These are, you know, small things, but - you know, you said before somebody who is about to make a radical change. And I would advise them not to make too radical a change, because all forms of abstinence - you know, dieting radically or maybe even sexual abstinence - often, you find yourself longing so much for the thing you're missing that you will really go overboard once you get off the wagon.

Where do you see America a year from now, in terms of how people change their consumption and maybe their long-term attitudes?

You know, I'm not sure that we're going to have a great big attitude change. It's really too early to tell. Surely, when people can get less credit and if they have less jobs, they will be spending less. But you know, it's not going to be like the last Great Depression, because the last Great Depression was not preceded by a half a century of consumer culture, in which they really have brainwashed as to want to buy more and more and more things and throw them out and get the next new thing.

But already, people are changing their habits. And so I do think we may buy less, and we may start to think about buying things that are more durable, that can be fixed, that don't obsolesce so quickly. And we may begin to find, as my partner and I began to find, that you're really just as happy without it.


Chop, chop into smallish pieces.

OK.

Then you soften eight ounces of cream cheese, and you blend that with two-thirds of a cup of sour cream, get it all nice and smooth and then you spread that over the minced onion.

And you have the ambulance on speed dial, but yeah. . .


This ful has more texture. And each ingredient, especially the bits of garlic, really hits the tongue. Helou says this is her favorite ful. And while she was in Syria, she became a regular at Haj Abdo's cafe. Abdo eventually moved to Cairo to escape the Syrian civil war. Helou tried to find him and reconnect.

Well, I asked around because he set up his ful stall there - cafe there. And by the time I found somebody who knew where he was, he had passed.

Well, his recipe lives in your cookbook. That's for sure.

Yeah. It's one of those meals that is basically a pauper's meal but that is absolutely delicious and irresistible.


I mean, now in hindsight, I don't think there's any doubt that Putin used phony cease-fire talks as a sort of clever way to allow Moscow to keep one hand in diplomacy and to calibrate it but also to keep its feet on the Syrian battlefield in defense of Assad.

Is it worthwhile to make another attempt to talk to Russia?

You know, I think Mr.  Putin is most comfortable, frankly, when he has a diplomatic process going and a military process on the ground. He fashions himself not simply a combatant but a broker and a mediator and a great power. It is high time that the United States remove right now this sort of Potemkin Village fraud in which Mr.  Putin seems to have the best of both worlds. Pull it away, keep the focus on Vladimir Putin as aggressor, tar him with the responsibility and the Assads for the humanitarian catastrophe and don't give him the legitimacy to argue that in fact he can play both on the battlefield and in the diplomatic corridors of Geneva and New York.

There have been reports again that the administration's considering applying more U. S.  military power in the region. How do you feel about that?


. . . Does her story intersect with KBR Halliburton's?

I mean, you know, there was a group of human rights lawyers here in the United States who heard about this case, who read my work more than a decade ago. And three very idealistic young human rights lawyers, one of them had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal. And, you know, they took up this case. This was really the dawn of the era of modern-day slavery and international human trafficking. And the U. S.  government had fueled it with our own tax dollars.

What were these human rights lawyers trying to prove against KBR?

Well, they were trying to prove their culpability. First, they just needed to prove that these men were in KBR supply chain in order to get U. S.  government compensation for them, which took two years. And the key witness, you know, they needed the families. They represented the families, then, in a human trafficking civil action that they brought, hoping to end this practice in the U. S.  military and also hoping to get some justice for the - for Kamala and the other victims.


There's a new commission by the president to try to look into this attack - series of attacks. What's that commission trying to do?

Well, this is a situation, Farai, that's been growing since '94, since the end of apartheid and the election of African National Congress. The problem is this. Fundamentally, the issue of poverty has not been tackled in a satisfactory way by the government. And you've had among the mass of poor people at the bottom, the so called black Africans, a very high level of patience actually waiting for something to turn around, and it hasn't.

Instead, there's been much more emphasis on the development of a black capitalist class, opening up the borders to trade, et cetera. And not enough paid attention to the grievances of people at the base.

When you have the situation like this, it is very easy for opportunists to take advantage of the situation and explode it in a very unproductive way and that's what happened. So, people's anger about the situation was channeled, much like we've seen here in the United Sates when people go against immigrants. Instead of understanding the way that the system is working and that it needs to be challenged, people start going after the vulnerable groups. So, they went after the Zimbabweans, they went after the Mozambiquens and they went after the Ugandans.


We're going to spend some time now talking about cybersecurity. Recently stolen NSA tools have been used apparently in cyberattacks in Baltimore and North Carolina. Hackers used this software to interrupt digital infrastructure like government computers, and usually demand money to stop. That's today's topic in our regular segment called Troll Watch.

This is where we've been keeping track of cybersecurity attacks, as well as the themes, memes and conspiracies being pushed by bots and trolls. Joining us now to talk more about this is Thomas Rid. He is a professor of strategic studies at Johns Hopkins University, where he teaches about cybersecurity. Professor Rid, welcome. Thanks so much for talking to us.

Thank you. Hi.

Let's walk through the facts that are known. So as I understand it, the NSA develops certain hacking tools, and somehow or another, they lost control of them. They were leaked, stolen somehow. And they started showing up in the summer of 2016. Is that right?


I don't even want to repeat them. They were so unfair. They were essentially stigmatizing him, someone that we consider very naturally for good reasons as to be highly, highly unacceptable such as anti-Semitism. And I think the arguments that were made by some of the people who attacked him were essentially based on that. That was really scandalous. And I'm pleased to see that the majority of the Jewish community, which is moderate and decent, doesn't identify itself with this.

Nevertheless, there are legitimate questions to be asked, and you raised several of them yourself, about, well, how they should think about the possibility of a strike on Iran. I have to say, in recent weeks, the alarm bells have quieted a bit. You quoted, though, some in the Israeli media as quoting a former national security council member of the Obama team, saying there could be an American strike on Iran by the middle of this year.

That's correct. There has been talk to that effect. And I suspect, and rather expect, that these issues will come up in the course of the discussion. But in any case, the people that he's choosing to serve him are people with the experience, with a strategic perspective. But ultimately, he, the president, will be the decision-maker.

So I don't think that one has to expect that everyone chosen by him has to agree in every respect with every single aspect of the past policies that we have had, that he wants people who can think independently and give an independent advice, which he will then accept or reject, as president - as commander in chief.


And so that's what gives them some optimism, and, while they think their internal poll numbers are better than the public polls, which, in a lot of these states, show them back - in these red states or Republican states, show McCain back, in some cases, by a double digits, they say their internal poll is showing just a few points.

Still, here is Karl Rove writing in the Wall Street Journal today. His overall tone is, never mind the polls, go ahead and vote anyway. He does cite Ronald Reagan as an example in 1980. Out of the last 14 presidential campaigns, he says, Ronald Reagan 1980 was the last time that a candidate was behind in the Gallup poll the week before the election and still went ahead to win.

Yes. That's part of the tough, uphill climb the McCain campaign faces. They face the problem of history, and they also face the problem of the actual, you know, numbers that are coming from inside the important states, as opposed to, say, the national numbers.

And also, for their long shot strategy to pay off, a lot of things that we've seen on the ground, the extraordinary enthusiasm in Democratic ranks, the registration advantage Democrats have over Republicans in these key states, those have all turned out to be not as great as advertised, and that's a lot of things that have to fall in line perfectly over the next five days.


When we say kids, how old are these kids?

We saw kids as young as 10 stealing cars. And the kids we spoke to that were older talked about getting involved around that age, around 10 or 11.

So once they get these cars, what do they do with them?

Well, so that's where the fact that they're juveniles really comes into play. When adults steal cars, it's often about, you know, sending them off to another continent or chopping them up for parts, making money.

When kids steal cars, they keep them on the streets. They're using them as toys. They're seeing how fast they can go - 160 miles per hour on the highway. They're driving the wrong way. They're chasing other friends in other stolen cars. In at least one case, we saw stolen cars used in a drive-by shooting.


Spreading hipsterism can have a cost. The kind of neighborhoods that realtors call in transition can have more places to buy organic coffee than diapers or nails. People who have lived there for years often can't afford to stay in neighborhoods after they've been gentrified. The Cereal Killer Cafe - that's C, cereal - which serves $5 bowls of breakfast cereal in a changing neighborhood in London's East End, was attacked by people who denounced the way the neighborhood is growing upscale. Somebody threw a smoke bomb at the cafe. Protesters smeared their windows with paint and scrawled scum. Alan Keery co-owns the Cereal Killer Cafe with his brother Gary. Thanks very much for being with us.

Not a problem.

You all right?

Yeah, yeah, we're not too bad. We're cleaned up sort of after the weekend. After the attacks, luckily, we only had exterior damage from paint. But at the time, there was staff, customers inside that barricaded the doors closed as they were trying to bash the doors down.


That's right, one of these men - yeah, there was a seafood, wholesale seafood dealer in Southern China, in the province of Guangdong, who got the nickname the poison king because he had infected so many other people. He got very sick, went into a hospital in the city of Guangzhou. He started to suffer respiratory blockage.

They intubated him, they put a tube down his throat to help him breathe, but in the course of doing that, he was - you know, he was spewing out virus, he was coughing and sputtering and spitting. And health care workers became infected just in the course of intubating him.

So he infected more than his share, and then there was the other fellow at the hotel who infected more than his share.

It really - your book really made me feel a huge debt of gratitude to people who work in the health care industry because it can be really heroic work, and it seems like they put their life on the line in some cases.


