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MADELEINE BRAND, host: I'm Madeleine Brand. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is in Sichuan province today. He's inspecting the so called quake lake, that's a lake formed by landslides after last month's 7.9 earthquake.
ALEX CHADWICK, host: Authorities have evacuated one quarter of a million people in the flood path of that lake. For some it's their second flight to safety, and still many are anxious to get back home. Jamila Trindle reports.
JAMILA TRINDLE: Tua Hua Shan or Peach Blossom Mountain is really just a hill, but it's become a refuge for thousands of people from low lying villages nearby. If the dammed river upstream gives way and floods the valley, it should still be above water. For people staying here, it's been three weeks of fear and uncertainty. After living through one disaster and fleeing the threat of another.
Mr. WEN FONG: (Through translator) Everyone wants peace and quiet, but the quake and the flood makes everyone here nervous. If the situation continues like this, our hearts won't be able to take it anymore. It's so terrible.
JAMILA TRINDLE: Wen Fong (ph) says he has nightmares about the quake, the aftershocks, and now the flood, too. A local TV station has wired up a television. A few people are gathered around waiting for news about the lake that still threatens to flood their towns. Others have retreated into the woods nearby to get out of the heat. At first glance, with parents playing cards and kids running through the trees, it looks like everyone's just out here for a day in the country. Though it all appears carefree, when I asked the kids what they've been doing these days, they're quick to answer avoiding disaster. The adults are laughing and chattering around their card game, maybe out of nervousness. They say they're constantly anxious. Wong Guen Quay(ph) says she's still scared, even here.
Ms. WONG GUEN QUAY (Earthquake Survivor): (Through translator) I worry about a bigger earthquake or flood coming. Maybe this place where we're staying will also be destroyed. After the quake, you know, my legs are always soft. It's like I'm swaying in the wind when I walk. All day my brain is nervous and my heart feels like it's going to stop.
JAMILA TRINDLE: When she heard they'd have to evacuate again, Wong couldn't believe it.
Ms. WONG GUEN QUAY (Earthquake Survivor): (Through translator) It's crazy. The quake isn't finished, but the flood is coming.
JAMILA TRINDLE: And yet they all say they'll go back.
Ms. WONG GUEN QUAY (Earthquake Survivor): (Through translator) How could we leave? Even the migrant workers who left are coming back. It's our home. Of course if flooding destroys the houses, we'll have to leave. If not, we prefer to stay there.
JAMILA TRINDLE: Wong says life will be hard, even if they can go back. They'll still have to live in tents. But they're hoping they can harvest the crops left in the fields when they fled. That's one of their biggest concerns right now. For some of them, it's all they have. And they all agree they're grateful the government is providing for them until it's safe to return. Jo Gui Ti(ph) is hoping that it's soon. He's an official for a nearby village. Jo sits tallying numbers in front of a blue tent labeled Tai Bai(ph) Village Office.
Mr. JO GUI TI (Tai Bai Village Official): (Through translator) People are definitely more anxious here. Not only the farmers, but also the officials are quite anxious. We really hope that the people can return to their homes as soon as possible. You know, inside the tent it's too hot so it's hard to do anything in there.
JAMILA TRINDLE: He says his village was one of the first to be evacuated, so they've been here for ten days and the financial loss in terms of crops keeps mounting. As the women around her voice their anxieties, Wong Guen Cheun(ph) tries to put things in perspective.
Ms. WONG GUEN CHUEN (Earthquake Survivor): (Through translator) Of course we're very anxious about staying here too long. Our crops are still in the fields and we can't harvest them. But most importantly we're safe. That's the point. Life is the most important.
JAMILA TRINDLE: For NPR news, I'm Jamila Trindle in Sichuan province. | China's devastating earthquake in May left almost 70,000 dead and five million homeless. Thousands of the displaced people are now being evacuated again as rivers clogged with debris threaten to overflow. One such camp is on Peach Blossom Mountain near Jiangyou. | Chinas verheerendes Erdbeben im Mai forderte fast 70,000 Tote und fünf Millionen Obdachlose. Tausende Vertriebene werden nun wieder evakuiert, da mit Schutt verstopfte Flüsse zu überlaufen drohen. Ein solches Lager befindet sich auf dem Peach Blossom Mountain in der Nähe von Jiangyou. | 中国五月份的大地震造成近7万人死亡,500万人无家可归。数千名流离失所的人现在再次被疏散,因为被瓦砾堵塞的河流有漫溢的危险。这样的营地就在江油附近的桃花山上。 |
ALEX CHADWICK, host: This is Day to Day. I'm Alex Chadwick.
MADELEINE BRAND, host: I'm Madeleine Brand.
MADELEINE BRAND, host: In a few minutes, writer Pete Hamill remembers the last day of his friend Robert F. Kennedy.
ALEX CHADWICK, host: First, John McCain, yes, John McCain - the other presidential candidate. He gave a major speech last night. That's what his campaign called it. He was in the city of New Orleans. Here he is.
Senator JOHN MCCAIN (Republican, Arizona): I strongly disagreed with the Bush administration's mismanagement of the war in Iraq. I called for the change in strategy. I called for the change in strategy that is now, at last, succeeding, where the previous strategy had failed miserably.
Senator JOHN MCCAIN (Republican, Arizona): I was criticized. I was criticized for doing so by Republicans. I was criticized by Democrats. I was criticized by the press. But I don't answer to them. I answer to you.
ALEX CHADWICK, host: John McCain, the candidate of change but the right kind of change, he said last night. Former presidential speechwriter David Frum joins us by phone in Barcelona, where he is today. David, what did you think of that speech?
Mr. DAVID FRUM (Columnist, National Review): Well, the McCain speech as a document was just terrific. It hit every point that John McCain needed to hit. And it did something very subtle. While paying lots of compliments to Barack Obama personally, it dealt with the age issue that Obama subtlety raises against John McCain all the time by complimenting him on his half century of service to the country. John McCain raised it by saying, well, Barack Obama may be young, but his ideas are old.
ALEX CHADWICK, host: I heard him say, it's surprising to hear a young man turn to the past for failed ideas.
Mr. DAVID FRUM (Columnist, National Review): Exactly. Now, the only thing that could have made the speech better is if we lived in an age where people absorbed political oratory from the newspaper because when you read the speech, it's just a perfect document. Unfortunately, we've invented radio and television and people hear it and see it, and it was not delivered with the kind of power and conviction that a speech so powerful and conviction-filled ought to have been delivered with.
ALEX CHADWICK, host: So as you look ahead at the campaign, how is that going to play into things? Senator McCain is a - enormously sympathetic political figure for many, many Americans, but as an orator, as someone who has to get up and excite a crowd, he's not a match as a candidate for Senator Obama.
Mr. DAVID FRUM (Columnist, National Review): No, but he really doesn't need to be. I mean, I have a very simple map of what I think is happening in this election. The country is ready for a change and is ready to sweep out the incumbent party, the Republicans, if the alternative is acceptable. And the great question over the rest of the election is, is the alternative acceptable? And John McCain is John McCain. He is very much a known quantity.
Mr. DAVID FRUM (Columnist, National Review): They know he was right about the war, and they know he got the tactics right. The surge was his idea. They know he is not on top of this economic issue and that's a problem, but he's known, and they respect his integrity and his record. Now you have this other candidate who is much less known and then you have this third force, Hillary Clinton, who I thought last night was sort of vowing to conduct a guerilla warfare campaign - we've lost the main battles, but I'm going to lead my band of party fighters up in to the hills and the war continues. And depending on how destructive she is, she may play a major part in convincing the country that the alternative to the incumbent is unacceptable, or at least impossible.
ALEX CHADWICK, host: You write in the National Review online today that she may be campaigning for the vice presidency and if she is, that Senator Obama would find it almost impossible to say no, but very inadvisable to say yes.
Mr. DAVID FRUM (Columnist, National Review): Look, Mitt Romney is campaigning for the vice presidency. He's going around the country. He's making speeches. He's saying nice things about John McCain. Hillary Clinton is doing a little bit more than that. She's got 2,000 delegates or thereabouts. She is delivering a speech - I'm not giving up. Now, the question she is posing to Obama is, nice little convention you are going to have there in Denver, it would be a true misfortune if it were to be ruined by a whole series of challenges over credentials of Michigan and Florida.
Mr. DAVID FRUM (Columnist, National Review): I mean, I could turn this thing into the worst convention since the Democratic convention of 1968. Would you like me to do that? If not, you'd better think about ways to make me happy. This is not campaigning for the vice presidency. This is putting a pistol to the man's head and - so, it's not an abstract question for Obama.
ALEX CHADWICK, host: You know, this strikes me, David, we called you to talk about John McCain, and here we are still talking about Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Maybe if they go on, Senator McCain will never get any attention and it will just be them.
Mr. DAVID FRUM (Columnist, National Review): But this election really is about them. I really do think there is very little the Republicans can do to win this election. But there is a great deal the Democrats can do to lose it and so far, they are doing many of those things.
ALEX CHADWICK, host: David Frum, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and he writes a column for National Review online. David, thank you again.
Mr. DAVID FRUM (Columnist, National Review): Thank you. | Former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum says John McCain's major speech on Iraq was a "perfect document," but its impact was dulled by a less-than-powerful delivery. Frum, a American Enterprise Institute fellow and columnist for the National Review Online, also discusses a Clinton-Obama ticket. | Der frühere Redenschreiber von George W. Bush, David Frum, sagt, John McCains große Rede über den Irak sei ein „perfektes Dokument“ gewesen, aber seine Wirkung sei durch eine weniger starke Rede abgeschwächt worden. Frum, Forscher des American Enterprise Institute und Kolumnist für den Nationale Kommentar Online, diskutiert auch eine Clinton-Obama-Vereinigung. | 前小布什总统的演讲稿撰写人大卫·弗鲁姆表示,麦凯恩就伊拉克问题的重要讲话是一份“完美的公文”,但由于他的措辞不够有力,所以影响不大。美国企业研究所的研究员弗鲁姆是《国家在线评论》的专栏作家,他还讨论了克林顿和奥巴马之间的竞争。
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MADELEINE BRAND, host: From NPR News, this is Day to Day.
MADELEINE BRAND, host: Finally, some relief from those relentless rise in oil prices. The price of a barrel of crude is now more than $10 below last month's record highs, but some industries are finding that the damage has already been done. They're making some big changes in the way they do business. Joining us now is Marketplace's Bob Moon. Bob, first, why are oil prices falling now?
BOB MOON: Well, hallelujah, Madeleine, crude does keep dropping. It's been trading at around $122 a barrel today. Compare that to the record high we saw just two weeks ago, when oil hit a record of $135.09a barrel. Some of this is driven by signals from the Fed, that it's through cutting interest rates for now. That could help shore up the value of the dollar, and that could help stabilize oil prices since most oil is priced in dollars.
BOB MOON: But the big factor in today's price decline is the latest word that we've gotten from the Energy Department on gasoline demand. It says that there was a sharp fall-off last week, and demand's been declining over the past four weeks, really, by almost one and a half percent. That's helped push gasoline inventories up by almost 3 million barrels. Now that's more than three times the increase than analysts were generally expecting.
MADELEINE BRAND, host: So, if there is more gas, does that mean that the prices will go down?
BOB MOON: Well, not necessarily right away. The average price for regular gas right now across the country has now hit a record of 3.98 a gallon. Many analysts think that's likely to hit four bucks in the coming days. Of course here in California, we're already paying well over that amount.
MADELEINE BRAND, host: So, what about these problems that the high oil prices are causing for certain businesses? What's happening?
BOB MOON: Well, the airline industry is really struggling with the cost of doing business and just today, we've gotten word from United that they're going to make aggressive moves to cope with fuel prices. They are cutting 1,100 more jobs, and United is going to ground 70 more of its fuel guzzlers. That means it's mothballing its entire fleet now of 94 Boeing 737s along with six 747s. And United's going to be cutting its mainline domestic capacity by up to 18 percent in the next year. And then move over to the auto industry. another sign of these belt-tightening times. The Ford F -series pick-up truck, it's been the best-selling vehicle in America for the past 17 years. Well, last month, it wasn't. The Honda Civic and the Accord and Toyota's Camry and Corolla all outsold Ford's pick-up. And then just yesterday, GM said it would be closing down some SUV plants. It's retooling to meet shifting consumer demands.
MADELEINE BRAND, host: So, is this temporary or long term, do you think, these changes?
BOB MOON: Well, analysts and industry officials are telling us that these are fundamental changes in the ways these companies are going to be doing business. Here's how one auto market analyst puts it. He says he's never known the market to change this much, this quickly, in his lifetime.
MADELEINE BRAND, host: Wow. Thank you, Bob. Bob Moon of Public Radio's daily business show, Marketplace. | United Airlines announces plans to lay off about 1,000 workers and ground some planes. And for the first time in 17 years, imported compact cars last month outsold Ford F-series pickups. Marketplace's Bob Moon discusses the sea change in the U.S. economy. | United Airlines kündigt Pläne an, etwa 1.000 Mitarbeiter zu entlassen und einige Flugzeuge stillzulegen. Und zum ersten Mal seit 17 Jahren übertrafen die importierten Kleinwagen im letzten Monat die Pickups der Ford F-Serie. Bob Moon von Marketplace erörtert den Wandel in der US-Wirtschaft. | 美联航宣布计划裁员约1000人,并停飞部分飞机。进口紧凑型轿车上个月的销量17年来首次超过了福特F系列皮卡。《市场》杂志的鲍勃·穆恩讨论了美国经济的巨变。 |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: It's time now for our series Hanging On, where we take a look at the economic pressures of American life. This week, we're looking at the minimum wage because it's on its way up to $15 an hour in California and New York, which is an unprecedented wage bump at the state level. And it's going to have an effect both on workers and employers. NPR's Hansi Lo Wang has more.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: Shopping these days is a little easier on Edica Reese's wallet. She works as a cashier at a McDonald's in New York City, where the minimum wage is on the rise.
EDICA REESE: It's helping. I guess I can get more essentials. Before, I couldn't get what I needed.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: Sometimes she would have to ask neighbors for toilet paper when she ran out. But now she and other fast-food workers in the city are making at least 10.50 an hour. That's set to go up to $12 an hour at the end of the year.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: And that means she can afford to keep up her own stock of toiletries.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: Are you finished shopping?
EDICA REESE: Yes, I am.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: But it's going to be a while before the minimum wage finally hits the planned $15 an hour. That's because the wage hikes in New York state and California are being phased in with small bumps every year. Reese says 15 an hour would make a big difference for her and her 3-year-old daughter.
EDICA REESE: I guess I could pay my bills on time instead of waiting for the next check to come and the next check. I live check to check still. I need to save a little bit more money, you know?
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: For a full-time worker, a year's salary at 15 an hour, before taxes, adds up to just over $31,000. And some employers say they're not sure how they're going to afford it, including Kurt Samuels. He owns Family's Pots and Grill, a Jamaican restaurant in Mount Vernon, N.Y., where, at 5:30 in the morning, he starts making...
KURT SAMUELS: Brown stew chicken, curry goat, oxtail, and soon I'll have some jerk chicken ready.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: This is all for the lunch rush?
KURT SAMUELS: For the lunch rush.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: Samuels has one part-time employee who helps take orders. She's currently making the minimum wage, and he says when it goes up...
KURT SAMUELS: It's going to be hard, you know? Maybe her hours most likely going to be cut, you know, 'cause the end of the day, got to pay the rent, pay the bills, the gas, light, insurance.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: He recently raised prices, but he's worried about losing customers if he does it again.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: A few blocks away, Miesha Stokley is trying to figure out how to keep staffing her cupcake shop. She has one minimum-wage worker who helps with baking.
MIESHA STOKLEY: She's definitely worth minimum wage, so I can't argue with that. I just have to, you know, work harder so we can make more money and I'll be able to pay. But I don't argue with it because it's expensive to live in New York.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: For now, Stokley's putting more hours in herself at Cupcake Cutie Boutique.
MIESHA STOKLEY: I work nights as a nurse. So I'm here in the morning and the afternoon, and then I go to work at night.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: So when do you sleep?
MIESHA STOKLEY: I barely sleep (laughter).
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: It's part of the pressure many other small-business owners are facing in cities, including Seattle and Washington, D.C., where the minimum wage is also rising to $15 an hour. But lawmakers and economists are paying extra attention to the wage bumps in New York state and California.
LINDA BARRINGTON: For most economists, this is untrodden territory.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: Linda Barrington heads Cornell University's Institute for Compensation Studies. She says it's hard to predict how raising the minimum wage at the state level will impact New York and California's economies. That's because past studies have not looked at increases this big and that affect this many people. Besides workers and employers, though, she says we should keep an eye on how these wage hikes will affect prices.
LINDA BARRINGTON: The more that businesses can pass it along to consumers, the less it's going to negatively affect employment.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: Those consumers, of course, include minimum-wage workers. That's partly why some critics of minimum-wage hikes say increases are not effective tools for reducing income inequality. Still, Barrington adds, any increase will touch not only fast-food chains and other large-scale industries but also those on the smaller scale, like families hiring a home health care worker.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: For Edica Reese's family, though, it's a change that can't come soon enough. She lives in a public housing development in Harlem, where she pays $300 a month for a small studio apartment she shares with her daughter, Kayleene.
EDICA REESE: And you like the fight for 15, right?
KAYLEENE: Uh-huh.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: Kayleene went to rallies with her mother, where she and other fast-food workers protested for minimum wage increases.
EDICA REESE: What do you say?
KAYLEENE: What do you want? Fifteen. When do you want it? Now. We don't get it, shut it down.
EDICA REESE: Yay.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: Yay.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: Workers in Arizona, Colorado, Maine and Washington are also calling to raise their state's minimum wages, though to a few dollars shy of 15. Those hikes will be on the ballot on November 8.
HANSI LO WANG, BYLINE: Hansi Lo Wang, NPR News, New York. | Minimum wages are on their way to $15 an hour in New York and California. Workers look forward to the bump. But some small businesses are bracing for a hit to their bottom line. | In New York und Kalifornien sind die Mindestlöhne auf dem Weg zu 15 Dollar pro Stunde. Arbeiter freuen sich auf die Erhöhung. Aber einige kleine Unternehmen müssen sich jedoch auf einen Einbruch ihres Gewinns einstellen. | 纽约和加州的最低工资正在逼近每小时15美元。工人们期待着这次突破。但是,一些小企业正准备承受对其底线的冲击。 |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: A couple of weeks ago, some residents of Coudersport, Pa., got some strange packages delivered to their homes with flyers inside them from the Ku Klux Klan. Coudersport is a small town of about 2,500 people in the northern part of Pennsylvania. Jaimi Hajzus grew up there. And she lives a couple of hours away now, but she got all kinds of concerned messages from friends about these packages.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: So she teamed up with Coudersport resident Joe Leschner who started a Facebook group to gather information and help fight the KKK's presence in that town. Jaimi Hajzus joins us now from Franklin, Pa.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Welcome to the program.
JAIMI HAJZUS: Hi.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: So what did the fliers say specifically?
JAIMI HAJZUS: It said something like, are you concerned about what's going on in town? - and something like, you can sleep tonight because the KKK is watching.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: So it was some kind of recruitment tool?
JAIMI HAJZUS: I think so. I don't think that they were trying to make people feel safer.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Is there a history of Klan activity in that town or in that area?
