Originally published on Mon August 20, 2012 5:15 pm
With women's issues front and center again in the presidential campaign, a bus tour through several swing states kicked off Monday in opposition to President Obama's views on abortion.
At the same time, the Obama campaign launched a new TV ad — aimed at some of the same voters in some of the same key states — criticizing Republican Mitt Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, on the issue.
In 2010, my wife Karen and I — inspired by the Ashland Food Project in Oregon — founded A Simple Gesture in Paradise, a small northern California town.
Simply stated: We give a donor a cool green shopping bag. Every time she goes shopping for her own groceries she buys one extra non-perishable item and puts it in the cool green bag. Every two months a volunteer picks up the bag at the home and gives her another.
When it comes to renewable energy, wind and solar get a lot of attention. But wood actually creates more power in the U.S., and Massachusetts state officials are scaling back their efforts to encourage wood power. It may be a renewable resource, they say, but that doesn't mean it's good for the environment.
The Tallahassee band Carrousel released its first full-length album, 27 rue de mi'chelle, in May. The group's trippy, cathartic, lovelorn dream-pop often references time spent around the ocean, but there's meticulousness to the sound that could only come from countless hours in the studio. Download Carrousel's head-turning "14" and the new album's title track in this installment of World Cafe Next.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, greet supporters during an Illinois primary victory party in March.
Credit Joe Raedle / Getty Images
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, visit the Spirit of Dubuque in Iowa, in June.
Credit Elise Amendola / AP
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, greet guests after his official portrait is unveiled in 2009 during a ceremony on the Grand Staircase at the Statehouse in Boston.
If you want to see how much Mitt and Ann Romney consider themselves a team, check out his official portrait at the Massachusetts Statehouse. He's the first governor to request that an image of his wife be included in the painting — he's posed beside a framed picture of her.
By all accounts, the Romneys consult each other on everything. So after a bruising campaign in 2008 that left Mrs. Romney openly disgusted by the process and vowing she would never do it again, it looked like that might be it for Mitt.
Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., and his wife Lulli, talk with reporters last Thursday at the Missouri State Fair in Sedalia, Mo. On Monday, Akin was resisting GOP calls to resign from his Senate race.
Originally published on Mon August 20, 2012 7:28 pm
After Republican Rep. Todd Akin's inflammatory comments over the weekend in which he blithely minimized rape-induced pregnancies, there are at least two inescapable questions:
1) What impact will his remark have on his U.S. Senate race in Missouri against Democratic incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill?
2) And how much will the shockwaves buffet the presidential contest or other races elsewhere?
Oswaldo Paya, who challenged Cuba's communist regime for decades, died in a car crash on July 22. A Spanish man who was driving Paya has been charged with the equivalent of vehicular manslaughter. Here, a nun holds a portrait of Paya during his funeral in Havana.
Credit Franklin Reyes / AP
Ofelia Acevedo (right), the widow of Oswaldo Paya, and her daughter Rosa Maria Paya hold a news conference in Havana earlier this month. Acevedo says she doesn't believe her husband's death was an accident.
The family of well-known Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya, who was killed in a car crash in July, claims that the Cuban government may have had a role in his death.
But as new details come to light, it appears that a European activist who came to help Paya ended up accidentally killing him on a trip gone horribly wrong.
Actually, two Europeans, both 27, were in the car with Paya at the time of his death. The Europeans had met through Facebook.
Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., discusses Medicare, Medicaid and the federal budget last year, in Kenosha, Wis.
Credit Carolyn Kaster / AP
President Obama said his health care law bolsters Medicare and Medicaid, but the Supreme Court has ruled that states can opt out of some changes to Medicaid.
Credit Evan Vucci / AP
Mitt Romney writes on a whiteboard as he talks about Medicare during a news conference on Aug. 16 in Greer, S.C.
Originally published on Mon August 20, 2012 3:07 pm
Since GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney picked Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate, seems all we've been hearing about is Medicare and its future.
No surprise, of course: Ryan is the author of the GOP budget plan that would dramatically remake how the health care insurance program for seniors is managed and funded. He also calls for big changes to Medicaid, the insurance program for the poor, including elderly Americans who have exhausted their means.
Originally published on Fri August 24, 2012 3:05 pm
When the Susan G. Komen Foundation for the Cure moved to cut funding for Planned Parenthood's work to screen women for breast cancer early this year, the reaction was swift and furious.
Abdel Razaq Tlas, 25, the leader of Farouk Brigades in Homs — one of the biggest rebel groups in Syria — has been a charismatic figure of the Syrian uprising.
Today, Tlas is facing questions about a video purporting to show him having Skype sex. It's a video he has said is a fabrication, but it seems to be damaging his popularity on the Syrian street.
In an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, former Major League Baseball commissioner Fay Vincent describes incidences of clubs, offices and public spaces posing obstacles for him and his wheelchair. He joins NPR's John Donvan to discuss the places where those in wheelchairs still don't feel welcome.
Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.'s recent diagnosis of bipolar disorder has focused attention on the shame that sometimes accompanies mental health diagnoses in the African-American community. Psychiatrist William Lawson joins NPR's John Donvan to discuss why such a stigma exists.
