News from NPR

Pages

Europe
8:00 am
Sun January 22, 2012

EU Reacts To Hungary's Media Crackdown

Klubradio is one of Hungary's only remaining independent broadcasters, but it may soon go silent. The station's struggles are emblematic of the Hungarian government's crackdown on civil liberties. The European Union is so worried that last week it issued a warning to Hungary: Revise your new constitution to comply with EU laws or leave the EU.

Latin America
6:33 am
Sun January 22, 2012

Church Broadcasts Hope, Haitians Flock Post-Quake

Originally published on Wed January 25, 2012 9:24 am

On Jan. 12, for the second anniversary of the devastating earthquake, thousands of people flocked to the Shalom Church in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The "church" is just a plywood stage under a patchwork of tattered tarps.

The crowd was so large that it spilled down a muddy hill toward a tent camp for earthquake victims. Most of the singing, swaying congregation were so far away they couldn't even see the podium.

The evangelical mission now claims to have more than 50,000 members and one of the most popular radio stations in Haiti.

Read more
Africa
6:31 am
Sun January 22, 2012

In Morocco, Islamists Learn To Work With A King

Credit Paul Schemm / AP
Morocco's Islamist Justice and Development Party heads the country's new government, the result of snap elections called by the king. Here, Abdelilah Benkirane, the party's secretary general and now prime minister, arrives for an election rally in Sale on Nov. 1. The party now faces political as well as economic challenges.

An Islamist party heads Morocco's newly elected government, part of a wave of Islamist election victories following uprisings across North Africa.

But Morocco's case is a bit different. King Mohammed VI responded quickly to a pro-democracy movement last year with a new constitution and snap elections. The Justice and Development Party, known as the PJD, won the most votes in November. Now, Moroccans ask: How will this popular Islamist party govern?

Read more
National Security
6:29 am
Sun January 22, 2012

CIA Tracks Public Information For The Private Eye

Originally published on Wed January 25, 2012 9:24 am

Secrets: the currency of spies around the world.

The rise of social media, hash-tags, forums, blogs and online news sites has revealed a new kind of secret — those hiding in plain sight. The CIA calls all this information "open source" material, and it's changing the way America's top spy agency does business.

Read more
It's All Politics
12:49 am
Sun January 22, 2012

This Time, South Carolina GOP Bets Its Winning Streak On A Long Shot

Credit JEFF SINER / MCT /Landov
Newt Gingrich along with his wife, Callista, addresses supporters at the Hilton Hotel in Columbia, S.C. following his primary victory. South Carolina voters have chosen the GOP nominee since 1980.

By embracing Newt Gingrich in its primary, the South Carolina GOP has risked its remarkable record of success at picking the party's eventual nominee for president.

It's been quite a run. Beginning with its primary in 1980, when it chose Ronald Reagan, South Carolina has voted first among Southern states. And the Palmetto State's choice has gone on to dominate the other Southern states and lock up the nomination in short order. That happened eight times in a row, counting incumbent renominations.

Read more
It's All Politics
6:23 pm
Sat January 21, 2012

On Primary Day In South Carolina, Even Weddings Get Political

Credit Don Gonyea / NPR
A wedding party stops by GOP Presidential candidate Rick Santorum's headquarters in Charleston, South Carolina on the state's primary day, January 21.

Originally published on Sat January 21, 2012 6:50 pm

There are water fountains, park benches, churches and expensive restaurants and then there are presidential candidates' headquarters, now making the list of places to take wedding photos.

Especially if you're a part of this wedding party getting hitched on primary day in South Carolina.

NPR's Don Gonyea tweeted this photo of the bride and her bridesmaids while preparing to cover the results of Saturday's first-in-the-South vote.

Read more
Presidential Race
5:47 pm
Sat January 21, 2012

Gingrich Has Chance For 'Pretty Big Win' In S.C.

Originally published on Wed May 23, 2012 11:05 am

Newt Gingrich has beaten Mitt Romney in South Carolina. The question now becomes whether he can pull off that trick enough times in enough states to deny Romney the Republican presidential nomination.

It was a big win for Gingrich, the former House speaker, who took 40 percent of the vote, compared to 28 percent for Romney, a former Massachusetts governor.

Read more
It's All Politics
5:27 pm
Sat January 21, 2012

'Dirty' Politics As Usual In South?

  • 1988: The Willie Horton Ad
  • 2008: McCain's 'Bill Ayers' Anti-Obama Ad
  • Robo-Call: Newt's Baggage
  • Robo-Call: Santorum Supports Romney

South Carolinians are voting today in the GOP primary, which some pundits see as the candidates' last stand for getting the GOP nomination to run in the general election.

On weekends on All Things Considered today, host Guy Raz talked with Danielle Vinson, the chair of the political science department at Furman University in Greenville, S.C., about what is often considered "dirty" South Carolina primary politics.

Read more
Presidential Race
5:23 pm
Sat January 21, 2012

South Carolina Primary: Live Blog And Results

The third major contest of the 2012 Republican presidential campaign — South Carolina's primary — is being held today and we're live blogging as the news comes in. As we post, you'll get a message alerting you that there are new updates. Just click on that message and the news should flow right into the box below.

