And did people confront you?

The Daily Stormer readers clearly thought it was me from the comments that were directed at me that very clearly said that I hope - Dean better hope he dies of natural causes before we get him, things like we should hang him from an elm tree. And in their comments, they clearly saw - thought I was a terrorist. And just so it's clear for people, The Daily Stormer is not your average white supremacist neo-Nazi publication, if there is such one. It is one where readers go to, they exchange information. They animate each other into action.

And readers of The Daily Stormer have committed acts of violence. James Jackson, who I wrote about that May 2017 article, came to New York in March from Maryland to start a race war and killed an elderly African American man and thankfully was arrested before he could kill others. And others have read this publication. So when they say confront you there, it's not a normal publication saying, go challenge his opinions. It is direct action, encouraging people to literally confront me and to commit acts of violence.

OK. But I'm just curious about why, if you feel that these people are promoting and fomenting violence, why isn't this a criminal matter as opposed to a civil matter?I mean, a civil matter is between two private parties, and the only consequence could be money, right?That's the only way it can be a remedy. But if you feel that this group is actually encouraging violence, why isn't this a criminal complaint?


We were with addicts on the street as they were having encounters with law enforcement. We were in treatment centers with people trying to kick the addiction. There's this one phenomenal picture of five inmates. They're all pregnant and being let in to get their methadone and things like that. We were in in drug courts, where people were being dealt with by the criminal justice system.

I think one of the reasons that it's gotten so much attention is because of the spareness with which we report it. We just report anecdote after anecdote after anecdote after anecdote over seven days. And anybody who reads it cannot come away without understanding how deep and how pernicious and how totally involving of our society this epidemic is.

Are there things that happen in Cincinnati every day that people walk past that you wanted to use this opportunity to share with?

Well, yes, I mean, in the sense that we wanted people to understand that this is going on all around them. Heroin is not a demographic or racial or any socioeconomic status - however you want to put it - drug. Its terrible reach is universal.


You know, right now, this is one of those, the nener nener is a really great way of putting it, because this thing almost played out like it was a "Dallas" show on TV or something, just trying to figure out what was going to happen with these California rivals, going - trying to work it out with each other.

At the end of the day, you know, I think Yahoo!may have made a smart decision. I'm being hopeful for that. I'm being totally speculative on this point. If they can work out this partnership with Google, which is what the game changer has been, why Microsoft walked away from this deal, and that is a proposed opportunity for Google to allow Yahoo, to use its search-advertising technology.

And its search-advertising technology is probably the best on the web, so that made Yahoo feel like, hey, we actually have another option. Maybe we don't have to sell out. Maybe we can just utilize some licensing from our partner-slash-competitor and still be able to keep our brand intact. So, it all remains to be seen, but I think it may have worked out that they didn't do it.

Let me throw another company into the mix. What about AOL?After the big AOL-Time Warner merger in 2000, the combined company lost billions of dollars. Now, Time Warner dropped AOL from its name, fired the AOL CEO. Now wants to offload the company. Are any of these three companies we're talking about, Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft, going to go belly up and buy AOL, you think?


Well, they basically came to myself, and from what I found out tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of small businesses, and cut our credit limits down to bare bones. We had had a - what they call guidance of $165,000, which they tell you you have no credit limit, but you really do. They cut it to $5,000 which was laughable. We're a company with sales into eight figures and profits into seven figures, never have had a lost, been in business 27 years, and we called to question it. We were treated very poorly. The woman was actually nasty on the phone.

So we thought we don't need American Express, we have Capital One, Visa cards, and MasterCard, and everything else, and so we just closed our American Express account. I personally went from a Platinum card to a Green card just to have in case of an emergency. So I've not spent a penny with American Express in over a year, so I knew why I got the letter.

Well, tell me why they made that decision to cut your credit line from - you said $165,000 to $5,000?

Mm hmm. Yes. They seemed to have just gone into a panic last January, and I've seen comments all over the Web from other small businesses owners who had the same thing happened to them. They did it without warning. They actually refused charges we had made even though we weren't above our credit limit, we weren't delinquent.


And now to another story we'll hear more about this week. It starts with a number - $90 billion. That's about how much Uber is expected to be worth when it goes public - that despite the fact the company has never actually turned a profit. It's made plenty of money but never more than it spends. Its move to go public and consolidate power comes at a time when Americans are questioning the power of Silicon Valley and leading politicians are calling for the breakup of tech giants. New York Times opinion columnist Farhad Manjoo recently called the Uber IPO a moral stain on Silicon Valley. He admitted his once-bright-eyed take on the startup has dimmed dramatically. He's here to talk with us about why. And he joins us from Mountain View, Calif. Welcome.

Hi. Good to be here.

You say you used to be a naive baby tech pundit who bought into the Uber hype, fanboy of sorts. These are your words. But this past week in your column, you lamented, what's become of Uber?What exactly are you lamenting?

Yeah, I mean, I once thought that Uber could be a win for everyone. You know, we used to - in cities, we used to sort of have these taxi cartels which limited supply and didn't really offer a great service. And Uber seemed like a better version of the taxi. And it also kind of offered these environmental promises. We'd have, you know, people using cars more efficiently. Like, Uber promised that it could get us - you know, more people in cars, get fewer cars on the road.


Pounder has also used her leverage as an artist to find apartheid and AIDS, and she owns and runs the Pounder-Kone Art Space in Los Angeles. I've had a chance to visit the space and see the art she chooses for her shows, and now, CC is here. How are you doing?

I'm good. Thanks for having me.

So, you know, you have this space at Atwater Village, one of the, for me, living in Los Angeles, one of the eastern, eastern parts of L. A. , but everyone has. . .

The outpost.


What in this agreement makes it better in your perspective?Because you did say that there was something in it that was, so tell me one thing.

There are. The labor chapter itself is better. However, if you can't enforce the labor chapter, it is meaningless. And so we're trying to get the enforcement on three different levels that I outlined earlier.

So what's your message to Democrats here?I mean, the issue is, so far, the administration has been trying to work with the Democrats. I mean, the trade chief, for example, the U. S.  trade representative, Robert Lighthizer, has been working with Democrats to hear their concerns about it. I mean, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has appointed nine House Democrats to committees to negotiate these sort of - these changes.

But there is this some sense that, you know, the administration - others in the administration would like to fast-track it. There is a mechanism for doing that. I mean, do you have a specific message to Democrats?Because, as you know, with such a large - particularly with such a large presidential field, you've got all kinds of different opinions about international trade in that group. Do you know what I mean?So do you have a specific message to them about how to - you would like to see them proceed?


Absolutely, absolutely.

. . . To provide even more confidential information, yeah.

Also, importantly, this list - the clearance-holders' foreign national contacts. That is the foreigners you are in close and continuing contact with. If I were China, I'd be looking for any Chinese national who pops up in those forms for exploitation. This is counterespionage-101 kind of stuff.

There are widespread reports that China is behind all this.


But there are an unestimated huge number of them that are already in circulation and, one would presume, if they were to be outlawed, an underground market. I mean, does the bump stock just go far enough?

Well, I don't know. I mean, look, I think most Americans do support an individual's right to own a firearm. I certainly do. Now, the issue then becomes, you know - I don't think it's practical to suggest that we could have some kind of gun confiscation movement in this country. There are just probably hundreds of millions of firearms that are owned privately.

I wasn't suggesting that. But I mean, what about limiting the number of weapons or rounds that can be contained in a magazine, which used to be the law.

Well, that's a debate we will likely have. Some states have moved in that direction. But I would suggest that the other issue that many of us are talking about, too, is continuing to enhance background checks for the purchase of private sales of firearms. That is an issue that many of us are advancing. Pat Toomey and Joe Manchin advocated for legislation a few years. I had strongly supported it. Now, I don't want to suggest that, you know, enhancing background checks in any way would have stopped what happened in Las Vegas. From what I've learned so far, I mean. . .


When you look at what the U. S.  walks away from this summit with, was it a success from the U. S.  point of view?