But he was like an incredible, incredible hero. And when I interviewed him, God, probably two months later, he had a stroke. A year later, he was dead. So these stores are like - I mean, they're disappearing every single day.

When you think about a story like that, where someone gave his all and didn't get a lot of credit for it, is that a theme that runs through the book?

It definitely runs through the World War II section. I mean, pretty much all the vets who served in World War II. I mean, I have a vet who was at Iwo Jima, another story you don't hear much about African-Americans serving there. Also a buffalo soldier I have who came home after, you know, fighting in Italy the worst of Hitler's troop. Comes home, the ship lands in Virginia, and the white people in the town turn their back on the black soldiers. They don't even want to look at them.

I mean, it was - they walked through the town, he said it was like they were convicts. People turned their backs on them. And he was with me at the Smithsonian. We had an event for some of these vets. And he cried when he talked about that. And everyone in the audience stood up and cheered for him. And it was 60 years later, but it was like he was coming home that day.


So after the wasp sneaks under, it stings the tarantula. Then what does the wasp do?

Paralysis sets in almost instantaneously. In a second or two the tarantula is completely incapacitated, but still alive. And the tarantula hawk will then drag that tarantula to a burrow. So this could be the tarantula's own burrow. It could be a burrow that the tarantula hawk has dug itself. And it'll drag the tarantula down in there and place the tarantula upside down and it'll lay a single egg on the body of the tarantula. In a few days, that egg will hatch and the larvae will begin to feed on the living tarantula.

And the spider is still paralyzed.

That's right. So interestingly enough, if the egg doesn't hatch, the tarantula can actually recover and go on its way. But more often that larvae will hatch and eat its way into the living but still paralyzed tarantula, and it'll feed on that tarantula for several weeks. And at least some species will selectively feed on non-vital organs first to keep the tarantula alive longer.


Now, the foreign minister of Iran is describing this as blackmail. It does sound like bribery. Whether it's legal or not, I don't know. But how does the U. S.  view this particular tactic?

Well, the U. S.  has had a program for more than 30 years called Rewards for Justice that they've used to pay money to people who provide information that helps disrupt terror networks. They used it with the son of Osama bin Laden, for example - or tried to use it. So they announced a program yesterday where they will pay up to $15 million to people for information that would help disrupt Iranian illicit networks. And this is - the offer to Kumar, the captain of the Adrian Darya ship, is actually the first time they've used this program in the case of Iran and the maximum pressure campaign.

So this is open - it appears to be on the surface, at least - within U. S.  law. There's a law to cover it. If anybody were to accept the offer of this money, would we ever know about it?

Well, I think we probably would because the State Department has been actually very kind of forward in terms of publishing - publicizing a lot of things they're doing because they want ship captains around the world to know that this is available to entice them to take up these offers. So if they don't publicize it, there's no kind of marketing campaign as such.


Oh, well, you'll be surprised, Neal. Actually, Minnesota has more solar potential than anywhere in the eastern part of the U. S. , except for Florida. We have nice, clear winters and good, sunny summers. Germany, farther north than we are, has much more solar than about anywhere in the United States. So actually, we're pretty well-positioned for solar. You'll be surprised how much of the U. S.  could do well in solar. We also have a lot of wind potential here in Minnesota, especially in the western area. But it's more about, how do we get that electricity to the cities like Minneapolis or Chicago?

And, of course, we have bioenergy here, too, and the debates about things like corn ethanol. That's another big contentious issue here in the Midwest. And one where, again, middle grounds might have to be found between groups that are in very different poles on that issue.

And what do you think is the most promising - again, the symbolic areas, those are always going to be difficult. But are there other conversations that could be had that, as you say, skirt the ideology?

Well, it's very interesting. Regardless of, you know, how you think of him politically, the Obama administration has actually done more, may be by accident - or may be on purpose - to think about, to take on climate change than all previous administrations, really, combined. Our CO2 emissions in the United States have gone down pretty dramatically in the last few years, partly because of the recession, of course, but partly because people are retooling and getting more efficient.


Wow.

. . . all the different individual pieces, we've got tens of thousands of pieces, but basically, 1,800 or more than 1,800 different distinct meteorites. And we have some of the - there's all different kinds of meteorites. I know this is radio, but I actually did bring some samples in with me for the studio audience at least. So if anybody afterwards wants to come by and take a look at these. . .

You'll count them on the way out.

I will count them on the way out.


So there were a couple of feuds on the blog this week. Break them down for us.

Well, I'll start with the more-amusing one: Aretha Franklin versus Beyonce and Beyonce's dad. So flash back to last week's Grammys. Beyonce introduced her duet partner, Tina Turner, as the queen. Aretha Franklin, the reigning Queen of Soul, was none too pleased and released a statement saying it was a cheap shot for controversy. Beyonce's dad/manager responded, saying Franklin's statement was ridiculous.

Now, most people on our blog seem to agree. C.  Cody(ph) wrote: Re-re(ph) should have exercised her right to remain queen by remaining silent; and Willis Page(ph) had his own beef with Ms.  Franklin. He wrote: I've had tickets to see Aretha Franklin three times, and three times she has cancelled in different cities. How about being mad at the title of Queen of No-shows?

And then the other big feud this week was between Tavis Smiley and Michelle Obama. Journalist Tavis Smiley invited Barack Obama to speak at his annual State of the Black Union. Obama declined, saying he had to campaign, but he offered to send his wife, Michelle, in his place. Tavis Smiley essentially said no thanks.


I see.

Yeah. And it goes around about once an hour. So what they did was they went to Pacific Northwest Bell and had the engineers there create a wireless telephone. So the Space Needle actually had wireless phones in 1962. You could sit down. You could make a call. There was a radio pickup in the wall, and they would connect you then to the operator so you could call out.

Mm-hmm. I was - I took a visit to the Space Needle yesterday. And I'm - being a geek myself, I was really enthralled with the technology and just this - the pure nuts and bolts that are holding it together. I remember walking out and seeing this giant nut and - screw and nut holding it - it's bolted to the ground. Of course, being a geek, I wanted to know the size of the wrench it took to do that.

But that seemed to be very, very simple, and it seems to be holding up very, very well.


Sure. The basic idea is that if, in your country, you've got natural resources, that somebody is going to pay to come into your country and extract and then sell on the international market. That seems like something that ought to economically benefit your country. You will get new revenue from the extraction and sale of your natural resources. But what we see over and over again is that selling off your natural resources in the commodities market tends to kind of ruin your country. It tends to leave you worse off, even economically worse off. And that's because it has a warping effect on your economy.

It's hard to have a diversified, stable economy when you've got one resource that's pulling in such a big revenue stream. And when you've got one resource that's pulling in such a big revenue stream, you tend to end up with very rich elites who will do anything to hold onto power, who stop doing the other things that governments should otherwise be doing to serve the needs of the people.

OK. So what does this have to do with Michael Jackson's glove?

(Laughter) Well, it's both a sad and all areas side story in this. The government in Equatorial Guinea got all these oil revenues. And they basically decided to turn the president of the country and his son into some of the richest and most ostentatiously, flagrantly tacky people on the globe while the people of that country suffered and got poorer.


Which might help to explain why the Office of the Special Counsel has said that the document described does not exist because you wrote in the book it was a, quote, "draft indictment," which sounds like something a little different.

Well, yeah. I guess it depends upon how you define a draft indictment. Yes. And I think it's very possible. I mean, the special counsel, when it responds, has become quite a gifted prevaricator. It is quite possible that they responded accurately but that nevertheless this document exists and goes to trying to understand a very significant moment in the thinking of the special counsel.

So the statement from Peter Carr, Robert Mueller's spokesman, is the documents described do not exist. You insist you have a document in your possession and maybe the difference here is on the word described. He thinks you described it wrong.

It is quite possible, yes.


Four-hundred-fifty advisers - a good step, enough?

It's OK as far as it goes. It's clearly not enough. We already have about 3,100 Americans there. And ISIS has momentum, and this is not going to change that, I think.

Congressman, what do you say to, I think, a lot of Americans, including some Republicans who might be listening to this interview, who say America doesn't have a good history of sending troops to Iraq?And they're worried about sending any more.

Yeah, I worry about that, too. Clearly, the preferred option is for the Iraqis themselves to provide security for their own country. They have not been very successful at doing that so far. And so we've sent folks back into Iraq after having left there prematurely, in my view. But when we send them back, we only allow them to train Iraqis inside the bases. We do not allow the advisers to go out into the field with them.


Well, one way is that the schemes at issue here were really sprawling. This was not just one man doing something criminally inappropriate but rather pervasive, longstanding, industry-wide conspiracy, for lack of a better word, to promote these products.

And, you know, there may be a false sense of vengeance or accountability in pinning it on one individual and essentially letting others go free who were the ones that carried out this scheme. You could argue that the deterrent effect of legal action would be greater with a massive financial penalty that would really send a message to all other executives at all levels of a corporation that this could be their economic downfall.

Did we see that with the $500 million judgment in Oklahoma?Is that a big enough penalty to be a deterrent, or is it just the cost of doing business for Johnson and Johnson?

I think for a company on the scale of Johnson and Johnson, $570 million is not a lot of money. And we saw that in Wall Street's reaction to the verdict. To them, it was good news. This was probably the first time that having to pay $572 million was considered good news.


