KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The opioid epidemic has forced doctors throughout the country to rethink how they treat pain. In Colorado, a major health care provider is trying to teach patients about alternative treatments, hoping they will stay away from addictive pills. Colorado Public Radio's John Daley reports.
JOHN DALEY, BYLINE: Robert Kerley makes his living as a truck driver, but seven years ago, he was loading drywall when a gust of wind knocked him off the trailer. Kerley fell 14 feet and hurt his back. Doctors prescribed a variety of opioids - Vicodin, Percocet, Oxycontin.
ROBERT KERLEY: I spent most of my time high, laying on the couch, not doing nothing, sleeping, dozing off, falling asleep everywhere.
DALEY: In less than a year, the 45-year-old says he was hooked. He lost weight. He lost his job. His relationships with his wife and kids struggled. Kerley remembers when he hit rock bottom. He had three beers and...
KERLEY: I was taking so much morphine that I respiratory arrested because of it. I stopped breathing.
DALEY: EMTs gave him the overdose reversal drug naloxone. As the father of a 12-year-old son, he knew he needed to turn things around.
KERLEY: After seven years of being on narcotics and in a spiral downhill, the only thing that pulled me out of it was going to this class, working the program that they ask you to work.
DALEY: That program as Kaiser Permanente Colorado's Integrated Pain Service. It's an eight-week course that costs patients $100. Will Gersch teaches high-risk opioid patients about pain management.
WILL GERSCH: These two numbers - 50 and 100 - if you're over these two doses, that's a risk factor.
DALEY: Today's topic - the science behind prescription drugs.
GERSCH: The overarching message here is like, the higher the dose of the opioids, the higher the risk.
DALEY: Upstairs, his colleague Amanda Bye, a clinical psychologist, highlights a key element of the program - it's integrated.
AMANDA BYE: We brought in all these specialists. We all know the up-to-date research of what's most effective in helping to manage pain. And that's how the program got started.
DALEY: For patient care, there's a doctor, a clinical pharmacist, two mental-health therapists, a physical therapist and a nurse all on one floor so patients can meet with this team instead of dealing with a series of referrals. Kaiser tracked more than 80 patients over the course of a year. It found the group's ER visits decreased 25 percent. Inpatient admissions dropped 40 percent, and patients' opioid use went way down.
BYE: We've had really good results getting those patients unstuck from the mud, getting them moving and living the life they want to live.
DALEY: Bye says the team helps patients use alternatives like exercise, meditation, acupuncture and mindfulness, though some patients do need to go to the chemical dependency unit for medication-assisted treatment. Benjamin Miller is an expert on integrated care with the national foundation Well Being Trust. He says Kaiser is on the right track.
BENJAMIN MILLER: The future of health care is integrated. And unfortunately, our history is very fragmented. And we're just now catching up to developing a system of care that meets the needs of people.
DALEY: Similar programs in California showed a reduction in the number of prescriptions and pills per patient says Kelly Pfeifer with the California Health Care Foundation.
KELLY PFEIFER: We've seen great success with these models that are integrating complementary therapy, physical therapy, behavioral health and medical care.
DALEY: She says one challenge is scale - Big systems are the ones that can afford programs like this - another is insurance payment.
PFEIFER: Frequently, behavioral health and medical health are paid for by entirely different systems.
DALEY: And some insurers won't pay for the kinds of alternative treatments that have really helped Robert Kerley. He now starts his morning with stretching and a version of tai chi. His advice to others suffering from pain or addiction?
KERLEY: Do whatever it takes to walk away from it, like, no matter what. Trust me. It gets better. It gets 100 percent better than where you're at right now.
DALEY: Better for Kerley means he's back at work, once again able to make a living as a truck driver. For NPR News, I'm John Daley.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE DURUTTI COLUMN'S "BORDEAUX")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
It is pretty likely that the United States will take in far fewer refugees this year. That's because the Trump administration last year issued a series of orders to limit refugee admissions, especially from mostly-Muslim countries. It ended up placing the lowest cap on resettlement since 1980. NPR's Deborah Amos covers refugees and is with us now to talk about what is ahead for 2018. Welcome.
DEBORAH AMOS, BYLINE: Hi.
MCEVERS: First, just for context, President Trump campaigned on this promise to make it harder for people, especially Muslims, to come to the U.S. What has happened with refugees in his first year in office?
AMOS: Let me give you the official number of refugees admitted in the fiscal year 2017 that ends in October - it was 53,716. And that reflects both Obama and Trump-era policies, but you can already see Trump's impact. So the number's down from Obama's 85,000 a year earlier. And refugee advocates say this is the year the Trump administration tried to unravel the Refugee Resettlement Program, and it's part of this larger assault on immigration. The president framed this as a security issue. He claimed that refugees are a threat. And, you know, in his first week as president, he suspended the refugee program. He issued a visa ban for Muslim-majority countries. Now, he ran into opposition in the courts, and that kept the pipeline relatively open through the year.
MCEVERS: So after all these countless court hearings and rulings, what did the administration plan for refugees coming to the United States in 2018?
AMOS: So now, President Trump gets to set the cap and he sets it at 45,000. That's the lowest since 1980. But almost everybody who is looking at this says that number will surely be lower than 45,000.
MCEVERS: Why?
AMOS: Because of the legal challenges, because of the increased vetting. For example, a refugee applicant has to supply the names of every close relative and the contact information going back 10 years. Now, think about how hard that is.
MCEVERS: Wow.
AMOS: You've run out of a war zone. You're in a refugee camp. Do you know where all of your relatives are? A lot of people are going to have trouble with that. Plus, the private agencies that resettle refugees, they are facing dramatic budget cuts. There are staff cutbacks. Dozens of resettlement offices are going to close early next year.
MCEVERS: So does that mean the issue's settled now, I mean, the U.S. is just going to bring in fewer people in 2018?
AMOS: It's not settled. I'm going to introduce you, Kelly, to two people on the front lines of the fight. First, meet Ed Martin.
ED MARTIN: The conversation is going in a direction that I think is helpful, you know, it's encouraging.
AMOS: Now, Ed is a Trump supporter. He heads the Phyllis Schlafly Eagles. That's a conservative interest group in St. Louis. He says cuts to immigration and the refugee numbers are a key demand of Trump's base and that is because of jobs, they say, and security.
MARTIN: The immigration problem is real. And if the immigration problem is not addressed, you know, that's the one thing I think he can't do to his base is betray them on immigration. That would be a really big deal.
MCEVERS: We know this is important for Trump's base but what about the other side? Is there a lobby for refugee resettlement?
AMOS: There is, first of all, at the Defense Department because they care about translators from Afghanistan and Iraq that worked with the military and even in the National Security Council. There are proponents in Congress on both sides of the aisle. And there are activists. One is Becca Heller. She is with the International Refugee Assistance Program in New York.
BECCA HELLER: I mean, they've taken every possible step essentially to dismantle the program.
AMOS: Heller and IRAP have challenged administration policy in court. And the latest, December 23, a Seattle court reversed a temporary ban on refugees from 11 mostly-Muslim-majority countries. So the refugee pipeline is open again.
HELLER: We're in, like, a pitched battle for the continued existence of U.S. refugee resettlement. And the numbers are going to be low for the next few years. And it's our job to try to keep them as high as we can and then assume that we'll have a rebuilding period.
AMOS: Now, Becca Heller says that this fight is going to continue into 2018.
MCEVERS: NPR's Deborah Amos. Thank you very much.
AMOS: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The U.S. and its allies have killed many Islamic State militants and, for now, stopped their plan to build a state in Syria and Iraq. But what has happened to the surviving members of ISIS? NPR's Greg Myre takes a look.
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: The Islamic State doesn't control any cities. Its ranks are decimated. Survivors have scattered. Yet ISIS still has militants with weapons and plans for renewed mayhem.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JIM MATTIS: We have repeatedly said in this room, the war is not over.
MYRE: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, speaking here at the Pentagon, says U.S. forces are still tracking down small pockets of ISIS fighters in Iraq.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MATTIS: It may be a dozen guys who finally find each other, you know, and they get together, and they start living in one house, and they start licking their wounds and think, what can we do? So what we want to do is drive this down to a point it can be handled by local authorities, by police and that sort of thing.
MYRE: And in Syria, where the U.S. and its allies have pounded the militants in the eastern part of the country, some are fleeing westward. The ISIS fighters apparently believe their chances of survival are better in areas controlled by their other enemy, Syrian President Bashar Assad and his army. So how many Islamic fighters are there? It's always been a guesstimate. When ISIS was at its peak three years ago, the CIA said it had as many as 31,000 fighters. The U.S. military now thinks fewer than 1,000 are left in areas where the American coalition is operating.
DANIEL BYMAN: The Islamic State fighters in a number of places - Mosul, Raqqa, many others - put up very fierce fighting, and thousands of their fighters died in these battles.
MYRE: Daniel Byman of Georgetown University closely follows ISIS. He puts the surviving ISIS members in a couple other categories with intentions that vary.
BYMAN: Another group of fighters probably tries to flee or blend in locally. And then there's a third category that's either trying to hide out in places in Iraq or Syria or who have tried to make their way outside the country.
MYRE: Many foreign fighters came from Europe. And Nick Rasmussen, who just stepped down as the head of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, says European countries have been bracing for returning militants. However...
NICHOLAS RASMUSSEN: The problem that we envisioned perhaps a few years ago of thousands and thousands of foreign fighters departing the conflict zone once the war started to subside - that's what we anticipated happening, and it's not happening in those numbers.
MYRE: So most of this news sounds pretty good. ISIS has no safe haven. Its fighters are on the run, and they aren't escaping abroad in large numbers. But remember this. The forerunner of ISIS was al-Qaida in Iraq. The U.S. and its allies dismantled that group a decade ago. It then reemerged as ISIS, stronger than ever, as conditions proved more favorable. This included the chaotic Arab uprisings of 2011 and the U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq that same year. This lesson isn't lost on ISIS.
GAYLE TZEMACH LEMMON: It is far easier to kill a terrorist than to slay an ideology, and that has always vexed the folks who are prosecuting the campaign.
MYRE: Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is with the Council on Foreign Relations. The U.S. has a good record when it comes to winning battles in the Middle East. What's hard, she says, is the aftermath.
LEMMON: And as long as the ground is still ripe for insurgency, it's very hard to keep a war ended. And the truth is, no one really wants to pay for the rebuilding. Nation building is a 14-letter word that has become a four-letter word.
MYRE: The Islamic State stresses that it's waging a long war, and the hardcore leadership sees the recent setbacks as something that can be reversed. Greg Myre, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
It is a new year, which means it is time for a new you - or at least a better you. ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Melissa Gray is here to talk about what she wants to change.
MELISSA GRAY, BYLINE: I have a potty mouth.
MCEVERS: You have a potty mouth?
GRAY: I cursed a lot last year, Kelly. I don't know about you, but I need to rein it in.
MCEVERS: You want to do better. OK. Well, what's your plan? Like, what are you here to tell us about?
GRAY: I know I'm going to need help. But before it actually ask our listeners for help, I want to talk a little bit about why we curse. I mean, have you ever thought about why do we curse?
MCEVERS: Because it feels really good when you're mad.
GRAY: It does. It's a sort of release. And it can be fun. We need to be completely honest about that. There's a fellow I chatted up who studies this stuff. His name is Benjamin Bergen, and he's a professor of cognitive science at the University of California, San Diego. And he's written all about profanity in a book he titled "What The F." Great title. Professor Bergen told me people curse for a variety of reasons.
BENJAMIN BERGEN: People curse for social reasons, because they want to fit in or because they want to seem cool or accessible. But largely people curse for emotional reasons. When we experience strong, transient emotions - anger, fear, surprise, elation, arousal - our bodies reach a particular state in which we are primed to react.
GRAY: Primed to react. And for some people like me, that's verbally using some of these, like, you know, no-go words.
MCEVERS: Right. Cursing is about emotions.
GRAY: And it actually goes a little bit deeper than that in your brain. And that's why if you're someone who does routinely drop these verbal bombs it can be really hard to stop. Dr. Bergen told me the way our brains access curse words is different than how we access other words. Normally language is processed in the cerebral cortex. And that's that large - largest region of the brain. But, Kelly, say something like this happens - you're in traffic, someone cuts you off, and you yell something that rhymes with a common waterbird.
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
GRAY: That response comes from another part of the brain.
BERGEN: The basal ganglia. That's a snail-shaped structure in there. And its job is to decide what action you should perform when you're experiencing a strong emotion. So it's your fight-or-flight system. One of the things that it allows you to do, that it triggers when you're experiencing strong emotions, is to use words.
GRAY: Blankety (ph) blankety blank words, which is also why some people who've had brain damage or stroke, why they might not be able to talk or use language the way they used to but they can still access curse words.
MCEVERS: OK. So that's really fascinating, but, I mean, you have not had any significant damage to your brain. Everything seems to be pretty intact. So what's the problem?
GRAY: I like how you qualify that significant.
(LAUGHTER)
GRAY: Yes. Yes. So my resolution for 2018 is to tone down my blue streak. I need better substitutions for my dirty words.
MCEVERS: Oh.
GRAY: Yeah. I have a few. I have a few go-tos like God bless America and shut the front door, but I need more. So I want people to send me their go-to no-swears.
MCEVERS: I'm just going to ask you - you know, we're already, like, part of the way into the new year, so, like, how's the project going so far?
GRAY: Oh, God, it's been awful. The spirit has moved me 11 times today.
MCEVERS: Today.
GRAY: Eleven times. And of those 11 times I was able to reel it in twice.
MCEVERS: Wow. OK, so this is not going well.
GRAY: It's not going well.
MCEVERS: So, listeners, reach out. She needs substitutions. How can people get in touch with you to make suggestions?
GRAY: They can do this by old-fashioned email - nprcrowdsource@npr.org, subject line no swear; Twitter - we are @npratc, and you can use the hashtag #noswear. But one thing we do ask - this is public, so please keep it clean. We're pretty smart. Our cerebral cortexes are intact. We can pretty much figure out what words you're substituting for.
MCEVERS: ALL THINGS CONSIDERED producer Melissa Gray, who I'm told earlier today used this substitution - Barnaby Jones - thank you very much.
GRAY: Oh, Columbo. You're welcome.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Today is the fifth day of protests in Iran. They started mainly over economic concerns, and they've now turned violent. State media says more than 12 people - protesters and police - have been killed in clashes. And while the demonstrations started far outside the capital city of Tehran, they've spread there too. The New York Times' Thomas Erdbrink joined us by Skype from Tehran, and I asked him to describe what he saw there today.
THOMAS ERDBRINK: There were clearly so many police forces that it was nearly impossible for people to protest, but I did see a group of around 50 people - younger people - wearing face masks against pollution - but also, of course, not to be recognized - who suddenly came out and started shouting slogans like death to the dictator and we are not Gaza or Lebanon; we want to be here for Iran. And they were urging other people to join them. But with so many security forces on the streets, members of the Revolutionary Guard in riot gear wielding batons, not many people dare to do that.
MCEVERS: As we said, you know, these protests are about economic issues. And how bad is the economy in Iran? I mean, what sparked the protests?
ERDBRINK: Well, the economy has been very bad for many years. And there are two main reasons. First, there have been sanctions against this country over its nuclear program, and even though Iran's leaders have made a deal with world powers and the United States, the United States still has unilateral sanctions against Iran that prevent, for instance, financial transactions to and from this country. And you can imagine, if you cannot do financial transactions, it's very hard for businesses to come in and to come and create jobs here. At the same time, Iran's leaders are hard-liners and ideologues, and in their hearts, they really don't want foreign companies to come into this country and create jobs here.
So as a result, a lot of young people have no jobs. Many mistakes have been made and are being made in Iran's economy which cause, for instance, double-digit inflation, the Iranian riyal to slide against the euro and the dollar. And what sparked it most recently is very hard to say, but one thing was very important. Iran's government - the government of Hassan Rouhani, the moderate president - came out with a new budget, and in their budget, a lot of money was being spent on religious institutions, the Revolutionary Guards and paramilitaries. But at the same time, higher taxes were demanded from them, so this has really made people upset.
MCEVERS: Is this the first time we're hearing protesters, you know, singling out religious leaders as much as the - as it sounds like they are in these protests?
ERDBRINK: Absolutely. They're absolutely being singled out. There have been a lot of slogans directly aimed at Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is - yeah - used - traditionally viewed as somebody who is so sacred that you were not allowed to criticize him. But these protesters clearly don't care about this. But at the same time, they did the same thing in 2009. When there were these Green Movement protests about the disputed elections, they also directed their criticism at their leaders.
MCEVERS: Quickly - where do you see these protests going?
ERDBRINK: I think these protests right now are all about rage, and there is no clear leadership, and there's no clear agenda. So it is, at this point, kind of hard to see these protests continue for a longer time, but this was surprising for Iran's leadership, and they might be surprised again in the near future.
MCEVERS: New York Times Tehran bureau chief Thomas Erdbrink. Thank you so much.
ERDBRINK: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
For years, prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay naval base have had a creative outlet - art. Three dozen pieces of that artwork are now on display at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York, but the Pentagon is not on board with the exhibit. NPR's David Welna reports, the show has prompted the Defense Department to clamp down on inmate art.
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: The dispute over the Guantanamo artwork really comes down to one question. Who owns it? For Commander Anne Leanos, the prison camp's spokeswoman, the answer is simple.
ANNE LEANOS: Items produced by detainees during their detention here do remain the property of the Department of Defense.
ALKA PRADHAN: We don't consider the government to own that.
WELNA: That's Alka Pradhan. She's the human rights expert on the legal team representing Ammar al-Baluchi. His uncle is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. Al-Baluchi is accused of acting as a courier for Osama bin Laden and faces a possible death sentence. A Senate investigation found he'd been brutally interrogated in a secret CIA prison before arriving in Guantanamo. Pradhan says a work by al-Baluchi being shown in New York, a vortex of colored dots titled "Vertigo In Guantanamo" (ph), captures that ordeal.
PRADHAN: It's evidence of his torture and the effects of his torture - the continuing effects of his torture 14 years after he was kidnapped.
WELNA: Al-Baluchi's CIA interrogation was dramatized in the movie "Zero Dark Thirty."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ZERO DARK THIRTY")
JASON CLARKE: (As Dan) Where was the last time you saw bin Laden, huh?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character, gurgling).
CLARKE: (As Dan) You know, when you lie to me, I hurt you.
WELNA: Al-Baluchi and 13 others who also underwent CIA interrogations are called high-value detainees. They're kept at a secret location separate from Guantanamo's 26 other prisoners. Those captives are all free to attend art classes that have been offered since late in the Bush administration. Pradhan says her client has to work alone on his artwork.
PRADHAN: He tells us that he uses it as a form of therapy and that it may be a very important mitigation tool if and when we get to trial.
WELNA: Under the Pentagon's new guidelines, though, it's not clear how much of his artwork al-Baluchi will be allowed to keep. Again, prison camp spokeswoman Leanos...
LEANOS: Detainees are authorized to keep a limited amount of artwork in their cell areas subject to our security protocols.
WELNA: And that artwork that exceeds those limits, does that remain in the possession of military authorities in Guantanamo, or where does it go?
LEANOS: So in terms of where they're stored, that would be considered a security protocol, and we don't discuss specific security protocols.
WELNA: Translation - the Pentagon won't say where it keeps the artwork or what it will do with it. What's more, Leanos says the Pentagon's decided no more artwork will leave the prison camp.
LEANOS: After becoming aware that some detainee-produced items - so artwork is considered a detainee-produced item - were being offered for sale, the DOD established policy which prohibits transfer of detainee-produced items from our detention facility.
WELNA: Lawyer Pradhan says the Pentagon's got it wrong. There are no price tags on the artwork being shown.
PRADHAN: It has never been for sale. Ammar's work is not for sale. It will not be for sale. It is for exhibition, and we hope to show more of it. We have a great deal of it.
WELNA: At least 500 additional pieces of artwork produced in Guantanamo are already in the U.S. That's according to Erin Thompson - she's a professor of art and crime at John Jay College - who's one of the show's co-curators. These works, she says, have more than just artistic value.
ERIN THOMPSON: All of these artworks serves to remind us as viewers that Guantanamo is still open, and whether we think that they're innocent and need to be released or they're guilty and need to be convicted, it's still a problem.
WELNA: And even though the Pentagon claims ownership of what it calls detainee-produced items, spokeswoman Leanos says there is no intention to reclaim any of the artwork that's already left the island. What's gone is gone. David Welna, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF A TRIBE CALLED QUEST AND SPANKY'S "4 MOMS")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is everywhere these days, from self-driving cars and voice-activated software like Siri and Alexa. It's being used in fields from criminal justice to finance. So this year in All Tech Considered, we're going to spend some time exploring AI.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MCEVERS: And today - China. Its leadership wants to dominate the tech world. It's one way China can beat possible competitors and adversaries. NPR's Anthony Kuhn introduces us to the Chinese firm that is leading the way to AI.
ANTHONY KUHN, BYLINE: Robin Li, CEO of China's largest search engine, Baidu, took the stage recently at a conference for developers and media. He talked about Baidu's big investments in artificial intelligence.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ROBIN LI: (Speaking Chinese).
(APPLAUSE)
KUHN: "Today, Baidu understands you better," he declared. One of the things Baidu is doing is recognizing voice commands of its search engine users. To understand more, I visited Gao Liang, the lead engineer for voice recognition at Baidu. He showed me some gadgets, including a voice-controlled speaker.
GAO LIANG: (Speaking Chinese).
COMPUTER-GENERATED VOICE: Hi.
GAO: (Speaking Chinese) "Hotel California."
KUHN: OK, I guess "Hotel California's" not available, so we also try out an interpretation device.
Man, that radio program was awesome.
COMPUTER-GENERATED VOICE: (Speaking Chinese).
KUHN: She got that one right. Gao Liang says that Baidu is working on ways for people to use voice commands to drive cars, do their banking and navigate airports. He explains that the task is complicated by the myriad local accents and dialects in China. Baidu uses vast amounts of data and computing power to learn to understand them.
GAO: We extract 100 voice queries that we collect from the user, and we ask a average native Chinese person to listen to it, see if he can understand. The chance are, our search engine will beat that average person.
KUHN: In July, China's cabinet released a national plan to become the world's leading power in artificial intelligence by 2030 and create an industry worth nearly $150 billion. China's leaders have long taken pride in their ability to mobilize people and resources for megaprojects. From the Great Wall to the atom bomb, many have had military uses, and AI is no exception.
ELSA KANIA: The Chinese military is focused on the ways in which the disruptive impact of AI in warfare could enable it to achieve an advantage and will actively seek to leverage the dynamism of Chinese private sector advances in AI.
KUHN: That's Elsa Kania. She studies the Chinese military's approach to emerging technologies at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, D.C. She says China has strengths which could help its bid to dominate emerging technologies, especially at a time when the U.S. seems less focused on them.
KANIA: The devotion of resources to AI in the form of investment as well as certain structural advantages that China possesses, including massive amounts of data and a robust potential talent base, could enable China to take the lead in the longer term.
KUHN: Kania notes that, as in the U.S., technological advances by private sector firms like Baidu are quickly adapted to use by the military and the police. So I asked Baidu engineer Gao Liang, what if the government asks you to do something that, for example, threatens users' privacy?
GAO: Can we say no? I don't know. Cooperate with the government is one thing - right? because we're building business in China, and we must obey all the regulations.
KUHN: Besides, he says, Baidu has its own code of ethics, which he describes as follows.
GAO: To make our end user happy and very easy to acquire the information and very easy to get the things they want is our No. 1 goal.
KUHN: I also asked Mr. Gao about whether he's concerned about all the people who could be thrown out of work by robots with artificial intelligence. He answered that AI will create many new job opportunities, including teaching robots how to be more human. Anthony Kuhn, NPR News, Beijing.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
A lot of people would say there's no reason to have a car in New York City. The subway makes it easier to get around. But only a quarter of the city's subway stations are wheelchair accessible, and lots of times, elevators are broken. WNYC's Beenish Ahmed followed one wheelchair user navigating the system.
BEENISH AHMED, BYLINE: Angel Martinez glides through the streets of Harlem on his way to wheelchair-basketball practice. The closest subway station is only a couple blocks away, but Martinez has to wheel a full mile to get to one that's wheelchair accessible. He rolls up to the elevator to find it wrapped in yellow caution tape. Two men in orange vests and hard hats are inside.
ANGEL MARTINEZ: Not right now, ugh. This is not cool.
AHMED: The elevator was in service when Martinez left. He checked online.
MARTINEZ: This is what happens, you know? Like, they say it's good, and by the time you get there - look, in 15 minutes, anything could happen.
AHMED: Martinez is afraid that an elevator will break down while he's on the train and he'll have to ask other riders or call the police to carry him up the stairs. That fear keeps many wheelchair users away. A fall from a roof left Martinez paralyzed six years ago, and he only started to ride the subway again this summer. So far, Martinez hasn't gotten stuck. And luckily, the elevator was a quick fix.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Yeah, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead, go ahead.
AHMED: New York's subway system has the lowest rate of wheelchair accessibility of any major American transit system, according to the Federal Transit Administration. That's despite years of lawsuits demanding compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act. The Metropolitan Transit Authority, or MTA, seems to have overlooked the law yet again with a new slate of high-end renovations.
(SOUNDBITE OF CLANGING)
AHMED: That's the sound of construction workers putting up fences around two subway stations in Queens. They'll have new signs, artwork and security cameras when they reopen after eight months - all a part of a billion-dollar project to modernize more than 30 stations. Joe Lhota heads the MTA. After recent board meeting, I asked if he'd given any thought to adding elevators during those renovations.
JOE LHOTA: That's a really good question and a note that I made to myself during the meeting to look at all of them.
AHMED: Lhota said there is a different MTA program to make 100 key stations wheelchair accessible by 2020.
LHOTA: We have a whole separate program going on to enhance the number of stations that are available to people who are disabled.
AHMED: But the ADA requires that subway stations be made accessible whenever they have major renovations. The MTA installed an elevator to one station in upper Manhattan after advocates won a settlement under the ADA. Those a hundred key stations that are now being made accessible - they are also the result of a lawsuit. Chris Pangilinan is a plaintiff in yet another suit filed against the MTA in April.
CHRIS PANGILINAN: Which is amazing in 2017, that it takes protests, and public comment and a lawsuit in order to get them to do what's standard practice around the country.
AHMED: Last month, Lhota promised to conduct a study of the whole subway system to figure out where elevators can be installed. Angel Martinez made it to basketball practice on time. So did the rest of his team. But he's the only one of his 10 teammates who took the subway to get there. For NPR News, I'm Beenish Ahmed in New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOAN JEANRENAUD'S "DERVISH")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The image of the Netherlands, filled with bicycles and windmills, would suggest a country powered by sustainable energy. But the Dutch are almost entirely dependent on fossil fuels, including imported coal. It has taken pressure from the European Union and the courts for the government to change that. Joanna Kakissis reports from Rotterdam.
JOANNA KAKISSIS, BYLINE: The Port of Rotterdam is the biggest in Europe, stretching 25 miles and serving tens of thousands of ships from all over the world. The sea breeze also carries a whiff of burning. There are five oil refineries here and two new coal-fired power plants. Rotterdam's sustainability manager, Fred Akerboom, explains how those plants affected the city's carbon dioxide emissions.
FRED AKERBOOM: Those two coal-fired plants, together they produce around 10 megatons of CO2. So that's really something. The harbor is producing around 20 percent, one-fifth, of all CO2 emissions of the whole of Holland. There's really a causal relation.
KAKISSIS: The European Union has cut CO2 emissions 23 percent since 1990, but in the Netherlands they've risen by 20 percent. That's why the Dutch environmental group Urgenda sued the government in 2013 on behalf of 900 citizens.
MARJAN MINNESMA: We have won this climate case.
KAKISSIS: That's Urgenda's director, Marjan Minnesma.
MINNESMA: So the Dutch government has to reduce 25 percent CO2 in 2020. That means that they have to do more. And the most easy thing to do is to phase out the coal-fired power plants because then at once you have an enormous reduction.
KAKISSIS: She points out the window to a huge coal plant visible from her office in Amsterdam.
MINNESMA: Because coal is so cheap and gas is now more expensive, we have been using more coal than we did before. We'd rather have a cheap energy system than a more expensive renewable system.
KAKISSIS: Only 6 percent of Dutch power comes from renewable energy, one of the lowest percentages in the EU. And those two coal plants at Rotterdam, they just opened in the last couple of years with a plan to lower emissions using something called CCS.
AKERBOOM: That's carbon capture and storage.
KAKISSIS: Fred Akerboom.
AKERBOOM: It's also used in some states in America, and it's used in Australia. But it's really a quite new technique.
KAKISSIS: It works by capturing CO2 at its source and then storing it underground. But it's expensive, and though the EU has already spent at least half a billion dollars on CCS, Jonas Helseth of the energy nonprofit Bellona says using it to clean up coal is not a good investment.
JONAS HELSETH: Because we might actually not need those coal plants in the future. Renewable electricity production is rapidly becoming competitive with fossil fuel electricity production.
KAKISSIS: So Akerboom was not surprised when the German and French power companies running the Rotterdam coal plants dropped CCS this summer.
AKERBOOM: Those companies also see that coal is not a future anymore. Coal has to be phased out. It's all about money, of course. There's a lot of discussion in Europe, but also in the Netherlands, about how sustainable coal is.
KAKISSIS: The Dutch government announced in October that all coal-fired power plants would close by 2030, joining about a dozen European countries phasing out coal.
SJOERD VAN SCHOONEVELD: That's positive. That's a big step forward.
KAKISSIS: Retired aid worker Sjoerd Van Schooneveld was a plaintiff in the climate lawsuit against the Dutch government. He gets that global warming is much bigger than his tiny country, but he wants it to lead by example and embrace renewable energy. He lives in Rotterdam, much of which lies below sea level.
VAN SCHOONEVELD: OK, maybe we are clever enough to keep making high dikes. But could this go on forever?
KAKISSIS: That's not a bet he thinks his country should make. For NPR News, I'm Joanna Kakissis in Rotterdam.
(SOUNDBITE OF ANDREW APPLEPIE'S "LITTLE FEATHER")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Now let's listen to new songs from a leading figure in Norway's crossover jazz-pop scene. Ellen Andrea Wang, a 31-year-old bassist and vocalist, recently released her second album. It's called "Blank Out." Michelle Mercer has our review.
MICHELLE MERCER, BYLINE: For Ellen Andrea Wang, jazz is not a tradition or style so much as a freedom principle, the permission to approach music however she likes. And so her new album reflects '80s art pop as much as jazz.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ELECTRIC")
ELLEN ANDREA WANG: (Singing) I've got electric hair. I've got an electric boyfriend. I had an electric family around when the fun began.
MERCER: Wang is partly a product of Norway's new jazz scene, where songs and textures take priority over any displays of individual musical prowess. On this song, "Electric," Wang drives the group with her expressive, playful voice and layers in her acoustic bass like a streak of solid wood in the song's furnished chrome.
(SOUNDBITE OF ELLEN ANDREA WANG SONG, "ELECTRIC")
MERCER: Wang studied classical violin for 10 years before switching to the bass at 16 and studying jazz at the Norwegian Academy of Music. In 2015, she won the Kongsberg Jazz Award, a 300,000 kroner prize - that's nearly $50,000 - given to one of the year's most prominent jazz artists. Her deep musical capacity gives her songwriting an edge. Wang can compose words and music into a meaningful, interconnected relationship.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BAD BLOOD")
WANG: (Singing) Why can't we just get along? Where did we go wrong? Were you ever on my team, a member of my team?
MERCER: On the chorus of "Bad Blood," she uses her bass to create harmonic tension, enriching the lyric's message. She wants us to feel the unease of "Bad Blood" in her music.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BAD BLOOD")
WANG: (Singing) Bad blood behind us. Put the bad blood behind us.
MERCER: Wang's side men are also proficient, open-minded jazz players, and they support her pop agenda here with fitting minimalism. Still, when the keyboardist, Andreas Ulvo, carefully emerges for a solo on "Heaven," I wonder what else he's been holding back.
(SOUNDBITE OF ELLEN ANDREA WANG SONG, "HEAVEN")
MERCER: Like many innovative artists, Ellen Andrea Wang seems to hear something that she's not quite doing yet, and that gives this album an intriguing sense of becoming. There's another level of jazz-pop synthesis, a further degree of realization for Wang's music. And given her skill and ingenuity, I'm happy to follow her to the next horizon.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HEAVEN")
WANG: (Singing) Heaven, abstraction or a place among the clouds.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
For Hollywood, 2017 was not a great year for the box office. But there was one interesting thing - in 2017, movies led by women took the top three spots for the highest-grossing movies in the U.S. and Canada. No. 1, "Star Wars."
(SOUNDBITE OF LIGHTSABER)
MCEVERS: "The Last Jedi" had four leading ladies, including young Rey trying to find her way with the force.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STAR WARS: EPISODE VIII - THE LAST JEDI")
DAISY RIDLEY: (As Rey) I need someone to show me my place in all this.
MCEVERS: The No. 2 movie was the live-action remake of "Beauty And The Beast" starring Emma Watson as Belle, another woman looking for something more exciting.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "BEAUTY AND THE BEAST")
EMMA WATSON: (As Belle, singing) There goes the baker with his tray like always...
MCEVERS: And rounding out the top three Gal Godot as Wonder Woman.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "WONDER WOMAN")
GAL GADOT: (As Diana) If no one else will defend the world then I must.
MCEVERS: This is the first time since 1958 that so many movies led by women topped the box office in a single year. That's according to Alicia Malone, a correspondent at Fandango.
ALICIA MALONE: Hollywood seems to have amnesia when it comes to the success of women. It's a surprise every time it happens, and then quickly it fades away and they continue with male-led movies.
MCEVERS: Women dominated not just the box office, but many of the Oscar contenders, too, movies like "Lady Bird"...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "LADY BIRD")
SAOIRSE RONAN: (As Lady Bird McPherson) I want to go where culture is, like New York...
LAURIE METCALF: (As Marion McPherson) And how in the world did I raise such a snob?
RONAN: (As Lady Bird McPherson) ...Or at least Connecticut or New Hampshire.
MCEVERS: ..."The Shape Of Water"...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE SHAPE OF WATER")
OCTAVIA SPENCER: (As Zelda Fuller) I answer mostly on account of she can't talk. Mute, sir.
MCEVERS: ...And "The Post."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE POST")
MERYL STREEP: (As Kay Graham) We can't hold them accountable if we don't have a newspaper.
MCEVERS: Alicia Malone of Fandango says all these leading women driving ticket sales and critical success, this was not a coincidence.
MALONE: This shows that audiences are really hungry for seeing women in the lead roles. And I hope that Hollywood listens and this becomes more of a trend and we see more opportunities for women in the future.
MCEVERS: Malone says the future could be as soon as this year with movies like "Ocean's 8" and "A Wrinkle In Time" in the pipeline.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Gabby Pahinui was a legend of Hawaiian music. He was known as the father of modern slack-key guitar, a style of playing unique to the islands. He was a driving force behind the Hawaiian cultural renaissance in the 1970s. After his death his sons kept the tradition alive, but Gabby's youngest son, Martin, died last year in May. Now the responsibility falls to Gabby's grandchildren. Heidi Chang reports.
HEIDI CHANG, BYLINE: A bronze statue now stands in Waikiki to honor Gabby Pahinui. To celebrate its unveiling this spring, his grandchildren performed his signature tune, "Hi'ilawe."
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing in Hawaiian).
CHANG: Their grandfather recorded the song in 1947, the first time slack-key, which refers to the guitar's open tunings, had been featured on disc.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HI'ILAWE")
GABBY PAHINUI: (Singing in Hawaiian).
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RY COODER: He's sort of like the Louis Armstrong of Hawaiian music, you might say. He was right up on top of the whole sound pyramid here.
CHANG: That's world-renowned guitarist Ry Cooder from a 1979 KHON TV special. He ended up recording two albums with The Gabby Pahinui Hawaiian Band and helped it reach an international audience.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
COODER: He's certainly the greatest guitar I've ever met in my life. Just hanging around with the guy I learned more about music and guitar in general than from anybody else I've ever met.
(SOUNDBITE OF GABBY PAHINUI SONG, "PU'UANAHULU")
KEOLA BEAMER: Even today when you listen to his music it seems fresh. How do you do that? That's genius.
CHANG: Keola Beamer is an acclaimed guitarist himself and comes from one of Hawaii's most respected musical families. He and his brother, Kapono, were also at the forefront of the Hawaiian cultural renaissance. But he says Gabby Pahinui led the way.
BEAMER: We all looked up to him, you know, 'cause he was Pops. I mean, he was the man. He had the stuff (laughter). And I really regarded him as a cultural folk hero because he had the courage to be authentically who he was in the world, and an incredible musician on top of that.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "KA MAKANI KA'ILI ALOHA")
G. PAHINUI: (Singing in Hawaiian).
CHANG: Gabby Pahinui passed on his unique style of playing and his tunings to his sons. But he didn't teach them, as he said in a 1979 interview recorded for his label, Panini Records.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
G. PAHINUI: They've got to teach themselves. Like, how my sons learned and I how learned - they can watch us. That doesn't mean we'll teach them. Any time of the day, any time of the night, any place - we'd be in the kitchen, down the beach. That doesn't mean they're going to learn. But they can watch, and they'll pick it up from there.
CHANG: Gabby recorded his first album with his sons, Bla, Cyril and Martin, in 1972.
BLA PAHINUI: The rhythm. The rhythm is so important to my dad. Without the rhythm there's nothing.
CHANG: That's Bla.
B. PAHINUI: So that's why with my left hand and my dad's right hand rhythms, I'm going one way, he's going the other way. That's what makes the Pahinui sound.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LEAHI")
G. PAHINUI: (Singing in Hawaiian).
CHANG: Bla Pahinui is now in his 70s. His brother, Cyril, is in his 60s, and has tried to keep his father's legacy alive by teaching younger musicians.
CYRIL PAHINUI: My father did pave the road in music, so anything he did help out a lot of musicians today.
CHANG: For years, Gabby's youngest son, Martin Pahinui, also backed up his father on guitar, bass and vocals. In 2011, he told me that his father always said, play from the heart.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
MARTIN PAHINUI: And that's what he told me - when you do things, enjoy yourself because it comes out like magic. But if you're reading from a book it's going to come out like the book (laughter). But if you do it from here, then whatever is in here, it'll come out from here.
CHANG: Martin Pahinui is also being remembered for his contributions to Hawaiian music. He died in May at the age of 65. Now it's up to the next generation.
KUNIA GALDEIRA: I know where I come from. It's going to be hard to find the same sound. My grandfather, as well as my uncles, they're all unique in their own way.
CHANG: That's Gabby Pahinui's grandson, Kunia Galdeira, who performs on the big island of Hawaii. He's also keeping his family's heritage alive by passing its traditions on to his own children.
GALDEIRA: The responsibility is to teach them to be humble, to have an open mind about music, and most importantly just continue to perpetuate the culture that comes around with that, the music.
BEAMER: That's a part of our identity as Hawaiians.
CHANG: Again, Keola Beamer.
BEAMER: So in a sense, by keeping our traditions alive we're really preserving the heritage of our own families.
CHANG: A heritage that, with any luck and a little practice, will continue even though the islands and their musical landscape are changing. For NPR News, I'm Heidi Chang in Honolulu.
(SOUNDBITE OF GABBY PAHINUI'S "HOW D'YA DO")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In North Korea, people celebrated the New Year with fireworks and song. You can hear it on this state broadcast.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Singing in Korean).
MCEVERS: And the leader of North Korea, Kim Jong Un, delivered a message.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SUPREME LEADER KIM JONG UN: (Speaking Korean).
MCEVERS: He said, "the entire area of the U.S. mainland is within our nuclear strike range. The United States can never start a war against me and our country." To talk about the speech, we have reached Evans Revere on Skype. He's an Asia expert and a former State Department official. Welcome to the show.
EVANS REVERE: It's a pleasure to be with you.
MCEVERS: Let's start with that statement that Kim Jong Un made about how the U.S. is now within nuclear strike range. I mean, how do you interpret this? What is he trying to do with this speech?
REVERE: I think the bottom line that he's trying to convey to the United States but also to the international community is that North Korea is and is going to remain a nuclear weapons power. And that reality includes North Korea's ability not only to deter an American attack but to perhaps even threaten the United States itself with a nuclear attack.
MCEVERS: Do you think this speech is also aimed at a domestic audience as well?
REVERE: Oh, I think clearly there's a substantial element of domestic politics at work here. He says that the United States cannot attack me, which I thought was an interesting turn of phrase. He's also trying to tell his people that the United States no longer dares to attack North Korea, the DPRK, because North Korea has now, under his leadership, developed this nuclear deterrent.
MCEVERS: Right. So the idea of the speech is this is the new reality, get used to it, but what about the specific claim that the weapons - that North Korea's nuclear weapons can now reach anywhere in the U.S.? Does that seem possible given what we've seen from North Korea's latest missile tests?
REVERE: So my assessment of this is that while the threat is there in sort of the theoretical realm, as a practical reality, North Korea has not yet crossed the finish line in terms of actually and credibly being able to threaten the continental United States with a missile-borne nuclear weapon.
MCEVERS: Yesterday on ABC's "This Week," former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen said this.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THIS WEEK")
MIKE MULLEN: We're actually closer, in my view, to a nuclear war with North Korea and in that region than we've ever been. And I just don't see the opportunities to solve this diplomatically at this particular point.
MCEVERS: You have experience negotiating with North Korea on behalf of the U.S. government. Do you have a similar outlook about the possibility for diplomacy here?
REVERE: Well, I have a similar outlook about the possibility of nuclear war. I think if you look at North Korea's position and you take it literally that they will never give up their nukes, if you look at the U.S. position and take it literally that we will not tolerate a nuclear-armed North Korea, the logical conclusion is that a confrontation of some sort is a distinct possibility - I hope it's not. I hope there is room for diplomacy and dialogue. I think getting to the point of dialogue is one of the things that the U.S. administration is doing now, which is an unprecedented application of economic, trade, diplomatic, political and other sanctions as a way of compelling North Korea, the DPRK, to rethink the course that it is on. We're in uncharted territory here. We've never gone down this track in quite this way when it comes to sanctions and other measures.
MCEVERS: Of course, in this speech, Kim Jong Un also, surprisingly to some, called for direct talks with South Korea. What did you make of that?
REVERE: I have been waiting since the Moon Jae-in government came into power...
MCEVERS: In South Korea.
REVERE: ...In 2017 for the North Koreans to do precisely what they have done - reach out to South Korea. They are, in their own way, trying to drive a wedge in between the South Koreans and the United States by attracting South Korea, the ROK, into a dialogue since the United States and South Korea have been pretty much in lockstep in applying massive pressure and isolation on North Korea.
MCEVERS: Evans Revere, senior adviser with the Albright Stonebridge Group and a former State Department official. Thank you very much.
REVERE: Thank you very much.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
If New Year's Day is a time for hope then this next story is perfect because for the first time in 19 years, there is actually a chance for the Buffalo Bills.
(CHEERING)
MCEVERS: Buffalonians are celebrating the Bills' first trip to the NFL playoffs since 1999. As you can imagine, it's been a tough road for fans like 44-year-old Patrick Lazzara.
PATRICK LAZZARA: People are always talking about the NFL, and I'm like, yeah, it's all right. It's all right. My team stinks. I'm a Bills fan. And people are like, oh, sorry to hear that. Sorry to hear that, you know.
MCEVERS: Late yesterday, Lazarra and Bills fans were on the brink of yet another offseason of condolence. The Bills had won their game against the Miami Dolphins but that wasn't enough. They also needed help from another team a thousand miles away. Bills fans needed the Cincinnati Bengals to beat the Baltimore Ravens, but with under a minute to go, the Ravens were up. Things did not look good for Buffalo. All the Ravens had to do was hold the Bengals for one more play and they would be in the playoffs, not the Bills. Bills fans held their breath.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER: Ravens trying to end it here. Fourth down. Dalton steps up. Dalton throws. It's complete, caught by Boyd. Tyler Boyd - touchdown. Remarkable. The Cincinnati Bengals have stunned this crowd.
MCEVERS: The Bengals' incredible last-minute touchdown ended the Ravens' season. The Bills were still in Miami watching nervously in the visitor's locker room waiting for a miracle that actually happened.
(CHEERING)
MCEVERS: Bills fans pretty much everywhere went nuts in their homes...
(CHEERING)
MCEVERS: ...And in bars.
(CHEERING)
MCEVERS: And the party kept going even after the team flew home from Miami. Despite it being 1 o'clock in the morning and four degrees outside, hundreds of Bills fans welcomed the team home at the airport.
(CHEERING)
MCEVERS: OK. So this is supposed to be a happy story, which means we will not go into the playoff history of the Buffalo Bills. Spoiler alert - it is not good. But for at least one very cold and happy New Year's Eve, Bills fans could forget about all that and be glad. Finally, the playoffs are here.
(SOUNDBITE OF HUBBABUBBAKLUBB'S "MOPEDBART")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
It is, of course, a new year, and that means a bunch of new state laws. You might have heard about some of the headliners like recreational marijuana here in California and minimum wage hikes in several states. There are some that might have fallen through the cracks. Luckily, NPR's Colin Dwyer has been spending his new year looking into them for us. Hey, Colin.
COLIN DWYER, BYLINE: Hello.
MCEVERS: So what are the ones we might have missed?
DWYER: Well, you mentioned minimum wage increases, but that's not the only workplace change afoot. In fact, maybe the most notable has to do with mandated paid leave. Washington state is now requiring all employers to provide paid sick leave. That makes it one of just a handful of states plus Washington D.C. to mandate paid sick leave. And Rhode Island will join that list too in just a couple months. Meanwhile, New York is instituting a paid family leave mandate of its own. But also, there are a number of hot-button issues nationally that are being treated in states, including some stricter voter ID laws in Iowa and West Virginia. And meanwhile, in Tennessee, they are requiring colleges to offer broad First Amendment rights for speakers on campus. And that follows a number of months of speaking engagements resulting in protests and sometimes violence.
MCEVERS: Of course, not every state law has so much appeal. Have you found any strange ones in your research?
DWYER: So there is some bad news for exotic pet owners in South Carolina, unfortunately. Normal residents there can no longer acquire new exotic pets. So that means no apes, no lions, no tigers anymore. But that said, the 25 estimated exotic pet owners who currently reside in the state will be grandfathered into the new rules under certain new conditions. Also, in Illinois, Barack Obama is getting his own holiday. That is August 4. The former Illinois senator is getting a state holiday on his birthday. Now, unfortunately, you will not be getting any work or school off for that holiday. You will just be able to observe in his honor.
MCEVERS: Nice. And just give us one more that you might have found interesting.
DWYER: Yeah. So this one might be my favorite. This one brings us back to Tennessee, where, happily, barbers can now make house calls.
MCEVERS: Oh, phew (ph).
DWYER: Yes, exactly. Before, they were only able to do so if the client happened to be sick. But it turns out now that as long as you have your residential barber certificate, you can do business in private homes as a barber.
MCEVERS: NPR's Colin Dwyer. Thank you very much.
DWYER: Of course.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
And as of today, Californians can legally buy recreational marijuana. But in California and the handful of other states where recreational pot is legal, it is still illegal to drive while under the drug's influence. NPR's Rae Ellen Bichell reported last August that law enforcement and scientists were struggling to find better ways to determine who is impaired. And she started her story in a Denver hotel conference room with 16 State Patrol officers watching a YouTube video.
(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO)
BOBBY BLACK: Hi. I'm Bobby Black, senior editor of High Times magazine. And today, we're going to show you how to do a dab.
RAE ELLEN BICHELL, BYLINE: The cops, with their buzz cuts and Mountain Dews, looked curious. Some took notes. After all, they were there for a proper education about weed.
(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO)
BLACK: A bowl of water and some tongs if you're seasoning a new nail and, of course, some shatter or wax.
BICHELL: Chris Halsor started this class a few years ago, when Colorado legalized recreational marijuana.
CHRIS HALSOR: The whole point of this class is to get the officers to make correct decisions.
BICHELL: In this state and others, it's legal to be high, but it's illegal to drive while high. Right now, there's no breathalyzer that's proven to work, so it's up to officers like the ones in this room to make the call on whether someone they've pulled over has been driving impaired or not, and therefore, if they should be arrested. But a lot of them haven't been high themselves since some exploratory puffs in high school. They're lacking, Halsor says, in confidence.
HALSOR: Confidence that they're making the right arrest decision and confidence that they're letting people go who really aren't impaired.
BICHELL: The students paged through Dope magazine, chuckled at a photo of an edible called reef jerky and ogled gold-plated blunts at a nearby dispensary. But the real test was sitting in the hotel parking lot in an RV plastered with bumper stickers.
EUGENE BUTLER: Yes. Good music, good company, good weed - it all goes together.
SHARIKA CLARK: That's true.
BICHELL: The four volunteers - John, Christine, Sharika Clark and Eugene Butler - had never met before but they shared a passion for pot, especially the free kind.
CHRISTINE: You got some kief there, too?
BUTLER: But check this out. If you guys ever want to boost your high...
BICHELL: Just to be clear, it's legal to smoke pot on private property in Colorado, so they weren't doing anything wrong. These people, including Sharika Clark, were getting high as a kite for the greater good.
CLARK: We're going to willfully smell like pot around a bunch of cops (laughter).
BICHELL: The volunteers walked into the hotel where the officers were waiting to practice sobriety tests on them. One group started with a volunteer named Christine. She didn't want to share her last name.
AJ TARANTINO: Have you consumed any cannabis today?
CHRISTINE: Oh, yeah.
BICHELL: AJ Tarantino, a trooper with Colorado's State Patrol, took the lead with his colleagues Philip Gurley, Tom Davis and Rich Armstrong observing.
TARANTINO: Would you be willing to do voluntary roadside maneuvers?
CHRISTINE: Of course.
BICHELL: Christine did really well on math, but she didn't do well on other things like balancing, remembering instructions and estimating time.
PHILIP GURLEY: She showed multiple signs of impairment.
TOM DAVIS: Yeah, she'd be going to jail.
RICH ARMSTRONG: Or she'd be arrested.
BICHELL: But then the group moved on to Sharika Clark...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Let's get situated here.
CLARK: (Laughter).
BICHELL: ...And things got a little more complicated. Yes, her pupils were huge. And Philip Gurley told her she had a tough time touching her finger to the tip of her nose while her eyes were closed.
GURLEY: But your balance, your counting, your alphabet - all spot on.
BICHELL: So in real life, would they have arrested her for driving impaired?
GURLEY: Yes.
ARMSTRONG: Boy, you're tough. I don't know if I would've or not, to be honest with you.
BICHELL: Right now, these officer's opinions loom large. If they decide you're driving high, you're going to jail, but they are just opinions.
TARA LOVESTEAD: It's too subjective.
BICHELL: Tara Lovestead is a chemical engineer at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colo. She and her colleagues are looking for the chemical signature of a high so that instead of relying on people to determine cannabis impairment, a standardized test might one day do the trick.
LOVESTEAD: We like to know the human error and the limitations of the human opinion and want to make it as scientific based in fact as we can.
BICHELL: It's actually really hard to do this kind of research because Lovestead works in a federal lab. And federally, cannabis is considered a schedule one substance. So even though she's in Colorado, getting a hold of a sample of THC for research purposes is just as hard as getting a hold of heroin.
LOVESTEAD: Right. We cannot use the stuff down the street (laughter).
BICHELL: It's also a really tricky chemistry problem and that's because of the main chemical in cannabis that gets a person high - THC. In states like Colorado, there is a THC blood test which can show, quote, "presumed impairment," but Lovestead and others maintain that, scientifically speaking, the test isn't reliable.
LOVESTEAD: We just don't know whether or not that means they're still intoxicated or impaired or not.
BICHELL: A leading research group found evidence of THC in the blood of frequent smokers up to a month after they stopped consuming. And in other people, blood samples showed no trace of THC even though the researchers had just watched them smoke joints.
LOVESTEAD: There's no quantitative measure that could stand up in a court of law.
BICHELL: Now, people like Lovestead are setting the standards for a reliable breath test, starting with the fundamental physical properties of THC. But in the meantime, back at the hotel, this course is the best there is. And at least now the officers know what pot strains like OG Kush and Skunk Dog actually smell like.
GURLEY: Yeah, smells like the bottom side of a rock a little bit more.
TARANTINO: I want to smell one that's like - is there one that's fruity?
BICHELL: Rae Ellen Bichell, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE MOTET'S "NEMESIS")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Protesters clashed with police in Iran today. It's the fifth day of demonstrations in the country. State-run media reporting more than a dozen people have died, including protesters and police. The protest started because of economic problems, and that's something the international deal over Iran's nuclear energy program was supposed to deal with. To talk about this, we are joined by Suzanne Maloney. She's a former State Department adviser, and she's now with the Brookings Institution. Welcome.
SUZANNE MALONEY: Thank you.
MCEVERS: So how rare are protests like these in Iran?
MALONEY: Iranians have come to the streets with some regularity over the course of the past 39 years, often protesting over labor concerns or backpay. But what we're seeing today is something quite different in the sense that it began with at least the articulation of economic concerns and very quickly morphed into something much more anti-government, directly confronting the most important aspects of the Islamic Republic's ideology. And the other distinct difference that we're seeing in what's happening on the ground today in Iran is the fact that it has spread. Whether that's because of prior coordination or simply because of the contagion effect of information technology, we don't know.
MCEVERS: So, you know, you talk about how these protests started because of economic concerns. I mean, what is the state of Iran's economy? How bad is it for people?
MALONEY: Well, in fact, Iran has experienced considerable economic growth since the implementation of the nuclear deal early last year. But what we haven't seen is the trickle-down effect that many Iranians were anticipating. Iranians, for years, have been clamoring for more jobs, more opportunities, greater interaction with the world. And I think that the nuclear deal was sold by Rouhani and other advocates of diplomacy as a very quick fix to problems that, in many cases, are decades in the making and require very difficult structural reforms to address.
MCEVERS: And here in the U.S., President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have tweeted their support for the Iranian people. What do you make of that? How do you read those statements?
MALONEY: Well, I think it was predictable that the Trump administration would move very quickly out of the gate to associate itself with the people on the streets both because of the desire on the part of the president to differentiate himself from his predecessor - Barack Obama was relatively reluctant to embrace the massive protests that erupted in 2009 over a contested election - but also because the Trump administration has a very fixed view of Iran, which is focused not so much on the nuclear deal, not so much on Iran's regional activities but very directly on the belief that this is a systemic problem, that it's the nature of the regime. And without addressing the nature of the regime, the rest of the problems can't be successfully addressed. So I think it was predictable that Trump would tweet and predictable that he would be looking to align himself with the protesters.
MCEVERS: You know, while they are critical of the government, the vice president called it a brutal regime. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has been more willing to talk with other countries and make deals than past Iranian leaders. I mean, how do U.S. policymakers see him, you know, compared to his opposition or those who might take his place in Iran?
MALONEY: Well, Rouhani comes from a sort of centrist place in the political spectrum in Iran, but he's not really a reformist. And he hasn't been able to enact deep political changes that satisfy the demands of many Iranians. He's focused primarily on the economy. I think his attempt was to try to deliver more jobs and more opportunities in a way that would satisfy the more immediate expectations of the population. And by his own standard, he's had real difficulty doing that because of the long-term problems and also because, ultimately, the nuclear deal didn't wholly end the sanctions regime in Iran. It only lifted or waived those sanctions that were related to the nuclear program.
MCEVERS: Suzanne Maloney is deputy director of the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. We reached her on Skype. Thank you very much.
MALONEY: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Wood Pellets are big business. U.S. companies send almost a billion dollars worth of wood pellets to the European Union, which uses them to power energy plants. But the appetite overseas for wood pellets has conservationists in the U.S. worried about our forests. Arkansas Public Media's Jacqueline Froelich reports.
JACQUELINE FROELICH, BYLINE: Here in Pine Bluff, Ark., tons of pine tree trunks and limbs tumble through a giant drum debarker at Highland Pellets. These logs are dragged by a chain conveyor into a massive steel chipper.
(SOUNDBITE OF INDUSTRIAL CHIPPER)
FROELICH: Mountains of fragrant, golden pine chips are furnace dried and compressed into wood pellets for overseas export.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRUCK BRAKES HISSING)
FROELICH: Trucker Bobby Taylor says this mill processes wood from commercial yellow pine forests which have become too dense.
BOBBY TAYLOR: We're growing so many pine trees in Arkansas that we needed somewhere else to take them, so this has really been a huge thing for our industry.
FROELICH: Sixteen industrial mills across the Deep South, from the Carolinas to Arkansas, currently produce 6.8 million metric tons of export pellets. That's enough to fill 272,000 tractor trailers. Enviva is the region's largest pellet producer. It harvests branches and limbs left over from logging as well as small and mature trees not suitable for lumber. Most of it is from private forests. Enviva's Jennifer Jenkins says her company complies with strict timber management practices, and there's plenty of biomass for the taking.
JENNIFER JENKINS: Every year, in the Southeast U.S., 2 percent of the forests are being harvested while the other 98 percent are growing.
FROELICH: Pellet producers here refer to these overflowing southern timber stands as America's wood basket, but Adam Colette with the Dogwood Alliance in Asheville, N.C., says biodiverse southern woodlands should not be treated like a commodity.
ADAM COLETTE: This is prime habitat. This is prime flood protection for our local communities. And this purifies water for our communities as well. And these cuts are devastating.
FROELICH: Colette worries about the future. Demand for wood pellets is expected to surge, given both the European Union and U.S. classify wood biomass as a carbon-neutral fuel. Thomas Buchholz is a scientist with Spatial Informatics Group and researches biomass. He says that carbon calculation is hazy, given that when wood pellets are burned, they can often emit more carbon than coal. He suggests making pellets from diseased and invasive trees and forest restoration debris, what he calls conservation biomass.
THOMAS BUCHHOLZ: In the end, the carbon that's stored in a untouched forest is very hard to beat.
(SOUNDBITE OF CONVEYOR BELT)
FROELICH: At Highland Pellets, this plant now generates more than a half-million metric tons of pellets annually. Company Chairman Tom Reilley says the mill only harvests cultivated southern pine tree stands.
TOM REILLEY: Highland uses forest thinnings, which are low-value trees, along with tree tops, limbs and recyclable material from sawmills such as wood shavings, chips and sawdust.
FROELICH: Setting, perhaps, a U.S. green pellet trend. For NPR News, I'm Jacqueline Froelich in Fayetteville, Ark.
(SOUNDBITE OF L'INDECIS' "HAPPY HOURS")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
And before I say goodbye to 2017, I want to talk one more time about jazz chickens. Comedian Eddie Izzard was here with me in the studio earlier this year to talk about his book "Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, And Jazz Chickens." And we talked about a lot of stuff. We couldn't get everything in, so I wanted to share it again and include the part about the tigers and some other things that didn't make it the first time around. So yes, there will be tigers. And first - jazz chickens.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
EDDIE IZZARD: Cows go roo (ph). Sheep go meh (ph). Ducks go quack. Pigs go oink, all of them. Chickens go cockle-doodle-do (ph) unless you wedge a trumpet on their face.
MCEVERS: If you are a fan of Izzard's surreal standup comedy, you probably can tell where this is going.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
IZZARD: (Imitating trumpet). Farmer's wife going, what's that? That's jazz chicken.
(LAUGHTER)
IZZARD: We bought a jazz chicken? No, it's the old chicken but a trumpet fell on his face.
(LAUGHTER)
IZZARD: What do you mean fell on his face? Well, I wedged it on there. I couldn't stand the cock-a-doodle-do, cock-a-doodle-do all times of day and night. I thought, let's make it jazz.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
MCEVERS: Eddie Izzard - comedian, actor, writer - joins me now here in the studio. Jazz chickens is in the title but not in the book. I mean, was that supposed to be true?
IZZARD: They said, there's got to be something funny in there. I do talk about love and death. And jazz chickens is just there to be funny in a way.
MCEVERS: And as much as we're laughing, it's a serious book. You start with the day that you say your childhood ended, the day your mother died of cancer - March 4, 1968. You were 6 years old.
IZZARD: Yeah. It was an unusual thing. Mom and dad decided not to say that this cancer was going to kill her. And then one day, she was gone. And yeah, it doesn't get better. You just put layers and layers over it.
MCEVERS: At some point, and I don't know if it's in that chapter or later, but you write that ever since she died, you feel like, in a way, you've been trying to bring her back.
IZZARD: Well, if I can really do enough interesting things, maybe it will cut through. I just think unfortunately we live and then we die and then that's it, kids. So I don't think mom can come back. And I think she would've got a message back, you know. Truly, one person would have got a message back over the eons and eons of time - 10,000 years of civilization - just one.
MCEVERS: One email.
IZZARD: If one - yeah - one message, one clouds pull aside and it's me, Janine (ph). I died last Tuesday. Anyway, it's great. They get massages up here, and God's nice. He's a bit full of himself but all right. You know, they're all hanging out here. Everyone gets on. It's great. Be nice and you come up here, if not, you go down and it's smelly and it's horrible. It's all cold and hot at the same time.
MCEVERS: So obviously, yeah, you don't mean you would actually bring her back. But you said, like, if you just keep doing enough things.
IZZARD: Yeah. And they're not scatter gun. It's not like, and then I'm going to be a stamp collector, be the most brilliant stamp collector. These are just things that I wanted to do. Remember when we were teenagers, we would all go - I'm going to be an astronaut, no, a beekeeper, no, one of the other. Or you had a few things usually on the boil there. And I've just kept those on the - sort of simmering in the back of my mind. And then I brought a number of them forward like drama and surreal comedy and then playing Hollywood Bowl, doing gigs. I went off to do gigs in Spanish in Madrid and Barcelona, do it in Espanol. And now I can go around America doing it in English and...
MCEVERS: And Spanish.
IZZARD: ...Espanol.
MCEVERS: Because this is a thing that runs through the book. You worked really hard but you also had this confidence that you could do what you wanted to do, right? Some people call it chutzpah. I think you call it pigheadedness.
IZZARD: Yeah.
MCEVERS: Where does it come from? I mean, I feel like I want to be able to bottle and sell it, but I want to know where it...
IZZARD: It was locked in from coming out in 1985, coming up 32 years ago as transgender or - I was TV when I came out. The language has changed over the years - transvestite, TV, transsexual, TS. We are now at trans and transgender. So I came out in 1985, and it was very difficult to go out and forge your way out and lock it into your life. Once I did that and I pushed back on all that fear and hatred and the feelings that society all around the world was saying to me - you're not allowed to do this. This is wrong. And I'm saying, it's built into my genetics. And I think I have girl genetics and boy genetics, so I'm going to express them. I'm not going to feel shame or guilt. And that has given me the confidence for everything else.
MCEVERS: And you do talk about, though, there's - you have girl mode and boy mode.
IZZARD: Yeah. That's just an articulation of it. If I'm in boy mode, I'm going to look more boyish. Girl mode, I probably look like a boy who's more in girl mode. I use boy-girl as opposed to man-woman. Man-woman is much heavier, more leadened. We obsess about it. Young boys and young girls - very similar. Older men, older women look very similar. Tigers, we have no idea. If you're being savaged by a tiger, you would not say, is this a boy tiger or a girl tiger? We're obsessed about our sexuality - our sexualities. But other animals don't give a monkeys about it. They will - if they're a big tiger, they will attack you. They won't go, is this a man or a woman that I'm attacking? They just go attack.
MCEVERS: I want to talk about your process too about writing about how you come up with some of your bits. I want to listen to....
IZZARD: Can't call them bits.
MCEVERS: Oh, sorry.
IZZARD: I think they're scenes. I know. There's an American standup-language thing. They say, I've got this bit. And it just sounds...
MCEVERS: It makes it sound pretty small.
IZZARD: Yes. It sounds - like I got this bit where I talk about the existence of eternity. I mean, you know, it sounds like someone has forced us to say I've got a bit. No, I've got a nice piece of comedy. I've got a little scene. I've got a little story.
MCEVERS: We're going to banish the bit. Let's talk about one of your scenes. You're talking about something extremely mundane, about how software automatically updates. You know, when you're sitting at your computer and the software is like, oh, do you want to have an automatic update? You're like, yes, please, update. Thank you. Let's listen to that.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
IZZARD: No one in this room has read the terms and conditions.
(LAUGHTER)
IZZARD: Even the people who wrote it didn't read it.
(LAUGHTER)
IZZARD: Anything could be there. We will take your buttocks and sell them to the Chinese. Fine. Swap your knees out? Yes. So let's tape your buttocks to the hot part of a tractor. OK. Put your big toe on your thumbs and swap them out. Yes, yes. And then you get the update and nothing's changed.
(LAUGHTER)
MCEVERS: So process-wise, is that you, you know, sitting at home at your computer, the update actually happens and you think to yourself, I'm going to write a scene about this or...
IZZARD: No. It's even more lucid than that. It's actually on stage. Like if I was doing that, I would be on stage talking about something else or something close to it. And then I think, that terms - we don't read it, do we? No one reads it. Do you read it? And you suddenly realize there's a whole lot of areas I can go there. So I just start ad-libbing on the stage. Everything is verbal sculpting. I verbally sculpt from there. So the next night, I will expand upon it more. And I will say, sell my buttocks to the Chinese, whatever it is, you know. And you get this energy that goes into it, and the audience really reacts to the energy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING0
IZZARD: If you have a PC, I think it's a very similar thing. You open the computer. You switch on the computer. You put the handle in and you turn the handle.
So I write down some ideas in the Notes section of my iPhone. And then I go on stage and I develop them. And I developed "Force Majeure," my latest show, in LA and San Francisco and New York. And I will do that in Paris. And that'll be a salute to France and voting in President Macron. And I'm very positive on Europe. We have to make the world work. Otherwise, this century, it's going to be our century - the first century for the rest of eternity where humanity really gets as fair as possible. Or it's the last century and goodbye humanity.
MCEVERS: Wow. Eddie Izzard, thank you.
IZZARD: Thank you. Cheers.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MCEVERS: Eddie Izzard. I talked to him back in June. He is performing in France this month in French, says so on his website - in French. His Believe Me tour comes to the U.S. in February.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
2018 will be the last year in the Senate for Orrin Hatch. The Utah Republican announced today that he is retiring and will not seek re-election this November. Hatch has shaped some of the most meaningful legislation of the past 40 years, including that $1.5 trillion tax cut Republicans passed just before Christmas. His retirement also kicks off an open race for a safe Republican seat in the Senate. One potential candidate is former GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Joining us now is NPR congressional correspondent Susan Davis. Hi, Sue.
SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Hatch was first elected in 1976. He's the longest-serving Republican in the Senate. What's his legacy?
DAVIS: He is one of only nine senators in the history of the country to serve for 40 or more years. There are few who have ever served in the Congress who have done more to shape modern American life than Orrin Hatch. In his retirement announcement, you could drop maybe what he said a little bit of a humble brag in which he noted that he's written more bills that have become laws than anybody serving in Congress today. Just to give you a sense of the scope of the things he's done - he was a chief author of things like the Americans With Disabilities Act, he wrote the nation's Children's Health Insurance Program law and he was a key author of the USA Patriot Act, which remade the national security apparatus after 9/11. He has cast votes for - in the confirmation process of every serving justice on the Supreme Court.
And he also had a very prolific side life as a songwriter. He's written hundreds of songs over the years. He's a published songwriter and has written songs for the LDS church, of which he is a member, and has collected thousands of dollars in royalties over the years from that.
SHAPIRO: How much of a surprise was his retirement announcement? I know President Trump personally appealed to him not to retire.
DAVIS: For those of us who spend our days on Capitol Hill, it was not much of a surprise. His health has clearly been failing in recent years. He turns 84 later this year. There was a view that if they were to pass a tax cut bill, that that would likely increase his odds of retirement. They achieved that in - before they adjourned for Christmas. He said he wanted that sort of as a capstone to this legislative career. The president did engage. He did try to get Hatch to stay, to run for re-election, although that was often seen as maybe potentially an effort by the president to maybe elbow out Mitt Romney, who has not shot down the suggestions that he should consider running for that seat - and even Orrin Hatch, who has suggested that Mitt Romney could be a good Senate candidate to replace him.
SHAPIRO: And Romney, of course, has not been a friend to President Trump, criticizing him quite openly. How serious is the idea that he might run for this seat?
DAVIS: He has not made any official announcement. He only put out a statement today congratulating Hatch on his career. There has been speculation around this for months, and Romney has done nothing to dissuade the talk, which is fueling speculation that he's in. He's wildly popular in Utah. He'd be heavily favored to win if he gets in. As you noted, he's been a very vocal critic of the president, so having him in the Senate could be a very interesting dynamic. This would be his second bid for Congress. He ran against Ted Kennedy in 1994 in Massachusetts for the Senate and lost. Utah in 2013 is probably more hospitable ground, and he has until March 15 to make up his mind, although he'll likely make a decision well before then.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Susan Davis, thanks so much.
DAVIS: Happy new year.
(SOUNDBITE OF BONUS POINTS' "HAMMOCK DAYS")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
We're going to hear now about a doctor at a free clinic in Florida. His mission is to cure as many people as possible who have hepatitis C. The treatment exists, but the medication costs more than $90,000. So he went directly to the drug company with a proposal. Julio Ochoa of WUSF in Tampa has the story.
JULIO OCHOA, BYLINE: When a hepatitis C treatment called Harvoni was released in 2014, Dr. Ronald Cirillo knew it was big.
RONALD CIRILLO: It's the reason that dragged me out of retirement.
OCHOA: Cirillo specialized in treating hepatitis C for more than 30 years. During that time, the available treatment for the virus had terrible side effects, and it didn't work very well. It only cured hep C less than half the time. But new drugs called Harvoni and Sovaldi cure almost everybody with few adverse reactions.
CIRILLO: This is easy, guys. What do you need here? Let's treat them. Let's get rid of this disease and move on to the next hepatitis that's going to come up. But in my lifetime, I've seen it change from a horrible treatment to a manageable treatment.
OCHOA: Cirillo joined the Turning Points free clinic last year. It's in Bradenton about an hour south of Tampa. The clinic primarily serves uninsured Floridians who make too much to qualify for Medicaid but can't get help buying Obamacare insurance. Cirillo is trying to test every high-risk patient he encounters. Today, his assistant pricks a patient's finger and squeezes blood onto the end of a small plastic tube.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: And this little measuring tool goes into the blood...
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: ...And solution mix there. We're going to time it 20 minutes, and that's it. That's the test. Do we have a little Band-Aid for her?
OCHOA: Nearly 30,000 people in Florida were found to have hepatitis C in 2016, and many more likely have it because the virus can lie dormant for decades. Cirillo spearheaded a partnership with Harvoni's maker, Gilead Sciences, that has provided the treatment to about a hundred patients.
CIRILLO: We treat people without any insurance that have no hope. If you qualify to be a patient here, you'll get tested.
OCHOA: A 57-year-old patient named Patricia discovered she had hep C a few months ago during a trip to the clinic. NPR is not using her last name because the virus is associated with illegal IV drug use. It can also spread via sex, but Patricia is not sure how she got it.
PATRICIA: Because of my age I guess, they went ahead and tested me for it and blew my mind that I actually had hep C. And the levels ended up being relatively high.
OCHOA: The virus had started to scar and inflame her liver. But without insurance or a job, the $94,000 Harvoni treatment was out of reach.
PATRICIA: I would never have been able to afford that treatment - never.
OCHOA: Staff at the clinic helped patients fill out the complicated application from drug maker Gilead. Patients must have no insurance, be drug-free for at least six months and meet income requirements. Patricia received the treatment - one large pill a day for 12 weeks - and will be tested again in three months to determine whether she is free from hepatitis C.
PATRICIA: Had they not discovered it really and gotten me onto the program, who knows, you know?
OCHOA: The Bradenton clinic is just one of many free clinics across Florida, but it's likely the only one that's had so much success treating people with hepatitis C. Cirillo says he hopes to eventually cure the entire population of the deadly virus. For NPR News, I'm Julio Ochoa in Tampa.
(SOUNDBITE OF ISRAEL MEDINA, SAMPLE MAGIC AND DAVID FELTON'S "GOLDEN HAZE")
SIEGEL: And that story was produced with the USC Center for Health Journalism's national fellowship and Kaiser Health News.
(SOUNDBITE OF ISRAEL MEDINA, SAMPLE MAGIC AND DAVID FELTON'S "GOLDEN HAZE")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Buying a home is about to get more expensive in some places. The tax bill that President Trump signed into law before Christmas contains new restrictions on what homeowners can deduct, how much mortgage interest and property taxes. NPR's Jim Zarroli looks at what that could mean for the housing market.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Kari Pinto and her husband are recently retired, and they're looking to move from Iowa to a state with a warmer climate. She says the new tax law will limit how much they can deduct on the home they buy, and she's been calling up local tax offices in different states to try to understand what the impact will be.
KARI PINTO: Now we just have another wrinkle in trying to determine where to go and how much it's going to cost us.
ZARROLI: The new tax law is forcing a lot of people to reconsider whether they want to buy a home and how much they can pay. The bill bars homeowners from deducting interest on mortgages bigger than $750,000. Before now, the cap was a million dollars. Real estate economist Sam Chandan says this change probably won't have much of an impact on sales except at the high end. What will make a difference, he says, is the doubling of the standard deduction on federal income tax.
SAM CHANDAN: That means that for a lot of people around the country, it just won't make sense to itemize and take advantage of that mortgage interest deduction any longer. So that doesn't really hurt housing directly, but it does take away one of the advantages.
ZARROLI: Another change facing homeowners is the $10,000 cap on state and local tax deductions. Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of Realtors, says some 95 percent of homeowners fall below that amount. So the new cap won't have much of an impact on housing prices in most places.
LAWRENCE YUN: We don't anticipate too much change for the middle part of the country where home values are fairly affordable.
ZARROLI: But in high-cost states such as New York, Maryland and California, the impact could be considerable.
YUN: The homeownership rate is falling in California because of the unaffordable condition. Now with the tax reform, it will make it even more unaffordable than before.
ZARROLI: Over time, that could bring down prices at the upper end of the market. Richard Wight owns a real estate brokerage firm in New Jersey where home prices and property taxes are among the most expensive in the nation. He thinks the new law could affect properties costing a half million dollars or more.
RICHARD WIGHT: My gut tells me that it's going to have an impact at some level. That is, I think it's probably going to be in the 450-plus range.
ZARROLI: On the other hand, Wight says housing prices have been pretty strong lately. And with unemployment low, a lot of people still want to buy houses. And they're likely to keep doing so even if it's not as economical as it used to be. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOONIE MAYFIELD'S "THE ROADS TO RHODES")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
It's winter, which means lots of social media posts of weather forecasts or temperature readings on car dashboards. In the Adirondacks this week, the low could hit nearly 40 below. A lot of us would rather stay inside, but not North Country Public Radio's Brian Mann. He set out on one of the coldest days of the season so far for a wilderness ski.
BRIAN MANN, BYLINE: Setting off through the woods I am wrapped like a Christmas package with seven layers of insulation between myself and the day, wearing mittens an astronaut would envy.
This is one of those ice-box cold, double-digit below zero days. And the snow you can hear has that super cold squeak. The air is just absolutely kind of metal cold. But the cool part is that it is radiantly sunny outside and windless. So there's this blue sky and sun just cutting through these trees.
I ski on. Amazingly, I'm not alone out here. While crossing a frozen lake, I hear voices. Here's the thing I love. On days like this in the back country there's a lot of solitude, but sometimes there's also a kind of community.
HELENA GRANT: I also have homemade chia coconut energy bars.
MANN: I got to try that.
GRANT: You have to try it.
MANN: Helena Grant, visiting the Adirondacks from Connecticut, is passing out pastries from a Tupperware dish. This is her first time skiing a wilderness trail. She says her grandfather used to train in these mountains with one of the Army's Alpine units.
When your friend said let's go back country skiing when it's double digits below zero, did you say, hell, no?
GRANT: Oh, I said, hell, yes. And actually, this is something I've been hoping to do. And my grandfather was in the 10th Mountain Division. He used to climb up Marcy before breakfast, so...
MANN: Oh, that's cool.
GRANT: ...I feel like I'm in my element. I just had never gotten here before.
MANN: Helena's ski partner today is Brantley Beach from Keene, N.Y. He's grinning through a thick crust of ice in his beard.
BRANTLEY BEACH: It's actually warmer once it all kind of freezes over. There's this little layer of warm air between the ice and my face (laughter).
MANN: I know that sounds miserable, spending a day with ice plastered to your face, so I ask Helena to try to explain why this appeals.
GRANT: This is bliss. You are beyond all the cares of the world. And it almost brings tears to the eyes. And there's just little flecks of snow coming off the trees. It's just - I can't even describe it. It's so beautiful.
MANN: We go our separate ways. And soon I'm back in solitude, skiing high in a mountain pass next to a river that rumbles under snow and ice.
(SOUNDBITE OF RIVER RUMBLING)
MANN: It's the heart of winter right here. Brian Mann, NPR News, in New York's Adirondack Mountains.
(SOUNDBITE OF BONOBO'S "SILVER")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The 34-year-old visual artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby is a creature of two worlds. She was born in Nigeria and has lived in the U.S. for almost two decades. She weaves those worlds together into her large-scale paintings. Last year Crosby was named a MacArthur genius, and she has shows in Baltimore and New Orleans running at the same time. Karen Michel reports.
KAREN MICHEL, BYLINE: Njideka Akunyili Crosby's paintings are really big, some up to 8 feet by 10 feet. They're portraits of groups of people set in Nigeria or Brooklyn or Los Angeles melded with black and white photographs of politicians, images of ancestors, most of them women, and objects that signify life in both cultures - a bowl to hold rice, a kerosene lamp, Ikea furniture.
NJIDEKA AKUNYILI CROSBY: I think the point I make in my work is that my home is Nigeria and the United States at the same time.
MICHEL: Njideka Akunyili Crosby holds citizenship in both countries, listens to both Grace Jones and Nigerian pop in her studio and, when filling out forms, never knows where to call her permanent residence.
AKUNYILI CROSBY: That really is what it means for me to be an immigrant - is this navigation of two worlds at the same time.
MICHEL: In many of her works, there's a sort of portal between the figures, an open space in a wall between them. And she often paints members of her family. There's a striking image in the New Orleans Museum of Art of a group sitting around a table. The artist is standing, gazing down at the only white person in the group, her husband.
AKUNYILI CROSBY: That is loosely based on what happened the first time he visited Nigeria. Yes, it was a very serious family meeting that probably had three times the number of people in that painting. And it was, so, young man, what are your plans? (Laughter) Are you going to marry her? Yeah, like, how will you guys make it work in a country that is still very racist?
MICHEL: They now have a young son. A painting at the Tang Museum in Saratoga Springs, N.Y., includes a depiction of the artist embraced by her husband kneeling at her feet in their U.S. home. Ian Berry, the museum's director, says this is a critical time to show artists like Akunyili Crosby, whose work looks like the museum's visitors.
IAN BERRY: And I think Njideka's work presents a complex view of what it means to be from different places and of different places and living in a contemporary world. So seeing her version of portraiture where people are a complex mix I think is very valuable right now.
TREVOR SCHOONMAKER: There's enough beauty and a recognizable something there that we can all relate to no matter where we're from that just pulls you in. And you don't have to know what she's trying to do to appreciate it, and I think that's a great part of her success.
MICHEL: Trevor Schoonmaker is the chief curator at the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, N.C. He's also artistic director for Prospect.4, the New Orleans-wide art show that includes Akunyili Crosby's work. He's especially intrigued with the way the artist layers different worlds and different images, mixing acrylics, colored pencils and photos taken by the artist and ripped from magazines that at least partly cover nearly every figure from a Nigerian Michael Jackson impersonator to a former dictator to Janelle Monae.
SCHOONMAKER: She's figured this out in a way that's really brilliant. Certain elements are American, and other elements are Nigerian. Certain elements are Western. Others are African. I mean, that's why she just won a MacArthur.
MICHEL: The call that she'd won came when Njideka Akunyili Crosby was parking her car.
AKUNYILI CROSBY: And the only reason why I picked it up is I'm curious. I love answering numbers I don't know. And it was very bizarre but also very happy. So it's also like you're terrified, but you're also very happy. And it was all sorts of very odd emotions at the same time.
MICHEL: That curiosity feeds into her work. As an undergrad, Akunyili Crosby majored in both studio art and biology. The many layers in her work are like membranes, enabling a cultural osmosis between the living rooms of her Nigerian childhood and those of her current life in Los Angeles. For NPR News, I'm Karen Michel.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
It's a new year, but the Russia imbroglio - the sprawling, long-running saga about Moscow's attack on the 2016 presidential election and its aftermath - is still going strong. Washington spent much of last year simply trying to determine what happened in that attack, and there are still many questions that haven't been answered.
We're going to take the next few minutes to look at how that investigation might evolve this year. And here to talk about that is NPR's national security editor, Phil Ewing. Hi, Phil.
PHILIP EWING, BYLINE: Hi, Robert.
SIEGEL: Let's start with one big story coming up this year, the midterm elections. Are they likely to be like 2016 in the sense of so-called fake news, the use of trolls, bots, that sort of thing?
EWING: Well, according to current and former U.S. intelligence officials, the answer is yes. The FBI director, Christopher Wray, has already said the bureau has a special task force set up to watch for foreign interference in the new year. Plus, the Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, and his predecessor and many others in and out of the administration have said they fully expect more dirty tricks in this election and also in the 2020 presidential race. In the spy world, these are called active measures. A nation state uses its intelligence and diplomatic and other tools to shape the information environment by putting out false stories like you mentioned or exacerbating controversies, in our case, that already exist.
This never really stopped happening after the 2016 election. There were Russian Twitter accounts that turned up the volume on the Charlottesville unrest last year or the NFL protests over the national anthem or the Alabama special election and other stories. But what we can't know today is whether the government and the states will be ready to deal with the full gamut of things we saw in 2016 - the cyberattacks that targeted politicians, institutions like the Democratic National Committee or some other new kind of technique for mischief that nobody has thought about yet.
SIEGEL: As you've said, though, Russia has kept up a lot of the social media agitation. Why? What's in it for Russian President Vladimir Putin?
EWING: I think it's a low-cost option for him to be a player in the West, not just the United States but in Europe, in the U.K. There were indications of Russian interference in European elections in the vote that the Brits had for getting out of the European Union, the so-called Brexit controversy. And it enables him to increase Russia's throw weight on the global stage. And it'll be very interesting because he has an election this year as well, and he may make the case to his own voters that he continues to be a player and increase Russia's prestige on the world stage through these kinds of measures.
SIEGEL: Back to Washington, there are several congressional investigations still underway about Russia's activities. Are those likely to wrap up this year?
EWING: Members of Congress say that's what they want to happen. There are several committees looking into this. The House and Senate intelligence committees, the Senate Judiciary Committee and a couple of others have also had hearings or spoken about this. We don't know yet when their work might wrap up, but there have already been suggestions that the politics might actually be too fraught for them to come to any kind of consensus on this.
Republicans and Democrats might be - might not be able to get to the same findings, so they could release reports of their own - a majority Republican report, a minority Democratic report. And we'll just have to see how that plays out. But 2018 might bring kind of a story of "Choose Your Own Adventure" depending on which version of the case you want to follow.
SIEGEL: What about special prosecutor Robert Mueller? What, if anything, do we know about what direction his investigation might take this year?
EWING: That's one of the biggest and most important questions in this whole story, and I don't think anybody outside of the special counsel's office actually knows the answer. He has shown how effectively he can keep secrets. He, for example, reached a guilty plea with one former campaign adviser and then kept it completely secret until that was unsealed publicly. Mueller has never been the kind of guy to give interviews even before this when he was FBI director or talk openly about what he was doing. Plus, his office is under a gag order as part of the prosecution it brought against Trump's former campaign chairman. So unless something changes drastically, the only way we'll know what Mueller is doing is when he goes public or he takes more people to court.
SIEGEL: NPR's Phil Ewing, thanks.
EWING: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Today Pakistan's national security committee held an emergency meeting to discuss U.S.-Pakistan relations. This comes a day after President Trump tweeted that the U.S. has, quote, "foolishly given Pakistan more than $33 billion in aid over the last 15 years." He said the U.S. has gotten nothing but lies and deceit in return. To talk more about the implications here, we're joined now on Skype by Husain Haqqani, former Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. Welcome.
HUSAIN HAQQANI: Pleasure being here.
SHAPIRO: How did you interpret this tweet?
HAQQANI: I think that the tweet reflects a final phase in a long-running divorce proceeding. Pakistan has been unhappy because it has never got what it wanted from the U.S. relationship, which is a greater strength in its rivalry with India. On the other hand, the U.S. has never got what it wanted from Pakistan. Pakistan and the United States have had a transactional relationship.
But the underlying strength that comes from having a shared interest has never been there. Pakistan's focus has been a rivalry and animosity towards India, which has never been America's focus. And so what we have had is a relationship in which both sides either lied to each other or themselves and make a transactional relationship into an alliance.
SHAPIRO: You say this is the last stage of a slowly unfolding divorce and that the relationship has largely been transactional. But doesn't the U.S. still need what it needed from Pakistan before and Pakistan still needs the money that it gets from the U.S.?
HAQQANI: I think that Pakistan's need for money has declined. And similarly, the U.S. need for Pakistan has definitely diminished. Furthermore, Americans have to make a major decision. Is it worth it? Now, when you had more than a hundred thousand troops in Afghanistan, you needed to supply them with a lot of things, and therefore people in Washington calculated the price of paying for flying these things into Afghanistan will be far greater, a few American lives lost. It's not that big a deal. I don't agree with that, but that's how people calculated things.
But I think now not really president Trump but even some of his critics feel that the bargain is no longer a reasonable bargain. And Pakistan has become much closer to China anyway, which it has been for many, many years.
SHAPIRO: If we use your metaphor of divorce and the U.S. decides this relationship is broken and cannot be fixed and the U.S. decides to unilaterally go after Taliban safe havens in Pakistan without the support of the Pakistani government, what would the reaction be from within Pakistan?
HAQQANI: Well, we already are seeing the reaction. There will be the usual reaction, which is street protests, Pakistanis saying this is not acceptable. Pakistan could escalate and try and shoot back. I don't think that that would be very good from the point of view of Pakistan. Look; Pakistan is dysfunctional at many, many levels, and it has set for itself only one goal in 70 years, which is to oppose and compete with India. Now, there are reasons for it, but very frankly, that is the real goal here. So therefore, Pakistan's options are limited.
SHAPIRO: After President Trump's tweet, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley said that the U.S. is cutting its aid to Pakistan by more than $200 million. Many people see this as a way of trying to coerce Pakistan into changing its behavior, but you seem to be saying Pakistan won't change its behavior no matter what the U.S. does.
HAQQANI: I think that Pakistan is not going to change its behavior for a few hundred million dollars, whether it is given as an incentive or whether it be drawn as a punishment. I think people in Washington need to think of other ways of coercing Pakistan. Look; Pakistan's military and intelligence leaders think that what they are doing is in Pakistan's national interest. They think that supporting terrorism helps Pakistan have greater strength in the region against India. I don't agree with it. You don't agree with it. The world doesn't agree with it. But that's what they believe.
SHAPIRO: So it sounds like you're saying the relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan might be about to get worse, but at least both countries will stop pretending that it's better than it has been.
HAQQANI: I think that the relationship between the two countries is definitely not going to get any better and that the pretense of things becoming better with symbolic changes in Pakistani behavior has actually made that behavior worse and has contributed to the bad relationship underneath that has come to surface in the form of President Trump's tweet.
SHAPIRO: That was Husain Haqqani, former ambassador from Pakistan to the United States now with the Hudson Institute. Thanks so much.
HAQQANI: Thank you, Ari.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Big tech companies like Google and Facebook influence more of our lives every year. Congress has talked about regulating the tech giants without taking action. In Europe, it's a different story. Just before Christmas, the European Union's highest court issued a ruling against Uber. European courts have also said that Google has to remove some search results at a person's request. It's known as the right to be forgotten. To talk with us about why Europe is regulating these tech companies more aggressively than the U.S., Jonathan Zittrain joins us now. He's a professor of law and computer science at Harvard. Welcome.
JONATHAN ZITTRAIN: Hello.
SHAPIRO: Do you see these as isolated examples, or do you think it is generally true that Europe is more willing to regulate these big tech companies than the U.S. is?
ZITTRAIN: I think as a general rule, the Europeans are more willing to regulate full stop. There's just a general appetite for regulation and a trust in government perhaps to do it right that may not culturally exist as much in the United States.
SHAPIRO: So I gave a couple of examples related to Uber and Google. The big tech giants also include Facebook, Amazon, Apple. Do you also see steps to regulate those companies?
ZITTRAIN: Yes. And I think it's - it maybe stems from the earliest days when the Internet went mainstream. I think late-'90s, early 2000s with the dot-com boom, there was some sense possibly, globally, about not wanting to kill the goose laying golden eggs. But we've had a number of eggs now. Not all of them appear to be golden. And there is some willingness now to do something about it. And of course for the Europeans, we see some sense that these aren't their own companies.
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
ZITTRAIN: They are companies from another country. And the fact that, well, maybe it will end up helping European competition might not be entirely absent from their thinking, too.
SHAPIRO: Give us an example of how one of these steps that Europe is taking might affect an Internet user in their daily lives.
ZITTRAIN: Well, the right to be forgotten that you mentioned is not a bad example. That's an instance where under an old regime from 1995, a Data Protection Directive, the European courts held that European citizens have a right if there is information that is, quote, "no longer relevant" about them - say, inside a search engine - they have an ability to make the case to that search engine - say, Google - that their name should no longer be linked with a particular set of results that they find embarrassing or unwanted.
SHAPIRO: I've actually Googled things when I'm in Europe. And with the results, it says at the bottom of the page, some results may be missing as a result of this right to be forgotten ruling.
ZITTRAIN: Well, it turns out that that kind of remedy might have been too clever by half because of course if you tell people there's something they don't know about a specific search, that's giving them a big hint that they should roll up their sleeves and start searching more. So those exact notices won't appear when there is something specifically missing. But there are general notifications that say you're in a regime where there may be less stuff than there might otherwise be.
SHAPIRO: This is obviously a subjective question. But in your opinion, are European regulators being overzealous, or are American regulators falling down on the job?
ZITTRAIN: Well, I think it's possible to say yes to both of those. In the case of Europe, there is a kind of aggressiveness at times that may not map to what we think the ideal regime would be. Now, the other half of the equation is it's been a little bit lax in the United States. And I think that may be changing.
But there's certainly been some sense of quite modest restrictions that have been hard-fought. When I think of, for example, the privacy restrictions placed on Internet service providers in the United States by the Federal Communications Commission saying you can't sort of snoop on what your own users are doing and try to sell that data anonymized or not, that was just reversed under the new American administration. So I think there is less of a regulatory hunger being demonstrated by the American executive branch.
SHAPIRO: Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard Law is the author of "The Future Of The Internet And How To Stop It." He's also on the board of directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Thanks so much.
ZITTRAIN: Thanks so much, Ari.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un used his New Year's address to warn the United States about his country's nuclear weapons but also to offer an olive branch to South Korea. He suggested that the North and South meet for what would be the first official diplomatic meeting in over two years. Well, now South Korea is taking them up on that offer and suggesting a meeting next week in the small border town.
What might the two countries stand to gain from these high-level talks? Well, to get some answers, we're joined now by Frank Aum. He was a senior adviser on North Korea at the Defense Department and now a senior expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Welcome to the program.
FRANK AUM: Thanks for having me.
SIEGEL: How significant is this diplomatic development?
AUM: This is very important. It's a great opportunity for President Moon and South Korea. He has staked his presidency on improving relations with North Korea, and he's made significant efforts during the last year to engage North Korea only to be rebuffed. And I think in recent months, in the lead-up to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, which will take place in February, President Moon has tried to establish a more peaceful atmosphere. And that means that he wants to engage with North Korea, promote North Korean participation in the Olympics as well as delay the joint U.S.-South Korea military exercises which tend to be an irritant for North Korea.
SIEGEL: But would a meeting in and of itself - would that satisfy President Moon's needs right now, or would the meeting have to produce some progress as well?
AUM: Just having the meeting in and of itself is a big win. It'll give South Korea a chance to meet with North Korea, ask for a guarantee that there's going to be no provocations leading up to and during the Olympics and then maybe even asking for some sort of way to sustain these talks instead of having it just be a one-off.
SIEGEL: Well, how does this look to the people in North Korea? What does President Kim Jong Un want out of this?
AUM: So for the North Korean side, I think it's a little bit more unclear. Kim Jong Un in past New Year's Day addresses has made peaceful overtures to South Korea, so this is nothing new. This has been done before. And in the most recent one, he has asked for a reduction of tensions on the Korean Peninsula as well as a way to ease some of the inner-Korean military confrontations. So that's what Kim Jong Un has explicitly said.
I think the concern is that North Korea is also somehow seeking to create a wedge between South Korea and the United States by asking President Moon or whoever the South Korean representative is to ease up on some of the things like military exercises or economic sanctions that are at the core of U.S. policy towards North Korea.
SIEGEL: How realistic would he be if indeed that's an interest? That is, would the current South Korean leadership accept a more distant relationship with the United States, or is that pretty solid?
AUM: Well, I don't think we should be concerned about this wedge. The U.S.-South Korea alliance it isn't brittle. It's been robust and persistent over the last 60-plus years. We should give a little more credence to our South Korean allies here.
SIEGEL: We haven't heard the word nuclear in this in this conversation yet. In any of these approaches to South Korea from the North, do you think that there is any lessening of the North's commitment to maintain a nuclear program?
AUM: I don't think that issue would come up. North Korea likes to talk about those issues within the U.S.-North Korea forum. So I think, again, the agenda from what I can tell from the New Year's Day address is North Korean participation in the Olympics and then other issues - for example, reunion meetings between separated families between the North and South. That's a constant topic, so that may come up as well.
SIEGEL: Frank Aum, former senior adviser on North Korea at the Defense Department, currently at the U.S. Institute of Peace, thanks for talking with us today.
AUM: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Ireland used to be one of the most socially conservative nations in Europe. Lately that's been changing. In 2015, voters legalized same-sex marriage. During last year's election, the country voted in a gay, biracial prime minister. And this summer, the Catholic country will vote on whether to repeal one of the strictest abortion laws in the Western world. NPR's Frank Langfitt reports from Dublin; there have been calls for this change for many years.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: They held candles and signs that read never again - some 2,000 people protesting the death of Savita Halappanavar outside government buildings here in 2012. The dentist from India died after doctors refused to perform an abortion while she was miscarrying. Taking the microphone, Sinead Redmond of the group Parents for Choice demanded change.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SINEAD REDMOND: Savita Halappanavar is dead unnecessarily, and we are all complicit while the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution remains in place.
LANGFITT: Now, five years on, Irish citizens will finally have a chance to repeal the Eighth Amendment to the country's constitution which only permits abortion in exceptional cases, such as to save the life of the mother. Ailbhe Smyth, who was among the protesters that night, says Halappanavar's death was a turning point.
AILBHE SMYTH: The impact was absolutely huge.
LANGFITT: Smyth runs a group of more than a hundred organizations that pushed for the referendum.
SMYTH: People were so profoundly shocked that there was an enormously strong emotional reaction so that the whole country was very aware yet again that we had failed a woman.
LANGFITT: Most Irish women seeking abortions go to England. In 2016, they numbered more than 700 according to the Department of Health in England and Wales. In a survey last month, The Irish Times found that 62 percent of people here want to change the Constitution and allow greater access to abortion. Halappanavar's death isn't the only reason attitudes towards abortion and other social issues are changing. Smyth says revelations about decades of sex abuse in Catholic schools has had a big impact as well.
SMYTH: The authority of the Catholic Church here has been very seriously undermined, and Irish people now have a much more independent approach to the practice of their religion and tend to say, my conscience matters most.
LANGFITT: Turtle Bunbury says before the scandal, the church genuinely scared people. Bunbury's the author of a series of books about the country's changing culture called "Vanishing Ireland." We chatted in a Dublin pub.
TURTLE BUNBURY: A lot of the people I met and interviewed grew up living in F-E-A-R, full-on fear of Beelzebub and that they would burn in hell. And then before their eyes, they started watching the Catholic Church start to crumble.
LANGFITT: And with it went much of the Church's moral authority. Bunbury said outside influences also made Ireland more liberal.
BUNBURY: As it's an island, we've had for many long centuries an experience of going abroad. And they go off, and they spend time in Australia or America or England.
LANGFITT: Many emigrants came home during the economic boom of the 1990s, bringing with them new, more liberal ideas.
CAROLE HOLOHAN: My name is Carole Holohan, and I am an assistant lecturer in modern Irish history in Trinity College.
LANGFITT: Holohan says around that time, university became free, and foreign investment poured into the country.
HOLOHAN: So when I think of social change in Ireland, yes, I do think of the Catholic Church, but I also think of the economy and how the place has changed very rapidly in the space of one or two generations.
LANGFITT: For some older people, that change has been too fast and in the wrong direction. Leaving church one Sunday morning in Dublin, Mona McSweeney lamented what she sees as a decline in social mores with the rise in everything from divorce to petty crime.
MONA MCSWEENEY: I'm definitely going to vote against abortion. I really don't approve of it at all. I feel we've had contraception and - contraception, so you shouldn't need to have a child that you didn't want.
LANGFITT: McSweeney, though, doesn't think her views will prevail. She expects Irish voters to repeal the country's anti-abortion amendment later this year. Frank Langfitt, NPR News, Dublin.
[POST BROADCAST CORRECTION: Corrected on Jan. 25: In this story, we say that more than 700 women sought abortions in England or Wales in 2016. In fact, 3,265 women from the Republic of Ireland went there for abortions, and that covers only those who provided clinics with Irish addresses.
Corrected on Jan. 8: In this story, we say that Irish voters elected a gay, biracial prime minister. In fact, Leo Varadkar was chosen by members of the governing party, Fine Gael, to be leader of their party after the election — and he became Ireland's taoiseach (prime minister) as a result of that party vote.]
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
#MeToo has now led to a new catchphrase, Time's Up. Three-hundred powerful Hollywood women have launched Time's Up as an initiative to fight sexual harassment and abuse. These movie stars and directors are reaching out to industries where women may have less of a voice like agriculture, domestic work and hotels. We're going to talk now with one of the influential women behind this effort who does not come from Hollywood. Tina Tchen is an attorney who spent years as chief of staff to first lady Michelle Obama. And she joins us now from Chicago. Welcome to the program.
TINA TCHEN: Thank you, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Hollywood celebrities are good at raising awareness. Your expertise is in creating policy. So how do you translate the Oscars acceptance speeches and the red carpet interviews into something that's more than just talk?
TCHEN: Well, that's why we've created the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund. And that was what was announced yesterday together with the overall Time's Up movement. As an attorney, I, you know, was watching some of the stories that came across not just of the harassment that workers experienced but then the sort of legal bullying and harassment that happens afterwards where people are - have been silenced. Or people are even just afraid to come forward in the first instance.
And I sort of said, you know, we need to do something about this. People should not be afraid to speak out, should not be afraid to assert their rights because they're afraid of retaliation or because they can't get access to a lawyer. And we know that's especially the case for so many low-income workers, hourly wage workers, people who are in very vulnerable positions like you mentioned. And to their credit, the women of Hollywood cared about those women, too, and wanted a way to help out. And the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund is the perfect way to do it.
SHAPIRO: In many cases, the statute of limitations on these offenses is as little as 180 days. That doesn't leave a lot of time for women to get justice in the courts.
TCHEN: It does not. It does not leave a lot of time. And a lot of people don't know their rights. But then the other thing we've seen happen with the #MeToo movement is people have spoken out about their own experiences. And they've suffered retaliation even afterwards. So not all of these cases are going to be cases where people are trying to sue for damages or their rights. There's also people who need help defending themselves and defending themselves against retaliation. And I think just the fact that people know this resource is available - we hope will serve as a deterrent.
SHAPIRO: The Time's Up website quotes a survey that says nearly half of working women in the U.S. have experienced workplace harassment. So I'm imagining that an effort to hold even a fraction of those perpetrators accountable would be enormous. I mean, we're talking about hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of cases. Is this effort really big enough to solve the scope of the problem?
TCHEN: Well, one of the things we hope to do with this effort is document and collect the data on how many cases are coming forward and where the need is. You know, we don't really know. So much of what has happened here, Ari, are people who are afraid to speak out. So I'm not sure we really know the magnitude.
Now, we've started out with a goal of $15 million to raise. And I'm happy to report I just checked the GoFundMe page, and we're at 13.9 million in just a matter of days. But we're going to need much more because litigation is expensive. Legal representation is expensive even where you've got lawyers who're willing to do this for pro bono or reduced rates because there's costs. And it - you know, it can take a long time. But you know, we've got to do something. We've got to do something that helps especially the voiceless have a voice and be able to get support.
SHAPIRO: The website goes far beyond legal aid. It talks about pay discrepancies, the absence of women in leadership roles, the under representation of minorities. Do you think there's any risk of casting too wide a net here rather than taking a more focused, narrower approach?
TCHEN: No. In fact the wide approach is what's critical here because sexual harassment, Ari, is just a symptom. It's a symptom of workplaces that aren't diverse, that don't have diverse leadership and diverse workforces in there. When you have a diverse workforce, you have less sexual harassment because people are working together. And they're working together in a place of respect for one another and safety for all. And that's really what we're all trying to work for through Time's Up and through so many movements. You'll recall that's what we worked on in the White House through the White House Council on Women and Girls.
SHAPIRO: That's Tina Tchen, former chief of staff to first lady Michelle Obama, now helping to lead the Time's Up initiative to fight workplace harassment and abuse of women. Thanks so much for joining us.
TCHEN: Thank you, Ari.
(SOUNDBITE OF LADAMA SONG, "NIGHT TRAVELER")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
This is the sound of LADAMA. It's an ensemble - four women from four different countries - Brazil, Venezuela, Colombia and the U.S. Our music reviewer Banning Eyre told us about the group's debut album called "LADAMA" when we asked him for his favorite discoveries of 2017. And he says it's worth your time in this new year.
BANNING EYRE, BYLINE: LADAMA's four principles met at a 2014 fellowship program produced by the State Department's Bureau of Cultural Affairs. The idea was to nurture cross-genre collaboration. And to say these four women clicked is an understatement. It sounds like they've been making music together all their lives.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NIGHT TRAVELER")
LADAMA: (Singing) Hello, my night. You are tricking me again - count myself backwards as I fall into your hands.
EYRE: The songs on LADAMA's debut are mostly sung in Spanish, this one being an exception. They draw on specific South American genres, driving maracatu from northeast Brazil, folksy joropo from the high plains of Venezuela and Colombia's irresistible dance music cumbia, pumped up here with a battery of Brazilian percussion.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CUMBIA BRASILEIRA")
LADAMA: (Singing in Spanish).
EYRE: Aside from their barreling grooves and effortless vocals, LADAMA showcases some unusual instruments, variety of South American drums played by Lara Klaus of Brazil and Daniela Serna of Colombia and Mafer Bandola on a rare Venezuelan lute, the bandola llanera.
(SOUNDBITE OF LADAMA SONG, "AGRESTE")
EYRE: LADAMA composed 9 of the 10 songs here, blending influences freely. But the group's originality shines particularly well on their one cover, a funkified read of the 1969 protest song "Compared To What." With Sara Lucas' commanding lead vocal, a driving bandola riff and the rolling thunder of bass and percussion, LADAMA both feminizes and globalizes a classic American rant.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COMPARED TO WHAT")
LADAMA: (Singing) Where's that bee, and where's that honey? Where's my God, and where's my money?
EYRE: LADAMA takes on traditional genres with confidence and vigor without being constrained by their conventions. The result is a vivid montage of music of the Americas with irresistible spirit and universal appeal.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PORRO MARACATU")
LADAMA: (Singing in Spanish).
SIEGEL: Banning Eyre is senior producer for Afropop Worldwide. He reviewed LADAMA's debut album.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PORRO MARACATU")
LADAMA: (Singing in Spanish).
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Protests continued in Iran today for the sixth day in a row. The government says more than 20 people have died. Hundreds have been arrested. The Trump administration stands by the protesters. In a bit, we'll examine the president's remarks and their potential impact on Iran. First, NPR's Jackie Northam reports on the economic concerns that have driven Iranians to the streets.
JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: These are the largest demonstrations in Iran in nearly a decade. They started in the city of Mashhad but quickly spread to other towns and cities across the country, taking many government officials and analysts by surprise. Today, the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, broke his silence.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ALI KHAMENEI: (Foreign language spoken).
NORTHAM: Khamenei blamed the violence on, quote, "the enemies of Iran." But it was sparked by the dire state of Iran's economy. Food prices have shot up. There's been a significant rollback in cash subsidies and a 50 percent increase in gasoline prices recently. Elizabeth Rosenberg, a sanctions specialist with the Center for a New American Security, says this is all part of an economic reform program instituted by President Hassan Rouhani. And it has helped the economy a bit.
ELIZABETH ROSENBERG: Inflation has improved. There are certainly some small amounts of additional investment - foreign investment as well as domestic investment and better access to foreign exchange.
NORTHAM: But Iran's economy still has a long way to go. The standard of living for the average person has remained the same if not gotten worse for the past decade. Cliff Kupchan, the head of Eurasia Group, a political risk consultancy, says unemployment is high particularly among the younger generation, where it hovers around 24 percent. Kupchan says many Iranians became angry over President Rouhani's 2018 budget, which he says was unusually transparent.
CLIFF KUPCHAN: For the first time, they became aware of how much money goes to revolutionary institutions, religious institutions and entitlements and how little money is available for the national development program, for non-oil job creation, which is what Iran really needs.
NORTHAM: Kupchan says many Iranians were hoping, believed that the economy would rebound when the nuclear sanctions deal was signed about two years ago. The deal allowed Iran to do more international trade in exchange for limiting its nuclear program.
KUPCHAN: Very, very senior Iranian officials have been very explicit to me that when they entered the nuclear deal, it was a business deal for them. It wasn't about being good guys. They did it to boost their economy and to create jobs.
NORTHAM: Kupchan says the nuclear deal hasn't created a windfall. Most U.S. firms are not allowed to do business with Iran because of remaining non-nuclear sanctions. Those sanctions have made many foreign companies wary of investing in Iran for fear of breaking U.S. law. There's also uncertainty about what the Trump administration plans to do about Iran. Today, Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., slammed the Iranian government over the violence.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NIKKI HALEY: We can expect more outrageous abuses in the days to come. We will be calling for an emergency session both here in New York and at the Human Rights Council in Geneva.
NORTHAM: President Trump will also have the option to increase pressure on Iran. He has the option later this month to reimpose sanctions that were eased under the nuclear deal. Jackie Northam, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have tweeted out their support of Iranian protesters. This morning the president said - and this is a quote - "the people of Iran are finally acting against the brutal and corrupt Iranian regime." And he then criticized President Obama's stance on Iran. He ended his tweet by saying the U.S. is watching.
But what can the U.S. do? And what are the risks and benefits of even speaking out about Iran? Well, for that, we turn to someone with the long view, Gary Sick of Columbia University. He worked in the White House during the Carter administration and negotiated the agreement that ended the hostage crisis. Gary Sick, welcome to the program once again.
GARY SICK: It's a pleasure to be back with you, Robert.
SIEGEL: Unlike the days when you were in the White House, the U.S. now has no formal diplomatic relations with Iran. How well do we understand what goes on there and what the government is thinking?
SICK: I think the people in the government for the most part know pretty much what you and I know. It's very, very difficult to get information except through social media and all of the news sources and the like which are available to you and me just as they are to the government.
SIEGEL: President Trump is cheering on the protesters and saying the U.S. is watching. Should we take that to mean that the administration might act? Might the demonstrators take that to mean that the administration might act?
SICK: Well, when you say act, it's a little difficult to say what that would be. We're certainly not going to send troops to Iran to back a faction or something else. At this moment, it's not even clear exactly who's doing this and what their objectives are other than the fact that they started out with an economic objective, and now they seem to have moved more onto the political side. But there still doesn't appear to be any unified leadership or direction or ideology.
It's worth remembering that Iran has a very rebellious population. By some counts, Iran has had six either revolutions or sudden changes of government in just a little over a century. The fact that Iranians are out marching and protesting is not something new. But it is something that the government should be truly concerned about because they mean it. When the Iranians say they are unhappy with their government, they have a long history of actually doing something about it and even having a revolution.
SIEGEL: Considering how anti-American the Iranian government is, is there anything that the United States could say that would make relations with Iran any worse or any more problematic?
SICK: Right now, the statements that are being made in Washington are really designed for their own base. It is posturing for political purposes. Put yourself in the position of a 23-year-old worker who is out in Shiraz. And he is getting up in the morning and deciding, am I really going to go out and march in the streets again knowing that I might get arrested or worse? That is a decision that he makes on his own for his own reasons. And I don't think he is saying, what does President Trump want me to do today? It just doesn't work that way.
People are demonstrating for Iranian reasons. And we can cheer or not cheer. And it's going to have very little impact on what they do. The government will listen to what we say, and they will remember it. And they'll turn those words back against us later on if they want to. Or they may use it as an excuse to crack down on saying that this is all a U.S.-inspired operation. But on the street, in reality, our statements have only marginal effect.
SIEGEL: The Trump administration is contrasting the very public criticism they've made of the Iranian regime and the support they've expressed for protesters with what they say was the much, much more quiet approach of the Obama administration. What was the thinking behind the Obama administration's approach, and how quiet was it?
SICK: The thinking of the Obama administration I think was that they were keeping their options open for a negotiation with Iran over what they thought was a very significant issue. And that is keeping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. So they were keeping their powder dry to a much greater degree than the Trump administration, which has basically written off Iran and is completely unrestricted in terms of the kind of statements that they make.
SIEGEL: Gary Sick, senior research scholar at Columbia University's Middle East Institute, thanks for talking with us today.
SICK: Real pleasure to talk to you, Robert.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Later this week, journalists at the Los Angeles Times will vote on whether to form a union for the first time in the paper's 136-year history. The organizing campaign has been driven by fears that years of job cuts will continue in 2018. There are also growing concerns about the paper's new leadership and its commitment to journalism. Recent staff meetings with the paper's new editor-in-chief reflected those concerns, as NPR's David Folkenflik reports.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: The Los Angeles Times may not have big movies out about its blockbuster exposes, yet it is one of the proudest news organizations in the country, boasting the largest newsroom west of the Potomac River. Matthew Pearce is a national reporter for the LA Times.
MATTHEW PEARCE: All those decades, we went without unions when we were owned by the Chandler family. It worked for people because, you know, it was a paternal relationship. We were part of the Chandler family in a sense.
FOLKENFLIK: Pearce is also one of the chief internal organizers for the establishment of the union there. The Chandlers hated organized labor, and the newspaper was once known as the velvet coffin - a place so rich with pay and benefits that few wanted to leave or to start a union. That was before the cuts.
PEARCE: We don't have that relationship with our current ownership, you know? It's - they take, and we give. And that's just not working for people anymore.
FOLKENFLIK: The LA Times is now owned by Tronc, comprised of what used to be the Tribune Company's newspapers. Tronc's chairman alienated staff by giving himself a $5 million-a-year consulting fee. Lewis D'Vorkin is the paper's new editor-in-chief. Years ago, D'Vorkin had jobs at The Wall Street Journal and Newsweek. He later was an executive at AOL, and he led Forbes magazine into a digital model with a network of contributors. Some writers were paid, others unpaid. Still others paid Forbes for the right to post essays.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LEWIS D'VORKIN: The No. 1 priority that we have at the LA Times is nothing short of digital transformation. We need to be part of the digital world as it's evolving.
FOLKENFLIK: Here, D'Vorkin introduced himself in early November at a meeting attended by more than 100 journalists. NPR obtained audio tapes of that meeting from an attendee, not Pearce. D'Vorkin was asked about the fallout of a Times project from a few months earlier. Here was MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski back in early November.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: All right, Disney and the LA Times have been caught in an ongoing feud with no end in sight.
FOLKENFLIK: CNBC's Dominic Chu picked up the tale.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DOMINIC CHU: The latest is a boycott of Disney by a slate of journalists. Now, Disney took offense to an investigative piece published by the LA Times that...
FOLKENFLIK: The LA Times documented big financial breaks given to Disney by the city of Anaheim - home to Disneyland. The studio banned the LA Times' movie critics and reporters from advance screenings of its movies, a blow for Hollywood's hometown daily. Its new CEO, Ross Levinsohn, has said the LA Times should own entertainment coverage nationally. D'Vorkin had met with Disney executives. The company restored access after having what it called productive discussions with the Times. Journalists there repeatedly pressed D'Vorkin at that meeting in early November on what that meant.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
D'VORKIN: There was nothing to be defensive about. There was no - there are no inaccuracies in this story. There was no claim of inaccuracies. So I move forward to the next thing because I want to be on the offense and not the defense. That's how I answer that question.
FOLKENFLIK: One reporter complained that D'Vorkin hadn't publicly defended the paper's coverage and allowed the entertainment reporters to be pawns. He didn't yield an inch.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
D'VORKIN: There was a question asked of me - did I make a concession? The answer is no. I listened to what they had to say.
FOLKENFLIK: Reporters asked, then why did the LA Times carry only a brief account of the dispute? D'Vorkin replied he had little appetite to talk more about a media spat. However, several days later, after The New York Times covered the disagreement with Disney, D'Vorkin called staffers to a second meeting, at which he said he would reveal a startling piece of information. D'Vorkin told staffers his remarks at the first meeting had been recorded and leaked to The New York Times.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
D'VORKIN: Clearly someone here is not playing by the rules of ethical behavior as far as I'm concerned.
FOLKENFLIK: Not ethical - D'Vorkin then suggested one of his journalists had broken state law in recording that first meeting, though more than 100 people were present. Nobody had my consent, D'Vorkin said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
D'VORKIN: At its core, it was unethical. And frankly, I think it showed a degree that whoever was involved was morally bankrupt.
FOLKENFLIK: That's right. He called a colleague morally bankrupt, though reporters for the LA Times have also relied on leaked recordings for their reports. D'Vorkin declined to respond to detailed questions, directing me to two blog postings he had written about the paper's future. I spoke with a half dozen journalists from the LA Times, though none would speak about D'Vorkin on the record. They said they feared for their jobs as they had no union protection. The vote will be taken Thursday and tallied on January 19. David Folkenflik, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Nine people are dead and 14 injured after a riot at a prison in Brazil. They were all inmates in one of the most troubled penal systems in the world. NPR's Philip Reeves says there are concerns that the latest killings could lead to more.
PHILIP REEVES, BYLINE: The New Year has begun here with a rerun of history. Exactly one year after a wave of massacres began inside Brazil's prisons, violence among inmates has erupted again. Investigators are trying to identify the charred - and in two cases beheaded - bodies of a group of prisoners killed during a riot yesterday. It happened inside a big semi-open prison in Brazil's central state of Goias, a place called the Aparecida de Goiania Penitentiary.
NEWTON CASTILHO: (Speaking Portuguese).
REEVES: Newton Castilho, spokesman for the state penal system, says some prisoners from one wing invaded three other wings. They set fires and attacked inmates.
CASTILHO: (Speaking Portuguese).
REEVES: Castilho blames turf wars between rival drug gangs. During the confusion, more than 240 prisoners escaped by climbing fences and breaking down a wall. More than half were soon captured. Officials say a big search is going on on the ground and from a chopper for the other prisoners on the run. As news of the violence spread, families of inmates gathered outside the prison, crying out for information. For Brazilians, such scenes are a reminder of the long-running crisis within their penal system.
In the first weeks of last year, some 130 inmates died during a wave of bloodletting in prisons in the north of the country. This was set off by a feud between drug gangs battling over control of highly lucrative cocaine routes. Brazil's prisons are dominated and sometimes even controlled by these factions, who have access to weapons and phones. Yet violence behind bars isn't only about drugs.
GEORGE DANTAS: There is a basic problem in the Brazilian prison system regarding space.
REEVES: George Dantas is a specialist in public security issues in Brazil.
DANTAS: We are well beyond any rational limit, and a hundred percent of overcrowding is commonplace.
REEVES: Officials say the prison block in which yesterday's trouble started was badly overcrowded. The worry now is that the violence will spread to other prisons just as it did one year ago. Philip Reeves, NPR News, Rio de Janeiro.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BUDOS BAND'S "T.I.B.W.F.")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We're going to talk now about the legal consequences for a prank in Wichita, Kan., that went horribly wrong. Swatting is when someone makes a false report of a serious crime in progress so a SWAT team or large group of officers shows up. Hackers and gamers sometimes do it to each other. Here's an excerpt of the emergency call that went to Wichita police last Thursday night. A man claimed that he had shot his father and was holding other family members hostage.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TYLER BARRISS: I'm just pointing the gun at them, making sure they stay in the closet, my mom and my little brother.
SHAPIRO: Police didn't know at the time that the call was coming from more than a thousand miles away in Los Angeles. When they showed up at the house in Wichita, an unarmed man came to the door. Police opened fire and killed 28-year-old Andrew Thomas Finch, a father of two. The man who's alleged to have placed the call, Tyler Barriss, is now under arrest, and he's expected to make his first court appearance this week.
Neal Katyal is a legal expert who has studied these kinds of cases and joins us now. Hi there.
NEAL KATYAL: Hi. How are you?
SHAPIRO: Good. There are not any federal swatting laws, so walk us through the kinds of federal charges that could be filed in this case.
KATYAL: Well, when you have a circumstance like this involving murder, murder is quintessentially, as the federal courts have said, a state crime. And there are some ways in which there's federal court jurisdiction, but the first thing that I think everyone will be looking at is the possibility of state charges. And, you know, if we were to take those off the table for a second and ask, what could the federal government do, there are probably a couple of things the federal prosecutors could look to.
One is obstruction of justice. When you have these kind of horrible situations that divert law enforcement resources and divert justice from being done, there is the possibility of an obstruction charge. There's also a federal statute, the so-called murder-for-hire statute, which might be applicable. And what that says is that if you use interstate communication facilities to facilitate the intentional death of another person, that that's a federal crime.
SHAPIRO: Even if no one was hired in the sense of being paid for this.
KATYAL: Correct, as long as you're soliciting it. Now, the problem is, you know, that does require intent to kill. And here at least there is the possibility that any of the relevant players here, the gamers or the person who allegedly called 911, they may say, hey, this was all a prank. I didn't intend to commit murder.
SHAPIRO: The LA County Sheriff's Department lists the charge against the suspect in this case as a felony but has not said what the charge is specifically. Does that tell you anything?
KATYAL: Well, it tells me that they're all struggling with how to think about something like this. The law hasn't totally caught up to this type of thing, which is obviously not just a prank gone awry but something that is really despicable behavior and diverting, you know, some of our nation's most important kind of first responders' assets away from serious crimes and to something else. And obviously the tragedy here just speaks volumes.
SHAPIRO: You say the law hasn't quite caught up. What do you think would be useful?
KATYAL: Well, California does have a law against swatting. And the person who has been arrested has been arrested in California, so that law may apply. But of course, swatting doesn't usually typically result in a death as it did here. And so just using a swatting law to say that this person committed a crime doesn't capture the real tragedy that occurred here. So I think both at the federal and state levels we need statutes about swatting that think through the degrees of swatting.
SHAPIRO: I know that you have used these kinds of scenarios in law courses that you've taught at Georgetown. What makes these swatting cases such challenging legal problems?
KATYAL: Well, they're challenging because essentially you have a lack of total intent. I mean, no one, I think, could be said - at least on the facts that we have - to have intentionally brought about the killing. But what they have done, at least arguably, is act with extreme indifference to the value of human life.
And so as we think about what the most likely charge is - and this is something we use in law school, hypotheticals, all the time - you have what is known as a second-degree murder case. You have a case in which someone has acted not intent to kill, not in cold blood or something like that, but they've acted so willfully, with such disregard for the value of life, that we want to treat that not as manslaughter but as murder.
SHAPIRO: That's Georgetown law professor Neal Katyal, who's also a partner with the law firm Hogan Lovells. Thank you very much.
KATYAL: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The #MeToo moment has come to the world of ballet. On Monday, Peter Martins, the head of the New York City Ballet and its affiliated school, resigned. He's been accused of sexual misconduct and verbal and physical abuse. Jeff Lunden reports.
JEFF LUNDEN, BYLINE: Following the Harvey Weinstein revelations, an anonymous letter sent to the ballet's board of directors set an investigation of Peter Martins in motion. The 71-year-old ballet master who ran the company for over three decades was put on a leave of absence as former dancers stepped forward to describe a toxic culture. One of them was Wilhelmina Frankfurt, who wrote this in an op-ed piece in Dance Magazine.
WILHELMINA FRANKFURT: (Reading) Am I a victim of Martin's abuse? Yes. Was it sexual? Yes. Was it consensual? No. But my own trauma is a surmountable issue. What keeps me up at night is the thought of how many dancers still live in fear, subject to the confused sexuality and morality of these powerful people.
LUNDEN: In the ballet world many dancers, particularly females, begin studying as children and join companies like City Ballet as teenagers.
FRANKFURT: You are so young. You're so happy to be doing what you're doing. And you are just virtually at their mercy with no rules and regs in place to protect you.
LUNDEN: And, says Wendy Whelan, who performed with the company for 30 years...
WENDY WHELAN: It's a tradition that's built on discipline and focus and pleasing people. And it can easily get manipulated. For us, career is everything.
LUNDEN: Some former dancers describe the ballet master as a father figure. For Frankfurt, it was the company's founder, George Balanchine. For Whelan, it was his successor, Peter Martins.
WHELAN: I mean, he's literally my dad's age. And, you know, a lot of us dancers interestingly, I think, have a dad thing. You know, our dad was either not there in a certain way or just harder to please or something. And we all have this thing about pleasing dad.
LUNDEN: And even for some of the dancers who weren't subject to Martins' sexual advances there were instances of verbal and physical abuse. Kelly Cass Boal recalls an incident in which Martins grabbed her.
KELLY CASS BOAL: To be strangled and shaken and, you know, he said, why can't you do what I say? I'm going to break you. I'm going to break you, you know? And basically took me out of parts and then put me back in the corps.
LUNDEN: In his letter of resignation, Martins wrote, quote, "I deny and continue to deny that I have engaged in any such misconduct." In a separate statement, City Ballet's board chairman wrote that the company thanked Martins for his tremendous contributions, but the investigation would continue. Wendy Perron is Dance Magazine's editor-at-large.
WENDY PERRON: The good part of this is that it opens up New York City Ballet for a whole different kind of leadership. And what's happening in the ballet world if you look at - all over the country and internationally as well. There are more women leaders in the ballet field.
LUNDEN: Whoever the new leader of City Ballet is, dancer and teacher Wilhelmina Frankfurt says...
FRANKFURT: I hope that no other dancer ever has to experience the pain, humiliation and confusion that I experienced.
LUNDEN: For NPR News, I'm Jeff Lunden in New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALABAMA SHAKES SONG, "GEMINI")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Here's some good news about the year that just ended. 2017 was the safest year ever for airline passengers. Not one person died in a passenger jet according to the Aviation Safety Network. Alan Levin is a reporter who covers aviation for Bloomberg. Welcome.
ALAN LEVIN: Thanks.
SHAPIRO: What accounts for this being the safest year ever?
LEVIN: I think it's fair to say this trend has a thousand fathers. It's a bunch of technical improvements in airplanes. It's revolutionary changes in training, particularly of pilots but really of everybody involved in the aviation system. It's kind of an unprecedented cooperation also between airlines, the aviation regulators and the aviation accident investigators as well.
SHAPIRO: It's pretty striking that we're not just talking about the United States or highly developed countries, but this also includes the developing world and places where you think there may be fewer safeguards for airplane passengers.
LEVIN: That's true. You know, what's really interesting is there are private nonprofits like a group called the Flight Safety Foundation as well as the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and others who've devoted an enormous amount of energy to places like Africa. A lot of what they've tried to do is just to create more mature government systems. If you're afraid that you're going to go to jail for committing an error, you're never going to report the error. And then the folks who are worried about safety are never going to know that such errors are occurring. So they want to have an open - an honest system.
SHAPIRO: You said part of this is attributable to improvements in training, regulation, technology. Can you tell us a little bit more about some of the things that you think were most responsible?
LEVIN: You know, a year and a half ago, I did a profile of one of the most fascinating guys. His name is Don Bateman. He invented a device that warns pilots when they're about to hit the ground unknowingly. And it's not intuitive, but that was by far the biggest killer in the '60s, '70s and even into the '80s.
SHAPIRO: Do you mean because, like, mountains were shrouded in fog - things like that?
LEVIN: Exactly. You know, pilots have a host of devices onboard that theoretically should keep them away from mountains or other obstructions, but it doesn't always work. It's pretty complicated. And this was this super intuitive system that when you got too low, it just said pull up; pull up in very stern language.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
LEVIN: And it has essentially wiped out that class of accident.
SHAPIRO: Wow.
LEVIN: There were thousands of people who died in the '60s as a result of that. And if you project the - we have far greater flights. If that accident rate had stayed the same, you'd have tens of thousands people dying a year today. What's interesting is it's on every plane that goes to every country in the world.
SHAPIRO: Wow.
LEVIN: In other words, it's helped enormously in the U.S. and Europe and elsewhere but also in those other countries.
SHAPIRO: President Trump took credit for this improvement. In a tweet, he said, since taking office, I have been very strict on commercial aviation. Good news - it was just reported that there were zero deaths in 2017, the best and safest year on record. Do a little fact check for us. Did President Trump do anything that could be responsible for this improvement?
LEVIN: Oh, boy, let me just say this. Any time you have a good record like this, the chief executive under the rules of our society is allowed to take credit for it. But I am hard pressed to find any specific new regulations that he's imposed involving aviation safety that would've caused this.
SHAPIRO: Alan Levin covers the aviation industry for Bloomberg. Thanks so much.
LEVIN: Oh, my pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUJO'S "MEDICAL FLY")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
In many an American city, if you've seen the skyline, you've seen the work of architect John Portman, who died Friday at age 93. Portman designed futuristic-looking towers with soaring atriums. They were often built as efforts at urban renewal - the Renaissance Center in Detroit, the Peachtree Center in Atlanta, the Bonaventure in Los Angeles. Portman described his building philosophy this way.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN PORTMAN: Architecture is about people. That means it's about life. I wanted to understand how we could take architecture and add to the enhancement of life.
SIEGEL: For more on John Portman, we're joined by Christopher Hawthorne. He's architecture critic for the Los Angeles Times. Welcome to the program.
CHRISTOPHER HAWTHORNE: Thank you very much, Robert.
SIEGEL: You've been in several of Portman's buildings. Tell us; what does it look like when you walk inside?
HAWTHORNE: He was really best known for those really dramatic atriums that you mentioned in this hotel projects. So you walk in, and immediately above you, you see this gigantic amount of open spaces in some cases big enough to hold the Empire State Building - acres of empty space above your head.
SIEGEL: Empty space indoors.
HAWTHORNE: Indoors - and his architecture was really associated with those interior spaces. On the outside, the buildings could be kind of nondescript or even generic kind of ciphers on the skyline - mirrored glass. And then all the drama was waiting for you inside.
SIEGEL: We just heard him a moment ago speaking of the aim of achieving the enhancement of life through architecture. Do you think that was an exaggerated hope in retrospect, or does he enhance life when you enter the Bonaventure, say?
HAWTHORNE: He really did at least in terms of populism. So when he said that architecture was about people, he really was a populist architect. And he really wanted to create spaces that would be destinations in their own right. It was really not the case that hotel interiors' atriums would be destinations. But I grew up in the Bay Area, and I would go as a kid to see the interior of the Hyatt Regency on the Embarcadero in San Francisco as kind of a destination just to go inside that hotel. And I don't know if that was the case before Portman started working on hotel architecture in the 1960s.
SIEGEL: John Portman's heyday was I suppose in the '70s and the '80s, a time when many people were leaving the country's downtowns. How did his project fit into that moment?
HAWTHORNE: So they were often funded - financed by redevelopment agencies, as was the case with the Bonaventure Hotel in Los Angeles. Or they filled space that had been cleared by urban renewal projects. And so they were kind of contradictory in that sense. They were symbols of a return, at least a hoped-for return to the downtowns of America. But they were produced at a moment when there was a lot of anxiety, uncertainty about the fate of the American downtown.
SIEGEL: What about the criticism that he was building effectively islands in the midst of cities that didn't connect very directly to the city outside?
HAWTHORNE: I think that's a fair criticism. I think it's certainly in retrospect. It's hard to say exactly what that meant at the moment in the '60s and '70s, but now looking back, certainly those were buildings that were entirely aloof from their surroundings. One of the Hyatts that Portman designed described what you could find there as indoor sightseeing. So the idea was that you could find all the attractions of a city without having to step outdoors. But there was a kind of optimism in that effort, in those designs.
Herbert Muschamp, the architecture critic of The New York Times, described Portman's approach as architecture at happy hour, which I think really nicely sums up the optimism of the moment. So there was certainly a lot of anxiety and wariness about the place of these buildings in an urban landscape. But once you were inside, you were meant to forget all of that.
SIEGEL: Christopher Hawthorne of the Los Angeles Times, thanks for talking with us today.
HAWTHORNE: Thanks very much, Robert.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SANDRA DAY O'CONNOR: The people of our country have to understand what it means to say we believe in the rule of law, and that means we have to teach it to every generation, and it's not as simple as it sounds.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
That's retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor speaking at a conference on the need for civics education a few years ago. Here in Washington, the judges of the U.S. courts have taken up that challenge each year. They invite hundreds of public school students to watch a recreation of a Supreme Court case on a subject that affects the kids personally - the First Amendment rights of students. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg picks up the story.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Earlier this month, some 240 middle and high school students from D.C. public schools took the subway to the federal courthouse. They were there to watch a re-enactment of a landmark Supreme Court case - Tinker vs. the Des Moines School District. The Tinker in the case was 13-year-old Mary Beth Tinker, daughter of a minister and one of five students who in 1965 were suspended for wearing black armbands to school to protest the Vietnam War.
Four years later, the U.S. Supreme Court would rule by a 7-to-2 vote that schoolchildren do not shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate. Students cannot be censored, the court said, unless their speech is disruptive. On this day, Mary Beth Tinker, now 65, is in the courtroom to set up the case and take questions from the students. Among them, seventh-grader Muhamad Osman.
MUHAMAD OSMAN: Do you have any personal connections to anyone that was actually involved in the Vietnam War that could have possibly inspired you?
MARY BETH TINKER: Where we got our feelings about the war was from the news because that's how we learned about the war and everything that was going on in the world.
TOTENBERG: Soon, federal Marshal Bryant Johnston comes in to tell the youngsters what the protocol is when they hear him announce the opening of court.
BRYANT JOHNSON: All rise. His honorable court is now in session.
TOTENBERG: Sitting high up on the bench are Judges David Tatel and Sri Srinivasan of the federal appeals court and Judge Ketanji Jackson of the federal trial court. Using a condensed version of the official Supreme Court transcript, they will read the actual questions the Supreme Court justices asked, and Judge Tatel's law clerks will play the lawyers. Judge Jackson weighs in early.
KETANJI JACKSON: (Reading) The students were studying English or math and then they're also supposed to be thinking about the Vietnam War according to Ms. Tinker. Isn't that going to be a distraction to the students?
ZAYN SIDDIQUE: (Reading) No, I don't think so. I believe that the method the students chose was designed in a way that it would not cause any kind of disruption.
TOTENBERG: Judge Tatel asks whether the same reasoning would apply to political buttons. Yes, replies the lawyer for Tinker. Judge Srinivasan jumps in.
SRI SRINIVASAN: (Reading) Counsel, I suppose you would concede that if the armband started fistfights, a principal could prohibit students from wearing them.
SIDDIQUE: (Reading) I think in that case the school could probably ban whatever item caused the fight.
SRINIVASAN: (Reading) Did you say probably?
SIDDIQUE: (Reading) I'm hesitant, Your Honor, because I can imagine a situation where a student wants to wear a shirt with a relatively harmless message, but another student overreacts and starts a fight. I think we have to look at how provocative the message actually was.
TOTENBERG: Then it's time for the lawyer for the Des Moines School District to make his argument.
NICK SANSONE: (Reading) As we view it, the right to freedom of speech on school premises must be weighed against the right of the school administrators to exercise reasonable judgment to avoid disruptions in schools.
TOTENBERG: He tells the court that two of the boys who wore the armbands were later punched. That prompts this question from Judge Tatel.
DAVID TATEL: (Reading) Is that unusual? How many boys are normally punched each day in the Des Moines school system?
SANSONE: (Reading) Does the school district have to wait until there is a disruption? Or should it be allowed to take steps to prevent disruptions?
TOTENBERG: Judge Tatel asks, what if the students instead had worn black ties to mourn fallen soldiers in Vietnam? Counsel for the school board replies that such decisions should be left up to school administrators. Moments later, Judge Srinivasan reads the decision of the court. Students, he says, are persons under the Constitution.
SRINIVASAN: (Reading) They have rights, which the government must respect. In our country, students may not be forced to express only those views that are officially approved by school administrators.
TOTENBERG: Then comes the dissent, voiced by Judge Jackson.
JACKSON: (Reading) One does not need special powers to see that after today's decision some students in Iowa schools and in schools across the country will be ready, able and willing to defy practically all of their teachers' orders. Accordingly, I dissent.
TOTENBERG: Later, as the students munch on pizza in the court atrium, several take issue with the dissent.
SARAHTI GRASSAMALLA: Just because, oh, students broke one rule for a certain reason because they believed that a rule was unjust, I don't think that means that students will try to break every rule.
TOTENBERG: And many were inspired by Mary Beth Tinker.
JOHNEICE MARQUEZ: I was just very interested in how they stood up and fought for what they believed in. I want to be the same.
TOTENBERG: Overall, the kids seemed impressed that this 50-year-old case was relevant to their lives.
SORACHA MCGRATH: And it was just so amazing to see something that even though it was so long ago, it's still so prevalent today.
TYLER DAVIS: This is my first time being at a court in general, so I really liked it.
TOTENBERG: In order, that was Sarahti Grassamalla, Johneice Marquez, Soracha McGrath, Tyler Davis, and I'm Nina Totenberg, NPR News, in Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF PAUL KALKBRENNER'S "AARON")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints died last night. Thomas Monson was 90. As church president, he was revered as a prophet by Mormons worldwide. Lee Hale of member station KUER reports that Monson will be remembered for what he said as well as what he left unsaid.
LEE HALE, BYLINE: Monson served as the top Mormon leader for nearly 10 years. For the almost 16 million church members worldwide, Monson was seen as the closest link to God's guidance and revelation and the primary source for spiritual instruction.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
THOMAS MONSON: Never let a problem to be solved become more important than a person to be loved.
HALE: Monson was known as an engaging storyteller. He told stories from his life that often involved responding to nudges from the Holy Spirit, like one instance when he felt inspired to visit an old friend in the hospital. Monson later learned his friend had been contemplating suicide.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MONSON: I had arrived at a critical moment in response to what I know was inspiration from on high.
HALE: Monson was given a lot of responsibility in the church at a very young age. In his early 20s, he was called as a bishop to lead a congregation in Salt Lake City. He became an apostle, a member of the second-highest governing body in the church at age 36.
WILLIAM WALKER: He really spent most of his life in - serving in the church.
HALE: William Walker is a former general authority for the Mormon Church, a senior leader who worked closely with Monson for many years. They would often travel together on assignment. And during those trips, he says Monson would always make time to meet and shake hands with as many church members as he could. Walker remembers one time in particular when Monson as a newly called prophet had just spoken to a large gathering. Following the closing prayer, he leaned over to the church leader and said...
WALKER: If we slip out the side door, I can get you back to the hotel very quickly and get you some rest. And he looked at me, and he said, if Jesus was here, do you think he'd slip out the side door? (Laughter) I thought, well, I'm never going to make that suggestion again.
HALE: Last spring, the church announced Monson would no longer be attending daily meetings. His health declined. His memory was failing.
WALKER: That had to have been extremely challenging and difficult for him.
HALE: Walker says Monson was known for having a nearly photographic memory, often recalling the smallest details from his past. Monson's decline in activity came at an inopportune time according to Kristine Haglund, a former editor of Dialogue, a magazine that addresses Mormon issues.
KRISTINE HAGLUND: It's been a time of real turmoil for the church.
HALE: Haglund cites one time in particular as a stress point for church members. In November of 2015, the church declared children of gay couples could no longer be baptized without special approval. The new policy came as a shock for some, confusing for others and a break in what seemed to be a growing acceptance of LGBT Mormons. Monson did not make a public statement about the policy.
HAGLUND: It wasn't controversial to suggest that President Monson wasn't necessarily in charge.
HALE: Another controversy Monson did not address were the growing calls for more female leadership in the church - in particular, an ordain women movement. During the nine years he served as prophet and leader, Monson held one press conference - the day he was called. His predecessor, Gordon B. Hinckley, would often speak to reporters. Much of what Monson felt or thought about current issues was left entirely to speculation. Haglund says that absence of information can be difficult for the faithful.
HAGLUND: They like to feel certain that the prophet will tell them what they should do in an uncertain time and uncertain world.
HALE: Haglund says uncertainty might be the unavoidable price for elderly leaders with lifetime appointments. Since the beginning of the church, it is the most senior apostle who serves as president. Although no formal announcement has been made, it's widely expected that Russell M. Nelson will take Monson's place. Nelson is a former heart surgeon who is 93 years old and still keeps a full schedule as a church leader. For NPR News, I'm Lee Hale in Salt Lake City.
(SOUNDBITE OF IMAGINED HERBAL FLOWS' "BEYOND THE SUN")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Ethiopia's prime minister started the new year with a surprise. He announced that the government would release all political prisoners and also close a notorious prison. The move follows years of political unrest in the Horn of Africa nation. NPR's East Africa correspondent Eyder Peralta is following this story from his base in Nairobi. Eyder, what did the prime minister say exactly?
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: This happened after the prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, met with the ruling party. He called a press conference, and he dropped a big bombshell. He said that political prisoners would be pardoned and released and that they would close a notorious prison. The prime minister says that this will be done for the sake of, quote, "national reconciliation." And basically he thinks that this should spark some kind of national dialogue.
The unspoken part of this of course is that Ethiopia has seen some serious unrest for more than two years now. The country has seen constant protests, and the government has responded with a really heavy hand. For ten months, they declared a state of emergency, and when that ended last summer, the government said they had made more than 20,000 arrests.
SIEGEL: And you speak of the prison that's to be closed as being notorious. How so?
PERALTA: Yeah, so that's the Maekelawi prison. And it's essentially by all accounts a torture chamber. Journalists and opposition figures have been held there. But mostly that prison is a symbol of Ethiopia's long history of oppression. It goes back to imperial times. So the closing of it is a big deal. It's a symbolic big deal.
SIEGEL: What do you make of the timing? Why did the prime minister make this announcement in his new year's address?
PERALTA: It comes after a long period of protests. Most of the 20,000 people who were arrested have been released. According to estimates from human rights groups, more than a thousand of them were charged with terrorism. And one of the things that's important to understand is that Ethiopia has global ambitions. The government is trying to build a middle-income country. And it has made some strides, but these protests have really put a strain on those plans because they haven't stopped.
Another thing is that they've taken an ethnic tone. The Oromos, who are the majority in that country, started expressing disillusionment with never having had the presidency. And the Amharas, who used to hold power in the country, joined in as these protests went on with some of the same sentiments - that they felt left out of the prosperity of the country. So this became a very serious situation for a government that has a long history of repression. It was serious because two of the country's biggest tribes had essentially turned against it.
SIEGEL: From what you've heard from people in Ethiopia today, are the prime minister's words being greeted as a new beginning, or are they skeptical of what they've heard?
PERALTA: There is a ton of skepticism. A lot of activists on social media have expressed deep, deep skepticism. One of them said that this was a small step in the right direction, but he said it needed to be implemented immediately and without any conditions.
SIEGEL: One of the questions is, I gather, it's not clear who exactly a political prisoner is and as to when they might be released or when the prison might be shut down. Did the prime minister say?
PERALTA: That's right. The prime minister did not define who is a political prisoner. He did say that the prison will be turned into a museum but gave no timeline for that.
SIEGEL: NPR's Eyder Peralta talking about the announced closure of one of Ethiopia's most notorious prisons - Eyder, thanks.
PERALTA: Thank you, Robert.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONOPHONICS' "GOLIATH")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In Alaska, archaeologists have uncovered the bones of two infants dating back 11 and a half thousand years. Their discovery sheds light on how the first people migrated to the Americas. Here's NPR's Christopher Joyce.
CHRISTOPHER JOYCE, BYLINE: Scientists say it's a remarkable discovery.
BEN POTTER: It's incredibly rare. We only have a handful of human remains that are this old in the entire Western Hemisphere.
JOYCE: Ben Potter is an archaeologist at the University of Alaska who worked on the site called Upper Sun River. Geneticists compared DNA from one of the infants to the genes of people from around the world. They conclude that the ancestors of these infants started out in East Asia about 35,000 years ago. As they traveled east, they became genetically isolated from other Asians.
At some point during the last ice age, they crossed the frozen land bridge from Siberia to Alaska called Beringia. Potter says during this great migration, this group split again into two populations. Scientists suspected that one group stayed put. They call them the ancient Beringians. The two infants are the first hard evidence that they did indeed do that. The ice age was still on, but these people hunkered down and made the best of what was there.
POTTER: Bison, horses, mammoth - big grazers were very common.
JOYCE: The other group moved down into North and South America and are believed to be the direct ancestors of current Native Americans. David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard University who studies ancient DNA, says genetic material like this tells a more detailed story of how people came to America but not the whole story.
DAVID REICH: There were presumably many related populations like this, one of which split to form these two lineages that have diversified to Native Americans today.
JOYCE: The group that moved south spread far and wide up into Canada, the East and throughout Central and South America. They are the Native Americans of today. Meanwhile, Potter says, those who stayed behind in Beringia dealt with huge changes in the far north as the ice age drew to a close.
POTTER: They're dealing with climate change that we can only imagine now - major changes from ice ages, extinction of a wide range of mammal species, including mammoth. And these are the people that adapted in this region.
JOYCE: They lasted for a while at least. Writing in the journal Nature, the researchers say the infant remains show the Beringians lasted at least until about 11 and half thousand years ago. How their final end came is still unknown. Christopher Joyce, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BALLROOM THIEVES' "LA MER PEU PROFONDE")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
William Eggleston shocked the New York art world in the 1970s when the Museum of Modern Art exhibited his color photographs. Up to that point, most serious photography had been in black and white. Eggleston's pictures of everyday scenes from the Deep South - a tricycle, the red ceiling of an eccentric's bedroom - established color photography and turned him into an art star. Now as Rick Karr reports, at the age of 78, Eggleston has released his first album of original music.
RICK KARR, BYLINE: William Eggleston started taking photography seriously when he was 18. He started playing piano when he was 4 in the parlor of the house in the Mississippi Delta where he lived with his well-to-do parents. He says he still plays pretty much every day.
(SOUNDBITE OF PIANO MUSIC)
KARR: Eggleston's sitting at the keyboard of a Bosendorfer grand piano in its distributor's showroom in New York City. He says he mostly plays his own music. But after nearly 75 years, he's still turning for inspiration to the composer who excited him most as a child.
WILLIAM EGGLESTON: Sebastian Bach is obviously my hero.
(SOUNDBITE OF PIANO MUSIC)
EGGLESTON: I love to improvise, so there's a lot of Bach in these improvisations.
(SOUNDBITE OF PIANO MUSIC)
KARR: Eggleston's no purist. In the 1990s, he bought a Korg synthesizer.
EGGLESTON: I think the synthesizer's a brilliant invention. It'll make about a billion different sounds. And it's fun to use as many as one can. And it usually has a lot to do improvisation ability.
KARR: The sound itself inspires what you play.
EGGLESTON: It must.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
KARR: The Korg synthesizer also allowed Eggleston to record his improvisations to floppy disks. He says he never intended to release his music, but a producer at an indie record label persuaded him. The two of them went through about 60 hours' worth of recordings at Eggleston's Memphis home to select the 13 pieces on the album.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ROBERT GORDON: It's a very literary technique. You know, it's working with an editor.
KARR: Memphis writer Robert Gordon says it's the same way Eggleston approaches his photography - by going through hundreds of photos to find the perfect few.
GORDON: In all of Bill's art, it takes the collaboration with an editor to turn it into a cohesive piece.
KARR: Gordon played that role himself when he edited documentary video footage Eggleston shot of the Memphis underground scene into a film. No matter what the medium, Gordon says, Eggleston shoots from the hip - sometimes literally.
GORDON: In the way that you hold a shotgun at your waist and point it, you know, you're not looking through the site. He liberated the camera from his eye. To me, that's very improvisational.
KARR: Gordon also sees a parallel between the emotional ambiguity of Eggleston's music and the emotional pull of his photographs.
GORDON: Because you want to know what's beyond the frames, and you want to know who just left or who's about to enter, and you concoct stories.
(SOUNDBITE OF PIANO MUSIC)
KARR: Eggleston agrees that there are parallels between his photographs and music.
EGGLESTON: I can easily see a very close connection, but I cannot explain it.
KARR: The closest he can come to explaining the connection, Eggleston says, is by referring to quantum physics.
EGGLESTON: I love the fact that in the end, quantum physics is what is probable, not at all what is precisely accurate but what probably happens. What else would improvisation be? You don't know - or I don't or one doesn't - whether this note...
(SOUNDBITE OF PIANO NOTE)
EGGLESTON: ...Should follow that note...
(SOUNDBITE OF PIANO NOTE)
EGGLESTON: ...Or not. You think maybe probably they work together (laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF PIANO MUSIC)
KARR: William Eggleston says now that he's released his first album, he'd like to record and release another one, this time at the Bosendorfer grand piano in his Memphis home. For NPR News, I'm Rick Karr in New York.
SIEGEL: Complete versions of the piano improvisations William Eggleston performed during the interview and his take on the Lerner and Loewe song "The Street Where You Live" are at npr.org.
(SOUNDBITE OF PIANO MUSIC)
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
One of the president's tweets in the new year that Ari mentioned earlier is sowing confusion and anger in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Just last month, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, was explaining to the world that though the administration decided to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, its final status is still up for negotiation.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NIKKI HALEY: The president took great care not to prejudge final status negotiations in any way, including the specific boundaries of Israeli sovereignty in Jerusalem.
KELEMEN: But President Trump now says via Twitter that he's, quote, "taken Jerusalem - the toughest part of the negotiation - off the table." He's threatening an aid cutoff if Palestinians don't negotiate with Israelis. And he says because of the Jerusalem decision, the Israelis will have to, quote, "pay more."
That last part confused some Israelis, while the Palestinians, who claim East Jerusalem as their future capital, are furious. David Makovsky of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy has tracked Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts for years, both as a journalist and a former State Department official.
DAVID MAKOVSKY: It used to be the State Department spokesman would have very carefully crafted statements. But now people are saying, what should I believe? Should I believe those officials, or should believe what the president says from his gut?
KELEMEN: Makovsky says the tweets could make it impossible to revive peace talks.
MAKOVSKY: What's there to negotiate if you just took Jerusalem off the table?
KELEMEN: One U.S. official tried to downplay this, saying Trump has only taken off the table that Jerusalem is Israel's capital - not Palestinian claims to the eastern part of the city. But Tamara Wittes of the Brookings Institution says she takes the tweet seriously.
TAMARA WITTES: Even when sort of mitigated or tempered by post-facto staff work, these pronouncements tend to hold up in one form or another.
KELEMEN: And it's risky business, she says, for staffers to try to parse the president's tweets. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Leaders in Congress and the White House met this afternoon to work on something they left unfinished before the holiday break. Just before Christmas, Congress passed a temporary spending bill to keep the government from shutting down. That's good through the 19th of this month, so the deadline to fund the government is coming up quickly. And a big part of those negotiations is figuring out some sort of agreement for what to do about the 700,000 immigrants protected by the expiring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. NPR's Scott Detrow is on Capitol Hill and joins us now. Hi, Scott.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: Hey. Good afternoon.
SHAPIRO: We know that Congress tends to leave things for the last minute, and DACA does not expire until March. So explain why lawmakers see this as something to be decided in January.
DETROW: A couple reasons here - one's Republican. One's Democratic. On the Republican side, Arizona Senator Jeff Flake you may recall was a key vote on the tax overhaul last month. And he said one reason he voted yes is that he was promised by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that a bipartisan DACA bill would be brought to the Senate floor in January. Now, we've been hearing that bipartisan talks have been making progress, though right now there's no clear deal in place. So that's one dynamic.
The second is all about Democratic leverage. This is of course a top Democratic priority. And that January 19 government funding deadline is one of those rare moments where Democrats can try to force the issue, say, you need our votes, so if you don't bring DACA up, we're not going to vote for this funding bill. Now, that's their leverage, but of course last month, Democrats decided not to use that leverage. And that really angered a lot of the activist groups working on a DACA fix.
SHAPIRO: If there is some kind of bipartisan deal, do you have any sense of what might be in it?
DETROW: Well, a lot of that depends on President Trump, who has frankly been all over the map on this. He's repeatedly said he wants to figure out a solution so that DACA protectees can stay. Those are people in the country illegally who were brought here as children. But sometimes he's demanded the bill would have to include funding for a border wall. Sometimes he's said that can wait until later.
He's also pushed lately for a much more drastic immigration change as part of a compromise, and that would include fundamental shifts in which immigrants are allowed in the country. And again, President Trump's views on this have changed on sometimes literally an hourly basis, so that's the big wildcard here.
SHAPIRO: Republicans are talking about ending something that they call chain migration allowing family members to come to the country. Where would Democrats be on that?
DETROW: So that is 1 of 2 areas where Democrats are saying that they just are not going to support it. The other is the idea of across-the-board border wall. Democrats have said we're willing to vote for enhanced border security but not your coast-to-coast wall. But on chain migration, President Trump does want to change the policies that initially prioritize family connections. This is an idea that that Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton has pushed, too.
And we should say; we're talking about big changes to legal immigration here, not illegal immigration. But the White House has said that has to be part of a broader deal. But the Democratic argument is that that's really against the core principles that have defined the United States.
SHAPIRO: And since we are just over two weeks away from a possible government shutdown, what about the debate over government funding?
DETROW: Well, Republicans want to boost military spending. Democrats have said, if you want to do that, you need to raise domestic spending as well. That's really the big divide here. Republicans don't want to do both. And that's one reason why Congress has just lurched from short-term funding deal to short-term funding deal, passing weeks- or months-at-a-time bills.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Scott Detrow joining us from Capitol Hill. Thanks, Scott.
DETROW: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Our next guest is considering U.S. politics and American life through a new lens. The other day, Max Boot wrote this.
MAX BOOT: (Reading) In college - this was in the late-1980s and early 1990s at the University of California, Berkeley - I used to be one of those smart aleck young conservatives who would scoff at the notion of white male privilege and claim that anyone propagating such concepts was guilty of political correctness.
SIEGEL: Boot says 2017 changed him. In a piece published in Foreign Policy, he says it was the year he learned about his white privilege and that it was the Trump era that opened his eyes. Max Boot, welcome to the program. Thanks for reading that, too.
BOOT: Thanks for having me on.
SIEGEL: You begin your article explaining your background. You were a Jewish refugee from the Soviet Union. You saw America as a land of opportunity, not a bastion of racism or sexism. That was your view, you say, for a quarter century. Is there a moment you can pinpoint when you started thinking a little differently?
BOOT: Well, quite frankly, Donald Trump's victory in November of 2016 really shook a lot of my assumptions about America because I just never imagined that somebody like Donald Trump could be elected president of this great country. And that to me was unthinkable, and it made me realize that there were some deep undercurrents that I was not familiar with or was perhaps choosing to ignore.
And I think it was the confluence of Donald Trump's election with some other trends, including all of the sexual harassment and assault scandals that have surfaced recently and also of course all the videotapes of police brutality against African-Americans. All that together I think has really shaken this very Pollyannaish view I think I had of the United States.
SIEGEL: An editor for the conservative news site The Daily Caller wrote in response to your piece that Donald Trump is not a blip, that Trumpism - I'm quoting now - "has already left a permanent mark on conservatism" and that there's no place left for conservatives like you, so you're moving closer to the left - accurate assessment?
BOOT: Well, I certainly think that there is very little space for a Never Trump conservative like me in today's conservative movement because the conservative movement has been utterly disfigured. Conservatives and Republicans, to embrace Trump, have had to reject so much of what they used to believe in, like free trade or being in favor of immigration, which was, you know, something that Ronald Reagan was certainly in favor of.
Basically Trump has transformed the movement from being this principled, small government, American leadership school into being this white nationalist populism. And most of the conservative movement, most of the Republican Party has gone along with that. And so at this point, I have to say I'm homeless. I'm not a Republican anymore...
SIEGEL: Yeah, yeah.
BOOT: ...For the first time in my adult life. I'm not a Democrat, but I'm just homeless.
SIEGEL: (Laughter) You know, over the past year, I've felt that the most interesting political writing has been the anguished, most tortured writing by a number - any number of conservative intellectual commentators trying to reconcile political developments of the past year with their views of the country, its history, the Republican Party, conservatism, whatever. And I imagine there should be support groups that you can go to (laughter) with other columnists to talk to. But do you find yourself having conversations like these often with other conservatives?
BOOT: Absolutely, but it's a fairly small group of people. I mean, these are - I essentially know them all. I mean, they can all fit into my living room. I mean, one of the many shocking things to me is how the vast, vast majority of so-called conservatives and Republicans have gone along with Trumpism.
SIEGEL: What do you hear from the I've-learned-to-live-with-Trump conservatives?
BOOT: Well, there's all sorts of rationales. You know, it began with judges. You know, he appointed Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, and the year ended with this huge tax bill, which for conventional Republicans, the only thing that matters are these policy victories. And I think that is just a very one-sided calculation, especially when the rest of it includes the fact that he fired the director of the FBI in an attempt to obstruct an investigation of his ties to Russia - just as it's unacceptable for him to be praising white supremacists or to be pardoning a racist sheriff or to be endorsing an accused child molester for the Senate. I mean, all of this is so far beyond the pale. Trump supporters own it all. They can't just separate themselves. They have to take the whole thing.
SIEGEL: You were saying you're not a Republican anymore. You're not a Democrat. You're homeless. Is the Republican Party worth a fight? Is its soul worth a fight? Is it - is that fight winnable, do you think?
BOOT: I mean, I'm pretty pessimistic about the future of the Republican Party at this point. I think it would be very hard to get it back to what it was. I mean, ideally I think we would see an entirely different center-right party arise in this country. But I recognize that's extremely difficult because of this duopoly that the two major parties enjoy on our political system.
SIEGEL: Well, Max Boot, thank you very much for talking with us about it today.
BOOT: Thank you for having me on.
SIEGEL: Max Boot is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His forthcoming book is "The Road Not Taken: Edward Lansdale And The American Tragedy in Vietnam."
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Oil production in this country is surging. Part of the reason is that prices for crude oil are nearly double what they were two years ago. Gasoline prices are up, too. The national average for regular gas is about 15 cents more per gallon than last year. That has drillers feeling optimistic, so they're sending more rigs back out into oil fields. NPR's Jeff Brady reports.
JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: All that optimism could lead to a new crude oil production record in the U.S. The key number here is 10 million.
TOM KLOZA: Well, we haven't seen 10 million barrels a day of U.S. production since November of 1970.
BRADY: Tom Kloza with Oil Price Information Service says that record stood for 47 years, and just about no one thought it would be broken until controversial technologies like hydraulic fracturing brought new life to old oil fields by tapping previously unreachable reserves. Fracking can be expensive. And while prices were low, drilling slowed. Now that they're back up, crews are at work again.
KLOZA: And it has nothing to do with who is in office.
BRADY: Prices generally determine when oil companies drill, not presidents. A new production record will almost certainly be set during President Trump's term. Kloza predicts it'll happen this spring. Others believe the U.S. might already produce 10 million barrels a day.
PER MAGNUS NYSVEEN: We think that during December, that mark was actually reached.
BRADY: Per Magnus Nysveen is an oil market analyst with the Norwegian firm Rystad Energy. This disagreement will be settled when official federal production numbers are out at the end of February. After that, Nysveen predicts U.S. crude production will surpass Saudi Arabia and Russia.
NYSVEEN: So if we are at 10 million barrels 1st of January, I think we can be at 11 million barrels by the end of 2018.
BRADY: As production increases, U.S. cars are more fuel-efficient, and overall demand is flat. So it's unlikely there will be any dramatic gas price increases in the near future. Jeff Brady, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We're going to spend some time now with NPR's Carrie Johnson, who has had a busy day tracking developments at the Department of Justice. Late this afternoon, President Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort filed a lawsuit against the DOJ, which is prosecuting him for alleged money laundering. And as we near the one year anniversary of President Trump's inauguration, NPR has a new tally that sheds some light on what's happening inside the department. Six of the most important divisions have had no Senate-confirmed leaders.
Carrie, welcome to the studio.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Thanks, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Let's start with these vacancies you've been looking into. President Trump campaigned on a promise of restoring law and order. Can he do that with so many openings at the top of the Justice Department?
JOHNSON: Well, Ari, there's no candidate in charge at the Criminal Division which would presumably enforce this vow to protect law and order and preside over strategy against gangs and drug cases and the like. There's also no nominee at the National Security Division even though protecting national security is the top priority at the Justice Department and the White House.
Several other key units are operating with no Senate-confirmed leadership either. These are major posts - the Civil Division, the civil rights unit, the environmental unit, the Marshals Service, the DEA, the ATF and the Community Relations Service - last but not least, as one source of mine calls it, the Rodney Dangerfield of the Justice Department, the Tax Division.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) That's a long list. What do people inside and outside the Justice Department tell you about the implication of all these vacancies for law enforcement?
JOHNSON: Well, there are people in these top jobs. They're either career prosecutors and lawyers who've worked through a lot of different presidencies or people the Trump team has installed on a temporary basis. But those folks are not as free to chart their own vision for the Justice Department, to develop policy priorities or make bold calls about cases. For some observers who are wary of President Trump, that's a comfort, a good thing. But former Justice Department Inspector General Mike Bromwich told me this is not a recipe for good government. He said that he is not aware of any precedent for this many vacancies open for this long at the Justice Department.
SHAPIRO: Could some of this be an intentional move by President Trump to shrink the size of government, which is something that he's often talked about?
JOHNSON: You know, I don't think so. The White House has nominated people for many of these jobs, but for one reason or another, they just got bogged down in the Senate in 2017. The Justice Department tells me this nominee to lead the national security unit could get a vote early this year. But some of the other candidates are going to have to fill out paperwork all over again, maybe answer new questions from senators.
And just today, Attorney General Sessions named 17 current or former prosecutors to serve as interim U.S. attorneys. One of them is a guy named Geoffrey Berman, who will be U.S. attorney in Manhattan. That's interesting because he's going to be in charge of the jurisdiction that covers Trump Tower. And we know that President Trump met with Berman last year to personally interview him for this job.
SHAPIRO: Pretty unusual for a president to interview somebody up for a U.S. attorney position. Let's turn to this lawsuit by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. What can you tell us about that?
JOHNSON: Yeah, President Trump's former campaign chair Paul Manafort is suing the Justice Department, the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, and the special counsel, Robert Mueller. Basically Manafort is arguing that Mueller exceeded his authority as special counsel. Mueller's supposed to be looking into Russian interference in last year's election. And the argument from Manafort goes, instead, Manafort's been charged with conspiracy and money laundering for lobbying efforts that have nothing to do with Russia and ended a few years ago.
Now, I called the Justice Department for comment about this, Ari. They say this lawsuit is frivolous, but the defendant is entitled to file whatever he wants. And it may in fact be a way for Paul Manafort to make his case in public despite this gag order the judge has imposed in his criminal case.
SHAPIRO: If we think that Mueller's charging Manafort is some strategy to get cooperating witnesses, how does Manafort's suing the Department of Justice play into that potential strategy?
JOHNSON: Well, Manafort may be speaking to his former boss Donald Trump into a possible jury pool in the District of Columbia rather than to any judge who may be hearing his case, either civil or criminal.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson. Thanks a lot.
JOHNSON: My pleasure.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The U.S. Senate has two new members today - Doug Jones, whose race in Alabama against Judge Roy Moore caught the nation's attention, and Tina Smith of Minnesota. She replaces fellow Democrat Al Franken after his resignation amid allegations of sexual misconduct. Senator Smith inherits a seat that has changed parties four times since 1990 and faces a November special election that's likely to be competitive. Here's Brian Bakst of Minnesota Public Radio.
BRIAN BAKST, BYLINE: Where Al Franken was an outsized political figure, Tina Smith was practically tugged into public life. Until yesterday, Smith had been Minnesota's lieutenant governor, the only elective office she's held. For most of her career, she focused on the images and agendas of others as a trusted adviser to a big city mayor, a governor and a former vice president.
TINA SMITH: You know, sometimes I think people in politics are always looking for the next job and the next opportunity. And frankly, that's just not the way I'm wired.
BAKST: Former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak says that doesn't mean people should take his former chief of staff lightly.
R T RYBAK: She is not a person to go crawl over every other political body to get to the place. She's a person who wants to get stuff done, and she's in the right position to do that.
BAKST: Rybak once dubbed Smith the velvet hammer. It reflected what Rybak saw as her charm and mettle in helping close deals at City Hall and providing a steady hand in times of crisis, like when the Interstate 35W bridge collapsed during rush hour. As senator, Smith says her focus will be on bread-and-butter economic issues such as health care and paid family leave.
SMITH: I don't think Minnesotans are sending us here to Washington D.C. just to fight with each other. They're sending us here to actually deliver results for people.
BAKST: Smith is 59, a New Mexico native, a wife of 33 years and a mother of two. She has an MBA from Dartmouth and came to Minnesota for a job at General Mills. She left to start her own business before migrating toward jobs in politics. That includes running the campaign for Walter Mondale in a 2002 Senate race the former vice president lost. It was for the seat Smith will now hold. Mondale says he's looking forward to having Smith represent Minnesota.
WALTER MONDALE: She's very honest. You can - that's a touchstone of her career. She's not going to cut any corners. She's - we'll hear it straight from her.
BAKST: Smith must now get acclimated to the Senate while building a statewide campaign. She passed last year on a chance to succeed retiring Democratic Governor Mark Dayton, who appointed her to the Senate. The Democratic field looks clear, but that's only part of the battle in a state that neither party has a lock on. It's a historically blue state where Republicans have made substantial inroads lately. Suburban State Senator Karin Housley is the only Republican to jump in so far, but former Governor Tim Pawlenty and former Congresswoman Michele Bachmann are considering campaigns.
Jennifer DeJournett runs a political group called VOICES of Conservative Women. She says this seat is ripe for Republicans if they pick the right candidate. She expects Republicans to hammer Smith on abortion, linking it to her past stint as a Planned Parenthood executive.
JENNIFER DEJOURNETT: She's kind of got the worst of both worlds, quite frankly. Totally unproven, no hard base, but she's got an ideological record that is completely - you know, completely there.
BAKST: Smith's allies hold her out as a champion for women's health and say they're ready for the 2018 fight. For NPR News, I'm Brian Bakst in St. Paul.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Hundreds of Iraqi Christians being held in detention facilities across the U.S. could soon be reunited with their families. A federal judge in Detroit ruled late yesterday that the government must hold hearings and release detainees who don't pose a risk. Michigan Public Radio's Rick Pluta has the story.
RICK PLUTA, BYLINE: More than 270 Iraqis are being held while they fight deportation orders. They were rounded up by the Department of Homeland Security over the summer, and many have been in lockups for six months or more. Their immigration cases could drag on for years. Federal Judge Mark Goldsmith ruled it's unconstitutional to just hold them for that long. He wrote, quote, "our legal tradition rejects warehousing human beings while their legal rights are being determined." Margo Schlanger is one of the ACLU attorneys working to release the detainees.
MARGO SCHLANGER: We have a Constitution that says liberty is the default and the government has to have a really good reason to put you in detention, and they don't have that here.
PLUTA: Schlanger says the detainees have been legally in the U.S. for many years, regularly reported to immigration authorities until they were arrested and claims they don't pose a danger to the public.
SCHLANGER: So what the judge said was they're entitled to a hearing where they can explain that they are not a public safety risk or a flight risk, and they can fight their immigration cases outside of detention.
PLUTA: Most of the detainees face deportation orders for crimes committed many years ago. They range from assault to marijuana possession. All have already served out their sentences. Some were sent to jail. Others got probation. They might have been deported sooner, but Iraq would not accept them. Martin Manna is with the Chaldean Community Foundation. He says most of the detainees are Christians, and if they were sent back to Iraq, they would likely face persecution, torture and murder. He says they were allowed to remain free in the U.S. for all those years because they got jobs, took care of their families and had no further run-ins with the law. He says there's no reason that would change if and when they are released from detention.
MARTIN MANNA: This is very positive news, and I'm hopeful here within the next 30 days that most of those detained will be able to be released.
PLUTA: This ruling could also be applied to other cases, possibly mandating hearings for immigrants facing deportation to countries like Somalia and Indonesia. The judge has asked all the lawyers involved to appear in his courtroom next Tuesday to determine the next steps. There's no word yet on whether the government plans to appeal his ruling. For NPR News, I'm Rick Pluta in Lansing, Mich.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In the last day, President Trump has tweeted about Pakistan, Israel and the Palestinians, Iran and, perhaps most provocatively, North Korea. In that tweet, he said, quote, "North Korean leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the nuclear button is on his desk at all times. Will someone from his depleted and food-starved regime please inform him that I, too, have a nuclear button, but it is a much bigger and more powerful one than his, and my button works."
In response, Senator Bob Casey - a Democrat from Pennsylvania - tweeted (reading) this is exactly the kind of reckless behavior I was hoping we would avoid in 2018. Please, Mr. President, no more diplomacy via Twitter.
To talk about this distinctly Trumpian approach to foreign policy, Richard Haass joins us now. He's president of the Council on Foreign Relations and author of the book "A World In Disarray." Welcome.
RICHARD HAASS: Thank you.
SHAPIRO: Some of President Trump's defenders say his tweets are only words and that people should brush them off. Explain why you disagree with that.
HAASS: Tweets are White House statements. I worked at the White House under George Bush the father, and when the president would say something, it got scrubbed by the staff beforehand, often by the interagency - by the State Department, the Treasury, the Defense Department.
The words of the president are the most valuable currency the United States has in some ways. It's critical to reassuring allies. It's critical to informing the American public. It's critical to warning or deterring enemies out there.
So the idea that it would be done casually or impulsively seems to me to undermine one of the most important tools the president of the United States has in his possession.
SHAPIRO: If presidential words are currency and the currency is being spent in this way, what are the consequences of that?
HAASS: Well, it devalues the currency. So either the president means it, in which case some of this is truly counterproductive in terms of reassuring allies or trying to, say, avoid a conflict with a country like North Korea. Or he doesn't mean it, and these are, quote, unquote, "just tweets" or "just words." Well, that's never something you want to have happen where when the president speaks, other governments derive the lesson that they need not take it seriously.
So you can't have it both ways. Either people begin to forge different relationships, they substitute for the United States, or they take matters into their own hands.
SHAPIRO: So you're saying part of the fear here is that other world leaders - allies, adversaries and in between - will make partnerships that don't include the United States, make alliances that work around American leadership just because they can't count on the U.S. to be there?
HAASS: The short answer is, yes. I think we're beginning to see that. I think that you're seeing countries take matters into their own hands. The Saudis are becoming much more independent. I worry a little bit about a South Korea that's negotiating with North Korea.
I think it's important to see these tweets in a context. The United States has left the Paris climate agreement. We've pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. We've raised all sorts of question about our alliances. And I think other countries have basically said we can't assume anything about the United States anymore. We can't take anything for granted.
So what we've done is introduce a major element of uncertainty. And maybe I'm old-school here, but I want things to be calm. I like things to be predictable. I don't understand why the United States would want to wake up every morning and disrupt international relations when for the most part, we have been well-served by what has gone on in the world for the last 70 years.
SHAPIRO: Do you think it's possible that, done differently, foreign policy through Twitter could work and could be effective?
HAASS: I think there's a role for Twitter. I'd be hypocritical since I'm on it myself every day.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
HAASS: So I'm not against this or any president using Twitter. What I'm against is him using it in a way that's not as careful as any other statement or speech. Well, he has to remember that tweet is read not simply by, say, a political base within the United States but is read all around the world.
And you have to ask yourself before you press the send button, is this likely to advance American interests? Will this make it more or less difficult for us to get to where we want to get to? And I would think in many cases, these tweets are actually working against the very goals this administration has embraced.
SHAPIRO: Richard Haass is president of the Council on Foreign Relations, and his book, "A World in Disarray," is now out in paperback. Thanks so much for joining us.
HAASS: Thanks for having me.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Most people are expected to pay less in federal income taxes for this year under the new law that President Trump signed last month. One big exception, though - people who live in states with high incomes, high cost of living and high state and local taxes. Those are mostly blue states, including California. One of the first things on the California state legislature's agenda this year is a plan to strike back.
Senate Leader Kevin de Leon, who's also running for the U.S. Senate, is proposing letting Californians make charitable contributions to the state in exchange for state tax credits. The new law caps the deduction for state and local taxes at $10,000, but charitable contributions are not capped. Senator de Leon joins us now from Sacramento. Welcome to the program.
KEVIN DE LEON: Oh, thank you, Robert.
SIEGEL: If I've got this right, you're proposing a one-to-one exchange, a dollar into a new charitable state fund for a dollar off one's state taxes. Do I have that right?
DE LEON: That is correct. So assume you're the average taxpayer in California that deducted $22,000 in state and local taxes from your federal tax returns. Under this proposal, you could contribute conceivably $22,000 to the state charitable fund, and you would get $22,000 off your state tax obligation. Then, what you would do is you would use the federal charitable contribution rules. The taxpayer can deduct that entire contribution from their federal taxes, exactly as they would have under the state and local tax deduction that Trump wiped out.
SIEGEL: But does equating the state government - which is what would happen with this money given to the fund, it would pay for the state government - does equating state government with a charitable institution pass a smell test?
DE LEON: It does pass the smell test because we're already doing it here in California. I authored a measure back in 2014 that allows for charitable donations to state college affordability grants. So we have a couple other red states, in fact, who picked up this novel idea, the states of Florida as well as Arizona. It is a question if Paul Ryan or Mitch McConnell or, through an executive order, if Trump himself attempts to revoke our authority as a state. This is the clash between the state government and the federal government. And we will see it soon.
SIEGEL: I'm assuming that those of us who exceed the cap in our state taxes, or those of us who pay more taxes, have more income. Are we talking about higher income Californians who would benefit from this? And how many would?
DE LEON: We actually - we're talking about all Californians, not just those with disposable income. But we're talking about middle-class folks. We're talking about every Californian who would like to make a contribution...
SIEGEL: But people who pay more in state and local taxes than $10,000, though.
DE LEON: That is correct, absolutely correct.
SIEGEL: Let me just return to that one point about whether this really is a charitable donation. If I make a donation to a California excellence fund knowing that I will get $1 back for every dollar from the state, from the very same institution that's operating the fund, does that really qualify as a charitable donation? I've made no sacrifice whatever to make that gift.
DE LEON: Well, I could say this - that as of today, from a ruling back in 2011, the IRS, they allow these types of donations to any state general fund to be treated as a regular charitable fund donation. That is the law. That is permissible. So what we're doing is en masse taking advantage of this opportunity to do a roundabout, if you will, against policies from Washington that are very hurtful towards a state like California.
SIEGEL: But the new twist is making it a 100 percent credit against your state income taxes...
DE LEON: That is correct.
SIEGEL: ...Not getting it back.
DE LEON: That is correct.
SIEGEL: You're confident of the success of this measure, or do you think this could be a good idea that that ends with the IRS in court?
DE LEON: Well, I think this is an excellent idea. But we'll have to see what type of influence Donald Trump exerts on the IRS. We have no other choice but to move forward with this type of policy because, in the end, the tax policy that was just passed in Washington will disproportionately hurt a state like California. And when you hurt a state like California, you're hurting the rest of the country, because we are the economic engine for the nation.
SIEGEL: California State Senator Kevin de Leon, thanks a lot for talking with us today.
DE LEON: Robert, thank you so very much.
SIEGEL: And California is not alone in its effort to lessen the effect of the new tax law. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo took on the law in his state of the state address today.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANDREW CUOMO: It is crass. It is ugly. It is divisive. It is partisan legislating. It is an economic civil war. And make no mistake, they are aiming to hurt us. We must take dramatic action to save ourselves and preserve our state's economy.
SIEGEL: Cuomo says that action includes exploring new tax structures, including the charity loophole that we just heard about and also a lawsuit against the Trump administration.
(SOUNDBITE OF DJ PREMIER'S "CHANGE")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The co-founders of the firm that commissioned the so-called Steele dossier are speaking out. That was the report by a former British spy named Christopher Steele that purported to detail Donald Trump's ties to Russia. In a New York Times op-ed, Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch of Fusion GPS write that after being attacked by President Trump and having his allies in Congress dig through their bank records, seeking to tarnish their company, they say, they wanted to set the record straight. The men wrote that Fusion GPS has given more than 21 hours of testimony to Congress and that Republicans have been sitting on that testimony, selectively leaking details to conservative media to paint them in an unfavorable light.
NPR has invited Republicans who've heard that testimony and hope to hear from one of them. But right now, we're going to hear from Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff of California who is the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee and who joins us via Skype. Welcome to the program once again.
ADAM SCHIFF: Thank you. It's good to be with you.
SIEGEL: The Fusion GPS guys say they don't believe that the Steele dossier was the trigger for the FBI investigation into Russian meddling, that actually the FBI already was interested in this before they learned of the dossier. Does that square with what you understand to be the timeline and what you've heard in testimony?
SCHIFF: I can't go into the genesis of the investigation. I can say that regardless of Fusion GPS, the FBI and the Department of Justice would be investigating links between the Russians and the Trump campaign.
SIEGEL: Here's something that the two co-founders of Fusion GPS write in The Times. They write (reading) we suggested investigators look into the bank records of Deutsche Bank and others that were funding Mr. Trump's businesses. Congress appears uninterested in that tip. Reportedly, ours - meaning those individuals in Fusion GPS - our bank records are the only records the House Intelligence Committee has subpoenaed.
Is that a true statement?
SCHIFF: It is all too true. And we have urged the committee to request and subpoena if necessary - as I think it would be - records from Deutsche Bank. They've refused to do so. There are credible allegations that the Russians may have laundered money through the Trump organizations or Trump properties, and that might be leverage that could be used over the president of the United States. I think it would be negligent for us not to either show that that's true or not true.
SIEGEL: But when you say that it would be justified to subpoena, say, records from Deutsche Bank, would that be a fishing expedition or is there enough there to say, we want to look specifically at that enterprise and its records because we have reason to believe that there might have been money laundering there?
SCHIFF: I think the allegations are credible enough. And in fact, we know that there was a criminal ring operating out of Trump Tower. That was the subject of an indictment that involved money laundering. I hope because the majority in our committee has been resistant to doing that that Bob Mueller will.
SIEGEL: Well, if the sense of The New York Times op-ed by the founders of Fusion GPS is generally accurate, and if you're - as the ranking Democrat, if you're frustrated by the Republican majority's lack of action on these scores, what's the point of continuing the House Intelligence Committee's investigation? Why - what do we stand to gain from it if, the way you would tell it, the investigation is blinkered and not interested in pursuing the many serious allegations?
SCHIFF: Well, notwithstanding the limitations we've faced - and they have been significant - we have uncovered a great deal of connections between the Trump campaign and the Russians and a great deal of information about how the Russians influenced our presidential election. What I anticipate we'll do at the end of the investigation is report to the public what we were able to find but also report to the public what the majority was unwilling to investigate, unwilling to pursue.
SIEGEL: I'm just curious since you do speak of when this investigation ends, when do you think the House Intelligence Committee will wrap up its investigation of Russian meddling into the election of 2016?
SCHIFF: You know, I can't say specifically. You know, part of the challenge is when you bring witnesses in, they lead you to other witnesses and other documents. But thus far, I have deep concerns about whether a great many directly pertinent witnesses will be left uninterviewed (ph).
SIEGEL: California Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, thanks for talking with us.
SCHIFF: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Muscle Shoals, Ala., is a small town a couple hours east of Memphis and south of Nashville. Starting in the 1960s, it drew some of the best musicians in the world.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TELL MAMA")
ETTA JAMES: (Singing) You thought you had found a good girl, one to love you and give you the world.
SHAPIRO: Etta James, Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin went to Muscle Shoals all because of a man named Rick Hall who died yesterday at the age of 85. NPR's Andrew Limbong has this appreciation.
ANDREW LIMBONG, BYLINE: Rick Hall's influence on music was primarily as a producer who created the Muscle Shoals sound, a Southern soul. He was white, and he grew up in poverty, as he told NPR in 2015.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
RICK HALL: We slept in squalid conditions with bedbugs eating us up every night and the whole thing. So we were very, very, very poor.
LIMBONG: His mom left the family when he was small.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "MUSCLE SHOALS")
RICK HALL: That made me a little bitter.
LIMBONG: This is Hall talking in the 2013 documentary "Muscle Shoals."
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "MUSCLE SHOALS")
RICK HALL: I wanted to be special. I wanted to be somebody.
LIMBONG: He picked music because his father was a Sunday school singing teacher who loved country gospel. Here's Hall on NPR again.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
RICK HALL: So consequently, he taught me and my sister to sing harmonies together, and so that's why I got into it (laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU BETTER MOVE ON")
ARTHUR ALEXANDER: (Singing) You ask me to give up the hand of the girl I love.
LIMBONG: That was Hall's first hit as a producer - Arthur Alexander's "You Better Move On."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU BETTER MOVE ON")
ALEXANDER: (Singing) But, my friend, that will never be. You better move on.
LIMBONG: A few years earlier, Hall started FAME Studios with two other partners. The partnership didn't don't work, out and he moved it to Muscle Shoals, Ala., where it still stands today. Rodney Hall is Rick Hall's youngest son, who still runs FAME Studios.
RODNEY HALL: As far as a signature sound, you know, he was big into vocals and making the vocals just as soulful as he could.
LIMBONG: Take the song "Stand By Your Man."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STAND BY YOUR MAN")
TAMMY WYNETTE: (Singing) Stand by your man.
LIMBONG: Here's Tammy Wynette's original country version from Nashville.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STAND BY YOUR MAN")
WYNETTE: (Singing) Give him two arms to cling to and something warm to...
LIMBONG: Then Rick Hall and gospel singer Candi Staton turned it into this.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STAND BY YOUR MAN")
CANDI STATON: (Singing) Stand by your man, and show the world you love him. He's given you all the love he can.
He took the country out of "Stand By Your Man." I put the soul in it. That's Rick Hall.
LIMBONG: And this is Candi Staton.
STATON: He was looking for a passion. He was looking for a feel. And he taught me how to do that. He taught me how to sing from my spirit, soul, from my heart.
LIMBONG: Rick Hall did that with a lot of artists who sought him out, including the Osmonds, Paul Anka, Otis Redding.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "YOU LEFT THE WATER RUNNING")
OTIS REDDING: (Singing) You left the water running when you left me behind.
LIMBONG: Rick Hall worked with a lot of black acts, which for 1960s and '70s Alabama could be an uncomfortable thing outside the studio. Candi Staton remembers a time in 1968 after recording when they all went out to eat.
STATON: The people inside the restaurant was, like - stopped eating and looked around at us, all of this motley crew coming in. And Rick stood up and says, what are you looking at?
LIMBONG: Inside the studio, it didn't matter if you were black, white, singer, session bassist or even his own family. He worked you hard to be special. Andrew Limbong, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I NEVER LOVED A MAN THE WAY I LOVE YOU")
ARETHA FRANKLIN: (Singing) Some time ago I thought you had run out of fools. But I was so wrong. You get one that you'll never lose. The way to treat me is a shame. How could...
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
President Trump is lashing out at his former chief strategist in the White House, Steve Bannon. In a written statement, Trump said, among other things, that Bannon has, in his words, lost his mind.
What prompted this is the publication of excerpts of a soon-to-be released book by Michael Wolff called "Fire And Fury." NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith joins us now to talk more about this. Hello, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hey, Robert.
SIEGEL: And I want to begin with a reading from part of this extraordinary statement released by the president. Are you ready for this?
KEITH: Oh, yeah.
SIEGEL: Trump said, (reading) Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job. He lost his mind. Steve was a staffer who worked for me after I had already won the nomination by defeating 17 candidates often described as the most talented field ever assembled in the Republican Party.
It goes on. (Reading) Now that he is on his own, Steve is learning that winning isn't as easy as I make it look. Steve had very little to do with our historic victory, which was delivered by the forgotten men and women of this country. Yet Steve had everything to do with the loss of a Senate seat in Alabama held for more than 30 years by Republicans. Steve doesn't represent my base. He's only in it for himself. Steve who, huh?
KEITH: And Robert, it doesn't stop there. It goes on for another two paragraphs, including - I just want to read this one little bit more. (Reading) Steve pretends to be at war with the media, which he calls the opposition party. Yet he spent his time at the White House leaking false information to the media to make himself seem far more important than he was. It is the only thing he does well.
SIEGEL: Tam, what's in this new book (laughter) that Michael Wolff has written that has prompted this eruption at the White House?
KEITH: So Steve Bannon is all over the excerpts of this book that are out today. And probably the most explosive thing that he said was about that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting arranged by Donald Trump Jr. with campaign officials and a Russian lawyer. Bannon described it as treasonous and unpatriotic.
And beyond that, the book gets into all kinds of claims, like that Trump and those around him didn't think he would win and that they didn't want him to win, that the campaign was a mess, that his eyes glazed over when an aide tried to explain the Constitution to the candidate. And it even talks about how Ivanka Trump describes her father's hair in an unflattering way.
SIEGEL: This would seem to be a pretty remarkable falling-out given that it's been reported that Brannon and Trump still spoke regularly even after Bannon was fired in August.
KEITH: That's right. And they were pulling for the same candidate in the Alabama Senate race. That would be Roy Moore, who lost. Press Secretary Sarah Sanders confirmed today that the two men last spoke in early December. But she also insisted that those conversations were initiated by Bannon and not the president - sort of like, you broke up with me; no, I broke up with you.
One former campaign aide who knows both of the men - I checked in with him today, and he said that he thinks this falling out was inevitable because these are two very strong iconoclastic personalities.
SIEGEL: So let's say that the Trump-Bannon alliance is completely finished. What does that mean politically, if anything, at this point?
KEITH: Bannon has portrayed himself as the true keeper of the Trump flame, that he represents the base and the populism that got Trump elected. And he's been in the process of recruiting and vetting candidates for Senate races around the country in 2018, some who would even be challengers for incumbent Republicans.
And there was always a question of whether Trump would side with Bannon or whether he would side with Senate Majority Mitch - Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who views such challenges as a terrible mistake. You could say that today is one that goes into McConnell's column.
SIEGEL: Just very briefly, the book is having such influence. Do we know what kind of access the author, Michael Wolff, had in the Trump administration?
KEITH: In his author's note, Wolff says he conducted some 200 interviews, had cooperation from White House aides and even interviewed the president. Sarah Sanders says the book is full of fiction, but she does admit that Wolff had access to the White House and visited at least a dozen times. But she also says Bannon was the reason for that access and that those who cooperated with Wolff did so at Bannon's direction. And she says the president only spoke with Wolff for about five to seven minutes.
SIEGEL: NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith, thanks.
KEITH: You're welcome.
SIEGEL: And ALL THINGS CONSIDERED will air an interview with Wolff early next week, so be sure to listen for that.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In Lebanon, twin brothers welcomed the new year with a work of art nearly a mile long. Mohamed and Omar Kabbani are 34-year-old graffiti artists. They painted the rooftops of more than 80 buildings lime green. Seen from above, the green roofs spell out salam, which means peace in Arabic. The brothers hope it will help change how people think of their home.
OMAR KABBANI: Whenever they talk about the Middle East or Lebanon, all they think about is extremism and terrorism. By painting a big word, salam, we want to show people that we're creative and positive things coming out from the Middle East. I think we made our goal happen.
SHAPIRO: Omar Kabbani joined us from Lebanon on Skype to explain how he and his brother Mohamed put this project together.
KABBANI: We had this idea almost three years ago, and we wanted to paint a big word that can be seen from space. We chose the northern part of Lebanon, an area - a region called Tripoli. It's the second biggest city in Lebanon.
There was, like, two fighting militias fighting a small civil war between two areas, and we decided to go up and paint the word salam above this area in particular. We recruited 62 ex-militiamen or ex-fighters.
SHAPIRO: Wow.
KABBANI: So basically they dropped their guns and they started helping us with painting their own rooftops.
SHAPIRO: And I understand some of these buildings had bullet holes. Some of them were uninhabitable. You could really see the signs of the violence in this neighborhood.
KABBANI: Yeah. It was a battle zone. There's plenty of bullets. The buildings were on fire. So it was funny but sad at the same moment. Like, when we used to go up to scout, they used to tell us, yeah, I used to sit here and point my sniper rifle. So...
SHAPIRO: Wow.
KABBANI: It was like a really true story. Like, people who lived violence and lived, like, war started going up to their rooftop without the fear of being shot.
SHAPIRO: I imagine that for some of these fighters who had sat on these rooftops with guns, to come back to those rooftops and paint them bright green to spell out the word peace must have been a very emotional experience.
KABBANI: It was very challenging for us. And it was challenging for them. We stayed there for three weeks. Every day, we go up. And you can hear their stories. And you know, like, they are in rock bottom, complete poverty. So whenever someone gives them, like - I don't know - a small amount of money, they would go and hold the gun and start shooting.
But if the people give them an opportunity to work, they will work. There are, like, really good-hearted people. They want to do something positive. And we used not just bright green paint - regular paint. We used, like - it's anti-leakage, and it prevents from - anti-UV also.
SHAPIRO: Oh, like waterproof and reflecting the sun, so it cools the houses and keeps them dry.
KABBANI: Yeah. So it has - so people were really happy that we're in a way fixing the rooftops, you know?
SHAPIRO: Has the crew actually seen the finished work of art - because you can really only see it from a drone. There are photographs, but you could be standing on one of these rooftops and not know that it's spelling out the word salam.
KABBANI: Yeah, of course. When we first briefed them about the project, we showed them what we were painting. And, like, every two days, we flew a drone to show them and for us to see the progress of the work. And of course, we showed them the end results.
SHAPIRO: Omar Kabbani, thanks a lot.
KABBANI: You're welcome.
SHAPIRO: Omar Kabbani, his brother Mohamed and their crew painted more than 80 rooftops in the Lebanese city of Tripoli to say salam - peace in Arabic. He's looking forward to Google updating its map images so everyone who searches for the city can see the artwork.
(SOUNDBITE OF TOBACCO'S "SPIRITS OF PERVERSION")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Today, a winter storm brought snow to Tallahassee, Fla. - the first measurable snow the city has seen since 1989. Forecasters expect the storm to head up the East Coast, and it could be really dangerous with strong winds and a lot of snow. Parts of the U.S. have been struggling with brutally cold temperatures for days now - 19 below zero in Indiana, 32 below in South Dakota, 15 below in Illinois, and that's not counting the wind chill. Reporter Christine Herman is in Illinois and went out to talk with people who have no choice but to brave the record cold.
CHRISTINE HERMAN, BYLINE: It's 8 degrees outside when I meet Aaron McQuillan at his mail truck. Several inches of snow and ice cover the ground outside this apartment building in Champaign in central Illinois. McQuillan's in the middle of his route.
AARON MCQUILLAN: I got my little kit right here. I got shoe grippers. I got heating pads, and I was talking about a Kleenex that actually doesn't exist. I left that at home.
HERMAN: And it looks like he could use that Kleenex since his nose is running. To fight the bitter cold today, he's got on a knit hat with the USPS logo and a hoodie, then his heavy winter jacket over that with another hood. He's wearing one thick snow glove on his left hand, but on his right, he wears a thin glove that's good for gripping.
MCQUILLAN: This isn't my first winter, so I've learned that like, having, six people's worth of clothes on tends to help. Six layers and hand warmers - it's a miracle of science.
HERMAN: On the other side of town, I catch up with Seth Wills in the Walmart parking lot. There's a good layer of snow and ice in the corrals where the shopping carts are stashed. It's Will's job to move the icy carts from the outdoors to inside. He grunts as he pushes a dozen carts that are stuck in the snow.
SETH WILLS: It's really hard to do it in snow, but you just got to know what you're doing and know where you're going and hopefully, you know, look out for cars.
HERMAN: Wills is wearing a green knit ski mask that reveals only his eyes - nothing more. Even though he's only just begun his eight-hour shift, his breath has already condensed onto his mask, forming ice over the area that covers his mouth. He's got on three pairs of socks under his steel-toed boots, and he's battling a cold.
WILLS: I had to come to work today because I had no choice to do that. It's either that or get fired, and I couldn't get fired.
HERMAN: Not far from the Walmart parking lot, Leroy Gatson is working outside today, too. He's with Andy's Towing company and is in the middle of what he expects will be a 13-hour shift. He got his first call at 5 this morning, and slipping gloves over his chapped hands, he's trying to get a car started.
LEROY GATSON: Trying to jump him - dead battery.
(SOUNDBITE OF ENGINE STARTING)
GATSON: I just like helping people.
HERMAN: And across the Midwest, there are lots of people today who need help as an unusually long stretch of brutally cold, subzero temperatures, blamed for at least a dozen deaths, continues to stick around. For NPR News, I'm Christine Herman in Champaign, Ill.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump says he has dissolved the commission investigating voter fraud, a panel that asked states for extensive personal information on voters and drew heavy criticism and lawsuits. NPR's Pam Fessler has been covering the commission since its inception, and she's on the line with us now. Hi, Pam.
PAM FESSLER, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Is this decision to end the commission as sudden as it seems?
FESSLER: Yeah, it's pretty sudden. Just last week, the vice chair of the commission, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, was saying that he thought the commission would probably be meeting again this month. But on the other hand, it's actually not all that surprising because this panel, as you well know, has been plagued by problems right from the start.
It was formed to look into President Trump's allegations that 3 to 5 million people voted illegally in last year's election, and that's something that he didn't provide any evidence for. And it's an allegation that's been pretty widely dismissed by most election officials around the country.
Also, the panel is supposed to be bipartisan, but it was headed by two Republicans - Vice President Pence and also Kris Kobach. And a number of the Republicans on the panel are among the strongest advocates for strict voter ID and other requirements, so that got voter rights advocates and Democrats complaining that the panel was really set up as a way to promote things and laws and changes to require new ID laws and to suppress minorities and others who tend to vote Democratic.
SHAPIRO: So as you say - a lot of claims that this was meant to disenfranchise voters. Remind us what the legal challenges to the commission were.
FESSLER: Well, almost right from the start, voting rights groups, open government groups and Democrats filed lawsuits against the panel. Mostly they were alleging that it was violating open meetings laws partly because a lot of what it was doing was behind closed doors. And they alleged it was very secretive. And in fact one of the Democratic commissioners, Maine Secretary of State Matt Dunlap - he filed a suit saying he was being kept in the dark and that he had no idea what the panel was doing, and he won that suit last month.
The panel also met a lot of resistance from state election officials when it requested that they send the commission detailed voter information. The panel said that it wanted to use that information to look for evidence of voter fraud, but states were really worried that a lot of the information would get out and would violate privacy - voters' privacy.
SHAPIRO: And so briefly, who will handle Trump's concerns about voter integrity now?
FESSLER: Right. I mean, he said in a statement that they still - there is evidence of voter fraud. He's now said he's going to ask the Department of Homeland Security to review these issues. But the only thing that the department's been doing so far is looking into efforts by Russian hackers. And that's something the president has called a hoax.
SHAPIRO: All right. NPR's Pam Fessler, thanks very much.
FESSLER: Thanks a lot.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A commercial radio format that started in the 1990s can still help launch a mainstream success. That format is called AAA - shorthand for adult album alternative. It has helped launch the careers of artists including Norah Jones, Adele and Arcade Fire. We're going to hear now how the format's unique ability to break stars is raising questions about where music discovery ends and promotion begins. Allyson McCabe begins her report with M. Ward, an artist who has benefited from AAA.
ALLYSON MCCABE, BYLINE: M. Ward's music is a mix of several genres, including folk, country, blues and rock.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CHINESE TRANSLATION")
M WARD: (Singing) I sailed a wild, wild sea, climbed up the tall, tall mountain.
MCCABE: Ward says he discovered music through radio.
WARD: I grew up right outside of Los Angeles, and so we got every kind of station that you can imagine, all these different music genres.
MCCABE: Ward says he owes a lot of his success to AAA - a format that harkens back to the radio he grew up with. Trina Tombrink, who is now vice president of promotion and artist development at Sony's RED music division, describes the early days of AAA this way.
TRINA TOMBRINK: A word that comes to mind is crunchy. A lot of people used to say it's the Birkenstock format, the stoner format. It wasn't as hit-oriented back then. You could actually get a record played that wasn't necessarily your traditional radio hit.
MCCABE: Yet AAA helped break artists who went onto the mainstream, from Dave Matthews to The Black Keys to Lorde.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROYALS")
LORDE: (Singing) And we'll never be royals, royals. It don't run in our blood.
MCCABE: "Royals" was already a hit in Lorde's native New Zealand, but Tombrink used AAA to test market the song in the U.S.
TOMBRINK: There was always the plan that we would cross it to pop. And we also knew that there were at least two other songs on the album that were even more pop friendly.
MCCABE: "Royals" debuted on Billboard's AAA chart within a week of its U.S. release. Less than a month later, the song crossed over to the Hot 100, eventually reaching number one. Radio consultant Paul Marszalek says this kind of leap can make a huge difference in an artist's career.
PAUL MARSZALEK: The entire universe of the AAA audience is in the low millions. You start going to the top 40, and you're now into tens of millions.
MCCABE: And yet because it's positioned as a tastemaker, AAA gets a lot of attention from record labels, says Sony's Tombrink.
TOMBRINK: There's probably more music serviced to AAA than I would think any other format.
MCCABE: There are now more than 100 AAA stations nationwide, evenly split between commercial and noncommercial. Kevin Rutherford, a chart manager at Billboard, keeps an eye on what they're playing and how often. He says he counts all plays equally, no matter the size of the market or the time of day.
KEVIN RUTHERFORD: So even if a song gets played once in Akron, gets played once in Los Angeles, it has the same weight - doesn't matter whether it's 3 a.m. or 3 p.m.
MARSZALEK: It can be a consensus by a lot of stations or it can be a couple of stations playing it really, really heavy. That's where you sort of open the door to potential shenanigans.
MCCABE: Consultant Paul Marszalek says playing a song in the middle of the night to rack up spins that will push it up the chart is rare. But anyone with access to the monitoring data he sees can tell when a song is getting a boost.
MARSZALEK: What you can immediately see here is several stations that are not playing it any time that the sun is up. There is no audience or very little audience, a lot of overnight spins, not a great reputation, and now I know that I've got a record here that's the equivalent of something that fell off the back of a truck.
MCCABE: Noncommercial stations are less likely to do that, says Jim McGuinn, program director at Minnesota Public Radio's KCMP The Current.
JIM MCGUINN: The noncommercial stations are much more freewheeling, much more willing to take chances and play a wider variety of sounds and styles and dig a little deeper into albums and artists.
MCCABE: But they can't afford to ignore the competition. NPR has just launched Slingshot, an effort among 18 noncommercial AAA stations to collectively raise the profile of artists they deem worthy of support. And everyone's looking over their shoulders at which musicians are trending online. Mat Bates, program director at San Francisco's commercial KFOG, says he has to pay attention to what's popular.
MAT BATES: We aim to mirror the interests of our audience rather than dictate to them what they should be interested in.
MCCABE: Radio has always tread the line between new music discovery and label-driven promotion. But there are those who still cling to the idea that AAA should be more than an alternative top 40, like musician M. Ward.
WARD: My vision of music is wrapped up in those memories of you switched the dial and it becomes something else entirely.
MCCABE: For NPR News, I'm Allyson McCabe.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RADIO CAMPAIGN")
WARD: (Singing) And now I'm calling out your name on this radio campaign...
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Next month, athletes from around the world will meet in South Korea at the Winter Olympics. A spot on an Olympic team is the culmination of years of hard work. But what happens to an athlete's college education during all that training? NPR's Elissa Nadworny went to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs to see how they balance it all.
ELISSA NADWORNY, BYLINE: The world arena ice hock (ph) - this is sacred ground for figure skaters. And the Olympics are just around the corner. On the ice is Max Aaron. He's a muscular former hockey player who's working on his finesse needed in the world of figure skating. Max has been a U.S. national champion but fell just short of going to Sochi in 2014. This year, at 25, he's looking for a final shot at the Olympics. He's had a shaky practice today, but his coach wants him to leave the ice on a positive note.
TOM ZAKRAJSEK: All right, Max, finish with a good rehearsal. That's all you've got.
NADWORNY: Max goes through his long program with Andrew Lloyd Webber's music from "Phantom Of The Opera" echoing across the rink.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE MUSIC OF THE NIGHT")
UNIDENTIFIED SINGER: (Singing) Let your mind start a journey through a strange new world...
NADWORNY: There are just weeks left - crunch time. But it's also crunch time in another arena for Max - professor Kuppenhiemer's lecture hall at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs. It's the week before final exams.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Hedge funds and aggressive investment strategies...
NADWORNY: While he's been training, Max has been working towards his degree in finance.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: That's changing the entire world of finance.
NADWORNY: Think of it as a main course in quad Salchows, choreography and blade work with a side of hedge funds.
MAX AARON: It's two different worlds. You go in and you're in school, and no one knows who you are.
NADWORNY: A typical day starts with an 8 a.m. finance class, then three hours at the rink plus warmup, strength conditioning, physical therapy and dance class. Sometimes there's a night class thrown in, too. Max says he's having the time of his life skating, but he knows that's not his whole story.
AARON: I hope I'm very successful in the sport of figure skating. But it eventually ends. And that's what I think a lot of athletes forget - is that once sport ends there's more to life. Life doesn't just stop.
NADWORNY: Leslie Klein sees this all the time. Klein works for the U.S. Olympic Committee helping athletes transition to life after sport.
LESLIE KLEIN: They go into this retirement phase, you know, in their 20s or 30s. And if they haven't gone to school, they have nothing to lean on to move onto a career in something beyond sport.
NADWORNY: Beyond the hours and hours of training commitments, there are other hurdles, too - the big one, money. A pair of ice skates alone costs nearly a thousand dollars.
MIRAI NAGASU: My parents spent all my college money on skating, so (laughter) it's on me to get my education.
NADWORNY: That's figure skater Mirai Nagasu. She's from California, but she's taking advantage of a law in Colorado that gives in-state tuition to athletes training for the Olympics. She's studying international business at the same college as Max Aaron.
NAGASU: The secret to success is coffee and caffeine.
NADWORNY: She's hoping for a return to the Olympics. She came in fourth in Vancouver in 2010 when she was just 16.
NAGASU: And I tell myself - every single time I go through finals, I'm like, this is it. Like, I need a break. And I can't do this anymore. But as soon as finals is over and I get a decent score, I'm like, oh, I'm, like, ready and pumped to do this again. And that feeling of accomplishment is always (laughter) something I can't get rid of.
NADWORNY: Mirai is signed up for a full course load next semester, but a big part of her is hoping she'll have to withdraw because she'll be in Pyeongchang skating for Team USA in the Olympics. Elissa Nadworny, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIEGEL: Both skaters are currently competing at the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. It's their last shot to help secure a spot on team USA.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The state of Louisiana has made a tough choice. As sea levels rise, its coastal marshes disappear, and officials say they can't protect everyone from flooding. The state has created a buyout program to move people north to safety. The problem is there's no money for it. Tegan Wendland of member station WWNO in New Orleans has our report. It's a collaboration with Reveal, the Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX.
TEGAN WENDLAND, BYLINE: Malcolm LaCoste has been shrimping in the Gulf of Mexico since he was a kid. Friends just call him Lil Mackey. He waves to neighbors as he cruises up the shallow bayou in his blue-and-white boat.
MALCOLM LACOSTE: Every house we passed so far is first, second cousins.
WENDLAND: Oh, wow.
LACOSTE: It's all family.
WENDLAND: The small fishing community is about a hundred miles southwest of New Orleans. Flooding is expected to get so bad here that the state says people should leave.
LACOSTE: Pulling up to the dock.
WENDLAND: Mackey parks the boat in front of his brown single-story house right on the water. He says after every hurricane, families move away. Those left plan their lives around the weather.
LACOSTE: During hurricane season we're always on edge.
WENDLAND: When a storm comes, Mackey's glued to the TV.
LACOSTE: If they have a storm coming I have to get in, lift everything up that I can, put what I can - get it out of harm's way, secure my boat, get out of dodge.
WENDLAND: That's happened so many times that he changed the carpet to tiles so he can just wipe off the mud. When it gets really bad, he and his wife load up the truck with their best furniture and drive north to their daughter's place.
You guys have done that a number of times?
LACOSTE: Quite a bit, quite a few times, quite a few times.
WENDLAND: Louisiana is losing land faster than just about anywhere in the world. Since the 1930s, nearly 2,000 square miles have washed away into the Gulf due to sea level rise and natural erosion. So after Hurricane Katrina, the state made a plan to rebuild barrier islands and plant new marshes, to use sediment from the Mississippi River and rebuild what's been lost. But officials now admit they can't protect everyone. Some people are going to have to move. Bren Haase is a planner with the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority.
BREN HAASE: I think it's important to note this is really the first time we've had kind of this level of discussion about this sensitive of a topic.
WENDLAND: The agency made a plan to buy people's houses, demolish them and pay for new houses further north. They used elevation data and storm modeling. And this is what they decided. If a strong storm would cause 5 feet of flooding, you should raise your home up on stilts. Thousands have already done so. But if the flood depths hit 12 feet, time to get out. I asked Haase...
So do you know where these specific properties are?
HAASE: I do not. I don't have a list, you know, of structures in my pocket or anything like that.
WENDLAND: So Reveal used the state's data and created a map. And that's how I found Lil Mackey and his neighbors. I wonder if he'd take the money and move north.
LACOSTE: I'd seriously consider it. It's not going to get any better. The marsh isn't coming back. It's losing more and more all the time.
WENDLAND: But Mackey had no idea he was in this new buyout zone. The state hasn't told these 2,400 homeowners they should move. The reason is pretty simple. Haase says the buyout program would cost $1.2 billion, and the state just doesn't have the money.
HAASE: There's been almost none that would've been available for this kind of thing.
WENDLAND: The state does have a lot of money to restore its coast, mostly from a settlement with BP after its devastating oil spill in 2010. But Haase says that money can't be used for buyouts. For now, he says...
HAASE: To go to an individual homeowner and say this is what needs to happen, you know, in this particular location might actually be irresponsible at this point.
SCOTT EUSTIS: That's (laughter) ridiculous.
WENDLAND: Scott Eustis works for the Gulf Restoration Network, an environmental advocacy group.
EUSTIS: The state of Louisiana has a duty to inform its residents that there are threats to their public safety. And they need to be talking to people about that now.
WENDLAND: There is federal money for victims of storms and flooding, but Republican Congressman Garret Graves says it only comes after a disaster. That money doesn't help people prepare for a situation that's going to get worse.
GARRET GRAVES: We are either going to spend this money now or we're going to spend it later. And it's going to end up being much more expensive if we do the latter.
WENDLAND: In 2013, President Obama ordered federal agencies to work together to prepare for climate change. But President Trump rescinded that order. So for now, people like Mackey are on their own.
LACOSTE: We're living on borrowed time right now. I thought this year when we had all the winds coming from Florida and Texas, I figured we had - time was about running out. But we dodged all the bullets.
WENDLAND: Mackey's left in the same position the government is - waiting for the next storm and then cleaning up after. For NPR News, I'm Tegan Wendland in Dulac, La.
SIEGEL: And there's a map of Louisiana's proposed buyout zones at npr.org. We'll have more on the state's land loss tomorrow on Morning Edition and on the next episode of Reveal.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Seven-hundred-thirty-one million people in China are on the Internet, and half of them, a population equal to the United States, are there to watch others live stream video of themselves. The content varies from pole dancing to online classes. It's all part of an industry worth $3 billion. NPR's Rob Schmitz brings us this profile of one of China's unlikely Internet celebrities.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROOSTER CROWING)
ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE: It's early afternoon, and the roosters of tiny Three Stones Village are clucking themselves into a frenzy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROOSTERS CLUCKING)
SCHMITZ: They're responding to the antics of farmer Liu Jin Yin, who I'm following as he darts this way and that between bamboo groves and rice paddies, carrying a tripod that holds his iPhone.
LIU JIN YIN: (Foreign language spoken).
SCHMITZ: I just picked some medicinal flowers, he says, jumping down from a tree with a bouquet. His phone lights up with messages and tiny flower and beer emojis, each representing an online donation from his nearly 200,000 subscribers who tune in each day to watch him narrate his life as a farmer. The wiry 26-year-old makes the equivalent of $1,500 a month doing this, more than anyone makes in his village. He's one of thousands of Internet celebrities watched by more than 344 million regular viewers.
JEREMY GOLDKORN: It's very difficult to get entertaining entertainment in China.
SCHMITZ: Jeremy Goldkorn is editor-in-chief of China news site SupChina.
GOLDKORN: The movies that are shown in the theaters and the stuff that is permitted on the Internet are all highly censored and, as a result, highly predictable.
SCHMITZ: And that's why revenue for the more spontaneous live streaming in China has more than doubled in size in the past year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROOSTER CROWING)
SCHMITZ: And that's meant that after years of working in faraway factories, farmer Liu can make more money back on the farm with his family. In the process, he's learned a few things, like how to read. Liu dropped out of school in the fifth grade.
LIU: (Through interpreter) I had trouble reading messages from my fans when I first started, but I've made progress. This has changed me.
SCHMITZ: Liu has even met his current girlfriend from his live streams.
LIU: (Foreign language spoken).
SCHMITZ: The two walk along a narrow path to an orange tree.
LIU: (Foreign language spoken).
SCHMITZ: "Brothers and sisters," he says while picking an orange, "here, have one - my treat - no, no pesticide on these. Thanks for your gifts." Liu typically begins his day live streaming his morning chores - picking weeds, feeding pigs and cleaning up their pens - while talking into his phone the entire time.
LIU: (Through interpreter) When I started live streaming, my neighbor saw me talking to myself and thought I had become a lunatic.
SCHMITZ: But after the money started rolling in, says Liu, they stopped thinking that. He says his online popularity is less about entertainment, though, than it is about nostalgia among China's fast growing urban middle class.
LIU: (Through interpreter) A lot of people who live in urban China grew up in the countryside. They miss life on the farm and the fun they had when they were kids. My most popular moments are when I live stream myself playing with an iron hoop or catching eels and crabs in the rice paddies.
SCHMITZ: And as it turns out, this is a popular moment for Liu, too, the moment when I, a foreign journalist, arrive to interview him. He live streams our entire interview. A couple of viewers requests that Liu and I sing an English song together. Sensing a business opportunity, Liu fires up a karaoke app on another phone and bullies me into singing a Chinese karaoke classic. As I've done for years in China, I reluctantly comply. And suddenly, it's "Yesterday Once More."
(Singing in foreign language).
LIU: (Singing in foreign language).
SCHMITZ: Beer, flowers and other emojis from fans fill Liu's phone. And by the end of the song, he's made $50. Rob Schmitz, NPR News, Three Stones Village, Sichuan.
(SOUNDBITE OF CLAUDIO CORSI SONG, "YESTERDAY ONCE MORE")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In the animal kingdom, humans stand out for their willingness to help each other, to help even total strangers. Scientists have been trying to understand how this unique trait evolved. And as NPR's Nell Greenfieldboyce reports, now they've found a fascinating difference between apes and humans - human babies, to be precise.
NELL GREENFIELDBOYCE, BYLINE: Human babies before they can even talk can watch social interactions and decide who's being helpful and who is mean. Christopher Krupenye says scientists have known this for about a decade after some lab studies had 6- and 10-month-old babies watch simple puppet shows. For example, one puppet - a little circle with eyes - would try and try and try to scale a hill.
CHRISTOPHER KRUPENYE: And he's either helped by the helper who pushes him up the hill or hindered by the hinderer who pushes it down the hill.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: After watching these little dramas, when babies get to choose between the puppets...
KRUPENYE: They're reliably reaching towards the helper.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: Human babies seem to be instinctively drawn towards helpers. Krupenye and a colleague at Duke University, Brian Hare, wondered if the same preference exists in an ape that has a reputation for being particularly social and friendly, the bonobo.
KRUPENYE: Bonobos are one of our two closest relatives along with chimps.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: The researchers designed a series of experiments for bonobos that were very similar to the experiments done with human infants. But the bonobos did not respond like the babies did. They did not reach out towards helpers.
KRUPENYE: Perhaps strikingly, we found exactly the opposite. The bonobos weren't very interested in the helper. Instead they consistently chose the one that was blocking or thwarting the other individual's goal.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: The results are reported in the journal Current Biology. Why bonobos would prefer jerks might not be obvious to most humans. But Krupenye says bonobos seem to interpret non-unhelpful behavior as a sign of dominance, and dominant bonobos control food and mating opportunities.
KRUPENYE: They're attracted to an individual who might be a powerful friend or ally as opposed to someone who's just generally helpful or pleasant.
GREENFIELDBOYCE: He says a next step will be to look at this in chimps. If chimps behave in the same way as bonobos, that would be strong evidence that humans hardwired love of helpers is unique and evolved within the last 6 million years. Nell Greenfieldboyce, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake has not been shy when it comes to criticizing his own party. In fact he filled a book with those criticisms. In "Conscience Of A Conservative," which was published last year, he railed against his party for embracing nationalism, populism and xenophobia. In October, he went further to say that he no longer sees a place for traditional conservatives like himself within the GOP. He announced that he will not run for re-election this year.
Well, we've been wanting to speak with Senator Flake about his views of his party at this moment of transition, and we have him today. Welcome to the program.
JEFF FLAKE: Hey. Thanks for having me on.
SIEGEL: I suppose I should ask you first; do you still view the Republican Party as your party? Do you think you'll continue your affiliation when you leave office?
FLAKE: I expect to. This has been my party for my entire life. And I do think that someday this fever will cool, and we'll be back to being the party of limited government and free trade, immigration and all those things that made the party what it is.
SIEGEL: But you've described recent Republican rallies as - your phrase - spasms of a dying party. Is the Republican Party dying in its present condition?
FLAKE: I do think that unless we change course, we will. We can't continue simply to drill down on the base. You can win an election here or there. I think in California, Pete Wilson proved, you know, you can rile up the base on an issue like immigration and win an election.
SIEGEL: Governor Wilson of California - Republican governor, supported Prop 187, which was very anti-immigrant, and, as you say, riled up the base but cost Republicans Latino votes for the next couple of decades.
FLAKE: Right. In the end, we've only had one statewide Republican elected in California since. And it may be a generation before we do.
SIEGEL: Why weaken the already small number of Republican senators who publicly speak out as you do critically of Donald Trump? Why not stay and fight?
FLAKE: Well, if I could see a place and a way to win a Republican primary without embracing Trumpism, then I might. But I can't see that happening right now. Like I said, I think the fever will cool.
SIEGEL: You...
FLAKE: But it won't by August of next year.
SIEGEL: You would face a very tough primary if you ran.
FLAKE: Yes. I mean, I would have to agree with the president's policies, many of which I don't agree with, and condone some of the behavior that I simply can't condone.
SIEGEL: Does the breach between Donald Trump and Steve Bannon in any way change your calculations of how solid the opposition to you would be in a primary in Arizona?
FLAKE: I don't know. I think it's still - I don't think Donald Trump will completely turn on a dime away from these nationalist policies that Steve Bannon promoted. I think, you know, Steve Bannon kind of exploited a lot of what the president had already said. So I'm not sure there's enough of a difference between them.
SIEGEL: You're attaching an ism to Donald Trump. But actually, in most votes in the Senate, you've been a loyal Republican voter, not that much of a maverick. Is it the substance of Donald Trump's politics, or is it his pugnacious attitude that puts you off so?
FLAKE: Well, I'm a conservative first and foremost, and I've been trying to repeal and replace Obamacare for - you know, for years. And before Donald Trump came along, I'd been a proponent of tax reform for years. Most of the other things that we vote on in the Senate in the first year of a presidential administration are personnel issues, filling out a cabinet. And I've always felt that a president ought to get the people that they want unless there's a quick disqualifying reason. So a lot of the things that I disagree with the president on on policy have never come to a Senate vote - the travel ban or some of the immigration reform measures.
SIEGEL: If, though, there really is a traditional conservatism that could succeed in the Republican Party, how do you understand what happened in 2016 when more than a dozen rivals to Donald Trump failed to connect with GOP primary voters, most of them espousing the traditional conservative politics that many of - which you would support enthusiastically?
FLAKE: Yes, well, populism is called populism for a reason. It can be popular. And if you have a figure like Donald Trump who can ride on that - and he did very successfully - you can win elections. And he did. I just don't think that you can govern that way. A lot of this was anger and resentment, and that's just not a governing philosophy. You can only go so far with that.
SIEGEL: Is it Trumpism, though? I mean, wasn't he tapping into the same kind of populist anger that powered the Tea Party? Wasn't he addressing people in the way that Sarah Palin did when she ran for vice president? Wasn't there some background within the Republican Party to what he capitalized on?
FLAKE: You bet. And I explain that in my book - that this was an issue not just starting with Trump but really, you know, continuing from 2000 when I was elected first to the House. I could see this kind of populist movement starting. And it certainly has gone a lot further than I thought it would and certainly further than you can go and actually still govern, and that's the problem.
SIEGEL: From what you're saying and from your criticisms of Donald Trump, I assume that you think he should not be renominated by the Republican Party. I assume you expect there'll be a challenge to him. Would you be part of that challenge? Would you be possibly a candidate in that challenge?
FLAKE: That's not in my plans, but I don't rule anything out. I do think he will have a challenge. Most certainly there will be an independent challenge. If you have Donald Trump, if he still can manage to carry his base, as he calls it, that could be and should be enough to get him renominated. But it certainly won't be enough to get him re-elected. On the other side, the Democrats...
SIEGEL: Let's stick with that for a second, though, because the last Republican convention was kind of odd in that the home state governor host, John Kasich, didn't show up at the arena. What would happen if a - if the Trump base as he would describe it would get him nominated and there were a large number of Republicans who dissented from that? Would there be boycotts? Would there be a split? What could happen in 2020?
FLAKE: Well, I mean, we're assuming that he is running for re-election. I don't think that that's a safe assumption. He may not. I'm not among those who think that he's going to be impeached or removed from office, but I am among those who questions whether or not he'll give it a go the next time around. But if he does, I do think that he'll have a challenge within the Republican Party. I'm not sure that that challenge will succeed, but it may be time for an independent, particularly if the Democratic Party continues to go further to the left. There is a huge swath of voters I think in the middle that are going to be looking for something else.
SIEGEL: Arizona Republican Senator Jeff Flake, thanks a lot for talking with us today.
FLAKE: Thanks for having me on.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
We are four days into the new year and the stock market rally shows no signs of letting up. Today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average finished above 25,000 for the first time. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports that strong global growth and low interest rates are behind the surge.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: A lot of people predicted that Donald Trump's election would bring an end to the long, multi-year rally in stock prices. They couldn't have been more wrong. The Dow climbed 25 percent last year, as Trump frequently points out.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Our stock market just hit another record high. It's the highest it's ever been in history by far.
ZARROLI: And the market keeps rising. But Liz Ann Sonders, chief investment strategist at Charles Schwab, says just because the rally has happened under Trump's watch doesn't mean he should take much of the credit for it.
LIZ ANN SONDERS: Just simply being objective and looking at the numbers there have been plenty of other presidents who have had a better stock market. I wouldn't suggest that any of those presidents deserve most of the credit.
ZARROLI: Instead, Sonders says, the stock market has been reacting to a lot of broader economic factors.
SONDERS: I think the turn in earnings and the strength in global growth was enough to propel the market. And then the longer-term story has been just massive liquidity courtesy of central banks.
ZARROLI: Sonders says it's not just the Federal Reserve that has been keeping interest rates relatively low. So have central banks in Europe and Japan. And so there's been a confluence of low interest rates and strong global growth. In fact, this is the first time since before the Great Recession that all of the world's major economies are growing at the same time. Stocks have been going up everywhere, and investors have been the beneficiaries. Emily Ruff, who teaches at a college in Minnesota, got her first retirement account five years ago. During that time stocks have steadily risen, which actually worries her.
EMILY RUFF: I'm a little bit nervous about what's going to happen and people talking about how the current tax policies might overheat the market. And it's been about 10 years since the last recession, so we're kind of due.
ZARROLI: In fact, the big corporate tax cuts just passed by Congress should be good for the bottom line at most companies, and surveys of business leaders suggest they're feeling pretty optimistic about the future. Still, the rally is showing signs of aging. Paul Christopher is head of global market strategy at Wells Fargo Investment Institute.
PAUL CHRISTOPHER: We think the economy will be a little bit stronger, juiced a little bit by tax cuts. But we are getting later on in that cycle. Maybe we're in the eighth inning or so.
ZARROLI: If nothing else, the Fed and other central banks are already taking steps to raise interest rates, and that could finally begin to put the brakes on the market's long rally. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Justice Department is changing its approach to marijuana enforcement. To talk about how far the Trump DOJ might go to bring new federal marijuana cases, NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson is here with us in the studio again. Hi, Carrie.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: What is the new Trump policy on marijuana?
JOHNSON: Well, the drug remains illegal under the federal law known as the Controlled Substances Act. Attorney General Jeff Sessions today rescinded some Obama DOJ guidance that instructed prosecutors in states where this drug is legal to bring only big cases, only cases that involve money laundering or marketing to children or violent gangs.
In its place, New Agey Jeff Sessions says U.S. attorneys should decide for themselves which kinds of marijuana cases to bring. Bottom line - Justice officials say there's no safe harbor anymore. They even held open the possibility they could sue states that have legalized the drug. And of course the timing's unusual because several states have already legalized marijuana for recreational purposes. California's went into effect earlier this week.
SHAPIRO: So do you expect we will see prosecutions of sellers or users of marijuana even in states where it is legal according to state law?
JOHNSON: At a Justice Department briefing for reporters today, Ari, there were so many questions and so few answers.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
JOHNSON: They told reporters they can't predict whether there are going to be more federal prosecutions coming or where. It's all kind of confusing, and that may be intentional. There's now a cloud of uncertainty for businesses that grow and sell marijuana and places that dispense it, thousands of jobs and millions of dollars at stake. And this kind of uncertainty could discourage other people from entering the market and send a message to other states considering legalization. That may be what Attorney General Jeff Sessions - no fan of marijuana throughout his entire career - may actually have in mind.
SHAPIRO: As a candidate, Donald Trump seemed to express support for state legalization in Colorado where marijuana is legal. Here's what he told a TV reporter last year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I think it's up to the states, yeah. I'm a states person. I think it should be up to the states, absolutely.
SHAPIRO: And we're going to speak with the governor of Colorado elsewhere in the program. Tell us what the White House is saying today about this policy change.
JOHNSON: Sure. At the White House, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders says the president believes we need to enforce federal law, whether that involves immigration or marijuana. To hear her tell it, the Justice Department move simply gives prosecutors the tools to target large-scale distributors.
But the Obama administration was already doing that, Ari. In fact prosecutors were telling me back then they already were trying to focus on the most important cases, not smalltime individual users of marijuana on federal land.
SHAPIRO: Today we've seen a lot of negative reaction from Congress, members of both parties. What are you hearing there?
JOHNSON: Yeah. Colorado Republican Senator Cory Gardner says he was misled by the Trump administration.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CORY GARDNER: This is about a decision by the state of Colorado. And we were told that states' rights would be protected and not just by the attorney general, then the nominee to be attorney general. We are told that by then-candidate Donald Trump.
JOHNSON: Senator Gardner says the Justice Department is trampling on the will of voters. He also suggests that polls say a majority of Republicans now approve of marijuana legalization. Gardner also said he's going to put a hold on every pending nominee who wants to work at the Justice Department until he gets some answers. Meanwhile in Colorado today, the U.S. Attorney Bob Troyer said he's going to keep on doing what he's already been doing, which is to focus on the biggest cases.
SHAPIRO: Is there any legal limit to how far the Justice Department can go prosecuting marijuana-related crimes?
JOHNSON: Actually there is. Congress, as part of its spending power, has restricted how the Justice Department can use federal funds to bring cases - involve medical marijuana. Those spending limits are still in place, and DOJ says it's going to respect them.
SHAPIRO: NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, thanks.
JOHNSON: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The winter storm working its way up the East Coast has brought record cold temperatures and snow to some cities that haven't had a hard freeze in years. So we're going to get some advice now on how to keep warm from someone who has had a lot of practice. Keri Nelson has spent six winters in Antarctica and joins us from the Palmer Station - part of the National Science Foundation's U.S. Antarctic Program. Welcome.
KERI NELSON: Hi - nice to be talking to you.
SHAPIRO: What is the coldest temperature you've ever seen down there?
NELSON: I think the coldest that I have been around for is about 60 below Fahrenheit.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
NELSON: It does get quite a bit colder in some of the places that Americans go to. But so I'm sort of middle ground, but that's pretty cold (laughter).
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
NELSON: It feels cold.
SHAPIRO: If you're going to go outside in weather like that, how do you prepare yourself?
NELSON: Well, you know, better than I did when I first started in the program...
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
NELSON: ...Even after having come out of Minnesota. I now have my favorite things that I like to put on. And it all includes a lot of different kinds of layers. If I'm heading out into 60-below weather, which I try not to if I don't have to, I make sure that I have lots of socks on and good boots, a couple - three layers of, like, long underwear - so my thin layer and my medium-weight layer and then a wind-breaking layer and maybe a padded wind-breaking layer and make sure that I have maybe even a double (unintelligible) - two of them, one for the lower part of me and one for the upper part of me - goggles, which you don't always need for wind but actually keep your face really warm and double layers of gloves, if not more.
SHAPIRO: So lots of layers - that seems like advice that anyone can take.
NELSON: Lots of layers.
SHAPIRO: So let's imagine that you've been outside. You come back indoors. You're shivering. You can't feel your fingers. What's your first move going to be?
NELSON: I like to grab hot drinks and warm myself from the inside out. At these stations, because we're out in the cold, there are sauna facilities provided. And sometimes I'll even with all those layers on go stand in the sauna and just warm myself...
(LAUGHTER)
SHAPIRO: With the layers.
NELSON: ...With the layers because it's just so cold sometimes. And you really get chilled through. And it just kind of helps you from the inside out.
SHAPIRO: Part of living in extreme cold is facing cabin fever. When you can't go outside for...
NELSON: Yes.
SHAPIRO: ...Days or even weeks at a time, how do you deal with not going just stir-crazy being cooped up inside?
NELSON: (Laughter) When I was thinking about this concept of staying warm in the winter, there is all the physical stuff, right? And all of that you can get on tips line on the Internet. But there is definitely this dimension of needing to warm yourself mentally and spiritually when there's cold and dark about. And so I have hobbies that I can do by myself or I can draw other people into. And so I think that's really important.
SHAPIRO: Like what?
NELSON: Well, I write music and play music. There was once we attempted to shoot a little soap opera, or we make art or have art nights. Or here at these stations, we have science lectures where we learn about the science that's happening down here. I think all of those things are just little virtual heaters for us to kind of warm our hearts and our minds when it's cold outside.
SHAPIRO: Keri Nelson speaking with us on Skype from Palmer Station in Antarctica where she works as a station administrator - Keri, thanks so much.
NELSON: Yes. It was wonderful to talk to you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Today, a random drawing settled a hotly contested political race in Virginia. The candidates for House District 94 had disputed the election results in November. There was a recount, and there were legal challenges. Control of the Virginia House of Delegates hung in the balance. So today in Richmond, the State Board of Elections chairman reached into a bowl to fish out a piece of paper inside a film canister, and then he read a name...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JAMES ALCORN: The winner of House District 94 is David Yancey.
SIEGEL: ...David Yancey, the Republican. NPR's Sarah McCammon has been following this race closely and joins us now. And Sarah, tell us how Virginia got to a drawing of lots today.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Yeah, it's been a really unusual and convoluted process and really unexpected because Republicans went into the November election with just about a two-thirds majority in the House of Delegates. But Democrats organized really hard all over the state of Virginia, came close to erasing that.
And Robert, to recap what happened with this race, House District 94 in southeast Virginia, the initial election result in November was really close, so there was a recount. The Democrat, Shelly Simonds, won that recount by one vote. That appeared to set up a 50-50 partisan split in the legislature, which would have given Democrats a chance to share power and maybe push through goals like expanding Medicaid. But that was far from the end of this.
There was this one questionable ballot that was re-examined shortly thereafter, and election officials counted that vote for the Republican, David Yancey. That created a tie in this race, which is why this drawing had to be held to finally determine the winner.
SIEGEL: How unusual is it to settle a race with a drawing?
MCCAMMON: Well, it depends where you live. Different states handle these things differently. As our colleague Jessica Taylor has reported, some states like Ohio have used a coin toss. In Colorado, local elections have been decided with a Vegas-style card draw. And here in Virginia, under state law, it comes down to a drawing. Yancey, the Republican incumbent, by the way, was not present at the drawing today because of the big snowstorm that's been bearing down on this region.
SIEGEL: And then there's the odd devices used for the drawing. Why film canisters?
MCCAMMON: Right. The details beyond the fact that there's a tiebreaking drawing are really a matter of tradition. Election officials say they've used film canisters for a long time in Virginia. These are the old-school kind some of us might remember. They were actually ordered on Amazon, we're told.
And so what they do is they put each candidate's name inside of one canister each, put those in a bowl, shake them up, draw the winner. And it does have a lot of significance. With Yancey's win today, as things stand now, Republicans would seem to have a 51-49 majority in the Virginia House.
SIEGEL: And does that mean that this is all over now; Yancey will be sworn in, and that'll be that?
MCCAMMON: Well, not necessarily. Democrats could still ask for another recount. So far, they have not conceded, and they just say that they're keeping their options open. And Shelly Simonds, the Democrat, says she'll let her supporters know about any next steps.
I should mention there's one other seat that's still in dispute in federal court. A group of Democratic voters has asked for a new election there, and there's a hearing on that one tomorrow in the D.C. suburbs. But the assembly - the Virginia General Assembly convenes in less than a week. And at least for now, Republicans are poised to be in control.
SIEGEL: NPR's Sarah McCammon, thanks.
MCCAMMON: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Meteorologists are calling it a bomb cyclone - a powerful winter storm that dumped as much as a foot and a half of snow along parts of the East Coast. The winds created blizzard-like conditions. Schools and government offices closed. Airlines canceled thousands of flights. NPR's Jeff Brady is in Philadelphia. And Jeff, this does not sound like just your average winter storm. What does it look like there?
JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: No, it is not. It snowed steady all day long here in Philadelphia. We got about 4 to 6 inches of snow kind of depending on where in the city you are. Other places, though, got a lot more. New Jersey on the shore - the New Jersey Shore - got up to 18 inches of snow in some places. Governor Chris Christie declared a state of emergency in three counties there. In New England - also hit very hard by this storm. Eastern Massachusetts in the Boston area - there were reports of snow falling at 3 inches per hour. And then they had the 70-mile-per-hour winds on top of that.
And one of the big concerns up there is, along the coast in Massachusetts, storm surge and flooding. I saw some photos from the town of Barnstable that showed the harbor there. It was just this swirling, gray mess. So a lot of people spent the day kind of holed up in their homes. Boston's mayor - he said he wished more people would have done that. He said crews were out wasting time rescuing drivers who decided to venture out. Statewide, though, Christopher Besse with the Massachusetts Energy Management Agency (ph) said most people did avoid travel today.
CHRISTOPHER BESSE: It's a great help, you know? It not only keeps people home and safe, but it allows the plows room to do their work, too. So we, you know, appreciate the public's cooperation. And it's not a day that people want to be driving around if they don't have to - and definitely encourage people to stay home.
SHAPIRO: Of course some people did have to travel today. What has that been like, Jeff?