Well, the one thing - yes, obviously the president, I think, was happy. The president was happy to have been celebrated in the way he was celebrated. Clearly he repeated the mantra of, you know, this imperial visit was the first and most important thing in 200 years.

But I think it's also true that on Iran, they may have gotten a little bit of assistance from Mr.  Abe. He offered to mediate. He's going to be visiting in Iran. And Mr.  Abe and Mr.  Trump both said nobody wanted war; nobody wanted rising conflict. And that may be helpful to the president, who has tried to put the damper just a little bit on the kind of drumbeat that looks like the United States and Iran could end up in a military conflict.

That's Sheila Smith of the Council on Foreign Relations. She's also author of the book "Japan Rearmed. "Sheila Smith, thank you.


Well, can you describe to us what the situation is on the ground there in Gaza?What does it looked like?What's going on in the hospitals?

It is a very bad situation. The hospitals are ill-equipped and not ready to deal with a mass-casualty event like this one. Israel did allow humanitarian supplies to go into Gaza today. They allowed quite a few trucks to enter. Aid workers on the ground say that it's not enough, that there's still real a shortage there.

Griff Witte is the Jerusalem bureau chief for the Washington Post. Thank you very much.

Thanks, Madeleine.


From NPR News, it's Day to Day. Later tonight, I will be hosting dinner at my house with friends I invited, which hopefully will keep the meal mellow because we all tend to see eye to eye on most things.

But not everyone is as lucky. If you find yourself sharing a table today with family or friends who don't share your political views, well, fret not. Slate. com's chief political correspondent John Dickerson has put together some ammunition to help you should the conversation turn to politics. He joins us now from his home in Washington, D. C.  Hi, John.

Hello. Happy Thanksgiving.

And to you as well. John, you have for Slate provided backup to both sides of the argument on a number of topics. Let's start off with the financial crisis. Now, let's say that your Aunt Edna is a Democrat and your cousin Joe is a Republican. What argument can each of them make over the pumpkin pie as to who's to blame for all this mess?


Your program's been underway since the fall. Any success stories yet?

You know, it's hard to define success. The phone's ringing. We've gotten about four dozen calls so far, and those tips are kind of in various stages where local law enforcement is working to vet those. But I think the fact that the phone's ringing and information's coming in where it wasn't before is a huge success for us.

Audrey Simkins is the cold case analyst for the Colorado Bureau of Investigations. Thanks for speaking with us.

Thanks so much for giving me a call.


Well, experts and the public are very divided about this matter, as they are on the whole issue of nuclear power in Japan. Critics point out that a lot of the technology for removing the melted reactor cores and stopping radioactive water from going to the sea is still untested. TEPCO emphasized to me that they have multiple contingency plans in place to deal with every possible scenario. And they say they're making progress. At the same time, they admit that none of this is 100 percent risk-free.

Anthony, may I ask, how are you?

I feel good enough. I don't feel eradiated. I was wrapped from head to toe in protective gear, including three layers of gloves, a suit, a face mask, a respirator and a dosimeter, which measures radiation. It was uncomfortable, but I was only in there for a couple of hours. And then I came out. They scanned me numerous times. And at the end of the day, TEPCO's judgment was that I had absorbed about as much radiation as a chest X-ray. But who's to say?

NPR's Anthony Kuhn in Tokyo. Thanks so much for being with us, Anthony.


Now, Senator Obama is scheduled to address the convention on Sunday, last week we spoke to Richard Prince, of the Maynard Institute, who said, that the presidential forum, that was scheduled for Thursday was quote, "all but dead. "Of course, Senator Obama is traveling internationally. How did you secure him coming for Sunday, and given that Sunday is essentially the very last day of the convention, do you expect turnout that's going to be significant?

Well, the talks with both presidential candidates have been taking place for a while, and the invitations were extended many, many months ago. And so, talks have been taking place, and you know, with schedules it's really difficult to nail that down. With this Middle East and Europe trip coming up for Senator Obama, that came into the mix, just in recent weeks. It came down to a choice between having the Senator come on Sunday, or not at all.

So the Senator McCain invitation is still out, but it has not been accepted or rejected?

Right. We're still working on it.


So the Mafia survives off what it's always survived off of, which is essentially protection rackets, right?But where are they at this particular moment?I think many of us think of the Mafia as being a sort of pale shadow of what it once was, both in the U. S.  and Italy.

I think that's true, but that is a great symptom of both the huge step change that there's been since particularly the early 1990s in the law enforcement response to organized crime in Italy. And another great indicator of that is this trans-Atlantic cooperation between the authorities. They've now worked together for a generation because they understand the importance of this old bridge. It's no coincidence that FBI headquarters has in it a bust of Giovanni Falcone, the great hero and martyr of the struggle against the Mafia in Italy. He was blown up, along, with his wife and his armed escort by a Mafia bomb in 1992 because Falcone was who pioneered this trans-Atlantic cooperation in the fight against the Mafia. He got it.

Do you consider these raids are a major blow to the attempts to sort of reanimate these links?

I think this is an ongoing process. It clearly shows that the authorities are watching it very, very carefully. They understand it and know it. And that - from that point of view, it's reassuring. But it's always difficult to tell, when an operation is as fresh as this one is, just how damaging it will prove to be.


And now to Haiti, where things are settling down after three days of rioting in the capital, Port-au-Prince. A huge rise in food prices drove thousands of protesters and looters to riot earlier this week. U. N.  troops moved in to protect parts of the capital. Meanwhile, President Rene Preval has begged for calm. Haiti is considered to be the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, and the unrest over a crippled economy may not be easy to squelch. Mara Schiavocampo is in Port-au-Prince right now. She is a digital correspondent for NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. Mara, welcome to the show.

Thank you for having me, Tony.

You've been in the streets reporting on the story. What have you seen in terms of tension and unrest there?

Today, things are good. Public transportation is running. People are out doing their business, shopping. We went out, no roadblocks, no trouble at all. I can't say the same for the last few days. Yesterday was manageable. There were a few roadblocks, car fires, things like that, but it felt like the fire was dying down, so to speak. The last few days before that, things were very tense. Just coming in from the airport, we hit about a dozen roadblocks, burning tires, dumpsters, trash, with mobs of people that would come around the car.


The whistleblower still has not met with lawmakers or staff from those committees. The whistleblower's lawyers had been waiting for interim security clearances from the government so that they can accompany their client in any interviews or meetings with Congress. I'm told that those interim security clearances have come through, that they came through and took effect today, so that's a step forward. A source tells me that talks on setting up meetings with congressional committees are still taking place at this point, and there is no date set as of yet.

Another front to ask you about, Ryan, which is - three House committees today subpoenaed the Pentagon and the White House budget office. Do we know what they were subpoenaing, what they want?

Well, the House Intelligence, the House Oversight and the House Foreign Affairs Committees have been busy in the past week or so issuing subpoenas, all as part of this impeachment inquiry. They've already subpoenaed the White House and the State Department, as well as President Trump's personal attorney Rudy Giuliani.

Right.


What happened with Dr.  Strauss was upsetting. It was one night in your life. How has it stayed with you over the years?What's it done to your life since then?

So that building was fairly close to campus. And so for the next probably three, four or five years, you know, I went by that building a lot. It was hard to relive what's going in there. Again, you just kind of bottle it up and put it away. I'm, you know, upset with Ohio State. But I'm upset with Strauss, but he's dead. So I'm even more upset that Ohio State, a large institution that I have significant ties to and that I - you know, I met my wife there, asked her to marry me, have lots of friends from there. I've donated my time, donated money. And now I'm finding out that they failed me.

When the box opened back up on Memorial Day, I've had trouble sleeping at night. I sometimes wake up the middle of the night and see him standing over me doing what he's doing. And I still - there's one picture of him on the - a local TV station and Columbus' website - a color picture that I can't look at. If I see it, I just get sick to my stomach. So the box has been opened back up now, and it's been a struggle.

What would you like the university to do at this point in your life?


Major party conventions are almost a year away. But let's note this week Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts seems to be picking up steam, doesn't she?