I'm Farai Chideya and this is News & Notes. Staycation. It's one of those newfangled words that's caught on fast. A vacation is when you vacate. You take off, you stay in a hotel, or camp out, or see the sights. A staycation is - well, you got it. With soaring gas prices and plane tickets, this was supposed to be the summer of staying at home. But was that prediction off the mark?If you're thinking about traveling soon or for the winter holidays, what should you keep in mind?With us to talk about both of those issues we've got Madeline Nunn, senior travel agent with the Richmond, Virginia, branch of the American Automobile Association, or Triple-A. Hi, Madeline.

How are you?

I'm great. So, back in May, a Rand McNally survey found that two-thirds of Americans planning road trips this summer said they would shorten their trips or cancel them all together. Summer is wrapping up, so what actually panned out?

Well, actually, the staycation thing is sort of a myth, so to speak, because Americans are traveling. They're traveling because they are hard-working and they need the rest and the revitalization. They need this vacation. So, what we're finding is that they're not staying home, per se. Some are just staying a little closer to home. And sometimes they're limiting the length of time that they may take for this vacation.


Are a lot of Europeans rethinking whether or not they even want to be unified?

Yes, I think they are. I think a good many Europeans are thinking maybe open borders is not such a great idea. Maybe the best thing we can do is to start closing our borders and make sure that there are no migrants, no refugees, no foreign influences that are affecting our security and well-being inside the country.

You've also suggested that there's a kind of a parallel with politics in the United States at the moment.

Yeah, in some way I think you are seeing the same phenomenon in Europe as you are seeing with the support for Donald Trump and, to some extent, for Bernie Sanders who are attracting voters who are, in the Trump case, anti-immigrant, don't really want to be part of an activist foreign policy. They're anti-trade and they're nativists.


Well, how did they react to you as a person?I mean, you're a glamorous Los Angelina, and so what did they think when you showed up?

I think that it's interesting, because I was in a program called Cross-cultural Solutions, where they send volunteers to different areas. I was the first African-American that had been at this school. So I think they were confused. I mean, and these people in the town, they were just like are you from Ghana?Or are you Yabo(ph)?Yabo is a foreigner, and most likely, more than usually, a white foreigner. But I had a couple of people call me Yabo.

But they would sort of ask like where are you from, and one of the program's administrators would have to explain, she's an ancestor of Africans, and then they would say, oh, okay. So it was definitely some confusing sort of looks that I got.

But the kids were - you know, kids are very, you know, easy to sort of get along with. These kids were, you know, absolutely adorable. They didn't understand what I was saying a lot of the time, but they really connected to me. I mean, I would bring bubbles and jumping ropes and stuff like that, stuff that they had never seen before. So, you know, I was quite popular at the school, I have to say. I mean, particularly with my bubbles, that brought even the junior-high-school kids out…

Oh, I'm sure.


I think that's true.

Yeah. I mean, what do you see in your practice, in your work?Since you are counseling people, do you see people who have kind of, like, these cross addictions that intersect with the technology?

Yeah. We have an outpatient program called No More Secrets, which is for sex addicts, and these sex addicts all are using the Internet to play out their addiction. And there are many people who are really joining their ranks just because of the availability now of pornography through, you know, their online connection.

So, I think it's - I think more people are getting hooked on activities that they might avoid if it was not so accessible. And gambling certainly is part of it, the chatting, video gaming, pornography, all of these things that are - online shopping would be another one. These things are made so easy by the availability, accessibility, anonymity of the experience, that I think more and more people are drawn in, and people who might not be drawn in to overindulging, if it were not for the Internet.


Hi. And I suppose I should say congratulations.

Yes, thank you. It's exciting.

Exciting, as you say, but what was different this time?- because the Green Party has been around for a while in Germany.

Well, on the surface, the topic of climate change and the demonstration of young people - the so-called Fridays for Future, where students skipped their classes and went demonstrating, demanding that the politicians start listening to them in terms of climate policies - this got traction among their parents, among their grandparents.


So, 3,000 people, more than that, are on death row. Forty-two people were executed in 2007, half of them were African-Americans. What has been the breakdown racially and in terms of other demographics of people who actually, you know, go on death row or are executed?

Well, the numbers of African-Americans on death row is about 42 percent, compared to their numbers in the population at about 12 percent. So, there's a disproportionate number of African-Americans on death row. The numbers executed is a little less, about 34 percent, but still disproportionate.

However, the biggest factor in race in the death penalty is that it depends whom you kill in the murder that got you on death row. If you kill a white person, then you really have a death penalty case that's four or five times more likely that a person, white or black, will get the death penalty if they killed a white person than if they killed a black person, which is sort of putting a value on the victims' lives by color.

So basically, all crimes are not equal. That's what you're saying.


So, the one thing about balloons is they tend to move sort of west to east. So once we put balloons up there, they will float in a ring around the world, and they're - some of the balloons are right now on their way to Chile and Argentina. The goal of the project, once we roll it out further, is to have a continuous ring around the world at 40 degrees south latitude, and anyone under those - the path of the balloons would be able to use the trial service.

So it's like if I go up in a hot air balloon, I sort of - I go where the air current go. Is that the same thing here?

And that's one of the cool things about the project. We can steer the balloons by increasing or decreasing the altitude of the balloon and finding a wind that's going the direction we want. So if we see we want to go a little bit further north, we perhaps drop down a half a kilometer, find a wind going that direction and then stop at that altitude, and that's the way we steer the balloons.

And how long can they stay up?


This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Michel Martin. We're starting the program today with Steve Bullock. If the name is not familiar, he hopes it will be soon. He is the governor of Montana. And last week, he joined the 21 other Democrats plus one independent who want to take on President Trump in 2020. And Governor Bullock is with us today in our studios in Washington, D. C.

Welcome. Thank you so much for coming.

It's great to be with you, Michel.

So there's the substance of your message, and then there's the politics. So why don't we take the substance first?What's your elevator pitch to voters?What have you accomplished in Montana that you think you can take nationwide?


By now, you've probably heard this song over and over and over again - in commercials, on the radio, on TV shows. The tune, "We Are Young," shot the band fun. into stardom. So this summer we're following fun. on their world tour, to see how long they can keep that fame going.

As bands get bigger, so does the size of their road crew. On this check-in, we spoke with Jackie Finney, who's the band's lighting director.

Basically, when a band hires a designer, they put together a look that - you know, when you go to see a live show, that's what you see. It can be anything from video to special effects - like, confetti - to the lighting fixtures. And we go into a warehouse, and we build the entire thing, and we set up the lighting console. And we program, cue-by-cue, every single step of every single song. So if you have, like, a really upbeat song - like, for example, their new single "Some Nights. "It's such a big hit when they play it. And I always start the lights sort of in the crowd, when that drum beat kicks in.

So for a song that's really upbeat and moving fast, I would do something like a white light, that's going to be bright and in people's faces. And then for a really slow ballad, there is more of like, ambers and magentas that are just like, kind of soft and just really beautiful.


Excellent. How did all of this get started, this particular legend?

Well, it started with a legend in Mexico where two little children were working in their family garden. They were wishing for nice gifts from their parents, but they could not make up their mind what they really wanted, so all of a sudden, a fairy godmother appeared, and she granted them one wish and one wish only. So the kids thought and thought what they really, really wanted for Christmas. So, they finally decided and told their fairy godmother that their only wish for Christmas was that every child in Mexico and in the entire world would have a very merry Christmas.

So the fairy godmother was really, really surprised at this. These two little poor kids had said that is all that they would wish for. So the fairy godmother was really lost at what, you know, what she could really provide for them. She thought and thought, and finally she thought of Pancho Clause. Pancho Clause would bring joy and happiness to all the kids in Mexico and in the entire world, and this is how Pancho Clause was born.

So you dress up as Pancho Clause each year, what do you wear?


Well, I have. You know, I was born and raised here in San Diego, and we just love it. But yeah, if - regardless of where the location would be, I would be willing to go anywhere - anywhere in the world for that matter, Afghanistan, Pakistan, anywhere that somebody may be able to offer me a job.

I saw some photographs of you in your condo. You've been packing up there, and I noticed behind the moving boxes, hanging in the window were some Christmas lights and some red ribbons. Are you still going to find some ways to celebrate the holidays despite everything that's going on?

Oh, sure. You know, I mean, the last couple of Christmases haven't been all the greatest, you know, because of the situation as well. And so, we're almost kind of getting used to it, but this one just hurts especially bad. But my wife and I are members of the Salvation Army church in Alcahone. You know, so, you know, we haven't forgotten really what Christmas is all about.

It's not about us and each other and the gifts, and at least that's what we want to think right now. But we're really just remembering the birth of our savior.


And that's the predominant tribe?

That's the predominant tribe. And I think the government will tell you that this is not happening. And it's true that the other sides in this war are also committing atrocities. But what reporting from monitoring groups set up by East African states has found is that the government is leading the charge.

Where is the mediation efforts?Where are other African nations?Where is the United States in trying to bring an end to this conflict?

Everyone is sort of putting their hopes on this peace agreement that brought momentary peace in 2016. The problem is that the former vice president is now in exile in South Africa and not part of these talks. So, you know, observers essentially say this is a dead end.


It was absolute - you're absolutely correct. Our time is out, but I'm going to ask you about this before I let you go. Talking about perfect performances, two people strolled in to New York's Madison Square Garden and lit up the Knicks back to back, Kobe Bryant 61 on one night and LeBron James, I think, it was 52 the next night and a triple double.

All I can say is thank god for the Knicks.

And, you know what?And the Knicks are even actually better than they were before and then they still let people come in there and just spank them like crazy.

That's what we do.


