - a four-play-a-year subscription at a reasonable price - and voila - packed houses. Mind you, these aren't classics or heavy fair - no Chinua Achebe or Shakespeare. Whyte's plays are mostly lightweight entertainment with a message and a lot of music and dance thrown in.
WHYTE: Yes. When I say commercial theater, I'm talking about a theater that survives and is sustained without any grants, without any government supports. We go out there, and we sell our shows to corporate Ghana.
QUIST-ARCTON: Whyte sells advertising to cell phone networks, banks and other sponsors. His play this time is "Bananas And Groundnuts" - i.e., peanuts.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "BANANAS AND GROUNDNUTS")
NANA SAM ELLIOT-SACKEYFIO: (As Ade, singing) Today, I don't feel like doing anything.
ANDREW ADOTE: (As Abraham, singing) Today, I don't feel like doing anything.
ELLIOT-SACKEYFIO: (As Ade, singing) I just want to lay in my bed.
ADOTE: (As Abraham, singing) I just want to lay - then how will you make money?
(LAUGHTER)
QUIST-ARCTON: It's a comedy-cum-moralizing tale of good and almost evil - a young man and woman tripping along the path of courtship. Actor Andrew Adote plays Abraham, the male lead - the stiff, socially awkward and seemingly daft love interest of the slightly ditzy leading lady, Ade. Abraham has a number of ticks, including a hilarious laugh.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "BANANAS AND GROUNDNUTS")
ADOTE: (As Abraham, laughter).
(LAUGHTER)
ADOTE: (As Abraham, laughter).
QUIST-ARCTON: Adote has performed in most of Ebo Whyte's almost 30 plays.
ADOTE: Laughter is the vehicle with which we convey our messages.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "BANANAS AND GROUNDNUTS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Give me an A.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) A.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Give me a B.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) B.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Give me an A, B, R, A, H, A, M.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters) Go, Abraham.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Oh, I'm beginning to love...
QUIST-ARCTON: That's the scene where Abraham triumphs over his rival for Ade's affections. Leaving the theater, Elsbeth Sakyi and her 9-year-old daughter Angela are busy discussing "Bananas And Groundnuts." The mother also came to watch Whyte's previous play.
ELSBETH SAKYI: And I enjoyed myself so much. And I decided that no matter what, tonight I'm going to be at the show. And it was so wonderful and interesting. I bet you...
ANGELA: And great, too.
SAKYI: (Laughter) I bet you it's challenging. It's motivational. It's interesting, and you got to be here.
ANGELA: I was, like - when I grew up, like, I will be part of it.
QUIST-ARCTON: Leading man Andrew Adote says the quality of Ebo Whyte's theater is unmatched in Ghana today.
ADOTE: There are other playwrights and produces coming up, and it's very good for us.
QUIST-ARCTON: Because, says Adote, their success will be a sign of a real theater revival. Ofeibea Quist-Arcton, NPR News, Accra.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
You may remember America Ferrera from her role as the quirky, spirited Betty Suarez in ABC's "Ugly Betty," a role that led to an Emmy award for comedy for Ferrera, which was a first for a Latina. Now she's back in a new network comedy, and she also produces the show. It's called "Superstore," and it's on NBC. Now, NBC has earned a reputation as the home of the workplace comedy from hits like "The Office" and "Parks And Recreation." But "Superstore" has already made itself stand out with material about hot button subjects like religion, abortion, the Black Lives Matter movement and racial stereotypes.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SUPERSTORE")
NICO SANTOS: (As Mateo, speaking Spanish).
AMERICA FERRERA: (As Amy) Right.
SANTOS: (As Mateo) I cannot stop playing the role.
FERRERA: It's not a role. It's a stereotype. How would you feel if I was handing out Asian food, and I was all, like, oh, (unintelligible). Eat most honorable teriyaki chicken. (Unintelligible).
SANTOS: (As Mateo) That would be messed up.
MARTIN: That would be messed up (laughter). That was Nico Santos and America Ferrera, two of the stars of "Superstore," and America Ferrera is with us now. Welcome. So glad to have you with us.
FERRERA: Thank you. I'm so glad to be talking to you.
MARTIN: How did the idea for the show come about and how - about sort of dealing with topics like this in that context?
FERRERA: Well, our creator-writer is Justin Spitzer, and he's a fabulous writer who came off many of writing and producing on "The Office." And so when I got the pilot script, I really responded to all those things - the elements of, you know, dealing with real life issues - and through the lens of comedy. And I think that it's really time that we see another working-class comedy on broadcast television.
And our cast is so diverse, as you heard. We all come from such different experiences of life. And what that does - you know, it's not just about diversity for the sake of diversity. This diversity gives us the opportunity to approach topics like race from a place of experience, not just from a place of, you know, intellectualism and having conversations, but about - hey, this is my experience, and it's messed up. And no one's right, and no one's wrong. And that's what I really loved about this episode - is there was a conversation had about how everybody views their different racial experiences.
MARTIN: But, you know, I read in an interview with Remezcla that this was the first time you were offered a character that was not specifically written for a Latina. Is that right?
FERRERA: It is right. I realized after the fact that - wow - this is the first time that I had been offered a role that wasn't written specifically for a Latino actor. And all of these characters were written with no specified ethnicity. And usually what that means is you cast white actors because that's the default, but what they were doing with this casting was so new and interesting. And they went out and found the actors that were right for the roles, and they happened to be Latino, black, Asian, Jewish. And I thought that was really revolutionary for television casting.
MARTIN: I just wondered if you feel that you opened the door. Or - it's a tricky question because, you know, "The Cosby Show" was a hit show and, you know, dominated primetime for years. And yet, what came after was very little. And I'm just wondering what role you think "Ugly Betty" played in the universe that we're seeing now.
FERRERA: Well, you know, I think it's very similar to what you just said about "The Cosby Show." You know, "Ugly Betty" came on the air, was a massive hit. And when we went off the air, it was years before there was another TV show starring a Latina with a family back on TV. And it's not a coincidence that it was from some of the same producers - Ben Silverman, who produced "Ugly Betty," then went and produced "Jane The Virgin."
But it wasn't like people saw "Ugly Betty" and thought, oh, wow - there's opportunity here. There's so many people out there starving and hungry to see themselves represented. It's amazing how hard it is to actually move the dial. And unfortunately, you know, there's one big success, and we all get super excited. And it very rarely results in, you know, a watershed moment for Latinos on television.
MARTIN: Are the conversations at least different now, or are they not?
FERRERA: I think they are. I think they're absolutely different. I'm now a producer in television, and to be a part of the conversations is heartening 'cause you do see that people want to understand it. People want to know, you know, what does this mean for our audience? How do - what is the content they want to see? How do they want to be represented? And so I know the conversations are being had. It - it's about execution, and it's about, you know, also, a shortage of Latinos in creative positions. And I think that's true for all ethnicities. I think that's a much bigger conversation for how to do we - how do we get the next generation of people of color to be inspired enough to enter these fields where they feel like there is opportunity for them to succeed.
MARTIN: I want to talk about one of the other things you're known for, which is your activism. I mean, you've been an ambassador for Voto Latino. This past summer, you penned an open letter to Donald Trump in The Huffington Post Latino Voices blog entitled "Thank you, Donald Trump," in which you called him out on some of the comments that he's made about Latino immigrants that many people consider offensive. I'd like to ask - how do you balance that? How do you decide when to step in and when to not?
FERRERA: Well, I - it's not as calculated, as planned as I would like it to be. You know, part of what I love so much about the work I do as an actor and as a producer is I believe in the power of media and art and storytelling to be a part of that conversation and to really move those conversations forward. And so I don't think that my voice is, you know, more entitled because I'm a celebrity, but I'm as entitled as anybody else in this country to use the platforms that I have to talk about the things I care about.
MARTIN: You know, to that end, though, you wrote this letter to Donald Trump in July, but months later, Donald Trump is leading in many polls. He's become the Republican candidate to beat. But I just do have to mention that the network which hosts your program - shows your program - also offered him a platform on "Saturday Night Live," hosting. And many people were very uncomfortable with that, very upset about that. But I just have to ask if you have some thoughts about that?
FERRERA: Absolutely. I mean, I was - I was very uncomfortable with the decision and didn't agree with the decision. And the truth is that Donald Trump isn't going away. But I do think that it's up to all of us to, yes, be angry, but harness that energy where it matters and show up to vote on election day and to use that anger that we feel when Donald Trump hosts "SNL" and organize our communities to show up where it really, really will make a difference.
MARTIN: Sounds like you're going to be busy this year.
FERRERA: Yeah, it's going to be a very exciting year.
MARTIN: You think we might see an election story line in "Superstore"?
FERRERA: Oh, I - not in this season. Season two - who knows? I mean, I'm sure it's possible.
MARTIN: That is America Ferrera, who stars in and is one of the producers of NBC's new comedy "Superstore," which airs Mondays at 8 p.m. Eastern time. We spoke with her at our bureau in New York. America Ferrera, thanks so much for speaking with us.
FERRERA: Thank you so much, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to start with a story that continues to get more bizarre by the day. You heard on Friday about the arrest of the notorious Mexican drug lord Joaquin Guzman, known as El Chapo, who was finally captured after his escape from a Mexican in prison in July. You might have heard that authorities got some clues to his whereabouts because he had been in contact with some entertainment figures. Well, now it turns out that the Oscar-winning actor and activist Sean Penn met with the cartel leader last October in a secret jungle hideout, an encounter he describes in a piece for Rolling Stone that was published last night. That may have led Mexican authorities to Guzman's whereabouts and to his arrest. Meanwhile, serious questions are also being raised in Mexico and the U.S. about whether Penn did the right thing. We wanted to hear more about all of this, so we've called NPR's Mexico correspondent Carrie Kahn. Hi, Carrie.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Hi.
MARTIN: So just how did Sean Penn get in contact with El Chapo? This is supposed to have been the largest manhunt in Mexican history. This is after all his second prison escape, so presumably he's highly sought after because this was embarrassing. And so how does a Hollywood actor find him when the authorities cannot?
KAHN: That's a great question, and I'm sure the Mexican authorities are scratching their head and a little embarrassed about that, too. But they were connected through Mexican actress Kate del Castillo. She's famous on both sides of the border. And if you ever watch that TV show "Weeds," she was Pilar in that. She also starred in a Telemundo hit as a cartel leader in a series called "La Reina Del Sur," "The Queen Of The South." And she caused quite a stir. In 2012, she actually posted on social media what was interpreted as an open sympathetic letter to Chapo Guzman. Reportedly he read that post and through lawyers began corresponding with her. He wanted her to produce a film about his life story. And a mutual friend connected de Castillo and Penn, and they all went to that secret compound in the mountains in Mexico in October to meet with Guzman.
MARTIN: So what's been the reaction to news that Penn and del Castillo were the reason that this all happened or that they in fact had met with him at a time when he was so highly sought after? What are people saying about this?
KAHN: Well, that picture of Penn shaking hands with this dapper-looking Guzman is on the front page of nearly every paper and website here today. There's been quotes in some news outlets that Mexican officials want to talk with both actors about their clandestine meeting and communications with Guzman. NPR actually contacted the U.S. Justice Department spokesman who had no comment about whether anyone else is the subject of a U.S. investigation. But it's getting a lot of play here. There's been some quite interesting posts on social media, a lot ridiculing of Penn, making - doing these twists on words with his name, which could be twisted into a bad word. And there's also some that have been ridiculing him for his forays into journalism. In one tweet by journalist Alfredo Corchado really brought it home here. Given the violence that, you know, Mexican reporters face - more than 30 have been killed here since 1992 - he said to describe Penn's meeting as an interview is an epic insult to journalists who have died in the name of truth.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Mexico correspondent Carrie Kahn. Carrie, thank you.
KAHN: You're welcome.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In another noteworthy story this week, President Obama will stand before Congress for his final State of the Union report on Tuesday night. And his speech is expected to look both forward and back. The White House chief of staff says the president will offer, quote, "a big optimistic, generous view of the future," unquote. And this seems to suggest a departure from past speeches, where Mr. Obama has unveiled a list of what he wanted to do. NPR's senior Washington editor and correspondent Ron Elving is here to tell us more about what we're going to see and hear on Tuesday. Hi, Ron.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Michel.
MARTIN: So what kinds of hints are we getting about what the president plans to talk about?
ELVING: We're hearing a lot about a non-traditional approach, something that's going to be not the long list, not the catalog of the past. But, you know, the weekend address that we just heard is all about the auto industry, the success of the bailout and how the jobs have been created and how the jobless rate has been cut in half and 90 percent of the country now has health insurance. So there's some hint there that we'll hear a little bit of a victory lap kind of language from the president. But we also know there's going to be a record number of guests in the first lady's box in the gallery. And looking down these names, you know, we've got a governor and a mayor, the CEO of Microsoft, a lot of veterans. But you also see Edith Childs from South Carolina. She was the woman who originated the fired up, ready to go chant back in the first Obama campaign. I'm sure you remember that.
MARTIN: I sure do.
ELVING: Maybe we'll even hear Barack Obama say hope and change again.
MARTIN: So what do we think he's going to spend most of the speech on?
ELVING: The White House says again, he's going to talk about ideas for the future. That would be some immediate ideas and some long-term, things to do this year - guns, the trade deal with the Pacific Rim, things of that nature. But he wants to also set forth an agenda for the country beyond this year, longer-term, things like schools, pluralism in the culture, campaign finance reform, prison reform. Then we're talking care about criminal justice reform in general and, of course, climate change.
MARTIN: So what's the thinking about what is motivating this approach? Is this about perhaps helping the Democratic nominee, or is this really more about creating a narrative around the president's legacy? What do you think?
ELVING: You know, each of those things has the potential to help or harm the other. Nothing is more gratifying for any president than handing over the keys to someone of the president's own party, and that would largely depend on selling a positive vision of Obama's own years in office. So that's important, whoever the Democratic nominee is.
MARTIN: So are there any specific things we might expect to hear from the president on Tuesday? Because it's interesting to me that we're already starting to hear some of the Republicans poke the president, saying he's already checked out and just not that interested in governing at this point in his term.
ELVING: It's going to be hard to feel the president's checked out when he's addressing the whole Congress and everyone else who's watching on Tuesday night. And I think people might be surprised at how positive and celebratory the president is on this occasion with all the problems in the world. I mean, we don't know if he'll ever have another occasion to speak before the Congress. No formal occasion would demand it. And so all the people present at this unique annual event really give him a unique opportunity for a valedictory and a summary of his presidency. So he's going to treat it that way. This is a president who cares a lot about presentation and having an impact. And he's going to work as hard as he can to make this a major hit.
MARTIN: So we should be prepared for something out of the ordinary.
ELVING: There's always a chance something new could be invented to vitalize and to put some juice into this very ritualistic kind of speech. The White House is trying to get us to believe it's going to be different. The president, of course, has told us that we should be prepared for something out of the ordinary we've never heard before - so maybe in the beginning of the speech or the end of the speech or at some sense or another in the packaging of it there will be something that sets this State of the Union apart.
MARTIN: That's NPR senior Washington editor and correspondent Ron Elving. Ron, thank you.
ELVING: Thank you, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It's time once again for our regular segment Words You'll hear. That's where we try to understand stories we'll be hearing more about in the coming days by parsing some of the words associated with those stories. Today, our phrase is implementation day, which has huge indications for Iran and perhaps other countries as well. Secretary of State John Kerry says it could be days away. So here to tell us more about implementation day is NPR's Peter Kenyon, who followed the long-running nuclear talks with Iran. He's in Istanbul now. Hi, Peter.
PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Hi, Michel.
MARTIN: So what is implementation day, and what does this have to do with Iran?
KENYON: Implementation day is when Iran finishes a whole series of big steps to shrink its nuclear program, cut things down and also make it easier to inspect in the future. It's already moved a lot of its fuel; enriched uranium is gone from the country; it's yanking out centrifuges left and right; it's going to be disabling its plutonium reactor. Once it does all the steps and the U.N. verifies it, then we get implementation day. And what actually happens then is what Iran has been waiting for for so long - the major financial and banking sanctions get lifted, and they get access to, I don't know, $100 billion or more in assets that have been frozen.
MARTIN: Maybe this is a dumb question, but I have to ask, why do they call it implementation day instead of, I don't know, beginning day...
KENYON: Yeah, yeah.
MARTIN: ...Or treaty day? I don't - maybe...
KENYON: I know what you mean.
MARTIN: Maybe that's why they call it that because they can't think of a better word. If I could think of one, I would offer it to you. But why do they call it that?
KENYON: Well, there's another reason. It's a good question. And it's because they had extremely different narratives, these negotiators, sitting across the table from each other. On the one hand, Iran's leaders were saying everything's got to be lifted the day this begins. Right from the start, all of the sanctions are lifted. That's our demand. And then you had the Western leaders - Washington and European leaders - saying nothing is going to get lifted until after Iran does all these big steps to reduce its nuclear program and makes other commitments. Now, how, you might wonder, can you make both of those things true at the same time? Turns out you need a lot of lawyers.
MARTIN: OK (laughter). So this phrase allowed the leadership in Iran and those in the West - particularly the U.S. - to say things that sounded different but they could still go forward. Is it kind of like that, a sort of cover for them to sort of keep talking and keep moving toward a resolution?
KENYON: Yep. It was an amazing balancing act in some ways. There's not just implementation day. There's a whole series of days as part of this deal. We've already had adoption day, and that's when the Western leaders said, see? Now Iran's going to do all these big nuclear cuts. That's what we promised. And what's going to happen next is implementation day. Iranian leaders turn around and say, see? Just like we said, the sanctions are being lifted and we are now just implementing the agreement. So our demands have been met. So it is a way of making opposite things true at the same time.
MARTIN: This is really fascinating, Peter, I have to be honest. Maybe this is, like, nerd fun. But it's really interesting.
KENYON: Exactly, I think it is.
MARTIN: The final question to you though, this is all happening at a very unsettled time, you know, in the Middle East - I mean, this whole conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia.
KENYON: Yeah.
MARTIN: Is there any sense that these other events will be affecting the timeline?
KENYON: You know, there's some worry about that. It seems to be going forward. But Riyadh has been one of the biggest foes of this deal from the beginning. They're very worried about Iran having more money, more power in the region. Washington's not especially happy right now over Iran's missile program, a whole other issue. So this big victory for President Hassan Rouhani in Iran is going to be coming at a very touchy time.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Peter Kenyon in Istanbul. Peter, thank you so much.
KENYON: Thanks, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now we're going back to a story we brought you last month out of Wheaton College, an evangelical Christian college in Illinois. Larycia Hawkins, an associate professor of political science there, was placed on leave last month after she decided to wear a headscarf to show solidarity with Muslims at a difficult moment. She posted a note on Facebook saying Christians and Muslims, quote, "worship the same God," unquote. School officials said they needed time to decide whether her statement was at odds with the faith perspective required of those who work at the college. Earlier this week though, we learned that Wheaton College had begun the process of terminating professor Hawkins, who, by the way, has tenure. And we reached her in Chicago. Welcome, thanks so much for speaking with us.
LARYCIA HAWKINS: Thanks, Michel. It's good to be with you.
MARTIN: How are you reacting to all of this?
HAWKINS: It's been a whirlwind. One new bit of information is that the hearing has been set for January 23. That felt really devastating to receive that news given that I've committed nine years of my life to teaching in an institution that I really believe embodies the spirit of the liberal arts in a Christian context.
MARTIN: Are you surprised by all this?
HAWKINS: I'm quite surprised given especially that what I said in my Facebook post very briefly, which was not actually a theological treatise but rather a statement that I stand in solidarity with women wearing the hijab, as I think Jesus would, as he came to embody what it means to love neighbor and love God and love yourself.
MARTIN: Well, let's go back to the whole question of whether this is a theological issue or not 'cause I do want to emphasize that the college insists that it's not about wearing the headscarf. It is about a theological or a potential theological difference. In your initial Facebook post, you said I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book. And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God. Now, that has been Catholic doctrine since the Second Vatican Council. But evangelicals - we've consulted a number of them - say they believe that there is a real theological difference that is reflected in this statement about the role of Jesus in understanding God. Do you just think they've got it wrong or they've misinterpreted you?
HAWKINS: I do believe Islam and Christianity are - I don't believe, it's just a fact - that they're two different religions. And we diverge on questions of salvation, soteriology - how do you get to God? - and also on questions of Christology - who is Christ? And so while we diverge on theological particulars, which I fully acknowledge and never stated in my first Facebook post or the follow-up in which I was appealing to unity among the - among Christian believers who I had realized had reacted very vehemently because the post was not about theology. It was about solidarity, which is a Christian principle.
MARTIN: Well, so why is it that you think you and the college can't come to agreement on this? What do you think this is about?
HAWKINS: It's hard to say. I can't intuit what the administration's - how they deem me inconsistent with the statement of faith, they have stated. And why when Wheaton College president and provost and an adjunct faculty member in 2007 signed a statement saying exactly what I said - that Muslims and Christians are people of the book, we worship the God of Abraham - why I've received pushback at multiple turns is difficult.
MARTIN: Why do you want to stay there?
HAWKINS: I have spent most of my adult career committed to being a professor, a scholar and doing so in a Christian context, where I can live out my beliefs but continue to push my students towards rigorous scholarship in this evangelical environment. And so I'm known on campus for challenging people to think outside of the box, and presumably that's why Wheaton wanted me. Presumably, they also wanted me there because I bring a kind of diversity that the campus is sorely lacking.
MARTIN: If it's not a good fit though, why do you want to stay? I guess really the bigger question is why is this important?
HAWKINS: This is important beyond me. It's a bigger academic freedom question than Wheaton College alone. It's actually not even just a religious institutional question. These questions have been going on about what's permissible on a college campus, right? I'm not the hijab professor. I'm the professor who's trying to teach my students to move beyond theoretical solidarity, you know, sitting on our laurels in the classroom towards actual embodied politics, embodied solidarity. And that's just not for religionists. That's for all of us.
MARTIN: That was professor Larycia Hawkins. She's a political science professor at Wheaton College. And she was kind enough to join us from member station WBEZ in Chicago. Professor Hawkins, thank you for speaking with us.
HAWKINS: Thank you, Michel. It was an honor and a privilege to speak with you today.
MARTIN: And we would like you to know that we did reach out to Wheaton College for comment, and no one from the college has responded yet.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
As we told you earlier, President Obama delivers his final State of the Union address on Tuesday. One of the things he's expected to talk about is criminal justice reform. The president has taken steps on his own to help former convicts rebuild their lives. One of the changes makes it easier for people with criminal records to live in subsidized housing. Alexandra Starr reports for NPR's Code Switch team about a program in New York that's trying that out.
ALEXANDRA STARR, BYLINE: On a balmy evening, a group of kids play basketball in Harlem. They're on the grounds of a public housing complex. This is where 43-year-old Mike Rowe lives and where he grew up.
MIKE ROWE: We call this the big park.
STARR: His childhood apartment looked down on this space.
ROWE: Those two windows - that was my bedroom window right there - the one. That's the living room window.
STARR: A few years ago, Rowe wouldn't have been allowed to live here. That's because he served two decades in prison for murdering someone when he was 19 years old. In swaths of the country, that would mean he could never live in subsidized housing again.
MARGARET DIZEREGA: Some jurisdictions - you'll see a 99-year ban, depending on the kind of conviction.
STARR: That's Margaret diZerega. She supervises prison re-entry programs at the nonprofit Vera Institute of Justice. She's also a consultant for a pilot program in New York City that's allowing former felons to move in with relatives who live in public housing. About 50 people participate. Rowe is one of them.
ROWE: For me, it was like a godsend.
STARR: He was selected in part because he turned his life around in prison. He earned a master's degree, married his longtime girlfriend, had three children. But a few months after Rowe was released, he and his wife split up. He has a job counseling other ex-offenders, but when he applies for apartments, landlords turn him away.
ROWE: Every place I go, they shoot me down. I go to the interview process and everything. Once they do the background check, it's a no-go.
STARR: If he hadn't been able to move in with his mom, who lives in public housing, he would have had to go to a homeless shelter. DiZerega says that can lead ex-offenders back to prison.
DIZEREGA: Because they don't have a home. And so, you know, what if they are sleeping on the street or there's public urination or some of these other things that are not public safety concerns, but put them at a higher risk of getting re-arrested for something?
STARR: DiZerega says moving in with relatives is often the only way ex-felons can have a roof over their heads.
DIZEREGA: We need to give people a way to come back home and to do it safely and to do it with support.
ELEANOR BRITT: And believe in second chances.
STARR: For almost three decades, Eleanor Britt has lived in the Taft Houses in Harlem.
BRITT: You have some people go to prison. They do turn their lives around, but then you have the other side of the coin. We have to come in and out of this building. And sometimes I'm coming in 11, 12 o'clock at night by myself, and I definitely don't want a rapist around me.
STARR: Her longtime neighbor Gloria Wright wants strict controls on this program.
GLORIA WRIGHT: I don't know. I don't want to say it's not going to work, but you need to follow up on people.
STARR: Participants must check in regularly with their social workers. Re-entry activists hope programs like this in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles become blueprints for a national model. For NPR News, I'm Alexandra Starr in New York.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Let's turn now to college football and tomorrow's national championship game - Alabama vs. Clemson. You might remember that this is only the second year that the national champion will be decided under a playoff system. Previously, they had a computer algorithm that crunched various polls to determine the top two teams in the country. Now a 12-person panel goes behind closed doors to choose the top four teams, and then they battle it out. We've called sports writer Jemele Hill up at the ESPN campus at Bristol, Conn., which is going to broadcast the game tomorrow. So, Jemele, welcome back. Thanks for joining us.
JEMELE HILL: Hey, thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
MARTIN: So can we talk about the playoff system? You know, people used to, you know, just howl all the time about the old system. What about now? How are people feeling about the new one?
HILL: Well, I think people feel a little bit better about it just because they believe that the two best teams are the ones that wind up in tomorrow's championship game. I think before, it used to be so subjective. And on some level, that will never leave college football. Like, subjectivity is a part of it. And I think the argument and the quote-unquote controversy is a reason why fans stay invigorated, why they're so invested and emotional in the sport. But generally speaking, I think that the - you know, the playoffs have been a resounding success. There's definitely a sense that the two best teams are playing in college football.
MARTIN: Well, you know, speaking about the matchup, the Clemson Tigers of the number one team in the country. But they're considered the underdogs when they take on the number two, Alabama Crimson Tide. I mean, the Vegas odds-makers - if you believe them - have Alabama as roughly a one-touchdown favorite in the game. Why is a number two favored to beat a number one?
HILL: Well, Alabama - you know, they're one of the powerhouse programs in college football. And, you know, Nick Saban - you know, there, the argument is definitely in play about whether or not he could be the best college football coach ever. Certainly, I don't think any Alabama fans ever thought that they would see a day where a coach would come there that could be better than Bear Bryant. I think he's already a better coach than Bear Bryant.
MARTIN: Can you even say Bear Bryant without the legendary Bear Bryant attached to it?
HILL: (Laughter) Yeah, I mean, he is a legend. I mean, for Nick Saban to have the kind of success that he's had there - I think that has a lot to do with it. And, you know, quite frankly, it has to do also with not only type of season Alabama's had this year, but the - their last game - their last national impression that they left -unfortunately, I went to Michigan State, and I was at the game. And we took a beating by Alabama - you know, didn't even score, lost 38-to-nothing, and that is why Clemson now is the serious underdog.
MARTIN: Alabama also has this year's Heisman Trophy winner that's running back Derrick Henry. You want to talk about him?
HILL: Yeah, this is - this is going to be interesting. You know, Derrick Henry, as great as he's been all season - he's been a real workhorse - in the last game against Michigan State, while he was a factor, he wasn't the factor. And...
MARTIN: You know I just asked you that so you could feel better - right? - about the game.
HILL: Yeah, I know you did. You did. Thank you. (Laughter).
MARTIN: I just - I just wanted you to feel good, so (unintelligible).
HILL: I know. Thank you so much because - trust me - I was plenty depressed after that game.
MARTIN: Well, he was kind of held in check. I mean, he was not a huge - he did score two touchdowns, so let's say that - but he was not a huge factor in the game. And so the question is can - do - is there a way that Clemson could repeat the same trick?
HILL: I do think that people are underestimating Clemson. They've had a great season. There's a lot of similarities, I think, between this game and the '06 Rose Bowl game, which was essentially for the national championship between Texas and USC. You had Vince Young, a Heisman Trophy finalist, DeShaun Watson, the Clemson quarterback. He finished third in the Heisman going against powerhouse USC, who had the Heisman Trophy winner with Reggie Bush. You have Clemson going against powerhouse Alabama with the Heisman Trophy winner in Derrick Henry. So while I still feel like Alabama will win this game, I think Clemson is certainly going to prove to people why they've been number one for as long as they have had. And I think they're going to give Alabama kind of all they can handle.
MARTIN: That's ESPN Jemele Hill. Check out her show with Michael Smith called "His And Hers" on ESPN2. Jemele, enjoy the game.
HILL: All right, thank you very much for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In other football action, last night, the NFL witnessed one of the greatest collapses in playoff history. We're talking about the Cincinnati Bengals, a team with a long history of woe, but last night may be a new low. They had all but sealed up a win against their rivals, the Pittsburgh Steelers. Just one minute, 36 seconds left in the game, and they had the ball. They could not lose, but they did in spectacular fashion. And not only that - critics are calling the whole thing a new low in a sportsmanship. Tracy Wolfson of CBS Sports was on the sidelines for that game, and she's on the line now. Hi, Tracy. Thanks for joining us.
TRACY WOLFSON: You got it. How are you?
MARTIN: Good. And do you want to take it from there?
WOLFSON: (Laughter) Yeah. You know what? It was pretty insane. I've got to be honest. I mean, we knew that there would be some sort of physicality and a lot of emotions brewing with a rivalry like this. But, you know, to be honest, I didn't expect it to get to that level. The fumble by Jeremy Hill, then the personal fouls, then the helmet-to-helmet hit from Vontaze Burfict and - you know, like you said, next thing you know, that's it. You know, they handed over to the Steelers.
MARTIN: Talk about that hit, please. That's the thing that a lot of people are talking about today. And certainly, the commentators after the game were talking about where Burfict launched himself into the head of Pittsburgh receiver Antonio Brown. I mean, what was that like to be there when that happened? I know people at home were gasping.
WOLFSON: Yeah, you know, it - there were so much chaos going on at that time to begin with, and, yes, it was a gasp. You see the hit. And especially when you see a hit to the head like that of that magnitude, it comes from a guy like Vontaze Burfict, where you know he makes those vicious hits to begin with. He has knocked out several players. And not saying that they were not legal hits in the past, but he has been fined for hits in the past. You know, and that's where you have to draw the line - I mean, those helmet-to-helmet hits. But it is a scary, scary situation down there when that takes place.
MARTIN: You know, speaking of that, during the pregame warm-ups, the referees basically formed a wall at the 50-yard line...
WOLFSON: Yeah.
MARTIN: ...To prevent the teams on either side from starting fights with each other. And then a few weeks ago, New York Giants fans watched as their star receiver Odell Beckham lost his mind, committed one penalty after another against Carolina Panthers' defensive back Josh Norman. Look, is there something going on here with people being unable to control their behavior on the field? Is something going - is there something in the atmosphere now that we need to be thinking about?
WOLFSON: I don't know if it's something in the atmosphere. I mean, sports in general bring out those kind of emotions. It's about controlling the emotions. It's about having the right people on the field to control their emotions if that person or player cannot handle their emotions themselves. I thought what the officials did yesterday by creating that no-fly zone - I thought was very smart. I actually thought that the officials did a good job for the situation that they were put in. But I will say that I think I believe there should be a rule more so like in college where - you know, two personal fouls, and you're out. Or - you know, that's where the officials maybe need to step in more. Or a coach should step in and say, this is going to hurt our team. It was very obvious, and I reported it during the game that Vontaze Burfict was out of control. And it was just going to escalate. You could see it in his eyes, and you could see it standing down there. And every one of his teammates could see it and so could the officials. And still he was allowed to continue to play throughout and thus, in the end, basically loses the game for his team.
MARTIN: Tracy Wolfson reports for CBS Sports. Tracy, thanks so much for speaking with us.
WOLFSON: You got it, Michel.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
For young children who are learning to speak and read a language, they need to hear it - lots of it. Knowing that, there's now a whole industry built around talking toys. Some are marketed as being able to help babies and toddlers learn language. And so the question is, do they? From the NPR Ed team, Cory Turner reports on new research that says nope.
CORY TURNER, BYLINE: We're talking about young kids between 10 and 16 months old. For this new study published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics, researchers mic'ed up roughly two dozen children at home while they played with mom or dad.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yeah? You can get it. You can get it.
TURNER: That scratchiness is just the rustling of the little microphone in the baby's shirt. Researchers also provided the toys - three different kinds.
ANNA SOSA: Category one is what we called electronic toys.
TURNER: Professor Anna Sosa of Northern Arizona University led the study.
SOSA: We had a talking farm - animal names and things. We had a baby cell phone, and then we had a baby laptop. So you actually open the cover and start pushing buttons, and it tells you things.
TURNER: Things like...
COMPUTER-GENERATED VOICE: Let's explore. Bath time is fun. Oh, goodbye.
TURNER: There's one more thing you need to know. Sosa says she picked these toys...
SOSA: Because they are advertised as language promoters for babies in this age range.
TURNER: Language promoters - remember that. The other two kinds of toys Sosa provided were more straightforward, traditional toys like stacking blocks and a shape sorter and good old-fashioned books. Now, before I tell you what she heard, you need to know what she was listening for. As we said in the intro, babies learn language by hearing it, and research shows that interaction - the give-and-take between baby and parent - is key because early learning is intensely social like this.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yeah? Is that right? Can you tell me more?
TURNER: That's tape from one of the play sessions with books. Did you hear the difference? Again, here's that cut we heard earlier from an electronic toy session.
COMPUTER-GENERATED VOICE: Let's explore. Bath time is fun. Oh, goodbye.
TURNER: Sosa says it's not what you hear there but what you don't hear - mom or baby.
SOSA: When there's something else that's doing some talking, the parents seem to be sitting on the sidelines and letting the toy talk for them and respond for them.
TURNER: And that's bad because at that age, the best way a toy can promote language is by promoting interaction between parent and child. There's simply no evidence that a child younger than 2 can learn language directly from a toy. It isn't social. As for toy makers' grand claims...
HEATHER KIRKORIAN: Personally, I think it's quite problematic, actually.
TURNER: Heather Kirkorian studies child development at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She wasn't part of the study but thinks researcher Anna Sosa has put her finger on a troubling trend.
KIRKORIAN: Toys and apps are particularly notorious for this, making all sorts of grand claims about motor development, cognitive development, social development without having the research to back it up.
TURNER: Kirkorian says technology can help teach older kids, but baby talk is best when it's human. Cory Turner, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The banana, at least the kind we usually see at the grocery store, is in trouble. An incurable fungal disease has been slowly spreading through banana-growing regions of the world, and scientists are on the hunt for a new version that is immune to the fungus. If they succeed, it could mean new banana flavors. NPR's Dan Charles reports.
DAN CHARLES, BYLINE: In the U.S., the bananas you find in the store are pretty much all alike. But in the market in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, where shop owners get their bananas from farms on the island, you have choices.
BRIAN IRISH: (Speaking Spanish).
CHARLES: Brian Irish, a scientist who works for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Tropical Research Station here, shows me lots of different bananas. There are tiny ones, red-skinned ones, plump ones.
IRISH: There's a very popular banana here called Manzano, or apple banana.
CHARLES: He buys a few of them, and we go out to his car for a tasting.
IRISH: Manzanos have a little bit of acid, a little puckering of your mouth, especially if they're not very ripe.
CHARLES: This is a fabulous banana, though.
IRISH: Tasty. It's one of my favorite, too. I really like it.
CHARLES: But all of these bananas are vulnerable. There's a deadly fungus that attacks banana plants. In the past century, one version of this fungus wiped out commercial plantings of a variety called Gros Michel that used to dominate the global banana trade. And now history may be repeating itself.
A new version of the fungus, called Tropical Race Four, is killing off the current king of the bananas, a variety called Cavendish. That's the kind you see in every supermarket. Tropical Race Four has marched across China and Southeast Asia, laying waste to banana plantations. It's killing bananas in Australia, and cases have been reported in Southern Africa. So far, the fungus has not spread to Latin America, but it can travel on the smallest particle of soil. So when Brian Irish visited a banana plantation in Australia recently, he decided to leave his boots right there.
IRISH: And not bring them back with me.
CHARLES: If you had really been attached to those boots, what would you have had to do?
IRISH: (Laughter) Cry. No, I mean, it's such a small sacrifice to make for such an important cause.
CHARLES: Some people probably don't take those precautions, though. Gert Kema, an expert on tropical plant diseases at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, says the banana industry probably should prepare for the worst.
GERT KEMA: I think it's very realistic that this fungus will simply continue to spread.
CHARLES: So scientists, including Kema, are starting to search for a banana that could replace Cavendish, one that's immune to Tropical Race Four. And the search starts with banana collections like the one at the USDA's Tropical Research Station in Puerto Rico. Brian Irish walks me through this small forest of banana diversity. Bunches of red fruit dangle from some of the tall stalks, big green fruit from others. And some plants have barely any fruit at all.
IRISH: Many of them are wild. The have fruit very small with seeds in them.
CHARLES: Irish grabs one tiny yellow banana and splits it open. It's full of black seeds hard as rocks.
IRISH: And how many in this small fruit - hundreds. So it's impossible to eat the pulp around these seed.
CHARLES: It may be useless to eat, but if it could withstand Tropical Race Four, it would be priceless. The only way to know is by exposing it to the disease - not here in Puerto Rico, of course. That would be crazy. Gert Kema is doing these experiments in greenhouses at Wageningen University, one of Europe's biggest centers of agricultural research. He's tested about 200 different kinds of bananas so far. Just a few can survive the disease.
KEMA: Less than 10 percent of the material we have tested is resistant to Tropical Race Four.
CHARLES: And those plants that are often are varieties like that wild one with all the seeds, or they're plantains, not sweet bananas.
KEMA: Right now, we have nothing to replace Cavendish.
CHARLES: So the nightmare scenario is the disease slowly destroys large-scale banana production everywhere. But there's an optimistic scenario, too. Kema says plant breeders can take those few disease-resistant bananas and mate them with others that taste good, looking for offspring that contain the best traits of both. It can be done, Kema says, and in the best of all worlds, this breeding effort would come up with multiple varieties, not just one.
KEMA: Bringing more diversity into banana cropping is, I think, part of solving this problem.
CHARLES: And if big plantations grow these varieties for export, consumers here might actually see the variety of banana colors and tastes that you could find now in the markets of places like Puerto Rico. Dan Charles, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Drugs that millions of people take for heartburn and indigestion might increase the risk for kidney disease. This is a new research published today in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein has the details.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: You've probably seen the ads for them - Nexium, Prilosec, Prevacid - maybe even pick some up at the drugstore when you're having a bad bout of heartburn or indigestion. They're called proton-pump inhibitors. Morgan Grams at Johns Hopkins calls them PPIs for short.
MORGAN GRAMS: They are very, very common medications. The most recent estimate was greater than 15 million Americans used PPIs in 2013.
STEIN: For a long time, everyone thought they were very safe. But that started to change, and the list of possible worries has been getting longer and longer - bone fractures, infections, maybe even heart problems. So Grams and her colleagues decided to take a look at whether PPIs might increase the risk for something else - chronic kidney disease. They examined the medical records of more than 250,000 people.
GRAMS: We found that PPI use was associated with anywhere from 20 to 50 percent higher risk among people that used proton-pump inhibitors compared to those who didn't.
STEIN: Now, Grams study doesn't prove the drugs cause kidney disease, and the actual risk for any individual may be really low. But Grams says it's still a big, red flag and makes her think people should only use them when they really need them. No one wants to end up on dialysis or need a kidney transplant because of a little heartburn.
GRAMS: Given the fact that so many people use PPI medications, I think it is judicious to exercise some caution.
STEIN: Other experts agree.
ADAM SCHOENFELD: I think it's a pretty big concern.
STEIN: Adam Schoenfeld is an internal medicine resident at the University of California, San Francisco. He says doctors are prescribing PPIs way too casually.
SCHOENFELD: What happens is, we put people on these medications, and then we forget about them because when they first came out, they weren't associated with side effects. Or we didn't think they were. So we put them on this medication thinking that it, you know - it's a quick fix, and it's very safe. But in actuality, they're associated with a range of side effects.
STEIN: Schoenfeld says people can try other things first.
SCHOENFELD: There's other ways that people can, you know, feel better with indigestion or heartburn. They can change their diet. They can stop smoking or drinking as much alcohol.
STEIN: And if that doesn't work, they should only take a proton-pump inhibitor for a short a period of time as possible. Rob Stein, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Tomorrow, President Obama will enter a pretty exclusive club. He'll be one of the few American presidents to give a State of the Union speech to close out two full terms in the White House. It's kind of like the beginning of a president's farewell tour. And according to NPR senior Washington editor and correspondent Ron Elving, only five other presidents have done this. Ron, really only five other presidents - that seems low.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: It does, indeed. But for much of our history, the State of the Union was actually a written report that was sent to Capitol Hill by the president. Now, the very first president, George Washington, did do it in person, including at the start of his final year in office, 1796. But not long after that, the idea of delivering it as a speech went out of fashion until Woodrow Wilson. And Woodrow Wilson did not give one in his eighth year because he had had a stroke.
MCEVERS: Well, OK. So what about FDR, though? I mean, he must have given a lot of State of the Union addresses, right?
ELVING: Yes, but by the time he got to his eighth year, he was running for a third term, which he would win, and he subsequently died in office. So we jumped to Dwight Eisenhower in 1960. By then, the two-term limit had become part of the constitution, so when he gives the speech, Eisenhower knows he's leaving.
MCEVERS: And that's 56 years ago. What kinds of things was he talking about?
ELVING: This was the era of the backyard bomb shelter and schoolchildren learning to duck and cover beneath their desks at school. It was a time when nuclear war seemed to be kind of a 50-50 kind of proposition and every crisis threatened to end the world as we knew it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DWIGHT EISENHOWER: With both sections of this divided world in possession of unbelievably destructive weapons, mankind approaches a state where mutual annihilation becomes a possibility. No other fact of today's world equals this in importance.
ELVING: You know, many people remember the 1950s as a happy time, right? But it was also the time of confrontation with the Soviet Union and the Cold War.
MCEVERS: And the next president on the list is Ronald Reagan, and he used his final speech as a way to talk about all the good things his administration was doing, right?
ELVING: Yes. He really gave the State of the Union the air of a victory lap. Here he is in January of 1988.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RONALD REAGAN: And as we've worked together to bring down spending, tax rates and inflation, employment has climbed to record heights; America has created more jobs and better higher-paying jobs; family income has risen for four straight years, and America's poor climbed out of poverty at the fastest rate in more than 10 years.
(APPLAUSE)
MCEVERS: OK. You got two more presidents on the list - Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Tell us about those speeches.
ELVING: Clinton and the second Bush got to give State of the Union speeches to begin their eighth year in office. Here's Bill Clinton in January of the year 2000.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BILL CLINTON: Never before has our nation enjoyed, at once, so much prosperity and social progress with so little internal crisis and so few external threats.
MCEVERS: Wow.
ELVING: Yeah, yeah. That was the peace and prosperity speech.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
ELVING: And eight years later, George W. Bush would spend much of his speech wrestling with the consequences of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and trying to emphasize the positive.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GEORGE W. BUSH: In the coming year, we will work with Iraqi leaders as they build on the progress they're making toward political reconciliation. At the local level, Sunnis, Shia and Kurds are beginning to come together to reclaim their communities and rebuild their lives.
MCEVERS: Wow. Listening to this one, it does feel like a long time ago considering what's happening in Iraq now. I mean, looking forward to Obama's speech, I guess the question is, what are all these presidents trying to accomplish in these final speeches?
ELVING: There is a common theme in what they have written and said - a shared note, if you will. It sounds like the powerful coming to realize their power is passing and that their legacy will be determined by events and people largely beyond their control.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's Ron Elving. Ron, thanks so much.
ELVING: Thank you, Kelly.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
You have probably heard this news by now. David Bowie has died at the sage of 69. He, of course, is best known for his music, but our critic Bob Mondello says he was also a gifted actor.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: When he fell to Earth in 1976, an extraterrestrial seeking water for a dying planet, David Bowie was persuasively otherworldly.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As Character) There's no flash with an X-ray, Mr. Newton. You can't see an X-ray.
DAVID BOWIE: (As Thomas Jerome Newton) I can. I can see X-rays.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #1: (As Character) Are you wearing contact lenses? I can see something inside there.
BOWIE: (As Thomas Jerome Newton) Please don't hurt my eyes.
MONDELLO: One eye blue, the other green, hair a flaming auburn, Bowie's never-aging British-accented alien was the first glimpse movie audiences got of a rock star who'd already been a space oddity, sung about a star man and become internationally recognized as the glammed-up up Ziggy Stardust. His casting by director Nicolas Roeg was regarded by many at the time as a stunt. It would be his look, his androgyny, his weirdness that audiences would be coming for. But then they saw his man who fell to Earth struggling to appear normal to not attract suspicion, and audiences realized this enigmatic, infinitely changeable musician had acting chops as well.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH")
BOWIE: (As Thomas Jerome Newton) Mary-Lou, help me.
MONDELLO: David Bowie had, in fact, studied avant-garde theater and mime in the early 1960s before his music career took off. And as in his music, he was attracted to dramatic material that let him be a chameleon. After appearing in "The Man Who Fell To Earth," he stepped into the title role on Broadway of "The Elephant Man," earning excellent reviews as Joseph Merrick, grotesque of body, eloquent of spirit.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "THE ELEPHANT MAN")
BOWIE: (As Joseph Merrick) My mother was so beautiful. She was knocked down by an elephant in the circus when she was pregnant. Something must've happened. Don't you think?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #2: (As Character) It may well have.
BOWIE: (As Joseph Merrick) May well have, but sometimes I think my head is so big 'cause it is so full of dreams.
MONDELLO: Bowie's film choices inspired dreams. He was a vampire's lover in "The Hunger," both a prisoner of war and an object of desire in "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence," the prize catch in Marlene Dietrich's stable of escorts in "Just a Gigolo," the goblin king in "Labyrinth" and a soft-spoken Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese's "The Last Temptation Of Christ." And if none of those roles required him to sing, he brought a knowing expertise to one role that did - a record exec grooming a young recording artist in "Absolute Beginners."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS")
BOWIE: (As Vendice Partners) Colin, I want you to use your imagination. You wake up one morning, and you ask yourself, (singing) why am I so exciting? What makes me dramatic?
MONDELLO: Who better to ask those questions than this man who made a career of reinvention, David Bowie, enigmatic artist who fell all too briefly to Earth.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS")
BOWIE: (As Vendice Partners) You fall for reality.
MONDELLO: I'm Bob Mondello.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS")
BOWIE: (As Vendice Partners) You're bruised and wounded, then you learn to fall in love with yourself.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
People around the world are celebrating pop icon David Bowie who died of cancer last night. In his hometown of London, fans, including Loretta Hopewell (ph), remembered Bowie as someone whose eclectic blend of music and art brought people together.
LORETTA HOPEWELL: And that's what's so amazing about him, is his passion for music respected - went across all kinds of genres and boundaries. And I suppose that's the amazing thing about music, really, more than any other art form, that people are desperate to celebrate and share that.
SHAPIRO: Bowie was more than a musician. He was a playwright, actor and provocateur. To guitarist and longtime collaborator Reeves Gabrels, he was something more personal. Gabrels posted on Twitter today, well done my friend; the world has the music. What I remember most is the laughing.
REEVES GABRELS: I'm still in shock about what has happened, but the first thing I thought of was when everything else falls away, I wish I had the picture I have in my head of him cracking up in the studio 'cause we just - we used to make each other laugh.
SHAPIRO: What did you guys laugh about?
GABRELS: Oh, it was things like - we were going to do some backing vocals on a track, and we were trying to find an interesting sound. So one of us got the idea to cut out the bottom of a water cooler jug. And when you're not using a power tool, it's a fairly lengthy endeavor.
SHAPIRO: So which one of you had the saw, and which one of you held the plastic jug?
GABRELS: I think we alternated 'cause your arm would get tired. And we got the bottom cut away, and then it was - David's shoulders were narrow enough that we could put it over his head, and then the opening, the spout end, was just wide enough that we could put a microphone in. And then he could sing inside of it.
SHAPIRO: And the two of you were laughing about this the whole time.
GABRELS: Well, the funniest part was, we got done, and it sounded horrible.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) So we can't even play the track to hear what it sounded like 'cause you didn't use it.
GABRELS: Right.
SHAPIRO: What does it say about an artist that, when looking for an interesting-sounding backup vocal, he says, I know; let's try sawing the bottom off a plastic water cooler and see how that sounds?
GABRELS: Well, that's just indicative of the bigger picture. I mean, that was what drew me to David's music when I was 13 years old - just sheer adventure.
SHAPIRO: His public image was so otherworldly. When you were in the studio early in the morning or late at night, did he have an otherworldly quality about him, or did he ever just seem, like, slogging away in the studio like any other old guy?
GABRELS: Well, he was my friend, you know? So I didn't think of him as - you know, that was a public facade. We must all have these eccentricities and quirks. But we rode on tour buses together. We shared apartments together, you know? We borrowed socks from each other.
SHAPIRO: What kind of socks did he wear?
GABRELS: The gold-tip, sheer black socks.
SHAPIRO: Wait a minute. David Bowie wore the gold-tip, sheer black socks that are, like, 10 for a dollar - those kinds of socks. You're, like, destroying my image of this man (laughter).
GABRELS: Well, I don't want to - you know, on a somber today like today, I don't want to tdo that. But often, given where most recording studios are, you'd be in New York, and it would be 10 for 10 on the street, you know? So you could get white tube socks, or you could get black socks.
SHAPIRO: David Bowie put on his socks one foot at a time, just like everyone else.
GABRELS: Well, I think the joke was the difference between, you know, Albert Einstein and the rest of us is, he puts on his pants one leg at a time, but then he comes up with the theory of relativity.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) Reeves Gabrels, musician collaborated and friend of David Bowie, thank you so much for joining us today.
GABRELS: It's a sad day. And he went out the way he came in, which is sort of like on his own terms. That's all, I think, anyone can ask for.
SHAPIRO: Well, thank you for remembering your friend with us.
GABRELS: Thank you.
SHAPIRO: David Bowie inspired generations of glam rockers. Some of them went on to pop stardom, like the band Scissor Sisters. We called the lead singer, who performs under the name Jake Shears, to talk about the impact Bowie had on him as a kid.
JAKE SHEARS: I remember being in a record store. And I asked if they had any Bowie, and she pulled out three cassettes. I can't remember what the third one was, but the other two were "Let's Dance" and "Tonight." And I picked "Let's Dance."
(SOUNDBITE OF DAVID BOWIE SONG, "LET'S DANCE")
SHEARS: And that was my first rock album I ever owned, and it still is my favorite album to this day.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LET'S DANCE")
DAVID BOWIE: (Singing) Let's dance. Put on your red shoes and dance the blues.
SHEARS: I was in the fourth grade, and I would just play the record nonstop. I would put that cassette on my desk in school. I would just have it sitting kind of, like - I would look at it all day long. I was absolutely in love with it. And my first fantasy about performing was listening to the actual song "Let's Dance." I remember being in my bed, and I had this fantasy about, like, oh, maybe I could perform. Wouldn't it be awesome to get on stage and sing a song (laughter)? I specifically remember that moment, and it was to that record.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LET'S DANCE")
BOWIE: (Singing) I'll run with you.
SHAPIRO: That's singer Jason Sellards, who performs under the name Jake Shears of the band Scissor Sisters, reflecting on David Bowie's music and legacy.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
With all this talk about self-driving cars, we wondered - do people even want them? About 90 percent of people say they have some level of concern about self-driving cars. That's according to surveys by the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute. Brandon Schoettle is a project manager there, and he has been posing this survey annually. He says answers are a mixed bag.
BRANDON SCHOETTLE: The largest single answer we got was that people don't want a self-driving vehicle. However, when you combine the responses we got for partially self-driving or completely-self driving, then a majority of people we talked to want some version of a self-driving vehicle. In that survey, though, we also asked a question about concern for riding in self-driving vehicles. And we got, within one or two percentage points, the same exact answers we got in the survey we did the previous year. So the level of concern, it hasn't gotten any worse and it hasn't gotten any better. Though depending on how you look at it, there's much more interest in the self-driving vehicle that one can take control over versus the one that takes complete control away from the driver.
SHAPIRO: It seems a little surprising that as people learn more about self-driving vehicles, they're on the news more, that the numbers haven't changed much.
SCHOETTLE: Yeah, there's some competing forces. While every month that goes on you sort of see more and more of what these vehicles can do, there's also more discussion about some of the things they can't do. They kind of cancel each other out, and I think that's sort of left us with this - no change in the level of concerns.
SHAPIRO: What about the other side of the coin? When you look at people who are super enthusiastic about self-driving cars, what appeals to them about it?
SCHOETTLE: Well, of course there's the safety aspect. These vehicles - some people tell you as a bit of a criticism - they drive ultra-safe. As people, I think, in California who are used to seeing some of these vehicles around Mountain View will tell you, they're not a vehicle they necessarily want to be behind because it drives slower than your average driver, it drives more safely than the average driver. And this is the ultimate goal or promise of these vehicles - drastically improve safety over the average driver on the road.
SHAPIRO: States are wrestling with what the appropriate regulations are. For example, California's DMV has proposed a requirement that a licensed driver be able to take over a driverless car at any time. Do you have any suggestions for what states considering this issue should do?
SCHOETTLE: Well, this fits in with some suggestions we've made. We have a report that we put out where we discussed the idea of whether there should be some sort of licensing. And this is exactly the type of thing California suggested as part of their draft regulations. They've proposed a third-party testing take place for these vehicles. And basically what would happen is the manufacturers would state a claim about what it is the vehicle can or can't do, and a test would occur to actually prove whether that's the case. And anything that the vehicle's not able to handle at the current time would just have to be handled by the human driver. Down the road, possibly decades later, we can envision these vehicles driving around with nobody in them, going from one person to the next to pick them up. But as a first step, the requirement for a licensed driver makes sense to us.
SHAPIRO: That's Brandon Schoettle of the University of Michigan's Transportation Research Institute speaking with us from member station WUOM. Thanks for joining us.
SCHOETTLE: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
With the Iowa caucuses just three weeks away, polls show Bernie Sanders is gaining on Hillary Clinton in the Democratic race, and that has force the two leading contenders to finally get tough on each other. NPR's Tamara Keith joins us now from Iowa. And Tam, it's that time of the race when it's actually OK to talk about the horse race. Catch us up here.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Indeed. And the latest polls show that it's close in both Iowa and New Hampshire. Now, if you were to just look at the Democratic electorate and know that there's this strong liberal wing of the party, you'd say that isn't a surprise. And both campaigns, for some time now, have been saying that it would be close in the early states of Iowa and New Hampshire. It's just, no one believed them for opposite reasons. And now people are starting to believe them.
MCEVERS: Right. So the candidates are mixing it up on a few issues. Let's start with guns first.
KEITH: Yeah. President Obama put gun control back on the agenda in the Democratic race last week with his executive actions. Then Friday, he published an op-ed in The New York Times, saying he wouldn't support candidates, even Democrats, that didn't support common-sense gun legislation. That's his phrase.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
KEITH: And this created an opening for Clinton to point back at Bernie Sanders and a vote that he took in 2005 to protect gun makers and dealers from lawsuits. And now Clinton is really hitting Bernie Sanders hard on that. She had brought it up a few months ago but never, you know, hit him by name. Now she's using his name. I should also note that in the last two days, Clinton has received endorsements from former Congresswoman Gabby Giffords as well as the mother of Trayvon Martin, and both of them cite her position on guns.
MCEVERS: How is Bernie Sanders responding to all this?
KEITH: He has said for a while that he would be open to revisiting the issue of gun maker and seller immunity, but he hasn't committed to repealing the immunity. And more broadly, there's a sense that Sanders - he comes from Vermont, which is a state with a strong gun culture, and he's staked out a more moderate position on guns than on other issues. And this may, in part, be related to his belief that he could win white working-class voters that have voted Republican in recent elections. And so he is not being moved on this by Clinton's push. And he said at a rally yesterday in Iowa that Clinton is just focusing on this gun issue now because she's not doing as well in the polls as she had been expected to be doing.
MCEVERS: There not just talking about guns - right? - these two Democratic candidates. They're also talking about family leave, right?
KEITH: Yes. Both support 12 weeks of paid family leave. And now they're fighting over how to pay for it. Sanders wants a small payroll tax. He's calling on Clinton to support legislation that would do that. She wants to do it through a tax on the wealthy. And we can expect more conversation from both of them about taxes. They are not going to agree entirely on taxes, and they'll be rolling out their plans in the coming days and weeks.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's Tamara Keith. Thanks so much, Tam.
KEITH: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We're going to hear now from the winners of the prestigious Caldecott and Newbery awards. These are the honors the American Library Association gives out each year for most distinguished picture book and most outstanding contribution to children's literature. NPR's Lynn Neary spoke with the winners after today's announcement.
LYNN NEARY, BYLINE: Matt de la Pena was up late last night putting the final touches on his new book. At 3 a.m., he went to bed hoping to catch a few hours' sleep. An hour later, the phone rang and he got the news that his book, "Last Stop On Market Street," had won the Newbery Medal.
MATT DE LA PENA: I thought this is probably an episode of "Punk'd." Like, I'm in 1998 right now. I just couldn't believe it.
NEARY: De la Pena says it's enormously gratifying to get this kind of recognition for your work. But the honor took on a new meaning when he realized he was the first Hispanic to win the Newbery.
DE LA PENA: The inclusion of diverse literature is so important to me. And I've been doing this for 10 years, writing diverse characters. And I just want to honor every Hispanic author who's come before me.
NEARY: De la Pena says the main characters in "Last Stop On Market Street" happen to be African-American, but the book is not about race. It's the story of a young boy who asks a lot of questions while riding on a bus with his grandmother.
(SOUNDBITE OF AUDIO BOOK, "LAST STOP ON MARKET STREET")
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Nana, how come we don't got a car? Boy, what do we need a car for? We got a bus that breathes fire.
NEARY: The book, says de la Pena, has a simple lesson.
DE LA PENA: You can feel like you've been slighted if you're growing up without, if you have less money, or you can see the beauty in that. And I feel like the most important thing that's ever happened to me is growing up without money. It's one of the things I'm the most proud of.
NEARY: The Caldecott award for most distinguished picture book went to Sophie Blackall for her illustrations in "Finding Winnie: The True Story Of The World's Most Famous Bear." 2015 was not an altogether easy year for Blackall, who came under criticism for her depiction of slaves in another book, "A Fine Dessert." But Blackall says winning the Caldecott is a thrilling honor.
SOPHIE BLACKALL: When you look at the Caldecott books of the past, they're around for a lifetime and beyond a lifetime. They're around for a lot longer than any of us are.
NEARY: "Finding Winnie" was written by Lindsay Mattick, the great-great granddaughter of the Canadian veterinarian who found a small bear cub at a train station and named him Winnie after his hometown of Winnipeg. Winnie became the inspiration for A. A. Milne's much-loved "Winnie The Pooh," which was one of Blackall's favorite books as a child.
BLACKALL: I was obsessed with it as a child. I lived "Winnie The Pooh" with my friends, we played Hundred Acre Woods. And Ernest Shepard, his illustrations were one of the very first things that made me think this might be something I wanted to do when I grew up.
NEARY: Now that she has won the Caldecott, Blackall says she would be thrilled if her book joined the ranks of beloved children's classics that will be read for many years to come. Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The drug lord known as El Chapo has been captured before. When Joaquin Guzman was brought into custody on Friday, it was for the third time after two prior escapes. This time, things could go very differently because the U.S. is trying to bring him here to stand trial. We're learning today that is a process that could take years. Joining us now is NPR's Carrie Kahn from Mexico City and NPR Justice Correspondent Carrie Johnson here in the studio. Welcome to both of you.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Thank you.
SHAPIRO: Carrie Kahn, let's start with you. There was talk of extradition during El Chapo's last arrest. This time, Mexico is not resisting. Why not?
KAHN: It is quite a turnaround for the Mexican government, that's for sure. On a practical basis, look. The man escaped from prison twice here, three time's the charm, so I think there's a fear of him escaping again. Clearly the Mexicans can capture criminals, but the institutions here are very weak to keep and prosecute them. Secondly, there's been a big political change in the attorney general's office here. The old attorney general, he was the one who refused to extradite Chapo, and he's gone. And there is now an improved relationship between Mexico's new attorney general and the U.S., and extraditions in the past few months have picked up again to near levels with the past administrations.
SHAPIRO: Well, what are the next steps in Mexico? What's going to happen in the next few days?
KAHN: We heard yesterday officers with Interpol presented Guzman with two U.S. arrest warrants, one from California and the other from Texas. And the attorney general's office here says the formal process is now underway. On a local radio program today, the head of the extradition office in Mexico said that at a minimum, it would take a year to extradite Guzman. And probably, once his lawyers are finished with all their appeals, it could be four to maybe six years.
SHAPIRO: Well, stay with us, Carrie Kahn. In the studio here, Carrie Johnson. Why are U.S. officials interested in El Chapo?
JOHNSON: El Chapo's been indicted, Ari, in more than half a dozen U.S. jurisdictions. U.S. attorneys' offices eventually are going to be vying for who gets to prosecute him. The early read is Chicago, whose crime commission has declared El Chapo public enemy number one, a designation it had previously reserved for Al Capone. Chicago wants him desperately, as does Brooklyn. And Brooklyn may have an inside track if this happens quickly because of course, the U.S. attorney general, Loretta Lynch, used to lead the U.S. attorney's office in Brooklyn. But I'm being told by senior Justice Department Officials there's no process now yet for figuring that out. And if the extradition takes a long time, that process could happen later rather than sooner.
SHAPIRO: Well, Carrie Kahn in Mexico, what is the reaction where you are? On the one hand, El Chapo is known for his brutality. On the other hand, he's this kind of mythic figure. What are you hearing from people you're talking to?
KAHN: Well, we went out on the street today to talk to people and it's mixed reactions. Some really want him sent to the U.S. immediately so he doesn't escape again, and others are really dismayed that Mexico can't try and sentence its own criminals. And we've heard that a lot from opposition lawmakers who are saying that, too, and discussing ways to block the extradition. Chapo himself has a very mixed reputation here. He's known for his charity some in his home state in Sinaloa. But there's no doubt that this man is a ruthless, dangerous trafficker who caused so much of the violence and death in this country, and many people want him to pay for the destructions he's caused here.
SHAPIRO: I'd like you each to talk briefly about what we've learned about how he was picked up. First, Carrie Kahn in Mexico?
KAHN: Well, there's a lot of talk about the role of actor Sean Penn and Mexican actress Kate del Castillo. There are several new sources in Mexico and Associated Press in the U.S. that quote unnamed officials in the attorney general's office saying that was the connection that led to his whereabouts in the mountains in Mexico. The attorney general herself here said in a press conference that investigators were able to establish his whereabouts after he escaped from prison through contact with actors and producers intent on making a film about his life. And after Penn and del Castillo met with Guzman in that mountain hideout, Mexican Marines raided it. Chapo was able to escape that time, but he was later captured last Friday.
SHAPIRO: Well, Carrie Kahn, you're talking about the Mexican attorney general's office. Carrie Johnson, what about the American attorney general's office? What are you hearing from U.S. sources?
JOHNSON: U.S. sources are not speaking on the record because this is a sensitive, ongoing and international matter, Ari. But from what I've been able to glean from U.S. law enforcement officials, they're a little bit wary of the notion that Sean Penn unwittingly led investigators to El Chapo and his whereabouts. They're also throwing a bucket of cold water on the notion that Sean Penn or anybody in the entertainment industry could be prosecuted in the United States for helping El Chapo in any way, shape or form.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR Justice Correspondent Carrie Johnson and NPR's Carrie Kahn in Mexico City. Thanks to both of you.
KAHN: You're welcome.
JOHNSON: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
If you're looking for new TV shows to watch, the Golden Globes provides some interesting suggestions. The awards show often seems to highlight under-the-radar shows and performers, and last night's Globes were no exception. Take the show "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" on CW. It's one of the lowest-rated shows on network television. It's also an innovative musical comedy series. Actress Rachel Bloom won a Golden Globe last night for best actress in a TV comedy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RACHEL BLOOM: We almost didn't have a show. We made a pilot for another network, and they rejected it. And we sent the pilot to every other network in Hollywood, and they - we got six rejections in one day.
SHAPIRO: Well, here to talk more about TV and the Globes is NPR TV critic Eric Deggans, who joins us from our Culver City studios in Southern California. Eric, thanks for stopping by.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: Hi.
SHAPIRO: I confess. I had never heard of "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend" until last night. Should I be watching this show?
DEGGANS: (Laughter) A lot of people have not heard of it because it's so low-rated, but it is a really innovative show. There - it's very absurdist. There's a lot of musical numbers that kind of come out of nowhere. And it's about this very unique character, this woman who chases across the country after guy who dumped her when she was in high school. And it's very funny. It's very well done. I'd say it's worth checking out. It's very good. I don't know if it's amazing, but it's very good.
SHAPIRO: Well, another show that got great acclaim last night, winning best comedy series - "Mozart In The Jungle" on Amazon. If it's so good, why aren't more people watching it?
DEGGANS: Well, it's on Amazon, and it's an interesting show. This is a dramedy that's set in a classical orchestra in New York. And you know, Gael Garcia Bernal also won as best comedy actor. Again, this is a show that's very good. It's low profile. Because it's on Amazon, I think people haven't heard about it. I'm not sure I would've named it best comedy. It didn't land on my list of the best shows of the year. But it's a show that's worthy of being checked out, and I think now people will look at it because they've heard about it through the Globes.
SHAPIRO: Well, one show that did land on your list of best shows of the year, which, again - kind of under the radar. "Mr. Robot" on USA won as best TV drama. It airs on a pretty mainstream cable channel but, again, not one of the shows that was on the front of my radar for 2015. Why is this such a surprise?
DEGGANS: Well, I was going to say, you know, it wasn't a surprise to me because...
SHAPIRO: Right. You knew it was good.
DEGGANS: ...I named it...
SHAPIRO: You were telling people to watch it.
DEGGANS: I named it one of the best shows of the summer, and I also named it as my best show of 2015...
SHAPIRO: Applause for you over here.
DEGGANS: ...If you see my list on npr.org. But it - also, it's a dark drama. It's about this hacker who reluctantly winds up trying to work to bring down an evil corporation, and then he kind of discovers that his own mental issues are way more of an issue than he ever expected. I think the star, Rami Malek, got robbed on Sunday. "Mad Men's" Jon Hamm won, and that's wonderful. But he's a new talent, and he does a great job on the show. But now people can go back. They can binge-watch a show that rewards close viewing and breaks a lot of great rules on television on mainstream network like USA.
SHAPIRO: Well, I guess the moral of the story is, read Eric Deggan's best-of list if you want to know which TV shows are really good (laughter). That's...
DEGGANS: That's always the moral of...
SHAPIRO: ...NPR's TV critic...
DEGGANS: ...My story, my friend (laughter).
SHAPIRO: ...Eric Deggans. Good to talk to you, as always.
DEGGANS: Thanks a lot.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Last year, everyone pretty much agreed that the first ever college football playoffs were a wild success with high ratings and compelling games - this year, not so much. Both semifinal games were snoozers, and ratings have been way down compared to last year. College football fans and a certain sports and entertainment network with the letters ESPN in its name are hoping for a big turnaround tonight with the CFP national title game in Glendale, Ariz. And joining me here in the studio is sports writer Holly Anderson formerly of ESPN and Grantland. Welcome to the show.
HOLLY ANDERSON: Thank you. Good to be back.
MCEVERS: So it's Clemson versus Alabama, and Clemson is playing for its first title in 34 years. Alabama seems to be playing for a title basically every year. Is that why Clemson despite being undefeated and ranked number one is a fairly heavy underdog at this point to 'Bama?
ANDERSON: Kelly, you're half right. And we'll get back to the stony inevitability of 'Bama football in a minute. But Clemson would have been a surprise team in this title game if you'd been picking your playoff teams in August no matter who was on that opposite sideline.
You know, the story of this year's Clemson team in the preseason was attrition. How were they going to replace all these parting players, all these injured players? They'd had significant injuries sustained since. And they, you know - they're a surprise in and of themselves. And then, yes, you have to account for the fact that Alabama football is - it's a natural law. It is gravity.
MCEVERS: (Laughter) Yeah.
ANDERSON: It is entropy. You don't think about it a lot.
MCEVERS: It just happens.
ANDERSON: But it's in your everyday life.
MCEVERS: (Laughter) Yeah.
>>ANDERSON And you sure can't fight against it a whole lot.
MCEVERS: So it sounds like you're saying that this championship game will actually be fairly exciting compared to the semifinals.
ANDERSON: You know, I said this last year on this same program, but I hope so because - and I love you, Alabama. You know I do, but I want some variety in my life.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
ANDERSON: I would like to see a good football game because, you know, we're like squirrels at this point - college football fans. We're stuffing our cheeks with as much football as we can get for this eight-month off-season that stretches in front of us. And I just want to go out on a high note.
MCEVERS: ESPN has about a billion different ways that you can watch this game on all different platforms. You can watch coaches and analysts dissect a game in real time on ESPN2. You can watch it on something call the Homer telecast on ESPNU. Is it true also that ESPN will telecast the game with a round table of retired Elvis impersonators, or is that just an Internet rumor?
ANDERSON: I can't confirm or deny that.
MCEVERS: OK.
ANDERSON: But I am really looking forward to the halftime show in which Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith are joined by a gang of sexist puppets.
(LAUGHTER)
MCEVERS: OK. That sounds, like, really - I mean, if this game is another route, you know - serious question here - will there be big changes then to this college football playoff thing, like adding more teams to the mix maybe next year - something like that?
ANDERSON: My answer is the same in either direction. I think change in the college football playoff is inevitable, but it's also going to be glacial but the same driving reason behind both teams. It's - you know, there's - what? - a 12-year agreement to the playoff, and I think before it's halfway done, we will see an expansion because once everybody figures out just how much more money they can make that way. That's where this is going.
MCEVERS: That's sports writer Holly Anderson. She's formerly of ESPN and Grantland. Thank you so much.
ANDERSON: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas flows seamlessly into this week's North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Car companies were a big force last week in Vegas, and digital technology for cars is the major buzz at this week's auto show. It all makes fertile ground for this week's All Tech Considered.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SHAPIRO: Car companies are pouring some of their record profits from the last year into reinventing themselves for the future. One of the most important things they're spending money on is robot technology and artificial intelligence. NPR's Sonari Glinton joins us from the auto show in Detroit. Hey, Sonari.
SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: Hey, Ari. It's kind of like my Super Bowl here.
(LAUGHTER)
SHAPIRO: Well, let's start with the big picture. It sounds like Silicon Valley and Detroit are kind of moving towards the same place - tech companies exploring the auto business, car companies moving more towards technology. Is that what's going on?
GLINTON: Yeah, essentially that is. If you talk to one of the CEOs, they all will actually say things like we don't want to be disrupted. We don't want to have what has happened to, say, taxi cabs happen to us. And if you think about it, six years ago, the industry was almost disrupted. Actually, it was almost, you know, killed. And so there's this idea here that they have the expertise, and they want to make sure that they have a future not just, you know, after the next recession but in 10 or 20 years. And they have the money to invest right now.
SHAPIRO: This actually ties in with something that the CEO of Ford, Mark Fields, told me when I spoke with him on this program last month. Let's play a little of that conversation. He said that he now considers Ford to be an auto manufacturer, a technology company and also something more.
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MARK FIELDS: As our vehicles get modems in them and customers are connected to the Internet - when they allow us to share and look at their data, it will allow us also to be an information company. The successful companies are not only going to be the ones that provide the best product but also the ones that collect the best data and then combine those to turn them into digital services including mobility services going forward for consumers.
SHAPIRO: As you talk about collecting data on people who use these very technologically advanced vehicles, what sorts of information are you looking for about drivers and passengers?
FIELDS: We want to be viewed as a trusted steward of that data first and foremost. So clearly, the customer will elect whether they want to share that data with us. And what we're really looking for is patterns and trends. Whether it's giving them coaching on how to be better drivers, getting better fuel economy, whether it's traffic and real-time updates, we think there's a lot of opportunity taking a look at the data and using that to make their lives easier.
SHAPIRO: So that was the CEO of Ford, Mark Fields, speaking with me last month saying the future is not just selling vehicles. It is selling transportation-related services. NPR's Sonari Glinton is still with us from the auto show in Detroit, and Sonari, Ford had an announcement along those lines today. This thing called FordPass. Explain what it is.
GLINTON: Yeah. FordPass is - for those of you who know what GM cars are, it's kind of like OnStar. So it will help you find a restaurant or a parking space, that sort of thing. Now, Mark Fields - when he says he wants to be a mobility company, he wants this to be - do for mobility what iTunes did for music fans. Well, when you think about it, it's kind of funny because when was the last time you used iTunes to get your music? But it is a step forward for people here in Detroit, you know? And it's a bridge towards self-driving cars and autonomy. All of these features that are around getting around and making things easier are a part of what helps to make us, you know - get us to that point where the cars are just driving themselves.
SHAPIRO: And will those self-driving cars of the future, do you think, come from Silicon Valley or from Detroit?
GLINTON: Well, it'll come from both because here in Detroit they have more than 100 years of expertise in building, you know, automobiles, and they understand the regulations and the difficulty. But in Silicon Valley, where you realize that a car has millions of lines of code, they have the expertise in the code. So I don't see a world in which these two cities, these two industries don't work very closely hand-in-hand because we won't get an autonomous car by just one carmaker saying, hey, we're going to do it.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Sonari Glinton at the auto show in Detroit. Thanks, Sonari.
GLINTON: Always a pleasure, Ari.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In Syria, aid groups and activists say starvation is a weapon of war. For months, the Syrian town of Madaya has been blockaded by the Syrian government. Thousands of people have been trapped, slowly starving. Antigovernment rebels have also surrounded the towns of Fua and Kefraya, blocking food and supplies to them, too. Today, international convoys were able to enter the three towns and bring some relief. Here's what Pawel Krzysiek with the International Committee of the Red Cross said in an audio diary as one group entered Madaya.
PAWEL KRZYSIEK: It's really heartbreaking to see the situation of the people. A while ago, I was just approached by a little girl, who - and her first question was just, did you bring food?
MCEVERS: For more on this, we are joined by Abeer Etefa of the United Nations' World Food Programme. She's based in Cairo but has been in close contact with the U.N. team that's on the ground. Abeer Etefa, thanks for being with us today.
ABEER ETEFA: Thank you for having me.
MCEVERS: What can you tell us about the convoy? First off, how is it that they were allowed to go in now after all this time?
ETEFA: It's been a long day for hundreds of aid workers around the country. The agreement was the aids and the relief will go simultaneously to the besieged town of Madaya, and at the same exact time, it will get into the two besieged areas of Kefraya and Fua. That's in different - completely different parts of the country, 200 kilometers from Madaya.
MCEVERS: What are your teams seeing there in terms of need? What do people need the most?
ETEFA: Our teams - once they got inside the city of Madaya, they have reported that people are waiting for them, waiting for them, smiling at them. Children are extremely malnourished and asking them, are you bringing food with us? The team that's on the ground are confirming that what we have seen in these pictures that have circulated in social media is very much close to reality. Children are malnourished. They are surviving on boiled water with herbs for many, many days. I think the health issues that we are going to see after people have been cut off from food for four or five month will be irreversible damage.
MCEVERS: How long can the supplies that the team is brining last?
ETEFA: These supplies are enough to feed 40,000 people in Madaya for one month. The supplies that are going into Fua and Kefraya are enough for 20,000 people for one month. But what we need is unimpeded and regular access to these areas. People need food every day, and we cannot survive on a convoy that goes in every three or four month. And while there is so much focus on Madaya and the situation there requires an immediate response, the U.N. is equally concerned about the situation of the 4-and-a-half million people living in hard and difficult-to-reach areas. That includes 400 southern people in besieged areas. They have been completely cut off from aid and supplies for many month, and some areas, we've never reached before.
MCEVERS: Why is it that these towns are only receiving one month's worth of supplies?
ETEFA: Forty-four trucks is what we can manage to get in, and throughout the week, we will be continuing to send food and supplies. But we need regular, unimpeded access. We cannot send food that's enough for a year and let people besieged. We have to reach them on monthly basis.
MCEVERS: What's keeping you from getting that unimpeded access that you talk about?
ETEFA: Unimpeded access and regular supplies to these besieged towns mean that all the parties on the ground give the U.N., the World Food Programme and all the humanitarian aid workers safe passage. You have to be granted access.
MCEVERS: So you're saying granted the safety and the access that you need from both the government and the forces that fight for it and the rebel forces as well.
ETEFA: Exactly. You can't force a truck into a checkpoint. It has to open for it. We tried that before in many cases, but we've learned that it's going to take time, and it's going to take negotiation, coordination and commitment from these parties to the conflict that - they allow to aid to the people besieged.
MCEVERS: That's Abeer Etefa. She's a spokesperson for the U.N.'s World Food Programme which brought food and supplies to the Syrian town of Madaya today and also the towns of Fua and Kefraya. Thank you so much.
ETEFA: Thank you very much.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The story of the recaptured drug kingpin Joaquin El Chapo Guzman would have had the world's attention no matter what, but the story became even more bizarre once it was revealed that Hollywood star Sean Penn conducted an interview with El Chapo in the months before Friday's arrest. We learned that after Penn wrote about the meeting for Rolling Stone. We're going to talk about the reaction to that piece with NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. Hey, David.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Most journalists would love to get a scoop like the one that Rolling Stone got. Talk about what news organizations do to get interviews like this.
FOLKENFLIK: Well, you make appeals. You make approaches. You often use middlemen or middlewomen to try to foster a report, relations with the people you're going after. And people go after, you know - people are much taken by the fact that Penn interviewed a drug lord, a guy connected to killings and murders. But you know, major news organizations have interviewed Saddam Hussein, Bashir Assad, Osama bin Laden. People of interest are people of interest. In this case, the agreement that Rolling Stone made was extraordinary and, I think, wrong. It agreed to allow Joaquin Guzman, the real name of El Chapo, to review and demand changes in the article before publication. Rolling Stones says he chose not to do so. But what an abrogation, what a relinquishment of editorial control and authority.
SHAPIRO: There's a lot of criticism surrounding this piece, including people who say that Sean Penn should've turned in the drug lord. If you assume, for a moment, that Sean Penn is a journalist, which, you know, you can debate that assumption, what obligation does a journalist have to turn it in somebody like that once they get access to them?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, I've talked to folks who have had - have experience in federal law enforcement. In this country, they say he has no legal obligation to do so. The people on - engaged in journalism don't do that. Certainly Penn concealed his activities and his movements in attempt to elude detection. I will say that the attorney general of Mexico said that they were monitoring Guzman's contacts and his associates contacts and that what Penn did - his movements were essential to their ability to track him down. But that would have been inadvertent, not intentional.
SHAPIRO: Guzman is obviously a subject of great interest that people would want to write about. Do you think that in this case, Rolling Stone and Sean Penn are guilty of glamorizing Guzman and writing about him in a way that is off-limits, in a way?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, I think they've certainly, in this case, although Rolling Stone's capable of some terrific journalism - in this case, proved not up to the task of rendering the complexity, the deadliness of what Guzman does, the destructiveness, the toll in this country as well as in his own. And in exploring this with voices outside of Guzman's own point of view, as limited as it was, it was a pretty narrow interview itself, pretty unrevealing and pretty, I thought, self-indulgent on Sean Penn's part.
SHAPIRO: So if you balance the exclusive, on the one hand, with the headache that Rolling Stone is getting for it on the other hand, ultimately, do you think this is worth it for Rolling Stone?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, from a strictly cynical standpoint, yes, in two separate ways. First, we're all talking about it. It is defining, in many ways, a lot of the news coverage of the capture of El Chapo. And in addition, it's getting a ton of traffic for them and a lot of attention. In addition, I think this can't be underestimated. It is completely changing the conversation that we had for months after the retraction of a cover story about a gang rape at the University of Virginia that never occurred that led to several libel suits still outstanding against the magazine. And right now, we're talking about something a world away, completely different.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik. Thanks, David.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A landmark Supreme Court decision that's nearly 40 years old is on life support. It declared that state and local governments can require nonunion public employees to pay partial fees for negotiating union contracts that cover them. Conservative activists and union opponents have long hated this. And today, a majority of Supreme Court justices seemed poised to reverse it. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: In 1977, the court said that while nobody is required to join a union, nonunion members can be required to pay so-called fair share fees to cover the costs of negotiating the contract they benefit from. The caveat is that nonmembers do not have to pay for the union's lobbying and political expenses. On the steps of the Supreme Court today, lead plaintiff Rebecca Friedrichs, a third-grade teacher, explained that in her view, everything the union does is political.
REBECCA FRIEDRICHS: I'm here today with my fellow plaintiffs because our voices have been silenced by forced unionism for decades.
TOTENBERG: But fellow teacher Reagan Duncan countered that nonunion members who don't want to pay for contract negotiations are trying to free ride on the union's back.
REAGAN DUNCAN: You don't expect to get something for nothing. It's the same thing. Asking for - getting the services of negotiation and fair representation for free.
TOTENBERG: Inside the courtroom, it was quickly apparent that the court's for more-liberal members were fighting an uphill battle. Until recently, the unions had some hope that conservative Justice Antonin Scalia might side with them. In the past, he seemed to agree with the view that the unions need to collect service fees to prevent free riders. But today, he was consistently hostile to that position. The problem, he opined, is that everything that is bargained for with the government is within the political sphere.
And Justice Anthony Kennedy, the justice most likely to be open to persuasion on many other issues, is something of a purist on the First Amendment. He's the author of the court's 2010 decision striking down many key campaign spending and contribution limits, and today, he suggested that service fees turn nonunion members not into free riders but compelled riders in support of contract provisions that they disagree with.
As the argument began, Kennedy did wonder why, if public employees could be exempt from paying union service fees, the same would not be true for private-sector employees who work in a union shop. The challenger's lawyer, Michael Carvin, replied that the First Amendment doesn't apply to the private sector. It just applies to government restrictions on speech. But, replied Kennedy, if the state authorizes a union shop, wouldn't that be the same kind of coerced membership or coerced speech that you're objecting to? Carvin said he didn't think so.
Justice Kagan interjected at this point. The court's public employee cases, she maintained, were aimed at ensuring that when the government acts as an employer, it's in the same position as a private employer except that it's not permitted to use its leverage to prevent union members from speaking out. Kagan then turned to a larger question - whether the court's 1977 ruling had proved either so unworkable or basically untenable that it should be reversed. You come here with a heavy burden, she said. There are tens of thousands of government contracts with these service fee provisions for nonunion members, and those contracts affect as many as 10 million employees. So what special justifications are you offering here? Carvin replied that the court's 1977 ruling was wrong, out of step with other First Amendment cases and thus should be reversed.
Justice Breyer, incredulous - and you think all of our decisions are correct? Maybe Marbury versus Madison was wrong, Breyer said, referring to one of the most important landmarks of American law. There are people who think it was. This labor decision, he observed, was a compromise 40 years ago, but it was 40 years ago. And if we overrule it, Breyer said, there are at least three other decisions that sprang from it that would have to be overruled. Some things are basic enough that they weren't overruling, like the court's 1896 decision upholding racial segregation. Most are not, he said. You start overruling things, what happens to the country's thinking of us as a kind of stability in a world that's tough because it changes a lot?
Next up to the lectern was California's solicitor general, Edward Dumont, siding with the union in this case. He noted that 90 percent of California's 325,000 teachers are union members. Chief Justice Roberts - if the employees want this so overwhelmingly, then isn't the concern about free riders insignificant? No, replied Dumont, because suddenly, what you had to pay for before is free. Chief Justice Roberts - what's your best example of something the union negotiates that's not political? Mileage reimbursement rates and safety measures, replied California's lawyer. But that's all money, replied Roberts. How much money is going to have to be paid to the teachers? Answered Dumont - what's fundamental is that we need to be able to run our workplaces, and the most efficient way of doing that is by negotiating with a single democratically elected union that has the power to bargain over matters that, of necessity, do involve some public policy issues. Moments later, Justice Kennedy replied caustically, a state is always more efficient if it can suppress speech. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Black people are disproportionately victimized by gun violence, and prominent African-American leaders are among those calling for tighter gun control. Yet as Karen Grigsby Bates of NPR's Code Switch team found out, many other African-Americans believe that owning guns is crucial to protecting themselves and their rights.
KAREN GRIGSBY BATES, BYLINE: Know how some people can't do without something? April Howard has three possessions that are non-negotiable.
APRIL HOWARD: I have a .22, a .38 and a rifle.
BATES: And she's keeping them all. Howard's had guns for several years now, the result of a close call at her D.C. metro area home that still makes her shudder.
A. HOWARD: Someone was breaking into my home while I was home alone at 7 a.m. in the morning. That prompted me to immediately get some form of protection for me and my home.
BATES: That doesn't make Howard unusual, says Charles Cobb. Cobb's book, "This Nonviolent Stuff'll Get You Killed: How Guns Made The Civil Rights Movement," looks at black Americans' historic relationship to guns. For decades, Cobb says, most blacks lived in the rural South and had guns.
CHARLES COBB: And this is a tradition that goes all the way back to the end of the Civil War and the Reconstruction era. Black people have traditionally used guns for self-defense.
BATES: Cobb says guns were kept on farms for hunting, for pest-control and to repel white vigilantes. Even non-violent participants in the civil rights movement, including Martin Luther King for a time, kept guns at home to protect their families. In the mid-'60s, Malcolm X responded to a rumor that the Nation of Islam was urging blacks to buy guns by reminding the press they were legally entitled to do that.
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MALCOLM X: America is based upon right of people to organize for self-defense. This is in the Constitution of the United States.
BATES: In California, the Black Panther Party carried loaded rifles to the State Capitol in Sacramento to remind residents in black neighborhoods like Oakland they could.
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UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Singing) The revolution has come, time to pick up the gun.
BATES: After that, the state's shocked lawmakers made carrying loaded firearms illegal. And in 1968, after several urban riots, the Federal Gun Control Act was passed, which attempted to ban the sale of cheap handguns. What that did, said Robert Cottrol, a law professor at George Washington University, is to leave black residents in high-crime areas vulnerable.
ROBERT COTTROL: One of the problems, I think, that we have in places like Chicago, New York, Washington, D.C. is we make it very difficult - in some cases almost impossible - for the individual who is law-abiding, who is peaceful, to defend himself.
BATES: That's exactly why gun owner April Howard and her husband Ken don't live within Washington's city limits. Ken Howard says that was a very deliberate decision.
KEN HOWARD: D.C. is strictly very prohibitive, legally. It seems as though the only ones who are able to have weapons like this are the criminal element.
BATES: Those arguments don't sit sway Jeffrey Brown.
JEFFREY BROWN: We have way too many guns in our community at this point.
BATES: Brown is associate pastor Roxbury's Twelfth Baptist Church in Boston, and has spent years in faith-based coalitions trying to reduce gun violence in the city's black neighborhoods. Reverend Brown says many people think the country's gun problem has a racial component, but he believes race is only part of the puzzle. Economic disparity, residential segregation, chronic un- and underemployment, he says all those create depression, anger and hopelessness in many black communities that allows gun violence to flourish.
BROWN: When you see all of these factors coming together, the gun piece makes it more horrifying. And so it's a little more complex than just guns and race, but the problem's there for us.
BATES: And the solutions remain elusive. Karen Grigsby Bates, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The owners of all 32 NFL teams are gathering in Houston this week, and they are determined to decide once and for all which teams should move to the Los Angeles area, which has been without pro football for two decades. From member station KPCC, Ben Bergman reports.
BEN BERGMAN, BYLINE: Since the Rams and Raiders played their last games in Southern California in 1995, no team has seriously considered going to the LA market. The city was more useful as a pawn to extract better stadium deals at home. But last week, three teams filed paperwork to leave; the St. Louis Rams, the San Diego Chargers and the Oakland Raiders.
MARC GANIS: It is a momentous time for the NFL and Los Angeles.
BERGMAN: That's Marc Ganis, an NFL consultant who worked on the Rams and Raiders moves. He's seen countless LA stadium proposals come and go over the years, renderings drawn up and tossed away. But he says this time is different.
GANIS: We don't have politicians bringing up plans. We don't have for-profit real estate developers doing it. What we have are team owners doing it on their own, willing to pay the freight.
BERGMAN: There's Rams owner Stan Kroenke. He's proposed a sprawling sports entertainment and shopping complex on land he owns near Los Angeles International Airport in Inglewood. On the other side, you have Raiders owner Mark Davis. He's teamed with Chargers owner Dean Spanos to build a competing stadium 14 miles to the south. Spanos has been the only owner speaking out lately, and he argued on the Chargers website it was the Rams threat of moving to LA that forced his hand.
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DEAN SPANOS: Over 25 percent of our business comes from the Los Angeles County area, and another team or teams going in there would have a huge impact on that. This was a move to protect our business more than anything.
BERGMAN: And to grow it. All three owners say they can make much more money in LA. It's the nation's second-biggest media market and more importantly, has a lot of companies and rich people who will spend big on luxury boxes and premium seats. But the NFL will only allow one stadium to be built and two teams at most to go. Any move requires a two-thirds vote from owners, a level of consensus neither side has locked up, as Spanos knows all too well.
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SPANOS: This is a very fluid situation. You know, you read all this stuff in the paper and everybody's tallying votes, but nobody knows anything for sure.
BERGMAN: People tend to think of the NFL as a monolithic organization. In reality, it's the often-splintered reflection of its 32 owners, says sports economist Andrew Zimbalist.
ANDREW ZIMBALIST: The owners have 32 different approaches to most policy questions. Most of them have locked horns with each other in the past.
BERGMAN: Zimbalist says who's friends with whom could play a big role in the decision. So yeah, the world's most powerful sports league can feel like high school. Raiders owner Mark Davis is not generally liked. His father, Al Davis, battled constantly with the league. Spanos, he's the prom king, most popular kid in class. Kroenke is somewhere in the middle.
ZIMBALIST: He's the guy who broke the ice in the Los Angeles stalemate, and I think that people ultimately feel like he deserves to be rewarded for that.
BERGMAN: Fans have a very different perception. St. Louis has the strongest proposal to try to keep its team, a taxpayer-subsidized riverfront stadium. Kroenke says playing there would lead to financial ruin, but fans like Jill Bower say he's just being greedy.
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JILL BOWER: Are you going to throw out three NFL cities to satisfy one?
BERGMAN: Bower addressed NFL executives at a November town hall.
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BOWER: Are you going to let an owner buy his way into what he wants, no matter how it impacts a city full of fans who has supported this team through many, many bad seasons?
BERGMAN: Southern California resident Tom Bateman hopes the answer to that question is yes. He remembers going to Rams games as a kid in the '80s before they left for St. Louis.
TOM BATEMAN: I think I speak for a lot of fans in that we're ready for this to be over.
BERGMAN: And after 20 years, it might just this week. For NPR News, I'm Ben Bergman in Los Angeles.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In the middle of the desert in Kenya, there's a place with a population the size of Minneapolis. It's called Dadaab. It's no ordinary city. This is the largest refugee camp in the world, home to nearly half a million people. Most came from Somalia, escaping the civil war starting in the early 1990s. Ben Rawlence spent years working in the camp, first with Human Rights Watch, then as a journalist. His new book is called "City Of Thorns: Nine Lives In The World's Largest Refugee Camp."
BEN RAWLENCE: From the air, I suppose, it looks like Atlanta. It's all these grids, and it's got five different towns, all of which orbit the original settlement of Dadaab. And it's all made of mud and sticks and plastic, so it looks, in a way, like some kind of giant slum, a bit like the planet of Tatooine in "Star Wars."
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) So people should envision something between Atlanta and Tatooine from "Star Wars."
RAWLENCE: Yeah. That pretty much gets it.
SHAPIRO: Why did this camp come to exist in the first place? How did this enormous quasi-city refugee camp come to be established in the deserts of Kenya?
RAWLENCE: Well, it started off quite small. American listeners will be familiar with "Black Hawk Down," when the U.S. tried to intervene in the civil war in Somalia in 1993. Of course, they failed and withdrew, and then Somalia's been pretty much at civil war ever since. So initially, there was around 90,000 people who fled south into Kenya and established the camps. And then over time, the camp population has grown, and then more and more refugees have come from Somalia pushed out by successive waves of conflict.
SHAPIRO: There's a line in the opening pages of your book that really struck me, which - you write, our myths and religions are steeped in the lore of exile, and yet, we fail to treat the living examples of that condition as fully human. Why do you think that is?
RAWLENCE: I think it's because these people are far away, and we don't see them. We don't hear their stories. What we see is these images of refugee camps, of large hordes of people suffering or drowning in boats. And what I've tried to do with this book is to give you the ground-eye view of what it's like through the eyes of these people. So I've hoped that the reader will fall in love with these characters and possibly, they'll also have their heart broken, perhaps because when you see it from their eyes, you have a much deeper feeling for the situation.
SHAPIRO: If I were to choose a neighborhood at random in this camp and just sort of walk down one of these dirt roads...
RAWLENCE: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: What would I see? What would it look like?
RAWLENCE: Well, the camp is arranged in blocks, and each block is divided into 10 or 20 houses. And those houses are basically a hut in a sandy compound. The sand is red, and the fence around the compound is made of thorns because that's the only real building material in the desert. And all around the camp, for around a hundred kilometers, all the thorn trees have been cut down because people have used them for construction. And then in the middle of each camp is a sort of informal market.
SHAPIRO: The role of Kenya very complicated here - providing this camp for hundreds of thousands of refugees while at the same time effectively trying to get rid of them and close the camp down. Talk about where Kenya is in all of this.
RAWLENCE: Well, Kenya's in a difficult position because, of course, legally, it's obliged to offer asylum to people, as every country is under international law. But at the same time, there's real pressures and tensions, incorporating such a large number of people into its population. So it has this encampment policy. It wants the refugees to stay in the camp. And they've become a very convenient scapegoat because every time there's an Al-Shabaab attack in Kenya, the government's very quick to point the finger at Dadaab even though there's no demonstrated link between terrorism and the refugees. Nonetheless, the refugees have become a scapegoat, and that's why we've seen Kenya repeatedly call to try and close the camp.
SHAPIRO: It's funny because you write just in the introduction to the book that as far as the U.S. government is concerned, if the people at the camp are not a threat, then it's fine to ignore them. By ignoring them, they may someday well become a threat.
RAWLENCE: Yeah. It's very complicated. The relationship between extremism and marginalization is really very understudied. Nobody really knows what tips people over the edge into extremism. And what you see from the lives of the people the book is how minor the radicalization questions are to their life. Their daily lives have nothing to do with terrorism at all.
SHAPIRO: Starvation is the main (laughter) factor in their lives (inaudible).
RAWLENCE: Yes, getting enough to eat...
SHAPIRO: ...Yeah...
RAWLENCE: ...Getting enough to eat is the main thing.
SHAPIRO: What is the relationship like between the U.N. workers who are keeping this camp running and the people who are living there, interacting with them every day?
RAWLENCE: The U.N. has a very uneasy relationship. I mean, on the one hand, people are very grateful. They understand that they're being - all of their needs are being met by the U.N. But at the same time, it's very complicated because the Kenya government doesn't allow these people to work. But what the U.N. has negotiated is this internship program so refugees can volunteer. Like, one of the girls in the book, Kyro (ph), volunteers as a young teacher. And they're paid $70 or $80 a month as a stipend, but they're being asked to work alongside Kenyan teachers who are paid $1,000. So there's all sorts of tensions between the refugees, the Kenyan workers and also the U.N. staff.
SHAPIRO: You have hundreds of thousands of people at this camp with very little hope of a future. Is that why, in just the last year or two, we have seen so many people from North Africa try to make the dangerous crossing across the Mediterranean to reach Europe?
RAWLENCE: Definitely. What this global refugee crisis is about is partly about the protracted refugees, so the people like those living in the camp who've been displaced for such a long time. And they're finding out that these places are not temporary havens, a gateway to a life somewhere else. These places are actually a destination in themselves, and they're becoming these kind of very unfair, poorly-serviced cities, are people are leaving them. And I think certainly for the Syrians, they're looking at the example of Dadaab they're realizing that it's a waste of time going to a refugee camp. It's - I'm better off getting my hands on some money and buying a way to Europe.
SHAPIRO: Dadaab was built as a temporary camp around 25 years ago. Do you think that if we were to talk to you another 10, 20 years from now, the camp will still exist?
RAWLENCE: I'm pretty confident that there will still be a city in the desert in that place. It's possible that some people will have gone back to Somalia because the situation in Somalia shows some signs of improving a little bit at the moment. But for many people, they've grown up their whole lives there. They've invested in businesses there. They've buried their relatives in the ground. They may also have savings buried in the ground. And for them it is, for better or worse, home. And that's one of the strangest things to come out of my time there, is that you could call this forsaken place home. But some do.
SHAPIRO: That's Ben Rawlence, author of "City Of Thorns: Nine Lives In The World's Largest Refugee Camp." Thanks for joining us.
RAWLENCE: Thanks for having me.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The Spratly Islands in the South China Sea are at the center of a territorial dispute between China and its neighbor. Last week, China demanded that the Philippines withdraw from one of the islands. And the Filipinos say the land is theirs. Michael Sullivan met up with the mayor of the archipelago just trying to go about his business.
MICHAEL SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Eugenio Bito-onon, the wiry 59-year-old mayor of Pag-asa, can't get to his constituency. He's got a busted ride.
EUGENIO BITO-ONON: Yes, our boat is supposed to go to Pag-asa to bring provisions and materials for our project, but our starter got broken, so we need to find a replacement.
SULLIVAN: We're standing on the stern of his busted boat, the Queen Seagull, at a busy harbor on the island of Palawan. It's a two or three-day journey by boat from here to Pag-asa, about 300 nautical miles to the west, an island he first visited almost 20 years ago.
BITO-ONON: When I saw the place for the first time, I said it's perfect. And when you look under water, wow, it's like an aquarium. There's lots of fish and nice corals. It's like a resort. I said I like it here.
SULLIVAN: And so he stayed. Back then, he says, everyone got along.
BITO-ONON: Oh, yeah, it was really very peaceful. Even the fishermen were friendly. And fishing boats from different countries like Vietnam, Hong Kong, they're just docked side by side. And they exchange a cigarette. They exchange liquor. And it's a friendly relationship between the fishermen.
SULLIVAN: Not anymore. Now he says Chinese warships harass boats like his when they journey to the tiny island of Pag-asa, home to roughly 120 civilians and a small military garrison. The warships keep watch as China continues construction on the artificial islands and airstrips it's built nearby. At night, the mayor says, it's easy to see the construction on one reef not 10 miles away.
BITO-ONON: It's a small city, lots of lights and you can see clearly the high-rise crane doing the construction there. During the day you can see at the tip of the runway when the horizon is clear.
SULLIVAN: Mayor Bito-onon says that new airfield and the other construction on China's new island has some of the family members of the civilians on his island afraid.
BITO-ONON: In the middle of the night, a certain wife called me up about this, you know, rumors of war and invasion. And she was crying and said I want my husband to go back to the mainland. So I let the husband leave the island.
SULLIVAN: Invasion aside, Mayor Bito-onon's big worry is that China now has its eye on the resource-rich Reed Bank in between his island and the mainland, well within Manila's 200-mile special economic zone.
BITO-ONON: It's our submerged Saudi Arabia actually. The Reed Bank has a reserved energy deposit that is almost bigger than Kuwait. So we really have to fight for that.
SULLIVAN: And there's another important element of China's reef reclamation frenzy, he says, that's being overlooked.
BITO-ONON: The destruction - the environmental destruction, the digging of clams and destruction of corals.
SULLIVAN: China, he says, pays no attention to the environmental damage he says it's causing.
BITO-ONON: Everything comes from the sea. It's the livelihood. And if there's no, say, arbiter that would broker for peace and a harmonious coexistence, this will just all be destroyed one day.
SULLIVAN: He hopes it doesn't come to that, that the international court rules in favor of the Philippines later this year. In its case against China and its territorial expansion, his dream - to make the Spratlys a protected ecotourism destination to be shared and enjoyed by everyone. For NPR News, I'm Michael Sullivan in Puerto Princesa, Palawan.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Most people will have back pain in their lower back at some point in their lives. People actually spend billions of dollars each year on it. But NPR's Rae Ellen Bichell reports that research shows the best way to prevent lower back pain isn't pills or devices - it's exercise.
RAE ELLEN BICHELL, BYLINE: There are all sorts of gizmos and treatments to help with lower back pain, but are they worth anything?
CHRIS MAHER: Things like insoles and back supports and redesigning the workplace, those things don't seem to work.
BICHELL: That's Chris Maher, a researcher at the University of Sydney. He and his colleagues in Australia and Brazil wanted to know which approaches actually reduce people's risk of getting an episode of acute lower back pain. So they rounded up 21 studies done around the world, involving over 30,000 participants in total.
MAHER: What we found was exercise is effective for preventing lower back pain.
BICHELL: Exercise reduced the risk of another episode in the next year by 25 percent to 40 percent. And it didn't really matter what kind of exercise - aerobic, core strengthening, flexibility, stretching. Dr. Tim Carey, an internist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says health care providers don't prescribe exercise nearly enough given its effectiveness.
TIM CAREY: If there were a pill out there that could reduce your risks of future episodes of back pain by 30 percent, I'd probably be seeing ads on television every night.
BICHELL: In researching what docs do and don't prescribe, Carey found it was much more common to prescribe passive treatments, often something a patient can wear or swallow rather than do.
CAREY: Why is this? Why are we not prescribing an inexpensive, effective treatment?
BICHELL: Part of it, he says, is that the health industry is centered on products that sell, and exercise isn't one - not nearly to the extent that medications are. Chris Maher agrees.
MAHER: We've got this perverse incentive in our health care system where we encourage people to innovate in terms of drugs, but we don't have the same system to get people to innovate in terms of physical activity.
BICHELL: The result is massive costs and likely a lot of avoidable back pain. By some estimates, in some years the U.S. has spent about $80 billion on spine problems including lower back pain. That's money lost on treatments, imaging, surgery, pain medication and missed work days.
MAHER: When you start packaging it all up, you know, the costs around the world are horrendous.
BICHELL: So, he says, ditch the strap-on belts and shoe inserts and get off the couch.
MAHER: What we do understand about the back is that the more that you use it, the more likely you are to keep it strong, fit and healthy.
BICHELL: The findings were published Monday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. Rae Ellen Bichell, NPR News.
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Tsunamis, the giant waves generated by undersea earthquakes or landslides, have hit U.S. shorelines before. Now geologists say portions of the sea floor along the Aleutian Islands in Southwestern Alaska could produce tsunamis more devastating than anything seen in the last century. As NPR's Christopher Joyce reports, they say California and Hawaii are directly in the line of fire.
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE, BYLINE: The Aleutian Island chain curves in an arc across the North Pacific. Right underneath, there's a trench where two pieces of the Earth's crust are colliding. The edge of the Pacific plate is shoving itself underneath the North American plate. Occasionally, a segment of the trench gives way with ferocious results - big earthquake causing tsunamis. Several over the past century have inundated Hawaii, Alaska and parts of California. Geophysicist John Miller has been studying one particular segment that worries him. It's quiet - too quiet.
JOHN MILLER: The stress isn't being relieved by small seismic events. It's suggested it's building up a tremendous amount of tension.
JOYCE: Too much tension, and the segment will unzip and cause a quake. Miller says this segment, called the Semidi, poses a special risk.
MILLER: The Semidi segment perpendicular to that section of the trench aims right at California.
JOYCE: So you get a particularly large tsunami hitting California.
MILLER: That's correct.
JOYCE: Miller and a team at the U.S. Geological Survey have found evidence that this segment ruptures about once every 180 to 270 years. The last time it erupted was 1788.
MILLER: That last great earthquake - it was 227 years ago, so there's a possibility that we're going to have another big one at any time.
JOYCE: Miller's research appears in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. Coincidentally, another USGS team says there's another part of the Aleutian chain that poses a previously unrecognized tsunami threat. Geologist Robert Witter led that team.
ROBERT WITTER: In the area of - that we were focusing, which I kind of call the Fox Island section - that area points things straight towards Hawaii.
JOYCE: Witter says this segment of the trench was not considered a threat because it's creeping. The plates are actually moving there but very slowly. That theoretically relieves stress, making a quake unlikely. But not so fast, says Witter. It seems this creeping segment has caused quakes and tsunamis. His team found evidence of at least six of them over the past 1,700 years. They probably emanated from this Fox Island section. The evidence for this includes sheets of sand and debris that were pushed onto hills on an Alaskan island. The debris was 60 feet above sea level. That's a big tsunami. Hawaii and California have warning systems that would give people at these four hours' notice of a tsunami from here, but Witter says people have to pay attention to those warning.
WITTER: I think the take-home message here is be aware, and practice your evacuation plan. A tsunami along the coastlines could happen. It could happen tomorrow.
JOYCE: Witter's research appears in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. Christopher Joyce, NPR News.
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Supporters of the Affordable Care Act often point to Kentucky as one of the law's success stories. Five hundred thousand people in Kentucky have signed up for health insurance through the state-run exchange known as Kynect. And the exchange didn't have the technical problems that the federal one did. But now, Kentucky's new Republican governor, Matt Bevin, has told the federal government he will scrap the exchange. Kentucky Public Radio's Ryland Barton reports it would be first state to fully dismantle its exchange.
RYLAND BARTON, BYLINE: After Kentucky opened Kynect, the state's uninsured rate dropped by more than half to 9 percent within two years. Bevin made opposition to the federal health care law a central part of his campaign. Here's Bevin's inaugural address last month.
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MATT BEVIN: We are going to shut that redundant program down. This is what we are going to do next year.
BARTON: Bevin declined an interview request, but his office says that current enrollees in Kynect will be able to keep their current insurance through 2016. Then people will have to transition onto the federal exchange if they want to keep their plans. Emily Beauregard, executive director of Kentucky Voices for Health, says many people may have trouble signing up again.
EMILY BEAUREGARD: We may lose some folks who had been on the - on Kynect and enrolled in a plan that they liked but then for whatever reason don't reenroll through the federal exchange.
BARTON: Shutting down the exchange may hit the state's 400,000 Medicaid recipients particularly hard. The Affordable Care Act requires states to have an online portal for Medicaid. But the Bevin administration hasn't said how Kentucky will sign up recipients once Kynect is shut down. Jennifer Tolbert follows state health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
JENNIFER TOLBERT: There will confusion generated for Medicaid beneficiaries as to where they go to sign up if they have previously applied for coverage through Kynect. Again, I think that's another open question.
BARTON: Governor Bevin has also indicated that by 2017 the state will scale back the state's expanded Medicaid program to a program that requires participants to put, as he puts it, skin in the game. Republican State Senator Ralph Alvarado is an ally of Bevin's and says the state can't afford it even though the federal government provides almost all the money.
RALPH ALVARADO: The governor ran on that. People responded, voted for him. He's following through on his promise. And I think he's going to try to get our financial house in order right now for the state. We've got a lot of expenses.
BARTON: In fact, Bevin's plans to scale back Obamacare in Kentucky may end up costing the state money. The previous administration estimated that dismantling Kynect would cost $23 million. For NPR News, I'm Ryland Barton in Frankfort, Ky.
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There's a shortage of primary care professionals in this country. Yet, military veterans with a lot of health care experience are having trouble finding jobs. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is launching a physician assistant program aimed at veterans and other nontraditional students. UNC staff worked with Army officials at Fort Bragg to figure out how to translate troops medical experience into civilian jobs. From member station WFAE, Michael Tomsic reports.
MICHAEL TOMSIC, BYLINE: Dave Manning provided medical support during two combat deployments in Iraq and he's also been the sole medical provider on a Navy ship with more than 100 people. And yet, after 20 years of service...
DAVE MANNING: Nothing I've done really translates over beyond basic EMT. So trying to find something in the medical field without any credentials, without any licensor, is tough. There's nothing out there.
TOMSIC: Manning's story has become more common as the U.S. winds down wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Veterans nationwide have been pushing for their credentials to translate better to civilian jobs, and President Obama has highlighted the frustrations medics face specifically. It's a waste of highly trained talent, says Dr. Paul Chelminski, director of UNC's new physician assistant program.
PAUL CHELMINSKI: The medics and the corpsmen are often very skilled in acute medical care of younger people. They're extremely skilled in trauma care if they've been deployed.
TOMSIC: But Chelminksi says there are some gaps in their ability to diagnose and manage chronic illness, which is a large part of civilian health care. UNC will fill in those gaps. Insurance company BlueCross BlueShield of North Carolina is donating $1.2 million to help launch it and provide scholarships. BlueCross CEO Brad Wilson says the program will also help with a growing need in North Carolina as more people get insurance through the Affordable Care Act.
BRAD WILSON: The customers who are accessing the health care system through the ACA are using more services than any other groups. Many are in need of primary care, and the physician's assistant plays a key role in delivering high-quality, high-value health care.
TOMSIC: The first class has 20 students, nine of whom are veterans. It's open to students of all backgrounds. UNC research shows many troops with medical training are more interested in becoming a physician assistant than a doctor. Physician assistants work under the supervision of doctors but still diagnose and treat patients. Dave Manning, who's in the program's first class, explains why that's right for him.
MANNING: As I was coming out of the military in my early 40s, I didn't want to spend a decade training and being in school. I just wanted to get in and get out and physician assistant is perfect for that.
TOMSIC: The program will take two years. Its director, Chelminski, says the first class comes in with an extraordinary amount of clinical experience compared to the national average. It'll also be a few years older, with an average age of 33. For NPR News, I'm Michael Tomsic.
SHAPIRO: And this story is part of a reporting partnership with NPR, WFAE and Kaiser Health News.
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In a soggy English quarry, archaeologists have uncovered what some are calling Britain's Pompei. It's a Bronze Age settlement preserved in mud. About 3,000 years ago, the settlement had a catastrophic fire. Houses that were built on stilts plunged into a river where they were covered by layers of silt. David Gibson of the Cambridge Archeological Unit is working on digging out the site, and he says what they have uncovered is remarkable.
DAVID GIBSON: What's special about this is it's not the archaeology of the important people. It's not burial mounds. This is the archaeology of the home. Normally when we do an excavation on dry land of Bronze Age houses what you get are a few post holes in the ground. And we as archaeologists essentially join the dots and tell the public what's there. With this, we've actually got the roof. The roof's collapsed into the water and it's preserved. And what we know beneath this is the content of that house. So imagine if you took a modern house and squashed it down into about the space of 50 centimeters, that's what we've got.
SHAPIRO: And what has that told you about the way people lived in this part of England 3,000 years ago?
GIBSON: Well, it's absolutely amazing. Within this one house we've got 29 so far complete food vessels and pots. They range in size from sort of 2-foot high down to 2 inches. So we've got the large jars and storage pots, but we've also got the fine drinking cups. It's almost as though someone's gone to the department store and ordered the full set for their house.
SHAPIRO: Can you tell what people were eating?
GIBSON: At the moment, we've - sending off the pots for analysis, but we know we were going to be able to do this because the fire was so hot that inside the pots the food is vitrified. So at the moment we're looking at things like electron microscopy and also we're going to do lipid analysis, essentially look at the fats that have soaked into the ceramic pots.
SHAPIRO: And how much will that tell you about what's actually in there?
GIBSON: It might even tell us exactly what their last meal was before the fire struck. And we know it was sudden because one of the pots with the food still has its wooden spoon stuck in it.
SHAPIRO: Is there anything you've discovered so far that made you think, wow, I never would've guessed that people were doing that 3,000 years ago?
GIBSON: Well, you know, we've found at least evidence of - we've got 30 pieces of textile, and these aren't plain, drab textiles. These have got, like, decorated hems and tassels on. And so we'll be able to reconstruct exactly what they were wearing, you know, rather than this kind of, you know, guesswork of archaeologists. We'll actually be able to hopefully piece some of these fragments together and get a better idea of how they looked. So we'll know what they were eating, how they looked and, you know, never know, we might even be able to work out what Bronze Age furniture looked like. You know, it's absolutely amazing.
SHAPIRO: Is there any risk that after so many years in the ground exposure to the elements could make these finds deteriorate in 2016?
GIBSON: Well, the thing is things in the ground are always deteriorating over time. And the decision was taken because of the location of this, and concern slightly about its long-term preservation, it was decided to excavate it now under a controlled research excavation and using all the scientific techniques to get the maximum information out now while everything's still well-preserved.
SHAPIRO: So for someone like you who spent your entire career doing this kind of work, how does this feel?
GIBSON: It doesn't get any better than this. This is exceptional. I've been joking with my kids, you know, the last few weeks that, you know, this is the time to retire after this one (laughter).
SHAPIRO: Well, David Gibson of the Cambridge Archeological Unit, congratulations on your extraordinary find. Thanks for telling us about it.
GIBSON: It's a pleasure.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Leadership at the National Rifle Association has been relatively quiet following President Obama's recent executive actions aimed at curbing gun violence. But at the grassroots level, NRA members continue to hold classes and events and do their own advocacy. From member station WYSO, Lewis Wallace headed to an NRA concealed carry class inside a member's house in Xenia, Ohio.
LEWIS WALLACE, BYLINE: Against the wall in Jesse Mackey's living room, there's a glass case with an extensive display of Precious Moments, those porcelain dolls with the big eyes. He'd like to replace that, to expand his store.
JESSE MACKEY: I have a lot of gun-cleaning stuff and some accessories.
WALLACE: Mackey's a licensed firearms dealer, and he's showing me this small display of supplies in his front hall next to piles of kids' coats and boots and, of course, the Precious Moments dolls. But I'm here today because there's a class going on. Behind us, 13 men and women are crowded around Mackey's long dining room table, bundled for the snowy weather. They're filling out a written test on gun safety.
MACKEY: Well, go over the test after you're done with it, and then as you're doing the test, I'm going to print up your guys' certificates.
WALLACE: Later, they'll go out to a range at his cousin's house to shoot, but for now, he takes a seat in a rocking chair at the head of the table to review their tests.
MACKEY: Number one is B. Two is B. Three is...
WALLACE: Jesse Mackey's been holding these classes at his home for a decade now. After the test, he orders pizza for the group. While we wait, Mackey says lately, these courses are always packed.
MACKEY: They got really crazy after the Paris attacks and after all the terrorist attacks out in California.
WALLACE: The busyness started after Obama got elected.
MACKEY: It was great for me, but (laughter)...
WALLACE: Mackey's a life member of the NRA, which opposes almost any expansion of gun control. But he actually doesn't have a problem with the president's recent executive action on guns.
MACKEY: I mean, I understand that he's trying to make everything safer for everybody.
WALLACE: The president's latest action does potentially make it harder to sell a gun privately or at a show without getting a license and requiring background checks for more purchasers. But Jesse Mackey's mild view of the whole thing isn't unusual for gun owners. A 2013 Pew poll found 8 in 10 gun owners supported these kinds of rules. But another NRA life member, Erik Blaine, says not everyone is so relaxed. Blaine calls himself a gun-law attorney and says concerned gun owners have been calling him all week.
ERIK BLAINE: Through both phone calls and to the firm, to myself, to my cell phone, we've experiences a lot of questions.
WALLACE: He thinks it won't be clear whether a private owner can sell a gun without registering as a deal.
BLAINE: The executive actions have muddied the waters as far as legal interpretation of what is or is not a firearms dealer.
WALLACE: Despite the organization's loud and persistent voice, NRA members still make up a small minority of gun owners - less than 10 percent. And back in Jesse Mackey's concealed carry class, no one wants to discuss their political views except a tall man named William Richardson, is not an NRA member himself. Talking in a hushed tone next to Jesse's household gun supply display, he says the executive action is just fine with him.
WILLIAM RICHARDSON: Would should be as proactive as we possibly can within the restraints of the Second Amendment. So I'm OK with it.
WALLACE: Even though it could conceivably put more restrictions on him and his hobby of collecting guns. What does he have a problem with - the idea that the NRA speaks for all gun owners.
RICHARDSON: It might have too much power. I don't know. They might, you know?
WALLACE: The NRA's national legal arm issued a statement last week accusing President Obama of fear mongering, among other things. But for the most part, he's just ramping up enforcement of laws that already exist. Even NRA leadership has indicated they don't think these actions will change much. For NPR News, I'm Lewis Wallace.
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A deadly terror attack in Istanbul today - officials say at least 10 people, eight of them Germans, were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the heart of Istanbul's tourist district. He was apparently Syrian and said to be linked to ISIS. In a moment, we'll hear about Germany's reaction to the attack. First, NPR's Peter Kenyon was on the scene shortly after the blast and has this report.
PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Istanbul's Blue Mosque has been high in the city's list of must-see sites for years, but today, it was a scene of terrible bloodshed as a suicide bomber detonated his device amid a tour group outside the mosque. The blast could be heard for miles. Erdal Karatas is a 28-year-old waiter at the Pasha Sultanahmet restaurant up the hill from a main square were the blast took place. Even hundreds of yards away, he was finding shrapnel.
ERDAL KARATAS: I hear one bomb, actually. Yeah, I first scared. I thought maybe some electric machine or something else, but I see bomb, of course. I see some pieces over there.
KENYON: At least 200 yards from this square, and it came this far.
KARATAS: Yeah. I was far, but it's too strong, maybe.
KENYON: Police quickly cordoned off the scene and closed nearby monuments for fear that there might be a secondary attack planned. As helicopters circled overhead, British photographer Johnny Green contemplated the close call he and two friends had just had. On a one-day layover in Istanbul, they decided to visit the Blue Mosque with a friend who lives in the city. And just as they stepped back outside, the explosion echoed through the square.
JOHNNY GREEN: Yeah. We just came out of the Blue Mosque and just walked, and suddenly, it just went off like that. And, yeah, it was almost like two blasts, really. The friend we met who lives here - she's lived in Istanbul for seven years, and she was petrified. So as soon as that happened, she just wanted to run as far away in the opposite direction. I was caught between - my usual thing is to run towards the action.
KENYON: Unlike previous attacks - a suicide bombing in Ankara left more than a hundred dead in October - Turkish authorities were quick to point a finger of blame in this case, and it pointed at ISIS.
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RECEP TAYYIP ERDOGAN: (Speaking Turkish).
KENYON: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that the bomber was a member of ISIS and had crossed over from Syria. Erdogan then went on to defend Turkey's controversial anti-terrorism tactics. Germany says eight of its citizens were killed in the blast, and Peru says one Peruvian was killed. Turkey's prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, telephoned German Chancellor Angela Merkel to offer condolences over the large proportion of German victims. Davutoglu says the blast will not alter Turkey's foreign policy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
AHMET DAVUTOGLU: (Through interpreter) The perpetrator of this attack is a foreigner who belongs to ISIS. That's what our investigation has shown. The terror we face today is mainly due to the conflict and the absence of security in Syria. Until ISIS is eliminated as a threat, Turkey will continue to fight it as a member of the anti-ISIS coalition.
KENYON: The signal was clear. If ISIS believes these attacks will shake Turkey out of the American-led coalition, they're mistaken. Analyst Sonor Captagay at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy says a U.S.-Turkish operation to attack ISIS positions in Northern Syria could start in the near future.
But the fallout from this attack is just beginning to be felt. It's a blow to the Turkish tourism industry and to the security services who say this bomber was not on their lengthy list of potential terror suspects. Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Istanbul.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
As we just heard from Peter Kenyon, at least eight of those killed in the Istanbul bombing this morning were German tourists visiting the area around the Blue Mosque when they were attacked. The German foreign minister says nine other Germans were injured in the bombing, and some are in critical condition. We're joined now by NPR's Berlin correspondent, Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson. And Soraya, you're actually on a reporting trip in Poland, but you've been watching what's going on in Germany. What are people saying about today's attack?
SORAYA SARHADDI NELSON, BYLINE: Well, Kelly they're really shocked and angry and scared and not really wanting to believe that ISIS would target Germans. You even have some commentators on news shows, for example, raising the question of whether it was a domestic terror attack linked to Turkey's conflict with the Kurds rather than some sort of ISIS thing.
MCEVERS: German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke to the press about this. What did she say about the bombing?
NELSON: Well, she held an emergency cabinet meeting, and she says she's also in close touch with her Turkish counterparts about the investigation into this attack. She expressed her sadness and condolences for the victims' families. But as shocked as she was, she was also really defiant. Merkel accused international terrorists of attacking, quote, "free societies."
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANGELA MERKEL: (Speaking German).
NELSON: And she says such terrorists are the enemies of all humanity whether in Syria, Turkey, France or Germany. And she says today's attack only strengthens her government's resolve to work with its international partners to fight terrorism.
MCEVERS: And we don't know yet if this suicide bomber specifically targeted the tourists because they were German. But, I mean, what are people in Germany saying about this? Are they feeling more insecure, especially following the Paris attacks in November and the security scares in Germany that followed that?
NELSON: Well, absolutely. I mean, even before the Istanbul attack, this sort of insecurity was on people's minds. If you went to places like Christmas markets, people were talking about whether or not they might get attacked there. But more problematic is this - is that this kind of attack adds to fear and hatred toward refugees in Germany. They worry that there are terrorists or criminals that are hiding among these refugees who come in, just like the unidentified asylum-seekers that Colonna police say were among the attackers who committed hundreds of sexual assaults in that city on New Year's Eve.
MCEVERS: We know that Turkey is a very popular place for Germans to visit. Do you think that we'll see an impact? Do you think we'll see the number of Germans traveling to Turkey go down?
NELSON: More than likely. I mean, that certainly has been the case with Tunisia and Egypt following attacks and the plane crash there. But surprisingly, the German Foreign Ministry, even today, was not telling its citizens, avoid going to Turkey. They're warning for Istanbul was basically for German citizens to avoid crowds but no ban on travel there.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's Berlin correspondent Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson. Thank you very much.
NELSON: You're welcome, Kelly.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
National security is likely to be a major topic tonight when president Obama delivers his final State of the Union address. It's a sensitive subject after grisly attacks in the U.S. and abroad. We're going to listen to some of what the president had to say on this topic in last year's State of the Union. Joining me now to talk about last year's speech and what has happened since then is NPR's national security correspondent David Welna. Hey, David.
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: The president has made ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan a centerpiece of his national security agenda. What was his take a year ago on the progress there?
WELNA: In a word - excellent. Barely two minutes into last year's address, president Obama, in effect, declared a mission accomplished in Afghanistan.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: Tonight, for the first time since 9/11, our combat mission in Afghanistan is over.
SHAPIRO: Over - a definitive word. Has the outcome actually been so definitive?
WELNA: Well, just as President Bush spoke too soon declaring mission accomplished in Iraq, I think Obama may have done the same with Afghanistan. He promised to withdraw half of the 9,800 U.S. troops there by the end of last year. Instead, he left troop levels unchanged. And while those forces are said to be on a train-and-assist mission, some continue to engage in combat, including a U.S. airstrike that mistakenly killed 42 civilians at a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Northern Afghanistan.
SHAPIRO: And how about Iraq, where, as we know, ISIS is controlling part of the country?
WELNA: Yes. U.S. troops were pulled out from there a few years ago, but more than 3,500 are now back in Iraq, where the U.S. is also carrying out daily airstrikes. It's part of the new war the president's launched against the Islamic State both within Iraq and Syria. Here's his assessment of that effort last year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: In Iraq and Syria, American leadership, including our military power, is stopping ISIL's advance.
WELNA: And the president could point now to some recent battlefield gains against the Islamic State, but his efforts to get other Arab nations to join that fight have largely been fruitless, as was an attempt to stand up a moderate rebel force in Syria. Obama's also failed so far to get Congress to approve a new authorization for the use of military force. Although, GOP leaders lately seem to be rethinking that.
SHAPIRO: Another major development in Syria since president Obama's last State of the Union address is Russian involvement. Russia's doing airstrikes in Syria. Any indication when you look at the last address this time last year that the president saw that coming?
WELNA: Not at all. Russia's aggression in Ukraine was the big concern back then. Here's what he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: Today, it is American that stands strong and united with our allies while Russia is isolated with its economy in tatters. That's how America leads - not with bluster but with persistent, steady resolve.
SHAPIRO: OK, David, what can the president (laughter) point to tonight to show that this kind of low key approach to using U.S. power has worked?
WELNA: Well, he certainly could tout the reestablishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba, which is something he promised in last year's State of the Union.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: When what you're doing doesn't work for 50 years, it's time to try something new.
(APPLAUSE)
SHAPIRO: OK, so Cuba seems to have worked - anywhere else?
WELNA: Well, Iran - an agreement was reached to lift sanctions on Iran in exchange for a downsizing of that country's nuclear program. Although, that deal was not at all certain when the president alluded to it last year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: Between now and this spring, we have a chance to negotiate a comprehensive agreement that prevents a nuclear-armed Iran, secures America and our allies, including Israel, while avoiding yet another Middle East conflict.
SHAPIRO: Still no deal, though, to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, which is feels like he's talked about in every State of the Union address for the last eight years.
WELNA: That's right, despite the president's vow to do so. Here's the president again last year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: Since I've been president, we've worked responsibly to cut the population of Gitmo in half. Now it is time to finish the job, and I will not relent in my determination to shut it down. It is not who we are. It's time to close Gitmo.
(APPLAUSE)
WELNA: Since then, two dozen men have been transferred out of Guantanamo, and that leaves just over a hundred still there. It'll be interesting to hear what the president might say tonight about how he'd close that facility in the year that he has left in office. His chief of staff says Obama will send a plan to Congress soon for closing Gitmo. It would likely entail transferring some of those detainees to the U.S. And that's likely to go nowhere in Congress, so the question becomes, would the president use executive power to shut the place down? He hasn't ruled that out.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's David Welna, who's - covers national security for us. Thanks, David.
WELNA: You're welcome, Ari.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
When you need an ambulance you need it now, but having enough ambulances at the ready can cost a lot of money. As Audrey Quinn of our Planet Money team reports, a former high school English teacher seems to have solved this ambulance problem with economics.
AUDREY QUINN, BYLINE: It was a busy intersection in Jersey City, rush hour, pouring rain. The light changes, and a pickup truck turns suddenly, according to the police report. It sideswipes a sedan in the next lane. The driver is 61. She sits motionless. A bystander calls 911. And just three minutes and 47 seconds later, first responder Sabrine Elcomey (ph) was at the car window.
SABRINE ELCOMEY: Hello, are you OK? It's EMS, we're here.
QUINN: In a lot of cases, response time is the difference between life and death. And three minutes and 47 seconds is fast. Elcomey's an EMT with Jersey City Medical Center. Ten years ago, their average response time was twice as long. Twice as many patients died from cardiac arrest.
At the scene, Elcomey checks the woman - no blood, but she's shaken up, so Elcomey drives her to the hospital just to be safe. Elcomey's swift response came not because she drove fast but because her ambulance had been waiting just a few blocks away, right where her dispatchers told her to be.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: You fell - Wells Fargo - 40 Journal Square - OK. All right. We're on our way. Seven, head over to Journal Square at the west park (unintelligible).
QUINN: They sit in a dark room on the upper floor of the hospital. A screen in front of them looks kind of like a satellite weather map over Jersey City. The darker parts of what seem like a cloud are where history says the next call is most likely to happen. That's where ambulances should wait. Often, they choose a coffee shop. Lorraine Mallis has worked in this dispatch room since the '90s. She has a name for the system.
LORRAINE MALLIS: I call this Hal. I don't know if you ever saw that sci-fi movie...
QUINN: "2001: A Space Odyssey."
MALLIS: Yeah, that's it. That's it. That's how smart they - he is very smart. They should be proud of this system. It's very good.
QUINN: They would be Jack Stout. He started thinking about ambulance response in the early '80s. Back then, he says it was a total mess.
JACK STOUT: It was very, very difficult to hook up the person with the nearest ambulance to the person that needed it.
QUINN: Ambulances sat at station houses in one location, and when calls came in, they drove real fast.
STOUT: That's right. That was the best tool they had.
QUINN: He'd gotten into ambulances through a winding career path. English teacher, government consultant and then the University of Oklahoma offered him two jobs at once - Emergency medical systems researcher and part-time professor of economics.
STOUT: Then that kind of tipped me off really looking here about supply and demand, which is the foundation of microeconomics.
QUINN: Staffed ambulances were the supply and 911 calls were the demand. So he started plotting out on a blackboard the pattern of that demand.
STOUT: You could look up there and you could say, oh, this is Tuesday 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.. Here's where the calls tend to come from, and this is how many of them there tend to be.
QUINN: Stout said take the ambulances out of the station houses, put them near where the calls are going to come from, have fewer ambulances during quiet hours, more during busy. Stout's style of ambulance response systems was a radical idea at the time. He spent decades spreading it around the country.
STOUT: And we did about half of the United States.
QUINN: How'd you get it around so fast?
STOUT: Well, it wasn't fast. I'm old (laughter).
QUINN: Most of the places where Stout first brought his system saw immediate improvement in their ambulance response. But Stouts says a lot of departments liked the way they were doing things, all waiting together at the station. It was only in the last few years with trust in data on the rise that Stout's method has become the norm. Audrey Quinn, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The late David Bowie sang about a lot of other worldly things, things like spiders from Mars.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ZIGGY STARDUST")
DAVID BOWIE: (Singing) Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with Weird and Gilly and the spiders from Mars.
MCEVERS: So it turns out there are spiders on Mars - kind of.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
To explain, we turned to Candice Hansen Koharcheck.
CANDICE HANSEN KOHARCHECK: I work for NASA. I am a planetary scientist, and I work with the camera team on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.
MCEVERS: She explains that Mars has seasonal polar caps similar to the Earth. But unlike the Earth, the ones on Mars are made of carbon dioxide - dry ice.
KOHARCHECK: If you've ever played with dry ice you know how it goes from a solid to a gas directly. It never really melts.
MCEVERS: So when the season changes and the polar cap warms, this dry ice turns to gas. The gas underneath the ice is under huge amounts of pressure and bursts out wherever there are weak spots.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ZIGGY STARDUST")
BOWIE: (Singing) So where were the spiders?
SHAPIRO: We're getting there. Scientists think that escaping gas picks up bits of dirt and carves channels into Mars's surface. Those formations of channels branching out from a central point are known as spiders.
MCEVERS: Spiders on Mars.
SHAPIRO: Spiders of Mars.
MCEVERS: Hansen Koharcheck says we don't have anything quite like them on our planet.
KOHARCHECK: These terrains on Mars are really very unearthly. And I think that you could say that about David Bowie's music, too.
(SOUNDBITE OF DAVID BOWIE SONG, "ZIGGY STARDUST")
SHAPIRO: This is NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The U.S. Supreme Court today struck down Florida's death sentencing system as unconstitutional. Florida ranks second in the nation in the number of death row inmates. There are currently 390 men and women awaiting execution in the state, and today's Supreme Court decision casts doubt on all those sentences. NPR's Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Florida law allows juries to recommend a sentence of death or life in prison in capital cases. But it's the judge who's charged with finding facts, and judges can and do frequently disregard the jury's recommendation. Indeed, they've disregarded the jury's advisory on some 200 occasions either way since Florida's capital sentencing law was enacted in 1972. Today, the Supreme Court, by an 8 to 1 vote, said that system is unconstitutional.
Writing for the Court majority, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that the Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial requires a jury and not a judge to find each fact necessary to impose a sentence of death. a jury's mere recommendation is not enough, she said. Justice Samuel Alito was the lone dissenter.
The decision came in the case of Timothy Lee Hurst, convicted in the brutal stabbing murder of a coworker. A jury recommended a death sentence by a 7 to 5 vote, but without any finding of facts that justified the sentence, and the judge reiterated the penalty. Since 2000, the court has issues a series of decisions requiring juries, not judges, to make critical fact-finding judgments. And in 2002, it struck down an Arizona death penalty statute similar to Florida's.
The court would later say that its decision was not retroactive, that it did not apply to those Arizona sentences that had already worked their way through the appeals process in 2002. But retroactivity is a question that depends, in part, at least, on state law, and the Florida Supreme Court has given greater leeway for retroactivity claims than most other states. Michael Radelet, an expert on the death penalty in Florida, says the bottom line after today's ruling is uncertainty.
MICHAEL RADELET: The Florida Supreme Court has a dozen different directions they can go in. And the only certain thing is that this is going to be litigated for a long time.
TOTENBERG: Radelet, now a professor at the University Colorado, Boulder, says he expects the Florida Supreme Court will at least temporarily block all future executions.
RADELET: The next execution is scheduled for February 11, so we'll find out what happens pretty quickly.
TOTENBERG: Today's Supreme Court decision leaves Alabama the last state where a judge can override a jury to impose a death sentence. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The news today that about 10 American sailors strayed into Iranian waters and were taken into custody of Iran comes as President Obama prepares to deliver his last State of the Union address. White House officials confirmed the sailors' detention during a briefing on the speech. The White House says the president wants to set an optimistic tone in his remarks tonight. Here's how former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau previewed it on Morning Edition today.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
JON FAVREAU: This is the "Morning In America" speech in response to the malaise speech the Republican candidates have been giving the entire primary season.
SHAPIRO: Tonight's primetime speech is one of Obama's last big chances to make the case for his own legacy and shape the debate among those who are running to replace him. NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now from the White House with a preview.
Hi Scott.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Hi Ari.
SHAPIRO: The White House says this is going to be an untraditional State of the Union address. I'm sure they weren't referring to today's breaking news when they said that. What did they mean by that?
HORSLEY: Well, Ari, you've sat through a lot of these speeches, and I think what they hope they mean is that it's going to have some staying power. You know, if you look back at all the memorable speeches this president has given during his time in office, there's probably not a State of the Union that makes the top 10. So often there's just not a lot of room for poetry or even a coherent argument in these speeches. Instead they tend to be sort of laundry lists of programmatic proposals that the president wants Congress to take up. Obama has said he wants to get away from that in this speech. After all, Congress, under the control of the GOP, is not likely to approve much of his program anyway. So instead, he's planning to take a step back and offer a sort of big picture of the challenges and what he sees as the opportunities facing country.
SHAPIRO: Still a fair amount of campaign politics in this speech though. It is, after all, a presidential election year.
HORSLEY: Oh, of course. I mean, as his former speechwriter Jon Favreau said, this is a chance to paint Obama's own record in the warm, glowing colors - the way President Reagan's "Morning In America" campaign ad did - at a time when Republican candidates have been running a pretty negative campaign about what they see as the sorry state of the union, both in terms of the economy and security. Obviously, both sides have evidence they can call on to make their case. You can expect the president to talk tonight about the best couple of years of job growth we've had since late 1990s, record auto sales last year after he rescued GM and Chrysler. Republicans instead will focus on lackluster wage growth and mounting concerns in the American public about terrorism.
SHAPIRO: Scott, is there a risk of the president sounding too rosy if he gives a wholly optimistic speech, especially with news breaking about American sailors in Iranian custody right now?
HORSLEY: Well, certainly. And this is a challenge that the president's faced, really, throughout his tenure and even more so in the supercharged political atmosphere of an election year. And Republicans have a strategic rationale for highlighting the president's shortcomings and trying to tie those shortcomings to his fellow Democrats, especially Hillary Clinton, who served in Obama's cabinet. Democrats, on other hand who are running for office want to, on the one hand, celebrate successes of their president but not handcuff themselves to a person whose approval rating is still, you know, languishing below 50 percent. Now, keep in mind, Ari, this is a president who burst on the national scene all those years ago promising to bridge the partisan divide. Instead, that divide is deeper than ever, and Obama told NBC News's "Today" show this morning that is one of his regrets.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TODAY")
BARACK OBAMA: Politics in Washington are so much more divided than the American people are. And part of what I want to do in this last address is to remind people, you know what? We've got a lot of good things going for us and if we can get our politics right, it turns out that we're not as divided on the ideological spectrum as people make us out to be.
SHAPIRO: Well, Scott, the president is sticking with one State of Union tradition. He's invited some special guests to watch from the first lady's box. Who's going to be there?
HORSLEY: Yeah, this is another tradition that began with Ronald Reagan inviting ordinary and not so ordinary Americans to attend the speech and help to illustrate the president's points. Obama has a lot of folks to choose from tonight including an empty seat representing the victims of gun violence. Also in the first lady's box, one of the young Americans who tackled a gunman on that Paris-bound train, a Syrian refugee who's now living in the Michigan, one of the first women to graduate from Army Ranger School and the named plaintiff in the same-sex marriage case decided by the Supreme Court last summer. The president botched his name in the Rose Garden. This gives him another chance to say Jim Obergefell.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter). Finally, Scott, do you think they're scrambling for a rewrite given that these sailors are in Iranian custody right now?
HORSLEY: You know, news of this broke as I and some other reporters were getting a briefing on the speech, and the White House was keeping mum. I don't think they want to say too much until the sailors' fate is maybe a little bit more secure.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Scott Horsley speaking with us from the White House.
Thanks Scott.
HORSLEY: My pleasure Ari.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
There are a handful of Americans that have been held by Iran for years. And that's an issue that some people hope will be discussed by the president in his State of the Union address tonight. The family members of one of the jailed Americans will be in the audience. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: President Obama is likely to talk about the nuclear deal with Iran as one of his foreign-policy wins. Rami Kurdi will be listening out for something else, though - some mention of his brother-in-law, former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati in jail on espionage charges in Iran.
RAMI KURDI: We would love to hear Amir's name. Amir served his country honorably. He's a decorated Marine. We'd love to hear that every effort's being made for Amir and, least of which, that he's mentioned.
KELEMEN: Rami Kurdi and his wife, Sarah Hekmati, are here for the State of the Union speech. They're guests of Congressman Dan Kildee, a Democrat from Michigan who spoke to NPR with them in his office today.
DAN KILDEE: The State of the Union address is sort of that one moment when the world is watching Congress and the president, and it seemed to me the most appropriate thing to do was to somehow raise his case. Last year, it was an empty seat. This year, it's Sarah and Rami who will draw attention to his case. I pray to God that next year, Amir will be my guest.
KELEMEN: Amir Hekmati was jailed back in 2011 when he went to visit his grandmother in Iran. He's been held in Iran's notorious Evin prison, and his sister Sarah says he's struggling.
SARAH HEKMATI: Not only is he in a very harsh prison, he's now the longest-held American that's been held there.
KELEMEN: She says the family got some hopeful signs late last year when an Iranian state-run newspaper reported that his case is being reviewed. Meanwhile, his calls home are difficult.
HEKMATI: It's weighing down on him a lot. And you know, I hear it in his voice. I hear it in his just asking when he calls to ask about any updates on our end and then for us to feel like we don't have enough substantial information to give him. It hurts us. It's, like, emotionally torturesome (ph) for him and for us to have to discuss this case.
KELEMEN: The State Department says it often raises Hekmati's case with Iran along with those of two other jailed Americans - Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian and Christian pastor Saeed Abedini. The U.S. is also still seeking information about a former FBI agent who went missing in Iran in 2007. The U.S. did not link these cases to the nuclear deal with Iran, and Congressman Kildee agreed with that approach.
KILDEE: I supported the agreement because I thought it made the world a safer place. That doesn't mean that there are not other points of leverage that the United States has with Iran, and it's my view that we should use all those point of leverage to get him home in any way we can.
KELEMEN: This month, Iran could get out from under international sanctions as the nuclear deal with Iran is implemented. Kildee says he's been urging Iranians to show they're serious about, in his words, rejoining the global community by releasing Hekmati and other jailed Americans. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Tonight is the last State of the Union address for President Obama. It's the first State of the Union for Paul Ryan as speaker of the House. The Wisconsin Republican will preside over the chamber during the speech. It will be close to impossible for either Obama or Ryan to get any bills passed this year without the other's cooperation. NPR congressional reporter Susan Davis is here to talk about whether these two guys can get along. Hey, Sue.
SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: OK. Paul Ryan's been in Congress for quite a while now. Describe his relationship with President Obama up until now.
DAVIS: OK. So Paul Ryan is new to the speaker's office, but he's actually had a lot of interactions with the president over the years, mainly because he's been the idea guy for House Republicans. And as chairman of the Budget Committee for six years, he's the guy that wrote the annual blueprint that's basically become the platform for the Republican Party when it comes to fiscal issues.
SHAPIRO: Which Obama has traditionally attacked.
DAVIS: Exactly, mainly because the key thing that's in this budget is Ryan's plan that he came up with to privatize Medicare for future retirees. Now, that idea has become campaign fodder for Obama and Democrats for years. But at the same time, those attacks sort of elevated Ryan to a guy that is seen as a top policymaker in the Republican Party.
They've also had a couple of awkward interactions over the years. There was a speech in 2011 at Georgetown University in which the president personally called out Ryan for his fiscal policies when he was - Paul Ryan was sitting right there in the front row. The president said he regretted doing that. He didn't know he was going to be there, and he felt bad because he thought it looked like he brought him there to embarrass him.
And of course, Paul Ryan faced off against the president on the national stage when Mitt Romney tapped him to be his running mate in 2012. But we know how that ended. Over the years, the president has indicated he has a respect for Paul Ryan. He thinks he's smart. He thinks he works hard, and they have a personally cordial relationship. But there's just not a lot of common ground between the two men when it comes to policymaking.
SHAPIRO: So it seems like these guys both benefit politically from demonizing each other, but they can also both benefit from getting something done. You you see space for them to accomplish something together in the final year of the Obama presidency?
DAVIS: Sure, but it's important to remember that Congress is only in session for 80-some days before election day.
SHAPIRO: Wow - until November, just 80-some days.
DAVIS: Yeah, particularly because the political conventions are this summer, so Congress is in session even less this year. So realistically, there just isn't a ton of time to get much done. If you recall, last year, they reached a budget deal, so we're not going to have another shutdown fight, hopefully, this year. And there's a couple of areas that both sides have said they think they can get something done.
One is criminal sentencing reform. There's a bipartisan group of lawmakers who support that, as does president Obama. The president has also enjoyed strong allies, including Paul Ryan, among Republicans on Capitol Hill - been passing a trade deal with Asia-Pacific nations. That's a top priority for him before he leaves office.
But of course, it's an election year, so we can also expect some politically motivated votes. Ryan said he wants the House Republicans to come up with and vote on an alternative to President Obama's health care law. This is something we have not seen before. Now, the president obviously isn't going to sign that into law, but Ryan says he thinks it's important to show the public how Republicans would overhaul the health care system.
SHAPIRO: How do you see Obama and Ryan getting along in the next year? I mean, are they going to play golf the way Obama did with Ryan's predecessor, John Boehner?
DAVIS: (Laughter) Well, Paul Ryan is a hunter, and he's not a golfer. So they're going to have to find a new way to socialize. They're both fitness buffs. They both work out every morning.
SHAPIRO: Yeah. I once worked out with Paul Ryan on a campaign trail in 2012. I can attest to that.
DAVIS: OK. Well, they both - and both the president and Paul Ryan say they like to work out every morning, so maybe they can bond in the gym. You know, but they also have stylistic similarities. They both are known for their sort of cool, easy-going demeanors. They're not known for being easily ruffled or prone to anger.
Obama also is a lot more in common with Ryan than any other leader when it comes to sort of their generational similarities. He's only nine years older than the speaker. They have sort of similar pop-culture sensibilities. They know what's going on with the kids in the world because they're both raising young kids.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
DAVIS: That's something that they talk about when they're together. And Ryan has said that in particular, they talk about the challenges facing fathers of raising teenage daughters.
SHAPIRO: That's Susan Davis, NPR's congressional reporter. Thanks, Sue.
DAVIS: You bet.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
One of the richest men in China has made a big splash in Hollywood. Wang Jianlin's conglomerate, Wanda, announced today it will buy Legendary Entertainment. That's the American company behind movies like "Jurassic World" and "Straight Outta Compton." NPR's Elizabeth Blair has our report.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: Wanda is a massive corporation in China. Its business includes huge shopping centers, theaters, theme parks and luxury hotels. A few years ago, it bought AMC, the second largest theater chain in the U.S. Now it owns some Hollywood blockbusters...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE DARK KNIGHT")
HEATH LEDGER: (As Joker) Look at you go.
BLAIR: The "Dark Knight" trilogy, "The Hangover" movies. Legendary's remake of "Godzilla" did very well in China.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GODZILLA")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) We call him Godzilla.
BLAIR: There've been a number of deals between Chinese investors and Hollywood companies. U.S. producer Janet Yang, whose credits include "The Joy Luck Club" and "The People Vs. Larry Flynt" says China and Hollywood have been dating for a while.
JANET YANG: They do make great bedfellows in the sense that China has what Hollywood wants and Hollywood has what China wants.
BLAIR: Meaning China has the money and the biggest market in the world and Hollywood knows how to make movies.
YANG: One of the things they want is really more developed skills. I mean, Hollywood is really the most experienced player in terms of content creation. And so China has a really deep hunger to be a player on the global cultural stage.
BLAIR: But like any marriage, it could face some bumps. Among them, movies Wanda produces through Legendary will likely have to go through Chinese censors. Wanda's owner, Wang Jianlin, is reportedly well-connected with the Chinese government. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Starbucks said today it plans to open 500 new stores in China this year. And it said it will eventually do more business in China than in the United States. The announcement underscores the potential of China's vast consumer market. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports the Chinese government sees untapping that potential as key to solving many of its economic problems.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: For years, China has poured money into big capital projects - factories and ports and railroads. Now, says Christopher Balding of Peking University, it has become overbuilt.
CHRISTOPHER BALDING: You hear stories and read articles about airports that have been built all over China and they get two flights a day. And you hear stories like this across all types of industries.
ZARROLI: There's simply not enough demand for all the roads and factories China has. And with global growth slowing, that's not going to change anytime soon. So a lot of economists say to keep the economy growing, demand must come from inside. Chinese consumers have to spend more. That's not easy. For one thing, living in is expensive. The social safety net is skimpy, and things such as health care and retirement aren't subsidized the way they are in the West, says Scott Kennedy of the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
SCOTT KENNEDY: Chinese spend a lot of their money on health care and on education, on housing. And so there's not a lot of extra disposable income for what would drive consumption, say, in the United States and other richer countries.
ZARROLI: And the Chinese system sometimes makes a bad situation worse. Laws block people who move to new cities from putting their children in public schools. There are restrictions on where people can invest their money. So Chinese people end up putting a lot of money in state-owned banks where the returns are feeble, says Linda Lim of the University of Michigan.
LINDA LIM: So people rationally at an individual level save a lot for their retirement, for their housing, for their health care, for their children's education.
ZARROLI: Beijing has acknowledged the system needs to change. But almost anything it does invites a painful trade-off. Opening up banks to foreign competition means less money will flow into state-owned banks, many of which already have a lot of bad debt. Spending more money on social services means less money to prop up state-owned businesses, and that could mean layoffs. Lim says Beijing is trying to implement reforms without doing too much damage to entrenched interests with government connections.
LIM: So that's a very difficult and delicate balance between the two. It should ideally take place in a gradual manner, and, in a way, if you rush these things too much you create a lot of dislocations and shocks.
ZARROLI: There have been serious missteps on the government's part. To give people a new place to invest, Beijing encouraged the growth of the stock market. That backfired when stock prices plunged. Scott Kennedy says there's also a lot of resistance to change within the government.
KENNEDY: Well, giving up authority and power over economic choices is not something that the Chinese government wants to do easily. Your brain knows it, but you heart doesn't necessarily agree yet. I think that's where they are.
ZARROLI: But with the global economy slowing down, China has to find new ways to grow. And that means getting Chinese consumers to help pick up the slack. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In Florida, advocates for medical marijuana say they've submitted a petition with more than a million signatures to state election officials. That means Florida made broaden who can use marijuana in the state. Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia allow its use in some form. Deandre Benjamin, a reporter with WLRN's youth project, lives in Miami. In this story produced with Youth Radio, he takes a look at how his friends view marijuana.
DEANDRE BENJAMIN, BYLINE: I live in a neighborhood called Overtown. It's a part of Miami where black artists like Ella Fitzgerald used to stay after playing for white audiences on Miami Beach. Today, mostly poor people live there. Not a lot of people walk around, but people do walk to the corner store across from my apartment. A lot of them for the same reason.
Can I get an 1882, Honey Berry?
1882 is the name of a cigar. I'm buying it for my neighbor. He doesn't plan on smoking the cigar. He wants to unravel it, dump the tobacco out and use the tobacco leaf to roll a joint. We call that a pasto.
FELIPE: The first time I started smoking I was 14 years old. I was at a party. Due to peer pressure, I thought I'd be cool if everybody saw me smoking, so I tried it.
BENJAMIN: We're not using his name because weed is illegal in Florida. My neighbor is 17 now, and he doesn't feel like he's addicted to weed.
FELIPE: It's just a hobby. I can go multiple days without smoking.
BENJAMIN: I doubt that. I know him. He smokes four or five times a day - every day.
FELIPE: I told myself multiple times I was going to stop, but as the years pass I continue to use marijuana. I am smoking now, but I wouldn't call it an addiction. I think I can call it a hobby.
BENJAMIN: A lot of my friends who smoke don't see marijuana as something that can make you dependent. They look at other drugs like heroin, crack or even Percs - Percocets - as the only stuff you really need to worry about. But Cynthia Rowe says my friends are wrong. She works at the University of Miami Center for Treatment Research on Adolescent Drug Abuse.
CYNTHIA ROWE: What worries us most about using, about smoking pot regularly or other drugs, is you become unavailable to yourself. You become unavailable to deal with people in the way that's going to get your needs met, to make decisions about the life you want to lead.
BENJAMIN: A lot of my friends and I come from broken homes, broken families, poverty, just the world being on your shoulders at a young age. In my family, my dad's gone. I help keep my two younger brothers in line. I don't always know where we're going to get dinner to eat. Look, a lot of kids have tried pot. And I've tried it myself. It's helped us escape. I have a family member who used to smoke all the time.
NICK: It was an everyday thing - after school, before school, in the mornings, at night, before I eat dinner I'll go out there and, you know, smoke.
BENJAMIN: He's 17 and started smoking weed at 15.
NICK: I like the feeling of it, of being mellow and all that. And I was always looking for that type of feeling.
BENJAMIN: He says he eventually realized he had a habit.
NICK: I started to notice when I was on probation and on multiple occasions I was tested positive for marijuana and at that moment I was like I need to change.
BENJAMIN: He says his mom thought he was addicted and seeing how she was affected got him to quit.
NICK: I mean, seeing the look on my mother's face knowing that she was trying to do her best to stop me from staying away from marijuana, that really touched my heart.
BENJAMIN: Weed helps alleviate some of the stress of living in this neighborhood. It slows the anxiety down. It helps you relax. But there are some downsides, too. Like the fact that marijuana is still illegal here. But legal or not, marijuana is always going to be easy to get. It's just like grass outside. For NPR News, I'm Deandre Benjamin.
SHAPIRO: Deandre's story comes to us from WLRN's youth project and URGENT, Inc., produced with Youth Radio.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
So a record producer walks into a Toledo nightclub. This is not the beginning of a joke. It's actually how singer Gloria Ann Taylor was discovered in the late 1960s. And after she was discovered, she went on to record about a dozen songs that were released on 45s, These have since become collectors' items. Now the rest of us can hear them in a new collection called "Love Is A Hurtin' Thing." Reviewer Oliver Wang says you will be haunted by Taylor's voice.
OLIVER WANG, BYLINE: Gloria Ann Taylor's song "World That's Not Real" first appeared as a B side in 1973.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WORLD THAT'S NOT REAL")
GLORIA ANN TAYLOR: (Singing) World that's not real. Love, love that's not real enough for me.
WANG: You don't listen to the song so much as be lured into it. It's like drifting through a half-awake dream. Taylor, backed by the producer who discovered her, Walter Whisenhunt, eerily sings over dissonant piano chords and a stir of strings all shimmering through a wall of reverb.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WORLD THAT'S NOT REAL")
TAYLOR: (Singing) I don't feel it. I can't dig it. Much like falling down, down, for your love, love.
WANG: The whole affair feels fantastically phantasmic, and it's clear on the new "Love Is A Hurtin' Thing" anthology that this dip into the darkness wasn't a one-off. Whisenhunt, who became Taylor's husband, was seemingly obsessed with creating a unique sound that would set the records apart.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BURNING EYES")
TAYLOR: (Singing) I wonder why blue glass bubble reminds me, reminds me of the sea.
WANG: The producer was especially drawn to a gritty, psychedelic style, embracing a rough, low-fi aesthetic that ran counter to the dominant studio-perfected sound of '70s R&B.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JOLENE")
TAYLOR: (Singing) Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, I'm begging her, please, don't take my man.
WANG: Taylor and Whisenhunt were perhaps a little too successful in avoiding mainstream trends. None of their '70s recordings ever became a national hit. On the flip side, soul music collectors took notice, eventually turning their sides into the stuff of record-obsessive legend. Some of her recordings have sold for upwards of a thousand dollars. The most coveted is the album's title track, a privately-issued mid-tempo soul song that unfolds across seven and a half minutes.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOVE IS A HURTIN' THING")
TAYLOR: (Singing) For every little kiss there's a little heartache. For every single thrill there's another heartbreak. For all in love the going is tough. Yes, love is a hurtin' thing.
JANET YANG: When Taylor and Whisenhunt recorded it around 1973, disco had yet to become a household term. But with its steady thump, dramatic strings and Taylor's piercing vocals, "Love Is A Hurtin' Thing" became embraced as a proto-disco classic. That acknowledgment came too late for Gloria Ann Taylor, however. In 1977, she made her last recordings and then packed up to move back to Toledo. She's still there. And while she's traded in the nightclub for a church choir, she's still singing and likely still haunting people with that voice.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOVE IS A HURTIN' THING")
TAYLOR: (Singing) One day happiness, next day loneliness. Yes, love...
MCEVERS: Our reviewer, Oliver Wang, is an associate professor of sociology at Cal State, Long Beach, and author of the book "Legions Of Boom."
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
When Saudi Arabia executed a Shiite cleric earlier this month, it infuriated people in Iran and set the Middle East on edge. Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr had demanded political and religious freedoms for Shiites, who are a minority in Saudi Arabia and called for an end to the Saudi monarchy. Saudi Arabia says al-Nimr was a terrorist. Al-Nimr's son just got a degree in mechanical engineering at Indiana University. Mohammed al-Nimr says his father was a peaceful man.
MOHAMMED AL-NIMR: Even when the government started firing bullets on people, he basically asked people to not even throw rocks on the policemen. Once, when the government fired and killed two people, he told the people that the roar of the word is mightier than the sound of bullets.
MCEVERS: When he himself used words and speeches and sermons, you know, he said things very critical of the Saudi regime, which, you know, caught the attention of the regime. He said - you know, I remember - there's one speech, he said, the regime steals my money, sheds my blood, violates my honor. Looking back, do you wish that he hadn't become so outspoken and so critical of the Saudi government?
AL-NIMR: Not at all. I'm proud of what he did. I'm proud of him, and I really appreciate what he did for all our people. Like, we tried to make our sound heard in the world, like, for, like, more than 100 years right now. But by his action, what he did meant the whole world see what kind of government is Saudi Arabia government. They can't face words so they kill people.