JAIMI HAJZUS: Unfortunately, yes. There's a little bit of history there. When I was growing up in Coudersport in the 1990s, a man named Augusts Christ lived there and was active in the white supremacy movement. He would often harass anti-racist church leaders, neighbors and community members. We saw more activity through the 1990s, where people from out of town were coming in town to gather for these white supremacist events. August Christ then moved out of Potter County around 1999. You know, we had kind of 16 - 15, 16 years of peace and quiet in Coudersport. And then - and now this.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: So how did residents respond when they got these things?
JAIMI HAJZUS: People are upset. This isn't the sort of thing that we, as a small town, want to be known for. It is primarily white town, and we would like to be known for hunting and fishing. And we have an ice mine and other touristy-type attractions. And I think we've worked really hard to overcome this negative press (laughter). So it's disheartening to have it come back.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: You said it's a predominantly white town. Are there African-Americans or other minority families who live there? And have you reached out to them to understand how they're processing this?
JAIMI HAJZUS: There are some. And actually, Joe Leschner took up the cause because he realized that members of his own family were feeling scared and threatened. Joe's wife is from Jamaica. And she felt scared, and he didn't like that at all.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: The Facebook group that you guys have started is called Twin Tiers for Racial Equality. How are you using the space, and what's your goal?
JAIMI HAJZUS: We want to send a message that this hateful rhetoric is not welcome in our town. But also, we're trying to start a movement about saying things out loud to other white people. So white people need to stop talking the talk and start walking the walk in terms of how we behave towards our black and brown friends and neighbors, beginning with the words that we use and how we behave in our daily lives with other white people and including how we vote.
JAIMI HAJZUS: A big part of our campaign is this hashtag, #sayitoutloud, which means that we confront racism in real time right away when we see it or hear it. So one of our most important jobs as white allies is to confront our white friends and families when they are being racist.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: There have been reports of similar packages, like the ones that were delivered to the residents of Coudersport, these things showing up at people's houses across the country. Are you hearing from a lot of people outside Pennsylvania who found your Facebook group?
JAIMI HAJZUS: Yes, actually. We started hearing from people in Kansas and in other places, mostly sort of intensely rural small towns where there might be literally one or two people. But they've decided to take up this cause and try and threaten and harass their friends and neighbors.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Jaimi, have you gotten any threats as a result of this work?
JAIMI HAJZUS: No. The thing that I experience the most, honestly, in this kind of activism, in this kind of work, is silence. This is why I really need for our white people to start talking and need them to start speaking up. You know, they'll tell me that it's a political issue. It's not a political issue. The rhetoric that's being flung around right now is unacceptable, and that needs to be said loudly.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Jaimi Hajzus is co-founder of a Facebook group out of Pennsylvania called Twin Tiers for Racial Equality.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Jaimi, thanks so much for talking with us.
JAIMI HAJZUS: Thank you. | Jaimi Hajzus was alarmed to learn that KKK fliers were dropped on lawns in her hometown of Coudersport, Pa. She tells NPR's Rachel Martin of a Facebook campaign to counter the hate group. | Jaimi Hajzus war alarmiert, als sie erfuhr, dass KKK-Flugblätter in ihrer Heimatstadt Coudersport, Pennsylvania, auf den Rasen abgeworfen wurden. Sie erzählt Rachel Martin von NPR von einer Facebook-Kampagne, um der Hassgruppe entgegenzuwirken. | 贾米·哈族斯得知3K传单被扔到了家乡宾夕法尼亚州考德斯波特的草坪上,感到非常震惊。她告诉NPR的瑞秋·马丁,Facebook发起了一场对抗仇恨团体的活动。 |
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: How big of a difference does three weeks make?
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Well, three weeks ago, federal sentences for crack cocaine were much tougher. Then, new guidelines from the U.S. Sentencing Commission took effect, bringing the penalties more in line with what some advocates say is fair. But what about people already serving their sentences? Are those too lengthy?
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Well, the commission is now considering whether to reduce prison terms for thousands of people in jail for crack cocaine offenses.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Later on the show, we'll speak with someone who opposes retroactive resentencing.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: But first, Mark Mauer. He's executive director of the Sentencing Project and he thinks that convicts already serving sentences should get theirs reduced, which means some would be let out of jail.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Welcome.
Mr. MARK MAUER (Executive Director, The Sentencing Project): Hi. Thanks. Good to be here.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So, explain this. A person arrested for crack cocaine offense on October 31st, a federal offense, would get a different sentence from someone who got theirs on November 1st?
Mr. MARK MAUER (Executive Director, The Sentencing Project): Exactly. You know, the crack cocaine laws go back to the mid-1980s and punish crack cocaine offenses far more harshly than powder cocaine. And the U.S. Sentencing Commission, recognizing this disparity, has modified the sentences somewhat, but for people sentenced as November 1st.
Mr. MARK MAUER (Executive Director, The Sentencing Project): So, essentially, someone who is sentenced on October 31st might have gotten a 10-year sentence for crack offense. A similar person sentenced on November 1st is now getting roughly a nine-year sentence. And the question is, is there any justification for making those different or should we make it retroactive to people who've already been sentenced and are sitting in prison right now.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: As part of this whole debate over crack and powder cocaine, these reduced sentences or the reduced guidelines would still have much higher penalties for crack cocaine, correct?
Mr. MARK MAUER (Executive Director, The Sentencing Project): Far higher. One quick example. There's a guy in prison right now by the name of Willie Mays Aikens. He's a former baseball star for the Kansas City Royals, played in the World Series, subsequently became addicted to drugs and started selling drugs and sold to an undercover agent. He was convicted of a crack cocaine offense and is in the middle of doing about a 20-year sentence. If this proposal goes through, to make it retroactive, he'll have about three years, cut-off in his sentence. He'll still do 17 o 18 years. If he'd been convicted of selling powder cocaine, he would have gotten a sentence about two and a half years only. That's the magnitude of the difference we're looking at.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So the Sentencing Commission is taking this up now. When could we expect a decision?
Mr. MARK MAUER (Executive Director, The Sentencing Project): Well, some people have heard that they may make a decision in January. They can do it at anytime, so it's likely within the next month or two. They had a full day of hearings this week, heard very broad variety of views. So I think all the information that they need to look at this issue is certainly before them right now.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: How does race play into this convictions over crack and powder cocaine?
Mr. MARK MAUER (Executive Director, The Sentencing Project): Well, race is fundamental to the whole policy. You know, back in 1986 when these laws were adopted by Congress, we have this relatively new drug that had come on the scene, crack cocaine. And the image of that - the crack user, whether or not it was entirely correct - was that of a young black male, sometimes young black female. I mean, we have cover of Newsweek magazine and similar - lots of stories on television. That was the image that came across.
Mr. MARK MAUER (Executive Director, The Sentencing Project): And the Congress passed the crack cocaine mandatory sentencing laws, really, in record time. There are virtually no hearings held, no discussion about - with experts in the field who knew something about addiction or treatment. And it's hard to escape the fact or the conclusion that the rush to judgment had something to do with the perception of the person who is being affected.
Mr. MARK MAUER (Executive Director, The Sentencing Project): It's intriguing to note that the Sentencing Commission has previously made retroactive changes for other drug sentencing laws, particularly for marijuana and LSD, where they change the law that made it retroactive.
Mr. MARK MAUER (Executive Director, The Sentencing Project): Those changes primarily benefited white defendants. Here, the estimates are 85 percent of the people who would benefit from crack retroactivity would be African-Americans. So it's a very stark contrast before us.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Do you, in your mind - although, you're advocating this - see any downside to potentially releasing people who have already been convicted under existing laws?
Mr. MARK MAUER (Executive Director, The Sentencing Project): Well, you know, there are some people who make the charge that -well, we'd be releasing dangerous people out in the community. Some of these people have had weapons involved in their offense. Some of them have been convicted also of obstruction of justice and the like. That's equally true for people convicted of powder cocaine or a heroin offenses or anything else, and yet, we routinely let people out of prison every day.
Mr. MARK MAUER (Executive Director, The Sentencing Project): Many of the people sentenced for these crack cocaine offenses will have served 10, 15, even 20 years or more before they're let out. And so if we can't come up with some way to provide these people with job skills, with life prospects after that many years in prison, that points to a much more fundamental problem.
Mr. MARK MAUER (Executive Director, The Sentencing Project): It seems to me they've paid far too much in terms of punishment for the crimes they committed. The question now is how do we prepare them for release to live at more constructive lifestyle when they get out. And I think we have an opportunity to take advantage of that now.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Well, Marc, thank you so much.
Mr. MARK MAUER (Executive Director, The Sentencing Project): Thanks for having me.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Marc Mauer is executive director of The Sentencing Project. He was at NPR's Washington, D.C. headquarters.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Next, we'll hear what law enforcement thinks about the proposal. | The U.S. Sentencing Commission is considering whether to reduce the federal prison sentences of thousands of people in jail for crack cocaine offenses. Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, is pushing for retroactive resentencing. | Die United States Sentencing Commission erwägt, die Bundesgefängnisstrafen von Tausenden von Menschen, die wegen Crack-Kokaindelikten inhaftiert sind, zu reduzieren. Marc Mauer, Geschäftsführer von The Sentencing Project, drängt auf eine rückwirkende Neubestrafung. | 美国量刑委员会正在考虑是否减轻对数千名可卡因罪犯的联邦监禁刑罚。量刑项目的执行董事马克·莫尔,正在推动追溯重判。 |
ALEX CHADWICK, host: Now, from the Unger Report, a question, are you going through changes in your life? Maybe a new job, a new relationship? How about just a different toothpaste. Our humorist, Brian Unger, says you might be evolving.
BRIAN UNGER: Oprah Winfrey is on the cover of Black Enterprise Magazine this month. Now you probably remember when she was on the cover back in 1986, and you're asking, hey, Oprah, what has changed since then? Well, the answer according to Oprah, nothing. In 22 years, Oprah says nothing about her has changed. In Oprah's world, there's still a Camaro in her driveway. Kurt Waldheim is president of Austria, and bacon is $1.75 per pound. Nothing has changed.
BRIAN UNGER: But what she does say is very interesting. Oprah says, quote, "I've evolved." Oprah has evolved right into her brand new yet to be launched very own cable TV network, called "OWN" which is going to be on the air very soon because an hour of Oprah a day is just not enough.
BRIAN UNGER: So how do we know, or how does Oprah know she's evolving? And what will she look like to archeologists in one million years, when they find petrified Oprah in a forest, will they say, "she was very evolved?" Is evolving painful? More importantly, who can evolve and who can't? Well, I can tell you that I'm pretty sure I'm evolving too. Into a new more expensive apartment next week and it hurts. Now I'm not changing addresses, I'm evolving into a new address because I got robbed at my old address. Two gang bangers standing in my driveway with all my stuff in their van caused me to evolve.
BRIAN UNGER: Now Oprah and I are not the only two people who are evolving. Other big names say they have evolved. Like Hillary Clinton on gay issues.
Senator HILLARY CLINTON (Democrat, New York): Well I am very much in favor of civil unions with full equality of benefits.
BRIAN UNGER: George Bush's reasons for being in Iraq have evolved, or at least mutated. That annoying man on NBC, Jim Kramer.
Mr. JIM KRAMER (Host, "Mad Money"): He has no idea.
BRIAN UNGER: He says he evolved when it comes to buying stocks.
Mr. JIM KRAMER (Host, "Mad Money"): They no nothing.
BRIAN UNGER: And the pop singer, Ciara. She says she evolved too. I don't even know who she is and she's evolved. This is what she sounds like now.
Ms. CIARA: (Singing) Try and
BRIAN UNGER: And this is what she sounds like two seconds later.
Ms. CIARA: (Singing) Watching me...
BRIAN UNGER: Her music actually gets worse the longer you listen to it. That is evolutionary. So next time someone comes up to you and says hey, you've changed. You say, hey, oh no, I've evolved. Thanks, Oprah. And that is today's Unger Report. I'm Brian Unger.
BRAND: Speaking of evolving, you can take your Unger with you as a podcast. The Unger Report, as well as this entire show is available as a podcast, go to npr.org/podcast. | Oprah Winfrey isn't changing — she's "evolving," the media mogul recently told a magazine. And our humorist Brian Unger is following suit as he examines the path of personal evolution. | Oprah Winfrey verändert sich nicht – sie \"entwickelt sich\", sagte der Medienmogul kürzlich einem Magazin. Und unser Humorist Brian Unger folgt diesem Beispiel, wenn er den Weg der persönlichen Evolution untersucht. | 奥普拉·温弗瑞并没有改变,这位媒体大亨最近在接受杂志采访时表示,她是在“进化”。我们的幽默作家布莱恩·安格也紧随其后,探索个人进化之路。 |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is at war with the National Enquirer and its parent company, AMI.
DAVID GREENE, HOST: Yeah. Bezos laid out this explosive allegation in a post on the blog site Medium last night. In it, Bezos says the tabloid's owner, David Pecker, was trying to blackmail him. In the post, he writes, quote, "rather than capitulate to extortion and blackmail, I've decided to publish exactly what they sent me despite the personal cost and embarrassment they threaten."
DAVID GREENE, HOST: Now, Bezos says the company was threatening to release intimate photos of him in an effort to stop him from finding out how the National Enquirer had obtained his private photos and text messages documenting an extramarital affair. Bezos also implies here that the reason for the blackmail is that he is the owner of the Washington Post, which has been dogged in its reporting about President Trump.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: So much to talk about here. NPR's Uri Berliner is here to help us understand this story. Hi, Uri.
URI BERLINER, BYLINE: Hey, Rachel.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: So David mentioned there some intimate photos revealing an extramarital affair. Can you tell us more about what exactly the National Enquirer had on Bezos?
URI BERLINER, BYLINE: Yeah. They said they had a series of photographs of Bezos and Lauren Sanchez, the woman that he had been having an affair with, very sexually suggestive, lewd photographs that they were threatening to publish unless Bezos backed off from his investigation into how AMI, the parent company of the National Enquirer, obtained those photographs. And that's - he really wanted to find out how those personal texts and photos leaked.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Right. So in this long Medium post, Bezos just publishes some of the emails that he says are from AMI. What do they say?
URI BERLINER, BYLINE: Yeah. So Bezos, you know, basically says, OK, you've got these photos on me. I've got these emails from you, from officials from AMI. And basically, they're saying that they want Bezos to stop investigating. One of them from an AMI official proposes some terms to end the dispute with Bezos. It says it will agree not to publish any of the texts or photos. But in exchange, Bezos must say that AMI's coverage of his affair was not politically motivated. The other email described some of those suggestive photos that we've been talking about.
URI BERLINER, BYLINE: I reached out to AMI for comment. I've not heard back from them. But Bezos in his post says there is a political motivation here.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: I mean, let's just spend a second talking about that. There are all kinds of political threads to this, right? As we noted, like, David Pecker is a good friend of Donald Trump's. And Jeff Bezos is the owner of the Washington Post, a paper that has been pretty critical and aggressive in the reporting over Donald Trump, right?
URI BERLINER, BYLINE: Absolutely. The Post has been very aggressive in its reporting of Trump. Trump has also feuded with Amazon, the company that Jeff Bezos founded. He claims they get all kinds of breaks. They're not paying their fair share of taxes. So this has been an ongoing feud between between President Trump and Bezos, who owns the Post and founded Amazon.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: And remind us about the National Enquirer's connection to the investigations into Donald Trump because David Pecker was granted immunity in the investigation into Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen because Pecker was involved into those illicit payments to Karen McDougal, right?
URI BERLINER, BYLINE: Right. The National Enquirer acknowledged paying hush money to a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Trump. She was paid 150,000 during the 2016 campaign. And so that's really what happened there.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: He also refers to his ownership of the Post as being a complexifier for him, which is an odd word. But, I mean, what more does he say about his role as the owner of the Post?
URI BERLINER, BYLINE: He says, (laughter) yeah, it's a complexifier, difficult, but he has no regrets about owning the Post. And it's - he says it's - when he looks back on his life, owning the Post and supporting its mission is something he'll remain proud of at age 90.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: OK. NPR's Uri Berliner for us. Thanks, Uri.
URI BERLINER, BYLINE: You're welcome.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: The U.S. Supreme Court has blocked the state of Louisiana from implementing a restrictive new abortion law before then ruling on its constitutionality.
DAVID GREENE, HOST: Yes. So this ruling right now puts a temporary stay on the law, which means clinics that perform abortions can keep operating for the time being until the court does rule on the constitutionality.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Supreme Court reporter Amy Howe is with us to talk through the ruling and the dissent because there was some. Amy, thanks for being here.
AMY HOWE: Hey, good morning. Thanks for having me.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: First, before we talk about the implications, what exactly would this law do in Louisiana?
AMY HOWE: A lot of it depends on exactly how it plays out. And that is part of Justice Brett Kavanaugh's dissent, which we can talk about. But the opponents of the law say that if the law's allowed to go into effect, there'd only be one doctor to provide abortions in the early stages of pregnancy and none at all for women seeking abortions after 17 weeks of pregnancy.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: You mentioned Justice Kavanaugh's dissent. What did he say?
AMY HOWE: So he was the only one who wrote to explain why he would have denied the stay that the opponents of the law were seeking. He would have allowed the law to go into effect. There were four justices altogether - Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch in addition to Kavanaugh all said they would deny the stay and allow the law to go into effect.
AMY HOWE: But what Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court's newest justice, wrote is that a central legal question in the case is whether this requirement that doctors who perform abortions in Louisiana have to have admitting privileges will impose an undue burden, which is the legal standard for whether a law violates the Constitution, on a woman's right to have an abortion depends on a factual question, whether the doctors in this case can actually get admitting privileges.
AMY HOWE: And that's disputed. The District Court in this case, the trial court, said that they wouldn't be able to, and the Court of Appeals said that they would be able to. And so what Justice Kavanaugh said is instead of putting the law on hold and speculating about this, let's figure it out during the 45-day transition period because if the doctors can get admitting privileges, there's no undue burden, and the law should be allowed to stand. If they can't, he said, they can come back to court.
AMY HOWE: And this would be faster than doing it the way the court's going to do it, which ultimately probably will wind up with a decision sometime in the summer of 2020.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Interesting.
AMY HOWE: Yeah.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Let me ask you about how it broke, though - 5 to 4. John Roberts, the chief justice, sided with the liberals. Was that surprising?
AMY HOWE: It was, yes. To be sure, the court was not writing on a blank slate because in 2016, the Supreme Court had struck down a similar law from Texas. But in that case, it was Justice Anthony Kennedy who joined the court's former liberal justices, and the chief justice, John Roberts, was actually in dissent. We don't know what his reasoning was to vote this - to vote with the four more liberal justices last night. But we do know that he's an institutionalist. So even if he might believe that the law is constitutional in a vacuum, perhaps this Texas case from three years ago says otherwise.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Amy Howe reports on the Supreme Court for the SCOTUSblog. Amy, thanks for being here this morning. We appreciate it.
AMY HOWE: Thanks for inviting me.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: The will-he-or-won't-he debate is over. Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker goes before the House Judiciary Committee today.
DAVID GREENE, HOST: Yeah. House Democrats have been eager to press Whitaker on his interactions with President Trump and his oversight of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, even threatening to subpoena him if he didn't show up. Whether he'll answer their more sensitive questions about the investigation is, of course, another matter, but we'll find out. House Democrats are feeling emboldened with their new majority. This is House Oversight Chair Elijah Cummings on Wednesday at a hearing on strengthening ethics rules for the executive branch.
