Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi announced Thursday an extraordinary set of new presidential powers that essentially nullify judicial oversight. His critics say he now has unchecked power, and the Muslim Brotherhood argues it is a necessary, and temporary, move to make reforms. Weekends on All Things Considered guest host Jacki Lyden talks with NPR's Leila Fadel in Cairo for the latest.
Mahmoud Qurtom, 7, can often be found playing with his brothers and sisters, barefoot in the sand by his home's doorway in Gaza. He speaks only a word or two at a time, but smiles a lot. He explains why his right arm is in a sling.
"I was playing in the doorway," he says, "And then I ran away from the rockets."
Mahmoud's sisters brought him to their father, Osama Qurtom, who looked at him and saw nothing wrong. Then he noticed blood coming from a wound under the boy's arm, where a piece of rocket shrapnel had entered, fractured a rib and then lodged in his lung.
Mahmoud was treated at a hospital, and after four days, he appears to be recovering. His injury was a horrible dj vu for his father, the very one he had feared since Israeli air attacks began last Wednesday.
"From the first air strike, my memories began to repeat themselves," he says. "The fear reawakened in me. I remembered the tragedy. My son. My neighbors."
The last time Israel invaded Gaza, nearly four years ago, Mahmoud's older brother Ahmed was 7 years old. He was playing with his siblings in the doorway of his house when a rocket exploded, killing him. While this was a horrible coincidence, Qurtom says, others around him have suffered the same sort of thing.
"This is normal here in Gaza," he says matter-of-factly. "This is war. Do you expect the enemy to bring you food and drink? Everyone has experienced loss in these wars."
When there are air raids, the Qurtom family sleeps in his building's stairwells for shelter. The bare concrete walls tremble when bombs explode nearby.
After his son Ahmed's death, Qurtom lost his job as a truck driver due to poor health. He has survived on international assistance and some help from his family, including his older brother Alaa.
Alaa Qurtom runs a construction materials company nearby. His son was seriously injured in the same explosion that killed Ahmed. Alaa Qurtom says it's hard for him to accept his brother's suffering.
"Osama is living in very bad circumstances," he says, speaking in his company's office. "He had two kidney operations. And the shock of his son's death took away half of his life. And as you know, to Arabs consider sons to be especially valuable."
Osama Qurtom says one of his daughters suffered from fits of anger and needed psychiatric care.
Like many other people here, Osama Qurtom believes the Israelis were deliberately targeting civilians and trying to eradicate Palestinians. This view came out in a conversation he says he had with another of his sons Abdul Kader, who had just awoken from a nightmare.
"One day, he asked me to buy him a gun," he recalls. "I asked him why. He answered, 'Because I want to kill Israelis.' I asked him why. He said, 'Because they killed my brother.'"
The day after the cease-fire is announced, little Mahmoud is chasing chickens among the palm trees in his family's yard. He seems cheered up by the news that his school, where he's in first grade, will reopen Monday, and that a visitor has brought him some chocolate.
Since his son Ahmed's death, Osama Qurtom has had another son, whom he has also named Ahmed. But he says there's no substitute for his lost son.
"Even if I had all the money in the world, or had a new baby every day, it would never replace his memory in my heart," he says. "God compensated us by giving us the new Ahmed. Really, we're just trying to keep his name in the house."
Osama Qurtom glances at young Mahmoud. He says Mahmoud may forget the trauma of his own injury, but he will never forget the loss of his brother.
On the wall hangs a large color photograph of the first Ahmed. The picture has been digitally altered to show him in a cap and gown, at the college graduation he never had.
Director Ang Lee has a surprising affinity for the Indian hero of Life of Pi — that's his name, Pi, and he's seen at several ages but principally as a 17-year-old boy adrift on a lifeboat in the South Pacific. He's the lone survivor of a shipwreck that killed the crew, his family and a variety of zoo animals his father was transporting to North America for sale.
Actually, Pi is the lone human survivor. He shares his boat and its dwindling food supplies with a man-eating Bengal tiger.
Lee is a director whose works I've admired more than loved. All of his movies — among them Sense and Sensibility, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Brokeback Mountain, even Hulk — center on emotions that bump up against rigid codes of behavior — emotions that can't be suppressed and finally erupt.
Lee's range of genres and settings is impressive, but there's something about his meticulousness that keeps me at a distance. I know that many people loved Brokeback Mountain, but I got hung up on the mythical cowboy iconography, that forbidden love sanctified by purple mountain majesties. Lee makes movies about giving in to passion — without seeming to let go.
But Life of Pi is different. Most of the film is a flashback, a tale told to a writer by the middle-aged Pi. And the way Lee depicts it — in a style that's typically fastidious and arty — is astonishingly in sync with his narrator.
That lifeboat in which most of the movie takes place is a wondrous set, not realistic but not fake, either — transcendentally in-between. The water is ultra-ultramarine, the sea a mirror in which clouds above seem to mingle with sharks, dorados, luminous jellyfish, even whales below.
The orange of the tiger burns as bright as in William Blake's immortal poem. The 3-D is brilliantly effective in creating multiple planes of reality, and it also allows Lee to hold shots for longer than any studio would let him if not for that marvelously immersive technology.
This isn't just a gorgeous survival story: The search for higher meaning runs all through the movie, as it does through Yann Martel's best-selling novel.
Growing up, Pi was drawn to multiple faiths. He thanks Vishnu for introducing him to Christ while rolling out his prayer mat to honor Allah. The kid subscribes to everything. But on the lifeboat, it seems as if none of his many gods will even acknowledge his existence. He's terribly alone — except, of course, for you-know-who.
Enlarge 20th Century Fox
As if being lost at sea isn't daunting for a teenager, Pi's companion on his lifeboat is a Bengal tiger. Life of Pi is based on Yann Martel's 2001 Man Booker Prize-winning novel.
Israeli troops fired Friday to push back Gaza crowds surging toward Israel's border fence with the Hamas-ruled territory, killing one Palestinian and wounding 19 in the first violence since a truce between Israel and Hamas took hold a day earlier.
