Well - I mean, I believe on Friday, certainly a lot of people thought that they had a deal in hand. Senator Schumer left the White House thinking that it was very close. And he says it got undone somewhere in the White House. It's not clear. . .

Well, I can't speak to that. I wasn't a part of that. But I don't think it was probably quite as imminent as they thought.

Look, I think the president's actually been very clear about the things that he wants. He wants to address border security, he wants to deal with chain migration, and he wants to deal with the lottery. And he's certainly willing to provide legal status for DREAMers. So if those are your four principle points and they've been known for months, there ought to be a way to reach an agreement.

Border security means a wall?


Yes. And Stephanie says attendance more than doubled. She thinks lowering prices was a great business strategy for her. It might be good for others as well.

And Marilyn McFee(ph) is doing well in the downturn. She's a professional storyteller.

Maybe it's like mashed potatoes and apple cobbler, she writes. Storytelling is comfort entertainment.

She's been busy telling her stories at schools, libraries, even fundraisers.


Well, you're a gifted counselor. What do you think it might be?

I think it's triggering our students who have already experienced trauma and secondary trauma, and they've seen things. And we've seen students go through all kinds of emotional reactions during drills - panic and sadness and grief and fear because during those drills, you really don't know what's happening.

Given your history, given what you do now, given how close you come to some of these terrible issues, issues that are often too terrible to contemplate - if there are any one, two or three things you can change or say need to be done right now, what would they be?

I think our schools are doing everything they possibly can to make the environment safe. And I think one of the things that needs to change is it is not a conversation just for our schools anymore. What's happening is our world and our society are now entering our schools. And so we need to address our world and our society.


Phil Simms was quarterback for the New York Giants.

(Laughter) Yeah.

This is NPR, Dan. We have to fill in the blanks sometimes.

(Laughter) I understand. Well, Bill Parcell is one of the legendary coaches in NFL history. I called Bill and, you know, 'cause saw in the press guides that Ernie was his pro player personnel director for a couple of years in the 1980s. And Bill could not remember anything about him. He says, I don't know the guy. I said, Bill, it says on the press guide that he was your director of pro personnel for two seasons when you were head coach. And he says, well, I don't remember the guy. So they're all either being very careful about it or Ernie just does not leave a personal mark with them.


Yeah, I think so. I think it's sort of like - the way I've been thinking about it, whereas Neanderthals - they were kind of an archaeological group that was in search of genomics and genetic elucidation, so we had all these bones from individuals we knew were Neanderthals because we've studied their archaeology and the tools they made so well, and so we wanted to compare that archaeology, the people who carried those - made those tools to present-day humans, see how they were related.

But in the case of the Denisovans, we started with the DNA, and we know there must have been a population, and really interesting to see what they were like. The West Eurasian, the European archaeological record and the archaeological record of the Middle East, is really, really well-studied and characterized by European and Western researchers. But the archaeological record of the eastern parts of Eurasia is more poorly studied or not studied at least within the same framework.

And it's a vast region of the world, which we know had humans in it when modern humans exploded out of Africa 40 or 50 thousand years ago. And so it's really exciting, and the data, the DNA tells you it's exciting, to try to figure out who those humans were. They were not exactly Neanderthals.

Hmm. In fact, isn't it true that when this bone was first discovered, people just thought it was a human bone?


Thank you.

What did you see when you drove through that deep water?What did you do?

It was just devastation everywhere. I mean, it looked like a lake. It looks like a lake in the middle of the neighborhood. You can't even fathom it.

Do you remember some of the people you were able to help?


Amyloid is a very big one. We need to fulfill our research obligations there to examine it to the hilt. But there could be other proteins, the Tao protein, Alpha Synuclein, a variety of other proteins that could be involved, and hence we need to throw the landscape open with respect to what might be other potential targets in the various cascades that are described to produce the results of Alzheimer's disease.

I have about 20 seconds left, but just in this last little bit, there's a clinical test - a clinical trial to test this drug starting soon. Will these new studies affect that trial?

No, I don't think so. I mean, I think that the phase one trial of Bexarotene going forth in humans to test its safety and efficacy I think is entirely appropriate. So I would not pull back. I mean, there are some cautionary notes in these papers, but I wouldn't sabotage the overall program by this.

Thank you for joining us today.


And would they work differently?Is the mechanism different?

Well, yeah, there might be subtle differences in that something that's truly universal would need to target something that is very constant and unchanging in the virus and something that would be accessible to our immune systems. And in an ideal world, if we could target the vaccine to those kinds of structures, and we see those in the virus, then we'd have our universal vaccine.

But we may not be that lucky. We may end up not being able to get a clear shot at something that's completely (unintelligible) and if that's the case, we would redirect it to the parts that we could see, and then you might have a little bit of escape every once in a while, and so they would be targeted to different regions.

Give me a rundown of virus anatomy. What are we actually targeting with these vaccines?


So our veggies are sitting there in the supermarket, and they're doing what?

Well, they are still alive. They are still responding to external stimuli. What we've shown is perhaps surprisingly, they can respond to light-dark cycles and really change their metabolite accumulation to different times of day.

They change their metabolism as the sort of a circadian rhythm for my cabbage?

Right, right. So when the crops are growing in the field, they respond to the light-dark cycles, and they - all plants have a circadian rhythm, so they have patterns of behavior that they control or they - that are under the influence of their circadian clock. And when you harvest vegetables and fruits, these vegetables and fruits really stay very much alive even though they've been removed from the whole plant. But then when we store them under constant conditions like in constant light in the grocery store, their circadian rhythms begin to dampen. And so then they lose the ability to show these rhythmic behaviors.


Well - and now they'll get $25 million, right?

I guess.

NPR's Ina Jaffe, thanks so much for being with us.

You're welcome.


I'm just - I'm 84, but - and I'm going to just keep going until suddenly I notice that somebody has approached with a hook, and the curtain is closing. But I continue to do basic research, as for example biogeography of ant faunas of the Pacific, and writing on the general subjects that we've been addressing today.

You talk in your book about having the summer off as a kid with lots of time to do what you want. Do kids need unstructured time?

They need a lot. They need a lot. I would say that generally speaking if you have a bright, inquisitive kid, and very few are not innately that way, and you were given a choice, two months of summer camp with advanced, more advanced preparation in various subjects with college on the horizon in mind, between that and cutting them loose in the woods or in a very interesting natural environment, and I say cutting them loose not entirely but if you know where they are, take the latter for heaven's sake. It's the latter where they will dream and beginning to form in their own mind those ideas, those conceptions, those misperceptions to be corrected that make up a strong mental ability and character.

Dr.  Wilson, thank you so much for taking time - it's always such a pleasure to have you on SCIENCE FRIDAY. Thank you for joining us.


Yeah.

There is still that love. There still that. . .

There absolutely is.

. . . Acceptance.


Switching gears, we have been talking on the show and online about the major economic woes facing Detroit. What's been the response on our blog?

Yeah, we're talking about the price of a home sold in Detroit going down to $7,500. And a reader named Deuce Bollards wonders, quote, "What will happen to the Lions, the Pistons and Tigers?If they bite the dust, that will be the saddest part of this story. "I don't necessarily agree. There's a lot of other sad stories (laughing) other than Detroit's sports teams. . .

Well, that's true, but, you know.

Going down. But, you know, as our blog winds down, in the show's final week, we have links to all of our network of bloggers and those conversations will continue there.


And voters - how are they responding to it?

Well, voters I spoke with today were really unhappy with this redo election. They didn't seem to change their minds, and they mostly voted for the same candidate that they voted for last time. Netanyahu's supporters were very confident in their support for him. But when it came to his main opponent, the retired general, Benny Gantz, his supporters were a lot more pessimistic about his chances. He's a centrist, and some of them are hoping that at least Netanyahu will build a coalition with that centrist party and that could moderate an otherwise right-wing government.

And this is a complex election - right?- with many political parties. What are people saying about the most likely outcomes?

Well, in the last election, Gantz, who's the centrist, the former general, he was slightly ahead. And then Netanyahu pulled ahead. And then when the actual votes were counted, they tied. They had a 35-35 tie. And so now we're going to be looking at that same situation, it appears. If Netanyahu hangs on, he could try to build a right-wing alliance or ally with centrists, including Gantz. All of this is going to depend on one wild card, and that is Avigdor Lieberman. He's right wing, but he could tip either way.


I mean, your site gets something like seven million visitors a month?

Yeah.

Wow.

So that, that audience helps too, having those people, you know, kind of at bay, you know, willing to sort of jump in at, like, my command and help out when necessary. And like I said before, a lot of those people who read my site are also Tesla fans, so that's sort of a double reason for them to be willing to commit to a campaign like this.


Do you go back and see your plays often after they're up and running?

Yes, I do. I mean, in the old days, I didn't, and I was very sorry for it. And I had to learn to do it because we have something we call, especially in the world of large shows, a lot of people killing babies where the director comes back and basically says, you know how they used to just come in and say hello?Well, you know, I think instead of coming in now, pirouetting with a finger up your butt, why don't you just go back to coming in and saying, hello?

And we do that fairly frequently because people do get bored, and they elaborate without even necessarily knowing they've elaborated. What's unusual is that the guys in "Death of a Salesman" simplify. They don't add. They simplify and they get truer, and they find each other more. I've never quite seen it to this extent, but it's very exciting to see and I'd like to go back and see it as often as I can.

You described some playwrights, Beckett, for example, as somebody whose work seems to back away from you the closer you get it. But Miller's play, you say, is not like that.