Are there times in history when the U. S.  has had a growth rate of 3 percent?

Yes, it's been quite common. I mean, if you look back over the last 200 years - and the Trump administration says this - we have grown at 3 percent. And we don't want to give in to this idea that we now have a lower growth rate. They see that as giving up. The issue right now - growth is a combination of your labor force, how fast you're adding workers to the economy and how productive those workers are.

So labor force productivity has been slow for the last decade. And the demographics in our country, the aging of the baby boom, means that the workforce is not growing as quickly as it used to. Those two things together explain why we've had 2 percent growth, and demographics are really baked in. So unless you're going to increase immigration, the labor force isn't going to grow at the rate that it did in the 1970s and the 1980s. That puts the onus on productivity. Boosting productivity was what the Trump administration is going to have to do to get 3 percent growth.

And that would entail what?


Dina, if this is ISIS, which it seems to be, this seems a real departure for a group - a large-scale terrorist attack against an international target. They've never done that before.

Right, I mean, when ISIS first began to rise, one of the things that counterterrorism officials were really worried about was that ISIS and al-Qaida would begin to compete for the world's attention and they would do that with spectacular attacks against the West. For months, U. S.  counterterrorism officials have said that al-Qaida was the biggest threat against the United States. I think that changed last night. Everyone I was talking to was convinced that the sophistication of the attacks that Eleanor was talking about - suicide belts, explosions, simultaneous targets - and the similarity to Mumbai clearly pointed to an al-Qaida-linked group. They didn't think ISIS had the organizational ability to pull off something like this. And now it seems they clearly do. And President Obama said yesterday that the ISIS threat was contained. This makes it seem that perhaps it isn't.

And I guess we should remind ourselves, just a few days ago ISIS was also linked to the downing of a Russian airliner near Sharm el-Sheikh.

Exactly. I mean, officials said they're 99. 9 percent sure that ISIS managed to put a bomb on that plane. U. S.  officials haven't been allowed to analyze the forensic evidence on the ground there. But they did have a satellite image of the plane that suggested, from the photograph of the image, a military-grade explosive brought it down. So again, that suggests things have really changed here.

Do you know where the investigation goes from here?


Absolutely. Let's say, for starters, that it doesn't affect us anywhere near as much as it affects, for example, the United Kingdom, which may not be united much longer - might very well break up over this. And it affects the European Union, which is going to have other countries - some of the larger countries in Western Europe - considering their own exit from the EU, including France. So these are upheavals, tremendous tumult and turmoil, for those countries.

In the United States, the effects would be somewhat more indirect. But that does not mean that they will be minor. Consider that yesterday the Dow Jones Average lost 600 points. All the major stock indexes were down three or four points. That's just the beginning of what is expected to be an indirect, but nonetheless quite palpable, economic effect on the United States. These are some of our biggest trading partners. And as they go through a period of distress, it's going to blow back on us in a number of ways.

What are some of the political implications?

Well, you know, Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both responded to this pretty quickly. And it showed us a lot about the stark contrast between those two individuals. Hillary Clinton issued what might have been a calm, careful, diplomatic communique respecting the decision but talking about how it might affect American working families.


A couple of questions: Does a planet have to be like, quote-unquote, "like Earth" for it to be habitable?

Oh absolutely not, absolutely. The biology extremophiles can exist over a wide range of temperatures and salinities and pressures and such. So no, it doesn't have to be like Earth. But that makes it easier for us to imagine that there might be life as we know it.

What's interesting to me, exciting to me, is the prospect of perhaps these stars are very close, are they not?They're. . .

These are some of the closest stars. This one is the 19th closest star to us.


Well, many millions have lifted out of poverty and many millions seemed to have been lifted into the pockets of the top leaders. And so that, I think, reporting of socioeconomic inequity and privilege is a source of corruption in the Communist Party that really has to be managed or dealt with in some decisive form by President Xi.

And is there going to be realignment?And you look towards the new leadership in South Korea. The United States, of course, has had a longstanding security relationship with South Korea, going back to the war there in the early 1950s. And, of course, you mentioned the treaty with Japan and United States have been - had bases there since 1945. There - is there going to be any fundamental change in those relationships, do you think?

The change is not coming so much in the U. S. -Japan or in the U. S. -Korea alliance relationships at this stage. There are some rising tensions that have emerged in the South Korea-Japan relationship that present, I think, a challenge for U. S.  policymakers. You know, one of the aspects of the U. S.  pivot or rebalancing policy is that it suggests that we want allies to work together or horizontally with each other more actively.

But Korea and Japan are increasingly facing divisions over history issues and with a woman South Korean president and a Japanese prime minster, who has raised questions about some of the comfort women issues; it suggests that we've got potentially a rocky road ahead.


I mean, people are saying this car company doesn't get it. It's sort of, you know, dead in the water. It hasn't been forward looking. It hasn't developed the kinds of cars that people want now.

Look, they have made so many management mistakes, but along with that, they've made some very, very smart moves. And this is a company that's very strong and robust around the world. It's the North American market that's killing them.

And there are long - there's a long thread of historical reasons why General Motors has been at such a disadvantage in North America since the '70s. But the net of it is that this company has a lot of potential, but it also has potential to sink right out from under us.

So, aside from it being potentially a good deal for the government to own GM, what are the other benefits or possible benefits?


Yeah. And, of course, the child actors and their parents want success, too, don't they?They're ambitious.

They're ambitious. They want what it appears is coming easily to everyone else. I was incredibly lucky. My mother was not a stage parent. The boundaries weren't blurred between her career and mine. There are a lot of parents out there willing to look away to let things happen.

The more heartbreaking one to me - no, it's just a different form of heartbreaking - are the parents who are just ignorant to how this business works. And they can be told something like, oh, we all go out to dinner together. Oh, now it's just me and the boy, or now it's just me and the girl.

Among the sentences in your article that chilled me was this one - sexual predation has been part of the movie business since "The Great Train Robbery," and since then, it has been systematically swept under the rug.


And why did it bother you that so many church leaders didn't mention the obvious, that the Pulse was a gay nightclub?

Well, it seemed a real failure to try to understand that community. One of my theology professors said that in the Gospels, for Jesus, sin is often a failure to bother to love. And it seemed to me a failure to bother to love this particular community in their real moment of grief.

You quote with approval the words of an Australian bishop who says quote, "we cannot talk about the integrity of creation, the universal and inclusive love of God, while at the same time colluding with the forces of oppression and the ill-treatment of racial minorities, women and homosexual persons. "

Why is that statement even remotely controversial to some?


Hi, Deb.

Hi there.

So you arrived in the country just after this massacre. Why did the Chinese government allow foreign journalists in?

We were so surprised about how easy it was. And it was no secret about who we were. When we arrived, the luggage carousel was filled with television cameras. And, you know, I was no China expert, but I had plenty of experience with autocratic governments. I was covering the Middle East at the time, so I'd been in Iraq. And I'd been in Syria. And I knew how these governments operate, so I figured that the Chinese authorities wanted to show that things were back to normal. And they wanted Western journalists to deliver that message. But when we got there, there was nothing that was back to normal.

Explain. What did you see?What was the atmosphere like?


So I think that the Barack Obama, of course, then has a political legitimacy that neither of those gentlemen had because he's a United States senator elected to represent a district and serve a quarter of people. And yet, he's a charismatic figure as well, creating a sense of movement among the millions who now acclaim him as the best thing that happened to American politics since Jack Kennedy.

So Barack Obama has claimed the unique space within the context of American political destiny and has joined the charismatic authority that attends black messianic figures who become leaders in black America, as well as the quest for political legitimacy that transcends black communities. Because he's not just representing black people; he's representing white people and Latino people, and Asian people. He's representing Americans. And so he's taking it to yet another level in pioneering an even different path than the one blazed by Martin Luther King Jr.  or Jessie Jackson and, to a certain degree, Al Sharpton.

Well, Michael Eric Dyson, thank you.

Thank you very kindly, Farai.


Well, first, they obviously don't enjoy broad support among the population. They do have a core group of support, but if forced to stand in election, they would lose. Which is why they have avoided that, or attempted to manipulate or manufacture the results of elections. Secondly, they are dependent, for their long-term viability, on their relationship with the Venezuelan armed forces, which is what the Trump administration and others have focused on at this point.

When you talk about the dependence on the armed forces, I'm reminded of that old saying, that one definition of the government is they have a monopoly on the use of force.

Correct.

When all else fails, they have that.

Correct.


What would be risky about it, from the Nicolas Maduro point of view?

Well, there'd certainly be retaliatory measures from the U. S. , very likely more sanctions. There would be a massive outcry from Guaido's dozens of other international allies. The EU's warned that this would be a major escalation in tensions. And there'll be a lot of anger from the multitude of Guaido's supporters here in Venezuela.

Guaido himself says that any attempt by Maduro's government to detain him would be - as he put it - without doubt, one of that government's last mistakes. So we don't know, Steve. I mean, it's not clear that Maduro's concluded that he's in a strong enough position to do this. But it is a possibility.

And I guess we don't know if Guaido intends to go to a border crossing and present his passport or if he intends to sneak in some way. Is it known what path he plans to take?


(Laughter) Absolutely, it does.

All right.

So I mean, I followed up on this trip with sort of other road trips - you know, road trips hitting major cities in the U. S. , road trips hitting major sites in Europe. I've also started using it when you're walking around a city as a tourist and trying to hit all the hotspots there. And also, actually last month, I used a very similar algorithm, strangely enough, to solve the "Where's Waldo" children's book as well.