Hamas security tried to defuse the situation and keep the crowds away from the border, signaling the incident is unlikely to jeopardize the Egyptian-brokered cease-fire.
The truce, which calls for an end to Gaza rocket fire on Israel and Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, came after eight days of cross-border fighting, the bloodiest between Israel and Hamas in four years.
On Friday, hundreds of Palestinians approached Israel's border fence in several locations in southern Gaza.
In the past, Israel's military barred Palestinians from getting close to the fence, and soldiers routinely opened fire on violators to enforce a 300-meter-wide no-go zone meant to prevent infiltrations into Israel.
Since the cease-fire, growing numbers of Gazans have entered the no-go zone, testing expectations that such restrictions would now be lifted.
In one incident captured by Associated Press video, several dozen Palestinians, most of them young men, approached the fence, coming close to a group of Israeli soldiers standing on the other side.
Some Palestinians briefly talked to the soldiers, while others appeared to be taunting them with chants of "God is Great" and "Morsi, Morsi," in praise of Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, whose mediation led to the truce.
At one point, a soldier shouted in Hebrew, "Go there, before I shoot you," and pointed away from the fence, toward Gaza. The soldier then dropped to one knee, assuming a firing position. Eventually, a burst of automatic fire was heard, but it was not clear whether any of the casualties were from this incident.
Most of those approaching the fence were young men, but the crowds also included farmers hoping they could once again farm lands in the buffer zone. Speaking by phone from the buffer zone, 19-year-old Ali Abu Taimah said he and his father were checking three acres of family land that have been fallow for several years.
"When we go to our land, we are telling the occupation (Israel) that we are not afraid at all," he said.
Gaza health official Ashraf al-Kidra said a 20-year-old man was killed and 19 people were wounded by Israeli fire near the border.
Israel's military said roughly 300 Palestinians approached the security fence at several locations in southern Gaza, tried to damage it and cross into Israel. Soldiers fired warning shots in the air to distance the Palestinians from the fence, but after they refused to move back, troops fired at their legs, the military said. It also said a Palestinian infiltrated into Israel in the course of the unrest, but he was returned to Gaza.
The truce allowed both Hamas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to step back from the brink of a full-fledged war. Over eight days, Israel's aircraft carried out some 1,500 strikes on Hamas-linked targets, while Gaza fighters peppered Israel with roughly the same number of rockets.
The fighting killed 166 Palestinians, including dozens of civilians, and six Israelis.
In Cairo, Egypt is hosting separate talks with Israeli and Hamas envoys on the next phase of the cease-fire — a new border deal for blockaded Gaza. Hamas demands lifting of all border restrictions, while Israel insists that Hamas must halt weapons smuggling to the territory.
In Israel, a poll showed that about half of Israelis think their government should have continued its military offensive against Hamas.
The independent Maagar Mohot poll released Friday shows 49 percent of respondents feel Israel should have kept going after squads that fire rockets into Israel. Thirty-one percent supported the government's decision to stop. Twenty percent had no opinion.
Twenty-nine percent thought Israel should have sent ground troops to invade Gaza. The poll of 503 respondents had an error margin of 4.5 percentage points.
The same survey showed Netanyahu's Likud Party and electoral partner Israel Beiteinu losing some support, but his hard-line bloc would still able to form the next government. Elections are Jan. 22.
Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. resigned his seat in Illinois' 2nd District on Wednesday. He resigned in a letter to House Speaker John Boehner. Jackson had been on medical leave since June, being treated for bipolar disorder. David Schaper talks to Audie Cornish.
This year's Black Friday shoppers were split into two distinct groups: those who wanted to fall into a turkey-induced slumber and those who'd rather shop instead.
Stores typically open in the wee hours of the morning on the day after Thanksgiving that's named Black Friday partly because of retail folklore that it's traditionally when merchants turn a profit for the year. But after testing how shoppers would respond to earlier hours last year, stores such as Target and Toys R Us this year opened as early as Thanksgiving evening. That created as two separate waves of shoppers — one on Thanksgiving and the other on Black Friday.
By the time Lori Chandler, 54, and her husband, Sam, 55, reached the Wal-Mart in Greenville, S.C. early Friday, they had already hit several stores, including Target and Best Buy. In fact, they had been holiday shopping since midnight.
"It's a tradition," Lori said as she looked at some toys she bought for her four grandchildren. Sam, smiling, agreed: "We've learned over the years, you have to stand in line early and pray."
Elizabeth Garcia, a sales rep from the Bronx borough of New York City, decided on a later shopping start at about 3:30 a.m. at Toys R Us in New York's Times Square. Garcia, who has three children ages three, five and seven, said she specifically decided on the later time to avoid the crowds on Thanksgiving when the store opened at 8 p.m. She believes that was the best decision: Last year, Garcia almost got into a fight over a Tinker Bell couch, but this year things were much calmer.
"This year I wasn't about to kill people," she said.
The earlier hours are an effort by stores to make shopping as convenient as possible for Americans, who they fear won't spend freely during the two-month holiday season in November and December because of economic uncertainty. Many shoppers are worried about high unemployment and a package of tax increases and spending cuts known as the "fiscal cliff" that will take effect in January unless Congress passes a budget deal by then.
At the same time, Americans have grown more comfortable shopping on websites that offer cheap prices and the convenience of being able to buy something from smartphones, laptops and tablet computers from just about anywhere. That puts added pressure on brick-and-mortar stores, which can make up to 40 percent of their annual revenue during the holiday shopping season, to give consumers a compelling reason to leave their homes.
That's becoming more difficult: the National Retail Federation, an industry trade group, estimates that overall sales in November and December will rise 4.1 percent this year to $586.1 billion, or about flat with last year's growth. But the online part of that is expected to rise 15 percent to $68.4 billion, according to Forrester Research.
As a result, brick-and-mortar retailers have been trying everything they can to lure consumers into stores. Some stores tested the earlier hours last year, but this year more retailers opened their doors late on Thanksgiving or at midnight on Black Friday. In addition to expanding their hours, many also are offering free layaways and shipping, matching the cheaper prices of online rivals and updating their mobile shopping apps with more information.