But I do think, at the Pew level, if you will, this is a divisive issue. And I am really hoping and I'm personally praying that evangelicals will stop and say, this one's too far. We don't want to close that golden door on people fleeing persecution, including people who are persecuted for their Christian faith. I think it's maybe not gotten a lot of attention that Christian refugees from some of the countries where Christians face the worst persecution in the world, along with other religious minorities, are also really dramatically harmed by these policies.

As I understand it, a big part of your work is talking to fellow evangelicals about this - about immigration more broadly. Can you give us a sense of what you hear in those conversations?

Yeah. You know, I wouldn't do this work - I think I'd be completely burned out if it wasn't for the opportunities I have on a fairly regular basis to be in an evangelical church in various parts of the country on a Sunday morning, preaching and teaching on God's heart for immigrants.

And what's encouraging to me is when I speak in churches, the response is actually really positive. I think a lot of churches are afraid to even have that conversation. But when they do, I find that most people are really receptive if it's grounded not in a political agenda - we're not there to tell people to vote for Republicans or vote for Democrats - but in a biblical message that focuses on who we know God to be, as revealed in the Bible, and his particular concern for vulnerable refugees.


But yes, they do make them vulnerable. But to my knowledge, he has no problem with his feet. And there was another horse with three white feet who did pretty well, and his name was Secretariat.

Oh, yeah. OK.  Victor Espinoza is Chrome's jockey. What do you expect from him?

He's a very talented rider. He has been here before. He won two legs of the Triple Crown with War Emblem a few years ago. He's made beautiful decisions in terms of where to position the horse and strategy is everything in the Belmont. This is a riders race.

I don't know if he will win, but this afternoon, pin your heart on this beautiful little horse and this odd cast of characters around him. The pantheon of Triple Crown winners admits only the truly great. So if he is good enough to do it, you will be looking at a horse for the ages.


Let's go back and talk about the suspended campaign for a moment. What is the practical effect of that on the race for the White House?

I suspect that the main affect it's had thus far is to get everyone talking about John McCain and how he has a tendency to shake things up again, which is a big part of John McCain's campaign persona, his narrative, if you will, that he is a fellow who is inclined to do the unexpected, to move between the parties, to move on his own, to be a maverick, to be unpredictable, to throw the long ball if you'd like, and sometimes that can really change things.

Now, I think that the McCain campaign maybe telling us in the hours to come that just the shift in emphasis over the last 24 hours since he's talked about suspending his campaign - it's been a little less than 24 hours since the mid-afternoon announcement that he wanted to do that on Wednesday - that just that alone changed the atmosphere in Washington, and even before he returned to Washington, the fruits of that were visible. That's obviously going to be a debatable proposition. I think a lot of people are going to relate to this as having been a kind of campaign device that had very little effect on the actual bailout negotiations. But those two sides will contend.

I have less than 30 seconds for your answer, and the question is, is it fair to ask whether or not Sarah Palin could have continued campaigning?


And those two factors - genetic variation and large populations - are perfect recipes for Darwinian evolution. So RNA viruses evolve very quickly. They adapt very quickly. If they pass from one species of host into another - for instance, from a bat, or a monkey or a rodent, into humans - they seem to have a better chance of flourishing, of adapting to the new host and finding ways to transmit onward. So the RNA viruses, the single-stranded RNA viruses, are particularly on the watch list for the disease scientists who study this field.

I'm Flora Lichtman, and this is SCIENCE FRIDAY from NPR, talking with David Quammen about his book "Spillover. "Are we reservoir hosts for viruses that have caused pandemics in other animals?

Well, certainly we've caused disease. It does go the other way. It can go either direction whenever there's fairly close contact. For instance, Jane Goodall's chimps in Gombe in Tanzania, in the late '60s, suffered what seems to have been a little epidemic of polio. A number of the Gombe chimps died.

And that polio virus is thought to be non-zoonotic. It's thought to be a virus that only affects humans, but it's capable of passing from humans into chimps. So it seems to have made those chimps sick and killed some of them.


Absolutely.

But still, I would beg still to point to the affinity between wanting to bake and the significance of bread and grain and its significance as something that supports life as a kind of basic food. And, of course, Christians use unleavened bread - some Christians, at least, in the Western Christian tradition tend to use unleavened bread for every Eucharistic celebration. And that in itself is understood to be an echo of that last supper. So Christians are sort of using a form of matzah throughout the year and celebrating a little Passover every Sunday, in one sense.

What about the journey from slavery to freedom which is part of the Passover celebration?The way that Christians celebrate the journey from death to life which is part of the resurrection of Christ - I mean, are those all parallels that we should pay attention to?

Well, the Easter Vigil itself is really a kind of mini Passover for Christians, I think. Much of its symbolism is specifically about mapping Jesus' narrative - the story of Jesus' connection and his movement from death to life - as a kind of image that parallels that of the Exodus experience so that Jesus becomes Israel itself and his passage from death to life is like the passage through the Red Sea.


The sport right now is not very big, but the potential is huge. And one of the reasons there's such a big potential is that the typical esports viewer and esports player are young males. Those are people that don't watch television. They've never watched television. We talk about cord-cutters in the business. These are cord-nevers.

And so advertisers are desperate to try to reach them because they can't reach them anywhere else. So you have companies like Turner Sports, the Big Agency, WME-IMG - they see that advertisers want to reach this group, so they're all trying to get into that group to sort of prove that advertisers should go with them in order to build up the business.

Where is the money coming from, though?And sort of where is it going?Where are they investing the money in?

In several different places. You have certain NBA team owners that have invested in actual teams. I mentioned Turner Sports and WME-IMG. They actually created a league called ELEAGUE with different teams, and they have a regular season and a playoff tournament. Sponsors are sort of getting attached to all of this, and that's where all the money is coming in from, sort of all areas.


Well, if things go as expected, Netanyahu is on track to become Israel's longest-serving prime minister. To talk about Netanyahu's long career as prime minister of Israel, we're joined now by Daniel Shapiro. He was the U. S.  ambassador to Israel during the Obama administration, and he joins us from Tel Aviv. Welcome.

Thank you. Great to be with you.

So this will be Netanyahu's fourth consecutive term, but it's his fifth term overall as prime minister. Describe how you think Netanyahu has changed from the day he was first elected prime minister in 1996.

I think he's gone through several phases, at least on the issue that is so central to any Israeli prime minister - the Palestinian issue. He started as a real hard-liner. He dragged his feet on implementing the Oslo Accords they inherited from Prime Minister Rabin and worked on with the Clinton administration. And then when he left office in 1999 and returned 10 years later, he encountered President Obama, who wanted to try, yet again, to press forward on trying to achieve a two-state solution with the Palestinians.


Coming from the black holes. But in these cases, the population of the universe is organized according to progeny, according to inheritance. There's a lot of structure. And we can use that structure to make predictions, as I was describing. What I'm against, and what I argue - and what I think nobody's really answered these arguments. What I argue is that to postulate that our universe is simply one of a population of simultaneously existing universes that have no relation to each other, and that just have randomly chosen laws, that idea takes us outside of science, because it's not verifiable or falsifiable.

No postulate - no hypothesis about those other universes can be checked experimentally, because they don't - they have no influence on our own. And I think it's very important to draw a distinction between making up stories that might be true and science.

You know, the rock-and-roll band They Might Be Giants has a song about what's science and what's not that I think nails the matter. So if a rock-and-roll band can understand it, I think anybody can understand it.

In other words, you're saying what - science requires that you are able to make predictions about your theory and test them. And you're saying this multiverse can't really be tested. So it's more a theoretical belief in something than being a scientifically valid theory.


Yeah.

He said she's obsessed with divorce. Everyone in her family's divorced. Some of them are divorced twice. Her parents got divorced when she was 6. I don't like to think that a divorce haunted me. And yet look at me. This somehow became my art. And then, I looked at the sort of evidence. And, this year, I've been married for 13 years, which is the year my parents got divorced. And now I feel like I'm in this sort of unknowable land. What are you supposed to do now?

I must say - as the days roll by and Rachel doesn't return and sends no word, you find yourself - I found myself as a reader going from worry about where she was, what might have happened, to anger.

Right.


Nineteen, OK, 18 at the time. Yeah.

Yes, sir. As soon as I got to my job, I exited my car, and I walked away probably like no more than 50 feet and, you know, I was apprehended by - it was either four or five ICE agents. You know, the good thing was that my daughter didn't see when they took me because I know she would have been probably even more devastated to see it happen.

Do you have any idea how they - how they began to get interested in your case?

Well, I had a prior deportation from when I was younger for a minor drug offense. Of course, I had to return back to the states because I had my daughter. You know, I was a single father for - ever since she was 3 years old. And the way they found out where I lived, it was the day of Thanksgiving in 2015. I got pulled over because of - my tags were expired on my vehicle. And they took me in. They said I had what they called a misdemeanor warrant from 15 years back. And I went to court, like, four - four or five times, and they ended up dismissing the case. You know, so I thought that was over with, so, you know, I went about my life. And a little over a year later is when they came and picked me up and they said that - pretty much they told me that I went back on their radar for having been pulled over that day in 2015.


Yeah, I'm glad you like that one. That's one of my favorite and I really overdrew that one.

You were - you've become one of the best-known cartoonists in America, but even still, what's your acceptance versus rejection ratio?

