Asia
1:25 am
Fri December 14, 2012

What North Korea's Rocket Launch Tells Us About Iran's Role

Credit AP
This monitor screen image shows a graphic of the orbit of the satellite carried by the Unha-3 rocket, which North Korea launched this week. The image is from the Korean Central News Agency, distributed in Tokyo by the Korea News Service.

Originally published on Fri December 14, 2012 7:03 am

U.S. officials say the satellite put into orbit by North Korea's rocket launch this week is wobbling, but that doesn't necessarily mean the launch itself was unsuccessful.

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Shots - Health News
1:24 am
Fri December 14, 2012

Making The Rich Pay More For Medicare

Credit Joshua Roberts / Reuters /Landov
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., speaks Tuesday at a news conference calling for no reduction in the Medicare and Medicaid budgets, as part of the year-end budget talks on Capitol Hill in Washington. Waxman said he does not support means testing for Medicare.

Originally published on Fri December 14, 2012 3:33 am

When it comes to reducing Medicare spending, asking wealthier seniors to pay more is one of the few areas where Democrats have shown a willingness to even consider the subject.

"I do believe there should be means testing. And those of us with higher income in retirement should pay more," said Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., on last Sunday's Meet the Press. "That could be part of the solution."

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Planet Money
1:24 am
Fri December 14, 2012

How A Middle-School Principal Convinced Students To Come To School

Credit David Kestenbaum / NPR

Originally published on Fri December 14, 2012 12:43 pm

Shawn Rux took over as principal of MS 53, a New York City middle school, last year. At the time, 50 or 60 kids were absent every day. You could understand why they stayed away: The school was chaos.

Twenty-two teachers had quit, the entire office staff had quit, and hundreds of kids had been suspended. The school was given a grade of F from the city's department of education.

"It was in a bad place," Rux says.

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Movie Interviews
1:21 am
Fri December 14, 2012

Laura Linney, Keeping History Hush-Hush In 'Hyde Park'

Originally published on Fri December 14, 2012 3:33 am

For presidential-film buffs, this holiday season has some high-profile offerings. First, there was Steven Spielberg's biopic Lincoln. And out now, there's Hyde Park on Hudson, a peek behind the curtain and into the life of America's longest-serving president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

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Research News
1:19 am
Fri December 14, 2012

Counting Bugs In Panama? Get Out Your Tree Raft

Originally published on Mon January 7, 2013 1:22 pm

There are more species of insects than pretty much anything else in the world. And scientists know there are millions they haven't even identified yet. Now, in a tropical rainforest in Panama, a multinational team of scientists has just completed the first ever insect census.

Scott Miller, an entomologist at the Smithsonian who worked on the Panama, shows off one of the species from the survey that's at the National Museum of Natural History's insect zoo in Washington, D.C.

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World
1:18 am
Fri December 14, 2012

Families Of Spain's 'Stolen Babies' Seek Answers — And Reunions

Credit Sylvia Poggioli / NPR
Antonio Iniesta demonstrates in Madrid's Puerta del Sol square last month. He's searching for a younger brother he believes is one of Spain's bebes robados, or stolen babies.

Originally published on Fri December 14, 2012 8:20 am

Allegations of the existence of a secret network of doctors and nuns who stole newborn babies and sold them for adoption are reviving a dark chapter in Spain's recent history.

More than 1,000 people have gone to court hoping to track down sons and daughters or brothers and sisters they were told died in childbirth.

In Madrid's Puerta del Sol square last month, Antonio Iniesta stood next to a poster with the words bebes robados (stolen babies). His demonstration is intended to publicize his search for a brother he's convinced is alive.

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Business
1:17 am
Fri December 14, 2012

Farewell, Bosses: A Wave Of Young Entrepreneurs

Credit Mustafa Pie Co.
To save money, 30-year-old Alisha Mustafa runs her small pie-making business out of the kitchen of another restaurant.

Originally published on Fri December 14, 2012 3:33 am

Thirty-year-old Alisha Mustafa spent years working at low-paying restaurant jobs. The unemployment rate hovers around 10 percent in her hometown of Bloomington, Ind.

"I've worked it all in this town," she says. "I've worked for so many restaurants, and last year was my year from hell in the industry."

So, she quit and started her own business. Now, she spends most days baking treats like gluten-free strawberry mango pie for her business, Mustafa Pie Co.

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Education
1:15 am
Fri December 14, 2012

In California, Parents Trigger Change At Failing School

Originally published on Fri January 11, 2013 1:18 pm

Parents in one small California community have used a "parent-trigger" law for the first time to shut down and take over an elementary school. It's a revolt led by parents who say the school has failed their children, but others say it's not the school's fault.

The school is in tiny Adelanto, Calif., home to several prisons connected by desolate stretches of highway on the fringes of the Mojave Desert.

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Classical
1:00 am
Fri December 14, 2012

December 20, 2012

The Mendelssohn Choir of Pittsburgh
Heidi Grant Murphy, soprano
Marietta Simpson, mezzo-soprano
Jeffrey Gall, countertenor
John Mark Ainsley, tenor 
John Relyea, bass
Sir Neville Marriner, conductor 
Handel: Messiah

StoryCorps
8:03 pm
Thu December 13, 2012

For Man With Amnesia, Love Repeats Itself

Originally published on Mon December 17, 2012 7:25 am

Forty-six-year-old Jeff Ingram has a rare type of amnesia called dissociative fugue. When he has an attack, his memory is wiped clean and he doesn't remember who he is or where he's from.

To chronicle their memories in case he forgets again, Jeff and his wife, Penny, came to StoryCorps in Olympia, Wash.

"You and I were talking on the phone," Penny recalls. "You said, 'Well, I have a medical condition that I probably should share with you.' "

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