BRADY: It's a mess. The roads - crews really struggled to keep them clear. Some accidents shut down a - freeway lanes in a few places. In North Carolina, authorities said three people were killed when their cars slid off of snow-covered roads. And the airports - flights were suspended for a while at JFK and LaGuardia airports in New York because of whiteout conditions. By this afternoon, about 4,000 flights have been canceled because of the storm.
SHAPIRO: When you talk about 70-mile-an-hour winds, have we seen a lot of people losing power?
BRADY: You know, the regional power grid has held up pretty well. There were no widespread outages so far. But grid operators are monitoring things very closely. One issue is the people who deliver heating oil and propane. They were taking a lot of calls and trying to, you know, make deliveries in this weather. The federal government lifted some rules and allowed the truck drivers who deliver that heating oil and propane to work overtime to make sure people get the fuel they need to stay warm.
SHAPIRO: We first heard about the storm hitting the southeastern United States yesterday when there was snow in places like Tallahassee and Savannah that haven't seen snow in years. What are conditions there like now?
BRADY: Yeah, I called people around the South to kind of check things out - still some - quite a few effects from the storm today. In Mississippi, for instance, the cold weather was causing problems with the local water system in the capital of Jackson. And at the Capitol, some of the toilets actually wouldn't flush. They've had some problems with their water system there, and they've installed those portable toilets outside for people to use. So that makes an - I guess an uncomfortable situation even more uncomfortable.
It is warming up, though, in some places. In Charleston, S.C., this is relatively warmer. They got more than 5 inches of snow yesterday. But we talked with a few kids who were trying to make a snow man. They didn't have a carrot, by the way, you know, for the nose.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
BRADY: So they were using icicles for the nose. Here's one of those children, Skylar Schneider.
SKYLAR SCHNEIDER: The ice is melting so fast. Like, these icicles were, like, twice the size they are now just, like, 10 minutes ago 'cause it's all melting so fast.
BRADY: So a few people having fun there but a lot of difficulties for a lot of people.
SHAPIRO: Associated Press reports that in Florida, frozen iguanas are falling out of trees.
BRADY: Yep.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
BRADY: Extraordinary.
SHAPIRO: What does the forecast look like from here?
BRADY: Well, the snow is starting to let up. But now we have some really cold temperatures that are going to be setting in. Even here in Philadelphia, we don't see this too often, but we're going to have lows in the single digits and highs in the teens - so a few cold days ahead of us.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Jeff Brady covering the bomb cyclone from his base in Philadelphia. Thanks, Jeff.
BRADY: Thank you, Ari.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Tanzania's president, John Magufuli, came into office nicknamed The Bulldozer for his no-holds-barred fight against corruption. His celebrated frugality quickly gave rise to a hashtag - #whatwouldmagufulido. It's used by Tanzanians to praise and to mock his money-saving ways. Well, two years later, critics say that along with his anti-corruption crusade, Magufuli has moved Tanzania toward authoritarianism. NPR's Eyder Peralta reports.
EYDER PERALTA, BYLINE: Last year's bridge inauguration begins as a happy affair. President John Magufuli cuts a ribbon and smiles. He then tells the crowd that this beautiful bridge pushed by the previous administration was built through fraud. He asks a close political ally to tell them about it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Speaking Swahili).
PERALTA: The ally details a kickback scheme worth millions, and Magufuli's face changes. The smile morphs into a tense grimace. When he takes the podium, it is anger that rushes out of him.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT JOHN MAGUFULI: (Speaking Swahili).
PERALTA: "What should I do," he says. And the crowd erupts. Fire him.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAGUFULI: (Speaking Swahili).
PERALTA: "There is no room in my administration for officials who feed off the blood of the poor," he says. "Should I lance this boil," he asks. And as the crowd cheers, he fires the official right there in public. No investigation, no looking back.
ABDULKARIM ATIKI: In the statehouse it was a swamp.
PERALTA: That's Abdulkarim Atiki, a political analyst who affectionately calls Magufuli a magician.
ATIKI: A swamp which accumulates some crocodiles, hyenas, lions, man-eaters. All of them that was there eat public money. So when Magufuli came to the statehouse, started to drain the swamp.
PERALTA: In two years, Magufuli has indeed managed to slash government spending, stop millions of dollars from being spent on ghost workers, and instead use that money for public health and infrastructure, which have both seen huge gains. He has also dramatically increased the revenue collected by the government. Today in Tanzania, every store, coffee shop and gas station is outfitted with a digital tax collector. The Dar es Salaam port alone has almost doubled its revenue. Atiki says none of that is easy when you have entrenched interests working against you.
ATIKI: So he has to use some iron fist to make sure that his policy follow his path.
PERALTA: But that iron fist has also manifested itself in different ways. Helen Kijo Bisimba runs the Legal and Human Rights Center. She says even though Tanzania has in essence been ruled by one party since independence, it used to be a country with a vibrant politics, with praise and dissent mingling out in public.
HELEN KIJO BISIMBA: But all that now has changed.
PERALTA: Bisimba's organization has documented the use of an archaic law to arrest opposition lawmakers. Some politicians, journalists and prominent critics have simply gone missing, and others have been shot or been involved in inexplicable car accidents. Two years ago, Bisimba herself was involved in a suspicious car wreck that left her using a cane until this day.
BISIMBA: It is very bad because it's something which you don't expect in this country. We were celebrating 56 years of independence, but I think we've gone so back - so back.
PERALTA: The media, she says, no longer shows up to her press conferences. Parliamentarians avoid criticizing the president. And regular citizens have become so paranoid about spies among them that they just stopped talking politics on the streets, on buses, even on WhatsApp groups because some have gotten heavily fined for criticizing the president on the platform.
BISIMBA: What he has done is that everybody is so fearful. People are so afraid. You are not safe even in the social media.
PERALTA: In Tanzania's biggest city, the Indian Ocean port of Dar es Salaam, it is hard to get people to talk about Magufuli. People look over their shoulders distrustingly, and they effusively praise his excellency. But I do find one spot where people are disarmed. It's dark on Coco Beach. Friends and couples are out for a drink and a bit of barbecue. And these two guys are playing Tanzanian love songs.
UNIDENTIFIED MEN: (Singing in Swahili).
PERALTA: I walk past them and get closer to the shore. The Indian Ocean is as black as the sky above. Thomas asks me to use only his first name because he doesn't know who is who. Business, he says, has collapsed.
THOMAS: (Speaking Swahili).
PERALTA: In the past, he says, politicians and government workers spent the spoils from corruption buying stuff from people like him. Now they're on Magufuli's budget. I tell him, but that's a good thing, right?
THOMAS: (Speaking Swahili).
PERALTA: He says he hopes Magufuli is doing all of this for the future of Tanzania. But right now he feels stifled by the lagging economy and the fact that he can't speak his mind. Eyder Peralta, NPR News, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
(SOUNDBITE OF TAIYO NA SONG, "BY THE WATER")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump held meetings today with Republican senators on immigration and other issues. This weekend, he's expected to huddle with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul Ryan at Camp David. Their goal is to try to build on the success of the tax legislation they passed at the end of the year. So far, these first few days of 2018 at the White House have been dominated by questions about a feud between President Trump and his former chief strategist Steve Bannon. And NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson joins us now to talk about this. Hi, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Yesterday on this program, we heard this extraordinary statement from President Trump lashing out at Bannon after Bannon was quoted by author Michael Wolff saying some incendiary things about Trump and members of his family. So have we heard yet from Bannon?
LIASSON: We have. Last night on a Breitbart radio program on Sirius XM, Bannon pretty much stayed away from talking about that book. But when a caller referred to it, he did proclaim himself a big fan of President Trump.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
STEVE BANNON: President of the United States is a great man. You know, I support him day in and day out whether going through the country giving the Trump Miracle speech or on the show or on the website. So I don't think you have to worry about that.
LIASSON: But Bannon did not deny the quotes that he has given, number one that the president's daughter was dumb as a brick, that the president's son-in-law and sons meeting with the Russian lawyer was treasonous or, for that matter, a quote he gave earlier to Vanity Fair that Trump wouldn't last out his term.
SHAPIRO: And so then back to the president. What has the president said today about Bannon?
LIASSON: When reporters asked him about Bannon today, he referenced those nice words that Bannon said on the radio. And then he went on to say this.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I don't know. He called me a great man last night. So, you know, he obviously changed his tune pretty quick.
LIASSON: I was in that pool spray. I asked him why if he had said in that statement yesterday - that scathing statement - that when Bannon was fired he lost his job but also lost his mind - why then did Trump continue to talk to Steve Bannon? He said, I don't talk to him; that's a misnomer.
SHAPIRO: His lawyers apparently do make legal threats to Bannon. Tell us about those legal threats.
LIASSON: Trump's outside lawyers have sent a cease and desist letter to Bannon, also to Michael Wolff and to the publisher of the book. They're threatening to sue all of them, although the publisher has moved up the release date of the book to Friday instead of next Tuesday. But Trump threatening to sue is a very familiar tactic in his political and in his business life. He often threatens lawsuits to dozens of people who criticize him, but he doesn't often follow through. And if he does sue Steve Bannon, he opens himself up to the possibility of being deposed during discovery.
SHAPIRO: What does this break with the president mean for Steve Bannon's role going into the 2018 midterms?
LIASSON: Well, it's a big setback for Bannon - big victory for his arch-enemy Mitch McConnell. You know, Bannon was planning on challenging every incumbent Republican senator except Ted Cruz in an effort to depose Mitch McConnell as the Republican Senate Leader. And for the moment, he or Michael Wolff have pushed Trump into the arms of McConnell. The last sentence of that scathing statement yesterday was talking about how Bannon wanted to burn everything down. It sounded like what Mitch McConnell would say.
So I think the bottom line is he's much less of a factor in the 2018 primaries than he was a month ago. On the other hand, he is the keeper of Trump's nationalist, populist flame. And Breitbart, at least on the issue of immigration, the No. 1 core issue for a lot of Trump's base, is still very important. And we're at a moment when the president is going to try to figure out how to make a deal with Democrats on DACA without antagonizing his core supporters.
SHAPIRO: This cannot be the way the administration wanted to start the new year.
LIASSON: Absolutely not. The administration and Republicans were coming off a huge victory with the tax cut bill. Their morale was boosted. They have a good economy, DOW at 25,000. And then the president jumps in, engaged with Steve Bannon, gives new fuel to this fire, kind of elevates the conflict...
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
LIASSON: ...to DEFCON 5, guarantees the book is going to be a bestseller. This is not where Republicans wanted to be.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Mara Liasson, thank you.
LIASSON: Thank you.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
President Trump has dissolved the panel he set up to investigate voter fraud. Many states had refused to cooperate with it. Trump has long held that he would have won the popular vote in the 2016 presidential election but for millions of illegal voters. He never produced evidence to back up that claim, and most election officials around the country have dismissed it. And the panel never issued any findings.
Now the president has asked the Department of Homeland Security to figure out what should happen next. And we're going to hear now from Kris Kobach, who was the panel's vice chairman. He is secretary of state of Kansas and also a candidate for governor in that state. Welcome to the program.
KRIS KOBACH: Great to be with you.
SIEGEL: You told The Topeka Capital-Journal that you'd expected the commission to meet again this month. What exactly happened that led to the president throwing in the towel?
KOBACH: Well, what happened was a series of lawsuits. There were almost a dozen suits filed against the commission by various organizations on the left of the political spectrum. And you also had one suit filed by a Democrat member of the commission itself. And as a result, the staff of the commission was spending more time addressing the litigation than they were doing the investigation that the commission was set up to do. And so it eventually became clear that the better way to move forward would be to have the Department of Homeland Security do it within an executive branch agency rather than use the mechanism of a commission under the Federal Advisory Commission Act.
SIEGEL: What do you expect the Department of Homeland Security to do when it's given the assignment to pick up from your commission?
KOBACH: The most important thing that the Department of Homeland Security can do - DHS knows all of the people who have green cards. DHS knows the identity of all the people who have temporary visas, and they also know the identity of illegal aliens who are in removal proceedings right now. You can take those names and dates of birth and run those against a state's voter rolls and see which of those people are actually registered to vote in a state. And then once you know that, you can look deeper and see if any of those individuals actually voted. That's never been done before, and that's something that's immensely valuable because the states can't figure that out in a significant way on their own.
SIEGEL: I want to pursue something that you told Breitbart. You said that when this investigation or these investigations continue at the Department of Homeland Security, they - I assume meaning various litigants like the ACLU - won't be able to stall it through litigation. The investigation will continue, and it'll continue more efficiently and more effectively. By throwing their food in the air, they just lost their seat at the table. Is there really a virtue in having an investigation into voting that is less than transparent?
KOBACH: Ideally the commission would've able to continue forward, and you would've had Democrats and Republicans on the commission and outside of the commission agreeing that we want to know the extent of voter fraud. Why wouldn't we just want to have the facts on the table and everybody agree that let's find out what those numbers are?
SIEGEL: And do you think that's entirely...
KOBACH: But that's not what happened.
SIEGEL: Do you think that's entirely about stubbornness on the Democratic - on the left side of this? There are people who think that the right to vote is so vitally important that requiring somebody to have a state, you know, photo ID or something is compromising one of the most basic democratic right. They have a different point of view. You couldn't reach some kind of compromise with them about these things?
KOBACH: Well, the commission wasn't even opining on the subject of photo ID. So that wasn't even on the - that wasn't even a topic of discussion at any of the meetings.
SIEGEL: I think your critics felt it was all leading in that direction, and that you've characterized...
KOBACH: Well...
SIEGEL: ...What should be the outcome (unintelligible).
KOBACH: The critics were making a bizarre and frankly idiotic argument. They were claiming that by looking at the issue of voter fraud, that was going to cause state legislatures to pass laws that would, in their view, make voting more difficult. And in their view, that would include photo ID. Well, that's ridiculous.
A commission presenting evidence doesn't do a Jedi mind trick and make state legislators in some state suddenly pass a bill. Providing information is good for the public policy process. And there was not a single Republican member of the commission who sued the commission. And there weren't Republican or right-leaning organizations suing the commission. It was all coming from the left.
SIEGEL: You also had some resistance from Republican secretaries of state. It's not just Democrats, as I understand it. I think...
KOBACH: Well, it was...
SIEGEL: You ran into some opposition in Mississippi no less.
KOBACH: Well, yeah. My friend, the secretary of state in Mississippi, made a comment, you know, very early when the initial request went out first for states' voter roll data. And I think he misunderstood that it wasn't sensitive information that we were requesting. We were simply requesting the voter rolls. And as I think most people know, it's public information.
SIEGEL: Will you still be involved in this matter and in these investigations as the issue goes over to the Department of Homeland Security?
KOBACH: Yes. I'll be working with the Department of Homeland Security and with the White House as the investigations continue within the executive branch.
SIEGEL: In what capacity?
KOBACH: As an outside adviser and as a secretary of state who of course is the chief of election official for my state of Kansas.
SIEGEL: Well, Mr. Kobach, thank you very much for talking with us today.
KOBACH: Thank you.
SIEGEL: That's Kris Kobach, who's vice chairman of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, a commission that President Trump disbanded yesterday.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Tech companies are rushing to patch up a security flaw found in millions of computer chips. This flaw could make it easier for hackers to steal passwords and other sensitive personal data. Researchers discovered the problem months ago and kept quiet until the companies had a fix. NPR's Laura Sydell reports.
LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE: When you install a program on your computer, there's generally a wall between it and other programs. But the security flaws which were built into the chips from Intel Advanced Micro Devices and ARM allows one program to spy on another.
MORITZ LIPP: Meaning that if another application has stored your passwords or your holiday pictures, another application can read it.
SYDELL: Moritz Lipp is a Ph.D. candidate at Austria's Graz Technical University, and he's one of the researchers who found the flaw. The problem can be found on smartphones, personal computers, browsers and the computers used for cloud storage by companies like Google, Amazon Web Services, Apple and Microsoft. That means millions of computers. If it were a software flaw the problem would be easier to fix, says Lipp, but hardware like chips is another matter.
LIPP: If you have an issue in hardware it's not very easy to just change the hardware because you already sold millions of CPUs. And you just can't call them back and change them.
SYDELL: Lipp and his colleagues found a flaw many months ago, and they alerted the chip maker Intel. Meanwhile, another team at Google found the problem and a similar one. Google planned to wait to release the information about it, but speculation began to surface online and in media. Google, Microsoft, Intel and others have begun to issue patches that will fix the flaws. But it could have a downside.
LIPP: Patches that will come out for the operating systems will decrease the performance.
SYDELL: That means your system might move more slowly. All of the companies affected say they see no signs of any breaches, but it's still a good idea to install any patches and updates. Laura Sydell, NPR News, San Francisco.
(SOUNDBITE OF STRFKR SONG, "SATELLITE")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Robert, we have a confession. We know how much you love delving into language and voices, and you're not alone. Your colleagues here at ALL THINGS CONSIDERED are also your fans. We are, not to overstate it, a little bit obsessed with your voice. And we're thinking about this because tomorrow is your last day on this program before you retire.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
I think people are aware of that, by the way.
SHAPIRO: And try as we might, there is just no substitute for that voice.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Siegel.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: I'm Robert Siegel.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I'm Robert Siegel.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: And I'm Robert Siegel.
SHAPIRO: One of our best in-house Robert Siegel impersonators is Neal Carruth. Robert, you worked most closely with Neal when Neal produced ALL THINGS CONSIDERED for four years.
SIEGEL: Yes.
SHAPIRO: And like me, Neal has listened to you since he was a kid. Neal wanted to refine his Robert and give all the rest of us some tips, so he called in a pro - Jonathan Kite, a comedian who specializes in impersonations. Let's listen.
SIEGEL: Yeah.
NEAL CARRUTH, BYLINE: Hello, Jonathan.
JONATHAN KITE: Hello. How are you?
CARRUTH: I'm great. Had you heard of Robert Siegel before we called you up?
KITE: That's what we listened to my entire time growing up. I'm from Chicago, and so we listened to NPR. We didn't - I didn't listen to music when I was growing up unless it was being played on National Public Radio. So I knew who Robert Siegel was since I could recognize voice.
CARRUTH: Should we listen to a little bit of the man himself?
KITE: Yeah. Let's do it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
SIEGEL: Let your Gothic imagination run wild. We are deep underground in dank caves and basements that could be the set of a horror movie.
CARRUTH: So Jonathan, I'm going to try this, and you're going to tell me how I'm doing. Let your Gothic imagination run wild. We are deep underground in dank caves and basements that could be the set of a horror movie.
KITE: That's actually pretty good. So I always start with an impression in terms of the breathing. He sort of has two tones. He has an upper register, which - like, you said, let your imagination - he gets up there. And it's a very reedy sound. And then he sort of has a rhythm and a speed which is created through his breath, and he sort of drops into the bass as he goes down. So let your Gothic imagination run wild.
CARRUTH: Let your Gothic imagination run wild.
KITE: Yeah, that's great. That's actually great. And so he does a thing with his S's, which are - where he sort of doesn't close his mouth, and his tongue sort of hits the bottom layer of his teeth - caves. And he has a...
CARRUTH: Underground in dank caves.
KITE: Yeah, there's - you know, when I start off with an impression, I tend to over exaggerate things just so that I can feel it. I can, A, hear it out loud and in an obvious exaggerated way and then also so that I can do it for muscle memory.
CARRUTH: Let's try another clip. Let's listen to...
KITE: Great.
CARRUTH: ...Another clip of Robert and give it another shot.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
SIEGEL: But he always wore a mask. He always pursued justice, and he never accepted praise or payment.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE LONE RANGER")
CLAYTON MOORE: (As The Lone Ranger) Hi-yo, Silver, away.
CARRUTH: But he always wore a mask. He always pursued justice, and he never accepted praise or payment. I sound like Casey Kasem.
KITE: Yeah, that's a little bit more like Casey Kasem.
CARRUTH: I'm Robert Siegel with the weekly Top 40 - long distance dedication with Robert Siegel.
KITE: You know what else he has? In this register right here, he sort of goes up and down. There is a very distinct way where he talks, and then he throws it away. Like, those highs and lows - they really help in an unconscious way keep the listener enticed and kind of going with him on the vocal journey.
CARRUTH: So Jonathan...
KITE: Yeah?
CARRUTH: Why don't you give us your best Robert Siegel?
KITE: I'm Robert Siegel, and this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
CARRUTH: So I think you need a little more bass. Also...
KITE: You think I need...
CARRUTH: A key Siegel word is news.
KITE: News.
CARRUTH: From NPR News, it's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
KITE: NPR News.
CARRUTH: I'm Robert Siegel.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
SIEGEL: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Robert Siegel.
KITE: There you go - news.
CARRUTH: News - there's a sleepy quality to news.
KITE: Yeah, well, there - a hundred percent 'cause he is - that's the thing. It's - the more I feel like he's giving you information, the brighter he sounds.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
SIEGEL: The fact that the name Anheuser-Busch is still in use at all is a tribute to its old owners, the Busch family. When August Busch Jr. addressed the American people by radio in 1933, he personified a remarkable piece of corporate survival - the survival of 13 years of prohibition.
KITE: He personified a remarkable piece of corporate survival - the survival of 13 years of prohibition.
CARRUTH: That's good - survival.
KITE: Survival, survival...
CARRUTH: Well, Jonathan Kite, thank you very much for helping us celebrate one of the many wonderful things about Robert Siegel, his voice.
KITE: Neal, thank you so much for having me. It's been an honor and a pleasure, and I've had a wonderful time. This is NPR News.
CARRUTH: This is NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SHAPIRO: Playing Robert Siegel there was Neal Carruth, who is currently the general manager of NPR podcasts, and his coach, comedian Jonathan Kite.
SIEGEL: He's a good general manager of NPR podcasts, too. I think...
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) How is he as an impersonator?
SIEGEL: I think he should keep his day job, frankly. I do.
SHAPIRO: Give us that line one more time, Robert.
SIEGEL: All right. I'll warm up. This is NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a change in marijuana policy today. Under President Obama, federal authorities generally did not interfere with states where marijuana was legal. Now that policy will no longer apply. Recreational marijuana has been legal in Colorado since 2014. Democrat John Hickenlooper is that state's governor, and he joins us now. Welcome to the program.
JOHN HICKENLOOPER: Glad to be on.
SHAPIRO: How will this change affect your state?
HICKENLOOPER: Well, it's hard to see right now. I expect that it's going to end up being more bark than bite. I mean, if you look at it 30 states now - I mean, more than two-thirds of the American public - 30 states have legalized marijuana in some form. It's hard to imagine - if states really are the laboratory of democracy, which I think they are, we're conducting one of the great, you know, social experiments in recent history. And it's beginning to work. I still urge other governors to go slowly and let's see what the unintended consequences are. But it's the wrong time to pull the rug out from under the entire, you know, national effort.
SHAPIRO: Well, just to get specific, how much tax revenue does the state of Colorado get now from legal marijuana sales?
HICKENLOOPER: Oh, we got a little over $200 million last year. But keep in mind, we've got a $30 billion budget. And so that $200 million dollars, a bunch of it - probably a third - is in terms of regulations and trying to do enforcements. We spend tens of millions of dollars making sure that minors don't - you know, teenagers, kids, don't get access to marijuana. So it's not about the money. And I don't think states should be in a position where they're making these decisions as a source of revenue.
SHAPIRO: Governor Hickenlooper also says states will have to weigh public health and safety concerns. And Hickenlooper says that's why the U.S. attorney in Colorado today said his office won't change its approach to marijuana cases.
HICKENLOOPER: Well, I think the U.S. attorney is looking at the guidelines. And I think almost all the U.S. attorneys in the different states are working on whereby they have limited resources and they are trying to prioritize serious - I mean, heroin, you know, rampant opioid abuse, those kinds of things are much higher priorities to them than worrying about medical marijuana or recreational marijuana. So they've got their priorities. And I don't think their priorities have changed. Again, when I met with the Attorney General Sessions, one of the things he was explicit about was he thought more people doing more drugs of any kind - and he included marijuana - did not make this country stronger.
SHAPIRO: And so...
HICKENLOOPER: And I don't disagree with him. I just think that the old system was - you know, was - in many ways made things worse.
SHAPIRO: It sounds like your advice to marijuana dispensaries and users in Colorado is, don't worry about this. You won't be put in prison. Is that advice that they can take to heart?
HICKENLOOPER: I'm not sure I would say that advice because when the attorney general of the United States directs the Department of Justice to make a decision like this, I wouldn't get overconfident.
SHAPIRO: So what is your advice to them while you say it's more bark than bite?
HICKENLOOPER: My advice is - would be to make sure you comply with every regulation that we have, every I is dotted, every T is crossed...
SHAPIRO: That the state has.
HICKENLOOPER: ...And really focus on doing this national experiment, increasingly a national experiment, the right way.
SHAPIRO: If your prediction that this will be more bark than bite turns out to be wrong and there is a serious crackdown, is there anything that your state can do to push back?
HICKENLOOPER: There are some things we can do to push back. But in the end, federal law, their powers extend beyond the states' powers. But they have - I mean, again, to go against the vote, the will of two-thirds of the American people, I don't see how that's beneficial to the Trump administration or to the attorney general. I think what the attorney general was saying is that he thinks this is a really bad idea and that he wishes he could do something about it. I don't think he's got the resources. And it's not a high enough priority that he's really going to go out and try and tip over the apple cart. But he's expressing his strong feeling that this does not make America a stronger place.
SHAPIRO: Rather than push back on the attorney general's enforcement priorities, he is enforcing the law as written. Would you be better off pushing to change the law?
HICKENLOOPER: Yeah. I think we are at that point. I think Congress should step back and say, all right, let's put some national guardrails on this and make sure that on a national level, you know, we're coordinating our efforts to make sure we're eliminating the black market and protecting teenagers and, you know, making sure that edibles are in tamper-proof, non-accessible for kids containers.
SHAPIRO: John Hickenlooper is the governor of Colorado, and he's a Democrat. Thank you for joining us today.
HICKENLOOPER: You bet. My pleasure.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The Trump administration is sending a clear message to Pakistan - crack down on terrorism or lose hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid. Last year, the U.S. withheld $255 million. Now it's putting more on hold until Pakistan denies safe haven to extremists who are undermining neighboring Afghanistan. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: President Trump started the year by blasting Pakistan for its, quote, "lies and deceit." Following up on that tweet, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert announced today that the U.S. is withholding security assistance to Pakistan.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HEATHER NAUERT: Until the Pakistani government takes decisive action against groups including the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network - we consider them to be destabilizing the region and also targeting U.S. personnel - the United States will suspend that kind of security assistance to Pakistan.
KELEMEN: She wouldn't give a dollar figure, and says Pakistan could still receive the aid. Madiha Afzal of the Brookings Institution warns this approach could backfire.
MADIHA AFZAL: My sense is that this will be unlikely to work because Pakistan has been bracing for a reduction in or cutting off security assistance since the Trump administration has come into power. And the public shaming has sort of increased anti-Americanism both in the civilian population as well as sort of in the rhetoric from the state.
KELEMEN: She fears that Pakistan's military could respond by doubling down on its support for the Haqqani network and other extremist groups. Afzal, author of the book "Pakistan Under Siege," would like to see the U.S. do more to support the civilian government to give it more of an incentive.
AFZAL: Pakistan has sort of this narrative of betrayal by the U.S. and abandonment by the U.S. And the current rhetoric that's coming out of the administration is only feeding into that narrative.
KELEMEN: But this is a relationship that has been troubled for decades, whether it was about Pakistan's nuclear weapons program or, more recently, its selective fight against terrorism, as Alyssa Ayres puts it. She's with the Council on Foreign Relations.
ALYSSA AYRES: We've been down this road before many times with Pakistan, specifically on the question of how they handle terrorism selectively. So, you know, we're back in another cycle. We've tried positive incentives. Now it looks like we're trying to, you know, ratchet more disincentives here.
KELEMEN: She welcomed other news today that the State Department has added Pakistan to a watch list for violating religious freedoms. Ayres says there's always a danger of pushing too hard, but the Trump administration has many things to consider when it comes to Pakistan.
AYRES: What do we seek from our allies? What is in our national security interests? How can we succeed in supporting Afghanistan's stability and transformation if there are terrorist groups receiving sanctuary in Pakistani territory that keep that conflict alive?
KELEMEN: The State Department says this administration is more blunt than in the past and has made it clear what it wants Pakistan to do. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, The State Department.
(SOUNDBITE OF ERIC LAU'S "CIRCLES")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The Turkish government is angry with the U.S. over a court case that wrapped up in New York yesterday. A federal jury convicted a Turkish banker in a scheme to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran. But it was the testimony alleging high-ranking corruption in the Turkish government that's really hit a nerve.
NPR's Peter Kenyon joins us now from Istanbul. And, Peter, what have Turks been saying about this case today?
PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Well, uniformly negative comments, Robert. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already called this trial politically motivated. And after the verdict was announced a presidential spokesman chimed in, calling it a scandalous verdict in a scandalous case. The Foreign Ministry followed, calling it unjust, unfair, a clear case of interference in Turkey's domestic affairs. And then the Justice Ministry said the verdict is without legal value and null and void. So I think it's safe to say Turkey's not happy about this.
SIEGEL: A lot of words there. Has the government of Turkey taken any official action?
KENYON: They have set one response in motion. A court has issued an arrest warrant, and there will be an extradition request made for an ex-Turkish policeman who was one of the people testifying at this trial in New York. He was quoted as saying he brought evidence to the New York prosecutors including documents, wiretaps. All of this came from big 2013 corruption probes here in Turkey. They involved some of the same allegations. And they initially brought several resignations from the Cabinet, but then the government just pushed back.
They fired the police, reassigned prosecutors. They declared all that evidence was fake and it was all the work of this U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen. He's the guy that, by the way, they charge with the failed coup attempt from 2016. So from Ankara's point of view, this is all a political case. And what they're saying by extension is that much of the U.S. judiciary must be in league with this Erdogan foe, Fethullah Gulen.
SIEGEL: Now, in addition to the police official, another main witness in the case in New York was a Turkish gold trader who has cooperated with the U.S. government. He pleaded in order to cooperate. Tell us about him. Tell us about Mr. Zarrab.
KENYON: Yes, Reza Zarrab - quite a turn. He was close to the Erdogan family, other Turkish leaders, married to a pop star. He was, in fact, the main defendant at this trial. And then he cut, as you mentioned, this deal with prosecutors. He started testifying about how he had bribed Turkish officials and others to the tune of $50 million or more. And all of a sudden, the only person left in the dock was Mehmet Hakan Atilla, this official with Halkbank, a banking executive. He's the one who has actually been convicted.
SIEGEL: Is this case doing anything to U.S.-Turkey relations, which haven't been that great lately anyway?
KENYON: Well, I think that's a good point. This is one of a number of sore points in ties between Ankara and Washington. I mean, it remains to be seen if this verdict in particular is going to have a big impact. I mean, what if it's followed up now by big fines against some of these Turkish banks? That could have economic and political repercussions here. Turkey's already spent much of the past year drifting away from Washington and Europe and closer to Russia and Iran. So I think this verdict certainly isn't going to reverse that trend. We'll have to see if it actually accelerates it.
SIEGEL: This trial in New York City in federal court hasn't exactly been front page stuff in the United States. In Turkey, has it been covered heavily?
KENYON: Yes, it has. It's gotten a lot of coverage. And then at a certain point, when it became clear that Reza Zarrab was turning evidence and talking, it got very quiet all of a sudden. And now the negative responses are coming out.
SIEGEL: NPR's Peter Kenyon in Istanbul, thanks.
KENYON: Thanks, Robert.
(SOUNDBITE OF BRUNO BAVOTA'S "IF ONLY MY HEART WERE WIDE LIKE THE SEA")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
For the past few years, China has been steadily cutting back on the legal ivory trade. And as of this week, it is completely illegal to buy or sell ivory in China. China's the largest ivory market in the world, and conservationists hope that the ban will lower the price of ivory, which would make elephant poaching less profitable. Earlier today I spoke with George Wittemyer, a conservation biologist at Colorado State University who studies the ivory trade. He said China's crackdown over the last few years has already lowered ivory prices, and the outright ban should lower them even more.
GEORGE WITTEMYER: Well, we're seeing evidence already that the price of ivory has come down from the peak, which was in around 2014, by nearly two-thirds today.
SHAPIRO: How do you even tell what the price of ivory is? It's not as though there's a stock market where this is traded publicly.
WITTEMYER: You have to go in and do classic market survey stuff where you essentially bargain for ivory products across different legal markets in China and assess what they're going for for different types of products - raw ivory, carved ivory, chopsticks, that kind of stuff. And you get an idea over time of what the general price is for different sectors in different locations. And that's what's used to ascertain the prices in a specific year.
SHAPIRO: Ivory is often seen as a symbol of prestige in China. Do you expect that to change as the legal market closes?
WITTEMYER: We hope so. The fact that China's taking this effort and making these policies go through is really sending a very clear signal about the provenance of ivory. I think there's been discussion about how well consumers knew how ivory was collected and obtained. I think this sort of recognition and broad representation of the fact that it's a really environmentally devastating product is going to have a big impact. And we hope that it tarnishes the image ivory has had. We hope it won't represent positive aspects of society.
SHAPIRO: Is there a risk of the trade just moving to countries in the region that have not banned legal ivory sales?
WITTEMYER: Yeah. We're already seeing movement of the ivory products. Already - Hong Kong has been a primary funnel for ivory products going into China. And Hong Kong has made statements that they will close their domestic ivory trade, but they haven't. And they're talking about closing it in 2021. And the details of that are still up to debate. And so unfortunately, the sort of consumable boundary or border exchange between Hong Kong and mainland China is very porous.
So people go into Hong Kong repeatedly, buy stuff and just carry it across the border. And it's sort of accepted, that practice, I guess. And so there's still a lot of ways to bring ivory in. In addition, we're also seeing an uptick in markets in Laos, in Vietnam, and it appears to be in response to this trade ban going on in China. So there's already movement happening.
But I think one of the really key indicators here is that we have seen evidence of a substantial price reduction for ivory in China. So there's - you know, it's a multiheaded hydra and possibly, hopefully, one of the main heads is being hacked off by the Chinese government.
SHAPIRO: I know China is the biggest consumer of ivory. If that market just disappeared tomorrow, how much of a difference would it make?
WITTEMYER: It would be massive. It would be an absolute massive impact. We don't know the direct proportion of Chinese consumption of ivory, but people have done general market surveys to try to assess this and the thought is that China's consuming about 70 percent of...
SHAPIRO: Wow.
WITTEMYER: ...Of the ivory, global ivory trade. And you can imagine what an impact that has on the wild populations.
SHAPIRO: Professor George Wittemyer is a conservation biologist at Colorado State University. Thanks so much.
WITTEMYER: Thanks for having me.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In the early 1970s, with a countercultural revolution in full swing, an unlikely figure became the No. 1 enemy of the state - Timothy Leary, the so-called High Priest of LSD. Leary was a former Harvard psychologist. He left the ivory tower behind to spread the gospel of psychedelics. After breaking out of a California prison he went on the run, sparking a madcap manhunt for a bumbling fugitive.
BILL MINUTAGLIO: He's kind of a Mr. Magoo on acid, if you will.
SHAPIRO: That's Bill Minutaglio. He's the author, along with Steven L. Davis, of the new book "The Most Dangerous Man In America: Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon And The Hunt For The Fugitive King Of LSD." The story follows Leary as he hops from country to country, trying to stay one step ahead of the Nixon administration.
MINUTAGLIO: He's a 50-year-old, middle-age guy, not in the greatest shape in the world, and he manages to escape from a pretty strong security prison in California by dangling over a wire, pulling himself out of the prison that many others had tried to escape from. He gets picked up by underground activists. He puts on a disguise that allows him to escape the country, including using fake passports, and then embeds himself in the most unlikely way with extremely scary, dangerous, tending toward violence members of the Black Panther Party who are living in exile in Algeria of all places.
SHAPIRO: And the country has recognized the Black Panthers as a representative of America with their own embassy.
MINUTAGLIO: Yeah. The Black Panther Embassy was in Algeria. That's where Timothy Leary wound up. He escapes to Europe and then suddenly turns into this other sort of wild, living above the cloud line, European aristocrat experience where he's hanging out with Andy Warhol, you know, royalty.
SHAPIRO: There are, like, more guest stars in this than Pee-wee Herman's Christmas special.
MINUTAGLIO: (Laughter) Allen Ginsberg shows up for a split second. His life was - you know, in our acknowledgements in the book the first line says, we'd like to thank Timothy Leary for leading a very interesting life.
SHAPIRO: Right.
(LAUGHTER)
SHAPIRO: Timothy Leary is best known for promoting psychedelic drugs. He was called the High Priest of LSD. His famous catch phrase was turn on, tune in, drop out. So why did Nixon view him as the most dangerous man in America?
MINUTAGLIO: You know, a lot of people had called Nixon that, so maybe he was doing some diversionary politics there.
SHAPIRO: Right.
MINUTAGLIO: (Laughter) Nixon needed a poster child, someone to vilify in his burgeoning war on drugs. But it really was a matter of misdirection. The war in Vietnam was still raging, and there was a lot of violence, aggressive activism on the streets of the country. And we stumbled across doing some research a tape where Nixon at the White House with many of his infamous colleagues, a lot of the Watergate-era folks, had gathered around and said, you know what?
To salvage your approval ratings, to misdirect attention away from this flagging war in Vietnam, a stagnant economy, your swooning poll numbers, we need to find a villain, a guy in a black hat. And why not choose Timothy Leary? He's sort of the godfather of the countercultural revolution. And we can make him public enemy No. 1. And Nixon officially got obsessed with him.
SHAPIRO: This is one of the amazing things about your book, is that because Nixon recorded everything in the Oval Office you have these verbatim transcripts of White House aides saying, find a villain. It's got to be good guy against bad guy. As this whole narrative plays out, you know what the president and his advisers were saying as they were saying it.
MINUTAGLIO: I hate to call that kind of history exciting. But when you come across it, it really was exciting. He really singled out Timothy Leary in a meeting. They were equating him at a meeting just outside his office - some of his closest aides were calling him tantamount to Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, heads of the Mafia.
SHAPIRO: Was that just because those would be useful foils? Or was it because they actually saw him as dangerous as a mob leader?
MINUTAGLIO: You know, that's the brilliance of this story, too, in my opinion, at least the way that it unfolded. They initially just thought he would be a pawn. He would be a rube. But then as they got into it and they unleashed people against Leary, they began to really believe it. They began to accumulate certain bits of evidence in their mind that indicated that Timothy Leary, in fact, was the greatest, you know, drug lord. He was the narco chieftain of the United States in a way.
So they became convinced over time that their initial political ruse was, in fact, turning out to be, you know, a true political reality. The other thing that was working in the background was that Nixon really was convinced that there was something going on out there. There was a disturbance in the shire, to steal a line from "The Lord Of The Rings." I guess that makes him Sauron. But he was looking out from the tower and he saw revolution in the streets.
Things were unhinged. The social fabric was unraveling. And I think he wanted to find, again, you know, somebody symbolically whom he could kind of pin all of this on and essentially identify him as not only a drug kingpin, but the leader of sort of the domestic terrorist movement.
SHAPIRO: When you say Nixon saw upheaval and unrest in the country, he was not entirely wrong. One of the things that amazed me about this book was the sheer level of violence in the U.S. Today we hear the phrase radical leftists and it does not even compare to what was happening in the 1970s.
MINUTAGLIO: It really does pale. And I don't know if we've just forgotten or we've moved on, you know, in our electric digital news age, but things were really, really explosive. Cities were on fire. Buildings were being attacked. Campuses were being shut down. And there were really - no one was keeping an exact list, but there were millions of people in what might nebulously be called the movement, the counterculture movement. And Leary served an interesting purpose. He was an intellectual. He was a Harvard professor. He was extremely charismatic. He was handsome to boot, extremely eloquent, friends with John Lennon, other cultural leaders. And...
SHAPIRO: I didn't realize that the Beatles song "Come Together" was actually written by Lennon as a campaign song for Leary's unsuccessful gubernatorial race in California.
MINUTAGLIO: Yeah. Yeah. Leary, almost as a joke, had run for the governor's office in California. And that was an early warning kind of missile system attack, in some ways, against Nixon and Reagan. They were going, what is happening because people were getting interested and beginning to think about voting for him.
SHAPIRO: Timothy Leary died more than 20 years ago. How much of this story did he know by the time he died?
MINUTAGLIO: You know, I met him in the early 1980s and we had a very robust discussion in a dark bar in Houston (laughter) that lasted for several hours, as far as I can remember. And he told me then that he just couldn't figure out really what had happened to him. But he was one of these people that I think just enjoyed uncertainty, if that makes sense. He really embraced the next adventure.
So the book, you know, ends in some way with a nod to the fact that Leary had wanted to have his ashes blasted into outer space, which, in fact, did happen. I like the fact that when they were blasted into outer space his ashes were commingled with the ashes of Gene Roddenberry, the inventor of "Star Trek."
And then when the capsule that was holding his ashes disintegrated, Timothy Leary's ashes filtered all over the planet. And I think that was his last kind of cosmic joke, and also in a way his sense of continuing adventure. You know, little pieces of him were far flung and cast to the wind.
SHAPIRO: Bill Minutaglio is the author with Steven L. Davis of the new book "The Most Dangerous Man in America: Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon And The Hunt For The Fugitive King Of LSD." Thanks for a great read and for the nice conversation.
MINUTAGLIO: Ari, I really, really enjoyed it. Thanks so much.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BEATLES SONG, "COME TOGETHER")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
A storm hit Washington this week. Its name is "Fire And Fury: Inside The Trump White House," a new book by journalist Michael Wolff. The reporting in the book about the first 200 days of Donald Trump's presidency has set off a series of recriminations, denials and controversy that has dominated every news cycle since excerpts of the book leaked earlier this week. Our colleague Kelly McEvers spoke to Michael Wolff today.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
One of the immediate fallouts of "Fire And Fury" has been a very public break between President Trump and his onetime chief strategist Steve Bannon. Shortly after the first excerpts of the book were published, President Trump issued a statement saying, Steve Bannon has nothing to do with me or my presidency. When he was fired, he not only lost his job; he lost his mind. And in an effort to stop publication of the book, the president's lawyer sent a cease and desist letter to Henry Holt, the publisher of the book, and to the book's author, Michael Wolff, who is with me now. Welcome.
MICHAEL WOLFF: Thank you.
MCEVERS: So I just want to start right off with that cease and desist letter. It says in part that there are numerous false or baseless statements in this book. And so I just want to ask you; do you stand by every single word in it?
WOLFF: One hundred percent.
MCEVERS: We have heard, you know, a spokesperson for the White House, Sarah Huckabee Sanders - said there are numerous false things in there. Thomas Barrack, who's a friend of the president, who you quote in the book calling President Trump stupid and crazy, told The New York Times he never said that. Katie Walsh, who was deputy chief of staff last year, is also challenging a quote in the book. So what do you say to these specific claims about how they were characterized in your book?
WOLFF: You know, when you write a book like this - and I wrote this over a long period of time and spoke to people over a long period of time - people regret what they said to me, what they say to any reporter who they relax with and they forget who they're talking to. And I have sympathy for that. And I think the natural response is to say, oh, my God, I didn't say it. But I will tell you they said it.
MCEVERS: Let's talk about the book itself. For the many people who still haven't read it, you write a lot about President Trump and his personality in particular, you know, talking about things like how he lacks the ability to take in third-party information and about how he's more interested in immediate gratification than sort of a longer-term game of, you know, laying down policies the way other presidents have done. How much time did you spend with the president himself?
WOLFF: You know, let me just - I just want to say something 'cause it's an interesting thing that's starting to happen...
MCEVERS: Sure.
WOLFF: ...Which I'm becoming the poster boy for taking down Donald Trump. That certainly has never been my intention. My intention was to go into the White House and to report what I saw and what I heard. I thought that from the beginning, this was going to be an extraordinary story in whatever way it went. And I had no no way of knowing what way it would go. So it was not really so much about who - my analysis of Donald Trump but the people who were closest to him, the people who had to run this White House, the people who became this White House.
MCEVERS: But just - I do need to ask the question. How much time did you spend with the president himself?
WOLFF: I have spent about three hours with the president over the course of the campaign and in the White House.
MCEVERS: One thing that you write about that has been said before but not in as much detail as you give here is that the people around Donald Trump and even Trump himself did not expect him to win the election. What was the plan if he lost?
WOLFF: I think everyone would have been vastly happier if he had lost. Donald Trump would have been the most famous man in the world. His family would have gone from mere local socialites to major international figures. Steve Bannon would have effectively run the Tea Party. It would have been great for everybody.
MCEVERS: You know, after the win, yes, people were surprised. But they're in the White House. They've got a job to do. You know, it seems like you're constantly asking this question about, like, why people are working with him. In the beginning, you say it's because they believe there's just some kind of magic - right? - like, some unique astuteness and cunning because he won - right? - 'cause he won this election. There must be some there there.
WOLFF: Let me point another curious wrinkle that none of the people who went to work for Trump in the White House knew him very well. What they know basically is that he has been elected president of the United States. And they thought, OK, it's a new day, a new kind of president, a new page. Let's make the best of this.
MCEVERS: Right and just my sense from the book is that over time, though, that this idea that there must be some magic there, there must be some there there starts to wear off. What did they learn about him?
WOLFF: I think the two fundamental issues were that Donald Trump doesn't read anything. And let me accent that - anything, nothing. And that's - if you're working for the president of the United States, that's an odd position because how do you get information to him? And that's already a major hurdle. But then there's the second hurdle that not only does he not read. He doesn't listen. So it becomes from day one the crisis of the presidency. You can't tell him anything.
So on the first day of the presidency when he announces that the inaugural crowds were three or four or five times larger than they actually were, you couldn't say to him - you couldn't give him the information to say, that's not true. And you couldn't tell him it because he wouldn't listen to you. It is entirely his reality.
MCEVERS: So because - so working there becomes the job of how to manage a person like this.
WOLFF: And people began to learn sort of strategies. I mean, a central strategy is that, you know, he's obsessively focused on the media. So whatever you told him had to be processed through the media, which set up this whole pattern of leaks in this White House. And then you had to have your sources. So you know, the president has this whole coterie of billionaires he speaks to at night. And so you had to plant information with them to then pass to the president. It got to be a very complicated and shortly dysfunctional situation.
MCEVERS: I think questions about Trump's competence might be one of the most chilling things about the book. You write, a hundred percent of the people around him - senior advisers, family members - every single one of them questioned his intelligence and fitness for office - just want to make sure you still stand by that, yeah?
WOLFF: Absolutely. And that's - that is the story of this book. Again, these people and largely good people - in a sense, all good people - came into this White House with the best of intentions. And since, you know - and I was there. This is the story that I saw. I saw the transformation. I mean, in the beginning, they, you know, pumped you full of how great Donald Trump was. And as the days went on, you saw that - the transformation, their own doubts beginning. They began to - sort of this kind of physical reaction. They would tell you these positive things, but their eyes would roll, and their - and they would kind of pantomime in certain ways. You know, they wanted to communicate to people outside that they knew, that they understood something.
And then this got more intense until you would get to the point where people were really saying, you know - really questioning him. Is he actually stupid? Is he actually illiterate? Is he - you know, what is going on - trying to understand what they were dealing with and then, in the end, getting to the point - and this was certainly most vividly expressed in the book by Steve Bannon - of just not believing that this would in any way, shape or form have a happy ending.
MCEVERS: You know, let me put that question to you. Is it just that he's not intelligent and not fit, as you write, or is there something deeper here, something more?
WOLFF: Well, I think that's already pretty deep. But yes, and then there is - and then I think what you're getting at - and certainly it's an open discussion in the White House. As Steve Bannon put it, is he losing it? And you know, one of the things that's most concerning to a lot of people around the president is this level of repetition that he has. When you speak to him, it's - you know, it's unavoidable.
And so, I mean, a lot of the people have pointed out and I think I point out in the book that there was this - you know, in the beginning, you know, he would tell the three - the same three stories within 25 minutes. And when I say tell them the same three stories, I mean with the same words and the same facial expressions. And then people found that that was shortening. So you got those three stories in the first 15 minutes. And in the first 10 minutes, you got three stories.
And so by September, actually there was a "60 Minutes" interview which they canceled, and they canceled because they worried that he couldn't do it. And they took a Fox interview, a Hannity interview instead knowing that it would be, A, friendly and with the suggestion which I believe to be absolutely true that the show supplied them with the questions beforehand.
MCEVERS: Where do you think this goes? How does this end up?
WOLFF: You know, I think in many ways, from the beginning, this has felt like like a train wreck. And as it happened, the train just kept going on, but the wall was still out there. Eventually it would hit that wall. You know, I think - and I was certainly willing to be convinced differently, willing to think that this unusual figure had a new way to approach things. And you know, what the heck, maybe it would work. I think I feel that that is not the case now. And I saw and learned and - that everyone around him feels that's not the case. The train will hit the wall.
MCEVERS: Michael Wolff, thank you so much for your time today.
WOLFF: Thank you.
MCEVERS: That's author Michael Wolff talking about his new book "Fire And Fury: Inside The Trump White House." And on Monday, you can hear more of our conversation about former chief strategist Steve Bannon.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics says the median number of years that American workers have been working for their current employer is a little over four. I say that to acknowledge how unusual it is that I've been working at National Public Radio for a little over 40 years - 41, to be precise. And for the past 30 years, I've been doing the same job - this one, hosting ALL THINGS CONSIDERED - and doing it very happily. No one is more surprised by my tenure than I am.
I came to NPR on what I thought was an unfortunate but necessary detour that I hoped and figured would last just a couple of years. I am a native New Yorker, and the New York FM radio station where I worked was sold in 1976. And to put it mildly, I did not figure in the new owners' plans. Leaving New York City felt like what I imagine it feels like when a player for the Yankees was sent down to play for the Toledo Mud Hens. No matter, I figured I would work my way back to civilization.
Well, the fact that I am still here is a tribute to how colossally wrong I was about that. At the NPR of the 1970s, I found myself among a team of young, creative people as uncynical a group of broadcasters as I could possibly have imagined. At a time when our audience research was by today's standards limited and primitive, we operated on what I still consider a healthy instinct. We put on a program that we ourselves would listen to. We didn't imagine a great distinction between people like us who reported the news and people like you who listened to it.
We weren't the only curious people in the country. There had to be millions more Americans out there who would welcome a smart, conversational program about politics, culture, science the arts and just plain fun. Despite some near-death experiences many years ago, NPR is still here - much bigger, much more listened to and much more important than it was way back then. But what remains the same is that authentic sense of purpose still undimmed by cynicism or by commercialism.
A very accomplished friend of mine used to speak of the last paragraph in a story, the windup, as the and-so. And so for the last time, I'm signing off proud of my association with this unique institution, mindful of things I might have done better, grateful for the company of thousands of gifted colleagues and thankful to you for being, as we used to say in those hackneyed but truthful fundraising messages, for being the public in public radio.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLES MINGUS' "FAREWELL, FAREWELL")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Robert, this studio is now full of some very emotional people who love you very much - your friends, your family, ALL THINGS CONSIDERED employees past and present - holding glasses of champagne to salute you and congratulate you on your retirement. On the count of three, everybody - one, two, three...
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: Yay, Robert.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
SIEGEL: Thank you. Thank you, all. You're a great lot. And, Ari, thanks to you. Thank you. I'm just trying to hold it together here...
(LAUGHTER)
SIEGEL: ...For another few seconds. It's been a great - it's been a fabulous run. And I'm grateful to all of you for being such wonderful colleagues and good friends. I guess here it comes. I'm Robert Siegel, and you're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. Thank you.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Well, Robert...
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Yeah.
SHAPIRO: This is it...
SIEGEL: This is it.
SHAPIRO: ...Your last day as host of ALL THINGS CONSIDERED after 30 years.
SIEGEL: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: Listeners have a lot of thoughts and feelings about this milestone, and we wanted to take a moment to hear from some of them. So our co-hosts Audie Cornish and Kelly McEvers joined me to help.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
Hey there, Robert. You know, the listeners we heard from - they come from all walks of life.
EURDORA EVANS: I'm a truck driver with my husband.
HELMAR MENZ: Speech therapist.
KELLY PURDUE: A hospice social worker.
JOHN B COOPER: I am 74 and retired.
CORNISH: And they say they'll miss a lot of things about you, Robert, one thing most of all. Here's Eurdora Evans of Harvey, La., and Kelly Purdue of Grand Rapids.
EVANS: He has a soothing voice to me. Like, it's not soothing where it would put you to sleep, but it's just really calm.
PURDUE: And kind of all is right in the world.
MENZ: There was just always something welcoming about turning on the radio, you know, at 3 or 4 p.m. and having him be the first voice that I hear, you know, right after the news.
CORNISH: That's Helmar Menz of Portland, Ore.
MENZ: He is kind of a father figure. You know, I don't know him as a person, but just the range of introspection that listening to his voice allows, I do think that it was kind of - some kind of father figure over the radio, honestly, over the last 20 years. And that's probably part of why I'll feel especially affected by his departure.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Over and over, people told us how it's more than your voice; it is your presence that has meant so much. Kelly Purdue feels it. She has been listening over 25 years.
PURDUE: Being a hospice social worker, I have hard days that are sad and difficult. But as I drive in my car, going about my daily tasks, visiting with patients and families who are dying, Robert was my companion. He made my day better.
CORNISH: And it's not just adults. Generations of backseat NPR listeners grew up hearing your voice, two of them Zaden and Kaia Eby-Holmes from Fishers, Ind. They're brother and sister, 16 and 15 years old.
ZADEN EBY-HOLMES: When my mom would just drive us places she'd just have NPR on. And I'd hear the name Robert Siegel, and I thought the last name was great, you know, 'cause, like, we thought he was a bird.
KAIA EBY-HOLMES: (Laughter).
EBY-HOLMES: And we'd hear, hi, I'm Robert Siegel, and you're listening to NPR, and we'd just freak out. Take us somewhere. Fly us away.
KAIA: I was just really bummed out that, like, no one, like, not even, like, my kids are going to be able to hear him in a whole bunch of years, to feel the joy of his voice and laugh at his name and everything.
(SOUNDBITE OF GLENN MILLER'S "IN THE MOOD")
SHAPIRO: People trapped in cars appreciate you, Robert.
GREG GUNGOR ATMACA: My name is Greg Gungor Atmaca. I am listening Robert over 15 years.
SHAPIRO: That's the Turkish Lyft driver who picked you up this summer during a reporting trip in Boston. He didn't recognize you at first, but once you started talking, he knew exactly who you were.
ATMACA: He was great that he asked me questions. And we exchanged opinions. It was perfect. And I enjoyed it so much. And I will never forget that the rest of my life.
(SOUNDBITE OF RED GARLAND'S "ALMOST LIKE BEING IN LOVE")
PURDUE: Oh, Robert, I'd like to say thank you.
EVANS: Robert, thank you so much.
KAIA: Thank you.
EBY-HOLMES: Thank you so much for making me and my sister happy when we were in the back seat of a car.
SHAPIRO: Robert, thank you from your co-hosts.
MCEVERS: Thank you, Robert.
CORNISH: Thank you, Robert. And we want to end on this - a wish from John B. Cooper of Colorado. He's listened to you since you were Bob Siegel 40 years ago.
COOPER: When that mic goes dead, I will hope that he moves on to a great adventure and a wonderful life because he has enriched my life. And I've been so proud to be able to be a listener over all these years.
(SOUNDBITE OF RED GARLAND'S "ALMOST LIKE BEING IN LOVE")
SIEGEL: Well, I'm bowled over and speechless, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Hopefully not so speechless that you can't round out the segment right now.
SIEGEL: I can say it. This is NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump is at Camp David for a weekend retreat with Republican congressional leaders and some members of his Cabinet. The goal is to plot out the GOP policy agenda for this year ahead. The White House would also love to turn the focus away from Michael Wolff's new book, "Fire And Fury," which came out today, and paints the Trump presidency in an incredibly negative light. NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith reports.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: As he walked to Marine One, President Trump paused to talk to reporters gathered on the frozen south lawn of the White House.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Hi, everybody, I'm going over with the senators. We're going to Camp David. We have a lot of things to work on, a lot of things to accomplish. The stock market is up very, very big today.
KEITH: When Trump stops by the cameras, he often lingers to answer questions - not so today.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: We're making America great again. Thank you. Thank you very much.
KEITH: As he walked away, reporters shouted questions about Michael Wolff's book and about Steve Bannon, the former top White House aide, who Trump has disavowed after his scathing comments in that book. And it wasn't just Bannon. On the pages of the book, aides are quoted openly criticizing the president, describing him as a child. Wolff told NPR's Kelly McEvers that the Trump White House isn't just dysfunctional but shattered, with a president at the center of it all unwilling to learn or grow.
MICHAEL WOLFF: Not only does he not read, he doesn't listen. So it's - it becomes, from day one, the crisis of the presidency. You can't tell him anything.
KEITH: For three days now, White House aides have worked to discredit Wolff and his book. This was press secretary Sarah Sanders on "Fox & Friends" this morning.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FOX & FRIENDS")
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS: He repeatedly begged to speak with the president and was denied access, and he makes it sound like he was sitting outside the Oval Office every single day, which is just not the case. This is a guy who made up a lot of stories to try to sell books. And I think more and more people are starting to see that his facts just simply don't add up.
KEITH: Wolff disputes that, telling McEvers that from the campaign through the early months of the presidency, he spent about three hours with Trump and was essentially a fly on the wall in the West Wing.
WOLFF: My intention was to go into the White House and to - and to see what - report what I saw and what I heard. I thought that from the beginning this was going to be an extraordinary story in whatever way it went. And I had no way of knowing what way it would go. So literally I am not a hit man.
KEITH: But the book that resulted is jam-packed with the kind of quotes and observations no White House would ever want to be hit with. Try as they might, including a cease and desist letter and a threat of a lawsuit from Trump's personal attorney, the White House hasn't been able to quiet the buzz about "Fire And Fury." Tamara Keith, NPR News.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
And you can hear the first part of Kelly McEvers' conversation with Michael Wolff elsewhere in today's program.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Right now, joining me for our Friday politics talk are columnist E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and the Brookings Institution and David Brooks of The New York Times. Hi, both of you. Good to see you.
DAVID BROOKS, BYLINE: Hello.
E J DIONNE, BYLINE: Good to be with you.
SIEGEL: We'll get to some personal matters in a moment. But first, to follow up on what we've heard from Tam - a public split between Donald Trump and Steve Bannon. There also are reports of a Russia investigation that's turning up more problems for people close to Donald Trump, if not Trump himself. David, even by the standards of weeks in the time of President Donald Trump, does this one stand out as an especially newsworthy one?
BROOKS: Yeah. First of all, E.J. and I have agreed to precede our comments with an agreement that working with you in the past 18 years has been one of the great privileges of our career and that you're not only a good host, intelligent and curious, but you've exemplified what good citizenship should be like.
DIONNE: And David and I completely agree on this.
(LAUGHTER)
DIONNE: You said once that you speak...
SIEGEL: We don't like it when you agree this much.
BROOKS: (Laughter).
DIONNE: I know. Well, that's...
SIEGEL: Yeah, yeah.
DIONNE: Well, we'll get to disagreement.
SIEGEL: All right.
DIONNE: But you've said - you said once that you speak to listeners as people you feel close to and whose intelligence you respect, and that's why you have hundreds of thousands of intelligent friends around the country, all your listeners there who love and respect - Robert, you have never been so right about anything. You are a wise man and a mensch, and we will miss you.
SIEGEL: Well, I - thank you. I'm very proud to count you both as colleagues and as friends as well. And now onto Donald Trump.
(LAUGHTER)
SIEGEL: David...
BROOKS: So from the sublime to the ridiculous.
SIEGEL: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
BROOKS: You know, I first have worries about this whole episode. Michael Wolff does not operate by the standards that prevail at The New York Times, The Washington Post, at NPR. And I worry that we're lowering our standards because we find it salacious and gossipy. I think this book has some things that are probably accurate - probably the quotes - a lot of things that are probably fictional. And we're - our state in the American public opinion is so precarious. I worry about us becoming even more delegitimized by simply baying to this guy.
I think the quotes are probably right, and the split between Trump and Bannon is certainly right. And to me, that's the most significant thing to come out of this. And I have to say I have the minority view on this. Everyone thinks Bannon is finished.
SIEGEL: Yeah.
BROOKS: But Bannonism, populism has real roots in this country. Trumpism, a billionaire narcissist, has no roots. So I do not think - I think in the long run, Bannonism or something like it will outlast Trumpism.
SIEGEL: E.J.?
DIONNE: I want to make you happy by beginning by disagreeing with David.
SIEGEL: (Laughter).
DIONNE: I disagree with him on what Michael Wolff did here. Yes, his methods are different. The real test is, is the picture he has painted of Trump's White House accurate or not? And almost anyone I have heard from mainstream journalism who has been covering the White House says broadly speaking, this is the chaos that is going on in there; this is the Donald Trump that they have often heard about off the record and the flaws he has brought out. And so I think, you know, there are - yes, David and I have different journalistic histories and methods. But he has sort of ended denial I think about the Trump presidency that I think is useful.
I do agree that populism of a Bannon sort is still out there, but even that I think has been undercut by Trump because what he's done is - he has - I think he's let down a lot of those white, working-class voters we have talked about so much. His tax cut is not popular. He's done very few things for them. It is, by the way, one of the reasons why Steve Bannon was against this tax cut. He understood the damage...
SIEGEL: Yeah.
DIONNE: ...It would do to this base.
SIEGEL: I mean, David, you've said all along that what you now speak of as Bannonism - it has some contours to it. It is a set of ideas. It's not just running on the fumes of Reaganism from...
BROOKS: Yeah. And I've said before that Donald Trump is the wrong answer to the right question. And what Bannon, the populist - who - whether it was Pat Buchanan, Bannon, whoever is the future iteration - disbelief in the post-war world order with America, you know, actively engaged around the world - the disbelief in globalization, a sense that the elites are corrupt and detached from regular people - all those things are real sentiments, and Donald Trump does not answer to them. And we are guaranteed in part because of the tax bill that there'll be even more alienation of the working class in the next election, which will show up one way or another.
SIEGEL: E.J., let me ask you about the Democrats. There's lots of talk these days about polls and other measures of enthusiasm, how many people are signing up to run for office that suggest there's a Democratic wave election coming up in November. Is this kind of talk - is it realistic? Are Democrats getting overconfident about the gains they're going to make in Congress? It's the same country that went to the polls in 2016, same districts.
DIONNE: I think after the 2016 election, Democrats will never get overconfident about anything. The question is, is any of this stuff rooted in reality? And I think we've seen two sets of realities or two realities already - one, the elections in November in Virginia and in New Jersey but all over the country where Democrats boasted these enormous gains. And then, yes, it was a peculiar circumstance, but we saw Alabama. What I think gives us reason to think a wave is coming - and it's still a long way away...
SIEGEL: Yeah.
DIONNE: ...Is that Democrats seem enthusiastic to vote against Trump. They seem mobilized. This is like the electorates of 2006, 2010 and 2014, an electorate that seems eager to rebuke the...
SIEGEL: Yeah.
DIONNE: ...President who's in office.
SIEGEL: But David, I mean, it's hard to imagine other really red states like Alabama suddenly electing Democrats in 2018 because of Donald Trump.
BROOKS: But, you know, the Democrats have this huge party advantage ID. My imagination isn't big enough to figure out how the Democrats are going to mess this up.
(LAUGHTER)
BROOKS: But somehow I'm sure they will. You know, I think the bigger trend is the collapse of both parties. I do think we've seen this around Europe and around the world that major parties are in disarray, the Republicans in clear collapse. The Democrats will probably have a good year. But the underlying splits I do think are real, and the leftward drift and the collapse of the center - that's a real fact of the Democratic Party.
SIEGEL: You know, it's surprising because thinking back on all the years that I've been hosting the program leading up to tonight, my last show today, 30 years ago, the political parties in America really weren't coherent. There were these odd patchworks of, you know, rock-ribbed Midwestern Republicans and Northeastern liberal Republicans and progressives from the Pacific Northwest. The Democrats had past segregationists and still segregationist mixed up with Northern liberals. The parties make more sense now. I mean, they're more coherent. It's just the politics that comes of their attempting to work together makes less sense.
BROOKS: But think about how bad a period - 30 years ago, the Soviet Union was beginning its collapse. The wall was about to fall.
SIEGEL: Yep.
BROOKS: We thought we were in the advance of civil liberal democracy. It's pretty much been downhill (laughter) ever since. And so that to me is the major trend - the collapse of what we thought was an advance of liberal democracy, a move to the center, and we're all going to have free democracies. That's not happening, and a lot of people are upset - legitimately upset about it.
DIONNE: Small-D democrats have a lot of work to do around the world. But I am so struck with what you said, Robert, because I think it was in 1950 or '51 the American Political Science Association put out a paper, "Toward A More Responsible Party System" (ph) that said we needed a more ideologically...
SIEGEL: Right, right.
DIONNE: ...Philosophically coherent set of parties. And look what we got out of it. And so I actually think that a lot of political scientists are rethinking this, and we're asking the question, would we do a little better with parties that were slightly more diverse than they are now? They are diverse but in rather peculiar ways and in ways that aren't yet functional for us.
SIEGEL: It is almost 18 years since we imposed this marriage on the two of you. I've been the moderator very often, and I just wanted to thank the two of you for so many thought-provoking conversations about politics over the years. E.J. Dionne and David Brooks, thanks.
BROOKS: And a great honor - thank you, Robert.
DIONNE: One of the greatest joys of my journalistic life. Bless you, Robert.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Women in the U.S. are paid on average about 80 cents for every dollar a man earns for the same job. And despite American efforts to close that gap, it persists. Other countries are moving more aggressively to fix this problem. Iceland has just started enforcing a new law that requires employers with 25 workers or more to prove that they pay men and women equally for equal work. That applies to the private sector and to the government. To talk more about this measure, we're joined by Brynhildur Heidar- og Omarsdottir. She's the managing director of the Icelandic Women's Rights Association. Thanks for joining us.
BRYNHILDUR HEIDAR- OG OMARSDOTTIR: Thanks for having me.
SHAPIRO: Many countries, including the U.S., have some version of an equal pay law. Explain what makes Iceland's law different.
OMARSDOTTIR: Well, we in Iceland have had an equal pay law in effect since 1961. That was the first time the Althing, the Iceland Parliament, banned pay discrimination in the workplace. But just like in the U.S. and frankly every country in the world, these laws have not worked. But what happened in 2017, the then government of Iceland decided that they wanted to make this standard not a voluntary one. The law says that every company with 25 or more employees needs to undergo audit to - with using the standard to prove that they are actually not discriminating in the workplace against men and women.
SHAPIRO: Who conducts the audit? And what are companies required to do if it turns out there is a pay gap?
OMARSDOTTIR: Well, the companies are required to correct it. So as soon as a company figures out that there is something wrong, they basically raise the wages of those that have not been paid fairly. And in many of those cases, it is women who are being - who are getting pay raises, but in some cases, it's also men who get pay raises when the standard shows that they are not being paid fairly for their work.
SHAPIRO: In the U.S., employers often find loopholes. They either give people different titles or maybe they argue that people come to jobs with different prior experience. Do you expect employers in Iceland to do the same?
OMARSDOTTIR: The standard actually allows for that. It basically sort of like - you know, it's a set of equations that basically show like, No. 1, you need to quantify what the value of the job that the worker does is to the company. Of course, in Iceland, about 80 percent of the country is unionized. So we already have a market that is heavily regulated. It's something that, you know, I know that is not the case in the United States, but what I find most exciting about the standard is that the standard can be used even in the United States even if it's not on a mandatory basis because the equal pay standard is a standard that's written up to, well, international code. It's an ISO standard, so companies in the U.S. could perceivably use it and then basically use it as a part of the marketing.
SHAPIRO: So you're saying a company could say our products are made by a workforce that pays women and men equally, the audit proves it and use that as an advertising point.
OMARSDOTTIR: Absolutely. So basically what is - so as - I, as a consumer, that I go into a store and I make a choice that I'm only going to buy products that are fair trade or products that are organic and I can make a choice that I'm only going to buy products from a company that, you know, has a certification saying that, you know, I'm an equal pay company.
SHAPIRO: It sounds like these audits could be expensive. Are any employers expressing concern about the cost to businesses?
OMARSDOTTIR: Yeah, the audits will conceivably be expensive, and that's why in Iceland we are starting with the biggest companies that have the most resources. But it's a question of what kind of society do we want to live in. If you want to run a business in Iceland, you have to be willing to pay men and women equally. So this is a cost that, you know, we decided that, you know, it would be of benefit to society and that was of more benefit than, you know, saving companies money.
SHAPIRO: Brynhildur Heidar- og Omarsdottir, thanks so much for joining us.
OMARSDOTTIR: Thank you so much for having me.
SHAPIRO: She's with the Icelandic Women's Rights Association.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
We've heard a lot this week about the political fallout from the new Michael Wolff book about the Trump White House and the big break the book has caused between the president and his former political guru Steve Bannon.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Together they promised to make America great again.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I like Steve a lot.
STEVE BANNON: Donald Trump was the best candidate I think we had since Ronald Reagan.
REPORTER: As of tonight, their bromance is now bust.
SIEGEL: But beyond the political drama, the book says several things about the Russia investigation. And we want to take a moment to review the substance of them.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Among the important revelations, Wolff suggests that Donald Trump Jr. may have introduced his father to the Russians he hosted at Trump Tower during the presidential campaign. It also says that the Russia investigation is all about money laundering. Wolff attributes that characterization to Steve Bannon, going on to say that the Trump family may have secrets about their finances that could cause them problems if investigators uncover them.
SIEGEL: Also this week, outside of the book, there is new evidence of tension between the White House and the Justice Department spilling into view. The New York Times reports that the top White House lawyer, Don McGahn, called the attorney general last year and urged him not to step away from overseeing the Russia investigation.
SHAPIRO: Attorney General Jeff Sessions ultimately did recuse himself from that probe, but he has been on thin ice with the president ever since. Joining us to talk more about this is NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson. Hi, Carrie.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Let's start with some of these new disclosures about relations between the White House and Justice. What have you learned?
JOHNSON: Really more new details about tension in the Trump administration over the investigation of Russian interference in the election and over the role of FBI Director James Comey, who of course was fired by President Trump last May. First, the New York Times reports the White House was really concerned about the Russia probe. White House counsel Don McGahn called Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, to ask him to hold the reins, not to recuse from the investigation into Russia.
Sessions said he was sorry but that Justice ethics lawyers had decided he had to recuse, he had to step aside because he played such a big role in that campaign. That, we know, sent President Trump into a rage, and he's been angry at Sessions ever since. Another new detail relates to Jim Comey, the former FBI director. The Times said Sessions dispatched an aide to get dirt on Comey from congressional aides. But the Justice Department tells me that never happened.
SHAPIRO: Explain why this is more than just juicy palace intrigue.
JOHNSON: Well, a couple of reasons. The first is the Justice Department and the FBI have been pretty much under siege from President Trump for most of the last year. He has said the FBI is in tatters; the Justice Department is the deep state. These new reports that the White House was disrespecting the independence of the Justice Department and that Sessions himself may have been engaged in a smear campaign against the FBI director are not good for morale at the FBI and the Justice Department.
Another reason - legal experts are telling me this could fill in some of the blanks as to whether or not any obstruction of justice occurred last year. Now, Comey says he was fired because the president wanted him to go light on Russia, to influence the Russia probe. We now know the White House took more steps to try to lean on the Justice Department. And that's all of interest to the special counsel, Robert Mueller.
SHAPIRO: So we've talked about Mueller's investigation into possible collusion with Russia. What do we know about Mueller's interest in these possible issues of obstruction of justice?
JOHNSON: We know a few things mostly from witnesses and other people in the case. Mueller has the memos Comey made reflecting his conversations with President Trump last year. Mueller's team has interviewed the White House lawyer, Don McGahn, and the former chief of staff at the White House, Reince Priebus. He's also talked with the deputy attorney general about Jim Comey's firing.
Now, the White House denies any wrongdoing by the president. It's an open question whether any sitting president can be charged with a crime or indicted. Most people at the Justice Department don't think so. For some insight into this, I reached out to Chuck Rosenberg. Rosenberg's a former U.S. attorney, now a contributor at MSNBC. He says the disclosures here in the new book by Michael Wolff are probably not a surprise to Robert Mueller's investigators.
CHUCK ROSENBERG: I presume that everything in the book and all the folks that the author talked to are already known to Bob Mueller and his team. I can't imagine that he's sitting down and reading it, combing through it and getting ideas about who to interview. I have to assume that Bob Mueller has lapped us many times on the high school track and knows a heck of a lot more than we do.
JOHNSON: And sadly, Ari, Bob Mueller isn't telling us what he's doing with respect to obstruction of justice, at least not yet.
SHAPIRO: Someone else who's not saying much about this is the attorney general, Jeff Sessions. Some Republican lawmakers this week called for him to go. What's the latest?
JOHNSON: Yeah. This week, Jim Jordan and Mark Meadows, both House members - conservative House members, urged the attorney general to go in an op-ed. But on the other hand, some Senate Democrats - people like Chuck Schumer of New York, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut - say they don't agree with Jeff Sessions or anything he's done at the Justice Department, but he needs to stay on the job in part to protect that Robert Mueller Russia probe.
And this morning, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders addressed the issue on "Fox & Friends." She said that Sessions is focused on doing his job; the White House is focused on doing its job, and they're in a great place. But there's one more thing to consider, Ari. The president, Republican lawmakers and several cabinet members are going to Camp David this weekend. Jeff Sessions is not on that list. The Justice Department says he was not invited.
SHAPIRO: NPR Justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, thanks as always.
JOHNSON: My pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE DEAD KENNY GS' "DEVIL'S PLAYGROUND")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
On this program yesterday, I mentioned reports that the cold temperatures in Florida this week have caused frozen iguanas to fall out of trees. Several listeners on Twitter reacted to my lighthearted tone. One tweeted, iguanas freezing and falling out of trees is tragic and not funny. Another said, you anthropocentric bleep. To find out what's really going on with these reptiles, we called up Ron Magill at Zoo Miami.
RON MAGILL: I personally saw one big one fall on my own and found several on the ground.
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Magill says the East Coast winter storm yesterday did have a brutal effect on iguanas.
MAGILL: It's an ongoing issue, and it's probably going to happen again tonight because the forecast is due to go down into the 40s again - 40s and high-30s.
SIEGEL: Anytime it gets that cold, he says iguanas become lifeless. But that doesn't always prove fatal.
MAGILL: Generally speaking, the larger the iguana, the more it survives without showing any type of lasting effects. The smaller ones, however - you know, when you get the 2-footers and smaller, those animals many times do not recover. And they end up dying from that type of cold.
SHAPIRO: Magill says if you meet a semi-frozen iguana, treat it as though it could be alive. He told us this crazy story about a guy in Key Biscayne who was originally from Central America.
MAGILL: And in Central America, iguana is a delicacy. It's something - they're actually farmed for food. So this gentleman just thought, wow, I just have a bunch of protein here. He's on Key Biscayne. He's sort of picking up all these iguanas that appear to be dead on the road that had fallen out of trees. They turned gray and were not moving at all and very cold to the touch.
And he put them into his vehicle. He's loading them up like he was stocking up for a big barbecue. When they went back into the vehicle, the vehicle warmed up, and those iguanas started coming back to life. And all of a sudden, they started getting up and running around in the car, and it caused an accident.
SHAPIRO: He says even touching one that seems to be frozen is not a good idea.
MAGILL: Incapacitated as you think, they can give you a serious bite. They can give you a serious scratch, a serious whip with their tail. They can present that kind of physical injury to you.
SIEGEL: And he says what's happening to iguanas in the cold may have an upside. In Florida, iguanas are an invasive pest. They compete with native species.
MAGILL: You know, I've got to be honest with you. And this is going to sound very confusing coming from a person who's dedicated himself to animals and to conservation. But the bottom line is it's kind of nature's way to take out a population. Best thing to do is just let nature run its course. If they recover, they recover. If they do not, they do not. The bottom line is they don't belong in this environment. They're doing damage to this environment. And maybe that's Mother Nature's way of helping defend those populations to help the environment recover.
SIEGEL: Ron Magill of Zoo Miami talking about iguanas falling from trees as unusually cold weather in Florida continues.
(SOUNDBITE OF EL TEN ELEVEN'S "BE KIND, REWIND")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
There's a thing that sometimes happens when you apply for a new job. You submit your resume. The interview goes well. And then the company asks, how much are you making in your current job? Well, states have started passing laws that ban companies from asking that question. California's law went into effect this week. Noel King from our Planet Money team looked into the history of this expanding legal trend.
NOEL KING, BYLINE: Here's what I've always wondered - if a company asks, how much do you make at your current job, why not just lie, tack 20 grand onto your salary? I asked Emily Martin of the National Women's Law Center.
EMILY MARTIN: So it's possible that a company could seek to confirm that information with your employer. And certainly if the new job found you had lied could take that into account and think, I actually don't want to - I want to rescind this offer because this applicant has shown herself to be untrustworthy.
KING: OK, that is the public service portion of this story. Don't lie. You might get caught. The reason I called the National Women's Law Center is that this push to ban the salary question is part of the fight for equal pay. Here's what supporters say - asking women about their previous salaries gets them stuck making lower wages than men because they are often already making less than men. We know that. And if a new salary is based on a previous salary...
MARTIN: It's one way in which the wage gap follows women and grows over time.
KING: There's been an idea around for a long time to stop this - just don't let companies ask how much you're making. In Massachusetts in the mid-'90s, a woman named Ellen Story thought this should be a law. She'd recently been elected to the Statehouse. It was a big change from her town, Amherst.
ELLEN STORY: Amherst, you know, everybody wears blue jeans and Birkenstocks. The Statehouse is very formal. I almost always wore a suit. So I was very conscious of dressing the part.
KING: And she was very consciously trying to get this law passed. She and a co-sponsor started reaching out across the aisle, getting local business leaders on board. But she says some business groups like the National Chamber of Commerce didn't like the idea. They couldn't really say it publicly.
STORY: I mean, you would just look like a fool if you said men always do a better job than women, so they have to be paid more. You know, that's just so blatantly untrue.
KING: So they just said, we don't want politicians making rules on how and who we hire. So the bill got stuck in committee, where it stayed for nearly 20 years. Ellen kept it up. She got the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce on her side. And after years of this, she and her allies in the Statehouse got the speaker to put it up for a vote.
STORY: If the speaker of the House had not been in favor of this it would never have come to the floor.
KING: And who was the speaker? How did you get him or her on your side?
STORY: Well, of course it's a him.
KING: The answer, of course - she persisted. And times were changing. There were more women in the legislature. Hillary Clinton had run for president. In August 2016, the Massachusetts bill finally passed into law. And then other states followed - New York, Delaware, Oregon, also Puerto Rico. Just this week, California's law went into effect, and there's a good chance it won't be the last. Noel King, NPR News.
SIEGEL: Noel King is with our Planet Money team. And you can hear more stories like that one on NPR's newest daily podcast, The Indicator. They take a number or a phrase from the news and they find the big idea behind it. That's The Indicator from Planet Money.
(SOUNDBITE OF NICHOLAS BRITELL'S "ONE DOLLAR - PRESS CONFERENCE")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
College football is a big deal in a lot of states.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SIEGEL: In Alabama and in Georgia it is a very, very big deal. It's also very, very big business. So there's more at stake Monday night, when the universities of Alabama and Georgia face off for the College Football Playoff National Championship, than just a title. A win can also be a huge financial boon for the school and for its home state, too.
To get a sense of the numbers we turn to Eben Novy-Williams, who's a sports business reporter for Bloomberg. Welcome to the program.
EBEN NOVY-WILLIAMS: Hi, thank you for having me.
SIEGEL: How much money did the Alabama and Georgia football teams make last year?
NOVY-WILLIAMS: A lot is the simple answer. Alabama football in terms of revenue makes about $100 million a year, Georgia pretty close behind in the high 70s, low 80s in terms of million dollars a year. College football is an extremely lucrative endeavor.
SIEGEL: But to give us some sense of what they're spending in order to make that money, how expensive are the football programs at Alabama and Georgia?
NOVY-WILLIAMS: Sure. I mean, let's use Alabama as an example. OK, Alabama puts $41 million into its football team every year. You know, about 17 million of that pays for the football coaches. You know, Nick Saban is getting about 11 million. And he has million-dollar assistants, which is now kind of becoming the norm in college football. There's a couple million dollars paid for athlete scholarships. There's travel. And in the - on the back end in revenue, Alabama - $95 million to $100 million coming back in terms of revenue. So you can do the math there. That's about a $50 million profit just on college football alone.
SIEGEL: But just to clarify something, when a school like Alabama spends over 17 or almost $18 million on football coaches, we know the biggest one by far is the head coach, Nick Saban. How many people are part of a big-time college football coaching staff?
NOVY-WILLIAMS: There's a lot. I mean, it's not just your offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator and position players. You know, there are strength trainers. There's academic help. There's medical staff. You know, it goes down the line. There's a lot of people involved here. The president of Alabama - Stuart Bell is his name...
SIEGEL: Of the university.
NOVY-WILLIAMS: He makes 700 - of the university. He makes $755,000 a year. He has to work 14 years to make what Nick Saban is making this year. He would be the fifth-highest paid coach on Nick Saban's staff. The numbers are staggering.
SIEGEL: Now, but as you say, at least in Alabama and Georgia the schools bring in a lot more money than they spend. What do they do with the profits?
NOVY-WILLIAMS: Most of that money is spent on all the other sports that don't make money. Almost every other sport outside of men's basketball and in a few places maybe baseball, maybe ice hockey - almost every other sport runs in the red. Some of that money is also going to paying off debt for the stadium. Alabama has a couple hundred million dollars of debt that they need to pay off for stadium renovations, et cetera. And if there's some left over, as we see with some schools, some of that works its way back into the academic coffers of the university. You know, LSU and Texas, for example, are two schools that do a very good job year after year of putting a couple million dollars back into the academic side of things.
SIEGEL: What an outrageous idea that is.
NOVY-WILLIAMS: Yeah, exactly. The truth is that the way these - they're set up athletically there's really not that much money when everything is divvied out.
SIEGEL: As a financial proposition, how much can a national championship be worth to a state like, say, Alabama?
NOVY-WILLIAMS: Oh, it's great. I mean, the thing for Alabama is that they've been here so many times in the past decade - I mean, Nick Saban, it seems like he's in the title game every year - that a championship doesn't do maybe as much as it might do for a school who hasn't been here before. But the truth is that just like a title in - you know, a Super Bowl title or a World Series title, you're going to sell more tickets the next year because you have a national championship.
And TV networks and sponsors who want to put their - your brand on their packaging are going to pay you more because you're a national champion. All those little, incremental things go up. So, yes, a national championship is worth millions. But win or lose on Monday, neither of these schools are going to be struggling about, oh, man, how are we going to balance the budget next year?
SIEGEL: Eben Novy-Williams, a sports business reporter for Bloomberg. Thanks for talking with us.
NOVY-WILLIAMS: Thanks, Robert.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This week, Mormons lost the man they regarded as their prophet. Thomas S. Monson, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, died on Tuesday. President Trump offered his condolences, saying Monson demonstrated wisdom, inspired leadership and great compassion. But there was little praise from evangelical Christian leaders. NPR's Tom Gjelten says their silence revealed some deep differences between the Mormon and evangelical communities.
TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: Exit polls from the last election showed that Mormons and white evangelical Christians were the two religious groups most supportive of Donald Trump's candidacy. Historically, no two faiths have been more closely identified with the conservative agenda. That bond was acknowledged this week by Albert Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and one of the leading intellectuals in the evangelical Christian world. Speaking on his daily podcast, Muller mentioned the passing of Mormon leader Thomas S. Monson. He noted that Mormon beliefs about marriage and family are similar to those held by evangelical Christians.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "THE BRIEFING")
ALBERT MOHLER: On many of the current issues of white-hot controversy in the United States evangelical Christians find themselves in common terrain in the culture with Mormons.
GJELTEN: But Mohler stopped there with his positive assessment. He said that by regarding Monson as a prophet, Mormons believe that God spoke directly through him, something evangelical Christians would never say about their church leaders. Mohler also said Mormons deny the traditional interpretation of the Trinity - God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. And then he raised what he said is the most important question.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "THE BRIEFING")
MOHLER: Should we consider the Mormon Church, the church known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as a Christian denomination? No, we should not. It simply fails every major test of Christian orthodoxy.
GJELTEN: Other evangelical theologians went even further. James White, the director of Alpha and Omega Ministries in Phoenix, wrote in his blog that Thomas S. Monson's life was, quote, "a testimony to the enslavement that false religion brings." Naturally, Mormons reject the notion that their religion is false, but they agree they have theological differences with traditional Christian denominations. Matthew Bowman, author of "The Mormon People: The Making Of An American Faith," says the rival religious groups have moved a bit closer around such questions as, what is necessary for salvation?
MATTHEW BOWMAN: Since the mid-1990s, Mormons have talked more and more about grace and Mormon theologians have written more and more about grace.
GJELTEN: But the gap between Mormons and evangelicals has a long history. The comments after Monson's death this week recalled a controversy from several years ago when Robert Jeffress, pastor of First Baptist Church in Dallas, called Mormonism a heresy from the pit of hell. Jeffress is a member of President Trump's evangelical advisory council and a fervent Trump supporter. To be sure, in the U.S. Senate, Christian evangelical Republicans like Ted Cruz of Texas have worked with Mormon Republicans like Mike Lee and Orrin Hatch of Utah. Matthew Bowman also points out that evangelical leaders like Albert Mohler and Robert Jeffress don't speak for all evangelicals.
BOWMAN: There are certainly some other evangelicals who have made outreach to Mormons. And actually, there has been a movement within Mormonism to do the same thing. So there has been some effort to find some common ground. But I think there are still some real irreconcilable theological issues that are not likely to ever be resolved.
GJELTEN: Some evangelical leaders have explained that they're willing to support Donald Trump despite his moral flaws because of his stand on the political issues that concern them most deeply. But the relatively bad feelings between evangelicals and Mormons, despite their areas of agreement, show that a political friendship does have its limits. Tom Gjelten, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF LUDOVICO EINAUDI'S "FLY")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
We're still digging into the mammoth new tax law and finding provisions that got little notice during congressional debate, among them a reason for college athletics departments to feel pinched. Two provisions in particular have athletic directors around the country re-examining the way they do things. One eliminates the tax deduction for season tickets, and the other places a tax on nonprofits that pay salaries over a million dollars, which is par for the course among successful college football and basketball programs.
One place working through these changes is Baylor University in Waco, Texas. Mack Rhoades is the director of athletics there, and he joins me now. Welcome to the program.
MACK RHOADES: Well, thank you for having me, Robert.
SIEGEL: And first let's talk about season tickets. Previously, as I understand it, somebody buying a season ticket would pay something for the ticket and then still more as a contribution to the fund that supports Baylor football and gets him the ticket. And of that contribution, used to be 80 percent was tax-deductible. Now none of it is tax-deductible. Do I have that right?
RHOADES: Yes, you do. So that's correct. At least that's the way we interpret it to date.
SIEGEL: Did Baylor make any last-minute push to get ticket holders to re-up their purchases before the end of last year?
RHOADES: Yes, we certainly proactively communicated with our donors as, you know, the tax legislation was moving through Congress. When you looked at cash giving in December, we were up little bit over a million dollars than we were compared to December of 2016.
SIEGEL: You're speaking of people who, as I understand it, may pay a minimum of a thousand dollars per ticket to get seats around the 50-yard line, 30 rows up - really nice seats or at least just to be assured of a place in line to get them. You speak of them as donors, not as ticket holders. You're not describing that as a commercial relationship.
RHOADES: Yeah. You know, for us, they really are donors because, you know, those monies that we collect - one, they're significant for us. You know, that's about 20 percent of our annual revenue, and that really goes to help pay our scholarship costs. And of course at Baylor where, you know, we're a private institution, our annual scholarship, you know, per student athlete is quite high. And so, you know, I hope our donors, you know, still continue to take that under consideration.
SIEGEL: Another change in the new tax law that concerns athletics departments like yours is this 21 percent excise tax on nonprofits generally that employ people who make over a million dollars. How many of your employees would be affected by that, and might it depress salaries?
RHOADES: Well, that is a great question. And so, you know, for us, you know, we have a handful that, you know, are a million plus. And again, you know, I think there still needs to be some clarity, and we're working through that with outside, you know, tax counsel. But certainly it is going to have an impact, you know, on a university budget. It's certainly going to have an impact on our athletics budget. And it's something, you know, that right now we're in the midst of discussion in how do we handle that, at least for the remainder of our fiscal year, which ends on May 31?
SIEGEL: Does the department or does Baylor University have folks in Washington working with Congress or the IRS to try to sort this out?
RHOADES: You know, as as the tax legislation was moving through Congress, we certainly did. And there were conversations. And that wasn't unique just to Baylor. I think that was, you know, pretty standard across the country. I think like many institutions, we have outside tax counsel that we're asking and hoping for guidance.
SIEGEL: You know, Congressman Bill Flores, the Republican whose district includes Waco and Baylor where you are, says that he heard from schools in his district, and he told the Dallas Morning News that the elimination of the season ticket deduction is a, quote, "non-problem," saying that it only affects people - his words - who can afford the seat licenses, and they're still going to buy their tickets. What do you think of that?
RHOADES: Well, I mean, I love the philosophy, and we certainly hope that's true. And you know, for us, we have ranges for the Baylor Bear Foundation anywhere from $200 all the way up to $60,000 per year. And so, you know, how it impacts each and every one of those individuals I think, you know, to some degree will be different. But I think just overall philosophically, you know, I hope he's right. And I would certainly support his comments.
SIEGEL: Mr. Rhoades, thanks for talking with us today.
RHOADES: Robert, congratulations on a great career. And happy New Year. And I wish you and your family all the very best.
SIEGEL: Thank you. Thank you very much, Mack Rhoades, director of athletics at Baylor University.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The winter storm that worked its way up the East Coast this week brought more than just snow to New England. Many communities along the coastline there are dealing with major flooding. From member station WGBH in Boston, Craig LeMoult reports.
CRAIG LEMOULT, BYLINE: Up and down the Massachusetts coastline, communities saw icy, cold Atlantic waters racing through the streets and into homes and businesses. At The Landing Restaurant, which sits over the harbor in Marblehead, Mass., less than 20 miles up the coast from Boston, general manager Robert Simonelli says they opened hatches in the floor to relieve some of the pressure from the waves pounding from below. A video shows the water rushing down a hallway in the restaurant.
ROBERT SIMONELLI: One of them just hit. There was about a 2-foot wave, came into the kitchen. One of my cooks behind the line was there dancing on the saute station, so we had to get him out of there pretty quick.
LEMOULT: Simonelli says he'd seen water come in the restaurant before, but never like this. That's because the tide broke records. Hayden Frank is with the National Weather Service.
HAYDEN FRANK: That was the highest ever recorded since official records began in the early 1920s.
LEMOULT: An unusually high astronomical tide coincided with the strongest winds of the storm. Further down the coastline, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker visited the coastal town of Scituate today. He was shown where the force of the waves broke through a sea wall, allowing water to rush into the town.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: This is the water coming in.
CHARLIE BAKER: This is literally, like, where we're standing.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: This is actually from the chief's home - just behind us is right - he's right up - so it's from the home right across the street.
BAKER: OK. OK.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: But it's showing...
BAKER: But it's coming up the - it's coming straight to here.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Right straight through there. Yeah.
BAKER: Jesus.
LEMOULT: Governor Baker says it's important to learn from storms like this and make adjustments.
BAKER: Let's face it, folks. This is just one more statement about the fact that it's really important for us to put time, money and resources into resiliency and adaptability.
LEMOULT: In Boston, the Seaport District, which is one of the hottest places for development right now, was one of the neighborhoods underwater during the storm. Many of the newer developments there are designed with resiliency in mind. Those buildings have raised foundations and critical infrastructure placed on higher floors. But Kathy Abbott at the nonprofit group Boston Harbor Now says more needs to be done to get ready for this kind of thing.
KATHY ABBOTT: We have to deal with the existing development as well as the infrastructure, which I think people are really beginning to focus on in terms of our transportation, our roadways, our utilities, our communications. All of it needs to be adapted.
LEMOULT: And that's likely to become more and more necessary. Kirk Bosma is a coastal engineer with the Woods Hole Group, which has been studying climate change and extreme weather events as a consultant for the city of Boston. Bosma says their computer models predicted this kind of thing, but not quite yet.
KIRK BOSMA: It does give us a little bit of a sneak preview into the future. This storm kind of looks a lot like what we're seeing for results in kind of our 2030 sea level rise climate change picture.
LEMOULT: And while the year 2030 may still sound like the distant future, it's worth remembering that's only 12 years away. For NPR News, I'm Craig LeMoult in Boston.
(SOUNDBITE OF HELIOS' "HOPE VALLEY HILL")
ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:
Figure skating is always a fan favorite at the Olympic Games, a combination of athleticism, sequined costumes and often melodrama. U.S. figure skaters are gathered in San Jose, Calif., this week for the national championships and a chance to qualify for the Olympics, which begin next month. NPR's Tom Goldman reports there has been drama, more real-world than soap opera.
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: The U.S. Figure Skating Championships in an Olympic year are a stressful event. Performances in the short program and longer free skate don't solely determine whether a skater makes the Olympic team, but they count a lot. So the stumbles during routines are more frequent, the on-ice smiles sometimes appear strained. 2016 U.S. champion Adam Rippon was feeling it before his short program last night.
ADAM RIPPON: When I made a little mistake in the six-minute warm-up, I said, girl, you tight. So...
(LAUGHTER)
GOLDMAN: But the 28-year-old veteran told himself to bend his knees, take things one at a time. And it worked.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GOLDMAN: Rippon flowed and jumped with ease. Although he's had success in his career, he's battled injury and illness and never qualified for an Olympics. But last night's second-place finish was what he calls a first step toward that elusive Olympic gold.
(APPLAUSE)
GOLDMAN: And if Adam Rippon makes the trip to South Korea next month, a much bigger audience will get to know a top-notch and highly entertaining skater.
RIPPON: A few weeks ago, I was asked in an interview - and I tweeted about it - that they asked me, what was it like being a gay athlete in sports? And I said, it's exactly like being a straight athlete, only with better eyebrows.
(LAUGHTER)
GOLDMAN: Rippon came out in 2015, and he could be one of the first openly gay figure skaters to compete in an Olympic Games.
RIPPON: Growing up, I really didn't have a lot of role models. And I said, if I was ever given the chance and the platform, I would share my story.
GOLDMAN: He says sharing that story has made him a better competitor.
RIPPON: Because I don't really care what other people think of me. I'm able to go out there and I'm really able to be, like, unabashedly myself. And I want somebody who's young, who's struggling, who's not sure if it's OK if they are themselves to know that it's OK.
GOLDMAN: Adam Rippon isn't the only member of the figure skating world to put a dramatic stamp on these championships. Sports federation leaders traditionally don't wade into controversy, certainly geopolitics, but not this week. After North Korea floated the idea that its athletes might participate in the Olympics, Senator Lindsey Graham said the U.S. should boycott the games. In San Jose, U.S. Figure Skating President Sam Auxier willingly waded into the fray.
SAM AUXIER: These athletes have worked so hard to get here. I mean, their whole lives are focused on getting to the Olympics. It would be devastating if we were to pull out just for this kind of posturing.
GOLDMAN: There's a direct connection to his sport. The only North Koreans who've qualified for Olympic competition are a pairs skating team. With talks now scheduled next week between North and South Korea dealing in part with the Olympics, Auxier hopes this country's leaders can see the games as one way to help move the Korean Peninsula away from crisis.
At least, he says, the U.S. should go to the games and win medals. He'll get no argument from Adam Rippon, Nathan Chen and Bradie Tennell, the men's and women's leaders after the short programs, and the rest of a bunch of hungry and slightly anxious skaters in San Jose. Tom Goldman, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF TARO UMEBAYASHI'S "YURI ON ICE")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The James Beard Awards are sometimes called the Oscars of food, with awards for restaurants and chefs every year. This year, the awards committee is encouraging voters in the restaurant industry to consider more than just food and ambiance. They want voters to think about respect, integrity and whether the nominees deserve to be role models. In the last year, several previous James Beard Award winners have been accused of sexual harassment, including the celebrity chefs Mario Batali and John Besh.
Anne Quatrano is the chair of this year's James Beard Awards Committee, and she's a chef and restaurant owner in Atlanta. Welcome.
ANNE QUATRANO: Thank you for having me.
SHAPIRO: Tell me about the conversations at the James Beard organization that led you to include this instruction to voters.
QUATRANO: The conversations - obviously we've taken this very seriously, as this is pretty much our community. And an important part of our community is giving these awards and celebrating chefs. So we take the allegations seriously. And we want to move forward in a way that recognizes that this has been something that has been prevalent in our industry, but shouldn't have been. And we would like for our judges to be empowered, to consider not just the food, but the atmosphere in which it's prepared and the - I would say the temperature of the kitchen.
SHAPIRO: What was the reaction from your community?
QUATRANO: So the voters - to be specific, about 250 of the voters are journalists and food professionals that write about food and about 400 to 450 are actually chefs who've won these awards before. I don't think anybody wants this dark shadow on our industry, nor do they want to feel that these awards are being given to people that may not be representing the industry as a whole.
SHAPIRO: This is a very big community that spans all 50 states. It's not like Hollywood, which is in one geographic location. Do you expect that voters would know whether a chef is a good person, abusive to their employees?
QUATRANO: I think that that's certainly a challenge. But also, I will say that we are a tight-knit community. We cook a lot with each other. We travel around and cook for just a multitude of different charitable events as well as raising money for the Beard Foundation. So I do believe that we get to know each other pretty well. And we see each other in kitchens. And really, the heat of the kitchen is something that can be telling. So I feel like, yes, in a way, we do know.
SHAPIRO: So often this kind of abuse is directed at people with the least power. Is it possible that chefs could be perfectly wonderful to one another and this kind of behavior would be going on without any of them ever knowing about it?
QUATRANO: I believe that some of this behavior - and this is me speaking personally - happens late at night with substances and alcohol involved. And I do think that that can impair someone's best judgment. Unfortunately, we're in the industry that we operate at night. We work late. We work in close contact. And often our time to unwind happens after midnight, which I don't think is typical in most industries.
SHAPIRO: Have you had any pushback to people saying this kind of instruction shouldn't be a factor, that these awards should just be about culinary achievement?
QUATRANO: No, I don't think that we've had any pushback. A chef by definition is a leader. It's a chief, the chief of the kitchen. I think that we've all always believed that that chief needs to show good judgment, positive character, and also an environment that lets their staff and employees flourish.
SHAPIRO: That's Anne Quatrano, chair of this year's James Beard Awards Committee, also a chef and restaurateur in Atlanta. Thanks for speaking with us.
QUATRANO: Thanks, Ari. My pleasure.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We want to take a moment now to remember John Young, NASA's longest-serving astronaut. His career at NASA was filled with firsts, including being the first to fly in space six times. Young was also 1 of 12 people to walk on the moon. Today, he died at the age of 87. NPR's Russell Lewis has this remembrance.
RUSSELL LEWIS, BYLINE: When it came to John Young, there were many superlatives.
ANDREW CHAIKIN: If anybody deserves the title of legend, it would be John Young.
LEWIS: That's Andrew Chaikin, a space expert who has written extensively on NASA. He said John Young was special. He was co-pilot on the first Gemini mission in 1965 and then commanded a Gemini flight the next year and orbited the moon on Apollo 10. And then, in 1972, he commanded Apollo 16. Just minutes after landing on the lunar surface, he peered out the window and was at a loss for words.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHAIKIN: You can - boy, I can see Ray Crater from here - boy.
LEWIS: Chaikin says Young's NASA career up to that point, culminating with a moon landing, had been impressive.
CHAIKIN: You know, that alone would have qualified him for being in the Hall of Fame of astronaut careers. But the thing that really made him a true legend was in 1981, when he commanded the very first space shuttle mission.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Columbia, Houston, you're go at throttle up.
JOHN YOUNG: Roger, go at throttle up.
LEWIS: Young was an aeronautical engineer who later in his NASA career served as the chief of the Astronaut Office, choosing those who would fly on the shuttle. He also advised on engineering, operations and safety matters. Chaikin says Young was a force at the space agency.
CHAIKIN: He would go into meetings with the specialists for a particular system. And he would say in this kind of country boy way, well, you know what, I don't understand much about the such and such but what gets me is - and then he would proceed to ask a - just a completely penetrating technical question that would just, you know, flatten these people.
LEWIS: Young avoided the limelight but was outspoken and known for writing hundreds of memos pointing out safety flaws and operational concerns. In his autobiography, he said he felt responsible for the loss of the shuttles Columbia and Challenger because his crews were on board. He wrestled with how the agency could have missed the signs. In a 2004 NPR interview, Young said the future of the human race's survival is not on Earth but in space.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
YOUNG: I mean, it's pretty obvious. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure this out. If you look at the inevitable consequences and you look at our technologies that we need to make it, you'd come to the same conclusion. And, you know, it's going to take a lot of thinking but, you know, somebody ought to be worried about it.
LEWIS: John Young, Navy test pilot, six-time astronaut and 42-year veteran of NASA. Russell Lewis, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MESSAGE TO BEARS' "FAREWELL, STARS")
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
You don't have to be a movie buff to know Aaron Sorkin. You know him from movies like "The Social Network," "Steve Jobs" and "Moneyball" and television shows like "The West Wing." Over more than two decades of screenwriting, Sorkin has made a name for himself as a master of crackling dialogue, complex character study and nail-biter political drama. Sorkin's latest film has all of that and something else. It's his first time in the director's chair.
The film is called "Molly's Game." It's a fictionalized account of a real person named Molly Bloom, an Olympic-level skier whose athletic career ends in a dramatic wipeout. Looking for a change of pace and for something to occupy her time before she goes to law school, she stumbles into the world of underground high-stakes celebrity poker games. Next thing you know, she's in the sights of the Russian mafia and U.S. prosecutors.
Molly Bloom is portrayed by Jessica Chastain. Here's a clip from "Molly's Game." It's a scene where she's confronted by one of her celebrity clients, played by Michael Cera, over control of the weekly game.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MOLLY'S GAME")
MICHAEL CERA: (As Player X) These guys want to play cards with me, not you.
JESSICA CHASTAIN: (As Molly Bloom) Be that as it may...
CERA: (As Player X) You know who the biggest winner in this game is?
CHASTAIN: (As Molly Bloom) It's you.
CERA: (As Player X) You know the second biggest winner is?
CHASTAIN: (As Molly Bloom) Look.
CERA: (As Player X) It's you. What are you taking home, 10,000 a night now?
CHASTAIN: (As Molly Bloom) That is my business - literally.
CERA: (As Player X) Between you, the dealers and the servers, you're taking a lot of money out of this game.
CHASTAIN: (As Molly Bloom) Not as much as I'm bringing to it.
CERA: (As Player X) That 10,000 is 10,000 that doesn't go in my pocket.
CHASTAIN: (As Molly Bloom) Again, my money...
CERA: (As Player X) Your money is my money.
MARTIN: And Aaron Sorkin is with us now from our studios in New York. Aaron Sorkin, thanks so much for speaking with us.
AARON SORKIN: Well, thanks for having me.
MARTIN: A lot of your films have focused on larger-than-life figures like Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs. What was it that drew you to this story, the story of Molly Bloom?
SORKIN: Well, you know, I was asked to read the book by an entertainment lawyer I know socially. And then I was asked to meet with Molly. And I read the book. The book is a wild ride. It's the true story of Molly Bloom, who in her 20s and 30s ran the world's most exclusive high-stakes underground poker game. CEOs, billionaires, movie stars, sports figures, politicians would win or lose millions of dollars in the course of a night at Molly's table, sometimes in the course of one hand. And so I read the book and did not think it was something that I'd want to make a movie out of. It wasn't until a couple of days later when I sat down with Molly Bloom and saw that the book was just the very tip of a very large and complicated iceberg that I began to get interested.
What I discovered was that Molly was an honest-to-God real-life movie heroine found in an unlikely place, that this was a morality tale of doing the right thing when the wrong thing is easier, more profitable, more expedient, that it was a story about decency and that it wasn't a story about all the shiny objects, the decadence, the money, the glamour, the Hollywood boldface names, the poker. That was the backdrop for a much more personal and much more emotional and much more inspirational story.
MARTIN: Was decency important to you, decency at the heart of it, was that important to you?
SORKIN: Incredibly important. I like meditations on decency under any circumstances. In the times that we're living in now, when you come face-to-face with decency, it's like a cold glass of water in the middle of a desert. And that's what happened when I met Molly Bloom. Molly is a brilliant woman. When we meet her at the beginning of the movie, she has a gold-plated future. Her whole life is ahead of her.
Molly was ranked third in North America in women's moguls and was on the U.S. Ski Team and is about to, at the top of the movie, run the third and final qualifying round to make the Olympic ski team. She's going to do that, then she's going to go to Harvard Law School with an Olympic medal around her neck. And then she's going to start a foundation that seeds entrepreneurial women. And she comes 100 yards from that goal, when just a fluke accident happens that sends her off course, both literally and metaphorically, into this crazy world of underground poker instead of that perfect life that she was supposed to be living.
MARTIN: You started working on this film quite some time ago, but it's coming out now...
SORKIN: Yes.
MARTIN: ...In this moment. You know, you're telling a story about a woman navigating a world of powerful, sometimes abusive men who make all the rules, and she's trying to figure out her place in it. And I'm just wondering if you, you know, feel like this adds to that conversation in some way that you may not have anticipated at the time, which how could you have? But I don't know. What do you think now?
SORKIN: Well, I would happily trade the fortuitous timing of the movie for a world in which it wasn't quite as relevant as it is right now. Obviously, yes, first of all, let me confirm that Molly does navigate a world of very powerful men, that oftentimes these men are less than respectful...
MARTIN: Jerks.
SORKIN: Yeah, they're jerks. They're jerks. And moreover, when one of these powerful men feels that Molly is not sufficiently impressed by their power or is paying more attention to another powerful man than they're paying to powerful man number one, they ruin her. They end her. And there's a contradiction there because they're all also in love with Molly. You know, there's some misogyny going on there. So it is very much reflective of what's going on today. I think it was probably reflective of what was going on 50 years ago, too. It's just that sunlight has been poured on this for the last couple of months ever since the Ronan Farrow and New York Times exposes of Harvey Weinstein.
MARTIN: You know, before I let you go, I was reading some of the background notes for the film which, you know, the studios make available before you do an interview. They kind of tell you what the filmmaker's thoughts were, and they interview key people. And one of the things that was interesting in the liner notes for you is that it said that you didn't want to name names. You didn't want it to be a gossip film. You didn't want the audience to sit around wondering, who were these celebrities at these poker games?
You know, now that we're in a moment where people are holding powerful people accountable for their bad conduct, I wonder, is there any part of you that regrets not naming some of those names of people who behave badly toward Molly?
SORKIN: I think that you're asking a very interesting question. So I want to - I want to answer this is as fulsomely as I can. No, right from the very beginning, I knew that I didn't want to gossip about anybody. I don't like gossip. And I think that we're living in a time of gossip. I think that social media has served as a force accelerator.
Moreover, if you're going to make a movie where your heroine is heroic because she refuses to, as you put it, name names, to gossip about people, even though it would mean that she would, you know, all of her money is taken away by the government even though it means she would get her money back, be able to restart her life, guarantee her freedom, she'd be kept out of jail - she still refuses to name names. She still refuses to talk about guys who weren't very good to her. But what you're asking is if Molly was sexually harassed or even, God forbid, sexually abused by one of these guys, that is - that's still a noble thing that she's keeping it to herself.
And let me try to answer the way I think Molly would answer that question. Molly would do anything to protect someone, to warn someone if they were in danger, OK, if they were about to go on a date with or have a meeting with or audition for someone that Molly knew to be dangerous. But that wasn't the case here. Molly also - because I talked to her about the culture we find ourselves in now, what's going on, you know, the Me Too movement.
And Molly distinguishes and thinks it's important to distinguish between boorish behavior, piggish behavior and dangerous behavior. So I think that's the answer that Molly would give. And I think that Molly is a more credible source on this than I am, so I'm going to give you Molly's answer while I kind of take some time to listen to everyone else before I give you mine.
MARTIN: That's Aaron Sorkin. He is an Oscar-and-Emmy-winning writer. He directed his latest film. It's called "Molly's Game," and it is out nationwide on January 5. He was nice enough to join us from our studios in New York. Aaron Sorkin, thank you so much for speaking with us and Happy Holidays to you.
SORKIN: Thank you very much and Happy Holidays to you.
MARTIN: And we had the chance to put some of those questions to the real Molly Bloom. You can hear that interview tomorrow.
(SOUNDBITE OF EKALI AND ZHU'S "BLAME")
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to start the program today talking about the big political story of the day. A new book called "Fire And Fury: Inside The Trump White House" has set off a volley of accusations between President Trump and the author of the book, Michael Wolff.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I consider it a work of fiction. And I think it's a disgrace that somebody is able to have something, do something like that. I did a quick interview with him, a long time ago, having to do with an article. But I don't know this man. I guess sloppy Steve brought him into the White House quite a bit. And it was one of those things. That's why sloppy Steve is now looking for a job.
MARTIN: That was President Trump speaking at Camp David today where he's meeting with Republican leaders. Sloppy Steve being a reference to former Trump chief strategist, Steve Bannon, who's described in the book as questioning Trump's capacity to handle the job. Notably, Steve Bannon has not, to this point, disputed the tone or accuracy of the quotes attributed to him.
Now, we're not in a position to verify the claims made in the book. But because of Bannon's critical role in the Trump campaign and because the president and his allies have spoken so forcefully about it, we're going to focus on the political implications of this. And for this, we called Robert Costa. He's a national political reporter for The Washington Post, moderator of PBS' Washington Week. And he was nice enough to stop by our studios in Washington, D.C. Robert, thanks so much for joining us once again.
ROBERT COSTA: Great to be with you.
MARTIN: So first, the book just came out yesterday. In fact, the publisher accelerated the timing of the distribution of the book in response to the fact that the White House was so unhappy about it. But for those who haven't read it, can you just give us some of the highlights that have gotten such a reaction out of the White House?
COSTA: The biggest reaction has been over Bannon's comments about Donald Trump's family and, specifically, about a meeting Donald Trump Jr. had last year with a Russian lawyer. Bannon, in the book, is published as saying that was treasonous, and it was unpatriotic to have that sort of meeting.
But the bigger picture of this book was not really about Bannon. It's about President Trump, and it's about the way his own advisers and confidants see him through the lens of these conversations with Michael Wolff. And there's a portrait that's painted that the president is somewhat incompetent. That's the view of the advisers in this book.
MARTIN: Now, the president is known to react strongly to slights, large and small, but I'm interested in how you interpret his reaction to this so far.
COSTA: You always have to be careful with President Trump to not read too much into these kind of episodes because advisers in his orbit - they come and go. Maybe the relationship with Bannon has fully unraveled. But there have been so many ups and downs in the Bannon-Trump relationship over the past two years. And Bannon was just talking to the president just weeks ago.
MARTIN: He was just talking to the president weeks ago.
COSTA: He was. He was actually talking to the president about that Alabama Senate race where both Bannon and the president backed Roy Moore, who was credibly accused of molesting teenage girls decades ago. And they were talking through the whole midterm map for next year. And that's the political question.
Now as the president has to make choices about races this year - for Senate, for House, for governor - and where he lands and who he supports, Bannon is not going to be that big of a force. That's why you saw the biggest smile in Washington about this book was Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell because he knows the president now seems to be moving more toward the mainstream of the Republican Party, at least in his alliances politically, than with Bannon.
MARTIN: In fact, the president talked about this earlier at Camp David. He was asked whether he'd be supporting any Republican Senate candidates taking on incumbents, and this is what he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: I don't see that happening at this moment. No. I think they've sort of scattered. We had somebody that lost us the state of Alabama. And I think, as far as I'm concerned, that was a shame that that was lost. It should never have been lost.
MARTIN: And who's he talking about there?
COSTA: He's referencing Bannon. Of course, the president did support Roy Moore as well. But you see the president fed up with Bannon, his longtime strategist. And now he's standing there at Camp David this weekend with Mitch McConnell with other leaders from the House. And it's a projection that the president and this White House, after passing a major tax bill, they, for the moment, are moving more toward the GOP, not that hard-charging Bannon style that defined them in 2017.
MARTIN: I do feel, though, I have to ask you about the aspect of the book that has gotten a lot of attention. And as I said earlier, we are not in a position to verify the truth or falsity of the statements that were made in this book about President Trump's abilities. But he addressed them. This morning he tweeted that he is, quote, "not smart but genius and a very stable genius at that," at which point, we cannot ignore the fact that particular concern has reached him. So the question then becomes, how does the political leadership of the country react to this?
COSTA: There have been long-simmering questions in Washington among members of both parties, but in particular Republicans, about the president's conduct - his behavior, his fitness for office. And the president had to address those simmering questions head on at Camp David because it's now not a simmer; it's a boil. But the thing that stands out in my reporting is this - so many people around the president still stay in the administration. Sometimes they grouse privately. They don't like the way he acts, but they stay there.
MARTIN: If I could just sort of clarify that. So you've covered the president for a long time. You've covered the campaign. Your reporting indicates that there is a concern about his behavior.
COSTA: There are many concerns throughout the administration. They ripple through every day whenever he turns on Twitter. It veers from thinking the president's unpresidential at times to not being fit for office. What's so important to pay attention to is what do people say publicly because so often - in this Michael Wolff book, in my report, in the reporting of others - people grouse privately. And until that really gets public, it's hard to pinpoint and say there's a real upheaval about that issue.
MARTIN: That's Robert Costa. He's national political reporter for The Washington Post, moderator of PBS' Washington Week. And he was kind enough to join us in our studios in Washington, D.C. Robert Costa, thanks so much for joining us once again.
COSTA: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
President Trump spoke earlier today from Camp David, where he's meeting with Republican leaders about their priorities moving into 2018. And he said that one of the topics on the agenda is immigration, especially what to do about so-called DREAMers - undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children.
In September, President Trump rescinded the Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, which protected DREAMers from deportation and allowed them to work legally. He left it up to Congress to come up with a legislative solution by March. But this week, three former Homeland Security secretaries argued that if Congress is going to implement a new immigration program, they need to do it quickly, ideally within the next two weeks. Former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, who served under President George W. Bush, is one of the people making that argument, and he's on the line now. Mr. Chertoff, thanks so much for speaking with us.
MICHAEL CHERTOFF: I'm happy to be on, Michel.
MARTIN: First of all, I wanted to ask why you decided to sign this letter. The two other signatories were - served under President Obama, who originated this program. Why did you decide to add your voice to this argument?
CHERTOFF: Well, I'm acutely aware of the challenges of implementing a complicated program from the standpoint of the Department of Homeland Security. And I believe that having a fair resolution of the situation for DREAMers is in the best interest of the country as well as a humane thing to do. But I'm also well aware that, as with any other big program, you've got to do it right. And if you don't have the time to implement it, then you wind up with the worst of all worlds. It doesn't work well for the DREAMers and it doesn't work well for the U.S. government.
MARTIN: So explain the time crunch, given that the deadline is in March.
CHERTOFF: Well, you know, it would be great to imagine that in the world of government or in the world of the private sector, everything works flawlessly. But my experience is you have to kind of prepare for glitches. So in this case, you would need to put in place a set of rules and regulations about how people come forward. What form of identification is appropriate? What kind of record checks have to be made? How do you verify people actually came when they were children as opposed to last year?
And setting up the protocols and then be able to communicate with all the offices around the country to make sure everybody understands exactly what they have to do is going to take some weeks. You also want to leave a little margin for error because sometimes unexpected things happen. And the last thing you want to do is to rush this at the end because either you wind up excluding people who should be included or you include people who should be excluded and that then becomes a problem.
MARTIN: When you were Homeland Security secretary, you worked with a bipartisan group of senators on an immigration overhaul bill that would have addressed these issues, you know, in a bigger way. That bill ultimately failed. So do you think this Congress has any more appetite to move forward in that way than they did when you were serving in government?
CHERTOFF: Very few people I've met actually argue that, on the merits, people who came to this country when they were 2 years old through no fault of their own turned out not to be legal but now have lived here their whole lives. I've met very few people who want to have them kicked out.
At the same time, I understand that there's a desire to balance that with funding and support for increased enforcement. I think that's a reasonable request, so it strikes me you could get a fairly narrow bill that addresses a couple of relatively non-controversial issues and get that done within a very short timeframe. And that might, by the way, be a very good inspiration for the possibility of tackling a broader set of issues over the longer term.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, is there a national security argument to be made about addressing this apart from making sure that people are who they say they are? Let's say that they are who they say they are, but is there a national security aspect to this that you can describe for us if Congress can't come to a resolution on this?
CHERTOFF: I would say this. I would say, first of all, of course, if we can't get a resolution and the DREAMers are forced to leave, there'll be a loss, first of all, to the employers and for those who are actually serving in government or doing something that benefits the government, there's going to be a loss there. There's going to be a very negative message about the way the U.S. views people who are not born here, which is going to have a ripple effect around the world in terms of the way people view us.
And then I think if we can't get this done properly, you're going to be distracting from enforcing against serious bad people by having people run around trying to round up DREAMers or expel them. And just from the standpoint of having an orderly, well-prioritized enforcement process, that would be a mistake.
MARTIN: That's Michael Chertoff. He was secretary of Homeland Security from 2005 to 2009. He's now executive chairman of the Chertoff Group. That's a security and risk management advisory firm. Mr. Chertoff, thanks so much for speaking with us.
CHERTOFF: Happy to do it, Michel.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE JAZZ JOUSTERS' "SEARCH WARRANT")
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now it's time for the Barbershop. That's where we talk to interesting people about what's in the news and what's on their minds. Joining us for a shape up this week - Kevin Blackistone. He's a professor of journalism at the University of Maryland and a frequent ESPN commentator. He joins us in our studios in Washington, D.C., once again. Kevin, welcome back. Happy New Year.
KEVIN BLACKISTONE: Thank you. You, too.
MARTIN: Also with us is former NFL wide receiver and tight-end Nate Jackson. His acclaimed football memoir, "Slow Getting Up: A Story Of NFL Survival From The Bottom Of The Pile," was a best seller. He joins us from NPR West in Culver City, Calif. Nate, it's good to talk to you again as well.
NATE JACKSON: Good to talk to you. Thank you.
MARTIN: And Natalie Weiner is a staff writer for the Bleacher Report, the digital sports news outlet. She joins us from our studios in New York. Good to have you with us as well, Natalie.
NATALIE WEINER: Thank you.
MARTIN: So the NFL playoffs start today. So we decided to keep things NFL focus. And, no, we're not talking scores. We want to talk about some of the big issues in and around the sport, which is - like it or not - the biggest ratings driver on television. So, you know, in that sense, it's an important, you know, cultural institution.
And I want to start with an issue that goes beyond football that was in the news this week. And that is the Trump administration's decision to reverse Obama administration's guidance to federal prosecutors which was to shield legal marijuana from federal involvement expect - except in narrow circumstances, such as cartel activity or where it's suspected to being sold to minors. And so we're going to have more on that in this program later. But I'm bringing this up because the issue of marijuana has been a big one in pro sports, including the NFL.
So Kevin Blackistone, I'll start with you. What's the state of play on this?
BLACKISTONE: Well, this year, the NFL and the NFL players' union, the NFLPA, actually started talking about the use of marijuana as an option to opioids for pain treatment with NFL players. And if there's anything that is more amazing in sports, I don't know of it - than watching NFL players put their bodies back together week after week during a season. It is like walking - it is like watching the walking wounded. And so this is a real issue.
And, in fact, one player earlier last year - during the summer, a former New York Jets player sued Attorney General Sessions over the possibility that he would actually start to move in this direction. So it's a big deal because there are a number of players who have all but testified to the success that marijuana has had for them in dealing with pain.
MARTIN: Is it - but it's still banned in most professional sports leagues...
BLACKISTONE: It is banned. It is...
MARTIN: ...Whether the state in which the sports franchise is located allows it or not.
BLACKISTONE: Right. It's absolutely banned. It is something that the NFL, for a long time, said that it would have nothing to do with. But it has changed its tune. It changed its tune in 2017. So, you know, I look at this in another way, too, because I look at this as an attack on black male athletes because...
MARTIN: Why?
BLACKISTONE: Well, because they make up almost two-thirds or - two-thirds or more of the NFL. They play the positions that suffer the most in terms of collisions and getting injured because they play the skill positions, and they play the positions on defense that have to make so many solo tackles. And so this is, to me, an attack on their livelihood. And I think it's a real concern for the NFL and the NFLPA.
MARTIN: Nate, you've lived this. I mean, you've written about it, and you've lived this. And you've become an advocate for medicinal marijuana, in part, for pain management. I just wanted to talk and ask, you know, what are the attitudes about this in the league among the players? And do you see - and I'm wondering whether you think that the Trump administration's stance on this is going to affect the dialogue about this?
JACKSON: I think the Trump administration stance will effect the league's view of this. But the individual teams and the players themselves - they're going to use what they need to stay on the field. Like Kevin said, they're putting Humpty Dumpty back together again every week. They know what works for their body. And so the league and the union are, supposedly, going to talk about this. And that's good. They're listening to the players for once.
But I do want to push back on Kevin's assertion that the skill-position players get hurt more than the linemen. The linemen are where the CTE findings are centered - 111 out of 112 brains cut open had CTE. The majority of those players are offensive and defensive linemen. That is the epicenter of the carnage on the field. And these guys need access to the medicine that works for them.
We're all kind of waking up to this opioid scourge. NFL players themselves are four times more likely to develop opioid addiction after playing. And so I think this is the league just kind of listening. But as far - as long as it's a federally illegal drug, the league itself, I don't think, will change the policy. But there is a distinction between recreational use and medicinal use. And my belief is that football players are using it medicinally.
MARTIN: I'm going to talk a little bit more about injuries in a minute, Nate. So talk - so hold that thought a minute.
JACKSON: OK.
MARTIN: I want to bring Natalie into this. And just - Natalie, what's your perspective on this?
WEINER: I mean, I think it's in the NFL's best interest to bring medicinal marijuana and cannabis usage, more broadly, into the fold because, obviously, CTE is sort of central to what their - to their long-term health. If the league wants to sustain itself, it needs to look at solutions to this. And there are very - there's very preliminary research that suggests that CBDs, cannabinoids, can be used to help prevent brain injury. So if that's a real thing, you know, the NFL needs to invest in that because that means that football - you know, a serious concern in football could be addressed.
MARTIN: Let me talk a little bit more about injuries. Nate, I'm going to go back to you on this. I mean, this is something that you've written very movingly about. You get the sense that this season that the injuries somehow were worse or more brutal than they have been in previous years. Is that your sense of it? And one of the reasons this is an issue that - of course, on the human level, it's an important issue.
But there are also people who believe that that is part of the reason that ratings are going down - that there are people who just find it just too hard to watch, especially when you understand the long-term consequences of these injuries. I mean, obviously, President Trump has a different perspective on this, and we'll talk about the protests in a minute. But, Nate, what's your perspective on this? I mean, do you feel it - is it somehow getting worse?
WEINER: I'm not sure if it's getting worse or if our attention is getting more focused on it because television production ability now gives us the ability to zoom in on every single little hit and see these guys seizing up or unconscious or having the fencing response when they get hit, whereas, in the old days, you didn't have that kind of high-definition reality in front of you on the screen to see it. And I think the NFL is very aware of this. And so they're trying to manage it.
They have this tent on the sideline where an injured player - they pull him into a tent and pull this tent over him. And I don't think that does anything to help kind of, you know, establish some transparent guidelines for the NFL. It does seem as if, you know, they're trying to create the illusion that it's not as dangerous as it is. But we've been having this conversation about the dangers of pro football since - for over 100 years. And it seems like we always come back to the game. And so I do think adjustments could be made to the game to make it a little safer. But the danger and the violence is what some people enjoy about it.
MARTIN: Well, let me go then to the protest. And, Natalie, I'll go to you first on this because, as I said earlier, you know, some argue that, you know, the injuries this season - I mean, like Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck, Ryan Shazier, which was a particularly kind of - it was a legal hit, but he's still recovering from it - is one of the reasons that ratings really are down.
Others, like President Trump, say it's those take-a-knee protests. And there's been a lot written about this. And so, Natalie, I'm going to go to you on this first because you've written about it. I mean, first of all, what is the state of these protests? At the end of the day, would you say that they were successful or not?
WEINER: I mean, it's really different just depending on who you talk to. I personally believe they are successful. There were players still protesting through the end of the regular season. I just wrote about this - players kneeling, players raising a fist, players sitting on the bench all during the anthem - all to convey the message that police brutality and systemic injustice are unacceptable, you know? And I think the fact that they continue to reiterate that - it may seem redundant. Or it may seem like President Trump has derailed things with his comments that are kind of, you know, intentionally trying to make people misunderstand what's going on. But at the end of the day, fans are still saying these words - police brutality, systemic injustice.
And the fans I spoke to, at least, even when they're trying to deny, you know, that the players don't have a point, they're still saying it's not about racism, you know? So I think just the fact that they're keeping those conversations urgent and happening. I think it's really important.
MARTIN: Kevin, what do you think?
BLACKISTONE: Well, it depends on what metric you use. If you use a metric in terms of involvement of players, the truth of the matter is there's been a small percentage of players all year long who've actually been involved in the protests with the exception being - coming right after the Alabama stump speech that Trump gave in which he spat an expletive at the player's mothers that got them to stand up.
And then there's the negotiations that went on between a faction of the players in the league about making some sort of contributions to social justice issues or forums. And that is going to be in the neighborhood of a hundred-million dollars. And it's just a fact that we have continued to talk about this all year long. And it continues to be somewhat of an issue. So I think in the long run, I think it has helped. I think it's been good.
MARTIN: Nate, very quickly, we only have about 30 seconds left. What do you think?
JACKSON: Yeah. I think it's definitely caused some ripples in the league. I know owners don't like it. And so it'll be interesting to see of the players who did demonstrate this year, how many of them will be back on rosters next year because I know that coaches and owners will be discussing, you know, how to deal with the more politically active players among them. They want to keep all the distractions out. I know the players want to play as well, but they want their voices to be heard. So it's difficult.
MARTIN: Well, thank you all for letting your voices be heard over the course of the year and more to come. Thank you, Nate Jackson, Kevin Blackistone and Natalie Weiner. Thank you all so much for speaking with us.
BLACKISTONE: Thank you.
WEINER: Thanks.
JACKSON: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Thomas Monson, the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the Mormon church, died this past Tuesday. He spent nearly a decade at the helm of the 16 million member church. Now, per church tradition, 93-year-old Russell Nelson will fill the vacancy. But we were wondering what this change could mean for the church, and could it signal any shifts in church policy? We called Matthew Bowman to talk about that. He's Professor of History at Henderson State University and author of "The Mormon People: The Making Of An American Faith." He was kind enough to join us in our studios in Washington, D.C. Professor Bowman, thanks so much for joining us.
MATTHEW BOWMAN: Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: First of all, would you just tell us about the office itself? I mean, the president also has another title, which I'm going to ask you to tell us what it means.
BOWMAN: Sure. So his official title is president of the churches of Christ of Latter Day Saints or presiding high priest of the priesthood of the church, but he's also sustained by the membership of the church as a prophet. That is somebody whom God will speak to. That is not actually an ecclesiastical office. He is not ordained to that office the same way, say, the pope is. But it is an office and he is accepted by the members of the church's holding.
MARTIN: Well, could you tell us a bit more about what distinguished Thomas Monson's tenure? And is there some way you could point to that Russell Nelson might either continue it or change it?
BOWMAN: Sure. Thomas Monson was president of the church for nearly 10 years, but he had been in church leadership as an apostle for 50 years before that. He was known for a long, long time as someone who really emphasized the importance of service. It's under his tenure, for instance, the church led in a massive effort to aid refugees from Syria. He added care for the poor and needy to the official mission of the church as something that should be done.
His tenure has also, though - was also very marked by disputes in the church, especially over issues of gender. One of the first things that happened after he became president of the church was that the church got involved in California's Proposition 8 in an effort to make same-sex marriage illegal in California. Since then, there have been other such disputes, especially over women's issues as well.
MARTIN: But isn't it also true that under his leadership the age that women could go on mission was lowered to 19, I believe?
BOWMAN: Yes.
MARTIN: And that is what allows more women to go on mission. Isn't that - was that seen as a liberal move?
BOWMAN: Yes, absolutely. Well, and one that will probably bring more women involved into church leadership.
MARTIN: So tell us about the expected new president, Russell Nelson.
BOWMAN: Nelson interred church leadership relatively late. He was a heart surgeon before he joined the highest ranks of church leadership. Nelson has recently given talks in the church's conference encouraging women to get more involved in the church, encouraging male leaders to listen more to women. But he also recently spoke out in defense of a policy enacted in November of 2015 in which the church made up policy that same-sex couples who got married would be excommunicated and their children cannot be baptized until age 18, until they were legally and adults. Nelson has been the most visible defender of that policy.
MARTIN: So are there specific things, specific to the Mormon church, that he's got to confront?
BOWMAN: Sure. Well, one that we haven't mentioned yet is the continued transformation of the church. The majority of Mormons actually do not live in the United States. Some live outside the United States, predominantly in Latin America and in Africa. Activity rates, participation in the church in those areas has been rather low. And there are a lot of reasons for that, but one commonly assumed is that the culture of the church, the policies of the church are very much marked by the American West and the culture of kind of the middle class in the United States. And one thing that Nelson will have to do is to think harder about that.
MARTIN: That's Matthew Bowman. He's a professor of history at Henderson State University. Professor Bowman, thank you so much for speaking to us.
BOWMAN: Thank you for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSIONS IN THE SKY'S "POSTCARD FROM 1952")
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to take a few minutes to consider the latest action in the legal debate over marijuana. In a week when California legalized the sale of recreational marijuana, the Trump administration indicated it wants to move in another direction, opening the door to a return to aggressive federal enforcement of marijuana laws. Before we go into the news of the week, we wanted to understand how pot became so political in the first place.
JOHN HUDAK: As long as there's been the United States, there's been marijuana.
MARTIN: John Hudak is the author of "Marijuana: A Short History" and deputy director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution. Hudak says that for the first half of the nation's history, cannabis was treated much like any other pharmaceutical.
HUDAK: Cannabis is something you would see in an apothecary.
MARTIN: But, he says, around the turn of the 20th century, the plant was drawn into a heated debate over Mexican immigration, and marijuana - the Spanish term for the drug - came in to use.
HUDAK: Marijuana sounded foreign, and it was something that was used by foreigners, so it was inherently scarier than just saying cannabis. By the 1930s, it became the jazz drug. That was a drug that you'd find in New Orleans or Chicago or Harlem. It was associated with African-Americans, and it was another way to vilify an outgroup using this drug.
MARTIN: Hudak says that marijuana was included in a broader national push to restrict recreational drug use. And threatening rhetoric about the dangers of marijuana was repeated over the decades by officials at the highest levels of government.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RICHARD NIXON: America's public enemy No. 1 in the United States is drug abuse.
HUDAK: Eventually, in 1970, Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act. President Nixon signed it, and that outlawed marijuana in the United States because it declared marijuana is considered a schedule one substance, which means that it is illegal in all circumstances, no questions asked.
MARTIN: Until 1996, when California passed a ballot initiative legalizing medical marijuana.
HUDAK: That sets off a chain reaction of other states, during which time, the federal government was wringing its hands trying to figure out what to do about this growing problem. But all the while, states were ignoring the feds and following each other into creating this broader system of medical marijuana availability in the United States.
MARTIN: Which brings us to 2013, when the Obama administration stepped in with a set of guidelines that outlined a more flexible approach for prosecutors. And then this week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions rescinded those guidelines. Now, some in law enforcement applauded the move, but others, including Republican lawmakers in states like Colorado and California, sharply disagree. We wanted to know what the change could mean, so we asked the author of the Obama-era rules, Deputy Attorney General James Cole.
JAMES COLE: Well, I think the biggest issue is really yet to be seen whether or not it creates uncertainty in this industry that has grown up about whether it can continue to function. And I think one of the issues you look at in that regard is, what will the prosecutions be going forward? Is this going to be a change in attitude and actual enforcement, or is it going to be pretty much business as usual and things are going to continue as they have been? That's yet to be seen, and it'll take some time for that to show itself.
MARTIN: So given that we've already seen that there are a number of states where marijuana has already been legalized, I mean, you're a prosecutor in those states, what do you do?
COLE: Federal prosecutors don't have infinite resources, and they have to make choices. And one of the choices is now going to be, in light of the will of the voters of my state, am I going to use those resources to prosecute inconsequential marijuana cases or business-related marijuana cases, or are I am I going to use it on something that may mean more to the voters and to my constituents? I think that's going to be part of the equation each prosecutor's going to go through.
MARTIN: So if you're in a state where there isn't a tolerance for legalizing marijuana, what do you do?
COLE: If you find that it is creating public safety issues, if you find it's creating harm in your community, you're probably going to go and prosecute.
MARTIN: But what if you find that it's not? I mean, it's just the - I mean, that was one of the issues underlying the push in some places to decriminalize marijuana use or to outright legalize marijuana use is the sense that people were paying a very high price for a very small infraction. I guess I'm wondering, how do you think this is going to play out in, you know, further confrontation with law enforcement or what?
COLE: The federal government for years has not been prosecuting simple possession cases for marijuana. That's just not worth the federal government's time. The question is going to be whether or not they go after businesses because if they go after businesses, then they're going to create a level of uncertainty that may have ripple effects that go through that industry. There's tax revenue for the states that become at risk. There's jobs that become at risk. And if the industry isn't there, you have the cartels coming back in and the gangs coming back in.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, this may be outside of your area of expertise, but I was wondering if you think that rescinding this guidance could be a forcing mechanism for Congress to take action here and try to establish some nationwide framework for thinking about marijuana?
COLE: I think it might be because you have more and more states that are growing in their marijuana legalization programs. You have the amendments that are currently on the Justice Department appropriations bill that will not allow the Justice Department to use any of its funds to prevent the implementation of a state's medical marijuana program. This is an area that really screams out for some more clarity. The best clarity can come from Congress. That's the place this needs to be dealt with.
MARTIN: That's James Cole. He served as deputy attorney general under the Obama administration. He authored the so-called Cole memo which directed federal marijuana enforcement until earlier this week, when it was rescinded by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. James Cole, thanks so much for speaking with us.
COLE: Thanks for having me here today.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Fans of ABC's "Scandal" should have no trouble recognizing this voice.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SCANDAL")
JOE MORTON: (As Rowan Pope) For you, it's always summertime and the living is easy. Daddy's rich and your momma's good-looking. You're a Grant. You got money in your blood. You are a boy. I'm a man.
MARTIN: That is Joe Morton playing Rowan Eli Pope, the notorious scheming father of Olivia Pope. His scene-stealing work in the role has earned Joe Morton an Emmy as well as a whole new generation of fans. As "Scandal" begins its final season this year, we thought this would be a good time to check back in with Joe Morton, whose work has spanned 40 years in film, television and live theater.
And I started by asking Joe Morton about a recent project he'd just finished, a production of "Turn Me Loose" about the life story and career of the comedian and civil rights activist Dick Gregory. He just died last year. Dick Gregory was one of the first black comics to regularly perform in front of white audiences in the 1960s. And I asked Joe Morton why so many critics called "Turn Me Loose" relevant to the current moment.
MORTON: Unfortunately, we're living in a period that seems to be echoing what happened in 1968. The kinds of racial problems that we seem to be facing as of the last couple of years of white policemen shooting black men are things that he talked about in the '60s. Corporate greed is another topic of his which, you know, again, as the new tax laws, you know, we're still talking about corporate greed. So a lot of the things that seem to have happened almost 45 years ago seem to be repeating themselves today.
MARTIN: And I was wondering if you see a connection between "Turn Me Loose" in your work on "Scandal"?
MORTON: I think I choose my material based on what it has to say. And in choosing to do Dick Gregory, it was because I then had the opportunity to say the kind of political things that I wish I had written myself. And there it was so that I could sort of put it out there in the world. And the same thing is kind of true with Rowan. I didn't necessarily know at the outset where we were going with that character but vis-a-vis the clip that you played, suddenly you have a black man who is in chains in his underwear telling a white Southern Republican president that he's a boy. So in that sense, I suppose it's relatable in that you have two black male individuals who are very powerful in terms of how they express themselves in the world that they occupy.
MARTIN: And the other thing I think too is these glorious monologues that you are responsible for delivering. And let me just play one again from season 3.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "SCANDAL")
MORTON: (As Rowan Pope) He told you that you would be first lady and you believed him. Did I not raise you for better? How many times have I told you you have to be what?
KERRY WASHINGTON: (As Olivia Pope) Twice...
MORTON: (As Rowan Pope) What?
WASHINGTON: (As Olivia Pope) ...Twice as good.
MORTON: (As Rowan Pope) Twice as good as them to get half of what they have.
MARTIN: Gosh, I'm sure you know by now how Twitter went crazy over this. And I'm wondering if people have kind of walked up to you on the street and told you, you know, how many times their parents may have said the same thing to them?
MORTON: Exactly. I don't think there's a black child in America probably who hasn't heard that speech in terms of having to work twice as hard to get half as much. So it resonated across the country, which was wonderful for the character, for the show and for me, et cetera, et cetera. Even the other clip that you played before, the hell and the high water, those seem to be the kind of signature pieces that people will ask me about when they see me on a plane or on the street or whatever it is. But twice as much is, as I said, one of those things I think that every black child in America has probably heard at some time or another.
MARTIN: I was wondering, given - as I mentioned at the beginning, you've had a very wide-ranging career, I mean, starting with your breakout role in "Brother From Another Planet." I understand that there is talk of actually making that into a television series which is - which would be really interesting in the current times. And I think people who can hear your voice can hear your classical training, I mean, the way you deliver your lines, the nuance that you bring to everything that you say. I was wondering, though, when you first started out, did you think this was the career you were going to have?
MORTON: (Laughter) I didn't know what kind of career I was going to have. When I was in school, my mother thought - because I changed my majors from psychology to drama and my mother thought that I was insane. My grandmother, who was supposed to help me with school, withdrew her support because, again, she thought I was crazy. Because their point of view was that, given what the world was, society would only let a black man in that business - in this business go but so far. You know, I started in 1968. And a lot of the roles that were available for black men in particular were mostly either drug dealers or pimps or some strange bugaboo of some sort. And I made a decision, it was a very clear decision, that I would not take those roles, which was very frustrating for my agents at the time.
I wanted to put together a career that would be an assembly of different black men who happened to be black, that those characters didn't necessarily have to have any particular meaning or symbolism by being black. They just needed to be three-dimensional male characters, "Brother From Another Planet" being sort of the perfect example of that. Here was a movie about an extraterrestrial who was escaping slavery from his planet to come here, only to find out that things are not that different. And you're also going into Harlem and seeing Harlem through the eyes of someone who looks like he should know what's going on but has no idea. He's a stranger in Harlem, and so he's learning about it as the audience is learning about it. So I think along the way I was looking for parts and looking for projects that had some greater reverberation than just entertainment.
MARTIN: Before I let you go, I did want to ask, you know, this is your work, your professional work. I mean, in "Scandal," for example, the show has taken on Ferguson, mass incarceration. I mean, it features a (unintelligible) character. A lot of artists seem to be asking themselves, like, what's my job right now, particularly in the current political moment. I wonder, do you feel called to any particular position or place or task right now?
MORTON: I think it's important for artists to hold a mirror up to the world that surrounds them. I just watched "Detroit," which is enormously disturbing when you watch it. But it tells the truth about a time in this country when the criminalization of black people was so overt that people were being sort of hauled off for no reason. People were being killed for clearly no reason at all. That's come back to us again, as I said before, in the last couple of years.
So yes, I think on some level there is a responsibility not to be a "role model," quote, unquote, but certainly to hold a mirror up to what's going on. I mean, I think that what Dick Gregory proved was that you can make people laugh, you can be an entertainer and say something all at the same time. And that's what I guess I'm hoping I'll be able to do.
MARTIN: That's Joe Morton. He plays Rowan Pope on ABC's "Scandal." He was nice enough to join us during his break from filming at our studios in New York. Joe Morton, thank you so much for speaking with us once again.
MORTON: It's been a pleasure.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to begin the program today with more on the book by writer Michael Wolff, "Fire And Fury." It's his account of goings on inside the Trump White House. It was released on Friday, and it has already touched off a furious response from the White House because it paints a portrait of a chaotic Trump campaign and an undisciplined, immature and intemperate president. It suggests that even some of the president's top aides question his fitness for the office.
Today, former chief strategist Steve Bannon responded for the first time. He said he regrets not responding sooner. And he said quotes from him suggesting President Trump's son, Don Jr.'s, meeting with the Russians in 2016 was treasonous were actually directed at another campaign manager, Paul Manafort. He also reiterated his support for President Trump's agenda, but he did not deny being a source for the book, nor did he disavow other critical comments.
Meanwhile, author Michael Wolff and defenders of Donald Trump continue to debate the book's veracity on the Sunday morning talk shows and in op-eds. David Bossie is one of those defenders. He served as the deputy campaign manager to the Trump campaign and is currently president of the conservative political group Citizens United. On Friday, Bossie penned an op-ed in The Washington Post, calling "Fire And Fury," quote, a "fake book that reads like the National Enquirer on steroids," unquote.
I spoke with David Bossie earlier today, and I started our conversation by asking him to walk me through his criticisms of the book.
DAVID BOSSIE: Well, I have several of him and his book, one of which is the book is boring. I read it, and I could hardly stay awake. It is a - other than the salaciousness of it, which is the provocative comments by some of the staffers, there's no real information in it other than what he claims. And he says in the opening of his book that this is a truth that he believes to be true, not what is true.
MARTIN: The book's author, Michael Wolff, spoke with my colleague Kelly McEvers on Friday. And she asked him about allegations from the White House and several people quoted in the book that their quotations were mischaracterized or fabricated, and this is what he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MICHAEL WOLFF: When you write a book like this - and I wrote this over a long period time and spoke to people over a long period of time - people regret what they said to me, what they say to any reporter who they relax with and they forget who they're talking to. And I have sympathy for that. And I think the natural response is to say, oh, my God, I didn't say it. But I will tell you, they said it.
MARTIN: So, Mr. Bossie, here's the elephant in the room here.
BOSSIE: (Laughter.)
MARTIN: This president and the people who defend him have a history of making exaggerated or false statements. You know, he had the largest inauguration audience ever - that's not true. That Muslims celebrated in New Jersey on 9/11 - that's not true. That Hillary Clinton started the birther movement - that's not true. So the question is, who has the moral authority here when you have a candidate and people who defend him who have a history of making exaggerated or false statements?
BOSSIE: Yeah, look. I can - I'm going to speak to this book. Michael Wolff is a fabricator extraordinaire. He's lying in this book. And I'm a guy who would rather ignore the book. That's how my style is - to ignore the book and hope it goes away. But that's not the outcome. And Michael Wolff did this exactly on cue to sell books. He took the most salacious, outrageous lies. Whether people in the White House or outside the White House or in the campaign or transition spoke to him or not, I don't know. But I could tell you, I wrote a book on the campaign and on the transition in the beginning of the White House called "Let Trump Be Trump." Our book has been out for one month. No one has questioned the veracity of the book.
MARTIN: So today, Mr. Bannon issued a statement expressing regret about some of the statements that - in the book. Now you said in your op-ed that you were very disappointed with him. You said it more strongly than I am. Does that statement by Mr. Bannon do anything to assuage your anxiety?
BOSSIE: Yes, what I said was Steve needed to clear the air. He needed to make a statement because, you know, I think he was overrun. And so when you're being overrun like that, I know there's a tendency to not say anything and hope it blows over. But in this case, he had to say something. I'm very pleased with his statement, and I think he needs to continue that by showing that he is a supporter of this president and a supporter of the agenda, which no one questioned.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, Mr. Bossie, you just made the point that, you know, your preference as a seasoned campaign person would have been to ignore this and let it go away and be about your business. There are those who say that the president's furious response - calling names, et cetera - proves the author's point.
BOSSIE: Well, no, I would disagree. I think that what the president - first of all, this president, unlike a lot of career politicians in the world, you know, they're not as tough as this president. And when you attack his family, which is what this author has done, this president's not going to take that lying down. And this guy is the best counterpuncher in the business. And this deceitful author is somebody who put forward this diatribe, and this president has called him out on it. Now, I personally would have loved to have seen the president say one thing and move on, but that's his call. He's the president. He gets to make it.
MARTIN: That's David Bossie. He's president of Citizens United. He was deputy campaign manager of the Trump presidential campaign. He wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post that we've been talking about, and he was nice enough to let us call him on his Sunday. David Bossie, thanks so much for speaking with us today.
BOSSIE: Thanks so much for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now to Hollywood, where the first major awards ceremony of the season, the Golden Globes, is being held tonight. For weeks now, it's been obvious that the evening will reckon some way or another with one of the major stories of the past year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SETH MEYERS: Hi. I'm Seth Meyers, and I'm hosting this year's Golden Globes. And I'm very excited because everyone is going to be there. What's that? Oh, he's not going to be there. Well, that's good. Nobody wants him there.
MARTIN: That, of course, is a commercial for tonight's show. And Seth Meyers was making a reference to the scandal that started with allegations of sexually abusive behavior by producer Harvey Weinstein that has since implicated many other top names. And with Meyers' reputation for politically charged comedy, it seems obvious that the scandal will be addressed somehow. Also, a number of stars have promised other moves to draw attention to the issue, such as wearing black.
But beyond the symbolism and the hashtags and the statements of solidarity, the bigger question is whether a powerful industry that's been run by rich white men acting with impunity can actually change. Dana Goodyear is a writer for The New Yorker magazine, and she examined that question in her latest article for the magazine. And she's with us now from NPR West in Culver City, Calif. Dana, thanks so much for joining us.
DANA GOODYEAR: I'm so happy to be here. Thank you.
MARTIN: I'm going to go back to this one anecdote from your piece that just haunted me. And it was a conversation that you had with an actress that you described as being quite elderly at this point - you know, in her 90s, a former contract player who had been a child star. She told you the sickening story about how when she just turned 16, she was expected to start sexually servicing one of MGM's top writers. And she reported this to one of the top executives at MGM who told her, quote, "you'll get used to it" and threatened to destroy her career if she didn't go along with the writer's proposition. It was an explicit quid pro quo. And what she said was very clear. She said, this has been going on forever.
GOODYEAR: Yeah, she said it's not a bit different than today. And I think it is something that has been so internalized by everybody working in the industry that many, many things have either been repressed or been brushed off because it is systemic and it's so built-in. And what has been going on in the last several months is an upwelling of kind of we have to reconsider what that interaction was, what that - quote, unquote - "affair" was. What was the nature of that relationship? So there's this reframing, and I think that pretty much everyone is going through that.
MARTIN: Well, can I just ask you, though - I mean, a lot of the men you spoke with became - seemed to be really concerned that they were going to somehow be tainted or falsely accused. I have to wonder about the women. I mean, do the women then wonder whether people - women who are successful - do they worry that then people will assume that the origin of their success is that they were sexually coerced and sexually servicing somebody?
GOODYEAR: There are women with real stories to tell who still feel quite reluctant to come forward because of what the career repercussions might be. And one of the things that's really tricky about the issue is the repercussions don't have to be overt. I mean, in the case of the actress in her - now in her 90s - who told me the story of having turned down the quid pro quo offer when she was 16, it was quite clear. Do this, and you get the part. Don't do this, and your career is over. And another really dangerous and insidious form of retaliation is the one that you don't know is happening - when you just don't get that job or you can't sell that pitch or you are somehow isolated professionally. And I think that people have a very legitimate reason for being worried about speaking out - that those kinds of things will still happen.
MARTIN: So what are some of the things that are happening that people are trying to do to bring about a change in this culture that, as you've established and as other people have testified, has gone on for a very long time?
GOODYEAR: Well, this is what I think is exciting about the moment - is that there is an opportunity. And in spite of all of the obstacles that women have faced in Hollywood, there are a lot of women who have amassed a lot of power - financial power and star power, the ability to get things done. And a lot of those women are getting together.
I don't know if you saw on New Year's Day there was a full-page ad in The New York Times taken out by a group calling themselves Time's Up, which is a group of women in Hollywood who have been meeting since October. I referred to it a little bit in my piece. But they're saying to the studios and - well, actually starting with the agencies - you need to make structural changes in the corporate makeup. And the catchphrase is 50/50 by 2020. That means 50/50 representation - gender representation - on the corporate level by 2020, which is two years from now, so that's a pretty rapid pace of change that they are mandating. And my guess is that it's - you know, if you want me as a client, you will put this in place.
MARTIN: That was Dana Goodyear. Her latest article "Exposure: In The Wake Of Scandal, Can Hollywood Change Its Ways?" is in the new issue of The New Yorker. She was kind of to join us from NPR West in Culver City. Dana Goodyear, thanks so much for speaking with us.
GOODYEAR: Thank you very much.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to spend the next few minutes talking about race and class in America with two people who've been thinking about these issues but in very different ways. In a few minutes, we'll talk with the head of the Kellogg Foundation, one of the country's largest. It's pouring millions of dollars into ending what it calls structural racism. But first, someone you may know for his controversial writings in social science, Charles Murray. He co-authored with Richard Herrnstein the book, "The Bell Curve," which looked at IQ as a determinant of socioeconomic status - a book many critics have derided over the years as racist. His other books include "Coming Apart: The State Of White America, 1960-2010" and "Losing Ground."
Mr. Murray recently announced that he'll be retiring as the W.H. Brady Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, moving into an emeritus role. He's giving a major address tomorrow to mark this transition, so we thought we'd take this moment to talk about his career. And I started by asking him about "The Bell Curve."
CHARLES MURRAY: Why did it become so controversial? It is because IQ all by itself is kind of a flashpoint, and IQ and race - if you put that into a book, even if it's one small part of a very long book, the book becomes about IQ and race. And so I think that what I experienced after that is as simple as I violated a taboo.
MARTIN: But why IQ to begin with? I mean, there are a lot of things that one could consider and evaluate in the disparate experiences of different groups in the United States. Like, why IQ?
MURRAY: Well, the book was not about IQ and race. The subtitle of the book was, "Intelligence And Class Structure In American life." Michel, you know what? Hardly anybody realizes that the first couple of chapters of "Coming Apart" were basically a recapitulation of the argument in "The Bell Curve." That's how little people focused on "The Bell Curve's" real message.
MARTIN: Well, there is intellectual - one more question on this point before we move on - but there is an intellectual wing, if I can call it that, of the alt-right that does rely on tropes of racial difference tied to what they claim are intellectual differences. And I wonder if you think you may have contributed to that unwittingly and how you feel about that?
MURRAY: If I contributed to it, it's not because of anything that Dick Herrnstein and I wrote. It's because of what people want to say we wrote.
MARTIN: I wanted to talk about some of your policy prescriptions, which have never gotten as much attention as your controversial analyses have. But you talked about simplifying the tax code and also a universal basic income. Why do you think that those ideas have not gotten as much attention as the other parts of your professional sort of legacy?
MURRAY: Well, the universal basic income has gotten some attention from people on the left who are also in favor of basic income. But I guess that - well, this is going to sound fatuous, but I'll say it anyway. You know, there is an image of me out there for which advocacy of a universal basic income is inconsistent. It doesn't fit the narrative because this is supposed to be the hardhearted, racist, sexist, homophobe, Charles Murray. And he wants to increase spending on the poor? That doesn't fit. I want to give people a basic income, so that if you're working hard, doing the best you can, that you can not just survive, but you can have a decent life.
MARTIN: What's keeping you up at night now? What I hear in your work - whether one agrees or disagrees with your methods and your reasoning - what I do think people see in your work is a deep concern about the American social fabric. Would that be fair?
MURRAY: That's fair. And that - you talk about keeping me up at night - doesn't keep me up anymore at night, Michel, because I have to tell you that I've pretty much given up.
MARTIN: Really?
MURRAY: If you take a look at the book called "By The People" that came out a couple of years after "Coming Apart," I start it by announcing that the American project in its traditional form is dead. And I'm sorry to say that I really think that's true. I think that a great deal of what made America special is lost beyond recall, and I don't have any good policy ideas that I am at all confident will go very far in bringing that back.
MARTIN: And by that, you mean - what? - civically engaged, generally - people generally invested in the society in an equal way and...
MURRAY: You know, I'm thinking there aren't that many societies around the world. In fact, we were the one in which people who happened to live in geographic proximity to each other were as capable of solving their problems and dealing with human needs in their communities as American civil society used to be.
MARTIN: And you have no prescription for that?
MURRAY: Nope. Some of the forces at work here are simply not reversible. I am afraid that what we're looking at is the United States as a rich country, as a powerful country - that's not going to go away - we aren't going to be America, the kind of America that the rest of the world thought was both occasionally exasperating but also awfully cool and a place that they wanted to be like or wanted to go to. I think that's going to fade.
MARTIN: And your opinion of the Trump administration?
MURRAY: I'm in the same spot as a lot of people of my positions. If you go through a lot of the actual policy changes that were made during the last year, I'm in favor of a whole bunch of them. Do I think that Donald Trump represents a huge danger - both existential danger in terms of immediate disasters, but also, he's kind of the embodiment of everything that the founders told us would characterize the demise of the experiment that they set in motion.
MARTIN: That's Charles Murray. He's the author of many books. We're speaking to him on the occasion of his decision to take emeritus status at the American Enterprise Institute on the occasion of his 75th birthday, which is tomorrow. So once again, let us be the first to wish you a happy birthday. And thank you for speaking with us today, Mr. Murray.
MURRAY: Thank you, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Here's a very different take on race and society from La June Montgomery Tabron. She is president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, one of the country's largest philanthropic organizations. It's taken on the ambitious goal of, quote, "eradicating structural racism," unquote. Last June, the foundation sent $24 million in grants to organizations across the country. Six months later, we thought this would be a good time for a progress report, so I reached La June Montgomery Tabron via Skype. And I started by asking her what structural racism is and how it can be eliminated.
LA JUNE MONTGOMERY TABRON: For us, it starts with the belief of a hierarchy based on human value. And what we believe is this belief has been rooted in all of us - is conscious and unconscious. And what we believe is, through dialogue, you can shift that belief. And once you eliminate this belief in the hierarchy of human value, then you can begin to treat all of us as one humanity and create policies and systems that support everyone in the country.
MARTIN: Well, give us an example, if you would, of what some of the projects that the foundation has invested in to lead toward that result?
MONTGOMERY TABRON: We've invested a lot of work early on in the social determinants of health; we've look at educational outcomes. And what we see in our work is that there continues to be disparities along racial lines. And as the country becomes more diverse, this is going to be an issue for children into the future. And when you look at what's happening now, we have over 150 cities across the country who are making a proclamation around a national day of racial healing. For example, in New Orleans, there's going to be a concert, and several organizations have come together in New Orleans to make this happen and bring the citizens of New Orleans together for healing.
MARTIN: Can I just - I'm trying to figure out how to say this in a respectful way. That sounds, like, kind of weak sauce given the magnitude of the problem that you've described. For example, I mean, the Kellogg Foundation has been known in the past for investing heavily in education, for example. Like, in the home - in your sort of home base of Battle Creek, Mich., you know, recognizing that white flight has led to a deterioration of the tax base for the Battle Creek schools, for example. Investing, you know, tens of millions of dollars to keep the schools at a high level to even improve their level of performance. So that seems like a tangible investment in addressing the inequities that you've described. So are you saying that the main focus now is to get people to have conversations or to go to a concert? Is that the main focus of the work?
MONTGOMERY TABRON: This framework requires many efforts. And so as you've mentioned, I am so proud of what we're doing in Battle Creek and Mississippi. What we also know is, fundamentally, this racism exists because of the lack of connections and the fact that we've lived in separated societies. And actually, separation and segregation is one of the key structures that allows racial inequality to exist.
MARTIN: How do you know that you're not just preaching to the converted, that the people who are drawn to these kinds of experiences are the people who are open to people of other races to begin with? I mean, for example, do you think that people who attended those rallies in Charlottesville, Va., would be interested in coming to your racial healing dialogues?
MONTGOMERY TABRON: Well, I can tell you we're making progress in that regard. I've been personally a part of these circles where someone will start out in a very contentious space and very nervous, and after several hours of dialogue, actually say, you know, you changed my perspective.
MARTIN: That was La June Montgomery Tabron. She's the president and CEO of the Kellogg Foundation. She's traveling, but we reached her via Skype. Ms. Montgomery Tabron, thanks so much for speaking with us. I hope we'll talk again and you'll tell us more about what the Kellogg Foundation is working on.
MONTGOMERY TABRON: Thank you for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The Winter Olympics are upon us. They start next month. And if you plan to watch, chances are figure skating will be one of the reasons. It's a driver of television ratings, a fan favorite, and every so often, a source of drama. This year is no exception. The U.S. national championships just wrapped up in San Jose. The Olympic teams were picked shortly after, and we'll let Christine Brennan of USA Today take it from here. She joins us via Skype. Christine, good to talk with you again.
CHRISTINE BRENNAN: Michel, my pleasure. Thanks so much.
MARTIN: So let's start with the women's event. Ashley Wagner is a superstar. She's certainly a name that a lot of people know, but she didn't make the team. She was not happy about that. What happened?
BRENNAN: Yeah, it was interesting because a lot of us thought going in she would make the team. She's got the international reputation. She's got the world silver medal from just 21 months ago. And while people might say, well, wait a minute, what about now versus reputation? Well, she's actually still one of the two or three best American skaters in the world. But the judges hammered her, and we never see that. For some reason, the judges basically said here that, Ashley, you know, we're going to hold you to a higher standard. It was as if they said, hey, goodbye, you know, get out of here.
Extraordinary. I've never seen anything quite like it. But the - what has happened is U.S. judges, Michel, have said they wanted to go with younger skaters. They picked Brady Tennell as the national champion. This is kind of the Russianization (ph) of U.S. figure skating. The little jumping beans that are winning the titles in the world are from Russia, and I think the U.S. basically said, if we can't beat them, let's join them. Let's get rid of the older skaters. Let's get the new kids going. And that's exactly what happened here.
MARTIN: So let's talk about the men's side. What happened there?
BRENNAN: Well, Nathan Chen is going to be an Olympic medal contender, maybe even for the gold - 18 years old. He made it. He ran away with the competition - no problem, and he's made the Olympic team. Second place Saturday night was Ross Miner. But as skating is, Michel, you move from the competition to the committee room. And following a bizarre kind of arcane set of criteria, a committee dropped Ross Miner and did not put him on the team, brought in a man named Adam Rippon to join Vincent Zhou and Nathan Chen as the three men who will go to the Olympics.
MARTIN: Well, what happens now? Do you think it will affect how people watch the Olympics next month? What are your thoughts about that?
BRENNAN: It will have absolutely no impact on the medals. But in terms of leaving a sour taste in the mouths of skaters - the young kids who skate everyday who watched last night, and then saw the way that the committee voted, the coaches - I talked to Mark Mitchell who was left off the '92 Olympic team in a very similar twist. He was talking about, why even have the nationals? We even come? Why did we pay for a hotel? Why did Ross Miner spend the money to travel here if his performance didn't matter? So I think it's a black eye for the sport, even though in terms of pivoting to the Olympics, U.S. figure skating is saying, OK, done with that, moving on. And the bottom line is skating always has controversy. And here we are once again. It never, ever, ever disappoints.
MARTIN: That's Christine Brennan reporting from San Jose and the U.S. National Figure Skating Championships. She reports for USA Today. Christine, thank you.
BRENNAN: Michel, my pleasure. Thanks so much.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The Olympics will be the focus of talks between North and South Korea on Tuesday. It's the first time the two countries will meet since early 2016. Now this comes after a week when President Trump continued to make Twitter threats against North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. We wanted to understand how people living in both North and South Korea are viewing the escalating rhetoric, especially in the weeks before the Olympics. We're joined now by Jean H. Lee. She's a North Korea expert at the Wilson Center. She also opened the Pyongyang bureau in North Korea for the Associated Press in 2012, and she is one of the few Western journalists who spent quite a lot of time in the country. Jean, welcome to the program.
JEAN H. LEE: Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: So we wanted to start with the conversations that people on the Korean Peninsula are having. What do they think about the back and forth between Kim Jong Un and Trump?
LEE: The back and forth is unsettling. South Koreans are somewhat used to these tensions. This tension has been going on for decades. They don't necessarily think that North Korea is going to strike. But what they don't know is whether or not Donald Trump is going to strike.
MARTIN: Does the proximity to the upcoming Winter Olympics play any role in how people in South Korea are feeling about all this?
LEE: The South Korean government, I can tell you, is very nervous about whether provocations will happen during the Olympics. And the South Korean government is doing what it can to try to assure tourists and athletes that it'll be a secure, and safe and successful Olympics because there certainly have been questions about whether some countries should hold their athletes back. And it's also another chance for South Korea to show the world that they are a developed country despite the security situation. So they are doing what they can. The South Korean government certainly wants to bring about a certain sense of peace, and that's why we have these talks coming up this week, and that's very important obviously to the South Koreans.
MARTIN: I want to hear about that in a minute, but I did want to ask you about North Korea because I think the sense that most people have is that North Korea is a country that's so closed off from the rest of the world that information doesn't get in. Do you have any sense of what people in North Korea know about all of this? Do they know about President Trump's tweets referring to, quote, "Little Rocket Man"? Do you have any sense of how this relationship is being portrayed in North Korea?
LEE: So most North Koreans don't have access to the Internet. The government does maintain very tight control over the flow of information going in and out of North Korea. And the regime feeds their people this narrative, and they're telling their people, yes, we know you're going without power, without food, but we have to do this in order to survive. And the military drills that the U.S. holds with the South Koreans - sending bombers up the coast - and the rhetoric from the U.S. president all feed into that narrative. So while the North Koreans aren't seeing the tweets, they are getting the message from their propaganda that look at this - the U.S. president is threatening us. And so we need to pour our resources into these nuclear weapons to defend you.
MARTIN: Can you give us a sense of what North and South Korea will be talking about during these - this planned conversation on Tuesday?
LEE: The main discussion will be about sending North Korean athletes to the PyeongChang Olympics starting in February. Now, the North Koreans are incredibly savvy. They know that the South Koreans will see North Korean involvement in the Olympics as a little bit of an insurance policy against provocation. But it is - does also open the way for a better relationship between North and South Korea. So it's really important that they take advantage of that. And yet, it's going to cause quite a bit of nervousness on the part of Washington because what Washington doesn't want is for the two Koreas to build this relationship without sidelining - they certainly don't want Washington to be sidelined.
MARTIN: That's Jean H. Lee. She's a North Korea expert with the Wilson Center. We have caught up with her in London. She's normally based in Seoul. Jean, thanks so much for speaking with us.
LEE: Thanks for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Yesterday, we spoke with screenwriter and director Aaron Sorkin about his new film "Molly's Game." The film tells the story of Molly Bloom, a driven young competitive skier vying for a spot at the Olympics whose athletic career ends in a dramatic wipeout. She decides to work as a cocktail waitress while waiting to start her next high-pressure career as a lawyer. But instead, she stumbles into the world of exclusive underground high-stakes celebrity poker games. And then she gets into the sights of the Russian mafia and U.S. prosecutors. All that's in the first few minutes of the film, by the way.
But at its core, the film is about a woman trying to make her way in a man's world, where men make all the rules. That is so much of the moment right now, we thought we should ask the real Molly Bloom to tell us her story in her own words. And she's with us now from our studios in New York City. Molly Bloom, thanks so much for speaking with us.
MOLLY BLOOM: Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: For people who don't know your story yet, the Poker Princess, just give us a sense of who you were in your early 20s when all this started.
BLOOM: You know, you mentioned that I was on the U.S. Ski Team. I had a pretty horrific crash on my Olympic qualifying run. I was a very serious student and had just taken the LSATs and was in the process of applying to some top-tier law schools. And after I quit the U.S. Ski Team, there was a fair amount of, you know, grief that follows that. And I just wanted to take a year off. And I had a friend that lived in Los Angeles, said I could crash on his couch. And so I just kind of did the first really spontaneous thing I'd done in my young adult life.
And my parents cut me off, and so I needed to get several jobs. And one of them was working for a guy who had a nightly poker game. And he said, part of your responsibilities from here on out is you're going to help me with this poker game. And I walked into this room, and I looked around the table at the nine or 10 seats. And I saw some of the most famous people in today's world. I saw some of the richest and some of the most powerful. And I was a fly on the wall. And I'm privy to all this inside information about all these different industries.
I say in the book, you know, poker was this Trojan horse, this access into all these subsets of society. And at the end of the night, people were tipping me. And I made more money that night than I had made the whole month. From there, I studied the game for a year and brought drinks and handled buy-ins and everything and learned everything I could possibly, you know, Google about poker and about the language and what was happening.
And after a year, I took over the game. And I started my own games. And then I became the owner-manager, and I had a fair amount of power and influence because I was controlling this list, that everybody wanted to be a part of this game. And then ultimately, I also became - I started bankrolling the game and extending credit. And so, you know, that's a little bit about where I was.
MARTIN: What was the appeal? I mean, was it being with all these famous people? Was it a sense of power? What was the appeal?
BLOOM: I would say the appeal was financial. The appeal was access. The appeal was power. You know, I grew up in a very high-achieving family. I have a brother who's a Harvard-educated cardiothoracic surgeon. My other brother is a two-time Olympian, fifth-round draft pick for the Philadelphia Eagles and an entrepreneur and philanthropist. And so I was looking for this thing that would make me feel validated, make me feel like someone, make me feel significant. And I sort of found it in this strange way in this world.
MARTIN: As Jessica Chastain plays you in the movie - I don't know how you feel about the movie, by the way.
BLOOM: I love the movie.
MARTIN: Do you like it?
BLOOM: I think it - I mean, I just - it's - I'm so humbled by Aaron writing it and Jess - and all these incredible actors. And just seeing this movie, I was so honored. I find it to be an extraordinary movie.
MARTIN: But, you know, as Jessica Chastain plays you as like you have kind of ice water in your veins. And, you know, Aaron Sorkin has been criticized in the past for having female characters who weren't fully fleshed out or for feeling as if - there are those who say, look, these are a man's idea of what women are like, OK. And I wonder, did you feel as tough as Jessica Chastain makes you out to be?
BLOOM: You know, it's interesting. I didn't get the sense watching Jessica that she has ice water in her veins. I get the sense that she has a lot of humanity, that she cares deeply about doing the right thing and about protecting people. I really didn't experience her as cold. I experienced her as ambitious. And I think that we get our lines crossed oftentimes when we see an ambitious woman and we just label them cold.
MARTIN: I'm interested in you actually because she's made up. I'm interested in you. Do you see yourself as having, like, ice water in your veins or did you - how do you see yourself?
BLOOM: I've always been very ambitious and very determined and very compassionate at the same time.
MARTIN: There are a lot of these stories right now about power, masculinity and abuse. You wrote your book years ago. The movie was in production - has been in production long before these current stories came out. But I wonder, you find yourself worried for these women in a way - does that make sense? - in a way that you might not have a year ago before we knew what some of the other things that were going on. Does that make sense? Do you understand what I'm saying?
BLOOM: Oh, I think there's a lot of that. I want to make a pretty clear distinction here because my experience was of a different sort. It was just being disenchanted and being very sick of oppressive men and having to play by their rules. You know, there wasn't this abuse, you know, that we're seeing, but there was just this unfair sort of unjust application of power that I just constantly felt like I was coming up against, from growing up with a hard-driving sort of type A father and coaches and bosses and then players and then government.
But I also never really saw myself as a victim there because, for me, it just felt, you know, like that was a powerless situation. I tried to circumvent it. I tried to find my way around it. But I think it's a brave new world that we're seeing, that we really can have a voice. And we don't have to do this alone necessarily. There's clear power and progress from coming together.
MARTIN: And when we were talking to Aaron Sorkin about the film and what attracted him to your story, he said it was your fundamental decency.
BLOOM: That's very nice of him.
MARTIN: Well, he said - quoting accurately - he said that, at first, he didn't want to do a gossip movie where people would be wondering like, who is this person? Who's that person? And then he realized that you had been prosecuted and now have a - what's the word I'm looking for here? A criminal.
BLOOM: I'm a - felony.
MARTIN: You're a felon.
BLOOM: I'm a felon, yeah (laughter).
MARTIN: You're a convicted felon...
BLOOM: I am, yes.
MARTIN: ...In part because you wouldn't name names. Why was that so important to you?
BLOOM: So this is sort of the way I looked at that. I made these choices. I profited greatly from these choices. And to turn around when I was in trouble and take people down with me felt wrong. And it felt like - when I looked at it, I believe that I have the ability to make more money. Because, you know, the Feds seized all my assets. And there was discussion that they would give the money back if I cooperated. I didn't do that. And then they took it a step farther and said there was discussion about clearing the record.
So looking at those two situations, I felt - I feel very confident that I could make money again, that I can be successful again. And I feel confident that, you know, not looking forward to it but that I could survive a couple of years of jail. The foregoing my integrity and, you know, stepping on other people and the sort of collateral damage to their families and everything, that felt like a life sentence.
MARTIN: That's Molly Bloom. She's the author of "Molly's Game." That's also the name of the new film by writer-director Aaron Sorkin which tells a fictionalized version of Molly's story. That film is out nationwide on January 5. Molly Bloom was nice enough to join us from our studios in New York. Molly, thanks so much for speaking with us.
BLOOM: Thanks, you too.
(SOUNDBITE OF CITY OF THE SUN'S "SUGAR")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
We've been hearing a lot lately about sexual assault and harassment, and today we're going to tell you about a group of people that has one of the highest rates of sexual assault of any group in America. And it's hardly talked about at all.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We're reporting on people with intellectual disabilities. We want to warn you that we'll be hearing about things in this story that may be disturbing to some listeners. NPR investigative correspondent Joseph Shapiro has our report.
JOSEPH SHAPIRO, BYLINE: Pauline's red hair falls to her shoulders. She wears stylish copper-colored glasses. She's 46. She's a woman with an intellectual disability. She wanted to tell her story on the radio. She says she hopes it will help other women.
PAULINE: Don't be scared. When you get abused, tell the police. Police will help you.
J. SHAPIRO: When you get abused, call the police, she says. She's nervous.
PAULINE: Take a deep breath.
J. SHAPIRO: Take a deep breath, she tells herself. And she does. And then she tells the story of the night she was raped.
PAULINE: The two boys took advantage of me. I didn't like it at all.
J. SHAPIRO: They took what?
PAULINE: They took advantage of me.
J. SHAPIRO: Took advantage of you. And did anyone try to stop it?
PAULINE: I tried tell mommy.
J. SHAPIRO: I tried to tell mommy, she says. The woman Pauline called mommy was a caregiver. She'd lived in the woman's home for more than 20 years.
PAULINE: Tell her, call the police.
J. SHAPIRO: I met Pauline during a yearlong reporting project talking to people about the high rate of sexual assault of women and men with intellectual disabilities. We're using just her first name because she's a rape survivor. NPR reviewed hundreds of cases of sexual assault. We looked at federal and state data. We read court records, followed media accounts. We talked to victims or guardians, family, staff and friends. We found there's an epidemic of sexual assault against people with intellectual disabilities, that these crimes go mostly unrecognized, unprosecuted and unpunished. One frequent result - the abuser is free to abuse again. The victim gets victimized over and over.
ERIKA HARRELL: It's not surprising because they do have that high level of victimization. That high vulnerability is just reflected in our numbers.
J. SHAPIRO: That's Erika Harrell. She's a statistician at the U.S. Department of Justice. She writes an annual report about crime against all people with disabilities. NPR asked her to break out her unpublished data about sexual assault and intellectual disabilities. And she came up with stunning numbers.
HARRELL: It was seven times higher than the rate for persons with no disabilities.
J. SHAPIRO: People with intellectual disabilities are sexually assaulted at rates at least seven times the rate for other people. And that's almost certainly an undercount because those numbers are from household surveys of people 12 and older, and they don't count people living in institutions, where Harrell says research shows people are even more vulnerable to assault, or in group homes.
NANCY THALER: If this were any other population, the world would be up in arms. We would be irate, and it would be the No. 1 health crisis in this country.
J. SHAPIRO: That's Nancy Thaler. She runs state programs in Pennsylvania. She wasn't surprised by the numbers obtained by NPR. She's been in this field for more than 40 years in top state, federal and national association jobs. She's a parent, too, of an adult son with an intellectual disability.
THALER: Folks with intellectual disabilities are the perfect victim.
J. SHAPIRO: She's seen how they become easy and frequent victims.
THALER: They are people who often cannot speak, or their speech is not well-developed. They are generally taught from childhood up to be compliant, to obey, to go along with people.
J. SHAPIRO: Intellectual disability is the preferred term now for what was once called mental retardation.
THALER: Because of the intellectual disability, people tend not to believe them, to think that they are not credible or that what they're saying they're making up or imagining. And so for all those reasons, a perpetrator sees an opportunity - a safe opportunity to victimize people.
J. SHAPIRO: Most rape victims in general are assaulted by someone they know, not by a stranger. But the data from the Justice Department found that people with intellectual disabilities are even more likely to be sexually assaulted by someone they know. And those assaults happen any time of day. Half take place during the day. It just shows that people with intellectual disabilities are vulnerable everywhere - at home, at school, at work, in public.
PAULINE: Morning, morning.
J. SHAPIRO: I met Pauline, the woman who wanted to tell her story, at a busy day program for adults with intellectual disabilities in northeastern Pennsylvania.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Hi, Kathleen.
J. SHAPIRO: They spend the day here, get meals. They socialize and do some work for minimal pay. First up in the morning in a big, open room is exercise to the exercise video played on a big screen against the wall.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: All right, to the beat - get ready to the beat. Let's go. Hey.
J. SHAPIRO: There are nine adults in a row moving their arms and bodies to the music. A woman in a wheelchair scoots back and forth. Pauline smiles while she does a steady cha-cha step.
PAULINE: I like any kind of music. I like Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross. I like any kind of music. They play music. I'll dance to it. I like to dance.
J. SHAPIRO: Pauline lives in a group home now with three other women in a one-level red brick house with white columns. It was getting close to dinner time when I went to see her there. Pauline set the table and showed me around the house and the yard.
PAULINE: That's the backyard right there, too.
J. SHAPIRO: That's a nice view. Do you know what kind of trees these are?
PAULINE: Big trees like that, I say.
J. SHAPIRO: Big trees - (laughter) yeah, they are.
When Pauline was raped in February of 2016, she was living with her caretaker, a woman named Cheryl McClain, and that woman's extended family. Pauline had lived with McClain, the woman she called mommy, for half of her life. The family had a house in Brooklyn and another house in the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania. That's where the rape happened.
These details come from the police complaint. Pauline was raped by two boys in that family. The boys were just 12 and 13. McClain told police one was her foster child. The other, she said, was her adopted son. The two boys confessed right away to police that they raped Pauline, that she told them repeatedly to stop. And the police complaint says the 13-year-old had been accused of assaulting Pauline just days before at their house in New York. He spent four days in a juvenile facility and then was released back to the family.
There was another twist in the case. Cheryl McClain was charged, too. It was McClain who called the police in Pennsylvania that night. But after the boys were charged with the rape, she seemed to have second thoughts. Police say she pressured Pauline to retract her story, and McClain taped herself. NPR obtained a partial transcript in the police complaint. McClain tells Pauline, if you accuse the boys, you can't live here anymore. And here's a quote. McClain says, "so you broke up a happy home, you know? It's nonsense." She blames Pauline. She says, even though I know they started with you first, a lady has to say no. She has to mean no. She tries to get the woman with an intellectual disability to say that she'd enjoyed sex with the boys. On the tape, McClain tells Pauline, you said you liked it at first, right?
McClain and Pauline had lived together for more than 20 years. They were like mother and daughter. Pauline says McClain could be nice but also mean, that McClain would yell at her.
PAULINE: Yeah, used to call me names, call me stupid, retarded.
J. SHAPIRO: McClain denies she ever mistreated Pauline.
PAULINE: Because of the boys and stuff - said, it's your fault.
J. SHAPIRO: Pauline has learned to reassure herself that it wasn't her fault.
PAULINE: It's not your fault.
J. SHAPIRO: She said it was your fault.
PAULINE: Mmm hmm.
J. SHAPIRO: How did that make you feel?
PAULINE: Angry inside.
J. SHAPIRO: The night before the juvenile court hearing, McClain took Pauline, the rape victim, to the office of the public defender representing one of the boys, the rape suspect, and told Pauline to change her story. This is in the police complaint. The next day in court, Pauline was upset and agitated. She said she didn't want anybody to go to jail. But Pauline did not change her story that she'd been raped. That's when state officials in Pennsylvania stepped in.
Most people with an intellectual disability have a mild disability. Often they live with parents, or they live on their own with an informal network of caregivers. That's what Pauline had in New York. There's another system where people get care from the state, programs that pay for where they live, to help them find a job or go to a program during the day. There are long waiting lists in Pennsylvania and most states. But because Pauline was in crisis, she got into Pennsylvania's program right away. She was removed from McClain and that family where she'd lived half her life and moved to this new group home with just the clothes she was wearing.
Were you happy right away? It must have not been easy.
PAULINE: The first day, I wasn't happy, but then I got used to it. It took me a while.
J. SHAPIRO: The first day, you weren't happy.
PAULINE: Yeah, I was scared.
J. SHAPIRO: Yeah.
Scared, she says. The boys were sent to a state treatment center for juvenile offenders. Prosecutors dropped six felony charges against McClain, including intimidation of a witness. And in June, she pleaded guilty to two misdemeanor charges, including giving false information to police. She was fined $15,000 and put on probation for two years. McClain told us that she loves Pauline and wants her to come back to the home in Brooklyn. Pauline wants to stay in her new house in Pennsylvania.
So is it better for you living here?
PAULINE: Yes.
J. SHAPIRO: Tell me why. What's better?
PAULINE: Because I feel safe. I feel happy. The staff take good care of me. I'm really happy here.
J. SHAPIRO: This group home is run by the Arc of Northeastern Pennsylvania. They do advocacy and provide services - the group home, the day program - for people with intellectual disabilities. Staff took Pauline to doctors. She's got a new pair of glasses - the stylish coppery orange ones. She can see the TV now. Pauline says she gets to keep money from her Social Security check and from her job now, that she goes shopping and picks out her own clothes for the first time. McClain says she did those things when she lived with her, too. There was one more thing Pauline wanted to show me - the pictures from her wedding.
PAULINE: I have a beautiful wedding dress. It's white, and you also - it's, like, a thing you put around your hair.
J. SHAPIRO: A thing you put in your hair, like a veil.
PAULINE: Yes.
J. SHAPIRO: When Pauline was living with Cheryl McClain, she met a man at their church, a man with an intellectual disability.
Who's David?
PAULINE: My husband.
J. SHAPIRO: Pauline says McClain told her if she wanted to be with David, they'd have to get married. The wedding four years ago was at the church - Pauline in the white dress, David in a dark tuxedo. There was a white wedding cake with red rose petals. David moved into McClain's house in Brooklyn and into a room with Pauline.
What does that mean, to have a husband?
PAULINE: He really loves me so much. That's when you feel special.
J. SHAPIRO: David makes her feel special. But now miles apart, she's in Pennsylvania; he's in New York. They talk on the phone most nights. On the dresser in her bedroom, there are pictures of David and the cards he sends - birthday cards, holiday cards, romantic cards. He signs them with his first and last name. Pauline misses David's kisses. She misses him in her bed. But David lives with her old family in Brooklyn. He depends upon Cheryl McClain. Pauline won't go back there. That's where she was raped. She wants that love, romance and her marriage. But like so many other adults with intellectual disabilities, a history of rape gets in the way. Joseph Shapiro, NPR News.
MCEVERS: And tomorrow on Morning Edition, Joseph reports on sex ed classes for people with intellectual disabilities.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE CIVIL WARS' "I DO EXIST")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
2018 is only just a week old, and if you are still resolved to improve your life in this new year our next guests may be able to help. Jolenta Greenberg and Kristen Meinzer host a podcast called By The Book. For each episode, they choose one self-help book and live by its rules for a couple weeks. They're here to recommend books that have actually improved their lives and help steer us clear of those that haven't. Welcome.
KRISTEN MEINZER: Thanks for having us.
JOLENTA GREENBERG: Hi. Yeah, I'm so excited to be here.
SHAPIRO: So to start with, will you each tell us a book that you really loved that you could actually see yourself living by?
GREENBERG: Oh, I would definitely have to recommend "The Life-Changing Magic Of Tidying Up" by Marie Kondo.
SHAPIRO: This is one of the most famous self-help books...
GREENBERG: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: ...Out there written by a Japanese author. Jolenta, why do you love it?
GREENBERG: I love it - I feel like especially in the New Year it's just a real nice way to cleanse your space and make it feel kind of brand-new. And I think it's something that most Americans could, like, probably use to do. I know I could. I like buying stuff. For me, it's clothes and squirrel-related tchotchkes. And they accumulate...
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
GREENBERG: ...You know? And you - sometimes you might have to go through all your clothes or squirrel collection and hold each item and think about, does this really bring me joy, or am I keeping it out of obligation? Has it already served its purpose? And to just sort of purge all of these things we let build up around us that don't necessarily make us happy anymore.
SHAPIRO: The book prescribes this as kind of a consistent lifestyle, but I got the sense from listening to the episode that you preferred it as a one-time experience that you might do every year or every few years.
GREENBERG: Right. Right. There are things about the lifestyle that I've kept. Marie Kondo teaches you good ways to fold all your clothes that I find are very space-efficient. Kristen is looking at me rolling her eyes (laughter).
MEINZER: Yeah, I think the lifestyle is absurd. It's ridiculous. You know, she cannot have anything on a countertop. She cannot have any art on walls. If you want anything pretty, you put it inside your closet so when you open your closet you can look at your art. But anything that's out for the world to see is considered clutter. All of this is ridiculous to me.
And so this book made me very mad. And my husband and I, who love each other very much, fought while we were living this book. And you can hear it in our show. And it's because he got sick of the fact that every time he took a shower he had to take the shampoo out of a separate cupboard...
SHAPIRO: Right.
MEINZER: ...Bring it to the shower, and then afterward wipe it off, thank it and put it in a cupboard.
GREENBERG: Thank it, yeah.
MEINZER: Yes.
SHAPIRO: Thank the shampoo. Yeah.
GREENBERG: Yeah.
MEINZER: Thank you for your service, shampoo.
GREENBERG: I mean, obviously it's a little extreme, as are all self-help books.
SHAPIRO: Kristen, you are not a big fan of the Marie Kondo book. What's a book that you think was really useful?
MEINZER: Well, I just loved when we were living on "America's Cheapest Family Gets You Right On The Money" by Steve and Annette Economides. This family is amazing. They paid off their house, their cars. All of their clothes are secondhand. They only go grocery shopping one day a month because if you go grocery shopping more you'll be tempted to do some impulse buying. So they do one giant grocery shopping trip a month and then they make a month's worth of frozen meals.
And they do all sorts of other wacky things like that. And I just loved it. And they have three levels of how to live their lifestyle. So even if you're a beginner, if you're not ready to go grocery shopping only one time for the whole month, maybe you can start off by going grocery shopping only once a week.
SHAPIRO: Kristen, what's one practice from this book that you're still doing today?
MEINZER: Oh, I'm just cheap. I'm doing everything...
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
GREENBERG: She likes this book because it just - they just...
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) 'Cause it told her to do what she was already doing.
GREENBERG: Yeah.
MEINZER: Yeah, make...
GREENBERG: Trick yourself into being cheap all the time, which is what Kristen does, so of course she's going to recommend it.
MEINZER: Yeah. They make saving more fun than spending. And I love saving.
SHAPIRO: Is there one specific thing that this book taught you to do differently that you're still doing?
MEINZER: Well, one thing that...
GREENBERG: You did learn you could freeze kale.
MEINZER: Oh, I did.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
MEINZER: I learned that I could freeze kale because I was stockpiling so many groceries doing this...
SHAPIRO: The most NPR moment of 2018 to date.
GREENBERG: I was going to say, is this the most NPR, like, new year, new you we can do for you?
(LAUGHTER)
GREENBERG: Frozen kale?
MEINZER: Yes. You cannot freeze avocado toast, however.
SHAPIRO: OK. Duly noted. Jolenta, what did you think of this book?
GREENBERG: I feel like Kristen does sort of about Marie Kondo where if you try to live the way they do - like, they are crazy people. Most people who write self-help books are. They're very extreme people. They say shop once a month, and basically you only have fresh food for the first week of that month. But they also say, you know, planning meals helps cut down on impulse purchases, which I did, you know, sort of take to heart. And I try to plan meals more so when I go grocery shopping I don't just go nuts. But I do buy vegetables every week.
SHAPIRO: Give us some books that you would avoid at all costs.
MEINZER: Oh, my gosh.
GREENBERG: Oh.
MEINZER: Jolenta and I agree on one for sure.
GREENBERG: We both agree on "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" by John Gray.
SHAPIRO: Which is such a famous, successful book.
GREENBERG: Which is why it was so disappointing.
SHAPIRO: What disappointed you about it?
GREENBERG: This book, according to Time magazine, is the best-selling nonfiction book of the '90s. So my parents had this book. Everyone's parents had this book. And Kristen and I are both relative newlyweds. And I was super excited to read this book and gain some actual insights on married life. But turns out we found it to be incredibly sexist and really condescending towards women.
MEINZER: Yeah. I mean, if you're a woman your job is really just to validate your man and stop nagging him so much and not be upset with him when he doesn't speak to you for weeks or months at a time.
GREENBERG: Don't forget knight in shining armor...
MEINZER: Oh, yes, treat him...
GREENBERG: ...A phrase used often in this book.
MEINZER: Yeah.
GREENBERG: It's basically men have to feel like a knight in shining armor. Otherwise, like, they will leave you.
SHAPIRO: Did it make you think differently about your parents knowing that they read this book and liked it or at least found it a little useful?
GREENBERG: It made me feel bad for them that a man is sort of peddling dated gender roles as biological differences. Like, I just felt bad for them that that was the only resource.
SHAPIRO: This raises the question of, can you really undertake a self-help book program on your own? It seems like a lot of the things you do sort of drag your spouse along for the ride.
MEINZER: Oh, yeah.
GREENBERG: Yeah.
MEINZER: They're trapped in this with us. Yeah. And whether or not they want to be involved, they end up involved. They end up affected. For example, when we were living by a book called "French Women Don't Get Fat" there was a 48-hour period where Jolenta and I were only allowed to have the boiled water that comes off of leeks. We were allowed to boil leeks and then drink the water...
GREENBERG: The broth.
MEINZER: ...For 48 hours.
SHAPIRO: That sounds miserable.
MEINZER: They called it leek soup, but it was really just, like, leek water.
GREENBERG: Leek water.
MEINZER: And the way that we were as very hungry, very angry women, they had to live with that.
GREENBERG: There was lots of yelling and crying.
MEINZER: There was yelling and crying. And we didn't even talk about it in the episode, but, like, you know, all the gas that comes from, like, living on this diet, all the...
GREENBERG: There's so much dairy.
MEINZER: There's a lot of dairy and there's a lot of leeks.
GREENBERG: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: You two have set a program for yourselves where you're living by a different self-help book every couple weeks. The self-help books themselves sort of ask you to sign your whole life over to the program that they prescribe. How would you recommend an average person approach this genre of books as a whole?
MEINZER: I think they should listen to our show and hear how our lives are ruined...
SHAPIRO: Good answer.
MEINZER: ...By a lot of these books.
GREENBERG: Yes. Best answer.
MEINZER: Yes. Listen to our show and hear what parts of information work for Jolenta or work for me. So if somebody listens to the show and they know from day one, I'm a Jolenta, they know that "America's Cheapest Family Gets You Right On The Money" is going to make them want to throw themselves off a bridge. They know this. So they know...
GREENBERG: That's a fact if you're a Jolenta.
MEINZER: ...What they should follow and what not to follow. And when Jolenta is loving some aspect of a book that gives her a chance to look at her throat chakras and then light candles...
SHAPIRO: Right.
MEINZER: ...And rub her crystals and I want to just punch all the crystals, people know, oh, this is a better book for Jolenta and not a good book for Kristen.
SHAPIRO: That's Kristen Meinzer and Jolenta Greenberg. You can hear more about their adventures translating the rules of self-help books into real life on their podcast By The Book. Thank you so much.
MEINZER: Thanks so much.
GREENBERG: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF KATALYST SONG, "THE CLAPPING SONG")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
There's been an extraordinary decision from a federal court in Nevada today that could affect the way the federal government manages millions of acres of public lands. A judge has dismissed conspiracy and assault charges against rancher Cliven Bundy, two of his sons and another militiaman. These charges came from their role in a tense armed standoff against federal agents over cattle grazing on public lands back in 2014. The judge cited what she said was serious misconduct by federal prosecutors.
NPR's Kirk Siegler joins us now with more. Hi, Kirk.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Hello, Ari.
SHAPIRO: First remind us who Cliven Bundy is and what he and these others were accused of.
SIEGLER: Well, this ruling is the culmination of a staredown between Bundy and the U.S. government that's been going back since really the Clinton administration, if not before. Like a lot of ranchers in the West, Cliven Bundy doesn't own much of the land himself. He has to lease public land from the U.S. government to graze his cows. He just says that the government has no right to control that land. And so he's refused to pay grazing fees that every rancher has to pay and defied court orders to remove his cows from the land.
So this all came to a head when the government finally moved in to round up the cows and they were met by the armed Bundy militia. Bundy wasn't actually arrested until almost two years later. And today when all the charges were dropped against him, he told reporters outside the courtroom - a free man - he said he had been a political prisoner. Let's listen in.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CLIVEN BUNDY: We're not done with this. If the federal government comes after us again, we will definitely tell them the truth. And that's all we've ever tried to do, is tell them the truth.
SHAPIRO: Kirk, explain why the judge threw this out. At first it had seemed like a pretty clear-cut case with videos showing the militia shutting down an interstate and pointing guns at federal agents.
SIEGLER: Right. Well, she cited what she called flagrant misconduct by the prosecutors. This all surrounds revelations that the prosecutors failed to disclose footage from an FBI surveillance camera at the standoff, the fact that there were FBI snipers trained on Bundy and that the government had a document that said the Bundy family themselves weren't violent. Prosecutors had responded not successfully that they had turned over thousands and thousands of pages of audio and video recordings. But that didn't pass muster of the judge.
SHAPIRO: Is this it, or can the government appeal?
SIEGLER: They can appeal this. But I think you have to consider the politics here. That's very unlikely. It was of course the Obama administration that brought the case against Bundy. Until recently, there hasn't even been a U.S. attorney in Nevada. The attorney that brought the case resigned when Trump took office.
And then, you know, Attorney General Sessions was in Las Vegas recently, and he said that he could see both sides of this story. So, Ari, there's not really an indication that the Trump administration is considering going after Bundy to be - and his militia, for that matter - to be a big priority.
SHAPIRO: I said at the beginning of this conversation that this decision could affect the way the federal government manages millions of acres of public lands. Tell us about that.
SIEGLER: Well, there are a lot of questions right now. You know, what does this mean for other ranchers? Could they just stop paying grazing fees on public land and ignore the rules like Bundy did? And, you know, I did get a statement just recently from Trump's interior secretary, Ryan Zinke, that he said, you know, they're going to take a more neighborly approach to rural Americans to cool some of the tensions going forward. But I think there is a concern among federal employees I talked to and people who work out on the land that this ruling and the freeing of Cliven Bundy could lead to more armed standoffs in the West.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Kirk Siegler, thanks a lot.
SIEGLER: Glad to be here.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
2018 is finally starting for members of Congress this week. The Senate was supposed to be in session last week, but that bomb cyclone snowstorm meant not everyone could get back to Washington. So after a delayed start, they pick up their daunting to-do list. And Republican leaders are coming back after a weekend at Camp David with President Trump and White House advisers where they were supposed to be working on their agenda for 2018. To talk about all this, NPR congressional reporter Kelsey Snell is here. Hi there.
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: Hi.
MCEVERS: So first things first, before the holiday break, Congress passed a temporary bill to fund the government through the 19th of this month. What do they have to get done, and how do they plan to do it?
SNELL: OK, get ready because...
MCEVERS: OK (laughter).
SNELL: ...It is a really long list (laughter).
MCEVERS: All right.
SNELL: First of all is that spending bill that you mentioned. Yes, they have to find a way to fund the government after January 19, and leaders say they want to get that done by writing a long-term spending plan that increases both domestic spending and military spending. Now, this is kind of a problem because while both sides agree that there should be more military spending, they don't agree on how much more domestic spending there should be.
The second issue that's kind of become intertwined with that spending bill is immigration. So if you remember, President Trump went and revoked DACA, which is the protections for the roughly 700,000 immigrants who are in the country illegally after having been brought here as children. So their protections expire at the end of March. And he - President Trump said that he was leaving it up to Congress to figure out a legislative fix for those people. And lawmakers have been working on that, and they want to combine those protections with a spending bill. Now, that alone would be a lot, right?
MCEVERS: Right, yes.
SNELL: (Laughter) But they also have a lot more they need to do. They need to approve more disaster aid for places like Florida and Texas and Puerto Rico that were hit by hurricanes and places like California and Oregon that had massive wildfires. They also have one more thing to do, and that's a - Children's Health Insurance Program is expiring. It's a pretty bipartisan issue, and they want to do it all in one big bill.
MCEVERS: Right. Spending, immigration, children's health care, disaster relief - what's the thinking of putting all of that into one bill?
SNELL: Well, the idea is that if you put everything in a big bill, there's something for everybody in it. So it's a kind of political risk if you think about it. If you put in things like military spending that conservatives like, they can say, I voted for this bill because it increases military spending. If you put in the protections for the undocumented immigrants, Democrats can say, I secured the protections that we have been talking about for years.
The idea is you make a really big package, and everybody walks away happy. But the gamble is that, you know, if you put in all these things that they're calling poison pills, these things that are kind of politically motivated add-ons that could alienate one side or the other, it's kind of a tricky balance to strike.
MCEVERS: What's the toughest item (laughter) on the list right now? What's the biggest sticking point?
SNELL: Right now it seems to be DACA and protections for those immigrants. We commonly think of them as being DREAMers.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
SNELL: They've had dozens of meetings over the past two months, negotiators on both sides in Congress, Democrats and Republicans. They want to come up with some sort of protections for those people, and they say they want them to be permanent protections. The problem is that it has become intertwined with funding for the border wall. And Democrats said they were pretty shocked on Friday when President Trump said that he wanted to have $18 billion over 10 years for the wall.
MCEVERS: What are lawmakers and staffers saying about the chances of a government shutdown in this period?
SNELL: Well, there is a White House meeting tomorrow, and they hope that they will, you know, come up with an agreement. Leaders insist there will be no shutdown, and so we have every reason to believe that they will come up with some solution - just might not be the long-term plan that they're talking about.
MCEVERS: And quickly, what about that 2018 agenda that Republicans talked about with President Trump at Camp David this weekend? Where does that fit in?
SNELL: Well, they still say they want to do some sort of welfare reform. But as the president and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have said, they need that to be bipartisan, so that's pretty hard. They also want to maybe pass a budget to say how to spend money in 2019. And there are a ton of judicial nominees and other people who need to get approved.
MCEVERS: NPR congressional reporter Kelsey Snell, thank you so much.
SNELL: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Another thing that President Trump and congressional leaders discussed over the weekend was a possible infrastructure bill. It's something Trump has been talking about since the campaign. And as NPR's Tamara Keith reports, the White House says more details will be coming soon.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: In his big speech to a joint session of Congress in February, President Trump earned rousing applause when he talked about his trillion-dollar infrastructure plan.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: To launch our national rebuilding, I will be asking Congress to approve legislation that produces a $1 trillion investment in infrastructure of the United States financed through both public and private capital, creating millions of new jobs.
(APPLAUSE)
KEITH: That was nearly a year ago. Since then, there have been two so-called infrastructure weeks where the president sought to draw attention to this idea.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Our infrastructure program will be based on forging new partnerships and demanding new accountability for every federal taxpayer dollar.
KEITH: At the time of that June speech, the White House released a set of principles - an outline, if you will. Little has changed since then in the way White House officials and the president describe his plan. First, reduce the time it takes to get projects approved.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: So it's going to be quick. It's going to be a very streamlined process.
KEITH: Plus $200 billion in direct federal investment in roads, bridges and rural infrastructure.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: We are literally like a Third World country. Our infrastructure will again be the best.
KEITH: That 200 billion in federal dollars would somehow be leveraged into an overall investment of a trillion dollars. State and local governments and public-private partnerships would largely make up the difference. With the tax bill now signed, President Trump is once again talking about infrastructure.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Infrastructure is by far the easiest. People want it - Republicans and Democrats. We're going to have tremendous Democrat support on infrastructure, as you know.
KEITH: Trump talked so frequently about infrastructure during the campaign that this time last year, Senate Democrats led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer went through the exercise of rolling out their own trillion-dollar blueprint.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHUCK SCHUMER: He campaigned on a promise of bigger and better infrastructure. This plan - this plan is the way to make it happen.
KEITH: That plan went nowhere, and it offered solutions vastly different than what President Trump seems to have in mind. Just for starters, Democrats want significantly more federal funding, which could complicate that whole easy bipartisan bill thing. But behind the scenes, a deputy at the president's National Economic Council has been working full-time since early last year on infrastructure, gathering input from industry stakeholders and even from Democratic members of Congress. Democratic Congresswoman Elizabeth Esty from Connecticut has been over to the White House for conversations.
ELIZABETH ESTY: The White House has, in a way that they did not I don't think very seriously on the tax side - there's been more serious outreach on infrastructure side.
KEITH: Esty is on the Transportation Committee and is part of a bipartisan congressional effort to develop an infrastructure bill. While at the White House, she's argued that $200 billion in federal funding isn't enough and that there's no way it would actually leverage a trillion dollars in infrastructure investment. Esty says she won't really know if she's been heard until she sees a plan from the Trump administration.
ESTY: I'm hopeful that the White House is genuine and looking for common ground on transportation and infrastructure because if they are and they're really willing to listen to and consider a wide range of proposals, they should be able to find that.
KEITH: A White House official says to expect a fleshed-out plan - more than an outline, less than a fully drafted bill - sometime soon, maybe even this month. Tamara Keith, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
College football's national championship game kicks off tonight in Atlanta. It's a matchup of two Southeastern Conference rivals, the Alabama Crimson Tide and the Georgia Bulldogs. Thing is, with so many fans living so close to Atlanta, it's basically a home game for both teams. Ross Terrell from member station WABE explains.
ROSS TERRELL, BYLINE: The two universities are separated by less than 300 miles. That means a lot of alumni and everyday fans end up calling Atlanta home.
ANDY VASQUEZ: This is my pet elephant. His name's Al (imitates elephant).
TERRELL: That's Andy Vasquez. He's a Bama fan imitating the school's mascot, Big Al. Vasquez was born in Tuscaloosa but lives here now. He was one of thousands of fans from both teams gathered for pregame festivities in downtown Atlanta just across from the stadium.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Inaudible).
TERRELL: Vasquez spoke with the type of confidence you'd expect from the fan of a team that's going for its fifth national title in the past decade.
VASQUEZ: You know, Georgia - they've got two great running backs, but defense always prevails. I don't think they're going to do much.
TERRELL: Chris Fuller graduated from Alabama and also moved to Georgia. He says he's used to championship game excitement.
CHRIS FULLER: What's funny is looking at all the Georgia fans. But you know, once every 38 years ain't too bad.
TERRELL: That's a little shot at UGA because the Bulldogs haven't won a national title since 1980. Last week, Georgia beat the Oklahoma Sooners in the Rose Bowl. It was a thrilling, high-scoring, double-overtime win. Amy Phillips was a student at Georgia the last time they won a national championship. She thinks tonight is their time to shine.
AMY PHILLIPS: I just - I know it's not going to be a shootout like it was in Pasadena, but Dogs on top for sure.
TERRELL: Amy met her husband when they were both students at UGA in Athens. She's proud her son will start classes there in the fall. Then there are families in the Atlanta area who represent a house divided, like the Coopers. Leon and Tim are brothers. Tim roots for the Dogs and Leon the Crimson Tide.
LEON COOPER: It's been pretty civil so far. I think we're still on a little disbelief that both teams made it here, but it's pretty exciting.
TERRELL: But Tim says that will undoubtedly change.
TIM COOPER: Obviously as we get closer to Monday, to game time - yeah, it'll get a little more trash talking.
TERRELL: The two universities are close geographically and both in the SEC, but their head coaches make them even closer. Georgia's Kirby Smart spent nine years in Tuscaloosa as an assistant to Alabama's Nick Saban. Robert Abron pulls for the Crimson Tide but says he respects Georgia's head coach.
ROBERT ABRON: Kirby Smart did come from Alabama, so it's a little love down there. We still want to roll tide, though, at the end of the day.
TERRELL: Now all that's left is for the two teams to decide who will walk away with the championship and even some bragging rights. For NPR News, I'm Ross Terrell in Atlanta.
(SOUNDBITE OF HOT CHIP SONG, "THE WARNING")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
By now you might have heard that Oprah Winfrey delivered a big speech last night at the Golden Globe Awards.
(SOUNDBITE OF 75TH ANNUAL GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS)
OPRAH WINFREY: For too long, women have not been heard or believed if they dared to speak their truth to the power of those men. But their time is up.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
WINFREY: Their time is up.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
SHAPIRO: Winfrey was talking about sexual harassment. The hashtag that started trending on social media was #Oprah2020. In the age of Donald Trump, the idea of Oprah running for president does not seem so far-fetched. Our political editor Domenico Montanaro is here for a reality check.
Hi, Domenico.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Hey there, Ari.
SHAPIRO: What do you think it was about her speech last night that triggered this 2020 talk?
MONTANARO: I mean, there was this soaring, kind of hopeful rhetoric that has been really missing from a lot of the platforms that we've seen. I mean, just take a listen to this line where I think she struck a very political chord.
(SOUNDBITE OF 75TH ANNUAL GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS)
WINFREY: So I want all the girls watching here and now to know that a new day is on the horizon.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
WINFREY: And when that new day finally dawns...
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
WINFREY: ...It will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men.
MONTANARO: Now, there's a couple things in here I want you to pay attention to. She said a very carefully and clearly calibrated line where she's saying that you have to give a nod as well to men, OK? This was not just a, quote, unquote, "#MeToo speech," as one Democratic operative I talked to said. He said, you could go with just a #MeToo speech, but she rose to a different level. And you know, that whole new day is on the horizon certainly sounds like a pretty good political campaign slogan if you ask me.
SHAPIRO: So you're talking to Democratic operatives. Do they think an Oprah 2020 run is realistic?
MONTANARO: (Laughter) They're very bullish on it to be perfectly honest. I was kind of surprised by that. And let's talked about the pros that they go through, first of all. You know, independently, both of these operatives called her the antidote to Trump in many ways - message. Obviously she's a black woman - looking different. But it's not just that because there are certainly others who are minorities who could run. But it was the way and the power of - with which she delivered her message.
They said that 2018 Democrats need to pay attention to that message because even if she doesn't run, these other Democrats are just too strongly looking to out-left each other, which is not what the party needs, they said. And they think that if they take her message, they could actually do pretty well in 2018, this year.
They said she's got the name ID. She's got the money, although no one can really self-fund a presidential campaign entirely. And she was in American living rooms and homes for 20 years. You know, there's a difference now. People think they are seeing a paradigm shift from instead of left to right but, as one operative said, from up to down - a populist kind of message.
SHAPIRO: If those are the pros, what are the cons?
MONTANARO: There are obviously some cons. You know, she's a celebrity. Again, she's going to have to convince people that they should go with somebody who's an outsider who's in showbiz. You know, there's this natural inclination, one said, to go with boring given the pendulum swings we've traditionally seen. Bush was a response to Clinton, Obama to Bush, Trump to Obama. Has the pendulum completely swung around? We don't know.
SHAPIRO: What does the White House have to say about this?
MONTANARO: Well, the White House has looked at this, obviously. They said that they welcome the challenge. We heard former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer today say that Oprah would be a formidable candidate and that she might also have an unlikely well-connected booster in the White House. Let's listen to this.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LARRY KING LIVE")
LARRY KING: You have a vice presidential candidate in mind?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I really haven't gotten quite there yet.
KING: Well, come on. It's just - you would lose...
TRUMP: Oprah - I love Oprah. Oprah would always be my first choice.
(LAUGHTER)
SHAPIRO: How long ago was that?
MONTANARO: That was only 1999. Not that long ago, President Trump - Donald Trump back then when he was running for president told Larry King on CNN that Oprah would be his first choice for a running mate, called her fantastic, popular, brilliant, everything under the sun. So a run with Oprah and Trump - can you imagine?
SHAPIRO: NPR's Domenico Montanaro.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The other night, figure skater Jimmy Ma was in the middle of his routine at the U.S. national championships. And he took a break between songs, then started gliding across the ice and this song dropped.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TURN DOWN FOR WHAT")
LIL JON: Turn down for what?
MCEVERS: The crowd goes crazy. And here's what the NBC commentators say.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED COMMENTATOR: OK (laughter) I like it.
MCEVERS: USA Today's Maggie Hendricks covers figure skating, and she is with us now. And I understand, Maggie, you have some thoughts about this song choice - Lil Jon on ice working for you?
MAGGIE HENDRICKS: Absolutely. It's part of something new that we're going to be experiencing this Olympics, which is there being lyrics in figure skating routines. It's just so much fun because it allows for moments like Lil Jon breaking out in the middle of a figure skating competition and the crowd going insane for it. And it just - it's a lot of fun. And why not? Figure skating should be fun.
MCEVERS: Right 'cause, like, when I think of figure skating routines I think of, like, "Swan Lake" and more traditional stuff. So why was the decision made to allow songs with lyrics?
HENDRICKS: There's a part of me that thinks that judges were just sick of hearing "Carmen" again and again and again.
MCEVERS: (Laughter) Right.
HENDRICKS: And so they wanted to give something different. And it's great because it allows us to get to know figure skaters in a way that we never had before. Like for Jimmy Ma's other skate he skated to Rachmaninoff.
MCEVERS: Right.
HENDRICKS: So, you know, we have this balance of skater and learning about who they are in ways that we never could when you were having lyricless music or just classical pieces or opera pieces. You're just getting this whole new side of them.
MCEVERS: I understand one of your favorite programs that involved lyrics is from last year, a skater named Yuzuru Hanyu. Can you tell us about that?
HENDRICKS: Oh.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LET'S GO CRAZY")
PRINCE: Dearly beloved.
HENDRICKS: I love this skate so much. So Yuzuru Hanyu is the reigning world champion and Olympic champion. And he did his short program to "Let's Go Crazy" by Prince.
MCEVERS: Say no more.
HENDRICKS: He's one of the best skaters to ever walk this earth. He has very much a rock star swagger. In Japan, he is a rock star. Japan, he is as big as Steph Curry is here. He is just an absolute star. The way he brings the spins, you start to see Prince's music happening on the ice when you see Yuzuru Hanyu skate to it.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRINCE SONG, "LET'S GO CRAZY," CHEERING)
MCEVERS: What's he doing during this part?
HENDRICKS: He's doing all of these different spins. And they're incredibly difficult. And he's earning a lot of points. They're athletically difficult. And even at one point he sort of takes his leg behind his head and plays it like he's playing a guitar.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRINCE SONG, "LET'S GO CRAZY")
MCEVERS: So it sounds like a part of the idea, too, is just to attract young viewers to this sport. Do you think that's working?
HENDRICKS: Yeah. I think it's attracting young viewers because, I mean, when a figure skating program goes viral there's somebody watching that somewhere and saying, hey, maybe I can try figure skating. And that is a huge part of the Olympics, is every sport gets a little bump. It gets some people interested in it and trying it because they've saw it and they saw something in it. And I don't know if all of the young kids out there would have necessarily seen something of themselves in the Rachmaninoff, but they sure as heck would see it in the Lil Jon version.
MCEVERS: Maggie Hendricks, reporter at USA Today, thank you very much.
HENDRICKS: Thank you so much. This was a blast.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TURN DOWN FOR WHAT")
LIL JON: Turn down for what? Turn down for what? Turn down for what? Turn down for what? Turn down for what?
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Now we're going to talk about one moment from last night's Golden Globe Awards. In a speech where Oprah Winfrey had audience members cheering and crying, the media mogul told the story of a woman named Recy Taylor.
(SOUNDBITE OF 75TH ANNUAL GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS)
OPRAH WINFREY: In 1944, Recy Taylor was a young wife and a mother. She was just walking home from a church service she had attended in Abbeville, Ala., when she was abducted by six armed white men, raped and left blindfolded by the side of the road coming home from church. They threatened to kill her if she ever told anyone. But her story was reported to the NAACP, where a young worker by the name of Rosa Parks became the lead investigator on her case. And together, they sought justice.
SHAPIRO: Here's Recy Taylor speaking with NPR's Michel Martin in 2011.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
RECY TAYLOR: They got me in the car and carried me straight through the wood. But before they got where they was going, they blindfolded me. After they messed over and did what they were going to do me, say, we're going to take you back. We're going to put you out. But if you tell it, we're going to kill you.
SHAPIRO: Recy Taylor died just two weeks ago at the age of 97. We're going to remember her with the historian Danielle McGuire, who spent a lot of time with her over the last decade. Welcome.
DANIELLE MCGUIRE: Thank you for having me.
SHAPIRO: You first met Recy Taylor on President Obama's inauguration day in 2008. Tell us about that meeting.
MCGUIRE: It was remarkable. It was this incredible moment. We were in her brother's living room in Abbeville, Ala. And we were watching the inauguration on this little black-and-white television. And I turned to Recy and I said, did you ever think that an African-American woman would become first lady? And she looked at me and she said, not in my lifetime. And growing up in the Jim Crow South, you know, black women weren't even considered ladies. And here we were, you know, standing side by side, watching Michelle Obama, you know, with her husband taking the oath of office. It was just the past and the present sort of converging at this moment.
SHAPIRO: Recy Taylor's rapists were never brought to trial, even though one of them confessed to the crime. And in 2011, after you published a book about her, the Alabama Legislature issued a formal apology. What did she think of people finally believing her and listening to her after all these decades?
MCGUIRE: I think it was really incredible. You know, that apology came about because of an organic online petition after Recy Taylor told a journalist that all she really wanted was an apology, and so I know for her that that meant a whole lot. It wasn't justice. It wasn't her assailants being convicted of a horrible crime and going to jail. But it meant something. For the first time, you know, the governor of Alabama had to say her name and had to be honest about the way in which the state, you know, tried to bury her story, refused to investigate it, refused to listen to her. And so it was a kind of reckoning. It was powerful.
SHAPIRO: On the day that she died, you wrote on Twitter that Recy Taylor laid the foundation for the women's movement and the #MeToo movement. What did you mean by that?
MCGUIRE: What I meant was that decades before the women's movement, decades before there were speak-outs or anyone saying me, too, Recy Taylor testified about her assault to people who could very easily have killed her, who tried to kill her. And if she could do that then with all of that risk and terror surrounding her, then we all need to stand up and say when we have to me, too.
SHAPIRO: She is primarily identified with this one traumatic experience she suffered in her youth. But she lived to be close to a hundred.
MCGUIRE: That's right.
SHAPIRO: What was she like as a person as you got to know her over the years?
MCGUIRE: She was funny, witty. She was a churchgoer. She loved going to church. She loved to sing. She was very welcoming to me, always willing to speak with me. Her whole family was just incredibly gracious. I've really - I've never met people like that who would just welcome a stranger into their homes and tell them their deepest, darkest histories and stories and carry on with them for years and years. So I feel very grateful to have met her and her family.
SHAPIRO: Her story has not been one of the more well-known civil rights struggles. Do you think it deserves to be?
MCGUIRE: Absolutely. I think that her story really in many ways is the foundation of the Montgomery bus boycott, which is primarily a women's movement for bodily integrity. The buses were spaces of violence, and the women who mobilized to be free on the buses were women who had experienced assault and harassment there.
I think that her story is one of many stories within the civil rights movement that are rooted in resistance by black women for bodily integrity, and that if we look at every single story in the civil rights movement - Montgomery, Selma, freedom summer, Birmingham - they're all rooted in this kind of resistance to sexual violence. We just need to look more carefully.
SHAPIRO: Historian Danielle McGuire's book is called "At The Dark End Of The Street: Black Women, Rape And Resistance - A New History Of The Civil Rights Movement From Rosa Parks To The Rise Of Black Power." She's remembering Recy Taylor, who died last month, three days before her 98th birthday. Thanks for joining us.
MCGUIRE: You're welcome. Thanks for having me.
[POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In the audio, as in a previous Web version, we say historian Danielle McGuire met Recy Taylor on President Barack Obama's Inauguration Day in 2008. The correct year is 2009.]
(SOUNDBITE OF JEFF CORMACK'S "RUN")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Nearly 200,000 Salvadorans who've been allowed to live and work in the U.S. are now being told to leave. These immigrants have been here since at least 2001 when a pair of earthquakes devastated El Salvador. The Trump administration says it is now safe for them to go home. Immigrants' rights advocates disagree. Our coverage starts with NPR's Joel Rose.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: The Trump administration has ended something called temporary protected status, or TPS, for Nicaraguans and Haitians and now for Salvadorans. The program protects immigrants from being deported to countries wracked by wars or natural disasters. That's a sharp break with past administrations of both parties which repeatedly extended TPS. And it was a welcome change for Dan Stein, the president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates for drastically lower levels of immigration.
DAN STEIN: It is beyond ludicrous to suggest that TPS should be extended any longer. There's simply no basis for it.
ROSE: Salvadorans are by far the biggest group of TPS recipients in the U.S., and the administration's critics say this move will be an economic shock to both countries. Salvadorans collectively send billions of dollars back to their relatives and friends in a country where many live in crushing poverty. And immigrant rights advocates say the end of TPS would also hurt communities in the U.S. where these immigrants live. Anu Joshi is with the New York Immigration Council (ph).
ANU JOSHI: TPS recipients have been here for decades. They have U.S. citizen children. They're contributing members of our economy, our communities. And to pretend like they aren't is just foolish.
ROSE: Trump administration officials said the disruptions resulting from the 2001 earthquakes, quote, "no longer exist." Officials said they did not look at other problems in El Salvador, including violent street gangs like MS-13 or widespread poverty. Anu Joshi says that's not how this program should work.
JOSHI: If you look at El Salvador as a country right now, the conditions on the ground - it warrants renewal of TPS.
ROSE: At a press conference in Manhattan, Joshi was flanked by dozens of TPS recipients, including Hugo Rodriguez (ph), who came here in 2000 and now works as a cook at a steakhouse on Long Island where he supports two children who are U.S. citizens. Rodriguez says TPS is what made that possible.
HUGO RODRIGUEZ: When I get the TPS, I say, now I can do it. It was the beginning for me to the American dream. If they cancel the TPS, I lose my job.
ROSE: Homeland security officials say TPS protections for Salvadorans won't expire until September of 2019 to allow an orderly transition for people like Hugo Rodriguez. In the meantime, advocates are hoping to save them from deportation. They want Congress to grant some kind of permanent legal status before TPS runs out. Joel Rose, NPR News, New York.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
We're going to talk now to someone who has that temporary protected status. Her name is Vanessa Velasco, and she and her husband came to the U.S. from El Salvador on a tourist visa about 18 years ago. Vanessa Velasco is on the line from San Francisco. Thanks for being with us today.
VANESSA VELASCO: Thank you for having me.
MCEVERS: And just tell us; what were your first thoughts today when you heard the news that the temporary status - temporary protected status would be revoked?
VELASCO: Well, we were expecting this announcement already. Even if you have the - at the bottom of your heart, you still have hope to hear a complete different news - didn't happen. When my husband - we see each other; we hug each other. And well, this is not over yet. At least they gave us an extension for 18 more months. And we will try to do everything we can to find a way to stay here and keep pushing because there are some piece of legislation that has already been introduced that can help to find a permanent solution.
MCEVERS: I just want to know about your life here in California. Since moving to the U.S., you've had three children. They are of course U.S. citizens. How old are they now?
VELASCO: Four, 12 and 17.
MCEVERS: OK. And then what are their plans? I mean, if you have to return to El Salvador, what will the children do?
VELASCO: The two youngest are coming with us, but the problem is our eldest daughter. She will be graduating this year. She's already applying to universities. And we already talked to her. And she will be left behind because we never been in the country since we left. Taking to other country in this stage of her life is going to be just catastrophic for her. And hopefully she can find a way for her to finance her studies and continue it to achieve a higher education.
MCEVERS: Do you know where you're going to go? You just said you haven't been back to El Salvador in all these years - almost 20 years.
VELASCO: Yes.
MCEVERS: And what's the plan then? Where're you going to go? Do you still have relatives there?
VELASCO: We still have relatives. We - maybe we'll start to look where we can afford a home over there. But as I say, that other option that we're going to explore - going back to the country is the last option that we have. The violence, the economic instability is not ready to receive us yet.
MCEVERS: It sounds like you're trying to stay. How will you do that?
VELASCO: Well, first we're going explore all the legal options that we have in the U.S. to see if there is something can be done for us - if we can legalize our status or try to see if we can apply for asylum in other countries.
MCEVERS: What do you think is the likelihood? I mean, what are - are you talking to lawyers? I mean, what are they saying?
VELASCO: Well, they have some things that we can try, but they say wait for the news. And after that, now, yeah, we can start to explore options. And that's where we're going right now. This week definitely, that's first priority.
MCEVERS: Well, Vanessa Velasco, thanks so much for talking to us, especially - I know you've got a cold. So we appreciate it.
VELASCO: Thank you.
MCEVERS: Vanessa Velasco and her family have temporary protected status. The Department of Homeland Security announced today the U.S. is ending TPS for Salvadorans.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Rural voters overwhelmingly went for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. That's despite one of his central campaign promises. American farmers largely support the North American Free Trade Agreement, or NAFTA, and Trump has threatened to pull the U.S. out of it. Today at the American Farm Bureau Federation's annual conference in Nashville, Trump said his administration is renegotiating the deal right now.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: But think of it. When Mexico's making all of that money, when Canada's making all of that money, it's not the easiest negotiation. But we're going to make it fair for you people again.
SHAPIRO: Joining us now is Tom Vilsack. He was agriculture secretary to President Obama. He was governor of Iowa before that, and he now runs the U.S. Dairy Export Council. Welcome.
TOM VILSACK: It's good to be with you.
SHAPIRO: President Trump says he's trying to renegotiate NAFTA. How realistic do you think that is?
VILSACK: (Laughter) Well, I think it's obvious the negotiations have been difficult and challenging. Not much progress has been made on the agricultural issues. It's a divided set of issues for agriculture. Our Mexican relationship is quite good. For example, the dairy industry - it's the No. 1 market for U.S. dairy products. However, on the dairy side, Canada has a very closed market. So hopefully, if there is to be a renegotiation of NAFTA and a modernization of it, can it - the Canadians would be willing to open up their markets. To date, they've not been willing to do that.
SHAPIRO: It doesn't sound like you're entirely opposed to some sort of a renegotiation. I want to play you something that we heard on Morning Edition today from President Trump's agriculture secretary, Sonny Perdue. He has the job you held during the Obama administration. This is part of what he said in that interview.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
SONNY PERDUE: The president has a New York-style negotiating that believes that unless you're willing to walk away from a deal, you're not going to get the best deal. He's proven to be a good negotiator in his business dealings and I think also in his government dealings as president. So I've got confidence he will at the end of the day have a great deal for American farmers and the American economy.
SHAPIRO: Secretary Vilsack, what do you make of that characterization?
VILSACK: Well, I would point out the president has been in bankruptcy. So there are times when his negotiation hasn't been as solid as it needs to be. He's playing a very dicey game in terms of agriculture and NAFTA. Actually, farmers are for the most part very satisfied with the way in which NAFTA has been handled. There are one or two issues involving specialty crops that would potentially (inaudible) farmers on the other side.
But for the most part, the grain producers, livestock producers, dairy producers are very satisfied with certainly the Mexican aspect of NAFTA. Again, some issues with Canada that could be worked out, but so far, Canada's expressed no willingness to budge on this. So I will tell you it would be devastating to American agriculture if the president decided to walk away from NAFTA. And I think agriculture is pretty well united in the message it's sent to the administration that would be a very, very poor outcome.
SHAPIRO: And so when you hear talk of the president renegotiating, do farmers tell you that they are more anxious about that or optimistic for how it might turn out?
VILSACK: Well, I think they're concerned. They're concerned because there hasn't been the progress in the negotiations. Initially when these negotiations began, the hope was that they would be culminated and terminated by the end of the year in 2017 and obviously is not the case. They've now extended into 2018. Now you've got a Mexican presidential election and our congressional elections, which makes it even more complicated. So hopefully progress is made very, very quickly on some of these very, very difficult issues.
Here's the problem. When we began the process of renegotiating NAFTA, when we pulled out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, our European friends who are competitors for us in a number of areas filled the void that has been created. So they're going to have to get this NAFTA thing done fairly quickly. And if they fail to get it done and walk away from this agreement, it will be very difficult for American agriculture. You can talk about regulatory reform, and you can talk about taxes. But at the end of the day, what farmers want are markets.
SHAPIRO: I want to end by asking about part of your mission during the Obama administration, which was to reach out to rural communities on behalf of the Democratic Party. And it frankly didn't work. The GOP share of the vote in rural areas was 9 percent higher in 2016 than in 2008. Where do you think your party failed these communities?
VILSACK: Well, first of all, we've got to show up. We actually have to be in these rural communities. We have to learn how to talk to rural folks, not talk down to them. We have to talk up about them and the sacrifices and contributions they make to the country, which are significant. We also have to talk about an economy that is not an extraction economy, an economy that basically takes from the land and then ships it off to some other location where value is added and jobs are created. We've got to create a sustainable economy where we create those opportunities - those value-added opportunities where the products are being taken from in rural communities. We can do that. We started to do that in the Obama administration. But frankly, the Democratic Party has some catch-up to do.
SHAPIRO: Secretary Vilsack, thank you very much.
VILSACK: You bet.
SHAPIRO: Former agriculture secretary in the Obama administration, now head of the U.S. Dairy Export Council.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Can robots help U.S. furniture makers survive? That's a question we'll try to answer on this week's All Tech Considered.
(SOUNDBITE OF ULRICH SCHNAUSS' "NOTHING HAPPENS IN JUNE")
SHAPIRO: In a few minutes, we'll hear the latest piece in our series, Is My Job Safe? First let's turn to this year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. This is the place where the tech industry gives us a glimpse of the future that they predict. Joanna Stern is there. She's the personal technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal. Welcome.
JOANNA STERN: Great to speak to you.
SHAPIRO: What's getting the most buzz this year?
STERN: Lots of things are getting some buzz here, but I think the biggest thing is the fight between Amazon and Google in the personal assistant space. Amazon has its Alexa, and Alexa was huge at CES last year. All these manufacturers integrating Alexa - the voice assistant - in everything from smart home products to laptops and different types of computing devices, cars, et cetera.
This year, Google is here in a big way. Google hasn't been at the show in a number of years in a booth presence. But they've put up a huge booth, and they're talking to all the different manufacturers here and saying, we're going to have our Google assistant in those products. And so they are advertising their, hey, Google or the Google assistant pretty much everywhere you are in Vegas.
SHAPIRO: Often at the Consumer Electronics Show, we hear about things that sound really futuristic, and so I'm wondering how many of those predictions have come to pass. When you think about the things that you saw at last year's show, are many of those integrated into our daily life now or at least something that people are familiar with?
STERN: I think there's these wacky ideas that come out of CES. For instance, last night I saw a robot that folds laundry. But is something like that coming along - I don't know - in the next year? And is it going to come along from a major manufacturer you want to buy it from - probably not. I mean, this company definitely seems to be putting together some neat stuff, but that's sort of what CES is all about - seeing these prototypes and how they may come to fruition.
I sometimes think 5 to 10 years out. This year, the focus on the voice assistants - obviously that's here right now. Another major thing people talking about here are the autonomous vehicles - the self-driving vehicles, self-driving cars - also a number of years out just mostly because of regulatory issues. But you know, companies like Lyft here are picking people up in self-driving cars - lots of other auto manufacturers showing off their improvements there, too.
SHAPIRO: What about the technologies that so many of us interact with every day - our laptops, our mobile phones? Are you seeing dramatic upgrades or changes in what these tech companies predict for the future of those?
STERN: Not so much on the phones here but definitely on the laptops. Dell has a new laptop but a lot more of the same. It's looks very nice but a lot more of - you know, thinner, lighter, longer battery life. The interesting thing to me is - is that as you look around at CES, all of these innovations depend on a type of technology that's actually pretty old, and that's lithium-ion batteries. And what are these companies doing to extend the life of these to make them safer and to, you know, really deal with the fact that we're holding onto these gadgets for longer; these batteries need to last for longer - so some interesting developments there but again kind of showing how our future is being held back by some of these technologies we need to work.
SHAPIRO: OK, so battery life is very functional, utilitarian, important but, some might say, boring. Is there anything you've seen that is just really fantastical that you're telling everybody about?
STERN: Yesterday I was followed around by a piece of luggage that is a self-driving piece of luggage.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
STERN: And I kid you not.
SHAPIRO: And - what? - it just, like, connects to your phone and knows not to stay far from the thing that's in your pocket. Is that how that works?
STERN: Exactly right. And so because pulling your luggage is hard at the airport, these bags can follow you around. And actually it worked pretty well, which was, you know, the really surprising part. And on top of that, not one, not two, but three or four companies are showing this off here. So yeah, that's the main trend.
SHAPIRO: That's Wall Street Journal personal technology columnist Joanna Stern speaking with us from the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Thanks so much.
STERN: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
As technology advances and robots learn new tricks like folding laundry, it makes people wonder, is my job safe? That is the name of an NPR series that looks at how tech is changing our work, and today, furniture making. It's based on old-fashioned handiwork, but a furniture maker in Massachusetts is using robots not to replace workers, but to help them. From member station WBUR in Boston, Asma Khalid reports.
ASMA KHALID, BYLINE: Josh Weissman is a furniture man. His dad started the company Moduform in 1976. It makes nightstands, beds, dressers, the whole deal for university dorms and hospitals.
JOSH WEISSMAN: Back in the '80s and '90s there was a lot of furniture manufacturing done in north central Massachusetts. So we had craftspeople because in this neck of the woods, in north central Massachusetts, it was a haven for furniture.
KHALID: But Weissman says times have changed. People don't want to stand on a production floor for eight to 10 hours a day picking up a piece of wood and putting it through a sanding machine.
WEISSMAN: When we put a job ad out there, we're lucky if we put an ad out there if we get five or six responses.
KHALID: One day in the summer of 2016, Weissman had this backlog of customer orders to fill, and he was getting really worried. He turned on his computer and noticed a news blurb about a company called Rethink Robotics. It's the brainchild of Rodney Brooks, the man who for years had led the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab at MIT.
RODNEY BROOKS: Our robots do simple, repetitive tasks.
KHALID: I meet Brooks at his company's swanky warehouse office in Boston, where dozens of engineers are testing out a robotic arm that you can program and wheel around.
(SOUNDBITE OF WHIRRING)
KHALID: That sound is the robot picking up a circuit board and putting it down again and again. That's what it's good at.
(SOUNDBITE OF WHIRRING)
WEISSMAN: This is the original factory, right? So...
KHALID: Back at the furniture company, Weissman takes me to see the Rethink robot he bought. It's got four grippers on a red arm that swivels to put together a dresser drawer.
WEISSMAN: It's picking the drawer front up and it's feeding it into the machine that's actually cutting and routing those dovetails.
(SOUNDBITE OF SAW BUZZING)
KHALID: That noise is the wood getting cut. In the past, you would have had somebody feeding the machine by hand, someone like Brandon Correia.
BRANDON CORREIA: I started working here over the summer - just a plain factory worker. Like, you know, sometimes I would work this. Sometimes I would be assembling.
KHALID: So you've done this job by hand.
CORREIA: Yeah.
KHALID: How was it?
CORREIA: It's boring. It gets very old very quickly.
KHALID: When Moduform brought this robot in, Correia was asked to set it up.
CORREIA: This was really the first time I've ever tried to program anything like this.
KHALID: He says it was hard. But now he's figured out how to set different programs for different drawer sizes. He's essentially become the robot's supervisor.