If the focus is on the economy, well, Elizabeth Warren will tell you she's got a plan for that. And, of course, the other candidates will say they do, too. But policy is really Warren's strong suit. It's one reason she's climbing in the polls even as nearly the - all of the other top-tier candidates are sliding a bit.

Finally, Ron, I had occasion to look up and listen to the Greenland national anthem this week. It's very moving, as you may know. And President Trump, who complained about the fact that Puerto Rico is an island, reportedly wants the U. S.  or wanted the U. S.  to buy Greenland. What do you make of this?

Yeah, this is apparently one of the good islands. It's not so crazy an idea. The United States was interested in buying Greenland in the 1860s when we bought Alaska from Russia. And we were interested again after World War II when we were trying to keep Russia at bay. The only problem is Greenland belongs to Denmark. Denmark doesn't want to sell. And a lot of people in Greenland would rather be independent. So don't watch for the just-sold sign anytime soon.


You know, it's interesting that you should say that because leasing was one of the ways you could get into a car without having to have a huge down payment. So now, if leasing is going to cost more, buying a car already costs more with regard to the down payment, it's going to be really tough for some people, isn't it?

It will be, and you know what it's going to put pressure on is the used-car market, because if you can't get a new one, you go get a used one. But if they have more demand for used ones, that's going to push up, too. So the entire - the love affair that America had with the automobile. . .

Coming to an end?

It may be a love affair that we have to look at again, you know, somebody cheated on somebody, I don't know who.


But well. . .

If you go through the list of Obama people, the top four, five, six people had not just worked in presidential campaigns before, but they worked in that critical area which gets very little attention, but is absolutely essential, and that's called field operations. It means going into states, setting up shop, organizing, getting people door knocking, getting people calling and getting delegate victories.

These people knew how to win campaigns on a local level. Importantly, very significant figures had a lot of experience in Iowa. He set his sights on winning Iowa very early.

What I found fascinating in doing this reporting is that both campaigns had the same Plan A. The Plan A was, win the first four states, attain a political victory, and not be out of personnel.


Right.

Of course, the financial deregulation issue, whether or not - how much financial industry should be regulated is a big issue, but also, in California, you had a whole look and a proposition that passed that was about this kind of issue, about how densely animals should be kept together. But you mentioned reproductive freedom. What is the regulation change on that?

Sure. Well, the proposed rule would sort of - it has an effect on recipients of federal money and on, particularly, state-run hospitals and other institutions of that nature, and it gives a great degree of discretion to the folks that work in those facilities. And if they have a moral objection to administering contraceptives or birth control and performing abortions, then they are sort of allowed to cite their moral objection to that and not perform that work.

An interesting development on that rule that the Washington Post reported on earlier this week is that three officials from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have - that are actually appointed by President Bush have opposed that rule and have said that it would overturn civil rights law.


I was actually wavering in the blocks. And I saw on the video that some sort of bad form. But they fired the gun and I took off and things were going OK. They weren't going great, my strides were a little bit off. But I never hit an off-leg on a hurdle. As I went around the second turn and came into the final 100 meters, I looked to my left and realized that I was right in the middle of the pack. And that really surprised me. And at that point, I figured as long as I finish, this is a success. And as I got to the very end, right before the finish line, I glanced up at the scoreboard which showed the clock running. And realized that I ended up with a pretty good time. And so I crossed the finish line. I beat my personal goal by two seconds and managed to beat one other runner in the race.

Well, that raises this question professor. You're - I mean, you're a teacher right?

Correct.

You have devoted your professional life to helping, encouraging, enriching the lives of youngsters, right?


Let's talk for a second about the geopolitics of the region. The Sinai Peninsula is a giant desert. It borders Israel. And that is where Islamic militants have focused many of their recent attacks, but this is a change.

Yes. Thus far, they have been focused primarily on the police and the military in what they claim is a social justice war, so to speak. They're opposing the regime, claiming it's illegitimate and that they want to essentially become the new rulers of Egypt with they're very warped and skewed interpretation of Islam.

Now, that's not to say that civilians have not been killed in the process. And, in fact, if you're suspected of being a cooperator with the Egyptian state, they - ISIS will behead you in a very grotesque way to set an example. However, this is the first time that we've seen them go after a mosque in this way. Now, they have gone after churches and - because part of their kind of terroristic agenda is to kill anyone that they believe is not worthy of living in this Islamic state that they seek to create. And Christians have been common targets. But for them to go after Muslims is quite unprecedented.

This is a Sufi mosque, a mystical form of Islam. Would that have been a factor?


This is such a different type of story than we often see after a disaster. I mean, it's just the sheer numbers and the sheer amount of land in these three countries that was affected. I mean, you've decided to bring us just into one life and profile - one person doing one thing. Was that experience different for you journalistically?

It was a different - oh, gosh. It was a different experience for sure. I've never followed anyone doing this kind of work. And I've had two reporting trips to Mozambique now. And a lot of the work has been focused on the many, many people trying to deliver aid to people still alive - you know, frantic - organized frantic chaos, you know, trying to help people survive. And this was a very different, quiet experience but just fascinating to see.

Is there one image or one scene or one moment that stands out for you after following this man?

I think it was just the one in the field. It just struck me as an immense task. And I wanted to bring that to life as much as possible immediately for people. And he said it himself as he stood and he looked around the field. And he said, this is literally like a needle in a haystack.


And is it a big lead or barely a lead at all?The pollsters are also hard at work, as is NPR senior Washington editor Ron Elving. Ron, welcome back on this Monday. How much difference is there in the polls?

A lot, in terms of margin. You know, it's a statistical tie in some polls, it's too close to call in some polls, and then you have some other polls where it's beginning to look like a blow out, where it's a double digit lead and where it's concentrated in the battleground states in ways that really favor Barack Obama.

So, if you want to look for a poll that makes it look like a close contest, you can find one. And if you want to look at a poll that makes it look like Barack Obama is really opening something up here, you can find those too. In a way, though, you can say all the polls are agreed on one thing, there is consistency in all of them having Barack Obama ahead.

I can't find any major national poll that has John McCain ahead in this race. So, some people would say, that's really all that matters.


They have an obligation to do what I have done my whole life. I came from a family that had nothing. I worked hard all my life. In fact, the way I made my living was representing the kind of people that I grew up with, people who didn't have much of anything, and fighting against very entrenched, powerful corporate interests. And we were able to win and be successful. I did well by doing good. And what we have a responsibility to do is to make sure we don't pull the ladder out from behind us.

That everybody gets - in fact, it's the core reason that I am running for president is to make sure that everybody in this country gets the kind of chances and opportunities that I've had in my life. That's what drives me every single day.

A lot of your supporters mention that you really have a commitment to ending poverty, but could there ever be an America with absolutely no poverty?What would that country even look like?

It would be a country where everybody has real economic opportunity. I mean, is there always going to be a circumstance where somebody could fall into poverty?Of course. I mean, because that's the real world. But if we do the things we need to do, we wouldn't have the kind of systematic, endemic poverty we have in America. I mean, we have 37 million people, which is roughly the population of California, who live in poverty every day in this country. It's not a small number.


Give us a call, our number 1-800-989-8255. You can also tweet us @scifri. Gerald Crabtree is the David Korn Professor of Pathology and Developmental Biology at Stanford School of Medicine. He's also an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Welcome to SCIENCE FRIDAY.

Good morning, Ira.

Good morning to you. What evidence do you cite?What evidence is there that human intelligence is slowly declining?

Well, you know, there are a few things I'd like to say I guess at the onset, and you referred to them in your introduction, and that is any genetically based decay in intelligence is extremely slow. And so we should never be able to detect it by comparisons to people within generations existing right now on the Earth.


Awesome.

Yesterday, a South African court cleared the way for corruption and racketeering charges to be filed against presidential hopeful Jacob Zuma. A lower court dismissed the case against the African National Congress leader on a technicality last September. And claims that there was political interference by President Thabo Mbeki led President Mbeki to step down. Now, where does this ruling - this new ruling bring us, Emira?