Oh, yeah (laughter). This is classically bad. This is, you know, across the board for everyone at The New Yorker. We're supposed to turn in 10 gag ideas, you know, at a sketch level, and on a really good week they'll buy one, so 90 percent rejection is doing great.

I noticed the book is dedicated to your parents. . .


I have no idea where my sister is. I heard my aunt was released from the distant relatives, but I have no information on my sister.

So do you have any sense of what their lives have been like in these camps that they were sent to?Do you know for sure that they were sent to camps?

I assume that they are in the camps because I hear many people - such as my sister, they are just disappearing. I don't know what kind of condition that my sister is being held. But I know the conditions of the camps. We have been talking to former detainees who's been released from these camps. People there facing forced indoctrinations, mental and physical abuses, forced to take unknown medicines, food and the sleep deprivations. The conditions are extremely bad.

I mean, it's not only the people who are in these camps whose lives have been affected by this crackdown by the Chinese government. It's also the lives of people who are just living in Xinjiang. Can you describe what daily life is like for them?

The people in the entire region is facing Orwellian-style-like police state. They are being monitored 24 hours a day. There are news reports that 1. 1 million Chinese cadres deployed to the Uighur homes to live with.

Officials who are just sitting there in the homes. . .


The other issue, of course, is there were no bonuses for Wall Street this year, or where there were, there were certainly contentions about them, and people were asked to give them back when they got them. So the extra cash that often comes through the pipeline to buy also Christmas presents, which was not there this year, was not there to buy stocks, either.

So here we are. It's December 30th. There's just a few days left to this week. Any chance that Santa might come in the last few days?

Well, unfortunately or fortunately, these are such volatile markets, who knows?I mean, in the last five to ten minutes of the market, we can see an extraordinary turn. It's sort of like watching an NBA game - it's not worth watching it until the very last few minutes to see who wins. We've seen wild fluctuations, but that said, it's not going to be anything to compensate for what's been the worst year since the 1930s.

As you mentioned, Diane, in the past, a lot of times, investors would buy stocks at this time of year with their bonuses. Maybe not so many bonuses this year. You've got the added element of the fact that some people are still concerned that they might get laid off in the future. How is that affecting how the markets might close this year?


Good morning.

We have begun to see pictures of refugee camps blanketed with snow and children wearing painfully thin sweaters. Can you tell us what living conditions are like for Syrian refugees at the moment?

Well, here in Lebanon, it is dire. In fact, UNICEF officials say that 10,000 children are at risk because of this freezing cold. Inside Syria, an activist group posted videos of eight children - mostly infants - who froze to death. This is the worst winter storm in decades. Even here in Beirut last night, we walked home in a freezing hailstorm. Now, we're on the coast. Syrian refugees living in higher altitudes, they're trudging through the snow looking for anything to burn to keep warm.

Aid agencies have been preparing for the winter for the past few weeks. Why have they not been able to get warm clothing, if not at least heat, to a lot of the refugees?


The parallels between the two men were extraordinary, and, of course, I didn't know that when I started researching the story. But every step of the way, there was something else that was a mirror image. They both pursued lofty goals in childhood. They both suffered love and loss as young men. They both lost their wives and were left with infant daughters at very young ages. They both embraced public service, and they both emerged as leaders. And the thing is that in another more enlightened time, they could've held the other's job.

It is also interesting. We mentioned Frederick Douglass, obviously the first generation of African-American leaders in this country. He met with President Lincoln, was - discussed the race issue several times during the Civil War with him, and it is Booker T.  Washington who sort of picks up the mantle, along with W.  E.  B. Du Bois.

They did. But it was interesting to me that Booker T.  Washington and Du Bois came from completely different positions. Slavery was not a concept to Booker T.  Washington. He lived it. Whereas Du Bois grew up in Massachusetts and had a - was born free and had a completely different experience. It was really Booker T.  Washington's mission to lead his people out of slavery. He was actually called the Negro Moses, and it was Du Bois' mission to lead them into the 20th century. If they had been able to work together in concert, I think that what they would've achieved would've been remarkable.

Yet they had tensions, well, I think, that continue to this day.


I never had an apartment before, so just finally having my own place. And it was magical. It was gorgeous - beautiful tub. I never could use the tub because I was afraid of the roaches.

So unfortunately there's always like pros and cons to that, but it was mine. And I loved it like it was my baby. And I still miss that apartment even though there is bug issues. I miss it.

Well, it made me wonder why there aren't more songs like that in R&B. I mean, R&B is very dominated by relationships - right?- sex, relationships songs. But it does - it did make me wonder, why aren't there more songs about other milestones in R&B?Like, why is that?

Well, first of all, I'm thankful that people love new apartments so much because I always feel like my comfort zone is writing about romance and sex. But I think there's this narrative that the world just wants to hear about simple things and - or just extreme, like, sadness. I've just been broken up with or something like that.


Thanks for having me, Scott.

Let me begin with what's being called the tarmac summit. Bill Clinton, Attorney General Lynch happened to be at the Phoenix airport at the same time. And Bill Clinton arranged a private meeting, lasted about half an hour, with the attorney general. Your old colleague, David Axelrod, tweeted, quote, "I take Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton at their word that their convo in Phoenix didn't touch on probe. But foolish to create such optics. "How helpful was it for Hillary Clinton, who's so widely seen as untrustworthy, to have her spouse meet with the attorney general while she's under investigation by the Justice Department?

I can't imagine there's one person in America, including in the Clinton campaign, who thinks that was helpful (laughter). But I - look, I think if Bill Clinton had to do it over again he probably wouldn't have walked over to the plane, seeing all the follow-up from the last couple days.

Does it raise a question about what you do with Bill Clinton during the campaign because he is, certainly on the one hand, often called the most talented politician of the modern era. On the other hand, you know, he's got a history of mischief.


Yeah. The embassy guards, it's kind of a, you know, a misperception. In any embassy they essentially protect the chancellery in the embassy and the ambassador's residence itself, and particularly to, you know, you get them into a safe place if there is an attack or to - and if that fails, to destroy the classified material and so forth.

They're not responsible for the overall external or internal security of the embassy compound per se. They can augment that and they have if necessary, but there is a diplomatic security mission that does that sort of thing, and then - obviously which didn't happen on this case. You're hoping that you've got a competent external protection from the host nation, which is responsible for the safety of the entire compound.

We're talking with retired Marine Colonel Gary Anderson about lessons learned from before and during the attack in Benghazi. You're listening to TALK OF THE NATION from NPR News.

And any number of recommendations were made by the Pickering Mullen report. As you look at those, are they going to address the kinds of interagency communications problems that you're worried about?


The White House and the state of California are in the middle of a war over auto emissions. Now 17 automakers are calling for a truce. They want the two sides to reach a compromise on emission standards. The automakers' proposal offers a middle ground between existing Obama-era standards and the Trump administration's announced rollbacks of those standards. NPR's Camila Domonoske has been following this and is in the studio with us this morning. Thanks for coming in.

Yeah, happy to be here.

First, just describe the nature of this standoff. How did it come to be?

Right. So during the Obama administration, the White House set these ambitious targets for fuel economy, basically saying that year over year, cars on average should get more miles per gallon as a way to reduce the contribution to climate change. So these targets were set through 2025 with specific goals every year. The Trump administration wants to freeze those targets at 2020 levels. So basically, instead of getting more efficient over time, cars could stay about where they are now.


Indeed. And on that note, let's get to some of what are listeners had to say, shall we?So Kyle Smith(ph) writes, "As a person of color and a news junkie, I've really come to depend on this show to offer more of a rounded view on current events. The show is truly a lifeline for me during a day that is color-deprived. "And Sharon Oshalle(ph), just to give some indication of the kind of listeners we have, says, "I'm a white, 40-year-old woman, and News & Notes is the only window I have into the perspective that it offers. In my white suburban world, all I get of black perspective are MTV and the Philadelphia City News. It's refreshing to tune in to News & Notes and see other sides of the culture. Isn't that what public radio is all about?Giving voice to different types of people so we can all appreciate each other. "And as you said, you know, some kudos for you, too. Aaron Coleman(ph)= says this, "I absolutely love me some Farai Chideya. Somebody find her a venue. Journalists of her caliber need voice because ears are starving. "

That's beautiful.

Yeah. And we also have some response from listeners who want to know what they can do to help. Monica McClendon(ph) asks, "Can you guys move to a less costly area?The South has all kinds of options. "So I don't know about starting the day with a biscuit and some sweet tea, but…

Mmm, not a bad option.


And of course we speak this week on a week in which the city of Baltimore has been undergoing a lot of restiveness, including injuries and arrests. What do you make of the fact that you've got Wednesday's ballgame played at Camden Yards, but no audience?

I think that's a shame. Much like how after 9/11 I didn't think they should've called the ballgames off, I thought they should still have baseball being played. I think baseball helps people heal. It changes things. Look at Jackie Robinson, what that did for the civil rights movement. I can speak for my family when they came over from Poland at the turn-of-the-century. They combined with other immigrant kids and they all learned baseball because that was one thing that brought everybody together.

Gary Cieradkowski - his new book, "The League of Outsider Baseball. "Thanks so much for being with us.

Thank you, Scott.


I think the - the city will continue as it is. It's still the heart of all economic activity, of business. The plan to move the capital of Jakarta somewhere else is nearly 60 years old. The first Indonesian president, I think, in 1957 already came up with plans. In fact, they build a city in another part of Indonesian Borneo that was going to be the new capital.