"Every retailer wants to beat everyone else," said C. Britt Beemer, chairman of America's Research Group, a research firm based in Charleston, S.C. "Shoppers love it."
Indeed, some holiday shoppers seemed to find stores' earlier hours appealing. Julie Hansen, a spokeswoman at Mall of America in Minneapolis, said 30,000 people showed up for the mall's midnight opening, compared with 20,000 last year. She noted that shoppers are coming in waves, and sales aren't just being shifted around.
"This is additional dollars," Hansen said.
Hansen said stores that didn't participate in the midnight opening last year learned a lesson. Last year, 100 of the 520 Mall of America tenants opened their doors at midnight. This year, that figure doubled.
About 11,000 shoppers were in lines wrapped around Macy's flagship store in New York City's Herald Square when it opened at midnight on Black Friday. That's up from an estimated 9,000 to 10,000 shoppers who showed up the store's midnight opening last year.
Joan Riedewald, a private aide for the elderly, and her four children ages six to 18, were among them. By that time, she already had spent about $100 at Toys R Us, which opened at 8 p.m., and planned to spend another $500 at Macy's before heading to Old Navy.
"I only shop for sales," she said.
Carey Maguire, 33, and her sister Caitlyn Maguire, 21, showed up at the same Target about two hours before it opened. Their goal was to buy several Nook tablet computers, which were on sale for $49. But while waiting in line they were also using their iPhone to do some online buying at rival stores.
"If you're going to spend, I want to make it worth it," said Caitlyn Maguire, a college student.
By the afternoon on Thanksgiving, there were 11 shoppers in a four-tent encampment outside a Best Buy store near Ann Arbor, Mich., that opened at midnight. The purpose of their wait? A $179 40-inch Toshiba LCD television is worth missing Thanksgiving dinner at home.
Jackie Berg, 26, of Ann Arbor, arrived first with her stepson and a friend Wednesday afternoon, seeking three of the televisions. The deal makes the TVs $240 less than their normal price, so Berg says that she'll save more than $700.
"We'll miss the actual being there with family, but we'll have the rest of the weekend for that," she said.
But some shoppers decided to stick to Black Friday. Nicole Page of Bristol, Conn., shopped with her sister at a Wal-Mart in Manchester, Conn., at about 4:45 a.m. on Black Friday. Page, who recently finished school and started working as a nurse, bought an electric fireplace for $200 that she said was originally $600. Her shopping cart also had candy canes, a nail clipper for her dog and other stocking stuffers.
Page said she and her sister stuck with the Black Friday tradition; They've shopped in the early morning of Black Friday in previous years.
"We try to make a tradition of it. It's kind of exciting," she said.
Retiring Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) reflects on his career. NPR's Political Junkie Ken Rudin recaps the week in politics — from the final election results in the House to the fiscal cliff — and discusses the advantages and pitfalls of second term presidencies.
From ancient Babylonia to the Renaissance, mapmakers have been driven by politics, religion, emotion, and math. In his new book, A History of the World in Twelve Maps, professor Jerry Brotton examines the construction of a dozen world maps throughout history and argues that world maps are no more objective today than they were thousands of years ago.
Gaza residents cleared rubble and claimed victory on Thursday, just hours after an Egyptian-brokered truce between Israel and Gaza's Hamas rulers ended the worst cross-border fighting in four years.
The cease-fire announcement had set off frenzied late night street celebrations in the coastal strip, and raised hopes of a new era in relations between Israel and Hamas. The two sides are now to negotiate a deal that would open the borders of the blockaded Palestinian territory.
"Today is different, the morning coffee tastes different and I feel we are off to a new start," said Ashraf Diaa, a 38-year-old engineer from Gaza City.
However, the vague language in the agreement and deep hostility between the combatants made it far from certain that the bloodshed would end.
Israel launched the offensive on Nov. 14 to halt renewed rocket fire from Gaza, unleashing some 1,500 airstrikes on Hamas-linked targets, while Hamas and other Gaza militant groups showered Israel with hundreds of rockets.
It was the worst fighting since an Israeli invasion of Gaza four years ago.
The eight days of relentless strikes killed 161 Palestinians, including 71 civilians, and five Israelis. Israel also destroyed key symbols of Hamas power, such as the prime minister's office, along with rocket launching sites and Gaza police stations.
Despite the high human cost, Hamas claimed victory Thursday.
"The masses that took to the streets last night to celebrate sent a message to all the world that Gaza can't be defeated," said a spokesman, Sami Abu Zuhri.
While it is far from certain that Hamas will be able to pry open Gaza's borders in upcoming talks, the latest round of fighting has brought the Islamists unprecedented political recognition in the region. During the past week, Gaza became a magnet for visiting foreign ministers from Turkey and several Arab states — a sharp contrast to Hamas' isolation in the past.
Israel and the United States, even while formally sticking to a policy of shunning Hamas, also acknowledged the militant group's central role by engaging in indirect negotiations with the Islamists. Israel and the West consider Hamas, which seized Gaza by force in 2007, to be a terrorist organization.
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, meanwhile, defended his decision not to launch a ground offensive, in contrast to Israel's invasion of Gaza in the winter of 2008-2009.
"You don't get into military adventures on a whim, and certainly not based on the mood of the public, which can turn the first time an armored personnel carrier rolls over or an explosive device is detonated against forces on the ground," he told Israel Army Radio.
"The world's mood also can turn," he said, referring to warnings by the U.S. and Israel's other Western allies of the high cost of a ground offensive.
However, with the cease-fire just a few hours old, Israel was not rushing to bring home all of the thousands of reservists it had ordered to the Gaza border in the event of a ground invasion, Barak said.
Barak was defense minister during Israel's previous major military campaign against Hamas, which drew widespread international criticism and claims of war crimes.
The mood in Israel was mixed, with some grateful that quiet had been restored without a ground operation that could have cost the lives of soldiers.
Others — particular those in southern Israel who have endured 13 years of rocket fire — thought the operation was abandoned too quickly and without guaranteeing their security.