MCEVERS: Saudi government accused him of being a terrorist. When he was, you know, arrested, there was some sort of fight that ended with gunshots. What do you think about the claim that he is a terrorist?
AL-NIMR: Well, I just want to ask anyone who would claim that - anyone - to bring one proof, just one proof that my father said a violent word against anyone.
MCEVERS: 'Cause the charge, again, was that when they arrested him that he was armed and that shots were fired and then it was - the terrorism charge followed that, right?
AL-NIMR: Well, he was shot four times when he was not armed. But, OK, if he was armed, like, basically why couldn't they show the people that? And even though no one of them got hurt, he's the only one who got hurt.
MCEVERS: Where were you when you heard that the execution had actually happened? How did you find out?
AL-NIMR: Actually, I - I was home. I was in my apartment. It was just a message. It was just a message that said, they executed your father. I couldn't believe that at first. I went and checked the news again. I checked the news. I - it was true. At first it was, like, a big shock. It was a big shock, but after that I was just, like, I was kind of - I can describe the word as relief.
MCEVERS: Really?
AL-NIMR: Yeah. Because he was detained, he was in solitary for, like, from 2012. He was in solitary, and I knew that they're not going to let him go. It was basically an - I can say a dungeon. He can't even see the sun. They were basically making lots of noise around all the time when he's trying to sleep. And basically, they didn't offer him the appropriate treatment. They broke his bone by bullets then they let the bone go back by itself, and the bone didn't go back straight because they didn't support the bones.
MCEVERS: Were you able to have a burial for your father?
AL-NIMR: Unfortunately - unfortunately, we couldn't do that. They detained even the body of him after his death.
MCEVERS: Mohammed al-Nimr, thank you so much for your time today.
AL-NIMR: Thank you.
MCEVERS: Mohammed al-Nimr says he plans to study international law so he can clear his father's name. For now, he says he will do that outside of Saudi Arabia.
In a statement, a Saudi government spokesman says, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr was, quote, "dedicated to destabilizing and disrupting society and economic prosperity. He used religious platforms and social media to incite violence and terrorism." The spokesman says the government gave al-Nimr full medical care after he was wounded in a battle with security forces in 2012. He also says al-Nimr was given due process before being convicted of terrorism. Human rights activists dispute that.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We have breaking news to start this hour. Ten U.S. Navy sailors - nine men and one woman - are being detained by Iran. Tehran says the U.S. patrol boats strayed into Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf. So far, details are sketchy. NPR's Tom Bowman has been talking with defense officials about what's happened, and he joins us now in the studio. Hey, Tom.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: First, are these American troops safe?
BOWMAN: Well, these sailors are safe. That's according to the Pentagon. They've been held for maybe six or seven hours. We don't know exactly where they are at this point, either on a ship or at sea or ashore somewhere, so it's really kind of sketchy now.
SHAPIRO: What do we know about how this happened, how they came into Iranian custody?
BOWMAN: Well, Ari the defense officials say that there were two American craft called riverine crafts. It's sort of like small patrol boats. And they were on their way from Kuwait down to Bahrain where the U.S. maintains the Fifth Fleet. And at some point, I was told that they drifted into Iranian waters, and they were captured, basically. And also, we don't know what kind of ship - Iranian ship captured them, but we're told, according to the Fars News Agency, it was the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that grabbed them.
SHAPIRO: Drifted into Iranian waters - seems significant. Is their precedent for something like this happening before? Do American diplomats have a script to work from in this situation?
BOWMAN: Well, actually, it happened 2007 with 15 British sailors and marines. They were operating in the Persian Gulf, inspecting ships for any contraband. And they were swarmed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and held for 13 days. They also drifted into Iranian waters, so there is precedent for this. But as far as we know, this has never happened with American sailors.
SHAPIRO: And of course, this comes after a very tense year of negotiations with Iran over the nuclear program. We know that Secretary of State John Kerry called his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, to talk about this. What happens now?
BOWMAN: Well, we were told by defense officials that they're in communication, also, with the Iranian officials. They're being told that they're being held safely and that hopefully before long, they'll be allowed to go on their way. But again, they've been held for six or seven hours now. We're not sure exactly when they'll be released.
SHAPIRO: As far as the U.S. Obama administration is concerned, it's terrible timing coming hours before President Obama's final State of the Union address.
BOWMAN: Absolutely. And we don't know how they would've drifted into Iranian waters. This is the Persian Gulf. It's a fairly big stretch of water here, so that's one of the big questions here. How could they have strayed into Iranian waters in the Persian Gulf?
SHAPIRO: Well, we'll be updating this story as we learn more throughout the program and throughout the evening. Thanks for joining us.
BOWMAN: You're welcome, Ari.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
National security is likely to be a major topic tonight when President Obama delivers his final State of the Union address. It's a fraught subject after grisly attacks in the U.S. and abroad. We're going to listen to some of what the president had to say on this topic in last year's State of the Union and what has happened since then with NPR's national security correspondent, David Welna.
Hi David.
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: Hi Ari.
SHAPIRO: First let's talk about reports that have just been coming in in the recent hours that roughly a dozen U.S. Navy sailors were detained today by Iran. What more can you tell us?
WELNA: Well, Ari, senior defense officials have told NPR that the American sailors were detained by Iran today as they sailed from Kuwait to Bahrain in the Persian Gulf. They were aboard two small riverine patrol boats that were armed. And it's not clear where exactly they're being held. The U.S. State Department has been in touch with Iranian officials about this incident. The Americans have received assurances that the sailors' safety and well-being is being maintained and that they would, quote, "promptly be allowed to continue their journey."
SHAPIRO: It sounds like these communications between U.S. and Iranian officials could benefit from something President Obama talked about in his State of the Union address at this time last year.
WELNA: That's right. Obama talked then about an agreement that was later reached lifting sanctions on Iran in exchange for a downsizing of that country's nuclear program.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: Between now and this spring, we have a chance to negotiate a comprehensive agreement that prevents a nuclear-armed Iran, secures America and our allies, including Israel, while avoiding yet another Middle East conflict.
SHAPIRO: Big picture - today's events notwithstanding - the nuclear agreement with Iran seems like a success for the president's national security agenda. Another big concern for him has been ending the wars he inherited in Iraq and Afghanistan. What was his take on the progress of that a year ago?
WELNA: Well, in a word - excellent. Barely two minutes into last year's address, President Obama in effect declared, mission accomplished in Afghanistan.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: Tonight, for the first time since 9/11, our combat mission in Afghanistan is over.
SHAPIRO: Over? Full stop - strong word. Was it over?
WELNA: Well, just as President Bush spoke too soon declaring mission accomplished in Iraq, I think Obama may have done the same with Afghanistan. He'd promised to withdraw half of the 9,800 U.S. troops there by the end of last year. Instead, he left troop levels unchanged. And while those forces are said to be on a train-and-assist mission, some continue to engage in combat, including a U.S. airstrike that mistakenly killed 42 civilians at a Doctors Without Borders hospital in northern Afghanistan.
SHAPIRO: And how about Iraq and President Obama's promise to wind down that war?
WELNA: Well, U.S. troops were pulled out from there a few years ago, but more than 3,500 are now back in Iraq, where the U.S. is also carrying out daily airstrikes. It's part of the new war the president's launched against the Islamic State both in Iraq and Syria. Here's his assessment of that effort last year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: In Iraq and Syria, American leadership, including our military power, is stopping ISIL's advance.
WELNA: And the president could point now to some recent battlefield gains against the Islamic State, but his efforts to get other Arab nations to join that fight have largely been fruitless, as was an attempt to stand up a moderate rebel force in Syria.
SHAPIRO: Also in Syria over the last year, Russia became involved, carrying out airstrikes. When you look at President Obama's State of the Union address from last year, any indication that he saw that coming?
WELNA: Not at all. Russia's aggression in Ukraine was the big concern back then. Here's what he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: Today, it is America that stands strong and united with our allies while Russia is isolated with its economy in tatters. That's how America leads - not with bluster but with persistent, steady resolve.
SHAPIRO: David, apart from the Iran nuclear deal, is there anything you can point to that might show that this kind of low-key approach the president champions has worked?
WELNA: He certainly could - President Obama could taut the re-establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba, which is something he promised in last year's State of the Union.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: When what you're doing doesn't work for 50 years, it's time to try something new.
(APPLAUSE)
SHAPIRO: But still no deal to empty the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
WELNA: That's right, despite the president's vow to do so.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: Since I've been president, we've worked responsibly to cut the population of Gitmo in half. Now it is time to finish the job, and I will not relent in my determination to shut it down. It is not who we are. It's time to close Gitmo.
(APPLAUSE)
WELNA: Since then, two dozen men have been transferred out of Guantanamo, and 10 more are to leave later this week. That would leave just over 90 still there, and it'll be interesting to hear what the president might say tonight about how he'd close that facility in the year he has left in office.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's David Welna. Thanks, David.
WELNA: You're welcome, Ari.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The Pritzker prize is often called the Nobel for architecture, and today it went to an architect from Chile known for his socially conscious design. NPR's Neda Ulaby tells us more about this year's winner.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: Alejandro Aravena designs by listening.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Speaking foreign language).
ULABY: In 2010, after a devastating earthquake and tsunami in Chile, Aravena was tasked with resigning a seaside town in just three months. He talked to everyone from developers to fishermen. He discussed this approach to design at TED Talk last year.
(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)
ALEJANDRO ARAVENA: Participatory design is not a hippie, romantic, let's-all-dream-together-about-the-future-of-the-city kind of thing.
ULABY: Participatory design and the future of cities are two of Aravena's favorite topics. More than 2 billion people will move into the world's cities in the next 15 years. Aravena told me that means getting serious about sustainability.
ARAVENA: I would say that sustainability's nothing but the rigorous use of common sense. If you're with rigorous common sense and a reasonable approach, almost every single architecture should be sustainable.
ULABY: Aravena got lots of attention a few years ago for the way he designed houses for a hundred families living in Chilean slums. Richard Sennett teaches urban studies and design at the London School of Economics and at New York University. He says Aravena had enough funding to buy land or build houses, so the architect bought the land and built shelves with a few livable rooms.
RICHARD SENNETT: He built half a good house, rather than building a whole, prepackaged, crummy house.
ULABY: This gave people a chance to build out their houses the way they needed, adding rooms for lodgers or relatives. You can see these incremental houses online. They're basic - just two-story concrete structures with homemade porches and balconies.
SENNETT: They're not beautiful. It's a different kind of aesthetic in that they're clean. There's no kind of dramatic beauty in them, but, you know, when I look at the size of those rooms, I think, God, this is exactly right. It's not decorated beauty. It's deep beauty.
ULABY: A beauty rooted in a culture short on inspiring architecture, says Alejandro Aravena.
ARAVENA: Chile's a society that didn't have an empire, like the Incas in Peru.
ULABY: He says the colonial Spanish did not leave much in the way of sophisticated buildings behind - at least none that survived.
ARAVENA: We were always at war for more than 300 years, so - and then finally, nature, earthquakes have made their war, too. Almost every single old thing has disappeared.
ULABY: This architect is not sentimental about the art of building. To Alejandro Aravena as the winner of architecture's most prestigious award, says Richard Sennett, signals something big.
SENNETT: It's a generational shift. It's really a wonderful choice.
ULABY: Sennett hopes the 48-year-old Aravena might inspire other architects to step up to pressing new design challenges, such as climate change.
SENNETT: Architecture's mostly out of it - you know? - which is terrible. You know, this is the big environmental story of our time, and we need to get young architects, you know, as leaders.
ULABY: Meanwhile, in his office in Santiago, Alejandro Aravena says he and his coworkers are still processing their Pritzker prize win.
ARAVENA: More than the weight of responsibility, our feeling is that is that of freedom. We don't have to prove nothing to anybody anymore.
ULABY: For years, Alejandro Aravena has supported his socially conscious works through prestige projects. One of the most recent - the headquarters of a pharmaceutical company in China. But this Pritzker win is not likely to lead to lots of museums or concert halls. Aravena is committed to designing housing for the poor. Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Even in war zones, hospitals are supposed to be places of refuge. People with diabetes can get insulin, pregnant women can get checkups and even injured fighters can get treatment. Still, on Sunday, there was another attack on a hospital in Yemen. This one was run by Doctors Without Borders or MSF. It's the third such attack on an MSF facility in as many months. We reached one of MSF's regional presidents Jose Antonio Bastos, who oversees operations in Yemen. He joins us from Barcelona. Thank you for being with us today.
JOSE ANTONIO BASTOS: Thanks to you.
MCEVERS: Can you just tell us what happened?
BASTOS: Precisely on the morning of last Sunday, the hospital Shiara in the north of Yemen received an impact of something that looked like a missile, killing five persons and wounding another 10. The hospital was rendered absolutely nonfunctional, besides the fact that both staff and patients are refusing to get any closer to the hospital because they feel it has become a target.
MCEVERS: Who do you think is responsible for this attack?
BASTOS: That's very difficult to say accurately. This hospital's GPS coordinates had been shared with all the combatants. On the other hand, considering the hospital is in the territory controlled by the Houthis, it makes more sense that the attack may come from the Saudi-led coalition. But this is something we have not been able to establish yet.
MCEVERS: And we should just clarify - right? - the conflict in Yemen is between the Houthis - this is a group that is backed by Iran - and a coalition that's led by Saudi Arabia. This hospital was in Houthi territory, is that correct?
BASTOS: Absolutely. And so far, we have had regular contact with the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces to get from them guarantees about the acceptance of our services in Yemen (unintelligible), and it has always been formally accepted.
MCEVERS: And yet two hospitals have been hit previously. And who is responsible for those attacks?
BASTOS: In both previous attacks, it's been more clearly identified that the origin of the attack was the Saudi-led air forces.
MCEVERS: I did read one report that an official with Yemen's government in exile, in Saudi Arabia, said that Houthi rebel fighters were using this most recent hospital as a base. Is there any truth to that claim?
BASTOS: MSF has a practice of not allowing any sort of arms or weapons in the hospitals where we work. In this particular incident, even though wounded civilians were not even wearing their traditional big knives. MSF is very strict. If we cannot enforce this policy, we do not work in the hospitals. We know we're the risk and the importance of keeping hospitals as neutral spaces so it is respected by the combatants.
MCEVERS: And yet as we said, this is the third attack on an MSF facility inside Yemen in as many months. Of course, it comes after a U.S. attack on an MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan last year. Are these attacks making you rethink your operations? Are you, for instance, considering pulling out of Yemen?
BASTOS: We are certainly performing a thorough analysis of the situation and we will have to decide on a series of changes that include the possibility of leaving. In the balance, we keep always the risk versus the impact. The impact we are having in Yemen is enormous because its needs are huge and there is not nearly any other actors providing healthcare to the population in Yemen.
MCEVERS: Jose Antonio Bastos is the regional president of Medecins Sans Frontieres or Doctors Without Borders, this section in Spain. Thank you so much for your time. We appreciate it.
BASTOS: Thank you very much.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Along its border with North Korea, South Korea turned the loudspeakers on to blast propaganda. The noise reaches as far as 12 miles into the north - this in response to the North's nuclear test last week. We sent NPR's Elise Hu to the DMZ to have a listen.
ELISE HU, BYLINE: Eighty-three-year-old Nam Tae-woo is passing time at his local hangout - a tiny grocery store where he and other retirees watch TV together while cooking potatoes on top of their coal-fired heater.
NAM TAE-WOO: (Through interpreter) And if we want a drink, this is a grocery store, so we can just grab one right here.
HU: Nam has lived here in Paju, a village within the demilitarized zone, for three decades. Life is quiet, except for the last few nights when has, at random times, caught the sounds of propaganda loudspeakers in the distance. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In the audio of this story, as in a previous Web version, we state that Nam Tae-woo lived inside the demilitarized zone. The town of Paju has parts both inside and outside the zone, and he lives just outside the demilitarized zone.]
NAM: (Through interpreter) Sometimes I hear them, but I can't really make out what they're saying.
HU: Whether South Koreans can hear the broadcasts isn't the point. These are directed at North Koreans on the other side of the border.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking Korean).
HU: Greetings to our brethren in the north, that just said. The rest of the content includes news broadcasts, weather updates, propaganda about the virtues of freedom and democracy and a little entertainment.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIVING 100 YEARS")
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing in Korean).
HU: Some traditional Korean music, such as this song, and more modern fare, like this K-Pop take on "Me Gustas Tu."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ME GUSTAS TU")
GFRIEND: (Singing in Korean).
HU: And perhaps this is a little too on-the-nose, but the speakers also play this.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BANG BANG BANG")
BIG BANG: (Singing) Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
HU: It's called "Bang Bang Bang." by the band Big Bang.
NAT KRETCHUN: There's not a whole lot new that they're going to be gaining out of these.
HU: Nat Kretchun analyzes North Korean information flows for Washington, D.C.-based Intermedia.
KRETCHUN: It's really hard to know what a proportional response to a nuclear test is if you're South Korea. For your own populace, for the rest of the world, you want to be able to do something that is looking like that you are responding. And they found that turning on these loudspeakers really elicits a lot of intense reaction from the North Korean side, which at least gives the illusion of effectiveness on some level.
HU: Despite skepticism about the effectiveness of this Cold War-era tactic, the South Korean government defends its use.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
PARK GEUN-HYE: (Through translator) Truth is the most powerful weapon towards totalitarian regime.
HU: South Korean President Park Geun-hye speaking through a translator in a news conference this morning.
PARK: (Through translator) When we listen to the accounts of North Korean defectors, the soldiers who are - were placed on the frontline - they said that they didn't first believe the propaganda broadcasts, but later they believed it. And that was the reason for them to come to South Korea.
HU: North Korea says it started its own loudspeakers in response, but they're so outdated, they're hard to hear. The South Korean government won't give specifics on the location of its speaker banks or what times the broadcasts go on. But if you can get close enough at the right moment...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking Korean).
HU: ...You can kind of make out the muddy messages, which sound like they're coming from a rickety drive-through speaker. For South Koreans like Nam, hearing the latest loudspeaker fight from his village in the DMZ doesn't give him much hope he'll ever see his actual home again.
NAM: (Through interpreter) I'm exhausted by the wait to return home. My home is across the river.
HU: Nam is from what's now North Korea. Given the decades of divide, those propaganda messages are reaching farther across the border than he can. Elise Hu, NPR News, Paju, South Korea.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Now we're going to hear one baseball great remember another. Monte Irvin was a Hall of Famer. He began his career in the Negro leagues with the New York Eagles.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
MONTE IRVIN: Yeah, those were the good old days. We enjoyed those days because we were young, we were talented, and we didn't know there was anything any better. Didn't make any money, but we had a good time.
MCEVERS: That's Monte Irvin in a recording from the archives of our member station WNYC. Irvin was among the first players to break the color barrier when he joined the New York Giants in 1949. He helped them win the World Series in 1954. Monte Irvin died earlier this week - a tough loss for fellow Giant and Hall of Famer Willie Mays. Mays says Irvin was like a second father.
WILLIE MAYS: When I came up in '51, Monte taught me a lot of things about life in the big city - well, I call it the Big Apple - New York.
MCEVERS: Right.
MAYS: I learned very quickly because I had to play the game in Polo Grounds, so Monte was there playing alongside of me at all times. And it was just a wonderful feeling to have someone in the outfield with me to make sure that I didn't a lot of mistakes out there.
MCEVERS: You and Monte Irvin and Hank Thompson formed the first all-black outfield in Game 1 of the 1951 World Series against the Yankees. I mean, that is seen now as a very big moment in baseball. Was there a lot of talk about it at the time?
MAYS: To me, it wasn't because I knew those guys. So for them to play in the outfield with me, it wasn't anything different. It made me proud to be a part of that particular unit at that particular time.
MCEVERS: How would you describe what kind of player he was? How did he play?
MAYS: What kind of player he was?
MCEVERS: Yeah.
MAYS: He had what I call a very good arm, ran very good, good hitting and, most of all, thinking. He was a good thinker in the outfield, and that - sometimes it's overlooked, but when you play with those guys, and you know that they can think just as well as they can play the game, then you look at them different.
MCEVERS: How did he help you as a player?
MAYS: How did he help me? (Laughter) He taught me a lot of things about life. I already knew how to play the game, but sometimes you need a little more. You need to know how to treat people, need to know how when you hit a home run, run around the bases. You don't stop and show anybody up. Thinking was more important to him than just playing the game.
MCEVERS: And I understand there's a story. After playoff game in 1951, there was a lot of celebrating. Maybe some champagne was involved.
MAYS: Yeah, I fell out.
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
MAYS: I fell out 1951 because I wasn't used to drinking champagne. I just had came up, but, yeah, champagne was there for the guys, and we won the league playoffs.
MCEVERS: That's right.
MAYS: So there was a lot of champagne going on.
MCEVERS: And so he gave you a hand, though - yeah? - after you fell out?
MAYS: No, that was - two people gave me a hand.
MCEVERS: OK.
MAYS: That was Hank Thompson and Monte. I'm sure that when they carried me home that I didn't know where I was going.
MCEVERS: What will you miss the most about Monte Irvin?
MAYS: The man. He was a guy that was sort of like my father. He was a guy that would take me into his house and meet his wife, Dee (ph). They would cook for me. There was a park by his house there. We would go out and just watch and just talk - nothing specific - just talk, mostly about life. And the most important thing, I thought, was making sure that I didn't get in with the wrong crowd. And you can easily do that when you first come up, and you're supposed to be what I call the star of the ball club. And you can easily get into the wrong crowd, so make sure that I didn't have any, you know, regrets later on down the line. So he was just a fun man to be around.
MCEVERS: Willie Mays, thank you so much for your time and for your thoughts today.
MAYS: All right. Thank you guys for calling.
MCEVERS: Willie Mays remembering his friend Monte Irvin. He died Monday at the age of 96.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Michigan National guardsmen are in Flint, Mich., today. They're there to pass out bottled water and filters to residents. That's because for more than a year, the city's tap water has been unsafe to drink. Decisions by government agencies allowed the city's water to become contaminated with lead, and many residents say they don't trust the governor to fix the problem. Michigan Radio's Steve Carmody reports.
(CROSSTALK)
STEVE CARMODY, BYLINE: About a dozen children are sitting at a table in their school gymnasium.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: We're going to make snowflakes.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: We're going to make happy snowflakes.
CARMODY: It's family fun day at Freeman Elementary School in Flint, Mich. But it seems only in Flint would a family fun day include blood-lead testing for the children.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: All right, sweetie - little poke.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: Good job.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Good job. What a big girl you are today - yay.
CARMODY: Two-year-old Kaitlyn is staring at the nurse drawing blood from her finger as her mother, Holly Versailles, holds her tight. This test might help determine if Kaitlyn is one of the many children here with high lead levels because of the city's drinking water. The water crisis is a big reason why Holly Versailles does not want to raise her daughter in Flint.
HOLLY VERSAILLES: And obviously it's not a good spot to be, especially if we're being, I would guess you would call it, poisoned by somebody who obviously didn't care.
CARMODY: Last week, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency in Flint because of the high lead levels. The problem started nearly two years ago when, in a bid to save money, the city's state-appointed emergency manager switched Flint's water from the Detroit water system. Instead, it began drawing from the Flint River. But the city failed to properly treat the corrosive river water which damaged Flint's old pipes, leading them to leach lead into the drinking water. Now it's so contaminated, health officials say it's not safe to drink without a special filter.
The response to the crisis has been slowed by state and local officials blaming each other. Eventually, the state and city started offering free bottled water and filters at fire stations and churches. But thousands of residents here continue to drink the tainted tap water, so now, six months after alarms were first raised, there's a new effort to reach those who continue to drink unfiltered water. With a fresh blanket of snow on the ground and wind chills in the single digits, a caravan of state police cruisers and U-Haul trucks rolled into a North Side neighborhood Tuesday, and volunteers quickly fanned out.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #4: Hi. We're with the state. We're giving water filters.
CARMODY: The volunteers handed out lead-testing kits, water filters and cases of bottled water. But the site of state police cars rolling into his neighborhood had an unintended effect on some of Ray Jamieson's neighbors.
RAY JAMIESON: They need to put a sign up, you know, so people won't think to run. My neighbor's running. They see the state boys, think something happened. They leave.
CARMODY: Sixty-seven-year-old Michael Hill did answer his door. He says health problems stopped him from getting a water filter before now. And while others complained about the slow government response, Hill does not.
MICHAEL HILL: Things just happen. They doing the best they can.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Right, right.
HILL: And I appreciate it.
CARMODY: But in this city of more than 30,000 households, the door-to-door campaign is only expected to reach about 700 homes a day. critics say the state's response - in particular, the governor's handling of the crisis - has been inadequate at best, criminal at worst. In Flint this week, Governor Snyder again apologized for mistakes by the state that led to Flint's current water crisis.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RICK SNYDER: Let's focus in on how we get safe drinking water in Flint both short-term and long-term.
CARMODY: Flint's mayor estimates the cost of fixing the city's water infrastructure at more than a billion dollars. There's no estimate on the cost of the long-term health effects on Flint residents who drank lead-tainted water for more than a year. For NPR News, I'm Steve Carmody in Flint, Mich.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
As we just heard, Flint's health crisis has now led to a political crisis. Protestors are calling for Michigan's governor, Rick Snyder, to resign over the lead in the city's water. Our next guest, Rochelle Riley, wrote in the Detroit Free Press that Snyder will now be known, quote, "as the governor whose team poisoned potentially thousands of children with lead." Riley says the state ignored warnings about Flint's water from a researcher at Virginia Tech and a local doctor. And now she says people are asking how long the governor knew there was a problem before he acted.
ROCHELLE RILEY: There are a lot of people that are trying to get to the ultimate smoking gun, but there have been smoking guns already. Dennis Muchmore, Governor Snyder's chief of staff, wrote a July 22 Department of Health and Human Services email expressing concern about how they were handling the water crisis. And he said these folks are scared and worried about the health impacts, and they are basically getting blown off by us. That was on July 22, and the governor did not act to apologize or to declare a state of emergency or to call out the National Guard until December and then on Monday.
SHAPIRO: And he has said that he learned about this in October, which would've been several months after that email was sent.
RILEY: That is his contention.
SHAPIRO: You're obviously very critical of what the governor's office did before this controversy broke, accusing him of negligence. It sounds like you are no more satisfied with his behavior since the scandal became public.
RILEY: Well, this is the thing that has been galling for those parents who are worried about their children and for that doctor, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha, who was so ridiculed by the state and later publicly apologized to. Nobody is paying attention to the children. The governor is doing things like cleaning up political mess and providing filters and water to people's homes. But the bill for this particular debacle has not come due because what's going to be needed is development and learning and social services for these children.
And the governor - it took two months for him to apologize, for him to declare a state of emergency, for him to offer bottled water. That was two more months where people like the mom I talked to in the story I wrote today - they're buying bottled water just to be able to cook and to brush their teeth. They don't do anything with water coming to their home except bathe in it, and they're paying $200 a month for that water they can't use and then hundreds of dollars more for the water that they need.
SHAPIRO: Flint is a majority African-American city where, according to the census, 40 percent of people live below the poverty line. Do you think that played a role in the state's response?
RILEY: Flint is like, you know, the can that gets kicked down the road. When the car company left and all the jobs left and then, you know - it's almost - they keep getting hard hit. And these are strong, resilient people who are trying their best to turn the city around. I did write in the column that I don't think this problem would have been handled this way had it been Grand Rapids in Western Michigan or any of the other small towns that are predominantly white where their representatives hear them when they cry. You've got residents who have been complaining about this water after it started to flow out of their taps slightly brown and tasting funny, and nobody cared.
SHAPIRO: Rochelle Riley, I'm not in Michigan, so I don't have a sense. As you write these columns, does it feel to you like you're a lone voice in the wilderness or like you are one voice in a resounding chorus of people screaming about this?
RILEY: I can't tell you how many people out of the hundreds and hundreds of emails and messages I got said, why did you stop short of asking the governor to resign? And my answer was simple. Other people can do that. I need for him to get to work. And he's not doing that, so I think he's getting to the point where I won't have to say anything. There is allowed chorus from around the world. I mean, this is the state where in Detroit, there are people who don't have water. This is a state where you've got people who are getting water that's poisoned. And all of those people are minorities. And the governor needs to understand that this problem is much more urgent than he has yet to treat it.
SHAPIRO: That's Rochelle Riley. She's a columnist with the Detroit Free Press, and she joined us from Michigan Radio in Ann Arbor. Thanks for being with us.
RILEY: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The U.S. and Iran have avoided what could have been a major international incident. Today, Iran released 10 U.S. sailors along with a video appearing to show one of them apologizing for straying into Iranian waters. The State Department says it's unclear if that statement was coerced and that it doesn't count as a U.S. apology. But Secretary of State John Kerry says the fact that this was all resolved so quickly shows that diplomacy works. Here's NPR's Michele Kelemen.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: When he was negotiating the nuclear deal with Iran, Secretary Kerry spent many hours with his Iranian counterpart, and Kerry is now suggesting that relationship with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif was key in getting the U.S. sailors back.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN KERRY: These are always situations, which as everybody here knows, have an ability, if not properly guided, to get out of control.
KELEMEN: An official close to him says Kerry spoke at least five times with Zarif, telling him at one point that this could be a good news story for both. Despite pictures that show the sailors kneeling with their hands over their heads, Kerry told the National Defense University that they were well treated, given blankets and food. And he thanked Iran for returning them quickly.
KERRY: And that is a testament to the critical role that diplomacy plays in keeping our country safe, secure and strong.
KELEMEN: Foreign Minister Zarif seems to agree writing in a tweet that he's happy to see this resolved through dialogue and respect, not threats and impetuousness. Let's learn from this example, Zarif added. Iran clearly had reason to resolve this quickly. It's about to get out from under crippling international sanctions. Secretary Kerry says Iran is, quote, "well on its way."
KERRY: Implementation day, which is the day on which Iran proves that it has sufficiently downsized its nuclear program and can begin to receive sanctions relief, is going to take place very soon, likely within the next coming days somewhere.
KELEMEN: Critics of the Iran deal fear that Iranian hardliners are likely to benefit most from that sanctions relief. On the House floor today, California Republican Ed Royce described a possible windfall for the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ED ROYCE: That force and their proxies control many of the industries that will benefit from the influx of hard currency and new investment. Whether it's energy or construction, they control it.
KELEMEN: Royce, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, says Iranian hardliners have been, in his words, on a bit of a tear since the nuclear deal was signed, testing ballistic missiles and arresting an Iranian-American businessman. Iran also continues to hold the Washington Post journalist, a Christian pastor and a former U.S. Marine.
ROYCE: When it comes to Iran, we need a policy of more backbone, not more backing down.
KELEMEN: And Royce says the Obama administration isn't pushing back. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This is a good day to be a football fan in Los Angeles. Last night, the NFL approved the relocation of the Rams back to LA. That vote came more than 20 years after the team moved to St. Louis. And for fans in Missouri, it's still sinking in that the Rams are leaving. This marks the second time St. Louis has lost an NFL team since 1988. St. Louis Public Radio's Jason Rosenbaum reports on the reaction there.
JASON ROSENBAUM, BYLINE: James Lindsey was outside the home of St. Louis's hockey team when news of Rams' departure became official. Even though the team hadn't had a winning season since 2003, Lindsey gained an affinity for a squad once labeled The Greatest Show on Turf. So it's no surprise Lindsey is mad at Rams owner Stan Kroenke's decision to bolt St. Louis.
JAMES LINDSEY: They screwed us. You know what I'm saying? They straight screwed us.
ROSENBAUM: State and local officials tried to keep the Rams by offering to build a $1.1 billion stadium on St. Louis's riverfront. The Rams trashed the project and said it would lead to financial ruin. That wrinkled Gary Kreie. He purchased a personal seat license when the Rams moved here in the mid-1990s.
GARY KREIE: So I don't think St. Louis ever had a chance. So I wish they would've told us this before they went through this whole pretend process.
ROSENBAUM: Keeping the Rams was not without its critics. A new stadium would've required hundreds of millions of dollars of public money. St. Louis resident Andrew Arkills says the city has more pressing matters to deal with, like chronic homelessness and crime.
ANDREW ARKILLS: And it kind of gives you pause as to why we're addressing football, but not some of these other things with the same level of energy and effort.
ROSENBAUM: It's unlikely St. Louis will get another NFL team in the near future, so that may be why even the most ardent Rams fans will probably move on after the anger subsides, especially when baseball season begins later this spring. For NPR News, I'm Jason Rosenbaum in St. Louis.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Sorry, St. Louis fans. Maybe you'd have better luck playing the lottery. The next Powerball drawing is tonight at 10:59 Eastern time. This is the drawing for the record-breaking jackpot of about $1.5 billion. People have been lining up around the block to get their tickets at places that are considered to be lucky. We sent NPR's Becky Sullivan to such a spot here in Southern California.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: Driving up to the Blue Bird Liquor near the LA airport yesterday at 4 o'clock, I saw the line way before I could see the actual store. There were at least 200 people waiting.
SULLIVAN: What's special about this place?
KAY WILLIAMS: Oh, this place - this place is the bomb.
IRIS PLATIRO: There's been a lot of winners, actually, out of there.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, that come out of this place.
PLATIRO: Yeah.
WILLIAMS: So you know what? And if you want to win...
PLATIRO: You've got to rub the blue bird.
WILLIAMS: Yeah, you don't go to places where they've never had a winner.
SULLIVAN: Kay Williams and Iris Platiro have been waiting for an hour and a half. At first, I thought they were friends waiting together. Turned out they'd just been waiting for so long, they'd become buddies.
WILLIAMS: You know what? We're talking Oprah money. So you know what? I can wait. I can wait.
PLATIRO: Yeah.
SULLIVAN: Williams is an elementary school teacher. Platiro works in customs. They've both been here before, and they're here again tonight at the lucky spot to buy the tickets for lottery pools at work.
WILLIAMS: Up on the ceiling and on the walls, they have all the - all the winners that they've had in the past. And if you can't boast that, why even be there? You want to go somewhere where at least you know people have won. That's the smart thing.
SULLIVAN: Williams is right about the inside of the store. Every square inch is covered with winning lottery tickets and those big checks from the California state lottery.
EDUARDO DURAN: 88,000, 227,000, 133,000 - all year long.
SULLIVAN: Eduardo Duran has worked here for a long time. He says the crowds have always been like this.
DURAN: Seven different times, people have become a billionaire at this store. So, you know, people are - people just hear about that. And where else do you hear that from?
SULLIVAN: Duran guesses that about three-quarters of the business at this liquor store comes from lottery tickets. On a day like yesterday, it's obviously even more than that. I wanted to ask an expert the big question - does buying a ticket at a lucky store actually help your odds?
CURTIS BENNETT: Not a bit.
SULLIVAN: Curtis Bennett is a math professor at Loyola Marymount University here in LA. He says there is a simple reason these stores have so many winners.
BENNETT: You know, if a lottery store sells five times as many tickets as some other store, then they're five times more likely to have a winner.
SULLIVAN: Bennett describes the odds of winning tonight's Powerball as the equivalent of picking out a single special poker trip from a stack 613 miles high. That is almost the distance from LA to the Oregon border. That said, the math department at LMU bought a ticket anyway, he says - a single ticket bought at a non-lucky location - the mall down the street. Becky Sullivan, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President Obama's State of the Union address did not include a lot of big, ambitious projects. Here was the one major exception.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: For the families that we can still save, let's make America the country that cures cancer once and for all. What do you say, Joe? Make it happen.
(APPLAUSE)
MCEVERS: Medical professionals, of course, have been trying to cure cancer for decades. And to learn why they haven't so far and what it would take to make it happen, we reached Dr. Bill Nelson. He's director of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. Welcome to the show.
BILL NELSON: Good to be here.
MCEVERS: What did you think when you heard President Obama say that in his State of the Union address?
NELSON: I was thrilled and excited. I think to have the president of the United States throw out a bold challenge to cancer researchers, physicians and one that, you know - delivered directly to the American people, many of whom have been touched by cancer, confronting the disease directly or with family members affected by it, I think it's just a great day for us.
MCEVERS: He compared this to the U.S. sending a man to the moon, you know, something that, at the time, seemed crazy but was eventually doable. Do you think there are similarities here between these two challenges?
NELSON: I think that's a reasonable metaphor. And of course, he named the vice president of the United States, Joe Biden, as manning mission control because he's someone who's been personally affected by cancer in his family and, I think, the notion that we have learned a lot about the nature of cancer. And I think we can see the kinds of things that we need to do, what needs to work out to begin to control more of the disease in more people.
MCEVERS: OK. Without sounding too simplistic here, I mean, why haven't we found a cure for cancer yet?
NELSON: It's not so much why we haven't cured it. But I think - first of all, we have, for a number of people, probably cured some cancers. But why haven't we benefited as many people as we need to? I think one of them is that just within the last decade or so, technologies have enabled us to learn the nature of cancer itself, right? All cancers are fundamentally disorders of acquired defects in genes. There's 20,000 genes. This is what's encoded, is the jargon term, by DNA, and the DNA science and technology can now look at all the defects and all the genes that cancers acquire. And there's probably more than a thousand to 10,000 in each cancer in each person. And knowing that gives us a better sense of what we're going to need to do to control it.
MCEVERS: You sound optimistic. But what are some of the big challenges? What's in the way right now of us not getting to a cure?
NELSON: I am extremely optimistic (laughter).
MCEVERS: Yeah.
NELSON: But what are the kinds of things that are going to be challenging? Well, one of them is just individuals, except for identical twins - right? - are different from each other. They're born with different genes. When the cancers arise in these people which have a lot of acquired gene defects, these gene defects are also different. So is it any wonder, in a sense - there's maybe 3 million or something differences in the DNA between you and me - if each of us developed the same cancer, there's no chance it's going to be identical?
How different are cancers? Are we going to need a different treatment for every individual's cancer? Are we going to be able to have them grouped into ways in which treatment will be benefited? I think that's one challenge - the individual natures of cancers. And then the other is that as we deploy some of our most effective treatments - surgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy - they've had side effects with them, and that's another kind of thing. As we eradicate cancer, we're going to want to eradicate it in such a way that people don't have durable complications of treatment, durable side effects and the like. So I think both of those things are going to be a challenge, but it's one that we should take on.
MCEVERS: That's Dr. Bill Nelson, director of the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins. Thanks a lot for your time today.
NELSON: Thank you so much for having me.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The next round of NFL playoff starts in a few days on Saturday. People are still talking about what happened last Saturday - a violent and unruly playoff game between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati. Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Vontaze Burfict was suspended for three games next season after his hit to the head of a defenseless Pittsburgh wide receiver. The game was a reminder of the thin line between controlled violence and sudden mayhem in an NFL game, both of which Americans can't stop watching. NPR's Tom Goldman reports.
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Thirty-six-point-three million TV viewers watched the final contentious half hour of Pittsburg versus Cincinnati, people of all walks, vocations and political aspirations.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: So I'm watching the game yesterday. What used to be considered a great tackle, now they tackle - oh, head-on-head collision - bing, flag.
GOLDMAN: For Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, Vontaze Burfict lowering his shoulder into Antonio Brown's head wasn't the problem. The penalty flag that followed was, and Trump turned it into political hay.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Football's become soft like our country has become soft. It's true. It's true.
(CHEERING)
GOLDMAN: Writer Jeanne Marie Laskas didn't see anything soft as she watched the game's violence unfold - some of it penalized, some of it not - and kept watching after Burfict's hit.
JEANNE MARIE LASKAS: It's noteworthy that we don't, as fans, turn off. In fact, that's when we tune in and then when I did. It's very exciting and outrageous and horrible.
GOLDMAN: And every instance of over-the-top, outside-the-rules NFL violence sends Laskas deeper into despair. She fell for the game a couple of decades ago when she moved to Pittsburgh. But then, in 2009, she wrote a seminal article in GQ about head trauma in football. She turned it into a book titled "Concussion," which was then turned into the current film of the same name. It's this side of Jeanne Marie Laskas that was frustrated by the Pittsburgh-Cincinnati game. At least two players were treated for possible concussions after sustaining the kind of brutal hits the NFL has vowed to control.
LASKAS: How can this still be going on? And here we are again. And what is it going to take for us as a culture to wake up? Some people say, someone needs to die on the field for us to finally say, OK, do we really want to be supporting this?
GOLDMAN: Television ratings for last weekend's games, including the rumble in Cincinnati, were up 11 percent from last year, which doesn't surprise former TV network sports producer Terry O'Neill. His take on Pittsburgh versus Cincinnati - the Bengals needed a player leader in the huddle.
O'NEILL: Who could've taken Burfict by the jersey in the last minute and said, look; Vontez, nothing stupid here, OK? We have the game won.
GOLDMAN: The same question about managing an out-of-control player arose when New York Giants wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. and Carolina Panthers defensive back Josh Norman had a running fight during a recent game. But there was no control then, nor with Burfict, whose actions also didn't surprise O'Neill.
O'NEILL: Once the whistle blows and these missiles begin ricocheting around the football field, these things are going to happen, and it's completely naive of anyone to suggest that it could be legislated out of the game, the players could be fined enough to be deterred to take it out of the game. It's not going to happen (laughter).
GOLDMAN: But O'Neill actually has dedicated himself to making football less dangerous. His program, Practice Like Pros, tours the country on a mission to limit contact in high school football practices where, he says, the majority of major injuries happen. Game day is harder to control at all levels. Last weekend confirmed that once again. Vontez Burfict has left the stage until next season, but there are still three NFL weekends left - ample time to debate and whince and watch. Tom Goldman, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Nearly 8,000 Cubans hoping to enter the United States have been stranded in Costa Rica since November. That was when neighboring Nicaragua, a close ally of Cuba, refused to let them pass through on their journey north. It created a human pileup. But now under a new regional agreement, 180 of them have flown to El Salvador, where they boarded buses that reached Mexico's southern border earlier today. From El Salvador, Carrie Kahn reports.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: The Cubans arrived at Mexico's southern border around noon this afternoon. With a 20-day visa in hand, they'll now have to figure out for themselves how to cross Mexico to reach their ultimate goal - the U.S. For many, they're just happy to be on their way north again.
ORLANDO PRIEDE: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: Orlando Priede, industrial engineer from Cuba, said the mood was festive as the first plane with a 180 migrants got airborne. Everyone, he says, burst into applause. Once on the ground in El Salvador, the authorities wouldn't let reporters interview the migrants. I spoke with Priede via cell phone.
PRIEDE: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: Everything has gone smoothly, he says. Thirty-two-year-old Priede, along with the other Cubans, were boarded onto a bus, given food, all the necessary visas and driven to Mexico. The $555 cost for the trip was paid for by the migrants. Still on the phone, Priede and I waved as his bus pulled out of El Salvador's international airport.
It's been a long trip for the Cuban migrants. Most, like Priede, fled Cuba late last year to follow a well-worn route to the U.S. It starts in Ecuador, where, until recently, Cubans didn't a visa, then continues north through Central America, Mexico and to the U.S. Once with both feet on U.S. soil, the Cubans will receive preferential immigration treatment and be allowed in.
Despite improved relations between Cuba and the U.S., the number of migrants fleeing the island has skyrocketed in the past year. Many say they're coming now in fear that the special immigration treatment they receive will soon come to an end. Florida senator and presidential republican candidate Marco Rubio, himself the son of Cuban immigrants, even said as much this week. He introduced legislation to make some modifications to the special privileges awarded Cubans. Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar, whose South Texas district has become the favored crossing point for the Cubans, says all persecuted migrants should be treated equally.
HENRY CUELLAR: The Cubans are coming in because they want political freedom. The Central Americans are coming in because they - many of them fear for their lives of those vicious gangs they have up there. So the sense of fairness is just not there.
KAHN: In El Salvador, where, on average, 2,000 of their citizens are deported from the U.S. every month, the disparate treatments didn't go unnoticed. El Salvador's foreign minister, Hugo Martinez, made a not-so-subtle jab at U.S. immigration policy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HUGO MARTINEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: He said here in El Salvador, we will show that we don't have a double standard, referring to allowing the Cubans to pass through their country. He says, we treat all migrants humanely and just wish others would do the same. Carrie Kahn, NPR News, San Salvador.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
To learn more about why U.S. immigration policy towards Cuba is so different from its policy towards other Latin American countries, we've reached Marc Rosenblum of the Migration Policy Institute. He's here with us in the studio. Welcome to the show.
MARC ROSENBLUM: Thanks. Thanks for having me.
SHAPIRO: First, spell out exactly what the policy towards Cubans is.
ROSENBLUM: Well, under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, Cubans who are admitted or paroled into the United States become automatically eligible for a green card, a permanent visa, after a year and a day. They're the only nationality, the only group that automatically becomes eligible for a green card regardless of how they arrived and on such a short timeline.
SHAPIRO: And as you say, it's been this way since 1966. Why such a dramatic difference with other countries in the region?
ROSENBLUM: Well, it was really passed in the midst of the Cold War. Cubans were fleeing the repressive Castro regime. It had important symbolic value to encourage those exits as a propaganda tool during the Cold War, and Cubans were recognized as - generally, were recognized as being legitimate humanitarian migrants, as being refugees.
SHAPIRO: And as Carrie explained, one reason we're seeing this rush towards the U.S. border now is fear by Cubans that this policy will change. Do you think that fear is founded?
ROSENBLUM: I think, partly, given the numbers that we're seeing in the context of improving relations, it's harder and harder to defend this policy. It's also hard to defend the policy looking around the hemisphere at the kinds of conditions that other immigrants are fleeing and aren't getting similar benefits. So as long as we keep seeing Cubans come to the U.S. in high numbers to take advantage of this and as long as relations continue to improve, it does seem likely that the Cuban Adjustment Act - that its days are numbered.
SHAPIRO: Some members of Congress, including Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, as we heard, have proposed changes to this policy. Do you sense that there is real momentum in Congress to do something about this now?
ROSENBLUM: I think there's definitely frustration in Congress about the numbers of Cubans that are arriving, and with respect to Rubio's proposal, there's also frustration about the benefits that Cubans receive because Cubans are eligible immediately for pretty generous welfare benefits as if they were refugees that all other immigrants are ineligible for. So there's a lot of frustration with that. I'm not sure I would say that there's momentum around it just because of the complexity of the immigration issue and being in an election year.
SHAPIRO: It seems so hard for Congress to accomplish anything these days, and we know President Obama has taken executive action on immigration in other ways. Is this the sort of thing that the president could change on his own?
ROSENBLUM: The president could change the way the Cuban Adjustment Act is implemented. He could do it on his own. He could do it much more easily in cooperation with Cuba. So in the context of the ongoing talks, Cuba and the United States could agree on different procedures to follow when Cubans arrive, and that's actually happened in the past. The current policy's usually described as the wet-foot, dry-foot policy. And what that says is that a Cuban who is interdicted at sea - if the Coast Guard stops a boat of rafters trying to reach Florida at sea - those Cubans are sent back to Cuba. Cubans who reach the U.S. benefit from the Cuban Adjustment Act, but they have to get paroled into the U.S. in order to benefit, and that's an executive action.
So President Obama or any president could decide that instead of automatically paroling Cubans in, we're going to subject them to some kind of a screening to see, well, do you look like a refugee? And that would work best if we reached an agreement with Cuba similar to the wet-foot, dry-foot act that said Cuba would take people back who aren't refugees.
SHAPIRO: Are there any prominent voices arguing that this Cuba immigration policy really is relevant and valuable today and needs to remain in place?
ROSENBLUM: There are certainly people arguing against overturning the Cuban Adjustment Act because there plenty of Cuban-Americans who continue to view the Raul Castro government as a repressive authoritarian regime and that Cubans therefore need special protection. I don't hear robust defenses of the way that it's now implemented, that we should assume every single Cuban is a legitimate refugee.
SHAPIRO: That's Marc Rosenblum. He's deputy director of the U.S. Immigration Policy Program at the Migration Policy Institute. Thanks for talking with us.
ROSENBLUM: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Obama took his State of the Union message on the road today. He traveled to Omaha, Neb. That is just over the river from Iowa which holds the first-in-the-nation caucuses in less than three weeks. The President's speech and the Republican response last night highlight different between the two parties as well as fault lines within the GOP. NPR's Scott Horsley reports.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: President Obama appealed for more compromise and common ground in his State of the Union address, but he quickly added, Americans don't have to agree on everything. He pointed to sharp disagreements over the best way to battle ISIS and the government's role in regulating the economy. Americans have a choice to make in November, he said, and he spelled out the case for his side.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: After years now of record corporate profits, working families won't get more opportunity or bigger paychecks just by letting big banks or big oil or hedge funds make their own rules at everybody else's expense.
(APPLAUSE)
HORSLEY: In the GOP response to the president's speech, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley made the opposite case for putting a Republican in the Oval Office.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NIKKI HALEY: If we held the White House, taxes would be lower for working families, and we'd put the brakes on runaway spending and debt.
HORSLEY: But Obama and Haley found common cause in their shared criticism of GOP candidate Donald Trump. While neither called out Trump by name, Obama took aim at Trump's call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States. He said voters should reject any policy that targets people for their race or religion.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OBAMA: This is not a matter of political correctness. This is a matter of understanding just what it is that makes us strong.
HORSLEY: Haley, who's the daughter of immigrants from India, warned against wide-open borders, but she also called out Trump's tough anti-immigrant rhetoric. She cautioned voters against the tendency to confuse noise with results.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HALEY: During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices. We must resist that temptation. No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country.
HORSLEY: A White House spokesman praised Haley this afternoon for what he called her courageous willingness to speak out against Trump's fiery rhetoric. Establishment Republicans have long argued their party needs to pitch a bigger tent if it hopes to recapture the White House in November. Jeb Bush told MSNBC, Haley's comments are a good start.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JEB BUSH: She did an extraordinary job, and I think she talked about a more broader, hopeful, optimistic Republican message, a conservative message that draws people, the great diversity of our country, towards our cause. That's how you win.
HORSLEY: But Trump and other Republicans are not impressed. Conservative radio host Laura Ingraham tweeted that Haley missed her opportunity to stand with working people who want borders enforced. Trump himself told Fox News, South Carolina voters are more aligned with his position on immigration than with their governor's.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: By the way, I have a massive lead in South Carolina. We have a massive lead, and it's - they're incredible people. And I - and they feel like I do. Believe me because they don't like what's happening in our country.
HORSLEY: Governor Haley is considered a rising star in the GOP, and she's been mentioned as a possible vice presidential candidate. Trump warns she's not likely to make his short list though, should he wind up as the GOP nominee.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: I wouldn't say she's off to a good start based on what she has just said, so you know, let's see what happens. We'll pick somebody, but we'll pick somebody who's very good. But whoever I pick is also going to be very strong on illegal immigration. We've had it with illegal immigration.
HORSLEY: Haley stood by her remarks today, saying if the country's going to move forward together, we all have to look in the mirror. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Nikki Haley wasn't the only Republican to deliver a response to the president's State of the Union address. Florida Congressman Mario Diaz-Balart gave his response in Spanish. The two Republicans' speeches were nearly identical, except on the question of immigration. Adrian Florido of NPR's Code Switch team reports.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: Here's more of what Governor Haley had to say about immigration.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
NIKKI HALEY: We cannot continue to allow immigrants to come here illegally. And in this age of terrorism, we must not let in type refugees whose intentions cannot be determined. We must fix our broken immigration system.
FLORIDO: The Florida congressman's comments on immigration were very different.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
MARIO DIAZ-BALART: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: He said it's obvious that our immigration system needs to be reformed. And he went on to say it was essential to find a legislative solution that defends the nation's borders and offers a permanent and humane solution to those in the country illegally.
GABRIEL SANCHEZ: Well, I think it represents the overall difficulty that the Republican Party is having with courting Latino votes.
FLORIDO: This is Gabriel Sanchez, a professor at the University of New Mexico and a researcher with the polling firm Latino Decisions.
SANCHEZ: They realize that on the issue of immigration, they have a splintered party.
FLORIDO: It's a divide that's only grown wider as the anti-immigrant rhetoric of presidential candidate Donald Trump has moved several of his competitors to the right on the issue. Congressman Diaz-Balart is one of the few people Republicans in Congress who still speaks openly about the need for immigration reform. Sanchez says that having Diaz-Balart send the message that Republicans still care about it was a way of repudiating Donald Trump, but he says a big question is whether Latino voters will buy it.
SANCHEZ: It's going to be difficult, largely because there's been so much damage already done.
FLORIDO: Luis Alvarado is a Republican strategist who focuses on drawing more Latinos into the party. He says last night was an opportunity for Republicans to reach Latinos disaffected by the president's failures on immigration.
LUIS ALVARADO: For those who care about immigration reform - and they listened to the president's speech - they continue to be disappointed because they see others in the Democratic Party getting what they wanted, and Latinos were left behind. And that is why Latinos are now up for grabs.
FLORIDO: He says it was important for the Spanish-speaking audience to hear Diaz-Balart sound a hopeful note about the prospect of a Republican president passing immigration reform. And also to suggest that reform is more likely with a Republican president if Congress stays in Republican hands.
ALVARADO: So Democrats have something to worry, unless, of course, Republicans nominate a bombastic candidate that no one will be able to support.
FLORIDO: But UC Berkeley professor Lisa Garcia Bedolla says the fact that the hopeful immigration message was found only in the Spanish address tells her it was insincere.
LISA GARCIA BEDOLLA: I just didn't understand why they needed to be different, given framing, given who was delivering those messages. And so the fact that they were different, I think, was a political calculation. That suggests a level of cynicism or at least, I think, a level of disrespect towards Latino voters in terms of their ability to really know what the positions of the Republican Party are.
FLORIDO: She says if the intention was to signal to Latino voters the Republican Party respects them, it could backfire. Adrian Florido, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
After a few years of reporting in the Congo, Anjan Sundaram wanted to go somewhere quiet and write a book. So he got a job teaching journalism in the country next door, Rwanda - a country that's come a long way since the genocide in 1994. But then he realized there was something more to write about, dwindling press freedoms and other freedoms in Rwanda. Sundaram's time there teaching that class is the subject of his new book, "Bad News: Last Journalists In A Dictatorship." He first noticed there was a problem when one of his journalism students asked him this.
ANJAN SUNDARAM: How did your countries get their freedom? Your countries were not always free. And how did you fight and win your freedom? And it was at that point that I realized that they were being repressed. One of my journalists had been beaten into a coma after bringing up the harassment of journalists in front of the president at a press conference. Another girl had been imprisoned after criticizing the government. And she was sick with HIV, and she had been dragged from room to room with prison officials screaming in her face as she could not rest. Journalists have been shot dead, imprisoned, forced to flee the country. And this whole world opened up to me, a world that had largely been unreported about Rwanda.
MCEVERS: You write a lot about this young journalist whose name is Gibson. Tell us about him. Tell us his story.
SUNDARAM: Gibson was a quiet man who sat mostly at the back of the classroom. He was incredibly intelligent, and I admired him as a journalist. He saw himself as somehow holding the government accountable. And he saw his fight for truth in Rwanda as hopefully leading to a better country. And Gibson, unfortunately, I watched him descend into a kind of madness and paranoia in which he became dysfunctional, almost. I tried to get him help. I tried to get a doctor to see him while he was in exile, but he refused. He believed that the doctor was going to kill him. And I saw that the government did not need to imprison, torture or kill this journalist. Through paranoia, through a series of betrayals and constant pressure, they brought him to a state where he could trust no one and nothing, and this destroyed him.
MCEVERS: Why would the government of Rwanda want to do that to someone?
SUNDARAM: The government of Rwanda is very sensitive about criticism. There's very much a sense in Rwanda of you're either with us or you're against us, and that's the government's position. So when they hear or read a critic, they immediately brand that person as being against the government.
MCEVERS: And this book isn't just about press freedom though, is it? It's also a pretty harsh indictment of Rwanda's president, Paul Kagame. And, you know, this is somebody who on the one hand is credited with coming in and ending the genocide in Rwanda, with helping grow the economy in Rwanda, with really just bringing the country back onto its feet again after the genocide in 1994. And yet, you claim in this book that because there is no press freedom and because the government doesn't want to be criticized, that he's basically a repressive dictator. I guess I want to ask you if that's fair?
SUNDARAM: Absolutely. I think his record has been consistent and the repression has been constant. And it - I think the repression shows in the fact that just 10 days, Kagame announced that he would stand for a third term as president, changing the constitution to allow him to run for a third term. There had previously been a two-term limit. And that demonstrates the utter lack of successors or alternatives in a country of 11 million people. And that is directly a result of Kagame's repression that has forced other people into exile. And what this has led to is a country in which the government's narrative is a sole voice that one can hear. And the world seems to accept almost anything that Kagame's government says as true.
MCEVERS: I was wondering if you could read a passage from page 165. It begins with the beauty.
SUNDARAM: Oh, sure. (Reading) The beauty was corrupt. The silence had been burst open, showing its menace. The fragility of the quietness was evident. It was possible to live here and love the calm eternally, but one would have to avoid knowing its center, avoid approaching it.
MCEVERS: Can you explain what you meant by that?
SUNDARAM: Yeah, Rwanda's a very calm place. There's very little crime on the streets. It's a wonderful place to write in, in fact. But the longer one stays in Rwanda, one realizes that that calm is not a benign calm. It's a calm that has been achieved through government repression. It's a calm that exists because Rwandans cannot and dare not speak up. And once one realizes this, once I realized that this calm was a direct result of the repression, it became quite frightening.
MCEVERS: So your program eventually was shut down.
SUNDARAM: Yes.
MCEVERS: You eventually left Rwanda. When did you leave?
SUNDARAM: I left in December, 2013. I had spent almost five years there.
MCEVERS: OK. After writing a book that is so critical of the Rwandan government and the Rwandan president, do you think you'll ever be able to go back to Rwanda?
SUNDARAM: No, I don't think I'll be able to go back until the regime changes, Kagame leaves power.
MCEVERS: That's Anjan Sundaram. He's the author of "Bad News: Last Journalists In A Dictatorship." It's out now. Thank you very much.
SUNDARAM: Thank you, Kelly.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
OK, Kelly, can I blow your mind with something I learned today?
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Sure.
SHAPIRO: England does not have its own national anthem about England.
MCEVERS: Huh?
SHAPIRO: Seriously. Other countries in the United Kingdom do. Like Wales has a national anthem called "Land Of My Fathers."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LAND OF MY FATHERS")
SHAPIRO: The Welsh love their male singing choruses. Scottish people have a song all about Scotland. It is called, appropriately, "Flowers Of Scotland."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FLOWERS OF SCOTLAND")
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) Oh, flowers of Scotland.
SHAPIRO: The closest thing England has to a national anthem is "God Save The Queen."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOD SAVE THE QUEEN")
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) God, save the queen.
SHAPIRO: But here's the thing, "God Save The Queen" is about the entire United Kingdom, not just England. So Toby Perkins, who's a member of Parliament, decided that should be changed.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TOBY PERKINS: And it's often seemed incongruous to me that whilst the Welsh or Scots sing an anthem that reflects their nation's identity, England should sing about Britain. It reflects the sense that we see Britain and England as synonymous.
SHAPIRO: So, Kelly, Parliament has given initial approval for a plan to find an English national anthem.
MCEVERS: What do we think it's going to be?
SHAPIRO: Top contender is an anthem called, strangely enough 'cause it's not an English city, "Jerusalem."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JERUSALEM")
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) Walk upon England's mountains green.
MCEVERS: Ok, wait, that sounds like they're talking about England's mountains. Why do they call it "Jerusalem?"
SHAPIRO: Well, it's a lyric from a poem by William Blake. A few other choices, "I Vow To Thee, My Country," "Land Of Hope And Glory" Actually, there are lots of patriotic English songs to choose from. But a personal favorite of the staff here at ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, this as a real song, "Roast Beef Of Old England."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROAST BEEF OF OLD ENGLAND")
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) Oh, the roast beef of old England, and old English roast beef.
SHAPIRO: So, Kelly, next time you are at an English rugby match, I want to hear you singing out...
MCEVERS: Right, 'cause I do that all the time.
SHAPIRO: ..."Roast Beef Of Old England." [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In this story about England’s lack of a national anthem, we say that other countries in the United Kingdom have national anthems and mention "Flowers of Scotland." In fact, the song is titled "Flower of Scotland." It is commonly known as an unofficial anthem of Scotland.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The litigants in the U.S. Supreme Court today were a remarkable bunch. On one side, there was the Central Bank of Iran. On the other, the victims of Iran-sponsored terrorist attacks going back three decades. The constitutional question was whether Congress, in dealing with both, had infringed on the independence of the federal courts. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: In 2012, President Obama froze nearly $2 billion that the Iranian Central Bank had concealed illegally in an account in New York. Congress then amended an existing anti-terrorism law to strengthen it. The new law specified those funds were to be used to pay off court judgments finding that Iran was responsible for 19 separate terrorist attacks against Americans around the world. The first of those cases was brought on behalf of the families of 241 American servicemen killed in a 1983 Beirut bombing of the Marine barracks.
PAUL RIVERS: Thirty-three years ago, I was a young 20-year-old Marine. I was blown up in the building and buried alive for two hours.
TOTENBERG: Paul Rivers, now 53, one of the thirty survivors in Beirut, is tired of the decades-long legal battle.
RIVERS: This has been an emotional rollercoaster ride for me because my friends are gone. Iran will continue to fund terrorist activities unless we stand up as Americans and say we're tired of it.
TOTENBERG: Inside the Supreme Court, the debate was not about whether Iran should pay but whether Congress had unconstitutionally infringed on the judiciary's job by directing the final outcome of particular cases, even listing the docket numbers of those cases in the legislation. Lawyer Jeffrey Lamken, representing the Central Bank of Iran, said it didn't matter whether there was one case or 19. Congress had violated the Constitution by enacting a statute for one set of plaintiffs.
Justice Scalia - where do you get the notion that Congress can only act by generality? It acts all the time on individual matters. Lamken insisted, though, that this law is unique, contending that in the rest of the nation's history, Congress had never passed such a statute. Congress crossed the line here, said Lamken, because there's a single defendant - the Central Bank of Iran. Justice Breyer, wryly, a defendant that represents a hundred-million people.
Justice Kagan - don't the political branches - the president and Congress - deserve particular deference in matters of foreign affairs, especially when they act together? No, said Lamken. If you uphold this law, he told the justices, the lesson it teaches is, if you want to win your case in court, don't hire a lawyer; hire a lobbyist.
Chief Justice Roberts seemed to have the same concern when former Solicitor General Ted Olson, whose own wife was killed in 9/11, took to the lectern. You know, said the chief justice, there are places in the world where the courts function just the way our courts do, except every now and then when there's a case the strongman that runs the country is interested in. And he picks up the phone, and he tells the court, you decide this case this way. I'm not sure I see what the difference is here. Olson contended that the lower courts had found Iran liable for damages for its role in these attacks. The only thing this law deals with, he asserted, is executing those judgments - actually getting the money damages.
Chief Justice Roberts - wouldn't your argument mean that Congress can tell us, the Supreme Court, how to rule in a specific case? Justice Kagan picked up that thread when Deputy Solicitor General Edwin Kneedler rose to defend the statute. Since 1801, he told the justices, this court has said that Congress may amend the law and make it applicable to pending cases. But, asked Kagan, could Congress, without actually naming the winner, amend the law in such a way that it's clear who will be the winner? Replied Kneedler - Congress can do that. Chief Justice Roberts - you're saying Congress has to be cute about it; they can't say, in Smith versus Jones, Smith wins, but they can change the law to make sure Smith wins. Justice Breyer - Congress has 4,000 ways of being cute, and I can't quite see this court trying to police those ways. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Anglicans around the world are deeply divided over social issues, including homosexuality. Those differences now have them on the verge of a major global breakup. The Anglican Communion includes the U.S. Episcopal Church as well as churches throughout Africa and other parts of the global South. NPR's Tom Gjelten has the story.
TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: Anglican church leaders from across the Communion are meeting behind closed doors this week at their mother church, the Canterbury Cathedral in England. If they can't bridge their differences, it may be the last time they gather. Charlie Masters, an Anglican priest from Canada, is among those following the proceedings.
CHARLIE MASTERS: I don't know where it's heading or what might happen, but I know it's not been easy.
GJELTEN: The U.S. Episcopal Church and Anglican churches in other northern countries are generally liberal, accepting of same-sex marriage and gay priests, but their membership is declining. Anglicans in Africa alone now account for about 60 percent of the church membership worldwide. But Anglicans of the global South tend to have strict views on sexuality and marriage. None of the leaders in Canterbury is giving interviews this week, but here's Archbishop Nicholas Okoh of Nigeria from an interview in 2013.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NICHOLAS OKOH: The other group contemptuously refer to us as conservative and ignorant. As far as we are concerned, the biblical understanding of marriage is male and female.
GJELTEN: The differences are complicated by history. Anglicanism in the global South is an outgrowth of British colonialism. This week's meeting was called by the Reverend Justin Welby, who, as the archbishop of Canterbury, is the global Anglican leader. Welby, who has traveled widely in Africa and elsewhere, told a Washington audience recently that he's found many Anglican leaders feeling like new moral values are being imposed on them by their old colonial masters.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JUSTIN WELBY: It is a sense of, hang on; you are telling us whom and what we should be. A senior figure in one country said to me a few years ago - he said, I didn't go through the colonial period and get rid of you people in order for you to come back in a different form and do the same to me as you were doing before.
GJELTEN: One more consideration - Christians in the global South often compete with Muslims. Philip Jenkins, a religion historian at Baylor University, says their resistance to same-sex marriage must be seen in that context.
PHILIP JENKINS: If they were ever to waiver on these gay issues, they think that would just hand a massive propaganda victory to Muslims. Christians in those countries would be seen as just toeing the Western line, giving way to Western immorality.
GJELTEN: As the global Anglican leader, the archbishop of Canterbury is hoping for North-South reconciliation at this week's meeting. But bishops from the global South want Anglicans to take a firm doctrinal stand against homosexuality. Barring that, they say they'll walk out of the meeting. And they have allies among some conservative Anglican bishops in the U.S., Canada and Australia. A breakup of the Communion would be costly. The churches in the North provide much of the money for Anglican leaders in the global South. Bishop Charlie Masters from Canada supports the Southerners. He says the prospect of losing financial support will not deter them.
MASTERS: Many of these leaders, knowing the extent of need within their communities they're caring for, have actually turned their back on finances from churches who, in their view, are not operating by a principal to the situation. And so I think it only has strengthened our commitment to try to share with them.
GJELTEN: Many observers expected the Canterbury meeting would've broken up already over the ideological differences. It has not, but there is no sign of a pending agreement. One priest sitting in on a prayer service tonight noted on Facebook that the emotional and spiritual strain must be enormous. Tom Gjelten, NPR News.
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Here's a story that has fallen off the front pages, but remains unresolved. Militants in Oregon are settling into the federal wildlife refuge that they've occupied for nearly two weeks now. Local leaders are looking for an endgame. Oregon Public Broadcasting's Amanda Peacher has spent a lot of time at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and she joins us to talk about how this situation is reshaping life in the area. Welcome back to the show.
AMANDA PEACHER, BYLINE: Thank you. Glad to be here.
SHAPIRO: Let's start first with the occupiers. What are they doing day-to-day?
PEACHER: Well, they are moving freely within the complex of the refuge headquarters. They are having meetings. They say they're making plans for how to turn over the refuge lands to what they call the rightful owners. So they're actually looking for the title transfer records for when the federal government bought these lands from private property owners decades ago. On Tuesday, they did remove a fence between private property and the refuge so cattle could potentially move on to refuge lands. And other than that, they're cooking. They're eating. They made a point of cleaning up one of the buildings at the refuge yesterday so that they could demonstrate that they are being good stewards.
SHAPIRO: Sounds like the message is that they plan to be there for a while. What about the people in the nearby town of Burns? How are they responding to this big standoff?
PEACHER: Well, this standoff remains a topic of conversation at every dinner table, in every restaurant and bar that you visit. It's really affecting daily life here, especially because there are armed militants still moving about the community. I sense a lot of fatigue, even from the supporters of the occupiers who are local here. I did speak with a young woman named Frankie Gould. She was wearing a Save the Refuge T-shirt at a Monday community meeting, and I asked her what she thought of the occupiers.
FRANKIE GOULD: They're a bunch of thugs, if you ask me. I don't respect them. I don't like them being here, and I want them to get the hell out of my town so things can get back to normal.
SHAPIRO: Wow. That's strong language.
PEACHER: Yeah, absolutely. You hear that language or some variation of it from local officials, from state representatives to the mayor here, as well.
SHAPIRO: Well, in addition to the occupiers and the locals, you say there are other militants walking around the community. Who are these people - like, groups from Idaho, Washington, Oregon? What do they want?
PEACHER: Well, they've actually been on the scene since the beginning. They're called the Pacific Patriots Network. And, as you say, they're a variety of armed groups who say their goals are defending the Constitution and limiting the authority of government that they believe is too large. So they were the original organizers of the rally a couple weeks ago in support of the ranching father-son duo the Hammonds.
They say the refuge occupiers kind of hijacked that rally by taking over the refuge complex. That was not part of the plan. So now they see themselves as a buffer between the occupiers and law enforcement. They want the occupation to end, but they do share some of the goals of those occupiers. So, for example, they also want local control over the refuge lands and those lands turned over to Harney County and the Burns Paiute Tribe.
SHAPIRO: The Burns Paiute Tribe - the local Indian tribe - they also have a role to play in all of this. Tell us about their interest in the land.
PEACHER: Well, the Burns Paiute Tribe has been in this area for thousands of years. And they are very offended that this occupation is taking place and that the occupiers say that they want to turn over these lands to the rightful owners. Of course, that, in their minds, would actually be the Burns Paiute Tribe.
SHAPIRO: Amanda, how do you see all this ending?
PEACHER: Well, leaders of the occupation say they plan to hold a community meeting in Burns this Friday where they'll give more of a sense for when they might leave and also answer questions from community members. There's still no action from law enforcement, although there is a strong FBI presence in town. We don't have a sense for if law enforcement might act, so right now it's very much a wait-and-see.
SHAPIRO: That's Amanda Peacher of Oregon Public Broadcasting. Thanks, Amanda.
PEACHER: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Markets tumbled today, hard. It's a continuation of a recent rough patch on Wall Street. Already this year, both the Dow and the S&P are down more than 7 percent. NPR's Jim Zarroli joins us now to discuss the sour mood among investors. Hey, Jim
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Hi.
SHAPIRO: How bad was it today?
ZARROLI: Oh, your basic lousy damn on Wall Street - a lot of stocks down, consumer stocks down. You even saw, you know, some of the big, hot stocks of last year falling even further - Amazon down 5.8 percent, Facebook down 4 percent, big drops in small-cap stocks. The Russell 2000, which is an index of small-cap stocks, is now down 22 percent, which is what we officially call a bear market. So it's just one of those days when, you know, nothing was good, and it's just a continuation of what we've seen in the past few days. The first week of the year was bad and now that's continuing. A lot of investors just, you know, don't see anything to be happy about.
SHAPIRO: It seems so weird because we have a lot of evidence that the economy on the whole is doing pretty well. There was just a good jobs report. I mean, why is Wall Street not feeling the joy?
ZARROLI: Well, the jobs report is backward-looking, of course, and investors are worried about the future. You know, I think they see we've had some weak corporate profits in a lot of different sectors, banking, especially energy. And also, you know, economies all over the world are weakening - too much capacity, not enough demand. You have hot growth countries like China slowing down and then other countries like Brazil entering a deep recession. So there's less spending, less demand for U.S. products, and that's, you know, hurting everybody. And investors look at this and say, yeah, you know, the U.S. economy may be doing OK now, but how long is that going to last?
SHAPIRO: You mentioned energy, and I want to ask about oil prices, which have been falling, which seems great for consumers who are buying gas at under $2 a gallon. But why is that worrisome for investors?
ZARROLI: Yeah, and that was really what seemed to touch off the real decline in stocks today. I mean, oil keeps falling. We actually had something of a rally early in the day, and then we had a report saying oil inventories were a lot higher than expected, which is something that always affects prices. And after that, we saw West Texas Intermediate falling below $30 a barrel, which is another bad milestone. And, you know, of course, this is very good for consumers, but it is a disaster for countries that depend on oil revenues. And it's also a disaster for energy companies. I mean, we're starting to see a rise in bankruptcies in the oil and gas sector, and it's hurting states that has to do - that depend on energy.
SHAPIRO: Should Americans worry that this might be a sign that the U.S. economy is slowing?
ZARROLI: Well, it was funny, I was watching today and a lot of stock market pundits are now sort of officially talking about recession, using that word. But you don't hear that from economists, really. And it sort of is a reminder of the fact that the stock market is not the same as the economy. I mean, you can have the stock market going down when the economy is not. There's an old saying, the stock market has predicted nine of the past five recessions.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
ZARROLI: You know, so it can go down when the economy is still doing OK, and - but it is something to watch, definitely, on where the market is going. And I think right now a lot of investors are worried about what's ahead.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Jim Zarroli in New York where Wall Street had more steep losses today. Thanks, Jim.
ZARROLI: You're welcome.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
A mind-boggling star explosion is baffling astronomers. The recently discovered Inferno is 570 billion times brighter than our sun - put another way, brighter than any exploding star ever seen before. NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce reports that no one's exactly sure what made this thing go boom.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: When massive stars die, they explode. Does this seem completely irrelevant to your life? Well, think again.
BENJAMIN SHAPPEE: If you look around here on Earth, anything that's not hydrogen or helium was actually made inside of a star.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Benjamin Shappee is an astronomer with the Carnegie Observatories. He says an exploding star, or supernova, scatters elements across the universe. That means you and everything you know and love are composed of the remnants of supernova explosions.
SHAPPEE: We wouldn't be here without them.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: The first record of a sky watcher spotting an exploding star goes back nearly 2000 years. These days, astronomers hunt for them with modern tools, such as the All-Sky Automated Survey for Supernovae or ASAS-SN Project. Its telescopes scan the entire sky. And in June, it detected a distant explosion. Follow-up observations revealed that it was the most powerful supernova ever seen, 200 times brighter than a garden-variety one and more than twice as bright as the previous record holder.
SHAPPEE: And I was actually so surprised by this result that I didn't really believe it.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Shappee says it took additional observation to convince him. He and his colleagues describe it in this week's issue of the journal Science. Now, even though it's so bright, you can't see it with the naked eye. I asked Subo Dong what this massive explosion looks like. He's from the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics at Peking University in China and the lead author on the paper. He says it's 3.8 billion light years away, so even with a telescope...
SUBO DONG: It looks like a little smudge. This is because it's so far away it (laughter). It doesn't look so spectacular.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: What's going on inside this thing to make it so unusually bright? Dong says they're mystified.
DONG: So honestly, the answer is, we don't know.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Scientists have spotted other so-called super-luminous supernovae before. They're rare and were thought to come from neutron stars with powerful magnetic fields. But this fiery beast pushes the limits of that theory. Researchers will learn more about it as they watch with telescopes in the coming months, and astronomers are already busy cooking up new explanations for the weirdness. Edo Berger is at Harvard University.
EDO BERGER: And it's often, I think, the most extreme events that teach us the most about the range of possibilities that the universe comes up with, especially when it comes to exploding objects.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: He says maybe this isn't a supernova at all. Maybe it's a start being ripped apart by a black hole. Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The sometimes-tense conversation about religious accommodation in the workplace is playing out in rural Colorado. In Fort Morgan, there was a dispute over prayer breaks at a Cargill meatpacking plant, and it led to the firing of 150 Muslim workers.
Luke Runyon from member station KUNC reports.
LUKE RUNYON, BYLINE: It's midday at Nurto and Sadiyo Abdi's apartment in Fort Morgan, a rural town on Colorado's eastern plains. The 20-something sisters are having spiced tea with milk.
NURTO ABDI: It's too hot.
RUNYON: The sisters are refugees, finding their way to Fort Morgan five years ago from their home country of Somalia. Five times a day, the sisters stop to pray, an essential part of their Muslim faith, Nurto says.
ABDI: If I stop my prayer time, everything is hard for me. Everything's hard for me if I stop the prayer time.
RUNYON: In mid-December, they say their supervisor at Cargill's beef processing plant told a small group of employees they could no longer leave their stations on the meat-cutting line to pray.
ABDI: Four times we pray in home - our homes, only pray one time in Cargill, and they say we don't have time to go prayer time.
RUNYON: The incident snowballed. The sisters joined with nearly 150 other workers, staying home to protest what they saw as a change in company policy. Until then, they'd been allowed to take a short five-minute break to pray. After three days of failing to show up, they triggered Cargill's no-call, no-show policy and were fired.
MIKE MARTIN: Nobody was ever told that prayer was abolished or that prayer could not be accommodated.
RUNYON: Mike Martin is a Cargill spokesman.
MARTIN: There are times, specific times when, because of staffing levels, an individual request for prayer may not be granted at a specific time on a specific day.
RUNYON: During the last decade, America's meatpacking plants have become increasingly diverse, with more immigrants from various cultural and religious backgrounds filling jobs to cut meat. Martin says Cargill has attempted to keep up, installing reflection rooms for prayer in its facilities and being flexible with break times. Still, cross-cultural misunderstanding and tension is inevitable.
MARTIN: It would be hard to go, you know, year-round without somebody misperceiving something, but this seems to be on a different level.
RACHEL ARNOW-RICHMAN: The reality is that it's not always clear what constitutes a reasonable accommodation or an undue hardship.
RUNYON: Rachel Arnow-Richman is a workplace law professor at the University of Denver. In a large slaughterhouse, for example, one person missing for 10 minutes can slow down an entire shift. And she says if a religious accommodation like a prayer break imposes a significant cost on the employer, they don't have to do it.
ARNOW-RICHMAN: The subtleties of what is required or what the employer permits, versus what a supervisor actually does - those can certainly get lost in any workplace, you know, not even accounting for language and cultural differences.
RUNYON: In a bid to give some workers a chance at getting their jobs back, Cargill is allowing the fired employees to reapply at the end of January. But Michaela Holdridge, executive director of One Morgan County, a nonprofit in Fort Morgan, says it might be too little too late.
MICHAELA HOLDRIDGE: We already have word of about 20 families or so who have already left.
RUNYON: Holdridge says the families are scattering across the Midwest and Great Plains.
HOLDRIDGE: If you don't have your job here, there's not much to stay for.
RUNYON: And with that many people leaving a small town all at once, Holdridge says a new wave of people with religious and cultural differences could find themselves looking for work in Fort Morgan.
For NPR News, I'm Luke Runyon in Greeley, Colo.
MCEVERS: That story came to us from Harvest Public Media, a reporting collaboration that focuses on agriculture and food.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Many Detroit public schools re-open today after being closed at the beginning of the week. That's because too many teachers had called in sick in protest. These sick-outs have become more common in recent weeks. Michigan Radio's Sarah Cwiek reports, they've drawn criticism and attention to a school district in freefall.
SARAH CWIEK, BYLINE: Crystal Fischer saw it on the news Monday morning. Her 5-year-old son's school was closed because too many teachers had called in sick. Fischer made do for that day, but when she got the call on Tuesday the school was closed again, the working single mom wasn't too happy.
CRYSTAL FISCHER: It may be an issue with the teachers, but shoot, sure they're causing issues with the parents. They're making us suffer.
CWIEK: Fischer didn't really understand what the teachers were so upset about. She has noticed one thing at her son's school, though.
FISCHER: The classrooms are overcrowded. Too many kids to one teacher.
CWIEK: Overcrowding is just one item on the long list of complaints Detroit teachers have.
MIKE DUGGAN: I've seen some very well-maintained buildings, and I've seen some buildings that would break your heart.
CWIEK: That's Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, who toured some schools Tuesday vowing to fix the most egregious building problems like black mold and collapsing ceilings. But Duggan's powers are limited because the state has run the Detroit public schools for almost seven years now through a series of so-called emergency managers.
DUGGAN: And it's been seven years in of enrollment decline, deficits, test score decline and now a third of the money coming to the schools is being diverted to debt.
CWIEK: That's $3.5 billion of debt, some of it short-term borrowing run up by the district's emergency managers, who are supposed to put the schools' finances back on solid footing. But many here argue that emergency management has made bad situations even worse, Nina Chacker is a special education teacher here.
NINA CHACKER: The state has created debt after debt after debt.
CWIEK: Chacker says teachers are now at a breaking point.
CHACKER: People leave every single week and (laughter), they need us at this point. Like, they cannot get people to work in Detroit.
CWIEK: The teachers union has not organized or even formally condoned the sick-outs. It's struggling with its own internal political divisions. Chacker says the push comes from the teachers, and she says they're doing it for the students.
CHACKER: There are kids that are easy to take advantage of, and I will fight as hard as I can to ensure that that doesn't happen.
CWIEK: That's not how district and state officials see it. They say the sick-outs just hurt students and parents, and they've accused the teachers of using them as pawns and engaging in illegal wildcat strikes. Michelle Zdrodowski is a spokeswoman for the Detroit public schools' emergency manager. She says they all understand Detroit teachers' frustration.
MICHELLE ZDRODOWSKI: But when teachers continue to do these sick-outs, it makes our efforts to talk to the legislature and get them to say yes to investing in DPS that much more difficult.
CWIEK: Today, bills for a bankruptcy-style restructuring were finally introduced in Lansing. That overhaul is Governor Rick Snyder's plan for the district, but the response has been lukewarm at best. The governor also faces another huge political crisis right now - Flint's water contamination disaster. He's got to figure it all out, though. Otherwise, the Detroit public schools will go broke before the end of the school year. For NPR News, I'm Sarah Cwiek in Detroit.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Herman Wouk has written a lot of beloved novels - "The Winds Of War," "War And Remembrance." "The Caine Mutiny" won a Pulitzer Prize. His latest achievement is another milestone that few of us will achieve. Herman Wouk is a hundred years old. NPR's Lynn Neary reports the author is marking the occasion with the release of a new memoir.
LYNN NEARY, BYLINE: Many years ago, a well-known biographer approached Herman Wouk about writing his life story. Wouk gave her access to his journals, but after reading them...
HERMAN WOUK: She said, your literary career would be wonderful material and I'd love to do it, but there is a spiritual journey running through your volumes which only you can do.
NEARY: Now Wouk has written that story. He calls it "Sailor And Fiddler," the sailor representing his life as a writer, the fiddler, his spiritual side.
Growing up in the Bronx, Wouk knew he wanted to be a writer, but his Jewish faith was always important to him as well. He loved Mark Twain and Alexandre Dumas. He also fondly remembers listening to his father read the stories of Sholem Aleichem on Friday nights. As a teenager, he argued with his father about studying the Talmud, telling him it was outdated.
WOUK: He said to me, I understand everything you say about the Talmud. It's your right. But, if I were on my deathbed and had breath enough to tell you one thing, I would say, study the Talmud. That stayed in my soul, and I did learn the Talmud.
NEARY: Wouk's first love as a writer was humor. He wanted to be what he called a funnyman. And just out of college, he got a job writing gags for radio shows.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "TEXACO STAR THEATRE WITH FRED ALLEN")
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: It's Texaco time with Fred Allen.
NEARY: Wouk spent five years writing for Fred Allen, one of the biggest names in radio in the years before World War II. But the war changed everything. Wouk joined the Navy and was assigned to a minesweeper in the Pacific.
WOUK: I would spend many of the nights looking out at sea and being stirred with thoughts. And I began to think that there was a book to be written that would be like "War And Peace." At that time, I didn't think at all that it would be something for me to write. But, nevertheless, I got the feeling that there was, you know, a whole other kind of writing to do.
NEARY: It would be years before Wouk began the novel he first envisioned on that minesweeper, but he plunged into writing he returned to civilian life. He quickly became a best-selling author with such novels as "Marjorie Morningstar" and the Pulitzer prize-winning "The Caine Mutiny," which was made into a movie starring Humphrey Bogart as the unforgettable Captain Queeg.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MARJORIE MORNINGSTAR")
HUMPHREY BOGART: (As Queeg) I know exactly what he'll you - lies. He's no different from any other officer in the wardroom. They were all disloyal. I tried to run the ship properly, by the book, but they fought me at every turn.
NEARY: Eventually, Wouk began working on the World War II epic which he called the main task of his life. Jonathan Karp, Wouk's current publisher and editor, says it was an extraordinarily ambitious undertaking.
JONATHAN KARP: He believes that God put him on earth to tell the story of the Holocaust through the frame of World War II.
NEARY: After seven years of research and writing, Wouk had a draft of 1,000 pages which he presented to his wife, who worked closely with him on all his books.
WOUK: Sarah, my wife, said, you can't publish this. The story is just beginning. And I said, but it's impossible to do it all, and I'll have to put another seven years to tell that story and the novel would have to be published with wheels on it it would be so massive.
NEARY: And so one book became two best-sellers, "The Winds Of War" and "War And Remembrance." Both were adapted as a TV miniseries. In this scene from "The Winds Of War," an American Jew fleeing Poland after the Nazi invasion is questioned by an SS officer.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE WINDS OF WAR")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As SS officer) And what were your parents?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As man fleeing) Americans.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As SS officer) Jews?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As man fleeing) No, Americans.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As friend) Mr. Hartley has been to church with me every Sunday in Warsaw. He's a Methodist, the same as me.
NEARY: Despite all his success, Herman Wouk did not always get the respect he deserved from the literary establishment, says Jonathan Karp.
KARP: The books have a lot of serious ideas in them and the characters are rich and colorful, and there's absolutely no reason he shouldn't be taken seriously.
NEARY: Looking back on his life from the vantage point of a centenarian, Herman Wouk doesn't seem to care what others thought about him.
WOUK: I was very pleased when a book worked. And to some extent, they've all worked to my satisfaction. In that, I'm a very happy gent of a hundred.
NEARY: "Sailor And Fiddler" is a slim volume for a man who has lived such a long and full life, but Wouk says he thought hard about what to put in his memoir because he says it sums up what it means to be a writer. Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In his State of the Union Address this week, President Obama said the country has made progress in education, and it's time for a new goal.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: Offering every student the hands-on computer science and math classes that make them job ready on day one.
MCEVERS: That got us wondering just what might it look like if every student could take a good, hands-on computer science class? NPR's Eric Westervelt from our Ed team went to find out.
ERIC WESTERVELT, BYLINE: UC Berkeley computer science professor Dan Garcia spends part of everyday thinking about how to best teach computer science to everyone. He's turned part of his home next to his laundry room into a makeshift studio to webcast to the world a massive open online course he calls BJC, the beauty and joy of computing.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DAN GARCIA: Welcome, everybody, we're live on BJC on the air, hanging on the air. Week five - welcome, everybody, from the BJCX.
WESTERVELT: Garcia co-developed the popular undergraduate computer science course at Berkeley for non-majors. And for the last five years, he's helped more than 200 high school teachers across America learn to teach the subject through a summer course. And he's also helping New York City public schools create an advanced placement course for high school students there. Key to a good hands-on course, he says, take that joyful part seriously. He advises teachers to help their students cultivate a passion for the creative possibilities of computing.
GARCIA: Picking a project, getting engaged, getting really deep into the weeds of it, feeling they owned it, having trouble - having like, oh, it's not working - and then finally getting over that hump, getting it to then just sing. That's the most exciting time in a young student's computer science career is when they finally finish their first project and they want to just shout to the rooftop, this is mine.
WESTERVELT: But before students can shout from the rooftops, more schools need to actually offer computer science. It's taught in less than 10 percent of America's high schools. Adding to the dysfunction, some schools are teaching the basics of Microsoft Office and search and calling it computer science. It's not.
GARCIA: We have a crisis in the country that we don't have enough computer science teachers, well-trained, engaging computer science teachers. We just need more bodies.
WESTERVELT: But it's tough to attract more bodies when the tech sector is so hot. Big tech companies and startups alike are struggling to hire enough engineers. And young CS majors can make maybe three times as much in the private sector than as a public school teacher. And because computer science traditionally has not been taught in schools, many administrators are struggling to find a place for it in an already-packed school day and crowded curriculum. I recently asked Sal Khan about this. He's the founder and CEO of Khan Academy.
SAL KHAN: A lot of educators haven't been exposed to it when they were you. So that's the challenge, but there's also an opportunity in that there isn't anything to replace. It's green field. It's a new area and there's all sorts of incredible tools for people to learn.
WESTERVELT: Another hurdle is diversity. Women and minorities are underrepresented in tech fields and in participation in computer science courses. Dan Garcia at UC Berkeley advises teachers not to shy away from the big, important and often controversial topics that connect computer science to the larger world.
GARCIA: It is coding and data and issues of power. You have the digital divide, and what does that mean for equity? What does that mean for fairness, privacy issues?
WESTERVELT: There is some good news. Seven of the nation's largest school districts have pledged to radically expand access to computer science classes including San Francisco, Chicago and New York City. Eric Westervelt, NPR News, San Francisco.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
When Rio de Janeiro was awarded the Summer Olympics a few years ago, Brazil was on a high. It had a growing middle class and a currency that was gaining strength. Things are a lot different today. With less than seven months to go before the big event, NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro reports.
LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, BYLINE: Instead of the Summer Games, you might as well call these the gloomy games. Marcelo Barreto is a famous Brazilian TV sports journalist, and he's covered mega-sporting events for 20 years all over the world. In 2009, when his home city of Rio won the 2016 Olympics, the atmosphere, he says, was electric.
MARCELO BARRETO: It was a very optimistic moment for Brazil, and I think the Olympics were another message that we were being accepted by the developed world. It wasn't about the events themselves. It was about Brazil.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: A rising nation finally meeting its potential. Fast-forward to today. There's a crashing economy, impeachment proceedings against the president, a huge corruption scandal, panic over a mosquito-borne virus linked to brain damage in infants. Despite that, he says...
BARRETO: We are going to deliver good games.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: There is a race, as always, to get things done in time. Things won't work exactly as planned, but the 2016 games will go on.
BARRETO: But I don't think it matters so much right now. There's a feeling of disappointment in the air. People are concerned with more pressing, urgent things right now.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Like a health care crisis in Rio. Rio state government gets much of its revenue from oil production, as this the main hub of the country's oil wealth. Except the price of a barrel is very low, leaving the state practically bankrupt. The most visible sign has been at state hospitals.
I'm outside the Hospital Albert Schweitzer. This is a state hospital, and there are literally dozens of people crowding the entrance trying to get into the hospital. It's extremely chaotic.
CRISTIANI SILVA: (Foreign language spoken).
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Cristiani Silva was waiting outside the hospital to see her husband who's being treated inside. She says, "it's a huge contradiction that we are hosting these games and we have this health crisis - spending money we just don't have," she says.
Over the past month in Rio, one woman gave birth on the sidewalk because a hospital wasn't admitting patients due to funding issues. The main doctors union said this week that the health system in Rio isn't capable of dealing with the influx of tourists for the games. Roberto Maltchik is the Olympics editor at Rio's biggest daily, O Globo.
ROBERTO MALTCHIK: (Foreign language spoken).
GARCIA-NAVARRO: "The crisis has completely impacted the Olympic Games," he says. "They have no money. They can't incur any last-minute costs," he says. "Budgets have been slashed across the board, from the opening games to the closing ceremony," he says.
Right now, one of the Olympic stadiums which will be used for athletics just had its water and light cut off because of unpaid bills. The builder for another two venues, the tennis and equestrian centers, has had to lay off workers and hasn't paid suppliers.
DAVILANI CRUZ: (Foreign language spoken).
GARCIA-NAVARRO: The athletes are also being affected. We reached Davilani Cruz by phone. He is part of Brazil's national taekwondo team. He says a monthly stipend provided by Brazil's Ministry of Sport hasn't been paid in five months.
CRUZ: (Foreign language spoken).
GARCIA-NAVARRO: "I think this isn't something that should be happening in an Olympic year," he says. "We athletes depend on the stipend to travel to competitions, and we don't have a lot of other support so we end up lagging behind because of this." he says.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GARCIA-NAVARRO: At an event this week marking the opening of another Olympic athletic stadium, Rio's Mayor Eduardo Paes was pummeled with questions about the hospital crisis and the budget cuts.
EDUARDO PAES: So we have enough money to do everything that's supposed to be delivered. As you can see here, we are not China. We are not England. We are not a rich country. So every time we can cut some of the budget of the Olympics, we will do it. This is not going to be Olympics of wasting money.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: So the mayor is selling the crisis as a good thing. Marcelo Barreto the TV host says what's happened to Brazil might serve as a lesson to other countries who are considering hosting the games.
BARRETO: It's too much money to be spent in a three-week sports event, and if a Third World country could deliver this message or help deliver this message, I think it would be a very positive role in the history of Olympics. I'll be more than glad.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: So a very slim silver lining. Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, NPR News, Rio de Janeiro.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Investigative reporter Dawn Anahid MacKeen's latest story is one her mother always wanted her to tell. It's about her grandfather and how he survived the Armenian genocide of 1915. One and a half million Armenians living in modern-day Turkey were killed. Turkey says it was not genocide, but a result of widespread conflict in the region. MacKeen's grandfather left behind journals that became the seeds of her new book "The Hundred-Year Walk: An Armenian Odyssey." I asked her what she knew about her grandfather before she began her research.
DAWN ANAHID MACKEEN: My mother told me stories about my grandfather and they were very sad stories of this man who was struggling across a desert and was just fighting for his survival and was so thirsty he had to drink his own urine, which is a very strange thing to hear as a child and it just sounded really gross. And, of course, it was history that I couldn't comprehend until I was in my 30s and I could finally read his firsthand testimony of what happened to him during World War I in the last days of the Ottoman Empire.
SHAPIRO: So you read these journals and set off on your own reporting family research trip through Turkey and Syria, retracing his steps. How did that journey change your sense of your grandfather as a person?
MACKEEN: I had to see the land that he wrote about. You know, the desert that he was driven across with his caravans, it became a prison to him because it was inhospitable and there weren't many people around. And as I traveled from west to east and the land grew more stark, I just -it was a hard moment to see that, to think of my grandfather outside in the elements. You know, at one point when he was in a makeshift camp in what is now western Syria, a thousand people died from disease in just one month. So this was the kind of thing he was up against, and he really had to summon heroic strength inside to have the courage to continue each day.
SHAPIRO: Will you read from a section of the book where you talk about the experience of retracing your grandfather's steps a century later? This is page 153.
MACKEEN: Sure. (Reading) Only halfway into my 900-mile journey and I was already weary, and I was a well-fed 36-year-old traveling by car and train, not on foot as Stepan did. I was the one sleeping in beds rated by stars, not outside on the hard ground under the constellations. Just an hour after leaving my air-conditioned hotel room, I was weak and feverish and needed a bathroom, and I was still far from my endpoint, a godforsaken mound of dirt named Markada, just short of the Iraqi border where my grandfather's caravan of thousands met its end.
SHAPIRO: On your journey researching this book, you visited Syrian cities such as Raqqa. And a hundred years ago, your grandfather saw it as a haven. Today, the city is controlled by ISIS. What does your experience in the city tell you about this place that is now so - in the news - so fraught, so full of violence and strife?
MACKEEN: My experience in Raqqa - and I went there twice, I returned to Syria again in 2009 - was the complete opposite of what you're hearing now from there. It was, in a way, a haven for me just like it was for my grandfather because when I arrived there, I met this Bedouin Sheikh and he took me into his home and gave me his daughter's room and that night, hosted this dinner on the Euphrates and there were Armenians there, there were Bedouins, Arabs. Everyone was around a table enjoying each other's company. There wasn't this religious divide or a hatred that you see. And it just breaks my heart seeing what's happening to Raqqa and also that many people are learning about Raqqa for the first time through this message of hate.
SHAPIRO: And the Sheikh took you in out of a sense of hospitality or out of a sense of connection to your grandfather? Describe why he welcomed you in this way.
MACKEEN: I think it was out of hospitality. And the people in this region are, you know, had been known for that. And this Sheikh, also, when I met him, I told him about what happened to my grandfather. And the people in this region know what happened to the Armenians. These stories have been handed down in their families of, you know, the mass graves that have been in that area or the Armenians that were taken in by the different clans. And when I told this Bedouin Sheikh in Raqqa that I wanted to find the clan that saved my grandfather's life and it was somewhere in the region, this Sheikh all of a sudden called someone else and this person came over and all of a sudden had two phone lines and started calling all over the region to try to find this clan. And it was an incredible moment for me to watch this happen because it was really a pipe dream. And all of a sudden, they narrowed it down and they said, we found them. Can you go tomorrow? And I said yes, please, please, take me to them.
SHAPIRO: Have you kept in touch with any of the people you met in that part of Syria?
MACKEEN: You know, sadly, the Bedouin Sheikh died in 2009 when I returned for the second time to Syria to that region. But I do keep in touch with the clan that saved my grandfather's life. And now since the war began, communication has been really difficult. But one of them has left the region and became a refugee just like my grandfather.
SHAPIRO: Wow, and gone where?
MACKEEN: He made it to Europe and was part of the sea of refugees, you know, going from boat from Turkey to Greece and just what we're seeing in the newspaper. And he's trying to start his life anew there, just like my grandfather did when he came to this country many years ago.
SHAPIRO: How does that parallel make you feel across a century?
MACKEEN: Yeah, I could never have predicted this. I - first of all, finding them was one of the most wonderful moments of my life. But then when the war broke out and one of them told me - and this was even before the Islamic State took over the territory - you know, just dealing with famine and seeing corpses in the street and really struggling to survive, he said, we now know what your grandfather went through.
SHAPIRO: He said that to you?
MACKEEN: He did, he did. And it just - I don't even know what to say. It's just - it's heartbreaking because I don't want anyone else to ever have to go through what my grandfather went through.
SHAPIRO: I want to bring this back around to your grandfather. We know he survived, but ultimately, what happened to him?
MACKEEN: Well, he came to New York with my mother and my aunt in 1930. And he opened a candy store on 133rd and Amsterdam, and he worked around the clock. And then during World War II, he moved to Los Angeles and they kind of steadily started investing. He bought a few apartment buildings and by the time he was in his 80s, he was still climbing onto the roof and fixing the roof.
(LAUGHTER)
MACKEEN: Yeah - he achieved his dream in the United States and was always so happy to be here. He would play "God Bless America" on his accordion.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) If your grandfather were alive today, is there a question you would want to ask him?
MACKEEN: I would ask him what he would want for people to learn from his story. And I believe it's about having history not repeat itself. We have to stop having history repeat itself.
SHAPIRO: Dawn Anahid MacKeen is the author of "The Hundred-Year Walk: An Armenian Odyssey." Thanks so much for talking with us.
MACKEEN: Thank you so much, Ari. It's been a pleasure.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering a travel warning because of a virus that could be harmful to pregnant women and their babies. It's called the Zika virus. It may be causing babies in Brazil to be born with brain damage. NPR's Jason Beaubien reports.
JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE: The Zika virus is named after the Zika Forest in Uganda where it was first identified in the 1940s. For decades, it was a rare disease, primarily popping up in Africa and occasionally in Southeast Asia. In 2007, there was a major Zika outbreak in Micronesia. Then in May of 2015, it turned up in Brazil.
NIKOS VASILAKIS: And within a year, it has just spread throughout the continent.
BEAUBIEN: Nikos Vasilakis at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston says there's great concern about Zika because this once sleepy, mosquito-borne virus is now spreading rapidly.
VASILAKIS: The Brazilian minister of health estimates that anywhere between half a million to 1.5 million people may be infected by the virus.
BEAUBIEN: Last month, the World Health Organization said Zika had spread to eight other countries in the hemisphere. This month, the WHO upped that tally to 14 nations in the Americas. Usually, the virus causes a mild cold, but now it appears that Zika may also be causing babies to be born with small heads and severe brain damage. Brazil has seen this particular form of birth defect called microcephaly skyrocket from 150 to 200 cases a year to more than 3,000 cases in 2015. Vasilakis has been working in northeastern Brazil to help set up monitoring systems for Zika. He says these 3,000 cases are just the tip of the iceberg.
VASILAKIS: We're seeing the events that occurred about 6 or 7 months ago during the first trimester of pregnancy
BEAUBIEN: That means there could be more babies on the way with these severe forms of brain damage. The situation is so bad that some health officials in Brazil have suggested that women in places with high rates of Zika transmission should avoid getting pregnant. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering a travel warning for pregnant women who are heading to Zika-endemic countries, which currently means much of Latin America and the Caribbean. Lyle Petersen, who's leading the CDC's response to the Zika outbreak, says the virus poses a serious threat to travelers.
LYLE PETERSEN: Given the potential and increasingly strong association with these birth defects, this is a matter of some considerable concern.
BEAUBIEN: Petersen says travelers can protect themselves by taking steps to avoid getting bitten by mosquitoes, which he adds was an important thing to do in the tropics even before Zika showed up. Any new travel warning could be devastating to the local tourism industry. Nikos Vasilakis at the University of Texas, however, says that given the damage that this virus may cause to fetuses, he thinks a warning to pregnant women is prudent.
VASILAKIS: If my wife was pregnant or planning to be pregnant, I would not feel comfortable - her traveling to those areas.
BEAUBIEN: The CDC is expected to come out with some new guidance for pregnant women about traveling to Zika-affected countries soon. Jason Beaubien, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Federal officials have released new regulations designed to protect the northern long-eared bat. It's one of the bat species that's been hardest hit by the white-nose syndrome. That's a deadly fungal disease. North Country Public Radio's Brian Mann reports that some environmental activists say the government should be doing more.
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: White-nose syndrome exploded on the landscape here in northern New York in 2007. Federal biologists say the disease killed six million bats as it spread across much of the U.S. and Canada. Dan Ashe, who heads the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, says by labeling northern long- eared bats as threatened, biologists will now be able to do more to protect the caves where they hibernate and part of the forest where they live in the summer.
DAN ASHE: And then it allows us to provide protections to maternity trees - so protecting that vulnerable life stage when the bats are having pups and when the pups cannot fly.
MANN: Northern long-eareds were once one of the most common bats in the country. Found from North Carolina to Montana and Wyoming, they're voracious hunters and play a big role controlling insects. Some environmentalists say Ashe's agency should've gone farther, adding these animals to the endangered species list, the highest protection allowed by federal law.
MOLLIE MATTESON: The species, by any sensible measure, clearly deserves endangered status. It's dying at rates of 90 percent to 100 percent.
MANN: Mollie Matteson is with the Center for Biological Diversity in Vermont, where some of the biggest bat die-offs occurred. She says these new regulations still allow risky development by wind farms, loggers, and oil and gas companies.
MATTESON: The Fish and Wildlife Service has now basically opened the door for any and all kinds of activity that may affect this bat and its habitat.
MANN: Dan Ashe, head of the Fish and Wildlife Service, thinks these regulations will prompt companies to work more cautiously in forests where northern long-eared bats live. He says biologists will monitor how well the new rules are protecting crucial habitat.
ASHE: Certainly, in the future, I could see a potential that its status would change to endangered. And so the meantime, people shouldn't, you know, be relaxing. We should be working with the wind industry, and the oil and gas industry, and utility industry and others to put in place durable protection.
MANN: It's unclear just how effective regulations like this will be in saving northern long-eared bats. After all, it's that deadly fungal disease that's pushing them to the brink and scientists still have no way of stopping it. White-nose syndrome is now in 26 states, turning up this winter in Nebraska. It's expected to keep spreading until it reaches the West Coast. For NPR News, I'm Brian Mann in Northern New York.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The secretive sale of Nevada's largest newspaper to the family of one of the wealthiest men in the country last month set off shock waves there. A new editor at the paper has devised ways that the paper will cover the new owner, the billionaire casino magnate and Republican donor Sheldon Adelson. His ownership of the paper raises serious concerns. NPR's David Folkenflik talked to one of Adelson's newest employees who has covered him for years and went broke facing him in court.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: The sale of the Las Vegas Review-Journal in December came as a shock to employees. The identity of the new owner wasn't initially revealed. John L. Smith had a strong hunch.
JOHN L. SMITH: I think those were the first two words I said were Sheldon Adelson.
FOLKENFLIK: Smith has written for the Review-Journal for three decades. He writes five columns a week with a keen eye on the engines that drive the region.
SMITH: Locals, if they're here long enough, they view Las Vegas as a glitzy factory town. Much in the same way that the auto industry has been so big in Detroit, gaming and tourism is essential, you know, to Las Vegas development and growth.
FOLKENFLIK: No one eclipses Adelson there.
SMITH: There are companies with more casinos, but I think Sheldon's personality, his dramatic, tremendous success in Macau, his obvious embrace of Republican Party politics and willingness to dump millions and millions of dollars into the presidential campaign - this makes him a pre-eminent player.
FOLKENFLIK: Even after many cutbacks, the paper remains the largest news outlet in the state. Despite the secrecy of the sale, the newsroom scrambled to confirm the Adelson family's acquisition of the Review-Journal and other embarrassing details. Mike Hengel was the Review-Journal's editor and oversaw that reporting.
MIKE HENGEL: It takes a lot of courage on their part, not just skill, but courage. You know, it'd be easy to say oh, I don't want to touch this. This is radioactive. But they went after it.
FOLKENFLIK: Hengel is gone now, compelled to take a buyout in December. When John Smith riled Adelson a decade ago, it had enduring consequences.
Adelson sued Smith over a 2005 book called "Sharks In The Desert." Smith devoted a chapter to Adelson's rise in the working-class South Boston neighborhood of Dorchester. The passage sparking the lawsuit noted Adelson's early investments in vending machines. It also explored organized crime's presence in that trade, though it made no specific claims involving Adelson. Adelson alleged his repetition had been badly damaged. The billionaire sought $15 million from Smith.
SMITH: I was sued at a time my daughter was in the hospital being treated for brain cancer. She survived surgery and repeated chemotherapy and radiation.
FOLKENFLIK: Smith and his book publisher issued some corrections, even offered to publish them in his column. Adelson wanted something else, a kind of apology, offered initially, Smith said, through a rabbi.
SMITH: I was told that if I would admit that I meant to malign him and libel him and paid a dollar judgment, which would have ended my career, he offered $200,000 in a medical account as long as I didn't inform my bosses.
FOLKENFLIK: To make the stakes very clear, the casino mogul dangled $200,000 for Smith's daughter's medical treatment if Smith would admit libel, a cardinal journalistic sin. Instead, Smith filed for bankruptcy. Court documents cited more than $200,000 in legal fees and medical bills he could not pay.
SMITH: I thought it was particularly cruel quite frankly. But you know, we just soldiered on.
FOLKENFLIK: I asked Ron Reese about that suit. He's a senior vice president at the Las Vegas Sands Corporation controlled by the Adelson family.
RON REESE: Las Vegas Sands operates in an extremely competitive and highly regulated industry, which requires complete transparency and the highest ethical standards.
FOLKENFLIK: As a result, Reese says, Adelson's reputation means everything.
REESE: Whether it's, you know, careless reporting or malicious political attacks that impugn his reputation, he frankly has an obligation to the company's shareholders and the 50,000 employees of this company to set the record straight.
FOLKENFLIK: After several years, Adelson dropped the libel suit against Smith. Smith emerged from bankruptcy in 2011. Smith and his wife divorced several months later, and he subsequently wrote about his own treatment for cancer. In the years since, Smith has shared a few pictures of his daughter Amelia on his Twitter account.
SMITH: She is disabled today. She uses a wheelchair to get around, but she's doing just great. She's working on life every day, as we all are.
FOLKENFLIK: In 2013, Adelson sued a Wall Street Journal reporter in Hong Kong for calling him foul-mouthed in an article about a lawsuit alleging corruption in his Macau casinos. In court documents, The Journal argued that was intended to get her off the beat. Reese, the Sands executive, tells NPR he thinks it's a fair question whether the reporter now has a conflict of interest.
FOLKENFLIK: In Las Vegas, Smith has continued to write about Adelson, even since the family's purchase of his paper.
SMITH: Giving him the benefit of the doubt going forward, I think, is important. But the bottom line is I don't think he should own this or any newspaper.
FOLKENFLIK: In recent days, the paper's new acting editor says there's money to hire more reporters and has adopted a detailed policy spelling out exactly how the Review-Journal will cover Adelson.
For now, Smith says, he's still paid to have opinions about greater Las Vegas, even the ones about his paper's new owner.
David Folkenflik, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
It's game time. Chris Christie's been saying that for a while now, and tonight, it is game time. The Republican presidential candidates will be on stage in South Carolina for their latest debate. The field's narrowed a bit since the last time. George Pataki and Lindsey Graham are gone. And the host of tonight's debate, the Fox Business Network, has invited just seven candidates to the main stage. Believe it or not, that's the fewest yet. NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson is in Charleston and joins us now. Hi, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: What's dynamic that you're watching for tonight?
LIASSON: Well, the dynamic I'm watching for tonight is whether or not there's going to be a big showdown between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Sometimes the candidates decide to pull their punches on the debate stage, but these two men have been battling furiously on the campaign trail. They're first and second in the polls, and they're practically tied in Iowa. And Trump has begun questioning whether Cruz is constitutionally qualified to be president. Is he a natural-born citizen?
Cruz was born in Canada. His mother was a U.S. citizen. His dad was born in Cuba. Of course, in true Trump fashion, he says he's not bringing this up. He's just hearing it from others, including Democrats.
SHAPIRO: Right.
LIASSON: But they're going to sue Cruz. Now, Cruz, who, at first, handled all the Trump attacks with humor so as not to alienate the Trump voters he really wants, has begun to push back harder. He said that Trump has New York values, and that is real dog whistle to his conservative evangelical supporters in Iowa.
SHAPIRO: There was a story about Cruz that popped up last night regarding loans to his 2012 Senate campaign in Texas. Tell us the story and whether you think it'll have an impact on the race.
LIASSON: Well, this is a low-interest loan that his wife got through her employer, Goldman Sachs - big Wall Street investment bank. And he failed to disclose it properly on his federal election commission form. He did disclose it on his personal financial forms. And this loan helped Cruz finance his Senate race.
SHAPIRO: One question I have is, if this New York Times story hurts him, will it be because he failed to disclose or because he got a big loan from Goldman Sachs while running against Wall Street and the big banks?
LIASSON: Who knows? I think that probably the Goldman Sachs part of the story is a little more controversial than just getting a loan. But the big question is, is it going to hurt him? One of the biggest applause lines in this Republican race has been attacks on the media. And I think Cruz can brush this one away, saying, see; The New York Times doesn't want me to be the nominee, so they ran this story today.
SHAPIRO: Apart from Trump and Cruz, the more establishment Republican candidates have had a hard time getting traction this year. What are you looking for from them?
LIASSON: Well, there's been a big battle in the establishment lately. The establishment wants to coalesce behind Marco Rubio. Every week, Rubio gets a new billionaire in his corner or a new congressional endorsement, but because he's taking so much incoming fire from Chris Christie and Jeb Bush, he hasn't been able to consolidate establishment support. So we'll see what happens in that lane tonight. Does Rubio push back at them, or does he see his real obstacle to the nomination as Ted Cruz because there's been a big Cruz-Rubio fight going on too?
SHAPIRO: Now, looking at the big picture, we're less than three weeks away from the Iowa caucuses. Do you get the sense that the Republican Party is coming around to the idea that Donald Trump could actually end up being the nominee?
LIASSON: Yes. I think some parts of the Republican establishment are coming around. One conservative commentator tweeted today that fear and loathing is turning into rationalization and resignation. And you do hear Republican voices saying, well, maybe he could beat Hillary Clinton. And when Donald Trump unleashed that barrage of attacks against Bill Clinton's sex scandals, he showed Republicans that he really could take on the Clintons.
Now, is this wishful thinking, or is it the Stockholm syndrome? We're not sure. On the other hand, the establishment can't stand Ted Cruz either, but many establishment figures prefer Cruz to Trump. The bottom line is, this is a party in turmoil. They're being pulled in two very different directions, and hopefully this primary will sort it out.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Mara Liasson covering tonight's Republican presidential debate in South Carolina. Thanks, Mara.
LIASSON: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
On the Democratic side, the nice, polite race for the presidential nomination changed this week into more of a battle. NPR's Tamara Keith reports that with voting just over two weeks away, the frontrunners - Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton - are making what you might call their closing arguments.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: In television interviews and press releases, tweets and hastily arranged conference calls, the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are doing battle over policy with a hint of something more fundamental about who the candidates are and what they stand for. Take this ad released today by Bernie Sanders contrasting himself with Hillary Clinton on Wall Street reform.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BERNIE SANDERS: There are two Democratic visions for regulating Wall Street. One says it's OK to take millions from big banks and then tell them what to do. My plan - break up the big banks.
KEITH: This follows a newly sharpened stump speech and a whole series of ads from Hillary Clinton this week.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HILLARY CLINTON: It's time to pick a side. Either we stand with the gun lobby, or we join the president and stand up to them.
KEITH: In addition to guns, Clinton and her surrogates are also going after Sanders on taxes and how he'd pay for his Medicare For All plan. This, as a Des Moines Register Bloomberg Iowa poll out today, shows Clinton up in Iowa by only two pints, a major erosion of her lead in just a month. Meanwhile, in New Hampshire, Sanders is pulling firmly ahead. At the Brown and Black Forum on Fusion Television on Monday, Sanders told moderator Jorge Ramos, this may well explain a change in the intensity of the rhetoric.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JORGE RAMOS: Have you noticed lately that she's been getting more aggressive with you?
SANDERS: Yes.
RAMOS: Why is that?
(LAUGHTER)
SANDERS: I don't know. It could be...
RAMOS: You tell me.
SANDERS: It could be that the inevitable candidate for the Democratic nomination may not be so inevitable today.
KEITH: And maybe it was inevitable that these two candidates would start calling each other out by name in political speeches, attacking each other's policy positions and making sure voters know their differences. As Clinton put it in a speech on Tuesday...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CLINTON: We're getting into that period before the caucus that I kind of call the let's-get-real period.
KEITH: Clinton's closing argument is a combination of electability, continuing President Obama's legacy and job readiness.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CLINTON: This is a very consequential caucus because it will set the tone for whether or not we're going to be able to hold onto the White House, build on the progress we've made or watch it get ripped away.
KEITH: For Sanders, the argument is, why settle for the Washington establishment and policy proposals that only go halfway? Join the political revolution, and Bernie Sanders really can win. His campaign manager, Jeff Weaver...
JEFF WEAVER: It's a false case that she's the most electable candidate in the general election. Polls are coming out which show the exact opposite. He did far better against every Republican, right? And in some cases, he was winning against Republicans against whom she was losing.
KEITH: But there are risks in the new tone the campaign has taken on, especially for Sanders, says Bill Burton, who worked on President Obama's campaign in 2008 and is now a Democratic consultant at SKDKnickerbocker.
BILL BURTON: I mean, they made such a big deal out of how they weren't going to attack Hillary Clinton at the beginning of this campaign. So to get to the end and see that the finish line is in sight and suddenly lose sight of that principle - it's not great for the brand.
KEITH: Clinton's brand, for better or for worse, he says, is that of a political creature not afraid to scrap with an opponent, and that's exactly what she's doing now. Tamara Keith, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Today, we're remembering actor Alan Rickman, who has died of cancer at the age of 69. While he played sinister characters in blockbuster films, friends, like Dame Helen Mirren, remember him as warm and gentle. We'll speak with her in a moment. One of Rickman's most famous roles was Hans Gruber in "Die Hard" from 1988.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DIE HARD")
ALAN RICKMAN: (As Hans Gruber) I wanted this to be professional, efficient, adult, cooperative, not a lot to ask. But alas, your Mr. Takagi did not see it that way, so he won't be joining us for the rest of his life.
SHAPIRO: More than a decade later, director Chris Columbus was looking for an actor to play the menacing professor Severus Snape in the Harry Potter films. Rickman's performance in "Die Hard" came to mind.
CHRIS COLUMBUS: There's a complexity to that role and something that's deeply sinister, yet there's a really deep emotional quality to what Alan was doing a "Die Hard." It doesn't make you like him, but it makes you believe he's a real person. Those are the best villains - the villains that actually haunt you because they could be someone that you know.
SHAPIRO: Initially, Columbus says, Rickman resisted the role. Snape seemed to straightforward, too one-dimensional. Then Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling pulled Rickman aside and told him a secret about how the character would evolve in the books that she had not yet written.
COLUMBUS: She had a conversation with Alan, a private conversation, and told him some things that she didn't tell any of us.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Wow.
COLUMBUS: And we - which we found out later on, revealing that the character was much more complex, revealing to him that the character was actually protecting Harry throughout the books. So Alan knew that before anyone else, and that was the moment that he agreed to take on the role.
SHAPIRO: As Snape, Rickman is chilling from the first moment he interacts with the young Harry Potter played by Daniel Radcliffe.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER'S STONE")
RICKMAN: (As Severus Snape) And what is the difference between monkshood and wolfbane?
DANIEL RADCLIFFE: (As Harry Potter) I don't know, Sir.
RICKMAN: (As Severus Snape) Pity. Clearly fame isn't everything, is it, Mr. Potter?
COLUMBUS: Alan never broke character during that. He would break character when I would have a private conversation with him, but with Dan, he was focused as professor Snape. And he managed to get a terrific performance out of Dan just by doing his off-camera work.
SHAPIRO: And did you get the impression that the actor, Daniel Radcliffe, playing Harry Potter as a young kid was actually scared of Alan Rickman?
COLUMBUS: I remember, those first few days of shooting, Dan was terrified. I mean, you know, he was a major presence in any room that he walked into.
SHAPIRO: That's Chris Columbus, the director of the first two Harry Potter movies. Given Rickman's reputation onscreen, it's no surprise that Dame Helen Mirren, a formidable actress in her own right, was a bit intimidated when she first met Rickman decades ago.
DAME HELEN MIRREN: You know, he played these very reserved, sometimes-cold, sometimes-threatening characters on the screen, but the reality of the man was incredible warmth and humor and generosity and wicked fun.
SHAPIRO: And do you have a sense of how he changed as an actor over the decades that you worked with him?
MIRREN: I think - I certainly think that he was a kind of actor who needed to grow into his maturity to realize the potential, the huge potential that he had. You know, some actors, all of their potential is in their youth, and when that passes, their qualities of as an actor pass. But he - Alan was the opposite, and their are other actors who are like that, who, really, their potential is in maturity
SHAPIRO: I think if there is one thing that his fans will remember is his voice.
MIRREN: Yes, that incredible voice that he could play like a sort of wonderful instrument, like a cello or something. He played his voice, and he could be the most subtle of actors. And he could also be quite a big actor. He could do the grandiose performances as well.
SHAPIRO: He told us in an interview in 2007 that he wasn't entirely comfortable with his voice. Let's listen to a little bit of what he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
RICKMAN: What did they say to me? You sound - Alan, you sound as if your voice is coming out of the back end of a drainpipe, was one review from my voice teacher.
MIRREN: (Laughter) I'm sure that was his version of what they probably said to him, which is - which shows his absolute charming wit that he had. Again, I think his voice was probably something, as I said, that he had to mature into. And then there was a moment when the voice and the look and the extraordinary ability just all came together into a sort of perfect - perfectly pitched thing.
SHAPIRO: That's Dame Helen Mirren remembering her friend the late actor Alan Rickman. What a pleasure to speak with you. Thank you very much.
MIRREN: Thank you very much, Ari. Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In Yemen, there has been a sharp increase lately in airstrikes by a Saudi-led coalition. That coalition has received controversial support from the United States. The airstrikes are aimed at rebels called Houthis who have backing from Iran. The number of civilian casualties is soaring, and there is also concern about the use of cluster bombs which are banned by many countries. NPR's Jackie Northam has the latest.
JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: The Saudi-led air campaign against Houthi rebels in Yemen was launched last March. Since then, thousands of civilians have been killed. The strikes slowed for a while late last year as peace talks got underway but returned with a ferociousness in the new year.
BELKIS WILLE: We've seen a real scale-up of airstrikes, particularly on the capital, on Sanaa.
NORTHAM: Belkis Wille is a Yemen specialist with Human Rights Watch and travels there regularly. She says there's an increase in airstrikes in part because the peace negotiations failed, which led to the collapse of a fragile ceasefire and because of increased tensions recently between Saudi Arabia and its regional rival, Iran, which provides some support to the rebels in Yemen. That ratcheted up after Saudi Arabia executed a Shia cleric this month.
WILLE: Because of the tensions right now between Saudi Arabia and Iran, Saudi is lashing out. In Yemen, there's more pressure at home in Saudi Arabia to come home with an absolute victory in a war that has gone on far too long.
NORTHAM: Human Rights Watch also blames the Houthi rebels for civilian casualties, saying it deploys fighters in densely populated areas. But blame from the international community is more often pointed towards the Saudi coalition because the airstrikes do so much more damage. Wille says there is a new concern with the airstrikes, and that's the introduction of cluster bombs in civilian areas. They release and scatter hundreds of smaller bombs which often do not explode until civilians come across them, sometimes years later.
WILLE: A few days ago, we shockingly saw an attack where Saudi Arabia launched cluster munitions in an airstrike on the capital. This was really one of the most flagrant attacks that we've seen since the beginning of the war.
NORTHAM: Wille says those cluster bombs were made in the U.S. and sold to Saudi Arabia in the late-1970s. Nail al-Jubeir, a spokesman at the Saudi embassy in Washington, says Saudi Arabia denies they have used cluster bombs in civilian areas and says it doesn't even possess the kind of bombs Human Rights Watch cited, nor does it need to use 40-year-old weapons.
The U.S. role is also under scrutiny. It's been a major arms supplier to the kingdom for decades and provides the Saudis with intelligence and targeting information. Adam Baron is a Yemen analyst at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
ADAM BARON: The United States is intimately involved in this, whether we're talking about logistical support the United States government is providing or whether we're talking about the fact that the Saudis, by and large, are dropping a number of American weapons on the ground in Yemen.
NORTHAM: Stephen Seche, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen and now with the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, says the White House is trying to push for a negotiated peace settlement, but it may not have much leverage.
STEPHEN SECHE: It's difficult for us to step back from this and say we're trying to sort this out when, in fact, we're supporting very heavily one side in the conflict.
NORTHAM: And, Seche says, the Saudis haven't demonstrated a lot of interest in listening to what the U.S. is saying. Jackie Northam, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
ISIS has claimed responsibly for a coordinated attack in Jakarta, Indonesia, today. Explosions hit a busy shopping area in the center of the city. At least two people were killed in the attack, and more than 20 were injured. Police in Jakarta say five attackers were also killed. Earlier today, I talked to the BBC's Ali Moore. She was reporting from the scene of the attack, and I asked her how it happened.
ALI MOORE: It was just after about 10:30 in the morning local time, and there were two areas of attacks. One was a police post in the middle of a major thoroughfare. You can't really overestimate the extent to which this thoroughfare is the heart of the commercial center of this city - and then just across in the same intersection, one attack at a Starbucks cafe.
So two attacks - we had five attackers who were killed, two in a suicide bombing of the police post and the other three in a gun battle. They attacked the Starbucks cafe. Then they fled to a nearby theater in the same complex, and that's where they were killed in a gun battle with police. The scene has been cleaned up. The police post has been boarded up, and the authorities say this attack is over.
MCEVERS: So are they saying that all the attackers have been either killed or captured at this point?
MOORE: That is my understanding. And there are five of altogether, and - that have been killed, and they have named them all. They range in age from 25 to 42, but there's a lot that we don't know because none of them were known extremist as such. So in terms of their background, that's the big question. Are any of these people people who had fought with the Islamic State in Syria because that's, of course, been the big worry in a country like Indonesia, is the extent to which the rise of the Islamic State will have an impact on local terrorist groups. There are hundreds of Indonesians who are fighting in Syria, and, of course, many of them are coming home.
MCEVERS: ISIS has claimed responsibility for this attack, at least online, and the national police spokesman in Jakarta says, we can say that the attackers were affiliated with the ISIS group. What do we know about that?
MOORE: It's a little unclear, but I think the point is that if you look at what the authorities have done in Indonesia in recent years, the last major terrorist attack was 2009 when two luxury hotels in Jakarta were attacked. Since then, the authorities work very hard with the FBI and U.S., with authorities in other countries to crack down on terrorist cells. They've killed a number of extremist leaders. They have arrested a number of other people, and they have been very successful. And any terrorist activity in recent years has really been very limited to local areas, and the police have been a target.
What is different about this, of course, is that it's a Starbucks, which is a symbol of Western, you know, commercialization, and it's the heart of the city. So while it wasn't very big and it wasn't very coordinated, it does seem to indicate a shift. But in terms of the affiliation comment from the head of police, terrorist organizations in this country have been known to be not well-funded, not well-organized. And I guess, you know, the thinking is that there is no structure, no Islamic-State structure, as such, in Indonesia. But we really need to know more about exactly who these five people are to answer those questions.
MCEVERS: That's the BBC's Ali Moore speaking with us from Jakarta, Indonesia. Thank you very much for your time.
MOORE: It's a pleasure.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In Turkey, officials say seven people have been arrested after Tuesday's suicide bomb attack. That attack killed 10 tourists in Istanbul. The investigation has already turned up one sobering similarity with last November's attacks in Paris. NPR's Peter Kenyon reports officials say the Istanbul bomber had been posing as an asylum seeker from Syria.
PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Even as 28-year-old Nabil Fadli was committing his suicide attack in a crowd of tourists outside Istanbul's famous Blue Mosque, Turkish police were working to round up suspected Islamic State supporters. After the bombing rocked the heart of Istanbul's lucrative tourism industry, the roundups intensified with scores of suspects held around the country. But authorities say there are now seven who are being held in connection with Tuesday's bombing. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu meanwhile confirmed that the suicide bomber was staying in Istanbul as a refugee.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
AHMET DAVUTOGLU: (Through interpreter) Police were not in pursuit of the bomber. He had come to Turkey as an ordinary refugee. However, after the attack, all his contacts were brought to light.
KENYON: Officials say Fadli crossed into Turkey from Syria, probably in December and possibly illegally. Turkey is dealing with two-and-a-half million Syrians who fled the civil war across the border. Turkish media accounts suggest that Fadli crossed near Sanliurfa based on police checks of his cell phone records, and from there, he traveled to Ankara and then Istanbul. Fadli's fingerprint showed up at an Istanbul government office a week before the bombing when he registered as an asylum seeker. The news renewed anxieties both in Turkey and in Europe that violent extremists may be taking advantage of the migrant crisis to carry out attacks. During a meeting Wednesday with his German counterpart, Turkey's interior minister, Efkan Ala, confirmed the fingerprint evidence.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
EFKAN ALA: (Speaking Turkish).
KENYON: He also said Fadli was not on Turkey's list of wanted potential terrorist, nor was he on the target list of people to watch Turkey receives from other countries. Turkey had at least one other response to the bombing. The prime minister says after the suicide attack, Turkish artillery fired several hundred rounds toward what he called ISIS targets in Syria and Iraq. Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Istanbul.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
A work retreat can bring people together or not. For House and Senate Republicans, their annual three-day retreat has some added pressure. It's an election year. That means along with plotting out their own agenda for the year, they also need to consider how the unpredictable race for the Republican presidential nominee could throw them off track. NPR's Susan Davis joins us from the retreat in Baltimore to talk about what we can expect in 2016 from Capitol Hill. And Sue, what are some of the ideas that Republicans are talking about there that might actually get a vote in Congress this year?
SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: Probably the boldest idea that we've heard has come from the House and from Speaker Paul Ryan. He's saying that he wants Republicans to come up with and put forward a complete alternative to President Obama's health care law.
MCEVERS: I mean, Republican's opposition to that health care law is very well-known. I mean, what's - why is this so important now?
DAVIS: So Republicans have voted to repeal some or all of the president's health care law at least 60 times. What they have never done is put forward how they would do it differently. And part of Paul Ryan's message to his colleagues here ism if we want America to trust us with the White House, we need to actually show them a complete alternative policy vision to how this country should be run.
MCEVERS: We also know that one of the issues that Republicans are talking about is poverty. Why are they talking about that now?
DAVIS: Yeah. This is another imprint of the Paul Ryan era in Congress. This has been an issue that is particularly important to him long before he got into leadership. When he was a rank-and-file member, he went on a national listening tour about the issues of poverty and the causes of it.
As you know, recently, he hosted a presidential candidate forum in South Carolina where - to get candidates to talk about this very issue. And he's said to his colleagues that if Republicans want to be a national governing party, they need to be able to talk about topics that they have historically shied away from. Poverty is one of those topics. It's an area where the Democratic Party has long been seen as a party that's come up with solutions to addressing poverty, programs that have helped the poor and largely seen as Democratic constituencies. And Paul Ryan is saying, look; we need to be able to compete on those grounds, and we need to get comfortable talking about these issues.
MCEVERS: Let's talk about the elephant in the room. I mean, isn't the Republican agenda really going to be set by the presidential nominee and not by Congress?
DAVIS: Right. So that's part of the intrigue of this year's retreat. Republicans say they're not going to take a back seat to defining conservative agenda in this election year. What they're not saying is that if the nominee is Donald Trump, someone who has offered policies that many Republicans oppose - for instance, when he said that we should ban Muslims from entering the country - Republicans say, you know, we're also on the ballot this year, and we have to come up with our own ideas to campaign on to differentiate ourselves from the nominee if it is Trump. Senator John Thune - he's a Republican from South Dakota - we asked him about this dynamic this morning, and this is what he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
JOHN THUNE: Well, you know, I think, in a presidential campaign, the rhetoric gets kind of hot. I mean, it's just inevitable. And you know, we can't control what presidential candidates are going to say or going to do. The only thing we can do is control what we do here and what we do as individual members of Congress.
DAVIS: Now, Thune says he's optimistic that at the end of the day, the eventual nominee and Republicans in Congress are going to be on the same page, and, in his words, their agendas will synch up. But you have to member that this year, the U.S. Senate is also up at stake and that lawmakers don't want to leave anything to chance when it comes to keeping control of Congress.
MCEVERS: And I'm just trying to image politicians getting together for a retreat. I mean, is this, like, your typical work retreat?
DAVIS: Yes. I mean, there's no trust circles, so we don't have that. But they do have some trademark things of worker get-togethers. They've had a couple inspirational speakers. They've had the founder of Sam Adams Beer as well as one of the founders of Fitbit come and talk about entrepreneurship and starting small businesses in America. And in a large part, there's a lot of social aspect to it. It's a good way for members just to get out of town and get to know each other a little bit better.
MCEVERS: That's NPR's Sue Davis. Thanks so much.
DAVIS: Thanks, Kelly.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is the emptiest it's been in nearly 14 years. Fewer than a hundred detainees remain after 10 were transferred last night to Oman. That's the largest group ever sent to a single nation. It's all part of President Obama's drive to close the military prison before he leaves office. Joining us to talk about it is NPR's national security correspondent David Welna.
Hi David.
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: Hey Ari.
SHAPIRO: First tell us more about this latest transfer of 10 detainees to Oman.
WELNA: Well, all 10 of them are from Yemen, like most of the detainees who've been held in Guantanamo for years after being cleared for release. The problem's been where to send them because Yemen's been so chaotic that no detainee's been sent there for more than six years. Two dozen countries have received Guantanamo detainees who can't go home. None has taken in more of them than Oman.
SHAPIRO: Take a step back, David, and remind us of the broader history of detainee transfers out of Guantanamo Bay.
WELNA: Right. Well, the Bush administration did manage to move out more than 500 captives, but President Obama has run into a lot more political resistance, especially from Congress. Obama has managed to transfer 34 detainees in the past year. That still leaves 34 others who've also been cleared for release, and the administration aims to have all of them out by this summer.
SHAPIRO: How realistic does that sound to you?
WELNA: Well, you know, it would require a lot more cooperation from Capitol Hill. Just today, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce issued a statement saying, quote, "the administration's mad rush to push detainees on allies and partners has to stop." That follows the collective tug on the ear that Obama gave lawmakers the other night in his State of the Union address. The nation's leadership worldwide, he told them, depends on the example it sets.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: That's why I will keep working to shut down the prison at Guantanamo. It is expensive, it is unnecessary and it only serves as a recruitment brochure for our enemies.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: There's a better way.
SHAPIRO: There's a better way. Any idea what that way might be?
WELNA: Well, you know, the president gave no details the other night, but he has promised to send Congress a plan for closing Guantanamo. Some of it was revealed today by Defense Secretary Ash Carter who was installing a new commander to oversee Guantanamo. While he noted that the detainee population there now stands at 93, Carter also warned that not everyone can be safely transferred to another country.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ASH CARTER: So we need an alternative. I've therefore framed for the president a proposal to establish an alternative location. That plan will propose bringing those detainees to an appropriate secure location in the United States. Congress has indicated a willingness to consider such a proposal.
WELNA: But Carter did not say Congress has shown a willingness to approve such a proposal.
SHAPIRO: That being the case, do you think this plan to move detainees to the U.S. stands any chance of passing?
WELNA: Well, during this election year, I'd say it's zero to none in terms of chances. Congress has already banned any funds from being used to transfer or house Guantanamo detainees on U.S. soil, and House Speaker Paul Ryan was pretty blunt late last year when asked about other options for those captives.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PAUL RYAN: I think Guantanamo detainees should be in Guantanamo.
WELNA: You know, I don't think administration officials really expect Congress to play ball on this. Once that becomes clear, if a plan to close Guantanamo does get rejected, I think the president would either have to give up or act on his own. And some former administration officials have urged him to use his power as commander-in-chief to shut down Guantanamo and bring the five dozen or so nontransferable detainees here to the U.S. White House officials won't confirm he'd do that, but they're also not ruling it out.
SHAPIRO: OK. Thanks for the update.
WELNA: You're welcome.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's national security correspondent David Welna.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
There are no bats in this year's Oscar nominations. We're going to have to wait until later this year for the big "Batman v Superman" movie. But there are lots of other films to talk about. And joining us to discuss are our film reviewer Bob Mondello and Linda Holmes, who writes for the NPR pop culture blog Monkey See.
Welcome to both of you.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Good to be here.
LINDA HOLMES, BYLINE: Thanks, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Let's first talk about who the big winners were. Linda Holmes, "The Revenant" comes away with 12 nominations, most of any film.
HOLMES: Yes, and that means now I have to see, which I've been putting off...
(LAUGHTER)
HOLMES: ...I must admit. That one and also "Mad Max: Fury Road," which is - got a whole bunch of nominations and is a tremendously fun movie.
MONDELLO: Well, and the "The Martian," which we both loved.
HOLMES: That's right.
MONDELLO: That one's just great, but those are big pictures already.
SHAPIRO: Let's listen to a little bit of "The Martian."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE MARTIAN")
MATT DAMON: (As Mark Watney) So I've got to figure out a way to grow three years' worth of food here on a planet where nothing grows.
SHAPIRO: These are movies that a lot people saw. We're not talking about nominations for teeny little arty films that people might not have heard of.
HOLMES: Right. And there have been years when that is very much what happens, when you look at the nominations and you think, very few of these have made a lot of money, and very few of them are going to be familiar to the large audience that they hope to attract for the ceremony on TV.
MONDELLO: In fact, that's why they expanded to 10 a couple of years ago. And I think a lot of people...
SHAPIRO: Best picture nominees, you mean.
MONDELLO: Best picture nominations - I think a lot of people were kind of hoping that "The Force Awakens" would be nominated...
SHAPIRO: The latest "Star Wars" movie.
MONDELLO: ...For this. And it would sort of guarantee a huge audience for the Oscars on television.
SHAPIRO: When you move from the best picture nominees to the nominations for best actor and actress and supporting actor and actress, the big story seems to be that for the second year running, there is not one nominated performer who isn't white.
HOLMES: And it's - I think people knew this might happen but were holding out hope for a couple of different performances, probably, most especially, Idris Elba in "Beasts Of No Nation" or my personal pick, Michael B. Jordan in "Creed," who's fantastic.
SHAPIRO: Bob, why do you think these actors of color consistently get passed over when it comes Oscar nomination time?
MONDELLO: Well, the folks who are voting on the Oscars are overwhelmingly white, are overwhelmingly male, are overwhelmingly older. That's a sort of a rationale. You can say well, OK, there's not a lot of diversity in the folks who are voting. But I think the real reason is there haven't been a lot of opportunities for people of color in Hollywood for years. They're forever doing studies of that. And if they aren't on screen very much, then it's going to be hard for them to get nominated.
SHAPIRO: When I read through the list of nominations, as we said, there are big blockbuster films that everybody saw. The one movie that really stood out to me that got a lot of nods - and I, frankly, admit I didn't even know it existed - is "Room," which was an adaptation of a book. Let's listen to a clip
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ROOM")
BRIE LARSON: (As Ma) Do you remember how Alice wasn't always in Wonderland?
JACOB TREMBLAY: (As Jack) She fell down, down, down, deep in a hole.
LARSON: (As Ma) All right, well I wasn't always in room. I'm like Alice. I was a little girl named Joy.
TREMBLAY: (As Jack) Nah.
LARSON: (As Ma) And I lived in a house with my mom and my dad.
HOLMES: Yes. It's an adaptation of an Emma Donaghue novel. She adapted it herself. The young actress who is in that film, Brie Larson, who's also nominated, is fantastic in that movie. It's very wrenching. It's about a woman who's held prisoner for a long time with her young son.
SHAPIRO: Strangely, Bob, the list of animated films that received nominations this year is kind of obscure.
MONDELLO: Yeah, well, actually, what's interesting - "Inside Out"...
SHAPIRO: The Pixar film, yeah.
MONDELLO: Made it, and everybody sort of expected that. But the other Pixar film that came out, "The Good Dinosaur," did not make the list. My own personal favorite is "Anomalisa," which is a puppet movie that is very adult and is...
SHAPIRO: By Charlie Kaufman.
MONDELLO: Charlie Kaufman - it's every bit as strange as "Being John Malkovich" was, which is all by Charlie Kaufman.
HOLMES: One interesting note about the animated categories is there's usually very little love for animated shorts. People don't talk about it a whole lot, but one of the few really shining examples of getting out of that experience of exclusively white people making movies about themselves was "Sanjay's Super Team," which is the short that played before "The Good Dinosaur," which was not nominated. But "Sanjay's Super Team" is nominated, and that's a fantastic short. And I hope that everybody will get a chance to seek it out.
SHAPIRO: Before we wrap up, I would like you each to name one nomination you saw on this list and said, yes and one nomination you saw on this list and said, are you kidding me - really?
MONDELLO: (Laughter).
SHAPIRO: Linda, you first.
HOLMES: I think my nomination was probably "Room" on the list of best picture candidates because I just think it's such a good movie and so easily, as you demonstrated, overlooked.
(LAUGHTER)
HOLMES: And the one that probably frustrated me the most is - I admire Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks and all those people, but to me, "Bridge Of Spies" is not as good as the other movies that are in this best-picture category. There are other things I would've chosen.
SHAPIRO: OK, Bob, your fist pump and your what-the-what.
MONDELLO: I was so excited about Charlotte Rampling getting nominated for "45 Years."
HOLMES: That's a great one, too.
MONDELLO: She is so fantastic in that picture, and the last, like, 12 seconds of it is just amazing.
And the thing that just - I could not believe - how did it get nominated was in best song, the melody-challenged "Writing's On The Wall" from "Spectre." I swear it doesn't have a melody.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) In honor of that, let's go out on Sam Smith's "Spectre" theme song.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WRITING'S ON THE WALL")
SAM SMITH: (Singing) Because the writing's on the wall.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Bob Mondello reviews for us, and Linda Holmes is our pop culture blogger on Monkey See. Thanks to both of you.
MONDELLO: Great to be here.
HOLMES: Thanks, Ari.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WRITING'S ON THE WALL")
SMITH: (Singing) That haunt me from my past...
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
All right. Now to Iowa, where the caucuses will be held on February 1. Here's how it works. It's a pretty low-tech situation. Republicans often cast their ballots on slips of paper. Democrats count their support for candidates by grouping together in corners. That approach has led to some problems, most notably in 2012. So now, as NPR's Scott Detrow reports, the caucuses are finally getting a tech upgrade.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: Four years ago, it took about three weeks to figure out who won Iowa's Republican caucuses. There were a lot of reasons for the mix-up - close race between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum, but especially major problems counting precinct-level results. So this time around, both the Republicans and Democrats in Iowa have turned to a solution that many of us use to get better organized, a smartphone app. The specially-developed program will keep track of each precinct's tally and send the results to party headquarters in Des Moines.
ALEX LATCHAM: This is the biggest change this year from in years past, OK?
DETROW: It's a chilly December night in the Greenville, Iowa, and Adair County's precinct volunteers are sitting around a tiny insurance office preparing for February 1. Aside from the app, most of this is old hat for the dozen or so people that the Iowa GOP's Alex Latcham is talking to.
LATCHAM: A couple of you now have been caucusing longer than I've been alive.
DETROW: Latcham has held this meeting hundreds of times already. It's his job to go over all the details - how to register new voters, when to pass out ballots, even details like when to ask for party donations.
LATCHAM: It's very important that you do this before the presidential vote has been taken, OK? First of all, you'll have people leave after the vote. Second of all, people will be less inclined to give if their guy has just lost.
DETROW: The app itself is pretty straightforward and stripped-down. It kind of looks like a big calculator. Once a precinct has its results tallied, someone will open up the app to type in results.
LATCHAM: At this point, this is where the security step comes into play. This is called two-stage authentication. Basically, Ryan will then receive a text message on his telephone, OK, and that text message is good for 15 minutes.
DETROW: The volunteer - in this case, County Chair Ryan Frederick - then simply types in the total number of caucusers and each candidate's total. When party officials review results, the software will flag precincts where the results look funny - far too many or too few people showing up, for example.
RYAN FREDERICK: For those of you who remember the good old days, this is so much better. (Laughter).
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yeah, it sounds like it.
DETROW: That's Frederick, who's sitting across the conference table from Latcham. Frederick says it was easy to make mistakes with the old system where volunteers punched results into an automated hotline. The caucus app makes complete sense to Frederick, who's in his 30s and uses his Android phone for just about everything.
FREDERICK: If it isn't in this phone, it doesn't exist. So (laughter)...
DETROW: But not everyone feels that way. Many caucus-goers are older, and Latcham says he's spent a lot of training time just showing people how to download and install apps on their phones. That's a main reason why Microsoft and both parties are doing so many test runs before February 1. As Frederick puts it as the training session wraps up...
FREDERICK: With something like, you know, the future of the free world, you want to be sure you got it right.
DETROW: And that prospective leader of the free world will probably want to know that night whether or not he or she won the caucus. Scott Detrow, NPR News, Des Moines, Iowa.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Iraqi declared victory against ISIS in the city of Ramadi a couple of weeks ago. But even if that is true in most of the city, clearing the last ISIS holdouts has been a bloody and exhausting task. NPR's Alice Fordham went to Ramadi, and she found that there is still heavy fighting, and civilians are running for their lives across enemy lines.
ALICE FORDHAM, BYLINE: It's early morning, and I'm heading into Ramadi with the Iraqi government counter-terror forces. The first thing that strikes me is the devastation after months of fighting.
As we get further in, the destruction is more complete. Most of the houses seem to have been hit by airstrikes - big buildings with roofs caved. The palm trees are - palm trees are destroyed. The walls are destroyed. Everything's kind of flattened.
And as we drive into the city center, it becomes clear the combat is still intense. Helicopters buzz overhead. They're passing every few minutes and laying down covering fire while warplanes for the U.S.-led coalition also launch attacks. We get to a place a few blocks from the front lines. There's a makeshift headquarters here. The special forces take me up to the roof.
From here, I can see a panorama of the city. The center of the city is not as badly damaged as the outside. But when I turn around and look a little bit toward the southeast, it's clear that the fighting is still going on. There's shelling from Iraqi army helicopters. There's coalition airstrikes, which are sending up huge clouds of smoke in the distance.
SGT. MAJ. RAED MOHAMMAD: (Foreign language spoken).
FORDHAM: Down on a street littered with shell casings, Sgt. Maj. Raed Mohammad tells me why there's still so much fighting in a city where victory was declared against ISIS weeks ago.
MOHAMMAD: (Foreign language spoken).
FORDHAM: He says, "we're having to use different tactics now because there's so many civilians in the remaining ISIS-held area." Earlier in the Ramadi battle, the Iraqi military, backed by coalition airstrikes, was able to push fast into largely depopulated streets. Now, the front line is relatively static. On one side of a city road are Iraqi forces. On the other is ISIS, with maybe a thousand families they've dragged along with them as they've withdrawn into this last holdout.
MOHAMMAD: (Foreign language spoken).
FORDHAM: "We're trying to rescue them," Mohammed says. Every day, hundreds of civilians come running across the front lines, dodging ISIS fire, waving white flags, trying to get to the security forces. Many die in the attempt or get injured. And we see some up the street. Outside one of the city's biggest mosques is an ambulance, stretchers, soldiers.
Standing outside the big mosque, and the soldiers are treating 1, 2, 3, 4 wounded children. They're putting iodine on their wounds. The kids are - they don't seem to be badly injured, except one little boy who's been hit in what looks like the base of his spine. They're obviously terrified.
When soldiers ask one little boy where he came from, he says they ran away from the ISIS-held area Sofia.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Foreign language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (Foreign language spoken).
FORDHAM: But another family was with them, and they were hit by ISIS and didn't make it. I ask a 16-year-old who gives her name only as Jinan, how they escaped.
JINAN: (Foreign language spoken).
FORDHAM: She says ISIS said they'd shoot anyone who tried to leave. Today, an airstrike hit nearby, which is how the children were injured. But in the confusion, they all seized the chance to flee. Right now, hundreds of civilians are running always like this every day. The soldiers take them to the improvised base on the outskirts. They give medical aid, food and water and take the men away for questioning to see if they're involved with ISIS, leaving the women and children. At that base, I speak with Hashima Ibrahim, who tells me she escaped at dawn.
HASHIMA IBRAHIM: (Foreign language spoken).
FORDHAM: She ran two miles barefoot.
IBRAHIM: (Speaking foreign language).
FORDHAM: She says they've been drinking rainwater. Conditions in the city worsened dramatically during the seven months ISIS were in control, as security forces severed supply lines. Water, food and electricity supply have been cut off for three months.
IBRAHIM: (Foreign language spoken).
FORDHAM: ISIS moved them from place to place as Iraqi security forces pushed into the city. The extremists said come with us or we'll blow up your house. Most of Ramadi is indeed now held by Iraqi security forces. But with thousands trapped in that last pocket of ISIS control, victory doesn't seem quite complete. U. S. and Iraqi officials are already talking about pushing ISIS out of other cities - crowded cities where progress will be slow and where ordinary people will, once again, be on the frontlines. Alice Fordham, NPR News, Ramadi.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
If you are licensed to do so, you can now walk around Texas with a handgun on your belt. The state's new open carry law took effect the first of the month. The legislature passed it after emotional protests from both sides of the issue. But now that it's been in effect for a couple of weeks, NPR's John Burnett reports it's not very popular with gun owners.
JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: So we're walking through a Wal-Mart here in Austin. And I'm with Michael Cargill and Trina Spells, both open-carrying handguns. What kind of a gun do you have?
TRINA SPELLS: I have a .38 revolver.
MICHAEL CARGILL: And I have a 1911 Springfield.
BURNETT: And no one is really paying attention to the handguns on your hips.
CARGILL: Oh, and, oh, my goodness we're African-American.
SPELLS: (Laughter) We forgot that one small detail.
BURNETT: Cargill and Spells are both handgun instructors and firearms enthusiasts, and they couldn't wait to take advantage of the new law. The open-carry crowd says now they can better protect themselves. They don't have to bother with concealing a gun, and anyway, it was already legal in 44 other states, so why not in gun-loving Texas?
As the well-armed duo saunters out the exit doors, one shopper does a wide-eyed double-take, but he doesn't say anything. Yet even if the man had been bothered by a loaded handgun, Michael Cargill shrugs it off.
CARGILL: No, it's not about what they feel. It's not about what they think. The law says that I can conceal-carry my handgun, and now, as of January 1, 2016, it says I can openly carry that handgun. It's all about personal safety.
BURNETT: Personal safety can cut both ways. Open-carry is controversial among gun owners. Some say putting a gun on your belt discourages troublemakers. They love to say an armed society is a polite society. Others say it invites trouble. I put the question to Sam Toups and Monica DeLeon. They're 25 and 23 years old. He works at an IT company in Austin. She's a student. We're sitting in a beer garden. Sam and Monica just got their handgun licenses.
SAM TOUPS: If you are, say, in a scenario where someone comes into a convenience store...
BURNETT: A bad guy.
TOUPS: I would prefer concealed because I wouldn't have a target necessarily automatically painted on my back. Anybody with some working eyeballs can see, all right - that guy - he has a gun, and I need to take care of that first.
MONICA DELEON: You're obviously just trying to get a rise out of someone. You're obviously just trying to make other people uncomfortable. And to be honest, you probably have a really small [expletive]. I'm, like - I automatically think that you're a stupid, low self-esteem person because you need this big ol' truck or you need this big ol' gun to make you feel like a bigger person. I think it's silly, and I don't think it's safe.
BURNETT: Nearly a million Texans have license-to-carry permits or about 3 percent of the state's population. But in the past few weeks under the new law, the streets of Texas have not turned into the O.K. Corral. I've been quizzing acquaintances and strangers all around Central Texas, and they've spotted only a few people openly displaying handguns. In an unforeseen backlash, the new law may actually hurt the cause of handgun carriers. Since January 1, some Texas businesses that formally allowed concealed carry have now decided to ban every form of carry.
MICHAEL PORTMAN: What changed January 1 was that my staff freaked out.
BURNETT: Michael Portman is co-owner of the Birds Barbershop chain in Austin. Before the law, they allowed concealed carry. Now they're prohibiting all guns.
PORTMAN: And this is not a - even a political issue for us as a business. It's a matter of the comfort of our staff, and they're not comfortable with guns in barber chairs - open-carried or concealed - as they move around with scissors and reach over them with buzzers. It just doesn't mix.
BURNETT: One gun owner complained on a web forum for Texas handgun license holders. The lid is off this can of worms, and it will never go back. I hope the right to walk around looking like Wyatt Earp is worth it to the open-carry folks because a lot of us are losing our right to conceal carry. John Burnett, NPR News, Austin.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The future of eggs appears to be cage free. More than a dozen big food companies have announced that they will buy only cage free eggs in the future. The list includes McDonald's, Denny's and others. The latest announcement came just today. And in a major shift, the egg industry appears to be just fine with this. NPR's Dan Charles is with us. Hi, Dan.
DAN CHARLES, BYLINE: Nice to be here.
SHAPIRO: Is this all driven by concern how the chickens are treated?
CHARLES: Yeah, it is. Egg producers half a century ago put their chickens into cages, essentially, for efficiency reasons. It was a way to mechanize everything. The eggs drop from the chickens and roll in one direction down to a belt which takes them out for processing. Chicken manure drops down onto another belt, which goes a different direction. Basically, it's a way of having large numbers of chickens in one house, and very few people are required to take care of them.
SHAPIRO: But it looks really bad when you see images of all of these chickens crammed into cages, unable to move. Many people see these videos, read articles about it and conclude this is inhumane.
CHARLES: Right. And those videos and stories have had a big effect. Advocates for animal welfare have been campaigning against this for many years. They had a big success in California some years back when a proposition was passed that said all eggs in California have to come from chickens that have the ability to spread their wings and turn around. This came into effect about a year ago. And over the past year, it's gone beyond that. Company after company has announced that, in the future - now, this will take some years, maybe a decade to carry out - but in the future, they will only buy eggs that are cage free. You mentioned some names, but there's also Subway, Costco. And the announcement today came from Mondelez International, maker of Nabisco crackers and Chips Ahoy cookies. I talked to the president of a company called Big Dutchman USA, which makes - it's the biggest maker of these chicken-housing systems, both cages and cage free. His name's Clovis Rayzel. And he said, in the past year, most of their orders are coming from egg producers who want to go cage free.
CLOVIS RAYZEL: This is a very interesting, very big change compared to some years ago. And it is, I would say, even more interesting because we are seeing this change solely based in the market.
CHARLES: By the market meaning that customers are demanding cage free, and farmers are responding.
SHAPIRO: What does that phrase actually mean? What do chickens in a cage-free environment - what does that environment look like?
CHARLES: Yeah, first of all, they are not running around outside on the pasture.
SHAPIRO: This is not "Old Macdonald Had A Farm."
CHARLES: No, this is still a very big barn filled with tens of thousands of chickens, but they have the freedom to go where they want. They can roam around on the floor. They can perch on rails, scratch in the dirt. And they can go into little nests and lay their eggs. But as in the cage systems, the eggs then roll onto a belt and go out to where they're needed.
SHAPIRO: One reason the egg industry resisted this so long was fears that it would drive costs way up. Is that still a concern?
CHARLES: That's right. You know, for years, the industry said this is impossible. We need cages. It's the only efficient way to produce eggs that people can afford. But there were laws in Europe that actually got rid of cages there. And the industry in Europe developed these cage-free systems and refined them. And the industry in the U.S. has figured out that these systems can be efficient, too. Costs are higher - maybe 15 cents per dozen of eggs. But if egg buyers are fine with a little extra cost, the egg producers are happy to switch. Not all of them, but so many are going cage free it's really a sea change in the industry.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Dan Charles covers food and agriculture for us. Thanks, Dan.
CHARLES: Thank you.
MARY BELTMAN: OK. I'm going to go ahead and call the meeting to order. And feel free to go out there and check to see if they've added to the buffet and stuff.
ROBERT SIEGEL, BYLINE: On Monday night, the Osceola County Republican Committee, led by Chair Mary Beltman, met at the Pizza Ranch in Sibley, the county seat. Western Iowa is the more socially conservative, more Republican part of this first in the nation caucus state. Republicans here and all across Iowa are preparing to caucus on February 1, and they're wondering if this year is really going to be different because of Donald Trump.
KOLBY DEWITT: We'll make it as quick and painless as possible.
SIEGEL: That's Kolby DeWitt from the state Republican Party. After the usual buffet supper of pizza and fried chicken, DeWitt was giving instructions for the upcoming caucuses.
DEWITT: So I went around and passed around precinct caucus manuals. So feel free to refer to that. Now, this book is yours to keep.
SIEGEL: Unlike a primary, the Iowa caucuses are run by the parties, not the state. Your local caucus site is not your local polling place, and caucusing entails a greater commitment than voting in a primary.
DEWITT: We have a lot of people that are going to be caucusing for the first time, whether they've been a Democrat in the past, an independent or never even registered to vote, just make sure to let the people know that it's not like a primary or a general. You show up at 7 o'clock, you're going to be prepared to be there for a couple hours and there's a lot of other things than just the presidential vote.
SIEGEL: Four years ago, 120,000 Iowa Republicans caucused. How many first-time caucus-goers are expected this year?
DEWITT: Some are saying 15 percent higher, some are saying 30 percent higher, but we're estimating somewhere between 20 percent and 25 percent higher turnout than in 2012.
SIEGEL: The question is what's going to draw so many people to the Republican caucuses? Traditionally, the way candidates win over Iowans is one small group at a time. This was the scene the other day at the Midwest Deli in another Western Iowa county seat, Holstein.
CARLY FIORINA: You know, I know that you Iowans, I have come to learn, take your caucus responsibilities very seriously.
SIEGEL: Some 50 adults and a small class of kindergarteners were packed into the deli to hear Carly Fiorina urge them to take their country back.
FIORINA: So maybe some of you have already made up your mind to support me or someone else, or maybe most of you are still thinking about who you're going to finally caucus for, but I will tell you this - in your heart of hearts, every single one of you cannot wait to see me debate Hillary Clinton.