ELIJAH CUMMINGS: The American people gave this Congress and this committee a mandate to restore our democracy and clean up our government.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: All right. For more on House - on how House Democrats are using their newfound power, we've got NPR congressional reporter Kelsey Snell in the studio. Good morning, Kelsey.
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: Good morning.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: So first off, let's talk about Matt Whitaker. The acting AG is going to go before the Judiciary Committee today. What are they going to ask him?
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: Well, first of all, this happened after a week of kind of back-and-forth. Whitaker originally threatened not to show up because Democrats on the committee were essentially threatening to subpoena him. But he agreed to appear last night. And Democrats say they want to ask him specifically about the Russia investigation.
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: They are going to ask lots of questions. They're probably going to touch on things like the child separation policy or potentially about immigration and health care. But this will be largely about the Russia investigation, how much people know about it and how much the - inside of the attorney general's office, how much they're talking to the president about that. And it'll be public, so we'll watch that happen.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: This hearing with Whitaker comes at the end of a week where Democrats started to follow through on campaign promises to investigate the president, to investigate his administration. One of those promises - Democrats have pledged to look into Trump's tax returns. Is that going to be part of this oversight push?
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: It absolutely is. We just don't know how fast it's going to move. Just the other day, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that she was - wanting people to be cautious. She wants people to be careful about this because sensitive tax returns are a really serious thing, and releasing them quickly has a lot of potential implications and potential legal implications if the president decides not to comply.
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: But, you know, it's important to think about this in the context of broader oversight that Democrats want to do. They are moving forward from the shutdown. And they want to spend their time making sure that they make good on promises to investigate this president, and this week was all about that.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Is - does that jeopardize their other agenda items? Because they're not just about investigating the president, right?
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: They say that it doesn't. They want to do other things. They want to make health care more affordable. They want to have conversations about climate change. But really, when you are - Democrats are the - only controlling the House. They don't have power over the Senate or the White House. So it's hard to legislate. Doing these investigations allows them to put their stamp on everything - on guns, on child separation, like we talked about, and even on the environment.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Meanwhile, I can't let you go without asking about the border security talks because there is this panel of lawmakers who are trying to come up with a border security agreement to avert yet another government shutdown. Are they making progress?
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: We are told that things are looking good and that they are negotiating in good faith, but a deal is not in hand yet. And I've been told by some people privately that they think that they might need a little bit more time than just next week. So this could get extended if they can't get a deal in the next couple of days.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: The deadline's the 15, right?
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: The 15.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: OK. We'll be following it. NPR's Kelsey Snell for us this morning. Thanks, Kelsey.
KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: Thank you. | Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is accusing the National Enquirer's parent company of extortion. Also, Amy Howe of SCOTUSblog discusses the Court's decision on Louisiana's abortion law. | Amazon-Chef Jeff Bezos wirft der Muttergesellschaft von Nationales Ermitteln Erpressung vor. Außerdem diskutiert Amy Howe von SCOTUSblog die Entscheidung des Gerichts zum Abtreibungsgesetz von Louisiana. | 亚马逊首席执行官杰夫·贝佐斯指控《国家问询者报》的母公司敲诈勒索。同时,艾米·豪在美国最高法院的博客上讨论了最高法院对路易斯安那州限制堕胎法的裁决。 |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: So what's a club DJ to do when a lot of kids would rather sit at home and play video games instead of go out and dance? DJ Marshmello recently tried to solve that problem by making himself part of one of the most popular video games out there. He created an avatar of himself and staged a performance inside Fortnite.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: For those blissfully unaware, Fortnite is a virtual battlefield game played by millions around the world, often at the same time - not exactly the place you'd expect a dance party to break out. It was the first ever Fortnite concert. And as NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports, it was such a hit, we're probably going to see more.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: A video of Marshmello's Fortnite concert has been viewed more than 20 million times on YouTube. Neon colors pulse as avatars dance, wave glow sticks and leap through the air while DJ Marshmello revs up the virtual crowd.
MARSHMELLO: Let's go. Let's go. Let's go. Let's go.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: According to the ratings company Nielsen, some 10 million people - or their avatars - attended this virtual concert. When Marshmello's concert was over, players commented, best event ever, and, better than the Super Bowl. Marshmello tweeted a video of kids dancing.
UNIDENTIFIED CHILD: Oh, my God.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: This isn't the first time musicians and video games have converged. Michael Jackson...
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: ...And David Bowie both appeared in games in the 1990s.
DAVID BOWIE: The survival of your soul is at stake.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: But back then, they played together in the living room, not in a massive virtual arena. Today, musicians are gamers, and famous gamers are into music. Marcie Allen is president of the music and sports agency MAC Presents.
MARCIE ALLEN: It's about being in the center of culture. And with music and gaming, that's where these kids are sitting, you know, the generation Z and then on the cusp of millennials.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: Joost van Dreunen is managing director of SuperData Research, a part of Nielsen. He says there's an interesting juxtaposition between the Fortnite concert and the failed Fyre Festival, an expensive music festival in the Bahamas promoted by celebrities on platforms like Instagram that never delivered on its promises.
JOOST VAN DREUNEN: And then you compare that to, like, these silly kids on the fringes of the entertainment business, you know, these 14-year-olds. And they're just having a good time, and they're just sharing with their friends. And I think that that's a really interesting indicator of what's to come down the line, right?
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: For anyone worried that video games will spell the end of physical clubs and concert halls, composer and DJ Sam Spiegel says it won't happen.
SAM SPIEGEL: There's something very visceral about being at a show, feeling the sub-bass hit your body and being next to people that are sweating and screaming. And, you know, at least so far, we've never been able to create anything that lets you experience music that way in the digital world.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: And hey, maybe there's a future for radio too. Elizabeth Blair, NPR News. | What does DJ Marshmello's Fortnite concert mean for the future of music performance? The 10-minute virtual concert was one of the largest digital gatherings ever. | Was bedeutet das Fortnite-Konzert von DJ Marshmello für die Zukunft der Musikperformance? Das 10-minütige virtuelle Konzert war eine der größten digitalen Versammlungen aller Zeiten. | DJ棉花糖的《要塞英雄》 音乐会对音乐表演的未来意味着什么?这场10分钟的虚拟音乐会是有史以来最大的数字聚会之一。 |
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: In 2005, Tyler Perry debuted a character whose movies have gone on to make more than $500 million.
MABLEAN EPHRIAM: (As Judge Ephriam) Madea.
TYLER PERRY: (As Madea) How you doing, Judge Mablean? It's good to see - oh, your is pretty, girl. Look at you. You're looking good. How you been?
MABLEAN EPHRIAM: (As Judge Ephriam) You're still at it.
TYLER PERRY: (As Madea) This ain't even my fault. What had happened was...
MABLEAN EPHRIAM: (As Judge Ephriam) Save it.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: That's a clip from "Diary Of A Mad Black Woman," the first of 11 Madea movies. The eleventh drops this weekend, and Tyler Perry, who plays Madea in drag, says this will be the last one in the franchise. It's called "A Madea Family Funeral." Well, to say goodbye and talk about why this character has become such a phenomenon, Lisa France joins us now. She's a senior entertainment writer for CNN Digital. Hi there.
LISA FRANCE: Hey, Ari. How's it going?
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Good. So I was just browsing Rotten Tomatoes, and "Diary Of A Mad Black Woman" has a 16 percent rating. The most recent Madea film, "Boo 2! A Madea Halloween," has a 5 percent rating, but the franchise has been a huge financial success. How do you explain all of that?
LISA FRANCE: Because people love to hate Madea movies.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: (Laughter) OK.
LISA FRANCE: It's kind of like a black family reunion. Like, you know someone's going to embarrass you, but you also know you're going to have a great time. So I think it's one of those things where people just don't want to admit how much they enjoy Madea films. And even if they really don't like them, they still like to hate-watch them. They make a lot of money. You don't want to be left out of the conversation when somebody is talking about the latest Madea film.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: What is it about the character that inspires both the love and the hate?
LISA FRANCE: Well, you know, Spike Lee has gone on record as saying that the films are kind of like coonery and buffoonery, as he said, that he feels like it's very stereotypical to have this angry black woman. But for many people, it also reminds you of your grandma or your auntie, you know, those people who say whatever. They use their age to their advantage to be able to, you know, curse you out or let you have it. And it's just a very divisive character because on some levels, it's very historical, but on others, it feels very stereotypical.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: These films all have certain themes in common. There's often kind of a family narrative, sometimes a moralistic or Christian streak. Sometimes Madea does kind of - almost, like, public service announcements. This clip is from "Madea's Family Reunion."
TYLER PERRY: (As Madea) When you get tired of a man hitting on you, honey, ain't nothing you can do but cook breakfast for him. Bring him into the kitchen, and get you big old pot of hot grits. And when it starts to boil like lava after he had got good and comfortable, you say good morning. Throw it right on him.
LISA FRANCE: I mean, right there you have the dichotomy that is Madea - on one hand, incredibly loving, looking out for someone who's being abused but, on the other hand, also violent (laughter). So...
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Abuse is a frequent topic in a lot of these movies, which seems like a heavy subject to tackle in slapstick humor. What do you think is the value of returning to it again and again in film after film?
LISA FRANCE: I think because it's one way for us to have the discussion and, in a way, try to keep it light. You know, people want to see the reality of life and African-American life and what happens in families, but they also want some levity to it. So I think by using humor, Tyler Perry has been able to open people's eyes and allow people to have the conversation which would otherwise be extremely uncomfortable to have.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: All right, well, we're talking about this because Tyler Perry says this weekend's movie, "A Madea Family Funeral," will be the last one in the franchise. Do you believe him?
LISA FRANCE: I don't.
LISA FRANCE: The reason is while he says that he's tired of portraying Madea and he has a new deal with a new studio; he's using that as an opportunity to kind of leave Madea behind, these movies make so much money. And I just feel like it's going to be a Michael Jordan situation. Michael Jordan said that he was going to retire, and that was it. And then Michael Jordan turned right around and came back. So I think there's going to be a sense that at some point, Madea is going to have to come back.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: OK, so I just want to be clear here. It seems like you're saying Tyler Perry as Madea is the Michael Jordan of film. Do I understand you correctly here?
LISA FRANCE: (Laughter) Are you going to quote me on that, Ari, really?
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: I think you're on the record with that. I think we've got that on tape. America is going to hear you saying that.
LISA FRANCE: I think I'm going to go ahead and stand by that because when he comes back to play again, you'll say Lisa France said it.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Lisa France, senior entertainment writer with CNN Digital, thanks a lot.
LISA FRANCE: Thank you so much, Ari. | Tyler Perry is retiring his Madea wig — the last of this major money-making movie franchise is hitting theaters this weekend with A Madea Family Funeral. | Tyler Perry zieht seine Madea-Perücke in den Ruhestand – der letzte dieser großen Geldverdiener-Filmreihe kommt dieses Wochenende mit A Madea Family Funeral in die Kinos. | 泰勒·派瑞就要脱下马蒂亚的假发帽了,这个高票房电影的最后一部《黑疯婆子的葬礼》将在本周末上映。 |
IRA FLATOW, HOST: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Last week, a cruise ship carrying more than 4,000 people ran aground off the coast of Italy, resulting in the loss of numerous lives, not to mention damage to the ship. It struck a rocky outcropping clearly visible on the chart, tearing a gash in its hull, which leaves us wondering: How in this age of GPS, sonar, other high-tech navigational devices could such a tragedy occur? Did it veer dangerously off-course? What kind of technology does the crew of large cargo and cruise ships depend on?
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Joining us to talk about this and answer some of those questions is Max van Norden. He's coordinator of the hydrographic science program in the Department of Marine Sciences at University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.
MAX VAN NORDEN: Thank you very much, Ira. I'm glad to be on your show.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: You're welcome. Is this a common occurrence?
MAX VAN NORDEN: Not really, not really. I mean, this is - well, this is really a case of gross stupidity.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Why do you say that?
MAX VAN NORDEN: Well, because a modern navigational system, which would have been present on a ship like the Costa Concordia, would have definitely warned the crew, the bridge crew and the captain that they were - you know, had to make corrective actions. A modern navigational system, which is called an ECDIS, an electronic chart display and information system, really gives great improvement in navigational safety because, first of all, it gives great improvement in the situational awareness. It automatically plots the position of the ship, as you mentioned, with GPS.
MAX VAN NORDEN: It also automatically plots the positions of other ships within its radar range to - and, from that, project, from the course and the speeds, whether there's a problem with, you know, possible collisions with other ships. It also plots what we call AIS targets, automatic information - automatic identification system targets, which every major ship today has to carry an AIS transponder after 9/11 because. And these transponders give a ship's position, its course, its speed, what cargo it carries, where it's coming from, where it's going, what flag it flies, so forth.
MAX VAN NORDEN: But from the - from, say, the Concordia's AIS receiver, it could also have plotted all the AIS targets as well. So a active system gives greatly improved situational awareness of the water space the ship is going in and there to prevent collisions with other ships.
MAX VAN NORDEN: And then, in addition to that, the systems allow for voyage planning, where the navigator sets out the exact track that they want to follow at each course change based upon the electronic navigational chart. And if the navigator should set out a course or a planned course in this voyage planning that takes it over a hazardous area, the active system will tell him, you can't - this is a bad track. You know, change your voyage plan to a more safer track. So it's also a great improvement in voyage planning.
MAX VAN NORDEN: And then the third thing is the route monitoring part. It actually gives you warnings when you exceed the allowances for danger. In the voyage planning, you'll put in things like the ship's characteristics, its turning rate and things like that, its allowable draft. And if it gets too close - and the standoff allowances to navigational hazards, and if it exceeds those allowances, the system will give out warnings, you know?
MAX VAN NORDEN: Think of the Exxon Valdez, for instance, in 1989. That accident could have been prevented with a - with an ECDIS system. But they didn't have ECDIS at that time. But if you recall, there was a third mate, an inexperienced third mate on the bridge who failed to make a critical course change. And an ECDIS system would have warned him, say, you've got to make this turn at this time. And - or as the ship was going off towards a navigational hazard, the ECDIS system would have given him a warning, saying, you're getting too close to this navigational hazard. Or a depth sounder, which is interfaced with an ECDIS system, would have told him, you're - the bottom is getting too shallow. You need to make - take corrective actions. So all these are great improvements in navigational safety that these modern electronic chart display information systems provide to the mariner.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: And the location of the underwater hazards are also well known, like the rock that it hit.
MAX VAN NORDEN: Well, in this case, yes. But you bring up something - there are some pitfalls to these navigational systems, particularly, I think, in my opinion, in fact, the cruise line industry because these displays, these are all very colorful, you know, computer monitors and displays
MAX VAN NORDEN: ...navigational systems, particularly, I think, in my opinion, in fact, the cruise line industry, because the - these displays, these are all very colorful, you know, computer monitors and displays that sort in complacency(ph) the fact the - OK, the database for these active systems is the electronic navigational chart, and it looks very colorful as well. But in many cases that information on that chart is based on very old data. NOAA, for instance, is responsible for charting U.S. waters.
MAX VAN NORDEN: I've seen the presentation where they say that 50 percent of the data on their charts were collected by hydrographic surveys before 1940, old technology. And so in areas that are well travelled by, say, container ships or tankers, whatever, these well-travelled routes are well charted. But these cruise liners, they like to go off the beaten path and show, you know, pristine areas, picturesque areas to the passengers. So they're going off the beaten path into areas that are not well surveyed.
MAX VAN NORDEN: Or maybe they've been surveyed many, many years ago with old technology, even by - perhaps by Captain Cook even. But in any case, these areas in fact may not have ever been surveyed, in some cases of Alaska, where the glaciers have receded and these cruise liners going to these areas and watching these beautiful glacier areas may have never - the waters, however, may have never been surveyed.
MAX VAN NORDEN: So for these cruise ships, they're going off the beaten path and putting these half-a-billion-dollar ships at some risk with the passengers, of course, by going into these areas that are not well surveyed. Even though the chart might look very fancy and colorful and - a very colorful display in this modern, integrated bridge, but that underlying data would have been collected, in many cases, with very old technology.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Mm-hmm. But the case of last week, this was not that case, was it?
MAX VAN NORDEN: No, it was not. This is just really a case where - well, from my readings, the Costa Concordia had a modern navigation system, modern (unintelligible) system. It was given a number of warnings that he's getting too close, I'm sure, but I guess in his case, the captain's case, he just turned off the warnings and ignored them.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Would there not be other members of the crew on the bridge there?
MAX VAN NORDEN: There would. And I was wondering why the chief mate would not have jumped in and say, Captain, you're doing, you know, you're taking the ship into dangerous waters here. But, you know, that's - I'm just speculating.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Right. So there's enough electronics on the ship to let you know, at least in that case, to let you know where you are exactly...
MAX VAN NORDEN: Exactly.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: ...and to let you know exactly what is around you. And it's up to you to decide whether to listen to it or not.
MAX VAN NORDEN: Yes. And in the case of the Costa Concordia, of course I mentioned every large ship has to have an AIS receiver these days. Nowadays, I mean, it was constantly transmitting those AIS transmissions, and there are stations ashore that pick that up and can simulate exactly where that ship was through that whole ordeal. And in fact, there's a very good website that show – it gives some explanations of where the ship went.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: What website is that?
MAX VAN NORDEN: One that I saw that was really good is gcaptain.com, where they show, using the AIS data, exactly where the ship travelled. And the narrator gives very good explanation what he thought happened.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Gcaptain.com?
MAX VAN NORDEN: Yes.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Let me go to the phones to Matt in Alexandria, Virginia. Hi, Matt. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.
MATT: Oh, hello.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Hi there. Go ahead.
MATT: Yeah. I was curious. I used to be a second mate. And I was wondering if the voyage data recorder info had been recovered. And if so, would it ever be made public?
MAX VAN NORDEN: I saw a picture of them recovering the voyage data recorder.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Is that like the recorder on an airplane when it goes down?
MAX VAN NORDEN: Yes.
MATT: Yeah.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: So it's been recovered. And that would have the record of where - exactly where it went.
MAX VAN NORDEN: Yes.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Matt, does this surprise you as a second mate?
MATT: Yeah. Yes. I mean, the ships I've been on have all had one. We never had to do anything with it, I mean it was sort of a passive thing. But we were under the instructions or understanding that if something happened, it would be one of the first things recovered, and the data it records would be used to recreate what happened prior to the incident.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: All right. Thanks for calling. 1-800-989-8255. Talking with Max van Norden. So you're saying that there's a lesson here about the future of cruise shipping and knowing where you are and the ancient charts that - and you were not joking that some of these go back to Captain Cook.
MAX VAN NORDEN: No, I wasn't. Another example, the QE2 grounded off of Martha's Vineyards a couple of years ago. I think 1992. They went off the beaten path and grounded off on - in an area they hadn't been surveyed since 1939. So, I mean, these things happen.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: And you say they go off the beaten path because the captain may want to get the passengers a special look at something or get close to a glacier in Alaska?
MAX VAN NORDEN: Right. That's part of the deal for these cruise lines, to take you into picturesque, you know, pristine areas of Alaska and other areas and have the, you know, the passengers see some very beautiful scenery. But in a number of cases, these are unsurveyed or very bad or very old surveyed areas.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Mm-hmm. And the alarms could be going off in the ship, literally off the chart when they do these things.