Total chaos, Farai. Clearly, there's so much going on behind the scenes on this issue. Zuma's trial was on again, off again. Now, it's on again. Will he be put forward on corruption charges, and what will be the political implications?

Clearly, he is head of the largest political party, the African National Congress, the oldest party on the continent. But the ANC now is going through real pressures. The split between Mbeki, the ouster of Mbeki, the former president of South Africa, has now led to a split within the African National Congress.


He says that. But the question is, is this chaotic approach getting any results?He doesn't have a better deal with Iran. He doesn't have any deal with North Korea. And you have to wonder what other countries are thinking. Even Mexico, after approving a free trade deal, a no tariff deal, all of a sudden, he turned around and threatened tariffs on Mexico for an unrelated issue. So it makes it unclear for other countries who want to deal with the United States, whether they're our allies or our enemies.

And then, at least with Iran, the situation is unchanged. What happens next time there's a conflict in the Gulf?

All right. Let's look at another policy turnaround. As we've mentioned, the president has, as you know, talked tough on immigration for a very long time. It's his signature issue. Earlier in the week, he said he would deport a million immigrants starting today, but now he has postponed those raids, and he says he will resume them if the Democrats don't agree to change the asylum laws. What's going on?

Well, it's more whiplash as - on his way to his first big rally of his reelection campaign, that's when he said he was going to deport millions. Immigration has always been the go-to issue to energize his base. On the other hand, he has competing political imperatives because his immigration policies are costing him with independent voters, with suburban women. And it turns out that Nancy Pelosi did call him over the weekend, asked him to delay these raids, which were going to deport thousands, not millions.


You know, a lot of people who are successful at their jobs identify very strongly with their jobs, with their profession. They say, I am Joe Blow and. . .

Yes.

I work at X company and that's a big strong part of their identity. And so I imagine when those people lose their jobs, it's particularly devastating because a part of their identity is gone.

Right. I ask people to sort of, you know, draw out a pie chart like if you had a circle and you're going to divide the different parts of the circle into who you are. You're a brother, sister, son, father, mother, whatever, daughter, friend, you're a member of a community, you're somebody who can help other people. There's a tendency in our society to overidentify with the role of a job, but we're many, many, many other things. So redefining and sort of expanding your definition of who you are is a magnificent way of empowering yourself.


Thank you. I - so each morning in my newsletter, I include the schedules for all of the 2020 presidential candidates. And so I'm kind of, you know, kind of scouring the Web to make sure that I can keep on top of all of them. And on Wednesday night, I stumbled upon a Facebook post from a county party in Iowa announcing that de Blasio would be coming there for the first stop on his presidential announcement tour. And that rings alarm bells since he hadn't announced yet. And so I tweeted out and was able to kind of pre-empt his announcement.

That is a huge scoop. And it's great sleuthing. I mean, it's amazing attention to detail. And you also put out your news on the same day you were taking a four-hour Advanced Placement exam, which is extraordinary. That must have been a lot of work.

It was. It was a big day, for sure.

You have been writing this newsletter since you were 9 years old. I mean, you've clearly been a journalism junkie for a long time.


So when you think about -particularly African-American neighborhoods you've got a lot of neighborhoods - and you know not just black neighborhoods where you'll see for sale signs. Sometimes now you are starting to see abandoned houses. We've even heard stories about how abandoned houses then produce crime, because people will base out of those houses. Is this going to really help people at the grassroots level?

It's going to help some people at the grassroots level. As with anything in the economy, it's going to take a long time or at least some months for the real fallout from this to be known. What it does mean in the immediate term is that some banks will be able to lend more money, again, because Fannie and Freddy is going to get a cash infusion from the government to continue their work of buying mortgages from the banks, and so that should ease up credit. It should also make it potentially a little bit easier and a little bit cheaper to borrow because banks- when they're not taking as much risk then they can lower some mortgage rates things like that.

I don't know that it's necessarily going to clean up any neighborhood where you've got people going into an abandoned house and free basing or selling drugs or, you know, abandoned houses, that sort of thing. I don't know that this move is going to have that immediate impact on the ground in neighborhoods that are already blighted.

What about at this upper level?What about what's happened in the stock markets and in the international communities?The ramifications of this?


Yeah. It's interesting. In Japan, it's the same prime minister that was in place six years ago, but the political environment, I think, has shifted in some dramatic ways. And so I think one of the interesting aspects of the Japanese situation is that the LDP has returned to power. The Liberal Democratic Party has returned to power. But now they have a party that is to the right of them.

And so we talk about those two states. And, of course, the other major player, the biggest in the region, China, where Xi Jinping took command just last month, formally.

That's right. I think we're still waiting to see how China's foreign policy priorities are really going to develop under Xi. The process seems to be moving slowly, and it's not necessarily terribly transparent at this point. We know there are new top leaders in the room, but it's just not clear exactly how they're making decisions or whether they're going to change much in terms of China's overall priorities.

And transparency's a problem in Beijing. It's positively - well, murky is too easy a word for what's going on in Pyongyang.


I think the major difference from the time you were here is that then we were experiencing shortages, but as we speak right now, there is nothing on the shops here. People also surviving on imports, that is the food that people are surviving on is direct imports by the citizens themselves from South Africa from Botswana. And most of the families that are also surviving from their kid's work - seeking economic refugee in those countries and give them to (unintelligible) of Africa. Pay taxes affected the livelihoods of the people involved. As we speak especially with the finding of food distribution by NGOs, we will Zimbabwe is heading towards Somalia. People starve of hunger. There's no food for people to buy even in the stores, that means that people don't have money, but if they had money there is nothing to buy.

Do you plan to vote even though the MDC has dropped out on Friday?

Well, voting on Friday means I'll be legitimizing an illegitimate process. I'll be saying what, even if I don't want from Mugabe, but the outcome of that election will be a reflection of the people in Zimbabwe.

Are you hopeful that someone, I mean the U. N.  Security Council has heard arguments from the U. S.  and Britain, different countries and coalitions of African leaders have tried to make statements, but statements have not so far changed things. What would help?


How does the government even know that they might have overpaid?

Well, they have records going back that say, you know, you were eligible for X amount per month. And then maybe somebody in the family went back to work and got more in the way of earnings than they would have had to be eligible for those benefits. And so there was this debt sitting there on the account over all these years. But in many of these cases, the government can't even say who exactly incurred the debt. It might have been a surviving spouse. It might have been surviving children. All they know is that the debt is on the books. And apparently their regulations allow them to go after almost anyone in the surviving family without regard to whether they were the ones who got the benefits in the first place.

And they have no recourse?

Well, there's an appeals process, and you can seek a waiver. The folks I've spoken to, for the most part, when they call or visit Social Security, they're told, yeah, you can go through the waiver process, but you're not likely to win. The Social Security Administration tells me that about 10 percent do win their case, but that's 90 percent who don't. And of that 90 percent, some of them, it's just, you know, a few hundred dollars maybe, and they figure it's not worth the battle. In other cases, it's some thousands of dollars, and they really need the money. But very few lawyers will touch these cases because they are relatively small amounts of money involved.


Now, going back to the delegate question. Mitt Romney had a significant number of delegates. What happens to his delegates on the Republican side?Who gets to choose what pile they get thrown in?

He had 282 pledged delegates when he got out of the race last Thursday, bowing out to John McCain. But he did not actually totally 100 percent leave the campaign. He suspended his campaign, which means he's no longer really contesting John McCain's nomination. But if something should happen, some untoward event were to really alter the course of things, in the next couple of weeks or months or as we get closer to the convention, if something happened to John McCain and Mitt Romney wanted to get back into the fray, he's still holding on to that cash of delegates, which is at this point still the second largest. He's still a little bit ahead Mike Huckabee, even though Huckabee had a pretty good weekend out there.

So Mitt Romney's hanging onto those delegates for now. In the end we expect there will not be a big fight for the nomination at the convention and all the delegates will make it unanimous for John McCain, except those few who might choose to cast a kind of protest vote.

All right. Well, Ron, thanks again.


