All Things Considered-Weekend

Several U.S. lawmakers and prominent economists on Monday said Congress and the White House should end a financial conflict of interest at the taxpayer-owned mortgage company Freddie Mac.

Freddie Mac, which has a public mission to help make home ownership affordable, also has placed multibillion-dollar bets against American homeowners being able to refinance to cheaper mortgages. NPR, in partnership with ProPublica, an independent, nonprofit newsroom, first revealed Freddie's bets on NPR during Monday's Morning Edition.

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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

Freddie Mac is a gatekeeper in the mortgage market. In many cases, the taxpayer-owned mortgage company controls who qualifies to refinance a mortgage and who doesn't. Well, NPR has learned that Freddie Mac has been making financial wagers, betting against American homeowners being able to refinance. And now some lawmakers want to put a stop to it. NPR's Chris Arnold has been reporting this story in partnership with ProPublica.org. He has this report.

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GUY RAZ, HOST:

And speaking of French, a small French revolution is underway in the town of Cesson - sorry. How do you say it?

LAUREN: Cesson-Sevigne.

RAZ: Thankfully, our intern Lauren Benichou is French. Anyway, as I was saying, in that town, the mayor, Michel Bihan, has banned the use of the word mademoiselle.

MAYOR MICHEL BIHAN: (Through translator) In France, mademoiselle is a condescending term. We believe that it's more natural and fair to call women madame.

Some in the conservative establishment have been issuing rebukes of Newt Gingrich recently, some even comparing his politics to Bill Clinton's. Weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz speaks with James Fallows of The Atlantic about that story and others from the past week.

Today marks the start of an exciting project at All Things Considered. Each month we'll be bringing in a poet to spend time in the newsroom — and at the end — to compose a poem reflecting on the day's news.

The first poet to participate is Tracy K. Smith. She has received degrees in English and Creative Writing from Harvard College, Columbia University, and was a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University. Her latest book of poems is titled Life on Mars.

Smith sat down with Melissa Block to talk about writing a poem in a hurry. She called the day she spent with NPR's producers "delightful, and a little terrifying."

This election cycle, one factor stands above all others in driving the dynamics of the race for the Republican presidential nomination: televised debates.

Melissa Block talks with NPR's Mara Liasson about Thursday night's Republican debate in Jacksonville, Fla.