MAX VAN NORDEN: Well, you see, in that case the alarms wouldn't necessarily go off because the ship relies or the active system relies on the known data of the electronic navigational chart. And so if there's nothing to tell or nothing in the data to say that there's, you know, there's a danger, if the rocks haven't been discovered that will ground the ship, if those shoals have not been discovered, there's no - the alarms wouldn't necessarily go off.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: But in the normal course of a cruise, we would expect that this is - if you stay on course, this cruise has taken - the captain and his crew have taken this trip a hundred times at least and know exactly where everything is, and they're quite safe.
MAX VAN NORDEN: Right. If they follow, you know, the normal shipping lanes or have taken these cruises along that line before, then it should be safe, yes.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: I'm Ira Flatow. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR. Talking with Max van Norden, who is coordinator of the Hydrographic Science Program at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. So what is your recommendation here, Dr. Van Norden?
MAX VAN NORDEN: Well, of course one recommendation would be to, you know, follow the advice of your ecto(ph)-system and not overrule it. But the other thing is that we need, you know, more hydrographic surveys in those areas where these cruise liners are going.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Yeah. And...
MAX VAN NORDEN: Modern surveys.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: And we need to have captains take less risk.
MAX VAN NORDEN: Absolutely.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: What is the normal sequence of an investigation that would go on now?
MAX VAN NORDEN: Well, I - that's really out of my area. I, you know, I'm sure the Italian version of their coast guard would be following that investigation, and they would have to present the evidence to a maritime court of some type. And generally these things follow some sort of maritime law.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: And as far as knowing where you are in the water and what's around you, would not sonar on your own ship tell you that there were these rocks right next door to you, where you're going?
MAX VAN NORDEN: Well, most ships do carry a depth sounder. But in a case of a ship like the Concordia, which has a great mast behind it, it would be - they don't have the type of sonar, probably the forward-looking type of sonar that, say, a warship would have. They would have a more, you know, commercial, down-looking sonar. And there was probably no way they would detect something in time like that. They can only see a prevailing trend, say, in the bottom, but on all of a sudden type hazard that's in the way, no. They would have to depend upon the charts to tell them there's a hazard. And they need - and, of course, in this case, you need to follow the charts instead of just thinking that you could get away with what he did.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: If you have the chart, you got to use it.
MAX VAN NORDEN: That's correct.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: And the charts that he used, there's no reason to believe these were ancient charts. And as we talked about before, he had been over - I mean this is just a normal course that this cruise liner took all the time.
MAX VAN NORDEN: Well, no, not in this particular case, though. I mean in this sail-by that he did, he had done it, I believe, one time before but with slightly different headings. And so what he did was actually, you know, unauthorized and unusual. Now, what I meant was normally ships would stay, you know, farther away from an island like that on - in the normal shipping lanes. And that would've been the safe course of action.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Dr. Van Norden, thank you very much for taking time to be with us.
MAX VAN NORDEN: Oh, my pleasure.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Max van Norden of Southern - University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. | The International Maritime Organization has decreed that by 2015, all large deep sea ships will be required to carry the latest in electronic navigation equipment. But does state-of-the-art navigation technology prevent shipwrecks like last week's off the Italian coast? University of Southern Mississippi hydrographer Max van Norden talks about the technology. | Die Internationale Seeschifffahrtsorganisation hat festgelegt, dass bis 2015 alle großen Hochseeschiffe mit der neuesten elektronischen Navigationsausrüstung ausgestattet sein müssen. Aber verhindert modernste Navigationstechnik Schiffbrüche wie letzte Woche vor der italienischen Küste? Der Hydrograf der Universität von Süd-Mississippi, Max van Norden, spricht über die Technologie. | 国际海事组织已经颁布法令,到 2015 年,所有大型深海船舶都必须携带最新的电子导航设备。但是最先进的航海技术能阻止上周在意大利海岸发生的沉船事故吗?南密西西比大学的水文学家马克斯范诺登谈到了这项技术。 |
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: If you tuned in last weekend, you may remember our conversation with Phyllis Worthy Dawkins, the president of Bennett College in Greensboro, N.C. The school, one of two remaining historically black women's colleges in the country, has been struggling financially but just pulled off an eye-popping fundraising drive. This past week, the college made its case to maintain its accreditation. Bethany Chafin of member station WFDD tells us what happened.
BETHANY CHAFIN, BYLINE: Last Friday was a big day for Bennett College. It was announced that the school lost its appeal to save its accreditation. Within hours, though, Bennett revealed it was filing a lawsuit against the accrediting body, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, or SACS. During these legal proceedings, Bennett will remain accredited. President Phyllis Worthy Dawkins says the community is experiencing mixed emotions right now.
PHYLLIS WORTHY DAWKINS: The students, faculty and staff and alumni are taking it hard and rightfully so. We need to give them space to internalize that, yes, it's bad news and good news on the same day. We are accredited, and we need to give them that time to vent their frustrations.
BETHANY CHAFIN, BYLINE: Bennett has been fighting the accreditation battle since 2016, when it was put on probation due to a lack of financial resources. The school has struggled with declining enrollment, and as a private institution, it's heavily dependent on incoming tuition. Instead of taking the school off of probation in December of 2018, SACS voted to remove Bennett's accreditation. The school appealed the decision.
BETHANY CHAFIN, BYLINE: To strengthen its case, the college mounted a giant fundraising effort called Stand With Bennett. The campaign gained national attention and ultimately raised more than $9 million, well over the goal of 5 million. School officials also outlined other steps forward, including a five-year strategic plan. The mood was upbeat when final fundraising numbers came in. Many thought this would be enough to convince the creditors, but it wasn't.
BETHANY CHAFIN, BYLINE: In Friday's decision, the appeals committee said Bennett had failed to show resources that demonstrate a stable financial base. The lawsuit doesn't come as too much of a surprise. President Phyllis Worthy Dawkins had said throughout the appeals process that if the school lost, it would pursue legal action. Board of Trustees chair and State Senator Gladys Robinson says the fight is worth it and so is a Bennett education.
GLADYS ROBINSON: I know what it does for young women in terms of building self-esteem, in terms of teaching them how to move broadly across a spectrum of people and issues, et cetera.
BETHANY CHAFIN, BYLINE: Meanwhile, Bennett College is seeking alternate accreditation. For NPR News, I'm Bethany Chafin in Greensboro, N.C. | Bennett College in North Carolina, a historically black college, lost its appeal to retain its accreditation, but then won a temporary reprieve after filing suit. | Das Bennett College in North Carolina, eine historische schwarze Universität, verlor seine Berufung, seine Akkreditierung zu behalten, erhielt aber nach Einreichung einer Klage eine vorübergehende Begnadigung. | 北卡罗来纳州的贝内特学院是一所历史悠久的黑人学院,它在申请保留其认证资格时败诉,但在提起诉讼后获得了临时缓刑。 |
AILSA CHANG, HOST: In France, many summer events have been scaled back and even cancelled over security fears. One of the biggest events to be suspended this week was Europe's largest antique fair and flea market, held in the northern town of Lille. What's known as the Braderie of Lille will not take place this year, and NPR's Eleanor Beardsley visited Lille to see how people were feeling about it.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: I'm in Lille's Grand Place. The Braderie of Lille, the giant street fair, has been going on here since the Middle Ages. I always wanted to do a story on it and was actually planning to do that this year. And in a sign of the times, the story I'm instead doing is about how the braderie had to be cancelled because of heightened fears of terrorism.
MARTINE AUBRY: (Speaking French).
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: With tears in her eyes Friday, Lille's mayor, Martine Aubry, said the decision was extremely painful, but she had no choice. The city simply could not guarantee the safety of more than 2 million people who pour into Lille for the three-day flea market festival at the beginning of each September. Lille native Jeremie Vasseur says he and his girlfriend are disappointed, but they understand.
JEREMIE VASSEUR: (Through interpreter) I think there's a new reality now. There's a sort of fear settling in. People are afraid of what might happen. Even before the fair was cancelled, we were wondering if we would go considering what just happened in Nice.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: The July 14 attack in Nice by a truck driver who plowed through a crowd, killing 85 people, and the murder a week later in Normandy of an elderly Catholic priest by two Islamist extremist teenagers has put France on edge just as things were beginning to return to normal after the country successfully hosted the month-long European soccer championship. Twenty-year-old Lille university student Marion Fontaine says the braderie's cancellation shocked her.
MARION FONTAINE: (Through interpreter) The only time it was cancelled before was under the German occupation, so the message is really negative and difficult to accept. We're not exactly at war now, but we're in some kind of situation we've never experienced, and we don't seem to be able to find a solution.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Some in Lille's business community were angered by the cancellation because they say they weren't even consulted. The head of Lille's chamber of commerce called the braderie's cancellation an economic and cultural disaster.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Chef Frederic Dumont is cooking up a big pot of mussels at a hopping brasserie just off Lille's central square. Moules-frites, or mussels with a side of fries, is one of the braderie's traditional dishes. Some 500 tons of mussels are consumed every year during the event.
FREDERIC DUMONT: (Speaking French).
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: "We have Dutch and French varieties, and we steam them up in white wine with parsley, thyme and laurel," says Dumont. The chef says moules-frites became a staple in this region after World War I because it was cheaper to feed workers mussels than meat.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: (Speaking French).
DIDIER PAPART: (Speaking French).
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: OK.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: As I sit down to enjoy a moules-frites of my own, I strike up a conversation with my neighbor, Lille doctor Didier Papart. He says the braderie should never have been cancelled.
DIDIER PAPART: (Speaking French).
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: "Terrorism can happen anywhere," he says. "We should've maintained the braderie. By cancelling it, we handed the terrorists a victory. What a shame." Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Lille. | The French city of Lille has cancelled its annual flea market — an event that usually attracts millions of visitors and which dates from medieval times — because of security concerns. | Die französische Stadt Lille hat ihren jährlichen Flohmarkt – eine Veranstaltung, die normalerweise Millionen von Besuchern anzieht und aus dem Mittelalter stammt – aus Sicherheitsgründen abgesagt. | 出于安全考虑,法国里尔市取消了一年一度的跳蚤市场。跳蚤市场通常吸引数百万游客,可以追溯到中世纪。 |
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: We're going to spend a good part of the program today looking ahead to some important events coming up this week, and we'll start with that long-awaited testimony on Capitol Hill by President Trump's former personal attorney, Michael Cohen. Tuesday, Cohen is scheduled to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee. The following day, he is to testify in a public session before the House Oversight and Reform Committee and Thursday in closed session before the House Intelligence Committee. One of the Democrats on that panel, Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut, is with us now.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Congressman, thank you so much for joining us.
JIM HIMES: Happy to be here.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: What does the House Intelligence Committee want to learn from Michael Cohen? We know that he'll be testifying before some other committees, but what does your committee want to learn?
JIM HIMES: Well, remember Michael Cohen has been sentenced to three years in prison for lying to our committee. And so (laughter), of course, the first thing we'll want to do is go back and look at the questions that he felt the need to be dishonest about and ask them again - and then, of course, explore why he felt he needed to be dishonest about that. Now, a lot of it, of course, had to do with Trump Tower Moscow. My guess is that the special counsel has probably looked into that in a lot of detail. But, you know, we're going to, I think, learn a lot more about that.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Well, as you noted, he's pleaded guilty to lying to Congress in previous testimony. Do you have confidence that what you're going to hear is truthful now?
JIM HIMES: Well, of course, that will be what Republicans say constantly when he gives his testimony. Because you can bet when he gives his open testimony, here's a guy who has nothing to lose. You know, he's already going to prison. He did cooperate, we believe, obviously, truthfully with the special counsel. Otherwise, he might have wound up like Paul Manafort, who did not testify and work constructively with the special counsel. So he doesn't have a lot to lose.
JIM HIMES: And, of course, he's got every incentive, having been attacked by the president over and over again, having been called a rat, having really been humiliated by the president - my guess is that he's going to come clean about what he knows about the president's business practices, you know, what he saw.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: I'm still trying to understand what it is that you hope to learn in the committee. Like, what do you hope is the sort of the goal of having Michael Cohen testify? What do you think's going to happen on Thursday that will advance what it is that everyone's trying to find out?
JIM HIMES: I think what's useful to remember is how the congressional investigations are different from Bob Mueller's investigation. Bob Mueller's investigation is under the auspices of the Department of Justice. He has all of the tools available to him that any investigation would have - grand jury, subpoenas, that sort of thing. So Bob Mueller is really about identifying whether anybody anywhere committed a crime.
JIM HIMES: That's not where the two congressional committees are focused. We as intelligence committees, of course, are focused on, what is the Russian nexus? You know, how did Russia not just hack into servers at the DNC and, you know, reach out to George Papadopoulos, but what else did Russia do? It's up to the Congress to really paint a picture to the American people of what the Russians did to compromise the election of 2016.
JIM HIMES: So to your question about Michael Cohen, I think we need to understand from him any other possible contact he might have had with Russia, what he knows, who he talked to and what was said with respect to this Moscow tower. Because you know that the Kremlin - when Donald Trump is running for president, and the Kremlin knows that he wants to build a big tower in Moscow, you know that they probably thought hard about that and probably sent people to have contact with Trump's people. So it's really that - you know, Russia-centered questions that the Congress needs to focus on.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: So finally, your committee chairman, Adam Schiff, said today that House Democrats will subpoena special counsel Mueller's report if necessary. Now, the new attorney general, William Barr, has said he wants to be as transparent as possible. But also, under the special counsel regulations, a report that goes public would be a report by the attorney general. So he gets the report, and then he decides, I assume, what becomes public. So, at the end of the day, how much of the special counsel's findings do you expect to see and do you think we in the public will actually see?
JIM HIMES: Well, we really are going to hold the attorney general to his pledge to make as much of it public as possible. Now, there's two concerns that are real concerns. We don't want, you know, any sources or methods or investigative sources or methods compromised. Fair enough. And it is the tradition of the Department of Justice, of course, to protect people who might have been investigated but who aren't being charged. Fair enough. Those are problems, I think, that are solvable.
JIM HIMES: What is essential is that because the Mueller investigation has consumed American politics because we have been treated to something unimaginable three years ago, which is the president the United States throwing mud on a man of the stature and the integrity of Bob Mueller and the Department of Justice and the FBI and the CIA, the only way we get out of this awful political moment where the DOJ and the FBI and Bob Mueller have been dragged through the mud is for us to see the work product and for the American people to have the catharsis, if you will, of knowing the truth.
JIM HIMES: So you can bet, just as Adam Schiff said today, that we will lean as representatives of the American public very heavily into making sure that the truth, whatever it may be - whether it exonerates Donald Trump or not that that truth gets out there for the American people to examine.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: That's Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut. He represents Connecticut's 4th District, and he sits on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Congressman Himes, thank you so much for talking to us.
JIM HIMES: Thank you very much. | Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut tells NPR's Michel Martin what Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee want to hear when former Trump attorney Michael Cohen testifies on Thursday. | Der Abgeordnete Jim Himes aus Connecticut erzählt Michel Martin von NPR, was die Demokraten im Ständigen Ausschusses für Geheimdienstliche Aufgaben hören wollen, wenn der ehemalige Anwalt von Trump, Michael Cohen, am Donnerstag aussagt. | 来自康涅狄格州的国会议员吉姆·希姆斯对NPR的米歇尔·马丁表示,众议院特别情报委员会的民主党人希望听到特朗普前律师迈克尔·科恩周四作证的信息 。 |
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: We're going to start the program with a focus on the battle against ISIS. President Trump is expected to declare victory soon with the capture of the last pocket of territory held by the group in Syria. We're going to hear more about that in a minute. But first, we want to focus on the question of what should happen to the thousands of people who left their home countries either to fight for or live in what they thought would be the caliphate. And we're going to hear about one person whose story made international headlines.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Shamima Begum was just 15 years old when she left London four years ago with two other teenage girls to become ISIS brides. She married a young Dutch ISIS fighter. They had two children, who she says both died of malnutrition and disease due to the harsh conditions. Pregnant again, Shamima fled to a refugee camp in Syria two weeks ago, where she's just given birth to a baby boy. And she says she wants to return home to England. London Times correspondent Anthony Loyd met Shamima on a reporting trip to a refugee camp in Northeastern Syria.
ANTHONY LOYD: Outwardly, she seems relatively composed, calm. But I imagine she was also deeply traumatized, in huge shock. She'd lost two children recently. She just escaped from the battlefield. And she was living in a refugee camp, which is - an open prison would be too cute a way of describing it. But, I mean, she can't leave. She doesn't know what's going to become of her, so inside, there was a lot of confusion and a lot of shock.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: The camp where Anthony Loyd found her is home to roughly 39,000 refugees. Among them are hundreds of wives, widows and children of ISIS fighters. He went searching for young British women.
ANTHONY LOYD: I knew that in this final ongoing battle, some of the mysteries related to European volunteers, wives and hostages might be revealed because this was the last bit of land that was being overrun by local allies of the coalition.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: But Loyd said her journey home may not be easy.
ANTHONY LOYD: Britain has made it clear so far that it does not want its own volunteers who joined Islamic State as fighters - or, it seems, as wives - back into its own territory.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Shamima told Lloyd she was happy to meet a fellow Brit and to share her story. But she worried about her legal situation and what might happen to her child. Loyd interviewed her in the camp's noisy office and posted the audio on the London Times website.
SHAMIMA BEGUM: Now, I'm - like, I'm over 18, so they might - I might get charged with something. And what about the children? What will then happen to them? What do you think might happen to my child? They might take it away from me - or at least give it to my family.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Shamima told Loyd she's willing to do what's necessary to ensure her son's safety.
SHAMIMA BEGUM: I'm more than happy to, like, you know, do what they want me to do, just so long as I can settle down with my child.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: But after everything, Shamima told Loyd that she has no regrets.
ANTHONY LOYD: She was a confused young woman who was frightened. And I think, just to use that one sentence she said, which is a classic London teenager's sentence - I've got no regrets. Whether she was at the stage of regret yet, she was certainly in grief and shock.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: That was Anthony Loyd of The Times of London, who found Shamima Begum in a refugee camp in Syria earlier this week. | NPR's Michel Martin spoke with correspondent Anthony Loyd of The Times about Shamima Begum, an ISIS bride who left home as a teenager and now wants to return. | Michel Martin von NPR sprach mit dem Korrespondenten Anthony Loyd von The Times über Shamima Begum, eine ISIS-Braut, die als Teenager ihr Zuhause verließ und nun zurückkehren möchte. | NPR的米歇尔·马丁采访了《泰晤士报》记者安东尼·劳埃德,谈到了ISIS的新娘沙米玛·贝古姆,她在十几岁时离开了家,现在想回来。 |
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Today, dozens of Democrats in the House of Representatives state their priorities in fighting climate change.
DAVID GREENE, HOST: Yeah. They're offering legislation that has been labeled a Green New Deal. And the lawmakers involved include one just arrived, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: Even the solutions that we have considered big and bold are nowhere near the scale of the actual problem that climate change presents to us, to our country and to the world.
DAVID GREENE, HOST: Now, Ocasio-Cortez is a freshman, among the least-senior members of the House. But the self-described democratic socialist has received enormous attention since upsetting a senior New York lawmaker in a primary last year.
DAVID GREENE, HOST: With dozens of co-sponsors, she presents a resolution today. It would promote wind and solar energy and call for the U.S. to have net-zero carbon emissions in 10 years. She talked about this in an NPR interview.
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: The thing about a Green New Deal is that it's not an outright ban on any source of energy. And that's my opinion, as one member of Congress. And one of the big goals that we have is that we're trying to just sketch out a blueprint and work with other members to get there.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: NPR political editor Domenico Montanaro is here and has been reading an advance copy of that blueprint - that resolution. Hi there, Domenico.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Good morning, Steve.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: So what's it say?