If you want to talk about people, not governments, you'll find that the vast majority of Arabs in the Middle East and wherever else, they do support - not Hamas as an ideology or whatever, they support a people surrounded in a very small piece of land besieged, not allowed to leave, travel, import goods. That is what they support.

They sympathize with the people in general, be it Hamas. If we had Buddhist government governing Gaza, they would also sympathize with them. It's not really about Hamas or Fatah or whatever.

You said you were not a supporter of Hamas before. Are you now more favorably inclined to Hamas?

No, no, I wouldn't say that. I wouldn't say I am inclined to Hamas or any other party here in Gaza, but human beings by nature will probably go for the underdog. And at this moment in time, Hamas is the underdog.

So what do you think needs to happen on your side for the bombing to cease, for there to be another ceasefire?


Members of the Writers Guild of America are back at work today. The three-month labor dispute with Hollywood producers was put to rest last night. Members voted overwhelmingly to end the strike. The dispute centered on what writers should be paid for work distributed over the Internet. So did the writers get what they wanted?That's the question we pose now to Larry Wilmore. He's a member of the WGA's negotiating committee. He's a long-time television writer and producer, also the senior black correspondent for Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. "He's a clip of Larry on "The Daily Show" before the strike:

American blacks love African art, African clothes, African music. We're just not that crazy about Africans.

Frankly, they kind of overdo it, you know?So for blacks to support Obama, he's got to make up his mind. Is he African or American?Because he can't be both. That doesn't make sense.

You were so wrong, Larry. How are you doing?


Iran airstrike - canceled. Raids on immigrants here in the United States without authorization - canceled. President Trump has promised and then gone back on a number of signature actions this past week. And here to illuminate us, as she does almost every week, is NPR's national political correspondent Mara Liasson.

Good morning, Mara.

Good morning, Lulu.

All right, let's start with Iran. That is a very dangerous situation. Where does the president's policy stand after calling off the airstrikes?


It's so weird because we're in the day in time where you had you wonder, this time you wonder, OK did they did not offer her enough money, because everybody does it. You they're going to figure now for Angelina Jolie and her twins and like, you know, 15 million dollars per picture. So, you're just wonder, you know like why hasn't Halle done it, have they offered her?And I saw her, I guess it was African-Americans, I'm not sure that they get the kind of money or the offers that white celebrities do. And I don't know if that has played a factor in it or is she just a celebrity that decided, you know, I'm not going to put my child out.

This is my kid. I'm not going to sell her to the highest bidder. I'm hoping is that one, but I think that, you know, that is how you get publicity now. You know, not that she needs it, but it does sort of fuel the fire for people being interested in you and you being, you know, sort of the talk of the town so people actually want to go see your next film. So, I don't know it's sort of weird that we haven't seen the baby and I look at it, you know, Tori Spelling. I mean, at this point they had the baby one day and then they cover the next day.

Oh my gosh.

It's amazing the way it works.


(Laughter).

And I said - I said, yeah, buddy, I'm everywhere.

He was a longtime customer of mine who hadn't realized that I had left the shop.

Well, what was the path from you looking into the hoods of cars to under the - into the insides of people?


FLDS has been accused of forcing underage girls to marry adult men. For more, we turned to Salt Lake Tribune reporter Brooke Adams, and, Brooke, many people likely remember this story. Hundreds of children were removed from the ranch in April. And later on, they were returned to their family. When did that happen and why?

They were returned to their families in June - actually on June 2nd after first the Texas Court of Appeals and then the Texas Supreme Court ruled that a San Angelo judge didn't have enough evidence to hold all of them in custody.

And so they went back to their families. You wrote about a new report that was released just last week. There was a commission that reported on FLDS. What were some of their key findings?

The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services found that there were 12 young girls ranging in age from 12 to 15 who had been married to older men. It's unclear from the report whether all of those marriages took place at the ranch, but that's where they found the evidence for that. And of those 12 girls, seven of them have had children, which is interesting. The girls now range in age from 14 to 18, so many of them are still minors. The youngest of those girls, I will say, however, have not had children.


As someone who has worked for so many years to promote human rights in Afghanistan, do you feel this in your gut?Are you optimistic that this peace can hold?

I yet do not trust the promises the Taliban make. I'm worried about my little girls, two of them, and their future. But also, I'm optimist about the fact that Afghanistan is a different country.

You think Afghanistan is a place where your two daughters can have a happy, successful life.

As a nation who have suffered for a large number of years, our country and our people deserve peace and stability and to move on. However, this is the time that we make a commitment that we would fight for the rights of our people, including the right of my two little girls. And that's why my focus is to make sure that the peace process is not rushed; we take enough time to develop the details of a peace agreement that ensures and guarantees the freedom that I want for my daughters.


Was part of the problem that they knew it was Einstein's brain, and therefore they were predisposed to see things?

Exactly right, exactly right. It's rather like seeing faces or shapes in clouds. Those shapes really aren't in the clouds. They're in your mind.

Forgive me - what amounts to a philosophical question - why have we been fascinated by Einstein's brain matter over the years?

Well, I think it's kind of a cult of personality. He was obviously a very, very bright individual but one of the, kind of, myths of his intellect is that he was this great over-towering mathematician. In fact, he wasn't - amongst his colleagues in physics - a particularly good mathematician. And that's kind of overlooked in the kind of cult of personality about him.

Do we find it interesting - or maybe reassuring - to try and look for special clues in Einstein's brain because, I mean, if it can all be traced to the guy's brain, we can hardly be held responsible for being born with, you know, what amounts to inferior material?


It was like a scientific menagerie. It was just amazing.

And they have a cockatiel or. . .

Yeah. The main - a cockatiel. The main activity that day was happening in the wind tunnel. So this is - it's huge. I think - I hesitate to do the actual length, but I think probably like 40 feet, not the actual enclosure, but between the fan on one side. And they blow wind through this sort of enclosure and put the birds in, and then they can change the wind speed to make the birds flap, at sort of the equivalent of different speeds.

So they're like flying in the wind tunnel with the wind in the face.


I gather Jim Dunne was a great father.

He was a great father. And - yes. And he has two sons that are in the automotive business. And yeah, he was a terrific father and a wonderful grandfather as well and a great friend.

Yeah. You're going to miss him.

I'm going to miss him. I'm going to miss - he also was wonderful for - he held lunches at some of Detroit's divier (ph) places. And you know, I'm going to miss when he'd call up and say, hey, we're meeting at Buddy's Pizza (ph) at 12:15. Be there. I wish I'd said yes more often.


Yes, yes indeed, yeah.

Where are they now?

They're blue-collar, and many of them remain Democrats, although when the national election comes, many of them outside of Allegheny County do start voting Republican. Part of the reason is that this is an older state, and for pensioners, unless the economy is really going haywire and frightening them about the condition of their pensions and the future of their Social Security, they are going to worry less about breadbasket issues than they're going to worry about the social flashpoint issues.

And out here, Democrats, and we're talking about liberals, Democrats are pro-Second Amendment. They're pro-life. They are very religious. They're socially conservative. Gay marriage simply confounds them as a theory. In other words, we're talking about a place where the liberals have guns.

And so, where are those liberals going?Are they going to Obama or McCain?


Well, do you know, patients liked me 'cause I was really jolly and nice and what they didn't realize is they'd probably been much better off with some mumbling introvert who actually knew something. And in fact, I dreaded it. And my only happy day as a doctor was one sunny summer day where we got no admissions at all and I sat on the lawn outside the hospital and read "The Longest Journey" by E.  M.  Forster. That was the only happy day, and in the end, I didn't go back. And I thought, well, what could I do?I'm not qualified for anything else. I thought, the only thing I've done is comedy. And I applied for and got a job with BBC Light Entertainment in radio.

I am among those that think that British humor is one of the great forces for civilization in the world.

(Laughter).

But that being noted, it must be rough to - a challenge to take a comic approach to the Blitz, which is, in a sense, the great national heroic story of Britain.