Read more
The Two-Way
4:00 pm
Sat January 21, 2012

South Carolina Primary: Join Us For Live Updates

Credit Mladen Antonov / AFP/Getty Images
A polling station in Columbia, S.C., earlier today (Jan. 21, 2012).

The third major contest of the 2012 Republican presidential campaign is being held today in South Carolina and as we did during the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary, we'll be helping out the NPR elections team by live blogging as the news comes in.

Read more
Asia
3:00 pm
Sat January 21, 2012

Risking The Danger Of Defection In North Korea

North and South Korea are still officially at war, even though a truce was declared more than 50 years ago. As a result, there are upwards of 22,000 North Korean defectors now living in South Korea. The journey across the heavily guarded border is treacherous and often deadly. It's been just over a month since Kim Jong Un rose to power after his father Kim Jong Il's sudden death and there are some reports of would-be defectors being shot down while trying to flee the impoverished nation.

Read more
Analysis
3:00 pm
Sat January 21, 2012

Week In News: The Salvo Against SOPA

Transcript

GUY RAZ, HOST:

It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.

JAY CARNEY: We need to do something about online piracy by foreign websites.

UNIDENTIFIED GROUP: Stop SOPA. Pass on PIPA.

REPRESENTATIVE JOHN BOEHNER: It's pretty clear to many of us that there's a lack of consensus at this point.

Read more
Sports
3:00 pm
Sat January 21, 2012

Super Bowl XLVI: Who Will It Be?

Transcript

GUY RAZ, HOST:

The NFL is on the cusp of determining who will be playing in Super Bowl XLVI in Indianapolis. Tomorrow on the West Coast, the San Francisco 49ers face the New York Giants, and on the East Coast, the New England Patriots host the Baltimore Ravens. NPR's Mike Pesca is here to preview the matchups. Mike, hello.

MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Hello.

Read more
Movie Interviews
3:00 pm
Sat January 21, 2012

Drugs At The Center Of 'The House I Live In'

Originally published on Sat January 21, 2012 6:42 pm

Transcript

GUY RAZ, HOST:

It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "THE HOUSE I LIVE IN")

NANNY JENNER: Drugs is a monster. The killing, the stealing, those people being destroyed, it's devastating.

Read more
NPR Story
9:57 am
Sat January 21, 2012

Wait Just A Second, And Other Things To Do With It

Credit Uwe Merkel / iStockphoto.com
Every few years, official clocks around the world repeat a second. It's not much, but in an age of atomic clocks, it's time enough to give the matter a second thought.

Originally published on Sat January 21, 2012 9:57 am

Let me take a second here.

Not very long, was it?

But a second tied up delegates to the UN's International Telecommunication Union, who postponed a decision this week on whether to abolish the extra second that's added to clocks every few years to compensate for the earth's natural doddering.

The earth slows down slightly as we spin through space. No one falls off, but earthquakes and tides routinely slow the earth by a fraction of a fraction of a second, which makes clocks minutely wrong. If not corrected, it could make a minute of difference a century.

Read more
It's All Politics
9:32 am
Sat January 21, 2012

South Carolina: Another Unpredictable Point In Campaign Full Of Them

The race for the 2012 Republican presidential campaign has been anything but predictable.

It's been the first contest in memory, for instance, with a candidate, Mitt Romney, who was reputedly the inevitable nominee but so suspect in many Republicans' eyes that they kept searching for an alternative. That has led to nearly every candidate in the crowded field, at one time or another, challenging for frontrunner status.

Read more
Middle East
9:27 am
Sat January 21, 2012

Landslide Win For Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood

Credit Khaled Desouki / AFP/Getty Images
Egyptian women show their ink-stained fingers after voting at a polling station earlier this month. According to the election results, less than 2 percent of parliamentarians will be female.

The final results for Egypt's parliamentary elections are in, and while there are no surprises, the Muslim Brotherhood exceeded expectations by capturing 47 percent of the vote.

The final election results were read out Saturday with little ceremony, but the final tally cemented what most people in Egypt already know: Islamist groups are the new political powerhouse in post-revolutionary Egypt.

Read more
The Salt
8:00 am
Sat January 21, 2012

How One Former Vegan Learned To Embrace Butchering

The farm-to-table philosophy has been mostly about knowing where food was grown. For meat, that meant knowing if your chickens were caged and if your beef was grass fed.

But with the revival of the butcher shop, some young people are undertaking the largely lost art of butchering as a stronger way to connect with their food.

For 24-year-old Andrew Plotsky of Washington, D.C., that meant leaving his job as a barista in a snobby coffee shop to learn the process of raising an animal, slaughtering it and butchering it for a meal.

Read more
NPR Story
8:00 am
Sat January 21, 2012

A Fine Line When It Comes To SuperPACs

Under current law, candidates' campaigns are not allowed to coordinate with superPACs, although they clearly benefit from their messages. As result, candidates have performed feats of verbal gymnastics in order to talk about them. Host Scott Simon speaks with NPR's Peter Overby about the role of superPACs in the presidential race.

NPR Story
8:00 am
Sat January 21, 2012

Looking Forward To Sunday Championship Football

Conference championship Sunday is almost as big as the Super Bowl, but without all those distracting halftime wardrobe malfunctions. Host Scott Simon is joined by NPR's sports correspondent Tom Goldman to discuss the upcoming games.

Pages