Union-backed organizations plan to picket selected stores across the country, about 1,000 in all. Journalist Charles Fishman tells Linda Wertheimer the groups protesting want to make Wal-Mart a better company and a better place to work. Fishman is the author of the book, The Wal-Mart Effect.
Philip Reeves has more on the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
Average U.S. rates on fixed mortgages fell to fresh record lows this week, a trend that is boosting home sales and aiding the housing recovery.
Mortgage buyer Freddie Mac said Wednesday that the average rate on the 30-year loan dipped to 3.31 percent, the lowest on records dating back to 1971. That's down from 3.34 percent last week, the previous record low.
The average on the 15-year fixed mortgage also dropped to 2.63 percent. That's down from 2.65 percent last week and also a new record.
The average rate on the 30-year loan has been below 4 percent all year. It has fallen further since the Federal Reserve started buying mortgage bonds in September to encourage more borrowing and spending.
Home sales and construction are rising, providing a much-needed boost to the economy. Home prices are also increasing, which makes consumers feel wealthier and more likely to spend.
Lower rates have also persuaded more people to refinance. That usually leads to lower monthly mortgage payments and more spending. Consumer spending drives nearly 70 percent of economic activity.
Still, the housing market has a long way to a full recovery. And many people are unable to take advantage of the low rates, either because they can't qualify for stricter lending rules or they can't afford the larger down payments that many banks require.
To calculate average mortgage rates, Freddie Mac surveys lenders across the country on Monday through Wednesday of each week. The average doesn't include extra fees, known as points, which most borrowers must pay to get the lowest rates. One point equals 1 percent of the loan amount.
The average fee for 30-year loans was 0.7 point, unchanged from last week. The fee for 15-year loans also remained at 0.7 point.
The average rate on a one-year adjustable-rate mortgage ticked up to 2.56 percent from 2.55 percent. The fee for one-year adjustable-rate loans rose two-tenths to 0.5 point.
The average rate on a five-year adjustable-rate mortgage 2.74 percent, the same as the previous week. The fee was unchanged at 0.6 point.
A bomb struck an Israeli bus near the nation's military headquarters in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, wounding 10 people and complicating major diplomatic efforts to forge a truce between Israel and Gaza's militant Hamas rulers.
The attack came as U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton shuttled between Jerusalem and the West Bank to help piece together a deal to end Israel's weeklong offensive against Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip that has killed more than 130 Palestinians. Militant rocket fire into Israel has killed five Israelis. Clinton was due to travel later to Egypt, which is mediating in the crisis.
"What does it say about the future of the (truce) talks? I leave it to (the senior officials), but this doesn't add anything," Yitzhak Aharonovich, Israel's minister of internal security, told Army Radio.
The bus exploded around noon on one of the coastal city's busiest arteries, near the Tel Aviv museum, the district courthouse and across from an entrance to Israel's national defense headquarters.
The bus was completely charred, its side windows blown out and glass scattered on the asphalt. The wounded were evacuated and blood was splattered on the sidewalk.
"We suddenly heard a huge explosion and immediately knew it was a terror attack," said Nir Zano, 35. "I saw someone running in to carry out a woman who was injured."
Aharonovitch said the device was placed inside the bus by a man who then disembarked. The explosion took place while the bus was in movement, he said.
Police set up roadblocks across the city trying to apprehend the attacker.
"We strongly believe that this was a terror attack," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld. He said three of the 10 wounded were moderately to seriously hurt.
In Gaza, the Tel Aviv bombing was praised from mosque loudspeakers, while Hamas' television interviewed people praising the attack as a return of militants' trademark tactics.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack, but Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum welcomed it.
"We consider it a natural response to the occupation crimes and the ongoing massacres against civilians in the Gaza Strip," he told The Associated Press.
Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom, who heard the explosion from his Tel Aviv office, called it "an escalation."
The cease-fire efforts come with thousands of Israeli ground troops massed on the Gaza border, awaiting a possible order to invade.
After meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem Tuesday night, Clinton conferred with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank on Wednesday morning and was due to travel later to Cairo, which is mediating in the crisis.
The two sides had seemed on the brink of a deal Tuesday following a swirl of diplomatic activity also involving U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon and Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi. But sticking points could not be resolved as talks — and violence — stretched into the night.
Israeli aircraft pounded Gaza with at least 30 strikes overnight, hitting government ministries, smuggling tunnels, a banker's empty villa and a Hamas-linked media office.
Dozens of civilians are among the more than 130 Palestinians killed in a week of fighting. Four Israeli civilians and a soldier have been killed by rocket fire — a toll possibly kept down by a U.S.-funded rocket defense system that has shot down hundreds of Gaza projectiles.
The Tel Aviv bus bombed Wednesday was relatively empty during the explosion, which explains the relatively low number of casualties. The bombing was the first in the coastal city since April 2006, when a Palestinian suicide bomber killed 11 people at a sandwich stand near the city's old central bus station. A bomb left at a bus stand in Jerusalem last year killed one person.
More than 1,000 Israelis were killed during the violent Palestinian uprising in the last decade in bombings and shooting attacks. More than 5,000 Palestinians were killed as well.
With the holiday shopping season shifting into high gear, retailers are doing everything they can to win consumer dollars. Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, is trying out one new strategy this season: same-day delivery. In a few select markets, it's joining online retail giant Amazon and eBay's "Now" service in offering super-quick delivery, straight to your door.
With a Wal-Mart store just three miles from my house, I could easily drive there to pick up some supplies for work. Instead, I decided to give the service a try. Wal-Mart is offering same-day delivery service, Walmart To Go, as a test during the holiday season in Northern Virginia, Minneapolis, San Jose, San Francisco and Philadelphia — where I live.
The website is pretty easy to use: Just create an account, click on the items you want — some batteries for my audio recorder, envelopes and some printer paper, for example — then pay for them. If you're a thrifty shopper, this is where some sticker shock might come in: In most areas, the delivery fee is $10, no matter what you order.
Five hours later, the order arrived at my door, delivered via courier.
Reaching Customers Whenever They're Ready
Like much of the rest of the retail world, Wal-Mart is trying out new ways of selling stuff. You can order online and have it delivered, as I did, or pick your items up at your local store. Wal-Mart spokesman Ravi Jariwala says you can even order online and pay cash at the store if you prefer.
