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All Things Considered-Weekend

Saturdays and Sundays, 4pm - 5pm
with Debbie Elliot

Since its debut in 1971, this afternoon radio newsmagazine has delivered in-depth reporting and transformed the way listeners understand current events and view the world.  Every weekday, hosts Melissa Block, Michele Norris and Robert Siegel bring listeners breaking news mixed with compelling analysis, insightful commentaries, interviews, and special - sometimes quirky - features.  Guy Raz hosts a one-hour edition of the program on Saturday and Sunday.

Genre: 
News/Talk
Composer ID: 
51828ca2e1c8b3cb7bb7c9a2|51828b60e1c8b3cb7bb7c8f7

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Author Interviews
3:31 pm
Sat July 14, 2012

'Sunny Chernobyl': Beauty In A Haze Of Pollution

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Credit Manan Vatsyayana / AFP/Getty Images
Garbage litters the banks of India's holy Yamuna River on World Water Day 2010. For decades, the Yamuna has been dying a slow death from pollution. According to Blackwell, even its most ardent defenders refer to it as a "sewage drain."
Credit AFP / AFP/Getty Images
According to Blackwell, environmental problems aren't always caused by the presence of something toxic. They can also be caused by the absence of something. Take, for example, Brazil, where intense soybean agriculture has been inching its way into the Amazon, posing a threat to forested regions.
Credit Victor Drachev / AFP/Getty Images
The abandoned village of Vezhishche in Belarus sits within the exclusion zone established after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The zone was one of Andrew Blackwell's first stops on his tour of the world's most ruined places.
Credit Peter Parks / AFP/Getty Images
The coal-centric economy of Linfen, China, has earned it a reputation for being one of the most polluted cities in the world.
Credit Elizabeth Dalziel / AP
Guiyu, China, is known for its electronics recycling workshops, but Blackwell says the town has a strangely rural, even agricultural, feel. "There are giant piles of keyboards, which reminded me a lot of bales of cotton," he says.
Credit Todd Korol / Reuters/Landov
Blackwell also visited the tar sands in Alberta, Canada, which would supply the oil for the controversial Keystone XL pipeline through the U.S.
Credit Victor Drachev / AFP/Getty Images
The abandoned village of Vezhishche in Belarus sits within the exclusion zone established after the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The zone was one of Andrew Blackwell's first stops on his tour of the world's most ruined places.
Credit /
Credit Lucian Read / Courtesy of Rodale Books
Andrew Blackwell is a journalist and filmmaker living in New York City.
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By editor

Originally published on Sun July 15, 2012 3:04 am

In some of the dirtiest places on Earth, author and environmentalist Andrew Blackwell found some beauty. His book, Visit Sunny Chernobyl, tours the deforestation of the Amazon, the oil sand mines in Canada and the world's most polluted city, located in China.

Blackwell says his ode to polluted locales is a bid for re-engagement with places people have shrunk away from in disgust.

Radioactive To Its Core

His first stop was the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster, Chernobyl.

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Movies I've Seen A Million Times
12:16 pm
Sat July 14, 2012

The Movie Mira Sorvino Has 'Seen A Million Times'

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Credit AP
Marlon Brando starred in the 1955 film, On the Waterfront.
Credit Carlo Allegri / AP
Mira Sorvino stars in the new film Union Square.
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Originally published on Sun July 15, 2012 8:08 am

The weekends on All Things Considered series Movies I've Seen a Million Times features filmmakers, actors, writers and directors talking about the movies that they never get tired of watching.

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Music Interviews
11:03 am
Sat July 14, 2012

Dirty Projectors: A Polarizing Sound At The Fringes Of Pop

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Credit Jake Longstreth
David Longstreth of Dirty Projectors. The band's new album is titled Swing Lo Magellan.
Credit Jason Frank Rothenberg / Courtesy of the artist
Dirty Projectors' new album is entitled Swing Lo Magellan.
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Originally published on Sat July 14, 2012 6:21 pm

Opinions about Dirty Projectors couldn't be more divided. At a recent NPR Music listening party, audience members gave the band's new album, Swing Lo Magellan, both very high marks and very low marks. It was a genuine split decision.

Intrigued, weekends on All Things Considered spoke with Dirty Projectors bandleader Dave Longstreth to figure out why. One thing became clear pretty quickly: Longstreth and Dirty Projectors take a lot of risks.