CORREIA: So I'll come back after a half hour, see if it's working, make sure everything's going OK. I'll come back when it's done and make sure there were no errors.
KHALID: Correia says this one robot has already changed his job. It frees him up to do other work like managing customer orders. He says all this talk about robots taking jobs feels overblown.
CORREIA: There is still some sort of human that sets up the robot. You know, could we have three of these and have one person program all three and then we don't need as many workers? I could see that. But the way they are now, they're not foolproof.
KHALID: Correia is kind of a rarity at Moduform. He's just 24. The average worker here is over 50. And that worries the company's owner, Josh Weissman. He's hoping that maybe the chance to use computer skills and robots will make this old-school job more attractive to young workers. For NPR News, I'm Asma Khalid.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The fallout from Michael Wolff's book, "Fire And Fury: Inside The Trump White House," continued over the weekend. President Trump on Saturday called the book boring, untruthful and described himself as a very stable genius after the book raised questions about his mental fitness.
Many of the quotes in the book were attributed to his former chief strategist, Steve Bannon, quotes like saying the president's son's meeting with Russians who offered dirt on Hillary Clinton was treasonous. Then on Sunday, Bannon issued a written mea culpa to the news site Axios. He said he regretted the delay in responding to the book and pledged his unwavering support for President Trump and his agenda.
On Friday, I talked to the book's author, Michael Wolff, about "Fire And Fury." And I asked him why Steve Bannon would have said those things about Trump while he still worked in the White House.
MICHAEL WOLFF: I think it was of real concern to Steve. You know, he lived this more intensely than anyone else. Donald Trump - and this is - if you say this around the president, the top of his head blows off. But this is absolutely true, that Steve Bannon is responsible for Donald Trump's election. And Steve has a singular vision about where he thinks the country should be and what has to happen to make America great again. And that's what he went into this White House to do.
You know, and he thought Donald Trump was his vessel to do this. But his vessel turned out be, as Bannon has described him, but as everyone - singularly, everyone else in the White House has also described him - his vessel turned out to be a child or to be like a child, a man so desperate for immediate gratification that really nothing could get done.
MCEVERS: Do you think that Steve Bannon ever thought he was off the record when he was talking to you?
WOLFF: Steve Bannon is the ultimate strategist. I have never spoken to anyone - and it's fascinating to talk to him at this level - who sees many, many steps ahead. So I have no fear that Steve Bannon was not aware of what he was doing.
MCEVERS: Yeah. You know, but at the end of the book when you finish your reporting, you know, Steve Bannon - it's just before the loss of Roy Moore, a candidate who Steve Bannon backed in Alabama. So he looks ascendant. You know, he's backing this candidate in Alabama. Things are looking like that's going to work out. Of course, Roy Moore loses. And this week has been a really tough week for Steve Bannon (laughter). My question to you is, does he have a few acts left in him?
WOLFF: I think he has many acts left in him. I would put my money on Steve Bannon rather than Donald Trump at this point.
MCEVERS: That's the impression I get from the book. But again, it ended at a certain time. But I mean, do you think really president 2020, Steve Bannon - he would run?
WOLFF: No - well, would he run? I - you know, I think - I mean, one of the things you have to deal with in terms of where we are is that the Republican Party is cracking up. So where Steve Bannon comes out in that crackup, I don't know. I mean, Steve Bannon is incredibly talented, and he understands this base and this party. It's a minority base. It may grow smaller rather than larger, but it's a passionate and powerful base.
MCEVERS: He does come across as very savvy, obviously, and smart in your book. What are his mistakes, though? What are some of the things you see, some of his missteps?
WOLFF: Well, I - you know, I mean...
MCEVERS: Some would say talking to you was a big mistake (laughter).
WOLFF: Perhaps or perhaps not. He's...
MCEVERS: Right.
WOLFF: ...Maybe seeing around corners here. I think that the mistake that people would pin on him now is that he fell out with Donald Trump.
MCEVERS: Right.
WOLFF: But I think Steve Bannon has a vision. He's 64 years old. He knows his time is - you know, he knows he's not a 35-year-old. He's got to do things now. He has to move in audacious ways. And I think that that can be - you know, often it is not strategic to be audacious. But when you feel that your shot is now, you've got to take it.
MCEVERS: Michael, well, thank you so much for your time today.
WOLFF: Thank you.
MCEVERS: Michael Wolff is the author of "Fire And Fury: Inside The Trump White House."
(SOUNDBITE OF BLUE WEDNESDAY SONG, "MONACO")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
North Korea and South Korea are set to meet tomorrow for the first time in two years. Negotiators will meet in the DMZ - that's the demilitarized zone that separates the two countries - and the plan is to talk about the upcoming Winter Olympics in South Korea and ways the North might participate. In his New Year's speech, North Korean President Kim Jong Un said he was open to sending a delegation and said the two sides should talk about it. In past Olympics, North and South Korea have marched under the same flag, so what's the big deal with this Olympics?
To answer that we have reached out to Tina Park on Skype. She's a North Korea scholar with the Canadian Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. It's based out of the University of Toronto. Welcome to the show.
TINA PARK: Hello.
MCEVERS: So you wrote in a piece in Maclean's magazine that North Korea often uses international sporting events as a way to boost its legitimacy, but you seem to believe that these particular talks could be a breakthrough. Why?
PARK: Well, it is important to recognize that for over two years the two Koreas have not been talking. And in fact, the relationship between the North and the South has deteriorated for the past decade. So this is only a first step forward in terms of bringing North Korea back to the negotiating table, and we have to watch very carefully in terms of North Korea's next moves, like, you know, missile testing or nuclear testing.
MCEVERS: One can't help but think of the United States government and President Donald Trump and the, you know, heightened rhetoric between him and Kim Jong Un. Is this, do you think, a way for South Korea to say, we're sort of taking matters into our own hands here?
PARK: In a way, yes. We have to, I think, remember that even though there may seem to be discontent and disagreement between President Trump and President Moon Jae-in of South Korea, the fact of the matter is it's a very solid alliance between the United States and South Korea. And we have over 28,500 U.S. soldiers stationed in South Korea. But what is different is that there's a very clear vision that South Korean President Moon Jae-in has proposed in terms of how best to move forward in dealing with North Korea.
He doesn't believe that just pressuring North Korea through sanctions will make a difference. And he is himself a son of refugees from North. And he thinks that we have to address the root causes of North Korea's insecurities. And that means having institutions to engage with the cultural and human aspects of the divided Koreas, and also to ensure that the North Korean regime understands that South Korea is not interested in regime change.
So we're seeing, I think, very assertive policy coming out of Seoul. And that's, in fact, a good thing because at the end of the day it is important for the Korean people to find the solution that works for the Korean future.
MCEVERS: Do you imagine, you know, North Korean delegation going to the Olympics and, you know, there being talks between the two sides on the sidelines?
PARK: It's entirely possible because right now the composition of the high-level talks for tomorrow will feature the top-level officials, ministers from the Unification Ministry, and there will be emphasis on more long-term contact like family reunions and economic exchanges potentially. So I am certainly hopeful that this won't be just a one-time event for the Olympics and that the dialogue will continue moving forward.
MCEVERS: Tina Park is executive director of the Canadian Centre for the Responsibility to Protect. Thank you so much.
PARK: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE SEA AND THE CAKE'S "THE ARGUMENT")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Now we're going to hear about a small piece of the new tax law that could have a big impact. It has to do with 529 plans, which let families save for college. The new tax law expands 529s so that parents will be able to use them to cover tuition at private elementary and high schools, too. NPR's Cory Turner reports that the move caught states off guard and could cost them dearly.
CORY TURNER, BYLINE: Think of the 529 plan as a love child born in the mid-'90s to your federal and state governments. They named it in a flash of creativity after a section of the tax code. States generally manage the investment plans while the feds let the money grow long-term tax-free. Many states also try to encourage savers with a little short-term reward. When families make a contribution, they get a credit or deduction on their state income taxes.
TROY MONTIGNEY: Most often, the state tax credit or deduction is the foot in the door.
TURNER: Troy Montigney oversees Indiana's 529 program, where savers get a tax credit. Thirty-three states do this, putting extra skin in the game. That credit in Indiana or deduction in Oklahoma means less tax revenue coming in. States just figure it's worth it if it gets more people to college. But all of this is why Congress' sudden expansion of the program into K-12 schools has some experts worried.
NAT MALKUS: This change allows private school families to put their money through 529 accounts and avoid state income taxes.
TURNER: Nat Malkus studies ed policy at the American Enterprise Institute. It's a conservative-leaning think tank.
MALKUS: It's a change from the federal level that puts a number of states in a pretty tough position moving forward.
TURNER: Malkus says if lots of new families sign up and current families contribute more, well, then states could end up losing a lot more money in tax breaks.
GREG BERCK: I think it would immediately create a unintended budgetary hit to the states' budget.
TURNER: Greg Berck of the New York State Council of School Superintendents says this expansion surprised states. After all, it came top down from Washington, and states haven't budgeted for it. New York offers savers a $10,000 deduction on their state taxes. In Illinois, where Michael Frerichs is treasurer, it's even more generous - $20,000. He says 529s were meant to save long-term for college, and that letting families use them for kindergarten changes things.
MICHAEL FRERICHS: If they're putting money in one month and taking it out the next, they don't really have that advantage of long-term investing. And it's really just using them to get around state taxes.
TURNER: This point is key. Most Americans send their kids to public schools, and there's little concern that this is going to change that because using a 529 for the early grades, it just doesn't make a lot of sense. Literally, there isn't time for the money to grow. The real benefit, according to the state experts and economists I spoke with, is for affluent families, many of whom already have kids in private K-12 schools. They can now use their old 529 or open a new one to pay that tuition bill and get a nice state tax break. Troy Montigney of Indiana says he's hearing from a lot of curious parents.
MONTIGNEY: We're already fielding - and I'll just be honest - a tremendous amount of calls on a daily basis about can I, you know, take a withdrawal right now to pay for a K through 12 tuition expense?
TURNER: The challenge for state leaders - they've had just days to get their heads around all of this, and it's hard to know how much this expansion of 529's uses will actually expand the pool of people who use them. Nat Malkus at AEI believes states will take a hit and have to make some tough choices.
MALKUS: They're either going to have to accept a loss in their income tax base or do something unpopular to repair the hole.
TURNER: Lots of states could feel the pinch. One that won't is Texas, where the idea began with Republican Senator Ted Cruz. Texas doesn't give savers an income tax break because Texas doesn't have an income tax. Cory Turner, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF WHITE HINDERLAND SONG, "ICARUS")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Poor families in the United States are having a hard time finding affordable places to live. Tenant advocates worry that the problem could get worse under the new tax law, along with potential cuts in housing aid. NPR's Pam Fessler recently went to Wisconsin, where the supply of affordable housing is getting squeezed.
HEINER GIESE: If you look at this huge vacant lot, this was all occupied at one time.
PAM FESSLER, BYLINE: Heiner Giese is driving around an old neighborhood on the north side of Milwaukee past modest single-family homes and duplexes. But almost every block also has a few empty lots, and many of the houses that are still standing are boarded up, waiting to be torn down or worse.
GIESE: Yeah. This place burned right here to the next. This place burned, I think.
FESSLER: Giese is a local landlord. He says in recent years, many other landlords have lost or abandoned houses here because they can't pay their mortgage and other bills.
GIESE: I don't know what this is here. This one says for sale.
FESSLER: He says it's especially hard for landlords to maintain these houses if tenants get behind on their rent. And that's a big problem around here. A recent census found that more than 50,000 families in Milwaukee County had to spend more than half their income on housing. And that's increasingly the case for low-income families nationwide as the stock of affordable housing shrinks.
ROB DICK: There is no county in the U.S. where you can work a minimum wage job and afford a two-bedroom apartment.
FESSLER: Rob Dick runs the housing authority in nearby Dane County, home of Madison, the state capital. Average rent for a small apartment there is almost $1,100 a month. So he does the math.
DICK: Seven twenty-five times 40 times four...
FESSLER: And comes up with this.
DICK: Three minimum wage jobs full time can't afford a two-bedroom in Dane County.
FESSLER: Dick says the county needs to build a thousand new affordable units a year to keep up with demand, but that there's no way that's going to happen. And he fears the new tax law will make matters worse. Lower tax rates mean credits used to encourage developers to build affordable housing are less attractive. On top of that, subsidies for renters are also at risk. House Speaker Paul Ryan has been eager to impose work requirements and time limits on federal housing aid, which he spoke about recently on Fox News.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PAUL RYAN: People want able-bodied people who are on welfare to go to work. They want us to get people out of poverty, into the workforce. That's good for them. That's good for the economy. It's good for the federal budget.
FESSLER: President Trump threw some cold water on that proposal this past weekend, saying that any welfare changes would need Democratic support, which is highly unlikely. Still, the Trump administration has proposed cutting billions of dollars in housing aid for low-income families, and Congress is under pressure to reduce spending because of growing deficits. Sue Popkin of the Urban Institute says as it is, there isn't enough housing aid to go around.
SUSAN POPKIN: Only 1 in 5 households in the country who are eligible for assistance actually get it.
FESSLER: And Popkin thinks those numbers could get worse. She notes that most rental housing built today is for the high-end market, not for low and middle-income families. U.S. Housing Secretary Ben Carson has said that more affordable housing might be funded in a new infrastructure bill, but Popkin is not optimistic.
POPKIN: Everything that is coming out of this Congress and this administration is about cuts and shrinking and moving people off. And right now, I worry there's nowhere for them to go.
FESSLER: Heiner Giese, the landlord, is also worried and thinks some government or nonprofit help is needed. He understands that some people just don't have enough money to pay the rent, but he says all sides are being pressured.
GIESE: It's obviously very difficult for the tenants. It's very difficult for the landlords also because it's stressful. And ultimately, the landlords lose money.
FESSLER: And if they lose enough, he says, that's one less affordable place to live. Pam Fessler, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Some hospitals are admitting they have prescribed too many opioids. Their goal was to keep patients as pain-free as possible before, during and after surgery. Now in an effort to be part of the solution to the country's opioid crisis, a few of the largest hospital chains are issuing an uncomfortable warning to patients. You're going to feel some pain. Blake Farmer of member station WPLN in Nashville reports.
BLAKE FARMER, BYLINE: Michelle Leavy welcomed the high-dose IV narcotics while she was in the hospital for a C-section.
MICHELLE LEAVY: I had the C-section, had the kiddo. And then they told me, you know, it's OK. You can keep taking the pain medications. It's fine.
FARMER: The Las Vegas mother of three is a paramedic who's dealt with many addicts herself, but she gladly followed doctor's orders and kept ahead of the surgical pain with her Percocet pills. But then she needed stronger doses until she was no longer treating pain.
LEAVY: And then I was taking them just to go to bed. I really didn't realize I had a problem until the problem was something more than I could have taken care of myself.
FARMER: She was becoming like the addicts she transported by ambulance, lying to ER doctors to con a few extra doses. Pretty soon she lost her job and her fiance before going to rehab and stitching her life back together. It's a reality that's been completely disconnected from where it often starts - in a hospital. Anesthesiologist David Alfery in Nashville says he was rarely stingy with opioids.
DAVID ALFERY: If I can waken them without any pain whatsoever, I was the slickest guy on the block. And it was a matter of enormous pride.
FARMER: Alfery's part of a working group at the Nashville-based consulting firm Health Trust, where hospitals have set aside some of their competitive interests to swap ideas on a top priority - reducing opioid use.
ALFERY: Over the years, patients have come to expect more and more in terms of, I don't want any pain after surgery. And it's an unrealistic expectation.
FARMER: Hospitals have been graded on how well they keep someone's pain at bay. And doctors can feel some pressure on that institutional level as well as a personal one, says Mike Schlosser, a former spinal surgeon.
MIKE SCHLOSSER: I just wanted my patient not to be in pain, thinking I was doing the right thing for them and certainly, you know, was not an outlier amongst my colleagues.
FARMER: Spine surgeries like correcting back curvature can be especially painful. He says he wanted to soothe the hurt he caused.
SCHLOSSER: Looking back on it, I was putting them at significant risk for developing an addiction to those medications.
FARMER: Schlosser is now a top medical officer for the country's largest private hospital chain. At HCA, he's found that for orthopedic and back surgeries, the greatest risk isn't infection or some other complication. It's addiction. So HCA is rolling out a new protocol. It includes a pre-op conversation Schlosser rarely had himself.
SCHLOSSER: We will treat the pain, but you should expect that you're going to have some pain. And you should also understand that taking a narcotic so that you have no pain really puts you at risk of becoming addicted to that narcotic.
FARMER: In addition to the uncomfortable warning, sparing use of opioids also takes more work, trying nerve blocks and finding the most effective blend of non-narcotics to treat pain. And everyone in the hospital has to stick to it. John Young, a medical director for LifePoint Hospitals, says businesswise, no one wants to be known as the place where it hurts more.
JOHN YOUNG: You don't want to portray the fact that you're not going to treat people appropriately.
FARMER: But he says it's critical that hospitals tighten up on opioids.
YOUNG: We really do have a lot of responsibility and culpability and this burden. So we do have to make sure that we do whatever we can to turn the ship in the other direction.
FARMER: After going to rehab following her C-section, Michelle Leavy had gallbladder surgery last year without any narcotics before, during or after.
LEAVY: I mean, it hurt, but I lived.
FARMER: Leavy says she was nervous about telling her doctors, but they were happy to find opioid alternatives. For NPR News, I'm Blake Farmer in Nashville.
MCEVERS: This story is part of a reporting partnership with NPR, Nashville Public Radio and Kaiser Health News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Our next two guests have organized state dinners and congressional picnics. Jeremy Bernard and Lea Berman each served as White House social secretary. He worked for President Obama, she for President George W. Bush. And they've collaborated on a new book that uses their White House experiences to draw out lessons in how to handle crises, diffuse awkward moments and manage expectations. The book is called "Treating People Well: The Extraordinary Power Of Civility At Work And In Life." Lea Berman is here with us in Washington and Jeremy Bernard in our Culver City studios. Welcome to both of you.
LEA BERMAN: Thank you - great to be here.
JEREMY BERNARD: Thank you.
SHAPIRO: Would one of you began by just describing what a White House social secretary does?
BERMAN: The White House social secretary is responsible for every event that takes place within the grounds of the White House with the exception of the Oval Office and the press room. So it's hundreds of events each year, and it's everything from a two-person lunch in the family residence to a state arrival ceremony, which can be 7,000 or 8,000 people.
SHAPIRO: And I think people would be surprised to learn from this book that many of the challenges you experience at the most famous address in the world are similar to the challenges in any workplace. And one that I think many people would relate to is imposter syndrome. You write, (reading) we both had the uneasy feeling that getting our social secretary jobs had been some kind of karmic joke. Neither of us fit the profile of a typical White House social secretary. Past occupants of the position typically came from prominent political families.
So how did you overcome the sense of not belonging?
BERNARD: That was difficult in the sense that there was that insecurity. But the excitement of being there overran the fear, for lack of a better word. So I think that part of it was you play the part. And I know that the beginning of that was just like the beginning of my first job at a bank. You're nervous. You don't know if you really fit in. How did you get this job? So it is similar to any of my past experiences at a job where I'm wondering, wow, where am I really capable of this?
SHAPIRO: How do you play the part? What's the trick that you use to make yourself believe or make others believe that you do belong there even if in your heart of hearts you feel like maybe you don't?
BERMAN: What we learned very quickly being at the White House is that everyone coming there is intimidated. They are nervous. They're excited. But they also don't really know what to expect. And it became so much easier for our guests if we made the first move. And there were so many times when we would watch people arrive on the State Floor, particularly if it was their first time to the White House. And they look around, and they realize that they share this common heritage as Americans with all the people who've lived in that house. And it becomes very emotional for them. And they get very happy. It's also a little volatile because people are exuberant. But the social secretaries are there to smooth and soothe.
SHAPIRO: I mean, when you say things can get a little volatile, I think many people would assume that everything at the White House always goes according to plan. I learned from this book that people have occasionally had too much to drink and been sick in potted plants in the White House, other things (laughter).
BERNARD: Yes. That was unfortunately - I don't want to say common but not terribly unusual at holiday parties. And the eggnog at the White House - there's one eggnog that is non-alcoholic. And then there's the other eggnog that is strong as can be.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
BERNARD: And the president would - when he made remarks - would say, be careful of the eggnog; it'll hit you hard later. And sure enough, there would be someone that it would hit them. And all of a sudden, they start to feel sick. And they don't want to get sick on someone. And so the natural reaction was to aim for one of the Christmas trees.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
BERNARD: So we would talk about which trees were the most likely to get hit. And you know, the only thing we could do is kind of play with it because...
SHAPIRO: You kept a sense of humor about it.
BERNARD: Right, exactly.
BERMAN: (Laughter).
SHAPIRO: OK, so a lot of people I think have had the experience of being - whether it's at a work Christmas party or you're hosting a dinner party - and it goes off the rails. Somebody does have too much to drink. Things do not go according to plan. How do you keep your poise? How do you get through it?
BERMAN: And that's really what this book is about. It's about the everyday situations we find ourselves in. Sometimes it's an awkward relationship with a coworker. Sometimes it's just a difficult situation at home. And what we're really saying is by treating people well in a very self-interested way, you will cause them to treat you well in return. It almost always happens that way.
SHAPIRO: Lea, do you remember what your first advice to Jeremy was?
BERMAN: I told him not to do any outdoor events without a backup. And he ignored me.
(LAUGHTER)
SHAPIRO: And did you call him the first time his outdoor event was caught in a rainstorm?
BERMAN: No. I knew he was - and it didn't. He was lucky. It all worked out.
BERNARD: That was the Germany state dinner, my first state dinner.
SHAPIRO: Oh, that's high-stakes one.
BERNARD: A high-stakes one - I was young and foolish, but I remember thinking, if this goes wrong, I will be the shortest-term social secretary ever.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
BERNARD: And I looked at the gate. And I thought, that's the gate I'll go running out of.
SHAPIRO: Jeremy, have you given any advice to your successor?
BERNARD: Yes. My main advice was to keep it low-key. It's not about you, and you never want to do anything that will embarrass the president or first lady.
SHAPIRO: Jeremy Bernard was social secretary to President Obama, and Lea Berman held that job under President George W. Bush. Their new book is "Treating People Well: The Extraordinary Power Of Civility At Work And In Life." Thank you both so much for coming in and talking with us.
BERMAN: Thank you.
BERNARD: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF GEORGES DELERUE'S "CHORALE (DAY FOR NIGHT)")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
North Korea and South Korea made a deal today. The North will take part in the Winter Olympics that are being hosted by the South. The games open on February 9. It is the first breakthrough in direct talks between the two Koreas, talks that haven't happened in two years. NPR's Elise Hu reports.
ELISE HU, BYLINE: South Korea is about to host the Winter Olympics for the first time in the country's history. Tickets are sold. Venues are ready. But for a while now, Seoul couldn't be sure how its northern neighbor would behave when all eyes are on the games.
IAN BREMMER: The South Koreans are extremely interested in making sure they go off without a hitch.
HU: Analyst Ian Bremmer who heads the Eurasia Group says that led to an opening for the latest talks.
BREMMER: If you're North Korea, you recognize that you've got the South Koreans over a barrel here because they really want not to have escalation vis-a-vis the United States and North Korea in this point.
HU: Cocooned by cameras and dressed in a black suit, North Korea's lead negotiator and his delegation crossed over the border by foot to walk the hundred yards or so to a conference building for the meeting. Seated across from one another at a long, rectangular table, both sides sounded earnest about improving frosty ties. North Korea's negotiator, Ri Son Gwon, actually compared the relationship to the weather.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RI SON GWON: (Through interpreter) It wouldn't be an overstatement to say the inter-Korean relationship is more frozen than the natural climate. But despite the cold weather, the people's desire for the improvement of inter-Korean relationship remains unfrozen.
HU: In the talks, North Korea swiftly agreed to send a delegation to the Winter Olympics. The delegation will include athletes, high-level visitors, a press corps and even a cheering squad, which is standard for North Korea's appearances at sporting events.
JOHN DELURY: Yeah, they're a big deal. But I'm not a cheerleading expert, you know?
HU: John Delury is a North Korea watcher and a professor at Seoul's Yonsei University. He says South Korea's main hope is that the scope of conversations widen to security issues. But Delury argues since North Korea feels it is most threatened by the U.S., the U.S. should join in at some point.
DELURY: The Trump administration needs to find a way to use the opportunity of improved inter-Korean relations to get in there and start doing some serious diplomatic work on how do you lower the tensions; how do you convince the North Koreans to agree to some limits and suspension of their program, and what are you going to offer them in return?
HU: For now, the fact the two Koreas are meeting at all helps tamp down tensions that had been ratcheting throughout last year over Pyongyang's improving nuclear and missile capabilities. Not only did the North agree to send a delegation to the Olympics. It also agreed to further talks to focus on easing tensions. And the two sides are reopening another formerly disconnected phone hotline. Ian Bremmer...
BREMMER: Re-establishing the hotline makes the likelihood of sudden military strikes both from the blue or overreacting to any mistakes lower. That's a good thing. You just generally want antagonists talking to each other.
HU: For many in South Korea, the re-establish ties with the North represent a hopeful sign for what's still a dangerous situation. Delury...
DELURY: It reduces a certain set of risks. It doesn't solve core, problems but it does reduce risks. So that's a net positive right off the bat.
HU: South Korea's hoping that the future conversations will start the path of solving those core problems. Elise Hu, NPR News, Seoul.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Dozens of powerful men, including two here at NPR, have lost their jobs and reputations in the cultural reckoning that is the #MeToo movement. There's clearly tremendous momentum behind it, so where does it go from here? And what's going to happen to these men? NPR's Elizabeth Blair set out to explore whether they have a shot at redemption. And a quick note that her report includes details of domestic violence and other material that may not be suitable for all listeners.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: First, some free advice from Los Angeles attorney Andrew Brettler.
ANDREW BRETTLER: You know, the best advice is obviously to not get yourself in a situation where you could be accused of sexual misconduct.
BLAIR: Until recently, it seems plenty of people got away with ignoring that advice.
(SOUNDBITE OF MEDIA MONTAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Roughly 24 hours later Matt Lauer, anchor of NBC's "Today" show for 20 years, was fired.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: Two weeks after Alex Kozinski, a prominent federal appeals court judge, stepped down amid wide-ranging allegations of sexual harassment.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: There have been more disturbing reports regarding Mark Halperin's treatment of younger female co-workers.
BLAIR: MSNBC, CBS, NBC - these stories are just about everywhere. For those who can afford it, the path to redemption can be a legal process. Brettler represents several men accused of sexual misconduct.
BRETTLER: Those allegations these days are just as bad and damaging as a conviction.
BLAIR: Still, Brettler says, for people who lose their jobs sometimes the best response is to lay low.
BRETTLER: Sometimes the best defense is to not do anything. It is to accept the punishment or whatever decision it is that the company made and stay quiet and better yourself as a person, make whatever apologies that need to be made privately.
BLAIR: Like Andrew Brettler, Hanna Stotland spends a lot of time helping people accused of sexual misconduct.
HANNA STOTLAND: Some of them have done something wrong. Some of them I'll never know.
BLAIR: Stotland sees a lot of parallels between her job and what's happening in the public sphere. As an admissions counselor, Stotland works with college students. Some of her clients are men who've either been expelled or left universities because of sexual misconduct allegations. She helps them apply to new schools.
STOTLAND: A big part of what I do is help them decide what is - what's the right framework for them to talk about it? This is a narrative of their crisis and recovery.
BLAIR: And it is not easy.
STOTLAND: There's a few reasons why sexual misconduct allegations are particularly heavy as a drag on an application. The first is that they're scary. Nobody wants to bring a predator into their community. A second reason is that there's a perception that this sort of misconduct as compared to any other kind of misconduct has to do with something fundamentally unchangeably wrong with you. And whether that's true or not, it's something that everybody who's accused of this particular set of misbehavior has to cope with.
BLAIR: Stotland says for her students, it's about finding a university with sympathetic ears. Sometimes that takes years. But so far, the students she's worked with have been able to graduate.
STOTLAND: So it's quite an odyssey. But if you get everything else right, you can come back from this.
BLAIR: As for these high-profile cases playing out in the media, Stotland says there are some lessons her students can learn. Take comedian Louis C.K. He admitted to masturbating in front of women without their consent, as reported here by ABC.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #4: In his lengthy statement, Louis C.K. says that he is remorseful. The power I had over these women is that they admired me, and I wielded that power irresponsibly, which...
STOTLAND: The most important right thing he said was the allegations are true. That is the single most important thing that you can say. If they're true, you need to say that they're true.
BLAIR: But Stotland acknowledges an apology is only the beginning. It was after Louis C.K. confessed that companies severed ties with him.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #5: Netflix has already canceled his standup special while HBO is removing his projects from their on-demand services.
ATTIYA KHAN: What's happening is men are basically being fired.
BLAIR: Attiya Khan is a filmmaker based in Toronto. She also spent years helping victims of domestic abuse.
KHAN: Part of my fear is that we're getting rid of somebody, but then where do they go? And that person becomes another workplace's problem, another person's problem.
BLAIR: And not part of a solution to end sexual misconduct, says Kahn. She herself is a survivor of domestic violence. When she was a teenager, her boyfriend at the time was physically abusive.
KHAN: I had been coping with the trauma from his abuse for over 20 years. And so I thought that maybe it was possible that he still carried, you know, some of the weight of what he did to me. And I really wanted to hear about that. But I also - more importantly, I really wanted the opportunity to tell him exactly what he did to me in detail.
BLAIR: Kahn asked her ex-boyfriend if he'd be willing to sit down with her and a therapist and let her film their conversations. He agreed. As Khan tells her story in excruciating detail to the therapist, her abuser, who she refers to only as Steve, sits next to her.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KHAN: I remember being dragged to the bed and, you know, hit more...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: How were you being hit?
KHAN: Like, punched.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Where were you being punched?
KHAN: In the face.
BLAIR: Conversations like these were a critical part of Khan's healing process.
KHAN: To have him listen to me was almost the most important thing for me. And it was part of him being accountable and taking responsibility. It was so satisfying.
BLAIR: Why?
KHAN: To have the person who hurt you sit there and listen to you and not blame you for it and admit to what they did and to remember some of the abuse - even though Steve didn't remember a lot of it in our first conversations, he started to remember.
BLAIR: This process is called restorative justice. With mediation, victims and offenders come together to repair the harm that's been done. It's something writer Stephanie Cassatly thinks about a lot. In 1980, Cassatly's mother was murdered while she was working as a cashier at a convenience store in New Orleans. Her mother's killer spent the rest of his life at Angola prison. Cassatly says for 20 years, she was angry and wanted revenge.
STEPHANIE CASSATLY: The thought of forgiveness to me felt like I was sort of giving up a limb and then maybe I might regret it later, or that I was letting him off the hook.
BLAIR: Until she started looking into restorative justice and changed her definition of forgiveness.
CASSATLY: My working definition basically for forgiveness is that it no longer wishes ill or seeks revenge on the person who hurt us, and that it basically untethers us from them and enables us to have a different future from the past.
BLAIR: When it comes to the #MeToo movement, Cassatly sees restorative justice as a possible way forward.
CASSATLY: I think we're in the bomb throwing stage of it still. We're not even sure where this is going. And I think it's going to take some time for us to get any resolution. And so what I'm realizing about a lot of these women is that they have to get their power back.
BLAIR: Stephanie Cassatly and Attiya Khan both say that is going to take a very long time.
KHAN: A lot of men who have harmed women are coming forward very quickly after it's becoming public that they've hurt someone and they're saying sorry. It needs to be more than that. And you need to make sure that the people who have been harmed want your apology. And you need to ask them, like, what else is it that you need from me? How can I help you heal after I've wronged you? That's the part that's missing.
BLAIR: The offenders called out by the #MeToo movement might not be there yet. It takes courage to be held accountable. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF LANA DEL REY SONG, "BLUE JEANS (KRIS MENACE REMIX)")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
More news in the Russia investigation - the author of the infamous Russia dossier on Donald Trump thought Trump was being blackmailed. That detail is one of many in a transcript released today by Senator Dianne Feinstein. NPR's justice reporter Ryan Lucas has been following this and is here to tell us more. Hey, Ryan.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Howdy.
MCEVERS: First off, what is this transcript?
LUCAS: Well, it comes from a 10-hour interview that the Senate Judiciary Committee did with Glenn Simpson behind closed doors in August. Now, Simpson of course is the founder of Fusion GPS. That's the research firm behind the infamous Trump dossier. The transcript is more than 300 pages, so there's a lot in there. But it really does make for fascinating reading, and it's kind of a behind-the-scenes look at political research and the 2016 campaign.
MCEVERS: What else is in it?
LUCAS: Well, Simpson says that the former British agent who compiled the information in the dossier - it was a man by the name of Christopher Steele - went to the FBI after writing his initial memo in June of 2016. And Simpson said Steele did so because he was concerned about whether Trump was being blackmailed. He says Steele met with an FBI official in Rome in September to discuss his findings. And then as Simpson tells it, Steele told him that the FBI had other information about Trump-Russia links from an individual within the Trump campaign itself.
MCEVERS: An individual within the Trump campaign - do we know who that was?
LUCAS: We don't. Simpson doesn't say. But what he does tell investigators is that the individual approached the FBI with similar concerns as Steele. Simpson's understanding is that the FBI thought Steele's information was credible because it aligned with what the FBI was hearing from this individual within the campaign. Steele ultimately broke off with the FBI shortly before the election because he was concerned that the FBI wasn't handling the issue as he believed it ought have been.
MCEVERS: The dossier's also of course been the target of some pretty consistent political attacks from the president's allies. How does the release of this transcript tie into that?
LUCAS: Well, Republicans on the Hill and conservative pundits have attacked the credibility of Fusion GPS and Simpson and Steele. Just last week, two Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee including the chairman, Charles Grassley, referred Steele to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation, alleging that he had lied to the FBI about his contacts with journalists. So yes, the release of the transcript by the committee's top Democrat, Dianne Feinstein, is in a sense kind of returned fire. In a statement today, she says that the, quote, "innuendo and misinformation," as she describes it, around the transcript are part of an ongoing effort to undermine the special counsel's investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia.
MCEVERS: Have the Republicans responded?
LUCAS: Grassley, the Republican chairman, has. He put out a statement calling Feinstein's decision to release the transcript totally confounding. He also says that he wasn't consulted beforehand. It's worth noting here that Feinstein says that Grassley didn't consult with her before referring Steele for investigation. So basically it boils down to this - that this is an indication of just how the committee's Russia investigation is really unraveling on a partisan basis. And it's become as much about politics in many cases as it has about substance.
MCEVERS: Let's get back to the substance, though. I mean, does Simpson address any of the allegations that Republicans have raised with this dossier?
LUCAS: He does, yes. Perhaps the most important one is the question of whether the FBI's investigation was founded - based upon the dossier, which is what some Republicans allege. Simpson says it wasn't. He says that it wasn't because the FBI had been hearing the same thing from that voluntary informant inside the Trump campaign. There's also an exchange in which Simpson says that neither he nor Steele asked for anyone's approval to go to the FBI. They weren't encouraged, discouraged. He says that decision to talk to the FBI was like driving to work and seeing something happening, and then you call 911.
MCEVERS: NPR's Ryan Lucas, thanks a lot.
LUCAS: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Eleven months before Election Day, a federal judge has given the Republican National Committee a big win. He has allowed a consent decree to expire that was in place since 1982. That agreement prevented the RNC from carrying out what the party saw as ballot security measures and what critics deemed voter suppression. Rick Hasen of the University of California, Irvine, joins us now. He writes the Election Law Blog. Welcome.
RICK HASEN: Good to be with you.
SHAPIRO: What happened in the early 1980s that led to this consent decree?
HASEN: Well, the Democrats accused the Republican National Committee of engaging in a number of activities which they said was voter suppression in violation of the Voting Rights Act and other civil rights laws. One thing the RNC was accused of was sending armed police officers off duty to polling places to patrol the polling places in minority areas.
Rather than going to trial, the RNC agreed to settle the case, and it settled the case in what's called a consent decree, which means that the settlement between the parties was embodied in a court order. And if the RNC ever violated that order, they could be found in contempt. And so this was a very powerful too that the Democrats have been able to use for the last few decades.
SHAPIRO: And over the years, the Democrats convinced judges to extend this consent decree until now. Why not?
HASEN: Well, so back in the mid-2000s, the RNC went all the way to the Supreme Court trying to get the consent decree eliminated because nobody wants to be under the threat of contempt. But in 2009, a federal judge said, all right, I'm giving it eight more years. Unless the Democrats come forward with evidence that the Republicans are still engaging in this activity, the consent decree will end as of December 1, 2017.
So this summer, as the Trump campaign started touting problems with voter fraud and trying to collect signatures of people who were going to engage in poll watching on Election Day, Democrats said the Republicans were violating the consent decree. The judge determined that whatever the Trump campaign might have done, it was done without the RNC's cooperation, and therefore the RNC didn't violate it, and the consent decree was allowed to die.
SHAPIRO: So what do you expect will change in November when people go to the polls and, for the first time, the RNC is not under this consent decree?
HASEN: If we were not in the Trump administration, I wouldn't expect very much to change. The RNC has been very careful to instruct people associated with it not to engage in any activities that might be seen as suppressing the vote. But Trump adds something different here. He has made voter fraud a centerpiece of his rhetoric about campaigns. He's claimed falsely that 3 to 5 million people voted illegally in the last election, and he's organized people to try to be on the lookout for voter fraud at polling places.
If he tries to use the RNC in this activity, there's now nothing under this consent decree that would stop him. And so I do think to the extent that Trump controls the RNC, we may see more activities aimed at so-called ballot security, which could be seen as suppressing the votes of minority voters.
SHAPIRO: Wouldn't that immediately end up in court and presumably another consent decree?
HASEN: Well, it could end up in court. I certainly wouldn't expect the RNC these days to agree to a consent decree. It might lead to litigation. But you know, this kind of litigation can take years, and the benefit of the consent decree was that the RNC was always under the watch of the DNC and had the ability to bring up a claim of contempt. They don't have that anymore, and so it's a much harder road if it comes to new litigation.
SHAPIRO: Could you argue as the RNC did in a statement today that this just puts the two parties on equal footing?
HASEN: Well, it does put them on equal footing in that neither one is subject to a consent decree. But the difference is that the RNC has a record of having engaged in activities which have been - appear to be aimed at making it harder for minority voters likely to vote for Democrats to be able to vote. And that same danger has not at least in recent years been coming from the Democratic Party. So they might be equal in terms of their legal status, but the dangers are somewhat different for voters.
SHAPIRO: Rick Hasen is an elections law expert at the University of California, Irvine, speaking with us on Skype. Thanks very much.
HASEN: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Leaders in Iran are giving competing views on the protests in the country which do continue, though in small numbers. Today Iran's supreme leader once again blamed the protests on U.S. and British efforts to create unrest. The country's president, though, has sounded sympathetic to the protesters and says they should be listened to. The big question is how much he will do for them. NPR's Peter Kenyon has more.
PETER KENYON, BYLINE: Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is sticking to the hard-line narrative - blaming outside enemies, especially President Trump, for protests that started over price hikes and local shortages. In a tweet, Khamenei referred to Trump as a very unstable man prone to, quote, "extreme and psychotic episodes."
President Hassan Rouhani, by contrast, sounded more understanding of the protesters' complaints even though Rouhani himself was a target of the protests. The president warned hard-liners against seeking to impose a certain lifestyle on younger generations. Economist Djavad Salehi-Isfahani at Virginia Tech says it will be interesting to see if Rouhani backs up his rhetoric with real reforms in an effort to revive his economic agenda.
DJAVAD SALEHI-ISFAHANI: Well, you know, the larger project of Rouhani to rationalize the economy, bring it closer to the global economy, bring far investment - all those are very good. And unfortunately, these protests have set that project back. So he needs to save that.
KENYON: Ali Vaez, Iran analyst with the International Crisis Group, says Rouhani could try to seize the moment with an even bigger package of reforms both economic and political. He would then need to convince the supreme leader to back him in the face of hard-line opposition. Vaez says it would be a risky move but one that fits the moment.
ALI VAEZ: At this stage, it's not a question of a success or failure of Rouhani's presidency. The question is really the survival of the system because as we saw in these protests, the Iranian people are simply fed up with the deadlock and stagnation in the country's politics and economy.
KENYON: There are also smaller signals Rouhani could send, the kind of things chief executives do all over the world when times get tough. Economist Salehi-Isfahani says he might try shaking up the cabinet, something Rouhani didn't do after his re-election last year.
SALEHI-ISFAHANI: The central bank governor remained the same. The planning ministers remained the same. One thing he can do now is to signal change by bringing new people.
KENYON: Then there's the question of how far Rouhani is willing to go. Reformers backed both his election victories, but his own politics are far more cautious. He's never advocated radical changes to Iran's religious and military establishment. In fact, his own career path, which includes years serving on Iran's Supreme National Security Council, suggests that Rouhani's instincts are essentially conservative. Ali Ansari, professor of Iranian history at St. Andrews University in Scotland, says experience has shown that not only is it hard for Rouhani to bring about change; there's good reason to question his desire to do so.
ALI ANSARI: We have to remember that Rouhani, at the end of the day, is a man coming from the sort of intelligence and security apparatus of the state. For most of his career, he was known as a conservative. And at times, he came across as quite hard-line conservative. So you know, this move yet again in the other direction - well, let's wait and see, but I'm certainly not going to hold my breath.
KENYON: One early signal may be what happens to those under arrest. Reliable figures are hard to come by. Estimates range from hundreds to nearly 4,000 according to one lawmaker. Whether they get released or put on trial may indicate who has the upper hand in Iran. Peter Kenyon, NPR News, Istanbul.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOUR TET'S "UNICORN")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Salvadorans in the United States send a lot of money back home - the World Bank says more than $4 and a half billion in 2016. Here's another way to think about it. Those remittances make up about 17 percent of El Salvador's GDP. This is one of the many reasons why leaders in El Salvador are worried about an announcement yesterday by the White House that the U.S. is ending the Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, program for some 20,0000 Salvadoran migrants. That means some will go back, and others who choose to stay in the U.S. illegally won't be able to keep the jobs they have now.
To talk more about this is Cecilia Menjivar. She's co-director of the University of Kansas' Center of Migration Research (ph). And she has been studying Salvadoran TPS recipients here in the U.S. And she's originally from El Salvador. Welcome to the show.
CECILIA MENJIVAR: Thank you for having me.
MCEVERS: So $4.5 billion - that is a lot of money to be going into such a small economy as El Salvador's. How would you explain the impact of that money in El Salvador?
MENJIVAR: The remittances that immigrants send from the United States represent a pillar of the economy because they reach almost all sectors of the economy in one way or another.
MCEVERS: Yeah, like, give us some examples.
MENJIVAR: So for instance, there are many immigrants in the United States who purchase homes in El Salvador to retire later or to - for their families who live there. So the housing market, for instance, is very active as a result of remittances. Construction companies, real estate businesses, they sell homes to immigrants who are here, especially TPS holders.
MCEVERS: And another interesting thing is that these remittances have actually reached a record high in the past two years. Why is that?
MENJIVAR: You know, I'm not quite sure, but it could be that with longer time in the United States Salvadoran immigrants, and especially TPS holders, have been able to get better jobs, better-paying jobs in the United States. So it could be an effect of the time that they have spent in the United States and what they have accumulated here.
MCEVERS: Of these 200,000 people who are losing their status, their TPS status, what kind of economy would they be going back to?
MENJIVAR: Yeah. You know, this is a two-part response because first, many of the TPS holders are only going to be moved to an undocumented status. But there will be people who also go back. And what they will return to is a country that does not generate jobs that are commensurate to their experience and level of education. And those who return will likely be not necessarily unemployed, but definitely underemployed.
MCEVERS: Cecilia Menjivar, co-director of the University of Kansas' Center of Migration Research, thank you very, very much.
MENJIVAR: You're very welcome. Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Many immigrants from El Salvador are also afraid that if they return to their home country, they could be killed. In the latest issue of The New Yorker, Sarah Stillman investigates when deportation is a death sentence. Stillman runs the Global Migration Project at Columbia University's journalism school. Over many months, she and a team of students created a record of people who had been deported to Mexico and Central America and then killed or harmed. Sarah Stillman, welcome to the program.
SARAH STILLMAN: Thanks so much for having me.
SHAPIRO: You begin this article with a story of a 23-year-old woman named Laura who lived in Texas, had a restraining order against her husband in Mexico and was detained in a routine traffic stop. What happened to her?
STILLMAN: So Laura had actually been living in the U.S. for most of her adult life. She had U.S. citizen children. She was living in Texas. And one night, she was driving home from work when she was just pulled over for allegedly driving between two lanes. And the cop, when he stopped her, found out that she was undocumented. And he made the, at the time, unconventional decision to call Border Patrol to the scene.
And she pled for her life saying, I've got this protective order. I've been getting death threats from my ex-spouse who's back in Mexico who has joined a drug cartel. He really will kill me if I'm sent back. Nonetheless, that very same night, she was coerced into signing immediate removal paperwork and was marched across the bridge.
SHAPIRO: She said something really chilling to the border agent who detained her.
STILLMAN: Yes. Her last words actually to the Border Patrol agent who was sending her back across the bridge were, you know, when I'm found dead, it will be on your conscience. And indeed, that's exactly what transpired. Her body was found in a vehicle incinerated after she had been strangled.
SHAPIRO: What is supposed to happen when somebody who is in the country illegally says they have a legitimate fear of being killed if they're sent back to their home country?
STILLMAN: What's supposed to happen both before international law that we have all agreed to through the United Nations and through protocols that we came up with after World War II is that people who present themselves to Border Patrol with claims that they may be killed or harmed if they are sent back to their home countries are supposed to get a shot before an asylum officer and if their claims are deemed credible before an immigration judge.
But our immigration laws have changed quite a bit since 1996 when it was made possible to very instantaneously deport people right back across the border, sometimes without giving them a chance to really make their claims and certainly without a chance to ever be heard by an immigration judge.
SHAPIRO: It seems as though those claims would be very difficult to prove, especially if people arrive in the U.S. with little to no documentation.
STILLMAN: It's really tough, and it's made all the more tough by the fact that many of the people showing up right now are people who fled gang violence in Central America's Northern Triangle - so El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. And those are people who often don't even qualify for asylum despite the fact that they really do fear for their lives because, you know, we came up with these refugee protections in the aftermath, as I mentioned, of World War II. And at that time, we were thinking about claims that people who were being politically persecuted, who were being persecuted on behalf of their race or their nationality. And many of these people can't cross the bar for legal asylum even when they do get a shot before an immigration judge despite the fact that they very genuinely are fearful of harm if sent back.
SHAPIRO: Part of what makes this reporting project so remarkable is that you and the students that you work with created a database of immigrant stories. And you did it by contacting hundreds of shelters, law offices, mortuaries. What did you find?
STILLMAN: So we reached out both domestically and internationally. And we found many law enforcement agencies were particularly cooperative because they were able to attest to the fact that they believe public safety is harmed by overly aggressive immigration policies because people who are victims of crime - if they're undocumented, they may fear going to the police if they don't know that they will be secure in their immigration status. And we found many patterns in the data of people who had been deported to harm or deported to death.
One of those things was that oftentimes it starts with a really tiny infraction. So it may be someone like Laura who I documented in the story who, you know, had this minor traffic violation. It may be, you know, a workplace dispute that led to someone calling ICE on someone and getting apprehended. Sometimes it was even an accident.
SHAPIRO: What did the U.S. government say when you presented your findings to them?
STILLMAN: Part of what's so complex about the immigration system is that there are so many systems involved here. So Customs and Border Patrol did denying a number of the cases that the people had even brought forth claims for protection. And what we heard again and again from parents and surviving family members of the dead is that their dead loved ones actually had petitioned verbally. And CBP often claimed that they had not presented such allegations.
SHAPIRO: Even though arrests and deportations have increased under President Trump, many of the stories you tell took place under President Obama. This pattern didn't begin with the current administration.
STILLMAN: Absolutely. And I think that that's been something I've reflected on a lot in the course of reporting this piece - is how little attention people were giving to the immigration issue despite the fact that under Obama, more people were deported than under any other previous president. And it was largely ignored, to be honest.
SHAPIRO: Sarah Stillman's article in The New Yorker is when deportation is a death sentence. Thank you for joining us.
STILLMAN: Thanks so much.
(SOUNDBITE OF AGNES OBEL'S "SEPTEMBER SONG")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
At the Library of Congress today, Gene Luen Yang officially ended his tenure as national ambassador for young people's literature and handed the baton to Jacqueline Woodson. She is the sixth children's book author to hold the position. And for the next two years, she will be encouraging children and teenagers to read and to read more. NPR's Lynn Neary talked to the two writers about the job.
LYNN NEARY, BYLINE: Gene Luen Yang admits that when he became ambassador two years ago, he was a little disappointed. He thought the job would come with a few more perks.
GENE LUEN YANG: Yeah. I thought there would be a crown and maybe, like, a helicopter of some kind, but none of that happened.
NEARY: As she takes on the job, Jacqueline Woodson has no illusions about the perks. But if anything, she has higher expectations.
JACQUELINE WOODSON: My hope is that by that time I'm no longer national ambassador I'll have changed the world.
NEARY: OK. So the national ambassador for young people's literature may not be the most powerful position in the nation's capital, but Yang says it has rewards of a different kind.
YANG: At a very fundamental level, I got to go to all these different places. I got to hear voices. You know, I got to hear the voices of kids.
NEARY: Each ambassador gets to choose his or her own mission. For example, Jon Scieszka, who held the position first, was particularly interested in encouraging young boys to read. Yang, an award-winning graphic novelist, challenged kids to step out of their comfort zones and read about different kinds of people, unfamiliar topics or new types of books.
YANG: The nation is getting more diverse. And that is reflected in the material that draws the kids in. And I mean diversity in every sense of the word, not just cultural diversity, but also diversity of format. You know, I think kids today are more open to more different kinds of stories than kids in the past.
NEARY: Yang is thrilled to be handing over the job to Jacqueline Woodson, winner of numerous awards, including the National Book Award for her memoir, "Brown Girl Dreaming."
WOODSON: I get to decide my own vision in the end about the work I want to do, how I want to do it, what rooms I want to walk into, what people I feel have not had the kind of access that they should have - mainly underserved people, people in rural communities, incarcerated people - and really point my energies in those directions.
NEARY: Woodson says she'd love to get rid of labels like struggling reader or advanced reader and encourage young people to concentrate more on how a book makes them feel or think.
WOODSON: Labeling is not the best way to get young people to deeply engage in reading. I mean, at the end of the day, you take the qualifier away and they're a reader. Childhood, young adulthood is fluid. And it's very easy to get labeled very young and have to carry something through your childhood and into your adulthood that is not necessarily who you are.
NEARY: Woodson has come up with her own mathematical equation to spark conversation about literature.
WOODSON: Reading equals hope times change. So of course it's that play on words, but it's also the fact that we come to books looking for the hope in them. And when we close a book, we're a different person than when we first opened that book. And reading begins a conversation. And my hope is that we can start having these conversations that literature triggers around the country.
NEARY: Woodson sees the job ahead of her as a continuum of the work that her predecessors have started. Looking back on his own tenure, Gene Luen Yang says the national conversation Woodson hopes for is already underway.
YANG: I think that human storytelling is this long conversation about what it means to exist, what it means to live, how to live a good life. And I think being ambassador has just reinforced the importance of that conversation in my mind.
NEARY: Like her predecessors, Jacqueline Woodson will be traveling all over the country to meet with young people. No helicopters or private planes will be involved. Lynn Neary, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF JACK WILKINS' "RED CLAY")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President Trump led a pretty lively meeting at the White House today. He was there with members of his cabinet and lawmakers from both parties. They spent more than an hour talking about what to do about the roughly 700,000 people protected by the expiring Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. Trump says he's confident Democrats and Republicans can get to a deal.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: There should be no reason for us not to get this done.
MCEVERS: NPR's Scott Detrow reports from the Capitol that Trump and lawmakers don't have much time left to reach a deal on an issue Washington has been struggling with a long time.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: Ever since he started the process of ending DACA in March, Trump has wavered on how hard or soft a bargain he'll seek on any sort of immigration deal. Today Trump was conciliatory.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: I'm signing it. I mean, I will be signing it. I'm not going to say, oh, gee, I want this, or I want that.
DETROW: So were leaders from both parties gathered around the Cabinet Room table. Illinois Senator Dick Durbin said Democrats want to strike a deal quickly.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DICK DURBIN: I will say that there is a sense of urgency that's felt by many of us when it comes to this issue. There are many of these young people who are losing the protection of DACA on a daily basis.
DETROW: But there are factions within both parties who want very different things in any sort of deal. Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona warned Trump that lawmakers spent months on immigration in 2013 only to see their final agreement stall.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JEFF FLAKE: That was six, seven months of every night negotiating, staff on weekends. And a lot of the things we're talking about on border security and some of the interior things have tradeoffs.
DETROW: That's all hard to do before DACA expires in March, let alone before the next deadline for government funding in 10 days. Clamping down on immigration was a big part of Trump's 2016 campaign platform. He wants to see changes in how legal immigrants are granted visas, minimizing the importance of family ties among other things. But Trump told the meeting he's happy to delay broader changes for another bill.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: To me, a clean bill is a bill of DACA. We take care of them, and we also take care of security. That's very important. And I think the Democrats want security, too.
DETROW: In theory, Democrats do want to increase border security, but the details get complicated. For one thing, Trump keeps insisting on his trademark campaign promise of a border wall even if he's dropped the pledge that Mexico would pay for it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: You need it. John, you need the wall. I mean, it's wonderful. I'd love not to build the wall, but you need the wall.
DETROW: And Democrats and Democrat-affiliated independents like Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders just don't want to vote for a massive expansion of border fencing.
BERNIE SANDERS: You know, walls probably were a great idea in the 15th century when the Chinese built their Great Wall. You know what? Technology has advanced just a little bit.
DETROW: So whether or not a deal is struck may come down to how Democrats and President Trump define wall. Immigration activists and other outside liberal groups are pressuring Democrats to vote no on the impending government funding bill unless it includes a fix for DACA protectees.
Democratic leaders are hesitant about threatening brinksmanship, but many rank-and-file Democrats see it as their best shot to get a deal. Sanders says he's confident voters would back Democrats and blame Trump and Republicans if a shutdown fight centered around the wall.
SANDERS: They are the government. They control the House, the Senate and the White House. If there's a government shutdown, it will be on their shoulders.
DETROW: Trump and Democratic leaders say they're confident a deal is reachable. But when it comes to bipartisan deals and when it comes to immigration, there's a lot that can go wrong. Scott Detrow, NPR News, the Capitol.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Congressman Steny Hoyer of Maryland was part of that bipartisan immigration meeting today in Washington. He has been a part of the Democratic leadership team for a long time, and he sat at the president's side at that meeting today. Welcome.
STENY HOYER: Good to be with you, Ari. Thank you very much.
SHAPIRO: You and your Democratic colleagues want to put in place permanent protections for DREAMers, and the president, some Republicans have signaled a willingness to move on that in exchange for funding for a border wall and other security measures. So I wonder what kind of compromise you and your Democratic colleagues would agree to.
HOYER: Well, I think a compromise is possible. We're for border security, and the president talks about border security. Now sometimes he talks about a wall. But he also talks about border security, which is more general application. We want to have the borders secure. So I think there is a possibility of reaching an agreement, and I hope that we can do so.
SHAPIRO: Would you fund a wall?
HOYER: In fact - well, that's a tougher question. But if we're talking about border security and how to attain border security, a more general discussion I think within that context, we can reach an agreement, and we hope to try to do so. One of the good things that happened in the meeting - the president asked about the people - there were 24 members sitting around the table with the president. Who here wants to address the DACA question and protect the DACA young people? Every person sitting in the room said, yes, we want to do that.
So there was - nobody in the room was not for making sure that the DACA children are not kicked out of their home country in effect. They pledge allegiance to our flag. They sing our national anthem. They believe they are Americans. So there was unanimity on that, and therefore I think there's a context in which we can move forward and get an agreement. We're going to work very hard in the short term to do that.
SHAPIRO: Could you give us some examples of border security measures that you would be willing to agree to?
HOYER: Well, obviously there are many ways to secure the border. One is more agents on the border. Another is technical measures such as drones, electronic fences, electronic implants along the highway and the roadways. There are a lot of ways to effect border security which many experts believe would be more appropriate and more successful and more effective than simply building a wall. Those discussions I think are going to go forward, and I'm hopeful that we can reach agreement on really how to make the border really secure because I think that's a unanimous position of Democrats and Republicans.
SHAPIRO: There's been a lot of conversation about whether border security has to be one long, uninterrupted wall or whether it can be a combination of measures. Do you think that your Republican colleagues and the president are willing to go along with something that is not one big, solid wall?
HOYER: The president - the answer is yes, and the president said specifically that - that we were not talking about a wall along the entire border. He didn't think that was practical. He didn't think it was necessary. The answer to your question is, no, it does not have to be nor did the president suggested it be one long wall.
SHAPIRO: The president is asking for $18 billion for border security including the wall. Does that number sound anything like what you could imagine Democrats signing on to spend on border security?
HOYER: The numbers were not specifically discussed in the meeting, nor was that made a condition for a bill which would protect DREAMers and provide them a path towards citizenship. So the 18 billion is not a figure that really was in the discussion. So it did not seem to be a condition.
SHAPIRO: You sound pretty optimistic that a deal will be reached. Do you think that's a widespread view?
HOYER: I think optimism would be overstated. But certainly I thought it was a positive meeting, and I think it was constructive. And I think that there's a possibility that working together over the next hours and few days, we may well be able to reach an agreement on a first phase with the understanding that the Republicans may want things in a second phase that we will not agree to.
SHAPIRO: Congressman Steny Hoyer of Maryland is the Democratic whip in the House of Representatives. We appreciate your time today. Thank you.
HOYER: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
There are still a lot of questions about what or who caused serious health problems for American officials serving in Cuba. But Senator Marco Rubio says he hopes one thing became clear in a hearing he held today on the issue. There are 24 victims, and this is not simply a case of mass hysteria. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: It began as early as November 2016, first at diplomatic residences in Cuba, then at hotels. The State Department's medical director, Charles Rosenfarb, says embassy employees started reporting various symptoms from hearing lost to vertigo.
CHARLES ROSENFARB: They associated the onset of these symptoms to their exposures with unusual sounds or auditory sensations. Various descriptions were given - a high-pitched beam of sound, an incapacitating sound, a baffling sensation akin to driving with the windows partially open in a car or just an intense pressure in one ear.
KELEMEN: Ten of the 24 confirmed patients have since returned to work, he says. Some of the symptoms went away quickly, though some patients still have difficulty concentrating. And Rosenfarb brought in specialists on traumatic brain injuries to help. Cuba has denied any involvement, but acting Assistant Secretary of State Francisco Palmieri says Cuba has a responsibility to protect U.S. personnel.
FRANCISCO PALMIERI: Cuba's a security state. The Cuban government in general has a very tight lid on anything and everything that happens in that country.
KELEMEN: And he says Cuba has a long history of harassing U.S. diplomats. A diplomatic security official, Todd Brown, says initially that's what U.S. officials thought this was before coming to the conclusion that these were attacks. He wouldn't comment on an FBI report cited by The Associated Press that seems to rule out the idea that this was a sonic weapon. Brown had other suggestions when pressed by Senator Tom Udall.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TODD BROWN: There's viral. There's ultrasound. You know, there's a range of things that the technical experts are looking at as, could this be a possibility?
TOM UDALL: So when you say viral, you're talking about somebody intentionally implanting a virus.
BROWN: That is - would not be ruled out. That could be a possibility.
KELEMEN: The only thing State Department officials have ruled out is that this is a case of mass hysteria. The Trump administration has dramatically scaled back its diplomatic presence in Cuba in response. Those who go now have to have baseline tests of their hearing and cognitive functions. And they are aware of the dangers, says Brown.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BROWN: We prepare our personnel for levels of surveillance and levels of harassment. And movements are certainly restricted.
KELEMEN: Senator Marco Rubio says the State Department should have responded much earlier by setting up what's known as an accountability review board. Officials say they are doing that now and will notify Congress shortly. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF SYNDROME'S "HIP-HOP SWING")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
What if every baby born in the United States was a trust fund baby? That's what two economics professors are proposing, that Uncle Sam provide each American newborn with a trust fund. The amount would vary depending on the parent's wealth, with an average of about $20,000. NPR's John Ydstie reports the professors floating this idea say it could help boost opportunity.
JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: Duke University professor William Darity Jr. says there's a huge wealth gap in the United States. He points out that the richest 1 percent of Americans hold nearly 40 percent of the nation's wealth. Meanwhile, nearly a third of Americans have no accumulated wealth outside the value of their home. And wealth gives you opportunity, says professor Darity.
WILLIAM DARITY JR: Wealthier families have the capacity to purchase homes in higher amenity neighborhoods. They have the capacity to provide their kids with higher quality education.
YDSTIE: And he says wealthier families have assets they can draw on to handle emergencies like the loss of a job or a serious medical condition, emergencies that can devastate families with no assets. Darity says there's often a bias against providing help for those struggling families because they're viewed as having been irresponsible or having made bad choices. That's why he says providing a trust fund for infants makes sense.
DARITY JR: You can't blame the infants for the condition that they are born into. And so let's do something about that when they have an opportunity to reach adulthood.
YDSTIE: Darity and his partner, Darrick Hamilton of The New School in New York City, suggests providing trust funds of between $500 and $50,000, depending on the wealth of the family. The trust funds would be guaranteed to grow at the rate of inflation plus 1 percent a year. When a child reached 18 years of age, he or she would get access to the funds.
DARITY JR: My general impulse is to be non-paternalistic and to give the young people as much discretion as possible. I think it would be vital in this context for them to be given training and preparation for management of their accounts.
YDSTIE: Darity acknowledges that politically it might be necessary to limit use of the funds to things like paying for education, purchasing a home or starting a business. Tyler Cowen, an economics professor at George Mason University, is skeptical of the idea. He thinks the money would be more useful for children at a younger age.
TYLER COWEN: By the time a lot of people reach 18, they're already in quite a disadvantaged position. So I would instead prefer to extend the earned income tax credit, say, for working parents who had young children at home. I think that would help more.
YDSTIE: The earned income tax credit, which supplements low-wage work, has been part of the U.S. social safety net since 1975. Cowen is also skeptical of giving the money to 18-year-olds.
COWEN: I don't think there's a case for arguing we would do better to let everyone be spending the money at 18. That's really the age when you're often most irresponsible.
YDSTIE: Professor Darity says he'd be open to delaying access to the trust fund until the young adults are a bit older. As for just increasing the earned income tax credit, Darity says that's an income program that doesn't necessarily build wealth, which is the focus of his proposal.
DARITY JR: Wealth gives you a much wider range of opportunities and options than income. Wealthier families can have a greater impact on the political process. Greater economic wealth gives you greater civic wealth.
YDSTIE: Darity says he estimates his proposal would cost around $80 billion a year, or about 2 percent of the federal budget. But he argues it would increase skills, investment and business creation that would boost the economy. John Ydstie, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF VASSAR CLEMENTS' "PERDIDO")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
It is a tragic cycle that people here in Southern California know well. After months of bone-dry conditions, heavy rains fell north of Los Angeles overnight exactly were the state's largest wildfire had recently burned the trees and vegetation off the hills. And that then led to mudslides and flows of debris. At least 13 people have been killed, many of them in the town of Montecito. Reporter Stephanie O'Neill is near there, and she joins us now. Hey, Stephanie.
STEPHANIE O'NEILL, BYLINE: Hey there.
MCEVERS: So what's the latest there? I mean, what can you tell us about exactly what happened in the case of these deaths?
O'NEILL: Well, officials, you know, have been calling this a worst-case scenario, which it really is here. First, you know, heavy rains struck last night in this burned out area. The Thomas Fire came through here, you know, last month. And so the hills are denuded. And you know, many of us in the central coast area, Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, were awakened to our cell phones screeching a flash flood warning. I got one around 3:30 in the morning. And it was around that time that mudflows hit homes situated just below the burn area in Montecito.
And there are been dramatic rescue operations throughout the day involving dozens of trapped residents, including two 14-year-old girls. And of course many of them are injured. And then these mudflows have shut down travel throughout the area, including a 30-mile stretch of the 101 freeway. That's been closed. I got through part of it up to the town of Carpinteria, but my attempts to take back roads to Montecito failed because the roads here are just covered with debris, mud, mudslides. It's bad.
MCEVERS: Where are you in Montecito? And what are you seeing besides this debris on the roads?
O'NEILL: I'm actually in Carpinteria. I could not get through to Montecito because of what I'm looking at right now. The mudflow came through, and it was water and mud and boulders and stuff. So I'm - it's pretty bad because people can't get back into town. And we also - you know, occasionally rescue helicopters are flying overhead. It's all pretty shocking, you know, even to old-time residents like Toine Overgaag. He's president of Westerlay Orchids here in Carpinteria.
TOINE OVERGAAG: The amount of debris that's being pushed through the creeks is really remarkable. It's shocking. Paradon (ph) Creek has jumped right by the freeway. There's at least a hundred-foot field of debris 3, 4 feet deep.
O'NEILL: And that's what I'm looking at. There's some boulders, some burned out trees, other trees, just a lot of mud.
MCEVERS: I mean, as you said, this is the same area where the Thomas Fire already destroyed more than a thousand structures. Are the people who've had to evacuate now the same people who evacuated because of the fires?
O'NEILL: Yeah, a lot of them are. Dr. Robert Lom (ph) of Montecito and his wife, Annie (ph), were evacuated for 12 days during the fire, and they decided to stay last night despite a mandatory evacuation order. But they were safe. But the roads all around them - there's boulders. There's downed power lines. I have an 87-year-old friend, Rhoda Zook (ph), from Ventura. She got a call last night. She called me after that. I tried to get her to leave. She wouldn't because she was exhausted, too, from this evacuation event and all the emotional toll that everybody has been feeling. So everyone around here is feeling emotionally and physically exhausted by it all.
MCEVERS: Is this the end of it, or will it go on for a while?
O'NEILL: Well, you know, flash flood warnings will continue throughout the evening, so it's sort of wait and see what more will happen. But it looks like, you know, the rain is tapering off. So that's good news. We're in a severe drought, so we do need the rain, this little pocket of California. But it's good news now, I think.
MCEVERS: Reporter Stephanie O'Neill in Carpinteria, Calif., where a storm sent mud and debris into residential neighborhoods, thanks so much. Be careful.
O'NEILL: You're welcome. My pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF IV THE POLYMATH'S "SETBACKS")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Now we're going to remember a man who set a standard for movie trailers and commercials. His name was Alan Bleviss.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ALAN BLEVISS: "Sex, Lies And Videotape."
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
A. BLEVISS: "Scarface" - for one brief moment, the world was his.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
A. BLEVISS: Bad time, good time - "Ragtime."
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
His voice was in big demand starting in the 1970s and '80s.
GARY HOCHBERG: When casting directors or copywriters would call, they would say, I want a voice like Alan Bleviss.
MCEVERS: Gary Hochberg is a former talent agent who booked Alan Bleviss for ads, including this very lucrative gig.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
A. BLEVISS: Aleve - all-day strong all day long.
SHAPIRO: He was born in Alberta, Canada, in 1941 the son of a successful businessman. When Alan Bleviss went to college, he lied to his father, saying he was studying law. He was actually acting, and his father never forgave him.
MCEVERS: After school, he moved to the U.S. to New York City. That's where he got his first paid voiceover job. It was for Canada Dry ginger ale. More commercials followed, and eventually he was voicing Hollywood movie trailers. His kids loved it.
SARAH BLEVISS: I always thought he had this really beautiful, strong, commanding voice.
MCEVERS: That's his daughter Sarah Bleviss. Her sister, Lisa, says they always got a kick out of hearing his work.
LISA BLEVISS: When I was a young child, I frequently would be sitting in the movie theaters with friends, and we would hear a movie trailer. It would come on, and I would whisper to my friends, that's my dad.
SHAPIRO: When he reached the height of his career in the late-'80s, he began to suffer from a nerve disorder which temporarily paralyzed him and left him without a voice. His daughters say therapy with a former Israeli drill sergeant helped him regain his voice.
MCEVERS: That's who he was, they say - a strong guy that matched his strong voice. Alan Bleviss died on December 30 from cancer. He was 76.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Breitbart News has announced this afternoon that its larger-than-life chairman is out. Stephen Bannon's departure is directly linked to his blistering assessment of President Trump's intelligence and fitness for the job in a book that was published last week. NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik has been covering the Bannon rollercoaster for years from his days at Breitbart to the White House and now perhaps to the dog house. David's with us from New York. Hey, David.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Hey, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So Bannon's job at Breitbart was executive chairman, and his job was also to say outrageous things, right? I mean, what tipped this over the edge to his dismissal?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, Breitbart certainly defined his job as being something of a rhetorical bomb thrower usually aimed at the left or those within the Republican and conservative establishments he saw as insufficiently devoted to his brand and his version of conservatism. In this case, he's aiming at inside the White House and inside the president's inner-circle, suggesting that the president's son Donald Jr. and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, had somehow engaged possibly in criminal or even treasonous acts by meeting with Russian figures in the summer of 2016 and by - as you mentioned, by just castigating the president for a lack of intelligence, a lack of focus, a lack of seriousness of purpose and conveying sort of a contempt in the idea that somehow Trump was a vehicle for what he wanted to accomplish.
You know, the Mercer family - Robert Mercer had been a major funder, had sold his stake in November in Breitbart to his daughters. Rebekah Mercer, who remained one of the owners, issued a statement saying the writing was on the wall, denouncing Bannon for what he had to say. And the Mercers had really - had been putting money behind Trump's causes and Trump's interests in recent months. So the writing was there.
MCEVERS: Yeah. I mean, remind us quickly. What was his legacy at Breitbart and with the Trump campaign and then at the White House?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, Bannon sort of sees himself as something of a messianic figure. He took over Breitbart News after the death of its founder and namesake, Andrew Breitbart. And it was a really conservative site, but he pulled it farther rightward. And he - as he told Mother Jones magazine once, he saw it as a platform for the "alt-right," which is this loose conglomeration umbrella term for certain kinds of cultural conservatives, men's rights activists and certain, you know, white supremacists, actual outright racists.
He didn't want to necessarily express those views himself, but he wanted them to be real comfortable on Breitbart. And he used that as a vehicle to ultimately promote Trump's candidacy as he saw Trump gaining steam and as he saw Trump championing causes like the border wall, like a kind of - exclusionary policies towards people from certain Muslim countries that he could then promote from Breitbart and ultimately promote from inside the White House.
MCEVERS: Yeah. Bannon of course returned to Breitbart after leaving the White House and promised to build this new populist, conservative movement, you know? And I think the big question now is, who has control of those voters? Is it Bannon? Is it Breitbart? Is it Trump?
FOLKENFLIK: You know, it's a really interesting question. You've seen Trump's approval scores go down and down, and it's sort of to a hardened, smaller base that seems to be still supportive of him. Breitbart's own traffic has gone down significantly since the election and over the first year in office - the Trump White House. And Bannon, you know, seems largely in some ways vulnerable or marginalized by virtue of his championing of Roy Moore in that Alabama Senate race that really lost that seat for the Republican Party.
MCEVERS: What are we to make of Bannon's rise and fall, then? And you know, will there be another rise again? What do we learn from all this?
FOLKENFLIK: I think there are two things you can take from it. It certainly is a signal example of just extraordinary egotism and the idea that somehow he had the answers to fill in the great vacuum of ideas that he saw in Trump himself. And the second thing is, you know, in some ways, he did represent the spear that provided an injury and in some ways exposed the widening fissures within the Republican Party and the conservative movement itself. I think in some ways, he's a manifestation rather than a cause of those divisions.
MCEVERS: OK.
FOLKENFLIK: But, boy, you know, he sure served as a bomb going off amid a lot of these culturally conservative institutions.
MCEVERS: NPR's David Folkenflik, thanks.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We've seen an extraordinary shift in people coming forward with their stories of sexual assault. Now we're going to hear about some victims who are unable to tell their stories.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
NPR has obtained unpublished data from the U.S. Department of Justice showing that people with intellectual disabilities face some of the highest rates of sexual assault in the United States. And those numbers are almost certainly an undercount. They do not include people living in institutions and group homes, and they miss the cases where someone can't speak or has difficulty speaking.
A. SHAPIRO: Our investigation found that these women and men are easy prey for predators and that the danger is everywhere, including in places designed to keep those with the most severe disabilities safe.
MCEVERS: NPR's Joseph Shapiro brings us his latest report. It's about 11 minutes long and includes graphic descriptions of sexual assault.
JOSEPH SHAPIRO, BYLINE: Cathy McIvor has come from far away to see her sister. She's driving down the long road to the state institution where her sister lives at the Rainier School in rural Buckley, Wash. Mount Rainier looms large and luminous on this sunny morning.
CATHY MCIVOR: The grounds, you have to admit, are beautiful here. But those buildings - oh, there she is. Oh, there she is. She's waiting. Oh, there - see; she's happy 'cause she knows it's me.
J. SHAPIRO: The staff here has her sister, Maryann, dressed and ready and waiting by herself outside the one-story cottage where she lives.
MCIVOR: Hi, honey. Can I have a hug? Can I have a hug - OK.
J. SHAPIRO: Cathy McIvor does not want to go inside her sister's building. She does not want to see her sister's room because it's where her sister was raped.
MCIVOR: Like, it's a crime scene. I mean, let's get real here. It's a crime scene for how many years. Who knows? Who will ever know?
J. SHAPIRO: This story is part of an NPR investigation. We found that for people with intellectual disabilities across America, there's an epidemic of sexual assault. Those unpublished crime numbers that NPR obtained from the U.S. Department of Justice - they show that people with intellectual disabilities are sexually assaulted at rates more than seven times those for people without disabilities.
And that high rate is almost certainly an underestimate because often the victim is unable to speak or has difficulty speaking. They can't report what happened. The assault goes unnoted unless it's discovered by accident. At the Rainier School, Cathy McIvor won't go see her sister's room, but Maryann wants to show our producer, Anna Boiko-Weyrauch.
ANNA BOIKO-WEYRAUCH, BYLINE: So Maryann took me by the hand, and we're walking down the hall.
MARYANN: (Laughter).
J. SHAPIRO: Maryann smiles and laughs. She's thin, almost fragile. Her hair is short, her shoulders hunched forward. She keeps her elbows bent and her hands close to her chest and face.
BOIKO-WEYRAUCH: We're going into a room that says Maryann.
J. SHAPIRO: It's the small room Maryann shares with another woman. Maryann is 58 years old. She's lived here since the 1970s. She wants to show the pink bedspread - it's new since what happened here - and the framed pictures of magnolias on the wall. They're new, too. A staff person who's cared for Maryann for decades took her to the store to buy them.
BOIKO-WEYRAUCH: She takes a pillow and rearranges it on her bed. And now she's making a - she's making some signs that I don't understand.
MARYANN: (Laughter).
J. SHAPIRO: Maryann puts both hands just under her eyes and flips them. It's her sign for happy. She doesn't speak words, but the speech pathologist here has taught her a couple dozen signs.
MARYANN: (Laughter).
BOIKO-WEYRAUCH: And now she's grabbing my arm, and we're walking. She's leading me out. She's going to flip off the lights.
J. SHAPIRO: The police report and charging documents explain what it's alleged happened that night in Maryann's room, the night Terry Wayne Shepard was arrested for rape.
UNIDENTIFIED PRODUCER: (Reading) On November 13, 2016, at around 0200 hours, I was called out from home by Buckley police officer Voglis to assist on a sexual assault that had just been reported.
J. SHAPIRO: That's the start of the police report read here by an NPR producer. The alleged assault never would have been discovered if it weren't for a young woman named Hunter Shear. She was just 20 years old, and it was just her second week on a new job on the night shift. These details come from the police report.
Around 1 in the morning, she went looking for her boss to get permission to take a break. Terry Shepard had assigned her to the men's wing of the dormitory while he worked the women's wing. Court documents show Shepard had worked at the Rainier School for 34 years, 20 years in this small residence. Hunter Shear told police she walked down the hall and found her supervisor in Maryann's room. And first a warning - this part is graphic.
UNIDENTIFIED PRODUCER: (Reading) Shear advised me that Shepard had his pants and underwear down around his knees. Shear advised me that Shepard had the client's legs pinned up to her chest and that he was making back and forth movements like he was having sex with the client.
J. SHAPIRO: Shear told the detective that her shoe squeaked on the linoleum floor. Her supervisor, startled, turned around. He saw her and said, oh, [expletive]. When police arrive, Shear was crying hysterically. Her eyes were red and watery. She was taking short, shallow breaths. Shepard was sitting calmly on a sofa. He said, what did I do? Shepard denied everything that Shear said she'd seen. He denied he'd raped Maryann.
Maryann's sister, Cathy McIvor, got a phone call at her home in Arizona. McIvor told us the story as she was driving to go see her sister about how she tracked down Maryann at the hospital where she was being examined for rape. She called the aide who was with Maryann, and the very first thing the aide said...
MCIVOR: She told me that, I don't know why they've left him on the hall. He's had a prior sexual allegation. So why would they leave this man on a hall with female residents at night on the graveyard shift?
J. SHAPIRO: There were a lot of suspicions about Shepard but never a formal charge against him before. Prosecution documents show that at the police station early that morning, officers wanted a DNA sample from Shepard. Shepard said, you've already got my DNA from another sexual assault allegation. There had been another case several years before. The state's Department of Social and Health Services asked several male staffers including Shepard to submit DNA samples. A spokeswoman for the department says no match was found for Shepard or any other staffer. Shepard and the others were cleared.
The day after the alleged rape of Maryann, the Washington state agency in charge of regulating state institutions, the division of Residential Care Services, or RCS, sent a team of investigators to the Rainier School. And right away they found more complaints against Terry Shepard. That was news to Cathy McIvor. When she was driving to see her sister, I was on the phone with her from my office.
The report says, the resident - so your sister - was taken to a nearby hospital and received a full exam and rape kit.
And I read to her what the investigators had discovered.
Later that day, RCS received another complaint indicating that the same staff member had sexually assaulted a second resident.
MCIVOR: OK, I didn't - that I didn't know. I didn't know that.
J. SHAPIRO: The day after what happened in Maryann's room, state investigators show up. And right away, another woman who lives there comes forward and says, the same man sexually assaulted me. Prosecution documents say this woman, 66 years old, said Shepard hit her in the head, that he touched her breasts and what she called her private spot. Still, she was nervous and very worried that she'd get in trouble just for telling. And that's not all. In the state agency's report, staff at the institution say they think Shepard may have abused two other residents.
And it said one potential victim received, quote, "treats" and, quote, "extra showers" from the staff member.
MCIVOR: Oh, my God, oh, God - and they did nothing.
J. SHAPIRO: Shepard was charged with the rape of Maryann and for taking indecent liberties with that second woman who came forward. He pleaded not guilty. He's scheduled to go to trial later this month. McIvor brought a separate lawsuit - a civil suit for damages - against the state, and that goes to trial next year. Shepard has been in jail awaiting trial. His attorney said the allegations will be fully contested in court.
For the record, the state oversight agency's investigation faulted the Rainier School for failing to protect residents. It says administrators knew there was a problem but didn't take basic steps to prevent abuse. Staff wasn't trained to spot abuse. And when assaults were discovered or suspected, the women got no therapy or support. The institution was forced to make changes - better training of staff, more monitoring of the night shift.
Across the country, we found multiple cases of victims who couldn't speak or say what happened, cases where a suspected rape was uncovered only because of some unexpected proof. In Charlotte, a mother gave her daughter a bath and found bruising. In Missouri, a woman went to the doctor who discovered she was pregnant. And in Boynton Beach, Fla., detectives reopened the cold case of a woman who got pregnant 13 years ago. In June, detectives ran a DNA test, got a match and arrested a man. But in November, a judge threw out the case, said the statute of limitations had expired.
JULIE NEWARD: Here's your oatmeal. Good job.
J. SHAPIRO: In the kitchen of her family home in northern California, Julie Neward is feeding her sister, Natalie, who's 35, her morning oatmeal.
NEWARD: One more. Oatmeal's your favorite, right?
NATALIE: Mmm hmm.
J. SHAPIRO: Neward and her family do pretty much everything for Natalie - feed her, dress her, brush her teeth, put her on the toilet, give her medication all day long.
NEWARD: She talks with my mom with her eyes, and she moans when she wants something.
J. SHAPIRO: Her mother is the round-the-clock caregiver for Natalie. Another sister - a younger sister, Patricia - has moved back home.
PATRICIA: She puts her finger in her mouth when she's thirsty.
NEWARD: So she'll start to moan now 'cause she's hungry for breakfast.
PATRICIA: Or then she'll clap 'cause she's excited for food.
J. SHAPIRO: Patricia put her own life on hold - college and work - to help out. There are no men in the house. Natalie used to get care at a program during the day until about six years ago when at night Natalie was often moaning in pain. She couldn't sleep. She'd sit up on her knees in bed. She couldn't lie down.
ROSEMARY: There was something that she couldn't tell us.
J. SHAPIRO: That's Natalie's mother, Rosemary.
ROSEMARY: We had her multiple times at the doctors. Almost every month, there was something going on with her, and she can't tell us what's wrong, right?
J. SHAPIRO: Doctors treated Natalie for sinus infections, for yeast infections for more than a year, but the pain kept coming back. Natalie's sister Julie picks up the story.
NEWARD: I'll never forget when I got the news.
J. SHAPIRO: One day, a new doctor - a woman - tried a test that no one had thought of before.
NEWARD: It was right after I got off of work - probably left early that day due to traffic, maybe about 4 o'clock. And I was on - was it? - Mission Boulevard.
J. SHAPIRO: Julie got a phone call from the urgent care center.
NEWARD: And they said, Julie, you need to bring your sister Natalie in. And I said, OK, why? She's been diagnosed with gonorrhea. And I'm like, what? No, that's not possible. She's like a baby. She doesn't even kiss people. I cried the entire way home.
J. SHAPIRO: Police did investigate, but Natalie couldn't tell them what happened. The investigation went nowhere.
NEWARD: Come on. We're going to go outside - up, up.
ROSEMARY: Good job. Good job, Natalie.
(LAUGHTER)
ROSEMARY: That's Natalie. That's our Natalie.
J. SHAPIRO: No one was ever punished. No one was ever stopped. Joseph Shapiro, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF TOM CAUFIELD'S "WASH THE DUSK WITH SILVER")
MCEVERS: You can find the rest of our Abused and Betrayed series on npr.org. We will continue our reporting next week with a look at how prosecutors are using novel techniques to pursue these hard-to-win cases.
(SOUNDBITE OF TOM CAUFIELD'S "WASH THE DUSK WITH SILVER")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
We usually see butterflies hanging out around flowers and drinking nectar, but scientists have made the startling discovery that there were butterflies long before there were many flowers. NPR's Rebecca Hersher reports that scientists found this out by studying fossilized bits of butterfly from millions of years ago.
REBECCA HERSHER, BYLINE: Butterflies are really delicate creatures, so they don't preserve well, which means there aren't that many complete fossils. But a team looking at soil from Germany stumbled upon fossils of tiny butterfly scales. Scales give butterfly wings their colors.
TIMO VAN ELDIJK: If you, like, touch the wing of a butterfly, you will very often see that the color tends to fade, and that's actually the scales coming off the wing.
HERSHER: This is Timo van Eldijk over Skype. He's a master's student in the Netherlands and one of the authors of a new study published today in the journal Science Advances. He says these are the oldest butterfly fossils ever discovered, from the Jurassic period about 200 million years ago. But the most exciting thing was what van Eldijk saw when he looked at the scales under a microscope. Some of them were hollow, and that can only mean one thing - that prehistoric butterflies had proboscises. That's basically a butterfly's trunk.
ELDIJK: If you find the hollow scales, you know that this innovation of the proboscis must have already occurred before that.
HERSHER: There's no way to have hollow scales if you don't have a proboscis.
ELDIJK: No, no.
HERSHER: But here's what's weird about that - modern butterflies only use their proboscises to suck up nectar from deep inside flowers.
ELDIJK: The traditional idea is always butterfly tongue is your standard adaptation that you have when you feed on flowers, right?
HERSHER: But that can't be right because the ancient butterflies with the hollows scales and the proboscises were flying around long before there were any flowering plants on Earth. So what were butterflies using their tongues for - hard to know. They might have still used them to eat, maybe droplets on the surface of cones instead of flower nectar. Or maybe the tongue helped them stay hydrated. The Jurassic, after all, was a pretty dry time. Rebecca Hersher, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The number of Republicans planning to leave Congress this year has now reached a record level. Today, California Congressman Darrell Issa said he plans to retire at the end of 2018. In total, there are now 31 Republicans planning to retire from the House - the most ever in a single year. That's not a good sign for the party heading into this year's congressional elections. NPR political reporter Jessica Taylor has been studying the 2018 midterm map. Hi there.
JESSICA TAYLOR, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Let's start with Darrell Issa. He just made this announcement today. He's been in Congress 17 years. He was a high-profile opponent of the Obama administration. How much of a surprise is this?
TAYLOR: I don't think it's really shocking when you look at his district that really has changed over the past few years. Issa is one of four Republicans retiring from a district that Hillary Clinton won. He only won re-election last time by about 1,600 votes. So when he's looking at his re-election chances in a very tough cycle, I think he had a decision to make.
SHAPIRO: So that's his district in California. But nationally, these 31 Republicans not seeking re-election covered the entire map. What's going on?
TAYLOR: I think that some of them are driven by re-election concerns like Issa. But then you also have the vast majority of Republicans that are leaving - maybe they've just been there for a while, too. It's time to leave. They maybe want another career. And many of these are still safe Republican seats that the GOP will still hold. Some of them are committee chairmen that are termed out. They're not going to be able to lead the committee again. And going back to being a backbencher isn't necessarily as appealing. And many of them that are retiring are actually running for other seats. They're running for Senate or governor, so that means that they're looking at this and saying, OK, maybe this isn't such a bad environment completely.
SHAPIRO: We often hear that the congressional map favors Republicans, and that even if more people vote for Democratic members of the House of Representatives, Republicans can still control the chamber. How optimistic are Democrats that they could actually take back the House in 2018?
TAYLOR: I would say they're cautiously optimistic. Some of these retirements from Republicans are encouraging for them, but they also have their own retirements to be concerned about, too. There are 15 Democrats retiring, and some of those sit in districts that Trump won. They are looking at a universe of maybe as many as 90 competitive seats. And as you mentioned, with the way that the map is drawn, Republicans have an advantage going in inherently. But when they look at the trends that are working their way and the fact that the president's party typically loses around 28 seats in their first midterm, it's all encouraging for Democrats.
SHAPIRO: And Democrats need to pick up how many seats to win control?
TAYLOR: They need to pick up 24. It's out there. But as you mentioned, there are still a lot of things that are still working in Republicans' favor because of the way that this map is gerrymandered. So both Republicans and Democrats acknowledge that the House is absolutely in control. I think it's still very early. But when you see this trend of retirements, it's not encouraging for Republicans. I talked to former Congressman Tom Davis of Virginia who was a chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. And he said, you know, he's not seeing it as a tsunami yet, but he mentioned if you see other members in these marginal districts that Clinton won retire, that's when it becomes really worrisome for Republicans.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Jessica Taylor walking through the congressional map with us. Thanks very much.
TAYLOR: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The results of an IQ test can depend on the gender of the person who is conducting the test. Likewise, studies of pain medication can be completely thrown off by the gender of the experimenter. NPR's Richard Harris reports that this underappreciated problem is one reason that some scientific findings don't stand the test of time.
RICHARD HARRIS, BYLINE: Colin Chapman found out about this problem the hard way. He had traveled to Sweden on a Fulbright scholarship to launch his career in neuroscience. And he decided to study whether a nasal spray containing a hormone called oxytocin would help control obesity.
COLIN CHAPMAN: I was really excited about this project. From what I understood about how the brain works, I thought it was kind of a slam dunk.
HARRIS: Chapman set up the experiment, and then left for a few years to attend Harvard Law School. When he returned, the findings were not at all what he expected.
CHAPMAN: And I was really disappointed because this was kind of my baby. It was, like, my big project going into neuroscience.
HARRIS: But Chapman, who is now a graduate student at the University of Uppsala, says his idea turned out to be right after all.
CHAPMAN: There was another research group that, around the same time, came up with the same idea. And they ran basically the same project, and they got exactly the results that I was expecting to get.
HARRIS: That led him to wonder what had gone wrong with his experiment. One possibility was that the hormone he was using - oxytocin - can waft through the air and affect social interactions, particularly between the sexes.
So he started to worry that the natural hormone from the experimenters could have been messing up his results. One man and two women had been conducting the actual experiments.
CHAPMAN: I was asking around. I said, do you know which trial was run by who? And nobody had kept track of that because it's not something that's commonly kept track of in science, just in general.
HARRIS: Writing in the online journal Science Advances, Chapman and two colleagues now argue that's a huge mistake. He dug back through the history of science and found many, many examples of studies that are influenced by whether the experimenter and the subject are the same gender.
CHAPMAN: Even something that's supposedly as stable as IQ can be affected by the gender of the experimenter. If you have a female experimenter with a male student, for instance, you're going to see higher IQ scores.
HARRIS: It's also a big problem in pain research. A heterosexual man participating in a pain experiment will report more pain to a male tester than to a female.
Chapman suspects this is partly because the man is, subconsciously or otherwise, trying to impress the woman, and partly because the biochemistry of sexual attraction is at work.
CHAPMAN: If you're testing out a new drug for pain and you're getting these kinds of great results, you might want to look at who's running the experiment and who's participating in the experiment, because that could explain it more than the drug itself.
HARRIS: And the subjects of these experiments don't even have to be humans. In 2014, researchers discovered that the sex of a laboratory worker could completely screw up the results of pain experiments in rats and mice. Jeffrey Mogil, a neuroscience professor at McGill University, headed that study and says it's due to chemicals in the scent of males.
JEFFREY MOGIL: And if you present the male chemical in front of rats or mice, they are stressed. And that stress ends up killing pain.
HARRIS: Once you published this, what happened?
MOGIL: You know, scientists change their practices very, very slowly. And I think that it would be fair to say very little has happened.
HARRIS: He and Chapman agree that a simple first step would be for scientists to report the gender of the people who run these kinds of experiments. Richard Harris, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
On the Friday before Christmas, Fox News confirmed that its chief Washington correspondent, James Rosen, had left the network. After 18 years at Fox, he left without a goodbye to viewers or his colleagues. Today, NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik broke the news that Rosen had been under formal review for his behavior toward women. David reported that Rosen had been accused of sexually harassing three journalists at Fox. And David joins us now from our studios in New York. Hi there.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Tell us about these allegations and the basis on which you're reporting this.
FOLKENFLIK: Well, to start with, we're reporting this on the basis of my talking to eight of Rosen's former colleagues at the Washington, D.C., bureau of Fox News. Both Rosen and Fox News declined to respond to sort of the full details of what we're reporting today. The allegations, in terms of the three incidents of sexual harassment, spanned back 18 years and are as recent - and the most recent one was late last spring. They involved groping a colleague in a car on the way back from a meal; in one case, sexually harassing a state department producer; and the most recent one, pressing a reporter to the wall of an elevator, attempting to kiss her and trying to kiss her again forcibly when being rebuffed.
SHAPIRO: James Rosen was a prominent on-air personality at Fox. Remind us about his role.
FOLKENFLIK: You know, Rosen was the chief Washington correspondent. He had covered a lot of issues involving diplomacy and national security issues. He had written a biography of the former attorney general, the late John Mitchell - and calling for a kinder reassessment of Mitchell's role in the Watergate scandal under President Nixon - but most notably had been known for doing reporting on American intelligence about North Korea. And that incensed the Obama administration to such an extent that the Justice Department launched a formal leak investigation into him. He was seen as a serious guy in that bureau.
SHAPIRO: This obviously comes after several high-profile figures at Fox were - lost their jobs over sexual harassment scandals. And today, you're reporting that many women at Fox felt the network was slow to pay attention to the Washington bureau. What was going on there?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, to be fair, they had a lot to pay attention to here in New York at their headquarters from their founding CEO and chairman, Roger Ailes, on down. Ailes was forced out - bought out - in July 2016 before his death. You know, the former Fox star Bill O'Reilly, Eric Bolling and an executive named Francisco Cortes - a bunch of folks were forced out. They say they also got rid of a slew of executives who had been thought to be in some ways complacent or tolerant of such behavior in the past and that they're trying to make a new day. At the same times, a number of women in the Washington bureau have said, you know, there were other instances and incidents reported over the years, including a formal EEOC complaint, which itself was dismissed. It's taken too long to pay attention to what's happening here in D.C., and indeed, in the last six months, a full-time HR person has been based there.
SHAPIRO: By way of disclosure, we should say people at NPR have also lost their jobs over sexual misconduct complaints. Where do things stand at Fox News now?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, you know, there was this remarkable interview that Fox News' controlling owner and the CEO, Rupert Murdoch, gave to another one of his media sites, Sky News, in December, saying that the sexual harassment claims involving the late Roger Ailes were isolated instances. I think the formal review that was occurring even at that time in mid-December proves otherwise. And you know, there's concern at Fox News over whether or not the stuff's been taken seriously. Officials say - there - said they've made such sweeping changes. It proves that they have and that if they were to comment, I would imagine they would say Rosen was part of that.
SHAPIRO: NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik, thank you.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump is again clashing with the courts over immigration. This time it's over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. The White House vows to fight what it calls an outrageous ruling by a federal judge in California. That order temporarily blocks his administration from ending DACA, which protects young undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children from deportation. Their future is the subject of a lot of debate in Washington, as NPR's Joel Rose reports.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: It's been a year of lows and highs for the so-called DREAMers. In September, the Trump administration announced its plans to phase out DACA, the Obama-era program that allows nearly 700,000 of them to live and work legally in the U.S. Now a court in California says, not so fast.
XAVIER BECERRA: You can fight city hall or the Oval Office. And if you do it the right way, in this country at least, you can win.
ROSE: That's California Attorney General Xavier Becerra. His office brought the case along with the University of California and other plaintiffs. They argued the administration acted arbitrarily when it decided to kill DACA. The judge said that argument was likely to prevail. Every week, hundreds of DACA recipients are losing their status as the program winds down. Adrian Reyna says a permanent fix is needed. He's an activist with the group United We Dream and a DACA recipient himself.
ADRIAN REYNA: Don't let anyone tell you that the urgency to get this done is not real. That clock is ticking. People have already lost protection and are living without protection.
ROSE: The judge ordered the administration to allow DACA recipients to renew their status. The order is only a temporary injunction. The judge didn't decide the merits of the case. While this case plays out in the courts, there's another debate over DACA happening on Capitol Hill. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra hopes lawmakers will finally end the uncertainty around DACA.
BECERRA: It is time for Congress to give us a lasting solution that will leave no doubt that the DREAMers are Americans and that they are here to stay.
ROSE: The Department of Justice says it will vigorously defend its decision to end DACA. The department argues the program was an unconstitutional overreach by the Obama administration and that Congress should make immigration policy. The Trump administration could accelerate that legal fight and appeal directly to the Supreme Court as it did in the battle over the president's travel ban executive orders. But this legal battle is not the only thing that could complicate delicate negotiations on the Hill. It was just yesterday that President Trump hosted lawmakers from both parties at the White House and said he would sign any DACA bill that they sent him. Today Trump says the bill must include funding for a border wall.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We need the wall for security. We need the wall for safety. We need the wall for stopping the drugs from pouring in.
ROSE: Hard-liners in Congress and the White House want other changes to the legal immigration system that could also alienate Democrats. On the other side, the White House risks angering Trump's base if it grants a path to citizenship for the DREAMers.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANN COULTER: This is a disaster. It was the lowest day of his presidency.
ROSE: Here's conservative commentator Ann Coulter speaking with Fox Business host Lou Dobbs after yesterday's meeting with Congressional leaders.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
COULTER: His only hope is to be pedal to the metal, fulfill his promises, build the wall, end chain migration...
LOU DOBBS: Yeah.
COULTER: ...And deport these DREAMers who are the worst of the illegals.
ROSE: Congress could act as early as next week or punt again, leaving the future of the DREAMers once again up in the air. Joel Rose, NPR News, New York.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Our next guest is Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado. He has been part of the negotiations in Washington trying to find a long-term solution for those hundreds of thousands of young people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children. Senator Gardner was at the White House yesterday when the president outlined his plan. Phase one of that plan is to figure out permanent protections for DREAMers and to increase border security, and that means saving phase two, comprehensive immigration reform, for later.
When I talked to Senator Gardner today, I asked him what he thinks about the plan.
CORY GARDNER: I think it is the right way to go. And I think that for too long we've had a debate over immigration reform where we haven't built the trust up with the American people to the point where we can actually pass major legislation addressing immigration. And so I have talked about how you put this into pieces to prove to the American people that we can do our job, that we can get this right. Use that to build on to an overall immigration solution that addresses everything that we need, whether that's entry-exit systems, whether that's people who are here without documentation. I think this situation today gives us a way to start to prove to ourselves we can do this and to address a very important policy issue, and that's what to do with children who were brought here to this country through no fault of their own.
MCEVERS: Let's talk about phase one. Let's talk about DREAMers and border security, I mean, the stuff that is on the table right now. Do you feel like there is bipartisan consensus about protecting DREAMers?
GARDNER: I believe there is bipartisan consensus. I believe the furthest to left, the furthest right all agree that we need to protect kids, these DREAMers who were brought here at a very young age through no fault of their own. You know, I've heard people like Trey Gowdy say it. I've heard others say it - that we don't charge a 3-year-old for walking across your neighbor's lawn with trespass. We just don't do that in this country. So I think there is as close to some unanimity as you can get in Congress to address this situation.
MCEVERS: Yesterday we talked to the No. 2 Democrat in the House, Steny Hoyer, and he was also at that meeting. He seemed positive. You know, he says broad bipartisan agreement is coming and that even the president sounds more and more like it's not about a wall - right? - a physical barrier across the entire U.S.-Mexico border. He said Democrats and Republicans are starting to agree about something else - about securing the border with something - you know, a so-called virtual wall using technology and surveillance. Do you see broad agreement there?
GARDNER: I think the language the president used yesterday was a wall protection system - I think was the actual phraseology that they used. And the way they described that was, you know, a wall, technology, personnel. And that's something that I think I've seen and heard from this administration over several months of conversations on this. It's not just a sea-to-shining-sea wall, as some have described but a system in place, a border protection system that involves technology, personnel because the president himself said it yesterday. There are places where it doesn't make sense to put something like a wall in because you've got a river or a mountain area that just doesn't make sense.
So I do think that that is an area that can gain support, and I don't think that's actually going to be the most difficult part of this discussion. I think that border security will probably be one of the easier of a very difficult conversation.
MCEVERS: Of the elements that are on the table right now, what is the toughest thing?
GARDNER: Well, the toughest thing is going to be how to address this issue of families, how to address the issues of nuclear family. And that's what the president described as chain migration. That is going to be the most difficult part of this discussion in my opinion as people try to describe, all right, how do you have a solution that addresses people who were brought here against the law through no fault of their own? And so that's going to be tough to address, you know, parents, brothers, sisters - how to make that work and how to do so in a way that the United States can be proud of.
MCEVERS: You know, many say that a more cost-effective way to slow illegal immigration might be to go to the source, to crack down more aggressively on employers who are hiring illegal immigrants. Do you imagine that that will be part of the conversation around border security?
GARDNER: That I think has been a part of the conversation around border security. I haven't heard that as much a part of this discussion because I don't know that there will be a prescriptive, so to speak, border security approach. I think there will be conversations about appropriations, you know, for the border protection systems.
I don't know that this will yet encompass some kind of a mandatory, you know, e-verify (ph) different than it is today. I do think that that will be part of the discussion - ongoing discussion. Now, whether that's the solution, I don't know. Nobody has said that it has to be at this point, at least to my knowledge, so - but it will be part of the discussion.
MCEVERS: Chances that a deal can be reached - like, percentage chance, in your mind...
GARDNER: My problem is I'm an eternal optimistic person, and so I'm eternally optimistic. And I believe that we will find a solution. The president has committed it. The president has said we would. So I'm committed to that, and I don't think failure is an option.
MCEVERS: Senator Cory Gardner, Republican of Colorado, thank you for your time today.
GARDNER: Thanks for having me.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Harvey Weinstein scandal had a huge impact in France, where thousands of women voiced their opposition to sexual harassment in their version of the #MeToo movement. Now there is a different kind of uproar involving a hundred prominent French women - writers, academics and the country's most famous actress, Catherine Deneuve. They signed an open letter saying the movement has gone too far and has become a witch hunt against men. As NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports, feminists in France are angry and shocked.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Thirty French feminists published their response to Deneuve and her co-signatories in their own open letter today, and a representative from each side squared off in a debate on Europe 1 Radio.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (Speaking French).
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: Writer Abnousse Shalmani, who signed Deneuve's letter, says she's glad women are speaking out, but things have gone too far.
ABNOUSSE SHALMANI: (Through interpreter) We all want to end harassment and violence, but the way to do that is not creating a puritanical, moralistic environment. This is taking women backwards.
BEARDSLEY: Shalmani says attempted seduction is now confused with sexual aggression. She and her co-signatories say men should have the freedom to hit on women and not be shamed on social media because they touched a woman's knee or sent a salacious text. What particularly incensed feminist leader Caroline de Haas was the letter's claim that being groped in the subway doesn't have to be a big deal.
CAROLINE DE HAAS: (Through interpreter) I'm sorry. That's a crime. And when you trivialize violence, you leave more space for the aggressor, and you delegitimize the victim.
BEARDSLEY: That's what worries the Deneuve camp, who say women are being seen as powerless and perpetual victims. Gender Equality Minister Marlene Schiappa joined the debate.
MARLENE SCHIAPPA: (Through interpreter) there are some interesting points in this letter like, do women have to feel like victims forever if they're sexually aggressed? But that's nothing new, and the rest of it is shocking.
BEARDSLEY: Even though French women of all ages signed both letters, many commentators see it as a generational debate, pitting older women who fought for sexual liberation in the 1960s against younger activists who feel that #MeToo is a battle for women's rights. Sixty-nine-year-old Paris real estate agent Joelle Remy is on her way home from work. She says she's in the middle of the two camps because sexual harassment is nuanced.
JOELLE REMY: (Through interpreter) It's not the man in the street or the Metro who's going to hurt women. It's someone with power over you either in your family or at your job.
BEARDSLEY: Remy says when she was young, she and her friends would often slap a man or speak loudly to embarrass an aggressor on the subway. She says they definitely did not see themselves as victims. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
(SOUNDBITE OF WU TANG CLAN'S "I CAN'T GO TO SLEEP")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The U.S. government has been holding an American citizen in Iraq for four months now without charge. The American Civil Liberties Union is challenging his detention in federal court. NPR justice reporter Ryan Lucas is following the story, and he's with me now. Hey.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Howdy.
MCEVERS: So for those of us who have not been following this story very closely, just remind us. What is this case all about?
LUCAS: Well, I can tell you what it's all about, but I can't tell you who it is about because we don't know the American citizen's name. The government hasn't released it. It hasn't released any details about him. That's why he's known as John Doe. But here's what we do know at this point. The man surrendered to U.S. allies in Syria in September. He was handed over to the U.S. military, and the military has held him in Iraq since then as an enemy combatant. He's suspected of having been a member of the Islamic State.
Now, word seeped out around the time that he was picked up that he was in U.S. custody. And according to reports, he is a dual U.S.-Saudi citizen. Now, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent has met with him a couple of times, but for months, that was it. The government hasn't charged him. It wasn't allowing him access to a lawyer or judge. The ACLU has taken up the case. Here's Jonathan Hafetz. He's one of the attorneys working the case.
JONATHAN HAFETZ: This case raises fundamental questions about the government's ability to detain American citizens and the rights of American citizens to ensure the basic protections of the Constitution.
MCEVERS: OK, so the ACLU's taken up the case, and I understand they brought it to federal court in October. So what's the status of the case now?
LUCAS: Well, the government has said from the very beginning that it thinks the case should be dismissed. Initially it said the ACLU didn't have the legal standing to represent the man because it didn't know him, and it didn't have the man's consent. At the same time, the government hadn't released the man's name, and it wasn't granting access to him to get his consent.
In late-December, the judge handling the case ordered the government to give the ACLU access to talk to him. That finally happened last week. The ACLU spoke with him via a video link from the Pentagon. And he told them that he wants to challenge his detention and that he wants the ACLU to represent him. The ACLU has asked the judge for an injunction to prevent the government from transferring him to another country such as Saudi Arabia before he gets his day in court.
The government responded on Monday. It says that it's figuring out what to do with him. It acknowledges that transferring him to another country is an option under consideration, and it asks for another six weeks to respond to the merits of the case.
MCEVERS: Six weeks - I mean, why is it taking the government so long to figure out what to do here?
LUCAS: That's a great question.
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
LUCAS: Legal experts I've spoken with say that the government has had ample time to figure this out. The government says it needs the time because the detainee is halfway around the world. Evidence is scattered across intelligence and investigative agencies, and there are classification issues.
But there's another possibility here, and that's that the government reportedly doesn't have enough evidence to charge him with terrorism but they don't want to release him. That's why transferring him may be on the table. It would also allow the government to sidestep a number of other legal issues that it's anxious to avoid. And also, if he's not in U.S. custody or being held at the behest of the U.S. government, then it's no longer an issue, and the lawsuit is likely moot.
MCEVERS: Enemy combatant, detainee transfers - I mean, this must to a lot of people sound like things we heard during the George W. Bush administration, yeah?
LUCAS: Absolutely, absolutely. And there're certainly aspects of this that hearken back to that period. We haven't talked about enemy combatants for a long time. And yes, this case raises questions about how the Trump administration is going to handle terrorism suspects picked up overseas, but it also raises questions about whether the government's arguments are suggesting that it could do the same thing with an American citizen in the U.S. Here's Stephen Vladeck. He's a law professor at the University of Texas School of Law.
STEPHEN VLADECK: I think that's why this case is so scary. Whatever you think of U.S. citizens who are in Syria perhaps spying on behalf of ISIS, so far there's no reason why the precedent the government has set over the last three and a half months couldn't be applied to someone much, much closer to home.
LUCAS: So that's why legal experts say this case is important, and that's why they're keeping such close tabs on it.
MCEVERS: NPR justice reporter Ryan Lucas, thanks.
LUCAS: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Congressional Democrats are out with a new report today calling for a plan to deal with Russia's meddling in elections. It points out that the U.S. is not the only victim, that Russia has been trying to undermine democracies in Europe and in former Soviet republics. The Democrats say that while other countries are responding to the threat, the Trump administration is falling short. Here's NPR's Michele Kelemen.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: The ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ben Cardin, says he wants Americans to understand the true scope and scale of Russia's meddling.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BEN CARDIN: Today, the government of the Russian Federation is engaged in relentless assaults against democratic institutions, universal values and the rule of law at home and abroad.
KELEMEN: He says Russia is drawing from a Soviet-era playbook but using new technologies. It's carrying out cyberattacks, disinformation campaigns, supporting fringe political groups and even sending troops to places like Ukraine and Georgia. Still, Cardin says he doesn't want to make Vladimir Putin look like he's 10 feet tall.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CARDIN: I think Mr. Putin is, first of all, trying to preserve his own popularity in a country where the economy is failing and therefore has to have other successes. And the other successes may be military successes that are contrived so that he can show the people of Russia that he's been a successful warrior. It may be winning more medals in the Olympics than you should win if you played fairly.
KELEMEN: The Maryland Democrat was speaking at the German Marshall Fund about ways Europeans have pushed back. In Sweden, he says, students are taught about how to identify fake news. In France, cybersecurity officials worked with political parties to blunt the impact of Russia's meddling.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CARDIN: The countries that have achieved a degree of success all have one thing in common - political leadership who publicly said enough is enough and from there mobilized their bureaucracies to respond.
KELEMEN: Here in the U.S., he says, President Trump barely acknowledges the problem. Under Secretary of State Steve Goldstein, though, says an office in his department is trying to counter propaganda from Russia.
STEVEN GOLDSTEIN: We do accept the fact that there is disinformation that goes out on a daily basis. I've been working with the technology companies. We believe that there has to be a multipronged approach to resolving the disinformation component.
KELEMEN: But the U.S. also has other priorities. It wants Google, Facebook and the other tech companies to help counter ISIS and other terrorist groups, not just Russian or Chinese propaganda. Republican Congressman Will Hurd, a former CIA officer, doesn't think the U.S. intelligence community is paying enough attention to what he calls Russia's hybrid warfare or briefing tech companies about the threat.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
WILL HURD: You know, there's not enough information and not enough focus on this as an intelligence collection priority. Just like we would chase Russian intelligence officers or Iranian nuclear weapon proliferators, Internet trolls, people that are trying to influence our democracy, I think that should move up the national priority intelligence framework.
KELEMEN: Republicans were not involved in writing the 200-page congressional report on Russia, but Congressman Hurd agrees with Senator Cardin that the U.S. needs a real bipartisan strategy. And he says it starts with educating Americans about the threat.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HURD: We all know don't get into a car with a stranger. We all know no stranger danger, all right. Why are you listening to a stranger on social media?
KELEMEN: And he's hoping Republicans and Democrats can at least agree on some of the basic facts. The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker, says he's already worked to expand sanctions on Russia and is not planning any further action in response to the report. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
USA Today reports that Mark Wahlberg was paid $1.5 million for reshooting scenes in the movie "All The Money In The World." That doesn't sound super weird until you hear what else USA Today is reporting. Michelle Williams was paid less than $1,000 for doing the same thing. The film was reshot Thanksgiving week, a month before its release date. That's because Kevin Spacey was removed from the movie after men came forward with sexual misconduct allegations against him. USA Today's Andrea Mandell broke the story of this crazy pay gap, and she is here with me in the studio. Welcome.
ANDREA MANDELL: Thank you for having me.
MCEVERS: So you call this ugly math in your story. How did it happen?
MANDELL: Well, so I think first of all it's notable that Michelle Williams wasn't paid $1,000 for the reshoots. She was actually paid an $80 per diem...
MCEVERS: Wow.
MANDELL: ...for like food (laughter).
MCEVERS: Which added up to...
MANDELL: Which added up to less than $1,000. So we're not even really talking about a fee here...
MCEVERS: Wow.
MANDELL: ...To begin with.
MCEVERS: Why would someone not be paid for their work?
MANDELL: So essentially what I've come to understand is that when Ridley Scott decided to...
MCEVERS: The director.
MANDELL: ....The director Ridley Scott decided to pull this Hail Mary and assemble his cast in Europe over Thanksgiving week vacation to reshoot all of this, he asked his cast to do it for free - and, or they offered to. He didn't take a fee for the reshoot. Michelle Williams offered to do it for free to right this wrong, as she told me in December in our interview. And my understanding is that she thought that everyone was doing it for free. So it was a fair - you know, a level playing field. The issue becomes that Mark Wahlberg actually was able - his agents or his managers and lawyers were able to renegotiate that and turn it into a $1.5 million fee. Now, there's actually no problem here with an agent renegotiating and getting more money for their client. That's Hollywood. That's fair game. The problem here is that Michelle Williams was never told.
MCEVERS: Right. But aren't both actors represented by the same agency, William Morris Endeavor? Like would - is it possible that people wouldn't be talking about this within - I know it's a big agency, but...
MANDELL: That is the rub, I think - is that they're both represented by WME. It is hard to believe that an agency negotiating two different deals for two different actors on the same film particularly in an industry that prides itself on synergy - that they wouldn't be talking. And it would be quite another situation if they had told Michelle Williams look. Mark Wahlberg has more cachet here. He - it's really his name that they're there selling the movie. He needs a fee - heads up. But that's not what happened. She was just never told. So she found out later that this disparity had happened. And it begs the question would she have agreed to do it for free had she known.
MCEVERS: Right. Have you gotten responses to anyone involved in this since this story came out?
MANDELL: Well, I've gotten a lot of you don't understand. It wasn't me. Or it wasn't our fault. Or this is just the way it works. You hear that all the time. And I tend to tell people that I'm talking to that - you know, you use two brains for this conversation. You use the Hollywood business brain where you understand this is capitalism. Everybody's out to make a buck, and that's fine. But, you know, there's a huge difference between a $1.5 million fee for a star who opens movies internationally and a $80 per diem for a four-time Oscar nominee. It just doesn't make sense.
MCEVERS: Right. Yeah, it's funny. I mean, in some ways, you could see this as a story as like an agent just getting bamboozled. Like somebody along the way was like everybody's doing it for free. You should too. And that could have been a man or woman - right? - who was just like, great, we're good. It just so happens that that happened at a really bad time.
MANDELL: It happened at a bad time, and it happened in a bad way. You know, I think this does happen all the time. You know, salary negotiations aren't typically like a let's everybody write down our number and share it kind of game.
MCEVERS: (Laughter) Let's all hold hands and make sure it's fair.
MANDELL: Right. But what you do start noticing is a trend of women being undervalued, of this stacked game against what women bring to the table versus their male counterparts. And that is where pay transparency can start to really take effect.
MCEVERS: Andrea Mandell, West Coast entertainment editor at USA Today. Thank you so much.
MANDELL: Thank you for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF ED SHEERAN SONG, "I SEE FIRE (KYGO REMIX)")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
One of the big questions going around Washington this week is whether special counsel Robert Mueller is pursuing an interview with President Trump as part of his investigation. Today, Trump addressed the question - would he agree to such an interview. He was talking to reporters alongside the prime minister of Norway, who was at the White House to meet with him. NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson was at the news conference, and she's with us now. Hi, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: What did the president say?
LIASSON: Before we hear the president, let's go back to June when, in a press conference with the president of Romania, the president was asked if he would testify under oath about his firing of FBI Director James Comey. And Trump was very definitive back then. He said he was, quote, "100 percent" willing to speak under oath. That, of course, was in regard to him being questioned about whether there was any obstruction of justice because of that firing. Today, didn't talk about 100 percent - maybe no percent.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING))
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We'll see what happens. I mean, certainly, I'll see what happens. But when they have no collusion and nobody's found any collusion at any level, it seems unlikely that you'd even have an interview.
LIASSON: So he was talking about collusion there, which he repeatedly denies. What the special counsel is also looking at, in addition to some kind of unlawful cooperation with the Russians, is obstruction of justice in the president's firing of Comey, which he has said publicly was done to get the cloud of the Russia investigation off of him and in his drafting of a misleading statement about the meeting that his son had with a Russian lawyer at Trump Tower in June of 2016.
MCEVERS: The president also had this pretty extraordinary meeting yesterday at the White House with Republican and Democratic lawmakers. They're essentially negotiating in front of TV cameras. And he said in that meeting he would sign anything the lawmakers agree to. This was about immigration. I mean, did he mean it - anything?
LIASSON: No, not anything. He was asked today whether he meant when he said he'd sign anything Congress sent him, did he mean that he would sign a DACA bill, an immigration bill, without funding for a wall?
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: No.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: No.
TRUMP: It's got to include the wall. We need the wall for security. We need the wall for safety. We need the wall for stopping the drugs from pouring in. I would imagine that the people in the room, both Democrat or Republican, I really believe they're going to come up with a solution to the DACA problem, which has been going on for a long time.
LIASSON: So that said, the president's idea of the wall is still pretty flexible. It could be some fencing. He said it doesn't have to be 2,000 miles of concrete. My understanding of the Senate negotiations is that in the part of the meeting yesterday that wasn't on camera, Trump said that coming out of the deal he would be able to say he got something on border security, the Democrats would say they did something for the DREAMers, something would be done about the visa lottery program.
And in terms of the issue of chain migration, the DREAMers themselves would not be able to bring in family members. Chain migration is sometimes called family reunification. But what the president wasn't asked about today was whether he would sign a bill that included the most basic ingredient of the DREAM Act, which is a path to citizenship for the DREAMers. And many of his most ardent supporters consider that amnesty and find it completely objectionable.
MCEVERS: So we'll see how that goes. About that meeting with lawmakers yesterday that the president had, I understand he was still talking about it today.
LIASSON: Yes. And this has happened before. He generally gets a lot of positive reinforcement when he does something bipartisan, and he loves to talk about that response in a Cabinet meeting today. He said he got great reviews of his performance, claimed that many anchors had written him letters praising him. You know, this has happened before. He made a tentative deal on immigration with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and then it fell apart. It evaporated. So in the president's favorite phrase, we'll see what happens.
MCEVERS: NPR's Mara Liasson, thank you so much.
LIASSON: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The questions that President Trump took today came in a news conference with the first foreign leader to visit him this year, the prime minister of Norway, Erna Solberg. Before she went to the White House, I sat down with the prime minister at the Norwegian ambassador's residence. Over the last year, President Trump has given mixed messages about America's commitment to NATO and collective defense, so I asked the prime minister whether she thinks the U.S. still has Norway's back. She said yes.
PRIME MINISTER ERNA SOLBERG: In the security policy area, I don't think there's a big change. There's always a bit of - I won't call it anxiety but a bit of nervousness about what would a new administration mean. All national campaigns are about not doing too much foreign policy. All presidents in the United States have always focused on national issues in their election campaigns. But the U.S. is the biggest military power in the world. It has a big impact on security policies all over the world, and every president in office have to focus more on security and policy issues like that. And I've felt we've seen the same.
I think there's a strengthening of security policies now from the U.S., but it goes in line with the fact that we see a more assertive Russia. We've seen what happened in Ukraine. We have to fight international terrorism. So there has been a change in all countries on focusing more also on defense on cooperation inside the NATO since 2014.
SHAPIRO: But just to be clear, you believe that the U.S. is as engaged in NATO, foreign affairs, international coalitions as it ever has been.
SOLBERG: In NATO, I think they are as engaged as they have been, but they have a different policy on some issues. The fact that President Trump have said that they don't want to follow up on the Paris accords - of course we have criticized that.
SHAPIRO: The climate treaty.
SOLBERG: The climate treaty has to be fulfilled. And we believe that that is an important part also of long-term security because the impact of climate change on the security issues will be stronger in the future because of more migrating of people, because of changes in the climate.
SHAPIRO: As you mention, the U.S. pulled out of the Paris climate accord while Norway has been a promoter of renewable energies. Do you think that the world can adequately address the challenge of a changing climate without full U.S. participation?
SOLBERG: Well, I hope we will see a U.S. that continues what we have seen since 2005 - a steady decline of its emissions. That's the biggest, you know? The biggest importance is what do the U.S. as a nation deliver on climate? I was saddened by the fact that the current administration didn't want to follow up on the Paris Agreement because I think it was a very intense process of reaching that agreement where the U.S. had a very important role in getting some of the more reluctant countries to come in and participate. Well, what we have seen afterwards is that everybody else is sticking to those targets, and they are working on reaching their commitment by the Paris Agreement. So maybe the impact won't be as big as long as the U.S. are delivering on lower CO2 emissions.
SHAPIRO: So what I hear you saying both on international security and on climate is something that we sometimes hear American politicians say, which is, pay less attention to the president's words and more attention to the policies and actions.
SOLBERG: I think the policies and actions are important. I think words are important for politicians always. But I think sometimes the actions are the absolutely most important thing in international community.
SHAPIRO: Norway is taking more of a leadership position on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, on sustainable development goals, on issues where traditionally the United States has taken the lead. Do you think that this administration's America First posture is reducing the U.S. role as a global leader?
SOLBERG: I think it's important to see that if you want to put your interests first, you also have to look at what - how is that affected by what happens in the rest of the world. And in today's globalized world, we will not be unaffected by conflicts all over the rest of the world.
SHAPIRO: Like the United States, Norway has been the subject of Russian disinformation campaigns, trolls, propaganda and so on. But it does not seem to have been entirely successful in Norway. For example, the propaganda radio network Sputnik closed its Norwegian language operation. Do you have any advice for the U.S.?
SOLBERG: I think there is a natural skepticism in the Norwegian political life towards that type of propaganda. It's not so easy to divide us. We are a small country. We have - we usually say that the broad lines of our foreign policy cannot be just on one party line. It has to be - we have to make a compromise, which I think means that also Russia has less to play on. It's easier to play when you're in very big conflict on, for example, foreign policy between the political parties in a country. It's easier for any country outside to play into the political life. I don't think that's been very easy in Norway.
SHAPIRO: The last question I would like to ask is about the number of women in leadership roles in your government. In addition to you, the foreign minister, the finance minister and others are positions held by women. What difference do you think that makes in Norway and globally?
SOLBERG: First of all, I think the reason why we have so many women is of course three, four decades - so a lot of women in politics. So suddenly you have a lot of women to recruit into those of the highest-ranking positions in government. And I think it has - or it has in Norway seen that the everyday life of women has been more focused in policies. That's why we do have - had focus on, how do you manage work-family relations? You have to have support networks if you want all women to participate in the labor market and still have children, which I think is also an important balance for family life.
I think in foreign policy and others, we are focusing more on women's role in conflict prevention, understanding how if you really want to build a country that can overcome the splits that you have in a society, you have to work from the grassroots up. And you have to take women into that work because very often, women are the first and are the biggest victims of a conflict period. We see that in rape. We see it in how you are using women as targets also in a lot of - especially conflicts inside a country.
SHAPIRO: I wonder if something just as simple as child care makes a big difference, which can be difficult for American mothers to find and is very robust in Norway.
SOLBERG: Yes. And in all the Scandinavian countries, that's been I think one of the effects of having more women in politics - is to say that, well, if you really want us to be working, using our education, you have to make sure that we also can be mothers at the same time. We don't want to choose between a career and motherhood. And in societies where the wage differences aren't that big, it's not so easy to get somebody else to take care of your children inside your own home. That means that you have to build out a helping systems for the family. And the benefit of that is higher economic growth and maybe also a more innovative society.
SHAPIRO: Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway, thank you so much for speaking with us.
SOLBERG: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SINKANE'S "JEEPER CREEPER")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
All of North Carolina's 13 congressional districts must be redrawn. That was the unanimous ruling yesterday from three federal judges. They found the districts are illegal partisan gerrymanders created by Republicans to favor their own candidates. As Tom Bullock of member station WFAE reports, there are questions about what this ruling means in an election year.
TOM BULLOCK, BYLINE: North Carolina's congressional candidates can officially file to run just one month from now. That date is important if the state is to hold its May 8 primary on schedule. North Carolina's Republican-controlled General Assembly has been given just two weeks to redraw all the state's congressional districts.
And lawmakers did meet in special session today. Yet, congressional redistricting wasn't even on the agenda. And North Carolina's State Board of Election could not comment on the case. They have been a board in name only since June of last year thanks to an ongoing fight between the Democratic governor and the Republican legislature.
All of this may mean North Carolina voters are in for a chaotic election season. The only thing that is clear is that the map is politically gerrymandered - and that is by design. Republican Representative David Lewis freely admitted that back in 2016 when he co-chaired the committee which drew these districts.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DAVID LEWIS: I propose that we draw the maps to give a partisan advantage to 10 Republicans and three Democrats because I do not believe it's possible to draw a map with 11 Republicans and two Democrats.
BULLOCK: His fellow Republicans giggled. The federal judges were not similarly amused. And when you run the numbers on the 2016 congressional election, you can see why. Michael Bitzer is a political scientist with Catawba College.
MICHAEL BITZER: So 2.4 million ballots were cast for Republican congressional candidates across North Carolina compared to 2.1 million for democrats, and that basically breaks to a 53-47 split.
BULLOCK: Yet, 10 Republicans were elected to the House of Representatives to just three Democrats. This disparity was cited time and again in yesterday's ruling, which Republicans say they will appeal directly to the U.S. Supreme Court. For NPR News, I'm Tom Bullock in Charlotte.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Now we're going to hear from one of the plaintiffs in that case. Jake Quinn and his wife moved to Asheville, N.C., 13 years ago after he retired from the FDIC in Washington. And he joins us from North Carolina's capital, Raleigh. Welcome to the program.
JAKE QUINN: Thank you, Ari. It's great to be here.
SHAPIRO: North Carolina has 13 congressional districts, and 10 of those seats are held by Republicans. This is in a purple state that voted for Donald Trump in the same election that it elected a Democratic governor. So what made you think this is not just unfair to Democrats but potentially illegal.
QUINN: The fact that the lines drawn in my state snake around in the strangest ways. Ari, we had an event in Asheville a couple of months ago. It was called the Gerrymander 5K, and we had people run and walk along the dividing line that separates the 10th and 11th districts, and people were going through neighborhoods. They were sneaking and snaking around little streets and alleys. And this was the congressional boundary. You know in your gut there is something wrong with this. And I joined the lawsuit in hopes that the judiciary would understand the problem and require our general assembly to remedy it. And I am very heartened to see that they have taken that approach.
SHAPIRO: Well, Republicans say that they're going to appeal the ruling. The Supreme Court could take up the case. And of course, the clock is ticking down to November's midterm elections. Do you think this ruling will take effect in time for voting this year?
QUINN: I think that our general assembly is going to have to follow the three-judge panel's order to draw new districts. But I believe that the legal appeals process will result in us not getting to use those new lines until 2020. Candidate filing in North Carolina begins next month. I think just in practical terms we're looking at 2020.
SHAPIRO: And North Carolina's legislature is still controlled by Republicans. For them to redraw the congressional map in a way that conforms to the court's ruling, it seems like there's a lot of leeway there. Who's to say whether they're doing a fair job or not?
QUINN: Well, Ari, there was a redistricting case where our state Senate and House districts had to be redrawn. And the general assembly did not tackle that effort in good faith whereupon the judges appointed a special master to draw the district boundaries because the general assembly wouldn't do it properly. In the decision that was handed down yesterday, the special master will be working on new district lines in parallel with the general assembly so that if the general assembly does not deliver a suitable product, the three-judge panel will immediately turn to the product of the special master and use that instead.
SHAPIRO: There are a couple of redistricting cases headed to the Supreme Court apart from this North Carolina case from Wisconsin and Maryland. How do you think the national conversation on gerrymandering is changing?
QUINN: I think that the overwhelming majority of Americans are fed up with political parties trying to rig the system. Republicans rigged it in North Carolina. Democrats rigged it in Maryland. Both of them are antithetical to our republican democracy. And more and more, we are hearing loud cries for nonpartisan redistricting reform. That's what we want in North Carolina. I don't want the Democrats to control it. I don't want the Republicans to control it or libertarians or unaffiliateds (ph). I want the people to control it. It's their election.
SHAPIRO: Jake Quinn, a plaintiff in the North Carolina redistricting case, thanks for your time.
QUINN: Thank you, Ari.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
First there were the fires. Then there were the floods. And now a massive rescue operation is underway along the southern California coast. Mudslides and flows of debris brought by the region's first winter storm have stranded hundreds of people in Santa Barbara County. Seventeen people are confirmed dead. More than a dozen are still missing. NPR's Nathan Rott has the latest.
NATHAN ROTT, BYLINE: Rescue operations, including helicopter airlifts, began the day under blue skies in Santa Barbara County just a day after rain poured from gray skies at an unprecedented rate for the area according to the National Weather Service. One rain gauge recorded almost an inch in less than 15 minutes. That water slicked off of fire-charred hillsides, downed blackened canyons, swelling rivers and creeks, flooding neighborhoods, roadways and homes. Residents in Montecito woke to crashing noises and knee-deep muck, posting videos on social media of thrashed homes and cars in a thick, soupy water. Even Oprah was caught up in the mess, posting videos on her Instagram account.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
OPRAH WINFREY: This is how deep the mud is, and the house in back is gone.
ROTT: The mudslides have closed roads, including a section of the Pacific Coast Highway. Emergency officials say that there are scores of people that they know are safe but are just trapped by the debris. Amber Anderson, a spokeswoman for the recovery effort, says their top priority is reaching those people, getting them to safety and finding the people who are still missing.
AMBER ANDERSON: We are doing a thorough search of the area. That started yesterday immediately after that debris flow. We worked throughout the night. We had helicopters doing hoisting operations to rescue people that we were aware of as well continue to look for people who we are - were unaware of.
ROTT: Anderson says those rescue efforts are expected to continue until everyone is found. Given the scale and scope of the disaster, though, she says, that may take some time. Nathan Rott, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF WHITE ARROWS' "CAN'T STOP NOW")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
At the U.S. Supreme Court today, the justices heard arguments in an important voting rights case. It tests whether Ohio's system of purging voters from its registration rolls violates federal law. The system in Ohio is the most aggressive in the country. It automatically strikes voters from the registry if they don't vote in two consecutive elections and if they fail to return a mailed card confirming their address. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: In 2016, a federal appeals court ruled that Ohio's voter purge law violates the National Voter Registration Act. That law requires states to take steps to keep their voting rolls up to date and accurate, but it specifically bars states from removing anyone from the rolls for failure to vote. On the steps of the Supreme Court today, Ohio's Republican secretary of state, Jon Husted, defended the state's purge system.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JON HUSTED: We believe our state is one where we make it easy to vote and hard to cheat. We make every effort possible to try to reach out to voters to get them registered to vote.
TOTENBERG: After Husted left the microphones, he was confronted by Joe Helle, the mayor of Oak Harbor, Ohio, and a former Army sergeant who served in Iraq and Afghanistan.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOE HELLE: Because I was an active duty soldier that maintained my home of record...
HUSTED: Absolutely.
HELLE: ...In the state Ohio, came back home after defending that right and could not exercise it because of this archaic, terrible policy.
HUSTED: All you have to do is use your right to vote.
HELLE: From a mountainside, sir, while driving...
HUSTED: We email you your ballot.
HELLE: What about our soldiers serving overseas anywhere in the world, riding around in a Humvee, conducting missions 20 hours a day...
HUSTED: We're for them. We'll help you...
HELLE: What I know is that I was wrongfully purged along with the plaintiff in this case...
HUSTED: You weren't wrongfully purged.
HELLE: I was. I was six years serving, came home, couldn't exercise my right to vote.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Crowd chanting) Shame, shame, shame.
TOTENBERG: Inside the Supreme Court chamber, the argument focused on how to interpret various provisions of the federal law, with conservative and Republican-appointed justices appearing to side with the state, the more liberal and Democratic-appointed justices appearing to side with the challengers - and Justice Kennedy the likely deciding vote. Justice Alito said that the best interpretation was that the law bars removal of voters solely because they fail to vote. But Justice Kagan countered that the word solely was nowhere in the statute's key provision. And Justice Ginsburg pointed out that the statute provides a safe harbor for states. They can rely on change-of-address forms filed with the post office to strike voters from the registry.
In reply, the state's lawyer said the safe harbor is woefully insufficient in cleaning up the rolls. When U.S. Solicitor General Noel Francisco rose to support the state's position, he faced a prickly question from Justice Sotomayor. There's a 24-year history of solicitor generals under presidents of both political parties taking a position contrary to yours, she said. Forty states read this law the way your opponents do - everybody but you today. It seems quite unusual that your office would change its position so dramatically. Francisco contended that the law was trying to strike a balance between increasing voter participation and giving states the flexibility they need to manage issues that arise when you have, quote, "overinflated voter rolls." Representing the challengers, lawyer Paul Smith said there was no balance struck with Ohio's system, that, in fact, most people just tossed the address confirmation card in the trash - if they get it that is. Only 20 percent of those who are sent the card return it, with only 10 percent of the cards returned as undeliverable.
Justice Breyer - what are states supposed to do? Every year, a certain number of people die and a certain number of people move to California. So how does the state know to take them off the voting rolls? Dead people are no problem, replied Smith. There's a national database now that catalogs every death in the country. And states other than Ohio have used literally dozens of other methods of tracking who moves - from income and property tax forms to license plate databases that require people to notify the DMV of changes in address in Ohio, for instance, within 10 days of moving. Breyer persisted - suppose the state, instead of just sending a card, marked it do not forward, and then deleted names from the rolls when a card is returned as undeliverable. That, said Smith, would be OK. It's exactly what 14 states do right now. Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF BONOBO'S "KERALA")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In the Florida Keys, a shortage of affordable housing has become a crisis after Hurricane Irma. More than 27,000 homes were damaged or destroyed by Irma's high winds and storm surge. A lot of those were mobile homes or trailers. And NPR's Greg Allen reports that this is having an impact on the service and tourist economy in the Keys.
GREG ALLEN, BYLINE: The Driftwood Trailer Park in Tavernier is a rarity now in the Florida Keys. It's one of the few trailer parks left on the ocean side of the Overseas Highway - the road that runs from the mainland to Key West. When Hurricane Irma blew through the Florida Keys, a 4 to 5 foot storm surge flooded thousands of properties, including mobile homes in the Driftwood.
TODD SABIN: Yeah, all the ones in the water are gone now. There were - there were RVs all in there.
ALLEN: Yeah. How many do you think are gone now?
SABIN: I think they lost 15 units in here out of - I think there were 33 or 35, something like that.
ALLEN: Todd Sabin has lived in the Driftwood Trailer Park for decades. He's retired now. He and his wife are lucky. When they returned after Irma, their mobile home was intact. Most others weren't as fortunate. Some received enough damage that their mobile homes are slated for demolition. For many like Sabin, this is a second home.
SABIN: But there's also working people that live in here, and they got no place else to go because the housing costs down here are so high. Hey, Jimmy. How are you doing?
ALLEN: Sabin's longtime neighbor Jimmy Aurelio has stopped by. He's moving out. He owns his own business - a towing company. He's staying with a friend for now but says he's looking for a new place to live in the Keys.
JIMMY AURELIO: They're hard to find, but you can get a halfway nice motorhome and then put it on a lot - a campgrounds or - it's going to be a thousand dollars wherever you go. It's going to be a thousand or better, so...
ALLEN: That's a motorhome with wheels, one that can be moved when there's an evacuation order. Following Hurricane Irma, mobile homes installed on a lot, the kind Aurelio used to live in, are becoming an endangered species in the Florida Keys.
STEVE MILLER: The reason I brought you here is because this is where I used to live, these vacant lots right here.
ALLEN: Steve Miller has lived on Big Pine Key for 35 years. Like more than a dozen of his neighbors, his mobile home was destroyed in Hurricane Irma. This island has long been one of the most affordable places to live in the Keys. One reason for that, Miller says, are the mobile homes - many of them old but available for rent.
MILLER: Most of them weren't, you know, what you would call living in the Taj Mahal. I mean - but they were fine for people that are out there and, you know, you're working every day, you want a home to come home to. It was four walls, a ceiling, the whole nine yards. But now those are gone.
ALLEN: Miller says he has many friends who have already left. He worries many more will follow unless local officials act quickly to make more affordable housing available for the people who staff the Keys' restaurants, hotels, schools and hospitals. But in the Keys, like other resort communities, proposals to build workforce housing are often met with strong opposition. At a recent county commission meeting, Bill Hunter was one of several residents worried that workforce housing would increase density and traffic in his neighborhood.
BILL HUNTER: And now this is beginning to sound like NIMBY, but it's not. Caring about your community is different from NIMBY.
ALLEN: This problem, the need for workforce housing, isn't a new issue here. County Commissioner Heather Carruthers says over the last several years, with incentives and help from the county, developers have built more than 800 units reserved for workforce housing. But she says Irma has turned a longstanding problem into a crisis. Carruthers says it's about more than protecting the vital tourist economy.
HEATHER CARRUTHERS: What's at stake here is a real downturn in the service that's provided in the essential services like police officers, firefighters, nurses, teachers, that really make a community run. If those folks can't find places to live, they're going to have to move someplace else.
ALLEN: Carruthers says the county is looking at available land where it can build workforce housing. But she knows that's something many residents will oppose.
CARRUTHERS: People have an image and a dream about the Keys, that they're going to have their little piece of paradise, and it's going to be, you know, my little kingdom, and that's great. But there certainly are areas here where increasing density would make sense.
ALLEN: Carruthers acknowledges that even the fastest plans to build more workforce housing will take a year or more to carry out. That does little to help workers who are struggling to find a place in the Keys where they can afford to live right now. Greg Allen, NPR News, Miami.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Historian and author Randall Hanson is a lucky man. That's because of the title of one of his books. Here, we'll have him say it for you.
RANDALL HANSEN: "Fire And Fury: The Allied Bombing Of Germany."
SHAPIRO: "Fire And Fury" - that's the lucky part. It's the same as the name of the Michael Wolff book that came out last week about the Trump White House.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Randall Hansen's "Fire And Fury" was published in the U.S. in 2009. People were still buying it from time to time. And then he went online to check on sales last Friday.
HANSEN: And saw that I had moved from very, very low sales into three best-seller lists.
MCEVERS: Friday was the same day the other "Fire And Fury" came out. That, of course, was a book criticizing President Trump. So people were not paying attention to what they were putting in their Amazon carts.
SHAPIRO: Hansen believes that his "Fire And Fury" book is still relevant. He notes that President Trump used that phrase, fire and fury, when he threatened North Korea last year.
HANSEN: My book is about what foreign theory actually looks like on the ground, and if people read my book and think about what war actually is, that could have a positive effect.
SHAPIRO: Hansen, who lives in Canada, says supplies of his book have now sold out. He says he has not yet read Michael Wolff's "Fire And Fury."
HANSEN: It only came out in Toronto yesterday, and I can't face these chaotic lines in the bookstores.
MCEVERS: So he's ordered it online. He ordered the right one and is enjoying the fact that others haven't.
HANSEN: Well, I feel extraordinary lucky, and I'm tempted to buy Wolff a bottle of champagne.
SHAPIRO: That's Randall Hansen, author of the other "Fire And Fury."
(SOUNDBITE OF TOM BARFOD'S "HYPERION")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
A fatal police shooting in Kansas late last month focused new attention on something that's become known as swatting. It's an extreme prank when someone calls in and reports a made-up crime in progress in order to bring out SWAT teams or large groups of officers. And the caller doesn't give away their location. Now police say that revolutionary changes already in the works for the country's 911 calling system could make swatting an even bigger problem. NPR's Cheryl Corley explains.
(SOUNDBITE OF PHONE RINGING)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: So you can either...
CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: There are more than 7,000 911 call centers in the United States like this one, the Consolidated Dispatch Center in Addison, Ill., just outside of Chicago.
(SOUNDBITE OF PHONE RINGING)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Nine-one-one - what's the address of your emergency?
CORLEY: The National Emergency Number Association, or NENA, says 911 centers receive about 600,000 calls a day. No one keeps track of the number of swatting calls made across the country. For about a decade, though, the FBI's been monitoring the practice of those types of fake calls. Detective Richard Wistocki, an Internet crimes investigator in Naperville, Ill., says what often drives them is people playing video games, trying to get revenge on rivals.
RICHARD WISTOCKI: Usually when this happens, they hack into somebody's phone system, or they'll do something through a TTY relay, which is for the deaf.
CORLEY: Making it look like the emergency phone call is coming from the victim's home - that's what many believe happened in Wichita when a man made a hoax call to 911. That call led to an innocent man being shot and killed by police. Now some big changes for 911 are in the works - new technology that's raised concerns about what it means for swatting. The system devised 50 years ago hasn't seen much change over the years and is limited. People typically verbally describe emergencies on the phone.
The new system called Next Generation, or NG, 911 is based on the Internet instead of telephone technology. What that means, says Trey Fogerty with the 911 association, is people will be able to send information to emergency call centers as if they are posting to social media.
TREY FOGERTY: It gives us the ability to access 911 using the same voice, video, text and data applications that we're all used to using on our smartphones today.
CORLEY: That's a big deal. A picture of an accident scene might definitely help emergency crews responding to that crisis. A text to the new 911 might also be useful during a home invasion or domestic violence situations. However, Chuck Wexler, the head of the Police Executive Research Forum, says the changes could also go awry.
CHUCK WEXLER: You could conceivably have a video that is fabricated and is sent into a 911 dispatch center that appears to be one thing when in fact it is something quite different.
CORLEY: In Fairfax County, Va., Police Chief Edwin Roessler says they've worked hard to train dispatchers and police to prevent getting duped by swatting calls. And he's concerned the new system could bring more problems.
CHIEF EDWIN ROESSLER: Unfortunately there's evil people out there that continue to do this. And the more we embrace that technology, the more risk we have.
CORLEY: So spotting any red flags will be crucial. Police chiefs say dispatchers will have to become adept at quickly analyzing text and video. Trey Fogerty with the 911 association says designers are devising a way to mark suspicious video and text messages plus working to create a trustworthy alternative to today's caller ID.
FOGERTY: That would make it much more difficult for callers to fake or spoof a call from a local jurisdiction or from a phone number that looks like it's from that jurisdiction.
CORLEY: The transition won't happen right away. It's expected to cost $10 to $12 billion to get everything running. Some areas have already taken an interim step, though, allowing text messaging to call centers. So far, 20 states have plans to adopt the Next Generation of 911. Police chiefs and emergency call center managers say there's still much to do to prevent any potential tragedies and missteps that could come with swatting and a new emergency calling system. Cheryl Corley, NPR News, Chicago.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
As most teachers will tell you, class hasn't been the same since kids started bringing cellphones to school. Ancient Roman history will pretty much never win out when you're competing with Snapchat and Instagram. Now, as NPR's Tovia Smith reports, a growing number of teachers are trying an innovative strategy to turn their classes into phone-free zones.
TOVIA SMITH, BYLINE: The teachers all know what's going on with students' zombie looks and, can you say that again?
TONY PATELIS: You see that they're not listening to you. They're looking down. And they tell me they're checking the time even though the clock's on the wall.
SMITIH: Newton North High School history teacher Tony Patelis says he's a psycho about cell phones, constantly confiscating them.
PATELIS: It's a daily battle every class.
SMITIH: Who's winning?
PATELIS: The kids.
SMITIH: But now exasperated teachers have another weapon in their arsenal.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Phones this way - thank you. Good morning.
SMITIH: At the City on a Hill Charter School in Boston, a phalanx of administrators just inside the front door take phones from every entering student.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: J-22.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Got it.
SMITIH: Each phone is locked into a soft pouch with a snap on it like security tags in clothing stores and given back. Students can only unlock them with a machine at dismissal time nearly eight hours from now.
TONINHO EMANUEL: It sucks.
SMITIH: Needless to say, kids like Toninho Emanuel and Tyler Martin are not thrilled.
TYLER MARTIN: 'Cause it's, like, your toy. And they take it from you, and then you can't use it. Like, it's something - it just stays with you all the time. It's like glasses.
SMITIH: It's like - well, glasses you need.
TYLER: Yeah. It's my phone. I need it sometimes.
SMITIH: But their protests are not persuading school principal DeOtis Williams Jr.
DEOTIS WILLIAMS JR: It's like my mom used to always tell me. Kids know what they want but don't know what they need. We know what the students need.
SMITIH: Williams says kids have used tools and magnets to try to pry the bags open. Some bring decoy phones to pouch or cut the bags open. But overall, teachers say the pouch policy is paying off.
JOANIE DECOPAIN: All right, the last question - X to the third power minus 13-X...
SMITIH: In Joanie DeCopain's algebra class, all eyes are on the board.
DECOPAIN: ...Divided by X minus seven. How do I set it up?
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #1: It's going to be X squared.
SMITIH: DeCopain says students are more engaged, and some are starting to see the virtue in the pouches - sort of.
DECOPAIN: They think, like, it's a good thing but for other people, not for them. So it's always about, like - someone else needs the medication, not me.
SMITIH: Some brave souls like senior Yalena Terrero Martinez do admit they're less distracted in school and even after.
YALENA TERRERO MARTINEZ: I don't reach for my phone as much because it's, like, if you don't feed into the habit, the habit eventually slows down.
SMITIH: Martinez says the pouches are also making a difference socially.
MARTINEZ: Yeah because, oh, my gosh, all my friends would be, like, on their phone during lunch. But now, like, we talk a lot more.
SMITIH: That's exactly what the folks who make the pouches were hoping for. Graham Dugoni founded the company called Yondr four years ago after he was annoyed by people using their phones at concerts. Turns out performers were, too, and now hundreds of them like Chris Rock and Ariana Grande have been forcing fans to lock up their phones.
GRAHAM DUGONI: I see it all as part of a social movement. You know, people are aware that something's out of whack, and they're looking for answers. There's a deep sense that the more efficient and faster everything gets in life and easier, the more meaning is being hollowed out.
SMITIH: Big performers pay about $2 a pouch. Schools can rent by the year for $30 each, and some 600 now are.
ALBERT CHO: Great, OK, have a good day.
UNIDENTIFIED STUDENT #2: Thank you, Mr. Cho.
CHO: Thank you.
SMITIH: The minute Albert Cho dismisses class at Newton North High School, students race for the unlocking device. Cho is the only teacher here using the pouches. But even a phone-free hour is a hard sell to students like Sheil Mehta.
SHEIL MEHTA: I think our generation gets pushed into this one image where we're all, like, crazed. And like, if you take away our phones, we'll start eating each other. Like, I don't think we're really all like that.
SMITIH: But their protests belie just how attached they are. Even with their phones in pouches, students like Carmen McCauliffe still clutch them in their hands.
CARMEN MCCAULIFFE: I guess it's, like, sickly therapeutic in a way (laughter), just being able to feel it. I, like, always am, like, pressing the button, like, even through the case.
SMITIH: Because their attachment is so intense, California State University professor Larry Rosen says cutting the cord cold turkey during class may actually backfire.
LARRY ROSEN: You're inducing massive anxiety. And you're going to get a group of people who really can't pay attention because that anxiety is an overriding feeling.
SMITIH: Rosen recommends what he calls a quick tech break every 15 or 30 minutes. But teachers who've tried the cold turkey approach insist most teens do adapt so much so, some actually forget their phones in class, which pretty much never happened before. Tovia Smith, NPR News, Boston.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Opponents of abortion rights often focus their work on trying to restrict abortion through legislatures and the courts or persuading pregnant women to carry to term. But one group is taking a different focus - encouraging health care workers to leave abortion-related jobs. NPR's Sarah McCammon has the story.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: At a secluded retreat center outside Austin, Texas, roughly a dozen women are gathered in a quiet conference room. Abby Johnson is leading a discussion about guilt and shame.
ABBY JOHNSON: Does anybody feel like they're still dealing with, like, shame, like, feeling bad about yourself as a person because of...
MCCAMMON: At 37, Johnson is the mother of seven children and CEO of the anti-abortion group And Then There Were None. Johnson generated headlines and controversy after she left her job as a Planned Parenthood clinic director in Bryan, Texas, in 2009. As she told a local TV station at the time, Johnson says she had a change of heart after viewing an abortion through an ultrasound. Planned Parenthood has disputed some of the details of her account.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHNSON: I just thought, I can't do this anymore. And it was just like a flash.
MCCAMMON: Johnson founded And Then There Were None in 2012 with the goal of persuading others to follow suit. The group visits health centers where abortions are performed, holding up signs and urging workers to quit. For those who do, the organization offers financial assistance, resume advice and emotional support, including retreats a few times a year. Usually these gatherings are closed to media, but NPR was allowed to observe portions of a retreat in Texas in December. Annette Lancaster says she needs a place to talk about things that friends on both sides of the abortion debate often are reluctant to discuss.
ANNETTE LANCASTER: These are my sisters who I can talk to about things that I've seen and done in the clinic that other people would probably turn green and pass out about.
MCCAMMON: Lancaster is 40 and is now a stay-at-home mom. For several months, until May of 2016, she managed a Planned Parenthood health center in Chapel Hill, N.C. Lancaster says the work began to feel dark and morbid, and she's been seeing a therapist.
LANCASTER: I just now started being able to use the deep freezer in my home by going through therapy because we used to call the deep freezer the nursery. And we used to think that was funny.
MCCAMMON: Lancaster says she felt pressured to keep up the number of abortions performed at the clinic each month even when women seemed hesitant. In a statement to NPR, Planned Parenthood South Atlantic denies those claims and says Lancaster was fired for reasons related to her job performance. After her departure, Lancaster says she received enough money from And Then There Were None to cover a couple months' salary. The group also provided temporary financial support to Noemi Padilla, a 47-year-old nurse. She left her job last year at Tampa Women's Health Center in Florida.
NOEMI PADILLA: And I just woke up one Monday morning and I was like, this is it. Today is the day.
MCCAMMON: The clinic performs abortions well into the second trimester of pregnancy. Padilla says the work began to plague her conscience. In an interview with NPR, center director Dorothy Brown said several other workers have left with assistance from the group. Brown declined to be interviewed on tape, but says she thinks many who leave are motivated by money. Whatever the reasons why workers quit, they're not going in numbers large enough to threaten abortion access, says Elizabeth Toledo. She's a former vice president at Planned Parenthood who now runs a communications firm. But Toledo says groups like And Then There Were None can have an impact on workers and patients.
ELIZABETH TOLEDO: It's just another stressor on people who are already going to work in a highly charged political environment. And I don't think that they're going to be successful, but they are going to just make people have to deal with an additional layer of stress.
MCCAMMON: Abby Johnson says upon leaving Planned Parenthood, she also suffered from that highly charged environment. And the criticism of her hasn't just come from abortion rights supporters.
JOHNSON: When I came out of the industry there was still a lot of hate from the pro-life movement.
MCCAMMON: Early on, Johnson told the women gathered around her at this retreat, she recalled some abortion opponents saying she should burn in hell because of her work at the clinic.
JOHNSON: They were like, you either need to go to jail or hell. That was - like, those were the options (laughter).
MCCAMMON: But Johnson says those comments have faded as she's gradually been embraced by the anti-abortion rights movement as one of the rare people who's been a public figure on each side of this divisive issue. Sarah McCammon, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO SONG, "PLEASE DON'T LET ME BE MISUNDERSTOOD")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Ranky Tanky is a quintet that digs into the culture of the Gullah people from coastal Georgia and South Carolina. The Gullah trace their language and culture back to their West and Central African ancestors. And in Ranky Tanky's debut album, the group explores the Gullah repertoire of spirituals and work songs. Banning Eyre has this review.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RANKY TANKY")
RANKY TANKY: (Singing) Who is the greatest? We are the greatest. Are you sure - yeah. Positive - yeah. Definitive - yeah - all right, all right.
BANNING EYRE, BYLINE: In the hands of Ranky Tanky, Gullah songs are lively, soulful honey to the ears.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RANKY TANKY")
RANKY TANKY: (Singing) Old lady come from Booster, had two hens and a rooster. The rooster died. The old lady cried. Now she don't eat eggs like she used to.
EYRE: The four core members of this band started as a jazz combo fresh out of college in Charleston, S.C. Three of them grew up in Gullah country, steeped in its creolized cuisine, lifestyle and arts. But the idea of creating a band dedicated to Gullah songs only came together when they recruited their lead vocalist. Quiana Parler is Gullah herself and an alumnus of "American Idol."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "TURTLE DOVE")
QUIANA PARLER: (Singing) When I get to heaven, I know the rules - kick them right down to the bathing pool.
RANKY TANKY: (Singing) Adam and Eve, door to door - Adam and Eve, don't tell that to me. Meet me at the door. Don't tell that to me. Sa sa la do, oh, sa la so ree (ph).
EYRE: Some of the oldest-known African-American spirituals come from the Gullah, and they reflect a life of faith under harsh circumstances. But even when the lyrics are sad or stern, Ranky Tanky brings playfulness and warmth to the material, blending in elements of blues, jazz and R&B. Listen to the funk and soul in this deeply grooving rendition of a traditional work song, "Sink Em Low."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SINK EM LOW")
PARLER: (Singing) So sink 'em low, boy. Sink 'em low. Sink 'em low, boy. Raise 'em high.
EYRE: Everyone pulls their weight in this tight, efficient combo. But Quiana Parler's vocal is in a league of its own. With her range, power and control of subtle ornamentation, she could bring the house down all by herself.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BEEN IN THE STORM")
PARLER: (Singing) I've been in the storm so long. You know that I've been in the storm so long, saying, oh, Lord, give me more time to pray. You know I've been in the storm so very long.
EYRE: Ranky Tanky brings freshness and uplift to overlooked Americana. In a pop music landscape ever hungry for newness, this group proves that the right musicians can make the past new again.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THAT'S ALRIGHT")
PARLER: (Singing) My, my, Mama, how you walk in line. Your (unintelligible) may slip, and your soul may lull - says my soul going to sit up in the kingdom. That's all right.
SHAPIRO: Banning Eyre is senior producer for Afropop Worldwide. He reviewed the debut album from Ranky Tanky.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THAT'S ALRIGHT")
PARLER: (Singing) My soul's going to sit up in the kingdom. That's all right.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The Trump administration is encouraging states to require people on Medicaid to work for their health benefits. New guidelines issued today say states can make so-called able-bodied adults either work, volunteer or get job training to qualify for the program. It's up to states to define that. The administration says working and participating in society leads to better health, but opponents say it's the other way around. People need to be healthy to hold down a job.
NPR health policy correspondent Alison Kodjak is with us now to talk about this. And Alison, just explain. What exactly do these guidelines say?
ALISON KODJAK, BYLINE: Well, so they came in the form of a letter from Seema Verma, who's the head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, to the state Medicare, Medicaid directors. And it basically says that the CMS will invite proposals for states to impose work requirements on Medicaid recipients.
They give some examples of what those would be - like you said, work, volunteer work, job training or perhaps caring for an elderly parent or even - they even suggested drug treatment programs could qualify. And then they talked a lot about who the rules can affect and who could and could not be exempted.
MCEVERS: I mean, my understanding is that the majority of able-bodied people on Medicaid already work. So who is likely to be affected by these new rules?
KODJAK: Yeah, and that's true. Right now about 60 percent of people on Medicaid who aren't deemed disabled have jobs. And the rules say anyone who's medically frail or has an acute illness is exempt. And people caring for minor children could be exempted.
And then there's this whole population of people who are able-bodied in the context of Medicaid, meaning they get Medicaid benefits for a reason other than disability, but they might be considered disabled by the Americans With Disabilities Act. And the guidelines say they have to take that into account as well. So I've read a couple of example - analyses that say basically only about 3 to 10 percent of the people on Medicaid could even be affected by this rule.
MCEVERS: States have to apply for a waiver if they want to impose these work rules. Are they likely to do it, and how soon could we see actual work requirements go into effect?
KODJAK: Yeah. So actually, 10 states already have applied for these waivers.
MCEVERS: Oh.
KODJAK: They include Michigan, Kentucky, Arizona, Indiana - you know, several more because earlier this year, Seema Verma told state Medicaid administrators that she was open to this idea and that these rules would be coming. And we could see some results pretty soon 'cause there are rumors swirling that by tomorrow, Kentucky's application could possibly be approved.
MCEVERS: What is in that application?
KODJAK: It follows along with what we've been discussing. Adult on Medicaid would have to work, volunteer, get training or even take a GED class for 20 hours a week in order to keep their benefits. And they do have a list of exempt rules that include people with acute illnesses. So it follows along with the guidelines that were sent out today.
MCEVERS: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in allowing these rules is saying that working leads to better health. Is there evidence to back that up?
KODJAK: Well, CMS is asserting that, and they have cited several studies in their guidelines. But those studies really just show a correlation. They show that people with jobs and higher incomes are generally healthier than people who don't have them. And that makes sense of course. But there's a bit of a chicken and egg issue. Some people are - there's a question of whether people are unhealthy because they're not working, or are they unemployed because their poor health prevents them from working? And opponents are worried that that's the problem. If they can't become healthy, they won't be able to get a job.
MCEVERS: NPR's health policy correspondent Alison Kodjak, thank you so much.
KODJAK: Thank you, Kelly.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Medical marijuana is legal in 29 states. In Vermont, it's been allowed for more than a decade. Yet medical patients can still have a hard time affording it. Vermont Public Radio's Emily Corwin has more.
EMILY CORWIN, BYLINE: Sixty-year-old MaryJane Sarvis is driving a red pickup truck.
COMPUTER-GENERATED VOICE: In half a mile, take a slight left turn onto Birch Street.
MARYJANE SARVIS: OK.
CORWIN: We're heading to a medical marijuana dispensary in Brattleboro, Vt. Sarvis usually goes to the dispensary closer to her home, but they don't carry a particular cannabis-infused vape pen she wants to try.
SARVIS: Specifically the one I want, the indica, for when you wake up in the middle of the night and you have a lot of pain and you can't go back to sleep.
CORWIN: Sarvis has permanent nerve pain from a childhood spine surgery. For over a decade, she managed the pain the way her doctors recommended, with ongoing prescribed opioids. Last year, Sarvis detoxed from opioids as an experiment to see if she would feel better with just marijuana. It worked. She says she has less pain and more energy.
SARVIS: Okie-doke (ph).
CORWIN: Now the pain is in her pocketbook. Sarvis says she spends about $200 a month on medical marijuana. Here at this dispensary she'll spend $110 on a single cannabis cartridge.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: How can I help you?
SARVIS: Hi, I have an appointment, MaryJane Sarvis. I'm a little late 'cause I got sent off by Google to somewhere else.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: OK.
CORWIN: Between 20 and 40 percent of Americans suffer from chronic pain. And today, a majority of Americans live in states where medical marijuana is legal. But even though Sarvis says medical marijuana works best for her, the opioids were cheaper.
SARVIS: You know, I can get an opioid for - a bottle of opioids for a dollar on my state insurance.
CORWIN: Vermont does require dispensaries to offer discounts for low-income patients, but they're small and not consistently available. Sarvis says she thinks her insurance, Medicaid, should cover her medical marijuana. But...
SCOTT STRENIO: There's really no mechanism in Medicaid to do that.
CORWIN: Dr. Scott Strenio administers the Medicaid program for the state of Vermont. He says the federal government won't allow states to cover medical marijuana with Medicaid dollars.
STRENIO: By virtue of being a Schedule I agent. I think that's the sticking point.
CORWIN: The Justice Department classifies marijuana as a Schedule I drug along with heroin and LSD. That means it has no currently accepted medical use. A recent statement by Attorney General Jeff Sessions suggests the feds are hoping to make it harder, not easier, for Americans to use marijuana. In the meantime, MaryJane Sarvis is trying to find a solution she can afford. She's learning how to grow marijuana plants herself.
SARVIS: Huge learning curve. You need separate lights for starting the plants as to bringing them to flower. So I'm working on learning about that part.
CORWIN: Sarvis expects startup costs to run at least a thousand dollars. That's a lot for her. But she hopes growing her own marijuana will eventually be cost-effective. For NPR News, I'm Emily Corwin in Vermont.
(SOUNDBITE OF BIXIGA 70'S "VENTANIA")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Our next guest has been fielding a lot of questions since the administration gave the go-ahead for Medicaid work requirements. Matt Salo is executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. Welcome to the program.
MATT SALO: Thank, you Ari.
SHAPIRO: Some states have been trying to implement this for several years, wanting to cut off Medicaid unless certain recipients were employed or in school. Were you surprised when the letter went out from the Trump administration saying, OK, you can now apply to do this?
SALO: No because in fact we had Seema Verma, as was referenced earlier, announce at our annual meeting back in November that this was coming and this was clearly a priority for the administration. And it was in response to the types of requests that had been put forward by states like Kentucky, Indiana, Wisconsin, Arizona and others for a couple years now. So we knew this was coming.
SHAPIRO: How much leeway will individual states that get this waiver have to determine what counts as able-bodied or what counts as employment or education?
SALO: I think with all waivers or innovations of this type, you're going to see a pretty broad variety of state approaches. But what I think is really important here is if you look at the guidance that came out this morning, it does lay out some very, very sort of strict parameters in terms of the types of things that can count as work. And as we've talked about, there's - it's not just work. It's lots of other things - volunteering and child care, et cetera. And there are lots of parameters they're putting out in terms of who should be exempted for a variety of reasons.
And I think what you're really going to see from a lot of the states who are doing this is this is a tool really to try to figure out, of the population, of the working-age adult population, you know, are they already engaged in the community? And if not, how do we help them get there? How do we provide them with the supports and services that get them on that path?
SHAPIRO: So far we know of 10 states that want to do this. Do you expect that there are many more waiting to see how this works out that might jump in if it goes well?
SALO: I think so. I think, you know, most states or all states knew that the Obama administration was not going to allow this. And you know, there's a certain amount of work, to be honest, that goes into putting together the parameters for this...
SHAPIRO: You mean just paperwork.
SALO: ...Trying to figure out, what do the systems look like? How do you do this? And other states are going to want to know, you know, can this survive a legal lawsuit challenge and...
SHAPIRO: Well, I was also going to ask, do you expect to see many legal challenges to this policy?
SALO: Sure, sure. I mean, we've already heard from some of the legal groups - National Health Law Program, et cetera - that they will probably file a lawsuit the minute that the first state gets approved. So that will come. That's not a surprise. And I think what you've seen in the guidance is a pretty clear attempt to structure a policy that will be able to surmount some of those legal challenges.
SHAPIRO: This is happening as the United States struggles with the opioid epidemic. And Medicaid covers addiction treatments. What risks and challenges do you see with implementing these work requirements as this opioid crisis continues?
SALO: Well, I think the - you know, I always look to people like Governor Kasich in Ohio, who has been as articulate and outspoken and passionate about both the Medicaid expansion and its role in treating the opioid epidemic, you know? And what he has said is, look; I think work is the best social program, but for people who are struggling with the opioid epidemic, they're never going to be able to get a job until we can get them on the path to recovery.
And so I think that's - for these things to really be successful, they're going to employ some version of that - you know, trying to figure out who it is that's struggling with opioid or any other substance use disorder and trying to figure out - not shaming them or wagging our finger but saying, you need help; how do we get it to you, and how do we get you on that path to recovery so that you can work or be engaged in the community in other ways?
SHAPIRO: Just in the minute we have left, I wonder how much of an experiment this is. I mean, if a number of people lose Medicaid coverage, could it end up costing a state more if those people aren't getting preventive care are going to the emergency room more?
SALO: I don't think people are really looking at it in a dollars and cents perspective like that. They're really looking at this as this is an approach to try to improve the health and well-being of this population. And you know, the dollars and cents, you know - people know this is going to take money to build this out, to track work requirements. That's not an issue. It's the policy behind it that's really trying to get at improving health and well-being for people.
SHAPIRO: Matt Salo is executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors. Thanks for joining us.
SALO: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
To be a Christian in certain countries can be dangerous. That's the conclusion from a group that tracks Christian persecution around the world. NPR's Tom Gjelten says some of these countries are close allies of the U.S.
TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: Among the 50 countries on this watch list are ones you'd expect. North Korea is the worst place to be a Christian. Afghanistan is a close second. Most are countries where Islamist radicals target non-Muslims. The list was prepared by Open Doors, a faith-based group that serves beleaguered Christians abroad. David Curry, the group's CEO, says persecution in Muslim countries has gotten worse over the past year.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DAVID CURRY: Nine of the top 10 on the World Watch List this year and the massive majority on the top 50 have the driver of Islamic extremism. This isn't to taint all of Islam, but we have to be clear that there is an Islamic extremist element which must be addressed.
GJELTEN: What's notable is where extremism is growing. Turkey, whose autocratic leader President Trump has cheered, is among the half-dozen countries where Christian persecution has increased the most. Egypt and India are two more U.S. allies where conditions have rapidly deteriorated. In India, it's not Islamist extremism but Hindu nationalism that's a problem. Curry opened his presentation this week with the story of a nun in India who was raped by Hindu extremists only to have evidence of the attack destroyed and the attackers acquitted.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CURRY: That's what justice is like in India today.
GJELTEN: Trump counts Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi as a friend, but Curry holds Modi personally responsible for the growing anti-Christian sentiment in India. He suggests the United States could use economic leverage to support Christians in India, a country, he points out, with which the United States has massive commerce
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CURRY: And yet they're number 11 on the World Watch List. Twenty-two languages, 720 dialects in India, yet Modi wants to have one religion.
GJELTEN: It's not only Christians who are targeted in India of course. Hindu nationalists there have repeatedly attacked the Muslim minority. Curry says his organization's country report card offers a to-do list for where governments should focus their human rights interventions. Tom Gjelten, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF ROB CROSS' "WE LEARN")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
On Capitol Hill, House Republicans are reviving the debate over earmarks. The practice once let lawmakers steer government money to their pet projects. Under former Speaker John Boehner, the House banned earmarks in 2011. Now some Republicans including President Trump say that was a mistake. NPR congressional correspondent Susan Davis has more.
SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: When President Trump told lawmakers on live national television this week that Congress should consider reinstating earmarks, lawmakers like Florida Republican Tom Rooney cheered.
TOM ROONEY: He was exactly right. I couldn't believe he said it. I was - like, jumped out of my chair. I'm just like, thank God somebody is speaking truth.
DAVIS: Rooney is an outspoken advocate for bringing earmarks back with limits. Lawmakers like him say earmarks could be the key to much-needed legislative compromise. He says there's a way to bring them back without reviving the corrupt practices that led to the ban seven years ago.
ROONEY: They like to roll out, like, these pork barrel, illegal things that people went to jail for. I'm talking about vetted in the light of day, through the committee process projects in members' districts that they can go home to and say, I got this done for my constituents.
DAVIS: Lawmakers will get a chance to make their case next week when the House Rules Committee plans to hold two days of public televised hearings on the earmark ban. The hearings are part of a deal cut by House Speaker Paul Ryan at the beginning of this Congress. House Republicans were on the verge of voting in a secret ballot behind closed doors to reinstate earmarks. Ryan intervened and said it would send the wrong message following the recent election of a president who had promised to drain the swamp. The speaker was noncommittal when asked this week if he thinks earmarks will make a comeback.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PAUL RYAN: Conversations are having a comeback. No, I think what you're talking about is the Rules Committee hearings. We've encouraged our members all along to talk about budget process reforms. Many of us have opinions on this issue. But I want our members to have conversations.
DAVIS: Steve Ellis will testify at the hearing next week. Ellis works for Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group that was a leading critic of past earmark practices. Ellis says Republicans don't have a great track record with restraint when it comes to earmarks.
STEVE ELLIS: They kind of created the whole environment. You know, we went from - in 1996, according to the Congressional Research Service, there were about 3,000 earmarks in all of the spending bills. In 2005, there were more than 15,000.
DAVIS: That decade-long era of the Republican majority also led to a wave of corruption scandals involving earmarks, including prison sentences for people like former Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff and former California Republican Congressman Randy Duke Cunningham.
Democrats were not immune to these earmark abuses. When they held the majority from 2007 to 2010, Democrats instituted disclosure requirements for earmark requests, but they didn't ban them. But many lawmakers pledged to never request an earmark. Tennessee Democratic Congressman Jim Cooper was one of them. This is how he remembers those days.
JIM COOPER: The old practice was so abusive. I remember looking through an old intelligence bill, which is secret and classified, nobody could see. And there, a very powerful senior member of Congress had gotten one quarter of all the earmarks in the bill, and he wasn't even on the committee. You know, it's incredible what theft will take place if nobody's looking.
DAVIS: Earmark advocates say that when earmarks were in fashion, Washington was more bipartisan, and more deals got done. Missouri Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill rejects that argument.
CLAIRE MCCASKILL: That's just not true. I mean, and frankly, if that's it - if in order for us to function and find common ground and compromise and get things done we've got to get bought off with a special project in our state, then we're in worse shape than I thought we were.
DAVIS: What earmark advocates and opponents alike do agree on is this. In private, most lawmakers in Congress would like to see earmarks reinstated in some form. The question is if they're willing to do it in public. Susan Davis, NPR News, the Capitol.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Arizona has only sent 11 senators to Washington in the state's history. Those senators have generally been mainstream conservative, white men. The 2018 race is much more dynamic. Headlines have described the Arizona race as a free-for-all and bedlam. Here to talk with us about it is Arizona Republic political columnist Laurie Roberts. Welcome.
LAURIE ROBERTS: Thank you for having me.
SHAPIRO: So Senator Jeff Flake is retiring in 2018. And this is a delicate question, but we need to acknowledge that Senator John McCain is being treated for brain cancer and may retire before the 2018 election. Do people in Arizona see this as a race for one seat or possibly two?
ROBERTS: Well, you know, it's a difficult thing to talk about. But in private, everybody sees it as a race for two seats. Many people thought that one of the candidates - one of the leading candidates has actually held off announcing, thinking that she might simply be appointed to an open spot. But that has of course not happened.
SHAPIRO: It's a crowded field, and perhaps the most controversial candidate is the Republican former Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Phoenix, who had a conviction in criminal court. He was pardoned by President Trump. Does he have a substantial base of support?
ROBERTS: He certainly does have a substantial base of support. He always has, and he probably always will. He will play that as he's a victim of a Obama Justice Department vendetta against him because he was trying to enforce our laws against illegal immigration. And a sizable portion of Maricopa County Republican voters would agree with him.
SHAPIRO: Does his entering the race effectively - I don't know if you would say cancel out Kelli Ward. She's a candidate who had been backed by Steve Bannon. She was trying to appeal to the Trump voter base.
ROBERTS: Well, I don't think she feels canceled out. But the conventional wisdom is around here that their base of support is exactly the same. And those who might have supported Kelli Ward will quickly gravitate over to Joe Arpaio. Now, she'll keep a few people because some people think that 85, 86 years old is a little old to be running for the United States Senate.
SHAPIRO: That's Arpaio's age, yeah.
ROBERTS: Yeah. Arpaio just came tromping into this race as the huge elephant. And it changes everything.
SHAPIRO: And still on the Republican side, Congresswoman Martha McSally is expected to enter the race tomorrow. She was the first American woman to fly in combat. Tell us about her.
ROBERTS: She's got a great story - first woman to fly in combat, was an Air Force colonel, has held her seat in Congress for two terms in a district that - it's Gabby Giffords' old seat. It's a swing district. For a Republican to hold that is a very, very difficult thing. She was not a big fan of Donald Trump, did not endorse him. She has been considered the mainstream Republican candidate, certainly the one that Mitch McConnell would like to see take over Jeff Flake's seat. Again, things changed totally this week when Joe Arpaio jumped into the race.
SHAPIRO: It's been 30 years since Arizona sent a Democrat to the Senate. And on the Democratic side, it seems that the leading candidate is Kyrsten Sinema, who's currently in the House of Representatives. She has a really interesting background. Tell us about her.
ROBERTS: Well, she used to be - when she was in the state legislature, she was a screaming liberal, came to the conclusion that nothing was getting done and also to the conclusion probably that she was never going to be elected to anything on a statewide basis in the state of Arizona if she didn't moderate. But for whatever her reason was, she became a more moderate force. And again, she has been elected in one of our few swing congressional districts and managed to maintain that seat.
SHAPIRO: So how realistic do you think it is that a Democrat could win this seat?
ROBERTS: I think it depends on who that Democrat is facing. He's facing Kelli Ward, you can say Senator Sinema. If he's facing Joe Arpaio, boy, the Democrats would love that. What a great way to boost turnout. And that's what they need - is to figure out a way to boost turnout in order to put her over the top. If it is a Martha McSally versus Kyrsten Sinema, you're going to have two strong, moderate, smart women going at each other. And what an interesting race that will be for the state of Arizona.
SHAPIRO: I'm sure you'll have fun covering it. We appreciate your talking with us. Arizona Republic political columnist Laurie Roberts, thanks so much.
ROBERTS: Thanks.
(SOUNDBITE OF SINKANE SONG, "HOW WE BE")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A key vote in the House today split both Republicans and Democrats and some might say President Trump himself. National security and civil liberties advocates were already deeply at odds over renewing spying powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Then Trump weighed in with a pair of tweets that upended things even more. NPR's David Welna has the story.
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: At about 7:30 this morning on Fox News, a legal analyst argued that President Trump should go against a White House statement of support last night and oppose extending the surveillance measure the House was set to vote on today. Minutes later, Trump tweeted that the law may have been used, quote, "to so badly surveil and abuse the Trump campaign by the previous administration and others." Two hours later on the House floor, California Democrat Adam Schiff responded.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ADAM SCHIFF: As my colleagues are aware, the president issued a statement via Twitter suggesting that this authority was used illegally by the Obama administration to surveil him. Of course that is blatantly untrue but nonetheless casts an additional cloud over the debate today.
WELNA: Schiff supports the bill extending the warrantless surveillance program known as Section 702 for another six years. But he asked that the House postpone today's vote due to what he called the administration's inaccurate, confusing and conflicting comments. Texas Republican Mike Conaway disagreed.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MIKE CONAWAY: I personally believe that plays into the emotions of what's going on rather than the facts of what's going on. And If we can just continue to push forward...
WELNA: Section 702 has allowed federal spy agencies to collect data on foreigners outside the U.S. without a warrant, but the data of Americans in touch with those targets or simply mentioned in their communications has also been swept up. Still, the Judiciary Committee's Republican chairman, Bob Goodlatte, said that extending those powers which expire next week is crucial.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BOB GOODLATTE: This bill must be passed. It is absolutely essential for our protection. It surveys - (unintelligible) people outside the United States who are not United States citizens. The fact that it collects incidental information about U.S. citizens should not be a prohibition on this effort.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NANCY PELOSI: Is it perfect? I've never voted for a perfect bill in this House.
WELNA: That's House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi trying to persuade fellow Democrats to vote for the bill.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PELOSI: It's not right to say there is nothing in this bill that protects the privacy of the American people.
WELNA: But fellow California Democrat Zoe Lofgren said some civil liberties protections that were added fell far short of what's needed. She backed a more restrictive alternative.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ZOE LOFGREN: What this amendment says is if you are going to search for the information of an American that has been collected in that database and it's not terrorism but domestic criminal investigation, get a warrant.
WELNA: In the end, that amendment failed, and the bill passed in a bipartisan vote of 256 to 164. That was after Trump tweeted later this morning, this time supporting the bill. His spokeswoman denied there was any conflict between his earlier and later tweets. The Senate's expected to pass the extension as well next week. David Welna, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
At least 17 people have been killed in mudslides near Montecito. That is a town along the California coast just about a hundred miles northwest of here in Los Angeles. The Santa Barbara County sheriff now says 43 people are missing. One of the people trying to find them is Captain Sara Rathbun. She's with the Los Angeles County search and rescue team. And she's been out looking for people since Monday. She's with us now by phone. Hey, Sara.
SARA RATHBUN: Hi, how's it going?
MCEVERS: All right. Can you just describe where you are and what it looks like?
RATHBUN: I don't think I can do it justice, honestly. I'm sure that you have seen some of the pictures from up here. If you can imagine some of the most pristine, beautiful homes and neighborhoods completely perfect from about your chest height up and then everything below that completely engulfed in mud, that's pretty much what we're seeing here. And the freeway looks more like a lake or a swamp in New Orleans than it does the 101 in Santa Barbara.
MCEVERS: Wow. Have you ever been in a similar situation? I mean, have you seen anything like this?
RATHBUN: You know, the only thing that I can compare this to was the 2011 tsunami earthquake that we responded to in Japan. That earthquake was followed by a tsunami that caused similar damage. But the aftermath was clear by the time we went in. So when we actually accessed those homes, we could see the destruction that the water had caused, but it wasn't really still there. Having to deal with that - the mud and the flooding that's actually still here and still impeding our rescue and recovery - has been quite the challenge.
MCEVERS: Wow. You know, there was just this enormous fire in that same area. The Thomas Fire's the biggest in the state of California. I know that's not something that you actually worked on. But I'm just trying to understand - you know, two people died in that fire, and more people have died in these mudslides. I guess what I'm trying to understand is how it is that so many people could be killed by a mudslide. What happens?
RATHBUN: Well, I think there are things that we can do to prevent fire. But a mudslide is unique in that, number one, it moves just as quickly as fire. But, number two, there's really no way - nothing to put in front of it or do anything to stop it. You just have to get out of its way. And I think that's what the authorities here were struggling with. They mandatorily evacuated many people and put others under voluntary evacuation. And they're feeling the weight of those decisions now, I'm sure, because it really extended into the voluntary evacuation zone.
MCEVERS: And now you're trying to find people. What are some of the challenges?
RATHBUN: Well, movement is a lot slower here. In Japan, we covered nine to 10 miles a day, and that's just not possible here. Sometimes it takes us 10, 15 minutes to go a hundred yards. It's also hard because we're running into residents and neighbors that are asking us where their loved ones are and trying to get us to help them, and we move in those directions. But it just feels so slow.
MCEVERS: What are some of the other hard things? I'm just trying to picture it, like, how you're doing it. You're just walking into people's backyards, but it's not a backyard anymore because it's all mud and debris. And where do you even start?
RATHBUN: Yes. You bring up a good point there. When you walk in someone's backyard and it's no longer a backyard and it's mud and debris up to your thighs - we're slugging through in waders. If you can imagine, like, a fly fisherman's suit, that's kind of what I'm wearing every day. We're carrying tools. And we're sounding in front of us just like we would do on the roof during a fire 'cause as you walk through that backyard - if you imagine it in your mind completely covered with mud, if you don't live there, you may not know there's a pool.
There are manhole covers that have been blown off. So even walking in the street is not necessarily safe when it's covered in mud and you can't see. You can just take one step and disappear - storm drains, et cetera. It's been a learning experience for us to try and make sure that we stay one step ahead safety-wise.
MCEVERS: Have you found anyone?
RATHBUN: No, we still have not. There have been a couple groups that have. We've reunited some pets with their owners, which is a small thing that we can say that we've done.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
RATHBUN: But we're still working pretty hard in the areas where a lot of this mud has collected to try and sort through and see what we can find.
MCEVERS: Right. Captain Sara Rathbun of the LA County search and rescue team, thanks a lot for talking to us, and good luck out there.
RATHBUN: No problem. Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Missouri's governor, a rising star in the Republican Party, has admitted to an extramarital affair, but he denies allegations of blackmail. St. Louis Public Radio's Jason Rosenbaum looks at whether the governor's political career can survive the revelations.
JASON ROSENBAUM, BYLINE: Last night was supposed to be an opportunity for Eric Greitens to revel in his accomplishments before lawmakers. In his second State of the State address, he reflected on his year in office and charted out what he wanted to do in 2018.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ERIC GREITENS: We promised the people of Missouri that we would fight for them. We have, and we will. We promised the people of Missouri we would do different. We have, and we will.
ROSENBAUM: But soon after Greitens left the floor of the Missouri House, a St. Louis television station made sure that people wouldn't be focusing on the governor's public policy agenda.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Good evening. Within the last 30 minutes, Governor Eric Greitens confirmed to News 4 that he did have an extramarital affair.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: And there's more investigation...
ROSENBAUM: It happened before he became governor, but the details were startling. KMOV's report included a tape recording of a woman talking about how Greitens took an intimate photo to prevent her from revealing the tryst. The woman is still publicly unidentified and has not commented or confirmed anything on the tape.
Greitens' attorney forcefully denied that any picture was taken or that Greitens threatened the woman against revealing the affair. He went on to add in a written statement that, quote, "the governor is in no way considering resigning. This is a long-ago private issue that was fully addressed by the Greitens years ago." The issue is also being addressed by the St. Louis circuit attorney. Kim Gardner said this afternoon she believe a criminal investigation is in order. All this isn't sitting well in Jefferson City with lawmakers like State Senator Jamilah Nasheed.
JAMILAH NASHEED: That's not the behavior of a governor, OK? Right now - we have a very dark cloud over the state right now.
ROSENBAUM: The St. Louis Democrat believes Greitens should resign. Before Wednesday, many national Republicans saw Greitens as a potential presidential or vice presidential candidate. He was a Rhodes Scholar, a Navy SEAL and leader of a charity that helped veterans. But Greitens isn't getting a lot of vocal support from Republicans controlling Missouri's Legislature. When he ran for office, Greitens railed against, quote, "career politicians." And it didn't stop after he was elected. David Barklage, a veteran Republican political consultant who's campaigned against Greitens, says that rhetoric had consequences.
DAVID BARKLAGE: When you have a lot of friends, they'll stand up for you and defend you. When you don't have a lot of friends, people will just be silent. Silence is the killer here. So I don't see necessarily interests coming forward that don't like him to try to use this to kill him. I think it's more the fact that they'll be silent and let him - you know, let him implode on his own if that's what happens.
ROSENBAUM: John Hancock was the Missouri Republican Party chairman when Greitens ran for governor in 2016. He says Greitens could survive if he's being completely forthcoming.
JOHN HANCOCK: If this is all there is and there is no other revelations that come out about this instance or certainly if there's no other women, then I do think he survives.
ROSENBAUM: But if Hancock is wrong, Missouri Lieutenant Governor Mike Parson is a Republican like Greitens, so there may not be an incentive for the governor's GOP colleagues to keep him in office. For NPR News, I'm Jason Rosenbaum in St. Louis.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAI WOLF SONG, "INDIAN SUMMER")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Here's one more way that President Trump is following through on his promise to go after people who are in the country illegally. This week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducted predawn raids at 7-Eleven stores across the U.S., around a hundred locations altogether. Twenty-one employees were arrested on suspicion of being in the country illegally. This is the biggest action like this against a single employer since President Trump took office. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says there will be more to come. Julie Myers Wood ran ICE from 2006 to 2008 under President George W. Bush, and she joins us now. Welcome.
JULIE MYERS WOOD: Thanks for having me, Ari.
SHAPIRO: These sorts of organized workplace raids took place when you ran ICE a decade ago. Explain the thinking behind them.
MYERS: Well, there's a lot of frustration in this country - and there has been for a long time - about workers who are unauthorized and trying to figure out how we can effectively attack the magnet of illegal employment. And when I was at ICE, one of the things that we did do was conduct large-scale enforcement actions that involved targeting employers but also involved administrative arrests of the employees. And what we're seeing now with the Trump administration is a return to that enhanced enforcement with a little bit of a twist.
SHAPIRO: What's the twist?
MYERS: Well, the twist is that the actions at 7-Eleven under the Trump administration involve service of a notice of intent to inspect in addition to administrative arrests of employees. And during the Bush administration, we were not serving as many administrative notice of inspections. In fact, we were just kind of ramping that program up. And when we did serve a notice of inspection, it was not accompanied by any administrative arrests.
SHAPIRO: I know that when you ran ICE, there were enforcement actions against factories that employed hundreds of workers. When you go after individual 7-Eleven stores, the company says these stores are independently operated by franchise owners. Does that make it harder to crack down on a company if there's no centralized management chain?
MYERS: Certainly the fact that they are franchises adds a level of complexity. What I would expect ICE to be doing is looking at, what sort of control does the company have over the franchisees? What did the franchisees agree to do? Are they using centralized payroll, or - and are there other ways that the franchisor is exercising control?
I would note that this is a really - appears to be a real continuation of a case against 7-Eleven back in 2013. And so the question to 7-Eleven at the corporate level is, are they doing enough? How can they ensure that their franchisees and their brand is one that stands for employing authorized workers?
SHAPIRO: If this is a message to business owners, what kinds of companies do you expect we could likely see to be targeted - factories, farms? What would you think would be likely?
MYERS: First and foremost, I think if you are a company that was subject to a notice of inspection or had problems in the past, either a notice of intent to fine, suspect documents, unauthorized alien letters, anything - if you've had a problem in the past, you better make sure that now you have a solid footing on immigration compliance.
I think the lesson from the activity at 7-Eleven is that companies that have had trouble before are going to be the - on the top of ICE's list for examining and reviewing again. And we've seen that over the past couple of months. I think you're going to see more and more of that. But I think we're also going to see traditional industries that have had a high percentage of unauthorized workers come to the front and be part of ICE's enforcement actions.
SHAPIRO: Such as farms, agriculture.
MYERS: Such as agriculture, farms, hospitality. One of the things that we saw in the Bush administration with the meat packing industry is they certainly were the subject of a number of enforcement actions. We saw a number of the meat packers and the industry association as a whole then come forward, think about compliance and really transform itself in terms of solid steps towards compliance. I think ICE wants to make kind of industrywide differences and enhancements kind of throughout the country.
SHAPIRO: Julie Myers Wood ran Immigration and Customs Enforcement from 2006 to 2008. Thank you very much.
MYERS: Thanks so much, Ari.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Ever since President Trump opened up DACA negotiations to the news media for an hour - that happened on Tuesday - senators have been meeting in private, trying to close the deal. Arizona Republican Jeff Flake told reporters today it has happened.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JEFF FLAKE: We're at a deal, and so we'll be talking to the White House about that. And I hope we can move forward with it.
MCEVERS: But there's still a lot more that needs to happen before a DACA fix becomes reality. And just a reminder - DACA stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. That's the program that protects young people in the country who were brought to the U.S. as children. Next step - the senators need to convince President Trump to back the plan. And as NPR congressional correspondent Scott Detrow reports, there's also the hard work of selling a bill to the lawmakers who will need to vote on it.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: The three Democrats and three Republicans who have been hashing out a DACA agreement say they've got a compromise that deals with border security, with the people currently protected by DACA and changes to the legal immigration process that President Trump has called for. Here's South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LINDSEY GRAHAM: We had a meeting, and I will tell you that I'm hopeful that that meeting will maybe lead to a breakthrough and we get something done.
DETROW: Now they say they're working on building support for the deal in Congress. That's probably going to be hard. Most members of both parties are against kicking out as many as 800,000 people in the country illegally who came here as children. After that, priorities change. You have Democrats like Representative Joaquin Castro of Texas on one side...
JOAQUIN CASTRO: We shouldn't trade the lives of 800,000 young people - young DREAMers for a wall across the United States of America.
DETROW: ...And Republicans like Pennsylvania Congressman Lou Barletta on the other.
LOU BARLETTA: We need to make sure that we're not going to have another 800,000 or million people coming into the country. So we need to make sure we secure the borders.
DETROW: Of course the bill doesn't have to pass unanimously. It just needs a majority in the House and Senate. But Republicans control both chambers, and many want to see big crackdowns on illegal immigration. Some want big reductions in legal immigration, too. As the negotiations progressed, Virginia Republican Bob Goodlatte introduced his own version of a DACA fix.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BOB GOODLATTE: It cracks down on sanctuary cities, increases criminal penalties for deported criminals who illegally return and makes the E-Verify program mandatory.
DETROW: Goodlatte's bill is not part of the negotiations that congressional leaders are engaged in, but it represents what many House Republicans want to see and likely goes way further than the draft Senate bill. So if a DACA fix is going to pass, it may happen in a very rare circumstance where most of the votes in the House come from the minority party, the Democrats, which means Democratic leaders are going to have to round up votes from members who oppose Trump's border wall and many of the proposed changes to the legal immigration process. Sanaa Abrar manages policy and advocacy for United We Dream, one of the main outside groups advocating for a permanent DACA fix. She resents the current political dynamic.
SANAA ABRAR: It is completely unfair and honestly immoral to use the lives of DACA recipients and undocumented youth as bargaining chips for these anti-immigrant priorities.
DETROW: But Abrar concedes that with Republicans controlling the House, Senate and White House, they are the ones dictating the terms.
ABRAR: And we have to ultimately deal with whatever they're throwing at us and be careful to respond to whatever it is.
DETROW: Abrar is waiting to see the final details. She says one deal-breaker that could cause United We Dream to oppose the measure would be overly punitive punishments for the parents who brought their children into the country illegally. Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin has been trying to pass the DREAM Act for more than a decade. He's played a key role in the latest round of negotiations. Durbin is blunt. He says he doesn't love making all the tradeoffs Republicans are demanding.
DICK DURBIN: I am doing my best to get everything I can under the current political circumstances. It's not what I want. It's what I'm forced to accept because of the realities.
DETROW: Whether other Democrats in Congress are willing to make that concession and, just as importantly, whether Democratic voters are, too, will likely be a key factor in whether or not a DACA fix becomes law. Scott Detrow, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Hundreds of people in Flint, Mich. have filed lawsuits over that city's lead water crisis. They're seeking damages that range from property value losses to brain damage in children. Most of the lawsuits have been consolidated into one massive case. And today, a federal district judge in Ann Arbor ordered all of the parties into mediation. Michigan Radio's Tracy Samilton reports that move could mean that victims get money much faster.
TRACY SAMILTON, BYLINE: 72-year-old Elnora Carthan noticed a change in the water in her shower right after Flint switched its water source from Detroit's system to the local Flint River in April 2014.
ELNORA CARTHAN: It had this smell to it. And after you'd dry it off, you began to itch.
SAMILTON: She developed skin lesions and other problems. When the state finally admitted the switch caused lead to leach into the drinking water, she had hers tested. One bottle came back at more than 32 times the federal standard. Carthan's blood lead level was also elevated. She became a lead plaintiff in the consolidated case against everyone from the Michigan governor and city officials to the engineering firms involved in the water switch. Carthan worries about her grandchildren, who drank the water when they visited.
CARTHAN: That's what I really be thinking about. You know, what did the lead do to the little kids?
SAMILTON: Michael Pitt is one of the plaintiff's lead attorneys. He claims the state violated people's constitutional rights.
MICHAEL PITT: Potentially a hundred thousand people or more have been affected by the state-created danger. And that is unique and that - and this case is for that reason historic.
SAMILTON: The lawsuit also charges that Michigan treated Flint differently because it's a struggling, mostly African-American city. The consolidated lawsuit is unbelievably complex. Damages could easily top hundreds of millions of dollars. Pitt says that's why court-ordered mediation is in the best interest of Flint residents. If it succeeds, a compensation fund could be set up this year.
PITT: The alternative would be to continue the litigation. And it's going to go on for decades.
SAMILTON: And litigation means older plaintiffs could die before any resolution. Lead-poisoned children could grow up to have children of their own. Mediation of this case will be by former Wayne County Chief Judge Pamela Harwood and former U.S. Senator Carl Levin. Michael Pitt hopes they can convince the defendants to settle this sprawling, complicated case as soon as possible. For NPR News, I'm Tracy Samilton.
(SOUNDBITE OF C 130'S "BROWNOUT")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Some countries are trying to create a national cryptocurrency kind of like bitcoin. Venezuela and Russia are exploring this as a way to get around international sanctions. Financial Times reporter Max Seddon has written about Russia's efforts to create a kind of cryptorouble, and he joins us from Moscow. Hey there.
MAX SEDDON: Hi.
SHAPIRO: Why do people in the Russian government think this is a good idea?
SEDDON: Well, the Russian government has a very specific problem, which is the Russian government is under all sorts of sanctions from the United States. And this limits the abilities of various Russian government entities - and they account for 70 percent of Russia's GDP, so that's a lot - to conduct various business around the globe, especially in dollars, which is the global reserve currency. And so the idea behind cryptocurrency is to continue conducting business around the world without worrying about the Treasury coming after you.
SHAPIRO: Give us an example of how a specific Russian company might use this.
SEDDON: Well, so the person in the kind of Russian government ecosystem who's the most enthusiastic about cryptocurrencies is Sergei Gorkov, who you may remember as the man who mysteriously met Jared Kushner at the end of 2016. And he runs something called VEB, which is called a bank, but it's more like a kind of slush fund for pet Kremlin projects than a bank.
And it is under sanctions. And this puts it in big trouble because they have nearly $20 billion of foreign debt that is now extremely difficult for them to refinance because of the sanctions. And so, you know, if they have some sort of alternative way of conducting transactions that doesn't leave them reliant on Western debt markets, then they can act like they did before the sanctions.
SHAPIRO: One of the fundamental ideas underlying bitcoin is that nobody's in charge. There's no central bank. This seems to be a very different approach by Moscow.
SEDDON: It's completely the opposite approach. But this is the thing that goes through a lot of what we're seeing in the tech world. If you look at social media, a lot of the biggest social media companies were born out of these same libertarian ideals of transborder freedom and no submission to central governments. And instead, they've become tools that have been deployed very successfully by authoritarian governments like Russia and China to advance their ends.
And the idea that you can use all this stuff to basically reinforce the authoritarian government's control over its population's finances is something that I think a lot of people didn't think about. And when you see the founder of the second-biggest cryptocurrency after bitcoin, Ethereum, meeting Putin, you definitely have to wonder where this is all going.
SHAPIRO: If Russia or Venezuela does take this step to avoid sanctions, is there anything the U.S. could do in response?
SEDDON: There's a lot they can do in response. The U.S. has a tool called the Specially Designated Nationals List, which is basically a blacklist that keeps you out of the dollar. And the dollar is so pervasive that it is very difficult to create this sort of parallel financial world. This is one reason why everyone is very skeptical about this Venezuelan cryptocurrency, which is called the petro, because oil is nonetheless traded, as we know, in dollars. And how Venezuela's going to be able to get around all the restrictions on a dollar just through this bitcoin mania isn't really clear.
And the same thing goes for Russia. The problem that they have is there has to be a way both from a technical standpoint and legally to do this in a way that stops America from basically going aha, nice try, I see what you did there, and then just adding all these cryptocurrencies to the banned list.
SHAPIRO: Max Seddon of the Financial Times, speaking with us from Moscow. Thanks very much.
SEDDON: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The New York prison system is making big changes to care packages. Books, clothes and homemade food from the outside are no longer allowed. Instead, everything has to come from a few designated private companies. This is a pilot program that is starting in three New York prisons before likely expanding to the rest of the state. Taylor Eldridge is an investigative fellow with The Marshall Project who's been reporting on this. Welcome.
TAYLOR ELDRIDGE: Thanks for having me.
SHAPIRO: Prison operators argue that drugs, weapons and other contraband come in through care packages. And they say that these pre-approved items from private companies eliminate that risk - so they're clear radios, packages of ramen, sweatpants, things like that. So what's the problem with doing it that way?
ELDRIDGE: Right. So these companies, they do offer items that would be, in theory, contraband-proof. Like, they're preapproved by the prisons. They're sealed. But the issue that a lot of families face is, one, you know, these companies require you to go online and order from an online catalog and use a credit card. And if you don't have, you know, access to the Internet or a credit card, it can make it really difficult to even send your loved one a simple thing.
And also, there's a limited selection. You can't go to your, you know, local corner store or your grocery store and pick something that you know your loved one likes or, you know, their favorite brand of chips or something like that. So it really restricts the opportunity to connect with your incarcerated loved one.
SHAPIRO: How does the price of items in these catalogs compare to what you'd find at a typical corner store?
ELDRIDGE: Well, you know, it really depends on where you are incarcerated. So it can be cheaper in some instances to order it through these private companies. But in many cases, the items are marked up significantly higher than what you would find at your local retail store. You know, a pair of boxers could be $3 in one location and $7 in another location for the exact same quality boxer.
SHAPIRO: How important are care packages to a prisoner's life? It seems like it ought to be a luxury, not a necessity, right?
ELDRIDGE: Right. You would think that. But in my experience from talking to you, you know, many families and advocates, a lot of inmates depend on these care packages for either the necessities like toilet paper, undergarments, deodorant, things like that, or for food. Some people are not able to eat the food that the prisons serve due to dietary restrictions or religious needs, and they depend on the food that their families send them from the outside. So restricting that to these private companies really limits what inmates can do.
SHAPIRO: How big of a business is the private care package industry?
ELDRIDGE: It's big. I mean, if you think about how big the corrections industry is in this country, then just think of all those facilities need packages coming in for their inmates. So it's across the country these companies are striking these lucrative contracts with correctional agencies.
SHAPIRO: It seems like if a few companies have basically the monopoly on care packages in a huge prison system, that's a lot of money.
ELDRIDGE: It is. It's hundreds of millions of dollars.
SHAPIRO: Other states have tried policies like this. How have they gone over?
ELDRIDGE: They have gone over pretty well. I mean, there are states that are making, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars each year off of the care package program alone, though that money is supposed to go back into the corrections agencies and go into funds that help inmates who are poor and things like that. But in other states, there hasn't been as much pushback as there has been in New York state over this change.
SHAPIRO: Why do you think there is so much pushback in New York state?
ELDRIDGE: Well, to be honest, New York state had pretty flexible package rules before this change. You know, the fact that you could literally bring fresh fruit and vegetables to someone in one of these state prisons is something that I had not seen reporting across the country. So I think making people go from being able to deliver fresh food and restricting it to these six companies now is just a dramatic change. And it - there's not clear motivation behind it. And I think that's definitely part of why people are so resistant to it.
SHAPIRO: Taylor Eldridge of The Marshall Project, thanks for joining us.
ELDRIDGE: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
On the same day Walmart announced that it's raising its starting salaries and giving out bonuses, there are reports that it will close dozens of its Sam's Club stores. About that salary boost, Walmart says it'll spend $700 million more on employees and will add to its maternity leave and adoption support programs. The company says it was motivated by a desire to share the benefits of the big new corporate tax cut. NPR's John Ydstie reports there are also some other forces at play.
JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: Retailers like Walmart will be among the biggest beneficiaries of the tax overhaul because they tend to pay taxes at a higher rate than other industries. The new tax law slashes the top corporate rate from 35 to 21 percent. That will save Walmart billions of dollars a year. In a statement, the company's president and CEO, Doug McMillon, said the company wanted to invest some of that money in better wages and training for its workers. So Walmart will raise its minimum wage $1 to $11 an hour. It will also give eligible workers bonuses. The bonus could reach a thousand dollars for workers who've been with the company for at least 20 years.
BRYAN WELCH: I think it is a great thing.
YDSTIE: Bryan Welch, a Walmart employee speaking just outside a store in Washington, D.C., says it will make a difference for him.
WELCH: I mean, any time you get a pay increase, considering the original pay - you know, it'll definitely help me catch up on some bills.
YDSTIE: But Welch was skeptical that the tax cut was the company's only motivation.
WELCH: Walmart is trying to improve their training and they're trying to improve their situation so they don't have such a turnover rate.
YDSTIE: Turnover is a huge problem for many retailers. And the challenge of attracting and retaining workers is becoming even greater as U.S. unemployment falls and the supply of available workers shrinks. More competitive challenges for Walmart were evident in other news today. Business Insider reported the company is closing 63 of its Sam's Club stores and laying off thousands of workers. John Ydstie, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Meanwhile at the Carrier furnace plant in Indianapolis, 215 employees are handing in their badges today. In 2016, the company said it would close the plant and move all the jobs to Mexico. But then Donald Trump started criticizing Carrier while he was campaigning for president. By the time Trump was president-elect, he cut a deal with the company to save some of the jobs, not all of the jobs. And today was just the last round of layoffs. With us now is Drew Daudelin of member station WFYI in Indianapolis. Hey there.
DREW DAUDELIN, BYLINE: Hi.
MCEVERS: What are Carrier workers who are being laid off - what are they saying about this round of layoffs?
DAUDELIN: This of course has been known that this would happen. The general sentiment at Carrier is anger and frustration, I would say, at that the decision. There's a lot of talk of corporate greed as being kind of the motivating factor here. So there was a gathering yesterday at Sully's Bar and Grill in Indianapolis, which is a popular hangout for these workers. We heard from one woman, Renee Elliott, who voted for Trump and said she and other workers feel betrayed by the layoffs. And so there's not a lot of positive sentiments, as you can imagine, from people about the layoffs, even the people who are getting to stay.
MCEVERS: Earlier today we talked to the president of the local chapter of the United Steelworkers Union, Robert James, and here's what he told us people were saying last night.
ROBERT JAMES: They were talking basically directly to President Trump about the promises that he made and the promises that he has not kept to the American people and to the Carrier workers. People are still waiting for him to keep his promises.
MCEVERS: He's talking about, you know, how President Trump didn't keep his promises. But as we said in the introduction, I mean, people knew that some of the jobs would be going away from this plant, right?
DAUDELIN: Yeah. The dispute kind of goes back a while. This has to do with numbers. There's a lot of different numbers being thrown around here. When Trump initially came to Carrier after - shortly after his election, he announced that 1,100 jobs minimum would be saved, and that number ended up being a little different. There are some white collar jobs that were never really in danger that were actually a part of that number. And so that dispute over how many jobs were said to be saved and how many were actually saved has caused somewhat of a bitter reaction from some people in the situation.
MCEVERS: And also, in return for this sort of deal that the president made, I mean, Carrier got something out of that deal. What was it?
DAUDELIN: Yeah. So in the deal, the plant received up to $7 million in conditional state tax incentives and training grants. And they also agreed to stay open in Indianapolis for 10 years.
MCEVERS: And you've talked to some people who knew they would be laid off. But still, today must not be an easy day for them. What are their plans now?
DAUDELIN: So a lot of the people that work at this factory, as you can imagine, are middle-aged, which means that many of them are too old to go back to school or have that be an easy option for them but also too young to retire. So they're kind of in limbo, a lot of them. And some have applied for what's called Trade Adjustment Assistance, which is a federal benefit for people whose jobs are affected by global trade. But a lot of them that I've talked to are worried because the jobs that they've grown up with and this job that they had is not as easy to find as it used to be.
MCEVERS: WFYI's Drew Daudelin, thank you so much.
DAUDELIN: Thanks.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Northeast just emerged from a two-week cold spell. In Vermont, temperatures fell to negative 30 degrees Fahrenheit. And in such extreme cold, rural Vermonters have been quickly burning through a precious wintertime commodity - firewood.
ANSLEY BLOOMER: We used more wood than I'd ever used last week - ever.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Ansley Bloomer lives in remote central Vermont. Like many other people in that part of the country, she and her husband heat their home primarily with a wood stove. In the summer, they gather and split wood from their land. And in the winter, they carry out a tedious but time-honored tradition.
BLOOMER: Every morning, you bundle up, you go outside, get another batch of wood, bring it inside.
MCEVERS: Get enough for those cold days in a row and your woodpile shrinks fast. At the beginning of winter, Bloomer had about two cords of wood.
SHAPIRO: For the city slickers listening, a cord is a wood pile about 4 feet high, 8 feet long and 4 feet deep.
MCEVERS: Bloomer and her husband burned through a quarter of their supply during this two-week cold spell.
BLOOMER: We will probably get through our stock before March, maybe even February. Fingers are crossed.
MCEVERS: They aren't the only ones having this problem.
EMMA HANSON: Now that there's been this sudden, early, huge dent in firewood piles, there is a bit of a scramble in wondering what to do next.
SHAPIRO: Emma Hanson is Vermont's wood energy coordinator. She says the problem's not just the cold spell. The past two winters were mild, and people tend to gather the amount of wood that they used the year before.
HANSON: We had two warm winters here in a row, so people really didn't put up as much wood this year.
SHAPIRO: And gathering new wood to replenish a pile isn't easy. Fresh-cut wood needs to dry for months before it can be burned.
HANSON: At a very minimum six months, and preferably a lot longer. Trying to track down dry wood in winter can really be tough.
MCEVERS: All of this has left those in the firewood business in high demand, like Kevin Fisk of North Wolcott in northern Vermont.
KEVIN FISK: I've gotten 30 phone calls from people that I don't even know. They're asking for dry wood, and of course I'm out of that. All I've got is fresh green-cut.
MCEVERS: Fisk says other dealers are out, too.
FISK: The other dealers I know don't have no dry wood left. Actually, they called me and asked me if I had some.
MCEVERS: Fisk says his own stack at home is looking a little low.
FISK: I'm getting down lower than it was last year. It's pretty hard to live here in the extreme cold.
SHAPIRO: Many people will turn to propane or heating oil as a backup if their firewood runs out. That could add a significant unexpected expense to the heating bill, especially since the cold can linger well into April. For now, the temperatures in Vermont have risen above freezing. Key words - for now.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MY BLUE HEAVEN")
FRANK SINATRA: (Singing) You'll see a smiling face, fireplace, cozy room, little nest that nestles where the roses bloom. Molly and me, and the baby makes three.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The discussion over immigration apparently got heated at the White House today. Sources tell NPR President Trump used a vulgar slur in reference to African countries in a meeting with senators. In the same meeting, the president rejected a bipartisan deal among lawmakers on immigration. It addressed border security as well as a solution for roughly 700,000 undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children.
NPR's Kelsey Snell is on Capitol Hill and following all this, and she's with us now. Hey, Kelsey.
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So let's start with this White House meeting where the president reportedly used vulgar language. What more do we know?
SNELL: A bipartisan group of senators went to the White House to brief President Trump on a plan to pair border spending - border security spending with protections for those roughly 700,000 immigrants you mentioned commonly known as DREAMers. So Congress is working against a clock here. President Trump announced that he was ending the DACA program back in September, but lawmakers want to get a deal done by the end of next week.
So the people I spoke with said that Trump made the comments during a part of the discussion on the visa lottery system. He asked why the U.S. would want to accept immigrants from countries in Africa and places like Haiti and expressed a preference for people to come from places like Norway instead. And there are a lot more details of that conversation, and people can go to our website if they want to read more about it.
MCEVERS: The president also rejected a deal that had been announced by a bipartisan group of senators. Explain what happened there.
SNELL: We first heard about this deal early in the afternoon when one of those negotiators, Arizona Senator Jeff Flake, told reporters that a deal was done. Here's what he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JEFF FLAKE: We've got this bipartisan group. We're at a deal, and so we'll be talking to the White House about that. And I hope we can move forward with it. It's the only game in town.
SNELL: Flake was standing down in the Senate subway. We heard the door to the Senate subway shutting there. And he was excited. He was telling us that it was time for them to get moving, and it sounded like things were hopeful.
MCEVERS: But then a few hours later, things changed, right? And now we seem back at square one. What happened?
SNELL: Shortly after, we heard back from these bipartisan senators who had gone to the White House, and they seemed a lot more dour. And we ran into Senator John Cornyn. He's from Texas. He's the No. 2 Republican in the Senate. And he said that there was a lot more negotiating to be done. And this group of people that had been working together that said they had a deal - maybe it wasn't a deal for everyone.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN CORNYN: Again, six people can't agree to something that will bind Congress and the House.
SNELL: And that may well be true. There are some questions about whether or not what this group came up with would be enough to satisfy the House, where you have a lot more conservative members.
MCEVERS: So there's this deadline coming up. It's one week from tomorrow. The government will shut down unless Congress passes a spending deal. Democrats want this immigration agreement to be part of that. How likely does that seem now?
SNELL: It seems pretty unlikely that they will be able to vote on any part of this agreement. Even Flake when he was telling us at the height of his happiness about this deal that - he said even then that he didn't think that there would be a vote by the end of next week. Here's what he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
FLAKE: I have a hard time seeing it done by the 19th. But the commitment from our majority leader was get a bill on the floor by the end of the month. We need some runway between, you know, then and March 5, so...
SNELL: And now, that commitment is important because what I've heard a lot of the negotiators say is that if they had a deal in hand and the White House had signed off and the House had signed off and the Senate had signed off, then they could move forward to the spending deal and vote maybe later at the end of January or early in February, and all sides could still be satisfied. But they would still have to come to a deal in the next couple of days.
MCEVERS: NPR's Kelsey Snell at the Capitol, thank you very much.
SNELL: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and her political allies have crafted a deal that could end a political crisis in her country. For more than three months, the economic and political giant has been without a new government. Merkel's plan is for the same three parties that formed the last government to join together again to run Germany. NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson reports.
SORAYA SARHADDI NELSON, BYLINE: Angela Merkel was all smiles as she and the other party leaders announced their hard-fought agreement at a news conference.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL: (Speaking German).
NELSON: She said, "I wasn't certain it would work" and that the negotiators from the ranks of her conservatives and the center-left Social Democrats kept pushing on every issue until they reached a compromise. But it isn't an easy alliance. After federal elections last September left the Social Democrats badly weakened, their leader, Martin Schulz, said they would lead the opposition. He said they would also be a foil to the far-right Alternative for Germany party which entered the Parliament at the same time. But after Merkel failed to form a new government with other parties, pressure began to mount on Schultz and his party to give the grand coalition another shot.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARTIN SCHULZ: (Speaking German).
NELSON: He defended that choice, saying that at a time when German society is drifting apart, the social democrats were choosing to hold their country together. Germany's allies in Europe lauded that decision.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT EMMANUEL MACRON: (Speaking French).
NELSON: French President Emmanuel Macron, who needs German support to push through his plans for European reform and integration, called the deal good news and said he was very happy. But whether it will lead to a new German government is not yet clear. For one, the proposed coalition still needs the Social Democratic rank and file to approve it at their party congress later this month. Even if Merkel's plan succeeds, it will only be a partial victory for her.
DANIELA SCHWARZER: She will be weaker because it is clear that this is her last chancellorship.
NELSON: Daniela Schwarzer heads the German Council on Foreign Relations.
SCHWARZER: The question will be whether she will stay for the whole term or whether she will actually build a successor and hand over to that person.
NELSON: If the Social Democrats do end up approving the deal, a new German government could be in place by late-March. Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, NPR News, Berlin.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President Trump has canceled a planned visit to the United Kingdom to open the new U.S. Embassy there. He says it costs too much. He also says the new embassy is in an off location in contrast to London's prestigious Mayfair district where the old embassy was. NPR's Frank Langfitt reports from the new embassy's neighborhood.
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: John Scobie, a local realtor, is giving me a tour of Nine Elms. That's where the $1 billion U.S. Embassy will open next week. It lies along the south bank of the River Thames, upstream from Big Ben.
JONATHAN SCOBIE: The whole site here was originally designed to be based around the American Embassy. And we have beautiful, beautiful apartments right on the edge of the River Thames starting from anywhere from about 500,000 or 600,000 for a one-bed going up to multiples of millions.
LANGFITT: And there's more.
SCOBIE: You've got the Battersea Power Station development, which is arguably one of the biggest developments in the world at the minute. It's going to - estimated to cost about 8 billion. In 2020, you'll be able to see two new Tube lines opening.
LANGFITT: The old power station, a red brick colossus, sat empty for decades. It's now slated to house Apple's U.K. headquarters and luxury apartments. That's a big leap for Nine Elms, which was once famous as London's wholesale market for fruit and vegetables. Today it's dotted with cranes. Scobie's a big fan of President Trump and his blunt style, but he thinks his assessment of this area is off-base.
SCOBIE: If he gave me the opportunity, I'm sure I'd be able to sell him a couple of penthouses down here. And I'm surprised he hasn't bought his own plot of land down here 'cause all the other developers have done it.
LANGFITT: Residents in the neighborhood took Trump's tweet in stride.
SAINA BEHNEJAD: I don't think anyone here's really that offended. We just find it very amusing.
LANGFITT: Saina Behnejad is a 25-year-old magazine editor and a fan of the new embassy, a glass and steel cube that shimmers in the sunlight.
BEHNEJAD: This building's amazing. I don't know what fault you can find with it. It's just massive. I've never seen an embassy this big before (laughter). So I think he probably doesn't know anything about London at all.
LANGFITT: Not everyone, though, is sold on Nine Elms. U.K.'s decision to leave the European Union has helped drive down luxury real estate prices in London. Last year, Bloomberg reported falling values in Nine Elms drove developers to sell units at a discount. Frank Langfitt, NPR News, London.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The flu season is bad this year. That's the message today from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein is here with details. Hey, Rob.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: Oh, hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Health officials did warn us about this. So just how bad is it?
STEIN: It's pretty bad out there, Ari. You know, the flu season has started early. And that's never a good sign. And it really took off early in the south and spread quickly around the country. And the latest data released today from the CDC shows that it's really pretty much everywhere. The flu's pretty much everywhere in the country right now. And it's really intense in dozens of states. And it's reached epidemic levels. So the proportion of people who are rushing to their doctors to get treated for the flu is as high as it ever gets in a really bad flu season already. And the percentage of people who are in there - up in the hospital to get treated for the flu, it doubled in the last week alone.
SHAPIRO: Wow.
STEIN: So, you know, we're hearing reports about ERs being overrun in California, pharmacists - pharmacies running out of antiviral drugs. And at least 20 kids have already died from the flu this year.
SHAPIRO: Wow. What makes a bad flu season more intense than a regular one?
STEIN: Yeah. So starting early, that's one factor. But a big factor this year is the particular strain of flu that's dominating. It's called the H3N2 strain. And it's notoriously nasty. It's the kind of bug that makes more people sick. And when they get sick, they get sicker. And it's especially dangerous for the people who are the most vulnerable to the flu, like kids and older people.
SHAPIRO: Does this just mean that most people didn't get the flu vaccine?
STEIN: No. The proportion of people who are getting - who've gotten vaccinated so far this year is pretty much on track for what it is most years. The problem, again, is this H3N2 strain of the flu. It tends to mutate when the vaccine is being made. And that's exactly what happened this year.
SHAPIRO: Wow.
STEIN: So the vaccine doesn't work as well. And in Australia, which has its flu season right before ours, it looks like it may have only been about 10 percent effective against this strain.
SHAPIRO: Only 10 percent effective?
STEIN: Yeah, only 10 percent. Now, officials in this country are saying look; we think it's going to work better in this country, but they're saying at best it may be around 30 percent effective. So that's leaving a lot of people pretty vulnerable.
SHAPIRO: Suddenly, the suit of armor I thought I was wearing seems a lot less secure.
STEIN: Yeah. Yeah.
SHAPIRO: So is there any point in getting a vaccine in that case?
STEIN: Yes, definitely. There's - people should definitely still get vaccinated. And there are lots of reasons for that. One is, you know, any protection is better than none. And if you get vaccinated - even if you get sick, you might not get as sick as you would've gotten if you hadn't gotten vaccinated. Another reason is that if other strains of the virus start to dominate, the vaccine works better against them. So you'll be protected against those other strains if they start to become more common. And although the season appears to be peaking right now, it could go on for weeks and weeks and weeks. So there's plenty of time for the vaccine to protect you.
SHAPIRO: This all sounds very dire - people going to the hospital, people dying. How worried should most Americans be?
STEIN: Well, so, you know, the thing about the flu is that it's notoriously unpredictable. You know, it could go either way. It could be that, you know, the season is peaking now and it could peter out really quickly. And it started earlier. And it could end early. And it could end up in the end just being an average year. But if it goes on for weeks and weeks and weeks, it could end up being the really nasty flu season year that people have been worrying about for a while.
SHAPIRO: You said that the flu can mutate as they're developing the vaccine. Is there a more updated vaccine? Should those of us who got a shot months ago get a new one?
STEIN: No. Unfortunately, there isn't. There's a lot of research going on to try to develop better vaccines. That's a really intense area of research. And a lot of people are calling for more money to do just that because we need to have a better vaccine they can rely on year after year. But at the moment, unfortunately, that's just not available.
SHAPIRO: Otherwise, just wash your hands a lot, stay home if you're sick, cover your mouth if you cough, all the regular advice.
STEIN: That's right. And that makes a big difference, really.
SHAPIRO: NPR health correspondent Rob Stein, thanks a lot.
STEIN: Oh, sure. Thanks, Ari.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
This time of year it's pretty common to hear about people's New Year's resolutions to get in shape. And now it's easy to do that without leaving home. There are streaming videos of workouts and lots of apps. NPR's Chris Arnold has this profile of one of the pioneers of this type of workout - Shaun T.
CHRIS ARNOLD, BYLINE: In the world of streaming workout videos, Shaun T is like Jay-Z or Mick Jagger. He is a superstar. Millions of people have done his workout programs. One's called "Insanity." Another is "T25," which aims to get you in shape in just 25 minutes a day.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SHAUN T: Listen; for the next 25 minutes your focus is completely on cardio. You're going to work the heart rate, and you're going to get extremely fit. Are we good, guys?
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Yeah.
SHAUN T: All right, we're going to...
ARNOLD: Shaun T does live events, too, and thousands of fans will show up and jump around and work out together.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SHAUN T: Give it up for yourself.
(CHEERING)
ARNOLD: Shaun T is the picture of fitness with sculpted muscles and abs. He's funny and happy. But it wasn't always like this. In his new book, Shaun takes us back 40 years to when he was a toddler named Shaun Thompson.
SHAUN T: The first thing I remember as a kid was being washed in the sink of our West Philadelphia apartment. I was so small. But I soon began to realize that where we lived wasn't necessarily the best place in the world.
ARNOLD: He grew up poor and had a rough childhood in a violent neighborhood. The family was on food stamps. And they actually had so little food that he would sneak bread into his underwear and then eat it at night in bed. Being hungry stays with you, and after he got a scholarship to State College, that came along with a dining hall meal plan card, which meant free food.
SHAUN T: When you give someone who grew up on food stamps a meal card - I could just go and eat and eat. And so - and then when I found out that you can use this food card at Domino's, late-night cravings became a whole new thing. I was like, what?
ARNOLD: Shaun T gained 50 pounds his freshman year. He didn't like that. But he says he was too embarrassed to go to the gym even though he used to run track in high school.
SHAUN T: And I was extremely unhappy with the way that I looked and the way that I felt.
ARNOLD: But he finally got on the treadmill. He took some dance fitness classes, lost just a few pounds. And he loved how that made him feel. And he decided...
SHAUN T: I want to teach a class.
ARNOLD: He had no experience, but his fellow students liked him, and 90 of them showed up for his first class in the school rec center. Shaun T turned on a song called "Space Jam" on repeat and got everybody doing this halfway thought-out hip-hop aerobics routine.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SPACE JAM")
QUAD CITY DJ'S: (Singing) Do your dance at the space jam.
ARNOLD: And the crazy thing was the students loved it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SPACE JAM")
QUAD CITY DJ'S: (Singing) Wave your hands in the air if you feel fine.
SHAUN T: I was like, are you kidding? This is the most amazing thing. I could teach and have fun. And all of these people are not only doing what I'm doing, but most of them were afraid to dance. And they're actually doing it. And they're stepping outside their comfort zone. And I'm looking at these people and I'm like, this is it. Like, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life.
ARNOLD: And that's what Shaun T's done - first classes, then the videos. Today, the company that distributes his workouts says Shaun T has sold more than a billion dollars' worth of fitness videos. He says to stay motivated, though, it can help to mix it up like a dance class or a basketball league. He does his own workouts...
SHAUN T: But I also play tennis. But I also get my friends - I'm like, yo, let's play volleyball today. It doesn't always have to be the same thing. Like, create it for yourself and it will be so much fun.
ARNOLD: And Shaun T says focus on that - the fun part, not how much you weigh.
SHAUN T: So my goal for people out there is just do things that make you feel good because the weight will come off, but the happiness is what's most important.
ARNOLD: Shaun T says what you eat is important, too. He says one of those giant frosted cinnamon buns has so many calories you'd have to work out like a maniac for two hours to burn it off. But there, too, he says enjoy yourself. Eat healthy 85 percent of the time and enjoy some pizza or a doughnut 15 percent of the time. But he says cut the doughnut in half. Chris Arnold, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF JUNGLE SONG, "BUSY EARNIN'")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Trump administration has moved quickly to let states impose work requirements on some Medicaid recipients. Kentucky got the green light today. Indiana is likely to get approval soon. Some people consider the work requirement good politics, but bad policy. From Indianapolis, Side Effects Public Media's Jake Harper reports.
JAKE HARPER, BYLINE: Indiana submitted plans for a work requirement last year, and the approval letter could come any day now. Under the proposal, people would have to average 20 hours a week of work or another qualifying activity such as volunteering or education in order to get Medicaid. The goal - to increase employment among Medicaid recipients. But Sara Rosenbaum, a professor at George Washington University, says there's a problem with that - most people on Medicaid are already working.
SARA ROSENBAUM: Or they're looking for work. And if they're not working or looking for work, it's typically because they're either caring for very young children, or they're caring for a sick family member, or their own health is bad.
HARPER: Many of those people would be exempt from a work requirement, and states could make some allowances for people battling addiction. When you consider those exemptions...
ROSENBAUM: There is this very, very tiny slice of people who can work and simply choose not to work and, you know, apply for public assistance.
HARPER: But Rosenbaum says even if states create programs that help people find jobs and provide things like child care and transportation, there's no evidence that they lead to more employment. And those programs are expensive.
ROSENBAUM: If you do a work program, that costs real money. And the federal government has said, we won't pay any of those costs.
HARPER: So Rosenbaum says what's more likely is that states will basically say, get a job on your own or get off of Medicaid. So what that does is create a hurdle for everybody on Medicaid. People who are working are going to have to prove it, so even people with jobs could stand to lose their insurance due to red tape. In fact, Indiana's own projections show that with a work requirement Medicaid will cover fewer people and cost more. Adam Mueller is an attorney at Indiana Legal Services, which helps people navigate the state's Medicaid program. He says people already lose coverage because the program can be confusing and there are administrative errors.
ADAM MUELLER: Somewhere along the way paperwork gets lost, there's a miscommunication. Folks have sometimes had difficulty proving things that should be as easy as residency.
HARPER: And he says people on Medicaid often deal with crises. They may move a lot or change phone numbers, which makes it hard to keep track of paperwork.
MUELLER: There are a lot of things that could trip folks up. And that could lead to falling through the cracks.
HARPER: Judy Solomon of the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities points out that expanded Medicaid helps some employers, too.
JUDITH SOLOMON: We have an economic structure where there are people whose employment doesn't provide health care.
HARPER: If people lose Medicaid, get sick and can't make it to work, she says that's bad for business. Seema Verma, who's in charge of Medicaid, said on a conference call yesterday the requirement is supposed to help people.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SEEMA VERMA: People moving off of Medicaid is a good outcome because we hope that that means that they don't need the program anymore, that they have transitioned to a job that provides health insurance so that they can afford to pay for health insurance on their own.
HARPER: But advocates say the main purpose of Medicaid is to provide health insurance, not increase employment. And until now, the federal government agreed. Susan Jo Thomas heads Covering Kids and Families of Indiana, which advocates for health coverage in the state. She says under new management, the philosophy surrounding work requirements has changed.
SUSAN JO THOMAS: I don't know that it jives with my view of Medicaid, but my view of Medicaid now is irrelevant. It's what Seema Verma and the administration decide.
HARPER: Thomas says the details of the work requirement have yet to be ironed out. She says if too many people lose insurance, she'll be raising concerns with the state. For NPR News, I'm Jake Harper in Indianapolis.
(SOUNDBITE OF JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE SONG, "WHAT GOES AROUND...COMES AROUND")
SHAPIRO: This story is part of an NPR partnership with WFYI and Kaiser Health News.
(SOUNDBITE OF JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE SONG, "WHAT GOES AROUND...COMES AROUND")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump is facing widespread condemnation at home and abroad after he used a vulgar slur to describe countries in Africa and made disparaging comments about people from Haiti. Foreign governments have demanded an explanation from U.S. diplomats, and the U.N. Human Rights Office says the president's comments go against universal values. Here in the U.S., both Republicans and Democrats have spoken out against the president's remarks which came during a White House meeting on immigration yesterday. We get details from NPR's Scott Horsley. And a warning - this story will include the president's own language.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: The uproar cast an awkward shadow over what should have been a routine photo op this morning - the president signing a proclamation to honor the late civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Today we celebrate Dr. King for standing up for the self-evident truth Americans hold so dear that no matter what the color of our skin or the place of our birth, we are all created equal by God.
HORSLEY: Just a day earlier, though, the president seemed to be arguing for very unequal treatment of would-be immigrants to the United States precisely because of where they're born and, it appears to some, the color of their skin. As the King event wrapped up, reporters tried to ask Trump about that.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
APRIL RYAN: Mr. President, are you a racist?
HORSLEY: Trump ignored the questions as he walked out of the room. Earlier, the president took to Twitter to acknowledge using what he called tough language during Thursday's immigration meeting. He denied uttering a vulgar slur. But Illinois Senator Dick Durbin who was in the meeting says that's exactly what the president said.
DICK DURBIN: He said these hate-filled things, and he said them repeatedly. When the question was raised about Haitians, for example, he said, Haitians - do we need more Haitians?
HORSLEY: Durbin says the conversation then turned to immigrants from Africa.
DURBIN: That's when he used these vile and vulgar comments, calling the nations they come from shitholes - the exact word used by the president, not more - not just once but repeatedly.
HORSLEY: Durbin is part of a bipartisan group of senators that's been working for months on a compromise to protect undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children. Traveling to the White House yesterday to present their tentative deal, Durbin was surprised to find other lawmakers there, including two Senate hard-liners on immigration, Tom Cotton and David Perdue.
Cotton and Perdue issued a statement today saying that they don't recall the president using a vulgar slur about African countries. They agreed with Trump that the current immigration system doesn't do enough to protect American workers or the national interest. Their position and the president's illustrates the challenge of striking a bipartisan deal on immigration, but Durbin believes a majority of lawmakers and the public are on his side.
DURBIN: Last night, several Republican senators said that they were embarrassed by what the president said, and they wanted to be more visible in their support of our bipartisan effort.
HORSLEY: GOP House Speaker Paul Ryan noted today anti-immigrant sentiment has a long, unfortunate history in this country. His own Irish ancestors faced similar opposition when they first arrived. Ryan says his family stayed and ultimately thrived, though, just like other waves of newcomers before and since.
PAUL RYAN: That is what makes this country so exceptional and unique in the first place. So I see this as a thing to celebrate. And I think it's a big part of our strength.
HORSLEY: Like the president, Ryan wants to adjust the legal immigration system to show less favor to family members and more to newcomers with in-demand skills. In that politically charged effort, though, Ryan calls the president's vulgar comments both unfortunate and unhelpful. Scott Horsley, NPR News, the White House.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: NPR has decided in this case to spell out the vulgar word that the president reportedly used because it meets our standard for use of offensive language. It is "absolutely integral to the meaning and spirit of the story being told." ]
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
With me now to talk about all this are columnists E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and the Brookings Institution - hey, E.J...
E J DIONNE, BYLINE: Great to be with you.
MCEVERS: ...And John Phillips of the Orange County Register, CNN and KABC. Welcome.
JOHN PHILLIPS: Good afternoon.
MCEVERS: I think we have to start with what we just heard in Scott Horsley's piece, this word used by President Trump. And E.J., I'll start with you. What does this comment by the president, a comment, we should say, he has denied saying - what does it tell us about him?
DIONNE: Well, first of all, we've reached a dreadful point in our politics when a president uses a racist phrase so crude that many are reluctant to use it on the air or in print. The denial lacks pretty much all credibility. He waited 15 hours after the original report before he denied it. There were reports out there that he checked around yesterday to see how it was playing in the base. There are other reports saying he's happy about the controversy. And even the Republicans who were there did not deny it. They said they don't recall his saying it.
MCEVERS: Right.
DIONNE: So I think we've reached the point where there can simply be no denying that our president is a racist. And what underscores that is he wanted immigrants from Norway, but he didn't want immigrants from Salvador or Haiti or Africa. Now, what is the difference between Norway and those other places? I think we know what the difference is.
MCEVERS: John, what do you think? Is this - what does this tell us about President Trump?
PHILLIPS: Well, I haven't heard this word used so many times since my friend quit his job to strike it rich flipping homes.
(LAUGHTER)
PHILLIPS: And then suddenly we start hearing the word all over the place. Look; I don't think anyone's all that surprised frankly because President Andrew Dice Trump has been known to pepper...
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
PHILLIPS: ...His language with vulgarities on occasion. It happened when he was a real estate developer and in the tabloids. It happened when he was a television host. It happened during the primary campaign. So I don't think anyone is truly surprised.
Now, the overall policy point that he was reinforcing was something that's very consistent with what Donald Trump said as a candidate. He was highly critical of the lottery program. He was highly critical about giving preferential treatment to the hard luck cases. He has long thought that people with marketable skills, people with the ability to assimilate should be given preferential treatment. And frankly, I think there's a lot of truth to that. We live in a screwed up world where doctors from India or IT people from Britain are treated worse than the Tsarnaev family.
DIONNE: Just...
MCEVERS: You know...
DIONNE: I got to jump in on that. If this were simply a matter of the president using a vulgarity, we wouldn't be talking about it. Other politicians have used vulgarities. This was a racist vulgarity. This was directed at people who have immigrated here. And by the way, it was an ignorant vulgarity because so many of the immigrants from Haiti and from Africa and from Salvador have been very successful, are very hard working.
And lastly, the president sabotaged a deal that Lindsey Graham and Jeff Flake, both Republicans, negotiated with the Democrats to give the president a lot of what they wanted. They had very clear indications that the president felt that the concessions in the deal were enough for him, and then they were sandbagged. And there's a lot of speculation that somebody in the White House decided to sabotage the deal before...
MCEVERS: Yep.
DIONNE: ...The president agreed to it.
MCEVERS: Well, let's talk about these negotiations on immigration policy, right? At the beginning of the week, we had the president saying he would sign any deal that legislators put on his desk. Let's listen to that.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I'm signing it. I mean, I will be signing it. I'm not going to say, oh, gee, I want this, or I want that. I'll be signing it because I have a lot of confidence in the people in this room that you're going to come up with something really good.
MCEVERS: And yet the president then insisted that the border wall was non-negotiable.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Would you be willing to sign an immigration deal that ultimately does not include funding for the border wall, or would that be...
TRUMP: No.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: ...A red line for you?
TRUMP: No, no, no.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: No.
TRUMP: It's got to include the wall. We need the wall for security. We need the wall for safety. We need the wall for stopping the drugs from pouring in.
MCEVERS: And so John, let me just put this to you. Does the president undermine his own prospects for a deal by seeming to waver on his position, by saying one thing in one meeting and another thing on another day?