"This is all about combining our national footprint of stores with our website to really offer customers anytime, anywhere access to Wal-Mart," Jariwala says.
That may sound like just a sales pitch, but it signifies a real change in the retail world, says Barbara Kahn, a marketing professor at University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
Business
The Past And Future Of America's Biggest Retailers
On June 23, 1940, the day after France signed the armistice that marked the country's official capitulation and partial occupation, Adolf Hitler toured Paris. In black-and-white footage taken on the day that opens the earnest and unconventional French docudrama La Rafle, the visiting Nazi leaders and their military escorts are more or less sightseeing.
They go by the Paris opera, the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower; all are conspicuously empty of Parisians. Unsurprisingly, the Paris Hitler surveys and even awkwardly marvels at on his first and only visit to the city is one without its people — a grim image that foreshadows the unnaturally vacant apartments after a citywide purge that will follow two years later.
La Rafle ("the roundup") chronicles the Vel' d'Hiv Roundup of July 1942, in which roughly 13,000 Jews living in Paris (4,501 of them children) were removed from their homes by French police and sent to detention camps in the countryside, before being deported to Auschwitz. While approximately two-thirds of France's Jewish community survived the Holocaust, La Rafle focuses on a grave moment of extreme complicity and betrayal by the Vichy government and French police — a stain of the war that went unacknowledged by the French government until the 1990s.
Enlarge Menemsha Films
Annette Monod (Melanie Laurent), a Protestant nurse, volunteers to help a Jewish doctor during World War II.
In Colorado and Washington, voters recently approved measures to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Supporters say legalization will generate tax revenue, move the trade into the open, and free up law enforcement resources.
More On The Debate
Audie Cornish and Melissa Block read emails from listeners about President Obama's meetings with union and business leaders, and the Rolling Stones.
Robert Siegel talks to Aaron David Miller, a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center who has worked on Middle East policy at the State Department under past Republican and Democratic administrations. They discuss the state of the Palestinian Liberation Organization.
A former hedge fund portfolio manager was arrested Tuesday on charges that he helped deliver what a prosecutor said "what might be the most lucrative inside tip of all time," enabling investment advisers and their hedge funds to make more than $276 million in illegal profits.
Mathew Martoma was charged in U.S. District Court in Manhattan with using confidential information about an Alzheimer's disease drug trial to help his firm avoid losses and instead reap a hefty profit in a scheme that stretched from 2006 through July 2008 while he worked for CR Intrinsic Investors LLC of Stamford, Conn. He's charged with conspiracy to commit securities fraud and two counts of securities fraud.
"The charges unsealed today describe cheating coming and going — specifically, insider trading first on the long side, and then on the short side, on a scale that has no historical precedent," U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.
The FBI said the scheme developed after Martoma met a doctor in Manhattan involved in an Alzheimer's disease drug trial in October 2006. The FBI said in a criminal complaint that he later obtained confidential information related to the final results of a drug trial.
Martoma's attorney, Charles Stillman, called Martoma "an exceptional portfolio manager who succeeded through hard work and the dogged pursuit of information in the public domain. What happened today is only the beginning of a process that we are confident will lead to Mr. Martoma's full exoneration."
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed civil papers in the case against CR Intrinsic Investors, Mathew Martoma and Dr. Sidney Gilman. The civil complaint said the illegal money was earned in July 2008 when various hedge funds traded ahead of a negative public announcement involving the clinical trial results of an Alzheimer drug being jointly developed by Elan Corp. and Wyeth.
The SEC complaint said that Martoma, then a portfolio manager at CR Intrinsic, carried out the scheme with Gilman, a professor of neurology at the University of Michigan Medical School. The SEC said Gilman served as chairman of the Safety Monitoring Committee overseeing the clinical trial and was selected by Elan and Wyeth to present the final clinical trial results at a July 29, 2008 medical conference. Messages left with the University of Michigan Medical School were not immediately returned.
Gilman's lawyer, Marc Mukasey, said his client is cooperating with the SEC and the U.S. Attorney's Office, and has entered into a non-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors.
The SEC said that leaks by Martoma caused hedge fund portfolios managed by CR Intrinsic as well as hedge fund portfolios managed by an affiliated investment adviser to liquidate their combined long positions in Elan and Wyeth, worth more than $700 million. It said he also caused them to take substantial short positions and to sell more than $960 million in Elan and Wyeth securities in just over a week.
The massive repositioning, the SEC said, allowed CR Intrinsic and various hedge funds to collective reap illicit profits and avoid losses of over $276 million.
"As alleged, by cultivating and corrupting a doctor with access to secret drug data, Mathew Martoma and his hedge fund benefited from what might be the most lucrative inside tip of all time," Bharara said. "As Martoma allegedly got sneak peeks at drug data, he first recommended that the hedge fund build up a massive position in Elan and Wyeth stock, and then caused the fund to shed those shares after getting a secret look at the unexpectedly bad results of a clinical drug trial. And so, overnight, Martoma went from bull to bear."
Many of the nation's historically black colleges and universities are facing financial problems, and some have had to shut down altogether. Guest host Celeste Headlee discusses the issue with Dillard University President Walter Kimbrough and Professor Marybeth Gasman of the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.
"PIGS" are a hot topic in Germany's capital.
Attend any press briefing about how German Chancellor Angela Merkel is going to solve the European debt crisis, and you're likely to hear that acronym, which stands for "Portugal, Ireland (or Italy), Greece and Spain."
But recently, pigs of an altogether different variety made headlines in Berlin.
Four people were injured — including a policeman — when a 265-pound wild boar attacked them in the Berlin neighborhood of Charlottenburg in late October. The police officer shot and killed the animal, which had been injured while crossing a busy highway.
Shocked residents said they had seen boars in the nearby park but didn't know they were dangerous. Some residents squealed on neighbors, accusing them of throwing food from their balconies to the pigs. Feeding wild boars in Berlin is illegal, and offenders face fines of up to $6,500.
Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson/NPR
Wild boar, shown here inside an enclosure in a Berlin city park, are considered smart and quickly learn how to avoid hunters.
The fiscal cliff has economists and politicians in a tailspin. The term is used to describe what will happen if Congress fails to come to an agreement on budget cuts or tax increases by the end of the year. Some say the term is inaccurate, and somewhat alarmist. Linda Wertheimer talks to linguist and Boston Globe language columnist Ben Zimmer about the origin of the term fiscal cliff.
Renee Montagne talks to "Washington Post" columnist David Ignatius about the conflict between Israel and Hamas, and which power players stand to win or lose from the crisis.
President Obama is in Cambodia for the East Asia summit. Afterwards, he wraps up his Asia tour and heads home.
The Justice Department has a big decision to make.
Parts of new laws in Colorado and Washington that legalize small amounts of recreational marijuana will take effect early next month. The Obama administration needs to choose whether it will sue to stop the legislation or let those states go their own way — even though the drug remains illegal under federal law.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat, says the message he got from voters is unambiguous.
"Our voters want marijuana to be regulated, like alcohol," Hickenlooper said at a recent news conference. "That's what they clearly said."
Hickenlooper has talked with the U.S. attorney general, but he came away with little certainty about what the Justice Department will do. The same goes for Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire, also a Democrat, who met with the deputy attorney general in the nation's capital last week.
Here's the problem: A federal law called the Controlled Substances Act still ranks marijuana as a dangerous and addictive drug, in the same class as heroin. That old law is rubbing against a new coalition of voters, particularly in Western states. In fact, on Election Day, more voters in Colorado and Washington cast their ballots for marijuana legalization than for President Obama.
Ryan Grim, who wrote a book on the drug, pointed that out to amused hosts on MSNBC.
"In fact, in Colorado, pot got 50,000 more votes than Obama, so you don't want to be on the wrong side of that," Grim said.
Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg says there's been a steady movement in that direction since the 1990s. "Marijuana is different than other social issues and other cultural issues because there are reasons that you might support reform that are very conservative," Greenberg says.
Greenberg worked for the marijuana initiative in Washington state, where she says 39 percent of Republican voters and 45 percent of seniors backed legalization.
"The most important reason that people cite is that they think the system's broken. It doesn't work," Greenberg says. "And that it would be better to regulate it and get the tax revenue and also allow law enforcement to concentrate on more violent ... crime."
John Walters, the national drug czar for President George W. Bush, asked Obama and the Justice Department to speak out against the marijuana ballot initiatives before the election, to no avail.
"I know there will be young people who get harmed by this — by the confusion, by the failure to take actions we could take that we know we need to take from past experience," Walters says. He is bothered by the response from the Justice Department — and worried about another trend, too.
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President Obama wraps up his Asia tour in Cambodia tomorrow. His trip included a historic visit to Myanmar, also known as Burma, making him the first sitting American president to visit that country. Guest host Celeste Headlee speaks with freelance reporter Michael Sullivan, about the significance of the president's trip.
The Obama Administration is hoping allies like Egypt and Turkey use their influence to persuade Hamas to stop firing rockets into Israel. But can the U.S. count on that kind of help, with a new government Egypt that doesn't see things the same way? The U.S. has shown no sign that it will pressure Israel to ease tensions. Officials have repeatedly said that Israel has the right to defend itself.
You might think that actor Irrfan Khan — the co-star of the special effects-filled film Life of Pi — performed his scenes by himself, or with inanimate objects that would later be transformed via CGI. Not so: As the older Pi in Ang Lee's new adaptation of the best-selling novel, Khan went back to the basics.
He tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that he thinks of scenes as being like duets: "You strike a note, and somebody responds, and then you respond accordingly," Khan says.
In America, Khan is most popularly known for his role as the police inspector in the Oscar-winning drama Slumdog Millionaire. He's also appeared in the HBO series In Treatment, the film A Mighty Heart and in Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited.
Khan would eventually study acting at India's National School of Drama, but when he was little, his family didn't allow him to watch films. They came from a feudal background, he tells Fresh Air, and "they had this attitude of looking down upon films, [that films] are not a good influence."
Enlarge Twentieth Century Fox
As a teenager, Pi (the younger version played here by Suraj Sharma) is lost at sea with a Bengal tiger.
President Obama, in the midst of a five-day trip to Asia, is making stops in Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar. But the strongest diplomatic signals are probably aimed farther north, at China, which has significant economic and strategic interests in the region.
Obama, who has billed himself as "America's first Pacific president" has already made several trips to Asia, but his administration's goal of making a "pivot" to the region — both militarily and diplomatically — has been hamstrung by the need to wind down wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now, with Iraq off the table and Afghanistan soon to follow, the administration is able to double-down on its Asia policy. Experts say the time is right.
Counterbalancing China
There is no getting around the fact that China is the dominant power in Asia and that its economic, military and political power is rapidly growing. Its economic tentacles have turned much of the region into an outsourcing hub for its own shop floors, with Southeast Asia, for example, becoming a major source of computer chips and hard drives. At the same time, Beijing has stepped up its muscle-flexing over long-standing claims in the South China Sea and elsewhere — sending patrol vessels to the Senkaku Islands, claimed by both Japan and China, and the Scarborough Shoals, disputed territory with the Philippines.
"The U.S. sees this pivot toward Asia as a way to counterbalance China's growing influence in the region," says Suzanne DiMaggio, vice president of Global Policy Programs at the Asia Society. "I think the U.S. looks to Asia and sees China's fingerprints everywhere."
Enlarge Carolyn Kaster/AP
President Obama and Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra (second from right) arrived for an official dinner Sunday at Government House in Bangkok, Thailand.
Federal lawmakers and the White House are looking for solutions to the problem of the looming fiscal cliff. Meanwhile, many federal workers are worried about their future. Guest host Celeste Headlee talks with Joe Davidson, the Federal Diary columnist for The Washington Post, about potential consequences for the federal workforce.
The record breaking criminal guilty plea by BP by no means marks the end of the oil company's legal troubles. BP still faces a civil trial in February over its environmental responsibilities from the Gulf oil spill. Last week it pleaded guilty to felony manslaughter in the deaths of 11 rig workers.