SIEGEL: Carly Fiorina, who polls in single digits in Iowa, says she can beat Clinton. And without naming them in this comment, she says that Iowa frontrunners Ted Cruz and Donald Trump cannot.
FIORINA: We're not going to beat her with someone who divides this party. We're not going to beat her with somebody who routinely insults women and everyone else.
SIEGEL: After speaking for about a half an hour, she took questions for another half hour, including one from one of the kindergartners.
PAULA: My name is Paula. Can I be president, too?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yes, you can.
FIORINA: She wants to be president. Absolutely, you can. Absolutely, you can.
SIEGEL: This is retail, face-to-face politics. Holstein, Iowa is home to fewer than 2,000 people.
MARK LEONARD: Just simply, you know, this is a great little town. We all know each other.
SIEGEL: Mark Leonard, who works in the cattle business and banking, is active in Republican politics.
LEONARD: We probably know the party registration of everybody here. A little town like this, nobody uses turn signals because everybody knows where you're going anyway.
SIEGEL: I asked about the arithmetic of this kind of campaigning - a half a day to reach 50 people and not too many days left.
LEONARD: Do remember too, though, the population that will caucus is a relatively small group of people, and those people do go to these events.
SIEGEL: And Gretchen Cooney, who's a bereavement counselor, says people like her, who show up at events like Fiorina's, tell their friends.
GRETCHEN COONEY: As we get word out of who she is and what she stands for, she may see 50 people here, but if each of us talk to so many - I mean, it's just - it just grows and grows.
SIEGEL: Ever since Democrat Jimmy Carter put the Iowa caucuses on the map 40 years ago by playing this kind of political small ball and winning, this has been the Iowa way. It's the way Ted Cruz is campaigning.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: I did modify the precinct page...
SIEGEL: In socially conservative Sioux City, the Woodbury County GOP Committee was meeting Wednesday night to plan for their caucuses. Committee members don't endorse candidates, but some, like Suzan Stewart, say they like the Cruz approach.
SUZAN STEWART: Cruz just completed, like, a 16-city tour of Northwest Iowa. He's the only one that's done anything like that this time.
SIEGEL: He found 16 cities in northwest Iowa?
STEWART: Well, cities are relative.
(LAUGHTER)
STEWART: We think something with 10,000 is a pretty good-sized town.
SIEGEL: So why are Iowa Republicans expecting 20 percent to 25 percent higher turnout on February 1 than they had last time? Well, the polite explanation favored by establishment Republicans here is that it's because there's so much excitement, so many good candidates and so much anger at Washington. The less polite explanation...
(SOUNDBITE OF SURVIVOR SONG, "EYE OF THE TIGER")
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the next president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.
(APPLAUSE)
SIEGEL: This was Trump's rally this week in eastern Iowa, in Cedar Falls. It was in a college gym that was filled to capacity, and the police told me capacity is a thousand. The message here, even before Trump got to the stage, was, don't just rally - caucus. First, from Tana Goertz, his Iowa co-chair who met Trump when he fired her on the TV show, "The Apprentice."
TANA GOERTZ: If you can fill your car with a carload of people, we would be grateful. For those of you that have minivans, we're going to love you even more if you pack your minivan full with people that are going to go caucus for Donald Trump.
SIEGEL: Then this exhortation from Iowa State Senator Brad Zaun.
BRAD ZAUN: But what's most important is these rallies. And everybody that's out there, it's useless if you don't go to the Iowa caucuses and caucus for Mr. Trump.
SIEGEL: And then Donald Trump himself.
DONALD TRUMP: I just met some fantastic-looking people.
SIEGEL: There are so many students here, including high school seniors, and so many untraditional Republican supporters, skeptics doubt they'll show up promptly before 7 p.m. on February 1.
TRUMP: Lot of people are going to come out. You know, the theory is that they'll wait for five hours in a line - hello, darling, look at you. They'll wait for five hours in a line in the cold weather, but they won't caucus, OK? I think they're going to caucus, but let's see what happens.
SIEGEL: Unlike Carly Fiorina in the Midwest Deli, Trump takes no questions. His policy statements are often one-liners.
TRUMP: That Iran deal is the dumbest deal I think I've ever seen. I don't think I've ever seen anything like...
(APPLAUSE)
SIEGEL: People get tickets to Trump events online so the campaign gathers contact information that way. And the Trump campaign has picked up some experience Iowa campaign hands to work on getting out the vote. If this mass movement approach works - inspire the crowd, get them to caucus like it's a tailgate party - then a big turnout on February 1 would spell a very strong Trump showing. Traditional Republicans here may prize the process of caucus campaigning. Trump, who devotes a serious chunk of his speech to citing poll results that he says show he's well ahead everywhere else, Trump is all about winning.
TRUMP: But if we win Iowa, I think we run the table. I really do.
SIEGEL: In Sioux City, Iowa, this is Robert Siegel.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This has been a dramatic week in politics. Here in Washington, President Obama delivered his final State of the Union address. In South Carolina, Republicans met for their latest presidential debate, the most fiery one yet. And in Iowa, caucuses are just a couple of weeks away. To discuss all of this, we're joined by Mary Kate Cary, who's a columnist for U.S. News & World Report, and Joy-Ann Reid, who is a national correspondent for MSNBC.
Welcome to both of you.
JOY-ANN REID: Thank you.
MARY KATE CARY: Thank you.
SHAPIRO: Let's start with last night's debate, where the biggest fireworks were between Donald Trump and Ted Cruz. Here they are debating whether Cruz is eligible to run for president having been born in Canada. Let's listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TED CRUZ: Listen, I've spent my entire life defending the Constitution before the U.S. Supreme Court, and, I'll tell you, I'm not going to be taking legal advice from Donald Trump.
DONALD TRUMP: You don't have to.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: Take it from Laurence Tribe.
(APPLAUSE)
CRUZ: What I'll tell you also...
TRUMP: Take it from your professor.
(APPLAUSE)
SHAPIRO: Mary Kate, you were a speechwriter for the first President Bush. Is it fair to say - you've got your roots in the establishment Republican camp. It sounds like if you were looking for somebody to eclipse Trump last night, it didn't happen.
CARY: I would say that's right.
SHAPIRO: And so is there any hope left for the establishment Republicans to get their guy get in there or do they just have to come to grips with the fact that this is going to be a race in which Trump and Cruz and the other people on what's considered the fringe of the party are going to seize the day?
CARY: Well, for most of the establishment Republicans I've been talking to, I think step one right now is bargain with God. Start begging.
(LAUGHTER)
CARY: Step number two, though - you know, the RNC officially can't do anything. They're supposed to just be the referees here. So the party officially is not going to step in. So of the crowd that I am familiar with, their response is to get to Iowa and New Hampshire. For example, there is a huge crowd of longtime Bush family supporters, and they're all going up to New Hampshire the weekend before the New Hampshire primary and they're going to go door-to-door and work the phone banks and anything else they can do - sit in diners, talk to people. And that's the answer. I assume Rubio people are doing the same thing, I assume Christie people are doing the same thing. And that's what's going to turn it around in their minds. That's how to fix it.
SHAPIRO: Joy, there were a couple of lines in the debate last night about president Obama that rankled a lot of people. Chris Christie called the president a petulant child, and Ted Cruz said, we're going to kick your rear end out of the White House. And some observers said, you'd never make that remark about a white president. What do you think?
REID: Well, I think that gets to the kernel of one of the many ironies of the situation that the establishment of the Republican Party finds itself in because right - so Chris Christie is a part of that establishment wing, but he speaks about the president in such a degrading way as if the president is a child and not the commander in chief of the United States - such a disrespectful way. That's suborned the kind of rage and the kind of paranoia, frankly, that you see among the base of the Republican Party. The problem for the establishment is that they've lost control of it. They suborned things quietly like birtherism. They winked and nodded at ideas like death panels. They have sort of allowed this kind of fury and paranoia to help them win midterm elections, but it's now out of control. So they've both locked themselves out of even the possibility of reaching out, particularly to African-American voters, who read the entire Republican Party - not just Donald Trump, but all of it, every single part of it - as being essentially sowing hatred of the president based at least in part on race. And that bleeds over to Hispanics, it bleeds over to Asian-Americans. It creates a vie that the Republican Party can't fix, and Donald Trump is just better at them at exploiting it.
SHAPIRO: Mary Kate, you're shaking your head. You're looking quizzical.
CARY: Wait, wait. (Laughter). I think, Joy, there are certainly elements of what you're saying that are true, but it seems to me that you're painting with a very broad brush. And there are plenty of good Republicans in the world who are not dealing in hatred and vitriol and racism. And I do think over the last few years when we have these candidates who say these crazy things - the birtherism, you know, things like that that you pointed out - there are people who stand up and say, I disavow that, I don't agree with that.
SHAPIRO: But unfortunately, those people don't seem able to speak for the party in the primary right now - unfortunately for them, unfortunately for the establishment Republicans.
CARY: Right. Yeah. It's a lot more fun to watch Donald Trump, you know, on TV with all this craziness coming out of his mouth than watch somebody disavow it. So that's why.
SHAPIRO: Let's move on to the other big political story this week, President Obama's final State of the Union address, where he talked about one shortcoming of his presidency. Let's listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: It's one of the few regrets of my presidency that the rancor and suspicion between the parties has gotten worse instead of better.
SHAPIRO: Joy, why do you think President Obama has been so unable to bring Republicans into the fold?
REID: I think it was partly on the part of the president of the United States. Barack Obama is - he's accustomed to the way he was able to deal with the other party in Springfield, Ill., where he could go down state and play cards with Republican members and essentially build alliances on the ground that he could then take back with him to the floor of that body. But you have to remember that he also had the support of the president of the Senate. His mentor, Emil Jones, ran the party at that time. He ran the Senate at that time, the state Senate. And so he had a lot of back up and he was able to make those deals because it was Republicans who were in the minority and had to make deals to get things done. I think that the president, because he's grown up in this milieu where he's been able to talk across racial and party lines, presumed he'd be able to do that in Washington. But the fact is that the opposition party made a decision when he first got into office - literally the day of the inauguration, there was a meeting among members of the Republican caucus to include Paul Ryan, to include Kevin McCarthy, who decided that total obstruction was the way they were going to go. I mean, you know, Vice President Joe Biden talks about this, that he would go to his - even his friends in the United States Senate, and they'd say, we can't vote with you, we can't agree with anything that you want to do. Even when they put forward essentially Bob Dole's 1996 health care reform idea, Republicans couldn't vote for it. They couldn't vote for anything. It was total obstruction.
SHAPIRO: Well...
REID: And so I think he was speaking into a void and the president neither deployed fully his rhetorical gifts to try to fix it, nor I think, would it have been very effective, given the strategy on the other side.
SHAPIRO: Well, Joy, if you put a lot of the blame on Republicans, my sense, Mary Kate, is that you think Barack Obama himself stands to blame for alienating Republicans early on.
CARY: I think what started it - here in Washington, at least. I can't speak to the Chicago part like you were, Joy - but in Washington, those first two years when he had both houses of Congress with him, he had absolutely no incentive to reach out to Republicans. And so that sort of started the muscle memory and I think he - he canceled the Congressional barbecues, there weren't movie nights. All the things that used to sort of keep people at the table giving each other the benefit of the doubt have all disappeared under him. And I think that you sort of reap what you sow. And what bothers me is, for example, when he said in the State of the Union peddling fiction and political hot air and things like that, that is very divisive language, and it makes the other side not want to come to the table.
SHAPIRO: That's Mary Kate Cary, former White House speechwriter and columnist for U.S. News & World Report and Joy-Ann Reid, MSNBC national correspondent and author of the new book, "Fracture: Barack Obama, The Clintons, And The Racial Divide."
Thanks to both of you.
REID: Thank you.
CARY: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
All right, so we know it's the new year. We're settled into the fact that it's 2016. And now what we're wondering is, what TV show should we be watching this year? Turns out that NPR pays someone to answer that question, and he is with me now. He is Eric Deggans, our TV critic.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: Best job of the universe - I get paid to watch television, yes.
MCEVERS: (Laughter). So, I mean, you know, Eric, you've spent about a week cooped up at press conferences with the casts and producers of tons of different TV shows. And we want you to tell us what's got you excited for this year.
DEGGANS: Well, you know, what's interesting to me is, like, last year, the TV industry was very much about change. We got these new streaming services popping up. We had TV shows moving from network to online. This year, viewers are going to see less change in the delivery systems, but they're going to see a lot of new material on these platforms. And a lot of this stuff is very, very good.
MCEVERS: All right, so I 'm looking at your list here, and the first thing I see is the second season of ABC's "American Crime," which was created by former NPR contributor John Ridley. Tell us about that.
DEGGANS: Yeah, this is a really fascinating show. So the first season was centered on a murder. And this season focuses on a working-class guy who goes to this tony private high school. He gets drunk at a party. He's sexually assaulted, and then he sees photos of himself spread all over social media. Now, John has taken a lot of these actors that appeared in the first season and cast them in different parts this season. And Andre Benjamin, who's also known as Andre 300, the leader of the rap group Outkast.
MCEVERS: Right.
DEGGANS: He appears here as a wealthy architect whose son hosted the party. Now, Benjamin spoke with reporters, and he said the role kind of resonated with him because it's the same situation he faces in real life. Let's check it out.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANDRE BENJAMIN: You have double challenges because you're black and you're privileged, but at the same time, it puts you in a place to where you're a target because some people may feel like you may not deserve. And me being an entertainer - and not just entertainer, I'm a rapper. So I take my kid to private school now. I may be looked at a little bit differently because they may feel like I may not have earned it.
DEGGANS: Yeah, so you can hear that this season of "American Crime" is going to deal with issues with race, issues of class. It's going to move between a private school, a public school, the homes of all involved. Regina King is amazing as this class-obsessed, borderline racist, wealthy African-American mother. There's a lot there to get into.
MCEVERS: Wow. OK, but "American Crime" is different from "American Crime Story." That's an FX show, actually, about the O. J. Simpson case. What's the deal with the titles?
DEGGANS: Well, that's kind of a coincidence because FX's show follows the form of co-creator Ryan Murphy's other show for FX, "American Horror Story."
MCEVERS: Oh, OK.
DEGGANS: But we've got a great clip from the show - Courtney B. Vance as Simpson's lawyer, Johnnie Cochran, trying to boost the morale of his client during a jailhouse visit. Let's check it out.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "AMERICAN CRIME STORY")
COURTNEY B. VANCE: (As Johnnie Cochran) You're a man who loves people, who people love right back. That's you. You're a fighter. You're a runner. And when you get knocked down, I need you to hop right back up like you know you can and keep going because this right here, this right here, O. J. Simpson, is the run of your life.
DEGGANS: I do know about you, but I'm inspired.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
DEGGANS: Anyway, Vance is great. John Travolta is appropriately creepy as O. J.'s first lead attorney, Robert Shapiro. And there's a lesson for today here, I think. O. J.'s lawyers used suspicion about racist police, particularly after the Rodney King beating, to defend their client against some really strong evidence. And if police cross the line and lose the public trust, that can make it tough to prosecute anyone, and we see that happening today.
MCEVERS: All right, so the last show on your list Showtime's "Billions." This was a new show that you really liked. Tell us why.
DEGGANS: Well, it's the story of two titans really going after each other. Damian Lewis, who some might remember from "Homeland," is a billionaire owner of a hedge fund. And character actor extraordinaire Paul Giamatti is a U.S. attorney who's trying to bring him down. But this story, it's not so much about, you know, the mechanisms of the prosecution or about the details of finance. It's about ego and power and money and machismo. And at every turn, these guys are seeking to prove they are the biggest dogs in the yard. And they're essentially the people who hold the levers of power in our world. So there's this whole framework of family, friendships, business connections, history that goes into that world. And "Billions," which starts on Sunday, just does an amazing job of recreating that world in a way that feels really realistic and compelling.
MCEVERS: That's Eric Deggans, NPR TV critic. Thank you so much.
DEGGANS: Thanks for having me.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
OK, Kelly, guess what these people have in common. Ready? Adolf Hitler, Britney Spears, George W. Bush, Jesus and Michael Jackson.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
I have no idea.
SHAPIRO: Their entries are among the most edited pages on Wikipedia.
MCEVERS: Wikipedia, which, of course, turns 15 years old today.
SHAPIRO: Happy birthday, Wikipedia.
MCEVERS: As we know the entries can be edited by anyone. And this week, the website FiveThirtyEight dug up the most edited pages for each year of Wikipedia's existence.
SHAPIRO: The first one is obvious and not really fair - the page that lists deaths in any given year is constantly being updated.
MCEVERS: Yeah, exactly.
SHAPIRO: But put that aside and FiveThirtyEight quantitative editor Andrew Flowers says things get really interesting.
ANDREW FLOWERS: Wikipedia - maybe this is a testament to its broad appeal - really covers all its bases here. So, for example, in 2012, you have the Syrian Civil War right up there with "Gangnam Style" as the two most edited Wikipedia pages.
SHAPIRO: I believe it's "Gangnam Style."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GANGNAM STYLE")
PSY: (Singing in Korean).
SHAPIRO: That's right - the Korean pop song.
MCEVERS: Right. So it wasn't always this way. In Wikipedia's first year, the entry on creationism was number one with 124 edits. Then it gained steam and...
FLOWERS: There's over 20,000 edits for George W. Bush in 2005.
MCEVERS: George W. Bush is still the most edited Wikipedia entry of all time - 46,000 edits, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Some people get really into editing some obscure Wikipedia pages, and that shows in these numbers. Take last year - after the death page, the most edited one was not about Donald Trump or Star Wars. Here it is - geospatial summary of the high peaks/summits of the Juneau Icefield.
MCEVERS: Of course.
FLOWERS: Which - I don't know about you - I'm not following the geospatial summaries of Alaskan peaks that closely, but a dedicated person and observer who's logging hundreds of edits a day which we found in the early months of 2015 ranked up over 7,000 edits.
MCEVERS: Wow. That's FiveThirtyEight's Andrew Flowers. For more Wikipedia, listen to Weekend Edition tomorrow when we talk to Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TOXIC")
BRITNEY SPEARS: Baby, can't you see? I'm calling. A guy like you should wear a warning.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Carolina Panthers enter the NFL playoffs this weekend with the best record in the league and the best record in the team's 21 seasons. Its big star is quarterback Cam Newton, but Thomas Davis is the heart of the team. Davis has come back from three gruesome knee injuries to be one of the league's best linebackers. Around Charlotte, though, what Davis does off the field is just as important as what he does on it. From member station WFAE, Michael Tomsic reports.
MICHAEL TOMSIC, BYLINE: Every Sunday, Panthers fans love this sound.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TOMSIC: That's linebacker Thomas Davis miked up, delivering a punishing hit for one of the NFL's best defenses.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
THOMAS DAVIS: I couldn't hit him with the right side. I said I'm just going to give him everything I got with this left though.
TOMSIC: There's something else Davis does that some kids and parents are even bigger fans of - he meets with middle schoolers, like Bryson Ellis, to teach them about leadership.
BRYSON ELLIS: If you didn't communicate and if you weren't - you didn't make sure your voice was heard then, like - it's not that you didn't contribute, but you weren't going to do that well because if everybody's too scared to say anything, then you can't get anything done.
TOMSIC: Ellis says that's a theme at Davis' leadership academy - speak up, but also listen and work together. This school year, Ellis has gone from a somewhat shy eighth-grader to student council president. His parents, Tracy and Tim Ellis, say the Panthers linebacker has played a big role in their son's life.
TRACY ELLIS: He's definitely more comfortable in a leadership role now, so I definitely feel that it has benefited him in that particular way by helping him to win the student council president of the school.
TIM ELLIS: He's become more assertive and more aware of what being a leader is and doing the right thing, so I definitely think that that's been a positive event for him.
TOMSIC: About 90 middle school boys and girls have gone through Davis' program. He says the idea came from his own experience as a kid.
DAVIS: A lot of the things that I do now stem from a lack of things that I had growing up. So I didn't really have anyone to show me at that early age, you know, how to be a leader, how to go about doing things as a young man, so that's one of the reasons why we wanted to start this program.
TOMSIC: Davis and his younger sister were raised by their single mom in Shellman, Ga., population 1,000. He received the Walter Payton NFL Man of the Year Award last year for excellence on and off the field. In this video from the ceremony, Davis walks through his hometown.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DAVIS: This is one of the many houses that we stayed in growing up. To take a hot bath, I would have to boil water on the stove. We had to run an extension cord from one of our neighbor's house, you know, just to have a light.
TOMSIC: On Christmas, he says there were years he woke up without a gift. Last month, Davis unloaded dozens of boxes of toys so other kids wouldn't have that experience - kids like Towanda Gaston's two daughters.
TOWANDA GASTON: It means a lot to me because sometimes, you know, you don't have as much as you want and do as much as you need to do. So for me, it's a blessing, honestly.
TOMSIC: At the toy giveaway and at his leadership academy, Davis doesn't just provide money, take a few photos and leave. He's committed, and his teammates say he's the same way at his day job. Here's how defensive tackle Dwan Edwards describes him.
DWAN EDWARDS: He's a tremendous leader, one of the harder working guys on our team. And he sets the tone for us, and we follow his lead.
TOMSIC: He's also one of only two NFL players to come back from three ACL tears, one of the most serious knee injuries. The Panther's coach calls Davis the emotional heart and soul of the team. Bryson Ellis, one of the middle schoolers who meets with him, has his own take.
BRYSON: He really cares. He's genuine. There are some people who are just going to, like, do it and forget about it, but he's actually a really nice person.
TOMSIC: Those are the reasons Ellis is such a fan. But make no mistake, he'll enjoy watching Davis make big tackles this Sunday on the football field, too. For NPR News, I'm Michael Tomsic in Charlotte.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Once again, one of the big conversations about this year's Oscar nominations is the near total lack of racial diversity. Just one example - every one of the nominees for acting awards is white. Darnell Hunt is the director of UCLA's Ralph Bunche Center for African-American Studies, which produces an annual report on diversity in Hollywood, and he's here with me in the studio.
Thanks for coming by.
DARNELL HUNT: Thanks for having me.
MCEVERS: So when you looked at the list of the Oscar nominations this year, were you surprised?
HUNT: I was surprised but then I wasn't. Of course, it's the second year in a row. We're talking about an Academy that's overwhelmingly white, overwhelmingly male - 93 percent white, 76 percent male, average age, 63. People are voting for things that resonate with their experiences and, unfortunately, it's too narrow a slice.
MCEVERS: What were some of the surprises of people who weren't on the list?
HUNT: Well, you would've thought that a film like "Creed" might've been nominated or, of course, "Straight Outta Compton..."
MCEVERS: Right.
HUNT: ...Or even "Concussion." So Will Smith being absent, Michael B. Jordan...
MCEVERS: ...from "Creed."
HUNT: Sylvester Stallone, ironically, was nominated supporting actor for "Creed," but the lead actor wasn't.
MCEVERS: I mean, just last year, the conversation online was all about hashtag #OscarsSoWhite. This year, it's hashtag #OscarsStillSoWhite. Why do you think public pressure from last year didn't really make a difference this year?
HUNT: You know, the people who make up the Academy - as I mentioned a minute ago - they have a particular view as to what constitutes artistic merit. The problem is that standards, merit, all these things are, you know, culture bound. I guarantee you if the membership of the Academy were more diverse, we'd see more diverse nominations and more diverse winners.
MCEVERS: So, I mean, do you think it's a bigger problem, though, not just about the Academy itself and who sits on the Academy but the entire studio system?
HUNT: Well, absolutely. We have executive suites in the studios - and, again, are 93 percent white, 100 percent male. And so you have a particular group of people who are green-lighting projects that seem to be viable from their point of view. They're not surrounding themselves with other artists who may say, hey, did you try this? What'd you think about this particular story? Because after all, American society right now is about 39 percent minority, and audiences - our study shows - want to see diverse stories and they're not getting enough of that. So at some point, the memo will have to be gotten. I mean, the industry is not going to be able to continue to do this forever. I mean, we're approaching majority-minority status, and lots of money is being left on the table.
MCEVERS: Right. I mean, one of the findings of your Hollywood diversity reports at UCLA is that movies with more diverse casts tend to make more money. Why has this not yet been a bigger motivation for studios?
HUNT: A number of things. We haven't tried to make enough films with diverse casts so that it becomes, you know, patently clear that this is what's going on. You know, they'll look at the film with the white lead that made a bunch of money, and they'll say, see? This is what sells. This is what sells overseas. We'll keep making that. And they'll ignore the other films or they'll ignore the stars like Will Smith or somebody else, and they say, well, they're exceptions. You know, they sell overseas but most leads of color would never fly overseas so we don't make those films.
MCEVERS: Are you talking about something like, "Jurassic World?"
HUNT: Well, exactly. But that's wrong. I mean, look at "Star Wars." I mean, you know, this film is making a ton of money. The "Fast And Furious" franchise, for years, has made a ton of money overseas. We have an Asian-American director, and pretty much every lead is a person of color. And these films are making lots of money. I mean, the world as a market is very diverse so why wouldn't these things sell overseas?
MCEVERS: Aside from the Academy and who gets nominated for the awards, what is your sense of the direction of diversity in Hollywood more broadly?
HUNT: For years, the notion of diversity - well, it's the right thing to do, it's the civic thing to do, but it's a luxury. And in fact there's a trade-off between diversity and excellence. If you move for diversity, somehow or another, the quality is not going to be there. And that's been kind of the conventional wisdom. Part of what we show with our study is that's absolutely false. I mean, if the industry is indeed about making money, we're showing that diversity actually sells. The one thing I will say is that in every way, film is behind television. We're not making as many films as we did before the Great Recession. So there's a lot more competition for the films that are being made, and you have great actors and actresses leaving film and going to television. We're making a lot more television now. Film, the numbers are down. And the history of our country shows us, in the industry where you have diminished production, there's more competition. It tends to increase exclusion, and women and minorities bear the brunt of that.
MCEVERS: That's Darnell Hunt. He's the director of the Ralph Bunche Center at UCLA.
Thanks so much for coming in today.
HUNT: Thank you for having me.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This might be the only time I tell you to get tissues nearby for a video game review. The game is based on a true story. A boy named Joel was diagnosed with a brain tumor when he was one year old. Over the next four years, he was treated with radiation more than a dozen times, and he died when he was five. Joel's parents are the creators of the new game "That Dragon, Cancer." Here's the review from Chris Suellentrop and J. J. Sutherland of the podcast "Shall We Play A Game."
J. J. SUTHERLAND: Much of "That Dragon, Cancer" takes place, as you might expect, in a hospital.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO GAME, "THAT DRAGON, CANCER")
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (As character) It's so late, Joel. Lay down. I can't hold you. I can't make you feel better.
CHRIS SUELLENTROP: The game is broken into scenes from the lives of Joel Green and his parents, Ryan and Amy. In this scene, Ryan, Joel's father, is trying to comfort him during a night when Joel was vomiting, dehydrated and suffering.
SUTHERLAND: And in the game, you can try to give Joel a juice box to comfort him. But just like in real life, it doesn't do anything.
SUELLENTROP: In most games, death is cheap. Resurrection comes with the press of a button - not here. You witness the Ryans' suffering and doubts along with them.
SUTHERLAND: And this isn't like most video games. You aren't shooting people here or running a race. But you are moving around the hospital. You can look at pictures and cards. You do fight dragons at one point. But most of it's clicking on ordinary objects like a cell phone to hear a voicemail.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO GAME, "THAT DRAGON, CANCER")
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (As character) On someone's last day, they always bring them a cake, and they sing, (singing) happy off-therapy day to you.
Anyway, that happened today. And it happens a lot, but today I cried. I just wanted that day so bad.
SUELLENTROP: You come to the moment when the doctors tell Ryan and Amy that Joel only has a few months to live. And you hear the news by pulling a lever on a child's toy.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO GAME, "THAT DRAGON, CANCER")
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: (As character) We're very good at end-of-life care. We're very good at managing the pain and masking symptoms at the end of life.
SUELLENTROP: And then the room fills with water, washing Joel to sea.
SUTHERLAND: And not to go all high-brow here, Chris, but it's a moment of magical realism. You know, it's totally unreal, but that just makes it all the more real. And that - it was really intense. And I actually had to step away from playing at a certain point because just experiencing these two parents suffering and praying and doubting - it just tore me apart.
SUELLENTROP: "That Dragon, Cancer" isn't the first time I've cried while playing a videogame, but it's definitely the game that made me cry the most. At the same time, there are happy moments, like racing a car through the hospital ward to hear Joel laugh. And there's a great little scene where you're just blowing bubbles for Joel, and he's clapping.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO GAME, "THAT DRAGON, CANCER")
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (As Joel) I love bubbles. Look, I can touch one.
SUTHERLAND: Eventually, though, you have to stop blowing bubbles, because no matter how much joy it brings to Joel, your adult mind knows...
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO GAME, "THAT DRAGON, CANCER")
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: (As Joel) I want more bubbles.
SUTHERLAND: ...Everything has to end.
SUELLENTROP: The game isn't challenging the way many videogames can be difficult, but it can be hard to play, the way some movies are hard to watch.
SUTHERLAND: "That Dragon, Cancer" is honest, and it's sad. But it's also filled with this unshakable empathy. And that empathy gives this game life, even in the face of a child's death.
SHAPIRO: Chris Suellentrop and J. J. Sutherland host the podcast "Shall We Play A Game."
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The sentence I'm about to say might sound familiar. It was another rough day for the stock market. Today the major U.S. indexes fell more than 2 percent. At one point, the Dow was down more than 500 points. Oil closed below $30 a barrel for the first time in a dozen years. NPR's John Ydstie joins us to sort things out.
Hi John.
JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: Hi Ari.
SHAPIRO: Yesterday everybody breathed a sigh of relief when stocks rose. What caused the big selloff today?
YDSTIE: Three things - China, oil and the Fed. And let's talk about China first.
SHAPIRO: OK.
YDSTIE: There was another big selloff in the Chinese market today. It is now down more than 20 percent from a recent high. Everybody agrees that market was overvalued so U.S. markets should be able to ignore it. But U.S. investors are rightfully concerned about a slowdown in economic growth in China. And that slowdown is behind the big drop in oil prices because a slower Chinese economy means less demand for oil.
SHAPIRO: OK. Let's talk about oil prices. One the one hand, low oil prices are good for the U.S. economy because consumers have more money to spend when gas is cheap. Why is this bad for the markets, though?
YDSTIE: You're right. Lower oil is a net plus for the economy. But remember, the stock market is not the U.S. economy and there are lots of big oil companies embedded in those market indexes. So when the price of oil falls, the value of their shares fall. Just this week, Marathon Oil's stock fell about 25 percent and other companies have lost ground, too. That's weighed very heavily on these market indexes.
SHAPIRO: Let's talk a little bit more about the weakness in the Chinese economy. Why are investors so worried about that?
YDSTIE: Well, for one thing, they're concerned about U.S. exports. And there's no doubt they've been hurt. But exports overall are a small share of the U.S. economy, and only about 7 percent of our exports go to China. On the other hand, China has been a huge engine of growth for the global economy and is a more important market for many other countries, especially commodity producers. So its slowdown is contributing to a weaker global growth. And there's a concern that could spread to the U.S. Now, the U.S. economy has been doing OK and creating a lot of jobs. But there was a weak retail spending report today, and that fueled worries about U.S. growth.
SHAPIRO: John, at the beginning of this conversation, you said it's China, oil and the Federal Reserve. What's going on with the Fed? Why is this a factor?
YDSTIE: Well, the Fed has been pumping money into the economy and holding interest rates low, and a lot of that money ended up in stocks over the past seven years. So the stock market has grown much faster than the economy. That's convinced lots of people that stocks were overvalued. And when you look around, there's been a big selloff not just in energy stocks but in biotech stocks and chipmakers and banks, for instance. Now, now that the Fed is raising interest rates, that cheap money that's been supporting those stocks is going away and investors are reassessing the real value of these companies, and that's pushing stocks lower.
SHAPIRO: Does that suggest that the Fed is unlikely to raise rates again this year?
YDSTIE: Well, there was a lot of speculation about that today. Many analysts had thought another rate hike would come in March, but they're now saying that's much less likely.
SHAPIRO: Briefly - what should ordinary investors do about this?
YDSTIE: Well, if you're saving for retirement, just don't check your 401(k).
SHAPIRO: (Laughter). Just don't look at it.
YDSTIE: It'll make for a much happier weekend.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's economics correspondent John Ydstie.
Thanks John.
YDSTIE: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The U.S. Episcopal Church has been barred temporarily from full participation in the worldwide Anglican Communion. That means, for now, it has no say on Anglican doctrine and policy. The word came from Anglican leaders meeting this week in Canterbury, England. They said they were angered by the U.S. church's decision last summer to perform same-sex marriages. NPR's Tom Gjelten reports.
TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: The U.S. Episcopal Church has always been part of the worldwide Anglican Communion tied to the Church of England. But U.S. Episcopalians are generally liberal on matters of sexuality, marriage and the role of women, in contrast to Anglicans in Africa, for example. Those differences were highlighted today by Rev. Josiah Idowu Fearon of Nigeria, secretary general of the Anglican Communion. Speaking in Canterbury today, he acknowledged there are Anglican gays and lesbians in Africa.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOSIAH IDOWU FEARON: But generally on the continent of Africa, our culture does not support the promotion of this type of lifestyle.
GJELTEN: Nigeria alone has more Anglicans than the U.S., Canada and Great Britain combined. When Anglican leaders from the global South insisted on punishing the U.S. church for same-sex marriage, they had the votes to get most of what they wanted. A joint statement said U.S. church's policy on same-sex marriage represented a fundamental departure from the faith and teaching held by the majority of the Anglican provinces. Here's Rev. Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JUSTIN WELBY: If you do certain things, you're perfectly entitled to do them, but there will be consequences as a result of you doing them - not within your own church. We have no power over that. But there'll be consequences in your participation in the wider community.
GJELTEN: In an audio message posted on Facebook, the new presiding bishop of the U.S. Episcopal Church, Michael Curry, said the punishment will bring heartache and pain to many.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MICHAEL CURRY: It may be part of our vocation to help the communion to grow in a direction where we can realize and live the love that God has for all of us. And we can one day be a church in a communion where all of God's children are fully welcomed, where this is truly a house of prayer for all people.
GJELTEN: The suspension of the Episcopal Church will be revisited in three years. But Mariann Edgar Budde, Bishop of the diocese in Washington, D.C., says the action in Canterbury will not cause U.S. Episcopalians to reconsider their support for same-sex marriage.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARIANN EDGAR BUDDE: This is a broad consensus that has been honed and reflected upon for over 40 years.
GJELTEN: Still, Bishop Budde says, there's considerable dismay among U.S. Episcopalians over what they see as implicit anti-gay sentiment in the latest Anglican statement.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BUDDE: The real concerns that we have are for gay and lesbian transgender people in other parts of the world who do not have protection. In fact, the laws are against them. And when church leaders speak out in this way, it makes them all the more vulnerable.
GJELTEN: The communique issued by Anglican leaders today in Canterbury did include a statement condemning homophobic prejudice and violence, while committing the churches to offer pastoral care irrespective of sexual orientation. Tom Gjelten, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In Sierra Leone, a corpse has tested positive for Ebola just one day after the World Health Organization declared West Africa's Ebola outbreak - the deadliest one in history - over. It's a reminder that people in the region will be living with Ebola for a long time. Although the outbreak killed 11,000 people, 17,000 people who got Ebola survived. There is some evidence that Ebola can live on in survivors, which means they can still be isolated from their families and communities. And we reached one survivor today in his yard in Liberia's capital, Monrovia.
FODAY GALLAH: Hello, hello.
MCEVERS: His name is Foday Gallah, and he's a paramedic. Two years ago, he was an ambulance driver who picked up people with Ebola symptoms and brought them to the ETU, or Ebola treatment unit. One day, he met a boy whose whole family had died. The next day, the boy had symptoms. Foday Gallah was wearing protective gear, but he still got exposed to the boy's fluids.
GALLAH: The next day, I came down with a very severe fever. I had to lock myself in my room. I told my mother, my brothers and everybody to stay away from me until the next day. My own very ambulance drove me to the ETU.
MCEVERS: The Ebola treatment unit.
GALLAH: Yeah, the Ebola treatment unit. And when I got there, I tested positive.
MCEVERS: You tested positive for Ebola?
GALLAH: Yes, yes.
MCEVERS: You and the boy survived.
GALLAH: Yeah. He and myself were sharing the same thing in the ETU.
MCEVERS: You guys were in the same room in the Ebola treatment unit?
GALLAH: In the same room.
MCEVERS: Wow. Do you still have any side effects from Ebola?
GALLAH: Yes, I have side effects. I have a problem with my eye.
MCEVERS: You have a problem with your eyes?
GALLAH: Yeah, with my eye. I cannot read for long unless I use glasses - reading glasses. And I have constant headache. That's one of the complications that Ebola left. So whenever I feel any of these symptoms, I go to the hospital. We're going to be living with this probably for the rest of our lives.
MCEVERS: Some of his friends have it worse. He says some families are breaking up because people are afraid Ebola can be passed through sex. Other people have edema, where their whole bodies swell up.
GALLAH: It breaks my heart. It worries me because I know the pains I have has to do with Ebola. I sacrificed - I nearly died because I wanted to help my brothers and sisters, so I know what their pains are like.
MCEVERS: Foday Gallah was also isolated because he had Ebola and survived.
GALLAH: I was stigmatized many a time. When I return home, people felt that my home was an Ebola home. Nobody wanted to come around. My mother in tears, my brother worried about me. It's like adding more trauma onto us.
MCEVERS: It's like adding more trauma onto us, he says. But still, Foday Gallah is open about being an Ebola survivor. His photo's on billboards all over Monrovia. I asked him why.
GALLAH: Because I want for other people to gain strength from my courage so that they can understand that Ebola is not a death sentence. It's painful. It's horrible. It's unbearable. But It's not a death sentence.
MCEVERS: Yesterday, as we said, the Ebola outbreak was officially declared over. And then, today, a new case was reported. What was your reaction to this news?
GALLAH: Well, remember Liberia has been declared two different times.
MCEVERS: That's right.
GALLAH: And yesterday was the third time.
MCEVERS: Right.
GALLAH: Nobody understands exactly what Ebola is. So until we can have an answer to these things, we're not off the hook. I say we have to go, like, two or three years, then we can say we are Ebola-free.
MCEVERS: What's next for you? I understand you're in medical school. You're studying to be an anesthetist?
GALLAH: Yeah. At first, I wanted to become an anesthetist. But I have to change because I realize that most of friends that left the ETU are coming out with mental illness. And I believe it will not be easy for healthcare providers to understand people like us because we've been there. We felt it. We went through the same pain. So I want to become a mental health clinician.
MCEVERS: A mental health clinician?
GALLAH: Yeah, a mental health clinician. If God can bless me and I become a mental health clinician, I'm going to help a lot of my friends.
MCEVERS: Well, Foday Gallah, thank you so much for talking to us today.
GALLAH: Thank you so much.
MCEVERS: That's Foday Gallah. He's an Ebola survivor and a medical student in Monrovia, Liberia.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Let's take a closer look now at what the candidates said in last night's Republican presidential debate. There were a lot of claims and counterclaims. We're going to break it down.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Where's the beef? When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad - where's the beef?
SHAPIRO: NPR's Scott Horsley and Danielle Kurtzleben are here. Hey, guys.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Good to be with you.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Hello.
SHAPIRO: Let's start where the moderators at the Fox Business Network debate did - with the economy. Here's Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
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TED CRUZ: The millionaires and billionaires are doing great under Obama, but we have the lowest percentage of Americans working today of any year since 1977.
SHAPIRO: Scott, is that true?
HORSLEY: You know, the Republicans are trying to take some of the wind out of the sails of the Obama economic recovery. So while the president brags about bringing unemployment down to 5 percent, folks like Ted Cruz talk about what a relatively small portion of the population's actually working.
SHAPIRO: But is that a small proportion because baby boomers have retired, or is it a small proportion because people can't find jobs?
HORSLEY: Well, there's two things happening here. One is the percentage dropped really sharply during the recession. It's, by some measures, made a modest rebound, but it's still low by historical standards. And there's a lively debate in economic circles whether that low participation rate right now is demographic or a sign that workers are discouraged.
SHAPIRO: Let's stick with economic questions. Sen. Ted Cruz came under attack from Sen. Marco Rubio for Cruz's tax plan, which involves a 16 percent tax on businesses. Now Rubio says this plan has a value-added tax on all goods services, known as a VAT. That's really common in Europe. Here's Cruz's defense.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CRUZ: The problem is the business flat tax in my proposal is not a VAT. A VAT is imposed as a sales tax when you buy a good. This is a business flat tax.
SHAPIRO: Danielle, what is the difference between a business flat tax and a value-added tax, or a VAT?
KURTZLEBEN: That's a great question. It's a question a lot of people are asking after yesterday's debate because he seems to be doing some funny things with definitions. I mean, a value-added tax is - as its name would suggest, it taxes a business on the value it adds to the products it makes. A very common way this is explained is by using a baker. If I spend 50 cents on the flour that I used to make a loaf of bread, and I sell that loaf of bread to you for $2, I have added a $1.50 in value.
SHAPIRO: Oh, so that's what you're taxed on as a VAT. What about a business flat tax?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, Ted Cruz says he would be taxing businesses on their net business sales, which he defines as the money they take in from sales minus their expenses and their capital expenditures, which sounds an awful lot like the definition of a VAT.
SHAPIRO: If this is a distinction without a difference, Scott, why are they fighting over this?
HORSLEY: You know, VAT taxes are widely used in the developed world, but they're pretty unpopular in this country. Democrats are concerned that they tax the poor, that they're regressive. Republicans don't like them because they can raise a lot of money and fund big government. Supporters joke that America will finally adopt a VAT tax when Republicans figure out that they're regressive and Democrats figure out they can raise a lot of money and fund big government.
SHAPIRO: OK, let's shift from the economy to gun control. Of course, this took place in South Carolina, where there was this horrible shooting in Charleston last year. The suspect, Dylann Roof was able to buy a gun when he shouldn't have. Here's what former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said about that.
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JEB BUSH: The FBI made a mistake. The law itself requires a background check, but they didn't fulfill their part of the bargain within the time that they were supposed to do.
SHAPIRO: Danielle, is that story accurate?
KURTZLEBEN: Yes, and the FBI has admitted as much. They have three days to decide whether a person should or should not get that gun. The information that would have flagged him in that background check - Dylann Roof had admitted to possession of a drug - that information did not make its way to the FBI examiner who was doing the check for a number of reasons. And therefore, after those three days, he was able to go get the gun.
SHAPIRO: Let's end with the detention of 10 U.S. sailors by Iran earlier this week, which Chris Christie says is partly because of U.S. defense spending cuts under President Obama. Let's listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHRIS CHRISTIE: We need to rebuild our military, and this president has let it diminish to a point where tin-pot dictators like the mullahs in Iran are taking our Navy ships.
SHAPIRO: Scott, does defense cuts have anything to do with the detention of the U.S. sailors?
HORSLEY: You know, Ari, there's no question those TV pictures of Americans on their knees with Iranian captors are powerful, and Republicans are trying to capitalize on this. There is historical precedent. Republicans do well when Americans are held hostage by Iran. But this story just fell short of the Jimmy Carter precedent. Those sailors were released in about 14 hours. It is true that defense spending has gone down on Obama's watch from the peak in 2010, when the wars were at their height. It's rebounded a little bit under the most recent budget agreement. It's hard to see though, how defense spending ties into what happened at the Persian Gulf this week, unless you're thinking maybe we should invest in some better navigational equipment.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Scott Horsley and Danielle Kurtzleben breaking it down for us. Thanks, guys.
HORSLEY: Good to be with you.
KURTZLEBEN: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The armed militants who are occupying a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon canceled a public meeting that was supposed to be tonight. They had apparently planned to outline an exit strategy, but they couldn't find a venue. It's been nearly two weeks since they stormed the refuge to protest federal land management policies. The FBI still hasn't said whether it plans to intervene. The agency's wary of similar antigovernment standoffs that turned bloody in the 1990s. NPR's Kirk Siegler reports, other standoffs have dragged on for months.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: This was NPR's top story 20 years ago.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
HOWARD BERKES, BYLINE: The Freemen are an offshoot of the antigovernment militia groups active elsewhere.
SIEGLER: That's NPR's Howard Berkes reporting on the Freemen standoff in eastern Montana. Those self-described Christian patriots hold up on a remote ranch, shun federal law and any government control of the land. They also threaten violence against local elected officials including Jo Anne Stanton, who spoke to NPR in 1996.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
JO ANNE STANTON: They threatened to attach my property and my body if I did not do as they told me to.
SIEGLER: The standoff ended after 81 days, peacefully, with the militants later sentenced to federal prison. At the time, the FBI was praised. The memories of high-profile, bloody standoffs like Waco were still fresh. Well, today in Oregon, where local officials say they are also receiving threats and harassment, it's hard to know what the agency's plans are because no one is talking publicly. Jim Hammett is the former park superintendent of the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument in eastern Oregon.
JIM HAMMETT: By holding their strategy close to the chest, it sort of makes people wonder, well, how long is this going on, and is anybody really even caring about this?
SIEGLER: Hammett is retired and still lives in the area, and he questions why the Oregon militants are coming and going as they please. They drive into town to shop and eat. One even is believed to have traveled back and forth between his home in Utah this week. That's a big difference from the Freemen in the 1990s. Hammett says the government's apparent strategy to wait this out and let it diffuse in Oregon may work, but a lot of federal employees want to return to their jobs now.
HAMMETT: One of the things I was thinking about it is how it might - must feel to be the biologist whose desk they are sitting at, whose file drawers are open and whose papers are scattered around their desks. She or he must feel extremely violated.
SIEGLER: There's also growing pressure coming from Congress. On the House floor this week, Oregon Democrat Peter DeFazio complained that the lights and power are still on at the refuge.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PETER DEFAZIO: But you got to wonder if the lights are on or anybody's home down there at the Justice Department. Hello?
SIEGLER: DeFazio says the problems in his state started with the government's inaction against Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy beginning in 2014. His cows continue to illegally graze on federal land, and DeFazio says this has bolstered the cause of the militants.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DEFAZIO: And now his sons are replicating that in my state of Oregon where we abide by the laws. Yeah, we disagree over a lot of federal policies, but we abide by the laws. It's time for the Justice Department to take some action. Wake up down there.
SIEGLER: The Justice Department has declined repeated requests for comment. Kirk Siegler, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Books and films have told the stories of the Rosewood massacre and the Tulsa race riot - two attacks on black communities by white mobs in the 1920s. There's far less information about a similar incident in East Texas known as the Slocum massacre. For years, the victims' descendants have fought for recognition in the form of a historical marker. As Texas Public Radio's David Martin Davies reports, it will finally be unveiled tomorrow.
DAVID MARTIN DAVIES, BYLINE: Sadler Creek still meanders through Anderson County in the back woods of East Texas just as it did in July 1910. That's when three African-American teenagers walked down a dirt road and crossed paths with a group of white men. Without warning, the men opened fire, beginning the Slocum massacre.
CONSTANCE HOLLIE-JAWAID: I think it was terrifying.
DAVIES: Constance Hollie-Jawaid is a descendent of a Slocum survivor. Her great-great-grandfather was Jack Hollie. He had risen from being a freed slave to a successful businessman.
HOLLIE-JAWAID: I think it was probably the scariest day of my great-great-grandfather's life.
DAVIES: Mass hysteria gripped the community for 48 hours. Packs of armed white men combed the area shooting black people, until Sheriff William H. Black arrived. According to a report he wrote afterwards, every black victim was unarmed, and most were shot in the back.
E. R. BILLS: There is no official number.
DAVIES: E. R. Bills is the author of "The Slocum Massacre: An Act Of Genocide In East Texas." He said it's not clear how many died.
BILLS: The newspaper reports originally suggested two dozen. Eventually, when there were indictments handed down, they were for seven, but the sheriff of the day said that most of the bodies would be found by the buzzards. There were too many. They were everywhere.
DAVIES: Constance Hollie-Jawaid says about 200 were killed and that a cover-up began not long after the shooting stopped - a cover-up that has continued for decades.
JIMMY RAY ODOM: There was no race riot to start with. It was just personal things between the blacks and the whites.
DAVIES: Jimmy Ray Odom is a longtime chairman of the Anderson County Historic Commission. Over the years, he blocked any recognition of what happened in Slocum, mainly because of disagreements.
ODOM: The Slocum massacre - the newspaper accounts - when you'd put them all together and read every one of them, they differ on everything that happened.
DAVIES: But descendants of the Slocum massacre say, so what? Leigh Craven says there's a double standard for what's history, especially in the South.
LEIGH CRAVEN: If you have a Confederacy whohaha (ph) - brouhaha, hooray. Then there is the other side of it, in which people were oppressed and all these awful things happened to them. What about their voices? And that's the balance that's been missing in so much of our history - not just east Texas history, American history.
DAVIES: Colecia Hollie-Williams says that needs to change. One of her relatives died in the massacre.
COLECIA HOLLIE-WILLIAMS: We're not trying to stir the pot per se, but all we're trying to do is bring awareness to what happened and justice.
DAVIES: That's finally happening. Over the objections of Anderson County, last year the Texas State Historic Commission approved a historic marker for the Slocum massacre. The dedication is this weekend. For NPR News, I'm David Martin Davies.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
For many years, commentator Dede Donahue has been thinking about the guns she doesn't see. It's something she didn't think much about until she became a parent. She first wrote about this last spring in The Washington Post - about the question she asks before letting her kids go to another house for a play date. That question - do you keep guns? Before long, it was one of the first things that would come up. It never became easier, but she keeps asking, even now for her young nieces and nephews.
DEDE DONAHUE: I had added it to the litany of things I would tell parents. We have a dog. We have a pool that's fenced. We don't keep guns. It seemed that if a parent trusted me to be concerned about their child's allergies, I could and should ask if they kept guns. My friend Melanie said her husband kept the gun. Her son and my daughter were 4 at the time and had been playing together for over two years. I don't know why it suddenly occurred to me to ask her. Perhaps I was just getting in the habit of asking everyone.
Melanie told me more. Her husband had originally kept the handgun in bedside table, until the day Melanie had walked into the bedroom and discovered 2-and-a-half-year-old Jack with the loaded gun in his lap. After that, her husband moved the gun to a box on a high shelf in their walk-in closet. Six months later, Jack found the gun again. Luckily, Melanie discovered him in time. I was shocked. I looked into her eyes. She had befriended me when I didn't have many mom friends. And I had to say, you know I can't let Chloe come over ever again.
That awkward question - do you keep guns? - ended some friendships before they ever began. It also motivated a couple of old friends to buy gun safes. It was as if the possibility of something bad happening had never occurred to them. Some parents believe that because they told their child not to touch a gun that they won't, but researchers say that simply isn't true. A recent study states 8 in 10 first graders know where their parents hide their guns. And children as young as 3 are strong enough to pull the triggers of many handguns.
When I started asking other parents, I was naive to how divisive a question it was. I wasn't testing the Second Amendment, just trying to keep my kids safe. But since then, in several states, laws have been passed so that a doctor or pediatrician cannot ask that same question, which is why parents must. Nearly 1,500 children die from shootings each year, but no one knows how many of those are kids dying in their own homes or in the homes of friends. No records are kept on that. The numbers are just mixed in with gang killings, suicides and school shootings. But you've read the stories. A 6-year-old shoots his 4-year-old sister. Two children are playing, and one accidentally kills the other. A child finds a gun and shoots himself. I was heartened by President Obama's executive action, particularly with regard to gun safety and technology. I hope, as he does, that soon guns won't be accessible to young children. But until that day comes, I'm still going to ask, do you keep guns?
SHAPIRO: Commentator Dede Donahue is a freelance writer and memoirist who lives in Southern California.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're switching gears now. Now we're going to take a look at a big adjustment coming to an American institution.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO GET TO SESAME STREET?")
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (Singing) Sunny days, sweeping the clouds away...
MARTIN: So we are on our way to where the air is sweet.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CAN YOU TELL ME HOW TO GET TO SESAME STREET?")
UNIDENTIFIED CHILDREN: (Singing) Can you tell me how to get - how to get to Sesame Street?
MARTIN: But the "Sesame Street" of your childhood has changed. Big Bird has a new nest. Elmo has moved into a new brownstone and Oscar the Grouch is hanging out in recycling and compost bins alongside his trashcan. But the biggest change in how you watch "Sesame Street," the latest season of the classic children's show, it's the 46th, premieres today on HBO, the subscription-based network that's home to provocative shows like "Game Of Thrones" and "Girls." New episodes of "Sesame Street" will air on its traditional home, public television, nine months later. Sesame Workshop says the changes were made to ensure the survival of the show in a very different television environment than the one that existed when the show began. Joining us to talk about all of this from our New York Bureau is the show's executive producer, Carol-Lynn Parente, and somebody who almost needs no introduction, Elmo. Welcome to you both. Thank you for coming.
RYAN DILLON: (As Elmo) Hello there.
CAROL-LYNN PARENTE: Hello.
DILLON: (As Elmo) Thank you having us.
MARTIN: Well, thank you for coming. So Carol-Lynn, Elmo, it looks like "Sesame Street's" been completely renovated. Did somebody hit Powerball?
PARENTE: (Laughter).
DILLON: (As Elmo) No, no, please. No, but it's been wonderful. It's really - there's some cool new stuff. You know, Elmo moved into a new apartment at 123 Sesame. Abby Cadabby has a new fairy garden. Oh, and Hooper's Store has some nice new shiny paint and a lovely new sign. It's cool.
MARTIN: So you like your new digs?
DILLON: (As Elmo) Love 'em.
MARTIN: Love 'em. So Elmo...
DILLON: (As Elmo) Yeah, baby.
MARTIN: Can I talk to Ms. Carol-Lynn for a minute about some grown-up stuff?
DILLON: (As Elmo) OK.
MARTIN: OK.
DILLON: (As Elmo) Elmo will have some water.
MARTIN: OK. So Carol-Lynn, what are some of the other big changes to "Sesame Street?" And we'll - just walk us through a few of them.
PARENTE: Well, we certainly have had a complete renovation to our neighborhood. We took down buildings and put up trees. And it's really more changes in season 46 than we've we ever had in one singular season.
MARTIN: And also the show's moved from an hour to half an hour.
PARENTE: It has, and we've been an hour for 45 years. And we found that in testing - one of the most heavily-tested shows in history - and figured out that kids could retain the information on one cohesive theme throughout a half hour more than in an hour. We found an hour was cognitively dense.
MARTIN: Part of what motivates the change is that, you know, adults used to watch the show with kids. But now you find that kids are actually watching by themselves, which is interesting because that's one of - always been one of the issues around children's television period is that people thought oh, you know, we shouldn't be using television as a babysitter, right? But now you're finding that kids really are watching without an adult being present. Do I have that right?
PARENTE: Yeah, that's exactly - that trend has been increasing for years. But the tablets really have been a game-changer in that regard. So kids have access to tablets and mobile phones, and they're making and selecting their content for themselves. And that's a real game changer when it comes to thinking who your audience is and who's making the decision to select you in a very competitive marketplace.
MARTIN: I do have to ask about the move to HBO though because as you probably know better than anybody that when this was announced, it was just kind of a scathing reaction from some quarters. And a lot of that has to do with this whole question of access. I mean, the purpose of the show has been - I mean, from its beginning - was to offer a rich educational experience to kids who might not be able to get that, who couldn't afford the expensive preschools. And so the whole question is, you know, everybody can't afford cable, let alone a premium channel like HBO. And since "Sesame Street's" always been about offering this experience to kids from all backgrounds, how does this square with the mission of the show?
PARENTE: Well, I think the sensationalized headlines only told part of the story. And when people read the articles to find out that the truth of the matter is HBO's been an amazing partner for us because they really understood our mission to have "Sesame Street" in the hands of those kids who need it most for free. And they really embraced our partnership with PBS. There's no time when "Sesame Street" won't be on the air. It really is the best arrangement for us. It's like, you know, having your cake and eating it, too, because we get the financial problems solved with HBO and the access for all on PBS.
MARTIN: It doesn't like giving the kids without means the hand-me-downs, nine months later after the other kids have gotten them first? That doesn't feel like that to you?
PARENTE: It doesn't because I think if you look at what kids - kids turn on their content to have a play date with Elmo. And they'll always be able to do that any day of the week. And so kids just don't pay attention to seasons of television the way adults do.
MARTIN: Carol-Lynn, finally, I'm sure you're kind of familiar with the wistfulness that has accompanied some of these changes. I mean, many of the people - adult watchers - will remember the parodies.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SESAME STREET")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) In the alphabet system, there are 26 letters. The detectives who investigate these ABCs are members of an elite squad called the Special Letters Unit. These are their stories.
(SOUNDBITE OF "LAW AND ORDER" TRANSITION MUSIC)
MARTIN: Apparently, a lot of the parodies - the - kind of the pop-culture references that many people - adults - enjoyed are being deemphasized in exchange for content that is, I guess - what would you say? - more child-focused. But I don't know, how do you respond to that as a person who's been with the program through most of your career, right?
PARENTE: Yeah, 27 years.
MARTIN: Yeah. How does that sit with you?
PARENTE: Most of the parodies that we do, if you ask people who've seen them, they've not seen them on the show. They've seen them on YouTube or some other digital platform. And so those platforms still exist. And in fact, they give us easier turnaround time to be more timely with parodies, which was always a challenge when producing them for the show because you had to really select things that would be still relevant nine or 10 months later. So those avenues are still open for us. You want to always be producing the right content on the right platform for the audience that's there. And the fact of the matter is most of our parodies are viewed in digital spaces.
MARTIN: So - understand if I bring Elmo back into the conversation? Elmo, are you there?
DILLON: (As Elmo) Yes, hello.
MARTIN: Hello, so we hear that this season you and your friends are going to talk a lot about kindness.
DILLON: (As Elmo) Yes, it's very important...
MARTIN: It is.
DILLON: (As Elmo): ...To be kind.
MARTIN: Well, you are very kind.
DILLON: (As Elmo) Thank you.
MARTIN: You've always been very kind.
DILLON: (As Elmo) We're even teaching Oscar how to be kind. It's challenging.
MARTIN: (Laughter).
DILLON: (As Elmo) But we're getting there. And, you know, Elmo just think it makes the world a better place.
MARTIN: What are some of the other things you're going to be teaching kids about?
DILLON: (As Elmo) Well, we're teaching everybody how to be stronger and smarter and kinder. Those are the three big things that we're teaching.
MARTIN: Is Elmo lifting weights? How is Elmo getting stronger?
DILLON: (As Elmo) You better believe it. Elmo's lifting weights. Elmo's on the treadmill. Elmo's working out.
MARTIN: (Laughter) Elmo's working out.
DILLON: (As Elmo) Yes.
MARTIN: Well, it was nice talk to you, Elmo. Thank you.
DILLON: (As Elmo) Thank you. And Elmo - Elmo wants to say hello to everybody at NPR. Elmo loves NPR. Elmo listens with his mommy and daddy.
MARTIN: (Laughter) Well, we hope Elmo will grow up and make a contribution (laughter)...
DILLON: (As Elmo) Oh, OK.
MARTIN: To support his local member station.
DILLON: (As Elmo) Sure, whatever that means.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: And that was Elmo, of course. And he was accompanied by "Sesame Street's" executive producer Carol-Lynn Parente, and they joined us from our bureau in New York. The 46th season of "Sesame Street" is out on HBO starting today. Thank you both so much for speaking with us.
DILLON: (As Elmo) Thank you.
PARENTE: Thank you.
DILLON: (As Elmo) Have a wonderful day, everybody.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
This week, we were amused by a story out of Seattle. It's a bit of a mystery story, and it all started four years ago when law student Jonathan Nichols walked out of his local Verizon store with a new phone and a new phone number - well, new to him. Nichols soon realized that the number had a past.
JONATHAN NICHOLS: I got a text message from a video link to a YouTube video of someone mixing and making beats, like on a synthesizer. And then I got a voice message from the Lamborghini dealership, and they were asking me to come in for a test drive.
MARTIN: So of course, he jumped right in that car and sped off into the sunset.
NICHOLS: (Laughter) No, I told them I'm a broke law student, and I don't think you meant to contact me.
MARTIN: But the messages kept coming.
NICHOLS: In August of 2012, my text messages just started to blow up with happy birthday messages for me or selfies of women, like turned around, like, sticking out their booty in some Daisy Dukes.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BABY GOT BACK")
AMYLIA RIVAS: Oh, my God, Becky, look at her butt. It is so big.
NICHOLS: And then finally, one of the senders said happy birthday, Sir Mix-a-Lot.
MARTIN: Sir Mix-a-Lot, the rapper behind this 1992 Grammy-winning hit.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BABY GOT BACK")
SIR MIX-A-LOT: (Singing) I like big butts and I cannot lie. You other brothers can't deny.
NICHOLS: And it just dawned on me, no freaking way. I have Sir Mix-a-Lot's phone number, and that's pretty cool.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BABY GOT BACK")
SIR MIX-A-LOT: (Singing) Dial 1-900-MIX-A-LOT and kick them nasty thoughts, baby got back.
MARTIN: Jonathan Nichols says he will keep the famous phone number. We reached Sir Mix-a-Lot on his new phone number, and he had some advice for Jonathan after hearing his story.
SIR MIX-A-LOT: Yeah, you know, and I told him - I said, you know, if he were in any way offended by those photos, all he had to do was just forward them to me and then delete them. Everything will be fine.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BABY GOT BACK")
SIR MIX-A-LOT: (Singing) Little in the middle but she got much back. Little the mill but she got much back.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It has been a dramatic day for Iran and the U.S. Iran has released five Americans it had been holding, among them was a Washington Post reporter held for more than a year. The U.S. released seven Iranians who were convicted or accused of sanctions violations. This comes on a day of another major development, one that had been expected.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN KERRY: We have reached implementation day. Today marks the moment that the Iran nuclear agreement transitions from an ambitious set of promises on paper to measurable action in progress.
MARTIN: That's U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry announcing that inspectors have verified the removal of key components of Iran's nuclear program. With that done, major sanctions limiting Iran's access to international banks and commerce are now lifted. NPR's diplomatic correspondent Michele Kelemen joins us in the studios in Washington, D.C. Michele, tell us about the Americans' released today. You've been covering their cases for a long time.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: That's right. Washington Post journalist, Jason Rezaian - he spent 544 days in prison. His wife, who had also been detained early on in that ordeal and was - initially had to stay in Iran - we're told now that she's allowed to leave. Another person on his way back home is former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati. He's the longest-serving prisoner in this group. He was arrested in 2011, when he went to visit his grandmother. I spoke to his sister earlier this week. She was here for the State of the Union address, as was Jason Rezaian's brother. Christian pastor Saeed Abedini was also freed today, as was an American named Nosratollah Khosrawi. U.S. officials haven't said anything about that case other than that he was jailed within the past year. And there was a fifth man. His name is Matthew Trevithick, and his family says that he spent 40 days in Iran's Evin Prison. Unlike the others, he's not Iranian-American. He's American. He was a researcher based in Turkey, and his family says he went to Iran last September for language training.
MARTIN: You know, there seems to have been a lot less reported about the Iranians being held in the U.S. In fact, I think this might be the first time a lot of Americans understood that there were people - Iranians held in the U.S. Can you just tell us a little bit about what their cases were all about?
KELEMEN: You know, the Iranians have been suggesting this idea of a prisoner swap for a while. And we'd been looking into some of these cases before. The U.S. says that it offered clemency to seven Iranians, and six of them are dual-nationals - Iranian-Americans. These are cases across the U.S., mostly involving sanctions violations. For example, one man was in jail for trying to sell satellite equipment to Iran. The U.S. also says that it has removed Interpol red notices and dismissed the charges against 14 other Iranians officials. Officials felt that they weren't getting anywhere with those extradition requests. And again, these cases seemed to be mainly in sanctions violations.
MARTIN: Now, we just heard Secretary of State John Kerry earlier say that this is implementation day for the Iran nuclear deal, which was released last summer. How does this all work and are these related?
KELEMEN: Well, you know, these tracks did happen at the same time, so that was interesting. Secretary Kerry said these were always separate tracks, but they did culminate right now. And Secretary Kerry is saying this shows how diplomacy works. What happened today was the IAEA - the International Atomic Energy Agency - formally reported that Iran has taken the steps it needs to take to curb its nuclear program - shipping out uranium, closing a plutonium reactor, allowing inspections. And with that report, all the sanctions relief goes into effect almost immediately. So the U.S. is already putting out its statements, the EU is already lifting sanctions and a new U.N. Security Council resolution automatically goes into effect. And that ends U.N. sanctions, except there are some limits to Iran's ballistic missile program.
MARTIN: Michele, we only have about 45 seconds left. So what does Iran get out of this? And is this considered a major turn in the U.S.-Iranian relationship?
KELEMEN: Well, it certainly shows that these back channels work and diplomacies work. Iran is going to get out of this access to billions of dollars in frozen funds. It's going to take a while, I'm told. European and other companies - non-U.S. companies - can start buying oil and investing in the energy sector without fear of U.S. sanctions. There are very limited options for U.S. businesses.
MARTIN: That NPR's Michele Kelemen. Michele, thanks so much for speaking with us.
KELEMEN: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We are going to turn now to someone who unfortunately knows the experience of the recently-released prisoners all too well. Journalist Roxana Saberi spent four months in the notorious Evin Prison in 2009 after being arrested and convicted on charges of espionage after a secret, one-day trial. We reached her in New York. Roxana, thanks so much for speaking with us.
ROXANA SABERI: Thanks for having me, Michel.
MARTIN: Now I remember your speaking with my colleague, Melissa Block, right after you were released. And you said you never knew why you were arrested and you didn't know why you were released. How about now? Did you ever find out anything about what went into all of that?
SABERI: I'm still not certain. I think there are different possible reasons that they arrested me and then released me. I think they might have wanted, when they arrested me, to try to get information about, you know, what I was doing. I was writing a book, interviewing a lot of people - they said too many people to be just writing a book. They said it was a cover for espionage for the CIA, which, of course, it was not. They might've wanted to use me as a pawn - a political pawn - against the United States. They wanted, perhaps, to set an example because I was a journalist, dual-national citizen, to create fear for other journalists or dual-national citizens and to intimidate them. And as for my release, I'm not sure, but I think that one of the main factors was that I was very lucky to have a lot of support and people calling for my release - both friends and strangers in Iran and outside of Iran. And I think that made a big difference.
MARTIN: Can you give us a sense of what the Americans are going through as they are being released? Do you get some notice that this is happening? What is said to you?
SABERI: Wow, well, just thinking back to that day that I was told I was going to be released - I was shocked because I had been sentenced to eight years in prison. I mean, I went through an appellate trial. And the next day, they told me I would be freed. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it until I was on the plane getting out of Iran because I thought, well, what if they change their mind and say I can't leave? I think these prisoners - former prisoners now - probably feel much same way. I understand, from speaking to a family member of - one of the family members of Amir Hekmati (unintelligible) surprised. So I'm guessing that the Iranian-Americans were also very surprised. For me, it was a very bittersweet moment. It was bitter because I was leaving behind some friends that I had made a prison - political prisoners that I thought should also be released. But, of course, it's very sweet because you long for your freedom. You long for some very basic things, whether it's walks down on the street without a blindfold on, to ride in a car without handcuffs, to make a phone call, to see the sun whenever you want to. You long to be with your family and friends.
MARTIN: Did you have a sense that you were treated differently from other prisoners because of your nationality - because of your dual citizenship?
SABERI: I think in some ways I was treated better. I can't say that's always the case for dual nationals. There was an Iranian-Canadian journalists - Zahra Kazemi, a photojournalist. She died in Iranian custody in 2003. And the nature of that death or the cause was never really made clear. I know that there are some prisoners who have been physically tortured in Iran, and I was not physically tortured. It was more psychological pressure - what has been called white torture - which doesn't leave a mark on your body but can devastate your mind and your conscience.
MARTIN: Like what? I was going to ask you - like what? Because one of the things I noted that, again, you spoke about when you were released is how they lied to you or they always were encouraging you to lie. For example, you were initially told to say that you were arrested because you bought alcohol, which was absolutely not true. I mean, of course...
SABERI: Right.
MARTIN: ...It wasn't true that you were conducting espionage - what you were doing was journalism as we understand it. But I just found - was that pattern of lying or being told lies or being told to lie, was that part of it?
SABERI: It really can rob you of your dignity, yeah, because you're - most people are raised to tell the truth. And you start to wonder, you know, what am I doing to my dignity? What am I doing to my character? I was coerced into making a false confession, as a lot of political prisoners are. And although I recanted it, you know, it was a very - it was a long journey, and it can be very difficult. You feel very alone, but, I think in those cases what helped me - what probably helped these prisoners is to know that people on the outside do care.
MARTIN: What are they facing in the days, weeks and months ahead? What are some the things that they are likely to experience that the rest of us would not necessarily think of?
SABERI: For some, it may be easier than others. I know, in my case, it could be - it was very difficult sometimes. I - for a while, I kept looking over my shoulder thinking someone was following me. I had nightmares that people were coming to get me. Once in a while, I still do but very rarely. It took a couple of years to start feeling truly happy again. Right now, I'm in a really good place. But I know, speaking to different former political prisoners, many of them have traveled the same kind of path. You know, people want to help you, but very few people have gone through a similar experience, so it's hard for them to relate. And sometimes it just takes time, and also I found what helped me was dedicating myself to something I was passionate about, which was, first of all, talking about the fellow political prisoners I had left behind and (unintelligible) going back into journalism. So I think what helps - hopefully will help these prisoners when they come out will also be finding that purpose in life.
MARTIN: That's Roxana Saberi, who spent four months in the Evin Prison in 2009. She currently is working as a journalist for Al Jazeera America. Roxana Saberi, thanks so much for speaking with us.
SABERI: Thanks for having me, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now it's time for the Barbershop. That's our weekly segment where we gather interesting people who talk about what's in the news and what's on their mind. Sitting in the chairs for a shapeup this weekend are Ravi Patel. He is an actor, filmmaker and entrepreneur in Los Angeles. He joins us from NPR's Culver City studios. You might know him from that TV show "Grandfathered" or his documentary "Meet The Patels." Hi, Ravi.
RAVI PATEL: Hi, thanks so much for having me.
MARTIN: Glad you could be here. Another welcome to Puneet Ahluwalia - he is a consultant based in Northern Virginia, where he is also very active in the local Republican Party. Welcome, Puneet, thanks for coming over the bridge to D.C.
PUNEET AHLUWALIA: Well, thank you and pleasure to be here.
MARTIN: And last but not least, our good friend Sam Sanders, reporter at NPR Politics. Sam, thank you so much for walking down the hall. I really appreciate it.
SAM SANDERS, BYLINE: Of course, happy to do it.
MARTIN: So we want to start with some political news that's got people from all sides of the aisle fired up, and that is the speech by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley on Tuesday night. She was selected to deliver the GOP response to the president's State of the Union address. And I want to just play a little bit that blew up on social media. Here it is.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NIKKI HALEY: Today, we live in a time of threats like few others in recent memory. During anxious times, it can be tempting to follow the siren call of the angriest voices. We must resist that temptation. No one who is willing to work hard, abide by our laws and love our traditions should ever feel unwelcome in this country.
MARTIN: That was Gov. Nikki Haley giving the GOP response to the present's State of the Union address. Sam, I'm going to start with you because you've been covering this.
SANDERS: Yeah.
MARTIN: Explain what was the drama around this?
SANDERS: So there's, like, two takes on Nikki Haley. The GOP establishment kind of sees her as the great post-Obama hope. She is a woman. She's a person of color. But then you have this base that still needs to be appealed to, and they did not like her response. They thought it was too soft on immigration. They thought it was not good of her to attack Trump, tactically.
MARTIN: This was perceived as a...
SANDERS: As an attack on Trump.
MARTIN: ...Shot on Donald Trump.
SANDERS: Yeah. So, like, there were kind of two wings of Twitter. In the conservative base, the #DeportNikkiHaley trended. It started with Ann Coulter making the statement on Twitter. But then that hashtag took off. And people were saying things about her that had a racial tinge to them. And then on the other side, I saw this response from Indian-Americans. And this hashtag called #IndianAmericanSouthernGovernorName trended, and some Indian-Americans mocked away that she uses the name Nikki now and not her birth name. So you've got - like, on the one hand, she's not brown enough. On the other hand, she's too brown for some people. She kind of couldn't catch a break in that regard.
MARTIN: Interesting. Puneet, you are a fan, right, 'cause you actually went down to help out on her first...
AHLUWALIA: Yes.
MARTIN: ...Campaign for governor. She's since been reelected. Tell us about - how is this sitting with you? Did you - were you aware of this, by the way, all this hubbub around...
AHLUWALIA: Well, very much. In fact, being in politics, you always watch what's going on. But I think - let's take to it - I think the core group - the fundamental of the Republican Party - she identified and defined that. She tells her story. At the same time, she also says look, we're going through trying times, which we are. And the last seven years, which she pointed out in her speech, has been very tough on middle Americans, a lot of hard-working frustrated Americans who cannot really find a way to get back to good times. And we've gone through home financial crisis, families have broken apart. It's been challenging times. And what she was trying to portray and share is a softer side of the Republican Party, which we've never been able to message very - in a - articulate it in an effective way. I think she did a phenomenal job. And yes, we have the right to speak what our minds, say, and it didn't sit with well with certain people. Well, that's fine; but the good thing is she was being inclusive and together. And if you see her remarks after that, she said no, I just want to basically be an inclusive party. And that's what she was trying to get out.
MARTIN: What do you make of the blowback though?
AHLUWALIA: Look, she's taken some solid actions in the South - brought businesses back and then took down the flag. She's done some positive things, and that's a reason why Reince Priebus, the RNC chairman, and Mitch McConnell both felt that she is the new face and the new messenger of the Republican Party.
SANDERS: But the question is...
MARTIN: Go ahead, Sam.
SANDERS: ...Does the base want to see that face?
AHLUWALIA: Well...
SANDERS: The base of the party in this election is very angry, and she's trying to present a face that is not that angry.
MARTIN: Let me get Ravi in here. Ravi, do you a dog in this fight? Go ahead.
PATEL: Is she - isn't she born in South Carolina? Am I wrong about that?
AHLUWALIA: I don't know. I think she is.
MARTIN: Yeah, she is. Yeah.
PATEL: So, I mean - I mean, I'm just thinking, like, this hashtag of deporting her in and of itself is racist.
MARTIN: Well, yeah.
PATEL: I mean, and it...
MARTIN: (Laughter) I mean, well, yeah. Go ahead, Ravi.
PATEL: Yeah, I mean, I just think hashtag itself is racist. I think what this whole debate is - is based upon is this growing populous of scared and angry bigots in this country. And she's very - I mean, any reasonable person who's a part of the Republican Party wants to separate themselves from that movement. I mean, she is going to be the future of that party whether - you know, whether the base likes it or not.
SANDERS: I think that remains to be seen.
MARTIN: But Ravi, let me ask you this. The whole - the other side of it that Sam highlighted, which is some people saying, you know, you Anglicized your name - you know, so what do you make of that?
PATEL: Yeah. I mean, I think first and foremost, she shouldn't feel pressured to be anyone but herself. And if she identifies herself as someone who's, you know, just an everyday South Carolinian, then she has no responsibility to other Indians. Now, me personally, my name, for example, on the TV show that I'm on is the same as my real name, which is Ravi. They mispronounce it Ravi. I made a whole thing about it because I didn't want to be the Indian who is mispronouncing his name. And, you know, maybe there's another Ravi who's 8 years old out there who decides because he sees the name Anglicized that he should be doing the same. But that's a battle that I wanted to fight because it's important to me, and that's who I want to be to the Indian community. For her, that's not a fight that she's choosing. And by the way, she may have decided to go by the name Nikki - I don't know if you guys have been to South Carolina that much, but I grew up in Charlotte. I can tell you that is a very hard place to be brown. And if she was able to change her name and be a little bit happier, God bless her.
SANDERS: Yeah. And here's the thing, people of all races from all over the place get nicknames. You know, I mean, like, nicknames happen. We should - like, we can't always...
PATEL: Yeah.
SANDERS: ...Assume because someone takes on a nickname that it is for these bigger, larger reasons.
PATEL: We all do it. I mean, we've all come to the point where we've decided - like, in my case, do I want to go by Rob? Should I be Rob? No, doesn't make sense for me.
AHLUWALIA: Ravi, you know...
MARTIN: Puneet, go ahead.
AHLUWALIA: ...When I came here, in fact, a lot of people wanted me to change my name. And of course, if you - my name Puneet Ahluwalia - God, it's a singsong name...
PATEL: Yeah, what name were you workshopping?
(LAUGHTER)
SANDERS: Workshopping (laughter).
AHLUWALIA: I didn't choose to change my name because I felt like people who know me for who I am and how I am. The fact is, you know, it all depends on how people want to fit in. And I think as we are a country of liberty and your choice, it's up to you what you decide to do in the end.
SANDERS: And we do have a president who's named Barack.
AHLUWALIA: Yeah, exactly.
MARTIN: OK, let me ask you about one other topic that's kind of hot on the block this week, especially on social media, which is the Oscar nominations were just announced. Matt Damon, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, the usual suspects for actor and actress. And the surprise, if you want to call it that, is who's not on the nominations list, by which I mean
any actors of color. A lot of people thought that Idris Elba got cheated. This was the same issue last year that got a lot of people hot on the block. So Ravi, I've got to ask you since you're out there - this is your field - are people talking about this?
PATEL: Yeah, I think people are talking about it. But I don't think people are necessarily surprised. I mean, look, I got a really good look at the system just through, you know, my documentary "Meet The Patels," which was one of the highest-grossing docs of the year. And - and...
SANDERS: I love that movie.
PATEL: Thank you so much.
SANDERS: Yes.
PATEL: Thank you so much.
MARTIN: Sam is a fan.
SANDERS: I am.
MARTIN: We all are, but I'm being objective. I'm not telling you how much I liked it because I'm maintaining objectivity, just...
SANDERS: I'm going to tell you, I loved it. I loved it.
MARTIN: OK, go ahead.
PATEL: I appreciate your integrity. Yeah, Sam on the other hand...
MARTIN: Anyway tell us about it, you were saying the process - yeah.
PATEL: One of the things I learned is that these awards are all bought. I mean, it's just like politics. It's there's a strong correlation between who wins...
AHLUWALIA: I disagree.
PATEL: ...And how much money was spent - yeah, there's a - are you telling me in politics there's not a correlation between how much is spent and who wins?
AHLUWALIA: Look at Jeb Bush. He raised so much money. Where is he at?
PATEL: I'm saying answer the question. Is there a strong correlation between how much money is spent and the outcome of the race - on the outcome of the races?
AHLUWALIA: I think...
PATEL: You can't deny that.
AHLUWALIA: No, Ravi, talent, of course - I think the other way it looks at is the rich movie really garners the most box office hits and the talent. And how clear is that exist there that brings people - go ahead.
SANDERS: And with the Academy, it's about who lobbies for the awards. Like, there was a year that I think Eddie Murphy was up for "Dreamgirls." He didn't lobby in the way that you do to get the award. And it was part of why he didn't win the Oscar - people say, right?
MARTIN: OK, but then there was Denzel Washington won twice, you know, Halle Berry won and Viola Davis just won a big award at the Emmys. And a lot of people are just saying how is it possible - I guess what's the deal? I mean, is it the same old, same old? Has anything changed? Has anything changed?
PATEL: I think things have changed and are changing. Obviously, it's not a good sign that we were looking at an all-white nominees here. But, you know, I just think awards because they're subjective are something that you can only view as a positive if it happens for you and not a negative if it doesn't. I think specifically when we talk about race - which, by the way, the bigger issue to me is the gender, where we have, you know, 9 percent female-directed films last year - I care more about that, honestly. But when it comes to race, my question would be who is it that got snubbed? Because I think it has more to do with us not putting people of color in greater positions of power in these films.
MARTIN: Sam?
SANDERS: And like Viola Davis said, if the roles aren't there, you can't play them.
AHLUWALIA: Exactly.
SANDERS: And, like, how many high-caliber roles are being carved out for people of color to play? And, like, I haven't watched a lot of the films that people thought should be in contention, but I did see "Concussion." And Will Smith's performance in that movie and the movie itself was not Oscar caliber, you know? And it's like we can't...
PATEL: I would say the same for the guys from "Straight Outta Compton," even though I loved that movie. I loved it.
SANDERS: We can't expect Oscar nominations for people of color when the films and the roles are not there. And that's...
PATEL: Yeah.
SANDERS: ...A larger issue than just the Academy Awards, and it's an issue that we know about all year. So to have this hashtag trend every year at the same time, we knew about this.
PATEL: But let me ask you this...
MARTIN: Go ahead, Ravi.
PATEL: What did you guys think of - have you guys seen "Joy?" I thought the movie was so intensely mediocre. I love Jennifer Lawrence. I think she's one of the best actresses in the world.
SANDERS: I never saw it for Jennifer Lawrence, but that's just me.
PATEL: I (laughter)...
SANDERS: Can I say that?
PATEL: Yeah, of course, it's very welcome.
MARTIN: Yeah, I'm not going to invite you to my birthday party, where she's going to be my guest-of-honor. But that's, you know...
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: Sure, you can say that. But yeah - yeah, I like Jennifer Lawrence, but I - well, anyway - all right, I'm going to give Puneet the last word. Do you care? Do you follow this stuff? You're the civilian here.
AHLUWALIA: I don't want to make more about this. I think it is what it is, and I think - I love "The Martian." I loved Leonardo's role, and...
MARTIN: You're not confusing Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio, are you?
AHLUWALIA: No, I'm not.
MARTIN: OK, I'm just making sure that we weren't having a little reverse...
SANDERS: Are you saying they all look alike, Michel?
MARTIN: I was not. I'm just making sure that...
PATEL: It is about the money though. But the issue is that there's a disconnect between the consumers and the filmmakers, and that disconnect are the gatekeepers - the distributors, the execs. And those people are mostly white.
MARTIN: All right, that's - we have to leave it there for now. That's Ravi Patel, NPR reporter Sam Sanders and Puneet Ahluwalia all here in our Barbershop. Thank you all so much.
SANDERS: Thank you.
AHLUWALIA: Thank you.
PATEL: Thanks so much for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The North American International Auto Show opened to the public today in Detroit. It's one of the biggest auto shows in America.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The 2016 North American Car of the Year is the Honda Civic.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The North American Truck Utility of the Year is the Volvo XC90.
MARTIN: Following a record year of auto sales, the big stories out of the show are luxury, trucks and car features that bring us closer to cars that drive themselves. NPR's Sonari Glinton spent the week there, and he's going to tell us more. Hi, Sonari.
SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: Hey, how's it going, Michel?
MARTIN: So the Honda Civic and the Volvo XC90 were the car and truck of the year, respectively. So let's take them one by one - the Honda Civic, how come?
GLINTON: Well, it is actually a really amazing car. They have all the modern self-driving features that you can get in a really inexpensive vehicle. You can get Lane Assist, you can get a back-up camera, you can get all these sort of things for about $20,000, and that's pretty amazing.
MARTIN: So are self-driving cars far away or not? We've heard so much about them, and it kind of make feel like they're around the corner - yes or no?
GLINTON: Well, they're around the corner and they're far away. All the easy things - the driving down the road going 65 miles an hour, we can do that. What we can't do is, you know, drive in an ice storm or figure out - is that a tumbleweed, is that a cat or is that a child? You know, there are these dynamic decisions that we have to make. And the car companies are spending billions of dollars right now on AI and robot technology. And that's a part of the show, and that's part of what everyone's excited about because they're actually putting the money in right now with the artificial intelligence. And you're seeing it in the cars.
MARTIN: So now let's talk trucks - the Volvo XC90 was the truck of the year. I'm not sure if that's what people think of when they think of the truck. So tell me, first of all, why was it the truck of the year? What's so great?
GLINTON: Well, you know, Volvo is a company that executes vehicles very well. It is an SUV. And SUVs are so important, as well as compact SUVs. This is where people are purchasing their cars. This is the playing ground. And the fact that a Chinese company, which owns Volvo, has spent about $11 billion restructuring the company is also a sign of a change in the structure of the auto industry, where a Chinese company has a seat on the floor of the North American International Auto Show. And that's a sign of a change in the industry.
MARTIN: Finally, Sonari, your interview the head of Volkswagen has been getting a lot of play in the U.S. media. CEO Matthias Muller said, quote, "we didn't lie." And he was referring, of course, to VW's emissions scandal. How are people receiving that?
GLINTON: Well, there's a lot of shock, especially in Germany because there's a sense and worry that he's not the guy to handle this really big PR problem for Volkswagen. What we have to understand is that Volkswagen is much more central to the identity of Germany than, say, Chrysler is to ours. They employ hundreds of thousands of people. And this is really serious, and the German people and the German press and regulators are wondering if Matthias Muller can smooth this out. Now, he's only been the CEO for three months, and there's a worry that he's not the person to get back the trust of the American people. And this is one of the most important markets for the company to win.
MARTIN: That NPR's Sonari Glinton. He just got back from the Detroit Auto Show. Thanks, Sonari.
GLINTON: It's a pleasure, as always.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to turn back now to the big diplomatic news tonight. Five Americans who had been held prisoner in Iran are now free. In exchange, the United States has agreed to release seven Iranians who were convicted or charged with sanctions violations and will drop the hunt for 14 others. This all comes as the international sanctions against Iran's nuclear program are being lifted under the controversial agreement brokered by the Obama administration. Joining us now to talk about all this is NPR's Scott Horsley. Scott, this was already a big weekend for American and Iranian negotiators with the nuclear deal reaching its payoff. Now, to take it up a notch, we throw in this prisoner exchange. So just talk a little bit about how all this came together at the same time.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Sure thing. Well, the White House has been under pressure to win the release of these prisoners, four of whom are dual citizens, including Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian, a pastor, Saeed Abedini and a former Marine, Amir Hekmati, who had been accused of spying on Iran. Rezaian's brother and Hekmati's sister were both in attendance on Tuesday when the president gave his State of Union speech. During the nuclear talks themselves, the White House always tried to keep the hostage issue - or the prisoner issue - separate. But there was a channel going along with talks on the sidelines. And we're told by administration officials that those talks accelerated after the nuclear deal itself was concluded last summer. Of course, earlier this week, we also had the swift release of those U.S. Navy sailors who'd been detained in Iranian waters. And the White House sees that and this as a side benefit of the diplomatic engagement with Iran.
MARTIN: You know, but with this swap, as you just told us, you know, five Americans are being freed. But so are the seven Iranians, and that is already evoking some pushback, particularly from people in the president's - who are not in the president's party - and Republican candidates. But there are other people who are upset for a lot of other reasons. You want to talk about that?
HORSLEY: Sure. Well, the administration stresses that the Iranians who are being released were charged, or in some cases convicted, of sanctions violations, not terrorist-related activity or violent crimes. But as you say, there are critics who will say the Obama administration made a bad bargain here and gave up too much. Of course, some of those same critics would say the same about the nuclear deal itself. In addition to the seven Iranians, the U.S. is dropping its efforts to extradite 14 other Iranians believed to be overseas, though the U.S. says they didn't really think there was much chance that those folks were going to wind up in U.S. custody anyway.
MARTIN: But this isn't the first time we've heard questions about this whole issue of exchanging of prisoners, correct? Tell us a little bit more about that.
HORSLEY: No, it's not the first time. The president was criticized for releasing five Taliban members in exchange for the freedom of Bowe Bergdahl. Likewise, when the administration renewed diplomatic ties with Cuba, it agreed to release several members of the so-called Cuban Five, who were held prisoner in this country. That coincided with Cuba's release of Alan Gross, although the White House went out of its way to say that Gross was freed on humanitarian grounds and tried not to characterize that as a swap. Nevertheless, there have certainly been some who complain the White House gave up too much, got too little in return. And you're hearing echoes of that criticism today in regard to Iran.
MARTIN: Scott, we only have about a minute left. Now, you've - you know, you cover the White House, you follow this president closely. Does the fact that the president has only a year left in office, do you think that that kind of factors into his approach on these issues?
HORSLEY: Yeah, you're seeing a president who wants to take care of as much he can while he's got some time left. We're seeing an uptick, for example, in the number of prisoners being released from Guantanamo and sent to third countries - more released just this week. So the Guantanamo head count's now under a hundred. Eventually, we may see the president make a bid to move some of the hardest cases at that prison to a military base on the mainland. Yesterday, we saw the Interior Department order a temporary moratorium on coal leases as part of the president's controversial climate strategy. So Obama says he's got a lot to do left in the year he's got left, and so fasten your seatbelts.
MARTIN: That was NPR White House correspondent Scott Horsley. Thank you, Scott.
HORSLEY: My pleasure.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We wanted to get a sense of how this is playing out in Tehran, so we've called Arthur MacMillan. He's the deputy bureau chief for Agence France-Presse in Tehran. Arthur MacMillain, thanks so much for speaking with us.
ARTHUR MACMILLAN: You're welcome.
MARTIN: How is the news being received and how is it being delivered in Tehran? What are you hearing?
MACMILLAN: Well, it seemed a very deliberate and calculated release of information. To begin with, the judiciary here, who is the main legal authority, put out a statement on their official website which said that four dual-national citizens have been released. They did not say dual-Americans, but the fact that it was four immediately led to speculation that it could only be the dual Iranian-Americans who, in the end, were, in fact, released. But we have had denials from officials here in Tehran that it was linked to the nuclear negotiations. But really no one is taking those denials seriously.
MARTIN: Well, as you know in the United States, we're in the middle of an election season. And already some of the candidates from the political party other than the current president's have denounced this, saying that it would increase the value of American hostages and so forth. So I was wondering if there are people in Iran who would oppose this, and are they being heard from? And what are they saying?
MACMILLAN: Well, the main forum for people who would have such grievances in Iran is through social networks. And there is some concern being outlined there. Some people are saying that it clearly was evidence that if you're a dual Iranian-American citizen, your life is worth more, some people saying that there are many domestic prisoners in jail here who would have no such recourse to being released. So there's definitely some concern in that area.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, Arthur, what's the atmosphere in general when it comes to U.S.-Iranian relations? As I think most people know, there's been hostility between the two countries since Iran's Islamic revolution in 1979. But now the historic nuclear deal and then there's this prisoner exchange - is there a sense that there is a turning point afoot there?
MACMILLAN: No, there is no turning point yet. There are a multiplicity of views in Iran about what the future of Iranian-American relations should be. There are many people - and I would have to say, I think the majority of the Iranian population - do not want to see an antagonistic relationship with the United States. But that does not mean that these two countries are going to become friends. Even the government of Iran under Mr. Rouhani - who has pursued this pragmatic foreign policy over the nuclear talks in the last couple of years - he has said that the United States and Iran will have diplomatic relations one day. But that could only happen if the United States apologized for past crimes, as it's described here, against Iran. And I think most people in Washington would see that as a highly unlikely prospect. But there are hardline elements in the regime in Tehran that wishes to have nothing to do with the United States and, frankly, fear what they call infiltration of American culture and economic interests coming into Iran after the nuclear deal. So I think we're in a position where, at least at the moment, under John Kerry and Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, there is undoubtedly a diplomatic channel. But it will be very interesting to note in the next couple years if that high level of contact can be maintained.
MARTIN: That's Arthur MacMillan. He's the Tehran deputy bureau chief for Agence France-Presse, and we reached him today in Tehran. Arthur, thanks so much for speaking with us.
MACMILLAN: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Among the Americans released today is pastor Saeed Abedini. He has been held in Iran since 2012, sentenced to eight years in prison for Christian proselytizing. Saeed Abedeni is 35 years old. He's from Boise, Idaho, and he is a convert from Islam to Christianity. We reached his wife Naghmeh in Idaho today. Mrs. Abedini, thank you so much for speaking with us.
NAGHMEH ABEDINI: Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: It must have been - it must continue to be such an emotional day. I can't even imagine. But can you just sort of describe what's going through your mind right now?
ABEDINI: It's a good emotional, and the last three and a half years have been very hard emotional. And it's a good - it's amazing news to get early in the morning, and to be able to finally have an answer to my kids' question of when it is daddy coming home? And I was able to finally tell them he's coming home soon.
MARTIN: May I ask how you learned that he was going to be released?
ABEDINI: Interesting enough, through Iranian media has said that the Americans were released. And after it broke out on the Iranian media, I got a call from State Department saying that it was true, that Saeed and the other Americans were at the Swiss embassy and that they were being transported to the airport. As far as I know, since in the last hour, they're still on Iranian soil, and they're trying to leave the airport. There seems to be something holding them back, but we're hoping he'll be out of Iranian territory within the next few hours.
MARTIN: You have not yet been able to speak with him?
ABEDINI: No. Once - once he is out of Iran, he will be flown into Switzerland by a Swiss airplane. And there will be a quick change of planes there, and he will be brought to Germany. And once he's there, there's evaluations and certain things that he will be going through with our government. And that is when I will get a phone call, so it could be much later tonight when I first get to talk to him.
MARTIN: You wrote a piece for The Post back in October, and it was a fairly - I don't want to say despairing piece, but it seemed as though you were giving up hope at that time. Is that true? Did you - were you starting to feel that there was not going to be a positive resolution here?
ABEDINI: Not giving up hope, but I was - I had - I came to peace with - that this could be a few more years. And when I came to peace with that and just let go and focused on my kids and my own healing is when he's released. So the least-expected time I could've ever imagined during my travels or - I don't know, when I was advocating all the time - is when it would've happened.
MARTIN: Well, I was going to ask you about that because you have become, on your husband's behalf, one of the kind of higher-profile advocates around the whole question of religious freedom. You did seem to withdraw from public advocacy for a period of time. And I did want to ask why was that? Was it because of the toll of the traveling?
ABEDINI: It was. That was a big part of it. There was also a lot of personal issues, although I am very proud of my husband for having stood his faith regardless of the pressures in the last three years. The truth is there's some very serious issues that will need to be dealt with once he's home and our family will need to sure the last three years. The truth is there are some very serious issues that will need to be dealt with once he's home, and our family will need to, you know, step into a road of healing and reconciliation. And Saeed's - I'm a different person, he's a different person, and I don't know where he's at physically, mentally, what has happened in the last three years and where he's at as a person. And just our family will have to go through a lot of transition.
MARTIN: How old are the kids now, if you don't mind my asking?
ABEDINI: Rebecca is - Rebecca is 9 and Jacob is 7.
MARTIN: So it's been - that's a long time in kids' lives. How did they the react to be separated from a parent? How did they react when you told them that he was - had been released or was going to be released?
ABEDINI: You know, it's half their lifetime. And for them, it seemed like - you know, it seemed like a long time. They were just jumping up and down, rejoicing. And they're making a welcome home sign right now as we speak.
MARTIN: How are you doing?
ABEDINI: It's been a busy day, but I'm good. You know, it's a good surprise. The battle is over and now we can focus on the next journey as a family and healing and transition. And at least that first huge hurdle's over. And God is bigger than the next hurdle. And we will move forward as a family.
MARTIN: You've kind of suggested to us that your period as a public person is coming to an end. Is there something there - before you kind of withdrawal into your private life - is there something you would wish for us to know about what it's like to go through something like this that perhaps we might not know?
ABEDINI: The biggest thing I've learned is all of us go through turmoil either caused by circumstances or people. And I've learned to be happy and at peace no matter the circumstance and find that strength in God. And I know that Saeed has grown a lot, too, in his faith. And so it will be a period of transition.
MARTIN: Well, our very best to you, and thank you so much for speaking with us and thank you for taking the time on this very special and important day in your life and our very best wishes to you and to your family.
ABEDINI: Thank you so much. I appreciate your - your call.
MARTIN: That was Naghmeh Abedini. She learned today that her husband Saeed was one of the American prisoners released from Iran, and we were able to reach her today in Boise, Idaho.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Tomorrow is the day the nation remembers Martin Luther King, Jr., so we thought this was a good time to reflect on how his legacy is playing out today. Many people see the Black Lives Matter movement of the modern incarnation of the drive for human dignity and legal standing that Dr. King embodied. But others, including some members of the earlier generation of activists, sometimes find fault with the group, seeing it as an aimless, formless group that still lacks direction and follow-through.
Meanwhile, younger activists sometimes see their seniors as too narrow in their focus and rigid in their methods. And others ask whether the mere fact that another protest movement has arisen is a sign that earlier efforts have fallen short.
We've called two prominent activists who're both seen as acting in the tradition of Dr. King's legacy of grassroots activism to reflect on these important questions. Reverend William Barber II is senior pastor at Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, N.C. He's the head of the North Carolina NAACP, but he's probably best known for leading Moral Monday protests across North Carolina, considered the largest racial justice rally in the South since Selma. He's with us from his church in Goldsboro. Welcome, Reverend Barber, thanks so much for speaking with us.
WILLIAM BARBER II: So glad to be here this morning.
MARTIN: And here with us in our Washington, D.C., studios is Patrisse Cullors. She is an artist and activist from Los Angeles, and she's considered one of the founders of the Black Live Matters movement. Welcome, Patrisse. Thanks so much for speaking with us again.
PATRISSE CULLORS: Thank you.
MARTIN: First, I wanted to ask each of you if you agree with my characterization. Do you see yourself as part of the next generation of civil rights activists or something else entirely? Patrisse, do you want to start?
CULLORS: I definitely see myself as the next generation of civil rights activists. I think part of our work in this generation has been about reclaiming MLK and the ways that this government, in a lot of ways, has totally whitewashed his legacy. As a young kid growing up, what we were given was the dream speech. We weren't given his grassroots organizing. We weren't given that King was a local organizer. We weren't given everything he did up until the Voting Rights Act. And when I joined this movement as a young person, I realized, oh, King is so much more. Look at these speeches. Look at what he was doing. And as the Black Lives Matter movement started, it was really clear to many of us that we had to reclaim that legacy.
MARTIN: Reverend Barber, your personal biography is similar to Dr. King's in the sense that, you know, you are an ordained minister. You do lead an institution. You are, you know, have a kind of a traditional family life, you know, or role in your community. So I would assume that perhaps that connection to the King legacy is more natural for you. Do you see it that way?
BARBER: Well, I don't know, but I see the legacy of Dr. King is even beyond the civil rights movement. I see the legacy connected to the Old Testament prophets who stood up for the marginalized and against injustice to the social gospel movement that stood up and asked the question - what would Jesus do in the face of terrible economic inequities and damage to workers? - right on through to the second Reconstruction, which I call the civil rights movement. You know, that intersectionality - fusion politics - bringing together blacks and whites and Latinos and Jews and Christians and Muslims, but doing it in a way that takes race and class seriously and does not separate them.
MARTIN: So, Patrisse, let me get to the intergenerational critique. There are those who argue that Black Lives Matter is good at getting people out, but not getting people in, by which I mean that so far, at least - that the movement has been good at getting people fired from jobs. They've been good at getting people indicted, even, or calling attention to people who've done wrong, but not very good at forming a strategy that would change the institutions that caused the harm that you see. And I want to ask how you've - what do you say to that?
CULLORS: I guess what I want to argue is that folks have seen the protesting and the marching, the arrests, but folks haven't actually sat down with movement leaders to say, what else are you doing? The negotiations with mayors, with chiefs of police, with county sheriffs - people are missing the negotiations because that's not what gets highlighted in the media. And I think what we ask of folks is to be patient. Instead of heavily critiquing us, join us and help us strategize around what's next and what's possible.
MARTIN: Reverend Barber, what do you say about the slate of issues on which you now focus, like the whole question of voting rights, like the whole question of, you know, workplace issues. I mean, people forget that Dr. King was in Memphis...
BARBER: Right.
MARTIN: ...Because of the sanitation workers' strike...
BARBER: Exactly.
MARTIN: ...Over wages and working conditions. And some people look at that and say - is that evidence that the earlier movement actually did not succeed?
BARBER: No. It's evident that America is always catching the hiccups. And when it comes to public policy and regressing, yes, we are in a reality right now where we have less voting rights today than we had August 6, 1965, after the Shelby decision and the inaction of the Congress. But that's what movements do.
This is country constantly going through reconstruction. And there are times when we have to do two things at the same time. We have to protect what was won and expand. So we have to fight in the courts. We have to fight in the street. We have to fight in the legislative hall. And we have to fight at the ballot box. Democracy is hard. It is not easy.
MARTIN: Patrisse, how does that sit with you, as a young woman really just starting your life? How does that sit with you? In fact, is it OK to mention you're about to become a mother? Does that feel optimistic or pessimistic to hear that this work is still the same work in some ways?
CULLORS: It doesn't feel optimistic or pessimistic. It feels sobering. And, you know, as a child who grew up during the war on drugs and witnessed devastation of my community and black communities at large by the police state and the prison state, I am very grateful that I'm in this fight. And I've sat with, you know, civil rights leaders, and I've sat with former Panthers who say, I'm sorry. We failed you. And I say to them, no, you didn't. You've set the standard. And we are continuing to move that forward. We can't expect to undo 500 years. We just can't expect to undo it in three or four decades.
MARTIN: Reverend Barber, what about you?
BARBER: Well, it says more about the failure of America, but it also says something about the greatness of movements and the seeds that were sown by Ella Baker and Dr. King and Rosa Parks. We are their children. And so when I hear about Patrisse's behavior, that makes me want to fight. When I think about the fact I was born two days after the March on Washington - and to hear my mother say to me one day, listen, we fought too hard for you to stop. You better fight. You better stand up. And I - that's why our mantra is no matter what they say to us, no matter how many death threats we get, no matter what politicians do, we are going forward together.
MARTIN: Well, we have to leave it there for now. Hopefully, we'll talk again. That was the Reverend William Barber II. He's president of the North Carolina NAACP. He's also the leader of a group called repairersofthebreach.org, and he joined us from Greenleaf Christian Church in Goldsboro, N.C. Patrisse Cullors was also with us. She's a cofounder of the Black Lives Matter movement. She's considered one of the originators of the Black Lives Matter hashtag. She joined us in our Washington, D.C., studios. She's director of the Truth and Reinvestment Campaign at the Ella Baker Center. Thank you both so much for speaking with us, and happy Martin Luther King Day to you both.
CULLORS: Thank you so much. This was great.
BARBER: God bless you. Love you all.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now we're going to switch gears to a sensitive and emotional issue here in the U.S., and that is the treatment of undocumented immigrants. Late last year, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed reports that it was going to step up efforts to detain and remove people with deportation orders. The arrests began in January and started the rumor mill churning. And now some people fear that the arrests have set off some unintended consequences. We have the first of two reports on this from NPR Code Switch team. Jasmine Garsd reports from Langley Park, Md., which is a hub for Central American immigrants.
JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: I meet up with Giovanni in his car at the parking lot of a fast-food joint. Outside, it's pouring rain. He shows me pictures of his two sons, both U.S. citizens. He says he's been talking more with his sister about what he calls plan B for him and his children.
GIOVANNI: (Through interpreter) I have a little money saved. The day I'm no longer here or something happens to me, I want you to give it to them.
GARSD: These days, he worries a lot more about being sent back to Honduras, and he's keeping his ear to the ground. This all started on the first week of January when DHS stepped up its enforcement nationwide. Giovanni's phone started blowing up with calls from worried friends.
GIOVANNI: (Through interpreter) Don't come to Langley Park. They're stopping people. If they even see you have a Hispanic face, they'll catch you and send you back. Well, OK then, I said. I'm staying home.
GARSD: DHS declined to be interviewed by NPR. But in official statements, the agency says most of the arrests have taken place in Georgia, Texas and North Carolina. There are no official reports of arrests in Maryland. Still, a blanket of anxiety has fallen over this community.
GEORGE ESCOBAR: Obviously, there is fear all over. But we do our best to try to filter through the information people give us.
GARSD: George Escobar is one of the leaders at CASA in Maryland, an immigrant advocacy organization. At the start of the year, they set up a hotline to field people's concerns about immigration enforcement. At first, Escobar says, they got as many as 150 calls a day, many from people who claim they were seeing immigration officers in the area.
ESCOBAR: Immigration officials knocking on people's doors, entering into their apartments, immigration vehicles being parked in very public spaces in the middle of the day.
GARSD: On the local Spanish-language radio, 107.9 El Zol, host Pedro Biaggi asked what's on everyone's mind.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PEDRO BIAGGI: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: "If the cops suspect someone with a deportation order is in the house, they can just come in."
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: "No," says a CASA executive who is a guest on the program. "In this country," he explains, "they need a warrant." Giovanni has heard all of this, and he also knows he does not fall into DHS' priority list. They're looking for recent arrivals, criminals and people with deportation orders. He doesn't fall into any of those categories.
GIOVANNI: (Through interpreter) It's still scary because I've heard of people getting picked up in Langley Park. I've never seen an immigration police car or an immigration official. I've seen it on TV but never live. I haven't had the pleasure.
GARSD: For many people like Giovanni, it doesn't matter whether the rumors are true. The fear is real. Jasmine Garsd, NPR News, Langley Park, Md.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to start the program today trying to learn more about the diplomacy between the U.S. and Iran that led to this weekend's prisoner swap. Several of the Americans are in Germany tonight after flying out of Tehran. President Obama announced that his administration has settled hundreds of millions of dollars in claims with Iran.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: The United States has never been afraid to pursue diplomacy with our adversaries. And as president, I decided that a strong, confident America could advance our national security by engaging directly with the Iranian government.
MARTIN: He's also trying to strike a balance. The president has imposed new sanctions to punish Iran for continued ballistic missile tests in violation of U.N. Security Council resolutions. NPR's Michele Kelemen is back with us to talk about all this. First of all, Michele, what is the latest on the Americans who were freed? Why did it take so long for them to leave? There seems to have been some hours lag between the time that we heard about the swap and when they actually left the country.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: That's right. We're told that it took some time to make sure that the wife and the mother of Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian were on board and able to leave Iran. His wife had spent some time in prison herself and had some legal issues hanging over her. So they're now all in Germany. The family of former Marine Amir Hekmati says they're grateful that Amir is going to be able to return home soon to his father, who's quite ill. Pastor Saeed Abedini was also on that plane, according to his wife. One Iranian-American apparently stayed behind - that's a case we know very little about - while a fifth prisoner, Matt Trevithick, left yesterday.
MARTIN: Can you tell us a little bit more about the process? Are U.S. officials telling us any of the - sort of the backstory on this?
KELEMEN: Well, you know, this all started in negotiations that started about 14 months ago. And it came out of the nuclear talks, but they were kept on a very different tract and kept secret. They were led by a State Department official named Brett McGurk. He was meeting with Iranians in secret in Switzerland. And by the way, some of these Americans were picked up while these talks were taking place. The Iranians were asking for many Iranian nationals to be released from prison here. And U.S. officials are telling us today that they managed to whittle down that list to a small group of nonviolent offenders. These were people who were in jail or facing charges here mainly for sanctions busting.
MARTIN: Can I just briefly ask you about another name that many Americans may have heard, which is Robert Levinson? He's a former FBI agent, as I understand it, who has been - not been heard from for a very long time. Do we know anything about him?
KELEMEN: The only thing U.S. officials say is that his case was discussed in these negotiations, that the Iranians have agreed to work closely with the U.S. to help locate him. He's been missing since 2007, and it's never been clear who's been holding him and where.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, Michele, the U.S. announced today that it is adding more sanctions on Iran at the same time as the announcement of the big claims settlement between the U.S. between the U.S. and Iran, a big financial settlement. Can you just briefly try to tie all those things together?
KELEMEN: (Laughter) Well, the administration was always promising that even as it was lifting these nuclear-related sanctions it was going to keep up the pressure on Iran for other bad behavior. So these targeted sanctions that were announced today were in response to Iranian ballistic missile tests. They were targeted against three companies and eight individuals. And the U.S. held off on this announcement until they got the American prisoners out. On the settlement issue, Iran's going to receive $400 million plus $1.3 billion in interest. U.S. officials say this is money that Iran paid for for U.S. military equipment before the revolution, and clearing these sorts of claims is in U.S. interests.
MARTIN: That's NPR's diplomatic correspondent Michele Kelemen. Thanks, Michele.
KELEMEN: Thank you.
MARTIN: I'd like to mention we will be speaking with Congressman Dan Kildee later this hour. The Congressman has been fighting for the release of the longest-held of the prisoners who were just released. That's former U.S. Marine Amir Hekmati. And we will hear from him in a minute.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to look more closely now at how the fear of deportation is playing out among one particular group of people - actually, at a particular place - a high school in Maryland. Prince George's County is a closed-in suburb of Washington, D.C. Some 80,000 foreign-born Hispanics live there, according to the census. One school in that County, High Point High, is called Central American Ellis Island by its principal, Sandra Jimenez. Close to 70 percent of the students are Latino. Principal Jimenez says the fear of raids is scaring some of her immigrant students from coming to school. Principal Jimenez was kind enough to join us in our Washington, D.C., studios to tell us more about this. Thanks for joining us. Thanks for coming in.
SANDRA JIMENEZ: My pleasure. Thank you for offering.
MARTIN: So recently the CEO of the county's public schools, Kevin Maxwell, released a statement saying he was, quote, "deeply troubled by the fear and uncertainty that exists in so many of our school communities as a result of the actions of DHS." Tell me about that dip in attendance. What have you seen, and when did you start to see it?
JIMENEZ: So we started to see it right after the Christmas holiday. And mostly we're seeing a drop in the students who are the most recent arrivals in the school system, so the students who have gotten here within the last year. So we have about 120 of the newcomer students, so those students are coming at a rate of about 50 percent. Those students who have gotten to know the school and the school - the United States and the United States system, they actually know that there are rules and that the police actually have to follow the rules. People who are the newest arrivals still carry the trauma from their country that there are no rules, that the police have ultimate power and they can do anything they want to do. So there's still that trauma.
MARTIN: You're saying half of them aren't showing up.
JIMENEZ: Right.
MARTIN: And were they showing up before?
JIMENEZ: Yes. We had at least 92, 93 percent attendance in those students.
MARTIN: Now, I do want to mention that we reached out to the Department of Homeland Security. We asked them to join our conversation. They have declined, but they have put out a statement saying that there are no raids going on at any schools, that this is absolutely not true. Is it that the students just don't believe it?
JIMENEZ: To a certain degree, it's not the issue of school. It's the issue of the community. They're afraid to go out. Some of the newest arrivals are your unaccompanied minors who may not have people to support them and orient them to get them to come to school. So we're reaching out to those students.
MARTIN: Do you have any sense of how many of your students overall are without proper documentation?
JIMENEZ: So last year, we participated in Michelle Obama's FAFSA initiative, which is the federal application for financial aid. And so the only people who can fill out the federal application for financial aid are students who are documented. So we asked every senior to fill out the form but only those were documented could do so. And it ended up being that 50 percent of our seniors could fill out the application.
MARTIN: Well, I just want to ask you this because I am aware that there are people who will be listening to our conversation who will not be synthetic to this at all. I mean, their argument is that this is a nation of laws. The laws must be observed.
JIMENEZ: It's also the law that a person who is in the United States has the right to an education. My perspective is that as long as you are a member of my community, I want you educated. Whatever you do on the border, that's a politician's role and beyond my pay grade. But once you become a member of the community, it's my responsibility to educate you. As long as you're here, you need to be moving forward.
MARTIN: Principal Jimenez, thanks so much for speaking with us.
JIMENEZ: My pleasure, thank you.
MARTIN: Sandra Jimenez is principal at High Point High School in Prince George's County, Md. That's close to Washington, D.C. She's experiencing a drop in attendance believed to be because of fears of immigration raids. And we say once again that Homeland Security told us in a statement that the agency does not conduct raids. "Immigration Customs Enforcement focuses on those who have been issued a final order of removal from a judge," unquote.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now we hear from a Michigan congressman who's been fighting for the release of one of the American prisoners held in Iran - his constituent, Amir Hekmati. That fight, which he's been waging through much of his time in Congress, has now come to an end. Congressman Dan Kildee, a Michigan Democrat serving his second term, has done everything from pass out pamphlets on the House floor to meet with the Iranian foreign minister in an effort to secure the release of Hekmati, a former Marine who has the longest-held of the group just released. He was taken prisoner in Iran in 2011 after he visited for the first time to check on his grandmother. The congressman joins us now from the Detroit airport before he heads to Germany, where he plans to meet with Amir Hekmati. Congressman, thanks so much for speaking with us.
DAN KILDEE: Thank you very much. It's a great day.
MARTIN: I'm guessing this is probably an emotional day for you, too, having worked on this as long as you have and having been as close to the family as you have been.
KILDEE: It really is. And, you know, it started off as working on behalf of a constituent. And it's really turned into feeling like I'm trying to get one of my own family members back from Iran. It's really become personal for us.
MARTIN: Do you have any idea at this juncture why Amir was arrested? Do you feel any closer to an understanding of that now than you did when you first started?
KILDEE: No, it's pretty hard to predict what will cause Iran to take these sort of actions. In his case, the fact that he served as a United States Marine, born and raised in the United States but under their law was still considered an Iranian citizen, that's the logic that they used. But there's no - there was no evidence. There was no rational purpose for his arrest, just, unfortunately, he got caught up in what really was an international struggle between Iran and the rest of the world. And four and a half years later - finally, thank God - he's coming home.
MARTIN: Is it my understanding that the idea of swapping prisoners is something that surfaced in communications with Mr. Hekmati's family? Is that correct?
KILDEE: Yes. I mean, we talked back and forth. Of course, our position was we would do whatever we needed to do to get Amir home. He's a patriot. He wanted to be loyal to his country and always has been. At the end of the day, this is a very satisfactory result. And we support the president in his actions, and we're just so happy that Amir's coming home.
MARTIN: Well, you have to be aware that some of your congressional colleagues don't take the same view. They feel that this - in fact, a number of the Republican candidates for president have suggested that this actually increases the value of this kind of behavior of taking people - prisoner for - on various pretexts. And I just would like to know your reaction to that.
KILDEE: Obviously, I disagree with that. Diplomacy is always better than the other alternative. And it's easy for someone with no responsibility for American policy to sit back and second-guess decisions that are made in the real world with real struggles between nations. This is a case where diplomacy prevailed. And leaders like President Obama - who are willing to stand up and do what they think is right knowing that they're going to take shots from candidates for president - you know, that's the definition of leadership. And so far, what I've seen of those critics, they're really not demonstrating the kind of leadership that the office that they're seeking warrants.
MARTIN: I understand that you met at one point in New York with the Iranian foreign minister. What was that like?
KILDEE: It was - it was great. I mean, Samantha Power, our U.N. ambassador, invited me to sit with her for the speech made by Pope Francis. That was the ostensible purpose of my visit. But it was really to get a chance to have a discussion with Foreign Minister Zarif. And he knew who I was. He knew why I was there and, you know, we pressed very hard. The ongoing discussions, both the formal discussions that the administration held but also the informal process that myself and others were engaged in, I think was really important just so he knew and the Iranian people know that the United States government and its people take this case seriously. And we pressed that point at every opportunity, including with the foreign minister.
MARTIN: Do you happen to know how Mr. Hekmati is doing? I understand that you're on your way to see him. I assume you haven't spoken with him yet. Have you spoken with him yet?
KILDEE: No, I have not. I look forward to that. In fact, I've never met him, and I look forward to correcting that tomorrow. What we know - he's doing all right, he's lost weight in prison. It's obviously a terrible situation, Evin Prison, one of the worst of the world. So we expect that he'll have some difficulty making that adjustment, but we - we look forward to helping him do that. So it starts with a visit with his two sisters, his brother-in-law, myself tomorrow morning.
MARTIN: That was Congressman Dan Kildee of Michigan, a Democrat, who joined us from the airport in Detroit before he heads to Germany to meet Amir Hekmati, a constituent of his who was just released from imprisonment in Iran, where he's been held since 2011. Congressman, thank you so much for speaking with us.
KILDEE: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The Democratic candidates for president will face off tonight. It is their last debate before voters in Iowa and New Hampshire have their say, and things have gotten interesting. Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has pulled neck-and-neck with former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the polls in Iowa, and he holds a significant lead in New Hampshire. Their debate tonight takes place in another important early primary state, South Carolina. NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson is in Charleston, S.C., and she's with us now. Hi, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi, Michel.
MARTIN: So last week, Bernie Sanders was asked about the state of the race. And he said, quote, "it could be that the inevitable candidate for the Democratic nomination may not be so inevitable," unquote. So just how vulnerable is Hillary Clinton right now?
LIASSON: Well, she's vulnerable. The big question is whether her lead is actually evaporating, or is she just getting the scare of her life. You know, her campaign was prepared to lose New Hampshire. Bernie Sanders is from Vermont, and neighboring state politicians usually win there. But Iowa - losing Iowa would be a painful deja vu for her because she came in third there in 2008. And it turns out that the base of the Democratic Party like Sanders' anti-Wall Street message, which is directed against her ties to Wall Street. And recently, Sanders has been getting some help from Republicans, who would much prefer to run against him. The American Crossroads Republican superPAC has an ad blasting Hillary Clinton for taking money from Wall Street. So Sanders seems more authentic than she does. His promise to lead a political revolution is a little more inspiring than her promise to be a progressive that get things done. And, you know, Michel, there's one other irony here. Hillary Clinton had seemed to solidify her lead after the first couple of debates. But there have been so few Democratic debates - which, of course, her campaign thought was a good idea in the beginning - that it's left her without the opportunities to shine in a forum she is really good at.
MARTIN: You know, there's been a lot of talk about the sort of Republican establishment and what they're going to do about how they feel about the two frontrunners at the moment, Donald and Ted Cruz. What about on the Democratic side, the establishment? What are they saying and talking about with this Bernie Sanders surge?
LIASSON: It's really similar. It's just like the Republican elites and Donald Trump. Democrats in Washington think that if Sanders is the nominee, they would lose the White House. He would hurt the party down-ballot, wreck their chances of regaining the Senate. And, you know, the stakes are so much higher for Democrats this fall than Republicans because without the White House, they're in the minority almost everywhere - in the Senate, the House, the governor's mansion, state legislatures. Right now, Democrats have fewer elected officials nationally than at any time since the 1920s. So the other thing is the Democrats in Washington don't support Sanders' agenda. He wants to replace Obamacare with single-payer, Medicare for all. He wants to make public college free - not just debt-free, as Hillary Clinton proposes. And he wants to break up the big banks. That's not even part of the congressional Democratic agenda. Democrats don't even think a Democratic president could pass it.
MARTIN: So we mentioned that you were in South Carolina for the debate. And it is a critical early primary state. How does that location play into what we've just been talking about now? Is the location seen to benefit either Clinton or Sanders?
LIASSON: It definitely benefits Clinton. She has what her campaign considers a firewall in the South because of the large base of African-American voters. She is ahead in the polls there. But Jim Clyburn, who's the dean of the South Carolina Democratic delegation - he held his annual fish fry last night - he says that if Sanders gets big victories in Iowa and New Hampshire, that could change the dynamic in the South. Now, he is setting the bar high for Sanders. He says little victories wouldn't do it. But the big question is whether the firewall would disintegrate if Sanders wins one or both of the early states. No matter what happens, the Sanders campaign says they are very confident they can raise the money and build an organization if he can do well in the early states. So Sanders can go the distance, especially if he gets a catapult in Iowa.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Mara Liasson, awaiting tonight's Democratic presidential debate in Charleston, S.C. Mara, thank you.
LIASSON: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to take a few minutes to look at the 2016 race for the presidency through a different lens. It's secret that evangelical Christians are critical players in Republican primaries. And one of the key leaders among evangelicals is the Reverend Franklin Graham. Reverend Graham is the son of Billy Graham. He runs the Charlotte-based Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, as well as the international relief organization Samaritan's Purse. Now you might think with his travel schedule that Reverend Graham himself is running for office, but he is not. He is, however, embarking on a 50-state tour to call on evangelicals to, quote, "support godly leaders." So we thought this was a good time to check in with Reverend Graham, so we've called him at his offices in Boone, N.C. Reverend Graham, thanks so much for speaking with us.
FRANKLIN GRAHAM: Well, thank you. It's great to be with you.
MARTIN: I just wanted to clarify again that you will not be endorsing a candidate. That's correct?
GRAHAM: No.
MARTIN: And in fact, you're saying you aren't even inviting them to speak at your rallies.
GRAHAM: No. Certainly, we're going to be polite to all of them, but not going to endorse a candidate. And if a candidate came to one of our rallies, they would not be invited to speak.
MARTIN: And why is that?
GRAHAM: Well, because I don't want this to be a political event in a sense that I don't want people to think that I'm standing on the steps of the capitals. And that's where we're going. We're going to the capital cities. I don't want them to think that I'm there politicking for this person or that person. We're not doing that. This is a campaign for God. We need to get godly men and women to run for office, and we need to get the godly men and women out to vote.
MARTIN: How does this work, then? How do you hope that people will express themselves politically because in this country, generally, politics is expressed through two major political parties? What do you suggest that people do?
GRAHAM: I want Christians to consider who they vote for. We look a lot at the presidential elections. And that's where so much of our focus is, especially from the media, but some of the most important elections are the local elections - the mayors, city council members, county commissioners, school boards. How important school boards are - and we need to get Christian men and women running for office. We need Christian men and women not only running for office, but voting and getting behind other Christians that are running for office.
MARTIN: And I take it that your desire for people to vote is motivated by your deep concern. And just - could you identify the specific reasons that you feel so deeply concerned? Is it the question of same-sex marriage and the whole question of legalized abortion?
GRAHAM: Same-sex marriage - no question - is an issue. Abortion continues to be a scourge against this country. It's not just one issue. You can't just say this is the one issue. It's a long list of issues. The sins of this nation are great.
MARTIN: Can I ask you a question, though, about - particularly about the issue of same-sex marriage? And I just find myself asking whether - many people disagree with this, but many people draw the analogy to the attitudes that people had about race in an earlier time.
GRAHAM: No, this is...
MARTIN: And some say that...
GRAHAM: This is totally - listen...
MARTIN: ...This is another issue in which, you know - that those attitudes have changed.
GRAHAM: It's totally - this is totally different. This is - this is God's standards. And just because public opinion may have changed or somebody takes a poll - this is just one of the issues. And it doesn't matter what people say or what people think. It doesn't matter about the opinion polls. It's what God says, and God says this is a sin. And it's a sin against him, and he's going to judge sin.
MARTIN: I - no, Reverend, forgive me. I just have to - you do understand, I have to ask because it's one of those issues where, you know, for example, Reverend Falwell, who is a contemporary of your dad's - Reverend Jerry Falwell, who's a contemporary of your father's, at one point...
GRAHAM: And a friend of mine.
MARTIN: Yes, sir - but also, at one point, called Martin Luther King, Jr. a communist, who felt that. And so there were people who would say that this is an issue in which he was on the wrong side of history. And there are others who say now that this is an issue in which many people who share your views are on the wrong side of history.
GRAHAM: No, but...
MARTIN: And I'd have to ask because they draw the analogy.
GRAHAM: The Bible - the Bible does not say anything about communism, OK? The Bible has a whole lot to say about sex. It has a whole lot to say about homosexuality. And so you can't compare the two and say these are - these are the same. That's just ludicrous. It's just - it's not the same.
MARTIN: What are you hoping to happen? What are you hoping will happen as a result of this tour?
GRAHAM: I don't believe our country will last the way we know it much longer unless there's a change. And we just continue this moral decline going down, and the only hope, I believe, is God. We just hope and pray that maybe he'll hear our prayers and give us some godly leadership.
MARTIN: That was the Reverend Franklin Graham joining us from his offices in North Carolina. Reverend Graham, thanks so much for speaking with us.
GRAHAM: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Did you happen to catch the president's State of the Union address on Tuesday night? And if you did, did you notice the abundance of high-end suits and shirts or, for the ladies, expensive dresses and maybe some pearls? That expensive style is not reserved for the higher-ups. It is a staple of Capitol Hill culture from senators and chiefs-of-staff down to the summer interns. And that's kind of a problem, at least according to a recent opinion piece in The Washington Post by a former Hill staffer. Dr. Philip Lehman is now a cardiovascular fellow at Duke University, but a decade ago, he worked as an intern and as a staff member for the House Ways and Means Committee. So we called Dr. Lehman at WUNC in Durham, N.C. Dr. Lehman, thanks so much for speaking with us.
PHILIP LEHMAN: Thanks so much, Michel.
MARTIN: So, first of all, for people who haven't visited the nation's capital or at least were not paying attention than they did, paint us a picture of what a fashion-conscious observer might notice if they were to walk the halls of Capitol Hill, as you once did.
LEHMAN: So, one of the very first things you're told when you work on Capitol Hill is that there's a level of expectation as to how you dress. You're representing a member, a senator, a congressman. And you're expected to be wearing, if you're a man, a suit and a tie, especially if you're in session - for women, something equivalently appropriate. And I think it requires a little bit of a chunk of change in order to fit the part, so to speak.
The impetus behind the piece was the fact that I was walking around Capitol Hill, visiting offices, meeting with staffers and interns. And it sort of struck me that, man, everybody looks fantastic. And then I really thought - how is this even possible? And so I really came to thinking, and I crunched some numbers about how much I made when I was a Capitol Hill intern and then a staffer. And essentially, I lived on an almost day-to-day basis and had around $23 a day of discretionary income based on my income of $25,000 a year. So when you walk around and you see people wearing, as I say in the piece, Tory Burch flats, for example - at 225 bucks a pop, who could possibly afford that if you only have $23 a day after just paying something simple, like, you know, your rent and utilities?
MARTIN: So what's your conclusion about this? You're saying that - look, low wages, high cost of living, and yet, people are kind of fancy. So what conclusion do you draw from this?
LEHMAN: The conclusion is that at the end of the day, if you're going to dress this nicely and there's this expectation that you need to look a certain part, in order to simply just afford the experience, that means one of three things has to be true. Either you have to pick up a second job, you are taking on massive amounts of credit card debt, or perhaps money isn't an issue for you. And if that's the case, then that really has implications for what the pipeline of who works on Capitol Hill in the future looks like.
It's a problem because there are probably many people for whom working on Capitol Hill would be the ultimate public service career. And I hate to say it, but they actually might be priced out from the de facto entry experience into that lifestyle moving forward. So you're kind of stuck in a rut. How do you get your foot in the door when you can't even afford the experience?
MARTIN: So what's your solution to this?
LEHMAN: The obvious solution, of course, would be to provide a wage that wouldn't effectively prohibit some group of people from having a little bit of a greater chance to work on Capitol Hill. It's not that everybody needs to make a lot of money, but I would hate for anybody to not want to even think about working on Capitol Hill because they know that they just couldn't survive on, let's say, three months or even more of unpaid work.
MARTIN: Philip Lehman is a cardiovascular fellow at Duke University. He's a former staff member for the House Ways and Means Committee. He spoke with us from WUNC in Durham, N.C. Dr. Lehman, thanks so much for speaking with us.
LEHMAN: It's a pleasure. Thank you, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're heading back now to Flint, Mich., where we have been following the water crisis. You might recall that when the government switched drinking water sources, the number of children with higher lead levels has doubled. That's since 2014. For almost four months, people have been told not to drink the tap water because there's too much lead in it. Just yesterday, President Obama declared a state of emergency for Michigan, ordering federal aid for local response efforts. Michigan Radio's Lindsey Smith reports.
LINDSEY SMITH, BYLINE: Karen Weaver means business. She was elected mayor of Flint in November. And in office, one of the first things she did was to declare an emergency at the city. She pushed for a similar declaration of the state and federal level. Saturday night at Flint City Hall, she shared some good news from the White House.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
KAREN WEAVER: I just want to say that the president has granted our request for an emergency declaration.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: Yeah.
SMITH: In an odd way, getting this federal recognition is a big win for the city - a validation of sorts. Flint's man-made disaster has been festering for more than a year. The city was being run by state-appointed emergency manager when they made the decision to get cheaper tap water from the Flint River. After that switch, the state's environmental regulators misdirected city officials on how to treat the water. And when local pediatricians produced data showing more kids were being exposed to lead, state officials initially discredited the findings. The Department of Justice and Michigan's attorney general are looking into the matter. In the meantime, Gov. Snyder has repeatedly apologized to the people in Flint, and true to form, he's focusing on what he calls relentless positive action.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
RICK SNYDER: Let's focus in on - there's a commitment to solve the problem in Flint, and I sincerely mean that. Hopefully, you can see that. We're taking every action within reason and actually asking people to go beyond reasonable to help address this question because this is something nobody wanted to see ever happen. And we're doing our best to take care of it.
SMITH: Snyder repeatedly takes the time to list the things the state has done since October - tested the water at schools. State has handed out nearly 50,000 water filters and 20,000 cases of water, but...
SNYDER: Those actions were not good enough. We've worked hard, but we need to get more connection to the citizens of Flint.
SMITH: More than 40 percent of people in Flint live in poverty. And they don't have the means to drive to a distribution center once a week and load a case or two of free bottled water in their trunks. That's why Snyder started sending teams door to door last week. He activated the Michigan National Guard and asked the federal government for help, but that's not enough for many Flint residents. Nayyirah Shariff was among a couple hundred protesters who gathered outside Snyder's office Thursday. She says the only thing Governor Snyder can do to appease Flint residents is to resign.
NAYYIRAH SHARIFF: This happened under his watch. His agencies covered it up, and he can flush his apology down the toilet because it's - that's all it's worth.
SMITH: Flint Mayor Karen Weaver told residents the federal emergency declaration means the federal government - not state officials - will coordinate all disaster relief efforts.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
WEAVER: And they will continue to assess our conditions and see what needs to happen next. The fight is not over, but this is a huge hurdle that we have surpassed.
SMITH: The federal government will provide up to $5 million for free bottled water, filters and water testing kits, but that'll barely make a dent in Flint's long-term needs. Early estimates show the damage done to the city's water infrastructure alone will be at least $760 million. For NPR News, I'm Lindsey Smith.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
There's another big health concern that's all over the news, and it's behind this week's Words You'll Hear. That's the segment where we try to understand stories we'll be hearing more about in the coming days by parsing some of the words associated with those stories. Today, our word is Zika. That's the name of a mosquito-borne virus that's been detected in parts of the Caribbean and Central and South America, especially in Brazil, where it's being blamed for a spike in birth defects. The Centers for Disease Control has issued travel advisories for women who are pregnant or planning to become pregnant. On Friday, the Hawaii Department of Health confirmed that Zika caused birth defects in a baby born there. The mother likely contracted the virus on a trip to Brazil. We called Dr. Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine in Houston, Texas.
PETER HOTEZ: Zika comes from the name of a forest in eastern Uganda where the Virus Research Institute nearby in Entebbe discovered the virus from rhesus monkeys in the forest there. So the virus was circulating in Africa. The first human case was in 1954. And no one thought too much of it till it spread to Micronesia and Polynesia beginning around 2007. And now people think it's worked its way around the world to the Western Hemisphere and entered Brazil around 2014, which incidentally coincides with the World Cup soccer game. So some people have alleged that maybe it might have been introduced into Brazil through that route, although it's still controversial.
MARTIN: Why are we so concerned about this?
HOTEZ: We've known for a long time that this virus can produce an illness that resembles other viruses transmitted by mosquitoes, which is characteristically a fever and a rash. And then in a subset of people, they can go on to develop more serious illness. And people more or less thought about Zika virus in the same light. The striking thing that happened, though, was when it was announced by Brazilian authorities from the ministry of health in October that they've seen this sudden explosion in the number of cases of newborn babies with a horrific congenital birth defect known as microcephaly. These are babies with a small head and small brains who the expectation is they will have long-term, serious neurological complications and mental disabilities.
MARTIN: Their health officials in Brazil and in the Dominican Republic, for example, have issued some fairly dire warnings to women who are either pregnant or planning to get pregnant. Are those warnings relevant to Americans at this point?
HOTEZ: I think so. For me - from my perspective, this is scary stuff, and I'm not an alarmist. My perspective is that if you're a woman of reproductive age who's either pregnant or planning on getting pregnant, I would not travel to places where the Zika virus epidemic is ongoing. And I would even take it a step further, and I would avoid places where we think the virus is likely to emerge.
MARTIN: So, Dr. Hotez, who's most at risk for this?
HOTEZ: Well, clearly, in terms of the concern about birth defects, we have to be most concerned about women who are pregnant or planning on becoming pregnant who live in areas where the mosquito vector - where the Aedes mosquito vectors - the other piece to this that people don't ordinarily appreciate is the link to poverty. When you go into poor areas of Latin America, as well as the southern U.S., what you see is dilapidated housing without adequate window screens or mesh, so they're more likely to be exposed to mosquitoes. And then there's the environmental degradation around - outside the house where there's uncollected garbage that allows mosquitoes to proliferate. We have a lot of poverty on the Gulf Coast. And I'm particularly worried about young women living in poverty who are going to be at risk, potentially, for Zika as we move into the spring and summer months.
MARTIN: That's Dr. Peter Hotez. He's dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine, which is at Baylor College of Medicine, and we reached him there in Houston, Texas. Dr. Hotez, thanks so much for speaking with us.
HOTEZ: Thanks for having me and for highlighting this issue.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In rural areas, specialty medical care can take hours to reach by car, so people who need emergency care often rely on flights - air ambulances. Montana Public Radio's Corin Cates-Carney brings us this story on the cost of bridging the gap between rural America and advanced medical care.
CORIN CATES-CARNEY, BYLINE: Butte, Mont., is an old mining town tucked away in the southwest corner of the state - population about 34,000. The remote mountains and wildlife make it a beautiful place for the locals to live, but like a lot of rural America, advanced medical care is far away. They were close to 3,000 air ambulance flights in Montana in 2014. That year, Butte resident Amy Thompson was on a flight with her 2-month-old daughter, Isla.
AMY THOMPSON: I could still close my eyes and - sorry - they - you know, they did such wonderful care of her, and they tried to care for me. But in that moment, I was so afraid if I closed my eyes that that would be my last vision of her.
CATES-CARNEY: Thompson curled up among the medical bags in the back of the fixed-wing plane. Isla had a failing heart. The closest hospital that could help her was 600 miles away. Seattle Children's Hospital saved Isla's life. Her family's health insurance took care of all the cost beyond her deductible except for that critical air ambulance ride to Seattle. The way the Thompsons read their insurance plan, they thought any emergency medical transportation was covered. But it turns out, the ambulance company was out of their network, and they got billed $56,000.
THOMPSON: And here's the flight that ultimately saved Isla's life by getting her to where she needs to be, yet it's going to put us potentially in a financial ruin or at least kill our future dreams as a family.
CATES-CARNEY: When a patient needs an air ambulance, the first priority is getting them the care they need as fast as possible, so patients don't always know who is going to pick them up or if the ambulance is an in-network provider. That can lead to huge bills. Jesse Laslovich is the legal counsel for Montana's insurance commissioner.
JESSE LASLOVICH: Of all the complaints we've received, not one person was uninsured. And they're frustrated as heck that because they're insured, they're still getting $50,000-balance bills.
CATES-CARNEY: States can regulate some medical aspects of their ambulances, but federal laws prevent states from limiting aviation rates, routes and services. Air ambulance companies are now offering membership programs as protection from big bills. For an annual fee of about 60 to $100, a patient faces no cost if they use that company's services. But Laslovich says that doesn't always work; a patient doesn't always know who's going to pick them up. He says patients are totally at the mercy of air ambulance companies.
LASLOVICH: You want to know what my personal opinion is about what the problem is? It's money.
CATES-CARNEY: But the president of the International Association of Air Medical Services, Rick Sherlock, says there's a lack of understanding about the actual costs of running an air ambulance business.
RICK SHERLOCK: So those cost-drivers are there to maintain readiness, to respond 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days of year.
CATES-CARNEY: He says some air ambulance companies remain out of insurance networks because they can't always reach in-network deals with insurance companies that allow them to stay profitable.
SHERLOCK: In situations where there may be only one or two insurance options in an area, it's harder and harder to negotiate on a level playing field.
CATES-CARNEY: Amy Thompson ended up not having to pay but only after a lot of hassle. Once her family talked to a lawyer, the air ambulance company worked with her insurance company and waived the bill. Her daughter, Isla, turned 2 years old in November. She's a healthy, big, blue-eyed child now, but at times, her mom still worries.
THOMPSON: Nobody takes a life flight for a joyride. And I guess for me, it's not that we didn't feel like some sense of responsibility for paying anything at all. It's just, there's something ethically wrong that these companies are profiteering, essentially, off of people's worst moments in their lives.
CATES-CARNEY: A Montana interim legislative committee is currently investigating air ambulance companies' wide range of pricing within the state. Maryland is taking on a similar investigation. But in North Dakota, an air ambulance company is suing the state for adding regulations on the industry. For NPR News, I'm Corin Cates-Carney in Helena, Mont.
SHAPIRO: This story is part of a reporting partnership of NPR, Montana Public Radio and Kaiser Health News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
By now, everyone knows that the new "Star Wars" movie, "The Force Awakens," has been breaking box office records. But our movie critic Bob Mondello has been crunching some other numbers and says it appears that even the force has its limits.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: The biggest, the fastest, the highest, the most - it's hard to talk about "The Force Awakens" without superlatives. No question - the force is strong with this one at the box office. But would it surprise you to learn that despite all the records it's been setting, "Force Awakens" went into this holiday weekend as only the third-biggest "Star Wars" movie in terms of attendance, or that as cute as BB-8, that adorable soccer ball with personality, is...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS")
MONDELLO: ...Just as many millions of people have gone aw at the puppies in "101 Dalmatians"?
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "101 DALMATIANS")
MICKY MAGA: (As Patch) Now there's 99 of us.
JESSICA TAYLOR, BYLINE: (As Pongo) What?
MONDELLO: "The Force Awakens" is big, but biggest - well, certainly not yet. In attendance, according to boxofficemojo.com, it hasn't even cracked the top 10 yet if you include the rereleases of older films, and it's had nothing like the same social impact. Lots of people talk about adjusting for inflation when they compare box office figures. But forget about dollars. I'm talking butts in seats. Charlton Heston put roughly as many butts in seats racing chariots in "Ben-Hur."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BEN-HUR")
MONDELLO: And over time, he put many, many more butts in seats parting the Red Sea in "The Ten Commandments."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE TEN COMMANDMENTS")
CHARLTON HESTON: (As Moses) Behold his mighty hand.
MONDELLO: Those seats were filled mostly in the 1950s when the population of the U.S. was about half what it is now, so it was much tougher to rack up attendance numbers over a hundred-million, not to mention that Heston's biblical epics played downtown for months in exclusive reserved-seat engagements before they ventured out to places people actually lived. It was considered downright modern in the 1960s when movies opened right off the bat in the suburbs. When I went to Clark University, there were two - count them; two movie screens anywhere near our campus in Worcester, Mass. And for very nearly my entire freshman year - and believe me; I remember this - one of them was playing "Doctor Zhivago."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DOCTOR ZHIVAGO")
MONDELLO: And the other was playing "Sound Of Music."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE SOUND OF MUSIC")
JULIE ANDREWS: (As Maria, singing) The hills are alive with the sound of...
MONDELLO: Different world, obviously, but note that even without the advantage of playing in thousands of multiplexes which hadn't been invented yet, both of those films - and, again, we're talking multiple releases - were seen by tens of millions more people than have seen "The Force Awakens" so far. So were two films that scared baby boomers silly a decade later - "Jaws...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "JAWS")
MONDELLO: ...And "The Exorcist."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE EXORCIST")
MONDELLO: Even after all that, when the original "Star Wars" came along, it opened on fewer than 50 screens nationwide, but it was such a huge hit that on its way to becoming the second most-attended film in U.S. history, it really did change the film industry, the way movies were released and merchandised. It rewrote the rules. That's not going to happen with "The Force Awakens," which is just going to sell a lot of toys and make the Disney organization a pile of cash.
It is going to do that really fast. That's the big change this time. In 1977, the original "Star Wars" stayed in theaters all summer, churning out practically the same numbers every weekend. This one is dropping off 30 to 40 percent each week. It's still huge, approaching a hundred-million admissions, but it's going to play itself out a lot faster, which means if I can do a little crystal-ball gazing, that it will not, not even with a couple of rereleases in a few years, match the granddaddy of all blockbusters.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GONE WITH THE WIND")
MONDELLO: "Gone With The Wind" has sold more than 200 million tickets in its many releases, and it's sold most of them back when there were far fewer people on the planet. In 1939, the city fathers of Atlanta welcomed Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh to "Gone With The Wind's" world premiere with a parade that reportedly attracted 1.5 million spectators. For the record, the population of Atlanta back then was barely one-fifth of that. Disney, by comparison, threw a block party for a few thousand invited guests when it premiered "The Force Awakens" - might want to keep that in mind as the media reports on the history making return of the "Star Wars" franchise.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS")
HARRISON FORD: (As Han Solo) Chewy, we're home.
PETER MAYHEW: (As Chewbacca, growling).
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GONE WITH THE WIND")
CLARK GABLE: (As Rhett Butler), Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
MONDELLO: History, it seems, is also a force to be reckoned with. May the hype be with you. I'm Bob Mondello.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
And let's turn now to one of the fiercest business rivalries made possible by the smartphone app revolution. It's time for All Tech considered.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SHAPIRO: Hundreds of thousands of people now drive for either Uber or Lyft, providing rides at the touch of an app. There have been legal debates over their status. Are the drivers contractors or employees? Can they unionize? Now add this to the driver's dilemma. When they sing on to drive for one company, drivers become a recruitment target for the other. Here's NPR's Aarti Shahani in San Francisco.
AARTI SHAHANI, BYLINE: In the Bay Area, both companies are big, and competition for drivers is so great that about a year back, Uber sent covert operatives into Lyft cars to recruit. Isabella Dure-Biondi was one of these covert operatives.
ISABELLA DURE-BIONDI: And, like, I don't really care Lyft versus Uber, like. But I had the chance to make money, and I was getting free Lyft rides.
SHAHANI: In November of 2014, a woman who worked for Uber told Dure-Biondi she could make cash quick. They met right here at the Arbor Cafe in Oakland.
DURE-BIONDI: She had a laptop, and she had me sign some, like, online papers. And I think she had some, like, paper papers.
SHAHANI: By the end of 2014, Uber had hired hundreds of people across the country for this very grassroots job. For its part, Lyft says it offers bonuses to current drivers who sign on new ones. Dure-Biondi got Uber training quickly.
DURE-BIONDI: We took a couple of rides together, and she kind of showed me how to do it.
SHAHANI: The recruiter who independently verified these details with NPR gave Dure-Biondi an iPhone. For two months, she would order Lyft cars, hop in and start chatting up the driver. How are you doing? How's your day?
DURE-BIONDI: Oh, where are you from - asking kind of, like, nice-people questions, just being nice.
SHAHANI: And then casually slip in...
DURE-BIONDI: Why did you decide to drive for Lyft? Oh, yeah, that's really interesting.
SHAHANI: Nod, nod, nod, and then...
DURE-BIONDI: You'd be, like, well, would you ever consider driving for Uber? Like, why did you decide Lyft over Uber?
SHAHANI: At this point in the conversation, Dure-Biondi would reveal she's an Uber ambassador, and if the driver signs up right now, they each make hundreds of dollars. Interestingly, only one guy agreed. Dure-Biondi says the big bonus wasn't enough.
DURE-BIONDI: A lot of people chose Lyft because of the, like, morals of it versus Uber. You know, it was more of a, like, friendly company.
SCOTT CHRISTOPHERSON: That's the thing. Yeah, I think that there is a difference in the relationship between passengers and drivers in the two platforms.
SHAHANI: Scott Christopherson drives for Lyft and Uber. NPR spoke with two dozen people who decided to work for both. And consistently, these drivers say in Lyft cars, there are fewer expectations. Passengers are supposed to hop in the front seat and be friendly because, as the motto goes, the driver is your friend with a car.
CHRISTOPHERSON: I've had very few problems with the Lyft passengers. They're generally very nice, or if they're not nice, they're quiet.
SHAHANI: Uber started as a luxury brand. Its motto is, everyone's private driver. So, Christopherson says, for people like him, people who drive super part-time who have other jobs, it's not a great feeling when passengers expect a chauffeur.
CHRISTOPHERSON: They don't really kind of care about what you think of them, and so it's a little more fraught.
SHAHANI: Financially, there are differences, too. NPR examined driver's payment statements. Lyft takes 20 percent of fairs. Uber takes 20 to 25 percent on the standard service and 28 percent on the SUV service. Most drivers say these percentages are fairly comparable. It's another line item that stands out.
CHRISTOPHERSON: The one thing that Lyft does and Uber doesn't is tipping. Did you notice that looking at the things?
SHAHANI: Chief marketing officer Kira Wampler says Lyft is more focused on driver well-being than Uber is because it's got a different mission. While both companies want to improve transportation, Lyft explicitly has an environmental goal to get fewer cars on the road and fill empty seats.
KIRA WAMPLER: You can't fill every seat in every car unless the people in the car treat each other well.
SHAHANI: Uber declined an interview to discuss driver benefits, but in an email, a company spokeswoman says it's misleading to just say Uber takes a bigger cut from drivers. Driver earnings depend a lot on how many rides they get, and Uber has more passengers calling. On tipping, she says research shows tips are not really based on quality of service, so drivers could be rewarded or dinged unfairly. Ryder Pearce, cofounder of SherpaShare, a site that tracks wages and expenses for on-demand drivers, says competition benefits workers. When Uber or Lyft announces a new perk, the other follows.
RYDER PEARCE: Uber and Lyft will both recognize that if they don't keep rates competitive and add more driver perks - and both have very large teams working on this - they will lose out on drivers.
SHAHANI: Many drivers work for more than one service. Pearce says they don't have a strong incentive to be loyal because their bottom line is...
PEARCE: They just want to login and have passengers to pick up.
SHAHANI: If one company won, got all the business, he says, drivers would lose out. Aarti Shahani, NPR News, San Francisco.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Turning 16 years old is a big deal. In many states, it means being able to drive, pay taxes and work like an adult. Here in Washington, D.C., 16-year-olds could soon take on another responsibility - voting in a presidential election. Patrick Madden of member station WAMU has the story.
PATRICK MADDEN, BYLINE: Michelle Blackwell isn't your typical Washington politico.
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MICHELLE BLACKWELL: (Singing) I can see got you geeking, Boy. You've been giving me that look for months. So tell me...
MADDEN: The 44-year-old is better known in the D.C. music scene as one of the top go-go singers around.
BLACKWELL: Go-go was one of the indigenous genres of music born right in this city.
MADDEN: But offstage, she's now helping lead the effort to make D.C. the first jurisdiction to let 16-year-olds vote in federal elections.
BLACKWELL: A lot of young people feel very powerless, and they don't feel that their voice matters. And that's part of the reason why there might be this absence of young participation as adults.
MADDEN: In the 2014 elections, voter turnout among people under age 30 hit its lowest level in 40 years. Blackwell believes by lowering the voting age to 16, when young people are still in school and before they leave for college or the military, more of them will pick up the voting habit. After a deadly shooting in D.C., she went to a community meeting. It was then that she realized 16-year-olds should have a voice in political debates.
BLACKWELL: When it came time for young people to speak, they actually had some really great ideas and some concerns that I felt were being dismissed. And at one point, one of the adults even took the microphone from one of the young people and started lecturing them.
MADDEN: Within weeks, she was working with city lawmakers on a bill. As it turns out, there's nothing in the Constitution that prevents cities or states from lowering the voting age, says Stanford law professor Nate Persily.
NATE PERSILY: It just prevents against discrimination with respect to the right to vote. So if a state wants to enfranchise 16 year olds, it has the power to do so.
MADDEN: Just next door to D.C. in neighboring Takoma Park, Md., 16-year-olds can already vote in local elections. Outside a skating rink, 16-year-old Cole Sebastian called casting a ballot a rite of passage.
COLE SEBASTIAN: Voting is always considered as this adult thing that only adults can do. And so I think people at my age, and me especially, are just more excited to grow up.
MADDEN: And the adults could probably learn from the 16-year-olds who voted at twice the rate as everyone else in last year's Takoma Park election. Still, there are critics of a lower voting age. Some say 16-year-olds just flat out aren't ready. That's why, for example, you have to be 18 to join the military or buy that Powerball ticket. And there's also skepticism from an unlikely source - juvenile justice advocates.
DANIEL OKONKWO: I'm not against 16-year-olds voting.
MADDEN: Daniel Okonkwo is head of D.C. Lawyers For Youth. But he worries that opening the ballot box to 16-year-olds could also make it easier for prosecutors to charge them as adults in court.
OKONKWO: There are often cries for, well, we have young people doing adult crimes. They should do adult time. And so if we're going to give teenagers, give children more adult responsibilities, I think it's necessary to build in, somehow, some safeguards.
MADDEN: The D.C. bill enfranchising 16-year-olds was introduced in November, but it hasn't come up for a vote yet. In a city government dominated by Democrats, Blackwell says the measure wouldn't change the political balance.
BLACKWELL: It's just really more so about giving the young people representation because they have no real lobby.
MADDEN: Until that happens, this unlikely lobbyist will continue pressing her case both on and off the stage. For NPR News, I'm Patrick Madden.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
International sanctions were lifted this past weekend against Iran, but big challenges remain between the U.S. and Iran. In a moment, we'll look at the tools the U.S. government has to address those challenges with someone who helped negotiate the sanction's deal. But first, NPR's Jackie Northam reports Iran's newly opened economy is expected to tempt plenty of companies, just not American ones.
JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: If you're an international oil and gas company, it's hard not to look at Iran and think, cha-ching. The country has the world's fourth-largest oil reserves and the largest natural gas reserves, which are virtually undeveloped. But Alex Vantanka, an Iran specialist at the Middle East Institute, says there are many other business opportunities there.
ALEX VANTANKA: This is a country of 80 million people. This is a country that's hungry for plenty of economic services and trade with the world. It's a, by and large, young country, highly educated country. Plenty of Iranians still have plenty of money in their pockets to spend
NORTHAM: But Vantanka says after years of sanctions, Iran desperately needs capital, expertise and access to markets. But the country is still riddled with corruption. Revolutionary Guards control much of the economy, and the sanctions could snap back into place if Iran renegs on its nuclear commitments. Vantanka says many European and Asian companies and entrepreneurs are willing to take that risk. For U.S. companies, though, it's a different story.
CLIFF KUPCHAN: The American business community has been quiet. They're a dog that's not barking.
NORTHAM: Cliff Kupchan is chairman of the Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy. He says U.S. companies are not racing to get into Iran largely out of caution. The U.S. is keeping in place secondary sanctions relating to Iran's support for terrorism and its ballistic missile program. Kupchan says many American corporations have been fined in the past for violating sanctions. That, along with the inherent risk in Iran, means companies are are willing to wait and see how things shake out there.
KUPCHAN: I've heard very, very little, surprisingly little, astounding little unhappiness about not being able to explore the Iranian option. So I think there's a real business political culture aversion to tackling Iran too quickly.
NORTHAM: The one U.S. sector guaranteed it can do business with Iran is commercial airline manufacturers, Such as Boeing. Jackie Northam, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
As we just heard, it's not exactly like Iran is open for business now that international sanctions have been lifted. To dive into the details of what is now allowed and what's still forbidden, we're joined by Richard Nephew. He was the lead sanctions expert for the U.S. team negotiating with Iran, and he left the State Department a year ago. Welcome.
RICHARD NEPHEW: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
SHAPIRO: Well, as we just heard, the U.S. is keeping in place sanctions related to Iran's support for terrorism and its ballistic missile program. What else?
NEPHEW: Well, we're also keeping in place the architecture of the financial sanctions that really put the main squeeze on Iran's economy starting in 2010. And these sanctions allowed the United States government to prohibit anyone who does business with certain identified Iranian bad actors from doing business inside the United States.
SHAPIRO: But that sounds like it's targeted at individuals rather than huge sectors of the economy or industries.
NEPHEW: That's right. And the sectoral sanctions that have been doing the most damage to Iran have now gone away. But you know, there are some pretty important individuals and entities who are still on the designation list, you know? For instance, the Iran Revolutionary Guard Corps is still sanctioned by the United States, will continue to be sanctioned by the United States for any foreseeable future. And they actually are in control of a large part of the Iranian economy. And so I think a lot of companies out there had better be very, very careful about who they do business with to avoid running afoul of those sanctions.
SHAPIRO: What's the reasoning behind lifting the U.N. sanctions but keeping these other sanctions still in place?
NEPHEW: Well, I think, you know, ultimately, the U.N. sanctions were put in place as a result of a, you know, global, multilateral compromise so long as we had a viable diplomatic path. Now that the diplomatic path has yielded a result, we were under an obligation to lift those sanctions. But we weren't under any obligation to lift our own unilateral controls or to reestablish diplomatic relations with Iran. And so for our own bilateral, U.S.-centric view, we felt that we needed to keep the sanctions in place that governed U.S. persons behavior.
SHAPIRO: And when you look at U.S. businesses, some sectors now have huge new opportunities with Iran. Others don't. What determines who gets to play and who doesn't?
NEPHEW: Well, a lot of it is determined by simply humanitarian and civil society interests in the United States, you know? For instance, agricultural, medical, humanitarian goods - those are things we left off the sanctions simply for humanitarian reasons. The biggest area change is the aviation sector. And frankly, that comes from the fact that the Iranian government prioritized getting relief from those sanctions to avoid having all the old airplanes they still have in service from cashing out of the sky.
SHAPIRO: How much leverage has the U.S. lost with Iran by giving up these sanctions?
NEPHEW: Well, I think we've certainly lost some. I mean, the Iranian economy was in a nosedive starting in 2012 and going into 2013. But you know, that wasn't going to last forever. And I think a lot of people who have said, well, we should keep the sanctions in place, are forgetting the fact that over time, countries find ways of adapting or evading those sanctions. So we exchanged a waning and atrophying asset in exchange for a pretty good nuclear deal that will solved our problem for a good, long time.
SHAPIRO: What's the challenge for U.S. negotiators going forward now that they don't have this stick, now that they've given up this leverage?
NEPHEW: Well, I think the biggest challenge, really, is the more fundamental one. You know, getting Iran to stop its nuclear program was a pretty big challenge, but you know, we're now talking about stopping Iranian support for terrorism, something they consider to be a core part of their foreign policy. I mean, stopping support for Hezbollah is the equivalent of having the United States stop support for Israel. It's something that's just so serious and so significant for the Iranian government that I think the bigger issue is not the absence of sticks but the fact that they just simply don't want to do it.
So I think ultimately, what we really need to do is have a resolution to the broader Middle Eastern, you know, conflicts and difficulties that we've got, and that will entail over time Iran stopping, at least, support for violent extremism in places like, you know, Yemen, Syria and certainly in Lebanon.
SHAPIRO: Richard Nephew directs the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University. Thanks for joining us.
NEPHEW: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Last night, the Democratic presidential candidates met for their last debate before the voting begins in Iowa two weeks from today. It was broadcast on NBC, and one big area of disagreement was health care. We're going to break it down.
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WALTER MONDALE: Where's the beef? When I hear your new ideas, I'm reminded of that ad. Where's the beef?
SHAPIRO: NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben and Scott Horsley are back in the studio with us to walk us through some of these health care questions. Welcome back, folks.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Good to be with you.
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Thank you.
SHAPIRO: Just before the debates started, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders released some details of his single-payer health care plan which he calls Medicare for All. He complains the Affordable Care Act has not done enough to rein in costs. Let's listen.