PHILLIPS: I don't think so. I hope that Alan Simpson gave him a good, long talking to because what Democrats are proposing now is what failed with the 1980 Simpson-Mazzoli immigration act, which is where President Reagan gave amnesty to a lot of illegal immigrants who were here. And in return, border security was supposed to come afterwards. Well, as we know, the immigrants were given their amnesty. Border Security never came. And if Donald Trump is going to cut a deal with the Democrats and cut a deal with congressional Republicans this time around, border security needs to come first, and that includes the wall.
DIONNE: But that's not what this negotiation was about. This negotiation was about a bill to protect DREAMers, people brought here as children by their parents who are as American as any of us involved in this conversation. And the concessions that were made were very much about border security. In this package that Lindsey Graham brought to the White House with Senator Durbin were new protections on the border, new fencing, an end - a real reform to what's called chain immigration that the president wanted and a reform of the lottery that President Trump has been critical of. So this was a very balanced package that he chose to reject and then blew up, made things much more difficult with the way he rejected it.
MCEVERS: Yeah, right. I mean, E.J., I'm wondering if you think - do the Democrats have a stronger hand now since, you know, news of these comments have come out?
DIONNE: You know, I was up on the Hill yesterday and then talked today. And yesterday, there was real hopefulness on the Democratic side. There were real communication between Graham and the Democratic leadership and a willingness by Democrats to put a lot of stuff on the table that was probably going to be unpopular with some of their more liberal members. Now they can say, we made all these concessions, and the president blew us out of the room with this racist comment. I think the politics have changed radically in the Democrats' favor, and I think Republicans know this.
MCEVERS: John, what do you think?
PHILLIPS: I think there's still a lot of pressure on any number of Senate Democrats who are running for re-election in states that Donald Trump won overwhelmingly, people like Joe Manchin in West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp in North Dakota, Claire McCaskill in Missouri. Strict border security needs to be part of this bill, and they need to be able to sell that to their constituents if they're going to survive re-election.
DIONNE: And it was in there, and that's why this package could have flown if the president hadn't blown it up.
MCEVERS: E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post and the Brookings Institution - we will leave it there - and John Phillips of the Orange County Register, CNN and KABC, thanks to both of you, as always.
DIONNE: Thank you.
PHILLIPS: Thank you. Have a good weekend.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President Trump is not pulling the U.S. out of a deal that it and other world powers made with Iran to limit Iran's nuclear program, at least not yet. But he is giving the other countries in the deal a warning. Make the deal tougher, or the U.S. will stop keeping its end of the bargain with sanctions relief. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is imposing new targeted sanctions on Iran that aren't part of this deal. NPR's Michele Kelemen is with us now to talk about this. Hey, Michele.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So just explain. What exactly did President Trump do today?
KELEMEN: Well, he's waiving the sanctions that he's required to under this nuclear deal. It's something he has to do every few months, and it's clear he doesn't like it. But the deal was sanctions relief in return for strict limits to Iran's nuclear program.
Now, his aides say this is the last time he's going to do this unless the deal is fixed. He wants to make the restrictions on Iran's nuclear program permanent so Iran never gets any closer to building a nuclear bomb. And they say he's not going to talk to Iran about this, only to the Europeans who were involved in making this deal.
MCEVERS: OK. So how are the Europeans reacting to this?
KELEMEN: Well, so far they've been fairly quiet today. But the European Union's foreign policy chief who oversees this deal has made it clear all along that it is not open for renegotiation. British, French and German diplomats who were part of the negotiations have been back and forth to Washington. They've been lobbying hard to keep the Trump administration in, arguing that the deal is working. It's keeping Iran's nuclear program in check. And by the way, it has been endorsed by the U.N. Security Council.
Now, some of the Obama administration officials who were involved in these talks had a conference call today, including former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz. And he was sounding quite skeptical about this. Let's listen to a bit of what he had to say.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ERNEST MONIZ: It looks to me as though the administration is in some sense thinking about having the Europeans in effect endorse an imposition of sanctions down the road even with Iran in compliance with the deal. And I would be extraordinarily surprised if the Europeans would have any part of that.
KELEMEN: Another Obama administration official, Rob Malley, added that Trump is essentially telling the Europeans - and these are his words - either kill the deal with me, or I'll kill it alone.
MCEVERS: What are the new sanctions that Trump's Treasury Department is imposing, and do they violate the existing deal?
KELEMEN: No. You know, there are all sorts of other sanctions on Iran. What they did today was they added 14 individuals and entities to a couple different blacklists. Probably the most interesting is Sadeq Larijani. He's the head of Iran's judiciary and the brother of Ali Larijani, who's the speaker of Parliament. And those are focused really on human rights abuses. And even proponents of the deal say it's good to keep the pressure on Iran's other nefarious activities - a ballistic missile program, its human rights record, et cetera.
MCEVERS: NPR's diplomatic correspondent Michele Kelemen, thank you very much.
KELEMEN: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
This week, President Trump renewed a campaign promise saying he will be a champion for rural America. But his budget proposal last year floated steep cuts to many federal rural economic development programs. NPR's Kirk Siegler has been visiting a remote corner of Idaho timber country where federal dollars have been used to diversify the economy.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Logging will always be in Jeff Borders' blood.
JEFF BORDERS: One of the things I love to hear is the trucks, you know?
SIEGLER: He grins with pride watching the rigs rumble down the mountain into the river-cut canyon here onto Highway 12. Next stop - the mills down in Lewiston.
BORDERS: I started getting into it when I was just out of high school - so 18. Dad got me in on the company that he was working for, hooking logs.
SIEGLER: His dad, his grandpa - everyone around here worked in the woods. It's what you did.
BORDERS: Growing up, when I got out of school, it was - you worked in the sawmill. You drove log truck, or you worked in the woods, you know, logging unless you wanted to drive to Lewiston or find something else to really do. There wasn't a whole lot for guys to do.
SIEGLER: I've met a lot of guys like Jeff Borders here over the last year who've told me there's been a lot of changes in the industry, though. Mechanization has eliminated jobs. Cheaper Canadian logs flooded the market. Two mom and pop saw mills near Orofino, Jeff's hometown, recently closed.
BORDERS: You know, it's kind of a dying industry in some sense. I mean, there's...
SIEGLER: So when the opportunity came along to get on as a welder at a newer manufacturing company in town, Jeff's dad urged him to take it.
BORDERS: He was happy to see that I got out of the woods, though. You know, he spent his whole life working in the woods. And you know, there's not much for retirement. You really got to make your own retirement.
(SOUNDBITE OF WELDING)
SIEGLER: Jeff Borders builds jet boats. That's his welding you hear. These are the boats that go really fast, skimming over shallow water, perfect for the wide Clearwater River here. He had to be retrained, he says, but it was pretty quick, and he likes the more steady paycheck.
(SOUNDBITE OF WELDING)
SIEGLER: SJX Jet Boats is one of several businesses that Orofino attracted as the town has tried to diversify away from just timber and into what locals call recreation manufacturing - jet boats for Idaho's trout streams, rifles and scopes for elk hunting. SJX shares space with other newer companies in a building called the Orofino Business Park. The town built it with the help of a grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.
CHRIS ST GERMAINE: And that has been full since construction. So it has complete occupancy, and it's generating 40 jobs in the community.
SIEGLER: And that's a big deal in a town of 3,000 that's in one of the poorest counties in Idaho. Chris St. Germaine runs the county's one-person economic development office. They've leveraged a lot of federal rural development aid lately - money to retrain laid-off mill workers - USDA Rural Development grants that helped finance a wastewater treatment plant.
ST GERMAINE: When these infrastructure projects - you're talking about $3, $5 $10 million projects. It's unattainable for communities without assistance. And these aren't all grant programs, either. They're loan and grant programs.
SIEGLER: Most years, the USDA spends some $30 billion on rural development. In President Trump's preliminary budget last year, he proposed a 20 percent cut to the agency. The administration also wants to cut some rural grant and loan programs and eliminate the agency that helped build the Orofino Business Park.
ST GERMAINE: I think there's a gap in the understanding in Washington, D.C., and policymakers of what rural needs really are.
SIEGLER: In remarks this week aimed mostly at farmers, the president talked about his push to expand rural broadband and promoted the tax cuts that he says will spur investment in rural America. This kind of talk resonates in the Idaho mountains where there's a long history of fights with the federal government over logging on public land. Clearwater County voted 75 percent for Trump. And despite the timber declines, you still see mills running and lumber yards with big cranes stacking hundreds of ice-covered logs.
(SOUNDBITE OF CRANE CLANKING)
SIEGLER: People work long, hard hours, and they talk proudly about supplying the wood that helps cities boom. But Tom Vilsack, the former Democratic Iowa governor and agriculture secretary, says the federal government plays a huge role in making this happen.
TOM VILSACK: It takes an understanding of how to speak about folks in rural areas, not speaking down to them, not saying, I'm from the government; I'm here to help.
SIEGLER: A frustrated Vilsack left Washington last year feeling like the federal government, no matter who's in charge, couldn't communicate all the good it does in rural America.
At SJX Jet Boats, the extremely busy owner, Steve Stajkowski, says he got federal grant money to go to a big boat show in Germany, which he credits for a boon in his overseas exports.
STEVE STAJKOWSKI: These grants were, you know, giving us the opportunity to reach well beyond the streets and mountains of Idaho.
SIEGLER: But the talk of proposed cuts from Washington aren't really being followed that closely here. Stajkowski mostly shrugs them off.
STAJKOWSKI: The budget cuts - yeah, I mean, they're going to affect some but benefit in other directions, I'm sure.
SIEGLER: As he sees it, when one door shuts, another one tends to open. Kirk Siegler, NPR News, Orofino, Idaho.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
To take a broader look at the British relationship with the U.S. under President Trump, George Parker joins us now. He is the political editor with the Financial Times. Welcome.
GEORGE PARKER: Hello.
SHAPIRO: This is an old question but a newly-relevant one - is the so-called special relationship between the U.S. and the U.K. still intact? The prime minister's office today insisted that, yes, it is.
PARKER: Yes. That's right. The prime minister's office said it was an enduring relationship which was nothing to do with who's occupying Number 10 Downing Street or the White House at any given time. And I think this special relationship is a bit of a hackneyed old expression which British politicians seem desperate to use. And whenever they meet American presidents, the American president feels obliged to use the expression.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter) Are you saying just retire the expression altogether?
PARKER: I would love the expression to be retired. And I think it basically - it always makes the British sound a little bit needy in the relationship...
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
PARKER: ...To be honest. We have a relationship with the United States which is built on years of historical cooperation, including in times of war, and extremely deep economic relationships as well, plus the ties of kin and country and all the rest of it. But I still think, you know, the Americans have a lot of other special relationships around the world. And I think it would be good to retire this one.
SHAPIRO: I guess what I've heard U.S. and British officials say about that term, special relationship, is that it implies that there's no daylight between the two countries, that everything is more or less understood without having to negotiate or play a tug of war or, you know, checks and balances. And the question is, is that still the case? Or is there now a real difference of position between these two countries that are allies?
PARKER: Yeah. I mean, there is. I mean, there - in some areas, there are obviously incredibly deep ties and bonds of trust. So I'm talking here about intelligence sharing, for example, military cooperation. But there are other areas where Britain and America are certainly not in the same place, certainly not under the Trump administration's view of the world. I mean, the British government is fighting the forefront, for example, of fighting climate change. It's a leader in paying for overseas aid. I think it's one of the only G-7 countries which is actually meeting its target for paying for third-world development. It's a very open country generally. So I think in many respects, the differences between Britain and America these days are often far greater than they are between Britain and the European Union even as we are about to go our separate ways, of course.
SHAPIRO: How much of the larger divide here between the U.S. and the U.K. is about personalities as opposed to policy? President Trump angered British leaders by insulting London's mayor, retweeting racist videos from an anti-Muslim group in the U.K. What's the divide here between personality and policy?
PARKER: Well, I think that personality - I mean, I know that Donald Trump is a highly divisive figure, of course, in the United States. To British sensitivities, he is - there are very few senior political figures in the U.K. who would identify with Donald Trump. People regard him as almost beyond the pale. I think some of his tweeting in the immediate aftermath of the terrorist attacks in London last year was grossly insensitive.
And then retweeting videos by a group which is so far beyond the pale in Britain - Britain First, this sort of far-right organization - for Britain's supposed closest ally in the world to be doing that, it was just - it really was frankly astonishing. And I think, you know, you can't distinguish, I guess, between the policies and the personalities. But most people struggle to see behind the personality of the president at the moment, I think.
SHAPIRO: George Parker is the political editor at the Financial Times speaking with us from London. Thank you very much.
PARKER: Many thanks.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
We're going to take a few minutes right now to give a big welcome to our newest colleague on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, Mary Louise Kelly. Hey.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Mary Louise Kelly has sat next to me for many a day as she has filled in on this program. And I am so happy that you are now sitting here full-time for good. Welcome.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, BYLINE: I snuck into the studio a few days before I actually make my debut. I'll actually be on the show on Wednesday, but I wanted to come in and say hi.
SHAPIRO: This is great for us because last Friday was a day of tears and champagne as we said goodbye to Robert Siegel. You have some very big shoes to fill.
KELLY: Oh, boy, do I have big shoes to fill. There is a certain elegance to this in that I was hired at NPR in the first place back in 2001 to be Robert Siegel's editor, to be the editor of ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
SHAPIRO: You were the editor on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
KELLY: I was. And when NPR sent out the press release last month saying that I was going to be stepping into this job, media reporters started calling, and there were a few articles. And one of the first headlines was Mary Louise Kelly to replace Robert Siegel. And I have to say, Ari, my first thought was, I've got a quibble with that word choice.
(LAUGHTER)
SHAPIRO: He's irreplaceable.
KELLY: He is irreplaceable. I mean, just being asked to succeed him is about the scariest assignment I have ever been given.
SHAPIRO: Well, you have been given some scary assignments. In recent years, you have covered national security, spies, intelligence, counterterrorism. Tell us what you plan to bring to the host seat.
KELLY: Well, this is true. I've spent a couple of decades covering national security and the intelligence beat. And I took a few years away from NPR to write espionage fiction, so...
SHAPIRO: Novels that are really great (laughter).
KELLY: Thank you. Rest assured that I will be bringing some spy stories to the airwaves at ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I also - you know, whatever your politics, these are fraught times, and I look forward to bringing some joy, some laughter. And that's not something you get to do a lot on the national security beat. So that's going to be fun.
SHAPIRO: Well, Mary Louise, it is great to have you here. Your first full-time day as permanent host of this show is Wednesday of next week.
KELLY: It is Wednesday of next week, the 17th. I can't wait.
SHAPIRO: All right, well, I'm sure everybody will tune in. It's great to have you.
KELLY: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF KEITH MASFIELD'S "FUNKY FANFARE")
SHAPIRO: Mary Louise, why don't you end the segment?
KELLY: Here it goes. With Ari Shapiro and Kelly McEvers and Audie Cornish here in spirit, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
We start this hour with a vulgar comment and the reaction to it in Washington and around the world. The comment made by President Trump during a bipartisan meeting on immigration yesterday was first reported by The Washington Post. The president denies making it. We think it's important for listeners to know what he said. So here it is. The president called African countries shithole countries.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Then criticism came from Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, who was in the meeting...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DICK DURBIN: It was vile. It was hateful. It was racist.
SHAPIRO: ...And on cable news, where correspondents and hosts explicitly used the word racist to describe the president.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JIM ACOSTA: There just seems to be a pattern here for this president. And it's a disturbing pattern because it seems to come back to one truth here, and that is that this president deep down may just be a racist.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DON LEMON: The president of the United States is racist.
SHAPIRO: That was Jim Acosta and Don Lemon of CNN.
MCEVERS: Criticism also came from the spokesperson for the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Rupert Colville.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RUPERT COLVILLE: These are shocking and shameful comments from the president of the United States. I'm sorry, but there's no other word one can use but racist.
MCEVERS: And this isn't the first time the president has been accused of racism. Even before he ran for president, he pushed the false idea that President Obama wasn't born in the United States.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I just don't think he has a birth certificate. And everybody has a birth certificate. When you're born in a hospital, you have a birth certificate. There's something fishy.
MCEVERS: So are the president's comments a departure from what we've seen before? For one take on that, I talked to Jason Johnson. He's a professor of politics and journalism at Morgan State University and the politics editor at The Root.
JASON JOHNSON: Every single time the president of the United States reveals himself to be exactly the same man that he has been for the last 45 years, we sort of go through this cycle of first people being shocked, then some of his supporters attempting to sort of parse and piece together what he said. But I think in the context of what he said yesterday and the policy questions that are on the table now with DACA and El Salvador and all sorts of other negotiations, I think we're having more of a policy discussion now about his bigotry. And I think that's helpful in this country.
MCEVERS: I think what maybe has changed this time is the coverage of it. Do you think the coverage is appropriate?
JOHNSON: Well, I think the coverage is appropriate because above and beyond having discussions about whether or not you can use excrement-hole on a regular basis, I do think the coverage has been valuable in this respect rather than just talking about Donald Trump being a racist. And I've always maintained I don't care if Donald Trump is a racist. Being a racist does not disqualify you from serving in public office. Being a racist is not illegal.
The problem is when your private and personal racism in your home manifests itself in policies, then you're violating the Constitution. This wasn't isolated. This wasn't just him saying Pocahontas. This wasn't anything like that. He said something racist in the context of a policy discussion. So I think the news coverage has actually been focusing on, well, what does it mean to have a racist president who's supposed to be negotiating about immigration and DACA with mostly brown and black people?
MCEVERS: So you say you're not surprised. So sort of walk us through some of the instances from before that show us this side of Trump's character as it relates to policy.
JOHNSON: The entire history of the Trump campaign, let alone his public life, has been driven by an anger towards non-white people in America. You know, people want to talk about the famous time where he says, well, you know, Mexico sends over their rapists. They send over bad hombres.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: They're bringing drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists, and some I assume are good people.
JOHNSON: And that was bad rhetorically. But you know, that's not the only thing that Trump has said. There's also - he talked to April Ryan and said, hey, can you just connect the black people with me?
MCEVERS: We should say April Ryan of course is a White House correspondent. She's a CNN political analyst.
JOHNSON: Yeah, yeah. And he says, the blacks love me. He speaks to a group of police officers and makes jokes about abusing people when you're putting them into a police car.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: I said, please don't be too nice.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: Like, when you guys put somebody in the car and you're protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over - like, don't hit their head. And they've just killed somebody. Don't hit their head. I said, you can take the hand away, OK?
JOHNSON: He talks about primarily African-American athletes who are protesting against police brutality and calls them SOBs. You know, the most classic example of this could be seen when the president referred to there being good people on both sides in Charlottesville.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: I think there's blame on both sides.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Unintelligible).
TRUMP: You look at both sides. I think there's blame on both sides.
MCEVERS: That was of course the - where a recent white nationalist rally was held. A woman was killed when she was hit by a car.
JOHNSON: Yeah, yeah. There is a long, consistent line of racist - not dog whistles but actual screaming loud bells. But it goes beyond just his rhetoric. He has hired people who share similar hostile beliefs towards people who are not white and people who are not Christian. And then those people have been responsible for passing policy. It goes from rhetoric to hiring to policy, and that's what we've seen from Donald Trump all throughout his campaign, all throughout this first year of his presidency. And that's why it's dangerous to the sovereignty and the safety of the United States of America.
MCEVERS: President's defenders say things like, you know, look; he's always been outspoken. This is who he is. This is who people voted for. His focus is to help American workers, preserve American jobs. Tens of millions of people voted for him for that reason. What do you say to those people?
JOHNSON: Oh, I say nothing because look; at this point, defenders of Donald Trump - it's a religion, you know? You don't argue with your family about religion. You let people believe (laughter) what they want to believe. You know, someone who this recent instance is saying, oh, my gosh, I think now he's a bigot - I would say, you're late to the party.
MCEVERS: Is this a definitive moment for you? I mean, we just heard mainstream news reporters saying outright the president is racist. You know, you have a member of Senate leadership explicitly calling the president's remarks racist. Is this a moment for you?
JOHNSON: I don't think this is a seminal moment as far as our understanding of him. I think this is a seminal moment as far as connecting his behavior to actual policy. And I think this is a seminal moment for perhaps some Democrats because given what Trump has said about immigration, given what Trump has done with people in El Salvador, how much are Democrats willing to negotiate with this person - the answer is you shouldn't - and what levels of resistance they're willing to demonstrate rather than some of the lip service that they've done thus far.
MCEVERS: Jason Johnson, professor of politics and journalism at Morgan State University and politics editor at The Root, thank you very much.
JOHNSON: Thank you for your time.
[EDITOR'S NOTE: NPR has decided in this case to spell out the vulgar word that the president reportedly used because it meets our standard for use of offensive language. It is "absolutely integral to the meaning and spirit of the story being told." ]
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Now to Africa. Leaders there are accustomed to surprises from President Trump. Still, his slur shocked many people on the continent. Condemnation came from government leaders and Pan-African organizations on social media and from regular citizens. Many said his comment was reprehensible and racist.
NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton joins us from her base in Dakar, Senegal. Hi, Ofeibea.
OFEIBEA QUIST-ARCTON, BYLINE: Greetings.
SHAPIRO: Give us an idea of what people are saying.
QUIST-ARCTON: Well, the African Union Commission spokeswoman Emma (ph) Kalondo says Trump's remarks were alarming. And she says they broke with established protocol and, you know, are surprising because migration gave birth to the U.S., which is built on strong values of diversity and opportunity. Here in Senegal, President Macky Sall's tweet reads, I am shocked by the comments of President Trump on Haiti and Africa. I reject them and condemn them unequivocally. Africa and black people in general deserve the respect of everyone. Now, Botswana in southern Africa is talking even tougher and has shared its displeasure, apparently summoning the United States ambassador to explain these purportedly derogatory, "irresponsible and reprehensible" comments. And I quote there. Listen to Botswana's foreign minister, Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PELONOMI VENSON-MOITOI: All over the continent, this word translated in any African language, culturally it's a big insult. It is a word we were hoping never to hear flung in this direction. It is racist. It's very vulgar. It's demeaning. It is an insult. It should never have been used.
SHAPIRO: Ofeibea, do you expect this to affect U.S.-Africa relations?
QUIST-ARCTON: One kind of questions, what are U.S.-African relations? I mean, President Trump's comments sort of highlighted months of concerns about any lack of focus on Africa. And apparently, we're told that there are many senior diplomatic posts in key countries such as South Africa, Egypt, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia which haven't been filled. Many people also say because President Trump has expressed negative opinions before about the continent, this goes one step further.
But in the past, he had praised Africa as a place of tremendous business potential. When he met African leaders in New York in September, he said, in this room I see partners for promoting prosperity and peace on a range of economic, humanitarian and security issues. And then he said some of his friends go to your countries, he told the leaders, trying to get rich. I congratulate you. So is Africa a partner for the U.S. or not?
SHAPIRO: And so beyond African leaders, what are ordinary citizens saying about this?
QUIST-ARCTON: Phew (ph), Ari, those smartphones which you now find all over the continent have been coming out. And people have been throwing back in his face what President Trump is purported to have said. This morning, the South African Broadcasting Corporation's morning show TV host Leanne Manas said, welcome to the greatest and most beautiful country in the world. In the U.S., "The Daily Show" tweeted that its host, Trevor Noah, who's also from South Africa, was deeply offended by the president's reported utterance, which of course Trump denies. So you have African media outlets, you have especially the continent's youth - who are so fast now on social media - saying, hey, stop that. We should be respected. This is absolutely wrong, what the - President Trump has said.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton speaking with us from Dakar, Senegal. Thanks so much, Ofeibea.
QUIST-ARCTON: Always a pleasure. Thank you, Ari.
(SOUNDBITE OF RRAREBEAR'S "MOON")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Yesterday the Trump administration opened the door to one of the biggest changes in the history of the Medicaid program. For the first time, the federal government will allow states to impose work requirements on people who get Medicaid. The first state, Kentucky, got the go-ahead today.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The idea is that able-bodied adults would have to show that they have a job, attend school, provide child care or participate in other community engagement activities. States would be able to define those terms.
MCEVERS: Critics say this requirement is illegal. They also argue that not having health coverage creates an obstacle to employment.
SHAPIRO: States that want this policy argue that community engagement makes people healthier. Gary Herbert is the Republican governor of Utah. I asked him what he wants to accomplish by having a Medicaid work requirement.
GARY HERBERT: What we hope to do is not only give people health care, which they need - and the reason they're coming to the federal government for health care is because they don't make much money. And so they qualify for Medicaid, for help from the government. And we want to not only give them the health care that they need through Medicaid, but also to help them with their economics. So we want to give them education, training, skills to help them get a job. And we believe that that's important, to not only, as the proverb goes, give them a fish and feed them for a day, but to teach them how to fish so they can feed themselves for a lifetime. We think that's good policy.
SHAPIRO: Most of the recipients of Medicaid are already working or doing child care or in school. Do you expect that this will dramatically change the rolls much?
HERBERT: I think it will significantly because I think it's an attitude change. It's a matter of saying, I'm going to come and ask for help, but I'm prepared to do my part to, in fact, get a job. And it's not just a matter of sitting in a classroom, twiddling my thumbs and biding my time. It's with, in fact, the goal in mind that I will get a job. That assumes that you're able-bodied, that you're capable physically and mentally to get a job. And because we have that kind of an attitude in Utah we, in fact, have a significant record of getting people off of the Medicaid rolls in around 10 months on average. But it would - we need to have government actually say we, in fact, are asking you to do - in a proactive way to get a better job. And we're going to help you do that.
SHAPIRO: But what I keep coming back to is if the data show that most people getting Medicaid are already meeting these requirements, is this a conceptual shift more than an actual shift in who is getting what kind of coverage?
HERBERT: Well, I think it's probably both, Ari. I don't think it's one at the exclusion of the other. Clearly, if we have an attitude of work, then that helps us get people so that they're not just comfortable being on the dole. You give government assistance and people's independence is eliminated. Their dignity is eliminated. They think, there's no way I can succeed. That's an attitude thing. So it's going to be not only attitudinal, but I think the actual results will improve us helping people get jobs. And Utah's a good example of that with our own welfare system here, some of it being done privately through churches and civic organizations. But we have a culture of work. And that's helped us, in fact, have better results with our Medicaid help than other states in America.
SHAPIRO: But that comes back around to the question of, if people are all new on the rolls for 10 months, if people are for the most part working already, then your description of people being on the dole and living off the government doesn't seem to match the reality of Medicaid in Utah.
HERBERT: Well, you can parse the data if you'd like, but the results of what we have tried to do by culture here can also be done by, in fact, rule and regulation and policy, which is the role of government. We're doing a pretty good job in Utah. I think we can do even more by coupling together, as we've done in other government programs. This is not a new concept of saying in exchange for this we ask you to do that.
SHAPIRO: I'd like to ask you about the opioid crisis and how this requirement could affect it. Utah has seen some of the highest rates of drug overdose deaths in the country. And a lot of people get treatment for addiction through Medicaid. Will your plan include drug treatment as an option to satisfy these requirements?
HERBERT: Absolutely. In fact, we are addressing that for all the states. It's not just Utah. I mean, this has come through the National Governors Association when I was the chair. It's a crisis level. But we clearly are going to be using monies that we have for our Medicaid expansion, for our health care, for our waivers, for additional monies. We have about a hundred million dollars that'll be coming into the state of Utah that's going to help us with, in fact, homelessness, with those who are addicted to opioids and other kinds of substance abuse, those that have mental health problems. So again, a role that government has to play to help us with improving society, and it's certainly at the top of the list here in Utah.
SHAPIRO: I know Republicans such as yourself often object to new regulations. Do you expect this to create a lot of paperwork either for Medicaid recipients or for the people implementing the policy?
HERBERT: I would hope not. Again, part of the essence of what we ought to be doing is, in fact, appreciate the states as laboratories of democracy. I'm much more in favor of giving a block grant or minimal amount of regulations and restrictions and let the states find their way. How we do it in Utah will not be the same they do it in California. The politics is different. The culture is different. The demographics are different. But let the respective states be their own little pilot programs. We'll learn from each other's successes. We'll learn from each other's failures.
SHAPIRO: Utah Governor Gary Herbert, thank you for joining us.
HERBERT: Thank you, Ari. Good luck to you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
While listening to NPR today, you might have heard us use a certain offensive word. It was reportedly said by President Trump yesterday during a meeting on immigration with members of Congress. And at first, NPR did not say the word. We referred to it as vulgar language. Then this morning, we decided to include it in our coverage. With me to explain that decision is Mark Memmott, our standards and practices editor. Hello, Mark.
MARK MEMMOTT, BYLINE: Hello.
MCEVERS: So Mark, let me just get this out of the way right now. You and I are not actually going to say the word in this conversation, and you will explain why in a minute. But first just explain why we didn't say it last night.
MEMMOTT: Last night we didn't think the word itself was really integral to the story, that we could tell the important parts of the story - what the conversation meant to the negotiations over DACA, what it might have said about the president's view towards African nations versus Norway - and we could characterize the word without saying it. And frankly, we also at first didn't have our own reporting on it. That took a little while. We wanted to get that to make sure we were on solid ground.
MCEVERS: Was part of the issue also the need to stay within the FCC's guidance on offensive language?
MEMMOTT: That has to be in the back of any broadcasters' mind. The FCC could take action, could try to fine one of our member stations. Legal bills would start running. We don't want such legal bills to start running needlessly. That said, if we think a word is important and integral to a story, we'll take the risk.
MCEVERS: Right. And so that is why we are now saying the word on our air. We've decided that it's important to the story, but there are limits.
MEMMOTT: Exactly. We do think it's important to the story. The limits are we don't want to sort of pound it at the audience that every story has to use the word and explain it yet again. Say it once. Move on, and then talk about what it means to the issues that were being discussed at that meeting in the White House.
MCEVERS: I've heard from a lot of listeners who say they deserve to be informed. This came up with the "Access Hollywood" tape when the president talked about where he would grab women. And we didn't say that on our air, but people say they deserve to know.
MEMMOTT: Yes, and there are ways for them to find that information. And last night we directed people to our website where we had that information so they'd be able to find it. Certainly they could have turned on cable news. We don't want them to do that. We want them to listen to us. But if they wanted to see it, it was there for the whole world to see. Sometimes people appreciate the fact that we try to focus on the substance and the meaning and put it in context rather than the shock value of a word.
MCEVERS: Mark Memmott, our standards and practices editor, thank you.
MEMMOTT: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
After nearly six weeks of back-breaking work, the largest fire in California history is fully contained. The Thomas Fire left behind charred landscape that led to deadly mudslides in the southern part of the state earlier this week. We'll hear from a woman who survived those mudslides in a few minutes. First, NPR's Nate Rott reports on another aftershock of California's wildfires. It's getting harder for homeowners to find insurance.
NATHAN ROTT, BYLINE: Alyce Hicks, like many people in California's Sierra Nevada foothills, has always taken a proactive approach to dealing with wildfire risk. She clears out dead or dying trees on her property.
ALYCE HICKS: I make sure the roof is clean, the gutters are clean.
ROTT: And she keeps her lawn clear of debris. When fire crews do their annual inspection of her home, Hicks says...
HICKS: They just give me a high five and go on their way. I mean, nobody even has to stop. They can see it's clear - no problem.
ROTT: But a couple of years ago not long after a wildfire burned nearby, Hicks got a notice saying her insurer of 35 years was dropping her policy.
HICKS: This property - blah, blah, blah where I live - no longer qualifies for coverage under the program due to the wildfire exposures.
ROTT: More than 80 percent of the homes in Hicks' county are now categorized as high or very high fire risk. That's according to Dave Jones, the commissioner of California's Department of Insurance. And his concern is that in the wake of the destructive wildfire year California just left behind...
DAVE JONES: This problem will continue to grow, and it will expand into areas that have been traditionally viewed as lower-risk.
ROTT: Jones points to fires in Northern California's wine country last year that even burned in urban areas.
JONES: Whole neighborhoods destroyed.
ROTT: He says he expects that when insurance companies update their risk models, those urban losses and similar ones in Southern California from the more recent Thomas Fire will be included. The result will be more expensive homeowner insurance for everyone over time and more areas where private insurers aren't offering coverage at all. Janet Ruiz is the California spokeswoman for the Insurance Information Institute, a trade association for insurance companies. And she knows fire risk all too well. She lives in Santa Rosa, where the wine country fires killed dozens last year.
JANET RUIZ: We were evacuated, but the fires didn't end up coming over a ridge that it would have had to come over to come into Rohnert Park.
ROTT: Ruiz says insurance companies want to insure homeowners, but there's a reason that they're dropping certain policies.
RUIZ: Because they spread their risk or manage their risk in particular areas.
ROTT: An insurance company doesn't want more risk than they could potentially pay out. Insurance claims for the Northern California wildfires alone have already topped $9 billion. Dave Jones, the insurance commissioner, is pressing lawmakers to make it harder for insurance companies to drop homeowners for wildfire risk. After all, he says, insurance is only going to be more important as climate change leads to more disasters. Nathan Rott, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The most recent disaster here in California of course is the heavy rain that has led to mudslides. Rescuers in Santa Barbara County are still trying to find people who are trapped in the mud and debris. Rita Bourbon was at her house in Montecito when the rain started on Monday night. She says at first it seemed fine. And then things changed.
RITA BOURBON: We heard the earth just groaning like a tsunami was coming our way. That's really how I would liken it. It was a tsunami.
MCEVERS: Bourbon, her daughter and the students who rented rooms from her sat together all night, listening.
BOURBON: And my daughter and I had our moment of we are probably not going to live through this. That's how it sounded. There could be boulders the size of our house coming down the road. And we cried. And we loved each other. And I - I'll do a disclaimer now. I burst into tears. And I may during some of this. But my house saved us.
MCEVERS: It was not the same for Rita's neighbors.
BOURBON: The mud two houses just across the street from me had a creek behind it. It sheared their houses almost in half. One couple was fine. The other couple was washed away. The wife landed up against my house. Her husband was missing.
MCEVERS: Rita says she's very close to this family. And the couple's daughter, Andrea (ph), called Rita and asked her to go look for her father.
BOURBON: And I said I can't, Andrea. I - it's pitch dark outside, and I don't know what I'm running into. I knew there's a mudslide. I could - and the power lines are down. I could be stepping on them. And she understood of course. And at first light, 6:30, finally the earth stopped groaning.
MCEVERS: Rita looked outside her window, and there was a lot of debris from the neighbor's house. That's when she worried she might find Andrea's dad out there.
BOURBON: So finally I went outside with my daughter and one of the students. And the student spotted his arm and screeched. She's very young. And we sent her into her room. And then my daughter, Alexandra (ph), and I went to him. And he was - full, peaceful, beautiful face. I think he must have died instantly. And we honored him. And we knelt down and gave blessings, sent loves to the family and, you know, whatever we could think to do to remember this beautiful man. And my daughter rubbed his head and held his hand. And we got a sleeping bag and covered him.
And then all the rescue workers were there and a sheriff came in. They have a protocol. We walked away and let them do the rest of that themselves. And then we went to every neighbor because who knew what the other neighbors - what the condition was? And everybody was either gone or - not gone like they had left wisely, which I should have. I was just - I regret that so much.
MCEVERS: There were mandatory evacuation orders...
BOURBON: Oh, yeah. Oh, yes.
MCEVERS: ...In your area. And it sounds like your - the fact that you have a stone house was a thing that - is that why you didn't leave, because...
BOURBON: Partly. I trust that house in an earthquake or any type of thing. And I thought if we take on water, I could deal with that. I never really thought the mountain was going to come down, which it did. We had 17-foot boulders coming down that mountain, you know? So it was regretful. And we don't have flood insurance. Nobody does. We don't - we're not in a flood zone. So there's - you know, there's those practical things that of course pop into my brain.
MCEVERS: So what's your plan? I mean, are you going to - you know, once...
BOURBON: It's hard to make a plan because this is January. This is the beginning of the rainy season. If I begin - first of all, I'd have to pretend that I have a hundred thousand dollars to clean up my property. But my plan is I will make it so we can drive our cars in and out. And the rest of the property - it's an acre property. A half of the acre will stay under mud until the rains are over because I don't know what's next. That whole mountain did not come down. There's plenty of mountain to come down again. So - and I will leave when we get evacuated. That's a given. You remind me if I forget to. Call me, please, and say, get out (laughter), yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE AMERICAN DOLLAR'S "ANYTHING YOU SYNTHESIZE (AMBIENT)")
MCEVERS: Rita Bourbon is staying with one of her daughters now. She says the neighbor who lost her husband is in the hospital recovering. So far, 18 people are known to have died from the mudslides in Southern California, and more are still missing.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE AMERICAN DOLLAR'S "ANYTHING YOU SYNTHESIZE (AMBIENT)")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Walmart's warehouse chain Sam's Club is closing 63 of its stores from Alaska to Puerto Rico. The company says about 9,400 employees will be affected. Many of them only learned about the closures yesterday when they got to work. Here's one Tampa area worker, Christopher Holloway, talking to the local ABC station.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHRISTOPHER HOLLOWAY: I thought it was a joke. Honestly, I thought someone was messing with me when they first told me. And after that, I just - I didn't know what I was going to do, didn't know where I was going to go.
MCEVERS: Business Insider senior correspondent Hayley Peterson broke this story, and she's with us now. Welcome.
HAYLEY PETERSON: Thanks for having me.
MCEVERS: So what is the company telling you the reason is for the closing of all these stores?
PETERSON: The company says that the reason for closing these doors is that there's just not a lot of traffic coming to these stores. It seems like maybe some nearby stores were stealing some traffic from the ones that are being closed. And also, they said that population growth wasn't as high as they were expecting in some of the areas where they built these stores.
MCEVERS: As we just heard, these closings came as a surprise to the people, you know, who work in these stores. How many jobs will be lost? I mean, will some people be transferred to other places?
PETERSON: Walmart is going to try and transfer some of the affected employees to nearby stores. But it's not clear how many employees will be able to have that opportunity to get transferred.
MCEVERS: You reported that 10 of the stores will actually turn into e-commerce distribution centers. The company said this is because of an increase in online shopping. Does competition with Amazon have anything to do with this?
PETERSON: This is all about competition with Amazon. This strategy is indicative of where customers are shopping and Walmart's growing emphasis on e-commerce after buying jet.com and a number of other digital companies. Walmart is doing everything in its power right now to compete against Amazon online. It needs to offer fast, free shipping and ultimately same-day shipping on tons of products. And one way to make that happen is with more distribution centers.
MCEVERS: And just to be clear, when we talk about these distribution centers, I mean, these are places that employ far fewer people than an actual store.
PETERSON: That remains to be seen. You know, it's hard to say. It's hard to say. Distribution centers do use a lot of robots and sort of computer technology, so it's possible that they will employ far fewer people. But that remains to be seen.
MCEVERS: You know, this all happened at the same time that Walmart said it was going to raise starting wages for hourly workers and that it would expand family leave and offer cash bonuses to staff. The company said the new U.S. tax law had created some financial benefit. I mean, how do you square these two decisions coming at the same time - right? - closing these stores and affecting 11,000 people while also offering raises?
PETERSON: It's a very odd timing of the two announcements, especially because the first announcement, the one about the wage increases and the benefit expansion, that was trumpeted early in the day and nothing was really said about these closings. A press release wasn't sent out about them until much, much later in the day, hours after we had broken our story on the closings. And so - and it's highly unusual for companies as big as Walmart to not give employees notice about store closings.
But the strategy makes sense. What Walmart is doing is strengthening its e-commerce operation while it scales back a little bit in its physical stores. Many other retailers that are growing are following this strategy of closing stores and opening new distribution centers. Physical retail will always matter, and it's a big part of what gives Walmart an edge over Amazon. But for many years, retailers grew far too fast in terms of new stores, and now they are paying the price.
MCEVERS: Hayley Peterson, Business Insider's senior correspondent, thank you so much.
PETERSON: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF BLACK KEYS SONG, "LONELY BOY")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Nan Hauser is a marine biologist who has spent her professional life around whales. In September, she had an encounter with a humpback whale that was like nothing she had experienced before. The video came out this week and quickly went viral. And we've invited Nan Hauser to tell us what happened. Welcome.
NAN HAUSER: Thank you very much.
SHAPIRO: You were in the Cook Islands where your research center is based. This is in the South Pacific. How did this humpback whale interact with you?
HAUSER: Well, instead of just swimming past me, he came right towards me. And he didn't stop coming towards me until I was on his head. And next thing I knew, for about 10 minutes, he was - had me rolling around his body, really trying to tuck me under his pectoral fin.
SHAPIRO: And in the video it's clear how large this animal is. Your body is tiny next to him. Do you know how big the whale actually was?
HAUSER: Oh, probably about 46, 47 feet.
SHAPIRO: And how unusual is this kind of behavior?
HAUSER: It's (laughter) highly unusual. I've been underwater with whales for 28 years, and this is just really unusual behavior. It's crazy.
SHAPIRO: Humpback whales are not typically dangerous animals, but any animal that big could unintentionally harm a human. Were you afraid for your own safety?
HAUSER: I was. I was the whole time. And I'm not afraid of whales at all. I'm afraid of little spiders. But whales I can deal with.
(LAUGHTER)
HAUSER: Seriously. Yeah, I mean, he's big, and so I was pretty bruised up. He wasn't trying to hurt me. He could have. He could have whacked me with his pectoral fin or his tail. I'd be dead. I mean, he was really pushing me with the front of his mouth, too. He could've opened his mouth, and he didn't do that, either. But I didn't know he wasn't going to do any of that.
SHAPIRO: When did you realize what was actually going on here?
HAUSER: When I saw the shark.
SHAPIRO: Tell me about the shark.
HAUSER: Well, I was very intently watching the whale the whole time because I was trying to get away. I did think I was probably going to die. When I did finally get closer to the boat and a little bit away from him, the - I looked off in the distance, and I saw another whale who was quite frantically tail slapping this other animal, which I thought was another whale. And I looked at it, and then I saw it swimming towards me. But it was - the tail fin was going side to side instead of up and down. So my mind quickly went, oh, my gosh. That is a shark.
SHAPIRO: A shark's tail goes back and forth. A whale's tail goes up and down.
HAUSER: Up and down, exactly.
SHAPIRO: So it was this large tiger shark swimming towards you. What was your conclusion then about what the whale was doing?
HAUSER: Well, the only thing I could figure is that everything I've read about what they do with altruistic behavior to protect other mammals - marine mammals. And I've even seen them protect a little hammerhead shark before. They protect other animals in the sea from harm. I've just never heard of it happening with a human.
SHAPIRO: Why would a whale be altruistic? It doesn't seem to fit with survival of the fittest, Darwinian evolution, (laughter) those sorts of things.
HAUSER: Absolutely. But why are we altruistic? That's a good question. And I've been studying humpbacks for 28 years, and I plan on spending a lot more of my life trying to figure that question out because it's actually a beautiful question to try to answer.
SHAPIRO: As a scientist, you are trained to be a skeptic. How likely is it that we are just trying to impose an anthropomorphic storyline on animal behavior that is not actually anything like whale saves diver from shark?
HAUSER: Exactly. If someone told me this story, I wouldn't believe it. If it hadn't been me, if it hadn't been filmed in three different angles, I wouldn't believe it. I tried a lot not to anthropomorphize any of the behavior that I see. It's easy to do, but it's not a good practice in science.
SHAPIRO: So how do you as a scientist who is skeptical of these anthropomorphic tendencies feel about the headlines ricocheting around the world - "Whale Saves Diver From Vicious Shark" (ph)?
HAUSER: I think it's gone a little bit too far.
(LAUGHTER)
HAUSER: What wasn't written up - and this is even weirder - is that four days later, the other whale that was tail slapping came to the boat and kept spyhopping and looking in the boat. So I got in the water, and I rolled the camera. And she came right up underneath me 4 or 5 feet away from my belly, and she put her pectoral fins out around me. And it was my birthday, and I got a hug. And you tell me any scientist that will tell you that a whale hugged them. That's impossible. But again - three angles, three different cameras, and I got a whale hug. (Laughter) So I don't even tell people that because they'll think I'm crazy.
(LAUGHTER)
SHAPIRO: Nan Hauser is president and director of the Center for Cetacean Research and Conservation speaking with us on Skype. It's been a pleasure. Thanks so much.
HAUSER: Thank you. Bye-bye.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Finally today, it was the song of the summer - and the fall, for that matter.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HAVANA")
CAMILA CABELLO: (Singing) Havana, oh-nah-nah (ph). My heart is in Havana, oh-nah-nah. He took me back to East Atlanta, nah-nah-nah (ph).
MARTIN: That is "Havana" by singer-songwriter Camila Cabello.
CABELLO: Hey, that's me.
MARTIN: After...
CABELLO: Sorry.
MARTIN: That's you. That is you. After its August debut, according to Billboard, it topped the charts for radio airplay longer than any other pop song by a solo female artist in the past five years. And that voice which you just heard probably sounds familiar. Camila Cabello had her start as one of the popular Fifth Harmony group formed by music impresario Simon Cowell from girls who had auditioned for the show "The X Factor." Cabello left the group just over a year ago. And now, she's just out with her first solo album titled simply "Camila." And she's with us now from our studios in New York. Camila Cabello, welcome. Thank you so much for joining us.
CABELLO: Thank you. Sorry for interrupting your intro.
MARTIN: But you're excited because your album just came out, so we appreciate that.
CABELLO: Yes, I'm excited, yeah.
MARTIN: So congratulations.
CABELLO: Thank you.
MARTIN: So let's go back to the beginning for people who don't know your story yet. Your heart really was in Havana because you were originally born in Havana, right?
CABELLO: Yep. Yes.
MARTIN: Your mom is Cuban. And your dad's Mexican. Do I have that right?
CABELLO: Yes, that's right.
MARTIN: And you came to the U.S. when you were 6. Did your parents talk to you about why you left Cuba and what they were looking for? Now, I do remember that your parents - that your mom came first. You and your mom came first, and your dad, it took a while for him to be able to follow. Do you remember what they told you about that?
CABELLO: They never said anything when I was little because I feel like, you know, parents have a way of hiding all the stressful or bad stuff going on. I'm sure there were so many struggles and so many things that were going on they didn't tell me about because they wanted me to just be a kid, you know, and to have that, like, innocence and that, like, pure vision of the world that I was lucky to be able to have as a kid.
And so yeah, no, they never told me why. My mom just told me we were going to Disney World, and that's why we were leaving. And I was like, OK. And then I was like - it took a year for us to go to Disney World, and I was just like, something smells fishy because we're not at Disney World. And I also remember I had this, like, Disney calendar, and I would mark the Xs up until the day that my dad was supposed to come.
MARTIN: So you did eventually get to Disney?
CABELLO: I did a year after. It was great.
MARTIN: OK. I'm glad to hear that. So what made you audition for "X Factor"?
CABELLO: Well, I just - I saw this video of One Direction. And I was like a huge One Direction fan. And they were giving tips on how to audition for "X Factor (USA)." And it was - there was an audition in North Carolina, and that was super close to Miami. And so I was just kind of like - I just wanted to give it a shot. It was just these five seconds of bravery that changed my life, you know.
MARTIN: Can I just take you back to like - so what was the conversation? Was it, Mom, can you drive me to North Carolina?
CABELLO: Well, instead of my 15th birthday - in the Latin culture we have this thing called a quinceanera. And I wanted to have - instead of a quinceanera, I wanted my 15th birthday present to be for them to drive me to North Carolina so that I could audition. And I think that my parents are very - they're supportive of - they would be supportive of anything that I did. Like, if I was like, well, I really want to be a dentist today and, you know, not pursue this as a career, they would be totally fine with it. You know, they just want me to be happy. And I think that they just saw how much I wanted it. They were like, OK.
MARTIN: And then, of course, you know, the rest is history, as they say. And, of course, you made the decision to go out on your own. Now, you know, I do want to mention, it's not unusual for people who start in a group to go out on their own.
CABELLO: (Singing) Can't use - sorry.
MARTIN: Speaking of which, like, I mean, you know, Smokey Robinson, Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce - the queen, of course - Zayne, Harry Styles - your favorite - they've all gone out on their own. Could you just talk a little bit about how you went about making the decision that it was time for you to go solo?
CABELLO: I had been writing songs since I was 16. And at first, I wanted to write for other people. And then I, you know, I had these songs that I was like - they were so personal. And I was just kind of telling my story. And I couldn't imagine me giving it to somebody and somebody else singing them and performing them and making a video for them because it was too close to me, you know.
And so I was like, I don't want to write for other people. I want this to just be my song. This is my expression of who I am as an artist. And I went a long time writing songs thinking that nobody will ever hear this for another like 10 years because I'll still be in the group. And I've made the decision to just kind of go out on my own and start just expressing myself and my vision.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "IN THE DARK")
CABELLO: (Singing) You're running, running, running, running, making the rounds with all your fake friends. Running, running away from it. You can strip down without showing skin, yeah. I can see you're scared of your emotions. I can see you hoping you're not hopeless. So why can't you show me?
MARTIN: You know, one of the ironies of being - of a girl group is that they are often, you know, marketed as kind of a girl power experience, and yet, men are deciding what you wear and what you're saying. And, you know, Fifth Harmony, there were a lot of big eyelashes, a lot of booty shorts, a lot of provocative choreography. In your pieces that have - since you left the group, it seems like your look is a lot more natural, a lot more pared down. You look like somebody I'd recognize - right? - from my neighborhood, not like a stylized version of a girl. I wondered whether that was a conscious thing on your part to Camila getting back to this is the real Camila?
CABELLO: Well, I think that - I think it's great for girls to, if they want to express their sexuality and if they want to wear booty shorts or eyelashes or whatever to feel great, then that's great. That's amazing. I think the only thing wrong is when somebody is pushing you to do it before it's your time and before you're comfortable or if that's not really you. And for me, I was just not - that was just never me. It's not really a conscious choice because I just feel like I'm just really being myself. And so I am in a great place where I have all of the control. And I don't do anything that I'm not super stoked about doing, you know. I express myself however I want.
MARTIN: Speaking of control...
CABELLO: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SHE LOVES CONTROL")
CABELLO: (Singing) She loves control.
Yes, I do.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SHE LOVES CONTROL")
CABELLO: (Singing) She wants it her way. And there's no way she'll ever stay unless you give it up.
You got to give it up (laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SHE LOVES CONTROL")
CABELLO: (Singing) She loves control. She wants it her way. And all it takes is just one taste, you want to give it up.
MARTIN: And that is "She Loves Control." This is the third track on the album. So inspiration for this song? I was thinking it could be a couple of things. It could be...
CABELLO: It's - it could be a couple of things. I mean, I do love control. Basically, I thought of the title and I was like, this would be really, really great for a song. Because I think that, in that point of my life, I thought really just, like, free and independent. And that I was having a blast just making this album. And it was very refreshing for me to have that control - I think that all girls do, you know. I really wanted to have a song that's like empowering like that. And I like the idea of girls singing it - you know what I mean? - and it being like, yeah, it's good to love having control. It's good to make your own decisions and call the shots in your life.
MARTIN: Well, I'm thinking you skipped your own quince but maybe this is going to be one of those staples of other girls' quince going on - going forward, right? This could be like the anthem.
CABELLO: Oh, my God - that's such a - that would be so cool. I hadn't thought about that. And that just made me so happy, like, the image of them singing it, especially because it's, you know, it has that reggaeton beat.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SHE LOVES CONTROL")
CABELLO: (Singing) She loves control.
MARTIN: That is Camila Cabello. She's been talking with us about her debut solo album. It's titled simply "Camila." And she was kind of to join us from our studios in New York. Camila Cabello, thank you so much for speaking with us. And we wish you continued success.
CABELLO: Thank you. Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The movement of people across borders because of war, natural disasters or just the desire for opportunity has become one of the pressing issues of our time. Now here's another take on this issue, this time, from Europe. And we will start with a number - 158,000. That's roughly how many refugees remain in limbo after arriving in Europe, mainly from the Middle East and North Africa.
Many have been stuck there since the Great Migration of 2015 - far from their homes but unable to get permission to formally enter the European Union and start a new life. So one idea that's gaining some traction is to pay them to go back to the countries they left in the first place. NPR's Lucy Perkins reports from Vienna, Austria, as part of NPR's Take A Number series that explores issues around the world and efforts to address them through the lens of a single number.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Foreign language spoken).
LUCY PERKINS, BYLINE: In the waiting area at the main refugee clinic in Vienna, no one looks happy. That's because a lot of the people sitting there have run out of options. It's where I meet a young guy from Iraq.
MAHMOUD ABDELWAHAB: (Speaking Arabic).
PERKINS: Mahmoud Abdelwahab is 25 and came here nearly two years ago from Mosul. He's tall, has dark curly hair and big brown exhausted eyes. He doesn't say much. But while he waited, he told me how he got here. In early 2016, Mahmoud decided to leave Iraq because he feared for his safety. He quit his job as a cook. And using money that his family scrounged together, he left.
I spoke to him through his counselor Philipp Epaid at the nonprofit Caritas, which is in charge of refugee services in Austria. Mahmoud says his journey was tough. He was on one of the boats that you heard about in the news.
(SOUNDBITE OF MONTAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Startling new numbers in the crisis as thousands of desperate people seek refuge.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: 2016 will be the deadliest year ever for migrants crossing the Mediterranean.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: Paying thousands of dollars for a trip that could cost them their lives. Ten-thousand...
ABDELWAHAB: (Speaking Arabic).
PHILIPP EPAID: He saw people dying on the trip...
ABDELWAHAB: (Speaking Arabic).
EPAID: ...Like capsizing or falling from the boat into the sea.
PERKINS: He filled out his asylum application almost two years ago and since then, nothing. All he could do legally was wait in refugee camp. That's a big problem a lot of people waiting for asylum have to deal with. They aren't allowed to get a job, which means Mahmoud couldn't send money back to his family.
ABDELWAHAB: (Speaking Arabic).
EPAID: And he wants to work. He wants to learn the language. And if you have no chance to do this, you're stuck. And you get tired and frustrating.
PERKINS: Mahmoud spent two years all alone, feeling like a failure that the odds of him getting asylum were stacked against him. And he's not wrong. The Austrian courts have been overwhelmed by the number of applications. When the migrant crisis reached its peak back in 2015, the number of people wanting to stay in Austria tripled.
ABDELWAHAB: (Speaking Arabic).
EPAID: He saw other Iraqi people receiving the negative decision that they have to go back. And that's why he decided for himself to go back before he get a negative.
PERKINS: Instead of waiting longer, Mahmoud made a tough decision. He decided to leave Austria and go back to Iraq. That decision to voluntarily leave the country is exactly the choice the Austrian government wants refugees like Mahmoud to make.
Last spring, Austria announced it would pay refugees a thousand euros if they signed up to leave on their own. It's an incentive that's gaining traction across Europe.
KARL-HEINZ GRUNDBOECK: And either they choose the voluntary option or we have to discuss the forced option.
PERKINS: This is Karl-Heinz Grundboeck. He's the spokesperson for the Austrian Interior Ministry, the department that's funding the voluntary program.
GRUNDBOECK: Whenever it comes to forced return, we're talking about arresting people. It means that we also have detention centres for those people who are waiting for forced return.
PERKINS: Groendbock says it's a lot cheaper to give someone a one-way flight and a thousand euros than using resources to deport them. And he says, when there are more applications, there will be more rejections. So the government has wanted to encourage more refugees to return home, and thousands have taken the buyout.
But Philipp Epaid, Mahmoud's counselor, is not sure that paying refugees to leave is in their best interest. He says it's really important that a refugee makes a life-changing decision like this one on his own.
So we're at the airport?
EPAID: Yeah, we are here.
PERKINS: But this program is exactly why Mahmoud Abdelwahab is headed to the airport today. He decided to take the money, go back home to Iraq and use it to buy a car and become a cab driver.
We get off the bus, and Mahmoud grabs all his belongings. He only has a small carry-on suitcase and a backpack.
EPAID: (Speaking Arabic).
ABDELWAHAB: (Speaking Arabic).
EPAID: He said that it didn't make any sense to come here. OK, like, two years he was here for nothing.
PERKINS: We walk into the airport where we meet another official who gives him more paperwork to fill out. He heads to the check-in counter where he drops off his bags, and we shake hands.
EPAID: OK.
PERKINS: Bye. Good luck.
EPAID: Yeah.
PERKINS: So now he's off, right?
EPAID: He's off, yeah.
PERKINS: After a long journey, it's a quick and quiet goodbye to Europe. Mahmoud heads through security to board his one-way flight home to Iraq. Lucy Perkins, NPR News, Vienna.
MARTIN: NPR has tried but hasn't heard from Mahmoud since he returned to Iraq.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
You've certainly heard about the vulgar comments uttered by President Trump at a White House meeting on immigration, comments many consider racist. We'll talk about that in a few minutes in our Barbershop roundtable that will include two Republican former White House staffers. That's just later. But first, we want to hear from a member of Congress with a deep interest in the immigration issue, Republican Francis Rooney. He represents Florida's 19th District. He met with Speaker Paul Ryan this week, and he's with us now from Naples, Fla. Congressman, welcome. Thanks so much for speaking with us.
FRANCIS ROONEY: Thank you for having me on, Michel.
MARTIN: Of course, I have to ask you your reaction to the president's comments referring to Africa, Haiti and El Salvador using a vulgarity that we've all now heard. Your reaction to this?
ROONEY: Well, we have a very important and vibrant Haitian community in Southwest Florida, and they contribute a lot to the richness of our community. And I would never disparage them. And by the way, I did write a letter asking to extend TPS for these Haitians. We really need them. We need their work ethic and their family ethic.
MARTIN: Another reason we reached out to you though, sir, is that you had an unusual past in the Congress. I mean, in your past life, you served as ambassador to the Vatican under President George W. Bush. And you understand the role that diplomats play in representing America to the world. So it's not just that many people, including traditional allies of the U.S, have been offended by this, it's also being said that this is the kind of statement that undermines U.S. moral leadership. And I wondered if you agree with that.
ROONEY: Well, I think it's very important for the United States to maintain its historic position of representing good values, if you will - you know, respect for human dignity, First Amendment freedoms and things like that.
MARTIN: So do you feel that this comment by the president, as reported, undermines that principle?
ROONEY: If he did that, I don't think it's a good comment. I would say that. But I do think - I agree with what you're saying. It's very important that the United States as a beacon of freedom and liberty in the world, maintain its lofty position. I'll tell you what I'm really concerned about is that we don't have enough people in the State Department to conduct that diplomacy that you're talking about. We need to get the State Department staffed up.
MARTIN: I do want to emphasize, the president has denied it, but numerous people have confirmed that he did say these things. So I just want to be clear on that from our listeners.
ROONEY: Oh, yeah, and I take everybody at their word. I wasn't there. I'm glad I wasn't. I'm glad I'm down here in Florida doing my job.
MARTIN: So let's talk about this issue that sparked all this to begin with. I wanted to ask if you think that these comments by the president are having an effect on the efforts to come to some agreement on the immigration bill. And, you know, as you know that there's a deadline, particularly with respect to the deferred action program for people who came here as children, the so-called DREAM Act or DACA. Do you feel that this is having some effect on the negotiations to address this?
ROONEY: I don't think any thread of negativity can have - can be helpful when there's such a wide difference of opinions between many Republicans and many Democrats. It's going to take some serious effort to compromise - to both take care of the DACA children and get some reforms to our immigration process that many of us think needs some reforming.
MARTIN: What are your colleagues saying about this? Are you all talking to each other over the weekend? I know a lot of people are home in their home districts, just as you are. But what's the chatter among members?
ROONEY: Well, I know what we were talking about late last week is that many of us would be just fine with the tentative conceptual four-point plan which Kevin McCarthy and Senator Feinstein described at the meeting in the White House. They were talking about DACA extension - not citizenship, DACA extension - some type of border security enhancement - I don't know if it has to be a wall or not - ending the diversity lottery and ending the chain migration. And I think there's a lot of Democrats that agree on most all these points.
MARTIN: It seems to me that this compromise is pretty heavy on enforcement. You feel that that appeals to people who have a very different view. I mean, some people call it chain migration, other people call it family reunification. A lot of people consider family reunification one of the critical factors in the success of immigrants in this country because they can help each other. And extended family and family is very important to many Americans as a shared value. I know it's important to you. Why do you think that's important?
ROONEY: Sure. This chain migration thing doesn't eliminate immediate family. I mean, immediate family is like grandparents and parents and kids. They would still be considered the nuclear family. It just would not apply that immigration status to people that are further attenuated.
MARTIN: So before we let you go, I noted that you ran on, I think what some would consider, a pretty restrictionist platform. But in the past, you have supported candidates like Marco Rubio and like Carlos Cuello as longtime Republican activists who had different views than yours. Is there anything about this issue in your own views that's changed over the course of time that you've been in office?
ROONEY: I think the only thing I would say is I'd probably continue to become more concerned about security as the years have gone by because we continue to see more and more threats, more and more instances of aborted terrorist attacks around the world, more and more things like San Bernardino, which was a overstayed visa. I think, you know, we're in a very dangerous world right now. And I'm not saying any group is bad, but I'm saying there are bad actors in every group. And so we need enough measures in place to catch them.
MARTIN: That is Congressman Francis Rooney. He represents the 19th Congressional District in Florida. He's a Republican in his first term. He was kind enough to join us from Naples, Fla. Congressman, thank you so much for speaking with us.
ROONEY: Thank you for having me on.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now it's time for the Barbershop. That's where we talk to interesting people about what's in the news and what's on their minds. Joining us for a shapeup today, Sarah Westwood. She's the White House correspondent for the Washington Examiner. She was kind enough to join us in our Washington, D.C., studios once again. Welcome back.
SARAH WESTWOOD: Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: We also have two people with us who used to work in the White House. Mary Kate Cary is a former speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush. She's now a senior fellow for presidential studies at the University of Virginia's Miller Center for Public Affairs. And she's back with us from Charlottesville, Va. Glad to have you back with us.
MARY KATE CARY: Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: And also with us, Fred McClure. He is a former director of legislative affairs for President George H.W. Bush, a colleague of Mary Kate. He also advised President Reagan on legislative affairs. Now he is the executive director of leadership initiatives at Texas A&M University - his alma mater - and he's with us from College Station, Texas. Fred McClure, it's so good to talk with you once again.
FRED MCCLURE: And you, as well, Michel. Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: So here we go again with the story of the weekend. It starts with those meetings between President Trump and lawmakers earlier in the week where they were trying to hammer out some kind of agreement on the DACA program. That's the program that protects people who came here illegally as children. It protects them from deportation. And this is where I say that to understand the story you need to know that multiple sources have reported that President Trump said some very vulgar things, which have caused offense around the world - I'm assuming you've heard it - in reference to Haiti, El Salvador and African countries. Now the president has denied saying this. But Democratic Senator Dick Durbin who attended the meeting and Republican Senator Jeff Flake who was briefed on it by people in the meeting backed up those reports. I want to start with the reporting, Sarah. As we sit here now, is the White House still denying this? I mean, how are they dealing with this publicly?
WESTWOOD: Well, it's interesting. The denial that we saw from the White House was just denying that those comments were used in the context of Haiti. He didn't issue a broader denial that they weren't used to describe other countries. And he even admitted via Twitter that he did use tough language in this immigration meeting. And this is really - has the potential to gum up the wheels of the immigration deal.
Already, Democrats and Republicans were very far apart. They're not just trying to issue a legislative fix for DACA. There's - border security is on the table, an end or changes to the visa lottery program, and we're talking about so-called chain migration. So there are a lot of moving parts and to have something so polarizing and so vulgar come from the president really lessens the incentive for Democrats to give any concessions to Trump on those issues.
MARTIN: OK. I want to hear more about that from the folks whose job it was actually to make something like that happen. So I'm going to go with my veteran White House folks. So feel free - so, Fred, why don't you pick up where Sarah just left off? You know, feel free to tell me your personal reaction to this, if you care to, and then tell me how you think this is going to affect the negotiations.
MCCLURE: I think that it's a stick in the mud, if you will - or a stick in the eye, even that far, Michel. It makes it very difficult to have communications with Congress and convince them in a negotiation process if you're going to have a situation where there is a questioning of the thought process, the values, the value judgments of the leader in charge - in this instance, the president. I think he went beyond the pale in making those kinds of statements. Frankly, I'm surprised. He should have had this one on full-air broadcast as he did earlier in the week when he kind of surprised them and had a negotiation session live on television being recorded.
I don't think it helps him, particularly in a situation where we have a government shutdown pending on Friday and a situation where you've got dollars that have to be done for disaster relief, for the Children's Health Insurance Program and to come up with some sort of a budget solution as we go down the road for the next few weeks.
MARTIN: But, Fred, why couldn't it be the other way - that there might be an incentive for him to come to a deal to make this go away - to say that, you know, I may have said those things, but I still know how to get the job done, which was his selling point to begin with?
MCCLURE: Because he will never admit that he didn't say it. He will develop his own set of facts to describe what took place, even if there are other people in the room that have different facts, or at least that's the way he's being portrayed to us and to what we see. And as a result, the question becomes, can I trust him?
MARTIN: Mary Kate, what do you say about this?
CARY: Yeah, I agree with Fred on that. The - I was disappointed that more Republicans didn't denounce the vulgar language right off the top because I think you could still have a rational discussion about changing immigration law and denounce that language. And so the silence was very disappointing to me. I wish McConnell and some of the other senators had come forward and really shut it down.
MARTIN: Why do you think they didn't, Mary Kate, since, you know, communications is your - that's what you do? Why do you think they didn't?
CARY: I saw an analysis in one of the papers that the people who had spoken out the loudest were the ones who are in states or congressional districts that Hillary Clinton had won, and they were now up for re-election. And so those were the ones - Mia Love, for example, in a tight race - who came forward the quickly - quick - quickest. Sorry, (laughter) the quickliest (ph).
MARTIN: Speaking of words...
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: Now, you know, if you're listening to our conversation, people might be wondering, you know, why did we call two former Republican White House aides - you know, why not a Democrat? To which I say, this is an easier issue for most Democrats because most support extending DACA. This was an initiative that came under the administration of President Obama. And most Democrats don't like President Trump anyway, so it's not hard for them to criticize him. And as we are discussing here, you know, really, the issue is on the Republican side. So, Fred, going back to you on this. Do you have any broader concerns about how this affects the way people see Republicans?
MCCLURE: Yes, I do. And here's where it stems from, Michel. I think, frankly, that Democrats have the upper hand in this conversation about the extension of DACA. They have all the chips, basically, because what it - particularly, if it's done in context with the government shutdown at the end of this week. They have the position to be able to say, OK, you guys got to come to the table and deal with us. The president, of course, is being very strong in terms of getting dollars to build his wall.
And Republicans are put in a difficult position because it's like, do you want to be perceived as being heartless to these 800,000 folks who came here and who are here as a result of no fault of their own, but it is a part of the government policy that we have in place at this point in time? So it's a very mixed bag from a political standpoint, in my view, given the fact that Democrats had all the cards. Republicans were having to - being dragged to the table. And now the president has laid down a gauntlet, if you will, by making the comments that he made in that Oval Office meeting.
MARTIN: So, Mary Kate, how would you encourage your fellow Republicans to talk about this right now given everything that Fred just said?
CARY: My advice would be for the president to not do what he did on health care, which is he gave no public speeches. He had no sort of public push for his repeal effort. And as a result, it failed. So the best thing I think he would do is give a public address to the nation. Maybe he does it in the State of the Union. I don't know. But to talk about two things - one is that extending DACA should be done by congressional legislation, not by executive action as Obama had done it because we are a nation of laws. And it's not really our option to neglect to enforce those laws. We should enforce the laws that are on the books, whether those are marijuana laws, sanctuary cities, extending DACA, things like that. If you disagree with it, then we should change the law.
The second thing I think he could do is talk about what some of the other western industrialized democracies have done. Canada, for example, about 50 years ago, decided to change their immigration laws and ignore race and your country of origin and, instead, admit people based on their education, their fluency, in the case of Canada, English or French and their work experience. Australia, New Zealand, Singapore followed them. They've now added whether or not you're holding a job. And that is a rational argument that needs to be made. And I think that is where the language should go. Just as we saw, you know, here in Charlottesville, this summer, there's an interesting argument to be had on, say, civil war monuments, but the minute the president started saying things that were taken as racist, the argument gets shut down. And Sarah was saying it's hard to build a coalition.
MARTIN: Can I just ask you, for the record, Mary Kate, you don't think it's racist what he said?
CARY: No, I do think it's racist.
MARTIN: OK. I just...
CARY: I think it was implied racism, like Jeb Bush pointed out.
MARTIN: Sarah, before we let you go - I want to save a little bit of time for my last two guests - do we know what the president wants? What President Trump really does want to do on immigration? I mean, on Tuesday, he said that he wants this to be a bill of love. And then he seemed to be, you know, calling his most hard-line supporters to get their view. So do you have a sense, as a person who's there every day now, what he really does want to do?
WESTWOOD: Well, I think the White House recognized that DACA was their best chance - their most effective leverage to get funding for the wall and to achieve some of these other policy items that they wanted, like I mentioned earlier - chain migration, like, ending the diversity visa lottery program and making the system a little bit more merit-based, which is something that Trump has talked about a lot. I think that this is a really sympathetic group of people. Republicans recognize that. And there's a reason that the White House pushed really hard to uncouple DACA from the spending bill. That's because the actual deadline for DACA to expire isn't until March, and they wanted to have more negotiating time.
MARTIN: So before we let you go, the one-year anniversary of Trump's inauguration is in a week. We're planning special coverage. But since I have you here - and we only have a little bit of time to talk about this, but I did want to ask my former White House staffers what effect do they think President Trump has had on the country. It's interesting that both of you are now in academic settings where, presumably, you get to think a little bit about this - a little bit more deeply than you did when you were actually running from issue to issue every day. So, Mary Kate, I'll start with you.
CARY: You know, I think - that's a tough question. In a lot of ways, he has really polarized our country. The communications in terms of Twitter and the insulting and the - I don't know what you call that - the volatility has really been remarkable, and I think very damaging to our country. On the other hand, some of the legislative things he's been able to accomplish and some of the stuff going on below the surface - the deregulation, the things that are going on with the economy - are in sort of the positive category. So it's a mixed bag, and I hope it gets better.
MARTIN: Fred, more from you - last word? I'm afraid you have to have it as quickly as you can.
MCCLURE: Well, you know, those who want to say that the president has been, at best, racially ignorant or insensitive, I think are being very generous to him. The comments that he has made have been divisive. The issues - many of the issues that he has engaged in, whether it's Charlottesville, whether it's NFL and the national anthem or David Duke or Muslims or Mexico or Haiti or other African nations or El Salvador - the way in which he has gone about supposedly talking like people talk around the kitchen table makes me wonder about what the kitchen table conversations are about.
MARTIN: That's - we're going to have to cut you off there, Fred. More - I hope we'll talk again soon. That's Fred McClure. He's a former director of legislative affairs. He advised both Presidents Reagan and President George H.W. Bush. Mary Kate Cary was with us - also a former speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush - and Sarah Westwood, White House correspondent for the Washington Examiner. Thank you all so much for speaking with us.
WESTWOOD: Thank you.
MCCLURE: Thanks.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to hear now about the false alarm that set off a panic in Hawaii this morning. Tourists and locals were just waking up as their phones buzzed with a short emergency alert. The notification said a ballistic missile threat was inbound. Those who turned on their TVs were met with the same message. This is not a drill. As NPR's Miles Parks reports, the false alarm seems to have been caused by pushing the wrong button.
MILES PARKS, BYLINE: Brian Bakst was in the kitchen of his vacation rental in Maui with his wife and two kids when his phone buzzed. The emergency notification he saw shocked him. Here he is reading it off his phone.
BRIAN BAKST: Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. This is not a drill.
PARKS: He turned on the TV and saw the same thing. He went searching for a non-tourist on the property but couldn't find anyone immediately.
BAKST: That kind of startles you first thing in the morning and especially in a place where you don't know what to do or what shelter means.
PARKS: They eventually settled on huddling together in the shower, doing their best to stay positive, waiting for more information along with the rest of the state's population - all of whom received the harrowing warning as well. Stories abounded online of people hiding wherever they could - garages and storm drains and texting loved ones. More than half an hour later, they all finally got relief. It was a false alarm sent to the entire state by Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency. Here's Hawaii's governor, David Ige.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DAVID IGE: It was a procedure that occurs at the change of shift where they go through to make sure that the system is working. And an employee pushed the wrong button.
PARKS: The chairman of the FCC said the agency is launching an investigation into the alert. And the White House said President Trump was briefed on the issue. Brian Bakst posted a live vacation recap on Twitter after the all-clear went out - went to the beach, saw some whales, ate some yummy fish, took shelter from a nuclear strike in a condo shower. Fun trip, he wrote. Miles Parks, NPR News.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
This week, Walmart joined a chorus of companies who say the big corporate tax cut is motivating them to raise wages, pay bonuses and make more investments. But that good news story was undercut later in the same day when word trickled out that Walmart is closing 63 of its Sam's Club warehouse stores and laying off thousands of workers. We've asked NPR economics correspondent John Ydstie to join us to sort this out. So, John, thanks for joining us, first of all.
JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: Happy to be here, Michel.
MARTIN: Well, Walmart seems to be feeling generous with some of its employees and laying off others. And what role is the tax cut playing in this, if any?
YDSTIE: Well, there's no doubt that Walmart and many other companies are very happy that the top corporate tax rate was slashed from 35 to 21 percent. It'll save Walmart billions of dollars a year. And it certainly makes it easier for the company to raise its minimum wage to 11 bucks an hour. But there are other forces at work here that have little to do with the tax cut.
MARTIN: Well, what are those forces?
YDSTIE: Well, the U.S. unemployment rate is down to just over 4 percent, very close to full employment. So Walmart needs to raise wages just to attract and hang onto employees. And there's evidence that that helps. Walmart boosted wages and training back in 2015. And according to the analysts, that helped them increase same-store sales continuously since then.
MARTIN: Well, that invites the question of why Walmart is closing 10 percent of its Sam's Clubs, and as we understand it, that that means laying off some 11,000 workers.
YDSTIE: Yeah. Well, even though the overall economy is strong, for traditional retailers, there are challenges like online shopping. Walmart says those Sam's Club stores were underperforming. The company does say it is going to convert about a dozen of them to e-commerce fulfillment centers, so some of those workers may be rehired.
MARTIN: But as we said earlier, it's not just Walmart saying the tax cut is motivating them to boost wages and investment. AT&T and Wells Fargo, just to name a couple of companies that people may have heard in the news, are saying the same things or similar things. How should we assess what they're saying?
YDSTIE: Well, I think in the case of both of them, there are additional factors at play. For one thing, both have a reason to try to curry favor in Washington.
MARTIN: Because Wells Fargo is being penalized by the government for deceiving customers. And President Trump has threatened even more punishments.
YDSTIE: Exactly. So Wells Fargo has an interest in saying the tax cut is the reason it's boosting wages for its employees, precisely what the president predicted would happen, in order to gain favor with Trump and avoid more penalties. That said, Wells Fargo is also competing for workers in a strong economy, so they might have boosted wages whether there was a tax cut or not.
MARTIN: But what about AT&T?
YDSTIE: We don't know for sure. But remember, AT&T wants to buy Time Warner, but the Trump administration is blocking that deal in court. So AT&T could be thinking that saying the tax cut motivated the company to pay big bonuses to workers might just get the Trump administration to ease its opposition to the deal.
MARTIN: So the economy is pretty strong right now. Is that the result of these tax cuts?
YDSTIE: Well, business confidence in the U.S. has risen in the past year, partly anticipating the tax cut and also in response to regulatory restraint by the Trump administration. So that may have boosted the U.S. economy a bit, but the economy was already on a solid foundation. And a good deal of the recent pickup is due to the very positive global economic picture, which has little, if anything, to do with U.S. taxes.
MARTIN: That's NPR economic correspondent John Ydstie. John, thank you.
YDSTIE: You're welcome, Michel.
(SOUNDBITE OF , "")
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to check in now on the search and rescue operations in Southern California after deadly mudslides this week. At least 18 people have died. Many are still missing. And parts of Santa Barbara County are still unreachable. Sharon McNary of member station KPCC has this report.
SHARON MCNARY, BYLINE: A couple of soldiers from the 114th composite transportation company parked their Humvee in a place they hope it won't get stuck.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: I don't want to stop in the mud, though.
MCNARY: They slog through the mud, squeeze through a small opening in a heavy wooden gate blocked by more mud and make their way to the door. National Guard soldiers from their Bakersfield, Ca., company pulled some 1,800 people out of the mud disaster zone one mudbound family at a time. I'm right behind them.
Yeah, this is really deep, comes up to my legs. And it's just grabbing every bit of my legs.
An older woman is the first to make the slow walk out to the truck. One soldier gets in front. She puts her hands on his shoulders. Another soldier follows behind, helping her lift each leg for the step forward. The family's in the tarp-covered bed of the Humvee along with a large fluffy dog.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: The worst part was on Tuesday, when folks came over the wall of our compound. There's no better way to put it - looters, would-be looters.
MCNARY: The owner asked that his name and location not be disclosed because he fears further break-ins. There's gratitude for the soldiers.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Thankfully, because of these guys, I get to sleep tonight.
MCNARY: But also some regret.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: I don't know why I didn't prepare more. And so here's a message for other folks out there that procrastinate - just don't. It's a lot healthier not to.
MCNARY: On the upside, with the power out, they were able to use his Tesla in the unflooded garage to charge their phones. For NPR News, I'm Sharon McNary in Montecito.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're returning now to Puerto Rico's efforts to recover from Hurricane Maria. While the focus on immediate needs is still there, now the U.S. territory's leaders have also decided that a new push for statehood should be part of the recovery effort. This week, a bipartisan shadow congressional delegation comprised of distinguished former officials went to Capitol Hill to lobby Congress to make Puerto Rico the 51st state.
Alfonso Aguilar is one of the Republican shadow representatives. He's also the president of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles and a former chief of the U.S. Office of Citizenship. He served under President George W. Bush. He was kind of stopped by our studios in Washington, D.C., to tell us more. Alfonso Aguilar, thanks so much for speaking with us.
ALFONSO AGUILAR: Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure.
MARTIN: Now, this was an issue even before the hurricane, I want to say. I want to note that the official party platforms of both the Democratic and Republican Party in Puerto Rico support statehood. So what are you doing differently now, and why now?
AGUILAR: Well, you know, I think now it's become very evident after the devastation caused by Maria, we are at the mercy of Congress. We have no political clout in Washington, and that certainly affects us in terms of getting help from the federal government. So when we have a hurricane like we just had that devastated the island, and we're talking about a supplemental bill to provide funding - emergency funding for recovery efforts in the states - Texas, Florida, they have the appropriate representation to ensure that they get the money that they need.
In the case of Puerto Rico, again, we're at the mercy of Congress. We're hoping that they're going to be merciful, but perhaps they will provide something that really doesn't respond to the needs of the island. That's why representation or democracy, it's just so basic, the very basic right of a citizen is the right to vote.
MARTIN: You and the other delegates were selected by the governor of Puerto Rico. And I do want to mention, again, this is a very distinguished group - a baseball Hall of Famer, three former governors. So it's three Republicans, three Democrats and an independent. You were all appointed. So do you think that these members have any reason to seat people who were not elected?
AGUILAR: Well, you know, this is a tool. We recognize this. We have been appointed. Eventually, we will have an election. And we'll have an elected delegation. But this is the first face of the effort to push statehood.
MARTIN: Let me ask you this, though, why should they care? Why should they care? Given that - this is - you're talking about extending federal recognition or the same voting rights to other people. And for people who already have those rights, why should they care?
AGUILAR: Well, first of all, it's a question of principle, right? Our forefathers created a republic that guarantee equal rights to everyone. And we know that that wasn't the case. But with time, citizenship has expanded to include absolutely every single citizen. So if we care about the Constitution, if we want to ensure that we have a country that guarantees every single citizen full rights, then I think we have to address the issue of Puerto Rico. That's a question of principle.
In terms of practical matters, look. The situation right now in Puerto Rico, we have a fiscal crisis - large debt, over $70 billion. The economy is in a deep recession. And all of this has been exacerbated by Maria. The federal government is going to have to continue sending money to Puerto Rico. Under statehood, we're going to be paying into the system. Financially, we're going to do much better. And eventually, in five, 10 years, Puerto Rico's going to be paying more into the system than the money that they send to Puerto Rico.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, I do want to ask a sticky question, which is there are those who argue and will say that they think that the hesitation to address this issue, both with Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, is that these are predominately non-white and that's what the objection is?
AGUILAR: In the case of Puerto Rico, I don't believe that. I don't believe that people oppose statehood for Puerto Rico because its a Hispanic population. There is a consideration about their ethnicity, but it's not racism. I think there's this perception that just because they're Hispanic, they would largely vote for Democrats. And we have to explain to them that is just not the case. Puerto Ricans, like the majority of Hispanics, are very conservative on social issues, when it comes to the issue of right to life, it comes to marriage. But at the end, there will be swing voters. If Republicans cannot convince Puerto Rican voters in future elections, they're going to have a very hard time convincing Hispanic voters at the national level.
MARTIN: That's Alfonso Aguilar, Republican shadow representative for Puerto Rico. He and fellow members of this delegation are in Washington, D.C., lobbying, once again, for statehood for the U.S. territory. Alfonso Aguilar, thanks so much for coming in.
AGUILAR: Thank you so much for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to spend the next few minutes talking about one of the other major stories of recent months - excuse me - sexual harassment. In a few minutes, we'll hear a perspective on how religious institutions struggle to deal with complaints about sexual misconduct by clergy.
While a lot of the stories have rightly focused on what happened, they often don't get to the question of why some people, mainly men, sexually harass their colleagues and others don't. And one person who's been thinking about that question since the 1980s is psychologist John Pryor of Illinois State University. Years ago, he designed a scale to measure how likely someone is to sexually harass. I started by asking him about what motivated his research and how he developed it.
JOHN PRYOR: I designed the "Likelihood To Sexually Harass Scale" using some common stereotypes about men in power situations. In fact, one of the scenarios I developed focused on the casting couch in Hollywood. So I asked college men to imagine that they had such a job and that there's a woman they're attracted to. And I asked them, how likely is it that they would offer a role in a film in exchange for sexual favors?
One of the things that let me know I was onto something when I first started working on this was that there was a high level of consistency in men's responses to this. So men who would say that they would perform this act of sexual coercion in one situation were highly likely to say they'd do it in other situations. Conversely, you see that men who said they wouldn't do it were also unlikely to say they would do it in other situations.
MARTIN: Do you find specific characteristics in the individuals who are likely to engage in this conduct?
PRYOR: There are a series of beliefs that people have about sexual harassment that represent kind of a psychological underpinning for this kind of behavior - beliefs like women asking for it or women making false complaints. I can't tell you how many people I've been interviewed by ask me, what about the false complaints? Well, there are many false complaints. There are not many complaints period.
Some of the things that we see have to do with a lack of perspective-taking or empathy for other people. One of the other things I can tell you that's kind of consistent with that is that we can reduce the willingness of men to engage in sexual coercion - sexual harassment - by inducing them to think long and hard about perspectives of women. So that shows that, as a variable, something like taking the perspective of others is a very important thing, I believe.
MARTIN: What has struck you about - I mean, as we mentioned earlier, you started this research three decades ago. But now, the floodgates have been opened within the last couple of months, and there's all these different industries, as we've mentioned, including this one, where this behavior has been revealed. I'm just - I'm curious how you have reacted to this, as a person who's been studying this for so long.
PRYOR: One of the things that I and many others have concluded is it's a really common kind of thing to see some forms of sexual harassment in the workplace. So it's not surprising that you have all these people saying yeah, me too - this happened to me too. So I think that maybe what's surprising is why it took so long for people to come forth.
One of the things that I suspect though, with regard to why it has taken so long - and I'll speculate here - is I think that admitting that you were a target or a victim of sexual harassment is somewhat of a stigma. So people generally avoid identifying themselves as having some kind of stigmatizing characteristic or stigmatizing behavior they've encountered.
But when you start to see people coming forth in public, one of the things you do is you start to remove some of the stigma. So what we see is when women hear other women say, oh, this happened to me, this happened to me, and you think, yeah, it happened to me, and they're less likely to think they're going to be treated negatively for coming forth and saying that it happened to them.
MARTIN: John Pryor is a distinguished professor emeritus at Illinois State University. He created the "Likelihood To Sexually Harass Scale." We talked to him at the studios at Illinois State University.
Professor Pryor, thanks so much for speaking with us.
PRYOR: Thank you, Michel. It's nice to talk to you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Finally today, we want to take you back to Oprah Winfrey's speech at the Golden Globes last week, a speech that brought many in the audience to tears and to their feet. She was accepting an award for contributions to the world of entertainment, but the billionaire broadcaster and philanthropist decided to use her moment to tell the story of a far less celebrated woman, Recy Taylor.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS")
OPRAH WINFREY: In 1944, Recy Taylor was a young wife and a mother. She was just walking home from a church service she'd attended in Abbeville, Ala., when she was abducted by six armed white men, raped and left blindfolded by the side of the road coming home from church.
MARTIN: Later that night, a colleague reminded me that I had spoken with Recy Taylor myself with the help of historian Danielle McGuire back in 2011. So here is Recy Taylor telling her story in her own words.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
RECY TAYLOR: A car running around up the side of us. Six young men jumped out with a gun and said that you the one that cut a white boy and clocked him. And the police got us out looking for you. You get in the car, and we'll take you uptown to the police station. And they got me in the car and carried me straight to the woods. But before they got where they was going, they blindfolded me. After they messed up and did what they was going to do to me, said, we going to take you back. We going to put you out. But if you tell it, we going to kill you.
MARTIN: Did anything ever happen to them for what they did to you?
TAYLOR: No, ma'am, nothing.
MARTIN: After that time - and that's a terrible thing to happen to someone, and I'm so sorry that that happened to you.
TAYLOR: It sure is.
MARTIN: How do you think that it affected your life? Were you afraid to go out after that and things like that?
TAYLOR: I didn't go out at night. And then I got afraid of living right there after that happened too because I was afraid that maybe something else might happen.
MARTIN: In Oprah's speech, she added another important element to the story.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE GOLDEN GLOBE AWARDS")
WINFREY: Her story was reported to the NAACP, where a young worker by the name of Rosa Parks became the lead investigator on her case. And together, they sought justice. But justice wasn't an option in the era of Jim Crow. The men who tried to destroy her were never persecuted.
MARTIN: In 2011, I asked Recy Taylor how she felt about that.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
MARTIN: Do you feel better now that the world knows about this? Or I guess you would feel better if you knew that those young men had been brought to justice for what they did. I assume that would make you feel better, but...
TAYLOR: Yes, that would make me feel better. Hey, it happened to me like that. But it just happened to me. And I couldn't help myself. And then the people there seemed like they wasn't concerned about what happened to me and didn't try to do nothing about it. I just get upset because I do my best to be nice to people. I don't want people to mistreat me and do me any kind of way and I have to live with it because I had to live with a lot with going through with this.
MARTIN: Let me add a few more details that Oprah did not have time to tell, such as the fact that the local sheriff knew who had kidnapped Recy Taylor but never arrested them, or the fact that 1 of the 7 accomplices admitted he was there but claimed he was just a bystander, or the fact that eventually, four of the accomplices admitted what they had done but claimed the rape was - wait for it - consensual. There's also the way that some of the major Southern newspapers at the time all but ignored the crime against Taylor until national pressure forced their hands or, just as evil, were complicit in passing along the false story that she was a prostitute or a willing participant. Is it any wonder that when, after a campaign of local and national pressure finally led authorities to act, two all-white male grand juries refused to hold anyone accountable.
Recy Taylor's story haunts us in part because of how she carried her pain with a strength we could still hear in her voice but also because it is the story of many women whose names we will never know. But we know her name because she would not be kept silent and also because another woman, Rosa Parks, along with many men, amplified her voice.
Can I just tell you though, Recy Taylor's story also haunts us because it is the story of many others, a few of whose names we now know and many we do not. It's the story of the men who raped her and the community and the country who raised them and shaped them. I wonder about those young men. Did they hold doors open for their white mothers and sisters? Did they call them ma'am and sister? Did they marry and have daughters and dance at their weddings and worry about them when they came home late? I bet they did.
I bet they had friends and jobs and people who spoke nice words about them at their funerals, made excuses, said everybody did it. It's how we were raised. It's just what we thought. We didn't know it was wrong. But they did know. At their core, they had to know because they, like Recy Taylor, were human beings. And in treating Recy Taylor as less than human, in refusing to recognize her as human, they left a piece of themselves on the floor of those woods where they attacked her. I'd venture to say that all those who dehumanize others for the sake of their own pleasure or to protect their own power leave a piece of themselves behind as well. To my knowledge, Recy Taylor, who died last month just a few days shy of her 98th birthday, outlived her attackers. She died with her humanity intact. How many others will be able to say the same?
(SOUNDBITE OF ARAABMUZIK'S "WANTED")
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to start with the issue that's been so much in the news this weekend - the DACA program created by the Obama administration. It gave a temporary reprieve from deportation to young people living in the country illegally after being brought here as children. President Trump tweeted today that, quote, "DACA is probably dead," unquote.
Congressional Democrats and some Republicans have been looking for a way to extend that protection in exchange for border security and other moves on immigration. But during a White House meeting to discuss that last week, the president reportedly used a vulgar slur to describe countries in Africa, as well as Haiti and El Salvador. NPR's Scott Horsley is with us to tell us more now.
Scott, welcome. Thanks so much for joining us.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Good to be with you.
MARTIN: Now, there's a CBS poll out today that confirms what other surveys have found - most Americans, including most of the president's supporters, want to help these young people who benefit from DACA. They're often called DREAMers. Is the program really dead?
HORSLEY: Well, the program has certainly been on life support ever since last fall, when the president announced that he was going to pull the plug on it. But he said he'd wait six months to give Congress time to come up with a permanent fix. Republican Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado is part of a bipartisan group of lawmakers who've been working to come up with such a fix. They thought they had a tentative deal last week until the president blew it up.
Since then, there's been, as you say, widespread condemnation at home and abroad of the language the president reportedly used. But Gardner told "Face The Nation" today, in effect, DACA is too important to let it go down the hole that the president has created here.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FACE THE NATION")
CORY GARDNER: We can't let this moment's politics defeat the important policy choices ahead of us. Look, we've put together a very responsible plan. And if people want to - better that, if people want to improve that, then let's do that.
HORSLEY: In the meantime, the Homeland Security Department has begun accepting renewal applications from DREAMers in response to a court order, although some advocates have cautioned those DREAMers to hold off applying until the legal ground is a little more solid.
MARTIN: Now, last week, many people may remember that the president told a bipartisan group of lawmakers that if they could reach a compromise on immigration, he'd go along with it. What happened?
HORSLEY: Right. This small bipartisan group of six senators thought they had a deal. It would have granted lasting protection to the DREAMers but limited their ability to sponsor family members. It also would have beefed up border security, as the president wants. And it would have ended the visa lottery that the president hates.
But when Republican Senators Lindsey Graham and Dick - and Democrat Dick Durbin got to the White House to present that plan, they were surprised to find a couple of immigration hardliners there, including Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton. Like the president, Cotton is very much opposed to this bargain. He spoke to CBS.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FACE THE NATION")
TOM COTTON: We have an immigration system, today, that treats people based on where they're from or who they're related to, not who they are. That's not the system we need. We want to move to a system that treats people for who they are, not where they're from.
HORSLEY: We should say though that when the president made his comments, he seemed to be saying we should admit would-be immigrants not on the basis of who they are but precisely because of where they come from.
MARTIN: So finally, Scott, you know, we've been talking about this for days now. But I take it there is now some dispute about whether the president used this vulgar slur that we've heard so much about that has been widely attributed to him.
HORSLEY: Yeah, Georgia Senator David Perdue cast some doubt on that in an ABC interview today. But it's worth pointing out that when the story first leaked, the White House didn't deny it. Perdue issued a much more cautious statement out of the gate. Senator Dick Durbin, on the other hand, has been emphatic that the president did use this language, and that's been backed up by some of Durbin's Republican colleagues.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Scott Horsley. Scott, thank you.
HORSLEY: You're welcome.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
By now, you've surely heard the comments President Trump is reported to have made during a meeting with lawmakers last week that have been condemned as racist. Now, this all came as the nation prepares to remember the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday. So we decided to seek some reflections about the civil rights movement in the U.S. and what the legacy of that movement might mean to the current moment.
For that, we turn to two people who worked closely with Dr. King - Andrew Young Jr. and the Reverend Jesse Jackson. We'll start with Mr. Young, a friend and confidant of Martin Luther King, a prominent civil rights activist in his own right. He's also a minister, a former member of Congress, a former ambassador to the United Nations and a former mayor of Atlanta. Ambassador Young talked about how this current wave of political and racial tension is both familiar and different.
ANDREW YOUNG JR.: I think that this time is far more complex. We were dealing with legal racism. And the NAACP had done 25 years at least of legal precedent. So the issues that we were dealing with marching about in Selma and Birmingham were pretty well-defined. And there was a liberal, national consensus about what was right that Martin Luther King expressed brilliantly in '63 in his "I Have A Dream" speech - a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPEECH)
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that, one day, this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. We hold these truths to be self-evident - that all men are created equal.
(APPLAUSE)
YOUNG JR.: You know, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will sit down at the table of brotherhood. That was something that everybody could understand and agree to. It became far more complicated when we got into war. Because when Martin formed the SCLC, he formed it to redeem the soul of America from the triple evils of racism, war and poverty.
And he said, about Vietnam back then, that the bombs you drop in Vietnam will explode at home in inflation and unemployment. And he was absolutely right. And most of the problems we face, you know, we could have anticipated. And many people did anticipate it even 50 years ago.
MARTIN: We also spoke with another longtime civil rights activist and confidant of Dr. King - the Reverend Jesse Jackson. He says he is hopeful that the current social divisions that are so evident will actually have the effect of creating a stronger social justice movement.
JESSE JACKSON: The optimism is that we - the people are waking up. The optimism is the fact that those with the Selma 1965 - and blacks didn't have the right to vote for 85 years. White women couldn't serve on juries. That whole Selma generation gives me hope. They took us from the bloody bridge in Selma to the White House in 2008.
There is hope in the emerging amount of Americans with a greater sense of global consciousness and the right to vote. And if you exercise that power, we can protect that their interests - what obviously makes America great is the right to fight for the right. Sometimes the difficult battles - we can fight these battles and win.
MARTIN: That was the Reverend Jesse Jackson, former Democratic presidential candidate, longtime civil rights leader. We reached him in Chicago on this eve of the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Earlier, we spoke with Ambassador Andrew Young.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now to Tunisia, where, seven years ago today, Tunisians forced the country's dictator from power and began a transition to democracy. That was followed by uprisings in Egypt, Libya and Syria. It became known as the Arab Spring. Today, some people are celebrating, others are protesting. NPR's Ruth Sherlock is here to tell us more. She's in the capital, Tunis. There have been some clashes but mainly peaceful demonstrations.
Ruth, welcome.
RUTH SHERLOCK, BYLINE: Thank you.
MARTIN: So what have people been doing to mark the anniversary?
SHERLOCK: Well, several thousand people gathered here on Habib Bourguiba, which is the main avenue in downtown, and it's also where the mass protests happened in 2011. And of all the countries that protested in the Arab Spring, Tunisia has fared the best. As you mentioned, it's a stable - semi-stable democracy. So some people felt they had a lot to celebrate. There was lots of music.
In one area, supporters of the more religiously conservative Ennahda party chanted and sang songs from the revolutionary days. And then in another area, these liberal supporters watched a belly dancer and dancers - kind of modern pop music. I asked Fadila Kaeish (ph), a supporter from the more conservative Ennahda party, what is the main thing that's changed in her life since the uprising began?
FADILA KAEISH: (Speaking Arabic).
SHERLOCK: So she tells me here that the best thing that survived from that revolution is freedom of expression. This country was ruled by a dictator before, and people felt afraid to speak freely. It was also a secular regime, and they often oppressed observant Muslims. Women found it difficult sometimes to wear headscarves in public. All of that has now gone, and she says that that is something really to celebrate.
And that was the same sentiment - I spoke to young people, old people, religious or not - everybody had the same opinion that this freedom of expression is the best thing. There's still some police harassment but it's generally much, much better.
MARTIN: And yet I understand it - I understand that there have been protests this week about austerity measures and the economy. What did people tell you about that?
SHERLOCK: Well, that's the other side of this anniversary event. There were also people who came here because they're furious. They're angry at a terrible economic situation. People are furious because there's been a new budget that's passed this year that's increased the cost of basic goods. And the government is struggling to pay off an international monetary fund loan.
So it's imposed austerity measures. It won't expand the public sector. And that just means there's a lot of people without jobs. I asked Amel Berrejab, who trained as an English teacher, why she'd come to demonstrate.
AMEL BERREJAB: No, today, we are not here to celebrate, just to protest, just to pressure the government to give us our right to choose recruitment, which is employment. I'm now, for example, a graduate since 2007. So 10 years, yes, since my graduation. I've got more than six years experience teaching in private school, in colleges and universities. I also taught in the U.S. as part of the Fulbright program. But in my country, I'm jobless.
SHERLOCK: So you hear this kind of frustration and this lack of hope. We spoke to a lot of people who said their friends are all leaving this country, either legally, if they can, or illegally if they can't, and trying to find jobs elsewhere. That's how bad it's become.
MARTIN: Is there a sense that it's getting worse?
SHERLOCK: Yes. There's been protests this past week. There's a group that's been created that's called What Are We Waiting For. It's a youth activist group, but it's had a big impact. It sparked these massive protests all over the country. The government was unnerved. It's responded by arresting some 800 people according to U.N. figures. These people, who are protesting, want the government to repeal the 2018 budget - the one I mentioned that's raised prices for basic goods.
MARTIN: That's Ruth Sherlock. She's in Tunisia, where they are observing the anniversary of the Jasmine Revolution which set off the Arab Spring. Ruth, thank you so much for speaking with us.
SHERLOCK: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
For 38 terrifying minutes yesterday, thousands of people living in and vacationing in Hawaii had the kind of scare most of us only experience in the movies. An emergency alert warned of an incoming ballistic missile. The alert insisted it was not a drill, but the alert was sent by accident.
One of the first people to let the world know it was actually a mistake was Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard when she tweeted in all-caps - Hawaii, this is a false alarm. There is no incoming missile to Hawaii. I have confirmed with officials there is no incoming missile. Congresswoman Gabbard is with us now. Welcome. Thanks so much for speaking with us.
TULSI GABBARD: Aloha. Thanks. It's great to talk to you.
MARTIN: So before we get into lessons learned, I wanted to start by asking you what was going through your mind when you saw or heard that alert, however you saw - first saw it.
GABBARD: Yeah. You know, as soon as I saw it come across my phone, I, like so many - like people all across the state of Hawaii, you have that moment where the unimaginable is happening. And you understand that you could very well have minutes before your loved ones and our home is destroyed - literally destroyed.
Immediately, I knew that I needed to verify whether or not this was actually happening, began making phone calls to Hawaii state officials and quickly was able to get an answer that this was, in fact, a false alarm, that this alert was sent out mistakenly or inadvertently, and that we need to let people know as quickly as possible that that was the case. And that's exactly what I did.
MARTIN: Well, to that end though, in fact, one of the things we all noticed was that your tweet calling the alert a mistake came out even before the Hawaii state emergency management announcement came out. Do you mind - how were you able to confirm it so quickly?
GABBARD: I spoke with some of the officials (inaudible) management department - the head of the National Guard. And he confirmed, very quickly, that they had already confirmed there was no incoming ballistic missile threat. Why it took so long for that official message to then go out to people's phones, again, saying that it was a false alarm, is something that's absolutely unacceptable, must be investigated so that this kind of thing never happens again, so that this mistaken alert never happens, but that this kind of 38-minute-long terror that people experienced all across Hawaii is corrected.
MARTIN: And, well, to that end, the governor has explained that this was human error - pushing the wrong button. And I would imagine that one of the concerns now is that this risks making Hawaiians less likely to take the next alert seriously. Are there any steps now that you can tell us about that will prevent this from happening again?
GABBARD: I think that that is a natural, very real concern - is that, you know, when you're dealing with a ballistic missile coming towards Hawaii, you know, there is less than 15 minutes that people have before potential impact. So when you're dealing with those minutes and seconds, what we don't want is for people to be spending that precious time wondering, is this for real, or is this just another mistake?
So this is why taking serious corrective action at the state level, figuring out all of the layers of what went wrong and what must be changed and done to fix it, holding those responsible accountable but also really looking - also nationally and federally, why is it that one person was able to push this so-called wrong button that sent panic throughout the state of Hawaii but also really sent a message to the world - the wrong message to the world? And these kinds of things can result in unintentional military activations. And even, as we saw, during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, these kinds of things can lead to unintentional potential nuclear war.
MARTIN: Well, we - to that end, we cannot ignore the context. Part of the context of what would cause people to take this so seriously, to put it mildly, is that tensions have been building with North Korea, which is a nuclear power. And you've called on President Trump to open direct negotiations with that country. What would you like to see out of those negotiations?
GABBARD: Ultimately, we need to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula. We need to remove this nuclear threat from the people of Hawaii, the people of this country so that they no longer have to sit there and wonder if this alert coming through to their phone is real and where they have minutes to decide what they're going to do, which of their family members they're going to spend the last minute of their lives with.
This is the reality that people of Hawaii went through yesterday. And I've been hearing from people all across the state just sharing, you know, their tearful stories about what they did during those minutes, what ran through their mind - you know, parents who have kids going to school in Hawaii and being terrified about whether or not they would be safe.
MARTIN: That was Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii. Congresswoman, thanks so much for speaking with us. We really appreciate it.
GABBARD: Thank you. Aloha.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're returning now to that ongoing investigation into Russian efforts to influence U.S. elections and to determine whether the Trump campaign was somehow involved with those efforts. In just a few minutes, we're going to speak with BuzzFeed editor-in-chief Ben Smith. We're going to talk about why his outlet decided to publish a report on that subject, which was put together by a former British intelligence officer, when other news outlets would not because they couldn't independently verify the information in those reports.
But first, since this story has gone on so long and has taken so many turns, we thought it would be useful to try to gather up the threads of what we know so far and the latest developments. And for that, we turn to NPR's Tim Mak, who's been following all these stories. He's with us now.
Tim, thanks so much for joining us.
TIM MAK, BYLINE: Thank you for having me, Michel.
MARTIN: With so much news this week, we thought we would just go in chronological order and take these developments one-by-one, OK. So first, let's start with Dianne Feinstein, the California senator, releasing a transcript of an interview that her committee did with someone called Glenn Simpson. Now, who is Glenn Simpson? And why was her decision to release this transcript such a big deal?
MAK: OK, so Glenn Simpson is the founder of a private intelligence firm called Fusion GPS. And during the 2016 campaign, they were looking into any possible ties between Trump and Russia. As part of that, they decided to hire a former British spy called Christopher Steele to look into exactly what happened.
Those reports ended up becoming what we now call the Steele dossier, the Russia dossier - this very controversial set of notes that came from that investigation. And so the Senate Judiciary Committee, in August, had the Fusion GPS founder before their panel in order to investigate kind of what is the motive behind these notes - this dossier - especially since Republicans have argued that this dossier was funded by Democrats and the Hillary Clinton campaign and thus might be biased or have some sort of nefarious motive behind its original creation.
MARTIN: So why did Dianne Feinstein release it, and why was her decision to do so a big story?
MAK: She wanted to clarify what the Fusion GPS founder eventually did say in his testimony, which is we sent this former British spy out in order to just look into these connections. We didn't send him out to Russia in order to dig up dirt or scare the FBI into an investigation. That's what he eventually testified. And it kind of clarifies and undercuts a lot of what Republicans have been arguing about the entire dossier.
MARTIN: What did the Glenn Simpson transcripts say? What did we learn from it?
MAK: We learned that Fusion GPS was shocked when they found out what Mr. Steele eventually did report back from Russia. We're talking, at a particular time during the campaign, when there was no hint in the public realm that the Russian government was actively interfering with the election. That prompted Mr. Steele to end up going to the FBI. And we learned a lot about this early period when the FBI was just starting its investigation into possible Trump-Russia ties.
MARTIN: So that was Tuesday. Then, on Wednesday, the president gave a press conference, and he was asked about whether he would be speaking with the special counsel investigating Russia - that's the former FBI Director Robert Mueller. What did he say?
MAK: Well, he wavered. In the past, he said, 100 percent, I'm going to meet with the special counsel. And now he says he's not so sure. He says that it probably won't even be necessary to meet with the special counsel because there's going to be no evidence of collusion.
MARTIN: And has the White House been cooperating with Robert Mueller in other ways?
MAK: Well, they say they have, but it's actually a very obscure process. The special counsel isn't talking to reporters. And all we have to base this off of is the White House's say-so. They say, hey, we've been providing documents, and we've been providing people who the special counsel wants to talk to. But it's very difficult to say whether or not they've been fully cooperative.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, what else are you going to be looking for? What other threads are you following as you continue to follow this story?
MAK: Well, there are a lot of interesting developments that are coming up next week. Steve Bannon - you'll remember him - he is going to be testifying before the House Intelligence Commitee. And Bannon's testimony isn't going to be public.
But you can bet that what he's going to be asked about, I'm sure, is a lot about his comments that were reported in a book that just came out - "Fire And Fury" - where he talked about the president's son meeting with Russians in Trump Tower and said that that was treasonous. Republicans are going to try to undercut his testimony this week. Democrats are going to try to tease out more from that thread.
MARTIN: That was NPR's Tim Mak. Tim, thank you.
MAK: Thanks for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We'd like to talk just a bit more about that dossier compiled by the former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, who was, as we just talked about, working for the American political research firm Fusion GPS. It's been a year since BuzzFeed made the controversial decision to publish it. To review, it's 35 pages long, and it contains eye-catching and occasionally salacious information, some still unverified. But taken together, it pointed to an effort by high-ranking officials in Russia to develop a relationship with the Trump campaign.
BuzzFeed's decision to publish the document raised concerns about journalistic ethics, and it sparked an angry reaction from then President-elect Trump. More recently, President Trump's personal lawyer has filed a defamation lawsuit against BuzzFeed. Last week, BuzzFeed's editor-in-chief, Ben Smith, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times defending the decision to publish it. And he's with us on the line now from New York. Ben Smith, thanks so much for being with us.
BEN SMITH: Thank you for having me on.
MARTIN: Let's talk about the substance and then we can sort of talk about what came after the repercussions thereof. You say that the most important thing about publishing this dossier is that it's helped people understand the actions of President Trump and his administration. How so?
SMITH: I would say not just President Trump and his administration but really of the entire American political-intelligence-journalistic elite over the last year. You know, this was - and that was true the day we published it. Harry Reid had written an open letter to Jim Comey that referred in sort of a coded way to the dossier. Senator John McCain had handed it over to the FBI. And the top intelligence officials in the country had briefed then-President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump on it. And all of these sort of actors were making decisions based on what they knew about this document. And at that point, you know, basically everyone other than the American people was in on this.
MARTIN: There are still parts of the dossier that have not, at least to this point, been verified independently, even after a year of reporting and investigation on this. But you still say that this indicates that this was kind of a blockbuster. I wanted to know if you could amplify your thinking about that.
SMITH: Well, we were very clear at the time that the dossier had not been verified. And we did not present it as something that, you know, we had reported, although we had been working, as had many journalists, to stand up or knock down specific parts. Since then, elements of it have been corroborated - for instance, these disguised payments to Paul Manafort, who has been indicted. Other parts have not been corroborated. It is just very hard to imagine how you would understand what has happened politically in America, how you would understand just in the last couple of weeks, Senator Grassley and Senator Feinstein having this bitter battle over a closed intelligence hearing if you were not permitted to know the substance that they were fighting over.
MARTIN: And over the course of the year, as we said, apart from the lawsuit, what reaction have you got? Do you continue to get reaction?
SMITH: The overwhelming reaction from our audience has been to say that they don't understand why other media outlets didn't think that they could handle, that, you know, that the people who read us - students, lawyers, waiters, whatever profession you're in - that they would - that while we journalists could handle seeing a document that made shocking allegations that was unverified, we could hold those facts in our head, understand that these were allegations. I think people in our audience don't like the idea that other media outlets didn't trust them to weigh that and felt that they had to essentially conceal it from their audience for fear that it would perhaps scald their eyes out or something.
MARTIN: That's Ben Smith, editor-in-chief at BuzzFeed. The piece he wrote titled "I'm Proud We Published The Trump-Russia Dossier" was published in The New York Times on January 9. Ben Smith is joining us from New York. Thanks so much for speaking with us.
SMITH: Thank you for having me on.
(SOUNDBITE OF NEMIR'S "AILLEURS")
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
For the first time in decades, a primetime TV show will star a black superhero. "Black Lightning" is based on a DC Comics hero. It debuts Tuesday on The CW Network. NPR TV critic Eric Deggans says it's a show that brings social conscience, family drama and a little bit of swagger to the superhero world.
ERIC DEGGANS, BYLINE: "Black Lightning" just might be the first woke network TV superhero show. Cress Williams plays Jefferson Pierce, a former Olympian, high school principal and retired secret superhero. Here he's driving his daughters home after one of them was arrested during a protest-march-turned-violent. First, they argue over the issue by trading quotes from civil rights icons.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BLACK LIGHTNING")
CRESS WILLIAMS: (As Black Lightning) Returning violence for violence multiplies violence.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (As character) Dr. King. And I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired.
WILLIAMS: (As Black Lightning) Fannie Lou Hamer. But that is not the point I'm making.
(SOUNDBITE OF POLICE SIRENS)
DEGGANS: Then he's pulled over by police.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BLACK LIGHTNING")
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (As character) Get out.
WILLIAMS: (As Black Lightning) OK. Look. This is getting out of hand. Now, this is the third time this month...
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (As character) Hey.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: (As character) What are you doing?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: (As character) Get your hands off my dad.
DEGGANS: Handcuffed in the rain, Pierce challenges the idea that he looked like a robbery suspect.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BLACK LIGHTNING")
WILLIAMS: (As Black Lightning) And I'm sure the description is what, a black man dressed in a suit and tie, getaway car - a mid-size Volvo wagon?
(SOUNDBITE OF ELECTRICITY CRACKLING)
DEGGANS: That's sizzling sound you hear is Pierce's power, the ability to generate blasts of electricity, building up as he struggles to suppress his anger. It's an ongoing theme of "Black Lightning," a strong, principled man of color constantly under pressure. He promised his ex-wife years ago he would stop using his powers and stay safe, but rising gang violence in his neighborhood pushes him to tell her he must put on the costume and take out the bad guys as Black Lightning.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BLACK LIGHTNING")
WILLIAMS: (As Black Lightning) Do you remember what you said when we discovered my powers? You said it was a gift. It's still a gift, and I intend to use it.
DEGGANS: It's a superheroic version of the pressures and choices black people face everyday. Executive producer Salim Akil based the traffic stop scene on an incident he experienced himself. Speaking from the show's set in Atlanta, Akil says the program will juggle several distinct storylines, including Pierce's daughters beginning to display their own superpowers.
SALIM AKIL: We're going to get into the proliferation of drugs. We're going to get into who, what and why those drugs are in our community. We're going to also get into, how do you raise or help your children who have special abilities?
DEGGANS: "Black Lightning" answers the question many comic book fans have asked over the years. In a universe where superheroes save the world daily, why don't any of them stop by the hood and tackle crime there? Other superhero shows on The CW feature non-white characters in key roles, but this is their first superhero series centered on black people and black culture. Pierce fights gang members in a fictional town named Freeland, a mostly-black community isolated from the interconnected worlds of "Arrow," "The Flash" and "Supergirl."
There's lots of Isaac Hayes and Isley Brothers songs in the show's soundtrack, evidence that the networks bet money to make the show sparkle. The show's crime boss villain, Tobias Whale, is a black man who is also an albino played by Marvin Jones III, a rapper and musician with albinism. Jones says the character's albinism allows the show to talk about prejudice and stereotypes inside the black community as Tobias reacts to feeling like an outcast.
MARVIN JONES III: He is a black man with a deep-seated need for love and acceptance based off of his uniqueness inside and out. He kind of holds those things as grudges and motivation for what he is and what he does.
DEGGANS: It all adds up to a magnificently-layered universe that fans of superhero TV have rarely seen before, a place where a black superhero not only takes on criminals but the stereotypes and prejudice that divide us all. I'm Eric Deggans.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We are continuing to read and hear painful accounts of sexual abuse and harassment in all kinds of workplaces and situations, including religious institutions. And while the Catholic Church scandals have been well-reported, other denominations are also struggling to deal with misconduct by clergy. So we're going to turn now to a recent story in the news involving a woman named Jules Woodson, who says she was inspired by the Me Too movement to come out publicly about a sexual assault she says occurred 20 years ago. She said that Andy Savage, now a pastor at a megachurch in Memphis, Tenn., sexually assaulted her when she was 17 years old and he was a 22-year-old youth minister. And in a message to his Tennessee congregation last Sunday, Savage apologized for the, quote, "sexual incident" and said he regrets the pain he caused her. He asked for forgiveness, and he received a standing ovation that was livestreamed on the church's website.
On Thursday, the church suspended Pastor Savage while they conduct an investigation, saying in a statement that the church supports him as a leader of the church. As you can imagine, this has sparked reflection from people who think deeply about religion and religious institutions. Reverend Serene Jones is one of those people. She's president of the Union Theological Seminary in New York City. We reached her via Skype. Reverend Jones, thanks so much for speaking with us.
SERENE JONES: Yes, thank you for having me on today.
MARTIN: Now, I haven't heard recently from the woman who made her story public, but previously, she said the apology isn't enough. The church where Savage a pastor initially said it was enough for them, but they've now put out a statement saying, while they still believe in Pastor Savage, they're placing him on a leave of absence. What do you make of their reaction?
JONES: Well, I was glad to hear that today that the church did take action. That's entirely appropriate, and more churches should follow suit. It will be interesting to see what taking action means. It seems prefacing their position with the statement we believe him, I'm not sure what that means. But what is clear to me, and perhaps his congregation is seeing this as well, the mere act of confession, the mere act of standing in front of a group of people and saying I confess that I did something horrible has never in the history of churches or in the Christian tradition in and of itself been enough.
Confession, if harms have been perpetrated, needs to be followed immediately by a whole series of acts of repentance which attempt to address the harm that's been done in such a way that redress is sought. Last week, it appeared from Savage's statement that he had never even attempted to have a conversation with Jules prior to his surprise confession and that really, healing the harms done to her, the serious harms - time in which they were committed, the illegal acts that took place against her have never been directly addressed.
MARTIN: One of the things about this particular story that has caused a lot of attention is that it seems to have sparked quite a lot of reaction from other clergy and some very searing commentaries, and frankly, yours was one of them. And I was wondering what what made you feel you needed to write those words?
JONES: Well, as the Me Too movement grows and as we've once again seen, as we have several times in the past 30 years in this country, a move for women to come forward and speak about the sexual violence perpetrated against them, we are reminded that, in fact, underneath this long history of harm has stood a church that time and again has supported and protected clergy who have used their very sacred powers, the trust that's put in them by their congregations, as a cover for abuse. And we're seeing that once again in this instance. In the statement, I say, I hope that we don't just cover it over it and go on as we have but the church has a long history of doing so.
MARTIN: And forgive me for asking, but I read in your words that perhaps you have yourself had an experience of this?
JONES: Yes. I haven't experienced clergy sexual abuse, but I was raped in high school. And in college, I was sexually assaulted. And dealing with both of those, neither of which received any kind of redress at the time, has been an ongoing part of my own struggle to find voice and to come to grips with a church that has supported this kind of action.
MARTIN: And when you say that the church has supported this kind of action, what do you mean? Are you saying that you believe that the church has, in fact - what? - sided with the predators? Is that your view?
JONES: Yes. In fact, I think the church has not only sided with the predators, but oftentimes the theology that's taught in churches promotes the view that women should be submissive to men, meaning also that women, regardless of their age or their place, should be submissive to men's desires. And this all too often leads to abuse. And it's embedded in the theology.
MARTIN: That's the Reverend Serene Jones. She's president of Union Theological Seminary, that is in New York. We reached her via Skype. Reverend Jones, thank you so much for speaking with us.
JONES: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
This week President Trump will be marking his first year in the White House. Since he took the oath of office, he's been dogged by questions about his hundreds of businesses and conflicts of interest, and that has created a lot of work in Washington for investigators, journalists and one particular Washington attorney who has made a career of suing federal officials. NPR's Peter Overby has this profile.
PETER OVERBY, BYLINE: When I met Jeffrey Lovitky last year, he had just sued President Trump. He was feeling a bit daunted.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
JEFFREY LOVITKY: It is intimidating. I am intimidated. I mean, I would rather not be doing this.
OVERBY: Lovitky's lawsuit took aim at a detail in Trump's 2017 personal financial disclosure. The disclosure form calls for a list of personal debts. Lovitky's lawsuit said Trump included corporate debts on the list, distorting what was being disclosed. Consider Deutsche Bank. Trump owes it more than $130 million. Lovitky said it matters if that debt is personal or corporate.
LOVITKY: If the president is personally liable to Deutsche Bank, Deutsche Bank has a tremendous amount of leverage over the president because every asset of the president could be attached by Deutsche Bank.
OVERBY: And now those loans from Deutsche Bank are reported to be of interest to Russia probe special counsel Robert Mueller. The bank has declined to answer these questions. Lovitky last month filed a second lawsuit against Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner. Lovitky said that in Kushner's disclosure, information is incomplete or missing for 32 companies. This could raise the possibility of hidden conflicts of interest.
LOVITKY: We don't know which types of companies they had a financial interest in, which in turn could affect how they perform their official duties.
OVERBY: The White House calls the lawsuit frivolous. A spokesperson said Kushner's disclosure was certified by the Office of Government Ethics. Lovitky said that's a problem, too.
LOVITKY: I don't believe that either Ivanka Trump or Jared Kushner should receive a pass for this. And that's exactly what happened.
OVERBY: Both lawsuits could rise or fall on the question of legal standing. Justice Department lawyers have already challenged Lovitky's standing to sue Trump. Basically, have the disclosure problems hurt Jeffrey Lovitky, and can the lawsuit fix it?
LOUIS CLARK: It's a tall order to establish standing.
OVERBY: Louis Clark is CEO of the Government Accountability Project, a Washington-based nonprofit that helps whistleblowers. He said if Lovitky gets past the standing issue, things will get more serious.
CLARK: For that kind of challenge to be successful, you're really going to need some legal heft. I would hope that he would reach out and accept help from others who see the importance of what he's trying to do.
OVERBY: But at least so far, Lovitky stands alone in what he sees as a mission.
LOVITKY: This is something that was not planned.
OVERBY: He talked about duty - he was once an Army lawyer - and his career as a D.C. attorney.
LOVITKY: My entire legal background is essentially litigation against U.S. government officials. That's what I have done. So it's I guess my duty, my obligation to do it.
OVERBY: He's waiting for a judge's decision on standing in the first case and for the government's initial move in the second case. Peter Overby, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Tomorrow New Jersey gets a new governor, Democrat Phil Murphy. That means Chris Christie will finally leave office. Christie, a Republican, served for term-limited eight years in the majority blue state. And he spent a lot of time in the national spotlight building a reputation as a tell-it-like-it-is politician who wanted to be president until Donald Trump stole his brand. Nancy Solomon of member station WNYC has followed Christie since his days as a federal prosecutor fighting corruption, and she has this look back.
NANCY SOLOMON, BYLINE: Chris Christie was loved for speaking unlike any politician in the country. There was his warning when a hurricane was approaching.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHRIS CHRISTIE: Get the hell off the beach in Asbury Park and get out. You're done. It's 4:30. You've maximized your tan. Get off the beach.
SOLOMON: And he was hated for speaking unlike any politician in the country.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHRISTIE: You want to have the conversation later? I'm happy to have it, buddy. But until that time sit down and shut up.
SOLOMON: But he was never boring. In Christie's first year, a YouTube video of a press conference went viral when a columnist asked if the governor's confrontational tone might hamper his ability to get bills passed.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
CHRISTIE: You must be the thinnest-skinned guy in America because - you think that's a confrontational tone? Then, you know, you should really see me when I'm pissed.
(LAUGHTER)
SOLOMON: Also that year, Christie made the first of more than 40 trips to Iowa over both terms. These two things - his YouTube moments that went viral and his presidential ambitions - turned out to be the defining features of his eight years as governor. Christie doubled the budget of his communications staff and deftly used video clips from town hall meetings to build his national profile.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDINGS)
CHRISTIE: If what you want to do is put on a show and giggle every time I talk, well, then I have no interest in answering your question.
I got sent here to do a job. I didn't get sent here to be elected prom king.
I have something better to do. I have to rearrange my sock drawer tonight.
SOLOMON: Christie became a rising star in the national Republican Party, considered for the job of running mate to Mitt Romney, chairing the Republican Governors Association, and a regular on cable news and late-night TV. Then came Hurricane Sandy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHRISTIE: Good morning. I know that many people in our state woke up today to absolute devastation.
SOLOMON: Wearing a blue fleece, he was omnipresent in the weeks that followed, touring the destruction, hugging homeowners and giving daily press briefings.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHRISTIE: I'll first say to all of you, especially those out there who are facing loss, devastation and the heartbreaking reality that your home may be gone, we are with you.
SOLOMON: Romney lost the presidential election a week later. And with approval ratings soaring, Christie saw his own path to the presidency. Patrick Murray of the Monmouth University Polling Institute says Christie wanted a landslide re-election in 2013 that would prove he was a big-tent Republican who could win over Democrats.
PATRICK MURRAY: But in order to do that, his campaign had to really use some very nasty tactics to twist arms to get Democrats to support him.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The GW bridge is totally gridlocked.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Ten-four. We're getting calls from irate motorists.
MURRAY: And that's where Bridgegate came from, but by doing that ended up being the source of his downfall once it became revealed what kind of tactics they were using.
SOLOMON: Three top staffers would be convicted of causing a week-long traffic jam to punish a Democratic mayor for not endorsing Christie's re-election. Even though he was never charged with a crime, his image as a man who was above politics was destroyed. Yet polls showed it was Christie's inattention to governing - he spent 261 days out of state in 2015 - that really bothered New Jerseyans.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Listen because he's going say something that I think you'll find very, very interesting.
SOLOMON: Then his approval ratings took another hit.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHRISTIE: Good morning, everybody. Thank you for being here. I am proud to be here to endorse Donald Trump for president of the United States.
SOLOMON: Patrick Murray, the pollster, says Christie's constituents started to feel that he was treating them and his job as governor with contempt.
MURRAY: And people continue to say this is a guy who is still looking for an out, still looking for, you know, a place in the Trump administration or some other way to get out of New Jersey.
SOLOMON: The low point hit this past Fourth of July weekend. During a low-stakes standoff that nevertheless led to the shutdown of state government, Christie was photographed spending a day at the beach with his family, a completely empty state beach that was closed to everyone else because of the shutdown. His approval rating sunk to the mid-teens and never recovered. In his final speech as governor last week, he made his case for his legacy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHRISTIE: This - all of this - is due to our efforts, not bowing to political correctness, not worrying about being loved today.
SOLOMON: Christie hasn't said what he'll do next. But after watching him for 15 years, it's hard to imagine a Chris Christie who isn't involved in politics. For NPR News, I'm Nancy Solomon.
(SOUNDBITE OF NYM'S "REDWOOD")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Can something as simple as saying I'm sorry stop a war in the Middle East? That is the premise of a new film called "The Insult." It's from Lebanon, and it's up for an Oscar. And in the film, a neighborhood fight between two men pushes the city of Beirut to the edge of chaos. NPR's Bilal Qureshi has more.
BILAL QURESHI, BYLINE: Filmmaker Ziad Doueiri was at his home in Beirut a few years ago. He was watering his plants on the balcony when the water spilled out onto a construction worker below.
ZIAD DOUEIRI: So I leaned on the balcony. I yelled at him. He yelled back. He says, you're a dog. And then this thing led to a bigger insult which - I threw an insult at him. Joelle, the co-screenwriter, was standing behind me that day. And she says, how could you insult a Palestinian as you said? This is so bad what you just said. I said, you're right. So I came down to apologize. And then the guy refused my apology because he was very hurt.
QURESHI: That argument is pushed to its extreme in Ziad Doueiri's new film, "The Insult." Water leaks off a Christian man's balcony onto a Palestinian worker. Arguments ensue. Insults are thrown.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE INSULT")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character, foreign language spoken).
QURESHI: Neither man is willing to apologize.
DOUEIRI: It's very rare in my culture where you can have somebody who does something and he comes face to face, says, look; I really apologize. It's not part of our culture, so that's why this guy in the film, he wants an apology. All he wants is an apology. And then later we start finding out why.
QURESHI: The why has to do with Lebanon's past, the religious and ethnic divisions that tore the country into warring factions. From 1975 to 1990, the Lebanese civil war killed more than a hundred thousand people.
DOUEIRI: Lebanon, in spite of its smallness - it's only 4 million people - it's still extremely rich because it's one of those places that has all the religion in it. You have Christians, Shiites, Sunni, Catholics, Protestant, Armenian, Turks - all of it. You know, you have 16 religion that are all recognized by the government. It's what made it diversified, complex and fiery.
QURESHI: And it remains flammable, says Lebanese journalist Nana Asfour. She says what has kept those communities together since the civil war is only a shaky peace.
NANA ASFOUR: The theme that Ziad is taking on, which is this whole idea that the war ended abruptly without any national conciliation, is something that a lot of Lebanese filmmakers and artists and writers of his generation have been sort of pushing for in their own works, that idea that there's been what they call a historical amnesia that has happened in Lebanon where everybody's thinks, oh, let's just look forward and not look back. All the problems that led to the war have not been dealt with appropriately, and anything can happen to bring them back.
QURESHI: In "The Insult," the argument over leaking water goes to court.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE INSULT")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character, foreign language spoken).
QURESHI: The proceedings go viral. Palestinians and Christians start fighting on the streets of Beirut. The politics on screen are still so sensitive that Ziad Doueiri's previous film was banned in the Arab world. It was called "The Attack," and it was about the Arab citizens of Israel. Doueiri filmed part of the story in Israel, which is against Lebanese law. He says artists have to be free to explore other points of view.
DOUEIRI: I grew up all my life considering the other side as the ultimate enemy. But I am still curious. I want to know, who are those people? I am for dialogue. I am for bridging gaps. This is what we do for a living. Crossing borders is what we do for a living just to see, what is their narrative, those people you grew up all your life hating so much? But they must have a point of view. "The Insult" is the response to that.
QURESHI: Now "The Insult" is also facing protests led by the BDS movement, which calls for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel. They've accused Doueiri of being pro-Israeli and of selling out. After "The Insult" premiered at the Venice Film Festival last fall, Ziad Doueiri was detained at the Beirut airport. The film's screening in the West Bank was canceled.
DOUEIRI: The BDS' purpose is - what? - defend Palestine. When you go and you forbid a film where the main actor, a Palestinian guy, won best award at Venice Film Festival, first time in history that a Palestinian actor went in Venice or anywhere else in the world - first time - when the BDS, who are supposed to be protecting Palestinian rights, stop this Palestinian actor to present his movies in Ramallah, basically you're screwing yourself in the head. That's why I will fight them till the end, till the core.
QURESHI: Ziad Doueiri says he won't apologize. And given the firestorm around his work, he was shocked that Lebanon chose "The Insult" as its entry to this year's Oscars.
DOUEIRI: That was my award. I already got my award. Nobody believed that it would happen. I mean, Lebanon does take you by surprise from time to time.
QURESHI: And Doueiri says his movies take him by surprise, too. His default setting is angry and cynical. He's been known to throw insults. But he says it's through his films that he calms down.
DOUEIRI: In my film, I try to tap into the moderate part of me. Otherwise you lose your mind. But if you let me out there, I can be a lot angrier. If you hear what I really think, I would be the subject of a different interview. I mean...
QURESHI: So your films play a moderating...
DOUEIRI: In myself. It's - you project. You say, oh, it would be good to have a world like this.
QURESHI: And Ziad Doueiri says his films are his way of healing the scars that still divide Beirut and his way of pouring water over the insults that inflame so easily. Bilal Qureshi, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
A computer programmer who allegedly hacked into thousands of computers, activating webcams and microphones, has been indicted in Ohio. Authorities say the hacker started as a teenager, infecting computers with malware. And then for years he watched and listened in on people who had no idea it was happening. NPR's Laura Sydell has more.
LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE: The malware was discovered last year on computers at Case Western Reserve University, and it was brought to the attention of the FBI. Two security researchers also independently uncovered the virus. One of them is Patrick Wardle. Here's what he found.
PATRICK WARDLE: It has the ability to listen to people's conversations, turn on the webcam, take screen captures, record keystrokes. Pretty much it's almost in some ways a complete surveillance device.
SYDELL: A complete and total 24/7 surveillance device. For over 13 years, this hacker allegedly spied on his Ohio neighbors and around the country. The malware is called Fruitfly because they initially found it on computers in medical labs where they were studying fruit flies. But Wardle's research took him down a much darker path. The hacker allegedly had broken into American homes.
WARDLE: He could detect when the user was not sitting in front of their computer and then turn the webcam on to hopefully record or spy on the user perhaps as they're walking around their bedroom or, you know, something in that capacity.
SYDELL: The alleged hacker is 28-year-old Phillip Durachinsky. He was indicted on 16 criminal counts in federal court in Ohio. Among the charges is the production of child pornography. Prosecutors would not speak with NPR about an ongoing case. The indictment indicates that Durachinsky used the computers to store pornographic images and to transmit them over the Internet.
To help power and spread his operation, he infected computers in schools, companies, a subsidiary of the U.S. Department of Energy and a police department. Thomas Reed works with Malwarebytes, an anti-virus software maker. He's one of the researchers who found the virus. He says the code in Fruitfly was old, going back to the 1990s.
THOMAS REED: We were surprised to see that it was - you know, one, that it had been undetected for so long, and, two, that we found it still active on somebody's computer.
SYDELL: Reed says Fruitfly was found on Macs and PCs. But the Mac intrusion surprised him. Because there are more PCs in the world, most hackers don't bother with Macs. That means there isn't as much anti-virus software or fear about viruses among Mac users.
REED: And as much as people like to say that Macs don't get viruses, there actually is malware out there for Macs.
SYDELL: In fact, Reed claims there was a 270 percent increase last year in malware for Macs. Apple has not confirmed that figure. But there is a reason that Reed thinks the virus went undetected for so long. It was only targeted at thousands of computers, not hundreds of thousands or millions. In the world of malware, that's not a lot.
REED: If stuff like this is used in a very targeted manner - so it's only being used to affect a small number of people - it can be really hard for security researchers to find it. And we may never know about it for years.
SYDELL: Reed says that means there may be other spyware out there similar to Fruitfly that hasn't been found. However, the FBI says it has not seen a lot of spyware cases like this. It isn't clear how these computers got infected. Reed says users might have opened an infected email or downloaded something from a website.
The best protections against spyware are rather analog. One way is to cover the camera on your computer. That's what the pope does - same with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and former FBI Director James Comey. Reed advises everyone to do the same and to turn off the computer when you are not in front of it, and use the latest anti-virus software. Laura Sydell, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF LA ORQUESTA VULGAR'S "FANTOCHE A LA REALIDAD")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Absolutely unacceptable - those were the words from Ajit Pai, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission. He was talking about the false alert sent out over radio, TV and cellphones in Hawaii over the weekend warning of an incoming ballistic missile. Pai says a full investigation is already underway. In a moment we'll hear more about how the emergency alert system is supposed to work and how it could be improved - first, NPR's Colin Dwyer on what happened on Saturday.
COLIN DWYER, BYLINE: The alert itself didn't last long. It took maybe 20 seconds for the warning to loop around. Officials say someone just pressed a wrong button. And this brief message which spread panic across Hawaii took nearly 40 minutes to correct.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
VERN MIYAGI: I accept responsibility for this. This is my team. We made a mistake.
DWYER: That's Vern Miyagi, the administrator of Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency. After the incident, he told reporters that one of the big problems was that they had been practicing how to send warnings. But canceling those warnings when there was a mistake - not so much.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MIYAGI: Our focus has been getting the notification out to the public. One thing that we have to work on more is the cancellation notice in this event.
DWYER: They had to manually cancel the false alarm on Saturday. Now Miyagi says they have established an automatic way to cancel such mistakes, which is a crucial point to keep in mind especially given recent nuclear tensions between the U.S. and North Korea. Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard spoke to CNN about the scare.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TULSI GABBARD: It's not just the president making a decision to launch a nuclear weapon. It's these kinds of mistakes that we have seen happen in the past that bring us to this brink of nuclear war.
DWYER: Had there been an actual threat, a combination of satellites, radar installations and warships would have been mobilized to track and potentially try to shoot down the missile. As it was, the U.S. Pacific Command quickly determined it was a false alarm. But similar scares did happen several times during the Cold War, including an incident in 1979 when American computers mistook a simulated Soviet attack for a real one.
Such memories are not the only Cold War artifact to resurface lately. Just last month, Hawaii tested its nuclear warning sirens for the first time in decades. Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told "Fox News Sunday" it is important people continue to take such warnings seriously.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FOX NEWS SUNDAY")
KIRSTJEN NIELSEN: We're working with state and locals to ensure not only that the messaging is clear but what to do next is clear as well.
DWYER: Colin Dwyer, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
So how is the emergency alert system supposed to work, and what sort of access should state and local governments have? For some answers to those questions, we called retired Admiral David Simpson. He's the former chief of the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, and he told us these kinds of alerts date to the 1950s when the country was seriously worried about a nuclear threat.
DAVID SIMPSON: We needed an ability to communicate rapidly that an attack was inbound. We knew we'd have 10 minutes or more. So the system was set up for the president to be able to make that voice communication and then have it relayed through broadcast - both television and radio. As time went on, it became clear that that mechanism had significant utility at the state and local level as well, particularly for natural disasters.
So the system evolved to have multiple alert originators in addition to the president, DOD and FEMA. And since the beginning, now it's not just broadcast. As cable came on, cable operators are part of the system. And now wireless companies are a part. And even roadsigns and some electronic billboards can receive these emergency alerts.
MCEVERS: You know, it was 38 minutes before phones in Hawaii received a correction alert. Why isn't there a quicker way to do that?
SIMPSON: Well, there is a quicker way. The ability to lower that readiness state is really a function that rests within FEMA.
MCEVERS: You're saying a federal agency could have pretty quickly sent out a message saying false alarm; this is a mistake.
SIMPSON: I believe FEMA has the specific responsibility to communicate with DOD, get DOD's attack assessment. Is this a real attack or not? You wouldn't want the false false alarm if in fact there really were attack indications. So that is why the all-clear should come from the higher-level governmental entity.
MCEVERS: Should it be harder to send out an alert like this? You know, Hawaii says it has put in place a two-person verification rule. Is that a good idea, but - or should there be more restrictions?
SIMPSON: It should be harder. In fact I think - and I'm hopeful that in addition to the FCC's investigation, that there is a DOD-DHS-led investigation on exactly who should have the ability to communicate a ballistic missile launch warning. The states have no organic ability to determine whether or not a missile is inbound. They don't have radars. They don't have satellite systems. They don't have seismic indicators. All of those sensor capabilities reside within the Department of Defense.
And we have systems that we've spent tens of billions of dollars on to ensure that we can communicate in the darkest hour from DOD and DHS to the public. So I'm hopeful that DOD and DHS will investigate whether or not states should be sending ballistic missile warning.
MCEVERS: One other thing people have criticized about this alert was that it didn't provide any instructions about where to go or what to do. Should the alerts be longer and, you know - or should they include links to more information?
SIMPSON: They should. And at the FCC, it became very clear to us that 90 characters, which is what the wireless system was constrained to, didn't make any sense at all in a day where even tweets are longer than 90 characters. So we passed a rule that outlined a timeline by which the wireless carriers needed to be able to support 360 characters and support the inclusion of embedded hyperlinks so that a warning can go out with a link to more specific instructions on what to do, maybe a picture of an evacuation route.
So that was passed, but then the wireless carriers immediately issued a petition for reconsideration and essentially delayed action on it until the FCC took it up again in November of last year and denied the petition for reconsideration, essentially putting the rule into effect that will expand the character limit and include hyperlinks.
MCEVERS: Retired Admiral David Simpson, former chief of the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau - we reached him on Skype. Thank you so much.
SIMPSON: Thank you, Kelly.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Seven years ago this week, Tunisia's dictator fled the country. That's how the so-called Arab Spring started. Pro-democracy protests spread across the Middle East after that. Many of those movements ended up in conflict or chaos. Tunisia formed a democracy. In recent days, though, there have been violent protests across Tunisia because of the poor economy, and also anniversary celebrations. NPR's Ruth Sherlock reports from the capital, Tunis.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Singing in foreign language).
RUTH SHERLOCK, BYLINE: In downtown Tunis, on the wide, tree-lined Habib Bourguiba Avenue, thousands gathered to mark the anniversary of the day Tunisians forced their dictator, President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, from power. On one part of the street, followers of the religiously conservative Ennahda political party chant and play songs from the revolution. The women wear headscarves.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: (Singing in foreign language).
SHERLOCK: But beside them, liberals celebrate their way. A scantily clad bellydancer moves sensually to French pop music on stage. And these liberals and conservatives seem to revel in their differences. They laugh and yell insults as they pass each other. The one thing everyone does agree on is that freedom of expression is the main reward of the 2011 revolution. Here's how Chehab Bendala, a factory worker at the anniversary celebrations over the weekend, puts it.
What changed in your life before and after the revolution?
CHEHAB BENDALA: Hurriyah, freedom. Yes. Now I have liberty to speak to anyone and anywhere.
SHERLOCK: Tunisia's revolution in 2011 set the stage for the Arab Spring. And of all the countries in the Middle East that tried to throw off their dictators, Tunisia has fared the best. It's not succumbed to wars like in Syria, Yemen or Libya, or a strongman-style president like in Egypt. But its democracy is fragile. Meherzia Labidi, a leading female member of Parliament, reflects on this at her office. Tunisia has already gone through nine governments since the revolution seven years ago. She says they've all failed to give Tunisians, especially young Tunisians, what they're asking for - a better economy.
MEHERZIA LABIDI: The government, one after the other, have not answered the expectations of Tunisian youth. This is really the failure. This is where we failed as politician.
SHERLOCK: That failure has plunged Tunisia into crisis. The government is struggling to pay off an International Monetary Fund loan and has imposed austerity measures that have shrunk the public sector. But that means fewer jobs at a time when unemployment is at 15 percent.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in foreign language).
SHERLOCK: Anger and resentment have boiled over into mass demonstrations the last week, some of them violent. Some 800 people have been arrested. All this has given rise to a new movement led by young people whose name translates in English to, what are we waiting for? It's only a few weeks old, but it seems to be having an impact. Nawra Douzi, a spokeswoman, was at the anniversary celebrations. She's just 21 and wears a T-shirt with her group's slogan on the front and a checked keffiyeh scarf. I ask how she defines the austerity measures.
NAWRA DOUZI: Well, when you have to be starving and poor enough to - in order to let the state have more money and the government have a lot of money. Yeah. Classic.
SHERLOCK: The movement isn't calling to overthrow the government at this stage, she says. But young people have to have a future in Tunisia, she warns, otherwise the government risks the very future of the country itself. Ruth Sherlock, NPR News, Tunis.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt, ISIS has declared war on another extremist group, Hamas. In a video, ISIS militants called on their followers to bomb Hamas locations. And then the video ends with the execution of an alleged Hamas operator. To help us understand what's happening and why, we are joined by Tareq Baconi. He is a visiting scholar at Columbia University's Middle East Institute and the author of the forthcoming book "Hamas Contained." Welcome.
TAREQ BACONI: Thank you for having me.
MCEVERS: So the United States considers both ISIS and Hamas to be terrorist groups, but these two are obviously not allies. How do you explain the animosity between them?
BACONI: Well, you're absolutely right. The two are not allies in the least. And actually, both ISIS and Hamas are vastly different organizations, that to even put them together as extremist organizations might overlook a lot of the differences that the two movements have. So for ISIS, ISIS is a transnational terror network that has this vision of recreating the Islamic caliphate, of imposing Sharia law. And it has an ideology that's based on fighting what it views as Western hegemony by carrying out sensationalist terrorist attacks all over the world. Hamas, on the other hand, is a national liberation movement that is...
MCEVERS: Right.
BACONI: ...Tethered to a very specific geographic context and that is focused on a very clear political goal, which is ending an occupation that's deemed illegal by international law.
MCEVERS: Well, what is it that they're competing for?
BACONI: So it's not necessarily that they are competing. They're working towards different goals entirely. ISIS is looking to, as I said, recreate an Islamic caliphate. So it looks that Hamas as an apostate movement. It doesn't view Hamas even as an Islamic movement. There are specific reasons that ISIS has for this particular attack.
First, it's said that it's fighting Hamas because Hamas is imprisoning its own members within the Gaza Strip. It says that it's fighting Hamas because Hamas has failed to stop President Trump from declaring Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. And it's fighting Hamas because it says Hamas is being supported by Iran, which is obviously a Shia power and seen by ISIS as an apostate government, not as Muslims.
MCEVERS: Right. So how far could this escalate? I mean, could these two groups actually go to war with each other? And if they did, what would that mean for the region?
BACONI: Well, I think that would be unlikely. I think it's important to know that even though this is a declaration of war that happened recently, the relationship between ISIS and Hamas has been very complex since 2007 when Hamas came to power in the Gaza Strip. So this is just the latest of quite a violent relationship that the two organizations have had. Hamas has since 2009 had a very repressive approach towards any form of Salafi jihadist movements in Gaza. So even as recently as last summer, there was a suicide bombing attack by ISIS against Hamas' military wing in the Gaza Strip. So what we're seeing now isn't much of a new development.
One thing I would say is that Hamas militarily isn't necessarily that threatened by ISIS in Gaza. There's maybe a handful of people, maybe tens of individuals in Gaza that declared themselves to be Salafis jihadists. The situation is slightly different in the Sinai Peninsula where ISIS is a very volatile, very violent presence. And it's going to continue focusing on Egyptian targets. It's going to carry out violent attacks of the likes of the horrific attack that happened against a Sufi mosque in November. And it's going to try to carry out large-scale attacks to shift the defeat it's facing in Syria and Iraq.
MCEVERS: Tareq Baconi is a visiting scholar at Columbia University's Middle East Institute. Thank you very much.
BACONI: Thank you for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF HOT SUGAR'S "#MINDCONTROL")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The lead singer of the Irish rock band The Cranberries died today. Dolores O'Riordan's smooth but powerful voice became known around the world after her band's success with songs like "Linger" and "Zombie."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ZOMBIE")
DOLORES O'RIORDAN: (Singing) In your head, in your head, they are dying - in your head, in your head, zombie, zombie, zombie. What's in your head?
MCEVERS: O'Riordan died suddenly today at the age of 46. We don't have many details about her death, so we want to talk about her life. To do that, we are joined by Ronan McGreevy of The Irish Times. Welcome.
RONAN MCGREEVY: Good afternoon, Kelly.
MCEVERS: Thanks for being here. How popular was Dolores O'Riordan and The Cranberries, especially in Ireland in the '90s when they were so popular around the world?
MCGREEVY: Well, they were the biggest Irish band after U2 really. They came out of nowhere (inaudible). They came out of the city of Limerick in the west of Ireland. You know, but they - their success could never have been predicted. But they had huge songs. And so the - "Linger" was one of them, probably of all time, with a couple of albums as well that were massive around the world. They - no need to argue (unintelligible). They were probably the biggest Irish band of the 1990s.
MCEVERS: Right. And O'Riordan grew up in a big family in Limerick. She was the youngest of seven. She was actually known as the queen of Limerick. How did she become the lead singer of this band?
MCGREEVY: Well, they originally had a male lead singer. They tried to be a traditional rock back. And then somebody heard her sing in 1989 and said, would you like to audition for this band? And they changed their name to The Cranberries, and they also changed their sound to something that was much more mellow. And she turned out to be very good, very talented, I think it's fair to say - very unique voice, very unique take on things. And it's interesting. Nobody really predicted how big they would get (inaudible).
MCEVERS: Right. What's been the reaction today in Ireland to the news of her death?
MCGREEVY: Absolute shock. And she was only 46 years of age. She actually has, you know - she kind of disappeared off the scene for a long time, especially after there was (unintelligible) an incident with O'Riordan. But she came back last year. They released an album of acoustic covers of their own music. There was talk of a Cranberries - new Cranberries album. She was - she posted something on Facebook before Christmas saying that she was in great form and that she's looking forward to Christmas. And she wished all the Cranberries fans a happy new year.
But, you know, she's been dealt in recent years, I think (unintelligible) think it's mostly good. In fact, it starts with (unintelligible). I could say she before, Kelly - that she had been involved in (unintelligible) in 2014. She was hospitalized after that. She was bipolar, and she had paranoid delusions at that time. And she made no secret of the fact that she needed help for her mental difficulties. But unfortunately it's too late in the end.
MCEVERS: Ronan McGreevy of The Irish Times remembering Irish singer Dolores O'Riordan of The Cranberries. She passed away today at the age of 46. Thanks a lot. We appreciate it.
MCGREEVY: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LINGER")
O'RIORDAN: (Singing) But I'm in so deep. You know I'm such a fool for you. You got me wrapped around your finger. Do you have to let it linger? Do you have to? Do you have to? Do you have to let it linger?
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In Santa Barbara County, three people are still missing after last week's devastating mudslides. Twenty people were killed, and more than 70 homes were destroyed. And at this point, officials say they don't think there will be any more survivors. With us from member station KCLU is reporter Lance Orozco, who has been covering the disaster in Montecito, Calif. Hey, Lance.
LANCE OROZCO, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So I understand there are rescue teams out there still searching. What are they doing?
OROZCO: Well, there are, but what's happening has changed a little bit. It was a search and rescue mission for the last five and a half days, and now it's a search and recovery mission at this point. They're hoping - they're still hoping to find some of those missing four people. But at this point, they really don't expect to find them alive. They've been through the disaster zone multiple times, and it's at the point now where some of the search teams actually are being released. There's more than thousand - a thousand searchers still involved, but some of them are going to go home during the next day or so.
MCEVERS: You were out there today. What did you see?
OROZCO: Well, it's hard to even summarize it because you've got mountains of debris everywhere. You have boulders the size of cars. You've got - houses are literally filled with debris and mud. In fact, you look at them, and there's basically, like, big pieces of wood and mud and boulders just sticking out of the windows. And just as bad as Highway 101, which is the main coastal highway from Los Angeles to San Francisco, it could be days still before they're able to clear the mud and debris from that.
MCEVERS: There was a vigil for the victims in Santa Barbara last night. Tell us about some of the people who died.
OROZCO: Well, thousands of people gathered last night. It was really the first chance the community has had to get together since this disaster hit. And it really just struck all the way across the board. The dead range from 3 to 89 years old. And unfortunately, one of the missing still is only 2 years old. And it's just a little bit of - slice of everybody in the community - a popular retired teacher, a real estate agent, a doctor and his daughter, a landscaper.
One person, Josie Gower, who is - really popular person in the community; she was involved in every community event you could think of - she and her boyfriend were in the second story of their house when the disaster hit. And then unfortunately they came downstairs to see what all the noise was about. They were both swept away. And they found him covered up to his neck in mud. He was stuck, but he survived. And unfortunately, Josie did not. She was swept away, and she died.
MCEVERS: How many people are still under evacuation orders, and when will they get to go home?
OROZCO: That's a great question. At one point, there were 30,000 people affected by this. It's now down to about 10,000 people - basically all of Montecito, which is a little over 8,000 people and some neighboring areas as well. And the question of when they get to go home is a good one. It could be a week. It could be two because they have no power. They have no gas. They have no sewer. They have no water. And this is even for the homes that weren't damaged. And of course many homes were damaged. And the roads are narrow, mostly two-way roads in this area, and they're just a mess.
MCEVERS: And of course this all started actually with a fire in December. Can you just explain how that happened?
OROZCO: Yes. Well, I think listeners around the country are going to remember this because the Thomas Fire got a lot of attention at the time. It started December 4, and it burned actually all the way up until this last week. And it was ironically the flood - the water, the storm - that helped get it under control. But it started more than 35 miles away from Montecito, and it took 12 days to reach Montecito. And what happened is it burned all of the mountains right behind the community of Montecito as well as neighboring communities. And so when this storm hit last week, it basically just allowed the water to sweep right down off the mountains into the community.
MCEVERS: Reporter Lance Orozco, thank you so much.
OROZCO: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE SONG, "I WILL POSSESS YOUR HEART")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
And sometimes children's books tell you everything you need to know.
MATT DE LA PENA: (Reading) In the beginning, there is light and two wide-eyed figures standing near the foot of your bed. And the sound of their voices is love.
MCEVERS: That's Matt de la Pena reading from his new picture book. It's called "Love." It's filled with drawings of the good and the bad of everyday life. The book reminds us that if you're lucky, you know what love is before you can even say the word. It's around you all the time if you just pay attention.
DE LA PENA: (Reading) A cab driver plays love softly on his radio while you bounce in back with the bumps of the city. And everything smells new. And it smells like life. In a crowded concrete park, you toddle toward summer sprinklers while older kids skip rope and run up the slide. And soon you are running among them. And the echo of your laughter is love. On the night the fire alarm blares, you're pulled from sleep and whisked into the street where a quiet old lady is pointing to the sky. Stars shine long after they've flamed out, she tells you, and the shine they shine with is love. But it's not only stars that flame out, you discover. It's summers, too, and friendships and people.
MCEVERS: Author Matt de la Pena joined us with the book's illustrator, Loren Long. And I asked Matt how he got the idea for "Love."
DE LA PENA: Back last year there was so much divisiveness in the country. And I have a 3-and-a-half-year-old. And I would go into my daughter's room and read to her at night. And I was like, how do I as a parent - as a relatively new parent - how do I transition from the news, which I'm very affected by, to sitting with my daughter and explaining the world to her?
And so I thought, gosh, all I want is - I just want to read her a book about love. And I will tell you I wrote a number of drafts. And it was meant to be just a purely uplifting poem that I could read to my daughter. But there was something hollow about it. There was something that didn't ring true. And what I realized is I had failed to acknowledge any sense of adversity.
MCEVERS: Right.
DE LA PENA: So I had to go back in. And I had to be real. I had to be honest that there are going to be these things in life that are tough and that are dark. And that changed the poem dramatically.
MCEVERS: Wow. And then, I mean, to hear it is one thing - and it is very lovely - but to see these illustrations it is really just a whole other layer. And I want to try to describe them a little bit. I mean, there's - I feel like everyone is in this book, right? There are kids in headscarves. There's a kid in a wheelchair. There are brown kids, black parents, white uncles. You know, everyone is in this book. There's a little boy - looks like he's, like, hiding under a piano with his dog.
DE LA PENA: Yes.
MCEVERS: And you can see the parents - you know, the mother's upset. The dad's walking away. There's a drink on the piano. Like, there's a fallen lamp. Something bad has happened.
DE LA PENA: Yes.
MCEVERS: Right?
LOREN LONG: Right.
MCEVERS: And, well, explain that, Loren. Like, what were you trying to do with some of the illustrations?
LONG: When I get this manuscript it's just these words - but it's not only stars that flame out, you discover. It's summers, too, and friendships and people. And I'm reading this, and I'm thinking, I can go in so many different directions. One of my ideas was maybe I'll do like a Norman Rockwell type scene of a van - of children at the end of summer and they're moving away. There's a moving van. Another one would have been, like, maybe the death of a pet or perhaps the death of a loved one, maybe a grandmother.
But then I also thought, you know, I have divorce in my family. I have addiction in my family. And what I'm illustrating here is a domestic dispute. And if you're reading this book with a child from a wonderfully stable home, great. But that's a way of sharing empathy with that experience. And if you are that child under the piano, you exist in this book.
And what I'd love to point out really quick about this image - there's still a lot of love in this spread. That mother loves that child. That father even loves that child. And that - and he's of course comforted by his dog.
MCEVERS: I want to talk about the last image or one of the last images of the book - not the very last one - but the passage, and the face staring back in the bathroom mirror, this, too, is love. Of course, the image is just this close-up image of a girl looking right you. She has these beautiful brown eyes. Matt, what did you first think when you saw Loren's illustration?
DE LA PENA: Well, it blew me away. And we - this is when we talked about a lot when he was doing the sketches and stuff. And I was so excited for this. And we both agreed that this was one of the biggest moments in terms of the idea of the poem as a whole because, you know, I got to tell you, I go into a lot of schools as an author. And sometimes I'll go into a very wealthy school and they've had an author before, and they know how to do it. They're excited to bring me in.
But I also go into some underprivileged schools. And occasionally when I'll walk into their school a little boy or a girl will look up at me and say, hey, mister, why would you come here? In other words, they're saying, why are you wasting your time on us? And it breaks my heart. So I think this moment in the poem I wanted to just really, like, land on this truth that in order to go out into the world you have to first be able to turn to the mirror and find love in yourself no matter what race you are, no matter what socioeconomic level you're existing in.
So for me, this was a very important moment. But in another way - Loren and I talked about this, and he could talk about the art more specifically, but this child is also looking directly at the reader and daring you to look at - away. And it - he or she is basically saying, I dare you to ignore my existence.
LONG: Yeah. And for me, as the artist of this book, the reason I felt the big face would be impactful is that it's the only moment like that in this entire spread. You're seeing a lot of scenes and a lot of involved compositions. And when you turn this page, I wanted you to stop. So I like to think in terms of cinema. And if I was making a movie, what moments do I want the audience to slow down and think?
MCEVERS: Illustrator Loren Long and author Matt de la Pena, thanks so much to both of you.
DE LA PENA: What an honor. Thank you so much.
LONG: Absolutely. Thank you so much for having us.
(SOUNDBITE OF MICHAEL GIACCHINO'S "UP WITH END CREDITS")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Two top senators say they are not giving up on a bipartisan immigration deal even though President Trump says he doubts it will get done. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senator Dick Durbin are part of a small group of lawmakers who have been working to extend protections for hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children. And their deadline is coming soon.
Trump announced March 5 as the end of the Obama-era program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA. And in a moment, we'll talk to someone who's protected by the DACA program about what all this political uncertainty means for him. First, here's NPR's Scott Horsley.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Last week, President Trump torpedoed a tentative deal to help the beneficiaries of DACA. It was during that meeting that he reportedly used a vulgar slur to describe African countries. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham confronted the president during that meeting. And today, Graham told WIS Television Trump should not walk away from a bargain.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LINDSEY GRAHAM: Mr. President, close the deal. Eighty percent of Americans want to get the DACA kids a better life, and 80 percent of Americans want to secure our border and change a broken immigration system. It's going to take you, Mr. President, to get this done.
HORSLEY: Less than a week ago, Trump seemed eager to strike a deal. Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin was part of a group of about two dozen lawmakers who met with the president.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DICK DURBIN: If you'll remember our little Kumbaya moment, it was only last Tuesday when I sat next to the president and he said the following. You send me a bill, and I'll sign it. Remember?
HORSLEY: But just two days later, the president rejected the compromise that Graham and Durbin had painstakingly worked out, one that would have given permanent protection to DACA recipients in exchange for stepped-up border security and an end to the visa lottery that Trump dislikes. It was during that session that Trump reportedly unloaded on African countries with language that Durbin called vile, hate-filled and racist.
At first, the White House did not deny the president's remarks, and Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton, who was in the room, issued a carefully worded statement saying he didn't recall such comments. Cotton's memory sharpened by Sunday, though, when he offered a more definitive account to John Dickerson on CBS.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FACE THE NATION")
TOM COTTON: I did not hear derogatory comments about...
JOHN DICKERSON: But the sentiment...
COTTON: ...Individuals or persons, no.
DICKERSON: OK, so your - this sentiment is totally phony as well that is attributed to him.
COTTON: Yes.
HORSLEY: Fellow Republican Lindsey Graham appeared to pour cold water on Cotton's denial today. Graham told the Post and Courier newspaper, my memory hasn't evolved; I know what was said. Durbin is not backtracking either.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DURBIN: I know what happened. I stand behind every word that I said in terms of that meeting. I'm focused on one thing - not that meeting but on making sure that those who are being protected by DACA and eligible for the DREAM Act have a future in America. I'm focused on that full-time.
HORSLEY: On Twitter this afternoon, Trump argued deals can't get made when there is no trust. Speaking to reporters at his Florida golf club yesterday, Trump insisted if the DACA agreement fails, it's Durbin and the Democrats' fault.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We're ready, willing and able to make a deal on DACA. But I don't think the Democrats want to make a deal. And the folks from DACA should know the Democrats are the ones that aren't going to make a deal.
HORSLEY: But Durbin says he's heard from other Republicans who are eager to move forward. On this Martin Luther King holiday, he's urging them to act quickly.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DURBIN: This is the civil rights issue of our time. Silence is unacceptable. Stand up. Speak up if you believe that we need to have justice.
HORSLEY: Durbin would like to see an immigration deal by Friday in time to bundle it with must-pass spending legislation and avoid a government shutdown. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Now we're going to talk to someone who relies on the DACA program, Juan de la Rosa Diaz. His parents brought him to the U.S. from Mexico when he was 5 years old. And when my co-host Ari Shapiro first met him a year ago, he was a student at Virginia Tech. Now he's a college graduate and has a job at Virginia Tech in university admissions. We talked to him last September just after the president announced he would end the DACA program.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
JUAN DE LA ROSA DIAZ: I don't think that I feel like the full impact or the full brunt of this announcement yet. I think I just have to begin preparing for March 5 being the new deadline. And I think, like, six months from now, normalcy will be very different than what it is now.
MCEVERS: And Juan de la Rosa Diaz is with us now. Welcome to the show.
DIAZ: Oh, it's my pleasure.
MCEVERS: So I mean, it hasn't been quite six months since then, but we're wondering. What's it been like for you to watch people in Congress and people in the White House debating about this program - you know, this program that is pretty important to your life?
DIAZ: It's definitely stressful. I think that if I was uncertain of what the future was going to hold back in September, I would say rather than having a more clear picture of what the future holds, it's even more unclear now.
MCEVERS: Yeah. Can you tell us about your current status with the program, if you don't mind?
DIAZ: So after the interview, I did have a renewal that I sent in. So that was back in September. And I actually received my latest renewal at the beginning of November of last year. So I'm actually covered by my DACA status until November 2019 as of now.
MCEVERS: OK, so you've got two years basically. And this is how it works, right?
DIAZ: Yes.
MCEVERS: You have to get renewed every two years. So you were already in the process of doing that. What are you thinking about after November 2019? Like, how do you imagine that?
DIAZ: After November 2019, I've definitely thought about it a lot, especially in the immediate future - what I'm going to do. So right now, I'm in the admissions office at Virginia Tech, but I don't know - as much as I love the admissions world - if that's going to be a possibility in November of 2019. Especially Virginia Tech being a public institution, trying to be in accordance with the federal laws, I don't know if I'll still be at Virginia Tech.
So at this point, the one sort of fallback plan that I've always had was - I've always talked about going to graduate school. And if I don't have the ability to work, I think graduate school would be the thing that I would try to do immediately after losing my status.
MCEVERS: So you know other DACA students. What are you hearing from them?
DIAZ: A lot of students are out there. A lot of DACA recipients are out there, involved and trying to make a change with the DACA advocacy that's going on in Washington, D.C., right now. But in a lot of ways, a lot of other DACA recipients are just trying to survive.
And I have the good fortune of having my DACA status until November of 2019, but that does - isn't necessarily the same case for everyone. And I think that just like how I'm thinking about my future, what job or what title I'm going to hold in November of 2019, a lot of students are going to - having to grapple with that earlier, as soon as the summer of this year, if not in March of this year at the earliest.
MCEVERS: Do you think Congress will come up with a solution for this?
DIAZ: I'm hoping they do. I honestly think that there will be a solution that would happen, but I think that the time in which a solution occurs is definitely going to affect what exactly that solution will look like.
MCEVERS: Yeah. What do you think that will look like?
DIAZ: Right now what I'm hopeful for is the passing of what we call a clean DREAM Act, so a clean DREAM Act being a DREAM Act with some sort of permanent status for DACA recipients that isn't tied to any sort of border security measures. But I don't see the possibility of a clean DREAM Act happening beyond January 19. So if a clean DREAM Act isn't included in the bill to keep the government funded, I think that whatever deal might be on DACA definitely is going to have a component tied to it with border security.
MCEVERS: In the past few days, we've heard a lot about the president's comments - right? - about immigrants, people who come from places like Africa and Haiti. What do you think about that?
DIAZ: I don't know if I felt any differently. I think that a lot of the suspicions or a lot of the sort of thoughts I had about President Trump and the way that he views people from these sorts of countries - I think this was only a confirmation of the ideas or the suspicions that I had about how he felt about individuals like that. And as much as, like, it hurt to hear those comments, I don't think that I was surprised by them.
MCEVERS: Juan de la Rosa Diaz, thank you so much for your time today.
DIAZ: Oh, it's always my pleasure.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Welcome to the ice box of the nation. These words are on three different wooden signs around the United States, and they're referring to towns.
PHILIP VANDERNAIL: The image of the ice box and pretty iconic.
MCEVERS: That's Philip Vandernail. He's the mayor of Fraser, Colo. His town claims the ice box of the nation title along with Big Piney, Wyo., and International Falls, Minn. The three towns have fought over this slogan for a long time - all the way back to the 1940s. And they each have pretty compelling arguments for why they are the nation's ice box. Mayor Vandernail says his Colorado ski town is so cold; the icy weather knows no season.
VANDERNAIL: It can snow here in the Colorado Rockies any day of the year. Winter could show back up in the middle of summer.
MCEVERS: When we talked to Mayor Bob Anderson of International Falls, Minn., he said the weather outside was 20 degrees, a temperature he described as balmy.
BOB ANDERSON: Haven't seen anybody in shorts yet, but that wouldn't surprise me.
MCEVERS: And Georgia Wenz, a longtime resident of Big Piney, Wyo., says if you spend a winter in her hometown almost 7,000 feet above sea level, you won't forget it.
GEORGIA WENZ: All you have to do to a lot of people is mention Big Piney, and they said the worst winter or few months I ever spent my life was in Big Piney, Wyo. It was so cold.
MCEVERS: So there's not a whole lot to argue about here. These three towns are really cold. In fact, they've all at some point experienced the coldest day on record in the United States. For Big Piney, Wyo., it was negative 61 degrees Fahrenheit. International Falls, Minn., currently holds the trademark for the slogan ice box of the nation, but the others still claim the title unofficially. So the fight continues. Philip Vandernail, the mayor of Fraser, Colo., proposes a solution to settle it once and for all.
VANDERNAIL: Maybe we can have a challenge between the three towns, and we can meet somewhere that's central and have an ice box throw down.
MCEVERS: They could do that with a sport that actually exists in International Falls, Minn., says Mayor Bob Anderson - frozen turkey bowling.
ANDERSON: Throw that down a sheet of ice, and hit the bowling pins. And you've got to do that with some good dexterity because those turkeys aren't as round as a bowling ball.
MCEVERS: So Big Piney, Fraser and International Falls, get your frozen turkeys ready.
(SOUNDBITE OF MEDESKI, MARTIN AND WOOD'S "UNINVISIBLE")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
And in All Tech Considered this week, we are talking about what is ahead for the tech industry in 2018.
(SOUNDBITE OF ULRICH SCHNAUSS' "NOTHING HAPPENS IN JUNE")
MCEVERS: In some ways, 2017 was a great year for tech companies - big growth, big profits. In other ways, it was a pretty bad year. Facebook, Twitter and Google admitted that Russian operatives used their platforms to promote fake stories during the election. There were sexual harassment scandals and criticism of the fact that white men still basically run the place.
My guest is someone who knows many of the leaders of these companies, Reid Hoffman. He is a venture capitalist. He's the co-founder of LinkedIn. And he's got some thoughts about how Silicon Valley can do better in 2018. Welcome to the show.
REID HOFFMAN: It's great to be here.
MCEVERS: Up until now, tech companies have not been super great at taking responsibility for their problems. Do you think that this is the year of reckoning for tech companies?
HOFFMAN: Well, I hope that it's actually a year of growth. I think actually part of what the tech companies are learning is they started as challengers, these kind of, you know - think of it as young teenagers with good ideas...
MCEVERS: Yeah.
HOFFMAN: ...Trying to prove themselves. And now they realize I think, no, actually, in fact, we're the incumbents. We're the providers of the infrastructure. We have influence in the national dialogue, and we need to upgrade our play. And I think you can see that as the changing messages from them throughout the year. The way I like to look at this is - I have a funny phrase. It's Spider-Man ethics. With power comes responsibility. With great power comes great responsibility.
And I think there's beginning to have that recognition of, we have this responsibility, and we know that we need to act now both in conversation with society and societies and also to make sure that, like, there's a higher level of trust and reliability and information and in a kind of - a sense of safety and security in your participation in these online networks and communities.
MCEVERS: Last year you came out with a decency pledge, and it was aimed at stopping sexual harassment in the industry. And one of the things you talked about was how much power venture capitalists have over entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs who frankly need the money (laughter), right?
HOFFMAN: Yeah.
MCEVERS: What's being done about that? Like, how - you're not going to undo that system, the way things work in that industry. So how do you address the problem?
HOFFMAN: Well, so the decency pledge is meant to be a - kind of a first step to just have a whole bunch of people say, look; I will not do business with people who are, you know, sexual predators, harassers, abusing their position of power in any capacity. And then everyone can make the public statement to that and that part of that public statement is then not only am I articulating a voice, but I can also be held accountable by the people who know me and see what's going on.
I think the thing that we need to move from is - you know, last year's decency pledge was very much of the, look; here's a baseline that we can all do to step forward as individuals. To react to this, I think we now need to move from that reactive game to a proactive game.
MCEVERS: I just want to be really specific. Like, is that a step that's led to any change, you know, that you can point to, any examples?
HOFFMAN: Well, I think one of the things that was really awesome is a large number of the powerful VCs in the Valley all publicly signed up to it.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
HOFFMAN: They all said, hey, I'm taking this, too. So I do think - I've heard from women entrepreneur friends of mine, women investor friends of mine that the atmosphere has become much more conducive to being able to speak up. And I do think that people are paying attention to - is, like, not only do we protect the victims, but we also try to fix the system. And we try to say, we have a zero tolerance around, you know, sexual harassment, sexual predators trying to abuse these power relationships. And so I think at least it's moved the culture in the right direction. And I've heard good signs and conversation. I don't have a dashboard that I could share.
MCEVERS: Recently some Apple investors urged the company to address concerns that its technology was hurting children. You know, there's been a lot of fear out there - right? - that tech is addictive and it's harmful or, at the very least, it's replacing, you know, human interactions. Do you think one day we will think of tech companies the way we think of big tobacco - you know, this idea of, like, selling a dangerous product without consequences, without remorse at least?
HOFFMAN: Look; so technology always has some rough edges and downsides as well as upsides. But overall, you know, I'm glad we have it. I'm glad we're more globally connected. I'm glad we have - even though it's an information overload, (laughter) I'm glad we have a lot of information and can do searches and find information on things.
And you know, I tend to think that a lot of this tends to be older generations. Like, we feel, like, addicted and overwhelmed, but then the younger generations learn and adapt. So I tend to think that people are adaptive. And we can improve the technology to be net massively positive. So I think the chance that future technology is looked at as Big Tobacco is almost zero.
MCEVERS: But it puts the onus on the people who are using it - right? - to sort of adapt. And it puts a lot of, like, faith in you guys to do good. And I think that's the hard sell right now, right?
HOFFMAN: Well, so that's a little bit of the reason why was saying I think the broad move is towards more transparency. And either the industry will adopt ways of being transparent, which I hope and I'm pushing for. Or the government will say, well, OK, since you're not actually being sufficiently disclosive to make sure that we don't feel like we're being manipulated and so forth, then we're going to establish some rules. And the rules may limit your ability to innovate and create great new things for the world and for us, but c'est la vie.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
HOFFMAN: But I have faith that part of what I'm seeing happening, as I mentioned in the beginning, in 2017 is that the technologists and the technology companies are going, hey, no, we have responsibilities here. Let's try to figure them out.
MCEVERS: Do you think it's time in 2018 for, you know, more regulation?
HOFFMAN: Well, my big worry is that the most common pattern in regulation is to lock the past in slow motion against the future.
MCEVERS: Right.
HOFFMAN: And, A, I think the future's very good for us - you know, what we can invent in precision medicine and what we can invent in anything from new communications technologies to autonomous vehicles and so forth. The second point of it is - is actually, you know, nations and groups are in competition. So if we say, well, we're going to slow down our tech development, (laughter) you know, I don't think other countries - China, et cetera - I don't think they will be.
Now, that being said, if you said, OK, you know, we got to do some regulation - must do - what would it be? It would be like, well, try to demand some more transparency on the variables that most matter to you, like how much, you know, for example, election hacking is actually going on on your platform, (laughter) right?
MCEVERS: Right, yeah.
HOFFMAN: And what are you doing about it?
MCEVERS: Yeah.
HOFFMAN: And you need to be transparent about that. It's not that we say, no election hacking. It's - we say, you've got to give us good reports about what's going on and how you're making progress and what you're doing about it. And I think that would be the kind of thing that I think - I hope tech companies will do more voluntarily. And I also think that if you - if I were to start doing anything because I'm so concerned about technology being part of the solution as opposed to part of the problem - that we don't slow down our path to the solution.
MCEVERS: Reid Hoffman is a partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Greylock. He also hosts the Masters of Scale podcast. Thanks for being with us.
HOFFMAN: Awesome to be here.
(SOUNDBITE OF CUT CHEMIST SONG, "THE GARDEN")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and across the country, there were celebrations to honor the civil rights leader. This year, a theme emerged at some of the events - response to President Trump's alleged vulgar comments last week about Africa and Haiti. Trump has denied making those comments. Still, speakers at King's church in Atlanta pushed back. Molly Samuel of member station WABE went to the service at Ebenezer Baptist Church this morning.
(SOUNDBITE OF HARMONICA MUSIC)
MOLLY SAMUEL, BYLINE: This service at Ebenezer is always a big event. Atlanta's elite attend - college presidents, CEOs, politicians from both parties. Civil rights leader and Congressman John Lewis who represents Atlanta and has sparred with President Trump received a standing ovation. In recent years, the service has also included pointed commentary on politics. This year wasn't any different. Reverend Raphael Warnock is the senior pastor. In his remarks this morning, he said he watched on TV last week as Trump signed a proclamation in honor of Martin Luther King. He said it left him shaking his head.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RAPHAEL WARNOCK: I was still reeling in the reports just hours earlier about a volcanic eruption of hate speech spewing out of the mouth of the same man.
SAMUEL: Warnock called on the president to repent.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
WARNOCK: A proclamation without an apology is hypocrisy.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
SAMUEL: One politician in attendance - Ben Carson, Trump's secretary of Housing and Urban Development. When he addressed the congregation, he didn't specifically talk about the comments from last week. What he did say...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BEN CARSON: I'm a member of this administration, and I don't agree with the president about everything that he says...
(APPLAUSE)
CARSON: ...Or of how it's said.
SAMUEL: Other speakers called out the Trump administration's policies.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BREE NEWSOME: Things like rolling back civil rights protections at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
SAMUEL: Activist Bree Newsome was arrested in 2015 after she took down the Confederate flag at the South Carolina State Capitol. Today she said that too many people cite King's words and commitment to nonviolence, but then they do things counter to what she says King would have fought for. At the end, King's daughter, Reverend Bernice King, gave a speech emphasizing love, unity and faith.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BERNICE KING: If we further polarize, if we further divide, I'm afraid it's going to lead to our own destruction.
SAMUEL: The King Center is kicking off 50 days of activism and charity in honor of this year being the 50th anniversary of King's death. He was assassinated on April 4, 1968. For NPR News, I'm Molly Samuel in Atlanta.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
There's sad, and then there's the playoff history of the Minnesota Vikings. Despite having some of the greatest teams in NFL history, the Vikings have never won a title. In fact, they were the first team to lose four Super Bowls. You've heard of the Hail Mary pass, right? Well, you can think the Vikings for that. The phrase Hail Mary pass was first used in 1975 after the Dallas Cowboys' last-second miracle touchdown pass beat the Vikings. So last night, with the Vikings trailing the New Orleans Saints going down to the final play, most fans thought it was going to be yet another awful moment until it wasn't.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PAUL ALLEN: Case on a deep throw, steps up in the pocket. He'll fire to the right side, caught by Diggs.
UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER: (Screaming) Oh, my God, oh, my God, no way.
ALLEN: (Screaming) At the 30, 10 - touchdown.
UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER: (Screaming) What a miracle finish.
ALLEN: (Screaming) Are you kidding me? It's a Minneapolis miracle.
UNIDENTIFIED SPORTSCASTER: (Screaming) No way.
MCEVERS: Could that Minneapolis miracle lead to the first Vikings Super Bowl title? To talk about that, we turn to Ben Goessling, who covers the Vikings for the Star Tribune. Hey, Ben.
BEN GOESSLING: Hi. How are you?
MCEVERS: Good. So you are a native Minnesotan. Can you explain how bad things have actually been over the years?
GOESSLING: I guess I always put it this way. It's appropriate in some ways that Charles Schulz, the creator of "Peanuts," is from Minnesota because obviously everybody knows the skit in "Peanuts" where Charlie Brown thinks he's going to get to kick the football. And every time he gets his hopes up and then Lucy pulls the ball out, he ends up sitting on the ground, you know, sort of wondering what just happened. And that really epitomizes the Vikings' experience in the playoffs. I mean, every time they get close, something happens. So I mean, really that's what made yesterday so remarkable.
MCEVERS: What's it like in Minnesota right now?
GOESSLING: People are on cloud 9 right now. To be in that stadium yesterday when they scored that touchdown, it was just kind of this mixture of shock and exultation in a lot of ways. And you see that kind of spilling forward into today. People are, you know, all over social media, raving about the game as people posted videos of where they were, you know, what they were doing when they when the game ended, you know, what their reaction to the play was. There were people out doing snow angels.
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
GOESSLING: And it was no small feat given the fact it was sub-zero temperatures for most of the day and we got a bunch of snow. So it's the kind of win, as a couple of players said yesterday, you almost have to go forward now and make it to the Super Bowl and win it. You don't want to waste something like that and what it meant for fans. And it's quite a remarkable thing for people around here that are used to (laughter) suffering for a long time.
MCEVERS: We should say that the Super Bowl will be in Minneapolis this year.
GOESSLING: It will.
MCEVERS: So if the Vikings win next weekend, they'll be the first host team to actually play in the Super Bowl. I mean, does it feel like with that plus last night, things are finally coming together? Or do you not want to say anything and jinx it?
GOESSLING: Well, I mean, players certainly have been asked that question. Does this feel like a team of destiny? And you know, the number of things they've had go wrong in the past - a lot of those could've happened this year. They lose their starting quarterback, Sam Bradford, after week one. Dalvin Cook, their first pick in the draft, the running back, goes down in week four. I mean, a lot of these injuries that you think, OK, this is going to be what derails them really haven't.
So you know, it's going to be very interesting to see what the Super Bowl is like because, you know, the NFL tries to do everything they can to make it as neutral an environment as possible. But the Vikings are going to have some built-in advantages if they're in that game. It really would be a one-of-a-kind environment for a Super Bowl if they make it. And you know, at this point, you know, obviously we root for stories as much as anything, and it would be a fantastic story if they make it.
MCEVERS: Ben Goessling covers the Vikings for the Star Tribune. Thanks so much.
GOESSLING: Thank you - enjoyed it.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES MCLEOD'S "SKOL, VIKINGS")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In an open letter published today, French film star Catherine Deneuve apologized to the victims of sexual violence she might have offended by signing another open letter last week. That letter accused the #MeToo movement of going too far and turning into a puritanical witch hunt. NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: In a long letter published in newspaper Liberation, Deneuve said, I warmly salute all the victims of these hideous acts who might have felt offended by that letter. She was referring to the open letter published on January 10 in Le Monde newspaper. Deneuve says she still stands by the first letter and defended its points. She said it in no way condoned harassment, or she would not have signed it. But the letter did defend a man's right to hit on a woman as fundamental to sexual freedom. The signatories also deplored a wave of social media denunciations they said was hurting innocent men, and they said a puritanical movement was trying to sanitize artistic expression.
French feminists reacted angrily, accusing the signatories of trivializing violence against women and setting back the #MeToo movement. Today Deneuve said she wanted to clarify her position after the huge backlash. She was also undoubtedly looking to put some distance between herself and some other co-signatories who took the debate way beyond the original letter.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BRIGITTE LAHAIE: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: During a TV debate, actress Brigitte Lahaie, who signed the letter, said a woman could derive pleasure during a sexual assault. This statement seemed to stupefy everyone on the set. On French radio today, feminist Caroine de Haas, herself a victim of sexual violence, said she accepts Deneuve's apology.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CAROLINE DE HAAS: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: "It is sincerely welcome," said de Haas, "because this letter in Le Monde did a lot of damage. Today Denevue recognized that being a victim is not the problem. The violence is." Deneuve called herself a free woman and a feminist. She said she didn't mean to offend victims of sexual aggression and she owed them an apology. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Paris.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The lead singer of the Irish rock band The Cranberries died today. Dolores O'Riordan's smooth but powerful voice became known around the world after her band's success with songs like "Linger" and "Zombie."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ZOMBIE")
DOLORES O'RIORDAN: (Singing) In your head, in your head, zombie, zombie, zombie.
MCEVERS: O'Riordan died suddenly today at the age of 46. We don't have many details about her death, so we're going to talk about her life. To do that, we are joined by Jim Sullivan. For over 25 years, he was a music critic for The Boston Globe. Welcome to the show.
JIM SULLIVAN: Thank you, Kelly.
MCEVERS: How popular was Dolores O'Riordan and The Cranberries in the '90s?
SULLIVAN: Well, at their peak very popular. They rose up, you know, quite meteorically from the club level to the arena level. There was also, of course, the drop-off. They kind of hit their peak and then went down.
MCEVERS: And what we know about her life - O'Riordan grew up in a big family in Limerick, Ireland. She was the youngest of seven. She was actually known as the queen of Limerick. How did she become the lead singer of this band?
SULLIVAN: Well, it's kind of interesting. I talked to her in 1993 and this is what she told me. She said, I played harmonium in my church for 10 years, spent eight years with classical piano. And then I used to go to piano lessons, and then I'd go to church, and then I'd have to do some homework and go to bed. I came from a very strict childhood, didn't get out much right up till I was 17. And I kind of had to run away. And basically The Cranberries found her, recruited her and brought her into the band.
MCEVERS: She was known for some outbursts, though, right? And what was it like to cover her?
SULLIVAN: Yeah, well, she was a very feisty performer, which maybe contrasts with what people think about when they think about Cranberries music. Cranberries live, by the way, were a much more electric band than what you tend to hear on record. And when I asked her about that she was very funny. She said, I reckon if we played live like we do on our album everybody might fall asleep.
And when you're live, well, you strike a chord on the guitar, and you've got a distortion pedal, and it sounds a lot louder. And the emotion is there. It's very strong. And she was very - she was kind of like a - she was like a pixie, kind of a tough-as-nails pixie. And even if some of what she sang sounded like it might be innocuous there was an edge to it underneath it all.
MCEVERS: How would you remember her?
SULLIVAN: You know, the usual thing that happens when somebody dies who maybe hasn't been in the public eye for a while is there'll be this outpouring of remembrance and shock and sadness. Then it will be time to kind of reassess where she and The Cranberries fit into the spectrum. And, I mean, in all honesty, I mean, they had their peak. They had their period where they were popular.
But it's a long look back for a lot of people. I mean, we're talking the mid-'90s there. And so it's not something - I mean, let's face it. I don't think she anymore would have been a household name. I know she was recording in London recently. She was performing in a band called D.A.R.K. with the former Smiths bass player Andy Rourke.
MCEVERS: Former longtime music critic for The Boston Globe Jim Sullivan remembering Irish singer Dolores O'Riordan of The Cranberries. She passed away today at the age of 46. Thanks so much.
SULLIVAN: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LINGER")
O'RIORDAN: (Singing) You know I'm such a fool for you. You got me wrapped around your finger.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
What are the deeper messages in the storybooks we read to children? That question inspired a team of researchers to set up a study. Specifically, they wanted to know, what can you tell about a country from its children's books? Here's NPR's Nurith Aizenman.
NURITH AIZENMAN, BYLINE: If you're a kid in China, here's the kind of book you might be reading. It's called "The Cat That Eats Letters" - not just any letters, sloppy ones.
CECILIA CHEUNG: Too large or too small or, you know, if the letter's missing a stroke.
AIZENMAN: Cecilia Cheung is a psychology professor at University of California, Riverside.
CHEUNG: So the only way children can stop their letters from being eaten is to write really carefully and practice every day.
AIZENMAN: It's one of dozens of books recommended by the education agencies of China and the United States that Cheung and her collaborators analyzed for a study.
CHEUNG: We're mainly interested in exploring whether or not there are differences in the kinds of learning-related values that are being conveyed in the storybooks.
AIZENMAN: Their findings published in the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology - the storybooks from China stress those learning-related values a lot more than the books from the U.S. - about twice as much. Take the cat story.
CHEUNG: This is really, you know, instilling the idea of effort. So, you know, children have to learn that they have to really consistently practice in order to achieve a certain level.
AIZENMAN: By comparison, Cheung says a typical book from the U.S. is one called "The Jar Of Happiness."
CHEUNG: A little girl attempts to make a potion of happiness in a jar.
AIZENMAN: Only to lose the jar. She's really upset until all her friends come to cheer her up.
CHEUNG: At the end of the story, she came to the realization that happiness does not actually come from a jar of potion but from having good friends.
AIZENMAN: Cheung says this emphasis on happiness comes up a lot in the books from the U.S. What are the implications? Well, Cheung notes that children in China consistently score higher on academic tests compared to children in the U.S., but it's not clear if that's due to different cultural values or teaching methods. In the meantime, Cheung suggests there may be lessons in this for everyone. Chinese parents might want to make sure all that emphasis on hard work isn't coming at the expense of encouraging a sense of joy in their kids.
CHEUNG: And you know, happiness is also important when it comes to learning. It can be a predictor of future achievement levels.
AIZENMAN: American parents might want to add in some books promoting the idea that intelligence isn't something you're necessarily born with but also something you can gain through hard work. Because if that's your view...
CHEUNG: When you're facing a really difficult challenge, you just put more effort into it instead of saying, oh, I'm just not smart, and I'm just going to give up.
AIZENMAN: Oh, and in case you're worried about that cat, once the kids improve their handwriting...
CHEUNG: At the end, the cat feels very hungry.
AIZENMAN: But then the kids take pity on him and write a few more sloppy letters. Nurith Aizenman, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MR. SCRUFF'S "BUNCH OF KEYS")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
About six years ago, Johnathon Shillings was in jail waiting for trial. He was looking at up to 30 years of prison time if he got convicted. And he called home.
JOHNATHON SHILLINGS: My daughter's mom, she wouldn't let me talk to my daughter. She said, because your daughter is young enough to forget you. And I'd rather her grow up not knowing you than grow up knowing that you're in prison. Like, just something about that, man, just really destroyed me because I grew up without a father.
MCEVERS: At that point, Johnathon had already been to prison twice. He says he was violent and dealt drugs. And at the time of that phone call, he was facing charges for his involvement in a homicide. Johnathon pled guilty to helping transport and dump the victim's body, and he was sentenced to five years in prison. During those five years, Johnathon says something in him changed. This time he had a little daughter to think about. Her name is Victoria (ph). So in prison, he decided to really change things. He worked on his anger issues. He enrolled in an entrepreneurship program. And he kept in touch with his daughter.
There are a lot of people who go to prison who want to do what Johnathon did - change their lives, leave prison and never go back. Macario Gonzales Jr. is one of them. And we connected him with Johnathon as part of our series Been There, where we bring together two people on either side of a shared experience.
MACARIO GONZALES JR: This is my first time ever going to go do time at a correctional facility. So my daughters - one's a 2-year-old and one's a 1-year-old. So I just got to get out to them and take care of them.
SHILLINGS: First off, man, I'll tell you I feel for you, especially with the two daughters. And there's no other pain than staying up late at night, wondering what's going on with your kids or having the fear of saying, man, what if my kids don't know me when I come home?
MCEVERS: Macario was sentenced to seven years for drug charges and an assault on a police officer during an arrest. We reached him at Bee County Jail in Texas, where he was waiting before being sent to a state prison. And the two started at the beginning. Johnathon told Macario what to expect on his first day.
SHILLINGS: As soon as you get there they're going to strip you down butt-naked. And so you're going to be in a big, massive room, probably a warehouse-type gym, concrete, with a whole bunch of little individual cages. And then they're going to start pushing you in there 10, 15 at a time. And slowly they're going to start calling your name. Everybody go take a shower. And the first thing they're going to do is give you a razor. And they're going to put you into a barber chair. It's kind of like an assembly line. And they shave your whole head. (Imitating razor). And you know what's crazy? Probably about 85 percent of the time they miss patches and spots.
And then after that they push you down even further down the assembly line. And there's going to be a guard there. And he's going to go through all your property. And it's crazy. These are your only belongings that you have - pictures and letters, your Bible. You'll see how these officers just kind of just pick it up and toss it and say, you have too many pictures. Throw this over here into the trash. And there's nothing that you can do about it. Listen, man; this is the officer's world. Man...
GONZALES JR: We're just living in it.
SHILLINGS: Yeah, exactly. Man, we're just passing through it. Man, 10 years from now they're still going to be there. And that's what helped me get through because I was like, man, this is just temporary for me.
GONZALES JR: Yeah. Well, like, me, I just - like, I know there's gangster life or whatever. That's not me. Like, I don't - I'm like the hardworking type person. And having that mindset of outside the gates, like, being a hardworking man because most of the guys in here, they feel like they've got to be, like, the hardest dude in here. I don't care about being the hardest dude or none of that stuff.
SHILLINGS: I want to tell you something, man, and this is my honest opinion. Regardless of what people might say, everybody is nervous because you know what? Nobody wants to be in prison. Everybody wants to go home. Everybody wants to be with their family despite what they might show.
GONZALES JR: Yeah.
SHILLINGS: And you can kind of tell the difference between a person who's lived a life of crime and is in prison than somebody who's just like, man, I messed up this one time and this will never happen again. Prison has - they're real keen on picking up on stuff like that.
GONZALES JR: Like, if they feel that, like, if I'm just a person that's just going to go in there and change my life and come out, then they're going to try to, like, mess whatever I have going on - they're going to try to mess it up or something. Is that what you're saying?
SHILLINGS: No, no, no, no, no. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, man, if you go in there, if you prove as an authentic person like, man, I'm just a man that made a mistake and I'm changing my life, prison is so sensitive to, like, feelings and auras. Like, they can pick up on that. Like, this is a really genuine person. And so we're not going to push these prison ways on him. You understand what I'm saying?
GONZALES JR: Oh, OK. OK. Yes, sir. And like, how would I make sure that I don't become a target? Like...
SHILLINGS: Well, let me tell you the people who usually become targets. Let me tell you those 'cause there's predators in prison. There's people who pass their time by preying on people. The ones they mostly prey on are ones who are first off really, really friendly. Sharing all your commissary - you met somebody at the domino table and you're like, hey, do you want some coffee? You know, that's a normal thing. You're like, you know, you're having a casual conversation. You want to offer somebody something. But certain people and certain individuals will...
GONZALES JR: Take that as weakness or something.
SHILLINGS: Exactly, man. And so just be aware of your surroundings. When you're in prison, you feel the energies. You feel the auras. I mean, you're in county now, so you know, like, man, if there's a fight fixing to go down - right? - there's a tension.
GONZALES JR: Yeah, you can feel it when something's going to happen. Yes, sir.
SHILLINGS: Exactly. And there's a Bible verse, man, that really helped me out. It's James Chapter 1, Verse 19. It said, swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.
GONZALES JR: Everybody always says that.
SHILLINGS: Yeah.
GONZALES JR: There's a lot of guys in here that say that. They say, be quick to listen and slow to speak.
SHILLINGS: Exactly. And those things alone, man, really just proved as good principles throughout my walk in prison.
GONZALES JR: Yes, sir. Like, I just feel like my daughters - one's a 2-year-old and one's a 1-year-old - so how do you be a good father from prison?
SHILLINGS: Oh, man. The first thing, man, I would tell you is pray for your kids every day. Just develop a very sacred and special place in your mind and your heart for your kids. Like, my daughter was 3 or 4. And I would envision her going to college. And I would envision her - like, what college she's going to. So basically I had this impression in my mind of my daughter as a young professional. And then I would work on me.
One of my mentors told me, man, I used to walk everywhere as if my daughter was right next to me. And I said, man, you know, that's a really profound saying. And so I would - started acting as if my daughter was next to me. So what that means - I wouldn't cuss anymore. I wouldn't tell, like, crude, like, perverted jokes or even watch, like, crazy stuff on TV because I wanted to start representing myself as the father that my daughter deserves.
GONZALES JR: Yeah, 'cause I feel like whenever I see stuff like that, I feel like those are distractions from, like, trying to make you do right or being a good example, like, towards your kids and stuff like that.
SHILLINGS: Right.
GONZALES JR: My whole way of thinking right now is way different from the way I used to think.
SHILLINGS: That's good, bro. And one thing I'll tell you, bro, is write her. Commit to once every other week or the last Friday of the month. But, man, I used to write my daughter. Every six letters I sent I might get a letter back. But, man, when I came home my daughter had everything I ever told her memorized, embedded in her brain. And she would say, Daddy, you remember that time you wrote me and told me blah, blah, blah, blah (ph)?
And it would just fill me up with joy because that whole time I was crying because I wanted to hear back from her. And she was thinking about me. She was thinking about me because of what I sent her. And be confident that your mistake was just a mistake - right? - and that it's not going to define you. And that there's life for you and your children past this point.
(SOUNDBITE OF HINT'S "COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS")
MCEVERS: That was Johnathon Shillings, who has been out of prison for seven months, and Macario Gonzales Jr., who last week entered prison on a seven-year sentence with a chance of parole.
(SOUNDBITE OF HINT'S "COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The rape of someone with an intellectual disability is one of the hardest crimes for police to investigate and for prosecutors to win in court. A small number of prosecutors, though, are trying to change that. They're using new techniques to investigate and go after these cases. NPR's Joseph Shapiro continues our investigation into an epidemic of sexual assault - and first a warning that some of the descriptions in this story might be disturbing.
JOSEPH SHAPIRO, BYLINE: Let's go back to 1993 to the wealthy suburb of Glen Ridge, N.J., and the court trial over the rape of a 17-year-old girl with an intellectual disability. That's the preferred term now for what back then was called mental retardation.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: In New Jersey today, a jury will hear closing arguments in the trial of four young men accused of raping a mentally retarded woman.
SHAPIRO: The trial got national attention. That was a first.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Prosecutors say a dozen high school athletes lured a young woman into a basement and performed sex acts on her.
SHAPIRO: Those in popular school athletes got the young woman, a student in the special education classes, to come into the basement. They promised she'd get to go on a date with the football player she had a crush on. Then she was assaulted with a baseball bat and a broomstick. There was the press coverage, a book...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "OUR GUYS: OUTRAGE AT GLEN RIDGE")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Something's up at the high school.
SHAPIRO: ...And a made-for-TV movie.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "OUR GUYS: OUTRAGE AT GLEN RIDGE")
DORON BELL: (As Carl Brewer) Supposedly she was with some guys from the football team.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) What guys?
SHAPIRO: The case divided the New Jersey town. She was the young woman seen as having no future. They were the young men headed to college. A young prosecutor took on the case. He's the hero in this TV movie.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "OUR GUYS: OUTRAGE AT GLEN RIDGE")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Excuse me. We're looking for the head prosecutor for the sexual assault and rape analysis unit.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) Yes. Mr. Laurino's suite is right this way. Yo, Bobby...
ERIC STOLTZ: (As Bob Laurino) Yep.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) ...Couple of cops want to see you.
SHAPIRO: Four high school students were convicted. And that young prosecutor, Robert Laurino - today he's the chief prosecutor in Essex County, N.J. He continues to make prosecution of sex crimes against people with intellectual disabilities a priority.
ROBERT LAURINO: We are here for those who are victimized. And these are probably the most victimized individuals that we have come through our doors.
SHAPIRO: The most victimized people who come through the doors of the busiest prosecutor's office in New Jersey - NPR obtained unpublished data from the U.S. Department of Justice and revealed that people with intellectual disabilities are sexually assaulted more than seven times the rate for everyone else. One reason the rate is so high - because there's rarely a successful prosecution, and that means a perpetrator is free to rape again. Most victims with an intellectual disability never report an assault. Prosecutor Robert Laurino...
LAURINO: These are individuals who tend not to come forward. Sometimes they don't even understand that they've been abused because of their level of functioning.
SHAPIRO: Or they can't describe what happened in detail or in the exact time sequence. Those things matter in court. For years, other prosecutors wouldn't touch these cases.
LAURINO: The general perception was that these are unwinnable.
SHAPIRO: Robert Laurino's successful prosecution at Glen Ridge changed that at least a little. He started traveling around the country to conferences where he'd tell other prosecutors how to prosecute these cases.
LAURINO: To show that these cases are in fact winnable, and that has kind of trickled down I think. They take a lot of work. But if you invest in them, they are winnable, and it's a great feeling. You can help somebody who really can't help themselves.
SHAPIRO: In Essex County, N.J., 25 years after Glen Ridge, Laurino and his prosecutors are showing how to do the work.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KATHLEEN LYONS-BOSWICK: Good morning, Your Honor - Kathleen Lyons-Boswick for the state.
SHAPIRO: On this morning at the Essex County Courthouse, Assistant Prosecutor Kathleen Lyons-Boswick argues in the case of Khrishad Clark, a man charged with kidnapping a woman with an intellectual disability and raping her in the back of his van. In a letter to NPR and in court, Clark said evidence will clear him of rape.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Sir, do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
KHRISHAD CLARK: Yes.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Please state your name for the record.
CLARK: Khrishad Clark.
SHAPIRO: That's from a preliminary hearing last year. Clark's trial is set to start later this year. In May of 2016, a woman, 29 years old, wandered away from the house where she lived. Later she'd tell police she wanted to go find her father. She walked over to a phone store without any money, thinking she could buy a phone and call him. Then she disappeared. Police searched for the woman late into the night. One detective who was still looking at 4 in the morning saw a van drive up near the woman's house. This tiny woman shaking with fear, he said, got out. The officer stopped the driver, Khrishad Clark.
(SOUNDBITE OF BEEP)
LYONS-BOSWICK: So we're at the Child Advocacy Center. It's called Wynona's House, and it's a standalone building, and...
SHAPIRO: Kathleen Lyons-Boswick, the assistant prosecutor, takes me to the place where police brought the woman that night. After Glen Ridge, prosecutors, lawmakers and state officials in New Jersey looked for better ways to prosecute cases where people with intellectual disabilities were abused. One thing they did - they applied some of the best practices for prosecuting crimes against children and built this center to serve victims, both children and adults with intellectual disabilities.
It's a two-story brick building in Newark. On the first floor, the walls are painted with colorful balloons, rainbows and birds. That's where there's a nurse and therapists who counsel survivors of abuse. Detectives and prosecutors have offices next to each other. That makes it easier to work together. But they're upstairs, their guns and badges out of view.
LYONS-BOSWICK: So we don't want guns and badges in front of them. That's really important to keep it child-friendly.
SHAPIRO: That night, the woman was interviewed just once by two detectives. An assistant prosecutor watched from across the hall on a computer. Adults with intellectual disabilities are not children, but some things can help with both. People with intellectual disabilities and young children, too, think in literal ways. Questions with abstract concepts like time or metaphors can be confusing. Every cop and prosecutor here gets training in interview technique on how to ask concrete questions. That makes it easier for adults with intellectual disabilities to answer.
LYONS-BOSWICK: A sexual assault that happens in private, in secret - these things don't happen out in the open. You look for all the different building blocks that corroborate the case. And her interview - she was able to describe what happened to her.
SHAPIRO: One other thing was big for prosecutors in this New Jersey case - DNA evidence. The results took months to arrive. First they went to prosecutor Robert Laurino.
LAURINO: So we get an email version of a lab report. I take a look at it.
LYONS-BOSWICK: Well, Bob calls me. He knows when there's a big case, and he'll call and say, just so you know, the DNA's here. So it's very exciting. And I - personally, I jump up and down in my office. I just do. I mean, it just - I get excited because these cases are difficult to prove, and it's helpful when you've got corroborating evidence that strong.
SHAPIRO: At the time of Glen Ridge 25 years ago, DNA wasn't so commonly used. Now it's one of the best tools in these cases. Still, the key to conviction is usually the testimony of the victim. Before this case in New Jersey goes to trial, the prosecutors will spend many extra hours with the woman who was the victim. Recently they took her to the actual courtroom just to see what it looks like. She met the judge. She practiced sitting in the witness chair. Some judges let people with intellectual disabilities avoid the courtroom and take their testimony on videotape. It's hard work. It's extra work. But prosecutor Robert Laurino says it pays off.
LAURINO: There's probably no more satisfying victory that you can get than to be able to convict a person who is of a predatory nature that would actually prey on individuals of this character.
SHAPIRO: There are victories. Police and prosecutors who make the extra effort are showing those convictions, although still rare, are at least possible. Joseph Shapiro, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALAN WALKER SONG, "FADED")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Eighty years ago on the night of January 16, 1938, clarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman made music history when he took a jazz band onstage at Carnegie Hall in New York. That performance took the music out of the dance halls and the nightclubs and onto the country's premiere concert stage. And it made people think about integration in a time of segregation. Tom Vitale has the story.
TOM VITALE, BYLINE: By 1938, Benny Goodman was already known as the King of Swing, leader of the most popular dance band in America at a time when swing jazz was America's most popular music. But nobody knew how it would be received in America's temple to classical music, as Benny Goodman said in a commentary recorded for the concert's first commercial release 12 years later.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BENNY GOODMAN: That January 16 back in 1938 was a Sunday and a cold one. We didn't quite know what would happen, how we would sound, what the audience would think of us. Until they got there, we didn't even know how many people would be on hand. So we just went out and played.
(SOUNDBITE OF BENNY GOODMAN'S "DON'T BE THAT WAY")
VITALE: The concert was recorded, but there were no plans to release it.
PHIL SCHAAP: Benny Goodman's Carnegie Hall concert historically is the most important concert in jazz history.
VITALE: Phil Schaap is a curator of jazz at Lincoln Center. He also produced the Columbia Records CD reissue of the 1938 concert. Schaap says the event with no dancing and no booze elevated jazz to an art form.
SCHAAP: The Goodman concert at Carnegie Hall is the cornerstone to jazz having performance space in the concert hall. But most importantly, aesthetically, it establishes that jazz has value for listening purposes only.
(SOUNDBITE OF BENNY GOODMAN'S "DON'T BE THAT WAY")
VITALE: The musicians sensed the importance of the event, and they were nervous, says Schaap, who recalls drummer Gene Krupa's version of how he broke the ice.
SCHAAP: Krupa senses something's wrong. I had to do something. So I had my drum breaks. So I just hit everything I possibly could, - made a lot of noise. It woke everybody up. And from then on, it was smooth sailing.
(SOUNDBITE OF BENNY GOODMAN'S "DON'T BE THAT WAY")
VITALE: The concert turned out to be such a hit that Goodman went back to Carnegie Hall a few months later and again the following year. There have been recreations over the years including one last week in New York and another later this week in California. At a 30th anniversary celebration in 1968, Goodman insisted in an interview with radio host William B. Williams that for him, the Carnegie concert was just another gig.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GOODMAN: So it never crossed our mind to think that on the night of January 16 we would give a jazz concert that would turn out to be a historic occasion.
VITALE: The concert was historic in another way. In 1938, bands and music venues were segregated, but Goodman took more than a half dozen African-American musicians with him onto the Carnegie Hall stage, including pianists Teddy Wilson and Count Basie, vibraphonist Lionel Hampton and saxophonist Lester Young.
(SOUNDBITE OF BENNY GOODMAN'S "ONE O'CLOCK JUMP")
VITALE: Onstage at Carnegie Hall, Benny Goodman made a stand for integration nine years before Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in America's pastime. At the 30th anniversary celebration, Lionel Hampton praised the bandleader.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LIONEL HAMPTON: Benny Goodman deserves a lot of credit because he did this with not the idea of being commercial or for any money. He did it for the feel and the heart. He said that we need the white keys and the black keys both to play together to make good harmony. And that's what he did.
(SOUNDBITE OF BENNY GOODMAN'S "BLUE SKIES")
VITALE: But at that same celebration, Benny Goodman said it was a once-in-a-lifetime event, and he didn't think the concert could be restaged with the same effect.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GOODMAN: No, I don't think so. I think it was a particular time, a particular thing. And that was it.
VITALE: Times have changed, but the music can still bring people together, says 38-year-old Israeli-born clarinetist Anat Cohen, who played Goodman's parts at last week's recreation of the 1938 concert.
ANAT COHEN: His music is alive. And the when you hear it live, it's happening. And it's vivid. And it's happy. And it's swinging at any moment. No matter - since the '30s and after today, it doesn't matter who plays it. When they play the music, the spirit of his music is always current.
(SOUNDBITE OF BENNY GOODMAN'S "SING SING SING")
VITALE: When Benny Goodman's historic 1938 concert at Carnegie Hall was finally released in 1950, it became one of the first LPs to sell more than a million copies. For NPR News, I'm Tom Vitale in New York.
[POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: Saxophonist Lester Young did perform with Benny Goodman on the Carnegie Hall stage in 1938, but the saxophone solo during "One O'Clock Jump" that is heard in this story was played by Babe Russin.]
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The gospel world has lost one of its pioneers. Choirmaster Edwin Hawkins was the force behind one of gospel's biggest hits, "Oh Happy Day," released in 1969. Hawkins died Monday of pancreatic cancer at his home near San Francisco. He was 74. NPR's Elizabeth Blair has the story behind the song that made him famous.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: It was an accidental hit. In 1968, Edwin Hawkins and his friend Betty Watson were trying to raise money to take their youth choir to a gospel competition. At the time, most churches were still doing traditional organ and piano gospel in the spirit of greats like Mahalia Jackson.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HE'S GOT THE WHOLE WORLD IN HIS HANDS")
MAHALIA JACKSON: (Singing) He's got the whole world right in his hand. He's got the whole...
BLAIR: But Hawkins wanted to try something new. He grew up listening to all kinds of music - country-western, jazz, Nat King Cole. For his choir, he revamped and old 18th century hymn.
DOROTHY MORRISON: The original was, oh, happy day, da, da, da (ph) - oh, happy day.
BLAIR: Dorothy Morrison, who sings lead on the recording, says Edwin Hawkins put some soul in it. He changed some of the lyrics, sped up the tempo and recorded it with a full band. "Oh Happy Day" starts with a jazzy drumbeat and a kind of blues-pop piano groove.
(SOUNDBITE OF EDWIN HAWKINS SONG, "OH HAPPY DAY")
BLAIR: Morrison's vocals are backed by a choir of more than 40 singers.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OH HAPPY DAY")
MORRISON: (Singing) Oh, happy day...
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) Oh, happy day...
MORRISON: (Singing) Oh, happy day...
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) Oh, happy day...
MORRISON: (Singing) ...When Jesus washed.
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) ...When Jesus washed.
BLAIR: Dorothy Morrison says at first, that pop feel got a lukewarm reaction from the church.
MORRISON: Oh, the reaction - at first the reaction of the church was like, well, we're not sure.
BLAIR: Edwin Hawkins wasn't sure, either. It was a low-fi recording made in a church in Hawkins' home town of Oakland, Calif. Five-hundred copies were made. Five-hundred were sold. One of them ended up in the hands of a San Francisco DJ who started playing it on his rock and blues show. It spread.
DONALD LAWRENCE: I just thought it was so cool. I just, like - it just reminded me kind of, like, rock music of that particular time.
BLAIR: Gospel singer Donald Lawrence was just a kid when "Oh Happy Day" was first released, but he heard it all the time.
LAWRENCE: And I enjoyed the way the lead started, you know, kind of mellow. And then it built up, and then it went back down. It just had dynamics.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OH HAPPY DAY")
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) He taught me how...
MORRISON: (Singing) He taught me how...
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) ...To watch, fight and pray, fight and pray.
BLAIR: The song reached the top of the Billboard charts and won a Grammy. At the time, music was just a hobby for Edwin Hawkins. But he noted later, "Oh Happy Day's" success, quote, "decided my fate." Soon his choir was opening for major pop stars. In 2010 on the Christian television network TBN, Hawkins talked about opening for The Isley Brothers at Yankee Stadium.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
EDWIN HAWKINS: When we left the stage, the young people tried to touch us, you know? It was like a thing where I remember me reaching up to someone that was in I guess the stand above. And like, you know, people lifted me up by...
(LAUGHTER)
HAWKINS: They were so excited. And it made me realize. I said, oh, we're somebody special, huh?
BLAIR: Edwin Hawkins never had another crossover hit quite like "Oh Happy Day." But Donald Lawrence, who later became a family friend of Hawkins, says the song's popularity broke boundaries.
LAWRENCE: It gave people the idea of doing more with gospel music, meaning that they didn't limit it to what was considered a gospel music sound at that particular time.
BLAIR: Edwin Hawkins went on to win three more Grammys in the gospel category, including for a live album released in 1992. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "OH HAPPY DAY")
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) Oh, happy day...
MORRISON: (Singing) All right.
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) Oh, happy day...
MORRISON: (Singing) And when I get to heaven...
UNIDENTIFIED CHOIR: (Singing) Oh, happy day...
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The secretary of Homeland Security says she did not hear President Trump use a vulgarity in an immigration meeting with lawmakers last week. Kirstjen Nielsen testified today at a Senate hearing, and two senators who were in the hearing were also at the immigration meeting in question. Today's hearing got pretty contentious. NPR's Brian Naylor reports.
BRIAN NAYLOR, BYLINE: Nielsen appeared before the Senate Judiciary Committee and spent a lot of her time answering questions about the president's language at the White House immigration meeting last week. Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont pressed Nielsen about the vulgarity the president was widely reported to have used to describe African nations.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PATRICK LEAHY: You're under oath. Did President Trump use this word or a substantially similar word to describe certain countries?
KIRSTJEN NIELSEN: I did not hear that word used. No, Sir.
LEAHY: I'm not - that's not the question. Did he use anything similar to that describing certain countries?
NIELSEN: The conversation was very impassioned. I don't dispute that the president was using tough language. Others in the room were also using tough language.
NAYLOR: She didn't elaborate what that tough language was. Trump also reportedly wondered why more people from countries like Norway weren't immigrating to the United States. Nielsen said he was merely referring to a conversation he had just had with Norway's prime minister, who said people in her country were hard-working, not the overwhelmingly white population of the country. In fact Nielsen testified she did not know Norway's racial makeup. Democrats on the panel used the hearing to vent their outrage over the president's comments. Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey said he was seething with anger.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CORY BOOKER: When the commander in chief speaks or refuses to speak, those words just don't dissipate like mist in the air. They fester. They become poison. They give license to bigotry and hate in our country.
NAYLOR: Senators also pressed Nielsen about the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program known as DACA under which some 700,000 mostly young people brought to the country illegally by their parents have been allowed to stay. Under an order signed by President Trump, the program ends March 5. Trump has said he wants to extend it but has also tweeted that Democrats aren't serious about getting a deal to extend it. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham called the current state of immigration negotiations, quote, "an S-show" and indicated he's been whipsawed by the president's changing positions.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LINDSEY GRAHAM: Tuesday we had a president that I was proud to golf with, call my friend, who understood immigration had to be bipartisan. You had to have border security. It is essential you have border security with a wall, but he also understood the idea that we had to do it with compassion. Now, I don't know where that guy went. I want him back.
NAYLOR: Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, who had previously confirmed Trump's language at last Thursday's meeting, indicated one sticking point in immigration negotiations was the president's insistence that Congress appropriate all the money he wants to build a border wall with Mexico this year rather than spreading the appropriations and construction out over a longer period.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DICK DURBIN: Is the president realistic when he says he wants 20 billion so he can build the wall in one year?
NIELSEN: I think the president is encouraging us to go as quickly as we can. As you know, it's a very complicated issue - building the wall - for a whole variety of reasons.
NAYLOR: And further complicating the issue - unless a deal is reached on DACA, there's a real possibility the government could shut down on Friday. Brian Naylor, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Now we're going to talk with one member of the House who has been working on a bipartisan plan to allow young immigrants to stay in the U.S. Will Hurd is a Republican from Texas, and his district includes the largest stretch of border of any member of Congress. Welcome back to the program.
WILL HURD: Thanks for having me on again. It's always a pleasure.
SHAPIRO: Now that president Trump has rejected one bipartisan immigration proposal, how does that affect the negotiations that you are a part of, especially after he earlier promised to sign any bill that lawmakers could agree to?
HURD: Well, the strategy that we're taking here is let's put something forward that's thoughtful and makes sense and secures the border and has a permanent legislative fix for the 1.2 kids that were brought here by no fault of their own.
SHAPIRO: You're saying 1.2 million. Other accounts have said 700,000, 800,000.
HURD: Well, the 1.2 is based on if you were here by January 1, 2014, and were under the age of 18. That's the population that I'm talking about. And one of the things that Congress has proven over the last couple of years that they don't do well - we don't do comprehensive and partisan well. So let's take a different tack. Let's be narrow, and let's be bipartisan. And solving a narrow problem builds trust, build momentum to address some of these other issues.
SHAPIRO: And are you confident that if you get that bipartisan deal, the president will be onboard? Last week he wasn't.
HURD: Well, look. The key for us here in the House is let's put legislation forward, and let's make sure everybody's aware of what we're trying to do and what we're trying to solve. I think, you know, people are frustrated that it's 2018 and we don't have operational control of the border. I know a little something about that with more border than any other member of Congress. So we're - in our bill, we're saying, let's secure the border by 2020, and let's fix this DACA situation.
SHAPIRO: Your proposal preserves DACA and also requires a mile-by-mile analysis of the border, then authorizes physical barriers to be built in places where federal officials deem it necessary by, as you've said, 2020. Do you think that would satisfy President Trump and more conservative members of your own party who have been chanting build the wall for years now?
HURD: Well, you'd have to talk to President Trump on his opinion on this. But for me, this concept of a smart wall is something that I've been promoting for a while, and nobody has ever really disagreed. The key - what we should be focused on is not an individual tool, but we should be focused on outcomes. And how do we get operational control of that border?
The reason we haven't done this in the past is because we haven't looked at all 2,000 miles of border at the same time. And so you can't have a one-size-fits-all solution because every mile needs something different. And so let's be smart about this. Let's be cost-effective about this. And that's what this legislation - this bipartisan legislation is attempting to do.
SHAPIRO: President Trump has called for addressing immigration issues beyond the border, and one of the things he said is that other countries are not sending their best people and that the U.S. needs a merit-based migration system instead of family reunification or a lottery. Do you agree with him on that?
HURD: Well, look. If we want to have those conversations, let's have those conversation. But we're not going to be able to come to some agreement if there needs to be a change or not by January 19.
SHAPIRO: So January 19, as you've said, midnight Friday is the deadline for the government to shut down. How confident are you that lawmakers can pass a bipartisan bill to address immigration and fund the government by then?
HURD: Well, I think it's still a little premature to talk about a government shutdown. You know, just in my short time here in Congress, we've had these conversations a few times and have always been willing to prevent that from happening. The good thing is, up here, no one is really interested in shutting the government down. And so let's work together. Let's think about this solution in a bipartisan way so that we can get it off the table and start focusing on issues like infrastructure, things like that.
SHAPIRO: Do you anticipate another short-term funding measure to avert a shutdown before an immigration deal gets passed?
HURD: I think that is an option. You know, whether, you know - again, between now and Friday, there's going to be a whole lot of conversations going on. And you know, all of the options are going to be on the table.
SHAPIRO: Republican Congressman Will Hurd of Texas, thank you very much.
HURD: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
We are in the middle of an unusually severe flu season. Here in California, we've been hit especially hard. State officials say at least 42 people have died from the flu, and that's not including senior citizens. The actual number is much higher. And thousands of Californians have sought medical help, overflowing hospital emergency rooms. One of these hospitals is Loma Linda University Health near San Bernardino.
Dr. Adrian Cotton is the chief of medical operations there, and he's with us now. Welcome.
ADRIAN COTTON: Thank you, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So first of all, when we talk about an unusually severe flu season, I mean, just explain what that means exactly. Like, how many people are you guys seeing every day?
COTTON: So normally in our emergency department we see anywhere between 200 and 240 patients. For the last couple weeks we've been seeing closer to 290 and 300 patients a day.
MCEVERS: And so this increase has forced you to do some things that are usually reserved for special emergency situations. Sort of talk about some of those.
COTTON: So the first thing people will notice if they drive up to Loma Linda is they'll see a tent out in front of the emergency room. That is not routinely there. We put this tent up on January 3 of this year. It can hold about 20 patients. We've used it pretty much every day since January 3. We've probably had 150 patients total that have gone through there.
MCEVERS: And a tent like this is called a surge tent. It's normally reserved for major disasters, right?
COTTON: Yes. And I think we could call the flu season this year a major disaster.
MCEVERS: Do you think you need assistance from the state or federal government at this point? I mean, has it gotten that bad?
COTTON: I think it has. And we've actually gotten some permission from both the local county and the state Department of Public Health to actually flex some of our beds from rehab to use them for acute care patients. The estimate is the flu season is going to continue to get worse for the next couple of weeks. If that happens and all the hospitals are overwhelmed, yes, there may be some need for either state or county or federal help.
MCEVERS: This strain of the flu, of course, is pretty bad. It's called H3N2. And from what we know, the flu shot is just about 30 percent effective against this strain. I mean, do you still recommend a shot for people?
COTTON: So the flu vaccine - the CDC tries to guess each year what they think the major strains of the flu will be that comes through. This year, they guessed that it would be the H1 strain. And so the flu vaccine is actually protective against the H1 strain, but has very little protection against H3N2. We still do recommend people get the flu shot because, again, there's still H1 influenza out there, and this will protect those patients.
And also, if you've had the flu shot, it will probably make even if you get H3N2 a slightly less virulent disease than if you haven't had it. There's also protection for years to come where if you've had the flu vaccine this year and next year happens to be H1, this year's vaccine will actually help protect you for next year.
MCEVERS: Oh, wow. What else can people do to protect themselves against this H3 strain in particular?
COTTON: So the No. 1 thing people can do is wash their hands, wash their hands and wash their hands. Stay away from people that have active flu-like symptoms, which is fevers, chills, heavy cough. But washing hands is probably the biggest thing that can be done. And then No. 2 is get the influenza vaccine. And then the third thing we're telling people is if you think you have the flu, please don't go to the emergency room. Please find - call your primary care doctor and go see them first. And, you know, save the emergency room for if you're really, really sick.
MCEVERS: Do you have a sense of why California has been so hard-hit? I mean, you're there on the ground dealing with patients.
COTTON: So usually when you look at what the flu does in the U.S., it kind of starts on the East Coast and kind of slowly goes across the country. And California kind of gets it by February, March timeframe. If you look at the CDC flu map for this year, it kind of went across the country all of a sudden in two weeks. And it just - it's widespread everywhere in the country in a two-week time period, which - again, this is highly unusual.
MCEVERS: Dr. Adrian Cotton is the chief of medical operations at Loma Linda University Health in San Bernardino. Thank you so much.
COTTON: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
For the last decade, Americans have had a love affair with SUVs while full-sized sedans have become known as the grandparent car. In this environment, Toyota is announcing a makeover to its flagship sedan, a car that is still important to Toyota's future. NPR's Sonari Glinton reports.
SONARI GLINTON, BYLINE: All right, it's the big car show here in Detroit, and I'm here to watch the unveiling of one of the most important cars on the road for Toyota. Now, is it a Formula One race car, a sleek SUV or a super-fast, all-electric, self-driving car - nope, nope and nope.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JACK HOLLIS: The all-new 2019 Toyota Avalon you're about to see is more than the sum of its parts.
GLINTON: Now, that's Jack Hollis. He's in charge of sales at Toyota. Hollis is selling this vehicle as a sporty, comfortable car with all the tech. Let's go back to the pitch.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HOLLIS: Now, are you ready? Apple CarPlay is finally standard.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Jack, well done - finally.
HOLLIS: Yeah, whatever, whatever. We know. We know. We got it. Hey, look; it took us a while, folks. You've all been asking for it. But it's here.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GLINTON: Now, this is where the Avalon arrives. They drive it onto the stage. They play music you can never actually imagine coming out of Avalon speakers. Then the reporters, analysts and executives storm the stage, including Jake Fisher, head of auto testing at Consumer Reports.
JAKE FISHER: Well, it's interesting that they're packing a lot of technology into the Avalon. I'm not sure exactly if that's the right market. When you look at Avalon buyers, you know, I think what's important to them is room and comfort and quietness. And they didn't talk a lot about that today.
GLINTON: He says Toyota is always cautious but especially with its big-selling cars.
FISHER: Toyota is always kind of late to the game when it comes to technology, and it's not by accident. It's because reliability is the No. 1 thing that sells Toyotas, and that's what the people buying Toyotas really care about - not the latest and the greatest, not necessarily any of that stuff.
GLINTON: Fisher says Toyota so dominates the market in the U.S. it can't really afford to abandon full-size sedans. This announcement hedges against the future and worries that President Trump might walk out of the North American Free Trade Agreement. The Avalon is and has always been Toyota's most American car, and it'll only get more so. It's completely designed in the U.S. while other Toyotas have more parts from Mexico or Canada. After talking with a bunch of analysts, I got a few minutes with Toyota's Jack Hollis.
HOLLIS: Is it a tougher market - totally. But great products still sell. Great sedans still sell. I think we'll be putting out a great sedan.
GLINTON: You know that phrase, always be closing? Well, that's Jack Hollis with his Toyota Avalon.
HOLLIS: And I promise. You get in that car, and you drive it like the way you want to drive it exactly. And you're going to say, damn, this is good. And it will exceed your expectations beyond. And that's what I think any customer gets in this car - that's why I'm selling it that way because when you see a name and you see what it's been before - is not what it's going to be in the future.
GLINTON: Not to be cheeky, but has anyone really ever gotten in a Toyota and been like, damn, this is good?
HOLLIS: Oh, totally, man. You have got to hang out with me more often.
GLINTON: Well, it'll be up to the marketplace to decide. The Avalon comes out next year. From the floor of the North American International Auto Show, Sonari Glinton, NPR News, Detroit.
(SOUNDBITE OF NATURAL-SELF SONG, "IN THE MORNING")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A lot of CEOs at big corporations received a letter today. It was from Larry Fink, the chairman and CEO of BlackRock, the world's largest investment management firm, which means those CEOs probably paid attention. The letter calls on CEOs to curb their appetite for short-term profits and focus more on long-term growth and making a positive contribution to society. NPR's John Ydstie joins us now in the studio to talk about Fink's letter. Hey, John.
JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: This is not the first time corporations have heard this kind of social responsibility message. Why is this particular letter getting so much attention?
YDSTIE: Well, I think the main reason is that BlackRock is big - very big. It has close to $6 trillion under management. That's a sum equal to the annual output of the British and German economies combined. So if BlackRock begins to focus its investments on more socially responsible companies, it could have a big impact.
SHAPIRO: Did Fink explain in this letter what he means by social responsibility or making a positive contribution to society?
YDSTIE: Well, what he said was that many governments are failing to prepare for the future on issues ranging from retirement and automation and worker training, so society is now turning to the private sector, to companies to respond to these challenges. And he notes that a big part of the polarization we see in the U.S. and around the world today comes from a lack of job and retirement security, especially for workers who don't have much education.
SHAPIRO: Is this the job of corporations? I've long heard people say that the primary job of private companies should be to make money for shareholders.
YDSTIE: You're right. Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, one of the great champions of free markets, promoted that view. He said companies don't have social responsibilities; only people do. But I talked to Professor Tim Hubbard at Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business about that today, and he says ignoring social responsibility can actually hurt a company's profits.
TIM HUBBARD: Common sense says, you know, if you have fewer workplace accidents, it's cheaper to prevent accidents than it is to have them happen. You know, so oil spills and product recalls and all of these things become quite expensive.
SHAPIRO: He seems to be saying that social responsibility can actually improve the bottom line.
YDSTIE: Right. But Hubbard says it requires companies and boards of directors to take a long-run approach, and that's the point of Fink's letter, too. He says firms have to understand that not responding to long-term trends like slow wage growth and climate change can negatively affect a company's potential growth.
SHAPIRO: Do you think we are actually going to see BlackRock stop investing in companies that are not socially responsible or companies change their policies because of this letter?
YDSTIE: Well, I think the response will be mixed, but Hubbard believes it will move the needle in the direction of more corporate social initiatives. But he does have one cautionary warning from a study he did for CEOs who decide to push social responsibility.
HUBBARD: The study showed that if firms and CEOs choose to invest in corporate social responsibility and then perform poorly, they are much more likely to be dismissed.
YDSTIE: And in fact, Ari, CEOs who invest in social responsibility programs are 84 percent more likely to be fired if the corporation performs poorly even if it wasn't that strategy that caused the poor performance.
SHAPIRO: Does that mean a company doing badly with a CEO that is not pushing social responsibility will keep the underperforming CEO?
YDSTIE: (Laughter) Yes. So with that in mind, both Fink and Hubbard say it's important for boards of directors and CEOs to make sure they agree on these initiatives as a long-term strategy for their companies.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's John Ydstie. Thanks a lot, John.
YDSTIE: You're welcome.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
We're going to take a couple minutes now to remember a radio storyteller who combined dark fantasies with absurdist humor. His name was Joe Frank.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOE FRANK: I'm sitting at a dinner party attended by Pol Pot, Hitler, Stalin and Mao. Seated at another smaller table are Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Pinochet and some others that I don't recognize.
MCEVERS: Joe Frank's stories were heard here in Southern California on member station KCRW for years.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Frank began his radio career in the mid-'70s at WBAI in New York. In 1978, he came to NPR to host Weekend All Things Considered and then moved to another show called Options. He made quite an impression on those who worked with him.
IRA GLASS, BYLINE: Joe Frank was the first time I heard radio narrative, which is, like, what I've spent my life doing.
SHAPIRO: Ira Glass, host of This American Life, was a production assistant for Frank.
GLASS: And I was standing in the studio, as in the control room, standing by the reel-to-reel tape recorder, which is how long ago it was. And he was reading one of his stories. And music was playing. And I just remember thinking, like, I don't know what this is, but I can't stop listening. All I want to do is just know what's going to happen next.
MCEVERS: And with Joe Frank, what happened next could be anything from Kierkegaard making a literal leap of faith to Leon Trotsky swooning to a mariachi band.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
FRANK: Trotsky was skeptical. He liked to listen to the music, to dance the native dances. He refused to have them removed.
MCEVERS: Joe Frank mixed philosophy and personal nightmares. Here's how he explained it to Terry Gross on WHYY's Fresh Air.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
FRANK: Whatever tragedies might befall you, you can always right away think, well, that would make a great story for radio so that it was easier to experience whatever suffering that came my way.
SHAPIRO: Joe Frank was born in Strasbourg, France, in 1938. His family fled before Hitler annexed the region and stopped Jews from leaving. He died Monday of complications from cancer. He was 79.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump is in excellent health. That's the word from the White House physician who examined him last week and went before the media to answer questions today. He says Trump aced a cognitive exam that the president himself requested. On the other hand, the doctor said Trump is so overweight that he is nearly obese and needs to start exercising daily.
Joining us with more is NPR science correspondent Richard Harris. Hey, Richard.
RICHARD HARRIS, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Let's start with the president's mental abilities because those have been questioned lately by some of his critics. What did the exam show on that score?
HARRIS: Well, the White House physician, Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson, said he chose to test the president with a test called MoCA, which takes - took about 30 minutes in this case, can sometimes take a little bit less time. It checks our retention, memory recall and other signs of cognitive function. Now, it's not a mental health exam. It does not look for anxiety, depression or other kinds of mental illness, but it is a very common screening tool for cognitive testing. And Dr. Jackson said Mr. Trump asked for it to settle some of the questions that have been swirling around about his mental status. And it turns out he scored a 30 out of 30. Jackson went on to say that he sees the president almost every day, and he has seen nothing of concern related to his general mental condition.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RONNY JACKSON: Just my day-to-day interactions with the president - you know, the president is mentally very, very, very sharp, very intact.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: And do you believe he is fit for duty?
JACKSON: Absolutely. He's fit for duty. I think he will remain fit for duty for the remainder of this term and even for the remainder of another term if he's elected.
HARRIS: Now, Dr. Jackson did back away a little bit from that entire number because of course nobody can say what the health of a 71-year-old is going to be for that length of time. But he said all the indications are good.
SHAPIRO: And is Dr. Jackson the president's personal physician or a government employee?
HARRIS: He is a federal employee, and he's worked at the White House since 2006. So he had seen George W. Bush, and he was the presidential physician for Barack Obama. So he's more impartial than the previous doctor who examined Dr. (ph) Trump. And his personal doctor said - before the election he said, I quote, "if elected, Mr. Trump, I can state unequivocally, will be the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency." This doctor clearly didn't go that far and wouldn't comment on that. But clearly these numbers also are strong numbers for...
SHAPIRO: Well, what else did we learn today about the president's health?
HARRIS: Well, Dr. Jackson ran down a list of medical tests, mostly quite good. There's no sign of diabetes, for example. The cholesterol is under reasonable control because he's taking a low dose of a statin drug. He doesn't drink or smoke, and that helps a lot. And his heart's in good shape with the exception of some calcium buildup that's in the mild to moderate range. His weight, as you mentioned, is an issue. He's almost obese. And so that was the major concern out of this from the doctor.
SHAPIRO: Explain why somebody who eats as much red meat as the president is known to eat, is as fond of desserts and Diet Cokes as he is known to be, is in such good health.
HARRIS: Hamburgers and two scoops of ice cream, yeah.
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
HARRIS: Well, that question came up, and Dr. Jackson suggested this answer.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JACKSON: Some people have, you know, just great genes. You know, I told the president that if he had a healthier over the last 20 years, he might live to be 200 years old. I don't know.
HARRIS: That said, the doctor is trying to convince the president to improve his diet and to start a daily exercise regime. When he's in the White House, he's being fed by the White House chefs, who do a good job giving him nutritious food. The doctor said when they're traveling, I think, that's when the hamburgers and chicken wings and so on come out. But the diet is more or less under control. The main concern, though, is getting an exercise regime. The doctor said Trump right now has no exercise regime. So the good news is it shouldn't be difficult to improve upon that.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Richard Harris, thanks a lot.
HARRIS: My pleasure.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
And now a shocking story out of Riverside County, Calif., not far from us here in Los Angeles. Yesterday 13 siblings, six of them minors, were found in their parents' home, and they were emaciated. Some were shackled to beds. The parents, David and Louise Turpin, are each being held on a $9 million bail for charges of torture and child endangerment. Riverside County Sheriff Captain Greg Fellows detailed the scene at a news conference today.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
GREG FELLOWS: If you can imagine being 17 years old and appearing to be a 10-year-old, being chained to a bed, malnourished and injuries associated with that, I would call that torture.
MCEVERS: Member station KVCR reporter Benjamin Purper was at that news conference and has been following the story. And he's with us now. Hey, Benjamin.
BENJAMIN PURPER, BYLINE: Hello.
MCEVERS: Hi. So just walk us through sort of the timeline of what happened. How were authorities alerted to this situation yesterday?
PURPER: Yeah, so the Turpin family's been living in Perris for a couple years now. It's part of Riverside County. The 17-year-old daughter escaped the house on Sunday and called 911. She had found a cell phone in the house that was deactivated, but it could still make emergency calls. So she told operators that her 12 siblings were locked in the house. When deputies arrived, they found that all of them needed medical care. They looked emaciated. And some of them were chained to their beds.
MCEVERS: Was there any new information released at this news conference today?
PURPER: Well, they don't really have an explanation yet. It's still early on in the investigation, so they can't pin down a motive to being religious or mental health or a cult or anything that reporters were asking about at the press conference. Captain Fellows, who we heard earlier, also said they've never been called to that house before. So the only new information was that the siblings are recovering together in two groups. The children went to one hospital, and the adults went to another. Some of us asked if the children want to be with their parents or how they're feeling, but the hospital officials didn't really have anything to say about that due to privacy laws.