What do you mean you solved "Where's Waldo?"


You know, it's funny because I think the story is very recognizable because - yeah. Because the premise of the story is a similar kind of thing, but all of these Jewish traditions are subbed out for made up traditions. But I think all the arguments - all the conversations about it are just as ludicrous in the real world. And so this story, which, you know, involves, yeah, goat sacrifice and marriage cloaks and promise eggs, to me is one of the more grounded, realistic stories in the collection.

One of the stories in the collection is called "Missed Connection-m4w" - men for women - and it begins sort of like a Craigslist post in missed connections and then evolves from there. And you actually first published this on Craigslist. Is that right?

Yeah. What the story is about is about this guy who can't work up the nerve to talk to this woman sitting on the same train car as him. And in fact, 60 years pass where they. . .

He also can't get up and leave.


The truth is that there were many extremely brave people who decided to risk not only their own lives but also the lives of their families to rescue Jewish people. But the truth is also that there were many Poles who decided to betray their Jewish friends and their Jewish neighbors who were often living in hiding. And in addition to that, there were also those who didn't remain passive. But they were actively participating in a killing process. We cannot run away from this. We need to talk about this openly.

What I'm hearing you saying is that you're worried that the lessons of the Holocaust - that it wasn't just something that was done to people, but it was something that people also participated in either actively or passively - will be lost.

Yes. Well, in that sense, we are going back to this time in Polish history - and I'm talking specifically about the communist era - when the memory of the Holocaust was constantly distorted, twisted, politicized or just abused. And I'm just very concerned that we are now - we'll be following this path.

Are you concerned that if you say what you just told me in Poland, you could be prosecuted now?


Sure, end-to-end encryption means that whether it's a phone call we're on or an email message we're sending or any form of electronic communication, that the content of that communication is encrypted from your device, such as your phone or PC, unto the other person's device at the other side, wherever they might be on the planet Earth. So end-to-end encryption, keeps things encrypted and that means that law enforcement, without a warrant, cannot read that information

They can't intercept or break into. . .

Correct. Now, with a warrant, they can always go to the information service provider and attempt to get that information. But even then, they may not be able to because the party selling the encryption services may be a third party and may not even know who the parties are that are communicating.

So what is the argument that tech companies make about the feasibility of designing technology that would satisfy everyone's concerns?


Well, first of all, we continue to ask for all options on the table because. . .

So you want it. You want that to be a potential.

We want all options on the table. We haven't asked specifically for military intervention. And the big difference is that you have to be responsible about this. Think of a Rwanda-style scenario. Think about when Maduro continues to murder more and more people. He has asked regime militia armed groups to repress peaceful protesters. So I think we have to be responsible about this approach. And that's precisely - we always ask for a peaceful and constitutional solution. In what other dictatorship do you see a national assembly, an interim president with the people asking for the regime to leave?

You were a political prisoner. What's this moment like for you personally?


I could live there. But, you know, as things stand now, it's difficult for me to live there because, you know, in Cape Town - Cape Town is a cosmopolitan city now. I mean, it has been cosmopolitan city for many, many years. Mogadishu has stopped being a cosmopolitan city. It was a cosmopolitan city many years ago - one of the most celebrated cosmopolitan cities. I can imagine living in Somalia, but it has - Somalia has to change. I have changed and therefore Somalia must change. And that would be the case if one, there was peace. Two, if I could live anonymously which is not possible all the time, but it could be. And then if there are book shops and cultural, you know, stuff that one can do and get involved in. There is no such thing now. Civil war dominates everything and one's everyday life in Somalia, which is quite tragic. Well, this is not the life I would like to live.

Nuruddin Farah. His new novel: "Hiding In Plain Sight. "

Thank you so much for being with us.

My pleasure, thank you.


If I hear you right, you're saying the process worked. Somebody who thought they saw behavior - not - I'm not asking you to characterize it - but thought they saw behavior that they were uncomfortable with or that crossed a line - that they were able to report it through the proper channels. It maybe took a little while, but it has reached the people it was intended to reach.

That would be correct. As a whistleblower fan, I think the process worked the right way.

Given that, can you speak to the delay that it took to reach the intelligence committees?The DNI knew about this for a while, and it wasn't reported.

Yeah, unfortunately, I would not have optic to that, which is a good reason because I think the individuals that are in the center of that circle need to remain small and precise in - to protect the whistleblower.


Yeah. And a program like this, how does it help you see things differently and what you should do differently?

It helped me see things differently by not wanting to be the person that's robbing the good guy, you know. It helped me see that I could do anything with my life and that anything's possible. You know, I could go to the moon right now if I wanted to.

Christian Champagne, who is a high school junior in Chicago and part of the Becoming a Man program. All kinds of luck to you, Mr. Champagne. It's been very nice to talk to you.

Thank you. Been nice to talk to you too.


Yes. Britain put trade restrictions and taxes on tea being shipped to the colonies. And this led to everyone's favorite act of cultural appropriation and vandalism, the Boston Tea Party. But it also inspired a lesser-known tea party - the Edenton Tea Party in North Carolina. And what's remarkable about the Edenton Tea Party is that it was all women - possibly the first women-driven political protest in U. S.  history.

And I guess we can keep beating up on the British for just a moment here.

(Laughter) Why not?

The Brits were also behind the Opium Wars.


I don't really describe myself. I don't have a - I don't label myself really. I've done some interviewing in the past and just, you know, strike up a general conversation with people usually in sort of a casual environment. And for some reason, usually, people will talk to me.

And I have to say, you've got great researching skills. I read that you even dug up Carter Page's undergrad thesis, and you spoke with his U. S. Naval Academy thesis adviser. That's amazing. Why did you do that, and how did you go that deep?

I don't know. I just - I have a curiosity about this whole situation, and I really wanted to get to the bottom of it. So I - you know, the easiest way to say it is no stone left unturned.

You say, you know, you want to contribute to the investigation, but how are you different than a journalist?


Then last week, we produced a segment on how third party candidates were affecting the presidential race. Daniel Rosenfield (ph) in Dallas, Texas, thanked us for interviewing Libertarian candidate Bob Barr. He writes, "Bob Barr rarely receives any media attention, and you guys have given new hope for third parties. In this election year, where third parties are reaching new voter records, it is important to educate the people of America. "

Listener Kevin Smith wrote in about an interview you did with comedian David Alan Grier about his new Comedy Central show, "Chocolate News. "He thinks Grier's comedy is funny, but too often crosses the line. He writes, "When people like me stop laughing, and point this out, we're called uptight. No, I want to laugh like everyone else, but I don't want to do it at the expense of our dignity and progress. I'm sorry, but we're not in the same position as whites who wield power in this country. They can afford to satirize their leaders and ancestors, we can't. Leave Maya Angelou and MLK and the like alone. "

And finally, Laura Tillman (ph) in Athens, Georgia, wrote us this. "I moved to Georgia last year from Vermont, and was really happy to discover the NPR News & Notes program, which brought a perspective that was lacking from my old Vermont NPR station. However, I sometimes feel that the shows are a little rushed. Other than that, I thoroughly enjoy the show, and thank you for a job well done. "

And thank you for your letters. Please keep your comments coming.


So even though Wall Street seems to be blowing up or it did yesterday, the hedge funds are doing just fine. And these Masters of the Universe are ensconced happily in their Greenwich, Connecticut mansions?

Well, right now, they are swimming the tightest defensive positions they can. They're like turtles pulling themselves back into their shell just trying to wait this thing out. They could be hurt badly. In fact, today is one of the four times a year that people can take money out of hedge funds. Usually there's a certain fixed percentage that they can take out at any one time. That's for the protection of the fund itself. But still, there could be enough taken out today to seriously hurt a lot of hedge funds.

But the point I want to make is, it hasn't happened yet. These Masters of the Universe are very bright, I mean, they're smart. And they're much smarter than the people they left behind at the investment banks. And investment banks now are - it's a closed chapter in American history. When Goldman Sachs now has to become a bank, who with - not Masters of the Universe, but a lot of young female tellers sitting at windows with packets of red dye to give to the robbers when they come in to take money out of the place.

SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER


(Unintelligible) exactly did some tests.

Marc, I hate to interrupt. . .

Yup.

. . . to say this is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR. I'm Ira Flatow with Marc.

OK.


Oh, it was like looking out across the ocean. There was water from as far as you could see both ways. And I think it was over a billion dollars worth of damage to our community and East Grand Forks. Seemed quite hopeless, but our message today is one of hope. And I think FEMA has referred to us as a poster child for flood recovery because of what we've accomplished as a community.

After the flood, the city decided some homes needed to be removed to make way for key infrastructure. How was that decision made?

Decision-making - that's the most important thing about recovery is people have to make decisions, and whether they're popular or not, to allow the recovery to occur. So we had to choose places that were in the floodplain that couldn't be rebuilt. And those entry-level homes had to be taken to build the infrastructure for the flood recovery project.

Your own home was slated to be raised to make way for this new flood system. Is that right?


Very much this was an aftershock to the departure of Steve Bannon, who was the president's chief strategist. He's the guy who brought Seb Gorka in. Gorka was not a household name, at least not in most households. And he was part of the contingent in the White House associated with this America first attitude, a kind of ultra-nationalism. And that faction, at this point, is down. But as we saw with the pardon of Sheriff Arpaio, that faction is not yet out.

More missiles out of North Korea were launched last night - fell in the sea. North Korea had not so much other news broken overnight. This might have been our lead story. Does President Trump, after this week, have the confidence in Congress and in other quarters of opinion, to lead the country on this and other issues?

