Weekend Edition

Tom Goldman joins host Scott Simon to talk about the latest sports stories.

Japan's Miyage prefecture was one of the hardest hit by last year's earthquake and tsunami. There, the coastal community of Yuriage remains practically deserted. What was once a beautiful harbor filled with boats and a bustling community is now a desolate and deserted place, Doualy Xaykaothao reports.

NPR's Richard Harris talks with host Scott Simon about the Fukushima Dai-ichi reactors, one year after multiple meltdowns there spread radioactive materials across a swath of northern Japan. Huge technical challenges remain and prospects for resettling the area are uncertain.

This time last year, Col. Moammar Gadhafi was losing control of Libya. Scott Simon talks with Abdel-Rahim el Keib, the Libyan interim prime minister who took over in the wake of the country's uprising.

NPR's Ari Shapiro traveled with presidential hopeful Mitt Romney this week as the campaign swung through Mississippi and Alabama ahead of Republican primaries this coming Tuesday.

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

We've been hearing the latest employment numbers show things moving in a positive direction, but the economy and jobs market are still weak. That's, of course, a major factor in an election year. Our friend from the business world, Joe Nocera, joins us. He's an op-ed columnist for the New York Times. Joe, thanks for being with us.

JOE NOCERA: Thanks for having me, Scott.

SIMON: As we heard, of course, the economy added more jobs in February than economists had expected. Is this a trend or true stability?

Anthony Hopkins has been knighted by Queen Elizabeth II, and has played Richard I, Richard Nixon, monarchs, statesmen, geniuses and heroes. He won an Academy Award playing one of the most notorious movie villains in history: Hannibal Lecter, the criminal cannibal with an affinity for Bach. Now, Hopkins is making his own music.

Carolina Chocolate Drops breathed new life into old-time music with the 2010 album Genuine Negro Jig, which put a contemporary spin on Southern string tools from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. That collection went on to win a Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album.

Danny DeVito's a short and funny guy with a long and winding career in movies, TV, on-stage and online. His latest project transports him to the land of Truffula trees and singing fish. Host Scott Simon speaks to DeVito about voicing the title character in the new adaptation of Dr. Seuss's book, The Lorax.

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Now, to Super Tuesday. Ohio may not offer the most delegates of the ten states who will vote on Super Tuesday, but it has become the most coveted state for all the candidates of the Republican nomination for president, a microcosm of the countrywide fight for supremacy. Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney will all campaign there today. NPR's Tamara Keith has this campaign update from Cleveland.

Host Scott Simon talk with Michelle Bernard, president and CEO of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics and Public Policy. She gives us her take on what Republican and right-leaning women are looking for in a presidential candidate.

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

This is Weekend Edition from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon.

BP is beginning to settle the financial bill it faces from a 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. A group of individuals and businesses who sued the company have agreed to settle for nearly $8 billion. The plaintiffs all say they were harmed when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded, killing 11 men, and leading to the massive spill.

Ciaran Hinds seems to show up in every other movie you may have seen over the past decade, including There Will Be Blood, The Road to Perdition, Harry Potter and The Debt. He's currently starring in the hit television series Above Suspicion based on the Lynda La Plante novels. Host Scott Simon speaks with Hinds about his career.

Estelle Swaray is a Londoner. But for the past few years, the British singer best known for the song "American Boy" (her 2008 Grammy-winning hit with Kanye West) has called the U.S. home. It was a particular American boy, she says, who convinced her to make the move.

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

There's a limited humanitarian effort already underway in Syria. The Red Cross is in the process of evacuating injured people from the embattled Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr. At least 27 people are reportedly receiving medical treatment after being driven out in ambulances yesterday. The evacuation comes after a week in which Baba Amr was pounded by some of the heaviest artillery attacks by the Syrian government.

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Video gaming has become a spectator sport. There are now pro video gamers who play for money. Viewers watch online - sometimes at an arena, even on a Jumbotron. Well, this weekend in New York City, 32 of the world's top gamers are gathered to compete. A man named Mike Lamond, also known as "Husky" - maybe the Joe Buck of video gaming. He's what they call a shoutcaster who does the play-by-play for the audience of the games StarCraft: Wings of Liberty. He joins us from the studios of NPR West. Thanks so much for being with us.

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SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Time now for your letters.

(SOUNDBITE OF TYPING AND MUSIC)

SIMON: Today a correction, so maybe some music that's a little more suitable.

(SOUNDBITE OF KLINGON BATTLE THEME)

Events as disparate as the cruel, escalating violence in Syria and the congested, unnerving conditions where Apple's iPads and iPhones are made at the Foxconn assembly plants in China raise a recurring question:

When do a country's internal affairs become the business of the world? And when do we make that our personal business?

You can take that question back through atrocities, crimes and outrages of recent history.