We're still going to have a problem. I mean, there is no question that there is already layoff. There's going to be an economic decline. There's going to be a recession. The question is how deep and, you know, is this going to be a catastrophe or is just going to be bad. This is not the last thing we're going to have to do.

Yeah, we've got $2. 1 trillion in non-prime mortgages about to reset in the next 18 months. Many of which will go into foreclosure unless there is a mechanism for those homeowners who could meet obligations to renegotiate with their lenders. And there was a bubble in the housing market that's going to be deflated. But the question is, are we going to go off a cliff?Or is there going to be a gradual decline and then the settling down and that's what we hope to achieve.

Democratic California Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren. Thank you very much for joining us.

Thank you.


What are you, Lisa, most thankful for this holiday season?

I'm thankful I don't have the banks on my butt.

Does that make any sense?

It does. Do a lot of other businesses there locally that might not be affected by the baby boom - are they having a harder time?


Thank you very much, I'm really happy to be here today.

What do you remember most about Lonesome George?

Wow, I've known George for over 30 years, and some of the interesting things working with him was just, he was a very different personality than many other tortoises, and it was always a challenge to try and figure out what the best thing to do was for George.

And among the things that we tried when I was supervising the tortoise breeding center was bringing some - a couple of females from Wolf Volcano to be in his corral. I also had a young woman from Switzerland volunteering for a couple of months, trying to do sexual stimulation with George.

And there were a lot of things we did with George, always trying to recover the Pinta population of tortoises.

But nothing worked out, huh?


So before - so just in case that happens, you were there for the eclipse. How was it?

The eclipse - you know, people say, how was the eclipse?It was fantastic. How did it compare to others?I have no idea. It was the first one I ever saw. But the scientists seemed pleased that were watching it with me both as a scientific event and as a spiritual event. So it was a really good example of a total solar eclipse.

That is NPR's science correspondent Joe Palca reporting from Chile.

Joe, come back.


And first we need to give a tip of the hat to Sports Illustrated and a story by Richard Deitsch, which caught our eye. And it detailed the lengths that women sportscasters, like yourself, are going to try to protect their security on the road. One woman said she actually travels with Band-Aids to put over hotel door peepholes. Do you do the same thing?

No, and to be honest, I read that and went, oh, I had never thought about that and went wow, that's a pretty good idea. But before Erin, I had never thought about a peephole, period. And I'm guessing most women who travel, period, would say the same thing.

What are some of the protective measures that you do take when you're traveling to games?

It can be as simple as when I walk into an elevator, I never open the envelope that holds the card so anybody can look into it and see what room number I am. I'm very aware of making sure that I feel as protected as I can. One time I was in the elevator, someone walked in real close before it was shutting and kind of jumped in with me and didn't press a button and said, hello, Laura Okmin. And it could be as simple as just somebody who happened to recognize me and was going to the same floor, but I think my antenna was raised enough to just stand there. And then when I walked out, he walked out. I walked back in, and I went downstairs to the lobby and I switched my room.


Yeah. So let's take Muslim China, you know, the western part of China - Uighur country. They use lamb, which they don't use in the rest of China, or very little. And their noodles are made from wheat. And they have bread. So that region has this food because of its religion and because of its proximity to Turkey.

The reason I called Anissa Helou is because of a dish I've been meaning to make for a long time. In her book, she has two versions - one from Egypt, one from Syria - a nutritious and simple meal made from beans that's perfect for Ramadan or for any time, really - ful medames, or simply ful.

Ful is a very filling dish. So if you ate ful at whatever hour, you could stay without eating anything or feeling very hungry for at least five, six hours.

Helou join me in my kitchen here in D. C.  via video chat to teach me how to make both the Egyptian and the Syrian recipes.


Oh, my goodness, the crisis keeps deepening by the day. Yesterday, some of the parties called for a vote of no confidence. The chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, was hoping that he could get rid of Interior Minister Kickl, who has also been the center of several scandals himself during the course of the 18 months that they've been in government. The other ministers of Transport, Defense and Labor said, we're going to leave, too.

So you're describing all sorts of behind-closed-doors machinations going on here. But bottom line - as Austria prepares to go to bed tonight, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz is still in charge of the government, but he doesn't have much of a government now that his coalition has fallen apart.

Exactly.

How is this playing as you are out and about interviewing people on the streets of Vienna?


And yet despite all this, is Sisi still a popular figure?

Yeah, he is a popular figure. The military is seen as the most trusted institution in Egypt. He comes from that institution. He was elected in an election that maybe wasn't really fair, but it wasn't rigged in a wide scale manner. He was voted in with more than 95 percent of the votes here. But it's an election that took place in an atmosphere of fear, where you're basically with us or against us. And if you're against us, the idea of against us lands you in jail.

What are the challenges that he faces?

The biggest challenge he' got is the economy - the foundering economy. Egypt is in debt and needs to dig itself out of that hole. And there are constant power cuts going on right now in the soaring summer heat. And the way he's doing that is lifting the subsidies, which take a huge part of the budget. But that will also possibly lead to protests against him, possibly, because that means people are going to be paying higher gas prices, which have already been lifted, and higher food prices.


There's a moment in class I want to ask you about there. They're discussing "Madame Bovary. "And Fatima and Meagan (ph), another young woman in the class, have a telling difference of opinion.

Yeah. I came to that when I was thinking about what it meant to outlaw the hijab in France and what it means to claim yourself as a woman in a world that is supposed to be becoming more pluralistic but is actually becoming more tribal. And it should be an acceptance. And I think when a Middle Eastern woman would like to claim her authority and her strength and her centeredness while being covered, the West, in general, will give her argument about that.

And in "Madame Bovary" there is a - you know, Flaubert is trying to make this statement about female vanity and a sense of class sort of raising yourself up and having your womanhood be your bootstraps. And in this case, Meagen is arguing that that's the way it should be. And America offers you this, and it's an illuminated culture because of that. And Fatima says, no, I think that it actually weakens and debases the woman to have to expose herself or use her beauty to attain wealth or stature.

Rez goes on the Internet. What's he searching for?


But Joan Warren, another reader, saw it this way. She wrote: I think it's incumbent upon voters to rise above this kind of distraction. The responses from both campaigns, reaction from our readers, and the photo from his trip to Africa that we're talking about is on the front page of our blog right now. So people can go and check it out.

So we also covered the president's trip to the continent of Africa. What's been the response on the blog?

Well, you know, all sorts of video and photos of President Bush dancing and making nice with the locals in Africa are all over the Web. On our blog we talk specifically about what his Africa legacy would be. The blogger D. J. Black Adam wrote on our site: Dare I say his record will be better than that of our first so-called black president, Bill Clinton?However, his administration has done nothing regarding Darfur. Overall grade: F+ in contrast to Bill Clinton's F.  So some tough words there.

What else is getting traffic on the blog?


That's the problem we have when trying to operator motors on Mars when it's quite cold. And so we just - what we use is we use heaters. And we have little electrical heaters that a few hours before we want to drive or turn the science cameras, for example, we turn on heaters, we heat them up to the point where they're relatively warm, warm enough to operate, and then we're able to go ahead with the science observations.

You've obviously lived in Alaska or Minnesota if you know what a heater is on your car.

Exactly. Born in North Dakota, so yeah, I should know.

So of course you would have thought of that.


It's a great legal strategy. You know, if Zazi didn't cooperate, he was going to be facing life in jail. The other options is to go to trial. And when you go to trial, universally you end up getting sentenced to a much longer sentence than you would if you cooperated.

Can you compare how we handle a case like this, which has to do with Islamist terrorism, with the domestic terrorism cases we've been hearing about recently?I'm thinking specifically about white supremacists. Does the government deal with them in the same way?

Yeah, in many ways they do in terms of cooperation. They don't in terms of charges. So you can charge an individual with material support to terrorism as it relates to ISIS or al-Qaida. You can't have that same statute when it comes to white supremacy. There isn't a parallel statute. For white supremacists, you know, they do flip a lot of individuals. But it's a different approach.