Now, that didn't happen. But - so these plans are - have been around for a long time, and this has also got to do with taking the center of Indonesia's power, which is now concentrated on the island of Java, more centrally to Indonesia.

So the proposed new location in Borneo - is that a better choice for a capital?

It's not too bad. I've lived in the area for quite some time. There is tropical rainforest, and the government has emphasized that they want this to be a really green development. There's going to be no deforestation. There's going to be very smart planning. Of course, environmentalists like myself are concerned about what is going to happen once you move a million people into a relatively sparsely part of Indonesian Borneo. That likely will have significant impacts on the environment.


Well, the committee report - it's not unexpected - but the draft reports thus far says that the impeachment committee believes Democratic Governor Rod Blagojevich has abused his power. Quoting from the report, "The citizens of this state must have confidence that the governor will faithfully serve the people and put their interests before his own. It is with profound regret that the committee finds that our current governor has not done so. "

It's quite voluminous. It's 60 pages or so of documentation of things beyond just what the federal prosecutor in Chicago has alleged that the governor has done, many reasons to impeach him beyond just the alleged criminal activity that he has been arrested and charged with.

Now, is there a rush to do this before - to possibly impeach the governor before Mr.  Burris would be seated as the junior senator from Illinois?

The report is drafted without Burris' testimony. To consider, they would add it to it, I suppose, if he says something remarkable this afternoon. But they seemed to feel that they have enough evidence to move forward with the impeachment. The rush is really to just get him out of office before they have to grapple with a huge budget deficit here in the state of Illinois. The relationship between the Legislature and the governor has been dysfunctional for quite some time, and it's only gotten worse since his arrest last month.


One person called them old guard reactionaries who are grabbling for crumbs from the table. Another called them seat warmer saying they have nothing new to offer. And that led to a larger conversation about Obama's support among blacks where black folks stand on the Democratic Party.

And we are in good old Black History Month now. Of course, we are black 365 days a year.

That's right.

But from what I've read on our blog, not everybody thinks the black history month is a good idea.


Hey, Lulu.

For those of you who love esports, bear with us. But there is a segment, I'm sure, among our listeners who don't know what esports is. So tell us, what is it?

It's basically people that play video games competitively. It's more than just your son or daughter sitting in their basement playing video games. Last year, Madison Square Garden sold out two nights in a row. Tickets cost about $50 in order to watch a video gaming competition.

So let's talk about esports, the business of esports. It's been described as the next big thing. How big is the sport right now?How big do you think it could get?


The problem is 90 percent of space in our military is in the Air Force. So what we're basically going to be doing is taking the current infrastructure - for example, Space Command in Colorado Springs will become the headquarters for the Space Corps. We're talking about taking the people that we need to take that deal with space and segregating them into a culture that appreciates them.

The Air Force has pushed back on this. The Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said, quote, "the Pentagon is complicated enough. This will make it more complex, add more boxes to the organization chart and cost more money. "Is she wrong?

She's absolutely wrong. The bureaucracy is always going to fight reform - always, especially the Pentagon. They're fighting this because they don't want Congress meddling. You know, what I've told her is, in 16 years, the Air Force has not changed a thing. And they've got us in this situation now where Russia and China have become near peers. They're close to surpassing us. What we're proposing would change that.

I think what some people would say is that we are cooperating with the Russians on the International Space Station. Should space be the new frontier of warfare, or should it actually be a place where, indeed, these cooperations flourish?After all, we are all on one planet.


(Laughter) There might be. You know, they're a team that plays an entertaining brand of hockey. Their head coach, John Tortorella, is entertainment in and of himself, sometimes a blustery, yelling guy. So there is something scrappy about this team. And there's also something scrappy about this franchise. They've been around for a very long time, and this is the first time that they've even won three games in a playoff series.

Can they keep this going?

I think so. There's no reason that this team can't beat anybody if they can beat one of the single greatest hockey teams in the regular season that the NHL has ever seen in over a hundred years.

Greg Wyshynski is senior NHL writer for ESPN and co-host for the fantastically named Puck Soup podcast. Thank you for speaking with us.


I have - I guess it's a practical question because I'm remembering a number of executions that were stalled because there's been this shortage of drugs available to carry out executions. Has that changed?

It has not changed. But Attorney General Bill Barr says the Justice Department no longer wants to use that three-drug cocktail. Instead, he says, Justice is going to follow the protocol already deployed by states like Georgia and Texas. They use just one of those drugs. And Bill Barr says that method has been upheld by federal courts already, so he says it's not out of line with the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

And, Carrie, this decision by the federal government would seemed to run counter to what we're actually watching happen in a number of states, isn't that right?

Exactly. Across the country, the population on death row in states has been shrinking for many years. There were just 25 executions last year. They seem to happen more often in southern states. And the Justice Department says it now takes on average more than 20 years between a state death sentence and an actual execution. So in many states, people are dying of natural causes before they can be executed.


I think it's a story that can stick with you for many different reasons. If you leave a film, if you put down a book, and there is something that you didn't know before or something that has informed you about the world you live in that you care about but you didn't know before - if you can walk away from any kind of story with that, I think that's the goal of storytelling. I believe this is a film that does that.

And so that's what I love about this film - is it really has moved people. And it's become more, I think, socially important today than it was when we made it. There's been a lot more attention being given to Indigenous and Native American people within our country since we made the film. And there is also this whole epidemic that every day, we're learning more about men in power and sexual assault. And those are what this film is about in a very specific story.

Elizabeth Olson, speaking with us from Atlanta. Thanks so much for being with us.

Thanks for having me.


I'm bullish on it. It's a big change. We're working through all the challenges. One challenge is for creators. They use Instagram to make a living. Likes are a sign of how relevant they are, so we have to figure out some way to make sure we preserve that.

You're talking about influencers. Right?I mean, there are people who now essentially make a living off of their social media presence. And the way they show potential advertisers - look, I'm a good bet - is how many likes I get.

Absolutely. We've actually had a pretty mixed response from influencers. So I think - I'm optimistic to answer your question very directly. We aren't there yet. We're still iterating on the experience. But I am personally optimistic and really personally invested in making it work.

So the boss is bullish. (Laughter) That's the take so far.


Good morning.

The White House - rather, the House and the Senate worked out the differences between their tax bills. What are some of the highlights of this final legislation?

There are big cuts for corporations in here, also for pass-through businesses, where owners pay taxes as an individual. There are individual tax cuts. Those by and large go more toward wealthy earners. And those tax cuts will expire in 2025. But Republicans made a calculation here that whoever's in control of Congress next decade will not be super thrilled to raise taxes on a lot of voters. So that's that.

I think it's worth noting that Republicans all along sold this as not just tax cuts but a simplification of the tax code. You heard President Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan say, you can file your taxes on a postcard. By and large, they did not simplify the tax code here. There are still seven brackets. There's still a lot of deductions, a lot of loopholes, a lot of language. So. . .

Five hundred pages.


On Boylston Street. That's right.

And how close to the finish line are we talking about?

I believe it's just about a block and a half. But I don't have that right in front of me. I believe it's about a block and a half.

OK.  And we're obviously going to bring more details of - from ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I imagine your phone is ringing off the hook as you try to get more details as well. So Tovia Smith, anything - last word to leave with us on what we know about what happened in Boston?


And then - yeah, Barack Obama has a sort of different place in the…

Sure.

…stratosphere.

He has political legitimacy in a way that neither Sharpton nor Jackson enjoy. Jesse Jackson was the lineman who get the ugly, brutal work in the trenches of American racial warfare to open up a space for Barack Obama to be graceful and nimble as he - as a running back, so speak, with the football, that the highest prize of American political life - hopefully, people who support him believe - the presidency of the United States, so he is able to run with that goal in mind with grace and aplomb because Jesse Jackson did the heavy lifting and brutal, nasty, bloody work, and others to be sure.


Treasury will decide whether the auto industry deserves this $17. 4 billion in bailout funds, whether or not that loan should be called in or extended. What will happen between now and then?

Two things have to happen. First, the Treasury and the Obama administration have to make some key decisions about what a viable automaker looks like and whether GM or Chrysler fit that profile. There's a lot of debate about in a market of 10 million vehicles a year in the United States whether there's enough room for both of these companies to survive. On the other side, the automakers have to show that they're making progress on their plans.

We know that they're probably going to announce some deep job cuts and plant closures tomorrow. They have to make some more progress with bond holders, with suppliers, and dealers. There's a lot of moving pieces that keep going in through March 31st. And by that time, it's possible we'll have to see some very key decisions made.

Justine Hyde covers the auto industry for the Detroit Free Press. Thank you, Justin.


So I can't say anything definitive. But my understanding is that Mr.  Mueller basically laid out, here are the elements. As you read in the introduction, we can't conclude it wasn't obstruction, and we're essentially turning it over to Congress to look at that and, I must say, to the voters; ultimately, I think the voters in 2020 are going to be the people that decide what was right and wrong in this case.

Now, there was an interesting point in the press conference today with Attorney General Bill Barr. He defended his conclusion that there was no obstruction by pointing out that the president has at times been very cooperative in this investigation - he provided access to documents, he let his senior aides testify freely. Let me ask you, does that mean in your mind that the president could not have had a corrupt intent?

Well, I think, you know, he was sort of cherry-picking the evidence. We know, for example, that the president wanted to dismiss Mr.  Mueller, wanted to shut down the investigation, wanted Attorney General Sessions to unrecuse himself to take control of the situation. We know that when he first heard of the investigation, he leaned back in his chair and said, this could be the end of my presidency. And so I don't - I mean, clearly, there was cooperation. Although, on one of the very major aspects, the president refused to testify or his lawyers, anyway, refused to testify.