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BERNIE SANDERS: Tell me why we are spending almost three times more than the British who guarantee health care to all of their people, 50 percent more than the French, more than the Canadians.
SHAPIRO: Scott, are those numbers right? Is the U.S. really paying that much more?
HORSLEY: We are. The U.K. spends a little over $3,000 per person on health care, France and Canada - between four and $5,000 per person and the U.S. - nearly $9,000 per person.
SHAPIRO: Wow.
HORSLEY: At the same time, on a number of indicators, we have worse outcomes, so we're spending more with little or nothing to show for it. Sanders says you could cut costs by switching to a single-payer system like the ones in the U.K. and Canada.
SHAPIRO: And Sanders says he would pay for that system with a variety of taxes. And he was asked if some of those taxes might hit the middle class. Here's what he said.
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SANDERS: We are doing away with private health insurance premiums. So instead of paying $10,000 to Blue Cross or Blue Shield, yes, some middle-class families would be paying slightly more in taxes, but the result would be that that middle-class family would be saving some $5,000 in health care costs.
SHAPIRO: Danielle, is that true that every middle-class family that pays more in taxes will be saving even more in health care costs?
KURTZLEBEN: Every middle-class family - that's probably stretching it a bit. Now, this gets at how he's funding this. He's increasing taxes that will hit the richest Americans the most. He's increasing payroll taxes. And this is what he's talking about here - this 2.2 percent tax that will hit at families earning around $29,000 or higher, and that is what he means when he's talking about the middle class.
They'll end up paying, yes, 2.2 percent more. Now, what Sanders is saying here is that also, yeah, you're paying new taxes, but subtract out what you're paying right now for what health care you're getting, the premiums you're paying. And what you would get under Sanders' plan is a co-pay-free, deductible-free health care plan.
SHAPIRO: Medicare for All, as he puts it, provided by the government.
KURTZLEBEN: Right.
SHAPIRO: Now, Hillary Clinton argued last night that it is impossible to pass a plan like that because even when Democrats controlled the House and Senate at the beginning of President Obama's first term - wasn't doable. Let's listen.
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HILLARY CLINTON: There was an opportunity to vote for what was called the public option. In other words, people could buy into Medicare. And even when the Democrats were in charge of the Congress, we couldn't get the votes for that.
SHAPIRO: Scott, you covered the debate over the Affordable Care Act in 2009, 2010. Is she right?
HORSLEY: She is right. The Obama administration was unable to push through support for government-run insurance as an option, let alone the only option. And, of course, since then, Congress has just moved to the right. This debate, though, over political feasibility really highlights a difference between Clinton, who calls herself a pragmatic progressive focused on what's possible in the current political environment, and Sanders, who says, look; you got to change the political environment so more possibilities open up.
SHAPIRO: Another point of disagreement was that Hillary Clinton accused Bernie Sanders of effectively being disloyal to President Obama seeking a primary opponent to run against him in 2011. Let's listen to Sanders in a radio interview in 2011 on the Thom Hartmann radio show.
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SANDERS: One of the reasons the president has been able to move so far to the right is that there is no primary opposition to him. And I think it would do this country a good deal of service if people started thinking about candidates out there to begin contrasting what is a progressive agenda as opposed to what Obama is doing.
SHAPIRO: And Sanders said last night he worked hard to re-elect President Obama. Danielle, what's going on here?
KURTZLEBEN: Right. So what you had last night was the absolute opposite of what you've been seeing in the GOP debates, where they're trying to distance themselves as far from President Obama as possible. What you saw last night were the candidates trying to cozy themselves up to Obama, who remains very popular among primary voters. So right now, that looks like a great strategy. In a general election, though, it might be different story.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Scott Horsley and NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben, thanks to you both.
HORSLEY: You're welcome.
KURTZLEBEN: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
On this day, when we remember the civil rights movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the U.S. is in the middle of another racial struggle, the Black Lives Matter movement. Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad has studied the parallels between these two movements. He's the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. Welcome.
KHALIL GIBRAN MUHAMMAD: Thank you much for having me.
SHAPIRO: It's easy to look at these two movements half a century apart and say they're the fruit of the same tree. How much similarity really is there between Dr. King's civil rights movement and the Black Lives Matter movement of today?
MUHAMMAD: There's a lot of similarity in recognizing that there are huge disparities that exist in this nation, and bringing attention to those disparities in ways that are about visibility for the suffering of the others and something that Dr. King called a confrontation with strength and dignity. The notion of nonviolent is the cornerstone of the early civil rights movement. It was not a nonviolence by birth. It was a nonviolence by training, and the young people of that movement of 50 years ago committed themselves to understanding the movement so that they could inspire others. The young people of the Black Lives Matter movement are doing the same, except their audience is a national audience through social media as well as the local organizing that goes on. But I will add this. They are fundamentally committed to moving past what they call respectability politics. They want to suggest that the work of transforming America now means that everyone is entitled to their human dignity and their due process. And if they don't speak perfect English, if they've not graduated from high school, they still deserve respect in this nation.
SHAPIRO: There also seems to be a difference between sort of whether you're looking inward or outward, whether the message is directed towards the community itself or towards those who are interacting with the community.
MUHAMMAD: There's no question that the Black Lives Matter movement has dual messaging. On one hand, it is incredibly explicit in ways that are not nuanced. In some ways, on this Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, we really remember the best of his rhetorical genius and capacity to make us feel good about what we were capable of. The Black Lives Matter movement is not interested in that right now. They're really interested in wrestling with the litany of disparity data on how blacks are treated in the criminal justice system versus in public schools, so on and so forth. In that way, they reject some of the ways in which they've heard a lot of the aspirational rhetoric. So that's a commitment to truth-telling in a way that Dr. King was much less likely to do on the grand stage than he was in some of the churches that he spent so much time in.
SHAPIRO: You know, we're talking about these two moments in time, from the 1960s and the present day, but there's obviously a continuity. How do we connect what's happened in the intervening half-century between these two movements?
MUHAMMAD: On one hand, we didn't take Dr. King's warning about the importance of history lessons. When he wrote "Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos Or Community?" he wanted us to learn from what had worked in the civil rights movement and the work that remained necessary to do. That got watered down somehow. I will say for my generation of Gen Xers (ph), we were told, generally speaking, to just look forward - don't look back - and to embrace all the opportunities that are right in front of you. I think we got ahead of ourselves. I think the fact is that we needed to be vigilant and take more seriously that Dr. King didn't die of old age. He died because he was assassinated, and he was assassinated in part because he challenged this nation to restructure its fundamental values, and those values include the full recognition of the dignity of black people. That is the work that remains today.
SHAPIRO: Do you think Dr. King would look at this movement today and heave a sigh that in 2016, these are still contentious issues? Or would he be proud that the fight continues, and the ball is moving forward, and people haven't given up the struggle?
MUHAMMAD: All of the above.
(LAUGHTER)
MUHAMMAD: At every step along the way from 1955 and the bus boycott movement until his dying day, he had to make a case not just to politicians, not just to a broader community of Americans, but to other activists in the movement itself when he said a legal strategy is insufficient. He told the NAACP and other organizations we can't just win this in court. We've got to transform this society. And so I think he would applaud so many people today who see that the work is still beyond our courts, still beyond our politicians, and he would most certainly say to them, like so many have said to me over the years; up in Harlem, the struggle continues.
SHAPIRO: Dr. Khalil Gibran Muhammad is the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at the New York Public Library. Thanks so much for speaking with us, and happy MLK Day.
MUHAMMAD: Thank you, Ari. Same to you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In the British Parliament today, a debate over American politics. Specifically, the political speech of Donald Trump. Members of the House of Commons discussed a petition that more than half a million people signed. The petition calls for Trump to be barred from entering the United Kingdom for, quote, "hate speech." Tulip Siddiq with the Labor Party ran through a litany of Trump's remarks that she found offensive, including his call that all Muslims be banned from entering the United States.
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TULIP SIDDIQ: His words are poisonous. They risk inflaming tension between vulnerable communities. And let me make one thing clear. We have legislation in our country to make sure we do not let people enter who are not conducive to the public good.
SHAPIRO: There was no vote. The British Home Secretary is the one who could decide to ban Trump for what he says. Siddiq and others argued that he should be banned. They pointed to a list of people who expressed similar views who were not allowed in the country. But Conservative MP Alex Chalk suggested another way of dealing with Donald Trump.
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ALEX CHALK: Can I not suggest that actually, this is about buffoonery. And ultimately, buffoonery should not be met with the blunt instrument of a ban, but with the classic British response of ridicule.
SHAPIRO: And of course, some MPs embraced that suggestion. They variously described Trump as an idiot, a demagogue and bonkers. Others said let him come, including the Labour Party's Naz Shah.
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NAZ SHAH: I'd take him to the mosques. I'd invite him for a curry. We are curry capital of Britain. You know, I would welcome him, and I would have a conversation with him and challenge him on his views.
SHAPIRO: It wasn't all condemnation. Philip Davies, a Conservative, said he doesn't share Trump's views, but admires the Republican candidate's direct approach.
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PHILIP DAVIES: In fact, I think in this country we could do with rather less political correctness and much more straight-talking across the board.
SHAPIRO: There was also a very pragmatic argument against banning Trump. It came from Corri Wilson of the Scottish National Party. The Trump organization has said any action to restrict Donald Trump's travel would force them to end their current and future investments. That includes an investment in a golf resort in her constituency.
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CORRI WILSON: It would be catastrophic for the resort, and a tragedy for the local community.
SHAPIRO: A reminder that even when it comes to transatlantic relations, all politics is still local.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Liberty University is kind of a must-do for Republican presidential contenders. The Christian school in Virginia was where Ted Cruz kicked off his campaign. Ben Carson and Jeb Bush have both spoken there. Even Democrat Bernie Sanders went there back in September. This morning, it was Donald Trump's turn to address the conservative student body. NPR's Jessica Taylor was there, and she's now on the line from Lynchburg, Va. Hi, Jessica.
JESSICA TAYLOR, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: The flamboyant New York billionaire does not seem like the most obvious fit for faith-based voters. Did he change his stump speech to try to sell himself to this crowd?
TAYLOR: Trump has still been doing surprisingly well with evangelical voters. He's fighting with Ted Cruz for them, especially in Iowa and South Carolina. But this speech here, it was really sort of his usual talking points - hitting the president on Iran and talking about his immigration plan. He did, you know, try to tailor a little bit at the beginning. He did try to cite one of the verses that's an inspiration for Liberty University, but he kind of messed it up a little bit. Here, let's listen.
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DONALD TRUMP: "Two Corinthians" - right? - "Two Corinthians" 3:17 - that's the whole ballgame, where the spirit of the Lord - right? - where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. And here, there is Liberty College, but - Liberty University, but it is so true.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
TAYLOR: There was a lot of snickering from students where I was sitting in the audience after that because the way that book is typically referred to is "Second Corinthians," not "Two Corinthians." Trump's come under fire. He's been asked earlier to name his favorite bible verse and said he wouldn't pick just one, and advisers to both Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio were pretty quick to note this gaff on social media.
SHAPIRO: Well, apart from snickering and his getting the name of the book wrong, how did students respond to him?
TAYLOR: I'd say he got a pretty polite reception. It isn't the typical, you know, rock star welcome that we see at his rallies that he organizes himself. The biggest reactions he got was when he promised he would defend the Second Amendment and talk about illegal immigration. But I had one student tell me that Ted Cruz, who, of course, announced his campaign back there, definitely got a much bigger response from the student body.
SHAPIRO: He got pretty warm introduction from the university president, though.
TAYLOR: He did get a glowing welcome from the university president, Jerry Falwell Jr., son of the famed televangelist Jerry Falwell who founded this university. Falwell said Trump reminded him of his father, saying he had modeled his life after Jesus Christ and said he was the only candidate in the field who couldn't be bought by special interests. Now, while he was careful to say he and the university weren't endorsing him, it was about as strong of a non-endorsement endorsement that's I've ever heard. Here's one clip.
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JERRY FALWELL JR.: "Matthew" 7:16 tells us that by their fruits, you shall know them. Donald Trump's life has born fruit, fruit that has provided jobs to multitudes of people in addition to the many he has helped with his generosity.
TAYLOR: Now, he usually introduces other candidates when they come speak, but several students I talked to said he usually isn't this auditory. And some were kind of - they didn't think this was sort of the right tone for him to strike, either.
SHAPIRO: Before the speech, there were some students who said they thought it was inappropriate for Trump to speak on Martin Luther King Day. Did Trump refer to Dr. King at all in his speech?
TAYLOR: He did a little bit. They showed a video before he spoke about Martin Luther King, and then, you know, he sort of praised him at the beginning but then quickly noted that this was the largest attendance ever at a convocation. Now, students are required to attend this event, and it was the first day of classes for them. So he said, you know, this was the biggest attendance they'd ever had and that he would dedicate this to Martin Luther King Jr., which he said was a great honor. And he noted this again, so it was kind of a little awkward throw there to him.
There were a few protesters standing outside. You know, the big controversy, of course, is that a lot of people feel like some of the things he said about Muslims and about immigrants is not really sort of in the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr., who tried to bring people together for change.
SHAPIRO: We mentioned that a lot of candidates have spoken at Liberty University this campaign cycle. How about Hillary Clinton - any chance?
TAYLOR: They have invited every single candidate running, Republican or Democrat. And of course, we saw Sanders went there. So we're, you know - she hasn't accepted yet, but you know, whenever Trump did mention Hillary Clinton, she was kind of met with boos. So it could be a - kind of a hostile crowd if she does go.
SHAPIRO: That was NPR's Jessica Taylor reporting from Lynchburg, Va.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Some organizations that have not traditionally sponsored scouting are trying to do so now. This is after the Boy Scouts decided to allow gay youth and leaders in the group. At the same time, Scouts are narrowing the definition of what makes an ideal troop sponsor. Terry Gildea of member station KUER in Utah explains.
TERRY GILDEA, BYLINE: Leaders of the Boy Scouts of America have crafted a new policy that states some advocacy organizations are not ideal sponsors for Scout troops. Inside his office at the Great Salt Lake Council, Scout executive Rick Barnes walks me through the recently updated new unit application.
RICK BARNES: So if you look kind of there at the middle bullet, it says that charter organizations must not use the scouting program to pursue any objective related to political or social advocacy.
GILDEA: But many religious organizations that have partnered with scouting for decades as troop sponsors have a history of engaging in social activism. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Roman Catholic Church have been involved in advocating for a lot of causes, from helping the poor to protecting what they call traditional marriage. So I asked Barnes why religious activism is acceptable in the eyes of scouting.
BARNES: The best way for me to answer that is, if the scouting unit is chartered by a religious organization, then that is - especially if they're a long-standing chartered partner, then, of course, that partnership is approved
GILDEA: In a statement from Boy Scout officials at the national level, they say they've always prohibited single-issue advocacy organizations from using scouting to advance a political or social agenda and that advocacy is not the primary purpose of the religious groups they partner with. Local Salt Lake activist Mark Lawrence says he isn't buying the BSA's new rule.
MARK LAWRENCE: They have hundreds of nonprofit organizations that hold charters right now, and all nonprofits are advocacy groups for one thing or another. They are really reaching to come up with reasons, and none of them hold any water.
GILDEA: Lawrence is the director of Restore Our Humanity, a local organization that's been involved in gay rights, among other causes. He hopes to create a troop that accepts everyone regardless of religious affiliation or sexual orientation. He says if the application is rejected, he will pursue legal action.
LAWRENCE: They're just going to expect us to walk away and ride off into the sunset, and that is not going to happen.
GILDEA: Forty percent of troops nationwide and 98 percent of troops in the Great Salt Lake Council are charted by Mormon congregations, and some in Salt Lake are interested in changing that. They include a Baptist minister, a rabbi and even some Mormons. One of them is George Fisher, a former LDS scoutmaster of a Mormon troop and a former bishop. Fisher says LDS scouting doesn't give non-Mormon boys the same opportunities.
GEORGE FISHER: So an outsider coming into an LDS troop would be denied that opportunity of becoming a senior patrol leader or having that leadership experience which is preparation for life or employment.
GILDEA: When BSA leaders voted to accept gay adults as volunteers, they also allowed groups like the Mormon Church to turn away gay adults because they don't reach that organization's moral standard. Fisher's 19-year-old grandson Josh is gay. He believes an all-inclusive troop could provide an opportunity for Josh to set a positive example for gay kids.
FISHER: And he can say, you know, I survived; I existed; I went through this; I felt some repercussions because of my gender orientation. So Josh has a lot of gifts.
GILDEA: National Boy Scout officials said in a statement, the application for the all-inclusive Salt Lake Troop will be reviewed by a special volunteer committee that is currently being formed. Meanwhile, the Great Salt Lake Boy Scout Council says it's trying to start more troops for non-Mormon scouts. For NPR News, I'm Terry Gildea in Salt Lake City.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A major investigative report today into crime, gambling and tennis - it involves billions of dollars, elite players, violent threats. The investigation was jointly reported by BuzzFeed News and the BBC. It alleges that tennis authorities have suppressed evidence of match-fixing and overlooked accusations against some of the sport's top players. BuzzFeed's John Templon joins us now. Welcome to the show.
JOHN TEMPLON: Hi. Thanks for having me.
SHAPIRO: This investigation began with a data analysis that you started more than a year ago. Describe what you did.
TEMPLON: Yeah. So I read in a statistics paper that about 1 percent of tennis matches were fixed, and I started looking on my own at different data to see if we could find suspicious trends in tennis matches. And so what I did is, I took those 26,000 tennis matches between 2009 and 2015 and looked at the movements in pre-match betting odds, and we looked for when those matches went against players and how often they lost. And for 15 players, we found interesting trends where it would happen less than 5 times in a 100. And then for four players in particular, we found that those trends, if the opening odds were correct, would occur less than 1 in 1,000 times. And so those were really suspicious, and we wanted to look more into them. And so then we started doing the deep document dive in the investigative reporting.
SHAPIRO: So after you've analyzed more than 20,000 matches, you get leaked documents basically confirming what the data showed. Give us a description of how this actually worked. You have crime syndicates from Italy and Russia going to players' hotel rooms, offering them huge sums of money to throw a particular game.
TEMPLON: Yeah. So a number of players - and in fact, Novak Djokovic talked about that at the Australian Open after the report came out, that his support personnel have actually been approached about match-fixing. And he's been offered $200,000 - is what he said he was offered at one particular tournament. And other players report that these sort of approaches happen a lot.
SHAPIRO: You don't name names in this article, and many high-ranking tennis players today are urging you to do so. Why did you decide not to?
TEMPLON: Yeah. For a few reasons, actually. One of the reasons is that it's difficult to prove match-fixing. We have seen questionable trends, and obviously the bookmakers think that what's going on is very questionable for certain players. But we don't necessarily know that those 16 players or anyone else in our universe was definitively fixing the matches. And the other reason is that ours is more of a call to action for the tennis authorities. We feel like they are kind of ignoring the problem. And the scope and scale where we can say that there are these 16 that are repeatedly showing up that are, you know, high-ranking players seems to make a stronger argument for that then just maybe naming one player.
SHAPIRO: Have you had any further response from tennis authorities since this came out?
TEMPLON: The tennis authorities have thus far basically said that they are doing as much as they can to combat match-fixing in tennis and that they'll continue to be vigilant, but they haven't really given a definitive response except to deny the article (laughter).
SHAPIRO: That's BuzzFeed's John Templon. His piece on widespread match-fixing by players in the top levels of tennis is called "The Tennis Racket." Editor Heidi Blake is the co-author, and the story was jointly reported with BBC. Thank you.
TEMPLON: Thank you.
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U.S. officials are looking for three Americans who have disappeared in Baghdad. Years ago, during the height of the U.S. presence in Iraq, there were many cases of Americans being kidnapped by militias, but that hasn't happened in years. NPR's Alice Fordham joins us now from Baghdad. Hi, Alice.
ALICE FORDHAM, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: What can you tell us about how these three people went missing?
FORDHAM: Well, what we know for sure is limited, Ari, but I can tell you a U.S. official has confirmed to NPR that the three missing Americans were subcontracted by a group called General Dynamics, which is contracted by the defense department here in Baghdad. Now the company itself didn't respond to requests for comment, and all the U.S. embassy will say here is that they are investigating the disappearance of several individuals, they can't say more because of privacy rules. And another thing we know for sure is that in the Baghdad suburb of Dora, which is where they're believed to have disappeared, there's a huge manhunt underway. Streets closed, surveillance aircraft, houses being raided by Iraqi security forces. Now beyond that, we're filling in the gaps with reports from Iraqi and from other security sources who've spoken to NPR on condition of anonymity. And these aren't things we've been able to confirm independently, but I'm hearing from multiple sources that there were two Iraqi-Americans and an Egyptian-American - it may have been two men and one woman - and that they went into a social event in that neighborhood, Dora - which is a rough area, actually - on Friday afternoon. That social event was then raided by an armed group in uniforms, likely a militia, which detained the three of them. Now that's the prevailing theory. That's what we're hearing from people, including the Iraqi Interior Ministry, although it's also been suggested that they were driving along a highway when they were taken.
SHAPIRO: Do you have any idea who this armed group in uniforms, who this militia might have been?
FORDHAM: Well, it seems likely that they were one of a lot of Shiite Muslim militias which now operate in Baghdad. Some of these groups are actually allied with the government and are very active in the fight against ISIS. But there's a lot more, usually smaller, groups who style themselves sometimes as moral enforcers, so they do things like raid brothels or parties. There's also just a lot of criminal activity, Ari. There's gangs kidnapping for money. The Iraqi economy has suffered badly from low oil prices, among other things, and we're seeing more and more reports of crime - kidnapping, as well as bank robberies and that kind of thing.
SHAPIRO: Do you get the sense that this was a planned operation or a crime of opportunity? I mean, are Americans being targeted in Baghdad again?
FORDHAM: Well, again, it's hard to say. I can tell you the context of this is that a lot of the Shiite militias have close ties with Iran, so some analysts were wondering whether this was could have been connected with an Iranian wish for bargaining chips, but that's speculation. We haven't heard anything from the captors, so there's absolutely no evidence to support that theory currently. Although obviously, it doesn't say anything good about security in Baghdad. The prime minister's economic advisor was just lamenting to me this morning that he would love Americans to come and invest in Iraq, and this kind of incident makes that less and less likely.
SHAPIRO: Generally speaking, in the parts of Iraq that are not held by ISIS, what is security like these days?
FORDHAM: You know, it's often not good because so much of the police and the army are deployed to fight ISIS elsewhere. Violence flared up in the southern city of Basra this week, and in the last year we've seen kidnappings of a group of Turkish construction workers and a group of Qatari nationals who were on a hunting trip in the southern part of Iraq.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Alice Fordham speaking with us from Baghdad. Thanks, Alice.
FORDHAM: You're welcome.
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Now we're going to hear one of the stories from inside the historic prisoner swap between the U.S. and Iran. This story unfolded in Texas, where a businessman and his lawyer were swept up in the negotiations. The businessman was one of the seven Iranians in jail in the U.S. who had been offered clemency by President Obama. NPR's Deborah Amos reports.
DEBORAH AMOS, BYLINE: In a Houston detention center, lawyer Joel Androphy waited for hours for his client to be released. Bahram Mekanik, a 69-year-old Iranian-American businessman, had spent nine months in jail. Now he was part of a high-stakes international prisoner swap. Androphy had kept this secret for months. Saturday, U.S. officials told him to get to the jail at 5 a.m. The deal was on, but it would take hours.
JOEL ANDROPHY: It became a joke in the prison because we were - every 10 minutes, we were told it could happen in 10 minutes. We almost all went out and got t-shirts saying 10 more minutes because it 10 minutes, every 10 minutes, for 14 hours.
AMOS: The delay was in Tehran. The release in Houston was held up until a plane with U.S. prisoners left Iranian airspace. It was the conclusion of a secret deal. It began two months earlier. An Iranian official from Washington asked for a meeting with a lawyer and his client. Would they be interested in being part of a prisoner swap?
ANDROPHY: Nobody had really finalized anything, and they were in discussions, but it clearly was understood that Bahram Mekanik was part of the deal.
AMOS: Mekanik had run his business from Houston for more than 30 years. He became a U.S. citizen. He was arrested nine months ago, and charged with shipping electronic equipment to Iran. Mekanik became part of a group of seven released on Saturday. Iranian officials wanted a larger group, but American officials insisted there would be no clemency for anyone who faced charges of violent crimes or convicted of terrorism. From his home in Houston, in an interview on Skype, Androphy insists his client did nothing wrong. The arrest was due to the tense U.S. relations with Iran.
ANDROPHY: You know, he's nothing for the United States to give up. He's not a risk of anything. He's a good citizen of Houston and the United States, and he helps employ a lot of people in our community. We're not giving Iran anything. We're giving back to the people of the United States somebody that's innocent.
AMOS: A presidential pardon makes that official, unusual in a case that hadn't yet come to trial. Late Saturday, in a Texas jail, the warden handed over the presidential pardon.
ANDROPHY: He was a first-class warden, nothing like you would see on TV, and he basically told our clients that - to enjoy the rest of their life, and God be with you.
AMOS: Androphy bristles at criticism of a secret deal that ended with the release of people that the U.S. said had been unjustly jailed in Iran, including reporter Jason Rezaian, a Christian cleric and a Marine. He says the seven released in the U.S. will stay in the U.S., including his client, Bahram Mekanik.
ANDROPHY: It sounds like a win-win deal. So it's an exchange of innocence for innocence.
AMOS: He says Mekanik will be back at work in Houston in a few weeks. Deborah Amos, NPR News, New York.
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A few days ago, the director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, admitted that he had been hacked. No state secrets or classified intelligence went missing. It was his personal email and phone accounts that were hacked by a teenager. The revelation came just months after the CIA director's personal email was also targeted. It got NPR's Mary Louise Kelly wondering who's next.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, BYLINE: When you start calling around security experts, asking what they make of the news that the top intelligence official in the country has been hacked, you hear - well, you hear chuckles.
AMIT YORAN: (Laughter) Sure. Clearly these types of compromises are an embarrassment.
KELLY: That's Amit Yoran. He's former director of cybersecurity for the Department of Homeland Security. As you can hear, he appreciates the irony that the people charged with protecting the nation's cybersecurity can't protect their own. But Yoran, who's now president of the network security company RSA, says on another level, it's no laughing matter. Even if national security weren't compromised, hackers still may have gleaned valuable information.
YORAN: So what is the tone in various communications? Who's inside his circle of trust? You know, what are his family interests and things like that which doesn't seem to have a whole lot of, you know, value at its face, but when you dig in, there's actually stuff which can be used down the road.
KELLY: Stuff which can be used down the road - that's exactly what CIA Chief John Brennan said he was worried about when his private AOL account was breached last October and details like his wife's Social Security number ended up online.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN BRENNAN: I was certainly outraged by it. I certainly was concerned about what people might try to do with that information.
KELLY: This prompts the question. Should officials operating at the very highest levels of national security be using private email accounts? Robert Knake was, until last year, the director of cybersecurity policy for the National Security Council at the White House. He argues spy chiefs like Brennan and Clapper don't have much choice.
ROBERT KNAKE: If you're a government employee, you're not supposed to be using your DNI or CIA or Department of Homeland Security email address for anything other than business purposes. What it would introduce is a situation in which you would be making government records out of your mortgage statements.
KELLY: That's right, mortgage statements, birthday messages to nieces and nephews. Knake points out that senior government officials have personal lives like the rest of us, which means they should try, like the rest of us, to follow the golden rule of the Internet era. Don't type anything you wouldn't want to see on the front page of the newspaper tomorrow.
KNAKE: A harder lesson is don't receive anything that you wouldn't want on the front page tomorrow.
KELLY: Meaning even if officials practice scrupulous online security - and there's no suggestion that Clapper or Brennan did otherwise - they can't control who emails them. Knake, now at the Council on Foreign Relations, says that's one way cyber intruders can get in. One possible solution - quitting free email providers like Yahoo and Gmail and moving to paid services that use voice or facial recognition. The days of using passwords to protect data may be numbered.
But public figures like the head of the CIA will be targets no matter what precautions they take, says Tony Cole. He's the global government chief technology officer at FireEye, a security company. Cole says hackers are always eyeing the next big prize - OK, like who?
TONY COLE: I wouldn't be surprised if someone hasn't tried diligently to go after the NSA director and others at that level, maybe in the White House.
KELLY: The National Security Agency and the White House surely know this and are working just as hard not to become the next spymasters to be spied on. Mary Louise Kelly, NPR News, Washington.
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OK, now we have some breaking news from our dedicated kale coverage desk here at NPR. You (laughter) just know someone had to pitch this at our morning news meeting today. Starting today, Chick-fil-A has kale on its menu next to the spicy chicken sandwich and the waffle fries. It's called the Superfood Side, and it has, quote, "hand-chopped kale and broccolini, dried cherries and nuts. Here's Chick-fil-A's VP of menu strategy and develop David Farmer in a promotional video explaining the change in the menu.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DAVID FARMER: We just want to make sure that it's - it just stays relevant.
SHAPIRO: For one man, the irony of all this was just too delicious.
ROBERT MULLER-MOORE: Really, could you script it any funnier than this?
SHAPIRO: Meet Robert Muller-Moore.
MULLER-MOORE: But everybody calls me Bo, the eat-more-kale guy.
SHAPIRO: Eat more kale is the slogan he prints on a popular series of T-shirts at his studio in Vermont. Back in 2011, he got into a long legal fight with Chick-fil-A over those shirts. The company said it was too close to their tagline, eat more chicken. After three years, Muller-Moore won the fight. He got the trademark to eat more kale, and Chick-fil-A was out of his life.
MULLER-MOORE: They have capitulated and left me alone. I have not heard hide nor hair from them.
SHAPIRO: So then Chick-fil-A goes and puts kale on its menu.
MULLER-MOORE: And my email blew up with literally hundreds of people writing me in a day, saying, could there be anything more ironic than Chick-fil-A now serving, nationwide, a kale salad - and not only a kale salad, but keep in mind I'm from Vermont. They're offering it with a maple vinaigrette dressing. Out of all the salad dressing in the world, they choose one that is maple-syrup based.
SHAPIRO: We called up Chick-fil-A. A spokesperson there did not answer our question about this irony. She did promise that the new side is delicious. As for Muller-Moore, he says the company has not offered to join forces with him to sell those eat-more-kale T-shirts.
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Around the country, hundreds of airport workers have been protesting today in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Chanting) Airport workers are under attack. What do we do?
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Stand up like that.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Chanting) Airport workers are...
SHAPIRO: Those are the voices of workers and their supporters who were out in Newark, N.J. There were also demonstrations in New York, Chicago and Miami. The marchers all called for a minimum wage increase to $15 an hour. NPR's Hansi Lo Wang reports.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: In Newark, workers carried picket signs of Martin Luther King Jr. through the airport.
KEVIN BROWN: If Dr. King were alive today, he would be standing alongside of us.
WANG: That was Kevin Brown, New Jersey's state director of the local service employees Union, 32BJ SEIU.
BROWN: The fight for civil rights is the fight for union rights.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Yes.
WANG: Some of the crowd were in between work shifts at the airport, but many had the day off from working as baggage handlers and airplane cabin cleaners, including 51-year-old America Hernandez.
AMERICA HERNANDEZ: I'll even (unintelligible) say I'll clean the plane all night
WANG: Hernandez works for PrimeFlight, a contractor for United Airlines. She cleans about 20 airplane cabins from 10 at night to 7:30 in the morning for $10.10 an hour.
HERNANDEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
WANG: Hernandez says her salary is enough to pay the bills for her and her four children, but what's left over, she says, is not enough to even buy a piece of candy.
HERNANDEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
RAQUEL BRITO: We're just tired of struggling just to get by. It's too much living paycheck to paycheck.
WANG: Raquel Brito is baggage handler at Chicago O'Hare International Airport. She's 20 years old and currently makes $11 an hour. That's why Brito says she protested today outside United Airlines' headquarters in Chicago. Fifteen dollars, she says, is an hourly wage she can actually live on. United Airlines and PrimeFlight did not respond to NPR's interview request before broadcast. Today's protests come during a national debate about minimum wage increases. Some economists say it's not clear what the actual economic impact of an increase would be.
DAVID NEUMARK: We don't really have any great confidence about what a $15 minimum wage would mean, whether across-the-board or for a particular set of workers.
WANG: That was David Neumark, an economics professor at the University of California, Irvine. In general, he says, raising the minimum wage for workers also raises prices of products and services.
NEUMARK: At some level, they increase prices. People buy less from those businesses, and those businesses use fewer workers. And that channel is arguably a lot weaker at airports.
WANG: Neumark argues that raising airport wages wouldn't necessarily have a big impact on whether travelers buy plane tickets.
NEUMARK: People at airports aren't poor on average. It's a high-income segment of the population going through airports.
WANG: The wages of airport workers also don't make up the bulk of what it costs to fly, according to Arin Dube, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
ARIN DUBE: When you think about what goes into the cost of a flying from, let's say, Boston to San Francisco, the cost of baggage handlers and other low-wage workers in wages in determining the cost of flying is very tiny.
WANG: Dube argues that higher minimum wages could result in a benefit to airline companies.
DUBE: When you raise wages of low-wage workers at the airport, you may also increase their productivity.
WANG: David Neumark at UC, Irvine, though, isn't convinced. He says having to pay more for low-skilled workers at airports may push companies to hire more higher skilled workers instead. Hansi Lo Wang, NPR News.
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Rain and snow from El Nino are filling reservoirs in the West this season, but that doesn't end questions about where cities will get water in years to come. One source could be Native American tribes, as Will Stone of member station KJZZ reports.
WILL STONE, BYLINE: When settlers dammed the Gila River in the 1800s, the way of life for one of the South's most enduring agricultural societies began to unravel.
DAVID DEJONG: It literally took the entire flow of the river.
STONE: David DeJong runs this construction project that will eventually carry water to growers across the Gila River Indian Community south of Phoenix.
DEJONG: In fact, there are recorded documents that indicate some of the off-reservation farmers intentionally wasted the water so that there would be no water down here on the reservation.
STONE: The river was woven into the tribe's very identity, says DeJong.
DEJONG: In their own language, these are the Akimel O'odham, the river people.
STONE: Next to him, an irrigation canal empties water into the dry riverbed. It represents years of negotiations that resulted in a water settlement just over a decade ago, the largest in U.S. history at the time. And now the tribe is finally seeing the benefits. DeJong says soon, they expect the trees and wildlife that once lived along the river to return. And -
DEJONG: As importantly, the community is recharging water for future use.
STONE: Once water has seeped into the aquifer below, the community can then sell that valuable resource as credits to central Arizona cities.
STEPHEN ROE LEWIS: We're really at a crossroads with our water settlement.
STONE: Stephen Roe Lewis is governor of the Gila River Indian Community. They're entitled to more water from the parched Colorado River than anyone else in the region, but they still have to pay for it and the infrastructure. That's expensive, so they've banded with a nearby utility to sell some of this banked water.
LEWIS: The marketing of our water credits and leasing, that's going to be critical to the ongoing water supply in the future. That's really going to be a driving economic force.
STONE: In other words, the committee pipes in the water, stores it up, and then sells it locally. Lewis believes the tribes will be major players in the water market in coming years. Like everyone, though, they are still subject to the realities of a water-stretched West. Daniel McCool is a professor at the University of Utah, and has authored books on the subject.
DANIEL MCCOOL: The tribes negotiated their settlement in this context of a Western water policy that's really coming to an end.
STONE: Some western tribes have access to large supplies thanks to settlements. But with sources like the Colorado River over-allocated, he says some may be forced to renegotiate. As part of its settlement, the Gila River community already accepted certain restrictions on the marketing of water.
MCCOOL: A lot of people just hated the idea that a tribe might get a quantified amount of water and then open that up to the highest bidder because it would be western cities.
STONE: So water can only go to cities in Arizona, not, say, to Las Vegas or LA. Still, McCool believes their settlement was overall favorable. And ultimately, the tribe's business plan is in the service of a greater cause, reviving the agrarian and cultural roots for the next generation - young farmers on the reservation like Cimarron Cabello and his wife, who inherited a modest plot of windswept desert.
CIMARRON CABELLO: We're just trying to bring it back, I guess. Like the water's coming back for the Gila River, we've got to bring the farming back and all.
STONE: In a year, they hope to have it in full production and more land on the way. That's exactly what tribal governor Stephen Roe Lewis envisions as the Gila flows again.
LEWIS: When you actually can smell and taste the water firsthand, that shows that our sacred water is back and that we have a bright future ahead of us.
STONE: An economic reawakening on the reservation is what Lewis hopes for, fed by ancient traditions and a new entrepreneurial spirit. For NPR News, I'm Will Stone at the Gila River Indian Community.
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We're going to take a moment now to visit a land that inspired heffalumps and have a lump and expotitions - a forest in Southeast England. You may have been there in your imagination. Last year, I had a chance to go there in real life and told you all about it. Since today is a holiday, how about we go back together?
This view is sort of a quintessential English countryside. You have rolling hills and trees and squares of farmland and heather and gorse and a perfectly blue sky day. That might be the only thing that's not very English about this.
KATHRYN AALTO: (Laughter).
SHAPIRO: And our tour guide for this place is author Kathryn Aalto.
AALTO: I wrote the book "The Natural World Of Winnie-The-Pooh: A Walk Through The Forest That Inspired The Hundred Acre Wood." And this is the real landscape that inspired Milne to write his famous Winnie the Pooh stories.
SHAPIRO: As Aalto explains in her book, nearly a hundred years ago, the author A.A. Milne and his son, Christopher Robin, lived near Ashdown Forest, where we are now. Milne watched his son play with his stuffed animals here. Ashdown Forest became the Hundred Acre Wood, and Christopher Robin's adventures with Winnie the Pooh became some of the most beloved children's stories of all time about a honey-loving, silly old bear and his friends.
Just a little ways down the path is a cluster of trees. What's that place?
AALTO: It's called the enchanted place. There are either 63 or 64 trees in there.
SHAPIRO: Christopher Robin was never able to count exactly...
AALTO: No.
SHAPIRO: ...Whether it was 63 or 64.
AALTO: Even if you put...
SHAPIRO: And that's how he knows it's magic.
AALTO: That's exactly right.
SHAPIRO: Let's go there.
AALTO: All right.
SHAPIRO: In the enchanted place, the trees make a circle, almost like a shelter. Dappled light streams through the rustling leaves overhead. It's the highest spot in Ashdown Forest. The ground is flat and inviting.
Will you read a section from one of the Winnie the Pooh stories that describes this place we're standing in?
AALTO: Sure.
(Reading) Being enchanted, its floor was not like the floor of the forest, gorse and bracken and heather, but close-set grass, quiet and smooth and green. It was the only place in the forest where you could sit down carelessly without getting up again almost at once and looking for somewhere else. Sitting there, they could see the whole world spread out until it reached the sky.
SHAPIRO: And this is, in the books - and because of that, kind of in real life - a place you say goodbye to childhood, a place of transition.
AALTO: It is. Every time I'm here, I sort of - it's really emotional, actually. I - it's saying goodbye to free time, you know, the protection of mother and this sort of thing and father and leaving and going out into the world. And so there's great symbolism here.
SHAPIRO: Where should we go next?
AALTO: I think we need to play a game of Poohsticks, Ari.
SHAPIRO: That sounds like a perfect activity for a day like today.
Poohsticks is a simple game that kids of any age can play. Each person stands on a bridge, holding a stick. Drop your stick in the water from one side of the bridge, and see whose comes out the other side first. It's a sort of race. We meet 10-year-old Anna Matthews with her family. She's wearing an "Avengers" t-shirt.
Playing Poohsticks is very different from watching a superhero movie.
ANNA MATTHEWS: Yeah. I think it's nice to sort of unwind and sort of get away from the violent side of some movies and books but go sort of towards the Winnie the Pooh, where it's nice and it sort of teaches you a story, as well. So I like him.
SHAPIRO: At the Poohsticks bridge, lots of children are playing with their parents and grandparents.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Who's going to get those three first, then? Can you see them going through?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Those yours?
AALTO: The wonderful thing about this game is that there is no strategy. Right, so shall we play?
SHAPIRO: All right.
AALTO: All right then.
SHAPIRO: Give us a countdown of three...
AALTO: Two, one...
SHAPIRO: One, go.
SHAPIRO: Mine's in the lead.
AALTO: Yours is under the bridge first. I think can amble across.
SHAPIRO: I just think of the generations of kids who have leaned over this bridge, looking into this water, waiting for their stick to come out the other side. Oh, oh, oh.
AALTO: Stop. Whose is that?
SHAPIRO: I think that one's mine.
AALTO: Oh, you won, Ari (laughter). There they go.
SHAPIRO: My parents always taught me that the loser should say congratulations, and the winner should say good try.
AALTO: Congratulations, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Good try, Kathryn.
Kathryn Aalto is author of the new book "The Natural World Of Winnie-The-Pooh: A Walk Through The Forest That Inspired The Hundred Acre Wood." In the words of Tigger, TTFN, ta-ta for now.
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We all know a few famous lines from the "I Have A Dream" speech, when Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called for an end to the injustices of racism. The speech, though, was also a call to action. To the hundreds of thousands of people who had come to Washington for the march, Dr. King essentially said go home.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: Go back to Mississippi. Go back to Alabama. Go back to South Carolina. Go back to Georgia. Go back to Louisiana. Go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities knowing that somehow, this situation can and will be changed.
SHAPIRO: Today, millions of Americans are spending the day that commemorates Dr. King by serving in their communities.
ORLAN JOHNSON: We're still trying to decide if we're going to paint all the walls or we're going to do spot-painting in here.
SHAPIRO: That's Orlan Johnson, one of 75 volunteers who turned out to give a fresh coat of paint to the Nativity Women's Shelter here in Washington today.
O. JOHNSON: I haven't been thinking about free at last while I've been painting or anything like that, or Mahalia Jackson singing. No, I'm not hearing that.
SHAPIRO: Johnson brought his 16-year-old son Jair with him, who was happy to be out of school.
JAIR JOHNSON: It just feels really good. It feels good that I'm out the house. Like, usually on a type of day like this, I'll be in the house sleeping or maybe playing 2K or something along those lines, but it's good I can come out, you know, paint and tape and help people who really need the help.
SHAPIRO: In Steelton, Pa., Mike Walsh helped coordinate volunteers today.
MIKE WALSH: We're at the Steelton-Highspire High School, where there's about 100 volunteers. Some children and their parents are making cards for children who are at the pediatric care unit at Hershey Medical Center, which is nearby.
SHAPIRO: And in Jacksonville, Fla., Sara Ley and her 4 and 6-year-old sons helped clean up a park.
SARA LEY: Both boys were very much into using the rakes that were twice as big as them, and holding trash bags that were much bigger than them to help clean up the trash and to put leaves in. My 6-year-old, Gavin, just seeing it through his eyes is tremendous.
SHAPIRO: Back at the Nativity Women's Shelter in Washington, project manager Rosylyn Roberts says the new paint job makes a difference for the 25 women who call the shelter home.
ROSYLYN ROBERTS: It makes a big difference when you walk in and you can feel proud to be where you are at that moment. It makes a difference when you come in and it's bright.
SHAPIRO: She says she's thinking about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. today.
ROBERTS: And all that has taken place, and the fact that all over the country, you see people doing volunteer work, and the fact that that's a result of what he stood for, I think it's absolutely amazing.
SHAPIRO: Stories of service on this, the 30th Martin Luther King Jr. Day. And we're going to end with the voice of Mahalia Jackson singing at the 1963 March on Washington, where Dr. King delivered his "I Have A Dream" speech.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOW I GOT OVER")
MAHALIA JACKSON: (Singing) Tell me how we got over, Lord. We had a mighty time hard time coming on over. You know my soul, look back and wonder - how did I make it over? Well, soon as I can see Jesus, the man that died for me.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Today, we received word that Glenn Frey has died. He was one of the founding members of the Eagles. And he was one of the key songwriters for that influential band. Frey was 67. He had been fighting a variety of medical problems. Joining us to discuss his impact is our music reviewer, Tom Moon. Welcome back to the show.
TOM MOON, BYLINE: Great to be with you.
SHAPIRO: I have such a strong association with the sound of The Eagles. It is, like, guitars and driving on the West Coast in the summer. Talk about what this band created with their unique sound.
MOON: With the top down and the, you know, the hair blowing backward - basically they codified and gave us a framework for California rock. And they did it not once but over and over again. They sort of created and built on mythology that had been started by people like Jackson Browne and Buffalo Springfield and some other people. But what they did was they took those ideas of being out in the desert and on the Pacific Coast Highway, and they made it immediately accessible. And you hear that right away in one of their first hits from '72, "Take It Easy."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TAKE IT EASY")
THE EAGLES: (Singing) Well, I'm running down the road trying to loosen my load. I've got seven women on my mind - four that want to own me, two that want to stone me. One says she's a friend of mine. Take it easy. Take it easy. Don't let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.
SHAPIRO: And what was Glenn Frey's role in this band?
MOON: Well, the Eagles were one of those rare bands that had several singers and multiple songwriters. And they - their roles shift from song to song. He is one of the principal songwriters, and was responsible along with Don Henley for writing a lot of their hits. They had 24 Top-40 singles...
SHAPIRO: Wow.
MOON: ...which is kind of mind blowing. And on some of those, Glenn wrote but didn't sing them. On others, he wrote and co-wrote and then did sing them on the 1975 record "One Of These Nights." A hit for him was this great song "Lyin' Eyes."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LYIN' EYES")
THE EAGLES: (Singing) I thought by now you'd realize there ain't no way to hide your lyin' eyes.
SHAPIRO: He also had a successful career beyond the Eagles. Talk about his other projects.
MOON: Yeah. He had a solo career. He had a big hit in 1985 with "The Heat Is On." He was an actor. He was on "Miami Vice" in an episode called "Smuggler's Blues" that was sort of centered around a song that he wrote. He was also on "Nash Bridges." He was in the film "Jerry Maguire." He was one of those people that did a lot in his career. And he didn't just write a lot of great songs, but he also sort of embodied that California spirit.
SHAPIRO: One song he wrote but did not sing on which seems like an appropriate note to conclude on as we remember Glenn Frey was "Desperado."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DESPERADO")
THE EAGLES: (Singing) Desperado, why don't you come to your senses? You been out ridin' fences for so long now.
MOON: Yeah. That to me is kind of the quintessential Eagles moment. It was not a hit at the time, but it really captures that idea of the mythology, that sound. There's a lot of dust in it. There's this kind of vaguely ancient feeling to it. It's - could have been written at the turn of the century, you know, in the 1890s. It has a gold dust quality. And it's just a beautiful classic song, and it sort of sums up what people think of when they think about the Eagles.
SHAPIRO: That's music critic Tom Moon remembering Glenn Frey who has died at the age of 67. Thanks for talking with us.
MOON: Thanks for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DESPERADO")
THE EAGLES: (Singing) Don't your feet get cold in the winter time? The sky won't snow, and the sun won't shine. It's hard to tell the nighttime from the day.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
In the South Bronx in New York City, one of the poorest communities in the country, you can find one of NPR's 50 Great Teachers. His school, Community School 55, doesn't have a lot of money. The students live in public housing. Many of them have seen violence at home or in the streets, and that's precisely why teacher Stephen Ritz has turned the school's old library into a science lab like none other. Cory Turner of our Ed team reports.
CORY TURNER, BYLINE: To say Stephen Ritz teaches science is like saying fire is warm or a shark bite hurts. It's true but so understated it might as well be wrong. This is what Ritz really does.
STEPHEN RITZ: Did you need some beans, Mr. Ricardo?
RICARDO: Yes, I do.
RITZ: I got lots of beans for you. Here come the beans.
RICARDO: Oh, man.
TURNER: Stephen Ritz is a force of nature, figuratively because his energy sweeps kids up like a tornado and literally because in this food desert where it's easier to buy liquor than lettuce, he's helping students grow a garden inside his fourth floor classroom.
RITZ: We've got lettuces. We've got herbs. You've got cilantro, parsley, basil.
TURNER: Ritz gets really excited when he comes to the kale.
RITZ: This kale here - this incredibly robust and, I mean, I wish there was a way - here, come listen. Feel how thick those leaves are. I mean, those are going to be crunchy kale chips.
TURNER: Ritz does it all using something called a tower garden. Imagine a tall hollow tube with a 20-gallon basin at the bottom. The tube has lots of slots for seedlings - no soil required. Water and nutrients are pumped up from the basin and allowed to drip back down.
RITZ: In this class, we go from seed to tower to table to plate in 20 feet.
TURNER: Ritz is showing off his newly refurbished classroom - a passion project. At night, the green floor and soft blue walls make it appear to glow to anyone walking between the projects outside. Inside, half the room is taken up by new desks and green chairs. The other half of what Ritz calls his National Health Wellness and Learning Center is brimming with things you'd never expect in a crumbling, cash-strapped urban school - tower gardens bursting with greens, gleaming cabinets and counter space, an industrial sink and a brand-new mobile cooking station that Ritz can take to any classroom in the building.
RITZ: What we 're seeing is kids coming in here, getting excited about healthy food, about vegetables, about beans. Who knew beans could be so exciting? But they are.
TURNER: At this point you need to know a few things about the man who wears a bow tie made of Scrabble tiles that spell Ritz and a foam cheesehead shaped like a cowboy hat. He started teaching in 1983. When Ritz says he does this job for the kids, it's not a line because he's mostly a volunteer. Though he's often at school six days a week, he's paid for just one. He's married and says it's his wife who makes ends meet. Many of the improvements at the school from his tireless fundraising. He founded a nonprofit called Green Bronx Machine, planting community gardens all over the Bronx. At CS55, Ritz knows no boundaries. Here, he pops into another teacher's classroom to help with a quick science lesson on owl pellets.
RITZ: These guys, my little friends, you're going to take apart this mouth poop and put it back together again and make real skeletons.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: That's exactly what we're going to be doing.
RITZ: You mean to tell me that one of those is going to be a bird, one of those is going to be a rat, one of those is going to be a mouse.
TURNER: On his way out...
RITZ: This is a cool class. How many of you guys like science?
TURNER: Every hand shoots up, eager to please Mr. Steve. And then the tornado takes over.
RITZ: I love it. More nerds - nerds, nerds, nerds, nerds.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS #1: Nerds, nerds, nerds, nerds, nerds, nerds, nerds, nerds, nerds, nerds.
TURNER: Ritz then swings by another teacher's classroom to pick up a few kids who've earned a trip to the garden for good behavior.
RITZ: I need Omar. I need Zuhaiti.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENTS #2: She's not here.
RITZ: Zuhaiti's not here. OK. I need Ernest.
TURNER: Again, hands fly. Kids lean out of their seats, quietly pleading to be picked.
COMFORT QUARSHIE: Behavior-wise, I use Steve's work here as an incentive.
TURNER: Comfort Quarshie teaches fifth grade down the hall from Ritz. She says her students often bring her lettuce from the garden. She loves it and they do too, which is why when a student falls behind, she has to say...
QUARSHIE: No work here, no garden, and it works for me.
TURNER: It works, she says, because the kids trust Ritz. He's a father figure in a community where many students don't know their fathers.
ERNEST FIELDS: You could call him, like, Father Nature.
TURNER: That's fifth-grader Ernest Fields, who says he really enjoys being around Mr. Ritz. He also likes eating what they grow because it's hard to find fresh food outside of school. Passed the impromptu flower and photo memorials for three young people who recently died in the neighborhood, Ernest says you'll find a market but...
ERNEST: Sometimes the fruits and vegetables in there are decayed because most people don't pay attention to it.
TURNER: Ritz says the food in these neighborhood stores is a mess.
RITZ: A manufactured edible synthetic substance that comes in a Ziploc, hermetically sealed bag with infinite shelf life.
TURNER: Since families can't buy much healthy food here, Ritz says, he's growing it for them and planning to add more tower gardens soon. He's just been given permission to grow food for the cafeteria downstairs. And within the year, he hopes to send the kids home with a hundred bags of fresh groceries a week. He's also helping to teach kids how to cook all that food. In the afternoon, one fourth grade class learns to make veggie chili.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: It's so delicious.
TURNER: Yeah. What do you like best about it?
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT: The beans and I like the pepper that we made.
TURNER: After school, Ritz hosts another cooking class - this one for kids and parents.
RITZ: It smells delicious in here. Grab a seat. I'm just saying hello to everybody.
TURNER: Jeffrey Haywood shows up with his grandson, Corey, a third-grader. He says he can't believe what Ritz is trying to do here. And he loves it. When he was a kid, Haywood says...
JEFFREY HAYWOOD: We didn't have no plants growing in no schools. If anything, we was trying to get into the schools, you know (laughter)?
TURNER: Haywood stands at a table beside his grandson, and together they chop red peppers.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Perfect.
TURNER: It's hard to know where to end a story about Stephen Ritz because he never stops - teaching, moving, planning. In a way, the best ending is his beginning. Many years ago, Ritz says, he was teaching at a Bronx high school. He had no green thumb then. When someone sent him a box of daffodil bulbs...
RITZ: I literally thought there were onions. I didn't know what they were.
TURNER: Or what to do with them, so he stashed them behind an old radiator. A few weeks later, a fight broke out, and Ritz says one student ran to the radiator. He assumed because he'd hidden a weapon there. Instead, the boy found...
RITZ: Hundreds of flowers bustling out of this box. And the kid, instead of coming out to beat someone's behind, came out with a box of flowers, and the class burst out laughing. We didn't know where it came from.
TURNER: The kids were thrilled. And Ritz had an epiphany. He and his students went on to plants some 20,000 bulbs across New York. The lesson, Ritz says, is simple - a seed well-planted can grow into something beautiful anywhere. Cory Turner, NPR News, the Bronx.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
On the presidential campaign trail, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has changed her stump speech as the race for the Democratic nomination has tightened. She was the prohibitive front-runner last spring, now some polls show her trailing Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders in New Hampshire and even Iowa. But there is one constant wherever she goes. As NPR's Tamara Keith has noticed, Clinton always takes questions from adorable kids.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: It happens almost like clockwork. Hillary Clinton casts her gaze out over the crowd looking for someone to call on, and then she spots cuteness.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDINGS)
HILLARY CLINTON: There's a little hand right there, that little girl right there.
Yes, this young man right here.
Oh, this young man, right there.
This young lady right here.
This young man.
Yes, this young woman right here.
Yes, what about this young woman right here?
This young man is very excited. OK. Here you go.
KEITH: The young questioner who's gotten the most attention - a little girl with curly hair and a white dress in Las Vegas.
UNIDENTIFIED GIRL #1: Do you think when you are president, you'll be paid as much as if - it were a man - male?
(APPLAUSE)
KEITH: For the Clinton campaign, this question hit a trifecta. It was cute, it highlighted the fact that Clinton would make history as the first female president of the United States and it set the candidate up to talk about something that is a regular fixture of her stump speech - gender pay equity. Both the question and Clinton's answer almost immediately showed up in an ad.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CLINTON: I'm going to do everything I can to make sure every woman in every job gets paid the same as the men who are doing that job.
(APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: I'm Hillary Clinton, and I approve this message.
KEITH: In Grinnell, Iowa, in November, Clinton called on a Girl Scout.
CLINTON: I see your badges. That's so neat. Are you a Brownie? Yeah, that is terrific.
KEITH: Clinton was a Girl Scout growing up, and based on an NPR review of Clinton town halls, this is at least the third time Scouting has come up with a child questioner.
UNIDENTIFIED GIRL #2: What made you decide to become president?
(LAUGHTER)
CLINTON: Well...
(LAUGHTER)
CLINTON: It started when I was a Brownie.
(LAUGHTER, APPLAUSE)
CLINTON: Actually, no.
JEFF BECHDEL: You're not going to be getting the hardest hitting question from, you know, from a fourth-grader.
KEITH: Jeff Bechdel is communications director with America Rising PAC, a Republican opposition research operation.
BECHDEL: Just a few days ago, where she was asked if she had any dogs or cats - you know, it's that kind of thing, the kinds of questions that kids ask.
KEITH: And sometimes, he says, the questions are just a little too convenient.
BECHDEL: Things that maybe are not discussed on the playground.
KEITH: Like the boy who read off a note card while asking about guns and mental health.
UNIDENTIFIED BOY: When you become president, what is your plan to connect mental health problems and guns to make sure that me, my brothers and my friends are safe from violent at school?
CLINTON: Oh, wow.
KEITH: Or the 7-year-old who asked about college affordability.
ELLA BRIGGS: I think that there's a lot of people who don't have enough money for college and schools and that kind of stuff. So how can we help that?
KEITH: The occasionally way-too-convenient questions from the elementary school set have led quite a few people, including Donald Trump, to speculate that the questions must be planted. So I put that question to Clinton campaign communications director Brian Fallon.
Are the questions planted?
BRIAN FALLON: Absolutely not. Some of the most unscripted moments come from the kids asking the questions.
KEITH: My colleague, Asma Khalid, tracked down 7-year-old Ella Briggs after that event where she asked about helping poor people pay for college. It turns out Ella's parents are both teachers. They are still paying off their college loans and say they talk around the dinner table about the struggles of their low-income students. Briggs says she thought ahead of time about what she might ask and she stood on her seat waving her hand to get Clinton's attention.
ELLA: Like, I've always wanted to ask that question to someone who could help it, and I thought why not just ask Hillary Clinton?
KEITH: And when you're young and cute, you may just get an answer. Tamara Keith, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Jon Benjamin is a comedian and voice actor best known for playing the title roles on the animated series "Bob's Burgers" and "Archer." He's also the voice of a can of vegetables in the movie "Wet Hot American Summer." He's been a comedian for more than 20 years. And none of that is why we've invited him on the show. We have him here because of the most public radio of reasons. He has recorded an experimental jazz album.
Jon Benjamin, welcome to the program.
JON BENJAMIN: Thank you for having me.
SIEGEL: You recorded this album with three other musicians - a bass player, a drummer and a saxophonist. You're on piano...
BENJAMIN: Yep.
SIEGEL: ...And I want us to listen to some of this track.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BENJAMIN SONG, "I CAN'T PLAY PIANO, PART TWO")
SIEGEL: This track is called, "I Can't Play Piano..." (Laughter). I'm sorry, I can't say it.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BENJAMIN SONG, "I CAN'T PLAY PIANO, PART TWO")
SIEGEL: This is called, "I Can't Play Piano, Part Two." (Laughter) and it's obvious, you can't play piano.
BENJAMIN: I really can't. And it really shows.
SIEGEL: And yet - and yet, here you are...
BENJAMIN: Yeah.
SIEGEL: ...Playing with some guys who seem to know what they're doing.
BENJAMIN: They were very accomplished jazz musicians that I played with, and me.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BENJAMIN SONG, "I CAN'T PLAY PIANO, PART TWO")
SIEGEL: The name of this album is, "Well, I Should Have" subtitle "Learned How To Play Piano."
BENJAMIN: Yeah, it's very literal.
SIEGEL: Now, you're playing with professional jazz musicians - Scott Kreitzer on sax, David Finck on bass and Jonathan Peretz is playing drums. Was this an act of friendship or just a measure of the jazz economy that you got to do whatever gig comes along?
BENJAMIN: They were very nice to do it, and I'm not sure they realized what they were doing till we got there. And then they were mad, but not mad enough to stop all together. So they went through it, and they were great.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BENJAMIN SONG, "I CAN'T PLAY PIANO, PART TWO")
SIEGEL: Well, (laughter).
BENJAMIN: That is real untapped untalent.
SIEGEL: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BENJAMIN SONG, "I CAN'T PLAY PIANO, PART TWO")
BENJAMIN: He's good.
SIEGEL: Yeah. He knows what he's doing, yeah.
BENJAMIN: He really does.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BENJAMIN SONG, "I CAN'T PLAY PIANO, PART TWO")
BENJAMIN: But that's just not as interesting.
SIEGEL: Think it lacks the complete sense of free-form surprise that we have...
BENJAMIN: Right.
SIEGEL: ...When you're actually...
BENJAMIN: He's not taking any risk.
SIEGEL: (Laughter).
BENJAMIN: He just knows how to do it.
SIEGEL: How safe to actually...
BENJAMIN: I feel bad for people like that, yeah.
SIEGEL: (Laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BENJAMIN SONG, "I CAN'T PLAY PIANO, PART TWO")
SIEGEL: Are you going to do any live performances to promote this?
BENJAMIN: Well, it's funny. I've been asked a couple times, but I'm not sure I want to do that. I'm really going to dedicate myself to learning how to play and maybe my next album will be decent.
SIEGEL: Is that right? Are you trying to learn how to play?
BENJAMIN: I've started taking lessons so...
SIEGEL: (Laughter). I see. You're sort of charting a reverse career which begins with the recording contract...
BENJAMIN: (Laughter). It's a real insult to people who try.
SIEGEL: ...And then eventually makes its way to actual lessons on the instrument.
BENJAMIN: I mean, look, there's a distinct possibility that I'll be very good.
SIEGEL: (Laughter).
BENJAMIN: I don't know, like, how it's going to turn out. I just started doing the lessons so I might be incredibly good.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BENJAMIN SONG, "I CAN'T PLAY PIANO, PART TWO")
SIEGEL: Well, Jon Benjamin, thanks a lot for talking with us about your album, "Well I Should Have...Learned How To Play Piano."
BENJAMIN: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BENJAMIN SONG, "I CAN'T PLAY PIANO, PART TWO")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
What is autism? What causes it? How common is it? Is it on the rise or is just a better diagnose? Then are there any effective treatments for it? Well, addressing those questions keeps John Donvan and Caren Zucker busy for over 500 pages in their new book "In A Different Key: The Story Of Autism." And Dovan and Zucker join us now from New York. Welcome to the program.
JOHN DONVAN: Thank you very much.
CAREN ZUCKER: Thanks for having us.
SIEGEL: First, Caren Zucker, how would you define autism?
ZUCKER: Well, it depends who you are, actually, because autism is now seen as a spectrum. And the spectrum is so broad that there are people on one end of it that are severely, severely disabled and you can't help but call it a disability because people are literally injuring themselves. They can't communicate. They can't do things by themselves. On the other extreme end of the spectrum are people who can speak for themselves. They can manage their lives. They do not see autism as a disability but just as a different fabric in humanity.
DONVAN: Because this condition is not one that has a biological marker, you cannot identify autism by a cheek swab or a blood test. But you identify it by looking at people's behaviors. That has allowed over decades for so many various interpretations of those key traits that the definition itself has moved again and again.
SIEGEL: The book describes how autism was first diagnosed, how it was named and explained. And I want you two to describe this. For years, there was a psychoanalytic approach that dominated the understanding of autism, and the cause was really held to be bad parenting.
DONVAN: It was called the refrigerator mother theory. And the idea was that children were somehow insulted - psychologically insulted by their mothers who, for some reason, signaled that they didn't love their children enough. And as a defense mechanism, the kids were said to have withdrawn into their own worlds. Well, this was a very, very poisonous idea.
SIEGEL: Much of the story of autism is frankly about parents and about what parents have done to bring attention to the condition of their children, very often for the good, sometimes - in the case of advocating a vaccine theory as the cause of autism - not for the good.
ZUCKER: Well, in our book, we really see the parents as unsung heroes because they literal change the world for children with autism. They help get them out of institutions. I mean, parents were told to put their children into institutions, and that was what the norm was 50 years ago. And they opened up the schools for them. The schools were allowed to not have children with autism in them. So without parents we wouldn't be anywhere near where we are today.
SIEGEL: On the other hand, parents did lend their voices to - well, to the vaccine theory, and the fact that there are many voices saying something doesn't make it scientifically true.
DONVAN: Absolutely not. I mean, the story autism has very often been a story of bad science many, many times. In the case of the vaccine issue, yes, in the beginning, 15 years ago, the question had not been investigated. It made sense to ask it. It was not a ridiculous question. But it was asked. It was answered. And the science settled it. Vaccines don't cause autism.
SIEGEL: By the year 2000, the rise in the number of autism diagnoses, it was such that it became the subject of congressional concern. At hearings that year, Congressman Dan Burton of Indiana said this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DAN BURTON: The rates of autism have escalated dramatically in the last few years. What used to be considered a rare disorder has become a near epidemic.
SIEGEL: Near epidemic proved to be one of the more cautious statements that year. Was there - has there been an autism epidemic?
DONVAN: The truth is that we don't really know whether there has been an epidemic. And I know that sounds strange to people because they hear so much more about autism now than they ever have before. What we think there has been is that explosion in autism diagnoses, which is different from there being more autism. We started looking for autism, so you find it. Also, at the same time, what we call autism became a much, much broader spectrum, and the definition kept changing over time. So to compare today with 15 years ago and say there's more than before, it's comparing apples and oranges. So we don't know.
SIEGEL: One measure of the spectrum, at least to me, was an incident that you write about when you acknowledge the neuro diversity movement. These would be people who are on the spectrum and who say, look, this isn't an illness. We don't want to be cured. This is a different way of being wired, a different way of your brain working. And there's an exchange between an activist of that sort with the mother of a son with autism. Describe what goes on between them.
DONVAN: It's a conversation between Ari Ne'eman, who is a very, very prominent and successful activist for the concept of neuro diversity. And Ari Ne'eman, whom we have a lot of respect for, has been very, very successful in promulgating the idea that people with autism should be accepted as they are. And he had a conversation with Liz Bell. Liz Bell is the mother of a young man named Tyler. Tyler, in his mom's opinion, his experience of autism is very, very limiting in his life, in his ability to dress himself, to shave himself, to feed himself, to go out the front door by himself and not run into traffic. And these are two very, very different views of what autism represents that come down to the fact that the spectrum is so broad that there is room for an Ari Ne'eman on it and there is room for a Tyler Bell on it. And the basic disagreement between them is whether autism is something that should be cured; whether the traits that limit Tyler's ability to be independent in life should be treated to make those traits go away. On one side, Ari is saying that it's suppressing who he actually is and his identity; on the other side, it's Tyler's mother saying that to treat him, and even cure him, of his autism would be to liberate who he is.
SIEGEL: But it does pose a question, which is since there is no biological test, there is, as you say, no cheek swab that defines someone's condition as being autism, are we really clear that Ari and Tyler, the son of Liz Bell, have the same condition and that we should group them together of this spectrum? Or do spectra - if that's the plural of spectrum - I don't know - do they inevitably include everybody in the world?
DONVAN: Boy, that is the question of the moment in the autism conversation. How big is the umbrella under which we want to include people who have autistic traits? We don't look at the spectrum concept as it exists today as necessarily the last word. We may end up splitting the spectrum again into separate parts. And this tension between lumping together and splitting apart has been repeated again and again through the history of autism. We happen to be in what's called in the field a lumper moment in that the spectrum idea right now is dominant, popular. It makes a lot of sense to a lot of people.
SIEGEL: Caren Zucker, is it any easier to be the parent of somebody with autism today than it was, say, 15-20 years ago?
ZUCKER: Absolutely. I have a 21-year-old son, and when I was trying to get services for my son, I was making it up, or I was on a list for 300 people to try to get into a program that could actually help him. And if you look back at how far we've come in 15 years, it's remarkable in terms of awareness, in terms of education. We have figured out what to do, to a very large extent, with the kids. But we have not gotten to the adults. And part of that is because adults weren't around, you know, 50 years ago. They were mostly in institutions. So that's really the heart of where we're trying to also go with our book is for people to see look how far we've come. Look at what these parents and advocates have done. But look how far we still have to go.
SIEGEL: Caren Zucker and John Donvan, co-authors of "In A Different Key: The Story Of Autism," thanks for talking with us today.
DONVAN: Thanks, Robert.
ZUCKER: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Now to the business of guns and a new push to pressure firearms manufacturers. Gun control advocates have been trying to get investors to divest from owning stock in these companies. Now the public advocate in New York City wants to include retailers in that effort. But, as NPR's Joel Rose reports, some economists doubt divestment will work.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: After years of trying and failing to push new laws through Congress, gun control advocates are targeting American firearms makers from a different angle.
LEAH GUNN BARRETT: Cause the only thing they really understand is money.
ROSE: Leah Gunn Barrett is a gun control advocate in New York. She's also part of a national coalition called the Campaign to Unload, which encourages individual and institutional investors across the country to pull their money out of gun stocks.
BARRETT: You may not even know that your 401(k) has gun stocks in it so asking the question is very, very important not only for individuals but for public pension funds. And so it's really raising the issue and making gun stocks toxic.
ROSE: Make the industry toxic enough, the argument goes, and the gun companies will feel pressure to drop their opposition to new regulations including universal background checks for gun sales. The divestment camp has claimed some victories after mass shootings in Connecticut and California. Big institutional investors like CalSTRS, the California State Teachers' Retirement System, and pension funds in New York and Philadelphia have dropped their holdings in gun companies. But the stock price of those gun companies has not gone down. In fact, since the Sandy Hook shootings in 2012, stock in Sturm Ruger and Smith & Wesson has mostly gone up.
ANDREA JAMES: If it's made to be punitive, it's not going to work.
ROSE: Andrea James is a firearms industry analyst at Dougherty & Co. She says gun stocks have performed well because sales have been brisk.
A. JAMES: When the divestment happens I don't think it really affects the underlying business, meaning the amount of firearms they sell. So over time the stock market, you know, in a free and open market, other shareholders will come and take their place.
ROSE: Including investors who want to hold gun stocks as an expression of support for Second Amendment rights. But supporters of divestment say this latest push is different because it's aiming beyond just the gun companies themselves. New York Public Advocate Letitia James is pushing the city's largest pension fund to divest from national retailers that sell firearms, including Wal-Mart, Dick's Sporting Goods and Cabela's.
LETITIA JAMES: It really sends a strong moral message that public dollars should not be used to prop up an industry that has caused so much carnage on the streets of New York City and other urban centers across this nation.
ROSE: James and other divestment supporters point to the success of past campaigns against the tobacco and coal industries and especially the push to end apartheid in South Africa. But even in that famous campaign, some economists question whether divestment had the kind of impact its supporters claimed.
PAUL WAZZAN: Well, unfortunately, it does not have an effect.
ROSE: Paul Wazzan is an economist at the Berkeley Research Group in California. He's studied the divestment campaign against companies that did business in South Africa in the 1980s and '90s. He says there was no measurable effect on their stock prices.
WAZZAN: But it does generate a lot of press and interest and the political pressure starts to build, and that did ultimately have an effect. It's not what our paper was about, but I think the political pressure ultimately did have an effect on these companies.
ROSE: That kind of pressure is harder to measure than a stock price, but divestment supporters say it's still worth a try. Joel Rose, NPR News, New York.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court once again stepped boldly into the boiling cauldron of political controversy. The court said it would rule by summer on the legality of President Obama's executive action on immigration. His program aims to grant temporary legal status to as many as four-and-a-half million people who entered the U.S. illegally. Here's NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Fourteen months ago, Obama, frustrated by the Congress's inability to act on immigration reform, issued an order granting temporary legal status and work permits to illegal adult immigrants who have children who are American citizens or lawful permanent residents. The order granted legal status for three years on a case-by-case basis.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: If you've been in America for more than five years, if you have children who are American citizens or legal residents, if you register, pass a criminal background check and you're willing to pay your fair share of taxes, you'll be able to apply to stay in this country temporarily without fear of deportation. You can come out of the shadows and get right with the law. That's what this deal is.
TOTENBERG: Republicans blasted the president's action as lawless, and a coalition of 26 states, led by Texas, challenged the executive order in court, contending that the president had exceeded his authority. A year ago, a federal judge blocked implementation of the program, and a federal appeals court panel, by a two-to-one vote, subsequently upheld the injunction on broader grounds. The Obama administration then asked the Supreme Court to review the case. And today, the justices said they would hear arguments in April with a decision expected by late June.
If the court had refused to hear the case, the appeals court ruling would have stood, and the president's program would have been dead in the water. But there's no assurance of how the court will rule. Indeed, the justices broadened the scope of the case, asking the two sides to address an additional and fundamental question - whether the president's order violates the Constitution's commanded that the president, quote, "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Conservative lawyer Jay Sekulow sees that as a good omen.
JAY SEKULOW: I think the adding of that question, I think, helps our side, and I think it helps those of us that are concerned that the president overreached here.
TOTENBERG: Sekulow, of the American Center for Law and Justice, is filing a friend of the court brief opposing the president's action on behalf of 88 congressman and 25 senators, including the two Texas senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn. Dozens of other groups on both sides are expected to weigh in. Here's Marielena Incopia of the National Immigration Law Center.
MARIELENA INCOPIA: It is important to remember that the president's immigration actions are not just legal but that they have been used by every administration, both Republican and Democrat, since President Eisenhower.
TOTENBERG: Duquesne Law School dean Kenneth Gormley, author of "A New History On Presidential Power," sees the questions in this case as a new wrinkle on an old debate.
KENNETH GORMLEY: There have been battles over these issues dating back to George Washington. This one is, I think, particularly interesting because it immigration, in general - immigration and naturalization - has generally been left to the federal government under the Constitution. There's a need for it, a uniform sort of system. And so I think the states are in a particularly weak position in cases like this. I think the real battle lines will be between President Obama and Congress in deciding whether he has exceeded his power.
TOTENBERG: The addition of the U.S. versus Texas case to this term's docket today means that just as the political parties are choosing their nominees this summer, the justices of the Supreme Court will be deciding cases involving race and affirmative action, abortion, birth control and now immigration. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
There's only one health department in Alabama where people can go to be tested for tuberculosis. It's not in the state's largest city, Birmingham, or any large city for that matter. It's in rural Perry County, where an outbreak has so far claimed three lives since last year. And it's getting worse. The infection rate is a hundred times higher than doctors say it should be. Health officials are trying to get a handle on the disease. But it has not been easy, so they're taking a new approach. Gigi Douban of member station WBHM reports from Marion, Ala.
GIGI DOUBAN, BYLINE: Lately in Marion, tuberculosis has been spreading and fast. Of almost 800 people tested in the last several days, 47 have been positive. People are worried. On a recent night, about 50 residents filed into the auditorium at a local high school for a town hall meeting put on by health officials.
(CROSSTALK)
DOUBAN: People lined up to grab brochures. TB is airborne, and symptoms include a cough that won't go away, weight loss and night sweats. It spreads among people in close contact with one another. People with active TB can transmit it just by coughing or sneezing. Perry County Commissioner Albert Turner urged people to get tested.
ALBERT TURNER: And encourage the people in your church. Encourage the people in your community while they're doing this testing.
DOUBAN: A few untreated cases mushroomed into this much-bigger problem. To identify carriers of the disease, the health department last week started paying people to come into the clinic - $20 for a screening, $20 to come back for results, another $20 for a chest x-ray. If they finish treatment, they get an extra $100. In a poor county like this one, it's a big incentive.
PAM BARRETT: It appears to be because it's working. It's had the health department full every day that we've offered the testing.
DOUBAN: That’s Pam Barrett. She heads the Division of Tuberculosis Control at the Alabama Department of Health. It's a far cry from the days they offered testing at a health fair and people threw bottles at workers. They tried testing without offering money.
BARRETT: The issue was that we were unable to obtain names of contacts to cases. The cases were not willing to share the names of the people they had been around, so we really didn't know who to test.
DOUBAN: That's not uncommon according to Jeffrey Cirillo. He's director of the Center for Airborne Pathogens, Research and Imaging at Texas A&M. He says often, health officials quarantine tuberculosis patients. Those infected take a drug for months. That stigma leads people to hide. The good thing about this program, Cirillo says...
JEFFREY CIRILLO: Is that they're trying to provide incentives to bring in the population, get people there so everyone can be treated.
DOUBAN: Since they've been offering cash, there've been long wait times at the clinic. When he went, Commissioner Turner had to take a number. A hundred and seventy-six people were ahead of him.
TURNER: Well, I signed up, left and came back.
DOUBAN: A few days earlier, resident Vinnie Royster went to get tested.
VINNIE ROYSTER: It was slammed. Cars was everywhere. People was everywhere. You couldn't even get in line. If you got in line, everybody in front of you was saying, we just got a number.
DOUBAN: The sight of the crowds made her think this is serious.
ROYSTER: At this point, I'm scared. All these people rushing down here - so it must be badder than we think.
DOUBAN: So she called her primary care doctor and tried to get an appointment there. She could, but she wouldn't be paid anything for a TB test. That's OK, she said. Her health is more important than the extra cash. For NPR News, I'm Gigi Douban in Marion, Ala.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Indian capital of New Delhi has some of the world's worst air. Authorities there say a recent experiment to reduce pollution was a success. For two weeks, drivers could only use the roads on certain days of the week according to whether they had odd or even-numbered license plates. Now the government says the experiment is on hold for at least the next few months. NPR's Julie McCarthy joins us from New Delhi to explain this.
Hey Julie.
JULIE MCCARTHY, BYLINE: Hi there.
SHAPIRO: Why are officials saying this experiment worked? How did it go?
MCCARTHY: Well, you know, they're really chalking it up to the fact that there were just 9,000 violators in a city of more than 9 million cars. But the impact of this thing, Ari, is a matter of a lot of debate. The local authorities claim that this odd-even scheme helped drive down pollution by anywhere from 20 percent to 25 percent. That is being much debated. You've got studies that say, no, it was only 10 percent to 13 percent. You have others that claim the reduction was as high as 40 percent. So the data is not consistent, but certainly this was the no. 1 topic of conversation in the public. They were very engaged in this, and congestion was noticeably down and it was a pleasure driving around. The trips were faster, there were fewer cars, there was less idling in the car.
SHAPIRO: I have never heard anyone say driving in New Delhi is a pleasure.
MCCARTHY: (Laughter). Well, it was because you had a sense of space on the roads. Normally, you simply don't have that and there's a lot of time in traffic jams. There's - you know, you inch along in Delhi. That wasn't the case, that wasn't the case this time.
SHAPIRO: If the program seemed so successful, why is the government putting it on hold until May or June?
MCCARTHY: Well, you know, there's not the sense of urgency in Delhi that you find in, say, Beijing. You know, even though Delhi is more polluted according to the World Health Organization, there's been an apathy here and a slowness to grasp the magnitude of the health problem. And now that the public is more interested, local authorities are saying, wait a minute, we want to fine tune this thing before we reinstate it. They'll need to expand the public transportation. The subways are jammed. They need more buses. They want to discourage people from gaming the system by buying a second car. They actually do that. And local politicians don't want to disrupt this all-important exam season which takes place in March and April. They want these kiddies to be able to be taken to school and back any day of the week by their parents. And they want to tweak exemptions. Women won't be exempt next time around. And motorcycles were exempt, but Ari, they also make up 60 percent or more of registered vehicles in this city. Not everybody has enough money to buy a car. That's a huge source of pollution. So how are they going to deal with them?
SHAPIRO: How else is the government trying to address pollution, which is such a huge problem in Delhi?
MCCARTHY: Well, the environmentalists want to see a congestion tax. It worked to great effect in London - as you well know - where you were simply charged to come into the center of the city. The city's going to need to regulate sources of pollution other than cars, other than vehicles, like the coal-burning plants that power this city. And of course the pollution crisis is compelling them to build a much more robust public transportation system - many more subway lines. But all that, Ari, takes a lot of time and a lot of money.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Julie McCarthy in New Delhi.
Thanks Julie.
MCCARTHY: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Charles Lloyd is a jazz elder with a wide-angle view of the world. The 77-year-old tenor saxophonist begins his new album with a cover of Bob Dylan's "Masters Of War."
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLES LLOYD AND THE MARVELS SONG, "MASTERS OF WAR")
SIEGEL: It ends with a 16-minute journey based on a Buddhist prayer. In between, Lloyd does folk songs and originals, and he collaborates with Willie Nelson and Norah Jones. Reviewer Tom Moon says the album, called "I Long To See You," has a low-key allure.
TOM MOON, BYLINE: One complaint you hear about jazz goes like this - it can be hard to follow, especially when there's lots of notes flying around and not much melody. That's not the case with the latest from Charles Lloyd.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLES LLOYD AND THE MARVELS SONG, "SHENANDOAH")
MOON: Lloyd's saxophone can haunt you. Here, he's working with melodies that express y yearning, and he plays them simply with great earnestness, avoiding anything showy.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLES LLOYD AND THE MARVELS SONG, "LE LLORONA")
MOON: Charles Lloyd assembled a group that's ideal for this mission. He added sound-wizard guitarist Bill Frisell and pedal steel virtuoso Greg Leisz to his longtime rhythm section. They play together as though they're dancing. They're sensitive and differential, determined not to overstep. Listen to the way they gently shadow Norah Jones.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL")
NORAH JONES: (Singing) You are so beautiful to me. You are so beautiful to me.
MOON: There's jazz invention going on, but it's usually connected in some profound way to the themes.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLES LLOYD AND THE MARVELS SONG, "YOU ARE SO BEAUTIFUL")
MOON: Throughout this record, Charles Lloyd and his aptly named band The Marvels keep melody in the foreground. That's not exactly jazz business as usual. But listen to where it leads - to music that evokes an uncommon state of grace.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLES LLOYD AND THE MARVELS SONG, "BARCHE LAMSEL")
SIEGEL: Charles Lloyd's latest is called "I Long To See You." Reviewer Tom Moon is the author of "1,000 Recordings To Hear Before You Die."
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
In Oklahoma, the economy runs on oil. The energy industry drives 1 in 5 jobs and is tied to almost every type of tax source. So falling oil prices have created a state budget crisis. Joe Wertz of State Impact Oklahoma sent this report.
JOE WERTZ, BYLINE: Crude oil prices have dropped more than 70 percent, and that's created problems across government agencies in Oklahoma. Jason Murphy is a project coordinator for the state Water Resources Board.
JASON MURPHY: Is it weird if I'm not wearing pants?
WERTZ: Murphy slides on a pair of waders, unspools a sensor probe and splashes into the frigid Canadian River east of Oklahoma City.
MURPHY: We're getting water temperature, conductivity, dissolved oxygen, pH.
WERTZ: The information helps Murphy's team evaluate the health of this river, which is a source of public drinking water. Fieldwork like this is one of the most important things his agency does. But with the price of oil sinking to 12-year lows, officials in Oklahoma face budget cuts that threaten their most essential functions. J.D. Strong is the state water board's executive director.
J.D. STRONG: We're essentially down to the point where we don't have anything left that's not mission-critical.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESTON DOERFLINGER: So there you have it, folks. Almost every major tax category is in decline because of our biggest industry is in decline.
WERTZ: Plummeting oil prices forced Secretary of Finance Preston Doerflinger to declare a revenue failure. That led to mid-year cuts in current funding levels at every state agency. Oklahoma now faces a budget gap of at least $900 million. No one knows the depth or length of the current oil downturn, but Doerflinger says the effects will worsen if drilling stoppages and layoffs continue.
DOERFLINGER: I think the hole could get bigger this year and next year.
WERTZ: Oklahoma is not alone. Low oil and natural gas prices are driving down government revenues in Alaska, Louisiana and Texas. Low coal production is adding to the tax problem in West Virginia and Wyoming. North Dakota is hurting, too, but state funding is protected by saving's funds set up to siphon off billions in boom-time oil taxes. Oklahoma has a rainy day fund, but it's much smaller. And lawmakers dipped into it last year. Doerflinger and other leaders say it might be time for a bigger state savings account.
DOERFLINGER: Panicking about the situation is not productive. We need to use this as an opportunity to do things we may not otherwise have the will to do.
WERTZ: Employee buyouts and furloughs are being considered, and some agencies could be closed. Teachers are getting layoff notices. Schools could be shuttered. Oklahoma House Speaker Jeff Hickman says years of Republican-backed tax cuts are not to blame.
JEFF HICKMAN: Oil busts have blown holes like this in budgets under Democrats. They've blown holes in budgets under Republicans alike for decades, and they probably will do so in the future.
WERTZ: Back at the river outside Oklahoma City, Jason Murphy emerges from the icy water, and the sensor starts spitting out information.
MURPHY: I've got plenty of dissolved oxygen - 11-and-a-half milligrams per liter and a pH just under eight.
WERTZ: His boss, assistant chief of water quality Bill Cauthron, says crashing oil prices and funding cuts could limit their fieldwork.
BILL CAUTHRON: We'll tweak the program in the ways that make scientific sense. You know, maybe we'll sample less parameters. Maybe we'll sample less sites.
WERTZ: Oklahoma hasn't had a revenue failure since the great recession. The current budget crisis is smaller, but it doesn't make the solutions any easier. For NPR News, I'm Joe Wertz in Oklahoma City.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A new report from the U.N. documents the devastating effect of the war in Iraq on civilians there. Around 20,000 people have been killed since Islamic State militants started seizing control of Iraqi towns two years ago. NPR's Alice Fordham joins us from Baghdad with details. Hi, Alice.
ALICE FORDHAM, BYLINE: Hi there.
SHAPIRO: How are these civilians dying?
FORDHAM: Well, if you look over the timeframe of this report, the big spike in violence was in August 2014, which, if you remember, is when ISIS did their big land grab. They took the city of Mosul and a bunch of other areas. And what happened then was they killed a lot of people - civilians, people from the security forces, religious minorities, Shiite Muslims, people they consider apostates. And what's happened since then is that the people who are most likely to be killed by ISIS, those people have fled in a huge wave of displacement or, honestly, they've been killed. The report also has chilling details of mass graves.
So in the last year or so, the pattern has changed, and most of the recorded civilian deaths are in Baghdad, and they're from ISIS bombings. The report also has a lot of details of deaths and rights abuses by other armed groups in Iraq. It's not just ISIS. There's security forces accidentally hitting civilian areas - airstrikes. It's not really made clear if they're Iraqi airstrikes, although they could be strikes by the U.S.-led coalition hitting civilians, and government-allied militias, too, abducting people who aren't heard of again, besides things like destroying property.
SHAPIRO: Does the report really say much about what's going on inside ISIS-held areas?
FORDHAM: Yeah. It's - you know, it's well-known that the group imposes harsh laws and violent punishments. But there's a lot more detail in the report. One thing it has that I didn't know before is that the U.N. has verified that in June last year somewhere between 800 and 900 children were abducted in the city of Mosul. Those aged between 5 and 10 were placed in a religious education camp. Those aged between 10 and 15 are sent for military training. The group goes around universities and schools telling people that they will have to join the group as fighters when they pass their current exams. There's a report that the U.N. says it's been able to verify 18 males under the age of 18 being executed for running away from the fighting.
All the violence by different groups outlined in the report can - I think it can remind us that ISIS is just one of many violent actors in Iraq. But there's also reminders that what's different about them is not just the scale of the killing but the way that they do it. It's always for public consumption. There's people accused of homosexuality being thrown from buildings. There's an instance where a man was executed and then displayed from a bridge. And then there are details of people from the Yazidi religious minority who are still enslaved.
SHAPIRO: Just horrible details - what else does the report say about Yazidis who we know ISIS has specifically targeted?
FORDHAM: Well, the report suggests there are about 3,500 Yazidis who are still held by ISIS. Some are women and some are men. The women - it's thought - are likely to be sex slaves. Many of them are likely to be in Syria or, in fact, not in Iraq. The number might have gone down a bit since the time of the report, which ends at the end of October. A lot of people in northern Iraq, which is the Yazidi heartland, told me they're essentially buying back their relatives.
SHAPIRO: The U.N.'s high commissioner called the casualty numbers obscene. Does the U.N. make recommendations in this report?
FORDHAM: Yeah. The report urges things like all parties observing international humanitarian law and investigating abuses. In the long term, I think the U.N., like lots of other players, has called for political reconciliation in Iraq, in addition to military success against ISIS. In the short term, speaking to the humanitarian branches of the organization, I know they're desperately worried about the millions of displaced people here and who's going to look after them. The U.N. says that it has funding shortfalls, and Iraq is suffering from low oil prices, and it's going to struggle to feed and shelter people.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Alice Fordham in Baghdad. Thank you, Alice.
FORDHAM: Thanks for having me.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Over the past few days, we've witnessed three different developments in U.S. dealings with Iran that all suggest a warming trend in relations. The day for implementation of the nuclear deal came and went with the reports of Iranian compliance. Five Americans were released by Iran, and the U.S. sailors taken last week in the Persian Gulf were released. At the same time, Washington insisted on continued sanctions for Iran's support of terrorism and for its ballistic missile tests. Well, what does all this point to in U.S.-Iranian relations? With that question, we turn to Suzanne Maloney. She's an Iran expert at the Brookings Institution, formerly with the State Department. Welcome to the program
SUZANNE MALONEY: Thanks so much.
SIEGEL: You think that Washington and Tehran have found just about everything they can constructively agree on or do you see this relationship leading to any other areas of cooperation?
MALONEY: Well, I think what we've been able to achieve is the establishment of a really constructive communications channel, obviously at the highest levels with Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and Secretary of State John Kerry. But, in fact, there are working relationships that extend through the bureaucracy far beyond that. I think that communications channel is a huge improvement over 37 years of no official direct dialogue. I don't think that there are easy opportunities that lie ahead in terms of other big differences. But obviously Secretary Kerry is very eager and very hopeful that he can make some kind of progress on the question of Syria by involving Iran.
SIEGEL: Are U.S. and Iranian interests sufficiently similar in Syria to make any kind of progress toward a settlement, something that they both might work on?
MALONEY: I think there are some parallel interests. I don't think that I would call them similar at this stage. Obviously, the Iranians are deeply attached to sustaining Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad. This is something they've invested both treasure and lives in at this stage. But I think that they appreciate that there is no military solution. And there are at least some indications that they are prepared to countenance some sort of outcome in which he loses power eventually. That's a long distance from where the United States is. However, stability is in the interests of both countries, and that's a starting point.
SIEGEL: Is there a possibility of diplomatic normalization being on the table anytime soon?
MALONEY: I don't think so. For the Islamic Republic, the animosity with the United States is sort of a founding tenet of the regime. And if it were one that were formally abandoned through the establishment of diplomatic relations with the reopening of an embassy, I think it would call into question for many, both adherents and dissidents, within that system the legitimacy of the Islamic Republic itself.
SIEGEL: You mentioned the extensive contacts, the channels of communication, now between the U.S. and Iran. Does that mean that down the road after the presidency of Barack Obama, after the presidency of Rouhani, that there's enough there to keep going or does it really depend on two leaders who are especially committed to that?
MALONEY: Well, I think we're going to see a change in 2017 in terms of U.S. policy toward Tehran. We heard it from all of the Republican candidates throughout the course of this campaign. And we hear from Secretary Clinton and the way that she's articulated how she would approach Iran. It would certainly be a much tougher-minded view toward dealing with Iran and looking for opportunities to demonstrate to the Iranians that in fact Washington is not a pushover. I think President Obama has been a little bit more forward-leaning in terms of trying to engage the Iranians, and that will probably change, irrespective of who's elected here.
SIEGEL: Suzanne Maloney of the Brookings Institution, thanks for talking with us.
MALONEY: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
There are so many things we quaintly describe as retro. Our producers sometimes dig through the NPR audio vault to find our earliest reference to products or issues that ended up being a big deal, something we now take for granted. We call these audio explorations...
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
First Mention.
SHAPIRO: Today's First Mention comes from June of 1981. Host Bob Edwards was explaining a figure that had become pretty big in pop-culture.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
BOB EDWARDS, BYLINE: A little yellow ball and four ghost monsters named Inky, Pinky, Blinky and Clyde - the game is called "Pac-Man."
SIEGEL: Pac-Man, the lovable yellow ball that looks like a pizza with a missing slice. The Japanese company behind the game, Namco, had been looking to design a game that would appeal to everybody. Up until that point, videogame arcades were filled with teenage boys playing shooting games like "Space Invaders." Namco wanted to attract younger kids and women, too.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEOGAME, "PAC-MAN")
SHAPIRO: Pac-Man chomping through pellet-lined mazes was the answer. The game launched in the U.S. in the fall of 1980, and by the time this story was on our air the following spring, it was a full-on sensation. Namco's idea worked.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I get real excited. And it's a challenge. I love the sounds it makes. And they're cute (laughter).
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: A lot of the other games, you know, you just shoot missiles at something. "Pac-Man" - you're running away from a guy.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEOGAME, "PAC-MAN")
SIEGEL: Those "Pac-Man" fans were in a story by reporter Mark Gunshon out of Chicago.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
MARK GUNSHON, BYLINE: "Pac-Man," like most video games, combines the colorful and animated computer-generated graphics with sound...
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEOGAME, "PAC-MAN")
GUNSHON: ...Lively music...
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEOGAME, "PAC-MAN")
GUNSHON: ...The crunching Pac-Man sound...
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEOGAME, "PAC-MAN")
GUNSHON: ...And the agonizing, almost tragically sympathetic sound when you have lost your eating hero.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEOGAME, "PAC-MAN")
SIEGEL: Well, sort of music. Gunshon also spoke to a game room attendant at Northwestern University who explained how popular "Pac-Man" was by how many quarters he counted.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: No, we don't keep track of how many people, but we keep track of how much money we take in. In one week, it takes in usually around $4,000.
SHAPIRO: Did you get that? One week of quarters in the "Pac-Man" arcade game equaled $4,000 - not bad for 1981.
SIEGEL: It's been reported than within 15 months of its release in the U.S., more than a billion dollars in quarters were spent to play the game.
SHAPIRO: Videogame graphics have come a long way since then, but there is still nothing like getting to that next level of "Pac-Man." Do you remember the first time you played the game? Let us know on Twitter. We're @NprATC. I'm @AriShapiro.
SIEGEL: And I'm @RSiegel47. We'd love to hear your first memory of today's First Mention.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEOGAME, "PAC-MAN")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
So with all that, you might expect that Ted Cruz would be in Iowa, too. Well, he's not. The Texas senator is in New Hampshire, where Donald Trump dominates the polls. Cruz is trying to convince voters that he has the qualifications and temperament to serve as commander-in-chief, qualities that he says Donald Trump doesn't have. NPR's Sarah McCammon has been aboard the Cruz bus and sent this report.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: It is cold and snowy here in Keene, N.H., and we're in front of Lindy's Diner. The snow's coming down, and there are a few dozen people gathered out here, waiting for Ted Cruz.
You're not even wearing a hat.
(LAUGHTER)
CATHERINE CHANDLER: Oh, I'm used to it (laughter).
MCCAMMON: Have you ever stood outside for a candidate like this before in the cold?
CHANDLER: No, no, first time. It's worth it.
MCCAMMON: That was Catherine Chandler from West Swanzey. She came to see Cruz at his first stop of the day yesterday morning.
CHANDLER: Well, I think he's the only true conservative. A lot of times during the campaigns, you know, they talk like they're conservatives to get the basis vote.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Hey, how you doing?
MCCAMMON: After Cruz pulled up in his black campaign bus, the crowd pressed into the small space inside the diner as Cruz stood behind the counter.
TED CRUZ: Now, the first question I want to ask is, can anyone a cup of coffee?
(LAUGHTER)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Yes.
CRUZ: And maybe some eggs over-easy.
(LAUGHTER)
MCCAMMON: Cruz launched into his stump speech, telling voters he believes the country is ready for change.
CRUZ: All across the state of New Hampshire, people are waking up.
MCCAMMON: Outside, Mike Brown of Spofford, N.H., said Cruz is a rare politician that he trusts.
MIKE BROWN: He means what he says, and he's smart, you know? That guy's brilliant.
MCCAMMON: But Brown is not a fan of the candidate leading the polls here, Donald Trump.
BROWN: He - I think he's a dangerous man, and I think if he gets into power, we're going to regret it.
MCCAMMON: With that, I was back on the bus and off to our next stop - Washington, N.H.
CRUZ: You know, I'm going to say a sentence that I think I've never uttered before. It is great to be in Washington.
(APPLAUSE)
MCCAMMON: Cruz is far from the only candidate running on an anti-Washington platform. He's trying to close the gap between himself and Trump, who is arguably the biggest outsider in the race. But last night on his campaign bus, Cruz said he believes things have reached a turning point.
CRUZ: I think we're at the stage in the campaign where the voters are assessing candidates not on what we say, not on their campaign rhetoric but on our records.
MCCAMMON: This morning in Freedom, N.H., Cruz made a similar argument.
CRUZ: Last couple of days, he's been getting rattled. He's been throwing some insults my way. I don't intend to respond in kind.
MCCAMMON: But then, he went on to attack Trump over policy, questioning his conservative bona fides.
CRUZ: Mr. Trump enthusiastically supported President Obama's stimulus plan and said the only problem was it should've been bigger. I don't think we should have a massive payoff to lobbyists from taxpayers.
MCCAMMON: Cruz is telling voters he believes the GOP primary is increasingly a two-man race even though he's neck-and-neck in the polls here in New Hampshire with Florida Senator Marco Rubio and Ohio Governor John Kasich while Trump is nearly 20 points ahead of them. In Betsy Bradt's household, there are just two choices.
BETSY BRADT: Trump and Ted Cruz, I guess, right now.
MCCAMMON: Bradt says her husband is a Trump fan, but she wants someone a little more diplomatic.
BRADT: I don't like the way he puts down everybody, but I don't know. My husband feels, you know, that he's really going to do well in the long run. But there's just too many candidates.
MCCAMMON: For now, there are still nearly a dozen Republicans, but that will change soon after voters in Iowa and here in New Hampshire have their say. Sarah McCammon, NPR News, Wakefield, N.H.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Sarah Palin is back in the presidential race. Today she endorsed Republican frontrunner Donald Trump. Trump is locked in a tight race with Ted Cruz in Iowa where the caucuses are now less than two weeks away. NPR's Don Gonyea is in Ames, Iowa, where Trump is holding a rally this evening. Donald Trump had been touting a big announcement, and now we know, Don, it's Sarah Palin. How big of a surprise is that endorsement?
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: Well, it is not a huge surprise. What is key, though, is that this really came out of the blue. People have not been talking about Sarah Palin in a big way in this presidential campaign. It's almost like she's not even been on the periphery. She's been really off the stage. A year ago in Iowa, at, like, one of the very first kickoff events, she showed up. She indicated at the time that she was thinking of running, but then she give a very rambling speech. And since then not much - until, Robert, until in the last day, literally, we started to get rumors, a lot of chatter, a lot of talk on Twitter that Trump's big announcement that he was talking about was going to be her endorsement.
We found out that there was a flight plan filed for a private jet from Anchorage to Des Moines. Not a lot of flights make that particular route (laughter) on any given day. And then today Palin's daughter, Bristol, said, hey, I don't know what my mom's going to do but I hope she does endorse Trump. And Bristol Palin then took an opportunity to say some very critical things about Ted Cruz - of course, Trump's big rival right now.
SIEGEL: But does an endorsement of Donald Trump by Sarah Palin make all that much sense? Her daughter's swipe aside, Sarah Palin has had a very good relationship with Ted Cruz in the past.
GONYEA: And she has said very, very positive things about Ted Cruz. In fact, the Trump campaign is kind of pointing those things out today as the Cruz campaign criticizes Palin and says this kind of diminishes her. But, look, she and Trump have had kind of had a mutual admiration society going for quite some time. How much her endorsement will mean, it's really hard to say. You know, the Tea Party faction of the party does still love her. Trump is battling Cruz for that faction. It is a crowded field. But give a listen to what Palin said on Fox News on the "Greta Van Susteren" show - this was a few months back - and we'll get a sense of what we might hear tonight.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ON THE RECORD WITH GRETA VAN SUSTEREN")
SARAH PALIN: I am so happy that he is running. Here's the deal, Greta. He - I think with Donald Trump, he's the best thing to happen to the permanent political class since, oh, I guess the beauty of the Tea Party genuine movement rose up and shined light on crony capitalism and then pulled the rug right out from under status quo politicians who just, you know, kind of embrace that permanent political class.
GONYEA: So there's Palin talking about Trump. You want to hear Trump talking about Sarah Palin? This is from her own radio program. He was asked by a guest host if he would think of putting Sarah Palin in the cabinet. Here's how he responded.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "SARAH PALIN RADIO")
DONALD TRUMP: I'd love that 'cause she really is somebody that knows what's happening.
GONYEA: So there we are.
SIEGEL: Don, also today Iowa Governor Terry Branstad came out criticizing Ted Cruz for his opposition to ethanol, which is a big deal in Iowa - a corn company - corn country. What's this all about?
GONYEA: He's certainly a very important figure in this state. What he says does mean something. In the past, Ted Cruz has been against ethanol subsidies. As the caucuses have approached, suddenly he's not so against them, he's saying maybe they should be phased out over five years. Branstad's not buying it, and Branstad says that would be dangerous for Iowa.
SIEGEL: OK. That's NPR's Don Gonyea in Ames, Iowa, where he is covering the Donald Trump campaign.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Some of the most recognizable names at Yosemite National Park are about to change. I'm not talking about the natural wonders of Yosemite, like El Capitan and Half Dome, rather places like the Ahwahnee Hotel, Curry Village and the Wawona Hotel. Starting in March, those places will all get new names. The background to this is a legal dispute between the National Park Service and the park's outgoing concessions provider, Delaware North. That company actually owns the trademarks to many names in Yosemite. Earlier today, I spoke with Jeremie Kramer about the change in names. He grew up in and around the park, and he's worked there on and off for years. And, by the way, if you hear a little noise in the background of our conversation, that's just Jeremie's 11-month-old son. Welcome to the program.
JEREMIE KRAMER: Well, thank you.
SHAPIRO: For those who've never been to Yosemite, describe these places, these famous lodges, the Ahwahnee, the Wawona, Curry Village. What are they like?
KRAMER: Oh, there's so much to describe. I wouldn't know where to begin. Curry Village is a - kind of a rustic place to stay, lots of cabins to stay in, lots of tent cabins as well. It's been around since the 1800s. The Ahwahnee is spectacular. It's just amazing architecture, one of the most beautiful dining rooms I've ever been to. The Wawona Hotel - I actually grew up in Wawona, and...
SHAPIRO: Really?
KRAMER: And the hotel was - it was just the hotel to me, and it always will be.
SHAPIRO: What are the names being changed to?
KRAMER: Several of the names seem a little silly. The Ahwahnee will become the Majestic Yosemite Hotel. Curry Village will become Half Dome Village, which, I guess, makes sense 'cause it's pretty close. It overlooks Half Dome, for sure.
SHAPIRO: Jeremie, you grew up in and around these places. What do their original names mean to you?
KRAMER: Well, the Wawona Hotel means home, you know? Wawona in general means home, and no matter where I go in the world, if somebody says, hey, let's go to the hotel, I'll always picture running up the hill behind the hotel and seeing it come up over the rise, you know? The Wawona Hotel's part of my life, part of my past. And it always will be, no matter what they name it. It'll always be the Wawona Hotel.
SHAPIRO: You're not going to start calling it the Big Trees Lodge?
KRAMER: I'm sure that I'll hear a lot of that, and I might, you know, just to be more clear with people who don't have the same feel for the place that I do. But it'll always be the Wawona Hotel to me.
SHAPIRO: It seems like this has been happening for a really long time with sports stadiums being renamed for companies. Is it at least some consolation that these famous historic lodges are not getting corporate titles?
KRAMER: (Laughter) Absolutely. I mean, if Disney had bought up the contract, I would've hate to have had to go to the Mickey Mouse Hotel (laughter) or something like that.
(LAUGHTER)
SHAPIRO: These changes take effect March 1. Do you think people are going to have some kind of a commemoration or something like that as the changeover takes place?
KRAMER: My guess is, it'll go mostly unnoticed.
SHAPIRO: Really?
KRAMER: Obviously there will be some structural changes, and thing will have to be re-titled and everything. But for the people around here, it's not going to change our day-to-day life in any way.
SHAPIRO: As we mentioned, the new name take effect March 1.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The Chinese today reported that economic growth for 2015 was 6.9 percent. That is the slowest pace of growth in 25 years.
YUKON HUANG: Next year, they're going to say it's the lowest it's been for 26 years because its slow-down is going to continue. It's a maturing, upper-income country now.
SIEGEL: That's Yukon Huang of the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He used to be the World Bank's country director for China, and he joined us to describe the major transformation that's underway in China's economy.
HUANG: The manufacturing sector is shrinking and its services, its retail, financial services, health, education, they're starting to take off.
SIEGEL: If I'm, say, a factory worker in a Chinese city, what would I be experiencing that reflects these changes?
HUANG: Well, if you go to some of the more dynamic regions in China, particularly in the south, in Guangdong Province, you have companies which formally specialize, let's say, in shoes or in textiles. They're starting to either move to cheaper centers abroad or they're relocating their factories in the interior of China where wages are much less. This creates a lot of hardships because some people are losing their jobs, some people don't want to move and this is creating social problems in the country.
SIEGEL: So a lot of Chinese workers these days would be thinking of workers in wherever - Vietnam, and thinking, their low wages are costing me my job.
HUANG: Well, I think that would be a concern, but we have to remember something quite different is going on in China in terms of the employment market. Here's a country where wages have been increasing by about 10 percent to 12 percent a year for a decade and a half. You compare that with the rest of the world where people count themselves lucky if they get a wage increase of 2 percent to 3 percent. But this is starting to change. So those which are unfortunate have to find another job. They can still find another job, but in many cases the new job doesn't pay them as much as the previous one.
SIEGEL: Well, these are the consequences of the move away from manufacturing that you're describing. What about the increase in service sector jobs? How would I, as a Chinese consumer, experience that these days?
HUANG: Well, Chinese long ago moved up from the stage where the basic concern was trying to feed themselves. They're now very large segment of whatever you would call the middle class, perhaps 250 million of them. So they're looking for more sophisticated products. And if you go to China these days, you see lots of new malls, explosion in terms of restaurants, a lot of tourist activities. Financial services is booming. Today you read about equity markets and its collapse since the headline. The actual more dominant financial activity in China is that everyone's buying via the Internet. The Amazons that we think about here the United States, multiply that two or three times and you get what's happening in the retail sector in China.
SIEGEL: And shopping via Internet there can be shopping very fast.
HUANG: Shopping can be very fast. It's very easy access. The choices are enormous. If you want to buy a shoe, if you want to buy a table, you can have it delivered in two or three hours. So this is a very dramatic change in the way the Chinese buy, and this is what's happening in terms of this financial services sector in China.
SIEGEL: Now, China over the past few decades has moved. Tens - or, hundreds of millions of people out of rural poverty into modern lives in cities. Does the slowdown in economic growth in China mean that that process will have to slow down also or that it can't continue, or can keep up at that pace?
HUANG: This is a big question in China. Twenty years ago, China was 20 percent urban. Now it's 55 percent urban. Many of these people have gone to the large cities along the coast - the Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen. So these cities are 20 million, 25 million. Most people would think cities of 20 million, 25 million would be actually enormous, too big. So the government's saying to its citizens, you can move to smaller cities. So this is a big predicament because the best-paying jobs, demand for workers, the high productivity activities, they all lie in these big cities. So the question for the government, question for the people is, can I free up and allow people to move wherever they want to? But if they did, these very large cities would get much larger.
SIEGEL: Yukon Huang, thank you very much for talking with us today.
HUANG: Pleasure, thank you.
SIEGEL: Yukon Huang of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This presidential election, Latinos are expected to make up a record 12 percent of the electorate. To put that in perspective, that is nearly as large as the black vote in this country. The number is in a new report from the Pew Research Center out today, and here to talk about it with us is NPR's Asma Khalid. Welcome.
ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Asma, let's define this 12 percent. How large a group of voters are we talking about, and who are they?
KHALID: Well, Ari, it's huge. I mean, we're talking about more than 27 million eligible voters expected in 2016. I talked to Mark Hugo Lopez about this. He's one of the authors of this report. He focuses on Hispanic issues at the Pew Research Center. And he told me there are two really interesting things to know about this community.
MARK HUGO LOPEZ: Since about 2005, the main driver of population growth has actually not been the arrival of new immigrants. It's actually now births in the United States to Hispanic parents. The median age of U.S.-born Hispanics is 19, which means that half of the Hispanic U.S.-born population is actually currently either in school or in preschool.
KHALID: So, you know, a vast majority of the growth these days is from second-generation Latinos who are coming of age, who are turning 18. About half of the Latino voters currently are millennials, and that's huge. I mean, that's way larger than the percentage of millennials in any other community - black, white or Asian.
SHAPIRO: But we know the millenials don't vote in huge numbers compared to older voters. So what's the political impact going to be?
KHALID: I think that's hard to judge at this point. I mean, young Latinos have had among the lowest turnout of any group - way lower than both blacks and whites. Look, in 2012, under 38 percent of Latino millennials voted. And...
SHAPIRO: And how does that compare to black and white millennials?
KHALID: So both black and white millennial voters participated at rates that were at least 10 percent higher. So, you know, when you think of young people not voting, you have to take that traditionally low figure and subtract about 10 percent, and that's where you end up for Hispanic millennials. That being said, I mean, there are efforts to target this young population. I was in Orlando recently where some Latino voter groups are going into high school specifically with the idea that they could preregister 17-year-olds to vote.
SHAPIRO: Well, Orlando is in Florida - obviously, a really important state. But talk about the geography of Latino votes in the U.S. generally. There are big states like California, Texas, New York, with huge Latino populations, but those aren't swing states. So what's the potential impact here?
KHALID: I mean, that's right, Ari. Those states are not really in play that you mentioned in 2016. But Latinos make up a critical mass in a couple of key battleground states - Florida, Nevada and Colorado in particular. Florida is really interesting because it's historically had a large Republican-leaning Latino population with Cuban roots. But these days, there is a growing community of Democrats made up of folks from Puerto Rico and also some voters with Central American roots.
SHAPIRO: Asma, do you ultimately see this growth as having a real definitive impact in 2016?
KHALID: I mean, I think it's hard to say. In every other swing state - besides the ones that I mentioned - I mean, Latinos make up less than 5 percent of voters. So the potential there is limited. But maybe what's most interesting in all this research is that more and more Latinos are moving to states across the country. I'm in Iowa right now where the Latino population has doubled since 2000. And for the first time, there's a structured effort to organize the Latino community to caucus. And I think what's happening in Iowa could be happening across the country. And so even though the Latino vote might not be huge this year, this election cycle, the thing to know, Ari, is that the median age of U.S.-born Latinos is 19. And the population is growing quickly. And as Latinos move across the country, I think there's no doubt that their voting power will increase, and it'll be felt in elections to come.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Asma Khalid joining us from Iowa. Stay warm out there, Asma.
KHALID: (Laughter) Thank you, Ari.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Sarah Palin is back in the presidential race. Today, she endorsed Republican frontrunner Donald Trump.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SARAH PALIN: Mr. Trump, you're right. Look back there in the press box. Heads are spinning. Media heads are spinning. This is going to be so much fun.
SIEGEL: Trump is locked in a tight race with Ted Cruz in Iowa where the caucuses are now less than two weeks away. Earlier today, we reached NPR's Don Gonyea is in Ames, Iowa, right in the middle of Palin's endorsement.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: And just so you know, you can still hear her speaking in the background here as I talk to you. She gave a shout out to rock 'n' rollers and holy rollers, and it does feel a little bit like 2008 again, Robert. In terms of it being a big surprise, look; it's not a huge surprise that someone like Sarah Palin, who's been a favorite of the Tea Party and who's been to talking about kind of blowing up the system and going rogue and all of that kind of stuff for years, even as she has, up until a year ago, teased that she might be a candidate again herself, it's not a huge sock that she has decided that Donald Trump is the guy even though she has had close relations with Ted Cruz...
SIEGEL: Yeah.
GONYEA: ...A close friendship, and some others in the race. But look. Here's how it played out over the last 24 hours. It did come up suddenly. We started to hear chatter yesterday and rumors, and operatives in Iowa were starting to tell me, hey, I think Sarah Palin's going to endorse Donald Trump. And then, you know, it didn't leak out at all. We got word that a flight plan had been set up for a private plane going from Anchorage to Des Moines. Well, that narrows it down (laughter), certainly, for a lot of us.
SIEGEL: Yes.
GONYEA: And then this morning, Bristol Palin, Sarah Palin's oldest daughter, was asked about it, and she said she didn't know. But she said she certainly hope she endorses Donald Trump, and then she took a shot at Ted Cruz because Ted Cruz has been going after Trump. And folks from the Cruz campaign were critical of Palin as this broke by saying if she endorses Trump, then that somehow diminishes her.
SIEGEL: Don, as you alluded to the close relationship between Palin and, we thought, with Ted Cruz, how much sense does it make for Palin to be endorsing Donald Trump after all?
GONYEA: You know, it will be interesting. Here we are. Iowa votes two weeks from yesterday, right? And we have seen what a Donald Trump campaign looks like over the course of the past six months with lots of, you know, bombast and outrageous statements and this and that. But we've never seen a Donald Trump trying to make a sale this close to an election, and this is certainly a big thing to drop on Iowa voters.
Now, how much clout does she have? She's been on the periphery of the race. There haven't been a lot of people wondering, where's Sarah Palin; why aren't we hearing more from her? But she is a big name. It will get a lot of attention. It is a real jab at Cruz because he's a Tea Party favorite. He had reason to think that maybe he would've gotten the support of Sarah Palin. So it probably, you know, has the potential to have some impact on that Trump-Cruz race. Beyond that, it's hard to say.
SIEGEL: Cruz took another jab today from Iowa Governor Terry Branstad who criticized him for his opposition to ethanol - very big in Iowa, of course. What's that all about?
GONYEA: And Branstad's a pretty big guy in Iowa, too, (laughter) in Republican politics. Look it. Cruz used to be against the ethanol subsidies which are very important to agriculture in Iowa. Then, as the caucuses had approached, he switched his position to say he should maybe phase it out, and Branstad's not buying it.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Don Gonyea, who is with the Trump campaign in Iowa, as you can hear in the background. That's Sarah Palin, the former Alaska governor and former Republican vice presidential candidate, who today endorsed Donald Trump. Don, thanks.
GONYEA: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
An unseen planet about 10 times more massive than Earth is lurking in the outer reaches of our solar system. That is the bold claim made today by two astronomers at Caltech. The idea sounds crazy, but as NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce reports, it's worth taking seriously. One of these guys has a solid track record of finding things in this frigid, distant part of our cosmic neighborhood.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: Mike Brown once called "How I Killed Pluto And Why It Had It Coming." It recounts his discovery of Eris, one of thousands of icy bodies beyond Neptune. Eris was a big deal because it's more massive than Pluto, proving that our old friend wasn't special enough to be considered the ninth planet. This did not exactly make Brown popular.
MIKE BROWN: I get hate mail. I get obscene phone calls. I get drawings from kids where Pluto is crying and saying, why can't I be a planet anymore? I don't get as much of that as I used to. I think the kids have mostly gotten over it.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: The adults - not so much. Brown spotted other icy worlds, too. He discovered a dwarf planet called Sedna in a region of space beyond Pluto that was thought to be a no man's land. For a decade, it seemed like a freakish loner. Then a few years ago, a couple of astronomers spotted another dwarf planet, a pink ice ball they nicknamed Biden after the vice president. And Brown says this team noticed something weird about the orbits of Sedna, Biden and some of the other most distant known objects.
BROWN: The weirdness that got people's attention is sufficiently obscure that it's nearly impossible to describe without resorting to big, three-dimensional diagrams.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: The orbits were clustered in something known as the argument of perihelion. Never heard of it? You aren't the only one.
BROWN: If you were to ask 20 people who study the outer solar system what it is, probably 18 of them would first go to Wikipedia to look it up, including, probably, me two years ago.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: The researchers said the clustering might be caused by the gravitational pull of a planet bigger than Earth. That got Brown's attention, so he walked down the hall to see a colleague at Caltech named Konstantin Batygin. The pair decided to do their own analysis and soon found other oddities in the orbits that could also be explained by a giant planet. Still, Brown tried to be skeptical.
BROWN: Belief is a dangerous thing. As a scientist, you try really hard not to believe your own theories too much.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Here's what finally convinced him. Their computer simulations predicted that if this hypothetical planet existed, it would twist the orbits of other small bodies in a certain way. So Brown looked through some old data to see if any icy bodies had been discovered with orbits like that, and he found some.
BROWN: My jaw hit the floor. That was - that just came out of the blue, so being able to make a prediction and having it come true in five minutes is about as fun as it gets in science.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Today in The Astronomical Journal, the researchers lay out their evidence so that telescopes can go hunting for this giant planet. Brown's already looking.
BROWN: I want to see it. I want to know what it's like. I want to see that it's really there.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Now, it may be hard to believe that an object 10 times more massive than Earth could be out there and no one has seen it yet. But astronomer Scott Sheppard says keep in mind this would be very, very, very far away.
SCOTT SHEPPARD: So objects get very faint very fast. We really don't know the distance of this object, and if it's at the further ends of where we think it might be, then it would be too faint to see.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Sheppard works at the Carnegie Institution for Science. He's one of the researchers who discovered the strange cluster of orbits that first suggested the presence of a big, hidden planet.
SHEPPARD: When we announced our thing two years back, we thought either it'd be debunked really fast, or someone would take it further. And someone has now taken it further and shown that what we said is possibly real.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Still, even he is skeptical.
SHEPPARD: We really need to find more of these objects - more of these smaller objects that can lead us to the bigger object. I think it's still a tossup if it's really out there or not. I think we just need more data.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: With luck, they should be able to nail it down in a few years. And if this ninth planet is out there, but too faint to be seen with existing technology, he says there is a telescope already under construction in Chile that should be able to spot it. Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
As Hillary Clinton's huge lead in Iowa dwindles, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders is stepping up his campaign game. Yesterday, he traveled the plains of Western Iowa in a new campaign bus. NPR's Asma Khalid reports that he gave his usual economic message and make sure to sprinkle in some jabs at Clinton.
ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: The blue Bernie bus drove through the snowy roads of Iowa on its inaugural voyage. In small print, the bus notes that it was paid for by Bernie 2016, not the billionaires. And Sanders showed off his new mode of transportation.
BERNIE SANDERS: We got this bus here, as you can see, and that bus is going to be taking me all over the state.
KHALID: The fourth city tour was peppered with events that were low-key, more intimate than the massive rallies he's known to hold. But after a strong weekend debate performance, Sanders' tone was a perhaps more aggressive than ever before.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
SANDERS: When I began the campaign, people said, well, you're running against an inevitable candidate. Today, the inevitable candidate does not look quite so inevitable as she did eight and a half months ago.
KHALID: Sanders repeated a criticism he's leveled at Clinton for accepting speaking fees from Goldman Sachs, and he also blasted her foreign policy record.
SANDERS: Hillary Clinton, who was very, very experienced, voted for the war in Iraq - the worst foreign policy blunder in the modern history of the United States of America.
(APPLAUSE)
KHALID: Sanders dismissed questions about his electability and bragged about his poll numbers.
SANDERS: But almost all of the polls that have come out suggest that I am a much stronger candidate against the Republicans than is Hillary Clinton.
KHALID: When one reporter asked if Secretary Clinton should be nervous, Sanders responded bluntly.
SANDERS: Well, if I were Secretary Clinton, and I had started 50 points up, and today, I'm struggling to win in Iowa, struggling to win in New Hampshire, yeah, I would be nervous.
KHALID: At his final stop in an old-school 1920S theater in Sioux City, the senator made a passionate plea, asking Iowans to caucus for him. Angela Renders was there. She last caucused for President Obama and says she came in uncommitted, but Sanders won her over.
ANGELA RENDERS: I appreciate his honesty more than anything - his absolute honesty - and Hillary's a politician, so...
KHALID: So Sanders can only hope a lot more Iowans feel like Renders before February 1. But for the moment, he's switching gears, taking his political punches to New Hampshire tomorrow. Asma Khalid, NPR News, Sioux City, Iowa.
SIEGEL: And elsewhere in the program, Ari Shapiro talks about the Iowa caucuses with Hillary Clinton and about her own jabs at Bernie Sanders.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
There's a glut of oil on the market. It has driven down gas prices. But that's not the only thing it's done. Jet fuel costs are less too, and that translates into lower airfares. The U.S. government just reported the biggest price drop in international fares in nearly three years. And domestic fares are falling too. NPR's Chris Arnold reports.
CHRIS ARNOLD, BYLINE: To find out what's going on with airfares, we went to a startup named Hopper. It makes a popular travel app for your phone. The company's headquarters is next to the MIT campus in a converted old brick industrial building.
PATRICK SURRY: We're here in Cambridge, Mass. in the Kendall Boiler and Tank building.
ARNOLD: So they used to actually make boiler tanks in here for heating?
SURRY: I guess so, yeah. You can still see some of the machinery up in the rafters here.
ARNOLD: Patrick Surry is the chief data scientist at Hopper.
SURRY: We built an app that helps consumers save money on airfare. Our mission in life is to help people understand when the best time is to buy their ticket. Should they buy it now or is it likely to go down in the future and you should wait?
ARNOLD: To do that, Hopper collects data on the minute-to-minute prices that airlines are offering on their tickets. So that is lots of data.
SURRY: We've got an archive of several trillion price points. We collect about 2 or 3 billion priced trips every day for markets all around the world.
ARNOLD: Surry says he's not looking at last-minute business travel but rather prices that everyday people pay to, say, book a vacation in advance. And for those fares...
SURRY: Well, airfares are trending down, as we're seeing about 14 or 15 percent lower this year than we have in the past.
ARNOLD: That's a big drop in prices. In fact, the federal government just yesterday released data on international travel showing a similar 15 percent drop - the biggest calendar-year decline in fares since the index was first published in 1987. And of course on more competitive routes where discount airlines such as JetBlue, Spirit and Southwest are competing, we're seeing even bigger price drops. George Hobica runs a website called Airfarewatchdog.
GEORGE HOBICA: Dallas to almost anywhere in the United States, you can fly on certain days for $40 each way. San Francisco to Las Vegas is $67 round-trip. And the reason they can afford to do that is because oil prices are going down.
ARNOLD: Still, based on the math of just how much jet fuel prices have dropped, Patrick Surry says that airlines could be passing on more savings to customers. But instead, he says airlines are keeping some of those profits for themselves. And actually, that's a good thing, at least according to the industry. John Heimlich is the chief economist with the trade group Airlines For America.
JOHN HEIMLICH: In this industry, given its history of boom and bust, if you have one very good year, you really need to take advantage of it and get your house in order.
ARNOLD: Heimlich says 9/11 and then the Great Recession coupled with high fuel prices up until recent years, all of that pummeled the airlines. Many were losing billions of dollars. And so they've needed those extra profits to dig out of a really big hole.
HEIMLICH: Ten airlines combined, including their merged partners, over the last almost six years, paid down 52.5 billion in debt.
ARNOLD: Meanwhile, he says the airlines have been hiring more people and buying more planes. OK, but if you want to take a trip to Hawaii, is now the time to buy the ticket?
DARA CONTINENZA: So this is a Hawaiian Airlines fare, and this is actually kind of what our algorithm shows.
ARNOLD: Back at the startup company Hopper, Dara Continenza has pulled up a price projection chart for Los Angeles to Honolulu. Hopper's computers here are taking those billions of data points from recent years to predict whether fares like this one will go up or down.
CONTINENZA: Right now, we're showing about 680, and we think that they're going to fall about $200 less than what we're showing now.
ARNOLD: So Hoppers app is telling people, at least on this fare, now is a good time to play that game of chicken with the airlines and wait for the price to drop before you buy. Chris Arnold, NPR News, Boston.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
I'm Robert Siegel. Even by recent standards, it was a nerve-wracking day on Wall Street. Stocks were down sharply throughout the day. By the time trading ended, they did recover a lot of that lost ground, though. That wasn't the case for oil prices. They fell to their lowest levels since 2003. NPR's Jim Zarroli spent his day watching the market's fluctuation. Hi, Jim.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Hi.
SIEGEL: Take us through what happened today.
ZARROLI: You know, it was a day like we've seen a lot this month - everybody kind of running for the exits. It's sort of like dominoes falling. You know, we had a big selloff in Asia, then in Europe, then in the United States. At one point in the day, a little bit after noon, maybe, the Dow was down 566 points, which - that's, you know, 3-and-a-half percent - had a lot of energy stocks in particular just getting clobbered. That has everything to do with the way oil price have been coming down. And yeah, as the afternoon wore on, you saw a recovery in stocks, but the Dow still finished down 200 - almost 250 points.
SIEGEL: And is there any particular reason that people think stocks went down so much today?
ZARROLI: Not really. I mean, there were individual stocks like IBM that were down because of earnings. But by and large, you know, people are just looking at what's happening around the world and feeling scared about the economy. I spoke to Mark Zandi, who's the chief economist at Moody's Analytics. He believes this is just based on emotion.
MARK ZANDI: I think it's cathartic. I think investors have seen the declines and have gotten to the point where they're just nervous, maybe a bit panicked, and you get this broad-based selling.
ZARROLI: Zandi says, you know, there are times when euphoria sweeps the markets and everybody buys. And you know, there are times like right now - periods of pessimism, and people sell.
SIEGEL: Jim, is there any evidence one way or another what impact the drop in oil prices is having on the economy?
ZARROLI: Well, you know, a drop in oil prices is a big problem. Of course, if you're an oil producer - very hard to make a profit when prices are down around $27 a barrel. And of course, the longer this goes on, the more trouble it will be for companies. You know, but energy is not as important to the U.S. economy as it is to other places like, you know, Canada or Nigeria or Russia. We do a lot of oil production, but when you look at, you know, the sheer size of the U.S. economy, oil just isn't the kind of factor that it is in other places. Now, Americans do consume a lot of oil, of course, and this drop in prices means people save a lot of money.
SIEGEL: All right. Yeah, people are saving money on gasoline, on home heating oil in the Northeast, also on jet fuel. That sounds like it should be a plus for the economy.
ZARROLI: Yeah, it is. It - of course, it puts a lot of money in people's pockets. That's money they can consume on a - you know, spend on other things. And you know, consumer spending in general in the United States is holding up pretty well right now, which is one of the reasons why people are sort of surprised by what's happening in the stock market.
You know, for all the problems that the U.S. economy has had, it has some real strengths right now. Now, what the market is responding to is what's happening overseas. I mean, we're seeing this slowing growth in China. That's having an impact on, you know, lots of commodity producing countries like Russia, like Brazil, even like, you know, Australian and Canada. Eventually, you know, that's going to have some kind of impact on the United States if things get bad enough. It's just, you know - it's not clear what kind of impact. It's not clear when it will happen, and you know, that's one of the reasons why the stock market is acting so volatile right now.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Jim Zarroli in New York. Thanks, Jim.
ZARROLI: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: Hillary Clinton was here this morning for a fundraiser less than two weeks before people in Iowa cast the first votes in the 2016 presidential race. In an ornate hotel ballroom, I sat down with the former secretary of state for a wide-ranging interview, and we began with a story that broke last night about the private email server she used during her time at the state department. The inspector general for the intelligence community sent a letter to lawmakers, saying some emails on that server were classified at a level above top secret. I asked Secretary Clinton - can you give us anymore details about how many emails there were, what they were about, whether they were sent or received by you?
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, first, let me say that this is the continuation of an interagency dispute that has been going on now for some months. As the State Department has confirmed, I never sent or received any material marked classified, and that hasn't changed in all of these months. And the Department of Justice is doing an inquiry to determine whether there were any issues around the email uses that I had.
This seems to me to be, you know, another effort to inject this into the campaign. It's another leak. I'm just going to leave it up to the professionals at the Justice Department because nothing that this says changes the fact that I never sent or received material marked classified.
SHAPIRO: Just so listeners can understand, then, you're saying that the designation above top secret was applied after you sent or received these emails, or...
CLINTON: Well, it's difficult to know because the best we can determine is that it's likely what they are referring to is the forwarding of a New York Times article. How a New York Times public article that goes around the world could be in any way viewed as classified or the fact that it would be sent to other people off of the New York Times site, I think, is one of the difficulties that people have in understanding what this is about. So again, I just reiterate, I never sent or received anything marked classified. I did perhaps receive some New York Times articles.
SHAPIRO: Let's talk about the Supreme Court and the Court's announcement yesterday that it will review President Obama's executive action on immigration which would suspend deportation for millions of people. Now, you've said that you would like to go farther than the Obama administration. If the Supreme Court strikes down this program as overreach, as president, what would your next step be?
CLINTON: Well, first, Ari, let me say that I believe the President has acted within his legal authority. And I think that's a very important point to make to your listeners. We have a long tradition of giving the executive branch the discretion to make decisions about everything from criminal justice to immigration, detention and extradition and deportation. So what the president basically has said is rather than having just blanket rules where we're going to be deporting on the same basis a young person brought here as a toddler who is now in high school, wanting to go to college, has lived his or her whole life here, one of the dreamers or those dreamer's parents, we're going to focus on the felons, the violent criminals, the people who should be deported. And I think the president has the authority to do that. I think there is precedent because other presidents have also exercised discretion.
SHAPIRO: And if the Supreme Court disagrees and you become president, what is your next step?
CLINTON: We would, of course, look at what the Supreme Court said. And then I would get to work on trying to figure out what it actually meant and how it would be applied in practice. And I would still be committed to doing everything I could to protect those hard-working immigrants who are here making a contribution to our country.
SHAPIRO: Now, by the time the next president takes office, there will be three Supreme Court justices in their 80s. What criteria would you use if you have the opportunity to choose Supreme Court justices? Bernie Sanders has said he would have a litmus test. Anybody he would nominate would have to commit to overturning the Citizens United campaign finance decision. Would you have a litmus test? What would your criteria be?
CLINTON: Well, I believe strongly that we need Supreme Court justices who truly understand the impact of their decisions. And I think some of the recent decision - Citizens United being one, voting rights being others, the extension of more and more rights to corporations vis-a-vis real people - I think has created some unintended consequences. So I would want somebody who understands when you blow open the door and say money is speech and you have a, in my view, somewhat misguided hope that all of the money that would then be pouring into our political system would be disclosed in real-time - which, of course, it is not - that you would have someone who has an experience as a lawyer, as a judge in the real world who would say, hey, wait a minute; that really undermines and corrupts our political system.
SHAPIRO: So is that yes to a Citizens United litmus test?
CLINTON: Absolutely. But it's broader than that. It's not just Citizens United, Ari. Let's take voting rights. I was in the Senate when we voted 98 to nothing to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. President George W. Bush signed it. And we did that because there was substantial evidence that a lot of the discrimination that, unfortunately, was part of our voting that we addressed with the Voting Rights Act in the '60s was still a problem in some parts of our country. The folks who didn't agree with that appealed it, took a challenge to it to Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court really gutted the Voting Rights Act. And their argument, again, in my view, was fundamentally naive. So I'm looking for people who understand the way the real world works.
SHAPIRO: Secretary Clinton, we're talking to you 12 days before the Iowa caucuses, where the polls are much closer than your campaign would prefer.
CLINTON: (Laughter) That's always true if you're in a very competitive race.
SHAPIRO: And your campaign has started waging some very pointed attacks on Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. Yesterday, a group of national security veterans - former national security officials - put out a letter attacking Sanders on foreign policy and specifically on Iran. Part of the letter says, we need a commander-in-chief who knows how to protect America and our allies and advance our interests and values around the world. Are you suggesting that Sanders is not qualified to be commander-in-chief?
CLINTON: Well, Ari, in a campaign that is as spirited as ours, we owe it to voters to draw contrasts. Certainly Senator Sanders has been drawing lots of contrasts for quite some time, which, it won't surprise you to hear me say, I think are not particularly well-founded. But from my perspective, you are picking a president and a commander-in-chief. And in some of the comments that Senator Sanders has been making, there is room for disagreement and even concern.
Take his comments about Iran. Senator Sanders has said he'd like to see Iranian troops in Syria. I think that would be a terrible mistake. Syria's on the doorstep of Israel - just among one of the reasons why it would be. He has said he wants to see Saudi Arabia and Iran work together in a coalition to defeat ISIS. Well, you know, we're having a very big flare-up of tension between two longtime adversaries, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Either he didn't understand that or thought that he could get away with saying what he said.
SHAPIRO: And...
CLINTON: And thirdly, let me say this. I think that when he said, in the debate the other night, that he would favor normalizing relations with Iran, that too was a fundamental misunderstanding of what it takes to do the patient diplomacy that I have experience in to be able to continue to change behavior or at least to mitigate against behavior by Iran. President Obama doesn't believe we should be moving to normalize relations with Iran. Neither do I.
SHAPIRO: That's Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. You'll hear more of my interview with her elsewhere in the program, where we talk about the tightening race in Iowa against Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
In India, the suicide of a university student has led to a very public debate about one of that country's most sensitive issues, the caste system. NPR's Julie McCarthy reports from New Delhi that the case spotlights the treatment of the lowest class in the Hindu hierarchy.
JULIE MCCARTHY, BYLINE: The body of 26-year-old PhD student Rohith Vemula was found hanging in a student hostel Sunday. He was a member of the Dalit community, once known as Untouchables. His death touched off a furor on social media. His Facebook profile reveals he was a fan of B.R. Ambedkar, the Dalit who helped write the Indian Constitution. Vemula was among five Dalit students at Hyderabad University, members of the Ambedkar Student Association, who were suspended for allegedly brawling with a conservative student group aligned with the ruling BJP party of Narendra Modi. University officials had earlier cleared Vemula but reversed their decision in December. His stipend withheld, he had been living in a tent outside the campus gate since his suspension. Vemula's appeals to the University went unanswered. Delhi University political scientist Narayan Sukumar says on campuses across India, complaints by Dalit students about discrimination frequently go unheeded.
NARAYANA SUKUMAR: There is a systemic segregation of these particular students, and they are not able to enjoy the equal status of the other upper caste students that they are having in the classroom and outside the classroom.
MCCARTHY: Protesting students say pressure from a federal minister persuaded the university to punish Vemula. The minister alleged that the school had become a den of casteist, extremist and antinational politics. He's since been charged under the law preventing atrocities against castes such as the Dalits. Supreme Court lawyer Sanjay Hegde says that while he believes Vemula's suspension did trigger his suicide, a legal case against the minister is unlikely to succeed.
SANJAY HEGDE: Legally there may not be a case. But ethically, morally, politically, there definitely is a case.
MCCARTHY: On the defensive, the government said today, quote, "there has been a malicious attempt to ignite passions and present this case as a caste battle. It is not." Julie McCarthy, NPR News, New Delhi.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The East Coast is hunkering down for its first snowstorm of the season, but we're going to talk about how hot it is right now. Today, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, NOAA, confirmed that 2015 was the warmest year since record-keeping began in 1880. The global average was nearly a fourth of a degree Fahrenheit higher than in 2014 - 0.23 degrees, to be exact. Is that a big deal? Well, we asked Deke Arndt of NOAA's climate monitoring branch.
DEKE ARNDT: Well, that is a big deal. If we do set new records, and we've set them three or four times already this century, we set them by hundredths of degrees. So .23, that's big. That's a really big step up.
SIEGEL: How, actually, do you take the temperature for the entire planet?
ARNDT: We collect data from the different weather services around the world over land. At sea, we have ships and buoys that report temperatures. We compile those. And NASA compiles them in a slightly different way. We compare those to the historical averages and we get a good indication of where this year ranks in comparison to history.
SIEGEL: If we saw a graph of temperatures since 1880, would we see it going sharply up over the last 10, 20 years?
ARNDT: Over the last 30 or 40 years, you would see the arch bend upward. From one year to the next, you would see some steps up and some steps down. But over the course of that 30 to 40 years, it has risen sharply.
SIEGEL: Twenty-fifteen saw several extreme weather events - powerful hurricanes off the coast of Mexico, drought in California followed by the heavy rains there. Is there a connection to the numbers that you're reporting today and those extreme events?
ARNDT: In a big-picture, statistical sense, yes. It is difficult to connect a single extreme event to climate change, but we know when we run the statistics on the aggregate, you know, of how many of these events or how strong are they on average or how frequently do they occur, we do see increases in big heat and in big rain, especially, and in some cases, big drought as well.
SIEGEL: It was a big year for El Nino. How much of what you're reporting is about El Nino and how much of it is about climate change?
ARNDT: Well, as far as global temperatures, they work together. It's not one or the other, it's one with the other. One good analogy would be the long-term warming is like riding an escalator up over time consistently. And the El Nino phenomenon is like jumping up and down while you're riding that escalator. So at the end of the escalator if we've had decades of warming and we jump up high from that step in an El Nino period, we're going to reach new heights.
SIEGEL: There is a lot of rhetoric about climate change. I wonder for you, what do these numbers tell you that the broader discussion might miss?
ARNDT: Well, that's the great thing about being in science is, you know, we are guided by the numbers, by the data, by the output, by what we see. What the numbers this year tell me, it's basically an exclamation point on several decades of warming. So we had a really warm year, and that by itself is an interesting fact. But when you couple that with the fact that we've been warming consistently for the last 30, 40 years globally, you know, it really drives home that we are living in a warmed world. We're living in a changed world. We're living in a changing world. So this is the planet that we're going to hand to the next generation. It's going to be under changes that are, you know, more rapid than we've seen in modern civilization.
SIEGEL: Deke Arndt of NOAA's climate monitoring branch. Thank you.
ARNDT: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
We're going to remember a poet now - a man who melded activism and art - Francisco Alarcon was a Mexican-American writer who used simple language to explore the complexities of Chicano life in the U.S. He died last week at the age of 61. Adrian Florido of NPR's Code Switch team has this appreciation.
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FRANCISCO ALARCON: (Speaking Spanish).
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: Early this month, a crowd packed into the Cafe La Boheme in San Francisco's Mission District to hear Francisco Alarcon read. Alarcon was a portly man with a long, black ponytail and a wide-open smile, even in sickness. The audience spilled onto the sidewalk with people craning their necks to hear him.
ALARCON: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: Alarcon was more than a poet. He was an activist. In April of 2010, nine demonstrators protested outside the Arizona State Capitol over the passage of S.B. 1070, the state's controversial law targeting immigrants.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN: This is a nonviolent civil disobedience, but today...
FLORIDO: When Francisco Alarcon heard about this, he wrote a poem for the demonstrators.
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ALARCON: (Reading) You chained yourselves to the doors of the state capital so the terror would not leak out to our streets.
JUAN FELIPE HERRERA: Francisco was the - kind of the energizer of the literary Chicano-Chicano community.
FLORIDO: This is U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera. He and Alarcon met at Stanford in the '70s and, through the decades, worked on many literary projects together.
HERRERA: He was always working. He was always ready to go, to travel, to get in a bus, a plane or visit a school or create a project on the spot.
FLORIDO: Herrera says this passion for interacting with people and their struggles through his poetry is what made Alarcon such a beloved figure among Chicano writers and activists. It also helped that his poetry was accessible. It was written in deceptively simple two-line stanzas with just a few words to a line. In this poem, read by Herrera, Alarcon conveys the tragedy of a migrant border crossing.
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HERRERA: (Reading) Your home's nowhere. Mountains will speak for you. Rain will flesh your bones. Green again, among ashes after a long fire started in a fantasy island some time ago, turning natives into aliens.
FLORIDO: Speaking to PBS a few years ago, Alarcon explained his style this way.
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ALARCON: A poem, by nature, is incomplete, and it has - it has to be completed by the reader and the listener. And so the poet is only providing the - like a - like a - like a Japanese landscape - few strokes, and the reader has to complete landscape.
FLORIDO: Francisco Aragon directs the Letras Latinas literary project at Notre Dame. He was also a friend and translated several of Alarcon's books. He says that Alarcon's body of work was remarkable for a couple of reasons.
FRANCISCO ARAGON: Among Chicano poets, he's among a handful who, in addition to being excellent practitioners of their art, also managed, through their art, to give a rich portrait of the contemporary Chicano movement.
FLORIDO: Alarcon was born in Los Angeles in 1954, but moved to Mexico as a child before returning to the U.S. when he was 18. His poetry reflected this binational and bicultural upbringing. He wrote in English, Spanish and sometimes in the language of the Aztecs, Nahuatl. He said he was grateful for the doors that were opened by his fluency.
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ALARCON: Imagine, you know, if I did not have access to the memories of my grandma or to my grandfather. If I could not talk to my uncles in Spanish, I would be very poor as a person.
FLORIDO: Instead, he used his facility in languages to expand the scope of Chicano poetry. In the '80s, he cofounded the nation's first gay Chicano poets collective. He published a collection of poems influenced by Aztec incantations, and he wrote bilingual children's books and read to elementary students. Francisco Alarcon was diagnosed with cancer in December. After he died on Friday, scores of Latino writers posted tributes online, and many of them were calling him el poeta del pueblo - the people's poet. Adrian Florido, NPR News, Los Angeles.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
On Capitol Hill today, Republicans blasted the Obama administration's executive actions on guns. The president wasn't there to defend them. Instead, his attorney general took the grilling. NPR's justice correspondent Carrie Johnson reports.
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RICHARD SHELBY: This hearing will come to order.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Senator Richard Shelby, a Republican from Alabama, opened the session with a message for the White House.
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SHELBY: It's clear to me that the American people are fearful that President Obama is eager to strip them of their Second Amendment rights.
JOHNSON: Shelby summoned the nation's top law enforcement officer to testify about what he calls an end run around Congress. He's upset about moves by the Obama administration to press more people to register as gun dealers and to expose more gun buyers to background checks. But Attorney General Loretta Lynch defended the actions.
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LORETTA LYNCH: I have complete confidence that the common-sense steps announced by the president are lawful. They are consistent with the Constitution as interpreted by the Supreme Court and the laws passed by Congress.
JOHNSON: Shelby, who's facing a challenge in his state's Republican primary, wasn't buying it. He said the Justice Department isn't enforcing gun laws already on the books.
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SHELBY: As we've seen time and again, this president used tragic events to push his political agenda. I believe that he's more interested in grandstanding and engaging in anti-gun theatrics than actually doing the work necessary to protect this country.
JOHNSON: Another witness, Ken Cuccinelli, is the former Republican attorney general in the state of Virginia.
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KEN CUCCINELLI: Nothing - not one thing in the president's executive actions related to guns that we're discussing today would have any meaningful effect on tragedies like Virginia Tech in my state or San Bernardino.
JOHNSON: He was followed by Mark Barden. His first-grader Daniel died at school in Newtown, Conn., in 2012.
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MARK BARDEN: I think, especially in this context, that you take a moment to consider the humanity and the personal impact of what has been taken from us and what is at stake here.
JOHNSON: Barden now helps lead a group that pushes for gun safety measures.
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BARDEN: President Obama is trying to do something. Please help him.
JOHNSON: For her part, the Attorney General said the administration hopes the hire hundreds of new agents. That includes 200 for the resource-strapped Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Those agents can help local police fight violent crime. And Lynch wants 230 more people at the FBI to help with the overwhelming volume of federal background checks. The administration want to have background checkers working every day, 24 hours a day by the end of the year.
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LYNCH: I am confident that these actions will help to make our people safer, our communities more secure and our law enforcement more effective. But I also have no illusions that these measures by themselves will end gun violence in America.
JOHNSON: Carrie Johnson, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
This week, the University of Cincinnati agreed to pay the family of man who was killed by one of its police officers nearly $5 million. And there's more. Under the settlement agreement, the university will also establish a memorial for the victim, Samuel DuBose, and it will provide a free undergraduate education for each of his 12 children. The family's lawyer, Al Gerhardstein, describes this type of agreement as a more comprehensive settlement. And we've called him to talk more about it. Welcome to the program.
AL GERHARDSTEIN: Glad to be here.
SIEGEL: Let me first described this case. Samuel DuBose - black man who was stopped by a university police officer last July - his car didn't have a front license plate. He was unarmed. But he did start the car, and that's when the officer shot him in the head and killed him. It was all caught on body-cam video.
GERHARDSTEIN: He started the car. The officer reached in, and the officer shot him in the head before the car had moved. And even the university's internal investigation from the Kroll company concluded that the shooting was unnecessary. And of course, the officer is under indictment for murder.
SIEGEL: Tell me about the response. Obviously someone dies. Their earnings are lost to their family for life, so there's a cash settlement. But the memorial - what experience have you had in negotiating for a memorial for somebody killed in this way?
GERHARDSTEIN: Well, I've been doing civil rights cases for 39 years, and I learned very early that these families who lose a loved one want more than money. Sure, they want fair compensation, but they want dignity for their loved one. So we have done apologies. We've done new-officer training and policies. We've done monuments and plaques. We've done shared experiences, where the victim can confront the perpetrator. And we do these things in order to meet this broader goal of restoring dignity to the family after such a horrible event.
SIEGEL: And then there's the remarkable provision here, which is that the University of Cincinnati, in settling, agrees to provide a college education to all 12 children of Mr. DuBose.
GERHARDSTEIN: That's correct. And of course, this was a defendant that was in a unique position to actually help the next generation of DuBose children. Unfortunately, the University of Cincinnati has been in that position before. They had an officer who killed a young man, and as part of the settlement in that earlier case, the University agreed to give an education to the man's siblings. So where it's appropriate, where the defendant is in a unique position to do something special, we reach out and try to do that. And I think it responds to something in people that money just doesn't reach.
SIEGEL: I gather there's also a provision here to engage the DuBose family in discussions of reforming police practice.
GERHARDSTEIN: That's correct. Many times, the victim - the DuBose family's no different - will say, I just don't want this to happen again. And how do you respond to that? I mean, having a third party - having an insurance company pay some money has nothing to do with making sure that this abuse won't go on. And yet, when the family is reassured that they can be involved in policy change, that the defendant's taking a serious look at training and all the other issues, that restores their hope that indeed, maybe it won't happen again because they're part of the remedy.
SIEGEL: This settlement comes after settlements between the families of Freddie Gray in Baltimore and Eric Garner in New York and those cities. Do you think those agreements could have been more comprehensive?
GERHARDSTEIN: I don't know the details of those agreements. All I can say is that this family really did want more than money, and we wanted to provide that for them. And to - I'll say this for the University of Cincinnati. They were open to it. That's a defendant that said, what can we do for the community? What can we do for the family? How're we going to rebuild trust? And we were are all on the same page as we explored these tools.
SIEGEL: Al Gerhardstein is a civil rights lawyer. He represented the family of Samuel DuBose, who was killed by a University of Cincinnati police officer last summer. Mr. Gerhardstein, thanks for talking with us today.
GERHARDSTEIN: Thank you. Take care.
SIEGEL: And in a statement, the president of the University of Cincinnati, Santa Ono, called the settlement - and we quote - "part of the healing process not only for the family but also for our university and Cincinnati communities."
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
We're going to turn now to the water crisis in Flint, Mich. Its drinking water contains dangerously high levels of lead. Speaking in Detroit this afternoon, President Obama called the situation a terrible tragedy.
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BARACK OBAMA: And I know that if I was a parent up there, I would be beside myself that my kids health could be at risk.
SIEGEL: Michigan's governor has promised people in Flint that he will fix their tainted drinking water, but many don't believe him. Michigan Radio's Steve Carmody reports on the distrust that's been growing over the last six months.
STEVE CARMODY, BYLINE: During his State of the State address last night, Governor Rick Snyder apologized. He said he was sorry for mistakes that allowed corrosive river water to damage Flint's water pipes, which allowed lead to leach into the city's tap water. Experts say it will take years to fix, and the governor says it will get done.
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RICK SNYDER: I want to speak directly, honestly and sincerely to let you know we are praying for you. We are working hard for you, and we are absolutely committed to taking the right steps to effectively solve this crisis.
CARMODY: But people in Flint have heard promises and apologies from this governor before. As today dawned, a light snow was falling, just enough to make sidewalks slippery - not ideal for carrying heavy cases of bottled water.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Thank you, Sweetie.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Got it?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Yep.
>>UNIDENTIFIED All right. You have a blessed day.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: You too. Thank you.
CARMODY: A steady stream of bundled-up people stopped by Fire Station Number Three on Martin Luther King Avenue. It's one of five distribution sites where national guardsmen are handing out bottled water along with filters and lead testing kits. Josie Perry just needed a case of water. She appreciates it, and she also doesn't think anything's really changed.
JOSIE PERRY: No, no. You know, apology - OK, but that doesn't clean my water. And it's sad that they're making us still go pay for this poison water, or we going to shut you off. So now you want me to pay you for something that I can't use. This is crazy.
CARMODY: Gulunda Holmes was also picking up water today. She says she can't trust Governor Snyder when he says he plans to spend millions to fix the problem.
GULUNDA HOLMES: I don't believe in, I mean, because in the beginning, it was already talked about that these things shouldn't be done with that Flint water. And it's just a waste of money switching back to Detroit instead of working towards fixing the pipes in the first place.
CARMODY: With faith in government shaken, some people in Flint are turning to higher power.
ALFRED HARRIS: Heavenly Father, we thank you for this day and for your many blessings.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Thank you, God.
(CROSSTALK)
CARMODY: The Wednesday morning Bible study is wrapping up at Saints of God Church in Flint. Pastor Alfred Harris leads about two dozen people in a closing prayer.
HARRIS: In the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost - everybody say it.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Amen.
HARRIS: Amen.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Amen.
HARRIS: All right.
CARMODY: The prayer concluded. It's time now to roll out the water. Two church volunteers maneuver a dolly saddled with a dozen case of water down a slick ramp to the church parking lot. A line of cars is already waiting. Saints of God is one of many Flint-area churches that's handing out water to those who can't afford to buy bottled water even if they could find it on local store shelves. Pastor Harris says he's waiting to see how the governor acts now to see if he can be trusted to fulfill his promise to fix Flint's water. And as for the governor's apologies...
HARRIS: In the realm of Christianity, we should forgive those who ask for forgiveness. We're commanded to do that by our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. We regularly do that. But we also know that the changes must be made that are going to help fix this problem.
CARMODY: When asked if he has faith the governor will fix the problem, Pastor Harris would only say he has faith in God. For NPR News, I'm Steve Carmody in Flint, Mich.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
In Pakistan today, at least 20 people were killed and many more wounded in an attack on a university in the Northwest part of the country that's near the border with Afghanistan. It was in the town of Charsadda. Many of the victims were teachers and students at Bacha Khan University, and earlier today, I spoke with Jon Boone. He's a Pakistan correspondent for The Guardian newspaper, and he had reported from the scene of this morning's attack.
JON BOONE: I arrived after the siege was over, effectively, and the campus had been secured. But there was still plenty of evidence of the violence that occurred. We looked at the guesthouse where there was large pool of blood that was still sort of wet on the carpet even after several hours. And we're told from witnesses that these gunmen were really moving around, firing and really trying to kill as many people as possible.
SIEGEL: And so far as you know, there were four gunmen and all them killed or captured.
BOONE: That's right. A faction of the Pakistani Taliban, really, as the attack was underway, released a statement taking responsibility and saying that there were four gunmen. And then shortly thereafter, the Pakistan Army said that it had succeeded in killing all four people. They were shot by the security forces, according to a statement by the Pakistani Army.
SIEGEL: Jon, this part of Pakistan, the Northwest, faced a similar - a far more deadly attack in 2014. A group of militants there attacked an Army school in Peshawar, killed more than 130 people, many of them children. What is the point of targeting schools?
BOONE: Well, I think it was, in both that case in 2014 and today's case - it's a soft target or relatively soft target. It's easier than attacking the Pakistani military or the state head on. And also, it got an extraordinary reaction. The 2014 Army public school attack really changed the political weather in Pakistan, and it prompted the army and government to declared that it would get serious about domestic terrorism and really try and launch its own war on terror, which has had some success.
So I think today's attack is really a way of saying that we're still here; we can still mount these sorts of operations even though supposedly the government had ordered that all educational institutions in the country should harden their defenses, build walls and employ extra guards. And it's extraordinary, really, that these four men today were able to enter through a back wall with really nothing to stop them.
SIEGEL: Is it clear that the same Taliban group that was responsible for the Peshawar attack in 2014 was responsible for this attack, or is it unclear who actually was behind it?
BOONE: The Pakistani Taliban was always an alliance of different militant groups that came together in 2007. And it's fallen apart, really, over the last 18 months, and I think that was illustrated today by the fact that you had one commander who was associated with the attack on the school in Peshawar claiming responsibility for this. Yet, at the same time, you had the official spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban denying any involvement and saying it was an un-Islamic attack. And I think that really just tells us that the Pakistani Taliban, as such, does not really exist. There are multiple Pakistani Talibans.
SIEGEL: That's Jon Boone of The Guardian, reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan, where an attack on a University in the Northwestern part of the country killed at least 20 people. Jon, thank you very much.
BOONE: Thank you very much.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
From crumbling infrastructure to community policing, many of the nation's toughest challenges confront the country's mayors. And many of them are in Washington at the U.S. Conference of Mayors. As they focused on public safety today, there was a surprise. Protesters called for one of them to resign. NPR's Cheryl Corley reports.
CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: Surrounded by her colleagues, Baltimore mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the head of the conference, said it was a moment for the mayors to call on the presidential candidates and Congress to invest and protect cities. To invest, she said, by helping to replace worn-out infrastructure.
STEPHANIE RAWLINGS-BLAKE: And protect means a federal partnership to support the mayors, our police chiefs and our police departments as we work together to have modern, humane community policing that will protect our people who live in our cities.
CORLEY: Call it a surreal moment. As Rawlings-Blake continued her remarks, a protestor stepped to the front of the podium, prominently holding a sign that said 16 shots and a cover-up and calling for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel to resign.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Black lives matter.
CORLEY: There have been ongoing protests in Chicago over the fatal shooting of a black teenager, Laquan McDonald. He was shot 16 times by a white officer two years ago, and the protest continued here. It clearly rattled Oklahoma City Mayor Mick Cornett who was next in line to speak.
MICK CORNETT: Do we need to stop the press conference until?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: No.
CORNETT: Ok, all right.
CORLEY: April Goggans with Black Lives Matter stood her ground and later said she's not fazed by changes including more body cameras for police officers or Tasers.
APRIL GOGGANS: I think that it would irresponsible for me not to show up here and say that this is some fantasy world that they live while the thousands and millions of people in their cities are experiencing something totally different.
CORLEY: At the conference, hundreds of mayors, though, gathered to hear Mayor Emanuel and others talk about policing issues in their cities and how to create safer neighborhoods. During his talk, Emanuel ignored the protest but focused, instead, on gun violence and ways to keep young people out of gangs.
RAHM EMANUEL: The biggest impact you can make on gun violence - getting kids to walk across the stage on graduation day. And that is the biggest impact that we as mayors can have.
CORLEY: Former New Orleans Mayor Marc Morial, now the president of the Urban League, told mayors not to shrink, though, from the challenges that have come with the controversy and demonstrations over police. And he offered several bits of advice.
MARC MORIAL: Ask the question, how many civil rights complaints did we have? How many pending lawsuits do I have? Find out, get the facts, know what the situation is because only by knowing can you avoid being bit.
CORLEY: Tomorrow evening, many of the mayors will meet with President Obama. Yesterday, Karen Weaver, the mayor of Flint, Mich., met with the president to call for federal help saying the city and state can't handle the crisis over the lead contaminated drinking water in Flint.
KAREN WEAVER: This is something that nobody should have to deal with. Everybody should have clean water.
CORLEY: The president has declared it an emergency in Flint, qualifying the city for $5 million. But the mayor and now Governor Rick Snyder are asking for additional assistance. And Mayor Weaver also offered her own bit of advice to the mayors attending the conference.
WEAVER: Start monitoring what's going on with your water, the infrastructure, and don't let this happen where you live.
CORLEY: It was advice that many of the mayors said they will definitely heed. Cheryl Corley, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
If you get up early tomorrow morning, bundle up and look at the still, dark sky, you might think that the stars are aligned. Well, actually, it's the planets that are aligned. As long as you're willing to set your alarm for an early start through February 20, you can see five planets in the sky - Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus and Mercury. No telescope required.
JACKIE FAHERTY: I like to think of it as the Academy Awards showing of the planets in the sky. All of them are there, the five that you are able to see with the unaided eye.