You know, that depends on whom you ask. There are certainly those people who will express total confidence in the president, those who have probably never had any at all. But the team around the president, the three generals - so we are increasingly talking about John Kelly, James Mattis, H. R. McMaster - that team tends to boost confidence on military matters.

Ron Elving, thanks so much.


Well, I am born and raised in Barquisimeto, Venezuela. I study computer science. Once I started finishing my school in 2010, I started to think, OK, what's next in my career?Started applying to big tech companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft. And I got an offer from Google and came to the Valley in 2011.

So how did the idea for Code For Venezuela come about?What was the goal of the group?

It's a group of friends that - we've known each other for three or four years now here in the Bay Area. And right about late last year, we started, like, really brainstorm - hey, you know, what can we do that's not only financial that could really impact the country?

Can you give me a sense of what some of the projects are that you've tried to work on so far, that you're trying to innovate now?


. . . Entities. . .

Correct.

. . . Like - nongovernmental groups like terrorist organizations.

Yeah, the terrorist organizations or. . .


We did. We - what we did with the mice was we gave them antibiotics to deplete their sinus microbiome, and then we had them sniff, basically, the corynebacterium species. And, in that context, we saw all the hallmarks of sinus infection, lots of mucin hypersecretion from the host.

And when we did the same and added the lactobacillus species, we didn't see any hallmarks of pathogenesis or infection. And, in fact, when we did another group of mice where we took out their native microbiome, we instilled the protective species along with this pathogen that we've identified. Again, we saw no signs of infections suggesting that the lactobacillus species protected the surface of the sinus and evaded infection by the corynebacterium species.

Now, you know what all these public radio listeners are going to want to know, now. Right?

We'll have to ask it. Where do you get the stuff to snort up your own lactobacillus sake, you know?I want some of that stuff with my health food store.


They're tackling it backwards. At the end of the day, put in age verification because otherwise, every teenager would be drinking beer and going to the liquor store four, five times a day. Put in age verification. Make sure - and keep those companies - and hold them accountable. But if you put in age verification as an adult product, that is all you need to do.

So how much business do you stand to lose once this ban on thousands of flavors goes into effect?

That remains to be seen. I don't know. And I don't think it will go into effect. I think, at the end of the day, cooler heads will prevail because what's going to happen is you have to have the understanding and the knowledge and have all the information available to you prior to making such a drastic statement and doing something that will ultimately drive most people back to cigarettes.

We have literally, you know, destroyed the actual tobacco category as we know it because we gave them a vastly less harmful alternative. And that is what we are very proud of, and that is exactly what we're trying to continue.


Well, we knew something was going to happen. We were preparing for it, but you didn't know where. And we were all set to jump on the - would be the take-off on the flight - night of the 4th, so D-Day would have been the 5th. But it was pouring rain, so it was held off for 24 hours. But we all were laying on these cots. And the cots were right next to each other. You're talking about 500 cots in this big hangar, so it was a pretty rank place after a while.

Smelled pretty bad?

It smelled mannish, yeah.

Mannish. . .


On Africa Update, it's been over a week since the elections in Zimbabwe, and still no results. But one thing seems clear: the current president, Robert Mugabe, is going to fight to stay in power. Plus, relief agencies say fighting in Somalia is the worst in 15 years.

For more, we've got Roxanne Lawson. She's director of Africa Policy for TransAfrica Forum.

Hi, Roxanne.

Hi. How are you doing?


. . . in World War II.

Wow.

So it is a very large explosion.

Now, if you were watching Earth from Jupiter, would you see the same type of flashes in our atmosphere, because don't(ph) we get bombarded?


So you're Haitian-born, you've been in America for about 40 years now, and you still have family back in Haiti. So when you talk to family, what do they make of the crisis, and how are they dealing with it?

Well, I think they're dealing as best as they can. But they feel, like us, overwhelmed by it. And they rely on us to help them.

Remittances.

Yeah. You could also send food - not really send food, but order food through these online organizations that deliver the food to them, but mostly remittances, yes.


The other time that I have spoken with Sandy actually happened last September. I had started a media campaign on behalf of Sandy, and on the 23rd of September, the U. S.  consul met with Sandy, showed Sandy screenshots of the website, showed her, you know, some of the articles that had been written. And Sandy was very supportive of the media campaign, very thankful for what we were doing for her and asked us to keep it up.

Now, on the very next day, on the 24 of September, I got a call from Sandy clearly terrified, clearly had been threatened and, you know, had been told that she needed to get me to stop the media campaign or she was going to be losing access to her medicine, losing access to a doctor, you know, losing her consular visits. Well, my wife has lots of medical problems. She's got seven prescription medicines she takes a day, and, really, to threaten to take away her medicine is just not much different than threatening to kill her.

When Sandy asked me to stop, she didn't just ask me to stop. She begged with me to tell the people who were in the room with me that you will stop the media campaign. She was surrounded by a bunch of very scary people from China's state security, and she was clearly terrified. I was clearly terrified for her.

President Obama is going to be there this weekend. Do you want him to say something?


And as we look ahead, these issues are going to be more and more significant, at least that's what the climate scientists tell us. How did it change to get it - make it more of a priority in people's opinions and in politics?

You know, there are various models of social change. One is the - what I call the Pearl Harbor model, where you have an event that changes everything. Sometimes its pressure is gradually building, an awareness building. I call that the Berlin Wall model where things keep building until - in the case of the Berlin Wall, it went down. And sometimes it's difficult to see those tipping points before you reach them. Almost by definition, tipping points are difficult to project and identify.

But my own sense says that we are moving toward a tipping point on the climate issue, and it's going to take a few more droughts like the one in the summer of 2012, an intense heat that greatly reduced the U. S.  grain harvest. I think it reduced the corn harvest by close to 30 percent. Or storms unlike anything we've seen before. And then we'll begin to, at some point, realize that climate change is for real. That it's dangerous and it's costly and we need to be doing something about it.

Yet, you'd like to think that we could arrive at these kinds of decisions on a rational basis. Don't need a tremendous crisis to focus our attention.


Thank you.

So, first off, what is criminalistics?

Criminalistics is the application of the physical sciences to matters of law and science. The physical sciences being biology, chemistry and physics, and any question that might become of interest to not only law enforcement but the legal system in general, whether it's criminal or civil law. Questions of science can be answered and aid in the assignment of responsibility and guilt or innocence in certain types of situations.

Duane, why don't you describe to us some of the work that you did with actual cases when you were at the California Department of Justice?I mean, what was your job, literally and physically?


You can never protect someone by stripping them of their rights. The premise is that unless California lawmakers become complicit in denying California athletes equal rights, then somehow those players will be harmed. And that's just a false premise.

And before we let you go, do you feel like you're making headway?Like, you know, part of the reason you got started with this - you were a former UCLA football player yourself. You saw the NCAA suspend your teammate for accepting a bag of groceries when he had no food. You know, you've seen a lot over the course of time that you've been working on this. And I'm just wondering if you feel like your arguments are making headway. Are people starting to take the questions around how college athletes are treated more seriously?

I do think there's progress. Not as fast as I would like - you know, you look at the multi-year scholarships are now available, the name, image and likeness lawsuit from Ed O'Bannon that resulted in stipends. There's still a ways to go. Let's put it that way. But I do think there's reform. I think a lot of key people are listening, especially lawmakers.

That is Ramogi Huma. He is the founder and executive director of the National College Players Association, an organization founded to advocate for college athletes.


Well, that's right. There's obviously not a lot of nuance that can be conveyed in either a four-page letter or a 140-character tweet. And President Trump has been very clear in trying to establish a political narrative around what the attorney general has characterized as the findings in the report. So the question is, is there anything that's going to change, essentially, the political point of view surrounding this report that we're going to learn?Or, essentially, has the news cycle moved on?

Remember, President Trump has had such a consistent approval and disapproval rating. Basically, people's minds are made up about the president. And so I think, from the point of view of Washington and politics, one big question - is there anything in this report - any fact, any conclusion, any information - that offers the possibility of changing the minds of the very few people whose minds are still available to be changed about the president?

Right. I mean, did poll numbers tell us anything even when the summary first came out?We've had, you know, some time since then.

Well, that's right. I mean, look. Consistently, surveys have shown that people in both parties want the report released. It took a little bit of time, but you have seen Republicans migrating around to the narrative that the president has offered for them that, in fact, this report does offer exoneration and vindication. But interestingly, the president himself appears to be somewhat more nervous and concerned about what is actually in this report than he was initially.


It was fabulous. One of our friends at News & Notes, one of our folks from the Reporter's Roundtable, John Yearwood of the Miami Herald, arranged for us to get a private interview with the president of Senegal. And that was wonderful, and we're going to run that next week. He's involved in essentially trying to do some negotiations with the president of Sudan over Darfur and also talks about a lot of the ecological issues that's affecting west Africa. But the best part about it was that the initial part was - were students, and you have these student journalists in this room full of diplomats and you know, a lot of security, big presidential suite, and it was - there was a certain heaviness to the air and certain gravitas. The president speaks English, but sometimes he speaks French and has a translator. And just to see the lights on these students' faces, the student from NABJ and the other ethnic journalism association, that was extraordinary.

It sounds like it was quite something. And we will look forward to hearing that interview. One really quick question before I let you go, and that's when you have a room full of journalist, does anybody get a chance to talk or does everybody talk at the same time.

Everybody dances.