Do you think it was a mistake of Robert Mueller not to have subpoenaed the president to sit down for an interview?


You know, the liveliest speculation game in Washington right now is playing Rexit (ph), guessing the day that Rex Tillerson exits the Cabinet. He was first suggested to Bush - suggested by Bush officials. He was not a Trump crony. And the Bush officials had little use for Trump. And Tillerson was accepted by Trump despite the fact that he had little use for former Bush officials. So this was not a marriage made in heaven. And at the moment, it promises to be a mercifully brief marriage.

Bob Corker of Tennessee Senate, head of the Senate foreign relations committee, said, quote, "I think Secretary Tillerson, Secretary Mattis and chief of staff Kelly are those people that help separate our country from chaos. "That is not a ringing endorsement of executive leadership, is it?

No. And the question is, from whence cometh this chaos?Is it something that the president can't protect us from?Or is the chaos, in a sense, the responsibility of this palace guard because it's coming from inside the palace itself?

And president had dinner with military families, called in photographers and said, maybe it's the calm before the storm. And when he was asked why, he said, you'll find out. What do you make of this?


Thank you so much for having me.

And why'd you want to do that?

It really all started with her five-year portraits. I'd been searching everywhere for a new creative inspiration. And no matter where I looked, so many of the ideas for the how-tos of how to dress your little girl - dress like a Disney princess. And don't get me wrong - I love Disney princesses. But, you know, they're just characters, a writer's tale of a princess. And it really got me thinking about the real women for our girls to look up to.

Were you hoping that your daughter would ask questions like, well, who is this Amelia Earhart?


And I thought, well, I want to be black and not just any black, but the coolest black in the world. And that's American black, you know, it's - yeah, it is. Or, as you guys call them, African-American, which is funny because they're not African. But we'll play along because. . .

As Trevor Noah tours the country, he tweaks his routine for a new audience. Comedians, how do you translate your humor for different groups and different cultures?Give us a call: 800-989-8255. Email us: talk@npr. org. You can also join the conversation on our website. Go to npr. org, click on TALK OF THE NATION. Trevor Noah joins us here in a very hot tent at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Nice to have you with us today.

Thank you very much for having me.

And let me begin with the set up for a very old joke: How hot is it?


So the sport itself has given me countless opportunities. And for me, the reason why I'm so interested in doing this, it's sort of like my way of giving back, in a sense. You know, I'm going places with the javelin and it's helping me out and probably going to get me into a nice school. So why not give back?And I feel like if I have to do this research project at my school, why not do it on something that I like?

Yeah. I'm just going to guess you've heard from some people that know somebody who was injured by a javelin who've said there's no need for this sport?

Honestly, I haven't. I mean, I know there are some people that have gotten injured and there are people that are against the implementation of the event. But personally, I do not know anybody that has been injured.

You know, Mr.  Christensen, there are people listening around the country I'm sure might point out that it seems easier to buy a gun in South Carolina than to throw a javelin in high school.


(Singing) Wasting this life, I only want me and you.

I read that you think some of the melodies that you sing now remind you of powwow songs. Is there a song on this new album that sounds that way to you?

So one of the songs that comes to mind is "Going To The Beach With Haley. "

(Singing) I feel what I'm like with you.


Last week, Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers reached a tentative deal with thousands of plaintiffs over those lawsuits and - which would've paid up, I guess, $3 billion out of their personal fortune. Why did most state attorneys general reject that deal?

Well, what they say, basically, Scott, is that Purdue Pharma and the Sacklers aren't paying enough under this deal. They think the family is worth around $13 billion. That's the Forbes family - the magazine estimate. And the vast majority of that came from pushing really aggressively to turn OxyContin into a bestselling drug. So these AGs want members of the family to cough up more of what they describe as ill-gotten gains.

I will say the family sent an email to NPR this week. They said the deal on the table will drain a lot of their personal wealth and mean them giving up Purdue Pharma, this company that they own outright.

What is it that New York's attorney general and her team say they found?


I don't know if I'm that much different than a journalist. I just - it's like a mystery that I want to solve that I think everybody's interested in solving. What has gone on and what is going on with Trump and his orbit of people he's dealt with over the years and ties to Russia and Ukraine and all these different matters?

Often when people are doing this kind of thing, they have fact checkers, and they have editors that go over their information, especially if you're a journalist. Do you have anyone that edits you or anyone that you work with that helps you verify the information?

There's some fact checking. But the interviews that I do, I publish them exactly as they're transcribed. I'm not writing an article, per se.

Can I ask you, has your shop - your restaurant, which is very well known here, helped you in your endeavor?Do people walk in to give you tips, try and contact you through that?


You know, one of the things - you know, getting back to your book, "The National Team" - one of the things that your book makes clear and what some people frankly might find shocking is just how early these issues started for women's soccer. I mean, there's something almost like on every other page about this. I'll just read one one paragraph. (Reading) While each player on the men's team got a $10,000 bonus for qualifying for the 1990 World Cup, the women received only a couple of T-shirts for qualifying for the 1991 Women's World Cup. The shirts featured the logo of Budweiser, a U. S.  Soccer sponsor. The players sarcastically call them their $5,000 T-shirts.

(Laughter).

OK. I just, you know - how has this been justified through the years?

You have to admire the sense of humor that the players had about it. You know, I think it would be unfair to sit here and say that it hasn't improved. But U. S.  Soccer - the women's national team started in 1985. The players were given uniforms that were clearly, like, leftover men's uniforms. And?The players before the first ever U. S.  Women's National Team game were up the night before sewing and cutting their uniforms so they would fit.


I should remind Americans that, in Britain, the prime minister normally controls the agenda in Parliament. He was blocked yesterday. What was it like to be on the floor for yesterday's vote?

Well, it was exciting. I mean, the chamber the House of Commons - I often take Americans around it. It's very different from Congress or the Senate. It's very confrontational. There are seats facing opposite each other, so you get to shout at each other. But, of course, in this instance, the fight was between people sitting on the same benches. So you kind of shout across at each other. It's also a very small chamber, a very intimate chamber. So in that sense, it adds to the drama.

Well, Prime Minister Johnson said he would expel you rebels from the Conservative Party. Did that happen overnight?Are you no longer a member of the Conservative Party?

Yeah. He's been true to his word. I have lost what we call the whip. So we're not members of the Conservative Parliamentary Party, we're independent MPs, which has been forced on us rather than a choice made by us.


I asked Groff, who you will know from her own short story collection "Florida" and her novel "Fates And Furies" - I asked her how Nancy Hale went from someone with dozens and dozens of stories in The New Yorker to someone we forgot about.

You know, I don't know definitively. It's very hard to tell. I think part of it is that her stories are very quiet and very elegant, and she's possibly not fashionable at the moment - her style of writing. But I find her incredibly fascinating. She creates these lines that are full of a humming electricity. And her structures are so deep and so thoughtful that you don't really understand what you're reading until maybe a couple of days later when you realize exactly the craft that went into creating her short stories.

And they span the gamut. Some of them are highly lyrical. Other ones are satirical and very funny. So we did put together this collection of 25 short stories. They're all interesting in their own way. And you can sort of see the development of a writer over the course of decades.

Right. No, absolutely. You can feel - she's obviously, as you would expect, writing very different things than - in her later years than she was as a very young writer. How did you pick the stories that you landed on out of the many, many ones she wrote?


I just wonder if we could close by you just telling me a few things about Jason, what you remember most fondly about him.

When I think about Jason, I think about his smile. He was a beautiful child. And the worst thing about this whole situation is I know in my heart he shouldn't be dead. It is horrible that we lose the soldiers that we have to; it's a tragedy when we lose a soldier that we shouldn't have, and Jason shouldn't be dead.

Chris Scheuerman, talking about his son Jason, who committed suicide in Iraq in 2005. In the 13 months since we first talked, Chris has continued to advocate for suicide prevention in the military. He testified on Capitol Hill and recently spoke at a Department of Defense conference on suicide prevention. We asked the Army for a comment on Jason Scheuerman's case when we first aired this story, and this is the written statement they sent.

(Reading) The loss of any member of the Army family is a tragedy, and suicide prevention is a top priority for the U. S.  Army. The 2005 death of Private First Class Jason Scheuerman was investigated thoroughly by his unit and by the U. S.  Army Criminal Investigation Command. In fact, the Associated Press's story about his 2005 death is based on the Army's comprehensive investigations. We continue to work with and assist his family. We are continuously improving and adapting our training, intervention and support programs. The Army recognizes the importance of suicide prevention and is taking many steps to decrease those risks that may contribute to suicidal behavior. Our prevention efforts do help soldiers and their families deal with the wartime challenges they face every day.


My mother had a friend I called David in the essay. And he was a funny, charming man. And he always had clients around. He found them out of the state so they would live with him while they were going on auditions. And they seemed to have a lot of shirtless pictures of them around framed. That seemed to be the greatest bit of work that they did - were these shirtless pictures.

And each year, these boys would come and go, and they'd be between the ages of 12 and 16. And there was this feeling that my mother and I would sort of talk around. Is this weird?This is weird, right?No. No, it's David. It can't be weird. And I think there are a lot of people in Los Angeles dealing with that right now of people they have held in their heads where there's a little bit of a galvanic skin-crawly thing, but they also like this person.