In this case, as you mentioned, they were able to put a lot of pressure to bear to get information, the names of people who were involved. Do you think that's happening with investigators who are dealing with the synagogue shooting suspect, for example?


Thank you very much. It's nice to be here.

So dung beetles use the starry night, they use the Milky Way to navigate around?

They do indeed. Yes. It's a surprising finding, but they do indeed. Yeah. We discovered it almost by chance, really, because we were studying their mechanisms of navigating with regards to the moon, which is slightly more visible and obvious stimulus during the night sky. But we discovered on most parts of the month when the moon came up extremely late after midnight, particularly that until midnight, we suddenly discovered that the beetles were still able to navigate even without the moon. So we were quite puzzled by this, a bit alarmed actually at first because we were worried that our previous work was wrong. But then after further contemplation, we sort of realized that, well, maybe they were using the stars. And it turned out to be the case.

They can actually see the Milky Way at night time?

They can, yes. They probably don't see that many individual stars because their eyes really aren't sensitive enough to discern many more than probably the 10 or so brightest stars. But they can actually see the very dim stripe of light, which is - which makes up the Milky Way, especially in the Southern Hemisphere. It's very, very obvious actually compared to the Northern Hemisphere. And it's this broad and rather dim stripe of light which they're able to detect and to orient with respect to.

How do you craft an experiment to discover this?


Yeah. Well, I mean, this last week, for instance, (laughter) in the last four days, I went on tour because my husband was going to be traveling. And so I left for the three days when he was gone, had three shows in two days. So I was away from my kids for just the 24 hours. Flew back in this morning. We had lunch all together just now. And then I came over here to be with you guys. So we just do it all as a family.

We count it as an adventure. I'm always talking to my kids about it. You know, this is an adventure. This is such a fun experience. And we use the time together out in the world as an opportunity to explore and an opportunity to teach our children and to allow them to see the nation.

Julianna, why six days?What - how did you come up with that magic number?

I have no idea. And it is not - I don't know. It's not a magic number. It's not like the golden ticket to a perfect marriage. But for us, it was a starting point. It was, all right, we've got to draw the line in the sand somewhere, and a week just felt too long (laughter). And every single spring, we sit down for about four to eight hours with our teams. And we - I get one of those massive calendars. And we literally go through and write down every city that we're going to be in. We write in date nights. We write in family date days. We write in. . .


Yeah. So it's interesting with Magnus Carlsen - he realized early on that fixing small things, like what he drinks during the course of a game, will alter the way he functions, especially in the last hour or so of the game. And so one of the things that was really fascinating about this was when I was talking to his dad. His dad was like, oh, we went to the Olympic Training Center. And they were told immediately that the orange juice that he was drinking was causing for the sugar levels to take a huge dip in the fifth and sixth hours of game. And so they were asked to replace that with milk.

Meaning he'd have a little energy crash. So the idea is you need to keep yourself sustained with something that gives you energy but won't have the crash and that you need to do that even if you're not skiing, right. . .

Exactly. Exactly.

. . . Even if you're playing chess. So as we look at the world cup of chess, which is happening right now, what are you going to be watching for?What are the things you'll see and you'll think, that's somebody who's using some training?


Oh, she did, and in such an interesting time. In the '70s, even before Betty Ford had famously stepped forward and talked about her struggles, Joan was convening people who were early thinkers in how to treat people differently. You know, AA had been around, of course, for decades. But there was a movement in the '70s to get people to look at the whole person with alcoholism. And Joan was really passionate about getting the word out.

Yeah. With Ray's death, Joan Kroc became one of the principal philanthropists in America. And she really took that responsibility seriously, didn't she?

She lived large, and she gave large. She felt this almost-burden with the money that she had. And saying she hit the lotto isn't really fair. But - she had this money at her disposal, and she felt obligated to use it in a constructive way. But that's not to say she was ascetic or like a monk. She lived very, very lavishly as well.

Yeah, she'd drip with jewels. She went to nice places. She. . .


Well, we've - they've already spent too much time, that is the Congress and the president, in getting a deal. So they can't, in my opinion, put together a real big debt reduction bill that the country and its people deserves. In the meantime, this tax problem came in, the Bush tax is going to expire, which was done by the law that adopted it, and that's going to put a big pressure on the budget.

And we've got a law that is so unreasonable that it ought to be repealed, the sequester. I think they're going to find a way to repeal the sequester. I think they're going to find a way to do all of the savings required in the appropriated accounts, the annual billings, but I think they're going to be very short of savings in the entitlement programs, the long-term health care, which costs are going to go skyrocketing along while we sit around thinking everything's rosy. They may not find a way to solve that one.

I hope they do, but I see no evidence that they are doing that one right. So I think they'll get two or three out of the four, and then question for everyone: will they put that much together and say, take it, and some language saying we'll do more next year?I would have some further suggestions, but we don't have time.

Well, Senator Domenici, thank you very much for your time today.


Some people are afraid that the extradition law will basically legalize kidnapping by the Chinese state. And that has already happened with several booksellers in Hong Kong being whisked away and mysteriously reappearing in Chinese detention. And so if this law is to pass, people fear that that will no longer be a news item or will just be a regular thing.

And to that question of how this bill is being rammed through, you know, what about that?Is there something about the way this bill is being, you know, processed, is extraordinary?

There are widespread complaints that there was no real public consultation about this. The legal sector, thousands of lawyers came out in force just this past week, and they marched in black in silence. And these are the people who would understand the law the best. And yet, the government has told them repeatedly that no, you lawyers don't understand the bill at all. And so that just shows that the government isn't really listening to the people, and people are feeling that. And that's why they took to the streets.

And, you know, authorities in Hong Kong did release a statement in response to the protests. What did it say?


Exactly right. The jet stream - if you remember last year, when we kind of had a winter with no winter, we had a jet stream that was very zonal, meaning it came across the time zones from west to east, and it kind of stayed right along the Canadian-U. S.  border, and that's kind of the separation between the cold air and the warm air. So we were on the southern part of the jet stream, and so we were very warm all winter long.

Now with this Sudden Stratospheric Warming event and the disruption of the circum-polar vortex, our jet stream has started to buckle and meander quite a bit. And so now instead of going primarily from west to east, we have a big north and south component of that jet stream, allowing cities like Anchorage to be very warm while New York City or even areas in Georgia are much colder than Anchorage.

Georgia was 32 degrees when Anchorage was 48.

Wow, is this the same thing that happened a couple of years ago, or am I just imagining this?


Well, maybe before 20 September, yes, but maybe after 20 September, there might be some people from the military that think that, well, he has went too far. Actually after Trump support and blind support to Sissi, the number of people who has been arrested have been increased dramatically. So I would say that endorsing and supporting Sissi publicly by Trump give him a green light to continue and to continue crackdown on peaceful dissent.

I'm told, Mr.  Zaree, that you're on the travel ban list. Are you worried about your own safety?

I'm always worried about my own safety. And I am worried about the safety of my family. But at the same time, I can't just see what's happening and remain silent.

Mohamed Zaree is with the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies. Thank you, sir.


Even - and especially if it comes afterwards, but it's that - it's - once you charge somebody up with emotion, you're putting them into a state where their critical thinking or what, you know, what Kahneman would call system-two thinking, that reflective thinking becomes harder. And you have to keep in mind, this also - I'm making this sound like this sinister thing, you know, that, oh, we're trying to get away with - well, maybe when the car salesman is telling you a joke just at the point where you were about to, you know, open the hood and look at the engine, and you go, oh, this is a nice guy. I'll buy this car from him. Maybe there, it's sinister, you know?In magic, you come in expecting and hoping that the person is going to amaze you and/or make you laugh.

And if he doesn't, you're disappointed. I want to thank you so much for joining us, Teller. Teller's piece called "Teller Reveals His Secrets" ran in the March issue of Smithsonian magazine. There's a link to it at npr. org, click on TALK OF THE NATION. He joined us from NPR member station KNPR in Las Vegas, Nevada. Thank you very much for joining us, Teller.

Hey, thanks.

Tomorrow, we will talk about the science of pet therapy and how the happiness can go both ways. This is TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News. I'm John Donvan in Washington.