SIEGEL: Astronomer Jackie Faherty is a Hubble Fellow at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Assuming millions of people do this tomorrow morning, which direction should they look in?
FAHERTY: Look to the east - so rising in the east, setting in the west. Jupiter will be high in your sky because Jupiter rises first. Mars will also be pretty high in your sky. Venus and Mercury will be low. Mercury is going to be the hard one to find. It'll be the last one to rise and it'll be closest to the horizon in the east.
SIEGEL: I used the word aligned. I guess alignment really doesn't describe what's happening here.
FAHERTY: I like to think of it as a planetary lineup rather than an alignment because they're not aligned in the sense that you could stick your finger out and along that line of sight, you'd see all of the planets. But you do see them lined up in the sky, meaning you could draw a line between Jupiter and Venus. And that is awesome because that is a leftover of how the solar system formed. It's showing you that the planets are all on the same plane so that they formed in a disk around the sun. So it's actually not just an awesome thing to look in the night sky, but it's also a signature of the formation of the solar system.
SIEGEL: And what is actually happening that we get to see it for this one month?
FAHERTY: All of the planets are orbiting the sun at a different rate. And at this point in time, they're in the same quadrant of the sky. I mean, think about it - there's a lot of sky out there. And this whole event actually begins at 9 p.m. So you've got many hours before sunrise. So on the order of 10, 11, 12 - now I have to do the math.
SIEGEL: That's about eight hours or nine hours.
FAHERTY: Eight hours or so before you get to see Mercury. So it's a slow event with each one of the planets arriving at a separate time. But by the end, what you've got is all of them in a quadrant of the sky that you can see from your point on earth.
SIEGEL: How rare is this?
FAHERTY: Relatively rare. So the last time this happened for us was in 2005. But the next time is going to be in August of this year. And then after that, it's 2018, I think. So it varies because the planets, as they move around the sun, they move at very different rates.
SIEGEL: They'll be up there in the sky before sunrise, but with the moon up there...
FAHERTY: The moon is actually going to be a little guide because often times people are confused which planet is which. But you can use the moon. You can look up when the moon will be passing by your planet. I believe around February 1, it's going to pass Mars. So that if you weren't sure which one Mars was, it's the red one. That's actually the biggest clue. It's quite red.
SIEGEL: (Laughter) Yes, I think we've heard of that.
FAHERTY: OK, the red planet, right. But the moon will pass it.
SIEGEL: How many mornings this month will you be out there early?
FAHERTY: Every morning.
SIEGEL: Every morning.
FAHERTY: I will get up early and go for a run just before sunrise so that I can see a planetary lineup.
SIEGEL: Well, thanks for telling us all what to do early in the morning for the next several weeks.
FAHERTY: Are you going to go see it, Robert?
SIEGEL: Absolutely, my dog and I will be looking for this planetary lineup.
FAHERTY: Make sure you point out to your dog...
SIEGEL: I will.
FAHERTY: ...Which planets are which.
SIEGEL: (Laughter) OK. That's Jackie Faherty, a Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. Thanks for talking with us about the planetary lineup.
FAHERTY: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton began her day here with a fundraiser. Tonight she's back on the campaign trail.
HILLARY CLINTON: So you have to be adjusted to - you're going to be in San Antonio, and then tonight I'll be in Burlington, Iowa. So you...
SHAPIRO: In the middle of this, she sat down with us for an in-depth conversation. The Democratic presidential context is turning out to be closer than she would prefer. In Iowa, Bernie Sanders has quickly narrowed the gap in the polls. There are distinct parallels with 2008 when Barack Obama came from behind to win the race. I asked Clinton if she's having flashbacks.
CLINTON: No, I'm really not. I feel very positive about the organization we've built, the enthusiasm and energy of the people who are literally showing up in below freezing temperatures to canvas for me. My precinct teams are really all so focused on doing well in the caucus. We're going to have to work hard, though. I always thought that would be the case, and that's part of the job. You've got to work hard as president. Nobody's giving the job away. You've got to get out there and earn it, and that's what I try to do every single day.
SHAPIRO: What, apart from the changes in your ground game, which you've talked about changing since 2008 - the infrastructure - what have you learned since your 2008 defeat about the American voter - the Democratic primary voter - that has changed your approach this time?
CLINTON: Well, I have to say, Ari, I think perhaps I've changed more. Having served for four years as Secretary of State has given me the kind of perspective that really fuels my understanding, my proposals about how we keep us safe at home and how we work with our friends and allies to try to keep the world more peaceful, secure and, hopefully, prosperous. So I bring a different perspective to the campaign this time.
SHAPIRO: One of the things that seems to appeal to voters so much about Bernie Sanders and about Donald Trump is their visceral anger that they convey on the stump. What makes you really angry?
CLINTON: Well, lots of things do. Most recently, what happened in Flint, Mich., makes me really angry. The idea that you would have a community in the United States of America of nearly 100,000 people who were drinking and bathing in lead-contaminated water infuriates me. And that is a fundamental failure of government to protect the very people we represent, so I understand why people get angry. They're angry about the Great Recession, which so knocked everybody flat. I understand that, but I also know that once you've vented your anger, once you've gotten out there and roused all of those really strong passions, you've got to do something.
SHAPIRO: But to take Flint, Mich., as an example - you talked about this on Sunday night at the debate. And you said, I was angry about Flint, Mich., so I went on TV and talked about it, and I sent an aide, and I put out a statement. And a lot of people said, if you were so angry, why didn't you go? You know, you're pinballing all over the country. If this is something that really gets you in the gut, why not go there?
CLINTON: Well, I think that's really unfair. Number one, as soon as I heard about it, I sent my aides. You know, I didn't want to go off half-cocked. I wanted to know what was happening and what the facts were. Let's get the facts first. You know, I am not someone who goes off half-cocked. I like to actually know what the facts are. I know that puts me at odds with some people these days in our political environment, including...
SHAPIRO: Are you referring to Senator Sanders?
CLINTON: Well, I'm referring mostly to the Republicans who seem to be very fact-adverse. So what I did was to gather the information, then I immediately called for action. And I thought the action would be forthcoming because, clearly, if I had been in a position of responsibility, it would have been. But then it was clear unless the governor asked the president to make the order, it couldn't happen. So I then, as you know, went on "Rachel Maddow" and said the governor needs to ask for the help that is required to help the people he represents. Within two hours, he did. I think that's a pretty good track record.
SHAPIRO: Do you think he did it because you went on "Rachel Maddow" and said he needs to do this?
CLINTON: Well, you know, I lived a lot of years in Arkansas, and one of my favorite saying I learned is, if you find a turtle on a fence post, it didn't get there by accident. I think it was quite telling that the governor made his decision two hours after I really challenged him to do so.
SHAPIRO: Well, Secretary Clinton, I know we have to wrap up but the last question I wanted to ask you - you have been open about the fact that you maintain your health on the campaign trail by eating raw jalapeno peppers.
CLINTON: (Laughter) It's true.
SHAPIRO: Where did that practice come from? Where did you get that?
CLINTON: (Laughter) Well, I don't want everybody listening to think this is a good idea because they may have a different constitution than I have. But back when, you know, my husband was running in '92, I read an article about the special immune-boosting (laughter) characteristics of hot peppers. And I thought, well, that's interesting because, you know, campaigning is pretty demanding. And so I started adding hot peppers, and then I got into eating them raw wherever they weren't really, really too hot. And all I can tell you - knock on wood - is that maybe that's one of the reasons I'm so healthy and I have so much stamina and endurance out there today. But I can't do them all, so if you're out there listening, don't meet me with a raw habanero and say OK, take a bite (laughter).
SHAPIRO: That's Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. You'll hear more of my interview with her elsewhere in the program about the latest questions surrounding her private email account and, tomorrow on Morning Edition, how she thinks she'd get along with a new generation of Republican congressional leaders.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump was out campaigning today with Sarah Palin, a day after she endorsed him in Iowa. Today's stop was in Tulsa, Okla. Palin also addressed a difficult situation at home that was hanging over her return to the national spotlight. Here's NPR's Don Gonyea.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: The day started with a question mark - a morning event in Iowa for Trump and Palin, only she never showed up. The campaign hasn't said why. She was in Oklahoma this afternoon.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SARAH PALIN: I can talk personally about this. I guess it's kind of the elephant in the room.
GONYEA: She's talking about her son's arrest related to an alleged domestic violence incident at Palin's Alaska home. His girlfriend told police on Monday that 26-year-old Track Palin punched her and that she feared he would shoot himself, according to court documents. Track Palin is an Iraq war veteran who enlisted on 9-11-2007. Here's Sarah Palin this afternoon.
PALIN: So when my own son is going through what he goes through coming back, I can certainly relate with other families who kind of feel these ramifications of some PTSD and some of the woundedness (ph) that our soldiers do return with.
GONYEA: It was a personal moment, but that very sentence then became an attack on President Obama.
PALIN: And it makes me realize more than ever it is now or never, for the sake of America's finest, that we have that commander-in-chief who will respect them and honor them.
GONYEA: Palin says Donald Trump is that leader. She then used some of Trump's own colorful language.
PALIN: Our vets deserve a commander-in-chief who will let them do their job and go kick ISIS ass.
(CHEERING)
GONYEA: Palin also heaps scorn on fellow Republicans for not standing up to Obama and for being too willing to play the Washington game once they get elected. She ended by envisioning President Obama's last day in office, one year from today.
PALIN: He's going to be packing up the selfie sticks and packing up the teleprompters and the Greek columns and all that hopey-changey (ph) stuff.
GONYEA: And when he gets back to Chicago, Palin imagined Obama will look up and see a tall building - that city's shining Trump Tower. Don Gonyea, NPR News, Des Moines.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A nearly unanimous Supreme Court has reinstated death sentences for three convicted murderers in Kansas. Today's decision casts doubt on the impression that justices might be willing to strike down capital punishment in its entirety. The story that we're going to hear about in this case includes, from the start, some disturbing descriptions of violence. NPR's legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Writing for the court, Justice Antonin Scalia described the gruesome details of the so-called Wichita Massacre in which two brothers broke into a home at Christmastime, tortured five young men and women, raped them repeatedly, forced them to commit sexual acts on one another, then drove them naked to a snowy field and shot them in the head execution style. Incredibly, one of the young women survived when a hairclip she was wearing deflected the bullet. She ran through the snow to a nearby house and live to testify against the men.
The Kansas Supreme Court reversed the brothers' death sentences plus another one on grounds that the trial judge's instructions to the jury had failed to make clear that jurors did not have to find mitigating circumstance beyond a reasonable doubt. In restoring the death sentences today, the court said that the Constitution does not require such an instruction.
On a second question - whether the brothers had to be sentenced in separate proceedings before separate juries - the court answered with an unequivocal no. All that's required is to clearly instruct the jury to consider each defendant individually as the trial judge did here.
Summing up from the bench this morning, Justice Scalia said that given the overwhelming evidence of the two brothers' cruelty and depravity, only the most extravagant speculation would lead one to conclude that the joint sentencing proceeding unfairly prejudiced either of the brothers. All but Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined Scalia's opinion in full, and even Sotomayor did not dispute much of what Scalia said. Rather, she said the court should not have even heard the case because it was based, in large part, on state law.
Just a week ago, the court reached a very different conclusion also by an 8 to 1 vote, this time ruling Florida's death penalty system unconstitutional because it charged the judge, not the jury, with making the decision on sentencing in capital cases. So in two weeks, there have been two death penalty decisions going in opposite directions and sending potentially opposite signals about whether there are five justices now willing to reconsider the constitutionality of the death penalty.
EVAN MANDERY: I would say it gives everyone pause.
TOTENBERG: Professor Evan Mandery of John Jay College of Criminal Justice has written extensively about the death penalty.
MANDERY: Clearly this is the sort of issue you get a once-in-50-year shot at.
TOTENBERG: And yet, as Mandery points out, the Florida and Kansas cases are procedural in nature. Neither presented a frontal assault on the death penalty. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
For nearly three weeks now, armed militants have occupied a wildlife refuge in Southeast Oregon. They want federal lands to be turned over to county or state managers. Amanda Peacher of Oregon Public Broadcasting has been covering this story since it began, and she joins us from the nearby town of Burns. And Amanda, what's the latest? We know there was a community meeting last night to discuss this. What happened?
AMANDA PEACHER, BYLINE: Well, so these are weekly meetings held in the local high school gym. They allow residents and county leaders to speak, give updates and share their perspectives on the occupation. And the meeting actually became quite tense about 30 minutes in when Ammon Bundy, the leader of the occupation, showed up. He just kind of sat in the background along with fellow militants and listened.
Now, only Hearney County residents were allowed to speak, so we never heard from Ammon. But many of the local residents addressed their comments directly to him and even began chanting go home at one point.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Go home. Go home. Go home. Go home.
PEACHER: So Bundy's presence and that of the other militants in the room definitely increased the tension in that high school gym.
SIEGEL: Well, judging from the go-home chants, it sounds like locals are tired of the situation and just want it to end. Is that accurate?
PEACHER: That is absolutely accurate. They are exhausted, and this is dividing the community in ways that I've never seen before. Some people support the move for local control. Others are just fine with federal control of local public lands. At the community meeting last night, there were tears. There were shouts. Family members who are on opposite sides, in some cases, are not talking to each other any longer. Now Hearney County leaders are saying that they want to bring the community back together, but it does feel like it's becoming more and more divided here.
SIEGEL: Amanda, what does Ammon Bundy actually want, or what does he say he wants?
PEACHER: Well, the occupiers have held steady in their goal of turning federal land in Hearney County to local ownership, be it private parties or to county government. On Monday night, Bundy and a few of the other occupation spokespeople tried to convince area ranchers that they should tear up their contracts with federal land agencies and stop paying federal grazing fees. They said that they would protect any land user who chose to do so and gave a direct warning to federal agents that they would provide armed physical protection for any ranchers who decide to stop paying their federal fees.
So they also got a little bit more specific the next day about their goals regarding the local timber economy. They say they want to open up the federal forests for logging of downed timber here and reopen the local saw mill which has been closed for quite some time.
SIEGEL: The Bundys have said that they hope to start a movement against federal ownership of public lands. Are their ideas gaining traction anywhere else?
PEACHER: Well, the militants say that their ideas are gaining some traction. Last week, one of the spokespersons, LaVoy Finicum, traveled to Southern Utah. He went there freely from the occupied wildlife refuge and back. He said he was meeting with supporters who also want to take back federal lands or what they say would be taking back federal lands. We don't know specifically which county or who those supporters are, but he says that they do have a movement growing there.
I will say that Bundy's call for new militants to come to Oregon has, in some sense, worked. I see new faces at the refuge every day. People do seem to be also leaving every day, for what that's worth, but I've met new people from Ohio, Arkansas, Tennessee, California who have, in a sense, answered Bundy's call.
SIEGEL: OK. That's reporter Amanda Peacher of Oregon Public Broadcasting in Burns, Ore. Amanda, thanks.
PEACHER: You're welcome.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
You know about the personalized ads that follow you on Facebook and show up in your Twitter feed. They're based on the data you generate online. Well, now there's one more way that data will be sliced and diced. Nielsen calls itself the company that counts what people watch, listen to and buy, and now it will be doing that by tracking your online conversations about TV shows. It's already looking at Twitter, and soon it will start on Facebook and Instagram. NPR's TV critic Eric Deggans tells us what that means.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: When it comes to scripted TV shows, Nielsen found one program drew the biggest unique audience on Twitter last year - AMC's "The Walking Dead."
(SOUNDBITE OF BEAR MCCREARY SONG, "MAIN TITLE THEME SONG")
DEGGANS: According to Nielsen, on average, 4 million people saw tweets about every new episode of "The Walking Dead" last year. Nielsen has gathered data for three years on the conversation about TV shows on Twitter. Now the company says it will soon tabulate how much people talk about TV shows on Facebook and Instagram, too, combining those figures into something they call social content ratings. Sean Casey, president of Nielsen Social, said last year, people tweeted 800 million times about television shows.
SEAN CASEY: So this is, like, a big consumer phenomena - that when people watch TV now, they're just not watching TV. They're also watching with a second screen.
DEGGANS: Yeah, people are tweeting while they're watching. Sports programming, for instance, was 3 percent of TV programming last year, but Casey says it was 50 percent of the conversation about TV shows on Twitter. Nielsen's top 10 list of shows on Twitter for last week included live events like the Democratic and Republican debates. Casey says that to date, the industry's still working to understand how friends and family talk about TV shows on Facebook and Instagram. He said that for TV networks selling time to advertisers, it's a way to suggest that a show has added value beyond who watches it when it airs.
CASEY: Brands should advertise in highly social programs if they are interested in those programming - those programs driving buzz around their brands.
DEGGANS: In other words, if advertisers have a product that could use some buzz in social media, like a hit song or a new website, they should advertise in shows that have a lot of social media buzz. Nielsen won't see individual posts, but Tim Baysinger, who's a digital media reporter for Adweek magazine, says there's value in seeing Facebook data that isn't completely public.
TIM BAYSINGER: Unlike Twitter, Facebook isn't usually to see what people are posting. I mean, you have to, you know, be connected to that person to see if they're posting about a show, whereas twitter - you know, it's much easier to see the conversation on Twitter than on Facebook.
DEGGANS: Baysinger doesn't see Nielsen's announcement as revolutionary. There other smaller companies that gather data on social media and TV, and Baysinger warns against drawing too many conclusions about the overall audience.
BAYSINGER: You know, I think the problem with a platform like Twitter is that it's in this big bubble. And people think, well, something's popular on Twitter, it must be popular with the whole world, and it's - you know, Twitter's still just a small percentage of the overall population.
DEGGANS: Nielsen says the Facebook data will be available to clients by late spring or early summer, with Instagram data coming a bit later. Eric Deggans, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The thriller "London Spy" premieres on BBC America tonight. It begins with a coincidence of geography. In London, the biggest gay clubs sit just opposite the spy agency MI6. At the start of the show, a young man named Danny, played by the actor Ben Whishaw, stumbles out of one of those clubs at dawn. A handsome jogger stops to help him.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LONDON SPY")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As jogger) Are you OK?
BEN WHISHAW: (As Danny) Hey. I'm fine. You don't know me, but if you did, you'd know I'm always fine.
SHAPIRO: And the story unfolds from there. The series is written by the British novelist Tom Rob Smith.
Welcome to the show.
TOM ROB SMITH: Thank you for having me.
SHAPIRO: This story has some things in common with a real-life case, which was, a spy named Gareth Williams, an MI6 operative, was found in a padlocked duffle with the key inside the bag. Tell us about this.
SMITH: Yeah, I mean, I just want to make clear that, you know, this is a piece of fiction. This isn't trying to say that we're connected to his life. But I do know, as you mentioned, the facts of his death. These were public knowledge. These were reported very widely in the U.K. It's a huge story. What happened - was he murdered or was it an accident? And what was interesting to me is, my first reaction when I heard this story was we're dealing with someone who's in the spy world. He's young and healthy. Clearly, we feel instinctively that there was something awry, a murder perhaps. And then suddenly, all this information came out about his personal life - that he liked being locked up, handcuffs, he was into women's clothing. And immediately, our attention moves away from what looked like a clear murder to let's go into this person's personal life. And it's a form of distracting us from I thought what looked like a case of murder. And I thought, you know, if you're going to do a fictional version of that story, what if this person had a partner, and that partner knew this person intimately, and this person would know absolutely that their partner was being lied about in the press? And that's sort of the starting point.
SHAPIRO: How did you focus on this geographic juxtaposition of the gay clubs on one side of the river and the spy agency on the other side of the river?
SMITH: Well, it's just - this is a story about two people from different worlds. And it just struck me as interesting that we have that in the geography of London, which is, you have the two worlds staring at each other - and they are very much worlds. You know, the clubs on one side are very secretive. On one hand, they have this door which is just very small. You kind of queue up and you go in, and inside there's this labyrinth of lights and music, and it goes on all night and you feel terrible. And the other side, you have this world - again, which is, you know, these doors and walls and no one really knows what goes on inside.
SHAPIRO: But what you're describing is not two different worlds. What you're describing is two identical worlds.
SMITH: Well, that's the thing. You know, on one level, they seem incredibly different, which is to say one is about hedonism and one is about national security. But they collide, and actually, there are connections. One is - they're both about secrets. They're both about deceptions, about presenting a front to people. You know, that's interesting. I mean, that's the reason why when I was looking at this story it struck me we had to use two men, or rather, a gay relationship because there was a connection between the spy world and being gay on some level, this idea of pretense, this idea of, you know, who do we - the people have to lie to when we're not able to come out.
SHAPIRO: One of the very first interactions that the two main characters, Danny and Alex, have, Danny says to Alex, are you out? And Alex says, no.
SMITH: It's a key question because are you out for Alex, who's played by Ed Holcroft, who is the spy, is resonating on two levels. First of all and clearly, Ben Whishaw is asking him are you out as in free to talk about your sexuality, have you told anyone else that you're gay? He says no, but clearly he's also thinking, I haven't told anyone else about my job, either. And yet, of course Ben Whishaw doesn't understand that's a loaded question at the time.
SHAPIRO: You gave him the script before the script was fully written, and he signed on to play this role. And I understand you sort of wrote it around him. Where is it written just for Ben Whishaw, this actor who many people will know from playing Q in the "James Bond" film and other roles?
SMITH: You know, he came on very early because I thought, we can give him anything. There is a scene in episode three which involves a sort of seven-minute scene which is - there's no cutting away. It's just him. And I thought this scene could only work with someone as good as Ben.
SHAPIRO: Is this the HIV test?
SMITH: This is the HIV test, yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LONDON SPY")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) Last test was eight months ago. Since then one sexual partner? You're always safe?
WHISHAW: (As Danny) Always.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) We're going to do a finger-prick test. It's not a test for the HIV virus but for the antibodies produced in response to the infection.
SHAPIRO: This scene feels like it plays out almost in real time. There is no music, there's very, very little dialogue. There's a pervasive sense of dread but also a sense of reality.
SMITH: It was very important. I mean, I got tested before the scene just to go through it all. I mean, I get tested anyway, but I got tested before the scene just to make sure that every single detail was correct, every single thing that is said. And there are different variations on the test, but the key in terms of as a piece of drama was, this isn't about someone being scared of a test. It's really about someone coming up against stereotypes. And the HIV aspect is someone attacking their love story by saying we know that many people in the public still think that there's something wrong, still think that there's this stigma around it, and we're going to use that to suggest that both of them were into risky behavior and they had no regard for their life and therefore of course one of them ended up dying, of course that happened - it all seems so logical, the idea that it's murder is absurd. That's really what that scene is about.
SHAPIRO: Every spy story is to a certain extent about secrets and lies, this one more than most. And without giving away the plot, I couldn't tell whether you want us to come away believing that lies are necessary evils or they make the world go round or the world would be a better place if nobody ever lied.
SMITH: You know, and love is interesting because Ben Whishaw's character is saying to the person that he loves, I don't want to have any more secrets anymore. I want you to know everything about me. I want you to know me as well as anyone has ever - I want you to know me as well as I know myself...
SHAPIRO: Right.
SMITH: ...And of course I don't believe that. I don't even believe it's possible. And actually, I think what love is about is about striving to know the person better and better. And actually, it's that trying to close the gap which is where all the wonderful things come from. And the premise that Danny starts with, you know, that gap is essentially bad and must be removed I think has a touch of naivety. And actually what he realizes across - this love story isn't static - across the entire series, he learns new things about his partner. And what we're doing here is we're taking all of those spy elements and we're pushing them through the ordinary world, the world that we all live in rather than the extraordinary world of secret agents. We're saying, how does the spy world relate to us as individuals? How does it relate to our relationship with our partners, our wives, our family? And, you know, it's important to hold in mind that this is an absolutely ordinary guy. And it's who - how can this person, who has no real education to speak of, how can this person take on the spy world?
SHAPIRO: That's Tom Rob Smith, whose new program "London Spy" begins tonight on BBC America.
Thanks so much for joining us.
SMITH: It's my pleasure.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The film ratings agency in Kenya is threatening to block Netflix for inappropriate content. This comes just a couple of weeks after the streaming service announced its overnight expansion to 130 countries. Kenyans have an uneasy relationship with what Netflix likes to called the world's first global TV. NPR's Gregory Warner has the story.
GREGORY WARNER, BYLINE: Mark Irungu knows computers. He's an IT specialist in Nairobi, and he's never failed to find ways to stream Netflix even when it was blocked in Kenya. But when the announcement came that he, as a Kenyan, could have a legitimate Netflix subscription...
MARK IRUNGU: I can't compare it to anything else because that morning when I saw Netflix is global...
WARNER: Irungu stops and touches his heart and delivers one of the sweetest analogies about media access that I have ever heard from a grown man.
IRUNGU: Think of it as a child who tries to get sugar from the sugar bowl and they're doing it illegally when Mom's not looking. And one day, Mom says, hey, you can have all the sugar you want.
(MUSIC)
IRUNGU: That's what it felt like.
WARNER: His sugar was "Narcos," the Netflix original series. He watched season one in one day.
IRUNGU: I had saved myself for "Narcos."
(LAUGHTER)
WARNER: And his joy that day transcended the storytelling or the convenience or the superior quality that his subscription bestowed. He felt invited, included in the global community.
IRUNGU: It felt like, hey, you qualify. Finally, you know, you qualify.
WARNER: And then Kenya's film rating agency threatened to take the sugar away.
JACKSON KOSGEI: Netflix has a country. It is domiciled in the United States of America. It is a company. They must obey the law.
WARNER: That's Jackson Kosgei, the chairman of Kenya's Film Classification Board, speaking at a press conference in Nairobi. He threatened to ban Netflix for inappropriate content. Netflix countered that parental controls are already part of the site and it's not even clear that the Kenyan agency has jurisdiction. It depends on how Netflix is classified - is it a traditional broadcaster, like a TV channel, or an online platform, like YouTube? But Netflix has raised eyebrows in Kenya among more than just moralizing bureaucrats. Newspaper columnists are debating the pros and cons of binge watching. Pros - your kids stay home at night in a dangerous city like Nairobi. Cons - they're binge watching. And then there's the concern about what this means for Kenya's local fledgling film industry.
GILBERT LUKALIA: Oh.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Laughter).
LUKALIA: Yes.
WARNER: To gauge that, I stopped by the set of a local TV show called "Pendo," or love. The cast and crew were on break because the power was out again. Thirty-six-year-old director Gilbert Lukalia started apologizing about the generator.
LUKALIA: We might not have the best generator for filming.
WARNER: Even the fact that you need a generator to film...
LUKALIA: That's an extra cost.
WARNER: Extra costs and tiny budgets mean lower production values for a nascent film industry that's struggled to gain a local audience.
LUKALIA: Because we watch so much of the foreign films rather than watching the local.
WARNER: So how do you compete with Netflix?
LUKALIA: We cannot compete. We can compete on one small element, and that's a story, but a good story. We have good stories.
WARNER: Lukalia is firmly opposed to any ban on Netflix. He says the Kenyan film board should spend less time threatening Netflix and more time promoting Kenyan talent so that Kenya's stories told by Kenyans can go global. Gregory Warner, NPR News, Nairobi.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Anger, denial and blame - there's plenty of all three in a new play - "Sweat" by Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage. "Sweat" is about work and the fear of losing it. NPR's Elizabeth Blair has more on the play and the people who inspired it.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: Workers at a steel tubing plant gather at a local bar, drink beer and talk. Change is coming. Jason is in denial. Chris sees the writing on the wall.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "SWEAT")
TRAMELL TILLMAN: (As Chris) Like last week - remember they had a couple of white-hats walking the floor?
STEPHEN MICHAEL SPENCER: (As Jason) Yeah, so, Dude? Maybe they're just upgrading the equipment.
TILLMAN: (As Chris) They've got buttons - boop (ph) - now that can replace all of us - boop, boop, boop.
SPENCER: (As Jason, laughter) Come on, man. You're being paranoid.
BLAIR: No, he's not. The company moves some production to Mexico. Longtime union workers refuse to accept lower wages. They're locked out and replaced by immigrant labor. It's a scenario that has played out many times over decades in cities like Reading, Pa., where the play takes place.
LYNN NOTTAGE: I happened upon Reading because I was really interested in the way in which poverty and economic stagnation was shifting the American narrative.
BLAIR: Lynn Nottage spent more than two years visiting Reading and getting to know the people there. She says she met families where parents and children alike had factory jobs and union cards.
NOTTAGE: Where two generations of people had worked in the same factory, where one card was passed from father to son or mother to daughter. That's just the way it functioned. And these were very good jobs. People were making livable wages. People had bought homes and had really established roots in a city like Reading because there was work, and there was decent work.
DEAN SHOWERS: My name's Dean Showers, and I am from Reading. And I did work at the same tube company for what would've been about 38 years.
BLAIR: Dean Showers is not an actor. He's one of the people Lynn Nottage got to know during her trips to Reading. Just like in the play, he and about 50 other workers have been locked out of their plant for almost five years. "Sweat" goes back and forth in time between 2000 and 2008, before and after an act of violence we don't see until the end. There aren't really any good guys. Workers like Chris and Jason complain about the union...
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "SWEAT")
SPENCER: (As Jason) Union's got all our money tied up in benefits.
TILLMAN: (As Chris) [Expletive].
SPENCER: (As Jason) We ain't got nothing left for fun.
TILLMAN: (As Chris) You ain't lying.
BLAIR: ...And about the physical labor.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "SWEAT")
TILLMAN: (As Chris) And I'm [expletive] sick of (unintelligible). The machines are so [expletive] loud I can't even think. It's getting harder and harder to pull myself up and go to work every day.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As Character) You're tripping.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As Character) I hear you.
BLAIR: There's tension between workers - the ones who are happy with the status quo and those who want to get off the factory floor, like Chris.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "SWEAT")
TILLMAN: (As Chris) I got accepted into the teaching program at Albright.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As Character) What? Come again?
TILLMAN: (As Chris) Yeah, yeah, start...
BLAIR: His friends are dismissive and tell him he'll make more money if he stays at the plant.
(SOUNDBITE OF PLAY, "SWEAT")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As Character) And I know a couple of old-timers bringing in close to $47 an hour not teaching.
TILLMAN: (As Chris) Well, that's cool. Good for them. But I kind of want to do something a little different than my moms and pops.
BLAIR: Dean Showers says the characters in "Sweat" ring true. He started working in the steel tubing plant when he was 18. He went to college but dropped out.
SHOWERS: I was making really great money for a single, young teenager that didn't know what he wanted to do. And yeah, there's a lot of regret to that, you know?
BLAIR: Now he's 62 and locked out of his job.
SHOWERS: The only thing that's good is, you know, I can kind of be a better adviser to my youngest daughter and tell her, don't make the mistakes that I made.
BLAIR: That's tough to do in a town like Reading, where so much pride is tied up in the past. Playwright Lynn Nottage says whenever she met someone in Reading, she always asked them, how would you describe your city?
NOTTAGE: And people always said Reading was - and no one ever spoke of their city in present tense. They always spoke of it in past tense, and that really broke my heart. And then when I pushed them further, people spoke a great deal about feeling invisible. We feel as though our city's government doesn't see us. We feel as though the rest of the country doesn't see it.
BLAIR: With "Sweat," Lynn Nottage has created a strong, dramatic narrative from real experiences in Reading. It's a story about how people adapt to change or don't. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We often fact check substantive policy statements from presidential candidates. Now we're going to fact check something a little bit less serious. To stay healthy on the campaign trail, Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton eats fresh jalapeno peppers. I asked her about that in an interview yesterday, and she gave us the back story.
HILLARY CLINTON: Back when my husband was running in '92, I read an article about the special immune boosting (laughter) characteristics of hot peppers and I thought, well, that's interesting because, you know, campaigning is pretty demanding and so I started adding hot peppers.
SHAPIRO: So a daily jalapeno as a way to boost the immune system? We asked NPR's Allison Aubrey to look into it.
ALLISON AUBREY, BYLINE: When it comes to hot peppers, I'm kind of a wimp. I owned up to this on this show a few years back when Audie Cornish and I went head to head in a hot sauce taste off. Here's me tasting one sauce that seemed hot to me but not to her.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
AUBREY: OK, there's a little kick but my mouth is not on fire so I'm - so far so good.
AUDIE CORNISH, BYLINE: There's not really any kick here, Allison, but...
AUBREY: OK. (Laughter). You'll let me know when we get to that part?
So I'm not one to chow down on raw jalapeno peppers every day as Hillary Clinton does, but maybe I'm missing out on something that could keep me healthy.
JOHN HAYES: It's not an entirely crazy idea.
AUBREY: That's John Hayes. He teaches food science at Penn State and he has a special interest in chili peppers.
HAYES: It's certainly possible that some of the compounds found in chili peppers could be protective of health.
AUBREY: Hayes says peppers are loaded with vitamins and a bunch of other beneficial compounds, as are many plant-based foods. But he says peppers also contain something that's pretty unique.
HAYES: The most famous compound in chiles specifically is a chemical called capsaicin, which causes that burning, warming sensation in the mouth.
AUBREY: Now, lab studies show that capsaicin has both anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial properties. And to begin to understand whether the capsaicin pepper-lovers get from foods has a measurable impact on health, an international team of researchers recently did a huge study. They asked about a half-million people in China about their eating habits over seven years. Then they compared the health of people who ate lots of chili peppers with those who ate peppers very infrequently. The results were published in the British Medical Journal last summer, and John Hayes says he was intrigued.
HAYES: It found that repeated consumption, regular consumption of chili and chili-containing foods decrease the risk of premature death.
AUBREY: Decreased it by about 14 percent if people ate spicy foods almost every day. Now, this study is not proof that chiles boost health. It could be that people who like chili peppers have other habits that protect them. But the study does suggest that Hillary Clinton's practice of eating of a raw pepper each day could be beneficial. So maybe she's on to something?
ARIC PRATHER: She may be.
AUBREY: But still, whatever good may come from a daily pepper, who knows if it could trump all the potentially unhealthy habits that come along with life on the campaign trail. Aric Prather is a psychologist at UC San Francisco. He says just watching candidates, such as Hillary Clinton, it doesn't seem like they get much chance to relax.
PRATHER: I think she has some serious stressors that might get into her sleep time.
AUBREY: Prather studies how daily habits influence the likelihood of sickness, and he says what's clear is that too little sleep and prolonged stress can increase the odds of getting sick immensely. Allison Aubrey, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
In Michigan, public health officials and politicians are playing catch-up with an ongoing crisis in Flint. Much of that city's drinking water has been tainted by lead. The regional EPA administrator offered her resignation today for the handling of Flint's water, and this week, Governor Rick Snyder apologized once again and promised to fix the problem. In an attempt at providing more transparency, Snyder released more than 200 pages of internal emails regarding Flint. In a moment, we'll get reaction to those emails from the city's mayor, but first, we go to Michigan Public Radio's Rick Pluta.
RICK PLUTA, BYLINE: At the Food Bank of Eastern Michigan in Flint, cases of bottled water are loaded onto pallets and lifted into trucks to be shipped to distribution centers. Local residents just don't trust the water that comes out of their faucets. William Kerr directs the food bank. He says the demand has exploded since the state acknowledged there is lead in Flint's drinking water.
WILLIAM KERR: Prior to the crisis, on any given day, we'd go through maybe, like, one or two pallets of water a day. At - our current expectations now is we will be doing 10 to 15 truckloads of water a week now. So it's - and that will be just the tip of the iceberg.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RICK SNYDER: We are seeing improvements in the water supply, but we don't want people to believe it's appropriate to drink at this point.
PLUTA: That's Governor Rick Snyder telling CBS News that people should assume the tap water in Flint still is not safe. Snyder has endured criticism over the state's response to the lead contamination crisis which was caused at least in part by decisions made by emergency managers to switch water supplies while the city was under state control.
Now the governor has asked the state legislature to approve $28 million in emergency spending to address the immediate needs of Flint, mostly bottled water, filters and lead-testing kits. Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof says that bill is making its way through the legislature and could land on the governor's desk next week.
ARLAN MEEKHOF: We're trying to be compassionate at this point. We have citizens of Michigan who don't have safe and clean drinking water. That's our first priority.
PLUTA: It could take years before the effects of lead poisoning show in children - things like learning disabilities and neurological disorders. That's why State Senator Jim Ananich, who is from Flint, says he also wants to see better health services, more nutrition assistance and education.
JIM ANANICH: The importance of getting this done is critical. I mean, the citizens of my community are begging for help.
PLUTA: And Governor Snyder says all of that will be part of the response as his administration tries to create both the perception and the reality that it's finally getting in front of the crisis in Flint. For NPR News, I'm Rick Pluta in Lansing, Mich.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
For more on the water crisis in Flint, I'm joined now by the city's mayor, Karen Weaver. She took office last November after campaigning on fixing the city's water problems. While she's in Washington for a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, she has stopped by our studios. Mayor Weaver, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us.
KAREN WEAVER: Thank you.
SHAPIRO: You met with President Obama this week as well as some of his senior advisers. What did you take away from that meeting?
WEAVER: Well, it was a very positive meeting. I was glad to have the president hear firsthand from me what's been going on in the city of Flint for almost two years at this point. People have been crying and begging and asking for clean water. The other thing we talked about is the support that we need to get. And while he has pledged to do everything that he can at the federal level and has, in fact, sent people to Flint to get started on this, one of the things he stressed is that he was going to be meeting with the governor the very next day because the state has such a big roll to play in this. And we know the state has money. They have a rainy day fund, a surplus of between 500 and 600 million, and Flint needs to be the priority for receiving those funds.
SHAPIRO: As we heard, the governor released about 200 pages of emails yesterday. What, if anything, struck you about those messages?
WEAVER: Well, you know, I haven't seen what's in those emails, but I will tell you this. It's something that he needed to do because one of the issues we've been dealing with has been broken trust. And we have been kept in the dark about some information regarding our water. We've been given misinformation about the water. And the only way that the governor can, if he can, rebuild trust is to start doing that. So it's a start for him, I suppose.
SHAPIRO: I want to read to you from one of the emails which was from the governor's chief staff to the governor and others. And this was from late-September. And the chief of staff, Dennis Muchmore, writes, the DEQ and the DCH - that's the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Community Health. He says, the DEQ and DCH feel that some in Flint are taking the very sensitive issue of children's exposure to lead and trying to turn it into a political football. He wrote that in September. How do you react?
WEAVER: Muchmore wrote that? You know, and that's been the problem. This has been politics and profit over the lives of people. The health of the people was not put before profit and money. And that's part of the reason we find ourselves in this situation because the other thing I have to bring up is we haven't had a voice in a long, long time in the city of Flint because we've been under emergency manager. But people have been speaking up and crying about this for a long time. So to hear that, it just verifies what we talked about. It was profit over the people.
SHAPIRO: Do you feel like you have a voice now?
WEAVER: Yes.
SHAPIRO: You're getting shipments of drinking water. You're getting millions of dollars in federal funds. What do you need most at this point?
WEAVER: You know, we need to start addressing some of the other issues now because we need the water. We need the filters, but that's a Band-Aid. But it's a Band-Aid that we're going to continue to need. But the other thing we need to do is start looking at the infrastructure. Even though we've switched back to Lake Huron water through Detroit, those lead service lines are the issue. And how long are we supposed to wait for biofilm to build back up? No one can tell us how long that will take. And we need to be able to drink our water.
SHAPIRO: No one can tell you how long that will take, meaning, you don't know when the city's water will be safe to drink again?
WEAVER: Exactly. And that's why it's still a crisis because we don't know when we'll be able to drink the water.
SHAPIRO: A lot of very high-profile figures have called on Governor Synder to resign. What's your position on this?
WEAVER: You know what? I'm glad those high-profile figures are out there and they're putting the pressure on the governor and holding him accountable for some things. What I've said is, we have an investigation going on, and I can't wait to hear the results of that investigation because everybody that should be held accountable needs to be held accountable. We want to know who knew what and when they knew it. And that's from the governor all the way down to, if it includes, local officials. We want everyone to be held accountable, and if it means they have to be removed, so be it.
SHAPIRO: Flint is a majority black city...
WEAVER: Correct.
SHAPIRO: ..Where more than 40 percent of people live below the poverty line.
WEAVER: Correct.
SHAPIRO: Many people have suggest that this would not have happened if it were in a wealthy white suburb of Detroit.
WEAVER: Yes.
SHAPIRO: How much do you believe race and poverty had to do with the response to this crisis?
WEAVER: I believe that had a lot to do with the response. It also has a lot to do with the emergency manager law that's been put in place because that's where you see emergency managers going into cities that are predominately minority African-American and where they have high poverty levels. Well, you know, I'm not the only person that believes that. That's why the local, state and national NAACP have even stepped up and put out statements regarding this because it's a civil right. Water is a basic human right, and it's being violated right now.
SHAPIRO: I want to ask you whether Flint can recover from this. But in this context, I don't even know. What does recovery mean for Flint?
WEAVER: You know what? It's a terrible thing. No community should ever have to go through what Flint has gone through, but I'm also looking at the possibility of what can come out of this. And I've always believed in Flint. I'm excited about the potential. And you know, we've got to get this fixed. But there's a lot to look forward to in the city of Flint, and you're going to have me back because I'm going to be telling the second part of this story.
SHAPIRO: The victory lap.
WEAVER: That's right.
(LAUGHTER)
SHAPIRO: When's that going to be?
WEAVER: Well, you know what? I can't tell you such and such a time. But we continue to keep getting things going our way. We're some very strong, resilient fighters in the city of Flint. So every day, more and more things continue to go our way.
SHAPIRO: Mayor Karen Weaver, thank you very much.
WEAVER: Thank you.
SHAPIRO: That's Karen Waver, the mayor of Flint, Mich. She joined us here in studio while she's in town for a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A blizzard warning begins for the Washington, D.C., area tomorrow with up to two feet of snow predicted. People in Boston are watching this forecast closely to see if this system will bring any more snow to New England. After the brutal winter they had last year, some plow drivers there are having trouble getting motivated for whatever this season may bring. Adam Reilly of member station WGBH sent this report.
ADAM REILLY, BYLINE: If Rob Drake lives to be 100, those sounds will be etched into his consciousness. Drake runs a landscaping business in Sharon, Mass. And in the winter, he plows snow for 125 clients. Last year, that work took a toll.
ROB DRAKE: You're not you. You change. It's like doing the graveyard shift 24/7. I mean, those graveyard people, they're not the same person they would be if they did the day shift.
REILLY: Ordinarily, Drake packs on a few extra pounds in the winter. Last year, he actually lost weight. And his mental equilibrium shifted.
DRAKE: It makes you, like, a little shaky, on edge.
REILLY: Once, Drake confesses, he stopped plowing mid-storm to confront a woman he thought was driving recklessly peering out of a tiny hole in her snow-covered car.
DRAKE: And I got out and I put my arms up in the air and I said, really? And she looks at me and she says, oh, my God, you're Rob Drake.
REILLY: It turned out she used to be a teller at his bank.
DRAKE: And I had my broom, I brushed off her entire car. And she said, will you now come and plow my driveway? And I said, no.
REILLY: The grind of last winter is still fresh in Bruce Maurer's mind too.
BRUCE MAURER: It's - the toughest part of plowing is between 2 and daylight. Your eyes are completely tired 'cause there's snow coming at you. That really tires you out.
REILLY: Maurer co-owns a landscaping and construction firm in Sudbury, Mass. He recalls huge storms that stretched on and on, working 28 hours straight. And then when it was over, total exhaustion. He went to Florida to recover.
MAURER: Me? It took me two days. I just wanted to sleep. I didn't want to go on the beach. I didn't want to do anything. I just wanted to sleep.
REILLY: While Maurer and Drake both hope this winter isn't quite as intense, they say they're ready to plow whatever snow falls. But some plow drivers are ready to walk away.
JASON GARDNER: If it snows again like it did last winter, I will quit. You will find the truck on the side of the road running, and I will be done, never to be seen again.
REILLY: Jason Gardner is one of Drake's employees.
GARDNER: Plowing is awful. It's absolutely awful. People out there, they think you're out there getting rich, and you're not. You're out there - you're making an honest living, but try sitting in one of these trucks for 35-40 hours at a time with no sleep. I like to tuck my kids in at night. I have two beautiful little girls and then not seeing them for a couple of days stinks.
REILLY: Of course, if the Boston area gets another winter like the last one, residents will need every plow driver they can get. So here's a gentle request from Rob Drake.
DRAKE: Everybody likes attaboys - just a wave, a smile, a thank you. I can be your hero on one storm, and I can suck the next storm. I can only get there so fast. So, yeah, any attaboy is good. We all like to feel appreciated.
REILLY: For NPR News, I'm Adam Reilly in Boston.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Europeans and other people from countries that have good relations with the U.S. are used to coming here pretty easily. You buy an airplane ticket. You fill out an online travel authorization, and that's it. But after terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Congress demanded tighter rules for those who have some connection to Iraq, Syria, Sudan or Iran. Now the State Department and Homeland Security have begun following through. NPR's Michele Kelemen is here to walk us through what the changes are. Hey, Michele.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Explain what exactly the changes are and who needs to worry about them.
KELEMEN: Well, there are 38 countries, most of them in Europe, that are part of what's called the Visa Waiver Program. So nationals of these countries, as you said, usually go online before a trip, fill out an application online. It's routine. It comes back within a couple of days, and they're all set. But now Homeland Security is looking out for people who have traveled to Iraq, Syria, Iran or Sudan in the past five years. Those people will have to go to the U.S. embassy and actually apply for a visa now, also people who are from those countries but also might be dual nationals - so for instance, a British citizen who's also holding an Iranian nationality, as was the case of a BBC journalist.
SHAPIRO: Tell us what happened in her case.
KELEMEN: Her name is Rana Rahimpour. She said she heard about the legislation but was reassured that these rules weren't in effect yet. So she went to that usual website, known ESTA, applied. But by the time her flight was coming around, her request was still pending. So when she was supposed to fly out to go visit her brother, the embassy in London said, well, why don't you just go to the airport and call ESTA? And here's what she heard back.
RANA RAHIMPOUR: They said the reason it has been pending is because of my other nationality, which is Iranian. They said because of the new legislations, I can no longer enjoy the visa waiver services, and I have to go to the U.S. embassy and apply for a visa.
KELEMEN: So she missed her nephew's sixth birthday, and she says this is particularly frustrating to her that she's now seen by U.S. authorities as Iranian more than British.
SHAPIRO: And so has there been much backlash either in the U.S. or from these other countries?
KELEMEN: Well, there's a lot of confusion. I mean, usually visa rules like this are reciprocal. European ambassadors here have been critical of this new legislation. So I would say watch this phase. Some U.S. lawmakers seem to regret this bill at this point because there's a lot of confusion here while others are complaining today that the Obama administration is being too lenient in implementing this.
SHAPIRO: And are there exemptions to this rule?
KELEMEN: There are, I mean, for people that are going to Iran, for instance, in - to do business that's allowed under the nuclear deal. There's also exemptions for aid workers and journalists or people who travel to all these countries on behalf of international organizations. But again, these people do have to go through that online application first, and Homeland Security has to decide whether or not they get exempted or they need to get a visa. And as we saw in that case of the BBC journalist, this is very much a work in progress.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Michele Kelemen speaking with us from the State Department - thanks, Michele.
KELEMEN: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A new paper in the journal Nature describes a grisly massacre that happened about 10,000 years ago in Kenya. It's the earliest known evidence of human warfare. The site was uncovered in 2012, and Cambridge University professor Robert Foley is among the scientists who have been studying the discovery. Welcome to the program.
ROBERT FOLEY: Thank you very much.
SIEGEL: The site is in northern Kenya. What exactly did your team uncover?
FOLEY: What we found is an area that's about a hundred meters by 20 or 30 meters. And in that area, we found 27 skeletons or partial skeletons or fragments of skeletons. And what we saw at first was just the back of somebody's skull just peeping through the ground. And Marta Lahr, who's the director of the project - she exposed the skeleton, and then it became clear that there were other skeletons around. Some of these had clear signs of having died violently.
SIEGEL: Was there any sign of the implements with which they might have met their demise?
FOLEY: Yes. So the traumas we were able to see basically fall into three categories. So one is what you'd think of as a blunt instrument. Were talking, here, probably wooden - big wooden, heavy clubs. And these have been used to completely smash the skulls. Then we have some where the clubs may have actually had inserted in them small, little stone blades to make them really more unpleasant. And then the third type were little stone blades or tips - probably arrowheads, which were projectiles. And these were actually embedded into one of the skulls so that clearly, we can say, well, they were both clubbed to death and probably shot with projectiles.
SIEGEL: And were these, by the way, all males skeletons, or could you tell?
FOLEY: No, no. It's men and women and children.
SIEGEL: And what are the theories behind what might've produced this result?
FOLEY: Our interpretation that this was the product of some sort of intergroup conflict, you know? Whether you want to call it warfare or not, it is a matter of definition. But it's lethal conflict between two groups.
Now, the reason we say that is that the skeletons we found were not buried. I mean, they're not in graves. They haven't been interred. They're lying where they died, and that's an extraordinarily unusual - I mean, it's unusable the find something like that. So we're interpreting this as being one group ambushing, attacking, taking by surprise in conflict with another one.
SIEGEL: And how does this find altar our understanding of life 10,000 years ago in Northern Kenya?
FOLEY: Well, the really critical thing is that the people involved were hunter-gatherers, and I think many people in anthropology and archaeology would say that warfare is something that really starts seriously once people have settled down, once they're in permanent settlements, they start to have livestock, they start to have crops. And those are things that need to be defended or they're things that you can steal. What we see here is a hunter-gatherer group also engaging in warfare. So it tells us that the conditions under which human societies will fight each other are broader, are more diverse than previously thought.
SIEGEL: Do you come away from this study - or I guess you're still in the midst of it. But do you find yourself thinking that perhaps we humans are more innately aggressive than you might've thought before?
FOLEY: Well, I think the key thing is that we have evidence for it, you know? Thinkers, philosophers, scientists speculated on this forever. So it's always been out there as a possibility. Do I think that we're less pleasant than I did - probably not. I mean, I don't think we're specifically violent and aggressive, and nor are we specifically peaceful and all-loving at all. I mean, I think the key thing about human nature is that we have the capacity for both. And our survival depends enormously on being able to cooperate. I mean, that's what makes groups exist. But under certain conditions, we are also very violent and can be aggressive and murderous in our activities. So I think it's wrong to characterize humans as either warlike or peaceful. We're both.
SIEGEL: Professor Foley, thank you very much for talking with us today.
FOLEY: It's a pleasure.
SIEGEL: That's Cambridge University professor Robert Foley on the discovery of the site of the remains of an ancient conflict in Kenya. It's the earliest-known evidence of human warfare.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We're going to hear more now about the public inquiry of a Russian dissident in London nearly 10 years ago. The report from a judge in Britain is more than 300 pages long, and it says Russia's president probably approved the killing. NPR's Leila Fadel begins our coverage from London.
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: On his deathbed, Alexander Litvinenko dictated a statement accusing Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, of poisoning him. After he passed away, it was read to the press by his friend Alexander Goldfarb.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ALEXANDER GOLDFARB: May God forgive you for what you have done not only to me but to beloved Russia and its people.
FADEL: Today, Litvinenko's widow, Marina, said her husband had been proven right.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARINA LITVINENKO: The words my husband spoke on his death bed when he accused Mr. Putin of his murder have been proved through an English court.
FADEL: The report says that in 2006, Litvenenko was poisoned in a West London hotel with a cup of green tea laced with radioactive polonium 210, an isotope manufactured in a nuclear reactor, the kind only a state could get its hand on, so radioactive that Litvinenko was buried in a lead-lined coffin. He'd been an outspoken critic of the Kremlin and of President Vladimir Putin and was said to be working with Britain's intelligence service. The report's author, retired judge Robert Owen, said Litvinenko was killed by two men - Andrei Lugovoi and Dmitri Kovtun.
ROBERT OWEN: There is no evidence to suggest that either had any personal reason to kill Mr. Litvinenko. All the evidence points in one direction, namely that then when they killed Mr. Litvinenko, they were acting on behalf of someone else.
FADEL: That someone else was the head of Russian intelligence at the time, Nikolai Patrushev, and Judge Owen said the murder was probably done with the approval of Vladimir Putin. Litvinenko's widow called for action by Prime Minister David Cameron.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LITVINENKO: I'm calling immediately for expulsion from the U.K. of all Russian intelligence operatives. I'm also calling for the imposition of targeted economic sanctions and travel bans against named individuals.
FADEL: Including, she said, the Russian president. British Home Secretary Theresa May addressed parliament soon after the report was released.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
THERESA MAY: It goes without saying that this was a blatant and unacceptable breach of the most fundamental tenets of international law and of civilized behavior.
FADEL: She called for the extradition of the two alleged assassins from Russia and said international arrest warrants have already been issued. May said the U.K. Treasury is freezing their assets in Britain, but she made no mention of any new specific sanctions on Putin or other officials on top of the already existing sanctions on Russia over its seizure of Ukraine.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAY: We will continue to engage guardedly with Russia where it is strictly necessary to do so to support the U.K.'s national interest.
FADEL: The British government has asked Russia to cooperate with the criminal investigation into Litvenenko's death and account for the actions of its intelligence services. Leila Fadel, NPR News, London.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Well, now for Russian reaction to the report. We turn to NPR's Corey Flintoff in Moscow. And Corey, how has this been covered by Russian news media?
COREY FLINTOFF, BYLINE: Well, it hasn't been a top story on the state-run television channels, but it's getting some coverage as a kind of secondary story. You know, some of these reports are referring to the inquiry in Britain as the so-called public inquiry. And the main thing that they're focusing on is the possibility that this could trigger new sanctions from Great Britain.
SIEGEL: And what about Russian officials? How are they treating the news?
FLINTOFF: I have to say that their response has been a lot like other recent cases where the government's been accused of misconduct, you know, such as that inquiry that accused Russia of state-sponsored doping in track and field sports.
First of all, they dismissed the importance of the inquiry, and the main Kremlin spokesman did that just this morning even before the report was released. The spokesman said the Kremlin wasn't interested in the judge's report and that it wasn't on the government's agenda. And then secondly, they tried to discredit the inquiry. And the spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry did that at a press conference. She said the murder was a purely criminal case that was politicized, and she criticized the process. She said it wasn't transparent because some of the proceedings were closed to the public on the pretext, she said, that they involved state secrets.
But you know, it's worth noting here that a number of recent trials in Russia, you know, especially treason and spying cases, have been closed to the public as well. So it's not as if Russian justice isn't carried out in secret either.
SIEGEL: What about the men accused of the crime? Russia has refused to extradite them, but they're not in hiding. Any response from them?
FLINTOFF: Well, yes. In fact, one of them - Andrei Lugovoi - is a member of parliament now. He represents a far-right political party. He said today the charges against him were absurd. He repeated that the inquiry was politically motivated, and he added another standard response that Russian officials use when they're accused of something. He said the inquiry was an example of anti-Russian hysteria. So the effect is to take allegations that were specifically aimed at him and another suspect and imply that they're really targeting all Russians.
SIEGEL: And what about President Putin, who's accused of, at the very least, having knowledge of this murder and, according to the report, probably approving it? Any word from him?
FLINTOFF: No. He hasn't respond directly to the allegations yet. But it can probably be said that he expressed his support for Andrei Lugovoi last March because he gave him a government metal then for services to the Fatherland. And officially, the citation said that Lugovoi was being honored for his work in developing Russia's parliament. But of course, last March was when the British inquiry's report was originally scheduled to come out.
SIEGEL: Corey, you mentioned earlier that Russian news reports focused on the possibility that this might trigger new sanctions against Russia. Is the Russian media taking that seriously?
FLINTOFF: Yes. Russian media and Russian officials have always dismissed the effect of the existing sanctions - you know, the ones that were put in place after Russia seized Crimea and supported the separatist militias in Eastern Ukraine.
But at the same time, they've been working very hard and especially at the diplomatic level in Europe to get the sanctions lifted. And of course, that's particularly important to them right now when Russia's in the midst of this quite-severe financial crisis that was brought on by the drop in oil prices.
SIEGEL: OK. That's NPR's Corey Flintoff in Moscow. Thanks, Corey.
FLINTOFF: Thank you, Robert.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
For a generation of American spies, Iran has been one of the toughest targets in the world. The CIA was forced to close its station in Tehran when the U.S. embassy was taken over in 1979. And ever since, Iran has been an intelligence black hole. That won't change overnight, but with the recent nuclear deal, diplomats in Tehran and Washington are now in constant contact. NPR's Mary Louise Kelly reports that spy agencies are tracking the diplomatic developments with great interest, wondering what doors they may open for espionage.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, BYLINE: Here's one way to look at the challenge. Most CIA officers assigned to spy on Iran have never set foot in the country.
>>FADDIS I have never stepped across the border.
KELLY: Sam Faddis spent a career chasing secrets across the Mideast, eventually heading the weapons of mass destruction unit at the CIA's Counterterrorism Center.
SAM FADDIS: I worked both Iraqi and Iranian targets for a long time. The Iraqis were a very difficult target - the Iranians much more so.
KELLY: Faddis says that's partly thanks to extreme discipline on the part of Iran's security forces.
FADDIS: Their counterintelligence capabilities are very, very good. They're very smart. They're very organized. They're also absolutely ruthless.
KELLY: The single biggest handicap for spies like Faddis has been the lack of an embassy these last 30-plus years because in most countries, here's how it works. Intelligence officers operate under official cover, meaning they have a cover job attached to the embassy. If they get caught, they have diplomatic immunity. Paul Pillar, the CIA's former top analyst for the Middle East, says that's one reason Tehran may not rush to restore full diplomatic relations.
PAUL PILLAR: There will certainly be hesitation on the Iranian side not to open up something that they would start calling a nest of spies.
KELLY: A nest of spies - a reference to the American compound.
PILLAR: I think many Iranians, especially on that hard-line side, would be quite content to make it as hard as they can as long as they can for us to find out information about them.
KELLY: And even if - and it's still a big if. But even if the U.S. reopens its embassy at some point, Paul Pillar says it will still be incredibly tough for the CIA and other spy agencies to learn the things they want to know about Iran's regime.
PILLAR: Because they aren't secrets. They are unknowns for other reasons. What will be the political future in Tehran, the struggle between hard-liners and moderates? How will it come out the years ahead? That's something that isn't secret in somebody's head or someone's drawer for us to find out.
KELLY: John Limbert agrees. Limbert was one of the American diplomats held hostage in Iran after the revolution there. He served as President Obama's point man on Iran at the State Department. Limbert believes the greatest benefit of the current climate of diplomacy may simply be more American business travelers, more American journalists pouring into Iran. That makes it easier for American spies to blend in and move around and talk with ordinary Iranians.
JOHN LIMBERT: So how does the teacher in Esfahan or the social worker in Tabriz or the engineer in Tehran - you know, what's on their mind? What are they dealing with? In a way, that's more interesting and more revealing than, you know, what is Hashemi Rafsanjani thinking about?
KELLY: Rafsanjani, the former president of Iran - whether it's what's on his mind or the status of Iran's nuclear program, Paul Pillar says years of sifting through intelligence reports have taught him one thing.
PILLAR: The more contacts you have of any sort, official and unofficial, the better, be it - the better understanding you're going to have. And that's something we've certainly been lacking in Iran.
KELLY: Pillar adds, where there are diplomatic opportunities, intelligence opportunities almost always follow. Mary Louise Kelly, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A leak at an underground gas storage field in Southern California has displaced more than 2,000 families. The damaged gas injection well has been releasing methane for three months now. And there's new information about how this happened. Ingrid Lobet reports on the science and technology of the wells and how they're coming to face with the lives of people in the Porter Ranch area.
INGRID LOBET, BYLINE: There's chemistry and geology and then there's a fifth-grader who didn't give his name but addressed a stage full of high-level health and energy officials at a public meeting.
UNIDENTIFIED BOY: It's about my fish.
LOBET: He and all his classmates had to relocate for the rest of the academic year due to the gas.
UNIDENTIFIED BOY: I don't know if it's the gas that's getting to him because he keeps on, like, laying down on his side, and I think that he's dying. So, like, could the gas be affecting animals too, not just people?
LOBET: State environmental health scientist Melanie Marty told him there's no way to know but...
MELANIE MARTY: So most toxic chemicals affect animals just like they affect people.
LOBET: Now, back to the technology of gas wells, the reason, after all, for so many public meetings like this these days. An examination of state oil and gas records shows, and a state official confirms, that the gas well that failed was being injected in a way that while legal, can be risky. It's like this - many wells have both a seven-inch casing and a narrow inner metal tubing. Think of it as a metal straw within another metal straw. Natural gas was being forced down this well through both straws. Paul Bommer teaches well drilling and production at the University of Texas.
PAUL BOMMER: The safest thing to do is to inject and withdrawal only through the tubing.
LOBET: There are several reasons but they all boil down to protecting the well in various ways.
BOMMER: That is the safety margin that is lost in doing it this other way.
LOBET: This well just north of the Los Angeles community of Porter Ranch was first drilled in 1953 and was in heavy use. Records show it had been injected most days in 2015. Like many wells its age, it also didn't have a full cement job. Cementing protects underground aquifers and it protects the well, too. Anneliese Anderle worked in the oil and gas industry and as a state engineer for 40 years.
ANNELIESE ANDERLE: You see, there's nothing protecting either the inside or the outside of the casing in this well.
LOBET: Southern California Gas Company owns the well and the underground storage field it's a part of. It declined to talk about production or injection practices. But in an earlier interview, Gilligan Wright, vice president for customer services, said it would be premature to talk about conditions surrounding the well failure.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GILLIGAN WRIGHT: We really won't know what caused the leak until we're able to stop the leak and we're able to pull out the piping and investigate the condition of the pipe and the casing.
LOBET: It is understandable that a gas provider would want to maximize use of both parts of a well pipe, says injection well expert David Schechter of Texas A&M University. When weather turns cold and demand for natural gas spikes, gas companies must provide.
DAVID SCHECHTER: You may have to produce through the tubing and the casing in order to meet the demand of a customer.
LOBET: But you risk weakening the well.
SCHECHTER: It's not good to produce through the casing. Eventually, you'll degrade the integrity of your well.
LOBET: The gas company now estimates it will intercept the failed well and close off the flow of methane in late February. For NPR News, I'm Ingrid Lobet.
SIEGEL: And that story came to us from the investigative news organization inewsource.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Sundance Film Festival begins tonight in Park City, Utah. NPR's Mandalit del Barco is there with a preview of what's to come over the next 10 ten days. Hey, Mandalit.
MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: It seems like the films that Sundance chooses each year can kind of be grouped into themes. What's one of the biggest themes in this year's movies?
DEL BARCO: Well, one theme for some of the movies this year is gun violence, a very timely issue. There are a few theatrical films on the subject and several documentaries. Katie Couric has a documentary called "Under The Gun" about the politics of gun legislation. And another doc is called simply "Newtown" about the aftermath of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Filmmaker Kim Snyder interviewed survivors, first responders, parents of the children who were killed. Here is a clip from the film with David Wheeler who lost his son, Ben, to the violence.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "NEWTOWN")
DAVID WHEELER: Every single parent who put their kid on the bus that morning did everything right. And those parents whose children survived and it bothers them and it hurts them, they also did everything right.
DEL BARCO: You know, Sundance is known for tackling really tough topics. And this year, there are also a few films about political figures. One is a feature about Barack and Michelle Obama's epic first date in Chicago. It's called "Southside With You."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SOUTHSIDE WITH YOU")
PARKER SAWYERS: (As Barack Obama) OK, it's not a date.
TIKA SUMPTER: (As Michelle Robinson) Fine.
SAWYERS: (As Barack Obama) Until you say it is.
DEL BARCO: Another is a documentary about former Congressman Anthony Weiner, who resigned after a sexting scandal. That's not to be confused with another film at Sundance called "Wiener-Dog" about a dachshund.
(LAUGHTER)
SHAPIRO: What are some of the buzziest films this year - like, what's the highest-profile thing that you're looking ahead to?
DEL BARCO: Well, you know, the films that open the festival are often the most high-profile - for example, "What Happened, Miss Simone?" the Netflix documentary about signer Nina Simone. Well, that premiered last year on opening night, now it's up for an Oscar. And this year, the big opening night documentary is about Norman Lear, the legendary TV writer and producer. In the 1970s, he gave us such shows as "All In The Family," "Sanford And Son" and "The Jeffersons." And another movie being talked about is "Birth Of A Nation," not to be confused with D.W. Griffith's racist 1915 film. This movie focuses on the real story of Nat Turner, a former slave who led a violent uprising in 1830s Virginia.
SHAPIRO: Mandalit, it feels like in the last couple of years, there's been a blurring of the lines between television and film. Are you seeing that at Sundance, which is a festival that is all about filmmaking?
DEL BARCO: Yeah, independent film at that. You know, the small screen is definitely a new area the film festival is exploring. And one of the biggest high-profile examples is a new series from Stephen King and J.J. Abrams, who directed the new "Star Wars" movie. Well, this Hulu series is about the day President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "11.22.63")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) I don't know whether Oswald was the man who did it.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) You'll figure out the rest when you get there.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) You see, the past doesn't want to be changed.
SHAPIRO: This all sounds like really intense stuff. Is there anything lighter that you're looking forward to at Sundance this year?
DEL BARCO: Well, you know, Ari, at midnight, they show movies that are really events in and of themselves. People get drunk and they line up in the snow for movies like "Yoga Hosers," which is a comedy horror from director Kevin Smith. It stars Johnny Depp and his daughter. And then there are straight horror films including "31" from director Rob zombie. It's about carnival workers who are kidnapped and held hostage. They have to survive Halloween while being stalked by a violent gang of evil clowns.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #4: (As character) Two little clowns I know took a fancy to her. So I think she might be sticking around for a bit.
SHAPIRO: That sounds super intense.
DEL BARCO: (Laughter) It's really creepy. But, you know, movies like this just scream for a rowdy audience.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Mandalit del Barco speaking with us from the Sundance Film Festival, which starts tonight in Park City, Utah. Have a good time over there, Mandalit.
DEL BARCO: Thanks, pass the popcorn.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton are starting to make their closing arguments to Democratic voters in Iowa and New Hampshire right now. The first votes in the race for the presidential nomination will be cast in a little over a week. NPR's Tamara Keith and Brian Naylor are on the trail today. Brian's in New Hampshire with Bernie Sanders, and Tam is in Iowa, following Hillary Clinton's campaign. Welcome to you both.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Thanks.
BRIAN NAYLOR, BYLINE: Thank you, Robert.
SIEGEL: And Tam, let's start with you. You've been following Hillary Clinton for a while now. The polls certainly show the two Democrats in an extremely close race in Iowa, and Iowa's very important to her. Have you heard a change in her message over the last few days?
KEITH: She's certainly sharpening the comparison with Bernie Sanders when it comes to getting things done. She talked about his health care reform bill that he's introduced many times in Congress. She says it's never even gotten a vote. She also, at this event earlier today, questioned Bernie Sanders' call to normalize relations with Iran. She's painting him as an idealist, and in her speech, she had some new lines. She said his ideas sound good on paper but will never make it in the real world. Let's listen to that.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HILLARY CLINTON: Now in theory, there's a lot to like about some of his ideas, but in theory isn't enough.
KEITH: And then she goes on to say that she plans to get things done if she's president. And you can expect to hear these lines again, especially if you watch TV in Iowa or New Hampshire because her campaign was filming to make an ad.
SIEGEL: And speaking of commercials, of ads, Senator Sanders is out with a new, very upbeat ad that might appeal to a certain demographic. Brian, tell us about this one.
NAYLOR: Yes. It's a very positive ad. The soundtrack is pretty much entirely the song "America" those of us of a certain age remember from Simon and Garfunkel. Let's hear a little of that.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SIMON AND GARFUNKEL: (Singing) They've all come to look for America.
(CHEERING)
SIEGEL: So the whole soundtrack - all we're hearing is the song.
NAYLOR: Yeah, yeah. But you know, compared to the kinds of ads that we've been seeing, especially on the Republican side with a lot of dark images and fears of terrorism and shady figures crossing the border, this is very upbeat, very positive. But it - I think it's only going to be very limited shelf life. It's - it'll be aired in - up here in New England where the electorate is largely - the Democratic electorate is largely white. But I doubt very much it's something that is going to be aired in South Carolina or Nevada and some of the other states where the Democrats are much more diverse.
SIEGEL: Well, this ad does not mention Secretary Clinton, but she's mentioning him a lot - Bernie Sanders, as Tam has noted. Is Sanders talking about Clinton at all? What's his message?
NAYLOR: The only time he has mentioned Hillary Clinton by name is when he's talking about the Keystone Pipeline. He was asked about that today, and he said that unlike Secretary Clinton, it didn't take him a long, long time to come out in opposition to Keystone. He's traveling around New Hampshire today with an environmental activist, Bill McKibben, who's a writer and led the opposite to the Keystone. But other than that, his message largely sticks to his tried-and-true, the 1 percent and Wall Street and corruption and that sort of thing.
SIEGEL: Sanders has McKibben on the road. Tam, does Hillary Clinton have any big names with her right now?
KEITH: Well, at the first two events of the day, probably the biggest names were her local organizers and some volunteers who've been making a lot of phone calls. But the last event of the day has pop star Demi Lovato. It's at a - in a college town. And then later this week, there's just a huge list of big-name people coming to stump for Hillary Clinton. I'll just run through some of the names - Billie Jean King, Julian Castro, actress Jamie Lee Curtis, Cecile Richards, who's the head of Planned Parenthood, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and actor Tony Goldwyn from the show "Scandal." He plays the president.
SIEGEL: OK. Tam Keith speaking to us from a moving bus in Iowa and Brian Naylor in Hooksett, N.H, thanks to both of you.
NAYLOR: Thank you.
KEITH: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Now we're going to hear about the field operations for the two Democratic candidates in Iowa - what their staffs and volunteers are saying when they knock on doors. Iowa Public Radio's Clay Masters reports on their roles in trying to create momentum.
CLAY MASTERS, BYLINE: Eight years ago, Hillary Clinton came in third in the Iowa caucuses. Her campaign is eager to win Iowa this time. It has 26 field offices, plenty of staff and volunteers who have been organizing on her behalf for more than a year.
Scott Thompson is knocking doors in Des Moines. On this day, he stands on Dave Petheram's doorstep and asks him if he's supporting Clinton.
DAVE PETHERAM: I'm moving there.
SCOTT THOMPSON: OK.
PETHERAM: OK.
THOMPSON: Well, do - well, it - do you have any questions? Is there anything that you need to - that I could help with?
PETHERAM: Well, as we all know, she's got some baggage, but I'm moving there, OK? I figure that may become the most sound administration.
MASTERS: This was Thompson's third stop at this house.
THOMPSON: I've spoken to his wife once and - through the door because of the dogs. And that's the first time I've met him.
MASTERS: All over Iowa, Clinton volunteers are trying to close the sale. While waiting to hear Clinton speak at a rally for the third time, Phyllis Rife says Clinton's pragmatism and experience is one pitch she uses with voters.
PHYLLIS RIFE: She's the most electable. That's my line - yeah (laughter).
MASTERS: Electable isn't the word Bernie Sanders' supporters use.
LISA CUNNINGHAM: I'm tired of dynasties, and I'm tired of Clintons and Bushes. And I just feel like it's time for a fresh face.
MASTERS: That's Lisa Cunningham, who stopped by an opening of a new Sanders field office in the small Central Iowa town of Newtown. One sign of the intense struggle between Sanders and Clinton - both campaigns have offices just down the street from each other in this town of 15,000.
The Sanders campaign hopes to recreate some of the grassroots enthusiasm that helped Barack Obama eight years ago in Iowa. On a frigid Sunday afternoon in Des Moines, a handful of young Sanders volunteers gather in a grocery store parking lot before hitting the streets with clipboards in hand.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: We have full packs here. We're going to go into twos except for a group of three.
MASTERS: Polls show Sanders has an edge over Clinton with young voters. Evan Herlocker was too young to caucus in 2008. He introduced Sanders at a rally the night before. Today, he's canvassing in subzero temperatures in a low-income neighborhood he says the campaign just hasn't hit much. Herlocker says he wanted to volunteer for an underdog.
EVAN HERLOCKER: I thought, hey, he's not going to be as popular. I might get to do some cool things that, you know, I wouldn't get to do if I volunteered with, like, the Clinton campaign.
MASTERS: Herlocker says most of the time, he gets a good response from his pitch on Sanders. But with the days ticking down, he has a lot more doors to knock.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Hello.
HERLOCKER: Hi there. I'm a volunteer with the Bernie Sanders campaign.
MASTERS: For NPR News, I'm Clay Masters in Des Moines.
SHAPIRO: Let us know what you like about the show and what you don't. You can reach us on the web. Go to npr.org and click on contact at the bottom of the page.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
You can write to us, and of course, you can tweet and Facebook us, too. The program is @NprATC. I'm @RSiegel47.
SHAPIRO: And you can find me on Twitter @AriShapiro or on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat - all the place the kids hang out these day.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Florida attempted to turn a page on a dark chapter of its history today. Researchers released the final report of an investigation of unmarked graves at the now closed Dozier School for Boys. For more than a century, the reform school in Florida's panhandle was notorious for abuse and beatings. Some boys died there. And after a three-year investigation, a team from the University of South Florida says it's been able to identify only some of the remains found at the school. NPR's Greg Allen joins us from Tallahassee, where the researchers delivered their report to the governor today.
And Greg, this is a story that's gotten a lot of attention, especially after many of the men who were sent there as boys have told their stories of horrific beatings. The school was closed in 2011. What new did we learn today?
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: Well, I'll get there, Robert, but a little background first that, you know, these stories were told by a group called the White House Boys. They took their name from a small white building on the old Dozier School campus where they say these beatings were administered. And dozens of these men have come forward over the years with similar stories of how they received a hundred lashes or more from a leather strap that was weighted with metal they say. The White House Boys say that some children died as a result and that some of those are the people who are buried in those unmarked graves at the school. Those stories are what lead a forensic anthropologist from the University of South Florida, Erin Kimmerle, to ask the state of Florida for permission to conduct the search for graves at the school. After exhuming bodies and conducting a DNA analysis, Kimmerle says her team has positively identified the remains of seven boys buried on the school grounds and presumptively identified 14 others using other means.
SIEGEL: But researchers say that 55 sets of remains were found there. What happens to the remains of the boys who haven't been identified?
ALLEN: Well, Kimmerle says her team is committed to working with the families to identify the rest of the remains if possible, and the work will continue. One problem is finding the families of the boys who died there. The earliest deaths that they've found were around 1914 and boys are known to have been buried at the school into the 1960s. But records of who the boys were who died at the Dozier School are hard to find. The White House Boys and researchers say deaths there were often not reported. Some of the White House Boys were on hand for the final report today and they were asking the state for remembrance of some sort to record what happened there. Here's one of the White House Boys, Bill Price.
BILL PRICE: There should be a memorial put up in front of that White House building letting people know what happened, what the state of Florida allowed to happen, and that it should never happen again.
SIEGEL: Greg, does this conclude the search for remains or are the researchers confident that they have found all those who were buried at the school even if they haven't identified them all?
ALLEN: Well, I think the search is over. The forensic anthropologist in charge, Erin Kimmerle, says, though, that she can't say if they've found all the bodies that were buried there or if there are more out there. She says they ran down every lead they could find, they've done all they can do. But from looking over archives and news accounts, researchers say there's about a hundred boys who were known to have died at the school over more than a century, and in the end they found only 55 graves. So that's led many of the White House Boys to believe there are more graves out there on that 1,400-acre campus. But unless new information comes out where the graves might be, Kimmerle says her team's work is over.
SIEGEL: And what about the remains, where will they be reinterred?
ALLEN: Well, that's something of a sore point here. The White House Boys are adamant that the remains should not be interred at the old Dozier School, they should be far away and they should not be interred at the nearby town of Marianna or even in that county there. Many feel the town was complicit in the mistreatment of the boys who were held at the school. Some officials and business leaders from Marianna, though, were on hand today here in Tallahassee to express interest in the future of the 1,400-acre property. One that I talked to said the town was willing to acknowledge its past, to apologize and to move on, and some of the White House Boys told me that they now are ready to do the same thing - to move on.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Greg Allen speaking to us from Tallahassee.
Greg, thanks.
ALLEN: You're welcome.
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For the first time, a woman will be one of the full-time coaches in the National Football League. The Buffalo Bills made the historic move by hiring Kathryn Smith as a special teams coach. She had been an administrative assistant with the Bills. NPR's Tom Goldman reports, her promotion is part of a larger trend in traditionally male-dominated professional sports.
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: For 30-year-old Kathryn Smith, her new job as quality control special teams coach actually is a promotion. A Buffalo Bills press release says, for years, Smith has worked in football administration and assisted the assistant coaches, first for the New York Jets and most recently with Buffalo. For fans of the TV show "The Office," her job titles might sound a bit like Dwight Schrute's eternally frustrating assistant to the regional manager, but nfl.com reporter and columnist Judy Battista says Smith's quality control job hardly is a dead-end position.
JUDY BATTISTA: It is the first foot in the door. I mean, they're breaking down film, they're providing scouting reports. It's grunt work, but it's the entree into the coaching world.
GOLDMAN: Smith will be third in the special teams coaching hierarchy, after the coordinator and his assistant. You won't see her calling plays on the field, which for some may temper the enthusiasm about her first-ever position, especially when compared to NBA female assistant coaches such as San Antonio's Becky Hammon and Sacramento's Nancy Lieberman. Both have been visible on sidelines coaching men. Again, Judy Battista.
BATTISTA: Nancy Lieberman and Becky Hammon were great professional basketball players so that's a much more natural transition for them, and there's a much bigger pool of women who might naturally say, you know, my playing days are over, I think I want to go into coaching. There's not that big a pool in football.
GOLDMAN: The lack of playing experience may limit the numbers of potential female football coaches, but it certainly shouldn't limit the ability to coach. So says Amy Trask. She's former CEO for the Oakland Raiders and now a football analyst for CBS Sports Network.
AMY TRASK: Inquiring whether stating one needs to have played the game in order to coach is akin to saying one needs to have had open heart surgery in order to be a heart surgeon or whether one needs to have been a criminal defendant in order defend criminals. The answer to each of those questions is no.
GOLDMAN: Trask is the first female chief executive in NFL history. She notes she began her nearly 30-year groundbreaking career with the Raiders as an unpaid intern. Since she resigned as Raiders CEO in 2013, there've been several notable female hires in the NFL - Sarah Thomas as a full-time official, Jen Welter as an assistant coach during training camp for the Arizona Cardinals and now Kathryn Smith, which Trask calls terrific news.
TRASK: And yes, I do consider it significant. But what will truly be significant is when such things are no longer significant.
GOLDMAN: In a statement, Buffalo head coach Rex Ryan said Smith deserves the promotion based on her knowledge and strong commitment. Tom Goldman, NPR News.
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This weekend, college hopefuls will line up for the last time to take the SAT. At least, the current version of the college entrance exam. It's gotten a serious makeover, and the new test will roll out in March. From the NPR Ed team, Cory Turner reports.
CORY TURNER, BYLINE: Let's blow the dust off the very first multiple choice SAT from 1926. Here's a dramatic reading of one question by my colleague, Claudio Sanchez.
CLAUDIO SANCHEZ, BYLINE: Which of the three following words are most closely related - chops, liver, round, fore-quarter, rump, sirloin?
TURNER: That's likely to stump at least a few more students today than it did then back when more kids grew up on farms and knew their cuts of beef. Clearly, tests need to adapt, and the SAT hasn't changed much in a decade. Cyndie Schmeiser, the chief of assessment at the College Board, which runs the test, says it was time to stop doing things like this...
CINDY SCHMEISER: We would ask students the definitions of words that perhaps they crammed for the night before the test but may not use.
TURNER: The new test, she says, will include vocabulary, but within a reading passage - less cramming, more context. And that's not the only change.
SCHMEISER: A second is using evidence in a passage to support their answers.
TURNER: The College Board hopes the redesign will capture a student's college and career readiness. If those words sound familiar it's because they've become a refrain for advocates of the Common Core learning standards, which most states now use. The rival ACT has been surging in recent years in part because it adapted much earlier to the Core. Now the SAT is playing catch-up, and here's where things get interesting.
MICHELLE EKSTROM: I think the conversation is really heating up in states.
TURNER: Michelle Ekstrom works on education issues for the National Conference of State Legislatures. She says, for years, the federal government has required states to test high school students at least once in math and reading and then report the results. Those tests used to be state specific because standards used to be state specific. But now most states are using Common Core. With the two big college entrance exams claiming to be in sync with the Core too, states are wondering, do our students, especially our 11th-graders, really need to take multiple tests anymore? Is the SAT or ACT good enough?
EKSTROM: That is something that legislators are diving into deeply - whether they are an adequate substitute for those other assessments that they had in place and if they will do both.
TURNER: Ekstrom says the idea of killing two birds with one test is appealing to lawmakers especially in states that saw anti-testing protests last year.
EKSTROM: Of course, the amount of testing is a huge issue.
TURNER: At least half a dozen states have already gotten permission to use the SAT or ACT as an official high school assessment, and that's welcome news for students in, say, Connecticut who will spend less time testing as a result. States also hope it will encourage more students to apply to college. The irony, though, is that as states embrace these college entrance exams in new and powerful ways, many colleges are doing the opposite. Just this week, the Harvard Graduate School of Education released a report calling on admissions offices to go test optional and to pay more attention to a student's, quote, "concern for others and the common good." Cory Turner, NPR News, Washington.
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Some people have been waiting for this for a long time - the return of "The X-Files" to television. It happens on Sunday night, and the old gang is back - stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson and the creator, Chris Carter. Tim Greiving says so is the guy who created the show's signature sound.
(SOUNDBITE OF "THE X-FILES" THEME SONG)
TIM GREIVING, BYLINE: For nine years, that theme had an almost Pavlovian effect on TV junkies addicted to the paranormal adventures of FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. But in the beginning, it was just a job for composer Mark Snow.
MARK SNOW: So I get the assignment - you're doing "The X-Files." I said, fine. You know, it was just another pilot.
GREIVING: Snow was already an old pro when "X-Files" creator Chris Carter first approached him back in 1993.
CHRIS CARTER: I was looking for something that, you know, boy scouts could hum at the camp fire, you know, as a scary song and, you know, something akin to "The Twilight Zone."
GREIVING: The composer had scored plenty of detective shows, drama series, comedies and TV movies. He was born Martin Fulterman in Brooklyn just after World War II and graduated from Julliard, where the young drummer co-founded a band with his friend and fellow composer Michael Kamen called New York Rock AND Roll Ensemble.
(SOUNDBITE OF NEW YORK ROCK AND ROLL ENSEMBLE SONG)
GREIVING: But none of Mark Snow's previous experiences quite prepared him for "The X-Files." Chris Carter says find the right theme music took a few tries.
CARTER: Mark would send me things, and I'd say, not quite; no, I don't think so. I said to him, you know, there's a song that I love. I just love these guitars. Listen to this song, and see if it inspires something. And the song is by The Smiths, called "How Soon Is Now?".
(SOUNDBITE OF THE SMITHS SONG, "HOW SOON IS NOW?")
GREIVING: Snow listened to everything Carter sent him, but eventually had more luck just monkeying around.
SNOW: I put my elbow down on the keyboard, and I had this effect on the piano. It was an echo delay effect, which turned out to be the accompaniment figure in the theme that went (imitating "The X-Files" theme song) - that part. So I thought, oh that's a nice little accompaniment figure. What could be the other parts of it?
GREIVING: For the melody itself, he tried synthesized violin, flute, piano, but none of them were right.
SNOW: Then I found this whistle sound, and I tried it.
GREIVING: It was an old Proteus sample called "Whistling Joe."
SNOW: My wife heard it and says, well, that's pretty interesting; what's that? And I said, well, I'm just fooling around with this new theme. She said, you know, I'm a good whistler, too (laughter). Maybe I could beef it up a little bit.
GREIVING: Yes, that's Snow's wife beefing up the now-iconic theme.
(SOUNDBITE OF "THE X-FILES" THEME SONG)
GREIVING: It wasn't exactly what "X-Files" creator Chris Carter had anticipated.
CARTER: It has none of those guitars in it. But what it has in it is that signature whistle.
(SOUNDBITE OF "THE X-FILES" THEME SONG)
GREIVING: When Fox ordered six new episodes of "The X-Files," Chris Carter had Snow on speed dial for the music.
SNOW: I said, do we need to talk about this? And he said, no, just do what you think is right. You've been doing it for a long time. My idea was to incorporate some of the old, classic sound things that I did in the past that some fans might recall, plus a lot of more updated sounds and samples.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GREIVING: But Snow didn't want to stray too far from that '90s synthetic sound, which was such an integral part of the original 200-plus episodes and two feature films. And Chris Carter says that sound was key.
CARTER: Oftentimes, what scares you most on "The X-Files" is not what you see, it's what you hear. And Mark helps to build those moments. He helps to, of course, emphasize the drama, set the mood and tone. But it really is essential to the scariness of the show.
GREIVING: And the show has been just as essential to Mark Snow's creative work.
SNOW: Other TV series I've done, you know, it's basically the same thing every week, same kind of sound, you know? And those are - they're certainly good gigs, but just in terms of the wonderful, open-ended, creative world of "The X-Files" for me has been, and hopefully continues to be, just pure magic.
GREIVING: Maybe the truth, to paraphrase a line from the show, is in the music. For NPR News, I'm Tim Greiving in Los Angeles.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has expanded the list of countries that pregnant women should avoid because of the Zika virus. Health officials say the mosquito-borne illness may cause severe birth defects. In Brazil, where there's been an outbreak, thousands of babies have been born with brain damage. As NPR's Jason Beaubien reports, researchers say those cases may be just the beginning.
JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE: Something new and quite frankly frightening appears to be happening with the Zika virus right now. For decades, Zika was a virus that turned up in monkeys and occasionally in humans in Africa and Southeast Asia, but its symptoms were mild and the number of confirmed human cases was extremely low. But in 2007, there was a big Zika outbreak in the island of Yap in Micronesia. Seventy-five percent of the island's population got infected, or about 5,000 people. Still, few people reported any symptoms at all. Then in October of last year, babies started turning up with smaller than normal heads in Brazil.
ALBERT KO: We do still know so little about this virus and the harm that it can cause. This is really a relatively new pathogen.
BEAUBIEN: Albert Ko, an epidemiologist from Yale, has been working with the Brazilian Ministry of Health to investigate the Zika outbreak. The big question now is, why all the sudden is this virus spreading like wildfire? Ko says it may be that the Americas are fertile ground for the virus. This hemisphere has the right type of mosquitoes to transmit Zika and people have no immunity to it. Or, it may be that the virus has mutated.
KO: This may be a new strain that's traveling very quickly that's been able to adapt itself to the mosquito. But we really don't know. We have to do more - you know, there's more work that needs to be done.
BEAUBIEN: The CDC has issued a travel alert for pregnant women encouraging them to avoid 22 tropical countries where Zika transmission has been reported. Officials in Brazil and Colombia have taken the extraordinary step of asking women to not get pregnant. The link between Zika and microcephaly, a condition where a baby's brain and head don't fully develop, still hasn't been definitively proven but health officials are operating under the assumption that there is one. Brazil reported only 150 cases of microcephaly in 2014 before the virus arrived yet has recorded nearly 4,000 cases of the birth defect since October.
Marcie Treadwell is a fetal medicine physician at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. She says it's possible that in many more babies the virus is causing less severe forms of brain damage that will only become apparent later.
MARCIE TREADWELL: We don't know the full range of the impact of the virus.
BEAUBIEN: Given that many people who get infected with Zika don't get sick at all, she says...
TREADWELL: There may be a whole host of women who have had the virus while pregnant who have kids who are completely normal or that maybe appear completely normal that develop mental issues as these kids get older and we start to see some of the impact. We just don't know the range.
BEAUBIEN: Currently there's no treatment for Zika nor is there a vaccine. A half dozen cases of Zika have already turned up in the U.S. over the last two weeks, all of them in travelers returning from parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, where the outbreak is raging. CDC officials, however, predict any outbreaks in the U.S. mainland will be localized and relatively small because Americans have better access to screens and air conditioning to protect themselves from mosquitoes. Jason Beaubien, NPR News.
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This week, the publisher Scholastic announced it would stop distributing a children's picture book titled a "A Birthday Cake For George Washington." The book was under heavy criticism for white-washing the history of slavery even though it was created by a multicultural team. A few months ago, another children's book called "A Fine Dessert" drew similar criticism. NPR's Eyder Peralta looks at challenges that writers, parents and teachers face in trying to present such sensitive topics to young children.
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: Allyson Criner Brown is showing me around the offices of Teaching for Change in Washington, D.C.
ALLYSON CRINER BROWN: The (unintelligible) office and my office are just right through here.
PERALTA: The place is full of picture books laid out on desks and shelves. Downstairs they have a little public library. For years, the nonprofit, which advocates for a more inclusive curriculum in public schools, has been keeping track of what it considers to be some of the best and worst multicultural kids books out there.
PERALTA: Why do you keep the bad ones?
BROWN: Oh, because there's so much to learn from them.
PERALTA: "A Birthday Cake For George Washington" was just put on the bad shelf. It tells the story of Hercules, a slave George Washington used as a chef. It's a book full of smiles as Hercules and his daughter, Delia, take pride in baking for the president. But the story glosses over the fact that Hercules and Delia are in bondage. And it's only in the note following the story that the author writes that Hercules escaped, leaving his daughter behind.
BROWN: It is - it's almost as if the book presents that because he had moments of happiness and because he took pride and joy in his work - that outweighs the fact that he was enslaved. And that cannot ever be a part of telling any story about someone who was held in bondage
PERALTA: Brown says that kind of simplistic idealized narrative in a picture book is just a reflection of the adult world. This is a country, she says, that wants to believe the United States started as of the land of the free and the home of the brave.
BROWN: The nation didn't start like that for everyone. So as much as we struggle with it, how to then have these difficult conversations with our children with things that we're wrestling with ourselves I think is very tough for a lot of people.
PERALTA: But children aren't waiting around for adults, says Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, a professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania. She studies how schools approach touchy subjects like slavery, and she spent time with students at a Philadelphia middle school.
EBONY ELIZABETH THOMAS: I found out that kids are not only ready to discuss these topics, they are already discussing these topics with their friends.
PERALTA: The students were reading a book about a runaway slave in Canada, and Thomas says they were making sophisticated connections between the historical fiction and the realities of the Black Lives Matter movement today. So while kids are already grappling with some of the world's ugliness, she says adults are still clinging to a Victorian ideal of an innocent child.
THOMAS: So the innocence of the ideal child must be protected at all costs. We must keep the dirty secrets of our society away from those kids, and I think that kids are seeing those contradictions.
PERALTA: That instinct is familiar to writer Matt de la Pena.
MATT DE LA PENA: You know, I'm a new dad. I have a 20-month-old daughter, and you really just want to protect your daughter so much from the sadness. And you feel like, you know, she's going to see it eventually on her own, but then you have to take a step back and say, you know what? My need to protect isn't as important as for her to see the truth.
PERALTA: The truth is something de la Pena thinks about a lot. His books for young adults often deal with the harsh realities of crime and violence, and he thinks that's valuable to kids.
DE LA PENA: Young readers have a chance to experience very scary and sad and dark things in books. It's kind of the safest way to experience these things for the first time.
PERALTA: De la Pena just won a Newbery Medal for his book "The Last Stop On Market Street." It's about CJ, a black kid taking a bus ride to the soup kitchen with his grandma. At one point, CJ asks why the poor neighborhood is always so dirty. Sometimes when you're surrounded by dirt, the wise grandma says, you're a better witness for what's beautiful. Eyder Peralta, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The race for the presidency is more intense than it has ever been. Polls are getting tighter, attacks are getting sharper. Iowa caucuses in just over a week. To discuss the state of play, David Brooks of The New York Times is with us, as is E J Dionne of The Washington Post and the Brookings Institution.
Good to have you both here.
DAVID BROOKS: Great to be here.
SHAPIRO: Let's start with the attacks between the two leading Democrats, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. We have a clip from each of them on the campaign trail this week.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HILLARY CLINTON: Now, in theory, there's a lot to like about some of his ideas. But in theory isn't enough. A president has to deliver in reality.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BERNIE SANDERS: We have had enough of establishment politics, establishment economics. We need to move in a new and bold direction.
(APPLAUSE)
SHAPIRO: David, is this 2008 all over again, when Barack Obama came from behind to defeat Hillary Clinton?
BROOKS: It actually feels a little like that to me. You know, this is not a great year for pragmatism and for incrementalism, and Hillary has positioned herself as a pragmatic incrementalist. I agree with that philosophically, but this is a year where the electorate wants some sort of transformational, tectonic shift.
SHAPIRO: E J, do you think that's right, that Clinton is just not the candidate for the electorate this year, or is there something she did wrong that she could've done differently?
E J DIONNE: Well, see what I think is that there's an Obama paradox here which is, if you look at the polls in Iowa, 91 percent of Iowa Democrats - likely caucus voters - like Barack Obama. But there is also this frustration in the Democratic Party that Democrats, including Obama, have been on the defensive, and there is something liberating about the Bernie Sanders rhetoric and that you see this kind of catharsis in that remarkable ad that Bernie Sanders made where no words are spoken but the great Simon & Garfunkel song, "America," plays, and it does create a sense of a movement. In that sense, Bernie Sanders's campaign is akin to Obama's. But I think something else needs to be said, which is, from the beginning - and as David knows, I thought this last fall - I've always thought Bernie Sanders was well set up to win Iowa and New Hampshire because those are good electorates for him. And the question will be, does this carry forward? But Bernie has run a very good campaign that captures a certain mood inside the Democratic Party.
SHAPIRO: What is about the electorate in Iowa and New Hampshire that's particularly good for Sanders?
DIONNE: Well, it's primarily, overwhelmingly white, very liberal generally in the case of Iowa caucus goers. And New Hampshire, it's right next door to Vermont. Bernie is a well-known figure. So these are good states for him. That doesn't take away from the fact that he's run a really good campaign.
SHAPIRO: Let's turn to the Republicans now where the race in Iowa, at least, seems to be coming down to Ted Cruz versus Donald Trump. And we have a clip of each of them, starting with Trump.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: See, they're not tough guys. They're phony tough guys. They're trying to get votes and after they get in, they're politicians - all talk, no action politicians. It's not going to work, not going to work.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TED CRUZ: We need to take power out of Washington and back to we the people. That is what this campaign is all about.
(APPLAUSE)
SHAPIRO: David, at this point, the establishment seems to be at war over which of these two men is the lesser of two evils.
BROOKS: It's sort of a war between ideology and chaos, (laughter), so...
SHAPIRO: Which is which?
BROOKS: (Laughter). If you're a philosophical conservative, if you work at National Review, if you work at The Wall Street Journal editorial page, you like - of the two, if you're forced to choose between the two - you like Cruz. He's more consistent ideologically, he's more consistent philosophically. If you're a rogue Republican like Sarah Palin, you like Donald Trump because he's rogue, and ideologically, he's all over the map.
SHAPIRO: Although, Terry Branstad, the governor of Iowa, who is considered an establishment Republican, disavowed Cruz this week.
BROOKS: Yeah, I think that was local politics. That was about ethanol. So I happen to think this is a year - and I think is an effect which the Republican establishment has not appreciated - that the last 10 years have made the Republican electorate less conservative, or, at least, less antigovernment. They're willing to have a government so long as it's not filled with liberal cultural values that's on the side of the little guy. And Donald Trump has tapped into that.
SHAPIRO: E J, the National Review wrote a really scathing editorial against Donald Trump, and the RNC, the Republican National Committee, actually pulled the National Review from a debate that they were supposed to be a part of because of this.
DIONNE: Well, I'm not surprised because they clearly chose, in a principal way, one could say, to take a stand in the presidential election so the idea would've been that they're supposed to be neutral. But I think what's fascinating here is that within the Republican Party, you've got splits within splits within splits. You've got the aggressive right end of the party divided between the ideologues - one could say Cruz's chaotic ideology - and on the other side, you know, the reality show conservatism that has a populist or faux populist element. So that's just the right end. You got the establishment split between people who say we'd even - we'd prefer Trump to Cruz, and others in the so-called establishment who say both of them would be a disaster. Lindsey Graham was very powerful on this this week. And they're just petrified that both of them would lose, and then you've got other kinds of Republicans floating around. The people who might save the Republican Party are independents. Watch New Hampshire. Forty-four percent, I believe, of New Hampshire voters are independent - somewhere around there. That's where John Kasich, for example, has an outside shot.
SHAPIRO: But, David, for months people have been saying within the Republican primary, there's the establishment lane and the outsider or evangelical or Tea Party or whatever you want to call it lane, and that just doesn't seem to be the case.
BROOKS: Yeah, the lanes are - as I say - shaken up by what's happened, you know. You could - there's been this tectonic shift especially among the white working-class. You know, suicide rates are up, wages are stagnant, they've suffered this awesome hit and their mood has shifted, their viewpoint has shifted and so they're much more unpredictable. A - angrier, but also less ideological.
DIONNE: Two conservative writers, Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam, wrote many years ago, or back in 2008, 2009, that the Republican Party had gotten white working-class votes for years and had done nothing for them. So in addition to all these other splits, you do have a class war in the party ironically led by a billionaire.
BROOKS: Yeah, who has no actual program, by the way.
DIONNE: Correct.
SHAPIRO: Just briefly - many people had dismissed the relevance of Sarah Palin in 2016. When she endorsed Donald Trump this week, it sounded like maybe she's not so irrelevant after all. What do you think, David?
BROOKS: Yeah, this final week, magic matters a lot. Charisma matters a lot - just the vibe around the campaign. And I still think Clinton's going to get the nomination, but there's a vibe around Sanders in part because of this ad and the same around Trump right now on the Republican side.
DIONNE: Molly Ball in The Atlantic wrote, I think brilliantly, that Sarah Palin's approach to politics paved the way for Donald Trump. And I don't know if she carries that many votes, but with the some of the evangelical voters that Cruz and Trump are fighting for, she might help a bit.
SHAPIRO: That's E J Dionne of The Washington Post - his new book is called, "Why The Right Went Wrong" - and David Brooks of The New York Times. Thanks to both of you for coming in on the eve of this massive blizzard.
DIONNE: Great to be with you.
BROOKS: We're all doomed.
(LAUGHTER)
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Over the years that we've covered the war in Syria, NPR's relied heavily on activists, journalists and humanitarians from the region to help bring us the stories from inside the war zone. One of those people is Wissam Tarif. He's in Washington today, and we have invited him into our studios to bring us up to date. Good to see you face-to-face.
WISSAM TARIF: Thank you very much. Thanks for having me.
SHAPIRO: You have lately been working on getting airdrops to some of the parts of Syria that have been under siege. People are experiencing starvation, and international groups expressed concern that if these airplanes fly over to drop aid, they could be shot down. Where do things stand?
TARIF: Well, there has been two airdrops - one in Kobani down by the U.S. government almost a year and a half ago, and the Russians surprisingly say that they air-dropped aid in Deir el-Zour a few days ago.
SHAPIRO: Deir el-Zour is another place that's been beset by starvation.
TARIF: Yes, absolutely. The U.N. now tells us that there are 400,000 people in these situations in 15 different spots living under strict siege, people starving. We believe that the numbers are way higher because the U.N. struggles with access. And actually, there are around one million Syrians now living in terrible weather, almost as cold as Washington is today. And people don't have electricity, water, food, fuel for heating. But let me be clear - dropping aid from the sky could be an emergency measure to save lives right now, but that is not a solution. It's not something sustainable.
SHAPIRO: Is there a specific story you've heard in the last couple of weeks from somebody who is under siege that really captures how desperate things are right now?
TARIF: Hulut (ph) - a mother, 38 years old - has three kids. She's trapped in Maldamea (ph) - Syrian and Damascus suburbs. One of her daughters died last week because she doesn't have enough food.
SHAPIRO: Do you know how old the daughter was?
TARIF: Less than 2 years. Hulut and her other two kids and around almost a million Syrians are trapped in a similar situation.
SHAPIRO: How do you hear of these stories of people like Hulut this mother who you tell us about?
TARIF: That's what they do. I spend most my time talking to people inside on WhatsApp, over Skype. And it's surprising now they don't have food, but some of them have access to the Internet in our world these days.
SHAPIRO: The next round of U.N.-brokered peace talks is supposed to happen next week. The details are still unclear. You're going to Geneva for those talks. Do you see any hope that the international community can actually get on the same page and work together to end this?
TARIF: There is a political momentum where the Americans and the Russians want all parts of the conflict to sit and talk. This is the third round...
SHAPIRO: The third round of peace talks you mean.
TARIF: Of peace talks. In 2014 in Geneva, we've seen the Russians using tactics to make their position look weak, divided and make the regime look coherent, solid, one front. And just last week, I was in New York at the security council, and when Mr. de Mistura, who's the special envoy of the general secretary of the United Nations working on resolving this conflict was briefing the council. We're all surprised that the Russians asked for three names to be added to the opposition list. And these three names are people very close to the regime. So their tactic is to insert certain people on the position delegation. We all go to Geneva. One of these guys will step out of the door, and one more time we will have headlines that position is divided. They look terrible, and everything collapses.
SHAPIRO: Well, then this suggests that really there is no international cohesion, and the hope for these peace talks really is very slim.
TARIF: Then what we need to focus on is go to Geneva and try to bring the minimal for the Syrians. If it's not peace, then it's changing the world dynamic in the country, lifting the siege on population that is currently starving, to make the conditions for the population, for the Syrians bearable.
SHAPIRO: Wissam Tarif is the Middle East director of Avaaz, a nonprofit advocacy group. He is based in Beirut and joined us today in our studios here in Washington. Thanks very much for coming in and speaking with us.
TARIF: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Our next story has all the trappings of an ugly political scandal - big money, corrupt officials, fleeced taxpayers, even a political operative-turned-informant complete with an FBI microphone stashed in his suit. It sounds like Washington intrigue, but Andrea Seabrook reports this has been playing out since Allentown, Pa.
ANDREA SEABROOK, BYLINE: There are only seven people on Allentown's City Council, but the vote they took on Wednesday night was a big one.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Mr. Glazier.
JEFF GLAZIER: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Mr. Guridy.
JULIO GURIDY: Yes.
SEABROOK: The room is packed - no seats left, so citizens stand along the sides and the back of the room. The question at hand - should Allentown's mayor resign?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Mr. President, I have seven yea and no nays.
O'CONNELL: Thank you, Mr. Hammond (ph).
SEABROOK: Just about every one of these city council members was a long-time staunch ally of Mayor Ed Pawlowski. Most got elected with his help. They're only calling for his resignation now after the FBI raided Pawlowski's offices, four of his associates have been indicted and the city's financial controller pleaded guilty last week to fraud. City Council President Ray O'Connell.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
O'CONNELL: Maybe it is too little, too late. Maybe it is too little, too little too late. But it is here and it is now.
SEABROOK: Now, it's not common for the FBI to investigate small-town, local politics, much less raid the offices of a mayor. But in this case, Allentown is at the center of a pay-to-play scheme that could travel far outside Pennsylvania. The city is key though. For most of the 20th century, Allentown had a booming economy. Mack trucks were built here. Western Electric made phones and other systems for Ma Bell. But by the year 2000, those companies were gone, along with most high-paying jobs. It's a classic Rust Belt story. Enter Mayor Ed Pawlowski. He was instrumental in passing a state law that set up big money incentives for businesses to relocate and build in downtown Allentown. In the last few years, close to a billion dollars of taxpayer money has poured into development contracts with big businesses. But now FBI documents filed with the federal indictments show that many of the companies who received those contracts were also big donors to Pawlowski's political campaigns. After a close ally of the mayor wore an FBI wire, it became clear that Pawlowski himself had rejiggered the city's bidding process. According to the charges, he was making sure if those big contracts went to the right companies.
ERIC DOWDLE: People that were donating money to him, people that expected something in return - God help them.
SEABROOK: This is attorney Eric Dowdle. He represents the former city controller, the one who pleaded guilty last week to fraud. Dowdle invokes that ever true axiom of all political scandals - follow the money. In this case, the FBI is investigating everyone from the chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party to at least one big-time fundraiser in national politics - Jack Rosen. He's raised serious money for both Clintons and Barack Obama. Oh, yes, and Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski. Jack Rosen's businesses have also made a lot of money in Allentown. Attorney Eric Dowdle says this might explain why all the federal scrutiny.
DOWDLE: The prosecutors, the U.S. attorneys that assigned to this case are very capable and as it comes to criminal investigations, it's very dangerous. And I think that there are a lot of people who are incredibly nervous right now.
SEABROOK: As for the mayor, Pawlowski skipped the city council meeting. After the unanimous vote calling on him to resign, he released a statement calling the move a stunt and a waste of time. For NPR News, I'm Andrea Seabrook.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Mediterranean Sea is still a deadly place for asylum-seekers trying to reach Europe. More than 40 people, including 17 children, died at sea near two tiny Greek islands today. Joanna Kakissis joins us from the island of Lesbos, a main gateway for migrants into the EU. Hi. Joanna.
JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Tell us what happened today.
KAKISSIS: Two wooden boats sank today. And on those boats there were scores of asylum-seekers. The boat sank near these two very tiny Greek islands, Farmakonisi and Kalolymnos. They're in the south Aegean Sea, and there are hardly any people actually living on those islands. Rescue staff is stretched so thin along several Greek islands and along the Greek shoreline that they just couldn't keep up with all the boats coming in. And the boats are actually launching from all over the Turkish coast.
SHAPIRO: You're on the Island of Lesbos, which receives so many asylum-seekers. There's actually a processing center there. What have you seen at the processing center lately?
KAKISSIS: So today, you know, lots - there were lots of people there because there have been so many landings in the last two or three days - you know, 15, 20 boats coming a day, and those boats usually have between 50 to 60 people onboard. And there are a lot of families, and they were very shocked at the news of the drownings, you know, and of course they say to themselves, it could have been us. Most of the people I spoke to, they can't swim. And on top of that, you know, they were freezing. It's freezing over here. It's so cold. One Iraqi dad had told me that he actually put his 4-month-old daughter inside his jacket with her little life vest on to keep her from freezing to death because he was almost as worried about that as he was about her drowning. He was just terrified. And everyone is still talking, also, about a three-year-old boy who froze to death just a couple of days ago here. And I actually saw the boat from the shore in the distance. It was just sort of floating in between Greek and Turkish waters, and the rescue boat was trying to get to it. And by the time the rescue boat reached the boat - the migrant boat - the little boy had already frozen to death because he'd been in the water more than an hour. So this is all very real. These are all very real fears that people at the migrant camp were talking about today
SHAPIRO: Joanna, when the weather is so cold and the water is so choppy in January, you would think that people would be too afraid to cross, and yet thousands are still coming. Why?
KAKISSIS: Well, you know, again, what people have told me today and what they've told me all along, all of last year, you know, wars are still tearing apart Syria and Iraq. And Afghanistan is still an extremely dangerous place to live. And those migrants who go to Turkey, as you know since you've been to Turkey, there's no future there. They can't work. Their children can't go to school. They can't - they find themselves - they have no access to social welfare, so they're destitute. And crossing becomes - crossing this very dangerous sea becomes the only choice, even if it means that they could die and their children could die. So, so far - just to wrap your mind around it, so far this January - January's a very slow month for migrant crossings, but more than 36,000 people have crossed so far just this month, and the months isn't even over. And again, just to put some perspective on this, that's more than 2,000 percent increase from January 2015
SHAPIRO: That's Joanna Kakissis speaking with us from the Greek island of Lesbos. Thanks, Joanna.
KAKISSIS: You're welcome, Ari.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
How many degrees of separation do you think there are between presidential candidate Donald Trump and folksinger Woody Guthrie? Well, we learned this week that it's a lot fewer than you might guess.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I AIN'T GOT NO HOME")
WOODY GUTHRIE: (Singing) I ain't got no home. I'm just roaming around. Just a wandering worker, I go from town to town. And the police...
SHAPIRO: This is Guthrie's song "Ain't Got No Home," and it's actually the key to this story. Back in December of 1950, Guthrie was living in New York. He'd signed a lease for an apartment in a big housing development in Brooklyn called Beach Haven. The landlord was a New York developer named Trump - not Donald, but his father, Fred.
WILL KAUFMAN: Guthrie at least knew Fred Trump because both their signatures are on the leases that Guthrie signed about every six months or so.
SHAPIRO: That's Will Kaufman. He's a professor of American literature and culture at the University of Central Lancashire. Recently, he was in Tulsa at the Woody Guthrie archives and stumbled upon the link.
KAUFMAN: And so I was leafing through his letters, and I was leafing through his notebooks, and I came upon entries in his notebooks which are really critical and scathing about Fred Trump and the color line.
SHAPIRO: Guthrie wrote that Fred Trump would not rent Beach Haven apartments to African-Americans. In fact, Fred Trump was sued several times over the years for alleged housing discrimination. According to Kaufman, Guthrie even reworked that tune, "Ain't Got No Home," into a protest song against the man he called old man Trump. As far as we know, it was never recorded, but Kaufman gave us his rendition.
KAUFMAN: I think I've got it to memory. He goes (singing) Beach Haven ain't my home. I just can't pay this rent. My money is down the drain, and my soul is badly bent. Beach Haven is like heaven where no black ones come to roam. No, no, no, old man Trump, Beach Haven ain't my home.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I AIN'T GOT NOT HOME")
GUTHRIE: (Singing) Now, as I look around, it's mighty plain to see. This world is such a great and funny place to be. Oh, the gambling man is rich, and the working man is poor. And I ain't got no home in this world any more.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
There is a blizzard warning in place tonight that stretches from Washington, D.C., to New York. Tens of millions of people are in the path of a storm that could bring as much as 2 and a half feet of snow to the Washington area. Schools throughout the region were closed today. The federal government shut down at noon. NPR's David Schaper reports that just about every mode of transportation except maybe sleds will come to a halt because of the storm.
DAVID SCHAPER, BYLINE: The mad travel scrambles began last night as those who had flights scheduled for today or this weekend tried to change their travel plans in order to leave Washington, D.C.'s Reagan National Airport, for example, ahead of the storm. Michelle Carey is an attorney from Chicago who was working in the nation's capital.
MICHELLE CAREY: And when I heard about the snowstorm, I changed my flight (laughter). And my boss is still here, and he lives in Florida. And he can't get out, so he might get stuck here.
SCHAPER: At Washington, D.C.'s, Union Station, where Amtrak trains are still running but will be on a very limited schedule this weekend. Twenty-one-year-old Anna Russo was trying to get back to school in Philadelphia.
ANNA RUSSO: Well, I was originally supposed to go home tonight around 7 p.m. and take a bus home, but highways are shutting down. So I instead decided to get out as quick as I can and trains seemed like the safest option.
SCHAPER: Here at Chicago's O'Hare Airport, the departure board shows most flights to cities such as Baltimore, Philadelphia, Nashville, Charlotte, New York, La Guardia, Washington, Dulles, Washington National and other cities are canceled. People who are here are trying to travel to the East Coast ahead of the storm.
MARIEFAUX MENAGE-SMALL: Actually, I have to catch a plane to go to Paris through New York.
SCHAPER: Mariefaux Menage-Small and her husband left Chicago this morning because their Saturday flight to New York is canceled, but now they won't be able to fly to Paris until Monday.
MENAGE-SMALL: Instead of spending one night or one day in New York, I'm going to spend three days. We're going to enjoy American TV in the room in New York. It's going to be fun.
SCHAPER: Actually, many travelers are taking the delays and cancellations in stride, understanding that this colossal snowstorm threatens the safety of anyone who tries to navigate through it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MURIEL BOWSER: We have a forecast that I don't think we've had in 90 years.
SCHAPER: Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BOWSER: It has life-and-death implications, and all the residents of the District of Columbia should treat it that way.
SCHAPER: The district's Metro transit system is shutting down for the weekend late-night. Baltimore is shutting down its transit system, too. Twelve to 18 inches of snow is forecast in Philadelphia, and New York could get a foot of snow, where Mayor Bill de Blasio says the city is throwing every resource it has at the storm.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BILL DE BLASIO: There'll be 2,300 workers per shift, 579 salt spreaders will be pre-deployed on Friday evening and we have 303,000 tons of rock salt on hand.
SCHAPER: In addition to the heavy deep snow, high winds of up to 50 miles an hour are a concern. Utilities are gearing up for widespread power outages, and officials in coastal areas are warning residents about possible flooding. Airlines have canceled all of their flights into and out of the hardest-hit airports tonight and Saturday. And some are taking additional steps to help with the snow removal.
ROSS FEINSTEIN: For example, we're not going to have any aircraft at any of these airports that are going to be impacted. We're going to move them out of the way from the storm system.
SCHAPER: American Airline spokesman Ross Feinstein says that will allow airport authorities to clear the snow faster without planes in the way. He says it also helps the airline get their planes back into service quicker and able to resume normal operations. David Schaper, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This storm is also shutting down parts of the South. Governors in Virginia, West Virginia, North Carolina and Georgia have all declared states of emergency. Government offices in Kentucky and Tennessee were closed today. In Nashville, people are looking at more snow than they've seen in a decade. They've got some trepidation and excitement. Emily Siner reports from member station WPLN.
EMILY SINER, BYLINE: The snow in Nashville has turned a city of drivers into a town of pedestrians. Buses and tractor-trailers are stuck in the middle of roads, even on the interstate. And cars can't make it up the icy hills.
CALVIN GOOCH: I lost traction right here. I should've stayed at home but, you know what, it's hindsight 50-50 right there (laughter).
SINER: Calvin Gooch is a security guard who got stuck on a hill in Nashville. In a different part of town, Elizabeth Ratliff isn't bothering with a car today. She's walking in the street in tire grooves that are left over by a few daring drivers.
ELIZABETH RATLIFF: Headed to my neighbor's house right up the street to build snowmen.
SINER: Ratliff has lived in the area all her life and says she can't remember a snow like this. Up to 8 inches may fall by the end of the night.
RATLIFF: We obviously aren't prepared for anything like this, but we're going to brave it anyway.
SINER: Mark Barry is doing his best to prepare. He's the only person shoveling snow on the block.
MARK BARRY: Well, I lived in Michigan for five years in the late '90s and learned if you can get ahead of the snow, it's a lot easier.
SINER: Still, a couple hours later, his hard work is almost unnoticeable with the new snow falling down.
MARK KING: Keep going.
SINER: Mark King has a different approach to the snow day. He's taking his son around in a four-wheeler.
KING: With two young kids, no school, no work for me today - it's fun.
SINER: Schools have actually been closed here since Wednesday. Nashville's one of those southern cities where classes are canceled at the first threat of snow, but today is unusual. City offices, universities, even Nissan's huge manufacturing plant nearby, they're all closed. In North Carolina, Gov. Pat McCrory made a plea to companies this morning to consider closing their offices.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PAT MCCRORY: Fortunately with technology and hopefully with no power outages, a lot of these people can do work from home. But I want everyone to take their public safety first at this point in time.
SINER: And even as far south as New Orleans, where there is not snow, temperatures are still cold enough to warrant a freeze plan, which means the city is setting up extra shelters for the homeless. But for many across this region, the weather simply brings a sense of wonder that doesn't happen too often.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #1: It's snowing.
SINER: In Oxford, Miss., several kids are having an impromptu snowball fight and jumping on a lightly-dusted trampoline.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #2: Who's bigger? The snowman or you?
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD #3: The snowman.
SINER: There's only about an inch of snow on the ground here, but they're making the most of it. For NPR News, I'm Emily Siner.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A 21-year-old student from the University of Virginia is the latest tourist to be detained while traveling in North Korea. The country's state-run media reported that Otto Frederick Warmbier was arrested while perpetrating what they called a hostile act against the country. The adventure travel company Young Pioneer Tours confirmed that their client was detained, and they said they're working to address the case. To answer some questions about tourism in North Korea, we've called on Curtis Melvin. He's a researcher at the U.S. Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Welcome to the show.
CURTIS MELVIN: It's good to be with you.
SHAPIRO: We have no information about what this student did that led to his arrest, but can you tell us about the kinds of rules that Western tourists to North Korea are asked to follow - what they can and cannot do?
MELVIN: Yes. Tourism in North Korea is unlike tourism in many other countries. You're required to stay in a group. You're required to have two guides, who do actually report on you. And the tour groups are supposed to follow a set itinerary, and so there's very little improvisation that takes place.
SHAPIRO: And are there natural things that people would do as tourists in other places that you could get in trouble, perhaps detained for doing in North Korea?
MELVIN: Yes. In North Korea, the tourism companies usually provide a briefing tour before people enter the country where they lay out rules and expectations. Some of these are don't take pictures of military sites or of soldiers, don't take pictures of people without their permission. And then there's some more obscure North Korea rules, such as if you're taking a photograph of the Kim Il-Sung or Kim Jong-Il statue, you're supposed to get the entire statue in the frame. And the North Koreans actually check people's cameras when they're leaving the country and delete photos that they find offensive.
SHAPIRO: But it's one thing to say if you take a certain type of photo it might be deleted from your camera before you leave the country. It's another thing to be detained. What kinds of offenses are punishable by arrest?
MELVIN: Yeah, that's a really good question because most of the offenses they detain tourists for are really actions that would be considered benign or silly in other countries. And so in the past, an American was detained for leaving a Bible hidden in a restaurant in Chongjin. And another American simply tore up his tourism visa when he arrived there and was taken into custody. So the North Koreans - they've prioritized tourism as an industry that they want to support, and the government is spending more money on it. But they are sending very mixed signals with how they treat people and how they expect them to behave.
SHAPIRO: The group Young Pioneer Tours that this student went to North Korea with advertises itself on its website as offering budget tours to destinations your mother would rather you stayed away from. Has traveling to North Korea gained some kind of cachet among adventure travelers and do the trips actually deliver on a promise of adventure?
MELVIN: Yes. I would say that most of the people who go to North Korea are people who are, quote, unquote, "adventure travelers" and people who are interested in the geopolitics of the region.
SHAPIRO: And is a typical trip there an adventure?
MELVIN: Yes. If you are a typical middle-class American who has, you know, a 9-to-5 job and you've typically taken a vacation to maybe the Caribbean if you've been overseas, there's nothing like North Korea anywhere else in the world. And you will see something that you can't see anywhere (laughter). And it's probably good, too, right, that there's only one place left to see this. But for people who are interested in it, it is an incredible learning experience.
SHAPIRO: That's Curtis Melvin, researcher at the U.S. Korea Institute at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Thanks for joining us.
MELVIN: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Obama has ordered an inquiry into how the Environmental Protection Agency handles information that could affect public health. That's because the EPA was aware of problems with the tap water in Flint, Mich., as early as last April. Staffers knew that some residents had lead levels in their tap water that were dangerously high. But as Michigan Radio's Lindsey Smith reports, those concerns weren't made public.
LINDSEY SMITH, BYLINE: Lee-Ann Walters figured something was wrong with her tap water. Her twin boys got a rash every time they took a bath. Clumps of her daughter's hair fell out in the shower. This was a year ago, in the winter of 2014.
LEE-ANN WALTERS: We quit drinking the water in December when my 14-year-old got sick. And it started coming through our filter, out the kitchen sink brown.
SMITH: Back then, city and state officials repeatedly told people in the Flint the water was safe, but Walters didn't believe them, so she called the EPA's Midwest regional headquarters in Chicago. She talked to a guy named Miguel Del Toral. He's a program manager within the region's drinking water branch. When he heard from her, he started to poke around.
MIGUEL DEL TORAL: I'd received a call that the lead was coming from her plumbing and that she needed to hire a plumber.
SMITH: In older homes, the plumbing can lead to high lead levels. But the plumbing at the Walters' house was new, and it was plastic. Through her research, Walters discovered Flint wasn't treating its water properly. The city was not adding chemicals to the water that prevent lead from leeching from old underground pipes.
DEL TORAL: Even though she had told me that, I just - in my head, I was thinking, you know, that's not possible. You know, I couldn't believe that was true. I thought, there's a misunderstanding here or some kind of miscommunication. It took some prodding, but eventually, last April, the state admitted to Del Toral that Flint was not using any kind of corrosion control treatment - treatment that's required under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Del Toral was stunned. He told the state Flint should start treatment right away. But Michigan's environmental regulators disagreed. Susan Hedman is the federal EPA regional administrator in the Midwest.
SUSAN HEDMAN: The Safe Drinking Water Act puts states in the driver's seat.
SMITH: When we spoke in November, Hedman said the EPA could only advise, not force the state to do anything. In later June, Del Toral wrote his concerns about Flint in a draft report. He gave a copy to Walters, the Flint mom who had alerted him to her water problems because specific information about her water tests and her child's lead poisoning were in the report. It was Walters who gave it to the media. Hedman says she couldn't talk about the report back then because it wasn't finalized.
HEDMAN: So it put us in an awkward situation. I know we looked a bit tongue-tied.
SMITH: EPA's silence allowed state regulators to fill the communications void. In July, Brad Wurfel, who was Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality spokesman before he resigned, said this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BRAD WURFEL: Anyone who is concerned about lead in the drinking water in Flint can relax.
SMITH: Wurfel said there was no broad problem in Flint. He called Del Toral a rogue employee, and the EPA said nothing. Emails show Hedman told the mayor of Flint at the time that Del Toral's report was only a draft, and no conclusion should be drawn from it. Meanwhile, people in Flint were still drinking water that was probably not safe to drink. Yesterday, Hedman submitted her resignation. White House press secretary Josh Earnest says President Obama has ordered an inquiry into how the EPA interacts with local government officials.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOSH EARNEST: We don't want a situation where the EPA is unnecessarily obstructed from being able to share information with the public that has a direct impact on the health, safety and well-being of the public.
SMITH: In Flint, people are relived that the government is finally taking their concerns seriously. But they also just want to know when their water will be safe to drink. For NPR News, I'm Lindsey Smith.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
You might have heard the phrase peak oil - the idea that, in any oil drilling operation, production eventually peaks and declines. We recently heard another phrase - peak stuff. The idea is that people in the West just don't need to buy more candle holders or coffee tables. And the man who suggests we have hit peak stuff is an executive at IKEA, the company that fills our homes with stuff. IKEA's chief sustainability officer Steve Howard joins us on the line now. Welcome.
STEVE HOWARD: Hi.
SHAPIRO: What did you mean when you said the West has hit peak stuff?
HOWARD: If you look at things like oil - well, actually, oil sales have peaked in the U.S. and Western Europe. Beef sales have pretty much peaked. Sugar sales have pretty much peaked. You can see trends in things like cars where young people, they're getting their driving licenses either later or not getting them at all. This trend's very broad across society. I didn't actually say peak candle holder, but I was talking about the broader trends. And, you know, we're a business, and we sell home furniture, and we're not immune from the trade. Obviously, you know, there are still people who don't have - who have very limited means who would like significantly more stuff. But broadly, you saw a tremendous expansion in consumption and people's livelihoods through the 20th century. And the use of stuff is plateauing out.
SHAPIRO: Does the idea of peak stuff in the West suggest that IKEA will be pulling back from the U.S. and some Western European countries as you expand in developing countries?
HOWARD: No, no. We still want to meet more customers and to make ourselves much more accessible, so we'll actually expand in the U.S. and still in most markets in Europe.
SHAPIRO: But then help me understand how you expand in countries like the U.S. when you think that people are going to be buying less and less stuff.
HOWARD: I don't think we're there yet. You know, my comment about peak stuff was, if you take the total material impact of society in the West, it's probably just about peaked. But then if you say, well, we exist in that world, too, but what we'll make sure of that we do is, you know, we will always say - we like to act in the best interest of our customers.
SHAPIRO: Part of IKEA's brand seems to be affordability, which some people think of as disposability. It's hard to imagine that somebody is going to spend $30 on a chair and pass that chair along to their children.
HOWARD: We found that to be largely not true. In Sweden, we did a trial with a take-back of plastic garden furniture. It was all going to be recycled. And people only brought broken plastic furniture. People brought back stuff that they were really done with. It was not just IKEA furniture; it was very broad. People worry about - they want to actually find a secondary market for their IKEA products, actually, so people find channels themselves. And you find that the products get handed - do get handed on.
SHAPIRO: Are you suggesting that rather than people sell their used IKEA furniture on Craigslist or eBay, you would like them to come back to IKEA and, I don't know, trade it in in for a new model or something like that?
HOWARD: We started a service in about 20 countries around the world where we'll help facilitate mattress recycling because one of the big things is - you know, if you think about a mattress, how long do you want a mattress to last? So we've frequently got mattress guarantees of 20, 25 years, and that's probably long enough. But people find it difficult. You know, you're worried about, how do you dispose of a mattress? So we've really focused on making sure we can have mattresses where we can secure the recycling so it can be turned into another mattress or into other sort of products. And in France and in Belgium, we've got something called Second Life. And there, actually, customers can send in photographs of products. They'll get an offer for a gift voucher - $30 for your BILL bookshelf or whatever. You bring the product to the store, you get your gift voucher. It's then sold at that price as is. So a customer that comes in and actually is happy with that product can take it away.
SHAPIRO: That's Steve Howard, chief sustainability officer at IKEA. Thanks for joining us.
HOWARD: Thanks a lot.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
During this presidential campaign, we've heard a lot about anger. The angriest seem to be Republicans, who have been speaking out on illegal immigration, ISIS and President Obama. Donald Trump has said he is proud to carry that mantle of anger. On the left, there is a different kind of frustration, a dissatisfaction with the political climate, which is driving the popularity of Bernie Sanders. NPR's Brian Naylor has more.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I was just wondering if you were planning to vote for the Democratic primary...
BRIAN NAYLOR, BYLINE: At the Salem, N.H., field office for the Bernie Sanders campaign, volunteers are busily working the phones, contacting registered Democrats and asking who they intend to support in next month's primary. Carol Couch says she's made many such calls and done a lot of walking, going to door to door in this southern New Hampshire town.
CAROL COUCH: As my 9-year-old granddaughter would say, always say you like their dog (laughter).
NAYLOR: I sit down with Couch in a back room of the field office. The 69-year-old retiree is sporting a white Bernie-Sanders-for-president t-shirt. She says she likes Sanders because he talks about issues important to her, like fairness or, rather, the lack of it.
COUCH: Rampant cheating and not caring about other people - that doesn't sit well with me because we're all in this together. And that's what Bernie epitomizes to me.
NAYLOR: Couch says there might be some anger among Democrats about fairness, about how the deck has been stacked in favor of the 1 percent, but nothing like she's seen from the Republican candidates and their supporters.
COUCH: There isn't the vitriol. There isn't the hatred that, I think, is frightening. You don't have any of that from any of the great people I've met volunteering for Bernie, and certainly not from the senator.
NAYLOR: In his stump speech, Sanders does address anger among voters. He explains it and says he understands it in a very clear way. It's what's helped him break through against his chief rival, Hillary Clinton. Here he is in Wolfeboro, N.H., last night.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BERNIE SANDERS: And why people are so angry is they're working harder and harder. Many of them are slipping into poverty. Everyone is worried about the future of their kids.
NAYLOR: People are asking, Sanders says, what's going on?
Susan Bartlett, who works for the state Humanities Council, says she's gone back and forth between supporting Sanders and Hillary Clinton. She brought her two college-age kids to hear Sanders last night and explains her mood this way.
SUSAN BARTLETT: I wouldn't say I'm angry so much as disappointed and concerned and concerned for the future for our children and grandchildren in terms of the income disparity and racial tensions, which I think are very much economic-based as well as, you know, deep-seated racial issues.
NAYLOR: Doug Smithwood from Wolfeboro says what he feels this primary season is frustration - frustration at the office holders who can't or won't find solutions to the nation's problems.
DOUG SMITHWOOD: I think everyone's just sick of squabbling. You know, nothing gets done. There's so much, you know, middle ground for compromise, but it's just not in a number of politicians' capabilities to compromise in getting stuff done. I mean, I don't think the American public overall thinks that they've got to get everything their way.
NAYLOR: And that's a lot different than what you hear on the Republican side. That might largely be because it's been a Democrat in control of the White House for the past seven years. So while there's no talk of taking the country back, Democrats, have concerns and frustrations, too. And Sanders argues that's something only a revolution will address. Brian Naylor, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Part of that revolution is the idea that the government should provide health insurance for everyone. The so-called single-payer model is used in other countries like Canada and South Korea. But policy makers in this country have never given it a serious look. NPR's Scott Horsley looks at why.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Bernie Sanders make a simple argument for overhauling the health care system. The United States spends more than twice as much as other countries do on health care, but Americans aren't any healthier. And tens of millions of people here have no health insurance.
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BERNIE SANDERS: Our vision must be to guarantee health care to all people in a cost-effective way. And that, to me, means a Medicare-for-all single-payer program.
HORSLEY: Advocates claim a single-payer system would do a couple of things to lower the cost of health care. With just one bill-payer covering everyone, it would dramatically streamline paperwork. Gerard Anderson of Johns Hopkins says health care administrative costs here are two to three times what they are elsewhere.
GERARD ANDERSON: We're paying quite a high amount for having a lot of choice among different health insurance systems. So Americans like choice; we just have to pay for it.
HORSLEY: Needless paperwork is only part of what's keeping health costs high. Anderson says the most important factor in America's costly medical bill is prices.
ANDERSON: If you got to the hospital, you're going to pay a lot more. You go to a doctor, you're going to pay a lot more. You buy a prescription drug, you're going to pay a lot more. And it's because we don't have anybody negotiating the prices as one entity as they do in Canada or they do in the U.K.
HORSLEY: Backers say a single payer would have the bargaining power needed to force doctors, hospitals and drugs companies to accept lower prices. Advocates tried to make that case in the early days of the Obama administration, though single-payer was never really part of the conversation.
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UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: My question is, why have they taken single-payer off the plate?
(APPLAUSE)
BARACK OBAMA: We got the little single-payer advocates up here.
HORSLEY: President Obama told this town hall audience back in 2009 single-payer might make sense if the U.S. were starting from scratch, but it's not. Obama was leery of causing too much disruption to one-sixth of the U.S. economy, and Hillary Clinton makes much the same argument today.
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HILLARY CLINTON: I'm not interested in ideas that sound good on paper but will never make it in the real world.
HORSLEY: Harold Pollack of the University of Chicago says, while it's easy to imagine an idealized single-payer system, it's harder to sketch out the roadmap that would take the U.S. from here to there.
HAROLD POLLACK: You cannot close down the American health care system on a Friday and say we're going to open it on Monday as a single-payer system.
HORSLEY: Ongoing opposition to the Affordable Care Act shows just how resistant Americans are to tinkering with their health care. What's more, Anderson says, the government doesn't have a great track record of pushing cost containment.
ANDERSON: Any time we've tried to negotiate prices, what you basically see is, oh, we want to negotiate with hospitals, except for that one hospital in my district that really deserves the money.
HORSLEY: Multiply that by 535 lawmakers and a powerful army of lobbyists. There are a lot of jobs riding on our $3 trillion health care system, and Pollack says the doctors, insurers and drug companies aren't likely to take a pay cut quietly.
POLLACK: That's going to be a knife fight. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't do that, but it's a very, very big challenge.
HORSLEY: Even so, Pollack sees the argument over single-payer as a healthy debate, one we didn't have back in 2009. Former Sen. Max Baucus says, in hindsight, Democrats might have been wise to keep single-payer on the table, if only as a bargaining chip. It would have made Obama's push for a public insurance option look moderate by comparison. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Britain's prime minister announced on Monday that he wants immigrants to learn English. If they don't, they could face deportation. David Cameron drew widespread criticism because his focus is on Muslim women. He introduced a plan to spend almost $30 million on English classes and suggested that those who don't know the language may be more susceptible to extremist views. NPR's Leila Fadel reports on the reaction.
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: At the Migrant Resource Center in central London, Ruby Douek volunteers to teach English for free.
RUBY DOUEK: So health is how we are, how we feel. Maybe sometimes we are not so well. Maybe sometimes...
FADEL: She feigns different ailments and goes through basic vocabulary.
DOUEK: I am sick. I have a headache.
FADEL: Her class is a mix of people from around the world. She volunteers here, she says, because newcomers to Britain can't get a job without English and they can't afford English classes without a job. Now, David Cameron says people who want to stay in Britain need to speak English, but his plans concentrate on the plight of women in communities that he says aren't fully integrated into British society. He named Muslim women as a particular problem and said that if immigrants don't improve their fluency in English, that could affect their ability to stay in the U.K. Cameron spoke to the British television channel ITV.
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DAVID CAMERON: There are also obligations that we should put on people who come to our country and chief amongst them should be obligations to learn English because then you can integrate, you can take advantage of the opportunities here and you can help us to build the strong country that we want.
FADEL: Writing in the Times of London, Cameron said he would tell the hard truths to confront a minority of Muslim men who he said had backward attitudes that exerted what he called damaging control over women and their families. Cameron told the story of a Muslim mother who couldn't speak English so she couldn't connect with her son's struggles in British society before he got onto a path of extremism. But his comments also sparked outrage from many in the Muslim community who said he was unfairly singling out Muslim women. Humera Khan runs a charity for Muslim women and families called the An-Nisa Society.
HUMERA KHAN: Of course we believe everybody should be able to speak the national language of whichever country they live in. It's not just Muslims living in Britain speaking English. It's important you're able to access a lot of information. In principle, it's an important thing.
FADEL: She says that there is a problem with a minority of British Muslim youth being lured into radical groups the same way some other youths join street gangs, but that must be dealt with in context and not blamed on whether their mothers speak English or not.
KHAN: The link in the way that it was framed is dangerous because it conforms to this idea that Muslim women are placid and oppressed, and David Cameron is reinforcing that.
FADEL: Back at the Migrant Resource Center, Ruby Douek says she found Cameron's plan confusing. Over the summer, the government cut nearly $65 million earmarked for English language classes, but the prime minister is saying it's vitally important for immigrants to improve their English.
DOUEK: So it's kind of take with one hand and then give back a bit with the other.
FADEL: The nonprofit where Douek volunteers is so underfunded it's being forced to sell the building where she teaches. Leila Fadel, NPR News, London.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Guardian's weekend magazine has a new advice columnist answering readers' dilemmas on life and love. She just started on the job last weekend, and she joins us now from NPR West.
Would you mind introducing yourself?
ALANIS MORISSETTE: My name's Alanis Morissette, advice columnist, et cetera. (Laughter).
SHAPIRO: Et cetera as in Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter.
MORISSETTE: (Laughter). Yes, but I'm Canadian. I'm far too humble to extol my own virtues here. (Laughter).
SHAPIRO: How'd you become an advice columnist?
MORISSETTE: I think I was born into this one. Every, you know, family has their roles, and my role was of family therapist, peacekeeper, as far back as I can remember. Pre-verbally.
SHAPIRO: Like, with siblings and parents and everything.
MORISSETTE: Yes, I was probably the toddler before I could even speak just holding everyone's hands and bringing them into the circle, you know? And then after a while, just this sort of natural inborn kind of intuition and empathy and the capacity to really get inside people's experiences and have a sense of their perspectives and then, you know, I'd like to think some hard-won wisdom over the years and some humor, which is always huge.
SHAPIRO: The Guardian is a British paper, and my understanding is that the Brits refer to an advice columnist as an...
MORISSETTE: Agony aunt.
SHAPIRO: Agony aunt. How do you feel about that title?
MORISSETTE: I'll take agony. I mean, I'll take anything, you know? I think the planet in general, especially with women, they basically have these prohibited feelings. Like, you can't be angry, you can't be sad and you can't be afraid. Those were the big three for me. And so I'm constantly saying to people, why can't I be sad? (Laughter). And my songs, I think, evidenced that. So for me agony aunt is a compliment, really.
SHAPIRO: When did you first hear the phrase? What was your initial reaction to it?
MORISSETTE: My first interview with the Guardian, they said, so you're the new agony aunt? And I said, I'm sorry, what? I'm a what? What's the new label of the week for me (laughter)? I've had a lot of them ascribed to me so they're always fascinating. Yeah, that's a new one for sure.
SHAPIRO: What kind of job interview is involved in being an advice columnist?
MORISSETTE: I think it might've been a case of my having slowly come out of the proverbial closet, so to speak, around the more sort of psychotherapeutic, academic part of me. And 20 years ago, people were a little less open around the idea of a rock star being psychotherapeutically inclined so there was a lot of shaming about it. I remember a bunch of magazines used to say, you know, Alanis Morissette and her psychobabble, or Alanis Morissette's stadium therapy. And over the last few years, people have just gotten to a point where it's actually kind of a boon, it's kind of exciting for me to have this other part.
SHAPIRO: Did they give you test questions to hear what your advice would be?
MORISSETTE: They didn't. I think they trusted me, which is so lovely.
SHAPIRO: Do you mind if we give you some test questions?
MORISSETTE: Sure, I'd love to be put on the spot. As long as they're real. If they're kind of made up then it's odd.
SHAPIRO: This is real. Actually this first one comes from our ALL THINGS CONSIDERED intern, Greg Molle, who I should mention is French. So we asked him to record his question. You'll hear he has a bit of an accent. But he promises us this is real. Let's listen.
GREG MOLLE: So my roommate keeps watching "The Dark Knight," the Batman movie, like, in a loop. When I come back from work, he's watching it. When I go to work in the morning, he's watching it. And he keeps laughing at very awful moments when the Joker is doing bad stuff like killing people, and it kind of freaks me out. What do I do?
SHAPIRO: Alanis Morissette, what advice do you have for our intern, Greg?
MORISSETTE: I would have a heart-to-heart conversation with him because there's some shadow stuff likely going on. It could be that he's - as a kid, he was told he couldn't express anger so then when he sees it on a television and he sees it anywhere, he gets really excited about a part of him that's been prohibited. So talking about it is nice, and you can also make a request to your roommate. So you can say, do you mind watching it after I leave? It kind of freaks me out and puts me in a weird mode all day.
SHAPIRO: Greg is sitting on the other side of the glass here, and he's nodding his head and raising his eyebrows and looking like, yeah, OK, I buy that. So I think...
MORISSETTE: Ding, ding, ding. You can stay, Alanis.
(LAUGHTER)
SHAPIRO: We also asked on Twitter and we got a question from someone named Timmy Metzner, and he said his father recently died, his sister is pregnant and the question is, should my younger sister or I have the rights to namesake?
MORISSETTE: Are they fighting over the name?
SHAPIRO: I think the question is which one of them should have the right to name their child after the recently deceased father.
MORISSETTE: Well, Gabriel Garcia Marquez wrote that beautiful book, "One Hundred Years Of Solitude," and if you look at the family map, there was the same name that showed up for 15 people (laughter), and it always kind of broke my heart in a stunning way. So I would say have at the name if the name really resonates with you and it really speaks to you emotionally, everyone should have access to it if it's part of your family lineage.
SHAPIRO: Nice. There must be a weird tightrope between trying to answer a specific question and also trying to write a column that'll be read by how ever many people and relevant to as many of them as possible.
MORISSETTE: Yeah, there's some element of leaning toward wanting it to be as universal as possible, but at the same time, if I just really focus on the question and really focus on the details that are given - and there's enough details, thankfully, that I can have an opinion. 'Cause if it were too vague I don't think I could give a sort of broad stroke answer. It wouldn't be applicable. But I just go for it with the actual question and I just, you know, say a little prayer that it'll apply to someone else, if it can.
SHAPIRO: That's Alanis Morissette, Grammy award-winning musician, now a podcaster and also the newest advice columnist for The Guardian's weekend magazine. Alanis, it's been great talking with you. Thank you.
MORISSETTE: You too, thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Here at NPR in Washington, we're already seeing an impressive deluge of snow. They are calling this storm Snowzilla. Grocery shelves are empty, transit systems are shutting down. Some people from colder parts of the world might be rolling their eyes at us, but just imagine what it's like if this is the first time you've experienced snow.
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UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: One, two, three.
SHAPIRO: That's a YouTube video of young boy from Syria tobogganing down a snowy hill. He's a refugee who just settled with his family in Canada.
MAANVI SINGH, BYLINE: They're so bundled up that they can barely move and they're sliding down this hill giggling all the way down. It's wonderful 'cause the expressions on their faces are just, like, pure joy.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Maanvi Singh first showed us this video and posted it on our Goats and Soda blog. She also wrote about the first time she saw snow. It was after her family moved from India to the U.S. and they visited Lake Tahoe in California.
SINGH: I think was 8 or 9 years old. I remember getting out of this, like, minivan and stepping out into snow, and I had no idea what it would feel like - whether it would feel like the shaved ice in a snow cone or if it would feel kind of heavy, or would it be super light? And I remember, like, touching it without gloves at first, and I was, like, oh, my gosh, this is way colder than I have ever imagined. And it's biting. It kind of hits your face and it hurts. My cousins, who are younger than me, wanted to build, like, a snowman or something, and at that point, I was like, no, I'm going back in the car and I'm never coming out. How do people live in this weather? Like, how is this even a thing?
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SHAPIRO: We asked our followers on social media for their stories of first snow. Stephen Charles from Greensboro, N.C., sent us this memory.
STEPHEN CHARLES: My first encounter with snow was leaving St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, and joining the military and having to report to Fort Dix, N.J. It was my first time going from 80s and 90s to that winter. It was 19 degrees. Not having the right clothes and having to learn how to march in formation on snow and ice.
SHAPIRO: Here's another memory from Sofia Jordan in Sterling, Va.
SOFIA JORDAN: This is my first real snow ever. I grew up in Louisiana and Texas. I got through Texas winters with hoodies and sweatshirts, and I didn't purchase a wool coat up until six months ago when I made the move from Austin, Texas, to Northern Virginia. So while everyone else is pretty bummed out about this weekend, I am really looking forward to it.
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SHAPIRO: However you feel about the snow this weekend, we want to hear from from you. We're using the hashtag #SnowOutOfMyElement. Tweet to us. The show is at @npratc, and I am at @arishapiro.
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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
So while we're on the subject of apps, there is a hot mobile app on college campuses called you Yik Yak. It works like Twitter, but it is anonymous. Now, some students find it amusing, but others say it has become a breeding ground for harassment and even threats against blacks, gays and women that are so disturbing that students on some campuses have held protests calling for their colleges to block the app. Tasnim Shamma from member station WABE has more.
TASNIM SHAMMA, BYLINE: Yik Yak is an Atlanta-based social media app used at more than 2000 college campuses. Emory University freshman Nikolai Yudin breaks it down.
NIKOLAI YUDIN: It's a forum for people to post anonymous thoughts, and, you know, some of those thoughts are potentially offensive to others. But at the same time - I mean, not that I've ever seen anything, like, groundbreaking, like, wow, that's - what a great share. Well, like, sometimes, some things are funny.
SHAMMA: With the app, comments are posted anonymously, and anyone in that ZIP code can see, share and rate the comment. Mostly, there are innocent jokes about bad breakups or awful dining hall food. But students have targeted minorities and made death threats. At Western Washington University, there were calls to lynch the black student body president. At the University of Missouri, two students threatened to shoot all black students. And it's not just students of color. Post have also threatened lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. At Kenyon College in Ohio, an anonymous commentor proposed a gang rape at the school's Woman Center. In response, at least a half dozen universities have blocked the app on their Wi-Fi. But Emory may do more - trying to block it completely, even from those who access it on a cell phone. Kaya Ruffin is a sophomore at Emory.
KAYA RUFFIN: For a while, it was just, like, a lighthearted app.
SHAMMA: But then some users took it to the extreme
RUFFIN: Kind of the medium for a lot of hate that's very race targeted and very gender targeted. So it's just, like, a - it's kind of a downer, so I just avoid it.
SHAMMA: Black students in particular, like Manzi Ngaiza, say they feel targeted.
MANZI NGAIZA: It's not like this is some kid on a YouTube channel. It's someone in your geographical area, so you know the fact that you're in class with someone who really feels that they need to share this sentiment, like, oh, black kids at Emory need to go back to Africa. It's not a good feeling, obviously.
SHAMMA: Some students want Yik Yak to set up a geo-fence around the ZIP codes of Emory University.
JASON WONG: They call it fencing because it implies a boundary of some sort...
SHAMMA: Jason Wong is with Gartner Research.
WONG: ...That's based on location, and whether you're within the boundary or outside that boundary, you get different experience.
SHAMMA: Wong is an expert at helping business develop mobile apps. Geo-fencing often uses technology much more sophisticated than just GPS coordinates. It's used by advertisers when you're inside a store. It's what promotes bananas on your phone when you're in the produce aisle, and it nudges you to buy deodorant when you're in the health and beauty aisle. One way Yik Yak uses geo-fences is to block the app entirely at middle and high schools. That because it's meant for users over the age of 17. Still, Wong says, there are always workarounds.
WONG: I think it's a much better policy to explore why people are using an application and maybe explain to people why they shouldn't be using it as opposed to just simply blocking it.
SHAMMA: But blocking Yik Yak from Emory is kind of like shooting the messenger. Senior Manik Soi says students can still post offensive comments elsewhere.
MANIK SOI: There are other things like Emory Secrets where people can post stuff as well. I mean, I don't see the college banning that, right?
SHAMMA: Emory says it doesn't have a position on Yik Yak, but administrators say they will speak with black student leaders and set up a task for on possibly requesting a geo-fence. Yik Yak declined to comment for this story. For NPR News, I'm Tasnim Shamma in Atlanta.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Here's another education story we wanted to tell you about from Los Angeles. The Los Angeles Unified School District is the nation's second-largest, and like many, it has been struggling with a serious budget deficit and turmoil at the top. After a nationwide search for a new leader, the school board decided on an insider - Michelle King. A former top deputy, she will become the first African American woman to lead the district. Priska Neely from member station KPCC has a report on the big job ahead.
PRISKA NEELY, BYLINE: As Michelle King ascended from classroom teacher to second-in-command in the district, she stayed mostly out of the spotlight. Now she's got one of the most high-profile jobs in U.S. public education. For clues about how she'll lead LA Unified's 900-plus schools, you need to take a look at just one. King was the principal at Hamilton High School 10 years ago. She may not have national name recognition, but to her former colleagues here, she's a superstar.
FRAN ROSE: Everybody has the sense that she cares about them.
MARLENE ZUCCARO: It was always, like, no problem was too small.
ROSEMARIE BERNIER: Boy, does she listen?
NEELY: Fran Rose, Marlene Zuccaro and Rosemarie Bernier all worked with King during her eight years at Hamilton, a school of about 2,500 students on the Westside of Los Angeles. Bernier is the school's librarian. Back in 1997, King was her supervisor.
BERNIER: And when I got national board certification - I'm choked up. I went in to tell her and show her my certificate. You know what she did? She grabbed my hands, and we jumped up and down together because she was thrilled for me. And she was thrilled for the kids.
NEELY: The school board president cited that heart-and-soul passion as one of the reasons King got the job. Now LA Unified is counting on King to turn her passion into tangible results. This is a tough job. The district is facing a huge budget deficit, declining enrollment and drops in student achievement. There's a lot of pressure on her.
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MICHELLE KING: One of the primary reasons I sought this job is because I wanted to create new pathways for all students and give them the tools they need to succeed.
NEELY: At press conferences just after her appointment, King laid out her broad goals to increase parent engagement, equity and college preparedness. She'd spent her life in the district. She attended LA Unified schools. She worked as a teacher and a school leader and then moved up the ranks of district administration.
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KING: I know that as positive as my experience with LA Unified has been, not everyone has been as fortunate
PEDRO NOGUERA: Most urban districts across the country are challenged and struggling.
NEELY: That's UCLA education professor Pedro Noguera.
NOGUERA: But you have to have some continuity in leadership in order to be able to solve these complex problems.
NEELY: As superintendent, King follows in the footsteps of a string of outsiders - a former governor, a Navy admiral and nationally known education reformers. Her predecessor, John Deasy, resigned in the midst of controversy. Noguera says King could have an insider advantage.
NOGUERA: My hope is that she'll last, that she'll get the help she needs so that she can make some real headway and progress in the system.
NEELY: As King takes the reins of a hugely diverse system, she's in a situation that bears some resemblance to her time at Hamilton High School. King became principal there in 2002. Before she took over, the school, not unlike the district now, was going through a tumultuous time. Fran Rose coordinates the school humanities magnet program. He says King was key to getting the school back on track.
ROSE: After the upheaval, she was the calming influence and I think really turned things around at this school, and I'm hoping she does the same thing with the district (laughter).
NEELY: That's Michelle King's task now - to multiply her legacy at Hamilton across all of the Los Angeles Unified School District. For NPR News, I'm Priska Neely in Los Angeles.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
So if you live in one of those places that gets snowed in from time to time, then you've probably heard the urban legend about what happens when everybody's snowed in for a couple of days.
(SOUNDBITE OF MARVIN GAYE SONG, "LET'S GET IT ON")
MARTIN: Nine months later, babies. It turns out that this may not be a legend after all, and the phenomenon may not be limited to snowstorms. Richard Evans is a professor of economics at Brigham Young University. In 2007, he conducted what's considered the most definitive study yet of how catastrophic events affect birthrates. He was nice enough to go to the studios at BYU to give us the bottom line on this vitally important question.
Professor Evans, thanks so much for speaking with us.
RICHARD EVANS: Thanks for having me, Michel.
MARTIN: So you've studied a whole range of catastrophic events - for example, hurricanes and blackouts. So is it true? Are more babies born after a storm?
EVANS: Yeah, that's what we found in our study that we did early in the 2000s. There was some old studies on the New York City blackout of 1965, and then even some stuff about the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. And so we had different severities, different geographic locations over a long time period. We thought it was a great laboratory to test whether there was this fertility effect.
MARTIN: So what is the fertility affect?
EVANS: All right. So the result that everybody loves is that with kind of low-level, low-severity storm advisories, we actually found an uptick in births 9 months later. So it was about a 2 percent increase with tropical storm watches. The story there is if the lights go out and there's no TV, it kind of sets the table for romance. And you get births 9 months later. But the other thing we found that is also intuitive, but no one had ever detected this before - was that with the most severe storm warnings - so a hurricane warning - you get almost an equal decrease in births 9 months later. And the story there is if you're running for your life, you can't make babies.
MARTIN: What about snowstorms?
EVANS: So I think the blizzard that's hitting East Coast right now is more like a low-severity storm advisory in the sense that, for the most part, people are not being asked to evacuate. And so people are going to be in their houses this weekend, and they're going to be riding out this storm. And the storm may knock-out television and electricity. And that seems to be the conditions that generates more babies.
And I think it kind of touches a broader topic, especially the research about the Oklahoma City bombing, that when there are events that bring people together and make people think about their longevity not just for romance reasons - just for, like, your own existential reasons, people turn more towards fertility and preserving the species.
MARTIN: Before I let you go, can I ask, though - I understand that you don't really focus on this subject anymore, that you are, you know, doing other things. You have a number of sub-specialties that you sort of focus on. However, is this like one of those roles that you can't get away from? I mean, for example - I mean, is this the thing that people really want to talk to you about?
EVANS: So I have other things that people really want to talk to me about, but this is one that keeps coming back and I can't get away from. And it's just this topic that is irresistible by the press. You get hurricanes and sex, and I am the guy for that, either fortunately or unfortunately. I mean, I do macroeconomics and tax policy. But this one, whenever there's a storm on the East Coast, it keeps coming back.
MARTIN: (Laughter) That's Rick Evans. He's a professor of economics at Brigham Young University, and he was nice enough to join us from the studios there. Professor Evans, thanks so much for speaking with us.
EVANS: Thanks, Michel.
MARTIN: And we'll be sure to call you about tax policy, too.
EVANS: (Laughter) Thanks a lot.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We are going to start today in Iowa, where Democrats and Republicans start selecting their nominees for president in just over a week at the caucuses. Right now, we're going to focus on the Republicans. There are still 12 in the race for the nomination, but this week, it felt like a race between just two - businessman Donald Trump and Texas Senator Ted Cruz. NPR's Don Gonyea is on the road with Donald Trump today, and he's with us now from Pella, Iowa, to talk about the race. Hi, Don.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: Hi. I'm in a little auditorium in Pella at a college campus, so if gets noisy, that's what it is but hello.
MARTIN: All right, good to know. So Donald Trump is spending a lot time in Iowa, which means you are too - four days this week, I understand. So does that suggest that he's feeling the heat from Texas Senator Ted Cruz?
GONYEA: He's feeling the heat, but he also senses opportunity, right? These guys are clearly the two big, big guys here. The polls tell us that, but also their organization and just kind of their footprint in the state tells us that - so two events today for Donald Trump, both in Christian conservative strongholds, the kind of places that Ted Cruz goes for votes. So one in Sioux Center earlier, and then I'm in Pella right now. And, of course, this follows the appearance earlier this week with Trump of Sarah Palin, who endorsed him.
MARTIN: So has Donald Trump changed his message at all or sort of fine-tuned it for this final week before the caucuses in addition to the Sarah Palin endorsement which was very eye-catching?
GONYEA: Yeah. He's still hitting all the same notes. He's making the sale. We're hearing from his aides at every event. They stand up, and they tell people how easy it is to caucus and how it works. So they're really concerned that they have to get people to turn out. But, look; Trump is still Trump, and that means he says things that politicians just don't say. Give a listen to this from this morning in Sioux Center.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: I could stand in the middle Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters, OK?
MARTIN: What? What is he saying? What is he saying?
GONYEA: I'm not sure. I am not sure what he's saying there except that it is Donald Trump very confident in his standing with his supporters and one who could do and say anything and have it not affect him. It's like he's the ultimate Teflon candidate if he feels like he can say things like that at a rally
MARTIN: Is there any reaction to that kind of abrasiveness? I mean, it has been that it's true that you attract some people with that, but you repel other people with that. Is there any sense that it's cut in both ways there?
GONYEA: His audiences love it. His opponents try to use it against him but so far to no avail, right? There have been so many things that we thought, oh, this is really going to hurt him, and it hasn't. I talked to some of his supporters and they, say, yeah, sometimes he makes me cringe, but I still like him, and I still think he's the right thing for America. So that's what you hear at these events.
MARTIN: So there's word today that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, also a very wealthy man, is thinking about putting some of his wealth into a presidential bid. Is there any truth to that?
GONYEA: We've confirmed that he is, indeed, considering it and that he will make a decision by March. And if he does get in, he is prepared to spend one billion - with a B - one billion dollars of his own money. Here's the thing. He sees Donald Trump and Ted Cruz on the Republican side. On the Democratic side, he sees Hillary Clinton struggling a bit. He sees Bernie Sanders. And Mayor Bloomberg sees a big lane in the middle for a moderate former Republican who believes in gun control and climate change. Now, the obstacles are huge for any third-party candidate, even one willing to spend a billion dollars of his own money. But it could get very interesting in a year that's already been really unpredictable
MARTIN: That's NPR national political correspondent Don Gonyea joining us from Pella, Iowa. Don, thank you.
GONYEA: My pleasure.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Onto the weather now, and if you're on the East Coast, you already know this. But for everybody else, much of the East Coast is paralyzed tonight as a massive blizzard continues to dump snow. Up to 30 inches could fall in some places. Officials are urging people to stay inside because of dangerously high winds still blowing. In New York City, roads, bridges and aboveground subways are closed. Broadway is dark. Coastal flooding in New Jersey is forcing some residents to evacuate. And in Pennsylvania and Kentucky, traffic accidents stranded hundreds of drivers for hours. NPR's Jennifer Ludden has been following events and reports on the day starting here on the street of the nation's capital.