Course, your article appeared as Anthony Rapp come forward with his charges against Kevin Spacey. Been a few more Kevin Spacey stories that have also come out since then. Without trying to judge the veracity of each and every story, what's the mix of ambition and vulnerability that makes child actors prey?

The same thing which puts women at risk in the business, which is economics. For children, there is a small window of opportunity in which a career is going to happen. You are not a child indefinitely. That makes people ripe for abuse.


He was very cordial. He shook my hand. He gave me the Klan handshake. He didn't know that I knew it was the Klan handshake, but he did give it to me. If you shake a person's hand and you extend your index and middle finger along their wrist - and as you pumping their hand, you start pressing your fingers in their wrist area. It's the Klan handshake.

The question that you wind up wrestling with, I think at the end of the book, is - well, let me put it this way - that the Klan and David Duke specifically are hateful and jerks is beyond dispute. You don't wind up with a lot of regard for their intelligence, which raises the question, how dangerous are they?

Very. When I say they are not the brightest, they were not the brightest light bulbs in the socket. The people I was dealing with were not. David Duke, in spite of his having - at that time, he had a master's degree in political science from Louisiana State University. I merely had a high school education and about 12 hours of college credit. So the very fact that he was being conned by somebody with a lower degree of education than him, I'll admit, I got a particular thrill out of that. But let nobody who reads my book think that these people because they weren't the brightest light bulbs in the socket were not and are not dangerous. They were very serious.

What do you think you learned about the KKK and racism and bigotry during those months?


. . . instead of across.

So what makes the rise now when that. . .

So the rise, yeah, you can do - it's what?2:30 on a Friday, you have a half drunk cup of coffee on your desk, just move it away from the computer, give it a stir and what you'll see, if you stir strong enough, that you'll develop a depression in the middle of the coffee cup, and it will rise up on the sides.

Right.


Well, look, I like the fact that we've eliminated pre-existing conditions. I think that's really important. But Ronald Reagan expanded Medicaid a number of times and he didn't need Obamacare, OK?And my feeling about Medicaid is we've been able to manage this program. And by bringing Ohio money back to Ohio to treat the mentally ill, the drug addicted and the working poor, it's not - we're not only ahead on an arithmetic basis, but we think it's the right issue in terms of giving people a chance and an ability to be lifted.

Biographical question - did you ever consider becoming a priest?

Well, when I was a kid, really early in my life, you know, all Catholic altar boys I think at one time or another thought about being a priest. But then that just wasn't in the cards for me.

But I gather religion is an important factor in your life.


Absolutely. I've had a wonderful experience getting to really collect a lot of the thoughts from this experience and interview a lot of my fellow soldiers and officers and found that I really enjoy collecting those interviews and collecting everyone's thoughts for pieces and putting them down into writing, and so I'd love to be able to continue that.

And I think it's a really interesting time in journalism. It's a tough time right now because we're sort of moving from the idea of print journalism and subscriptions into a lot of online readership. But from what I've read, readership online and viewership online is really skyrocketing. So now, you can get those stories out to a much larger audience, which I think will be a great and beneficial aspect in the next couple decades.

Yeah. Is there any area you want to focus on when you get back?Any particular subject matter?

Honestly, much to my mother's chagrin, I think I would like to come back to the Middle East and continue to cover a lot of the developments here, maybe Afghanistan, continue to cover a lot of our diplomatic efforts abroad.


And we start today's program with an Easter Sunday tragedy in Sri Lanka. Coordinated bombings this morning killed more than 200 people and wounded hundreds more. The explosions happened in churches and in hotels popular with tourists. NPR's Lauren Frayer has been monitoring the situation from Mumbai, India, and she joins us now on the line.

Hi, Lauren.

Hi, Sacha.

Could you tell us what more you know since this morning about these bombings?


Now, Republican Sen.  Jeff Sessions suggested - I guess - that Mr.  Lew, because he wrote the White House budget, might essentially lack the proper perspective. Is this going to harm him politically?

Well, Jeff Sessions is going to vote against him. But significantly, Sessions has not said whether he would put a hold on Lew's nomination, or lead a filibuster. And I think most betting in Washington is that Lew will be confirmed. He will not face significant opposition. It seems that Sessions' main problem with him is that he represents President Obama's budget policies - as he should, because he's working for the president.

Yeah. Of course, there's been a lot more objections voiced over the selection of Chuck Hagel, President Obama's choice for Defense secretary; questions raised about his depth of his commitment to Israel, policies towards containing Iran. Let's get an understanding - your understanding, at the moment, of where the opposition for that rests.

Well, first, the opposition is, obviously, with Republicans. They consider him an apostate. They think Hagel was a turncoat. He once talked about how the Jewish lobby intimidates people in Washington. They feel he's been squishy on Iran sanctions. He's said the Pentagon budget was bloated. He also was a loner, when he was in the Senate, so he doesn't have a lot of deep friendships. He has been going on the offensive; giving a lot of interviews, trying to clarify his remarks, explaining how he is as strong on Israel and Iran as anybody else.


If Beijing could have its way, David, what do you think they would want to do with Hong Kong?What would they want from Hong Kong?

Well, we know they would like Hong Kong to basically focus on money and making money and not worry about politics at all. That was the model. I mean, it's a comparison that Beijing would hate. But the truth is they basically treat it like a colony. It used to be a British colony. It's now a colony of China. And like any well-behaved colony, you're meant to focus on getting rich, making money and not worry about politics.

And David, just briefly, what happens in 2047, 50 years after Britain hands Hong Kong back to China?What happens then?

Well, then the promise of one country, two systems falls away, but the truth is they're going to try and chip away as in all kinds of small and subtle ways before then. We're also going to see probably more mainland immigration into Hong Kong - would be one way of diluting Hong Kong's kind of will to resist. But let's not underestimate an amazing thing that happened. There is a piece of China that gets free press, that knows what's happening, that is allowed to protest - not allowed where I'm sitting in Beijing - and they said, no, and the government backed off. And that's an absolutely extraordinary thing that can only happen in Hong Kong.


She always continues to say throughout is public sentiment is everything. And at the time of the - of President Clinton's impeachment, while what he did was reprehensible, he was impeached for political reasons. I don't think - Democrats do not believe that they're going down this road for political reasons. This is not about politics. This is strictly about the Constitution and the right of Congress to do its job for the American people.

Can I ask you about her ability to deal with strong personalities?I mean, she's very often been one of the few women in the room. She's small in stature, but clearly, she has an ability to hold her own with big personalities, loud personalities. And was just wondering, you know, where does that come from?How does she do it?

Everyone always tries to underestimate her, but they've learned their lesson. And what she brings is she brings power, real power, whether as the Democratic leader where Republicans needed Democratic votes to pass certain things, whether the speaker of the House. Being speaker of the House provides an enormous amount of power. And I think all these men across the past and currently now know it and understand it. And they should never underestimate her.

What do you think is Speaker Pelosi's major skill as speaker?What do you think is the secret to her success as speaker?


Yeah. Well, our house never got flooded. We never lost power. We have this lifted Jeep because we like to go off-roading. We have this kayak because we like to go kayaking. All these tools that we had, we were fortunate enough to have. So we thought, why not?You know, these people need help. Not many people here are able to help them, so we did what we could.

What's it look like now?The water is receding, we're told, but there must be an awful lot left.

Oh, yeah. There's just devastation to all the homes. Power lines are down, broken by trees. Just devastation everywhere. I mean, mold in the homes is already setting in. Just everything is destroyed.

Alison, do you worry about some of the chemicals and the detritus that's left behind?


Good. So, you received about 8,500 questions in your Explainer inbox over the year, and it's your job to go through all of these and pick the ones that you then allow your readers to vote on for their top pick. Can you give us a sample of what's on the ballot?

Well, there's a wide range of questions. For example, one person asks, can an average person not in politics get a pardon from the president of the United States?

Good question.

Which is a - yeah, a question that we've actually gotten quite a few times, especially as Bush gets ready to leave office. But then this particular reader adds in parenthesis, possession of a forged instrument, October of 1989.


Absolutely. And there is a risk, from the government's point of view, that if they aren't seen to act, then the Bharatiya Janata Party, the BJP, which is a Hindu nationalist party which has been in power before, might appear to be a better option because it is tougher on this sort of subject.

Congress has not really got it together. They don't have a good national leader. And there isn't - the government isn't showing the drive and the command that the people are increasingly wanting.

John Elliott is a writer in Delhi, India. He writes for Fortune magazine, and he also keeps a blog called "Riding the Elephant. "Thank you, John.

Thanks very much.


And the other one is silencers or suppressors - a push to deregulate those devices. And that hasn't gone through. So the big ticket items that the NRA wants the NRA doesn't get. You mentioned at the top there this idea of strengthening background checks. I think it's important to be specific about what's under discussion there. There is bipartisan legislation. And what it would do would provide grants to the states to make sure that all of the records that show that a person is prohibited from owning a gun get into the databases that are scanned during a background check.

Mr.  Burnett, there's renewed interest on the sale of assault weapons. A ban went into effect in 1994. It expired 10 years later. Based on your reporting, what effect did that ban have?

There is some evidence - and we talk about assault - bans on assault-style weapons. What a lot of public safety experts say is the most meaningful piece of that is a restriction on how large the magazine - the ammunition magazine - that's basically how many rounds the gun can hold at one time, can be fired at one time before you have to reload.

Is there, in your mind, compelling evidence that the ban on assault weapons actually succeeded in banning assault weapons or reduced the supply or use of assault weapons and criminal activity?