You were screamed at in Duluth?Could you tell us these stories?

I think the man in Braddock, PA was a case in point. I was photographing the original Carnegie Library, the very first one. And it was, you know, quite an amazing experience for me. The interior Carnegie had produced was quite magnificent, and it had a swimming pool and a basketball court and, you know, as well as all the books. And then I went outside to photograph the exterior. And the entire project I did with a large-format 4-by-5 camera, so it's - I have to be under a dark cloth to focus the camera.

And the - at one point, while I was focusing, a hand reached in and tried to grab the camera. And I pushed it away and came out from under the dark cloth and was punched very strongly in the jaw. This man had thought I had photographed him. You know, he obviously was out of his mind. He had - who knows what his problem was - but the homeless population is something that librarians have to deal with in the libraries. It's not something they're necessarily trained to do. It's just an added thing. And I - you can't blame the libraries. It's - where do people go if they're on the streets?

The Northeastern Nevada Regional Bookmobile, as the name implies, that's a library on wheels.


So wait, you're saying to invest in fat?

Well, exactly. Or to invest in companies that prevent that fat. So that's one potential demographic change. The amount of chocolate consumed worldwide is greater every year, particularly, you know, as you have a lower class in China that's moving towards the middle class.

The problems with clean water in these urban areas is getting larger and larger every year. For instance, right now, just about 50 percent of all hospital beds worldwide are filled with people suffering from clean-water-related diseases or unclean-water-related diseases. So making investments based on these trends and the others I discuss in the book could be enormously profitable in the long run.

Does the fact that this economy, which seems to just take hit after hit after hit, and it seems to be heading straight into a recession if not worst, does that at all change the advice that you give?And presumably, you wrote this book before all the really bad news hit.


That's right.

Tell us about that one.

Well, that's around a star called HD 10 - excuse me, 40307. I'm losing track of the numbers, there are so many stars now. And this is a system where we first tried out some of these techniques, where there were already several planets known around it, three planets known around it, and we found three more by basically being more clever in how we deal with the noise due to the star's surface activity.

And this was - you have a rating scale for how close to Earthlike they are correct?


U3 is the classic headline number. What is the total unemployment as most people commonly understand it?It's a somewhat narrow definition of unemployment, and there are actually much broader definitions of unemployment.

So, tell us about those. There's one called the U6, I understand.

Well, U4, U5, U6 and they are all subsets of - each one is the previous one plus another group of unemployed. So, to go from U3 to U4, we add a group of people called discouraged workers. These are people who have given up looking for jobs even though they want a job. Then there's a different group called the marginally-attached worker, and that's somebody who isn't looking for a job but wants one. And there's another group of people who are working part time, but want a full-time job, but can't find them. If you take the broadest measure, the U6 measure of unemployment, we're talking about 11. 8 percent, and those are numbers similar to what we saw in the 1970s. That's an ugly unemployment number.

Well, why doesn't the government count that number or use that number when reporting these numbers?


Yeah, yeah. yeah.

So. . .

You know, you had - your career - I mean, you've done a lot of things - you've been a model; you've been a teacher, as we said - but getting your record career going was a little bumpy.

Very bumpy. And I was a musician first. I did all the other stuff to try to fund my music career, and yeah, it took a long time. It took about seven years to get my deal off the ground for a variety of reasons. The music industry is in flux. I mean, we'd have deals on the table; they'd fall through. And in that time, we just kind of kept moving forward, which you have to do. So. . .


What we saw was as the Republicans proposed their version of Trumpcare, no matter what you called it, people began to understand the important components of the Affordable Care Act that they relied on and that had made health insurance available to many people who hadn't had it. You know, Senator Shaheen and I - my senior senator - had an emergency field. . .

Let me interrupt.

. . . Hearing. And I'll just say, people told us over and over again that they had pre-existing conditions and they finally got health care.

But didn't health care prices and premiums go up for millions of Americans?


Are you - at the same time, though, you're in Moscow. Are you, a very smart man, naive to think that Vladimir Putin is going to give you asylum without expecting something in return?

All throughout the Cold War in the United States, we protected dissidents from the Soviet government. These are, you know, writers. These are speakers. These are physicists. These are not people who can benefit the United States government even if they had wanted to. And we protected them nonetheless because of the message it sent.

Now, the Russian government doesn't get many chances in this context internationally, on the global stage, to do the right thing. I have been criticizing the Russian government while I am here. What more can I do to satisfy you or any of these critics who hold these positions?The reality is there is nothing that will satisfy them because it is their suspicion, it is their skepticism, it is their distrust of the Russian government as an institution which is motivating this.

I mean, do I have to detail for you the ways in which the Putin government has earned (laughter) some suspicion?


So it was a very protracted civil war, but during the 17-month period that Rios Montt was the leader of the country, the scorched earth campaign that he presided over was the, by far, the most violent period in this protracted civil war. The United Nations, it was instrumental in establishing a truth commission for the country in the late 1960s after the civil war ended. And it was chaired by a German - a law professor.

And it found that there were acts of genocide against the Ixil Mayans during this period that the trial covered. And so its findings confirmed after extensive research that, again, as you said, there was a very protracted civil war, but this period was, by far, the period of most staggering violence.

And that commission, I believe, found that of the 200,000 people who were killed over the course of the whole civil war, I believe they found that 83 percent were Mayans. And that was the foundation for their finding that acts of genocide were committed.

And as I understand it, in the cities of Guatemala (unintelligible) there were many individuals who were targeted, identified as labor leaders or insurgents, one way or another, and murdered or disappeared. In the countryside it was indiscriminate. Everybody was a target.


(Reading) I pace the cell to think. I pace to relieve tension. I lightly box the walls. My knuckles have calluses on them from boxing the wall. I do pushups on my fists. I don't have deep thoughts. I'm practical. I get through the day the way I have done a thousand times. Will this be the day I break?I push that thought away. Mind over matter. I keep moving so later I can sleep sometime.

Albert Woodfox served more than 40 years in solitary confinement in Louisiana's Angola Prison for a crime he says he didn't commit - the murder of Corrections Officer Brent Miller. Mr.  Woodfox was already serving time at Angola for armed robbery and believes he and another inmate were set up because of their prison activism as members of the Black Panther Party. His conviction for Brent Miller's murder was overturned twice. Each time, the state indicted him again. He was finally set free in 2016 after a plea deal to lesser charges. Albert Woodfox says the self-discipline instilled in him by his mother helped him through those decades alone in his cell.

I spent a lot of time reading, writing - self-education. I used the time to teach myself both criminal and civil law. And we lived on what we call an organized tier along the principles of the Black Panther Party, developing unity among the other guys on the tier. We taught guys how to read and write, which, you know, I think was my greatest achievement.

Mr.  Woodfox, how often were you gassed?


Oh anywhere in the blood stream would be fine. The only question would be is it better if it's just floating, as you say, or would it be better to put in a very tiny micro drug-coated stent and keep it somewhere, you know, like in the wrist or someplace that's accessible. So that is another - which one of those paths is better is still not clear.

Are there any dangers associated, that we know of, of putting a sensor like that in our body?

Well, multiple centers are doing it, and there's already, you know, models being done in animal studies, and there doesn't appear to be any danger, and it goes even beyond heart attack. You could pick up antibodies before diabetes is struck in auto-immune diabetes or cancer cells. So there's a lot of things that it has potential for if we can get these nano chips to last a long time, powered by the blood, the movement of the blood, so there's no other power need, which is also a big advance.

For people with heart disease, do you have a sense of how much is sort of genetics, the stuff you're born with, and how much are environmental effects?


Good to be with you, Linda.

So we've got a ticket, at long last. What is Governor Pence's contribution?What does he bring to the table?

He has three things that Donald Trump lacks and needs. He has the trust of most social conservatives. He has a long history of working with other party leaders in Washington. And he has good relationships with the kind of Republican donors who have been shying away from Donald Trump up to now.

Which sounds sensible, conventional and not at all like Donald Trump.