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: You know, this is a nonbinding resolution. And as we noted, some of what it does - you know, being carbon neutral by 2030 is one of those things that a lot of experts say is not only ambitious, but almost impossible to pull off. Experts shoot for more like 2050, and that's considered ambitious. It would also eliminate most, if not all, air travel, in fact, because of how it wants to restructure things like high-speed rail - so very ambitious - not a lot of specifics as far as how to get to those things, but certainly laying down a marker for where liberals want to go in addressing climate change.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Largely eliminate air travel, which is considered to be really bad for our planet - for carbon levels in the atmosphere, trying to get people in a different - in different direction. But you're saying it's - essentially, it's a set of notions or ideas. It would actually require big legislation later to enact these ideas.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Yeah, or small legislation, having to enact various numbers of these ideas to flesh this out. And it's going to be a really difficult thing to actually enact as far as getting it on the floor because getting it to a vote is not something that a lot of moderate Democrats are going to be wanting to, you know, have to walk the plank on, frankly.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Oh, well, let's talk about that. What would the reluctance be of Democratic leaders to buy into this Green New Deal notion?
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Well, it's a plan that would cost trillions upon trillions of dollars, to be quite honest. And it's not something that would ever pass the Republican-controlled Senate. Now, you know, all of that is practical and looking at the actual politics of the day.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Of course, liberals are going to say that this is, you know, a bold step forward that they can argue for and win people over on. And that very well may be the case. But Democrats in 2009 took a step with cap and trade, which was far less dramatic than this plan would be. It passed the House, didn't pass the Senate. And a lot of Democrats feel like they suffered some consequences along with the passage of Obamacare in the 2010 midterm elections.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: And let's remember the reason Democrats won in the 2018 midterms - while Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is able to get so much attention for herself and for her - the things that she wants to do, this election was really won on the backs of moderates.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Oh, moderates who were able to win in suburban areas that had been Republican before.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Right.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Domenico, thanks so much.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: You're so welcome.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: That's NPR's Domenico Montanaro.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: All right. When President Trump delivered his State of the Union speech the other night, almost all members of Congress and almost all members of the Cabinet attended. One Cabinet member was the designated survivor - designated to stay away just in case of calamity.
DAVID GREENE, HOST: Well, in the state of Virginia, if they were to take that precaution, it might need to designate one top official to hide out from scandal. The top three officials in that state are all facing serious questions now.
DAVID GREENE, HOST: Governor Ralph Northam faces pressure to resign over an old racist photo. The lieutenant governor, Justin Fairfax, is publicly accused by a woman who says he sexually assaulted her in 2004. And now the state's third-ranking official, Attorney General Mark Herring, has admitted that he donned blackface at a college party in the '80s.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: NPR's Sarah McCammon, a resident of Virginia, has been following all this and is in our studio. Sarah, good morning.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Hi, Steve.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: So Lieutenant Governor Fairfax has been fending off these allegations for a number of days, but now the woman who accused him has stepped forward with a written statement. What have you learned?
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Right. And her name is Vanessa Tyson. We had not been naming her until yesterday, when she came forward to tell her story. She's a politics professor at Scripps College in California and currently a fellow at Stanford. And in a detailed statement, she says, quote, "what began as consensual kissing quickly turned into a sexual assault," she says, by Justin Fairfax. This was in 2004, she says, at the Democratic National Convention in Boston.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: They were both working at the convention, right? They were staying in a hotel.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: They were both there. And they met there.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: And where the story gets more complicated is it initially surfaced on a conservative blog based on a private social media post that Tyson had made where she appeared to allude to this. And she also had told her story to The Washington Post over a year ago. They checked it out, said they couldn't corroborate either version of events and decided not to publish.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: But now, she says this has all come out, and she wants to set the record straight. She says she's coming forward with tremendous anguish, though, to tell her story.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Fairfax originally said, when vaguer versions of this story were out there, this is a political smear. What is he saying now that more specific allegations are public?
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: He's repeatedly denied this. And in a new statement yesterday, he says Tyson's allegations are surprising and hurtful, but he has to dispute her version of events. And he also said he wanted to emphasize how important it is to listen to women when they come forward.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: We should also note he's retained a law firm - the same one that represented Brett Kavanaugh during his Senate confirmation hearings when he was accused of sexual assault. And now the National Organization for Women is calling for Fairfax to resign.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: So the big picture here - we have a governor who's been accused involving this old racist photo. We have the lieutenant governor with the allegations we just discussed. The attorney general, who is No. 3 in the line of succession, has said he wore blackface at one time. Don't have any indications that any of these officials would resign. But what if? What if all three of them did have to resign?
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Well, we should say, Steve, they're all three Democrats. So this creates challenges for the Democratic Party on a number of levels, one of which is that the No. 4 in line is the House speaker, who is a Republican. His name is Kirk Cox.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: And you may remember that weird election about a year ago, where there was an undecided House race in Virginia that had to be decided by casting lots.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Oh, because they were so close.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Because it was so close.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: There was a drawing to decide the winner of that one legislative seat.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: That went to a Republican. Republicans stayed in control of the Virginia House of Delegates.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: By that one seat.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: By that one seat. And now Kirk Cox, their speaker, is No. 4 in line for the governorship. So it is a mess in Virginia right now.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Wow. And we'll continue listening for your reporting on that mess. Sarah, thanks so much.
SARAH MCCAMMON, BYLINE: Thank you.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: That's NPR's Sarah McCammon.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: It's been three months since the most destructive and deadliest fire in California history burned almost the entire town of Paradise.
DAVID GREENE, HOST: Yeah. The Camp Fire also wiped out 15 percent of housing stock in a county overnight. Now, while some residents have left, others with less means have had no choice but to camp out on their properties. But here's the thing. The federal government says they won't pay for a cleanup if people are living there. You can imagine this is not very popular. The mayor of Paradise, Jody Jones, says there's no choice but to somehow take in federal aid.
JODY JONES: If we don't do it, our town will look like a war zone for the next 20 years because we are broke.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: NPR's Kirk Siegler has been traveling in Paradise. He joins us now. Hi, Kirk.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Hey, Steve.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: What's the town look like?
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Well, you know, when you heard the mayor there - Mayor Jones saying it's a war zone, that's not an exaggeration. I've been up there for about a month reporting a longer-term project. And every time I drive around the town, it's still just shocking to look at.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: It's rubble. You know, it's billed as a town, but it was really a city of 25,000 people. The Safeway's gone. Whole neighborhoods are gone. Fast-food restaurants are still leveled. And they're still in that state three months on. There just really hasn't been a whole lot of recovery yet.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: And that burned area where people can't live on their burned-out properties was declared a public health disaster for a reason. You can't drink the water, still, in Paradise. The are - benzene's seeping into the water supply. There's other toxins in the ash when the wind blows up. It's - Sarah said mess. It's still a mess in Paradise.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Do you, nevertheless, run into residents from time to time as you move about town?
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: You do. And there was some sort of ruckus - public meetings this week over the proposals to ban camping again for residents, who had been told that they could move back, and now they can't. And this is a big source of tension, as you can imagine, because the town is basically a skeleton. And there was already a housing shortage before the fire, so if people are able to hang on and try to hold out and wait for the recovery, you know, it's not sure where they'll even live.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: I met Martha Bryant, who was born and raised in Paradise. And, you know, she called this week, you know, yet another setback. And she worries that more people will just give up and leave.
MARTHA BRYANT: It's their property. They're adults. They know the risks. We don't need other people - the county and everybody else - telling us how we should live our lives.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: And, Steve, you know, this was - this is a rural part of the country where there was a lot of mistrust of the government already before the fire. And when a disaster like this happens, you know, at least for now, places like this are basically wholly dependent on federal and state aid to even just recover.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: What reassurances and plans are officials offering?
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Well, just the toxic debris removal itself - the cleanup, they're saying, will hopefully just take a few months for some residents, but it could be a year or more. A lot of people I talked to expect it to be at least a year. You know, federal disaster officials say they have not seen a, you know, toxic debris removal like this in this country since 9/11.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: So there's a whole lot of work to be done even before the town can start asking the bigger questions. Should it rebuild? And how should it rebuild in a high-risk zone like that?
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: Kirk, thanks very much for your reporting, and we look forward, also, to that long-term project when you're done.
KIRK SIEGLER, BYLINE: Glad to do it. Thanks, Steve.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST: That's NPR's Kirk Siegler, who has been traveling in Paradise, Calif. | Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is set to unveil her environmental plan. Multiple political scandals envelop Virginia. An update on the Camp Fire which destroyed the town of Paradise, Calif. | Freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez wird ihren Umweltplan vorstellen. Mehrere politische Skandale herrschen in Virginia. Eine neueste Nachricht zum Lagerfeuer, das die Paradiesstadt Kalifornien zerstörte. | 众议院新代表亚历山大·奥卡西奥-科尔特斯将公布她的环保计划。多重政治丑闻笼罩着弗吉尼亚。关于遭营地大火摧毁的加州天堂镇最新消息。
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FARAI CHIDEYA, host: A decade after apartheid ended, musician Jonathan Butler went back to Athlone, Cape Town with a mission, to visit his family and play a special concert in Cape Town. He grew up in the colored townships. And in South Africa, colored was distinct from black. That's where he learned to trust his talent.
Mr. JONATHAN BUTLER (Singer): This is where the family would see who's the real singer or not. And you'd sit by the fire and when you throw your voice, everybody goes okay. I think you can make it.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Butler documents his trip back with a new CD and DVD, "Live in South Africa." Recently, Jonathan Butler got by our NPR studios with his guitar. We started out talking about how he became the first non-white person played on white South African radio.
Mr. JONATHAN BUTLER (Singer): Well, I was 12 years old. I was - I just got signed to independent label called, Jive, which was independent back then. It was a kind of different time. You know, I mean, I was doing cabaret and I was singing in carnivals, ballet choirs.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So wait, you're 12 years old and you've - it sounds like you were already an experienced showman.
Mr. JONATHAN BUTLER (Singer): I was - well, I grew up in the family of 12, you know, siblings who all, were out there doing concerts, cabaret shows, working in night clubs, traveling, you know? And their stories always fascinated me when they came from their travels. They talk about so many things that seem, and they'd sort of - the stuff they would bring home. And music was obviously our world, you know? And I just love that. I just wanted to sing and - but I was the kind of kid that would openly sing right off the bat.
Mr. JONATHAN BUTLER (Singer): From the time I was 6 years old, I was in community concerts. My parents always had their own variety shows, and then I started winning competitions in carnival and stuff like that, and I started working with local bands because they love my voice and we did R&B stuff, you know, from America, we did pop stuff from U.K. A lot of Top 40, you know?
Mr. JONATHAN BUTLER (Singer): But my journey really began when I won a huge contest in South Africa in Cape Town. And that took me away from my parents. And I remember being sort of, pretty scared, basically, because I was a 6-year-old kid, 7-year-old kid living - now, I had my own bedroom. I, you know, I used to, my, our shanty house, our shack was pretty much - all the brothers lived in one room and all the sisters having one room and mom and dad had twin beds. And so, for me, to have my own room is pretty amazing. That kind of, you know, scared the living daylights out of me.
Mr. JONATHAN BUTLER (Singer): And having to learn to learn with a knife and fork, and, you know, through all of that travels, and leaving my home, my parents, by the time I was 12, I got discovered by Clive Calder who now, who used to own Jive records and Ralph Simon. And they said would you want to, you know, we'd love to make a record with you. And of course, that was all I ever wanted, was to be heard on radio because Stevie Wonder was my hero in life and Michael Jackson when he was still a cute Michael Jackson because, you know, people like Billy are just adored on radio.
Mr. JONATHAN BUTLER (Singer): So my parents said, yeah, and I made my first record. It was a song called "Please Stay," you know, it was like (unintelligible). And it was something like this. It went…
Mr. JONATHAN BUTLER (Singer): (Soundbite of song, "Please Stay")"
Mr. JONATHAN BUTLER (Singer): (Singing) If I got on my knees and pleaded with you not to go but to stay in my arms. Something like that. Will you walk out the door like you did once before? This time - like that - will be different. Please Stay.
Mr. JONATHAN BUTLER (Singer): Something like that, you know? But I mean, it was 10 keys higher at the time. But that song was…
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: A big song for a young man.
Mr. JONATHAN BUTLER (Singer): What did I know about love? I had - knew nothing about love. You know, I was 12 years old. But the song became a national hit song. And, you know, it was the first time that I experienced in South Africa that kind of notoriety and popularity and fame. And I still lived in a shack, you know, an outhouse, and all that stuff, no electricity. You know, a lot of things did not change even though I was probably the country's most popular artist from that time.
Mr. JONATHAN BUTLER (Singer): And I later discovered what that - the gratification so - what that, you know, what that presented, that I was the first black kid to be played on white radio. I mean, South Africa was very different. It was very different, very different then. I mean, I won the Grammy, but my picture wasn't in the paper. You know, the white lady presented me the award, kissed me, you know, the night of the award. They never showed the pictures. They just said, you know, the youngest black kid to ever win a South African Grammy.
Mr. JONATHAN BUTLER (Singer): And so I had no idea what socially, politically what that meant, you know? And I just kept going because music was my breath, it was my life, it was my salvation. But now, we have a different kind of warfare that we have to fight, which is HIV/AIDS in South Africa. And we have to deal with poverty in South Africa.
Mr. JONATHAN BUTLER (Singer): I do ask myself the question what is going on in government and in power. So it just tells me that it takes leadership. When you say you're going to run, you know, for president or you say you're going to run for, you're going to start a foundation, you know, to help the poor, it takes incredible amount of leadership, not just vision, because we still, you know, I mean, my heart still breaks when I get off the plane and I drive from the airport to the hotel, you know? And I see more shanties now that I've ever seen.
Mr. JONATHAN BUTLER (Singer): Now, having said that, I'm excited to walk down the streets a free man in South Africa. I remember as a kid, seeing white signs, black signs, colored signs all over the place, you know? The Rosa Parks stories were endless in South Africa. None of them were heard. None of them were spoken off, you know? And so, I can say, it takes incredible amount of leadership. It's going to take incredible amount of leadership.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Well, I know that a lot of people had been inspired by your music. And I want to end with one of your breakthrough songs, breakthrough gospel songs. Will you take us out with "Falling in love with Jesus?"
Mr. JONATHAN BUTLER (Singer): (Singing) Falling in love with Jesus. Falling in love with Jesus. Falling in love with Jesus was the best thing I've ever done.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: His new CD/DVD collection, and we're talking about Jonathan Butler, is called "Live in South Africa."
Mr. JONATHAN BUTLER (Singer): In his arms I feel protected oh. In his arms…
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: That's our show for today. Thank you for sharing your time with us. To listen to the show or subscribe to our podcast, visit our Web site, nprnewsandnews.org. No spaces, just nprnewsandnotes.org.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: NEWS & NOTES was created by NPR NEWS and the African-American Public Radio Consortium.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Tomorrow, Bob Marley's "Exodus," the making of an iconic album.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: I'm Farai Chideya. This is NEWS & NOTES. | Today he's primarily known as a smooth jazz artist, but during his early years in South Africa, Jonathan Butler was an R&B trailblazer. Farai Chideya talks with Butler about what it was like to be South African star by age 12. | Heute ist er vor allem als Smooth-Jazz-Künstler bekannt, aber in seinen frühen Jahren in Südafrika war Jonathan Butler ein R&B-Pionier. Farai Chideya spricht mit Butler darüber, wie es war, mit 12 Jahren ein südafrikanischer Star zu sein. | 今天,乔纳森·巴特勒主要是作为通俗爵士乐艺术家被熟知,但他早年在南非时是节奏布鲁斯的先驱。法莱·奇德亚对他进行了采访,聊了聊在12岁时就成为南非巨星是什么感觉。 |
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: Now to that very disturbing story from the Vatican, another warning that this may be upsetting for some to hear. The former U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was defrocked by Pope Francis today. Vatican officials found him guilty of sexual crimes against children and adults, including soliciting sex during confession. McCarrick is the highest ranking person to be expelled from the Catholic Church in response to the clerical abuse scandals. John Allen is the editor of Crux. That's an online newspaper that specializes in coverage of the Vatican and the Catholic Church. We reached him in Rome. John Allen, thank you so much for speaking with me.
JOHN ALLEN: It's my pleasure.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: And I'm going to start by asking you what it means that McCarrick was defrocked. And I'm going to ask you what it means for him, personally, and I'd like to ask you what it means on a broader scale.
JOHN ALLEN: Well, you have to understand that for a cleric that is a priest or a deacon in the Catholic Church to be dismissed from the clerical state or, in layman's terms, to be defrocked is, essentially, the death penalty. It is the most severe penalty that the church can impose. It means that Theodore McCarrick cannot say Mass. He cannot hear confessions. He cannot perform baptisms, I mean, all of these things that priests do over the arc of their entire career and are sort of foundational to their identities. So it is an extraordinarily serious and severe form of censure from the church. That's what it means for him, personally.
JOHN ALLEN: In terms of the sort of policy dimension of this, quite clearly, imposing the death penalty on a cardinal is intended to send a signal of strength and resolve by Pope Francis and the Vatican about seriousness with regard to the clerical sexual abuse scandals that have been such a cancer for the Catholic Church over the last 30 years. We should say that all of this comes on the eve of a keenly anticipated summit for presidents of bishops' conferences from all over the world and other senior church officials that will be opening in Rome on Thursday, precisely focused on those clerical sex abuse scandals and designed to sort of move the ball towards resolution. So, quite clearly, this is calculated by the pope and his Vatican team to sort of set the table for the discussion in that summit.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: I wonder if the decision to rebuke McCarrick in this very serious way, as you have described, affects the experiences of survivors moving forward.
JOHN ALLEN: Based on what I have been picking up, the censure of Cardinal McCarrick that was announced today, while it is welcome - because survivors, above all, want to see justice for the crimes that were committed against them. But I think they would say it's not enough. It's not enough to impose accountability for the crime of sexual abuse. There also has to be accountability for the cover-up of that crime. And the question that remains unanswered today is - who was aware of the kind of behavior that ex-Cardinal McCarrick was engaged in? And why didn't they do anything about it? That question has not been answered by the verdict that was delivered by the Vatican on Saturday. And, until it is answered, I suspect most survivors and most reformers are going to say that the church has not yet completed the job.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST: That is John Allen. He's the editor of the online newspaper Crux. He's also written a number of books on the Vatican and Catholic affairs. He's a former senior correspondent for The National Catholic Reporter. We reached him via Skype in Rome. John Allen, thank you so much for talking to us.
JOHN ALLEN: You are very welcome. | Veteran Vatican watcher John Allen tells NPR's Michel Martin that the defrocking of former U.S. cardinal Theodore McCarrick is the most severe form of punishment for a cleric. | Der erfahrene Vatikan-Beobachter John Allen sagt Michel Martin von NPR, dass die Entlassung des ehemaligen US-Kardinals Theodore McCarrick die härteste Form der Bestrafung für einen Kleriker sei. | 元老梵蒂冈观察家约翰·艾伦告诉NPR的米歇尔·马丁,对美国前红衣主教西奥多·麦卡里克解除圣职是对神职人员最严厉的惩罚。 |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: The ongoing trade dispute between the U.S. and China is clearly having an economic impact on both countries. But tariffs can also affect people on an individual level. Nowhere is that more apparent than in America's agricultural communities. Stacey Vanek Smith and Cardiff Garcia are the hosts of the podcast The Indicator from Planet Money, and they spoke with one farmer whose livelihood is now on the frontlines of a trade war.