I want to start with this relationship that is still taking shape between President Trump and Speaker Ryan. They got off to a rocky start. Have they settled into a relationship where they can actually get anything done?

No. But I think it's. . .

To be blunt.

That's all I have to say about that. No, it's an odd marriage. It's one that I don't think anybody - either party or any of the people around them - thought would happen. And so it's been uneasy from the beginning. I think the Obamacare repeal-and-replace debacle from last month really kind of put it into focus that these are two men who just don't have a lot of the same interests or motivations. And so next week is going to be interesting in terms of trying to get some of those agenda items through. I would put more money on getting the government funded than on any sort of health care bill.

But there's - it's a difficult relationship because they just don't see eye to eye on much. And - the president has an agenda he's trying to pass. The speaker is trying to corral 216 or so Republicans who all have different interests as well. There's just not a lot of communication between the two groups.


Sometimes economics are turned on their head. Now, for years, Britain has had controversial austerity measures in place. Olivier Blanchard, the International Monetary Fund's chief economist, likened them to playing with fire. This past week, the IMF published its World Economic Forecast and concluded the fastest-growing economy of any rich country in the world is Britain's. Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, led the U. K. 's austerity measures.

He didn't tell the IMF meeting in Washington, D. C.  this week, I told you so, but he did say that the government's plan succeeded despite warnings from some. We're joined by Simon Johnson. He's a former IMF chief economist. Thanks so much for being with us.

My pleasure.

Did the IMF get it wrong?What do you make of these figures?


Welcome to WEEKEND EDITION.

Thank you so much, Lulu, for having me.

This book is about a moon ceremony. So explain what that is and where it comes from.

Well, moon ceremonies are traditional gatherings that happen for women across the Americans. They date back to precolonial times. And they're ceremonies where women gather around the full moon or the new moon. And in this case, a moon ceremony for a young girl coming of age happens right after her first period, her first menstruation.


Well, you could say both. You know, in 2010, the parent company declared bankruptcy. There's significant debt surrounding and hanging over National Enquirer's parent company. But you can't separate this from the scandals. The Washington Post, in its reporting, claims that the hedge fund manager who's sort of controlling owner now of American Media says that he's disgusted by what he's learned. This is not really anything new for the Enquirer, but don't forget the legal trouble the Enquirer has been in. You know, it got dragged into the investigation of Michael Cohen and others. It had to, essentially, negotiate with prosecutors in order to avoid prosecution. And indeed, the Bezos scandal may raise the legal stakes once more.

I mean, we've probably all joked at the grocery store checkout stand, like, looking at the headlines - who would ever buy the National Enquirer?Well, now it's like a more serious question. Who would buy the National Enquirer?

Well, you know, in a straight world, you might say TMZ, the digital gossip site. It's hard to know. It's a damaged brand. It is a notable brand. Somebody may buy it as a plaything, or there's been speculation Jeff Bezos would want to strangle it, buy it and put it out. . .

Wow. That would be. . .


Thanks, Scott.

First, these current attacks. Based on reporting, is there a particular source for attacks against Orthodox Jews?

Well, it seems to be happening often from people who live in the neighborhood. We don't know that much about the perpetrators. What we do know is that people that live in Crown Heights don't tend to be white supremacists. And to judge from the footage of many of these attacks, at least some of the perpetrators seem to be young black men or teenagers. And perhaps that's one of the reasons that so many people want to avert their eyes from what's happening in places like Crown Heights.

Are they street assaults and robberies or hate crimes?Where are the lines in something like this?

Well, all we know is that the people that are being attacked are the most publicly, visibly Jewish people. And they're incredibly violent. Given that this has been happening in the city, there's been a sort of curious lack of interest on the part of New Yorkers, on the part of the mayor, on the part of the governor. Imagine if a spate of crimes had happened in a pattern like this against another minority - what the reaction would be.

Has there also been a national increase in anti-Semitic crimes?


I remember one moment where you're asking, when do you think about race?And someone said, right now.

Like, you know, this is a hey, we're on the spot. At certain points, people are accused, people in the media, of overemphasizing our differences. Were they afraid of being misrepresented?

Some were and some weren't. There was a lawyer who participated in some of the discussions. He is a registered Republican. And when the local paper did a story about our series of conversations, they identified him as a white Republican, and he said when he saw that in the paper, it was jarring for him, because he never thought of himself being described in that way. He said, I've never thought of myself having a label affixed to my name, and it was really uncomfortable for me. And when he was saying this, there were several people in the coloring room who were nodding their heads saying, well, welcome to our world.

Speaking of welcome to our world, one thing I've noticed is that, you know, we talk about black folks, we talk about white folks. There's no question that you have to talk about blackness. But you've also included people who were not black and not white. So how do you think Latinos and Asians in particular are faring in this election in terms of feeling represented or sought out or given their say?


What are the problems in getting aid to arrive?

You know, and it's interesting to note - it's been, like, a week for a lot of these people because on Monday people started going into these shelters as it moved there. So, you know, for the people that are there, it's feeling really like it's been a long time.

There are still a lot of roads that are blocked going into some of these areas. These are remote areas. Some of them only had one road to begin with. Trees are down. Power lines have fallen across, so those are blocked. You know, they need to get the bulldozers in there in terms of clearing those roads so that access can actually get in there. So that is actually the biggest hold up in reaching what were really the hardest hit parts of Haiti.

And there must be concern about the spread of Zika, malaria, cholera and other diseases.


Thank you. Good to be here.

Let's start with that refugee situation in Jordan. The current foreign minister says the country is being strained. There are reports that the fleeing is expected to continue. Do you expect Jordan will eventually have to close the border?

I don't think Jordan will close the border. Jordan has been in such a situation before, if you remember during the first Gulf crisis and then the second one where large numbers of Iraqis, third country nationals came to Jordan, fleeing the conflict. And as a general policy, Jordan has never closed its borders. That does not mean that it is not being tasked by these large number of refugees, but I don't think and I don't expect the borders to be closed.

And that issue of strain then, how badly are Jordan's resources being tasked?


OK. So we have the union's version, maybe a little bit less from GM's side. But in any case, no doubt that they don't have a deal and people are still on strike. So what have you seen and heard when you go out and talk to workers?

Well, workers are now being forced to live off of $250 a week in strike pay. That is not enough to cover many of their bills. For many of them, they're in a tight spot financially. But most people I've talked to are still very committed to the strike, say that this is something that needed to happen. They say they want protections for temporary workers, and they're willing to hold out, at least for now. And so that's what I'm hearing on the line.

I want to make sure that I understand this argument about temporary workers. This is essentially temps who are being hired in a way that they're actually permanent workers, but they're just not paid the same and not protected the same way as a full-time UAW member and full-time GM employee?

Yeah. The pay is less. The pay is less than $16 an hour, which is not a whole lot more than, say, an Amazon warehouse worker would make. And temporary workers can be basically fired at any time. They don't have long-term protections. And so what the rank-and-file members that have more permanent status, have higher wage, say is that this is just no way for a person to live, no way for a worker to live.


Basically. Well, what hydrogen does is at soon as it escapes into the atmosphere it starts bonding with whatever it can find. You know either hydrocarbons or oxygen to create water or whatever. It doesn't sit in the environment once it leaks out, for example, out of a tank or whatever. It doesn't sit there, you know, waiting for something to happen. It moves very quickly, where as something like gasoline by comparison, does not do that.

How do you compare in terms of, you know, environmental impact and cost these developing hydrogen cars to hybrids like the Toyota Prius?

We'll, we're seeing things like the Prius that are already on the road and there are a number of other hybrids. We're developing a hybrid which will be on the road next year as well. Hydrogen is still in the development phase and so we're still a ways away from having vehicles on the road. So it's a little tough to make a direct cost comparison. I mean, the fleet of 100 hydrogen-powered seven series cars we've got on the road now were obviously very expensive to develop and to build just because of their very unique nature.

Who's your market?I mean, BMW is known a very quality brand, but that also means that your price point is probably above that of a lot of working folks who are commuters. So who do you find is your market?


The charges are wire fraud, aiding and abetting and lying to the FBI. Now, the Department of Justice called this a brazen bribery scheme in a letter that came out today with the indictment. According to them, it involves a wealthy businessman, two of his associates and, as you mentioned, Robin Hayes. He's a former five-term congressman and currently still as of this moment leads the state Republican Party.

The indictment lays out in some very specific detail what amounts to an effort to gain favorable treatment from the state Department of Insurance. And allegedly the businessman, this man named Greg Lindberg, offered millions of dollars to the state insurance commissioner. His name's Mike Causey - the commissioner - who is also an elected Republican. And what they wanted - the business folks - in return were looser regulations and some control over personnel within the state Department of Insurance.

How did the alleged fraud come to light?

Well, according to federal prosecutors, it was the insurance commissioner himself, Causey, who had just been on the job for a few weeks, maybe a month or two who came to them in 2017. He had concerns about what he perceived were illegal campaign contributions, and he agreed to cooperate with them if there was an investigation. And of course there was this investigation. And it's unclear exactly what mechanism was used, but there are direct quotes throughout this indictment - phone conversations, in-person correspondence. So a lot of what is alleged to have happened in this conspiracy appears to in some form or fashion have been recorded.


Well, first of all, you have to question your decision as to whether or not you're at the end of the road. You're in the road if somebody's hitting on you, no doubt about it, you're at the end of the road. But you have to really question, am I at the end of the road?Or am I just at the beginning of a road where I need help. You need to go to a marriage counselor to make sure that decision needs to be made.