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Presidential Race
6:38 pm
Fri July 13, 2012

Romney Makes Media Rounds Defending Bain Record

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Originally published on Fri July 13, 2012 9:24 pm

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block. Republican Mitt Romney gave a rare round of interviews today to reporters from five TV networks, in which he stood by his assertions that he had no active role in running Bain Capital after 1999. And he called on President Obama to apologize for comments from his campaign.

MITT ROMNEY: It's disgusting. It's demeaning. It's something which I think the president should take responsibility for, and stop.

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Business
6:38 pm
Fri July 13, 2012

Credit Card Companies Settle Swipe Fee Suit For $6B

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Originally published on Fri July 13, 2012 9:24 pm

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.

Visa, MasterCard and some of the biggest banks in the U.S. have agreed to a historic settlement of more than $6 billion in a class action lawsuit brought on behalf of more than 7 million merchants. NPR's Steve Henn has been reviewing this settlement agreement. He joins me now. And, Steve, what's this case about?

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Politics
5:58 pm
Fri July 13, 2012

Immigration Spurs A Rare Split Among Ariz. Mormons

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Credit Andrea Hsu / NPR
Paul Morgan met his wife, Evelyn Oyuki Morgan, during his two-year Mormon mission to Mexico. Today, they belong to a Spanish-speaking Mormon congregation and speak Spanish at home with their two daughters, Isabella and Amaya.
Credit Andrea Hsu / NPR
Daryl Williams is an attorney and a senior figure in the Mormon church in the Phoenix area. His discomfort with Arizona's immigration law led him to take up the issue at town hall events across the state.
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Originally published on Fri July 13, 2012 9:34 pm

Mitt Romney is the most famous Mormon running for office this fall. But he's far from the only one.

In Arizona, two other members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — Rep. Jeff Flake and businessman Wil Cardon — are vying for the Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate.

All three candidates have said they'll be tough on immigration. And while Mormons in Arizona have been closely identified with conservative politics, the immigration debate has exposed a rare divide on the issue.

Shared Faith, Different Political Views

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All Tech Considered
5:26 pm
Fri July 13, 2012

Apple's Change Of Heart On Green Certification

Credit Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Attendees of Apple's 2012 World Wide Developers Conference look at the new MacBook Pro with Retina display.
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Originally published on Fri July 13, 2012 9:24 pm

It's not often that one of the world's biggest companies says, "We goofed."

But in a surprising turn of events Friday, Apple admitted it made a mistake in pulling out of an environmental rating system for computers and other electronics. The company said it would rejoin the so-called EPEAT certification system, placing all 39 of its originally certified products back on the list. The company is also requesting certification for more products, including its new MacBook Pro model.

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Shots - Health Blog
4:09 pm
Fri July 13, 2012

Governors Spar Over Medicaid And Health Exchanges

Credit Cliff Owen / AP
Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell says Medicaid should be overhauled before it's expanded.
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Originally published on Fri July 13, 2012 9:24 pm

The nation's governors — well, many of them, anyway — are gathering in Colonial Williamsburg, Va., for their annual summer meeting this weekend.

It's no easy trick for the National Governors Association to get Republican and Democratic chief executives on the same page, or even the same room.

This year, in the wake of the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act, it's even harder.

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NPR Story
3:40 pm
Fri July 13, 2012

Apple Rejoins Green Product Registry After Criticism

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Originally published on Fri July 13, 2012 4:52 pm

Apple announced Friday that it is rejoining a widely-used registry of environmentally-friendly electronic devices called EPEAT. That's after pulling out of the registry just last week. The company had come under harsh criticism from those who said the company was turning its back on its green environmental image. Melissa Block speaks with Wendy Kaufman about Apple's decision.

Opinion
2:55 pm
Fri July 13, 2012

Wish You Were Here: The Rehoboth Beach Boardwalk

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Credit Steve Snodgrass / Flickr
The Dolle's sign is part of the magic of the boardwalk at Rehoboth Beach in Delaware.
Credit KK Ottesen /
Writer David Rowell is enchanted by Rehoboth's boardwalk.
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Originally published on Thu July 19, 2012 3:16 pm

David Rowell is an editor with The Washington Post. His first novel, The Train of Small Mercies, is just out in paperback.

When I was growing up in North Carolina, my family went to the same beach every year; it had the sand, the water and pretty much nothing else. Mostly that was OK, but the idea of a boardwalk, which I caught glimpses of on TV or in movies, seemed wondrous to me — like a carnival rolled out from a wooden carpet.

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