STACEY VANEK SMITH, BYLINE: David Reed farms more than 2,000 acres of peanuts and cotton here in Pinehurst, Ga. And when his crop started coming in last year, he says, it was glorious.
DAVID REED: Oh, yeah. We had the best crop we ever had in 50 years.
STACEY VANEK SMITH, BYLINE: And then, starting over the summer, a couple of things happened. First, a trade war broke out. The U.S. imposed tariffs on Chinese goods, and China retaliated with import taxes of its own.
CARDIFF GARCIA, BYLINE: Among the U.S. goods that China started taxing were peanut butter and cotton, basically everything they grow in this part of Georgia. And then a couple of months later, this happened.
BROOKE BALDWIN: Hi, there. I'm Brooke Baldwin live here in Destin, Fla., where we are covering the official landfall of Hurricane Michael.
BROOKE BALDWIN: UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #1: You can feel the ferocity. I'm sorry. I'm...
BROOKE BALDWIN: UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER #2: Getting sustained Category 4 hurricane winds coming in. This is epic.
CARDIFF GARCIA, BYLINE: David lost about a third of his cotton crop and a couple of fields of peanuts, too.
DAVID REED: See the peanuts on the ground there? That's what was left.
STACEY VANEK SMITH, BYLINE: Left after the storm. Peanuts grow underground like potatoes, and this field has peanuts all over the dirt. David picked a couple up, but they were rotten from all the water from the storm. The shell was kind of soft. It came apart in his hands.
DAVID REED: See; that was a good peanut when it came out. But it just somehow - we didn't get it picked till after the storm hit.
CARDIFF GARCIA, BYLINE: The peanuts and cotton that did survive walked straight out of a storm and into a trade war. China's peanut butter and cotton orders from the U.S. collapsed overnight. And the price that David was getting for his peanuts and cotton both fell by about 30 percent.
STACEY VANEK SMITH, BYLINE: And what had been shaping up to be one of the best years in David's entire farming career turned into one of the worst years he'd ever seen.
DAVID REED: You know, we had planned to make a lot of money this year, but the Lord didn't see fit for it. But hopefully, we're going to break even.
STACEY VANEK SMITH, BYLINE: Break even. And David says he is one of the lucky ones.
DAVID REED: There's some farmers just worried. You know, I've heard them talk and say, I don't know if I'm going to survive this or not. And you know, it's heartbreaking.
CARDIFF GARCIA, BYLINE: And David says that the economic effects of the storm and the tariffs haven't just hit the farmers. They've hit the whole area.
DAVID REED: It's hurting the whole community and the equipment dealers and the guy down the street with the hardware store, and everybody suffers.
CARDIFF GARCIA, BYLINE: In spite of everything, though, David actually supports the tariffs.
DAVID REED: I thought, well, that's not good for the farmer right now. But I think it's the right thing to do. You know? And I think President Trump done the right thing - in my opinion. I think he did a good thing.
STACEY VANEK SMITH, BYLINE: David thinks the macroeconomic issues between the U.S. and China are important enough that the sacrifice feels worth it to him.
CARDIFF GARCIA, BYLINE: Now, the government is providing millions of dollars in aid to cotton farmers and supplementing a lot of the peanut losses. It doesn't make up for everything. It doesn't make up for all the losses. But David says he is not going to switch to another crop; neither is anybody he knows. They're going to continue growing cotton and peanuts just like always.
STACEY VANEK SMITH, BYLINE: Why is that?
DAVID REED: It's in their blood. You know, it's what they've always done.
STACEY VANEK SMITH, BYLINE: Stacey Vanek Smith.
CARDIFF GARCIA, BYLINE: Cardiff Garcia, NPR News. | The trade dispute between the U.S. and China has economic impacts on both countries — including America's agricultural communities. A Georgia farmer's livelihood is on the front lines of the dispute. | Der Handelsstreit zwischen den USA und China hat wirtschaftliche Auswirkungen auf beide Länder – einschließlich der amerikanischen Landwirtschaftsgemeinden. Der Lebensunterhalt eines georgischen Bauern steht an vorderster Front des Streits. | 美国和中国之间的贸易争端对两国的经济都有影响,包括美国的农业社区。佐治亚州一位农民的生计问题是这场争端的前沿问题。 |
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: After 17 years of war in Afghanistan, the United States wants out. And there now appears to be a framework for making that happen. But the Afghan central government hasn't been directly involved in these discussions. So far, the negotiations have been between the U.S. and the Taliban, which has left many Afghans worried about their future. Roya Rahmani is not one of them, though. She was recently appointed Afghanistan's first female ambassador to the U.S. And she is optimistic the U.S. will do right by her country. What is less clear to her is whether the Taliban is negotiating in good faith.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Do you trust the Taliban negotiators?
ROYA RAHMANI: I haven't been at the table to be able to directly respond to this. However, what I could say is that our people has demonstrated the generosity to let go of the past and to let go of the grievances as a price for peace. And they are willing to come in terms. There is one other thing also - that Afghanistan is a changed place. The resolve to democracy is one of our highest values. I will quickly share with you something that really moved me when I visited Afghanistan after parliamentary election, and that was that a taxi driver sacrificed seven hours of his income earning hours while he is responsible for feeding four of his children at home in order to cast his vote. That shows there is resolve to democracy - our resolve to the values that we have earned. And Afghanistan's nation, a changed nation now, has different standing and aspiration today. So whatever the outcome, it has to cater to that.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: What happens to Afghanistan's young democracy if the Taliban is either incorporated into a power-sharing agreement or, at the very least, legitimized through this peace plan?
ROYA RAHMANI: The Taliban, if part of the Afghan society, they can certainly participate in the democratic processes. We have laid out a very clear roadmap towards peace on how we could go about this. And we are hoping to be able to unroll that. That will specify the rules, and they are most welcome to join and be part of the power sharing, stand for election, have people vote for them. This is their right like every other Afghan citizens' right.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: You are the first woman to serve as ambassador from Afghanistan to the United States. Are you concerned that if the Taliban is incorporated into government, if the Taliban is legitimized, that all those advances for minorities in Afghanistan - for women in particular - are you concerned that they will be reversed?
ROYA RAHMANI: Rachel, I don't believe that Afghanistan could fall back. We are a changed nation. There is a shift in the mindset. Let me give you an example. I have met a soldier who has joined our forces simply because he has two daughters. And he will not agree that his daughters will not go to school. That's the reason he told me he joined our forces. Afghanistan is a changed place, and this is why that there is more to a peaceful Afghanistan to offer to all its partners as a partner - not as a dependent - in the foreseeable future.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: At some point if the peace talks continue, you as an ambassador, I would imagine, would have occasion to be in a meeting with a Taliban leader. Would they even tolerate your presence there considering their subjugation of women? I mean, it's one thing for you to say you believe that Afghanistan is moving forward, but the Taliban have not conceded that at all. They still maintain the same views about women's place in society.
ROYA RAHMANI: Well, that question is for them to answer. But at the same time, let's not forget if I am at the table like many other women, I will be representing half of my population. If - no deal would be acceptable if it ignores half of our population.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Ambassador Roya Rahmani, thank you so much for talking with us.
ROYA RAHMANI: Thank you very much.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: She is Afghanistan's ambassador to the U.S., the first woman to serve in that role. NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman was listening in to that conversation and joins me now. Good morning, Tom.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Hey. Good morning, Rachel.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: So Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad is the special envoy leading the U.S. in these peace talks. He insists - Khalilzad does - that nothing is for sure until the Afghan central government signs off on it. But how likely is that?
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Well, right, that's what he said. It's important to note, Rachel, we're in the very early stages of this process. The Taliban have yet to agree even to sit down with the Afghan government. That's what really has to happen. And that's what the Afghan government is demanding, and so is the U.S. government. Now, the Taliban say before they sit down with the Afghan government, they want a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops. Meanwhile, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani says the rights of the Afghan people will not be compromised in the name of peace. So that clearly means making sure the rights of women are assured, that women can work outside the home, girls can go to school and so forth. But again, we're sort of at a stalemate a little bit here, you know, because the Taliban want that timetable withdrawal of U.S. troops before they sit down with the Afghan government.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Right, and...
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Again, there's a lot that has to be done here.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: I mean, we heard a lot of optimism in the ambassador's voice there. But what is to prevent the Taliban from overthrowing the Afghan government once the U.S. is gone?
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: Well, that's of great concern of people within the Afghan government who just don't trust the Taliban and are wary of any deal and, of course, are concerned that the U.S. will leave abruptly. President Trump has said he'll pull about 7,000 troops out. That's half the number there now.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: Right.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: So again, there's a great concern within the Afghan government about whether you can even trust the Taliban.
RACHEL MARTIN, HOST: NPR's Pentagon correspondent Tom Bowman. Thanks, Tom.
TOM BOWMAN, BYLINE: You're welcome. | Rachel Martin talks to Roya Rahmani, Afghanistan's new ambassador to the U.S. and the first woman to serve in that role, about ongoing negotiations with the Taliban. NPR's Tom Bowman weighs in. | Rachel Martin spricht mit Roya Rahmani, Afghanistans neuer Botschafterin in den USA und der ersten Frau in dieser Funktion, über die laufenden Verhandlungen mit den Taliban. Tom Bowman von NPR schaltet sich ein. | 雷切尔·马丁与阿富汗新任驻美大使罗亚·拉赫马尼就与塔利班正在进行的谈判进行了交谈。罗亚是首位担任该职务的女性。NPR新闻的汤姆·鲍曼加入进来。 |
ELISE HU, HOST: Since algorithms make it harder to find political views we disagree with, where should we go to find them? To find out, we called up several conservative and liberal opinion writers and thinkers and asked them who they read and watch. Amy Goodman, the host of "Democracy Now!," is a voice on the left. She says getting out there and talking to different people is the way she breaks through the silos.
AMY GOODMAN: I read widely so that we are not segregated, you know, on the networks watching many different programs from Fox to Al Jazeera, from MSNBC to CNN, to all of these places.
ELISE HU, HOST: Here is Jennifer Rubin.
JENNIFER RUBIN: I'm the author of the "Right Turn" blog at The Washington Post. And although many conservatives think I'm not conservative enough, I do report and editorialize from the conservative side of the spectrum.
ELISE HU, HOST: She regularly reads columnists considered very liberal, including her colleagues at The Post, E.J. Dionne and Eugene Robinson.
JENNIFER RUBIN: When every kid can have a blog and anyone can get on Twitter, you miss those people who have covered presidents and elections and world events for a long time. And so they have a richness of understanding a perspective about how this compares to other events in previous years. And that, I think, is vitally important.
ELISE HU, HOST: Here's another conservative perspective - Ramesh Ponnuru, editor at National Review. He says even though he disagrees with many progressive opinion writers, he always learns from them.
RAMESH PONNURU: And very often they are trying to respond to the best conservative arguments rather than simply pointing to the worst ones and making fun of them.
ELISE HU, HOST: Ponnuru follows several liberal writers at The Huffington Post and The Washington Post.
RAMESH PONNURU: I think that Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine is someone who consistently gives me things to think about and sometimes to agree with but also often to disagree with.
JONATHAN CHAIT: My name is Jonathan Chait, and I write columns about politics from a center left perspective for New York Magazine.
ELISE HU, HOST: Chait disagrees with most of the conservatives he reads, but he finds Ramesh Ponnuru one of the most interesting. And, no, neither of them knew we were talking to the other. He says he follows commentators and writers across the political spectrum.
JONATHAN CHAIT: I disagree with almost everyone, politically, about something. So there's hardly anyone who I read who I always agree with.
ELISE HU, HOST: Chait says that making sure he reads and hears other sides of an argument is just common sense.
JONATHAN CHAIT: It's like asking a mathematician, why are you always looking at numbers?
ELISE HU, HOST: That was Amy Goodman of "Democracy Now!," Jennifer Rubin of The Washington Post, Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review and Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine. | Amy Goodman of Democracy Now; Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post; Ramesh Ponnuru of National Review; and Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine, tell us who they read even if they don't always agree. | Amy Goodman von Democracy Now; Jennifer Rubin von der Washington Post; Ramesh Ponnuru von National Review; und Jonathan Chait vom New York Magazine erzählen uns, wen sie lesen, auch wenn sie nicht immer einer Meinung sind. | 《现在民主》的艾米·古德曼、《华盛顿邮报》的珍妮弗·鲁宾、《国家评论》的拉梅什·庞努鲁和《纽约杂志》的乔纳森·柴特,告诉我们他们读了谁,即使他们并不总是一致的。 |
LYNN NEARY, HOST: In Nice, France this morning, police took two more people into custody for possible connections to Thursday's attack. So far, evidence indicates the man who drove a truck along a pedestrian boulevard, killing 84 people, acted alone. But authorities are questioning several people. As NPR's Eleanor Beardsley reports, news that the attack was inspired by ISIS has added to fears.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: In Nice, the beach has reopened and residents can stroll once again along the Promenade des Anglais, the picturesque, palm-lined boulevard that runs along the Mediterranean coast. Today, the usually festive promenade is littered with flowers and candles. Faces are somber. Nice native Anne Noyer is lighting a candle.
ANNE NOYER: We are very afraid. Very, very...
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Afraid, Noyer says, that the attack was inspired by ISIS. She says, "if the driver was just mentally ill, well, it's horrible, but a freak thing." "If he was with ISIS," she says, "it means the enemy is all around us." Noyer says Nice has an uneasy relationship with its Muslim population. Many Muslims have been here for generations and are integrated, she says, but others not so. Among them are foreigners like the Tunisian killer Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel. A hundred people from Nice have joined the ranks of ISIS fighters in Iraq and Syria, one of the highest numbers of any French city.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: At a mosque in Nice, prayers are breaking off. News that the attack may have been carried out in the name of ISIS worries the Muslim community in this city. French-Tunisian Farid Benhada tells me none of this has anything to do with Islam.
FARID BENHADA: (Speaking French).
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: "The driver was no Muslim," he says, "but many of the victims were. God never told anyone to go kill children." Benhada says Muslims are afraid of a backlash. Bouhlel lived in this hilly neighborhood of high rises in the north of Nice. He came to France from Tunisia 10 years ago. People here say he beat his wife until she left him. They also say Bouhlel was not religious, but angry and mentally unstable. French authorities are examining Bouhlel's cell phone, found in the van. They say he may have radicalized rapidly in the last weeks.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Church services are being held across the city today. There is sadness and growing anger. Many say there was not enough security Thursday. Bouhlel was able to drive his truck up onto the sidewalk to get onto the crowded boulevard.
PHILIPPE VARDON: Nothing has been really done to protect our people.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: That's Philippe Vardon, a local official with the far-right National Front party. He blames the French government for the sparse security Thursday and for allowing mass immigration over the years. He says that's created Muslim ghettos where radicalism takes hold.
PHILIPPE VARDON: You've got some places that are really not French at this moment because it's only Muslim area. And so in these places, it's the Muslim law.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: The anti-immigrant National Front party wants to close French borders and leave the European Union. Vardon believes the recent attack will make people realize his party is right. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Nice. | Authorities are piecing together details on the suspect who killed more than 84 people with a 20-ton truck. At the same time, questions persist about security. | Die Behörden stellen Details zu dem Verdächtigen zusammen, der mehr als 84 Menschen mit einem 20-Tonner getötet hat. Gleichzeitig bleiben Fragen zur Sicherheit. | 有关部门正在搜集嫌犯的详细资料,这名嫌犯驾驶一辆20吨重的卡车杀害了84人。与此同时,关于安全的问题仍然存在。 |
NEAL CONAN, HOST: A lot of people take a break over the holidays. Schools are out, people go on vacation or head home to be with their families. And many of the unemployed and underemployed take a much needed breather from the grind of the job hunt. In this week's Wall Street Journal, reporter Lauren Weber wrote that there might be more opportunities than you might think right now. Hiring officials, are you pretty well shutdown for the year? And if you're looking for a job, what is your holiday strategy?
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Give us a call, 800-989-8255. Email, talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation at our website. That's at npr.org, click on TALK OF THE NATION. Lauren Weber joins us now from our bureau in New York. She covers careers for The Wall Street Journal. Nice to have you with us.
LAUREN WEBER: Thanks, Neal.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: And you got some interesting answers when you spoke with companies and jobseekers at a job fair last week in Manhattan.
LAUREN WEBER: Yes. The companies that I spoke to who were looking to hire people were saying that the attendance at the job fair was actually very, very disappointing. One man I spoke to said he had about a third as many people stopping by as he normally does when it's not holiday season. And, you know, as he said, everybody who - all of the companies that were there that day were looking for people. So jobseekers who chose to stay home or, you know, as you said, take a break from looking for work during the holidays might be missing out on those opportunities.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: And you also ran into at least one jobseeker who said wait a minute. I go out there every day, rain or shine.
LAUREN WEBER: Yes. This was a woman who had been unemployed for about 11 months. She had been a government engineer, lost her job in January, and she said she looks for a job every day. And she said, you know, plenty of companies are very well organized. There are projects that get announced at all months of the year. In fact, she had - she mentioned that Mayor Bloomberg had recently announced a big development project here in New York, might be looking for engineers. You know, so she said there's no point in taking a break from looking for a job. There's always somebody who needs somebody with her qualifications.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: In general, what kind of jobs were the companies offering, though? Were they, you know, 40 hours a week, full-time, benefits, that sort of thing?
LAUREN WEBER: No, unfortunately. At the job fair that I went to and then others that I've been to, a lot of the jobs that are open are actually commission based. You know, they are insurance, sales or financial products, financial planners. One company was a debt-collection company, which, unfortunately, says something about our economy right now. And a lot of these jobs are, like I said, commission based. They don't pay a salary. They don't pay benefits. So they're not exactly the highest quality jobs.
LAUREN WEBER: On the other hand, you know, I've spent a lot of time looking at the job board websites, things like Monster or CareerBuilder. And if you look on those sites, there are jobs being posted every single day. You know, dozens often, you know, if you type in any city, and those are for other kinds of jobs. You might find nursing positions, project management, accountant, things like that. So it's not just the low-quality jobs that are available.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: I was also interested - you pointed out in your piece - there's a lot of companies that have, you know, departments have budgets, and it's use-it-or-lose-it money. If they don't spend it by the end of the year, they're not going to get it back in their budget the next year.
LAUREN WEBER: Exactly. This is more of an issue for bigger companies than small ones, where, you know, there's a single budget. But for big companies that might have departments or divisions, each one has their own budget to get through, you know, for the whole year. And most companies operate on a fiscal year that matches the calendar year. So they really do have to use that money by the end of December. If they can't prove to their managers that they've spent their budget, it looks like they don't need the money, and they won't get it again next year.
LAUREN WEBER: So, you know, that money might be used to fill open positions or, who knows, even to create a position, just, you know, for a project that might be anticipated for the following year, or it can be used for extras, like a relocation expenses or a signing bonus.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: We're talking with Lauren Weber of the Wall Street Journal. She covers careers there and saying that there are some maybe unexpected or counterintuitive opportunities for jobs available during the holiday season. 800-989-8255. Email, talk@npr.org. We'd like to hear from those of you who are hiring. Are you still open for business for the remainder of the year? And those of you looking, what do you do to set your holiday-period strategy? We'll start with Alice, and Alice is on the line with us from Tulare, in California.