Thousands of demonstrators went back onto the streets of Amman and other Jordanian cities on Friday. The protests were sparked by fuel price hikes, but some are now calling for the downfall of King Abdullah, a key U.S. ally in the region.
Hamas militants launched more rockets toward Tel Aviv and other cities amid Israel's continuing air and naval bombardment of the Gaza Strip on Friday. Egypt's Prime Minister also paid a brief visit to Gaza City and its Shifa hospital to express solidarity with the Palestinians.
Howard H. Stevenson and Shirley Spence are the authors of Getting to Giving: Fundraising the Entrepreneurial Way.
In the debate about the fiscal cliff, it is clear that private philanthropy will have a continuing and growing role. As a donor, nonprofit board member (including at NPR) and fundraiser, I've learned some things over the years about philanthropy. Here are a few things that may surprise you about the art of doing good.
1. No margin, no mission
That's how the nun in charge of a hospital put it when we complimented her on her good work. Similarly, a friend advises the boards to think of themselves as "tax-exempt" rather than "nonprofit." As I see it, nonprofits are the very definition of an entrepreneurial venture; they identify a problem or opportunity and assemble the resources to meet it. It all starts with an economic model that may include earned income, membership revenues and philanthropy. It may be fun to talk about exciting new programs, but I've witnessed the perils of ignoring the numbers.
Grant Brownrigg/Grantland.net
Sierra Leone's "blood diamonds" helped fuel atrocities in the impoverished West African nation in the 1990s. The war has now been over for a decade, and the country's most valuable resource is no longer known as the product of a conflict. But it remains a contentious issue.
As Sierra Leoneans go to the polls Saturday, the country's diamonds are at the heart of political parties' manifestos. Opposition parties accuse the government of mortgaging lucrative diamond fields for a "pittance," while President Ernest Bai Koroma boasts of his "ambitious" efforts to transform the industry.
In diamond-rich Kono district, in the eastern part of the country, previous elections have been fiercely protested.
While the country's parliamentary election is expected to be relatively peaceful, this hub of diamond mining in the country shows a bitter irony: It's resource rich, but poverty abounds as development here has not kept pace with other parts of the country.
In Koidu, the capital of Kono, women and children stand knee deep in the fields on either side of the dusty potholed roads.
Enlarge Issouf Sanogo/AFP/Getty Images
Small-scale artisanal mining has sustained this area since diamonds were discovered in 1930, but it is hard work and the pay is low.
Republican governors got together in Las Vegas last week, to take stock of the election results as they continue to sink in.
Going in to Election Day, Republican confidence was high that the Grand Old Party would sweep President Obama aside, retake the U.S. Senate and reshape the country in the aftermath.
So on Nov. 6, when the results came in, many if not most Republicans were shocked by the president's victory. Pat McCrory, however, the newly elected governor of North Carolina, saw it coming.
"I knew it would be close. The Obama machine, the ground machine, is absolutely incredible," McCrory says. "I saw it in [2008], when I ran for governor and lost ... I was blindsided by it. This time I wasn't blindsided by it, but I still think they have a much better ground machine than the Republican national party."
McCrory's take on the ground game is both true, and for the Republican Party governors, politically convenient. The consensus in Las Vegas was that President Obama won, not because Americans agreed with his positions on raising taxes on the rich or healthcare, but because Republicans got out organized by the community organizer. Therefore, the president has no election mandate because the reason he won had nothing to do with issues.
The other consensus was that Mitt Romney wasn't a great candidate.
"I really think this is not as much about Republican or Democrat, but about people are looking for leaders and they don't care what party they come from," he says. "I think what happened with Governor Romney is he let himself be defined before he defined himself."
This analysis also lets Republican Party ideology off the hook. It was widely agreed that nothing needed to be changed except perhaps the tone. For example, the idea that more than 70 percent of Hispanics voted for the president because of Republican positions on illegal immigration was rejected by the Republican governors.
The accepted wisdom is that Republican candidates need to campaign harder, and let Hispanics know they really care about their vote and then that vote will start coming the GOP's way.
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Leo Tolstoy's epic novel Anna Karenina has captivated readers since the 1800s — and movie directors have been among the intrigued, adapting the story over and over.
The latest is from director Joe Wright, who with Pride and Prejudice and Atonement to his credit certainly knows his way around a literary adaptation. Those films starred Keira Knightley, who has worked with Wright once again as the story's tragic heroine.
The film tells the tale of the titular Anna, a Russian socialite trapped in a loveless marriage. After first resisting the dashing Count Vronsky, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson, she falls for him, betraying her husband in a doomed loved affair.
In the movie, Wright chose to have much of the action take place in a theater, on the stage. A society ball, a horse race, a field of flowers, arguments, intrigue and lovemaking all happen under the proscenium arch — as well as backstage and in the rafters.
Wright tells NPR's Renee Montagne that the decision to frame the story that way was about breathing new life into the classic Russian romance.
At nearly 80, Willie Nelson remains impressively prolific: lots of songs, lots of kids and, fittingly, lots of autobiographies. The country singer's latest memoir is called Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die, after a song on his Heroes album, released earlier this year. Nelson says those seeking earth-shattering revelations about his life should look elsewhere; that wasn't his intention in writing the book.
"I was riding down the highway looking out the window, which is what I do about 22 hours every day, and just sort of writing down my thoughts," he says. "It's more of a diary, I guess, than anything else."
Here, Nelson speaks with NPR's Rachel Martin about his family life, being forced to choose between marijuana and tobacco, and where a touring musician looks for spirituality.
Interview Highlights
On getting into music as a kid in Abbott, Texas
"There was a guy, a blacksmith, in Abbott ... and he had a family band. He just let me play because he knew I wanted to work and needed the work. So I played the guitar in a big polka band with a lot of horns and everything. Fortunately, no one ever heard me, because I wasn't that great. But I was 9 or 10 years old and making 8 to 10 dollars a night. It was easier than picking cotton."
