Weekend All Things Considered

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Organizers gave that service in Boston a title: Healing Our City. Thousands of people took part both inside the cathedral and outside.

NPR's Jeff Brady spoke with Bostonians about this moment of collective remembrance.

JEFF BRADY, BYLINE: A theme emerged during the service, expressed here by Rev. Nancy Taylor.

THE REV. NANCY TAYLOR: We are shaken, but we are not forsaken. Another's hate will not make of us haters.

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From Boston now to the White House, where President Obama reacted angrily tonight to the failure of an effort in the Senate to expand background checks for gun purchases. The amendment, proposed by Democrat Joe Manchin and Republican Pat Toomey, got only 54 votes - six short of the necessary 60. President Obama spoke in the White House Rose Garden. He called this a pretty shameful day for Washington.

While an immigration overhaul has drawn support from church groups, business, labor and even former opponents, there's still deep opposition — mostly centered in the Republican Party.

The last time a president tried to pass a comprehensive immigration overhaul was in 2007, and George W. Bush's fellow Republicans in Congress killed his bill. Republican strategist Kevin Madden says a lot has changed since then — including the way the Republican Party is dealing with its own internal divisions.

Listening to her ethereal sound, you might not guess that Rachel Zeffira was classically trained as an opera singer. But on her solo debut, The Deserters, she's not just singing: She also plays piano, synthesizers, vibraphone, cathedral organ, violin, viola, oboe and English horn.

Zeffira makes her home in London now, but she grew up in a small town in rural British Columbia and began playing music at a young age.

The legislative process on Capitol Hill is often slow and grinding. There are committee hearings, filibuster threats and hours of floor debate. But sometimes, when Congress really wants to get something done, it can move blindingly fast.

That's what happened when Congress moved to undo large parts of a popular law known as the STOCK Act last week.

One argument that some gun rights groups make against expanding background checks is that the federal government isn't doing a good enough job now of enforcing the law already on the books.

They point out that only a tiny fraction of people caught trying to buy a gun illegally are ever prosecuted.

But gun control supporters say that argument totally misses the point of background checks.

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MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And NPR's Tovia Smith joins us now from Boston. And, Tovia, let's recap the chronology just a little bit. Two explosions about 10 seconds apart, very close by at the finish line, correct?

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

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

And I'm Robert Siegel.

More than 100 people injured, and police now say at least three people killed by the explosions today at the Boston Marathon. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick says the FBI is now leading multiply agencies in an investigation, and security has been tightened across Boston.

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Investigators are gathering evidence related to the blasts. Law-enforcement officials have been cautious about providing any details. NPR's counterterrorism correspondent Dina Temple-Raston is here with the latest. And Dina, do investigators have any leads?

President Obama addressed the nation after explosions at the Boston Marathon left multiple people injured on Monday.

Robert Siegel and Melissa Block have the latest on the explosions at the Boston Marathon near the race's fourth hour.

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And now, a firsthand account of the emergency response to the attacks. We're going to hear from a Boston doctor who spoke with our co-host Audie Cornish.

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Joining us now is Dr. Michael Gibson. He's a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. He's been seeing the victims of today's explosions in Boston in the emergency room at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Dr. Gibson, to begin, what kind of injuries are you seeing? What's coming into the emergency room there?

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block. We begin this hour with the horrific story unfolding today out of Boston. Just over four hours into the Boston Marathon, two explosions ripped into a crowd of onlookers and runners not far from the finish line. Boston Police have confirmed at least two people dead, and 23 injured. Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick spoke just moments ago, along with the city's police commissioner, Ed Davis.

Imagine for a second what it would be like if you could talk to your radio, and your radio would actually listen. To get an idea of what this might be like, I downloaded an app called Talk to Esquire, from the magazine of the same name.

When I opened it, the app asked me a question: What's your favorite type of liquor? That's a little forward, but it's Esquire so I played along and told the app that I'm more of a beer drinker.

English folk musician Nick Drake died decades before the song "Pink Moon" found him a wide audience, thanks to a series of Volkswagen ads back in 1999. They sparked a resurgence of interest in Drake's work — music largely ignored in his day but now inspiring legions of young musicians.

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It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.

Coming up, the death of a man who could be the most influential pastor you've never heard of. But first, in Spanish, the words el camino means the road, but it can also mean the way. El camino rios, the way to the river. El camino de dias, a religious path.

And for millions, certainly the path to immigration overhaul in the U.S. has been elusive and full of fervor. Witness a rally this past week at the Capitol.

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You're listening to WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Jacki Lyden.

In Haiti, a group of artists is making a name for themselves by creating huge metal sculptures and showing them on the streets. They call themselves Haiti's Resistance Artists, and their work speaks to the devastation following the 2010 earthquake and the stark separation between the country's rich and poor. Reese Erlich has their story.

Thao Nguyen, of the folk-rock group Thao & the Get Down Stay Down, has been on a musical journey since she started performing in her teens in Northern Virginia. Delicate yet fierce in her vocal delivery, she writes often about her social concerns — and it was a trip to a California women's prison that inspired much of her latest album, We the Common.

Ngyuen and her band are on the road for the first time in several years; she spoke with NPR's Jacki Lyden from a tour stop in Kansas City.

Nobody actually knows what dinosaurs sound like. But if you can imagine the roar of a T. Rex or the bellow of a brachiosaurus, it's probably thanks to the 1993 blockbuster Jurassic Park, which turns 20 this summer.

That constellation of information known as Big Data can be a sight to behold.

Adam Frank of NPR's 13.7 blog explains Big Data as "the ability to understand (and control) a seemingly chaotic world on levels never before imagined."

Big Data is like gathering digital dust, says New Yorker tech blogger Gary Marcus. "It's a very valuable tool," he says, "but it's rarely the whole solution by itself."

Numbers crunching has become a big deal in sports. Analytics have been slower to take hold in the tradition-bound game of golf, but it is happening. NPR's Tom Goldman reports on the phenomenon from the tournament most steeped in tradition, the Masters.

The gun control debate continued to dominate the news this week with President Obama coming out strongly in support of reforming the current gun control laws alongside the Newtown families. Host Jacki Lyden speaks with James Fallows, national correspondent with The Atlantic, about that story along with the bird flu in China, North Korea and the Postal Service.

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The dancer who brought "Firebird" and "The Nutcracker" to life at the New York City Ballet died this week. Maria Tallchief was one of America's great prima ballerinas. NPR's Joel Rose has this remembrance.

JOEL ROSE, BYLINE: Maria Tallchief soared to fame in 1949 when she danced the lead role in Stravinsky's "Firebird" in a production choreographed by George Balanchine.

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MARIA TALLCHIEF: He was a poet. And he taught us how to react and to become this poetry.

This week marked a new step in Michelle Obama's evolution as first lady. In her hometown of Chicago, she delivered one of the most emotional speeches of her career — about kids dying from gun violence.

"I'm not talking about something that's happening in a war zone halfway around the world," she said. "I am talking about what's happening in the city that we call home."