Farai, thanks for checking in. We'll see you back here next week. Oh, one more thing, Farai?Oh, she's gone. I wanted to wish her a happy birthday. We'll have to do that when she comes back. All right, that was News & Notes host Farai Chideya checking in with us from Chicago, Illinois.


Yeah. It was soon dead. They had trapped it with a snare just to - we saw deer that had been killed by snares. So, that's a very efficient way of taking out the animals in a forest. So, even small economic changes here will ripple through South Sudan and affect the economy, the animals, the future of, you know, the future earning potential of tourism could all be change significantly in next five years.

And those people who killed the boar, you later found out were poachers.

Yeah. They don't, you know, nobody can quite say where the rules are and which rules apply, but I have to admit having snacked on that animals, the minister of animal told me, oh, they're poachers. Yes, I've been down there and told them. They must not poach. So it's really theoretical. They know national, you know, the national parks in South Sudan, large one Boma, which has the great animal migration is 8,800 square miles. The second one that's full of a lot of animals, 3,700 square miles. They have no roads, no buildings, no trained wardens, they have untrained. People have been assigned like army conscripts, but there's no effective park system or rules about anything.

You went by airplane to find that herd of elephants you described but you refused to tell us where it is.


Oh.

OK. So Bill Eberhard and colleagues looked into this and found that it's a little bit different than what people had thought. First of all, spiders definitely touch the sticky part of their web all the time, especially when they're constructing it. But he also found that when he looked at the leg of a spider under a dissecting microscope - and if this appeals to you, you can see this on our website - you see these tiny little hairs called setae. And what happens is when a spider touches the sticky line with this hairy leg, as it pulls away, the glue sort of drips down the hairs, and then you have very little surface area between the sticky glue and the spider. So there's not a lot of pull. And this kind of explains mostly why they - and they touch it very delicately. And then there's this one more little fact, which is my favorite part of this study, which is they wash the spider legs. They clean them off and find that they're much stickier. So they do seem to have a kind of oily substance that repels their own glue.

Wow. Wow.

But - it was cool.


Last night, Portland, playing in front of its raucus, loyal crowd missed all four of its long-range jump shots in overtime after hitting a bunch earlier in the game. Pressure?Well, pressure can tighten muscles and can wreak havoc on long-range shooting.

And I - look, I'll just say I, you know, I traveled with the Chicago Bulls a few years ago while writing a book. A lot of those guys prefer to play on the roads 'cause they said they didn't have to worry about arranging tickets for their third-grader's teacher - you know?- or driving their Land Rover through rush-hour traffic from the suburbs to get to the game. They can isolate and concentrate on the road.

Absolutely.

Look, next season the NBA's going to have to wait around for the Harrison twins - aren't they?- from the University of Kentucky?They announced they're coming back. What's going on - they want to stay in school?What'll they learn there?


President Bush, of course, has visited Africa. President Clinton made overtures to Africa. What are your hopes and fears, not just for an Obama presidency, but for the next American president in dealing, not just with Kenya, but with the continent?

Well perhaps, of course, I think the main - one of the main issues that needs to be tackled is the issue of poverty in relation to aid. And you know, there has been a lot of controversy in the past about how the Western world, including the United States, deals with Africa when they're dealing with issues such as poverty and provision of aid to the various countries.

Another issue is, of course, HIV/AIDS. This has been a big discussion point around the continent, and I think a number of people who are related in various sectors dealing with HIV/AIDS may want to see perhaps a different perspective in terms of how this issue is dealt with by the United States in regards to assisting the people on the continent deal with this issue. But perhaps, out of all those I think what would stand out is the issue of poverty and HIV/AIDS.

And one other thing I should note as well, is when we're talking about climate change, United States has come up in various discussions, I have noted. You know, there's been some indication that, perhaps, the United States is not as keenly interested in dealing with this issue. So maybe a number of government leaders as well might want to see the United States playing a bigger role in trying to deal with climate change around the world.


And actually, when I used to go home at about midday to sleep, everyone was in work still, so it was very quiet. So I liked the fact that I was almost like a bat - you know, vampire bat - coming out purely at night and disappearing when the sun came up.

One of the important qualities in baking that you talk about in this book is the importance of touch.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, in this world of health and safety, I remember - there's a lot of, you know, they try and encourage the bakers to wear gloves - rubber gloves when you're kneading bread. I mean, what?

I mean, this is one of the oldest traditions in the world. And to get bakers to wrap up their hands so they can't feel the dough - it's that touch, which you cannot teach - it's something you have to practice, practice, practice and get used to. And once you have that touch, you can make anything because it's all about consistency - baking - whether it's consistency in a sponge, in a great pastry or, indeed, a good bread.


We tried for about two and half years. And I had this fear that with every step we took, we would learn something that it would confirm my fear that I couldn't have a baby.

She struggled with anxiety, but eventually she got pregnant through IVF.

Tell me about that moment when you first saw your daughter Hazel for the first time. I mean, how did that feel?

Oh, my gosh. It was - it was incredible. I mean, first of all, I was in labor for 24 hours.


But first, we're going to look at the news affecting the media industry itself. This week, newspapers and magazines across the country were hit again with massive layoffs. The Christian Science Monitor announced this week that after a century, it would stop publishing a daily-print paper. Joining us to talk about the cuts is Neil Henry.

He's the dean of U. C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism and the author of " American Carnival: Journalism Under Siege in an Age of New Media. "Welcome Neil.

Thank you.

So, I'm not exactly the newest babe on the media block, I have worked in print for Newsweek and, you know, on-air for television, off-air, blah, blah, blah. And it just - it hurts me.


And it's interesting. As you talk about this, the catcher today has regained some of that reputation from those days.

I think so. I think the catcher's toughness is really recognized. And also, the catcher's unique position, as somebody who's part of the offense and part of the defense, plays a key role in what the pitcher throws and the pitcher's ability to throw, you know, particularly balls in the dirt, which are very hard.

You know, if you don't have a good catcher back there, then the whole team is lost. And so I think the catcher has really started to regain the reputation of being a key contributor to both, and I think that's why so many great managers are former catchers.

We've been talking about Deacon White, the newest member of baseball's Hall of Fame. Baseball historian Peter Morris, thanks very much for your time today.


Right now, the police - I can't tell you for sure. I can tell you as to my prosecutors, what we did is we took the supervisor and the people involved in our charging decisions, and they actually help us work the system. So the process that we have created actually was a collaboration with people in my office. So they are supportive, and they're intrigued by what it's going to look like.

Again, we want to make sure that there are no negative unintended consequences to this. So we're going to be looking at it very closely. We are working with the Sanford people to make sure that we create the right metrics, you know?The goal here is to do something that will do the right things. And part of that will be learning and seeing if there are any negative unintended consequences that - we want to go back and fix them very quickly.

That is George Gascon. He is the district attorney for the city and county of San Francisco. George Gascon, thank you so much for talking with us.

My pleasure, Michel.


Well, that's good to hear, and I'm sure life is good for a lot of people there. But nevertheless, austerity has cut into many people's lives, and a lot of people would like the economy to start doing a lot better.

It is true. In fact, you brought up a very good point. What happened is the austerity that followed the crisis of 2008 and 2009 - and I'm afraid your country, the United States, knows a lot about that, and it was part - actually, it helped start all that. We did our bit, as well, in Europe, of course. But - people and nations react in different ways. The Greek rioted in their squares. The French took to the streets. The Spaniards sort of sulked(ph) in their unsellable homes. The British swore at their bankers. Italians kept very quiet (unintelligible) Prime Minister Mario Monti. But obviously, something was sort of looming, and it happened. You know, this election, people had enough and say, austerity is not enough.

We've been suffering. And Beppe Grillo actually provided a way and a channel for (unintelligible), which is good. There was no violence at all in Italy, and the people protesting with their votes. I think it's very mature, very wise, in a way. Now it's time for Grillo to use those votes and do something with them.

Other than describing him as a populist, can you describe his politics to us?


When the novel "Angels Make Their Hope Here" begins the Civil War is not far off. It's 1849 and the U. S.  is riven by racial conflict. Inside the world of the novel a man named Duncan Smoot is about to save a young girl from slavery. Her name is Dossey - Dossey Byrd as he calls her. He brings her to Russell's Knob, a settlement in the New Jersey Highlands, that's a sort of idyllic interracial enclave where everyone is free and blacks and whites and Native Americans intermarry. This is the third work of historical fiction from Breena Clarke whose previous novel, "River Cross My Heart," was a selection for Oprah's book club. Breena Clarke joins us now from our New York bureau. Thanks for being here.

Oh, well, I'm really happy to be here, Tamara. Thank you for having me.

I'd love for you to start by reading the description of Russell's Knob.

OK. The first building in the village was a small, stone house that sat like a muddy, brown bird hiding herself in dense foliage. Outsiders and casual climbers were meant to miss seeing the cleverly disguised house and the cut that led to the town. If you knew the cuts, you could find the town.


So it's like, your mind can't be stuck on this. You're just like, I'm here, so I'm trying to figure out, how do I even go to school, try to look nice, so the kids don't roast you?You're trying to figure out, how do I talk?How do I, you know, engage?But now we kind of just laugh at it. We make jokes out of anything. That's how I cope with a lot of stuff. I just make jokes about it or just laugh about it. Hip-hop is rooted - was birthed in New York. So it's like there's a history of, like, flipping your story into something positive. And then, you know, we're still here. You know, everybody's alive. Everybody's living, doing their own stuff, trying to chase their dreams. So we try to keep the energy, like, positive and optimistic - you know?- because that's the only way, I feel like, to really live a good life.