MCEVERS: And you talked to some of the neighbors of the Turpin family. What did they tell you?
PURPER: Yeah. A lot of them were replaying things that they had observed over the years. I talked to several neighbors who had tried to talk to the kids when they were outside in the yard. They would say hi and were met with silence almost like the children weren't allowed to speak to other people. They were also shocked just like the deputies were to find out that some of the siblings were in their 20s. They all thought they were much younger.
MCEVERS: The California Department of Education directory lists the Turpins' home as a private K through 12 campus called Sandcastle Day School. The father, David Turpin, is identified as the principal. Given what happened to these children, is there any indication of how this home could have been approved by the state to be a home school?
PURPER: Yeah. Well, in California, when parents want to homeschool their children, they can basically just fill out a form to register their home as a private school. The state doesn't have any authority over them after that point. So the California Department of Education issued a statement today to say that they don't monitor these schools and that they're sickened by what happened. Captain Fellows said that the school seemed to have existed just for the Turpin children, but they're investigating just to make sure that that's true.
MCEVERS: So what is going to happen to these siblings now, the children and the adults? And is there any information going forward with the court case against the parents?
PURPER: The siblings will be taken care of by the state for now. They'll get medical care and support. The state sometimes looks at placing children with family members, but they said in this case it's really too early to say. And the parents appear in court on Thursday.
MCEVERS: Benjamin Purper of member station KVCR, thank you so much.
PURPER: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Egypt has set the date of presidential elections for March 26. Candidates will be able to register to run starting on Saturday, but there are high barriers for entering the race and trying to replace the incumbent, President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi. NPR's Jane Arraf reports that as candidates fall by the wayside, the fairness of the election is in doubt.
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: It's always crowded in Cairo's streets. After all, 10 million people live here. But it's hard to generate much excitement about the upcoming elections. Part of that is the trauma of what this country has been through, like in Rabaa square, a large traffic circle where Egyptian security forces killed more than 800 demonstrators. You wouldn't know that now. There are no memorials to the civilian dead, and the square has been renamed after an Egyptian prosecutor. Instead, there's praise for Egypt's hard-line president.
(SOUNDBITE OF HORNS HONKING)
ARRAF: The streets are full of traffic. There are buses stopping here, sirens blaring and, strung between lamp posts, posters expressing support for President Sissi. They're not campaign posters because the campaign hasn't started yet. Registration hasn't even opened for candidates. But Sissi is definitely running. Sissi had been defense minister in 2013 under the elected Muslim Brotherhood president he helped overthrow. A year later, Sissi himself was elected president. You won't find a lot of candidates daring to run against him in these elections.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
MOHAMED ANWAR SADAT: (Through interpreter) The campaign is being held under emergency law, which restricts organizing peaceful meetings and demonstrations. So I am afraid that some of our young people could be accused of violations or detained.
ARRAF: That's Mohamed Anwar Sadat, the nephew of the late President Sadat, telling a press conference he's changed his mind and decided it's better not to run. Other potential presidential candidates have also complained they've been harassed or threatened with arrest. Under Sissi's rule, thousands of political prisoners have been arrested and hundreds of newspapers, websites and foreign-linked aid organizations shut down. The country's under emergency law renewed every three months. One person planning to enter the race is human rights lawyer Khaled Ali. He believes a lot of young people who want their voices heard would vote for him.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KHALED ALI: (Through interpreter) We chose this path so no one would come and ask this generation, where were you when they were building a dictatorship, a dictatorship that can't stand an independent website or young men and women chanting the simplest of slogans?
ARRAF: Ali, though, is appealing a conviction of making an obscene gesture at a demonstration. And if he loses the appeal, he won't be allowed to run. And there are lots of other obstacles. To register as a candidate, you need to gather 25,000 signatures or support from 20 members of Parliament in just 10 days. More than 500 members of Parliament - almost all of them - have already rushed to declare their support for Sissi.
Sissi has big projects and big plans for Egypt, a lot of them involving the military. He wants to build a new capital outside Cairo and fight ISIS militants in the Sinai. He wants another term to work on those. He's expected to get it. Rivals don't seem to stand a chance. Jane Arraf, NPR News, Cairo.
(SOUNDBITE OF DREEMS AND JAGMA'S "WE SHALL BE FOUND")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
California is the latest state to legalize the sale of recreational marijuana. And there are major military installations in this state, which means the military is grappling with the new law. Steve Walsh from member station KPBS has the story.
WILL SENN: Just behind you here you've got all your concentrates that we offer, as well as the seeds if you're looking to grow your own.
STEVE WALSH, BYLINE: Will Senn owns Urbn Leaf, which began selling marijuana for recreational use on the first day it became legal in California this year. There were long lines outside his storefront outlet in San Diego.
SENN: You know, you can see the people that walk in the door. It's your next-door neighbor. It's your aunt. It's your grandmother.
WALSH: That may also include the wife of a sailor or the husband of a Marine, but not the service members themselves, who are still subject to a zero-tolerance policy on marijuana. That can make life even more challenging for anyone stationed in California and their commanders. Jeff Carver is an attorney and retired JAG officer in San Diego who defends people on active duty who fail a drug test. He read from the Navy's latest copy of the "Manual For Court Martial."
JEFF CARVER: (Reading) In the military, any - that's in italics - drug offense is serious because of high potential for adversely affecting readiness and mission performance.
WALSH: With few exceptions, being caught with marijuana or THC in your bloodstream means you're likely to face discharge, the end of a military career.
CARVER: If you want to be secretary of the Navy, you want to make a career out of this endeavor, you cannot smoke marijuana. You can't eat marijuana brownies. And you probably can't hang out with your friends if they're smoking marijuana.
WALSH: The military has a long history of grappling with marijuana. The scale of drug use in Vietnam was making the evening news, and it was unnerving to the Pentagon. This report appeared on CBS.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Recent surveys estimate that well over 50 percent of the soldiers in Vietnam use marijuana.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: You get really stoned.
WALSH: The actual number, according to a Pentagon study, was closer to 70 percent of the troops in combat were using marijuana at some point. In 1981, some sailors involved in a crash aboard the aircraft carrier Nimitz had marijuana in their system. It led to a zero-tolerance policy. That's pretty much where the policy stands today across the military. But in recent years, the Pentagon has been looking at that policy. In the last year of the Obama administration, speaking before a Silicon Valley crowd, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter hinted that the Pentagon was rethinking its stance, at least on marijuana used prior to joining.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ASH CARTER: We need to understand - and we do - the way people are - have - lives have changed - not hold against them things that they've done when they were younger. And so it's an important question. And the answer is yes. We can be flexible.
WALSH: Current Defense Secretary James Mattis has not spoken about the issue. But there are other signs the military may be softening the zero-tolerance policy. The Army and Navy have made it easier to allow potential recruits to obtain a waiver for those who used marijuana prior to enlisting. And last year, the Air Force eliminated past marijuana use as a reason for barring enlistment as long as it didn't result in a criminal penalty. Jeff Carver, the San Diego attorney who represents military clients, says while testing positive for marijuana is still likely to get you kicked out of the Navy, most marijuana cases no longer go to criminal trial. He says commanders realize that society's attitudes have changed.
CARVER: There's got to be a little more give, a little more love there than there used to be. I mean, these members realize that young sailors are probably having to fend off offers of marijuana all the time. You know, the punishment probably is becoming more liberal.
WALSH: That doesn't mean sailors can expect a free pass. The acting commander of Naval Base San Diego issued this statement ahead of recreational marijuana becoming legal in California, restating that marijuana remains strictly forbidden under federal law and that we continue to enforce our zero-tolerance policy. For NPR News, I'm Steve Walsh in San Diego.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In China's biggest cities, the country's new convenience economy has become inconvenient for pedestrians. Shared bicycles and mobile apps that promise quick food delivery mean sidewalks cluttered with bikes and speeding drivers and electric scooters. NPR's Rob Schmitz reports from the sidewalks of Shanghai.
ROB SCHMITZ, BYLINE: Noon, downtown Shanghai, a city of 24 million people on lunch break. And if they're walking along a sidewalk like I am, they're playing a game of chicken with speeding, silent electric scooters driven by uniformed men rushing to deliver lunch. They prefer sidewalks because police will ticket them if they're on many of the highly trafficked downtown roads.
Here's another delivery man coming right at me here in his scooter, asking people to move out of the way on a public sidewalk. And here comes another one plowing right through people.
In the past few years, mobile apps that promise quick delivery times have become popular in cities like Shanghai. It's turned many sidewalks here into roads, roads for drivers like Mr. Qu, who I stop by refusing to move out of his way as he's speeding through pedestrians. He drives for MissFresh, an app that promises quick delivery of fresh fruit and vegetables. My question - why are you driving on the sidewalk? - elicits an eye roll.
MR QU: (Through interpreter) There's no lane for scooters on this road, so I have to. I'm a delivery man. I need to deliver these items on time or I'll be punished.
SCHMITZ: Qu says his boss will take $30 out of his paycheck for each delivery that doesn't make it on time. And with that, he speeds off into other pedestrians, who have a hard time moving out of the way because of row upon row of shared bicycles cluttering the walkway. That's been another problem this year - China's shared bike revolution, bikes that you can unlock with mobile apps, ride them and then leave them wherever you want, like in the middle of a sidewalk, piled atop other shared bikes. That's what Tang Xian is sifting through. The city pays him $500 a month to make order out of the city's shared bike chaos.
TANG XIAN: (Through interpreter) It's a serious problem. There's no place for bikes, and there's just too many of them. There's nothing we can do. If I don't keep an eye on them, bikes will be all over the roads.
SCHMITZ: That's what's happened a block away. An entire sidewalk is cut off to pedestrians because it's filled with shared bicycles. That leaves people like local resident Shao having to walk on the road while cars whiz past. Sidewalks, he reminds me in Chinese, are called renxingdao - literally people walkway.
SHAO: (Through interpreter) What does that mean? It's for people to walk on. But now they're full of bikes. Look. You can't even walk on the sidewalk. They're stealing public resources.
SCHMITZ: Shanghai's Public Security Bureau acknowledged to NPR that both shared bikes and speeding delivery men were big problems and they were exploring solutions.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMEN: (Speaking Chinese).
SCHMITZ: Solutions that couldn't come sooner for these six grannies basking in the afternoon sun on their stools, complaining about the scourge of shared bikes and delivery men on their fair city. One who only gives her surname, Li, says it's clear who's responsible for keeping the sidewalks clear.
LI: (Through interpreter) The bike companies should pay for it. They're the ones making all the money. The government can't be in charge of everything. (Speaking Chinese).
SCHMITZ: She motions to two shared banks that somebody just parked in the middle of the street in front of her and makes a sour face until I remind her that this part of the sidewalk is already occupied by her and her five friends. Rob Schmitz, NPR News, Shanghai.
(SOUNDBITE OF KEV BROWN'S "LOOK (INSTRUMENTAL)")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
People are talking a lot about what happened after a dinner date between the comedian Aziz Ansari and a young woman going by the name of Grace. That's not her real name. The website Babe published her account of that date and said it protected her identity because she's not a public figure. Grace says she decided to tell her story after she saw Aziz Ansari win an award at last week's Golden Globes. He was wearing a pin to support the movement against sexual harassment and assault.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Grace and Ansari met at a party last year. They texted afterwards. They eventually went out. Grace describes what she says was the worst night of her life. And this story has caused a huge debate. Did she experience sexual assault as she said, or was it just a bad date? We're going to hear from two women with different views. And clearly we're going to be touching on some mature themes, so this conversation might not be suitable for all listeners.
Anna North is with us. She's a senior reporter who covers gender issues at Vox. Welcome to the show.
ANNA NORTH: Thanks so much for having me.
MCEVERS: And Caitlin Flanagan is a writer and contributing editor at The Atlantic. She's with us on Skype. Welcome to you.
CAITLIN FLANAGAN: Thank you.
MCEVERS: OK, just to set up this story a little bit more, Grace says that things got physical at Aziz Ansari's apartment after dinner. They kissed. He performed oral sex on her. He asked her to do the same. She briefly did. He was eager to have sex. She says she would try to move away from him and used, quote, "verbal and non-verbal cues" to show she was uncomfortable with the situation. Yet he kept trying. She eventually says she's going to call a car. He gets her an Uber, and she leaves. And she feels violated. And I just want to ask you both - and we'll start with Caitlin - what was your first reaction when you read this story?
FLANAGAN: I was really surprised that this piece had named this man, kept the accuser's name secret and then had really detailed a lot of actions that I didn't think at all qualified as sexual assault by almost any level. I think he did some dishonorable things. I think he did some things that, you know, if I was supposed to be the person in charge of approving or disapproving of what he did, I think there were some things he did that weren't nice. But it was so far away from any journalistic standard. I thought it was really shocking. And I thought, that's a terrible thing to do to somebody.
MCEVERS: And, Anna, what about you? What'd you think?
NORTH: I mean, honestly, my first reaction was just sort of recognition. This is a situation that I've heard from my friends. This is - the behavior she describes through Ansari is behavior that I've heard men confess to in their own lives. So I thought, like, yep, this feels real familiar. And I did have questions about, should Babe have handled it this way? But ultimately, like, my first thought was this story - this is just so common.
MCEVERS: And Caitlin, you wrote, you know, about sort of a generational divide when it comes to situations like this. It was really interesting. In your piece, you talked about the magazines - the books and magazines that you read in the '60s and the '70s about what women should do in a situation like this. And on the one hand, those magazines, you know, blamed you if you wore too short of a skirt. But on the other hand, they told you to keep your mad money and run away if you were in a situation you didn't like, right?
FLANAGAN: Well, I mean, when I look at young women - I'm in my 50s - they've accomplished so much that is just - I mean, women my age just sit back in awe, you know? Their goals for careers, the kinds of careers they go into, their fight to be paid equally to men - it's breathtaking. But then in this one core area, they're so weak, which is they jump into these, you know, hookup situations. I have zero moralistic comment on that.
And then they become terrified to say the thing that we were taught right away - don't kiss me if I don't want to be kissed. I absolutely refuse. I'm walking out of here. And for someone who's like the Aziz Ansari in this situation who was putting up zero threatening behavior towards her, she said no exactly one time and his response was, let's put our clothes on. You know, he did put her hand in his crotch a bunch of times, which is certainly wrong. But it's - to be exposed this way, I think, is crazy.
MCEVERS: So we should just say that Grace in the piece said that she gave verbal and non-verbal cues that she didn't want this to happen. But, Anna, I just want you to respond to this. What do you think about this idea that, you know, well, if you don't like it just go?
NORTH: Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, we'd love to get to a place where everyone feels completely empowered to say exactly what they want and to do exactly what they need to do and keep themselves safe. But I also think that the reality is that women get this message - and we've been getting this message for a long time - that you have to be really nice to men.
You have to reject them really nicely if you're going to reject them. And you have to kind of let them down easy. And you have to be sweet. And I think it can be pretty hard for women, especially young women, to switch gears from that messaging to suddenly, oh, now I need to advocate for myself. I'm going to advocate for myself in this really assertive way.
MCEVERS: We should just say Aziz Ansari acknowledged in a statement that this date did happen. He said, quote, "we ended up engaging in sexual activity, which by all indications was completely consensual." He went on to say he was surprised and concerned when Grace expressed to him in a text the next day that what happened was not OK with her. You know, so what do you make of that?
NORTH: I was glad that he had apologized. I thought it was very believable that he said that by all accounts the activity was consensual. Like, I certainly believed that he had interpreted it as consensual at the time. And I thought, like, maybe that's where the problem lies. Like, she doesn't feel like this was at all what she signed up for. He feels like it was fine. That's really the crux of the issue here. So it's useful to read his statement along with her piece and say, like, look; here's a core failure of communication and something that as a society I think we need to work on.
MCEVERS: So what now? I mean, what does this particular incident do to the larger #MeToo conversation?
NORTH: I think the answer is really different from what the answer would be in a lot of the sort of #MeToo stories that we've heard. Obviously, you know, a lot of the stories that we heard about Harvey Weinstein were very much work encounters even though he allegedly turned them into something that was very much not work. You know, these are women that were hoping to get a job from him, and what they got was something really different.
That's not happening here. This is a date. And I think that's important. But I would also say I think this is a moment we're talking a lot about sex; we're talking about gender; we're talking a lot about power. What better moment to talk about the power imbalances that can exist in dating scenarios and in sexual scenarios and to try to start breaking those down?
MCEVERS: And, Caitlin, where do you think we go now with the #MeToo conversation after this particular incident?
FLANAGAN: I'm really troubled by how many people are saying, well, this is a confusing moment, but we can make something positive about it by having more conversations. A man has been destroyed through this.
MCEVERS: Has he been destroyed?
FLANAGAN: I think he'll have a really hard time coming back from this because such a huge part of his audience is millennial. And a huge number of millennial women are just really disgusted at him right now. And I think he's been humiliated in general. And I think that the idea that, well, let's go on and make something positive about it is extremely cruel. And when we talk about empathy, we're showing, I think, as a society an extreme lack of empathy for another human being if we just say, well, too bad for him, but let's have some good conversations. This was a wrong thing to do.
MCEVERS: Caitlin Flanagan from The Atlantic, thank you so much for your time today.
FLANAGAN: You bet. Thanks for having me.
MCEVERS: And Anna North with Vox, thanks to you, too.
NORTH: Thanks so much for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SKALPEL'S "SALVADANIO")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
As President Trump marks one year in office, NPR is checking on ways that his private business interests have fit with his public role. One area to consider involves his financial dealings with Russians. Special counsel Robert Mueller has brought money laundering charges against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, and there are signs that Russian money laundering has become a big part of the Mueller investigation. NPR's Jim Zarroli reports.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: When Mueller assembled his team of investigators, he included several people with experience prosecuting money laundering. Kenneth McCallion is a former federal prosecutor who has written about Trump.
KENNETH MCCALLION: They have substantial decades of experience in the area, and I don't think he would have brought them onto his team if that wasn't going to be an area that would be focused upon.
ZARROLI: And these investigators will have their work cut out for them. Over the years, huge amounts of money have poured into the United States from foreign dictators, drug dealers and Mafia leaders. And McCallion says since the 1990s, much of the dirty money has come from the former Soviet Union.
MCCALLION: Russian money was looking to really find a home outside Russia in Western Europe and the United States, and real estate was one of the investments of choice.
ZARROLI: Banks and real estate companies are required by law to know who they're dealing with, but much of the money coming from the former Soviet Union has come through offshore companies that are difficult to trace. President Trump has denied doing any deals inside Russia, but Russians have been big buyers of his condominiums, and several of his real estate deals in New York and Toronto, for instance, have been financed with money from oligarchs with ties to the Kremlin.
ERIC SWALWELL: You see a number of financial contacts over the years that individuals have had with Russia.
ZARROLI: Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell of California says there's nothing illegal about doing business with investors from the former Soviet Union. But Swalwell, who sits on the House Intelligence Committee, says Trump's friendliness toward Russian President Vladimir Putin does raise questions about his motives.
SWALWELL: He certainly is acting in their interests. And what we want to find out is, is there a nefarious reason for that?
ZARROLI: Swalwell says the Russian government has a long history of using money to buy influence.
SWALWELL: Oftentimes it's through real estate dealings. Sometimes it's through preying on people in financial distress.
ZARROLI: Swalwell points out that Trump himself has gone through numerous bankruptcies and is said to have had difficulty getting credit from major banks. The one big exception was Deutsche Bank, to which he owes more than $130 million and which has paid big fines in New York state for money laundering. Jonathan Winer is a former State Department official.
JONATHAN WINER: It's important that Mr. Mueller find out what happened there because Deutsche Bank was known as having extensive, intensive relationships with money from former Soviet republics generally and Russia in particular.
ZARROLI: Now, as Trump enters his second year in office, there's evidence Mueller is examining his ties to the bank. Mueller's team reportedly subpoenaed records from Deutsche Bank involving people tied to the Trump Organization. What all this means is unclear. The Trump Organization is a privately held company that releases few public records, and Trump himself has refused to release his tax returns. Jim Zarroli, NPR News, New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF THEO CROKER'S "REALIZE")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The investigation that's being led by special counsel Robert Mueller has been under a lot of partisan scrutiny, and fewer than half of Americans think it's being conducted fairly. That is according to the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll. We also found a lot of doubt about government and private institutions. NPR lead political editor Domenico Montanaro is with us now to talk through the findings. Hello.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Hey, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So just shy of a majority of people think Mueller's investigation is fair. What else did this poll find about how the public views the Russia investigation?
MONTANARO: Well, Americans really are divided on the investigation, you know, especially by party. And we see that throughout almost everything that we survey on. But almost three quarters of Democrats think it's been fair. But a majority of Republicans - guess what - do not.
MCEVERS: Right.
MONTANARO: Overall, 68 percent say Mueller should be allowed, though, to finish the investigation. But personally, he's pretty vulnerable. More than 4 in 10 don't know who he is, or they have no opinion of him. And of those who do, they're pretty split. Just 29 percent have a favorable impression of Mueller. An equal 29 percent have an unfavorable impression of him - and again, pretty hotly partisan.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
MONTANARO: So what's all this mean - that the conservative campaign against Mueller that's been waged in conservative media has been working. Our pollster said if he were a candidate, now would be the time to start putting up those ads to define himself because right now, he's only being defined by his opponents. He of course, though - he's notably not a candidate. He's kind of the opposite of somebody who would go on a campaign for himself - very private guy and conducting this investigation behind the scenes. And there's also a campaign against the integrity of the FBI, including from the president. But our poll shows that 57 percent actually have quite a bit of confidence or a great deal of confidence in that law enforcement agency.
MCEVERS: This poll asked more broadly about institutions beyond the FBI, meaning other parts of government - schools, banks, the military. You wrote today on npr.org that trust is crumbling in our institutions. I mean, how bad is it?
MONTANARO: Well, it's really not great at all for especially American political institutions.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
MONTANARO: Just 8 percent have a great deal of confidence in Congress. Overwhelming numbers of people have little confidence in both major political parties. A solid majority have not much or no confidence in the presidency, and that's something that has happened, you know, back to Barack Obama where the presidency has become pretty polarized. The only institution that holds up very well at all is the military - whopping 87 percent of Americans have at least quite a lot of confidence in the military. And that's a huge change from a generation ago in the '70s. After and during the Vietnam War, far fewer people had that kind of confidence in the military - lot's changed in 40 years - no longer have the draft. Fewer and fewer Americans know someone who's served.
MCEVERS: 2018 of course is an election year. What should politicians be mindful of in these findings?
MONTANARO: People are skeptical of them, you know, and that...
MCEVERS: Yeah.
MONTANARO: ...They don't have a lot of rope with the public. Again, of all the institutions we polled, Americans have the least amount of confidence in Congress and Republicans. That's a pretty bad sign for the party in power in an election year. But Democrats really should not start celebrating because they don't fare much better. And everyone in an elective office, frankly, has got to watch their back.
MCEVERS: And quickly, the media is an institution that of course has been a constant target of President Trump. What do people think about us?
MONTANARO: Yeah, well, they don't have a ton of confidence in the media, suffice it to say.
MCEVERS: OK.
MONTANARO: Just 30 percent say they do; 68 percent don't. Trump has talked a lot about fake news. We heard Jeff Flake today talk about how the free press is the enemy of despots. Well, it looks like Trump's attacks may be working because 53 percent of Republicans say they have no confidence in the media at all, and that's pretty bad when the truth and fairness, objectivity are the pillars of a free press.
MCEVERS: NPR's Domenico Montanaro with findings from the latest NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll. We'll have more tomorrow on Morning Edition. Thanks, Domenico.
MONTANARO: You're quite welcome.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
North Korea and South Korea will make a show of unity next month when the South hosts the Winter Olympics. The two countries made a deal at the inner-Korean border today. They will field their first ever joint Olympic team - a women's ice hockey team. They'll also march together under a unified Korean flag at the opening ceremonies. There'll be 550 people in North Korea's delegation. That includes a cheering squad, taekwondo performers and athletes. A North Korean figure skating pair has already qualified for the games. NPR's Elise Hu has more about them.
ELISE HU, BYLINE: The North Korean regime doesn't let most its citizens ever leave the country, but its top athletes have competed around the world. Last year, in Japan...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Representative of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Tae Ok Ryom and Ju Sik Kim.
HU: ...Twenty-five-year-old Kim Ju Sik and Ryom Tae Ok, who's 18, skated their way to a bronze medal at the Asian games. They also competed in the world figure skating championships.
(APPLAUSE)
HU: Then in Germany at the end of 2017, they placed sixth in an event that qualified them for the Winter Olympics.
JUN MICHAEL PARK: They were, like, smiling and hugging and just celebrating. And it was really kind of, like, you know, touching to see those kind of human interactions.
HU: South Korean Jun Michael Park is a photojournalist who covered the qualifying event. When the duo gave a press conference and no translators were available, Park played interpreter.
PARK: I was really nervous just coming in contact with the North Koreans because I'm not allowed technically.
HU: South Koreans are forbidden by the government to even place phone calls to North Korea because of a Cold War-era law that's still on the books. But South Koreans and now the rest of the world are paying attention to this pair. They're the only North Korean athletes to qualify for next month's games. Seong Moon-jeong is a researcher at South Korea's Institute of Sport Science who studies inter-Korean sports.
SEONG MOON-JEONG: (Through interpreter) It's almost impossible for people outside the country to know how they grew up as athletes and also about how the North Korean infrastructure is supporting the athletes.
HU: Seong briefed South Korean diplomats ahead of talks with North Koreans about the Olympics.
SEONG: (Through interpreter) Pair figure skating became huge in North Korea ever since Kim Jong Un came into power. In North Korea, the sports the leader is interested in get a lot of attention and support.
HU: This weekend, the International Olympic Committee is meeting near Geneva to decide whether the North Korean pair can compete as a late entry in next month's games in South Korea. Photographer Park says he's rooting for them.
PARK: You know, there should be more interactions - more human interactions. And maybe that will lead to better understanding.
HU: As he interpreted the North Koreans' Korean language to English for throngs of press, he could hear the 70-year breakup of the Korean Peninsula in their vocabulary.
PARK: I think their form of Korean - of the Korean language is maybe a little bit more pure. In South Korea, we have a lot of English words - just foreign words that we use without even thinking about.
HU: How much foreign exposure North Koreans get is directed by the regime, which historically has used international showcases as propaganda opportunities. But in one way, the North Korean figure skaters are already showing international savvy. Their short program is set to music by the Beatles. The song's opening line is fittingly, I read the news today - oh, boy. Elise Hu, NPR News, Seoul.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BEATLES SONG, "A DAY IN THE LIFE")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
On January 24 of last year, a tiny hippopotamus was born six weeks premature at the Cincinnati Zoo, and she was named Fiona. You might already know that if you were one of the 27 million views that Fiona videos have gotten over the last year. And she's popped up a lot in Facebook and Twitter feeds. People from all over the world have watched as the zoo worked to keep her alive. And now Fiona is about to turn 1. Tana Weingartner of member station WVXU reports.
TANA WEINGARTNER, BYLINE: I'm here at Hippo Cove in Cincinnati, and the rock star herself is right in front of me, just a few feet away. She's kind of bobbing in the water right now along this underwater viewing glass in her heated pool. She weighs in at about 650 pounds now. Someday she's going to be closer to 3,000 pounds. And people here are obsessed.
CHRISTINA GORSUCH: So I think people often when they come see her are surprised that we're not hugging on her or kissing on her or something like that. Although she is quite slimy.
WEINGARTNER: Christina Gorsuch is the zoo's curator of mammals. No one had ever hand-reared a premature hippo before, so she and the zoo's team had to learn on the fly, even calling on nurses from Cincinnati Children's Hospital to start a special IV when Fiona stopped eating. Local businesses came out with hippo-branded everything - T-shirts, calendars, ice cream, even beer and donated part of the proceeds to the zoo. Overall, the zoo estimates Fiona has generated $2 to $3 million for the local economy. The zoo has posted a baby hippo update almost daily since Fiona's birth. Marketing director Chad Yelton says attempts at scaling back were met with resistance.
CHAD YELTON: We've tried a couple of times to say, if we're bombarding you with Fiona madness, we'll stop. And people were like, you'd better - I better get my Fiona fix.
WEINGARTNER: The zoo's strategy is to tell Fiona's story as it unfolds, good or bad. It's a tactic the zoo used in May 2016 after a young boy climbed through a barrier and fell into a gorilla enclosure. Keepers shot and killed a 17-year-old western lowland gorilla named Harambe while rescuing the child. Rob Vernon with the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, or AZA, says Cincinnati's tell-all approach is unusual but effective in the world of social media.
ROB VERNON: I think you will continue to see that openness and transparency become a daily part of what AZA members in particular are doing.
WEINGARTNER: He points to Nora, the polar bear in Utah but says even she hasn't garnered near as much attention as Fiona the hippo. So why do people care so much about a hippopotamus? After all, they're highly aggressive and considered to be one of the world's most dangerous animals to humans. Zookeeper Christina Gorsuch such says for her, it's simple. People love a good story.
GORSUCH: We all worked really hard to keep her alive. She worked really hard to stay alive. And then it turned out good. Like, the end story was really good, which that almost (laughter) never happens either anymore. So I think beginning to end, she's a feel-good story. She's a feel-good hippo.
WEINGARTNER: The zoo is celebrating Fiona's first birthday this weekend with the usual - cake, giveaways and, like any child's birthday party, goody bags, which in this case will be treats for the other zoo animals. For NPR News, I'm Tana Weingartner in Cincinnati.
[POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: A previous Web and audio version of this story said the sale of Fiona-related items generated about $3 million for the zoo. However, the $2 million to $3 million number refers to the estimated boost to the local economy from the Fiona-related sales and tourism.]
(SOUNDBITE OF PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS SONG, "TOO MUCH BIRTHDAY")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
A pioneer in AIDS research has died. Biologist Mathilde Krim started the American Foundation for AIDS Research 35 years ago. During a time of confusion and fear over the growing epidemic, Krim raised millions of dollars to finance studies, clinical trials and AIDS awareness programs. NPR's Patti Neighmond has this profile.
PATTI NEIGHMOND, BYLINE: Mathilde Krim was born in Italy, received her doctorate in biology from the University of Geneva and was a dedicated activist for human rights. As a young woman, she joined the resistance against the Nazis during World War II. She lived in Israel, moved to the U.S. in the late '50s and was studying viruses and cancer when the AIDS epidemic began in the early '80s. Krim was among the first scientists to raise funds for research to develop AIDS treatment. Corey Johnson is speaker of the New York City Council.
COREY JOHNSON: She became just a key, key leader. And she has literally likely saved hundreds of thousands if not millions of lives because of what she did during the initial days and years of the epidemic. And every single one of us living with HIV today who are on these medicines where now we can live and thrive - it's because of people like Dr. Mathilde Krim.
NEIGHMOND: Who not only raised money but also raised awareness about the disease and demanded people pay attention. Kevin Robert Frost is CEO of the organization Krim founded now called the Foundation for AIDS Research.
KEVIN ROBERT FROST: She did it in this sort of grandmotherly way but yet in a very direct and very honest way.
NEIGHMOND: Helping people confront difficult issues of the time - sex, drug use, homosexuality.
FROST: And Dr. Krim was able to address all of those things and sweep aside the stigma and the discrimination that was associated with these communities in a way that I think very few people could have at the time.
NEIGHMOND: Krim took on the political establishment at a time when most lawmakers were silent and when discrimination against people with AIDS was rampant in housing, employment and even medical care. Krim fought for laws to ban discrimination. She campaigned for needle exchange programs to stop the spread of AIDS among drug users and promoted public campaigns for safe sex. Peter Staley, a longtime AIDS activist and early member of the advocacy group ACT UP, says Krim's approach to public health was groundbreaking.
PETER STALEY: She recognized human nature for what it was - its faults and its beautiful diversity. And she realized that using science and a traditional public health approach was the way to save lives. You throw out the moralizing. You throw out the finger wagging, and you saved lives. And she did this again and again and again. She fought HIV stigma. She fought homophobia.
NEIGHMOND: Krim received 16 honorary doctorates. And in the year 2000, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Kevin Robert Frost says despite the profound sadness he feels, there is also a sense of joy.
FROST: Albert Einstein once said that only a life lived for others is the life worthwhile. And Dr. Krim chose to live a life worthwhile. And I think in recognizing that, there is so much joy to be found in a human being who could devote themselves so completely to the people around them.
NEIGHMOND: Dr. Mathilde Krim passed away at her home in New York state at the age of 91. Patti Neighmond, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF CASHMERE CAT'S "MIRROR MARU")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Spend any time at all on Capitol Hill, and you'll hear this said. Lawmakers do not get anything done without a deadline. Congressional leaders had hoped that would hold true this week. They are trying to combine a government spending bill with legal protections for the 700,000 or so immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally after being brought here as children. But here's the deadline part. The deadline for passing a spending bill is now two days away, and immigration has become the major sticking point.
NPR congressional reporter Kelsey Snell joins us to talk about these negotiations. Hey there, Kelsey.
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: Hi there.
KELLY: All right, so start with immigration. How far along are negotiators in these talks?
SNELL: Well, talks are moving slowly. As you know, things kind of fell apart after a meeting at the White House where the president said - made some incendiary comments and kind of ended an earlier effort - a bipartisan effort in the Senate. Now we've got this group. They're calling themselves the number twos. They're the whips, the Republicans, the Democrats in both the House and the Senate who have been meeting. And they're trying to address those four pillars that were laid out by the White House.
Now, leaders are saying they don't think that Friday is really a deadline for DACA. At least that's what Republicans are saying. They just say it's the deadline for spending, and they're pushing for a short-term spending bill to keep the talks alive. You know, lawmakers are also confused about what exactly Trump wants. McConnell kept pushing that idea and returning to the issue over and over again in his weekly press conference. Here's what he had to say.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
MITCH MCCONNELL: Well, at the risk of being repetitious, I'm looking for something that President Trump supports. And he's not yet indicated what measure he's willing to sign.
KELLY: We have heard, though, Kelsey, from Senator McConnell, other Republican leaders. They sound pretty confident that they have a plan for a stopgap spending bill, that the government is not going to shut down on Friday. I mean, how much time do they actually have to work this out?
SNELL: So they're kind of in a familiar place. Republican leaders have seen this before. They're at risk of losing votes from conservatives in the House and Democrats in the Senate. But they need both to be onboard to get a bill passed to have anything sent to the president to sign. I talked to Mark Meadows. He's the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, that group of conservative Republicans. And he said that he has a lot of concerns not just about what a short-term spending bill would do for military spending but also about what would come after this, what kind of deals are being negotiated. And he's been suggesting today that Republicans don't have the votes.
Now, the White House backs the idea of a short-term spending bill, so that could help. But Democrats are skeptical, too. Here's what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said at his weekly press conference.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
CHUCK SCHUMER: They don't like this deal, and they believe if we kick the can down the road this time, we'll be back where we started from next time. So there's very, very strong support not to go along with their deal.
SNELL: The they he's talking about there are Democrats - Senate Democrats. And Democrats are wary of backing down because this issue has become a huge deal for many people in their base who are demanding that they stand firm. And there are some people who are even calling for a shutdown to show how serious they are.
KELLY: Well, how serious are they? I mean, that's tough talk we just heard there from Senator Schumer. How would you rate the chances that Democrats might - could really force a shutdown Friday night?
SNELL: Well, it's hard to say at this point because as crazy as it sounds that we are on - here at Wednesday and Friday is the deadline, there's still a lot of time for them to come up with something. There are little bits they could add to it. And Democrats could find that it just doesn't work well for them politically to be standing in the way of keeping the government open.
KELLY: OK, thank you, Kelsey.
SNELL: Thank you.
KELLY: That's NPR's Kelsey Snell reporting from Capitol Hill.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In the ongoing immigration debate, there's this argument that you sometimes hear usually from people who favor restrictions on immigration. And the argument goes something like this. My ancestors came to the U.S. legally, so why can't people do the same today? Kevin Jennings is on a mission to point out why this argument is problematic. He is the president of the Tenement Museum in New York City, and he's with us now. Hi.
KEVIN JENNINGS: Thank you for having me on.
MCEVERS: So what's wrong with that statement?
JENNINGS: It's basically a meaningless statement because for most of American history, there was no immigration law. It wasn't until the 1880s that we had any federal immigration law of any kind, and it wasn't until 1924 that we began requiring papers of people coming to the United States. So when you say your ancestors came here legally, basically you're not saying anything because for most of American history, coming here legally meant getting off the boat.
MCEVERS: Like, there was no legal or illegal. Anybody could come.
JENNINGS: Exactly. At the Tenement Museum, we tell the stories of families that came in the 1800s and 1900s, and the majority of them just got off the boat and walked over to the Lower East Side and started a new life. It wasn't until the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 which was designed to - as exactly as it sounds - to exclude people of Chinese descent from entering the United States that we had any federal restriction on who could enter the country of any kind.
MCEVERS: You've written an op-ed about this in the LA Times, and you tell the stories of two women who lived in the building that your museum occupies today. Can you tell us about them?
JENNINGS: Sure. The first woman's Nathalie Gumpertz. She came in 1858. She was a German immigrant. She basically got off the boat and made her way to the Lower East Side, which was then called Kleindeutschland, or Little Germany, because everyone there was German-speaking.
MCEVERS: Wow.
JENNINGS: In fact New York was the third-largest German-speaking city in the world in 1860 after Berlin and Vienna. And Nathalie got married, had four kids, set up a whole new life - no big deal. Fifty years later, a different woman shows up - Rosaria Baldizzi - in 1925. She's facing a totally different set of circumstances because in 1924, we passed the National Origins Act which set quotas for how many immigrants could come here from different countries. It was deliberately passed to try and exclude people of inferior races, which back then meant people from Southern and Eastern Europe like Italians and Jews.
Rosaria came over to join her husband who had come first to America before the passage of the act to set up a home for his family. When Rosaria came, there was a very low quota on Italian immigration, so she had to come illegally. And she lived in the United States for 20 years before she was able to finally get citizenship. So whereas Nathalie was able to get off the boat in 1858, just start a new life, Rosaria had to live in the shadows for two decades.
MCEVERS: So what would you say to the argument that we're hearing that people coming to the U.S. now have to respect the laws of the land whether you like them or not? How does that sound to you?
JENNINGS: Well, I just would say to people who are saying that - careful what you wish for. If those laws had existed when your ancestors came, you'd probably still be living in Italy or Poland. The reality is, immigration law is a moving target in America. It has not existed for most of our history, and when it has existed, it has waxed and waned with different attitudes towards people coming into the country.
MCEVERS: Do you actually hear this from people at the Tenement Museum or elsewhere? You know, my ancestors came here legally. And when you do hear it, what do you say?
JENNINGS: Yeah. I mean, frankly this is something that has been bothering us at the museum for many, many years because we will hear that from visitors. And our educators of course know that that's not entirely true. We've had incidents at the museum where we've been explaining the history of immigration law in this country and how often it was based in racism. That passage of the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act was clearly racist. The passage of the 1924 National Origins Act was designed to exclude inferior races like Italians and Jews. And people become very angry. And we've actually had people walk out of tours because they feel like we are promoting an agenda, whereas all we're really doing is telling them the history of this country.
MCEVERS: Kevin Jennings is the president of the Tenement Museum in New York City. Thanks so much for your time.
JENNINGS: Thank you.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
We want to take a few minutes now to try to understand the strange story of an American who has risen to the upper ranks of ISIS. His name is Zulfi Hoxha. He's Albanian-American, the son of a pizza shop owner in New Jersey. And his case may tell us a good deal about how jihadist recruitment networks work here in the U.S. Seamus Hughes helps run the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, and he has co-authored a story on Hoxha for The Atlantic. Seamus Hughes, welcome.
SEAMUS HUGHES: Thanks for having me.
KELLY: Sketch out for us his basic biome. What do we know about him?
HUGHES: Yesterday actually was his birthday. He turned 26. He traveled to Syria in April 2015. Once he got to Turkey, four days later, he joined an ISIS training camp. And he was able to do that by connecting with another Westerner, a guy named Junaid Hussain, who's a well-known ISIS propagandist, who was able to help him cross the border. Six months later, he's in an ISIS video.
KELLY: And that video shows what appears to be Hoxha beheading Kurdish soldiers. If that is in fact him, this would be the first American shown...
HUGHES: Yeah.
KELLY: ...Carrying out a beheading in an ISIS propaganda video. And you know, it's always impossible to pinpoint what's going on in somebody's head, what the exact trigger was for him of what attracted him to ISIS. But what do we know about how he was radicalized?
HUGHES: We know he was very active online. We have court records and transcripts of him trading ISIS videos back and forth with two or three other Americans. And so you clearly saw an individual who was part of an online network and used that online network to facilitate his offline travel.
KELLY: Talk to me about what his case may illustrate about how Americans living here in America are being radicalized today.
HUGHES: In the U.S. context, you're not talking about very large numbers. So we've had about 150 people arrested for terrorism-related activities in the last three years. But the guys that successfully got to Syria and Iraq - we're talking about dozens as opposed to kind of our European countries, which have hundreds of individuals that are traveling.
KELLY: A much bigger pipeline.
HUGHES: A much bigger pipeline, and that's a reflection of a very aggressive law enforcement approach and also the fact that, you know, in general we don't have large populations of individuals that are drawn to this ideology.
KELLY: When you say an aggressive law enforcement approach, you mean maybe more would be attracted to this, but there is something the U.S. government is doing to step in and shut it down.
HUGHES: Yeah. The federal government and the FBI in particular shuts down networks before they form. You know, if you're in the U.K., you see these clusters of folks. In the U.S., you're talking about ones and twos of individuals that are drawn to the ideology. There's a use of informants. There's a use of FISA. There's a whole...
KELLY: FISA - the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
HUGHES: Exactly - so the ability of the tools that we have in the U.S. that European or other Western countries do not have.
KELLY: What might his story tell us about the way that the ISIS threat is evolving? The Islamic State doesn't have much of a state anymore left in Iraq and Syria. Do we still see people like Hoxha wanting to actually go there - not just being attracted to ISIS online but wanting to pick up and travel?
HUGHES: Well, we've seen essentially a twofold thing happening. One is ISIS telling these individuals, do not come to Syria and Iraq anymore. Move on to other conflicts, or do what you can where you are. And so the FBI director's described it as essentially going down to a trickle - one and two individuals arrested every month, not like the numbers we saw in 2015 when Hoxha traveled.
KELLY: So how big a threat is someone like Hoxha or other Americans who are rising through ISIS ranks? How big a threat they pose to U.S. national security?
HUGHES: What we've seen in past jihadist conflicts is that these individuals that spend time in Syria and Iraq essentially act as nodes for the next generation or the next conflict, right? They have the connections. They connect Americans or other Westerners with people that they know and get other people over to next conflicts.
KELLY: We saw this with Anwar al-Awlaki with al-Qaida with, you know, how powerful it was as a recruiting tool for them to have somebody fluent in English apparently.
HUGHES: Absolutely. I mean, you're trying to recruit other individuals. And in Anwar Awlaki's case, you know, he's still the most prominent religious figure on ISIS Telegram and Twitter channels even though he's dead for a number of years. If Zulfi Hoxha is dead or dies soon, his videos still live on, and his message still lives on. And he's still trying to recruit those Americans. He still has that message to America.
KELLY: Seamus Hughes - he's deputy director at George Washington University's Program on Extremism - speaking with us about their two-year investigation that revealed an American in the upper ranks of ISIS. Seamus Hughes, thank you.
HUGHES: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF COLD WAR KIDS SONG, "FIRST")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Former White House strategist Steve Bannon has spent a total of 11 hours on Capitol Hill this week. Lawmakers who barely agree on anything reached a consensus on one point. They were pretty unhappy that Bannon declined to answer many of their questions. Bannon said the White House might want to assert executive privilege, which means he couldn't talk. With us to talk about this is NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson. Hey, Carrie.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So just remind us. What is executive privilege?
JOHNSON: It's the idea that a president has a right to withhold information from Congress or the courts. The White House says that's important to protect internal deliberations on important issues. Intended to help get the president some good and candid advice, President Dwight Eisenhower came up with the phrase. Since then, lots of presidents from both political parties have used it to try to shield conversations and documents on sensitive subjects.
MCEVERS: So now with the case of Steve Bannon, members of Congress are upset because, you know, someone connected to the executive branch didn't want to answer their questions. I mean, is that unusual?
JOHNSON: It's not really unusual, but Steve Bannon is no longer in the White House, and he actually wouldn't even answer questions about his talks during the transition - before President Trump became President Trump. Lawyers I talked to say that's kind of a big stretch. There's very little law, they say, to support him keeping secrets during the transition. There is one president at a time, and the president back then was Barack Obama.
But Kelly, when it comes to Bannon's time in the White House, that approach is not so unusual. In fact in several appearances in Congress last year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions declined to talk about his contacts with the president about Russia. The attorney general said the White House might assert the privilege, but the White House didn't actually send a letter to Capitol Hill.
While that sounds unusual, I talked today with lawyers who are Republicans and Democrats. They said that asserting the privilege usually happens very late in the process after there's been a breakdown in negotiations with Congress and the White House.
MCEVERS: So let's say this impasse continues. Congress says answer our questions; somebody like Steve Bannon says no. What kind of power does Congress have to force someone from the White House to answer?
JOHNSON: Theoretically Congress can vote to hold a federal official in contempt. But let's get real. Republicans are in charge of the White House, the House and the Senate right now. Are they really going to want to cause a PR problem for the White House? It's a different scenario, though, with opposite parties.
Remember; President Obama's Attorney General Eric Holder was held in contempt during the Fast and Furious scandal, and so were a pair of George W. Bush's aides - Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers, who declined to turn over documents about the firing of U.S. attorneys. In those cases people aren't taken into custody to get prosecuted. They have a good defense - a get-out-of-jail-free card - that they were following the direction of the president.
But there are usually some big court fights that produce some unexpected outcomes, like early years in the Obama administration. Those lawyers spent a lot of time defending the Bush officials because the principle of the power of the presidency is so important.
MCEVERS: And then back to Steve Bannon, he also got a subpoena from the special counsel that's investigating the Trump campaign's tie to Russia. Could he use this idea of executive privilege to avoid questions from him, special counsel Robert Mueller?
JOHNSON: Lawyers I talked to today said no. There is court precedent that goes all the way back to Richard Nixon. In those cases, a judge balances the president's privilege against the need for evidence in criminal trials and grand jury proceedings. That's squarely where Robert Mueller's Russia investigation is now, so Bannon and other people who've been interviewed, like former chief of staff Reince Priebus, have to answer prosecutors' questions.
Even the White House's lawyer, Don McGahn, has to answer because back in 1998 during the Whitewater scandal, a court ruled that attorney-client privilege does not shield information related to federal crimes. That was 20 years ago - relevant all over again today.
MCEVERS: NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson on executive privilege. Thank you very much.
JOHNSON: You're welcome.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas last October was the single deadliest in modern American history. Fifty-eight people were killed. More than 500 were wounded. But the fund set up to collect and distribute donations to survivors and to families of the victims is falling short compared to the response in other tragedies. NPR's Leila Fadel has our report.
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: When a bombing went through the Boston Marathon killing three and wounding more than 200, some $80 million was later distributed from their victims fund. In Orlando when a gunman opened fire at a nightclub killing 49 people, upwards of $29 million was donated. But the Las Vegas Victims Fund just isn't getting the same amount of money even though the shooting affected so many more lives.
(SOUNDBITE OF GUNFIRE)
FADEL: Some 24,000 people were present for the terrifying shooting spree.
CHRISTINE CARIA: And it was really cool 'cause, like, I'd never done a - this is us setting up. That's Heather.
FADEL: That's Christine Caria showing me pictures and videos she took earlier that day on her phone. She was having so much fun. She was working at her friend Heather Sallan's booth, selling cowboy boot accessories.
CARIA: This is Kurt Von Tillo. He passed.
FADEL: She's looking at a picture of a man smiling. He was later killed. That night, Caria saw people get shot. She was trampled by a crowd, separated from her friend, Sallan, who also witnessed unforgettable carnage. It's changed the two women's lives forever. But Caria and Sallan won't get anything from the victims fund unlike in Orlando, where anyone who was in the club and applied to the fund received something to help with the trauma.
CARIA: You know, it's been really hard on the whole family, you know? And like, I have really, really horrible night terrors where I wake up the whole entire family.
FADEL: We sit in her backyard after a day of doctor appointments. She got a cortisone shot in her back, injured from people stepping on her. Last week she had a seizure because of the medication she was taking for her pain, and now even her memory has suffered at least temporarily.
CARIA: It feels like Alzheimer's - is what it feels like.
FADEL: She can't work. Doctors told her she can't drive for three months. And the reason Caria doesn't qualify for the fund is she didn't get treatment for her injuries right away, and there just isn't enough money to go to the thousands of people suffering psychological trauma.
So far, the fund has just upwards of $22 million, about a quarter of what was ultimately given out in Boston. Right now the top priority is the families of the dead and the catastrophically injured. Scott Nielson is the chairman of the committee that decides how to distribute the funds.
SCOTT NIELSON: I think we're a little bit unfortunate because there were hurricanes before this event. And then right after that were the fires in Northern California. And I think people's attention was, you know, diverted from one to the next to the next. And those were big catastrophes.
FADEL: Think about it. Before the shooting, there was Hurricane Harvey that flooded Houston, then Irma in Florida, then Maria that devastated Puerto Rico. Right after the Las Vegas shooting, there were the fires in California, then a mass shooting in a Texas church, then more fires and mudslides in California. Nielson and the committee had to make hard decisions.
NIELSON: The number of people who could claim an emotional trauma from this is a giant number.
FADEL: The committee's taking applications through the end of the month and are urging donors to give by then, too, so they know how much money they have to give out. But the fund won't close. Caria thinks there needs to be a national response and solution.
CARIA: Eighty-seven children lost their parents. Twenty-two million dollars is not enough money to take care of them.
FADEL: Since the incident, she and Sallan have started support groups. They both opened chapters of the Brady Campaign for the prevention of gun violence. I reached Sallan in Reno by phone. She's shutting down her boots accessories company because setting up the booth at festivals is traumatic.
HEATHER SALLAN: I believe that anywhere I go, something horrendously catastrophic like that can happen.
FADEL: Country music is another trigger, and she says she's no longer the take-charge woman she once was. Leila Fadel, NPR News, Las Vegas.
(SOUNDBITE OF KHUDOSOUL'S "PRAYERS")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Here's a question. Are you thinking of changing jobs or maybe a different radical life change like getting married or getting divorced or something more mundane? Maybe you want to ask your boss for a raise. Well, there is a right time and a wrong time to do all of these things, argues Daniel Pink. Pink's new book is titled "When: The Scientific Secrets Of Perfect Timing." And he's here to share some of those secrets. Daniel Pink, welcome.
DANIEL PINK: Thank you, Mary Louise - great to be here.
KELLY: Glad to have you with us. There's a thread that runs throughout this book, and it is that the time of day that we do things matters - matters a lot. And you argue that for most of us, most of the time, we are more productive in the morning. Why?
PINK: Well, we do certain kinds of work better in the morning. What we see from the research is that we tend to move through the day in three stages - a peak, a trough, a recovery. And most of us move through it in that order. Those of us who are strong night owls go in the reverse order. But during the peak, we're better at analytic work, work that requires heads-down focus, vigilance, attention, batting away distractions - auditing a financial statement, writing a legal brief. During - and for most of us, that's the morning.
You also see a pattern of mood that follows the same sort of trajectory where we have an elevated mood in the morning. It drops considerably in the early afternoon and then rises again late in the day around the time that ALL THINGS CONSIDERED comes on the air.
KELLY: OK.
(LAUGHTER)
PINK: And so that pattern of mood affects our performance. And so we're better off doing the analytic task during the peak, administrative stuff during the trough. And then actually during this third period, the recovery, we're actually pretty good at more creative things 'cause we're in a slightly better mood, but we're less inhibited.
KELLY: OK, well, so stay with me in the peak for a minute.
PINK: Sure.
KELLY: In the peak, I mean, as a way of measuring this, you were tracking students taking tests.
PINK: Sure.
KELLY: They score better if they're taking their exams in the morning. You tracked CEOs making quarterly...
PINK: Oh, yeah.
KELLY: ...Earnings calls. What did you find?
PINK: Oh, yeah. That was incredible to me. This is research out of NYU that found that - and this is one of the great things about the research here - is that a lot of it's being done with big data. So what these researchers did is they took the transcripts of 26,000 earnings calls - quarterly calls that executives make with analysts to report on earnings and give guidance for future quarters.
KELLY: OK.
PINK: And they took these transcripts of 26,000 calls, put them in this piece of software that measures the emotional content of the words that were used. And these researchers found that calls in the afternoon were more negative and irritable in the afternoon than in the morning regardless of what the fundamentals were of the numbers being reported to the point where it affected the price of the stock temporarily.
KELLY: Wow.
PINK: They - wow is indeed the point. And so this means that public companies should probably schedule their earnings calls in the morning rather than the afternoon because stocks are being mispriced not by any fundamental economic factor but simply by time of day.
KELLY: One other practical piece of advice - since most of us, alas, are never going to be CEOs scheduling our earnings calls, you start a chapter in a place you call the hospital of doom.
PINK: (Laughter).
KELLY: And it's a fictional place, but the takeaway you find is if you're going to schedule surgery, do not schedule it in the afternoon. Go for morning. Why?
PINK: Well, what you see in - like in a lot of this research and big data, you see systematically poor performance in health care settings in the afternoon. Example - the incidence of handwashing inside of hospitals dramatically drops in the afternoon. You look at colonoscopies - endoscopists find half as many polyps in colonoscopies in afternoon exams versus morning exams even with the same population - doctors more likely to prescribe unnecessary antibiotics in the afternoon than in the morning. So for me...
KELLY: And why? This is all...
PINK: Well...
KELLY: ...Back to our body rhythms and this...
PINK: Yeah.
KELLY: ...Peak you identified.
PINK: The why is actually more complicated. Our problem I think is that we focus very much in our lives. We're very intentional. What are we going to do? How are we going to do it? Who are we going to do it with? But we give short shrift to the question of when, and it has a big role. It has a big role in health care, as you say. It has a big role in education. Even in sort of the day-to-day performance on the job, time of day explains about 20 percent of the variance in our performance on workplace tasks. So timing isn't everything, but it's a big thing.
KELLY: Well, I'm sorry, Daniel Pink, that we have booked you here on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED instead of Morning Edition, which it sounds like from your research would have been a vastly superior and more productive interview (laughter).
PINK: But we're having a much more creative interview at this time of day because our mood is better, and we're less inhibited.
KELLY: But this - I mean, this is my question. For those of us who can't control...
PINK: Sure.
KELLY: ...What time of day we're being asked to be productive or creative...
PINK: Yeah.
KELLY: ...Are we doomed? I mean...
PINK: No.
KELLY: What should we do about it?
PINK: No, not at all. There are a lot of steps you can take. So a lot of the negative effects of the afternoon on health care has been mitigated by breaks - certainly handwashing.
KELLY: Really?
PINK: Oh, yeah.
KELLY: Just 'cause they're more focused and...
PINK: Because human beings are not inexhaustible supplies of energy. We need that recharge. And it's - actually ends up being really important. And the whole idea of brakes I think especially in the United States where we have this sort of, you know, puritanical tradition of work where you power through, where you don't relent is counter to the science. People who - and I've changed my ways on this.
KELLY: And by breaks you're talking taking a lunch break? You're talking naps.
PINK: It could be short naps, a short lunch break. Take 10 minutes. Go out for a walk without your phone. We're talking about those kinds of breaks - end up being enormously important. And one of the things that I've discovered and in fact changed my own behavior on is that my view always was amateurs take breaks; professionals don't. And it's the exact opposite. Professionals take breaks. Amateurs don't. Breaks are part of performance. They're not a deviation from performance.
KELLY: You've mentioned studies. You've mentioned things that we can measure. And I want to play skeptic...
PINK: Go.
KELLY: ...A little bit here. There was an example that I read. You open the book with the anecdote about the Lusitania, which sank back in 1915. And the why has never really been solved. We know that a German U-boat hit it, but we don't know why the very experienced captain of the Lusitania put the ship in harm's way and in the path of the German sub. You posit a theory that maybe it was about the time of day. This happened in the afternoon. Maybe the captain wasn't making good decisions. Really? I mean, we'll never really know, right?
PINK: We'll never really know.
KELLY: So how solid is the science on any of this?
PINK: We'll never know. But what we do know in this particular case is that that captain the night before didn't get any sleep, and he was making decisions - analytic decisions, life-and-death decisions - at the exact worst time of day following a night of sleep deprivation. And he made some tactical errors. Now, I'm not saying this conclusively says this is why it happened.
But what's - to me what's interesting about that is that when we speculate on the reasons for things, we focus on these giant geopolitical issues and conspiracies about smuggling arms and all that when in fact it could be something just simply time of day. And we never take these questions - these temporal questions into account. We always think of them as second-order issues, third-order issues. But they're not. They have a huge effect on what we do, how we do it, how we feel. And the good news in all of this is that we can make small changes in our life to do a little bit better.
KELLY: That's Daniel Pink. His new book is titled "When: The Scientific Secrets Of Perfect Timing." Daniel Pink, thanks so much for stopping by.
PINK: My pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHEN MY TIME COMES")
DAWES: (Singing) When my time comes, oh, when my times comes, oh...
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Former Alaska Governor Tony Knowles sent a letter on Monday to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. It was a resignation letter. Knowles wrote that he and eight other members of the National Park System Advisory Board were quitting because they were being ignored. He says Secretary Zinke has not met with the board a single time since being confirmed last March. Knowles was the chairman of the board until he resigned, and he is with us now. Welcome to the show.
TONY KNOWLES: Thank you for having me.
MCEVERS: You served on this board for seven years. What happened to make you write this letter?
KNOWLES: The decision for myself and eight other members to resign was very difficult. We have a common interest in protecting national parks and making sure that they could get better. And we worked very well with the national parks director and secretary for seven years. And suddenly we were basically cut off (laughter).
We were told that our activity was suspended. We weren't told for how long or why. And after one, two, three, four months we've checked into it, no word from anybody. The acting director didn't know. After six months, I wrote a letter requesting that we have a meeting to talk with the secretary and his very key people. Two months later, they said, the secretary's very busy; we'll be in touch. And we've never heard anything.
If the secretary wouldn't listen to us, if the director wouldn't listen to us, we felt that we owed it to the policies of the national park system that had gone through so much improvement in climate change, science education, that we needed to make a statement and we could best do that by resigning.
MCEVERS: You wrote to Secretary Zinke that you have, quote, "a profound concern that the mission of stewardship, protection and advancement of our national parks has been set aside." Besides him not meeting with the board, what is it that gives you that concern?
KNOWLES: Well, there were some signals (laughter). He just arbitrarily raised the rates on various entrances to park under the guise that, well, you know, we need to raise money. (Laughter) Well, that's a huge issue that needs to be discussed. You just can't do that off your cuff because in a lot of ways, the people that we want to have participate at the parks - the lower-income people - they would be the ones that couldn't afford then to increase their participation - so just arbitrary decisions.
MCEVERS: We asked Secretary Zinke for an interview, and we were told he was unavailable. But Interior Department Press Secretary Heather Swift did send us a lengthy statement. It said, your resignations are welcome. And then there are a couple of other things I want to ask you about specifically. The statement says they would, quote, "expect nothing less than quitting from members who found it convenient to turn a blind eye to women being sexual harassed at national parks."
We should say that in the last couple of years, there have been several reports of harassment within the National Park Service, and a survey of NPS in place last year showed this as well. What do you say to that charge?
KNOWLES: I say it's completely unfounded. We had discussions with the acting director of national parks, and he was absolutely on top of that issue. So I don't think there's any basis for that accusation.
MCEVERS: The statement we got from Interior also says that as recently as the 8th of this month, the department was trying to schedule a meeting with you. It also says the interior secretary rarely goes to meetings with the board. Are either of those things true?
KNOWLES: (Laughter) We met with Secretary Salazar within days of being appointed. He was outstanding and always open for communication - the exact same situation with Secretary Jewell. That is not the case in the new administration.
MCEVERS: Did they request a meeting on the 8th of January?
KNOWLES: Not at all. I mean, it wasn't me or any member of the board.
MCEVERS: You know, as you think about this decision, you know, was there an option besides quitting?
KNOWLES: Well, I think the signal was quite clear. After one year - that's one-fourth of a term - and with no attempt to meet or even discuss. And so it was not only the 12 members of the board but also the hundred or so other national experts who volunteer their time - nobody gets paid for this - just to work on policy. We're a bunch of wonks (laughter).
And so to have that just dismissed, we felt we had to make a statement. Now, we're not discouraged. Every single person on that board is ready to go to work again, and we can take our knowledge and the vision that was begun but apparently is now being cut off and attempt to reintegrate it into policy.
MCEVERS: Tony Knowles is the former Democratic governor of Alaska and the departing board chairman of the National Park System Advisory Board. He and eight other members of that board resigned on Monday after the secretary of the interior, Ryan Zinke, refused to meet the board for the past year. Thanks so much for your time.
KNOWLES: Thank you.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
This Saturday marks the end of President Trump's first year in office, and we wanted to take stock of a promise he made back on his very first day about how he planned to carry out foreign policy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: From this day forward, it's going to be only America First, America First.
KELLY: So how is that America First orientation changing the United States' place in the world? Well, we'll put that question to Walter Russell Mead, who has made a career of tracking America's place in the world. He's a professor of foreign affairs at Bard College, also a fellow at the Hudson Institute. Welcome.
WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Thanks - good to be here.
KELLY: Start by answering this. How would you define America First?
MEAD: Well, it's a funny phrase because I can't actually think that a president of the United States would ever say, well, I'm for America second...
KELLY: Right.
MEAD: ...Or, I'm for America third. So in one sense, it's just - obviously you're president of the United States. That's your job. But it makes a lot of foreigners nervous because they think, well, what about us? And I think it was Secretary Tillerson who said, America First does not mean America alone. Let's hope that that theme resonates in the administration.
KELLY: President Trump appears to be less comfortable dealing with America's traditional allies - you can look at some European leaders, for example - than with authoritarian regimes. And I wonder, A, would you agree with that? B, is it a problem?
MEAD: I think we have to limit that and say he's less comfortable with European allies. Part of it is that the European Union is sort of ideologically committed to an idea of a liberal world order where the rule of law is paramount, democratic peace theory and so on. And it's not I think so much that Trump hates democracy but that Trump doesn't believe that you can actually build a stable world on these foundations.
KELLY: What about what's been perhaps his most closely watched personal relationship? And I'm referring to his relationship with Vladimir Putin of Russia. Have you been able to figure it out?
MEAD: Well, as far as I can tell, it looks like a relationship of rivalry with Valentines. That is...
KELLY: (Laughter) OK. Explain that.
MEAD: That is, under Trump, U.S. policy is almost as anti-Russian as it can be at the strategic level. So modernize and rebuild your nuclear forces. Increase your military spending, forcing Russia either to compete in a league that it can't afford or to drop back.
But at the same time, Trump, possibly like other American presidents, has overestimated the role of atmospherics and had hoped to still have good relations with Russia even as he was taking a wrecking ball to the foundations of Russian power.
KELLY: What would you describe as administration foreign policy victories so far - a year?
MEAD: Foreign policy isn't necessarily something that yields victories. That's a little bit of, in my mind, kind of America First excessive thinking.
KELLY: That's a fair point - not something you easily put the tally up on the scoreboard.
MEAD: Right, you know...
KELLY: But where are they doing - where are they doing well? What's promising to you?
MEAD: I would say they've done a reasonably good job with relations with India and Japan...
KELLY: OK.
MEAD: ...Who were the two most important partners for us in Asia and, therefore, I think in the world. They have done a reasonable though not a great job working past some of the issues in U.S.-European relations - can't say that they've restored stability to the Middle East. They have not effectively communicated their position on energy, which I think is kind of a key to the Trump strategy. But I do think there's something very powerful going on there.
KELLY: Stay with energy for a second. Why do you think that's key, and how does the Trump administration's policies on energy perhaps play out and change the way that it's interacting with the rest of the world?
MEAD: I think for Trump, the idea that America's newfound energy wealth - unconventional hydrocarbons, natural gas, so on - is changing the rules of world politics. It's reduced Russia's power. It's created an internal crisis in Iran. It is forcing Saudi Arabia in a way none of us have ever seen to rethink some of their basic assumptions. So to the extent that there is kind of a central vision in the Trump administration, I think it is this idea that America's energy dominance can be a positive force in the world, and that's something they want to work toward.
KELLY: So we won't call it a victory but a positive force.
MEAD: Right. And again, let's not forget that a lot of the things that created this happened while President Obama was in the White House. This wasn't just invented on January 20.
KELLY: Well, this speaks to the next thing I wanted to ask you, which is, how much has actually changed? We see a lot of rhetoric coming out of this White House. President Trump, for example, threatens to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. He walks right up to the line but so far hasn't stepped over it.
MEAD: Yeah. I think a lot of foreign policy is pretty well-fixed. People were stunned by how similar President Obama's foreign policies were to President Bush's in his first year - couple of years in office.
KELLY: Is that 'cause it's just a really big ship? It's really hard to make a sudden turn.
MEAD: Yeah. You don't - you can't turn it on the dot. In the Trump administration's case, I think they haven't appointed all of the officials that they would need to retool the government. So we're still operating, you know, on old hardware, so to speak.
KELLY: That's Bard College professor and foreign policy sage Walter Russell Mead. Thanks so much for stopping by.
MEAD: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF OH NO'S "BOUNCERS")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Apple made a big announcement today. It is going to invest a lot more money in the United States and create 20,000 jobs here over the next five years. NPR's Laura Sydell is with us to talk about what Apple is doing and why it is doing it now. Hey, Laura.
LAURA SYDELL, BYLINE: Hello.
MCEVERS: So what else is in this big announcement?
SYDELL: Well, I'd say one of the most interesting things in the announcement is that Apple's saying it's going to build a new campus, and that comes after they just spent billions of dollars on a fancy new headquarters in Cupertino. They're not saying yet where this new campus will be built. They did say it will initially be focused on technical support for customers. And it's possible they're doing this because the cost of living out in Silicon Valley is frankly very high. So they're looking for, you know, cheaper land, lower property values.
And it's interesting. They made this announcement after Amazon made this huge splash with plans to build a second headquarters somewhere in the U.S. The big emphasis in this announcement is just that Apple wants everyone to know that it's spending money and creating jobs in the U.S. And I'm sure that's because it has faced a lot of criticism over outsourcing to China in particular and for keeping a large portion of their profits overseas.
MCEVERS: So is that going to change now, too?
SYDELL: Well, it's hard to say. We don't know all the details yet, but they say they're going to be paying some $38 billion in taxes, money that they're bringing back into the country. And that number suggests they'll be bringing back a lot of overseas cash. And they've got a lot to bring back. Apple's most recent report said they had $250 billion overseas. For years, CEO Tim Cook has been very critical of U.S. tax laws, and he's been sensitive to criticism that Apple's been dodging U.S. taxes. With today's announcement, he said, quote, "we have a deep sense of responsibility to give back to our country and the people who make our success possible."
MCEVERS: And Apple says all these moves will add up to a $350 billion contribution to the U.S. economy over five years. Does that sound plausible to you?
SYDELL: Well, let's be clear what we're talking about here.
MCEVERS: OK.
SYDELL: Apple isn't saying, you know, that it's going to spend $350 billion in the U.S.
MCEVERS: Right.
SYDELL: What it is saying is that the impact of what it's doing is going to contribute that much money to the economy, but that's a very hard thing to measure or predict. More specifically, they are doing things like pledging more investment in what they call their manufacturing fund. So $5 billion will go to that. And this fund helps other manufacturers that supply Apple be innovative and grow.
MCEVERS: How much of what Apple is doing can we attribute to the new tax law which lowered the corporate tax rate?
SYDELL: Well, it is definitely part of it - the part about the taxes Apple will pay on the money it's going to bring back from overseas. They're bringing back, as we said, $38 billion in taxes. That's a direct impact from the tax bill. It brought down the amount of tax Apple would have to pay for bringing profits back into the U.S. The rest - it's hard to say. Keep in mind Apple is a very successful company, and they could have done any of these other things at any time. However, it could be that Apple's just feeling more political pressure to show that it's a patriotic company and it's supporting American workers.
MCEVERS: NPR tech correspondent Laura Sydell, thank you.
SYDELL: You're welcome.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
In Honolulu, Hawaii, in August of 2012, a team of FBI agents searched a hotel room. Inside a piece of luggage, they found a small, clear plastic travel pack and, inside that pack, a datebook and an address book. The books belonged to former CIA officer Jerry Chun Shing Lee. They contained handwritten notes and classified information, meeting places and the true names and phone numbers of CIA sources in China.
Lee was arrested this week at JFK Airport in New York. As The New York Times first reported, this comes as the CIA is trying to bounce back from one of the worst intelligence breaches in decades, a breach that has seen more than a dozen CIA sources in China killed or imprisoned.
Dennis Wilder retired from the CIA in 2016. He was deputy assistant director for East Asia and the Pacific. And I asked him how Lee's case fits into a pattern of China targeting former CIA officers.
DENNIS WILDER: The Chinese certainly are an aggressive service, and the United States is one of their top targets for intelligence collection. And so, yes, their agents are all over the world, in the United States, in foreign countries trying to find vulnerable people to recruit from within the intelligence community and the CIA. This is well-known, and our officers are aware of this and work very hard to defend themselves against this kind of activity. But occasionally the Chinese have success.
KELLY: I mean, I called this episode one of the worst intelligence breaches in decades. How grave is the damage to CIA operations?
WILDER: Well, honestly, without a little more information, it is hard to gauge. The most secret inner-sanctum of any intelligence agency is the names of the people who have agreed to commit treason against their own governments. Someone taking those names and giving them to a foreign power will mean that people die. It will mean that their families are in jeopardy. It is one of the most serious morale-busting things that can happen.
KELLY: Morale-busting, and I assume there's always that concern as well that it will discourage people from cooperating with the CIA in future, whether those are sources in China or elsewhere in the world.
WILDER: Absolutely. And one of the things that would have happened in this case, depending on exactly when he handed over information - and in fact we don't even know for sure that he handed it over, but let's assume he handed it over. If he had handed it over, hopefully it was after 2012, not before 2012.
If it was after they found the notebook, obviously there would have been a mitigation attempt to get the agents to some safe place out of the country. There would have been attempts to help their families. There's a very high standard, particularly in the U.S. intelligence community and the CIA, for protecting your sources and for protecting them even when they may be in trouble like would be in this case.
KELLY: So you're describing a timing question. Was he allegedly cooperating with China before or after the FBI was onto him and might have been able to warn and help protect some of those sources?
WILDER: Right. People are making a leap to this other situation, but there's nothing in the information we've seen so far that actually links the two together.
KELLY: You're raising an interesting question here, which is that whatever ends up happening in the case of Jerry Lee, that we don't know whether the damage has been contained or whether China has, say, another mole or electronic surveillance going on which may be giving it insight into CIA operations.
WILDER: This is really one of the most difficult things for an intelligence organization like the CIA to deal with because you never know about penetrations. Obviously if you did, you would get rid of them. This has driven counterintelligence people pretty much around the bend for years and years. You have to continue to operate. You can't let it stop you. But you're constantly asking yourself, have we done enough to defend ourselves against this kind of penetration of the organization?
KELLY: Dennis, thanks very much.
WILDER: Thank you.
KELLY: That's Dennis Wilder, who served in senior Asia posts at both the CIA and the National Security Council. He's now at Georgetown.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
This is a busy stretch in Congress. This afternoon, though, lawmakers from both parties stopped to gather in the rotunda along with President Trump to honor a former leader.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PAUL RYAN: We award the Congressional Gold Medal to the soldier, the legislator and the statesman from Kansas, Senator Bob Dole.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
KELLY: Here's NPR congressional correspondent Scott Detrow with more on the ceremony.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: As the 94-year-old Dole looked on from a wheelchair, it seemed like congressional leaders were competing to see who could offer him the most praise. Here's Steny Hoyer, the No. 2 Democrat in the house.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
STENY HOYER: If I were going to invent a United States senator who would reach out across the aisle, reach out across the country to serve this nation well, I would invent Bob Dole.
DETROW: That coming from a Democrat would have been hard to fathom early in Dole's political career. When he was Gerald Ford's running mate in 1976, Dole was so partisan that the phrase hatchet man almost became his official title along with senator.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BOB DOLE: If we added up the killed and wounded in democrat wars in this century, it would be about 1.6 million Americans, enough to fill the city of Detroit.
DETROW: But over the years, Dole served as Republican Senate leader longer than anyone else. He cut deal after deal after deal, changing that reputation from hatchet man to statesman. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Dole's fingerprints are all over countless pieces of consequential legislation.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MITCH MCCONNELL: It was this son of the Dust Bowl and the Depression who broke the stalemate and helped save Social Security. In 1990, it was this wounded warrior who reached across the aisle to help pass the Americans with Disabilities Act.
DETROW: It's not that Dole wasn't partisan. It's that he valued results and worked with Democrats and Republicans alike to pass bills. Here's Vermont Democrat Patrick Leahy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PATRICK LEAHY: You have to be a quarterback, a shepherd, an explainer, a father-confessor. And Bob, you were every one of those.
DETROW: Throughout the ceremony, it wasn't hard to pick up on a wistfulness that people like Dole just aren't in the Senate anymore. At the ceremony, the House chaplain prayed that Dole would inspire lawmakers to work across the aisle. When it ended, lawmakers went back to their immediate task, struggling to pass yet another short-term funding bill, their third in just more than a month. Scott Detrow, NPR News, the Capitol.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
In Michigan last night just after 8 o'clock, something strange happened.
KELSEY WILCOX: It shook my entire house. I thought that a large piece of furniture fell.
RACHEL ROSINSKI: So we thought maybe we're getting, like, a weird thunderstorm or something.
CHARLENE GRINGLAS: And I saw a really bright flash of light that went through the sky.
KELLY: That last voice is Charlene Gringlas, mom of our producer Sam. We also heard Kelsey Wilcox and Rachel Rosinski.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
People freaked out. Around the state, they called 911. They called local TV stations.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED NEWSCASTER: Breaking news right now - thousands saw it, heard it and even felt it.
MCEVERS: The U.S. Geological Survey soon confirmed it was a meteor.
KELLY: NASA says it was moving at 28,000 miles per hour. WXYZ meteorologist Kevin Jeanes was on duty when the reports started coming in, and he jumped into teaching mode about falling chunks of matter from outer space.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KEVIN JEANES: The friction of the Earth's atmosphere heats it up. You see the bright glow, the bright light and the flash as it kind of burns up and falls apart. And then the sound you see is actually the sonic boom. So it's traveling faster than the speed of sound.
MCEVERS: Joseph Guinn was making a Jimmy John's delivery when it happened.
JOSEPH GUINN: It lit up my whole truck. And my truck actually shook. I said, man, what could that be?
MCEVERS: Even though meteors aren't that rare, people are still really into it.
MARIAH DAVITA: I call myself a rockhound.
KELLY: That's rockhound Mariah Davita. She loves geology.
DAVITA: This is just, like, once-in-a-lifetime thing. You don't ever get a direct hit in your backyard.
KELLY: And so she's been out today, heavy duty magnet in hand, to see if she can find a piece of that meteorite.
DAVITA: I am walking through a wide-open field. I'm just basically going up and down in little loops, trying to scour every footstep.
MCEVERS: Mariah says if she happens to find something, she will give it to scientists with one request - that she gets to keep a little piece.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE FUNK ARK'S "HORCHATA")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Just seven days after his inauguration, President Trump ordered the Pentagon to conduct a review - a review of the nation's nuclear weapons. That review is almost complete, and it paints a picture of a more dangerous nuclear world. It also recommends some pretty big changes to U.S. policy. NPR's Geoff Brumfiel covers nuclear weapons. He's here now. Welcome.
GEOFF BRUMFIEL, BYLINE: Thank you.
KELLY: How par for the course is this? Presidents - do they always come into office, get elected, take the oath, order up a nuclear review?
BRUMFIEL: (Laughter) Well, it is not required, but it has become increasingly common. So President George W. Bush did a review. Barack Obama did the last one in 2010. It's called a Nuclear Posture Review, and so it's sort of a summation...
KELLY: The other NPR.
BRUMFIEL: The other NPR, indeed - of where we are with nuclear weapons, what kind of weapons we have, what our policies are. The Huffington Post last week got a hold of a draft version of this latest NPR from the Trump administration. And so it really provides the most comprehensive look we've seen so far at sort of how the Trump administration views nuclear weapons.
KELLY: And so what does it say? I mean, we said he - there are some recommendations for some big changes - like what?
BRUMFIEL: Well, one thing which I suppose isn't really a big change - the first priority is to sort of upgrade and modernize existing nuclear weapons, and that was very much Obama policy as well. These weapons are getting older, and they need to be refurbished just so they don't break down, frankly.
But there is something new here that's caught a lot of people's eye - two new things, actually - a low-yield nuclear weapon that could be launched from a submarine. We're talking about something in the range of a few kilotons - the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima was 15 kilotons - and then a sea-launched cruise missile that could be launched from a ship or submarine.
KELLY: And why would the U.S. need these? I mean, what would they allow the U.S. military to do that it can't do with the nukes it has already?
BRUMFIEL: Well, that's a really good question. Basically the administration says the world's a more dangerous place. Russia has started fielding some new kinds of intermediate-range weapons to threaten NATO allies. North Korea, we all know, has been making a lot of progress with its nuclear weapons in recent years. China's modernizing its arsenal. And so these lower-yield weapons, the administration claims, gives it more options if there's a regional conflict in how it can hit back.
KELLY: Now I would imagine the counterargument that critics might make would be that if you have more nuclear weapons, one might be more tempted to use more nuclear - or to use nuclear weapons at all.
BRUMFIEL: Exactly. I mean, and it's not just more. But if you have smaller weapons and someone hits you with a small nuke, I mean, at the moment, you might have to launch something from a silo in Nebraska, and that would be a big deal. You wouldn't want to do that. If you have just a little one, maybe you'd be more tempted to use it. And so critics are really worried about that.
I mean, there's also a lot of talk in this document about using nuclear weapons to counteract other kinds of threats, whether it's chemical, biological. Cyber is something that they mention. Now, that's not new in and of itself, but the sort of level at which Trump - the Trump administration talks about maybe using nukes in response to other big, devastating attacks also has some of the critics worried.
KELLY: What's the takeaway here for you? I mean, what do we learn from this document about the Trump administration's views on nuclear weapons?
BRUMFIEL: Well, I mean, I think the first thing to learn is it sees the world as a very dangerous place, much more dangerous than it was in 2010 when Obama did his review. And it believes that having some newer and different kinds of nuclear weapons and some options it can deploy really would be - make America safer. I think the question that critics have is whether or not that is true.
KELLY: All right, that's NPR's Geoff Brumfiel. Thanks so much for stopping by.
BRUMFIEL: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
At the U.S. Supreme Court today, justices both liberal and conservative signaled they have a problem with a lawyer who disregards his client's explicit instructions and concedes the client's guilt to the jury. The defendant, Robert McCoy, is charged with killing three family members in a vain attempt to find his wife. NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg reports.
NINA TOTENBERG, BYLINE: Despite overwhelming evidence against him, Robert McCoy steadfastly maintained his innocence and refused to plead guilty or even not guilty by reason of insanity.
His lawyer, however, told the jury that there is, quote, "no way reasonably possible that you can listen to the evidence and not conclude that he committed this crime. I'm taking that burden off of you and off the prosecutor." The lawyer was hoping the jury would not sentence McCoy to death if he could persuade them that only a crazy person would be claiming to be innocent with these facts.
The strategy didn't work. McCoy was convicted and sentenced to death. The state Supreme Court upheld the proceedings, and the infuriated client appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, asking for a new trial on grounds that his right to counsel had been violated. Experts say there are more cases like McCoy's than you might think largely because many defendants have serious mental illnesses but have been found mentally competent to stand trial.
On the steps of the Supreme Court today, Louisiana Solicitor General Elizabeth Murrill said that if defense lawyers cannot deal with that problem, they will have lost an important way to defend capital murder defendants.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ELIZABETH MURRILL: I think at the end of the day, it's a bigger loss for defense counsel than it is for the state because you've made it easier for the state to convict.
TOTENBERG: Inside the courtroom, McCoy's new lawyer, Seth Waxman, told the justices the Sixth Amendment right to counsel belongs to the accused. He said the decision whether to admit or contest guilt is part of that personal right.
Justice Sotomayor - this sounds like my ethics class in law school. People can walk themselves into jail. They can walk themselves regrettably into the gas chamber, but they have a right to tell their story. But Justice Breyer worried about creating chaos in the lower courts with increasing numbers of defendants deciding to defend themselves without any skills or knowledge.
Next up to the lectern was Louisiana's Murrill. She urged the court to uphold the death penalty in this case and to create a narrow rule that would allow lawyers in death penalty cases to overrule their client's wishes if those wishes would be a, quote, "futile charade that would lead to the death penalty." Justice Kennedy, apparently incredulous - so the state of Louisiana says that if a defendant wants to plead not guilty, the defense attorney can plead him guilty to avoid the death penalty?
Justice Kagan - we've given lawyers a lot of leeway to make strategic trial decisions because lawyers often will know better how to pursue a set of objectives. But here we have a client saying, I have an overriding objective in this case, and that is not to admit that I've killed family members. And you're saying that the lawyer can say that doesn't matter.
Murrill said the lawyer here believed his client was delusional, and the lawyer's ultimate objective was to save the client's life. But that wasn't the client's objective, noted Justice Kagan. I understand the lawyer here was in a terrible position because he wants to defeat the death penalty, but his client says, that's not my goal.
Chief Justice Roberts - suppose he thinks life in prison is worse than the death penalty. Answer - you're talking about a defendant who is rational, and that's not the case here. If there's any question here, Murrill said, it should be whether the lawyer provided ineffective assistance to his client. Justice Kagan and later Justice Gorsuch replied that notion isn't a good fit in cases like this because there was nothing wrong with what the lawyer did if the goal was to avoid the death penalty. The problem was he was substituting his goal for his client's.
Justice Alito observed that this situation occurred because of a number of prior steps, starting with the trial court's decision that McCoy was mentally competent to stand trial. If someone like McCoy really believes that he's being prosecuted as part of an elaborate conspiracy, asked Alito, is he really capable of assisting in his own defense?
Nina Totenberg, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Football has been getting a lot of criticism in recent years as information comes out about the long-term toll of head trauma. Today there's more tough news. Scientists now have what they call solid evidence that repeated hits to the head cause the degenerative brain disease CTE even if there's no concussion involved. We'll have more from NPR's Tom Goldman.
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: In the evolving science of head trauma, concussions have been the thing. From battlefields around the world to football fields in the U.S., we've heard about the dangers of when the brain rattles around inside the skull. We've heard about the possible link between concussion and the degenerative brain disease chronic traumatic encephalopathy. A number of former NFL stars have developed CTE, which can cause cognitive problems and dementia and lead to suicide. And in 2015, the injury even became part of popular culture.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CONCUSSION")
WILL SMITH: (As Dr. Bennet Omalu) A human being will get concussed at 60 G's. A common head-to-head contact on a football field - 100 G's.
GOLDMAN: This is actor Will Smith in the movie "Concussion."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "CONCUSSION")
SMITH: (As Dr. Bennet Omalu) God did not intend for us to play football.
GOLDMAN: But now a team of researchers says all the focus on concussions may be missing the mark. Boston University professor Lee Goldstein was the lead investigator on a study released today in the journal Brain. The research found the real culprit when it comes to CTE isn't concussion with it's often recognizable symptoms that include loss of consciousness, dizziness, confusion. But rather, it's the more common and less obvious hits to the head.
LEE GOLDSTEIN: Although we have had an inkling that the subconcussive hits may be associated with CTE, we now have solid scientific evidence that that is so.
GOLDMAN: The study was seven years in the making. Researchers examined the brains of young adults and did head impact experiments on laboratory mice. The results, says Lee Goldstein, are concerning.
GOLDSTEIN: We're really worried about the many more people who are getting hit and getting hurt. Their brain is hurt.
GOLDMAN: But he says they're not getting help because with a focus on concussion, their less-obvious head injuries are overlooked.
GOLDSTEIN: It's a silent injury.
GOLDMAN: Chris Nowinski of the Concussion Legacy Foundation translates Goldstein's concern to the football field.
CHRIS NOWINSKI: We see the hard hits it's all the time. Then a guy pops up and smiles and points to the first down. And suddenly you go, OK, that hit was fine. And what this study says is, no, that hit probably wasn't fine, but that poor guy can't feel the damage that's happening to his brain right now.
GOLDMAN: Nowinski and Goldstein are hoping the study results prompt policy changes. In fact, today the two men and some former NFL stars launched a campaign calling for kids to hold off playing tackle football until high school. That's obviously not a popular idea with youth football organizations like Pop Warner.
Dr. Julian Bailes is a noted expert on head and brain trauma. He's also a medical adviser to Pop Warner. Bailes coauthored a paper in 2013 about the effects of subconcussive head hits, and he disagrees with the idea of holding kids out of tackle football until high school. It's there, he says, that the game gets more dangerous since kids are bigger, faster and have more violent collisions.
JULIAN BAILES: The question is, where do you draw the line? This study doesn't answer that. There's been no study to answer that question. And again, it's not just football. It's other sports that have the risk for head contact, including ice hockey, lacrosse, soccer and others.
GOLDMAN: But today the focus is on football, where the risk is greatest. In response to the study, the NFL and its players union sent statements vowing to keep working to make their game as safe as possible. Tom Goldman, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF FLORATONE'S "FLORATONE")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The parent company of the Los Angeles Times has put the paper's publisher and CEO under investigation. That is following reporting by NPR's David Folkenflik. David has uncovered multiple sexual harassment accusations and even lawsuits brought against Ross Levinsohn. And David joins us now. Hey.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Hey, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So there have been a lot of stories like this about sexual misconduct, allegations at organizations including NPR. In your story on our website, you write that colleagues, friends, court documents, financial filings all come together to portray Ross Levinsohn as a frat boy executive. Can you explain that?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, people who know him describe Ross Levinsohn as a buoyant, affable presence, a friendly figure and kind of a guy who likes to enjoy himself, lift other people up. Part of that involves parties. Part of that involves banter. A lot of that gets into area that becomes uncomfortable for colleagues and particularly women, that some of the banter can be sexualized, that he tends to hire buddies who thinks like he do - he does and that they tend to trail him from job to job. It seems as though he's surrounded, according to the people I talked to and the portrayal of him in these documents - surrounded by like-minded folks who go from job to job over the years.
MCEVERS: What are some of the behavior - you know, specific behavior that you uncovered?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, he's worked at places - a lot of media places over the years. At AltaVista, which was an early web search engine that prefigured Google, he was sued and was among the defendants in that case. He was - he conceded by his own sworn testimony that he rated the relative - and this is the phrase - hotness of the female employees and office banter while the vice president there. He testified he'd speculated about a woman who worked for him there - was a stripper on the side and who she was have - whether or not she was having sex with a co-worker. In another time, when he was working at News Corp, he was sued for essentially helping to foster a sexually harassive (ph) atmosphere. There were settlements in both those cases.
When he was an executive over at the trade publication The Hollywood Reporter, he said to an executive that he didn't want to stay at a luncheon for fashion stylists to the stars because it would involve hanging out with ladies and gays. Except he used an extremely vulgar epithet to decide - to describe gay men. There's a number of instances in which people describe sort of an over-the-top and inappropriate behavior in the workplace setting.
MCEVERS: You've tried to talk to Levinsohn about all this. What has he said in his own defense?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, we laid out detailed statements of the kinds of things we're going to bring to our audience's attention. And instead, he called - of dealing with me, he called our - NPR's CEO, Jarl Mohn. And he said if he felt disparaged, he would hire legal counsel, a clear threat of a lawsuit. And Mohn reminded him of the firewall insulating our reporting from interference from corporate quarters at this network. And it didn't proceed from there. But he has not otherwise offered any response to our allegations.
MCEVERS: He's only been at the LA Times for - since August. Did they - did the parent company of the LA Times, Tronc, know about these allegations before they hired him?
FOLKENFLIK: I think it's a very good question. You know, he's worked at some major companies. He worked at CBS, at AltaVista, at News Corp. He was the interim head of Yahoo for about eight weeks after being an executive there. A lot of this stuff I found in the public record and others from interviews with people who've known him well over the years.
Tronc is going to have to figure out if it didn't do due diligence for a guy they had already paid $600,000 to a consulting firm of - as a consultant. They then hired him as CEO. If they didn't do the due diligence for him as a CEO, that's a question. And if they did, they're going to have to answer why it was appropriate for them to hire somebody who had this record and pattern, including those lawsuits that were settled.
MCEVERS: NPR's David Folkenflik with the exclusive story on LA Times publisher and CEO Ross Levinsohn. Thanks so much.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Imagine a blood test that would detect eight common cancers possibly even before symptoms appear. Scientists say they've taken a step that could eventually lead to such a test. They envision someday a $500 test that screens for cancer even if in its early stages, when it's most treatable. NPR's Richard Harris reports on the challenges these scientists face.
RICHARD HARRIS, BYLINE: There have been many attempts over the decades to develop blood tests to screen for cancers. Some look for proteins in the blood that appear with cancers. Others more recently focused on DNA from tumors. But these methods aren't reliable, so Nick Papadopoulos at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and many prominent colleagues are trying a new approach - combining these two methods into one test.
NICK PAPADOPOULOS: We used the DNA, looking at mutations of the DNA that comes from cancer cells and also the levels of proteins that they come from cancer cells.
HARRIS: Their experimental test targets eight major cancers - lung, breast, colon, pancreas, liver, stomach, ovary and esophagus.
PAPADOPOULOS: We selected those eight cancers based on how frequent they are and also that a lot of them do not have any screening modality right now.
HARRIS: They studied about a thousand people who had been diagnosed with those cancers. The blood test found signs of cancer in about 70 percent. They also studied more than 800 people without cancer diagnoses and found just seven - less than 1 percent - who apparently had a false reading. Of course the ultimate goal of this test is to find cancer in people who haven't been diagnosed. So Papadopoulos says the success rate could well be lower.
PAPADOPOULOS: Maybe it's not going to be 70 percent. Maybe it's going to be less. But we still think that this is a very important milestone to try to be able to detect cancers in asymptomatic people. That could save their life.
HARRIS: The test doesn't always pinpoint the source of the cancer, but Papadopoulos says about two-thirds of the time, the test results help doctors home in on the site of the tumor. Vinay Prasad, an oncologist and cancer researcher at the Oregon Health and Science University, is reserving his enthusing for this work.
VINAY PRASAD: We've come about one step in a thousand-mile journey.
HARRIS: First the Hopkins team will need to demonstrate that the test will be useful in patients without symptoms. Then they'll need to show that the rate of false alarms remains very low. Otherwise people will be sent on needless and expensive medical odysseys.
PRASAD: You've got to find cancer that's going to otherwise be lethal and not cancer that would otherwise be destined to do nothing.
HARRIS: That's been a huge problem with previous cancer screening tests, especially for prostate cancer and breast cancer, and has led to pointless and potentially dangerous treatments, he says. An effective screening test holds lots of potential for cancer patients, Prasad says.
PRASAD: So we want this to be true. We hope that this is true. But we have learned through 30, 40, 50 years of cancer screening that we have to do the right studies at the outset to know that it's true.
HARRIS: The scientists at Hopkins have already launched their next study, which could involve tens of thousands of apparently healthy patients to answer the next big question, which is whether it will pick up cancer in people who don't have symptoms. If that multi-year experiment succeeds, the researchers will still have to demonstrate that the test improves and extends the lives of cancer patients. Papadopoulos is less concerned that the test could detect cancers that turn out to be harmless.
PAPADOPOULOS: In a personal level, I do want to know. That doesn't mean that I have to go and have a surgery. However, I still think this is a very useful information knowing that something is happening and follow it up.
HARRIS: In any event, dealing with that concern is at best many years away. Richard Harris, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHANCHA VIA CIRCUITO'S "SUENO EN PARAGUAY")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Health care workers who refuse to provide care on moral or religious grounds now have a defender in the Trump administration. The Department of Health and Human Services today created a new division to defend doctors, nurses and others who object to procedures like abortions. NPR's Alison Kodjak reports on the reaction to these new protections for health care workers.
ALISON KODJAK, BYLINE: HHS officials say the new division is aimed at fixing a longstanding problem - the government's failure to protect the religious rights of health care workers. Roger Severino is the director of the agency's office for civil rights.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ROGER SEVERINO: Never forget that religious freedom is a primary freedom, that it is a civil right that deserves complete enforcement and respect.
KODJAK: The new office will investigate complaints from health care workers who say they're required to participate in medical procedures like abortion or assisted suicide even if they object on moral or religious grounds. He says the goal is to ensure people can do their jobs without compromising their values.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SEVERINO: We're saying with the launch of this new division that you do not need to shed your religious identity. You do not need to shed your moral convictions to be part of the public square.
KODJAK: Sara Hellwege is a nurse midwife. At a ceremony announcing the new effort, she described a job interview she had at a family clinic in Florida.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SARA HELLWEGE: You can imagine my shock when during the interview process, they began to quiz me about my conscience convictions regarding abortion and abortion-inducing medications.
KODJAK: She says clinic managers told her they would not hire her because she belonged to pro-life groups.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
HELLWEGE: I hope that everyone can agree that no doctor or nurse should be denied employment or fired on account of their faith.
KODJAK: But Louise Melling of the American Civil Liberties Union says this change opens the door to widespread discrimination. The Trump administration, she says...
LOUISE MELLING: Has taken a very expansive view of religious liberty. It understands religious liberty to override anti-discrimination principles.
KODJAK: She said there's a history of doctors and nurses refusing care on religious grounds.
MELLING: There's an instance where a pediatrician refused to see a child because the parents were lesbians. There was a case out of California - a clinic that provided infertility treatment that refused to treat a woman once they learned that her partner was a woman.
KODJAK: She says a lot will depend on how the agency balances the right to religious freedom with protecting people against discrimination. Alison Kodjak, NPR News, Washington.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
To another story now and an alert to drivers. Many of those freeways that you're using may not be free for long. Several states are opening new toll roads this year. Rates on many existing turnpikes, some tollways are going up. And even more tolls are likely on the way. The Trump administration's infrastructure plan may force more states to impose them. From Chicago, NPR's David Schaper reports.
DAVID SCHAPER, BYLINE: I'm driving on Interstate 90 from Chicago into northwest Indiana. I've just paid a $5.20 toll to go over the Chicago Skyway. And now I'm approaching the first Indiana toll.
Hi.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Two-twenty.
SCHAPER: How much?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Two-twenty.
SCHAPER: That $2.20 toll has gone up quite a bit in recent years, and some drivers are not too happy about it.
NICK PERISEMAN: Everything seems like it's getting more expensive any more, and they're trying to recoup their money any way possible.
SCHAPER: Nick Periseman stopped at this Indiana Toll Road plaza on his way home to Port Clinton, Ohio, from a job site in Iowa. He says raising tolls will make more unhappy drivers seek alternatives.
PERISEMAN: If they're up kept how it is, I think it's just going to make people mad.
SCHAPER: You're thinking it will.
PERISEMAN: Yeah. I'm thinking it'll just make them mad, and they're going to take different routes.
SCHAPER: But North Carolina truck driver Mike Edwards doesn't mind paying more tolls so long as the money is spent on improvements.
MIKE EDWARDS: Actually I think it's a good thing as long as they use the money for it is supposed to be - to fix the roads.
SCHAPER: How are they?
EDWARDS: They're pretty rough in a lot of places.
SCHAPER: Putting the money paid directly back into building, improving or repairing the bridge or road that's tolled is actually one of the strongest arguments in favor of expanding tolls.
PAT JONES: I think 2018 is going to be a very good year for tolling.
SCHAPER: Pat Jones heads the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association.
JONES: We're seeing a number of states that do not currently have tolls express interest in doing so, states like Connecticut, Michigan, Wyoming and others.
SCHAPER: And some states are beyond considering it. New toll roads or lanes are opening this year in Texas, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina and Virginia. Austin, Texas, has two new toll road projects slated to open next year, and the highway tunnel beneath Seattle begins charging tolls in 2019. The reason for this surge - Jones says state transportation budgets are tight, and the Federal Highway Trust Fund is nearly insolvent, as the federal gas tax hasn't been increased in 24 years.
JONES: So states are in many cases on their own. They are looking for revenues, and tolling is a very powerful and effective way and a very specific way to pay for new infrastructure as well as generate funds to pay for existing infrastructure.
SCHAPER: At least 27 states have raised their own gas taxes in recent years, but it hasn't been enough. And toll road opponents like Stephanie Kane of the Alliance for Toll-Free Interstates are taking note.
STEPHANIE KANE: They really are the worst funding mechanism available.
SCHAPER: Kane says when you turn a freeway into a tollway, drivers often go out of their way to avoid them.
KANE: So you have this awful traffic diversion. Cars end up on secondary roads that were not built to have that kind of volume of traffic. And so these roads that are surrounding the toll are getting torn up more quickly. The local communities see a lot more congestion.
SCHAPER: Kane also calls tolls a regressive double tax on top of fuel taxes, and she claims they're inefficient, saying it can cost up to 11 cents to collect every toll dollar. But she and others fear that the Trump administration's new infrastructure plan which is expected in the coming weeks will rely on state and local governments to come up with the vast majority of infrastructure funding, and that in turn will likely force them to put their hands even deeper into drivers' wallets. David Schaper, NPR News, Chicago.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BUDOS BAND'S "T.I.B.W.F.")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
"Portlandia" begins its eighth and final season tonight on IFC. The sketch comedy TV show put Portland on the map as the capital of earnest urbanism at a time when words like artisanal and locavore were sweeping the nation. It was an image Portlanders embraced and struggled with. Oregon Public Broadcasting's Aaron Scott has the story.
AARON SCOTT, BYLINE: There was a time when saying you lived in Portland, Ore., would get a response like, that's above California, right? But now, says Fiona McCann of Portland Monthly magazine, people not only know where the city is. They inevitably ask...
FIONA MCCANN: Is it just like the show?
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PORTLANDIA")
FRED ARMISEN: (As Jason, singing) Dream of the '90s is alive in Portland.
SCOTT: "Portlandia" first premiered the "Dream Of The '90s" sketch in late 2010. It starred co-creators Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein with a host of circus artists and hipster types.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PORTLANDIA")
ARMISEN: (As Jason) Remember when people were content to be unambitious, sleep till 11 and just hang out with their friends, when you had no occupations whatsoever, maybe working a couple hours a week at a coffee shop?
CARRIE BROWNSTEIN: (As Melanie) Right. I thought that died out a long time ago.
ARMISEN: (As Jason) Not in Portland. Portland is a city where young people go to retire.
SCOTT: The early sketches lovingly skewered the city's progressive optimism and keep-Portland-weird mindset in ways that locals joke bordered on the documentary...
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PORTLANDIA")
BROWNSTEIN: (As Nance) I guess I do have a question about the chicken if you could just...
SCOTT: ...Like this infamous sketch about a couple at a farm-to-table restaurant asking after their chicken's provenance.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PORTLANDIA")
DANA MILLICAN: (As Dana) His name was Colin. Here are his papers.
BROWNSTEIN: (As Nance) OK - looks great.
ARMISEN: (As Peter) He looks like a happy little guy who runs around.
MK GUTH: The chicken episode cracks me up to this day...
SCOTT: That's Portland artist MK Guth.
GUTH: ...Partially because I can kind of (laughter) see myself a little bit in it, you know? And so I'm like, oh, wow, look; I am the person who knows where my eggs come from.
SCOTT: The show channeled a national zeitgeist. It seemed like everywhere, people were pickling things...
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PORTLANDIA")
CARRIE BROWNSTEIN AND FRED ARMISEN: (As Lisa Everson and Bryce Shivers) And we can pickle that.
SCOTT: ...Making jewelry...
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PORTLANDIA")
BROWNSTEIN AND ARMISEN: (As characters, singing) She's making jewelry now.
SCOTT: ...And putting a bird on it.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PORTLANDIA")
BROWNSTEIN: (As Lisa Eversman) What a sad little tote bag. I know. I'll put a bird on it.
SCOTT: Portlandia co-star Carrie Brownstein says the show is meant as a send-up of things she and Armisen loved.
BROWNSTEIN: "Portlandia" was specifically not called Portland because it implied a heightened version of place. It implied an ideology, a mindset, a way of life.
SCOTT: The show's TV audience peaked in the second season, but its sketches soared across the Internet, reaching millions. Tiara Darnell started watching "Portlandia" while in the Peace Corps in Morocco.
TIARA DARNELL: It just seemed like a really cool place to go and sort of figure myself out. That wasn't the only reason I moved to Portland or to Oregon, but it would be not truthful to say it didn't have some impression on me.
SCOTT: But after moving, Darnell realized there were things she hadn't noticed about the show.
DARNELL: I could probably count on one hand how many episodes actually have a black person even in it even as an extra. And so it lends itself to this notion that Oregon and Portland are very white and there's no black people here. And for a while, that weighed on me.
SCOTT: Darnell says it took a year or two for her to really connect with the black community in Portland. The city's popularity boomed and not just because of the show. The cost of housing rose, and the dream of the '90s started to sting when that part-time barista job no longer covered rent and your favorite dive bar was bulldozed for high-end condos.
"Portlandia" became a target for anger. The most public backlash came from In Other Words, the feminist bookstore the show used for one of its most well-known ongoing sketches.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PORTLANDIA")
ARMISEN: (As Candace) "A New Girl Order."
BROWNSTEIN: (As Toni) That's a top-selling author. Do we want that in here?
ARMISEN: (As Candace) No, we want bottom-selling authors.
SCOTT: In 2016, In Other Words posted a blog entry accusing "Portlandia" of mocking trans people, ignoring people of color, spurring gentrification and being bad for business. Board member Nam Kennedy says that visitors drawn by the show rarely turn into customers.
NAM KENNEDY: They'll stand outside and - or, like, stand in our doorway and mock some of the things that we advertise on the space.
SCOTT: Portland Monthly's Fiona McCann says it often felt like people weren't able to differentiate between Portland and "Portlandia." And locals grew tired of being made fun of.
MCCANN: Pretty soon it started to feel to me like the same joke over and over again.
SCOTT: That said, McCann and others are grateful for the laughs "Portlandia" did provide, even if they're also happy to see it come to an end. For NPR News, I'm Aaron Scott in Portland.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Every handful of dirt in your backyard probably contains billions of microscopic living things. The planet depends on these microbes. But scientists don't even have names for most of them. Today, researchers announced in the journal Science they have made progress in exploring this largely unknown world right underneath our feet. NPR's Dan Charles reports.
DAN CHARLES, BYLINE: Noah Fierer at the University of Colorado, Boulder, wants to introduce us to all the microorganisms living in the ground.
NOAH FIERER: They do a lot of important things, directly or indirectly, for us. And I hope they get the respect they deserve.
CHARLES: Microbes create fertile soil, help plants grow, consume and release carbon dioxide, oxygen, other vital elements. But they do it all anonymously. Scientists don't know who they are or anything else about them, really.
FIERER: What they're doing in soil, how they're surviving in soil, what they look like.
CHARLES: They've been impossible to study partly because most of them refuse to grow anywhere but in the dirt.
FIERER: So we can't take them out of soil and study them in the lab.
CHARLES: This problem is so hard. Some scientists call the vast world of microbes a black box. You can't look inside. But Fierer and other scientists have come up with a way to open up the box just a little. They collect samples of soil and they just extract all the DNA from it, all the DNA from everything living in there. And there is a lot going on even in a small sample.
FIERER: Thousands of bacterial species can be found in a given teaspoon of soil, for example.
CHARLES: They study the DNA in each sample. And they're able to tell two things - how many different kinds of microbes live in that sample and how common each kind is. And Fierer discovered something interesting - out of all the different kinds of soil microbes out there, there's a relatively small group that seems to dominate. These microbes show up in large numbers in soil samples from deserts, grassy prairies, forests. Fierer made a list of 500 of the most common microbes. If we want to understand the whole soil ecosystem, he says, let's start by trying to understand these dominant species. It's a most wanted list, but it's also a list of question marks.
FIERER: Most of these microorganisms that made our most wanted list, they don't have a species name. They are undescribed.
CHARLES: Janet Jansson from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., is helping to lead a huge scientific collaboration called the Earth Microbiome Project. She says scientists will be looking closely at these commonly found microbes.
JANET JANSSON: They probably play an important role because they are dominant and ubiquitous. And so I really think that's what the next step has to be, is characterizing, you know, what do they do? And how are they impacted by change - climate change, for example?
CHARLES: It may be possible to piece together the entire genetic sequence of these microbes, she says. So even if you can't grow them in a lab, scientists may be able to figure out what they're doing just from looking at their genes. And any of these soil microbes, whether they're common or rare, could be the source of new biotechnologies, she says.
JANSSON: You know, new enzymes that remain to be discovered, novel antibiotics that remain to be discovered.
CHARLES: Treasures hidden in the ground. Dan Charles, NPR News.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
And we begin with the latest on efforts to keep the federal government from shutting down. As the sun rose here this morning, it looked - looked - as though lawmakers were on track. The plan - a short-term bill that would keep the government open until the middle of February. But then the president weighed in. In a series of tweets this morning, he appeared to contradict the plans that fellow Republican leaders had put forward. NPR's Kelsey Snell is keeping track of all of this at the Capitol. Hi, Kelsey.
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: Hi there.
KELLY: All right, what happened today? What did the president tweet?
SNELL: So let's go back in time a little bit and remember why Republicans are pairing this spending bill with a six-year extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program. It's also known as CHIP. They did that in part so that it would be harder for Democrats to vote no. Nobody really wants to be seen as voting against health insurance for low-income children.
So the president started the day today tweeting that, quote, "CHIP should be a part of a long-term solution, not a 30-day or short-term extension" - exclamation point. He also tweeted in a second tweet demanding that the spending bill include money for a wall along the border with Mexico. And that kind of directly contradicts everything that the leaders in Congress were trying to get done.
KELLY: Right. This has been part of this whole saga - is whether the spending bill should just be the spending bill or what parts of an immigration reform bill it should also include as well. So the president tweets this morning. How have lawmakers responded? I mean, what does this do to the negotiations that were underway?
SNELL: Well, the White House eventually walked it back, and so did House Speaker Paul Ryan. He had his weekly press conference today where he meets with all of us reporters on Capitol Hill. And he said that he had spoken with the president, and he thought everything was fine. Here's what he had to say.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
PAUL RYAN: I've spoken with the president. He fully supports passing what we're bringing to the floor today.
SNELL: But the morning scramble added a new layer of chaos to what was already an - very shaky situation. Several Democrats responded by saying that they would vote against the bill. That includes both senators from Virginia. And some Republicans admitted that it really makes it harder when they don't know what the president's position's going to be. And that's been a running theme here - is they get into a situation; they think they're negotiating, and then the president tweets, or the president does something. And then they're not sure where things are headed. And they need him to sign bills.
KELLY: But if I'm hearing you right, it sounds like the White House is now walking back this tweet, saying, nothing to see here folks; let's focus on the proposal that was out there.
SNELL: Right. And that is what they said, and they're moving forward. The legislation passed an important procedural hurdle earlier today, and we're heading towards the next steps.
KELLY: So this is - the House has the spending bill. We wait to see what the Senate will do. Is that right?
SNELL: Right. So after this procedural vote that happened earlier today, we will see the House vote again later on final passage. They have to approve the final bill, and there are still conservatives who say they don't want to vote for this. And a number of senators on both sides say they won't vote for a short-term spending bill. They're relying on the idea that nobody wants a shutdown. And in fact, some people get really frustrated when we ask them about it. Take Senator John Kennedy from Louisiana.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN KENNEDY: Our first job is to keep government going. And if you're going to shut her down, it better be for a damn good reason. And I haven't heard one yet.
SNELL: And that's pretty common kind of response. But Democrats are really starting to agitate for an even shorter spending bill 'cause they think it would force the White House to cut a deal on immigration, and they don't really trust Trump's promises to get something done later. So this idea of a shorter-term spending bill, you know, might drag this out even longer.
KELLY: All right, Kelsey, it sounds like we'll be talking to you all through the night...
(LAUGHTER)
KELLY: ...And tomorrow, too. NPR's Kelsey Snell reporting on another rocky day on Capitol Hill. Thanks so much.
SNELL: Thank you.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
All right, that bill to keep the government open, as we just said - it's now headed to the Senate where Democrats appear ready to block it. And one of those Democrats who may be ready to block it is Tim Kaine. He's a senator from Virginia. He told my co-host Kelly McEvers he will not support this short-term funding measure.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
So I just want to be really clear here. Are you saying that you would rather shut down the government than pass a one-month spending bill?
TIM KAINE: No. There's no reason to shut the government down. If it shuts down, it's only because the Republican majority doesn't want to work on weekends (laughter). What we have is - we're very close to a final deal right now, OK? As you know, the budget year started October 1. We're in the fourth month of the year without a budget. The Republicans said in December, give us another month, and we'll come up with a final deal. And then at the eleventh hour, now they say, well, give us another month, and we'll come up with a final deal.
What we should do is stay here over the next few days and get a final deal. The budget numbers, permanent - the long-term authorization of CHIP, protection of DREAMers, hurricane relief - we've negotiated all these items. There's nothing new to know about them. Rather than letting the Republicans kick it down the - you know, down the way for another month, let's just stay in over the weekend and work it out.
We had the secretary of defense, Jim Mattis, come and look us in the eye eight days ago - President Trump's secretary - and said, do not do another continuing resolution. Get to a final budget deal. And that's what we want to do. We ought to stay in over the weekend and get it.
MCEVERS: Well, what if that's not possible? I mean, do you think that's actually doable at this point?
KAINE: It is very possible. We - again, from October 1 till now, there's been this set of negotiations. And instead of just having the backbone to make the decision - and that does include compromise on the DREAMers and on everything else. The Dems have to be willing to compromise and the Republicans, too. But we are very, very close to a deal on all the key points, and we just have to stay at it and force it.
And what the president should ask for instead of trying to blow it up with tweets or bad comments about, you know, the DREAM - the bipartisan DREAMer deal that he encouraged to happen, he should basically say, Congress, stay in town. Find a bipartisan deal, and I will support the bipartisan deal. That's what he should do.
MCEVERS: Do you think most Senate Democrats share your view on this?
KAINE: The overwhelming majority and for a variety of reasons. Some of us are very focused on - you know, we want to make sure that the spending levels are set right for the military and education and transportation priorities, protection for the DREAMers, the Children's Health Insurance Program that the president has gone back and forth about today.
We want to get to a final budget deal. And in this use of - the continuing resolution is just a gimmick. It's a way of saying, well, we can't decide, so let's just drive by looking in the rearview mirror and do what we did yesterday. That's not the same thing as a budget. It doesn't give any of the departments, especially defense - I'm on the Armed Services Committee. It doesn't give them the ability to plan. We need to give them a forward-looking budget, and we have it within our grasp.
MCEVERS: Some of your colleagues in the Democratic Party who've been threatening a shutdown for a while now - Kamala Harris, Kirsten Gillibrand, Cory Booker - I mean, some of these people are presidential contenders in 2020. Are they seeing too much political advantage here in forcing this issue over DACA?
KAINE: Yeah. Here's what I think. DACA needs a fix. I mean, the first DREAMers bill was introduced in 2001. And the president in September said Congress needs to fix this. Ten days ago he said, you guys reach a bipartisan deal, and I'll sign what you send me. So we've got a bipartisan deal. It will pass, and we should do that.
But I think - look. On - when it comes to shutdown, only Republicans have ever shut down the government. They did it during the Clinton administration. They did it again. And I was in the Senate during the Obama administration. It doesn't work out well. There's no reason to do it. We should just stay at the table until we reach a deal. That's - it's old-fashioned.
The Republicans do need Democratic votes in the Senate, so if there's going to be a deal, they're going to have to listen to us and allow us to participate. The bill that they're putting out today is a bill that they cooked up. And they think if they throw it at us at the last minute, we have to vote yes. No, we don't have to vote yes. We are willing to work on weekends, and we will find a deal that will keep government open but that will come up with a compromise on all these items.
MCEVERS: Democratic Senator Tim Kaine from Virginia, thank you so much.
KAINE: Thanks.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Think you're having a long, dark winter? Well, spare a thought for the poor residents of Moscow who in December endured the darkest month in that city's recorded history - six minutes of sunlight. I'll repeat that - six minutes the entire month of December. Well, we couldn't help wondering what that was like to live through, and Moscow reporter Charles Maynes, who endured the darkness, is on the line now from Moscow. Hey there, Charles.
CHARLES MAYNES, BYLINE: Good to be with you.
KELLY: Good to have you with us, and congratulations on surviving.
MAYNES: Oh, thanks.
KELLY: This was, to be clear, six minutes all at once, one blinding flash, or was it meted out a few seconds over a number of days?
MAYNES: Oh, it was painfully meted out over a number of days. And yeah, so it was - you could enjoy just every 30 seconds or so as it came by.
KELLY: What is typical for December in Moscow? How much sunlight do you usually get?
MAYNES: Well, you know, Moscow isn't exactly known as a sunny destination in December. Usually we get around 18 hours of sunlight for the month. Just to put a little perspective, the previous record in terms of lack of sunlight was just a whopping three hours. So in a sense, this year just destroyed it of course with six minutes.
KELLY: Yeah, I mean, a big difference between your typical 18 hours and the six minutes that you got this December - what caused this? I mean, do we know why?
MAYNES: Well, I'm no meteorologist, but I - you know, if you read about meteorologists who do study these things, they blame it on anomalies in cyclone patterns over the Atlantic. And then you combine that with warmer than average seasonal temperatures. It was downright balmy for December in Moscow, well above freezing for most of the month, no snow. You know, all this somehow contributed to a wall of clouds that basically never moved. You know, it felt like "Groundhog Day" all December. Except for those six glorious minutes, every day was identical.
KELLY: (Laughter) OK, well, what were your days like? I mean, did this affect your daily routine?
MAYNES: Well, you know, those six minutes - I mean, I pretty much remember every single one of them. You'd be in the middle of your day, working or meeting a friend. And if you were lucky enough to be either outside or near a window, you know, you'd suddenly feel this kind of shift in your mood, you know, something along the lines of - I think it's called happiness...
KELLY: (Laughter).
MAYNES: ...Only to have it disappear before you managed to kind of take it all in.
KELLY: So fleeting - I mean, I - you know, we're laughing, but I mean, people do get seasonal affective disorder. You know, people get depressed in winter months. This is a real thing. Could you see an impact on people's moods?
MAYNES: I think it's pretty well-ingrained in the national psyche - this sort of dour sense of mood. And I don't think that Russians really embrace this idea of seasonal affective disorder.
KELLY: Charles, how is January shaping up so far? Are you getting any more sunshine?
MAYNES: Not a whole lot more sunshine, but we've got snow finally. Today was nice weather. And even just the white snow certainly cheers up the mood.
KELLY: All righty, thanks, Charles.
MAYNES: Thank you.
KELLY: Talking to reporter Charles Maynes about the six minutes of sunshine that Moscow got in December. And I'm going to point out this conversation just lasted about three minutes...
MAYNES: (Laughter).
KELLY: ...Half of that time.
(SOUNDBITE OF D NUMBERS' "XYLEM UP")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Over the past two weeks, we have been reporting on the high rates of sexual assault of people with intellectual disabilities. NPR obtained unpublished federal data and found they are assaulted at more than seven times the rate as everyone else. This information has been shocking to a lot of us, but it wasn't a surprise to people who have intellectual disabilities. In the final part of our series, NPR's Joseph Shapiro introduces us to some of the women and men who told him their stories. And just a warning - this report talks about sexual violence, and it runs about 7 minutes.
JOSEPH SHAPIRO, BYLINE: Somebody with an intellectual disability by definition has difficulty learning or reasoning or problem solving. But one thing I've learned from my reporting - they often think deeply about the things that affect them, the things that isolate them, like sexual assault.
DEBBIE ROBINSON: I felt dirty. I just felt not clean. I blamed myself. And I felt powerless.
SHAPIRO: Debbie Robinson was in her early 20s when she was raped.
ROBINSON: I couldn't even look in the mirror 'cause you see - all that comes back to you. It just does.
SHAPIRO: When the abuse happened, she couldn't even identify it as rape. She didn't get sex ed in school. The older man who abused her was related to someone who lived in her house. She'd been taught to trust him. She knew she didn't like it, that it was hidden. But she was confused. She thought maybe it was a relationship, a bad one.
ROBINSON: I had to figure out that it's not my fault. I had to go through all the memories and name it and open up the box that you really don't want to open up - Pandora's box.
SHAPIRO: It took a lot of therapy. Finding a therapist who knew how to talk to someone with her disability was hard, and getting there was even harder. Robinson doesn't drive. She confided in a friend who then came every week to give her a ride. Robinson didn't want to tell her overprotective parents. And when she finally did tell her mother, she then had to deal with her mother's own feelings of failure and guilt.
ROBINSON: That's why people would get angry - is because we didn't tell our own family members, but hey, I'm telling a stranger which is a therapist. You know, that gets our families angry.
SHAPIRO: There's a wide range of intellectual disability. Some people have significant disabilities mental and physical. Maybe they can't speak, or they need assistance from family or staff for basic things like eating to personal things like being bathed. The vast majority, though, have mild intellectual disability. There's a new generation that grows up and gets better chances in school. Some now even go to college programs. But pretty much everyone with intellectual disabilities has one thing in common. They depend upon other people for assistance. And that puts them at risk.
THOMAS MANGRUM: We are taught to trust grown-ups more than anyone else would be because when you have a disability, people are always telling you, do as that person says; do as this person says and all of this other stuff.
SHAPIRO: That's Thomas Mangrum. He says he was a young boy when he was assaulted by a deacon at his church. He told his parents, but they never said anything about it to him again. Mangrum says people with intellectual disabilities just aren't believed.
MANGRUM: They think if you've got a disability, that means you lie, that you can't really tell the truth or you don't know what the truth is.
SHAPIRO: People with intellectual disabilities often do have trouble speaking or describing things in detail or in proper time sequence. Our investigation found that makes it harder for police to investigate and for prosecutors to win these cases in court. But when sexual assaults go unpunished, then perpetrators are free to abuse someone again. It's one reason the NPR numbers show the rate of assault for this population is so high. Thomas Mangrum, who lives in Washington, D.C., thinks it's a matter of bias.
MANGRUM: And a lot of us in the disability community - people don't really see us. People don't see us at all. They just see our disability, and that's it.
SHAPIRO: And yes, sometimes the sexual assault of people with intellectual disabilities does get discounted. In 2014, a judge in Georgia threw out a conviction. He said the woman with Down syndrome didn't behave like a victim. She'd waited a day to report the assault. And in 2012, a psychologist testifying in Los Angeles said a 9-year-old girl who'd been assaulted by a boy at school was likely protected against the emotional trauma because of her low IQ. The jury was so offended it awarded the girl $1.4 million in damages, far more than the family was even seeking. That kind of thinking that people with intellectual disabilities suffer less gets Carolyn Morgan angry. She says, we feel the same pain as everyone else.
CAROLYN MORGAN: And we do feel pain all the time. Don't tell me that it'll go away.
SHAPIRO: She knows. She's dealt with the pain of her own rape. And she says anyone who denies her pain is ignorant.
MORGAN: They can't see that. They don't want to see it, close their mind to it.
SHAPIRO: Almost none of the people we interviewed said they were in a relationship now. They said it's especially hard for them after being assaulted to figure out what's a healthy relationship and then to have one. Sam Maxwell from Pennsylvania says he didn't know if he could trust anybody.
SAM MAXWELL: It took a long, long time before I had a relationship because I don't know if I could trust anybody.
SHAPIRO: Now Maxwell travels around western Pennsylvania telling other people his story. He was abused in 2004 at a state institution by a staff member. The man bought him sodas and candy at the canteen. Maxwell thought the man was his friend until the day he took him into the basement at the institution and raped him. Recently Maxwell told that story to a group of people with intellectual disabilities. Nine of the 15 in the room raised their hands and volunteered their own stories of assault.
James Meadours was assaulted by a man from his church in Baton Rouge who befriended him. Meadours was afraid what would happen if he reported it.
JAMES MEADOURS: And I thought he was going to kill me.
SHAPIRO: But a co-worker noticed he seemed depressed, got Meadours to say what happened and got him to call the health information line.
MEADOURS: And that information line told me to go to the SANE hospital. And the SANE hospital is the Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner. And I met a wonderful lady named Ms. Wanda, and Ms. Wanda really took the time to examine me. And the key of it was that she worked with my pace, not her pace. And the police came and did step-by-step.
SHAPIRO: In the hospital, Meadours was thinking he didn't want anyone else with an intellectual disability to go through this.
MEADOURS: And I remember early on during the exam. I say, I want to change the world. But Ms. Wanda and the detective and a friend of mine say, James, you need take time to recover before you help others.
SHAPIRO: That was 2005. The man who assaulted him went to prison, and Meadours started speaking out to groups around the country. He lives in San Antonio now. And four times a year, he helps train the new volunteers at the local rape crisis center. He tells them that people with intellectual disabilities are the frequent targets of sexual assault. And he says it's time to stop keeping it a secret. Joseph Shapiro, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF AETHER'S "ILLUSION")
MCEVERS: And you can hear our entire Abused and Betrayed series at npr.org.
(SOUNDBITE OF AETHER'S "ILLUSION")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
President Trump says his commitment to a border wall remains rock solid. He appears to be pushing back today against comments from his chief of staff that the president's feelings on the wall have evolved over time. In a tweet this morning, Trump insisted, quote, "the wall is the wall. It has never changed or evolved." NPR's Scott Horsley reports.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: From the moment he began running for president two and a half years ago, Donald Trump's border wall has been a central feature of his campaign.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Nobody builds walls better than me. Believe me. And I'll build them very inexpensively.
HORSLEY: This is from the president's 2015 kickoff announcement in Trump Tower, the one where he denounced Mexican border crossers as rapists and drug dealers.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: I will build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for that wall. Mark my words.
HORSLEY: Never mind that illegal border crossings had already fallen 75 percent in the last 15 years or that most illicit drugs are smuggled through legal ports of entry. The builder-turned-politician had struck a nerve, and Trump's border wall quickly became a rallying cry at campaign events around the country...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Build the wall. Build the wall. We will.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Build the wall. Build the wall.
HORSLEY: ...As always with the call and response.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Who's going to pay for it?
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Mexico.
TRUMP: One hundred percent, OK?
HORSLEY: Mexico's president made it crystal clear his country would not pay for the wall. He even canceled an early meeting with Trump to drive that point home. The two men later spoke by telephone, and Trump urged his counterpart not to call his bluff so publicly.
Funding for the wall is now one of the sticking points in congressional negotiations over spending and immigration. Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont grilled the homeland security secretary earlier this week.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PATRICK LEAHY: Do you know whether we have arrangements with Mexico to pay for it?
KIRSTJEN NIELSEN: I know that we have arrangements with Mexico to secure our border.
LEAHY: Do we have arrangements with them to pay for the wall as President Trump promised the American people they would do?
HORSLEY: In ducking the question, Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen made it plain the administration doesn't have an actual plan to recover the wall's cost from Mexico.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
NIELSEN: How do you mean pay, Sir? Do you mean through fees? Do you mean through - there's a variety of ways.
LEAHY: Well, usually when something is paid for, you pay for it with money.
HORSLEY: The White House briefly floated a plan to pay for the wall by taxing imports from Mexico, effectively shifting the cost to U.S. consumers. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham quickly shot down that idea, tweeting, any policy that drives up the cost of Corona, tequila or margaritas is a big-time bad idea - mucho sad. The White House has also suggested that NAFTA negotiations with Mexico could indirectly produce revenue for the wall.
For now, though, U.S. taxpayers are on the hook for anything that's built. The administration's asking for $18 billion over the next 10 years, though Trump said last week the wall shouldn't cost that much.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: I like to go under budget, ahead of schedule.
HORSLEY: Trump has also acknowledged the wall might not need to be a concrete barrier in its entirety. Fencing could work in some areas. And it doesn't have to stretch along the whole 2,000-mile border.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Because of mountains and rivers and lots of other things. But we need a certain portion of that border to have the wall. If we don't have it, you could never have security.
HORSLEY: White House chief of staff John Kelly told Fox News this week the president really wants to wall off only about 800 miles of border.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN KELLY: He has evolved in the way he's looked at things. Campaign to governing are two different things, and this president is very, very flexible in terms of what is within the realm of the possible.
HORSLEY: Trump is still in campaign mode on Twitter, though, making the case for his wall. While critics have dismissed the proposal as a 14th century solution to a 21st century problem, the border wall remains a potent symbol as well as a stumbling block to congressional compromise. Trump tweeted this morning, if there is no wall, there is no deal. Scott Horsley, NPR News, the White House.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Voters in southwest Pennsylvania were among the most crucial in President Trump's rise to the presidency. It's coal country, and the president's pledge to boost that industry was a big part of it. But his background as a businessman who is not afraid to insult or throw a verbal punch also helped. Now, a year into the Trump presidency, NPR's Don Gonyea has been out talking to those voters.
DON GONYEA, BYLINE: At Hot Rod's BBQ in Waynesburg, Pa., you can get a draft beer anytime for a dollar.
I couldn't tell if you were open.
ELIZABETH COGAR: Yeah, we are.
GONYEA: How are you?
COGAR: Well, the bartender will treat you very well.
GONYEA: OK. Twenty-one-year-old waitress Elizabeth Cogar greets me as I walk inside. We chat while she waits for the dinner rush. I ask her about President Trump. She's a supporter.
COGAR: Because he's a straightforward person. He doesn't sugarcoat anything.
GONYEA: But she also has some advice for the president. Calm down on Twitter.
COGAR: Like how he was posting about North Korea and how they have bombs but his button's bigger. And so I don't think that was appropriate.
GONYEA: Yes, Cogar supports Trump but says she's not as big of a fan as she was a year ago because of the drama and the distractions.
COGAR: If he could calm down on social media and his speeches and stuff, I feel like the country would want to work with him as well instead of trying to work against him. Like, we all live here. We all try to live comfortably. We're all just trying to provide for our families. So, like, let's find a median where we can work together.
GONYEA: Even that level of criticism makes Cogar unusual among people I talked to here. Forty-eight-year-old Paul Walker works in a coal mine. He called me on his cellphone as he drove to his shift.
PAUL WALKER: Right now I'm in Waynesburg, Pa. I'm driving on 21 West.
GONYEA: Walker he says he likes Trump's combative approach and his Twitter feed. But what's most important, he says, is that Obama-era regulations on the coal industry are being rolled back.
WALKER: We were at a period where we were only running the coal production three days a week. Now we're back up to six to seven days production. So yeah, we're all pretty pumped up about what's been going on.
GONYEA: Walker acknowledged that there are a lot of reasons that production is up. It's an international market place with many complicating factors. But he gives Trump plenty of credit. Now to the city of Monroeville, a suburb of Pittsburgh. Len Young owns a small landscaping business. He says he's an original member of the Tea Party and likes Donald Trump more than ever these days.
LEN YOUNG: He is the way he is. You have to accept him. The reporters who lambaste him and just have such vile hate in their heart - they're the ones who have to change, not Trump.
GONYEA: Sure, there are some ups and downs for hardcore Trump backers. I talked to Young twice over the past two weeks. The first was when the president met with a group of senators and seemed to be embracing the Democrats' proposal on a possible path to citizenship for the so-called DREAMers.
YOUNG: I was very disappointed. Right now the tone is not where I would want it to be.
GONYEA: But a day later when Trump is alleged to have uttered the now infamous vulgarity regarding immigration and the deal was breaking up, Len Young's disappointment was gone.
YOUNG: There's a good chance that the right thing is going to happen.
GONYEA: Now to a coffee shop in Mt. Lebanon. Twenty-eight-year-old real estate agent Anissa Coury supports Trump and has some advice to anyone who will listen. Just ignore the noise, and focus on the accomplishments. She points to the Dow hitting 26,000 and the new tax bill and...
ANISSA COURY: Unemployment rates are around 4 percent, the lowest unemployment for African-Americans, I believe. So the things that he's doing in my opinion are nothing short of miraculous - and a Supreme Court justice obviously.
GONYEA: There will be an early electoral test of Trump's strength in this part of Pennsylvania - a special congressional election in March. It's a seat currently held by the GOP in a district Trump carried by nearly 20 points. Republicans and Democrats will be looking for any signs of cracks. Don Gonyea, NPR News.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The Trump administration had a plan to save the coal industry, but a panel headed by a Trump appointee rejected that plan. Stacey Vanek Smith co-hosts the Planet Money podcast The Indicator, where she's been reporting on the threats to the coal industry.
STACEY VANEK SMITH, BYLINE: When President Trump took office, he promised to save the coal industry.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: My administration is putting an end to the war on coal.
VANEK SMITH: And by war on coal, Trump meant environmental regulations that had been put in place by the Obama administration. And President Trump did undo some major coal-related regulations almost as soon as he took office.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: With today's executive action, I am taking historic steps to lift the restrictions on American energy, to reverse government intrusion and to cancel job-killing regulations.
(APPLAUSE)
VANEK SMITH: But it turns out regulations were not the biggest problem for the coal industry. Coal had traditionally been the cheapest source of fuel, but about 10 years ago that started to change. Christopher Knittel is an energy economist at MIT.
CHRISTOPHER KNITTEL: So fracking started to come of age, if you will, around 2008.
VANEK SMITH: Fracking was famous for unlocking an enormous amount of oil in the U.S. But it also unlocked an enormous amount of natural gas. And all of a sudden, coal was no longer the cheapest form of energy.
KNITTEL: The use of coal in - within the U.S., it started to collapse.
VANEK SMITH: So fracking killed coal?
KNITTEL: Well, I think what the current administration doesn't realize this is the actual war on coal has come from cheap natural gas.
VANEK SMITH: In the year 2016, for the first time ever, natural gas became the main source of energy in the U.S. all because of fracking. And coal went from providing about half the energy in the U.S. to around 30 percent and falling. So last September, Trump's Energy secretary, Rick Perry, came up with a new plan. Perry said, we have to make sure our energy supply is resilient, make sure if there's some kind of crazy cold snap or some emergency and we suddenly need a lot of power we've got a reserve.
KNITTEL: So it would have provided a subsidy for any power plant that had 90 days of fuel onsite.
VANEK SMITH: This subsidy, billions of dollars a year, would have been paid by people who use power, by us. But here's the thing - power plants that burn natural gas don't really store much gas onsite. You know who does store lots of fuel onsite? Coal plants. Also, by the way, nuclear plants.
KNITTEL: I have to give it to Secretary Perry. It was quite a creative policy to target coal and nuclear plants.
VANEK SMITH: Secretary Perry's plan had to be approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. There are five commissioners, and four of them, including the chairman, were appointed by President Trump. The commission ruled on the plan last week, and all of the commissioners voted against it. Knittel says this is because the way to get energy supply resilience is not by stockpiling coal. Moreover, creating new subsidies for coal and nuclear power plants would mess up the market for electric power. And that is the market the U.S. has spent decades trying to create to encourage companies to figure out cheaper, more efficient ways of getting power to people. And, says Knittel, that market is working.
KNITTEL: Cheap natural gas isn't going away. And it's not that coal's getting more expensive. It's that alternatives to coal are getting cheaper. And that's going to continue to happen.
VANEK SMITH: Regulation isn't coal's biggest problem. Coal's biggest problem is competition. Stacey Vanek Smith, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF NAUTILUSS' "ODYSSEY")
KELLY: And Stacey Vanek Smith is co-host of NPR's newest podcast, The Indicator from Planet Money. It gives you one quick economic take on a topic that's in the news that day.
(SOUNDBITE OF NAUTILUSS' "ODYSSEY")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Now we're going to follow-up with someone we just heard, Roger Severino. He's the director of the civil rights office at the Department of Health and Human Services, and his office is charged with investigating complaints made by health care workers under this new initiative. Welcome to the program.
ROGER SEVERINO: Thank you for having me.
MCEVERS: Just explain why the Trump administration has taken this step.
SEVERINO: Well, it comes down to the president's May 4, 2017, executive order, which was a turning point. He said that we're going to vigorously enforce federal law protecting religious freedom. He said, we're a nation of tolerance, and we'll not allow people of faith to be targeted, bullied or silenced anymore. And this is just a natural outgrowth of that. We have a lot of statutes and laws on the books that protect conscience. They protect religious freedom. They have not been enforced as they deserve to be enforced, and this is a crucial civil right that is now getting the attention that has been long overdue.
MCEVERS: When you talk about tolerance, I have to ask this question. I mean, could this move mean that a woman who wants a procedure like an abortion or someone who is transgender would be denied health care?
SEVERINO: Well, the first thing to think about is that these laws are anti-discrimination laws. They ban discrimination against persons who exercise their conscience in the health care field. It actually enhances diversity to have people from all walks of life with different views on controversial questions able to practice medicine. And these laws...
MCEVERS: But I think my question is about - yeah, I think my question's about the consequences of that move though, right? The consequences of that move is that someone could be denied a health care procedure that they might want.
SEVERINO: Well, it depends what you're talking about. I think denial is a very strong word. What these (unintelligible) say is that the government itself cannot discriminate in its federal funding against providers who simply want to serve the people they serve according to their religious beliefs. If you do - or think about the opposite. If you were to ban people from practicing medicine, you'd have religious hospitals excluded from the public square because they want to follow their faith in helping the poor, the sick and the elderly and retain the religious identity without violating their conscience in doing so.
And America has reached a point where people understand that you should not be forcing others to perform abortions against their will. After Roe v. Wade, regardless of what people think about the legality of abortion, most people think that you shouldn't be forcing other people to perform abortions, pay for them, cover, refer for them, and that's enshrined in our laws. And that's what this is about.
This is about enforcing the laws that have been ignored for too long, that have been passed by Congress year after year with bipartisan support. And multiple presidents have signed these laws. And that's what this is all about - going back to protecting are fundamental principles of conscience and religious freedom.
MCEVERS: Will the civil rights division give equal weight to patients who feel like they have experienced discrimination as a result?
SEVERINO: Absolutely. There is no contradiction between respecting conscience and protecting against discrimination against people of faith and conscience and respecting all of the other civil rights. They're all civil rights. This is a package of civil rights. They come together. It's about freedom for everybody. And my office enforces civil rights laws regarding sex, discrimination, age, disability, race, national origin and the whole spectrum. And they will be fully enforced.
MCEVERS: I guess one person's conscience - right? - can be somebody else's feeling of being singled out, being considered as part of a group that's not going to get something that they feel like they deserve. That's the balancing act here, no?
SEVERINO: Well, I think people understand intuitively with the First Amendment. If somebody takes an unpopular view, the government should not come in and say, you cannot speak because we do not like your views - same thing in the health care space. The government should not be saying, you cannot have a job; you cannot be a nurse because of your views on abortion. This is about tolerance on all sides.
MCEVERS: Roger Severino is director of the civil rights office at the Department of Health and Human Services. Thank you for your time.
SEVERINO: You're very welcome
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
When Donald Trump delivered his inaugural address a year ago this week, he departed sharply from tradition. NPR's Mara Liasson looks at whether that speech has been a useful roadmap for the first year of the Trump presidency.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: One year ago, Donald Trump proclaimed a new approach. From this day forward, he said, it's going to be America first and only America first. He laid out a bleak view of America, a place where rusted-out factories were scattered like tombstones across a land infested with crime and drugs and gangs.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: This American carnage stops right here and stops right now.
LIASSON: American carnage was the phrase that stuck in people's minds, that and Trump's blistering attack on the establishment he'd so proudly beaten. They were arrayed behind him on the west front of the Capitol. Jared Kushner told a visitor that week that the speechwriters had considered but then dropped the idea of having Trump turn around and face the assembled dignitaries as he spoke on behalf of the forgotten men and women.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: The establishment protected itself, but not the citizens of our country. Their victories have not been your victories. Their triumphs have not been your triumphs.
LIASSON: One year later, Trump's rhetoric hasn't changed. It's still divisive and hard-edged. And his America First promise has been fulfilled as the U.S. has pulled back from its traditional role as the leader of the free world, leaving a vacuum for others like China to fill. But despite Trump's protectionist language a year ago, he has yet to terminate an existing trade deal, and his domestic policies - tax cuts and deregulation - would be what any conservative Republican president would be expected to pursue.
KARL ROVE: I think President Trump's inaugural address is only a partial roadmap to what we've seen in the last year and increasingly a less accurate predictor.
LIASSON: Karl Rove is a former top adviser to President George W. Bush.
ROVE: The inaugural address was dark and negative and harsh and bitter and divisive. It did declare war upon everybody who was sitting on that stage with him, including the very people whose votes were needed and whose leadership was essential to the passage of the Trump agenda.
LIASSON: But one year later, those very people seem to be in the driver's seat. Steve Bannon, who helped draft the inaugural speech, has been banished, and with him his plan to run Trumpist (ph) challengers against establishment Republicans. Now, the president states flatly, I'm going to be protecting incumbents. Donald Trump has reconciled with the Republican leadership he once declared war on. Still, others say Trump has never wavered from the insurgent vision he laid out.
DAVE BOSSIE: I was President Trump's deputy campaign manager and deputy executive director of the presidential transition team.
LIASSON: That's Dave Bossie, the co-author of a book about the president - no, not that book. Bossie's book is called "Let Trump Be Trump." And he argues that Trump has stayed true to the America First program he laid out a year ago.
BOSSIE: He is now almost one year into that agenda, and we are seeing the benefits of it. We are seeing an American economy. He got elected to be president of the United States, not president of the world.
LIASSON: There's still a big mystery, though - the disconnect between the large majorities of Americans who say they feel confident about the economy and President Trump's historically low approval ratings. Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway thinks the reason is that the mainstream media hasn't given Trump a chance.
KELLYANNE CONWAY: Ninety percent - let me just repeat that - 90 percent of his coverage has been negative in his first year. It's amazing he has any kind of positive job approval rating.
LIASSON: Conway and other White House advisers expect the improving economy will turn Trump's numbers around.
CONWAY: Even people who didn't vote for him, they can't deny what they see. And it's fatter paychecks. And it's more confidence they have.
LIASSON: But many Republicans, including supporters of the president, say that despite a solid set of conservative accomplishments, President Trump undercuts himself over and over. And, says Karl Rove, it all began on day one.
ROVE: There's a moment of introduction where the presidential candidate becomes the president, and the American people open their eyes and open their minds and open their hearts and expect to hear something that says, this man now represents all of us. And they did not hear that that particular day.
LIASSON: And according to the polls, they haven't heard it since. President Trump is still seen as divisive, and he gets poor marks for honesty and moral leadership even as he presides over an economy that most other presidents would envy. Mara Liasson, NPR News, Washington.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Travel back in time with me for a moment to 1981, the government shutdown. Two-hundred-forty-one-thousand federal employees were furloughed, and this is what it sounded like when you called the White House switchboard.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: In the absence of appropriations, the White House is involved in an orderly phase-down. All non-essential personnel have been furloughed. No one is here to answer your call.
KELLY: OK, that was 1981. And this week, the possibility of a government shutdown looms again over Washington. Lawmakers have until midnight tomorrow to find a way to avert that. Joining me now to ponder what we've learned from previous shutdown dramas is NPR's Ron Elving, senior editor and our correspondent on the Washington desk. Hey, there Ron.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Hello, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Refresh our memories here. There have been shutdowns since then, which you're going to tell me about. But 1981 - was that the first?
ELVING: In the modern context, yes. This goes back to changes to the budget process that were made in the 1970s, changes that made it really necessary for the president and Congress to work together in certain ways. And here's a news flash. Sometimes they don't.
KELLY: (Laughter).
ELVING: There were three short shutdowns while Ronald Reagan was president and another short one under George H.W. Bush.
KELLY: You said short, though - so in the grand scheme of things, not as huge a deal as they could been.
ELVING: Just nuisances, theatrical gestures, if you will. But then Newt Gingrich happened. He was the new speaker. In 1995, the Republicans had a brand new majority in the House, and Newt Gingrich decided the budget was the place to go to war with President Bill Clinton.
KELLY: OK. What happened then?
ELVING: In November of that year and again in December and January, the Congress sent bills to the president, daring him to veto them. He did, and that meant no new appropriations were made or available to the government. And that meant all non-emergency functions of the government started shutting down.
KELLY: And how long did they stay shut down?
ELVING: First time was several days, and people thought everyone had learned their lesson. But they came back for a full three weeks the second time around.
KELLY: Three weeks - I had forgotten that. Now, have we seen that long shutdown in the years and decades since?
ELVING: In the fall of 2013, Ted Cruz was a newly elected Republican senator, and he convinced a large group of like-minded House Republicans that they could go to war with their leadership as he went to war with his as well as of course going to war with the White House. Barack Obama was president. And the big issue was Obamacare, and they wanted to cripple it in the budget. And they managed to shut the government down for about two weeks.
KELLY: To be clear, the military does not shut down. Air traffic controllers still have to show up at work. What does it actually mean...
ELVING: That's right.
KELLY: ...When they say shutdown?
ELVING: TSA still looks at your bags and so on. Much of the shutdown disruption applies to things that are not emergencies. But we do talk in these days about 800,000 immediate furloughs in the federal government. More than a million other federal employees are told to show up with no idea when they're going to be paid. As a result, the federal government does not function well in anything other than the emergency processes. But it should be made clear. It's not as though the military is suddenly going to go on furlough.
KELLY: And does this actually save money?
ELVING: It does not because in the long run, all the same work has to be done, and all the same paychecks are always issued. And so in the end, it costs money because there are shutdown and restart costs. The frictional costs of these shutdowns are actually quite substantial - tens of millions of dollars at least. And as a result, they actually lose money.
KELLY: Do they actually accomplish anything?
ELVING: It's hard to see how they accomplish anything in terms of the efficiency or effectiveness of the government itself. But they do have the effect of energizing and emphasizing the differences between the political parties and the factions within the party.
KELLY: Sure.
ELVING: They can be highly stimulating for donors and activists.
KELLY: So here we sit on the precipice maybe of yet another one. What's your prediction, Ron? Where are we headed tomorrow?
ELVING: Most of the impulses and most of the mechanisms of government are pointing towards a compromise. But it only takes a few disruptive personalities, possibly just a single disruptive personality to keep that deal from coming together in a timely fashion.
KELLY: That's NPR's Ron Elving. Thanks so much.
ELVING: Thank you, Mary Louise.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
I spent a few minutes today doing something millions of Americans have done in recent days - trying out the Google Arts and Culture app.
Here we go. Take a selfie and search thousands of artworks to see if any look like you. Get started. All right, three, two, one - cheese.
Yeah, so the app is just what it sounds like. You take a selfie. You get an instant match with a great work of art that is supposed to resemble you. Sometimes the result is less than flattering.
(Laughter) It actually doesn't look anything like me, so I'm going to try this one more time. Oh, I'm liking this one. This is a portrait of Thirza Whysall from the collection of the Royal College of Music painted by Elizabeth Robinson McCallum. She does have kind of wavy blonde hair. She's playing a violin. So there you go, my inner artiste is coming out.
(Laughter) OK, so that's how the app is supposed to work. Here's the thing - if I were sitting in Texas or in Illinois, I couldn't do this. The app doesn't work. Law professor Matthew Kugler of Northwestern University has studied Illinois' biometric privacy laws, and he joins us now. Welcome.
MATTHEW KUGLER: Thank you. Thank you.
KELLY: You are in Chicago right now. Explain for us what happens if you try to open the app and use the art selfie feature.
KUGLER: So what people have been discovering - and this was not publicized, they've been discovering it as they attempt to do it - is that the option is simply not available. And what has become apparent over the last two days in particular is that Google has intentionally disabled this functionality in Illinois and in Texas in response to the biometric privacy laws.
KELLY: Google has not actually put out a statement one way or the other. We're reaching out to them to see what their take on this is. But what you're describing there is biometric law in Illinois that restricts the amount of information that tech companies can collect from users like you or me.
KUGLER: Yes. So in these two states, if you want to collect those biometrics you have to give certain disclosures to people telling them what you're going to do with the information. You have to get their permission for a variety of things. And even with that there are restrictions on how you can share the information and whether you can sell it.
KELLY: Now, in this case, we looked. Google does have a disclaimer on the app. It says - and I'll quote it - "Google won't use data from your photo for any other purpose and will only store your photo for the time it takes to search for matches." And it makes you choose either I accept or, you know, don't accept and then you don't proceed. So with that disclaimer, how does the app not satisfy Illinois legal requirements?
KUGLER: My impression is that Google is showing an abundance of caution here. The law is still being litigated in a number of courts. Google is involved in litigation involving the law. And they may be concerned that someone might upload someone else's picture and therefore they don't have the consent of the person whose image is being captured. That's a problem with home security cameras. And there's a Nest product not available in Illinois as far as we can tell because of this concern.
KELLY: Nest, we should mention, is another technology company, uses biometric data for different applications. And it's owned by the same parent company as Google.
KUGLER: Yes. So I'm wondering if there's perhaps some Google-wide understanding of caution, though obviously Google has not been forthcoming explaining exactly why it's doing some of these things.
KELLY: Why was this law passed in Illinois in the first place? This was to protect privacy rights of residents there.
KUGLER: Yes. There was a company going through bankruptcy in Illinois that had a fair bit of biometric data. And as it was going through bankruptcy, there was concern that the data had been collected when consumers had certain impressions of how it was going to be used. And in bankruptcy, that data might be sold to someone else who has completely different intentions. So maybe you trust Google with certain data, but for Google to hand that data off to someone else you wouldn't trust them. So this law was passed in part to avoid that kind of unintended consequence.
KELLY: And meanwhile, to loop us back to where we began, are people in Illinois finding ways to circumvent this law?
KUGLER: Several of my friends have commented that when they travel out of state they're going to make a point to stop by the side of the road and make use of this feature (laughter). How much they care is unclear. This is perhaps the flavor of the moment, and in a week we'll all wonder why we cared.
KELLY: We'll all be moving on to being agitated about something else. Matthew Kugler, thanks very much.
KUGLER: Thank you.
KELLY: That's Matthew Kugler of the Pritzker School of Law at Northwestern University.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In a courtroom in Michigan this week, former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar faced dozens of women who he molested. They have been making victim-impact statements at his sentencing. A judge has said Nassar will go to prison. And until today, many of those victims were told by USA Gymnastics they would have to go back to the training center where Nassar abused them. It's in Texas, and it's run by gymnast legends Bela and Marta Karolyi. But late today came word that next week's training camp is canceled and U.S. gymnasts will never have to return to the Karolyi training center.
Juliet Macur has been following this story for The New York Times, and she's with us now. Welcome.
JULIET MACUR: Thank you.
MCEVERS: So you tweeted today that this move is thanks to the power of women speaking up. Talk about that.
MACUR: That's right. Simone Biles, who's one of the most decorated gymnasts in not only American history but in the history of the sport of gymnastics, tweeted on Monday that she was part of the #MeToo movement, and said that Dr. Larry Nassar had also molested her, along with many other people that Larry Nassar had molested. And said that she didn't want to go back to the ranch - she dreaded going back there - and that basically going back to this Karolyi Ranch, which is the national team training center, stood between her and making the team - the Olympic team for the 2020 Tokyo Games.
MCEVERS: And you actually talked to a child psychologist about that, about what it would mean for gymnasts who'd suffered abuse to go back to that place. What did he tell you?
MACUR: He immediately told me it was the worst idea possible to make these women, which - they have to be going back to the ranch if they're going to make the Olympic team - to go back to the place where they were abused, that it would be - that it would be traumatic, that it would cause more painful memories to flood back, that - he actually said that USA Gymnastics would be abusing them again by doing this and it was yet another level of betrayal.
MCEVERS: Are there any more details about where the gymnasts will train?
MACUR: There are no details as far as I know. All I know is that CEO of USA Gymnastics Kerry Perry - she started at the end of last year - said that she had been thinking about closing the training center and did so today. And I'm not sure where they will go, but there are plenty of places where they could go and where they could've gone for the last several years.
MCEVERS: Will the Karolyis still be involved?
MACUR: The Karolyis actually don't coach anymore. Marta Karolyi was the national team training - national team coordinator most recently. And she retired at the last Olympics. So they do own the ranch. However, they don't coach anymore. So this will just be a financial blow to them, and that's about it.
MCEVERS: OK. USA Gymnastics, of course, is the governing body of this sport. And it's still dealing with the fallout from, you know, Larry Nassar's abuse. There are lawsuits. I mean, how will all of this affect them going forward? We've got two and a half years until the next Summer Olympics.
MACUR: I'm not sure how it will affect them, but it will definitely affect the sport. I'm sure there are many moms and dads out there who would think twice about putting their kids in gymnastics right now. The sport is facing - USA Gymnastics specifically is facing several lawsuits that have to do with the sex abuse. So I'm not sure how they will move forward. Right now the sport is in chaos, and I'm not sure what's going to happen.
MCEVERS: That's Juliet Macur, the Sports of the Times columnist for The New York Times. Thank you so much.
MACUR: You're welcome.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Congress is one step closer to funding the government, or it could be one step closer to a shutdown. Earlier this evening in a mostly party-line vote, the U.S. House passed a bill funding the government through February 16. It would also fund the popular Children's Health Insurance Program, CHIP, for six more years. The vote tonight sets up a confrontation with the Senate.
And joining us now from Capitol Hill to walk us through all of the day's developments is NPR congressional reporter Kelsey Snell. Hi, Kelsey.
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: Hi there.
KELLY: So as I said, you've been tracking this all day. It had looked like Republicans in the House were divided, but they got this vote through. How did they manage to come to an agreement?
SNELL: Well, they were negotiating with the speaker up until the very last hour before the vote. It really came down to this group of maybe two dozen very conservative House members known as the House Freedom Caucus. They were asking for more assurances from the speaker that they would be able to vote on big-picture questions about military spending and immigration.
Ultimately 224 Republicans voted for the spending bill, and that's more than enough to pass it without the help of any Democrats, though some Dems did vote yes. Freedom Caucus members came out of a meeting with the speaker saying that he agreed to allow future votes on pay raises for troops, a commitment to vote on a full year of military funding and a vote on a conservative immigration bill written by Virginia Republican Bob Goodlatte.
Now, that would include money to fully fund construction of a border wall, and it would require employers to use a controversial E-Verify system to check the status of their workers. The thing is that we're not sure that that could even pass the House.
KELLY: OK. But meanwhile, I suppose all eyes now turn to the Senate, right?
SNELL: Right.
KELLY: I mean, throughout the day, we've been talking to Democrats and Republicans on the Senate side saying they're not going to vote for this bill no matter what. What are they asking for? What changes do they want to see to vote yes?
SNELL: Yeah. The back of the envelope calculation that we have right now is that there probably aren't enough votes to - for this to pass in the Senate, though things could change. There's a lot - as crazy as it sounds, there's a lot of time between now and the end of the day tomorrow.
Democrats want a deal on immigration, and they want that agreement to increase spending across the board as part of the spending bill. And they want those two things paired together. Now, they're no longer saying they need a vote on it by the end of this week, but they are saying that they want a deal. And there's a serious lack of trust up here. Democrats say the president is unpredictable. They don't trust that he'll sign off a deal even if one is reached. And they point to his tweet earlier this morning that seemed to contradict the spending bill drafted by GOP leaders specifically to ensure that it would pass.
And so they're just not sure what he will do, and they want some more assurances from Republicans in Congress that this deal is actually going to come together 'cause they're saying it's about 700,000 people who were protected under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the DACA program, which will expire at the beginning of March. And they want to make sure those people are protected.
KELLY: All right, so a lot of question marks still in terms of what President Trump might be willing to sign, a lot of question marks in terms of how this may all be play out - playing out in the Senate tomorrow - I mean, we're looking toward tomorrow. How - we've been talking about how the chances have gone up and down of a shutdown all day today. What - how does it look for tomorrow?
SNELL: Things are incredibly uncertain right now. It's entirely possible that the Senate will start holding procedural votes as soon as later tonight. And Democrats say they want to avoid a shutdown, but they're at a critical tipping point. And it's a risk. Who will voters blame if there's a shutdown? Republicans say it will be Democrats because they withheld their votes. Democrats think it's Republicans because they believe that DACA's important to most of their voters.
KELLY: Right.
SNELL: And Republicans control the Senate and the White House (laughter).
KELLY: Lots of action to watch there tomorrow. That's NPR's Kelsey Snell on Capitol Hill. Thanks so much.
SNELL: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CBS EVENING NEWS WITH WALTER CRONKITE")
WALTER CRONKITE: Good evening. Tonight - the subject of abortion. The illegal termination of pregnancy has reached epidemic proportions in this country. The conflict between the law and reality has resulted in a national dilemma. Abortion will...
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Monday marks the 45th anniversary of Roe versus Wade, January 22, 1973. Before the Supreme Court's decision, abortion was against the law. In most of the country, women who sought out the procedure took risks.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
In the 1960s, an underground network of women in Chicago took a different risk to try to give women seeking abortions a safer alternative. The group was known as Jane. And at first they connected women with doctors who were willing to break the law and perform the procedure. And eventually women in the collective trained to perform abortions themselves.
KELLY: We're going to hear firsthand accounts of what they did and why. These accounts include some graphic descriptions that listeners may find disturbing. Radio Diaries brings us the story of the group.
WINNETTE WILLIS: My name is Winnette Willis. When I was 23 years old, I was a single mom, and I became pregnant. It terrified me - the thought of having another kid by myself. I think I was kind of desperate, actually. I remember being on an L, on the train platform and seeing a sign. And the sign said, pregnant - and there was a question mark - don't want to be - question mark. Call Jane - and a phone number. So I called.
HEATHER BOOTH: My name's Heather Booth. I started Jane in 1965 when a friend of mine was looking for a doctor to perform an abortion. I made the arrangements. Then someone else called. Well, by the third call, I realized I couldn't manage it on my own. I thought, I'd better set up a system.
MARTHA SCOTT: My name is Martha Scott. I joined the group in 1969. I had four children under the age of 5. Many of us were stay-at-home moms, a bunch of housewives.
JEANNE GALATZER-LEVY: I'm Jeanne Galatzer-Levy. I was a member of Jane. I was 20 years old. I hadn't had so much as a speeding ticket, but abortion really was the frontline. It was where women were dying.
WILLIS: There was all kinds of stories out there - you know, people who had used a hanger to stick in themselves to kind of stimulate abortions. But I wasn't going to do that. So that's why I went to Jane.
BOOTH: Women would call an answering machine - were asked to give their phone number, their name and the date of their last period.
SCOTT: We met someone before they were going to do this. We gave them a chance to talk about it. And we told them what was going to happen. There were lots of points along the way where they could have said no, changed my mind because you do think about it a lot. I don't think anyone chooses to have an abortion lightly.
WILLIS: I remember the day of, I took public transportation to this apartment at Hyatt Park. There was, like, seven or eight people in there. And we waited. At the appointed time, we were put into a car, and we were taken to a second location where the abortion was performed. It felt very underground, you know? I remember looking at the people who performed the surgery, and I felt relief (laughter) that somebody was going to help me.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CBS EVENING NEWS WITH WALTER CRONKITE")
CRONKITE: Good evening. The facts are astonishing. Hundreds of thousands of pregnant women unmindful of what may happen to them secretly seek abortions. For them, there is a wide gulf between what the law commands and what they feel they must do.
TED O'CONNOR: My name is Ted O'Connor. I was a young homicide detective on the South Side of Chicago. This is a Catholic city. Abortion wasn't even discussed. And I knew nothing about Jane. The whole operation was totally under our radar.
LESLIE REAGAN: Jane was very organized and very clandestine and secretive. My name is Leslie Reagan. I'm a professor of history and author of the book "When Abortion Was A Crime." The thing that ultimately made Jane so unique was they took the practice of abortion into their own hands. They decided to learn and perform abortions themselves. And that was a stunning decision.
GALATZER-LEVY: We told them upfront we were not doctors. You know, doctors charged $500 a pop. So we would say, we charge a hundred dollars, but we will take what you can pay. We were doing four days a week, and we were typically doing 10 women a day.
SCOTT: We would rent apartments all over the city. We set up in two bedrooms and put linens on the bed and sterilized our instruments. So the person who was having the abortion would, you know, stretch out, and the person who was assisting would sit with them while it was happening - you know, hold hands and, you know - and then I would insert the speculum, administer the anesthesia that was delivered by four shots to the cervix. And then the cervix would be dilated, and then the instrument would be inserted into the uterus to remove the material. So that was the procedure.
GALATZER-LEVY: We gave every woman a little pill box with Ergotrate to help prevent bleeding and tetracycline, which is an antibiotic. By and large, we were dealing with healthy women pregnancies. I mean, we were not qualified to deal with somebody with real medical problems.
SCOTT: I probably did hundreds of abortions. I mean, the fact is abortion is a pretty easy procedure. But still, you're messing around inside somebody else's body. It's not necessarily given that you won't do harm.
There were problems. There were people who ended up in the emergency room, you know? It wasn't always perfect by any means, you know? We felt it was the right thing to do. But that doesn't mean anything when the police are actually at your door.
O'CONNOR: It was spring of 1972, and two female Hispanics walked into the police station. And they told us that their sister-in-law was going to have an abortion. Of course these women were Catholic, and to them, one, it was a sin. And two, they didn't want a child killed. That's how they felt. And so with two unmarked squad cars, we managed to follow our target, drove into the South Shore neighborhood, pulled up in front of one of the apartment buildings, rode up on the elevator.
And we saw a young woman, late-20s, extremely well-dressed. And she stopped momentarily and braced herself. She was pale, looked like the blood had drained out of her face. And my partner took her by the arm, in a very stern voice said, did you just have an abortion? She said yes, and he said, where? And she led us to the door. I really didn't know what to expect when I walked in there. The living room was filled with young women waiting for an abortion. It was - I was shocked to see it. And of course they were very surprised when we came in.
SCOTT: They were such Chicago cops, you know? They were burly. They spoke with South Side accents. They came in and looked around and said, where's the doctor, looking for the guy. But there wasn't any guy, you know? There was just us.
O'CONNOR: I remember one of the women asked me what I thought these women were supposed to do if they couldn't get an abortion, you know, what did I think was the right thing. And you know, I told her, listen; I don't have any opinions about what they should do. But you're breaking the law. That's all I know, and that's why I'm here. So we arrested everybody.
SCOTT: I remember being handcuffed to somebody, and we were all taken down to women's lockup.
GALATZER-LEVY: We were charged with 11 counts of abortion and conspiracy to commit abortion.
O'CONNOR: I remember thinking at the time, I can see both sides of this. It's a tough issue, you know? And my side is, I don't want to see a life destroyed. That life is helpless. It has no choice in this. And that's - that angers me. On the other hand, I've never been pregnant.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CBS EVENING NEWS WITH WALTER CRONKITE")
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: This is the "CBS Evening News With Walter Cronkite."
CRONKITE: Good evening. In a landmark ruling, the Supreme Court today legalized abortions. The majority in cases...
REAGAN: Six months after the arrests, the Supreme Court decided Roe versus Wade, and ultimately the charges that had been brought against Jane are dropped.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CBS EVENING NEWS WITH WALTER CRONKITE")
CRONKITE: Antiabortion laws of 46 states were rendered unconstitutional.
REAGAN: Roe v. Wade brought an end to Jane because now there were legal providers. But the controversy didn't just disappear.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LEM TUCKER: Perhaps more than any other issue in American life today, the abortion question is loaded with the emotional arguments of life, death and morality, not the kinds of issues a court can finally settle.
SCOTT: Roe v. Wade made such an enormous difference. It was a very important victory. At that point, we all kind of scattered, went onto other things. I mean, we really thought the fact that it was legal would change things, that this wouldn't be as political anymore, that it would fade a lot as any kind of a social issue. But we were wrong. We were wrong.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MCEVERS: Jane performed approximately 11,000 first- and second-trimester abortions before Roe versus Wade. No deaths of women were ever reported in connection with the service.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
KELLY: This story was produced by Nellie Gilles with Joe Richman and Sarah Kate Kramer. It was edited by Deborah George and Ben Shapiro. A special thank you to Laura Kaplan, author of "The Story Of Jane." You can hear this story and more on the Radio Diaries podcast.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MCEVERS: And elsewhere in the show, we will hear more about the current debate around abortion. Thousands of anti-abortion rights activists came to Washington today for the annual March for Life. It's been held every year since the Supreme Court's decision in 1973. President Trump delivered a speech to the crowd on video. Some protesters held signs that said make America pro-life again.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Unless there's a last-minute agreement, the federal government is about to partially shut down. Funding for most agencies expires at midnight tonight Eastern Time. So what exactly does that mean? NPR's Brian Naylor is here to tell us. Hey, Brian.
BRIAN NAYLOR, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: What is a partial shutdown?
NAYLOR: Right. So here we go again. We've been through this before.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
NAYLOR: What it means essentially is that for many government agencies, the money has run out or will run out at midnight. And so they'll have to close. Hundreds of thousands of employees will be told not to come to work. But the partial bit means that other functions will continue, and many hundreds of thousands of employees will be on the job. They just won't be getting paid for the most part. But - I'm sorry. Go ahead.
MCEVERS: No, go ahead. I was just going to say, where would we see the biggest difference if there is a shutdown?
NAYLOR: Well, so right now it seems as though the biggest difference from what happened in the last shutdown in 2013 is the national parks and monuments here in Washington and across the country will remain open. It was a very visible sign four years ago that things were not operating as usual. And it was pretty controversial. A group of veterans came to Washington to see the World War II memorial and, with the help of some Republican congressmen, pushed aside the barriers blocking their access. So the Trump administration doesn't want to see that kind of a scene playing out this time. So the parks will be open across the country. But there's a big caveat. Many restrooms and visitor center buildings will be closed, and some areas of the parks won't be open to protect cultural artifacts and things.
MCEVERS: What about other government services that people rely on?
NAYLOR: Well, so, you know, there may not be a lot of things that people will notice. For instance, the post office will be open. Mail delivery will continue because the Postal Service has its own revenue stream. Other agencies and functions of the government will be considered, quote, unquote, "essential." For instance, so the borders still be patrolled, and the air traffic controllers and the TSA officers will still be on the job. They just won't be getting paid. Social Security checks will continue to go out. And active duty military service members will carry out their duties, but they won't be getting paid either.
MCEVERS: There are also other federal workers who are wondering if, you know, they'll be going to work not just in Washington but across the country. I mean, what kind of guidance are they getting?
NAYLOR: Well, it's been a little muddled so far. The last time, there were sort of clear-cut rules and things were posted. This time it's a little bit more ad hoc. Most employees will find out formally over the weekend that there will be a shutdown and they won't be required to come into work. I spoke with Max Stier at the Partnership for Public Service, who says for federal employees, that's really disruptive.
MAX STIER: There is no bigger morale destroyer than a government shutdown for people who care about serving the public. It is devastating. It's devastating for them. It's devastating for the people they serve. It's devastating for our economy. It's a lose all the way around.
MCEVERS: That was Max Stier with the Partnership for Public Service. And thanks to you, NPR's Brian Naylor.
NAYLOR: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
It has been four months since Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico. And still, 40 percent of the island's customers are still without power. But as NPR's Adrian Florido reports, some people in one town got so tired of waiting they decided to do it themselves.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: Rosa Cruz and her husband, Luis Felipe Colon, both retired, haven't had electricity for four months. So they've eaten mostly canned food, and prayed that Rosa doesn't have an asthma attack because they can't plug in a nebulizer. Their little house in a rural part of western Puerto Rico sits on a hillside. From their porch, they look down on the town of San Sebastian.
LUIS FELIPE COLON: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: "When there was no electricity," Colon says, "it looked really beautiful at sunset." But he adds that as power has slowly been restored to the town below, it's looked even more beautiful.
ROSA CRUZ: (Speaking Spanish).
COLON: (Speaking Spanish)
FLORIDO: "I tell him, look, there's light down there," his wife says. "It's getting closer to us." This morning, they woke up and saw that a crew had rehoisted the downed utility pole in front of their house. Colon says he literally jumped.
COLON: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: "What joy," he said. "It's our turn." The men working out front were not with the utility company or the Army Corps of Engineers or any of the official government crews working to restore the island's power. They were San Sebastian's police chief and a retired employee of the utility company and a bunch of other men from this municipality, all volunteering to restore power to their own town. San Sebastian's city hall is on a picture-perfect plaza with a fountain and a church. In his office there, Mayor Javier Jimenez says that back in November after nearly two months of waiting for the power authority to start grid repairs in his town, he couldn't take it anymore.
JAVIER JIMENEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: "The first thing I did," he says, "was find out which of our employees were electricians." Jimenez said he then put out a call for help from linemen and other people who used to work with the power authority but were now retired.
JIMENEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: "And so we started these brigades," he said. They even gave themselves a name, the Pepino - or cucumber - Power Authority - the PPA - after the town's full name, San Sebastian Las Vegas del Pepino. They designed a logo, slapped it on their helmets and utility trucks. The Pepino Power Authority started fixing electric lines in the center of town and has been working its way out to the hills. They have met resistance. The island's electric utility accuse Jimenez of circumventing its authority. He admits he did. But the mayor objects to another accusation, that what he's doing is unsafe.
JIMENEZ: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: "One of the first things we did," Jimenez says, "was establish a safety protocol. And we even brought in a government inspector." Across Puerto Rico, mayors still waiting for repair crews to arrive in their municipalities have started pressuring the governor to allow them to legally restore their own power. So this week, the legislature announced a bill that could allow cities to hire their own contractors.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: In San Sebastian, the Pepino Power Authority has already restored service to about 2,500 homes. Joaquin Cruz, a volunteer, says the goal is to restore 100 percent of San Sebastian's homes before the end of January.
JOAQUIN CRUZ: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: "Yesterday, we did between 60 and 80," he says. "And today will be the same." One of those is the little hillside home of Rosa Cruz and Luis Felipe Colon, who've been watching the progress from their porch all day.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: Every time the workmen of the Pepino Power Authority are ready to turn the power back on to a new home, they get giddy with excitement. Felix Aviles, the police chief turned electrician, races up to the house, switches on the breaker and then flips the switch for the porch light. It turns on.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: "Thank you," Rosa Cruz tells the workers. "We are so blessed." Adrian Florido, NPR News, San Sebastian, Puerto Rico.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRISTEZA'S "STUMBLE ON AIR")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
When 33-year-old Rachael Denhollander was a young gymnast suffering from back pain, she went to see Larry Nassar. He was a doctor with Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics. Years later, she became the first person to file a criminal complaint against Nassar, and she's told her story to The Indianapolis Star.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Since then, more than 140 women have come forward, too, and now Nassar is being sentenced in Michigan for criminal sexual misconduct. That's on top of 60 years he'll spend in federal prison for child pornography. Nearly all of those women have been in the courtroom to look Nassar in the eye and give victim impact statements. Denhollander will give the last of those sometime next week. During a break in court today, I asked what it's been like to watch all this unfold.
RACHAEL DENHOLLANDER: You know, it is - it really is a very empowering thing. It is an incredibly difficult thing to face your abuser, but to see all of these survivors able to stand up and to look Larry in the eye and to speak the truth about what he did and to put the shame and the blame and the guilt exactly where it belongs on Larry and Larry alone is an incredible thing to witness.
KELLY: Now, I know that you were supposed to speak today. Your statement has now been pushed to early next week, I gather. How come?
DENHOLLANDER: Well, for the best and the worst reason - because there are more survivors calling in every night who are ready to stand up and face their abuser, which is an incredible thing and also a very sobering thing to continue seeing how much damage Larry Nassar was able to do in his 20 years at MSU and USAG.
KELLY: You were 15 when you went to see him. When did you first decide to tell somebody about it?
DENHOLLANDER: I first spoke up to an authority figure in 2004. I was coaching gymnastics at that point, and one of the young gymnasts that I coached was going to be sent to him for treatment for hip pain. She was only 7 or 8. And I thought I couldn't let that happen. So I did disclose parts of the abuse, not all of it but parts of the abuse and told the coach at the gym that he had sexually assaulted me under the guise of medical treatment and that no gymnast should be seeing him.
And the response to that was not malicious in any way, shape or form. I consider that coach a good friend still to this day. But she didn't know what to do with it. And so she did continue to send gymnasts to Larry up until the point that she stopped coaching at that gym.
KELLY: You know, we've heard so much these last few months as the behavior of powerful men has come to light and they've been confronted with things that they have done that was inappropriate or worse. Was Larry Nassar something of an open secret among young women competing for U.S. gymnastics?
DENHOLLANDER: Oh, absolutely. I mean many of the dancers, the gymnasts, the people who saw him would talk about the treatments. And you know, the conclusion was, well, this must be medical treatment because he'd never be allowed near us if it wasn't. And as a 15-year-old, that was my thought process. You know, as I lay on that exam table, the only conclusion that I could come to was that it had to be a legitimate medical treatment because surely the adults that heard the description of what he was doing would have done something if it wasn't and he would have never been near me. And that thought process caused me to lay still.
KELLY: You, we mentioned, were the very first to come forward to file a criminal complaint against Larry Nassar. That was in 2016. What happened?
DENHOLLANDER: Well, the floodgates opened. I found out that the statute of limitations had been lifted in Michigan and that I still had the option to file a police report. We packed up the family. We drove up to Michigan. We filed the police report. And two weeks after that, The Indy Star story came out, and the detective started receiving calls almost immediately from other women that had experienced the exact same thing.
KELLY: When you face him in the courtroom it sounds like next week, what are you going to say?
DENHOLLANDER: I have a lot of things that I think need to be communicated, some to Larry and some to everyone who's watching. This is the greatest sexual assault scandal in sports history. Larry is arguably the most prolific pedophile in history, and it is imperative that we learn some very serious lessons from what has happened here.
KELLY: Does this color your view of gymnastics now?
DENHOLLANDER: Yeah, yes. And my daughter actually is begging for gymnastics lessons. The sexual assault itself does not color my view of gymnastics. I think it is an incredible, beautiful sport, that there is so much good that can come from it. But the way USAG has created a culture in gymnastics absolutely has colored my view because the reality is that Larry is not the problem. Larry is a symptom of the problem. The reason Larry was able to have access to so many children for so long is because you had two major institutions who looked the other way, who had abhorrent policies - USAG in particular when it came to reporting sexual assault. And that is something I cannot be a part of.
KELLY: May I ask? I know you have three young kids. How are you talking to your kids about this?
DENHOLLANDER: You know, my kids are 6, 3 and 2, so right now they really do not understand what is going on. I do intend to talk to them about this when they get old enough to handle it. And my hope is that my son will grow into a man who becomes a protector and a defender and that my daughters will grow into warriors.
KELLY: Rachael, thank you very much for talking with us.
DENHOLLANDER: Thank you.
KELLY: That's former gymnast Rachel Denhollander talking about the sentencing of Larry Nassar. He was a doctor for USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University. Today the school's board asked the state attorney general to investigate its conduct, saying this can never happen again.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
There are just hours left until a partial shutdown of the federal government. The House passed a bill last night to keep the government funded for four weeks, but Senate Democrats who are looking for protections for young immigrants say they will block it without a further deal, and that could mean a shutdown starts at midnight Eastern Time. This afternoon, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer met President Trump at the White House. But when he got back to the Capitol, there was still no deal.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHUCK SCHUMER: We had a long and detailed meeting. We made some progress. But we still have a good number of disagreements. The discussions will continue.
MCEVERS: To talk about this, we are joined by NPR's Kelsey Snell, who is on Capitol Hill. Hey, Kelsey.
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: Hi there.
MCEVERS: So what can you tell us about this Trump-Schumer meeting? Does it look like they got any closer to an agreement?
SNELL: Schumer really did not reveal much about the meeting beyond what we just heard him say about making progress. And there are still talks going on of an even shorter spending bill. So people have talked about one day, maybe three days, maybe four days, anything to keep them from shutting down the government while talks continue.
And the Democrats I talked to say they really don't want a shutdown. Some say they're worried that shutting down the government would just come off really terribly in places like North Dakota, Indiana and Missouri where Democrats are fighting very hard to hold onto Senate seats. And so they are trying to come up with some way that they can appear very strong on this immigration issue without actually having to get to the point of a shutdown.
MCEVERS: Seems like a pretty fine line there.
SNELL: (Laughter) Yeah.
MCEVERS: Are Republicans open to this idea of a short spending bill?
SNELL: The majority of them are refusing to say, and that's in part because this is a negotiating tactic. It wouldn't be very helpful for them if they wanted to get this longer-term spending bill to just throw up their hands and say, sure, we'll do it for a shorter amount of time. But you know, there are still options out there, and they - you know, they don't want a shutdown. Nobody wants a shutdown.
MCEVERS: Those of us who are not in Washington - I wonder if you could just sort of describe what it's been like on Capitol Hill today.
SNELL: It has been meetings upon meetings upon meetings.
MCEVERS: OK.
SNELL: So the deputies to the leaders in the House and the Senate, both Democrats and Republicans, met today trying to reach an agreement on immigration. So far we haven't heard anything that indicates that they've made any progress. We know that Senator Schumer went to the White House on the invitation of President Trump.
Ryan and McConnell met. Schumer and Pelosi met. And they've just been kind of huddling in their own corners. And honestly, mostly they're blaming each other. It's been a competition over branding here, and the House blames the Senate. Republicans problem the Democrats. And here's how McConnell put it this morning on the Senate floor.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MITCH MCCONNELL: I wish for all of our sakes that the Democratic leader would figure out what he actually wants. I feel bad for his own members. He's painted them into a corner.
SNELL: He also blamed Trump just two days ago. And this is something that Republicans have been saying. This is what he said at his weekly press conference just two days ago.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
MCCONNELL: What I want to see is an outcome, and an outcome involves the signature of the president of the United States.
SNELL: And Democrats would agree with him there. They say that this is all because the president is not trustworthy, and they don't know what kind of deal they could strike with other people here in the Capitol that the president will accept. And they point to that meeting - that profanity-laden meeting last week where...
MCEVERS: Right.
SNELL: ...He shot down an agreement as evidence that the president won't exactly sign anything like he said he would.
MCEVERS: Right. So what next? I mean, is this shutdown threat more serious than it was this morning?
SNELL: It certainly is. We are roughly eight hours away from a shutdown, and that is very, very close. And the Senate will have to vote at some point. They have this short-term spending bill available that they could be voting on, but they haven't done it yet.
The other thing that we should keep an eye on, though, is that the House reversed course and decided to tell their members to stay in town. That gives them an option that if a short-term is what they need to do, they could have a vote, and they could theoretically bring everybody back and vote at the very last minute.
MCEVERS: Something I'm sure we will continue to talk about.
SNELL: (Laughter).
MCEVERS: NPR's Kelsey Snell on Capitol Hill, thanks a lot.
SNELL: Thank you.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
And we're going to stay right here, right on this same topic for our Friday politics discussion. Here in the studio with me - columnist David Brooks of The New York Times and Matthew Yglesias, co-founder of Vox. Welcome to you both to - I guess we'll call it the special shutdown edition of the week in politics.
Start with this. And David, I'm going to throw this one to you first. If the government shuts down at midnight - if - it will mark the first time ever that that has happened when one party controls the Senate, the House and the White House. So David Brooks, persuade me. If we see a shutdown, how is this not all Republicans' fault?
DAVID BROOKS, BYLINE: Yeah. First, what I'm about to say I don't actually agree with. They don't pay me enough to be a Republican shill.
KELLY: (Laughter) Yeah, a useful preface, OK.
BROOKS: But I think that the strongest argument they'll make to voters is that listen; we tried to prevent you - present you with a government that was functioning for American citizens, that had defense spending for American citizens, that had a new - this health care program for American citizens, and Democrats want to block it on behalf of illegal immigrants. And so who's really in favor of Americans, us or them?
KELLY: Us or them - all right, Matthew, let me let you come back to that. We just heard there the Republican argument which David doesn't actually agree with but he's laid out neatly for us. They're arguing that this is Democrats shutting down the government to help illegal immigrants. How are Democrats not completely to blame if the government shuts down tonight?
MATTHEW YGLESIAS: I think the underlying issue here is that President Trump has really not been clear on what it is he's trying to do. If - when he had canceled the DACA program, if he had said, look; I want to get these illegal immigrants deported; that's why I'm canceling it; I am irreconcilable on this, I think Democrats might have to accept it. I mean, exactly what David laid out would be the case. But instead he keeps saying he wants a deal. He says he wants a deal of love. But then every time there is a deal he scuttles it. And that's how we've gotten to this point. What leader McConnell outlined where he just took a very hard line against the DACA recipients - that in its way makes more sense than what the president is saying.
KELLY: I'm struck by one point in all of this on which there appears to be a 100 percent agreement. Republicans, Democrats, the president - everybody seems to think this is a lousy way to run a government, a lousy way to run a budget.
BROOKS: People - you know, people come to Congress because they actually do want to pass things.
KELLY: Yeah.
BROOKS: I mean, it's hard to get here. And so there's a great deal of upset about these 30-day extensions and all the gimmickry. I think that's genuinely true on both sides. I think that - and there's - the other thing that's surreptitiously true on both sides is neither can quite figure out who's going to lose here. I think that I hear a lot of uncertainty about that.
My own view is that the short term, the Republicans probably lose because they are - do control the government. The medium term, the Democrats probably lose because this is really about people in red states where the Democrats hope to defend or pick up some Senate seats. And it'll probably play pretty well for Republicans in the medium term.
In the long term, of course it's ruinous for Republicans because they have really, as Matthew says - Mitch McConnell has labeled the whole party - not just part of the party, the whole party - as the anti-immigrant party. And that of course is ruinous in a country that's growing increasingly diverse.
KELLY: Matthew, if we were - God forbid - to put politics to the side for a moment and just discuss the substance of what is on the table - I mean, on immigration and DACA and CHIP, the insurance program for children, how far apart are all of the involved parties on the actual substance of trying - what they're trying to get done here?
YGLESIAS: Well, I mean, that's part of what's interesting here. I mean, there is a bipartisan agreement with some Republican support that is I think quite generous to the DACA recipients but then in exchange make some real serious investments in border security. But then you've had Tom Cotton and some factions of the White House...
KELLY: Republican Senator Tom Cotton.
YGLESIAS: Yes, from Arkansas - way off, essentially demanding a wholesale revision of how immigration to the United States works. That's obviously not going to happen in this kind of pressure cooker contest, and it's not totally clear to me if he really means that. I mean, he could get some concessions on immigration policy, but instead he's holding out for a complete transformation, a 50 percent cut in legal immigration. And I mean, everybody knows Democrats won't agree to that.
BROOKS: Well, I think it's interesting, though, the way the Republicans have shifted. Where Lindsey Graham was, that sort of was the Republican - if not the total unanimity but center of gravity. It's where George W. Bush was, John McCain was. And this Graham-Durbin deal would be acceptable to a lot of rank-and-file Republicans. Seventy-four percent of the country supports DACA.
But where Tom Cotton is, wanting to cut legal immigration - legal immigration - by 50 percent, that has suddenly become the orthodoxy of the Republican Party. So we've seen this shift further over the restrictionist side in a relatively quick period of time, and I think we're all trying to catch up to it. And in that way, this shutdown really is about something real. It's about the basic demographic shift in the country and how the two parties are reacting to it.
KELLY: And also about not wanting to keep doing this every month so that we're not back here a month from now having yet another shutdown edition of the week in politics chat. Let me put this to each of you. To what extent is the president part of the problem? We heard just a few moments ago even Senator McConnell - Majority Leader Senator McConnell, saying, we don't know where the president stands, David.
BROOKS: Well, he's not the clearest or most helpful negotiator. He sends out a tweet that blows up the strategy. But I actually think this is deeper than Trump. The party was moving in this restrictionist direction well before Trump. Trump has accelerated the move. The party has decided to be this party. They've decided this on two grounds from what I hear, you know, from conversations.
First, that if they allow a lot of immigrants to become citizens they're all going to vote Democratic and their party will be sunk in the long term. And secondly, I think there has been effect of the Breitbart-Drudge constant drumbeat of headlines about immigrant crime. And that has affected the electorate and hence the party.
YGLESIAS: You know, Trump has mostly let congressional Republicans take the lead on policy matters. And the difference here is that on immigration, he really has been a major actor. This is an issue in which he has very strong feelings in a way that Mitch McConnell maybe doesn't.
KELLY: And has personally invested political capital...
YGLESIAS: Exactly.
KELLY: ...From the get-go, yeah.
YGLESIAS: So some of his erratic qualities that have made less of a practical difference on other issues do matter a lot right here. I mean, I think you can tell that Mitch McConnell, that others are a little bit unsure where they stand because Trump's personal views matter a lot, but he's not a very sophisticated political actor even a year into his presidency.
KELLY: Well, in a word in the few seconds we have left, are we going to see a deal tonight, or are we going to see a shutdown, David?
BROOKS: I really don't know.
KELLY: (Laughter) We've still...
BROOKS: I think I usually assume they're going to fudge things out. But I - both sides are pretty ready for this thing, this fight.
KELLY: Nobody wants a shutdown.
YGLESIAS: I think the most Congress thing possible, though, would be two or three more days, and then we do this all over again.
KELLY: Oh, boy. And we'll be back on Monday. Well, thanks to you both. That's Matthew Yglesias of Vox and David Brooks of The New York Times. Until the next time, thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF TYPESUN'S "LAST HOME")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
It was the largest single-day demonstration in U.S. history. A year ago this Sunday, liberal women flocked to Washington, D.C., by the hundreds of thousands to express outrage the day after President Donald Trump's inauguration. Similar protests happened throughout the country, throughout the world. This weekend, people will take to the streets again. But unlike last year, the marquee event is a rally in Las Vegas. NPR's Leila Fadel sent this report.
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: Why Las Vegas you ask? It's a far cry from the Capitol where over a million marchers came together last year.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Chanting) My body, my choice.
FADEL: And that's why national organizers like Bob Bland, a founder of the original march, chose it for the anniversary.
BOB BLAND: It was more important for us to create an event somewhere strategic that reflected the work that needed to be done in 2018. And Nevada is an example of a battleground state that went for Hillary Clinton and went blue for the first time in 2016.
FADEL: That year, Nevada also elected the first Latina senator. And with midterm elections coming up, Bland says she and her three co-founders want to highlight that work and go to a battleground state where women are running for local, state and national offices. They're going to register and mobilize voters, and after this Sunday, they'll head to 10 other swing states for rallies around the country.
BLAND: We are the leaders we've been waiting for. There's no better time than now.
FADEL: Organizers say they're using the anniversary to harness the momentum of the past year into voter power. They call themselves the resistance, the resistance to this administration, and so many conservative women say they don't feel welcome at these marches and rallies. One of the big criticisms was the march in D.C. was mostly white, liberal women. This year, organizers say they are reaching out to local partners after a year of grassroots work to try to access a cross section of America, from minorities to the disenfranchised to women in low-income communities.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I'm going to put equality on there.
FADEL: At the Las Vegas Indian Center, Indigenous women are making signs for the rally. I see the words rise, equality, protect our lands, written in colorful marker and adorned with illustrations. Many here didn't march last year.
MERCEDES KRAUS: This is my oldest daughter.
FADEL: That's Mercedes Kraus, a local organizer in the Indigenous community, and she's helping mobilize people for the rally and to vote. But she's also determined to vocalize issues that concern Native American women.
KRAUS: All of us are going to be wearing red in solidarity with our missing and murdered Indigenous women.
FADEL: She refers to the disproportionate violence against Indigenous women that often goes unnoticed. According to the Center for Disease Control, murder rates are highest among non-Hispanic black women and Indigenous women. Krause says she wants to highlight her community on the national stage.
KRAUS: And I've been going nationwide to conferences and meeting spaces where we're talking about diversity. But even in those spaces, most of the time if I don't speak up and mention our community, they're not among those recognized.
FADEL: Across town, I meet Bethany Khan at the Culinary Union. The union is a strong force in this town. It represents some 57,000 hospitality workers, and more than half of its members are Latino. This year, they're a partner in organizing the rally, chosen because of their strong track record of community organizing.
BETHANY KHAN: We're fighting to protect DREAMers. We're fighting to protect workers who have Temporary Protected Status. And I think Nevada is a really good example for how everyday organizing in the communities that we care about and live in make a difference.
FADEL: Since the Women's March in 2017, EMILY's List, an organization that trains progressive women to run for office, says more than 26,000 have signed up to run. Leila Fadel, NPR News, Las Vegas.
(SOUNDBITE OF MAYBESHEWILL'S "FAIR YOUTH")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The Wall Street Journal is out with new details on money reportedly paid by the president's lawyer to a private company in Delaware, money that was then channeled to an adult film actress. The actress is Stephanie Clifford. She acts under the name Stormy Daniels. The payment was for $130,000. And according to The Journal, it was hush money to stop Clifford from talking about an alleged affair with Trump before he was president. Michael Rothfeld is one of the reporters who broke this story, and he joins me now from The Wall Street Journal newsroom. Hi, Michael.
MICHAEL ROTHFELD: Hi, how are you?
KELLY: Hi. I want to establish a couple points up first. One - both Daniel's and the White House deny there ever was a relationship, and we will return to that. But the second thing, just to get out upfront, is the timing here. The alleged affair occurred in 2006. The payment, according to your reporting, was in October 2016 - so in other words, right before the election, correct?
ROTHFELD: That's right.
KELLY: And what details have you learned about how that payment was made?
ROTHFELD: Well, what we've learned is that the president's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, created a Delaware limited liability company and that he opened a bank account for that company and put funds in there and then sent those funds to the bank account in Los Angeles of Stormy Daniels or - her real name is Stephanie Clifford - her attorney and he then transferred money to her.
KELLY: Is it unusual to establish an LLC in a situation like this?
ROTHFELD: It's not unusual. It's not really necessary unless you perhaps want to distance yourself from the legal settlement. It's something that people do to maintain privacy or secrecy and because, you know, the bank account is not in the name of the person who is sending the money, so the bank will not know the identity of who's sending the money. And anyone else who has records of the transaction isn't going to know that. The only way that we found out is by pulling the papers for that LLC, so we could see Michael Cohen's name on it.
KELLY: Does Michael Cohen deny the payment or does the White House more generally?
ROTHFELD: Neither of them have denied or confirmed that there was a settlement payment. They have both denied the affair, as you mentioned.
KELLY: Which presents an unusual situation for you as a reporter reporting on an alleged affair that, as we mentioned, both parties to this alleged affair have denied. How sure are you that it happened?
ROTHFELD: Well, we're quite sure that there was a settlement payment. However, as far as what happened between Stephanie Clifford and Donald Trump, only the two of them know. However, despite her denial, she has told several people that we've spoken to that there was such an affair. And since we reported this last week, four or five media outlets have said that she approached them in 2016 when there was a lot of news about women coming forward and making allegations about inappropriate sexual behavior by Donald Trump. And she wanted to tell her story then at the same time she was negotiating with Trump's lawyer for this nondisclosure agreement.
KELLY: This affair, if it occurred, was, A, between two consenting adults and, B, took place a decade before Donald Trump was elected president and took public office. Why is it newsworthy?
ROTHFELD: Well, what we're interested in isn't so much the affair, if it took place. What we're interested in is the hush money. Basically, the idea that there was information about Trump that might have come out before the election at a time when it was revealed that he had made remarks on tape to "Access Hollywood" that were never aired but were later revealed about groping women and that there was this additional information about his relationship and extramarital relationship allegedly with a porn star and that someone very close to him paid to keep that from the public just weeks before the election - that to us is - it's not the, you know, the issue itself. It's the cover-up basically.
KELLY: Michael Rothfeld, thank you.
ROTHFELD: Thank you.
KELLY: That's Michael Rothfeld of The Wall Street Journal.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
At the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, people cannot get away from the issue of sexual harassment. It's the first festival post-Harvey Weinstein. And Sundance founder Robert Redford kicked off this year's event by acknowledging the elephant in the room.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ROBERT REDFORD: Well, I think Harvey Weinstein was like a moment in time. And I think that we're going to move past that. I don't think he's going to stop the show.
MCEVERS: NPR's Mandalit del Barco is at Sundance, and she's with us now to talk about what's going on. Hey there.
MANDALIT DEL BARCO, BYLINE: Hey, Kelly.
MCEVERS: Robert Redford's usually a pretty, you know, measured, tactful person. I mean, just what - hearing what we just heard sounds like pretty strong words. How has the festival dealt with the Harvey Weinstein issue, especially given that one of the more horrifying allegations against him is that he raped Rose McGowan at that festival?
DEL BARCO: Well, you know, the first question at the press conference opening the festival was if Sundance somehow enabled Harvey Weinstein. And Keri Putnam, who heads the Sundance Institute, she said they weren't aware at the time of what happened. And she said they're sickened by the allegations. That was her words. And, you know, they announced that Utah's attorney general's office now has a 24-hour hotline for people to report sexual misconduct.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
DEL BARCO: And Sundance has created a code of conduct that says that they can revoke credentials or access to any event to anybody who harasses, discriminates, threatens or, you know, engages in somehow disrespectful behavior.
MCEVERS: And I'm thinking about the films, too, of course. We should talk about the films, right?
DEL BARCO: Right.
MCEVERS: Last year, the ones that broke out are, you know, big films now - "The Big Sick," "Call Me By Your Name," "Get Out." So what are the big ones this year?
DEL BARCO: Well, you know, Sundance is known for its strong documentaries. And one of them is about Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. And, Kelly, NPR's own Nina Totenberg will be interviewing her here at a small venue. And that's a really hot ticket.
MCEVERS: Nice.
DEL BARCO: But there are also other - there are also other documentaries about Joan Jett and rapper M.I.A. and Jane Fonda and civil rights attorney Gloria Allred, who's been representing many of those women who accused Harvey Weinstein and comedian Bill Cosby and Roy Moore of sexual harassment and rape. And on Saturday, Allred and Fonda are scheduled to speak at a rally on the anniversary of the Women's March. It's also the anniversary of Trump's inauguration.
And there's one film called "Our New President," which is the story of the last election told through the eyes of Russian media propaganda and people who live there. Another documentary is called "Dark Money." It's about the impact of contributions by Citizens United on Montana's politics. And also, I heard that there's a seven-minute film that's footage of a Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden in 1939 that's supposed to have very eerie parallels to today.
MCEVERS: Wow. I mean, Nazis and coverage of the election. It sounds like a lot of documentaries related to the news. What are some of the, you know, feature films that people are getting into?
DEL BARCO: Well, you know, last night I went to a premiere of "Blindspotting," which is a movie set in my hometown, Oakland, Calif.
MCEVERS: All right.
DEL BARCO: It was co-written and it stars Daveed Diggs from "Hamilton." There's another movie about Oakland from musician Boots Riley. And people are talking about a documentary about Mr. Rogers. There are two films about skateboarding and a film from Gus Van Sant called "Don't Worry, He Won't Get Far On Foot" with Joaquin Phoenix and Jonah Hill.
MCEVERS: NPR arts correspondent Mandalit del Barco in Park City, Utah, thanks so much, and have fun.
DEL BARCO: Thanks, Kelly.
(SOUNDBITE OF MTBRD FEAT. FLAMINGOSIS' "FANFARE")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
I'm Mary Louise Kelly in Washington, where we are bracing for a possible government shutdown tonight. Federal spending authority, the money, runs out at midnight. And while the House passed a short-term extension yesterday, for the moment it does not look as if the Senate has the votes to follow suit. President Trump has scrapped his plans to spend the weekend in Florida. Instead, he spent part of this afternoon huddling with Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer. The two New Yorkers are said to have made some progress, but so far no breakthrough, just plenty of political finger pointing.
NPR's Scott Horsley joins us now from the White House. Hey, Scott.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Mary Louise.
KELLY: I want to ask because for the last three and a half months the government has been running on stopgap spending bills that keep, you know, kicking this deadline down the road, but nobody's had to turn the government's lights out. What is different tonight?
HORSLEY: The difference is the Democrats appear to be dug in. They are insisting that any new spending bill include protection for the so-called DREAMers. That is those undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children. Remember; back in the fall, President Trump announced that he was going to unravel the protection DREAMers had been getting from former President Obama. And ever since then, Democrats have been under pressure to put something in its place. Now, Democrats are of course a minority in Congress, but they have some leverage in the Senate because Republicans don't have the 60 votes there they need to pass a spending bill on their own. So Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer and his colleagues have been exercising that leverage. And White House budget director Mick Mulvaney says if there is a shutdown, it's on them.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MICK MULVANEY: We don't want this. We do not want a shutdown. But if Mr. Schumer insists on it, he is in a position to force this on the American people.
HORSLEY: Republicans can't count on getting off scot-free, though, because they do control the House, the Senate and the White House.
KELLY: Oh, yes, they do. And one of the challenges these recent days has been trying to figure out where President Trump exactly stands. He tweeted this afternoon. He said he'd had an excellent preliminary meeting with Senator Schumer. Do we know his position? And what happens now?
HORSLEY: Well, the president says he's still pushing for a four-week-long stopgap spending bill like what passed the House. The Senate has been - the Senate Democrats have mostly been against that. The idea was floated of a very short-term extension, maybe just a few days, to keep the pressure on. The White House shot that down. Mulvaney did tell CNN this evening, though, he still thinks there's room for some kind of a deal if not by midnight tonight than at least by the end of the weekend.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MULVANEY: I think there's a deal in the next 24 hours. Because of the nature of the back-and-forth between the House and the Senate, I look at more of it in terms of what gets done before the offices are supposed to open on Monday. And I think you're going to see a deal. Yes, sir.
KELLY: Is that notable, by the way, Scott, the White House starting to talk about the goal post as maybe not being midnight tonight but end of the weekend?
HORSLEY: Well, the weekend does give everyone a little bit of flexibility because, of course, if the federal government shuts down it's a lot less noticeable on a Saturday or a Sunday.
KELLY: We won't notice so much till Monday morning. OK, if a shutdown does happen, what would that look like?
HORSLEY: Most essential services would continue. But there could be fallout at places like the Centers for Disease Control, which monitors the spread of flu, for example. Military troops would keep working. Border patrol and TSA agents would remain on the job. Most government workers would not be paid, although if history is any guide they would eventually get backpay, even those who were furloughed. But that could be a temporary financial hit for those working paycheck to paycheck. The next federal payday, for example, is scheduled to be next Friday.
KELLY: All right, that's NPR's Scott Horsley with all the latest from the White House. Thanks as ever, Scott.
HORSLEY: You're welcome.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
All right. Let's bring in the voice now of Colorado Senator Cory Gardner. He is a Republican, and he's been working on a bipartisan immigration bill that would help recipients of DACA, that program you just heard Scott Horsley talking about that lets young people in the country illegally stay and work here - that lets young people who came into the country illegally stay and work here. Senator Gardner, welcome to the program.
CORY GARDNER: Good afternoon. Thanks for having me.
KELLY: Where exactly have we reached you, if I can ask?
GARDNER: I'm in my office in Washington and hoping - talking to my colleagues about a way forward and how we can provide a solution to what is getting to be a very late hour.
KELLY: Yeah, and you're there on Capitol Hill. What is the mood? Are you all going to get this done?
GARDNER: There is a sense of optimism. There's a sense of frustration undoubtedly. But I think the American people - we owe it to them to bring a solution on funding, to not shut the government down - there's too much at stake, too much collateral damage that can occur if funding does lapse this evening - while we also put ideas in front of our colleagues to address this issue of DACA, the children who were brought here at a very young age through no fault of their own. I think we can walk and chew gum at the same time. Let's not shut the government down. Let's solve the DACA problem and make America proud of what we can actually accomplish.
KELLY: OK. You say you've got a responsibility to solve this. We have not interviewed anyone - and we've interviewed everybody we can on Capitol Hill. Nobody wants to see a shutdown. However, we're now looking at the clock. It's ticking away. We've got hours left. Let me put this to you. We spoke to your Democratic colleague - this is Virginia Senator Tim Kaine - yesterday. He was among those who told us he doesn't want a shutdown, that Congress is really close to a more substantial spending bill that would cover immigration. I know you want that, too. What is the stumbling block now? Can you put your finger on it?
GARDNER: Well, I think we just have to find what people agree to. And the president made it very clear the four things that he would accept in a solution to address these children - the four things being what he calls chain migration, border security, fixing the DACA situation itself, as well as the diversity visa lottery. We don't have a consensus yet broad enough to get this onto the president's desk in a way that would allow him to sign. So we have more work to do, but we do have time, and I think it's important to note that these conversations continue. I was over in the House of Representatives...
KELLY: How do you have time, though, if I may? We're hours away from midnight.
GARDNER: Oh, yeah, no. What I mean is we have time to fix this challenge. The president laid out a deadline in March. I'd like to see this done sooner rather than later. But the president has said you have until March to do this. We can do this. And that's what I mean we have time. I don't think it's wise to shut the government down. I think we should - we should get our work done funding the government, not putting at risk our military communities and our men and women in uniform, not putting at risk important programs at the CDC. Let's not do that.
KELLY: You're talking about a short-term plan would keep it open a few more days while y'all continue to negotiate.
GARDNER: That's correct. And, you know, only in Washington sometimes does it seem like people who don't like what they believe is a bad idea come up with an even worse idea, which is an even shorter term funding solution. So let's not do that sort of infamous Washington two-step where they take one bad idea, replace it with a worse idea. Let's get together, Republicans and Democrats. I do think we can find common ground on this. There seems to be unanimity in finding a solution for DREAMers. Let's do that, but let's not create the kind of collateral damage that a government shutdown, a lapse in funding, would create.
KELLY: You said the president has been very clear about what he wants on immigration. Democrats and Republicans who we've interviewed this week might differ with that assessment. But let me put that to you directly. Is the president playing a helpful role in the negotiations at this hour?
GARDNER: I think most people who attended the meeting on Tuesday of - was it just last week? A lot has occurred since then - where it was sort of this live broadcast of about 20 members of the House and the Senate, Democrats and Republicans coming together, walked away with a pretty clear idea of what the president was hoping for, that four-part plan that he expected in order to be able to sign it. Now, obviously the...
KELLY: There was also other meetings last week from which people emerged...
GARDNER: There was. That's right. There certainly was. It made a little bit of news.
KELLY: Somewhat more chaos - yeah.
GARDNER: And a little bit of news that was unfortunate, but I think what we have to do is not let that interfere with our ability to get the job done. We can't let politics - we can't let politics get in the way of accomplishing something very important for our country. And we don't - you know, when it comes to these kids, DREAMers, we don't hold the children, our children, we don't hold them accountable for the acts of their parents. We don't charge our 3-year-old kids with trespass for walking across their neighbor's lawn. So I believe we can find a solution on this. But I'm afraid if there's a lapse in funding, then it's going to pull people further apart. So let's focus on a solution, and I don't think we're that far apart. And so let's not put something that could play politics in the way but concentrate on bringing this solution.
KELLY: Senator Cory Gardner, thanks so much for your time.
GARDNER: Thanks for having me.
KELLY: Best of luck with those negotiations
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Thousands of anti-abortion rights demonstrators were in Washington today to protest the Supreme Court's 1973 decision legalizing abortion. It's the 45th year in a row for what's known as the March for Life. This year the crowd heard from the 45th president, who has turned out to be a bigger champion than some expected. NPR's Pam Fessler reports.
PAM FESSLER, BYLINE: Many in today's crowd carried signs such as choose life and make America pro-life again. But perhaps the most promising sign for attendees was the guest speaker, introduced by Vice President Mike Pence.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: The most pro-life president in American history, President Donald Trump.
FESSLER: And many who had gathered on the Mall said they think that's true even though President Trump once called himself, quote, "very pro-choice." Neither Pence nor Trump were actually at the rally. They addressed it via a live satellite feed from the White House, but even that's a first. Other presidents have only phoned into the march.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We are protecting the sanctity of life and the family as the foundation of our society.
FESSLER: The president noted that just yesterday his administration announced new protections for health care workers who refuse to assist in abortions on moral or religious grounds. And one of his first acts as president was to stop funding international aid groups that perform or promote abortion. And there's even more reason for optimism, said Blaine Wininger, who came to the rally from Lake Charles, La., with students from the high school where he teaches.
BLAINE WININGER: Just in general, you know, trying to seek out justices such as the latest appointment, who has a history of, you know - of siding with pro-life issues.
FESSLER: He's talking about Trump's appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. But marchers also praise the president's other judicial picks. Still, there's a lot on their agenda that faces resistance in Congress, including a bill to ban abortions after 20 weeks. Mary Gagnon of Ellicott City, Md., carried a sign that said defund Planned Parenthood, something else Trump has promised but Congress has failed to do. Still, Gagnon, who's 59, was encouraged by all the young people in today's crowd.
MARY GAGNON: I see that. I think that they really are the generation that's going to end abortion.
FESSLER: And she believes the tide's moving in that direction, but polls show that public opinion is deeply divided and has pretty much remained the same for decades. Pam Fessler, NPR News.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Tomorrow marks one year since President Donald Trump took the oath of office. While he was campaigning, he promised to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States. And shortly after the election, he seemed to be following through. At a rally in Indianapolis, he announced a deal to prevent more than a thousand factory jobs at the Carrier plant from moving to Mexico.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
But one local union leader didn't buy it - Chuck Jones. At the time, Jones was president of United Steelworkers Local 1999, which represented workers at Carrier. Jones went on CNN to dispute Trump's claims. Trump fired back on Twitter, calling Jones out by name. Earlier today, I talked to Chuck Jones to hear his perspective on U.S. manufacturing one year into the Trump administration. And I first asked him if he thinks Trump has kept manufacturing jobs from moving overseas.
CHUCK JONES: That's what he campaigned on. That's what he got elected on, based on his promises to working-class people. And his first year in office, there was 93,000 jobs that were offshored out of this country. So no, it's been worse than what I think a lot of us even thought it would be.
MCEVERS: Trump had a lot of support during the election from working-class people in the Midwest.
JONES: Yes.
MCEVERS: I mean, do you think that support is still there?
JONES: No. You know, I talk to quite a bit of people, you know, on a weekly basis for the most part. And when, you know, the primary was over and it was Hillary and Trump, I had people come to me at the time and say, hey, you know, I don't like Hillary. I don't trust Hillary. And I'm not voting for Hillary. Trump's saying that he's going to keep jobs here in this country. I'm going to vote for him.
So a lot of people that were lifelong Democrats bought into his message. And they're telling me now, you know, they feel betrayed. They feel like - that he was just playing them. You know, he had no intent - because we're not seeing anything that shows that he's trying to keep jobs here in this country. And I didn't vote for the man.
MCEVERS: Are you a Democrat?
JONES: I'm a Democrat. But on the same token, if I really would've believed that Donald Trump or somebody else would keep jobs here in this country, you know, I'm not to the point where I'm - I wouldn't have maybe considered it.
MCEVERS: You know, what do you say to people who say, look; the economy is changing; going forward, the future of the American economy is not going to be one based on manufacturing? How would you solve that?
JONES: Donald Trump is the master of executive orders. He could sign an executive order tomorrow that would say something in essence that if a corporation - I'm going to use Carrier, UTC - if they move jobs out of this country they would not be able to get government contracts, OK? And the reason I'm using Carrier - and they're a prime example - prior to the move, they had over 5 billion in military contracts through Pratt Whitney (ph). They moved the 700 jobs out of Huntington. They moved the 600 jobs out of here in Indianapolis. And what happens? They're rewarded another 2 billion in military contracts. Now, that's just wrong, pure and simple wrong.
MCEVERS: What do you think about - going forward, you know, for people in your community, what do you think's going to happen?
JONES: Well, it's going to be horrible. A lot of the people live by the plants. And the school system is going to be devastated because of the amount of tax revenue coming into the school systems. The community right now - we're starting to see it where your barbershops and mom and pop convenience stores and the subways and - some of them are now really hurting. You know, am I upset about this deal - hell yeah. Now, we ain't the first to, you know, see a plant move out of this country. And I hate to say it, but we won't be the last.
MCEVERS: Chuck Jones is the former president of the United Steelworkers Local 1999. Thanks so much for your time today.
JONES: Thank you very much. I sure appreciate it, Kelly.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
For the first time in history, journalists at the Los Angeles Times are union members. They have voted overwhelmingly to join a union. That's after years of deep cuts and repeated changes in ownership. This news comes one day after an NPR expose about the LA Times publisher and CEO, Ross Levinsohn, showed a pattern of misconduct in the workplace there, especially towards women. NPR's David Folkenflik broke that story. And he joins us again now from our studios in New York. Hey, David. You've been busy.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Busy times is packed - especially when you think about the LA Times.
KELLY: Yeah. Well, tell us about the factors that led to this vote today, this vote to unionize.
FOLKENFLIK: Well, the vote was tallied and publicly announced today. It was actually taken earlier this month. And I think it was, I would say, a legacy of years of cuts, of wild shifts and, I would say, ineffectiveness and often disastrous policies taken by various ownerships over the years, but also distrust of the parent company Tronc and particularly the leadership of this newspaper right now. Ross Levinsohn, the publisher, we'll talk about more in a moment. Lewis D'Vorkin, the editor in chief. I want to say to be clear, the conduct questions against Ross Levinsohn have to do with his prior jobs. But right now, even prior to what we reported yesterday, the real reservations about whether they were doing things simply for the investors and for the leaders themselves, their own pocketing cash, or they're doing it in the best interest of the newspaper and the journalism they could provide.
KELLY: Well, we know a little bit about how unionizing impacts a newsroom here at NPR. But how is it expected to change relations between employees and management at the LA Times?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, management fought this hard - put out a lot of information, tried to discourage people from voting in favor. It passed wildly overwhelmingly. It allows, essentially, you know, formally, employees to collectively bargain in favor of raises, in favor of trying to hold certain health care policies. They lost a lot of vacation days in recent years. There are a lot of things where they say their quality of their compensation, their benefits, have really been severely eroded. You know, the old ownership used to really philosophically oppose unions, but they also used to pay very handsomely in order to keep them out. That's really changed in the last couple ownerships of that paper.
KELLY: OK. Let me circle you back now to Ross Levinsohn. We know that the paper's parent company is saying it's going to conduct an internal investigation. There is also news now that he has been placed on unpaid leave. Is your sense that he will survive these allegations of misconduct that you've unearthed?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, we're going to see. You know, he's clearly lost the newsroom. About half of it have signed statements to Tronc's corporate board effectively calling for him to go, including most of the newspapers at Brains Trust and its senior editing ranks. It seems very hard that he could be sustained, unless he were fully exonerated from allegations, including ones that he made, essentially, in sworn testimony - acknowledgements of ways he had behaved in the workplace that a lot of women who worked for him found deeply offensive and problematic. So it's hard to see how he's able to continue to lead, particularly at a time the LA Times is covering these issues in other institutions across the country.
KELLY: Well, and as you report on the newsroom, what are you learning about how the turmoil at the top is affecting the newspaper, the newsroom, the journalists who are still there on deadline trying to get their job done?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, you know, its - for a lot of journalists there, this is a great day in the sense of the unionization. But it has been paralyzing for recent months to figure out for them how they're going to cover things, their priorities there. And additionally, the editor in chief that Levinsohn installed, Lewis D'Vorkin, has a fairly radical reenvisioning of what kinds of content and products, as they call it, will be put out to their audiences that...
KELLY: Right.
FOLKENFLIK: ...Deemphasizes journalism. You know, if Levinsohn is knocked off, it really would seemingly undermine that vision and that plan that's been put forward in recent weeks.
KELLY: All right. Thanks so much, David.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet.
KELLY: That's NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
As we just heard, whatever happens with this midnight deadline on a government shutdown, we know this - all active duty military will carry on normal duty status. That's according to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. But this morning Mattis, in a speech at Johns Hopkins University, also said this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JIM MATTIS: We need a budget and we need budget predictability if we're to sustain our military's primacy.
KELLY: Budget predictability. Well, let's unpack how budget predictability or the current lack thereof affects the military. We've got on the line Michele Flournoy, former undersecretary of defense for policy under President Obama. Michele Flournoy, good to speak with you again.
MICHELE FLOURNOY: Good to speak with you.
KELLY: I imagine you lived through a shutdown or two in your years at the Pentagon. Can you tell me how that unfolded?
FLOURNOY: Well, there were several times when we had to plan for a shutdown and once when it actually occurred. And the striking thing is how much senior leader time, attention, bandwidth was diverted from the main mission of the department, which at the time was running operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, to actually planning for this massive disruption in the normal day-to-day business of the department. It had very bad implications or impacts on morale of the - particularly the civilian workforce that was furloughed. And it was just highly disruptive and highly distracting from the main mission.
KELLY: Well, let me ask what your response is when you hear this. I mean, President Trump has tweeted - now I'm going to quote - "a government shutdown will be devastating to our military," end quote. Will it?
FLOURNOY: So the shutdown itself would not be devastating to the U.S. military. But what is devastating is what Secretary Mattis referred to, which is the lack of a regular budget. So when you live from continuing resolution to continuing resolution you can't plan for the long term. You can't start new programs. You can't make the necessary investments in modernization, in future capabilities. You can't necessarily plan and sustain the kind of investment in readiness, operations and maintenance and repairs. We haven't had regular budgets for quite some time. And that is what's really hurting the military.
KELLY: What type programs, what type contracts, what type commitments - when you talk about maintaining military readiness and advancing that readiness, what type things aren't happening?
FLOURNOY: So in all of the services you've seen a lot of maintenance deferred. And you can do that as a very short-term stopgap measure. But to do it over years and years and years, it now means that you have Army brigades that haven't been to the required training to be ready. It means that you have Air Force pilots who haven't been able to fly the number of hours to remain proficient. You may not have the munitions stockpile you need to actually do the exercises or to do the operations that you might need to do. It means - it frankly, I think, was a contributing factor to the kinds of collisions that we've seen in the Pacific fleet for the Navy.
KELLY: In what way, if I could stop you there for a second?
FLOURNOY: There's an investigation underway, but the early indications suggest that in order to send ships out on deployment some certifications were not necessarily made, some training was cut short or skipped. And so you actually had a degradation in the readiness of the sailors to actually be driving the ships safely.
KELLY: Are you talking to old friends, former colleagues at the Pentagon this week? What are you hearing?
FLOURNOY: I'm hearing a lot of frustration because, you know, Secretary Mattis today unveiled a new defense strategy that highlighted the fact that we are re-entering an era of great power competition. We have a resurgent Russia that's been very aggressive in Ukraine and on its borders and through, you know, information campaigns here and in Europe. We have a rising China that has a different view of what the order should be in Asia. Being able to protect our vital interests and our allies will require significant investment in our military for the future. And to do that, we have to have sort of regular order and discipline in a budgeting process. And it's the absence of that that hurts us.
KELLY: Michele Flournoy is former undersecretary of defense. She is currently co-founder at WestExec. That is a strategic advisory firm. Thanks again.
FLOURNOY: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF HYPNOTIC BRASS ENSEMBLE'S "BALLICKI BONE")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President Trump has recognized Jerusalem as the capital Israel, but that doesn't change Palestinian aspirations for a capital in part of the city. One thing that could strengthen these Palestinian claims would be national political institutions. NPR's Daniel Estrin looks at how Israel has worked for decades to limit those institutions, whether they're offices for leadership or even performances in theaters.
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: This used to be the Palestinian headquarters in Jerusalem - an old, stone mansion called the Orient House. Foreign diplomats were received here. The Palestinian flag used to fly. But Israel closed it in 2001 during a wave of Palestinian bombings. Israeli authorities deliver a new closure order every six months. It's on the door for everyone to see.
And they just...
ISHAQ BUDEIRI: Yes.
ESTRIN: ...Put it right here on the door.
BUDEIRI: Put it right here and go.
ESTRIN: Ishaq Budeiri heads the Arab Studies Society, which was based in the same building. His library of historical archives is locked inside. He has no access. I give the dusty windows a spit shine and peer in.
Oh, I see some books on the shelf.
BUDEIRI: Yeah, yeah, yeah, newspapers.
ESTRIN: Budeiri says Israeli authorities made him an offer, which he refused.
BUDEIRI: One time they said to us you can come and take your books, your archives, and go outside Jerusalem. They don't want to see any Palestinian institution in Jerusalem.
ESTRIN: Palestinian leaders want to establish a capital in East Jerusalem, but Israel captured that part of the city 50 years ago. Under an agreement between the two sides in the '90s, the Palestinian government doesn't have jurisdiction in Jerusalem. Israel says it allows Palestinian social, educational and economic institutions in the city, but it prevents any political activity there by the Palestinians' national movement, the PLO, or the Palestinian Authority, which governs in the nearby West Bank.
EFRAIM INBAR: We want the city to be ours - simple.
ESTRIN: Efraim Inbar heads The Jerusalem Institute for Strategic Studies, a conservative Israeli think tank.
INBAR: The city, according to the majority of the Israelis, is to be a united city under Israeli sovereignty. So anything that smells of PLO, we'll try to prevent.
ESTRIN: Israel did allow voting in the city for Palestinian elections, but it has closed many Palestinian institutions here, says Mahdi Abdul Hadi of the Palestinian think tank PASSIA.
MAHDI ABDUL HADI: Palestinian Council for Education, Palestinian Council for Housing, Palestinian Council for Health, as well as now they have a policy - any relationship, any affiliations, any function related to Palestinian Authority is not allowed. This is for them as a process of crushing and depressing and containing the Palestinians.
ESTRIN: He says Israel recently intervened to stop a lecture he organized in Jerusalem because the Palestinian Authority education minister was going to attend. Israel recently arrested several Palestinians it said were conducting a census in East Jerusalem. The Palestinian Authority says they were working for the U.N.
At the Palestinian theater in Jerusalem, the Hakawati, they're building a set for an upcoming play, but Israel has shut down a puppet festival and a folk dance show at the theater, saying they were funded by the Palestinian Authority. A production manager, Georgina Asfur, thinks Palestinian leaders should work harder to maintain ties in Jerusalem.
GEORGINA ASFUR: We don't have a leadership. People are struggling by themselves every day to continue.
ESTRIN: When President Trump recently recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, he didn't rule out making part of it a capital for the Palestinians. But Israel has been keeping Palestinian political leadership out of the city. Daniel Estrin, NPR News, Jerusalem.
(SOUNDBITE OF CANNIBAL OX'S "STRESS RAP")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
All right, right now we are going to give it up for Dolly Parton.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
That is because yesterday the Guinness World Records recognized her as the female artist with the most hits on Billboard's Hot Country Songs charts. She has 106 - 106.
MCEVERS: But wait; there is more from Guinness World Records official adjudicator Michael Furnari.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DOLLY PARTON: Oh, really?
MICHAEL FURNARI: You have achieved a second Guinness World title...
PARTON: (Laughter) Lordy (ph).
FURNARI: ...For the most decades with a Top 20 hit on Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart.
KELLY: Dolly Parton beat out George Jones, Reba McEntire, even the king, Elvis Presley. She landed 20 top hits in six decades.
MCEVERS: We need to hear some of those songs. They start in the '60s.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "SOMETHING FISHY")
PARTON: (Singing) I think there's something fishy going on.
KELLY: Then we're on to the '70s.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JOLENE")
PARTON: (Singing) Jolene, Jolene.
MCEVERS: Best song ever. Then the '80s.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "9 TO 5")
PARTON: (Singing) Working 9 to 5.
KELLY: I'm going to make a case for that one, "9 to 5," as best song ever. But we're on to the '90s.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU")
DOLLY PARTON AND VINCE GILL: (Singing) I will always love you.
KELLY: Fun fact, by the way, Kelly - "I Will Always Love You" made the Hot Country chart in three different decades. Dolly soloed with it in 1974, she used it for a medley in '82, and then she sang it with Vince Gill. That was in 1995.
MCEVERS: Wow. All right, so moving on to the 2000s and a duet with Brad Paisley.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHEN I GET WHERE I'M GOING")
DOLLY PARTON AND BRAD PAISLEY: (Singing) Yeah, when I get where I'm going...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JOLENE")
DOLLY PARTON AND PENTATONIX: (Singing) Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene.
KELLY: And that's Dolly Parton's most recent hit. She reworked "Jolene" with Pentatonix a couple years ago.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PARTON: It's a good feeling to know that I've had hit songs in - through all those decades. It makes me feel like I'm about a hundred, which it won't be long till I am.
MCEVERS: Actually, it will be a long time. Dolly Parton turns 72 today.
KELLY: Happy birthday, Dolly. And please keep the hits coming.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "JOLENE")
PARTON: (Singing) Your smile is like a breath of spring. Your voice is soft like summer rain. I cannot compete with you, Jolene. He talks about you in his sleep. There's nothing I can do to keep from crying when he calls your name, Jolene.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
I'm Mary Louise Kelly in Washington, where time is running out. There are just hours to go until a partial shutdown of the federal government. The House passed a bill last night to keep the government funded for four weeks. But over on the Senate side, Democrats, who are looking for protections for young immigrants, say no can do unless there's a broader deal. All that could mean a shutdown starts at midnight Eastern Time. Now, this afternoon, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer went to meet with President Trump at the White House. But when he returned to the Capitol, it was pretty clear there was still a lot of daylight between the two men.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHUCK SCHUMER: We had a long and detailed meeting. We made some progress, but we still have a good number of disagreements. The discussions will continue.
KELLY: All right. Well, let's go to Capitol Hill now where NPR congressional correspondent Scott Detrow is monitoring as the clock ticks down. Hey, Scott.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: Hey there.
KELLY: All right. We're now at four hours ahead of the deadline. Our deadline vigil continues. Where do things stand?
DETROW: Today has been oddly slow for the final hours before a deadline. But in the true spirit of deadlines, things do seem to be moving now. A vote has been scheduled for 10 o'clock Eastern, and in about 20 minutes, Senate Democrats are going to huddle behind closed door to figure out their game plan for the rest of the night. Biggest thing so far have just been a handful of meetings - Marc Short, the White House legislative director, was here meeting in House Speaker Paul Ryan's office. The biggest meeting so far today, though, was the one you were just talking about between Schumer and President Trump. President Trump tweeted after the meeting. He called it an excellent preliminary meeting, and he says he, Schumer and other leaders are making progress.
KELLY: Now, all day behind these closed doors, Republicans have been emerging and saying this is all down to Democrats, that Democrats have it fully under their control whether or not there's a government shutdown. Is that an accurate portrayal?
DETROW: Well, it is true that Republicans control the House, the Senate and the White House. But in the Senate, Democrats do have the power to block a final vote on this measure. Right now, they have the votes to do that. You have a few Democrats who have come out and said they will vote for a funding bill - Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota. The thing they all have in common - they're on the ballot this year in states that Donald Trump won by large margins in 2016.
But Democrats say that the framework should not be about just tonight's vote. It should be about bigger picture the fact that President Trump and Republican leaders have said they also want to get a final agreement for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which, of course, expires in March because of a decision President Trump made last fall. So Kamala Harris of California is one of the Democrats who say this just comes down to the fact that President Trump promised that he would sign anything Congress came up with. A bipartisan group of lawmakers came to meet with him last week. And then he rejected their plan.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KAMALA HARRIS: His history with his word has proven to be consistent. He didn't keep his word. He didn't keep his word. And so he rejected it. And so here we are now on the eve of what might have to be the shutdown of the United States government.
KELLY: Talk to me, Scott, about how both sides, Republicans and Democrats, see the risks here, risks that are starting to feel more real minute by minute.
DETROW: So the Republicans have a hashtag approach to this. They're trying to brand this the Schumer shutdown, saying that this is all on Democrats. They also included a six-year extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program to try and make this more appealing to Democrats, but that didn't work. And Democrats - they seem to be making a bet here saying that President Trump would take the blame if the government shuts down. And they seem to be bargaining that, you know, he might not be the most disciplined messenger if this becomes a shutdown fight.
KELLY: And in just a few seconds, if they don't strike a deal tonight, maybe some more action over the weekend.
DETROW: That's right. For all intents and purposes, this wouldn't be fully felt until Monday. So maybe if they hash this out over the weekend, it could be minimized.
KELLY: Watch this space. Thank you, Scott.
DETROW: Thank you.
KELLY: That's NPR's Scott Detrow with the latest from Capitol Hill.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
In just 30 minutes, the Senate will vote on a bill that could avert a government shutdown. It is a four-week extension of government funding. The House passed the bill last night. If it does not pass the Senate, we are looking at a partial shutdown of the federal government in about two and a half hours. That's midnight Eastern Time. So let's go to the Capitol where NPR's Scott Detrow is watching for the latest. Hi, Scott.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.
KELLY: How's it looking? Does it look like they are likely to pass this bill, prevent a shutdown?
DETROW: Well I'd say since we last spoke about an hour ago, almost all of the developments have been incredibly speculative. So working with that...
KELLY: So speculate for me a bit (laughter).
DETROW: I'm on it.
KELLY: What are we thinking?
DETROW: Democrats are meeting right now. The vote is scheduled, like you said, for about a half hour from now. There seems like there's three likely outcomes. First, there's a vote, and Democrats block it. That leads to a shutdown. Second, leaders agree on a very short-term funding bill - just a matter of days to keep the talks going.
KELLY: Right.
DETROW: And third, a deal is struck where the White House makes a promise to the Democrats on DACA. They approve the four-week bill. But I have to say, it's hard to see that last one working given how many times President Trump has changed his mind on DACA.
KELLY: Before I press you on President Trump, I want to ask about the Democrats, who are the key here. Republicans do not have enough votes to do this on their own. Democrats have been huddling in that last hour since you and I last spoke. Do we know what they're thinking, what their game plan is?
DETROW: So over the last few hours, four Democrats have said they'll vote for the bill. Three of those Democrats are up for re-election this year in red states. The fourth is Doug Jones, who was just sworn in as an Alabama senator. That's still not enough votes to pass the bill with the needed 60. And most Democrats are saying they've just had enough, and they aren't voting yes on a funding bill until there's a solution for DACA.
KELLY: Now, what about Republicans and their leader, President Trump? He has been active on Twitter in just these last few minutes. What's he saying?
DETROW: Well, publicly the White House has been very resistant to the idea of a stopgap bill, just a few days of funding to keep talks going. That might be the best option for them at this point. But Trump seemed very pessimistic suddenly. Just a few moments ago, he tweeted, things are not looking good. That's a contrast to earlier today when he said talks were making progress.
KELLY: Do we know what - I mean, what he's referring to there?
DETROW: Unclear - it was more of a framing tweet. He was blaming Democrats, saying they want to have a shutdown to cover up, he said, the good news of the economy. But Democrats are saying this is about DACA; this is about being promised that there will be a solution for the 700,000 or so people in this program that President Trump has publicly said - he wants a fix for them, too.
KELLY: And any more wooing going on across the aisle from Republicans in Congress?
DETROW: Well, it's - Lindsey Graham just went into a meeting in Mitch McConnell's office. That seems to be the only progress we've seen on the Republican side. Marc Short, President Trump's legislative director, has been on the Hill today, too, talking. And of course I'm sure a lot of phone calls are going on right now.
KELLY: I'm sure there are. All right, Scott Detrow, NPR congressional correspondent, thanks very much.
DETROW: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
This morning, Americans woke up to a series of firsts - the first government shutdown in five years and the first ever to occur when one party is in control of both houses of Congress and the White House. And this comes on the first anniversary of President Trump's inauguration. We're going to do our best to tackle both of these important stories this hour.
And we will start with the government shutdown, which began at midnight last night when the parties could not agree on a measure to continue to fund the government. As you might imagine, the White House congressional Republicans and Democrats all have very different views about who is to blame and what should happen next.
We'll get other perspectives throughout the hour, but we wanted to hear first from the White House. Mercedes Schlapp is on the line with us. She is the White House director of strategic communications. Mercedes Schlapp, thank you so much for joining us.
MERCEDES SCHLAPP: Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: So one of the sticking points is DACA. That's the program that protects young people who were brought to the U.S. as children without proper documentation. A number of key Republicans have told reporters and are tweeting today that they won't even talk about DACA at all until the government is back open. Is that the president's view as well?
SCHLAPP: Yes. I think, you know, the president has made it very clear that, as we know, DACA and the border security deal is complicated. They need time to resolve that issue. And by combining it with what we need - an immediate need of having to deal with this government shutdown, it's just a lot easier to have this short-term spending bill which has a lot of these items that Democrats, in a normal scenario, would agree with. I mean, we're talking about a six-year reauthorization of the CHIP program, which as we know is the health program - insurance program that helps vulnerable children. There's other components within the short-term spending bill that would make sense for the most part for the Democrats to agree with. And so they have decided to use the DACA issue as a political wedge issue and not resolve this short-term spending bill problem, which as we know has now caused the government shutdown.
MARTIN: Well, couldn't one make the same argument about the Republicans holding the children's insurance program hostage as well? I mean, aren't both sides using the levers to push the other to an agreement?
SCHLAPP: The Republicans are not holding it hostage in any way. They are in good faith including that in the short spending bill with other provisions that Democrats want, yet the Democrats have decided to oppose it because of DACA.
MARTIN: Hasn't the president suggested previously that he also supports a fix for DACA? In fact, didn't he say in January of this year that this should be a bill of love? And he's taken several meetings to negotiate this, so has something changed?
SCHLAPP: Absolutely. The president wants to see a permanent fix to the DACA issue, but it has to include certain responsible immigration reform principles that the president has asked for. That includes ending chain migration. That includes ending the diversity visa lottery system, which as we know that program in and of itself, we've seen two terrorists come in and actually kill Americans. And they came in - one of them came in through the diversity visa lottery system. The other one came in through chain migration. And so what we're trying to do is ensure that we have a legal immigration system, something that...
MARTIN: So before we - I'm sorry. Forgive me. Before we let you go on this, the Democratic leader, Chuck Schumer, said that negotiating with the president is like negotiating with Jello. So, you know, both sides are trading insults back and forth here. But it's been reported that even some on the president's own side, like Lindsey Graham, find him unreliable as a negotiator. If that's the case, and if there's a lack of trust, is he willing to stay out of this and let Congress work it out for themselves?
SCHLAPP: You know, I think that the president in good faith invited Chuck Schumer to the White House yesterday to have these discussions, to listen to what the concerns are. The problem has become that the Democrats have decided that they're going to use the DACA issue as their one issue to stay focused on, meaning that they're willing to work more on helping the illegal immigrants who are here than they are in dealing with funding our troops as well as dealing with our vulnerable children.
MARTIN: That's Mercedes Schlapp. She's director of strategic communications at the White House. Thanks so much for speaking with us. I hope we'll speak again.
SCHLAPP: Yes, thank you so much.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In a minute, we're going to hear more about how the government shutdown is likely to affect people in other parts of the country. But first, we wanted to talk more about what's going on in the nation's capitol. So returning now to NPR congressional correspondent Sue Davis, who's been reporting on this all day. Sue, thank you so much for joining us.
SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: You're welcome.
MARTIN: So after Congress failed to pass a spending bill on Friday, the government went into what's called a partial shutdown. But we can see that lawmakers are reconvening on the Hill today. They seem to be huddling. Is there any progress being made?
DAVIS: There's a lot of talk, but there is not much progress just yet. Today's really been about recriminations. Republicans and the White House are really dug in against Senate Democrats, who they say shut down the government. And Democrats, in turn, are feeling rather emboldened right now. They're not really willing to give up their votes to reopen the government until they get a concession from the president and from Republicans that they're ready to cut a deal on immigration.
MARTIN: We've been through shutdowns before. Why is this one different?
DAVIS: You know, for one thing, the disagreement here isn't really about the legislation at hand. Democrats support keeping the government open, the stopgap measure. And they like the health care provisions that are in there, including the six-year renewal of that popular health Children's Health Insurance Program. They're really using their votes as leverage to extract a deal on something else that's not in the actual legislation. And we don't know if that gambit will be successful yet or not.
MARTIN: The last time this happened, the Republicans controlled both the House and the Senate. You know, the presidency was still in the hands of the Democrats. According to the polling, most people blamed the Republicans for the shutdown, but they did well in the 2014 midterms anyway. So is there any lesson here about who the voters ultimately hold responsible for shutting down the government? And I'm particularly interested in what lessons the lawmakers are drawing from past history.
DAVIS: Yeah. I mean, there's reason to be skeptical that shutting down the government will have an impact on the party that's seen as doing it. As you said, in the 2013 shutdown, that was seen as being led by Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican from Texas. And the following election, the midterm year, Republicans won big. I still think one of the biggest factors in these election climates is the president's approval rating. And right now, President Trump, his approval ratings are about 38 percent. That's the lowest point of any president at this stage of this presidency.