JENNIFER LUDDEN, BYLINE: The Metro is shut down here until Monday, and that means most businesses and stores are closed. But the city's hotels are packed full of workers logging overtime to keep some things running - grocery stores or pharmacies. There are also city workers who've been snowplowing nonstop for 24 hours now and workers who have been staffing warming centers for the homeless.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: All right, baby girl. Get some rest.
LUDDEN: The Kennedy Recreation Center in northwest Washington was packed with 105 men who were allowed in starting Friday
WILLIAM BLOCKER: I came here at 12 noon as soon as they opened (laughter).
LUDDEN: 63-year-old William Blocker (ph) normally spends days at the library, but that was closed now. Here, he sat in a semicircle of chairs around a flat-screen TV where there was a steady supply of movies.
BLOCKER: It's been fine. It's warm. They feed us. We have cots in the gym back there where we sleep.
LUDDEN: Blocker said he'll stay as long as he can. Department of Human Services spokeswoman said the agency's playing that by ear depending on the weather. A few blocks away, we caught up with two men snowboarding behind a green Land Rover.
CHRIS CARR: Well, that's a Defender 90. That doesn't get stuck anywhere.
LUDDEN: Chris Carr (ph) and Charles Kotch (ph) had tied ropes to the back. They called it their urban ski lift - OK, not quite as zippy as downhill but hey.
CARR: It's great, yeah. And, I mean, you can pull yourself over onto the sides here where the snow is fresh, and it's great. The problem is the people in the streets. You've got to be careful with them.
LUDDEN: And pedestrians did seem everywhere, strolling down the middle of streets normally filled with cars. There were also a surprising number of four-wheelers out and about. That annoyed the pedestrians and drew a warning from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MURIEL BOWSER: The visibility is poor, and you cannot be seen. There are too many people on the streets both driving and walking. We need you to stay home.
LUDDEN: In New York City, officials shut down roads, bridges and aboveground subways. Broadway went dark. The city was on track to get far more snow than forecast - 16 inches and counting. Governor Andrew Cuomo said, at times, it was falling at a rate of three inches an hour.
ANDREW CUOMO: When the snowfall hits a certain rate, the plows literally can't keep up with the amount of snowfall, and that's where we are.
LUDDEN: In New Jersey, coastal flooding forced residents in a number of towns to evacuate. It's a full moon tonight with winds at 50 miles-per-hour and more. The storm's surges at high tide were far higher than normal. Jason Pellegrini (ph) owns Steak Out Restaurant in Sea Isle, N.J.
JASON PELLEGRINI: I looked out my window, and I could still see the street. About 10 minutes later, I looked out the window again, and it was almost looked like a river just raging down.
LUDDEN: He says at one point, the water reached his waist. Across the East Coast, states of emergency remain in place as the snow continues to fall. Officials say the massive cleanup to come could take days. Jennifer Ludden, NPR news.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now it's time for a trip to the Barbershop. That's where we gather a group of interesting folks to talk about what's in the news and whatever's on their minds. Sitting in the chairs for a shapeup this week are NPR political reporter Sam Sanders. Welcome back, Sam. Thank you for...
SAM SANDERS, BYLINE: Thank you, good to be here.
MARTIN: ...Braving the storm...
SANDERS: I had to do it for you.
MARTIN: ...To be here with us. Thank you.
SANDERS: Oh, yeah.
MARTIN: Arun Venugopal is host of the WNYC series "Micropolis" which looks at race and culture in New York City. Arun, thank you so much for sticking with us through the snow, too.
ARUN VENUGOPAL, BYLINE: Thanks for having me on.
MARTIN: And laughing at us all the way from NPR West in Culver City...
AMANDA SEALES: (Laughter).
MARTIN: ...Calif., if you didn't know, is Amanda Seales. She's a comedian and a DJ. Welcome. Try not to rub it in.
SEALES: I'll try - not that hard.
VENUGOPAL: Yeah, right.
MARTIN: Yeah, exactly - not that hard.
SEALES: (Laughter).
MARTIN: All right. So we'll try to sneak back to the snowstorm in a minute, but we do realized that just because we are buried in over here, life goes on in the rest of the world. So we're not going to dwell on it too, too much. But with that in mind, our first topic is some controversial comments made by Fox commentator Stacey Dash. And if you don't know her from "Fox & Friend," you might remember her as the character Dionne from "Clueless," the 1995 teen flick about some ditsy Hollywood girls. And Stacey Dash, if you are not aware, has become a conservative commentator...
SANDERS: Yeah.
MARTIN: Featured on Fox, and she was responding to a question about why some Hollywood stars have said that they were going to boycott the Oscars. And her response was to slam the BET network, so see if you can follow that. Let's play it.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FOX & FRIENDS")
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: So you say there shouldn't be a BET channel.
STACEY DASH: No, I don't think so, no, just like there shouldn't be a Black History Month, you know? We're Americans, period. That's it.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Are you saying there shouldn't be a Black History Month because there isn't a White History Month?
DASH: Exactly, exactly.
MARTIN: Now, let's set aside the fact that if that's what she was saying, maybe she should've been able to say it herself. But the reason we're talking about this is this has actually gotten people fired up on Twitter. People are talking about it.
SANDERS: Well, my biggest beef with this whole thing - I like Stacey Dash in "Clueless" and "Clueless" the TV series and that Kanye West video she did. But what she fails to acknowledge in that statement is that she has appeared on BET programming. They have paid her. She was on "The Game." She did a BET movie. So BET tweeted back at her after this happened and said, can we get that check back...
SEALES: Ha, ha.
SANDERS: ...You know?
MARTIN: I don't know. What do you think about that, Amanda?
SEALES: Well, I'm not necessarily sure that the arguments to be made about Black History Month are even, like, within this context, you know? I think at the end of the day, Black History Month and BET are from the intention that, hey, this is a group of people that are in great numbers in this country but that are lacking in representation on mainstream media levels. So therefore, lets do Black History Month so the people who don't know about black folks can learn a little something about black folks other than Martin Luther King and Harriet Tubman
But we also need to remember - Stacey Dash - where - who - why...
MARTIN: (Laughter).
SEALES: She just showed up. Like, there was never any history of her even speaking about this in a public forum. You know, she's - she was never a part of the conversation until she was inserted as someone with a valid voice in the conversation like myself. I mean, I'm not just showing up. I mean, I've gone to school. I've talked about things. I've written about things. I've had - there's a canon behind it, you know? So...
MARTIN: She's made a - you've demonstrated an effort to educate yourself about this issues and to...
SEALES: And be educated as well.
MARTIN: ...Be educated, yeah. But Arun, let me ask you this. What about this whole question of these months - I mean, I can tell you that for myself as a journalist, I find them useful as an organizing tool - not just Black History Month but also Women's History Month. There's LGBT History Month. These are all congressionally designated. So Arun, what do you think about that?
VENUGOPAL: I mean, what I first think of is my daughter. You know, she's 14, and I think if this is the occasion when she's first exposed to James Baldwin or W.E.B. Du Bois or any black intellectual or thinker or some accomplishment that has gone otherwise unexamined in her education, then I think that's a great occasion for her to have the opportunity, you know?
It might be an artificial construct, but that's fine. I think it still needs to be done. So I think what she's saying, really, is kind of - it's tedious; it's silly. And I hate to sort of, like, you know, get on the fact that - who is this person, but it seems like it very well could be an excuse just to get a little attention for yourself, you know?
MARTIN: Let's move onto something else. We've got another related topic, maybe, kind of - is that Macklemore and Ryan Lewis dropped a single, and it's called "White Privilege II."
SANDERS: Yeah.
MARTIN: They already had a song called "White Privilege," so I think this is a sequel to that.
SANDERS: It is.
MARTIN: It's a nine-minute song, so we can't play - we're not going to play all of it here, but we're - let's just play a little bit of the beginning which refers to the 2014 Black Lives Matter march in Ferguson, Mo., that Macklemore participated in. I just want to play that part.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHITE PRIVILEGE II")
MACKLEMORE: (Rapping) Welcome to the parking lot - parked it, zipped up my parka, joined the procession of marchers. In my head, like, is this awkward? Should I even be here marching, thinking that, they can't, how can I breath - thinking if they chant, what do I say? I want to take a stance because we are not free. And then I thought about it. We are not we.
MARTIN: Amanda, you're the DJ here, so I'm going to give you the first spin at this.
SEALES: Ha, ha - nice.
MARTIN: Tell me what you think.
SEALES: It's nine minutes. I don't know if the folks that he would necessarily want to receive this would listen for nine minutes, but I think that Macklemore, in general, makes music with good intentions, and so I do appreciate that. And there's many parts to "White Privilege," so he's on part two. And I - you know, I don't really have anything negative to say. I think that he is just attempting to make music that matters, and I think that's great.
MARTIN: Arun, what about you?
VENUGOPAL: Oh, man. So I (laughter) - I've listened to this song about one-and-a-half times, maybe. And the first time, as I started listening, I immediately started wondering, you know, between the ambition of this song and the execution, I start asking myself, is this, like, the worst song of the year...
SEALES: (Laughter).
VENUGOPAL: ...Or of the century, perhaps.
SANDERS: Oh.
VENUGOPAL: I thought this song was so bloated, and it's just so self-centered, you know? I mean, just in that part you just played, just count the number of times he says I or my. The whole song is really about his own, you know, thoughts about what's happening, and it's not about the substance of this experience or this protest.
And then he kind of goes on these rants. He's talking about his fans coming up to him and how much they tell him they love him and anguishing whether it's OK to, you know, join in this. He starts talking about Miley Cyrus and Elvis and Iggy Azalea and all this. He starts calling them out. And it's just really tacky in my mind. It was just this bloated nine-minute kind of, like, you know, extravaganza. So I didn't really like it.
MARTIN: Arun goes in.
VENUGOPAL: (Laughter).
MARTIN: Arun goes in. So how do you really feel, Arun, right? Maybe you'll come out of your shell and share your feelings.
VENUGOPAL: Let me put it this way (laughter).
MARTIN: Exactly. Now, Sam, what do you think?
SANDERS: I totally disagreed, and I'm the first person to hate on Mackle (ph) - for two years, I called him Mackle-less (ph) 'cause I just couldn't stand him. But I listened to this song and read the lyrics as I played it, and I really thought it was quite thoughtful. And I think that - I mean, to respond to what you said, Arun, all rappers rap about themselves. That a lot of rap, right? And I think that he perhaps felt he didn't want to speak for anyone else but him being a white person. He didn't want to speak for black people.
I went through the lyrics, you know? There were some parts further on where he really gets deep on issues of privilege and what it means. He talks about white supremacy. I liked how self-reflective he was. I also think he's become a much better rapper. A lot of why I didn't him for - at first was his rap just felt lazy to me. But he's gotten better at it. I think the song was well-produced. I think it was thoughtful. I think the most that he can do is acknowledge his place in this whole power structure, and that's what he does quite well, in my opinion, for nine minutes.
MARTIN: I love the diversity here.
SANDERS: Yeah.
MARTIN: I love the diversity of opinions. I love the...
SANDERS: And I'm the first to hate on him.
SEALES: Well, I will admit...
SANDERS: But I really like this song.
MARTIN: Go ahead, Amanda.
SEALES: I feel like if he had been pontificating in waxing poetic on, like, you know, these marches and doing it from, like, a birds-eye view, that would've felt like white privilege...
SANDERS: Exactly
SEALES: ...To me. I actually appreciated that he's speaking...
SANDERS: He stayed in his lane.
SEALES: He's speaking from his privilege.
MARTIN: So Arun, do you think it would have been better if he'd just avoided the topic? See; this is so tricky because then, when people want to be allies and show sympathy or support for people, then they're criticized for it. But then, if they're, like, you know what; this is not my issue; I don't care; it has nothing to do with me, then people are, like, well, how can you be my friend if you don't care about what interests me?
VENUGOPAL: And he talks about that in the song.
MARTIN: I don't know, Arun. You don't have any sympathy for that whole question of, where do I stand on this?
VENUGOPAL: I do. I guess, basically, I can hear that being expressed outside of art in a more interesting way. Within this particular artistic context - I mean, I have been thinking a lot about, you know, what is trying to be done artistically in response to this particular moment we're living through. It's a very interesting moment. I think they are just more subtle and artistic ways of getting at it, and I don't think he really achieved that here.
MARTIN: Cool, interesting - well, all right, before we let you go - and see; now I feel awkward because this sounds so self-centered. But I want to talk about the storm...
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: ...Because it's only a...
SEALES: Storm privilege.
MARTIN: Storm privilege - thank you.
SANDERS: Oh, my goodness.
MARTIN: Storm privilege - I feel so exposed. But I wanted to ask about this. This is, again, something that has been described to me by my friends who are really deep into social media, and that is the whole question of the blizzard bae or the blizzard boyfriend...
SANDERS: Oh, my god.
MARTIN: ...That there's a - it's people taking to their dating apps looking for somebody to keep company with during the storm.
SANDERS: I - yeah.
MARTIN: And this is just simply reporting, not asking personal question. But...
SANDERS: I have one blizzard bae. It is red wine.
MARTIN: Oh, OK.
(LAUGHTER)
SANDERS: I think that, like, sure, if you got someone to boo up with, do that. But if you get a blizzard bae, is that the proper way to start a relationship - out of blizzard desperation?
SEALES: Is...
MARTIN: Can I tell you this?
SEALES: Is there a proper way...
MARTIN: Can I just be your old...
SEALES: ...At this point?
MARTIN: ...Your, like, boring, old, married friend.
SANDERS: Yeah.
MARTIN: No.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: Can I just give you the answer right now - no.
(LAUGHTER)
SANDERS: Bad idea.
MARTIN: Bad idea.
SANDERS: Get your Netflix. Get your wine. Leave those apps alone.
SEALES: Leave those apps alone.
(LAUGHTER)
SEALES: That's the tagline.
SANDERS: Yes - hashtag.
MARTIN: All right, that's all the time we have this week with Sam Sanders, Amanda Seales and Arun Venugopal. Thank you all so much. Sam and Arun, stay warm. Amanda, you know, be as fly as you're going to be in your crop-top.
VENUGOPAL: Stay hot.
(LAUGHTER)
SEALES: I will. I promise.
MARTIN: Stay hot.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're heading to Europe now where the welcome for asylum seekers is wearing thin. More than a million people sought refuge in the European Union last year, and people continue to try to make their way from the Middle East and Africa. Many in the 28-nation bloc are taking steps to try to keep more people from coming. In Denmark, a controversial bill calling on police to confiscate cash and valuables from arriving asylum-seekers is expected to be passed by the Danish Parliament next week. NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson is in Copenhagen, and she's going to tell us more. Soraya, tell us about the proposed Danish law. Whose idea was this?
SORAYA SARHADDI NELSON, BYLINE: The center-right government here in Copenhagen is responsible for this measure. As you mentioned, the part that's getting the most attention is about the seizing of cash and valuables, potentially gold or rings - that sort of thing - from any asylum-seekers who bring with them more than $1,450 or the equivalent thereof. Zachary Whyte, a migration expert at the University of Copenhagen, is one of many Danish critics of this law. He says the seizures aren't about defraying costs but to keep new refugees from coming to Denmark.
ZACHARY WHYTE: What we're seeing across Europe is a tendency for a country to sort of shift rather than share responsibility for asylum-seekers, and I think this is precisely what's going on in Denmark.
NELSON: Given the fact that it costs about $20,000 or more to care for each of the refugees, Whyte says that what the police collect from newcomers isn't going to defray the cost. But he says what's more alarming is another provision that refugees who are granted asylum will have to wait three years to bring their families over, and they'll only get about a year's worth of a permit, which makes it very difficult for them to gain legal status so they can work and be integrated into Danish society.
MARTIN: What is it that the Danes are so worried about. They've only taken in about 20,000 last year compared to Sweden, which took 160,000. Is there something in particular that is sparking this at this point?
NELSON: Part of it is the bad experiences they've had with some other refugees in the past. They ended up not integrated, or unemployment rates ended up twice that of other Danes. But there's also a lot of concern about the fact that the two larger neighbors, as you've mentioned, Sweden but also Germany, are giving this open-armed welcome to refugees and now are backtracking. And the fear is that Denmark, which is wedged between them, is going to end up with a lot more asylum-seekers because these other two countries won't be taking them.
MARTIN: What is public opinion in Denmark? What are other people saying about this, and are they really envisioning searching people's belongings, taking their wedding rings? What are they saying they're actually going to do?
NELSON: It's very, very split in terms of public opinion. You have people who are just saying this is god-awful and it violated the Geneva Convention with regards to refugees. And then you have others who say, no, this absolutely has to be done because certainly Danes who are on welfare have to - if they have more than a certain amount of income or they have a certain amount of assets, they have to pay for their own way. They don't get to have the welfare either.
And ideally, what would happen in the eyes of the proponents of this law is for the police to actually check suitcases and that sort of thing as refugees come in. This is something that police object to as well because they're like, how are they going to be able to judge between what's an expensive necklace or what isn't if, in fact, jewelry is going to be taken. The proponents of this law - the government says that they're not planning to actually take people's wedding rings, if you will, although, they have not ruled out assets beyond cash that they would look to.
MARTIN: That NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson in Copenhagen. Soraya, thanks so much for talking with us.
NELSON: You're welcome, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Switching gears now to a major story about entertainment in this country, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the group that hosts the Oscars, is about to go through a major shakeup in response to criticism that the Oscars don't recognize this country's diversity. On Friday, the Academy announced big changes to who gets to vote as well as a new initiative to ensure that the Academy doubles the number of women and minority members by the year 2020. This all comes less than a week after director Spike Lee and actress Jada Pinkett Smith announced that they would be bypassing this year's Oscars. Here to tell us more about the latest developments is Rebecca Keegan. She covers film for the Los Angeles Times. Rebecca, thanks so much for talking to us.
REBECCA KEEGAN: Hey. Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: So can you walk us through the changes in a way that would make sense to those of us who don't cover the film industry and don't really know the ins and the outs?
KEEGAN: Well, in addition to their commitment to double the number of women and minorities, the most significant thing the Academy did was say that it's going to start taking some members off its voting rolls. That hasn't happened since 1970. What the Academy said is that it is going to invite new members for periods of 10 years, and then they have to have worked in the film industry to come on for another 10 years. Basically, the effect this will have is, there are a lot of people who joined the Academy in the '70s or '80s and then never worked in the film industry again. The Academy doesn't want those people voting on the Oscars going forward.
MARTIN: And when does all this go into effect?
KEEGAN: It won't affect the voting for this year's Academy Awards, but it will start going into effect after that. So the people who were nominating next year will reflect this changed Academy.
MARTIN: You wrote about this earlier this week. You said that this kind of a move would be so bold and so unlikely that it could inspire outrage and even lawsuits. Is there a sense of that happening?
KEEGAN: Yeah. I mean, around the newsroom, we were referring to this as the nuclear option. This is the kind of thing that the Academy had talked about doing on various committees for years, but it never went through for one reason or another. There have been some Academy members who've said that they would look into the possibility of legal recourse for this. Just based on the amount of phone calls I've received, particularly from older Academy members, people have a lot of questions and concerns. There are a lot of people who feel like they have aged out of the industry not by choice but because they work in an ageist industry, and they're wondering what this means for them. By the way, there are exceptions for people who were nominated for an Oscar or who got an Oscar. So if you got an Oscar in the '70s and you never worked again, you'll still be in the Academy.
MARTIN: You know, you make interesting point, though, that some of these people saying that the reason that they haven't worked is not that they didn't want to work but that they were unable to get work, which is very similar to the argument that some of the minority actors are making, which is, it's not that they, you know - that they aren't given these opportunities. So that's kind of interesting dilemma there. But speaking of the - kind of the other side of the equation are people like Spike Lee, suggesting that they might change their minds in response to this move.
KEEGAN: Spike hasn't said anything yet. Neither has Jada Pinkett Smith or Will Smith, who said that they wouldn't attend the Oscars. There are a lot of people who had been talking of boycotting the Oscars online, people who are not Academy members but who are audience numbers who are saying that they feel encouraged by this news and that they might instead tune in.
MARTIN: So before we let you go, Rebecca, can I just ask you, as a person who's covered this industry for a while, what's your sense of what's motivating these changes now? Is this perception? Is it that the Academy doesn't like how it's being represented? Is it a business decision? What are the factors here that you think are causing this to finally become an actionable issue?
KEEGAN: Well, the Academy has, for the last few years, been pushing for more diversity among the new members it invites. I do think the Oscars-so-white controversy accelerated their process. A lot of the measures they announced on Friday they had been working on for months, and they decided, let's not wait; let's go ahead and vote on these, pass them and announce them. And I think, you know, what people have a tendency to say - oh, it doesn't matter; it's the Oscars; it's a silly award show; it's about what you're wearing on the red carpet. But the truth is, people around the world take cues about culture from an event like the Oscars. If 40 million people are tuning in, they're getting an idea about what our culture values. And if our culture is saying, actually, we just value white people, that's a huge important message (laughter) that these people are soaking in, and in many ways, I think it affects people at a deeper level than we realize.
MARTIN: That's Rebecca Keegan, a staff writer of the Los Angeles Times. She covers film, and she was nice enough to let us call her at home. Rebecca, thanks so much for speaking with us.
KEEGAN: Thanks for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to finish up today with one more story out of the film world. It's a new take on comedian Groucho Marx. You might not have seen his films, but the odds are good that you would recognize his bushy, black eyebrows or thick mustache or maybe his ever-present cigar. And if you have seen his films, you'll likely think of his verbal acrobatics aimed at the rich and powerful.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HORSE FEATHERS")
GROUCHO MARX: (As Professor Wagstaff) I don't know what they have to say. It makes no difference anyway. Whatever it is, I'm against it.
MARTIN: Julius Groucho Marx is certainly a comedy icon. But a new biography suggests a more sinister Marx, one who aimed to deflate not only those in positions of power but everybody. Lee Siegel is the author of "Groucho Marx: The Comedy of Existence." And he goes so far as to suggest that Marx might have hated just about everybody. Lee Siegel is with us now from our studios in New York. Lee Siegel, thanks so much for speaking with us.
LEE SIEGEL: It's great to be here.
MARTIN: For people who did not grow up watching the Marx Brothers, who were they, and where did they come from?
SIEGEL: Well, they were born in Yorkville, which is now the Upper East Side. Their parents were immigrants. Their mother was from Germany. Their father was from Alsace-Lorraine. Their parents were Jewish. There were five brothers. One brother died - Manfred. And other brothers lived a very chaotic existence in packed tenement apartment where relatives and other people kept moving in and out. And then they spent 15-plus years on a harsh-wounding vaudeville circuit. So by the time they got to the movies, the chaotic Marx Brothers that we see were really just enacting the very lives that they had off-screen.
MARTIN: And each one of them had a kind of an identity. But one of things you point out is that Groucho's distinguishing talent was his sharp tongue. And I want to play an example. This is a clip from the 1933 comedy "Duck Soup." And Groucho plays Rufus T. Firefly and the newly appointed leader of a fictional country gone bankrupt. And here he is speaking with the country's wealthy benefactress.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DUCK SOUP")
MARGARET DUMONT: (As Mrs. Teasdale) I've sponsored your appointment because I feel you are the most able statesman in all Freedonia.
MARX: (As Rufus T. Firefly) Well, that covers a lot of ground. Say, you cover a lot of ground yourself. You better beat it. I hear they're going to tear you down and put up an office building where you're standing. You can leave in a taxi. If you can't get a taxi, you can leave in a hub. If that's too soon, you can leave in a minute-man hub. You know you haven't stopped talking since I came here? You must've been vaccinated with a phonograph needle.
MARTIN: OK. (Laughter) So you have kind of a mission with this book, and you're trying to complicate a certain image. Tell us what is the image you think people have? And what are you trying to help them see, that they may not see?
SIEGEL: Well, the conventional image of Groucho is that he was on the side of the little guy, and he spoke defiantly and insolently to powerful people and wealthy people. He thumbed his nose at high society. But my feeling is that Groucho was out to deflate everybody, that he was a thorough-going misanthrope. That is very bracing and very unsettling. But I wanted to get at the roots of his humor, and I wanted to get at what made him an icon, you know? I just don't like the word icon because it dries up all the energies that made the icon in the first place.
MARTIN: Well, you point out that even his most famous line is probably misinterpreted. I mean, here's a clip from a Woody Allen film from "Annie Hall," which popularized the line. I know you hate the word icon, but it's the iconic film "Annie Hall."
SIEGEL: Yes, that's right.
MARTIN: And let me just play that, and then you can tell me what's really true. Here it is.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ANNIE HALL")
WOODY ALLEN: (As Alvy Singer) The other important joke for me is one that's usually attributed to Groucho Marx. But I think it appears originally in Freud's "Wit And Its Relation To the Unconscious." And it goes like this. I'm paraphrasing. I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member. That's the key joke of my adult life in terms of my relationships with women.
MARTIN: So how did Woody Allen get it wrong?
SIEGEL: Woody Allen presents the line as sort of the epitome of Jewish self-loathing. But that's not what the line means at all. Groucho wrote that line in a famous resignation letter to a club that he felt superior to. He was inducted into a club in Beverly Hills, and he arrived at this club thinking that he was going to talk with other illustrious figures about all the greats of literature. He wanted to be a writer and a serious literary man, Groucho, all his life. So he thought that he could talk about Chaucer and Milton and Shakespeare.
Instead, he gets there, and they're all drinking and playing cards. And, as he puts it, they're on the phone with each other's wives. They're philandering, which was just the situation of the tenement apartment where he grew up. His father was a great philanderer. So he's kind of depressed. And a guy comes up to him, as Groucho relates it - according to Groucho, he began - tried to engage this man in a conversation about Chaucer. And instead, the man turns to Groucho and begins to complain about the poor quality of the club's new inductees, of which, of course, Groucho was one. And Groucho, who had spent years on the vaudeville circuit looking at society from the bottom up, never forgot that, always had an inferiority complex about being an entertainer. And so he goes home, and he writes this letter. I would never want to belong to a club that would have me as a member, but from an attitude of superiority.
MARTIN: You also have some things to say about his attitude toward women, which you find not-so-funny.
SIEGEL: Right. His misogyny is relentless and thoroughgoing, and it's very hard to tolerate. His attacks on Margaret Dumont almost always take the form of attacking her status as a woman. And it's very odd that he keeps attacking her because, of course, she might be wealthy and she might be somewhat clueless, and she might be puffed-up with her own virtue. But she's actually fairly kind and a harmless person who just wants to help out these imposters Groucho is inhabiting. But he keeps insulting or for being a woman, and you don't find the same thing in Chaplin or Laurel and Hard or W.C. Fields. But with the Marx Brothers, yeah, they took woman hatred to whole new level. It's difficult to watch.
MARTIN: So it's - you really painted a really complicated picture here. But I did want to ask what you think the relevance of Groucho Marx is to our comedy today or what would you like to leave us with to think about?
SIEGEL: Well, in terms of comedy, you can draw a straight line from Groucho to comics like Amy Schumer and Tig Notaro for all Groucho's women hatred. These are people who are very funny. But they're not always funny. And sometimes they'll say something that simply is shocking. And the only biological response that's available to you is laughter. It's the same thing with Groucho. What he is, is shocking. He presents the spectacle - he and his brothers - of people behaving in public as if they were in private. They are saying things to the audience that, normally, people only say to their closest friends or their therapists. And the Marx Brothers were the first ones to do that.
MARTIN: Do you still like him? I just happened to know that, you know, you really kind of fell in love with him as a kid. But now that you're an adult and you've thought about it, do you still like him?
SIEGEL: You know, I don't know if like is the right word. I'm in awe of him. But at times, I find him simply too abrasive and humiliating to the target of his humor. I guess the way I feel about it is, you know, I have two children, and I love them no matter what they do. But I don't always love other people's kids. So sometimes the Marx Brother are my children and sometimes they're other people's kids. I guess that's the way I feel about them.
MARTIN: OK (laughter). Lee Siegel is a writer and a cultural critic, and he is the author of the new book, "Groucho Marx: The Comedy Of Existence." And he was kind enough to speak to us from our studios in New York. Lee Siegel, thanks so much for speaking with us.
SIEGEL: It's a pleasure.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Let's turn now to politics. Just a few minutes ago, the Des Moines Register made its endorsements in the presidential race. The paper has been endorsing candidates in both major political parties in advance of the caucuses since 1988. The caucuses are a little more than a week away - important to note that the picks are recommendations, not predictions, and they don't always point to winners. But they are attention-getting. What's different this year is that not being picked by an establishment paper might be a better talking point on the campaign trail. NPR political editor Domenico Montanaro is with us.
So Domenico, don't leave us in suspense. Who did the paper endorse?
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Well, for the second cycle in a row, the paper went with Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side and Marco Rubio, this time, on the Republican side. Rubio's been polling around third in the state, and third, frankly, would be a coup for him. He'd be getting what's called one of the tickets out of Iowa. They said that he has the potential to chart a new direction for the party and, quote, "represents the party's best hope," which is interesting.
On Clinton - said that she's the one outstanding candidate that the Democrats have and no other candidate can match her depth or breadth of experience, a clear shot at Senator Bernie Sanders. And what - they did mention Sanders and they said that he's a courageous man, that he's rallied people to his side, but they don't think that his ideas are realistic or that he can get Congress to go along with what he wants to do.
MARTIN: Now, we mentioned earlier - in fact, the editorial writers themselves at The Des Moines Register has pointed out that these are not predictions. These are their recommendations based on what they think is best for the state and presumably for the country. But what is the predictive value here? Has The Des Moines Register wound up ever picking the winner, as it were?
MONTANARO: They have. Never, actually, on the Democratic side, which is pretty fascinating. I was going through the numbers before we went on, and they've never gotten the Democratic side right. I mean, they've (laughter) - it's really funny. I mean, they have not ever endorsed somebody who won Iowa or became the nominee. It's really kind of amazing.
On the Republican side, though, they've started doing this on both sides from 1988, and they got three of the Iowa winners right. They've gotten four of the nominees right. They love Bob Dole. They endorsed him twice in '88 and '96. And Dole, of course, was the nominee in '96. The last two elections, interestingly, they endorsed the men who became the nominee of the party, John McCain and Mitt Romney, but they did not endorse the people who went on to win their state.
MARTIN: Well, probably too soon to see how the other candidates who did not get the endorsement are reacting to this, but before - but if you know, feel free to tell me.
MONTANARO: Hillary Clinton actually did just weight in and said that she's proud to have the endorsement and that it's very important to her. I haven't seen what others have said so far, but I imagine they'll downplay it.
MARTIN: So before we let you go, there's word today that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is once again talking about putting some of his own personal wealth into exploring a presidential bid. Can you tell us any more about that?
MONTANARO: That's right. NPR confirmed that earlier today - that he is seriously considering it. He's going to decide sometime in March because that's when the filing deadlines start to kick in for when you can actually get on the election in the fall for general election ballots. He's deciding this or thinking about it, anyway. He's thought about it in the last few cycles, but he's thinking about it this time because of how unconventional things have been because you've got Hillary Clinton potentially losing to someone like Senator Sanders. You've got Donald Trump in the lead on the Republican side. And if it's a Trump-Sanders race, that's where most people are thinking Bloomberg thinks he could fit in.
Now, what's fascinating about that (laughter) is you would then have two New York billionaires running against the guy who has made his entire candidacy about being against billionaires.
MARTIN: It's so fascinating. We only have about 20 seconds. Do you have any sense of how Michael Bloomberg will play outside of New York where he is obviously a huge figure with a huge footprint on New York Politics. But how about outside of it, very quickly?
MONTANARO: And very controversial also. I mean, he would poll a little bit from both parties. He maybe polls a little bit more if Hillary Clinton runs from Hillary Clinton 'cause he's so socially liberal.
MARTIN: All right.
MONTANARO: But there are lots of controversial things that he's done...
MARTIN: Got...
MONTANARO: ...And hard to build alliances.
MARTIN: Got to leave it there.
MONTANARO: OK.
MARTIN: That's NPR political editor Domenico Montanaro. Thank you.
MONTANARO: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now we head back to the mainland of the U.S. to Pittsburgh, which is being celebrated for its resurgence and livability. And in fact, we'll be heading to Pittsburgh for our Going There series in March to take a look at how that's all playing out.
But we do know that not all the city's neighborhoods are experiencing a revival. A third of the houses in the Homewood neighborhood are considered blighted. The neighborhood also has the city's highest murder rate. But as Erika Beras tells us, there is also art. And where there is art, there is hope.
ERIKA BERAS, BYLINE: Vanessa German stands in the doorway of a brightly painted and mosaic house, facing dozens of people. She's colorfully dressed, her hair styled into a mohawk, presiding over a housewarming for the Art House in Homewood.
(LAUGHTER)
VANESSA GERMAN: Thank you, all. Thank you, all. Thank you, all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: You're welcome.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: And thank you for the Art House, Vanessa.
(APPLAUSE)
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Thank you, Miss Vanessa.
BERAS: German used to make sculptures on her porch. Covered in plaster and paint, she drew attention. Kids asked to help. She gave them brushes and told them to make their own art.
GERMAN: I experience such joy and a sense of deep rightness and completeness when I'm making things. I'm, like, deciding how I'm going to, like, engineer some sculpture to stand so that it looks like it's defying gravity. And I'm using my brain, and I'm moving around, and I feel like giving myself a high five. And I was like - why wouldn't kids feel that, too?
BERAS: The porch soon got too crowded with kids. A neighbor lent German a house. They used that for a couple years until moving into this house. Fourteen-year-old Shay Clifford has been making art with German since the beginning. Today, she's pressing pastels to paper.
SHAY: It helped me because there's a lot of violence here. So when you write, like, when you draw and stuff, you can, like, express your feelings on there, how you feel living here. And now you can just put it on paper and, like, draw and paint about how you feel and, like, express everything that you, like, want to get out.
BERAS: In the years since, German's popularity in the art world has grown. Now 39, she's had solo shows around the country, has won awards and her sculptures, complex black Madonnas assembled of found objects, sell handily. She was able to invest her art world earnings towards buying this house. She says this may make things better, but it doesn't negate what it means to live in a place plagued by violence.
GERMAN: That's hard. It's hard whenever - when kids get killed - when anybody gets killed. And I don't think that I could survive if there wasn't more momentum on the side of good and hope.
BERAS: That hope here comes alive in moments like this - an impromptu talent show in the living room.
STEPHANIE LITTLEJOHN: Them is my kids.
(LAUGHTER)
LITTLEJOHN: Miss Vanessa's kids, yeah.
BERAS: That's Stephanie Littlejohn, whose grandchildren are dancing. She says while this block still has crime...
LITTLEJOHN: People walking up and down the streets with the drugs transactions, the prostitution.
BERAS: ...German's presence has changed its tone.
LITTLEJOHN: It's like things have lightened up so much.
BERAS: Towards the end of the housewarming, the crowd spills out into a side lot. Oftentimes, German is there picking up drug paraphernalia. Tonight, it's different. The parents light a paper lantern. The kids spread out underneath.
GERMAN: When we let it go, you better make a wish.
BERAS: And then lantern is released and flies off into the night sky.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Singing) This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine. Oh, this little light of mine...
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I'm serious.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Singing) ...I'm going to let it shine.
BERAS: For NPR News, I'm Erika Beras in Pittsburgh.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now to North Carolina, which has one of the country's largest poultry producers and getting bigger. Large-scale chicken farms are spreading across the state, which sometimes brings them closer to residential areas. And as Keri Brown of member station WFDD reports, some of these neighbors consider the farms much more than a nuisance but rather a potential health hazard.
KERI BROWN, BYLINE: Craig Watts walks among rows of chickens, checking feed lines at his industrial-size chicken houses in Fairmont, N.C.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHICKENS CLUCKING)
BROWN: He contracts with Perdue and has raised birds for more than 20 years. He says sometimes it's a struggle to meet the demands of the industry.
CRAIG WATTS: They don't have to spend 24-7 with that chicken. They don't have to deal with this waste. I deal with it and that kind of stuff. So, you know, it's a good situation for them.
BROWN: His birds produce 700 tons of poultry waste each year, and he's responsible for it. It's spread in nearby fields and sold to farmers for fertilizer. Watts' operation is one of thousands of confined animal feeding operations in the state. These large-scale chicken farms are popping up near residential areas in western North Carolina, especially in Surry County. And that's worrying to residents Terry and Mary Marshall.
TERRY MARSHALL: The waste starts to burn, and your throat starts to hurt, you know you're in it. It smells like a lot of ammonia. It smells like oftentimes, just dead, rotting meat.
BROWN: The waste is a combination of manure, feed and carcasses, which can cause harmful gas emissions. Mary says there are dust particles in the air, and it can be hard to breathe.
MARY MARSHALL: We had some friends over to the house, several people one night. And it was so bad that they had flashlights out in the front yard and you could see it.
BROWN: Environmental groups are concerned, too. Will Scott with the Yadkin Riverkeeper says chicken farms aren't under the same scrutiny as other industries. These dry-litter poultry operations are exempt from state odor ordinance, and federal regulators don't monitor their air emissions.
WILL SCOTT: I think what you're seeing here is the influence of a very powerful industry over state legislatures and over the federal government, to the point where even the Environmental Protection Agency has not stepped up to regulate these facilities, despite that we know they're polluting waters across the country.
BROWN: The Environmental Protection Agency doesn't see it that way. Allison Wiedeman is with the EPA Water Permits Division. She says water quality regulations have been in place for years, and states can enforce additional requirements on poultry producers.
ALLISON WIEDEMAN: We see that it's working. We know that these facilities have permits that they discharge. And so all I can tell you right now is that the process is working.
BROWN: Just how much waste is produced is unknown. The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality says it doesn't have a system to track these dry-litter systems. Bob Ford with the North Carolina Poultry Federation says more regulation would hurt the industry, which is worth $34 billion to the state economy. He adds odor and other issues are the farmers' responsibility, but he acknowledges companies could be more involved.
BOB FORD: There's always room for improvement on anything we do out here, I guess, and try to use buffer zones a little more, maybe some tree planting, things like that that would have - reduce the impact.
BROWN: Tyson and Perdue are two major companies that contract with independent farmers. Both companies declined an interview. They did release statements that said their farmers are required to follow the law, laws that don't offer any protections for Terry and Mary Marshall. Mary says it's already too late for her neighborhood.
M. MARSHALL: I have to hold myself together all the time. I knew it was going to be bad, but I had no idea it was going to be this bad.
BROWN: Marshall is lobbying state lawmakers. She wants future chicken farms away from residential areas and something to control the odor and pollution, which she says will get worse in the hot North Carolina summers. For NPR News, I'm Keri Brown Surry County, N.C.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Finally today, we're still thinking about that record Powerball jackpot. The winners are still coming forward. For the record, we are not among them. And yes, we've moved on. We're letting our dreams with being besties with Oprah go by the wayside - we're OK. But before we let the whole thing go, there were a couple of interesting things that got our attention. First thing - when producer Alexi Horowitz and I first went out to go get some off-the-cuff interviews with people buying Powerball tickets, not a single white person would talk to us about what they would do if they won. Now, that could've been for a lot of reasons. There are a lot of law enforcement agencies near our D.C. office, so maybe everybody we approached just happened to be deep undercover. Who knows? But the second thing we noticed was that a lot of African-Americans would talk with us. And when we asked them what they would do with the money, they said very similar things. In fact, almost to a person, they said they would one, help family, two, give to church or charity and three, get investment advice - family, community, investment advice. Can I just tell you, it was that last item that got me thinking about a report I read recently in The New York Times by ProPublica's Paul Kiel and Annie Waldman. And it explains why, they say, if you are black, you are more likely than a white person to see your electricity cut, to be sued over a debt and more likely to land in jail because of a small matter like a parking ticket. It's not unreasonable that some of the difference could be discrimination, the authors said. But there is no doubt that the lack of a financial cushion is a key reason why small financial problems like an unpaid parking or speeding ticket are far more likely to have devastating consequences for black people than for white people. The numbers are startling. According to an analysis of a 2013 federal survey, the difference in the net worth between the typical white family and the typical black family was - wait for it - $131,000. And even more distressing, a different survey by Pew Charitable Trusts reported that a quarter of African-American families had less than $5 in reserves if they somehow liquidated all of their financial assets. Hispanics had about $200 while white people in the bottom 25 percent of income still had about $3,000 - $3,000 - which is surely not a fortune but enough to keep you out of jail for a parking ticket, especially, the ProPublica authors pointed out, in an era when many localities are turning to aggressive private debt-collection agencies to make people pony up. Now, how did this come about? It doesn't seem unreasonable that long-ago discriminatory practices still play a role, such as redlining and housing and employment discrimination that deprive black people of the ability to create wealth on equal terms with white families. If you've ever seen the classic Lorraine Hansberry play "A Raisin In The Sun" or read Ta-Nehisi Coates' about redlining in The Atlantic, then you know what this is all about. The recent housing crisis and the recession surely have worsened the problem, as well as aggressive policing strategies that involve heavy fines for small infractions. If you remember, the Justice Department report about the conditions in Ferguson, Mo., after the riots in 2014, investigators pointed out that a key source of resentment towards the police were the fines imposed for things like manner of walking and uncut grass, fines that were more likely to be imposed on black citizens who were also more likely to have their household budgets destroyed by those unexpected expenses. And they are more likely to get locked up when they can't pay. Now, people who've lived this know all this, which may be one reason why the African-Americans we spoke with were so pressed to learn how to protect their wealth if they ever manage to get their hands on any. But I think it's also true that people who haven't lived so close to the bone have a hard time imagining why a ticket for uncut grass or an unshoveled walkway or for driving 10 miles over the speed limit can be more than an inconvenience and come close to a tragedy. That's why I think our off-the-cuff interviews were so skewed. Winning Powerball is a fantasy for everybody. But for some, it's a fantasy about a life of luxury. And for others, achieving financial security is fantasy enough.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Yesterday, we told you about the how the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the group that runs the Academy Awards, is scrambling to respond to criticism about their membership and voting rules in response to complaints about the lack of diversity at the Oscars. But even as the industry has taken baby steps toward more inclusive casting choices, some fans have groused about casting decisions that put people of color into roles that weren't originally drawn that way or that fans had not seen that way. "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" star John Boyega even responded at one point on Instagram saying, get used to it. And that might also be Ariell Johnson's message. She just opened Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse in Philadelphia last month with the goal of presenting diverse comics, creators and characters alongside the ones people already know and love. She's also one of the very few African-American female comic book-store owners. Ariell joined us from Philadelphia, and I asked her how she got interested in comics.
ARIELL JOHNSON: I specifically got into comics as a result of the Fox television show "X-Men" that came on in the '90s. And that was, like, I guess a pivotal moment for me because it had - you know, one of the main characters is Storm. And that was the first time that I'd seen a black woman, you know, as a leader, as a superhero, you know, as a - you know, a powerhouse. After seeing her, you know, it's like I wanted to be a superhero. And so that just kind of stuck with me.
MARTIN: So how did the idea for Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse come about?
JOHNSON: So I started buying comics in college. And so my very first experience with a comic book store and was, like, my first - you know, my spot - and that was where I would go every Friday and buy my books for the week. And there was this really cool coffee shop across the street, and it was run by, you know, a young black woman. And she had just created this awesome, awesome space that was just so inviting, and she ended up closing. And so I was kind of at a loss for what to do after that. You know that just got me thinking about, you know, what if there was a place where you could, you know, buy your comic books but you didn't have to leave immediately after? You could, like, get a drink, you could sit down and just kind of hang out.
MARTIN: How's it going so far? You've only been open a month or so. How's it going?
JOHNSON: Really, really well. I mean, we have so many people coming out to support and are happy that we're there. You know, everywhere from just neighborhood people to people taking trips up from Maryland and D.C. and down - you know, coming down from New York and all that just to check out the store.
MARTIN: Why do you think that is? What is it that you think they're responding to?
JOHNSON: I mean, I think, you know, the fact that, you know, I am a black woman opening a comic book store, so I'm existing in the space that generally you don't see people that look like me well represented. And, you know, I'm choosing what we have in there and making it a place where we are being, like proactively representative of other people. We are actively thinking, like, how can we be more diverse? How can we show, you know, different kinds of people in - you know, in this genre?
MARTIN: You know, it's interesting 'cause I - this is happening at a time when there is this backlash when these other kind of characters are introduced. And I'm just wondering what are your thoughts about that?
JOHNSON: I think that's important again to just have a diverse cast, like even with Marvel - you know, Spiderman is now black and Hispanic, and, you know, Thor is a woman and the new Hulk is Asian. And, like, that's - that's awesome. And in a way, that has to happen because if it was just, you know, a random Asian guy or a random black and Latino teen on the cover, would the larger audience pick it up? Probably not - or maybe not. You know, but if you call it "Spiderman," if you call it "Hulk," even if they're mad about it, they'll probably pick up at least the first issue to see what it's about and, you know, maybe read it and think oh, man, this is awesome and continue to read it.
MARTIN: What superpower would you have, if you could have any? What would be yours?
JOHNSON: Yeah, I don't know. I would - I'd like to think that I'd just be out fighting for justice if I had powers like that.
MARTIN: That was Ariell Johnson. She's the owner Amalgam Comics & Coffeehouse, which is in Philadelphia. She joined us from station WHYY in Philadelphia. Ariell, thanks so much for speaking with us.
JOHNSON: Thank you so much, Michel. Thank you for having me. It has been a pleasure.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We are staying with the arts for this next story, but we are crossing an ocean and a couple of centuries. The Bristol Old Vic in Bristol, England, is marking its 250th anniversary this year and its status as one of the oldest continuously-operated theaters in the world. And to celebrate, its directors have decided to take a step back into time by reviving some of the antique sound effects. Artistic director Tom Morris shows us around.
TOM MORRIS: OK, so we're standing now on the stage of the Bristol Old Vic. And with us is some 18th century machinery. There's a wind machine, which basically - it's like a wooden wheel and a handle on the side of it. And if you turn it, it sounds like - it sounds like this.
(SOUNDBITE OF WIND MACHINE)
MORRIS: It's cutting edge 18th-century sound technology. There's another thing, which is a rain machine - actually, just make it work and then I'll describe it.
(SOUNDBITE OF RAIN MACHINE)
MORRIS: And that - bizarrely, that looks like a sort of enormous ancient upside-down airplane wheel made entirely of wood. And you revolve the wheel and it makes that noise.
MARTIN: Now, those are pretty cool. But the show-stopper is way up in the rafters.
MORRIS: So if we walk up these steps...
MARTIN: It's a wooden gutter system that runs back and forth some 25 yards across the building. It's something they call the Thunder Run.
MORRIS: So we've now just walked into this ancient attic space above the theater. And if you didn't know, you wouldn't dream you were above a theater. It looks like an ancient barn that you'd store wheat or something. We're now really close to this piece of machinery itself. It's 1776 pitch pine. It sounds like this if you hit it.
(SOUNDBITE OF THUMPING)
MORRIS: It's obviously built to be quite resonant.
MARTIN: The man who gives the Thunder Run its rumble is James Molineux. He's the head of stage at the Bristol Old Vic.
JAMES MOLINEUX: So this is a wooden ball. It's made out of beech. It's about 6 inches in diameter. And we have a medium-sized one, which is probably about 3 inch in diameter that we stagger. So we're staggering the release of these balls down the wooden chute.
MORRIS: And he can vary the shape of the sound by letting them all go at once or letting a few little ones go first, then some medium, then some big in order to create a different style of thunder.
(SOUNDBITE OF THUNDER RUN)
MARTIN: But to get the real feel for how this might have sounded to an 18th-century audience, we have to go back downstairs, back to the stage. And there we meet Phil Dunster, an actor at the Bristol Old Vic. He discovered an unexpected benefit to having actual people above him operating the Thunder Run.
PHIL DUNSTER: Well, one of the things we were talking about before is personifying the elements. I can talk to the person that's up there in the attic dropping the thunder balls. And it just - it creates this incredible relationship with the elements and with the machines that are doing it. And yeah, it is - it's - that is really special. That was a real treat, yeah.
MARTIN: And now to hear how they all work together, again, Tom Morris.
MORRIS: OK, good, so let's start with a little bit of wind...
(SOUNDBITE OF WIND MACHINE)
MORRIS: ...Then add in some rain.
(SOUNDBITE OF WIND AND RAIN MACHINES)
MORRIS: At some point, the thunder will go...
(SOUNDBITE OF THUNDER RUN, WIND AND RAIN MACHINES)
MORRIS: ...And then Phil.
DUNSTER: (As King Lear) Blow winds and crack your cheeks, rage, blow.
MARTIN: OK, so have we sold you on the idea of a trip to England to see all this in person? The Bristol Old Vic will mount its production of "King Lear," complete with a Thunder Run, this summer.
DUNSTER: (As King Lear) Crack nature's molds, all germens spill at once that makes ingrateful man.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: Our thanks to Rich Preston for recording all this.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
If you are a fan of PBS, then you might have caught the latest season of "Finding Your Roots," hosted by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. The series features celebrities like TV commentator Bill O'Reilly or superstar showrunner Shonda Rhimes digging deep into their family trees, often with the help of genetic testing. Now, it might be surprising that genetic sleuthing has become part of pop culture. But it probably isn't so shocking that this has become particularly important to African-Americans, who were intentionally divorced from their ancestral stories by the slave trade and all that followed. Now in a new book called "Social Life Of DNA," Alondra Nelson considers all the ways this technology is changing the way many African-Americans see themselves and their place in the American story. Nelson is a sociology professor and the dean of social sciences at Columbia University. And I started out by asking her how she got interested in DNA testing.
ALONDRA NELSON: As a very young girl, it became clear that I was going to be one of the kin-keepers of the family, which is a word that scholars use to talk about the person who keeps the family stories and keeps the family history. So when Aunts and Uncles would visit, you know, I would try to sit at the table as long as my parents would let me and hear stories and jot them down and these sorts of things. And then I was also interested when I started to hear stories about the emergence of what is now a multimillion-dollar industry of genetic ancestry testing, sort of what - you know, what would happened - what would be the impact of this kind of testing, particularly for African-Americans.
MARTIN: How widespread is this? How many people actually participate in this?
NELSON: It's a little bit difficult to get an accurate number because many of the companies are still privately-owned, so you don't get the full disclosure. But we do know that by 2014, up to a million people in the United States had taken these tests.
MARTIN: The connection to the African-American story, tell me about that because one might think given that sort of the terrible legacy, for example, of scientific experimentation on African-Americans in this country, you might think that they would be more skeptical of this kind of experience than other groups. But it sounds like that's not necessarily the case.
NELSON: Yes, that was a question for me as well. Many people talked to me about living their whole lives wanting to know who they were, you know, in a sense of who they were before the slave trade, who they were with regards to African ancestry. And to have this as a prevailing question for your whole life means that if you can find something that might help you answer that question that it might be worth making the leap despite that history.
MARTIN: Tell us though about actor Isaiah Washington. That's a person whose story you followed fairly closely. How did he - what's his story around his ancestry, and what effect did it have on him?
NELSON: Yes, so I do - I spend some time with Isaiah Washington in the course of doing my work. He gets genetic ancestry testing in 2004 and finds out on his maternal line that he's linked to Sierra Leone, and this becomes really important information for him. So Isaiah plays an interesting figure in the history of the impact of genetic ancestry testing because as a result of his tests, he would get dual citizenship in Sierra Leone. He's also done a great deal of philanthropy in Sierra Leone. He's built a school there and wants to continue to help build infrastructure in local communities there.
MARTIN: Well, you know, that raises a question though because he also has genetic ties to Angola, right...
NELSON: Yes.
MARTIN: ...I think through his father's line...
NELSON: Yes.
MARTIN: ...Or his father's side. So why did he pick Sierra Leone over Angola?
NELSON: So he - when I asked him this, he said he picked Sierra Leone because it was the mother's line. And he said women come first. So it was a kind of roundabout chivalry that led him to choose the mother's line rather than the father's line. But as you suggest, Isaiah's story is really illustrative of what I try to show in the book in part is that part of what genealogy is about trying to get accurate records and more accurate information and answers to questions that we might not be able to answer otherwise. But it's also about choices that people make about the lines they want to follow.
MARTIN: So I understand that - you know, I'm going to put you on the spot now - you did this, right?
NELSON: Yes.
MARTIN: You went through genetic testing yourself. Was it for the book, or you just were interested?
NELSON: It ended up being for the book. So when I start doing this research, I have to be honest and say part of me felt why would anybody do this? I mean, I'm an African-American woman. I've always been fairly convinced of my African heritage. You know, part of what I learned in the course of doing the research is that I am an outlier in this regard, that many of the people I spoke to, whether they were 25 or 65, had lived their whole lives wanting to know where in Africa their ancestors were from. At this stage in my research - this was in 2008 - I was, you know, well aware of the ritual and the performance of the reveal. So if I thought - you know, I thought to myself if I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it in a big, public way in a reveal. And so...
MARTIN: You're getting some of thought, huh? See, I thought you were going to go the other way. You were going to say oh, no, I'm not going to be part of that. I'm going to be all quiet about. But no, you're saying if I'm going to do it, I'm going big, huh?
NELSON: I went big. It was an event put on by the Leon Sullivan Foundation called the Africa Policy Forum. It took place in Atlanta in a large hotel ballroom. There were hundreds of people there. And it was quite a night, I have to tell you. You know, I was a little nervous about getting my results because I wasn't sure if I could - you know, unlike the television shows that we see, I wasn't sure if I could perform or - the reveal that the people in the audience wanted. But, you know, when the chief science officer of the African Ancestry company announced my results as being an inference to Bamileke people at Cameroon, things just sort of went from there. I didn't have to perform so much because everyone was just so happy and enthused and - about the results for me. But it was more - actually more meaningful, I have to say, to my mother, who right away - it's like so many of the people that I interviewed in my book - within I would say a couple weeks of me saying, you know, mom, on the maternal line we've been inferred to be related to the Bamileke of Cameroon. You know, within two weeks, my mother calls and says I met a lady from Cameroon at church and she's Bamileke, you know? And then she was at the dinner table, you know, a few years ago. And, you know, this past Thanksgiving, she was at our table with her husband and her son. She's part of our family now.
MARTIN: Cousins.
NELSON: DNA cousins.
MARTIN: DNA cousins - that's how it works.
NELSON: (Laughter).
MARTIN: Alondra Nelson is dean of social sciences and professor of sociology and gender studies at Columbia University. Her latest book is "The Social Life Of DNA: Race, Reparations And Reconciliation After The Genome." And she joined us from NPR's New York bureau. Professor, Nelson, thanks so much for speaking with us once again.
NELSON: Thank you very much.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
So this is it, the final week before voting begins in the 2016 presidential race. We're talking about the Iowa caucuses, which are held by both Republicans and Democrats a week from tomorrow, so candidates are all over the state right now. But it turns outs that winning Iowa isn't everything. Candidates who've lost this first round of voting have gone on to win their party's nomination, so don't be shocked if you hear candidates playing down this contest so a loss in Iowa doesn't seem quite so bad. NPR senior editor and correspondent Ron Elving has spent a lot of time in Iowa himself over the years, but he's with us now. Hi, Ron.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Hey, Michel.
MARTIN: So let's start with Republicans. You know, the heart of Senator Ted Cruz's support has been among evangelicals in Iowa. And he had been edging out Donald Trump in some polls, but it appears now that Trump is regaining his edge in Iowa. So is Ted Cruz really in trouble there?
ELVING: Both are betting big on winning Iowa, and either one of them is going to suffer a real setback there because they've let their expectations be so high. Now it's tougher for Ted Cruz though because the situation is that he's well behind in New Hampshire, the next state that votes on February 9. So he really needs Iowa.
MARTIN: What about the Democrats? Hillary Clinton got the endorsement of The Des Moines Register yesterday, but, you know, it turns out that the paper has never endorsed a Democrat who's actually won the caucuses. And it turns out that Bernie Sanders seems to be posing a real threat to Hillary Clinton. So how is she kind of handling all this right now?
ELVING: She's been at it for weeks, tamping down the expectations that were so high for her earlier, especially in Iowa where she was assumed to be winning. So we can expect her to keep hammering away at electability, asking people to be realistic about who they put in the Oval Office. And hey, you know, with respect to that endorsement by The Des Moines Register, they have gone with underdogs pretty consistently among the Democrats - John Edwards, Bill Bradley, Paul Simon. And the pattern's been that those candidates then do better than they were expected to before the endorsement of the Register, so let's bear that in mind. It's probably a net-plus for Hillary.
MARTIN: On the other side of the question, speaking about The Des Moines Register, Marco Rubio was the Republican that The Des Moines Register endorsed. You know, it's hard to say. It just happened last night. But how is that affecting him at this point?
ELVING: You know, it hasn't done much for Republicans in the past to have the Register's endorsement. Probably a bigger plus for him is that Joni Ernst is not endorsing, but at least campaigning with him right now. She is the very popular freshman senator from Iowa, Republican. And it also helps Rubio a lot that he's the third option to Trump and Cruz. You have a big Republican wave of office-holders all over the country trashing Ted Cruz, saying it can't be him while meanwhile, the conservative media, on talk radio and the blogs, are telling people oh, it can't be Trump. He's not a true conservative. So Rubio is in there to go three, two, one - third place in Iowa, second in New Hampshire and then a big leap to win South Carolina. That might be a bridge too far, but that's the plan.
MARTIN: So is Marco Rubio, the Florida senator, emerging as the hope of the establishment? Or is there another candidate that they like and seem to be rallying behind?
ELVING: The establishment hasn't been able to make up its mind. But in New Hampshire, the guy who's rising fastest is John Kasich. And he spent more money in New Hampshire than anyone but Jeb Bush, and in his case - Kasich's case - that money is actually seeming (laughter) to do him some good. He's a good fit for the Granite State conservatives, and we expect to see him battling Rubio and Cruz for the second place spot there in New Hampshire, especially if Rubio doesn't get the momentum out of Iowa that he's hoping for.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Ron Elving. Thank you, Ron.
ELVING: Thank you, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It's time once again for our regular segment Words You'll Hear. That's where we try to understand stories we'll be hearing more about by parsing some of the words associated with those stories. Today, it may come as no surprise if you are in the eastern part of the U.S. that our word is cleanup. That comes as cities like Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Charlotte and New York are climbing out of one of the biggest blizzards in decades. Here to tell us more about all of that is NPR's Eyder Peralta.
Hi, Eyder.
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: Hi.
MARTIN: So I've been manning the fort inside, largely. What's it like out there?
PERALTA: It's actually really pretty. The big winter storm is now out to sea, and we have clear skies. I went for a walk in Washington earlier today, and maybe it's just because I grew up in Miami, but it's really magical. The snow is still white, and in some parts of the city, it's, like, thigh-deep. On the street corners there are these piles of snow that look like huge, white boulders.
MARTIN: OK, pretty. But the cleanup part - maybe not so pretty.
PERALTA: Yeah, I know. I met this guy Tyrone Hurley. He's lived in D.C. for a - his whole entire life, and he's got a good memory. He said the last time he saw this much snow was in 1996, and he was with a friend trying to make a few extra bucks by shoveling sidewalks, except he had a problem - kids. Let's listen.
TYRONE HURLEY: Yeah, the kids, yeah. We competing against the doggone kids. They doing it for a cheaper price. We name a price. They go lower.
PERALTA: But I'm guessing you could at least say hey, we're doing a better job than the kids.
HURLEY: Nah, I can't say that neither because they have four on the team. Me and him burnt out already from just walking around in it.
MARTIN: (Laughter) Well, he's honest, right?
PERALTA: (Laughter).
MARTIN: He's - At least he's honest that he's tired from just walking around in it.
PERALTA: Yeah, and it can be brutal here. Just down the street, I met Dinesh Tandon. He owns a little Indian restaurant. When I approached him, he was starting at the patio of his restaurant, which was just caked in snow.
DINESH TANDON: It looks so pretty I don't want to disturb it.
PERALTA: Has it felt, at times, like you're just never going to finish this thing?
TANDON: Oh, God. Right now it seems like that. I'm exhausted, but you know, I know it will finish - at some point, we'll be done with it.
MARTIN: Well, it sounds like he has a great attitude. But just to be clear, this was a very serious storm. At least 18 deaths have been blamed on the storm, and big cities have been shut down.
PERALTA: Yeah, no doubt. I spoke to a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Upton, N.Y., and he said this was a textbook nor'easter. A bunch of variables came together to produce a historic storm.
New York City, for example, missed its record snowfall by one tenth of an inch. Thousands of flights are still canceled, schools are closed, and before the storm, New York City took the rare step of shutting down the subway system and banning travel. New York's mayor, Bill de Blasio, says that we're in the age of extreme weather. His quote, "the shape of things to come" - he says the severity and volatility of these storms might change the playbook used to prepare for them. Let's hear a little from him.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BILL DE BLASIO: We're going to put even more warnings in place going forward. We're going to tell people preemptively to get ready to shut their businesses and do other things in advance because now, I mean - you look at this. It went from eight to 12 inches predicted on Friday to 27 inches. It's a cautionary tale for us about how we're going to have to deal with things in the future.
MARTIN: So it seems as if this preemptive approach worked pretty well in New York City.
PERALTA: I don't think you'll get any argument on that. Much of the subway there is up and running; the tunnels into the city are open; Broadway, which canceled shows yesterday, is back tonight; and also, bad news for the kids, no snow day for them tomorrow (laughter).
MARTIN: Boo-hoo.
PERALTA: But here in Washington, it's a different story. Things are moving a lot slower. The mayor received some criticism over the decision not to ban travel. It's hard to tell what kind of effect that had. But the Metro system will be limited tomorrow, and schools will be closed, and the side streets are still a mess.
As for air travel, airlines say they're doing the best they can. A JetBlue plane took off from LaGuardia earlier today, and most airports up and down the East Coast say they'll resume limited service tomorrow.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Eyder Peralta. Eyder, thank you.
PERALTA: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
With a recent storm making life difficult, people on the East Coast might be dreaming of a sunnier place, like Puerto Rico. But the island commonwealth is facing a storm of a different sort, a financial one, some $72 billion in debt. Today, there was a little good news for Puerto Rico. Its largest power utility reached a deal with lenders to keep it from defaulting on some debt, at least through February 12. Some had warned a default for the utility could have led to electricity blackouts for the island where 3.5 million people live. Despite the deal, the agency's future remains uncertain. Because Puerto Rico is a commonwealth, the U.S. Congress plays a major role in the island's affairs, and lawmakers are divided about what to do. We wanted to know more, so we've called Rosario Rivera. She is an economist, a professor at the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey. And she joins us by phone from Caguas, Puerto Rico. Professor Rivera, thank you so much for speaking with us.
ROSARIO RIVERA: Thanks to you for the invitation.
MARTIN: So how did it get to this point? Can you explain that in a way that we can understand if we haven't been following this closely?
RIVERA: Wow. Well, you started saying that this was a storm of financial proportions. Well, it all started with a storm of economic proportions. And this financial crisis is just an expression of a deeper crisis, which is the collapse of the economic structure since 2006 that we hit a recession.
MARTIN: Let me ask you this, though. It's been reported that Puerto Rico has been using the debt that it owes on bonds to make it look as if it had a balanced budget for some time now. Why is that?
RIVERA: Well, because there is a part in our constitution that requires that we must present a balanced budget every end of fiscal year. So if there is a deficit, you should cover it with either more taxes or cutting spending or issuing debt. So what have been happening in the past, maybe, 20 years is that we have been covering those deficits strictly with debt - strictly with debt. And it just hits us in the face that all the debt that we have accumulated is bigger than our capacity to raise taxes.
MARTIN: How has this been playing out there? I know that we are seeing, you know, a lot of out-migration. I know that people from island who can have been leaving and trying to get jobs in other places. But how else are you seeing it play out for people who are living there who are staying?
RIVERA: It's very difficult because the weight of the tax system is only on the shoulders of the working class, and that is a shrinking class. So it's very hard on us.
MARTIN: The creditors point out that the government issued $120 million in Christmas bonuses in December to government employees while the island is missing other debt payments. Can you talk a little bit about that?
RIVERA: We can no longer do those things because those are politically motivated decisions. OK? I have mixed feelings on that issue because $120 million on Christmas bonuses in a time where the economy is not moving - it might be of a little help. But still, $120 million that don't go into the economy - well, we don't have them either in the treasury department. So it's those kind of decisions that have brought us here.
MARTIN: Here on the mainland, the Republicans in Congress seems to be inclined to ask the federal government to take over Puerto Rico's finances. The Democrats in Congress seem to be inclined to allow the commonwealth to restructure and shed some of the debt through bankruptcy, which the federal law currently prohibits. What would be the reaction to those various scenarios there in Puerto Rico? Do people - is either of those scenarios considered more appealing than the other?
RIVERA: Well, the scenario of bankruptcy is considered more appealing to us because it might make us able to pay attention to the economy. The other scenario, it means the return to the relationship previously of the conception of the commonwealth and the new relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States. It would mean that we are not, basically, to be able to dictate public policy anymore. But right now, the situation is so, so stressed up that what we haven't had is either we restructure or either we default or either we just close government or just cut so drastically the public services that we are going to have a social crisis in Puerto Rico as we have never seen before.
MARTIN: That's economist Rosario Rivera. She is a professor at the University of Puerto Rico at Cayey, and she was kind enough to join us from Caguas, Puerto Rico. Professor Rivera, thank you so much for speaking with us once again.
RIVERA: Thanks to you. Have a good afternoon.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Now to All Tech Considered. Here's a question for you - when was the last time you felt caught up? That is, caught up on all the e-mails you to need to answer, articles you want to read, people who are tweeting and posting pictures of their cats or their babies? Does it ever end?
CAESAR PINA: Technically, I'm never caught up.
CAITLIN NORTON: I'm never caught up.
MITCH MILLER: I don't think I've ever felt like I was caught up.
NORTON: There's constantly stuff coming out.
MILLER: I feel like you're always looking for new information.
CARLY JAYPIN: I got to a point where I felt like I couldn't focus on my work. I couldn't focus, really, on anything.
HASSAN MUKLESS: Every hour, there's five new stories to catch up and you only have so much time to read them.
MILLER: I say I'm always looking for more information on stuff.
MUKLESS: You don't want to be the one left behind.
CORNISH: We interrupted these people as they were peering down at their smartphones and other devices at restaurants in downtown Washington. They were Caesar Pina, Mitch Miller, Caitlin Norton, Carly Jaypin (ph) and Hassan Mukless (ph). Now by one measure, published in The Economist, Americans spend over 12 hours a day consuming media - newspapers, Facebook and so on. But that doesn't mean we're getting more done or getting smarter. Manoush Zomorodi is host of member station WNYC's podcast "Note To Self." She's been exploring this topic and joins us to talk about her project. It's called "Infomagical: Making Information Overload Disappear." Manoush, welcome to the program.
MANOUSH ZOMORODI, BYLINE: Thanks so much, Audie. Good to be back.
CORNISH: All right, Manoush, we're both in the news business. Obviously, we need to know what's going on all the time, but most anyone these days, not just journalists, has this kind of access to an abundance of information. Surely that's a good thing, right?
ZOMORODI: It is, but I think what the problem is is some of us don't know when to stop. And there's actually a really great word for this, Audie. It's called infomania. The Oxford dictionary defines it as the compulsive desire to check or accumulate news and information. One of my listeners described it as FOMO - fear of missing out.
CORNISH: So what's the big deal? I mean, what happens when we try to keep up?
ZOMORODI: Well, the effects of what we call information overload are really just starting to be studied. But as you can guess, when we feel overwhelmed, stress levels go up. I mean, our brains have a finite number of decisions they can make before they get depleted and become less discerning - so this is called decision fatigue. Well, it gets compounded by technology. When I spoke to neuroscientist Daniel Levitin, he used e-mail as the perfect example.
DANIEL LEVITIN: Do I read this one now or later? Do I reply to it? Do I forward it to someone else? Do I mark it as spam? Do I need to gather more information before I can reply? That's five decisions right there, and that's one e-mail. And you haven't even dealt with it yet.
CORNISH: OK, Manoush, so we get tired. I understand that might explain why we start playing Candy Crush instead of working towards the end of the day. What are some of the other consequences of information overload?
ZOMORODI: Well, it's interesting. We also get stuck in cycles. Dr. Gloria Mark at UC Irvine found that interruptions can be self-perpetuating. So for example, if you have an hour at work that is really hectic with lots of interruptions from colleagues or e-mail, even if those external interruptions stop for the next hour you will continue interrupting yourself. So what we're finding is focus is a slippery thing. We actually did a survey of 2,000 Note to Self listeners and nearly 80 percent of them told us that they often keep consuming information despite feeling like they have reached information overload. But perhaps most unproductive of all, Audie? When we keep taking in information, we lose the capacity to make meaning from it. I talked to consumer psychologist Dimitrios Tsivrikos at University College London. The research is preliminary, but he estimates that we only use about 40 to 50 percent of the information we take in every day.
CORNISH: All right, on your show, Note to Self, this week you're actually challenging people to think differently about information overload. But how do they go about doing that?
ZOMORODI: Yeah, so our new project is called "Infomagical" because we want to make information overload disappear. It is a very tongue-in-cheek name, but we are very serious about helping people become their own best filters, to find focus more easily and discover what we're calling the magic of clear thinking.
CORNISH: How will this work? I know there are some folks here at ALL THINGS CONSIDERED who are hoping to do this with you. Explain.
ZOMORODI: OK. So first, when you sign up, you'll be asked to pick one of five information goals that we've identified, like be more creative or get in touch with friends and family. And then next week, you'll only try to consume information that gets you closer to that goal. You'll also get a daily assignment. On the first day, for example, we're asking you to single-task, do one thing at a time. When's the last time you did that? And there's also a bonus, Audie. If you sign up to do the project via text, you'll be part of our data set and we'll measuring what effect sticking to an information goal has on participants' information overload.
CORNISH: Manoush, thanks so much.
ZOMORODI: Thank you, Audie.
CORNISH: That's Manoush Zomorodi. She's host of the podcast Note to Self from our member station WNYC. You can find details and links for everything "Infomagical" at npr.org/alltech.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
On the campaign trail and throughout the country, there's been a big discussion about how to combat opioid abuse. For those struggling with addiction, support is key to a successful recovery, and some are getting that support from an unlikely place - their health insurer. Deborah Becker of member station WBUR has the story.
DEBORAH BECKER, BYLINE: Twenty-four-year-old Amanda Jean Andrade has been drug- and alcohol-free since October, the longest amount of time she's been off substances in a decade. She gives a lot of credit for that to her case manager, Will, who works for her health insurance company.
AMANDA JEAN ANDRADE: Having Will is, like, the best thing in the world for me because if I have, like, the slightest issue with anything to do with, like, my insurance - that includes, like, prescriptions or even, like, when I had a court issue - I know that I can call him.
BECKER: Andrade's insurer is Celticare Health Plan, one of several health insurance companies taking new steps to deal with the growing opioid epidemic. Celticare has about 50,000 members in Massachusetts and mostly manages care for patients on Medicaid. Celticare president and CEO Jay Gonzales says making sure members stay in recovery is critical.
JAY GONZALES: This is the biggest potential solution to this problem, I think because at the end of the day, we've got to find the members who are in trouble or could be in trouble, and we need them to be invested in addressing their issues.
BECKER: Gonzales says for Celticare, the costs related to the opioid epidemic are huge. Nearly a quarter of its hospital admissions are related to substance use, and it spends more on suboxone, a medication to treat addiction, than on any other drug. Insurers typically do cover inpatient substance use treatment and detox, but those are usually short-term. So after a patient is discharged, relapses and readmissions are likely. So Gonzales believes that providing ongoing attention to patients like Andrade will eventually pay off.
GONZALES: And the end of the day, we think it's going to cost a lot less. They're going to be healthier. They're not going to be showing up in the emergency room, you know? We have people who show up in the emergency room 50, a hundred times a year. That's very expensive and not good for the member.
BECKER: Celticare is not the only insurer taking action. Neighborhood Health Plan in Boston has developed algorithms to identify who might be at risk. The insurer's chief medical officer, Dr. Paul Mendis, says they look for members with both a traditional medical diagnosis and a substance use issue. Then social workers try to develop trust.
PAUL MENDIS: You actually have to, in many cases, reach out using their other medical diagnosis as the reason for the outreach. If you just call somebody cold, saying, we found you, I don't think those calls would be very well-received (laughter).
BECKER: For patients like Amanda Jean Andrade, she says she quickly established trust with the case manager from her insurer who is now working on helping her find a job and more permanent housing. In recovery, she uses poetry to help her deal with the powerful emotions she has about her drug use. Although Andrade feels that many people in her life have let her down, she now believes that it's other people, many from her health insurer, who will help keep her on track.
ANDRADE: Like, I have, in one of my poems, don't let anyone diminished your self-confidence, your pride. If you feel at something, it means that you tried. I at least want to try for all the people that tried for me.
BECKER: Celticare appears to be taking the most aggressive steps in Massachusetts in response to the opioid problem. It's limiting first prescriptions for opioid painkillers, and its training members and their families how to use the overdose reversal drug Narcan. Massachusett's largest insurer, Blue Cross and Blue Shield, has focused on trying to prevent opioids from becoming a problem in the first place. For the past three years, it's limited first prescriptions for opioid pain killers, and it estimates that's kept about 21 million pills out of circulation in Massachusetts. For NPR News, I'm Deborah Becker in Boston.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
If you took a map of the city of Chicago and put down a tack for each person shot last year, you'd need nearly 3,000 tacks. One-hundred-and-one of those would be clustered in the neighborhood of East Garfield Park. That's where 15-year-old Jim Courtney-Clarks lives, and he says it's wearing him down.
JIM COURTNEY-CLARKS: To be honest, I really don't like it 'cause every time you look up, somebody else getting killed. And I never know if it's me or somebody I'm really close to.
CORNISH: I met Jim Courtney-Clarks several weeks ago while I was in Chicago reporting on how parents and kids were dealing with violence - more importantly, what comes after, as in, after the news cameras leave, after the police leave, after days and months pass and a kid like Jim Courtney-Clarks has to walk up and down the same street where there was a beating or a shooting or a body. And maybe no one ever talks them about it, asks him how he feels or even what happened.
What happened?
JIM: I don't like talking about it.
CORNISH: A program at the Chicago YMCA called Urban Warriors is built on the idea that the kids in these neighborhoods should talk about it, that it's traumatic, that witnessing or experiencing violence can affect how they behave at home, react at school or, worse, put them on a path to inflicting violence on someone else. The program pairs kids with veterans who've served in Iraq or Afghanistan and just might understand what the kids are going through, or at least that's the theory of the program's founder, Eddie Bocanegra.
EDDIE BOCANEGRA: I was involved in the street gangs from the age of 14.
CORNISH: Today, Bocanegra is co-director of youth safety and violence prevention programs at the YMCA of Metro Chicago. Twenty years ago, he was a 19-year-old gang member serving prison time on felony murder charges. Bocanegra traces the idea for Urban Warriors back to a conversation he'd had when he was in prison. His brother Gabriel Bocanegra would visit, and Gabriel was a decorated Army veteran who had done two tours of duty in Iraq. Fresh from therapy, Gabriel told his brother stories about struggling with PTSD, stories that he generally wouldn't share with anyone else, partly because he thought Eddie could relate to him.
BOCANEGRA: What do you mean, relate to me? Like, I'd never been to war. I'd never been to combat. And he actually challenged me and said, actually, you have. Like, Eddie, from a very early age, I remember police beating you up. I remember you coming home stabbed up. I remember you coming home with black eyes. And every time that I come and visit you, what you talked to me about is prison assaults. You talk about people who commit suicide. Talk about all different things, but you talk about it as if it was just normal.
And he was explaining to me, like, Eddie, actually, this does something to you. Eddie, the reason why you're pretty upset most of the time or you're not sleeping well is because of what you've been through. And so then I know that now. I can tell you that because of what I'm learning through this process of therapy. And I was in denial, obviously, and when I came back to my living units...
CORNISH: When you say you were in denial, what does that mean? Like, how did you react when he said all this?
BOCANEGRA: Like [expletive] that. I've never been to war. This is normal. This is nothing compared to what I know you've gone through. And he just left it at that. And so his last request was, when you come home, you need to see a therapist.
CORNISH: When Eddie Bocanegra finally got out of prison, he did seek help, and he changed his life. He went back to the Chicago neighborhoods where he was once a gangbanger and worked for an antiviolence program. He earned bachelor's and master's degrees in social work, and Bocanegra saw that many of the gang members he was working with had witnessed violence or been victims as kids. So we figured, why not try to get to them sooner using people they respect as mentors? And when he put a list of neighborhood role models in front of them, they liked the idea of veterans.
BOCANEGRA: Kids identify themselves as soldiers because they live in warzone communities. And so when they can make the parallels between - veterans, you know, carry guns. We carry guns. They got ranks. We got ranks. They got their Army uniforms. We got our gang colors. And the list went on and on.
CORNISH: For the last two years, he's put this idea into practice with Urban Warriors.
MIKHAIL DASOVICH: I had never been a mentor in any position shape or form besides being a lance corporal in my platoon.
CORNISH: That's 25-year-old Mikhail Dasovich.
DASOVICH: This was something entirely new.
CORNISH: Dasovich is a Marine Corps veteran. He joined Urban Warriors after seeing a flyer about the program at his therapist office where he was getting help for PTSD. The kids call him Das, the nickname his platoon buddies gave him.
DASOVICH: It's just a lot easier, especially when bullets are flying to say Das (laughter) instead of Dasovich.
CORNISH: Dasovich is green-eyed with a ready smile. His arms and torso are decorated with tattoos. Inked on his forearm, the name of the town in Afghanistan where he did his combat tour in 2012.
DASOVICH: And as soon as I saw the design, I knew that I wanted it tattooed...
CORNISH: He was one of around seven veterans, a mix of black, white and Latino men. Some grew up in the same Chicago neighborhoods as the kids in the program. Dasovich drives down from the suburb of Skokie.
DASOVICH: All right, guys, let's get started.
CORNISH: For 16 weeks, he and the other vets gather at this YMCA every Saturday morning. The teens shuffle in one by one, some cheerful, some sullen with sweatshirt hoods and baseball caps pulled low. They take a granola bar and a seat in a circle of chairs. Army veteran Tyler Mason is in the lead today.
TYLER MASON: I'm going to ask all of you just to check in, tell me how your week was.
CORNISH: It's here they start to share. Dasovich remembers his first meeting with the group months before.
DASOVICH: I was very, very nervous, and all of the youth were looking at me. And everyone's clowning. Everyone's joking. And one of the youth - his voice speaks up, and he says to me, like, hey, you ever seen someone get shot in front of you? And, like, the whole room went silent. And I was like, oh, man, like, this quick, huh? And I was just like, yeah, yeah, yeah; I saw my platoon sergeant get shot right in front of me.
And I went, you know, into detail what seeing my father figure getting tore up by rifle bullets - what that did to me emotionally because the youth that asked me that question, right from my answer, goes into describe how his - he had to watch his two cousins get gunned down right in front of him. And that was something I had never felt before, to have such a young man so effortlessly describe the execution of his family members.
CORNISH: It's interesting you say that because it's very much, like, inappropriate to ask someone who's been to combat - right? - like, that's - it's kind of insulting question in any other part of your life. Is it different - right? - because - I don't know - there's some recognition, I guess?
DASOVICH: I feel the question came from absolutely a place of innocence, really just wanting to know, have you seen someone get shot because these kids, before they're 16, have, in essence, really been to combat. I see the same levels of self-awareness with these kids when we're outside, just seeing how they're looking around. It peaks up right in me remembering - just having to check, like, my sectors, always feeling like I had to check my back when I came home from the war.
CORNISH: Fifteen-year-old Noel Melecio says he felt the same.
NOEL MELECIO: I can spot things that aren't, like - that, like, unease me.
CORNISH: Melecio is slim with long, dark lashes and a set of white earbuds draped around his neck. I got him dancing when he thought no one was looking. When we sit down to talk, he asked me if I've heard about some recent attacks in his neighborhood, Logan Square - people being jumped and robbed. He says he thinks the same thing almost happened to him.
NOEL: Me and my friend were walking. And I look back, and I see this one group of kids behind me, which was, like, two or three kids. And then I look across the street, and there's another group of kids. And I see the other kids across the street walking faster, so I'm like, I think they're so they can, like, get in front of us. So I told my friend - I was like, start running. So we started running, and they start chasing us.
CORNISH: Noel Melecio got away and later shared the story with the vets and the kids in the group. For Urban Warriors, that's the idea. The teens talk about what they're going through. The veterans help them figure out how to process it. But getting them to open up takes time. The veterans build trust through teambuilding and talking and sometimes just playing.
(CROSSTALK)
CORNISH: When we visited, that meant a rowdy race through a makeshift obstacle course of folding chairs and lunch tables. The catch - a blindfolded member of each team and a military-like mandate that no one is left behind.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Help him. Help him. Help him.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Go slow. Go slow.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: Go slow.
CORNISH: Eventually, they break into small groups, three or four kids for each veteran, and that's where they get at the most difficult subjects - suicide, loss, grief. They might've endured the deaths of family or friends, witnessed assaults or other violence. Noel Melecio told us, at first, it wasn't easy for him to share.
NOEL: It was like, all we do is just come here and sit here and just talk about feelings. I was like, I could do that anywhere else.
CORNISH: The program is voluntary, and some kids drop out. Melecio says the veterans are what got him to stay.
NOEL: Like, anywhere else, anybody would just tell you, like, oh, you'll be OK. Or, like, they'll pat you on the back or something. But then they, like, get into your feelings and, like, help you, like, sort them out.
CORNISH: But just sticking it out isn't a measure of success. In fact, people around the country are weighing this idea that neighborhood violence can cause trauma that should be treated. In California, a handful of families sued the Compton School District, arguing that trauma is a disability that schools should accommodate. Baltimore is putting workers citywide through training to detect and understand trauma in the communities they serve.
And so there are still a lot of questions for the Urban Warriors program in Chicago. How do you know if a kid is coping better? What about the vets? Does mentoring help them deal with PTSD? The program's founders have brought in University of Chicago researchers to study the people who have been through the programs so far to try to answer those questions. In the meantime, remember Jim Courtney-Clarks, the soft-spoken kid at the start of our story, wondering if he'd be his neighborhood's next shooting victim? Well, he says Urban Warriors changed the way he thinks about his future.
JIM: Like, the past week, I just - I was just thinking about dropping out of school until today. I see there is a lot of stuff I can accomplish if I stay in school by looking at the veterans. Like, I'm not sure if I want to go to college, but I might want to join a police academy or just go to the Navy or something.
CORNISH: And for Jim Courtney-Clarks and the vets of Urban Warriors, it's a start.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
How long has it been since a snarling woman and a supercharged electric guitar grabbed you and wouldn't let go?
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "T.I.W.Y.G.")
SAVAGES: (Singing) This is what you get when you mess with love. This is what you get when you mess with love.
CORNISH: The four women of Savages first appeared two years ago with a noisy debut called "Silence Yourself." Critic Tom Moon says the U.K. band's second album that just released "Adore Life" represents a huge leap forward.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SILENCE YOURSELF")
SAVAGES: (Singing) I'll go insane.
TOM MOON, BYLINE: On their first album, Savages went for a sound worthy of the band's name - raw, confrontational, intense. On this album, the palette has broadened. Singer Jehnny Beth says it happened after some touring. Savages began to write songs that unfold like short stories with sudden changes in tone and texture.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE ANSWER")
SAVAGES: (Singing) If you don't love me, you don't love anybody. If you don't love me, don't love anybody. Ain't you glad it's you? Ain't you glad it's you? Ain't you glad it's you?
MOON: To develop this new material, Savages did a smart thing. It set up a series of low-key workshop performances in clubs. Jehnny Beth says these helped the band refine the quiet moments and the thundering peaks.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ADORE LIFE")
SAVAGES: (Singing) I adore life. Do you adore life? I adore life. Do you adore life? I adore life. Do you adore life? I adore life. Do you adore life? I adore life. Do you adore life?
MOON: Savages identifies as a post-punk band. And sure enough, the cornerstone of the sound is abrasive guitar. That can sometimes mask the sophistication in the writing. Lyricist Jehnny Beth explores the perils of love and commitment in terse, unsentimental language.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SLOWING DOWN THE WORLD")
SAVAGES: (Singing) I offer you someone to ship the word you like, arm you with doctor's eyes. Your lights will flame with fire. Is it for you I beg? Is it for you I pray? Is it for you I lay down anywhere? Something to be said about slowing down the world.
MOON: Sometimes in rock, raw energy is everything. Savages had that from the start. And with this album, the band expanded and magnified that intense visceral roar. Listen closely through the ear-shredding distortion. This is the sound of a band that got good in a hurry.
(SOUNDBITE OF SAVAGES SONG, "SLOWING DOWN THE WORLD")
CORNISH: Tom Moon reviewed the second album by Savages, "Adore Life."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SLOWING DOWN THE WORLD")
SAVAGES: (Singing) Is it for you I hide? Is it for you I leave?
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Above the Arctic Circle, the sun is coming up. And that's something that doesn't happen every day. This is the time of the year when the sun rises for the first time in months. Reporter Rebecca Hersher visited a town in Greenland to find out what that moment means.
REBECCA HERSHER, BYLINE: Only 398 people live in the town of Ittoqqortoormiit. Every year, they spend about 58 days without the sun. When I arrived, the darkness didn't take long to get to me.
All right, it's really cold and very dark. I've been here two days, and I can't wait for it to come up. It's like 3 o'clock, but it seems like the only thing to do is eat dinner (laughter).
For locals, the dark months have their charm. One of them, Mette Barselajsen, seemed surprised I kept bringing up the darkness.
HERSHER: Are their tricks, though, for keeping yourself happy when it's so dark?
METTE BARSELAJSEN: Some people - I haven't seen them, but I heard you can buy lamp, not big lamp, like...
HERSHER: It takes me a few seconds, but I realize she's talking about sunlamps.
BARSELAJSEN: Locally, we will not have it (laughter). It would be like - why should we stare at it (laughter)?
HERSHER: It seems a little silly?
BARSELAJSEN: Yeah because we don't need that.
HERSHER: Instead of sunlamps and vitamin D pills, people just try to do things for fun. They drink, play cards, do dangerous stuff on their snowmobiles.
One morning, 60-year-old Isak Pike is taking me out dogsledding. Sunrise is still a few days away. The dogs are ready to run.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOGS BARKING)
HERSHER: Pike hunts seals, walrus, polar bears, everything.
ISAK PIKE: Look.
HERSHER: As soon as we take off over the pack ice, he's smiling. It's not pitch black outside. There is a faint red light over the mountains. The moon is pink. For a moment, I almost don't miss the sun.
(CROSSTALK)
HERSHER: And then a few days later, it's the big day, the first sunrise in 58 days. The mood in town is like a minor holiday. Just before noon, all the kids put on their snowsuits and mittens and climb up a hill and then...
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing in foreign language).
HERSHER: ...They gather in a circle and sing a song for the sun, even though it's so cloudy you can't even see the horizon.
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing in foreign language).
HERSHER: They sing welcome back, my dear friend. Welcome back the sun.
For NPR News, I'm Rebecca Hersher.
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing in foreign language).
SIEGEL: Rebecca Hersher is reporting from Greenland on an NPR Above the Fray Fellowship, which is sponsored by the John Alexander Project.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Denmark is expected to adopt a new law tomorrow. It requires police to seize cash and other valuables from some asylum seekers as they enter the country. The government says the seizures would help defray the cost of caring for the refugees.
NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports from Elsinore in eastern Denmark.
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) A, B, C, D, E, F, G. (Singing in Danish).
SARHADDI NELSON, BYLINE: Here in the city where Shakespeare's "Hamlet" was set, asylum seekers at a Red Cross center learn rudimentary Danish as they wait to hear whether or not they will be allowed to stay in Denmark. But the residents are less interested in the lesson than they are in complaining to journalists. On this day, the topic is about the proposed law authorizing seizures and other restrictions on new asylum seekers. Among those NPR interviews is Mehran Ziai.
MEHRAN ZIAI: (Speaking Farsi).
NELSON: The Kurd claims Hungarian border guards stole his phone, his new clothes and about $130 dollars in cash, so the Danes couldn't confiscate anything from him anyway. But Ziai says if he'd known about the proposed law when he came from northern Iraq five months ago, he might have gone elsewhere.
ZIAI: (Through interpreter) I had no choice but to come to Europe, but maybe I wouldn't have come to Denmark because I see now they don't like refugees here. Maybe I would've gone to Sweden or Norway or another country.
NELSON: Such second-guessing is exactly what the center-right government in Copenhagen is looking for, especially by refugees who are thinking about coming to Denmark. Officials complain they've been overwhelmed by the 20,000 asylum-seekers who came last year, even though that number pales in comparison to what neighboring countries have taken in.
MARCUS KNUTH: As you know, we are a very small country of just 5 million people with a very, very generous welfare system.
NELSON: Marcus Knuth is a Danish MP and spokesman for his government on immigration and integration issues.
KNUTH: We need to take measures to basically make Denmark a little bit less attractive compared to the other European countries that people seek asylum in.
NELSON: The Danish politician rejects criticism of the law, saying some other European countries already take harsher measures, nor will Danish police be taking weddings rings or other sentimental belongings, Knuth says. Even so, some Danish supporters of anti-asylum laws say the seizures of cash and belongings of asylum seekers bringing in more than $1,450 to Denmark are symbolic, at best.
One such asylum critic is journalist Mikkel Andersson, who writes for several publications, including the satirical Danish equivalent of "The Onion."
MIKKEL ANDERSSON: People are traveling to Denmark in order to make a permanent home here. And I mean, I can completely understand that. I mean, if I was living in Iraq, I'd probably attempt to do the same thing. But what the result is, is that Denmark is spending an inordinate amount - huge amount of money on helping a very few people.
NELSON: Andersson says more likely to stop would-be asylum seekers are the Danish draft legislation's provisions limiting asylum to one year at a time and barring refugees from bringing their families over for at least three years, even if they are living in war zones.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Danish).
NELSON: Back at the Elsinore asylum center, most residents NPR interviews like Iranian Kurd Loghman Rezaie predict the new law won't make a difference.
LOGHMAN REZAIE: (Speaking Farsi).
NELSON: Even if all of Europe tries to make things harder, Rezaie says people will still come.
Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, NPR News, reporting from Elsinore in eastern Denmark.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Some parts of the eastern U.S. are faring better than others after the mammoth weekend blizzard. More than 30 people died as a result of the storm, many of them in car accidents. Several people died while shoveling snow, and there were also a few instances of carbon monoxide poisoning. In southern New England and the mid-Atlantic, transportation systems are still having problems, and flying is especially messy.
NPR's David Schaper reports that airlines may not be moving people normally until late in the week.
ANTONIO LOWE: Come on, E. We have to go, man. E, we have to go.
DAVID SCHAPER, BYLINE: Antonio Lowe is trying to hustle his 13-year-old son up to the TSA checkpoint at New York's LaGuardia Airport.
LOWE: We're getting ready to go up through security because we have to get in there, and the line is long.
SCHAPER: Ivn Lowe came up from Atlanta to celebrate his 13th birthday with his dad, but the two spent much of the weekend snowed in.
IVN LOWE: It ruined it a lot. And I don't feel good, so I don't want to talk a lot.
SCHAPER: Ivn was on schedule to return home as airports such as LaGuardia reopened and airlines resumed operations, albeit on a limited scale.
DANIEL BAKER: We've seen over 12,000 flights canceled over the five-day period.
SCHAPER: Daniel Baker is CEO of the flight tracking service flightaware.com. He says post-winter storm, things are looking up, with fewer flights canceled today than on Sunday. But he says there are still a couple of hundred flights already canceled for Tuesday.
BAKER: Basically, the airlines are saying look, we're not going to have our airplanes and our crews back into position like we had anticipated, and they're canceling these flights because it's not possible to operate them, but they're doing it now to let passengers know, hey, you need to make alternate arrangements.
SCHAPER: New government rules and hefty fines for leaving passengers on planes sitting on the tarmac for hours on end has led airlines to cancel more flights proactively. In addition, several airlines moved their planes out of the hardest hit airports before the heavy snow started falling. Ross Feinstein is a spokesman for American Airlines.
ROSS FEINSTEIN: Well, as everyone knows, if you live in a snowy environment, it's always very difficult to plow around your car or your vehicle in your driveway, and the same applies at airports.
SCHAPER: Feinstein says moving the planes out of the way into warm and dry locations allows airport personnel to plow, remove and melt the snow much more quickly and efficiently.
FEINSTEIN: Also, when you have three feet of snow or possibly ice on aircraft, you have to de-ice each individual aircraft, which could take 30 or 40 minutes per aircraft, so that takes additional time. The best way to restore an operation - and most carriers in the United States do this - we move our aircraft out of the affected areas.
SCHAPER: The more complicated task for airlines is rescheduling pilots, flight attendants, gate agents and other airline employees and then getting them to the airports when they reopen with roads still somewhat impassable and transit systems not fully operational. So with many flights still canceled, some travelers are looking for alternate means.
SUSAN RUFFO: So I need to get up to New York because I have to move out of an apartment before my lease ends (laughter) at the end of the week.
SCHAPER: Susan Ruffo was scrambling to catch an Amtrak train this morning at Washington, D.C.'s Union Station.
RUFFO: I've had to reschedule my train several times in. My husband's flying in to meet me from Seattle. He's rescheduled his flight several times, so we're hoping this is all going to work out.
SCHAPER: The trains are back up and running, although still on a somewhat reduced schedule. The bigger problem for Ruffo may be getting a moving van down New York's streets and moving furniture over huge snowbanks.
David Schaper, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Millions of people were affected by the snowstorm, and it seems each of them has a story to tell. This was the first snow for Marina Toft, a Californian who now lives in Brooklyn. She sent in this recording from the middle of the night Friday as the storm settled in.
MARINA TOFT: I just got woken up by the wind for, I think, the third time tonight. I keep hearing crashing noises. And it's not magical, this is not fun. I do not like snow as much as I thought I did. I have a job interview tomorrow, and I don't know if I'm just being delicate and Californian and people actually go to stuff during things like this, but I don't really want to go outside even to get a job.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Luckily, Marina Toft didn't have to. Her interview was rescheduled, which made her feel, as she wrote to us, like she won a game of blizzard chicken. Not everybody was afraid of the snow, but many did heed the government's call to stay in on Saturday. For some, like Chris Miller in Washington, D.C., it was a chance to catch up on some important things.
CHRIS MILLER: Lots of Netflix, so "Narcos," "Chelsea Does," some other Netflix series. So I didn't feel guilty about it.
CORNISH: And then Sunday, the forced hibernation was over. The sun came out and so did Steven Johnson.
STEVEN JOHNSON: I think I met more of my neighbors in the last 24 hours than I met in the last six months. It's been wonderful. We were playing football out in the snow, we've been shoveling, we've been drinking. It's been a good time.
SIEGEL: Others used the opportunity to learn new skills. Alice Meder could have walked around her D.C. neighborhood, but she decided to bike. For a Brazilian, it was a new experience.
ALICE MEDER: It's like running with tennis shoes on ice, so you keep slipping, and then your wheel keeps spinning, and then you keep falling off and on. But when you see the asphalt or a little bit of snow, you get that traction and you think, finally.
CORNISH: Many more in Washington went for more typical snow day activities - sledding, building snowmen, even skiing. Wole Moses planned for a traditional treat.
WOLE MOSES: I think it's my first snowball fight since I was a kid, so I'm really looking forward to letting some of the inner child out of me.
SIEGEL: Whether your inner child came out to play or you went out to play with your children, we hope that you were able to put the shovel down and enjoy the snowy weekend.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
There are some signs that the long-running turnaround effort at McDonald's may be working. The company announced today that it beat fourth-quarter profit estimates and that sales increased both at home and abroad. NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: The company that made its name on cheap burgers and fries is feeling a nascent turnaround with breakfast sales. Last fall, the chain announced it would offer its egg sandwiches and pancakes all day, a move that appears to have drawn customers back in. Steve Easterbrook took over as CEO amid the turmoil last year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
STEVE EASTERBROOK: All-day breakfast positions us to regain market share we've given up in recent years.
NOGUCHI: Easterbrook spoke with analysts in a conference call this morning. The company has faced a number of problems - a cumbersome menu, slow service and poor food quality. Last year, the company announced it would minimize the use of chickens treated with antibiotics, taking a cue from some of McDonald's more upscale competition. Easterbrook says it has also made progress with its service. It's investing in what it calls the experience of the future in some McDonald's stores, which use digital ordering systems.
EASTERBROOK: These restaurants offer modern in-store service platforms such as self-order kiosks, digital merchandising and customized order pickup.
NOGUCHI: Jason Moser is an analyst with The Motley Fool. He says it appears McDonald's is winning back some customers from similar fast food chains. Moser says the big question now is whether McDonald's will be able to sustain its momentum, especially in the battle for breakfast customers.
JASON MOSER: There's a lot of competition out there in the form of restaurants like Starbucks and Panera, which are doing their own sorts of initiatives in order to try to bring more customers in.
NOGUCHI: McDonald's reported fourth-quarter profits of $1.2 billion on revenue of more than $6.3 billion. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
After many months of finger-pointing, Michigan is now looking into who is at fault for Flint's water crisis. The state's attorney general appointed a special counsel to investigate how that city's tap water became contaminated with lead.
From Flint, Michigan Radio's Steve Carmody reports.
STEVE CARMODY, BYLINE: People here have spent nearly two years drinking bottled water. For almost as long, there's been a demand for someone, anyone to be held accountable for the decisions that left their tap water undrinkable. Today, Michigan's attorney general took a step in that direction.
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BILL SCHUETTE: Make no mistake about it. Without fear and without favor, this independent investigation will be high-performance, and the chips fall where they may.
CARMODY: Attorney General Bill Schuette introduced former assistant county prosecutor Todd Flood as the special counsel overseeing the investigation. As a county prosecutor, Flood handled homicide, drug and other criminal cases. He's now in private practice. The special counsel was needed because, by law, the attorney general's office would have to defend the state and the governor's office against any lawsuits tied to the Flint water crisis. It was the governor who appointed emergency managers who decided to save money by switching the city's drinking water source. Also, two state agencies under the governor failed to detect or adequately address the problem. Flood promises to get to the bottom of what happened here.
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TODD FLOOD: We're going to open up every door. We're going to ask the tough questions, those proverbial questions of - what did you know, and when did you know it?
CARMODY: But even before Flood spoke this morning, questions were raised about his ties to Michigan governor Rick Snyder, including large financial contributions made to Snyder's past political campaigns. Those contributions concerned Melanie McElroy, who heads Common Cause Michigan.
MELANIE MCELROY: This gives an impression to the public that Todd Flood is entangled with the administration.
CARMODY: Flood dismisses concerns about his past contributions, saying he gives to Republicans and Democrats. There are also concerns about the lack of a timetable for the investigation into a crisis that has already lasted nearly two years. State Senator Jim Ananich represents the city of Flint. He says residents are tired of waiting for answers.
JIM ANANICH: The longer this takes to be done, the less trust they're going to have in the results.
CARMODY: Attorney General Bill Schuette says he doesn't want to create what he calls an inaccurate timeline for an investigation, an investigation that could result in civil or even criminal charges.
For NPR News, I'm Steve Carmody in Flint.
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In a tweet that was a lot longer than 140 characters, the CEO of Twitter announced some high-level departures at the company. Jack Dorsey's tweet came late last night and, as NPR's Laura Sydell reports, after months of falling stock prices.
LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE: Twitter has around 320 million users. That sounds like a lot, but not compared to Facebook, which has over 1.2 billion. And Twitter's user growth has stalled. It may not be a coincidence that CEO Dorsey announced the departures in a longer tweet. Analyst Tim Bajarin says there have been credible rumors that Twitter may expand the length of the tweet to compete with the likes of Facebook.
TIM BAJARIN: So one thing that could change their fortune is a loosening of that 140 character restriction. It would make it, I think, more of a social network than it is now as a news network.
SYDELL: Though it was the news of four high-level departures that filled up Dorsey's long tweet, the departures include executives in communications, human resources, engineering and the product division. Although Dorsey was a co-founder of Twitter, he only returned three months ago as CEO after Dick Costolo was pushed out. And he's still CEO of another company, Square, which he also founded. This doesn't give analyst Rob Enderle much confidence.
ROB ENDERLE: Most turnarounds fail, and that's with full-time CEOs. And he's running two companies.
SYDELL: And as Enderle sees it, Dorsey helped build the problem. Twitter was designed to attract users at a time when it was believed that users would automatically translate into revenue, but its design makes it hard to display lots of ads.
ENDERLE: It's very much like if you designed a car to drive around your neighborhood and then somebody said OK, we need to take it into the races. Probably wouldn't do well.
SYDELL: Still, no one thinks Twitter is going out of business. Those more than 300 million users are pretty dedicated. Twitter just might not be able to keep Wall Street happy.
Laura Sydell, NPR News, San Francisco.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Compared to Twitter, text messaging is practically ancient technology. But the campaigns for president have found that texting is actually a key tool for getting in touch with supporters and getting out the vote. NPR's Scott Detrow covers technology trends in the campaign, and he joins us now to look at what's new with texting and politics. Hi, Scott.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: Hello, Robert.
SIEGEL: The Iowa caucuses are just a week away, and I imagine the campaigns are doing everything they possibly can to get people to turn out at caucus.
DETROW: That's right. They're calling people, they're knocking on their doors, they're blasting them with TV ads, with social media ads. But more and more than previous elections, you're seeing campaigns really focus on text messages as a key way to contact voters as well. Let's take the Clinton campaign. Before every single Hillary Clinton rally, you'll hear a volunteer get on stage and say something along these lines.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: And this will sign you up for text message alerts from the campaign, so you'll be some of the first people to hear when Hillary's back in town and you'll know exactly where and when to caucus on February 1.
DETROW: So they're asking people to turn over their phone numbers to the campaign. And then from that point forward, they're sending a constant stream of information to these voters, providing information like future events and where to caucus, but also asking for money, things like that.
SIEGEL: Now campaigns have been texting for several years now. What's new this time?
DETROW: Well, increasingly, many campaigns see text messages as a primary way of getting in touch with voters. You know, more and more people are ditching landlines, more and more younger voters just have a lot of conversations on text and hardly ever call people.
SIEGEL: Or use e-mail, for that matter.
DETROW: That's right. E-mail is antiquated for a lot of young people. And many people access the Internet primarily through their phones. So because of that, a lot of campaigns are thinking hard about how to make these text message blasts seem like real conversations, real one-on-one conversations, which studies have shown are more effective at persuading people. So the Clinton campaign will do things like send out quizzes about Hillary Clinton trivia to people. They'll text out pictures and memes, like you might have in a text conversation with your friends. And we've seen some signs that this is working. We found a Clinton supporter named Nicole Calise at an Iowa rally explaining why she had shown up that day.
NICOLE CALISE: You know, I just thought - this morning, I got a text message, I thought you know what? I want to see her, so let's just try it.
DETROW: Didn't plan on being at the rally, but got a text and she's there. And the Sanders campaign actually has volunteers sitting in Iowa sending individual texts to individual Iowans, so they're really having one-on-one conversations to try and foster that feeling instead of a blast message.
SIEGEL: So how important do you think texting will become next Monday?
DETROW: Well, think about the fact that it's really only a small percentage of registered voters in Iowa who are going to show up at caucus. We're talking 100,000, 200,000, somewhere around there on both sides. So it really puts a premium on finding those people you've identified as likely supporters, getting in touch with them, and rounding them up to get to the caucus sites. So text will be a big part of that. That's a way to get in touch with someone right there, you know they have their phone on them. And the Clinton campaign is actually tapping into some social science research here. They have been asking supporters to provide to the campaign a specific plan on how they'll caucus that day - what time they plan to leave, where they plan to go, how they're going to get there. And the campaign says it's planning on actually texting out that specific plan to voters as a way to kind of jog their memory and remind them they have committed to do this.
SIEGEL: Thanks, Scott.
DETROW: Thank you.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Scott Detrow, who covers technology and politics.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HOTLINE BLING")
DRAKE: (Singing) And I know when that hotline bling, that can only mean one thing. I know when that hotline bling, that can only mean one thing. Ever since I left the city you got a reputation for yourself now. Everybody knows and I feel left out. Girl, you got me down, you got me stressed out 'cause ever since I left the city you started wearing less and going out more.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
There had been plans to start Syrian peace talks in Geneva today. But that won't happen, and there may not be any direct talks between a wide range of the warring parties for as long as six months. This setback was announced by the U.N. special envoy. NPR's Peter Kenyon joins us from Istanbul to talk more. Hey there, Peter.
PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Hi, Audie.
CORNISH: Now we've already two rounds of direct talks where everyone's around the same table. Of course, they didn't get very far. Peter, why is even that now seemingly impossible?
KENYON: Well, there's a lot of different things going on on the ground. The Russian air campaign, the gains by pro-Assad forces have the Syrian government less interested in compromise. But the real problem at the moment seems to be this old dispute - who really is the Syrian opposition? Who should represent them? There have been a lot of lists drawn up about various groups since the last round of talks, those were called Geneva II. And it was all supposed to be hashed out by today and we were supposed to get the third round of talks, but U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura says no, it's not even close to being settled. And instead, he's going to have to be going back and forth between a bunch of groups that don't like each other, and talk to them one at a time and try and cobble something together. Here's how he put it. Listen to how vague this sounds.
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STAFFAN DE MISTURA: We are going to aim at the proximity talks starting on the 29th and ongoing for six months on a staggered, chronological proximity approach. This is not Geneva III. This is leading to what we hope will be a Geneva success story if we are able to push it forward.
CORNISH: If we are able to push it forward, that word from Staffan de Mistura. What does he think can be accomplished in these so-called proximity talks?
KENYON: Well, if you want to look on the positive side, this format allows de Mistura to speak separately with a bunch of groups that won't be sitting down together because they don't like each other, such as perhaps the Turks and the Syrian Kurds - who were fighting ISIS in northern Syria - or maybe any one of a number of various opposition factions, including some that are acceptable to the Syrian regime, but not by most other groups. I mean, the idea - I guess you should say the hope seems to be that maybe they can cobble together enough common ground to get the direct talks restarted. And maybe in the meantime, we'll have some good faith measures, pauses for humanitarian aid, things like that. But it's all quite a way short of what we've been hearing earlier - cease-fire, new constitution mid-elections.
CORNISH: Peter, even if they can ultimately find some sort of cease-fire, won't they still face the problem of what to do about ISIS?
KENYON: Oh, absolutely. And that was addressed today as well. And not just ISIS but the al-Nusra Front, an Islamist group linked to al-Qaida also named as a terrorist organization by the U.N. Security Council. Now those two are about the only groups not invited to these rolling proximity talks, as best we can tell. And there's no mechanism for including them in any cease-fire. Now here's how de Mistura put it today, using the acronym ISIL for the Islamic state.
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DE MISTURA: The suspension of fighting, regarding ISIL in particular and al-Nusra, is not on the table. But there is plenty of other suspensions of fightings that can take place.
KENYON: What that all means remains to be seen, but it sounds like expectations are going down, if that's possible at this point. Invitations to somebody will be going out tomorrow, we're told. It'll be interesting to see if all the major players - except already, some opposition figures are setting out preconditions which are not likely to be met.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Peter Kenyon in Istanbul reporting on the delay of peace talks to end the war in Syria. Peter, thank you.
KENYON: Thanks, Audie.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The TV miniseries "War And Peace" is a passion project for Harvey Weinstein. It continues tonight, airing simultaneously on three channels - A&E, Lifetime and History. NPR's Mandalit Del Barco talked to the Oscar-winning producer about it at the Sundance Film Festival.
MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: Harvey Weinstein may be best known for producing movies like "Pulp Fiction," "The English Patient" and "Shakespeare In Love," but the indie film mogul has also been busy producing TV. His latest project is this version of "War And Peace," a co-production with the BBC and Lifetime.
HARVEY WEINSTEIN: Sometimes audiences are intimidate by, you know, "War And Peace." I'm like, God, you know, what am I doing, homework? This is the least homework assignment you've ever had in your life. It's sexy. There's nudity. It's unbelievable. These battle sequences are spectacular.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "WAR AND PEACE")
DEL BARCO: Weinstein is well-versed in the cinematic history of "War And Peace," including the 1956 film with Audrey Hepburn and the 1960s Russian version that won an Oscar.
WEINSTEIN: It's like the most spectacular stuff you've ever seen. That is the quintessential "War And Peace."
DEL BARCO: The Russian version was eight hours long and cost $100 million to make in the 1960s, and it featured the Red Army, which recreated Napolean's battle scenes. Weinstein says shooting a new version on location in Russia was a challenge.
WEINSTEIN: We picked up the hints like, hey, you guys are never going to make it as good as we did in 1960; why are you bothering? You know, whatever, you saw how good it was. It won the Academy Award. Like, what, are you still trying? It took a fair amount of diplomacy, and you know, we actually got, at one point, both governments involved. You know, we had - we used ambassadors, you know, to help us.
DEL BARCO: Weinstein says he's been passionate about Tolstoy's epic novel ever since he was a boy. A librarian neighbor gave him a copy to read.
WEINSTEIN: Even I at 12 knew that that was a mountain to climb. But actually, it wasn't. It was 1,200 pages. It's got, honest to God, great action, great sex, great love story. You know, and you can read it at 12. It's just takes a while. And I always loved it. It's always been my favorite book.
DEL BARCO: In an interview at a ski resort in Park City, Utah, Weinstein waxed about great literature and the state of independent film. Days earlier, Sundance Film Festival founder Robert Redford talked to reporters about the state of independent film.
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ROBERT REDFORD: You've got streaming. You've got online. You've got all kinds of new distribution. You've got Netflix, and you've got HBO. You got all these other areas out there that didn't exist way back, and so as a result, it kind of - it kind of bleeds away from film. Film is not in a good place.
DEL BARCO: Harvey Weinstein agrees, saying that these days, Hollywood studios are more interested in producing big-budget blockbusters than the kinds of films for which his company and Sundance are known. Recently, his company had some layoffs and announced it was focusing more on television. Changes like this, though, created opportunities for TV executives like Rob Sharenow.
ROB SHARENOW: I think you'll see much more depth, much more unique storytelling, better characters on television.
DEL BARCO: Sharenow is the executive vice president of A&E and Lifetime. He says television and streaming services such as Netflix and Amazon are enjoying a renaissance.
SHARENOW: And it's the truly extraordinary excellent works that are really being acknowledged and praised and standing out. So something like "War And Peace" comes along, you're like, wow, greatest story - you know, one of the greatest novels ever written, Harvey, BBC, this amazing package. We jumped on it. I do think that's what audiences expect from television and, frankly, they're not getting at the multiplex.
DEL BARCO: Weinstein lights up as he reflects on "War And Peace."
WEINSTEIN: I'm really proud of this, and I feel like I've answered the librarian when I was a 12-year-old kid. No, seriously, it's emotional to me. Some things stand out, you know, in your life, in your career, you know, and you go full circle.
DEL BARCO: That's not to say he hasn't stopped offering audiences a cinematic experience.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "SING STREET")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters, singing) 'Cause the boot's on the other foot now. Buckley up, we're taking you down. See the curtain's falling, so take your bow.
DEL BARCO: Last night at Sundance, the Weinstein Company premiered "Sing Street," a musical set in Dublin in the 1980s. After a standing ovation, the young stars took to the stage to sing, a live performance that wouldn't be the same on a TV screen or a monitor. Mandalit Del Barco, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "SING STREET")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As characters, singing) You try to shut me up. I turn the volume up and drown you out. Don't you know the bigger that day are the harder they fall because the boot's...
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
It's something we hear in every election season. Don't obsess over polls. Go tell it to Donald Trump.
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DONALD TRUMP: So CNN came out 33 for Trump; 20 for Cruz. That's good.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yeah.
TRUMP: Quinnipiac just came out 31 percent for Trump; 29 for Cruz. It's a little too close for comfort, folks. The PPP...
SIEGEL: That was Trump at an Iowa event earlier this month. He loves polls. He loves talking about polls, at least the ones that show him winning. And NPR political editor Domenico Montanaro loves polls, too, and he's here to guide us through the poll numbers that we're going to see in this next week before the Iowa caucuses next Monday. Hi, Domenico.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Hi, and I do love polls, maybe to not the specificity that Donald Trump does...
SIEGEL: (Laughter).
MONTANARO: ...And maybe to a little bit broader range, but we can talk about that.
SIEGEL: OK. A week away from the Iowa caucus - what's different about the polls we're going to see?
MONTANARO: Right now, pollsters are switching over from what's known as a registered voter model to a likely voter model, which means that they're essentially testing enthusiasm and whether or not people will go vote. And those lucky voter screens are making a lot of volatility right now. You can't compare what you saw five month ago to what you're seeing today 'cause it's a completely different universe of people.
SIEGEL: Because deciding who likely voters are, unlike who's a registered voter, it's a judgment call.
MONTANARO: It is. And part of that is because people are telling survey interviewers whether or not they voted, and it's not something that is based in fact because they're not using what's known as a voter file of real evidence of whether or not you voted.
SIEGEL: The rules for caucuses in Iowa are different for Democrats and Republicans. So the polls, as I understand - this could actually mean something different in terms of how well they predict the result.
MONTANARO: In a primary, a lot of times, poll track a little better. In a caucus, it's a lot harder because it's all about organization. And that's what's happening in this final week. Part of the problem is - is that, within certain precincts in Iowa, for example, you could have a concentration of support for Bernie Sanders in three counties where there are big universities. Well, if they don't spread out those folks, Hillary Clinton could wind up with more delegates in the same way Barack Obama wound up with more delegates in rural places than Hillary Clinton did out of big cities.
SIEGEL: It's like a little electoral college system system you describe...
MONTANARO: It kind of is, yeah...
SIEGEL: ...On the Democratic side.
MONTANARO: ...On the Democratic side. On the Republican side, it's very different. It's a little bit more like you would see in a primary system - more informal, though. People just fold over pieces of paper, hand them in. And both sides do make arguments for their candidates, but they don't have the same kind of process as Democrats.
SIEGEL: Four years ago in the Republican caucuses, Rick Santorum won by a whisker. Mitt Romney was second and Ron Paul third. That one didn't seem to be predicted by the most respected poll in Iowa.
MONTANARO: That's right. The most respected poll in Iowa that a lot of people talk about is the Des Moines Register Bloomberg Poll that's conducted by J. Ann Selzer. And her poll showed Ron Paul winning. Now, here's a caveat. She actually put a warning out about her own poll because this poll was conducted over four days, and she found, in the first two days - they had found Ron Paul in the lead. But by days three and days four, she saw a trend upward - an upward tick toward Rick Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator who got a lot of support from evangelicals in the western part of the state who appeared to be deciding late in the race more so toward Santorum.
SIEGEL: Are there any comparable internal trends that you can see, say, this time around in the Sanders-Clinton race?
MONTANARO: Well, one of the things I think is important to look at are trends, and I think one of the things you're seeing on both sides - I mean, on the Clinton-Sanders race, you're seeing them pretty much neck and neck. They're within the margin of error. On the Republican side, you've seen Donald Trump and Ted Cruz, over a long period of time now, be basically one and two. Who's to say who's first or second? It's very difficult to tell. We shouldn't go with the kind of specificity that Donald Trump might. We should look at the broader trend over time.
SIEGEL: And next week, Domenico, we can take all those polls and, well, grade them, would be a polite way of putting it.
MONTANARO: That's true, and I think people should just take a step back right now. Let everything settle with the volatility because Iowa voters will actually decide and tell us without a margin of error, very much so, who the winner is (laughter).
SIEGEL: That's NPR's political editor Domenico Montanaro.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
This is supposed to be Carnival season in Haiti. But instead of colorful parades and dancing, the streets have been filled with protesters, burning tires and scuffles with police. The demonstrators want the current president, who has less than two weeks left in office, to step down immediately. The president and a group of eight opposition leaders have been in closed-door negotiations as the demonstrations go on throughout the impoverished country. NPR's Carrie Kahn has the latest from Port-au-Prince.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: Running behind a van blaring music, a crowd of protesters shout down with President Michel Martelly and get him out.
FRITZ: (Speaking Haitian Creole).
KAHN: This protester, who only gave his name as Fritz, says Martelly has lied and cheated.
He promised us elections, but there is nothing. He must go.
The final round of the presidential election was supposed to have taken place yesterday but was abruptly canceled after officials said they feared violence and couldn't ensure voter safety. Opposition leaders and human rights groups had long been complaining about what they said was widespread fraud and vote rigging in last October's presidential primary. Martelly's ruling party candidate, a political newcomer and banana exporter, was declared the winner with 33 percent of the vote. The second place primary finisher, a former official with the state construction agency, refused to campaign, claiming the election was rigged.
Politics professor at the University of Virginia Robert Fatton says Haiti's electoral democracy is in a crisis. He says the institutions necessary to hold credible elections are too weak and that makes it easy for losers of contests to cry foul.
ROBERT FATTON: The political class in Haiti, whenever you have elections, resists the results because the results are deemed to be fraudulent and irregular, so we have that kind of cycle that seems to be unending.
KAHN: With its histories of the dictatorships and coups, international players from the U.N. to the United States have invested millions of dollars in Haiti's recent elections. Last year alone, the U.S. spent more than $30 million on the contests.
Protester Riselia Ouiswoi, a 43-year-old housewife, says Haitians will be the ones to decide the country's future and no one else.
RISELIA OUISWOI: (Through interpreter) We don't want any foreigners who will come and give us a president. We have to choose our own president.
KAHN: Ouiswoi, like many Haitians, is tired of foreign intervention in the country, especially in the capital still reeling from the effects of the devastating 2010 earthquake and what many complain has been a shoddy and uneven recovery paid for by international charities. According to Haiti's constitution, President Martelly must step down from office by February 7, less than 2 weeks from today. No new election date has yet been set.
Carrie Kahn, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
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The U.S. Supreme Court has offered a chance of release to about 2,000 prisoners. These inmates were sentenced to life without parole for homicides committed when they were juveniles. In 2012, the court struck down such automatic life terms and today, the justices, by a 6-3 vote, took the unusual step of making that decision retroactive. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: The case before the court began more than a half-century ago when Henry Montgomery, an African-American teenager, was sentenced to a mandatory life-without-parole term for the murder of a white police officer in Louisiana. Now 70, he's long been a model prisoner at the Louisiana's notorious Angola prison. So when the Supreme Court ruled four years ago that mandatory life terms are unconstitutional for juvenile offenders, even murderers, his lawyer sought a review of his sentence. The case made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which does not usually make its criminal law decisions retroactive. Most of its decisions apply only to the future. But this case proved a rare exception.
Writing for the court's six-justice majority today, Justice Anthony Kennedy said that a life-without-parole sentence is always unconstitutionally cruel and unusual punishment unless the juvenile defendant is found to be irreparably corrupt and permanently incorrigible. We've made clear in a series of rulings, he said, that life terms for juvenile defendants are impermissible except for the rare juvenile offender who exhibits such irretrievable depravity that rehabilitation is impossible. The court's 2012 decision barring automatic life terms for juvenile murderers, he said, is the kind of rare new constitutional rule that must be applied not just prospectively by the states but retroactively, too.
Kennedy noted that Henry Montgomery spent each of the last 46 years knowing that he was condemned to die in prison. Perhaps it can be established that this fate was a just and proportionate punishment for a crime he committed as a 17-year-old boy, said Kennedy, but in light of what our decisions have said about the relative culpability of juveniles, Montgomery and others like him must be given the opportunity to show their crime did not reflect irreparable corruption. And if it did not, their hope for some years of life outside prison walls must be restored.
Experts say there are some 2,000 life-termers in similar circumstances sentenced without consideration of the immaturity, recklessness and impetuosity of youth. Louisiana and other states argued before the court that if they were forced to hold new sentencing hearings it would be difficult, time-consuming and expensive, if not impossible. The state's lawyer said that about half of those serving life terms for crimes they committed when they were under 18 have been in prison for 20 years or more and that in many cases, the witnesses, defense lawyers and prosecutors are dead, and records impossible to locate.
At oral argument, Justice Kennedy raised the possibility of simply making parole available to these defendants instead of holding a formal new sentencing procedure.
ANTHONY KENNEDY: You don't have a distorted new trial if you just grant a parole hearing.
TOTENBERG: In his decision today, Kennedy offered that possibility to the states, telling them that they could instead parole those no longer deemed dangerous. Justice Antonin Scalia writing for the three dissenters mocked that alternative. In "Godfather" fashion, the majority makes state legislatures an offer they can't refuse, he said. Avoid all the utterly impossible nonsense we've required for sentencing juvenile homicide offenders by simply considering them for parole. Mission accomplished. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Five years ago today, the Arab Spring came to Egypt. Protesters took to Cairo's streets to demand more political and economic freedoms, as demonstrator Adel al-Sharif (ph) told NPR at the time.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
ADEL AL-SHARIF: This is the exact thing that moves everybody. The status quo is too much, too much not doing anything. We're not progressing. So we need this change.
CORNISH: Things did change. The country's longtime president Hosni Mubarak stepped down.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Egyptian scholar Amr Hamzawy was part of that process, mediating between the government and protesters. Later, he was elected to Parliament, and today, he has left Egypt for Stanford University. In Cairo, another military backed ruler is in place, and Hamzawy describes a political climate there that's similar to what Egypt had five years ago before the revolution.
AMR HAMZAWY: A repressive environment in which dissent is not tolerated, a repressive environment in which, once again, Egypt is falling back to autocratic times, a repressive environment in which unprecedented human rights violations are happening. The numbers are shocking when you look at the number of imprisoned Egyptians - anywhere between 40,000 and 50,000 Egyptians. So it's an environment similar to what we had in Egypt prior to 2011.
SIEGEL: If you were pressed to say what went wrong, what do you say? What's the short answer to that question?
HAMZAWY: Short answer is that the military establishment never warmed up to a democratic Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood and different Islamist groups were too eager to get it their own way and not to cooperate with secular forces. And secular forces, liberal and leftists, were ready to call on the military to interfere in politics once they lost an election. So in a way to get rid of the Muslim Brothers, they were willing to get the military back in.
SIEGEL: Well, a cynic might say, after you've listed the groups that were not insistent upon a functioning democracy, there's not much left. I mean, is it just liberal intellectuals like yourself? Is it a small minority that hope for real democracy?
HAMZAWY: It's not the liberal minority of writers and intellectuals. Most of us have left the country. No, it's much more about students, young Egyptians and workers who have been protesting in the last two years. Only in 2015, we had over 1,000 protest event happening in spite of the repressive environment.
SIEGEL: Do you count yourself a political exile from Egypt right now?
HAMZAWY: I hate to say it, Robert, but I am. I opposed the military coup of July 2013. I was banned from travel for a year based on trumped-up charges. During 2014, I was not allowed to teach in Cairo University. My work was stopped in different manners. So in a way, after trying to resist, I did not have any choice but to leave, which I did a couple of months ago.
SIEGEL: What do you see as your role now? What can you and other people like you - you in Stanford, in this case - what can you do at this point for Egypt?
HAMZAWY: What I continue to do is to write for an Egyptian newspaper. I face censorship, but I insist on writing. It's my contribution from afar. I try to help shape public debate in which the value of democracy is obscured in which Egyptians not only listen to the government rhetoric on, well, I mean, you tried democracy, and you failed; listen to us. We offer you security. We offer you bread and butter. Forget about civilian politicians. You are more secure with us.
So to offer an alternative to that narrative which really looms large in the Egyptian public space - what else can be done is a question which will have to be answered domestically. Now it comes down to Egyptian students, young Egyptians and workers who are protesting peacefully. And they are going to push the envelope gradually, or we will have an accumulation of anger and a momentum not identicle but similar to January 2011 once again soon.
SIEGEL: Amr Hamzawy now of Stanford University, thank you very much for talking with us.
HAMZAWY: A pleasure, Robert. Thank you very much.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
People along the East Coast spent today trying to get out from under this weekend's massive snowfall. There are signs that in some areas things are slowly returning to normal. But as NPR's Pam Fessler reports, many people could be snowed in for days.
PAM FESSLER, BYLINE: Government offices and schools were closed all around Washington, D.C., and streets were still clogged with snow. But caterer Frederico Barahona was among the many workers who ventured out anyway. At midmorning, he was at a D.C. Metro station trying to get across town for a lunchtime wedding.
FREDERICO BARAHONA: Which has been canceled from Saturday, changed it to Sunday. It got canceled on Sunday again, so hopefully, it will happen today.
FESSLER: Barahona said the trip normally takes 45 minutes. Today, after two hours, he was still traveling. At nearby Union Station, flight attendant Ann Silano also said she needed to get to work. She was planning to go by rail.
ANN SILANO: We have to get to New York today to work a flight tonight to Tel Aviv. And all the flights are canceling or very delayed, so we opted to take the train so we could be guaranteed getting up there.
FESSLER: She was hoping her flight wouldn't be canceled when she got there, as thousands have been over the past two days. Still, things were getting back on track. Officials in Washington, Baltimore and New York reported that most major roadways had been reopened, although they said they could be cleaning up side streets for days.
There was also a lot of cleaning up along the New Jersey coast, where the blizzard caused widespread flooding. In North Wildwood, employees and volunteers were helping Karl Belfonti after the first floor of his gym was filled with about a foot of water.
KARL BELFONTI: And so, as a result of that, we are cleaning all the mats, moving all the equipment, sanitizing it, putting it back down and then moving the equipment back to its original place.
FESSLER: Cleanup also continued in New York City. Mayor Bill de Blasio said the city had a great opportunity for those looking for work - $13.50 an hour to help shovel out bus stops and sidewalks.
Pam Fessler, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Being snowed in is a good excuse for a movie marathon, but you don't need that excuse. You do, however, need a good theme. NPR film critic Bob Mondello has us covered there. Last year when the winter weather started getting brutal, he focused on heat, and he came up with a great list.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Plenty of movies sound as if they'll warm you up.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDINGS)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: "The Towering Inferno."
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: "Paris When It Sizzles."
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: "Hot Fuzz."
>>UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4 "Cat On A Hot Tin Roof."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT")
RAY CHARLES: (Singing) In the heat of the night.
MONDELLO: But just as you can't judge a book by its cover, it's tough to take a film's temperature from its title. Yes, "In The Heat Of The Night" does swelter both from being set in Mississippi and from having Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger so hot under the collar. But most of the rest of those films won't warm you up much, nor will "Volcano" or "Fahrenheit 451," a sci-fi title the producers decided needed explaining.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: Fahrenheit 451 is the temperature at which book paper catches fire and starts to burn.
MONDELLO: The movie itself, though, was chilly. Even "Some Like It Hot" isn't actually hot. Sure, it heads to Miami, but it never gets nearly as steamed up as a Marilyn Monroe comedy that stays in Manhattan, "The Seven Year Itch," set in a heat wave that inspires a classic Marilyn moment - you know the one - with her standing atop a subway grate...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH")
MARILYN MONROE: (As the girl) Oh, here comes another one.
MONDELLO: ...Each passing train stirring up both a breeze and the skirt of her white pleated dress. Marilyn spends most of "The Seven Year Itch" visiting a neighbor who's got air-conditioning, playfully fueling his fantasies and the audience's with ideas for cooling down her own apartment.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH")
MONROE: (As the girl) Maybe if I took the little fan, bring in the ice box, let the icebox door open, then left the bedroom door open and soaked the sheets and pillowcases in ice water - no, that's too icky.
MONDELLO: Other films take the steamy side of things more seriously - Stanley Kowalski fuming at Blanche DuBois for making "A Streetcar Named Desire" so muggy by taking hot baths in midsummer and William Hurt and Kathleen Turner simmering through a Florida hot spell in "Body Heat," their skin glistening not just when they're sharing a bed or a bathtub but even when they're just hanging around.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BODY HEAT")
WILLIAM HURT: (As Ned Racine) You can stand there with me if you want, but you'll have to agree not to talk about the heat.
MONDELLO: William Hurt plays a sleazy attorney who is always in hot water, as it were, forever mopping sweat from his brow in suffocating courtrooms like legions of movies Southerners before him. Think "Inherit The Wind" or "To Kill A Mockingbird" or almost anything based on a John Grisham novel. Brow mopping is also a fact of life for Southern beauty shop patrons, folks who eat fried green tomatoes, recruits on military bases. To judge from movies, you'd think no one in the South had ever heard of air-conditioning.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BILOXI BLUES")
MATTHEW BRODERICK: (As Eugene Morris Jerome) It's like Africa hot. Tarzan couldn't take this kind of hot. It never got this hot in Brooklyn.
MONDELLO: Actually, Spike Lee might disagree about that. Soaring temperatures are very nearly a character in his Brooklyn epic, "Do The Right Thing."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DO THE RIGHT THING")
OSSIE DAVIS: (As Da Mayor) It is hot as blazes. Curse Jesus.
MONDELLO: As the sun bakes this neighborhood, tempers flare; arguments get heated; old feuds combust, and finally, a building bursts into flame.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DO THE RIGHT THING")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Burn it down. Burn it down.
MONDELLO: "Do The Right Thing" is about the racial tensions that fan those flames. Other more conventional dramas have kept audiences smoldering by laboring to put flames out, from the firefighters in "Backdraft" and "Ladder 49..."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LADDER 49")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) The place is full of grain dust which could explode at any time.
MONDELLO: ...All the way back to silent films and a three-alarm epic called "Here Comes The Fire Brigade," in which 1920s firemen coaxed a woman to leap from a burning building into their safety net, which was, back then, a relatively recent invention. What's hotter than fire? Well, just one thing, really - the sun, baking movie beaches until they fuse into an endless summer, melting heat shields when film astronauts veer too close and scorching anyone and anything foolish enough to try to cross a desert, be it the Australian outback "Rabbit-Proof Fence," the parched American West in "The Good, The Bad And The Ugly," or a scorching Middle Eastern wasteland in the mother of all desert epics, "Lawrence Of Arabia."
Across a desert so searing that even the Bedouins consider it impassable, Peter O'Toole's T.E. Lawrence leads a small band of Arab warriors on a days-long march - heat, dry and overwhelming, blistering lips, turning eyes to slits. And when they finally spied an oasis ahead, Lawrence discovers that a man has slipped unnoticed off a camel the night before and heads back to rescue him - insanity, his men agree, and press forward. But one boy stays behind, hoping against hope, scanning an empty horizon for hours as the midday sun roasts him, heat rising in waves and from the sand. And then, impossibly, the boy spies a speck on a dune far away, and tentatively urges his camel forward, at first slowly, peering skeptically into the blinding sun, then at a trot, then at a gallop. And as the boy races towards Lawrence so thrilled and parched and desperate that he overshoots and has to come around in a great, arching circle, you, like millions before you, are likely to feel many things.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LAWRENCE OF ARABIA")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) Lawrence, hey.
MONDELLO: I promise that cold will not be among them. I'm Bob Mondello.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In a stunning turnabout, a Houston grand jury has cleared a Planned Parenthood clinic of allegations that it illegally trafficked in fetal tissue. Instead, the panel indicted the two anti-abortion activists who made the videos released last summer that prompted the investigation of the family planning clinic. NPR's Wade Goodwyn has been following the case and joins us now. And Wade, this is a surprising turn of events, right? I mean, what's known so far?
WADE GOODWYN, BYLINE: So the grand jury's investigation originally came about as a result of these anti-abortion activist videos which tried to give the impression that Planned Parenthood officials were trafficking in fetal tissue. The Republican leadership in Texas, including Governor Greg Abbott, responded to David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt's videos by calling for the immediate investigation of the Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast facility, which was the clinic that was depicted in those videos. And so for the last two months, that's what the Harris County grand jury's been doing in Houston - investigation that Planned Parenthood facility.
And today, the panel cleared it of wrongdoing and instead indicted the anti-abortion activists that made the videos, and that's turned this investigation on its head. The Harris County district attorney explained today that the grand jury simply followed the evidence in the case where it lead them and that he approved of their work.
CORNISH: Now, this indictment charges the two activists with tampering with a government record, which is a felony.
GOODWYN: Yeah, that's right. And David Daleiden, who created the Center for Medical Progress, which is the company that shot the undercover videos, is also indicted on charges related to the attempted purchase of human organs.
CORNISH: Now, what could be the political ramifications in Texas of the grand jury's action today?
GOODWYN: Well, this is a blow for the anti-abortion movement in that here was a grand jury in panel to investigate Planned Parenthood and instead exonerated Planned Parenthood and faulted its accusers. This result tends to support Planned Parenthood's claim that these videos were really just an edited pack of lies created for the purpose of inventing a justification for political retaliation. Now, of course, the charges have not been heard in court of law, but the very fact that they've been filed is a big change of momentum.
CORNISH: What about other places around the country, anywhere else where there could be other legal actions connected to these videos about Planned Parenthood?
GOODWYN: Yes, well, there have already been investigations in 11 states thus far as to whether Planned Parenthood illegally trafficked in fetal tissue, and so far, every investigation has included, they'd done nothing illegal. Planned Parenthood, however, did file a lawsuit earlier this month accusing David Daleiden and several other anti-abortion activists of conspiring to block women's access to an abortion, and that lawsuit's going to be heard in federal court.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Wade Goodwyn. Wade, thanks so much.
GOODWYN: It's my pleasure.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Eating any seafood from the Passaic River is risky. The New Jersey waterway is heavily polluted by the factories that once dotted it, including a plant that made Agent Orange. But there are people who rely on fish from the river. Sarah Gonzales of member station WNYC reports that some of the companies responsible for the pollution have come up with their own approach to protect those residents.
SARAH GONZALES, BYLINE: Eating anything from the lower Passaic River can cause cancer, liver damage, birth defects and reproductive issues, but Oswaldo Avad does it all the time. Standing on the bank where the Passaic meets the Newark Bay, he's reeling in a small bluefish and part of a grocery bag.
OSWALDO AVAD: (Laughter) One piece plastic and one fish.
GONZALES: One piece of plastic and one fish.
AVAD: (Laughter).
GONZALES: He already has a bucket full.
AVAD: Four...
GONZALES: Five...
AVAD: Yes, five.
GONZALES: Are you going to eat it?
AVAD: Yeah. It's good.
GONZALES: Avad loves fishing. He's from Ecuador, and he switches between English and Spanish when we talk because he says his English is only good after a few drinks.
(LAUGHTER)
GONZALES: Children pregnant women, women who might one day want to be pregnant - they're not supposed to eat any fish from most of the waters in New Jersey. Men are told it's safe to eat a tiny bit - like, one catfish per year. Avad eats way more than that.
AVAD: (Speaking Spanish).
GONZALES: Garlic, fry it...
AVAD: (Speaking Spanish).
GONZALES: (Speaking Spanish), catfish soup. And you don't get scared?
AVAD: No.
GONZALES: The Passaic River is one of the most contaminated bodies of water in the country. More than a hundred companies are potentially responsible for dumping toxic waste in it for decades before that was outlawed. The EPA, the Environment Protection Agency, wants the polluters to clean it up. In the meantime, some have formed a group. They call themselves the Cooperating Parties. And in an effort to reduce the health risks to residents who eat from the river, they're voluntarily funding a fish exchange program.
Three hundred tilapia are being raised in a greenhouse in Newark. Amy Rowe, who runs the fish farm for the polluters, says residents can bring in their contaminated catch.
AMY ROWE: Eels, crabs, carp, whitefish.
GONZALES: And swap it for clean, healthy tilapia, pound for pound. But her tilapia aren't big enough to swap.
ROWE: So we actually bought tilapia fillets from Cosco - yeah (laughter).
GONZALES: The polluters have spent more than a million dollars funding the fish exchange and greenhouse and have prevented just 170 contaminated fish from being eaten since June. And all the fish they've collected are now sitting in a freezer in Newark.
ROWE: So these are eels. This looks like perch.
GONZALES: And Amy Rowe isn't sure how to dispose of them. Legally, she could just throw them in the trash, but environmental justice advocates like Molly Greenberg with the Ironbound Community Corporation warned contaminated fish better not end up in their incinerator.
MOLLY GREENBERG: You breathe in what comes out of the smokestack. If it's toxic when you eat it, it's toxic when you breathe it.
GONZALES: The EPA wants the polluters to pay for a $1.7 billion cleanup of the Passaic. Both the polluters and Walter Mugdon with the EPA agree the fish swap is not an alternative.
WALTER MUGDON: It's certainly no substitute for cleaning up the river and getting the fish to be clean in the first place.
GONZALES: Jonathan Jaffe, a spokesperson for the Cooperating Parties, the polluters, declined a recorded interview but said in an email that they want to fund a smaller, targeted cleanup. He said the EPA's proposal is, quote, "destined for years of conflict and litigation." For NPR News, I'm Sarah Gonzales in New York.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
For decades, most immigrants from China have come from its southern provinces. In recent years, more newcomers are coming from the north and many are landing in New York City. It's already home to the largest Chinese community of any city outside of Asia. And NPR's Hansi Lo Wang reports that the new immigrants are making a big impact.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: If you want to meet some of the newest Chinese immigrants of New York, don't go to New York's Chinatown. Take the train to the Queens neighborhood of Flushing and walk down to the basement of the local YMCA.
CORBIN: A.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: A.
CORBIN: E.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: E.
CORBIN: I.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: I.
CORBIN: O.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: O.
WANG: We're in a packed classroom where there's a mix of immigrants learning English.
JIAO LIU: And my name is Jiao Liu, and I'm from China. I came here four years ago.
WANG: Liu moved from Liaoning, a province in northern China. That region has not been a traditional source of immigrants to the U.S. But more families from there are now calling Flushing home, says Geng Lei, another student in the class.
GENG LEI: (Foreign language spoken).
WANG: "There's especially more people from the northeastern provinces," she says in Mandarin. "And more and more people from Henan." Geng grew up in Shandong province where she says she had a good job as a musician playing traditional Chinese music. So why did she leave? She says to start a family with her husband who was already working in America.
LEI: (Foreign language spoken).
WANG: "Some people in China have gotten rich," Geng tells me, "and want their children to go to school overseas. Plus, China's environment and air quality aren't good," she adds to her list of reasons why more Northerners like her are coming to the U.S.
PETER KWONG: What you notice now is a new group, much more diverse, coming from the north.
WANG: That was Peter Kwong, a professor at Hunter College who studied Chinese immigrant communities. He says numbers about this group are hard to come by. But broadly, they tend to be from cities, and they're often professionals, small business owners and government bureaucrats with the means to buy valid visas. Kwong adds many are coming in search of economic opportunities and stability they couldn't find in northern China.
KWONG: Many of these regions are much less developed than the south. So in the process of modernization, they're the one under a lot of pressure. A lot of people decide they want to leave.
WANG: Walk through the streets of Flushing and if you understand Chinese, you'll quickly hear this is not your average Chinatown where Cantonese and Fuzhounese are the dominant dialects. Here, it's Mandarin in lots of different accents, says Bon Yu, who moved from Shandong's largest city, Qingdao.
BON YU: Like, for example, ni hao ma, but we say ni hao ma, ni hao ma - I can tell the slight difference because like, you know, you're from their city so, you know, you know their accent.
WANG: More Northerners living in Flushing also means that restaurants here are redefining what Chinese food means in America.
YU: We are here right now in Flushing New World Mall downstairs. It's a food court.
WANG: OK, so show me where can we find northern Chinese food?
Yu leads me to a food stall serving dishes from Qingdao and another stall with freshly-made Chinese-Korean-style dumplings from the northeast - some of the latest ingredients to make up the centuries-long story of Chinese immigrants in America.
SABRINA ZHANG: For northern people, before they don't really want to come outs to America, but later on people notice that maybe it's better if you see more in the world.
WANG: Sabrina Zhang and her mother are seeing more in the world. They left Liaoning four years ago to join her father in the U.S. Now she's studying for a degree in accounting and working part-time at the Flushing YMCA's New Americans Welcome Center, helping other recent immigrants register for English classes. She says Flushing is a good place to start.
ZHANG: It's still like in China. If you want to really get along with American people, you need to really know, like, what life they have. So if you still in Flushing then maybe the life you see is still Chinese people.
WANG: Eventually, Zhang says, she wants to see even more in her new American world. Hansi Lo Wang, NPR News, Flushing, N.Y.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Low oil prices are a big problem for Iraq. That's because Iraq is an oil producer and practically all the government's revenue comes from oil. So with the war against ISIS to fight, millions of displaced people to feed and a population dependent on government work, times are tough. NPR's Alice Fordham sent this report from Baghdad.
ALICE FORDHAM, BYLINE: Let's start on the front line of every faltering economy, the grocery store. In a shop lined with baskets of spices and rose petal tea, owner Osama al-Hassani is measuring out roasted salted beans.
OSAMA AL-HASSANI: (Foreign language spoken).
FORDHAM: "Is that enough?" he says. "It's not very much."
AL-HASSANI: (Foreign language spoken).
FORDHAM: The customers say "Actually, give us a bit less than that." And the shopkeeper complains, says this is the situation now. His business is bad.
AL-HASSANI: (Foreign language spoken).
FORDHAM: He says he used to have 13 workers in his store, and now he's only got two. Business has been down for months. His customers are squeezed and worried. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In the audio of this story, we say that Osama al-Hassani used to have 13 workers. It was actually 30 workers.]
ALAA AZIZ: (Foreign language spoken).
FORDHAM: "We're buying less because my salary was cut 10 percent," says Alaa Aziz, a university professor. So was his wife's. She's a schoolteacher. They're just belt-tightening for now, nothing drastic. But they think it's going to get worse, and they're probably right. I meet the prime minister's economic advisor, Muzher Salah, who tells me Iraq is straining under two enormous costs.
MUZHER SALAH: The cost of war and the cost of oil because we depend entirely on oil revenue.
FORDHAM: It's what the International Monetary Fund calls Iraq's double shock. In 2014, Iraq lost a lot of its territory to ISIS and has to spend on fighting back and looking after millions of displaced people. At the same time, oil prices started to fall. Basically, all Iraq's government income comes from oil, so it has less than a third of the revenue it had in 2014. To help pay for the war, the U.S. has offered loans to buy weapons, but that doesn't cover government salaries. Government jobs make up about half the employment here and people expect other benefits, too, like food rations and cheap gas.
SALAH: This is oil country, OK (Laughter). Tax holiday, free lunch, everything free, even electricity free, OK? This is the mentality of Iraqi people at this point. Believe me, it's very difficult to change them, OK? We need time to educate them, OK?
FORDHAM: For now, the government's doing a complicated shuffle-around of money, basically eating into its reserves of foreign currency just to keep paying those salaries. But they'll run out of savings by sometime next year at this rate. Experts say Iraq needs economic reform, people should move to the private sector. But Iraqis don't see it that way.
At a demonstration on a recent evening in Baghdad, people chant against corruption. Here, people say the country's economic problems aren't because of low oil prices but because the politicians are thieves. I asked demonstrator Kadhim Faraj, a retired teacher, what will happen with the demonstrations if the government cuts salaries.
KADHIM FARAJ: I think the demonstrations will continue, increase, and the government will be in a corner very tight.
FORDHAM: In a tight corner?
FARAJ: Yes. And I think the people will continue.
FORDHAM: He says the country needs to change. If Iraq goes broke, it's not going to have much choice. Alice Fordham, NPR News, Baghdad.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
A record number of American families - more than 11 million - spend more than half of their incomes on rent. For low-income families, that can mean little left to spend on food and other necessities. Almost 100 years ago, the answer to getting money to a landlord might have been a rent party. Tenants would sell tickets at the door to their homes for a night of music and dancing. There's a modern-day version of that now, and NPR's Pam Fessler has the story.
PAM FESSLER, BYLINE: OK, this isn't exactly like the rent parties of the 1920s, which were mostly held in Harlem. There's no dancing or food or tickets. But there will be music, and the 20 or so people crowding into Tom Wall's small apartment in Annapolis, Md., are here to help him and others like him to pay the rent.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Do you want to come sit on the couch over here?
FESSLER: Everyone sits on folding chairs or too-small couches. Wall stands in the center. He's 67, a heavyset man with pale blue eyes and a sandy-haired mustache.
TOM WALL: That's the mother of my two goddaughters. Hi, Chris.
FESSLER: Wall used to be a lawyer in the housing and finance industry. He had to quit when he had a stroke, but that meant he and his wife couldn't pay the mortgage on their house and the lender moved to foreclose. They moved here last summer but then Wall's wife, Peggy, died. He now gets $2,300 a month from Social Security but his rent is $1,600, more than two-thirds of that. Wall used to be well-off. Now he's barely making it.
WALL: Stuff happens. Nobody plans to fail, but sometimes circumstances beyond your control happen in life, and you're challenged with - what you going to do about it?
FESSLER: Today, he's hosting a concert in his home by classical violinist Tim Fain, who performed in the movie "Black Swan."
(APPLAUSE)
FESSLER: The concert is part of a nonprofit group's campaign called Make Room to raise awareness about the millions of Americans like Tom Wall. Fain, who's just flown in from appearing with the Pittsburgh Symphony, says he can appreciate how scary it is not knowing when the next check will arrive.
TIM FAIN: I think about this. You know, being a self-employed artist, nobody's looking out for me, really.
FESSLER: Housing experts say it doesn't take all that much to get in a bind. Almost 2 million Americans who pay more than half their incomes on rent are seniors with fixed incomes. Others are workers whose wages have gone down while rents keep going up. In today's audience is Donnie Lehman, who lost his masonry job in 2010 and has been unemployed ever since.
DONNIE LEHMAN: And I lost my house, found myself literally homeless.
FESSLER: Until Wall invited him to crash at his place. Wall's been trying to make ends meet by bringing in roommates when he can, although Lehman has no money right now.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIM FAIN SONG, "ARCHES")
FESSLER: Everyone appears captivated as a Fain plays a piece called "Arches." The event is being filmed and will be posted online, one of a series of such concerts. There will also be a fund-raising campaign to help Wall pay his rent. But the real goal is to get people talking more about what can be done to address the lack of affordable housing, whether it's more public aid or tax incentives for developers, or higher wages.
(APPLAUSE)
(SOUNDBITE OF TIM FAIN SONG, "ARCHES")
(SOUNDBITE OF TIM FAIN SONG, "ARCHES")
FESSLER: Fain ends on a high note, and Wall is thankful. But he says honestly, he's not that confident the campaign will make all that much difference in the long run.
WALL: I have to say that by and large, it's going to fall on deaf ears.
FESSLER: Wall notes that the federal government has been cutting back on housing aid, and state and local governments are also strapped for cash. So as he nears 70, he's looking for some part-time work to avoid eviction. Two friends have offered to let him live with them for free, but he says he's not yet ready to admit defeat. Pam Fessler, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIM FAIN SONG, "ARCHES")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
While a blizzard raged outside, musical theater fans from around the world were geeking out in a midtown Manhattan hotel. They were there for the first ever BroadwayCon. Last weekend's event was a play on Comic-Con. It was a chance for people with the same passion to get together and dress up as their favorite stage characters, and it was a chance for the industry to cement its relationship with a younger audience. Reporter Jeff Lunden went to see if it worked.
JEFF LUNDEN, BYLINE: I remember being 14 years old and standing out in the cold at the stage door of "Pippin," waiting to get Ben Vereen's autograph on my playbill.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "PIPPIN")
BEN VEREEN: (Singing) We've got magic to do just for you.
LUNDEN: More than 40 years later, I still have it. I was thinking about that seeing lots of young people, many in elaborate costumes, geeking out over their shared love of theater. Many bought a T-shirt that said there's a place for us. Ten points if you know it's a Stephen Sondheim lyric from "West Side Story."
LIZZIE MATTHIAS: I think it's a really cool idea to have, like, so many Broadway fans together and, like, we can share what we love.
LUNDEN: Lizzie Matthias is a 14-year-old from Grand Rapids, Mich., and she was dressed up like her favorite character from "In The Heights." She came to BroadwayCon to get together with two friends she met on Instagram, 13-year-old Jack Abrams from Los Angeles and 14-year-old Tali Natter from New York City. I asked them what they were hoping to get out of BroadwayCon.
TALI NATTER: I think just meet more people like us who understand why we are obsessed.
LIZZIE: Yeah.
TALI: Yeah. And meet all the stars, and learn more about this thing that we love so much.
ANTHONY RAPP: This is the thing that social media can and should do, I think, is bring people together and not just have them staring at their screens, you know, like a zombie.
LUNDEN: Actor Anthony Rapp, one of the original stars of "Rent," is co-founder of BradwayCon.
RAPP: If this can bridge all of those worlds and bring people together and celebrate community, that's exactly what we want to do.
LUNDEN: And what brings people together better than sing-alongs?
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) Let me be your song, I just have to forget -
LUNDEN: Those are fans of the TV show "Smash," about the making of a Broadway musical.
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) Pretty women blowing out their candles.
LUNDEN: Two young men with bloody prop razors singing a duet from "Sweeney Todd."
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Singing) I am not throwing away my shots -
LUNDEN: And, of course, the "Hamilton" fans, hundreds of them, knew every word of "Hamilton." That was one of the highlights for 13-year-old Jack Abrams.
JACK ABRAMS: We were chosen to sing with all of these other fans up on a stage and it was really cool, and seeing how so many people do the same thing as us and we're not the only ones.
LUNDEN: What Jack Abrams has found at BroadwayCon is his tribe, and that may well a good sign for the future of this living, breathing art form, especially since the average Broadway audience member now is 44 years old. Melissa Anelli, co-founder of the event, told me who had signed up.
MELISSA ANELLI: We are about 80 percent out-of-town, close to 80 percent female, and half of our attendees were between 18 and 30.
LUNDEN: And the marketing seems to have worked on that demographic, especially an elaborate opening ceremony which was kind of a mini Broadway musical.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Singing) I want to be at the Con where it happens, the Con where it happens, the Con where it happens.
LIZZIE: I'm Lizzie. My favorite part was that they, like, did a parody of a "Hamilton" song, "The Room Where It Happens," changed it to "The Con Where It Happens." It made me so happy.
LUNDEN: She was also happy getting autographs and picking up lots and lots of merch. But clearly, the best part was seeing the actors from Broadway shows, especially "Hamilton." Lin-Manuel Miranda, the musical's creator and star, treated the audience to a freestyle rap.
LIN-MANUEL MIRANDA: (Singing) Every day at BroadwayCon is a blessing. Thank God for paper and shots, beat-boxing lessons.
LUNDEN: It was all too much for the three young people I met at the beginning of the day, who were now joined at the hip. Again, Tali Natter.
TALI: Lizzie over here was sobbing the entire time. It was just so surreal because we all look up to those people. We watch every YouTube video, every interview, we do everything possible. Like, they were right in front of us. Like, yeah, it was insane.
LUNDEN: And me? Well, I'm really too old for some of this stuff. But I've got to admit, my 14-year-old self got a little bit excited when Ben Vereen stepped onstage at the finale of the opening ceremony. For NPR News, I'm Jeff Lunden in New York.
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) BroadwayCon's the best. BroadwayCon's the place for you. Welcome to BroadwayCon.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Beatrix Potter is famous for her charming tales of mice and rabbits, most notably Peter Rabbit, who was given this piece of sage advice.
(SOUNDBITE OF AUDIOBOOK, "THE TALE OF PETER RABBIT")
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Now, my dears, you may go into the fields.
UNIDENTIFIED BOY: (Humming).
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Or down the lane, but don't go into Mr. McGregor's garden.
CORNISH: Readers will see Peter again soon, though older and hopefully wiser. He plays a big part in "The Tale Of Kitty-In-Boots." It's a mostly forgotten story that's getting a new life this fall. NPR's Petra Mayer has the story.
PETRA MAYER, BYLINE: Beatrix Potter was always a little creepier than you remember. Peter, after all, wasn't supposed to go into Mr. McGregor's garden because Mr. McGregor had eaten his father. But still, her stories are favorites with generations of young readers.
JO HANKS: When I first found out that there could potentially be another tale, I think it's fair to say my heart skipped a beat.
MAYER: That's Jo Hanks, a publisher at Penguin Random House children's books. A few years ago, she was working with the actress Emma Thompson on a new Peter Rabbit story when she picked up an out-of-print history of Potter's writings.
HANKS: I came across a mention of a tale about a cat called Kitty, and I'd never heard of Kitty in any of my other research. She wasn't a character that appeared in any of her published tales.
MAYER: So Hanks went to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, which has a huge archive of Beatrix Potter material. And what she found went something like this.
(SOUNDBITE OF AUDIOBOOK, "THE TALE OF KITTY-IN-BOOTS")
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Once upon a time, there was a serious, well-behaved, young black cat. It belonged to a kind old lady who assured me that no other cat could compare with Kitty. She lived -
MAYER: Hanks says Potter fully intended to publish "Kitty-In-Boots." It was typeset, she'd done some illustrations, and she'd told her publisher it only needed a light edit. But there, the story stops. Potter abandoned "Kitty-In-Boots" and while scholars knew it existed, it was never really available to the public. So how did it wind up gathering dust in a museum?
LINDA LEAR: It's a rather peculiar story.
MAYER: Linda Lear is the author of "Beatrix Potter: A Life In Nature." She says "Kitty-In-Boots" has a bit of an edge.
LEAR: Kitty is a hunter and she has a gun.
MAYER: Kitty sneaks out at night dressed in men's clothes. She carries that gun to hunt rabbits, though don't worry. Peter's not her target. At one point, she's even caught and injured in a trap, which isn't exactly kid-friendly. So when Potter sent the manuscript to her publishers -
LEAR: They were less than enthusiastic. And there was also the beginnings of women's suffrage at that time, and it was sort of politically very dicey that this story might be published.
MAYER: Potter was discouraged by that response. She described herself in a letter as a good deal damped. She also had a lot going on - her recent marriage, moving house, her father's death and the first World War. So that was it for "Kitty-In-Boots" until now. Publisher Jo Hanks thinks the story was worth a century's wait.
HANKS: It is such an excellent tale. It's really the best of Beatrix Potter.
MAYER: "The Tale of Kitty-In-Boots" will be published here and in the U.K. this September with new illustrations by Quentin Blake. Petra Mayer, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The president of Iran, Hassan Rouhani, is on a good-will trip through Europe. Today, he's in Italy. He wants to rebuild trade ties with other countries now that economic sanctions linked to Iran's nuclear program have been lifted, but the country still faces some strict U.S. sanctions that limit its financial activities. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports on how those sanctions are complicating Iran's efforts.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Before leaving Iran this week, President Rouhani made clear that his country is open for business with Europe.
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HASSAN ROUHANI: (Through interpreter) We've had friendly relations with France and Italy in the past. We want to have a good relationship with them now as well.
ZARROLI: And plenty of companies are eager to take Iran up on its invitation. Even before Iran's nuclear sanctions were lifted, the country was seen as a huge potential market for Asian and European companies. Nader Habibi is a professor of economics at Brandeis University.
NADER HABIBI: There are many firms in Europe that are eager to enter into Iranian market. Many of them have already made initial trips to prepare the ground for partnerships or investment in Iran.
ZARROLI: Last year, Germany's foreign minister visited Tehran with a large delegation of business leaders, says Julia Pfeil, senior associate at the law firm Baker-McKenzie.
JULIA PFEIL: There's also been large trade conferences here in Germany, in Austria but also in Switzerland and the U.K where you could see high-profile members of the Iranian government and also high-ranking managers of European companies that were both very interested in doing business with each other.