ALICE: Hi. I was calling in because I'm actually sitting on a panel for interviewing right now, to fill a position for a community liaison position, and I was just astounded. I was asked to be part of it. But what astounds me is the number of qualified individuals. You know, normally in, you know, in the hiring process, you'd have a few individuals, and we're in a rural, agricultural area. But to have, you know, upwards of more than a dozen applicants that are qualified just really hints at the fact that, you know, we're going to have the best individual for that position once all is said and done.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yeah. That sounds like also you're going to have to make a difficult decision when it comes down to it. Somebody gets a job...
ALICE: Exactly.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Sorry?
ALICE: Exactly. I mean, it's just going to be really, really tough once everything is said and done because every one is very, very qualified.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, at least somebody in California is hiring, though.
ALICE: Yes, definitely.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Nice of you to call, Alice. And thanks very much for the call.
ALICE: Thank you.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Here's an email from Mark: I've been looking for work for two years now. My strategy for the holidays: keep searching full time, full speed ahead.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, Lauren Weber, you pointed out that, well, yeah, part of the strategy for job seekers, yeah, go on Monster, apply for those jobs, but network, network, network.
LAUREN WEBER: Yeah. I mean, that is kind of the golden rule for all job seekers. You know, that's - often many companies report that's the best way to find a job. And if anything, they prefer employee referrals to, you know, a resume that just comes over the transom along with hundreds of others. So, you know, holidays are a great time to do this. You can - there are many parties being given, whether it's with family or friends or neighbors. You know, there's always people to meet and kind of ask them what they're doing and about what's going at their companies.
LAUREN WEBER: So, actually, I didn't even - this didn't even occur to me until after I had written the story, but this is exactly what I had done in my previous job. I was at a New Year's Day party, and I happened to meet somebody and asked her about her company. I had just written a book. I'd been out of the job market for about two years, and I was quite in need of a steady paycheck and some health insurance. And I met this woman. We talked about her company a little bit. She said that they were just starting to hire. I sent her my resume the next day. And two months later, I was working at the company. So it really...
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Wow.
LAUREN WEBER: ...can work. You just never know who you're going to run into. And, you know, always keep an open mind. You know, not that you want to bring copies of your resume to a party and force it on anybody, but it's a really good way to meet people.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yeah. I was going to put resumes in my Christmas cards, yeah.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Yeah. No. I would stay away from that.
LAUREN WEBER: And hopefully, you like your job and you're not going to leave anytime soon.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, that's true enough. And let's go to Steven(ph), Steven with us from Perry, Oklahoma.
STEVEN: Hello. Hi.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Good.
STEVEN: I am actually looking for a job. I'm not unemployed right now, but I'm underemployed. I'm a pilot. And I've got an interview two days after Christmas, on the 27th with a commercial airline. So things are looking up for me hopefully.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, seeing the new rules out today, make sure you get some sleep.
STEVEN: I will do, sir. Yeah, that's important so.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: So what would the difference be?
STEVEN: I'm sorry. What was that?
NEAL CONAN, HOST: What is the difference between what you're doing now, and if you got this job, what would you be doing then?
STEVEN: Currently, I'm working as a flight instructor, which is pretty standard for pilots that don't have a commercial job, to work as a flight instructor. But it's very - it's hourly pay. And so you get a week of bad weather, you don't really do much flying, and so you don't get paid a whole lot and you don't get guarantee. And so it's much better to be there because you get some kind of a minimum guarantee for your salary if you're working for a commercial airline.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: That voice, I can hear it coming over the intercom now.
STEVEN: Yeah.
STEVEN: Well, hopefully, next time you're on a flight I'll be sitting up front.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: All right, Steven. Good luck.
STEVEN: Thanks. Bye.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: And let's see if we can go to - this is Annie, Annie with us from Saxtons River, Vermont.
ANNIE: Hi. How are you?
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Good. Thanks.
ANNIE: Well, my story is that I have a business as a freelance copywriter. And I've been hit by the economy, so I've been putting my feelers out looking for the right organization to work for. And I had a great interview on Monday with a company, a Web development company. And just a few minutes ago, in fact, I heard back from them. I had sent them a little thank you note, thanking them for the interview and asked them what their timeline was. And they said they will actually not be deciding until the first week of January because they're all in and out during the holidays.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: And...
ANNIE: It didn't surprise me, but...
NEAL CONAN, HOST: So everything is kind of on hold for a little while.
ANNIE: Yes.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: And, Lauren Weber, do you think that's true for a lot of companies?
LAUREN WEBER: It might be. You know, as the pilot was saying, some people are interviewing and hiring even in that week between Christmas and New Year's, when we probably assume everything is shut down. But I think this woman's experience is probably not atypical, but it's good that she interviewed before the holidays. I think a lot of companies, you know, they look at January or the new year like we do as individuals. You want to hit the ground running. You want to be energized for your goals for the year. And so I think, you know, a lot of companies do want to hire around this time probably because they have new projects that are getting underway, and they just want to be staffed up and ready for that.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Annie, good luck.
ANNIE: Thank you.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Appreciate the call. Lauren Weber, as you continue to talk to people about careers, few years ago, people going out of work would have said, wait a minute. I'm going to hold out for a job where I'm making close to if not as much money I was before. I want a job with benefits. I really don't want to take a job on commission. That's all changed hasn't it?
LAUREN WEBER: Yeah. Unfortunately, a lot of people just don't have that luxury. I mean, there aren't enough job openings to ensure that people are going to find their perfect job. The most recent statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that in October there were 3.3 million job openings on the last business day, and this is better than it was in the trough of the recession. But in the month that the recession began, or the month right before the recession began, there were 4.4 job openings. So, you know, we're not nearly up to the levels we were at before this - before the recession began. So, you know, people just can't be quite as choosy and selective as they would hope to be.
LAUREN WEBER: Now, when you drill down into the numbers a little bit, there are certain fields and industries where the unemployment rate is much lower. So if you're an engineer or have - or an accountant, these are industries that seem to be doing really well, or fields that seem to be doing really well. I think for accountants the unemployment rate is somewhere - or for engineers, it's about half what it is for the national rate. So, you know, there, you can afford to be a little bit choosier. In fact, I've heard that in some cases salaries are actually going up, which is a sign of greater competition among employers for those people.
LAUREN WEBER: But, you know, if you don't have some of those specialized skills that are really in demand, you know, you are looking for a job along with many, many others, and the competition is stiff. And for many people, that means choosing something that, in better times, they would have probably passed over.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Lauren Weber covers careers at The Wall Street Journal. You are listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: And the numbers - you mentioned specific numbers, but the job numbers are taking up a bit. The unemployment figure is down to 8.6 percent, I think. But some of that is due to people who've just stopped looking.
LAUREN WEBER: Yes. There are a lot of discouraged workers out there. Hopefully, they will - they are starting to see that things are actually picking up. Like, for instance, another data point that came up from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was that 1.9 million people quit their jobs in October, and that's about 500,000 or 400,000 up from the trough in that data point which was in January of 2010. So more people are feeling that - are either finding other positions or are feeling that they have a little bit of luxury of leaving where they are and hopefully finding something better. And most of those jobs, you know, will have to be replaced. Those employers will look for replacement workers for who was there. So, you know, some of the data really does indicate that things are looking better than they were at the worst point, and we are in recovery. Technically, we have been for awhile. It's been a very weak recovery. But even so, it's clear that there are more jobs out there.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: And you talked about differences in terms of the kinds of jobs, engineers, for example, that people are looking for. What about regionally? Is – are some places in the country doing better than other? We just heard, for example, pretty good employment numbers for a place like Maryland.
LAUREN WEBER: Yeah. You know, it's interesting. I've seen a few studies recently that show the Midwest is actually really ticking up in terms of hiring. And that was somewhat surprising to me because we think of the coasts as being more dynamic economically and that, you know, more innovation would come from the coastal areas. But I think probably because manufacturing is doing OK, certain kinds of manufacturing, you know, Detroit is coming back, the car industry. So, you know, the Midwest seems to be popping more than other regions right now.
LAUREN WEBER: You know, different - depending on different studies. You see different kinds of data. But in the ones about the records of people quitting, the most quits were actually in the South. And unfortunately, it's something you can't really drill down further into the numbers, so I can't say which industries people seem to be leaving their jobs or moving into other jobs in. But I was kind of interested to see that. It was a little bit surprising.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Here's an email from Terry(ph) in Franklin, Tennessee. Well, I've seen lately many firms posting jobs but in no hurry to hire. I've seen the same jobs posted and reposted for, in some cases over six months. I've also noted the same jobs seem to rotate around through various recruiters. So that's interesting.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: In the meantime, let's see if we can go next to Leah(ph), Leah with us from Oakland.
LEAH: Yes. Hello. This actually links in a bit to the oil discussion. I work for an oil reclamation and recycling company in - we're based out of Emeryville, California, but we're hiring in Oklahoma, Louisiana and Texas for a procurement specialist. We have a high volume of products down there, and unfortunately we're just not seeing the volume of applicants that we expected in a downturn economy.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Not seeing the - when you would think that everybody would be applying for a job.
LEAH: Right. One would think. We get a lot of replies by email that are sort of joke replies, not including the resume, not including a cover letter, just people that seem to be ill-prepared to present themselves professionally in the market place. But we are not seeing the kind of quality applicants that we had expected in a downturn economy. With the kind of competition that's out there, we had thought that would really drive more qualified applicants to our door, and unfortunately that just doesn't happened.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Well, maybe they'll show up now, Leah. Thank you very much for the call.
LEAH: I hope so. OK. Take care.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is from Wiki(ph), who wrote us: One issue facing job seekers is employers looking for the purple squirrel. Purple squirrel is a term used by employment recruiters to describe an unlikely job applicant with the exactly right education, experience and qualifications that perfectly fit a job's multifaceted requirements. One, in theory, this prized purple squirrel can handle all of the extensive variety of responsibilities of a job description would allow businesses to function with fewer workers. So are - Lauren Weber, are employers being a little picky?
LAUREN WEBER: Yeah, there are. It's funny, I've never heard that term purple squirrel, but I'll have to add it to my lexicon. You know, this relates to a couple of the recent calls. You know, I do think sometimes employers figure, well, there are so many people out there looking. Eventually, the perfect person is going to walk through the door. So maybe they are, you know, hiring very slowly or just waiting on jobs, waiting on filling jobs. And in terms of what Leah said, there are a lot of - employers also complain about what's called the skills gap. There are lots of unemployed people, but not the people with the right specialized skills, and this may be an issue for companies. They may have to invest more on training in order to create the employees that they're looking for.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: This is from Patricia in Laramie: An employer scheduled an interview for December 30th. Some higher-end employers are pushing things out to January. After searching for a year, I just got a job offer today for a new position with a conservation organization. Congratulations.
NEAL CONAN, HOST: Lauren Weber, thanks for your time. It's the TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. | Many job seekers assume they won't make much progress in their search over the holidays. Not so, says Lauren Weber of The Wall Street Journal. Weber explains why job hunters may want to consider keeping their search alive through the holiday season. Read Lauren Weber's Wall Street Journal piece, "Looking For Work? Keep It Up Through The Holidays" | Viele Arbeitssuchende gehen davon aus, dass sie über die Feiertage keine großen Fortschritte bei der Suche machen werden. Nicht so, sagt Lauren Weber vom Wall Street Journal. Weber erklärt, warum Jobsuchende ihre Suche über die Feiertage aufrechterhalten sollten. Lesen Sie Lauren Webers Artikel im Wall Street Journal \"Suche Arbeit? Mache bei den Feiertage weiter so\" | 许多求职者认为,他们在假期找工作不会有太大进展。《华尔街日报》的劳伦·韦伯认为事实并非如此。韦伯解释了为什么求职者在假日期间坚持找工作。打开《华尔街日报》,读一读劳伦·韦伯的报道《找工作?假期不要停》。 |
IRA FLATOW, HOST: This is SCIENCE FRIDAY. I'm Ira Flatow. If you're scanning the Milky Way for life, where do you look? Well, probably someplace not too different from planet Earth, right? So you want to find a planet about the same size as Earth to increase the chance it has a rocky surface, with oceans of course rather than being a giant ball of gas like Jupiter, and it should be just the right distance from its star, in what they call the Goldilocks Zone: hot enough to have liquid water but not so hot that the surface has completely scorched.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Well, this month, scientists using the Kepler Space Telescope announced the discovery of exoplanets that fit into each of these categories. How long before they find Earth's twin, a planet that fits both categories? And once they do, what's the next step to investigate whether or not it might harbor life?
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Here to talk about it is William Borucki. He is principal investigator for the Kepler Mission and a space scientist at the NASA-Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, California. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: Hello, Ira, it's nice to be here.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Let's talk about these three new planets, Kepler-22B, -20E and -F. What's so special about them?
WILLIAM BORUCKI: Well, clearly the goal of the mission is to determine the frequency of Earth-size planets in and near the habitable zone of stars like the sun. And these are a major step toward that goal. First of all, Kepler-22B is a planet that is in the habitable zone of its star. It's the right temperature, but it's probably a little bit big. It's about 2.4 times the size of the Earth, and when we look at that, our suspicion is it probably is mostly a water planet, or maybe it has a lot of gas.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: But we don't think it's a solid, rocky planet. It's in the habitable zone. Any moons that have - which might also - would also be in the habitable zone. But the other aspect of what Kepler has found this week are two planets that are Earth-sized.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: So they are the right size, and we believe they are probably rocky, but they're too close to their star. They're too hot. So they're not in a habitable zone. So we're sort of finding planets all around the air that we want, and little by little, year after year, as Kepler gets better at this and finds more planets, we're getting closer to the major goal, Earth-sized planets in a habitable zone and in particular enough of them so that we can get an idea how frequent they are.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: Are they common in the galaxy, or are they very rare? Because that's the real question, not just finding one or two but finding out are they common. If they're common, probably lots of life in our galaxy. If they're very infrequent, you know, we may be alone. So the frequency is important, and to get at the frequency, we've got to find planets in a habitable zone that are probably the size of the Earth or maybe up to twice the size of the Earth.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: And we're up to, what, 2,300 exoplanets that have been found so far?
WILLIAM BORUCKI: We found some 2,326 candidates. These are stars that show us signals that look like planets. But we have to do ground-based observations to check them out, to make sure that it's not a small star crossing a big star or two stars in a background eclipsing one another.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: And so of those 2,300 candidates, we've only been able to confirm 33 so far.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: And I've heard that the Kepler satellite has been quoted - has been dubbed your baby. Would that be accurate?
WILLIAM BORUCKI: Well, I certainly advocated it starting in 1984 and built some photometers and worked with headquarters to find a mission that we could launch. And so over the years, I and Dave Koch and several others have worked to build this mission, and we were so delighted to find in 2001 that it was accepted as a mission.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: It got launched in 2009, after a lot of work building this and testing it, and it's worked beautifully ever since.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: So between 1986 and 2001, many years, you're telling me you got turned down all those times?
WILLIAM BORUCKI: Well, in 1984, I wrote the first paper on what we should be able to do, and I started building some photometers to prove it could be done. The missions that would allow this Kepler to fly didn't get started until 1992. And so we proposed in '92, in '94, '96, '98, and each time they turned us down because they thought it would be too expensive, or the detectors couldn't possibly work, or no one had done photometry of tens of thousands of stars simultaneously.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: And Kepler does 150,000 stars simultaneously. So we had to go through many different steps to prove that this would work before we got permission to launch.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: And look what they would have missed if they hadn't launched it.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: Yes, we wouldn't know anything about all these small planets. We're finding planets as small as Mars, a few that might be even smaller than Mars. We're finding, you know, thousands around all kinds of stars. So it's just been an enormous bounty of planets.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: And people in the United States and people in Europe are all getting together, looking at these objects, trying to confirm them and writing lots and lots of papers. And we'll be rewriting the books on astronomy because what we've found is not what we expected.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: What do you mean it's not what you expected?
WILLIAM BORUCKI: Well, everyone expected that we would find small planets close to their stars and big planets further away, just like in our solar system. That's not what we find. We find lots of big planets that are close to their stars, and we find planets, you know, whole groups of planets, six planets well inside the orbit of Mercury, very, very close to their stars, very, very hot, planets that are hotter than - as hot as molten iron, for example.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: So just a huge range of planets bigger than Jupiter, planets smaller than Mars.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: And you find some that - some of these last two that they orbit the - they orbit their sun in, what, six days?
WILLIAM BORUCKI: That's right.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Wow.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: And one that we found a little bit earlier called Kepler-10B orbits in less than a day, which means that if you got up in the morning, you know, it would be spring, and the trees would be blooming, and by noon it would be summer, and, you know, the leaves would be - you'd go out and pick tomatoes in the evening. Fall would occur, all the leaves would fall off, and that night it would be winter.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: So that, you know, years are one day, six days, a month. We find a huge range like that. Now, planets that close to a star of course are so hot that they couldn't possibly have life, but what I'm saying is that you have to imagine things so different on the planets that we're finding.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: And you imagine that from what you're finding, there's got to be some planet like ours in that Goldilocks Zone, right?
WILLIAM BORUCKI: That's right, but, you know, to be in the Goldilocks Zone, for stars like the sun, the Earth is in a habitable zone, by definition, and it takes this Earth one year to go around the sun. So that gives you a first transit, first one and second one, and every year you get another transit. We need a minimum of three times to cross the star so the star dims. And that dimming tells you how big the planet is, and the repetition tells you how far away the planet is from the star.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: And that tells you whether or not it's in the habitable zone because if it's close to the star, it's too hot. So for a planet like the Earth, around a star like the sun, it takes three years for us to make the measurements we need before we say oh, this is an interesting candidate, let's see if we can prove it's a real planet.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: The spacecraft has not been operating three years yet. So those small planets at the habitable zone of the stars like the sun, you know, we will not have found yet. We're finding planets in the habitable zone, and we've found 48 candidates in the habitable zone so far, but they're stars smaller than the sun, cooler than the sun.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: And so we're finding those, but they're not exactly sun-like. They're a little bit cooler and smaller. And our hope, then, is since we're finding those, and the stars aren't very much different, in the coming year or so, we'll be finding more planets like the Earth in a habitable zone of stars much more like that of the sun.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: If you're finding only planets that pass in front of their stars, so you can see the shadow from them, or - how many stars are you missing?
WILLIAM BORUCKI: That's a very good question because for us to see the transit, the planets moving between the star and ourselves, you can calculate that the chance of doing that is equal to the diameter of the star over the diameter of the orbit.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: Now for the planets with periods of the order of a few days or a few weeks, that's about 10 percent. So we would miss 90 percent of such planets. But if planets are out with orbital periods closer to a year, closer to the distance from the Earth to the sun, then we miss about 99 and a half percent. So every one that we find, there must be at least 99 more out there.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: And so we use that geometrical correction to say we have found a certain number, and we can predict how many are out there.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: And how close is the closest one that might, you know, be close to an Earth-kind of planet?
WILLIAM BORUCKI: Now, are you speaking of close in terms of size, temperature...
IRA FLATOW, HOST: To the Earth. I mean, how close to the Earth, the distance to the Earth?
WILLIAM BORUCKI: The distance? OK, fine. I think we have found some that are within 50 light-years.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Fifty light-years?