And I think this is really important context because President if Trump's approval rating right now is 58 percent, Democrats probably wouldn't be feeling as emboldened as they are to have this confrontation with him. And I also think, you know, across the board, there's this recognition that, right now, the news cycle and the pace of the news happens so fast that if they resolve this shutdown in a few days, is it really still going to be a motivating force come November?
MARTIN: That's NPR congressional correspondent Sue Davis. Sue, thanks so much.
DAVIS: You're welcome.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The Trump administration is looking to avoid one of the most public displays of the ongoing federal government shutdown - the closings of the country's national parks. During the last shutdown in 2013, those closures gated off national parks, recreation areas and monuments. So this time, most of those areas are being directed to stay open. There just won't be anybody there to staff them. NPR's Nathan Rott is at one of those areas - Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area in Southern California - and he is with us now. Hey, Nate.
NATHAN ROTT, BYLINE: Hey.
MARTIN: So the park here is open. Does it seem like business as usual?
ROTT: (Laughter) You know, in some ways, yes. The trails, roads, I mean, even the bathrooms here are still open, but the visitors center just across from where I'm standing is definitely not. When I first got here, a park service employee was locking up the doors, hanging signs on them that explained the situation to people that visitors are welcome to be on the trails but that they have to do so at their own risk.
Law enforcement and park rangers that are deemed essential to the Park Service are still working, but they've been directed to take a reactive approach as opposed to a proactive one. So that may not seem like a big, you know, deal in a place like sunny Southern California, where I am. But in Badlands National Park in South Dakota, for example, or some of the more northern parks where there could be weather concerns, it could be a dicey situation for people.
MARTIN: Well, what reaction are you hearing from people when they see those signs?
ROTT: Surprise is the big one. Some of the folks I've talked to, they didn't even know that there was a government shutdown. Others did, but they didn't really think it was going to have much of an effect here and were pretty bummed to find out. The next biggest reaction, I would say, is definitely disappointment. There was disappointment from a group of Boy Scouts who came here. And it was kind of their way to end their two-day camping trip and they couldn't do that.
I saw a 9-year-old girl who was excited to see the animal displays here - couldn't do it. And from the adults I've talked to, the disappointment is more about the current state of our politics, you know, people mentioning the lack of compromise, all the politicking that's going on. One guy I talked to, Ryan Laughlin, said it was - just seemed all really petty. Let's hear a little cut of him now.
RYAN LAUGHLIN: Parties don't want to agree or don't want to look like they agree. And, you know, the end result is people end up getting furloughed. They can't get paid. And parks get closed down probably eventually. And we'll see what ends up happening there, but it just feels kind of petty.
MARTIN: You know, he raised something I wanted to mention to you anyway, which is that people don't get paid. Are the park rangers - have you had a chance to have any sense of how they feel about all of this?
ROTT: You know, a bit. I spent the morning calling some of the park service employees that I've talked to over the years to get their take for other stories and everything. And none of them wanted to go on the record, obviously, because they don't want to lose their jobs. But there's absolutely a frustration there. And the one that really stuck with me is this sense that, by keeping the parks open, the Department of Interior is basically saying that we can do this whole national park thing without you guys. And in reality, they don't think that's going to work.
One of the guys I talked to said, you know, yeah, it's great that the bathrooms are open now, but what are people going to do in a few days when nobody's cleaned them? Are people still going to go into them? Are people really going to carry their own garbage out when the dumps get filled? Just little things like that that they don't think are going to work as well as the government is leading on right now.
MARTIN: We have a couple of seconds left. So do you have any sense of how this is playing out in other places?
ROTT: Yeah. So there's some places that are just not open at all. The Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, were turning people away earlier, for example. The same is true in Independence Hall in Philadelphia. In Joshua Tree, I've actually got a buddy there. And I talked to him a little earlier today. And kind of an interesting side note - there's a lot of international visitors at Joshua Tree, it being one of the flagship, you know, parks of the National Park Service. And he said it was causing a ton of confusion for them, people who were going up, reading the signs saying, hey, you know, yes, the trails are open, but you have to do so at your own risk. The visitor centers are closed. And so he and his girlfriend were actually having to be almost like ambassadors trying to explain what that means and the sort of political dynamic that we're living in right now.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Nathan Rott at the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. Nate, thanks so much.
ROTT: Yeah, thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We've been talking about the government shutdown which comes on the anniversary of Donald Trump's inauguration as president. Thousands of people took to the streets today as they did a year ago in women's marches in cities like New York, Houston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles and here in Washington, D.C.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting) Hey, hey. Ho (ph), ho. Donald Trump has got to go. Hey, hey. Ho, ho.
MARTIN: To mark this day, we wanted to take a few minutes to reflect on President Trump's first year in office, speaking to people on both sides of the aisle about the president's legacy and lasting imprint so far. Earlier in the week, before the shutdown took effect, I spoke with two members of Congress about the president's first year in office. We start with Republican Don Young of Alaska, the so-called dean of the House. That's a title reserved for the longest-serving representative. It's been 45 years in Congressman Young's case. We went to his office on Capitol Hill, and I asked him for his take on Donald Trump's first year.
DON YOUNG: Well, President Trump's year has been probably more exciting. One thing though I have to stress that I've always said I don't care who the president is, the job of the Congress is to lead this nation. We've lost that over the years since 1935, when we started transferring power to the president and to the executive branch. Most people are controlled by regulatory law, not legislative law. But overall, for Alaska, with Secretary Zinke, we've undone a lot of what the presidents in the past have done. And I think it gives us more freedom and a chance to take it and improve our nation's and our state's economic bases.
MARTIN: So let's talk a little bit about productivity. I mean, the president has talked and tweeted about a lot of legislative accomplishments, but really, there's only been one - the tax bill. Do you consider this a productive first year?
YOUNG: Well, I do because that's not the only one. You know, the CRAs - I think there's 11 of those - which are very, very important undoing other laws. And you've got to remember...
MARTIN: You mean regulatory actions or executive orders?
YOUNG: Executive orders, regulatory actions that were unconstitutional and, very frankly, that we had to do it because otherwise they could undo it. And it could have been done again by another president in the future. So I think that site is very productive. And you look at the stock market where it was before, where it is now. And general attitude, regardless of what you in the media may think, the general attitude in the public's arena think that this country is on the road back to greatness again.
MARTIN: Last year, legislation passed to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, which is something that has been a goal of yours - if I have this right - for your entire career.
YOUNG: Not entire, 37-and-a-half years.
MARTIN: Thirty-seven-and-a-half years, I stand corrected.
YOUNG: That's right. But that's a pretty good close deal.
MARTIN: It was attached to the tax bill, which was controversial. You were part of the reconciliation committee to reach agreement between the House and Senate versions of the bill. And I just have to ask you how it felt when it finally passed after you've had this goal for so long?
YOUNG: Well, it was a happy feeling. I have to say that because I, you know, I've argued this so long that I knew I was correct. And my M.O. is - and I've said it many times - that perseverance overcomes intelligence any day of the year. If you decide to do something, you can get it done if you stick with it.
MARTIN: So let's talk about the politics of the moment, particularly as somebody who's been here for a long time and has seen a lot of - has served him a lot of people in a lot of different environments. I mean, there are some people who call the atmosphere up here toxic. Do you think that's true? Do you use that word?
YOUNG: It's not toxic in the sense that it's toxic because we're not getting things done. The chairman used to run the Congress, not the president, not the speaker. Now, everything's run through Nancy's office or run through Ryan's office. And in doing so, it becomes a party policy instead of solving a problem. There is no problem that's a Republican problem or a Democrat problem or a progressive problem, depends on what you want to call them. But there is a problem, and no one can solve it 100 percent their way. They have to do it together or it'll never get solved. And what's happened now, it has to be 100 percent Republican or 100 percent Democrat. No wants to sit down and say, OK, well, how can we solve the problem? You have to give up a little bit. I have to give up a little bit. The problem's solved.
MARTIN: I was going to ask you about that because you've got big pieces of legislation only being passed by one side. Is this the new normal?
YOUNG: Well, I can't say it's the new normal forever because it may change. Right now, it's normal. And it was a - it's a, again, a result, I think - and I'm very critical of the media because we do not get news anymore. We get opinions. It's opinionated information. And so they don't really look or read or understand that there is another side to the issue. And again, we are a reflection - the Congress is a reflection of the people they represent. That's all we are. And if the public has this feeling we can't work together, the Congress is not going to work together.
MARTIN: And what about President Trump's role in this? Do you think he has a role in this? Some people see him as the symptom. Some people see him as the cause. How do you see him?
YOUNG: Well, I see him as an individual that, very frankly, would make me a lot happier if he didn't tweet or Twitter or whatever you call that. I don't do that, by the way. So, you know, I don't know. I think, very frankly, he's doing a great job. He was not my candidate. He knows that. But he's my president. I'm not going to try to crucify him for every little thing he says.
MARTIN: That's Congressman Don Young, the dean of the House. He was kind enough to host us in his office on Capitol Hill. Congressman Young, thanks so much for speaking with us.
YOUNG: My pleasure. Good to have you here.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
I also spoke with Congresswoman Karen Bass. She is a Democrat from California. And she also has a deep background as a lawmaker, having served as a former speaker of the California Assembly. She's also an officer of the Congressional Black Caucus. When we spoke, I began by asking her to reflect on then-candidate Trump's attempt to appeal to African-American voters when he famously said, what do you have to lose?
KAREN BASS: They used to refer to him as a dog whistle, but I think most people now recognize it's a bullhorn. I think this last year has been absolutely positively horrific. We have seen a level of racism become normalized, something that we haven't seen for decades. And anytime you have the president of the United States making statements like he did a week ago about the entire continent of Africa, it's - he's consistent. How he views people of color around the world is the same as he views people of color in the United States. When he's talking about making America great again, many of us hear that as making America white again.
MARTIN: Well, let's go back to when you and other officers from the Congressional Black Caucus actually met with President Trump. That was in March of last year. Do you remember that meeting? Do you remember what your impressions were of him then?
BASS: I remember the meeting extremely well. And I do think it's important to say what led to the meeting because, you remember, there was a press conference in which he was asked about his urban agenda. And a reporter said, have you consulted the Congressional Black Caucus? He didn't know who the CBC was. But he did say to the reporter, who happened to be African-American, well, do you know them? You know, can you organize the meeting? As, of course, all black people do know each other.
And so the Congressional Black Caucus was extended an invitation for all 49 of our members to go to the White House. We chose to just send the leadership. We took the time to write a 125-page document that basically said, this is what we have to lose. Each of us made a presentation on a substantive area of policy. Mine was criminal justice. And basically, he wasn't really able to have a dialogue. We do think he paid attention. I just don't think that there was any there there to actually have a dialogue with us. And then he also made it clear just a few days ago what he thinks about the Congressional Black Caucus. When the Democratic senators mentioned that the CBC would be upset at the immigration proposal, he basically said he had no interest in what the Congressional Black Caucus said.
MARTIN: Well, speaking of those comments, I mean, over the course of the year, and even before that during the campaign, there were many remarks and tweets and policy proposals aimed at a lot of groups, you know - Mexicans, Mexican-Americans, Muslims, Muslim-Americans. And a lot of these comments have sparked commentary. But it's only after those comments about those countries that that he is reported to have made - and he denies that he said that - but it is after that that many people, including some of your colleagues, have said that they believe that he's racist, that he harbors racist views. They've been very blunt about that over the course of the week. And I'd like to ask you. And I think you may have already answered that. Do you think that that's true?
BASS: I think he has demonstrated that he is a racist, and he's demonstrated that over many decades, going back to when he was a young man in the housing discrimination lawsuits. But I will tell you something. It's way more significant to me. His policies are far more significant, and he demonstrated that on the first few days of his presidency.
On his first day of the presidency, he eliminated a program that gave tax credits for first-time homeowners. He rolled back consent decrees with troubled police departments. He's tried to eliminate the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. They were seeking attorneys that wanted to overturn affirmative action.
His words are horrific, but his policies are damaging. And the wreckage that he has done to the government, even without congressional involvement, is, to me, far more important. You know, attacking NFL players, I mean, that was egregious. But doing what he's done policy wise is far, far more significant and dangerous to our communities.
MARTIN: That is Congresswoman Karen Bass, Democrat of California. She's one of the officers of the Congressional Black Caucus. Congresswoman, thank you so much for speaking with us.
BASS: Thanks for having me on.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
One are the biggest ways President Trump is leaving his mark by making good on his campaign promise to reshape the federal judiciary.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We confirmed an incredible new Supreme Court justice and more circuit court judges in our first year than any administration in the history of our country, and we have many more coming.
MARTIN: NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson has this report.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Three months after his inauguration, President Trump welcomed a new, young and conservative lawyer - Neil Gorsuch - onto the Supreme Court. The Senate confirmed Gorsuch on a mostly party-line vote. Lawmakers also approved 12 federal appeals court judges last year. That's never happened. Conservatives like Ed Whelan say they couldn't be happier.
ED WHELAN: So far, his record is outstanding, far better than I think many of us would have expected.
JOHNSON: But Democrats and civil rights advocates find plenty of reasons to be troubled, starting with diversity. Kristine Lucius is vice president at the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights.
KRISTINE LUCIUS: More than 91 percent of them are white. And nearly 77 percent of them are men. You would imagine those numbers in a day where law schools were segregated o law schools didn't admit women, but we have not been in that place for generations.
JOHNSON: Lucius says many of Trump's selections for lifetime federal judge spots are hostile to gay and lesbian rights.
LUCIUS: Initially, I recall thinking that it maybe was a vetting problem, but I've come to believe it's not a bug. It's a feature.
JOHNSON: Conservative Ed Whalen points out Trump's appointees to important appeals courts included three women and two Asian-Americans.
WHELAN: Every president selects, broadly speaking, from his base of supporters. It's not news that President Trump's base of supporters is less diverse racially, ethnically than President Obama's.
JOHNSON: Still, there's a large pool of potential nominees for the Trump administration. White House counsel Don McGahn told The Federalist Society last year about his criteria for the next Supreme Court vacancy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DON MCGAHN: So what did the judges on the list have in common? Well, they have a demonstrated commitment to originalism and textualism. They all have paper trails. They all are sitting judges. There is nothing unknown about them. What you see is what you get.
JOHNSON: But the last year hasn't been entirely smooth sailing for candidates on some of the lower courts.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
RAY SUAREZ, BYLINE: This week, a man picked by President Trump for a judgeship withdrew his name amid controversy. It's the third time in 10 days that's happened.
JOHNSON: First, it was Brett Talley, a Justice Department lawyer. Talley came under scrutiny for failing to disclose his wife worked for the White House counsel and that he'd written blog posts praising an early version of the KKK. Then there was Jeffrey Petersen (ph), a former colleague of McGahn's on the Federal Election Commission. Peterson was attacked by a senator from his own political party, Louisiana's John Neeley Kennedy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN NEELY KENNEDY: Have you ever tried a jury trial?
MATTHEW PETERSEN: I have not.
KENNEDY: Civil?
PETERSEN: No.
KENNEDY: Criminal?
PETERSEN: No.
KENNEDY: Bench?
PETERSEN: No.
KENNEDY: State or federal court?
PETERSEN: I have not.
JOHNSON: In all, four of Trump's nominees last year were rated not qualified by the American Bar Association. The White House contests those ratings. But Kristine Lucius of the Leadership Conference says she's worried.
LUCIUS: These nominees, many of whom are in their 30s and 40s, will serve for four decades or more. So this is something that needs to be taken more seriously and done more carefully.
JOHNSON: There's no sign of a slowdown. This week, the Judiciary Committee advanced 17 nominees. Conservatives say there's a good reason the White House and the Senate are rushing to confirm as many judges as they can. If the Senate changes hands after the November elections, President Trump's system for filling court vacancies could come to a screeching halt. Carrie Johnson, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHAKEY GRAVES' "IF NOT FOR YOU")
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We'd like to turn now to one of the main issues caught in the middle of the spending battle in Congress - the Children's Health Insurance Program, also known as CHIP. This program helps state insure about 9 million children whose parents can't afford health insurance but make too much to qualify for Medicaid. At the moment, the program is operating on a temporary funding extension that's expected to dry up in March, but several states say they could run out of funding before then. One of those states is Alabama.
And joining us now is Cathy Caldwell. She is the director of Alabama's CHIP program. She's speaking to us from Prattville, Ala. Cathy Caldwell, thank you so much for speaking with us.
CATHY CALDWELL: Oh, thank you for having me.
MARTIN: So for people who aren't familiar with the program, could you just describe briefly, you know, what it does - amplify what I said earlier?
CALDWELL: Sure. The Children's Health Insurance Program provides health insurance to uninsured children whose family income is above the Medicaid level. Currently, in Alabama, we have over 85,000 children insured in that program.
MARTIN: And how exactly does it work? Does it work like any other insurance program - people can go to the doctor that they want, go to the hospital if they need to?
CALDWELL: Absolutely. We have a comprehensive benefit package that provides a wide array of benefits for many services, including WellCare so children can get their preventive visits. They can get their immunizations. Also, (unintelligible) care certainly can go to the doctor when they're sick. We cover inpatient. We also cover mental health services, vision and dental - so a very comprehensive benefit package.
MARTIN: One of my colleagues spoke with you in December. And you said then that your state could exhaust CHIP funds in February. If those funds run out, what happens if a kid whose family has CHIP gets sick and has to go to the doctor or to the hospital? What happens?
CALDWELL: And we did receive some additional funding. But we're still worried that it's going to run out before too long. What will happen when we exhaust our funding - we will dis-enroll children from the program. Many of those children will become uninsured. So for many, they will probably not be able to access all of the services they need.
If they're sick, for example, and go to the doctor, they'll be expected to pay for it out of their own pocket. In an emergency situation, it's a - you know go to the emergency department or even an inpatient stay - the family will be expected to pay for those services which will be quite expensive. So it'll create a hardship on the family. And like I said, there will be situations, likely, where the children won't be able to obtain the services they need.
MARTIN: I'm sure you know now that we're in a bit of a standoff here and that both the Republicans and Democrats in Washington are accusing each other of holding, you know, the country hostage to this or that program. Many of the Democrats are saying that the Republicans are using this as a bargaining chip to, you know, force them to vote for something - other things that they don't agree with. I'd like to ask, how is this all striking you where you are?
CALDWELL: I would like to say that there is huge urgency. I think some people look at the numbers and think that if we still have a few weeks of funding, then there's no urgency. That is absolutely not the case. These are large programs with many children enrolled. And so if in fact funding does not continue, then we have to shut down our programs. It is going to take time and many resources to accomplish that. So we need Congress to act and extend funding. And we really need to get that down this month.
MARTIN: That's Cathy Caldwell. She is the director of Alabama's CHIP program. We reached her in Prattville, Ala. Cathy Caldwell, thank you so much for speaking with us. We really appreciate it.
CALDWELL: Oh, you're very welcome. Thanks for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF KOLOTO'S "LIFE IN CLAY")
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
This hour, we've been tackling two important stories - the federal government shutdown and the anniversary of President Trump's first year in office. So this is where we wanted to take a step back and look at what it all means. We'll start with NPR's national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Mara, thank you so much for joining us once again.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Happy to be here.
MARTIN: So what have we heard so far from President Trump since the shutdown started?
LIASSON: What we've heard from President Trump is a pretty simple message - and he said it over and over again on Twitter - Democrats are holding the military hostage over their desire for unchecked illegal immigration. And that's a message that I think his base will find very appealing, whether it helps him with anyone beyond his base is not clear.
MARTIN: And what about the Democrats and what about that argument? I mean, the polls show - and there's been some recent polling on this - it shows that the whole idea of protecting DACA recipients is politically popular but not when you've posed it as a tradeoff between...
LIASSON: Right.
MARTIN: ...You know, keeping the government open and helping them. So what about on the Democratic side?
LIASSON: The problem for both sides is that neither is convinced that the other guy will pay politically. For Democrats, they know, as you said, that something like 90 percent of Americans are sympathetic with their position on the DREAMers but not shutting down the government over the DREAMers. And when people are polled about who would you blame. It turns out that majorities, overall, would blame Republicans for a shutdown. After all, they control all branches of government.
But in those big five states, the red states where Democratic Senate incumbents are running for re-election - and that's what Democrats are most worried about in those states - Missouri, Montana, West Virginia, Indiana, South Dakota - that's where Democrats would be blamed if it looks like they're doing this because of the DREAMers.
And in terms of whether the president would be blamed, we do know that the hashtag @Trumpshutdown, not @Schumershutdown, but @Trumpshutdown was the top trending topic on Twitter on Friday night. So a lot of people voted for him thinking he was a businessman who would come to Washington, make deals, which is what he promised, make the government work. And now here we are on the first anniversary of his inauguration with a shutdown.
MARTIN: Just building on that point, though, you know, in the past, the polls have suggested that Republicans were blamed for the shutdown but then they went on to midterm elections and actually did fine - in fact, did very, very well, according to the historical pattern that says, you know, the party in the White House tends to suffer in midterms, right? So any sense of what's going to happen this year?
LIASSON: Well, this is the first shutdown that we've ever had under one-party control of government. The last shutdown in 2013, of course, there was a Democrat in the White House, Republicans in Congress. And what you're talking about is absolutely true. What happened was Republicans initially were blamed for the shutdown.
The approval ratings for the Republican Party dropped faster and deeper than they had ever dropped before during that shutdown. But then what people forget about is that then the Obamacare website debuted and crashed. And it totally wiped that story of the shutdown off the front pages. And that's what could happen now if we have a very short shutdown. If something happens to wipe this story in our kind of ADD news environment, we might be talking about something completely different a week from now.
MARTIN: Mara, just one more minute on this, if I could, before we head into the Barbershop because I'm going to ask them to reflect on this question. You know, here we are on the one-year anniversary of President Trump's inauguration. What more do we know about him now than we did a year ago?
LIASSON: Wow. Well, I think what we've - what I wondered about when he was inaugurated was, would he be different in degree or kind? Was he just a ruder, cruder kind of conservative Republican or something completely different? I think in terms of domestic policy, he's become a pretty standard conservative Republican - tax cuts, Neil Gorsuch, deregulation.
But I think for - on the other hand, his divisive behavior and his continuing attacks on democratic institutions like the independent judiciary, free press, the FBI - I think that shows us that he conceives of the presidency in a completely different way than any of his predecessors. He doesn't see himself as the moral leader of the country or with the responsibility to unify the country. He has a totally different concept of the presidency.
MARTIN: That's NPR's national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Mara, thank you.
LIASSON: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
So let's head now into the Barbershop to talk more about all this. Now, of course, this is where we sit down with a group of interesting folks to talk about what's in the news and what's on their minds. A special politics-focused Barbershop today because, you know, why - what else would we talk about today but politics? It's President Trump's first anniversary in office, the first government shutdown in five years, the first when both - when one party controlled all three branches of government.
So we thought we'd get this group together to get their take on what this means going forward. Joining us, Puneet Ahluwalia. He is a businessman and a Republican Party activist from Northern Virginia. Welcome back.
PUNEET AHLUWALIA: Thank you.
MARTIN: Also from the DMV - that's what we call the metro area here when we want to be hip and we definitely do - that's Kathleen Matthews. She's serving her first term as chair of the Democratic Party in Maryland. Before that, she was a journalist here in the D.C. area for many years. And, Kathleen, welcome.
KATHLEEN MATTHEWS: Michel, thank you so much.
MARTIN: And last but certainly not least, Charlie Sykes. He's an author, a longtime conservative talk show host based in Wisconsin. He's with us from member station WUWM in Milwaukee. Charlie, welcome back to you as well.
CHARLIE SYKES: Good to be with you.
MARTIN: So the big news of the day the government shutdown. It's been five years since the last time the government shut down. And today is the first year - the first-year mark of President Trump's reign as president. And he tweeted this morning, this is...
MATTHEWS: I liked that word reign.
MARTIN: Reign. Sorry, I was just looking for another word other than anniversary. But this is the one-year anniversary of my presidency, and the Democrats wanted to give me a nice present. And he put #democratshutdown. Charlie, I'm going to go to you first because you are in the heartland. And I wanted to ask you, what is this, you know, how does this look from there? Obviously, we've spent all day with both parties blaming each other. What does it look like to you?
SYKES: This is why people hate Washington, D.C., and Washington, D.C., politics. You have this bonfire of hypocrisies, all of the finger pointing going on. You know, who's to blame, the competing hashtags, whether it's, you know, the Schumer shutdown or the Trump shutdown. You know, this is - if we just step back from the partisan politics for a moment, this is just a terrible way to run government, that every once in a while, the system becomes so dysfunctional we just have to partially shut down the federal government.
I mean, at some point, are we going to come to our senses and realize this is a terrible way to run a railroad, you know, much less the federal government? But I think Mara's analysis is right. A lot of the politics is aimed at these swing states. And both parties are taking a huge risk by going to the mat. But both parties are also, in some sense, held hostage by their bases. And it's hard to see an easy or quick or graceful way out of this at the moment.
MARTIN: One of the reasons I invited both Puneet and Kathleen here is that you are both people who actually have to win elections locally because this is a midterm election. Now, Virginia just had its legislative elections. But you've got a Senate seat opening up in 2018. Tim Kaine, the incumbent, is going to be running - one assumes - for re-election again. And you've got to go out and find good candidates and sell them and sell them under the party banner.
So, Kathleen, I'll start with you. You know, what about the White House argument that - and the Republican leadership argument that the Democrats are to blame because they're not willing to let the DACA issue go to keep the government running? Now, in your state, just as in Puneet's, there are a lot of federal workers, as well as a lot of military people. How do you defend that?
MATTHEWS: I think this is so clearly the #trumpshutdown. And it was interesting because when I put #t in today when I was tweeting, Trump shutdown came up automatically with just the T. But this is a guy who tweeted that he was happy that we were going to shut the government down. This is a president who doesn't believe in government. And I think that's why you've seen shutdowns under Republicans in 2013 and all the way back in - when Gingrich did it in 1994.
And so I actually think that it'll be different this year in terms of who gets blamed. People do look to the person in the White House to resolve these disputes, to somehow slip in there with some great compromise. And they certainly expect that out of a guy who said he was the deal maker of the century, that he could cut every deal.
MARTIN: Puneet, what about you? I mean, how do you - your party controls all three branches of government. How do you defend this? How do you go to the voters and say, give my party even more power?
AHLUWALIA: Look. First thing is President Trump has done a tremendous job in one year. You have to give that and recognize that. And then at the same time, we have seen the Democrats time and again try to push him back and try to obstruct every aspect of things which he wants to and the Republicans. So people who are in the Washington, D.C., area are very smart. They see a doer and person who's looking to solve things and make their life better. You saw the tax break, which they will see and start reflecting in their paychecks. And you saw how Apple gave a huge bonus to that.
I think when people see his work and what he has promoted - and look at the stock market, it's done tremendously well. And the consumer confidence is high. So when you build on that and then you see a Schumer shutdown, you can see exactly who's making it very hard. Based on the illegal immigration, you're basically holding our men and women in armed forces hostage, senior citizens and students and kids. All these people are suffering just because Schumer - it's a democratic way of holding us hostage.
MARTIN: OK. So I see both of you have fully absorbed the national party talking points, so there we go. So let's take a step back now and ask each of you to assess this year of Donald Trump's presidency. What effect do you think it's had on the country? Kathleen, I'll go to you first.
MATTHEWS: It's been a disaster, I think, for the country. But it has also fueled more candidates - and going back to your earlier question - more candidates than ever before on the Democratic side, including more minorities and women to run for office because they are motivated to step in there and actually take their government back.
MARTIN: Puneet, what do you think?
AHLUWALIA: I think it's being very energetic, of course controversial at times. President Trump has tried to do - and attack many things, not only making our country safe, fighting and defeating ISIS, finding issues with countries who are not great allies to us - that's Pakistan, to say - at the same time, giving the consumer confidence. Our stock market is doing excellently well. Consumer confidence, again, up. So he's done a phenomenal job, I would say.
MARTIN: You're not worried about his record-low approval ratings? You're not concerned that that's going to be a drag on any candidates that you would run?
AHLUWALIA: If you see, the media has played a huge role on that. And, of course, the narrative of that has been coming out of the media. I think that's the reason why he has pushed the fake news out at the same time. And he tweets directly. And mind you, look at his actions. We all knew what we signed up for and who we voted. And he became elected president. Let's not forget that. American people...
MARTIN: But I don't think you've answered my question. What do you make of his low approval ratings?
AHLUWALIA: Well, I think it'll change once people start to see his positive actions coming out. Give him a year. It's just been a year. It's got another three years to go.
MARTIN: Let's hear from...
MATTHEWS: Job growth is slowing. Wages are stagnant. And really, the only thing that he has accomplished, other than dividing our country and going after people, people of color, has been a tax bill that actually has been the biggest shift of wealth from working class families to the rich. So that is one accomplishment, which is why I think the job approval ratings are so low.
MARTIN: Let's hear from Charlie Sykes on this 'cause, Charlie, I know you've done a lot of thinking about this. I mean, you are - you've - you are identified with the conservative movement for your entire adult life. You've written many books. And you were a talk show host. You've written many columns. But you are also a person who did not support Donald Trump. And your reasons are not just matters of policy but also sort of broader philosophical reasons. Can you talk about that?
SYKES: Yes. And that's the most painful position to be in because there are things that he has done that plausibly, you could say, are positive. But the price tag is horrific. And, you know, this is - I can't get past what Donald Trump is doing to our political culture, to society. You know, character used to matter to conservatives. But the bullying, the chronic lying, the name-calling, the attacks on the rule of law, the attacks on democratic institutions, the, you know, fanboy adulation of autocratic thugs around the world. You know, not to mention his personal, you know, his personal business dealings.
Look. All of these things, I think, are having a long-term effect on what we as Americans regard as acceptable. He is changing the norms of our society. And I understand that, you know, if you're a liberal, it's totally horrific. If you're a Trumpian, you want to ignore all this and say it's a matter of style or personality I think it's fundamental. And I think that the first year of the Trump presidency has been shambolic because what we found out is that Donald Trump the candidate turned out not to be that much different from Donald Trump the president.
MARTIN: Puneet, I have to give you a chance to respond to that. I mean, as a person who is both a business person yourself and also a person who's been a conservative for your adult life, I mean, how do you respond to that?
AHLUWALIA: I'm a minority. I'm from Indian heritage. I haven't felt anything that would say he'll put me in a back seat. Look at Nikki Haley. Look at so many other minorities who have taken a great position in the Trump administration and doing a phenomenal job. Again, I think...
MARTIN: So do you think that all the people - other people of color who find his comments demeaning, corrosive, vulgar, are they all just - what? - naive, sort of sensitive? I mean, how do you respond to the fact that so many of your fellow citizens feel that he is diminishing and coarsening our culture? How do you respond to that?
AHLUWALIA: I would say each person has a way of understanding and taking a judgment or a call or whatever they want to do it. That's personally. But I feel - when I see it, I see a person who is trying to stick to a campaign promise. And he's also trying to fulfill what he set out to do. Now, if people take it disparagingly or personally, that's up to them. At the same time, if they start focusing on the real objective that he's trying to do is make America safe again. At the same time, getting the people back to job. And again, I keep hearing this narrative, which is to me is - as a businessman, I see the confidence up. I feel the Democratic policies are hurting us at the same time right now with the Schumer shutdown.
MARTIN: So, Kathleen, to you...
SYKES: But the bigotry and the xenophobia and the misogny. And I say this as a conservative. Look. I like tax cuts. I like cuts in regulation. But what we've seen this year is we have seen a president and the Republican Party acquiesced to him align themselves with forces that, I think, represent some of the darker impulses of American society.
And we're at this shutdown today - I don't know whether we can say this on the air, I haven't boned up on what the NPR policy about the S-hole thing is - but, you know, you realize that we are here today because the president of the United States basically tore the mask off when he talked about, you know, not bringing people in from S-hole countries as opposed to countries like Norway, as if Norway, by the way, is a skill. And I think that was so shocking and it was so toxic that it brings us to the moment we're at now. And this is the Trump presidency.
MARTIN: Charlie, I have to give you the last word. I wanted to give Kathleen a chance to get another bite of that apple, so we'll have to have you back so you can talk more about your perspective on this. That was conservative talk show host Charlie Sykes, an author of a number of books and a columnist. Maryland Democratic Party chair Kathleen Matthews was with us. Also, Virginia Republican Puneet Ahluwalia here in our Washington, D.C., studios. Thank you all so much for speaking with us. More to come.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We've been talking about the federal government shutdown, which began on President Trump's first anniversary in office. Earlier this hour, we spoke with White House Director of Strategic Communications Mercedes Schlapp, who, like Senate Republican leaders, blamed Senate Democrats, who, with a few exceptions, largely voted against the short-term spending bill that could have kept the government open. So let's hear now from one of those who voted no, Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat from Wisconsin. She's on the phone with us now from Capitol Hill. Senator, thanks so much for speaking with us.
TAMMY BALDWIN: My pleasure.
MARTIN: So could you just give us your top line? What was your key reason for voting against the short-term spending bill that the House sent over? Why was it something you couldn't vote for?
BALDWIN: Well, we have had now three continuing resolutions since the end of the fiscal year on September 30 of last year. And there was no sense in my mind that kicking it four more weeks down the road - after that would have been the fourth continuing resolution in four months - would get Congress to deal with the urgent issues that we need to deal with.
So this four-week CR failed to deliver on defense matters. We had Secretary Mattis come by our Democratic caucus a couple of weeks ago to urge us to get beyond the continuing resolution after continuing resolution. It didn't address the opioid crisis that is gripping Wisconsin and many other states, in fact, all states across the nation. It didn't deal with our pension crisis in Wisconsin. Community health centers remain without reauthorization and funding.
And it didn't deal with the disaster funding for Florida and Texas and Puerto Rico, where 40 percent of the residents still don't have electricity or the U.S. Virgin Islands. And it certainly didn't deal with the crisis that the president created when he rescinded DACA, meaning that young children who were brought to the United States by their parents or other family members, you know, through no fault of their own have no future if we can't resolve these weighty issues.
MARTIN: So, Senator, let me jump in here. Sorry, forgive me. Let me jump in here because we only have another minute and a half left. The Senate Republican leadership and the White House are framing this as the Democrats shutting the government down to protect illegal immigrants. Now, those are their words. But, indeed, some Democrats have said that stabilizing DACA was non-negotiable. I mean, how do you defend against that argument?
BALDWIN: Well, first of all, there's bipartisan agreement on addressing the situation with the DREAMers. And the president and the Republicans in Congress know that but won't allow any sort of resolution of this issue. But secondly, I think this is a Trump shutdown. He is the president. Republicans are in charge of both houses of Congress. There is large bipartisan agreement around most of the issues that I just listed that are urgent. I know in your past - your most recent interview, there was this sense of urgency. And there's no resolution if we keep on kicking it down the road for weeks at a time.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, Senator, because I understand you do have meetings to get back to. You're running for re-election this fall in a state that voted for President Trump. Wisconsin isn't like California and Texas, where there are just, you know, almost like 100,000 DREAMers. Are you concerned that this will be a deal maker for some of your voters even if you don't cite this as the main reason that you voted against the continuing resolution?
BALDWIN: You know, right now, Washington isn't working for Wisconsin. And I am here fighting to make it work for Wisconsin. And my constituents, some of them are DREAMers. But some of them have relatives who have died of opioid overdoses. Others face imminent cuts in their pensions. Community centers across the state - community health centers across the state who serve over 300,000 Wisconsinites need certainty. So there is an urgency to these issues, and I'm fighting for the people who sent me to Washington to fight.
MARTIN: We have to leave it there for now. Senator, thanks so much for talking with us. We know you're very busy.
BALDWIN: Thank you, Michel.
MARTIN: Senator Tammy Baldwin, Democrat of Wisconsin. Thank you so much.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Finally today, as we have been thinking back over President Trump's first year in office, we also wanted to think about the ways President Trump is having an effect on areas seemingly outside of politics. For example, a lot has been written about athletes becoming more outspoken. We noticed something similar on the comics pages.
We're not talking about "Doonesbury," which is known for a political take or the cartoons on the editorial pages. Rather, we're talking about strips that mainly focus on lighter fare, like the antics of teens and dilemmas like lost homework. Even some of these have become, dare we say it, more woke, with edgier storylines about issues like immigration and prison conditions, those playing out in the real world.
To talk about this, we called two syndicated comic strip authors. Francesco Marciuliano writes "Judge Parker," which follows the adventures of a small-town judge and his crowd. He joins me from NPR's New York bureau. Thank you so much for coming.
FRANCESCO MARCIULIANO: My pleasure.
MARTIN: And from Dallas, Texas, Hector Cantu is the author of "Baldo," which follows the daily life of a Latino teenager and his family. Hector Cantu, welcome to you also.
HECTOR CANTU: Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: I've been reading both of your scripts for a long time. And, Francesco, I'm going to start with you. You just recently took over "Judge Parker," but that strip was created in 1952. So for people who aren't, you know, addicted to it like I am, how did the strip start out? And what was your vision when you took it over in - what? - 2016?
MARCIULIANO: Well, I believe the strip started out almost like it was a radio play based on, as you said, a small-town judge and his family. And in strip time, we're later that same day right now. No, I'm kidding. But we - yeah. And now - right now, it just seemed - at first, I tried a dynasty over-the-top approach when I took it like the '80s soap operas I used to watch. And then as the year went on, it certainly decided that that was not going to be the case for the strip.
MARTIN: Well, it's become really edgy in some ways. I mean, for example, one of the female characters goes to prison. She was set up by her male colleagues. Big topics like criminal justice reform and the way people are treated in prison, hair standing on end. Where did that idea come from?
MARCIULIANO: Well, initially, it just came from - when I took over the strip, there were about 35 subplots going at the same time. So I had to focus on a few. "Judge Parker," as it keeps going, the focus keep going more and more on the female characters because it seems certainly the case that that was the voice that needed to be heard. And that happened as a reaction to the Trump administration. I don't know if all this would be happening to such a great fantastic degree if it wasn't Trump in the White House.
MARTIN: Hector, what about you? Now, your strip, "Baldo," has been to this point kind of the life of a typical teenager who happens to be Latino. This year, it seems though, his Latinoness and that of the people around him seems to have taken on more importance. And you even took on the issue of immigration directly. Tell me about that. Now, you've been writing "Baldo" since 2000 - since the year 2000. So, you know, lots of things have happened since then. Why now?
CANTU: You know, I'm always asking myself if "Baldo" was real and his friends were real, what would they be facing right now? So, you know, it's a comic strip. Sure, we're supposed to have fun. We're supposed to make people laugh, feel an emotion, get some kind of reaction from people by the last panel. But you can't ignore reality.
So when this DREAMers story idea came up, it was a natural for me. Baldo's friend Cruz is going to be a DREAMer. And he's going to be, you know, if I was a Latino high schooler, I'd have friends who were DREAMers. And I'm not going to ignore that. You know, we can be having fun every day on the comics page, but there are people out there going through some very serious issues. And it's kind of hard for me as a cartoonist, as a writer to ignore that.
MARTIN: Well, the way you are introduced to this is really interesting because it just happens all of a sudden. I mean, to this point, you know, Baldo's mainly - his main thing is like, how can he not do his homework, you know what I mean? And hanging out with his friends and not doing his chores and his dad trying to get him to do his chores. But Cruz wants to show up to work at his - at a garage where apparently he works.
CANTU: He wants to visit.
MARTIN: And there's an immigration officer there. And it's like bam, you know.
CANTU: He turns and walks away.
MARTIN: He turns and walks away. And that's how you find out. Tell me about that. I mean, was that a struggle with you and your writing partner? Would you - did you debate this? Was this something you kind of took a deep breath before you did it or what?
CANTU: The what you want to write is things that come naturally. You want the story to be very organic and just just flow out. The idea was an immigration officer comes to Baldo's employment and starts questioning Baldo and his friend about their legal status because they've gotten tips that illegal workers are at this place of business.
So by the third day, I'm thinking, OK, what's the next step in this story? And I said, you know, I'm going to throw Cruz into the mix. He's going to walk up and he's going to turn around and walk away. And I'm going to come back to this. And so sure enough, we wrapped up that first week. The second week is where Baldo was walking with Cruz on the way home. And he reveals - he tells him that he is a DREAMer.
MARTIN: Do you feel that you two are part of - I don't know - part of a movement? Do you feel like you're part of a change maybe?
CANTU: You know, there has to be some kind of a stand, you know. And I don't think comic strips are necessarily immune from that, especially a comic strip that is about a Latino family. I cannot have a Latino family - and this sounds really weird - but living in this fantasy land, you know? There is some reality there. And I think it helps me as a writer to deal with that reality.
MARCIULIANO: Francesco, what about you?
MARCIULIANO: All I can tell you is - very much what Hector's saying, that you can't avoid it. And, you know, it's a tired cliche. It's a reality show. What it really is is we've just entered another dimension where everything is defined by one person who is certain to have his voice in everything possible so you can't avoid him. And if you're going to write a strip where you actually care about your characters, there's no way that they can live in a vacuum. No art should live in a vacuum. No art has to be a polemic. No art has to make a grand statement.
But if, you know, you - there are strips that seem like they're going to always be 1955. And there's nothing wrong with that, you know. But I would think if it wasn't reflecting anything, the strip would kind of just be stuck in amber. It wouldn't be alive. So while I'll never make a political statement because I can't, I will have them react to everything that's a fallout from it. And it's not simply on a Trump level. It's on every level. And you can't go, well, I don't get to be angry because I just want peace. Unfortunately, if you focus on the choir right now, we all lose.
MARTIN: That was Francesco Marciuliano. He writes "Judge Parker" and "Sally Forth." And Hector Cantu is the author of "Baldo."
(SOUNDBITE OF CHARLIE HUNTER'S "DIFFORD-TILBROOK")
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to begin the program today on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers are still trying to come up with a way to restart the federal government, which has been in a partial shutdown all weekend. Later in the program, we'll look at how a shutdown affects the economy. But first, an update from the Capitol, where a bipartisan group of senators think they may have a solution that could end what has become an increasingly ugly standoff. For more, we turn to NPR congressional reporter Kelsey Snell. Kelsey, thanks so much for joining us.
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: And what's the latest?
SNELL: Well, I just got back from standing outside of an office in a closed Senate building - Senate office building - where that bipartisan group was meeting. It's about 20 senators, led in part by Lindsey Graham. And it was the second time they were meeting in - for the past two days. Yesterday, they met for about three hours. They came out saying that they think they're close to a breakthrough.
The plan would be to vote to reopen the government and keep funding going through February 8. It would also extend funding for the popular Children's Health Insurance Program. We hear it talked about a lot as CHIP. In exchange, Democrats would get a firm commitment of some sort - we don't know what yet - to quickly begin consideration of immigration plans. When the senators came out, they said that they want to have open debate on a number of proposals in hopes of crafting some kind of compromise before the DACA program expires in early March.
MARTIN: This sounds like a departure from what we've been hearing over the past couple of days from both sides. Can you walk us through what each side is saying?
SNELL: Yeah, absolutely. This has been a couple of days of heavy blame being traded back and forth. Republicans say Democrats are playing a game of basically political football that shuts down the government and prevents kids who use CHIP from having access to health care. Democrats say this is entirely the Republicans' fault for refusing to work with them. And here's what Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor today.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHUCK SCHUMER: They were using the 10 million kids on CHIP, holding them as hostage for the 800,000 kids who were DREAMers - kids against kids. Innocent kids against innocent kids.
SNELL: And just after that, Senator John Cornyn, who's the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, came out and said that Democrats are essentially just making a big political mistake, and they're going to pay the price for it. Here's what he said.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN CORNYN: It seems to me that our Democratic colleagues have literally - well, figuratively, let's say - shot themselves in the foot, reloaded and shot themselves in the other foot.
SNELL: And that's basically what it sounded like a lot today on the Senate floor.
MARTIN: Well, after all of that, you know, where they were sort of upping the ante rhetorically against each other - and I'm asking a little bit to speculate - but how likely is this to succeed?
SNELL: Well, I have talked to some folks in leadership. So the next step on all of this is that the members that were at that bipartisan meeting went off and they briefed their leaders. And then the leaders were supposed to come together and talk about it. And, you know, there are a couple of things happening here.
One is the politics of it all. This is not great for Democrats in particular in red states and people who are up in 2018. They want this to end. And there is a lot of urgency around the idea that Monday is coming, and most federal workers would be going back to work. And it's fine - in some ways, it's less painful for a shutdown to happen over a weekend, but it gets really real on Monday. And I think there's an urgency for them to get a deal.
MARTIN: And before we let you go, very briefly, what is the White House's role in all of this?
SNELL: Democrats say President Trump in particular is to blame for saying he would sign anything that could pass and then rejecting the bipartisan plan that was crafted by a different smaller group of bipartisan senators. Many Republicans say it wasn't the president's fault because, well, he doesn't vote in the Senate, and he didn't vote against that spending bill. But others, like Lindsey Graham, say that White House staff is getting in the way and pulling Trump back from his inclination to cut a deal with Democrats, and he sees that as a really big problem.
MARTIN: That is NPR congressional reporter Kelsey Snell. Kelsey, thank you.
SNELL: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to turn now from the politics of the government shutdown to the economics of it. In just a few minutes, we'll hear from a federal employee who would like to be able to go to work tomorrow but might not be able to. But first, we want to talk about the cost of a government shutdown, so we called David Wessel. He is director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution. That's a centrist research institution here in Washington, D.C., and he was nice enough to let us call him at home. David Wessel, thank you so much for joining us.
DAVID WESSEL: Good to be with you, Michel.
MARTIN: So we're hearing that it actually costs money to shut the government down, which seems counter-intuitive on some level. So first, is that true? And if it is, why does it cost money?
WESSEL: Well, it is true. Of course, there's a lot of time spent getting ready for a shutdown - just like if you have a vacation house and you shut it down for the winter, you have to turn off the water to the pipes. The federal government is a huge machine, and if you want to stop it in mid-action, it - you have to spend time turning the dials and figuring out who works and making sure that the right people are working and the right ones aren't. And I found a Government Accountability Office report from 1990, which if you adjusted for inflation, says that if the shutdown is three weekdays, it costs $80 million in administrative costs and $320 million in lost revenue to the government.
MARTIN: So those are actual hard costs. Are there economic impacts that go beyond the actual apparatus of the government?
WESSEL: Yes. Of course, the biggest impact is on the federal employees themselves. Even those people who are required to work will not get paid in real time. In the past, Congress has always said, well, we'll pay you later. That may happen this time. We don't know. But then if you look beyond that, there are government services that are not being provided. You can't sell an airplane, for instance. You can't get a question answered at the Internal Revenue Service. There are all sorts of services that people can't get. The economists who add this up say it works out to about $2 billion a day in lost output to the economy every day the shutdown persists.
MARTIN: Now what if this is resolved before Monday, when most people go to work? I mean, obviously, all kinds of people work throughout the weekend. But let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that the bulk of the workforce works that normal Monday-through-Friday schedule. If they somehow manage to figure all this out today before most people go to work, does the same thing apply?
WESSEL: No, it's basically a blip. It's unfortunate. It's disruptive, but it won't make much difference. It matters if this thing persists, particularly if it persists through February 1 when the next payday comes.
MARTIN: The last time the government shut down was 2013. So presumably, you know, we know what there is to know from that experience. Do you think that the same factors will apply or is there anything different about this that would cause us to have a different outcome?
WESSEL: Well, one thing is that the Trump administration has allowed more people to go to work and allowed more things to happen. The national parks are apparently open. They just don't have staff. So that would mute the effect. But basically, economists estimate that it'll shave about a tenth of a percentage point off of growth of GDP each week the government's closed - $2 billion a day. I don't see any reason why that should be any different than it was in 2013.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, David, do you have any sort of international comparison here? Is there any other developed economy - a peer economy of the United States - that has experienced this kind of disruption to government operations in the last - I don't know - whatever time frame you want to pick - five years or 10 years?
WESSEL: I think the answer is no. This is a case of American exceptionalism.
MARTIN: That's David Wessel. He's director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at the Brookings Institution. David, thanks so much for speaking with us.
WESSEL: You're welcome.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now that we've talked about the overall impact of a government shutdown, let's talk with one of the tens of thousands of federal workers who may or may not be going to work tomorrow morning. Pam Gilbertz works as a health communications specialist for the Centers for Disease Control. We reached her in Atlanta. Ms. Gilbertz, thanks so much for speaking with us.
PAM GILBERTZ: You're welcome. Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: What did your supervisors tell you on Friday about whether you will be at work on Monday?
GILBERTZ: My supervisor did not tell me anything on Friday because my supervisor had not received any information either. In fact, I received information before she did because I got that information in my role as a union official.
MARTIN: And what did you find out or what are they saying?
GILBERTZ: We haven't received anything. I know in the past - the shutdown that occurred in 2013 - we all had some limited information but at least something from our headquarters, the Department of Health and Human Services, several days at least in advance.
MARTIN: Is it clear who in your agency has to work and who doesn't?
GILBERTZ: It is not clear to most of us. All we know is that each individual employee got a letter by email from HHS. I haven't even seen my letter yet because I have not logged into CDC email since Friday afternoon, but I have been told that the emails went out overnight, and those emails from HHS told each individual employee how they had been categorized. I'm assuming that I will be categorized the same way that I was categorized in 2013 because I'm doing the same job that I was doing then, and my position as a health communication specialist is categorized as non-essential because it's not one of those that fall into the category, you know, of national security or so forth.
MARTIN: And you're saying you worked for the government in 2013. Do you remember that - like, what that was like while the shutdown was going on? Can you just talk a little bit about, you know, what was it like? What did you do?
GILBERTZ: It's very sad. I know that most employees who have contacted me are very upset. Many people live paycheck to paycheck, and it will be a real struggle for them to pay bills and be able to take care of themselves and their families without pay. You know, employees want to work. I think some people in the public may have the perception that federal employees don't care that much about the work that we do, but it's actually the opposite.
You know, I have found federal employees are the most dedicated bunch of people that I have ever worked with, particularly at the CDC. We take what we do very seriously. We take an oath of office when we become federal employees that is very similar to the oath of office that many of us took when we joined the military, including me, and many federal employees are military veterans. So, you know, it's very stressing to us when we are not allowed to do that work and not allowed to provide the services that we've been trained to provide and we want to provide to the public.
MARTIN: That's Pam Gilbertz. She's an employee of the Centers for Disease Control. She believes she will be furloughed as of Monday if the government shutdown continues. We reached her in Atlanta. Thanks so much for speaking with us.
GILBERTZ: You're welcome. Thank you.
MARTIN: And we'd like you to know that we reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services to ask how they spoke to their employees about the shutdown. We haven't heard back.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Thousands of people are attending a rally in Las Vegas today to wrap up a weekend of marches promoting women's rights. Today's march comes on the first anniversary of a huge demonstration in Washington the day after President Trump took office. The stated goal today is to transform words and emotions into votes and political action. NPR's Leila Fadel is at the rally, and she is with us now. Leila, thank you for joining us.
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: Thank you.
MARTIN: So tell us what you're seeing at the stadium there. What's the mood?
FADEL: Well, there are thousands of people attending - mostly people from Las Vegas - and the message is vote. And so you see voter registration booths set up all through the stadium between concession stands, every speaker coming out saying, you know, if you want to see a new leader, then be those leaders or at least get out there and vote. And the other real message is there is no one issue. Anybody who feels marginalized, then that is a community that we need to talk about that needs to be heard. Take a listen to Cecile Richards. She's the president of Planned Parenthood, and she's describing the kind of forging alliances between communities that she's just never seen before.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CECILE RICHARDS: Our members, our supporters, our staff have not only stood for Planned Parenthood. They stand with DREAMers. They stand with Muslims. They stand with every attack that this administration has made on people.
MARTIN: Does this message about getting more women involved in politics in particular and getting them out to vote - does that seem to be sinking in or taking hold?
FADEL: Well, with the people I spoke to, yes. I think it is sinking in. This is a rally that comes after a year of one big political issue after the next - from the travel ban to Dreamers to the #MeToo movement to white supremacy in Charlottesville. And these are all issues that affect communities that feel disenfranchised, marginalized. And so, today, in this rally and the marches that we saw over the weekend, we see people who are feeling affected by these policies or proposed policies showing up.
So I met a woman named Brianna Jones (ph) who you'll hear from in a minute. She's a young African-American - half-African-American, half-Mexican millennial, who says the last year, it's been really difficult being black and Hispanic under this administration. And so she wants young people like herself to be involved politically.
BRIANNA JONES: But that's what I'm here for. So I want to get my friends involved. I mean, my friends are my same age, and I'm the only one out of about 10 of us that voted.
FADEL: And Brianna (ph) brought a few of those friends that have never voted to this rally today.
MARTIN: But let's look at diversity from a different perspective, though. There are conservative women who say that they don't necessarily feel welcome in these kinds of marches. Did you see any discussion of that?
FADEL: Well, you know, I did ask national organizers about that. I asked them, are conservative women welcome at these rallies, at these marches? And they said, yes, of course they are welcome, but they are welcome really on a progressive platform. The platform is very clearly progressive - pro the rights of women to have abortions, very clearly against this president. So women who support this president who have a different opinion, they don't feel welcome in these marches and rallies, and I haven't met any of them at these rallies.
MARTIN: So what sense do you get about where this is going next? Do organizers have a sense of what they will see as success?
FADEL: Well, I think they're saying they're already seeing signs of success over the last year. They cite things like Ashley Bennett in New Jersey, a young woman who heard a county official mocked a women's march last year, and so she said, OK, I'll run. And then she ran, and she won. And so they're citing examples of that as already the start of success. Other organizations like EMILY's List, for example - it's an organization that trains progressive women to run for office - says that more than 26,000 women are signed up to run this year. So I think we'll really see what kind of success that looks like come November. But the women organizers here say women are standing up like they've never stood up before.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Leila Fadel in Las Vegas. Leila, thank you.
FADEL: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
As we just noted, the first women's march on Washington was a year ago today. And it may be hard to remember now given everything that's happened since, but that March is believed to be one of the largest, if not the largest demonstration, ever in the capital - not to mention the simultaneous marches in the country and around the world.
Over the weekend, we connected with three women who participated, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war activist group Code Pink, which has been organizing demonstrations for almost two decades now, Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa, founder of the pro-life group New Wave Feminists. They both joined me in Washington, D.C., because they attended the women's march this year as well.
I also spoke with Raquel Willis, who is a national organizer with the Transgender Law Center. Raquel spoke to us from KQED in San Francisco. And unlike Medea Benjamin and Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa, Raquel says she decided not to march in this year's demonstrations. And I started by asking each of them whether they thought the women's marches were successful.
MEDEA BENJAMIN: Well, on one level, you could say not much success. If you look at what's happened during the year, there is a certain meanness that has come over this country. It's the division. It's the increased racism, the anti-Islam, the sense of refugees - we don't want them here - or immigrants - we don't want them here - among a certain portion of the population. So on that level, you could say we haven't progressed very much.
MARTIN: Destiny, how do you assess the impact of the big marches?
DESTINY HERNDON-DE LA ROSA: I would agree that progress takes time, but I think we're already seeing huge strides. I mean, these marches activated a lot of women. And yes, some of it came as a reaction to an administration that we felt very threatened by. But I went to the Women's Convention in Detroit back in October. And even just the grassroots efforts of teaching people how to plan a protest, how to fundraise for their organization, you know, you took a lot of people who had strong opinions and, you know, might be sharing that with their friends, and you turn them into activists and leaders who are now going to, you know, hopefully be able to create this revolution.
MARTIN: Raquel, what do you think? How do you assess the impact of those marches?
RAQUEL WILLIS: I think that it's very difficult to say, especially thinking about this week for me in particular. It's actually been more important for me to put my energy into a national convening of black trans women who are organizing around anti-violence work instead of going to the marches because that energy needs to be placed there with my people. And that's something that I don't see happening on a larger scale.
I will say one positive thing that I think has happened is that there has been a shift in our collective consciousness. So if you think about maybe a year ago, a year and a half ago, when people would talk about things like white supremacy or misogyny or rape culture or sexual assault, you would kind of get looked like you had a problem or like you were some kind of radical. But now, we know that those are things that are so pervasive, and everyday people are having these conversations at the dinner table.
MARTIN: But I want to go back, Destiny, with you on this whole question of inclusion that Raquel raised. I mean, from a different perspective, you identify as a feminist, but you also identify as pro-life. And last year, you marched in the women's march on Washington and the annual march on life. There are obviously women who feel that those are incompatible. We talked with former presidential candidate Carly Fiorina last year, and she said she was in town for the inauguration. She said she didn't go to the women's march because she didn't feel, as a pro-life woman, that she would be welcome there as part of it. You obviously don't feel that way. I wanted to ask you, you know, where do you see the common cause?
HERNDON-DE LA ROSA: Yeah. Luckily as a feminist, I don't really wait to be included or invited to things. I just show up because I want my voice heard. So - and the great news was, yes, we were removed as a sponsor because they didn't see us as a fit, but we still went anyway. And when we actually got out there, we had kind of hoped for the best but prepared for the worst. And we had woman after woman walk up to us and say, I disagree with you on the abortion issue, but I'm glad you're here. I mean, that is the beauty of intersectional feminism.
And so when you get to know me and know more about my story that, you know, I came from an unplanned pregnancy, from a mother who got pregnant college at 19 years old, and the only reason she was able to choose life for me is because of a support system that so many women don't have. You know, we talk a lot about access to abortion and that being, you know, one of the choices, but we don't really look at the other choices. Whether it's the exorbitant expense for adoption or how are we supporting women well who do choose life if they're single or young or students or any of these other things? And so we really want to shift that focus to there's so much common ground that pro-choice and pro-life feminists can absolutely agree on when it comes to finding those resources for women to help them with the other choices.
MARTIN: One of the other things that has happened this year is that there have been a number of jurisdictions, not necessarily in response to Code Pink and the women's marches, but street activists in general are trying to make it more difficult for groups to demonstrate in the streets when they are disruptive. In fact, a number of jurisdictions have taken steps - or states - state legislatures have taken steps to impose hefty fines on people when they believe that these demonstrations have been disruptive. Your colleague, Desiree Fairooz, was arrested actually for laughing during the congressional confirmation hearing of Jeff Sessions to be attorney general. The charges were eventually dropped, but I wanted to ask you about that. Has that affected your activism in any way?
BENJAMIN: Well, for example, just even in front of the White House, we can't physically get in front of the White House anymore. They put these barriers so that you have to go away from the street to Pennsylvania Avenue that's right in front of the White House and be in Lafayette Park. So I think that's terrible.
MARTIN: But I'm asking you about that because it started during the campaign, where demonstrators were punched, and that is a reality where there have been periods in which street demonstrations have more or less tolerated and periods in which they really aren't. And this seems to be another period in which there seems to be less tolerance for it, and the administration has made no secret of the fact that it does not approve of these kinds of things. I just wondered, is it affecting the way you and your fellow organizers think about the kinds of things you're willing to do?
BENJAMIN: Well, it's harder for some people - certainly for undocumented people, and that's why we have to give tremendous kudos to those in the undocumented movement who are coming out to protest and are chanting things like undocumented and unafraid. But many people who are undocumented are now afraid to come out to protests. And I think people of color find it harder to come out because they have been so targeted by the police. So I think a lot of our protests are smaller than they have been in the past. And yet, you see safer venues, like the protest for the women's march, where people do come out in larger numbers. And the great thing, I think, about the women's march this year is it's the women's marches. So they've been all over the country, and I think that actually gives a lot of strength to the movement.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, this is one of those common polling questions that, you know, everybody asks, but I still feel myself wanting to ask, do you feel generally optimistic or pessimistic about the direction that the country is going to - I don't know. Destiny, what about you?
HERNDON-DE LA ROSA: I feel very optimistic because I do think we're tired of politics. We want to make change, so you are seeing a lot more grassroots effort. And it's not just, I'm going to vote a couple times a year. It's I'm going to go give my time and talents to an organization I believe in that helps people and works towards the common good. And honestly, at the end of the day, that's where all of our power is.
MARTIN: Raquel, what about you? Are you generally optimistic or pessimistic about the direction the country is going in?
WILLIS: I would say, today, I am optimistic. I definitely think it shifts depending on what's happening in the news. But moving forward, I am optimistic. I've been working with other black trans women who are activists and organizers over the last few days, and we've been strategizing and figuring out how to get our power together. So I think also - part of it is also looking at the leadership that is at some of these organizations that are doing this liberation work. Do we see women of color in leadership positions? Do we see black women? Do we see disabled women, transgender women? Are they getting the support that they need in that leadership? And so I think if people can make those commitments as we move forward, then I will continue to be optimistic.
MARTIN: Medea, final thought?
BENJAMIN: I think as an activist, you kind of have to be optimistic because it's what gets you out of bed every morning and gets you out organizing and convincing other people to get involved. I think we're in a strange place in this country with Donald Trump in the White House, and I think the global community is looking at us and saying, what happened to the United States? I think we want to rejoin that community. I think most people want to be a nicer nation, want to have somebody that's a nicer face for us in the White House. So I think this is a bad moment in our history and we're going to get over it.
MARTIN: That's Medea Benjamin. She's co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink. Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa is a founder of the group New Wave Feminists. They were both kind of to join us here in our studios in Washington, D.C. And from KQED in San Francisco, Raquel Willis, national organizer with the Transgender Law Center. Thank you all so much for speaking with us.
WILLIS: Thank you.
BENJAMIN: Thank you, Michel.
HERNDON-DE LA ROSA: Thank you.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're starting to turn our attention to the Winter Olympics. They're just a few weeks away. So now is the time to get to know some of the athletes who will be representing Team USA next month in South Korea. Let's start with Kimani Griffin. He is a speed skater. This will be his first Olympic Games, but he is no stranger to the bright lights and big stage or to public broadcasting. That's because Kimani Griffin, a decade ago, at 17, was featured playing classical guitar at Carnegie Hall on the PBS program "From The Top At Carnegie Hall."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "FROM THE TOP AT CARNEGIE HALL")
KIMANI GRIFFIN: (Playing guitar).
MARTIN: Now he is preparing for the big trip to Pyeongchang, South Korea. We reached Kamani Griffin via Skype in Brookfield, Wis., where he is training. Welcome. Congratulations.
GRIFFIN: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for reaching out and having me on your show.
MARTIN: Qualifying must be incredibly nerve wracking, but you know I have to ask was it more or less nerve-wracking than making your Carnegie Hall debut?
GRIFFIN: I think they were about the same. I actually wasn't too nervous or felt under pressure for either one of those experiences. I think in both experiences, I was just having fun kind of in my element doing what I do.
MARTIN: When did you decide to jump into speed skating or to make that your priority over music?
GRIFFIN: Spring and summer of 2008 was kind of a big turning point in my life. I was, at that time, at the top of my game in skating and - inline skating, I should say - and with guitar. I was - I had just done an NPR show in Connecticut on the radio. I had just done the Carnegie Hall concert. So I was kind of in a tough spot as far as what I wanted to do with my life - what direction and paths I wanted to take. And I ended up getting a full ride to go to school in Georgia - Columbus State University.
I really enjoyed my time there. I - but I just - I don't know - I really missed skating. I really missed the world of working out and that competitive nature. And I was just kind of, like, a 19-year-old spur of the moment - maybe I'll move to Salt Lake and see if I can go down this path. Music and sports have been my two outlets in life. So luckily, when I left school, I kind of had another passion to fall back on and, I kind of took a risk. And eight years later, here I am.
MARTIN: Just briefly for those of us who aren't as familiar with, say, speed skating as we might be with other sports, tell us a little bit about the the joy of it.
GRIFFIN: Just - I guess for the 500, you have that 34, 35 seconds of just - time essentially stops. Like, you're just in the moment. You can't hear anything. I mean, even your coach is screaming at you on the backstretch, but you can't even hear him most of the time - at least for me. And I'm just, like, so focused in every little push, every little body angle, every movement that I'm doing to propel myself forward. And then when I cross the line, all of a sudden, I hear people screaming, and I look at the clock, and hopefully it's time that I want to see.
MARTIN: Wow. Well, you know I'm going to ask this. What music do you listen to get pumped up?
GRIFFIN: Before my race, when I'm kind of in the infield in the middle of the track, I enjoy listening to Gucci Mane. That kind of pumps me up. But Gucci's my go-to guy (laughter) before I race.
MARTIN: That's Kimani Griffin. He will be representing Team USA in long track speed skating the Winter Olympics. Kimani Griffin, thank you so much for speaking with us. Good luck to you.
GRIFFIN: Thank you so much for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MALL")
GUCCI MANE: (Rapping) I crash into your wall. Tijuana Cartel man, they killed him in the car. He think he invincible, think he above the law.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to go overseas now, where Vice President Mike Pence's Middle East trip continues. He has arrived in Jerusalem after stops in Egypt and Jordan. Pence is in the Middle East in an effort to soothe allies following President Trump's decision to recognize Jerusalem officially as the capital of Israel. NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith is with us now. She's been traveling with the vice president, and she's in Jerusalem as well. Hi, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hi.
MARTIN: So let's start with the government shutdown. The vice president visited a military installation to speak with U.S. troops. What did he have to say?
KEITH: Yeah. So this installation was near the Syrian border. These troops are involved in the fight against ISIS. So he talked about that a lot. But then he specifically blamed Democrats in the Senate for making these troops worry about whether or not they will get paid.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: A minority in the Senate has decided to play politics with military pay, but you deserve better. You and your family shouldn't have to worry for one minute about whether you're going to get paid as you serve in the uniform of the United States. So know this - your president, your vice president and the American people are not going to put up with it.
(APPLAUSE)
KEITH: Democrats in the Senate have tried to bring up legislation that would make sure troops continue to get paid even during the shutdown, but that has been blocked so far. And actually, just hours after the shutdown started, I asked Pence whether he would support legislation like that. And he really didn't answer that question directly at all.
MARTIN: So the vice president met today with King Abdullah of Jordan and on Saturday with President el-Sisi in Egypt. Now, both of those leaders have been vocal about their opposition to moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. How did those conversations go?
KEITH: Well, you know, we weren't in the room when they were actually talking to each other and really going at it. But it seems as though Pence got an earful. After his meeting with Abdullah, he said it was a very candid but cordial conversation between friends. And friends can be honest with each other. But Pence really seems to think that having these conversations is going to somehow be able to push this forward, push past that decision to plan to start moving the embassy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PENCE: If the parties agree, we will support a two-state solution. My perception was that he was encouraged by that message. I told him I would be delivering that message in Jordan, delivering that message in Israel as well.
KEITH: So what he is saying to them is, yes, we would like the peace process to move forward. Yes, we know you're mad, but we've done this thing, so can we please just move on?
MARTIN: Now, originally, the vice president was also supposed to meet with the Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, but then the Jerusalem decision was announced and that meeting was counseled by Abbas. So is there any sense that Pence is making progress, or is he getting any closer to restarting talks?
KEITH: Well, Pence has a schedule that has a lot of space in it over the next couple of days, but he has no meetings at all planned with Palestinians on this trip. But he's made it clear that he is open to and would like to meet with them. People familiar with the meetings that Pence has had so far both with King Abdullah and with President el-Sisi said that Pence actually appealed to them to reach out to folks at the Palestinian Authority and urge them to meet with him or otherwise get back to the negotiating table. But here's the thing - for the next two days, he is going to be in Israel. And in some ways, this is a victory lap. What will all of that send as a signal to the Palestinians? It's not clear. He says he's going to continue talking about a two-state solution, though.
MARTIN: That's NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith. Thank you so much.
KEITH: You're welcome.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
A year ago, Reverend Samuel Rodriguez made headlines and might have made history when he was invited as a Latino evangelical to pray at President Trump's inauguration ceremony. Reverend Rodriguez is president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and has remained in close contact with President Trump over this past year. But they've also parted ways on several issues, including the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals or DACA program. President Trump's decision to end it and the Democrats' determination to protect people already enrolled is tied to the current government shutdown. Reverend Rodriguez was in Washington advocating for a deal on DACA this past week right before the shutdown, so we asked him to come by. And I asked him what he hoped to accomplish in Washington.
SAMUEL RODRIGUEZ: I want to speak both to the White House and Congress and elevate the idea that we can't play politics with 800,000 young men and women. It is morally reprehensible. For goodness sake, enough is enough. They can't be bargaining chips in a deal. I mean, these kids lost their status. And they're living in perpetual limbo. They were raised here. They weren't brought here because they voted, you know, I want to come to America. It's morally reprehensible to even have them in this current state.
MARTIN: So let's go back to a year ago, when you were 1 of 5 ministers to offer prayer at the inauguration ceremony. As you know, this was controversial because there are a number of celebrities, for example, who declined what traditionally has been considered an honor. People asked you at the time, you know, this is a candidate - as a candidate had offered some very hard-line rhetoric on immigration. And you said that you hoped that you could be that bridge. Have you been that bridge? And what is overall your assessment of this first year of this administration?
RODRIGUEZ: Two components there. One, because I had served previously with President Obama - and George W. Bush, for that matter - I saw it as a continuum. Second, I'm an evangelical pastor. I love Jesus. And for me to have an opportunity to lift up the name of Jesus on one of the most powerful stages on the planet, it goes way beyond Trump and Obama and Bush. To me, it's about Jesus.
MARTIN: Do you feel that you have the president's ear?
RODRIGUEZ: He has given me access. He has heard me out even when I have disagreed on certain policy items. I have seen a pivot and a change as it pertains to descriptors and nomenclatures and some of the verbiage and rhetoric. But to hear him say on immigration a couple of weeks ago the love agenda, I want to advance a love agenda. Didn't that surprise...
MARTIN: Which was followed by language referring to certain countries in a very vulgar way.
RODRIGUEZ: And I stated without any hesitation my angst about that, of course.
MARTIN: You did. You issued a statement decrying that vulgar language. So which is the real Donald Trump?
RODRIGUEZ: I'm not with him 24/7, right? But when I sit down with this man, I have a sense of, I want to do the right thing. Is he the most polished, nuanced politician in American history? Absolutely not. Does he really believe that, via the conduit of his leadership, he can make America better? He really believes that.
MARTIN: Right around the time of your prayer at the inauguration, you were asked by another journalist what you would say to a member of your congregation whose mother or father was deported, right? And you said, that's not going to happen. Since that time, Noe Carias, us who was arrested by immigration officials because they said he was deportable - married to an American citizen, two young children and a minister like yourself - as being...
RODRIGUEZ: And my denomination. And without violating my ethical code of confidentiality when that took place, certain calls were made by certain people to a certain place.
MARTIN: So you're in a position to get special favors for people that you particularly care about because of your access?
RODRIGUEZ: No, not favor. No, no. I'm in a position to speak truth to power. I have access to - not to grant special favor but to protect the human dignity and the image of God in every single American and every single human being, including immigrants.
MARTIN: But for the 800,000 people who are now vulnerable, these 800,000 young people...
RODRIGUEZ: I'm advocating for them. It would be morally reprehensible if one of these kids would be deported.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, what kind of conversation do you think you and I are going to have a year from now?
RODRIGUEZ: I think the conversation will probably be, first of all, DACA passed. These kids are now legalized. They're legal. They're here. They're going to thrive in America. Second, there's a path to comprehensive immigration reform. Hopefully, that will pass. But I think we're going to be surprised with some sort of commission or entity that will address the issue of racial strife and discord, something on racial reconciliation and healing. If it's not through the executive branch, maybe the legislative branch. But something's going to happen nationally to have a conversation on racial healing and reconciliation. It has to take place.
MARTIN: That's Reverend Samuel Rodriguez. He's president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. And he was kind of to join us here in Washington, D.C. Reverend Rodriguez, thank you for speaking with us once again.
RODRIGUEZ: Thank you for having me.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
At the start of the decade, the musical group known as tUnE-yArDs hit their big break. It was with an album called "Whokill." TUnE-yArDs combined percussion with odd beats and odd writing.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BIZNESS")
TUNE-YARDS: (Singing) Help, please at least answer me this. Answer me. Answer me. What's the business, yeah? Don't take my knife away. Don't take my life away. From a distance, yeah.
KELLY: That voice is Merrill Garbus. And she was known then for owning the stage, drumming and dancing, her face painted in bright neon colors. Garbus' latest project is different. They're still dancing, but no more face paint. And the songs make you think.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HEART ATTACK")
TUNE-YARDS: (Singing) It's giving me a heart attack. We jump so high, but fall right back. Giving me a heart attack. Don't let me lose my soul. Giving me a heart attack. We jump so high, but fall right back. Giving me a heart attack. Don't let me lose my soul.
KELLY: Political and social reflections run deep through the lyrics. The album is called "I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life." And Merrill Garbus joins us now. Welcome.
MERRILL GARBUS: Thank you so much for having me.
KELLY: We're so glad to have you on. Start by describing your music to us. I ask because the last time we had you on NPR we described it as experimental folk rock. But it occurs to me that doesn't really begin to describe it.
GARBUS: (Laughter) It's always the hardest thing. And I said the other day that I appreciate how, you know, I'm allowed to maybe not classify the type of music I play because as soon as you do, then assumptions begin to be made and you start shutting out people. So I think...
KELLY: Yeah. You isolate all the people who think they don't like experimental folk rock.
GARBUS: Exactly. And plenty of people do not like experimental folk rock - maybe me.
(LAUGHTER)
GARBUS: So it's difficult for me to describe. I would say tUnE-yArDs is the world filtered through my experience and now my partner Nate Brenner's musical experience. I write the lyrics and we write the music together. And we are children of the '80s who have this wealth of musical influences that all end up in our music.
KELLY: And tell me about, you know, just the road you took to this album. I mean, for starters you're not performing - no more face paint. Why not?
GARBUS: Face paint, to me, it was replacing - you know, I took lipstick - instead of wearing it on my lips I wanted to wear it on my nose or taking eyeshadow and running it down my face. So for me it was almost a Picasso-ing (ph) of makeup. But now I think so much about cultural appropriation because so many of my influences are various forms of black music - music from Mali, music from South Africa, hip-hop. So I have a lot to answer for when it comes to cultural appropriation, and why not just take the face paint out of it?
KELLY: Well, let me drill down on that because there is a lot in this album that is about race. And I was struck by one of the songs - there's a line in there where you talk about singing using your white woman voice.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "COLONIZER")
TUNE-YARDS: (Singing) I use my white woman's voice to tell stories of travels with African men. I use my white woman's voice to tell stories of travels with African men. I comb my white woman's hair with a comb made especially generally for me. I use my white woman's voice to tell stories, stories.
KELLY: What were you trying to get at with that?
GARBUS: I was trying to tell the truth. My idea of the anti-racist work that I wanted to do in the world had to do with understanding the black experience. And although I think that that is something that I value, I think it's really time for me to talk about my white experience. You know, I was having a conversation with a friend about time that I spent in Kenya, and I found myself telling a story about traveling with this Kenyan man. And then I went and wrote a song, and I just said that. I used my white woman's voice to tell stories of travels with African men.
KELLY: Why? And why now? And why with this album has this come to be something you feel the need to talk about through your music?
GARBUS: One of the things that propelled me into this investigation of whiteness in myself was after our last album, which was very influenced by Haitian music, I looked out at our audiences and saw mostly white people. And around the time of I believe it was Eric Garner's death we played a show. And we played our song "Doorstep"...
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DOORSTEP")
TUNE-YARDS: (Singing) Policemen shot my baby as he crossed over my doorstep. Policemen shot my baby crossing right over my doorstep.
GARBUS: ...Which is specifically about police violence. And I looked out and I saw one young black man with his hands up in the hands-up-don't-shoot position. And I didn't see any white people's hands up. I didn't see anyone around him in solidarity with him. And that image is just burned in my mind. And I felt like something's not right here. Something that we could be doing is not happening. And how do I make this happen? And I think my first step was to go examine myself and examine how these things live in me.
And that's really where the title of the album came from, "I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life." You know, I think it feels like it's relevant to the surveillance paranoia and era that we're in. But it's also, for me, how these things are living in me. How can I not go, you know, call out other people and blame other people but really look at this in me?
KELLY: OK, so you've been on this big learning process, digging deep into yourself. I mean, I can hear that in your voice. Tell me how that comes through in the music. I mean, point me toward a place that you were struggling with so we can it.
GARBUS: One of the songs was "Now As Then."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NOW AS THEN")
TUNE-YARDS: (Singing) No, don't trust me that I won't take all the money and run.
GARBUS: One of the lyrics is don't trust me. And, you know, that's something that I am really trying to come to grips with, is that I'm actually not to be trusted as a white woman by many people in this society. And that drives me to earn that trust through the work I'm going to do in this world. But this is a case where I felt it's almost like a warning. I will tend to forget that I'm white. I will tend to forget that I live in white supremacy. I'll tend to forget that I have all these privileges. And I need to turn the other direction and really face the reality of who I am in this society.
KELLY: Merrill Garbus, you're posing some really hard questions in this music. I mean, at the heart of this is what is the role of you as an artist in speaking out about race and about social justice? I can hear your struggle in there. I wonder, did you arrive at any answers through the process of writing and recording this album?
GARBUS: (Laughter) No.
(LAUGHTER)
GARBUS: No. And...
KELLY: Ongoing process, yeah.
GARBUS: Ongoing. And I think that even now, at the very least if there is an answer I think it's movement and knowing that I'm going to get this wrong. I'm going to say things that are unintentionally insensitive and racist on the radio. And that that is part of my process and that's part of doing this, is in the effort to open doors and to move that I will make mistakes.
KELLY: Merrill Garbus, thank you.
GARBUS: Thank you.
KELLY: That's Merrill Garbus talking about the new album from tUnE-yArDs. It is their fourth. It's titled "I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ABC 123")
TUNE-YARDS: (Singing) I called you up because I thought you'd see it my way. I looked for freedom and I found it on the highway. No other option, so I'm peeling out the driveway. Sing those brand-new ABCs. A, B, C, one...
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
One in 5 American workers depend on freelance or contract work for their primary income. That is 32 million people. What's more, it's expected that half of American workers will either be freelancers or contractors within a decade. These figures come from an NPR/Marist poll released today, and they represent a remarkable shift in nearly every industry, a shift that means many workers will lose the benefits associated with full-time employment. NPR's Yuki Noguchi reports as part of our weeklong look at the rise of the freelance workforce.
DARYL SHETTERLY: This was a stamping factory back in the early 1900s. I think the building itself is a little more than a hundred years old.
YUKI NOGUCHI, BYLINE: Amid the relics of an old factory in Wheeling, W. Va., a law firm called Orrick has set up a new business model for how to get legal work done. Daryl Shetterly is director of Orrick's analytics division. On the way to his office, he points to faded photos.
SHETTERLY: And these are folks - none of whom I've met - but they've all clearly had some history in the building.
NOGUCHI: The photo captions show the workers' years of service measured in decades. In the building today, workers can be hired for just a few days.
SHETTERLY: Contractors are hired by the hour. We pay them when we're using them, and that is our ability to scale. And so we might have 30 people working today, and tomorrow we might have 80.
NOGUCHI: This used to be, like, a factory, right? And do you consider it sort of a factory now?
SHETTERLY: It is a factory in that we work to drive efficiency and discipline into every mouse click.
NOGUCHI: This division of Orrick was set up as a kind of processing center. Using artificial intelligence and cheaper lawyers speeds up routine tasks such as sorting and tagging documents. The operation is a testament to how contract work is expanding into every corner of the economy. More lawyers are temping or using online platforms to match them with clients. The legal field, in other words, is fragmenting. Gillian Hadfield studies legal markets at the University of Southern California.
GILLIAN HADFIELD: Lots of people go into law expecting that they're headed to a secure, well-paying, intellectually satisfying, high-prestige job. And lots of those people find out that's not what they're headed to.
NOGUCHI: Hadfield says the speed with which business evolves these days forces everyone else to respond quickly. Employers need specialized expertise on demand, just not for the long term. It's not just business driving the trend. The NPR/Marist poll found a large majority of freelancers are free agents by choice.
John Vensel is a contract attorney at Orrick who grew up a few miles from Wheeling on the other side of the Pennsylvania state line. In his 20s, he was a freelance paralegal by day, gig musician by night.
JOHN VENSEL: I actually wanted to be a rock star (laughter).
NOGUCHI: Now 47, there are no edgy vestiges of a former rocker, only a family man cooing over cell phone photos.
VENSEL: Those are my babies. That's Grace, and that's Gabe.
NOGUCHI: In the two decades in between, Vensel worked full-time corporate jobs, but he was laid off in 2010 on the eve of his graduation from his night school law program. That year, he graduated with huge piles of debt into one of the worst job markets in decades.
VENSEL: It was terrible. It was like a nuclear bomb went off when, you know, my son had just been born. It was pretty bad. You know, we've been kind of recovering ever since.
NOGUCHI: For a time, Vensel commuted three hours round-trip for a full-time job in Pittsburgh. But more recently, he quit and took up contracting to stay near home in Wheeling.
VENSEL: So like, my father - he's in the hospital right now, which is, like, five minutes away. And I'm getting updates on my phone. Now it's just buzzing. And if I need to be there, I can be there in five minutes.
NOGUCHI: He says contract work is today's economic reality.
VENSEL: You're trading for that flexibility. You're trading for these opportunities to get your feet wet in certain areas and to try them out as they're trying you out.
NOGUCHI: And is that something you would like to do - is ultimately get a full-time position?
VENSEL: Yeah, absolutely.
NOGUCHI: But that may be increasingly difficult. Within a decade, many labor economists believe freelancers will outnumber full-timers.
VENSEL: My father retired from the post office after 35 years. Yeah, I mean, that's just - we don't live in that world anymore. He has a pension. You know, we don't have pensions anymore. It's a totally different world.
NOGUCHI: A short distance from Orrick's offices, Glenn Elliott is thinking about the implications of that different world. Elliott is the mayor of Wheeling, who himself once worked as a contractor at a law firm.
GLENN ELLIOTT: I only got paid if I did work.
NOGUCHI: He says contract work holds both great promise and great peril for the city. On the plus side, Elliott sees more economic opportunities if it can attract more companies like Orrick. On the other hand, Mayor Elliott worries how this also changes the relationship between employers and workers.
ELLIOTT: I don't think that loyalty necessarily exists between employers and their employees that used to be there.
NOGUCHI: Those looser ties also shift more responsibility to the contract workers. They must handle retirement saving and health insurance on their own.
ELLIOTT: But some people, like, despite their best efforts just aren't going to be successful in doing that. And what's going to happen to those who fall through the cracks? The 1950s model of retirement and getting your pension check every year from your company is not a realistic model for a lot of people increasingly.
NOGUCHI: Elliott says the public safety net is already strained by the area's opioid problems, among other things. A future where fewer workers have benefits won't help. The country needs to be having these discussions, he says, but isn't. And with the workforce changing so quickly, the need to answer those questions is urgent. Yuki Noguchi, NPR News, Wheeling, W. Va.
(SOUNDBITE OF ALL GOOD FUNK ALLIANCE SONG, "I DON'T CARE IF IT'S YOUR BIRTHDAY")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
When it comes to immigrants being deported under the Trump administration, Mexicans and Central Americans get a lot of attention because they are the most affected. But year-end figures show the Trump administration is aggressively deporting people from other places, too. NPR's John Burnett reports that Irish nationals living illegally in Boston have seen a rise in detentions, and they're worried.
JOHN BURNETT, BYLINE: Dylan O'Riordan, 19 years old, wears a lemon-yellow jail jumpsuit and a bewildered expression on his pale face as he sits in the visiting room of the Suffolk County House of Corrections.
DYLAN O'RIORDAN: I was aware that, like, probably with Trump, like, immigration was going to get a lot harder. I still really paid no - as much of mind to it as I should have, which was my first mistake.
BURNETT: O'Riordan was born in Galway, Ireland. Both parents previously lived in the U.S. and had green cards. When they moved back to the Boston area, they brought Dylan with them on a visa-waiver program. He was 12 years old. He overstayed his 90 days and lived his life like any other American teenager, though he was unauthorized. He had a child with his girlfriend, Brenna, dropped out of high school, and went to work for his uncle's roofing company. About four months ago, he and Brenna were at a mall when they got into an argument.
O'RIORDAN: It was nothing at all. Some woman called the cops, said I was abusing my girlfriend.
BURNETT: O'Riordan was arrested for domestic assault and battery, but Brenna denied she'd been assaulted. The county chose not to prosecute. O'Riordan had no prior criminal record, so the judge let him go. Then when he walked out of the holding cell, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement were waiting for him. Someone in the courthouse had tipped them off. He's been locked up for four months now.
Visitors from some countries with good U.S. relations do not need visas, but they're at a disadvantage compared to immigrants who illegally cross the border. They don't have a right to an immigration hearing if they stay past 90 days. O'Riordan's lawyer, Tony Marino, made the case to ICE that his client was brought here when he was a child.
TONY MARINO: And their position has been, well, he waived whatever rights he had when he came in. Twelve-year-olds don't waive rights. I've never seen anything like it. I can't wrap my head around it.
BURNETT: An ICE spokesman in Boston points out O'Riordan overstayed more than seven years and that he should be removed. They plan to put him on a plane to Dublin later this week. Dylan O'Riordan is not an isolated case. Undocumented Irish have been swept up in the administration's nationwide immigration dragnet. Under strict new rules, anyone here illegally is a target whether they're convicted of a crime or not. In 2017, ICE deported 34 Irish, up from 26 the year before. The numbers are tiny compared to more than a hundred thousand Mexicans deported. But in Boston's close-knit Irish community, the wave of arrests is big news. It's all the talk at the The Green Briar Irish pub. Tommy O'Connor works the beer taps there.
TOMMY O'CONNOR: I served you a half and half served with one of our local beers, Sam Adams. And the other half is Guinness.
BURNETT: O'Connor says the deportation of one of his customers caused panic. The prominent Irish immigrant had talked to an Irish TV crew about the fear of being unauthorized in the U.S. Within weeks, ICE picked him up and sent him back to Ireland.
O'CONNOR: And it was a shock because it wasn't during a traffic stop. He was arrested in his home. That means - and it could happen to anybody because he was, you know, a very well-known figure in the Irish community.
BURNETT: ICE is aggressively deporting people from everywhere. Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras account for nine out of 10 deportations, but removals to 186 other countries, from Slovakia to Somalia, have jumped 24 percent compared to Obama's last year in office according to an analysis by NPR.
RONNIE MILLAR: That's really indiscriminate. ICE have - in their aggressive tactics of detention are going after the Irish as much as they're going after any other nationality.
BURNETT: Ronnie Millar is director of the Irish International Immigrant Center in Boston.
MILLAR: I would say that Irish immigrants are on high alert. They have no confidence that the color of their skin provides any protection.
BURNETT: Dylan O'Riordan didn't necessarily think being white would save him from deportation orders. He thought staying out of trouble would keep him under the radar. He says the other ICE detainees were surprised to see him.
O'RIORDAN: They're like, are you supposed to be here? Like, you're basically American. You look American. You sound American.
BURNETT: He's confined with 150 other men in various stages of deportation.
O'RIORDAN: There's a lot of people from El Salvador, a lot of Guatemalans, couple of Haitian people. And I'm the only Irish in the whole facility.
BURNETT: The Boston ICE office sent a statement to NPR that it apprehends, quote, "all those in violation of immigration laws regardless of national origin." Ireland estimates as many as 50,000 unauthorized Irish live in the shadows in America. Their government is so concerned that it appointed a special envoy to the U.S. Congress. His mission - try and work out a legislative fix for undocumented Irish to find them a pathway to citizenship and get more work visas. Fionnuala Quinlan, the Irish consul general in Boston, says with the island's small population, there's hardly a family in Ireland that doesn't know of someone living illegally in America.
FIONNUALA QUINLAN: That's really why the government places such a strong emphasis on us. We know the impact that living an undocumented life has on people - not being able to go home for funerals or celebrations, you know, the fear and isolation that can result from that.
BURNETT: The Irish government is seeking a solution because of cases like Dylan O'Riordan. He and Brenna were married in the jail chapel. She wasn't allowed to wear a wedding dress, so she donned jeans and a sweatshirt. He wore his jail clothes emblazoned with ICE. Brenna says she now plans to take their infant daughter Delilah and move to Ireland. She and Dylan hope their marriage will help him get a green card to return to Boston one day. Meanwhile, she says, she's being forced out of her country just to be with her husband. John Burnett, NPR News, Boston.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
To South Korea now where a backlash is building against plans to show unity with North Korea at next month's Olympics. The president's approval rating has dropped sharply, and in Seoul today protesters set fire to a photo of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. NPR's Elise Hu reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in Korean).
ELISE HU, BYLINE: "We oppose, we oppose," shouted demonstrators at Seoul Station, the train and subway station in the center of the capital city. They showed up to confront a North Korean advance team which was here to scout out Olympic venues. This coziness between the North and South came about just in the past two weeks. Athletes from the two Koreas will march under one unified flag, and they'll form a joint North-South women's hockey team. Last week, South Korean President Moon Jae-In called the moves important steps toward peace in North-South relations.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT MOON JAE-IN: (Speaking Korean).
HU: "That scene alone will be a historic moment to be remembered for a long time," Moon said during a visit to South Korean athletes at their Olympic training center. "Not only will Koreans be moved," he said, "but people around the world will be deeply moved." Many South Koreans aren't impressed. Over the weekend in Seoul's Itaewon neighborhood, where locals and tourists crowd the busy sidewalks, Shin Jae-mun told us he feels like South Korean Olympians are being used as political pawns.
SHIN JAE-MUN: It's not a smart move. South Korean ice hockey team already practiced a lot by playing their own team.
HU: President Moon's approval rating fell to the second-lowest of his presidency amid public anger over the combined women's hockey team. Seventy-three percent of South Koreans in a poll this month said they saw no need for a combined team. Petitions against the move flooded the president's office, some of them with tens of thousands of signatures each.
KATHARINE MOON: I think South Koreans don't want North Koreans free-riding.
HU: Katharine Moon is a professor and Asian studies chair at Wellesley College.
K. MOON: There is real concern and empathy for the South Korean players, especially the women's ice hockey team that's basically being forced to play with strangers.
HU: As time wears on under two separate Koreas, younger generations don't feel the same connection to North Korea as their grandparents, who remember a time when they were all part of the same country. As North Korea has built up its nuclear and missile capabilities, trust has worn down.
K. MOON: Unification has to be something that both Koreas substantively work on. You can't just talk about it rhetorically. You can't just wish it. And you can't just put on orchestral and cheering squad shows in order to say you have unification. And I think South Koreans are demanding some substance.
HU: Shin says he's skeptical this will affect relations in the long term.
SHIN: North Korean government is not reasonable government. They are unpredictable. These Olympic things will not last long enough.
HU: At the demonstration against North Korea today, protesters complained the PyeongChang Olympics were turning into the Pyongyang Olympics. They used a blowtorch to set fire to a photo of Kim Jong Un until police helped stamp it out. The outcry prompted South Korean President Moon to ask for more public support for efforts to make peace. We may not be able to create such an opportunity for dialogue again, Moon said, referring to the fragile state of relations right now. South Korean student Byun Joo-kyung says she gets it.
BYUN JOO-KYUNG: We have a lot of tension, so maybe we have to lower it.
HU: But she doubts this will change North Korea's nuclear posture. That uncertainty about harmony with the North is driving the domestic political divide in the South. Elise Hu, NPR News, Seoul.
(SOUNDBITE OF LITTLE PEOPLE'S "MAKEMEBETTER")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Here are a few of the things that happen when small police departments don't have enough money. They pay officers the equivalent of fast food wages. They employ officers who might have troubled pasts or have been fired from other departments. And when there are questionable police shootings, rarely is anyone held accountable. Patrick Smith of member station WBEZ reports on some small police departments outside Chicago.
PATRICK SMITH, BYLINE: Two years ago, Robert Collins took over as police chief in the Chicago suburb of Dolton, population 22,000.
ROBERT COLLINS: When I first came aboard, one of my first things to do was look at the history of the department. And I did notice that there were quite a few officer-involved shootings.
SMITH: Indeed, Dolton has had nine police shootings since 2005 - tied for the most in suburban Cook County.
COLLINS: To be honest with you, I don't know how we would explain it to people.
SMITH: One explanation could be who Dolton hires for its police force and how they're trained and monitored once they join the force. Experts say in many budget-strapped towns like Dolton, a lack of resources leads to a lack of accountability for bad actions. There's one officer on the Dolton police force who has killed one man and wounded three others in separate shootings. Before he was hired by Dolton, that officer had already been suspended by one department for shooting and fired by another for misconduct. For most police forces, that background would raise a red flag. But for cash-strapped suburbs like Dolton, it made him affordable.
The Chicago Police Department estimates it costs $140,000 for the first year of hiring a new recruit. That's money many suburbs just don't have, so they'd rather take a fully trained-up officer with some baggage than pay to put someone through the academy. Chief Collins says since he's taken over in Dolton, he's raised the department's standards. But he's quick to acknowledge the struggle between budgeting and policing.
COLLINS: Unfortunately, sometimes there's not a lot of money to hire what you need. You just have to make do with what you have.
TOM DART: As a result of that, you get officers bouncing around the departments. And it's not good. It's not good. I just don't know what the mechanism is to stop that.
SMITH: That's Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, who spends a lot of his time working with distressed suburban police departments. One town just outside of Chicago, the village of Robbins, has almost all part-time police officers. The pay there is 10.50 an hour. That's less than the starting rate at Walmart. The pay for a Robbins cop was $10 an hour in 2008 when a part-time officer accidentally shot an innocent 13-year-old in the back. Nothing happened to the officer involved or to the officer in Dolton who's been involved in five shootings since 2005.
In fact, according to an investigation by WBEZ and the Better Government Association, rarely are there consequences for suburban officers after questionable shootings. Out of more than a hundred shootings since 2005, no officer has been charged with a crime for any of them. No officers have been disciplined in any way or even ordered for retraining. Our investigation found only a handful of instances in which a department even did a review.
DART: Reality is, you know, in a lot of these different towns that you name, they have a hard enough time getting police to patrol the town, let alone to have a separate part of their office set aside that just analyzes police-involved shootings.
SMITH: Peter Moskos spent a couple of years as a cop in Baltimore. He now teaches at John Jay College of Criminal Justice. He says in suburbs and small departments throughout the country, these issues often get overlooked.
PETER MOSKOS: And so we just don't know because there's no account. And yeah, if there's shady stuff going on, I think it's much more likely to happen in small towns where there's no oversight.
SMITH: In the Chicago suburbs, that means the departments struggling with high crime and low budgets can miss out on opportunities to learn from mistakes and improve training or policies. It means residents who most need help from police often have to deal with poorly trained officers, some who can stay on patrol despite numerous shootings. That Dolton officer who's been involved in all those shootings was recently promoted to detective. For NPR News, I'm Patrick Smith in Chicago.
(SOUNDBITE OF DAM-FUNK'S "NIGHT STROLL")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The partial government shutdown appears to be coming to an end three days after it began. The breakthrough came when Democrats led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed to fund the government until February 8. That's a little under three weeks from now. In exchange, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell pledged to take action on immigration. Beyond that, there aren't a lot of details. In a statement, President Trump said he's pleased the Democrats have come to their senses. He says once the government is funded, his administration will work toward a long-term deal on immigration but, quote, "if and only if it's good for our country."
NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson is at the White House to talk about all of this. Hey, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi there.
MCEVERS: Just first to make sure we know what's happening, where do things stand now?
LIASSON: Where things stand now is that both houses of Congress have passed another short-term funding bill which gives Democrats, Republicans and the president a three-week reprieve. They now have until February 8 to figure out a deal on DACA, which is the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. This was protection from deportation for immigrants who were brought here as children, many of them illegally.
President Trump has removed that protection, and he gave Congress until March 5 to figure out a solution, or else these DACA recipients would be subject to deportation. If a deal on DACA can't be reached by February 8, according to Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, his intention would be to let the issue go to the Senate floor.
MCEVERS: As we look back on these three days, this partial shutdown, I mean, which party comes out of the whole thing a winner?
LIASSON: The White House feels very confident that they won this round. The Trump campaign is already sending around a fundraising email saying Democrats caved. The president's son on Fox today said the shutdown has been good for us. And it's true. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, didn't get that much when he agreed to this deal except for an extension of the Children's Health Program for six years. And a lot of left-wing groups who are part of the Democrats' base agree with the White House. They think Schumer gave in too easily.
But whatever the political victory for the Republicans is, it's probably a short-term one because when the conversation was about shutting down the government on behalf of people in the country illegally, Democrats were losing the debate. But when the conversation turns back to what should be done about DACA recipients, Democrats are on firmer ground because vast majorities of Americans think those young people should have a path to citizenship.
MCEVERS: One of the issues that was reported - that came out that, you know, Democrats and Republicans didn't necessarily know where President Trump stood on this. And Senator Schumer said over the weekend, negotiating with President Trump is like negotiating with Jell-O. I think what - people are wondering why the president wasn't more involved in the conversation.
LIASSON: Well, that's a good question, and the White House was very intent on pushing back against this notion that the president was a kind of bystander and uninvolved in the weekend negotiations over the shutdown. Here's White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders.
(SOUNDBITE OF PRESS CONFERENCE)
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS: Look; what the president did clearly worked. The vote just came in 81-18. I would say that those numbers are much more in the president's favor than in Senator Schumer's favor.
LIASSON: So we still don't know exactly what the president wants in a final deal, but we know at least in terms of this particular skirmish the president got a tactical victory. He gets to take credit, which he really likes to do.
MCEVERS: NPR's Mara Liasson at the White House, thanks a lot.
LIASSON: Thank you.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Now, when we talk about DACA recipients, we're talking about roughly 700,000 young adults. One of them is Cesar Vargas. He's a lawyer and activist, and he says today his emotions are split. He is glad to hear the government will reopen, but he doubts Senate Democrats and Republicans can strike a deal on DACA by February 8.
CESAR VARGAS: We have no commitment from House Republicans. We have no commitment from the Trump administration that they will actually act to protect DREAMers. So this is where Senator Schumer really gave in a little too early.
BRITTANY AGUILERA: It just gives you a atmosphere of worry, and you can't really be at ease with anything.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
That's Brittany Aguilera. She lost her DACA status in December when it expired. And then she also lost her job. She can't work until her status is renewed. She says it was hard to watch the back and forth on Capitol Hill.
AGUILERA: I would just like them so pass something. Honestly, I just want to work. I just want to make my way and manage my life. That's all I really want to do.
KELLY: Meanwhile, 22-year-old Carla Aguirre was brought to the U.S. from Mexico when she was 6. She says today she is angry and disappointed with Congress.
CARLA AGUIRRE: We can talk and scream and tell them what it is that our community needs. But at this point, it's Congress - the ones that need to do something. Congress has our lives in their hands, and the fact that they are not taking this seriously is very angering for my community.
MCEVERS: Those are DACA recipients reacting to the political deal that ends the government shutdown.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
OK, let's bring in another voice here - Senator Angus King of Maine. He is an independent, but he caucuses with Democrats. Senator King, welcome back to the show.
ANGUS KING: Glad to be with you.
KELLY: Glad to have you with us. Let me start here. What did Democrats get from this shutdown, by which I mean, what did they get today that they didn't have on Friday?
KING: Well, I think that what they got was an assurance before the entire American public from the majority leader to bring a DACA bill to the floor failing negotiations over the next two weeks. There hasn't been an immigration bill on the floor of the Senate in five years, and I think that was a - real progress. Finally this morning, Mitch McConnell publicly said, I will bring a bill to the floor. It will be - I can't remember the exact terms of - a level playing field, a bill where all sides will be heard. And that's progress. That hasn't happened before.
And for those of you that are - for those who are critical of the decision, I guess their couple of points is, would staying in a shutdown situation longer have improved the prospects? I think probably not. In fact, I think it would have worked in the opposite direction. And the other answer is Dick Durbin supported it. There is no one in Congress who has given more on behalf of the DREAMers than Dick Durbin. This is something he's been working on for 17 years. He is absolutely passionate.
And I think he made a tactical decision today that the shutdown was not accomplishing the goals - in fact, in the long run, it may have been negative - and that for the first time, we had a commitment from the majority leader to bring the bill to the floor on a date certain. And importantly, the moderate Republicans that I've been meeting with all weekend along with a group of moderate Democrats - they - Mitch McConnell has an obligation to them now, too.
KELLY: Let me ask this. Do you trust Mitch McConnell to keep his word? And I ask because there have been earlier promises made in exchange for other votes to Republican senators Flake, Susan Collins of Maine, your colleague from Maine, where they promised votes in support of the tax overhaul. And promises made to them have not yet come to pass. I mean, it seems that Congress has a trust issue that has not been resolved by what happened today.
KING: Well, I think that's a fair question. But we will know the answer to that question in three weeks. I think it's very - it'll be very hard for - it's one thing to make a promise behind closed doors in a conversation. It's another thing to be before C-SPAN and before the whole world saying, I will bring a bill forward. It will be neutral. It will be a open, level playing field. That's a commitment. And by the way, the commitments that he made to...
KELLY: And that's what significant to you - that's what's significant that Senator McConnell did today that you wanted him to do Friday and you weren't seeing yet.
KING: Yes.
KELLY: Yeah.
KING: Yes.
KELLY: Public promise.
KING: I wasn't seeing that. The other thing was his rhetoric changed this morning. All this weekend, he's been talking about, this is about illegal immigration, illegal immigration. And this morning, he didn't utter those words. He talked about DACA. And I think that's a change of tone. That was important. Now, will it work out? We don't know. But at some point, you have to try to make the best decision you can. I quoted Mick Jagger on the floor the other day. You can't always get what you want.
KELLY: (Laughter) And you don't always get to quote Mick Jagger on the floor. So that's a...
KING: That's right. I think it may have been a first.
KELLY: ...A mini victory right there. I wonder; in all of the politicking and back-and-forthing over the weekend - any progress on the substance? Are we still where we were on Friday in terms of the actual policy at stake here on immigration?
KING: Well, I literally walked out of a meeting on that very subject five minutes ago, and the discussions have started in a very serious and bipartisan way by some people of good faith to try to find a resolution. But it's important to understand. We're going to try very hard to find a resolution in the next three weeks. If we can't, the fallback is Mitch McConnell's commitment to bring a bill to the floor so that we can have amendments and debate. And then we've got to get the votes, and that's the end of the process in any case.
KELLY: Now, Senator King, another way that we could look at today's events would be this - 17 days till the next shutdown. I mean, how confident are you that, on February 8, we won't be in the same place, you and I having the same conversation?
KING: If I wasn't confident that we won't be in that place, I wouldn't have voted for the resolution. I voted against it the other day. My principal problem, by the way, in all of this has not necessarily been DACA, although I - that's a very, very important issue. And I understand the significance, particularly for those young people you were just talking to.
But I'm sick and tired of continuing resolutions generally. It's a lousy way to govern. It puts off decisions. We've gotten into the routine of doing it. We've done it five times per year for the past 20 years. We haven't had a budget on time. So I'm - there are two things that came out of this. A lot of people are now saying, we got to quit doing continuing resolutions. If we weld shut that escape hatch, maybe we'll get more timely decisions. The other...
KELLY: And in a few seconds - in the few seconds we have left, did you learn anything here on how Congress will kick this habit?
KING: Well, I think there are a lot of people - and that's what I was going to say. The best thing to emerge from this is a strong middle. There was a group of 20 senators from both sides who met four or five times over the weekend many, many hours, worked with both of their leaders and I think had a significant role in getting this thing done. And the middle has got to assert itself, and that's what happened today.
KELLY: Maine independent Angus King - Senator King, thanks very much for your time.
KING: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHICHA LIBRE'S "DANZA DEL MILLONARIO")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
On Saturday, Turkish jets bombed the Syrian city of Afrin. Then yesterday, Turkish troops crossed into Syria, advancing on Afrin and the Kurdish forces who control it. Today, there is still fighting there. It's a new front in the multilayered Syrian civil war and one that puts the U.S. in a tricky situation. Turkey is a NATO ally, but some of the Kurdish forces in Afrin have also partnered with the U.S. to fight against ISIS or, as some say it, ISIL. We wanted to understand Turkey's thinking on the Afrin offensive, so we asked Omer Taspinar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a professor at the National War College.
OMER TASPINAR: The main reason is Turkey's anger over U.S. cooperation with the Kurdish group in northern Syria. In the eyes of Turkey, this Kurdish group that has been a very effective fighter against the Islamic State - ISIL - is an affiliate of a Kurdish terrorist organization that has been waging a war in Turkey since the 1980s, the PKK. The YPG in Syria, which is the Kurdish group, is strongly affiliated with the PKK. And in the eyes of Turkey, the United States is cooperating with a terrorist organization in order to fight another terrorist organization, and that's not acceptable.
MCEVERS: You know, to listeners, it might sound like a lot of letters - the PKK, the YPG. I think the important distinction for people in the Turkish government - right? - is that some of these fighters have been designated as terrorists and work against the Turkish state, right?
TASPINAR: That's right. The PKK is an acknowledged terrorist organization by the United States. The YPG, however, the Syrian wing of the party is not, and they have never attacked Turkey, so the United States has this gray zone where you can operate, saying, yes, they are organically linked, but they have not targeted Turkey. They are active in Syria, and by the way, they are very effective against ISIL. Turkey basically accepted the U.S. cooperation with the Syrian Kurds very reluctantly, hoping that this cooperation would end once the fight against ISIL ends. It did not happen this way.
Last week, the United States declared that it would continue its cooperation with the Syrian Kurds and establish a Border Security Force about 30,000 strong. And Turkey realized that this partnership between the United States and the Kurds was turning into a strategic partnership more than just a tactical operational alliance. And it wanted to send a very strong signal to the United States that it would not be acceptable.
MCEVERS: Why go after Afrin specifically?
TASPINAR: Afrin is an area that is geographically very close to Turkey - 15, 20 miles from the Turkish border. And the fact that it is right on the Turkish border makes it operationally easier for Turkey. Turkey does not want to have a contiguous border stretch of Kurdish provinces, and strategically, it makes sense for Turkey to create basically a pocket where it has its own troops to break this contiguity of the Kurdish provinces.
MCEVERS: Do you think there are any successful talks going on between the United States and Turkey about how to sort of ratchet this back, pull this back at this point?
TASPINAR: Well, the Pentagon said that Turkey cleared the targets that it has been hitting with Washington. In that sense, there is some level of acceptance coming from Washington. However, the dialogue between Ankara and Washington has been really strained by Turkey's purchase of missile defense from Russia. Turkey more recently has been aligned its (ph) foreign policy in Syria more with Russia and Iran. There are also problems such as the presence of Fethullah Gulen in the United States, who's a U.S.-based Muslim cleric that Erdogan blames for the failed coup. And in that sense, there is a lot of tension in Turkish-American relations right now.
MCEVERS: Omer Taspinar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and professor at the National War College, thanks so much.
TASPINAR: Thank you.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The Trump administration has made clear in recent weeks that it intends to maintain a U.S. presence in Syria. That's despite the fact that the government of Syria doesn't seem to want that. This would be in the area of Raqqa, where U.S. and local forces forced ISIS out last year in a battle that took months. Much of the city is now in ruins. And NPR's Michele Kelemen was there today with a senior U.S. official. She's on the line from Kuwait to tell us about her trip. Hi, Michele.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Who did you go into Syria with, and what did you see in Raqqa?
KELEMEN: Well, we went with the CENTCOM commander Joseph Votel and also the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, Mark Green. You know, it was an extraordinary visit. We took a drive right through central Raqqa, got out and walked around the soccer stadium. That's where ISIS reportedly executed Syrians. We even went down into the basement area where ISIS had held people prisoner and tortured people. Mark Green said that it was a reminder of the depth of their evil, what we were seeing there. Let's take a listen to how he describes the whole drive through the town as he saw it.
MARK GREEN: So as you drive around, you see block after block that's been completely destroyed and devastated. You see rubble everywhere. You see twisted metal. You see streets that are blocked. And yet you see signs of human spirit.
KELEMEN: And by that, Mary Louise, he meant that you're starting to see some signs of life. Some shops are open. Some people are rebuilding. There are trucks that are moving rubble away. In fact, one of the special forces officers who was showing me around said things have changed a lot in recent weeks, though it looked pretty devastating to me as a first-timer there.
KELLY: And that stadium - we heard so much about that during the fall of Raqqa. I mean, what does it look like now? Is it cleaned up? Is it quiet?
KELEMEN: Very quiet, but you know, nothing is there. It's been totally destroyed. And as you go down into the basement, there's rubble everywhere, and all you see are kind of some empty rooms and empty beds that - Votel said that that's where they were electrocuting people.
KELLY: And you mentioned you went in with Votel, the commander of Central Command - so the military officer overseeing what the U.S. is doing there - which prompts me to ask, what is the U.S. doing there? The U.S. says it's not doing nation building, so what's it doing?
KELEMEN: They don't call it nation building anymore. That's for sure. They say that it's stabilization. The main thing they want to do is clear out landmines - ISIS left thousands of them in the city - and get basic services back on track like water and electricity so that people can move back to their homes if they have them. They're looking at smaller things.
I mean, Votel said that this is - cleaning up the rubble is a massive job that could take years. What they're doing is focusing on the things that they can do. There are about 2,000 U.S. troops - at least that's the official count - that are in northern Syria. And USAID and the State Department have a small team of experts who are overseeing some of these projects - anywhere from 10 to 17 people on a given day in northern Syria.
KELLY: Meanwhile, the U.S. has got a couple of dozen aid workers and a whole lot of U.S. troops who are there. Do we know how long they might stay there?
KELEMEN: Well, that's one of the problems - is trying to figure that out because they say that their focus really is on making sure ISIS doesn't reemerge. But we had Secretary of State Rex Tillerson recently lay out a much more ambitious agenda, talking about resolving the broader conflict, getting Bashar al-Assad out of the way and containing Iran's influence in Syria.
KELLY: Thank you, Michele.
KELEMEN: Thank you.
KELLY: That's our diplomatic correspondent Michele Kelemen talking about her trip today into the Syrian city of Raqqa.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
It wasn't until about midday today that senators announced they had a deal to end the government shutdown now in its third day. Some federal employees have been working without knowing whether they'd get paid. Others spent much of today wondering when they'd get to go back to work. NPR's Sarah McCammon reports from the Hampton Roads region of southeast Virginia that's home to one of the nation's biggest concentrations of federal workers and contractors.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: At a coffee shop near the Norfolk waterfront this morning, Steve Keck was just coming from the office and not sure when he'd be going back. Keck is an administration officer at the Coast Guard Force Readiness Command. He'd been tying up some loose ends and letting several of his direct reports know they were being furloughed.
STEVE KECK: And then also truly making sure that all the time cards were in. That was one of my - I wanted to make sure that all my employees for this last two weeks, that they had certified and validated their time cards, that they would get paid for this last two weeks.
MCCAMMON: Keck was preparing to spend the day visiting his children at school and hoping the furlough wouldn't last long. He'd been struggling to explain the shutdown to the kids.
KECK: My two younger boys started crying when they heard the government was going to shut down. And they at first got excited, thinking it was a snow day, and then they started to cry. And they asked me, you know, why does this happen?
MCCAMMON: Keck says he blames both parties for failing to do their jobs, and worries that in a couple of weeks negotiations will break down again and he and many others will be furloughed again. Across town, Joe Ferrara of Virginia Beach used the day to take his blue Ford F-150 in for servicing at a local dealership.
JOE FERRARA: Yeah, it was the bulbs and...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The ballasts.
FERRARA: ...The ballasts and all that stuff.
MCCAMMON: Ferrara works for the Department of Defense in Norfolk. He hopes this fight will push Congress toward a long-term budget deal that will offer some stability.
FERRARA: Personally I'm fine with it because I want to see a budget. I'm tired of seeing these CRs come through, the continuing resolutions. I want to see a budget that will allow us to do in the DOD and for the country what we need to do.
MCCAMMON: Ferrara says he's fortunate enough to have a financial cushion to get him through any interruption to his paycheck. But he worries about his younger and less financially secure colleagues. CherylAnn Kraft is a nurse consultant to the Defense Health Agency who splits her time between Norfolk and the Washington, D.C., area. As the wife of a disabled veteran, Kraft says her family relies on her income, something she wishes members of Congress would keep in mind.
CHERYLANN KRAFT: I got they need to deal with immigration. Then do it. But don't make me suffer. And don't use me as a pawn in your political game. That's where I have an issue. I'm tired of people thinking that these political antics that are going on don't have real-life consequences to citizens and their families.
MCCAMMON: That's the reality for many people in places like southeast Virginia, which is dominated by military installations and shipyards. Bryan Stephens, the president of Hampton Roads Chamber of Commerce, says more than 40 percent of the region's economy depends on federal dollars both through government employment and its ripple effects on local businesses like restaurants.
BRYAN STEPHENS: If you're dealing on a day-to-day basis with contracts with the federal government and there's that level of uncertainty, it certainly makes things more difficult for you, especially when you're trying to plan budgets and do strategic planning and those type of things.
MCCAMMON: Stephens says that news of a deal to reopen the government is welcome, but the big question is how long that will last. Sarah McCammon, NPR News, Virginia Beach.
(SOUNDBITE OF BOOMBOX'S "INDIA")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Oscar nominations will be announced tomorrow. There's a good chance the movie "Get Out" will be the first horror film to be nominated for best picture in nearly 30 years. "The Silence Of The Lambs" won back in 1992. As NPR's Neda Ulaby tells us, there's a group of people cheering for "Get Out" who don't often see themselves portrayed sympathetically onscreen.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: Near the beginning of "Get Out," one of the main supporting characters takes a smoke break outside an airport. He's wearing the blue uniform of the Transportation Security Administration, and he's chatting on the phone.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GET OUT")
LIL REL HOWERY: (As Rod Williams) Tell me this, OK? How can I get in trouble for patting down an old lady?
ULABY: No spoilers, but this TSA officer will become incredibly heroic. He's the first to realize bad things are happening to the hero, and he rushes to the police.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GET OUT")
HOWERY: (As Rod Williams) This dude's been missing for six months, right? So I do all my research, you know, 'cause as a TSA agent - you know, you guys are detectives. I got the same training, you know? We might know more than y'all sometimes.
ULABY: All this raised a question - what did real TSA officers think of the film?
SHEKINA GIVENS: It made me proud.
ULABY: Shekina Givens has worked for the TSA in Atlanta, Ga., for almost ten years. She loved this character in "Get Out."
GIVENS: He took his job seriously. There was pride in what he did. There wasn't a mockery made of him.
ULABY: Givens is used to seeing her profession maligned. Off the top of her head, she rattles off numerous commercials where TSA officers are irritants, incompetents or perverts. In this commercial for Lindt chocolate, two female officers pat down a handsome man.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #1: (As character) I think we should do a strip search.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Excuse me?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS #2: (As character) Definitely. Definitely a strip search. So if you could take off your pants, turn around...
ULABY: Depictions like these, says Givens, do not make it easier to deal with the thousands of stressed out passengers she helps every day and who often treat her and her colleagues with disrespect. But Victor Payes Martinez says "Get Out" has actually changed that to an extent. He's a TSA officer in Los Angeles.
VICTOR PAYES MARTINEZ: I definitely think we've had an increase of passengers making reference to the movie. And it's opened up some people to say, hey, you know what? These guys aren't so bad.
ULABY: Unsurprisingly, "Get Out" has led to numerous in-jokes among TSA officers themselves. There's a memorable catchphrase spoken by their onscreen brother in blue. And warning, it is blue.
MARTINEZ: I don't think I can say it on here. But, yes, it's definitely something that's caught on.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "GET OUT")
HOWERY: (As Rod Williams) I'm T-S mother [expletive] A. We handle [expletive].
ULABY: That's probably not going to become the new slogan of the Transportation Security Administration. An agency spokesman declined to comment on "Get Out." But Victor Payes Martinez, the officer at LAX, has something he'd like to say to filmmaker Jordan Peele, who may also be nominated tomorrow for writing and directing the first movie Martinez has ever seen with a sympathetic and proud TSA officer.
MARTINEZ: Simply, thank you.
ULABY: TSA officers like Martinez are among the lowest-paid federal employees. They routinely deal with travelers showing up with loaded guns or people in the midst of crises. During the government shutdown they're required to come to work, but no one pays them until the shutdown is over. Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
As we just heard, "Get Out" is getting lots of attention as a possible Oscar contender this year. The nominations come out tomorrow morning. And missing from the list will be films that at one point were considered Oscar contenders but now are not, movies that had all the right stuff on paper - prestige directors, A-list actors - but just kind of died when they made it to theaters.
Some of them were tanked by controversy. All of Hollywood felt the effects of the #MeToo movement this past year. But as our next guest explains, other films just didn't have it. Joe Reid is the creator of the blog This Had Oscar Buzz, and I asked him to give us some examples from 2017.
JOE REID: This year had a few. There was a movie called "The Zookeeper's Wife" starring Jessica Chastain. She played a zookeeper's wife in World War II during the Holocaust.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE ZOOKEEPER'S WIFE")
JOHAN HELDENBERGH: (As Jan Zabinski) Thousands of people are dying - the littlest of children.
JESSICA CHASTAIN: (As Antonina Zabinska) We have room. We could hide them.
REID: That was one of those - again, I always go back to these are the movies that look good on paper - Jessica Chastain, former Oscar nominee, Niki Caro, director of an Oscar-nominated movie, World War II, big Oscar-favorite of a topic. And yet the movie didn't happen for any number of reasons.
MCEVERS: And you write that biopics are usually like a slam dunk for a nomination.
REID: Very much so, yeah.
MCEVERS: But that's not necessarily the case this year. What are some of your favorite biopics from this year that we aren't talking about right now, that haven't been nominated?
REID: Oh, gosh, I mean, I think when you talk about, like, biopic, true life story, like, "All The Money In The World" feels like another one.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ALL THE MONEY IN THE WORLD")
CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER: (As John Paul Getty) I have no money to spare.
MARK WAHLBERG: (As Fletcher Chase) What would it take? I mean, what would it take for you to feel secure?
PLUMMER: (As John Paul Getty) More.
MCEVERS: Right.
REID: It's this true-life story. J. Paul Getty...
MCEVERS: This is the movie that Kevin Spacey was starring in...
REID: Yes.
MCEVERS: ...And then was not starring in once allegations came forward about him. And they...
REID: Right.
MCEVERS: ...Recast his part. And there's controversy about who got paid what.
REID: Yes.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
REID: So much - like, so much stuff. And that's a movie that if you look at some Oscar prognostication - because it got Golden Globe nominations, and that's one of those indicators that you feel like, well, maybe it's still an Oscar contender. And I could be - you know, come Tuesday's nominations, I could be proved wrong about that.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
REID: "Detroit" was another true-life story, Kathryn Bigelow's movie about the 1967 riots in Detroit.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DETROIT")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Here in Detroit, a city of war, violence continues.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) We've made state police and national guardsmen available.
REID: Bigelow - she's the only woman to ever win best director at the Oscars. She's had...
MCEVERS: Right.
REID: ...Two movies as best picture nominees. And that was a movie that was met with both this sort of muted to confused reception and a lot of, you know - maybe she was not the person to make this movie.
MCEVERS: Is there, like, a formula here? You know, is there just something about the ones that make it and the ones that don't? You said, like, ones that look good on paper...
REID: Yeah.
MCEVERS: ...You know, you got Oscar-nominated director, Oscar-nominated actor.
REID: Yeah.
MCEVERS: But then, like, what is it that just doesn't quite click?
REID: Well, that's one of the things that I really like about doing this blog especially - is it's nostalgic, especially for a sort of very niche kind of nerd like I am, a Oscar nerd that I am.
MCEVERS: (Laughter).
REID: But it reminds me, that, like, there is a formula, but it - like, there's a little bit of, like, magic that goes into it for lack of a better word where, like, you can have all of the ingredients on paper. One example I like to think of from this year is "Mother!"
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "MOTHER!")
JENNIFER LAWRENCE: (As Mother) We spend all our time here. I want to make it paradise. Are you happy?
JAVIER BARDEM: (As Him) I love you.
REID: Jennifer Lawrence - huge Oscar favorite, Oscar winner. Like, it seems like she can't miss. She's, you know, getting nominated for "Joy" - Darren Aronofsky, former best director nominee for "Black Swan."
MCEVERS: Right.
REID: So it all seems to work on paper. And then you see the movie. And of course, just the second you see the movie, love it or hate it, the kind of movie that it is, the Oscars were never going to go for it (laughter). Like, it's one of those things where, like, movies are not math where, you know, it could all add up on paper and yet things can go good or bad. And that's what I love about movies. And that's what I, you know, love about Oscars.
MCEVERS: Joe Reid is a senior entertainment writer for the film and TV site decider.com He created and runs the blog This Had Oscar Buzz. Thanks so much for being with us.
REID: Thank you. This was fantastic.
(SOUNDBITE OF AFROCUBISM'S "MALI CUBA")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The three-day partial government shutdown has come to an end. President Trump has signed a short-term spending bill to fund the government. Senate Democrats agreed to the measure after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell committed to a vote on immigration. Conservatives say Democrats relented because they had overplayed their hand. Here's Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TOM COTTON: Shutting down the government and depriving American citizens of services because you want amnesty for illegal immigrants is a massive political blunder.
MCEVERS: And Democrats for their part say they expect Senate Leader McConnell to make good on his promise. Listen to Michigan Senator Gary Peters.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GARY PETERS: This is a commitment that was done on the floor of the Senate on the record for the American people to see.
MCEVERS: So those are Democratic and Republican voices. Let's bring in our own congressional correspondent Susan Davis, who is on Capitol Hill. Hey, Sue.
SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: Hey, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So what is in this Senate bipartisan deal to end the shutdown?
DAVIS: You know, the new bill looks an awful lot like the old bill. It's essentially identical to the first stopgap funding measure that Democrats rejected. But in this case, it's one week shorter in length. The stopgap will now run through February 8. It also includes provisions that were in the other legislation, including a six-year renewal of the popular Children's Health Insurance Program, and delays of certain health care-related taxes under the Affordable Care Act.
MCEVERS: So, I mean, the Democrats initially said they would not agree to reopen the government until they got a deal from Republicans on immigration legislation, and they did not get that. So did they cave as Tom Cotton suggested?
DAVIS: You know, there was just increasing dividing lines among Senate Democrats about this shutdown strategy. A lot of their more liberal members, notably a lot of their rumored 2020 candidates like Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, wanted Democrats to hold the line. They wanted the shutdown to keep going. They voted against the funding bill.
There were cracks, though, among more moderate senators, particularly those who have to run for re-election this year. They were really doubtful that a shutdown was advancing their cause on these ongoing immigration talks. So they started working across the aisle, talking to Republicans. And ultimately a sort of group of centrist senators were able to nudge their party leaders to end the shutdown.
Democrats - you're right - don't have much to immediately show for this strategy, but they say they've extracted what they're calling a more ironclad commitment from Republicans to take up legislation either by that February 8 deadline or immediately after.
MCEVERS: Is there any sense of whether all this has made it harder or easier, then, to get a bipartisan immigration deal?
DAVIS: There still remains a coalition of the willing, as I call it, in the Senate on immigration. The framework that they've talked about hasn't really changed. It still needs to include those four things - a path to citizenship for DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, money for border security including President Trump's wall money for the border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. And conservatives want some tougher policies on legal immigration and visa programs.
The question that's going to be lingering over this still is where's President Trump? There's still some confusion on Capitol Hill where the president is. Until the White House is very clear what the president will sign, it's hard to say how likely a deal is to happen.
MCEVERS: The Senate has passed bipartisan immigration legislation before. They did it in 2013, but then the House never voted on it. So how confident are Senate negotiators that any deal that they strike will eventually become law?
DAVIS: There is a lot of skepticism up here for that very reason. I think that's also why today we're hearing a lot of disappointment from immigration activists that Democrats should have held the line on the shutdown and tried to extract more of a commitment from President Trump and from congressional Republicans. Really important to note here - House Speaker Paul Ryan has not committed the House to vote on any of this.
So you know - and without the House commitment, without clarity of where the president is, it's unclear to say where this will land. I will say Democrats are saying they want that deal by February 8. Republicans are saying the real deadline is March 5. That is when President Trump has ordered the DACA program to come to an end.
MCEVERS: NPR congressional correspondent Sue Davis, thanks a lot.
DAVIS: You're welcome.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
So the federal government is expected to return to normal operations tomorrow morning. Even though this was the third day of a partial shutdown, it was the first working day for most federal employees. And it was not exactly a break, as NPR's Brian Naylor reports.
BRIAN NAYLOR, BYLINE: Washington was a bit off of its routine today. Some federal workers went into their jobs so they could be formally told to go home. Others got to stay but weren't sure if they'd be paid for their efforts. In offices around the capital city, there were recordings telling callers the agency they reached was closed for business.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: There is a temporary shutdown of the U.S. government due to a lapse in appropriation. We will return to normal operations as soon as possible.
NAYLOR: It's unclear what, if any, damage was caused by this short shutdown. Eighty-five percent of the federal workforce is outside Washington. Government Twitter feeds weren't updated. The Washington Post reported some snowmobilers got too close to Old Faithful because there were no rangers to shoo them away. But apparently no harm was done to the geyser. For most federal workers, the biggest concern now is that this whole scene could be replayed in three weeks when this latest temporary budget bill expires. Brian Naylor, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Bangladesh says it is postponing the start of a program to send hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees back to Myanmar. The controversial repatriation plan was supposed to start tomorrow. And while it's supposed to be voluntary, human rights groups and many refugees worry that people could be forced to go back to Myanmar. NPR's Jason Beaubien reports from what's now become the largest refugee camp in the world, where Rohingya refugees say they're relieved.
JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE: Sitting on a straw mat in his shelter near Bangladesh's border with Myanmar, refugee Sonah Meah says he was tortured and left for dead by the Myanmar military in August of last year.
SONAH MEAH: (Speaking Rohingya).
BEAUBIEN: He says soldiers accused him of being part of an armed insurgent group called the Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army, which he denies. They knocked several of his teeth out, he says, and repeatedly beat him unconscious. NPR can't independently confirm his story, but it's similar to the accounts of other Rohingya. They say they were attacked by government troops, while Myanmar says it was carrying out a cleanup operation against terrorists. Starting in late August, more than 650,000 Rohingya refugees flooded across the border into Bangladesh in what the United Nations called an exodus unprecedented in terms of volume and speed. Meah says there's no way he'd return to Myanmar anytime soon.
MEAH: (Speaking Rohingya).
UNIDENTIFIED INTERPRETER: He's saying that they'll kill us. If I go, they'll kill me.
BEAUBIEN: Meah says he was happy to hear today that Bangladesh is delaying the start of the repatriation plan the government officials say would send nearly 800,000 Rohingya Muslims back to Myanmar. Officials say they're delaying the return program not out of concerns about the safety of the returning refugees, but because of logistical problems. Bangladesh still plans to move forward with the repatriation, although it's unclear exactly when.
Bangladesh officials say none of the refugees will be forced to go home, yet the deal signed between Bangladesh and Myanmar calls for all the Rohingya refugees to be transferred to Myanmar over the next two years. Another refugee, 30-year-old Shafika Khatun, says that she won't go back to Myanmar unless Myanmar grants the Rohingya citizenship.
SHAFIKA KHATUN: (Speaking Rohingya).
BEAUBIEN: "We need our rights and our citizenship in Myanmar," she says. Myanmar doesn't consider the Rohingya to be citizens despite many Rohingyas having been in Myanmar for generations. The Muslim minority are treated as illegal immigrants in Myanmar and have faced waves of violence and harassment by the Buddhist majority for decades. The status of the Rohingya as a stateless people inside Myanmar is not addressed as part of the repatriation deal.
The deal also is strictly between the government of Bangladesh and Myanmar. It excludes the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, which is usually involved in such large-scale refugee return programs. And the U.N. agency has been asking, so far unsuccessfully, to be involved in the process. The U.N. has accused Myanmar of ethnic cleansing, and the refugees are worried about their fate if they are sent back. Khatun says she's heard the Rohingya will be forced to live in camps.
KHATUN: (Speaking Rohingya).
BEAUBIEN: "We want our land. We want our houses. We want our rights," Khatun says. She won't even consider going back to Myanmar, she says, until it's clear that she can go back safely and as a full citizen. Jason Beaubien, NPR News, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Now it's time for All Tech Considered.
(SOUNDBITE OF ULRICH SCHNAUSS' "NOTHING HAPPENS IN JUNE")
KELLY: Hate speech, terrorism, foreign interference in American democracy, fake news - we have spent many hours talking about what went wrong online during the 2016 presidential election. Well, tech companies are working hard to avoid a repeat as the 2018 midterm elections approach. They're fast upon us. And here to tell us what Facebook, Google and Twitter are doing is NPR tech correspondent Aarti Shahani. Hey, Aarti.
AARTI SHAHANI, BYLINE: Hi.
KELLY: Let's talk first about Facebook. It took a long time for CEO Mark Zuckerberg to acknowledge that Facebook was a platform for fake news, fake ads during the 2016 election. What are they doing to get ready for this coming November?
SHAHANI: Well, none of the tech giants claims to be ready, OK? They each have a version of, we're getting there but only for ads explicitly about candidates like Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton, not ads about issues like DACA or global warming. Facebook says it's creating a new documentation process where advertisers may be required to verify who they are and where they are.
KELLY: And then I suppose there's the process of verifying that they're telling the truth, which is another layer of this.
SHAHANI: That's right. You're getting it, exactly.
KELLY: Yeah, well, let me move you to Google and YouTube, we should mention, as part of Google. What changes are they making?
SHAHANI: So Google does not yet have a working definition of what counts as an election ad. They're working on that. And what each company is desperately trying to stave off is any kind of regulation. They don't want politicians putting rules on them like legacy media has.
KELLY: What about, Aarti, the favored platform of our tweeter in chief? I'm talking of course about Twitter. Their latest, I was interested to read, is Twitter is reaching out to something like close to 700,000 people here in the U.S., letting them know if they maybe were shown political ads on their Twitter feed that may have had some kind of link to Russia.
SHAHANI: Yeah. And you know, Twitter is much smaller than Google and Facebook. And a spokesperson at Twitter tells me their investigation into the 2016 election mishap is setting back their efforts to fix the broken advertising tools in time for the midterms. They're concerned about that. And now, you know, each company has a fundamental tension.
By way of analogy, let's take a nightclub. The official policy would be no one under 21 allowed. But you don't want to check ID because you're afraid that'll slow down the line and you'll lose customers, so you try to figure some workaround, some other way to do it. Now, when I shared that (laughter) specific analogy with Twitter, got to say, the spokesperson laughed very hard and told me, these are exactly the questions we're asking.
KELLY: One related thing to this - I wanted to follow up on my question about Facebook, which is, Facebook last week said it's going to start picking and choosing what news to show us, what news we're going to see. This is related to the quest to show us less fake news.
SHAHANI: Yeah. And you know, CEO Mark Zuckerberg - he posted on his Facebook page that the company is going to start showing more news from sources that are high-quality, in his words, and push down stuff that purports to be news but may be lower-quality. This is the single biggest announcement the company has made directly in response to the fake news controversy.
And you know, it is important to point out that many experts say that this is how a powerful tech giant censors speech on the Internet. Now, granted, Facebook is not zapping away articles. What they're doing in an attention economy - right? - it's about a competition for people's eyeballs here - is that the company censors by pushing things so far down a bottomless feed that eyeballs never get to see it.
KELLY: Which of course prompts the question of how Facebook is going to decide what counts as high-quality news and what's low-quality news.
SHAHANI: They're going to let the crowd decide. They're asking Facebook users to vote on it.
KELLY: What's been the reaction from mainstream news media to that?
SHAHANI: Well, veteran news leaders are, to put it mildly, horrified that Facebook would take an important decision like that and throw it to a popular vote. There's another kind of criticism among conservatives who are concerned that liberal Facebook will push down right-wing content. And meanwhile, Facebook has decided they're not offering interviews to talk about the rationale for their move.
KELLY: NPR's Aarti Shahani - thank you, Aarti.
SHAHANI: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MINOTAUR SHOCK'S "MY BURR")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Amazon opened a brick-and-mortar convenience store in Seattle today, and it's a good guess you haven't seen one quite like this before. There are no cashiers, no checkout lines at the store called Amazon Go. We asked Simone Alicea of member station KNKX in Seattle to scope it out.
SIMONE ALICEA, BYLINE: I head out about 9:30 in the morning. I download the Amazon Go app while I walk, entering the information for my Amazon account.
I'm going cross the street safely. Opening it up. OK. It says Amazon Go. Welcome to Just Walk Out Shopping.
I have to update my credit card information, and then I'm ready to go. I'm here looking for lunch, and it's almost like they read my mind. I find sandwiches from a local bakery directly in front of the entrance.
And there's a little station for brown bags, although they were giving out reusable bags at the door. I didn't grab one.
Then I head out.
All right. Since I have my lunch, I'm going to scan out. And I don't even have to scan. I just walk, I think. Yeah.
And that's it. My receipt comes on the app, and it tells me my trip was 2 minutes and 55 seconds. Many of my fellow shoppers are Amazon employees. They've been able to shop here for about a year while the company's been testing the store. You can tell someone has just been in if they have a telltale orange bag, like Annie Ng. She's from LA and is visiting Seattle on vacation. When she saw the news about Amazon Go, she thought it might be worth checking out before she left.
ANNIE NG: It was good. I mean, we expected a line of people to kind of go in there and check the place out. And luckily, we came in and there's no one. I guess it's what we expected.
ALICEA: She spent about five minutes in the store to buy a chocolate bar. For her, it was convenient, especially as a tourist who was already downtown anyway.
NG: I would definitely make it a stop, but I wouldn't make it a destination.
ALICEA: No word yet on Amazon Go popping up in other cities. For NPR News, I'm Simone Alicea in Seattle.
(SOUNDBITE OF HIM'S "ELEMENTALS")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Vice President Mike Pence has weighed in on the resolution of the government shutdown as he travels in the Middle East. He's in Jerusalem today, where he met Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and addressed the Israeli parliament. NPR's Tamara Keith is traveling with Pence, and she's with us now. Hey, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hi.
MCEVERS: So let's start with the shutdown. What did Pence have to say about it?
KEITH: So I want to start by saying that over the years, American politicians traveling overseas have limited their discussions of domestic U.S. politics, or they've tried to keep partisanship to a minimum. And of course there are exceptions to this, and Vice President Pence's remarks tonight at the prime minister's residence were most definitely in that exception category. They were partisan.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
VICE PRESIDENT MIKE PENCE: We welcome the news that thanks to the firm stand taken by President Trump and House and Senate Republicans, the government shutdown in Washington, D.C., is coming to an end.
(APPLAUSE)
PENCE: Now, the American people know what happened here. A minority in the United States Senate chose to shut down the government, denying our soldiers benefits and wages that they earned, jeopardizing government services just to advance an issue pertaining to illegal immigration. But the Schumer shutdown failed.
KEITH: This isn't the first time that Pence has gone after democrats during this trip. Yesterday at a military installation near the Syrian border, with U.S. troops standing behind him, Pence accused Democrats of politicizing military pay. The Democrats were blocked when they tried to bring up legislation to make sure that pay continued uninterrupted during the shutdown. All of that of course is a moot point now.
MCEVERS: Right. That's right. So now let's talk about the reason that Pence is in Jerusalem. He spoke to the Israeli parliament, the Knesset, today. And I understand he made some news. Let's listen.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PENCE: In the weeks ahead, our administration will advance its plan to open the United States embassy in Jerusalem, and that United States embassy will open before the end of next year.
(APPLAUSE)
MCEVERS: OK, so we hear some applause there, but how was this received?
KEITH: Well, in the Arab world, this has been highly controversial. But in Jerusalem - there in the Israeli legislature, Pence got an extended standing ovation. Now, there was one section of the parliament chamber where there was no one standing or sitting, for that matter, and that's because at the very top of Pence's remarks, a number of Arab Israeli lawmakers stood in protest. They had signs that said Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine. And they were quite rapidly escorted out of the room in sort of a rough way.
President Trump's decision to officially recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel has been praised up and down basically everywhere Pence went today. But as I said, it is controversial because Palestinians also have a claim on the city. And in Pence's first two stops on this Middle East tour, Egypt and Jordan, he got an earful of concern about that move.
MCEVERS: So where does this all leave the peace process? Is Pence planning to meet any Palestinians while he's there?
KEITH: No. Vice President Pence has said repeatedly that he would like to meet with Palestinians while he's here, but they aren't really interested in meeting with him. And really his message on this whole trip has been, yes, President Trump has decided to move this embassy but that they still want to move forward with the peace process, that this does not settle any final status issues, any specific boundaries, any sovereignty issues - none of that. And they would still support a two-state solution if that's what the Israelis and the Palestinians would support. But there is no peace process right now as we speak.
MCEVERS: NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith traveling with Vice President Mike Pence, who's in Jerusalem, thanks so much.
KEITH: You're welcome.
(SOUNDBITE OF HARD PROOF'S "BREAK")
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
All week we've been looking at a striking trend in the American economy - the rise of the contract worker. This emerging workforce is primarily male. And according to an NPR/Marist poll, 65 percent of such workers are men. Young contract workers and not just men start their careers in a very different place than their parents did, one that's more flexible but a lot more unpredictable, as NPR's Uri Berliner reports.
URI BERLINER, BYLINE: Alex Belfiori has a big day coming up later this week about his job and his future. He'll walk into a conference room with his boss.
ALEX BELFIORI: At that point, we're going to sit down and have a discussion about it. I was told initially when I took this job that there were no guarantees for me getting hired on full-time. A lot of it has to do with if there's money in the budget or not.
BERLINER: For the past eight months, Belfiori has been taking care of tech needs at the DICK'S Sporting Goods headquarters near Pittsburgh. He likes the job pretty well. It's hands-on, making sure that projectors, TVs, computers and audio equipment are all working properly - pays decent, about $20 an hour - but not great. So when he sits down with his boss, he hopes to find out that he's nailed a staff position, a job that's more challenging and financially rewarding.
BELFIORI: I am nervous about it, but at the same time, I'm always looking for new jobs and keeping my options open. And there are a lot of tech jobs in Pittsburgh, so I'm not afraid to move something else if the timing's right and if it pays more.
BERLINER: The 28-year-old Belfiori is like a lot of millennial workers.
BELFIORI: I'm actually on my fifth job since graduating college.
BERLINER: He earns enough to pay the rent, make his car and student loan payments and put up to $50 a month into a retirement account. Belfiori's experience mirrors what other contract workers told us in the NPR/Marist poll. There's plenty of work available, but careers with a solid future, something to build a life around - that's much more elusive.
ANTHONY CARNEVALE: Yes, it is the way of the world now.
BERLINER: That's Anthony Carnevale, director of the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce.
CARNEVALE: Everybody - the employers and the workers - have to be more selfish in this economy. If you're an employer, you don't want responsibility for people. You want contract employees so that when business is good and production is up, you use those people.
BERLINER: When production goes down, Carnevale says, contract workers are shown the door.
CARNEVALE: They live in a world in which when times are good, they do very well as contractors - in fact, do better than line workers and have more independence and more entrepreneurial opportunities. But when business goes down, they are the first fired.
BERLINER: This is a volatile, new world, and it mostly affects men. Nearly two-thirds of contract workers in the NPR/Marist poll are male. That's a much bigger proportion than in the overall workforce. Researchers don't know exactly why this is happening. One reason seems to be that contract jobs are more common in male-dominated fields like construction, finance and IT. Alan Krueger, an economist at Princeton, says discrimination against women may also play a role.
ALAN KRUEGER: Traditional workers are covered by the Civil Rights Act which prohibits discrimination based on race, sex and other factors. Independent contractors are not covered by the Civil Rights Act.
BERLINER: That's just one of many areas where contractors don't enjoy the same protections or benefits as people in traditional jobs. Contract workers don't get unemployment pay or worker's comp if they're hurt on the job. If they do get benefits like health care or a retirement plan, they're skimpy. Georgetown's Carnevale says contract workers have to build their own safety net.
CARNEVALE: You are on your own, and the convenient and tempting assumption to believe that your employer - that the boss will take care of you is not something the boss has the power to do even if he or she wants to.
BERLINER: Alex Belfiori, the 28-year-old contract worker - he's taking a couple of steps to build some financial security, one that's very practical and another that's riskier, more adventurous.
BELFIORI: I help fix computers on the side, and I'm also invested in cryptocurrency.
BERLINER: Cryptocurrency like bitcoin. In June, he took the plunge.
BELFIORI: So I was looking at that and decided to put a couple thousand into it from my savings.
BERLINER: Since then, prices have bounced around a lot. Belfiori is still ahead on his investment. He's not counting on cryptocurrency to achieve the American dream or fund his retirement. Maybe it'll pay for a nice vacation. Uri Berliner, NPR News.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Twenty-five years ago, it seemed all eyes were fixed on Waco.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ABC WORLD NEWS TONIGHT")
WALTER RODGERS: The federal agents came under heavy and sustained fire as they approached a ranch owned by Texas religious cult leader Vernon Howell, also known as David Koresh.
CHANG: That's Walter Rodgers reporting for "ABC World News Tonight" on February 28, 1993. That day the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attempted to raid a compound owned by a fringe Christian group called the Branch Davidians. The ATF suspected the group was illegally stockpiling weapons.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Four agents and six Davidians were killed. And thus began a standoff between the Davidians and federal law enforcement. It lasted 51 days while the nation followed along on TV. And it ended with tanks and tear gas and the compound going up in flames.
CHANG: Well, this story is happening again on TV, this time in a six-part miniseries called simply "Waco." It's largely based on the accounts of two men who were there - Gary Noesner, the FBI's chief hostage negotiator, and David Thibodeau, one of the few people inside the compound who made it out alive. Both men recently spoke with our co-host, Kelly McEvers. Thibodeau talked about how he first met David Koresh and his right-hand man, Steve Schneider. They needed a drummer for their band.
KELLY MCEVERS, BYLINE: It's one of the many surprising things, I think, about this miniseries, is to learn that David Koresh was, like, in a band and liked to play rock 'n' roll.
DAVID THIBODEAU: Yeah.
MCEVERS: How did you end up at the compound?
THIBODEAU: Over the course of six months I got to know the guys. You know, we'd jam a little bit, and then sometimes they would come over to give studies. They made it very clear that a big part of their music was about Scripture. One of the things that impressed me most was one of the first times I had a study with Steve Schneider he opened a Scripture and every single page was color-coded. The notes were just studious. It was like an intellectual thing more than just proselytizing to someone. And that really interested me. That's kind of - I always listened to the TV preachers on television and I could just see right through them. David wasn't that easy to see through.
MCEVERS: And, Gary, you know, how did federal law enforcement at that time view David Koresh? Like, what was the brief that you were given on David Koresh?
GARY NOESNER: I knew nothing about David Koresh until I got the phone call from my boss. It was just that this was a group that, you know, had non-traditional religious beliefs. And some would use the negative term cult. And there had been a shootout. And I was to get to the airport where we kept some FBI planes and fly out there and take over the negotiation process.
MCEVERS: You know, I want to talk about what we see in the miniseries, how we see the shootout, that first day, the day of the ATF raid. ATF agents roll in. They're in cattle trailers. They're wearing their tactical gear, carrying a lot of weapons. But the Branch Davidians have been tipped off. And David Koresh, who is played by Taylor Kitsch, at some point comes out of the compound with his hands up. I just want to listen to that scene.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "WACO")
TAYLOR KITSCH: (As David Koresh) Please stop.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Keep your hands in the air, and get on the ground now.
KITSCH: (As David Koresh) There are women and children in here.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Get on the ground now.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character) Here we go.
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #3: (As character) Shots fired. Shots fired.
MCEVERS: So, you know, the ATF is shooting. The Davidians are shooting. Koresh is wounded. Agents are wounded. The Davidians later are calling 911, trying to ask for a cease-fire. But still to this day it's unclear who fired the first shot.
NOESNER: I think there's a fair amount of controversy. ATF's position is that Koresh was armed and he fired first. And, you know, the folks inside say, no, ATF shot first. I don't really know. And when I go as a negotiator, I don't really care. I mean, that's really not what I'm there to do, is to adjudicate the right or wrong of what occurred. My job is to make sure nothing bad happens after that. And then we can resolve it peacefully.
MCEVERS: And you eventually did negotiate to get some children out, yeah?
NOESNER: We got 35 people out through the negotiation process, including 21 children. I feel confident that we had done things a bit differently we could have secured the safe release of a good many more, perhaps everyone.
MCEVERS: What went wrong?
NOESNER: We had within - and this is what I like about this TV series so much, is they do look at this very complex incident from two perspectives, from inside looking out, outside looking in. We always knew that everyone in there was legitimately enthralled and believed in David Koresh's message and that's why were there. And it's also one of the reasons that complicated our resolution efforts because David's religious philosophy was that the end times are coming and the forces of evil will come against us. And the - in essence, the ATF raid validated that, you know, prophecy.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
THIBODEAU: But even more so than that - and I'm glad you brought that up. And this is, you know, no fault of the negotiators. I believe that the negotiators were really trying. There's no doubt about that. It's the fact that the tactical commanders would come in and override things that the negotiators would say to us - I wouldn't even say promise.
But during the course of conversation, certain things would be said and certain alliances or rapport built, and then the commanders would come in and just destroy all that work that they had done and made us so much more mistrustful and so much more into there's no way out of this. The world is fighting against the last message. And it just - it made it so much truer. And if they would have taken the opposite approach, it really...
MCEVERS: The force made it true, made the...
THIBODEAU: Yeah, absolutely.
NOESNER: Sadly, that's quite correct. And one of the frustrating things for us as a negotiation team is when we would reach a point of good cooperation and effect the release of someone, out of frustration and boredom or whatever it was the tactical team would sometimes take some actions on the perimeter that conveyed quite a different signal. A glaring example is the loud music and the loudspeakers that were projected onto the compound. You know, I told command at that time, number one, it's ineffective. It doesn't work. It's against our policy. And I said, at the least it's going to be embarrassing for us. And it was. And yet people to this day say, why did the negotiators do that? Well, we didn't.
MCEVERS: You guys met for the first time on the set of this show.
NOESNER: Yeah. We did.
THIBODEAU: Yeah. We really didn't run in the same circles before this. That's for sure.
(LAUGHTER)
NOESNER: And a bit of a funny story is when we were on set, been there a few days. And we were having lunch. And we ended up being a table together by ourselves. And David's back was to everyone, so I don't think he saw them. But through my peripheral vision I'm seeing...
THIBODEAU: I could feel it.
NOESNER: ...Literally everybody in the crew is transfixed to say, are these guys going to break out in a fist fight or yell at each other? And we got along fine. There's clearly some areas where we have different perceptions about events. There's two perspectives on this. And indeed, this is a complex tragedy.
THIBODEAU: It's also - it's the - this is the kind of dialogue that needs to happen more often with American citizens. Everyone should be talking to each other to find out why they have the views that they do instead of just getting on Facebook and yelling at each other or the - nobody really talks. They don't listen.
MCEVERS: You know, David, you were one of just nine people who escaped the fire that ended all this on April 19. The bodies of 75 people were recovered from the scene. More than 20 of them were children. And you've lived with this for 25 years.
THIBODEAU: Yeah.
MCEVERS: What do you wish that people understood about Waco that they don't understand? Like, what do you think people just don't get?
THIBODEAU: That's - I'm so glad you asked that question. I mean, I really just want the people to be humanized in a way that they've honestly just been demonized through the press. There were real children, real mothers, real dynamics going on. It is very complex when there's that many people and that many people that are focused in the same direction. Honestly, it's about them. And I want them to be, you know, honored. You know, no matter what you think of David Koresh or the people that died there, they died for what they believed in. And that's more than I can say for, you know, lot of people.
MCEVERS: Well, David Thibodeau, the man who was on the inside, and Gary Noesner, the man who was on the outside, thanks to both of you.
NOESNER: Thank you.
THIBODEAU: Thank you.
KELLY: The TV miniseries "Waco" premieres tomorrow night on the Paramount Network.
(SOUNDBITE OF GOAT RODEO'S "HELPING HAND")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
To another story now, conflicting news about e-cigarettes. A new report from an expert panel concludes that electronic cigarettes might help adult smokers quit. But the National Academies of Sciences panel finds that e-cigarettes might entice teenagers and young adults to experiment or even start smoking tobacco. NPR's Patti Neighmond reports.
PATTI NEIGHMOND, BYLINE: Congress asked for this report to try to sort out what's known about the potential benefit and risk of e-cigarettes. Researchers examined more than 800 scientific studies. They found some promise e-cigs could be helpful to adult smokers. David Eaton of the University of Washington chaired the committee.
DAVID EATON: There is some evidence that for people who are currently smokers of combustible tobacco products, cigarettes, that e-cigarettes can help people quit smoking. And that's the beneficial side of these things.
NEIGHMOND: However, it's not known exactly how effective they are compared to other FDA-approved treatments to quit smoking like the nicotine patch or nicotine gum. And there's strong evidence, says Eaton, that e-cigs are helpful only when smokers switch completely from tobacco products to e-cigs. Eaton says the clear concern raised by this report is that when teens and young adults use the e-cigarettes they're more likely to try regular tobacco cigarettes.
EATON: E-cigarettes are addictive. And there is evidence that they can lead to initiation of smoking. And those by themselves right there are reasons that youth should think twice about it.
NEIGHMOND: Shannon Lea Watkins headed one of the 800 studies reviewed by the committee. She's a public policy researcher with the University of California, San Francisco.
SHANNON LEA WATKINS: We found that kids who tried e-cigarettes or hookah or smokeless tobacco or cigars, any non-cigarette tobacco product, were all twice as likely to try cigarettes a year later compared to kids who hadn't used any of those other tobacco products.
NEIGHMOND: And that temptation to try tobacco cigarettes, she says, was easily exacerbated.
WATKINS: Kids who were using two or more non-cigarette products were four times as likely to report using cigarettes a year later.
NEIGHMOND: Most e-cigs, despite their colorful packaging and creative flavors like gummy bear and cotton candy, do contain nicotine, which is known to increase heart rate and blood pressure and is highly addictive. In fact, Watkins says the amount of nicotine in e-cigs is typically comparable to the amount of nicotine found in conventional cigarettes. But Watkins says it's not just the addictive quality of nicotine.
WATKINS: Using these products might change a kid's perception of the harm of cigarettes. And so they are perceived as less dangerous. And they get used to using tobacco. And so using conventional cigarettes is not so scary or, quote, unquote, "bad."
NEIGHMOND: And using e-cigs might change the culture or social group young people are involved with.
WATKINS: It will expose them to different kinds of kids, maybe kids that are already using conventional cigarettes. And then they might go on to try them.
NEIGHMOND: E-cigarettes have been on the market for about a decade. They're largely unregulated, and it's not known exactly how much nicotine or other toxic chemicals are in them. Last year, the FDA established new rules to better oversee e-cigs, along with cigars and hookah tobacco, and banned the sale of any of them to anyone under age 18. Patti Neighmond, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF IV THE POLYMATH'S "SETBACKS")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Millions of families in the Children's Health Insurance Program, or CHIP, are breathing a sigh of relief. That program was reauthorized yesterday, part of a deal ending the government shutdown. The program had been in limbo ever since Congress let funding expire in September. From member station WAMU, Selena Simmons-Duffin reports on how that funding gap affected the program.
SELENA SIMMONS-DUFFIN, BYLINE: Linda Nablo, who oversees the CHIP program in Virginia, had two letters ready to send out to the families of 68,000 kids insured through the program. One said they didn't need to worry anymore; federal funding had finally come through.
LINDA NABLO: We also of course had the other letter ready to go that it was shutting down.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: In the next 48 hours, it's that first stand-down, don't-worry letter that they'll be sending out. Nablo is now taking stock of the costs of the funding gap. Staff have been preparing to end the program - retooling enrollment systems, changing contracts.
NABLO: Those aren't huge dollar amounts. I think the cost more is in the worry from parents.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: CHIP covers children in low-income families. Many can't afford private insurance, and their children might have had to go uninsured. Every state's calculus was different for how long they could run on money left over after funding expired.
JOAN ALKER: One state, Connecticut, did freeze enrollment between the week of Christmas and New Year's.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: That's Joan Alker from the Georgetown University Center for Children and Families. She's happy with the CHIP deal Congress passed, though she points out is the same one they agreed on in September, so she's not sure why it took a shutdown to finally get it through. She's also puzzled as to why it was only a six-year extension when the Congressional Budget Office estimated extending CHIP for 10 years would save more money.
ALKER: The six-year is a small saver. It saves just under a billion dollars. They could come back and extend CHIP for four more years and grab those savings.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: An extra $5 billion in savings. Alker does worry that the uncertainty may have caused children to drop out of the program, increasing the uninsured rate among children. If that holds true nationally, it hasn't been the case in Virginia where CHIP enrollment actually went up this past fall. For NPR News, I'm Selena Simmons-Duffin in Washington.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Senate Democrats provoked a three-day government shutdown to try and reach a deal on a bipartisan immigration bill. Well, today the government is back open, but senators are still trying to reach that deal before the next shutdown deadline which comes on February 8. Joining us now to discuss how those talks on immigration are going is NPR congressional correspondent Susan Davis. Hey there.
SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: Hey there.
KELLY: Remind everybody before we get into the meat of this. What exactly are Congress and the White House trying to hash out in these talks?
DAVIS: Right, so the catalyst for this entire conversation was President Trump's decision last fall to end the Obama-era DACA program, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. It's a program that allowed people that were brought here as children who are residing here illegally to get temporary legal status. The program was challenged in the courts, and the president has decided to end it. He gave Congress six months to find a solution and a deadline of March 5. We are coming up fast on that deadline.
At a recent White House meeting a couple weeks ago, negotiators agreed to the broad outlines of what that deal should include in a DACA fix. That also included more money for border security, including perhaps, yes, the wall that the president has long been seeking and tougher policies on legal immigration that allow people to bring family members into the country and a lottery program that people can use to apply for visas.
KELLY: All right, so fast forward to where we are now, and I suppose my question is, where did the shutdown leave things? Did they make these negotiations harder or easier? And I'm sure that depends on who you ask. Senate Democrats are portraying this as a win, that Chuck Schumer, the Senate minority leader, extracted this promise from the leader on the Republican side, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, saying there will be a vote on this immigration bill.
DAVIS: And he has a point. They certainly did put Senator McConnell in the spotlight. On the Senate floor yesterday, he did say his plan was to bring an immigration bill up for the vote. Republicans have kind of pushed back on this idea that Democrats got a big win because McConnell has been saying for months that he intended to bring up immigration legislation. So that's not particularly new.
KELLY: OK.
DAVIS: The common understanding coming out of this shutdown scenario is that negotiators are going to spend the next three weeks trying to come up with this deal. If they do it, they will plan to get a vote on it soon or around that February 8 deadline. If they still can't get there, there is talk that they could maybe just begin an open debate on the Senate floor and try to fight it out there and see what can get 60 votes.
KELLY: And who are going to be the fighters in chief? I mean, who are the key players you're watching?
DAVIS: The group's being referred to as the number twos. It's the No. 2 ranking members in the House and Senate. That includes in the Senate John Cornyn of Texas, Dick Durbin of Illinois. In the House, it's Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer. Their day jobs include knowing where all the votes are in their respective caucuses, so they're kind of seen as being the best people to know what can get the votes to pass the House. Huge player in all of this of course is President Donald Trump. And the chances of Republican leaders in either chamber bringing something to the floor that he doesn't support is very unlikely.
KELLY: But that has been the open question - is what he would support - any more clarity on that today?
DAVIS: Well, the president - we know what he doesn't want. He rejected an initial offer put to him by Senators Durbin and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina that did hit on those four pillars. He also rejected an offer by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to include even more money to build a border wall. The White House said they weren't conservative enough or hard-line enough. Schumer talked about this on the floor today. This is what he had to say.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHUCK SCHUMER: On each of these issues, the president has been either impossible to pin down or completely absent. This hooey that President Trump was involved in the negotiations - pretty invisible to me.
DAVIS: Hooey - so it doesn't sound right now that there's a tremendous amount of goodwill between Congress and the White House. The president did kind of sit on the sidelines during the shutdown. He let the - he let lawmakers fight it out on their own. It's just still not entirely clear what he's going to sign. And until we know that, it's not entirely clear whether a deal can get done or not.
KELLY: All right, thanks so much, Sue.
DAVIS: You're welcome.
KELLY: That's Sue Davis - Susan Davis, NPR's congressional correspondent.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
All right, as we just heard, a big sticking point in the congressional negotiations over immigration is the fate of the DREAMers, the millions of undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. As NPR's Joel Rose reports, it's a fight that's been escalating for decades.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: The DREAM Act started with one undocumented immigrant. She's sometimes called the first DREAMer.
(SOUNDBITE OF TEREZA LEE PERFORMANCE OF CHOPIN'S "FANTASIE-IMPROMPTU NO. 4 IN C SHARP MINOR, OP. 66")
ROSE: Tereza Lee is a pianist and music teacher. This is her performing last year at member station WNYC. Lee was born in Brazil to Korean parents. She moved to Chicago when she was 2 and became a teenage prodigy. Her mentor encouraged her to apply to the top conservatories in the country, but Lee refused. Eventually, she confessed what no one outside her immediate family knew - she was in the country illegally.
TEREZA LEE: I was hysterical. And I was in tears. And I told her, please don't report me to the police.
ROSE: Instead, Lee's mentor went to Senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois. She inspired Durbin to introduce a bill in 2001 that would create a path to citizenship for some undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children. He called it the DREAM Act.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
DICK DURBIN: If you grew up in this country and graduated from high school, if you had no serious problems with any criminal activity or background, we would give you a chance - just a chance.
ROSE: The name stuck, and young undocumented immigrants started to identify as DREAMers.
CRISTINA JIMENEZ: I have been organizing since I was 19 years old, and I'm 33 (laughter). So it's been quite a time.
ROSE: Cristina Jimenez came to the U.S. from Ecuador when she was 13. She's the co-founder of the activist group United We Dream.
JIMENEZ: Every year that we fought for the DREAM Act I had hope that we could win. And every year, you know, I would be disappointed and sad.
ROSE: The DREAM Act finally passed the House in 2010, almost a decade after it was first introduced. But it stalled in the Senate. Here's Republican Jeff Sessions - then a senator, now the attorney general - explaining why he voted no.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JEFF SESSIONS: This bill is a law that at its fundamental core is a reward for illegal activity.
ROSE: Hard-liners consider the DREAM Act an amnesty that would encourage more illegal immigration. But DREAMers and their allies kept up pressure on the White House, and in 2012 President Obama announced a new policy called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, in the Rose Garden.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BARACK OBAMA: Now, let's be clear. This is not amnesty. This is not immunity. This is not a path to citizenship. It's not a permanent fix.
ROSE: Indeed, the Trump administration is terminating DACA, leaving roughly 700,000 young immigrants without work permits or protection from deportation. Today, public opinion is largely behind letting the DREAMers stay. That idea has support from some Republicans as well as most Democrats. But the issue is caught up in the larger debate about immigration. The White House says any deal should include big changes to the legal immigration system and billions of dollars for a border wall. That's left the Democratic Party split with some willing to make concessions and others flatly refusing. Still, Cristina Jimenez says, this is progress.
JIMENEZ: I never thought that it would take us this long, but I feel really proud of the fact that the entire country is now engaging in the conversation about our lives and our families and our right to be here.
ROSE: While that debate continues, roughly a hundred people are losing their DACA status every week and don't know if they'll ever get it back. Joel Rose, NPR News, New York.
[POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In this report we say that roughly 100 people are losing their DACA status per week. We should have said per day.]
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
This is a story about a standoff between the United States and North Korea. We are not talking about the current tensions over nuclear weapons. This standoff occurred 50 years ago today when North Korean forces attacked the spy ship USS Pueblo off the east coast of North Korea.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The North Koreans eventually captured the vessel and its 82 surviving crew members. As part of our series looking back at the events of 1968 which shaped today's world, NPR national security correspondent David Welna reports on the saga of the Pueblo and its crew.
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: The waters off San Diego are where the USS Pueblo made its last port call in the U.S., bound for international waters off North Korea. For an eyewitness account of what happened when it got there, I visit a former crew member in the San Diego suburb of Bonita.
BOB CHICCA: I am Bonita's token POW (laughter).
WELNA: Retired Staff Sergeant Bob Chicca was one of two U.S. Marines assigned to the Pueblo. Unlike the rest of the crew, they both spoke some Korean.
CHICCA: They wanted a Korean linguist onboard, and I was it.
WELNA: That's because the Pueblo was on its maiden voyage as a spy ship masquerading as an environmental research vessel. Its mission - gathering intelligence electronically on the Soviet Union and North Korea for the Navy and the National Security Agency.
CHICCA: We were out there alone. That's why the ship's song was "The Lonely Bull" - 'cause we went out alone. And we were supposed to just collect intelligence and not cause trouble.
WELNA: But trouble came to the Pueblo.
CHICCA: That's a painting done of the attack on the ship.
WELNA: A big oil painting on Chicca's living room wall shows six North Korean warships and two MiG jet fighters firing on the Pueblo as black smoke rises from its deck.
CHICCA: They shot us up for two to three hours.
WELNA: What was that like?
CHICCA: Kind of gruesome (laughter). I got shot in the capture right there.
WELNA: A 57-millimeter shell hit him in the groin after tearing through two other crew members, killing one of them. The Pueblo was virtually defenseless. It had only two small machine guns draped with ice-encrusted tarps.
CHICCA: The last conversations we got over the radio was that help was on the way. Obviously it wasn't.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LYNDON B JOHNSON: What's your speculation on what happened?
ROBERT MCNAMARA: Mr. President, I honestly don't know.
WELNA: The next day, President Lyndon Johnson gets on the phone with his defense secretary, Robert McNamara, who promises a speedy response.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MCNAMARA: I think we need a Cuban missile crisis approach to this. And God damn it, we ought to get locked in a room, and you ought to keep us there, insist we stay there until we come up with answers to three questions. What was the Korean objective? Why did they do it? Secondly, what are they going to do now, blackmail us, let it go? And thirdly, what should we do now?
WELNA: LBJ settles on a show of force. The next day he sends the aircraft carrier Enterprise closer to North Korea and activates Army Reserve units. Here's "ABC Evening News" anchor Bob Young.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "ABC EVENING NEWS")
BOB YOUNG: The Pueblo incident and today's military call-up come at a time when America is already engaged in one war, a war that has been challenged politically here at home almost as much it has been challenged militarily on the battlefields in Vietnam.
WELNA: Unlike today, when it's South Korea pressing for diplomacy with the North, back then Seoul was demanding a military response. Mitchell Lerner is a historian and Korea expert at Ohio State.
MITCHELL LERNER: The Pueblo is not just captured in a vacuum. It's at the same time that the North has launched an assassination attempt against Korean President Park Chung-hee that narrowly misses. So the South is really irate. And they are demanding that they march north and that the United States back them up.
WELNA: But the Johnson administration, mired in the Vietnam War, has no stomach for possibly restarting the Korean War. Instead, the U.S. spends month after month haggling with North Korea over releasing the Pueblo and its crew. Pyongyang insists the U.S. apologize for intruding in its territorial waters. In San Diego, I also talk with Eddie Murphy. He was the Pueblo's navigator and second in command. North Korea's claims, he says, were nonsense.
EDDIE MURPHY: At all times we were in international waters we never violated the 12-mile limit, never, ever penetrated the 12-mile limit.
WELNA: Did you come close to that 12-mile limit?
MURPHY: We were about 12.8 at one point. But never, ever did we violate their waters.
WELNA: While talks drag on the North Koreans beat, starve and torture their American captives, demanding written confessions. The Pueblo's commander, Lloyd Bucher, at first resists. But upon being told if he does not confess his fellow crew members will be executed, he agrees, but does so with an insulting play on words.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LLOYD BUCHER: The absolute truth of this bowel-wrenching confession is attested to by my fervent desire to paean the Korean People's Army Navy and their government.
WELNA: Paean, spelled P-A-E-A-N, means a tribute. At a reunion of the Pueblo's crew members years later Bucher, who died in 2004, recalls the trick he played on the North Koreans with his choice of words.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BUCHER: I was able to get them to buy the idea that we were all eager to paean North Korea, to paean Kim Il Sung and to paean their army and navy.
(LAUGHTER)
WELNA: Crew members also extended their middle fingers in photos North Korea unwittingly distributed worldwide. Pyongyang, meantime, is demanding what it calls the three A's - that the U.S. admit the Pueblo invaded their waters, apologize for having done so, and assure it would never happen again. On December 23, exactly 11 months after the Pueblo's capture, U.S. Army General Gilbert Woodward agrees to put his signature on such a statement. But he first makes clear he's doing so for just one reason.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MAJ GEN GILBERT WOODWARD: I will sign the document to free the crew and only to free the crew.
WELNA: But the crew is all the U.S. gets back.
JACK CHEEVERS: And it turned out that a lot of things had fallen into the Communists' hands.
WELNA: Jack Cheevers wrote "Act Of War," a history of the Pueblo incident. He says 10 encryption machines and thousands of top secret documents aboard the Pueblo fell into North Korean and eventually Soviet hands.
CHEEVERS: It'd been a tremendous loss, much worse than originally was feared. One of the NSA historians described it as everyone's worst nightmare. And it was considered the worst intelligence loss in modern history.
WELNA: The crew came home to San Diego, but the Pueblo itself remains in North Korea, part of a war museum. This video now plays aboard the captured ship.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: The U.S. imperialists went down on their knees again before the independent army and people of Korea and signed the instrument of surrender.
VAN JACKSON: It's when David took on Goliath and won.
WELNA: Van Jackson was the Pentagon's top adviser on North Korea in the Obama administration. He's written a book on how because of the Pueblo incident the U.S. established a reputation in North Korea for backing down which continues to this day.
JACKSON: It was a hell of an embarrassment to the United States. It still is. But for North Korea this was a very proud moment that emboldened them to do more of this activity. They look at America's track record of restraint. And that's what they learned from.
WELNA: For LBJ, the Pueblo stood as a bad omen. Again, historian Lerner.
LERNER: In his memoirs he said if there's one day for me that symbolized the chaos of 1968 it was the morning I woke up and found out the Pueblo had been captured.
WELNA: Former crewman Chicca, for his part, doubts the U.S. Navy's learned much from the Pueblo incident.
CHICCA: I think they would prefer to forget it occurred. And the Pueblo is an Indian village in the desert, not a ship.
WELNA: American forbearance did ultimately free Pueblo's crew and avoid war. But North Korea also learned from the episode that standing up to a military colossus, much as it is today with its nuclear weapons buildup, is a risk it's willing to take. David Welna, NPR News, San Diego.
(SOUNDBITE OF KENTO MASUDA'S "EXTERNALNET")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The investigation into Russia and the 2016 election has now reached into the president's cabinet. Attorney General Jeff Sessions is the latest official to be interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller. Sessions answered questions for hours last week.
Here to talk about the latest in the investigation and all its twists and turns is NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson. Hey there again.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Do we have a sense of what special counsel Mueller asked and what the attorney general may have answered during this interview?
JOHNSON: Here's what we know. Jeff Sessions, the attorney general, knows a lot. He was a top adviser to Donald Trump's presidential campaign. Sessions met at least twice with the former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. And the attorney general recused himself from the Russia probe last March, but he played a big role in the firing of FBI director James Comey last year. He advised President Trump that Comey had to go. Now there are some big questions about whether that firing was carried out to obstruct justice and impede any investigation. What came out of the attorney general's mouth is not public, at least not yet. But we'll be watching.
KELLY: We certainly will. I wonder, Carrie. Does the fact that this interview happened at all shed any light on where the special counsel probe stands?
JOHNSON: Yeah. It suggests that the special counsel is actually pretty far along and has reached into Trump's cabinet. The New York Times was the first to report the Sessions interview today. We know the special counsel has already interviewed former chief of staff Reince Priebus, White House lawyer Don McGahn, presidential adviser Jared Kushner and James Comey, the fired FBI director. Well, who does that leave - President Trump himself. Trump's lawyers are thinking about the interview now. No date has been set. But for what it's worth, the White House continues to say there was no collusion with Russia, no wrongdoing. And President Trump today said he wasn't concerned at all about the Sessions interview.
KELLY: But worth reminding people - if you're a prosecutor, you're always going to want to save the biggest fish for last. So we watch that. Meanwhile, while I've got you, Carrie, I want to ask you about related developments about the president and the rocky - I think it's safe to say - relationship that he has had with the FBI. What's the latest there?
JOHNSON: Very rocky. The website Axios has reported the FBI director - the new FBI director, Christopher Wray, threatened to quit after Attorney General Sessions was pressuring him to fire a top deputy last year. Trump denied that today. I made a bunch of calls on it. I couldn't confirm that Chris Wray threatened to quit, but I did hear that there may have been a conversation along the lines of let's wait for the investigations to play out. Let's respect some - but let's respect some civil service rules in place. The White House says it respects Chris Wray's integrity and character and that the president's beef is with holdovers from the Comey team. But it's not clear if the public is drawing those distinctions when the president continues to beat up on the FBI.
KELLY: And interesting because Chris Wray has only been running the FBI for - what? - months at this point. I mean, you know, let me stick with this question of social media and the president and the FBI. He tweeted - President Trump tweeted this morning about the FBI. What did he have to say?
JOHNSON: Yeah. He seemed to be attacking the FBI based on some text messages between a lawyer there and an investigator in the bureau. The president seems to be arguing there's some political bias. But if you look at the texts, those people criticize Democrats, too. There's an open question, a back-and-forth now about whether Congress has gotten all of the text messages, whether some may have been lost, as the FBI says, with respect to a technical glitch.
KELLY: That is our Justice Department correspondent Carrie Johnson on the case. Thank you, Carrie.
JOHNSON: My pleasure.
(SOUNDBITE OF SADE SONG, "JEZEBEL (DEEP EDIT VERSION)")
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The outskirts of Moscow are starting to smell. That's because Russia doesn't recycle. All trash, whether it's household waste, glass, plastic, paper or metal, still goes into the same bin. That has led to mountains of garbage just outside Moscow's city limits. Last summer, Russian President Vladimir Putin personally intervened to stop one monster dump from taking over a suburb. As NPR's Moscow correspondent Lucian Kim found out, that only made things worse for neighboring areas.
LUCIAN KIM, BYLINE: The cry for help came to the Kuchino landfill just east of Moscow during President Putin's annual call-in show in June. On national TV, a desperate resident named Yelena Mikhailenko begged Putin to do something about the enormous garbage dump next to her house, the size of more than 100 football fields and counting.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
YELENA MIKHAILENKO: (Speaking Russian).
KIM: "We don't know what to do," she said, "so you're our last hope." A week later, Putin ordered the Kuchino dump closed, and the very next day its gates shut forever. Today Kuchino is the domain of a pack of stray dogs and an Austrian entrepreneur named Oliver Kayser. His company has drilled wells into the dump to collect and burn off the noxious gases produced inside the 200-foot-high landfill. A few steps from the flare, you can detect the unmistakable smell of rotten eggs. That's hydrogen sulfide leaking from the ground beneath your feet. Eventually, Kayser's company hopes to use the gas to generate electricity. But for now, they've at least reduced the smell.
OLIVER KAYSER: We have less complains than before. Before we had about 50, 100 complaints a day. Now there are maybe two or three. They should build a park afterwards, an attraction park or something, because you have really nice view.
KIM: Kayser wants the Kuchino landfill to be a model for the rest of Russia of how to mitigate the environmental effects of garbage dumps. But there's a problem. Since this dump closed, neighboring landfills have been getting even more garbage. People living near those dumps have taken to the streets in protest.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in Russian).
KIM: At this rally in July, people shouted down a local official with cries of shame, shame. Yelena Gavrilova is a schoolteacher who attended that protest. When she and her husband built a house in the village of Torbeyevo more than 20 years ago, there was no garbage dump. Now there's an enormous landfill.
YELENA GAVRILOVA: (Through interpreter) We went to the prosecutors, the governor and our local officials. Either you move us out or close the dump. The answer I got was, thanks for your civic engagement.
KIM: That's not to say the Russian government doesn't want to catch up with European countries in managing its trash. But the plans for a national garbage separation system won't go into effect for another 10 years, and the first waste incinerators have yet to be built outside Moscow.
Local politician Irina Astakhova says people are afraid the incinerators will cause new environmental problems.
IRINA ASTAKHOVA: (Speaking Russian).
KIM: "Unfortunately, as we build capitalism in Russia," she says, "everything is geared to maximizing profits. The environment takes last place." Lucian Kim, NPR News, Moscow.
(SOUNDBITE OF EKALI AND ZHU'S "BLAME")
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
More and more women keep coming forward to speak at the sentencing hearing of Larry Nassar. He's the former USA Gymnastics and Michigan State University doctor who's been convicted of sexual assault and child pornography. So far, about 160 women say he abused them. Three leaders of USA Gymnastics resigned this week. And now people are waiting to see what might happen at Michigan State.
To get a sense of the university's role in all of this, I spoke with Matt Mencarini of the Lansing State Journal. He says university staff began hearing complaints about Nassar soon after he was hired.
MATT MENCARINI: There are two women who were 16 at the time. Both said that they told Kathie Klages about abuse in 1997 at the same time.
CHANG: And Klages is who, again?
MENCARINI: So Kathie Klages is the now former MSU women's gymnastics coach. She ran a youth program back in the '90s. These two women now say that they told her about the abuse, specifically what Nassar was doing, and she cautioned them from reporting. Klages has since retired from the university. She had been there for 27 years as the head coach. She retired a day after the university suspended her for the way she handled a team meeting following the IndyStar story in September of 2016 when sexual assault allegations against Nassar were public for the first time.
CHANG: And since 1997, since those first allegations surfaced - and that was his first year at the university, let's just point out - has the university investigated any allegations that have since piled up?
MENCARINI: Once, and that was in 2014. A then-recent graduate went to see him for hip pain and back pain at the MSU office, and she reported him for sexual abuse less than two weeks later. There was a Title IX investigation, and there was a criminal investigation off of that - the same woman's report.
The university investigation cleared him in about three months. It found that he - that the woman did not understand the nuanced difference between sexual assault and an osteopathic medical procedure. The nuanced difference is the actual words for that Title IX report. And so those were dismissed, and he was allowed to return to clinical duties. The police investigation dragged on for another 16 months while he was allowed to see patients at the university. The local prosecutor's office ultimately decided not to charge him in that investigation.
CHANG: So how many people at the university seemed to have known something and chose to look the other way?
MENCARINI: Well, there's the coach from 1997. Between 1998 and 2000, a softball player has since said that she told three different trainers about him. The Title IX investigation included the Title IX coordinator, four medical experts they brought in to help evaluate what he did. It also included some involvement from his boss. And the general counsel's office was also made aware of that investigation as it ended.
CHANG: What's the university's position at this point? I mean, how is the leadership defending itself?
MENCARINI: Generally they're saying that the university wasn't put on notice or no one at the university believed that Nassar was committing criminal conduct before September of 2016 when newspaper stories started picking it up. They're being sued by at least 140 of these women and girls. In motions to dismiss those lawsuits, they've said that - that they weren't aware. They've said that the statute of limitations has expired on many of these cases. And they've said that Title IX does not apply to women or girls who are not students or employees of the university. The general stance has been that no one there was aware of Nassar's criminal conduct until this all started to kind of unfold in the last 16 months.
CHANG: There have been calls for the university's president, Lou Anna Simon, to step down. How likely is that?
MENCARINI: That's really hard to know. The board had for weeks stood united behind her. And just this last weekend, the first, like, fracture on that board was seen. Mitch Lyons, a trustee, put out a statement that said he did not - he no longer supported her, and he was calling on her to step down. So there's at least one fracture, one dissenter among that board. It's hard to know what they all think. Very few of them have spoken publicly on the record about their thoughts on Simon and their thoughts on how the university has handled all of this.
CHANG: What do victims want the school to do?
MENCARINI: A lot of them have called for Simon to step down. A lot of them want change. But even more simply, a lot of them want to be heard. They want an apology. They want the university to take responsibility for what they did.
CHANG: Matt Mencarini is a reporter with the Lansing State Journal. Thanks very much.
MENCARINI: Thanks for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF HUGH MASEKELA'S "GRAZING IN THE GRASS")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
In 1968, an instrumental tune by a little-known South African jazz musician hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100.
(SOUNDBITE OF HUGH MASEKELA'S "GRAZING IN THE GRASS")
KELLY: That's "Grazing In The Grass" by the legendary jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela. Masekela died today, 78. The cause was prostate cancer. He burst onto the world pop scene in the '60s, playing alongside Janis Joplin, Otis Redding, Ravi Shankar, The Who and Jimi Hendrix.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
HUGH MASEKELA: I got possessed by music as an infant.
KELLY: That's Masekela speaking with NPR. He told us the trumpet wasn't actually his first instrument.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
MASEKELA: Well, I started playing the piano when I was 6 years old 'cause my folks tried to get me away from the gramophone. And I just - I lived for music since I could think. And they got me piano lessons. So by the time I was 13, I was quite an accomplished piano player and musician. And I went to see this film "Young Man With A Horn."
KELLY: Thanks to a school chaplain who had pulled aside a rebellious, young Masekela and asked him...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
MASEKELA: What do you really want to do? And I said, Father, I just seen this movie, "Young Man With A Horn," the story of Bix Beiderbecke. And I said, if you can get me a trumpet, Father, I won't bother anybody anymore.
KELLY: Masekela fled apartheid South Africa when he was 21. He eventually made his way to the States, but he never entirely left apartheid behind. In 1986 as part of his political activism, he wrote this plea for an imprisoned Nelson Mandela.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BRING HIM BACK HOME (NELSON MANDELA)")
MASEKELA: (Singing) Bring back Nelson Mandela. Bring him back home to Soweto. I want to see him walking down the streets of South Africa. Hey, tomorrow, bring back Nelson Mandela. Bring him back home to Soweto. I want to see him walking hand-in-hand with Winnie Mandela.
KELLY: After Mandela was released, Hugh Masekela returned to South Africa for the first time in 30 years, and he celebrated with his hero. Over his career, Masekela fought alcohol and cocaine addiction. He published a memoir. He never stopped making music - dozens of albums. Speaking to NPR, Masekela offered this advice for young artists.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
MASEKELA: Whatever you go into, you have to go in there to be the best. There's no formulas. It's all about passion and honesty and hard work. It might look glamorous, but it takes a lot of hard work. The blessing with the arts is that you can do it forever.
KELLY: Advice from Hugh Masekela. He died today in Johannesburg. He was 78.
(SOUNDBITE OF HERB ALPERT AND HUGH MASEKELA SONG, "SKOKIAAN")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
So the shutdown is over. The Federal Government is open at least for the next 16 days when the next budget deadline looms and federal funding runs out again.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Now the deal that ended the shutdown rests on a promise - a promise by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to allow a vote on immigration. At stake is the fate of the DREAMers - these are the immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children - and also the future of DACA, the program that has protected many of those DREAMers from being deported.
Here's the rub. Promises made in the Senate may or may not fly in the House. And House Democrats and Republicans are far from united on the way forward on an immigration deal.
KELLY: Well, let's talk to one of those House Republicans, Congressman Charlie Dent of Pennsylvania. He is on the line now from his district. Hey there, Congressman.
CHARLIE DENT: Hi, Mary Louise. How are you?
KELLY: Hi. I'm well, thanks. And thanks for taking the time. Let me start by asking your reaction to the shutdown which of course is over now. From where you sit, what did the shutdown accomplish?
DENT: Well, this government shutdown in my view was entirely pointless. It was thoroughly unnecessary. What we need actually is a bipartisan, bicameral budget agreement. And we also recognize that there's not likely to be one of those until we have some kind of path forward on the DREAMer, DACA issue tied to border security.
So it seems now that we've established some type of a path forward, so I'm hopeful that we'll be able to get off of this treadmill of continuing resolutions so that we can, you know, really get on a better path towards budgetary stability and hopefully a resolution on these DREAMers who came to this country no fault of their own.
KELLY: You've mentioned the importance of a bipartisan deal. How likely is that in the House? I mean, the House last year passed one significant piece of legislation, which was the tax overhaul. And you did it without Democratic support.
DENT: Yeah. That's a different matter. That was done through reconciliation. Any changes to DACA will go through a more regular order process where there would be a requirement for a 60-vote threshold in the Senate. So the only way to pass a DACA bill will be in a bipartisan manner certainly in the Senate and also in the House. There are not 218 Republican votes for some kind of a DACA border security bill. And even if we did have 218 Republican votes in the House for such a bill, you know, to what end, I mean, 'cause the Senate wouldn't take it up. So bottom line is the only path forward is a bipartisan one on the DREAMers and border security.
KELLY: Congressman, is it a given to you that there needs to be a big, sweeping immigration bill that takes on all of this at once, or might there be some value to just working on DACA, getting that passed and then turning attention to the other outstanding issues?
DENT: I prefer this incremental approach. You know, DACA, border security - we can manage that together along with maybe a little bit of the diversity visa reform. I prefer dealing with this in smaller pieces. Rather than a comprehensive bill, I would recommend a comprehensive process so that you would have perhaps multiple bills but dealing with, you know, different issues.
KELLY: And did - I mean, you were in the House yesterday I assume to pass this vote that's - you know, ended up ending the shutdown. I mean, were you seeing groups of bipartisan lawmakers actually sounding open to a path forward here?
DENT: Yes, I've seen that. Now, the compromise in the Senate - it's kind of interesting that this great compromise in the Senate changed the bill that the House sent them by one week - from February the 16th to February the 8th, eight days. I mean, that's - that was the big change, and - but what was more important than I guess that change was the path forward that there's - there seems to be a sincere desire on both sides to move on DACA and DREAMers. And we have to do that because if we don't do that, there's not going to be a budget agreement.
KELLY: You sound optimistic, I have to say, which is - given that we're just coming off of a government shutdown and the - you know, the latest in a round of continuing resolutions just over the issue of keeping the government open - forget fixing some of the huge problems that need to be addressed - I mean, what causes you to feel like this is something you actually see a solution to?
DENT: What causes the optimism? Well, I'm an Eagles fan.
(LAUGHTER)
DENT: And they won. And we're going to win the Super Bowl. But...
KELLY: So you're having a good week. There you go.
DENT: I guess, you know, you might want to ask me in a few weeks. If this process breaks down in the Senate, then you know, obviously my optimism would've been misplaced. But I do think that we should be optimistic about a path forward. The real issue - where this is going to get very interesting - if the Senate does pass this this immigration bill with border security. And they'll have over 60 votes. It'll be a strong bipartisan vote, I suspect. Then the pressure will be on the House of Representatives really to act. And I would encourage our leadership, the speaker to allow for a vote. And that's the way I think we should proceed.
KELLY: That's Pennsylvania Republican Charlie Dent. Congressman, thanks so much for your time.
DENT: Thank you so much - really appreciate it, Mary Louise.
KELLY: And go, Eagles.
DENT: Go, Eagles. Fly, Eagles; fly.
KELLY: (Laughter) OK. Thanks again.
DENT: Thank you. [CORRECTION:A previous headline and Web introduction to this story incorrectly identified Charlie Dent as a senator. Dent is a representative.]
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Well, one unknown in the path forward on immigration is President Trump. What kind of a deal will he agree to? And how actively will Trump, who prizes himself as a great dealmaker, be flexing his negotiating muscles?
NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson joins me now from the White House to talk about all of this. Hey, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi, Ailsa.
CHANG: So - OK, we just heard Congressman Dent talk about the chances of a bipartisan immigration deal in the House. He sounds somewhat optimistic. What are your thoughts? How likely is it that lawmakers will get this done in a month?
LIASSON: I don't think they're going to get it done in a month. The problem is the House of Representatives. And, yes, big majorities in the country support a deal for the DACA recipients, but not big majorities inside the Republican conference in the House. And that's the key as to whether Paul Ryan, the speaker, will bring it up or not. Now, Charlie Dent was just talking about how he would encourage his leadership to just allow the Senate bill to go on the floor, see if it got the most votes.
But Paul Ryan believes in something called the Hastert Rule - don't bring anything up unless it has a majority of the majority party, unless a majority of Republicans would support it. That's not true with immigration. It would have to be passed with bipartisan votes. And we've seen this movie before where the Senate passes something. In 2013, they passed an immigration bill by 68 votes...
CHANG: Right.
LIASSON: ...With many of the things we're talking about now - path to legalization, end to chain migration, switch to a merit-based system. But it never got a vote in the House because it didn't have the majority of Republicans supporting it.
CHANG: That's absolutely right. Well, I want to talk about what President Trump's role might be in all of this. He was pretty quiet this past weekend as senators tried to work out a deal to end the shutdown. How long can we expect the president to stay in the background in negotiations when it comes to such a big issue? I mean, immigration is his signature campaign issue.
LIASSON: That's - that is the big question. This is his signature issue. Ever since he glided down the escalator and announced his campaign by talking about Mexico sending rapists across the border immigration has been his touchstone issue and the touchstone for his base. And he has been hanging back. Today his budget director was asked, what's the president's bottom line? What does he need? And he said, well, it depends on what we get from Congress. Today the press secretary, Sarah Sanders, sounded a little more conciliatory. She said she doesn't think the two sides are that far apart.
But at some point there will be a need for presidential leadership. He'll have to take the heat, which is what he said he would do. If something gets out of the Senate and over to the House, he'll have to sell the bill to House conservatives and give them cover.
CHANG: So what does the president want when it comes to immigration? I mean, during the campaign it was mostly about the wall, but what about now?
LIASSON: The White House says he has four priorities. He wants for a fix for DACA recipients. He wants funding for the wall. He wants an end to family reunification, or what he calls chain migration. He wants an end to the visa lottery system. But those are his starting points for negotiations. We don't know what he would accept short of a hundred percent of all those things. Many Republicans think that they could get a deal with just robust border security and money for a wall. But we don't know how flexible the president is willing to be, what he thinks would be a win for him and something that he could sell to his base.
Now, the Democrats have been changing their minds. For a while they were willing to give him full funding for the wall. Sounds like that's been withdrawn now. So I think the action is with the 22 moderate senators, bipartisan group of senators who are trying to work something out. If they come up with something, will McConnell stay true to his promise, let it be voted on? And then will Trump work to pass it in the House?
CHANG: All right, and going really quickly to Davos, President Trump leaves tomorrow night for the World Economic Forum. What's the message he's taking there?
LIASSON: The message is America's open for business. He's gotten the stock market going. Unemployment is down. When he goes to this uber-globalist gathering it does not sound like he plans to show up with a populist pitchfork. Instead, at the White House they're saying he's going to be a salesman for America and working international companies, trying to convince them to invest in America.
CHANG: NPR's Mara Liasson, thanks.
LIASSON: Thank you.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Two are dead. Seventeen others are injured in a school shooting in western Kentucky today. The shooting occurred this morning at Marshall County High School, which is a couple of hours away from Nashville. Afterwards, while standing next to her parents, witness Alyssa Hubbard described what had happened. She was in the library.
ALYSSA HUBBARD: And we could hear all the teachers screaming. I think someone got shot in the chest. And they kept yelling put some pressure on it. And after they got everyone out and they got the kid who was shooting, one of the principals came into the library and yelled his name and took us to the tech center.
KELLY: We're joined now by reporter Matt Markgraf. He is of member station WKMS in Murray, Ky. Hey, Matt.
MATT MARKGRAF, BYLINE: Hi.
KELLY: Can you give us some detail on where exactly this was and what happened?
MARKGRAF: Well, Marshall County High School is in rural west Kentucky. And it's a school of about 1,400 students. Authorities say just before 8 o'clock this morning, a 15-year-old male student armed with a handgun entered the school and started shooting in a part of the building called the commons. Students were just arriving for the day at the time of the shooting. One of the students that we talked to wasn't even there yet because of the school start time. And after the shooting began, the school called 911. And first responders arrived a few minutes later.
Witnesses say they heard popping sounds outside of the library - sounded like banging on metal. It was a chaotic scene. Some say students reportedly tried to fight the shooter. Others say the shooter dropped the gun and ran. Some of the more severely injured were flown to Vanderbilt Medical Center in Nashville. The medical director there says five male teenagers arrived at the center. Three had gunshot wounds to the head. Not everyone injured was shot. Some were less severely injured in the mayhem.
KELLY: Now, you gave us a few important details there about the shooter. You said he's believed to be this 15-year-old male, that he's a student at this high school. And I gather he's alive.
MARKGRAF: That's right. The shooter is alive. He was apprehended nonviolently by a local deputy. Authorities are not revealing the alleged shooter's name. They're saying it's a male student and that he is 15 years old. Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin and other officials say he'll be charged with murder and attempted murder.
KELLY: We just heard there from one witness, a student who was in the library as this unfolded. You've been talking to others at the school. What are you hearing?
MARKGRAF: After the shooting, students were taken to a nearby middle school to be picked up by parents. Many parents waited several hours on backed-up rural roads to pick up their children. Some had abandoned their vehicles and walked. Students and parents are shocked and grieving. One mother said that she felt complete terror when she learned of the shooting. She said it's one of the saddest days she's ever seen in her hometown. Another mother said she consoled the mother of the shooter and said that that woman had been in a state of shock. And a grandmother picking up her grandchild says that she's in her 60s and has never been so scared in her life.
KELLY: No, I imagine not - just awful. What do we know about what investigators are doing at this point?
MARKGRAF: The Kentucky State Police Critical Incident Response Team, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives - they're all processing the scene. They say there's still a lot of work to be done and many to be interviewed.
KELLY: All right, that's Matt Markgraf of member station WKMS reporting on this awful story, a school shooting that unfolded today in western Kentucky. Matt, thanks so much.
MARKGRAF: You're welcome.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
British regulators have dealt a big blow to Rupert Murdoch and his family's media empire. The Murdochs have been trying for years to take full control of one of Europe's largest broadcasters. The regulators today said that would concentrate too much of the British news media in one family's hands. Joining us now with more details on all of this is NPR's David Folkenflik. Hey, David.
DAVID FOLKENFLIK, BYLINE: Hey there.
CHANG: So what are British regulators so concerned about with a Murdoch takeover here?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, it's the question of concentration of media, you know? The Murdochs through News Corp, another corporate arm of theirs, control major newspapers - The Times of London, The Sun, The Sun on Sunday - together with Sky News, which is an element - a small element but meaningful one of the Sky Broadcasting Company. They'd reach about 31 percent of the country on a regular basis, and regulators said, you know, that's too much. These are, you know, notable owners with a strong voice, and we think that's just too much people controlling - too much being controlled by one outfit.
CHANG: I mean, you mentioned, yeah, the Murdochs have this huge media empire already. Why do they want the Sky Broadcasting Company in particular? What is it about Sky?
FOLKENFLIK: So the patriarch Rupert Murdoch essentially founded the predecessor company of Sky and had to sell off a lot of it when he had huge debts. And he's - the Murdochs don't like sharing ownership. This is a company valued at over $15 billion. It's a major broadcaster not just in Britain but in Germany, in Italy, in Austria, parts of Europe. It provides major broadband commerce there, and it's a major entity in property that would ensure significant cash flow for the Murdoch entertainment empire of 21st Century Fox.
CHANG: Was there a larger context at play here besides the reach of the Murdochs in the media world? I mean, the Murdochs have a lot of political power, a lot of name recognition both in the U.K. and the U.S. Did any of that factor into this decision by the regulators?
FOLKENFLIK: I don't think you can look at this without thinking that this is not a hands-off ownership. Rupert Murdoch in the U.K. as in his native Australia and in the U.S. as well plays a large role in influencing elections, particularly through his British newspapers and particularly through Fox News here in the U.S. A lot of Brits are very concerned about whether Sky News, a cable channel, would essentially be diverted in being more like Fox.
In addition, there have been a lot of scandals. There was the phone hacking and bribery scandal at his tabloids there from which they are still digging out. There was the Seth Rich scandal in terms of Fox News and how they handle things. And there's the signs that Rupert Murdoch has kept his political influence even as he's 86, 87 years old. You know, he's been very much a figure connected with the Trump administration and President Trump himself. So there's a lot of concern about the influence he could play if he had full control of that company.
CHANG: So how much of a setback is this? Is the effort by the Murdochs to take over Sky actually dead, or could we see a resurrection and another attempt?
FOLKENFLIK: Well, it's certainly a blow, and it's a bit of a humiliation. But it's not - you know, they didn't talk about his character being wanting here. And there's some ways they could divert it. Right now, you know, there's a proposal here in America for Walt Disney Company to buy most of the Murdoch's entertainment properties, and that would include their stake in Sky, whether it's their current - call it 40 percent controlling stake or their hundred percent were they to win this bid.
They're not going to win it if they still have Sky News. What the regulators said is they can find a way to insulate Sky News from full control of the Murdochs or if they could say, you could set up some deal whereby the entire proposition of taking over Sky is contingent on Disney taking over 21st Century Fox. And that is what is in play, and we'll see how the Murdochs react.
CHANG: All right. That's NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik in New York. Thanks, David.
FOLKENFLIK: You bet.
(SOUNDBITE OF NATURAL SELF SONG, "FEET KEEP MOVING")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Tomorrow is a critical day for Brazil and for one of the giants of Latin American politics. Former president Lula da Silva, or Lula, as he's known, was convicted last year of taking bribes as part of a massive corruption probe known as Car Wash. Well, tomorrow a court will hear his appeal. Lula is actually leading the polls ahead of this year's presidential election, and this judge's ruling could make or break his hopes of a comeback. NPR's Philip Reeves reports.
PHILIP REEVES, BYLINE: In July, Lula da Silva was sentenced to nearly 10 years in prison. The judge said Lula could remain free while he appeals his conviction.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LULA DA SILVA: (Speaking Portuguese).
REEVES: Since then, Lula's toured Brazil, drumming up support for a third term and pleading his innocence.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LULA: (Speaking Portuguese).
REEVES: "I know I haven't committed a crime," Lula told a recent rally in Rio de Janeiro organized by his Workers' Party. He says the accusations are politically motivated. Lula da Silva was president of Brazil twice. When he left office in 2011, his ratings were around 80 percent partly thanks to an economic boom. Lula was credited with social programs lifting millions out of poverty. Many admired him as a factory worker and union leader who made it to the top using remarkable political skills.
BRUNO BOGHOSSIAN: He's a very, very charismatic figure.
REEVES: Bruno Boghossian is chief political reporter of Brazil's Folha newspaper.
BOGHOSSIAN: He's charismatic with the people, and he's charismatic with other politicians. Everywhere Lula is, he's the center of attention.
REEVES: Lula's certainly the center of attention now.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
REEVES: Demonstrations for and against him are underway today on the eve of the appeal hearing. More are expected tomorrow in Brazil's southern city of Porto Alegre where the court will sit. Thousands of extra police are being deployed.
Lula was convicted of accepting a beachside apartment from a construction company in return for favors. If the court upholds that conviction, the law says that'll make him ineligible to run in Brazil's election. Murillo de Aragao is a political scientist and a lawyer who thinks this is a critical moment for Lula.
MURILLO DE ARAGAO: He is a historical personality in a very dramatic manner because he had a dramatic career to became president. And he now is facing the sequels of the endemic corruption that we had in Brazil.
REEVES: Yet de Aragao says if Lula loses tomorrow's appeal, it won't necessarily be the end of the road. To be finally kicked out of the election contest, Lula has officially to register as a candidate. At that point, his case would be referred to the electoral courts. This may not happen for months. Meanwhile, Lula has other appeal options. The first round of Brazil's election is in October. Right now, Lula's well ahead in the polls with a far-right contender, Jair Bolsonaro, in second place.
On Brazil's streets, public opinion about Lula is divided.
LUCIANA BASTOS: (Speaking Portuguese).
REEVES: "It'll be a total defeat of Lula comes back," says Luciana Bastos, a seamstress in Rio. She thinks he's been involved in too many scandals.
JOSE PAULO: (Speaking Portuguese).
REEVES: I'd vote for him again, says Jose Paulo, a popcorn seller. Paulo thinks Lula did a lot for Brazil's poor.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LULA: (Speaking Portuguese).
REEVES: Even Lula's enemies agree that at 72, he remains a fighter. At that recent gathering in Rio, he certainly didn't sound like someone who's giving up.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LULA: (Speaking Portuguese).
REEVES: "If my party wants me, Lula, a little old man, I'll run," he said, "no matter what." Philip Reeves, NPR News, Rio de Janeiro.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHAPTER FOU'S "ORACLE")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Academy Award nominations were announced today. And if you're looking for an early front-runner, you could do worse than Guillermo del Toro's romantic science fiction fantasy "The Shape Of Water." It led the way with 13 nominations including best picture.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE SHAPE OF WATER")
RICHARD JENKINS: (As Giles) The princess without voice and the tale of love and loss and the monster who tried to destroy it all...
KELLY: Joining "The Shape Of Water" in the top category with eight nominations is the World War II battlefield epic "Dunkirk."
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "DUNKIRK")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) That's two minutes. You've missed it.
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSION)
KELLY: And close on the heels of "Dunkirk" with seven nominations is "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri." That's the story of a woman demanding that a sexual predator be brought to justice.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI")
FRANCES MCDORMAND: (As Mildred) My daughter Angela was murdered seven months ago. It seems to me the police department is too busy torturing black folks and eating Krispy Kremes to solve actual crime.
KELLY: And there are six other best picture contenders. Well, joining me now to talk about all the nominations are Linda Holmes of NPR's pop culture blog Monkey See. Hi, Linda...
LINDA HOLMES, BYLINE: Hello.
KELLY: ...And our film critic Bob Mondello. So welcome to you both.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: Good to be here.
KELLY: Bob, I'm going to give you the first word 'cause I want you to run through. There are nine nominations for best picture overall. We heard about three. What are the other six?
MONDELLO: Well, there's another World War II story that looks at Dunkirk from Winston Churchill's point of view, the "Darkest Hour" - also the gay love story "Call Me By Your Name," The horror comedy with a racial subtext "Get Out," the Pentagon Papers chronicle "The Post" and the fashion world drama that Daniel Day-Lewis says will be his last film ever, "Phantom Thread," and also Greta Gerwig's autobiographical or semi-autobiographical high school dramedy "Lady Bird."
KELLY: Dramedy - all right, there we go.
MONDELLO: (Laughter).
KELLY: Linda, does the fact that "The Shape Of Water," which we started with - 13 nominations - does that kind of make it a shoo-in for best picture?
HOLMES: It doesn't make it a shoo-in. Sometimes the sheer number of nominations says more about what kind of movie it is than how likely it is to win. Sometimes films get many, many nominations because of the number of good roles they have and their ability to be nominated for things like visuals and sound, which, if you look at a film like "Get Out," it doesn't have the same kind of visual effects. It's just as visually effective, but it doesn't have the same kinds of effects as a film like "The Shape Of Water." So sometimes it really just says what kind of a film it is.
KELLY: Now, there were some notable firsts in other categories. Let me start with directors category. Bob, what happened there?
MONDELLO: OK, there were two first-time directors, Jordan Peele for "Get Out" and Greta Gerwig for "Lady Bird." And "Dunkirk" is veteran filmmaker Christopher Nolan's first nomination for director. He's been nominated before but always for screenplay. This time he got nominated for director. And this is the guy who made "Memento." This is the guy who made, I mean, just all the - those amazing Batman pictures. It's incredible he hasn't been nominated for director before.
KELLY: He was due, you would argue.
MONDELLO: Yeah, I'd say.
KELLY: Yeah. Linda...
HOLMES: Believe it or not, this is the first time a woman has ever been nominated in the category of cinematography. Her name is Rachel Morrison, and she's the cinematographer for "Mudbound." The cinematographer is literally the person whose lens you're looking through. So having a woman at the 90th Academy Awards finally nominated in that category is an important first.
MONDELLO: And under normal circumstances, I would be so for her winning. And I am torn because Roger Deakins has been nominated 14 times...
KELLY: Fourteen times...
MONDELLO: ...Fourteen times and has never won.
KELLY: You know, it's always interesting to see how the Oscars play off the national zeitgeist and what we're all talking about this year. Of course we're talking about the #MeToo movement, and I'm sure that will come up at the Oscars. What about what we were all talking about a couple of years ago, #OscarsSoWhite? Linda, will that still be front and center this year?
HOLMES: I think that it will be. I think that you can see some progress in those areas, Jordan Peele being nominated, Greta Gerwig in terms of including more women. I think that the acting categories have more black actors - Octavia Spencer, Denzel Washington, Daniel Kaluuya, who's in "Get Out," and also Mary J. Blige - nice to see Guillermo del Toro is nominated as a director for "Shape Of Water." So there is some progress. It's iterative. They have a long, long way to go.
KELLY: Now, let me ask you about something which they will be desperately trying not to do at the Oscars this year, which is announce the wrong winner for best picture.
HOLMES: Oh, boy.
(LAUGHTER)
MONDELLO: That was one of the most special moments in Oscar history last year.
HOLMES: It really was. It was wonderful - awful but wonderful.
KELLY: Awful but wonderful - what steps are they taking to not have a repeat of this?
MONDELLO: I think the biggest one of all is that they're not allowing cellphones backstage. The guy who handed the wrong envelope had just tweeted a photo of somebody from backstage on his cellphone.
HOLMES: Emma Stone, I believe.
MONDELLO: And you know...
KELLY: Was distracted.
MONDELLO: Apparently. So anyway, they - one of my favorite things is they're going to have somebody in the control booth who has memorized all the winners. So someone is going to know this ahead of time.
(LAUGHTER)
KELLY: All right, that's our film critic Bob Mondello and Linda Holmes, czar of our pop culture blog Monkey See. Thanks so much to you both.
HOLMES: Thank you.
MONDELLO: Always a pleasure.
KELLY: On tomorrow's Morning Edition - more movie stars and filmmakers. The Sundance Film Festival is underway in Park City, Utah. Our colleague David Greene is going to talk with critic Kenneth Turan about what is worth watching. That is tomorrow on Morning Edition.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The California woman who was the most likely model for Rosie the Riveter has died. If you'll remember, Rosie was the apple-cheeked icon who helped inspire the American workforce during World War II.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROSIE THE RIVETER")
THE FOUR VAGABONDS: (Singing) All the day long whether rain or shine, she's a part of the assembly line. She's making history working for victory - Rosie the Riveter.
CHANG: Most of us associate Rosie the Riveter with a poster of a young woman wearing a polka-dotted kerchief over the slogan we can do it. NPR's Neda Ulaby has our remembrance.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "IT'S YOUR WAR TOO")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) Hey, there goes one of those petticoat soldiers now.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: In 1944, the War Activities Committee recruited thousands of women who had become known as Rosies with short movies like this one. Those women, who rolled up their sleeves and worked in munitions factories and on air bases, included a 20-year-old from Alameda, Calif. Naomi Parker Fraley signed up after Pearl Harbor. She probably never saw the Rosie poster during the war. It was popularized by feminists in the 1980s.
For years, people believed the artist, J. Howard Miller, modeled Rosie on a Michigan war factory worker named Geraldine Hoff Doyle. She'd identified herself as Rosie because she'd been a Rosie the Riveter, and she looked a lot like the woman on the poster. But when Doyle died in 2010, a professor at Seton Hall University started investigating.
James Kimble learned the poster was likely based on a photo of that young woman at the Alameda Naval Air Station. The photo, which circulated on wire services, showed Naomi Parker Fraley operating a heavy industrial lathe and wearing a dotted bandana.
JAMES KIMBLE: When you look at the photograph and then the poster next to each other, you do see what I think are some pretty startling similarities.
ULABY: Kimble emphasizes there's no way to be a hundred percent sure, but Naomi Parker Fraley had thought the poster was based on her, too, and she'd made a few attempts to get recognition over the years. But Kimble says the other story was already well established.
KIMBLE: I never got the sense that she desired to be famous. For her, it was mostly about reclaiming her own identity, that someone else's name had taken the place of hers.
ULABY: Seven years after the picture was taken, James Kimble says it was easy to see the woman whose face and raised fist remains a global symbol of empowerment. Naomi Parker Fraley died Saturday at a home for seniors in Longview, Wash. Her family says she was of sound mind till the end, but she suffered from cancer. Naomi Parker Fraley or Rosie the Riveter was 96 years old. Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF SOFT RIDE SONG, "THE SUN IN HER EYES")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
One of the towering figures in science fiction has died, although she never really liked being called a sci-fi writer. Ursula K. Le Guin was best known for the "Earthsea" fantasy books and for her influential gender-bending space saga "The Left Hand Of Darkness." Le Guin won just about every major award you can win, and her mix of sorcerers and spaceships, literary fireworks and feminist sensibility influenced generations of writers who followed her. NPR books editor Petra Mayer is here to talk about Le Guin's legacy. Welcome.
PETRA MAYER, BYLINE: Hi.
KELLY: I got to start with asking you, what was her problem? Why didn't she like being called a sci-fi writer?
MAYER: There's a great quote actually that she gave the Paris Review a few years ago. I will let her speak here because she's the writer. She said, (reading) where I can get prickly and combative is if I'm just called a sci-fi writer. I'm not. I'm a novelist and poet. Don't shove me into your damn pigeon hole where I don't fit because I'm all over. My tentacles are coming out of the pigeon in all directions.
KELLY: I like her.
MAYER: Tentacles - yeah.
KELLY: Yeah.
MAYER: She didn't pull any punches. She always kind of went her own way. You know, there were very few women writing sci-fi and fantasy in the '60s when she first began to publish. And it was definitely not as respected a genre as it is today. But she was so influential. Just as an example, when she began to publish the "Earthsea" books in the late-'60s, there were a lot of characters that weren't white, and that was a pretty big deal if the only other thing you were seeing was Lieutenant Uhura on "Star Trek."
KELLY: Well, so who influenced her to start writing?
MAYER: That's actually an interesting thing to think about because her parents were both anthropologists. And if you've read "The Left Hand Of Darkness," which is - it's set on this planet where gender is fluid and ambiguous and everyone is just called he. It's almost as much of an anthropological study of diplomacy in this culture as it is a sci-fi story. She was a voracious reader. She was known to study Taoism. The ideas of balance from Taoism come through very strongly in her work, particularly in the "Earthsea" novels. There's this one bit where an aspiring mage who's at a magic school that is so not Hogwarts - he has to learn to do by not doing.
One of the things that you hear about genre fiction in general is that it's a lens through which authors can examine our lives and our society. And I always think about Le Guin when I hear that. She wrote this story called "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas," which is about a beautiful, happy, prosperous city where everything good there - you know, the parades, the parties, the clothes - depends on the life of this one poor child who's kept in misery and squalor. And most of the people in Omelas accept that, and some of them just walk away.
And I feel like it's almost a rite of passage for a young fantasy fan. It was for me to read that story and to react violently to it and to argue about whether you would or wouldn't walk away and then to start mapping that conversation onto the world that you see around you and how you react to that world.
KELLY: You're adding lots to my reading list now for Le Guin books and stories to catch up on. But I want to ask on a personal note. Le Guin was in the headlines a few years ago. She made this fiery speech at the National Book Awards. And Petra, you were there.
MAYER: I was. I was. And it was something to see. It was right around the time that Amazon was in a dispute with a bunch of publishers about pricing. And she was talking about corporate fatwas and commodity profiteers. You could kind of see the people in the audience squirming actually. Here's a little bit of that speech. She said hard times were coming and that we were going to need what she called writers who can remember freedom.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
URSULA K LE GUIN: Poets, visionaries, the realists of a larger reality - right now, I think we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art.
MAYER: And really that was Ursula K. Le Guin for me. Everything she did was art.
KELLY: That is NPR books editor Petra Mayer talking there about Ursula K. Le Guin, who died yesterday at her home in Portland. She was 88. Thanks, Petra.
MAYER: Thank you.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The head of Minnesota Public Radio today released new details about the company's decision last year to cut business ties with the former host of A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor. CEO Jon McTaggart says a woman who worked on Keillor's staff notified company officials back in October about dozens of sexually inappropriate incidents including unwanted touching.
Joining us now is Matt Sepic, one of three Minnesota Public Radio reporters who've been investigating the allegations against Keillor. Hey, Matt.
MATT SEPIC, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Start with what we know now about these allegations that we didn't back in November when Minnesota Public Radio cut ties.
SEPIC: When our company announced the move on November 29, my colleagues Euan Kerr, Laura Yuen and I started investigating Keillor's past. We interviewed more than 60 people who've worked with him over the years, including staff from A Prairie Home Companion and The Writer's Almanac, his two long-running national shows. And to be clear, we did not find anything to indicate Keillor engaged in sexual assault, the sort of behavior that Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein and other prominent men stand accused of. But we did learn that Keillor had at least two romantic relationships in workplaces he led. And again, these affairs, by all accounts, were consensual.
KELLY: Consensual - it does appear that Keillor tried to keep them quiet, though. Is that right?
SEPIC: Yes. Keillor's production company offered a Keillor subordinate who'd been romantically involved with him $16,000. That check came alongside a confidentiality agreement and a new contract. The woman who spoke to us on condition of anonymity neither cashed that check, nor did she sign the contract. Keillor and his staff work in a building away from Minnesota Public Radio's headquarters, and MPR's newsroom is independent of the company's corporate structure.
Company president Jon McTaggart says the first he'd heard about any problems with Keillor was in August. McTaggart says MPR started an internal investigation at that point. Then two months later, the company hired an outside law firm after receiving a 12-page letter from the attorney of a woman who says Keillor harassed her. McTaggart says the letter includes dozens of allegations including unwanted touching and emails requesting sexual contact. He says the investigation turned up information he could not ignore.
JON MCTAGGART: When we reached a point that from all sources we had sufficient confidence in facts that really required us to act, we took the action we did.
KELLY: All right, so that's your CEO, Jon McTaggart, talking. As you said, you in the newsroom are independent. You're firewalled from corporates. Tell me a little bit more about what you have learned from your investigation.
SEPIC: Well, just by searching public records, we found out that a woman who worked on Keillor's Writer's Almanac show 20 years ago had sued Minnesota Public Radio in 1999 after she was fired. She didn't allege sexual harassment. Her name's Patricia McFadden, and she told me last week that Keillor often bullied the women on his staff and publicly humiliated them.
PATRICIA MCFADDEN: He didn't want too many female poets or authors to be highlighted, and he wanted to know if I was using some kind of a women's calendar because there seemed to be too many women in this week's Writer's Almanac.
KELLY: Matt, what about the man at the center of this, Garrison Keillor himself? I'm sure you've reached out for comment. What's he saying?
SEPIC: So far he's declined on-the-record interviews with us, but he did tell the Minneapolis Star Tribune his only offense was touching a woman's bare back to console her. McTaggart says Keillor's public statements, quote, "have not been fully accurate."
KELLY: Reporter Matt Sepic of Minnesota Public Radio - thank you, Matt.
SEPIC: You're welcome.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Now we take you to the top of the world, to the northern coast of Alaska where a cliff is crumbling and exposing an ancient hunting site.
MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF, BYLINE: Oh, there's another head back there.
ZAC PETERSON: Yeah. We got a head right here, a head right there, main body right here.
CHANG: Across the Arctic, these prehistoric settlements are being unearthed. And the reason why is climate change. As NPR's Michaeleen Doucleff reports, scientists are worried about something that could be lurking inside these settlements - zombie pathogens.
(SOUNDBITE OF WAVES CRASHING)
DOUCLEFF: Up on top of an ocean bluff, a team of archaeologists is trying to pull off an emergency excavation.
DOMINIC TULLO: Coming out of here, we have ribs and vertebrae and other long bones.
DOUCLEFF: That's Dominic Tullo, a student helping to dig out a hunting cabin. He's found a stash of animal bones.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Say that one more time.
DOUCLEFF: At the other end of the house, Glenys Ong shows me where someone was storing fresh kills.
GLENYS ONG: And so this is - this looks like skin right here.
DOUCLEFF: Right at my feet are two mummified seals, and these seals are incredibly well-preserved. You could see their skin, their whiskers.
ONG: And this - oh, it's a little paw.
DOUCLEFF: Oh, it is a little paw.
Everywhere they dig, there's another surprise.
ANNE JENSEN: Holy Moses, this is ridiculous.
DOUCLEFF: That's Anne Jensen, the archaeologist leading the team. They're at a coastal site near Utqiagvik, the town once known as Barrow. They're rushing to save a piece of history before it falls into the ocean. The cliff where the cabin is buried is thawing and breaking apart because of climate change.
PETERSON: It's that a bird?
JENSEN: It's just bird after bird after birds stacked up in there - skin there - ay-ay-ay (ph). Oh, yeah - yeah, there is - oh, my goodness.
PETERSON: It's the whole leg.
DOUCLEFF: Ew.
PETERSON: Oh, boy...
DOUCLEFF: Things are getting super stinky. The birds are thawing and rotting.
ONG: Oh, that's ripe.
DOUCLEFF: One student's hands are covered in black, decaying bird flesh.
JENSEN: Oh, no, oh, (laughter) her hands - oh, my gosh, oh...
DOUCLEFF: Now Jensen starts worrying about something we can't see.
JENSEN: Avian flu...
COLINE LEMAITRE: The norovirus...
JENSEN: Oh, norovirus, yes.
DOUCLEFF: The team realizes there could be bird flu hidden in these carcasses. You see, all across the Arctic, climate change is causing the ground to warm, soften like butter. And there are a lot of things buried in this ground - not just animals but also their diseases.
JENSEN: Take a break. Take a break, Coline. You're going to drive yourself - go nuts. Seriously, you need a break (laughter).
DOUCLEFF: Colin Lemaitre (ph) is a student. She puts on gloves.
JENSEN: Yeah, you should probably do that rather than go barehanded 'cause, I mean, there's a lot of gunk in here that...
DOUCLEFF: At this point in the excavation, something even creepier happens. A human molar appears.
PETERSON: Wait. It's really a human tooth.
DOUCLEFF: Now, the site we're at isn't a burial ground. There shouldn't be bodies right here. But the tooth does make them pause because it reminds them that there aren't just animal diseases buried in the Arctic but also possibly human diseases. There are tens of thousands of bodies hidden in the Arctic permafrost. Jensen knows this better than anyone.
JENSEN: I've done a lot of burials, yeah. I've probably dug as many burials as anybody.
DOUCLEFF: Some of the people buried up here - they died of smallpox, others from the 1918 flu.
Have you ever seen human remains, like, as well-preserved as this seal?
JENSEN: Oh, yeah.
DOUCLEFF: Yeah.
JENSEN: Yeah, yeah. Well, the little frozen girl from Utqiagvik, (unintelligible) - yeah, she was actually much better preserved than the seal.
DOUCLEFF: The little girl was just 6 years old. She was carefully wrapped in a duck skin parka with a fur-trimmed hood. She had this little sled with her. She died about 800 years ago.
JENSEN: Water had seeped in around her burial I think, and she was - so she was basically encased in ice. We are able to take her out in a block of ice.
DOUCLEFF: Her body was so well preserved that Jensen shipped her to Anchorage so doctors could do a full autopsy. One of those doctors was Michael Zimmerman, a paleobiologist at the University of Pennsylvania.
MICHAEL ZIMMERMAN: I've done a number of studies on frozen bodies in Alaska. And when you open them up, the organs are all there, and they're easily identified. It's not at all like Egyptian mummies where everything is shrunken and dried up.
DOUCLEFF: So it's easy to see what a person died of. For the little frozen girl, it was starvation. But Zimmerman has seen infections in bodies excavated from permafrost. In one case, a mummy from the Aleutian Islands looked like it had died of pneumonia. And when he looked for the bacteria inside the body, there they were frozen in time.
ZIMMERMAN: We can see them microscopically in the lungs.
DOUCLEFF: There's this fear out there that once human bodies are exposed by melting permafrost, the pathogens in them could come back to life like zombie pathogens. It's not unheard of. Anthrax can do it. It happened just a few years ago in Russia. A massive reindeer burial ground thawed, and the anthrax that killed the reindeer woke up and started an outbreak. Were these pneumonia bacteria still alive? Zimmerman tested it. He took a smidge of tissue from the lungs, warmed it up, fed it and tried to revive it.
ZIMMERMAN: Nothing grew.
DOUCLEFF: Not one single cell.
ZIMMERMAN: No. (Laughter) I was happy (laughter) 'cause I didn't have to worry about catching anything.
DOUCLEFF: Zimmerman says he wasn't surprised the bacteria were dead. Anthrax is a special case. In general, bacteria that make people sick can't survive a deep freeze.
ZIMMERMAN: We're dealing with organisms that are hundreds of years old. At least in the stuff I worked on, they're frozen for hundreds of years, and I really don't think they're ready to come back to life.
DOUCLEFF: I ask him if the same is true for viruses.
ZIMMERMAN: I think it's extremely unlikely. We've never been able to culture any living organisms out of these bodies.
DOUCLEFF: In 1951, a pathologist from San Francisco, Johan Hultin, decided to test this out. He went up to a tiny town near Nome, Ala., and dug up the bodies of five people who had died of the 1918 flu, a virus that killed at least 50 million people. Hultin told NPR in 2004 that he cut out tiny pieces of the people's lungs and tried to grow the virus in the lab.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
JOHAN HULTIN: I hoped that I would be able to isolate a living virus, and I couldn't. The virus was dead. And in retrospect, of course maybe that was a good thing.
DOUCLEFF: Or a good thing - but here's the crazy part. Hultin tried to capture the virus twice. He went back to Alaska when he was 72. And Russian scientists like Hultin have intentionally tried to revive smallpox from bodies in their permafrost. They recovered pieces of the virus but couldn't get that to grow either. So maybe when it comes to zombie diseases, it's not melting permafrost we need to worry about but what scientists are doing in the lab. Michaeleen Doucleff, NPR News.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Chinese researchers have finally done something scientists have been trying to do for decades - use the same technique that cloned Dolly the sheep to clone a primate. The advance could be a big boon to medical research, and NPR health correspondent Rob Stein has details.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: Ever since Dolly the sheep was cloned, scientists have been trying to use the same technique to clone other species, and it's worked. They've cloned cows, dogs, pigs, cats and a long list of other species, but no one has ever been able to clone a chimp or an ape or any other primates. Some started to think it just wasn't possible, until now.
MU-MING POO: We're excited. Lot of people are excited.
STEIN: That's Mu-ming Poo at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. We talked on Skype.
POO: This is really, I think, a breakthrough for biomedicine.
STEIN: Two baby macaque monkey clones were born in Shanghai six and eight weeks ago. Their names are Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua, after the Chinese word Zhonghua, which means Chinese people.
POO: They are lively. They are walking, jumping, playing around like all newborn baby monkeys.
STEIN: Poo's team finally did it by pulling the DNA out of cells from fetal monkeys, putting the genes into monkey eggs and then tricking the eggs into developing into embryos with just the right chemical signals.
POO: The trick is that we choose the right chemicals to turn on these genes we transfer into the egg, OK? So that's what we did different. I think that's the key.
STEIN: They then transplanted the cloned monkey embryos into surrogate female monkeys. But why? Why clone monkeys? Well, because primates like monkeys are our closest relatives, so scientists could use cloned monkeys to study a long list of terrible diseases and hopefully find new cures.
POO: We need to have genetically identical monkeys that's cloned for study many human diseases, especially brain diseases.
STEIN: Brain diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's, maybe even autism.
DIETER EGLI: I think it's a very exciting landmark. It's a major advance.
STEIN: That's Dieter Egli, a biologist at Columbia.
EGLI: These monkeys should be useful for medical research. It should be possible to make models of human disease in those monkeys, and study those and then attempt to cure it.
STEIN: But this step is also causing some concerns.
INSOO HYUN: This is a case of monkey see, monkey do.
STEIN: Insoo Hyun is a bioethicist at Case Western Reserve University.
HYUN: People may wonder, are human beings next? People have always been worried about the possibility of human cloning, and this is just a - yet another step in that direction. So there is certainly a concern about, how close are we to the reality of human cloning?
STEIN: Because human biology is so similar to monkeys. But Hyun and others say it would be highly unethical to even try, for lots of reasons. First of all, it's not safe. A lot of the cloned monkey embryos the Chinese created died in the womb or soon after birth.
HYUN: So safety of the resulting child is a major concern.
STEIN: But even if it was safe, many say there are big reasons never to try. George Daley is the dean of the Harvard Medical School.
GEORGE DALEY: Cloning one individual in the image of another really sort of demeans the significance of us as individuals. There's a certain sort of gut sense that it violates sort of a natural norms.
STEIN: But Daley worries that some rogue scientist somewhere might try, even though there are laws against human cloning in many countries.
DALEY: We live in such a celebrity-driven world that there are unscrupulous practitioners who might try this.
STEIN: The Chinese scientists acknowledged that any new technology can be abused but stressed they have no interest in ever trying to clone a person.
POO: Technically speaking, one can clone human, but we are not going to do it. There is absolutely no plan to do anything on a human.
STEIN: They just want to find new ways to cure diseases, so they already have other monkeys pregnant with cloned embryos in the hopes they'll give birth to more cloned monkeys soon. Rob Stein, NPR News.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Marijuana is illegal in Wyoming, but that's not the case for its neighbor to the south, Colorado. Since Colorado legalized recreational pot in 2014, police in Wyoming have been dealing with an influx of marijuana in all kinds of forms. As Wyoming Public Radio's Bob Beck reports, that has complicated matters in the legislature there.
BOB BECK, BYLINE: Wyoming's drug laws don't take into account popular edible and drinkable forms of marijuana. Wyoming makes 3 ounces of leafy marijuana a felony, but when lawmakers tried to make 3 ounces of edible marijuana a felony, there was outrage. State Representative Charles Pelkey.
CHARLES PELKEY: You know, we can talk about the minutiae of this topic, but the fundamental problem is whether or not you want to charge someone as a felon for bringing a 16-ounce, THC-laden drink back into the state of Wyoming.
BECK: For those of you wondering, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, is responsible for marijuana's psychological effects. It's what gives you a high. The problem is that some forms of edible marijuana have a lot of THC, and some don't. All forms of edible marijuana have other ingredients such as butter, oil and sugar.
MAKA KALAI: Let's see.
BECK: Maka Kalai is the director of sales and marketing for Organic Alternatives, which is a place where you can purchase pot in Fort Collins, Colo. In some ways, it looks like a candy store with chocolate and gummy bears laced with THC. There's also a wide variety of traditional forms of cannabis. He says 3 ounces of pot that you smoke is a lot.
KALAI: It would absolutely take me at least three months if not six months to finish 3 ounces of cannabis.
BECK: Which is why it's a felony in Wyoming because it's assumed that much marijuana will be sold. But it wouldn't take Kalai six months to finish a pot brownie. The Wyoming legislature will consider two bills this session, and neither takes it easy on edibles. One would make 3 ounces of edible marijuana and 36 ounces of liquid marijuana a felony while the other bill would make 3 ounces a felony but lessen penalties for first and second offenders. The tough stance is because law enforcement sees dangers with edibles. John Knepper of the Wyoming attorney general's office says people often eat more than the recommended serving.
JOHN KNEPPER: One of the things that the edible marijuana industry has taught us is that if you want to sell a psychoactive substance, a really effective way is to bundle it with chocolate because that's something people like.
BECK: Laramie Defense Attorney Cole Sherard fears countless felony charges over small amounts of marijuana. Wyoming State Crime Lab says it can't measure for THC, and THC levels on labels is hearsay and inadmissible in court. But Sherard says they need to figure it out.
COLE SHERARD: I think there's enough literature and research out there where you can at least get some idea of how much are in these edible products and try to compare those to our current statutes and try to come up with something a little more fair.
BECK: Representative Pelkey says the legislature has wasted too much time on the issue and thinks they should move to decriminalize Wyoming's marijuana laws.
PELKEY: You know, I haven't spent this much time listening to people pointlessly talking about weed since I was in high school.
BECK: The full legislature will once again consider the issue next month. For NPR News, I'm Bob Beck in Laramie.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
In the middle of this bad flu season comes a study offering yet more evidence that it is really important to get a flu shot. Here's one finding. The risk of heart attack spikes in the days following a flu diagnosis. NPR's Allison Aubrey reports.
ALLISON AUBREY, BYLINE: Flu trackers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say they can't say yet whether this will end up as one of the worst flu seasons, but the CDC's Alicia Fry says it is bad, and it's not over yet.
ALICIA FRY: The rate of hospitalizations continues to increase, and we are seeing high rates of deaths and outpatient visits at this point. And we can see that for most of the states, it's at a critical high level.
AUBREY: People who get the flu feel lousy, but now there's new evidence that the risks go beyond feeling sick. Researchers in Canada have documented evidence that in some people, the flu can trigger a heart attack. Here's study author Jeff Kwong of Public Health Ontario.
JEFF KWONG: We found that you are six times more likely to have a heart attack during the week after being diagnosed with influenza compared to the year before or after the infection.
AUBREY: Six times more likely - did that surprise you?
KWONG: Well, yeah, it is quite a - it's a very strong association, and so that was a little bit of surprise.
AUBREY: Kwong says this link has long been suspected. But to confirm it, he and his colleagues decided to match flu test results with hospitalization data, so this way they were certain that it was the influenza virus causing the infection. Now, Kwong says there's a lot happening in the body during the flu that could explain the risk.
KWONG: There's inflammation going on, and your body is under a lot of stress. So that can lower your blood pressure. It can lower the oxygen levels, and it can lead to an increased risk of forming blood clots in your vessels that serve your heart.
AUBREY: Now, a young person who is normally healthy is very unlikely to have a heart attack when they get the flu. In this study, those who ended up suffering a cardiovascular event during the flu were older.
KWONG: Most of them were over 65, and a lot of them also had risk factors for heart disease already.
AUBREY: Such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes. Now, the flu vaccine does not always prevent an infection. Some years, it offers more coverage than others. But the CDC's Alicia Fry says it's not too late to get one this year. She says they're still seeing new outbreaks - for instance, cases of influenza B in nursing homes. That's a different strain than the one that's been circulating so far this year.
FRY: There could be another wave of flu coming.
AUBREY: And she has this reminder for those who do end up getting sick.
FRY: It's really important when people start to have symptoms of flu that they stay home.
AUBREY: The risks of infecting a colleague or a classmate can go beyond just making them feel sick. Allison Aubrey, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRISTEZA'S "BEIGE FINGER")
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
This week on NPR, we're looking at the changing American workforce. A new NPR/Marist poll finds that 20 percent of American workers are contract workers. That means they can see their pay vary greatly from month to month. NPR's Jim Zarroli caught up with a Colorado family trying to keep up with the bills in a world where their incomes regularly fluctuate.
JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Tom Hansen and Gina Barr are frying mozzarella sticks for their two teenage sons in their kitchen in the Denver suburb of Englewood.
TOM HANSEN: And I have prosciutto-wrapped mozzarella sticks. I don't know if you've had one of these, but...
ZARROLI: The boys have just come home from school, and the two-bedroom apartment suddenly seems a lot louder. One of the parents is almost always around when the kids get home. Gina, who's 37, works as a shift manager at Starbucks and starts work way before dawn.
GINA BARR: I start work at 4:30 (laughter). Adjusting to that schedule was - you know, there definitely was an adjustment period. But I quickly adapted to it.
ZARROLI: Tom, at 39, works evenings as a banquet server at a nearby restaurant. It's not a full-time job. He works when he gets called in. He usually knows a week in advance what shifts he'll get but not always.
HANSEN: I probably pick up I'd say about a quarter of my shifts on a - kind of a last-minute basis where there's two days' or less knowledge.
ZARROLI: It sounds like you almost always say yes. Why is that?
HANSEN: It's - you know, the money per hour is really just too lucrative to say no.
ZARROLI: Tom likes the job, and the pay with tips is really good. But Gina says the irregular hours make it hard to predict how much he'll bring in.
BARR: I mean, during Christmas, during December, it was - oh, my gosh, he was working, like - I think he worked, like, 17 or 19 days in a row, which was wonderful for our children. We had a great Christmas (laughter). But when you drop into January and that income now slices in half, that's a little bit harder to deal with.
ZARROLI: When times are slow like now, Tom has other ways to make money.
HANSEN: So just go into the app.
ZARROLI: He drives for Lyft. It's a quick way to make cash.
HANSEN: You know, a lot of times I'll know that I am $70 short on rent or whatever the bill I'm trying to pay is. And so I'll just drive until I have $70 and then cash it out, and then I'm done.
ZARROLI: But in the suburbs, driving isn't that lucrative, so they're selling off some of their possessions on Facebook Marketplace. It's not just about money. They're trying to declutter. They've kept only what's important - family photos, favorite books, a Jimi Hendrix poster. Until last year, the Hansens lived in Utah. They worked incredibly long hours. Gina had a telecom job, and Tom managed fast food restaurants. But they both grew up in Colorado and wanted to be closer to family. The move back home has meant less money.
Diana Farrell is president of the JPMorgan Chase Institute, which has studied families whose incomes vary a lot. She says a lot of people like this kind of lifestyle. The problem is that many of them don't maintain much of a cash buffer.