In this current economic situation where houses have lost value, I mean, it's unique in that sense, sometimes, and that's usually the biggest asset that anybody has, that has, and there's been a study done on it recently, compelled people who would otherwise divorce to stay together. So once you have, made a decision that economically, it is not feasible, you have to make it emotionally reasonable, and you have to do something to address the emotional issues that you have because you simply cannot get out.

If you just had one sentence of advice for someone who really does think that they've reached the end of the road, but the other person in the relationship says no, we haven't. What would you say to that person?

Go to a marriage counselor. Go to a third party and work it because you don't know where it went wrong, probably.


A lot of my time will be really spent spreading the good word about restorative justice. I also really want to deepen my understanding and lifting up of the indigenous roots from which much of restorative justice comes from and sort of the original teachings that come from Mennonite communities and my own faith tradition - the Tibetan system of justice prior to Chinese occupation - and so the roots in Buddhism there. These are the things that I think I'm really excited about having some time and space to research and learn more about. How do we bring these teachings and these learnings into our secular practices of justice-making in the United States?This seems like a good use of the time.

Well, congratulations. Keep us posted on what you do next. We can't wait to hear.

Thank you so much.

That's sujatha baliga. She is the director of the Restorative Justice Project at the Impact Justice Research Center in Oakland. This week, she became one of the latest recipients of the MacArthur Fellowship - the so-called Genius Grant - for her work in the area of restorative justice. Sujatha baliga, thanks so much for talking to us.


Do we know what was in these emails?What were they about?

It was basically a whole range of emails - the fast-moving events of the Arab Spring, Afghanistan, the war in Syria. One person told me that emails in question were summaries of cell phone conversations with foreign ministers that wanted to get urgent messages passed along to Hillary Clinton. So, you know, remember, it's cell phone conversations, so not on a very secure line.

One key point to tease out here is that the material here was not classified at the time the emails were sent, right?They were - it was retroactively classified.

That's right, and that's the big question that a lot of these diplomats have. You know, they were a dinner conversation with a bunch of foreign officials or with a bunch of foreigners, and they were writing back to this. Why would that be classified now?And that's a question that a lot of these people are having - why they were retroactively classified. And by the way, I should mention that some were told that they were retroactively classified in 2015, 2016, before the Trump administration came to office. Others didn't know when theirs were retroactively classified.


One has to wonder why this had not surfaced before and wondered, too, if it might be connected to those controversial remarks that Sarah just referred to that he made last week with regard to abortion. That may have caused this to come to the surface in a way that in his political career heretofore - he was just elected governor in 2017 - it never did.

Ron, they're going to be 22 people at any one time on the field in the Super Bowl tomorrow. There might be more Democrats running for president than people in the Super Bowl tomorrow. In fact, you're going to announce an exploratory committee, aren't you?

(Laughter) I'm just going to go on a listening tour, Scott.

All right.

You know, Cory Booker is the latest Democrat to get in, but most of the conversation this last week was about Howard Schultz, who calls himself a longtime Democrat - lifelong Democrat - but who is talking about running as an independent.


I have many objections. I do want to say, I think whistleblowing is a very important function in democracy. The problem I'm seeing increasingly is that instead of careful curated whistleblowing that takes public interest into account, what we are seeing is these mass-hacked emails just being dumped without any consideration for the privacy of the people.

And there's a lot of personal information that is being exposed. What this does - and this is what scares me - is that this method is going to be used in the future to any political organization - dissident organizations - that are trying to challenge power. And what they're going to end up seeing is that their personal information is going to be dumped for the world.

It looks like the method that started as a way to bring more challenge to secretive elites is actually now evolving into a method that is going to be very destructive to the ecology of dissent.

Professor, I'm sure write dumb emails every day. But I was told a number of years ago by a lawyer - and I'll bet Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin have been told this by high-price lawyers, too - you never write an email that you wouldn't be willing to see on the front page of The New York Times.


Yeah, a big one.

Arguably, a full-time job outside the White House. So it's hard to see him fulfilling the in-house advisory role of the NSA. And critics are going to call Bolton's departure another high-profile example of how the Trump White House is basically a one-man show with occasional guest stars. But on substance, that quarreling you referred to, Bolton and the president clashed because Bolton wanted to aggressively confront U. S.  adversaries around the world. And the president seems more focused at this point on domestic politics and his reelection year.

Let's talk about the third Democratic debate, this one in Houston. Just 10 candidates this time. How do you think it compared to the previous shows?

From the consumer standpoint, there was improvement, Scott. You still had more contestants than are comfortable for a TV quiz show screen. But at least you knew these were the real contenders and not so many career builders and people bolstering their brands. The show was too long at three hours, but the format seemed relatively brisk. The candidates got to respond and engage. Also, the ABC moderators asked good questions and then stood back to let the candidates speak and interact, yet they never lost control of the proceedings and never actually intruded on them, either.


Yes, particularly when we were starting out science at the beginning of - I think what you would call middle school, about age 12. This, of course, was the mid-1950s. And in Britain at that time, girls were only expected to get married and keep house. So instead of getting a chance to go the science laboratory, we got directed to the domestic science room to learn cookery and needlework.

And how did you fight your way into the science classes?

My protestations weren't heard. But when I told my parents that first evening, they were extremely angry. And I think the headmaster's telephone got a little hot.

(Laughter) And then you went to university. And I also read that, you know, you would get cat-called and that it was not a very friendly environment for women.


Controversies erupted around a condolence call made by President Trump to a grieving widow whose husband died in armed service to the United States. The president called Myeshia Johnson, widow of the late Sergeant La David Johnson who was one of four soldiers killed in an ambush this month in an operation in Niger. His body was found nearly a mile from the scene of the fight. And Sergeant Johnson is being laid to rest today. The call of the president to a widow seems to be remembered differently by everyone involved. We're joined now by Seth Moulton. He's a retired Marine Corps officer and a Democrat who represents northeast Massachusetts in Congress. Mr.  Moulton, thanks so much for being with us.

It's good to be here.

Representative Frederica Wilson of Florida said that the president upset a soldier's widow when he told her he knew what he signed up for. If I can follow this, she's been criticized by both the president and his chief of staff, General John Kelly - also a Gold Star father - for politicizing the issue, in their judgment. General Kelly said that phrase was one he suggested to the president because it had been said of Robert Kelly, the general's son, when he died.

Is it possible that everyone is just misunderstanding each other at a stressful time?


The federal investigations looming over the Trump administration kicked into high gear this past week, yielding legal consequences for not one but four of his associates. Former campaign Chairman Paul Manafort was convicted on eight counts in federal court while, at virtually the same time, Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty and implicated the president. Add to that news that prosecutors reached immunity deals with two Trump allies - David Pecker, the publisher of the National Enquirer, and Allen Weisselberg, chief financial officer of The Trump Organization. To sort through what all this means, I'm joined by Anne Milgram, a former state and federal prosecutor and former attorney general of New Jersey. Welcome to the program.

Thanks for having me.

And let's talk about that immunity. Prosecutors have worked out deals to get cooperation from at least these two men that we know about. What's the upshot of that?

So the upshot with Pecker, I think, could be enormous for the government in terms of getting evidence about Donald Trump. We understand that he had - he's friends with Trump for 20 years or more and that they've had a long relationship. What I think is one of the most interesting questions here is not just that he's cooperated related to the Cohen piece but also what other evidence he may have. Were there other deals made?Were there other stories that they caught and killed, as they say in the business, where they pay people to not actually publish a story and not have it go public?So that, I think, is particularly interesting.


Lawrence Bartley was 17 when he was convicted of second-degree murder. He spent the next 27 years in New York state prison until he was granted parole last year. Now he's on the staff of the news organization The Marshall Project. He has created a criminal-justice-focused print publication to distribute in prisons around the country. It's called News Inside. Lawrence Bartley, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.

Thank you for having me.

Before we dive into the publication, I want to ask about your own story. A year ago, you were in Sing Sing. Now you are in New York City working for a national media organization. What's that been like for you?

It's absolutely mind-blowing, you know?Learning the hustle and bustle of the city and the train system and the technology has been a challenge at first. But I gave my mind towards conquering it, and I was able to do it, you know?And it feels good to be able to find my way around the city in the subway system. . .


You know, you've been criticized on both sides of the aisle, as they say now. I think some scientists are saying: Why did you publish - why didn't you publish it in legitimate, peer-reviewed journals first?

Oh, we're following the - I mean, we're following the tradition of science, which is that you distribute this widely to your peers before you publish it. Jim Hansen does the same thing. He puts his papers online. This is a tradition in the field.

Peer review means you present results in a public forum, you distribute pre-prints. Most of my important papers were widely distributed to other scientists far before they appeared. It's the best kind of peer review.

And you challenge anyone to come up with a better explanation.


Thanks so much for having me, Farai.

So this is a whole special issue on the issue of prisons. Your article talks about the economic impact the prison system is having on the nation. So what kind of money are we talking about?

We're talking about a tremendous amount of money that's being spent nationally and by the individual states, at least 55 billion dollars a year spent on our prison system, on every conceivable aspect of it. And the numbers are absolutely astonishing, as you mentioned.

Times like this, when the economies of states are in default, can states really afford this?


It looks like a stationary bike.

And in your video - it's our Video Pick of the Week, which you have called the best laboratory in the world?

It was enamored with this lab. I'm just going to be honest. I thought it was the coolest lab.

Coolest lab in the world.