ZARROLI: But Pfeil says it's not yet clear what all these conferences and delegations will lead to. The nuclear sections against Iran may have been lifted, but the U.S. government still has other sanctions in place that predate them, sanctions tied to Iran's human rights record and support for terrorism. Habibi says these sanctions have a reach that go far beyond U.S. borders.
HABIBI: Those sanctions can still cause some problems and make some of the European businesses and banks subject to U.S. economic punishment.
ZARROLI: Among other things, the U.S. Treasury Department says money from Iran may not be processed through the U.S. financial system. Again, Julia Pfeil.
PFEIL: So if you receive money from Iran as a bank or as a company, you must make sure that this money does not then go to the U.S., to a U.S. bank or to your U.S. subsidiary.
ZARROLI: Pfeil says this is a real problem for foreign banks since virtually all of them have large operations in the United States. There's no easy way to isolate Iranian money from the rest of the bank's holdings. The U.S. government has recently imposed big fines on foreign banks for sanctions violations. So Pfeil says companies that want to do business with Iran have to find banks willing to work with them, and that's not so easy.
PFEIL: So at this stage, we're not even discussing with clients whether or not they will be able to receive financing from a bank. At this stage, the main headache is how - if I deliver something to Iran, how does it - how do I get the payment from a customer.
ZARROLI: Pfeil says companies doing business in Iran will probably have to find small banks that don't have any U.S. operations. Jimmy Gurule, a former Treasury Department official who now teaches at Notre Dame Law School, says he thinks a lot of companies will ultimately decide to enter the Iranian market.
JIMMY GURULE: The economic incentive may just be too great an allure for the counterterrorism sanctions to have a chilling effect.
ZARROLI: But the U.S. sanctions represent a big hurdle for these companies, and it's not clear that allure will be enough to offset the risks they face. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The Zika outbreak is raising questions about whether the infection could become a problem in the U.S. as well. NPR health correspond Rob Stein has been looking into that, and he says at the moment, it doesn't seem likely.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: First, the bad news - people who got infected with the Zika virus in other countries have already started showing up in the United States. And Beth Bell of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that's not all.
BETH BELL: There are parts of the United States, especially the Southern United States, where the mosquitoes that have the capacity to spread Zika live, and therefore, there certainly is the possibility for transmission.
STEIN: When these mosquitoes bite infected people and then bit other people. Since the virus is so new, we have no immunity to getting infected.
BELL: What we're all concerned about is the potential for Zika virus to spread within the United States.
STEIN: And we've seen mosquitoes quickly spread other new viruses across the country before, like West Nile. But now for the good news - Bell says Zika's no West Nile. It doesn't seem to be carried by birds like West Nile, and...
BELL: West Nile is carried by a completely different species of mosquito.
STEIN: A species that lives all over the United States. The Zika mosquitos live mostly only in the South, and Bell says chances are, Zika will be a lot more like two other viruses called dengue and chikungunya. They've also spread throughout the Caribbean and Latin America in recent years and spread a little in this country but not much.
BELL: What we saw with chikungunya and what we've seen with dengue is some small situations with localized spread in southern parts of the United States but with very limited transmission.
STEIN: Why? It's a combination of factors. Part of it is the mosquitoes that spread these viruses really only thrive in much more tropical climates, and the United States does a much better job protecting people from mosquitoes than other countries.
BELL: For the most part, there are screens on windows. Many houses in the southern part of the United States have air-conditioning. The density of housing may not be as tight as in some other parts of the world. These are all conditions that make it less likely for ongoing large-scale spread to occurred.
STEIN: Taken together, other experts agree that the chances of a wide-scale outbreak in the United States is remote. Anthony Fauci is the top infectious disease expert at the National Institutes of Health.
ANTHONY FAUCI: That doesn't mean that it's impossible that it would happen, but if you look at historically what we've seen, I think we can say that right now, it looks like this is a remote possibility and unlikely to happen.
STEIN: But everyone agrees there's still a lot we don't know about the Zika virus. We really don't know exactly what it's doing to pregnant women and their babies. We don't know what other complications it may cause or why it's suddenly taken off. Albert Ko at the Yale School of Public Health has been studying the outbreak in Brazil.
ALBERT KO: There is risk. We don't know how great that risk is. It seems low, but we know not that much about this disease at this moment.
STEIN: So Ko and other experts say they're rushing to learn more about the Zika virus and are watching closely for any disturbing surprises. Rob Stein, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Nations across Latin America and the Caribbean are grappling with the rapid spread of the Zika virus. The mosquito-borne illness has been linked to brain damage in infants, and increasingly, the guidance to women is, this is not the time to be pregnant. NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro is in Brazil, the nation that's been hardest hit by the virus so far, and she joins us from Rio de Janeiro. And Lourdes, tell us more about this guidance for women not to have children now.
LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, BYLINE: Yeah. It's unprecedented, and it places the burden squarely on women. Authorities here in Brazil but also Ecuador, Colombia and Jamaica are encouraging women to delay getting pregnant. El Salvador has gone even further. It's asking women not to get pregnant until 2018. And as you can imagine, there's been a huge outcry by women's groups. You know, first, this is a part of the world where women often don't have a lot of control over when they get pregnant. There are high levels of teenage pregnancy. Sexual violence against women is very high, and in many poorer regions, women have little access to birth control.
At the moment, these are just guidelines. We haven't seen here in Brazil or in other parts of Latin America any active campaigns advocating for abstinence or anything else. These are simply guidelines of - that the various health ministries are giving women to protect themselves against the Zika virus.
SIEGEL: This health crisis has reopened a debate about abortion in the region. How is that debate unfolding?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah, it has. You know, abortion is illegal throughout much of Latin America. El Salvador, for example, has a blanket ban. They actually put women in prison who they suspect to have attempted to have an abortion. Here in Brazil, there are only rare cases it's allowed. So again, women's groups saying it's cynical to tell women who have no control, often, over when they get pregnant to delay it and then not to allow them a safe, legal way to terminate the pregnancy if the child has a severe birth defect like microcephaly. Even in a country like Brazil, which has a national health service, you know, infants with microcephaly are often not getting adequate treatment, and poor women may not have the resources to care for that infant. And so again, women's groups are saying, we need to reopen this debate.
SIEGEL: Lourdes, Brazil has had the biggest number of cases of Zika. What are the authorities there saying about that?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah. Today, it was announced at 220,000 soldiers - that's a quarter of a million soldiers, almost - will be sent out to help eradicate the mosquito that causes the Zika virus. That is the Aedes aegypti mosquito. They'll be going door to door, looking for standing water where the mosquito breeds. The health minister said that they're losing the fight against the insect that spreads Zika, which is the same one that also spreads dengue and chikungunya. Right now, Brazil is in a desperate search for a vaccine, but that is expected to take many years. So targeting the mosquito is considered vital. This is having huge repercussions in Brazil, Robert, where you already have around 4,000 infants with microcephaly and the suspected cause is Zika.
SIEGEL: The suspected cause is Zika. How strong is the evidence that microcephaly in these children is caused by the Zika virus?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: I've spoken to scientists here who are studying the disease. They believe it is probable, but they are really trying to nail down that link with absolute certainty. There's been very little research into Zika before now, so in many ways, investigators are starting from scratch, you know? They're trying to answer two basic questions. What is happening, and why is it happening? Why is Zika having this effect now?
One of the most worrying things is that most times, Zika will be asymptomatic. You won't know that you have Zica. It's only 1 in 5 times that you will have symptoms, which is a fever or rash, conjunctivitis in your eyes, aches and pains. But other times, you simply won't know that you have it, and so that's what makes it so dangerous, say scientists.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Brazil correspondent Lourdes Garcia-Navarro speaking to us from Rio de Janeiro. Lourdes, thanks.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: You're welcome.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
We're going to turn now to an urgent call being made to overhaul federal prisons and focus on the most serious criminals. A bipartisan task force says the U.S. Bureau of Prisons spends billions of dollars every year with little benefit to public safety. NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson reports.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: For the past year, former Congressman J.C. Watts of Oklahoma took a hard look at U.S. prisons as the leader of the task force mandated by Congress. His conclusion...
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J.C. WATTS: The system is failing those it incarcerates and the taxpayers who fund it.
JOHNSON: The new report says prison facilities are so overcrowded that officials have little money or energy to devote to help inmates re-enter society. John Wetzel, who leads the Department of Corrections in Pennsylvania, put it this way.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN WETZEL: When you're walking into a prison as an employee worried about your safety, is it realistic to expect that you're going to be focused on re-entry?
JOHNSON: Former West Virginia Congressman Alan Mollohan says there's a reason for that overcrowding, and the blame rests with Congress, the courts and the Justice Department.
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ALAN MOLLOHAN: Extremely long sentences for drug and weapons offenses are the leading cause of the bloated state of the federal prison system.
JOHNSON: Mollohan says almost 80 percent of the people behind bars for drug crimes had no serious history of violence. So the task force wants Congress to do away with mandatory sentences for all but the most serious of criminals, like drug kingpins. And it urges judges and prosecutors to consider each defendant case by case.
An even more controversial element of the task force report involves a concept called Second Look. That would allow inmates who've served 15 years of their sentence to petition a judge to hear their argument for early release. Cynthia Roseberry is a former public defender. She says something needs to change.
CYNTHIA ROSEBERRY: We certainly can't continue to do what we're doing now. I feel that we need to ensure that once a person serves their sentence we stamp that ticket paid in full, and part of that means preparing them for re-entry.
JOHNSON: The task force wants prison officials to expand drug treatment programs and make sure inmates can meet with their families. Again, John Wetzel.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
WETZEL: Let's focus and understand that when we give folks a second chance, we give a whole 'nother group - children of incarcerated parents - a first chance.
JOHNSON: It's not clear whether lawmakers and the Obama administration will embrace the task force conclusions. The ideas in the report go far beyond legislative proposals on the table in Congress. And some people in government think that's a bad idea. One of them is Alabama Republican Senator Jeff Sessions.
JEFF SESSIONS: Unfortunately, some people just need to be locked up.
JOHNSON: Before he became a member of Congress, Sessions was a federal prosecutor locking up drug criminals.
SESSIONS: These defendants are, for the most part, very serious offenders. Federal prosecutors, federal assistant United States attorneys, they don't focus on petty crimes and small cases.
JOHNSON: With homicides up in some big American cities this year, Session says, now is not the time to retreat from tough approaches to fight crime. He points to a recent case in Ohio where a drug offender who won early release has been charged with killing his ex-girlfriend and two of her children. Sessions says he's more open to considering another task force recommendation that would encourage authorities to let sick and elderly inmates out early under a program called Compassionate Release. Task force members visited a facility in Atlanta where they say they met with some prisoners who could barely walk. No threat to public safety, says Laurie Robinson, who attended the session.
LAURIE ROBINSON: If you think about it, people in corrections in the justice system need to have a sense of hope.
JOHNSON: And she hopes the labor of the task force will result in real change for federal prisons. Carrie Johnson, NPR News, Washington.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Authorities in Southern California are still searching for three inmates who escaped from a jail in Orange County on Friday. Police say the three men are violent and potentially dangerous, and there's now a $200,000 reward in the case. For more on this story, we're joined by Erika Aguilar. She's the Orange County reporter for member station KPCC. Let's start with the - first, who these three inmates are. I understand that they were in jail on charges of some very serious violent crimes.
ERIKA AGUILAR, BYLINE: Yeah. Hossein Nayeri - he's 37 years old. He's been locked up for more than a year. He allegedly kidnapped and tortured a marijuana shop owner for a ransom in 2012. But Nayeri evaded investigators, fleeing to Iran, until late 2014 when he was arrested in Prague and later extradited to the U.S. The other escapees, Bac Duong and Jonathan Tieu - they are Vietnamese who sheriff investigators believe have ties to local gangs. Bac Duong is a 43-year-old homeless man. He served time for drugs and burglary, and just this past November, he allegedly shot a man during an argument. Jonathan Tieu is the youngest. At 20 years old, he's accused of taking part in a fatal Vietnamese gang shooting about five years ago.
SIEGEL: And these three men were all awaiting trial, we should note. They pleaded not guilty to those charges.
AGUILAR: Yeah, that's right. That's right.
SIEGEL: How did they escape?
AGUILAR: This probably happened shortly after 5 a.m. last Friday, officials say. But jail deputies had no idea the three inmates were missing until after the second physical body count of the day was done around 9 p.m. They think they used tools - the inmates did - to cut through a steel grate in the jail cell, then climbed through the bowels of the facility up to an unsecured area of the roof.
They managed to mangle barbed wire while they were up there on the ledge of the roof and used ropes made of braided bed linens to rappel four stories to the ground. Now, Sheriff officials won't discuss the tools that the inmates used. They say no jail personnel have been taken off duty or suspended, but it's really hard to imagine how these inmates cut through four to five breaches of steel and rebar without making noise or attracting attention. Then again, as we learned last summer, you know, from the New York inmates who broke out of prison in June of 2015, prisoners have a lot of time on their hands to think up escape plans.
SIEGEL: Tell us more about this maximum-security county jail. What type of inmates are held there?
AGUILAR: Well, the jail was built in 1968. It houses, you know, more than 900 men. The three inmates - they were held in a dormitory-style cell with about 65 other inmates. A lot of the inmates there at this jail have upcoming trials and hearings, and so they're housed at Central Men's Jail because the main county courthouses is across the street. There have been two escapes since then. You know, the last one was about 25 years - 1989. And one of those escapes was from the roof.
SIEGEL: It has now been four days since the inmates broke out of the jail. The U.S.-Mexico border is just a two-hour drive from Orange County. Couldn't they have left the country by now?
AGUILAR: Yeah. It did take jail deputies about 16 hours to even confirm the inmates were missing Friday, so that's plenty of time to drive down to Mexico. We know one of the inmates, as mentioned earlier, fled to Iran a few years ago when police later identified Hossein Nayeri as a suspect in the kidnapping case he's facing. And in the other two cases, authorities have been making pleas to the Vietnamese community here because at least one of the inmates is known to have ties to a Vietnamese gang.
SIEGEL: OK. That's Erika Aguilar of Southern California Public Radio. Erika, thanks.
AGUILAR: You're welcome.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
With less than a week to go before the first votes are cast in the presidential race, it's newspaper endorsement time. But do those endorsements affect voters? Harry Enten has been looking into this question. He's a senior political writer for FiveThirtyEight. Harry, thanks for coming on the show.
HARRY ENTEN: Thanks for having me.
CORNISH: So you focused on a key paper in a key state, the Des Moines Register. The paper backed Marco Rubio on the Republican side and Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination. So just to give us some context, how do you measure influence, right? What data did you look at?
ENTEN: So we essentially looked back at all the caucuses since 1988 on the Democratic and Republican side, and we looked at where these candidates were in the polls before that endorsement and where did they end up scoring on election night. Now that's not perfect, there are obviously other things that are going into it, but through that method we can generally see - did these candidates do better after the endorsements than we expected them to do before them?
CORNISH: What did you find?
ENTEN: We found that generally, in fact, the candidates who were endorsed did do slightly better in the final vote counts than they were doing in the polls before the endorsements. But it wasn't an overwhelming effect, at least for the Des Moines Register poll. They only did about three percentage points better versus where their polls were before the paper endorsed them. And in fact, two candidates, Bob Dole in 1996 and George W. Bush in 2000, went backwards and did worse on election night than they did in the polls before the Register endorsed them.
CORNISH: So is the idea that this matters basically when it's close? Does it help undecided voters or does it just, you know, boost momentum?
ENTEN: I think it really boosts momentum, you know? Remember, most people are not reading newspapers anymore. The Des Moines Register's circulation is down. But it helps give these candidates good press. And certain candidates who might be rising in the polls or are just aching to sort of break out, like John Edwards in 2004, were able take this endorsement and then were able to do considerably better on caucus night than they were doing in the pre-election polls.
CORNISH: Here's the thing. How do you know if it was the newspaper endorsement that made a difference or something else? I mean, every statistics professor who is listening to this is say, you know, correlation is not causation.
ENTEN: Sure. And I think that's something to keep in mind, is correlation is not causation. But we do know from the accounts at the time that Edwards received a lot of good media following this endorsement, so it leads us to believe that in fact, the endorsement may not have been totally responsible - in fact, it almost certainly wasn't for Edwards's rise, but it was something that aided in it. And I think any candidate who's looking to be aided in what are two very tight contests at this point on both the Democratic and Republican side would welcome an endorsement that would be able to help them do at least a little bit better in the caucuses.
CORNISH: You write about politics for a website, so I realize this question will have some bias, but is there something very throwback about this? I mean, how should we think about newspaper endorsements generally in this day and age?
ENTEN: You know, I tend to think newspaper endorsements don't really matter that much, especially in general elections when you're just not going to get a big surprise. You know, if The New York Times endorses Hillary Clinton, no one's going to say oh wow - you know, now I'm going to vote Hillary Clinton because most of the people who are reading that editorial would vote for her in a general election anyway. But if, say, The Times were to endorse Donald Trump, that would be big news. So, you know, I think endorsements can matter, especially when they're surprising. And they matter for candidates who are looking for at least a little bit of good press that can sort of start a momentum train. That's what they really do. They're not the be-all-end-all, but they help add to the good press that these candidates can get, and I think any candidate would welcome that.
CORNISH: Harry Enten is senior political writer and analyst for the site FiveThirtyEight. Harry, thank you.
ENTEN: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A founding father of artificial intelligence has died at the age of 88.
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MARVIN MINSKY: I'm Marvin Minsky, and I teach at MIT in the subjects of theories about how to make machines that are intelligent - whatever that means.
SIEGEL: Marvin Minsky spent decades studying what that means. He was a winner of a Turing Award, the highest honor in computer science. That clip of him was from a video interview he gave to Ray Kurzweil, himself a computer scientist, writer, inventor and futurist; now, a director of engineering at Google. Ray Kurzweil, welcome to the program.
RAY KURZWEIL: My pleasure.
SIEGEL: How do you sum up Marvin Minsky's contribution to computer science?
KURZWEIL: That's really hard to do. I'd - the first thing I would say is he was the consummate educator. I mean, that was his great joy and passion. When I was 14 in 1962, I wrote him a letter and he invited me up and spent hours as if he had nothing else to do. There's an interesting anecdote with my daughter. We went out to dinner, and Marvin and Amy, who was then 11, were building a grand structure using all the silverware at this restaurant table, experimenting with different ways to make stable structures out of the tableware. He just loved working with young people. But he was also a scientist, a mathematician, an inventor, an engineer, a roboticist, a writer, a philosopher, a polymath, a poet, an musician and a student of human nature and thinking. And he invented, really, the two principle schools of thought in artificial intelligence - both the so-called symbolic school and connectionist schools. He really was the father of artificial intelligence.
SIEGEL: Today, we're not surprised by hearing that somebody has made a study of artificial intelligence or that they specialize in computer science. In the 1950s, Minsky's work must have seemed prophetic to people.
KURZWEIL: Yeah, it was very prophetic. I mean, 1951, he actually built a neural net, which, you know, attempt to simulate how the brain works. And this was very, very early. He really was one of humanity's great thinkers. He was also my only mentor, so it's a great loss to me, but I greatly value the opportunities I've had.
SIEGEL: When you say neural net, how would you define...
KURZWEIL: Well, it's simulating how we believe the human brain works, which are sort of self-organizing modules of neurons. I wrote a book recently inspired by Minsky called "How To Create A Mind," which describes this technique. You let these sort of networks of neurons figure out on their own through practice and through learning how to solve a problem. And there's actually been just recent breakthroughs that we can now go to many levels of neural nets and develop, you know, fairly abstract thinking.
SIEGEL: In that same video interview that you did, Minsky says that machines in the future will just be programming themselves.
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KURZWEIL: So we are part chimpanzee, and these future machines I think will be part human 'cause they'll have been derived from us.
MINSKY: They'll be derived, but they - they might recompile themselves and say, well, we have all these things we inherited from humans and they make us so slow that let's rewrite all the code and take out the old comments.
KURZWEIL: He was an optimist and felt that artificial intelligence would enhance the world, which is what I believe. Now, you know, technology is a double-edged sword and he was aware of that. He worked on ways to keep these technologies safe. It's somewhat of a shame that artificial intelligence is now coming into its own and we're seeing dramatic advances just in the last few years and he's not going to get to see the full fruition of what he worked on. His vision now is being realized, and we still have a long way to go. But he's really accurately the father of artificial intelligence.
SIEGEL: Ray Kurzweil, thanks for talking with us today.
KURZWEIL: My pleasure.
SIEGEL: Ray Kurzweil was talking about the late Marvin Minsky, who died on Sunday night in Boston of a cerebral hemorrhage at age 88.
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Of all the legislation that has a shot at passing on Capitol Hill, criminal justice reform is near the top of the list.
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Republican supporters of reform want to reduce the costs of overcrowded prisons. Democrats want to ease the mandatory sentencing rules for nonviolent drug offenders, rules that fueled the boom in the federal prison population. It's an issue that has brought together everyone from the conservative billionaires Charles and David Koch to the ACLU.
CORNISH: For his part, President Obama has pushed changes at the federal level, like a new rule banning solitary confinement for juveniles and limiting its use for other prisoners. White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett says it's just a first step.
VALERIE JARRETT: There are about a hundred thousand who are in solitary confinement, 10,000 in the federal system. That's a lot of people, and what the studies are showing is that the impact of solitary confinement can have a devastating consequence to the psychology of the people who are affected.
CORNISH: I spoke with Jarrett earlier today about whether she thinks a broader bipartisan criminal justice deal can happen, especially in an election year. And I asked her why the Obama administration is focused on nonviolent offenders despite the fact that large numbers of people in state and local prisons are there for violent crimes.
JARRETT: Part of what we want to do here is to take a look at, what can we do to give judges more discretion so that they don't have to impose mandatory minimums. We hear from the judges looking at the facts of a particular case that they think the person needs to be in drug treatment or they need to be in a better home environment. There are all kinds of reasons you wouldn't think that the better solution would be not to incarcerate somebody. And so we want to start with looking at the nonviolent drug offenses and tailor the sentence more accurately to the crime, and that's why we have strong bipartisan support.
CORNISH: But do you lose that support if you start to noodle around the edges of violent offenses...
JARRETT: We do.
CORNISH: ...Of saying we need to...
JARRETT: We do.
CORNISH: ...Reconsider these...
JARRETT: We do right...
CORNISH: ...Laws as well?
JARRETT: We do right now because I think the sense is we really want to make sure that we're not releasing violent offenders onto the streets. And so if we can begin with the nonviolent drug offenders, it's an important first step. It doesn't mean that we wouldn't come back if research indicated that we should tailor other parts of our judicial system. But lets start with where we have consensus and move forward and not let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
CORNISH: So one of the sticking points in the House - Republicans want a provision that would essentially raise the burden of proof for federal prosecutors going after white-collar criminals. And they say this is a dealbreaker. I mean, would you support a bill that includes this kind of provision if it means getting the other sentencing reforms that you want - right? - like, basically getting what you want for these nonviolent drug offenders if it means that it makes it easier for white-collar criminals to push their case?
JARRETT: Well, we think that the bill that's currently being considered is far too broad, and it says that you have to have an intent to do every crime. And there are some crimes which we've determined - it doesn't matter whether you have the intent because we look at the harm that it has on society. So for example, if you shoot somebody and you don't realize they're a U.S. marshal, you could say, well, you didn't have the intent to shoot a U.S. marshal. But we want to be able to bring federal charges. Or if you statutorily rape somebody, we have a standard that says you don't have to know how old the person is. We think that the crime is so egregious that we're going to prosecute you for that.
And so we don't support getting rid of or requiring every single crime having intent. The Senate bill provides that you would do an inventory of all of the federal statutes to see which ones require intent and which ones don't. And so we would support that.
CORNISH: You know, while overall crime has been down during this presidency, you are seeing homicide rates that have risen in several cities. And you know, when you think back to the way that there was that scandal over the furloughed prisoner Willie Horton, notoriously, during the 1988 presidential campaign, what worries you about trying to do this in an election year? Like, are you one high-profile crime or one election ad away from this falling apart?
JARRETT: Well, I think it's important to try to move forward as quickly as we can. I think, again, the fact that there is bipartisan support gives us the ability to resist some of the people who try to derail what is really an important constructive step for us to take. And the fact that it's an election year doesn't mean that the American people don't expect us to work on their behalf. And so...
CORNISH: But the election - the American people in the past, as voters, are very much swayed by crime - right? - by sort of reform efforts that they see as endangering them. I mean...
JARRETT: Well, we wouldn't be doing this. The president wouldn't have put his full support behind this if he didn't think it actually left our community safer. That's why we have so much support from law enforcement because our current system is definitely broken, and it's not the - what we were talking about, which is the sentencing, but it's also, what are we doing with people while they're incarcerated? Are we giving them the tools that they need to reenter society successfully, whether those are services for drug addiction or educational tools that they need or a whole host of resources that we should be providing to them so that when they reenter society, they are not a threat to society.
CORNISH: I mean, while the president can issue an order to the Bureau of Prisons, while he can make an executive action, these affect a few thousand people in the federal prison system. And so at the end of the day, is he trying to just push a cultural shift in thinking about this, right? He can't actually really truly reduce what people are calling mass incarceration...
JARRETT: What he can do is this.
CORNISH: ...in little actions.
JARRETT: What he can do is this. He can lead by example. He can use the Justice Department and encourage them to use their grants that they have available to support programs at the state and local level that reflect those best practices. And yes, he can have a conversation, which is why I wanted to come on your show today, so that the American people begin to understand the impact that this unfair system is having on a population of 2 million people right now and 2 million people with children, with parents.
And so we do have to ask ourselves as a culture, what do we want to be? You know, what are our founding values? And if we are a society where everybody should have that fair shot and get a second chance, then we should take the necessary steps to implement that and make it a reality.
CORNISH: You mentioned their families and having a second chance. You know, what's your response to people who are listening to this who may have been a victim of a crime who aren't interested in these stories - right? - who fundamentally say, look; you're in prison for a reason.
JARRETT: Well, you have - well, that's a very valid point. And so the question is, does the punishment fit the crime? So we're not saying that we shouldn't punish people. We're not talking about a society that tolerates lawlessness. We should be very tough on people who are perpetuating violent crimes, for example. But we should make sure that it's tailored and not arbitrary. And right now with mandatory minimums, that's arbitrary. This is not a leniency program for those who've been incarcerated. It's recognizing the fact that if we invest in them and help them turn their lives around, the chances of them going out and victimizing somebody else actually goes down.
CORNISH: Well, Valerie Jarrett, thank you so much for coming in to speak with us.
JARRETT: Thank you, Audie. It's a pleasure for me to be here.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Now to the surprise twist in the Planned Parenthood story. Last year, an antiabortion group released secretly recorded videos that they said showed Planned Parenthood employees trying to sell fetal tissue. The videos launched a series of congressional and state investigations of Planned Parenthood, including in Texas. Well, now a grand jury in Houston looking into the case has indicted two antiabortion activists who helped make the videos. They face felony charges for using fake driver's licenses. One is also charged with a misdemeanor. Here to help us sort through all this is NPR's Jennifer Ludden. And Jennifer, who's charged and with what?
JENNIFER LUDDEN, BYLINE: Robert, David Daleiden is the name most familiar to some people now. He's the head of the Center for Medical Progress, which is a company he basically set up to put out these undercover videos. Also, a colleague of his who helped him, Sandra Merritt - both are charged with felonies for making and using fake California drivers licenses. They apparently used them to gain access to a Planned Parenthood meeting in Texas. Daleiden also faces a misdemeanor charge of illegally trying to buy fetal tissue, which his lawyers call very ironic since he was trying to accuse Planned Parenthood of illegally selling fetal tissue.
SIEGEL: What else did the lawyers say about these charges?
LUDDEN: Well, they say, you know, how can you accuse Daleiden of this without accusing Planned Parenthood of trying to sell the tissue he was trying to buy? Planned Parenthood says, you know, Daleiden, in this fake identity, was offering them $1,600 per specimen, which is just outrageously high, so high that they never responded to him. Daleiden's lawyer also says that the felony charge is inappropriate here, that the law bans the use of fake IDs if you're going to defraud the government - you know, try to get Social Security benefits or something. But he says in this case, Daleiden was simply doing what investigative journalists do, so he will talk about his First Amendment rights.
SIEGEL: What happens next in this case?
LUDDEN: Well, Daleiden's attorney says that, you know, arrangements are being made for him and Merritt to turn themselves in. They're in California, so they would go to Houston. Now, his attorney says he hopes that at that point, this whole case would be dismissed.
SIEGEL: What about all those other instigations launched after the release of those videos? Where do they stand now?
LUDDEN: Most of the state investigations were brought by Republican governors. Eleven states so far have cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing. Now, I should note that in a lot of those states, they were - said they were investigating, you know, the donation of fetal tissue in states where Planned Parenthood says it didn't even do that. Now, in Texas, Governor Greg Abbott says he will continue the investigation despite the grand jury's indictment. Texas will continue looking into any possible wrongdoing by Planned Parenthood.
In Congress, we've also had a number of committees who opened investigations. There were a lot of high-profile hearings last year. Lawmakers vowed to cut off federal funding for Planned Parenthood. That did not happen. But there's a select committee created to investigate the use of fetal tissue and how it's provided to researchers. That is still organizing - no meetings yet. But today, its chairwoman, Representative Marsha Blackburn, says she is committed as ever to that mission.
SIEGEL: In addition to what the grand jury in Houston did, there's also a lawsuit that David Daleiden and the Center for Medical Progress face.
LUDDEN: Right. Earlier this month, Planned Parenthood's affiliate in California brought a civil suit accusing Daleiden and some others of conspiracy and fraud. And again, this goes back to their use of a fake identity to gain access to private meetings. They say that, you know, he lied his way into medical conferences, secretly recorded people without their consent and violated confidentiality contracts that he and others signed. And that suit basically seeks damages - monetary damages for that.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Jennifer Ludden. Jennifer, thanks.
LUDDEN: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Trade isn't the only thing the Iranian president talked about in Italy today. He also had a meeting with Pope Francis at the Vatican which included a conversation about fostering peace with other Middle Eastern countries. NPR's Sylvia Poggioli has more.
SYLVIA POGGIOLI, BYLINE: The meeting lasted 40 minutes - long by Vatican standards, and a Holy See statement described it as cordial. It said the pope and Rouhani spoke of their common spiritual values and the good relations between the Holy See and Iran. They discussed the deal Tehran reached with world powers to limit its nuclear activities in exchange for an end to economic sanctions, and the statement stressed what it called the relevant role Iran is called on to play to promote suitable political solutions to the problems afflicting the Middle East to counter the spread of terrorism and arms trafficking. As he left, Rouhani borrowed from the pope one of his signature remarks, asking him, please, pray for me. Francis thanked him for the visit and said, I hope for peace.
The Vatican has had diplomatic ties with Tehran from before the 1979 Islamic Revolution. They've grown even stronger under Francis, who is keen on conflict resolution and mediation. Iran is the strongest ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and the Vatican like the Rome government, sees Tehran as a potential peacemaker in Syria's civil war. While many Western nations accuse Tehran of financing several militant groups they consider terrorist organizations, there was no mention of that during Rouhani's talks with Vatican and Italian officials.
In order not to offend the leader of the Islamic Republic, Italian authorities went so far as not to serve wine at a state dinner last night at a Rome museum and even had the many nude statues on display there covered up. Sylvia Poggioli, NPR News, Rome.
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Abe Vigoda has died, finally. We'll explain that in a moment.
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Vigoda was born in 1921 in New York City, a character actor with distinctive sunken eyes, heavy brow and lantern jaw. He had a 20-year career in the theater before his big break in the 1972 film "The Godfather."
SIEGEL: Vigoda played Sal Tessio, a mob boss and Corleone family confidant.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE GODFATHER")
ABE VIGODA: (As Sal Tessio) Barzini wants to arrange a meeting. He says we can straighten any of our problems out.
AL PACINO: (As Michael Corleone) You talked to him?
VIGODA: (As Sal Tessio) Yeah. I can arrange security on my territory.
CORNISH: From Tessio the gangster, Vigoda moved on to television to play Sergeant Fish, the cop in the hit comedy "Barney Miller." He was so popular on the show, he was given a spinoff called - yep - "Fish."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FISH")
FLORENCE STANLEY: (As Bernice Fish) I'm going to go to a psychiatrist.
VIGODA: (As Det. Phil Fish) Are you crazy?
(LAUGHTER)
SIEGEL: "Fish" lasted a year, and then it seemed Abe Vigoda's career was done until he was pronounced dead in print.
CORNISH: A People Magazine article in 1982 referred to him as the late Abe Vigoda. The very-much-alive Vigoda placed an ad in Variety with him in a coffin holding a copy of People Magazine.
SIEGEL: From there, Abe Vigoda is dead became a running joke on late-night talk shows, including David Letterman.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LATE NIGHT WITH DAVID LETTERMAN")
DAVID LETTERMAN: Well, that's good.
VIGODA: On Sunday, I fly to Florida - Orlando, Fla. I do "Superboy." I'm a guest on that one - a new TV series.
LETTERMAN: So Abe, you're anything but dead.
VIGODA: Thank you, yes.
(LAUGHTER)
CORNISH: The Internet kept the joke going. Abevigoda.com was devoted to updating the actor's status, as was @AbeVigodaUpdate, a Twitter account.
SIEGEL: This morning, both said he was still alive. But as the news broke this afternoon, they finally confirmed Abe Vigoda is dead. He was 94 years old.
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While most of the presidential field is in Iowa today, Ohio Governor John Kasich is still in New Hampshire. The Republican candidate has held more town hall meetings in the state than any other. Today marks the 80th. Here he is at an earlier event in the small town of New Boston.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN KASICH: I really, really, really would like your vote, OK? I mean, I hope you'll think about it seriously 'cause I'd like to go on with this message, and if I get snuffed out in New Hampshire, it's ball game over.
CORNISH: NPR's Asma Khalid has been following the Ohio governor and joins us now from New Hampshire. Welcome, Asma.
ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: Hi, Audie.
CORNISH: All right, Asma, you've been to some of these town halls. What are they like?
KHALID: Well, Audie, they're small. They're really intimate, and, you know, sometimes they're held at a tavern or a VFW hall. And at some of these events, the governor is sandwiched between an American flag and a national debt clock for dramatic effect, that, you know, it keeps going up as he's talking. And Kasich doesn't really give a long stump speech. He talks for roughly 15 or 20 minutes. You know, he tells voters about what's on his mind, and then he quickly opens up the room to questions. And what I've seen, Audie, is that he's appealing to an ideological spectrum - independents, Democrats and Republicans. There was one woman, Christy Belvin, that I met earlier this morning, and here's what she likes about Kasich.
CHRISTY BELVIN: He's willing to make compromise with other people in order to get things accomplished. I'm just tired of the extreme-right and the extreme-left running the agenda.
KHALID: And even among people who told me that they're still uncommitted, they told me that they like that Kasich is reasonable, pragmatic and moderate.
CORNISH: We heard the Ohio governor's worrying out loud there about getting snuffed out in New Hampshire, saying the ball game would be over. What is the campaign hoping happens in New Hampshire?
KHALID: I think the goal is really just a decent second-place finish. He essentially has to beat out Jeb Bush, Chris Christie and Marco Rubio. I spoke with his chief strategist earlier today who was careful to remind me that there are different ways to win New Hampshire without actually coming in first place. So if the Ohio governor does better than expected here, he could gather more establishment support around him.
CORNISH: But is there a sense that all of this time that he's spending there is paying off?
KHALID: Well, Audie, he has had a microsurge - you know, if you could call it that - in recent days. Today, the Concord Monitor endorsed him, and yesterday, The Boston Globe, which, you know, is a widely read paper in this region, also endorsed him. And Kasich also has some key power players in New Hampshire politics who've lined up behind him, you know, folks who helped Mitt Romney and John McCain win the state.
But, you know, that is to say that this is a year where traditional politics aren't really trending, so, you know, it's unclear what that'll actually mean. That being said, both Kasich and his super PAC are also spending lots of money here. The governor is planning to have more than a hundred town halls here. And so even if he does finish in second place in New Hampshire, I think the big question is does he have legitimate staying power.
CORNISH: You mention traditional politics not exactly trending. I mean, Kasich is trying to get his voice heard in a campaign season that's been dominated by one guy, right?
KHALID: (Laughter) That's right. I mean, Donald Trump has been leading essentially every poll here in New Hampshire since July. And what's important to know about New Hampshire is that, you know, it's not Iowa. It is a primary where undeclared voters - those are people who are independent, who identify that way - can choose a Republican or Democratic ballot on primary day. And to be honest, Kasich is not the only candidate who's been spending time in New Hampshire this week when the focus is on Iowa. Both New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and Donald Trump have been here this week, too.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Asma Khalid in New Hampshire. Asma, thanks so much.
KHALID: My pleasure, Audie.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A national panel of health experts is calling for all adults to be routinely screened for depression. The new recommendation emphasizes pregnant women and new mothers. NPR's Patti Neighmond reports.
PATTI NEIGHMOND, BYLINE: The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommends screening women for depression both during pregnancy and after delivery. It estimates about 1 in 10 women suffer depression during pregnancy or in the first 12 months after delivery. And after the baby's born, Dr. Hal Lawrence, with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, says a mother's depression can easily break the very special emotional bond.
HAL LAWRENCE: You know, the mother starts to feel like she's not doing her job. She feels her baby doesn't love her. Her baby won't connect with her. And it really just spirals the dysfunction and the potential tragedy of postpartum depression.
NEIGHMOND: Mothers feel helpless, even hopeless, and babies in turn often find it hard to connect, not interacting much and having difficulty being consoled. Even so, fewer than 20 percent of women ever even seek help, says Lawrence, probably because they're embarrassed and fearful.
LAWRENCE: This is supposed to be a joyous time. And then all of a sudden this is not joy. They are not connecting with their baby. And so to go in and say that they feel this way is so anti-maternal they wonder what people are going to think about them.
NEIGHMOND: When women are successfully diagnosed, treatment can be highly effective. It includes psychotherapy and medications like antidepressants. Recent research raised concerns that certain antidepressants can cause birth defects, like cleft palate. But Lawrence says that's unlikely.
LAWRENCE: They're very low. That's the discussion that you have to have with your patient and so she understands that she's far better being healthy during her pregnancy and after her pregnancy and being on her antidepressants and that the risk to her infant is incredibly small.
NEIGHMOND: Lifestyle changes can also make a difference, says Lawrence, a healthy diet, regular exercise and a good night's sleep. Patti Neighmond, NPR News.
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Protesters in the nation's capital come and go. Concepcion Picciotto was a constant. For more than 30 years, she staged an antinuclear proliferation vigil in Lafayette Square across from the White House. She died yesterday at a housing facility for homeless women.
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Picciotto's age was not known, but she was thought to be in her 70s or 80s. She was born in Spain and came to the U.S. as a young woman in 1960. Outside of the White House, she often wore a helmet and headscarf and blamed the government for her ills and several conspiracies.
SIEGEL: On this program back in 1985, we profiled protesters in Lafayette Park, and she was among the voices we heard. Here she is reciting a Bible passage.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
CONCEPCION PICCIOTTO: Let not them that are my enemies wrongfully rejoice over me. Neither let them wink with the eye that hate me without a cause. Let them be ashamed and brought confusion together. They that hate me without a cause are more than the hairs of my head.
SIEGEL: That's Concepcion Picciotto on this program in January 1985, not long after President Ronald Reagan began his second term. The Washington Post says her peace vigil was widely thought to be the longest running act of political protest in the nation's history.
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For decades, Romania has given its prisoners a way to reduce their time behind bars. Publish a scientific book - get 30 days off your sentence. Now, this is a law that goes back to the communist era for prisoners who weren't suitable for manual labor. And last year, there was a sharp increase in publications by wealthy and well-connected inmates. The AP says from a handful of books in previous years to suddenly hundreds in 2015. Ovidiu Vanghele is a Romanian journalist. He joins us now from Bucharest. Welcome.
OVIDIU VANGHELE: Thanks for having me.
CORNISH: So there's an investigation into alleged abuse of this law. What prompted that investigation?
VANGHELE: As you said, there's been a huge rise in the number of books written in prison. And this is a tool that only - I don't know - the VIP inmates use basically. These last - I don't know - two or three years there's been a huge rise in the number of books they pretend to write in prison. And I say pretend because factually you cannot write so many books in that small amount of time, and you cannot write books in Romanian prisons because you don't have access to knowledge resources. You are not allowed to have access to Internet, so you cannot use any online resources.
Still, you are allowed to ask for one book or another book to be brought to you by your lawyer or by your family when they come and visit you. But, you know, if you only use written material, it would be impossible to consult and to summarize so many things in such a short amount of time and be able to still write a notable scientific work.
CORNISH: Help us understand how these prisoners, especially these VIP prisoners, are getting these books written if people don't believe that they're writing them.
VANGHELE: This is a thing that I hope the prosecutors will shed light on. We don't know how these books - if they are being brought to jail, being smuggled to those prisoners or not. The penitentiary system in Romania is quite closed.
CORNISH: Right now we've been reading that the speculation is that prisoners are using ghost writers. People are somehow smuggling in handwritten manuscripts, right, because they have to be presented as handwritten.
VANGHELE: The law is not really clear on this matter either. That's a big problem also because we don't know if they are - I don't know if they bring them, like, a Word document on a stick, on a memory stick, or if they are being presented as a manuscript.
CORNISH: We mentioned that this is a law that dates back to the communist era. Is there any talk of changing it today?
VANGHELE: Yeah, there's been a huge investigation by the newly appointed justice minister in Romania. And their intention is to abolish the law. But in my opinion, the problem is not the law itself. The problem is the way you implement the law, the conditions and the requirements for a book to be considered a scientific work. There's been, like, you know, kindergarten books. That's the intellectual level of the books that are being presented as scientific works and are being used as to get out of jail early. That's the problem.
CORNISH: This increase in book publications, it's primarily wealthy and well-connected inmates. Does this specific fight say anything to us about kind of Romania's struggle to deal with corruption?
VANGHELE: Yes. You know, we had a lot of important persons convicted throughout the last several years. And this is not a coincidence that the penitentiary literature phenomenon exploded throughout the last years also. So this is, like, more or less a consequence of the war on corruption.
CORNISH: Ovidiu Vanghele is an editor at the online newspaper EurActiv. He spoke with us from Bucharest, Romania. Thank you so much for speaking with us.
VANGHELE: Thanks for having me.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Authorities in Southern California are still searching for three inmates who escaped from a jail in Orange County on Friday. Police say the three men are violent and potentially dangerous, and there's now a $200,000 reward in the case. For more on this story, we're joined by Erika Aguilar. She's the Orange County reporter for member station KPCC. Let's start with the - first, who these three inmates are. I understand that they were in jail on charges of some very serious violent crimes.
ERIKA AGUILAR, BYLINE: Yeah. Hossein Nayeri - he's 37 years old. He's been locked up for more than a year. He allegedly kidnapped and tortured a marijuana shop owner for a ransom in 2012. But Nayeri evaded investigators, fleeing to Iran, until late 2014 when he was arrested in Prague and later extradited to the U.S. The other escapees, Bac Duong and Jonathan Tieu - they are Vietnamese who sheriff investigators believe have ties to local gangs. Bac Duong is a 43-year-old homeless man. He served time for drugs and burglary, and just this past November, he allegedly shot a man during an argument. Jonathan Tieu is the youngest. At 20 years old, he's accused of taking part in a fatal Vietnamese gang shooting about five years ago.
SIEGEL: And these three men were all awaiting trial, we should note. They pleaded not guilty to those charges.
AGUILAR: Yeah, that's right. That's right.
SIEGEL: How did they escape?
AGUILAR: This probably happened shortly after 5 a.m. last Friday, officials say. But jail deputies had no idea the three inmates were missing until after the second physical body count of the day was done around 9 p.m. They think they used tools - the inmates did - to cut through a steel grate in the jail cell, then climbed through the bowels of the facility up to an unsecured area of the roof.
They managed to mangle barbed wire while they were up there on the ledge of the roof and used ropes made of braided bed linens to rappel four stories to the ground. Now, Sheriff officials won't discuss the tools that the inmates used. They say no jail personnel have been taken off duty or suspended, but it's really hard to imagine how these inmates cut through four to five breaches of steel and rebar without making noise or attracting attention. Then again, as we learned last summer, you know, from the New York inmates who broke out of prison in June of 2015, prisoners have a lot of time on their hands to think up escape plans.
SIEGEL: Tell us more about this maximum-security county jail. What type of inmates are held there?
AGUILAR: Well, the jail was built in 1968. It houses more than 900 men. The three inmates were held in a dormitory-style cell with about 65 other inmates, half of which are considered violent criminals. A lot of the inmates here have upcoming trials and hearings, and they're housed at Central Men's Jail because the main county courthouses is across the street. Now, there have been multiple escapes over the years, the last one nearly 30 years ago. And the sheriff's department said the common denominator in those escapes was the roof of the jail, which was exactly how this escape played out.
SIEGEL: It has now been four days since the inmates broke out of the jail. The U.S.-Mexico border is just a two-hour drive from Orange County. Couldn't they have left the country by now?
AGUILAR: Yeah. It did take jail deputies about 16 hours to even confirm the inmates were missing Friday, so that's plenty of time to drive down to Mexico. We know one of the inmates, as mentioned earlier, fled to Iran a few years ago when police later identified Hossein Nayeri as a suspect in the kidnapping case he's facing. And in the other two cases, authorities have been making pleas to the Vietnamese community here because at least one of the inmates is known to have ties to a Vietnamese gang.
SIEGEL: OK. That's Erika Aguilar of Southern California Public Radio. Erika, thanks.
AGUILAR: You're welcome.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
If you have been digging out of those snow banks, you can blame the oceans. Scientists have been doing forensic work to learn what set this huge storm in motion. And as NPR's Christopher Joyce reports, they say they think the trail starts with the weather pattern called El Nino.
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE, BYLINE: El Nino starts in the tropical Pacific. Every few years, the ocean there gets unusually warm. This year is one of the biggest El Ninos ever. Heat and moisture from it have been swept up into the tropical jet stream and carried eastward. Climate scientist Michael Mann at Penn State says the warm, wet air was carried along like a wave in a rope.
MICHAEL MANN: If you flick it like El Nino is doing in the Pacific, you're going to generate this long wave disturbance that can have impacts way downstream.
JOYCE: The jet stream carried it to the southern tier of the U.S. Normally, that means wet and warm weather, but we got a blizzard instead. And here's why. Last December, just southwest of Alaska, a big, low-pressure system formed in the upper atmosphere. It was kind of like throwing a rock into the polar jet stream, another big stream of air blowing toward the East.
JEFF WEBER: So this kind of buckled the polar jets.
JOYCE: Jeff Weber is a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. He says when that polar jet buckles...
WEBER: Instead of keeping all the cold air locked up to the north, it starts being able to bring that colder air farther down south, and that's exactly what happened for this storm.
JOYCE: To make matters worse, it also emits a very moist air from the Atlantic Ocean, which has been especially warm this year as well. When cold air met wet air, the result was the massive blizzard that swept the East. So El Nino apparently got this thing rolling. Will it do something like this again in future years? Climate scientists can't say for sure, but Penn State's Michael Mann says it depends on the oceans, and they are changing.
MANN: A lot of climate change is actually going into the oceans, and its changing the behavior of the oceans in a way that affects weather patterns around the globe.
JOYCE: And that's the leading edge of climate research now - finding out how a warming climate is changing global weather and El Nino's role in that. Now, if ocean waters are getting warmer - and they are - and El Nino is created by unusually warm waters, you might think we'd see more big El Ninos. Climate scientist Heidi Cullen at the research organization Climate Central says it's too soon to say that with any certainty. And, she says, even if they do get stronger, El Ninos are only one part of a very complex weather world.
HEIDI CULLEN: It's never just an El Nino signature that we experience when we experience any individual winter or any individual weather event.
JOYCE: Yes, scientists say a warming climate makes some things more likely - heat waves, droughts, big blizzards. But when it comes to your local weather, the deck is still full of wildcards. Christopher Joyce, NPR News.
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The New York Philharmonic, one of the nation's oldest symphony orchestras, has named its 26th music director. Jeff Lunden reports on the Dutch man who follows in the path of Gustav Mahler, Arturo Toscanini and Leonard Bernstein.
JEFF LUNDEN, BYLINE: His name is Jaap van Zweden. He's a violinist who, at the age of 19, was the youngest concertmaster of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam. It was there that one of the New York Philharmonic's most legendary conductors, Leonard Bernstein, asked van Zweden to pick up the baton so Bernstein could listen from the audience.
JAAP VAN ZWEDEN: And I never conducted, but he just said, you have to do it. He put me in front of the orchestra. And so I conducted there for the first time, actually. And then he said, that was pre-bad, but I saw something there; take it seriously. And he encouraged me to - really to become a conductor.
LUNDEN: Van Zweden went on to conduct orchestras in the Netherlands, Hong Kong and Dallas and guest-conduct the New York Philharmonic. The fact that he spent 18 years playing in an orchestra appeals to principal violist Cynthia Phelps.
CYNTHIA PHELPS: We're thrilled to work with Jaap. He's such a terrific musician. And we are so looking forward to making music with this man and starting our new adventure.
LUNDEN: And it will be an adventure. Three years from now, the Philharmonic's home at Lincoln Center will be closed for a complete renovation. The orchestra's president, Matthew VanBesien, says it will be part of the new music director's job to hold the ensemble together as it wanders from venue to venue across the city.
MATTHEW VANBESIEN: Jaap's all in. You know, with everything that he does, whether it's playing the violin, whether it's conducting, whether it's working with an orchestra, whether it's engaging the public, he doesn't do anything in half measures.
LUNDEN: But first, everyone needs to get used to his name, Jaap van Zweden. For NPR News, I'm Jeff Lunden in New York.
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We've heard a lot about the recent increase in gun sales. Federal data showed a new high was set in December. We hear less, though, about the gun accessory business, especially for women - concealed-carry purses, bra holsters, concealment leggings. That industry is booming, too. Just look at Texas. The state's open carry law took effect on January 1, but many are choosing to keep their guns out of sight. Lauren Silverman of member station KERA sent this report from Dallas.
LAUREN SILVERMAN, BYLINE: Ray's Sporting Goods in Oak Cliff is a neighborhood firearm dreamland. It's stocked with the latest pistols, shotguns and AR-15 military-style rifles. On today's lunch break, men in suits, shorts, leather boots and sandals are all waiting in line, pushed up against the glass display cases like cats pawing at a fish tank. Recently, the store manager, Chuck Payne, says he's sold to a lot more ladies.
CHUCK PAYNE: A lot of married ladies with their husbands, some without. But they've decided that - husband's not home, they need to be able to do something. And they need a different gun than what the husband has.
SILVERMAN: And with that different gun, they often want different accessories. At Ray's there are purses with hidden pockets, bright pink toolkits with tiny screws for gun maintenance and fruit-punch-colored magazine loaders.
PAYNE: And this is for loading the magazine so they don't break off their fingernails and make their fingers sore.
SILVERMAN: There's no accurate count of women gun owners, but in a 2015 report from the National Sporting Goods Association, 5.4 million women said they went target shooting. That's up 60 percent from 2001. Here's the thing - since January 1, store manager Payne hasn't seen one woman come in carrying openly. There are a couple of reasons for that. A lot of women simply don't want to draw attention to themselves. Then there's the logistics of actually wearing a gun.
CARRIE LIGHTFOOT: Most concealed and open-carry holsters are made for men.
SILVERMAN: Carrie Lightfoot is CEO of The Well-Armed Woman. It's an online store based in Arizona. She says a woman's body shape and size are important considerations when it comes to open or concealed carry.
LIGHTFOOT: So for example, a 32A bust could not conceal a Glock 19 very well, nor would a 42DD or a larger tummy allow for effective cross draw carry.
SILVERMAN: Lightfoot sells bra holsters, concealment leggings, lace waistbands and leopard-print gun holders for cars. She says sales are up 130 percent since the summer. Still, the vast majority of women don't open carry, and that means one of the hottest accessories is the concealed-carry purse, which is Kate Woolstenhulme's business.
KATE WOOLSTENHULME: And they all come packed like this, you know, from the manufacturer.
SILVERMAN: In her Plano home office, Woolstenhulme unpacks one of her newest designs. It's a black leather purse with a herringbone embossed pattern. She introduced her first line of concealed-carry bags in 2009, after failing to track down a handbag that was both safe and fashionable for her 9 mm Baretta Nano handgun.
WOOLSTENHULME: I was interested in making something that really functioned, and yet still making sure that it looked as if that woman had walked into Nordstrom's or Neiman's or Marshalls or whatever they shop at.
SILVERMAN: The ostrich and crocodile skin handbags sell for thousands of dollars. Others are a few hundred. They all have locking devices.
WOOLSTENHULME: The holster pocket is on the exterior of the bag.
SILVERMAN: A recent study showed women who bought a gun in the last year spent, on average, $870 on firearms and more than $400 on accessories. Both Woolstenhulme and Carrie Lightfoot warn women to choose new holsters and bags wisely. Just because it's made in pink doesn't guarantee it was designed for a woman's body. For NPR's news, I'm Lauren Silverman in Dallas.
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Same-sex marriage or civil unions are legal throughout Western Europe, including many traditionally Catholic countries. The only holdout is Italy. NPR's Sylvia Poggioli reports that tomorrow the Italian Senate will begin debating a bill that would legalize civil unions.
SYLVIA POGGIOLI, BYLINE: Tens of thousands of Italians took to the streets last weekend in some 100 cities, demanding legalization of civil unions, including those of gay and lesbian couples. They shouted, Italy, it's time to wake up.
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UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
POGGIOLI: The rallies were organized by LGBT activists and their supporters, impatient as they've watched their European neighbors legalize same-sex marriage or civil unions. At the Rome rally, we run into Carlo Terriaca, who has a gay son. After retiring from his job as a bank manager, he became president of an association of parents of LGBT children.
CARLO TERRIACA: I think that during the last 10 years, Italian society has been deeply changing, particularly the new generations. You find quite a different feeling about this.
POGGIOLI: One of those young people is 22-year-old Alessandro Piavani. He sees the civil unions bill has a crucial human rights issue for the entire society.
ALESSANDRO PIAVANI: And I think it's really important because it's a sign of modernity and a pace forward in the right direction to rights for all, not just for the bisexual, homosexual people, but for all.
POGGIOLI: Polls show large numbers of Italians approves granting homosexual couples inheritance and pension rights, as well as the right to make medical decisions for a partner who is hospitalized. There's much more division over the provision of the bill that would allow adoption of the gay partner's biological children. Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is a strong supporter of the bill, but there's division also within his own government. Maurizio Sacconi is a member of a small coalition party.
MAURIZIO SACCONI: (Through interpreter) We say no to marriages by whatever name and no to stepchild adoption.
POGGIOLI: Opponents insist that stepchild adoption will encourage gay couples to go abroad and turn to surrogate mothers, a practice banned in Italy. Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco is the president of the Italian Bishops Conference, which has traditionally made itself heard in Italian politics. He waded into the debate this week, saying it's up to laypeople to inscribe divine law into Earthly life.
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ANGELO BAGNASCO: (Through interpreter) The welfare of children must prevail over everything. Children are not a right. They are not something that can be produced. They have a right to security and stability.
POGGIOLI: But LGBT activists say that surrogacy has nothing to do with the civil unions bill. Marilena Grassadonia, president of the Rainbow Families Association, says it's time to face facts.
MARILENA GRASSADONIA: (Through interpreter) Our children are citizens who must be safeguarded. The way they came into this world is not important. I have duties toward my three children, whether I'm their biological mother or their other mother.
POGGIOLI: Ivan Scalfarotto is undersecretary for relations with Parliament. He's also the first openly gay member in government. He believes that opposition to the bill is based on an unwillingness to accept the concept of equality.
IVAN SCALFAROTTO: And the underlying text is a gay or lesbian couple is worth less than a straight couple, so they're not equal.
POGGIOLI: Opponents of the bill are staging a family day rally Saturday at Rome's ancient Circus Maximus, the biggest arena in the city. Sylvia Poggioli, NPR News, Rome.
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We're going to hear now about a group of Muslim-American millennials who are trying to battle radical Islamist propaganda. It's a fight that requires them to reflect on the way they're perceived, even by their families. From member station WNIN in Evansville, Ind., Paola Marizan reports.
PAOLA MARIZAN, BYLINE: Many younger U.S. Muslims say their parents and grandparents have long been reluctant to speak out and risk drawing attention to themselves. Some like Ranny Badreddine want to take a different approach. Tired of being called a terrorist, he joined millennials and other young teens to help create World Changers, an initiative that uses cyberspace to combat misperceptions about Islam.
RANNY BADREDDINE: Kids have to be worried about it - like, going outside and being scared that someone's going to beat them up because they're Muslim. As a 13-year-old kid, I don't want to live my life being scared of Americans trying to hurt me because of what I am and my religion.
MARIZAN: Other members like Romaze Akhram say this battle for the hearts and minds of Americans is not just about religion. For him, its far more personal.
ROMAZE AKHRAM: The problem is, when they talk about Islamic terrorism, people aren't necessarily seeing, like, ISIS and al-Qaida. Like, they're seeing me, and they're seeing, like, the kids that are with us today, you know? And we're working towards positive things, but they're going to see us as Islamic terrorists.
MARIZAN: While some antiterrorist experts support the idea of deploying online strategies against ISIS, Muslim activist Humera Khan says religion is not the only or even the main reason driving the atrocities around the world.
HUMERA KHAN: I don't think what ISIS is doing is at all Islam. They use some of the language, but their objectives are extremely political.
MARIZAN: While that may be true, many American Muslims say they constantly have to deal with a perception that Islam is behind the atrocities. Mohammed Hussain is a pediatrician here in Evansville, and he says this tech-savvy generation is smart enough to use the same online strategies as the radicals. He supports their effort to call out what they see as false Islam.
MOHAMMED HUSSAIN: We have all realized ISIS has people who are adept at using the media, and so they have been using it very effectively. So we have to convey the right message in the same matter so that it can get across.
MARIZAN: These young American Muslims are joining an ages-old battle over the message of Islam. Seventeen-year-old Hani Yousef says he's often asked if the fight over messaging is a fair one.
HANI YOUSEF: I think it might be beyond the point if it's fair or not. The situation is that people are taking the name Islam and using it in a derogatory way, and what's really the problem that we need to focus on is not if it's fair or not but how to combat it in a way that obviously is nonviolent and aligns with the ways of our religion.
MARIZAN: The group not only engages by answering questions about Islam online but also works with other nonprofits to organize public forums, and it is committed to countering mistruth about Islam while defending their religion. For NPR News, I'm Paola Marizan.
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The words, made in China, are stamped on countless products in this country, from clothing to electronics. Cars have not been in that mix until now. For the first time, on a mass scale, a car built in China will be on sale in the U.S. It's a Buick. NPR's Sonari Glinton reports on that and the billions of dollars that Chinese companies are investing in the auto industry.
SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: So, you remember Volvo, the boxy, safe, brazenly unstylish pride of the Swedish car industry? Well, they're under new ownership, and it's making all the difference.
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UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The North American truck utility of the year is the Volvo XC90.
LEX KERSSEMAKERS: China is playing an increasing role in world economics.
GLINTON: Lex Kerssemakers is CEO of Volvo North America. Or it could be more fun to say that he's the German-born head of the Chinese-owned Swedish carmaker Volvo.
KERSSEMAKERS: I see it as an opportunity. It's not a threat. It's just they're starting to play a role in the automotive industry, and I see it as quite natural given what's happening in China.
GLINTON: Volvo is the most tangible example of China's expanding influence on the automobile industry. The Chinese conglomerate Geely bought Volvo from Ford in 2010 for about $2 billion.
KERSSEMAKERS: Under the ownership of the Chinese, we have been able to execute all the plans we have developed after they bought us. And they gave us a lot of freedom, and I think we have used that freedom very well.
GLINTON: The company went through a restructuring, and Volvo spent $11 billion to invest in new cars and truck. Now, Kerssemakers says, Volvo has started to reintroduce itself to the American shopper.
KERSSEMAKERS: They see Volvo as successful again. Does that mean that we were bad in the past? Absolutely not. We made and we still make great cars.
GLINTON: Regardless of who owns you?
KERSSEMAKERS: Absolutely. It has nothing to do with ownership. We are a Swedish company. We are based in Gothenburg. That's where the Volvo is coming from.
GLINTON: If Volvo represents Chinese investment in Europe and the U.S., then General Motors represents American investment in China. Its Buick brand has had a foothold in China for decades. And for luxury carmakers, China is it. Johan De Nysschen is head of Buick's sister brand, Cadillac. I spoke with him at the big car show in Detroit.
JOHAN DE NYSSCHEN: Luxury brands are global today. And that is part of our growth strategy for Cadillac, is to grow by entering new market segments where the brand isn't present, but also to grow by entering new geographies. And certainly there, China has got to be number one.
GLINTON: U.S. and European companies build the cars in China that they sell there. And now, Buicks built by General Motors in China are being sold here in the U.S. The next step in the evolving relationship - a Chinese carmaker building its own cars in America. The closest so far is a startup based in California called Faraday, which has Chinese roots and wants to build electric cars. Meanwhile, Rebecca Lindland with kbb.com says carmakers can't afford to ignore Chinese consumers.
REBECCA LINDLAND: The sheer volume that China pulls in, it helps you justify investments in new products, in new technologies, in vehicles that wouldn't necessarily sell in volume here in the States. But you can easily sell them in both here and China.
GLINTON: China is the largest car market in the world. Chinese shoppers easily buy twice as many cars as we do here in the U.S. Lindland says, while the U.S. and European markets are mature...
LINDLAND: China is still growing. It's not growing as fast, and they certainly have to get things like the stock market figured out, but there is still a tremendous amount of demand there. You know, they like their well-equipped vehicles. There's a lot of profit to be made there.
GLINTON: Analysts say Chinese cars built in the U.S. are a when, not an if. But right now, China has a big impact on the cars we're already driving. Sonari Glinton, NPR News.
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From the start, the Republican presidential contest has defied conventional wisdom. Now everyone's trying to figure out what the latest twist means. Donald Trump has said that he will not take part in tomorrow night's debate in Iowa. This came as a big surprise to many because the Iowa caucuses are on Monday. NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson joins us now from Iowa Public Radio. Hey there, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi, Audie.
CORNISH: All right, so assuming there's not another twist in this story and that Donald Trump does in fact sit out this debate, how will his absence affect the race?
LIASSON: Well, it's a good question. Now, in the past, he has threatened not to show up at debates, and in the end, he always has turned up. And tonight, he is actually going on Fox to talk, so assuming, however, that he does not show, we do know one thing. There won't be an empty podium because the RNC doesn't allow that. We don't know how it might affect the race because in the past, these debates haven't affected Trump's poll numbers positively or negatively, but it is still a risk because he's leaving Ted Cruz, his big opponent in Iowa, unchallenged. He's giving Cruz an unchallenged opportunity to say that Trump is weak, he's afraid of Megyn Kelly, he's not tough enough, he's scared of a fight. Cruz will remind everyone that he called Iowa voters stupid, and temperament is Trump's biggest negative. For a frontrunner, he has very high personal negatives. So it is a risk.
CORNISH: So given what you've said about Ted Cruz there, why would Trump take that risk?
LIASSON: It's a good question. Maybe he thinks that he just wants to run out the clock. He feels he has Iowa in the bag, although the polls here show a pretty tight race. He does have good reason to think that the rules don't apply to him because they haven't yet. He recently said that he could go out on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and not lose any of his voters. So maybe he just feels he's - he and his lead are invincible.
CORNISH: Let's give this a little bit more context. What's at stake here when it comes to Iowa?
LIASSON: The stakes are very high. First of all, for Ted Cruz, the stakes are high because he has to win Iowa. This is his state. It's filled with Christian conservatives, evangelical voters. It's hard to see how he would go on to get the nomination without winning it. Trump, on the other hand, doesn't have to win Iowa to get the nomination. He has a big lead in New Hampshire and in other states.
But if the headline on Tuesday is, Trump loses Iowa, I think that will be a big deal. His whole campaign is based on winning, not losing. He hates losers. That's his biggest epithet - winning the polls, winning the debates, and that's why many people are thinking this could be Trump's first major misstep of the campaign because this debate is a very important one. It's the last one before Iowans vote. Iowans decide late. Forty percent of them say that they could still change their mind. So a lot of them will be tuning in to watch the debate, and we don't know how they're going to react if they don't see him on that stage.
CORNISH: And of course, you're following the Democratic race as well. You covered an event that Hillary Clinton held in Iowa today. And I hear she's been calling for an added debate to the calendar between Iowa and New Hampshire. What's your take on that?
LIASSON: Well, the shoe is on the other foot - sounds like a sign of weakness. Maybe she wants an insurance policy in case she loses Iowa. Debates have been very good for her, but it just goes to show you it's very hard to decide in advance that fewer debates are better. Prohibitive frontrunners generally don't need to debate, don't want to debate, but she's not the prohibitive frontrunner anymore. If this debate does go forward, it would not be sanctioned by the Democratic Party. Bernie Sanders has not agreed to this debate yet. And why would he? If he wins in Iowa and keeps his big lead in New Hampshire, he probably won't.
CORNISH: That's NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson. She spoke to us from Iowa Public Radio. Mara, thanks so much.
LIASSON: Thank you, Audie.
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Bernie Sanders spent some time today in the office he hopes to win - the Oval Office. He paid a visit to the White House and met with President Obama for about 45 minutes. Here's Sanders after that meeting.
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BERNIE SANDERS: The president and I discussed this morning a number of issues, foreign policy issues, domestic issues, occasionally, a little bit of politics.
CORNISH: NPR's Scott Horsley reports on the president's role in the Democratic presidential race.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: President Obama won't be on the ballot in November, but he's still got a lot riding on the outcome. Republicans have promised to undo much of his work on climate, health care and foreign policy if they win the White House. Obama told reporters last month he's not worried.
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BARACK OBAMA: I'm anticipating a Democrat succeeding. I'm confident in the wisdom of the American people on that front.
HORSLEY: But which Democrat? Some casual observers have likened Bernie Sanders' insurgent campaign to Obama's own in 2008. Both were competing, after all, against Hillary Clinton. But in an interview with Politico's Glenn Thrush, Obama had kind words for his former rival who later became his secretary of state.
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OBAMA: I've gotten to know Hillary really well, and she is a good, smart, tough person who cares deeply about this country.
HORSLEY: In the same interview, Obama said he understands Sanders' appeal to the most progressive wing of the Democratic Party. He called Sanders fearless and a man with nothing to lose.
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OBAMA: Bernie is somebody who, although I don't know as well because he wasn't, obviously, in my administration, has the virtue of saying exactly what he believes.
HORSLEY: Sometimes Sanders says he believes the president is wrong.
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SANDERS: You can call what I'm doing today whatever you want. You can call it a filibuster. You can call it a very long speech.
HORSLEY: This is Sanders back in 2010 when he took to the Senate floor for eight-and-a-half hours, denouncing a deal Obama had cut with congressional Republicans to extend Bush-era tax cuts.
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SANDERS: In my view, the agreement that they reached is a bad deal for the American people. I think we can do better.
HORSLEY: Sanders acknowledged other differences today. He's currently blocking Obama's nominee to head the Food and Drug Administration because of the man's ties to the pharmaceutical industry, and he strongly opposes the president's Asia-Pacific trade deal.
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SANDERS: But by and large, over the last seven years on major issue after major issue, I have stood by his side where he has taken on unprecedented Republican obstructionism and has tried to do the right thing for the American people.
HORSLEY: Sanders said today he'll need a strong turnout to win the Iowa caucuses next week, though he doubts he can match the turnout effort that helped Obama beat Clinton there eight years ago. The Iowa campaign is still a fond memory for Obama, but he stressed in that Politico interview he's not taking sides just yet.
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OBAMA: The relevant contrast is not between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. The relevant contrast is between Bernie and Hillary and Donald Trump and Ted Cruz.
HORSLEY: As hands-off as he is now, the White House spokesman says Obama will be actively and personally engaged once the general election campaign against Republicans is underway. Scott Horsley, NPR News, the White House.
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In Brazil, there's a massive study underway to learn more about the Zika virus. The mosquito-borne disease has fueled a health crisis in the country. Since November, nearly 4,200 babies have been born with tiny heads and brain damage. The suspected culprit is Zika. NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro joins us now from the Brazilian city of Salvador. And Lourdes, you're in the state of Bahia, one of the hardest hit regions. What's happening there?
LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, BYLINE: It is. I spent the day at a hospital where a large-scale study of mothers and their babies is underway. There are around 533 cases in this state alone. And the aim of the gathering today, I was told, is twofold. First, you know, it's to help the mothers and their children by getting experts together who can look at these children and evaluate them and advise on their care. But it's also a chance to study a large group of women who have had Zika and their infants with doctors and researchers across disciplines.
SIEGEL: And what are the researchers trying to learn?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, they don't really know very much, so they're trying to learn as much as possible. But on this trial, they're trying to discover a few things. First, they need to prove scientifically, beyond a doubt, that these cases of microcephaly where the infant is born, as you mentioned, with a small cranium and severe developmental delays is, in fact, related to Zika. And for that they have to rule out sort of every other cause, so that's what they're doing. And they're also looking at how this disease is manifesting itself, how this kind of microcephaly is different from other types that have other causes. And they've made some interesting discoveries.
SIEGEL: What have they discovered?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, you know, they haven't been able to make any firm analyses. They're still in the beginning stages of this. But, for example, they now believe that Zila is also suspected to have a potentially wide range of effects on the fetus. They found some cases where the child might not be microcephalic but might've suffered hearing her eyesight impairment. One doctor called the microcephaly potentially the tip of the iceberg and that there are a lot more things that Zika could potentially affect in the development of small children. It's still not clear, but looking at a large group of babies and mothers and having all these different specialists under one roof will, say the researchers, increase what they know about Zika and its effects.
SIEGEL: Obviously these babies will need long-term care. Has the government said anything about that?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yes. Brazil today made some new announcements. It said it will give a monthly stipend to the mothers of microcephalic infants. You know, I can tell you, Robert, that I met a large group of these women today, and they are overwhelmingly from poor backgrounds. One of the mothers was just 16 years old. She was clutching this tiny infant in her arms. And caring for an infant with severe disabilities at whatever age, but specifically if you come from a poor background and you're young, you know, it often means that the mothers can't work. So there's no way for them to earn a living. It's an enormous strain on the family, so this stipend is supposed to help with that.
SIEGEL: Lourdes, do the mothers typically remember having had the Zika virus, or is it kind of an ailment that might've passed undiagnosed or unnoticed?
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Well, that's the problem. Zika, actually, in only one out of five cases will show symptoms. So many of the mothers that I spoke to do remember having had some sort of rash, some sort of virus. They might have not known at the time what it was. I interviewed one couple whose child is, you know, very recently born, and they didn't even know that there was a problem until after the child was born. So, you know, you're seeing a range of different things here. It's not just women who knew that they might have had a virus, but also women who didn't know that they had any problems at all.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro speaking from Salvador in Brazil. Lourdes, thanks.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: You're welcome.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Internet streaming services Netflix and Amazon are shaking up the film festival business. At Sundance this year, the services bid up the prices of independent films and upended the strategy of traditional Hollywood players. Thanks to that competition, "The Birth Of A Nation," a biopic about the slave rebellion leader Nat Turner, broke a Sundance record with Fox Searchlight picking up the distribution rights to the movie for more than $17 million. Tatiana Siegel is a senior film writer at the Hollywood Reporter, and she says Netflix and Amazon succeeded in part by jumping in early.
TATIANA SIEGEL: Basically Netflix bought two big projects coming into the festival. They struck their deals before the festival even started. So they picked up a Paul Rudd movie called "The Fundamentals Of Caring" for nearly $7 million. And they also bought the Ellen Page drama "Tallulah," and that was for 5 million. So basically, to put those numbers in context, two eras ago, the top sale at the whole festival was $3.5 million for a Kristen Wiig movie called "The Skeleton Twins."
CORNISH: Whoa, OK. So they're getting in early, and they're going bigger when they do.
SIEGEL: Exactly.
CORNISH: When you think about why the streaming services were able to kind of upend the market this time around, what are some of the reasons? I mean, are they just the cool kids in town? Do they have more money? What's - how are they seen?
SIEGEL: I think it's all of the above. They had more money. They came in with very deep pockets and were willing to spend. I think it's also because they hired away people from some of the traditional distributors that would be their buyers on the site in Sundance looking for the hot movies. And these people are professionals. They know what they're looking for. They've read the scripts. And so last year, Netflix only bought one small documentary, and Amazon bought nothing. This year, they came in fully staffed and ready to go.
CORNISH: How are the traditional movie studios reacting to all this financially or otherwise?
SIEGEL: I think they're seething because A - it's driving up the prices even when they do land a movie. So you had something like "Birth Of A Nation" which was not bought by Netflix or Amazon. However, Netflix was bidding, and they bid $20 million. So at the end of the day, that jacked up the price for the ultimate sale of this movie, and there's no doubt about that.
CORNISH: But is there any sense, like - do we know what it might have gotten before an Amazon or a Netflix came onto the scene?
SIEGEL: Before Netflix and Amazon really came onto the scene this year, the high water mark was $10 million. There are a few movies that have sold for the $10 million mark, so, I mean, you could guess or extrapolate and say, well, maybe it would've sold for $10 million if Netflix and Amazon weren't kind of making this earth-shattering type of moves at the festival.
CORNISH: You've described the movie studios in reaction to all this as seething (laughter), which is pretty strong. I mean, they got outgunned. Are they really that surprised?
SIEGEL: I think they're shocked. I think that no one expected both of these services to come in and really buy like they have - seven movies total already, and the festival's basically at the midpoint.
CORNISH: Why would movie studios really care? Is it just that they're embarrassed (laughter) that they've been, you know, outmaneuvered? 'Cause these aren't films they're really giving audiences anyway.
SIEGEL: Well, the big movie studios are making the blockbusters, and they probably don't care as much. But all of the big studios also have these small specialty labels, which is part of the Sundance game plan - kind of go to Sundance with your smaller labels like Fox Searchlight and the Sony Pictures Classics and buy something that might get us an Oscar and sort of give them the cachet that they need as well as the big blockbusters.
CORNISH: That's Tatiana Siegel of the Hollywood Reporter. Tatiana, thanks so much.
SIEGEL: Thank you for having me.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The abuse of heroin and prescription drugs is an issue that's not only getting the attention of politicians who are campaigning. It's also led to a rare moment of bipartisan cohesion in Congress. NPR's Ailsa Chang reports that the Senate Judiciary Committee has zeroed in on how lawmakers might be able to respond.
AILSA CHANG, BYLINE: There are few problems Congress has to deal with that cut so indiscriminately across income levels, age groups, race and state lines, which is why the political will to act now cuts across party lines. Democrat Dick Durbin of Illinois says drug abuse in this country has a new face.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DICK DURBIN: The fact that this is no longer an inner-city minority problem but an American problem, predominantly a white American problem, I think creates a political force that might see this to the right conclusion.
CHANG: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that roughly 129 Americans died from a drug overdose every day in 2014. Two-thirds of those deaths involved heroin or opioids. The numbers are staggering and heartbreaking, as are the individual stories that have been streaming into lawmakers offices and before the panel today.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TONDA DARE: We have to put a face to this. We have to help these kids.
CHANG: Tonda DaRe of Carrollton, Ohio, watched her 21-year-old daughter die of an accidental heroin overdose in 2012. She remembers trying desperately to give her CPR next to the sink.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DARE: The sound of my air going into her lungs - that crackling and popping that I still hear in my nightmares...
CHANG: Those nightmares, DeRe says, could become a reality for any parent who gives her child as little as $20. That's because heroin's so cheap and so plentiful on the street now. And Republicans like Chuck Grassley of Iowa are blaming that supply problem largely on the president's immigration policies. Here he is talking to Michael Botticelli, head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHUCK GRASSLEY: Isn't it at least part of the answer to this epidemic securing the border for Mexican cartels? And what can we do about that part of the problem?
MICHAEL BOTTICELLI: Sure. Thank you, Senator. Let me start out by saying I agree with many of the comments here today that focusing on supply reduction has to be part of our comprehensive response.
CHANG: But that comprehensive response will also have to address addiction prevention, recovery and education efforts. Supply from Mexico just one part of the crisis. Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin says what has changed drastically in the last couple decades is our attitude about painkillers.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PETER SHUMLIN: What has changed is that we simply pass out painkillers like candy in America, and we're unwilling to have that conversation.
CHANG: Since the 1990s, doctors have been prescribing drugs like oxycodone in rising amounts. Shumlin recalls meeting a reporter once who just had surgery.
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SHUMLIN: I said, how many did you get? She said, what do you mean? I said, how many oxies did you get? She said 80. I said, good. I said, how many did you take? She said, half of one. So there's 79-and-a-half left behind.
CHANG: And those opioids left behind too often become the gateway to heroin abuse. So now a bipartisan group of senators is pushing the Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act. It'll provide new resources for treatment and education programs and supply more of an emergency drug that first-responders can use to treat overdoses. Ailsa Chang, NPR News, the Capitol.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
The United States set aside a billion dollars last year to help jumpstart small businesses around the world. When President Obama announced this initiative, he said that lifting communities out of poverty serves a national security goal.
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BARACK OBAMA: Poverty alone does not cause terrorism or sectarian violence, but investments in youth entrepreneurship and education are some of the best antidotes that we have to that kind of disorder.
CORNISH: In the White House audience that day was Nigerian billionaire Tony Elumelu. President Obama invited him because he's giving away a huge chunk of his own fortune to young African entrepreneurs. Reporter Nick Schifrin caught up with Elumelu and two of his proteges - twin brothers in Nigeria.
NICK SCHIFRIN, BYLINE: It's 5 a.m. in Lagos, and the Igwe twins are chopping and sweating in the kitchen. The generator is running because there's no electricity. It's hot, but the twins don't mind. The first thing you notice about the identical 27-year-olds - they're always laughing.
TOBIAS IGWE: (Laughter) For me, it fun. Really, I don't even feel the heat.
SCHIFRIN: Tobias Igwe and his brother, Titus, move fast. Their catering service is called Speed Meals. They have huge hopes. That's the second thing you notice about the twins. They're always dreaming.
TITUS IGWE: By this time next year, we want to be feeding 1,000 people daily. But the next thing, yes, we want to be feeding at least 1 million people in Nigeria every day.
SCHIFRIN: A million people a day - right now it's more like a hundred.
(CROSSTALK)
SCHIFRIN: On this day, they cater a beach party. They load nearly a hundred pounds of very spicy chicken into the van and head off.
TITUS IGWE: Some mouths are hungry. Let's go feed them.
SCHIFRIN: The twins have come a long way. When their father died suddenly, they had to drop out of school to support their family. They started a catering business with no capital. But then help came in the form of an angel investor.
TONY ELUMELU: I have always been a dreamer.
SCHIFRIN: A dreamer is how 52-year-old Tony Elumelu describes himself.
ELUMELU: I am hugely optimistic. I think these days, also, the level of despair, the level of hopelessness is too high.
SCHIFRIN: Elumelu became one of Africa's richest men on banking and real estate. He owns conglomerates, hotels, hospitals. The office where interviewed him looks right out of Hollywood. But now he has his eye on his legacy and on lifting Africans out of that despair and hopelessness. He thinks government is ineffective, aid is unsustainable. His solution - private investment. Over the next decade, he's pledged to give 10,000 young entrepreneurs $10,000 each of his own money.
ELUMELU: I consider myself as a comfortable African business leader, but I'm not just content in what I'm keeping for my children. I'm also trying to see that it's spread, that we need to have a Marshall Plan to address this unemployment.
SCHIFRIN: A Marshall Plan to address unemployment. Nigeria is Africa's richest country because of oil, but the economy is not diversified, and unemployment is high. Elumelu hopes to create thousands of small businesses so they hire more workers who can then start their own businesses that hire still more workers like a chain reaction.
ELUMELU: These 10,000 African entrepreneurs should help create employment, should help make sure that prosperity and economic growth touches almost everyone.
SCHIFRIN: Touching almost everyone, in Elumelu's mind, would even help fight Boko Haram, the militant group that recruits young suicide bombers.
ELUMELU: You know, what is important both in society and business is hope. And I'll tell you before. If people have hope for a better tomorrow, they will not kill themselves today.
SCHIFRIN: Elumelu's a hundred-million-dollar investment plan isn't just making spicy chicken and Lagos. He funds hundreds of young entrepreneurs in Nigeria's Northeast where Boko Haram is based and hundreds more across some of Africa's most dangerous areas. He often says that poverty anywhere is a threat everywhere. Reducing that threat might just begin with a few entrepreneurs and a lot of spicy chicken. For NPR News, I'm Nick Schifrin in Lagos.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Amos Gitai, the Israeli filmmaker, has made both documentaries and feature films. And his latest movie, "Rabin, The Last Day," is a hybrid. It's the story of the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin two decades ago. It features archival footage of the killing at a political rally in 1995. It includes interviews with Rabin's partner in peacemaking with the Palestinians, Shimon Peres, and with Rabin's widow. But for the most part, it's a dramatization of the inquiry that came after the assassination. Amos Gitai joins us from Tel Aviv. Welcome to the program.
AMOS GITAI: Thank you.
SIEGEL: And first, what's - what was the motivation for making a movie 20 years after the assassination of Rabin about that event and the inquiry into its causes?
GITAI: I would say, Robert, that this film I did mostly as an Israeli citizen and then just secondary as a filmmaker. I'm concerned about the direction that the country is taking - racist voices, laws which restrict the freedom of speech. And the - in the last two or three years, we started the big research on the roots of the killing of Rabin and essentially about the incitement to kill Rabin.
SIEGEL: Given the task that you're describing, why not do a documentary? Why fictionalize it all in that case if it's really an act - a civic act more than a cinematic one?
GITAI: You know, the investigation was never filmed, so we just had the written documents. Some of the calls by the ultra-right to kill Rabin and the pulsa denura and all the other witchcraft against Rabin was never filmed.
SIEGEL: You mention the pulsa denura. At one point in the film, we hear singing. A camera slowly pans to a small, candlelit room where men in prayer shawls are praying or davening, as one would say, and they're gathered for what's called a pulsa denura ceremony...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "RABIN, THE LAST DAY")
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing in Hebrew).
SIEGEL: ...Cursing the name of Yitzhak Rabin. This is something you've reconstructed. What's going on in that scene?
GITAI: I mean, there is some sort of cursing which was established in the medieval period against enemies of the nation. These rabbis decree that Rabin is an enemy of the nation. He deserved to be cursed. And they held these ceremonies, these kind of very spooky ceremonies. So in the way, it's - the film is really about the battle between the irrational - the messianic currents - and the rational one. And there is no political solution without the rational, analytical attitude, so the film is putting in conflict these two trends these two currents.
SIEGEL: But Mr. Gitai, it seems that you make it more complicated than that because there's a scene which I found very striking in which a woman psychologist, Dr. Netta (ph). Her full name is not given in the movie, but I gather she was actually a psychologist working in those days. She gives a long-distance diagnosis of Yitzhak Rabin's personality. He's schizoid. He has delusions. And the vocabulary isn't messianic. It's purely modern and entirely psychiatric.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "RABIN, THE LAST DAY")
DALIA SHIMKO: (As Psychiatrist, speaking Hebrew).
SIEGEL: You've taken an actual article that she wrote and dramatized her reading from that.
GITAI: Both an article, and also she did a radio interview in which she said exactly what is in the film. You're absolutely right, Robert, of finding it very strange, but these things actually happened.
SIEGEL: In the same film that we hear that woman, the psychologist, describe Rabin as deranged and schizoid, we're confronted with the character of his assassin, as you depict him, Yigal Amir, who is absolutely smug and satisfied with what he's done. He is - shows absolutely no hint of any remorse or guilt for killing the prime minister of his country.
GITAI: Yeah. I mean, this was a big job to work with an actor - Yogev Yefet - to shape the role of the Yigal Amir, the killer of Rabin. On one hand, he said to me, Amos, I have to identify with the character, and on the other hand, I am repulsed by what he did. He really succeeded to derail the entire peace process of the Middle East.
SIEGEL: What he set out to do, he accomplished, you would say.
GITAI: Absolutely.
SIEGEL: What do you say to those who claim that the piece was not lost because Yitzhak Rabin was killed, it was lost in large part because Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestinians, could not really deliver enough to satisfy Israel's demands and Israel couldn't give enough to satisfy Arafat?
GITAI: You know, in general, I think that the Middle East is not divided between angels and bastards. I think they're both angels and bastards. And I think that Rabin was killed partially also because the terrorist attacks by Palestinian ultranationalists in the civil hearts of Tel Aviv, you know - I think that these major terrorist attacks in Tel Aviv helped the Israeli extreme right to destabilize the Rabin government, to delegitimize Rabin, if you'd like. So this is the classical coalition of the Middle East of the people who don't want any peace. They don't want any form of that. They just want to go to the next war, and they exist in all sides.
SIEGEL: Amos Gitai, thank you very much for talking with us today.
GITAI: Thank you. It's a pleasure.
SIEGEL: Mr. Gitai - filmmaker - his most recent film is called "Rabin, The Last Day."
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
We're learning more about the violent turn of events near a wildlife refuge in Eastern Oregon. One militant is dead after an encounter with police and FBI agents. Eight others are under arrest. A handful of people remain inside the refuge headquarters where they've been for the better part of the month. Oregon public broadcasting's Amanda Peacher is in the nearby town of Burns, and she joins us with the latest. Amanda, what does law enforcement say about what's happened?
AMANDA PEACHER, BYLINE: Well, they are saying very little about the confrontation last night. We do know that the leaders of the occupation, Ammon and Ryan Bundy, were on their way to a meeting in the nearby town of John Day when they were arrested. The FBI also said that the response to the occupation has been deliberate and measured despite what some in the community have assumed and that - they also said that they've been working to bring the occupation to a peaceful end for some time now. And lastly, they did say that those arrested yesterday would be facing charges.
SIEGEL: What do you know about the man who was killed last night?
PEACHER: Well, he has been a vocal spokesperson with the occupation. He's an Arizona rancher named LaVoy Finicum. He was there since early in the occupation, and he traveled from his ranch in Arizona to be part of this occupation.
SIEGEL: And what do we know about those who are remaining inside the refuge?
PEACHER: Well, there are a handful of individuals who say that they intend to stay for the long run. They've chosen a new leader. We know that they remain armed, but we don't know to what extent. Some of the people inside the refuge have told reporters that they are prepared to die.
We also know that the children who were inside are not in the building headquarters any longer. The FBI is asking those who are remaining in the refuge to leave immediately, but they also said that those individuals would have to go through an FBI checkpoint as they go. So it's not clear if those occupiers would face charges on their way out.
SIEGEL: Amanda, you've been to that checkpoint today. What did you see?
PEACHER: Well, it was a very tense situation. FBI agents in full combat gear were guarding the road, blocking it and warning reporters that if we even tried to get close, that we could face charges or arrests ourselves. I did see a convoy of large SUVs going past the checkpoint seemingly on their way to the refuge, saw several transports of huge floodlights on a truck bed being transported in and some portable toilets being brought in. So the FBI response here seems to be robust.
SIEGEL: And what about people who live near the refuge? How are they reacting to this latest turn of events?
PEACHER: The community here is very tense. I would say that though some residents have expressed support of the militant's call for local control of federal lands, for the most part, the community of Burns has been asking these occupiers to go for weeks now. And schools and businesses are open. People are moving about the community, but it's a tense situation here. Even those who really wanted to see an end to this occupation and asked the occupiers to leave did not want this to get too violent. So I think people are worried that it could continue.
SIEGEL: OK. That's Amanda Peacher of Oregon Public Broadcasting in Burns, Ore. Amanda, thanks.
PEACHER: You're welcome.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Until yesterday, the FBI and police had been avoiding confrontation with the militants. As the occupation dragged on, many people on the outside wondered why. NPR's law enforcement correspondent Martin Kaste set out to answer that question. And a warning - this story contains strong language.
MARTIN KASTE, BYLINE: Those new checkpoints on the roads to the refuge are a stark contrast to what had been happening. For three weeks, not only were the authorities not raiding the refuge. They made themselves scarce, letting the militants come and go at will. Steve Ijames is a retired police tactical operations expert, and he says this approach is really just SWAT 101.
STEVE IJAMES: Just by goal, beginning with the end in mind, was to deescalate this but to also enforce the law. The last thing I want to do is stow them up in there for an unlimited amount of time. I would like the ringleaders - the people who are in a position of leadership - to be caught away from the premises, and it appears that's exactly what they did.
KASTE: He says incidents such as Ruby Ridge and Waco taught the Feds to avoid sieges. A siege tends to escalate tensions, and it can even generate public sympathy for the people inside. These days, the strategy is hang back, and watch. But it's not always an easy strategy to follow, especially when state officials start losing their patience.
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KATE BROWN: The situation is absolutely intolerable.
KASTE: That's Oregon Governor Kate Brown last week calling on the feds to end the occupation.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BROWN: Federal authorities must move quickly and hold all of the wrongdoers accountable. This spectacle of lawlessness must end.
KASTE: The governor said the feds needed to pay attention to how this waiting game was wearing people down in Harney County, a point that was echoed today at the press conference when the sheriff, Dave Ward, talked about the effect of having the militants coming and going from the refuge like that.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
DAVE WARD: Some of these folks have spent a lot of time in town trying to stir some issues within the community. If it was as simple as just waiting out some folks down there to get out of some buildings, we could have waited a lot longer, but this has been tearing our community apart.
KASTE: Also, the longer the feds waited to bottle up the refuge, the more time there was for sympathizers to show up from other parts of the country. The numbers were held in check somewhat by the remoteness of the refuge and the cold weather, but new people have been trickling in. Just two days ago, state troopers arrested a man on suspicion of DUI. He appeared to be headed to the occupation, and he made his feelings about law enforcement abundantly clear during the arrest captured by a body camera.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Son of a [expletive] Homeland Security [expletive]. Go to Hell, you [expletive]. And I won't kill you. I will not kill State Troopers, but you son-of-a-[expletive] cops, I will kill you.
KASTE: No community wants to become a magnet for people with that kind of anger. Steve Ijames admits that this is a risk with the nonconfrontational approach, and he says the fact that one of the militants was killed during the operation out on the highway yesterday now casts a shadow over everything else.
IJAMES: Once the first shot is fired, the entire dynamic changes, and everybody recognizes this is the real deal. And I think that increases the probability of a less-than-peaceful outcome.
KASTE: Ijames worries that this one death will harden the attitudes of the people still holed up inside the refuge, creating the very sense of siege that the feds had sought to avoid. Martin Kaste, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Now we're going to get the back story to the ill will between Donald Trump and Fox News. This is what led to Trump refusing to participate in the GOP debate Fox is hosting tomorrow. Trump says he'll hold an event to raise money for injured soldiers instead. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik breaks down the breakdown between the Republican front-runner and the cable channel that's the favorite of many Republicans.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Let's set the scene and then make a few points. Trump has been seething at Fox News and Megyn Kelly ever since she asked him during the first debate the season about his disparagement of women.
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DONALD TRUMP: Who ever even heard of her before the last debate?
FOLKENFLIK: Here's Trump speaking to CNN's Wolf Blitzer.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: I'm not a fan of Megyn Kelly. I don't like her. She probably doesn't like me, and that's OK.
FOLKENFLIK: Trump was tough on her. Some of his supporters were brutal and demanding her removal. Point number one - Kelly performed strongly in August, asking pointed questions civilly. Fox New chairman Roger Ailes has rightly stood behind her in a series of public statements. Network officials would not give interviews about the spat, but one of those statements yesterday came loaded with snark. Here's CNN's Alisyn Camerota reading it.
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ALISYN CAMEROTA: We learned, Fox News said, from a secret back channel that the ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president. A nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings.
LYNN VAVRECK: Yeah, I think the race to the bottom here is quite swift.
FOLKENFLIK: UCLA political scientist Lynn Vavreck studies the media and presidential elections.
VAVRECK: The press release from the network, I think, is unprecedented in my memory in terms of a major news network taunting or mocking a presidential candidate, you know, a front-runner in one of the parties.
FOLKENFLIK: And that's the second point. Fox may have been joking, but could you imagine The New York Times doing that, ABC News? Trump has made demands before, once insisting CNN give money to charity on the grounds he had hugely boosted its ratings. That went by the wayside. At a press conference last night in Iowa, Trump said his decision to walk away from the debate is near-irrevocable.
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TRUMP: I didn't like the fact that they sent out press releases toying, talking about Putin and playing games. I don't know what games Roger Ailes is playing.
FOLKENFLIK: And here's why Trump thought he could do it.
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TRUMP: It's a little bit different. They can't toy with me like they toy with everybody else, so let them have their debate, and let's see how they do with the ratings.
FOLKENFLIK: So there you have point three. Trump has been a ratings bonanza, giving the networks both luster and cash. Even so, Glenn Hammer argues Trump risks turning off voters who think he's shying away from a tough questioner. Hammer is the CEO of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and he's also the former executive director of the Arizona state Republican Party.
GLENN HAMMER: The real question is what effect will it have in Iowa? It's going to help the other candidates who are attending more than it will help Donald Trump, who will not be attending.
FOLKENFLIK: Yet here we are, talking not about Marco Rubio - Hammer's choice - or Trump's chief rival in Iowa, Sen. Ted Cruz, but Trump. And that's point four. Trump knows how to define and how to own the news cycle. On Megyn Kelly's show last night, the progressive filmmaker Michael Moore observed it all with amazement.
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MICHAEL MOORE: To get elected president in this country, you have to come on this network. You have to play ball with this network. Donald Trump today said, I'm not playing ball with this network. That's a historic moment, and it's going to be interesting to see, you know, where the real power is.
FOLKENFLIK: Trump isn't boycotting Fox News altogether. He's appeared tonight on a more sympathetic forum, Bill O'Reilly's show. David Folkenflik, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
On the Democratic side of the presidential race, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have similar priorities, but they're going about them very differently. Our reporters Asma Khalid and Tamara Keith have been spending time on the Democratic campaign trail in Iowa, and they bring back this look at the battle between idealism and pragmatism.
ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: This is Asma, and I've been out on the trail with Bernie Sanders. Anytime you hear Sanders speak, he runs through a litany of depressing statistics and then calls for a revolution, as he did on CNN earlier this week.
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BERNIE SANDERS: These problems are so serious that we have got to go beyond the establishment politics and establishment economics. In my view, we need a political revolution.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: This is Tamara, and I've been covering the Clinton campaign. She doesn't tend to dwell on what's wrong with America, but Clinton is clear-eyed about the political reality she would face as president and the likelihood she would have to negotiate with a Republican Congress.
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HILLARY CLINTON: I'll tell you, I'm not interested in ideas that sound good on paper but will never make it in the real world.
KEITH: But the difference in approach isn't just about style. It's also about substance.
KHALID: Take, for example, the minimum wage. Sanders' position is simple. He wants a national $15 minimum wage.
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SANDERS: Wages in America are too damn low. A minimum wage today of $7.25 an hour is a starvation wage.
KEITH: As with so many things, for Clinton, the answer is more complicated. She says she's taking her lead from Senate Democrats who introduced a $12 minimum-wage bill last year.
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CLINTON: They could justify 12. I'm really persuaded by that, and that's where I am. So I want to raise the federal minimum wage to 12, and then I want to encourage more communities, if they can afford to, to go higher.
KEITH: Issue after issue, Clinton offers a more pragmatic prescription.
KHALID: That doesn't sit well with Sanders' supporters.
JENINE CASSON: I think we're kind of past pragmatism in America.
KHALID: That's Jenine Casson. I met her at a Sanders town hall.
CASSON: People are upset with the way things are, and there's a lot of disillusionment. And I think we're on a path to where we need to upset the system a bit more.
KHALID: Casson was earnest, and I asked her why she supports Sanders. She said she just loves all of his policies.
CASSON: Taking America back and making it great again I think is what's important to a lot of America, and he speaks to us.
KHALID: So I'm not sure if you caught that. Casson just used two Donald Trump catchphrases without the faintest sign of irony. Sanders backers, like Trump fans, say they're frustrated, even angry, and that the status quo needs to change. David Harris got emotional telling me how badly he wants that change.
DAVID HARRIS: This is the first time I've heard any candidate say anything that makes me want to participate again. He's the only one out there. God, I hope people - I hope people elect him. He's the last chance.
KEITH: At Clinton events, I've never seen quite that kind of emotion. I met Carolyn Sabroske at a recent one.
CAROLYN SABROSKE: You don't go leaving charged up. You go considering everything that she had to say.
KEITH: She left undecided. Clinton's supporters, though, talk a lot about her experience and temperament. Jill Gaultier went into an event last week unsure who she would support. I caught up with her after it was over.
JILL GAULTIER: I believe I'm a Hillary fan now.
KEITH: Really.
GAULTIER: Yes.
KEITH: What was it?
GAULTIER: Just the - she's not making promises, but she's going to try, and I'm very encouraged that she has the ability to lead this country to better times.
KEITH: Gaultier says Clinton's not handing you the hype, and she appreciates that. Eighteen-year-old Maria Kosovich stood by a rope line, cell phone in hand, waiting for Clinton.
MARIA KOSOVICH: I just made Hillary talk to my dad.
KEITH: The funny thing about this is Kosovich says her dad supports Sanders. But she's planning to caucus for Clinton.
KOSOVICH: When she gives an idea, she also gives her plan and how to enact it. And I think sincerity, above all, is most important - than empty promises.
KHALID: Of course, Sanders and his supporters argue his promises are not empty. They think the country is ripe for a political revolution.
KEITH: There are passion elections, and there are persuasion elections. Next week, we'll get a clue as to which one this is. I'm Tamara Keith.
KHALID: And I'm Asma Khalid, NPR News.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Last week's blizzard set a record for snowfall along some parts of the East Coast. It shut down cities and towns from Kentucky to Long Island. It even earned the nickname Snowzilla. But it probably won't be remembered as a major economic event. NPR's Yuki Noguchi explains why.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: Scott Bernhardt can make an educated guess about how much a crippling blizzard is likely to cost. He factors in historic data about retail spending, productivity and previous storms.
SCOTT BERNHARDT: New York City, for example - the basic metric up to the first three or four inches is a million dollars an inch.
NOGUCHI: Bernhardt is president of Planalytics, a group that studies the economic impact of the weather. He says the fact that last week's blizzard hit the East Coast over a weekend meant it was less disruptive and costly.
BERNHARDT: It could've been far, far worse had it hit in December, had it hit on a weekday. All of those things would've been far worse.
NOGUCHI: Bernhardt says it will take a month for cities to tally their plowing costs and longer for the insurance industry to get a sense of property damage, especially along flooded parts of the Jersey Shore. But so far, he estimates Snowzilla caused an $850 million economic loss. That only includes losses that won't be made up when the effects of the snow have cleared.
BERNHARDT: If you were unable to get on a flight on Saturday but were able to get on on Monday, we don't count that.
NOGUCHI: Cost estimates very. Moody's Analytics $3 billion estimate doesn't include infrastructure damage but includes lost productivity that won't be made up through overtime or telework. Chris Christopher is director of Consumer Economics at IHS Global Insight. He says people who work in retail and restaurants sustained the biggest losses.
CHRIS CHRISTOPHER: Hourly wages - those people won't get paid.
NOGUCHI: Or, as he puts it, no one is going to go out and order two dinners to make up for the one they didn't eat. He estimates losses will reach about $2 billion - not enough to make a dent in the nation's quarterly economic numbers. He says Snowzilla's damage doesn't compare to hurricane Sandy or even last year's polar vortex, a bitter cold streak that lasted weeks. He admits, however, that estimating weather cost is not an exact science.
CHRISTOPHER: There's a lot of guessing of what we're doing here.
NOGUCHI: For example, how many people were able to telework during and after the storm? And while stores were closed and many people stayed home, power and Internet access remained on for most households.
CHRISTOPHER: We do expect e-commerce retail sales to sort of pick up a little bit in January because of this.
NOGUCHI: Especially for winter clothes that had been sitting on store shelves because of what had been a mild winter. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.
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For more than seven months, there's been a budget impasse in Illinois, and there's no sign of Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democratic lawmakers coming to terms. Today, in his State of the State address, Rauner called for serious negotiation, but made little mention of the state's financial crisis. NPR's Cheryl Corley reports.
CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: Education, criminal justice reforms and other issues were the focus in Gov. Rauner's State of the State address. It wasn't until the very end that he talked briefly about the shadow that's loomed over Illinois for months - the stalemate over a budget crisis that's caused deep cuts in social service programs, layoffs and a struggle for both public universities and thousands of students as they wait for state grants.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BRUCE RAUNER: All of us in this chamber had a difficult year together in 2015, as we debated a budget with structural reform. But it is not too late for this general assembly to make historic progress for the people of Illinois.
CORLEY: Gov. Rauner says he won't support a financial plan that includes a tax increase championed by Democrats to help fill a massive budget gap. That's unless the legislature approves the pro-business, union-weakening reforms that he wants. And during his speech, Rauner blasted AFSCME, the union for state workers, saying its negotiated salaries and work rules have cost taxpayers millions.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RAUNER: We need to install common sense into out union contracts.
(APPLAUSE)
CORLEY: Besides that, Rauner had little to say about a now seven-month budget impasse this fiscal year. For Emily Miller, it's clearly frustrating. She works for Voices for Illinois Children and as a spokesperson for a coalition of service providers, many struggling to survive without state funds.
EMILY MILLER: How many people have to stand in front of a microphone and say that their lives are being ruined before the governor decides to make passing a budget his number one priority?
CORLEY: Speaking on Illinois Public Media shortly after the speech, House Speaker Michael Madigan, the leading Democrat in the state legislature, called Rauner's focus on unions and term limits and not the budget misguided.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MICHAEL MADIGAN: The evidence is very clear. We can come to a resolution of our problems if we're reasonable in terms of identifying what the real critical problems are.
CORLEY: Madigan says that's the budget, and the longer the state waits to resolve its budget woes, the more damage will occur. In just a few weeks, Gov. Rauner will present a budget plan for next year, even as the turmoil over this year's unresolved budget continues. Cheryl Corley, NPR News, Chicago.
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If you're a photographer, how about this for a job description - it's a staff position with benefits, you get to travel all around the U.S. and some of the country's most famous landscapes. Sure, you have to be willing to do strenuous exercise to get the best shots, but you can also say you have the job once held by Ansel Adams. The National Park Service is about to pick a new staff photographer. And to talk about this, I'm joined by Rich O'Connor. He's the chief of heritage documentation programs at the Park Service. Thanks for coming in.
O'CONNOR: Thank you.
CORNISH: And we're also here with Kainaz Amaria. She's an editor with NPR's visuals team and a photographer. Hey there, Kainaz.
KAINAZ AMARIA, BYLINE: Hi, Audio.
CORNISH: All right, so she's going to help guide me through some of the questions here because I imagine this is a dream job for Kainaz and others.
AMARIA: Dream job indeed.
CORNISH: How many applications did you get?
O'CONNOR: Well, let's just say we've got a lot. The interest that it's spurred has been heartwarming.
CORNISH: So the job listing does not mention Ansel Adams, but, of course, it's hard not to think of him. Obviously other people have held the job over the decades. But one of the reasons is because, obviously, those photos of the national parks by Adams are just so famous. Kainaz, tell us a little bit more about kind of why - why that legacy's so rich.
AMARIA: When you think about broad, sweeping landscape images, especially in black and white, you say Ansel Adams. I think that's the clearest way to describe his legacy.
CORNISH: And this is going to involve a large-format camera, right, this job, to fulfill this legacy. Rich O'Connor, if you could talk a little bit about what that means. Physically, right, this is - we're talking a tripod. We're talking a pretty big camera for people who are used to taking photos with their phone.
O'CONNOR: Well, it's this photographer with a cape over his head blocking the light and a tripod with a big camera set up in front of him. They're seeing an upside-down image. They have a slide that they put in. They can take two photos per slide. And they carry these slides around in a big case, and then they bring the case back. And then, in the lag, they develop them.
AMARIA: And these are large-format pieces of film that, Rich, go from - what? - four by six to...
O'CONNOR: Five by seven and eight by 10.
CORNISH: Why was large-format work still a requirement in the age of Instagram?
O'CONNOR: Large format's important for several reasons. One is that it captures a huge amount of information on each photograph. That allows those photographs to be blown up to huge proportions and retain all of their visual clarity.
CORNISH: So it blows away any and all pixel counts, for people at home who are trying to think about this in terms of their own consumer cameras.
O'CONNOR: You're not going to get it on your iPhone. And then, it's also durable over the long-term. The negative, when properly stored, as ours are at the Library of Congress, has the longest lifespan that we can imagine. They estimate 500 years. And then, finally, it's more difficult to fool around with a large-format photograph and make it look like it's something that it isn't
CORNISH: Kainaz, you joked in the newsroom that this was a dream job. But for those of us who, you know, are not photographers, what is it actually that makes it a dream job because I see a lot of hiking, which I'm not so into, you know, and I see maybe being out in not-great weather. What is it about this that you think is so great?
AMARIA: For a photographer, the idea of traveling to national parks to slow down and be able to see these places in a really sort of considered way and to get paid for that - a lot of times, for photographers, that is the hardest thing. And to be able to cultivate a voice and to be able to share it with so many people is an incredible opportunity.
O'CONNOR: Can I just add to that? I think, dream job - yes. But it's also an opportunity to shoot sites not only within the Park Service, but with outside in the communities around the parks, sites that aren't under the umbrella of the National Park Service but are still significant in American history.
AMARIA: I think Rich is saying don't romanticize it too much.
(LAUGHTER)
CORNISH: No, historical places - I'm into that.
O'CONNOR: Deep urban environments - we love them. Old factory buildings, we love.
CORNISH: Rich O'Connor, we should note, right now, you have all the applications you are going to take. It is closed, and you expect to make an announcement maybe this summer.
O'CONNOR: Late spring, early summer, yes.
CORNISH: All right. Well, Rich O'Connor - he's chief of heritage documentation programs for the National Park Service. Thank you so much for coming in.
O'CONNOR: Thank you for having me.
CORNISH: And Kainaz Amari of NPR's visuals team, see you in the newsrooms.
AMARIA: Hey, thanks, Audie.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
NBC debuted three new shows this month with Latinas playing the leads. There is the police drama "Shades Of Blue" with Jennifer Lopez and the comedies "Superstore" with America Ferrera and "Telenovela" with Eva Longoria. Commentator Cynthia Leonor Garza was intrigued by "Telenovela" because she grew up with the genre that it parodies. Here's her review.
CYNTHIA LEONOR GARZA, BYLINE: "Telenovela" is crammed with all the things you'd come to expect from any steamy Mexican soap - lots of gorgeously tanned exposed skin, sculpted mustaches, cat fights, epic stare-downs and, of course, lots of Spanish guitar.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TELENOVELA")
AMAURY NOLASCO: (As Rodrigo, speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing in Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) More wind.
GARZA: The comedy is set behind the scenes of a Spanish-language telenovela based in Miami. It's a workplace comedy like "30 Rock," only this cast is mostly Latino. In "Telenovela," Eva Longoria plays Ana Sofia, the star of a Spanish-language telenovela who doesn't speak Spanish. She just memorizes her lines.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TELENOVELA")
ZACHARY LEVI: (As James, speaking Spanish).
EVA LONGORIA: (As Ana Sofia, speaking Spanish).
LEVI: (As James, speaking Spanish).
LONGORIA: (As Ana Sofia) You know what? We'll just keep is cash. Stick to English.
GARZA: It's a wink to Latino viewers who also don't speak perfect Spanish. There are lots of tiny nods to Latin culture in the show, but it also tries really hard to not leave non-Latino viewers with FOMO - fear of missing out. In this scene, after a light falls and hits Ana's head, she wakes up disoriented and lying in a hospital room on the set.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TELENOVELA")
JADYN DOUGLAS: (As Roxy) Does she have amnesia? Do you know what year it is?
ALEX MENESES: (As Isabela) Do you know what year it is?
GUILLERMO GARCIA CANTU: (As Gustavo) Amnesia's no joke. My character has it, I think. I don't remember.
DIANA-MARIA RIVA: (As Mimi) She doesn't have amnesia. You guys have been working in telenovelas too long. You're desensitized to crazy things.
GARZA: It's a funny line that actually troubled me to think about how television audiences have also grown desensitized to the crazy characters of Latinos we've seen over and over again. While the whole premise of this show might at first glance seems like one big mockery of Latino culture, she show is actually taking ownership of the stereotypes while trying to give us stories that are universal. It's a tough balance, but "Telenovela" is moving in the right direction. Here, Ana explains who she really is to the head of the network, a Spanish-speaking white guy who happens to be romantically interested in her.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TELENOVELA")
LONGORIA: (As Ana Sofia) James, I can't do this anymore, OK? I'm not Pasion. I don't like salsa dancing. I don't speak Spanish. This isn't the real me. The real me loves eating cheese puffs and relies heavily on boob tape for cleavage. I don't like spicy food.
LEVI: (As James) I saw that.
LONGORIA: (As Ana Sofia) The truth is, I'm pretty normal.
GARZA: Normal - I was stumped by the line being drawn here, the idea that white things would be considered normal, Latino things abnormal. But I get the point she's trying to make. Being Latino is much more complex than going down a list and checking off boxes. Still, I grew up watching novelas. To this day, every time I hear the theme song to the 1987 teen "Quinceanera," I'm filled with an aching nostalgia for those evenings I spent in my grandmother's living room. Our real lives may not be anything like melodramatic telenovelas, but for some of us, they're still an important part of our story. And everyone needs to acknowledge that in this country, that's totally normal.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "QUINCEANERA")
THALIA: (Singing in Spanish).
SIEGEL: That's commentator Cynthia Leonor Garza with her take on the new NBC comedy "Telenovela."
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Babylonians - they're just like us, or at least more like us than first thought. The Babylonians lived in what is now Iraq. They were obsessed with trying to predict the future by watching the stars and planets. And a startling discovery shows that their astronomers used a surprisingly modern technique. Here's NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: Oh, the Babylonians - they seem like such ancient history. But Mathieu Ossendrijver says no. When you count a 60-second minute or a 60-minute hour, you are acting a little Babylonian, and you know astrology.
MATHIEU OSSENDRIJVER: With horoscopes and with the zodiacal signs, the 12 signs, that was invented in Babylonia.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Ossendrijver works at Humboldt University in Berlin. He has a PhD in astrophysics, but he doesn't study the stars. Instead, he spends his days poring over crumbling clay tablets. They're covered with the tiny scrawls of long-dead Babylonian priests. Ossendrijver specializes in a few-hundred tablets that deal with the hardcore mathematics of Babylonian astronomy. They're filled with numbers and arithmetic, except there are four mysterious tablets that are different.
OSSENDRIJVER: Nobody understood what they are about, including me. I didn't know it until very recently.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: These tablets talk about a shape - a rectangle with a slanted top, a trapezoid. The tablets don't have an actual drawing. They just talk about the trapezoid's sides and its area and dividing the area into parts. What exactly were the ancient astronomers doing here? Last year, Ossendrijver made a breakthrough.
OSSENDRIJVER: I found, so to speak, the key to understanding these weird texts that deal with trapezoids.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: The key was another clay tablet. This one describes how the planet Jupiter moves across the sky. He noticed that the numbers on this tablet matched the numbers on those strange trapezoid tablets.
OSSENDRIJVER: So that was, like, the a-ha moment. It was, like, oh.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: He realized that the Babylonian astronomers were using the tools of geometry to deal with a very abstract concept - how the velocity of Jupiter changes over time. Now, historians knew that Babylonians used geometry to work with physical objects like a plot of land or a building, but this is way more sophisticated. It's a very modern method, one that historians had thought was invented some 14 centuries later in the Middle Ages in Europe. Ossendrijver describes his discovery in the journal Science, and it's wowed scholars like Alexander Jones at New York University's Institute for the Study of the Ancient World.
ALEXANDER JONES: I'm quite surprised. I'm not surprised that this is coming out of Babylonian because these sort of astronomer scribes of the last five centuries B.C. or so really were amazing.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: He says they developed a slew of new techniques for astronomy. Of course, these priests wanted to track Jupiter to understand the will of their god Marduk in order to do things like predict future grain harvests. But still, they had the insight to see that the same math used for working with mundane stuff like land could be applied to the motions of celestial objects.
JONES: They're, in a way, like modern scientists. In a way, they're very different. But they're still coming up with very, you know - things that we can recognize as being like what we value as mathematics and science.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.
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As well-known as Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is in the United States, only 12 of her works are in public collections here. Well, make that 13. Boston's Museum of Fine Arts has acquired the first painting Kahlo ever sold from the family she sold it to. Andrea Shea of member station WBUR has the story behind the painting.
ANDREA SHEA, BYLINE: Rhona MacBeth is the conservator of paintings at the MFA. It's her job to assess new acquisitions and get them ready for display.
RHONA MACBETH: One of the wonderful things about paintings is they tell stories, and they take you many, many places. And Kahlo was one of those people who - you can go so many places with her and with the works of art that she makes.
SHEA: This one is a portrait of two women. It's called Dos Mujeres - Salvadora y Herminia.
MACBETH: They were her maids that worked in her house during her childhood, we believe. We're still finding out more about them.
SHEA: They're indigenous Mexicans. One has olive skin and Indian features. The other paler with a gold hoop in her ear. They stand against dense green foliage dotted with fruit and butterflies. MacBeth says this painting takes us back to the beginning of Kahlo's career following a violent car crash that left her spine and pelvis permanently damaged.
MACBETH: Her terrible accident was in 1925. This is only 1928, and she really only started painting seriously after the accident. So she's 21 years old at this point.
SHEA: MacBeth says the two maids in the double portrait might have taken care of Kahlo while she was recovering. The conservator gently lifts the unframed canvas off the easel and turns it over to reveal signatures apparently added to the painting at a party celebrating its sale.
MACBETH: Frida Kahlo signs it. It's dated July 1929 which is the year after the painting was made, and it's one month before she marries Diego Rivera.
SHEA: Muralist Diego Rivera signed the painting, too, and so did the man who bought it, American industrialist Jackson Cole Phillips. The painting has remained with Cole Phillips' heirs until they consigned it for sale to New York City gallery owner, Mary-Anne Martin. That's where Elliot Bostwick Davis found it. She's chair of the MFA's Art of the Americas wing.
ELLIOT BOSTWICK DAVIS: I could not believe I was seeing this. She showed me the back and all the inscriptions and the fact that it had been exported from Mexico in 1929 and had been in one family. Of course, Frida Kahlo's work today is cultural patrimony in Mexico, so we could never really hope to buy just any Frida Kahlo unless it had been out of the country for a very long time.
SHEA: The museum won't say how much it paid for the painting, but the current record for a Kahlo at auction is $5.6 million. The MFA has been criticized for not having a more diverse Latin American collection. Museum director Matthew Teitelbaum hopes this new acquisition will help change that.
MATTHEW TEITELBAUM: Our dream was to acquire something by Frida Kahlo, who really was a pathfinder and a woman with strong political views that animated her art. And this came on the market, and everybody knew that it was going to be important for us and help us invite new audiences into the MFA.
SHEA: Frida Kahlo's Dos Mujeres - Salvadora y Herminia is on display to March 1, then it heads back to Rhona MacBeth in the conservation lab to try to solve some of the painting's other mysteries, like how Jackson Cole Phillips brought it back from Mexico in the first place.
MACBETH: I have a suspicion partly because of these little cracks here which are rather unusual and horizontal, and it may be a result of actually the canvas being rolled up and taken home in his suitcase.
SHEA: The painting will be permanently installed in the MFA's Art of the Americas wing later this year. For NPR News, I'm Andrea Shea in Boston.
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The world has watched as ISIS and other Muslim extremist groups have persecuted Christians, Jews and other minorities in countries like Iraq and Syria. Now a group of government, religious and academic leaders from majority Muslim countries say they'll unite to protect those minorities. They say Islam forbids religious persecution. NPR's Tom Gjelten reports.
TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: More than a hundred countries were represented at a gathering in Morocco this week. One of the organizers, Sheikh Hamza Yusuf from the United States, says it had one focus, the plight of religious minorities in Muslim lands.
HAMZA YUSUF: We have people being enslaved into sexual slavery. We have Christian churches that have been there for long before Islam was in these lands that are being destroyed. And we have Jews in Yemen, one of the oldest Jewish communities, now the very existence of which is threatened.
GJELTEN: While some prominent Muslims belittle the plight of non-Muslims in their countries, those who came to this meeting in Marrakesh heard testimony from other faith leaders about the conditions in their countries.
SATTAR HILU: (Foreign language spoken).
GJELTEN: Sheikh Sattar Hilu, speaking on behalf of the Sabian sect in Iraq, said they and other minorities face killing and deportation.
HILU: (Foreign language spoken).
GJELTEN: The message from this meeting - such persecution is un-Islamic, according to the Charter of Medina, the Prophet Muhammed's 1,400-year-old outline for an Islamic state. It mandated peaceful coexistence and religious freedom in the Arabian city of Medina inhabited at the time by various tribes and religious groups.
RECEP SENTURK: Today, we need to re-publicize these documents.
GJELTEN: Recep Senturk in an Islamic scholar from Fatih University in Istanbul.
SENTURK: Especially when we see that the minority rights are violated, those people who are involved in terror activities, they are misusing the name of Islam to justify their evil actions.
GJELTEN: A declaration coming out of this week's meeting in Morocco calls for a more inclusive political culture in Muslim majority countries. School authorities should be on the lookout for teaching materials that promote extremism. Religious leaders in those countries should remind their followers that people of other faiths lived peacefully among them for centuries. Sheikh Hamza Yusuf, who founded a Muslim liberal arts college in Berkeley, says the purpose of this week's meeting was to counter the extremist ideology that fuels groups like ISIS.
YUSUF: We don't have any power other than our intellects and our hearts, and that's what we're fighting with. Ideas must counter ideas. You can drop all the bombs you want, but if you don't pull up weeds by their roots, they just grow back.
GJELTEN: But this is not the first time mainstream Islamic scholars and Muslim government officials have tried to challenge extremism in the name of Islam. Shadi Hamid of the Brookings Institution studies extremist movements, and he worries efforts by these traditional Muslim scholars may not reach young, angry Arabs and Muslims.
SHADI HAMID: If you want to convince people who are predisposed to radicalism, you have to provide voices that they're going to see as legitimate. You don't come with these government-sponsored clerics who are very much part of the ruling establishment in the Middle East which itself has been a big part of the problem.
GJELTEN: There is, however, another audience - all those who say Islam is itself to blame for terrorism. That notion drives anti-Muslim sentiment, which in turn may lead some Muslims to conclude a religious war is underway, and that conviction may, in time, lead them to radicalism. Tom Gjelten, NPR News.
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If you've tried to buy a ticket to a big concert or a game, then you know this - you have to be quick. They can sell out almost as soon as they go on sale. Well, in a new report, the New York State Attorney General's Office says unlicensed vendors are illegally grabbing big blocks of tickets. To do it, they use something called a bot - a software program that buys lots of tickets faster than you could do it at home. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Deborah Chrisanti (ph) was determined to see a Paul McCartney concert, so she went online as soon as tickets went on sale. She quickly discovered that the concert was sold out. So she went on the online ticket bazaar StubHub, and there she found plenty of tickets available at much higher prices.
DEBORAH CHRISANTI: The amount of money I spent on the highest level seats, I could've got VIP passes backstage.
ZARROLI: New York officials say they get plenty of complaints from people like Chrisanti. And today, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman produced a report on ticket prices. Schneiderman says a huge industry of unlicensed vendors has learned to rig the system by buying up tickets in bulk.
ERIC SCHNEIDERMAN: Some use rooms full of employees logging on to multiple computers using multiple credit cards to buy up tickets. But the more sophisticated ones are now using illegal software known as ticket bots.
ZARROLI: These bots can bypass security systems that ticket sellers use - those little boxes that ask you to retype wavy letters or numbers. And when a concert venue limits the number of tickets you can buy, bots can get around that as well. As a result, Schneiderman says they can buy up tickets before most fans even know they're on sale.
SCHNEIDERMAN: It took a single bot just one minute to buy more than 1,000 tickets to a U2 concert last summer at Madison Square Garden. And there's just no way ordinary fans can compete with that.
ZARROLI: Vendors can even acquire and sell tickets to free events like the pope's appearance in Central Park last September. The result is that you can buy tickets to just about any event online, but you end up paying a hefty price for them.
SCHNEIDERMAN: We documented that a bot once purchased a ticket to a One Direction show for $101 and resold it at 70 times the price.
ZARROLI: This business is enormously lucrative. One unlicensed vendor sold $31 million worth of tickets on StubHub alone in 2013, netting a profit of $16 million. Bots are illegal in New York State, and officials want ticket platforms to force vendors to comply with the law. They also want them to take other steps like showing the face value of tickets being sold so customers get a better sense of how much they're being taken for. For its part, StubHub issued a statement today saying it's committed to partnering with the industry to end unfair and deceptive practices. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The actor Richard Dreyfuss has played many roles from the bubbling teen in "American Graffiti" to a man lured by aliens in "Close Encounters Of The Third Kind." His latest role is Bernie Madoff.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MADOFF")
RICHARD DREYFUSS: (As Bernie Madoff) From a backroom in my father-in-law's office to chairman of NASDAQ, the second-largest exchange in the world. A high-water mark, you better believe it. Position like that, I'd never have to sell myself again. The title would do it for me.
SIEGEL: The fraud that Madoff perpetrated brought financial disaster to the people who trusted his fabricated investments, and Madoff wound up in jail. His family was destroyed, a son committed suicide. And all this has been thoroughly explored in the news. Well, next week on ABC TV, actor Richard Dreyfuss explores it in a two-part story.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MADOFF")
DREYFUSS: (As Bernie Madoff) Trading company that you boys run has been a loss for a long time, and I've been covering it with funds from the investment services. And the investment services is a lie.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) What are you talking - what do you mean a lie?
DREYFUSS: (As Bernie Madoff) It's a Ponzi scheme.
SIEGEL: Dreyfuss says that he was able to portray the despicable swindler because, he says, there's a little bit of Madoff in all of us.
DREYFUSS: Madoff is universally despised, as well he should be. All you have to do is find that part of you that has been despicable. And you can find it if you look hard enough.
SIEGEL: Can you find any part him that's sympathetic enough that we might be pulling for him at least for a couple of minutes out of the four hours?
DREYFUSS: If you know the story, you can't really pull for him. If you don't know the whole story, you're taken by his charm. He has to be a guy who you really like or else he wouldn't have been successful, you know, taking your money. Everyone liked him until they hated him. And that's one thing that actors sometimes make a mistake where they wink at the audience and say, I'm not going to be fool enough to play him so that you'll always like him. Well, if you didn't always like him, you wouldn't have given him your money. So I play him as likable as possible.
SIEGEL: As a likable - I believe your word - sociopath.
DREYFUSS: Yes. Once you read about him, you can never empathize with him again and you do want to ride back and forth over his inert body. Absolutely, I mean, he was completely despicable human being. But in order to achieve that, he had to be lovable.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "MADOFF")
DREYFUSS: (As Bernie Madoff) I suppose there are two ways now to look at this place - as a high-tech financial services outfit that helped create NASDAQ, or as I like to see it, a very closely knit family business.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) You know how I look at you?
DREYFUSS: (As Bernie Madoff) How?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) As a guy who doubled my money in six years.
SIEGEL: Madoff and a great number of his victims were Jewish, including Jewish organizations. You're Jewish. I'm Jewish. The story is very Jewish. Did you ever feel yourself cringing within this that this was, as one's grandmother might have said, not good for the Jews to tell this story?
DREYFUSS: I had gone through that when I did "The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz" when I was 25.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE APPRENTICESHIP OF DUDDY KRAVITZ")
DENHOLM ELLIOTT: (As Friar) Oh, Kravitz, come for your pound of flesh?
DREYFUSS: (As Duddy Kravitz) I am surprised at you, Mr. Friar. Don't you remember we have a bar mitzvah tomorrow?
DREYFUSS: A lot of Jewish people in LA and Montreal said, oh, you're washing our dirty linen in public. And I said, well, let me do it louder then so that we can get a bigger audience. There's nothing wrong with washing your dirty linen in public. And I gave the script to an unnamed star actor-director. And this person came back with I wouldn't do that because he was such a shame on our people. And I said back, well, wouldn't you have liked to have had a hand in how the world looked at him? In my mind, I participated in this thing because I am very, very proud of being Jewish, although there are limits, I suppose. And I did not want my being Jewish to interfere or get in the way. I felt I was strangely equipped to tell this story.
SIEGEL: I'm glad you raised "The Apprenticeship Of Duddy Kravitz" because I'd been thinking about this. That's the first movie when I remember seeing you, actually, back in 1974. It's based on Mordecai Richler's novel. And your character is this young Jewish guy from Montreal, a young man on the make who's dying to make money and not a very scrupulous character - treats people quite poorly. Are you playing the same guy 40 years later?
DREYFUSS: Many people have asked me that, is this the end of the Duddy Kravitz story? And I said, well, it's certainly one of a number of possible endings. I would say when you read the novel of Duddy Kravitz, he doesn't have very many good role models. And he was the Duddy that the world made him. He wanted to make money because that's what he was told was the mark of a made man. But certainly you can say he could've become Bernie Madoff. But then again, he could've become Mother Teresa too.
SIEGEL: After the conversion of Duddy Kravitz, that is.
DREYFUSS: Yes (laughter).
SIEGEL: That would have been a different twist in the plot.
DREYFUSS: Well, you're always looking for surprises in show business.
SIEGEL: (Laughter) OK. Let me ask you about something. It's a serious and not pleasant part of your life, but I wondered about it as I was watching the movie. You had some problems with addiction. Was Bernie Madoff addicted? I mean, did he have to keep on doing this thing even though it'd very likely kill him at some point?
DREYFUSS: Yeah, I think he was addicted in the same way that Iago is addicted. There's a point in "Othello" where Iago turns and says, either to the gods or to the audience, I am really good at this. And I'm going to keep doing it until I'm ended. And he didn't care who he took down with them. And in a way, Bernie never once said to himself, well, I'll take $10 million and put it aside and create an exit strategy. He never did that. He just kept going. And I personally think you can call that an addiction or you can call that sociopathology. He didn't care whether he was caught or not. And he was just so good at what he did that he had a great sense of pride. And he said so. I mean, in all - basically he said no one is going to ever be better than me at doing this.
SIEGEL: Well, Richard Dreyfuss, thanks a lot for talking with us today.
DREYFUSS: Thank you very much.
SIEGEL: Richard Dreyfuss stars in "Madoff," a television miniseries airing next week on ABC.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
One of those new agreements is about oil. The French company Total says it will buy crude from the National Iranian Oil Company. There's already a glut of oil on the market. Many Americans are filling their gas tanks for less than $2 a gallon these days. The government says overall, drivers saved $100 billion on gas last year. You might think that would be good for the U.S. economy. Actually, it might not be, as NPR's Chris Arnold reports.
CHRIS ARNOLD, BYLINE: Can you fill it up with regular, please?
OK. I just pulled in to fill up my car with gas, and it's a-buck-75 a gallon, which is super awesome. Wait to minute. Or is it?
VIPIN ARORA: What I've been asking for the last couple years is, is it possible that lower oil prices could actually hurt the U.S. economy?
ARNOLD: That's Vipin Arora. He's an economist with the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and he's about to rain on our cheap gas parade. He says this is his research. It's not the government's official word on the matter. But he's finding that cheap gas might be bad for America. Now, just asking that question is...
ARORA: Completely the opposite of the way most of us have been trained to think about this and have thought about it for years. And I think the answer could be yes, that lower oil prices could actually hurt the U.S. economy.
ARNOLD: That's because drivers, of course, like cheap gas, but...
ARORA: The guy sitting on the oil rig in Texas doesn't really like cheap gas. That's really the problem. And then all the folks that are supplying them with materials and the hotels that have set up shop and the restaurants that have gone there...
ARNOLD: Arora analyzed government data, and he says what's changed is that the oil and gas industry as a share of GDP has about doubled in the past decade. And now that it's gotten so big, it's changed this basic equation about whether cheap gas overall is a good thing.
ARORA: The benefits to consumers could be around 140 billion from gasoline savings. But the losses on the other side due to lower production, less investment, less buildout of infrastructure could be around that amount. So we're kind of at a wash.
ARNOLD: This might help to explain why the economy still isn't exactly charging forward even with the stimulus of cheap energy. But Arora himself stresses that this question needs more study. The research firm Moody's Analytics says its analysis finds that cheap oil and gas are still a net positive, and plenty of experts remain in that camp. Philip Verleger is an economist and consultant who tracks energy markets.
PHILIP VERLEGER: The bottom line is the United States economy is much better off with low-price energy than it would be with high-price energy.
ARNOLD: But then why isn't the economy getting more of a boost? The government says the average household saved $700 last year on cheaper gas. But the Commerce Department also says 2015 had the weakest retail sales growth in six years. So why not more growth from that extra spending money? Philip Verleger...
VERLEGER: I think the mistake everybody makes when they say that there's been no impact from the low price of energy is to fail to sort of understand that the economy would be much worse off right now had we not had this decline in the price of oil.
ARNOLD: And then there's this question. Oil prices are down, but why?
JIM BIANCO: There's an old adage I've heard that the day that the price of oil falls, you might not like the reason.
ARNOLD: Jim Bianco is president of Bianco Research. He says a slowdown in China and elsewhere around the world is driving down the price of not just oil but other commodities, too - copper, aluminum. And some investors are worried that the global slowdown will hurt the U.S., too.
ARNOLD: The fear is it's part of a larger whole. You cannot look at it in a vacuum.
ARNOLD: But so far, there's not a lot of evidence that the U.S. is getting sucked into all that trouble abroad. Job growth in the U.S. remains pretty solid. The economic recovery here is continuing. And some analysts think we might actually see a bigger boost from cheaper energy later this year. Chris Arnold, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
For the last five years, the Texas Legislature has done everything in its power to defund Planned Parenthood. Well, it's turned out that it hasn't been easy to target the organization without inflicting collateral damage to other family planning clinics around the state. NPR's Wade Goodwyn reports from Midland, Texas, that 82 clinics have closed, and of those, only a third were Planned Parenthood clinics.
WADE GOODWYN, BYLINE: At the Midland Community Healthcare Services Clinic in West Texas, every day, it's three lines deep as women file in for treatment.
(CROSSTALK)
GOODWYN: In an examination room, OB-GYN resident Dr. Jonathan Lugo studies his patient. Her two young children sit quietly in the room, eyes wide, watching the young doctor and their very pregnant mother.
JONATHAN LUGO: So this is not your first rodeo, right? So you kind of know what to expect.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Uh-huh.
LUGO: Let's listen to your baby.
GOODWYN: The clinic's 15 examination rooms go full throttle all day but can't come close to satisfying demand. The numbers are harsh. In Texas, just 22 percent of childbearing age women who qualify for subsidized preventive health care treatment actually get it.
The latest family-planning predicament began in 2011 when the Republican-dominated Texas Legislature decided it was done once and for all funding Planned Parenthood. It eliminated funding for any clinic associated with an abortion provider, even if the clinic itself didn't perform abortions. In the process, the legislature ended up slashing the state's family planning budget by two-thirds.
MOSS HAMPTON: And that turned everything on its head.
GOODWYN: Dr. Moss Hampton is a district chairman for the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and a professor at the University Health Sciences Center in Midland. Hampton says the legislature's target was abortion, but the unintended consequence was that family planning clinics which had nothing to do with abortion, especially rural clinics, ran out of money.
HAMPTON: So you had programs that would help patients pay for physician visits, obstetrical care, gynecological care, pap smears. When all of that funding was removed and cut, a large number of women didn't have the means to pay for access to those services.
GOODWYN: By 2014, 82 family planning clinics across the state had closed, and the consequence was calamitous. In Midland, for example, when the Planned Parenthood clinic here closed, there were two aftereffects. Eight-thousand well women appointments a year vanished, and so did the last place a woman could get an abortion between Fort Worth and El Paso. Dr. Kari White is one of the lead researchers at the University of Texas's Texas Policy Evaluation Project. They've been investigating the statewide effects of the legislature's family planning cuts.
KARI WHITE: Teens, obviously - when they lose access, they don't have a lot of financial resources to go elsewhere for care, so they may go without. Women who are not legal residents are in disadvantaged positions in multiple ways, and even women who are making just a little bit over the cutoff for the Women's Health Program - $50 is still a lot of money out of your budget.
GOODWYN: The researchers found that two years after the cuts, Texas's Women's Health Program managed to serve less than half the number of women it had before. The legislature's own researchers predicted that more than 20,000 resulting unplanned births would cost taxpayers more than a quarter of a million dollars in federal and state Medicaid support. Dr. White says as the state has worked to rebuild its shattered network, the new providers don't necessarily have the same capacity to do cancer screenings, IUDs and birth-control implants.
WHITE: A lot of the funding that has been allocated has gone to organizations that do not necessarily have the expertise or the necessary training to provide the types of family planning contraceptive preventive reproductive health care that the Planned Parenthood clinics provided.
GOODWYN: The political backlash to the funding cuts was stout. So in 2013, the legislature essentially restored the money. But finding new providers, especially in the countryside, has been slow and difficult. Texas Health and Human Services Commissioner Leslie French runs the Women's Health Services Program.
LESLIE FRENCH: The legislature wanted to make sure that no one, even if they were accustomed to going to a certain provider that was no longer a part of the state plan - that there was another provider that was willing and able to take and serve women. That's never an overnight process.
GOODWYN: French says the state program is approaching the number of providers it had back in 2010. But in many regions of the state, there's been little or no decrease in the level of unserved need. Texas continues to grow vigorously, and a statewide doctor shortage compounds the problem. It's not like already inundated medical practices are chomping at the bit to take on thousands of orphaned Medicaid patients. Commissioner French says they're doing best they can under the circumstances.
FRENCH: I'm very cognizant of the needs, how the needs in one area of the state are not what the needs in the other area of the state are. And so what works in Houston or what works Dallas doesn't work for Midland.
GOODWYN: The state's newest rendition of its Women's Health Program debuts July 1. In the meantime, rural Texans still scramble to find family planning services and not just poor women. Aubrey, a student at Texas Tech, doesn't want her last name used for reasons we'll explain in a moment. But this last year, her senior year, her life changed.
AUBREY: Yes, I'd met a boy, and you know, I decided to go and seek out getting on birth control.
GOODWYN: About to become sexually active for the first time, Aubrey did not want her birth control showing up on her parents' insurance. So she went to the student health clinic, but there, the doctor was difficult.
AUBREY: I just wanted to talk to her and get some ideas on what would be best for me, and she was telling me that I needed to get on a certain one because that was my only option. It didn't really make sense. There wasn't a health issue, and it was kind of odd she was fighting me on this.
GOODWYN: The doctor told Aubrey it would take several weeks before she could get her birth control. When the young woman asked why, the doctor suggested Aubrey was lacking in moral fiber.
AUBREY: She actually asked me if I was in that big of a hurry to become sexually active.
GOODWYN: Furious and humiliated, Aubrey left, and she says this is where things got difficult. The Planned Parenthood clinics in Lubbock had recently closed. When she telephoned the county clinic, she discovered the next available appointment was in April. It was January. Determined, she next called to Fort Worth four-and-a-half hours away.
AUBREY: Planned Parenthood really changed my life, quite honestly. I don't know where I'd be right now if I hadn't been able to get in in Fort Worth. And so I'm glad I have the peace of mind now that I don't have to worry about getting pregnant when I'm not ready.
GOODWYN: And this is why Aubrey doesn't want her last name used because she's a Planned Parenthood supporter living in West Texas, which hadn't been a problem until three months ago when a gunman attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs a few hours to the Northwest. A police officer and two Planned Parenthood clients were killed.
In Texas, the legislature seems determined that its robust antiabortion politics will not further damage the state's Women's Health Programs. But its battle against Planned Parenthood continues unabated. The state has ousted the organization from its cancer screening programs, stripped it of state Medicaid money and is ending HIV prevention subsidies. Texas is becoming the model for other conservative states who'd like to defund all family planning clinics associated with abortion providers. Wade Goodwyn, NPR News, Midland.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Fresh from the lifting of international sanctions, Iran's president, Hassan Rouhani, is on a trade mission to Europe. Today, he's in France where he's been shopping for cars, planes and other goods. We're going to hear now from a French-Iranian lawyer who's been representing French companies in their negotiations with Iran, Ardavan Amir-Aslani. Mr. Amir-Aslani, welcome to the program.
ARDAVAN AMIR-ASLANI: Thank you very much. Thank you for having.
SIEGEL: And let's talk first about cars. Peugeot evidently plans to start manufacturing 200,000 cars a year near Tehran. How important is the Iranian market to Peugeot?
AMIR-ASLANI: It is an important. As a matter of fact, prior to the sanctions being imposed upon Iran in relation to the nuclear quest of this country, Peugeot was massively involved in Iran. It was the second-largest market.
SIEGEL: How long ago did they leave?
AMIR-ASLANI: They were out since 2012.
SIEGEL: So I assume that the commercial infrastructure, to resume business, is pretty well still there in Iran.
AMIR-ASLANI: I don't think that one can talk about commercial infrastructure in Iran. As a matter of fact, doing business with Iran is still extremely difficult. We should remember that only nuclear-related sections have been removed. All U.S. sanctions for terrorism, for human rights issues are still in place, which basically forbids all U.S. persons, whether entities or individuals, based in the United States from getting involved in Iran.
This has, also, an impact on the banking sector because, you know, French banks are very weary of getting involved in Iran. They're scared of American sanctions. I mean, they have been strong hit by the United States. BNP Paribas, the - France's largest bank had to pay $9 billion penalty for its involvement with Iran. So although the sanctions have been removed, French banks and European banks in general are very hesitant in relation to the Iranian market.
SIEGEL: The nuclear agreement with Iran provides for a re-imposition of sanctions if Iran commits violations. Do the deals that are being discussed - do these strike you as arrangements that the French would be willing to pull away from if there were such a violation?
AMIR-ASLANI: They have to, of course, take this into consideration. If the snapback clause were to be enforced, this would imply that this would have to stop until sanctions are removed again. So it is an issue.
The Iranians, from an ideological point of view, do not want any references to sanctions made in the contractual framework. So what everybody is trying to understand is how they can (unintelligible) this issue. And there is belief that the notion of force majeure - legal term - it talks about acts of God, such as, you know, earthquakes and that kind of stuff - may cover this eventuality.
SIEGEL: Is this a huge breakthrough day for business between Iran and France, or is this an expression of intentions but there are so many obstacles in front of the two countries that it's possible little will come of it?
AMIR-ASLANI: No. There are obstacles out there, and the obstacles are quite substantial. But this is the first time ever that the current Iranian president has traveled to Europe. A couple of months ago, it was basically out of the question for any French company to sign any kind of a contract with Iran because of the sanctions. Now here he is, back in town, signing deals with Airbus, the largest European aircraft manufacturing company, with Vinci SA (ph), the largest construction company in the world. It's going to be a landmark event. It's going to milestone as far as the regions of Iran and Europe are concerned.
SIEGEL: Are the French confident that it's really Mr. Rouhani who calls the shots here and that they can do business with Iran without having an understanding with the supreme leader who really seems to run things in Iran?
AMIR-ASLANI: The French, as well as everybody else in Europe, understands that genuine power and authority and absolute authority and absolute veto power - whatever decision the Iranian government's going to make resides solely with the supreme leader. But they also know the supreme leader. But they also know that a supreme leader is behind Rouhani and his reforming moderate campaign. At the end of the day, everyone is making the bet that all the centers of power in Iran are behind the current government of Rouhani because without him being able to open up the country, basically speaking, the regime is doomed.
SIEGEL: Mr. Amir-Aslani, thank you very much for talking with us.
AMIR-ASLANI: Thank you for having had me.
SIEGEL: That's Ardavan Amir-Aslani. He's a Franco-Iranian lawyer who represents French companies turning to Iran. He spoke with us from Paris.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Donald Trump is not the first presidential front-runner to skip the final debate before the Iowa caucuses, but it hasn't happened in a long time. We'll get to that history in a moment. But first, that debate hosted by Fox News tonight in Des Moines. It will have seven Republicans on the main stage. Trump will be across town holding a charity event for military veterans. And with us now, NPR political reporters Don Gonyea and Sarah McCammon, both of them in Iowa. First, hey there, Don.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: Hi there.
CORNISH: And, Sarah, how are you?
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Hi, Audie, how are you?
CORNISH: Now, Don, I'm going to have you start, but could you both tell me where you are right this moment?
GONYEA: I'm on the campus of Drake University. I'm outside the Sheslow Auditorium. And it is a place - a venue that's more known for classical music recitals for people who live around here. But tonight, it's the scene of the latest very unconventional moment in the Donald J. Trump campaign for president, this event to benefit veterans' organizations. Also an event to kind of poke a stick in the eye of Fox News on the Republican establishment, fair to say.
MCCAMMON: And I'm at the Iowa Events Center in downtown Des Moines. And as I walked in, Audie, there was a pork tradeshow going in hosted by the Iowa Pork Congress. So you know you're in Iowa when there's a pork show adjacent to a presidential debate.
CORNISH: Sarah, we're in the final days of what's been a very long campaign season in Iowa. What's at stake tonight?
MCCAMMON: Well, these candidates are really trying to close the deal at this point with Iowa voters. They are out on the campaign trail, most of them this week, making lots of stops and making those closing arguments. It's the last chance tonight, though, to draw those contrasts with each other on the same stage, on the big stage, and persuade voters that they have what it takes and they're the ones that they should caucus for.
CORNISH: Don, thinking about this debate tonight, it was Ronald Reagan who was the last major presidential candidate to skip the final Republican debate in Iowa. Now, candidates are usually eager to get the media attention, right? I mean, what is Donald Trump up to with this boycott?
GONYEA: Right, and just a quick word on Ronald Reagan. It did not work out all that well for him in Iowa, at least. He lost the Iowa caucuses to George H. W. Bush, whom he would later pick to be his running mate. Of course, he won the presidency. But, look, Donald Trump is a very different kind of beast when it comes to a presidential candidate. His calculation is that he will get as much attention here as he would on that debate stage. He won't have anybody taking shots at him in person here. And as I look to my right down the street, I count one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight satellite trucks. So that's also part of the reason that he is doing it. But ultimately, his entire campaign has been about challenging the establishment and institutions, be that mainstream presidential candidates or the Republican Party at large or, in this case, also Fox News, which is certainly an institution in American politics, especially on the Republican side.
CORNISH: So that's Trump. Sarah, what does it mean for the other candidates to have a debate without him?
MCCAMMON: Well, it means everybody has more time and more opportunity to stand out. And that is what, you know, every candidate has been fighting for. Often, Trump does suck up all the oxygen in the room or a lot of it. And expect them to take some jabs at Trump for not showing up. I spoke to Ted Cruz's state director at his headquarters near Des Moines today and he said he expects everyone to go after Trump. Certainly, Ted Cruz is his sort of chief rival according to the polls here in Iowa. But that also means without Trump on the stage, the other candidates will be directing their fire likely at Ted Cruz.
CORNISH: And, Don, just a few seconds left, I heard some of the undercard debate candidates are going to be joining Trump after?
GONYEA: Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum should have time to get over here after that undercard debate. Here's their motivation - they would love to do anything possible to distract from what's happening on that main stage, that main stage that they were not invited to join.
CORNISH: That's NPR political reporters Don Gonyea and Sarah McCammon in Des Moines.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
America's military veterans have been pushed to the front of the Republican presidential campaign. There's that Donald Trump rally in Iowa tonight which he says will support Wounded Warriors. At the same time, a super PAC supporting Ted Cruz offered to donate $1.5 million to veterans' charities if Trump agrees to a one-on-one debate with Sen. Cruz. Carly Fiorina upped the ante. She offered $2 million to a veterans cause on the condition that Trump agree to a debate.
Well, we reached out to Tim Hsia for his perspective on all this. He attended West Point and served in Iraq with the Army and is a co-founder of the nonprofit Service 2 School. They help veterans applying to college. Tim, welcome to the program.
TIM HSIA: Hi. Thank you.
CORNISH: Tim, what do you make of all of these different pledges, you know, as we get into the home stretch of voting in Iowa?
HSIA: I think it's really dodging the issues of what's really impacting veterans, and a handout to a veteran organization isn't the same as crafting a thoughtful policy around what are the issues facing veterans and what they would do if elected on day one for veterans.
CORNISH: You're calling it a handout, but you know, there are lots of nonprofits that serve veterans that maybe could use this money. I mean, is there some benefit to this?
HSIA: There's benefit in that it's bringing awareness to veterans' issues, and if it's given to a veteran organization that's going to thoughtfully use that funding to help veterans, then that's great. But I think the absence of real substance of discussion at the debates is very observable for many people who care about veteran issues.
CORNISH: You know, the CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Paul Rieckhoff, has said that he wouldn't take Trump's money. He tweeted, we need strong policies from candidates not to be used for political stunts, similar to what you're saying here. But you know, you run a much smaller nonprofit. Would you consider taking money under these circumstances?
HSIA: I think what my organization and the veterans we support - what we would really want these candidates to do is discuss how they're going to help veteran access to higher education, which is the place we play a big role in, and that's, what are the things we need to fix with the G.I. bill? And there's been more than $20 billion spent within the G.I. bill. Giving, you know, some money to an organization is a pittance in comparison to this larger policy of, how do we use the G.I. bill; how do we use it in a way that helps veterans get into top schools and help them with their transition?
CORNISH: Tim, you know, as I listen to candidates stump speeches, I do hear them talk about veterans broadly. They criticize the way veterans' issues have been handled by the current administration, especially on the Republican side. As you watch the campaign, what do you make of the way candidates have been talking about veterans' issues? Do you see it as enough, specifics?
HSIA: Well, if we want to point at a specific event, I think when Donald Trump attacked Sen. McCain's record, I think that it's one thing to say you care about veterans, and then it's another to attack someone who many veterans think of as a war hero. And maybe there's been policy statements and also discussions around what they would do with the VA and what they would do with addressing suicide rate amongst veterans and veteran unemployment, but I don't think there's even been times set aside in any of the debates around what are the issues and ways that they would fix these issues facing veterans right now.
CORNISH: That's Tim Hsia. He's an Army veteran and has served in Iraq. He's also a co-founder of the nonprofit Service 2 School. Thanks so much, Tim.
HSIA: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
About a year ago, I went to Cuba for the first time, and I took some time to appreciate the famously still operating 1950s American cars on the streets of Havana. I was impressed. But what do I know? Now a real authority is spending the week in Cuba, and he took some time out from his astute observations and perhaps a few mojitos to tell us what he thinks of the classic cars of Cuba. I'm joined now by Car Talks' Ray Magliozzi. Ray, how you doing?
RAY MAGLIOZZI: (Laughter) Hi, Robert. How are you doing? You left out the Cohibas (laughter) - mojitos, Cohibas and the cars (laughter).
SIEGEL: It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it. First, what exactly are you doing in Havana?
MAGLIOZZI: What are we doing?
SIEGEL: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
SIEGEL: Is there - I mean...
MAGLIOZZI: Besides drinking mojitos, having Cuban coffee...
SIEGEL: Apart from the Cohibas, mojitos and drinking the mojitos and looking at the cars...
MAGLIOZZI: Is there a goal? Is there an intended purpose?
SIEGEL: (Laughter) Well, not to put too fine a point on it - yes.
MAGLIOZZI: Robert, we're being journalists for goodness sakes, and we're trying to ascertain how these cars stay on the roads.
SIEGEL: So tell me. As I observed, you probably saw some exceptional cars driving around in Havana. What do you think? What is this - does it make you feel young again?
MAGLIOZZI: Well, exactly that. I mean, I obviously haven't seen cars of this vintage since I was a little kid.
SIEGEL: What do you think about the maintenance of these cars - think you could have kept as much of these cars on the road as you see in Havana?
MAGLIOZZI: No. I've been constantly impressed by the cleverness and the sheer determination of the people who keep these cars going. It's amazing. So lots of the cars that we've taken as taxis, for example, do not have the original engines. But, you know, it's funny. Stuff I read about Cuba before I came suggested that it didn't really make much a difference how they put these cars together because most of the roads were dirt roads. Nobody went over 20 miles an hour, and the cars were just a curiosity and a conveyance that was not to be relied upon. However, that couldn't be farther from the truth. These cars, you know, driving 50, 60 miles an hour (laughter). I was very happy that they put as much effort into maintaining the brakes on these cars as they had the engines and the transmissions because, you know, with no seatbelts and metal dashboards, it could be over in an instant (laughter)...
SIEGEL: Yes.
MAGLIOZZI: ...If you know to mean.
SIEGEL: Yes, I know what you mean. And somehow they had to do this - getting parts. I mean, you can have a new engine under the hood. But you know, the dashboard should still look like the dashboard, and all of the appurtenance of the car should look appropriate. So...
MAGLIOZZI: Well, interestingly, I rode in a taxi yesterday that had had also a complete dashboard transplant. It was a late-model GM - late-model (laughter) 50...
SIEGEL: 1961?
MAGLIOZZI: '58.
SIEGEL: Oh, '58?
MAGLIOZZI: '58 Oldsmobile had gotten a whole new instrument panel, and he said he got it from the states. So he must've had a relative bring this thing in, so it was something that was customized to fit into that hole that had existed for the original instrumentation. So it had a new ammeter and a new oil pressure gauge and all that, and they all worked. I have yet to see a car, however, that has a speedometer that works.
SIEGEL: (Laughter) I see. I see. Are there any pollution controls in these cars?
MAGLIOZZI: Are you kidding?
(LAUGHTER)
MAGLIOZZI: The only thing that's kept us from keeling over is the paucity of cars on the road.
(LAUGHTER)
SIEGEL: So tell me, I mean, Ray, which do you think is more the case? Do you think that Cubans hungry for a post-embargo era can't wait to get a hold of some 2016 model Hundais and Nissans or that this shtick has really become part of Havana's culture, that people want to drive around in 60-year-old Chevrolets?
MAGLIOZZI: Oh, I think people would lunge at the newer cars in a minute if they could afford them. I don't think there's any question about that. You know, I mean, while this is fun and it's been done obviously out of necessity, I think if newer cars were to come in - first of all, it would change the Cuban economy tremendously, so there's going to be a lot that's going to happen. But I think that - there's no doubt in my mind that the average Cuban, if he had a chance, would love to drive a new car.
SIEGEL: Well, Ray, thanks for sharing the fruits of your journalistic investigation with us.
MAGLIOZZI: Robert, it was my pleasure.
SIEGEL: (Laughter) OK. That's Ray Magliozzi of Car Talk talking with us from Havana.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
One of President Obama's priorities in his final year, a criminal justice reform bill, is also one of the few issues that has some bipartisan support in Congress. But with election looming, the clock is ticking, as White House Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett told us earlier this week.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
VALERIE JARRETT: While I think it's important to try to move forward as quickly as we can, I think, again, the fact that there is bipartisan support gives us the ability to resist some of the people who try to derail what is really an important, constructive step for us to take.
CORNISH: And while there are Republicans and Democrats who are backing criminal justice reform, include reducing mandatory minimum sentences, it's far from a sure thing. A key figure in this debate is Senator Chuck Grassley, Republican from Iowa and chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Chairman Grassley, welcome to the program.
CHUCK GRASSLEY: I'm always glad to be on NPR because a lot of people listen to you, and a lot of people tell me they hear me.
CORNISH: (Laughter).
GRASSLEY: So thank you for having me.
CORNISH: Well, I want to start with this legislation. We should be clear that the Senate bill on criminal justice reform - it does not repeal mandatory minimum sentences. It makes some reductions to the length of some of those minimums. One question people have is, if, in this legislation, judges are being given little more leeway to look at the circumstances of cases, the criminal history of the defendant, why not repeal minimum sentences outright?
GRASSLEY: Well, first of all, as a practical matter, you'd never get a bill brought up. There's still a feeling of great law enforcement value in mandatory minimums because when you have mandatory minimums, then there's plea-bargaining, and when you get plea-bargaining, you can sometimes get a lot of information about a lot of people higher up the criminal chain.
And so I was faced, as chairman of the committee, with people that didn't want to do anything and then with some legitimacy or changing existing law and giving judges more leeway because our states are kind of a laboratory for our political system. And we've seen some success in states in doing this.
CORNISH: You've had colleagues in the Senate who've very much spoken out against this legislation. Senator Tom Cotton, speaking to Politico, said that it would, quote, "lead to the release of thousands of violent felons." He said it would be dangerous to proceed. How are the conversations going with colleagues who disagree with this?
GRASSLEY: I think there's a lot of misunderstanding in this bill. For instance, in regard to the senator that you quoted, I don't know that he knows that nobody could be released from prison without appearing before a judge. And the prosecutor would be there as well. And so just outright release into society is not possible under our bill.
CORNISH: This reform effort is focused on nonviolent drug offenders. Now, roughly a year ago, February 2015, you stood on the Senate floor, and you said that the myth is that there are thousands of low-level drug offenders like people smoking marijuana in federal prison for long terms, and you said these myths are often used to justify lenient and frankly dangerous sentencing proposals in this body. How has your thinking changed about this in the last year?
GRASSLEY: Well, I would say at that point, my thinking had already started to change. There's been a lot of evidence from states making some reforms that have convinced me that we ought to make an effort to get a bipartisan, bicameral, legitimate compromise, and that would maintain mandatory minimums but give an impartial person like a judge an opportunity to make a decision that somebody is ready for reentry. And I felt that we needed to pass something - if I could find a compromise, that I ought to do it as a leader of the committee.
CORNISH: So you're talking about, you know, as being chairman, just trying to find a compromise. But for you personally, do you feel any different, or do you feel like you're just trying to go along with the movement here?
GRASSLEY: Well, I wouldn't have to do this if I didn't think it was the right thing to do.
CORNISH: Do you see a sea change in the way the Republican Party thinks about this issue?
GRASSLEY: Well, that's part of my job. And one of the things that we have to do is get more Republican cosponsors. And I think that this is going to be a lot of hard work, mostly explaining to people that don't have time to read the legislation what we're trying to accomplish. But we may also have to make some compromises. And we've been working in a very congenial, bipartisan way to do it, or we wouldn't even have this bill out of committee by a 15 to 5 vote.
CORNISH: Republican Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa - He's the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Senator Grassley, thank you so much for coming on the program.
GRASSLEY: Thank you very much.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Washington Post correspondent Jason Rezaian thanked his colleagues today for helping free him from jail in Iran. He said they kept his story alive. Rezaian spoke at a celebration at the Post's new headquarters. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: It was an emotional homecoming for Jason Rezaian, who seemed a bit nervous saying he hasn't been around crowds for a while.
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JASON REZAIAN: For much of the 18 months I was in prison, my Iranian interrogators told me that The Washington Post did not exist, that no one knew of my plight amd that the United States government would not lift a finger for my release. Today, I am here in this room with the very people who helped prove the Iranians wrong.
KELEMEN: Rezaian was among several Americans released in a prisoner swap that coincided with the implementation of a nuclear deal earlier this month. Secretary of State John Kerry says that was the day he has enjoyed most on this job.
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JOHN KERRY: It was also perhaps the most nerve-racking.