DIANA FARRELL: Because most households don't have a cushion, meaning that if you have a dip in income, you can go into your cash buffer to take care of any expenses you weren't expecting...
ZARROLI: That means they're unprepared when an emergency occurs like an accident or a health problem. The Hansens get health insurance and other benefits through Gina's job at Starbucks, but they don't have much money put away. Last year, they did really well, so they took a family vacation to California. Gina says they had a great time.
BARR: And we came back. And then all of a sudden, there was no work, and we couldn't even pay rent. It was very (laughter) difficult. And then we were scrambling. And we're like, was it us? Did we just spend too much? You know, and you kind of question and doubt yourself I think at moments. Am I doing the right thing?
ZARROLI: Then there are the unexpected bills that come up - braces for the kids' teeth, a car that breaks down. Tom gives Gina credit for getting the family through the rough times. She's the one who's good at planning inexpensive meals or calling the doctor to ask for more time to pay bills.
HANSEN: She's definitely the planner in the family. And through her survival brilliance, (laughter) I'll call it, we've gotten through a lot of tough months when the shifts have dropped off and we've made a lot less money.
ZARROLI: But Gina says the constant juggling, the robbing Peter to pay Paul, takes a toll.
BARR: You know, as I put it to Tommy several times, it's like nails in my brain. Like, I hate doing it. That's the part I don't like because I prefer to just let everything get paid when it needs to get paid. We're not frivolous people. We don't spend a lot of money.
ZARROLI: The Hansens are pretty optimistic. Gina is angling for a promotion at Starbucks where she'll earn more money. But for now, their income bounces around, and that can sometimes drive them both crazy. Jim Zarroli, NPR News.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The #MeToo movement has reverberated throughout our culture - in Hollywood, Capitol Hill, through newsrooms and boardrooms, on factory floors and in houses of worship. NPR's Tom Gjelten looks at how evangelical Christians are distinguishing sexual sin from sexual crime.
TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: In Tennessee earlier this month, a young pastor named Andy Savage stood before his congregation and emotionally confessed to what he called a sexual incident years earlier with a 17-year-old girl. Savage said he had repented before God back then, and then he said this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANDY SAVAGE: For any painful memories or fresh wounds this has created for anyone, I am sorry, and I humbly ask for your forgiveness. I love you all very much.
(APPLAUSE)
GJELTEN: A clip of that moment is getting a lot of attention in evangelical circles, less having to do with the pastor's confession than with the congregation's response. They gave him a standing ovation.
(APPLAUSE)
GJELTEN: Some evangelical women see in that reaction a tendency in their faith culture to celebrate people just for tearfully confessing their sins, no matter if they've been held accountable.
KATELYN BEATY: Christians love a redemption story.
GJELTEN: Katelyn Beaty is an editor-at-large for the magazine Christianity Today.
BEATY: That really gets to the heart of what Christians believe, that God can redeem the most broken of people, the most broken of sinners.
GJELTEN: And the darker the story, the better.
BEATY: If I highlight how bad I was or how bad I sinned, then the story of the grace and forgiveness that God offers is all the more dramatic, is all the more amazing.
GJELTEN: Beaty has lately been focused on how evangelical women relate to the #MeToo movement. She worries the notion of forgiveness is incomplete when a man - a church leader, for example - confesses to sexual misconduct with a woman only to have the story end there.
BEATY: In these cases, you have a very vertical understanding of forgiveness. So forgiveness is something that happens between the perpetrator and God. But we lack a horizontal understanding of forgiveness. There really has to be a reckoning with the wrong done to this woman.
GJELTEN: A sexual sin might actually be a sexual crime. The question of forgiveness versus accountability and maybe a declining trust in the church are hot topics in evangelical meetings like one held last week in Washington. Pastor Daryl Crouch from Green Hill Church in Mount Juliet, Tenn., sees an important lesson for church leaders facing questions about sexual misconduct.
DARYL CROUCH: I think everyone who has offended others has to recognize that while God may forgive us, and our friends and church may forgive us, there may be a trust gap that is going to be hard to overcome.
KELLY ROSATI: It's about violation. It's about power and control.
GJELTEN: Kelly Rosati, a vice president at the Focus on the Family organization, says her evangelical culture holds to a biblical ethic regarding men, women and sexuality. Leadership positions are generally reserved for men, but she wants to keep that ethic separate from what she sees in cases like that of Pastor Andy Savage, who largely escaped church and legal punishment for his misconduct.
ROSATI: I think what you saw in that incident was a conflating of those two issues and a failure to understand that what one person might describe as a sexual incident really is about those other things - the power, and the abuse and the violation.
GJELTEN: The growing awareness of that reality, Rosati thinks, will soon, in her words, be shaking the ground in the evangelical world. Tom Gjelten, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF JUNO BEACH CAFE'S "MISSISSIPPI DELTA BLUES")
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
My monster is finally gone. That's what one survivor said in court today as Larry Nassar, the former Olympic gymnastics doctor, was sentenced to 40 to 175 years in prison. He was convicted of sexually abusing patients under the guise of giving them medical treatment. And the sentencing today caps an extraordinary week. More than 150 women and girls came forward to share brutal stories about abuse by a man they trusted and about the institutions that failed to protect them. Michigan Radio's Kate Wells has been in the courtroom, and she joins us now.
Hi, Kate.
KATE WELLS, BYLINE: Hey, Ailsa.
CHANG: It sounded like a pretty remarkable final day in court. Have you been able to talk to any of the survivors? How have they been reacting?
WELLS: Yeah, there was a huge reaction when that sentence came down. There was a giant standing ovation in the courtroom, a lot of embraces, a lot of crying, joy, shock, relief. I mean, it is still really sinking in for the women that I've talked to and for their families that after this living hell that they have been going through, they have finally confronted this man who abused them, and they have been heard and believed at last. And you mentioned that we heard from 150 women - more than 150 women. You know, we started this out last week thinking that we were going to hear from about 80 women.
CHANG: Wow.
WELLS: But every single day, more women and girls were contacting the prosecutor's office and saying, you know what? I didn't want to come public before, but I'm hearing these women, and I do now.
CHANG: And...
WELLS: That's how we got to 150.
CHANG: And the judge, Rosemarie Aquilina - she's been allowing for everyone to be heard. Can you tell us a little bit about how she ran her courtroom during this extremely long sentencing hearing?
WELLS: Yeah. Well, like you said, she cleared seven days of her docket and let each and every single one of these women and girls come forward on their own time and confront Larry Nassar. And she really responded personally to each and every single person who got up there, telling them how powerful they were. With Rachael Denhollander, the woman who was the first to come publicly forward about Nassar, Judge Aquilina told her, you are the bravest woman I've ever had in my courtroom.
CHANG: Well, we also heard from Larry Nassar himself. He spoke before he was sentenced today. Let's take a listen to a little bit of that.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LARRY NASSAR: An acceptable apology to all of you is impossible to write and convey. I will carry your words with me for the rest of my days.
CHANG: That is actually the first direct apology any of the victims ever received from him. How did they respond to that piece of what happened today?
WELLS: So while Nassar is apologizing, it was pretty emotional. You heard women just break into these open sobbing. But then as soon as he finished, Judge Aquilina said, you know what? I don't believe you. I'm going to read a letter that you sent the court before this hearing about how you are totally innocent, you have been forced into this plea deal. Nassar's letter even used the phrase, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
CHANG: Wow.
WELLS: That got audible gasps from the courtroom. And Aquilina says this letter is what she took into consideration in part when she handed down this sentence of 40 to 175 years.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ROSEMARIE AQUILINA: I've just signed your death warrant. I find that you don't get it that you're a danger. You remain a danger.
CHANG: I mean, these women have been trying to be heard for something like 20 years, right? I can't imagine what it was like today to process finally being heard.
WELLS: You know, Rachael...
CHANG: Did anyone speak about that?
WELLS: Yeah. Sorry. Rachael Denhollander said it best when she spoke at the end. She was the first to come forward, the last to address Nassar. And she said, this is what it looks like when adults don't believe children, when institutions fail them.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RACHAEL DENHOLLANDER: This is what it looks like when people in authority refuse to listen, put friendships in front of the truth, fail to create or enforce proper policy and fail to hold enablers accountable.
CHANG: Wow. It sounds like a really remarkable final day in court. Thank you so much. That's Michigan Radio's Kate Wells.
WELLS: Thanks, Ailsa.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
He calls them soul mates. She calls it inappropriate. We're talking about Republican Patrick Meehan, who represents suburban Philadelphia in Congress and, until recently, sat on the ethics committee and was leading the investigation into sexual harassment on Capitol Hill. Now Meehan is the subject of an ethics committee investigation. Let's turn to Dave Davies of member station WHYY for more. Hi, Dave.
DAVE DAVIES, BYLINE: Hey, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Lay out the basics here for us. Congressman Meehan had a staffer who worked for him in his Hill office. She then left amid complaints that he had harassed her. Is that correct?
DAVIES: Correct. This young woman was decades younger than the congressman, who is married. She filed a complaint saying that the congressman expressed romantic interest in her in a conversation and a handwritten letter after she'd developed a relationship with a man. And she says the congressman turned hostile when she didn't return his affections. There was a settlement in the thousands of dollars with a confidentiality clause. Meehan was removed from the ethics committee, and it's now conducting its own investigation.
KELLY: And the timing here was what? When did this unfold?
DAVIES: Last year.
KELLY: So last year that she left the office, OK. Now, this has come to light because The New York Times revealed the existence of that payment you mentioned. Meehan's office has confirmed that payment. You had the chance to interview him. What did the congressman tell you?
DAVIES: Well, I got to say it was a really awkward conversation. He insisted he never sought a romantic relationship with this young woman, but he told me, yes, he did tell her he had a deep affection for her.
PATRICK MEEHAN: It was in the context of where I admitted that it was something that from time to time I struggled with.
DAVIES: So you can hear the awkwardness. What has struggled with mean exactly - well, often not so clear. But he did admit he found it emotionally difficult when she entered into a serious relationship with the man. He also provided copies of text messages and that handwritten letter he wrote her. And they seem to suggest a close, friendly relationship but not a romantic one.
KELLY: And I will mention here that the congressman is married. He has three kids. The name of this staffer who filed the complaint has not been made public. Has she commented?
DAVIES: No. Her attorney says she wants to maintain her privacy. But she says she will cooperate with the ethics committee investigation into this.
KELLY: And how is all of this playing in the congressman's district?
DAVIES: Hard to tell about voters. We're hearing some Democrats call for his resignation. Republicans aren't saying much publicly. But privately, they're telling me it's hard to see how he gets around the fact that there was a formal complaint resolved with a confidentiality clause negotiated by lawyers. I mean, that's just a problem. So people are talking about who might replace Meehan on the ballot if they can convince him to drop his re-election bid.
There is one other scenario here. You know, on Monday, the state Supreme Court declared the state's congressional districts to be unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republicans, and they ordered the legislature to draw new maps immediately.
KELLY: So they might be drawing his district out of existence even as we speak.
DAVIES: It is possible. And I will note that he represents a bizarrely shaped district regarded as one of the most gerrymandered in the country. And if they draw new lines, the Republicans in the legislature could make his friendlier to Democrats and protect other Republicans, in effect kind of trimming the wounded member of the herd. That would end his congressional career also - but a lot yet to unfold.
KELLY: That is WHYY's Dave Davies reporting. Thanks so much.
DAVIES: Thank you, Mary Louise.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The fastest growing occupation in the U.S. right now is solar panel installation, but maybe not for long. This week, President Trump signed off on a 30 percent tariff on imported solar panels, and the White House says it's meant to protect U.S. manufacturers from cheap imports, mainly from Asia. But industry watchers say the move will actually slow down the growth of the U.S. solar market.
To talk about all of this, we're joined by Brian Eckhouse. He covers the solar industry for Bloomberg. Thanks for joining us today.
BRIAN ECKHOUSE: Thanks for having me.
CHANG: OK, let's start with who wins with this new tariff. Are there even that many U.S. manufacturers who are going to benefit here?
ECKHOUSE: Very few, and one of the reasons is there are very few solar manufacturers in the U.S.
CHANG: Because of all the competition?
ECKHOUSE: Because all the competition. You go through a list of the biggest manufacturers. The vast majority of them are Asian. It takes a while to get down to one that's actually a U.S.-based company. In terms companies that will benefit, I think first and foremost, you have First Solar.
CHANG: First Solar - that's the name.
ECKHOUSE: Yes.
CHANG: OK.
ECKHOUSE: They have a technology that basically exempted from the tariff imposed by Trump on Monday. And they've got a plant in Ohio. They're in a very good spot. Other companies - Tesla last year opened with Panasonic a gigafactory in upstate New York in Buffalo. And while it won't account for all of their panels and all of their cells, it will count for a lot of them.
CHANG: And do I understand correctly? Some of the U.S. space companies - not Tesla, of course - some of them are actually foreign-owned. That's kind of an interesting twist here.
ECKHOUSE: It is. The two main companies that drove the tariff push, Suniva and SolarWorld Americas, are both majority owned by foreign companies. Suniva, interestingly, is owned by a Chinese company. And SolarWorld is owned by an insolvent German manufacturer, SolarWorld AG.
CHANG: So from what I understand, solar jobs have risen because solar installations have soared, and a big reason for that has been the dropping prices of these panels. A lot of the jobs that were getting created were blue-collar jobs in the past. Will this tariff end up hurting job growth?
ECKHOUSE: From the point of view of the solar industry, yes. The tariffs imposed on Monday was far from the worst-case scenario. At some points, the leading solar trade group said it might be 80,000 or more jobs lost. On Monday, they said maybe 23,000 - a big number, but not as big as it could've been.
CHANG: And what about customers, people who have been enjoying the dropping prices of solar panels the last few years? I mean, I assume this tariff means customers in the U.S. will be paying more for solar panels, right?
ECKHOUSE: If you have solar already, you're probably OK. You've got a long-term contract or you own the panels. But if you're a potential new customer...
CHANG: Yeah.
ECKHOUSE: You are looking at higher costs.
CHANG: Right.
ECKHOUSE: It might be as little as 4 percent, given how modest the tariffs ultimately were.
CHANG: And what about utility companies? I mean, they've been under pressure by state governments to increase the use of renewable energy, but if the price of solar installation rises for utility companies, who would want to invest in, like, a massive solar farm?
ECKHOUSE: It comes down to whatever the price of solar is today or tomorrow versus the cost of a new gas-fired plant or a new wind plant or other technologies. If the rise of solar is very, very modest, solar might be the most compelling way to go, still. And in parts of the country - the Southwest, probably, maybe in Massachusetts and New Jersey - states that have, you know, pretty substantial subsidy regimes - it might negate that.
CHANG: All right, Brian Eckhouse of Bloomberg, thank you.
ECKHOUSE: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF LUNA SONG, "23 MINUTES IN BRUSSELS")
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROCKET MAN")
ELTON JOHN: (Singing) She packed my bags last night pre-flight zero hour, 9 a.m.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The rocket man of the pop world, Elton John, is calling it quits.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN: The time is right to say thank you to all my fans around the world and then to say goodbye.
KELLY: He made the announcement today during a live interview and concert in New York.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROCKET MAN")
JOHN: (Singing) And I think it's going to be a long, long time till touchdown...
KELLY: There had been rumors he was retiring for health reasons. Last spring, he was hospitalized for a rare bacterial disease. But Elton John says that's not the reason.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN: My priorities now are my children and my husband and my family.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
But Sir Elton's fans need not worry. He is not hanging up the mike or the Gucci overcoats just yet. Elton John at the age of 70 and having sold 300 million albums in his lifetime is going on a three-year tour.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JOHN: As a way of saying thank you. And as a way of going out with a bang. I don't want to go out with a whimper. I want to go out with a big bang.
KELLY: I am so buying tickets. The tour is going to start this fall here in the U.S. in Allentown, Pa. And you're going to love what he's calling it - Farewell Yellow Brick Road.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD")
JOHN: (Singing) So goodbye, yellow brick road, where the dogs of society howl.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
President Trump is taking his America First message to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, this week. It's an awkward juxtaposition - a president wary of trade deals there to convince world leaders and global business execs to invest in the United States. The president speaks on Friday. Top officials in his administration have already addressed the forum.
To hear how their message is playing with the international elite in Davos, we have called Nariman Behravesh. He's chief economist at IHS Markit, and he is there in Davos. Hi there.
NARIMAN BEHRAVESH: Hi there.
KELLY: Hi. I'll start with today's news, which is that U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who is also in Davos, said there today - and I'll quote - "a weak dollar is good for America." Well, ask, and you shall receive. The dollar immediately hit a three-year low. How's that playing in Davos?
BEHRAVESH: Well, I think it's got a lot of people here a little nervous because the dollar, as you say, has been already weakening. It's been weakening really over the past year. And what the treasury secretary did was kind of pushed it down further. And I think people are a little worried that it might sort of end up destabilizing exchange markets, so that's a bit of a concern on top of, you know, all the other concerns about, what does America First really mean in the end? But the concern here is a destabilized foreign exchange market.
KELLY: You said people in Davos and people all over are trying to figure out exactly what an America First economic policy means. What - how do you understand it?
BEHRAVESH: Well - and here's where the problem is. We're getting very mixed signals from American officials. As you know, the U.S. recently raised tariffs on washing machines and solar panels. And Mr. Trump said this is not a trade war. But then his commerce secretary, Mr. Ross, here today essentially said, we are already in a trade war. So there you've got a contradiction.
And then Mr. Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, said, oh, no, no, you know, America First does not mean we're going to be trying to hurt other economies. We just want to do well for our own people. So a lot of very mixed messages, and I think people are confused here.
KELLY: You know, it's interesting because this is one of the largest delegations the U.S. has sent to Davos. On the other hand, the U.S. is pulling back from the world stage in ways economic and otherwise. Is the U.S. as much in the spotlight as it has been in years past at this forum?
BEHRAVESH: It's very clear that Mr. Trump's coming to Davos has stolen pretty much everybody else's thunder. Everybody's talking about him. What is he going to say? I mean, that's the question I and others get asked, you know, that are from the U.S. all the time in the last few days. So in that sense, he clearly is dominating. There's no question about it.
KELLY: Nariman Behravesh, thanks so much for taking the time.
BEHRAVESH: My pleasure.
KELLY: Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Markit - he joined us from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
In a career littered with milestones, LeBron James chalked up another last night. The basketball star became the youngest NBA player to score 30,000 career points. At age 33, he is having one of the best years of his career. His team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, though, are struggling. To check in on the Cavs and other things NBA, we turn to NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman. Hey, Tom.
TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: How are you?
KELLY: I am well, but I'm going to start you off with a challenge. Let's just sit here and try to say things to each other about LeBron James that have not been said a thousand times before.
GOLDMAN: OK. That's easy. He's fantazing (ph), Mary Louise.
KELLY: (Laughing).
GOLDMAN: That's a combination of fantastic and amazing. Wait.
KELLY: I'm with it.
GOLDMAN: He's stupendible (ph).
KELLY: There we go.
GOLDMAN: Stupendous and incredible.
KELLY: Superlatives, superlatives - keep them coming.
GOLDMAN: You know, the scoring milestone is significant, especially for him. As he said, I'm not even a score-first guy when it comes to playing basketball. And in fact he was criticized early in his career for not taking shots sometimes at the end of close games, choosing instead to pass to an open teammate. So he was always making great basketball plays. But now he's just the eighth player in pro basketball history to score at least 30,000 points. And you know what? He's got some good years left, so he could end up very high on this select list.
KELLY: Yeah, he's going to keep climbing up those numbers if he keeps up at this rate. But let me ask you this. If he is so good and having such a great year, why is his team - why are the Cavs so disappointing?
GOLDMAN: (Laughter) Well, one man can do so much, even LeBron James.
KELLY: Yeah.
GOLDMAN: You know, they've gone a bit off the rails. Since Christmas Day, they've lost 10 of 13 games. They're not playing good defense, and reportedly there is a split between players who've been there for years and have been part of the successful Cleveland teams that have gone to three straight NBA finals and won a title in that time and the new guys. Cleveland added a bunch of new players this season. One team member told ESPN there's no trust among players on the court. So it's a good thing it's January, though, before the All-Star break - plenty of time to fix things.
KELLY: All right, let me turn you in the other direction. We've been talking Eastern Conference. Let's talk Western Conference, where the defending NBA champion, the Golden State Warriors, have been looking just as unbeatable as ever. But looming on the horizon - the Houston Rockets. Have they finally met their match?
GOLDMAN: You know, we're a long way from saying that. And as I just mentioned, it's January, and Golden State still is the team to beat in the NBA for the next few years, let alone this season. But Houston has beaten Golden State twice this season. Those wins are giving the Rockets a lot of confidence.
Their big move of bringing in All-Star guard Chris Paul has paid off so far. A lot of people were skeptical about that because Paul is a guard who controls the ball, and Houston already has someone like that - a guard who controls the ball - in James Harden. But they've existed - coexisted wonderfully, and the team that Houston built to challenge the Warriors is showing it can do that. So if these two teams continue on their current paths and meet in the Western Conference Finals, it could be a doozy.
KELLY: A doozy - let me ask you about one other thing playing out on the court, and this is the relationship between the players and referees. That can always get heated, can be dicey, but things seem to have really soured this year. What's going on?
GOLDMAN: Yeah, well, if you ask players, the refs are inconsistent in the way they call games, and they're becoming more combative. If you ask the refs, the players are more combative and being disrespectful. Something is happening. The worst moment was an early game in December when a ref and Golden State's Shaun Livingston touched foreheads in an angry gesture by both. It was called a head-butt, and both were suspended. So things are tense right now. They're going to meet during the All-Star weekend next month, and they hope to fix the problems.
KELLY: All righty, thank you, Tom.
GOLDMAN: You're welcome, Mary Louise.
KELLY: That's NPR's Tom Goldman.
(SOUNDBITE OF SPEEDOMETER'S "ORISHA")
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
OK, unless you are a diehard professional wrestling fan, you might have missed a very special TV milestone this week.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW")
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #1: Hello, again, everybody, and welcome to the 25th anniversary of "Monday Night Raw."
CHANG: You heard it. The WWE celebrated the 25th anniversary of its flagship show "Monday Night Raw." That is a quarter century of trash talk, absurd plotlines, bizarro characters and of course those fan-pleasing moments of scripted violence.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "WWE MONDAY NIGHT RAW")
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #2: It may be the night. It may be the biggest night. Get up, Taker. Get up. He's still got that damn chair.
(CHEERING)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER #2: Oh, God almighty - a knockout shot, a knockout shot.
CHANG: It was a big moment for the WWE. But what is next for "Raw"? For that, we are turning to David Shoemaker from The Ringer. Welcome, David.
DAVID SHOEMAKER: Thanks so much for having me.
CHANG: So I learned something new this week. The WWE says "Raw" is the longest-running weekly TV show in history. Is that correct?
SHOEMAKER: Weekly episodic TV show - I think that's the key word. As far as, like, a scripted, you know, non-news show goes, there's nothing that even comes close to it.
CHANG: What's the secret? I mean, what is it about professional wrestling that speaks to us so deeply?
SHOEMAKER: I mean, the excitement building - leading up to it was just...
CHANG: Yeah.
SHOEMAKER: ...Unbelievable, and that was largely because WWE just has a lock on a group of fans that have - I mean, if I'm any example - been watching wrestling for as long as we can remember. And you know, when they launched "Monday Night Raw" 25 years ago, it was risky. It was a shock to the system of the pro wrestling world for sure. Nobody would have guessed that it would have become the institution in the business, but they've become just the seat of power in the pro wrestling world.
CHANG: Well, "Raw's" contract with the USA Network is up next year after being with the network for 25 years. Is "Raw" going to stay with USA, or what's with these rumors that Facebook might be in the mix now?
SHOEMAKER: Well, for WWE, you know, I mean, they're really coming up at a crossroads. You said - like you said, they've been with the USA Network for a long time. They're incredibly valuable to USA just because of the number of eyeballs they get. USA can sell ads on other shows by saying, we're the most-watched cable network. And a lot of that is due to WWE programming.
But you know, the last time their contract came up, WWE was hoping for a much bigger number than NBCUniversal ended up giving them, and they sort of decided to stand pat for the time being. New media is a real interesting platform for WWE not just because they have an endless amount of potential programming. And you know, there's a lot of viewers that will jump around to find it.
CHANG: If "Raw" ends up on Facebook, would that change who's traditionally been watching professional wrestling, you think?
SHOEMAKER: Well, I have a hard time imagining "Raw" is going to end up on Facebook or, if it were to end up on Facebook, that there wouldn't still be another anchor program on a network because they want to have representation on every broadcast avenue.
CHANG: Yeah.
SHOEMAKER: The reason why Facebook is really interesting in the pro wrestling world is because professional wrestling has always been at the forefront of every technological shift. When national television first started with the DuMont network back in the '40s, pro wrestling was one of the first things that was on because it was already there, already being taped. And it was easy to see from your couch on a tiny TV screen. They were the first - you know, they were one of the first big forces on cable television when they took over. I think that running a important weekly show on Facebook, you know, might be the next big thing.
CHANG: All right, David Shoemaker of The Ringer. He is also the co-host of The Masked Man podcast. Thanks very much.
SHOEMAKER: Thanks for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF QUIET RIOT SONG, "METAL HEALTH") [POST BROADCAST CORRECTION: In an earlier version of this report, we mistakenly said that “Raw” was on USA Network for the past 25 years. In fact, it was on TNN/Spike TV from 2000 to 2005 before returning to the USA Network.]
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
We begin this hour with two stories about Afghanistan - new startling findings from an official investigation into abuses by Afghan forces. But first, in eastern Afghanistan, attackers today stormed a compound belonging to the aid group Save the Children, inflicting many casualties. This is the latest of several recent assaults directed at Westerners in the country. For more, we're joined by NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre. Hi, Greg.
GREG MYRE, BYLINE: Hi there, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Give us details of what exactly unfolded in today's attack.
MYRE: Eastern city of Jalalabad, a suicide bomber comes to the gate of this compound of Save the Children, blows himself up, allows some gunmen to go inside. Shooting goes on for hours. The Afghan Security Forces come, then these running gun battles. Three employees of Save the Children are killed. Ultimately the five attackers are killed. But again, it shows these terrible kinds of attacks we're seeing on aid groups. ISIS is claiming responsibility.
Now, Save the Children, which has been operating since 1976 in Afghanistan, says it's suspending operations. And this points to the larger problem these aid groups are having. They're not the only one to face these kind of attacks.
KELLY: Trying to operate in what still is a war zone, sadly...
MYRE: Yes.
KELLY: ...In some of the big cities. Now, this follows another attack in the capital, in Kabul over the weekend - any link, any pattern? What can we say about it?
MYRE: No apparent link. This was the Taliban, which hit the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul, killed at least 20 people. The State Department is now saying that four Americans were among those killed in this attack that began Saturday night and went into Sunday morning.
This is a real landmark hotel in Kabul - sits on a hill over the western part of the city. Way back in the 1990s, I was there covering the civil war. The hotel would be closed, but we would go up to the rooftop just 'cause it gave you this bird's-eye view of the whole city.
KELLY: Oh, wow.
MYRE: And you could see the shelling was rather than going to that neighborhood and get a sense of the fighting. It is a place where Westerners go. And here we see it's still a big target.
KELLY: Absolutely. Now that - these two attacks we've just been talking about - you went through there in Kabul, in Jalalabad - so cities. What about what's happening outside the cities? Can you give us a snapshot of the security situation throughout the country?
MYRE: Not good - the Taliban operate mostly in the rural areas, and it's really a military stalemate. The Taliban can't take and hold the big cities, but they can't really be defeated in the rural areas. And so what we're seeing is this sort of standoff.
The Americans are still there - 14,000 troops assisting the Afghans. U.S. airstrikes are increasing, and that may be one of the reasons that the Taliban and ISIS are trying to carry out high-profile attacks in the cities - to show that they can still fight. But we're really not seeing any prospect of a breakthrough on the battlefield.
KELLY: All right, so that's the battlefield. What about on the civilian side - things look any better there?
MYRE: Really have to squint pretty hard to find any silver lining. The government is weak. Corruption is a big problem. The economy's just so dependent on foreign aid, which, you know, is not as significant as it used to be as the foreign presence has shrunken. You know, just last week, there was a movie premiere here in the U.S., a movie called "12 Strong" about a small number of Americans who went in in those early days and defeated the Taliban.
KELLY: Right after 9/11, yeah.
MYRE: Great success - it was a real reminder of how promising it was at that moment. But these attacks we've seen the past couple of days is a real reminder of how stark the situation is right now.
KELLY: NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre - thank you, Greg.
MYRE: Thank you.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
A report by an independent government watchdog out this week shines a light on a very troubling aspect of U.S. military policy in Afghanistan. The report lists 5,753 cases of what it describes as gross human rights abuses by Afghan forces. Many of those abuses involve the routine enslavement and sexual abuse of underage boys by Afghan commanders. There's a term for this - bacha bazi, which roughly translates as boy play.
Joining us now to talk about this extremely disturbing report is Rod Nordland of The New York Times. Welcome.
ROD NORDLAND: Hello.
CHANG: So how common, at least according to this report, are these incidents, these young boys being sexually abused by Afghan commanders?
NORDLAND: You know, the report doesn't really figure out how common it is, but it does note that it's widely viewed as being widespread. And we hear about it all the time.
CHANG: Is there a cultural component to this? Is there a context that we may be missing?
NORDLAND: Well, I think the cultural component is that really powerful men can do whatever they want to within certain limits. I mean, they can't have a bunch of girls hanging out in their - on their base or in their camps. But what they can do is force young boys to dress up as girls and hang out there and use them as they will.
The bacha bazi problem is not just a question of our cultural values clashing with their cultural values. Most Afghans are appalled by this kind of behavior, and it's been a very effective recruiting tool for the Taliban because generally this is not behavior that the Taliban has ever tolerated.
CHANG: And there is actually a law, the Leahy Amendment, that cuts off U.S. or allows the U.S. military to cut off aid to foreign military units committing human rights abuses. So why hasn't the Leahy Amendment come into play more forcefully?
NORDLAND: Right. The Leahy Amendment obliges the U.S. government to cut off aid when there's gross human rights violations. And of course this rape of young boys is certainly considered a gross human rights violation. But what they have done routinely is used a loophole consisting of another law that says that any aid to the Afghan Security Forces should be dispensed regardless of any other U.S. law. That law was never intended to be used to basically vacate the Leahy Amendment, but that's in fact what has happened and happened in many, many cases.
CHANG: We're talking about human rights abuses even beyond the sexual abuse of these young boys, right? NPR's Tom Bowman, for instance, reported in 2015 that a very well-known Kandahar police chief had a reputation for torturing and even killing people. And again, the Leahy Amendment was not applied there.
NORDLAND: General Raziq - and in fact, they used that same loophole to allow his unit to continue to receive aid. And I don't think there's any serious player in the U.S. government, the U.S. military doesn't think that Raziq is a murderer and a rampant gross human rights violator.
CHANG: So is there any push inside the defense department to interpret this loophole differently so they can use a law like the Leahy Amendment to cut off aid to offending military units in Afghanistan?
NORDLAND: There is a push. And in the current defense appropriations bill which hasn't been passed yet - but the proposed one - it does take on board recommendations by the special inspector general that that loophole on - it's called the notwithstanding clause, the law that says no other law should prevent this aid from going forward. There's a proposal that that should never be used again. But that's not law yet.
And then there's still other exemptions they could use. They could declare that this is an important national security exemption and overlook the human rights violations. But in short, I don't think there's any quick solution to this problem at least with the current attitude.
CHANG: Rod Nordland is the Kabul bureau chief for The New York Times. Thank you very much.
NORDLAND: Thanks.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
The biggest auto recall in history is not over yet. In fact, it's not even close to being done. We're talking about the nationwide recall of Takata air bags. It began in 2014 after a handful of air bags exploded and sprayed shrapnel at drivers and passengers. Fifteen people have been killed in the U.S. by these air bag explosions, and more than 180 have been injured worldwide. David Friedman was acting administrator of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration when the recall began. He's now with Consumers Union. That's the policy arm of Consumer Reports. And he joins me now.
Hi, David.
DAVID FRIEDMAN: Hi. Thank you for having me.
CHANG: OK. Just this month, Takata has announced it's recalling an additional 3.3 million air bags. Why are there still so many more faulty air bags out there? What is going on?
FRIEDMAN: Well, it is stunning, isn't it? I mean, they're already up to 50 million air bags recalled, and we already know it's going to head north to maybe 65 or 70 million air bags.
CHANG: Wow.
FRIEDMAN: And the reason why it's cycling through like this is different air bags are at greater risk. So if you have an older air bag or an air bag that's been in a region of the country with high humidity and significant changes in temperature, your car is much more likely to have an air bag explode, with shrapnel ripping through that airbag potentially killing or injuring people.
CHANG: So they're prioritizing these recalls according to where you live, depending on the climate.
FRIEDMAN: Absolutely. Because the recall is so big, there have been challenges getting the parts made quickly enough. Right now, the plan is to continue announcing new recalls through 2020.
CHANG: So what exactly is wrong with these air bags that's causing them to deploy like this?
FRIEDMAN: So the fundamental problem with these air bags is the inflator. That's a chemical inside the air bags that goes through a small explosion in order to really rapidly expand that air bag so it can save your life in a crash. The problem is, the chemical that they use - it's ammonium nitrate - when it's exposed to high humidity and significant temperature changes, it breaks down. And when it breaks down, there's more surface area, and when you have more surface area and an explosive material, it explodes faster and more violently.
CHANG: I mean, you know, some people have gotten these recalled notices. They've been told that the parts are just on back order, so it's not necessarily their fault that the cars are not repaired. Is this still an issue?
FRIEDMAN: Well, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has said that there aren't any parts problems anymore, but I was looking at their records recently, and you've got General Motors, Ford and Mazda now all saying they're starting to have trouble getting parts, and they want delays in their recalls. That scares me. The other problem is, let's face it. It's not trivial to have to deal with bringing your car in for a recall. And most car companies are not doing enough to reach out to consumers to get them to come in and get their vehicles repaired.
CHANG: That's still a problem - publicizing to people that they need to bring their cars in.
FRIEDMAN: Publicizing it to people - and in fact, at least one company is going above and beyond. Honda, for example, is literally going door to door, even fixing some people's air bags in their driveway. Now, there's a good reason for Honda to be doing that. They have some of the riskiest vehicles out there. Some of the Honda vehicles have a risk as high as 50 percent of rupturing if you're in a crash...
CHANG: Oh, my God.
FRIEDMAN: ...Where the airbag deploys. That is frightening.
CHANG: David Friedman is director of cars and product policy analysis for Consumers Union. Thank you very much for coming in today.
FRIEDMAN: Thank you so much.
CHANG: And you can find out whether your car has been recalled. Just write down your VIN number, and go to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration's webpage. That's nhtsa.gov/recalls.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
In western Kentucky, people in Marshall County are still in shock one day after a high school shooting killed two students and injured 16 others. A 15-year-old male student remains in custody. Taylor Inman of member station WKMS talks to community members who continue to struggle with this moment.
TAYLOR INMAN, BYLINE: At a vigil this afternoon at First Baptist Church in Murray, Ky., people turned out to pray.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: So Lord Jesus, we come to you right now.
INMAN: Vigils like this one are happening across the region. Resident Jeannie Saylor attended the gathering. She says even though her son didn't attend the school where the shootings happened, he's lost his sense of security.
JEANNIE SAYLOR: As a mom, I've got a child that is about to turn 18. He's a Boy Scout. And my big ole boy looked at me this morning and said, I'm afraid to go to school. What if there's a copycat - just very burdened for the innocence lost for our children.
INMAN: A few miles away, the mood was somber this morning at Hutchen's Diner in Benton just down the road from the high school. Jonathan Smith had tears in his eyes as he reflected on yesterday's events. He's a firefighter and was among the first on the scene.
JONATHAN SMITH: Is it going to happen again - quite possibly. That seems to be the norm that's happening in today's society. Can we prevent it?
INMAN: Marshall County High School was closed today, and the streets are still blocked off. Superintendent Trent Lovett told reporters they're still wrestling with how to help students.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRENT LOVETT: We've had some recommendations about when to start school back. And I know there's been some questions about that from across the nation. We've been listening to some advice, and they think we need to get back to normalcy as soon as possible.
INMAN: The high school will remain closed for the time being, but elementary and middle school students return to class tomorrow along with their parents, if they want them there. For NPR News, I'm Taylor Inman in Benton, Ky.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Yesterday's shooting was not the first to happen on school property in 2018. It was the 11th.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
And it was the third this week. Two other incidents happened on Monday - the first at a high school in Italy, Texas. A 15-year-old girl was shot by another student.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: A firefighter who came to the victim's aid here told me tonight she just kept repeating, don't let me die.
CHANG: She's still recovering.
KELLY: Later that same afternoon - another shooting in the parking lot of a New Orleans charter school. One student was slightly injured.
CHANG: On January 20, a student was shot on the campus of Wake Forest University. He died.
KELLY: January 15, Marshall, Texas - a bullet was fired into a college dorm room. Three students were inside. No one was hurt.
CHANG: And January 10 - three shootings in three states - first a suicide at Coronado Elementary School in Arizona.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: The school called to report an active shooter around 9 in the morning. When deputies arrived, they found a 14-year-old boy shot dead inside a bathroom.
KELLY: And at Grayson College in Texas, a student fired a gun in a classroom by accident. No one was hit.
CHANG: Then that evening in California...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #3: Breaking news - shots fired on the campus of Cal State, San Bernardino.
CHANG: One bullet struck a building, but no one was injured.
KELLY: It keeps going. January 9, a man shot a pellet gun at a school bus full of children in Iowa, shattering a window. No one was injured.
CHANG: And January 4, two shots fired into a Seattle high school during classes - again, no one was injured.
KELLY: That same day in Michigan, a man committed suicide - shot himself in the parking lot of an empty elementary school.
CHANG: Eleven shootings all involving schools, and we are just 24 days into 2018.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Back in the year 1860, slavery was still legal here in the U.S., but importing slaves from overseas had been outlawed for more than 50 years. So when one Southern plantation owner set out in 1860 to buy a ship and smuggle 110 captives from West Africa to Alabama, he tried to cover his tracks. After the captives were brought ashore, the ship was burned, the evidence destroyed. And it sank deep into mud in the Delta north of Mobile.
The ship was called the Clotilda. And ever since, people have tried to find it. Now a local Alabama reporter believes he may have succeeded. Ben Raines writes for al.com. He joins me now to tell us how he discovered what might be the last American slave ship. Ben Raines, welcome.
BEN RAINES: Thank you - so fun to be here.
KELLY: Tell me about that moment. You were out on the water, and - what? - you saw the remnants of this old wooden schooner just poking out of the mud?
RAINES: Right. It was an incredibly low tide associated with the super-cold weather y'all had in the North with the bomb cyclone. And so I had waited for these low tides to go hunting for the ship. And that moment when I saw it, it was surreal in that I've been by that exact spot many, many times. I've actually fished along that shoreline. And you can't see the ship normally because it's underwater even at low tide.
And so here with the tides, you know, more than 2 feet lower than normal, I saw this this big sort of dinosaur backbone almost barking up out of the mud along the shoreline. As I eased closer, it just came into sharper and sharper focus. You could see the bow. You could see the ribs along the side. And you could see the entire starboard side of the ship. And this thing is over a hundred feet long. You could see the stem, which is the - on the front of a ship, you know those big beams of wood that come up where you would - they would affix the big statue of a lady. Those big timbers were there, and they were unmistakable.
KELLY: And did your heart stop, thinking, oh, man, have I actually found this thing?
RAINES: It did. It did. It was actually breathtaking. And I thought, this might be it.
KELLY: What makes you sure this is the Clotilda?
RAINES: Well, first, I'm not sure. I have a really good hunch, and that was built on a lot of circumstantial evidence. So I began the process of looking for it months ago. And I did that searching the historical record, reading old newspapers, reading actually the captain's account of the trip - every little historical detail I could get. And then I started calling some of the old-timers I know. And one of them in particular whose family has owned property in the Delta for more than a hundred years told me, you know - I said, do you know where it is? And he said, I think I might. And he told me a very precise location.
And so I went to that location where I found a burned ship from the 1800s. And of course the Clotilda was burned. I could tell the ship was old immediately looking at it, and the ship was right where the captain said he burned it. So you know, right there I had three pretty good pieces of evidence.
KELLY: What did happen to the people who came over on the Clotilda? We said there were 110 of them.
RAINES: Right.
KELLY: They arrived to Alabama in 1860. We know that. We know they were freed five years later with the Civil War ending. Where'd they go?
RAINES: When the war ended, they all tried to come together. They actually asked Timothy Meaher, the plantation owner, if he would pay to send them home. He refused. They asked the U.S. government. The U.S. government also refused because they weren't registered as slaves, so they couldn't even qualify for the proverbial 40 acres and a mule. In the end...
KELLY: So they're stuck in Alabama. What'd they do?
RAINES: So they worked and made some money and actually bought a parcel of land from the plantation owner, and they created a community and called it Africatown. And they lived there. They spoke their native tongue. They farmed in their traditional methods. They made a church. And actually the community is still there. It's on the National Register of Historic Places. And a lot of the descendants of the original slaves are still there.
KELLY: Still there - and when they learned that maybe the Clotilda had been found, what did they say about what it would mean to them and to their families?
RAINES: It's been a very profound experience. I have communicated with a number of them. I'm still getting emails from them. And they talk about, you know, closure. And a lot of them are very excited. They're actually has, you know - at different times in history, partly by the plantation owner, there were efforts to pretend it never happened. So finding the ship and being able to tie it to their experience is a very powerful thing and could go a long way toward, you know, healing some of those old wounds I think.
KELLY: Ben Raines - he's a reporter for al.com, and he was telling us there about the mystery of the Clotilda which he maybe just solved. Ben Raines, thanks very much.
RAINES: Thank you so much for having me.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
When James Syhabout set out to write his new cookbook titled "Hawker Fare," he sampled a recipe that I'm going to go out on a limb and guess is not on your dinner table tonight - fire ant salad.
JAMES SYHABOUT: There was, like, ants crawling in and out of it. And they're like, do do do (ph). Put it in your mouth, chew real fast.
KELLY: Welcome to Lao food from Laos, Southeast Asia. Laos shares a border with Thailand, and Lao cooking is a cousin to Thai, except it's the distant cousin you've maybe never met. Syhabout says that's kind of the point of his cookbook, to introduce us.
SYHABOUT: The food that we know as Thai food - it's sweeter, you know? It's, like, I call it the Coca-Cola culture. We all love soda, candy, you know, things that are sweet.
KELLY: But before we get to his food philosophy, let's go back to the beginning of James Syhabout's story. His dad is Lao. His mom is Lao by language and culture, but she was born in Thailand. The family came to California as refugees fleeing violence and the aftermath of the Vietnam War. James was 2. They settled in Oakland, but the family still ate food that tasted of home, like curried green beans with candied pork.
SYHABOUT: When we came to America, our situation was very - with welfare and food stamps, you're only able to buy certain things, and we couldn't buy fresh meat. We would only buy Oscar Mayer bacon. So my mother was intuitive enough, and she used use bacon to make the green beans for us, and it's just as fantastic.
KELLY: Love that, yeah.
SYHABOUT: And that's something to remember. And, you know, from, like, a chef's standpoint, I thought it was brilliant. She was just trying just to survive, and she was homesick, but bacon it is, and it's fantastic.
KELLY: His mom opened a Thai restaurant, and Syhabout told me, as a kid, he remembers asking her, why do you cook Lao for us at home and Thai for the restaurant? Her answer...
SYHABOUT: They would probably say, it smells bad, and it's too spicy, and it doesn't appear, you know, appetizing. It was like, look, it's, like, murky green. This thing looks like a bowl of swamp.
(LAUGHTER)
KELLY: And you're hinting at some of what is different about Lao food as opposed to Thai, which most Americans would still be more familiar with. You're saying its smells are more pungent. The colors are different.
SYHABOUT: Yeah. I think Thai food is - it's a good introduction to Lao food. You know, it's not a...
KELLY: It's the gateway drug.
SYHABOUT: It's kind of a gateway drug. But, you know, a lot of Thai food as we know it - laap, papaya salad - it's - originated in Laos. It's actually Lao food.
KELLY: If you're trying to make Italian food, everything's got olive oil. If you're trying to cook French cuisine, everything is, you know, based with butter. Is there a signature base or ingredient that comes up in dish after dish? Yeah...
SYHABOUT: We use fish sauce as - for salinity. We use oyster sauce for salinity. And, you know, MSG - it's just the fabric of what the cuisine is.
KELLY: Syhabout's path to becoming a Lao chef was not direct. After culinary school, he moved to Europe and trained in classical French techniques, working with butter, and cream and cheese, until he got the itch to come back to Oakland. He opened the city's only Michelin-starred restaurant, serving fancy California cuisine.
And so then, I mean, you've done - you've done, like, the thing every chef sets out to do. That's amazing. What then prompted you to say, OK, I want to do this next thing now? I'm going to do Hawker Fare, which is a totally different gig.
SYHABOUT: Yeah. I don't know. I think it's - maybe it was a coming-of-age. You know, as you get older, you - nostalgic starts to kick in. And what got me cooking in the first place was this food that I'd crave and miss. It's a shame I don't know how to cook it for myself. I didn't feel complete as - soulfully, as a cook. I could make a perfect ice cream. I could do that. Make bread - I can do that. But make jaew padaek - I had no clue (laughter).
KELLY: So Syhabout opened Hawker Fare, a more casual Bay Area place - Lao and Thai street food. The cookbook it inspired features plenty of exotic-sounding dishes - rice-fermented cabbage with pig's ear and scallions, anyone? But today, I've asked him to cook me Lao comfort food.
(SOUNDBITE OF KNIVES SHARPENING)
KELLY: Syhabout doesn't have a restaurant here in D.C. - at least, not yet. We can hope. So he has taken over Thip Khao for us. It's his friend's restaurant. And the dish he's whipping up here in the kitchen for us is khua mee. It's noodles, similar to a Thai staple you've probably eaten.
SYHABOUT: Everyone knows pad thai, so this is like the stepbrother, stepsister of pad thai. I call it pad lao (ph).
KELLY: The flavors are deeper than pad thai and less sweet. There's no meat here. For protein - just egg omelet.
SYHABOUT: OK, right now, I'm going to make the egg omelet, so I'm just beating the eggs.
KELLY: A few glugs of oil go into a hot wok.
SYHABOUT: Mom's way - one-pot dish.
KELLY: I like it - less to clean.
SYHABOUT: Roll the eggs around. We can do a little flip.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOD SIZZLING)
KELLY: Ooh.
Next step - make a caramel. But unlike the caramels he's made in formal European kitchens where sugar is cooked in a dry pan...
SYHABOUT: You caramelize the sugar in oil.
KELLY: Huh?
SYHABOUT: Totally go against the grain of what I was taught, you know, in pastry kitchens and all the, like - all the Michelin-star restaurants.
KELLY: Into the wok go water, soy sauce, fish sauce, a little bit of oyster sauce.
(SOUNDBITE OF FOOD SIZZLING)
SYHABOUT: We're going to bring this sauce to a ripping boil. Then we add our rice noodles.
KELLY: So this is dry...
SYHABOUT: Yeah, it comes in dried packets that you pre-soak.
KELLY: ...Rice noodles - super thin. I mean, this is finer than spaghetti.
SYHABOUT: Yeah, it's the width. This looks correct. (Laughter). I think my mom would be happy.
KELLY: Syhabout spoons the steaming noodles and sprouts onto a big plate. He throws on bright green cilantro, bright red chili powder.
SYHABOUT: What you see in the book, it's always, like, you know, for four or six people or six or eight or it's part of a meal.
KELLY: Sharing food.
SYHABOUT: Exactly.
KELLY: We sit down to a table groaning with sauces, and sausages and more chili powder, grab some sticky rice and dig in.
James, thank you so much.
SYHABOUT: Oh, it was a pleasure and honor.
KELLY: It's just...
SYHABOUT: And thank you from, like, taking interest in Lao food because it's this little country that could.
KELLY: The little country that could - I like...
SYHABOUT: I always like the underdogs.
KELLY: Underdogs because everybody knows Thai, and this is cooking that - most Americans have not ever sat down to have a meal that looks like this yet.
SYHABOUT: Yet. Yet. You know, there's not enough out there.
KELLY: Well, thank you. This is my first Lao feast.
SYHABOUT: Thank you so much.
KELLY: The chef James Syhabout presiding over a feast from his new cookbook "Hawker Fare." It's out now.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Wait, Mary Louise, what did it taste like? My stomach is growling here.
KELLY: (Laughter) Amazing. So good, so spicy. Did you hear me mention chili powder in there about 14 times?
CHANG: Yes.
KELLY: I was trying to interview him with tears rolling down my face.
(LAUGHTER)
KELLY: But amazing - I recommend it.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
In a surprise meeting with reporters tonight, President Trump said this about the prospect of being interviewed by special counsel Robert Mueller as part of the Russia investigation.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Oh, I would do it under oath.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: You would.
TRUMP: Absolutely.
KELLY: He added that he's, quote, "looking forward to it." The president also held forth on immigration and what kind of an immigration bill he might be willing to sign. NPR's Mara Liasson was in the room there at the White House. Hey, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Hi there.
KELLY: Hey. So set the stage. Was the president expected to come out and...
LIASSON: Absolutely not.
KELLY: ...Take questions?
LIASSON: This was...
KELLY: What happened?
LIASSON: What happened was a senior White House official arranged for a background/off-the-record briefing with reporters about immigration. He was beginning that briefing, and in walked President Trump in his overcoat. Presumably he's on his way to the plane to go to Davos. And he began talking about DACA.
And he made two big pieces of news. First of all, as you just said, he said that he would speak under oath to Robert Mueller. He said, I would love to do it. Of course he said that he would be listening to the advice of his lawyers. President's gone back and forth on this. At one point in the spring, he said, a hundred percent I would go under oath. Later he seemed to walk that back. But now he's saying, I would do it under oath. He said, I would love to do it. He - and then he went on to say that Hillary Clinton didn't talk under oath when she spoke to the FBI.
KELLY: Right, OK because this has been this big question. Would he testify? If so, would it be in written form?
LIASSON: Right.
KELLY: You know, how much could his lawyers protect him, which is their job. He's now saying he not only would do it. He's looking forward to it.
LIASSON: Yes, he's looking forward to it. And he was also asked whether he asked Andrew McCabe, who he voted for, the...
KELLY: The FBI...
LIASSON: ...Who at the time was the acting FBI official. And he said, I don't think I did; I don't remember asking him.
KELLY: Interesting. This of course doesn't mean that President Trump will actually be interviewed. We don't know yet, and we don't know whether any of that will be public.
LIASSON: No.
KELLY: Is that right?
LIASSON: But one other thing he did say - he kept on saying no collusion. Of course he's said that many times before. But he said - and he said, no collusion, no obstruction. He said, now, did - the question is, did he fight back? Did I fight back? I fought back, but there was no conclusion. In other words, I think he's trying to describe his efforts to ask for loyalty from FBI officials as fighting back and protecting himself but not obstructing.
KELLY: OK, let me turn you to immigration because you said he appeared in his coat to weigh in on DACA...
LIASSON: Yes.
KELLY: ...The bill that has protected young immigrants who were brought to the country, some of them illegally. What did he say...
LIASSON: He was...
KELLY: ...About immigration, where he wants it to go?
LIASSON: He was very clear. This is the first time the president has clearly laid down what he wants in a DACA deal. The White House had promised that his framework was going up to the Hill. The president himself laid it out for us today. He said he wants a pathway to citizenship for the DACA recipients. It would take 10 to 12 years.
KELLY: That's news.
LIASSON: And - yes, that's news. And later, senior White House officials said that they would be given legal status immediately. And the actual period of time is a discussion point with the Hill.
KELLY: And real quick, Mara, what about the wall? Did he weigh in on that?
LIASSON: Yes, he wants the wall. He says he wants $25 billion for a wall. He says he's looking for a new standard for chain migration. He said wives, husbands, sons and daughters OK, but you shouldn't be able to bring in everyone you've ever met. And then he talked about ending the diversity lottery or replacing it with something else - so a lot of specifics from the president.
KELLY: And now he heads off, as you alluded to there, to Davos, Switzerland. And we'll see what he gets up to there. Thanks very much, Mara.
LIASSON: Thank you.
KELLY: NPR White House correspondent Mara Liasson.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Now let's hear about a Norwegian composer who takes inspiration from medieval Spain, specifically the region of Al-Andalus. That's where for eight centuries, stretching from the year 711 to 1492, Christians and Jews and Muslims lived in harmony. Out of that time and place came advances in math, science, art, music, advances that influenced the rest of Europe. The artist is Jon Balke. He's just released his second album drawn from those influences, and Betto Arcos has his story.
BETTO ARCOS, BYLINE: Jon Balke first learned about Al-Andalus when he was commissioned to write music by a Moroccan promoter to celebrate his venue's 15th anniversary.
JON BALKE: And this was how I stumbled upon the Gharnati music, which is the Andalusian music that existed in 1400 in Spain and was driven out and then continued to exist in North Africa.
(SOUNDBITE OF YUVAL AEIVGI'S "TOSHIA TAZRI")
ARCOS: Al-Andalus was one of the most culturally rich areas of Europe. It was ruled by Muslims interested in fostering intellectual and social exchange. But the Christian kingdoms to the north attacked repeatedly, and in 1492 the Spanish crown reclaimed the last vestiges of Al-Andalus. Muslims and Jews were expelled, but many found a home across the Mediterranean Sea.
MONA BOUTCHEBAK: And they left Andalusia and went to North Africa - Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria.
ARCOS: Mona Boutchebak is an Algerian classical singer based in Marseille, France, and the lead vocalist on the new album by Jon Balke and his group Siwan.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AUN BEBIENDO")
BOUTCHEBAK: (Singing in Spanish).
ARCOS: Boutchebak says the culture and especially the music of what came to be called Andalusia was carried and preserved by the exiles.
BOUTCHEBAK: It is a mixture between Arabic music, Spanish. Flamenco comes from this music, from this tradition, from the Arabo-Andalusian one.
ARCOS: It's a tradition that's still taught in schools.
BOUTCHEBAK: There's what we call in Algeria the Arabo-Andalusian schools where you can learn to sing the Arabo-Andalusian tradition. So I went and I said, this is what I want to do. So I started to sing when I was 11, to learn this tradition that we call the Nuba.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MA KONTOU")
BOUTCHEBAK: (Singing in foreign language).
ARCOS: Jon Balke has taken this tradition's poetry and composed his own music around it.
BALKE: It's a framing of the musical project. It puts the project in a framework that speaks about history and that speaks about a kind of a mentality that from what you can read existed in the best parts of this period, kind of an open, liberal practice of tolerance and coexistence.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CASTIGO")
BOUTCHEBAK: (Singing in Spanish).
BALKE: These poems, they speak about this kind of attitude even if they speak about love or rain on the river or mystical experiences. You get the kind of feeling of a period which was really booming period in European history.
ARCOS: But at first, singer Mona Boutchebak resisted the idea of combining her ancient tradition with music from the north and jazz improvisation.
BOUTCHEBAK: At the beginning, even for me it was a little bit hard to imagine baroque music, improvisations, Andalusian music and me in the middle. I was asking myself, what am I going to do? At times it felt like it was so far from me. But it isn't. It isn't. We are all the same. So the title of the album is "We Are Them," "Nahnou Houm."
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BALKE SONG, "NAHNOU HOUM")
ARCOS: Jon Balke hopes that by trying to recapture a long-gone period of cultural and religious harmony his Siwan project can offer an alternative to what seems to be a constant state of worldwide intolerance.
BALKE: It is possible to coexist. It is possible to respect even a person who believes something different from you or comes from a totally different background. And even if there are conflicts, it's possible to solve them in another way than shooting the person.
ARCOS: We may not become another Al-Andalus, but we can try. For NPR News, I'm Betto Arcos.
(SOUNDBITE OF JON BALKE SONG, "DEL REY")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
In the year that President Trump has been in office, immigration has defined his political platform from the first day of his campaign to this week's government shutdown. And the numbers show that he has made some dramatic changes. Immigration arrests in the U.S. interior, meaning far from the border, went up 25 percent over this past year.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We wanted to understand what the giant, complicated immigration enforcement system looks like to one family caught in the middle of it, so we've spent months reporting this story, gathering documents, sending producers to be there for all the unexpected twists and reversals. And we've waited to tell you this story until we knew how it ended.
Hey, Royce. Hey, buddy.
(CROSSTALK)
SHAPIRO: It's a bright September day in the Pacific Northwest. We're in the backyard of this single-story home, tossing a squeaky toy with a slobbery pit bull named Royce. That's his real name. The family asked us to change some other names and keep certain details vague because of their legal status. When you walk through their front door, the first thing you see is a wedding photo - a teenage bride and groom in Mexico.
V: (Speaking Spanish).
SHAPIRO: We're going to call them Manuel and V.
And on the frame with the photos from your wedding, it says together forever.
V: (Through interpreter) In our hearts, yes. Though we're not together in person right now, in our hearts we are. When you truly love someone, there are no barriers.
SHAPIRO: By now you might have guessed Manuel is in immigration detention. We've watched his absence ripple through his family and community in ways that continue today. The first time we meet the family in September, Manuel has already been locked up for five months. His boys range from 19 to 8 years old. The oldest has temporary protection under the program called DACA. He was brought over as an infant. The younger three are U.S. citizens.
(SOUNDBITE OF ACCORDION MUSIC)
SHAPIRO: Alex looks younger than his 14 years. He's enthusiastic with big appetites and big emotions. He's been learning the accordion.
(SOUNDBITE OF ACCORDION MUSIC)
SHAPIRO: What song is that?
ALEX: It's one of my dad's favorite songs.
SHAPIRO: Oh, what's it called?
ALEX: It's called "La Puerta Negra."
SHAPIRO: What does that mean?
ALEX: The dark door.
V: (Speaking Spanish).
ALEX: It's a song about relating to my parents' story. A guy fell in love with a girl, but their parents wouldn't let her be with him. So it's about a door that was just blocking their love and stuff.
(SOUNDBITE OF ACCORDION MUSIC)
SHAPIRO: Here's how that relates to his parents' story. Manuel and V were born in Sinaloa, Mexico. They went to elementary school together. When they started dating as teenagers, V's family objected because Manuel's family was poor. Her relatives had connections to the Sinaloa drug cartel, and they tried to kill Manuel. Over a couple years, they beat him up, put a gun to his head and tried to run him over with a car. That's all according to his testimony in immigration court. Those death threats will turn out to be important later in the story.
In 1998, he crossed the border and got caught in the U.S. He could have asked for asylum, but he was 19. He didn't understand immigration law. So ICE issued a deportation order, one that still stands today, and he was sent back to Mexico. Three days later, he crossed into the U.S. again, and he's been quietly flying under the radar ever since, working and raising a family until one day last April. At 5:30 in the morning, a local police officer came to Manuel's house with immigration agents. We spoke to Manuel on a crackly phone line from the Northwest Detention Center just south of Seattle.
MANUEL: (Through interpreter) And the official said, OK, turn him around, and arrest him. And I asked him why. I understand a little bit of English. And the official said in Spanish, OK, you have a deportation order from 1998.
SHAPIRO: The cop said the officers came to investigate a report that Manuel was driving a stolen car. When Manuel told them he owned the car, the immigration agents demanded his citizenship papers. Then they put Manuel in handcuffs. Incidentally, police could not produce any report about that stolen car.
MANUEL: (Through interpreter) I asked, please let me say goodbye to my wife. And the other official in Spanish said, OK, go ahead. Say goodbye. They took me towards her, and he let me say goodbye, but I haven't seen her since.
SHAPIRO: He never got to say goodbye to his kids. Fourteen-year-old Alex remembers that he went to sleep excited the night before. His first football game was the next day. The morning of the game, he woke up to the sound of his mother screaming, and his father was gone.
ALEX: Once they took him, my grades went down.
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
ALEX: They didn't let me play as much in my games because of my grades.
SHAPIRO: Your grades went down, and so they wouldn't let you play as much.
ALEX: Yeah.
SHAPIRO: Yeah.
ALEX: It was just very hard.
SHAPIRO: In the five months that Manuel has been locked up, the family has had to change all their routines. The oldest son dropped out of college. There was no money for tuition, and he needed to support the family, so now he's working as a firefighter. At the same time, he doesn't know what his own future will be. He has temporary permission to stay in the country under DACA. The fight over renewing that program is part of what led to this week's government shutdown. In the detention center, Manuel feels helpless, unable to provide for his family or comfort his children. He tries to talk to them on the phone every night.
MANUEL: (Through interpreter) They ask me when I'm going to come back. It's very sad, very sad.
SHAPIRO: What do you tell them when they ask that question?
MANUEL: (Through interpreter) I tell them they have to put a lot of effort in school 'cause they don't have to pay for my mistake. They don't have to pay for something that I did.
SHAPIRO: We got his Immigration and Customs Enforcement file. And since his illegal border crossing nearly 20 years ago, Manuel has not been charged with any crimes. He had three jobs to support his family - restaurant work and cleaning. The detention center where he's staying is supposed to be for holding people, not punishing them. But to Manuel, the place feels punishing. When he was picked up in April, 750 people were on hunger strike, protesting the conditions at the Northwest Detention Center. Now in September, I ask what it's like inside.
MANUEL: (Through interpreter) The bathrooms are horrible and in really bad shape. And the food is also really awful. Sometimes I've seen animals in our food, people's hair in the food. It's awful. A lot of people get sick here because of the food.
SHAPIRO: The company GEO Group which operates the detention center told us they strongly deny these allegations. Every time I call Manuel, he says he's hopeful and confident that he'll be reunited with his family. His optimism gets tested every time one of his friends in detention gets deported. Many of them have cases just like his.
MANUEL: (Through interpreter) One of them was just deported two weeks ago. That goodbye was the hardest for me because he also has his family here.
SHAPIRO: And so when you saw him leave, when he was deported, you must have thought, that could be me.
MANUEL: (Through interpreter) Exactly.
SHAPIRO: President Trump has promised to put more people in immigration detention, and that means expanding ICE priorities to go after people who weren't targets before. The Department of Homeland Security asked Congress for money for 17,000 new beds. That's a one-third increase. Under President Trump, ICE agents got a memo that, quote, "officers will take enforcement action against all removable aliens encountered in the course of their duties." The man who wrote that memo is Matt Albence.
How are you?
MATT ALBENCE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Ari Shapiro - great to meet you.
He's the director of enforcement and removal operations at ICE. I sat down with Albence at his office in Washington, D.C. He's been at the agency for six years. And as he sees it, officers had their hands tied under the Obama administration.
ALBENCE: The laws that Congress has passed and that our officers are sworn to uphold - we are now executing them faithfully across the board.
SHAPIRO: He told me about 90 percent of the people ICE arrests have a prior run-in with the courts. But that 90 percent includes Manuel because he had a deportation order for crossing the border about 20 years ago.
If somebody listening to this interview crossed the border illegally a number of years ago and has tried to be as good an American without being an American as they can be in the years since then, what's your advice to them?
ALBENCE: If they're here unlawfully and they have a form of or a process for which they can acquire legal status through a family member, through a business, whatever the case may be, then they should avail themselves of that opportunity.
SHAPIRO: And if not...
ALBENCE: And if not, then they should realize that they run the risk of being arrested, being placed in removal proceedings and ultimately, at the decision of a judge, being deported the end of those proceedings.
SHAPIRO: So do you have any advice for somebody who realizes they're at risk of that?
ALBENCE: My advice would be - anybody that's in violation of the law - stop violating the law.
SHAPIRO: Does that mean self-deportation?
ALBENCE: It's certainly an option.
SHAPIRO: It's not just policymakers in the Trump administration who feel this way.
(CROSSTALK)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Screw it together, so...
SHAPIRO: Just down the block from Manuel and V's home in the Pacific Northwest, we stop by a yard sale to talk to some of the people looking through used clothes and furniture. It's a crisp afternoon, and lawns are scattered with fallen leaves.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Give you another card to give to your friend.
SHAPIRO: This is a working-class community where the population is overwhelmingly white. Mark Hite tells me he's glad to see ICE enforcing the immigration laws.
MARK HITE: Change the law if they want to come in without legalization. But if it's illegal, it's illegal. We're a country of laws. It ain't right for them to get away with the law if I can't go rob a bank.
SHAPIRO: So the story that we're reporting is about a guy who came here illegally 20 years ago.
HITE: Why don't he go down and get papers now and get signed in?
SHAPIRO: There's no program to do that.
HITE: Oh yeah, there is. Yes, there is. You can go down and get immigration papers. Do it like everybody else does it comes to the country.
SHAPIRO: So now he's got four kids here. Three of them are U.S. citizens. He's been working three jobs. He's not been accused of any crime in the last 20 years, but he's being deported.
HITE: Should've got here legally. He should have done it the legal way, and then he wouldn't be getting deported. See; that's the bad thing. It's the law. It ain't my choice or your choice. It's the law.
SHAPIRO: At last in mid-September, Manuel's court date arrives. He's been locked up nearly half a year. If he loses today, the next time he leaves the detention center could be with a one-way ticket to Mexico.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: We are on the record.
SHAPIRO: The kids are in the courtroom, saying prayers, hoping their father will be able to come home with them when this is all over. The hearing goes on for hours. And finally they hear these words.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: It is hereby ordered that respondent's application for withholding of removal be bold, all-caps denied...
SHAPIRO: Manuel's application to stay in the U.S. is denied. These are the words everyone was hoping not to hear.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: ...That respondent shall be removed from the United States.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: I mean, I'm angry, upset and confused mainly.
SHAPIRO: This is the oldest son, the one who left college to support the family. We're not using his name because his future under DACA is uncertain. A few minutes after court gets out, we get him on the phone, and he tells me his father was rushed out of the courtroom so quickly they couldn't even make eye contact.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: I couldn't even say bye, especially after they told him, like, I couldn't even, you know, look him in the face and say bye. That was pretty painful. But I know as the time goes, I'll figure a way out of it.
SHAPIRO: Manuel calls his wife, V, in despair and tells her to send all his clothes to Mexico so when he's deported, he'll have something to wear. She empties out his closets. There is one small sliver of hope. Manuel can ask the judge to reconsider. That might take months, time that he would spend locked up. The alternative is to accept deportation and try to start making some money in Mexico for his family in the U.S. Even the oldest son's relentless optimism seems to be failing him.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: He has the right to appeal, but it almost seems unnecessary and almost seems like no matter what he does, they're going to, you know, [expletive] reject him.
SHAPIRO: What does this mean for your family?
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Hell if I know. Who knows what's going to come? I mean, if things go down, I mean, I might as well leave, too. I might as well go back to a country I've never been to. You know, this is the American dream, you know? We're living it.
SHAPIRO: Manuel decides that if there is any tiny chance that he can see his wife and children again, he needs to keep fighting. He does have one thing going for him that most immigrants in the system don't. After the deportation ruling, a lawyer named Andrea Lino takes on his case.
ANDREA LINO: They need to decide if we are going to appeal what our options are.
SHAPIRO: Eighty-five percent of immigration detainees don't get lawyers, and it makes a big difference. Detainees without lawyers only get released about 10 percent of the time. Those with lawyers get out a little more than 40 percent of the time.
In Mexico, Manuel's elderly mother gets a phone call at her home. The Sinaloa Cartel has been watching. The caller says Manuel was deported and kidnapped at the border. The caller demands a ransom and threatens to kill her son. Manuel's mother knows that this is a bluff. She knows that her son is still locked up in the U.S. But she also knows that the threat of violence is real.
Manuel's lawyer makes a Hail Mary legal filing. She argues that the long history of death threats from V's relatives should be grounds for him to stay in the U.S. Manuel asks what she thinks his chances are.
LINO: Realistically, I'd say 5 percent.
SHAPIRO: In mid-October, the judge issues her ruling. It's a one-page order. It says the deportation order overlooked the fact that Manuel was persecuted on account of his family relationships. The fact that those death threats came from family members gives him legal protection that he would not have had if they had come from random strangers. The judge grants Manuel withholding of removal. In other words, he can go home.
MANUEL: (Through interpreter) You feel like your heart is coming out of your chest. I'm very happy - such good news after so much time.
SHAPIRO: This is not asylum, not a path to citizenship. There are lots of limitations. But the upshot is Manuel can live with his family again in the United States.
(SOUNDBITE OF RINGING TONE)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Hello.
SHAPIRO: This is Ari from NPR.
As soon as we hear the news from the lawyer, we call the oldest son. He's still in shock.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: It's just such a powerful, like, feeling. It's powerful because what you believed in came true. And then it was powerful because my birthday just passed, and all I wanted for my birthday was my dad.
SHAPIRO: Nine days after the judge issues her order, it's late-October, the morning of Manuel's release. We sent a producer to record his first steps back into the world. A guard opens a big, sliding gate. Manuel wears a gray jacket, a cross necklace around his neck. The mountains loom over the detention center in a bright, blue sky. His lawyer is waiting. She applauds and gives him a big hug.
(APPLAUSE)
SHAPIRO: That afternoon, Manuel boards a Greyhound bus for a long overnight ride home. There's snow on the ground. The last time he saw his wife and kids, daffodils were blooming. V can't believe this is real.
V: (Through interpreter) I couldn't sleep waiting for him to arrive. And where are you? And how are you? We were texting all night.
MANUEL: (Through interpreter) When you get there, when you're going down and you see the whole city, it was like I was coming back to life.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Me and my brother in my car shaking were like, man, where do we go? And then we see just, like - at the very, very back corner, I just see my dad. I couldn't tell whether I wanted to just, like, be like, hey, Dad, what's up? You know, it's been a while - you know, just have, like, that one, like, bond we had before he left. Or it's like, hey, Dad, I missed you so, so much and, you know, just hug and cry and stuff.
SHAPIRO: They hug in silence. For one member of the family, Manuel's return is a complete surprise. The slobbery pit bull Royce goes nuts with the kind of joy only a dog can express.
MANUEL: (Speaking Spanish).
SHAPIRO: The younger kids still seem shaken up even after their dad has been home for a week. Manuel tells me he has to keep reassuring them.
MANUEL: (Through interpreter) They're still worried. Yesterday morning early, Isaac came into the bed with me, and he was hugging me, and it made me cry again.
SHAPIRO: We're in the kitchen now. Pork chops and soup are on the stove for dinner. Manuel laughs that among other challenges, he doesn't have any clothes to wear.
MANUEL: (Speaking Spanish).
(LAUGHTER)
SHAPIRO: What's that?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #4: He said, "I don't have any clothes 'cause my wife sent it to Mexico."
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
V: (Speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #4: Because he told me to. He ordered me to.
SHAPIRO: When will they be back?
MANUEL: These are my son's clothes.
SHAPIRO: These are your son's clothes. What?
MANUEL: (Laughter) Yeah.
SHAPIRO: In the last year, more than 226,000 people were removed from the United States for being in the country illegally. Manuel is the exception. If he didn't have a lawyer or if the death threats had come from random people instead of family members, he probably would have been deported. He sits at the dinner table in the Pacific Northwest with his wife and his boys. They close their eyes and hold each other's hands.
ALEX: Dear God, thank you for the meal that we're about to receive. Thank you for letting my dad be at the dinner table once again. Thank you for letting my whole family be together once again. Amen.
UNIDENTIFIED PEOPLE: Amen.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
SHAPIRO: Manuel is out of detention, but his family's struggle is not over. He still doesn't have the paperwork that will allow him to work in the U.S. His oldest son's future depends on whether DACA is renewed. But after all this, Manuel says he doesn't regret his decision to cross the border almost 20 years ago. He says everything he's fought for has been for his family, and he's going to keep fighting for them.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Payday lenders appear to have a sympathetic ear in an unexpected part of Washington, the acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Republican former Congressman Mick Mulvaney. He's holding up a rule that would have restricted payday lenders and their high interest rate loans. NPR's Chris Arnold reports.
CHRIS ARNOLD, BYLINE: Payday lenders say that if you need some money fast, they provide a valuable service. And that's how some customers feel, too, at the Advance America storefronts in a little strip mall in Pawtucket, R.I.
RAFAEL MERCEDES: My name's Rafael Mercedes. I work on cars for a living.
ARNOLD: Your name's Mercedes, and you work on cars.
MERCEDES: Yes.
ARNOLD: That's probably not the first time somebody's said that.
MERCEDES: No, it's not. It's hilarious.
ARNOLD: Mercedes said he came here for the first time when he needed some parts to fix his own car.
MERCEDES: My car broke down, and I needed money right then and there.
ARNOLD: He says he borrowed $450 and had to pay $45 in interest for the two-week loan. To get it, he left a check for the lender to cash the day that he got paid by his employer. That's why they're called payday loans. Now, a credit card, if you paid it back on time, wouldn't cost anything. But Mercedes says he has bad credit, and he doesn't use credit cards anymore because he had bigger debt problems when he did.
MERCEDES: I'd prefer not to get into that big mess again. People here are friendly, and I don't know. It just works for me.
ARNOLD: And if it means you can get your car fixed and get to work and not lose your job, what's the problem?
CHRISTOPHER PETERSON: The problem is that one payday loan often leads to another payday loan and so on into a debt trap.
ARNOLD: Christopher Peterson is a law professor at the University of Utah.
PETERSON: The average borrower is taking out eight of these loans per year, and that's the average borrower. Some are taking out 9, 10, 15 or more loans per year. These costs can really add up.
ARNOLD: Some people at the Advance America branch were clearly regular customers. Peterson says getting these loans paycheck after paycheck, you're paying an annual interest rate of around 300 percent. Sometimes it's even more. Peterson worked for the Defense Department helping to draft regulations which banned these high-interest payday loans for service members.
PETERSON: These loans have been found by Congress to be so dangerous that they have been prohibited for the military. And it was George W. Bush that signed that into law.
ARNOLD: The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau crafted its own payday rule for the rest of the country. It doesn't go as far as the military version, but it requires lenders to make sure that people can afford to pay the loans back. And it was just about to start getting phased into effect this month, but now...
MIKE CALHOUN: Now Trump's appointee to the consumer protection agency - he's put the rule on hold.
ARNOLD: Mike Calhoun is the president of the Center for Responsible Lending. Consumer watchdogs like him are upset that President Trump recently chose former Republican Congressman Mick Mulvaney to run the Consumer Bureau. As a congressman, Mulvaney proposed abolishing the bureau altogether, and he took campaign contributions from payday lenders. Now that he's running the bureau, he's put this rule on hold, saying it will be, quote, "reconsidered." And the CFPB has dropped an investigation into a lender who donated to Mulvaney's campaign.
CALHOUN: It is outrageous. Mulvaney is deep in the pocket of the payday lenders, and he's doing everything he can to help them.
ARNOLD: Mulvaney declined requests for an interview, but he's said in the past that he doesn't think campaign contributions present a conflict of interest for him. Payday lenders, as you might expect, are happy to see the rule put on hold. Jamie Fulmer is with Advance America. He says the rule would cut off loans for his customers who need them.
JAMIE FULMER: This is the classic example of, you know, somebody from Washington coming in and saying, hey, we're here to help, and we're here to tell you what's best for you and your family; and we're going to decide for you.
ARNOLD: Calhoun disputes that. He says, actually, lenders could still make up to six loans a year basically the same way that they do now. After that, the rule would kick in. But he's worried that with Mulvaney running the Consumer Bureau, the rule might never kick in at all. Chris Arnold, NPR News.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Philip Morris wants to put the first tobacco product on the U.S. market that it claims is safer than cigarettes. The tobacco giant took a step towards that goal today thanks to the Food and Drug Administration. NPR health correspondent Rob Stein is here in the studio with details now. Hey there, Rob.
ROB STEIN, BYLINE: Hey. How you doing?
KELLY: First, what exactly is this product that Philip Morris wants to sell us?
STEIN: Yeah, so it's got a funny name. It's called an IQOS, and it's actually a pretty common...
KELLY: IQOS.
STEIN: IQOS.
KELLY: OK.
STEIN: Right. And it's actually a pretty complicated electronic device. It sort of looks like a fat pen. But inside, there's a battery that's used to heat up a very tiny blade. And that blade kind of stabs a wad of tobacco inside it, inside something called a heat stick. And that hot blade heats up the tobacco, and that produces an aerosol that has nicotine in it that users inhale to get their nicotine fix.
KELLY: All right, so walk me through this. We're talking tobacco. We're talking heating up that tobacco. We're talking nicotine. Why is this safer than a cigarette?
STEIN: Yeah, so Philip Morris claims that the key here is that this device is heating that tobacco, not burning it...
KELLY: Oh.
STEIN: ...Like a regular cigarette does. And so that produces this aerosol I mentioned, not smoke. And the company claims that that aerosol has about 90 percent less of that really nasty stuff in tobacco smoke that causes cancer, heart disease, all kinds of diseases. Now, the company says, look; these things aren't totally safe, but they estimate it could - they could save 90,000 lives over 20 years in the United States if enough smokers are using these devices instead.
KELLY: So one argument in their favor is they're safer, Philip Morris says. But why would smokers go for this when they have other options? I mean, there's e-cigarettes that seem to be everywhere now. I see people with nicotine patches and chewing nicotine gum. Why do we need another product?
STEIN: Yeah, so the key here, again, is that these things actually contain tobacco.
KELLY: Right.
STEIN: You know, e-cigarettes - they have a liquid inside that's heated up that has nicotine. Nicotine patches and gum - that just delivers nicotine through the skin or through your gums. And the company says, look; this has tobacco - could give smokers that sort of taste and experience of smoking a regular cigarette that might be more appealing.
KELLY: Is the goal here - like patches, like gum - to eventually wean a smoker off of smoking?
STEIN: Yeah, that's the idea here. But you know, everybody agrees the best thing smokers could do would be to just quit. And I got - I have to say that, you know, there's a lot of skepticism about these devices, especially among some of the anti-smoking advocates. They say, look; you know, we've been here before with big tobacco. We remember light cigarettes and mild cigarettes and low-tar cigarettes. They're all supposed to be safer - turned out not so much in the end.
And you know, these things could end up having lots of really nasty chemicals in them that could end up being just as dangerous as cigarettes. We don't really know yet. And it has nicotine in it, so people are going to get addicted. And you could just hook - let smokers continue to get hooked on nicotine. And the big fear is, you know, kids might try them...
KELLY: Teenagers, yeah.
STEIN: ...Because they look cool. And they might try them and end up having a new generation of nicotine fiends out there.
KELLY: Now, all those concerns notwithstanding, we mentioned the FDA just gave Philip Morris a leg up. What did they do?
STEIN: Yeah, so there was an advisory committee that concluded a two-day hearing today where they sifted through all the scientific evidence. And the committee basically gave the company kind of half a loaf. It said, yeah, it looks like you're right that there probably is less nasty chemicals in this aerosol than in tobacco smoke, but we're not convinced that necessarily translates into fewer cases of illness and fewer deaths. There just isn't enough evidence yet to know that for sure. So you know, we can't go that far at this point anyway.
KELLY: All right, that is NPR health correspondent Rob Stein. Thanks so much.
STEIN: Oh, sure - nice to be here.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Now we have some surprising news about these critters.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOSQUITO BUZZING)
KELLY: Mosquitoes - scientists have found you can actually teach mosquitoes to avoid you. NPR's Michaeleen Doucleff explains.
MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF, BYLINE: Human skin is a cornucopia of fragrances. Jim Riffell (ph) at the University of Washington says we emit more than 200 odor chemicals from our skin. One common chemical actually smells quite nice.
JEFF RIFFELL: It smells kind of like grassy and a little bit mushroomy (ph).
DOUCLEFF: Others - not so much.
RIFFELL: They smell pretty funky.
DOUCLEFF: Like an overripe brie cheese or a musty basement. But mosquitoes don't care if we're stinky. They love human smells. Mosquitoes actually learn human odors and then seek them out. In fact, scientists think it's your unique mixture of odors that determines how many mosquito bites you get. Some people's perfume is just irresistible.
RIFFELL: Yeah, I mean, that's what we found. Some people are super attractors, and some people are actually not attractive at all. And the mosquitoes will avoid them.
DOUCLEFF: Now Riffell says he has come up with a way to teach mosquitoes to hate your smell so they leave you alone. The key...
RIFFELL: Swat them.
DOUCLEFF: Swat them. Just wave your hands and arms all around the buggers. You don't even need to touch them. Riffell has found that mosquitoes hate vibrations. It makes them feel uncomfortable. So when you swat them, the critters start to associate this uncomfortable feeling with your own unique odor.
RIFFELL: Mosquitoes can learn whether or not you are trying to swat them. Then they will pretty much avoid you thereafter.
DOUCLEFF: So swatting in a way puts up a shield around you, making you invisible kind of like the Romulan cloaking device in Star Trek.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "STAR TREK")
LEONARD NIMOY: (As Spock) The cloaking device is working perfectly, and the commander has informed me that even the Romulan sensors cannot track a vessel so equipped.
DOUCLEFF: You can read all about this new cloaking device in the journal Current Biology. Marten Edwards, a biologist at Muhlenberg College, says the study was so convincing he's changing how he acts towards mosquitoes.
MARTEN EDWARDS: Well, I'm certainly going to slap at mosquitoes more now than I did before, and I'm going to feel OK if I miss because I know that I've taught the mosquito something important.
DOUCLEFF: That if the critter comes near Edwards, she could get - bam - smashed. Michaeleen Doucleff, NPR News.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Police and soldiers are guarding movie theaters in many parts of India today. That is because a new Bollywood musical about a mythical queen has ignited a culture war. Violent protests have plagued and delayed the film, as NPR's Bilal Qureshi reports.
BILAL QURESHI, BYLINE: "Padmaavat" is one of the most lavish Bollywood films ever made.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
QURESHI: It features the country's biggest movie star, Deepika Padukone.
DEEPIKA PADUKONE: And the character that I play is someone who historically, you know, there's a certain section of India that worships her.
QURESHI: She is Padmavati, a 14th-century queen from Rajasthan who was first documented in a poem by a Sufi Muslim writer. Today she's revered by certain Hindu groups because she burned herself alive in the face of a Muslim invasion to protect her kingdom's honor.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PADMAAVAT")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS #1: (As characters, singing in foreign language).
QURESHI: But the movie was plagued from the beginning. Sets were vandalized. Director Sanjay Leela Bhansali was assaulted. Film journalist Aseem Chhabra says it was all because of a rumor that the movie featured a dream love scene between the Hindu queen and the Muslim invader.
ASEEM CHHABRA: The filmmakers from the very beginning have denied that there was no such thing. There was no dream sequence. There is not a single shot of them together. And yet the rumors refused to die down. And so the protests just continued and continued and continued.
QURESHI: And as the film's scheduled release last month drew closer, the protests spread.
(SOUNDBITE OF PROTEST, CROSSTALK)
QURESHI: The fight exploded into India's 24-hour news cycle.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: No, no, you threatened to cut...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Unintelligible).
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Did they threaten to cut Bhansali's neck off?
QURESHI: Journalist Aseem Chhabra says then it got even worse.
CHHABRA: There were these political leaders, some actually belonging to the ruling political party, who went on television and threatened to behead the director, to cut off the actress' nose. It's been shocking.
QURESHI: All of this says a lot more about the Indian present than its 14th-century past, says historian Sunil Khilnani, author of "The Idea Of India."
SUNIL KHILNANI: What you're seeing in India is the weaponization of history. That's to say the use of historical figures, some who are mythic, some who actually existed but have now become sort of surrounded by myth - the use of them for present political purposes.
QURESHI: Khilnani says today those politics are fueled by Hindu nationalism, which is trying to rewrite India's multicultural past.
KHILNANI: What's unique about India is that all of the world's great religions have at different times ruled and held political power - Buddhism, Islam, Christianity, Hinduism. But the current Hindu majoritarian imagination is very anxious and insecure about that, and so it wants to wipe out what is actually the historical truth of Indian history, which is this multiplicity.
QURESHI: As fringe groups claiming to represent Hindu honor called for an all-out ban of the movie, the studio delayed the release. And in an unprecedented move, the country's censor board assembled an outside panel to consider the sensitivities the movie had inflamed. The panel recommended multiple disclaimers and modifications.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PADMAAVAT")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS #2: (As characters, singing in foreign language).
QURESHI: The movie's centerpiece sequence showing the queen dancing with hundreds of handmaidens has also changed, says journalist Aseem Chhabra.
CHHABRA: When she dances, she's wearing a short blouse and apparently showing her midriff. And then the protests started that women of that time period never used to show any skin. So as part of the understanding with the censor board, the filmmakers, they've have actually done some CGI work on Deepika Padukone's body where the skin has been totally covered up.
QURESHI: Throughout the controversy, India's ruling Hindu nationalist government has not stepped in. And historian Sunil Khilnani says that points to a larger issue than one Bollywood film.
KHILNANI: I mean, I think the important thing to remember here is the many, many other works which don't get this attention and which do get suppressed, whether it's writers in the Tamil language - Perumal Murugan - whether it's journalists in Bangalore who get killed for what they write. This is happening across the board, across India.
QURESHI: And violent protests against "Padmaavat" have continued on opening day. Journalist Aseem Chhabra says he's nervous about his own neighborhood outside New Delhi.
CHHABRA: It's not something where we can just say, oh, it'll pass. There are people out there who - they just don't want to be quiet. And none of them have seen the film. That's the unfortunate thing.
QURESHI: Those who have seen the film are already calling it a Bollywood classic, although maybe just a tad melodramatic. Bilal Qureshi, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "EK DIL EK JAAN")
SHIVAM PATHAK: (Singing in foreign language).
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A team of archaeologists in Israel has discovered the oldest known fossil of a modern human outside of Africa. As NPR's Rhitu Chatterjee reports, the discovery suggests that the first humans left Africa much earlier than previously believed.
RHITU CHATTERJEE, BYLINE: The archaeologists were on the slopes of Mount Carmel on Israel's west coast. They were digging in a cave.
MINA WEINSTEIN-EVRON: The cave is one of a series of prehistoric caves.
CHATTERJEE: Mina Weinstein-Evron is at the University of Haifa, and she led the study. She says the cave had been occupied over a hundred thousand ago. Among stone tools and animal bones, she and her team also found a single piece of a fossilized skull. It was the upper-left jaw bone with all the teeth intact. Weinstein-Evron says it looked remarkably similar to present-day humans.
WEINSTEIN-EVRON: Looked quite modern from the start.
CHATTERJEE: So modern as in modern human, like, as in Homo sapiens.
WEINSTEIN-EVRON: It's really like us. I don't see you, but it's like you and me.
CHATTERJEE: A detailed analysis confirmed that the fossil belongs to our species. Now, scientists had found fossils of humans in other caves and Mount Carmel before, but this one is about 180,000 years old. That's 60,000 years older than any other modern human fossil outside of Africa. Anthropologist Israel Hershkovitz of Tel Aviv University says it was a real surprise.
ISRAEL HERSHKOVITZ: We were not expecting to find a modern human so early in time.
CHATTERJEE: Other scientists are excited about the new study, which was published today in the journal Science. Michael Petraglia, who wasn't involved in the study, is at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.
MICHAEL PETRAGLIA: This is an outstanding discovery. It is a big deal. And I was very surprised that this find came out of nowhere.
CHATTERJEE: Now, one school of thought was that humans left Africa all at once in a short period of time. But Petraglia says the new finding suggests that our journey out of that continent was more complicated.
PETRAGLIA: It suggests and supports a model where there were multiple waves of Homo sapiens out of Africa starting at a very early point.
CHATTERJEE: Paleoanthropologist Rick Potts of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History says it makes sense. He says groups of humans were just exploring, looking over the next hill and down the next valley.
RICK POTTS: And they kept going. They didn't have maps. They didn't know whether they were in Africa or wherever. They were just simply following where perhaps the game was with good, food resources were good for eating and there was water.
CHATTERJEE: Most of these groups eventually died out, he says, including the ones found in this cave. Genetic evidence suggests that it was only about 60,000 years ago that a group of humans left Africa and eventually succeeded in spreading across the globe. Rhitu Chatterjee, NPR News.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
President Trump's immigration plan faces resistance from some conservatives in Congress. Earlier today before the White House released details of their plan, I spoke with Republican Congressman Raul Labrador of Idaho. He helped found the House Freedom Caucus. That's one of the most conservative groups in Congress. And he's co-author of an immigration bill he would like the House to take up. It would offer a three-year legal status for DREAMers. It could be renewed over and over but no explicit path to citizenship. I asked Congressman Labrador why he believes that's the way to go.
RAUL LABRADOR: What my bill does exactly as it gives them a three-year visa that can be renewed indefinitely. But it also allows them to participate in the existing pathway to citizenship. I just think it would be wrong for us to give them a special pathway to citizenship when there are millions and millions and millions of people that are waiting to do it the right way. So what I...
KELLY: So you don't rule out that they could eventually become U.S. citizens.
LABRADOR: No. If they get married to a U.S. citizen, if they get a job that requires a labor certification - if they can get in the back of the line of the existing pathway, they would be able to do that. But I think it's fundamentally unfair to give people that are here illegally a leg up over the people that are trying to do it the right way.
KELLY: On the other hand, this would leave these young people in limbo, not sure of their legal status. They would have to be renewing every three years with it expiring. Tell me why that's a good idea, a good plan.
LABRADOR: 'Cause that's the way our immigration system works. I was an immigration lawyer for 15 years.
KELLY: Yeah.
LABRADOR: We had people who came to the United States legally who applied for different visas like the H1 visa or the B visa or any of the other visas that are available to people. And they did it the right way. And they were in limbo. So why should we as Americans give people that enter the country illegally, even if it wasn't through any fault of their own - it was because of their parents - why should we give them an advantage over the people that are trying to follow the law? I think that's fundamentally unfair.
KELLY: These are people who didn't make a choice, though, who were brought here as children.
LABRADOR: It doesn't matter. Are we going to have a policy in the United States that if you come here as a child, you have a right to be in the United States? I think that would be the wrong policy for the United States to do.
KELLY: One more piece that I want to ask you about, and that is the wall. You have proposed spending more than the president's calling for. You've proposed something in the neighborhood of $30 billion. He called last night for 25 billion. What would this money buy? I mean, as you envision it, what does the wall need to be?
LABRADOR: Remember. When you're talking about either the 25 or 30 - whatever the amount is, and I think that is negotiable - you're not just talking about a wall. You're talking about everything that Homeland Security has - says they need to protect the border. So that includes new employees. That includes actual structures. That includes things that are not structures. We're not asking for a structure wall all the way across the border. There are areas...
KELLY: You are not.
LABRADOR: ...Where you're not going to be able - we're not. I mean, if you look at the bill, you're actually letting Homeland Security determine what the needs of each sector are. Our goal is to ensure that we don't have another group of DACA children 10 years from now, 20 years from now. If we don't do the things that are necessary to stop and prevent illegal immigration from happening again, then we're going to have this discussion again in 10 or 20 years. You're going to have another 700 to 2 million children that have come into the United States illegally.
And what we're trying to do is we're trying to close the loopholes that are in the law, the holes that are in the wall right now. That will prevent this from happening again. We're a welcoming nation, but you should be coming to the United States in the legal process.
KELLY: Your bill faces a battle to be passed in the House, and I won't be telling you anything you don't know if I share that there's extreme skepticism that it or anything close to it will pass in the Senate. What are Democrats and more moderate members of your party missing?
LABRADOR: They're missing exactly the dynamics of the House of Representatives. In the House, we are willing to look at the DACA population. And think about this. When they say that Republicans haven't moved - I have people that are co-sponsors of my bill that a year ago were saying that they would never vote for any type of legalization of any person that's here undocumented. And now they're co-sponsoring my bill that is actually giving legal status to people that are here without documentation. Those people have moved quite a bit. The president has moved in some ways quite a bit.
But what we have is Democrats still taking the same position that they were taking eight years ago, that they were taking six years ago, that they were taking four years ago. And they're saying that they're not willing to negotiate. That to me is preposterous.
KELLY: Congressman, thank you.
LABRADOR: Thank you.
KELLY: That's Republican Congressman Raul Labrador of Idaho.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump is in Davos, Switzerland, for the World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of the wealthy and the well-intentioned. The White House says Trump is there to persuade foreign business leaders to invest more in the United States. He'll also be pushing back against what he sees as unfair trading practices by other countries. As NPR's Scott Horsley reports, Trump's transactional approach to foreign policy was on display today as he met with other world leaders.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: One of the president's first meetings in Davos was with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who Trump calls a personal friend. It's the first time the two have met since Trump recognized Jerusalem last month as the capital of Israel. Netanyahu praised that decision as well as the U.S. plan to move its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRIME MINISTER BENJAMIN NETANYAHU: I want to say that this is a historic decision that will be forever etched in the hearts of our people for generations to come.
HORSLEY: Elsewhere in the international community, Trump's move was widely condemned as premature and an impediment to the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. But Trump insists his decision will actually help move that process forward.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The hardest subject they had to talk about was Jerusalem. We took Jerusalem off the table, so we don't have to talk about it anymore. They never got past Jerusalem.
HORSLEY: In fact, the administration still says the final boundaries and status of Jerusalem are subject to negotiation. Palestinians regard East Jerusalem as the capital of their own future state. Palestinian leaders refused to meet with Vice President Pence this past week, a snub that Trump called disrespectful. His administration has already frozen some economic aid to the Palestinians. And today the president threatened to cut off more.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: That money is on the table, and that money is not going to them unless they sit down and negotiate peace because I can tell you that Israel does want to make peace. And they're going to have to want to make peace, too, or we're going to have nothing to do with it any longer.
HORSLEY: Trump also met today with British Prime Minister Theresa May for what British newspapers were calling a clear-the-air session. The two leaders have squabbled in the past, but today they downplayed any friction in the transatlantic alliance.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: That was little bit of a false rumor out there. I just wanted to correct it frankly because we have great respect for everything you're doing.
PRIME MINISTER THERESA MAY: We continue to have a really special relationship between the U.K. and the United States.
HORSLEY: With her country pulling out of the European Union, May is eager to strike a bilateral trade deal with the United States. Trump says he welcomes that. He prefers one-on-one trade negotiations to big, multi-country deals. White House economic adviser Gary Cohn says Trump will discuss his trade philosophy in a speech here in Davos tomorrow.
GARY COHN: We are very open to free, fair, reciprocal trade. If you treat us one way, we will treat you the same way. If you have no tariffs, we will have no tariffs. If you have tariffs, we should have a reciprocal tariff. It's hard to argue against that - that we should treat each other equally.
HORSLEY: Cohn says Trump will also use his speech to encourage more of the movers and shakers here to invest in the United States and hire more American workers.
COHN: He is firmly committed to being the best salesperson United States as to drive economic growth and drive a better quality of life for American citizens.
HORSLEY: Trump hosted a dinner tonight for more than a dozen European business executives, several of whom say they're already planning big, new investments in the United States. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Davos, Switzerland.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Now we have news of more sexual assault allegations against two stars in the hip-hop world. The first is mogul Russell Simmons. Another woman has come forward to accuse him of rape. The second is the rapper Nelly. NPR's Anastasia Tsioulcas has been following both stories and joins us now. Hi there.
ANASTASIA TSIOULCAS, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Let's first talk about these new accusations against Russell Simmons. This is the sixth woman to accuse him of rape. Tell us about her and about the allegations.
TSIOULCAS: Right. And she's actually one of more than a dozen women who have come forward with sexual misconduct allegations overall. This woman is a filmmaker named Jennifer Jarosik, and she says that she had become friends with Simmons about 10 years before the alleged incident took place and that he had promised to help her produce and make a documentary film. And she visited him at his home in Los Angeles in August of 2016. He invited her over. And she alleges that that's when and where he raped her.
SHAPIRO: How is he responding to this?
TSIOULCAS: Well, he has responded kind of categorically across all of these allegations. He has said that while he has been perhaps insensitive in his relationships, that he was never violent. And again in a statement made today, Simmons denied these new allegations, and he has said here like he's said every time beforehand that all of his relationships have been consensual.
SHAPIRO: And it's striking that in this case the accuser's actually filing a suit against him, which most of the others have not.
TSIOULCAS: No, this is actually to my knowledge the first time that any of these accusers have actually filed a suit in court. And she's seeking $5 million in damages.
SHAPIRO: So if that's the latest about the accusations against Russell Simmons, let's turn now to the rapper Nelly. What can you tell us about the accusations against him?
TSIOULCAS: Well, it's a complicated story. This past Monday, a 22-year-old woman named Monique Greene filed an amended civil suit against Nelly out in Washington state. And last October, Nelly, whose real name is Cornell Haynes Jr., was arrested on charges of raping Ms. Greene on his tour bus. And she's now filed a civil suit.
SHAPIRO: Explain why if he was arrested in October wasn't - why wasn't he put on trial at that point?
TSIOULCAS: She said at the time that she felt she just wouldn't be able to stand up against a celebrity of his stature. And she declined to cooperate with prosecutors back then in October. But in the wake of the #MeToo movement, Greene decided to file a civil suit. And when she filed this amended suit, she did something very interesting.
She included testimony from two other women who say that Nelly assaulted them in 2016 and at the end of 2017. And she and her team say that this established a pattern of behavior by Nelly - that he would repeatedly single out fans at his shows, invite them backstage and then increasingly isolate them to the - whether it was just one woman or one woman and a friend and then make his assault. In both of these cases, they took place in England. And both of these women in this current lawsuit are referred to as Jane Doe number one and two. They wanted to come forward anonymously.
SHAPIRO: You know, in the last few months, we've seen the #MeToo movement create a reckoning in journalism, in Hollywood. Are we seeing the same thing in the music industry and hip-hop specifically?
TSIOULCAS: I think so. You know, this is something that we've returned to in the case of Russell Simmons now repeatedly over months. He is such a mogul in the business not just in hip-hop but also his branding that extended both as the co-founder of Def Jam records into Def Jam comedy and other pursuits, into fashion and elsewhere, that you're really looking at an elder statesman. And I think that has absolutely had repercussions and ripples throughout the hip-hop industry and certainly throughout music as well.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Anastasia Tsioulcas. Thank you.
TSIOULCAS: My pleasure, Ari. Thank you.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The White House has put out a draft framework for an immigration bill. It includes $25 billion for a border wall, a path to citizenship for DACA recipients and the DACA-eligible. It also ends the diversity visa lottery system. There is a bipartisan group of senators who argue that they can shape a bill that will pass. But as NPR's Kelsey Snell reports, the question is, will the rest of Washington listen to them?
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: The hottest place to be this week on Capitol Hill seems to be the inside of a quiet Senate office building far from the debate on the Senate floor. More than two dozen Republicans and Democrats are huddling together without Senate leaders to talk about DACA. That's nearly a third of the entire Senate in one room. Democrat Heidi Heitkamp hopped on the Senate subway after her last vote of the week to head back to the immigration talks. She says it's a pretty big deal that a group this big is willing to put everything aside to negotiate.
HEIDI HEITKAMP: The single most important thing that's happening is dialogue. And you know, if you said, is there resolution, (laughter) I'd say not at this point. But there also is commitment - commitment to resolve this issue.
SNELL: It's a tough balance. Republicans want stepped-up border security. Democrats say they need a path to citizenship for the roughly 700,000 immigrants who are in the country illegally after being brought here as children. South Carolina Republican Lindsey Graham has emerged as one of the group's leaders. He says the goal is to stop hurling insults and start figuring out what specific policies are needed to pass an immigration bill in the Senate.
LINDSEY GRAHAM: You're not going to get a bill through the United States Senate without 60 votes. That's called the legislative process.
SNELL: Graham and Maine Republican Susan Collins say they're taking President Trump at his word. He says he'll sign any immigration bill that can pass in Congress. The solution, they say, is to find the exact political center on immigration so they can write a bill that satisfies most of the Senate. It was their idea, after all, that helped end the government shutdown. They offered to reopen the government in exchange for a promise to vote on immigration. But cutting a deal like that is a lofty goal.
Congress is deeply polarized. Activists on both sides are putting pressure on members not to compromise too much. It also skirts the regular order of things in Congress, where it's common for leaders to hash out legislation behind closed doors. This group thinks they can upend that system by first getting support for their proposals and then handing them over to Senate leaders. But even Collins recognizes that they are hardly the only negotiating game in town.
SUSAN COLLINS: There are many other groups that are important - obviously the Judiciary Committee.
SNELL: They're the critical committee that's in charge of immigration issues. And the list goes on.
COLLINS: There are other senators like Senator Lankford that are working - and Senator Tillis - that are working on bills. There are some of the original bills (laughter) that have been out there.
SNELL: There are so many groups that even senators can't keep track.
JOHN CORNYN: Is that in the Senate?
SNELL: Yeah.
CORNYN: Oh, OK. I hadn't heard of that caucus before. Maybe I should apply to join.
SNELL: That's Senator John Cornyn. He's the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, and he's leading his own set of talks with Dick Durbin, his Democratic counterpart. The list of important voices in the debate also includes President Trump and House Republicans. House conservatives in particular want stricter rules for who can come to the country, and they want significant increases in border security, including money to build Trump's wall. Those conservatives are far from the center. Instead they're much closer on policy to people like Senator David Perdue, who takes a harder line. On Wednesday, Perdue said he is certain his position is being heard.
DAVID PERDUE: Well, it's daily contact with the White House. I spoke with the president this morning. I'm not speaking to the president every day.
SNELL: Right.
PERDUE: But he called me this morning about this very issue.
SNELL: All of these talks may produce an immigration bill, or they could fall by the wayside. Now that President Trump has released his own immigration pitch, that could become the only negotiating game in town. Kelsey Snell, NPR News, the Capitol.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Now to Mexico and a song that has gone viral. It's a campaign spot for a political party featuring a baby-faced indigenous boy joyfully belting out upbeat lyrics over and over and over. The video has been viewed more than 11 million times on YouTube. But opposition parties and child protection groups are crying foul, accusing politicians of exploiting Mexico's indigenous people. NPR's Carrie Kahn reports this is the latest chapter in an electoral season that's on track to be one of the most contentious in recent memory.
CARRIE KAHN, BYLINE: It's really a catchy tune.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MOVIMIENTO NARANJA")
YUAWI LOPEZ: (Singing in Spanish).
KAHN: Not much in the lyrics department. There's one line about the future being in your hands with a vote for the orange-colored Citizens' Movement party and a lot of this.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MOVIMIENTO NARANJA")
YUAWI: (Singing) Na-na-na-na-na na na na. Na-na-na-na-na na na na. Na-na-na-na-na (ph).
KAHN: Nine-year-old Yuawi Lopez in the traditional dress of his Huichol tribe belts out the tune with the highlands of his native Jalisco state in the background.
YUAWI: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: Reached by phone, Lopez says he loves to sing and is excited about his newfound fame. But not everyone is. Children's rights groups say the boy is being exploited for political means. And the Morena party, whose candidate is leading polls in this summer's presidential race, called on election regulators to pull the song from the airwaves, saying it endangers the higher interests of childhood. Yuawi's father, Jose Lopez Robles, says those denouncing him are hypocrites.
JOSE LOPEZ ROBLES: (Through interpreter) Why are they so worried about a child who's showing off his talent and yet they aren't worried about all the children who live in the streets without a mother or father who cares for them? Why?
KAHN: Mexico's National Electoral Institute sided with Yuawi's father, ruling the boy had parental permission to appear in the ads. But Juan Martin Perez Garcia, who heads the Network for the Rights of Children in Mexico, insists Yuawi is being treated like a mascot by the political party.
JUAN MARTIN PEREZ GARCIA: (Through interpreter) They have not put forth any proposals to attend to the problems facing indigenous people. They haven't participated in any initiatives to protect children's rights. It's clear that all they are doing is using this boy unethically.
KAHN: Perez says the National Electoral Institute's ruling was a narrow and administrative interpretation of the law, and it has failed its responsibilities to ensure a fair and honest election. This isn't the first nor the last criticism electoral regulators will receive before voters go to the polls on July 1.
JESUS CANTU ESCALANTE: I think this is going to be one of the most problematic elections that we're going to lead in Mexico.
KAHN: Reached by Skype, Jesus Cantu Escalante is a political scientist at the Technological de Monterrey University. He says public confidence in election regulators has dropped dramatically as they failed to curb unethical and outright illegal practices - he says everything from flaunting spending limits to vote buying.
CANTU: They feel empowerment. And they are going to push the limits to the extreme. And even in some cases they are going to go beyond that to win in that way the election.
KAHN: Cantu points to recent local elections as cause for concern. In two state governors' races, regulators found huge amounts of unregulated money was spent, so much in one state regulators ruled the votes should be annulled. But Mexico's highest electoral court, reportedly packed with the current president's party appointees, rejected the findings twice. Kenneth Greene, who studies Mexican elections at the University of Texas at Austin, says recent budget cuts to the Electoral Institute is cause for concern. And, he says over Skype, so is the firing of an electoral crimes prosecutor who was investigating President Pena Nieto's previous campaign funding practices.
KENNETH GREENE: The judicial system's ability to investigate and sanction electoral malfeasance has been weakened.
KAHN: There's still a little more than six months until voters go to the polls. But Luis Alberto Chalico, a software engineer waiting by a Mexico City Metro stop, says he's not looking forward to them. Recent polls show more than a quarter of likely voters are undecided.
LUIS ALBERTO CHALICO: (Speaking Spanish).
KAHN: "There aren't that many good candidates to choose from," he says. "Guess it will come down to who's the least worst." Carrie Kahn, NPR News, Mexico City.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Republicans are trying to change the subject and move away from talking about the Russia investigation. But it's what they do want to talk about that's unusual. The party of law and order is raising big questions about the conduct of the FBI. Here's White House press secretary Sarah Sanders.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS: You guys are absolutely obsessed with everything to do with collusion if it has anything to do with the president. We hope that you'll take some of that same obsession, energy and fervor and direct it to some of the places where it looks like there could've been some really inappropriate and possibly illegal behavior.
KELLY: Well, there are a lot of plots and subplots swirling here. And to help us unswirl some of them, we've brought in NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson. Hi, Carrie.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Hey, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Let's lay out what we actually know. What Sarah Sanders was referring to there is missing FBI text messages. What are the messages, and why are they missing?
JOHNSON: The texts are from FBI agent Peter Strzok to FBI lawyer Lisa Page and vice versa. These folks were having an affair, and they exchanged lots of messages on their FBI work phones. These messages were uncovered in a review by the Justice Department inspector general. Congress has some of them, but thousands appear to be missing - not just the messages from Page and Strzok, who both worked for a time on the Russia investigation, but also other people. Just now the inspector general is telling Congress that it seems to have recovered some of those missing texts involving Page and Strzok. And the FBI says there's an innocent explanation. It was a technical glitch when the bureau was moving from one version of a cellphone to another.
KELLY: So lots of missing text messages. We don't have access to most of them. Some of them have come to light. And there is a reference that is raising a lot of eyebrows to a secret society. This was a text exchanged between these two at the FBI. Several Republicans have suggested this proves that there is a deep state conspiracy underway at the FBI. What are the actual facts, Carrie?
JOHNSON: Yeah, not so fast. People who have read the full exchange of these text messages suggest to me that the words secret society were a joke. It may not have been funny, but it wasn't evidence of some kind of cabal at the highest levels of the FBI to get anybody. In fact, Mary Louise, if you talk to agents, as a group they tend to be more politically conservative. In fact, fired FBI Director Jim Comey was a lifelong Republican. Current FBI Director Chris Wray is a Republican. And former FBI director, now special counsel Robert Mueller is a registered Republican, too.
KELLY: Let me ask you about a separate but related development which is feeding into these conspiracy theories there. This is about a memo drafted by the staff of the Republican chair of the House intelligence committee. That would be Devin Nunes. This memo reportedly claims - I say reportedly; we haven't seen it either - reportedly claims that the FBI abused its powers and spied on the Trump campaign. What are the facts here?
JOHNSON: You know who else hasn't seen this memo, Mary Louise, is the FBI or the Justice Department.
KELLY: So even they can't get their hands on it.
JOHNSON: No. The Justice Department sent a letter to Congress this week saying it would be reckless to release this memo to the public without giving the bureau a chance to look at it beforehand to protect any sources or methods. Justice also says there's no evidence of any wrongdoing it's uncovered by the FBI in any kind of application for wiretap with a secret foreign intelligence court. Devin Nunes hasn't even handed over this document to Richard Burr, the Republican chairman of the Senate intelligence committee. So a lot's to be known.
KELLY: Under tight hold there. Well - and you've covered the FBI for years. How unusual is this for the - to be caught up in the middle of partisan feuding like this?
JOHNSON: Very unusual. In fact, unimaginable, one bureau veteran tells me. Agents are not really able to defend themselves in this political context. And while the current FBI director, Chris Wray, and the deputy attorney general have said the FBI has agents of fine character and integrity, that's getting drowned out by criticism from the president, some Republicans on Capitol Hill and even some barbs from the attorney general, Jeff Sessions, who's been pressing the FBI director to clean house.
KELLY: To clean house. Thanks very much, Carrie.
JOHNSON: My pleasure.
KELLY: NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The root ginseng is used to treat all kinds of ailments in traditional Chinese medicine. And some of the most valuable ginseng grows wild in Appalachia. Supplies are dwindling. So as Julia DeWitt from our Planet Money podcast reports, a backup plan is taking shape.
JULIA DEWITT, BYLINE: I drove out to the border of West Virginia and Maryland to visit a big-time ginseng dealer named Larry Harding.
There are security cameras pointing in every direction. I wonder if he can see me right now.
At the end of a long gravel road I come to a corrugated tin warehouse.
LARRY HARDING: Oh, I didn't see you. Come in.
DEWITT: Hi.
Harding shows me into the office of his third-generation ginseng distribution business. It's like a ginseng museum. There are roots preserved in alcohol, ginseng in glass cases on little red pillows.
HARDING: When I was a little kid, dad, he'd always take us out and take us ginsenging.
DEWITT: Wild ginseng you forage, like how his dad taught Larry to do. That is the most valuable kind, but not dependable.
HARDING: There's not as much now as there was a while ago.
DEWITT: Foraging and habitat loss, Larry says. The obvious solution to just grow more ginseng hasn't exactly worked. Ginseng is cultivated in other parts of the country, but it comes out looking totally different than the Appalachian wild stuff, mostly because all the fertilizer big farms use. That ginseng is worth just a tenth of what wild goes for. So Harding and others in the Appalachian ginseng industry are trying a third way. Harding called it wild-simulated ginseng. He plants wild ginseng seeds in the woods, and then 10 or so years later he digs.
HARDING: To look at this root, there's actually not a dealer in the country that can say this don't look like wild ginseng.
DEWITT: That's the hope anyway.
ERIC BURKHART: Ginseng in particular represents a sustainable development crop for people to pursue.
DEWITT: This is Eric Burkhart. He's a plant scientist who works closely with ginseng growers like Harding to develop the industry. And, yes, he is a booster.
BURKHART: I feel like ginseng can save the world. You know, save Appalachia anyway. And, you know, people's health can be improved, their pocketbooks, the ecosystems that they're living in. You know, all these things. And we can build these connections with this trading partner halfway around the world.
DEWITT: There is not a whole lot of research that shows conclusively that wild makes the best medicine. But that doesn't affect the fact that people value it a lot more. Buyers just go on looks. So if Harding's sort of wild ginseng can pass the look test, it's a game changer.
FONG LAM: (Speaking Mandarin).
DEWITT: Fong Lam is a wild ginseng buyer four hours away in Bethlehem, Pa. He makes medication for Chinese medicine practitioners in the U.S. His daughter-in-law - her name's Catsy - translates.
CATSY: He collects the wild ginseng from different diggers and then he will make into capsules like that.
DEWITT: We do a little test. I hand him the root that Harding gave me. He carefully inspects it with a magnifying glass.
FONG: (Speaking Mandarin).
DEWITT: And he's not sure if it's wild or not. But, he says, nope, he wouldn't buy it.
FONG: (Speaking Mandarin).
DEWITT: Then I bring out another root, a truly wild root that Harding also gave me for reference.
Yeah. So these are...
CATSY: Oh, this better.
DEWITT: Oh, this is better?
CATSY: Much better. Yeah.
DEWITT: Oh, my God.
CATSY: Yeah.
DEWITT: And this root Fong Lam would buy.
FONG: (Speaking Mandarin).
CATSY: So if you have ginseng looking like this, he's willing to pay 800 per pound.
DEWITT: It's just part of ginseng that wild can't be faked easily. But Harding and the ginseng entrepreneurs of Appalachia are going to keep trying to simulate the wild. They have to. For NPR News, I'm Julia DeWitt.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The Trump administration has been scaling back a program that lets people live in the U.S. during crises in their home countries. It is called Temporary Protected Status, TPS. Already it's being ended for Central Americans and for Haitians after natural disasters. Now nearly 7,000 Syrians fear they could be next. The administration is expected to decide within a week whether to renew TPS for them. NPR's Deborah Amos reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF PHONE RINGTONE)
HIBA AWAD: Hello. Oh, OK. Just come up one block.
DEBORAH AMOS, BYLINE: I meet Hiba Awad in downtown Manhattan on her lunch hour, a Syrian working in the high-tech sector. She's a programmer at GrubHub, an online food ordering service. Her interest in programming comes from her dad.
AWAD: He worked as a programmer for many, many years, from the '70s. So he's kind of a pioneer in that way in Syria. That's how I got started.
AMOS: To get started in New York, she got a master's degree from MIT. Her status here is set, but she was worried about her parents in Syria. When they came for her graduation in 2013, she urged them to apply for TPS. And they got it. They were in danger, Awad says, as Christians targeted by extremists. And they were against the Syrian regime.
AWAD: So as Christians and also anti-regime, they felt targeted by both sides.
AMOS: For them, was TPS, Temporary Protective Status (ph) - was that a lifeline for them?
AWAD: Yeah, TPS was wonderful for them.
AMOS: TPS was routinely renewed under the Obama administration. Now the Trump administration has to decide. It's an agonizing wait for Awad and her parents, who don't want to be identified in case they have to go back to Syria.
AWAD: We're worried. Yeah, we talk about it often. Just last night at dinner we were talking about it. Yeah, we're always like, what are we going to do? And we think, OK, let's - we'll deal with it when it - if it happens. But it's scary. And - yeah.
AMOS: Scary especially after the Trump administration ended protections for hundreds of thousands from Central America and Haiti. Could Syrians be next?
DORIS MEISSNER: It's so hard to imagine that this particular TPS would end given the underlying reasons for it.
AMOS: That's Doris Meissner, a top immigration official under the Clinton administration now with the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. She points out that Syrians living in the U.S. were granted protection because of a civil war. It's still an ongoing conflict. But with this administration, she says, there are no guarantees.
MEISSNER: I will be cautious about it because this administration is doing things very differently.
AMOS: Syrian-American activists have begun to push for renewal, says Muna Jondy, a legal consultant for Americans for a Free Syria.
MUNA JONDY: This administration doesn't seem to like Syrians, you know, judging by the way that Syrians have been dealt with in all immigration matters. So that's, I think, a cause for concern.
AMOS: Concern, she says, because many Syrians have nowhere else to go. And on that point Mark Krikorian agrees.
MARK KRIKORIAN: In this case the - you know, it would be a matter of potentially sending people back to the civil war, which is not something I think we're going to be doing.
AMOS: Krikorian heads the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington. He opposes most immigration and supports ending TPS because he says it's been abused. For some, temporary has meant decades. But for Syrians, he says, the Trump administration knows they still need protection.
KRIKORIAN: I wouldn't bet my house that they're going to renew TPS but, you know, I might bet my car. I mean, I'm pretty confident. I'd bet more than lunch.
AMOS: It's a bet that Syrians who now live and work in the U.S. under TPS hope is right. Deborah Amos, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A one-of-a-kind American politician gave his final state of the state address today - Jerry Brown, California's longest-serving governor and a three-time Democratic presidential candidate. Brown told lawmakers that California is prospering, and he had some warnings. Here's Ben Adler of Capital Public Radio.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JERRY BROWN: Thank you. Thank you.
BEN ADLER, BYLINE: When Jerry Brown returned to the California governor's office in 2011, nearly 30 years after he finished his first two terms, he inherited a $27 billion deficit and a state mocked by critics, as Brown was quick to remind the crowd in the Assembly chambers today.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BROWN: The Economist of London pronounced us the ungovernable state. And the Business Insider simply said California is doomed.
ADLER: Now California boasts a multibillion-dollar surplus. Its economy is booming. And Brown touted a list of bipartisan accomplishments - the pension overhaul, a new budget reserve and an extension of the state's cap and trade program to combat climate change.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BROWN: Their passage demonstrates that some American governments actually can get stuff done even in the face of deepening partisan division.
ADLER: But this was not a speech that railed against President Trump or sought to fire up the resistance. Brown did not mention Trump by name, though he acknowledged the president for approving federal funds to fight wildfires. And despite threats from the Trump administration to arrest state and local politicians who defy federal immigration laws, the governor, who just months ago signed California's sanctuary state law, skipped the subject entirely. Instead, Brown went global, noting the doomsday clock had just moved the minute hand to two minutes to midnight, as close as it's been since the height of the Cold War.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BROWN: Our world, our way of life, our system of governance. All are at immediate and genuine risk. Endless new weapons systems, growing antagonism among nations, the poison in our politics, climate change - all of this calls out for courage, for imagination and for generous dialogue.
ADLER: Jerry Brown is not the most sentimental of politicians. But the governor, who turns 80 in April, seemed to linger in the moment, knowing his time in public office will end in less than a year. As he wrapped up to a standing ovation, Brown stepped back to the microphone to offer a window into his state of mind.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BROWN: Keep going. I'm in no hurry. I - nowhere to go.
ADLER: For NPR News, I'm Ben Adler in Sacramento.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The White House is officially outlining what President Trump needs to have in an immigration deal to win his support. White House adviser Stephen Miller held a conference call with Republican congressional staffers to brief them on a legislative framework the White House plans to send up to Capitol Hill on Monday. NPR congressional correspondent Susan Davis obtained the White House memo outlining their immigration policies, and she joins us now. Hi, Sue.
SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: What's in this framework?
DAVIS: So there is four main parameters to what the White House is asking for. The two major ones are the - first, they are saying that they would like to provide a pathway to citizenship for 1.8 million people. This includes the about 800,000 people currently in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, but it would also include all the people that didn't apply but would also qualify. You often hear these people referred to as DREAMers. These are people that were brought here as children and now reside in this kind of legal limbo that Congress is trying to figure out.
On top of that, they're asking for $25 billion for the border wall system. They use the word system, which is also not just the physical structure but the other things you could use to secure the border. They'd like more money for agents along the border, other ways to secure the border and then tougher restrictions on family-based immigration policies - who you can bring in as members of your family - they want it only to apply to spouses and young children, to minors - and eliminate something called the visa lottery program and would use those annual 50,000 slots to apply to those family members or to - what they're calling high-skilled workers.
SHAPIRO: This only just happened today, but what are you hearing from people on Capitol Hill about how this proposal is going to be received?
DAVIS: This is really consistent with the four pillars that have already been outlined. So there's not much new here. A lot of this effort is a little bit about branding. A lot of what was in here, what - was already presented to the president by a bipartisan group of negotiators in the Senate that the White House initially rejected.
A lot of Republicans are saying, look; we need this to be the Donald Trump immigration proposal, not the bipartisan immigration proposal. In order to get Republicans onboard for it, the president needs to take the lead. Speaker Paul Ryan put out a statement welcoming in this and saying that they really would appreciate the president sort of carving the path here.
SHAPIRO: Does the president carving the path here mean the president giving the House and Senate leadership cover to bring a proposal to the floor that might not even get a majority of Republican votes? There are certainly a lot of people we've heard from - lawmakers who are going to say, if this includes citizenship for DREAMers, I'm not on board.
DAVIS: That's going to be a huge problem. And this is why from the beginning it has to be bipartisan because Republicans have always said they're going to need Democratic votes in the House and Senate to get this passed. The question is, what is the Democratic reception to this going to be? The citizenship component is obviously hugely supported among Democrats. They have already conceded they're willing to give up some money for the wall 'cause they know that this is the give and take.
The really tough point to negotiate in here is going to be these family-based policies Democrats would also like to apply to parents, to grandparents. That's a really big issue for the immigration activist community. And also, the visa lottery program has just become a bit controversial because of remarks the president has made about the program and this debate over the merit of who gets to come in and who gets to call themselves an American.
SHAPIRO: The White House plans to officially send this framework up on Monday. There's of course another deadline (laughter) for a government shutdown just after that.
DAVIS: Always one right around the corner.
SHAPIRO: Is Congress going to pass something like this?
DAVIS: The two dates we're looking at are February 8. That's when the Congress has to pass another stopgap measure to keep the government open. Democrats have shown they're willing to shut down the government over immigration. The question is, will they do it again? That does seem unlikely. The deadline that the White House has said is March 5. That's when they call the end of the program, so that's the operating deadline for Republicans.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Susan Davis. Thanks, Sue.
DAVIS: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump tried to fire Robert Mueller, the special counsel leading the Russia investigation, last June. That's according to a new report from The New York Times. The Times reports that Trump backed down only after the top White House lawyer threatened to quit. Joining us now is NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith. Hi, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hi.
SHAPIRO: NPR has not independently confirmed these details, but according to The New York Times, how did this all play out last June?
KEITH: So President Trump said that he wanted to fire Mueller and asked the White House counsel to do it. The White House counsel said, no, that's a terrible idea, and also, your justifications don't really hold up. And then ultimately it just sort of dropped.
SHAPIRO: You say the White House counsel pushed back on President Trump's justifications. What were those justifications?
KEITH: Conflicts of interest. He - there are three that The New York Times mentions, and these certainly had been out in the ether at the time that this happened. It was that Robert Mueller had been up for the job of FBI director, ultimately didn't get that job and then shortly thereafter became the special counsel. Also, there were some issues over fees at one of Trump's golf courses and that Mueller had worked for a law firm that represented Jared Kushner at some time, Kushner being Trump's son-in-law.
Now, around the time that The New York Times says that the president tried to fire Mueller, a friend of his, a confidant, Christopher Ruddy from Newsmax, appeared on the "PBS NewsHour" with Judy Woodruff. And I just want to play a little clip from that interview which in light of The Times' story suddenly takes on additional meaning.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "PBS NEWSHOUR")
JUDY WOODRUFF: Is President Trump prepared to let the special counsel pursue his investigation?
CHRISTOPHER RUDDY: Well, I think he's considering perhaps terminating the special counsel. I think he's weighing that option. I think it's pretty clear by what one of his lawyers said on television recently. I personally think it would be a very significant mistake even though I don't think there's a justification.
KEITH: And the interesting thing is that then Christopher Ruddy in that interview goes on to discuss the very conflicts of interest that The Times now says were President Trump's proposed justifications for firing Mueller or trying.
SHAPIRO: And to be clear, the conflict of - the concern involving the golf club wasn't about Mueller as FBI director. It was about Mueller as a member of the golf club, according to The Times.
KEITH: Right.
SHAPIRO: So Don McGahn, the White House counsel, threatened to resign rather than carry out the directive according to The Times. Explain why McGahn disagreed with Trump.
KEITH: Well, so he disagreed because he didn't feel that these conflicts were the types of conflicts that would require the special counsel to step aside from the job and also simply because getting rid of the special counsel in this very heated environment would be suicide. I mean, it would make the problem all the much more worse.
And just now, as - a few minutes ago, U.S. Senator Mark Warner - he's a Democrat from Virginia and the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, which is investigating - the Senate Intelligence Committee which is investigating Russia interference. He says, I'm saying it again; firing the special counsel is a red line that the president cannot cross and would be a gross abuse of power.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith on tonight's report from The New York Times that back in June, President Trump ordered special counsel Robert Mueller fired, then backed down when White House counsel Don McGahn threatened to quit. Thanks very much, Tam.
KEITH: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
There's no better way to hear your favorite done-me-wrong song then on scratchy vinyl coming out of an old jukebox. Those classic Seeburgs and Wurlitzers have mostly vanished from bars and restaurants. But there's one guy who makes a living keeping the last surviving jukeboxes whirring and clicking and dropping 45s. And as Allyson McCabe reports, these days he's got his hands full.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ROCK AROUND THE CLOCK")
BILL HALEY: (Singing) One, two, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock rock. Fix, six...
ALLYSON MCCABE, BYLINE: Rock 'n' roll fans in the 1950s often listened to their favorite songs on machines with such names as Seeburg Select-O-Matic, Rock-Ola or Wurlitzer. At the height of their popularity, there were about 750,000 jukeboxes in malt shops and bars across the country. But as discos replaced diners, jukeboxes became rare collectibles. Perry Rosen is one of the country's last full-time jukebox repairmen.
PERRY ROSEN: Well, ever since I was a little kid, I always had an interest in jukeboxes. My head would always be looking through the cracks in the front door or through the dome glass, trying to see the mechanics of how the machine worked.
MCCABE: Rosen began fixing jukeboxes when he was 16. Four decades later, he's still at it. And he's still fascinated by their complexity.
ROSEN: With the electrical contacts, with the gears and also the levers and parts that transfer the record in and out, I would say there absolutely has to be over a thousand parts in a jukebox.
MCCABE: Rosen says business is booming. He says these old machines aren't just repositories for his customers' old 45 rpm singles, but also their memories.
ROSEN: Most of my customers have older machines from the '50s, '60s and '70s. And they're using it to play their collection of records that they had when - they grew up with when they were teenagers. They kind of try to recreate, you know, the days when they went to a candy store or went to a bar.
(SOUNDBITE OF JUKEBOX WHIRRING, MUSIC)
ROSEN: They remember the jukebox playing because there's always, like, a specific song where they met, you know, a girl or a guy and it kind of brings back memories.
MCCABE: But Rosen says he's seeing more and more old jukeboxes stocked with records that weren't pop hits.
ROSEN: And they've been putting in a lot of rare what they call garage music, which, you know, are 45s that lesser-known groups made up and kind of rare records. They weren't widely distributed. And they're used in jukeboxes in bars and houses. And I've been seeing more and more of that lately.
MCCABE: When Paul Vivari opened the Showtime Lounge in Washington, D.C., five years ago, he didn't want the standard digital entertainment system most bars and restaurants use. He wanted his bar to have a jukebox. And he wanted it stocked with the vintage soul and R&B songs he loves.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AIN'T NO LOVE IN THE HEART OF THE CITY")
BOBBY BLAND: (Singing) Ain't no love in the heart of the city. Ain't no love in the heart of the city.
PAUL VIVARI: When we first opened, a lot of - you know, the people who had been here a long time would come in here and were really into the jukebox, you know, remembered a lot of the songs, whereas, you know, the younger people don't really know a whole lot about a lot of the artists on there. They just like the way it sounds, you know, and would like to know more about it. It becomes kind of like a little educational device as well as entertainment.
MCCABE: The appeal may be reaching a tipping point beyond hipster bars and mom and pop pizza joints. Major retailers, including Pottery Barn and Bed Bath and Beyond, are offering new jukeboxes with built-in radios that also play CDs and stream music. And turntable giant Crosley is teaming up with the U.K.-based manufacturer Sound Leisure to release new full-size, Bluetooth-enabled models that also play vinyl. The initial production run has been modest, says Scott Bingaman, president of Crosley's exclusive U.S. distributor Deer Park.
SCOTT BINGAMAN: A few hundred were made.
MCCABE: But they're built by hand and individually numbered, and sell for about the same price as fully restored vintage models - that's about $13,000. So start saving your quarters. For NPR News, I'm Allyson McCabe.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I LOVE ROCK 'N' ROLL")
JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS: (Singing) I saw him dancing there by the record machine. I knew he must've been about 17.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
If you've seen most of the Oscar nominees and you can't find anything else interesting at your local movie theater, you're not alone. Critic Bob Mondello says Hollywood has always used January as a dumping ground. And today he argues that doesn't have to be the case. To prove it, he found a black comedy in Argentina, and he's guessing that if people here could see it, the film would strike a chord with them, a musical chord at that.
BOB MONDELLO, BYLINE: It's a comic detective fantasy called "27: El Club De Los Malditos" - "27: The Club Of The Damned." And the film starts by explaining that title. Much has been written, say words typed in Spanish, of the accidental deaths of famous musicians at the age of 27...
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "27: EL CLUB DE LOS MALDITOS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character) Yeah.
MONDELLO: ...Janis, Jimi, Kurt, Amy, Jim of the Doors. But what if they weren't accidents? A moment later, a singer who's belting yeahs and expletives breaks a beer bottle over his own head and crashes through a window to pavement several stories below.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "27: EL CLUB DE LOS MALDITOS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #1: (As character, screaming).
(SOUNDBITE OF CRASH)
MONDELLO: He's also 27 - coincidence? To figure that out, a hard-drinking detective - his beverage of choices Tang crystals in rubbing alcohol - and a blue-haired music fan team up with an older guy whose mane of long, gray hair looks familiar to the fan.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "27: EL CLUB DE LOS MALDITOS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character, speaking Spanish).
MONDELLO: Can't believe it.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "27: EL CLUB DE LOS MALDITOS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character, speaking Spanish).
MONDELLO: A little older but just like him.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "27: EL CLUB DE LOS MALDITOS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, speaking Spanish).
MONDELLO: I'm not just like him. I'm him.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "27: EL CLUB DE LOS MALDITOS")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) Jim?
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR #2: (As character, speaking Spanish).
UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: (As character) Jim Morrison?
MONDELLO: Apparently the lead singer of the Doors didn't die, at least not in this film's alternate universe, which is, I should note, populated with persuasive sound- and look-alikes - Amy, Jimi, Janis scoring drugs on tour and all of them falling victim to - well, I shouldn't spoil surprises. But let me note that the film has disgruntled, aging musicians who dress like Bond villains, a detective with decent comic timing and, happily, a cryogenic lab that keeps dead rock stars on ice.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "27: EL CLUB DE LOS MALDITOS")
MONDELLO: Now, I don't want to overstate the case for "27: The Club Of The Damned." It's more goofy than brilliant. And with my limited understanding of Spanish, it possibly gained something from not being subtitled. Even in Argentina where it was made, it barely premiered in the top 10 just above the sixth week of "Daddy's Home 2." But it is in a season when Hollywood mostly releases warmed-over sequels and third-tier horror flicks.
Remarkable in one sense - it's original, based on a real-world mystery that's sparked plenty of questions. Why do so many rock stars die at 27, and how has it not occurred to someone in Hollywood to make a movie about that? Janis Joplin would have turned 75 last week. Her story's been there for the taking. And it's kind of cool that somebody thought to take it. Bob Mondello.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PIECE OF MY HEART")
JANIS JOPLIN: (Singing) Take it. Take another little piece of my heart now, baby. Break another little piece of my heart, now darling, yeah. Have another little piece of my heart now, baby. Well, you know you got it. Shout if it makes you feel good.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Two married same-sex couples are suing the U.S. State Department. Each couple has twins, and in each case, the government granted one twin citizenship and denied the other. The couples say it is clear discrimination that would not have happened to married opposite-sex couples. The federal government says it's policy. NPR's Leila Fadel reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO)
UNIDENTIFIED BOY: (Unintelligible).
LEILA FADEL, BYLINE: That sound you're hearing is a family video from the Dvash-Banks house of their twin boys running around the dining room table. They're pretty wobbly because they're only 16 months old. They may be twins born four minutes apart from the same womb to the same dads, but there's one key difference. Aiden was granted U.S. citizenship, and his brother Ethan is living in California on an expired tourist visa.
Why? The State Department says only one is the child of an American. One of the kids has the genetic material of his U.S. citizen father, the other from his other father, an Israeli citizen with a green card. Both boys were born in Canada. Andrew Dvash-Banks describes walking up to the consular officer to turn in the paperwork for his newborns' passports.
ANDREW DVASH-BANKS: She started off with, obviously the two of you had to use assisted reproduction in order to have your family. Tell me more about that. Tell me about who is genetically related to who and just asking these very, very probing, invasive questions that I felt were completely irrelevant.
FADEL: Andrew cried. His husband Elad got quiet. They didn't expect this. As the children of an American citizen, they should both inherit citizenship. But the couple used a surrogate abroad. Each child has genes from one of their fathers. And while Andrew and Elad never planned on telling anyone which child had Andrew's DNA and which child had Elad's, the State Department asked for DNA tests. Two months later, Andrew says, the letters came.
A. DVASH-BANKS: One addressed to Aiden with a U.S. passport saying, congratulations, here is your U.S. passport; you are an American citizen and one addressed to my son Ethan saying, we regret to inform you that your application for citizenship has been rejected.
FADEL: Despite both men being listed on the boys' birth certificates, Elad says the government made a distinction.
ELAD DVASH-BANKS: It was literally black and white on paper. Your kids are different.
FADEL: They had made their lives in Canada years earlier only because they couldn't get legally married in the United States until 2013. The State Department wouldn't comment for this story because of the pending litigation. But in the department's Foreign Affairs Manual, consular officers are instructed to ask for evidence if they suspect a child doesn't have a biological relationship with a U.S. citizen parent, specifically in cases of surrogacy or, quote, "other cases of assisted reproduction."
The discrimination is in the application because all same-sex couples will be flagged according to Immigration Equality, the LGBTQ immigrant rights organization that helped the couple file the lawsuit. They say more than two dozen other same-sex couples are dealing with the same problem. Another couple, two married women, also filed suit. They have two children. One got citizenship, and the other was refused. Aaron Morris is the executive director of Immigration Equality.
AARON MORRIS: The law is pretty settled that if you're a United States citizen and you lived in the U.S. for a certain amount of time, then you move abroad and you fall in love and you get married, any children you have are born United States citizens.
FADEL: And Morris says there's precedent of a similar case for the citizenship of a son from an opposite-sex couple who are also binational.
MORRIS: The government has created a policy without issuing any justification for it. And it's really hard to imagine any kind of justification that would warrant stripping a child of citizenship.
FADEL: Morris says what the State Department is doing is illegal and discriminatory, and he hopes these lawsuits clarify the status of children born to couples like Andrew and Elad Dvash-Banks. Leila Fadel, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARTIFEX FEAT. DJ ILLOGIC'S "REAP")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
So President Trump showed his hand on immigration last night. The White House released a one-page proposal. A senior White House official calls the new immigration plan, quote, "a bipartisan compromise position." Well, it is already attracting a lot of bipartisan criticism. NPR congressional correspondent Scott Detrow is here to walk through all the latest on immigration. Hey, Scott.
SCOTT DETROW, BYLINE: Hey there.
KELLY: Before we get to the criticism, let's lay out what is being criticized - quick recap of what the White House is proposing.
DETROW: So the White House is taking a step toward the Democratic position on this. On one issue, they support a 10- to 12-year path to citizenship for people in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program but also people who would be eligible for the program but aren't in it. So we're talking about 1.8 million people here.
KELLY: All right.
DETROW: But they want a lot in exchange for that - $25 billion for construction of a wall and other border security, additional money for immigration personnel on top of that. And then they want changes to the legal immigration system. They want to limit family considerations when visas are awarded to just parents and children who are minors, and they also want to completely end the visa lottery system.
KELLY: So a lot to unpack in this plan, and we mentioned it is already coming in for a lot of criticism. Start with Democrats. How - what's the reaction been there?
DETROW: They do not quite view this as the compromise that the White House is framing it as.
KELLY: OK.
DETROW: I'll read you a couple quotes here. And I should point out this came out yesterday after Congress left town, so most of the reaction so far has been on Twitter, in statements, things like that. So here's Joe Crowley, who's part of House Democratic leadership. This isn't an immigration proposal. It's a ransom note. And here's House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi. She says this is, quote, "an anti-immigrant framework" and, quote, "part of the Trump administration's unmistakable campaign to make America white again."
A lot of similar responses, and I think it just comes down to the fact that President Trump's shifting positions on immigration and also the rhetoric he's used from the campaign through his presidency, notably the slur he used in that infamous moment in the White House a couple weeks ago talking about African countries. Democrats just don't see him as trustworthy, and they don't view his motives - they're incredibly suspicious of his motives on the issue of immigration.
KELLY: Not a huge surprise that Democrats are not onboard with this plan or at least not yet. Are Republicans any more receptive?
DETROW: Well, a lot of key Republicans are. Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton is someone who's long been pushing for these changes to legal immigration that are included in this framework. He said in a statement that this plan is generous and humane while also being responsible. If you look at Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's statement, he seems to mostly be just grateful that President Trump is finally putting his views on paper. McConnell's been trying to negotiate this as Trump has shifted from position to position. And McConnell's response bubbles down to, thank you for saying this; now we'll work on it. But here's what's important. House Republicans...
KELLY: I was going to ask. That's the Senate side. What about on the House?
DETROW: And they are the majority in the House...
KELLY: Right.
DETROW: ...Just like they are in the Senate. A lot of House Republicans are - real hard-line positions on immigration. And there's a lot of skepticism, especially from the Freedom Caucus part of the world, who view any sort of path to citizenship as amnesty. So the key to getting them onboard is how much President Trump sells this, how much he sticks to this plan. So if he comes out in the State of the Union next week and says, this is what I want, they could come around. Otherwise, they might remain critical to this.
KELLY: NPR congressional correspondent Scott Detrow. Thank you, Scott.
DETROW: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Well, joining us now to discuss immigration and some of the other major political stories of the week are Reihan Salam, the executive editor for the National Review and a columnist for Slate - welcome back.
REIHAN SALAM: Thanks for having me, Ari.
SHAPIRO: And Kimberly Atkins, chief Washington reporter and columnist for the Boston Herald. Hi there.
KIMBERLY ATKINS: Hi there.
SHAPIRO: Let's pick up with the White House's immigration proposal. As we just heard, some lawmakers on the left reject it as heartless while some on the right reject it as amnesty. Kimberly, do you see this as just the first phase of a negotiation? Or is this pretty much dead?
ATKINS: I mean, this is where the negotiation starts. But it's hard to see how all sides come together, especially once again under a time deadline of February 8 before the next government shutdown, especially given the hard feelings, frankly, that the last shutdown left everyone with. You had up to a point where Chuck Schumer, for example, was trying to meet someplace with President Trump and even during that course offered $25 billion dollars for the wall or whatever you want to call it and has since rescinded that offer.
Then you add the fact that, as Scott pointed out, you have the Democrats on one side digging in, the Republicans on the other side dig in - digging in probably even more than where they started before. It's going to be tough to see how they come together in just a couple weeks.
SHAPIRO: Reihan, I know you've been working on a book on immigration, so I'm sure you have a lot of thoughts on this. It strikes me that over the decades of debate about immigration, this represents a pretty significant shift of Republicans wanting to crack down not just on illegal immigration, but really reduce legal immigration as well.
SALAM: Well, part of the question is, how should we structure our legal immigration system? Should it be sensitive to skills and economic potential writ large? Or should it be primarily oriented towards family-based admissions? The system as it exists right now is very heavily oriented towards family-based admissions. And there are a lot of folks on the right, including some who want immigration levels to be high as well as some who want them to be low and lower - that we ought to move away from this kind of family emphasis.
The problem is that when you're trying to pair that with amnesty, when you're trying to pair that with some legalization path - we're in this very tricky, awkward position because we're focused on the DACA-eligible. But the thing is that for many people that's seen as just an initial step. You actually want to legalize a much broader swath of the unauthorized immigrant population.
So the kind of deal that the White House envisions is a deal that perhaps you could have if you had a much broader amnesty. But it's hard to see how you could get this kind of a deal if you only have some kind of amnesty for the DACA-eligible. So that, I think, is the big stumbling block here.
SHAPIRO: I want to ask you about another big story which broke last night when The New York Times reported that back in June, President Trump ordered special counsel Robert Mueller to be fired and that it only didn't happen because White House counsel Don McGahn threatened to resign. Let's listen here to Congressman Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas, speaking on Morning Edition today.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
JOAQUIN CASTRO: If this news is true, then that is a red line. And I believe that ultimately it could be moving him closer to impeachment.
SHAPIRO: Kimberly, do you think people should be concerned that Mueller could still be fired at this point?
ATKINS: Yeah. I think it'll be a lot tougher to do now, especially given this revelation. There are people who are concerned about Robert Mueller being fired on both sides of the aisle in Congress and really don't want that to happen. I think you'll expect to see an increased effort to bring to Congress - there are a couple of bills that have been filed that would essentially protect him, give him the opportunity to go to a court, essentially, if he is fired to seek to be reinstated.
It has some bipartisan support. I think you might see that grow. It'll probably be Democrats leading the charge on that. But people are concerned not just for the sake of allowing the Justice Department and the process to go about itself, but there are a lot of Republicans who think that this would be politically catastrophic for the president if he takes this step. I tend to agree with them.
But certainly all of this is going to be considered carefully by Robert Mueller himself as he continues this probe about potential obstruction. All of this goes at the very least to the president's intent not only in trying to fire him, but in firing James Comey and pressuring other people within the Justice Department and in Congress if not being seen as an actual act, ordering Don McGahn to fire him as an actual step toward obstruction.
SHAPIRO: Reihan, what do you think? How significant is this story? And why are we learning about it now, six months later?
SALAM: Well, there's an irony to this story because as I understand it, the president is now insisting that the special counsel - he believes he's going to get a fair shake. He's calling the story fake, which implies that he's, you know, insisting the exact opposite, that he has no intention of firing the special counsel. He may well be, you know, lying about that. That's certainly possible. But to Kimberly's point, that actually makes it far less likely that he would make a move to fire the special counsel now. So in some sense, the special counsel may well be more secure.
Now the question is, you know, will this investigation go into his intention? Was his intention to obstruct? And whether or not he is lying if he now claims under oath that he did not intend to fire Robert Mueller. So it just strikes me as a very strange story because, again, the president is insisting that he did not try to fire Mueller before, which again implies that Mueller is in an unusually safe position right now.
SHAPIRO: Well, so some have speculated that this story was leaked in order to protect Robert Mueller.
SALAM: And that certainly makes a lot of sense. And you could say the system worked in that case just as McGahn's intention - you know, making it clear that he would resign rather than push ahead with this move. Another possibility is that this is a kind of back-and-forth when people are dealing with an impetuous president, that oftentimes there may well be orders that people immediately around the president might initially resist and cajole him out of making rash decisions. But none of that is terribly surprising. There are many people who believed six months ago, there are many people who believed for a long time that the president might act rashly. And you get that large pressure from the - you know, a lot of Republican insiders.
SHAPIRO: Well, the last thing I want to ask you about is President Trump's visit to Davos, Switzerland, where he delivered a speech this morning encouraging other countries and businesses to engage with the United States.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: There has never been a better time to hire, to build, to invest and to grow in the United States. America is open for business, and we are competitive once again.
SHAPIRO: How do you think this message goes over after a year in which Trump has separated the U.S. from the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Paris climate accord and other global relationships? Kimberly.
ATKINS: Yeah. You know, I think this was a surprise, especially given his past statements about NAFTA. He signaled a willingness to sort of renegotiate it and stay in it. He said America first, but not - not America only. It sort of seemed like a safe speech, a speech that did no damage as he did in the past with some of our other overseas trips where he really chastised our allies or things like that. He seemed a little low-energy to me, but he was able to get in at least the very - in a dig to the press. So he seemed a little more like himself then.
SHAPIRO: Reihan, if this was a speech that did no damage, as Kimberly says, do you think it did any help?
SALAM: Well, I think that the president has a lot of goals regarding protecting the tradable sector, protecting the U.S. manufacturing base. The question is whether his instincts actually fit those long-term objectives. I don't think they do. I think that, you know, ideally what he ought to be doing is thinking about research and research and development, making larger investments, human capital investments and what have you, thinking about it in strategic, long-term ways rather than acting reflexively to, for example, impose tariff barriers. But, you know, I agree with Kimberly. I don't think that this is really going to be terribly consequential one way or another.
SHAPIRO: Reihan Salam of the National Review and Kimberly Atkins of the Boston Herald, good to talk to you both. Have a great weekend.
ATKINS: Thanks for having me.
SALAM: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF BK-ONE'S "TEMA DO CANIBAL")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Say you're a spy and you want to know who will win the upcoming presidential election in Brazil or what the spot price of Brent crude oil will be on a certain date a year from now. Well, you could turn to gadgets and gizmos and satellite intel, networks of agents, or you could outsource it to the wisdom of crowds. Here, I'll let him explain.
SETH GOLDSTEIN: My name is Seth Goldstein. I'm a program manager at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity.
KELLY: IARPA, as it's called.
GOLDSTEIN: That's right.
KELLY: IARPA being the office inside the intelligence community that is devoted to thinking outside the box, thinking of new ways to do stuff.
GOLDSTEIN: I think that's a fair description.
KELLY: And the challenge you've got on the horizon coming up next month is you are launching a crowdsourcing challenge. Explain.
GOLDSTEIN: That's right. We're launching a challenge called the Geopolitical Forecasting Challenge. What we're going to do here is allow anyone who's interested - citizen scientists, hobbyists - to develop forecasting methods to attempt to anticipate what events are going to occur sort of in real time.
KELLY: So I mentioned, you know, one example of the type of things you're asking people to forecast. You know, the price of Brent crude oil on a given day in the future. What other questions might you throw to people to see if they can forecast?
GOLDSTEIN: For instance, will the United Nations vote to impose new sanctions on some particular country, say, by the end of the year?
KELLY: OK.
GOLDSTEIN: We might ask that question about multiple countries. Or will any additional EU country vote to depart the EU by the end of the year?
KELLY: And there's prize money at stake here.
GOLDSTEIN: There's $200,000 in prize money at stake. We're going to be providing them with state-of-the-art data on crowdsourced human judgments. And we know it's the state of the art because we've validated this state of the art in a previous IARPA research program called ACE. I won't tell you what the acronym means simply because it's got a lot of big words in it...
KELLY: Not because it's classified.
GOLDSTEIN: Not because it's classified.
KELLY: (Laughter) OK.
GOLDSTEIN: This program...
KELLY: Oh, come on. Just tell me.
GOLDSTEIN: Aggregative Contingent Estimation.
KELLY: OK.
GOLDSTEIN: So this program was about improving on what was then a very limited state of the art in crowdsourced forecasting. We achieved that in that program. We beat the existing state of the art by greater than 50 percent. You all did a story on it.
KELLY: Yeah.
GOLDSTEIN: And taking that method as the state of the art, IARPA is launching this Geopolitical Forecasting Challenge by giving those who are interested access to a data stream based on the method that was so successful there.
KELLY: So here's my question - why does a crowd of individuals stand a better chance of forecasting something accurately than one really smart person sitting there with a classified security clearance who has access to all of the information that the intelligence community has?
GOLDSTEIN: The problem with expert judgment generally is that it's difficult to know in advance which expert is going to make a correct forecast on any particular event.
KELLY: Inevitably, somebody might get it right, somebody might get it wrong.
GOLDSTEIN: Somebody might get it one time and they might get it wrong another time. The idea behind crowdsourcing is that if you assemble a reasonably sized crowd, a large crowd of hundreds or even thousands of people making judgments, the idea of there being any particular directional bias in some aggregate of that judgment is reduced. It's not to say experts can't make accurate forecasts. It's to say if you had to choose a method, this might serve you better.
KELLY: It seems like there's a conundrum inherent in here for you. If crowdsourcing by ordinary civilians can out-forecast, you know, the smartest minds of the intelligence community, if this project succeeds, do you risk putting yourself out of business?
GOLDSTEIN: I don't think so.
KELLY: You hope not (laughter).
GOLDSTEIN: Yeah. I don't foresee that happening for a variety of reasons. Expert judgment is always going to be innately valuable. Experts provide critical context about causal understandings of current phenomena, past phenomena and so forth. So, no, I don't think that we're going to put sort of the intelligence analysts out of business.
KELLY: So, Seth Goldstein, I have to get you on record and ask, will another country depart the EU and go the Brexit route before the end of the year?
GOLDSTEIN: I'm going to leave that to our research teams and our prize challenge entrants to tell us what the right answer is.
KELLY: Outsource to the wisdom of the crowds. Thank you so much.
GOLDSTEIN: Thank you.
KELLY: Seth Goldstein of IARPA, Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
To Pakistan next, where people are clamoring for the public hanging of an alleged serial killer. A warning - there are details coming over these next four minutes or so that could disturb some listeners. This story begins with a little girl. She was found in a trash heap after being raped and killed. It is an awful story. And among the many questions it's raising is whether her death might lead to changes in Pakistan. NPR's Diaa Hadid visited her hometown today, and Diaa joins me now. Hi.
DIAA HADID, BYLINE: Hey there, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Tell us what this little girl's name was and what you found when you visited her town.
HADID: So this little girl - her name was Zainab Amin. She was 7 years old. And she was from a provincial cotton mill town called Kasur. It's about an hour from where I am. And it could be anywhere in Pakistan except for this. Just about every kid I saw was escorted. And when I asked their parents, their grandparents and their older siblings why these kids weren't running around freely like they are anywhere else in Pakistan, they said it was because they were afraid of letting them out alone. One of the people I spoke to is a human rights lawyer called Waqas Abid, and here's what he had to say. He really echoes what residents were feeling.
WAQAS ABID: This is very painful for me. Whenever they go to the school, I try to drop them myself. And we - all family members are very much careful. It's very painful when I think that - what happened with the innocent children in our city.
HADID: So when he says the innocent children in our city, what he's talking about is that activists count here that 13 children were raped and killed over the past two years here. The 13th child was Zainab.
KELLY: Now, police believe they have found the alleged killer. He's been arrested. Is that right?
HADID: That's right. He's a 23-year-old construction worker, and he lived about a minute's walk from where Zainab lived. And I spoke to his neighbors today, and they said he'd like to go to the roof of their building to watch the girls in the pink-painted primary school that's just across the narrow alleyway.
KELLY: To look down at the girls school - it's awful. It sends chills up your spine.
HADID: Yeah.
KELLY: Let me ask you this. He's been caught, but you said people are still scared of letting their children out to run around freely. Why?
HADID: Because people worry that there might be another murderer. And it really just - it just gets to the heart of the problem in Kasur and generally in Pakistan - is that people don't trust the police. They don't trust the government. They see their officials as corrupt, inept, inefficient. And they see them as being subservient to the rich and contemptuous of the poor. And most of the families whose children were killed here are quite poor.
KELLY: So Diaa, people are furious, I gather. There have been riots. There have been calls for this suspect to be hanged if he's found guilty. People have attacked the police station where he was being held. Do we know yet what the lasting impact might be, what changes this might result in going forward?
HADID: So when I was in Kasur today, I went to the police station which still reeks of smoke from when residents tried to burn it down. And there was still smashed cars in the yard. And police said that the furor around this case really changed things, and it forced the state government to throw more resources and money at this case, which is why they were able to solve it. And so that's one important change that we might see looking forward - is that the government will be reluctant to let these cases drag on like they did in the past.
KELLY: I also wonder, Diaa. Is it significant just that this is - we are talking about this girl by name. Her family has come forward. The national press is all over this story. Are there more cases coming to light as a result of what happened to her?
HADID: Yeah, there are. I spoke to one NGO worker who said that he counted 100 more cases that had come forward after Zainab's death created this...
KELLY: One hundred - wow.
HADID: ...Enormous response in the media. One hundred - and those aren't cases that happened after she was killed. They're families who were reluctant to say what had happened to their children, who found the courage to come forward. That in itself is a pretty big deal here.
KELLY: That's NPR's Diaa Hadid reporting from Lahore. Diaa, thank you.
HADID: Thank you, Mary Louise.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Earlier today, President Trump was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. He was there to pitch U.S. investment. But as has happened on some of his earlier trips overseas, he found himself answering questions about the Russia investigation. This time, he was responding to a New York Times report that he had ordered the firing of special counsel Robert Mueller back in June. The Times reports Trump backed off when his White House counsel threatened to quit. NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith reports on how it played out in Davos.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: As President Trump walked into the World Economic Forum, he was surrounded by cameras and reporters all asking a variation on the same question.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: Why did you want to fire Robert Mueller?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Fake news, folks, fake news.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER: What's your message today?
TRUMP: Typical New York Times fake story.
KEITH: Now, claiming fake news is nothing new for the president, and he often applies that label to factual stories he simply doesn't like. From there it was onto meetings with other world leaders and then a speech. Trump was there at the gathering of global elites in Davos to make a pitch.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: America is the place to do business. So come to America, where you can innovate, create and build. I believe in America.
KEITH: Trump's speech was quite similar to remarks he's delivered at other international forums and meetings, read carefully without veering into the kind of improvisation that characterizes his rally speeches in the U.S. Trump in this setting sought to explain his America First rallying cry as looking out for the American people first but not turning away from the rest of the world.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: But America First does not mean America alone. When the United States grows, so does the world. American prosperity has created countless jobs all around the globe.
KEITH: Trump talked up the U.S. economy and his administration's efforts to cut regulations and taxes. He even somewhat softened his rhetoric on trade. Pulling out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal was one of Trump's first acts as president. But in Davos, he opened the door to another multilateral trade deal with the same TPP countries as long as it's fair and reciprocal.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: We have agreements with several of them already. We would consider negotiating with the rest either individually or perhaps as a group if it is in the interests of all.
KEITH: The other countries in the Trans-Pacific Partnership are moving on together without the U.S. Trump closed with a direct plea to the business and political leaders in the audience, people who in another setting he might call globalists and elites.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Today I am inviting all of you to become part of this incredible future we are building together.
KEITH: Then it was time for a brief Q&A session where President Trump was asked what experiences from his past have been most useful in preparing him for the presidency. The script no longer serving as a guide, Trump talked about his career in business, saying he has always been successful at making money. Trump claimed that if he hadn't won the election, the stock market would have crashed. And then he returned to familiar territory, attacking the press.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: And it was until I became a politician that I realized how nasty, how mean, how vicious and how fake the press can be - as the cameras start going off in the back.
(LAUGHTER)
KEITH: The cameras didn't turn off. They stayed trained on President Trump as they always do. Tamara Keith, NPR News, the White House.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Sixty-six-year-old Marilyn Hartman walked through airport security onto an airplane and made it all the way to London last week. She didn't have a boarding pass. She didn't have a passport. And this is not the first time she's made such an attempt. She has tried this more than 20 times.
Hartman is being called a serial stowaway. She's not a security threat. She still had to pass through metal detectors. But her case raises a lot of questions. Joe Eskenazi is a journalist who's had many conversations with Marilyn Hartman over the years. He wrote about her this week in The Guardian. And I asked him, how does she manage this?
JOE ESKENAZI: There's not a grand master plan. It is not like "Ocean's Eleven." Marilyn Hartman is persistent and has a lot of small techniques that are fairly intuitive, such as, you know, keeping her head down, finding other people's boarding passes in the garbage and things like that and taking advantage of other people's, you know, distractions and then walking past them.
SHAPIRO: How much of it do you think has to do with the fact that she is a small, unassuming, elderly white woman who doesn't look like a threat?
ESKENAZI: I think that is a vital factor. A younger, more memorable looking and frankly someone of an ethnicity that makes airport officials nervous would be flagged and also probably would not be treated so innocuously when caught doing things wrong or sneaky.
SHAPIRO: This story has been treated in the news as harmless and funny. Some have treated it as a potential security threat. You make the argument that this is a serious story about mental illness.
ESKENAZI: I think it is, and I think that - I mean, I know here in San Francisco, this was a big story because she came to prominence in 2014 when she attempted to sneak onto six or more flights at San Francisco International Airport. And there were headlines like, oops, she did it again and things like that. So these things at first blush are funny. But on the other hand, there is something deeper and unsettling here.
SHAPIRO: As you were writing about her, you got to know her. And you say that she would frequently call you, sometimes collect from jail. Who is this woman who you got to know?
ESKENAZI: She is very pleasant to speak to on the phone. She is a chipper, energetic woman on the phone. However, in this chipper, energetic voice, she will tell you about a vast conspiracy of people who are harassing her and essentially driving her mad. And she points the finger at Barack Obama, whom she claims has known about this and been the ringleader of this for decades. You know...
SHAPIRO: Recognizable conspiracy theory talk.
ESKENAZI: Exactly that. However, it was not shouted. It was calmly explained in a very methodical way. And she would step back and say, I know how crazy this sounds, and I know what this looks like. But it did look like that.
SHAPIRO: You've said that this points out a gap in the justice system, that we just don't have a way of dealing with mentally ill people, older people, people who struggle with homelessness. So when you have this woman who does keep sneaking onto airplanes, who keeps getting caught, who keeps winding up in court, what do you think the appropriate way of dealing with that is?
ESKENAZI: That's a tremendous question. We - I don't know that anyone has figured out exactly what to do. The justice system and the mental health system have shown a great deal of leniency to Marilyn Hartman. She is again and again released to her own recognizance. Again and again, she's put into halfway houses or other homeless programs. And she doesn't like it there, and that is understandable. And she leaves. However, once she leaves, she keeps doing this peculiar and very unique behavioral pattern of trying to sneak into airplanes.
SHAPIRO: Joe Eskenazi is a writer in San Francisco, and his article on The Guardian is called "Serial Stowaway: How Does A 66-year-old Woman Keep Sneaking Onto Flights?" Thank you so much.
ESKENAZI: Thank you for having me.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The former gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar will spend at least 40 years in prison for sex crimes on top of 60 years for child pornography. And now one lingering question is how the institutions that employed him will be held accountable. Those institutions include USA Gymnastics, which we'll hear about elsewhere in the program, and Michigan State University. Rebecca Kruth of Michigan Radio visited campus to talk with students there.
REBECCA KRUTH, BYLINE: It's a brisk afternoon on the banks of the Red Cedar River. I'm standing in front of a boulder known as The Rock. Students use it as a kind of billboard to spray paint birthday messages, congratulations for sports victories, sometimes even marriage proposals. Today the words thank you have been painted in turquoise. Next to that - the names of the more than 150 survivors who spoke during Larry Nassar's sentencing. Senior Caitlin DeLuca takes a break from her afternoon jog to snap a picture.
CAITLIN DELUCA: I kind of am, like, looking at them and wanting to almost put them to memory because I feel so horrendously awful for them. My school was part of the reason that they've had to suffer in silence for so long.
KRUTH: DeLuca notes that there's been a lot of anger on campus this past week, and it's aimed at administrators.
DELUCA: The way that it's been handled from the top down has let so many students down. And it's made us lose complete confidence and faith in our administration and in our university.
KRUTH: Following Nassar's sentencing, fallout has been swift. MSU President Lou Anna Simon resigned earlier this week, and the school's athletic director, Mark Hollis, stepped down earlier today. Then there are the looming investigations. The U.S. Department of Education, Michigan lawmakers, the state's attorney general and the NCAA all plan to investigate the school. It's been a demoralizing week at this Big Ten university of 50,000. But freshman Natalya Swartz says she hopes people remember that there are thousands of others here who did nothing wrong.
NATALYA SWARTZ: We're all trying to do our best and trying to create a good image. So that isn't what Michigan State is. It's a lot bigger than that.
LORENZO SANTAVICCA: For a lot of students, particularly undergraduate students here, we're trying to figure out where we go from here. This is going to be a big change for the institution.
KRUTH: That's student body president Lorenzo Santavicca. He says school officials need to listen more closely to Nassar's victims. Back at the Rock, junior Alex Vamvounis pauses for a few minutes on his way to class.
ALEX VAMVOUNIS: This is one of the few things that could really make me ashamed of my school. These women trusted the system, and the system let them down.
KRUTH: Freshman Kate Nieman, who calls herself a survivor of sexual assault, says she's already seen some positive change.
KATE NIEMAN: There's always leaps and bounds to overcome and things to learn. And you can never truly understand if you've never been in that situation. But I mean, the students have been such supporters of the situation, and I'm really proud of that.
KRUTH: Students here plan to protest tonight right here at The Rock. They want MSU to change how it deals with reports of sexual abuse and how it treats survivors. For NPR News in East Lansing, I'm Rebecca Kruth.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
If you follow the fashion world, then you know this about designer Alexander Wang. Expect the unexpected. Wang is shaking things up again next month. That would be when New York Fashion Week gets going, and Wang will be there for the last time. He has announced that going forward, he is ditching the traditional New York fashion calendar. Instead, he's going to host his own shows in June and December, which would traditionally be the off-season for the fashion world.
Alexander Wang is on the line from New York to tell us why. Welcome to the program.
ALEXANDER WANG: Thank you - happy to be here (laughter).
KELLY: We are so glad to have you here. And let me start right there with the obvious question. Why is this going to be your last New York Fashion Week?
WANG: You know, it really goes back to the customer and the consumer. We've been really focusing the last couple years on how we can make our process more efficient, simplified and bring our collection with a shorter amount of time to our customer who demands that now and being able to deliver monthly drops that can service our customer better.
KELLY: OK, now you just said a key word - monthly drops. I mean, this has been the challenge of these huge runway shows since the beginning - right? - is that people would go. They would see these beautiful clothes, and then they couldn't actually get their hands on them for months, right?
WANG: Yeah, so traditionally (laughter), you would, you know, see, you know, our show in either February or September, and you'd have to wait about six months in order to see the product in store. So we are essentially cutting that time in half. By showing in June, the product will already start shipping in early October. So what you see will be a much shortened time frame of being able to get your hands on the product.
KELLY: Is this something particular to New York? Are you still going to do the big shows in Paris and Milan and LA?
WANG: Well, we actually only show in New York, so nothing really changes in terms of the scale or the format of how we show. It's really just the timing.
KELLY: But you won't have the crowd that assembles twice a year in New York for Fashion Week if you're doing it on your own calendar. So what are you losing by walking away from this?
WANG: What are we losing? Well, there's always a risk of course. You know, I feel that if I'm going to fail, I want to fail big. So you know, when people watch a show now, essentially anyone can - doesn't really have to go to a show. The editors, the buyers can reference everything from the Internet or social media. So it's really about creating an experience and how we can communicate our brand DNA to the world.
KELLY: Now, you're not the only big-name designer to decide to ditch New York Fashion Week. I noticed that Tom Ford and Vera Wang and Tommy Hilfiger and others have all at one point or another decided to skip it. I wonder. I mean, do you all talk amongst yourselves and compare strategies, how this might play out?
WANG: (Laughter) You know, it's something that we've been thinking about for a long time as a brand. You know, we are very grateful to have the support of the CFDA behind us.
KELLY: CFDA is...
WANG: The CFDA is the Council of Fashion Designers America.
KELLY: OK.
WANG: And so they also want to be able to think about how we can start evolving the traditional fashion week and have also mentioned that there might be some other brands that will hopefully follow us into June and December.
KELLY: The window you described - you do a June show, and then you said the clothes would be available in October. Is that right?
WANG: Correct.
KELLY: So that's still a window of several months. Is your goal to keep narrowing that, to get closer to the kind of see-now, buy-now method of showing high-end designer clothes, haute couture?
WANG: I would say not, not for right now. I think the see-now, buy-now, you know, obviously was a very hot topic, you know, a couple of seasons ago. And I believe that it only works for a certain price point and a certain type of product.
KELLY: Does shortening the lag time between when your clothes are shown, when you do a show and when they're actually available for purchase - does getting closer to the season change the way you design at all? I mean, you know, it's that sense of, like, you're sitting in winter, trying to imagine what you would possibly want to wear in summer. And it's just so hard to imagine. Do you struggle with that?
WANG: (Laughter) Our life is so hard. No, I'm kidding. You know, that's one of the things that really feels outdated - is these labels of seasons. Being able to think about the product much more by the month enables us to think a little bit more neutrally about the seasonality of the product.
KELLY: You are known for enjoying and for throwing a good after-party at Fashion Week. Can people still expect those at your off-season shows?
WANG: Of course. Don't forget about Wangfest (laughter).
KELLY: Wangfest - this was the infamous one last year.
WANG: This was the infamous one last year. I mean, we actually started it a few years ago, and it reincarnates itself every season. So yes, that will definitely be something that will be returning. But you have to expect the unexpected.
KELLY: Thank you very much.
WANG: All right, thank you so much.
KELLY: We've been talking with fashion designer Alexander Wang about his decision to make next month's New York Fashion Week his last.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump has been asked many times whether he was thinking of firing the lawyer leading the investigation into Russia's election interference, and usually the president's answer goes like this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: No, I'm not, no.
No, not at all.
No, I'm not dismissing anybody. I mean, I want them to get on with the task. But I also want the Senate and the House to come out with their findings.
SHAPIRO: Now, a report in The New York Times says the president did in fact order that special counsel Robert Mueller be dismissed last June. According to that report, White House lawyer Don McGahn said he would resign rather than carry out the directive. NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson joins us now to fill in the details. Hi, Carrie.
CARRIE JOHNSON, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: What do we know about this conflict back in June?
JOHNSON: NPR has not independently confirmed that Trump wanted to order the Justice Department to fire Robert Mueller or that the White House counsel threatened to resign. But sources tell us the president's displeasure with this Russia investigation last year was no secret at all.
In fact, there was lots of reporting at the time that Trump was raging about the investigation and about Robert Mueller. The president seemed to think Robert Mueller had some conflicts that would have prevented him from doing a good job even though the Justice Department lawyers and ethics people there had looked at these issues and gave Mueller a waiver on any conflicts.
SHAPIRO: So we're talking about June. Remind us what was going on in terms of the Russia investigation around that time.
JOHNSON: Yeah. I'd just take you back one month earlier. Let's start in May. That's when Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, May 9. Few days later, the president told NBC News the Russia thing was on his mind when he got rid of Comey. Then The New York Times reported Comey took notes about his strange interactions with the president all year, including an alleged request to go easy on the investigation of Trump's former national security adviser Michael Flynn. And then a day later, May 17, the Justice Department named Robert Mueller special counsel to lead this Russia probe.
SHAPIRO: And we're calling it a Russia probe, but Mueller was actually given a very broad mandate to look not only into coordination between Russians and the Trump campaign but also into any crimes he might discover along the way.
JOHNSON: That's right. And pretty early on in this process, people started focusing on possible obstruction of justice. That means simply trying to impede or interfere with the investigation. You don't need to succeed, just to try. The fired FBI director, Jim Comey, told Congress last June he was sure Mueller would take a look at obstruction. And Comey testified at that time he gave his memos about his interactions with the president to the special counsel to read.
Then at a press conference in the Rose Garden in June, Trump called Comey a liar and said he'd be glad to speak with Robert Mueller. Behind the scenes, though, people close to the White House were saying the president wanted to get rid of Bob Mueller. And newspapers were reporting the special counsel was looking into possible obstruction of justice.
SHAPIRO: Carrie, people have been reporting on the possibility that the president would try this for months. Why do you think this story is coming out now in January? And what does it mean for the investigation?
JOHNSON: Sure. Obstruction is one of those crimes where prosecutors need to determine a state of mind, some kind of bad or corrupt intent. You can't always do that with statements or emails. But you can try to prove a pattern, and this timeline we've been talking about helps Mueller's team try to build that pattern. It's not clear where this is heading. Mueller wants to talk to the president, interview the president about all of this. It's not clear that's actually going to happen.
But why coming out now? Well, Don McGahn, the top White House counsel, has been talking to Robert Mueller's team for at least two days, and he's also been talking about leaving the White House. My sources suggest it may say as much about the dynamic inside the White House as what's going on in the investigation. Things are bad, and people want to get their versions of the story out.
SHAPIRO: NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson, thank you.
JOHNSON: My pleasure.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
All right, let's stay with this story and bring in the voice of Virginia Democrat Mark Warner. He is the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, which means he is helping lead the Senate's efforts to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 election. Senator Warner, welcome.
MARK WARNER: Thank you for having me.
KELLY: The Times reports that President Trump ordered Mueller fired. President Trump has shot back. He's calling this story fake news. I want to ask you. Does The Times' reporting square with what you have learned as you have investigated?
WARNER: I believe not only the Times' reporting, but I was even on Fox News, where I believe they've even confirmed that this was the president's intent. Thank goodness the president listened to his lawyer because not only would he - was he threatening to quit, but he said this would have created chaos. And that's what I'm fearful of. I went to the Senate floor back in December and said firing Mueller or, for that matter, pardoning some of the people that Mr. Mueller has indicted would be crossing a red line.
Yet this president, whether - as your earlier report has indicated, not only did he fire Comey because he wouldn't back off the investigation. He's wanted to fire Mueller. Now that's become evident. He's been obviously angry at his attorney general, Sessions, who recused himself from overseeing the investigation. Just recently, we've also had evidence that he pressured Sessions to try to fire another senior FBI official, Andrew McCabe.
And then we've seen some of these - if they weren't so - wasn't so dangerous, almost absurd theories being bandied around by the president's allies in the last week or so trying to basically impugn the overall reputation of the FBI and the Department of Justice writ large. We're in uncharted area here. And my hope is come this week that the Congress would take up the legislation - bipartisan legislation that had been discussed last fall that would protect...
KELLY: To protect Robert Mueller.
WARNER: ...To protect Mueller from being fired by an arbitrary action of this president.
KELLY: Which I want to get to in a second. But may I first just flat-out ask you. Can you confirm The Times' report? Do you have firsthand knowledge?
WARNER: I'm not going to confirm or deny that particular report. I do think that every news organization that I'm aware of that I've spoken to today all seem to have independently confirmed that. And I'll leave it at that.
KELLY: So you have nothing - no knowledge that you have come across that gives you any cause to doubt The Times' reporting?
WARNER: I'm not being - one of things I'm - I have nothing to doubt The Times' reporting. And again, we have a president here who has continued to say there's no there there yet acts in an absolutely opposite way. And I think many of us in Congress are going to have to in effect, you know, take off our Democrat and Republican badges for a few days and recognize that we have an oath to the Constitution, and that means that no one, no individual, including the president, is above the law. And...
KELLY: You mentioned that there is legislation on the Hill to protect Robert Mueller from being fired. How worried do you think he should be about his job?
WARNER: Well, this legislation arose in the September time frame when there were, again, a swirl of rumors. It didn't move forward because those rumors died down. We then started seeing in December what appeared to be an organized effort somewhat orchestrated out of the White House, promoted by certain networks that the president seems to follow that were saying - in effect using the words like coup about the Mueller investigation.
You then had a number of allies of the president go out and impugn the overall reputation of the FBI, overall actions of the Justice Department. That promoted me to go to the floor. And then after that in December - and after that...
KELLY: And forgive me, Senator. Forgive me. I just - there's so much I want to get to with you.
WARNER: Sure.
KELLY: And I want to fast-forward to now. Now that this story is out there, does it somewhat inoculate Robert Mueller to have this story out there? Does it make it harder for Trump to fire him?
WARNER: I would hope so. I know that every time these theories have come up, many of my Republican Senate colleagues have come up and said, no, we should defend Mueller, that it would be crazy for the president to fire him. My hope would, though, be that those members who've been silent would also step forward.
KELLY: Right.
WARNER: The American public deserves to get to the bottom of this, and I believe Bob Mueller's investigation will provide that. I believe our Senate intelligence investigation, which is the last bipartisan investigation, also has to continue.
KELLY: One argument I might make if I were a lawyer for the president would be, the president may have wanted to fire Mueller, but he didn't. It didn't happen. So where's the obstruction?
WARNER: I'll leave that to the lawyers to make their judgments.
KELLY: (Laughter).
WARNER: But I will say, if you just look not as a lawyer but as a judgment on somebody who says he has nothing to hide, if you take the wanting to fire Mueller, combine it with the firing of Comey, the pressure on Sessions, the actions of his allies to try to basically impugn the reputation of the FBI and the Department of Justice, there seems to be a pattern here that is not a pattern of someone who doesn't have anything to hide.
KELLY: Senator, in the brief moment that we have left - a question I've asked you before and I want to ask you again. You've devoted many months now to investigating this. Are you convinced that there is smoke here and not - that there is fire here and not just smoke?
WARNER: I'm convinced a year ago that this was the most important piece of action I've worked on in my public life. I believe that more today than I did a year ago particularly based upon documents and information that I've received in the last 60 days.
KELLY: Senator Warner, thank you.
WARNER: Thank you.
KELLY: Virginia Democrat Mark Warner.
(SOUNDBITE OF TAME IMPALA SONG, "NEW PERSON, SAME OLD MISTAKES")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
OK, bear with us here for a minute. A linguist walks into a bar. He goes up to the bartender, and he says, would you literally throw me out of this bar for using the word literally?
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
(Laughter) Well, if the bartender is Trigger Smith, the owner of the Continental in Manhattan's East Village, he could say, look; I literally warned you because he literally has posted that warning on the front door of the bar this week. It reads in part...
SHAPIRO: Quote, "sorry, but if you say the word literally inside Continental, you have five minutes to finish your drink, and then you must leave."
TRIGGER SMITH: I had a dream, and it felt like a higher power was speaking to me, saying that it is your task to put an end to the over-usage of this word.
KELLY: Trigger Smith - he says he is just sick and tired of hearing it everywhere every day, hyperbolically speaking. And he thinks he knows why it's everywhere.
SMITH: Lots of words and expressions have caught on, but there's something about this word, literally, that - I think it feels good to say, like a mantra.
KELLY: Well, Smith is the one getting kicked out soon. The building has been sold. They're knocking it down. It's going to be replaced by an office building. In the meantime, Smith will continue to serve drinks and fight the overuse of the word he hates so much.
SMITH: Literally my new career.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The longtime leader of Planned Parenthood says now is the time to step aside. Cecile Richards says it has been a challenging year for the reproductive rights movement. She also says President Trump's election has helped galvanize a new generation of progressive leaders and activists. She will leave Planned Parenthood sometime this year. She spoke today with NPR's Sarah McCammon, who has this look back on Richards' career.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: For more than a decade, Cecile Richards has had a tough job as the most high-profile spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood. She's been called upon to defend the organization's work, which includes providing contraception and health screenings mostly to low-income women and about a third of the nation's abortions.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CECILE RICHARDS: It's just - it's a shame to think that there are people in this country who are so committed to ending women's access to both birth control and safe and legal abortion that they'll really resort to any means.
MCCAMMON: That's Richards speaking before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in 2015. Her testimony followed the release of secretly recorded sting videos by the anti-abortion rights group The Center for Medical Progress, which accused Planned Parenthood of selling fetal body parts. Richards denied that and said the videos were deliberately misleading.
Not long ago, Richards and other reproductive rights activists had hoped this would be a year of progress for their movement. She spoke in support of Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton at the party's national convention in 2016, where she celebrated Planned Parenthood's 100th anniversary and heralded the historic election many were predicting.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RICHARDS: And a century later, an enormous ceiling is coming down.
(CHEERING)
MCCAMMON: That glass ceiling of course did not fall, and Richards has faced renewed fights as President Trump has nominated socially conservative judges and cabinet members and promoted policies that roll back access to abortion and contraception. Speaking to NPR, Richards said one of her proudest accomplishments has been helping to beat back efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which requires most health plans to cover birth control without a copay.
RICHARDS: Now, of course I know the Trump administration is doing everything they can to erode that. But what I have found is that when you have a benefit like that, women get really mad when people try to take it away.
MCCAMMON: Richards calls this year the most energizing of her career as a groundswell of activists rose up against Trump. Her own activism has made her a hero to progressives and the focus of much criticism from abortion rights opponents. Penny Nance is CEO of the conservative group Concerned Women for America.
PENNY NANCE: I mean, this is a very sad legacy. And I hope that whoever comes after her will reconsider the direction and mission of Planned Parenthood.
MCCAMMON: Richards' former colleague, communications strategist Elizabeth Toledo, was a vice president at Planned Parenthood when Richards joined the organization in 2006 during the George W. Bush administration.
ELIZABETH TOLEDO: The organization at the time - I think they knew that the partisan political attacks were only going to become more fierce. And they recruited someone to lead them through that very difficult time.
MCCAMMON: Even before coming to Planned Parenthood, Richards was no stranger to political activism. She was a top staffer to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi and, before that, a grass roots organizer. Richards says she plans to continue to be involved in that kind of work which she learned from her parents, including her late mother, former Texas Governor Ann Richards. And she says she's not ruling out the possibility of running for public office herself someday.
RICHARDS: You really never know what's coming next. And as my mom used to always say, never turn down a new opportunity. So I will - I'll be looking at everything.
MCCAMMON: Cecile Richards says whatever comes next will include organizing for candidates she supports in the 2018 midterms and cheering on a new generation of activists at Planned Parenthood. Sarah McCammon, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We're going to hear now from the man in charge of implementing President Trump's immigration enforcement agenda. It's a busy time at Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Deportations far from the border increased 25 percent in the last year. Homeland security wants money to increase the number of beds in immigration detention centers. And this comes as Congress struggles to rework immigration policy before another government shutdown deadline.
Thomas Homan is the acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He has worked in immigration enforcement for more than 30 years. Welcome to the program.
THOMAS HOMAN: Thank you very much for having me.
SHAPIRO: Congress is working right now on what should happen to DACA recipients, people who were brought to the U.S. as young children. President Trump floated a path to citizenship when he put out a new framework for immigration legislation last night. The right wing of his party has balked at that. And in the meantime, thousands of DACA recipients have already lost their coverage. So I want to ask you whether those people are at risk of being deported today.
HOMAN: Well, as a law enforcement agency, we have to prioritize what we do. And if you look at the FY17 numbers we rolled out, it clearly shows that 89 percent of everybody we arrested has sort - some sort of criminal history. So if those DACA recipients - I mean, if they're in the country illegally, they can be arrested. However, we do prioritize our work. So if a DACA recipient lost his status and went and committed a crime, of course they would rise on our list of priorities.
But 92 percent of everybody we arrested fell into three buckets - either they're a criminal or they're a fugitive or they're re-entry. If the message we want to continue to send to the world is you can violate the laws of this country, come here and we use billions of dollars a year to enforce immigration law and give you due process that you deserve, and the judge makes a decision - you would be removed from the country.
But if you want to have a U.S. citizen child by virtue that you gave birth to a child in this country, that now you're immune from the criminal justice system, now you're immune from enforcement, now you virtually get amnesty, then you're never going solve the illegal immigration crisis. We've got to send a clear message.
SHAPIRO: I've spoken to people whose DACA coverage has lapsed who are afraid that if they attend a march or grant an interview with their name they will be deported. Now, I know you've said those people are not priorities, but are you saying that if they don't have any criminal run-ins they won't be deported even if they speak out publicly and advocate and give interviews and march?
HOMAN: Look; there's - first of all, again, we prioritize what we do. Criminals and public safety threats come first. But for those people that are, you know, found to be in the country illegally, they're not off the table. They can be arrested. But we do it in a prioritized manner.
SHAPIRO: You're not giving a blanket reassurance that DACA recipients will be OK if their coverage has expired. You're saying they're not a priority, but you're not saying a hundred percent you're going to be fine.
HOMAN: If we encounter them during a targeted enforcement operation - like, we're out looking for a criminal alien and we run into somebody that has lost their DACA status, we will take action, put them in front of an immigration judge and let the immigration judge make that determination. But we will not turn a blind eye to somebody that we find during our enforcement operations that's in the country illegally.
SHAPIRO: I'd like to ask you about another detail in the White House's framework for immigration legislation. They've called for $25 billion to build a border wall system. And that word system is broad. So I wonder what you would most like to see that money spent on.
HOMAN: Well, first of all, I do support a wall. I've been doing this work for 34 years. And I did start out in the border patrol. And I've been in places where there wasn't a wall. And I've been in places where there was a wall.
SHAPIRO: But the question is, does wall mean brick and mortar? Or does wall mean drones and electronic surveillance and more border agents and all kinds of other things?
HOMAN: It's a combination, right? There's going to be places there's going to be a wall. It's going to be places where it's going to electronics. Like, you can't put a wall in the middle of the Rio Grande. So I'm just speaking from my own experience. Every place they have built a wall or a barrier it has worked. One hundred percent of the time illegal migration has decreased wherever there's a barrier put.
SHAPIRO: Do you think $25 billion is the right number? Democrats have said it's too high. Do you know where the number came from? Is it something you've been asking for specifically?
HOMAN: No. And I haven't been involved with the financing of the wall, how much the wall will cost. And, you know, my personal opinion is what's too much? I mean, what cost do you put on public safety and national security? I think we're a sovereign country. We have a right to protect this nation. But as far as the cost of the wall and where they came up with that 25 billion, I wouldn't know that. You have to get that from CBP.
SHAPIRO: Customs and Border Protection. President Trump has said he would like to get illegal border crossings down to zero. Meanwhile, there are an estimated 11 million people already in the country illegally. And I wonder whether you have a target number for what you would like that population to get to from the current 11 million figure.
HOMAN: There is no target number, I think. Again, I think we've got to concentrate on finding those that are either a national security threat or a public safety threat first. Then we need to work our way back down, right? We need to look at - for the fugitives, those that have their due process refused to leave the United States. But I don't think there's any magic number. I think if we can take the magnets away and really address the underlying reasons for illegal immigration, and we take the magnets away like, you know, employment - make it harder to get a job. That's one of the reasons they come to this country.
SHAPIRO: You mean the reasons people come, the magnets like jobs and...
HOMAN: Exactly. But I think - look. I don't have the resources to arrest 11 million people, so that's why we prioritize what we do. It takes a lot of things. Like right now we're talking about negotiation on DACA. And I've been very clear the last couple weeks. From my perspective, you can't have a clean DACA bill. You need to - if you're going to talk about DACA, you need to talk about the underlying reasons people come to the United States.
So we need to talk about changes in policies and changes in laws and the loopholes in the system that people take advantage of and look at the magnets that bring people here. This year, under this president, we've had a 45-year lull of illegal immigration coming across the southwest border. And that's not a coincidence. That's because we're enforcing laws as they're written.
If we don't talk about the reasons for illegal immigration, in 10 years from now we're going to be back at the table talking about the next DACA population because I've done this for 34 years. I've seen this happen over and over again. So we've made significant progress this year. We certainly have the knowledge and the ability to fix this. We just need the willpower. So I'm hoping we can have a true discussion with Congress and address some of these issues this year.
SHAPIRO: When you talk about eliminating the magnets that bring people across the border, you mentioned undocumented immigrants who have U.S. citizen children. Do you consider that to be one of the magnets?
HOMAN: No. Well, if you're asking me, do some illegal aliens come to this country to have a child, that child's going to be a United States citizen? That is one factor. Of course it is.
SHAPIRO: Is that something that you think is a magnet that should be gotten rid of?
HOMAN: You know, that's - again, you know, I have my personal opinions on things. And - but as the director of ICE I'm the head of a law enforcement agency. And my job is to enforce the laws enacted by Congress. So I'll tell you this. I will enforce any law enacted by Congress, and I'll stop enforcing any law that Congress repeals. I mean, that's my job. I mean, I've got to separate myself. And that's often something that gets ignored by a lot of people. They want to vilify the men and women of ICE, including me, for doing the jobs - doing our job by enforcing laws enacted by Congress. That is our job. And people say, well, you know, you don't have a heart.
Let me tell you, son. Every person that works for me has a heart. I certainly feel bad for the plight of some of these people. But I got a job to do. So I'm enforcing laws. You know, if people don't like what we do or how we do it, then rather than protesting out in front of my building or vilifying the men - brave men and women of ICE that leave the safety and security of their home every day to put their lives on the line in this country, talk to your congressmen and senators. Tell them to change the law because, again, I only enforce laws they enact, and I stop enforcing laws they repeal.
SHAPIRO: Thomas Homan is acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Thanks so much for your time.
HOMAN: Thank you very much, sir.
[POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: In the interview, Thomas Homan said ICE “will not turn a blind eye to somebody that we find during our enforcement operations that's in the country illegally.” A previous version of the transcript was incorrect. He did not say “in the country legally.”]
(SOUNDBITE OF DJ KRUSH'S "SHUYA NO CHIHEISEN/SLEEPLESS HORIZON")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
After a month of record rainfall in France, rivers have overflowed their banks and nearly half the country is under flood alert. In Paris, the river Seine is 19 feet above its normal level. Some roads are completely underwater, and part of the metro, the city's subway system, is shut down.
NPR's Eleanor Beardsley joins us from Paris. And, Eleanor, are you keeping dry? What does the city look like right now?
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Ari, I'm keeping dry because I've put on my rain boots. Yes, the city is underwater in a lot of places. I live near the Seine River and I walked down there today. And there's a busy road that goes along the Seine. It is gone. You can only see the tops of some of the traffic signs. And, you know, a place where I walk usually on the shore by all the houseboats, the quay, it's completely underwater, too. And there are swans swimming there.
SHAPIRO: So what happened to the people who live in the houseboats?
BEARDSLEY: Well, they are having, you know, a very difficult time because they're usually more to the shore and there is no shore anymore. And, you know, they've been all over the news. And their biggest fear is to be deposited on the shore when the waters recede. So listen to Wilfied Legendre, who lives on a houseboat. This is what he says.
WILFIED LEGENDRE: (Speaking French).
BEARDSLEY: So he says they're all helping each other. They've not gone to their jobs these last few days. They're helping each other to keep their boats from crashing and - you know, into each other. And also, he says you have to follow the water, like, every three hours and just make sure you're with it and you're not going to be left on the shore when it recedes.
SHAPIRO: Wow. France has obviously had a lot of rain. Are there other reasons that this flooding is especially bad?
BEARDSLEY: Yes, Ari. Over-construction, you know, too much concrete. And also, industrial farming. They're saying that not rotating crops is not a good thing because the soil is less porous. And also, fields are bigger, so you don't have the little borders with the woodlands that help absorb water.
SHAPIRO: How unusual is this kind of flooding for Paris?
BEARDSLEY: Well, actually, Ari, there was a big flood 18 months ago. And that's why people are a little bit alarmed. And everyone's been watching the water rise on this one, saying, will it get as high as the flood in 2016, which came up to 20 feet above normal, the Seine River. They're predicting that it will stop at around 19 feet and 6 inches. So it's not going to be as high. The big flood, Ari, was in 1910. The Seine River came up 28 feet. And there's markers all over the city for it. It - on my street, there's one. It's about up to my waist. I can't even imagine the water coming, you know, all the way up there. But the museums were ready with emergency flood plans. The Louvre closed its first floor, and other museums have enacted emergency flood plans.
SHAPIRO: Eleanor, we think about cities that might be permanently altered or wiped out by climate change, people often talk about Miami, Mumbai. Should Paris be on that list?
BEARDSLEY: Well, people are alarmed that this happened twice in 18 months. And it really - you know, if the first floor of a building gets flooded, you have to shut down the electricity. There's so many things that just get ruined in water. And, yeah, I think cities like Paris need to worry now. People are talking about changing the way they build, changing the way they live to be prepared if this happens again.
SHAPIRO: Is the sun out today? Have you seen the worst of it?
BEARDSLEY: The sun is out today. And I think that meteorologists are saying we've seen the worst of it. The water will peak tomorrow. It's not going to be as bad as 2016, but it's going to take a while for the water to recede because all of the lakes and reservoirs are full.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Eleanor Beardsley in Paris, thank you.
BEARDSLEY: Thank you, Ari.
(SOUNDBITE OF MATTHEW HALSALL'S "MUSIC FOR A DANCING MIND")
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
USA Gymnastics says its entire board of directors will resign. This comes after the U.S. Olympic Committee threatened to revoke the organization's status as a national governing body for the sport of gymnastics. It's the latest fallout from the Larry Nassar case.
The sentencing of Nassar, the former team doctor, has focused scrutiny on institutions associated with him, including both USA Gymnastics and the U.S. Olympic Committee. Juliet Macur has been writing about all this for The New York Times. Welcome back to the show.
JULIET MACUR: Thank you.
KELLY: What is your reaction to news of the entire board stepping down?
MACUR: It's about time. The USOC sent a letter just yesterday requesting that the entire board step down and all this reorganization going on with USA Gymnastics. But that letter is probably a year and a half too late.
KELLY: The letter that you mentioned laid out six demands. This demand that the entire board step aside was the first one. What else leapt out at you in terms of what the U.S. Olympic Committee is calling for?
MACUR: They're calling for the new USAG board to have ethics training, which I thought was interesting, that they might not be trained in ethics already...
KELLY: Yeah.
MACUR: ...And also sexual abuse awareness training, which you would figure is necessary for any organization that governs tens of thousands of young people in sports. So the USOC said USA Gymnastics has to go through that training if they want to remain the governing body of the sport of gymnastics.
KELLY: This is the SafeSport training that is supposed to already be in place. Is it working? Is it enough?
MACUR: The problem with this is we don't know if it's working or if it's enough because we're not sure how many girls or boys or men and women out there have reported to this organization. And we haven't really heard about any numbers or any information from SafeSport on how successful they've been. So that's the biggest question - is how good is this new organization going to be in tackling these problems that obviously have been a gigantic problem for the USOC and USA Gymnastics?
KELLY: You know, it strikes me that this is a list of demands coming from the U.S. Olympic Committee to USA Gymnastics. Is the Olympic Committee blameless here?
MACUR: Absolutely not. I mean, they would like to think that they are blameless, but I think that we'll find out exactly how much blame should be placed on them based on all these investigations that have been called for.
KELLY: Yeah. I mean, who are they accountable to, the U.S. Olympic Committee?
MACUR: Well, they would like to think nobody. But they are accountable to Congress. So Congress has asked for an investigation as to how and why this happened both with the USOC and the USA Gymnastics.
KELLY: Yeah. I mean, we should note that this is not the first time that instances, allegations of sexual abuse have come up with Olympic sports, something - you have the swim team and the many coaches who've been banned from coaching in that sport.
MACUR: Yeah. I think the biggest takeaway from all of this is just this is not a gymnastics problem. This is a problem that goes on in every single sport in America likely, not necessarily at the level of Larry Nassar. But what the USOC and all these federations can do is take a good look at their regulations and fix them so this doesn't happen again.
KELLY: Juliet Macur, thank you.
MACUR: Thank you.
KELLY: Juliet Macur - she writes the Sports of the Times column for The New York Times.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And now to the civil rights phrase of this moment - Black Lives Matter. You'll see those words on T-shirts or on yard signs or billboards. It's easy to forget that something that's become such a part of a culture started just a few years ago, in 2013, by three women. Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi and Patrisse Khan-Cullors started using it as a hashtag and as an organizing tool to express their frustration, anger and pain over the violent deaths of unarmed black children and adults.
Now, Patrisse Khan-Cullors has published a memoir called "When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir." It's co-written with journalist asha bandela. I recently spoke to Khan-Cullors about it and started by asking whether it's significant that Black Lives Matter was started by women.
PATRISSE KHAN-CULLORS: I think it's important for the legacy of black women who've been at the helm of movements to identify who the founders of something are. That's why it's so important that there was an intervention when Alyssa Milano started tweeting Me Too, and Tarana Burke had created Me Too 10 years ago, right? There is a way in which it is easy to literally steal black women's work and not feel anything about it. And I think it's important because we've laid a foundation around challenging patriarchy as part of the movement. And I don't think that three men would have had that at the center of their movement for black people.
MARTIN: Why do you think it is as divisive as it has become to some people? Why do you think it evokes so much resentment and anger? You know, white lives matter, all lives matter, you know, blue lives matter. There's even a blue lives matter bill that was advanced in Louisiana even though there are already enhanced penalties for harming police officers in the commission of their work. So why do you think that evokes this visceral response from some people?
KHAN-CULLORS: When a group of people, but specifically black people - I think there's something about black people being visible or black people getting some threat of power that shakes up white people and their whiteness, that shakes up their experience of what should be true. I think there is a deep desire from even well-meaning white people to believe that they're not racist.
But the reality is if you live in this country, if you're born and raised as a white person, you most definitely are racist. And you have to contend with that. And I think Black Lives Matter puts it in people's face to deal with not only the ways in which they benefit from whiteness and white supremacy but deal with the ways in which black people actually must be free. And I think that's actually hard to contend with.
MARTIN: When you say whiteness, what do you mean? I mean, whiteness is a condition of, you know, it's a social construct just like blackness is. And so by whiteness, you mean what? Do you mean like the physical appearance of being, like, lighter skinned? Or do you mean like - what? - a hierarchy where whiteness is valued above...
KHAN-CULLORS: I mean, the latter, which is - yes, whiteness as seeing - whiteness as a social construct, but it's not just a social contract. It's a social construct that believes that white people are better, that if they work hard enough, that of course they just - they'll be able to be middle class or upper middle class. Whiteness, not just about individual privilege, but whiteness and its ability to have power over other people. That's really what I mean.
And I think in the conversations I've had, no matter where I go, there's always one white person will come up to the microphone and say, well, but why not all lives matter? It's literally every single place I go. And I've had to really understand, why is that so important? Why is it so important to not center black people? And I think I've come up with - part of what I've come up with is that white people are really 500 years of centering yourself, your privilege, your children. I think it does something psychologically when white people have to actually say, oh, maybe I don't deserve this.
MARTIN: But for those who say that - who experience Black Lives Matter as being anti-white, what do you say?
KHAN-CULLORS: It's unequivocally not true. Black Lives Matter is really Black Lives Matter Too. It is not a phrase that is about excluding. It's a phrase that is about focus. We are focusing on black people because time and time again, we become the subjects of neglect.
MARTIN: And you are, of course, well aware - because it's really in the title of your book - that the movement has stirred controversy and even been described as terrorists. I mean, one of the things you were alluding to in the book is that there was a petition sent to the White House asking for Black Lives Matter to be labeled as a terrorist organization. And even not to that extreme, I mean, the former police chief of New York, Bill Bratton, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, has blamed this movement for attacks on police officers, some of which have been lethal. How do you respond to that?
KHAN-CULLORS: A few ways. One, there's always been a history of undermining black movements, whether that was Martin Luther King and SCLC or the Panther Party, Huey P. Newton. There is a desire always from law enforcement and FBI and CIA to repress and undermine.
MARTIN: In the '60s, these African-American civil rights leaders were constantly derided as Communists. I mean, we know this now from some of the private papers of the former FBI director, J. Edgar Hoover, who was adamantly insistent that these were all Communists. Do you see the terrorists as the new Communist?
KHAN-CULLORS: Of course, I absolutely do. I think what we are seeing with the attacks on Black Lives Matter, the verbal attacks and calling us a terrorist organization - I think what I'm proud of is that it didn't stick. At some times, those types of allegations can totally destroy a movement. And I think they didn't stick because we came out and said no, that's not where we are. And, in fact, Micah Johnson wasn't a part of our organization. The only organization he was ever a part of was the U.S. military.
MARTIN: Micah Johnson being the Army reservist who fired on Dallas police officers who were present at the scene of a Black Lives Matter march, at what had been a peaceful march, and was later killed in a gun battle with police. Do you - but you will also say in the book that this was devastating. It was painful. It was hurtful to be to be described that way. Can you talk a little bit about that?
KHAN-CULLORS: You know, the first time I would see our organization and me and other people be labeled as terrorists and then our faces be put on national television was on Bill O'Reilly's show when he was still on air, scrolling through Breitbart. And knowing that these right wing pundits had audiences, it was painful because it was such a lie. But it was also scary because the impact of being labeled as terrorists and receiving death threats, both in my email and on phone calls, really start to shape my understanding of how serious, how unsafe I was out in the world when all I ever wanted was safety for myself and black people. And that is - it was such a deep contradiction.
MARTIN: That's Patrisse Khan-Cullors. She's co-founder of Black Lives Matter. Her memoir "When They Call You A Terrorist: A Black Lives Matter Memoir" is out now. She was kind enough to stop by by our studios in Washington, D.C. Patrisse Khan-Cullors, thank you so much for speaking with us.
KHAN-CULLORS: Thank you for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to start the program by considering the week's developments in the investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 elections and whether the Trump campaign colluded in some way. The week began with President Trump announcing, in a seemingly impromptu discussion with a group of reporters, that he would talk to special counsel Robert Mueller under oath. The week ended with a New York Times report that President Trump had ordered Mueller fired but backed down after his White House counsel threatened to quit. Now President Trump since denies that account, but still, it's been reported by several news organizations.
And this is the point at which we think it would be useful to step back and talk less about what happened and more about what it all means or could mean. So for this, we called someone who is very familiar with White House investigations. Richard Ben-Veniste was the head of prosecution on the Watergate task force, leading the investigation that ultimately led to Richard Nixon's resignation. He also served on the 9/11 Commission. And he was kind enough to join us in our studios in Washington, D.C. Richard Ben-Veniste, welcome. Thanks for joining us.
RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: Thank you for inviting me.
MARTIN: So can we just walk through some of the basics at this point? President Trump does have the legal authority to remove special counsel Robert Mueller. So is a request to fire him, per se, a violation of the law, and if it's not, what's the significance of that?
BEN-VENISTE: It's of a piece, Michel, with other things that have indicated an intention to interfere with the investigation conducted by the special counsel.
MARTIN: If this is part of a fact pattern that suggests an intention to interfere with the investigation, even if the president ultimately didn't do it or didn't interfere, is that actionable on its face?
BEN-VENISTE: I don't believe it's actionable on its face, but it is combined, I think, in the mind of a prosecutor, with other things such as the removal of Comey, the demand for loyalty that we have heard about that is totally inconsistent with what the role of an attorney general is and what the role of the director of the FBI is. And so this is a total misreading by Trump in his first year of how government works and what the role of investigators are. The real question is, why would he want to interfere with a legitimate investigation?
MARTIN: But there seems to be quite a lot of disagreement, even among constitutional scholars, among legal experts, about what this all means and what this could lead to. Because some have been arguing, for example, one of the news organizations rounded up like a dozen legal scholars and they disagreed about whether the president could even be charged. So what could this potentially all lead to? And when people say this could be a constitutional crisis, what are they saying?
BEN-VENISTE: Well, fundamentally, Americans don't cotton to the idea of firing the person who's investigating you. That's like, you know, deciding in a sandlot ball game that the pitcher on the other side has to go. That's not the way we do business in the United States. And the Constitution has a separation of powers that's important. And the president is not an absolute ruler.
MARTIN: But if there's disagreement about whether the president can even be criminally charged for any of this - and you're saying Americans don't cut cotton to this - then it seems to me that what you're really saying is this is a political dilemma and it becomes a matter of public pressure to say that this does not comport with the way we want our government run.
BEN-VENISTE: Well, impeachment is itself the constitutional-mandated way in which a president can be removed from office is a political process. In my view, there needs to be an unequivocal declaration by important leaders on the Republican side that Mr. Mueller must be allowed to finish his inquiry. And they need something like a doomsday resolution. If you fire Mueller, then we will put forward a resolution of impeachment. So the analogy to the Saturday Night Massacre is apt.
MARTIN: I was going to ask you about that before we let you go. That's the final thing I was going to ask you. You wrote in June in The Atlantic about what you called the uncanny parallels between the Watergate scandal and what's happening now. As briefly as you can, since you wrote a whole piece about it, what are those parallels for people who may not remember that history as keenly as you do?
BEN-VENISTE: Well, I think the bottom line, Michel, is that Richard Nixon fired Archibald Cox because he did not want the investigation to proceed. And so here the question is, as Americans asked in the aftermath of Watergate, what was Nixon hiding? What was it that impelled him to take such drastic action? Well, we know that he was hiding a lot. So the question is again put to the nation, why does not Mr. Trump simply leave it alone and let Mr. Mueller conclude his investigation? Now whether he will in fact, as he says, provide sworn testimony before Mr. Mueller's grand jury - I'm skeptical about that. I've been in this town quite a long time, and I have a high threshold for surprise. It would surprise me if Mr. Trump appeared before a grand jury and gave testimony under oath.
MARTIN: That's Richard Ben-Veniste. He's a partner at Mayer Brown. He was one of the lead Watergate prosecutors. He also served on the 9/11 Commission, and he was kind enough to join us in our studios in Washington, D.C. Richard Ben-Veniste, thanks so much for speaking with us.
BEN-VENISTE: Thank you, again, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to turn now to the ongoing debate over net neutrality. You may remember that in December, the FCC rolled back Obama-era legislation aimed at regulating Internet service providers, meaning providers don't have to treat all online sites equally. They can speed up or slow down connections to sites at their discretion or charge fees for access. Now what looked like a done deal is getting pushback at the state level. Attorneys general from 21 states and the District of Columbia took legal action this week. They filed lawsuits to challenge the FCC decision on the grounds that it violates federal laws and agency protocols for protecting American consumers.
On Monday, Montana Governor Steve Bullock went a step further and became the first state official to sign an executive order imposing net neutrality in Montana. The order says that Internet service providers with state contracts must follow net neutrality principles. The governor of New York quickly became the second. Both are Democrats. And Governor Bullock is here with me now to talk more about this. Governor, thank you so much for speaking with us.
STEVE BULLOCK: It's sure great to be with you, Michel.
MARTIN: So first, would you just tell us about your thought process in deciding to issue this executive order? And I'd particularly like to know why you think this is an important issue for Montana.
BULLOCK: Well, I think it's an important issue for Montana and, indeed, our entire nation. The free and open exchange of information secured by an Internet has never been more essential to our modern, social, commercial and civic life. I see it through business that the state does. I see it through the activities of my children. So to sit back and say hopefully Washington will take some action to fix what was recently broken in December was unacceptable to me. So I wanted to take action and make sure that we can guarantee for Montanans and hopefully, then ultimately for the rest of the nation, that net neutrality will continue.
MARTIN: We need to point out that the FCC ruling says explicitly that states and city governments cannot create their own net neutrality laws. So is this a largely symbolic move or do you expect it actually to have force in the marketplace?
BULLOCK: We as governors, you know, we just don't make statements. We actually try to make a difference and take action that will withstand. And from my perspective, I mean, we're not regulating anything. Through this order, the state of Montana, we're acting as a purchaser. I think that it's legally sound. And the FCC can't challenge the fact that what we're doing is just as a market - I mean, the FCC chair even said that individual consumers, not the federal government, should be making these decisions. I, as overseeing an enterprise called state government in Montana, is making that individual decision that this is the expectation that I'm going to uphold if I'm going to be purchasing services from companies.
MARTIN: The president of the American Cable Association told The New York Times, quote, "following a patchwork of legislation or regulation is costly and makes it even harder to invest in networks." You have some response to that?
BULLOCK: Yeah. I mean, internet service providers have always faced 50 sets of tort laws, consumer protection laws, property laws, tax laws. We're not proposing any changes from what certainly existed on December 13 and what consumers expect even today.
MARTIN: So you see this almost like an RFP, which is that if you want to do business in my state, these are the guidelines that you have to follow?
BULLOCK: That's exactly right. Montana alone, we purchase close to $50 million a year of Internet services. And just saying that if you want to provide those services, expectation is that you'll disclose the provisions around net neutrality. And you'll also adhere to the expectations that most Montanans and most Americans want, and that's a free and open Internet.
MARTIN: You have any concern about a backlash which is that service providers saying, I mean, this is a different marketplace entirely but in the same way that, you know, health insurers are pulling out of certain states where they find the terms unfavorable to them?
BULLOCK: Not really for two reasons, one of which is that, again, this is what those service providers said even before the rollback in December is that they had no expectation or anticipation of changing their plans. And secondary, what we're seeing is - well, some might say, oh, Montana is not big enough to influence the overall market. When other states like New York join in our effort, and I'm certainly hopeful that states across this country will join, then it really does become a market decision where certainly they may say, oh, we don't want to play in Montana. But if they're saying we don't want play in New York and any additional other states, then it's a business decision to block content or to slow things down that they would be making. But I don't think it's one that certainly their consumers in any of those states would be too happy about.
MARTIN: That is Governor Steve Bullock of Montana. We reached him in his office in Helena. Governor, thank you so much for speaking with us.
BULLOCK: Thanks for having me on today, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Now it's time for the Barbershop. That's where we talk to interesting people about what's in the news and what's on their minds. In the chairs today - Congressman Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona. He's with us from our studios at KJZZ in Tempe, Ariz. Congressman, thank you so much for joining us.
RUBEN GALLEGO: Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: Also with us - Michael Steele, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee. He's also the former lieutenant governor of Maryland. He was kind enough to join us in our studios in Washington, D.C. It's good to see you again.
MICHAEL STEELE: Good to see you, as well.
MARTIN: Thank you for coming.
STEELE: Absolutely.
MARTIN: Also with us from Washington, D.C., Maria Cardona. She's a Democratic strategist with the Dewey Square Group. Thank you so much for coming back.
MARIA CARDONA: Hey, Michel. Thank you.
MARTIN: So last week at this time, the federal shutdown had just started. And we're supposed to say partial because one agency's budget was actually approved the normal way. And then lo and behold, less than 48 hours later, it was over. And the question all week has been who blinked, and what does this foretell for future negotiations over things that matter like immigration policy, especially what happens to the so-called DREAMers who were brought here as children and health insurance for kids, the CHIP program and budget certainty for every other department? Now at this point, I'm going to assume that everybody's heard all the talking points about whose fault this all is or was. But the fact is there still is no immigration policy. There still is no long-term budget. So Maria Cardona, Democratic strategist, strategize some.
(LAUGHTER)
MARTIN: Is this - was this a failure of strategy of the message, of the messenger or of nerve? And there's a word in Spanish I'm tempted to use but I won't. So which is it?
CARDONA: I actually think it was a failure of the president of the United States, Michel, because at the end of the day, let's remember why we're here. The whole issue of immigration and the future of the DREAMers would not have been at stake had Donald Trump not rescinded DACA back in September. He did that with the promise of taking care of the DREAMers. And since then, he actually came to the table with Democrats and Republicans and promised a deal three times to protect the DREAMers, to increase border security.
Because let's - let's just put all the facts on the table. Democrats have always been and are today in favor of additional commonsense and strong border security. But what has happened? Every time that President Trump was presented with a bipartisan deal, he rescinded it. He would take it back. He would hear essentially the nativist anti-immigrant advisers that were whispering in his ear. And he got scared about what this would mean for his base.
MARTIN: OK. So we're going to talk a little bit more in a little minute about what this means. We're going to go to the Congressman. You voted no on the continuing resolution that ended the shutdown, which I interpret to mean that you don't agree with the agreement that was reached by the leadership. So question - same question to you - a failure of strategy, the people carrying the message or of nerve?
GALLEGO: I think it's a combination of many things. First of all, look. I voted no because at the end of the day, I think that the American public is with the Democratic Party for making sure that these DREAMers are going to be saved. I think the Republican Party and Donald Trump were all over the place. And they did reveal their hand to us, and that may be the only positive out of this - including, obviously, getting CHIP passed - is that we now know that this has nothing to do with DREAMers.
The DREAMers are essentially a hostage because they want to do wholesale immigration policy rejection in the sense they want to take immigration policy all the way back to the 1920s. And I'm talking legal immigration. So for us, it really was a eye-opener. I kind of suspected this is what was going to happen the whole time. But now it's been, I think, beneficial to the rest of the Democratic Party for them to actually recognize this. Now, there were some Senate Democrats..
MARTIN: But you're disappointed with the Democrats, there's no doubt about that, right? I mean, you've been on record as you're disappointed with your own leadership.
GALLEGO: I'm disappointed in the Senate Democrats that decided they got a little scared. You know, Schumer is only the aggregate of all these opinions, right? He's the leader of all these Democrats. I think a lot of them did lose their nerves. I think at the end of the day, you know, this is what I tell people all the time. For those voters that truly care about immigration and in quote, unquote, "stopping illegal immigration," there is no middle ground. So we needed to fight all the way for these DREAMers. And we need to continue to fight all the way for these DREAMers.
And I think what we've seen right now is that you're going to see a more invigorated Democratic Party and caucus because we now know what many of us have been saying on the other end, that the whole goal of holding these DREAMers hostage was really for a xenophobic end, which is to wholesale change immigration policy that had been part of the standard of eras of America for many years.
MARTIN: So we leave it to Michael Steele, the Republican, to be the tiebreaker here.
STEELE: (Laughter) I'm going to solve this problem.
MARTIN: Right. But you're known as an independent thinker. I think anybody who's heard your analysis over the past couple of years knows that you call it as you see it. So did the Democrats blow it as many of the pundits seemed to think or is there something we're missing?
STEELE: Yes, they did.
MARTIN: Go ahead and tell us how.
STEELE: You know where they blew it, which was actually rather surprising to me? Because the one thing Democrats, at least in the past, have been very effective at is messaging. They, you know, they can message the heck out of the civil rights issue. They can, you know, message the heck out of, you know, you know, those issues that touch on race.
On this one, it stunned me that there was no countermeasure to what was clearly a very orchestrated narrative, particularly when the Republicans threw it in - and it surprised me that they put that ad out there that was basically this sort of, you know, homage to, you know, horrific acts by those who support, you know, DREAMers. And so I think that was the first big mistake that there was no real notion of, how do we convince the American people that this is the space they want to occupy with us?
MARTIN: Here's one reason I'm also glad you're here is that you are a Republican who ran in a state that is traditionally blue and won at the top of the ticket. OK. So short term, yes, you say the Democrats blew it. In the long run - Republicans successfully framed the argument as Democrats shut the government down for illegal immigrants. Does that work in the long run?
STEELE: No. No, I don't think it does because I think the polls actually...
MARTIN: The long run being 2018.
STEELE: Yeah. The polls actually show that the majority of Americans blame the president and the party for the shutdown. So that's going to be a narrative that's there. This narrative will not play into November the way it's set up right now. So this is going to be a completely different discussion after February 8. And that's going to be the interesting thing to watch how the two parties go into February 8 and come out on the other side of it because that's going to be the ultimate narrative going into the fall.
MARTIN: Maria, what about you? And Congressman, I'll come to you next. Maria? Go ahead.
CARDONA: Sure. I mean, I think I agree with actually both Michael and and my good friend Representative Gallego because as a progressive, I was upset. I did not like this deal. But Senate Democrats really didn't like this deal either. The fact of the matter is though that we almost have zero leverage. We don't control anything. We don't control the White House. We don't control the Senate. We don't control the House. In the Senate, we had some leverage, which is what led us to the conversation about what is at stake here and what we need to fight about.
And the fact of the matter is is that, you know, as awful as the deal, was that conversation is not over. We lived to fight another day. And what we actually extracted - what Schumer extracted from the Republicans is a commitment from the leader of the Republicans in the Senate, from McConnell, to bring up immigration on the floor, which he had never committed to before. So they are on the hook for this.
MARTIN: OK. Congressman, go ahead on this because Democrats are defending a number of Senate seats in states that Donald Trump won in 2016 - that's Joe Manchin in West Virginia, Claire McCaskill in Missouri, Doug Jones was one of the other votes for - newly elected from Alabama in the special election and Heidi Heitkamp from North Dakota. So if the message comes down to protecting the Senate seats - those seats - or protecting DREAMers, which is the way it was framed, what do the Democrats say to that?
GALLEGO: Well, we need to protect DREAMers because look, DREAMers are 80 percent popular right now. So this is essentially going to be a question about the soul of the Democratic Party. If we cannot stand up for DREAMers - and forget whether we win or lose elections - if we can't stand up for 800,000 people that have lived in this country forever, that we're going to send over to, you know, and put them in very vulnerable positions, then we need to stop being a party as altogether. That is at the end of the, like, it is an existential question of this party.
And at the end of the day, I think we're going to end up winning the state. We're here for the fight. We're going to continue being in the fight. But, you know, we are not, at the same time, going to wholesale change immigration policy and immigration policy that Trump wants and what had been the dream of white nationalists forever - changing diversity lotteries, changing, you know, family reunification, all these things - we're not going to do it. We're not going to go down that road. And we have to just be willing to stare them in the face and say we're not going to go down that road.
MARTIN: The irony being that family reunification initially started to advantage immigrants from European countries. There's been quite a lot of reporting that on NPR about that.
GALLEGO: Absolutely, yes. They were trying to get more Irishmen in there. And hey, I - Irish brother in here. Don't get me wrong. But at the end of the day, they're trying to change it. And we're going to have to just stare them down and say no.
MARTIN: OK. But one expression I heard in Maryland when I was covering politics in Maryland - it's better to be a live dog than a dead lion. So, Maria Cardona, to you - so the congressman says he's taken a very firm stance here, saying that, you know, if you can't protect the DREAMers then what good are you? But as a person whose job is to get people elected, do you adhere to that? Do you agree?
CARDONA: Well, I actually think that it's a false choice. And the reason I think it's a false choice is because 90 percent of the American people agree with where the Democratic Party is on this in terms of wanting to protect the DREAMers.
MARTIN: But do they agree in those states that - you have Democratic seats where President Trump won?
CARDONA: Yes. Yes, they do. In fact, majorities of the Republican Party agree with this, majorities of Trump voters. Are you listening, President Trump? A majority of your voters have agreed that that giving the DREAMers a pathway to citizenship is actually something that we should be doing. So it is a false choice. And this is what the Democrats need to fight for. This is where their backbone needs to continue to be because they cannot let us - yeah.
MARTIN: OK. Go ahead, Michael Steele.
STEELE: I think actually they're going to get some help on that because my analysis of this has led me to believe - and I know some people probably fall out of their seat when I say this - that the president actually wants to get this done and he wants to get this done in - on terms that he knows will be offensive to his base.
And we saw the president this week lay on the table this idea of a pathway to citizenship not just for the 690,000 DREAMers but for up to 1.8 million immigrants. And that's a huge step. And where that leads me to believe is he's willing to sacrifice that Freedom Caucus in the House, that 30-plus membership that will not be with him. His play right now is to get Nancy Pelosi to get those Democrats to the table in the House to complement the effort in the Senate. And that's how this gets done.
MARTIN: Can you tell me how? We only have about half a minute left. Can you tell me what assures you of that? Why do you say that? Because one of the criticisms of him is that you can't trust him as a negotiator.
STEELE: Because the president would not have put that - knowing how virulent his base would be about a pathway to citizenship, he would not put that on the table.
GALLEGO: Except, with all due respect to Mr. Steele, it was actually Stephen Miller that put it out. And we had heard this. We have heard about this rumor of a negotiation before. At the end of the day, what they want to do is cut legal immigration by 50 percent. And they want to use the DREAMers as hostage. We're not going to play that game. It's not going to happen. They need to give up that dream and actually, truly come to good deals.
MARTIN: We have to leave it there for now. Thank you all so much for a spirited but respectful conversation which we don't always have. That's Congressman Ruben Gallego, Democrat of Arizona; Maria Cardona, Democratic strategist; Michael Steele, former chair of the Republican National Committee, former lieutenant governor of Maryland. Thank you all so much for speaking with us.
CARDONA: Thank you.
STEELE: Thank you.
GALLEGO: Thank you, guys.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Let's turn now to international news from Afghanistan. In Afghanistan today, the Taliban drove an ambulance packed with explosives into a crowded street, killing at least 95 people and injuring another 158. Jennifer Glasse has this report from the Afghan capital, Kabul.
(SOUNDBITE OF AMBULANCE SIRENS)
JENNIFER GLASSE, BYLINE: For hours after the attack, ambulances ferried the wounded and the dead from the blast scene to hospitals. Bandaged victims were loaded onto already bloodstained orange stretchers at Kabul's emergency hospital. Many of the injured weren't sure what had happened, like Dar Omed (ph), his head wrapped in a white bandage. He said it was a scene of carnage.
DAR OMED: (Foreign language spoken).
GLASSE: "The casualties were very high, he said, "bodies were everywhere near the hospital and everywhere. I don't know if the attacker was on foot or it was a car bomb."
OMED: (Foreign language spoken).
GLASSE: It was actually an ambulance bomb. The driver pretended to be dropping off patients at the nearby Jamhuriat Hospital. He went through the first checkpoint on the heavily-guarded street. When he didn't make the turn into the hospital entrance, police became suspicious. Then he detonated the vehicle at a second checkpoint. The Taliban claim it was targeting the police, but scores of civilians were killed or injured. The United Nations special representative called the attack an atrocity and said in a statement a massive vehicle bomb in a densely-populated area could not reasonably be expected to leave civilians unharmed.
He also said he was particularly disturbed the attackers used an ambulance in clear violation of humanitarian law. It's the second attack in Kabul in a week. Last weekend, Taliban fighters battled security forces for more than 15 hours in a siege that killed 25. The Afghan government says the Taliban is retaliating because of the military pressure on their fighters and the political pressure on Pakistan, which Afghanistan says backs the Taliban. For NPR News, I'm Jennifer Glasse in Kabul.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We've heard a lot about the debate in the U.S. over deporting immigrants who were in the country illegally. There is a similar debate playing out in Israel. Tens of thousands of African migrants have crossed into the country in the last decade. Now many of them are facing deportation. It sparked an outcry from some corners in Israel. NPR's Daniel Estrin has been following this from Jerusalem. Daniel, thanks so much for joining us.
DANIEL ESTRIN, BYLINE: Sure thing.
MARTIN: So start by telling us who these migrants are and why they went to Israel to begin with.
ESTRIN: Israel has been grappling with this issue for nearly a decade. There are about 37,000 of them here. They're mostly from Eritrea. They're also from Sudan and other countries. And some of them fled the war in Darfur. Many of them escaped Eritrea because of mandatory military service there that can last for years and years. And some people probably did come for work opportunities, according to migrant advocates that I've spoken to. But they came to Israel because Israel is not too far away.
MARTIN: And what exactly is the Israeli government proposing?
ESTRIN: Well, you know, Israel actually has struggled with this issue for many, many years. On the one hand, Israel gives most of them temporary protected status because it would be dangerous for them to return to their home countries. But on the other hand, Israeli leaders say these people can't stay in Israel. Some argue that they threaten the country's Jewish character. And actually, Israel calls them infiltrators.
MARTIN: That's an official term?
ESTRIN: Yeah, that's the official Israeli term. And now, Israel is laying out an ultimatum - not to all of them but to some of them. And that ultimatum is leave or go to jail. And if they leave, they get $3,500 and a free flight to - apparently to Rwanda or Uganda.
MARTIN: Now in the U.S., the debate over immigration is amplified by the fact that, as so many have said, this is a nation of immigrants. Now, Israel was created as a refuge from persecution. Does that inform the way this is being talked about there?
ESTRIN: Yes, absolutely. There has been very outspoken opposition from groups arguing those very points. These are groups you don't usually hear from speaking about this issue. Actually, I have an Israeli newspaper here. There's a huge ad signed by more than a hundred academics who teach Jewish history and the Holocaust, and they write that Jews in the past were turned away while fleeing persecution, and Israel shouldn't send these people away.
The comic Sarah Silverman, her sister, Susan Silverman, is a liberal rabbi here. And she's calling on Israelis to hide Africans in their homes like Anne Frank was hid during the Holocaust. Now, of course, we should say, you know, this is not Nazi Germany. This deportation plan also does not include women. It doesn't include people with children and many others. And Israel is not the only country in the world that's tried to encourage people to leave who are in the country illegally.
MARTIN: Well, how is Israel responding to this criticism? First of all, how is the government responding to it? And what about citizens? Is this the kind of thing that people are debating with each other as a matter of our national identity?
ESTRIN: Yes, this really does strike to the heart of Israel's core. Israel's ambassador to the U.S. says - reportedly - he has warned officials that this whole thing is hurting Israel's image abroad. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is defending this deportation plan, and he says the migrants will be safe. They'll get visas. They'll get work permits in their new countries.
But already there are some signs that this plan may not go according to plan. Prison officials apparently are saying they can't handle jailing all these people if they refuse to leave. And migrants are feeling panicked. An activist I spoke to who works with migrants told me she thinks that the point here is to make people feel like they have no choice but to take the money and leave, so we'll see how many do.
MARTIN: That's NPR's Daniel Estrin. Daniel, thank you.
ESTRIN: You're welcome.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
This week marked an important moment in the ongoing story about the sexual abuse inflicted upon some of the country's elite female athletes. By now, you've probably heard that Larry Nassar, the former Michigan State and USA Gymnastics doctor, was handed a sentence of up to 175 years in prison for sexually abusing young patients, patients who were required to see him as part of their training. Others have been forced to resign or fired. USA Gymnastics recently announced that the gym run by Bela and Martha Karolyi, where the victims alleged some of the abuse took place, will no longer be used to train Olympic contenders.
In the wake of this, some are wondering how this could all have happened without anybody knowing or intervening. But some in the sport have spoken about the kind of environment that could allow this to happen. Dominique Moceanu is one of them. She is a former gymnast and the youngest American to win an Olympic gold medal. And she has long been a critic of the Karolyis and their training methods. She even wrote about all this back in 2012 in her memoir called "Off Balance." She's with us now via Skype from her home in Cleveland. Dominique Moceanu, thank you so much for speaking with us.
DOMINIQUE MOCEANU: Thank you so much for having me.
MARTIN: Forgive me, I do have to ask. Did you experience the kind of mistreatment - sexual misconduct under the guise of medical treatment that has now been revealed?
MOCEANU: No, I was not a victim of Dr. Nassar's. And more importantly, now he's inmate Nassar because I don't consider him a doctor at all but more a master manipulator. So no, I was not a victim of his, but I applaud all the women who have come forward so courageously to share their stories. Because if the world did not hear them one by one by one, they may not have believed how egregious these acts of manipulation were and how vulnerable young children were in the arms of this really toxic environment and this prolific pedophile.
MARTIN: Well, I do want to ask you about the environment, specifically at the Karolyi Ranch, because you were coached by them intensely - personally by them. So could you talk a little bit about the environment that you described?
MOCEANU: Well, the environment at the Karolyi Ranch is a place where I know very well. And I lived there before the Summer Olympic Games in 1996, and it holds some of my darkest and worst memories of training. It was a very cold place. It's not welcoming. The expectations I have no problem with - discipline and respect and hard work. I'm all for those things. But what they had there was fear, intimidation tactics, shaming tactics. If you didn't go along with everything that they wanted you to and what wanted you to do, well, you were blacklisted immediately. You may not be put on an Olympic team.
And that fear is what did not allow so many young gymnasts to speak up when they were being abused because some of them didn't even recognize it was abuse initially. So the abuse became normalized. And Nassar knew and saw the abuses take place not only with the Karolyis but at the gym with John Geddert in Michigan at Twist Stars. He knew the psychological abuses, and he took an oath to do no harm. And he was exploiting the abuses for his own personal pleasure on top of it.
MARTIN: Why do you think it's taken so long, though, to get attention to this issue? Obviously, the sexual misconduct is a crime but also this kind of closed environment, this attitude of you can't question authority. You can't say anything. You're not, you know, not allowed to speak about it. Why do you think it's taken so long to get attention for this?
MOCEANU: It's taken so long because it took countless courageous women to come forward for people to believe. It took Dr. Nassar - inmate Nassar, correctly speaking - it took his child pornography and for him to get arrested, first of all, to start getting more attention paid on this. We have to give credit to the investigative journalists at the Indy Star. They broke the story of abuse and they stayed on it. They got a lot of heat for it, but they stayed on it. And then the next step was kind of all of the women little by little coming forward and then all of them forward.
MARTIN: The practices that you described, the kind of the demeaning the athlete, you know, this kind of toxic environment, do you think that's changing?
MOCEANU: I absolutely see it changing because it has to. Look at the attention worldwide this has received. I mean, right now, it's an embarrassment to our sport. And it's a humiliation to the powers that be and who ran our sport. And if any coach thinks they're getting away with this in the future, you have another thing coming to you because it's not going to happen. And a lot of eyes are going to be much more serious and watching the behavior of coaches. I mean, there wasn't an inmate Nassar just because he was super clever.
Sure, he was a master manipulator, but there were also a lot of people who helped him. You have John Geddert, who allowed him a private room in his gym club. There was - the Karolyi Ranch was the perfect breed for a prolific pedophile. He got to go unchecked. And there is also the institutions who never reported any instances of sexual abuse. They brushed it under the rug. So that arrogance is what got us here. There were a lot of enablers. And now we have to hold people accountable. So for me, I just want the healing for these young women. I want everyone to heal. And I want to get rid of all of the abusers. So one by one, they better be careful because we're coming after you.
MARTIN: That was Dominique Moceanu. She is the youngest American ever to win a gold medal in gymnastics, which she did in 1996. I want you to know that we reached out several times to the Karolyis for comment, but we have not heard back.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In a few minutes, we'll meet one of the founders of the Black Lives Matter movement. And that reminded us that, often, a movement becomes identified with a key word or phrase. In the civil rights era, that phrase was we shall overcome. Ironically, the song that gave rise to the phrase has become intertwined with prolonged litigation. But yesterday, a federal judge in New York signed an order that puts it into the public domain. Rick Karr reports.
RICK KARR, BYLINE: A couple of music publishing companies claimed that they owned the copyright on a version of "We Shall Overcome" from 1963. It's credited to a group of writers, including the late Pete Seeger.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WE SHALL OVERCOME")
PETE SEEGER: (Singing) We shall overcome.
KARR: But even Seeger knew that the song predated his version.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
SEEGER: It was known among the food and tobacco workers, mainly Negro union members. And I heard them singing it in 1947.
KARR: Last year, musician and filmmaker Isaias Gamboa filed suit to strip the song of copyright. He based his claim on years of research for a documentary film about the song's history. The case was set to go to trial next month until Gamboa laid out his evidence in a deposition.
ISAIAS GAMBOA: One of the things that I opened with is there's only one truth. And somebody here is telling the truth and somebody isn't.
KARR: Gamboa found lots of older versions of "We Shall Overcome." The judge in the case had already stripped copyright from the song's first and most famous verse. After Gamboa's deposition, the music publishers backed down. Now that the song's in the public domain, Gamboa says, anyone can use it, like the dance student who contacted him last year.
GAMBOA: He wanted to perform "We Shall Overcome" in a dance recital for his final. And his professor told him he could not do so unless he had a clearance from the people who were claiming the copyrights. And it broke his heart.
KARR: Gamboa says he's not interested in damages, but the judge still has one decision to make - how much money the music publishers, who collected well over a million dollars in royalties from the copyright, owe attorney's fees and court costs. For NPR News, I'm Rick Karr.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WE SHALL OVERCOME")
MAHALIA JACKSON: (Singing) We shall overcome, oh, Lord, one day. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Finally today, as we mentioned, the Grammy Awards are tonight. And we wanted to meet one of the nominees. And if you are a fan of Maroon 5, then you have probably heard our next guest in action.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ONE MORE NIGHT")
MAROON 5: (Singing) You and I go hard at each other like we're going to war. You and I go at rough. We look keep throwing things and slamming the doors.
MARTIN: PJ Morton has been playing keyboards for Maroon 5 since 2010, becoming an official member in 2012. But all the while, he's been crafting his own music with its own soulful Stevie Wonder-esque sound.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "FIRST BEGAN")
PJ MORTON: (Singing) Yes, we've got something special, let's hope. Hold on and don't let go.
MARTIN: That's "First Began" from PJ Morton's solo album, his latest. It's called "Gumbo," a nod to his New Orleans roots. NPR called it 1 of its 5 R&B Albums That You Slept On In 2017. That song and the album are nominated for two Grammys tonight, which was a good excuse to check in with PJ Morton. He's with us now from our bureau in New York. Thank you so much for joining us.
PJ MORTON: Good to be here. Good to be here. Thank you for having me.
MARTIN: Well, first of all, congratulations on the nominations. What is it like to be nominated? I mean, where were you when you found out? I mean, who calls you? Does your agent call you or, you know, how does that work?
PJ MORTON: I was in my hotel room. I was on the road on the last few dates of a tour. And I knew they were coming out, So I was waiting by the phone to see. And then I got a text from one of my guys in management. And they said, congrats on your nom. So I was like OK, I got one. And then I went to look at the list, and then I see album. And I kind of broke down because I'm like, man, I really wanted that one because, you know, I look at it as a body of work. So I was in my hotel room happily by myself, so nobody could see me shed some tears.
MARTIN: I'm sure there were just some onions getting cut up in there.
PJ MORTON: Yeah, man. I don't know why they cook those onions in hotel rooms.
MARTIN: I know. I know. It happens like that.
PJ MORTON: It's crazy.
MARTIN: You grew up in the church. Both your mother and father are pastors. And your dad is also a well-known singer, a gospel singer with quite a few of his own albums. And, in fact, not to be mean, but if YouTube counts are any gauge of success, you know, your dad is...
PJ MORTON: He's beating me? I knew it.
MARTIN: Let's just say that he's in the running.
PJ MORTON: Still beats me.
MARTIN: I actually have a clip of the two of you singing in church. Let's - can we - let's just play it. Here's Bishop Paul Morton and PJ Morton.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PJ MORTON: (Singing) And let go.
PAUL MORTON: (Singing) Come on, let go.
PJ MORTON: (Singing) Let go.
PAUL MORTON: (Singing) And just let God. He can fix it for you.
PJ MORTON: (Singing) Let go.
PAUL MORTON: (Singing) He can turn it around.
MARTIN: Do you two have a chance to sing together very often these days?
PJ MORTON: We used to, not as much these days. I'm such a fan of him, just even - I was smiling just listening to that. I love that guy. He was the first artist I ever got to see and learn from. And I'm still such a big fan of him even though he's my father. I used to be his music director at church, but then my life and career got a bit busy. So we don't as much, but it's special when we do get that chance to do it.