(Singing) What's up with you?Won't stop loving you. How you want me to?

Rapper Thutmose on his debut album, "Man On Fire. "Producer Christina Cala caught up with him at the South by Southwest Music Festival.

(Rapping) Tell me what your view is. She from Malibu. She want to hang out with the cool kids.


Well, I mean, one reason that I think it's worth doing this is that when campaigns gather and take stock of this information on Election Day, they use it to make game-day decisions about how to market to you, right?So if you're a voter in a key state, the campaigns in that state will look at the same kind of information we're going to be gathering and publishing. They'll decide to move their radio resources around. They might send you a couple push text messages. They are going to try and drive your voting behavior based on the information they're seeing about the race and how it's going. You know, I think one of the jobs of journalism is to make its users savvier and more aware of the marketing that they're subjected to. And I think that publishing the information we plan to publish could help do that.

I'm going to return to the same question. I mean, how?What's the crying need for that?

Well, I mean, I think isn't it useful for voters to see the election the way that insiders do?The campaigns are trying to get you to vote in a certain way, and they are pushing you. And if you can understand why and how they're doing that, maybe you can make a smarter decision.

Julia Turner of Slate, thanks so much for being with us.


We are ecstatic about all the attention we're getting. I mean, we're actually accustomed of making I guess the decision of nominating the first, you know, woman candidate for president or African-American candidate for president, and - or even on the Republican side, nominating that person; who is going to get the nomination for the Republican side. That's all I bring here first. And so we're just really elated to have all that kind of attention and really basking in their joy, you know, right now.

Tell us about what political party you like and what's important to you?

I'm non-partisan. I'm an independent voter. I'm a conservative businessman, I mean, I own my own business. And my leanings are towards whatever politician's going to address a lot of my issues, which is, you know, health care, education, especially I have three teenagers and those type of issues. But again, I'm just so happy to be able to be choosing between a woman and an African-American and a white guy…

…for president.


It's necessary because of the drop in consumption.

When the government is spending over $150 billion on a stimulus bill like this, will that have a long run effect on how every person gets a check has to pay out their taxes in the future, has to deal with the realities of how much service the federal government can give in the future?I mean, will there be a sort of back-end re-tax for people who might get a cut in the short run?

I wouldn't put it that way. The problem is in the short run will people be much worse off and will they be able to recover from that?Because during a recession it's not unusual for families to lose two or three percent of their income. So the issue is do you want to lose that two or three percent because in the future you don't want to get a tiny tax increase to balance the budget.

So I think you have to think about what's the potential loss in income, which can be huge if we have a severe recession, or even a mild recession like the one we had in 2001.


Hanna was a bride. That is, she was a North Korean woman who was kidnapped in North Korea and taken to China where she was sold as a bride to a Chinese man. This is a big market in China. After 30 years of a one-child policy and Chinese couples' preference for boys, there is a severe shortage of young women in China today. And the one thing many young men want most in life is a bride. So they place an order for one from North Korea.

For how much?

It depends. Every North Korean bride I interviewed told me that she remembered the price for which she was sold, but roughly, it's $1,500 or $2,000.

And once in this relationship, if you can call it that, how did she escape?


And let's begin with mumps. Officials in Ohio say it's the largest outbreak since the forties. How can that happen?

Mumps vaccine, although a very good vaccine, is not a perfect vaccine. And it's about 80 percent - 85 percent effective if mumps is reintroduced into a population. And so what we're seeing here is largely people who have been vaccinated, but now that mumps has been imported into the United States - into that population - it's spreading slowly in that group and it's difficult to contain.

What about the decision that some American parents have made not to vaccinate their children?Do you think that contributes?

Not so much to the mumps outbreak, but it does contribute to the measles problem that we're having. The measles outbreaks are clearly occurring in populations whose parents have withheld their children from immunization. They remain susceptible.


Well, I think I do have to wrestle with it as a personal crisis. I did have to wrestle with it. I had to just do what people do when they're kind of debilitated by panic attacks, which is figure out how to make them stop or at least somewhat subside.

No, I know you deal with it in a personal way, but it sounds like you're blaming, you know, George Bush for your problems.

Yeah (laughter). Well, in some ways I felt - at that time at least - that my problems were caused by George Bush. So, I mean, another thread of this book is that, you know, once I realized I wasn't going to cut it as a music major, I switched my major to Middle Eastern studies. And I took that very seriously. It was my plan to try to become a reporter in the Middle East. And I started to begin to learn Arabic. I spent years studying Islamic literature and art and religion.

And I left to go do my study abroad in Cairo, Egypt. And, of course, we started out that time, just as study abroad students do, learning the new currency, people in Egypt and then two weeks in, 9/11 happened. And it completely changed obviously the course of everything. And a lot of Americans fled the Middle East at that point. You couldn't go back to the states because the airports were closed. But I stayed along with a small group of other American students, and I really thought that this was going to be so crucial to me and being a bridge of understanding between our country and that region.


Yeah, I mean, that certainly has been the view on the right and in the Republican Party and from many quarters over, you know, this isn't fair and you keep moving the goalposts. One of the problems has been that it's built into the Clean Air Act that it is updated every five years in accordance with the science.

And what the science has found in its progress over the decades has been disturbing from a health perspective. And it's also been sort of onerous from a regulatory perspective because those findings are that levels of pollution that years ago were thought to be safe actually are still killing people. America's air is much cleaner now than it was back in 1970, but a hundred thousand Americans still die every year from the effects of air pollution. That's a lot of people.

As you travel the world reporting on air pollution in other countries, did you gain an appreciation for what the U. S.  was able to accomplish with the Clean Air Act?

Yeah. I think as I traveled around the world, I could see actually in clearer and clearer focus that America's progress since 1970 is a real success story. I went to China, and officials there are trying to sort of replicate the achievements that we've had here in the United States. And it's, you know, I guess sort of ironic to see the United States undermining its own Clean Air Act enforcement capability as other countries begin to try to replicate it.


On the whole, that - it's been amazing. The volunteers, the support has been amazing. Obviously, there's a small percentage of people who are detractors and don't like the idea at all. But I think most of them are just kind of misinformed on what the status is of the asylum-seekers. And, you know, they want them all to go home, and that's just not possible. But on the whole, it's been really positive.

Well, you mentioned that some residents of your community are curious about the status. I wonder, has Customs and Border Protection told you not just what you're supposed to do with these people but how long you should plan on them being there?

Well, first of all they're - they have a legal U. S.  status, so there's nothing that we're supposed to do with them.

OK.


Yeah. I think anybody I grew up with could have said that. Anybody that I'm friends with now in Hazelwood, Haywood County, could say that. That's the reality of people who have nothing. They all know what it's like to miss a meal or to have the lights turned off or to have to decide - do I make my car payment, or do I pay my health insurance?That's a common theme that bridges the gap all across this country. And the unifying thing about that is poverty.

You also talk about addiction. The opioid crisis, as we know, is enormous right now. And you say that people just want to be listened to. What is the story that we aren't hearing?

I think - where that part of that essay came was I'd sat with the man who was interviewing me. And he said - when we were off-camera, he said, you know, I don't understand what would lead somebody to use methamphetamine or heroin. He said, I went to Chapel Hill in the '60s and, believe me, I experimented with drugs.

And what I thought was, your recreational drug use in the '60s is not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about people with $20 in their pocket who feel that the weight of the world is on their shoulders. And the only escape they can get from that is found in a bottle or found in a vial or found in a bag. That's the type of addiction I'm talking about. And I think, until you're willing to recognize that, you're having the wrong conversation.


Julie, you've been covering this area for a long time. What strikes you about this moment?I mean, is this as significant as it looks?

It's hard to tell. As I said, the AMA's been kind of everywhere on abortion issues. It looks like they're maybe coming out - finding this to be such a threat to the doctor-patient relationship that they're willing to take a leading role. It remains to be seen exactly where they will go from here.

That's Julie Rovner, chief Washington correspondent for Kaiser Health News.

Thanks for coming in.


And so you thought, wow. I never thought about how terrible that might - to be on that boat with all those creatures for so long.

Yeah. It seemed like a totally terrifying prospect to me to not only know that you had to keep them alive because you were the only reason life would continue post-flood but then also that they were dangerous. And they - you know, even if you go to a farm that's lovely, it still smells or petting zoos or all these things I was doing with my young son. I was like, wow. This smells. And we're, like, out in the open. Imagine on a boat (laughter). And I'm really interested in biology and bodies and, you know, as much as we are shedding and getting oily, like, so are the animals. And - but she has to not only take care of herself but take care of all of them and their super varied needs.

Well, you mentioned bodies. And that's the perfect segue way to the fact that there's, actually, a fair amount of what I would call erotica in this book.

Sure.


And he says the Pakistani government helped conceal Osama bin Laden and set him up. That's not true?

I mean, the truth of the matter is it was hard for us to believe that they didn't know given his location. But in all of the lead up to the raid and in all the materials that we captured when bin Laden was killed, there wasn't a shred of evidence that the Pakistanis knew. So was there a suspicion that they knew where he was?Yes. But we never found any evidence to support that. And in the notion that they set him up is, I think, a fiction.

Robert Gates, the former Secretary of Defense, now president of the Boy Scouts of America, meeting at their annual convention this week in Atlanta. Mr.  Gates's memoir "Duty" is out in paperback this week. Mr.  Gates, thanks so much for being with us.

My pleasure, thank you.