On quitting cigarettes
"I had gotten up to two, maybe three, packs a day. My lungs were bothering me and I'd had pneumonia two or three times. I was also smoking pot, and I decided, well, one of them's gotta go. So I took a pack of Chesterfields and took all the Chesterfields out, rolled up 20 big fat ones and put [them] in there, and I haven't smoked a cigarette since then."
On finding religion on the road
"I've been working every Sunday morning for many years, so I don't even get a chance to go to church and Sunday school like other people do. So my church became the bus and my body the temple, as the Bible tells us. We're all in our church everyday."
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Intense fighting continues between Israel and Hamas, bringing the conflict into a fifth day. Host Rachel Martin speaks with NPR's Anthony Kuhn about the latest developments in the violence in Israel and Gaza.
President Obama on Sunday launched a three-day Southeast Asia tour, hailing alliances with countries such as Thailand as cornerstones of the administration's deeper commitment to the Asia-Pacific region.
While in Asia, however, Obama will be dividing his attention by monitoring the escalating conflict between Israel and the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip. Obama has been in regular contact with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as with Egyptian and Turkish leaders who might hold sway with the Hamas leadership.
Obama landed in Bangkok Sunday afternoon, greeted by 40 saluting military guards who flanked both sides of a red carpet.
His schedule is packed with sightseeing, a royal audience with King Bhumibol Adulyadej, a private meeting with Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, a joint press conference and an official dinner.
On a steamy day, Obama began with a visit to the Wat Pho Royal Monastery, a cultural must-see in Bangkok. In stocking feet, the president and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton walked around a golden statue of a sitting Buddha. The complex is a sprawling display of buildings with colorful spires, gardens and waterfalls.
Obama is also visiting Myanmar and Cambodia in his first trip abroad since winning a second term.
The visit to Thailand, less than 18 hours long, is a gesture of friendship to a long-standing partner and major non-NATO ally.
Still, the two countries have faced strains, most recently after the 2006 military coup that deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, and Obama's visit offers an opportunity to restate and broaden the relationship.
"It was very important for us to send a signal to the region that allies are going to continue to be the foundation of our approach" to establishing a more prominent presence in Asia, deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters traveling with the president aboard Air Force One.
Obama is also seeking to open new markets for U.S. businesses; the United States is Thailand's third biggest trading partner, behind China and Japan. Becoming a counterweight to China in the region is a keystone of Obama's so-called pivot to the Asia-Pacific region.
Obama's trip comes on the heels of meetings in Thailand between Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and his Thai counterparts on security and military cooperation on issues ranging from fighting weapons proliferation to disaster relief to countering piracy.
Alluding to the 2006 coup, Obama's national security adviser, Tom Donilon, said in a speech ahead of the trip last week that Obama would build on Panetta's outreach to reinforce the relationship and "support the continued peaceful restoration of democratic order after a turbulent period."
After his time at the temple, Obama was to pay a courtesy call to ailing 86-year-old, U.S.-born King Bhumibol Adulyadej in his hospital quarters. The king, the longest serving living monarch, was born in Cambridge, Mass., and studied in Europe.
The centerpiece of the Asia trip comes Monday when Obama travels to Myanmar, the once reclusive and autocratic state that has begun instituting democratic measures. Obama has eased sanction on the country, also known as Burma, and his visit will be the first there by a sitting U.S. president.
Obama aides see Myanmar as not only a success story but also as a signal to other countries that the U.S. will reward democratic behavior.
"If Burma can continue to succeed in a democratic transition, then that can potentially send a powerful message regionally and around the world...that if countries do take the right decisions, we have to be there with incentives," Rhodes said.
The titular altar boys would probably enjoy Funeral Kings. The first feature from sibling filmmakers Kevin and Matthew McManus has most everything the average adolescent boy wants: swearing, smoking, swearing, gun violence, swearing and cute girls. And swearing.
They'd likely emerge from the cinema — provided they'd found a means of sneaking into the R-rated screening — quoting the most profane lines and complaining that none of the aforementioned cute girls took off their shirts. This is what teenage boys do — and that headlong hormonal rush toward what boys perceive as the benefits of adulthood is what the brothers McManus capture here with candor and occasional hilarity.
Set in a small Rhode Island town circa the early '00s — the few mobile phones are of the clamshell variety, and a still-operational video store plays an integral part in the plot — the film follows a trio of Catholic middle-schoolers and miscreants-in-the-making who have scored the prime church assignment of weekday funeral duty. This gets them out of classes from time to time, and once the services are done, they skip out for the rest of the day.
They've got a pretty standard routine established — of slacking and cheating the local Chinese buffet on its all-you-can-eat lunch special — until the oldest of the trio, Bobby (Brandon Waltz), shows up at Andy's (Dylan Hartigan) house late one night to drop off a padlocked footlocker for safekeeping before speeding off into the darkness.
Enlarge Freestyle Releasing
Andy (Dylan Hartigan) must convince a pious fellow altar boy not to give away the details of their afternoons playing hooky.
Fresh off his re-election, a politically fortified President Obama summoned the top four congressional leaders to the White House Friday for the first of what could be many rounds of talks for a deal to avert fiscal calamity.
The meeting was part of the opening moves to keep the nation from sailing over the so-called fiscal cliff — those across-the-board tax hikes and deep spending cuts set to kick in at year's end.
In welcoming the quartet of lawmakers, Obama struck a conciliatory note.
"Our challenge is to make sure that we are able to cooperate together, work together, find some common ground, make some tough compromises, build some consensus to do the people's business," he said.
But any deal reached to prevent the fiscal plunge may prove a hard sell on Capitol Hill.
Revenue's 'On The Table'
The president had already made clear at his news conference Wednesday that he has one bottom line as this high-stakes bargaining begins.
"What I have told leaders privately as well as publicly is that we cannot afford to extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy," he said.
Obama took that same stance two years ago, but ultimately relented. This time, backed by a renewed mandate and polls that support his position, he says that won't happen.
And House Speaker John Boehner, who scotched a revenue-raising deal with the president last year, emerged from Friday's meeting on a very different note.
"To show our seriousness, we've put revenue on the table, as long as it's accompanied by significant spending cuts," he said.
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