MARTIN: You know, a lot of great artists come from the church. I think most people in this country know that Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston, Sam Cooke, to name just a few. And you actually started your career writing gospel songs but then went on to work with people like, you know, India Arie and Maroon 5, of course. I wondered, was that ever a conflict either with yourself or with your community?
PJ MORTON: Yeah, both initially. I mean, first with myself because I didn't want to let my father down. I knew that he'd like me to be probably a preacher, at least be a gospel singer. So when I didn't want to do either, I felt like, man, I might disappoint him. So that was first. And then my father accepted what I did so much and became so supportive. And then I was kind of concerned with the community because they were kind of a few steps behind him because he knew me personally and knew where it was coming from and knew it was a real thing and a real purpose for me. So the church and the community, it was kind of a conflict. But then I got free from that and haven't really looked back since, you know.
MARTIN: Well, how is it a conflict? I mean, what do people say? Do they try to shame you and say what are you doing that when you should be here lifting up the Lord?
PJ MORTON: This is years ago now, but yeah, I think it's that same old story that is no different than what Al Green and Sam Cooke and Aretha went through singing devil music. Or they would say, you should be using your gift for God, you know. And I actually wrote a book about it some years ago called "Why Can't I Sing About Love." And it was addressing that really because I wanted to not only free myself but free some other people from that thinking that gospel music equals God as opposed to your gift and how he's gifted you and being able to talk about not only God but the things he's created - love, life. These are all God's dominion. So I think the book helped a lot of people and me just remaining who I was.
MARTIN: I noticed that you wrote a book about it, which is something that a lot of people wouldn't do, which I thought was noteworthy. But I also know that you continue to reflect on your faith and the role that it plays in your life even if you're working in a different genre. And you have to know that one of the songs on the album caught my ear called "Religion" - very blunt about something that I think many people talk about but not necessarily sing about. So let's play it and talk about it a little more.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RELIGION")
PJ MORTON: (Singing) I don't think I like your religion. Don't always make the best decisions. Not saying you don't have good intentions. I know that you are only human.
MARTIN: OK. So - subtle.
(LAUGHTER)
PJ MORTON: Right.
MARTIN: Well, tell me about it. How did this come to you?
PJ MORTON: I started to write this song during the presidential campaign. And I saw a bunch of evangelicals getting behind now-President Trump and having to ignore a lot of things that he do and say in order to be comfortable to put their support behind him. So they had to ignore the hatred that he spewed a lot of times, the division that he was promoting, I mean, words that we wouldn't say, you know, grabbing people by things. All of that had to be ignored to still say, hey, this is our candidate. The Christians, this is the guy we believe should be the president.
And that kind of showed me. And it brought me back - not to get too deep - but like back to slavery days, where they would have - read the Bible and show the slaves why you're supposed to be slaves - this is why, look at the Bible - and find ways in the scripture to validate that. And that's where that line comes from. Your God had nothing to do with that.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RELIGION")
PJ MORTON: (Singing) Your God had nothing to do with it, nothing to do with it.
A lot of times, religion in its form - original form - is with good intention. And it's with love. And it's with community. But somewhere along the line, sometimes humanity slips in there and it becomes less about God and your own agenda. And I think God has nothing to do with that agenda sometimes.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "RELIGION")
PJ MORTON: (Singing) Nothing to do with it. Nothing to do with it.
MARTIN: And that leads me to another song that I wanted to talk to you about that also struck me. This is called "Claustrophobic."
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CLAUSTROPHOBIC")
PJ MORTON: (Singing) PJ, you're not mainstream enough, yeah. Would you consider us changing some stuff? Oh, like everything about who you are. No offense, we're just trying to make you a star.
MARTIN: This struck me because, I mean, it goes on to say that, you know, oh, we'd like you to be more thuggish. We're not going to say some of the words. But you go on to say that that's not you. But there is a part of me that wants to ask, are you ever tempted? I mean, do you ever say, well, let's say I did curse more or something like that and present myself as different than I am? I mean, and I don't know how much the house with the swimming pool means to you or whatever it is that's the thing that you're supposed to want. I mean, does that ever cross your mind?
PJ MORTON: Well, first of all, my childhood, I was able to grow up in a way where I had things that I wanted, you know what I mean? So my value for money wasn't huge. Then I'm fortunate enough to be in a huge pop band that does very well, and that satisfies my needing hit records. So yes, I have been tempted. I think "Gumbo," this record, is the result of all these years of me trying to figure it out. I went through all those ups and downs - Joining Maroon 5 and feeling like OK, I got hits, oh, now I see what that feels like - all this is a result where I am right now for me to be able to be who I am 100 percent. Do I want hit songs? Yes, I would love them. But I want hit songs that's who I am and not somebody else.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STICKING TO MY GUNS")
PJ MORTON: (Singing) I'm sticking to my guns till my work is done. I'm sticking to my guns till my work is done.
MARTIN: So are you going to go to the awards ceremony tonight? I do want to mention we are speaking to you in advance of the Grammy ceremony. Are you going?
PJ MORTON: Yes, I'm going to be there with bells on at the Grammy Awards. I do want it. Let's be clear. I want to beat everybody I'm against and love, but I want to win.
MARTIN: That's PJ Morton. His latest album "Gumbo" is up for two Grammys tonight. He joined us from our bureau in New York. PJ Morton, thank you so much for joining us. And congratulations on everything.
PJ MORTON: Thank you so much. It was good to be with you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "STICKING TO MY GUNS")
PJ MORTON: (Singing) So you can give me all you got. You can throw it all at me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We'd like to turn now from strategic questions to examine the dangerous reality of peacekeeping on the ground. According to the United Nations, 56 U.N. peacekeepers died through violence last year. That's the highest number of fatalities since 1994 when the U.N. sent peacekeepers to Rwanda, Somalia, Cambodia and the Balkans. The U.N. report suggested that last year's figures are not an anomaly but rather an extended surge in violent deaths that began about five years ago.
To talk more about this, we called Conor Foley. He is a former member of the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping Operations, where he worked from 2010 to 2012. Now he teaches at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. But we reached him in London via Skype. Conor Foley, thanks so much for speaking with us.
CONOR FOLEY: Thanks for inviting me onto the show.
MARTIN: Do we know why the number of fatalities is so high?
FOLEY: I think there's two reasons. The world is a more violent place than it's been in recent years. We're seeing increased numbers of conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and large parts of Africa, and the U.N. is more involved in conflicts. And one of the things we've been pushing is for them to be more assertive in protecting civilians to not allow massacres to take place. But of course, if they do that, that does put them in the firing line. And so one of the consequences of this new assertiveness is that more peacekeepers are dying, which is a tragedy.
MARTIN: The U.N. report states that peacekeeping missions in Mali, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo account for an overwhelming number of fatalities in the past five years. For example, 15 peacekeepers were killed in eastern Congo just last month. So is there something about these missions in particular that is leading to this result?
FOLEY: There are two reasons. Firstly, they are more involved in protecting civilians there. They're doing their job better, and that's actually making it more dangerous for them. But secondly, they're being sent into places where there really isn't much peace to keep. And this is very controversial. Should peacekeeping soldiers who are not profiled, who are not trained, who are not equipped for war fighting be sent into what are essentially conflict zones?
And the Central African Republic, Mali, the DRC - there are ongoing conflicts in all three of those countries. And as the U.N. is deploying soldiers into those countries, the line between peacekeeping and war fighting is getting very blurred. And I think sometimes they're being sent into places where really they're not peacekeeping because there isn't any peace. There's a conflict going on.
MARTIN: President Trump has been critical of the United Nations and has stressed making American interests a priority. I'm wondering first of all if the president's perspective is influential in some way. And is there something that the you think the United Nations should be doing differently to minimize this loss of life, even as they try to fulfill their mission?
FOLEY: Well, the United States is the biggest single donor for peacekeeping operations. So President Trump's attitude matters a great deal. He's threatened to absolutely decimate the funding of peacekeeping operations. And if he does, that will result in conflicts flaring up and becoming a lot more violent. There will be more failed states, more training grounds for terrorists. So that's one negative. The other side of it is we have lots of internal debates - and some of the debates are quite technical - about the rules of engagement and the use of force, but that's constantly under review. Should we be more assertive? Should we be - have more people in the field? So these are kind of internal issues that the U.N. itself is thinking about a lot.
MARTIN: Well, I did want to ask you about that. For example, in eastern Congo, it's my understanding that the U.N. mission there has a mandate to pursue offensive operations against armed groups, which does make it a target of attacks. And so I understand that this is a technical issue, but if they are seen as combatants, do you think that's an appropriate identity for them, even if the purpose of that mission is to prevent a wider conflict?
FOLEY: It is quite technical. I was in eastern DRC in 2012 as rebel forces were advanced on the capital city, and there was a real, very live debate within the U.N. about the extent to which we could use force. And as it actually happened, the rebels took the capital, and the U.N. forces didn't use force. As a result of that, a new mandate was given, a Force Intervention Brigade was created and they were mandated to use offensive operations.
There is now a debate about whether or not maybe they went too far, that they actually became part of the conflict, and they became combatants and what that would do in terms of the legal protection that we have as peacekeepers and also the civilian components of the mission, the humanitarian components of the mission. I mean, I'm not a soldier. I'm a civilian. That means I go into the field without a gun and without much protection. If the U.N. becomes a part of the conflict, I'm immediately a target. I think that the issue is U.N. peacekeepers do a very difficult job in very difficult and dangerous circumstances and many have paid the ultimate price. But I think the overall balance of peacekeeping is it has been positive.
MARTIN: Conor Foley is a former member of the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping Operations. He's a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. We reached him in London. Conor Foley, thanks so much for speaking with us.
FOLEY: Thank you very much for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF TYCHO'S "HOURS")
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
We're going to start the program today with a look at a number of important international stories. In a few minutes, we'll find out why more peacekeepers are being killed as they try to carry out their missions. But we're going to start in Syria, where two of the United States' biggest allies are on the opposite sides of an increasingly dangerous standoff. The United States has long relied on Turkey as a key ally in the Middle East and in Europe - it borders both. The U.S. has also relied on the help of ethnic Kurdish fighters in campaigns in Iraq and Syria. But now, Turkey is launching an assault against Syrian Kurds along their border and are demanding the U.S. stay out of the way. Just today, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that 484 Kurds had been, quote, "neutralized" as part of Turkey's, quote, "Operation Olive Branch."
To find out more about what all this means from an American perspective, we're joined now by Ali Soufan. He's a former FBI supervisory special agent who focused on issues surrounding international conflict. He's now the CEO of The Soufan Group. Welcome. Thank you so much for speaking with us.
ALI SOUFAN: Thank you, Michel.
MARTIN: So first of all, why is Turkey going after the Syrian Kurds along the Turkish southern border?
SOUFAN: Well, their support of the Kurdish militias on the border of Turkey has been problematic from the very beginning. And now after the so-called Islamic State has been defeated and the physical caliphate is no more, there is nothing - basically, there's no common denominator between Turkey's strategy in Syria and in the region and the United States' strategy in Syria and the region. And now, what we have is a Turkish policy that focuses on protecting what they fear - a threat that's going to come from the Kurdish militias on their borders versus the United States, where we were focusing specifically on the defeat of ISIS.
What we see today, Michel, is the theater, the conflict, the war in Syria is getting smaller and smaller. And with that, there are so many different goals and aims of all the members of the coalition. And this is just a manifestation - what's happening - the conflict between the United States and Turkey.
MARTIN: Remembering that the U.S. was allied closely with both groups in fighting ISIS, do I take it to be that that fight is largely finished and as a consequence of that - or is fighting ISIS still a concern in Syria?
SOUFAN: Well, I think fighting ISIS should still be a concern in Syria. You know, defeating the physical caliphate is only half of the battle. You know, we have to be sure that we have a strategy that prevent ISIS from coming back.
MARTIN: So Turkey is claiming that the U.S. is cutting off support for the Syrian Kurds, which in English, we - are known as the YPG. We have not been able to confirm that with the Pentagon or the White House or the State Department. No one has to our knowledge. And I'd like to ask you what you make of that claim.
SOUFAN: First of all, that airspace is controlled by the Russians, frankly. So Russia is allowing Turkey to bomb the Kurds. And then at the same time, they are promoting this idea that the United States, as an ally, cannot be trusted, and they are promoting the narrative that the United States - that we're giving up on the Kurds. I think Russia is playing a game where it's a win-win situation for them. You know, the Turkish supporting the Turkish campaign against the Kurds create a tension between two NATO allies, and that's good for Russia. Bombing the Kurds also create that narrative that Russia has been pushing for a while that the United States is not a trusted ally. And you know, if you wanted to bet diplomatically in the Middle East region on a force to help you, bet on the Russians, not on the Americans.
MARTIN: So President Trump has been in office for a year now. Needless to say, the facts on the ground are different. They have shifted over the course of the year. But broadly speaking, do you see a different strategy in Syria now than we saw under the Obama administration?
SOUFAN: No, I think - and this is part of the problem - I think what we witnessed under President Trump is just the evolution of the strategy that put in place under President Obama. But now with the defeat of the physical caliphate, with the destruction of ISIS and the liberation of Syrian territory to the most part from the group, I think that strategy does not make any sense anymore. And now, we start seeing a diplomatic conflict and other - a military even conflict between the different allies because, you know, we need leadership.
Where are we going with Syria? Are we pushing diplomatically for a political solution? What's going to happen to the Kurds? What's going to happen to Assad? And unfortunately, I think we're a little bit behind the eight ball when it comes to this because our strategy has been and continued to be defeating ISIS and preventing ISIS from coming back. And that's fine and dandy. We need to do that. But also, we need to look at the bigger picture. We need to look at the geopolitical map. We need to look at, what's Iran doing? What's Turkey doing? What's Russia doing in the region? But I think, diplomatically, we're not there yet.
MARTIN: That's Ali Soufan. He's CEO of The Soufan Group. He's a former counterterrorism agent at the FBI, and we reached him in Washington, D.C. Ali Soufan, thank you so much for speaking with us today.
SOUFAN: Thank you, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
President Trump delivers his first official State of the Union address to Congress on Tuesday. It's a tradition that dates back to the earliest days of the republic. George Washington delivered the first in writing. But since then, the speech has been used to describe and make the case for the president's agenda. To that end, advocates for one view over another have traditionally used the speech to fight for issues to get top billing. Well, that was then. This is now. Things are very different these days - not the least being the president's practice of taking his policy ideas directly to the public through Twitter.
We wanted to know a bit about how the process has changed and what it was like before, so we've called Jennifer Grossman. She's a former speechwriter for George H.W. Bush. She's now the CEO of The Atlas Society. That's a libertarian think tank. And she's with us from member station KQED in San Francisco. Jennifer Grossman, thanks so much for speaking to us.
JENNIFER GROSSMAN: Delighted to be here.
MARTIN: So first, could you just tell us how the Bush administration - the first Bush administration - viewed this speech? Like, what was it like for you as a speechwriter?
GROSSMAN: Well, they took it very seriously. And I think because of that, it was a place where a lot of policy turf wars got fought out because that speech was going to be used as an agenda for the rest of the year. So it was never a eloquent speech. It was never soaring rhetoric, but it was important in terms of what they were going to be doing for the year ahead and who had the most influence within the White House.
So you know, the speechwriters - we were very idealistic, and I, in particular, was always a fan of school choice. And so we would put in school choice. But Lamar Alexander, who was the secretary of education, would take it out. And we'd put it back in, and he'd take it out. And he would say, you know what? I'm going to call the President. And they're like, OK, call the president, you know?
MARTIN: Well, even just putting the substance aside, this president communicates directly with the public all the time. So in that context, does this speech still matter as much?
GROSSMAN: No. No, it doesn't. I mean, it will be evaporating as quickly as morning dew. It doesn't matter to his base. I don't think his base will be watching or listening to the speech. They will be following his Twitter feed, whatever he says the speech was about. That's what their reality will be.
MARTIN: How will you be listening to this speech?
GROSSMAN: I think it will be very, very significant to see which themes he chooses to emphasize. But I also think that we watch it for the pageantry. It's not just what the president says. It's not just how he delivers it. It's how he walks into the room, how people interact with him. So we watch it for things like that as well.
MARTIN: Before we let you go, I wanted to ask - I'm wondering - how you feel isn't quite right - yeah, I do want to know how you feel about the effect that the president has had on this particular form of public discourse. What do you think about that? What impact do you think he's had on something that you've - care a lot about, which is words and the how - the way we communicate, particularly political ideas, to each other?
GROSSMAN: Well, the bad side, the down side is that politics does require trust, right? It requires trust between parties, and that we also need a certain amount of predictability. You need to have some sense of things are going to happen the way that they were promised to happen. So I think to that extent, it's been a detriment. On the other hand, I think that we do crave authenticity with the people that are representing us.
And so I think that although it's been undisciplined and often misogynistic and vulgar - all bad things - I think that it also has allowed people to really see the real him and make their decisions. And so I think that that is good - that we are actually seeing who this person really is and that we can make our own judgments based on what we can directly see from his communications.
MARTIN: That's Jennifer Grossman. She was a speechwriter for George H.W. Bush - President George H.W. Bush. She currently serves as a CEO of The Atlas Society. That's a libertarian think tank that promotes the writings and the thinking of Ayn Rand. Jennifer Grossman, thanks so much for speaking with us.
GROSSMAN: It was a pleasure. Thank you, Michel.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
And now it's time for Words You'll Hear. That's where we dig into a story that will be in the news by focusing on a single word or phrase. Today, we're going with an acronym, NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. It was signed during the Clinton administration, but President Trump vowed to renegotiate it during his presidential campaign. Now he's making good on that promise. The U.S. has put forward a number of controversial changes, and negotiators from Canada, Mexico and the U.S. are meeting in Montreal to discuss the deal.
Their representatives are expected to make some kind of announcement about their progress tomorrow, so we thought this would be a good time to look at the State of the NAFTA talks. We called Chad Bown for that. He is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He previously served on President Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, where he focused on international trade. He's with us now in our Washington, D.C., studios. Sorry. I misspoke his name. It's Chad Bown - like town. Thank you so much for being here.
CHAD BOWN: Thanks for having me.
MARTIN: A lot of people have heard President Trump, especially during the campaign, complaining about NAFTA. But what exactly is the U.S. trying to renegotiate and what are the major points of contention?
BOWN: Well, that is still a little bit unclear. President Trump's primary concern seems to be with countries with which the United States has a bilateral trade deficit, so countries with which we export less to them than we import from them. But how it is that he's going to try to rectify that imbalance through these negotiations is still a little bit up in the air. He has a number of controversial proposals that he's put out there. I think...
MARTIN: What are they? I think people would like to know.
BOWN: So one of them is to introduce what's called a sunset clause. And he's proposed that after every five years, we should vote again as to whether the three countries - the U.S., Canada and Mexico - actually want to stay in the agreement or not. Now, most people would look at that and say the primary purpose of a trade agreement in the first place is to get rid of uncertainty, to lock in these low trade barriers. If I'm a company or I'm a worker trying to sell my goods and services into a foreign market, I want to know that that deal is going to be there five years from now. By introducing a sunset clause and having to go through this really contentious set of negotiations potentially every five years, that removes that. And so this is really kind of a nonstarter from Canada and Mexico's perspective.
MARTIN: And what are the other two?
BOWN: The second really controversial one is for automobiles and what's called rules of origin. So the concern from the Trump administration is too many cars are being produced in Mexico and not in the United States. And so they want to demand that more content of these cars that are getting zero tariffs when they cross the borders are actually American content. And so they've proposed that - a new rule that would demand that 50 percent of the value of any car that would be sold tariff-free within NAFTA should have to be American content.
MARTIN: What's the final thing that's particularly controversial?
BOWN: The third really big one is the Trump administration has proposed eliminating a lot of the legal enforcement protections that are in the agreement that are particularly important for Canada and Mexico especially because they're smaller economies, smaller countries, much more reliant on the U.S. market. They can't really bully their way around to getting things that they want when things don't go their way, so they need to rely on the rule of law and courts to help enforce the provisions that are actually in these agreements. But the Trump administration - that's not their general approach. They like to throw their weight around, and they're proposing stripping out those courts from the agreement.
MARTIN: And President Trump has said that if he isn't happy with the negotiations, he might pull the U.S. out of NAFTA. First of all, can he do that? Can he do that on his own authority without approval from Congress?
BOWN: So on the legal question, we don't really know. There's a big legal debate going on amongst the experts in this area. But there is a sense that President Trump likes to push the limits on executive authority. We have seen him do that on a number of occasions in his first year in office. And so we wouldn't be surprised to see him try.
MARTIN: Chad Bown is senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. He's also cohost of a weekly podcast about international trade. It's called "Trade Talks." He was kind enough to join us here in our Washington, D.C., studios. Chad Brown, thanks so much for speaking with us.
BOWN: Thanks for having me.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The Olympics are just a couple of weeks away now, so we've been taking some time to meet some of the athletes who will be competing at the Games. And one of the biggest stories that emerged even before the festivities begin is the evolving relationship between South Korea - the host country - and North Korea. After negotiations, it was agreed that North Korean and South Korean Olympic teams will march under a unified Korean flag at the opening ceremonies. And the biggest compliment of North Korean athletes will be joining the women's ice hockey team, which will merge and play as one unified team.
Now that bit of sports diplomacy aside, you might have another reason to root for the Korean team. Her name is Randi Griffin. She was born and raised in North Carolina, and she joins us now from Jincheon, South Korea, where she is training for the upcoming Olympics. Welcome. Thanks so much for breaking away to talk to us for a little bit via Skype.
RANDI GRIFFIN: Yep, no problem.
MARTIN: I think a lot of people are used to watching professional players in the NHL take a break and go back and play for their countries of origin in the Olympics. I think people are used to that - in any Olympics - both summer or winter - people are used to that. But how is it that you, as an American citizen, are able to play for the Korean team?
GRIFFIN: Yeah, so this is obviously a very different situation. Back in 2014, I got an email from the Korean Ice Hockey Association, and they basically said, we just found out that we're going to the Olympics. They gave us automatic entry as the host country, but we don't have a lot of hockey players, so we're looking for North American-raised, Korean-heritage athletes to join our team and help bring up our level for the Pyeongchang Olympics.
So I went over for the first time in the summer of 2015, and I was there along with an American, Marissa Brandt, and a Canadian, Danelle Im. And for all of us, it was our first time there, and we met the team, we played in this little summer league, which was just three teams. The age range was, like, 13 to 40. And this was literally all of the Korean hockey players in existence. And I think for all of us, it was this combination of a great hockey experience but also a really cool cultural experience.
MARTIN: So your mom is Korean, as I understand it. Your mom...
GRIFFIN: Yes.
MARTIN: ...Immigrated from South Korea.
GRIFFIN: That's correct.
MARTIN: And I understand that there was a little bit of trouble finding you. I don't think that Griffin is a particularly common Korean name from what I understand. (Laughter) And I understand that when they first reached out to you, you actually ignored it because you thought it was a scam.
GRIFFIN: (Laughter) Yeah, that's true, but I'm a little embarrassed to say that. I'm actually pretty good friends now with the guy who sent me those emails, so I feel kind of bad when I have told the press that.
MARTIN: So how did they actually finally get in touch with you?
GRIFFIN: Yeah, so what I heard was that it was actually a player named Caroline Park - and Park is a Korean name. Their initial kind of search involved just scouring college hockey rosters in the U.S. and Canada, and they were looking for Korean names. So they found Caroline Park, and they reached out to her and her family. And Caroline Park was actually a Princeton grad - 2009 - so we overlapped for three years, and we played against each other.
MARTIN: And you played for Harvard.
GRIFFIN: I played for Harvard, yes. And...
MARTIN: So she knew - she steered them toward you.
GRIFFIN: Well, I think it was actually her dad because he was in the stands, and my mom was in the stands for a game, and I think they noticed each other because they're not used to seeing Korean people at a hockey game. And so they struck up a conversation, and that was how he found out that I was half Korean because I'm not sure if he would've known otherwise.
MARTIN: Here's the elephant in the room here - is that when they decided to combine the teams, it's been well reported in the South Korean press that some of the South Koreans aren't particularly happy about this, and I wonder if any of that has been communicated to you there.
GRIFFIN: Yeah, I think all the players on our team are very aware of that. I mean, we sit in the dining hall. We look up, and we're seeing ourselves on the news every night - like, us playing the North Koreans and they're talking about it.
MARTIN: And how are you dealing with that?
GRIFFIN: Honestly, we're trying not to pay too much attention to it because the way we're looking at it is this is completely out of our control. And with two weeks to go before the Olympics, we want to just focus on the athletics side of things and try not to pay attention to this.
MARTIN: So what's next for you after the Olympics? I know you're trying to focus on the Games, but what after that?
GRIFFIN: Well, I'm actually working on my dissertation still while I'm here. So I've had a very understanding dissertation committee who basically said as long as you're still working on your dissertation and progressing towards your degree, if you can manage that with your training schedule, then you can do it in Korea.
MARTIN: Well, then you obviously are very busy and so we're going to let you get back to your day. So thank you for taking time to speak with us. Good luck to you at the Games. And do you have a number yet so we can at least know you who you are with your mask on?
GRIFFIN: I do. My number is 37, and I'm actually wearing my Korean name, Hisu (ph), on my jersey.
MARTIN: OK. Well, that is Randi Griffin Hisu. She will be representing the unified Korean women's ice hockey team at the Olympic Games. She was kind enough to join us from training in Jincheon, South Korea. Randi, thanks so much for speaking with us. Good luck to you.
GRIFFIN: Yeah, thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF DJ BOSS MAN'S "RUTHLESS")
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
It's worth noting that the tensions between the U.S. and North Korea have a long history. Case in point, 50 years ago, North Korean gunboats attacked and seized the U.S. Navy spy ship, the USS Pueblo. Eighty-two Pueblo crew members spent 11 months in captivity before a U.S. apology secured their release. Just last year, several crew members won some compensation for the brutal ordeal. But as NPR's David Welna reports, the rest have got next to nothing.
DAVID WELNA, BYLINE: The Pueblo's captain was Lieutenant Commander Lloyd Bucher. He was forced at gunpoint to give up his ship on that ill-fated day in January, 1968. Two decades later, Bucher, who would die in 2004, recalled on NBC TV what he and his men then went through in North Korea.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
LLOYD BUCHER: The long 11 months that we spent in captivity over there were punctuated from time to time with brutality. And there was always concern that there might be some permanent damage inflicted on some of the people.
BOB CHICCA: I've had 11 operations putting me back together once we got out.
WELNA: That's one of the crew members, retired Marine Staff Sergeant Bob Chicca, who now lives near San Diego.
CHICCA: They beat me a lot. They broke my nose a couple of times. I could count on someone hitting me every day.
WELNA: Apart from the back pay they got for the 11 months in captivity, Chicca says there was little other compensation for the Pueblo's crew.
CHICCA: We got a hundred dollars a month hazardous duty pay, and then we got something like $33 dollars a month commuted rations since they didn't have to feed us while we were there.
WELNA: And that's all.
The U.S. and North Korea are still at war. There is a truce but no peace treaty. Still, for 22 years, the U.S. would not even recognize the crew members as prisoners of war. Dunnie Tuck was a civilian oceanographer on the Pueblo. A dozen years ago, he paid $5,000 to join a lawsuit in federal district court seeking millions of dollars in damages from North Korea.
DUNNIE TUCK: Three or four of us decide to do it. A bunch of them decided not to. They just didn't want to pay even that nominal amount up front. I may have been one of the few that just happened to have a few thousand dollars laying around, and it wasn't going to hurt me one way or the other.
WELNA: Eddie Murphy, the Pueblo's second-in-command, says he simply could not afford to join that lawsuit.
EDDIE MURPHY: I don't have that kind of gambling money. I don't know if they've ever gotten any money from that. Some people said they thought that some of them did, but I don't know.
KEVIN CONWAY: They did get a judgment against North Korea. It was something that was uncollectable.
WELNA: That's Chicago trial lawyer Kevin Conway. He says even though Tuck and the others could not collect the $65 million the judge said North Korea should pay them, he saw another potential source of compensation, a multibillion dollar fund set up by Congress two years ago for U.S. victims of state-sponsored terrorism. Conway dug up three-decade-old congressional testimony to bolster the case.
CONWAY: It said that North Korea was declared a state sponsor of terrorism by the United States for repeated acts of terrorism, including the Pueblo. And when I found out that, that least I think gave us a great argument as to why we should be included.
WELNA: It worked. Nine million dollars was awarded in March to Tuck, two other crew members and the family of Lloyd Bucher, the late skipper. As for those who did not join that lawsuit, former POW Chicca says...
CHICCA: We are working on getting some compensation from North Korea. There's a couple of lawsuits in the works. What will come of that I don't know.
WELNA: Whatever Chicca and the others might get, says Ohio State University historian Mitchell Lerner, it won't compensate for the shabby treatment they've suffered.
MITCHELL LERNER: It's a tragic story. And I've met some of the men, and they're good guys, and they were completely untrained and unprepared. That's the real tragedy of this. The ship was sent out there. The men had almost no training. The ship was a disaster. It was virtually unarmed. And it was the men who paid the price.
WELNA: A price that, for most of them, has yet to be repaid. David Welna, NPR News, San Diego.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
The 60th Annual Grammy Awards are tonight, and Washington Post pop music critic Chris Richards will be watching and getting ready to add another entry to his lifelong obsession - cataloguing the artists who should have won. Recently, he decided to let us in on his thought process. He wrote a piece for The Post titled, appropriately, "What Should Have Won: Repicking The Last 38 Years Of The Grammys." It's a bit of a consolation prize to artists who have been, in his view, snubbed altogether or whose contributions were not recognized at the time for the cultural impact they were making or would go on to make. And tonight, Chris Richards is going to be disappointed because here's his choice for album of the year.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CULTURE")
DJ KHALED: Boy, bow down.
TAKEOFF: (Rapping) Spin off in a coupe, typhoon. I act an [expletive], baboon. Wrapping that dope, cocoon.
MARTIN: That's "Culture" from the rap trio Migos. If you're scratching your head right now over this choice, that's understandable because Migos wasn't even nominated. Luckily, Chris Richards is with us now in the studio. Chris, thanks so much for joining us.
CHRIS RICHARDS: Very glad to be here.
MARTIN: Are you OK? Because I know you're going to be mad later. So are you kind of in a good place right now?
RICHARDS: (Laughing) I'm taking deep breaths and keeping it mellow, yeah.
MARTIN: First of all, why 38 years as opposed to the whole thing? And why Album of the Year, rather than Song of the Year?
RICHARDS: Right. So to answer your first question, we thought starting in 1980, it was a nice round place to start. And also, you have a severe oversight in that year with Michael Jackson's "Off The Wall" not even being nominated for Album of the Year. So we started there. Also, I was born in 1979, so I felt like I wanted to speak on music that existed in my lifetime. Not to say that I had my finger on the zeitgeist as a 5-year-old even. But I do think as children, we do start processing music. And if music is reaching children in our society, then it should be reaching Grammy voters by any stretch. So that seemed like a good place to start.
MARTIN: Well, that's true. Migos, for example, I mean, if you have a kid in middle school, then you know that song - period, end of story.
RICHARDS: Absolutely.
MARTIN: I mean, they're at the lunch table reciting the lyrics. OK. Let's jump into the list pointing out some of the more egregious mistakes.
RICHARDS: The biggest, glaringest (ph) mistake, to me, happens in 1985.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HELLO")
LIONEL RICHIE: (Singing) Hello. Is it me you're looking for?
RICHARDS: Lionel Richie's "Can't Slow Down" beating out Prince's "Purple Rain," which was nominated. But when we think about what masterpiece pop albums are, "Purple Rain" is it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "PURPLE RAIN")
PRINCE: (Singing) I only wanted to see you laughing in the purple rain. Purple rain. Purple rain.
RICHARDS: When he died a few years ago, I went back to look at, you know, the Grammy scorecard. And I was just shocked to realize that he didn't win Album of the Year that year. And it actually inspired the whole piece, going back and looking year by year to see how Grammy voters made mistakes along the way.
MARTIN: So here's another one that jumped out at us - 1983, when Toto won Album of the Year.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "AFRICA")
TOTO: (Singing) It's going to take a lot to drag me away from you. There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do. I bless the rains down in Africa.
MARTIN: Song of the Year maybe, but Album of the Year? What do you think should have won that year?
RICHARDS: I'm a big fan of Bruce Springsteen's "Nebraska" for that year. It seems like his star had been rising and he released this incredibly thoughtful record.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "NEBRASKA")
BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: (Singing) I saw her standing on on her front lawn just twirling her baton.
RICHARDS: And even the nominee pool, I rewrote it for that year. I think The Clash's "Combat Rock," Joan Jett's "I Love Rock 'N Roll," Willie Nelson's "Always On My Mind" and Prince's "Controversy" should have been in the running that year. None of those records were nominated for Album of the Year.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CONTROVERSY")
PRINCE: (Singing) I just can't believe all the things people say. Controversy.
MARTIN: Do you have a theory of the case, like, you know, why that is?
RICHARDS: Yeah. I think Grammy voters are intimidated - currently anyway - by the immensity of popular music. It's constantly new, and it requires a lot of energy to stay on top of it. But in terms of what we should expect from an Album of the Year, I think it should be innovative. I think it should speak to the mood of the era. And I think that it should be an album that widely resonated with people. So that's kind of the terms and conditions of my story. I'm not just picking my favorite albums in this list from 1980. I was trying to pick records that could have won and therefore should have won.
MARTIN: Well, I think the criticism of the Grammys is similar to the criticism of the Oscars, which is that the people who make the decision are people who are at a different point in their lives and aren't really keeping up. And also, there's a feeling that they have been cold to artists of diverse backgrounds and certain genres like hip-hop and R&B.
RICHARDS: I would agree with that completely. Only one rap album has ever won Album of the Year. That's Outkast in 2004 for "Speakerboxxx/The Love Below." And in this list, we tried to correct that (laughter).
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HEY YA")
OUTKAST: (Singing) Hey ya. Hey ya.
MARTIN: Now let me ask you. In 2004, should Outkast have won? I mean, that's, I mean...
RICHARDS: In my revisionism, I actually said that Missy Elliott should have been the one to win that year.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WORK IT")
MISSY ELLIOTT: (Singing) Is it worth it? Let me work it. I put my thing down, flip it and reverse it.
RICHARDS: Rap music is the dominant pop idiom of our time, so the fact that a rap record has only won this most prestigious award only one time in the history of the Grammys just sounds all kinds of alarms for me as a listener and a fan.
MARTIN: But this year, Album of the Year nominees include three rappers - Childish Gambino, Jay-Z and Kendrick Lamar. And how do you interpret that?
RICHARDS: That's a great improvement. Are they going to win? Is it just going to split the Grammy vote in different directions and then Bruno Mars or Lorde is going to rise up and take this prize? We have to tune in tonight and see what happens.
MARTIN: That's Chris Richards, pop music critic for The Washington Post. Chris, thank you so much.
RICHARDS: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Are smartphones, tablets and other devices bad for our kids' development, or do they help them grow? That is the question for this week's All Tech Considered.
(SOUNDBITE OF ULRICH SCHNAUSS' "NOTHING HAPPENS IN JUNE")
MCEVERS: It's a question I ask in my own family, a question that Apple investors have raised with the company in a public letter, and a question that NPR reporter Anya Kamenetz, who covers education and technology, has been exploring. It is the topic of her new book, "The Art Of Screen Time." And she's with us now. Hey, Anya.
ANYA KAMENETZ, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So it seems like everyone who has kids has an opinion on this - no screen time, all the screen time, limited screen time. You actually are very familiar with the research on it. How much data is there out there?
KAMENETZ: Not as much as we'd like. And, you know, it's hard to believe, but we're really only about 10 years into the smartphone era. And so there's been a big lag in the research. And there's also ethical issues. I mean, you can't necessarily split up babies into two groups and force one of them to watch television 24/7. So there's a lot that we don't know. But it's also the case that the best research that's out there isn't necessarily getting into the public's view partly because we're kind of all hypnotized by the worst-case scenarios. And I would probably...
MCEVERS: Aha.
KAMENETZ: ...Blame technology for that as well.
MCEVERS: You know, I mentioned Apple. When those institutional investors wrote their letter to Apple they referred to possible unintentional negative consequences for kids. They pointed to studies showing that heavy users were less social, more distracted, more sleep deprived, more at risk of suicide even. Is this something that you found, too?
KAMENETZ: You have to be very careful when you segment the evidence. So out of everything that's out there I found the sleep research to be the most convincing because researchers are pretty sure of the mechanism involved. They understand that when kids use devices that are close to their eyes and the light is shining in their faces it does interfere with the quality of sleep as well as length of sleep. And, you know, we have these devices in our bedrooms. A lot of kids have them in their own bedrooms. And this is a big risk factor. When it gets out to things like emotional disorders or even ADHD we see small effects across the population, but it's way too soon to say that there is causal effects rather than correlations when it comes to things like depression and anxiety across populations.
MCEVERS: When people ask you just, like, are screens better for my kid, like, what do you say?
KAMENETZ: You can observe your kid and see, do they have a problematic relationship to tech? Is media the only thing that they love? Do they get very upset when it's turned off or do they have trouble balancing it with other activities? If you see these effects in your own kids, there's red flags that you should do something about it. If your kids are getting along fine - I mean, most people use some media. And most of us enjoy it.
MCEVERS: It's probably important, too, to not just, you know, lump, like, screen time all into one thing, right? That could mean a certain kind of movie, a certain kind of video game. We should be talking about different types of technology, too, right?
KAMENETZ: Oh, absolutely. I mean, researchers are divided on the question of whether, like, passive screen time like video watching is wholesale better or worse than more interactive things like gaming. But as long as they can, you know, go ahead and turn it off and be OK afterwards it's probably not too much of a problem.
MCEVERS: And you also even argue that some screen time can be good for them, good for creativity, good for emotional development. Talk about that.
KAMENETZ: Yeah. I mean, we all use technology because it provides a lot of benefits to us. And what I kind of argue for and what the experts are saying is that we need to be using it with our kids. And when we do that there's a lot of magic that can happen. They can definitely use media even at a very young age to learn how to read, to learn how to count, to learn prosocial behaviors like saying sorry and thank you. And these are all things that kids learn from the characters and the stories that they love. And as they get older we can start helping them scaffold the use of tech for research, for creative expression, for coding and robotics. These are all things that we want to help our kids explore and get to know, you know, in the realm of having balance at the same time.
MCEVERS: You know, you're talking about what kids encounter when they're younger and what they encounter when they're older. I'm sure that when we talk about this we need to remember that not all kids are the same and not all age groups are the same, right? It's different for a 3-year-old, for a 6-year-old, for a 12-year-old.
KAMENETZ: Oh, just like every parenting issue is. I mean, you know, when it comes to young children we have a lot more control over the environment that they're in. And sometimes it makes sense to set really clear, hard and fast rules or have a sticker chart or passes. When kids get older, though, setting those hard and fast rules can really backfire. And you need to get on a path of negotiating with your kid to help them understand, you know, what are our rules as a family?
And I think, you know, a huge pitfall that comes up all the time is that parents have their own compulsive relationships with their devices, you know, especially working parents. We're all trying to be in two places at once. And the kids see that. And they are very alert to it. I mean, my daughter is 6 years old, and she's already started to call out me or her dad when there is a device at the dinner table. So that's something that we've said is a family rule we want to do better on. And our kids are on the same page with us on that.
MCEVERS: What is your - you know, based on your reporting and your understanding of the research, what is your biggest piece of advice for parents?
KAMENETZ: So I kind of crib from the great food writer Michael Pollan who said, you know, eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants. And I boiled down my research in this book into the slogan, enjoy screens, not too much, and mostly together.
MCEVERS: NPR's Anya Kamenetz, thanks so much.
KAMENETZ: Thank you so much, Kelly.
MCEVERS: The new book is called "The Art Of Screen Time."
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President Trump will make the economy a big focus of his State of the Union address tomorrow. Aides say Trump will highlight what the White House sees as big accomplishments. Those include the new tax law, a rising stock market and low unemployment. Polls show Americans are feeling better about the economy than at any time in the last 17 years although they are not necessarily giving Trump the credit for that. NPR's Scott Horsley reports.
SCOTT HORSLEY, BYLINE: President Trump has been calling himself a cheerleader for the U.S. economy. In Davos, Switzerland, last week, he told wealthy investors there's never been a better time to hire and do business in the United States.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: After years of stagnation, the United States is once again experiencing strong economic growth.
HORSLEY: Just about the time Trump was speaking, though, the Commerce Department reported growth actually slowed somewhat in the final months of 2017. For the full year, the economy grew by about 2.3 percent. That's faster than 2016 but slower than the two previous years. The U.S. is still adding jobs at a healthy pace, albeit slower than in President Obama's last year. That's not surprising since the economy is close to full employment. U.S. economist Joel Prakken of IHS Markit says the overall picture is pretty good.
JOEL PRAKKEN: We're entering 2018 with pretty good momentum and some fiscal stimulus coming from the tax cut. All of that suggests to me that 2018 should be a solid year.
HORSLEY: Wall Street, as the president likes to point out, has done especially well. Last year, the Dow Jones, the S&P 500 and NASDAQ all logged their biggest gains in four years.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: The stock market is smashing one record after another and has added more than $7 trillion in new wealth since my election.
HORSLEY: That's great for investors and anyone with stock-based savings. But nearly half of all Americans don't own any stocks. Workers in that category are still waiting for their big pay raise. Wages rose by an average of 2 and a half percent last year, barely keeping ahead of inflation as they've done throughout the recovery. Prakken says the newly signed tax cut will provide a modest boost in workers' take-home pay this coming year. He's doubtful, though, it will provide the long-term windfall that the president and his allies have been promising.
PRAKKEN: I can see no way to get to the sorts of figures that the administration has advanced, and I don't know many people in my line of work who do either.
HORSLEY: President Trump is also likely to tout the success of America's gas and oil industries. Energy historian Dan Yergin says thanks to technological gains, the U.S. could soon become the biggest oil producer in the world.
DANIEL YERGIN: Global energy market has been turned upside down by what's happening in the United States in terms of shale gas and shale oil.
HORSLEY: Cheap natural gas has been a boon for U.S. manufacturers. American factories added nearly 200,000 jobs last year, their strongest showing since 2014. In a sign of how far the economic recovery has come, some employers now say they're having trouble finding enough workers to fill the available jobs. Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue warned in his own annual recap that labor shortage could get worse if the administration follows through on plans to limit both legal and illegal immigration.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TOM DONOHUE: We can't strengthen and sustain economic growth if we don't expand and support our workforce.
HORSLEY: Donohue also worries about the president's trade policies and his threats to pull out of trade deals like NAFTA. Last week, Trump ordered new tariffs on imported washing machines and solar panels. And he warned more protectionist measures could be coming.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
TRUMP: Our companies will not be taken advantage of anymore, and our workers are going to have lots of really great jobs with products that are going to be made in the good old USA.
HORSLEY: Despite the president's tough talk on trade, in the first 11 months of last year, the nation's trade deficit widened by 12 percent. Scott Horsley, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Nearly 60 million emergency meals and more than 30 million gallons of water - that is what FEMA has delivered to people in Puerto Rico since Hurricane Maria hit in September. But now the agency is about to shut down the direct delivery of food and water, and some people think it might be too soon. NPR's Adrian Florido reports.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: One place that's come to rely on FEMA's food and water deliveries is Morovis. It's a small city spread over a lush, mountainous area in central Puerto Rico with houses lined up almost on top of the winding mountain roads. Police officer Angel Nieves drives me around. He says this beautiful terrain is what made it hard to get that food and water to people. The hurricane took out power, water, roads.
ANGEL NIEVES: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: He says early on, the city set up distributions in the center of town, but lots of people, especially the old and sick, couldn't get there. So teams of city workers started going door to door like the one we meet at the home of Carmen Maria Quinones. She lives alone, a widow.
CARMEN MARIA QUINONES: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: The team hands her a case of water.
QUINONES: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: "I haven't had enough water," she says, and getting to town to buy it has been hard for her. The hurricane destroyed a bridge leading up to this part of the mountain. Quinones says she relies on what her children bring when they visit and on the supplies from FEMA. But FEMA will end its distribution of food and water to cities on January 31. The agency estimates that only 1 percent of Puerto Rico's population still needs the help. Alejandro De La Campa is FEMA's director here.
ALEJANDRO DE LA CAMPA: We're trying to bring Puerto Rico back to normal. So we need to bring back the economy of Puerto Rico. People need to start buying in supermarkets. You know, it's obvious that if you get something for free, you're not going to go buy it.
FLORIDO: De La Campa says FEMA is moving out of the emergency phase of its work in Puerto Rico and into the longer-term recovery phase. So when it comes to providing emergency commodities, he says...
DE LA CAMPA: FEMA has responsibilities up to a certain point, and then we need to see what other options could be available beyond FEMA.
FLORIDO: The agency's plan is to transfer the rest of its food and water supplies to its local counterpart, the Puerto Rico Emergency Management Agency, or PREMA, so it can finish distributing them. Nonprofits will also get supplies. But FEMA's plans are not sitting well with some local officials, including Carmen Maldonado, the mayor of Morovis. She says her workers are still delivering FEMA's food and water to 10,000 people, a third of her city's population. These are people with no electricity, no working fridge. They can't resume their normal grocery shopping.
CARMEN MALDONADO: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: "Money they'd normally spend on groceries they're spending on gas for their generators," Maldonado says. She thinks FEMA should continue distributing aid until power and water are fully restored. She worries, too, about FEMA's plan to entrust the Puerto Rico Emergency Management Agency with distributing the food and water that remains.
MALDONADO: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: "It's a big mistake," she says. She has no faith that PREMA will effectively distribute the supplies. She hasn't heard back from the agency on how her city will continue receiving food after January 31. I asked PREMA that question, too - no response. A spokeswoman for FEMA told me there is a backup plan in case areas don't get the food and water they need. The mayor says her crews will keep distributing FEMA's food as long as they can get it. And if they can't...
MALDONADO: (Speaking Spanish).
FLORIDO: "We'll figure out another way to get people the food they need," she says. "We have no choice." Adrian Florido, NPR News, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
In 1997, a bizarre story hit the national news. Thirty-nine people in California had killed themselves by drinking poison. They were dressed identically with identical haircuts, and they were all members of the cult Heaven's Gate. In their videotaped farewell messages, they insisted that their suicides were not a final death. They believed they were shedding their earthly bodies in order to meet a UFO, which would transport them to the kingdom of heaven. Their story had a powerful impact on our next guest, Glynn Washington.
GLYNN WASHINGTON, BYLINE: I was in a bar when I heard about what was going on with Heaven's Gate when they were finding people in the San Diego mansion. And instantly, the bar silenced for a little bit. But in a few moments, everyone got back to talking about, you know, look at those crazies or whatever. And I couldn't stop watching. I was staring, I wanted them to turn the TV back up because in a lot of ways, it felt like that was something that my group could have done.
SHAPIRO: My group - when Glynn Washington was growing up in Michigan in the 1970s and '80s, his family belonged to a different apocalyptic faith organization called the Worldwide Church of God. And he recognized a lot of what he saw in Heaven's Gate. Now he brings that recognition to his new podcast, a 10-episode investigation into the cult and its members. The podcast is called Heaven's Gate. And when I spoke with him about it, I asked if by investigating this cult, he was really excavating his own history.
WASHINGTON: And that's just it. I think that - my group was called the Worldwide Church of God, as you mentioned earlier. And we had this apocalyptic leader. And we - I grew up being told that I wouldn't make it through the end of my teens, that the world will be enveloped in this fiery, apocalyptic scene and that a few of the callen (ph), a few of the chosen, just a few would make it out. Look to your left and look to your right and only one-third of this particular congregation is going to do it, are you going to be one of the chosen sort of thing.
And so to see another - see that kind of similar apocalyptic vision from another organization, it was so compelling. Again, I think because the people that we were able to speak to and that we're able to investigate their stories, the more that you get into someone's story, the less they become an other. And these were real people with families that cared about them, with goals and aspirations and they were swept into this cult.
SHAPIRO: There were a lot of people who were members of this cult who left before the mass suicide in 1997. And you interview many of them in this podcast.
WASHINGTON: Yes.
SHAPIRO: And I wonder about the experience of approaching them. Did your own history being raised in a cult, do you think, affect the way you approached these people and told their stories?
WASHINGTON: Absolutely. And I hope that the people who I spoke to came away from our interviews feeling like I wasn't trying to exploit them because I do - we do kind of - we have almost a shared history. And thank goodness that my particular organization didn't end up in a mansion the way that Heaven's Gate did. But I know this, that if the founder of my group had said to drink some Kool-Aid, 70 percent of us would have downed it in an instant.
SHAPIRO: And do you include yourself among that 70 percent?
WASHINGTON: I keep asking myself that question. I left in my late teens. And I've - and I try to forget it. I've tried to forget it for a long time. But, yeah, that question, if Herbert W. Armstrong, the founder of the group, had said drink this, this is going to take you to paradise, would I have downed that bottle? I have absolutely no idea, (laughter) and that, I think, gets to the heart of why I really wanted to do this project.
SHAPIRO: To me, one of the most chilling moments in the 10 episodes of this podcast comes in an episode where you allowed listeners to tell their stories. And there was somebody who wrote in from Australia.
(SOUNDBITE OF PODCAST, "HEAVEN'S GATE")
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: I guess what's been on my mind a lot as I've been listening to Heaven's Gate is really how not so different I am. I believe that there is a prophet on the earth who speaks directly to God and converses directly with him. And then I was thinking, you know, if the prophet came to me personally and asked me to do something, asked me to do something awful, would I do it? And I, you know, I - it was a very shocking and scary thought when I realized that, yeah, I think I would because I truly believe that this prophet speaks for God.
WASHINGTON: I think that a lot of people are searching for some connection to the divine. And once they find it, they're going to take that all the way to the end. And oftentimes, I think what really came out in this work was that it's a community that really kept people in this group, that these were people that are oftentimes before the Heaven's Gate organization, they felt like misfit toys. And the Heaven's Gate organization gave them a home, gave them a place, gave them a future, gave them a goal.
And when you do that to someone, when you give them love and they haven't felt that type of love or that type of a belonging before, it's not even so much the theology anymore. It's that warmth, that sense of home that keeps them in that group. And community is powerful, really, really, really powerful.
SHAPIRO: This mass suicide took place in 1997. That's sort of the beginning of what we think of as the Internet era. And shortly before the end, they put up a website. And that website is still active. And there is an email address.
WASHINGTON: Yes.
SHAPIRO: Does the cult still exist in any form today?
WASHINGTON: There are definitely people who believe the teachings of Ti and Do.
SHAPIRO: Ti and Do, the two leaders, yeah.
WASHINGTON: Ti and Do, the leaders of Heaven's Gate, that they were divine and that they did in fact go to the next level and get on an interstellar craft when they committed that act in the San Diego mansion.
SHAPIRO: So is the website being run by people who consider themselves Heaven's Gate members?
WASHINGTON: Ari, you've opened up a huge...
SHAPIRO: This is the second season of the podcast (laughter).
WASHINGTON: Yeah, this is a big contention. There are a lot of different groups and organizations that would vie for the mantle of, you know, the repository of the knowledge of the Heaven's Gate crew. And what they all believe at this time, I just do not feel comfortable in saying. Let me just say this. There's a lot of belief out there and some people who feel that they missed their chance when the people in that San Diego mansion did that ultimate deed.
SHAPIRO: That was Glynn Washington, host of the podcast Heaven's Gate and the public radio show Snap Judgment.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Early this morning, there was yet another attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. ISIS claimed responsibility. It's the fourth major attack by militants in just over a week. A horrific bombing over the weekend killed more than a hundred people. The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack. NPR Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman joins us now here in the studio with more. Hi, Tom.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: What can you tell us about this morning's attack?
BOWMAN: Well, Ari, the attack was on the Afghan military academy in Kabul, and officials say 11 Afghan troops were killed, another 16 wounded. And I'm told you had five suicide attackers. They had ISIS flags. A couple had suicide vests. And pictures sent to us by an Afghan military source show these flags and also a variety of weapons - AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades. This attack went on for about a half an hour, and the elite Afghan Commandos were called in to help and basically ended it.
Now, as you said, this is a fourth attack in a little over a week split between ISIS and the Taliban. There was an attack with an ambulance filled with explosives, an attack on a hotel and an attack in the eastern city of Jalalabad at the offices of the group Save the Children. So this is a horrific time obviously in Afghanistan. I was speaking with a friend today in Kabul, and she said everyone is just incredibly angry and also depressed.
SHAPIRO: Help us understand the connection, if there is one, between ISIS and the Taliban responsible for these two attacks. The groups are rivals, but they seem to share the goal of destabilizing the Afghan government.
BOWMAN: They do share that goal, but that's kind of where it ends. Think of this as a gang fight. In some cases, they actually fight each other. The Taliban is saying, this is our country; we don't want you to interfere with us. And - but some of the ISIS fighters were former Taliban fighters who basically switched jerseys, as the American military likes to say. Others are foreign fighters from China and elsewhere. They get more money fighting for ISIS. That's why they switched. But ISIS, you know - they're small in number. They're located along the Pakistan border in the hundreds, not the thousands like the Taliban. So again, the Taliban is much stronger.
SHAPIRO: Let's talk about the U.S. role in all of this because last August, the White House announced that it would increase the military pressure on the Taliban to force them to the negotiating table. But then President Trump spoke this afternoon and said this.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: There's no talking to the Taliban. We don't want to talk to the Taliban. We're going to finish what we have to finish, what nobody else has been able to finish. We're going to be able to do it.
SHAPIRO: So Tom, what is U.S. policy here?
BOWMAN: Well, the president is right that we're not going to be talking with the Taliban. This is going to be an Afghan-led peace effort. But what the Americans are doing is hammering the Taliban much harder. The airstrikes have doubled or tripled over the past year or so against the Taliban. More American troops are heading over. Some will go to the front lines to work with Afghan forces. And what they hope is all this pressure will force the Taliban to the negotiating table. But as we all know, this has been going on now 17 years with no end in sight.
SHAPIRO: And why are we seeing such an increase in the number of attacks just now?
BOWMAN: You know, I think a couple of reasons. Again, the Taliban has been hit hard by those airstrikes and so forth. So a good way for any guerrilla group to hit back is you go after what's called soft targets - schools, hospitals, mosques and the like. And there's another reason I think, too, that the president, President Trump, remember, withheld $2 billion in military aid from Pakistan. And the Taliban enjoy safe havens in Pakistan and sometimes working with Pakistani intelligence. The bottom line is this could be payback.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman. Thanks a lot.
BOWMAN: You're welcome, Ari.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
A second candidate has finally entered the presidential race in Egypt. But he probably isn't going to be a huge challenge to the incumbent President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi. And he might not even want to be. That's because this new candidate is actually a supporter of el-Sisi. Voting is at the end of March. And to talk about the race, we're joined by NPR's Jane Arraf from Cairo. Hello.
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So who is this person who's decided to challenge the Egyptian president?
ARRAF: Well, that's the question a lot of people, including Egyptians, are asking because Moussa Mostafa Moussa is fairly low-profile. He's the head of a political party called al-Ghad. And he's an engineer. And he just really turned up today - today being the deadline for registering as a candidate. It's a liberal-secular party, but it doesn't have any members of Parliament. So hours before the deadline closed, he submitted his papers but seems to have forgotten that on his Facebook page, he was still endorsing President Sisi for president. That has now come down.
MCEVERS: So, you know, you said today was the deadline. Why didn't anyone else run?
ARRAF: It wasn't exactly lack of interest. It wasn't easy to run to begin with. You needed either 25,000 signatures from voters in 10 provinces or 20 members of Parliament to back you. And almost the entire Parliament had endorsed Sisi. So when they did declare, things kept happening to them. There was a former military chief of staff who was arrested. There was another politician who returned from the United Arab Emirates, said he was detained on arrival. He withdrew.
Another potential rival said that his workers were threatened and harassed and one by one, they all fell away. So there wasn't a whole lot of competition here. And it isn't clear that Mr. Moussa is going to be much competition either.
MCEVERS: Right. So does that all mean that Sisi is basically assured a win here?
ARRAF: He is pretty much assured of a win. He got almost a million signatures endorsing him. And it isn't really an election in the sense that we think of it. I mean, the president is elected, but he controls the military, security services. The country is under martial law. Now, he does have his supporters. There are people who think he's exactly what Egypt needs right now. But there are a lot of people - people I talked to in the street - who say they're just not interested or they're not going to go to vote. They've got other things to worry about.
And they've seen what happens when you go out, you raise your voice. Bad things happen to people. And that could limit the participation in the election.
MCEVERS: I think people hearing this would think, you know, what happened to the Arab Spring of seven years ago when all of these kinds of practices were supposed to go away? What's happened to that?
ARRAF: So the short answer is that people here will tell you - a lot of people will tell you that the revolution was hijacked. And hijacked by whom really depends on whom you ask. But certainly what's clear is that initial promise of dignity, quality, human rights, prosperity hasn't been borne out. And the country has remained quite firmly in the grip of the military, even though it does have an elected president. And for a lot of people, those days of Arab Spring and toppling dictators and the thought of change, that's just kind of a bittersweet dream.
MCEVERS: NPR's Jane Arraf in Cairo, thank you.
ARRAF: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
There are few people in Las Vegas more powerful than the billionaire casino mogul and Republican donor Steve Wynn. His power diminished over the weekend as the Republican National Committee announced that he's no longer the finance chair. This was after The Wall Street Journal revealed what it called a pattern of sexual misconduct dating back decades. Wynn has denied that he ever forced employees to perform sexual acts.
Rick Velotta is covering this for the Las Vegas Review-Journal and joins us now. Welcome to the program.
RICK VELOTTA: Thanks for having me on.
SHAPIRO: How much has this shaken the Wynn business empire?
VELOTTA: As far as the Wynn business empire, I think that the biggest thing that we've seen that - it's pretty empirical is that the fact that the stocks just take a big dive on Friday. That's like a $2 billion market cap hit that they took. As far as operations are concerned, though, I think there's more people who are just a little bit worried about what's going to happen next. And certainly there is a pathway toward that because there are numerous investigations that are in the works.
SHAPIRO: And then there are also the political implications. Let's start with the national level. He's no longer finance chair of the RNC, and many Republicans are under pressure to return his campaign donations.
VELOTTA: That's true. And that even goes to one of our local election campaigns here involving Senator Dean Heller. So it's one of those things that not only is it going to impact our own political landscape and - but that one's a pretty high-profile race. And certainly the candidate on the Democratic side, Jacky Rosen, is putting the pressure on him to turn back that money.
SHAPIRO: We should note that your newspaper is owned by a different casino magnate, Sheldon Adelson. How important is Steve Wynn in the world that you report on? Is this the equivalent of Harvey Weinstein in Hollywood?
VELOTTA: By all means it is because Steve Wynn kind of personifies the new Las Vegas. Our history has been one of transformation over the years. And the first transformation that - of any major significance was the opening of The Mirage back in 1989. That's a casino property that has a volcano on site that erupts every 15 minutes. It's a big attraction on the Strip. It was when it opened. It still is. And then, of course, he built Wynn Las Vegas and Encore. These are properties that bears his name. And that empire goes - it extends into Massachusetts, where he's building at Boston Harbor, and in Macau, the largest gaming market in the world.
SHAPIRO: Sounds like we are at the beginning, not the end of this story, and there's likely going to be more to come.
VELOTTA: I think you're right on that because the fact that there are some investigations that have been promised. The board of directors for Wynn Resorts Limited has put together a three-member committee. They'll have independent counsel that will be guiding them. And then there are the regulatory side. The Massachusetts Gaming Commission has indicated they're going to be doing an investigation. And while the Nevada Gaming Control Board has not said that they're going to be doing an investigation, it's my guess that that could turn into some kind of investigation down the road. But it hasn't been affirmed yet.
SHAPIRO: Wynn Resorts put out a statement saying that it offers an anonymous hotline and, quote, "not one complaint was made to that hotline regarding Mr. Wynn." Sounds like they're standing by their corporate leader.
VELOTTA: Yes, that's true. There was a statement also made by the president of Wynn Las Vegas over the weekend as well that indicated that they are standing by him. They view this as a part of a nasty divorce settlement situation between him and his ex-wife, Elaine Wynn. Of course, Mrs. Wynn has said that she's had nothing to do with any of this. So they're all standing by their stories right now. And I think once some of these investigations happen then we'll maybe know a little bit more about who's right on this.
SHAPIRO: That's Rick Velotta of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Thank you for joining us.
VELOTTA: Thanks for having me.
(SOUNDBITE OF GOT BEATS' "LET ME RIDE (MADE FAMOUS BY DR. DRE)")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Now we remember a man who spent a lifetime bringing the ski slopes to the big screen.
(SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "SKI COUNTRY")
WARREN MILLER: We're going on a six-month round-the-world ski trip, and I'm going to be your guide. I'm Warren Miller, and you better hang on tight 'cause here we go.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Warren Miller, a pioneer of outdoor adventure films, died last week at 93. He released his first film in 1950 and kept making them every year. Now, decades later, people watch his films at ski resorts around the country.
KURT MILLER: Think about it - an annual feature film every year for 65 years. He built something that could not be replicated today.
SHAPIRO: That's Miller's son, Kurt, who worked with his father for years. When Miller began filming in the late-1940s, he lived with a friend in a trailer in the parking lot of Idaho's Sun Valley ski resort. They bribed chairlift operators with beer and made tomato soup from hot water and ketchup. They shot rabbits for dinner.
K. MILLER: Not only did he do that in Sun Valley. He traveled throughout the West in a very small trailer towed by a very old car.
MCEVERS: A 1937 Buick, to be precise. Miller's early films were similarly makeshift productions. He couldn't record sound onto the film, so he would rent an auditorium, play the movie and narrate the entire thing live.
K. MILLER: He had his book of a hundred pages of narration that he would do every night with a little light off to the side of the stage.
SHAPIRO: Miller's films became more popular as the ski industry itself kept growing bigger. He featured extreme and dangerous stunts and also showed a whimsical and goofy side of ski culture. One recurring crowd favorite showed people awkwardly falling off chairlifts and rope tows.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
W. MILLER: A rope tow's most important feature is to make you look like a fool. The chairlift is an improvement to make you look like an absolute fool.
MCEVERS: Kurt says after decades on the slopes, his father's philosophy was simple.
K. MILLER: Spend more time with your family and friends doing something fun outdoors. That's the key to what my dad stood for and everything he did in his life.
SHAPIRO: That's Kurt Miller, son of Warren Miller. The outdoor adventure filmmaker died last week at the age of 93.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Finland has tried it. Kenya has tried it. Now the city of Stockton, Calif. is going to try it. A few dozen families will get a check, $500 a month, no strings attached. The fact that this money does not come with any requirements makes it different from a traditional welfare program. Stockton is calling it a guaranteed basic income. The city expects to hand out the first checks later this year. Michael Tubbs is the mayor of Stockton. Welcome to the program.
MICHAEL TUBBS: Thanks so much for having me.
SHAPIRO: How is this going to work exactly?
TUBBS: So from now until June, we'll do a community engagement process to come up with the selection criterion for the families who will be selected. Those families will receive $500 a month for the next year to 18 months with the idea to really elevate the story of working-class people everywhere. People are working very hard and struggling and unable to make basic ends meet. So we were able to get a grant of $1 million from the Economic Security Project to really test this idea.
SHAPIRO: So this is not going to cost taxpayers anything? It's being paid for by a grant.
TUBBS: It doesn't cost tax payers anything. It's paid from $1.2 million in philanthropic funding. So the idea is that in the next couple of years, we'll have some data that will tell us whether this is a solution that is viable or not.
SHAPIRO: One principle of capitalism is that if you work hard, you'll get ahead. And you can argue whether or not that that's true. But the idea is that it gives people incentive to go to a job every day and earn money, even though it may be an unpleasant experience. This program and the idea of a guaranteed basic income seemed to guarantee that people will get money whether or not they earn it. Does that undermine the incentive for people to have a job and be productive members of society?
TUBBS: I would disagree. But I also think as a human being, there are some things that you don't earn. Some things are rights. And I do think that people deserve a basic economic floor so the bottom doesn't fall out under them. People working 14-hour days, working incredibly hard and being rewarded with wages that haven't kept up with the cost of inflation over the past two generations, that's problematic for me as well. So I definitely believe in the work ethic of working. And I don't think $500 a month, according to the research and evidence from other trials done over the past three decades, will make it so that people won't work.
In fact, I think will make people work better and smarter and harder and also be able to do things like spend time with their families 'cause we're not robots. We're not just designed just to work all day and run a rat race. We're designed to be in community, to volunteer, to vote, to raise our kids. And I think the more inputs and investments we can give in people to do those things, the better off we are as a community.
SHAPIRO: Stockton declared bankruptcy five years ago. Right now this city of more than 100,000 people has 1 in 4 people living below the poverty line. By any measure, this is a place that is struggling. Do you imagine that a handout like this could turn those trends around?
TUBBS: Again, I would push back a little bit on the characterization as a handout. (Laughter) I would say a hand up or an opportunity. And I would say I think this in concert with many of the other things we're doing will. So just two weeks ago, I announced a $20 million scholarship fund so that every kid who graduates from our larger school district, they get a guaranteed scholarship for four years. We're doing a strategy called Advance Peace to advance our public safety. We have a skills gap report coming out with the University of the Pacific to figure out how do you link people to the jobs that will exist and with the skills to do those jobs.
So the statistics you mentioned are definitely harrowing and mandate that we be bold and creative 'cause the status quo was failing and it doesn't work for anybody.
SHAPIRO: What's the end game here? If this is successful, do you imagine a scenario years from now where everyone who lives in Stockton gets this monthly check or where nobody needs it anymore, you graduate out of it? How does that work eventually?
TUBBS: Well, I think the idea is like in Alaska. So Alaska has this permanent dividend fund that's been around for a generation where just for being an Alaskan citizen, as being part of that social contract, you're given a check every year. And I think for something like this to work on a city level, it has to be a state or national policy. But again, before we can even call for that, we need to see if it works and we need to try it. And if it doesn't work, there's a conversation about, OK, well, why didn't it work and how can this apply to the next solution we need to implement?
SHAPIRO: Mayor Michael Tubbs of Stockton, Calif., thank you for joining us.
TUBBS: Thank you so much for having me.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
It's been snowy and cold this winter in parts of the country that don't usually see snow - the Gulf Coast, the Southeast. But here in the West, snowfall is at a record low. That is a problem for ski resorts and a longer-term worry for water managers. Grace Hood from Colorado Public Radio reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF SNOW CANNON)
GRACE HOOD, BYLINE: Machines whip up air and water, misting out snow on the slopes above Keystone's River Run Village. This year, snow making is a necessity for many resorts.
DAMON MILLER: Ski runs have exposed rocks and trees.
HOOD: Denver resident Damon Miller has skied for decades. He usually gets his first run in before Christmas - not this season. His first outing came mid-January.
MILLER: And even when you look around at the mountains and the trees around here, it's obviously low coverage compared to what it normally is. So yeah, it's pretty apparent.
HOOD: Vail Resorts, which owns Keystone, reported an 11 percent drop in visits across its North America sites. Snowfall totals at the end of 2017 at some New Mexico, Colorado and Utah ski areas were the lowest in more than 30 years. And there are other worries for weather watchers.
RUSS SCHUMACHER: We've remained quite a bit warmer than average, even for January.
HOOD: Russ Schumacher is the Colorado state climatologist. The state recorded the third warmest year on record in 2017.
SCHUMACHER: Where we have seen some significant snowstorms, it still remained relatively warm.
HOOD: States like New Mexico and Utah have also seen warm starts to winter. Hot weather and low snowpack are a historically bad combination that worries water managers across the West. Jeff Lukas is with the Western Water Assessment, which tracks weather and water supply.
JEFF LUKAS: Your senses are triggered, but you don't push the alarm bell yet.
HOOD: Lukas is watching not just snowpack levels but the water in that snowpack. For him, snow is like a bank account for the arid West. Every year, water managers capture melting snow. They store it in reservoirs. But when snow starts running off early or evaporates in warm weather or there's not enough of it, it's a huge problem.
LUKAS: It's unlikely that we'll get back up to average over the next three to four months and end up with a peak snowpack that's near normal. So basically all of our potential futures are below average, and the question is, how far below?
HOOD: What happens in Colorado is of great interest to 19 other states. Many of the states west of Colorado drink and farm with water that starts as snowpack in the Rockies. Ashley Nielson is with the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center. For 2018, one predictor of water levels is showing a well-below-average year. Nielson says the ranking could improve, but it's prompting questions.
ASHLEY NIELSON: It seems like people are just more - they're more interested in the day-to-day changes earlier on this year than maybe in an average year.
HOOD: In the past few months, the drought has deepened across the interior west states of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona.
(SOUNDBITE OF SKIER PASSING)
HOOD: At Keystone, skier Damon Miller squints into the late afternoon sun. He's got a bit of parting advice for others who haven't yet gone out this season. Don't go off the trails.
MILLER: I'm going to have to get my skis tuned tomorrow (laughter).
HOOD: Wait. Wait a minute. What?
MILLER: You hit a few rocks and bare spots, so it's tough going up there.
HOOD: Keystone saw some snow in mid-January from a storm that moved across the West, but water managers say a whole lot more is needed to end the drought. For NPR News, I'm Grace Hood in Keystone, Colo.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Last night at the Grammys, a few musicians won big - Bruno Mars, Kendrick Lamar and Chris Stapleton.
(SOUNDBITE OF 60TH ANNUAL GRAMMY AWARDS)
CHRIS STAPLETON AND EMMYLOU HARRIS: (Singing) You belong among the wildflowers. You belong in a boat out at sea.
SHAPIRO: That's him in a duet with Emmylou Harris honoring the late Tom Petty last night. Stapleton won best country song, best country solo performance and best country album for "From A Room: Volume 1."
(SOUNDBITE OF 60TH ANNUAL GRAMMY AWARDS)
CHRIS STAPLETON: Thank you. It's a wonderful room to be in, all these people tonight. And we're so proud of - we always try to make great records as good as we can, and I guess this is a testament to that. So thank you to everybody that worked so hard for us and out on the road. And it's a real joy to get to make music.
SHAPIRO: I spoke with Chris Stapleton in November when he released "From A Room: Volume 2." He has spent most of his career writing songs for other artists, and these two solo albums include a lot of tracks from his back catalog of hundreds of songs. So I started by asking him whether writing music comes easily.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
STAPLETON: To me, if I'm not done with something in two or three hours, I'm probably not going to work too hard on it because I don't think it should be that hard. If an idea and a song's really good, I think they will kind of write themselves. And the path is pretty clear.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHRIS STAPLETON SONG, "A SIMPLE SONG")
STAPLETON: You know, there's a song called "A Simple Song" on here that really just came out of a conversation. I actually wrote it with my father-in-law. That song's basically a trading off of different life experiences or things that were going on at the time.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A SIMPLE SONG")
CHRIS STAPLETON AND MORGANE STAPLETON: (Singing) Trying to quit these cigarettes - I can't seem to kick them yet.
SHAPIRO: Which one of you is trying to quit smoking?
STAPLETON: He quit smoking years ago, but he claims to still dream about them.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "A SIMPLE SONG")
C. STAPLETON AND M. STAPLETON: (Singing) But I love my life. Man, it's something to see. It's kids and the dogs and you and me. It's the way it's all right. When everything goes wrong, it's the sound of a slow, simple song.
SHAPIRO: Some of the tracks on this album are songs that you wrote years ago. Was there anything that you pulled back out of the archives and heard in a different way than when you first wrote them?
STAPLETON: I think anything you pull back out of the archives you're going to hear in a different way than the day you write it. I mean, it's real easy to write a song in a day and think that you knocked it out of the park. It's a whole different thing to sit down a decade later and listen to that song that you wrote on that day objectively. I prefer the ones that have been around for 10 years. And I can still listen to them and go, I still like to sing this; I still like to hear this. And I think if it passes that litmus test, then I think it's pretty safe to say the song's at least OK.
SHAPIRO: Give us an example from the CD.
STAPLETON: I'll give you an example. I - "Midnight Train To Memphis" on this record - I like that song so much I've recorded it twice. I...
(LAUGHTER)
STAPLETON: I recorded it once with The SteelDrivers and...
SHAPIRO: The SteelDrivers was your old band.
STAPLETON: It was an old bluegrass band I used to be in.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO MEMPHIS")
THE STEELDRIVERS: (Singing) Well, judge looked down, gave me 40 days instead of the fine that I could not pay.
STAPLETON: We recorded that song in that band. But I've always continued to play that song even when I'm not in that band. And so it got time to, you know, be recording again. I was like, listen; I still play this song every night. We should record it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO MEMPHIS")
THE STEELDRIVERS: (Singing) Forty days of shotguns and barbed-wire fences.
SHAPIRO: About a decade later, you've now rerecorded it. Let's listen to how you did this differently.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO MEMPHIS")
STAPLETON: (Singing) Forty nights to sit and listen to the midnight train to Memphis.
SHAPIRO: How would you describe the difference between those two versions?
STAPLETON: You know, one's got a banjo on it, and the other one's got a little Bo Diddley, drums underneath it.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
STAPLETON: You know, so it's still the same song at its core. It's just a song I've always loved. And I love to play it live. It always goes over live. And it was originally written more in my head like we're doing it now than what we did back with The SteelDrivers. But Richard Bailey's a master of being able to play a banjo on anything. (Laughter) So he was able to take that song and turn it into what it was with The SteelDrivers.
SHAPIRO: Another key part of your musical process, your life, your touring is your wife, Morgane Stapleton. And Rolling Stone called you the greatest unsung duo in modern country. I'm not sure if unsung is still accurate. But tell us about her role on this album.
STAPLETON: Well, she's always instrumental in everything that we do. And she's the person that puts together the master list of songs because she probably knows my catalog better than anybody on the planet, better than I do.
SHAPIRO: She sings harmonies on a lot of these tracks.
STAPLETON: Yeah, no, she's always singing harmony. She's playing tambourine on the bulk of the percussion that you hear on here. That's her.
SHAPIRO: Let's listen to one of the tracks where Morgane's harmonies come across really beautifully.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MILLIONAIRE")
C. STAPLETON AND M. STAPLETON: (Singing) They say love is more precious than gold. It can't be bought, and it can't be sold. I got love enough to spare. That makes me a millionaire.
SHAPIRO: And this is actually a cover - right? - by Kevin Welch.
STAPLETON: It is. It's - yeah, it's - it's one of my favorite Kevin Welch songs. And I've sung this song to myself in a room so many times that I always knew I would probably somewhere down the line be playing it in front of people. Hopefully you can hear how much I love it.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "MILLIONAIRE")
C. STAPLETON AND M. STAPLETON: (Singing) She's my treasure, so very rare. She's made me a millionaire.
SHAPIRO: Your music is a brand of country that we haven't heard much on country music stations for a while. Generally the radio is more pop than honky-tonk. Some people call it bro country. So why do you think your style is connecting with audiences right now?
STAPLETON: You know, I can't really speak to why (laughter) people like what we do. Hopefully they know that it's - what we do is authentically us, and that goes over no matter what kind of music you play in. Or you know, people will kind of hear that and connect with that in ways that they wouldn't if you were trying to be something that you think might be popular, you know? I think that's always a mistake in music, maybe even in life. Do something 'cause it's in your heart, and do something 'cause it's what you're supposed to be doing.
SHAPIRO: You've written for so many different musicians, not only country music artists - Adele and other pop stars. To you, was it always a given that you would make country music?
STAPLETON: Well, I - you know, I've been in bluegrass bands. I've been in rock bands. And I've always been a touring musician in one capacity or another. And I am from the country. I'm from east Kentucky. I'm - I am country. I - you can't take that out of me. So if you want to say that that makes it - what I do country music, then absolutely.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HARD LIVIN'")
C. STAPLETON AND M. STAPLETON: (Singing) Never thought it would happen to me. But this hard living ain't as easy as it used to be. I looked a...
SHAPIRO: Chris Stapleton - the new album is called "From A Room: Volume 2." It's been great talking to you. Thanks so much.
STAPLETON: Yes, sir. Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "HARD LIVIN'")
STAPLETON: (Singing) No, I could never walk the line.
C. STAPLETON AND M. STAPLETON: (Singing) Never thought it would happen to me. But this hard living ain't easy as it used to be.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The House Intelligence Committee has voted to release a controversial memo that alleges the FBI abused surveillance powers to target the Trump campaign. The vote was on strict party lines. NPR justice reporter Ryan Lucas has been following the story and is here to tell us more. Hey, Ryan.
RYAN LUCAS, BYLINE: Hi there.
SHAPIRO: First remind us what this memo's all about.
LUCAS: Well, it's a memo that was prepared by the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee - that's Devin Nunes - and his staff. It's important to remember that Nunes is an ally of President Trump. The memo itself is still classified of course, so we don't know what exactly it says. But in general terms, we know that it basically alleges that the FBI and Justice Department abused surveillance tool - a surveillance tool known as FISA to target the Trump campaign. It also reportedly alleges that the FBI leaned on the infamous Trump-Russia dossier to get court approval for this surveillance.
Now, Democrats say that this is all basically a set of Republican talking points. They call it willfully misleading. They also say that it's an attempt to distract from special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation and to undermine Mueller's probe. Now, the DOJ itself has appealed for this memo not to be released. It said doing so would be extraordinarily reckless. It says it could hurt national security. So this has become really a very contested issue.
SHAPIRO: So the Justice Department says, don't do this; it will hurt national security. Why did Republicans decide to do it anyway?
LUCAS: Well, Republicans say that the abuses are galling enough that the American public needs to know so that it can't happen again. Democrats, on the other hand, will say that this is all part of a broader effort by the president's allies to undermine the Mueller investigation. And on that partisan line, Democrats say today that they asked for the FBI and Justice Department to come brief House lawmakers about the material and provide contacts before the memo is released. They say that Republicans rejected that option.
Democrats also say that Republicans voted against releasing a 10-page memo that Democrats had prepared to rebut the Republican document. That may come out later. That's still to be determined. But for now, it's the Republican memo that's been cleared by the committee for release. It will now go to the president, who has five days to raise objections about its release. So far, however, the White House has said, you know, they're in favor of this memo going forward.
SHAPIRO: And there was another major announcement coming out of the FBI today. The deputy director, Andrew McCabe, stepped down today. Tell us about that story.
LUCAS: Well, McCabe is a longtime FBI guy, worked for more than 20 years, spent some time working on mob cases in New York, then moved over to counterterrorism, rose up through the ranks and was named deputy director - so the No. 2 official - in January of 2016. It's a very big job. You're involved in pretty much everything that the FBI does. And he oversaw domestic and international investigations, which of course put him in the middle of two really big cases here. That would be the Clinton email server and the Trump Russia probe.
And it's his role overseeing those investigations that has made him really a central figure in the ongoing political battles. He's been a favorite target of criticism for the president and his allies, who say that anti-Trump political bias at the FBI and, by extension, on special counsel Robert Mueller's team - that McCabe is kind of part and parcel of that.
SHAPIRO: Do you think McCabe's exit is going to quiet any of the criticism of the FBI?
LUCAS: I don't think there's really any chance of that, no. Because this is so intertwined with the Russia probe by special counsel Robert Mueller, until that investigation ends, I don't think the criticism of the FBI will. And going after McCabe was part of the Republicans' allegations of political bias but certainly not the only part, you know? They pointed to anti-Trump text messages between senior FBI officials. They pointed to political donations on Mueller's team. And some Republicans of course are pointing at the newest memo that we talked about earlier.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Ryan Lucas. Thanks very much.
LUCAS: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Liberal activists are asking the Federal Election Commission to look into a connection between Russia and the National Rifle Association. This month, McClatchy reported that the FBI is investigating whether a Russian banker linked to the Kremlin illegally funneled money to the NRA to help the Trump presidential campaign.
NPR political reporter Tim Mak is following the story for us. Hi, Tim.
TIM MAK, BYLINE: Hey there.
SHAPIRO: Explain the connection between Russia and the National Rifle Association.
MAK: OK, so myself and other reporters have been reporting for well over a year about ties between the NRA and Russia. And that largely centers around a man named Alexander Torshin. He's a Russian central banker. He's got ties with the Kremlin. He's a lifetime member of the NRA. And he led a delegation of senior NRA leaders to Moscow in 2015. Now, he repeatedly made multiple attempts to set up a meeting with Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign. And he didn't accomplish this, but he did meet with Donald Trump Jr. during the NRA convention in 2016.
The latest revelation comes with a McClatchy report which NPR has not independently verified. But the report says that the FBI is investigating whether Russians used the NRA as a vehicle to aid Trump during the election.
SHAPIRO: How involved was the NRA in the 2016 election?
MAK: It was certainly more involved in 2016 than it has been in previous years. For example, it spent more than $30 million to support Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential race. Now, this is close to triple what they spent supporting Mitt Romney back in 2012.
SHAPIRO: And if there was a crime committed here, what would the crime have been?
MAK: So it's illegal for foreigners to actively participate in the American political process, whether that's through voting or through contributing money. So if Russians used the NRA as a vehicle to influence the American elections, that would be illegal.
SHAPIRO: Now, tell us about this latest complaint, today's filing with the Federal Election Commission.
MAK: So the FEC filing is a complaint by a liberal group led by a former spokesman for the Democratic National Committee. And they're basically saying based on this McClatchy report that the FBI is investigating the FEC should also open an investigation because they are concerned with campaign finance. They should investigate whether or not such illegal activities occurred.
SHAPIRO: What does the NRA say about all of this?
MAK: So it's said that so far it's not gotten any contact with the FBI. And it is worth noting that right now it's largely liberal groups that are seizing upon this moment. They're particularly interested in the fact that there are two villains in one prospective scandal, that there are anti-Trump groups, there are anti-NRA groups kind of banding together to try to draw attention to what could be a very interesting problem for the NRA.
SHAPIRO: This is one small slice of a much larger conversation about Russian involvement in the 2016 campaign. How does this fit into the bigger picture?
MAK: So Russian intervention in American politics, it's taken many forms, whether it's social media bots that are kind of confusing the process and spreading disinformation - and then there are reported efforts about Russians trying to connect with Trump's inner circle and getting involved with the campaign. So this avenue, this NRA-Russia avenue, could be a way in which the Russians sought to influence the process even though no public evidence has yet emerged that this was used. Now, Congressman Adam Schiff, he's the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee. He says it's an avenue that the investigation on the House intelligence committee has taken, but that Republicans aren't particularly eager to pursue it right now.
SHAPIRO: Is there anything likely to come of this latest complaint to the FEC?
MAK: So there's some reason for skepticism that the FEC would take any quick action. It's currently politically deadlocked. And even if it does move to investigate this promptly the matter itself, the process, could take years to actually occur. So in the meantime it's become kind of a vehicle for the left to draw attention to this matter.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR's Tim Mak. Thanks so much.
MAK: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The U.S. works hard to keep the locations of sensitive military outposts secret. And over the weekend, military analysts noticed that maps created with data from a fitness tracking app outlined these bases in precise detail. The company Strava posted what it called a global heat map of where its users exercise all over the world. And in a place like Syria or Djibouti, the people who count their steps every day tend to be Westerners.
Paul Scharre is with the Center for a New American Security, and he's also worked at the Defense Department and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Welcome.
PAUL SCHARRE: Thanks for having me.
SHAPIRO: Since we're on the radio, can you just start by describing what one of these maps looks like?
SCHARRE: Well, from a distance, you might - if you looked over, for example, Syria, you might just see darkness. And as you begin to zoom in, you can start to see little pinpricks of light. As you go in closer and closer, you'll see a colorful loop, red and orange kind of colors mapping out patterns of where people have been jogging. And people have, you know, looked at those and been able to piece together, wow, this looks like maybe this could be a military base.
And in some cases, people have then been able to use these pinpricks of light to zoom into these parts of maps and actually identify, using photos from Google Earth or some other means, actual military installations and hardware.
SHAPIRO: And it's not just running routes. If somebody is tracking their steps all day long, it shows how they get to and from work, where they go after work, all that.
SCHARRE: Yeah, so even more troubling from the military standpoint, you know, the locations of bases are probably known to others in the area. It's hard to hide a military base. But these maps also capture things like in some cases, patrol routes or patterns of activity of people inside bases, which could be much more sensitive information.
SHAPIRO: I could imagine people listening saying, who would be stupid enough to let a tracker follow them on their patrol route if it's supposed to be sensitive information?
SCHARRE: Yeah, probably no one intentionally. I mean, I think we've all had these experiences of working with technology and you find out that your data's being used in some way or you're sharing via your phone some information that you didn't realize you were. It's tracking your location. I mean, I would imagine that most of us would be shocked by how many apps are tracking your location and sharing that information somewhere.
SHAPIRO: If you were, for example, an aid worker in South Sudan and you saw your whole daily routine mapped out over the weekend, how worried would you be?
SCHARRE: Certainly if I was someone like an aid worker in a hostile place, I'd be very concerned because those are groups that are, you know, potentially subject to kidnapping by terrorist groups or criminals who might want to ransom them and don't have the same kind of protections that military service members would have.
SHAPIRO: So what would you do if you found yourself in that situation?
SCHARRE: I mean, the biggest problem is right now it doesn't appear that there's a way to go back in time. So you could disable the sharing on your app, but that doesn't change the fact that the data is already out there. Now...
SHAPIRO: You can't move every U.S. military base 50 miles in one direction or another.
SCHARRE: Yeah. So it would be great if this company would work with users to allow a retroactive deletion of data. It's not clear how technically, you know, difficult that would be. But that would be something that they might be able to do if they were serious about protecting user privacy. But also, you know, for a lot of groups in military and otherwise, they're going to have to think about ways to, you know, change their routes, change their patterns of activity and maybe even change their locations.
SHAPIRO: I understand today the U.S. military said they're planning on doing something about this. What can they actually do?
SCHARRE: I mean, in the near term, you can put in rules that say, OK, listen everybody, you've got to disable these kind of features. More broadly, the military will take a harder look at geolocation data in general and how it's shared. But this is, I think, a broader problem of transparency that's more than simply one-off kinds of issues.
SHAPIRO: So if I run the Clandestine Service of the CIA and I have who knows how many agents out in the field, I mean, has a vast number of them all just suddenly been compromised?
SCHARRE: I would imagine that's something that they're looking into right now.
SHAPIRO: And how scared should they be about that?
SCHARRE: I think it's too early to tell. It's not clear how - what the consequences are. The locations of the bases themselves may not be as serious as certainly things that might identify individuals.
SHAPIRO: Paul Scharre directs the Technology and National Security program at the Center for a New American Security. Thanks a lot.
SCHARRE: Thanks.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The first year of the Trump administration has been tough for many federal workers. Many agencies froze hiring. And last week's government shutdown got people wondering, at least briefly, when their next paycheck would arrive. That's why, ahead of President Trump's State of the Union address, some federal employees are dreading the possible announcement of a plan to reorganize the government. NPR's Brian Naylor reports.
BRIAN NAYLOR, BYLINE: For nearly 40 years, J. David Cox has worked in and around the federal government. And right now, he says...
J DAVID COX: Federal employee morale is the lowest that I have ever seen it.
NAYLOR: Cox is president of the largest federal workers' union, the American Federation of Government Employees. He says agencies are short-staffed. The border patrol, he says, is down 2,000 employees - the VA, nearly 50,000 short. Now with the president expected to call for a sweeping reorganization of the federal government in the coming weeks, along with a possible pay freeze, Cox says workers are worried.
COX: We are concerned. We are concerned because reorganizations means let's figure out a way to cut and do more with less or to do away with services that the American people want.
NAYLOR: Federal workers provide services most people would consider essential - processing Social Security and veterans' benefits, protecting the border, directing air traffic and administering grants. The federal civilian workforce is roughly the same size it was during the Reagan administration - a little over 2 million. But it's serving a population that's grown by nearly 100 million people. At some agencies, that means an overwhelming workload. At the VA, recent legislation aimed at speeding up claims processing means workers like Keena Smith, who works at the VA benefits processing office in St. Louis, are feeling the strain.
KEENA SMITH: I'm happy to go to work because I love what I do. But the pressure that's put on us makes it stressful because we've become a production environment. It's all about the numbers.
NAYLOR: And it's not just rank-and-file employees feeling the crunch. Agencies are also missing some key upper-level political appointees. Trump has yet to formally nominate someone to head the Internal Revenue Service, heading into tax season, or the Census Bureau. There is no ambassador yet to South Korea or director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Max Stier, president of the nonpartisan Partnership for Public Service, says more than 200 senior positions remain unfilled one year into the president's term. Stier says imagine it's a football game.
MAX STIER: We're into the second quarter. And, you know, there are large parts of the offensive line and the rest of the team not there on the field.
NAYLOR: Trump has questioned the need for many of the vacant federal jobs and, referring to foreign policy openings, declared he is the only one that matters. Early last year, Trump signed an executive action freezing the number of federal employees for the first three months of his administration and may be considering including a longer-term freeze. But Stier says freezes eliminate flexibility. Take government IT workers.
STIER: There are five times as many IT workers in the federal government over the age of 60 as under the age of 30. That's not what you want to freeze in place. We need to be hiring, you know, cutting-edge, young IT workers. You don't freeze your IT workforce to get there.
NAYLOR: Robert Shea is a former official at the White House budget office in the George W. Bush administration. He says the recent government shutdown and hiring freeze have left federal workers feeling harried, which he says is counterproductive.
ROBERT SHEA: The happier they are at their job, the better work they're going to do for the American people.
NAYLOR: Shea calls this a period of disruption. He says it's an opportunity for the Trump administration to figure out how to deliver services more efficiently and effectively. That includes, Shea says, keeping the federal workforce happy. Brian Naylor, NPR News, Washington.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
President Trump has been trying to cut budgets for foreign aid. That puts the administration's top aid official in a tough position. But on a trip to Syria and Iraq last week, the head of USAID traveled with a powerful ally - a top military commander who says it takes more than blunt force to fight groups like ISIS. NPR's Michele Kelemen went with them, and she was there as they discussed the importance of aid in national security.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: When the head of the U.S. Agency for International Development visited Raqqa, Syria, last week, Mark Green traveled with the commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, Joseph Votel. And Votel's message was clear - development experts are needed to help areas recover from ISIS.
JOSEPH VOTEL: Ultimately, it's about taking care of the people. But it's also about removing the conditions that lead to things like insurgency and lead to instability. So, you know, from a military standpoint we're very keen to make sure that the follow-through in our operations is completed as effectively as the military operations are.
KELEMEN: NPR was with Votel and Green as they visited a school that the U.S. helped reopen in Raqqa and passed water pumping stations on a drive through the city where block after block is in ruins following the fight against ISIS. They were careful not to call this nation building, saying they're just getting basic services running again. USAID administrator Green talks about a hand up rather than handouts.
MARK GREEN: I'm a tremendous believer in human dignity. And I'm one of those that believes that every human being naturally wants to be able to take things on for themselves.
KELEMEN: And that's a message he believes will resonate with Americans despite the constant criticism of foreign aid by his own boss, President Trump. Green is a former U.S. ambassador to Tanzania and a former congressman from Wisconsin.
GREEN: I'm from flyover country. I'm from Wisconsin. My in-laws farm down in the Midwest and back in Illinois. And when I talk to them about this idea of trying to help people to be able to take things on themselves, my farmer family says, yep, that's what we do.
KELEMEN: So far Green has managed this well, says Christopher Preble of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington.
CHRISTOPHER PREBLE: He is trying very hard to square the circle between President Trump's promise to his supporters that the United States would not engage in nation building - and at the same time for someone like Mark Green, who's seen this up close and witnesses it every day, understands that nation building has to be done. It has to be done by someone.
KELEMEN: Preble says in the case of Syria, the U.S. has a humanitarian responsibility having destroyed so much in the fight against ISIS. But he's worried that the Trump administration seems to be getting involved in something more open-ended, as in Iraq and Afghanistan.
PREBLE: Many Americans are understandably anxious about that. They're anxious about the open-ended nature of these conflicts and the open-ended nature of the U.S. commitment to these places.
KELEMEN: Speaking in Baghdad last week, Ambassador Green says the U.S. has learned the lessons from Iraq and Afghanistan. The small teams of USAID and State Department officials work through local partners on the basics. And while he doesn't have much one-on-one contact with President Trump about this, Green says he is working well with the generals on Trump's team.
GREEN: I think that there are few people who have a greater appreciation for what development and humanitarian assistance can do than men and women in uniform or men and women who were in uniform.
KELEMEN: Green is also relying on his former colleagues on Capitol Hill to protect his agency's budget. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, Washington.
(SOUNDBITE OF ESTA FEAT. JBIRD'S "FEATHERS")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
At tomorrow's State of the Union, President Trump is set to make his case for changing the rules around who gets to come to the United States. And a big part of that case is scaling back what the administration calls chain migration. Trump has even described it as horrible chain migration. It's a policy that allows U.S. citizens to sponsor not just their spouses and children, but also parents and adult siblings. The policy is more commonly known as family unification. And it was introduced more than 50 years ago by an immigration hard-liner, a member of Congress who wanted to keep certain immigrants out.
Here to tell us that story is NPR's Tom Gjelten, who wrote a book called "A Nation Of Nations: A Great American Immigration Story." Hey, Tom.
TOM GJELTEN, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: All right, so this story starts in 1965. Just tell us who that member of Congress was and how he was responsible for this family migration system that President Trump wants to get rid of.
GJELTEN: His name was Michael Feighan. He was a conservative Democrat from Ohio. And he was one of many conservatives at the time who thought it made sense to prioritize immigrants from Europe over immigrants from other regions of the world. And prior to 1965 that was how visas were given out, on the basis of your national origin. Now, as you can imagine, that approach was seen as racist and discriminatory. And by the 1960s, there was this sense that it really should be abolished.
President Johnson called for a switch to a merit-based system. But Feighan and others essentially thought a change like that would open the doors to too many immigrants of color, so he came up with a compromise. He suggested a new policy that would give preference to people who already had relatives here. He figured that would maintain the U.S. population the way it was at the time - largely white and European. It was actually seen - his proposal was actually seen as a naturally operating national origin system.
MCEVERS: But it didn't work out that way, right?
GJELTEN: Now, this is a story about unintended consequences.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
GJELTEN: In 1960, 7 of 8 immigrants were still coming from Europe. But that was already beginning to change. Nobody realized it, but the demand to migrate was shifting to the developing world. And this has continued. So by 2010, 9 out of 10 immigrants are coming from outside Europe.
MCEVERS: So if non-Europeans weren't well represented in the U.S. in the 1960s, how did this approach end up bringing in so many people from outside Europe?
GJELTEN: Well, it naturally took a few years. And the way it happened is that there were always other opportunities to immigrate. You know, you could come on a student visa. You could come on an employment visa. I tell the story in my book, for example, of how a Korean woman married an American serviceman, thus became - becoming a U.S. citizen. She brought over basically her extended family.
Another character in my book, a Pakistani man working for an American company, got invited to come to America. So he immigrated. Within about 30 years, he'd brought all six brothers and three sisters over here with their spouses. I actually calculated that over the period of about 30 years he was indirectly responsible for a hundred family members coming. And because the numbers were low in the beginning it took a while to develop, but eventually you had these chains. And about two-thirds of all legal immigrants to the U.S. these days are coming under this family unification system.
MCEVERS: How did it get this negative connotation?
GJELTEN: Well, partly it's just the way that President Trump uses the term chain migration. It just - it sounds bad. It just sounds pejorative when he says it. But in addition to that, it's an offensive term to African-Americans in particular. Their ancestors literally arrived in chains. That was the original chain migration.
MCEVERS: Right. And what is the argument for family unification?
GJELTEN: You know, it's just a natural way. I mean, when you come here as an immigrant you don't know your way around. You probably don't know the language. You don't know where to live. It's just natural to seek out a family member to move in with. And, you know, in reporting my book I found that about 90 percent of all the immigrants that I interviewed moved in with their families when they first came. It's just a natural way to do it.
MCEVERS: President Trump says he wants to shift to a merit-based immigration program. At the same time, the White House proposal calls for getting through the backlog of family applicants first.
GJELTEN: Right.
MCEVERS: How long could that take?
GJELTEN: Oh, it could take decades. We're talking about a change that'll take place over the course of many years. Nobody that's in line now will lose their place. So you'd have to work through that backlog before you'd see this big change with one exception, Kelly - parents of U.S. citizens now can come in without numerical limitation. There's no cap on them. There's no backlog in their case. So they would be immediately affected by this change were it to become law. And one other thing - if this were to become law you would have a lot of people who haven't yet applied for a visa and who wouldn't be able even to get in line. So you'd see an immediate outcry from that population.
MCEVERS: NPR's Tom Gjelten, thanks a lot.
GJELTEN: You bet.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The Kremlin is accusing Washington of trying to disrupt its upcoming presidential election. It says U.S. sanctions and a boycott campaign by opposition leader Alexei Navalny are part of Washington's plan. Navalny organized rallies in many Russian cities over the weekend to protest his exclusion from the March election. Even though the Kremlin says President Vladimir Putin has nothing to fear from Navalny, police arrested Navalny and his supporters anyway, as NPR's Lucian Kim reports.
LUCIAN KIM, BYLINE: Several thousand Russians marched in more than 100 cities across the country Sunday. But the Kremlin says it isn't impressed. Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the protest organizer, Alexei Navalny, is not a threat. But the authorities were forced to react to his illegal rallies - like this one in Moscow, where protesters tried to shout down police with cries of Putin is a thief.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED PROTESTERS: (Chanting in Russian).
KIM: Activists say about 370 people were arrested across Russia. Navalny was detained and bundled into a police bus as he headed to the Moscow rally. He was released later Sunday night. In an appeal to supporters over the weekend, Navalny was as biting as ever.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ALEXEI NAVALNY: (Speaking Russian).
KIM: "How many more years will you live under these thieves, bigots and perverts," he asked. Navalny is calling on Russians to boycott the March election after his own candidacy was blocked. Putin, who has already ruled Russia for 18 years, has suggested Navalny is an American stooge. Earlier this month, Putin said several candidates weren't allowed to register for the vote, but the Americans focused only on Navalny.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: (Speaking Russian).
KIM: Putin said that proved the U.S. prefers to see Navalny as Russia's next leader. The Kremlin says the U.S. is constantly trying to interfere in Russian domestic politics by supporting critical media or imposing sanctions on Russian companies and individuals. Lucian Kim, NPR News, Moscow.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
When President Trump gives his State of the Union address tonight, many people will be listening for what he says about DACA. That's the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program the Obama administration created for immigrants who came to the U.S. as young children. The Trump administration plans to end the program unless Congress steps in, which means nearly 700,000 DACA recipients don't know what their status will be. About 9,000 of these are educators and teachers. NPR's Claudio Sanchez reports.
CLAUDIO SANCHEZ, BYLINE: Maria Rocha says it's gut-wrenching not knowing whether she'll have to leave the U.S., the only home she's known. But she's trying really hard not to show it in front of her third-graders at Esperanza Elementary, a charter school in San Antonio, Texas.
MARIA ROCHA: And it's a very touchy subject to talk about with 8 and 9-year-olds. But some of them are aware of this because their families talk about it. You know, their family members are undocumented themselves. And they're very aware.
SANCHEZ: According to the Migration Policy Institute, Rocha is one of 8,800 teachers in Texas and across the country who were hired on the condition that they renew their work permits every two years, as the DACA program requires. But last September, when President Trump shut down DACA, people were not allowed to renew their work permits and thousands have since lost their protected status. Rocha says she knows of at least one fellow teacher who self-deported once she became illegal again. Everybody at the school took it really hard, says Rocha. And now that she's facing the same fate it's hard staying upbeat, especially in front of her kids.
ROCHA: I just try to compose myself every day with my students because, you know, I talk to them about their future and yet I don't know my own future.
SANCHEZ: Rocha was a toddler when she and her grandmother left Coahuila, Mexico, and entered the U.S. illegally. Rocha qualified for DACA right around the time she turned 25. Her life immediately changed.
ROCHA: I was living in the shadows, you know, because of that fear and because I didn't want to put my family - a target because, you know, they're also undocumented. And - but with DACA I was no longer afraid.
SANCHEZ: Up until her mid-20s, Rocha had been working as a housekeeper while holding down two other jobs to pay for her college education at the University of Texas, San Antonio, where she earned a teaching degree. It was a fulfillment of her childhood dream to be a teacher.
ROCHA: You know, we've done things the right way. We were told to go to school. We were told to make a career out of our future. And we're doing so. And now we're being juggled. It's very sad.
SANCHEZ: Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg of the Legal Aid and Justice Center (ph) in Virginia says if DACA dies Rocha and many people like her will be forced to recede back into the shadows.
SIMON SANDOVAL-MOSHENBERG: We're talking about huge numbers of people who have managed to build a sort of solid working-class existence, if not in some cases middle-class existence, who are going to be immediately plunged into poverty.
SANCHEZ: Some legal experts say the courts could still intervene. Teacher unions and the National School Boards Association, for example, are backing a lawsuit filed last month in New York that could prevent school districts from firing teachers when their DACA permits expire. But no matter what happens, Rocha says she survived before DACA and will survive after DACA.
ROCHA: (Speaking Spanish).
SANCHEZ: Rocha says her mother always reminds her, you've been blessed because of DACA. The question is, will lawmakers in Washington see it that way? Claudio Sanchez, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF SEA WOLF SONG, "CEDARSMOKE")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
There's another story that a lot of people here in Washington are talking about today. A new report says 1 in 3 students who graduated from Washington, D.C.'s, public schools last year did not meet the requirements for graduation. The city's mayor requested the report after NPR and member station WAMU investigated graduation rates at one D.C. high school. Our reporters found that many students there had graduated unprepared and having missed months of class. Here's WAMU's Kate McGee.
KATE MCGEE, BYLINE: More than 900 students graduated last year even though they missed too much class or were improperly placed in makeup classes.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MURIEL BOWSER: This is indeed tough news to deliver but very necessary in order that we right the ship.
MCGEE: That's D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser who broke down the report's findings. It describes a larger culture where teachers are pressured to pass students to meet extremely high graduation goals. And it places much of the blame on D.C. Public School Central Office. There were failures at every level, from communication and oversight to unclear grading and attendance policies. Since WAMU and NPR's initial report, four district employees have been removed from their positions, three school administrators and the head of secondary schools.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BOWSER: What I hope is that people are trying to do right by kids. Unfortunately, they did the wrong things. And so that is - that's what we're addressing.
MCGEE: At a monthly breakfast with the mayor and D.C. Council this morning, city lawmakers expressed dismay in the findings. Councilmember Mary Cheh says for too long, there's too much focus on improving numbers and that let students fall through the cracks.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MARY CHEH: We cannot be graduating students who are functionally illiterate and we are. And no one here can sit and tell me that we are not.
MCGEE: The mayor and D.C. Schools Chancellor Antwan Wilson, who was new to the district last year, laid out a list of solutions to address policy and compliance issues - a new grading policy, more training for teachers and principals and a review of each current senior's transcript, among others. But some teachers say those recommendations are just the first step. History teacher Scott Goldstein started a local teacher group called EmpowerEd. He says after compliance comes even tougher issues like the fact that most students in D.C. live in poverty.
SCOTT GOLDSTEIN: What we have to move onto now is what are the systemic issues that underlie the attendance and the low proficiency of our students? These aren't new challenges.
MCGEE: As the city and school system focus on solutions, Councilmember Elissa Silverman said the city's public school system has damaged its reputation.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ELISSA SILVERMAN: What is really devastating about this report is that it impacts the credibility of a DCPS diploma.
MCGEE: Teachers say they're worried about that image, too. But more than that, they're worried about their students. And we've heard that from teachers across the country. After our initial report, many reached out to us to say this is happening in districts where they are too. For NPR News, I'm Kate McGee in Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
German TV series are getting popular here in the U.S. First there was "Deutschland 83." Then there was "Dark." And now the latest is a crime series set in 1920s Berlin. It's called "Babylon Berlin," and it's out today on Netflix. Esme Nicholson reports it explores the Weimar era's raging nightlife and brutal criminal underbelly.
(SOUNDBITE OF SEVERIJA JANUSAUSKAITE SONG, "ZU ASCHE, ZU STAUB (PSYCHO NIKOROS)")
ESME NICHOLSON, BYLINE: It's 1929, and the capital of the Weimar Republic is a hedonistic city of extremes. True to the party drug of the era, you could say this series is "Cabaret" on cocaine.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "ZU ASCHE, ZU STAUB (PSYCHO NIKOROS)")
SEVERIJA JANUSAUSKAITE: (Singing in German).
NICHOLSON: The first season of "Babylon Berlin" is set a few months before the Wall Street crash, before the rise of fascism. And it depicts a city on the edge of an abyss. Co-creator Achim von Borries says a German period drama that's not about World War II or the Cold War is long overdue.
ACHIM VON BORRIES: In the '20s, it was really the capital of the world. And nobody really knows about it because, of course, the monstrosity of the Nazi period afterwards is so huge.
NICHOLSON: In the city where Albert Einstein, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill and Marlene Dietrich set the artistic and intellectual pulse, "Babylon Berlin" follows a different beat - that of Police Inspector Gereon Rath. Writer and director Tom Tykwer, best known for his 1998 film "Run Lola Run," says Weimar Berlin was as rich in crime as it was in culture.
TOM TYKWER: We had some really famous serial killers, some really ugly crimes that came from Berlin and that created a myth about the darkness and the filthiness of the city.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOHNNY KLIMEK AND TOM TYKWER'S "EINE FRAU IN BERLIN")
NICHOLSON: In the first episode, Inspector Rath and his partner Wolter arrest a former colleague who's now a heroin addict living on the streets.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "BABYLON BERLIN")
PETER KURTH: (As Bruno Wolter, speaking German).
NICHOLSON: Wolter mocks him for being a so-called trembler, a First World War veteran suffering from shell shock. Inspector Rath remain silent because he, too, suffers, but suppresses his shakes with regular doses of morphine.
ULRIKE ZITZLSPERGER: You've got lots of veterans. You've got people who've lost limbs, and thousands.
NICHOLSON: Ulrike Zitzlsperger is a Weimar Berlin specialist and professor of German studies. Sitting in a replica of a 1920s cafe, she says these men were visceral reminders of the trenches.
ZITZLSPERGER: There's a lot of talk about an emasculated society at the time. In Germany, these men are no heroes. You can't talk about the war. You want to move on. So the trauma is absolutely horrific.
NICHOLSON: In "Babylon Berlin," this damaged generation that can't sleep for PTSD finds solace in night clubs. Director Tom Tykwer says clubbing was cheap, and all walks of life met on the dance floor or in the brothel below.
TYKWER: Nightlife then was spectacular and very experimental with lots of diverse clubs for more or less any kind of taste.
NICHOLSON: Tykwer's co-creator, Henk Handloegten, says there are similarities between the nightlife of 1920s Berlin and that of today. Take the music.
HENK HANDLOEGTEN: If you take techno music and you take people from the '20s on film and they are dancing the Charleston, it matches perfectly.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOKA EFTI ORCHESTRA'S "TRESOR UNSER")
NICHOLSON: In one episode, Bryan Ferry takes to the stage to perform Roxy Music numbers for the Jazz Age, lending a bit of '70s glam.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BRYAN FERRY ORCHESTRA'S "DANCE AWAY")
NICHOLSON: It's in one of these clubs that we reach the female lead, Lotte Ritter. By day she's a typist at the police headquarters, by night a casual prostitute in the club's fetish center, where she earns extra cash to escape her squalid tenement. She's an emancipated Weimar woman now even allowed to vote, and she's the perfect foil to Inspector Rath's shattered male soul. As his unofficial sidekick, Lotte ventures with Rath into Berlin's criminal underworld. Cultural historian Ulrike Zitzlsperger.
ZITZLSPERGER: It's a perfect setting. There's a real obsession with serial killers. You get types of cannibalism. Then you get political crimes. It is a tense climate between Communists and National Socialists that's heating up. So the awareness of an underbelly is really quite strong.
NICHOLSON: "Babylon Berlin" captures the dark glamour of a briefly exhilarating time between the wars. And for today's Berliners, faced with the city's steady, sterile gentrification, the show offers a welcome dose of escapism. For NPR News, I'm Esme Nicholson in Berlin.
(SOUNDBITE OF THE BRYAN FERRY ORCHESTRA'S "DANCE AWAY")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Charles and David Koch, the conservative billionaire brothers, are finding themselves in an interesting spot in 2018. Eight years ago, they supported the Tea Party movement, which helped Republicans take control of the House in the midterm elections during President Obama's first term. Now if historical trends hold true, the Democrats could make big gains in President Trump's first midterm, which puts the Kochs on the defensive. The Koch donor network is mapping out a strategy at a meeting near Palm Springs, and NPR's Tim Mak has been there. And he's with us now. Hey, Tim.
TIM MAK, BYLINE: Hey, there.
MCEVERS: So what is the Kochs' strategy for the upcoming midterm elections?
MAK: So it all revolves around their donor network. To be part of their inner circle, you've got to donate at least $100,000 a year. And there are 700 high-dollar donors in their network. Hundreds of them, they came to this swanky hotel here in California to debate their next moves and ultimately how to protect the Republican majority. So they're planning to spend almost $400 million total on politics and policy over the course of the entire 2018 midterms. That's things like digital and TV advertisements, policy work, advocacy and public town halls on issues they care about, like immigration, criminal justice reform and reducing regulations in America.
MCEVERS: How does the money that they're planning to spend in these midterms this year compare to what they've spent in the past?
MAK: Look, it's a huge investment. They're spending 60 percent more on midterms than they did on the 2016 presidential elections. So eight years ago, they became really famous for funding a lot of these efforts that led to the Tea Party movement. But back then in 2010, they only spent $125 million. So that's the context for you. Back in 2010, they benefited from a wave election. And now that a Republican is in office, that wave is coming back and they find themselves on the opposite side of that trend.
MCEVERS: Interesting. But talk about their strategy in terms of messaging. Like, how are they going to fight this potential Democratic wave in November? What are they going to say?
MAK: So they're really hanging their hat on the tax cuts that Congress passed. So they know they're facing a really challenging midterm environment, but they want to press home that there are some benefits from the legislation that Congress put forward to the president and the president signed last year. The Koch network is going to spend $20 million selling the GOP tax cuts to voters. And that's on top of the 20 million they already spent advocating for the cuts to be passed in the first place.
The real wildcard here in the midterm, both Dems and Republicans feel this way, is how will voters react to the economy? Is it still going be strong in November? And if it is, does that mean that voters will stick with the Republicans long enough to kind of stem some of this democratic momentum, prevent Democrats from winning back the House? Here's Koch network spokesman James Davis.
JAMES DAVIS: There's a lot of demagoguery that is happening on both sides, right? And so most of Americans are now looking at the economic indicators around things like tax reform and they're seeing, you know, a lot more confidence in the economy in general.
MCEVERS: How are the donors there really feeling about this coming campaign? What are they telling you?
MAK: In conversations, they'll admit, hey, the energy really is on the left right now. And they say it is scary looking at some of the historical trends and how that usually does not benefit the incumbent president's party. A lot of them also admit that President Trump isn't very helpful and that he gives the left a lot of reasons to get excited and kind of mobilize against the Republican Party. So they're hoping that as the economy improves, they'll get credit for it. But it's a harder sell to sell legislation than it is to oppose things like they did in 2010 when they opposed Obamacare. It's just the frank reality of politics.
It's easier to criticize and oppose than it is to lobby the public on details of complicated tax legislation. So it's a real uphill battle for them.
MCEVERS: NPR's Tim Mak, thank you.
MAK: Thanks a lot.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
A bizarre and dangerous phenomenon sprung up late last year, and it's only getting worse. People, mostly teens, are challenging each other to eat the laundry detergent capsules called Tide PODS and post the videos online. It's called the Tide POD Challenge. NPR's Alina Selyukh has more.
ALINA SELYUKH, BYLINE: If you've never seen it, a Tide POD looks like a little rounded packet, white with two separate swirls of liquid, blue and orange. It's extremely concentrated laundry detergent. But these days, the design of the PODS has inspired a new trend in food. Chefs and bakers are using frosting and food coloring to replicate the Tide POD look on doughnuts, pizzas and other edible items. That's because they're cashing in on a trend of teenagers trying to eat the actual Tide PODS.
(SOUNDBITE OF MEDIA MONTAGE)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: A dangerous trend...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Kids swallowing laundry pods...
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Intentionally ingesting highly toxic...
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Highly toxic...
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: Highly toxic chemicals.
SELYUKH: It's meant to be a dare. The Internet is a petri dish of these outlandish challenges. Kids eat spoonfuls of cinnamon or try to drink a whole gallon of milk because I guess it's supposed to be impressive or somehow cool. The jokes about Tide PODS have been around for years. Satirical sites The Onion and CollegeHumor have both lampooned the candy-like appearance with a colorful swirl on top.
CHRIS LIVAUDAIS: The swirling might imply how active ingredients are and how well it can do the washing job.
SELYUKH: Chris Livaudais runs the Industrial Designers Society of America. He says the vivid colors make sense. That's what liquid detergent looks like.
LIVAUDAIS: And so all that plays into the psyche of the person shopping to see a product and believe in its value and use it.
SELYUKH: And somewhere along the way in December, teenagers thought it looked tasty enough to eat.
DAMON JONES: This is clearly a case of a joke gone too far.
SELYUKH: Damon Jones is with Procter & Gamble, the maker of Tide PODS. He says the company has faced criticism for the design in the past, but it was because of toddlers. Every year, poison control centers get at least 10,000 cases of children under the age of 5 getting hurt by laundry packets.
JONES: We've implemented child-resistant packaging. We've added bittering agents to the product to make, you know, people spit them out if they accidentally ingest them. We've made it tougher to bite into.
SELYUKH: But this is different. This is grown children knowingly choosing to bite into a packet clearly advertised as laundry detergent, which could kill you. Last year, poison control centers handled 53 cases of intentional misuse of the PODS - mostly teenagers. So far in January alone, the number has already almost tripled.
JONES: I think there's a clear distinction between accidental ingestion by someone who is making an honest mistake versus, you know, people who I would argue should know better about putting household cleaners in their mouth.
SELYUKH: And both Livaudais and Jones say it's a stretch to blame the intentional choice on design, which the company for now does not plan to change. And if you or someone you know is injured, call the poison hotline - 1-800-222-1222. Alina Selyukh, NPR News.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The White House has released excerpts of President Trump's first State of the Union address, which he'll deliver an hour from now. Many public radio stations will carry live coverage of the speech and the Democratic response, including fact checking and analysis. Now, excerpts often don't indicate exactly where a speech is going, but they do at least give a selective preview. So to run through it, we are joined now by NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith. Hi, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hi.
SHAPIRO: We've been hearing from the White House for a few days that this is going to be an optimistic and forward-looking speech. What does that mean exactly?
KEITH: Well, on the optimism front, there is going to be a lot of talk about the state of the U.S. economy. And President Trump, as he's been doing, has been really talking up the economy. And here's one excerpt on the forward-looking part and sort of the bipartisan spirit that he wants to have in this speech. Quote, "tonight I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have and what kind of nation we are going to be, all of us together as one team, one people and one American family."
SHAPIRO: One team, one people, one American family does not sound like the political year we just had in 2017.
(LAUGHTER)
KEITH: No, it does not sound like that at all. And I should just say that last February, President Trump also gave a speech to a joint address - to a joint session of Congress. It wasn't technically a State of the Union, but he talked then about unity and bipartisanship. And then, you're right. Last year was a year where Republicans and President Trump did as much as they possibly could on a policy front with Republican votes alone, including passing at the end of the year that tax bill - that very big tax bill that is going to feature prominently in tonight's speech. And that was passed with Republican votes alone.
SHAPIRO: What kinds of policies is he going to talk about tonight beyond the tax bill?
KEITH: Well, he is going to pitch both infrastructure and immigration as areas with potential for bipartisan compromise. Notably he made that same pitch last year, though he'll probably use different words this year. And we are still waiting to see any real details on the infrastructure proposal. And Democrats have been highly skeptical that they could get on board.
SHAPIRO: While there hasn't been a lot of detail on the infrastructure proposal, there's been a lot of debate over immigration. How is he going to move the ball forward on that?
KEITH: Yeah, so the clock is ticking on the DACA program because President Trump has set it to expire in early March. That's the program that gives a reprieve from deportation to people who were brought to the country as children who are now here illegally. The president is going to talk about a proposal that the administration rolled out late last week that would potentially have a path for citizenship for 1.8 million people who are eligible for that DACA program. But he also wants $25 billion of wall funding and a complete rethinking of the legal immigration system in the U.S.
SHAPIRO: Pull back the curtain a bit. How did the speech come together?
KEITH: So the president has been involved, officials say - very involved. There are a number of speechwriters and others providing input, but the president at night has apparently been taking drafts up to the residence and using his big, black marker or felt-tip pen to mark it up. And at times he's had ideas, he's called the speechwriters to dictate particular lines.
SHAPIRO: NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith on this State of the Union night, thanks for joining us.
KEITH: You're welcome.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Throughout the show, we will hear both Republicans and Democrats explain what they want to hear from the president tonight. Our next guest is Congressman Dave Schweikert. He's a Republican from Arizona. He's a member of the conservative Freedom Caucus, and he is on the Ways and Means Committee.
Welcome to the show.
DAVE SCHWEIKERT: Oh, thank you for having me.
MCEVERS: Let's start with immigration. What do you want to hear from the president tonight in terms of immigration policy?
SCHWEIKERT: I'm hoping, actually, a few sentences on the willingness to work on a framework that both deals with everything from DACA to actually a more talent-based system. As you know, we have a demographic difficulty, if not crisis, in the United States. Our birthrates have collapsed. So how do you do a combination of saying, we want an immigration system that I don't care what color you are, what gender you are; what I care about is the talents you bring to the country?
And I think that's actually a much more honest, egalitarian model than one that sort of picks, saying, because you have family members, you get certain benefits; if you happen to win a lottery, you get certain benefits; if you're of a certain population, you get certain benefits. All those sort of choose instead of something that sort of treats everyone fairly.
MCEVERS: Would that package include a pathway to citizenship for DACA recipients?
SCHWEIKERT: I think, actually, if you normalize populations, there's - always has to be some mechanisms in there, but you never, ever want to sort of create a disincentive for the folks who've followed the rules. Let's say you took DACA populations and said, hey, we're going to normalize your status, and then we're going to allow under the new, refined rule sets that you can actually pursue citizenship if that's what you choose. But here's the path everyone gets to use. So it's sort of egalitarian. Everyone gets treated same.
MCEVERS: I want to talk about infrastructure, as well. The president has, in the past, talked about a $1 trillion infrastructure program. Members of the Freedom Caucus, which you are one, have been concerned about the deficit. For instance, the tax law is to add more than $1.4 trillion to the deficit over 10 years. Does the infrastructure plan worry you on the same grounds?
SCHWEIKERT: Infrastructure should be bipartisan. Making the dollars work is Congress' obligation. Be creative. Create dozens of different revenue streams, and make it more efficient to be able to get needed projects and needed repairs out of the ground faster and more efficiently.
MCEVERS: When you talked about dozens of revenue streams, what would those be?
SCHWEIKERT: Everything from selling excess assets, certain energy leases - could you pledge that energy lease? There's lots of examples like that where if you design a mechanism where the benefits of such things go to infrastructure instead of get washed through the general fund, I think it actually makes it easier to move those projects forward.
MCEVERS: You know, both Democrats and Republicans say they want changes to immigration and infrastructure. You know, is there enough overlap here to get bills passed on these issues?
SCHWEIKERT: Oh, absolutely. This is going to be a fascinating thing for the president. Can he give an optimistic tone and move that into the ability to work on immigration, the ability to work on infrastructure and the dozens of other major policies? The hard part is, I think our political bases are so polarized that when there's a perception that a Democrat is working with me, as a more conservative Republican, they get beaten up, and that incentive of - to work with each other is now been taken away by sort of to say the radicalization of our base.
MCEVERS: The State of the Union's supposed to be this time for the president to really set his agenda and his message for the year ahead. President Trump, we have seen, you know, will seem to support one position in conversations with lawmakers and then later criticize that position on Twitter and put forward another one. Does that make your job more difficult?
SCHWEIKERT: In some ways, it does. A twitter post can never capture the complications in complex public policy. It can spark a conversation, but it becomes fairly hollow when you realize many of the things we have to do are complex.
MCEVERS: Congressman Dave Schweikert, Republican of Arizona, thank you so much.
SCHWEIKERT: No, thank you for having me.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Three corporate giants are teaming up to try to improve the health care system and make it more affordable. Amazon, JPMorgan Chase and Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway say they will create a separate company to provide health care to their employees in the U.S. After this announcement, the share prices of some of the biggest health insurance and pharmaceutical companies dropped. With me to talk about all this is NPR health policy correspondent Alison Kodjak. Hi there.
ALISON KODJAK, BYLINE: Hey, Kelly.
MCEVERS: OK, so this big announcement comes out early this morning, and it sets off all this speculation across the health care industry. What does the announcement actually say?
KODJAK: Well, it doesn't say that much actually. It was less than a page long, and there are only about three short paragraphs of information along with three prepared quotes from the company's leaders. And basically what it says is that they're going to pool their resources, meaning their brains, their money and their employees, to make health care more efficient and more pleasant and cheaper for their employees.
But - and as you mentioned, it says they're going to create a whole new company and, very importantly, one that is not aimed at making a profit. And the last little bit is it mentions technology solutions will be an early focus, but it doesn't say what particular problems those solutions are going to solve.
MCEVERS: Well, what could they be? What could those technology solutions be?
KODJAK: Well, again, they're not offering specifics. But with Amazon in the picture, it's clear there's a retail, customer service expertise out there. And I talked to someone who's familiar with the plan. He says one idea that the companies are thinking about is creating this sort of dashboard for their workers to deal with their health care.
So it could be like an Amazon shopping interface kind of thing where they can look up doctors and get reviews and quality information. They could possibly make appointments, find out who's available today. They - rather than having to wait weeks for appointment, they maybe could book tests or find out the price for tests and book it immediately online.
MCEVERS: So this obviously, as we said, created a lot of excitement today, a lot of anxiety. Do these companies have the ability to really change things in the health care industry?
KODJAK: Well, that's a big question. You know, health care costs have been a huge problem for companies and for individuals for a long time. The Kaiser Family Foundation pointed out today that while wages have risen about 64 percent since 1999, health insurance premiums have gone up more than 224 percent, which is a huge gap.
MCEVERS: Yeah.
KODJAK: Warren Buffett - you know, he in his quote said this is a, quote, "hungry tapeworm." And so that's the problem they're trying to tackle. They're giving us so little information, though, about what they plan to do that it's hard to judge whether they can succeed. There are experts who are saying, you know, never underestimate Amazon; they can do almost everything. And then there are those who say, we've tried this before. And it's that first group, I would say, that - they've been watching Jeff Bezos, who created this giant Amazon corporation. And it started with just books, and now we know it's, you know, really turned the retail industry upside down.
MCEVERS: What are the other experts saying?
KODJAK: Well, the - yeah, those are the ones who've said we've seen it all before. There are lots of companies that have tried to figure out new ways to cut health care costs. There are coalitions of corporations. There are research groups. You know, the companies have created self-insurance to do this, but most of them end up going through health insurance companies. So the Amazon factor is a really big part of this. If they decide they can really get rid of the middleman, the insurance company, one Duke health care economist said that would be a big game changer.
MCEVERS: So at this point, we've just got this announcement. I mean, when do you think we'll know more?
KODJAK: Well, that's a big question. The people I spoke to today said they released the information early to avoid speculation and leaks and that kind of thing. One big question that will be - that will give us a clue is when they decide who is going to run this new company. I don't know exactly when they're going to make that decision, but when they do, that choice is going to reveal a little bit about where the venture is focused - if it comes from Amazon or if it comes from outside.
MCEVERS: NPR's Alison Kodjak, thanks a lot.
KODJAK: Thank you, Kelly.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Private companies have been spending big on a new space race. Silicon Valley startups are launching satellites, and it seems like every billionaire has his own rocket company. So our Planet Money podcast team thought, if everyone's going to space, why not us? NPR's Robert Smith begins our journey.
ROBERT SMITH, BYLINE: Even 10 years ago a Planet Money mission to space would have been impossible. Satellites were the size of school buses. They cost a half billion dollars. Not anymore. Now you can hold a satellite in the palm of your hand. The man responsible for this tiny spacecraft revolution is in Kentucky. And when we met him, he was surrounded by small children. It's field trip day to the Space Science Center at Morehead State University.
BOB TWIGGS: I think you ought to interview them.
SMITH: Professor Bob Twiggs has white hair, looks a little bit like an owl in a Disney film. And he offers to be our guide to space. Back in the 1990s, he was at Stanford teaching graduate students how to build large satellites. And it was taking forever.
TWIGGS: The thing that I found out is that the bigger it is, the more things that they want to put in it. And they just keep designing, oh, we can add this and we can add that.
SMITH: And Twiggs thought, we have to give these students a size constraint. So he goes down into a store in Mountain View, Calif., like a container store, looking for a tiny cube.
TWIGGS: I saw this box that I'm showing you here, which is a 4-inch box. And that - at the time, you know, there was the Beanie Baby craze. So that was the box that they put the Beanie Babies in.
SMITH: And professor Twiggs told his students, if you want to build a satellite, you have to fit it in this cube. They called it a cube satellite. Now, this might have stayed a student project. But then smartphones were invented. All those tiny transmitters and cameras fit easily into the Beanie Baby box. And this 4-by-4 cube became a sort of industry standard. It allowed satellites to get cheaper. Twiggs remembers recently being in San Francisco and visiting a satellite company called Planet.
TWIGGS: It's fun to go in there and see a shelf with 50 satellites sitting on it (laughter). Never thought I'd see that (laughter).
SMITH: How long would that have taken you back in the day?
TWIGGS: Oh, my, at the rate we were building them almost 50 years.
SMITH: Twiggs says maybe they have an extra satellite they could let us borrow.
(SOUNDBITE OF TONE)
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: It's open.
SMITH: Oh, thanks.
So I went to San Francisco. The company called Planet is down the street from Twitter and Uber, and it has the same Silicon Valley vibe except with space hardware.
MIKE SAFYAN: We have satellites lying around everywhere. And so...
SMITH: Wait. There's, like, four or five of them in a cabinet here.
SAFYAN: Yes. And that's just for starters.
SMITH: This is Mike Safyan, the launch director. He explains that each of these satellites is essentially a big camera that can be sent into space to take pictures of the Earth. Planet now has roughly 200 of these in orbit staring down at us, so many they could take pictures of the same spot on Earth every day. They send new ones up all the time. So we asked, can we get in on that? And they said yes. Go see Chester Gillmore down in the lab.
CHESTER GILLMORE: And this is Planet Money's satellite. This is your adopted spacecraft, so they tell me.
SMITH: I don't know what to say. I mean, it is gorgeous. Look; it's shiny. Oh, OK, so how do you normally describe the size of this?
GILLMORE: About the size of a loaf of bread.
SMITH: Or, you know, maybe a shoe box for, like, ballet slippers.
GILLMORE: Yes.
SMITH: Technically it is three Beanie Baby units, the standard that professor Twiggs helped invent. We're going to name this thing Pod-1. And when it gets to space we can use the camera for our own mission. But first we have to hitch a ride. Tomorrow on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, we go rocket shopping. Robert Smith, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF FRITZ VON RUNTE'S "A SPACE ODDITY (INSTRUMENTAL MIX)")
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Donald Rumsfeld served as secretary of defense for the first five years of the war on terror, from 2001 to 2006. During those years, he wrote tens of thousands of memos. They were known as snowflakes - short, to-the-point messages about everything from his dentist appointments to battlefield tactics. And now they're finally being released to the public. The National Security Archive at George Washington University just won a Freedom of Information lawsuit against the Department of Defense, and they released the first batch of memos last week.
Earlier today I talked to Nate Jones, the project director at the archive who led the fight to get the memos. And I first asked him what these snowflakes tell us about what it was like to work for Rumsfeld.
NATE JONES: I would say it would be tough. You would come into the office early one morning to find a snowflake saying, write me a report on something as difficult as why we're not winning these wars. He would also yell at generals for being late to meetings. They show that it probably was a difficult environment to work at the Pentagon, as you might expect.
MCEVERS: This first batch of memos is all of 2001. How did they change after September 11?
JONES: They show initially the secretary of defense coming into the Pentagon and trying to get his - to grasp what's going on. He actually on September 10 gives a big speech saying that up until this point, he wanted to do battle against entrenched Pentagon bureaucracy, comparing the Pentagon bureaucracy to Red China and the Soviet Union. Then 9/11 happens. On September 12, we have a snowflake that says, we have to figure out some kind of ceremony for all the people that died here. And then that battle on bureaucracy ended, and the war on terror began.
MCEVERS: Wow. The U.S. of course invaded Afghanistan shortly after. What do his memos tell us about the Pentagon's approach to the fight against the Taliban in those early days?
JONES: They show that they thought it was going to be a battle that was easily won. They were impressed by the great early successes. And already by December of 2001, Rumsfeld was writing snowflakes about looking at what to do next...
MCEVERS: Right.
JONES: ...Making the case of where to go next. What do we want our footprint to ultimately be?
MCEVERS: December 3, he writes, I have a feeling we're going to have to make our case on anything we do after Afghanistan.
JONES: And at the same time, he was asking for statistics about where and how many Kurds live in Iraq.
MCEVERS: So he - you can see from the memos that he was already thinking about Iraq. And this is long before of course sort of official statements were being made about why the United States might want to invade Iraq.
JONES: And this has been reported and written about before, but it's very interesting to read the snowflakes - kind of a real-time tracking of Pentagon thinking.
MCEVERS: And it's also so interesting to think that he might have thought Afghanistan was going to be fast. I mean, of course U.S. soldiers are still in Afghanistan. You know, we've just seen a rash of attacks there.
JONES: Right. One of the ones that stung to read was a snowflake where he said, we need to think through what our presence in Central Asia will be when the war on terrorism is over.
MCEVERS: It's hard to think about now, yeah. You're going to have 59,000 memos, right? That's tens of thousands of memos...
JONES: Yeah.
MCEVERS: ...To read in the coming years. What are you hoping to learn?
JONES: There are countless things that you can learn. But just having the benefit of an actual chronology for a story is incredibly important. You can't help but look forward to see and wonder who is going to be mentioned, obviously looking forward to key players today like Secretary Mattis and General Flynn to see how they interacted with Secretary Rumsfeld.
MCEVERS: Right - one member of the current administration, one former member of the current administration. You also I think have to wonder, do we have to wait 15, 20 years to know the story that we all want to know right now?
JONES: Well, I will say that the Department of Defense is more willing to release information after the passage of time. The journalists get the first crack, and then historians have a lot more resources to take on the second crack.
MCEVERS: Well, we're grateful for it. Nate Jones is the director of the Freedom of Information Act Project at George Washington University's National Security Archive. Thanks so much.
JONES: Thank you.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The White House's guests for tonight's State of the Union were chosen to inspire people and to underline parts of the president's agenda. There's a police officer who adopted a baby from a couple addicted to opioids, a blind double-amputee who reenlisted in the Marines after he was injured in Iraq and Ohio business owners who are expanding their manufacturing company. This tradition started with President Reagan. And to tell us more about the origins of the practice, Gerhard Peters of the American Presidency Project joins us now. Hi.
GERHARD PETERS: Hi. How are you?
SHAPIRO: I'm fine. I understand there's actually a term for these guests. What is it?
PETERS: Yes, indeed. They're called Skutniks, named after Lenny Skutnik. He was a federal government employee heading to work. And Air Florida had a plane that crashed into a bridge over the Potomac River. The river was icy, and he saved one person.
SHAPIRO: And this was in 1982, right?
PETERS: Back in 1982, just a couple weeks before the State of the Union.
SHAPIRO: Let's listen to a clip of President Reagan's State of the Union address.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RONALD REAGAN: Lenny Skutnik, who, when he saw a woman lose her grip on the helicopter line, dived into the water and dragged her to safety.
(APPLAUSE)
SHAPIRO: What was the reaction at the time? I mean, this must've been really dramatic.
PETERS: Oh, absolutely. And you know, we have to remember Ronald Reagan was an actor of course and...
SHAPIRO: Right - man of Hollywood.
PETERS: ...A man of Hollywood and understood, you know, how to use props, we'll call it, and, you know, how to personify things. And the practice has caught on. In almost every State of the Union address ever since, presidents have invited people into the gallery and acknowledged them.
SHAPIRO: Are there any that stand out in your mind from the years past?
PETERS: I think Rosa Parks acknowledged by President Clinton.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BILL CLINTON: In a very real sense, this journey began 43 years ago when a woman named Rosa Parks sat down on a bus in Alabama and wouldn't get up. She's sitting down with the first lady tonight, and she may get up or not as she chooses.
(APPLAUSE)
PETERS: Remember back in 1990, it was George Herbert Walker Bush who actually acknowledged the man who would defeat him.
SHAPIRO: Wait; why was Bill Clinton the guest of George H.W. Bush?
PETERS: (Laughter) Well, Bill Clinton was 1 of 4 governors - two Republicans and two Democrats - who were there and acknowledged by the president because of their role with the administration in setting new education goals.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
GEORGE H W BUSH: And if I might, I'd like to say I'm very pleased that Governor Gardner and Governor Clinton, Governor Branstad, Governor Campbell, all of whom were very key in these discussions, these deliberations, are with us here tonight.
SHAPIRO: I wonder if George H.W. Bush later wished he hadn't invited them.
PETERS: Perhaps.
SHAPIRO: You perhaps jokingly referred to these people earlier as props. Are they just kind of tools for political theater?
PETERS: Well, I don't mean it to sound cynical when I say that, but they are people brought in by the president to help personify heroism but oftentimes also to help with the president in setting his agenda. It could be in the middle of the health care debate on the Affordable Care Act or when the president was encouraging Congress to raise the minimum wage or whatnot.
And you know, to bring someone in or to invite someone in and, you know, discuss about how a minimum wage increase would affect their lives, for example, is a way to try to push the agenda forward and try to change public opinion in the country to put pressure on Congress.
SHAPIRO: Gerhard Peters is co-director of the American Presidency Project at the University of California. Thanks so much for joining us.
PETERS: You're welcome. Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Cape Town, South Africa, is running out of water. Drought and overuse have brought the city to the edge of disaster. Day Zero, the day that taps run dry, is set to happen on April 16. Peter Granitz reports from Cape Town that people are angry, confused and afraid.
PETER GRANITZ, BYLINE: Here in the low-key, upscale Newlands neighborhood, dozens of cars are backed up nose to trunk on this narrow, leafy, dead-end street. The attraction - a flowing spring of fresh water. The water is cold and clean enough to drink. Hundreds of people are waiting their turn to fill buckets, bottles and jerrycans with water from the Newlands spring. Hair stylist Sarah Badi is filling 10 6-and-a-half-gallon water cans.
SARAH BADI: We're washing hair. We're doing everything there. So we need water.
GRANITZ: Oh, so you use this water for your salon.
BADI: Yes, for our salon.
GRANITZ: Badi does not live here in Newlands. She lives in the poor area of Gugulethu, where she says recently the water has sometimes flowed brown out of her tap. She's worried about her children's health.
BADI: I boil the water because now it's extremely dangerous just to drink water without boiling.
GRANITZ: David Rhodes comes to Newlands three times a week to fill at least 25 gallons. This is drinking water for his wife and two college-age children. They've done what they can to reduce the amount of water they use at home. They don't flush the toilet. They limit their showers to 90 seconds and collect the excess in a bucket. But he says he's worried about unrest, so he's going to leave the city.
DAVID RHODES: Until it either stabilizes or until I know what's going on and until I know that my family can be guaranteed safety.
GRANITZ: Officials are indeed worried about public safety. The government says it will deploy police and military to guard water collection sites if authorities have to turn the taps off on Day Zero. The city will operate some 200 sites where residents can collect 6.6 gallons per person. The sites have not been publicly identified. It's unclear when they'll be open, how long the lines will be, whether people can send someone in their place.
IAN NEILSON: Well, those are the kind of details we are still working through, exactly how it would work.
GRANITZ: Ian Nielson is the city's deputy mayor.
NEILSON: Certainly the hotels and that that are in the key business areas would continue to get supply.
GRANITZ: Cape Town attracts tourists from around the world drawn by its design, culture, local wine and its natural beauty. Table Mountain stands over the city, a peninsula jutting into the Atlantic Ocean. The city has grown dramatically in the last two decades, and its population has nearly doubled to almost 4 million people. The dams that feed this city are just a quarter full following three years of below-average rainfall. Nielson says the city will turn off the taps before the dams dry up in an effort to try to limp along until the rains come.
NEILSON: We would trigger this before the dam water runs out. There would still be adequate water in the dams for this low level of consumption for at least three months.
GRANITZ: Three months might bring the city to the rainy season. But if the city does not get the rain it needs...
NEILSON: Then we're in very serious trouble.
GRANITZ: The city asked residents to limit use to 23 gallons a day. That failed, and now the city is slashing the number further to 13 gallons a day. On Thursday, it will hike rates. The most prolific consumers will see a sevenfold increase in their water bill. Cape Town is also looking at new ways to supplement the city's supply such as desalination plants and drilling new boreholes. But six of the seven projects are behind schedule, and they will only contribute enough water to delay Day Zero a few days. For NPR News, I'm Peter Granitz in Cape Town.
(SOUNDBITE OF ANDREW BIRD'S "LOGAN'S LOOP")
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The album "Illmatic" is widely considered one of the greatest hip-hop records ever made. It's an eloquent look at life in New York City's Queensbridge housing projects by the rapper Nas. "Illmatic" came out more than two decades ago. Now it's getting new life on PBS' "Great Performances" with the National Symphony Orchestra. Even in that formal setting you'll hear a lyric that might offend. NPR's Ted Robbins has more.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
TED ROBBINS, BYLINE: It might seem a little incongruous for a rap album to be played by an orchestra, but it was Nas who brought the project to PBS. And he says symphonic music, opera and hip-hop, they're all connected.
NAS: Music is music. There's no barriers, really, with music. I look at that as old hip-hop from centuries ago. It was the hip-hop of its day.
ROBBINS: The concert was recorded at the Kennedy Center in 2014. The album came out 20 years before. It was Nas' debut, an intense take on life in the projects. Nas' father is a jazz musician, and that influence is strong.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GREAT PERFORMANCES")
NAS: This is his horn part right here he wrote. Can we hear the horn?
Good, the bad - I wanted it all on that record. You know, I didn't leave no stone unturned when it came to making a good album. I wanted to give my very best. And I think people can appreciate that. Or they can see it, sense it, smell it, taste it with that record. It was, like, raw.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GREAT PERFORMANCES")
NAS: (Rapping) Life's a bitch and then you die. That's why we get high, 'cause you never know when you're going to go. Life's a bitch...
ROBBINS: Nas is now in his 40s. He usually performs in T-shirts, hoodies, sweatsuits. But here he's on stage in a tuxedo.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GREAT PERFORMANCES")
NAS: I feel good up here.
I felt older. You know, I felt like - I felt a lot more mature. I felt a lot more experienced, cultured, seasoned.
ROBBINS: The "Illmatic" broadcast is interspersed with old photos and new interviews, including National Symphony conductor Steven Reineke, who says he was challenged.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GREAT PERFORMANCES")
STEVEN REINEKE: Because this was the first time me as a classical orchestra conductor was going to branch out into the realm of doing, you know, hip-hop music and rap music. And...
ROBBINS: The orchestration, beats and melodies are rich, but "Illmatic" is really acknowledged as a masterpiece of lyrics.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GREAT PERFORMANCES")
NAS: (Rapping) What up, kid? You look this rough after you slid. When the cops came, should've slid to my crib - black, no time for looking back. It's done. Plus, congratulations, you know you got a son.
ROBBINS: It can be tough on first listen to catch it all, but "Great Performances" executive producer David Horn says they opted not to use subtitles.
DAVID HORN: I think it's just - it - they would just blaze by so fast that you wouldn't be able to see them.
ROBBINS: Horn says people can record the show, look up the lyrics or turn on closed captioning. He knows the audience for "Great Performances" is older than the typical rap audience. But Horn hopes opera fans will tune in along with "Illmatic" fans. Nas says you'd be surprised who watches PBS.
NAS: I grew up watching PBS. And I learned - I certainly learned a lot watching PBS. So maybe there's something to be learned about this on multiple levels. There's something that can be learned about the things I'm saying or just these two different worlds colliding together. I learned from PBS, so I'm now teaching on PBS.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GREAT PERFORMANCES")
NAS: (Rapping) It ain't hard to tell, I...
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Excel. Prevail.
NAS: (Rapping) The mic is contacted.
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Inaudible).
NAS: (Rapping) The mic check is life or death, breathing a sniper's breath. Exhale the yellow smoke of Buddha through righteous steps. Deep...
ROBBINS: Class starts Friday evening. Ted Robbins, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "GREAT PERFORMANCES")
NAS: (Rapping) Hit the Earth like a comet - invasion. Nas is like the Afrocentric...
UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: Asian. Half man, half amazing.
NAS: (Rapping) In my physical I'll express through song, delete stress like Motrin.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
The U.S. Treasury Department has issued a long-awaited list of wealthy Russians who are connected to the Kremlin, and that has led to some anxiety in Moscow. The people named on the list are not facing sanctions, but that could change. At the same time, the Trump administration is being criticized for not doing enough to punish Russia for meddling in U.S. politics. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: Things got heated at a hearing with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin today when Democratic Senator Sherrod Brown accused the Trump administration of slow walking sanctions that passed overwhelmingly last year. Brown said the long-awaited oligarchs list required by that law looks like it was copied from Forbes magazine, which ranks Russian billionaires. Mnuchin insisted that was just the declassified version.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
STEVEN MNUCHIN: There is a substantial amount of work that was done. I look forward to you reviewing the classified report...
SHERROD BROWN: No, it's...
MNUCHIN: ...And we will - we will be doing - based upon that, we will be looking at taking appropriate action.
BROWN: Time is ticking - 98 to 2 in the Senate, three no votes in the House. There's a lot of belief in both sides of the aisle - I hear senators talking privately about this - that this Congress and the American people don't trust the president on Russia.
KELEMEN: And Senator Brown says the Treasury Department's actions to date reinforce that view. Mnuchin brushed off that criticism and the many questions about why the administration did not impose new sanctions under the law.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
MNUCHIN: The intent was not to have sanctions by the delivery report last night. The intent was to do an extremely thorough analysis. It's hundreds of pages.
KELEMEN: So far, the administration argues there's no need for new sanctions. They argue that the threat alone has disrupted some Russian defense deals. The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Corker, says he is satisfied with this approach, though he called the oligarchs list milk toast. Russian President Vladimir Putin joked that he was disappointed not to be on it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN: (Speaking Russian).
KELEMEN: "Look at this stupidity," Putin said, pointing out that the U.S. is blacklisting Russia alongside North Korea and Iran, at the same time, asking Russia to help solve those issues. Meanwhile, Russia's embassy here confirmed that the head of Russia's foreign intelligence service was invited to counter-terrorism talks in Washington. That had Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer fuming because Sergei Naryshkin is on a U.S. sanctions list.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CHUCK SCHUMER: This is a serious national security issue. Russia hacked our elections. We sanctioned the head of their foreign intelligence, and then the Trump administration invites him to waltz through our front door.
KELEMEN: Schumer says the Trump administration has some explaining to do. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
We're seeing an avalanche of headlines about the Russia investigation. We just heard about the White House decisions on new sanctions for Moscow. Also the FBI is fighting the release of a classified memo that Republicans say will make the case that there is anti-Trump bias within the Justice Department. And the deputy director of the FBI has resigned under pressure from Republicans. To take a step back from these daily headlines and help us understand the bigger picture here, NPR's national security editor Phil Ewing came into the studio.
PHILIP EWING, BYLINE: Right now, the story is about managing the story. Republicans are trying to use their control of the levers of power, their control of the White House, their control of Republican majorities in Congress, to dictate the terms of what this conversation is about. That's why the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, prepared this memorandum that he says documents abuses of power by the FBI and Justice Department in getting the whole Russia investigation started. The committee voted along party lines on Monday to release that memo. And it's with the White House, and the president will probably release it later this week or early next week. And when it comes out, it could make a case that these supposedly biased Democratic partisans inside the FBI and the Justice Department used oppo research from the infamous Steele dossier to get started with this Russia investigation against Trump.
SHAPIRO: But there's also a Democratic memo that rebuts that argument apparently. We haven't seen the memo because right now both of them are classified. And the Democrats' memo is not being released.
EWING: That's right, yeah. The top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, Congressman Adam Schiff, says this Republican memo was so irresponsible it cherry-picked, in his phrase, the intelligence so unfairly that he needed to respond with one of his own. His memo is classified, too. However, as I said, because Republicans control the majority in this committee, they could vote on Monday to release theirs but not to release the Democrats'. They have said since then that the Democrats' memo will eventually come out at some point. But during that period, before it does, they will have one more bit of advantage in terms of the cable TV coverage, the headlines in the newspapers and so forth.
SHAPIRO: I know the Justice Department and the FBI have urged lawmakers not to release this memo. They've said it will compromise national security. It could reveal sources and methods. If we take that at face value and believe they actually do think it will compromise national security, could there also be an element here of the Justice Department pushing back against, as they might see it, being weaponized in this political battle over the Russia investigation?
EWING: I think that's definitely behind some of the objections the Justice Department has made here. They said they are not aware of any wrongdoing in terms of asking for the authorizations. They wanted to do this investigation or potentially surveil Americans as a part of this foreign intelligence surveillance process. And also they said it would be, in their phrase, extraordinarily reckless for this document to come out. Since it's a partisan document, it's a Republican view of the way the story went down. There are things that it puts out of order. There are things that it changes, again, according to the Justice Department, which is why they objected to it being out there.
SHAPIRO: You know, the FBI has been involved in a lot of politically sensitive investigations. There was the Valerie Plame affair under George W. Bush. You could look at President Nixon's use of the FBI to go after his political enemies. How common is it for lawmakers and others to target the FBI and sort of weaponize them in a political debate like the one we're seeing right now?
EWING: Well, you make a great point. The FBI has been political for its entire history. It's been accused of being the tool of power. But the difference with this story seems to be that in those other cases, no one was using their access to secret information to expose what it called the wrongdoing of the FBI in real time. In this case, we have the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, who has privileged secret access to things that are taking place at levels that you and I can't see, and he's pulling some of those details out of that world and putting them into this document that he says proves his case that in this case the FBI was out to get President Trump and it was pursuing a biased investigation.
SHAPIRO: And all of these threads that we're talking about are sort of a meta level on top of the underlying question of how did Russia try to influence American politics, the 2016 election, and did President Trump try to obstruct the investigation into Russian involvement? So how does that top layer that we've been talking about for the last few minutes affect this bottom layer, the underlying question?
EWING: Well, for one thing, we're not talking about those questions now, and neither are a lot of other people because there's a new twist. There's a new turn. You have to explain how the law works, who these FBI officials are, et cetera. And so just in terms of the bandwidth that we expend on discussing where the story is, that's where we focus as opposed to, as you said, collusion or obstruction. But that aspect of the story is still taking place behind the scenes. The special counsel, Robert Mueller, is still working with his team inside the Justice Department. He's had two indictments. He's had two guilty pleas, and no one knows where he's going to go next, how many more people might become involved or what more witnesses he'd want to talk to. The one thing we know that is taking place is negotiations between his team in the White House over President Trump potentially talking with Mueller and his team. But we also don't know when that's going to happen, except to say that that aspect of the story is still playing out. And right now, it has no ends in sight.
SHAPIRO: NPR national security editor Phil Ewing, thanks for walking us through this.
EWING: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Today the head of Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency resigned, and the worker who sent out that false missile alert earlier this month was fired. This after an FCC report said the worker who sent that alert actually thought the state was under attack because the worker misheard a recorded message during a training drill. That miscommunication led to a lot of fear and confusion in Hawaii. NPR's Brian Naylor reports.
BRIAN NAYLOR, BYLINE: It all started with a phone call. The FCC says on the morning of January 13, the midnight shift supervisor at the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency called the day shift warning officers pretending to be U.S. Pacific Command. As part of the routine training protocol, the shift supervisor played a tape recording with a message that repeated the word exercise three times along with the words, this is not a drill. The recording ended by repeating the word exercise again three times. Somehow, FCC attorney James Wiley says, the duty warning officer misheard the recording.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JAMES WILEY: The day shift warning officer heard this is not a drill but did not hear exercise, exercise, exercise. According to the written statement, the day shift warning officer therefore believed that the missile threat was real. At 8:07 a.m., this officer responded by transmitting a live incoming ballistic missile alert to the state of Hawaii.
NAYLOR: The FCC report did not identify the warning officer, and state officials today wouldn't name him or her until the worker's appeals process is complete. There were other errors. The day shift supervisor was not present, and it took officials 38 minutes to retract the alert in part because the state's governor, David Ige, says he forgot his twitter password. FCC Commissioner Mike O'Reilly...
MIKE O'REILLY: It is astounding that no one was hurt in this instance. This could've been a cataclysmic catastrophe.
NAYLOR: The FCC report also says the state of Hawaii appears to have been conducting an atypical number of no-notice drills, heightening the possibility for error. And the recording used on January 13 deviated from other exercises by using the wording, this is not a drill. Commission Chairman Ajit Pai said the only things that struck Hawaii that day were panic and outrage. He says the FCC's preliminary investigation has uncovered two troubling issues.
AJIT PAI: The Hawaii Emergency Management Agency didn't have reasonable safeguards in place to prevent human error from resulting in the transmission of a false alert. And number two, Hawaii's Emergency Management Agency didn't have a plan for what to do if a false alert was transmitted.
NAYLOR: Pai says those states and localities that send out alerts need to learn from Hawaii's mistakes. The FCC took another action today aimed at improving alerts set out during natural disasters. The problem was highlighted by difficulties officials had sending out text alerts during recent wildfires in California and during Hurricane Harvey in Texas. Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel said officials couldn't send the alerts to the right people.
JESSICA ROSENWORCEL: In California and Texas, for instance, emergency services were unable to transmit these messages because they were unable to target them accurately enough to ensure that they would help those in danger and not cause panic beyond the broader area of concern.
NAYLOR: Under the new rules, alerts will be geo-targeted so only people in the affected areas will receive them, and they'll also be available in Spanish. Brian Naylor, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President Trump will deliver his first official State of the Union address tonight. Republicans like House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy say it should not be about politics.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
KEVIN MCCARTHY: I don't think tonight is a night to play political games. I think tonight's a night to listen.
MCEVERS: But as NPR congressional correspondent Susan Davis reports, politics is front and center on Capitol Hill today, where lawmakers are in a confrontational mood ahead of the speech. And Sue is with us now. Hey.
SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: Hey, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So in recent years, you know, lawmakers used the State of the Union to make these grand gestures about bipartisanship. They'd choose a member of the opposing party and sit with them for the speech - sound like - sounds like it's not the same vibe this year.
DAVIS: Yeah. I think those days might be over.
MCEVERS: OK.
DAVIS: Believe it or not, this is my 16th State of the Union address, so I can say this with some amount of authority.
MCEVERS: Wow.
DAVIS: I have never felt a mood quite like this in the building. The best way I can describe it is it just feels really antagonistic. A couple of examples of what I'm talking about - at least a dozen lawmakers - Democrats - are boycotting the address tonight. The Congressional Black Caucus held an event today saying part of the reason why they're not going is the president has just sown racial strife in this country. Another Democrat from Wisconsin, Mark Pocan, as his guest is bringing Randy Bryce, who is a Democratic candidate who is challenging House Speaker Paul Ryan for his seat this year in Congress - so kind of an overt political move at an official event.
And the president himself is contributing to that kind of political event around this. His campaign is fundraising off of the State of the Union tonight, soliciting donations. In turn - so they'll give - promote donors' names on a livestream of the event on their campaign website.
MCEVERS: Right. Well, I mean, what is it about this year that's making it so divided?
DAVIS: I think at the very top of this you have a president who is the most unpopular any president has been with the American public at this time in his presidency delivering his first State of the Union address. We're just coming off of a government shutdown that really soured the mood on Capitol Hill both between lawmakers - Republicans and Democrats - and with the White House.
And over top of all this, we have this immigration debate that has just really ramped up and inflamed the bases in both parties 'cause it is such an animating issue for them. One of the things Democrats are using the speech for tonight - they are bringing what they call DREAMers, these children that were brought here illegally who are now existing in this legal limbo that Congress is trying to resolve with legislation.
One Republican lawmaker, Arizona's Paul Gosar, put out a statement saying he had requested Capitol Police and the attorney general to order everyone to have their IDs checked upon coming into the Capitol and to arrest and deport, in his words, any illegal aliens trying to enter the Capitol tonight.
MCEVERS: Wow.
DAVIS: I asked the House speaker's office what they said to that. They said the speaker, quote, "clearly does not agree," and that will not be enforced.
MCEVERS: Wow. You know, the White House outlined the president's immigration proposal last week. I mean, is there any sense that despite what's happening tonight, there's going to be some progress, there's going to be some deal coming up?
DAVIS: If anything, it sounds like the talks have regressed. Two of the top Democrats in those talks - Dick Durbin of Illinois, Steny Hoyer of Maryland - said today that there's been no progress since they reopened the government. Democrats are uniformly opposed to some of the things the White House wants, including restrictions to family-based immigration. And conservatives increasingly are pushing back against the president's proposal or on anything that would create a path to the - path to citizenship for people.
The challenge the president has in this room tonight is he's got to make a case to the public, but he's also got to convince these lawmakers in the room that there's a bipartisan path forward. And I would say it's going to be a very tough crowd.
MCEVERS: NPR congressional correspondent Sue Davis, thank you.
DAVIS: You're welcome.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Today we're hearing from lawmakers of both parties leading up to tonight's State of the Union address, and we're joined now by Representative Debbie Dingell. She's a Democrat from Michigan. Welcome.
DEBBIE DINGELL: Thank you. It's good to be with you.
SHAPIRO: The White House says President Trump plans to deliver a unifying speech tonight. If he extends an olive branch to Democrats, are you prepared to accept it?
DINGELL: You know, it depends what the issue is. I've said that I will work with him on issues that will benefit the working men and women of my district. That's what I was sent to do - to do things that help them. But if he's going to propose things that are going to hurt them, or if he's going to attack some of the fundamental pillars of our Constitution, I'm going to be the loudest buzz saw he's ever met.
SHAPIRO: (Laughter).
DINGELL: But I do think that the American people are tired of the partisan bickering. I wish he would Twitter less. And they want to see us get something done. And I think it's our responsibility to deliver for the American people.
SHAPIRO: Your district is right by Detroit. And I wonder on specific issues, whether it's manufacturing or infrastructure or NAFTA, is there something you could imagine the president saying tonight that you would say, yes, I'm onboard with that; let me join you; let me work with you?
DINGELL: So let me be clear. On all three of those subjects, I have said that I would work with him. When he came into Michigan, I said for two years that the people - I was one of the people that predicted that President Trump could win because we - too many of us - I was somebody that was very opposed to TPP, but I understood what a bad trade deal in NAFTA had done to the working men and women of my district and that they were worried about bad trade deals that kept shipping their jobs overseas. And I've said I'd be prepared to work with him on NAFTA so that we can change our trade policy so that we are locating those manufacturing jobs here.
I'll do whatever it takes to create a strong, vibrant manufacturing industry in this country, which means business and labor and government have all got to work together. And I've been very clear from the very beginning that I would work with him on infrastructure. We've got to figure out a way that we're going to pay for it, and we've got to put enough money into it.
SHAPIRO: You told us on this program the day after the election that you are not entirely surprised by President Trump's win, including his win in Michigan. You said that for months, you had been hearing from people at union picnics that workers were not excited about Hillary Clinton. Let's listen to a bit of this tape from the day after that election.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)
DINGELL: What you saw in Michigan is what happened in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and the other Midwest states, which is why we have to look at what working men and women - union workers feel about who's fighting for them, who understands their issues, who understands how they feel.
SHAPIRO: And so Congresswoman Dingell, I wonder what you've heard from these same workers over the last year about President Trump's performance in office.
DINGELL: You know, I think it's complicated. I think that they're all waiting to see if he actually delivers on something on NAFTA. President Trump said, I understand; I know what it's like to work a lifetime and be worried about having a safe and secure retirement. But this White House needs to help us deliver some kind of pension security to these workers.
You know, there's a hardcore group of people that are still very strong in supporting President Trump, and there are other people who are very worried about the fear and hatred they see dividing this country. I think we've got to - all of us have a responsibility to figure out how we're going to come together and work together to deliver for everybody.
SHAPIRO: Tell us about the guest you chose to bring tonight. Cindy Garcia is the wife of Jorge Garcia, who was deported earlier this month. Why did you decide to bring her?
DINGELL: First of all, I've known Cindy. She is a UAW worker - United Auto Worker from local 600 in Dearborn, the town that I live in, an American citizen. She's been married to Jorge for 15 years. He came to this country as a young boy. He's been trying to get his citizenship. They got a bad lawyer, which is something that really worries me about too many people that are trying to get help. And I've been trying to help them for some time.
And the president says he's not targeting these kinds of people. But you know, they were paying taxes. They were doing everything right. And it just - they're human beings. For too many of us, I think that it becomes a war of words between Republicans and Democrats, and they don't realize that these are real human beings that are scared to death about what's going to happen to their life. And we've all got to work together to help support all human beings.
SHAPIRO: Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, Democrat of Michigan, thanks for joining us today.
DINGELL: Thank you for having me.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos transformed retail. He got into media buying The Washington Post and took on supermarkets with the purchase of Whole Foods. Now this disruptor is taking on health care. His partners on the project have their own histories of redrawing maps. Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway and Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase are working with Jeff Bezos to create a new company to focus on improving health care and making it cheaper for their U.S. employees.
To talk about how this could reshape the health care industry in the U.S., Steven Halper of the financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald joins us now. Hi there.
STEVEN HALPER: Hi. How are you?
SHAPIRO: All right. So health care stocks plunged on this announcement. What does that tell you?
HALPER: You know, I think that given the announcement today investors are concerned perhaps about the long-term growth possibilities as there's a potential new entrant into the market.
SHAPIRO: What does that mean?
HALPER: So basically, Amazon, Berkshire and JPMorgan have announced a health care initiative where the first focus is going to bring technology solutions that will, quote, "provide their U.S. employees and their families with simplified, high-quality and transparent health care at a reasonable cost." We assume that that means that they will develop applications to help in the health care delivery process. Many insurance companies and health care information technology companies already do this. It's our view that the market opportunity is large. And the road ahead for this combined entity, you know, will - it will take a very long time for them to develop this market.
SHAPIRO: The market opportunity is large, you say. What do you think made these three very successful businesspeople think there was a massive opportunity for them in health care?
HALPER: Right. So in general, there are two major problems within the health care delivery service environment that we see today. We - as a country we spend too much on health care. And number two, the quality might not be as high as it should be. So the goal is to bend the cost curve while improving quality. Many organizations in the health care landscape are pursuing that today.
SHAPIRO: What specifically do these three companies bring to the table that makes them uniquely qualified to tackle this problem?
HALPER: Well, I think Amazon wants to take advantage of its consumer experience. Berkshire Hathaway obviously is very focused on insurance, not necessarily health care. And JPMorgan is a very large financial services and does a lot of things well. And I'm assuming they want to take advantage of a lot of those, you know, capabilities. However, health care is a different market. Clearly there is a consumer component to it. But the managed care companies do a very good job of patient engagement, and that's really, you know, a key ingredient to a successful strategy.
SHAPIRO: What do you think their biggest obstacles are?
HALPER: Well, I think the inherent challenges within health care - number one, it's very fragmented. Number two, employers as well as providers are very set in their ways. It's very difficult to disrupt the status quo. Health care is a very local business. More often than not large national solutions don't necessarily work in local markets.
SHAPIRO: You describe these big problems that I think everybody who's worked on health care is familiar with. Why hasn't anyone solved these problems until now?
HALPER: Well, some problems have been solved. There are numerous examples of how health care providers and payers have successfully bent the cost curve. There's a lot more to do. Typically these come from local, well-established, integrated delivery networks working together with established managed care plans in their local markets. So again, there's no national player on the scene to speak of, but there are a lot of local success stories. Again, health care is a local business. And these large companies or these large - national approaches to change health care delivery may not always work.
SHAPIRO: Steven Halper is a managing director at Cantor Fitzgerald. Thanks so much for joining us.
HALPER: Thank you. You're welcome.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
All right. Here are some civics questions we asked young people at NPR. How many amendments does the Constitution have?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: Twenty-seven.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: Like 30.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Fifty amendments.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Twenty-five amendments.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #3: In the 20s, in the - maybe more than that.
MCEVERS: What territory did the United States buy from France in 1803?
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #4: The Louisiana Purchase.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: The Louisiana Purchase.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #5: Best guess, I'm going to say Puerto Rico.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: The Louisiana Purchase.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #6: Oh, the Louisiana Purchase.
MCEVERS: And just say you know, the correct answers are 27 amendments and, yes, most of you had the right answer, the Louisiana Territory. Turns out, these are actually two of the 100 questions that appear on the test administered by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to people who want to become U.S. citizens. And now a bill in Iowa would make the same test mandatory for all high school students who are about to graduate. House Study Bill 5-73 (ph) was introduced by Representative Walt Rogers. A similar bill by his colleagues failed to pass the year before. So I started by asking him why he thought it was worth reintroducing.
WALT ROGERS: I think it's just, you know, common sense that, you know, maybe our kids should understand basic civics of the United States. And so we've got a lot of high-stakes testing these days with reading and math and science, which is all good, but I feel like sometimes social studies and those types of things get a back seat.
MCEVERS: Yeah. I mean, we're, of course, in a moment where immigration policy in this country and the path to legal citizenship are things that are being fiercely debated. How does your bill fit into that?
ROGERS: It's pretty simple. There's a hundred questions, and I think we're just modeling that same thing and using that standard to make sure our students here in Iowa have, you know, at least a basic knowledge of what their civics is all about here.
MCEVERS: As you mentioned, this is not the first time that this bill has been introduced. And you said it didn't quite work out. Why not?
ROGERS: Being in education, we always run into the issue of unfunded mandates. In our Republican caucus, that's something that we're very sensitive to. And so I think that was the biggest reason that last year's bill just didn't move forward because people were afraid of, well, here's another unfunded mandate that the government's pushing on us.
MCEVERS: Well, so does the new bill have a mechanism for such tests to be funded?
ROGERS: It does not. The test is already set up, pretty much tells them what they have to do. So there really isn't a whole lot of cost involved.
MCEVERS: So right before you graduate, you just have to sit down and take this test that already exists in another place.
ROGERS: Right. Actually, the way the bill is worded, they could take it any time from 7th grade to graduating from high school. So they've got almost five years to take it, and they can take it multiple times. So I think at that standard it should be fairly easy to pass.
MCEVERS: OK. What's the next step?
ROGERS: We have to run it through a subcommittee and then pass it through full committee and then you bring that to the floor of the House. And if the House will pass it, we'll send it over to our Senate and run through the same process again, and then hopefully our governor will sign.
MCEVERS: Hopefully that process is one of the questions on the list, right?
ROGERS: Yeah, hopefully (laughter).
MCEVERS: How a bill becomes a law. Well, one thing I guess everyone was curious about is do you have kids, and did you make them take the test?
ROGERS: You know what (laughter)? There was an article that the Des Moines Register did this past week, and I was quoted in the article, so I sent that to all three of them and said, hey, there's a test at the end. Why don't you take it? And so they're all going to take it and get back to me how they did.
MCEVERS: Oh, OK.
ROGERS: I have not found out those results yet.
MCEVERS: All right, well, let us know. Thanks.
ROGERS: All right.
MCEVERS: State Representative Walt Rogers of Iowa, thanks so much for your time.
ROGERS: You bet. Thank you, Kelly.
(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO "SCHOOL HOUSE ROCK - PREAMBLE (AMERICA ROCK)")
UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing) Hey, do you know about the USA? Do you know about the government? Can you tell me about the Constitution? Hey, learn about the USA.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Endangered species can be bad for business. If you have a protected animal on your land, you are probably in for some red tape. To avoid that situation, a growing number of businesses are pitching in to help save animals. Molly Samuel of WABE looks at one of the largest such efforts in Georgia.
MOLLY SAMUEL, BYLINE: Gopher tortoises are big, dry, wrinkly reptiles. They live in the southern part of Georgia and near the coast, including at two nuclear power plants owned by the biggest electric company in the state, Georgia Power.
JIM OZIER: Gopher tours do very well right next door, and we - we're glad to have them.
SAMUEL: Wildlife biologist Jim Ozier works for Georgia Power. We're walking at nuclear plant Hatch looking for gopher tortoise burrows among spiky palmetto plants and little wildflowers.
OZIER: You know, they spend a lot of their time out foraging, but typically, they do spend the night in the burrow.
SAMUEL: So maybe he's not awake yet.
OZIER: (Laughter) We might wake him up.
SAMUEL: Ozier is out here counting gopher tortoises because Georgia Power wants to save them. It's helping to restore their habitat. He's working with Savannah McGuire with the Georgia Department of Natural Resources. She is crouching next to a gopher tortoise hole.
SAVANNAH MCGUIRE: And so here's a big, adult, active burrow.
SAMUEL: She says the burrows can be as deep as 40 feet. McGuire snakes a camera down into the hole.
MCGUIRE: Pretty much a camera on a cord, so we're going to stick it down the burrow and see if he's home.
SAMUEL: Gopher tortoises may be in trouble. One issue has been habitat loss. They also have a legacy problem. During the Great Depression, people ate them. They were nicknamed Hoover's chickens, and because the tortoises breed so slowly, they still haven't bounced back. McGuire keeps pushing the camera down the burrow and eventually...
MCGUIRE: There he is. So we have a tortoise.
SAMUEL: We can see the tortoise's patterned shell on an LCD screen.
MCGUIRE: That's an adult gopher tortoise.
SAMUEL: How old would you say?
OZIER: I'd say easily 40 years old.
SAMUEL: Oh, wow.
MCGUIRE: Yeah.
SAMUEL: Gopher tortoises are protected by Georgia environmental law, but the federal Fish and Wildlife Service is considering listing them under the Endangered Species Act, which is stronger than the state law. Ozier says Georgia Power and other businesses don't want that to happen.
OZIER: Everybody wants to see the economy of Georgia thriving, and if there's too many environmental regulations, there's a concern that economic growth will dwindle off.
SAMUEL: Don Imm of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service says private foundations and even the Department of Defense are all working together to try and save the gopher tortoise.
DON IMM: I think if you can do something to avoid the conflict, or even the need to list, that is a much better result.
SAMUEL: Better for the people doing business here and better for the tortoises. For NPR News, I'm Molly Samuel in Baxley, Ga.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Janet Yellen presided over her final Federal Reserve monetary policy meeting today. Yellen and her Fed colleagues held interest rates steady and officially elected Jerome Powell to succeed her as chairman. As NPR's John Ydstie reports, Yellen is getting high marks for her four years at the helm of the nation's central bank.
JOHN YDSTIE, BYLINE: The Fed's mandate from Congress is to maximize employment while keeping inflation under control. When Yellen became chair early in 2014 - the first woman ever to do so - the unemployment rate was 6.7 percent. As she leaves, it's 4.1 percent, and inflation remains very low. That's a stellar achievement, says former Fed Vice Chair Alan Blinder.
ALAN BLINDER: If you asked anybody, including Ben Bernanke, four years ago whether we could achieve that without rising inflation, almost anybody would have said no. So this is a gigantic success.
YDSTIE: And economist Julia Coronado says it's important to remember it could have been very different. Coronado, who is president of MacroPolicy Perspectives, points out that inflation was well over the Fed's 2 percent target in 2011 when Yellen was serving as the Fed's vice chair. With inflation rising, she says the historical Fed playbook would have dictated raising interest rates rapidly to crush it.
JULIA CORONADO: But the unemployment rate was still very high, and Yellen encouraged the Fed not to overreact to that - what turned out to be a blip in inflation.
YDSTIE: And raising interest rates could have slowed the jobs recovery and hurt millions of workers. Yellen highlighted the plight of the unemployed during a speech in Chicago shortly after becoming Fed chair.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JANET YELLEN: The recovery still feels like a recession to many Americans. The numbers of people who've been trying to find work for more than six months or more than a year are much higher today than they ever were since records began decades ago.
YDSTIE: It would be nearly two years into Yellen's term before the Fed lifted interest rates from near zero where they'd been since the Great Recession. But Yellen's determination to keep rates extremely low produced criticism, especially from Republicans, including Pennsylvania's Pat Toomey, who confronted Yellen at a Senate Banking Committee hearing.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PAT TOOMEY: The financial and economic crisis is over. It's been over for years - at least six or seven years - and yet we still maintain crisis-level interest rates.
YDSTIE: Toomey said the Fed was risking an outbreak of rapid inflation. Of course, inflation didn't accelerate. In fact, it remains below the Fed's target. Glenn Hubbard, who headed the Council of Economic Advisers for George W. Bush, also criticized Yellen for keeping interest rates extremely low. He still thinks that may be fueling dangerous asset bubbles. Hubbard also says Federal Reserve bank regulation was sometimes counterproductive on Yellen's watch and may have restrained economic growth. But Hubbard, who's now dean of Columbia University's business school, gives Yellen high marks anyway.
GLENN HUBBARD: I would give Chair Yellen an A-minus. She inherited a difficult situation and I think has done a good job.
YDSTIE: President Trump has also given Yellen high marks, but he declined to give her a second term. Alan Blinder, now a professor at Princeton, says she should have gotten one.
BLINDER: She was fabulously successful and wanted a second four years and yet was not given another four years.
YDSTIE: And that's unusual. Going back to Ronald Reagan, every president has crossed party lines to reappoint Fed chairs. Julia Coronado says it's disappointing partly because Yellen is the first woman to lead the Fed.
CORONADO: It was inspirational when she got named Fed chair. You know, mentors matter.
YDSTIE: Yellen's last day is Saturday. She'll be replaced by Fed governor and former investment manager Jerome Powell. He will be sworn in on Monday. It's expected Powell will continue Yellen's gradual approach to raising interest rates. John Ydstie, NPR News, Washington.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
By the end of the month, thousands of people in New York will have to have their firearms registered with the state or risk criminal charges. New York is building a comprehensive record of gun owners, one of the first in the country. The plan is to make sure people who are legally prohibited from owning guns don't have them. North Country Public Radio's Lauren Rosenthal reports the program is causing a backlash.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Please enjoy your time here at the Albany Gun Show, and be safe.
LAUREN ROSENTHAL, BYLINE: Beyond all the folding tables stacked with rifles, Tom King, president of New York's NRA affiliate, spent his day answering a question that's been on everyone's mind.
TOM KING: People are saying, well, do I have to register, or don't I have to register? So yeah, there is a lot of confusion.
ROSENTHAL: Confusion, he says, about New York's new handgun database and what it's for. It's been law since 2013. Just after the Sandy Hook school shooting, a lot of states passed tougher gun control measures. New York banned most assault weapons, but Governor Andrew Cuomo said he wanted to go even further.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
ANDREW CUOMO: We'll have for the first time a statewide handgun database that will allow the state, allow local officials to check periodically.
ROSENTHAL: Police will scan hundreds of thousands of legally licensed handgun owners against criminal records, mental health files and restraining orders. Cuomo thinks it could prevent tragedy.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
CUOMO: You don't want criminals and people who are mentally ill to have access to guns.
ROSENTHAL: That message made sense to a lot of people, especially in urban areas where New York's gun control law is popular. But facing the first big registration deadline, some rural gun owners are pushing back.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "THE 2ND AMENDMENT SHOW")
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Now a radio show dedicated to the genius of the declaration of divine right...
ROSENTHAL: Bill Robinson is a talk radio host outside Rochester.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "THE 2ND AMENDMENT SHOW")
BILL ROBINSON: The government shouldn't have master lists of us gun owners and the specific guns we have. They don't need it.
ROSENTHAL: A lot of gun owners are angry. They agree that bad guys shouldn't have guns, but they think New York is trying to turn them into those bad guys because if they don't register on time, it's a felony, and their gun permits are gone. Here's Tom King again.
KING: You just can't do that to people that live in your state that are lawful gun owners. You can't make them overnight criminals.
ROSENTHAL: The people King's worried about are those who had handguns before the 2013 law went into effect. They're the ones who have to re-register. As of the deadline, more than 80,000 people, or 20 percent of affected handgun owners in New York, still haven't responded to the state's request. But state police spokesman Beau Duffy says all the concern about this gun database is overblown.
BEAU DUFFY: We're not going to take criminal enforcement action, particularly with those people who were unaware of the recertification process.
ROSENTHAL: So no felony charges, Duffy says, at least not yet. The next big question is how this registry is going to be used and who's going to follow up with gun owners. Laura Cutilletta, legal director for the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, expects police will try to make it a priority.
LAURA CUTILLETTA: Because to know who is determined to be dangerous already and has a gun - I mean, what better information could you give law enforcement than something like that?
ROSENTHAL: But Cutilletta doesn't think these systems will start popping up nationwide. They're too expensive. New York's could cost $28 million. Instead, Cutilletta says she and other gun control advocates are looking at new kinds of restraining orders and petitions, other ways to get guns away from people who might do harm. For NPR News, I'm Lauren Rosenthal in northern New York.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
There is a new development in Puerto Rico's months-long recovery from Hurricane Maria. On Monday, NPR reported that FEMA plans to end distribution of food and water for Puerto Rico. The agency told us that starting January 31 - that's today - they would hand that effort off to Puerto Rico's government. The timetable came as news to the government of Puerto Rico and to lawmakers in Congress. So now FEMA says its announcement was premature. The agency says its distribution efforts on the island will continue. NPR's Adrian Florido is with us from San Juan. Hey.
ADRIAN FLORIDO, BYLINE: Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: So explain what's happening here.
FLORIDO: Right. So when I communicated with FEMA last week, the agency was very clear about what its plans were, and that is that, one, it was, as of today, no longer shipping new food and water to Puerto Rico and, two, that it was also handing the food and water that it still has on the island over to the Puerto Rican government so that the Puerto Rican government could finish distributing it. So then our story comes out. It gets the attention of some members of Congress. And today, FEMA says, oops, we never should have told you we were ending our distributions because those plans haven't been finalized yet, and that date wasn't quite right. So it says that for now, its distribution of food and water on the island is going to continue.
MCEVERS: Well, until when? I mean, does it have a date? Does it have a firm date for when it will stop delivering aid?
FLORIDO: Right. So I just want to be clear about sort of the delivery of aid. The shipment of new food and water to Puerto Rico has already ended, and that's not going to resume, according to the agency - what the agency told me. The agency thinks there's no longer very much need for it because grocery stores are reopening and that sort of thing. So there's some normalcy returning to parts of the island.
MCEVERS: Right.
FLORIDO: What the agency is still working on is this plan to hand the rest of its supplies over to the Puerto Rican government so that FEMA can move on to do other longer term recovery - right - not emergency stuff. And so the agency said it's still working on this plan with the Puerto Rican government, on this transition, to decide exactly when that's going to happen. But there's no firm date yet.
MCEVERS: What is Puerto Rico's government saying about all this?
FLORIDO: So yesterday after our story, the island's public security secretary, who has a big role in the recovery efforts here, said that he had not been told in this timetable and said that it was much too soon for the Puerto Rican government to be responsible for handing out food aid. His office issued a new statement today saying they'd gotten in touch with FEMA and that everyone agreed that FEMA should continue distributing food and water while the need still persists.
MCEVERS: I mean, what does all of this tell us about the bigger state of just relief in Puerto Rico since this hurricane?
FLORIDO: Yeah. I mean, so, Kelly, I mean, you know, like, the disaster relief in Puerto Rico is complicated. Why? Because, you know, you've got an island that's had no electricity for months. You've got some places with no running water. Not all the roads are passable. And then you've got all of these agencies - federal and Puerto Rican and municipal and nonprofits - and 78 mayors, and they're vying for limited resources while facing pressure from their constituencies to get the lights back on.
MCEVERS: Right.
FLORIDO: So there's just a lot of pressure all around. And so because of this, there's, like, not often very good communication between all of these players. And, frankly, it's just hard to get everyone operating out of the same playbook, and that's something that we've seen time after time in the four months since the storm.
MCEVERS: NPR's Adrian Florido in San Juan, Puerto Rico, thank you so much.
FLORIDO: Thanks, Kelly.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Imagine working your entire life to make it to the Winter Olympics, to set yourself apart from the crowd, and then your brother or your sister ends up qualifying, too. And to top it all off, you're both competing in the same event. That is the reality for Matt and Becca Hamilton, who are heading to Pyeongchang to compete in curling. Wisconsin Public Radio's Maureen McCollum caught up with them at their curling club.
MAUREEN MCCOLLUM, BYLINE: During a recent afternoon at the Madison Curling Club, about a dozen curlers are on the ice, practicing their shots. Players are taking turns lunging down the sheet of ice while pushing a rock that's about 40 pounds.
(SOUNDBITE OF ICE SWEEPING)
MCCOLLUM: They sweep the ice with a special broom to help glide the rock to a target known as the house. The team that has rocks closest to the center of the house gets the points. It's similar to shuffleboard or even bocce ball. Matt and Becca Hamilton grew up watching their family curl at this club. Back then, Matt was not impressed.
MATT HAMILTON: I remember in eighth grade, I watched my dad do it. And I did not think it was cool when dad was doing it.
MCCOLLUM: But like so many of us, Matt eventually realized that what his dad was doing was actually cool. He got hooked on curling and then taught his sister, Becca.
BECCA HAMILTON: Once I was drug out the ice, I didn't look back. I was down here every single day before school, after school, playing in multiple leagues a night. I was hooked.
M. HAMILTON: It's almost poetic. All you can hear is, like, your broom sliding on the ice and the rock sliding and, you know, the occasional sound of rocks hitting each other. And it was kind of serene. It was almost like - it was very Zen.
MCCOLLUM: But for people watching the Hamiltons, it may not seem that Zen. Here they are on NBC's "Curling Night In America."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "CURLING NIGHT IN AMERICA")
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Unintelligible).
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: About to curl now. Becca's got them going - hard to get it by the guard.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Go. Go. Go. Go. Whoa, whoa...
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: They're right on the top of the button now.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Nice shot - come on.
MCCOLLUM: Now the Hamiltons are heading to the Olympics. Matt is competing with the men's team. Becca is playing with the women's team. But it's their mixed doubles that's getting all the attention. In the new event, it's just the Hamiltons out on the ice competing against seven of the best curling duos from around the world. Becca says her dynamic with Matt is different on the ice than with her other women's teammates.
B. HAMILTON: Matt and I feed off each other. And we ground each other at the same time. So he's pretty involved in the crowd. And he's got a upbeat personality. And I'm kind of the calm (laughter) out there that reels him back in when you need to.
MCCOLLUM: And because they're related, Matt says they can be more open with each other.
M. HAMILTON: If someone's struggling or something like that, we can tell each other with absolute honesty what we're seeing and know that that's not going to, like, offend her. I'm not going to, like - I'm not telling her what she's doing wrong to be mean. She knows I'm doing it to help her get better and play better.
MCCOLLUM: The Hamilton's mixed doubles coach, Jake Higgs, credits that for driving their success.
JAKE HIGGS: I would say it's a better vibe than you get from, say, spouses or significant others playing together. Typically when things blow up with regard to spouses, it can take a - you know, a number of ends or games for them to kind of talk to each other again or like each other again, whereas with Matt and Becca, it's a quick transition.
MCCOLLUM: But you can't get to the Olympics just on communication. Higgs says Matt and Becca are both incredibly talented curlers. Neither is dominant, and they know what their strengths are.
M. HAMILTON: She's, in my opinion, the best female sweeper in the United States.
MCCOLLUM: And Becca says Matt can make almost any shot. Now the Hamiltons are hoping to make it to the podium at the Olympics, taking home the first ever gold in mixed doubles curling. For NPR News, I'm Maureen McCollum in Madison.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
President Trump is keeping a low profile today as his team talks up his performance in last night's State of the Union address. We'll hear responses and analysis of that speech all through the show.
But we begin this hour with another matter, something the president said last night as he was leaving the House chamber. A member of Congress urged him to release a classified memo, a memo crafted by a Trump ally in the House who has criticized the FBI's handling of the Russia investigation. President Trump was heard on a hot mike saying, quote, "don't worry - 100 percent," end quote.
For more on the memo and reaction to Trump's address, we're joined by NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith. Hi, Tam.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: Hello.
M. KELLY: So here's what we know. The House Intelligence Committee voted along partisan lines to release this secret memo. We know it falls now to the White House to decide whether to allow that to happen. So what's the read on what President Trump said last night? What light does that shine on what the White House might do?
KEITH: So what the president said last night seems to be pretty much in line with the White House position. So White House chief of staff John Kelly was on the Brian Kilmeade Show on Fox News Radio this morning. Asked about the memo, he said this.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "BRIAN KILMEADE SHOW")
JOHN KELLY: Our national security lawyers in the White House that work for me, work for the president - they're slicing and dicing it, looking at it so that we know what it means and what it understands.
BRIAN KILMEADE: Did you see it?
J. KELLY: I did.
KILMEADE: What do you think?
J. KELLY: Well, it'll be released here pretty quick I think, and the whole world can see it.
KEITH: It seems as though they fully expect to release the memo. And Kelly is pitching this as a matter of transparency. But this also pits the White House and the president against the FBI director that he's hand-selected less than a year ago. The FBI put out a statement today urging in no uncertain terms that the memo not be released. It said in part, quote, "we have grave concerns about material emissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy."
M. KELLY: Well, so this is fascinating. In normal times, if the FBI says it has grave concerns about a classified memo being made public, I would think that the memo might not be made public. But we don't live in normal times. I mean, how is the FBI argument being heard at the White House?
KEITH: Yeah, we do not live in normal times. And you know, the context here is that President Trump has been beating up on the FBI and the intelligence community and the Russia investigation and calling it a witch hunt. So this memo has been set up by the president's allies as some sort of smoking gun that will make the FBI look bad. So when the FBI then raises concerns about the memo, Trump's allies can - and they are - dismissing those concerns as a cover-up.
M. KELLY: Tam, let me draw you back to last night's State of the Union address and the response to it. In just a second, we're going to hear from Congressman Joe Kennedy, who delivered the Democratic response. I want to ask you how the Democratic response went down at the White House and what their take was on how the president's speech went down. We heard some boos from Democratic lawmakers in the crowd.
KEITH: That's right. And during the speech itself, Democrats were essentially sitting on their hands most of the time. Those audible boos came during the section about immigration. And while the White House describes the president's comments on immigration as aimed at bipartisan compromise, Democrats instead heard the language of division.
I went and asked a White House aide about that, and he said Democrats were putting the interests of hundreds of thousands of people in the country illegally over the best interests of Americans. It's a fight that the White House seems very willing to have. And it was a message that chief of staff John Kelly also delivered today on Fox News Radio.
(SOUNDBITE OF RADIO SHOW, "BRIAN KILMEADE SHOW")
J. KELLY: I don't think anyone should hate someone else or show them disrespect just because they disagree on anything. It's really - we have to fix this. We're America.
KEITH: And they're going to have to fix it quickly because there's a government funding deadline at the end of next week.
M. KELLY: Looming just ahead of us - NPR White House correspondent Tamara Keith, thank you.
KEITH: You're welcome.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Massachusetts Congressman Joe Kennedy says he doesn't exactly know how he got picked to give the Democrats' response to the State of the Union last night. All he knows is that it started at work one day with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
JOE KENNEDY: Leader Pelosi approached me and said that she wanted to chat. And I said of course, and she pulled me off the floor. And then we kept going into her office, and then she kicked out her whole staff. And I at that point thought I was in trouble.
MCEVERS: He wasn't in trouble. And when he figured out that Pelosi was asking him to respond to the State of the Union, Kennedy said he was thrilled and a little terrified.
KENNEDY: I had seen some of these speeches before and had thought, that's the worst job in politics. Why would you ever do that? Of course when I got asked to do it, which came a bit out of the blue, I was honored to be able to do so.
MCEVERS: Earlier today, I asked Kennedy about his speech and one of his themes, bipartisan unity, at a time when Washington seems as divided as ever.
KENNEDY: The partisanship unfortunately at the moment is real. There are, though, far more areas of common ground out there than people expect. There are the votes today in the House of Representatives, I believe, for an immigration fix, particularly for DACA. There were the votes out there for a bipartisan tax bill. There's votes out there I think to strengthen our health care system.
We're not getting governance that is willing to engage, at least in the House yet, Democrats. And the answer to this moment that we're in isn't more and more partisanship. It's actually forcing sides to work together and empowering compromise. That means taking some of the vitriol out of politics.
The reality of it, though, is that the loudest microphone and the most potent one begins and ends in the White House. So you're not going to be able to do that effectively unless the president of the United States is putting real emphasis on it. And so far, we haven't seen him try to do that.
MCEVERS: Last night in your speech, you talked about #MeToo, the movement among women. You talked about Black Lives Matter. You talked about protecting immigrants and the LGBTQ community. And you also talked about the economy quite a bit. As you look forward, aside from just positioning itself as opposition to Donald Trump, what is the message that the Democratic Party needs to put out in 2018 as people go to vote again in midterm elections?
KENNEDY: A couple of things - one, that your government's got your back regardless of who you are, who you love, country you come from, that you are here. You are valued. We want you on our playing field. We want you on our team. We want to contribute it back to your community, your country. That's stuff like civil rights. It's social justice. Those are things that Democrats have traditionally been very good at and issues we've been good on and I think most folks think represent the Democratic Party.
But the second step to that is, if you are in a circumstance where you are struggling to keep a roof over your head, food on your plate, your kid in school and save for retirement, if you can't do that, then almost nothing else matters. That is where things begin and end for most American families. And that's not too much to ask. We have to ensure that there's an economy out there that is including everyone, and that's where I think Democrats have to - have an opportunity to own a bit of this message.
Look; no one is going to be against - should they be against an increasing stock market. That's a good thing. That's good news for pensions. That's good news for Americans. However, we have to acknowledge the fact that 50 percent of Americans don't own a single stock, and 80 percent of the stocks are controlled by about 10 percent of American families.
So judging the overall health of our economy based solely on the stock market valuation I think risks missing out on a sizable percentage of our population that has been - the folks that have been at risk of being left behind in the first place. That is where we have to focus. That has to be our charge.
MCEVERS: If the economy continues to get better, not just the stock market - right? - if you just start to see a general trend in a better economy, which we are seeing, does that make it harder, you know, for you to own that message?
KENNEDY: I don't think so. I mean, I think - look; again, no one should be arguing against a strengthening economy. What we can I think make an argument for is an economy that works for everyone. And if we look at particularly the details of a tax plan that has been passed that the president continues to point to, that tax plan, while, yes, there is some benefit in it to middle-class families, there is no serious independent economic analysis that has said that that was a really - a middle-class tax plan.
The vast majority of those benefits are tilted towards the upper class. The vast majority of those benefits are tilted towards corporations. And the extent that those corporations, one, trickle down - yes, but it's a trickle. And two, it's reflected in stock price, which, again, 50 percent of Americans don't own. So we have I think a responsibility and an obligation to point out the fact that a strengthening economy is a good thing. We need to make sure all boats are lifted.
MCEVERS: Congressman Joe Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, thanks a lot.
KENNEDY: Thank you so much - appreciate the time.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The nation's top public health official resigned today. This follows reports that Brenda Fitzgerald had bought shares in a tobacco company after she became head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC is charged with reducing tobacco use. This is not the first time a Trump administration official has resigned because of financial conflicts, as NPR's Alison Kodjak reports.
ALISON KODJAK, BYLINE: Fitzgerald had been shadowed by financial conflicts since she took over at the CDC in July. She recused herself from working on issues related to cancer and opioids, two major public health threats, because of investments that she said were difficult to divest. Then Politico reported yesterday that she purchased shares in Japan Tobacco last summer after she arrived at CDC.
RICHARD PAINTER: It should be obvious that anyone working with the United States government in connection with public health should not be buying tobacco stock.
KODJAK: That's Richard Painter, who was White House ethics lawyer for George W. Bush.
PAINTER: This is only one of several very high-ranking people in the Trump administration who've had serious financial conflicts of interest.
KODJAK: Painter refers to former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who also owned health care stocks when he was in Congress and then was forced to resign last fall after revelations that he used expensive private jets for government travel. The Department of Health and Human Services says Fitzgerald resigned because she had separate investments that created conflicts, and she was required to hold on to them for a defined period of time.
As for the tobacco shares, the agency says her financial adviser bought them without her knowledge along with shares in the drug makers Merck and Bayer, the health insurer Humana and U.S. Food. Having to sell investments to take a government job can be difficult, said Georges Benjamin, the executive director of the American Public Health Association. Even so, owning tobacco stocks is particularly troublesome.
GEORGES BENJAMIN: Tobacco is uniquely a problem because it's the leading preventable cause of death. It's something that any CDC director is going to have to actively address.
KODJAK: Both Benjamin and Painter say the situation at CDC shows that there's a lack of strong ethics guidance in the Trump administration. Alison Kodjak, NPR News, Washington.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
When The New York Times published a big story over the weekend about fake followers on social media, a certain New York prosecutor was paying close attention. Eric Schneiderman is attorney general for New York state. He has brought a number of cases in recent years involving online fraud and fake accounts and impersonation.
And on Saturday, Schneiderman opened an investigation into a company called Devumi, which according to The Times, sold millions of fake followers on social media. Eric Schneiderman joins us now from New York. Welcome.
ERIC SCHNEIDERMAN: Thank you, good to be here.
KELLY: To give people a little bit of background here, the allegation is that Devumi has sold automated followers to celebrities, to businesses, to anyone - to you and me if we wanted - but followers to make it appear that people have more followers online than they actually do. So first question to you, what laws apply here? What's the potential crime?
SCHNEIDERMAN: Well, our primary focus is on impersonations of real people. So we're concerned about New Yorkers whose identities might have been used. We've been looking into issues related to fake identities. And impersonation is a crime in New York. Devumi was claiming that it was selling real, live followers. And clearly, there are a lot of questions about that.
And we know that there are some people who have reported that their identities were used without their consent. We don't want people paying for real, live followers if they're not getting real, live followers. And we are at the very early stages of this investigation. So it's hard to say which other laws might be involved. But deceptive practices, fraud is also against the law.
KELLY: Devumi has denied these charges. What is your understanding of the scope of the operation?
SCHNEIDERMAN: Well, we don't know. I mean, we're just starting. They sold millions of followers. They sold people over and over again. We're at the very early stages of what I think are going to be a series of investigations to try and sort this out.
KELLY: You're talking about the platform where these fake followers are engaging, we're talking Twitter, right?
SCHNEIDERMAN: Well, Twitter. They also apparently had presence on YouTube, Pinterest, LinkedIn and other platforms. So it's not just Twitter.
KELLY: Twitter has put out a statement saying, and I'll quote, "we are working to stop them" - them being the tactics allegedly being used here - "and any companies like them." From a legal standpoint, what is the responsibility of Twitter?
SCHNEIDERMAN: They're in a cooperative mode. They want to try and solve the problem. We're looking for the platforms to work with us to unravel the whole system because it's a pretty complicated system. And at the moment, you know, Twitter has indicated they're going to be helpful and want to solve the problem. That's a good thing. We're hoping the other platforms do too.
KELLY: I assume you're operating on the assumption that Devumi may not be the only company allegedly trafficking in these fake accounts.
SCHNEIDERMAN: Yeah. It's clear that there's a whole business in fake accounts, there's a whole business in bot accounts. This has become a major area of inquiry and concern for us over the last year or two as we've learned more about how technology has enabled new types of deception and criminal conduct. And unfortunately, the Internet is the crime scene of the 21st century, and we have to become familiar with the territory.
KELLY: Do you ever wonder if it's like sticking your finger in a dam? You go after one company, you block one hole and another one opens up?
SCHNEIDERMAN: Well, that's why we're looking to work with the platforms to solve the broader problem. And they have a long-term interest in people having confidence in the integrity of their systems.
KELLY: That statement I read from Twitter where I quoted them "saying we are working to stop them and any companies like them," end quote. It's not the most forceful statement I've ever seen come out from a corporation. Is there something specific they could do from where you sit that would be helpful?
SCHNEIDERMAN: Well, they have a lot of the information we need to investigate what happened here. And the indications are they're going to be working with us to give us that information. That's very helpful. They also probably are undertaking on their own to try and do some purging. But that - our main concern is with our investigation going forward so we can get all the information out, inform Congress and state legislatures that also may have a role in this and consumers about what happened.
KELLY: Eric Schneiderman, thanks very much.
SCHNEIDERMAN: OK, thank you.
KELLY: That's New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
NPR's Planet Money team wanted in on a market that is really hot right now - space. And as we heard on the show yesterday, they first managed to borrow a satellite. That didn't do them much good, though, without a rocket to take it to space. Luckily, NPR's Robert Smith knew a guy.
ROBERT SMITH, BYLINE: I met him at a small satellite conference. I mean, the conference was huge. The satellites were small. And while I was walking around, he slides up to me, and he says...
PHIL BRZYTWA: I'm kind of like your best friend that's going to find you a rocket somewhere in the world that has extra space.
SMITH: Phil Brzytwa is a rocket broker with spaceflight.com. There's a boom on in private space flight. Rockets are going up all the time from India, Kazakhstan, the United States. And when the rockets have extra space, a satellite can get a lift.
BRZYTWA: There's a car for every consumer, and there's a type of rocket for every type of satellite and where you want to go.
SMITH: So you've probably heard of SpaceX. They are the cool Tesla of space. Phil can get us room on that. Or if we want more of a dad rocket, Phil suggests one made by Orbital ATK.
BRZYTWA: I mean, they're on time. They're reliable, very few mishaps.
SMITH: Kind of a Volvo.
BRZYTWA: That's actually a very apt description of Orbital ATK. It's definitely like a Volvo.
SMITH: Or, Phil says, there's this new company in New Zealand. Think sports car. It's called Rocket Lab.
BRZYTWA: They're the new hotness.
SMITH: Really hot.
BRZYTWA: So hot - so hot right now.
SMITH: Say no more. I get on a plane to Auckland, New Zealand, and right next to the airport, there is a factory with a giant rocket sitting outside.
(SOUNDBITE OF KNOCKING)
SMITH: I think that's where our satellite's going to go.
(SOUNDBITE OF KNOCKING)
SMITH: Rocket Lab is the new hotness because it's still experimental. They're building super-light, super-cheap rockets to take up all those super-tiny, super-cheap satellites everyone's building, satellites like ours. Inside the factory, the CEO, Peter Beck, shows me around.
PETER BECK: You know, space is kind of viewed as this super romantic place and an elite place, which right now it is. But the whole point of Rocket Lab is to break down that barrier. I try and reinforce to everybody that, you know, yes, it's - there's fire and excitement, and it's all great, great and wonderful. But at the end of the day, we're a glorified freight company. We take your parcel, and we deliver it.
SMITH: And if you think of a rocket as a UPS truck, it's easy to find ways to make it cheaper. For instance, this rocket tube is made out of carbon fiber. Peter says go ahead. Pick it up.
With one arm, I'm going to lift stage two of this rocket. Well, that is heavier - a little heavier than I thought, but I'm lifting it. I'm doing it. That's amazing.
The rocket engines are made with 3-D printers. It is all great in theory. The problem when I visited was they hadn't actually been able to make it work yet. You cannot rush the hotness. So as Rocket Lab was still doing its tests, we got a call with a different opportunity. Remember the dad rocket, the Volvo, Orbital ATK? They had a launch ready to go in California.
This is such a beautiful spot.
And there it is, the Minotaur-C, 10 stories tall.
Holy moly, look at that.
JENNIFER BOWMAN: That's nice.
SMITH: Jennifer Bowman is showing me around. She's with Orbital ATK. Of course, you know, I would like a test drive before I commit the Planet Money satellite to this tube of fire.
So can we go touch the rocket?
BOWMAN: Well, in theory you could, but it's - they're really busy right now, and it's hazardous operations. And there's crowd control, and so no.
SMITH: OK, we'll take it. Tomorrow on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED...
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: Five, four, three, two, one...
SMITH: Robert Smith, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: We have ignition.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President Trump invited the parents of two teenage girls from Long Island to last night's State of the Union. Their daughters were killed allegedly by members of the violent street gang known as MS-13. President Trump called on the parents during his speech.
(SOUNDBITE OF 2018 STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Evelyn, Elizabeth, Freddy and Robert - tonight, everyone in this chamber is praying for you. Everyone in America is grieving for you. Please stand. Thank you very much.
(APPLAUSE)
MCEVERS: The White House says these killings show why the U.S. needs tougher immigration laws, but critics say the administration is deliberately exploiting the tragedy to demonize immigrants, as NPR's Joel Rose reports.
JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: After Kayla Cuevas and Nisa Mickens were beaten to death in 2016, their cases drew a huge amount of attention to Long Island. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and President Trump visited last year. When the president talks about MS-13, he often links the gang to the flood of migrant children from Central America who've arrived at the U.S. border without their parents. They've come by the tens of thousands seeking asylum. Here's another excerpt from last night's speech.
(SOUNDBITE OF 2018 STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS)
TRUMP: Many of these gang members took advantage of glaring loopholes in our laws to enter the country as illegal, unaccompanied alien minors and wound up in Kayla and Nisa's high school.
ROSE: More than 8,000 of these children have been resettled on Long Island, one of the largest communities of these kids anywhere in the country. But so far, law enforcement hasn't said whether Kayla and Nisa's alleged killers were among them. In fact, local law enforcement officials say less than 1 percent of these children are part of MS-13, and immigrant rights advocates say the majority of these kids left home because they were fleeing from gangs in the first place. Walter Barrientos is with Make the Road New York.
WALTER BARRIENTOS: This administration continues to use the tragedies and the crises that we are experiencing in this community for the sake of advancing their anti-immigrant agenda.
ROSE: Police on Long Island have been working closely with immigration authorities to round up suspected MS-13 members. They've arrested more than 200 suspected gang members in the past two years. But community advocates say undocumented immigrants who don't have ties to the gang are also getting caught in this dragnet.
PATRICK YOUNG: The community in general is just very, very frightened of the police.
ROSE: Patrick Young is with CARECEN, a nonprofit that works with the large Central American community on Long Island. He thinks the administration's heavy-handed response to MS-13 has been counterproductive.
YOUNG: Stigmatizing the community doesn't do anything to reduce crime. It just drives the community further away from public officials and undermines the efforts of churches and community groups to build strong relations between the community and the police.
ROSE: But local law enforcement officials dispute that. Timothy Sini is the former police commissioner and now district attorney in Suffolk County on Long Island.
TIMOTHY SINI: We are solving the crimes. We've cleared the vast majority of MS-13 homicides that have occurred. You know, oftentimes when you go to community meetings and you talk to the community, they want more.
ROSE: Sini says he's glad that the president is highlighting the brutality of MS-13 and sending resources to back up his talk. Late last year, the Suffolk County Police Department got a $500,000 grant to fight the gang. Joel Rose, NPR News, New York.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
To get a sense of how the president's State of the Union address was received in different parts of the country, we've called on two governors. Elsewhere in the show, we'll hear from Colorado Governor Democrat John Hickenlooper.
Now we go to Arkansas, where for more than a year we've been checking in with the state's Republican governor, Asa Hutchinson. And he is back on the line with us now from Blytheville, Ark. Welcome, Governor.
ASA HUTCHINSON: Great to be with you today. Thank you.
KELLY: Now, you're out on the road today. I mentioned we've reached you in Blytheville. Is that right?
HUTCHINSON: That's right. This is Blytheville. It's in Mississippi County, extreme northeast part of Arkansas. And it's right on the Mississippi River. The steel industry employs about 3,000 people here in this county, and so it's been a good day of talking about the steel industry and workforce training.
KELLY: And as you were out and about talking to people, were they watching the speech? What are you hearing?
HUTCHINSON: I did. Generally the response is very good and favorable. I think it caught people off-guard that it was like, this is a President Trump that understands the unique role the president can do in bringing people together. And utilizing the State of the Union address is something that not only speaks to Congress but also speaks to the nation. And they like the message that they heard.
KELLY: Well, let me ask you about a couple of the specific topics that the president touched on in the address last night. One that struck me because it was so short in this speech is health care, the Affordable Care Act, which of course was a huge focus of Republican time and energy last year - the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Last night, the president devoted precisely one line to it.
(SOUNDBITE OF 2018 STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We repealed the core of the disastrous Obamacare. The individual mandate is now gone, thank heaven.
(CHEERING, APPLAUSE)
KELLY: So Governor Hutchinson - mission accomplished?
HUTCHINSON: Well, I think it was important to emphasize that's a very dramatic change from what happened under Obamacare with the repeal of the individual mandate. But I think it's really practical recognition, too, that while we've done something significant, it's going to be hard to go back to health care whenever it's an election year, whenever the agenda is limited in Congress and you want to do infrastructure and you want to do so many other things that he outlined, that he emphasized what has been done.
KELLY: The president did give a - devote a big chunk of his speech last night to talking about immigration. And when we have spoken to you in past, you have been skeptical about his plans to build a wall. For example, you've said, we should be realistic in our discussions about this. So let me ask you. Is the president now being realistic?
HUTCHINSON: I do believe he has adopted a very realistic stance in terms of border security. I've always supported border security. I question the realism of having a physical wall across the entire southern border, and he's recognized that there are some areas that just doesn't work. So I think he's taken a very forward-leaning approach to it recognizing that we can address the DREAMers if we have that high level of border security that he's advocating. It's a good position to be in. It's something that we ought to have bipartisan support for.
KELLY: You said you support the outline of this, the framework of this. But as you know, as a politician, the devil is in the details. Where do you see this snagging?
HUTCHINSON: Well, this is the first time that I believe that the president has really engaged in a leadership position on a specific issue. On many of the other, like health care reform, he said, Congress, let's get it done, and he left them to work that out. So this is really a - him staking out his own leadership position here and his own framework. So the ball's in Congress's court right now to say, we can do that and to hammer out those details. I think he's shown the leadership that the American people expect and we appreciate in a president.
KELLY: Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson - Governor Hutchinson, thanks so much for taking the time and joining us once again.
HUTCHINSON: Thank you. It's good to be with you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Appalachia is this long, diagonal region that stretches from New York state down to Alabama - 400 counties, 25 million people. And the story of Appalachia has been told many times over the decades often by writers and photographers who travel there to show poverty and struggle. More recently during the campaign of Donald Trump, who got a lot of support in Appalachia, the story of the region was told by a writer named J.D. Vance in his book "Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir Of A Family And Culture In Crisis."
Vance wrote about his family history of drug addiction and violence. And since then, he's become a kind of spokesperson for the region. None of this sits well with Elizabeth Catte. She's an historian based in Virginia who has written a slim-but-pointed rebuttal to J.D. Vance. It's called "What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia."
ELIZABETH CATTE: There's a projection of his realities onto the lives of everybody in the region, and it's not in my mind accidental. It's right there in the subtitle of the book. It's a memoir of a family, but is also a memoir of a culture in crisis. The universalizing that is done in the book is something that's become a trademark of J.D. Vance's engagement as a pundit and a political up-and-comer. And so my book is certainly a criticism of "Hillbilly Elegy," but I'd also like it to be read as an interruption to a claim of ownership about my life and the people around me.
MCEVERS: How do you think people think of Appalachia now because of projects like this? And what would you like to tell those people? (Laughter) You know, like, what image would you like to sort of replace in their mind?
CATTE: Something very ordinary. I think the problem that we're starting to see from "Hillbilly Elegy" - and it's certainly not a new problem in Appalachia. It tends to come in waves. There's an idea that Appalachia is not fundamentally part of the United States, that it's a place within a place, and it's not a place but a problem. I would like people to understand that Appalachia is very much part of the wider United States. There's no mysterious culture here that explains the - you know, the realities. And our stories - the story of Appalachia cannot be separated from the story of the United States and the historical forces that have shaped us.
MCEVERS: There's this genre of campaign reporting that you talk about in your book. It's called the Welcome To Trump Country piece, right? You've got a reporter from The New York Times or The Guardian or The New Yorker or The New Republic coming to a small town in Appalachia, talking to the forgotten white people who were left behind by a global economy and how these people explain, you know, the rise of Donald Trump. You have a problem with these stories. Explain why.
CATTE: The piece that's often left out of them is what it feels like to be on the other end of those stories. And Appalachia has a long history of absorbing people in my book I call strangers with cameras, people who come to the region maybe not to see just poverty but a particular kind of poverty that they need and want to find.
The last moment that we had that comes to mind when I think of parallels was the war on poverty during the 1960s. This is the flurry of related legislation to remediate poverty. So we had a lot of reporters come to the region to take pictures of people who were experiencing poverty and extreme hardship because they needed to get the voting public to sympathize with poverty and the conditions that people experienced when they were in poverty.
And that created an overabundance of images that really left an enduring impression on the national imagination of what people think of when they think of Appalachia. They think of shacks. They think of people barefoot, dirty, you know, covered in coal dust. And that's left a big impression that we're still dealing with.
MCEVERS: So how do you talk about the region then?
CATTE: When I talk about Appalachia and I say that I think that there should be better coverage about Appalachia, I certainly don't mean that there should be more flattering coverage of Appalachia.
MCEVERS: Right. There is still poverty, right? And there - you know, the region is mostly white, and - so yeah, how do you talk about that in terms of...
CATTE: Yeah, so we just want more nuance I think. We need to kind of diversify the narrative of the region and acknowledge that it can't be contained in a single election or a single person's life. And I think one of the things I see now when I read comments on news articles and kind of engage with people online is that they want stories about how people who are vulnerable are weathering this administration - like, people of color, members of the LGBT community, new immigrants. My basic point is that Appalachia has those stories, too.
MCEVERS: Elizabeth Catte is an historian based in Virginia. Her new book is called "What You Are Getting Wrong About Appalachia." Thank you so much.
CATTE: Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President Trump devoted a good part of his first State of the Union address to North Korea. He said North Korea's pursuit of nuclear missiles could, quote, "very soon threaten the U.S." He did not though signal a change in his approach to North Korea. But some aides have been raising the prospect of a preemptive strike. NPR's Michele Kelemen begins our coverage.
MICHELE KELEMEN, BYLINE: There were some theatrics when President Trump turned his attention to North Korea last night. He invited a North Korean defector into the chamber and the parents of Otto Warmbier, the American student who spent a year and a half in a North Korean jail only to return home in a coma and die.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: We pledge to honor Otto's memory with total American resolve.
KELEMEN: But Trump didn't move the ball on U.S. policy, says Mike Green, a former Bush administration official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
MIKE GREEN: The White House was promising an eye-popping new statement on North Korea. But in fact, what he said about maximum pressure was quite consistent with what our allies Japan and Korea want to do. And I didn't hear any reference to preventive military strikes.
KELEMEN: Green is among many U.S. experts and lawmakers who have been raising concerns about an idea the administration has floated, a limited strike to give North Korea a bloody nose.
GREEN: That is deeply problematic. It's not consistent with international law. No one can say for sure how North Korea will respond.
KELEMEN: If they do strike back, hundreds of thousands of Americans and South Koreans could be at risk. Green's colleague, another former Bush administration adviser, Victor Cha, says he raised similar concerns in his meetings with the White House when he was considered for the post of U.S. Ambassador to South Korea. The Trump administration says Cha is no longer under consideration.
And though there are some indications he had trouble with his security checks as a Korean American, Green believes the White House didn't like Cha's political views.
GREEN: The background and security of ethics checks that he had to go through before his name was sent to Seoul, which it was, for what's called (unintelligible), a sort of preannouncement approval, just suggests that the real issue was the growing - the opposition in and out of government to the idea of a military strike. And I think he was associated with that.
KELEMEN: And that worries Kelly Magsamen of the Center for American Progress, who served in both the Bush and Obama administrations. She says any president needs to hear all sides.
KELLY MAGSAMEN: I would want somebody coming in and saying, OK, have you considered these downsides or, you know, here would be the potential impacts. Maybe this isn't the best option. Maybe we should be pursuing a different option. You know, you would think you would want that level of debate, especially if you're considering something like the use of force, which should always be the last resort.
KELEMEN: The White House is giving no indication of when it might name someone to serve as ambassador to Seoul. Magsamen says the South Koreans were clearly hoping to have someone by now, with tensions high and the Olympics just a week away.
MAGSAMEN: I know that the South Koreans are looking forward to having an ambassador out there. And I think certainly it probably confuses them in terms of where the administration might be headed.
KELEMEN: Top State Department officials who briefed reporters on security plans for the upcoming Olympics today say the fact that there's no U.S. ambassador hasn't had an impact on that. Michele Kelemen, NPR News, the State Department.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Let's stay with this story and bring in the voice of Frank Aum. He's a North Korea expert, formerly at the Defense Department, now at the United States Institute of Peace. And he's here in our studios. Welcome.
FRANK AUM: Thanks for having me.
KELLY: This idea of a bloody nose strike on North Korea, how seriously do you believe it is being considered as an option? And is it a good option for North Korea?
AUM: Well first of all, I think if the White House dropped Victor Cha as its nominee for ambassador to South Korea this late in the game because he expressed concerns about a military strike approach to North Korea, then that's very worrisome. It suggests that the White House is giving this option serious consideration.
KELLY: That they would not put an ambassador in place who was opposed to such an option.
AUM: Who can't advocate for that policy, correct.
KELLY: What's your personal take on it? Do you share the concerns that Victor Cha has raised?
AUM: I do. I think it's very problematic. I think first of all, how do you convince North Korea that we are only going for a limited bloody nose strike rather than trying to deliver a full knockout punch against the regime? That's a concern. So if North Korea thinks - I think - so Dr. Cha and many others have made this argument. They say that you can't assume on one hand that North Korea's so irrational that it can't be deterred and so we have to use military options against North Korea and then on the other hand, assume that North Korea is rational enough to not retaliate against a U.S. strike and escalate this into a full-blown war.
So if the U.S. strikes, then North Korea will have to respond to maintain its credibility and deterrence. And this means significant risks, huge human and economic casualties not only in Seoul but potentially in Japan and the United States as well.
KELLY: On the other hand, to play devil's advocate, diplomacy hasn't deterred North Korea. Sanctions don't appear to have done much to deter North Korea. Is there an argument to be made that something needs to be done to deter North Korea if the U.S. isn't prepared to live with a North Korea that can threaten mainland U.S. with nuclear weapons? Nobody's arguing this is the best case scenario.
But should it be on the table?
AUM: Well, first of all, North Korea has already been deterred and they have not conducted serious aggression against the United States or South Korea for over 60 years. North Korea is not suicidal. They know that any attack against the U.S. or its allies will result in their destruction. So we need to be aware of that, first and foremost.
I think we have to give President Trump some credit here that the maximum-pressure strategy is bearing some fruit. We've seen many countries shut down North Korean embassies, kick out diplomatic officials, which is helping to reduce North Korea's access to hard currency. China and Russia is getting on board in terms of adopting more serious stringent measures against North Korea, which has cut off almost - over 90 percent of North Korea's exports.
And even President Moon of South Korea has credited the pressure policy with getting North Korea to come to the table for the inner Korean talks, which has led to a period of peace leading up to and hopefully during the Winter Olympics period.
KELLY: Back to the saga of Victor Cha, the White House's original choice to be U.S. ambassador to Seoul. How big a void is it not to have an ambassador there?
AUM: Well, I first of all want to say that the Korea Foreign Service is doing a fantastic job and they're very able. Marc Knapper, who's the deputy chief of mission, is doing a wonderful job. That being said...
KELLY: They're running the embassy in the absence...
AUM: Correct. That's right.
KELLY: ...Of a personal ambassador - of a permanent ambassador.
AUM: Yes, very competent and capable. That being said, it's hard to substitute or achieve the level of stature that an ambassador has that has the full support of the president. So you need to have an ambassador in place to message the U.S. policy correctly and be the strongest advocate for what we're trying to accomplish on the Korean peninsula.
KELLY: In the few seconds we have left, given what has happened to Victor Cha, do you see other Korea experts raising their hand and volunteering for this post?
AUM: Well, if supporting a limited-strike option against North Korea as the litmus test, then I think that's very problematic for future ambassadorial nominees.
KELLY: So you're not raising your hand at this point.
AUM: No. No, I'm not.
KELLY: You're out of the running.
AUM: That's Frank Aum, senior expert at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Thank you very much.
KELLY: You're welcome.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
President Trump says now is the time to fix the nation's crumbling roads and bridges. Here's part of what he said last night in his State of the Union address.
(SOUNDBITE OF 2018 STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Tonight, I'm calling on Congress to produce a bill that generates at least $1.5 trillion for the new infrastructure investment that our country so desperately needs.
KELLY: The president did not offer details on where that money would come from, and that is concerning to many transportation planners and infrastructure experts. NPR's David Schaper reports.
DAVID SCHAPER, BYLINE: Bud Wright of the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials says he's pleased the president is highlighting the need to invest in infrastructure.
BUD WRIGHT: This president clearly does see infrastructure as a priority.
SCHAPER: But he's a bit concerned about what President Trump didn't say about his infrastructure plan last night. White House officials say of that $1.5 trillion the president wants to spend, only $200 billion would come from the federal government, spread out over 10 years. Local governments would have to come up with much of the rest. And Wright says cities and states already shoulder a significant share of the transportation funding burden.
WRIGHT: About 80 percent of the investment that's being made on highways today comes from state and local governments. And the number is somewhere around 75 percent for public transportation.
SCHAPER: Wright says more than 30 states have raised gasoline or other taxes in recent years to make up for a lack of federal funding. So few may be able to stomach raising taxes even more to come up with what the president's plan would require them to put up. Another concern is how the money would be distributed.
MARYSUE BARRETT: It's twisted, and it's potentially dangerous.
SCHAPER: That's MarySue Barrett, president of Chicago's Metropolitan Planning Council, a regional planning nonprofit. She says the administration wants to give greater preference to those projects that have more state and local funds at the ready. But Barrett says transportation projects should be awarded funding based more on what the projects can achieve than what they can pay.
BARRETT: We have to decide about the economic value. We have to decide about the equity impacts, who's being left behind in our changing economy and making sure that we don't invest just in the places that are already successful.
SCHAPER: President Trump is also calling for greater private sector investments in infrastructure. Sarah Badawi of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee calls that a scam.
SARAH BADAWI: And the result - families will pay tolls to Wall Street just to drive home from work.
SCHAPER: But the fact that cities and states may have to rely more heavily on tolls to pay for infrastructure is not necessarily a bad thing, says Pat Jones of the International Bridge Turnpike and Toll Association.
PAT JONES: Tolling is a very visible and transparent way to fund infrastructure. It's easy to see what the toll is, and it's easy to see where the money goes.
SCHAPER: Jones says tolling may not work everywhere, but it can provide a quick, reliable funding stream to build new highways and bridges or repair and replace crumbling ones. The question is whether Congress will want to rely on increased tolling as one of the ways to raise the money that President Trump wants to spend to fix up the nation's infrastructure. David Schaper, NPR News.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
One major theme in President Trump's State of the Union address was how there should be more bipartisanship and more results from Washington. We are now getting reactions to that from governors of both major parties. And with us now is Democratic Governor of Colorado John Hickenlooper. Welcome to the show.
JOHN HICKENLOOPER: Thanks for having me on.
MCEVERS: What did you think of the president's speech?
HICKENLOOPER: Well, I thought that his approach to bipartisanship was welcome. Obviously he's previously been much more divisive. And to speak about unity even though - I mean, a lot of the issues he brought up pitted one solution versus another, and the actual - you know, the issues became somewhat divisive. But talking about collaboration across partisan lines I think is very important, and hearing him say that I think matters.
MCEVERS: You know, it's funny. We hear it a lot. In a very, very, very divided Washington, we hear people talk about bipartisanship. I mean, did you get a feeling that it's possible?
HICKENLOOPER: Yeah, I think that - I mean, I'm an optimist. Most governors are optimists. And if you look at most governors, Republicans and Democrats - Bill Haslam is the governor of Tennessee. He and I - about every four years, I take a team of my cabinet to Tennessee, and we get his best practices. And then he brings a team of his cabinet to Colorado, and he gets our best practices. We get along great. We're as nonpartisan as elected officials can be.
It was good to hear the president talking in those terms. But again, the proof's going to be in the pudding, right? I was talking to some my staff this morning, and they were still suspicious based on his actions and his words previously whether this approach to bipartisanship is sincere. But you know, I take him at his word. I'm willing to roll up our sleeves and say, all right, you want us to help on infrastructure. We're going to help on infrastructure. You want us to help negotiate on, you know, any of these issues. We will.
MCEVERS: Immigration of course was a big part of the speech, and the president says the way to getting there - to getting a new and comprehensive immigration law is bipartisan compromise. Do you think that is possible? And, like, on what specific issues do you think bipartisan compromise is possible on immigration?
HICKENLOOPER: Well, I think immigration - I mean, he laid out something that obviously has been rejected by most Democrats, but that was a starting point. And I think for the first time, to hear him say to the nation that he's willing to look at a pathway to citizenship for, you know, roughly 2 million DREAMers, that's a big step, right? It puts him in a - I mean, he's going to have to really work hard to get that done through his base.
And I understand we're not - we don't want to end family migration. We don't want to end a lot of the things he's asking for. We don't want to waste money building a wall that's not really necessary. But putting a significant amount of money towards border security - I think most people agree with that. I mean, again, getting 2 million DREAMers on a pathway to citizenship is something we haven't had the opportunity to talk about in a serious way.
MCEVERS: So you see that as a concession and a good starting point.
HICKENLOOPER: Yeah, exactly. Again, laid out in its extremes, it was rejected by almost everybody, both sides.
MCEVERS: Right.
HICKENLOOPER: But that doesn't mean there's not a negotiation in there and that he could find some resolution that would make us - make the country better off than it was before.
MCEVERS: What did you make of what the president said about the Affordable Care Act? He said very little about Obamacare. He said that the Republicans repealed the core of it. He was talking about the individual mandate that required people to have health insurance. But he didn't really say much else. What did you make of that?
HICKENLOOPER: I think he's seen the writing on the wall around the Affordable Care Act that health care matters to a lot of people, and they are vocal. And we've seen it in Colorado with town hall meetings both with Republicans and Democrats. If you're going to vote against coverage - in other words, if you're going to support a bill in Congress that's going to roll back the number of people that have insurance coverage, you can expect some serious pushback. And I think he's realizing that, and I think they're going to come up with something that will help deal with this. They want to be able to say they decimated the Affordable Care Act, but they don't want to roll back coverage. I mean, to do so, they would be facing their own failure at the polls in the midterms.
MCEVERS: Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado, thank you so much.
HICKENLOOPER: It was a pleasure. Thank you.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
President Trump dedicated about a thousand words in his State of the Union speech last night to immigration. He talked about crimes committed by undocumented immigrants. He said he would close the, quote, "loopholes" that allow them to enter the country. And he talked about building a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico. We're going to talk now with NPR's John Burnett. He's at the Border Security Expo in San Antonio with many immigration officials, border agents and vendors Hey there, John.
JOHN BURNETT, HOST:
Hi, Kelly.
MCEVERS: I understand you talked today with Tom Homan. He's the acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. What did he have to say?
BURNETT: Well, Tom Homan is mad as hell these days about a lot of things. He wants so-called sanctuary cities to stop what he sees as grandstanding and open their jails to his ICE agents so they can pick up all the undocumented immigrants there. He's tired of ICE agents being, as he says, vilified by Democratic politicians and the media. And, like the president, he says he wants to close what he calls those loopholes that allow asylum-seekers to stay in this country when he says they don't have legitimate fears of returning. Here he is talking about what he says are these bogus asylum claims.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
THOMAS HOMAN: I will never say all these families are exploiting the system. Some have legitimate claims I'm sure; many of them do not.
BURNETT: If you think that so many of the asylum-seekers are gaming the system, would you like to see them turned away at the border?
HOMAN: If they're making a frivolous claim to asylum, yes.
BURNETT: So Homan wants Congress to authorize more jail beds so he can lock these asylum-seekers up while their cases process. Then, of course, many immigration attorneys say these immigrants have a justified fear of returning to Central America, and it's cruel to lock them up when they're fleeing out of fear.
MCEVERS: As we mentioned, President Trump, you know, talked about building a border wall again. He wants $25 billion for a security trust fund at the border, part of which will be used on the wall. Has there been much talk about that down there?
BURNETT: You know, all the continuing attention on the wall makes this crowd uneasy. This is the Border Security Expo, and it's all about high tech, a blended approach to border security, using ground sensors and remote cameras and tethered spy blimps and all kinds of gadgets. And I'd say the people at this convention believe there's too much emphasis on steel and concrete barriers. Here's David Aguilar. He was deputy commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection under Obama.
DAVID AGUILAR: Yes, there is additional wall that may be needed out there but not anywhere to the degree that's being debated today. Sometimes we hear the 2,000-mile wall. Well, no, that's ludicrous. We don't need anything like that.
MCEVERS: So if that's true, then what would a border wall be? Like, how long would it be, and what would it look like?
BURNETT: Well, OK, so the president's talking about $25 billion for border security, but down here, they're really only counting on $1.6 billion for 74 miles of border barriers. That's the figure that was in the Homeland Security's 2018 budget request. One border official said - he told me I'm optimistic. It's coming. We're getting ready to build this thing. And several officials said one of the big sticking points is still acquiring that border land. Most of the wall would go across private land, and taking it is long, complicated and litigious. So CBP wants to get started.
MCEVERS: We're hearing about fewer people actually crossing the border illegally these days. Who is still doing that?
BURNETT: Well, of course, apprehensions across the border have dropped 35 percent in the last year. But it's interesting. The two groups of immigrants that are on the rise - unaccompanied youngsters and women and children, most of them coming from Central America, saying they're asking for asylum to get away from these murderous gangs that have taken over their neighborhoods. This last piece of tape is Carry Huffman. He's chief of strategic planning for Customs and Border Protection who says they keep coming because of the so-called catch and release.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BENJAMIN HUFFMAN: They're still coming. They got here. They were arrested, detained for a while, ultimately released. And so there really wasn't a consequence applied to them for unlawfully entering the country. And I think that word is getting back.
BURNETT: Border Patrol is also seeing an uptick in single adults crossing the border illegally, meaning the Trump effect may be wearing off.
MCEVERS: NPR's John Burnett, thank you.
BURNETT: You bet.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
When President Trump laid out his immigration plan last night, he said it rests on four pillars. The third of those pillars is to end the Diversity Visa Program.
(SOUNDBITE OF 2018 STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: A program that randomly hands out green cards without any regard for skill, merit or the safety of American people.
KELLY MCEVERS, HOST:
Most of us actually know this program as the green card lottery. No family connection is needed, no employer or sponsor. The most important ingredient you need is luck. The program had its origins in the 1980s. It was designed to benefit a growing population of undocumented Irish immigrants in New York and Massachusetts.
KELLY: Later, it was broadened to include countries that don't generally send a lot of immigrants to the United States. I spoke earlier with Muzaffar Chishti from the Migration Policy Institute. And he pointed out that despite all this talk about the green card lottery, it ultimately is a small slice of the overall American immigration picture.
MUZAFFAR CHISHTI: Look, you know, we admit about a million people a year with green cards. The diversity program allows about 50,000 people. That's about 5 percent of our immigrant stream. About 20,000 go to European countries, 20,000 go to African countries and about 8,000 go to Asian countries. That's been the mix.
KELLY: We mentioned Ireland was the initial big beneficiary. I gather Poland has also been a big beneficiary, also African countries. There's been a huge influx of African immigrants under this program.
CHISHTI: Exactly. I think historians would argue that the largest migration of Africans that happened since slavery to the United States was made possible by the Diversity Visa. Countries like Nigeria, countries like Sierra Leone, countries like Guinea, Liberia have been big beneficiaries. On the other hand, countries like Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Poland have also been big beneficiaries.
And Bangladesh is an outlier here but a huge beneficiary of the program since it was started.
KELLY: Do you have data that shows how lottery recipients tend to fare when they get to the United States?
CHISHTI: I think there's really no hard data. But I think it is - one of the criticisms of the Diversity Program is that people come with no established attachment to the country. But on the other hand, they come with, you know, fire in their belly. And lot of people argue that that is much more consistent with the founding of our country, that people who just have a lot of gumption can succeed well.
KELLY: Let me ask you about another argument that's been made against this program, which is that it might, despite the screenings that are done at the outset, allow dangerous people to come into the country. A recent example has been flagged. This is the man from Uzbekistan, Sayfullo Saipov, who carried out that truck attack in Manhattan just last fall that killed eight people. He came in through the visa lottery program in 2010.
CHISHTI: You know, I think first of all, the security concerns are equally valid for all admission categories. There's nothing peculiar about the diversity visas that make them more vulnerable to admission of terrorists. And with respect to the terrorists who are being tied to these programs, they all - by every piece of evidence we know, they were radicalized in the United States after the admission.
So nothing in the screening process could indicate that this person who we are admitting today could potentially get radicalized a few years down the line. If there are concerns about security, they should be addressed. But they should be addressed with respect to all categories of immigrants.
KELLY: Muzaffar Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute, thank you so much for speaking with us.
CHISHTI: Thanks so much for having me.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Lots of people from lots of countries have come into the U.S. through the visa lottery program over the years. We thought we would hear one story out of those many. And so we're turning next to Abdel Akim Adjibade. He won the lottery in 2003 and came to the U.S. the following year in 2004. Abdel, welcome to the show.
ABDEL AKIM ADJIBADE: Thank you for having me.
KELLY: Now, at the time when you won, you were a science teacher in Burkina Faso in West Africa. And I hear you had actually applied - this was the fifth time you had applied for the program.
ADJIBADE: That's true.
KELLY: What made you so determined to come to the states?
ADJIBADE: Well, a strong desire to change my living condition. And, you know, when you're abroad, you look at America as the heaven.
KELLY: Heaven.
ADJIBADE: So a strong desire to come, very determined, and it didn't cost me anything to apply.
KELLY: Tell me about the moment that you found out - fifth time lucky - that you had won.
ADJIBADE: (Laughter) So I went to check the mail, and I saw a big envelope - manila envelope.
KELLY: Literally a big, fat envelope with your name on it.
ADJIBADE: Yeah, with my picture sticking out. I open it. I read that letter with my picture with a case number. Congratulation, you have been - I start shaking, you know, realize really what was happening to me. And then I made a phone call to my dad. I said, Dad, I just found that I have an opportunity to go to USA. He said, if it is in your best interests, you can go.
KELLY: Now, you get here, you have one cousin, no, you know, brothers, sisters, parents here. You had no job lined up. What was it like at first?
ADJIBADE: Well, what we don't know when we apply is that once you go through the airports, you are on your own. Everything that happen to you will be a matter of good luck and good circumstances.
KELLY: Is there a memory that stands out from those first days of trying to figure it out here?
ADJIBADE: Well, let me say this - in Africa, when you pass someone, wherever, your first action is to greet that person. Here, it seems like when you're the first to say hi, you want something from someone.
KELLY: So you're wandering around your first few days saying hi and greeting everybody, and everybody's giving you a funny look.
ADJIBADE: Well, it's not - it's not like I was greeting everybody. I remember one thing that happened to me. I was walking down the University of Illinois. I saw a girl, and I said hi. She just jumped back. I just want to say hi. May you tell me, you know, where I can find this or this? She just jumped back, and I could see the fear in her eye, and I just say I'm sorry.
KELLY: I want people to know that you have done just fine in the decade-plus since you landed. You've gotten your bachelor's degree. You've done your master's degree. You're now an instructor of physics. You teach at Eastern Illinois University, right?
ADJIBADE: Yes, yes.
KELLY: What do you make of the fact that this program that brought you to the United States - through which you have thrived, that it is very much in the news right now - President Trump would like to eliminate the program?
ADJIBADE: (Laughter) Well, I have to say there are so many inaccurate statements out there.
KELLY: Inaccurate statements.
ADJIBADE: Yes, inaccurate statements. As for me, you know, you can tell I've been teaching in Eastern Illinois since 2012. I'm doing pretty fine. And people will not say that I'm useless to the United States or I'm taking advantage of the United States' resources. It's so sad that the rhetoric that is going out out there, but I don't want to be too political.
KELLY: That is Abdel Akim Adjibade...
ADJIBADE: Yes.
KELLY: ...Visa lottery winner and instructor at Eastern Illinois University. Thanks so much for talking to us.
ADJIBADE: Thank you for having me.