KELEMEN: Speaking alongside Rezaian at the event today, Kerry recounted the last-minute diplomacy when Iran's foreign minister told him that Rezaian's mother and wife couldn't be found.
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KERRY: You know, for some people, that might make sense. But Iran couldn't find...
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KERRY: ...The wife and mother. So I - you know, there was an enormous amount of activity very, very, very quickly.
KELEMEN: Rezaian's wife and mother have said they were being held by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps during some of those tense final hours. Kerry says an Iranian judge had to be woken up to sign the papers needed for Rezaian's wife to leave. She's also a journalist and had charges hanging over her. The secretary says he's still trying to resolve another case - that of former FBI agent Bob Levinson who went missing in Iran in 2007. The U.S. also has no update on Iranian-American businessman Siamak Namazi who was jailed last year. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department.
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The Zika virus is spreading explosively in the Americas. That's the description today from the World Health Organization. And the WHO is calling an emergency meeting next week to decide what measures should be taken to address it. Zika has been linked to thousands of cases of birth defects in Brazil. NPR's Jason Beaubien reports.
JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE: In her first major address on the Zika outbreak, the head of the World Health Organization, Margaret Chan, said the mosquito-borne virus has gone from being a mild threat to one of alarming proportions. Chan today said the world needs answers about the outbreak quickly.
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MARGARET CHAN: I have asked the emergency committee to reconvene on Monday so that, you know, the world's scientists come together, working with the countries who are reporting outbreaks like Brazil and others. Then we look at the evidence.
BEAUBIEN: The big question that still hasn't been definitively proven is whether the sharp rise in birth defects in Brazil is a direct result of the Zika outbreak. The first report of Zika in the Americas was in Brazil in May of 2015. A few month later, doctors in Brazil started to see hundreds of babies being born with smaller-than-normal heads and underdeveloped brains. Scientists say the timing of this strongly suggests that the virus was involved.
Since then, Zika has spread rapidly to 22 countries in this hemisphere, including 31 cases imported into the U.S. All of the reported cases of birth defects, however, have come from Brazil. Most Zika infections only have mild flu symptoms if they have any symptoms at all. WHO officials say there may be some complicating factor in Brazil, like being infected with dengue at the same time, that's causing this surge in birth defects. The one thing WHO officials are expressing with certainty is that this outbreak is moving fast.
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SYLVAIN ALDIGHIERI: Definitely the Zika virus in the American region is circulating with very high intensity at this moment.
BEAUBIEN: Dr. Sylvain Aldighieri is with the WHO's Epidemic Alert and Response Unit. He predicts that over the next 12 months, there will be 3 to 4 million Zika infections in this hemisphere possibly spread from the Southern United States to Northern Argentina. He's basing this on the geographical distribution of this dengue, which is transmitted by the same mosquitoes as Zika. Aldighieri says countries in other parts of the world that have had large dengue outbreaks, including India and China, should also be on the lookout for Zika. Jason Beaubien, NPR News.
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The war in Afghanistan is entering its 15th year and will soon have its 17th commander. That man is Lieutenant General John Mick Nicholson. Nicholson's now with NATO in Turkey, but he's served several years in Afghanistan. NPR's Tom Bowman reports that with a resurgent Taliban, General Nicholson has his work cut out for him.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Taliban fighters seized the northern city of Kunduz last fall. Right now, it's fighters are grabbing territory in Southwestern Helmand Province, an area that Marines won back in a bloody fight six years ago. American officials in Kabul try to paint a bright picture. Most of the country is secure, they say. The Afghan army is leading the fight for the first time, but at his confirmation hearing today before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Nicholson agreed things are getting worse. Here's his exchange with Senator John McCain.
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JOHN MCCAIN: The security situation in Afghanistan has been deteriorating rather than improving. What is your assessment?
LIEUTENANT GENERAL JOHN MICK NICHOLSON: Sir, I agree with your assessment.
BOWMAN: So what's the plan for the next fighting season? Pentagon sources tell NPR the current commander in Afghanistan, General John Campbell, is asking for more American airstrikes to help Afghan forces. Nicholson hinted at Campbell's proposal.
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NICHOLSON: There is a conversation going on inside Department of Defense right now about some of his thoughts on this and other subjects in 2015, looking ahead to 2016.
BOWMAN: Other subjects - they include the possibility of having American special operators get closer to the fight with Afghan forces, helping prevent the loss of key terrain. But that could lead to more risk. One American Green Beret was killed in Helmand Province this month and two others wounded even though they were supposed to be limited to a train, advise and assist mission. President Obama hasn't decided whether Americans should get back to a larger fighting role in Afghanistan. Tom Bowman, NPR News, Washington.
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There are more signs that the armed occupation of a national wildlife refuge in Oregon may be nearing an end, or at least there are now fewer militants holed up at the refuge following the arrest of rancher Ammon Bundy and his close followers. Today in Portland, Bundy's attorney Mike Arnold reiterated a call from his client for those still at the refuge to go home. He also posted audio of Bundy's wife Lisa on the law firm's website.
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LISA BUNDY: I spoke with Ammon's lawyers yesterday and heard from his voice that those were his instructions. He wants people to go home, to go to their families.
CORNISH: For the latest on the situation in Harney County, we're going to go to NPR's Kirk Siegler. He's outside the sheriff's office in Burns, Ore. And, Kirk, what are the authorities telling you?
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Well, Audie, the FBI says it's working around-the-clock now to empty out the occupied refuge as quickly and as peacefully as possible. There has, of course, been a lot of criticism in the wake of the death of one of the militants. So there's a lot of scrutiny on this here. We do know that more of them have left the compound since Ammon Bundy's arrest and his call out for the rest of the militants to go home. Some of these men have surrendered at perimeter checkpoints and roadblocks set up by the FBI. And like the rest of the militants being held up in Portland right now, they're facing a felony charge of conspiracy to interfere with federal officials.
CORNISH: At this point, is it clear just how many militants are still out at the refuge?
SIEGLER: Well, for sure we know that there are only a handful, very few left out there. And one of them appears to be a man named David Fry. He's from Ohio. He had been sending out video from the compound on his YouTube account and had a website that looks as though it's been taken down. Amelia Templeton of Oregon Public Broadcasting was able to reach him briefly on a cell phone last night when he confirmed that he had been in touch with the FBI. Let's hear a little of that.
DAVID FRY: I called the FBI I said - we told them, we're willing to leave as long as no one's arrested.
SIEGLER: He's saying there that the militants are willing to leave, but they're demanding to not be arrested. Now, it appears that those who are left out there may not be part of the original group of followers of the Bundys. Again, that's what we're hearing - not confirmed yet. That Fry in particular and the others may be a bit more on the fringe. Fry has expressed a lot of antigovernment extremist views, so it's very much a concern that the violence may not be over here as these negotiations apparently are continuing.
CORNISH: This standoff has gone on for nearly a month now. Is there a sense of the condition of the buildings themselves, if there's any kind of damage?
SIEGLER: Well, this is a huge concern and, you know, it's hard for us to know for sure now that the FBI has surrounded the refuge and we can't get in there like we could before the arrests this past week. But there has been, you know, widespread reports, a possibility of government files being tampered with. It's not clear how much of the work done by the wildlife biologists out there may have been interfered with and as well as the state of the cultural artifacts that are stored there - artifacts that are considered sacred by the Burns Paiute people in this area. And remember, you know, this started off as an apparent protest directed at the Federal Bureau of Land Management and its federal land-use policies. The Malheur National Wildlife Refuge is managed and run by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, not even the same agency. There are a lot of people caught in the middle here and, you know, even when this ends, assuming it ends, it's not clear if the refuge is going to reopen anytime soon due to the real safety concerns here.
CORNISH: Meanwhile, what about for people in the community? How are they reacting to all of this in Harney County and Burns, Ore.?
SIEGLER: You know, Audie, it can't be overstated. This incident is really stressing this community. Folks who have been talking to me, you know, saying this occupation has pit neighbors and family against each other. And everyone is still very tense and worried about the possibility of more blood being shed. And this is a very complicated issue here. Folks like the attention that some of this has drawn to their challenges of land use and poverty here in the rural West, but no one seems to like how this has all enfolded.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Kirk Siegler in Burns, Ore. Kirk, thanks.
SIEGLER: You're welcome, Audie.
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Each year, thousands of Central American migrants hire smugglers to bring them to the United States. As Jasmine Garsd of our PLANET MONEY team reports, it's an extremely expensive and risky proposition, especially for women. And a warning - this story may be disturbing to some listeners.
JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: I meet Patty (ph) at an office. She asked that I don't use her last name for reasons that will become clear. Outside, it's a gloomy Houston day, and as far as I can see, it's highways and neon signs. Patty's clothes are the same color - electric. Her eyeshadow is metallic green. Her journey to America started about 10 years ago when she was a teenager in Honduras.
PATTY: (Through interpreter) At the corner of the school, there was a store we always went to to drink coffee.
GARSD: She and her friend were approached by two human smugglers. They were offering jobs in the U.S.
PATTY: (Through interpreter) He said at a packing facility for clothing, underwear and T-shirts.
GARSD: In one week in America, they were told they could make what they'd make in five months in Honduras. Honduras is filled with towns with utopian names - Progress, Paradise. Patty is from the Future - departamento del Porvenir. The Future is beautiful, but it wasn't enough, and she was a teenage mom.
PATTY: (Through interpreter) I come from a family that is really poor. If we ate well one day, the next day, we didn't.
GARSD: Getting smuggled to the U.S. from Central America cost thousands of dollars, way more than Patty could scrounge up. People sell everything they own to pay for this journey - the house, the furniture, or they get help from family in the U.S. But there's another common way to pay - debt. A lot of smugglers let you put some money upfront and, once you get to the U.S., pay the rest back in installments. You work it off in America. The smugglers talking to Patty said don't worry about money now; you'll have plenty of it when you get to the U.S.
PATTY: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: Patty and her friends said yes. That weekend, they started their journey north through Guatemala and Mexico by foot, bus and hopping trains. But when they got to Mexico City, the whole plan unraveled. One of the smugglers turned to her and said he wanted to get paid now. He said they each owed him $3,000. Patty panicked.
PATTY: (Through interpreter) And I tell him, how am I going to pay you? I mean, how? With what? Well, he says, I think you're not a little girl, are you?
GARSD: Patty and her friend were locked up in a brothel. They were told they had to work off their debt. Patty's friend refused. She's been missing ever since. Patty was told she now had to pay off that debt, too. She says she kept track of her customers.
PATTY: (Through interpreter) I made a mark with a stick on a wooden part of the wall each time, each one. No, I never forgot.
GARSD: About half a year later, Patty was taken to America, to Houston, to another brothel. She cozied up to the madam there, and months after that, she got her break. The madam asked if Patty could go buy some juice and milk.
PATTY: (Through interpreter) Yeah, sure, I said. This is my escape, I said to myself.
GARSD: Patty was nervous. Before she walked out, the madam told her one last thing.
PATTY: (Through interpreter) She told me not to take too long. Here in the U.S., even if you look a little funny, they'll call immigration police, and you know they aren't going to wait for you back in Honduras. They're just going to kill you.
GARSD: Patty left. And there she was outside alone for the first time in about a year in America. At the store, she had a nervous breakdown. One of the managers took her in, flagged down a policeman. I'm in a car with legal representative Dottie Laster. She specializes in sex trafficking and is helping Patty try to stay in the country legally. Laster drives me around Houston, showing me the types of places Patty might have been held at.
DOTTIE LASTER: A story like Patty's, unfortunately, is very common.
GARSD: Laster handles dozens of cases every year where a woman thinks she's going to be smuggled into the U.S. but ends up being sexually assaulted or trafficked.
LASTER: I can almost finish the stories before they do. It's the same process, the same system, the same coercion and all for the same purpose, which is commercial sex.
GARSD: And Patty thinks about this a lot these days. The baby she left behind when she got out of Honduras is now a 14-year-old girl. Things are so violent there, Patty recently spoke to a human smuggler. He says he can bring her daughter to the U.S. for a real low price. Jasmine Garsd, NPR News.
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Vincent Buddy Cianci died today. The former mayor of Providence, R.I. was a tightly-wound bundle of contradictions. As a young prosecutor, he led the state's anticorruption strike force. Years later, he went to prison for corruption. The judge who sentenced Cianci likened him to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Ian Donnis of Rhode Island Public Radio examines why.
IAN DONNIS, BYLINE: The 74-year-old Cianci was a picture of jagged contrasts. His biographer, former Providence Journal reporter Mike Stanton, explained the two sides of Buddy as he was called in a 2014 interview.
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MIKE STANTON: There was the charismatic Buddy that wanted to be your friend, would do anything to help you, was entertaining and made you feel good about your city, and then there was the other Buddy who whether, as he says, he didn't know about it or not, you know, presided over a City Hall where there was a range of corruption, there was a range of people doing things that they shouldn't have been doing
DONNIS: Cianci downplayed his responsibility for the problems during his two stints as mayor, a total of about 20 years in office. He maintained he was innocent of corruption and said he was motivated by his passion for Providence. Here's how Cianci put it after announcing his second comeback attempt in 2014 in a hallway at the talk-radio station where he worked as an afternoon host.
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VINCENT BUDDY CIANCI: I love being mayor and I think that we had a real roll going on in the city. And we had a lot going on. And I think since that time, we've experienced $110 million deficits, potholes in streets. I would be absolutely flabbergasted if I were mayor and the streets were like this.
DONNIS: Cianci said identity politics were not a big part of his political success.
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CIANCI: Remember, when I ran for mayor, I didn't get all the Italian vote. I didn't carry any Italian areas except one.
DONNIS: It was historic when Cianci won election as the first Italian-American mayor of Providence in 1974. As the Republican anticorruption candidate, Cianci became legend when he pleaded no contest to charges involving a sensational 1983 assault on a man suspected of involvement with his estranged wife. He was accused of using a fireplace log and a lit cigarette in the attack, although he denied some of the details. Cianci left City Hall after being charged. By 1990, he regained the mayor's office in his first comeback, squeaking through as an Independent in a tight three-way race. He went on to preside over the so-called Providence Renaissance, a time of improvement for the city and its image. After the FBI raided City Hall in 1999, Cianci was convicted of a single count of racketeering conspiracy, and he spent five years in prison. In 2014, Cianci made his last bid for a comeback as the mayor of Providence at age 73 even though he'd been treated for colorectal cancer. But he was defeated by a first-time candidate, the son of Guatemalan immigrants. For NPR News, I'm Ian Donnis in Providence.
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Thirty years ago today, seven astronauts died when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. The nation watched in shock. The shuttle program stalled as investigations began. But rocket engineers with NASA contractor Morton Thiokol knew exactly what had happened. The night before the launch, they had tried to stop it. Soon afterwards, two of them anonymously described the fatal decision to NPR. One of those engineers has died. The other just decided to let NPR name him. He spoke with NPR's Howard Berkes back in 1986 and again today.
HOWARD BERKES, BYLINE: Bob Ebeling is 89 now and was desponded on February night 30 years ago when we sat at his kitchen table in Brigham City, Utah. Ebeling and four colleagues had tried to stop the Challenger launch. They presented data to Morton Thiokol engineers and NASA officials and argued that it would be too cold to launch. The rubber seals on the shuttle's booster rockets wouldn't seal. The engineers were overruled, and that night, tearful and angry, he told his wife, Darlene...
BOB EBELING: It's going to blow up. And I did my best to let the world know I was one of the few that really was close to the situation.
BERKES: The situation went on for hours as Ebeling and other Thiokol engineers presented data repeatedly. It was unequivocally clear to them.
EBELING: But NASA ruled the launch. They had their mind set on going up and proving to the world they were right and they knew what they were doing. But they didn't.
BERKES: A presidential commission found flaws in the space agency's decision-making process, but it's never been clear why NASA was so determined to launch. The space agency desperately tried to launch the shuttle routinely and reliably. President Reagan was set to give the State of Union address that night and reportedly planned to promote the Challenger flight. Whatever the reason, Ebeling says it didn't justify the clear risk.
EBELING: Had they listened to me and wait for the weather to change, it might have been a completely different outcome. There was more than enough people there to say, let's give it another day or two, but no one did.
BERKES: Ebeling retired soon after Challenger. He suffered deep depression and has never been able to lift the burden of guilt. He still feels, as he told me in 1986, he should have and could have done more. Sitting in a big easy chair in his living room, his eyes watery and his face grave, Ebeling concludes he was inadequate. He just didn't argue the data well enough, he says. He's prayed about this for the last 30 years.
EBELING: And I think that was one of the mistakes that God made. He shouldn't have picked me for that job. I don't know. But next time I talk to him, I'm going to ask him, why me? You picked a loser.
BERKES: I remind Ebeling what his late colleague and friend Roger Boisjoly once said. Boisjoly was the other Thiokol engineer who spoke with NPR anonymously 30 years ago. They were talking to the right people, Boisjoly once told me. They were talking to the people who had the power to stop that launch, and they did all they could. Maybe, Ebeling says to me with a weak wave as I leave, maybe Roger's right. Howard Berkes, NPR News.
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We haven't heard much about the flu so far this winter. It's still early in the season and for the moment nothing unusual seems to be happening. At least, not for humans. There is a new flu virus raising concerns for dogs, and NPR health correspondent Rob Stein reports that it's spreading fast around the United States.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: When Elizabeth Estes's dog, Ollie, started coughing, she didn't think it was any big deal at first. But then Ollie got worse, way worse.
ELIZABETH ESTES: All of a sudden, he couldn't breathe and he was coughing. It was so brutal. The dog couldn't breathe. I mean, could not breathe - just kept coughing, and coughing, and coughing and gasping for air.
STEIN: Estes ended up spending the whole night on the floor of her steam shower with Ollie. He's a little Jack Russell-Chihuahua mix who's about 3. The next morning, she rushed him to the vet as soon as she could.
ESTES: And they said, when you get to the front of the building call us because you can't bring the dog in through the lobby, you have to come in through the back door. It's that contagious. So I realized at that point - wait a minute, this is something a little bit more serious than I thought it was.
STEIN: Turns out Ollie had caught a new strain of dog flu that's spreading in the United States. The vet rushed Ollie into intensive care.
ESTES: I was petrified we were going to lose him and pretty upset.
STEIN: After four days of intravenous fluids, help breathing and antibiotics to prevent complications, Ollie recovered.
ESTES: He's perfectly fine now, but it was a scary and expensive endeavor - but mostly scary.
STEIN: Ollie lives in Chicago, where the outbreak started about a year ago.
JOE KINNARNEY: Dogs, like people, move all around the world.
STEIN: Joe Kinnarney is president of the American Veterinary Medical Association.
KINNARNEY: And so the thought is that a dog came in from South Korea to Chicago, and that's where it started.
STEIN: The virus has now spread to more than two dozen states. No one knows exactly how many dogs have gotten it so far, but it's probably thousands. And it looks like it spreads much easier than the old dog flu for a couple of reasons. First of all, infected dogs can spread it for weeks even if they have no symptoms. And...
KINNARNEY: Because there's no immunity at all in this country to it, dogs are getting it faster.
STEIN: Now, most dogs that catch the new flu don't get sick at all. Others only cough a bit, lose their appetites for a while and maybe get really tired. But some dogs are getting very sick - high fever, can't breathe. Some are even dying from complications like pneumonia.
KINNARNEY: The fatality rate is probably less than 10 percent, and it depends upon the condition of the dogs when they catch it, if they get really bad pneumonia, if they get secondary infection, bacterial infection and how fast they treat it.
STEIN: Dogs that spend time around other dogs are the most likely to catch it so Kinnarney is recommending a lot of dogs get a new vaccine that just became available.
KINNARNEY: If your dog goes to doggie day care, if your dog goes to the dog park, if your dog is traveling with you, you should get the vaccine. It's just not worth the risk. If your dog doesn't leave your house, you basically stay home all the time, you're at a lower risk. If your dog's not healthy, if they have other medical problems, good idea to get the vaccine.
STEIN: But other experts told me it's not that clear cut, especially if you live in a place that hasn't seen a lot of the new flu. So now it's time for some disclosure. My family has a dog - a big Bernese mountain dog named Peaches...
(DOG BARKING)
STEIN: ...And all this got me wondering if we should get Peaches vaccinated so I called up our vet to ask.
Hi, Dr. Gallagher?
GALLAGHER: Yes, hello.
STEIN: Hi, how are you?
GALLAGHER: I'm well, thanks. How's Peaches?
STEIN: Peaches is doing great. She's doing really well. Thanks for asking.
GALLAGHER: Oh, good.
STEIN: I started telling her about my story.
What about Peaches? Should - do I need to be worried about her?
GALLAGHER: (Laughter). Well, the short answer is, you shouldn't be any more worried than any other upper respiratory infection. It's essentially just another kennel cough disease.
STEIN: So Dr. Gallagher doesn't think we need to get Peaches vaccinated even though we take her to dog parks all the time.
GALLAGHER: It's a very contagious virus, but if she's in the dog park and she's outside, she's less likely to contract it than if she's in a doggie day care in an inside environment.
STEIN: So we probably won't get Peaches vaccinated. But after I hung up, I realized I had lots of other questions. Could we catch the virus from Peaches? Could it suddenly get worse for dogs? For that, I called Edward Dubovi. He's been tracking this new dog flu at Cornell. He says there's no evidence people can catch the flu from their dogs but there's always a chance it could mutate and get even worse for dogs.
EDWARD DUBOVI: It keeps changing. It keeps morphing. And you have to worry about mutations that may occur. It could become a more hyper-virulent virus and actually start killing a lot of dogs.
STEIN: So scientists are keeping a close eye on this new dog flu virus, and we're keeping a close eye on Peaches. Rob Stein, NPR News.
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When a multi-platinum-selling rapper releases a song about white privilege, it will inevitably prompt equal parts praise and eye rolls - in this case, not just because that rapper is white, but because the rapper is Macklemore.
(SOUNDBITE OF MACKLEMORE SONG, "THRIFT SHOP")
CORNISH: He's one half of the Grammy-winning duo behind the ludicrously catchy single "Thrift Shop." Macklemore and his producer, Ryan Lewis, know their way around a hook. But writing a song about racism, about the idea that being white inherently confers advantages, was admittedly a challenge...
(SOUNDBITE OF MACKLEMORE AND JAMILA WOODS SONG, "WHITE PRIVILEGE II")
CORNISH: ...One that he took up with many collaborators, including Jamila Woods, a Chicago poet and teacher. I spoke to them about the writing of the nine-minute song "White Privilege II" and about its initial inspiration, the Black Lives Matter movement. Woods has participated in protests in Chicago. Macklemore, whose real name is Ben Haggerty, says the song's opening bars came out of his experience at a protest in Seattle over the Ferguson grand jury decision in the Michael Brown case.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHITE PRIVILEGE II")
MACKLEMORE: (Singing) Pulled into the parking lot, parked it, zipped-up my parka, joined the procession of marchers, in my head like, this is awkward. Should I even be here marching? Thinking, if they can't, how can I breathe? Thinking, if they chant, what do I say? I want to take a stance 'cause we are not free. And then I thought about it. We are not we. Am I on the outside looking in, or am I on the inside looking out?
MACKLEMORE: It starts with that moment of observing injustice happen again, me stepping into a protest with a lot of baggage when there is this moment of humanity that I'm - and injustice - that I'm feeling so compelled that I need to do something, yet also stepping into that space in my own head of, should I be here? Am I going to distract more than actually do any good by being present here and all of these questions that I had stepping into that space.
JAMILA WOODS: Yeah, I think hearing that verse was one of the most intriguing parts of the song to me because for me, the protests I've attended, I've seen and experienced some tension between, you know, white activists or even just white people attending protests who maybe don't necessarily have a moment of introspection who maybe are just more taking up air time kind of doing things that are distracting from what the protest is actually for. So to me it's an important thing not to just consider yourself an ally by showing up, but to really investigate, like, what your role can be in a productive way, and that comes from authentically engaging with the people - the black people who are leading the protest.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHITE PRIVILEGE II")
MACKLEMORE AND WOODS: (Singing) No justice, no peace, no racist police, no rest till we're free.
CORNISH: So it's a completely different mood you're setting here from some of your other even recent single, like "Downtown." And is there a moment where you thought, I need a little sugar to make this medicine go down, or was there a sense of, like, you know what? Here we are. You know (laughter)? Like, slow saxophone, moaning in the background. I mean, you kind of took it there right away.
MACKLEMORE: Yeah.
CORNISH: And there are critics of the song who are like, this song is not fun, this song is, like, you know, not great.
MACKLEMORE: Purposefully, this song is uncomfortable. The music is uncomfortable. I don't think it was our intention to make it uncomfortable, I just don't think that there was a space to start from where we were like, yo, like, we're trying to make this appeal to the masses. That was never the point. We wanted to make a play. We wanted to show different perspectives through the music and have almost different acts.
CORNISH: Now, you guys didn't really know each other before this, and having any kind of cross-racial discussion is hard (laughter) for most people in their regular life. Jamila, when you were first invited to collaborate, kind of what were your initial concerns, questions?
WOODS: Yeah. One of my initial concerns was understanding that this song was intended to reach, you know, the Macklemore and Ryan Lewis fan base majority-white audience - was that I don't typically think about addressing, you know, a white audience with my work. And so trying to think about an authentic way to engage in that and not have it come off as, you know, always people of color having the burden to explain issues of race to white people.
CORNISH: And Ben, for you, what were some of your kind of trepidations in bringing in another voice?
MACKLEMORE: I think that it was imperative to have a sense of community, to...
CORNISH: But just to - I want to pull it away from this language 'cause I feel like we're really academic right now. And I just feel like on a very basic level, you know, Jamila has said something interesting here, which is, she's thinking of your fan base, which, you know, she's describing as white (laughter).
MACKLEMORE: Right.
CORNISH: And for you as someone, you know, who has talked about this and being in hip-hop...
MACKLEMORE: Right.
CORNISH: ...Was there a concern of, like, OK, how do I talk about this...
MACKLEMORE: Yeah, absolutely.
CORNISH: ...How do I bring in a person of color without turning them into a mascot...
MACKLEMORE: Absolutely.
CORNISH: ...What am I doing here?
MACKLEMORE: Right, right, right. It started with being silent for a long time around these issues and in a social setting not wanting to mess up and realizing that I can do a tweet. I can do an interview, but the greatest tool that I have as an artist is to make a song. So how can I participate without co-opting? How can I - knowing that I will benefit, knowing that this is co-opting but I still want to say something, knowing that it is never going to be perfect but knowing that at the end of the day, I think it's more important for me to say something than to remain silent.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHITE PRIVILEGE II")
WOODS: (Singing) Your silence is a luxury. Hip-hop is not a luxury.
CORNISH: This gets me to the point of the song where, Jamila, I believe we're hearing your voice, which is a kind of, like, choral moment. And, talk about, how did you come to this idea to rest, basically, towards the end of the song?
WOODS: In hip-hop, there's a lot of talk about issues that are affecting black people, but there's also the celebration of black life. And so wanting the ending to also feel like in that way we love black life, you know? So kind of having - wanting the ending to also have space because the whole song is very, very dense, and just the whole - the way that the music kind of shifts at that point was in efforts to do that.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHITE PRIVILEGE II")
WOODS: (Singing) What I got for me, it is for me. What we made, we made to set us free.
CORNISH: Well, Jamila Woods, poet and teacher, thank you for coming in.
WOODS: Thank you for having me.
CORNISH: And Ben Haggerty is Macklemore, of Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. Thanks so much for coming in.
MACKLEMORE: Thank you for having us.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHITE PRIVILEGE II")
WOODS: (Singing) Your silence is a luxury.
MACKLEMORE: Can I say something?
CORNISH: Yes, yes.
MACKLEMORE: And I don't really know, like, what - I'm just kind of having this thought and I don't know if it's fully formed. You know, I think in terms of the white rapper conversation, I think that there is this want or desire as a white rapper to just be classified as a rapper. I'm a good rapper, period. Why do I have to be a white rapper? And this perspective from certain people of, like, race shouldn't matter, like, I should just be judged on, like, the critique of my raps and that should be the end of it. And that's not the world that we live in. The fan base that I have access to, their resources, all of these things go back to the inherent privilege that I had because of the color of my skin. And it's really easy for white people in society to be like, oh, like, we're post-racial, or we're past that, or we have a black president or whatever it is to discard the fact that race is a factor. And I think that it's negligent for a white artist participating in this culture to say that their race doesn't give them a certain set of advantages while creating in the space of hip-hop.
CORNISH: The conversation with Ben Haggerty, aka Macklemore, and poet Jamila Woods went on for an hour. You can read more online at npr.org.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Virtual reality is pitched as an experience that will revolutionize movies and video games. And there are scientists who think it can revolutionize the way we eat, too. Turnstile News reporter Noah Nelson became a guinea pig for a virtual reality eating lab in Los Angeles.
NOAH NELSON, BYLINE: I've got a problem - a fraught relationship with food, none more so than doughnuts. This is Sidecar Doughnuts, one of the best doughnut places on Earth. In the interest of journalism, I recently visited their newly opened Santa Monica branch a few miles, thankfully, from NPR West.
Let me get a Pumpkin Fool because seasonal, of course, and a Butter and Salt, as well. Are the Cinnamon Crumbs seasonal or are they - they're regular? OK, then I can avoid them for the moment.
Not that I want to avoid them, and that's the problem.
JINSOO AN: Why is it that the good things are always bad for us?
NELSON: This is designer Jinsoo An, and he might just have a solution to my problem.
AN: Maybe with virtual reality that doesn't need to be the case.
NELSON: An's virtual reality eating experience aims to let people eat whatever they want without the downside, be that because of unwanted calories, food allergies or another medical condition. He calls it Project Nourished. To find out what it's all about, I visited his studio in downtown Los Angeles.
AN: So we're in the kitchen, and we were actually making some sushi last night.
NELSON: He shows me a couple of semi-translucent cubes that have been molded to look like rice. They're made out of fish-flavored agar-agar, a vegan substitute for gelatin.
AN: You're actually one of the first ones to try this.
NELSON: You have no idea how giddy that makes me.
I pull the Oculus Rift goggles over my head and dig in, virtually.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Hello. Momentarily, I will guide you through a culinary experience of a lifetime.
NELSON: Inside the goggles, I see a little table overlooking a Zen garden, and there's a plate with a tiny cube of sushi rice. And then I actually smell sushi.
(SOUNDBITE OF ATOMIZER)
NELSON: That really loud sound right there is an atomizer, usually used to mist medicine, but repurposed here to create that archetypal sushi restaurant smell. Using a pair of motion-tracking chopsticks, I pick up the fake rice cube in the VR and real world and miss my mouth a couple of times before taking a bite.
The smell and the flavor - like, I'm definitely tasting fish - like, totally tasting fish.
There's just a hint of fish broth, but the sense was of being whacked in the mouth with fish. That illusion was put together with the help of restaurateur Nguyen Tran.
NGUYEN TRAN: We found that the, like, defining flavors of sushi, at least for the American palate, is ginger and wasabi. And the minute we put those in there and it layered it on top of just a simple later of dashi, rice and seaweed, it was exactly like sushi for us.
NELSON: Right now, Project Nourished requires a touch of suspension of disbelief. But designer An sees it as an evolving open canvas for experimentation.
AN: Which means that we can insert nutrients and take away nutrients. You can change the behavior of the food however you want. That's what's so magical about this. It turns food into a piece of code.
NELSON: So maybe one day we could pack all the nutrition I need into a virtual, guilt-free Pumpkin Fool doughnut. For NPR News, I'm Noah Nelson.
SIEGEL: That story was produced by Turnstyle News, a project of Youth Radio.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Voters won't pick the next president until November. But if you live in Iowa, it feels like the end is in sight. That's because, after having the candidates in their state for the last year, on Monday, it's caucus day in Iowa. NPR's Don Gonyea has been getting some thoughts from voters there about what it's like as this final intense weekend of campaigning ramps up.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: You can walk into just about any coffee shop in Iowa this time of year and there are people sitting around talking politics. It's no different here in Indianola, about 20 miles southeast of Des Moines. I am in a place called Uncommon Grounds.
(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)
GONYEA: That sound announces another customer. Regulars are greeted with a hello or you're late today.
DREW GOCKEN: Hi, princess (laughter)
GONYEA: That's Drew Gocken, a retired community college dean, placing his standard order.
GOCKEN: It's a French vanilla latte with whole milk, whipped cream. You better make that to go.
GONYEA: He's a Hillary Clinton supporter who'll be volunteering for her this weekend. He was with her in '08 when she lost to rising star Barack Obama. This year, it's Bernie Sanders threatening her in Iowa. In the end, Gocken thinks Clinton will win the nomination. As for the caucuses on Monday...
GOCKEN: It's going to be interesting. What's going to make the difference between Hillary and Bernie is the turnout.
GONYEA: It's a bipartisan group of customers in the coffee shop this a.m. Forty-five-year-old small business owner Gina Piper is a Republican who says she's not thrilled with her options. Piper leans towards Donald Trump, but that doesn't mean he's got her vote on Monday.
Do you caucus?
GINA PIPER: I have never caucused before, but I do vote.
GONYEA: Why don't you caucus?
PIPER: I don't have an answer for that. I don't know. I've just never done it.
GONYEA: Do friends pressure you to do it?
PIPER: Nope.
GONYEA: Do you feel...
PIPER: I don't have a lot of friends that caucus.
GONYEA: Really?
PIPER: Nope.
GONYEA: In many ways, that makes her a typical Iowa voter. Despite all of the attention the caucuses get, historically only about 1 in 6 registered voters actually turn out. It also speaks to a major challenge of the Trump campaign - getting those who like him but might not be regular caucus-goers to actually show up. Seated at a table nearby is another regular. Forty-one-year-old Eric Mathieu is an employee benefit specialist. He's working on his laptop. He's wearing an Iowa Hawkeyes sweatshirt. He will be caucusing Monday.
ERIC MATHIEU: I like someone that's business-minded, but I also think that having political moxie is an important aspect.
GONYEA: Mathieu likes Marco Rubio but voices frustration that the GOP field is so large. He thinks egos have kept some candidates from dropping out, even if they have very dim prospects.
MATHIEU: Somebody needs to sit down and, OK, you know what, folks? There's 11 of you. I think there's too much pride.
GONYEA: Iowa voters will play a role in thinning the field. Meantime, everybody I talked to expressed the same deeply held opinion - that there are more political ads on TV than ever, and they just want them to stop.
GOCKEN: Yeah, big time. Yeah, I mean, Tuesday we're going to wake up and go - big sigh of relief (laughter). We get to watch our TV programs again (laughter).
GONYEA: Don Gonyea, NPR News, talking with Iowa voters in the town of Indianola.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Well, now to our Friday political commentators, columnists David Brooks of The New York Times, who's with me in the studio, and E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post, who's at Iowa Public Radio in Ames, Iowa. Hello to both of you.
DAVID BROOKS, BYLINE: Hello.
E J DIONNE, BYLINE: Good to be with you.
SIEGEL: We have two competitive races for the presidential nominations on the Republican side. We have Donald Trump, of course, plus two Cuban-American freshman senators in their mid-40s - Ted Cruz of Texas...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TED CRUZ: My friend, Sen. Rubio, chose to stand with Barack Obama and Harry Reid and Chuck Schumer and support amnesty, and I stood alongside Jeff Sessions and Steve King, and we led the fight against amnesty.
SIEGEL: ...And Marco Rubio of Florida.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARCO RUBIO: This is the lie that Ted's campaign is built on, and Rand touched upon it - that he's the most conservative guy, and everyone else is a - you know, everyone else is a RINO.
SIEGEL: RINO means Republican in name only. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz showed up at last night's Fox News channel debate. Donald Trump didn't. And, David, let's start with you. How much is riding on Monday night's Iowa caucuses, especially for those three candidates?
BROOKS: Not much (laughter). You know, it'll winnow the field, but Iowa's become more polarized and more unrepresentative. So I'm - I'm a believer this thing is going to go on till April, May. And so, you know, this'll be a chapter. And it will be a chapter where I suspect - and this is my bold prediction - I can continue my consistency in being wrong - that we will report on Tuesday that Trump and Sanders underperformed. I think that it's just risky having a big part of your support being nonvoters. Nonvoters tend to not vote, and I think that's going to happen.
SIEGEL: Do you still believe in the wisdom that they always cite in Iowa that there are three tickets out of Iowa? If you come in first, second or third, you're still alive.
BROOKS: I think it'll be five. Just out of 11, you can't cull that much. If you look at the polls, I'm wildly over-interpreting the last three days - three or four days of polls. But Trump and Cruz have been sinking, and Cruz really got hit, I thought, in the debate. And Rubio and some of the others have been rising. Even Ben Carson has been rising. And so I think if that momentum continues, it may not look as clean as a Cruz-Trump race as it does right now.
SIEGEL: And, E.J. Dionne in Iowa, according to Nielsen, more than 12 million people got to watch a GOP debate minus Trump. Do you think that debate is likely to affect the outcome?
DIONNE: Well, I think the big question about the debate, as David suggested, is whether Cruz, who got hit very hard during that debate, was hurt by it because I think that Iowa really, really does matter to Ted Cruz. I think he needs to win here to go on. And he still has a decent shot because he has some of the most important evangelical organizations. And I was down near the Missouri border in a town Keosauqua City - a little city where you saw some supporters of the socially conservative candidates who were really lagging - Santorum and Huckabee and Ben Carson - coming behind Cruz, at least in that area, because they see him as the person closest to them who can beat Trump. If for some reason Trump actually wins this, I think it becomes much harder for Ted Cruz to return - to go on. I think, similarly, it is very important to Bernie Sanders to win here because his chances over the long-haul, I think, depend on having a one-two punch against Hillary Clinton - winning here and winning in New Hampshire. And the one advantage Hillary Clinton has at this point is, a couple of months ago, she was expected to sweep here. Now, it's much closer. You can argue that the Clinton people shouldn't have let it get away from them. But in letting it get away from them, they lowered the bar on what counts as victory. I think a couple of votes will be enough.
SIEGEL: I think, months ago, we all expected that, on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, we'd be talking about Hillary Clinton. I don't think we expected we'd be talking about Bernie Sanders. So the question is, what do we make of this phenomenon? David, what do you make of Sanders?
BROOKS: You know, Robert Putnam wrote a book called "Our Kids." Charles Murray wrote a book called "Coming Apart." It's about how the country is bifurcating along class and other lines. And we - a lot of us read those books and thought they were really important. But, at least in my case, I didn't make the connection to the presidential race as much as I should have. And the coming apart of the country and the segmentation of the country has affected both parties, and that's one of the reasons Bernie Sanders is doing so well - because he represents the disaffected people, or at least speaks about the disaffected people in the working class, as does Donald Trump. And Hillary Clinton, if you watch her and Bernie Sanders back-to-back, Sanders just talks with so much authenticity and force, and Clinton has not been able to match that. It's too much calculation and hesitation.
SIEGEL: E.J., Bernie Sanders likes to cite somebody else who went into Iowa and who surprised everyone, surprised Hillary Clinton - Barack Obama. Is he another Barack Obama?
DIONNE: I think the big - the big talk here is, is Bernie Sanders closer to Howard Dean in '04, where Dean generated a lot of energy in the antiwar left of the party? A lot of volunteers came in for Dean, and it turned out he didn't have the depth on the ground. Or is he Barack Obama? I think it's already very clear that Bernie Sanders is stronger than Howard Dean in 2004. And the question is, how close does he get to where Barack Obama is? I think Dean - Sanders, rather - speaks for a very odd feeling a lot of Democrats have toward the president, which is they approve of him; they're happy he's there, but they still wish, at times, that he had been more progressive and had taken on the Republicans harder. And I think Sanders speaks for that and speaks for an idealism among the young that's really captured in that ad where - called "America," which uses the Simon and Garfunkel song and really doesn't have any words at all. It doesn't have any words about policy in it at all. It's about a feeling of change.
BROOKS: Yeah, and I would say that on both sides there's a debate about systemic thinking. Barack Obama came in promising to change the system and clearly did not, as he himself admits. How do you change the system? Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump promise some sort of abstract systemic change. I happen to think there's a lot of magical thinking there. Clinton is more - I'll be a fighter within the system. So it's, how do you change the basic structures of power?
SIEGEL: But when you contrast, on the one hand, the Republican rage at Washington and, on the other hand, Bernie Sanders calling for Washington to take over all healthcare and, presumably, to start regulating public colleges and universities to compensate them for lost tuition costs. That's a lot of political energy for a couple of completely irreconcilable views of the federal government. Is it - is it just the polarizing effect of the nominating process, David, or are we that divided as a people?
BROOKS: We're that divided. There's a lot of Mars and Venus going on. On the other hand, the parties - Sanders and Trump say it's more about the organization of hatreds than the actual delivery of policy. And who are you against? You're against Wall Street. You're against the establishment. Both parties share that. And I would say, finally, I do think there's a lot more flexibility about government. People are feeling hurt, and they're willing to let government - even some Republicans, if it'll give them a hand up.
SIEGEL: That's all the time we have. David Brooks - I'm sorry, E.J. - David Brooks of The New York Times and E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and author - also author of "Why The Right Went Wrong." Thanks to both of you.
DIONNE: Good to be with you.
BROOKS: Good to be with you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The prisoner swap earlier this month between Iran and the U.S. has many people celebrating, but not Nader Modanlo. Modanlo, an Iranian-American, was among the seven prisoners released by the U.S. Unlike the Americans who were held by Iran and came home, Modanlo, like the other prisoners released by the U.S., is staying here. He's a naturalized U.S. citizen, a 55-year-old former aerospace executive who first came to the U.S. to study in 1979. He was convicted in 2013 of illicit business dealings with Iran, specifically helping Iran to launch its first communications satellite into space. Mr. Modanlo was appealing his conviction and was hopeful that it would be reversed when news of the swap reached him at the federal prison in Petersburg, Va. And he joins us now in our studio here in Washington.
Welcome to the program.
NADER MODANLO: My pleasure. Thank you for the opportunity.
SIEGEL: Tell me about how you learned of the deal that was being offered to you and how much time you had to decide about it.
MODANLO: I believe it was the Thursday before the Sunday that I was released, and I was offered maybe a couple of hours to take the deal or leave it.
SIEGEL: Your reaction was?
MODANLO: I said, that's easy, I leave the deal. I am not taking this deal.
SIEGEL: Your first impulse was to turn down the deal.
MODANLO: Yes, sir.
SIEGEL: Why?
MODANLO: The first requirement they asked of me, the Department of Justice, was that I should waive my right to appeal, an appeal that we have been pursuing for two years. And it was all finished, and we were only waiting for the decision by the Court of Appeals.
SIEGEL: When the prisoner deal, the swap, was announced, a senior U.S. government official speaking anonymously told reporters that Tehran had submitted a list early in the negotiations, the U.S. had whittled it down saying nobody with any terrorism connection should be allowed to go out, but the implication is that someone in Tehran said they wanted you to be freed. Why would they say that if they didn't regard you as their friend?
MODANLO: Obviously, I have no idea. But my name may have gotten to a list from the Iranian side because my sister, she has been calling every single Iranian official, members of the parliament, every single day.
SIEGEL: You think it's possible that your sister's efforts got you on an Iranian government list that you wouldn't have been on otherwise? Is that what you're saying?
MODANLO: If I was on any list, that's the only reason that I know of.
SIEGEL: The government claimed that you'd receive $10 million as a brokerage fee for helping put Iranians together with Russians so that they could launch a communication satellite. If it wasn't that, who gave you the $10 million?
MODANLO: A Swiss company loaned us the money to become our service provider. We intended to build a network of satellites all around the globe to offer telecommunication services. There is absolutely, absolutely nothing even close to evidence that anybody suggests this don't have anything to do with any satellite deal whatsoever - nothing.
SIEGEL: Did this bankrupt you, literally - the prosecution?
MODANLO: It literally and actually did bankrupt me, yes.
SIEGEL: You used to be head of a company that was - I've seen it valued at half a billion dollars, is that right?
MODANLO: That's correct, yes.
SIEGEL: What are you going to do now?
MODANLO: That's a very good question. My passion was to be in aerospace. Based on this allegation and this cloud over my head, I do not believe I can have a future in the one area that I know how to do, aerospace.
SIEGEL: Yeah. Given the misgivings you had about this deal, what was it that finally made you decide, despite what you didn't like about it, that you'd take the deal?
MODANLO: The impact - the emotional impact it had on my family, on my wife, on my daughter, my son and my sister. I couldn't bear that anymore so I took the deal because it was the right thing for my family.
SIEGEL: Nader Modanlo, thank you very much for talking with us today.
MODANLO: My pleasure, thank you for having me.
SIEGEL: Nader Modanlo is one of the seven people the U.S. released earlier this month as part of the prisoner swap with Iran.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Attorneys at the New Orleans public defender's office are taking a drastic step - they're refusing to take certain felony cases. That's because they say budget cuts have left them overwhelmed.
DERWYN BUNTON: We handle somewhere between 20 and 21,000 cases a year. Right now we have about 47 lawyers.
CORNISH: That's Derwyn Bunton, chief public defender in the city, and he says refusing clients is a way to force some attention on the issue. It has got the attention of the ACLU. They're now suing the public defender's office. I spoke with Bunton earlier today, and I asked him which cases his office is refusing.
BUNTON: We're going to begin refusing cases, many at the top end. So the more serious cases, the more complex cases because those need experienced attorneys, and those attorneys have been resigning from our office at a rate higher than we have predicted and we're in a hiring freeze so we can't replace them.
CORNISH: So people with complex, difficult cases - what happens to those people? Are they just stuck in jail the meantime?
BUNTON: That's exactly what happens. They wait. They wait for resources to be applied and allocated to their cases, or they'll wait for the court to appoint pro bono lawyers to handle their cases to get them moving.
CORNISH: As we mentioned, the ACLU is suing your office over this, but you've actually called this lawsuit a chance for reform. That's not usually the response from people who are getting sued. Explain.
BUNTON: Well, no one likes to be sued, but I've been critical of our system for a long time now. We have the only user-pay criminal justice system in the United States, and it's inadequate, unreliable and unstable. And this is simply evidence of that. We depend on fines, fees and costs paid by people going through our criminal justice system to actually operate our criminal justice system. So I'm hoping that with this lawsuit, we have an engaged and real discussion about how to reform that system and have decision-makers really paying attention.
CORNISH: But you mentioned people having to wait in the meantime. Is this fair to them?
BUNTON: What you have to understand is that this is about the integrity of our practice and it's about our ability to provide quality representation to poor people. It's about whether or not the state of Louisiana is going to provide support for the Sixth Amendment, the right to counsel. It's not game playing. It's, ethically, we are trying to be responsible.
CORNISH: Derwyn Bunton, I guess it's one thing to explain in a lawsuit, another thing to explain to a reporter. How are you explaining to families that you're having to turn away?
BUNTON: It is really difficult. The ethos in our office is to help folks. You don't become a public defender to turn cases away. But when you get to a point where you are doing more harm than good, you have to begin to take action. We recently had a case of someone charged with a very serious crime and their family was able to find a private lawyer. That person asserted their innocence throughout. That private lawyer was able to go to Houston and find the surveillance footage from the mall where he was shopping with his girlfriend. And I looked at that case and I said, I'm not sure with our resources we would've made to Houston in time, and so he would either be facing life in prison or an incredibly oppressive plea because we didn't have the resources to save that innocent man. And that was terrifying to me. And that's how we explain it to clients and families - we cannot be complicit in something like that.
CORNISH: Derwyn Bunton, he's chief public defender for New Orleans.
Thank you for speaking with us.
BUNTON: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Haiti's president is scheduled to leave office in nine days, and no one has been elected to replace him. There've been widespread street protests demanding that the president leave immediately. The runoff to pick a new leader was abruptly canceled last Sunday because of fears of escalating violence. NPR's Carrie Kahn reports that the political crisis is taking its toll on the economy and those struggling to get by in Haiti.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: The walls and storeroom of this hardware shop not far from downtown Port-au-Prince are chock-full of tools. There are generators, all types of drills and lots of saws.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We have a lot of wood machines, table saws, tile saws.
KAHN: You even have a deep fryer.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: If you want to make a restaurant.
KAHN: You've got everything.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We have a lot of tools that Haiti might need.
KAHN: Haiti does need a lot. After all, it's still recovering from the devastating earthquake six years ago. The store owner and his business survived then, but he's not sure he's going to make it through Haiti's current political crisis. He's asked NPR not to use his name. He's worried about protesters targeting his business and possible political repercussions. He says he just wishes his customers would come back.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yeah, the customers don't know what's going on with the government right now. They slowed everything down.
KAHN: Things got real bad late last year when two elections were held. Both were condemned for mismanagement and fraud. Since then, the hardware store owner says business has dropped 70 percent. He used to buy one to two shipping containers full of merchandise from the U.S. every month. The last one he bought was three months ago. Before the political trouble, business had been good. He says things were looking up, especially in the years after the 2010 earthquake.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yeah, I mean, it's sad to say, but it was a blessing.
KAHN: Earthquake recovery fueled by international reconstruction funds and charitable donations gave him and the Haitian economy a big boost. But he says it didn't last. Rising rents due to a flood of foreign workers into the area cut into his bottom line, and the post-earthquake relief money has pretty much dried up. Add to that a devastating drought that sent local food prices soaring and a 20 percent depreciation of the local currency.
PETER MULREAN: Haiti can't afford to remain in the political stalemate that it's been stuck in for the better part of two years now.
KAHN: U.S. ambassador to Haiti, Peter Mulrean, says a clear roadmap must be agreed upon before President Michel Martelly steps down February 7. Mulrean warns against putting a transitional government in power.
MULREAN: That is a dangerous area to go in because it's not clear then who exactly will be governing, how will elections be called, on what authority, et cetera.
KAHN: But reaching such an agreement in just nine days will be difficult. Political protests continue, and yesterday President Martelly hinted he might not step down February 7. Human rights activist Pierre Esperance says Haiti must hold new elections, but they have to be credible not just to the international community but to Haitians.
PIERRE ESPERANCE: We cannot build democracy if we cannot organize a free election in Haiti.
KAHN: The Organization of American States is sending a mission to Haiti to help with the process, but the owner of the hardware store says he doesn't know how much longer he can hold on. He says he'd hate to let go any one of his 23 employees.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Because they was here when it was good, so there's no way for me to let them go because things are bad. We just got to still support each other and wait 'til the good times come back again.
KAHN: Just when those good times will come, he says only God knows. Carrie Kahn, NPR News, Port-au-Prince.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
After months of speeches and debates and rallies, the first poll in the presidential campaign that actually matters is just a few days away - Monday's Iowa caucuses. The candidates are making their final pitches to voters, and we want to give you a sense of what that sounds like. So we're going to play excerpts from three speeches delivered in Iowa this week, one from each of the top three GOP candidates there - Donald Trump, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. Speaking in Des Moines last night, Mr. Trump said the country needs his leadership.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DONALD TRUMP: We are a country that doesn't win anymore. We don't win anymore. When was the last time we one? We don't win on trade. We don't win in the military. We don't beat ISIS. We don't do anything. We're not good. We're just not the same place. We are going to win so much. We are going to win at the military. We're going to win at the border. We're going to win on trade. We're going to get rid of Obamacare and come up with great, great powerful, wonderful health care.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: We're going to win again. I'll tell you what. We're going to win again. We're going to win at every single level. And we're not going to be laughed at throughout the rest of the world because believe me, they laugh at our stupidity. They cannot believe what's happening. We send weapons over to our allies. A gun is fired in the air. They hear one sound of a bullet. They drop the weapons. The enemy takes them, and now people come back from the Middle East, and they tell me, Mr. Trump, they have better weapons than we do. They have the new versions. They have the best weapons - the enemy - not going to happen anymore. It's not going to happen anymore. I will tell you.
(APPLAUSE)
CORNISH: Speaking earlier this week, Ted Cruz looked back on an earlier election.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TED CRUZ: You know, scripture tells us there's nothing new under the sun. I think where we are today, it is very, very much like the late 1970s - the Jimmy Carter administration - the same failed economic policies, same feckless and naive foreign policies. In fact, the exact same countries - Russia and Iran openly laughing at and mocking the president of the United States. Now, why does that analogy give me so much hope and optimism? Because we know how that story ended. All across this country millions of men and women rose up and became the Reagan revolution.
(APPLAUSE)
CRUZ: And it didn't come from Washington. Washington despised Ronald Reagan. By the way, if you see a candidate who Washington embraces, run and hide.
(LAUGHTER)
CRUZ: It came from the American people, and it turned this country around. Why am I so optimistic - because the same thing is happening.
CORNISH: And Marco Rubio said he would unite the Republican Party to win the general election.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARCO RUBIO: Our problems are real, and we need to confront them because if we solve our problems, our opportunities are extraordinary. This country has a chance to be better than it's ever been. Our children have a chance to be the freest and the most prosperous Americans that have ever lived. But that's not going to happen if we keep playing games, and that's not going to happen if Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders is elected.
In fact, if Bernie Sanders or Hillary Clinton is the next president of the United States, everything Obama has done to this country becomes permanent. The next president will nominate at least two to three Supreme Court justices. What kind of justices are we going to get if it's Hillary Clinton who's choosing them? You're not going to be happy. Obamacare becomes permanent if she wins. The executive orders are here to stay if she wins. Our military continues to get cut if she wins. Our standing in the world continues to diminish if she wins. ISIS will grow - continue to grow unchallenged if she wins. And the American dream will continue to slip away if she wins. This is a serious election about serious issues and serious opportunities. And that's why today I'm asking you for your vote. I need you to caucus for me on Monday night.
(APPLAUSE)
CORNISH: Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Donald Trump speaking in Iowa this week. We'll hear excerpts from Democratic candidates' speeches elsewhere in the program.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
We've heard the numbers - thousands of migrants and refugees risking everything to get to Europe every day. Nearly a million people claimed asylum in the EU just last year. But how are countries handling this influx? How do countries greet them, help them learn a new language, build a new life? We called up Thomas Liebig. He's a senior migration specialist at the OECD. That's the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development which just released a report called "Making Integration Work." He said the process depends on the country.
THOMAS LIEBIG: For some countries, it's a completely new challenge, like some of the Central and Eastern European countries, also the case of Finland, for example. They must build up their whole infrastructure. Other countries like Sweden, Germany, Austria have very high inflows. But they had already significant flows prior to the crisis, so they have established a system in place. And for these countries, it's more about can they scale up the existing services to a degree, or must they find completely new solutions?
Germany, for example, just last night decided that they're going to have a new fresh new look at their integration system. So countries are taking this also as a chance to do things better now than they have done in the past.
CORNISH: Walk us through in broad strokes essentially what happens when a humanitarian migrant arrives in a European country. What kinds of services are they offered, and are those services offered right away?
LIEBIG: Most people arriving right now are basically asking for asylum initially. And then obviously there's humanitarian urgencies to be met. That means providing them with shelter, giving them health treatment when necessary and that the children are being able to integrate into the school systems or that they get some language training. After these humanitarian urgencies, then, gradually, also, in a growing number of countries, their skills are assessed and then built tailor-made approaches because clearly it's going to be a different process for somebody who is a medical doctor than for somebody who just has a couple of years of schooling and very basic skills in general.
CORNISH: Can you talk about cultural adjustments? There have been loud voices in some of these countries that question the values of the asylum-seekers depending on what country they're from. Are countries providing classes - civics classes or cultural classes that they think would somehow, I guess, alleviate this perception?
LIEBIG: Yes. A growing number of countries provide these kind of courses where people learn about the history of the country, about the general principles of equality of gender, for example, the basic rights that people have in the country and that refugees are also encouraged to talk about these and to ask, what does it imply for them?
CORNISH: What do you think that's really about? I mean, how important is that aspect to this process or is that about fears, right, from some of these countries?
LIEBIG: Well, it's obviously part of these policies are introduced with a view of the public opinion to reassure the public. At the same time, it can be a useful tool in a way that people can ask about these values and can actually openly discuss them in the classroom, and that's a good thing to give the refugees a chance to adapt to the whole country.
CORNISH: Your report really emphasizes permanence as an important part of integration. Why aren't temporary measures a good idea?
LIEBIG: Well, there's a certain tradeoff. Countries don't want to give them a stable status because they think it's easier to send them back later on or they want to discourage large numbers of seeking asylum. But at the same time, when you do that, there's a certain risk that these people will not well-integrate, for example, not to learn the language because they think, well, in a year or two, I may not be longer here, and that is obviously a strong risk for integration.
CORNISH: Thomas Liebig - he's a senior migration specialist at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Thank you for speaking with us.
LIEBIG: Thanks to you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
That's a picture of the migrant crisis in Europe writ large. Last summer on the program, we heard from one migrant who left our colleague Melissa Block wondering, whatever happened to him? How did things turn out?
MELISSA BLOCK, BYLINE: He had me at good afternoon.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
SOUFIAN ALMOBARK: Hello. Good afternoon.
BLOCK: How are you?
ALMOBARK: Yes, my dear. I am fine. My name is Soufian Almobark.
BLOCK: And I was my dear for the rest of our conversation. Soufian Almobark - 40 years old, a Syrian refugee. When he talked to me on an aid worker's cell phone, he had just made it to Greece, crossing the Aegean on an overcrowded, rubber dinghy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
ALMOBARK: (Laughter) The most horrible experience in my life.
BLOCK: He had decided it was too risky to take his wife and their 7-year-old daughter with them. For now, he said, they would stay behind in the Syrian countryside. When he landed in Greece, he told me the first thing he did was pull out his cell phone.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
ALMOBARK: Of course, directly, I've called them, and we all started crying.
BLOCK: Soufian Almobark spoke with pride of the life he used to know before the war in Syria. He used to be a financial manager, his wife an executive. It was a good life.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
ALMOBARK: If you saw me face-to-face, you know, I'm - in terms of business, I'm a white-shirt man.
BLOCK: You're a white-collar worker, yeah
ALMOBARK: You know that this terminology with the silk tie?
BLOCK: Yes.
ALMOBARK: And with the suit?
BLOCK: You're a businessman.
ALMOBARK: Yes, exactly. But now I'm in another world.
BLOCK: That other world was now a squalid migrant camp in Greece.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
ALMOBARK: Actually, it is the worst condition I have ever seen in my life.
BLOCK: But he told me he was thinking ahead. He wanted to make it to the U.K. to find work as a financial manager. He was hopeful.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
ALMOBARK: Of course, life must go on. We are all alive and kicking, but between time to time, I think of my family, and that's it. I just want to get them back to me as soon as possible.
BLOCK: So that was last August. We said goodbye.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
ALMOBARK: Thank you very much, my dear.
BLOCK: Life went on as he said it would. But that brief encounter has stayed with me, and I keep thinking about Soufian Almobark as we've seen the migrant crisis get worse and worse. Did he end up packed in with those migrants stuck on trains in Hungary, blocked by razor wire or kicked or punched to the ground? And then I found him on Facebook, anyway. We friended each other, and there he was in his profile picture, hugging his daughter. She's smiling in a pink snowsuit. But when I clicked on it, I saw it's an old picture taken before he left Syria.
There are no clues that tell me where he is now or if his family has joined him. It's maddening. We don't have his phone number. I've emailed him and sent him messages through Facebook. He hasn't written back. But now and then, I'll discover that he has liked a photo I've posted. He's liked a photo of me and my daughter in the snow, a bird I saw on a walk, a quince bush blooming in January. He's even liked a pot of spaghetti sauce simmering on our stove. They are tiny, tiny pings sent from across an ocean. They don't tell me much, but they do say this. I'm here. I'm still here.
SIEGEL: That's NPR's Melissa Block.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And now the question that has really been on your mind - why do humans have chins? Gorillas don't have them. Chimpanzees don't have them, nor do any of our other evolutionary relatives. In fact, with the arguable exceptions of elephants and manatees, humans are the only mammal with that little section of bone on the lower portion of the jaw that juts out past the teeth, and scientists don't know why. Well, James Pampush has co-authored a paper in the most recent issue of the journal Evolutionary Anthropology. The article is appropriately titled "The Enduring Puzzle Of The Human Chin," and he joins us now from the studios of Duke University to talk about it. Welcome to the program.
JAMES PAMPUSH: Thank you for having me.
SIEGEL: In this article, you round up quite a few possible theories that scientists have proposed, and then you seem to poke holes in each of them. So I wanted to start with the theory that this might be - the chin - might be an adaptation that helps us to speak. What's the idea there?
PAMPUSH: When you open your jaw and when the tongue moves, those muscles - they strain the front of the jaw. When bone is strained, it begins to accumulate small cracks. And so in order to deal with that, you want to add extra bone so that when the strains are put into it, it distributes more.
SIEGEL: You don't buy that.
PAMPUSH: I don't think that speech necessarily generates more strain there than other types of behaviors with the mouth that lots of other animals do without chins.
SIEGEL: One possible theory for why we have chins is that the chin can help humans attract mates.
PAMPUSH: Yeah. We run into another kind of interesting problem in that typically what happens when there's a feature that's being sexually selected in an organism, we see it develop in only one sex. So you might take the red cardinal as an example. We only see male cardinals that are red. And so it's really strange then that if chins are one of these features that is sexually selected for, that both men and women have chins.
SIEGEL: We do speak commonly of somebody taking it on the chin or leading with one's chin. Both of those phrases suggest that the chin is kind of a liability. But in each case, it does prevent you from getting hit in the throat, which would be a lot worse, so there could be some protective value of a chin.
PAMPUSH: Yeah, this is something that actually gets mentioned to me a lot.
SIEGEL: (Laughter) Yes. This bothers you a great deal (laughter).
PAMPUSH: Well, there's a couple of good reasons to suspect that that's not the reason that we have chins. First, human beings would have to be hitting each other so often or must be the clumsiest animals alive for as long as necessary to generate that kind of adaptation. And secondly, the chin is actually really bad in terms of preventing your jaw from breaking.
SIEGEL: The conclusion to your article - it sounds very profound. You say perhaps understanding the chin will reveal some unexpected insight into what it means to be human.
PAMPUSH: Well, if you're looking across all of the hominids, which is the family tree after the split with chimpanzees, there's not really that many traits that we can point to that we can say are exclusively human. Big brains - Neanderthals had larger brains than us. All those animals all walked on two legs. The one thing that really sticks out is the chin.
SIEGEL: Yeah.
PAMPUSH: And perhaps it will tell us really what gave us that last little step into becoming atomically modern that left those other human-like creatures behind.
SIEGEL: Well, James Pampush, thank you very much for talking with us.
PAMPUSH: Well, thanks for having me.
SIEGEL: James Pampush is a postdoctoral associate at Duke University. His article in the journal, Evolutionary Anthropology is titled "The Enduring Puzzle Of The Human Chin."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHIN UP")
DEBBIE REYNOLDS: (Singing) Chin up, chin up. Everybody loves a happy face.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
President Obama has announced that, for the first time, employers will have to disclose data about what they pay their employees. This is along with information that's already provided about race, gender and ethnicity. The administration says this will enable regulators to crack down on pay discrimination. NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: The president made the announcement at an event celebrating the seventh anniversary of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. The law extended the period in which a pay discrimination suit can be filed. But he says that's only part of the equation.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: The typical woman who works full-time still earns 79 cents per every dollar that the typical man does. The gap's even wider for women of color.
NOGUCHI: Equal Employment Opportunity Commission will collect data from employers with more than 100 workers. That will help determine where and which industries the pay gap persists. EEOC chairman Jenny Yang says that will also help her agency and the Labor Department enforce equal pay laws.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JENNY YANG: Our agencies will use this data to more effectively focus investigations, assess complaints of discrimination and identify existing pay disparities that warrant further examination.
NOGUCHI: Yang also says she hopes the act of collecting and reporting the data will help companies self-correct. That was the case for Marc Benioff, CEO of salesforce.com. He says his team identified a pay gap he didn't know existed.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARC BENIOFF: They said, hey, Mark, we may be paying women less at Salesforce. I go, that's not possible. Well, guess what? We were - $3 million less.
NOGUCHI: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce criticized the new requirement, calling it burdensome. Other business groups say they're reviewing the new rules. Sarah Moore is an attorney at Fisher and Phillips who represents employers. She says discussing pay used to be taboo in the office, but that's rapidly giving way to transparency.
SARAH MOORE: It's really key for companies to embrace the spirit of today's announcement and begin to proactively prepare for the annual reporting of pay data to the EEOC.
NOGUCHI: Research suggests discrimination is only one reason for the pay gap. The president says he'll also continue pushing to get more women in higher-paying jobs in science and technology, as well as fighting pregnancy discrimination and mandating paid family and sick leave. The new pay data rule is open for public comment and will take effect in September of next year. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Washington.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Republican presidential hopefuls - minus Donald Trump - held their last debate before the Iowa caucuses last night. With Trump boycotting the primetime program, other candidates turned on each other. We're going to talk now about whether their arrows hit the bull's-eye or found some other bull-related product with NPR's Scott Horsley. Hey there, Scott.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Hi, Audie.
CORNISH: And we're going to break it down.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: For our friends in the press who place a high premium on accuracy, let me say, I can't help it. There you go again.
CORNISH: Fact-checking time, Scott. Last night, Republicans went after President Obama, specifically the Affordable Care Act. Here's Ted Cruz in the debate on the Fox News Channel.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TED CRUZ: It is the biggest job-killer in this country. Millions of Americans have lost their jobs, have been forced into part-time work, have lost their health insurance, have lost their doctors, have seen their premiums skyrocket.
CORNISH: OK, Scott, what about that?
HORSLEY: Well, Obamacare is still a big pinata for GOP candidates. It is unpopular, but there's no evidence it's a job-killer. On the contrary, the U.S. is in the midst of the longest period of job growth on record, adding more than 14 million jobs since late 2010. Now there was some concern that employers might cut back on workers' hours to avoid having to give them health insurance, but the number of people working part-time who want to work full-time has actually fallen.
CORNISH: Now, I want to play a clip from Marco Rubio next. In this one, he's talking about the size of the military.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARCO RUBIO: Today, we are on pace to have the smallest army since the end of World War II, the smallest Navy in a hundred years, the smallest Air Force in our history. You cannot destroy ISIS with a military that's being diminished.
HORSLEY: Now, it is true troop levels have fallen from the peak of the Iraq and Afghan wars. But so far we've only deployed a few thousand American troops in the fight against ISIS, so it's hard to see how that drop might have affected that particular fight.
CORNISH: OK, Scott, this next one is an intramural squabble over immigration. Ted Cruz criticized Marco Rubio for backing what Cruz called amnesty. Rubio tried to turn the tables, arguing that, in the past, Cruz himself supported legal status for immigrants who were in the country illegally.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RUBIO: You said, on the issue of people that are here illegally, we can reach a compromise. Now, you want to trump Trump on immigration.
CORNISH: Now, there's a lot of history here, Scott, right - a lot of legislative history. Walk us through it.
HORSLEY: Yeah, immigration continues to be a minefield for Republican candidates. Marco Rubio has backpedaled on his past support for a path to citizenship. Cruz has tried to capitalize on that record. Last night, Rubio pushed back, saying, look, Cruz, you supported your own form of amnesty. In 2013, Cruz offered an amendment to the immigration bill that would have stopped short of a path to citizenship, but still offered a more limited legal status. We dug up some old tape of Cruz talking about that in a 2013 interview with NPR.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
CRUZ: The 11 million who are here illegally would be granted legal status once the border was secure. Not before, but after the border was secured, they would be granted legal status. And indeed, they would be eligible for permanent legal residency, but they would not be eligible for citizenship.
HORSLEY: Cruz now says that amendment he offered was actually a poison pill designed to undermine the broader immigration overhaul. And there are lawmakers on both sides who agree that was Cruz's goal. This is an illustration of the kind of legislative maneuvering that goes on here in Washington.
CORNISH: Meanwhile, Rubio is catching flak from Jeb Bush for backing away from a path to citizenship.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JEB BUSH: And that he cut and run because it wasn't popular amongst - amongst conservatives, I guess.
HORSLEY: And that's basically what happened, although Bush has changed his own stance on this as well. All this shows the challenge for Republicans. They're trying to look tough on immigration to attract primary votes. But when they get to the general election, they'll need support from some Latino voters. And that's why Bush tried, perhaps in vain last night, to put a more welcoming face on the party.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Scott Horsley. Scott, thanks for sharing with us.
HORSLEY: My pleasure, Audie.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The Zika epidemic is scary. The mosquito-borne virus is linked to birth defects in Brazil, and there are concerns that it's spreading. And in our coverage, this question has come up. In Brazil right now, how many known cases are there of Zika-related microcephaly? That's where an infant is born with a small head and with brain damage. NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro in Rio de Janeiro went looking for an answer.
LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, BYLINE: Brazil's Ministry of Health gives updates every week. The number that gets the most publicity is reported cases of microcephaly. By reported, that means hospitals have alerted the Ministry of Health that they have a suspected case of Zika-related microcephaly. That number has been going up. Last week, it was at 4,180. But after a case has been reported, it gets investigated. Microcephaly can be caused by many things, and the authorities have found 462 cases that are either not microcephaly or it's a type of microcephaly that has been caused by something else - an infection like rubella or genetic abnormalities. Dr. Manoel Barral is the Bahia director of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, one of the premier research facilities in Brazil.
MANOEL BARRAL: The numbers seem messy, but they are really more cautious - I mean, not to attribute to Zika things that we cannot be sure are related to Zika.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Only six cases so far have been linked with certainty to the Zica virus. He says that's not unusual. At the moment, you can only test positive for the virus if you have an active infection, which normally only lasts for a short period of time. So the cases that have either been confirmed or are under investigation as being Zika-related as of this moment in Brazil is 3,718. Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, NPR News, Rio de Janeiro.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
It may feel like the presidential campaign is never-ending. In fact, it's just beginning. On Monday, Iowans will caucus the first voters to weigh in on who they want in the White House. The candidates are making their closing arguments, and we are spending time today listening to what they're saying. Here now are excerpts of speeches from the two leading Democratic candidates, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. Speaking today in Des Moines, Hillary Clinton said her presidency would build on recent Democratic achievements even in the face of opposition.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)
HILLARY CLINTON: The Republicans have been blocking and impeding and repealing and trying to do everything possible to go back to their old ways. That's what this election is going to turn on. Are we going to let them have the White House again? Are we going to give them the chance to wreck our economy again? Set us back from the progress we've taken? I sure hope not. I sure hope not, but here's what I'm running on. I'm not running on just telling you what you want to hear. I'm telling you what I think I can do, what I think I can get done that will make a real difference in people's lives. And I have an economic policy, and, just real briefly - number one, the government can do some things to get jobs going. We can invest more in infrastructure - our roads, our bridges, our tunnels, our ports, our airports, our rail systems, and we can put we can put millions of Americans to work doing that, and we can bring back manufacturing. If we're smart about it, we can change that tax code so instead of incentivizing, jobs being exported, we can get them to be brought back, created here, put Americans to work.
CORNISH: Earlier this week, Bernie Sanders told Iowa voters they have to fight for change.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)
BERNIE SANDERS: Anybody here who thinks that real change comes easy knows nothing about American history or world history. Frederick Douglass made the point way back when fighting to end slavery that change only comes with struggle. Freedom is never given to people. You've got to fight to get it.
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: And that is what this campaign is about. Yeah, we are taking on Wall Street and the economic establishment. Yeah, we're taking on the political establishment. Yeah, we're taking on the media establishment. But that is the establishment that has to be taken on...
(APPLAUSE)
SANDERS: ...If we are going to create the country that our people deserve.
CORNISH: That was Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton speaking this week in Iowa. We're playing excerpts from some of the Republican candidates' speeches elsewhere in the program.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HAIL, CAESAR!")
JOSH BROLIN: (As Eddie Mannix) Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
In the newest Coen brothers movie, "Hail, Caesar!," Josh Brolin plays a faithful family man, a man who wrestles with guilt, even over the little sins, like sneaking cigarettes and lying to his wife about it.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "HAIL, CAESAR!")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) How long since your last confession?
BROLIN: (As Eddie Mannix) Twenty-seven hours.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) It's really too often. You're not that bad.
SIEGEL: In fact, this postwar Hollywood executive, Eddie Mannix, whom Brolin plays, is quite good. Sure, he has to manipulate a gossip columnist or two. He has to deliver ransom money. He sometimes slaps a movie star - whatever it takes to get his movies made. But he is serious and responsible. And Josh Brolin joins us now from our studio in New York. Welcome to the program.
BROLIN: Thank you very much, Robert.
SIEGEL: I can't see you, so are you wearing a fedora right now?
BROLIN: No, no, and I feel very out of place, I have to say.
SIEGEL: This is really a decent character you play. He's based on a real-life Hollywood fixer of the same name, Eddie Mannix, who died in 1963. I gather the real-life character wasn't quite as upstanding as your character.
BROLIN: He wasn't, and I love that you said that because he's as pure as it gets. When you look at the real Eddie Mannix - and Eddie Mannix, the real guy, was pretty ruthless, but this was more of, like, an amalgamation of Louis B. Mayer and there was a PR guy, Strickland - Harold Strickland. So he's a much more puritanical version of the kind of morbid characters of way back when.
SIEGEL: "Hail, Caesar!," which is a very funny movie, is a period piece. And I just wonder if you've found yourself having to explain to some younger moviegoers who Esther Williams, Busby Berkeley or Herbert Marcuse, for that matter, were.
BROLIN: Yeah, and to myself, too. Yeah, Esther Williams' films, I suddenly have become a fan of now. And I really learned through the Coens to love the great cosmetic fodder of Esther Williams.
SIEGEL: We should explain to the younger mystified listeners right now that (laughter) Esther Williams made movies in which she swam a lot. And there was a lot of - this was before water ballet was an Olympic sport. It was what you saw Esther Williams do in the movies.
BROLIN: Exactly, and now Scarlett Johansson doing it, thank God.
SIEGEL: (Laughter) And now Scarlett Johansson doing it. The movie immerses us into a Hollywood that's still in the grips of the studio system, a system that, I guess, you really never worked in.
BROLIN: But my father did.
SIEGEL: Your father worked in it?
BROLIN: Yeah.
SIEGEL: How do you appreciate the differences between Hollywood then and Hollywood now?
BROLIN: I don't know. I mean, I think it's much more corporate now, and I don't think there is the cultivation of a movie star, per se. I mean, there were stories of Louis B. Mayer's secretary, who actually found Clark Gable. And he had bad teeth and big ears, and Mayer didn't respond to him at all. And the secretary was the one that said, there's something. If we just put him in acting school and if we take him to fencing school, movement school, whatever it is, I think this guy's going to be the next big thing. And you don't really hear that very often. There's something about that time where you were cultivating a product that was called a movie star. And - I don't know - something more mythological about it. It was fun, even though it was totally controlled, totally manipulated, totally corrupt and completely debaucherous.
SIEGEL: There was another figure in the movies of the day - the cowboy actor who, in order to be an actor, was also a singer and, ideally, could do tricks with a lariat, I guess. There is an actor in this movie who does all of that.
BROLIN: Yeah, Alden Ehrenreich.
SIEGEL: Alden Ehrenreich...
BROLIN: Yes.
SIEGEL: ...Learned to do rope tricks for this last.
BROLIN: Yeah, and with spaghetti.
SIEGEL: (Laughter) That's right.
BROLIN: So the great thing about now is we'll never know whether he really learned that, whether it was a stunt rope, whether it was a digital rope. You'll never know.
SIEGEL: Never know.
BROLIN: And you don't need to know. Why break the mystery?
SIEGEL: What's it like working for the Coen brothers?
BROLIN: Oh, so boring.
SIEGEL: (Laughter).
BROLIN: They're the most uneventful, nonplussed people you will ever spend time with. No, they're authentic. They haven't read the manual on how you should make movies or how you should act in public. They just do what they do.
SIEGEL: You know, I was curious - in order to make a movie about a movie studio that's making movies, the Coen brothers for "Hail, Caesar!" have to have scenes with lots of Roman legionnaires, who I don't think - they're not computer-generated legionnaires, are they? Or am I being naive?
BROLIN: Why would I ever tell you that?
SIEGEL: I'm sorry...
BROLIN: Even if I knew.
SIEGEL: It looked very expensive to me, you know? It looked like a big-budget film.
BROLIN: It is very expensive. It's one of the greatest, biggest-budgeted films since "Star Wars" in 1978.
SIEGEL: (Laughter).
BROLIN: My prediction is this movie will make so much money it will make people's heads spin.
SIEGEL: Which is...
BROLIN: We brought in thousands and thousands of actual Romans from Rome...
SIEGEL: (Laughter).
BROLIN: ...To do this film. Everything you see is authentic and real, so don't question anything.
SIEGEL: Josh Brolin, thanks for talking with us.
BROLIN: Robert, thank you so much. Thanks for having me on.
SIEGEL: Josh Brolin appears in the Coen brothers' new movie, "Hail, Caesar!"
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
We're going to travel up the California coast now to remember one of the architects of the San Francisco Sound of the '60s.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOMEBODY TO LOVE")
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE: (Singing) When the truth is found to be lies and all the joy within you dies, don't you want somebody to love?
CORNISH: Jefferson Airplane co-founder Paul Kantner died yesterday. The guitarist and singer was 74 years old. He had suffered a heart attack earlier in the week. NPR's Tom Cole has this appreciation.
TOM COLE, BYLINE: Paul Kantner played a crucial role in Jefferson Airplane, says Joel Selvin. He's been writing about San Francisco's music and culture for more than 40 years and says, even though the songwriter and rhythm guitarist was often overshadowed by the other members...
JOEL SELVIN: He was at the center of it. He was the soul of it. He was the sort of contrarian that kept everything off balance, and being off balance was an important part of being the Jefferson Airplane.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WILD TYME")
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE: (Singing) It's a wild time. I see people all around me changing faces.
COLE: It was a wild time in San Francisco when Jefferson Airplane took off, as Kantner himself told NPR in 1994.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
PAUL KANTNER: It was a total loosening all reins and demanding them, going out and grabbing them and, curiously enough, getting away with it.
COLE: Paul Lorin Kantner was born in San Francisco in 1941. His mother died when he was eight, and his father sent him off to military boarding school. He hated it and escaped through science fiction. And that, too, played out in his music over the years, as in "Wooden Ships," co-written with David Crosby and Stephen Stills.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WOODEN SHIPS")
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE: (Singing) Silver people on the shoreline, leave us be - very free and easy. Sail away where the morning sun goes high.
COLE: Jefferson Airplane broke up in 1973, and Kantner formed Jefferson Starship, which he led on and off for the rest of his life. Joel Selvin says, whatever Kantner played, his music was rooted in his character.
SELVIN: There was a tremendous political strain. There was a real resistance to authority and convention. Yet, at the same time, he also had that kind of hope and vision of a utopian future that was so much a part of that hippie movement. He never gave it up, you know? He never bought the Mercedes and moved to the suburbs.
COLE: Paul Kantner stayed in the city whose soul he helped define. Tom Cole, NPR news.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WOODEN SHIPS")
JEFFERSON AIRPLANE: (Singing) Very free and gone.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
There's a new turn in the controversy over Hillary Clinton's use of a private email server while she was secretary of state. The State Department says it will not release 22 of those emails because they are top-secret. With us to talk about the issue is NPR's Carrie Johnson, and Carrie, what's known about these messages that the State Department says that they won't be making public?
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: State Department spokesman John Kirby says he will not discuss the substance of the emails. We do know they are top-secret. Kirby says they were not marked classified when they were sent, but authorities are looking now at whether they should have been classified back then when Clinton was secretary of state.
CORNISH: Now, what's Hillary Clinton herself saying about all of this?
JOHNSON: Her spokesman, Brian Fallon, says they're adamantly opposed to withholding any of those messages. They want all the documents to come out, and Fallon says this is simply a fight between the State Department and intelligence agencies about what constitutes a secret. He calls this overclassification run amok. Clinton says she's never sent or received any emails marked classified, Audie.
CORNISH: Meanwhile, the State Department's releasing 1,000 pages of messages today - this is on top of 43,000 pages they've made public over the past year. What happens next?
JOHNSON: Well, believe it or not, those email dumps are not done. We should expect at least one more huge release of emails sometime in February maybe just before a large block of states goes to vote for Super Tuesday, and that also means Clinton's going to be getting questions for some time to come on the campaign trail about these old issues.
CORNISH: Speaking of the campaign trail, what about Republicans? How are they reacting to this?
JOHNSON: Well, the Republican National Committee immediately blasted out a statement saying Clinton can't be trusted with the presidency, and the RNC says she put national security at risk. Several of the GOP candidates in last night's Fox News channel debate also used the issue to cast doubt on Clinton's trustworthiness, and those candidates pointed out that the FBI is investigating, too.
CORNISH: I want to talk more about the FBI investigation. What are federal agents looking at?
JOHNSON: The Justice Department and FBI have been pretty tightlipped, but the investigation appears to involve whether any classified information has been mishandled, not just Hillary Clinton but also some of her close aides, the people who may have sent her some of those email messages. It's been going on quietly for months now. The White House says the Justice Department is in charge of any decisions about prosecution, and it says Justice is not treating Clinton as the target of the investigation, but once the FBI starts digging, no one can really predict what they might uncover and when they might finish.
CORNISH: That's NPR's Carrie Johnson on the latest release of Hillary Clinton's emails during her time as secretary of state. Carrie, thank you.
JOHNSON: You're welcome.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
So yes, here at NPR we follow politics and we follow music. So if I were to say presidential music, what would come to mind? The odds are it probably isn't this.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND")
BERNIE SANDERS: (Singing) This land was made for you and me.
MARTIN: Sound familiar? If you have not heard it yet, that's a little taste of a folk album recorded by Vermont Senator and now presidential candidate Bernie Sanders in the late 1980s. It's been making the rounds of late-night television as the butt of a joke or two recently. But the whole thing got us wondering, how did that even happen? So we called up the album's producer, Todd Lockwood in Burlington, Vt.
TODD LOCKWOOD: I came up with the idea for Bernie Sanders' "We Shall Overcome" album.
MARTIN: In those days, Lockwood was always on the lookout for hot new projects to row his music label. One day, he had a bold idea.
LOCKWOOD: We had this intriguing mayor, Bernie Sanders, so I thought well, here's an opportunity to see the man behind the curtain. And I came up with this wacky idea of bringing him into the studio and having him record his favorite songs.
MARTIN: So he sent the then-mayor a letter. And before he knew it, they were face-to-face.
LOCKWOOD: The very first thing he said when I sat down in his office was I have to admit to you right up front that this appeals to my ego. (Laughter).
MARTIN: So he was on board, and you probably wouldn't guess what inspired their vision.
LOCKWOOD: It was only a couple of years before this that the Michael Jackson "We Are The World" recording had been done.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WE ARE THE WORLD")
U.S.A. FOR AFRICA: (Singing) We are the world. We are the children...
LOCKWOOD: And so we saw this as kind of a Vermont version of that. Where Michael had our room full of superstars, we were going to have a room full of Vermonters.
MARTIN: Lockwood enlisted 30 singers and musicians to help flesh out Bernie Sanders hand-picked track list. But when he finally got Bernie behind the mic, he noticed he had a little bit of a problem.
LOCKWOOD: I realized pretty early on that Bernie is not a singer.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND")
SANDERS: (Singing) As I went walking that ribbon of highway, I saw above me that endless skyway.
LOCKWOOD: So we ended up with what you now here, you know, more along the lines of a talking blues kind of approach.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND")
SANDERS: (Singing) This land was made for you and me.
LOCKWOOD: And I think it really suits Bernie.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE BANKS OF MARBLE")
SANDERS: (Singing) The rich get richer, traveling about in their chauffeured limousines and jet-setting their way around the world to their exotic vacation places.
MARTIN: These days, it seems that Sen. Sanders himself is not so sure, as he told NBC's Lester Holt earlier this week.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SANDERS: If people are thinking of voting for me for my musical capabilities, not the right reason. I have other attributes - carrying a tune is not one of them.
MARTIN: Producer Todd Lockwood is more optimistic.
LOCKWOOD: I fully expect that if he becomes president that we will see a gold or platinum record hanging on the wall here (laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OH FREEDOM")
SANDERS: (Singing) The human spirit, may it never be extinguished...
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: Oh, freedom, oh, freedom...
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
With the Iowa caucuses on Monday, we're noticing the different ways candidates are trying to reach voters - Bernie Sanders delivers fiery speeches. Generally, people don't leave Hillary Clinton events ready to start a political revolution. Big speeches don't seem to be her thing. Rather, she's trying to win people over by being a wonk who delivers page after page of policy white papers. NPR's Tamara Keith reports.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Autism is not the kind of thing that dominates televised debates or tops polls as a leading issue facing the nation. But Hillary Clinton has a white paper on it. She's also got them for Alzheimer's, drug addiction and elder care. For autism, it's the plan to support children, youth and adults living with autism and their families. And for 19-year-old Abby Walker, who volunteers for the Clinton campaign, it's a really big deal.
ABBY WALKER: So when Hillary came out with her plan, I just saw this, and I just knew right away that I needed to keep knocking on doors even more.
KEITH: Even though Walker goes to college in Missouri, she's been driving home to Ottomwu, Iowa, every weekend to convince people to caucus for Clinton. Walker's older brother has autism. She and her mom attended one of Clinton's small listening tour events over the summer, and Walker says her mom talked to Clinton about autism.
WALKER: And my mom just told her a little bit about my brother and how much he needs services and stuff like that.
KEITH: When the plan came out, Walker's mom posted about it on Facebook. And she wasn't the only one. The plan showed up in the Facebook feeds of people and organizations who don't typically talk about presidential politics. That includes the Autistic Self Advocacy Network run by Ari Ne'eman. He's one of many advocates Clinton's policy team consulted. I asked him if his network would even be talking about Clinton without this plan.
ARI NE'EMAN: You know, certainly not to the same degree and certainly not in the same way. It resonates and it reaches, and the fact that it's done by consulting with autistic adults ourselves really matters.
KEITH: He's hoping to get all the presidential candidates to develop similar autism plans. But here's the thing about Clinton - she has more than two dozen of these policy proposals - more than 50,000 words of them - many heavy on footnotes.
BRIAN FALLON: She takes the issues very seriously. For her, platitudes are never enough.
KEITH: Brian Fallon is the campaign's press secretary. He says, when voters tell Clinton about their concerns, she wants to be able to answer with a plan to address them.
FALLON: It is Hillary Clinton's idea of fun to take a thick briefing binder home at night in her hotel if she's on the road, and study it and to give feedback to the staff that is providing her with a menu of options for different policy prescriptions on any given issue.
KEITH: But is being a wonk in the time when voters feel uneasy and even angry really a recipe for victory? It's certainly a way to micro-target voters and meet them where they live. Margie Omero is a democratic pollster at Purple Strategies. And when she looks at the array of Clinton's proposals, she sees many of them falling into the category of caregiving.
MARGIE OMERO: Those are huge issues facing a lot of everyday Americans in their daily life - far more, I should add, than some of the things that we talk about a lot in Washington. The enormous amount of pressure that women feeling for caregiving everybody - and giving care to everybody in their family - it really cannot be overstated.
KEITH: The question is whether Clinton's many plans to address these concerns will drive the people who care passionately about them to caucus on a cold night in February. Tamara, Keith, NPR News.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
A big deadline is looming here in the U.S. for Americans lacking health insurance. Tomorrow is the last day in most states to buy coverage through the Affordable Care Act or face a $695 fine. More than 11 million people have signed up. But as Carrie Feibel at Houston Public Media explains, there's a big push to enroll people who have not gotten coverage, especially Latinos.
CARRIE FEIBEL, BYLINE: There's football season, hunting season and the holiday season. Overlapping all of these is something decidedly less fun and sexy - open enrollment season.
IRIS GALVEZ: We've been busy this past month.
FEIBEL: Iris Galvez is a health insurance navigator in Houston, helping people enroll in plans through the Affordable Care Act.
GALVEZ: It's the holidays that makes it's hard because, you know, people are, like, well, we'll just put it off. But now we are getting very busy (laughter).
FEIBEL: Recently, Galvez helped Elisia and Cipriano Saenz, a couple from north Houston.
GALVEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
FEIBEL: Signing up can be a chore. You need to gather financial documents and set aside money for the monthly premium. Galvez says some returning customers are angry this year because almost all the coverage plans on the marketplace in Houston are now HMOs.
GALVEZ: This year, they have taken away the PPO. A lot of people are not pleased with that.
FEIBEL: That means they have fewer choices of doctors and hospitals. Still, she tries to focus on the positives - not only avoiding a tax penalty for not being covered but also the peace of mind insurance brings.
GALVEZ: You never know, you fall and slip and break your leg - that's a big bill from the hospital.
FEIBEL: Galvez finished filling out some paperwork for the couple. Elisia Saenz was relieved.
ELISIA SAENZ: We were having a hard time getting into it, so...
FEIBEL: Last year, her husband, Cipriano, did to try to sign the couple up. But he was confused and then suspicious when a government worker called to request more paperwork. He never followed up and the insurance lapsed.
SAENZ: Something had gone wrong or maybe he didn't understand.
FEIBEL: Elisia is 56 and Cipriano is 62. They work as janitors at a charter school and say they can't afford the insurance offered at the school.
SAENZ: It's been years that I haven't been to a doctor or nothing. And now I could go, you know, just get a whole physical and he could do the same. So we're happy that we got this.
FEIBEL: Under their new plan, the federal government kicks in a subsidy of almost $700 a month. The Saenz must pay $363 a month. They also have a $2000 deductible.
SAENZ: They're pretty good, reasonable.
FEIBEL: The Obama administration has increased its outreach this year to Hispanics, running special ads and targeting cities like Houston, Miami and Dallas that have big Hispanic communities. Across the country, 21 percent of Hispanics are uninsured, compared to 9 percent of whites. There are lots of reasons why. Hispanics are more likely to work in jobs that don't offer health benefits. And many are ineligible for the Affordable Care Act or just don't know about it. But in surveys, Hispanics say health coverage just seems so expensive. Elisia Saenz agrees.
SAENZ: They don't make enough money where they work at or, you know, they were self-employed - cutting yards and stuff. And sometimes they can barely probably make it to pay their rent, feed their kids.
FEIBEL: But federal officials say many would qualify for subsidies to buy insurance. But enrollment for 2016 ends tomorrow. For NPR News, I'm Carrie Feibel in Houston.
MARTIN: This story is part of a partnership with NPR, Houston Public Media and Kaiser Health News.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Most of the time when we talk about homelessness, big cities come to mind, but about 7 percent of homeless people live in rural areas, where access to help can be harder to come by. Flagstaff, Ariz., is one of those places. While city officials work to find solutions, one woman has taken an old motel and turned it into transitional housing. From Flagstaff, Laura Morales and Mark Neumann of member station KJZZ reports.
MARK NEUMANN, BYLINE: Route 66 runs through Flagstaff and a lot of old, rundown motels from its heyday still stand, empty shells from a more prosperous time.
LAURA MORALES, BYLINE: The Mother Road has long been an American emblem of change. People who want to remake their lives - Depression-era Dust Bowl refugees, post-World War II travelers dreaming of leisure and adventure.
NEUMANN: That same story of transformation is still being told in the old 66 Motel.
LORI BARLOW: The motel with a smile - 15 units, some kitchenettes, hot water, heat.
NEUMANN: That's the Lori Barlow. She's a former financial planner who's giving the old motel new life. A spirited blonde who started her own new chapter, Barlow gave up a six-figure salary and a home on the California coast to help people.
MORALES: But she wasn't sure how to go about it until one night inspiration struck.
BARLOW: I think it was 3:36 actually. I woke up and sat up in my bed, and this clear message just came and said you need to go take over distressed motels and turn them into transitional housing to help, you know, the poor. I don't know how to explain it. I just thought OK, you know, what do I do with that?
NEUMANN: Barlow made some calls and leased a motel.
MORALES: And suddenly realized she might be in over her head.
BARLOW: Now I was coming in going, holy moly (laughter). It was pretty bad. The ceiling was caving in and the insulation was hanging out of it. There was a lot of evidence of mice. I just looked at it and thought OK, I'm not going to let my kids come up and see where I'm going to be living (laughter).
NEUMANN: The floors slope. The walls are uneven.
MORALES: Even the fixtures are crooked in some units.
BARLOW: The toilet seat is at an angle because it's too small. You couldn't sit down and close the door (laughter). And watch your head (laughter).
WILLIAM FULTON: She let me stay here while I was remodeling it for rent.
MORALES: William Fulton, a former engineer, lived in a van before he moved into the motel.
NEUMANN: He also became the on-call fix-it man.
FULTON: The plumbing's been the worst, so basically it's getting that fixed up and flooring. The old wood rotted, leaky plumbing smells, so we dried them out, redid some of the floors. It's like a new building after we get done with it.
NEUMANN: One of the current residents, Julie Bowman, also remembers there were a lot of shady characters when she moved in.
JULIE BOWMAN: One lady was selling drugs out of her back window. These people were literally using this for a drive-through. And they would walk by her window, and she would hand it out. This was going on all night.
MORALES: Back when she leased the motel, Lori Barlow painted the phrase ANEW Living Community below the old neon sign. A lot of the residents are making a new go of it.
NEUMANN: She provides a computer room and a list of community resources. They have two years to pull their lives together.
MORALES: Tomorrow, we'll report on how they're trying to make the near-impossible leap from shelter to home. For NPR News, I'm Laura Morales.
NEUMANN: And I'm Mark Neumann in Flagstaff.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to start the program today taking another look at the new epidemic that's getting the attention of world health authorities. It's the Zika virus; it's known to be spread by mosquitoes and it may be linked to serious birth defects as well as a disease that causes temporary paralysis. On Friday, President Obama and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff agreed to work together to develop a vaccine and ways to control the virus - that according to the White House. So far more than 20 countries are affected, including the U.S. because of its Caribbean territory, Puerto Rico. This week, Puerto Rico reported 19 confirmed cases. So we called the commonwealth's epidemiologist, Dr. Brenda Rivera-Garcia, to find out about how things are going. And I started by asking her to describe the severity of the situation.
BRENDA RIVERA-GARCIA: Well, as far as severity, only two have reported hospitalization, and one was an individual greater than 75-years-old. The other was a pediatric hospitalization, and the individual had other signs and symptoms consistent with other diseases that required that hospitalization.
MARTIN: Do you recall when Zika first got on your radar screen?
RIVERA-GARCIA: Very vividly - it has only been two years, barely. When Zika hit, it hit the major metropolitan areas and it spread really quickly. And within basically two months we had positive cases in at least every municipality of the island. And so far, we have been fortunate in a sense that we've just come out of a severe drought. So there's very, very little vector activity at this moment. However, we're starting to see a little bit of more rain, and this situation might quickly change.
MARTIN: Are you confident that the means exist to control the spread of the mosquitoes in Puerto Rico? I mean, I think it's now known that there have been financial difficulties, you know, on the island.
RIVERA-GARCIA: Yeah. And we need to remember, some of the efforts that are more visible - and might present some calming influence on the citizenship - basically our spraying - and we know that the residual spraying is not an effective mode of vector control long-term. The most effective way is actually being able to get rid of any potential breeding sites, any garbage or materials that accumulate on the sides of the roads or near community centers. It's being done, and it's being done mostly by the municipalities at a very local level. And the key issue for us, at the state level, is to make sure that we have enough resources to do surveillance and to follow the spread of the disease and follow those potentially-infected pregnant women.
MARTIN: Have any pregnant women been affected so far to your knowledge? Are any of the 19 confirmed cases pregnant women?
RIVERA-GARCIA: Right. Of the 19 confirmed cases, approximately 58 percent are women. However, not all of them are of childbearing age. And none of them, at this time, are pregnant.
MARTIN: I'm sure you're aware that a number of governments are encouraging women of childbearing age not to get pregnant or to delay pregnancy for at least a couple of months. And in the case of El Salvador, they're saying until 2018. Do you mind if I ask you what is your take on that?
RIVERA-GARCIA: Right. Well, I guess it all depends - what are the resources available? In Puerto Rico, we're not ordering or requesting or making a strong recommendation to avoid pregnancy. However, if there are women who do have other risk factors for having a child with microcephaly, then - you should then seriously consider this.
MARTIN: That's Dr. Brenda Rivera-Garcia. She is the territorial epidemiologist with the Department of Health in Puerto Rico, and we reached her there. Dr. Rivera-Garcia, thank you so much for speaking with us.
RIVERA-GARCIA: Oh, no problem, my pleasure.
MARTIN: I hope we can stay in touch on this.
RIVERA-GARCIA: Certainly.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
As we mentioned earlier, Brazil and the U.S. are starting work together on a vaccine. So let's talk more about the impact on Brazil, where the spread of Zika is forcing families to make heart-wrenching decisions about whether to have children. NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro reports from a clinic that is trying to help.
LOURDES GARCIA-NAVARRO, BYLINE: At the Genesis Clinic in Salvador, they're normally in the business of getting women pregnant. But this fertility clinic now finds itself advising its patients to put off conceiving.
BELA ZAUSNER: We have embryos. We have eggs.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Dr. Bela Zausner is the director, and she points at canisters of nitrogen where both embryos and eggs are in a deep freeze.
ZAUSNER: We do have to postpone, and that's what we do here at our clinic.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Women who are waiting to do fertility treatment are now being offered the option to freeze their eggs or an embryo at no additional cost because of the new guidelines after the Zika outbreak. Thirty-eight-year-old lawyer Nina Feitosa has been trying to conceive for a while now, and she finally thought her dream was about to come true. But now she says she's putting off her pregnancy.
NINA FEITOSA: (Speaking Portuguese).
GARCIA-NAVARRO: "I am afraid," she says. "It's something that could have grave consequences. I could have a child with severe disabilities, which no one wants to have happen," she says.
FEITOSA: (Speaking Portuguese).
GARCIA-NAVARRO: She tears up.
You seem upset about this.
FEITOSA: (Speaking Portuguese).
GARCIA-NAVARRO: "I have been chasing a dream," she tells me. "But it's better to wait," she says. She says she knows many other women who are making the same choice. "This feels like it has taken away our right to have a child," she says. "And even if we got pregnant," she says, "it would be nine months of tension, apprehension, where we're wondering if the child is going to be OK. We are living in a moment," she says, "where things feel out of our control."
FEITOSA: (Speaking Portuguese).
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Women's fertility has always been a battleground. And while some are fighting to have a child here, others want to be able to terminate a pregnancy. In much of Latin America, abortion is illegal, and Brazil is no exception. There are only three cases in which termination is allowed here - rape, danger to the mother and a rare disorder where the child is unlikely to survive outside the womb. The pro-abortion movement hasn't been able to get much traction on the issue, and they're hoping the debate around the suspected cases of Zika-related microcephaly will change that. Debora Diniz is a law professor and activist. She and other pro-abortion groups are going to petition the Brazilian Supreme Court.
DEBORA DINIZ: So what we're going to ask - that as that of the government responsibility, women might have the right to decide if they want to keep pregnancy or perform an abortion.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Activists across the region note that pregnancy in Latin America is often unplanned. There are high levels of sexual violence, and many women don't have access to birth control. Poor women, often black, are the ones who've been overwhelmingly affected so far in Brazil by the microcephaly spike. So activists say the petition will also demand access to contraception and early testing in order to protect poor women's rights.
DINIZ: So the epidemic has a class; it has color.
GARCIA-NAVARRO: Their case will be presented in the next few weeks. Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, NPR News, Salvador.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We want to spend a few more minutes on Politics. And you cannot have missed, unless you were seriously committed to not paying attention, that the big political and journalism story of the last week was that Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner, bypassed the last debate before the Iowa caucuses because he objected to the participation of moderator Megyn Kelly as well a press release defending her, apparently authored by Fox president Roger Ailes. Beyond the Trump tantrum, we wondered if this had something bigger to say about the state of the media and politics and how politics is practiced today. So to talk about all this, we've called our media panel back together. With us today is Ryan Grim, Washington bureau chief for The Huffington Post. Welcome back, thanks for coming.
RYAN GRIM: Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: And NPR's own editorial director Michael Oreskes. He's the senior vice president of news. Thanks so much for walking down the hall, Michael.
MICHAEL ORESKES, BYLINE: Great to be here in your studio.
MARTIN: Also back with us, David Brody. He's the chief political correspondent for CBN News. That's the Christian Broadcasting Network. He joins us from Iowa Public Radio in Des Moines. David Brody, good to talk with you again.
DAVID BRODY: Michel, always a pleasure.
MARTIN: So let me start off by getting your take on just the whole question from the media standpoint. Why was Donald Trump's decision not to participate in the Fox debate such a big deal?
GRIM: Well, it's not done. You know, these are party-sanctioned debates. This is a presidential election, you show up at the debates. These are the rules. We have a series of unwritten rules of how campaigns are run, and everybody has followed those rules consistently over the decades. And no one has really even seriously thought about breaking them.
MARTIN: David, what about you? Was it a big story for you as well?
BRODY: Well, it was. Ryan makes an interesting point. He calls it unwritten rules, and that's exactly right. I mean, Donald Trump is rewriting those rules. And I think that's what's frustrating a lot of folks, not just in the media but, you know, Donald Trump marches to the beat of his own drum. Is it a risk? Yes. But you know what? At this point, he's undefeated.
MARTIN: Mike, let me ask you about - there was a two-part issue to Trump's decision that he said. One was he said he didn't think Megyn Kelly had been fair to him. But he also talked about Fox's response to this. And multiple sources have said that this was authored by Roger Ailes himself. He said, we learned from a secret back channel that the ayatollah and Putin both intend to treat Donald Trump unfairly when they meet with him if he becomes president. A nefarious source tells us that Trump has his own secret plan to replace the cabinet with his Twitter followers to see if he should even go to those meetings. Was that an appropriate response? Because for a lot of people, this is a serious issue for a candidate to decide who is allowed to ask him questions.
ORESKES: I would separate it into two things. It is absolutely appropriate for the news organization to stand up for their journalist. And in that, Roger and I would be indivisible. In that sense, that response was totally appropriate. It used a lot of language that sounded more like a political consultant then a head of a news organization. And that's a judgment that I would not recommend that tone if you're representing a news organization.
MARTIN: So back to you, Ryan Grim. This past week, The Huffington Post made a new change in the way you cover Trump. You just started including a note at the bottom of every political story on Trump that reads, "note to our readers - Donald Trump is a serial liar, rampant xenophobe, racist, misogynist, birther and bully who was repeatedly pledged to ban all Muslims - 1.6 million members of an entire religion - from entering the U.S.," unquote. What's that about?
GRIM: Well, the thinking there is that we write an awful lot of stories about Donald Trump. And you can't pack everything into every single story. And so we settled on this. We said well, let's have some boilerplate language that accurately describes the candidate that we're talking about. If readers are unfamiliar, here are the descriptions of his behavior and here are the links to that behavior that is described.
MARTIN: I mean, I see - you see it as context.
GRIM: Right.
MARTIN: Because I think other people would see it is editorializing...
GRIM: Sure.
MARTIN: ...Or name-calling.
GRIM: Sure. I - it is describing a phenomenon. But then we link to the evidence to back up why we think it is this. But I do think there is a strange idea that the media has that if you tell the public what you think, they can no longer think for themselves.
MARTIN: Let me bring David Brody back here. David Brody, you've interviewed Donald Trump a number of times. Can I ask you a tough question, though?
BRODY: Sure.
MARTIN: I mean, one of the reasons I think that Donald Trump has been a popular figure, he's very available to the media. But he also has a reputation for and has a history of attacking people when he thinks they're not sufficiently deferential to him. I think that's clear. So do you feel that you have to be somewhat deferential to him in order to maintain that access?
BRODY: No, not at all. I would say though that my philosophy and why we've scored a lot of big interviews is because I think you get more with honey than vinegar. And so, you know, a lot of people have this mentality where you have to ask the really, really tough questions. And - but what happens is they actually tighten up, and they don't give you what you want. Instead, I'll ask the same question that others will ask of candidates. The difference is I'll do it in a bless-your-heart sort of way. You know, in the South when they say, you know, you look horrible in that dress, bless your heart. And it sounds nice, but actually it's trying to get the same result.
MARTIN: So let's talk to the whole question of what the result is of this last week and what your assessment of this is. Did Trump win this one or not?
GRIM: I think he did. And you have to also put in context that we're a couple days out from Iowa. So the debates that this one is competing against are much earlier in the season, when you presume that tension would be much dimmer.
MARTIN: David Brody, do you have an opinion about that?
BRODY: Yeah, I 100 percent agree. I would just add also it played to Donald Trump's brand, which is, you know, strength. I'm going to do things on my terms. And, you know, I think a lot of this - and this has a media component to it for sure - is that they've tried to control Donald Trump. And he hasn't been able - you know, he's not going to play that game.
MARTIN: Mike Oreskes, I too want to ask about the bigger question here that this really speaks to the weakness of the media and really the political organizations...
ORESKES: Right.
MARTIN: ...At this moment in history.
ORESKES: Right.
MARTIN: Do you feel that way, and if so why?
ORESKES: I do. I mean, I think you see both CNN and Fox commercializing these events and using them to drive their own audiences, which is fine from their business point of view. But I don't know that that's the best thing for either journalism or for the country. I actually would like to see debates in the primaries treated the way the presidential debates are treated, which is take them out of the hands of the journalists. I don't really think we need to be running those things.
MARTIN: So how should they hear from the candidates? I want to note at this point that Ted Cruz is trying to have a one-on-one debate with Donald Trump.
ORESKES: Yeah.
MARTIN: I don't know that journalists would be even involved in that. Does this signal kind of the beginning of the end of journalistic influence over these debates? Ryan.
GRIM: I do think whatever the short-term gain for Trump might've been by skipping the Fox debate, it was also kind of - it could become a landmark moment. He has now showed the media that he doesn't need them and that he has the people behind him. You know, if that evolves in certain ways, it could be quite dangerous.
MARTIN: That was Ryan Grim, Washington bureau chief for The Huffington Post. David Brody is chief political correspondent for Christian Broadcasting Network. He joined us from Iowa Public Radio in Des Moines and NPR's own editorial director Michael Oreskes, who's here with us. He's also senior vice president of news. Thank you all so much for speaking with us.
ORESKES: Thank you, Michel.
GRIM: Thanks for having me.
BRODY: Michel, a pleasure.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now it's time for our trip to the Barbershop. That's where we gather a group of interesting folks to talk about what's in the news and what's on our minds. Sitting in the chairs for a shapeup this weekend are Kara Brown. She's a blogger and writer and joins us from NPR's Culver City studios at NPR West. Hi, Kara.
KARA BROWN: Hi.
MARTIN: And here with me in Washington, D.C., Farajii Muhammad. He's the host of the radio show Listen Up! in Baltimore. Welcome back, Farajii.
FARAJII MUHAMMAD, BYLINE: Thank you.
MARTIN: Also with us, Danielle Belton, an editor at The Root. Good to have you back, too, Danielle.
DANIELLE BELTON: It's always good to be here.
MARTIN: And especially because after the storm, we all have cabin fever, right?
(LAUGHTER)
BELTON: I got me out of the house.
MARTIN: Got out of the house, thank you. All right, so big news out of the Sundance Film Festival this week - the film "The Birth Of A Nation" - we're not talking about that old 1951 that glorified the KKK. This is a new movie by the actor and the filmmaker Nate Parker. It's about Nat Turner's 1831 slave rebellion. The film made history this week for being the biggest Sundance deal of all time. It was sold to Fox Searchlight for $17.5 million. Now, most of us aren't going to be able to see it for many months. But just that dollar figure has gotten a lot of people anticipating the release. And Kara, you know I'm going to start with you...
BROWN: Yeah (laughter).
MARTIN: ...Because you wrote this use for Jezebel that got a lot of people talking.
BROWN: Yeah.
MARTIN: And the title is "I'm So Damn Tired Of Slave Movies."
BROWN: Yeah.
MARTIN: So why, and does that mean you're not going to see it?
BROWN: No, I am definitely going to see "The Birth Of A Nation." And, you know, I want to preface, I'm really happy for Nate Parker. I'm really glad that this film is getting made and that it's getting the attention that I'm sure it deserves. The thing that I find just sort of exhausting is that almost every time you have a film with mostly black people that's lauded sort of by a more general - i.e. white - audience, it oftentimes is a movie about slavery or the civil rights movement. And so it's not that I don't want those films to be made, but I do think that there's a problem when those are the types of films with black people that are considered, quote, unquote "important" or "good." And, you know, I'm very excited for this film, but I would also be happy with perhaps giving other stories a chance to shine and to get the audiences that this film I'm sure we'll get.
MARTIN: But OK, let me just push on this for just a second, Kara, because, you know, you make the point that part of it is so disturbing. Why is it that what - you know, an important film has to be kind of founded on black people being brutalized.
BROWN: Yeah.
MARTIN: Isn't that kind of what a serious film is?
BROWN: I don't think so. And I think when you look at the breadth of movies with white people, they don't all fall in that category. Jennifer Lawrence won for "Silver Linings Playbook," which is about two people ballroom dancing. Generally, white people get a wider representation of who they are and their lives and things that they're interested in and things that they've gone through than black people do on film, in particular with these films that sort of go down in film canon as being important movies.
MARTIN: Let's hear from some other folks on this. Danielle, what do you think about this? Because I was thinking about this, have there really been that many slave movies?
BELTON: Well, I don't think there actually has been that many. I mean, if you're talking about it just in recent years, you have "Django Unchained," which was like a complete fantasy. You know, it was like a Western. It was a cartoon, practically. And then you had "12 Years A Slave," which was very serious. I think the real issue is - is that there are just so few black movies that come out. I mean, there's more Tyler Perry movies than slavery movies, and people get equally sick of those because there just isn't enough variety. There isn't just enough wide a scope of black films looking at every different facet of black life in the same way you see films about white life.
MARTIN: Are you going to go?
BELTON: Oh, I'm totally going to go see it.
MARTIN: Yeah? Farajii, what do you think?
MUHAMMAD: Definitely going to go see it. But here's the thing - you know, I feel like some of these movies - you know, I understand that there is this kind of, like, exhausting feel with it. But these movies are necessary because they continue to keep the conversation out there, especially a movie about Nat Turner, I mean, who was a rebellion leader. You know, when you have a black man producing...
MARTIN: And vilified - vilified throughout history...
MUHAMMAD: Exactly. So that's going to really change the conversation for a lot of black children I think and certainly for black people because one of the things is that our context of race is slowly diminishing. We - you know, the Black Lives Matter movement and all of the things that we see with social justice, it seems as if that this is still - race in America is still something that we want to kind of whitewash away. And when I think of, like, "Birth Of A Nation," I mean, juxtapose that to, you know, there's this larger cry for confederate statues and all of these other symbols of what has happened in America in the past to be removed. And - you know, and if it's not present, if it's not in your face, it's going to be forgotten.
MARTIN: Can I ask you about Kara's other point though in her piece, which I think was that, you know, there's something traumatic about this, about having to experience this. And there's this - it's traumatic for the actors. It's traumatic for the audience. And does it really - does it really actually accomplish, Farajii, what you're suggesting that it does, which is helping really people understand this and put it in its proper context?
MUHAMMAD: I think so. I mean, I think that if it's not traumatic - you know, what made "12 Years A Slave" such a major film was the fact that it was brutal. It was traumatic. It was in your face, and it constantly showed that look, these things truly happened. And I think - you know, I saw - I read Kara's piece, and I enjoyed it. And I feel, like, you know, I understand, but at the end of the day, we need to constantly put pieces out like this. And it's going to be very important to see - or at it's going to be interesting to see how Nate Parker's take on it is going to be.
MARTIN: All right, hang on, wait to see when it comes out, maybe we'll revisit this and see whether people feel differently...
MUHAMMAD: Definitely.
MARTIN: ...Once people have a chance to see the movie. So Kara, thanks for writing that piece and kind of raising this issue, but let's move on. The next week - next weekend is the Super Bowl, the matchup this year between the Denver Broncos and the Carolina Panthers. But it turns out that there are people having feelings about Panthers quarterback Cam Newton. You might remember that earlier this year, there was this mom who wrote this open letter complaining about his...
BELTON: She was so scandalized.
MARTIN: ...Touchdown dance.
MUHAMMAD: Oh, my God, come on.
MARTIN: And it turns out - it seems like - you know, his personality seems to rub some people the wrong way. And he is suggesting that this is because he's an African-American quarterback. Now, he's certainly not the first. He's - what? - the sixth...
MUHAMMAD: The sixth in NFL history.
MARTIN: But what do you think about that, Farajii?
MUHAMMAD: I think that, you know, when the game came down to the Panthers and the Broncos, I automatically knew it was going to be, like, old-school versus new school.
MARTIN: So you don't think this is race?
MUHAMMAD: Now, this is race because this is, like, the "King Kong" effect. They're creating this view of Cam Newton as they see this big scary black creature that's going to just demolish or take advantage of this humble meek Peyton Manning. You know, retired player Brian Urlacher said that Cam Newton needed to be a little bit more humble like Peyton. Man, shut up, get out of here. Be for real. Like, this is football. It's bold. It's in your face. It's loud.
MARTIN: I sure hope we can get Farajii to come out of his shell some day...
BELTON: I know...
MARTIN: ...Tell us how he really feels. I just - I just feel like if we could just loosen him up a little bit, it would be so helpful. Kara, do you want to weigh in on this? What do you think?
BROWN: Yeah. Well, you know, speaking of the Seahawks, I'm a Seahawks fan. I'm from Seattle, and it really reminds me of a few years ago with Richard Sherman, where...
MUHAMMAD: Right.
BROWN: ...You had very similar criticism, very similar language that was leveled against him. And there was an interview with him recently, I think, where he was asked about Cam Newton. And he said something like this is a game. And I just thought...
MUHAMMAD: Thank you.
BROWN: ...That was so perfect. This is a game. These are grown men playing a game. And to act like there's some sort of gentlemanly decorum that is necessary at all times is just silly. Like, let him celebrate. He won a game.
MARTIN: I always think that's so funny. Like, people are mad at him for dancing in the end zone. But it's OK when you knock somebody unconscious - that's, like, OK.
BELTON: Right.
BROWN: (Laughter).
MARTIN: Final thing I wanted to run by all of you is that speaking of the Super Bowl, if you're not tuning in for the game, then you'll surely tune in for the halftime show. And this year, it's going to feature Coldplay and Beyonce. And this week, the duo released a music video called "Hymn For The Weekend." I'll just play a little bit of it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HYMN FOR THE WEEKEND")
COLDPLAY FT. BEYONCE: (Singing) Put your wings on me, wings on me when I was so heavy. Soaring in symphony when I am low, low, low, low. I, oh I, oh I. got me feeling drunk and high. So high, so high...
MARTIN: OK, so what you can't tell from our playing it for you is that the video is set in India, and it features Chris Martin, the Coldplay frontman, singing through lots of scenes - you know, he's in a cab in Mumbai, he's watching kids cannonball into the Ganges. He's running through clouds of colored powder. And then Beyonce has a separate kind of location. She sings the hook, but she's kind of dressed in this lavish Bollywood-inspired gown and headdress. And people were loving it. But then it seemed like there was this - as it percolated onto the Internet, there was this whole issue around cultural appropriation. And so I wanted to ask, you know, what you all think about that. Danielle, you want to start that one?
BELTON: Well, the thing that kind of kills me about the video, it hits, like, every note of, like, this is a video about India. Look, there's color, there's spirituality, look - you know, they hit all these, like, very stereotypical notes. The only thing that was missing was an elephant.
MARTIN: Kara, what do you think?
BROWN: Yeah, you know, I saw - definitely when I first that, I was like ooh, not a good look, Beyonce. That was definitely the first thing I thought. I would want to defer to someone who's actually Indian. And I saw some people tweeting, some Indian women. And they were saying something similar, where they said, you know, this is definitely a conversation to be had about what Beyonce's doing. They - a few of them that I saw said that they don't feel the same impact as when they see maybe a white person doing it. So I would want to differ to that.
MARTIN: But why wouldn't you just not watch it? You see, that's the question I have.
MUHAMMAD: Because it's Beyonce.
BROWN: It's hard to not watch to a Beyonce...
MUHAMMAD: It's Beyonce.
BROWN: How do you not watch a Beyonce video? Come on.
MARTIN: She's the only thing watchable about that, as far as I'm concerned.
MUHAMMAD: Right, it's visually appealing.
MARTIN: Yeah, it's a beautiful video.
MUHAMMAD: The song is just not as strong.
BROWN: It's Coldplay, so there's, you know...
BELTON: The song's kind of weak. She did all she could to help that song.
MUHAMMAD: Right, right.
BROWN: Yeah.
MARTIN: All right, well, I - you've given us a lot to think about. That's all the time we have for the Barbershop this week with Farajii Muhammad, Kara Brown and Danielle Belton. Thank you all so much for joining us.
BROWN: Thank you.
BELTON: Oh, it's no problem.
MUHAMMAD: Thank you.
BELTON: Thank you for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Over the past 25 years, there has been no bigger name in gospel music than Kirk Franklin, and there have been few who have inspired more controversy, in part because he has merged hip-pop with gospel and brought the stars and the sounds of the club scene into the church.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STOMP")
KIRK FRANKLIN: For those of you that think that gospel music has gone too far, you think we've gotten too radical with our message. Well, I've got news for you. You ain't heard nothing yet. And if you don't know, now you know.
MARTIN: As you might imagine, not everybody has been comfortable with that, but Kirk Franklin continues to challenge us with his latest album. It is titled "Losing My Religion," and Kirk Franklin is with us now. He's in Dallas. Kirk Franklin, thank you so much for speaking with us. Welcome.
FRANKLIN: What's going on man? It's just an honor to talk to you.
MARTIN: Well, thank you so much. Thank you...
FRANKLIN: ...It is. Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: So we have to get right to the title track. It is a spoken word piece, and we must talk about it. So let's give people a little taste of it. For those who have not yet heard it, here it is.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LOSING MY RELIGION")
FRANKLIN: In the beginning, religion created a mask. The Reformation helped, but soon the patch didn't last. I don't tell, you don't ask. So we created a lie and for generations, church was where we went to go hide or we no longer tried because rules read our relationship is empty inside.
MARTIN: And it goes on, and it concludes with...
FRANKLIN: ...And on and on and on and on...
MARTIN: ...It concludes with I'm losing my religion. Thank God. Helping you lose yours is my job. Whoa. What was the inspiration? What's your message here?
FRANKLIN: Yeah, well, you know, I feel that the pursuit of trying to know who God is and trying to be known by God can be lost in religion because religion, all that it is is man's attempt to try to put a definition on something that is very hard to define. We haven't seen God with the physical eye, so we're trying to understand him sometimes from an academic approach, from a scientific approach, from a literal approach. But we end up missing the incredible story of God made man, man rejected God and God won't stop chasing man until he wins him back. And religion can create so much of a cloud to that simple story that people don't want to know God. They see God as someone with a big belt that's going to whoop (ph) you every time you do wrong.
MARTIN: Really - I mean, for centuries, people have been debating this question or arguing whether our structures get in the way of our faith. And yet, there are some very contemporary and present-day issues in this piece. For example, you say every Sunday we're divided. Who's black, who's white?
FRANKLIN: Now, the man in the mirror never gets race right. He'll never be Christ-like, never receive good pay, so your fate never rises above minimum wage. So when it's time to save the world, you don't know what to say to your brother that you love when he tells you he's gay. Do you push him away? Judge him down 'til he leaves? Give him a gospel he hears or a gospel he sees?
MARTIN: How are your fans hearing this, because I'm imagining people might hear this in different ways. I'm imagining many people would hear this as a call for more appreciation and tolerance of people in same-gender loving relationships, which is, as you know, not necessarily the position that many Christians take.
FRANKLIN: I believe that people hear based on their compass. Their compass is based on where it's already preset. For example, like, I have four children. And all four of my children have sat at my dinner table all their lives. And I have two older children who responded different to the food I put on the table because one thing I can't put inside of my children is appetite. They have to come to the table hungry. And based on what people's hunger is, it's going to be based on their translation. And I think it's created dialogue. I think it's opened up conversation. I think people have started to talk and people are starting to talk about what religion is to them. And if I have done anything else but create a climate of conversation, I hope I've done my job.
MARTIN: I'm speaking with Kirk Franklin. His latest album is "Losing My Religion," which is a spoken word piece. But it's - that's the only spoken word - there's a lot of music on the album. I just want to play a little bit from "True Story," which is a piece that just really struck me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TRUE STORY")
FRANKLIN: (Singing) True story.
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) Since last August, no job in sight. He's now across the water, another war to fight. He's made a lot of mistakes, but he wants to make things right when he comes back home from battle. Another boy got shot last night.
FRANKLIN: (Singing) He said...
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) ...Lord, please help me, I'm lost. Don't leave. I've tried and tried, but this one thing.
FRANKLIN: First of all, that sounds so good.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: Well, I'm glad you enjoyed it.
FRANKLIN: That sounds so good in my headphones, man. I love it, man.
MARTIN: You know why? I must tell you, I listened to this several times and there's no easy answers in it. It's very much - it's such a cliche, you know, taken from the headlines but, you know, traditionally many people think of gospel music as comforting, right? It's something that gives you comfort in a time of pain and tells you everything's going to be all right. This song really doesn't do that.
FRANKLIN: No, no, no. You know, when you read stories in the Bible - you know, Samson, the story of David or the story of Moses - you know, there's conflict on the way to the victory. When you have this very vanilla-type faith presentation of, you know, everybody smiling like they just got their teeth cleaned and (laughter) you know, that's not where real people live. Real people live with, you know, being Christians with cancer, Christians with AIDS, and Christians coming back home with limbs missing from war, and Christians being evicted, and Christians losing their homes. And if you don't paint that picture, too, then I think that you are misrepresenting what the faith really can look like. The faith is not always sunny days. And if we don't do that, then I think that we are selling the wrong message.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "1-2-3 VICTORY")
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) Hey, y'all, 1, 2, 3.
MARTIN: That is Kirk Franklin. His latest album is called "Losing My Religion," and we're going to go out on "1-2-3 Victory." Kirk Franklin, thank you so much for speaking with us.
FRANKLIN: No, thank you for this opportunity.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "1-2-3 VICTORY")
FRANKLIN: (Singing) I just got laid off.
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) I'm doing good.
FRANKLIN: (Singing) House ain't even paid off.
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) I'm doing good.
FRANKLIN: (Singing) Should be afraid, but -
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) I'm feeling good
FRANKLIN: (Singing) All the time you say -
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) God is good.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now to another harrowing story about fertility, this one from the 1960s and '70s Los Angeles. The first moments after the birth of a child are often the most intense of a mother's life. There's joy, but there can also be pain, exhaustion and confusion. It was in this vulnerable time that 10 women in Los Angeles say hospital officials forced or deceived them into getting sterilized, and they sued them for it. The new documentary "No Mas Bebes" examines their story. It premieres tomorrow night on PBS. From NPR's Code Switch team, Shereen Marisol Meraji has more.
SHEREEN MARISOL MERAJI, BYLINE: After an emergency C-section at LA County Hospital, Consuelo Hermosillo got some unexpected news.
CONSUELO HERMOSILLO: The doctor walked in and said everything went fine. And I said, what am I going to use? Am I going to use birth control? He goes no, you don't need anything. We cut your tubes. And I said why? He goes well, you signed for it. I said, me?
MERAJI: In "No Mas Bebes," Hermosillo recalls the doctor's visit that took place after she gave birth to her third child. She was in her early 20s, and it was September of 1973. Two years later, Hermosillo took part in a class-action lawsuit with nine other women who all claimed they were sterilized without their informed consent at LA County Hospital. All 10 plaintiffs were Mexican immigrants and poor or working-class, and they had similar stories. They had emergency C-sections, were given medication for excruciating labor pain and they say they couldn't remember signing the consent form, they were confused about what they were signing or they were coerced into signing. Most spoke very little English.
MELVINA HERNANDEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
MERAJI: At 23 years old, Melvina Hernandez was rushed into a C-section at LA County Hospital because her baby was breech. She says a nurse told her in English that she needed to sign this paper now. Hernandez wanted to wait for her husband, but the nurse told her if she didn't sign, they couldn't operate and she'd die.
HERNANDEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
MERAJI: Hernandez says the nurse grabbed her hand and signed the paper for her. Four years later, she found out it was for a tubal ligation. Consuelo Hermosillo says she's spent years trying to understand why this happened to them.
HERMOSILLO: Were they doing it for not supporting these kids in the future, or were they getting money at the hospital for doing more sterilization? I always kept those questions in me. I never get those answers.
MERAJI: Two women set out to find those answers in "No Mas Bebes."
RENEE TAJIMA-PENA: I'm Renee Tajima-Pena, filmmaker and the director and co-producer of the film.
VIRGINIA ESPINO: I'm Virginia Espino. I'm a historian on and a co-producer of the film.
MERAJI: Espino and Tajima-Pena are LA natives, neighbors, longtime friends and colleagues. Espino learned about the sterilizations in graduate school studying Chicana history.
ESPINO: I grew up in northeast Los Angeles, very close to the LA County Hospital. So I was really shocked to hear that women were being sterilized there in the 1970s, a time when I was coming of age.
MERAJI: So horrified by the story, she devoted her studies to tracing the history behind it and would talk about it with Tajima-Pena when they were both new moms.
TAJIMA-PENA: I was in baby bliss, and I thought oh, this so profound. And it's all those cliches you think about motherhood. And she told me about these women, you know, who were sterilized without their consent, against their will. And I was floored.
MERAJI: About a decade after those initial conversations, the two started production on "No Mas Bebes." That meant finding the plaintiffs and defendants, all of whom hadn't spoken about the case publicly in 35 years. Tajima-Pena said those willing to talk - both the women who were sterilized and the doctors who performed the sterilizations - all men - echoed their court testimony. The women still claim they never gave informed consent. And the doctors, like Jerry Neuman, still maintained their innocence.
JERRY NEUMAN: I knew personally I had not done anything. I could not for the life of me think of any of my colleagues who would have deliberately done this. We busted our - in order to provide care for a lot of people and got sued for it.
TAJIMA-PENA: The easiest thing to do is make a film about the good guys and the bad guys, the heroes and the villains.
MERAJI: Tajima-Pena says that "No Mas Bebes" goes beyond that simple narrative. She says the answers to plaintiff Consuelo Hermosillo's questions are complicated. In 1970, Congress allocated millions for family planning. The money went to training, contraceptives and sterilizations. At the same time, mainstream white feminists were calling for stabilization on-demand while another popular movement, the zero population movement, supported sterilization as a way to combat overpopulation, which they claimed was destroying the planet. And that's not all.
TAJIMA-PENA: You have attitudes about immigrants, hostility towards immigrants, this fear that poor women and working-class women are going to be having children and going on welfare. You had these cultural differences. You have all these things going on. And as a filmmaker, you kind of have to dig deeper beneath the surface and kind of look at those complexities.
MERAJI: For co-producer and historian Espino, it was important to provide as much historical context as possible.
ESPINO: So that everybody's thinking critically about it and coming to their own conclusions about what does that really mean when you talk about reproductive justice, reproductive rights, reproductive choice?
MERAJI: Espino says we talk a lot about the choice not to have kids, but what about the choice to have them? Consuelo Hermosillo says that decision was taken away from her.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY FILM, "NO MAS BEBES")
HERMOSILLO: (Singing in Spanish).
MERAJI: In one of the film's final scenes, Hermosillo is giving her baby granddaughter a bottle and reflecting on her hopes for the future.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY FILM, "NO MAS BEBES")
HERMOSILLO: I want her to have liberty on doing what she wants, going to school wherever she wants, decides how many kids she wants.
MERAJI: The filmmakers say "No Mas Bebes" documents a history that continues to repeat itself. They point to the nearly 150 women sterilized in California prisons between 2006 and 2010 as a recent example. Shereen Marisol Meraji, NPR News.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now it's time once again for Words You'll Hear. That's where we try to understand stories we'll be hearing more about by parsing some of the words associated with those stories. And two words we think we might hear this week are full employment. And the reason is that later this week, the Labor Department will release the latest jobs data. That's expected to show that employers added even more workers in January. So this week, full employment is a phrase that economists use to explain how the job market recovers from a recession. But NPR's senior business editor, Marilyn Geewax, is here to tell us why full employment doesn't tell the full story for millions of Americans who are still out of work or people looking for something better than part-time work. Marilyn, thanks so much for joining us.
MARILYN GEEWAX, BYLINE: Hi, Michel. It's good to be with you.
MARTIN: So what is full employment?
GEEWAX: Well, that phrase basically means that the number of people seeking jobs is in balance with the number of job openings. So it doesn't mean that unemployment is zero - that's never realistic - but you can get pretty low.
MARTIN: So if economists don't mean zero unemployment when they use the phrase full employment, what do they mean?
GEEWAX: (Laughter) So - well, in their math, it's about 4.6 to 5 percent because that's where you have churn in the market. Some people are quitting, some people are getting hired. But there's churn, but not despair. And in December, we saw the national rate was 5 percent, and a lot of predictions are that it'll be 4.6 percent by the middle of the year. So bingo, we're there.
MARTIN: But does that mean that most people who want a job can get one? In fact, we've already seen stories, for example, in the media about how certain workers are still having a really difficult time finding a job. Like minority teenagers, for example - the unemployment rate is quite high. Women over a certain age, the unemployment rate is still quite high. Is it really fair to use the term full employment when that doesn't really seem to match the reality that a lot of people are experiencing?
GEEWAX: Those words can hit hard, and they can hurt because it sounds like well, you're - you must be doing something wrong. But really, unemployment is very regional. In West Virginia, I looked at some statistics, there are counties where the unemployment rate is 13 percent. That's Depression level. You know, and meanwhile in California's Silicon Valley, there's virtually no unemployment. And as you say, you point out that the difference is based on age - black teenagers, unemployment rate is 21 percent. For women of any color, if you're over 50, studies show you have a tough time getting back into the workforce. You become long-term unemployed. It can take months, years. And besides age and location, more than anything, education determines your unemployment rate. For college graduates, it's 2.3 percent unemployment. For high school dropouts, 7 percent. So that's a huge difference.
MARTIN: So before we let you go, is what economists now call full employment something that a lot of Americans are going to still experience as something very unsatisfying?
GEEWAX: Right, exactly. The jobs (laughter) you know, if you're a 30-year-old with a college degree and a U-Haul, you are all set. You can find jobs. If you want to go to night school and you want to move, you can be part of that full employment economy. But the reality for a lot of people is that's very hard, especially women in their 50s. They tend to be at the center of kind of an ecosystem financially, emotionally, where they have aging parents depending on them, children depending on them, grandchildren. So it's tough to move, and that's why it hurts to hear those words like full employment.
MARTIN: That's NPR senior business editor Marilyn Geewax. Marilyn, thanks so much.
GEEWAX: Oh, you're welcome, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Of course, being unemployed long-term is a serious challenge, but paying for housing can be a challenge even for people who work, especially in rural areas where the availability can range from limited to nonexistent. Yesterday, we visited the small town of Flagstaff, Ariz., and we met a woman who turned an old 66 Motel into transitional housing. Today, reporters Mark Neumann and Laurel Morales of member station KJZZ take us inside.
LAUREL MORALES, BYLINE: When former financial planner Lori Barlow moved to Flagstaff, she volunteered at the emergency shelter.
MARK NEUMANN, BYLINE: She was overwhelmed by the number of people stuck in poverty.
LORI BARLOW: I was surprised we had people staying there that had jobs. And that just amazed me. You know, what's happening to these people that are trying?
NEUMANN: Barlow now houses about 50 of those people at the old 66 Motel, now called A New Living Community. Many work seasonal jobs or rely on Social Security or disability checks to pay the rent.
MORALES: People like Hans Pap, who moved here from Baltimore after he'd been diagnosed with lung cancer.
HANS PAP: It was one of my dreams to come out West, so I figured before I die I'd at least come out here and see the West.
NEUMANN: Being homeless in Flagstaff was harder than Pap expected. He says there were few places to go to escape the cold.
MORALES: Things are a little better now that he has a key to a room at A New Living Community.
PAP: That's a propane camping stove that I use to cook with, usually hamburger, chicken, cheap stuff. I usually crack that window open a little bit to kind of get some air circulating.
WILLIAM FULTON: Hey, buddy.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: How's it going? When you get a chance, I was going to talk to you about my heater.
NEUMANN: A few doors down, William Fulton is working on the old motel rooms.
MORALES: He's a former engineer with more than three decades of experience. But then he was injured on the job.
FULTON: Just kind of fell into a kind of state of depression and not been able to get steady work.
NEUMANN: At 58, Fulton says many think he's too old.
FULTON: Right after the housing bust, you know, the economy went down. Everybody's just trying to survive, you know? And so I got into the handyman service, and I didn't really like the title handyman because I'm an engineer. You know, I've done so much.
MORALES: Out of work and living in a van, Fulton met Lori Barlow, the woman who founded A New Living Community.
FULTON: So she asked, do you want to come in here and fix these rooms up in exchange for rent to help you back on your feet? I said yeah. (Laughter) So yeah. Sorry, I'm getting choked up.
JULIE BOWMAN: And I broke my back, smashed my face. I flew off a bike at, like, 80 miles an hour, face-first 100 feet. It was really cool.
MORALES: Julie Bowman, whose friends call her Red, crashed a motorcycle 20 years ago. Red's a self-described biker chick who used to be a bartender.
NEUMANN: The accident left her broke, partially deaf and no longer able to lift cases of beer.
MORALES: Now she takes community college courses online.
NEUMANN: Red says everybody at the motel looks after each other.
BOWMAN: That older lady, I - she told me here a couple of days ago that she's usually broke at the end of the month and doesn't have much food. She told me that and I about came unglued. And I've taken her to dinner every single night since she told me that.
MORALES: Red says she was raised that way.
NEUMANN: And she's got a lot of grit.
BOWMAN: All I've ever wanted is a house of my own and not to worry about whether I'm going to pay my electric bill. I see myself not giving up until I get it.
MORALES: That kind of determination is the spirit that drew people to Route 66.
NEUMANN: A lot of people still move along the old mother road and wind up in small towns.
MORALES: Where you can find people may have lost hope before they found each other. For NPR News, I'm Laurel Morales.
NEUMANN: And I'm Mark Neumann in Flagstaff.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Finally today, are you by a window? If so, open it up. What do you hear? Go ahead. If you're in a big city, you're probably getting horns honking, maybe dogs barking, traffic moving, the boom of construction. To most people that's noise, but to Nigerian sound artist Emeka Ogboh, the city is the co-creator of symphonies of sound.
EMEKA OGBOH: You know, there are stories in the soundscape. There are stories from the city. You can tell more about the city from just listening to the soundscape, and that was what happened. I started finding it really interesting.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARTIN: So let's close that window now and listen to how Emeka Ogboh creates compositions that whisk you to another time and place. Ogboh starts with the idea that every city has a unique sonic signature. That's certainly true of the Nigeria mega-city of Lagos, one of Africa's fastest-growing. Ogboh recorded hours of sounds to pull listeners into the bustling open-air market for his new project called Market Symphony. It opens later this week at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art here in Washington, D.C. It's the first time the museum has featured a sound art exhibition. I paid him a visit as he made his final preparations for the show.
Hello, nice to meet you. Gosh, you're taller than I thought. I don't know...
OGBOH: I'm wearing high heels (laughter).
MARTIN: ...And you were supposed to be that tall. OK, that's great - tell us what we're going to hear. What are we hearing?
OGBOH: The ambient sound - it's sound recorded from different markets. But the main market is this market called Balogun Market in Lagos. It's one of the biggest open-air markets in Africa. So you're going to hear, like, voices, vehicles, music. Everything is happening there right?
MARTIN: What are some of the goods that you would find at the market?
OGBOH: Well, you know, you would find everything in this market. But with the hawkers, they are, like, navigating there - like, itinerant around spaces. So they are selling water, handkerchief if you're hot. Like, it's really everything.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Unintelligible).
MARTIN: That's great. What am I hearing now? What are they hawking now?
OGBOH: Gala is like a sausage roll. It's very - it's the most famous sausage roll in Nigeria.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Unintelligible).
MARTIN: What are they saying? Are they saying...
OGBOH: Gala, Gala, Gala...
MARTIN: Gala, Gala, Gala, Gala?
OGBOH: It was really about, like, projecting your voice in a unique nice way so you hear it above all this noise. That's what they do. So because there's a lot of sound happening in the space, the hawkers also want to draw your attention. They find a nice interesting way to call out there's good Gala, Gala, Gala. They pitch their voice, they play with their voices. They also play with what they are saying. It's really about rising above the den (ph), you know?
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Unintelligible).
MARTIN: After spending some time at the exhibit Emeka Ogboh and I stepped away for the den of the market soundscape to find a quiet place to speak, and I ask him he came up with the idea for the project.
OGBOH: It's the heart and soul of many African cities. They're like - everybody goes to the market. So I thought if I want to bring Lagos, that is where you find everybody from different ethnic groups, different languages, different religions all coming together here. It's also, like, this place with this intense energy. There's so much happening at the market, you feel it. If they drop you into this market, you will know you're in somewhere different.
MARTIN: You were quoted as saying "a lot of people would consider Lagos' soundscape as being very noisy, and they call it noise. But I stopped calling it noise since I started listening to it."
OGBOH: Yeah, I realize the city is a composer. The city is making music with the soundscape. The city is putting things together. And the sounds are happening because of the way the city is, so it's no longer noise. Even the power generators that were common when the electricity goes off, a lot of people consider that a nuisance. But if you listen closely, there are different power generations with different sounds. At some point, you realize this is actually like a symphony of electric generators.
MARTIN: (Laughter) A symphony of electric generators?
OGBOH: That's what it is. You know, if you really, like, be aware of it.
MARTIN: How have the sounds or have the sounds of Lagos changed since you've been doing this work?
OGBOH: I'll start with saying in Lagos, there's really no loss of noise. But there's also something I started noticing, like the sound could disappear at some point because Lagos is undergoing a lot of infrastructural changes, right? So you have places where they finish some construction and go, like, no hawking.
MARTIN: No hawking - so you can't sell stuff.
OGBOH: Yeah, you can't sell stuff. And even the horns, too, they put down signs, so the soundscape of the city will change at some point due to these infrastructure developments, yeah.
MARTIN: Has it changed - doing this work kind of changed the way you walk around the world and live in the world?
OGBOH: Yes. I think more in sound these days. I also realize it's also affected my music tastes. I'm listening more to a little bit of electronic music, which has no lyrics per se. It's really about the beats, the rhythm, the tempos. Also, it's changed the way I navigate spaces. I pay attention to what I hear more than what you see.
MARTIN: Emeka Ogboh, thanks so much for speaking with us.
OGBOH: It's a pleasure.
MARTIN: That was Nigerian sound artist Emeka Ogbog. His new exhibition is called "Market Symphony," and it opens this week at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now to political turmoil overseas. Earlier today, Secretary of State John Kerry asked Syria's government and rebels to take advantage of ongoing United Nations peace talks. He's looking for a cease-fire to allow those groups to work together to defeat those affiliated with the Islamic State. Meanwhile, the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS has tightened the noose around the extremists in the last few months. Supply lines and revenue sources have been cut off. The U.S. military says all this is weakening the group militarily. NPR's Alice Fordham reports the move is also hurting civilians in the areas ISIS controls.
ALICE FORDHAM, BYLINE: Approaching a little patch of grass outside a police station, I see half a dozen women with small children sitting on a rug and a haggard-looking group of men nearby, eager to tell me how they walked here.
KHALAF HUSSEIN KARAM: (Through interpreter) For 48 hours without food or water or sleep.
FORDHAM: That's Khalaf Hussein Karam, a man with a deeply lined face who escaped from his ISIS-held town near Hawija city in northern Iraq over a mountain range, ending up here in the small town of Rubayda.
KARAM: (Through interpreter) At the last stage, we had to cross the front lines between the Iraqi Army and the ISIS brigades.
FORDHAM: They were men, women and children. At one point, the group got lost and tried to go back home, but when ISIS saw them approaching they shot and killed some of them, so the survivors had no choice but to find their way to the government-held area.
KARAM: (Through interpreter) We crossed the mountain at midnight. We didn't have water or food left, and we slept in the open, in the cold. Our bodies are still stiff from the cold and the tiredness. Then we were received by the Iraqi security forces with open arms.
FORDHAM: That might seem like an extraordinary journey, but officials and police tell me something like 20,000 people have walked over those mountains to escape ISIS in the last few months.
DHIAA ABDULLAH MOHAMMAD: (Foreign language spoken).
FORDHAM: Captain Dhiaa Abdullah Mohammad is the commander of what he calls the mountain unit of the police. He says families make the perilous journey on a daily basis.
MOHAMMAD: (Foreign language spoken).
FORDHAM: "They come because of hunger, because they have no money and a lot of pressure from ISIS," he says.
(SOUNDBITE OF BABY CRYING)
FORDHAM: The escaped families tell me how much they hated the brutal rule of ISIS. They speak of beatings for women who weren't totally covered, or men caught smoking. The militants were extra suspicious of anyone who'd been in the security forces. And the families also speak of growing hardship in the area controlled by the extremists.
WIJDAN TAHA HUSSEIN: (Foreign language spoken).
FORDHAM: "We were dying there," says Wijdan Taha Hussein, clustered on the rug with other women and wide-eyed kids, including two of her own.
HUSSEIN: (Foreign language spoken).
FORDHAM: There were shortages of water, electricity, fuel. I ask if there was food.
HUSSEIN: (Foreign language spoken).
FORDHAM: "There was, but it was expensive and scarce," she says. ISIS tries to block information getting out of its areas. But in recent months, I've heard many accounts of chronic shortages. Seven months ago, Iraq's government decided to stop paying salaries to the government workers in ISIS areas. Those salaries had been taxed by ISIS, and Iraqi officials say they didn't want to give extremists the cash. But that's left probably hundreds of thousands of families without an income. Plus, the U.S.-led coalition has cut off roads that are crucial supply routes. In Baghdad, I meet U.S. Capt. Chance McCraw, who acknowledges it's been tough on civilians, but it's taking a toll on ISIS, which he calls by their Arabic nickname, Daesh.
CHANCE MCCRAW: We know life is not good underneath Daesh by any means. It's oppressive, you don't have those resources that are available to you, you don't have the supplies that are coming in. I guess not as prosperous, not as - yeah.
FORDHAM: Sure. Have you seen that - has it, like - has it changed in the last, say, few months?
MCCRAW: Oh, it's definitely getting worse for Daesh. There's been shortages of water in some areas, also fuel and then electricity.
FORDHAM: McCraw also says ISIS is losing so many fighters in battle they can't spare so many men to stop civilians escaping, and that could mean more families like the ones I met fleeing, night by freezing night, over the Hamrin Mountains. Alice Fordham, NPR News, Baghdad.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We start today with the biggest story in politics. After nearly a year of campaigning, tens of millions of dollars spent on campaign ads, a slew of debates, a presidential race that no one predicted is finally going to start being decided tomorrow in Iowa at the caucuses.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARCO RUBIO: We must act now in this time, at this turning point in our history. And that's why I'm here to ask you to caucus for me Monday night.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HILLARY CLINTON: If you will go caucus for me Monday night, if you will go stand up for me here, if you will be there for me, I promise you this - I will stand for you. I will fight for you through this campaign.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JEB BUSH: And that's why I'm running for president. That's why I hope you'll caucus for me on Monday night. Thank you all very much.
(APPLAUSE)
MARTIN: We still have no idea who will win. The races are about as close as possible. We wanted to check in with our folks who are covering both sides of the race. NPR's Sarah McCammon is covering the Republicans. She's at a Ted Cruz rally in Iowa City. Hello, Sarah McCammon.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Hello, Michel.
MARTIN: And NPR's Sam Sanders is with the Democrats. He's at a Bernie Sanders rally in Waterloo. Hi, Sam Sanders.
SAM SANDERS, BYLINE: Hey there. How are you?
MARTIN: So we start with you. The Democratic race is basically tied between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. How do things look on the ground there in Iowa?
SANDERS: So it's basically tied, but Hillary Clinton is just a hair up in the latest Des Moines Register/Bloomberg poll. And this is the same poll that predicted her loss to Barack Obama in '08. It's important to point out in many ways, this year is very different for Hillary than '08. She has a statewide strategy. She's appealing very hard to Democratic Party establishment. She's learned a lot of lessons from her loss here eight years ago. And she's also inherited a lot of the successful Obama ground game that helped win in '08. And it's important to point out that she has done this whole thing in Iowa one more time than Bernie Sanders has.
MARTIN: And what about Bernie Sanders?
SANDERS: So all along, he's been trying to run a very positive campaign. But just this morning, he brought up this ongoing Clinton email scandal unprompted. He's saying it's not an issue for him, but he thinks that it will be a thing that the GOP will use against Clinton if she gets the nomination. So the whole strategy from Bernie has been to motivate passionate young voters to get them excited. But the question is if these college students will caucus at their college campuses or go home throughout the state to caucus. It works better for Bernie Sanders if those college supporters caucus from home and his support is more widespread throughout the state. I talked to a student at the University of Iowa yesterday. Her name is this Lillie Oswinkle (ph), and I asked her about that.
LILLIE OSWINKLE: When I saw that, I thought maybe I should go home. But it just - I can't manage that. So I have to do it here. So...
SANDERS: Do you have a car?
OSWINKLE: Yes, but...
SANDERS: So you could drive home.
OSWINKLE: Oh, I'm worried - I got work off 30 minutes before I have to be at the caucus. So it's kind of - I can't.
SANDERS: She says she's not quite sure how to caucus. She's watched a Bernie Sanders campaign video on how to did do it, and she told me verbatim that Bernie's got her back. But she also says she's literally just going to show up and hope someone tells her how to do it. You know, so Bernie has been saying that he wants to start a revolution. And the question is whether that army will show up when it's time for the fight.
MARTIN: Well, we can certainly hear them in the background, Sam. I can...
SANDERS: That's true.
MARTIN: ...Hear that they're kind of fired up. But the question is are they ready to go?
SANDERS: There you go.
MARTIN: What about you, Sarah McCammon? You've been covering the Republicans. How does the race look on that side?
MCCAMMON: You know, in some ways there are some parallels. You know, I was with Donald Trump yesterday. He was looking very confident, telling Iowans to vote for him because he's a winner, and they want to pick a winner. And he reminded them that it's been a long time since Iowa Republicans chose a president. That was back in 2000 with George W. Bush. And then Trump's confidence really only grew after the release of that Des Moines Register poll. It showed him five points above Ted Cruz, who has been his chief rival here for the last several weeks at least. And the big question, much like with Sanders supporters, is will Trump's people turn out in the same numbers as they turn out in the polls and at these big rallies? I talked to several folks yesterday at a Trump rally in Dubuque. Rick and Jessica Garner (ph) told me how much they like how unconventional Trump is.
JESSICA GARNER: He's nuts. He's completely out of the box. Nothing about him is ordinary or normal, what we would consider for the standards that have been set for previous presidents.
MCCAMMON: And that doesn't worry you?
GARNER: No, no. I think we need it.
MCCAMMON: And Rick and Jessica Garner say they've never caucused before, but they do plan to go and caucus on Monday night.
MARTIN: What about Ted Cruz, who's his chief rival in the state?
MCCAMMON: Well, at least if you look his campaign schedule this week, he seems a little less confident. He's been all over Iowa, sometimes making five or six stops in a day, whereas Trump was here, you know, Tuesday night, Thursday night and this weekend but also found time this week to carve out some time to go to New Hampshire and South Carolina. Cruz is putting all of his attention here in Iowa. And, you know, he's told reporters that if he'd known months ago that he'd be polling what he described as neck-and-neck with Trump, he'd be thrilled. But it's clear that he'd really like to win. He's been pressing hard to get the support of evangelical Christians, who are very well organized and influential in Iowa. And that'll be the test for Cruz - whether he can get those religious conservatives to show up for him. They have a lot of options this year, and Trump is relatively popular with that group as well, although not as popular as Cruz.
MARTIN: And I guess then I can also hear the enthusiasm in the background of you, Sarah McCammon as well.
MCCAMMON: Yes.
MARTIN: So both of you have been covering this campaign for months now. How does it feel to be at this moment when it's all going to start getting decided? Sam, I gave you the first word, so I'm going to give Sarah the last word. So Sam, you first, how does it feel now that it's kind of really coming down to voting time?
SANDERS: Well, I woke up this morning and said to myself oh, my goodness, we're almost there. It's almost done. Iowa's almost done. And then I realized there's still a whole election to go. There's still nine more months of this. And as crazy as this whole thing has been up until this point, there's a long, long, long way to go.
MARTIN: OK, what about you, Sarah McCammon?
MCCAMMON: I had very similar thoughts, Michel. You know, it is exciting though to get to this point in the race where the first voting is really going to begin. It's been all about polls and rallies and ground game up to this point. But we're going to see some real results tomorrow night. And I think you can - you can hear the energy and the excitement among voters this weekend, too, because it's definitely getting real.
MARTIN: All right, that's NPR's Sarah McCammon and Sam Sanders at two different rallies in Iowa covering the caucuses, which are tomorrow. Thank you both so much.
MCCAMMON: Thank you.
SANDERS: Thanks.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And the cable channel FX has found new drama in one of the most publicized trials in recent memory. Its series "The People V. O.J. Simpson" - "American Crime Story" debuts Tuesday. NPR TV critic Eric Deggans said the show about a 20-year-old trial brings a potent message about today's criminal justice system.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: FX's ambitious series doesn't even start with the 1994 murders of Simpson's ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and acquaintance Ronald Goldman.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "AMERICAN CRIME STORY - THE PEOPLE V. O.J. SIMPSON")
DEGGANS: It begins with the earlier riots that rocked Los Angeles in 1992 after four police officers were acquitted for beating unarmed black motorist Rodney King.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "AMERICAN CRIME STORY - THE PEOPLE V. O.J. SIMPSON")
UNKNOWN PERSON: It's probably the worst case of police misconduct that I've ever seen in my 27 years of law enforcement.
DEGGANS: The explosion of mistrust and anger against police would be crucial to O.J. Simpson's defense, especially when Simpson's attorney, Robert Shapiro, played here by John Travolta, realizes how we can use that issue at trial.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "AMERICAN CRIME STORY - THE PEOPLE V. O.J. SIMPSON")
JOHN TRAVOLTA: (As Robert Shapiro) Imagine that O.J. Simpson was set up by the cops because he was a black man and because the LAPD has a systemic racism problem.
DEGGANS: FX has crafted one of the best TV shows of early 2016 based on "The Run Of His Life," an extensively-reported book by legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin. Toobin's long maintained that Simpson's guilty of the murders. And during a press conference for the series, he pointed out the irony of Simpson's defense.
JEFFREY TOOBIN: You have the paradox of an African-American community that has long-standing legitimate complaints about the LAPD which turn out to have an utterly undeserving beneficiary in O.J. Simpson.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "AMERICAN CRIME STORY - THE PEOPLE V. O.J. SIMPSON")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #1: (As character) O.J.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #2: (As character) O.J.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #3: (As character) O.J.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #4: (As character) O.J.
DEGGANS: The trial of O.J. Simpson, a football star turned TV pitchman and movie actor, was covered 247 by cable channels. In fact, it birthed the whole true crime TV industry. But "American Crime Story" executive producer Ryan Murphy and his team still found loads of stuff that people have largely forgotten or never knew. The performances here are amazing. Cuba Gooding Jr. is a ball of angry narcissism playing Simpson, and Sarah Paulson brings a wounded humanity as prosecutor Marcia Clark, who faced sexist insults for her appearance and underestimated the impact of race. But Courtney B. Vance steals the show as another one of Simpson's attorneys, the wily Johnnie Cochran. Here, Travolta's Robert Shapiro is trying to backpedal from using race as part of their defense strategy. Cochran set Shapiro straight.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "AMERICAN CRIME STORY - THE PEOPLE V. O.J. SIMPSON")
TRAVOLTA: (As Robert Shapiro) I stand before you right now and say race has never and will never be an issue in this case.
COURTNEY B. VANCE: (As Johnnie Cochran) Bob, this is the United States of America, and we are defending a black man who is fighting to prove his innocence. But we would not be doing our job if we did not at least talk about how race plays a part in this trial. Now, if that is playing the race card, so be it.
DEGGANS: Unlike Toobin's book, the series doesn't take a definitive position on Simpson's guilt. But it does come close, with a gripping tale of how Simpson was acquitted despite a mountain of evidence against him. Simpson's acquittal also shows that police misconduct in one case can make it much tougher to prosecute every other case. Once the public loses confidence in law enforcement, every defense attorney can use that to defend their clients - guilty or not. Or to extend what Martin Luther King Jr. once said, injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. I'm Eric Deggans.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going back now to a story we've been following closely - the outbreak of the Zika virus in more than 20 countries. The virus is being linked to serious birth defects. It's spurring officials in places like Ecuador and El Salvador to warn women against getting pregnant. And that's controversial advice because contraceptives are hard to come by and abortions are illegal in many Zika-affected areas. We've been trying to understand how women and their doctors are coping with such dramatic and life-changing circumstances. So we found missionary Dr. David Vanderpool. He moved to Haiti from Brentwood, Tenn. For six years, he's run a health grouped called Live Beyond, which focuses on maternal care. As Zika has started to appear in Haiti, he's been grappling with questions that are at odds at times with his Christian doctrine. Dr. Vanderpool joined us from Thomazeau, which is about 20 miles outside of Port-au-Prince. And I asked him about his practice.
DAVID VANDERPOOL: We provide clean water, nutritional support and then medical care to the people of Thomazeau. And we feel like it's incumbent upon those of us who have skills that can benefit these people to use these skills. These are the poorest of the poor.
MARTIN: Well, what do you make of this guidance to women not to get pregnant? Does - is that realistic?
VANDERPOOL: People assume that women in Haiti, you know, would have the same access to birth control that American women would, and it's just not true. The Haitian woman may not have a choice in sex. The sex may not be consensual at all. And so just enjoining people not to have babies is probably not going to be very effective.
MARTIN: Is there anything that you personally had to reevaluate for yourself when you started working in Haiti every day that caused you to think differently about this?
VANDERPOOL: It's easy to wax philosophical when we're in an air-conditioned building in the United States surrounded by all the food and water that we need, but when you go into the reality of these people's lives, the philosophy sort of goes out the window. We have so many examples of women who had to prostitute themselves because their children were starving to death. Well, you know, that's not a philosophically discussed question, but that is a real question; that's a reality.
MARTIN: Do you support the use of contraception, for example? Many in - the Catholic Church specifically opposes what they call artificial birth control message. Do you think that - do you support them given the environment, given what you see?
VANDERPOOL: Absolutely, absolutely. In fact, we give out contraception. Many of our ladies will be pregnant 16 times in their life. About half of those pregnancies, the children will survive until age 5. We see that with each pregnancy, they lose about 20 percent of their body weight, and the toll is extreme. And it's one of the reasons that Haiti has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.
MARTIN: I have to ask you about what is a very sensitive and volatile and polarizing question, which is the question of abortion, which is illegal in many countries in Central America and South America. Do you have an opinion about that in this case?
VANDERPOOL: You know, in my opinion, abortion is not a good answer. I think that our answer's going to lie in proper birth control and adequate vaccines. You know, we've known this virus has been around since 1947. We could have come up with a cure many, many years ago so that we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
MARTIN: Dr. David Vanderpool is a missionary doctor in Haiti. And he was kind enough to join us over the phone today from Thomazeau, Haiti. Dr. Vanderpool, thank you so much for speaking with us.
VANDERPOOL: Thank you so much. Have a great day.