WILLIAM BORUCKI: Yes. Now, these are planets. These are not Earth. They're just planets. But if you're saying I want to find an Earth, and I want to find it in a habitable zone, we haven't found any Earth yet in a habitable zone. We have found objects bigger than the Earth in a habitable zone, we found Earth-size too close to their stars to be in the habitable zone.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: But the stars we look at are generally - for example, Kepler-22B, the one that's in the habitable zone that we announced, that's 600 light-years away. Now, the two Earth-sized planets that we found that we announced, that's 1,000 light-years away.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: So those are - basically Kepler is a probe. It looks out into the galaxy and says what do we - what's out there? Future missions will look at just the closest stars because they'll have to look at the whole sky then. We look at just one portion, a big portion, but it's not the whole sky.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Will there be future missions?
WILLIAM BORUCKI: Oh, I'm sure there will be because...
IRA FLATOW, HOST: What makes you - with the way the Congress has got budgets going these days, what makes you so sure?
WILLIAM BORUCKI: I believe that in Europe and the United States, we'll look seriously at our problems, and we will solve them and that we will get back to a much more productive, happy time in the future.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Well, you know, that's optimistic, and we can certainly hope for that, but there are no plans for another Kepler on our drawing board now is what you're saying.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: We have quite a few missions that people have ideas for and have been proposing. The problem with two that come to mind immediately is something called TESS, which is a terrestrial planet-finder, which is for the nearest stars. It actually finds bigger planets than Earth, but it looks at the whole sky to see which ones have planets.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: And then the Europeans have one called PLATO, which does the same thing. So each continent, basically, has ideas. But the ones that both Europeans and the people of the United States are really looking forward to are ones that look at the atmospheres of these planets because if you find that these planets have atmospheres - and we don't know that ahead of time - that's important for life.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: If the atmospheres have CO2 and water, that's important for plants. The CO2 is what they breathe, water is what they respire. So if you have plants, you could have life, and maybe the plants are building oxygen, in which case you might have even higher forms of life.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: And so these future missions are designed to find the composition of the atmospheres.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Well, we'll have to look forward to them, and we want to wish you good luck and thank you for coming on to talk with us today.
WILLIAM BORUCKI: You're most welcome, my pleasure.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: Have a happy holiday. William Borucki is principal investigator for Kepler Mission, space scientist at NASA-Ames Research Center in Moffett Field. We're going to take a break. When we come back, the war on cancer turns 40 today. Make you feel old? Harold Varmus is here to talk about how far we've come, where we're headed. Stay with us. We'll be right back after this break.
IRA FLATOW, HOST: I'm Ira Flatow. This is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR. | By tracking the blinking light of distant stars, NASA's Kepler space telescope has identified the first Earth-sized exoplanets, and another which orbits its star in the "Goldilocks zone," where liquid water—and possibly life—could exist. Principal investigator William Borucki talks about the newly discovered worlds. | Durch die Verfolgung des blinkenden Lichts entfernter Sterne hat das Kepler-Weltraumteleskop der NASA die ersten erdgroßen Exoplaneten identifiziert und einen weiteren, der seinen Stern in der \"Goldlöckchen-Zone\" umkreist, wo flüssiges Wasser - und möglicherweise Leben - existieren könnte. Hauptermittler William Borucki spricht über die neu entdeckten Welten. | 通过追踪遥远恒星闪烁的光线,美国宇航局的开普勒太空望远镜已经确定了第一颗地球大小的系外行星,以及另一颗围绕其恒星运行“金发姑娘带”的行星,那里可能存在液态水——可能还有生命。首席研究员威廉·博鲁基谈论新发现的世界。 |
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Are you still looking for your dream job, new home, and a good man? Journalist Amy DuBois Barnett says women of color should stop waiting and aim straight for what they want. Her new book is called "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More."
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Hey, Amy. How are you?
Ms. AMY DUBOIS BARNETT (Author, "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More"): I'm great. Happy to be here.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Yeah. So to be honest, there are enough self-help and motivational books in this world to fill the oceans to the skies. Why did you write one and what makes yours different?
Ms. AMY DUBOIS BARNETT (Author, "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More"): You know, I've made it my personal mission and message to help women move their lives forward, and I don't think that we frequently hear the message that success is a mindset. And my book is really all about getting your mind right and preparing yourself to achieve not just in your professional life, but in your personal life. I think that there's so much that women can do if we just walk through the world expecting it to happen. And I'm a living embodiment of that, you know. I always tell people if I can do it, anybody can, because I went through such a down period in my life that we can talk about. And I want to take the lessons that I've learned and spread the formula of success and achievement to as many women as I can.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So let's talk a little bit about your path. You were editor-in-chief of Honey, an urban women's magazine, editor of Teen People, deputy editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar now. That seems like a dream life in and of itself. What - you mentioned a down period in your life, what was that and how did you get through it?
Ms. AMY DUBOIS BARNETT (Author, "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More"): You know, when I was 22 years old, my mother passed away. Well, first of all, I had a very awkward growing-up experience. I was not always, remotely attractive. So that was my growing-up teenage years. And then, my mother passed away when I was 22 years old. She was my best friend in the world and it really threw me for quite sometime. And at that time in my life, I was working in an industry that I hated. I was living in a basement apartment. I had no money. I gained 30 pounds. And I just had no clue how I was going to move myself forward, what I was going to do to make a change.
Ms. AMY DUBOIS BARNETT (Author, "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More"): And one day, I looked around at my life and I realized that nobody was coming to save me. You know, not a family member, no friend, no man, not because they didn't love me but because this is my life, you know. It is our life. We have to take ownership and realize that we alone have responsibility for creating the life that we want.
Ms. AMY DUBOIS BARNETT (Author, "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More"): So for me, it was really a matter of, kind of, taking ownership and taking responsibility, and it made me do a 180 in terms of how I think about my life. But that was the very awkward situation I went through. And from that moment forward, I started to make decisions based on what makes me happy, not what makes other people happy. And it changed everything I've done since.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: So what would you say was the spark? I mean, you have all these things that going on in your life, but was there a moment that crystallized for you when you said, I'm just not going to take this anymore?
Ms. AMY DUBOIS BARNETT (Author, "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More"): You know, it was a very cathartic - it was a moment, you know. It was literally a moment when I was walking around my room and I looked at a picture of my mother and she was very much of a groundbreaker. She was the first African-American woman to run a major research university in the country, and she was an adventurer, and very much my inspiration. And I looked at her and I thought about the fact that she passed away she was 49 years old, and I realized, well, what am I doing? You know, this is my life right now.
Ms. AMY DUBOIS BARNETT (Author, "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More"): I think so many of us fall into the trap of waiting for life to begin, you know, oh, life will start when I get that man or I get that job or I get that house or whatever it is. But, really, this is life right now, as you and I are talking, as people are listening - this is life. So it's up to us to, kind of, realize that this day and this form(ph) will never happen again and what are we going to do to make it count?
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: You have a lot of celebrities in the book. You've got Sanaa Lathan, Venus Williams, India.Arie. Give me one story that one of them told you that inspires you.
Ms. AMY DUBOIS BARNETT (Author, "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More"): I love the women in my book. I really have to say. My celebrity role models are just that for me, just women that I think are so successful and so amazing. I love all of their stories, you know, Gayle King was great, Mo'Nique. I think, possibly, my favorite was Sanaa Lathan, who was very intimate and very honest with me and talked about how she used be very afraid. She used to let fear dominate her life. And one time, she got a ticket to go to an event in Hollywood that was honoring very, you know, important women in her industry, and she was afraid to go because she only got one ticket. She would not be able to bring anybody and she thought she will feel out of place and alone and wouldn't know who to talk to.
Ms. AMY DUBOIS BARNETT (Author, "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More"): And as it turns out, she went to the event, forged all of these new relationships, had an amazing time, and resolved that she would not let fear dictate her life, and that she would be confident that the universe would support risks. And I just think that that's such an important message for all of us, particularly women of color, because we are so frequently don't have faith that if we step out of our comfort zone, we will be supported in the risks that we take. And if you embrace fear as a sign of personal growth, if you recognize that stepping out of your comfort zone is how you become everything your meant to be, then it changes your whole attitude.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Now, you come from a background - you mentioned that your mom was an ace academic. You, yourself, are very well educated. You're talking to celebrities. There are people, people who may pick up your book, who are going to be beaten down in very specific and dramatic ways - maybe on the verge of bankruptcy, losing a home, getting a divorce. Do you think the people can relate to celebrities, to people like you, who've had different kinds of opportunities?
Ms. AMY DUBOIS BARNETT (Author, "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More"): Sure. Sure. There is not a single person in the public eye you can look at who has not had their own set of trials and tribulations and obstacles and dramas and things that they've been through to get to where they are today. We are all the same. I think that's a really fundamental lesson, too, in reading my book and listening to the lives of the people that I interview. You now, again, if I can do it, anybody can.
Ms. AMY DUBOIS BARNETT (Author, "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More"): You know, for a long time, I was unsuccessful in my career. I was overweight. I had no money. I went through a divorce. I lost my mother. You know, this is not a charmed life that I've had. So, you know, I am taking the lessons that I've learned and I'm telling people that this is my life. This is what happened to me, and here is how I pulled myself out of my place of depression and insecurity. And I turned my life around and look what I've achieved, and you can do it, too.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Let's talk about India.Arie. She talks about being spiritually grounded in the music industry and what does she have to offer. Her lyrics have inspired a lot of people, for example.
Ms. AMY DUBOIS BARNETT (Author, "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More"): Well, I just thought she was amazing, you know. I interviewed her in my, like you said, in the spirituality chapter largely because I appreciate her worldview and her - the generosity of her spirituality. I like the fact that she is very accepting of everybody's forms of connecting with a higher power, which I think is the way to walk through the world.
Ms. AMY DUBOIS BARNETT (Author, "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More"): You know, I personally believe that the more accepting we are of other people, the more we are ultimately connecting to our higher power. And she talks about how she doesn't necessarily have to talk to God at church or in a spiritual building, but that she does it all the time. She prays all the time. She connects with her higher power all time, but she does it wherever she is. And I think that that is such a valuable lesson, you know, try to connect with your higher power every day, but that does not necessarily mean going to church, nor does that mean judging other people for their specific beliefs.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: What about money? You talk about screw-you money. What's that?
Ms. AMY DUBOIS BARNETT (Author, "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More"): That is very important to me, Farai. That is a very key message in my book. I am a big advocate of women protecting themselves and being independent and having their own savings. I really don't like it when we, sort of, you know, wait for a man to come along and rescue us from our bills, or we're waiting for somebody to buy us the car, or the minute we have a few hundred dollars we go out and we buy that expensive bag. You know, it really is not going to help us as women long term if we don't have any means for protecting ourselves and supporting ourselves.
Ms. AMY DUBOIS BARNETT (Author, "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More"): And when I say screw-you money, I mean that if you are ever in a personal or professional situation that you find uncomfortable, abusive, that you just don't like, you know, your savings, your money, frankly, is your independence. That's your ability to push back from the table or whatever it is and say, you know what, screw you.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Amy…
Ms. AMY DUBOIS BARNETT (Author, "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More"): I don't need this, and that is what that money means.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: All right. We're going to have to leave it there. Thanks so much, Amy.
Ms. AMY DUBOIS BARNETT (Author, "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More"): Thank very much for having me.
FARAI CHIDEYA, host: Amy DuBois Barnett is the deputy editor-in-chief of Harper's Bazaar magazine, and her new book is "Get Yours: The Girlfriend's Guide to Having Everything You Ever Dreamed Of And More." She joined me from our New York studios. | Magazine editor and writer Amy DuBois Barnett tells women of color they can have it all in her book, Get Yours! Barnett shares how she became one of the most prominent black women in the magazine industry. | Die Zeitschriftenredakteurin und Autorin Amy DuBois Barnett zeigt in ihrem Buch Hol dir deine! (Get Yours!), dass farbige Frauen alles haben können. Barnett erzählt, wie sie zu einer der prominentesten schwarzen Frauen in der Zeitschriftenbranche wurde. | 杂志编辑兼作家艾米·杜波依斯·巴内特在她的书《得你所想》中告诉有色人种的女性,她们可以拥有一切。巴内特分享了她是如何成为杂志行业最杰出的黑人女性之一的。 |
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Dataset Card for XMediaSum
Dataset Summary
We present XMediaSum, a cross-lingual dialogue summarization dataset with 40K English(dialogues)->Chinese(summaries) and 40K English (dialogues)->German(summaries) samples. XMediaSum is created by manually translating the English summaries of MediaSum (a English monolingual dialogue summarization dataset) to both Chinese and German.
- Paper: ClidSum: A Benchmark Dataset for Cross-Lingual Dialogue Summarization (EMNLP 2022)
- GitHub: https://github.com/krystalan/ClidSum
Supported Task
- Cross-Lingual Summarization
- Cross-Lingual Dialogue Summarization
Languages
- source language: English
- target language: Chinese and German
Dataset Structure
Data Instances
One example is given below in JSON format:
{
"dialogue": "MADELELEINE BRAND, host: OK, here's some good news on the jobs front for both men and women. A new survey out today from the employment firm Manpower finds that about a quarter of employers will add jobs this summer. That's for adults, but for teenagers this summer's job market is shaping up to be the weakest in more than 50 years.\r\nALEX COHEN, host: So, how do you get your teenage kids not to spend the entire summer glued to the couch? You're about to get some tips from Michelle Singletary. She's Day to Day's personal finance contributor. Hi, Michelle!\r\nMICHELLE SINGLETARY: Hi!\r\nALEX COHEN, host: So why is the summer job market so hard for teens this year?\r\nMICHELLE SINGLETARY: Lot of things going on right now. We've got a tough economy. We've got a lot of college graduates going into the market. We have people who are losing their jobs and taking jobs that would traditionally go to teens, like in restaurants and retailers. And we have a lot of older people holding on to their jobs and not retiring because they can't afford to retire. And that puts teens at the end of the line when it comes to these types of jobs.\r\nALEX COHEN, host: So you've got a teenager at home, a little bit young for the working world just yet, but what would you say to a teenager who's out there hunting around for a job?\r\nMICHELLE SINGLETARY: If you absolutely need a job, keep looking. You know, obviously the types of jobs that teens tend to go for in retail, fast food, you know, they still need people. And oftentimes you know, listen, you may not get the job at the beginning of the summer, but hold on because in late summer, when some of those college students are going back and perhaps some of those people who lost their jobs are finding permanent positions with more pay, you might be able to still get that job. So don't give up, you may spend a month or month and a half without it, but go back to those retailers and those restaurants and those fast food places to see if they still need someone.\r\nALEX COHEN, host: And now I know parents like having the break from providing allowance. But, you know, is - are there reasons maybe not to push your teen towards taking a job?\r\nMICHELLE SINGLETARY: I think it absolutely is. In fact I think too many teens are working and they don't need to work. They're some who absolutely need, they're contributing to their household or they're putting money into their own college fund. But more often than not, what parents do is say you've got to get a job, and then the teens get the job and they spend all the money on clothes and you know videos and iPods and paying their cell phone bills because they don't need a cell phone anyway.\r\nALEX COHEN, host: So it's not going towards the college tuition at all.\r\nMICHELLE SINGLETARY: It is not. It's just disposable income that they're disposing of. And parents are not setting any limits and you know and then the kids get used to the fact that they're using all of their paycheck. That's another bad habit. Because they don't have to pay bills and all, all their income goes through you know this stuff.\r\nMICHELLE SINGLETARY: And when it comes time to get a real job, they're surprised they don't have enough money. And so you know what? You can wait to work. Instead, maybe they can spend the summer volunteering at a charitable organization or you know going back to school and boosting up their math skills or their English skills. We push the teens out into the market too soon, I think for some families.\r\nALEX COHEN, host: But now let's say your kid is working. What tips can parents provide in terms of holding on to that summer money?\r\nMICHELLE SINGLETARY: You know, before they get their job, they need to sit down with them and do a budget. So before they actually work and get that first paycheck I mean, you know, have them draw up a budge where the money is going. And you ought to have some requirements for some of their money. That's right, be a parent.\r\nMICHELLE SINGLETARY: So make them put some of it towards their college fund, if in fact they're headed for college. You know what? Make them put some away, I call it the tax fund, even though they may not have to pay taxes, but to pay for long-term things that they may want. You know, books once they get to college, or maybe they want to get a car, and they can actually pay cash for it, with some of these funds. Don't let them just go out and spend it on movies and stuff. You ought to set some guidelines - this is where you should put the money. And look at their budget.\r\nALEX COHEN, host: Day to Day's personal finance contributor Michelle Singletary. Thank you, Michelle!\r\nMICHELLE SINGLETARY: You're welcome.\r\nALEX COHEN, host: Stay with us. NPR's Day to Day continues.",
"summary": "The tight job market could be bad news for teens seeking summer work. If your teen does find a job, will he or she know how to manage those paychecks? Our personal finance contributor talks with Alex Cohen about ways to help teens find a job.",
"summary_de": "Der angespannte Arbeitsmarkt könnte für Jugendliche, die Sommerarbeit suchen, eine schlechte Nachricht sein. Wenn Ihr Teenager einen Job findet, wird er oder sie wissen, wie er mit diesen Gehaltsschecks umgeht? Unser Mitarbeiter für persönliche Finanzen spricht mit Alex Cohen darüber, wie Teenager bei der Jobsuche unterstützt werden können.",
"summary_zh": "紧张的就业市场对寻找暑期工作的青少年来说可能是个坏消息。如果你的孩子找到了一份工作,他/她懂得怎么管理这些薪水吗?我们的个人理财撰稿人与亚历克斯·科恩谈论如何帮助青少年找到工作。"
},
Data Fields
- 'dialogue': An English dialogue
- 'summary': the original English summary of the corresponding dialogue (provided by MediaSum)
- 'summary_de': the human-translated German summary
- 'summary_zh': the human-translated Chinese summary
Data Splits
- training set: 20K samples
- validation set: 10K samples
- testing set: 10K samples
Dataset Creation
Please refer to our paper for more details.
Considerations for Using the Data
Please refer to our paper for more details.
Additional Information
Dataset Curators
Licensing Information
License: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
Citation Information
@inproceedings{wang-etal-2022-clidsum,
title = "{C}lid{S}um: A Benchmark Dataset for Cross-Lingual Dialogue Summarization",
author = "Wang, Jiaan and
Meng, Fandong and
Lu, Ziyao and
Zheng, Duo and
Li, Zhixu and
Qu, Jianfeng and
Zhou, Jie",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2022 Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing",
month = dec,
year = "2022",
address = "Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates",
publisher = "Association for Computational Linguistics",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2022.emnlp-main.526",
pages = "7716--7729",
abstract = "We present ClidSum, a benchmark dataset towards building cross-lingual summarization systems on dialogue documents. It consists of 67k+ dialogue documents and 112k+ annotated summaries in different target languages. Based on the proposed ClidSum, we introduce two benchmark settings for supervised and semi-supervised scenarios, respectively. We then build various baseline systems in different paradigms (pipeline and end-to-end) and conduct extensive experiments on ClidSum to provide deeper analyses. Furthermore, we propose mDialBART which extends mBART via further pre-training, where the multiple objectives help the pre-trained model capture the structural characteristics as well as key content in dialogues and the transformation from source to the target language. Experimental results show the superiority of mDialBART, as an end-to-end model, outperforms strong pipeline models on ClidSum. Finally, we discuss specific challenges that current approaches faced with this task and give multiple promising directions for future research. We have released the dataset and code at https://github.com/krystalan/ClidSum.",
}
Contributions
Thanks to @krystalan for adding this dataset.
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