It's All Politics
4:02 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

Obama, Romney Reprise Their Greatest Debate Hits On Campaign Trail

A day after their second presidential debate, President Obama and GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney were in different swing states, reprising some of their greatest hits from Tuesday night.

And "hits" is the exactly the right word because each man energetically repeated attacks he made on his rival.

Read more
Shots - Health News
3:31 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

Treatment For Alzheimer's Should Start Years Before Disease Sets In

Credit Charles Dharapak / AP
Alexis McKenzie, executive director of the Methodist Home of the District of Columbia Forest Side, an Alzheimer's assisted-living facility, puts her hand on the arm of resident Catherine Peake.

Originally published on Thu October 18, 2012 8:12 am

Treatment for Alzheimer's probably needs to begin years or even decades before symptoms of the disease start to appear, scientists reported at this week's Society for Neuroscience meeting in New Orleans.

"By the time an Alzheimer's patient is diagnosed even with mild or moderate Alzheimer's there is very, very extensive neuron death," said John Morrison of Mount Sinai Medical School in New York. "And the neurons that die are precisely those neurons that allow you to navigate the world and make sense of the world."

Read more
The Two-Way
3:27 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

Politics Might Be In Her Future, Chelsea Clinton Hints

Credit Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images
Chelsea Clinton in September at her father's Clinton Global Initiative in New York City.

Originally published on Wed October 17, 2012 4:07 pm

Though she's dipped her toe into the world of TV journalism, we don't hear a lot from Chelsea Clinton about whether she might one day get into the family business.

But now the BBC has posted an interview in which the daughter of former President Clinton and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton doesn't rule out getting into politics herself.

Read more
The Two-Way
2:41 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

Billy Graham's Website Stops Saying Directly That Mormons Are In A 'Cult'

Credit Jim Watson / AFP/Getty Images
Oct. 11: Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney visited the Rev. Billy Graham at the evangelist's home in Montreat, N.C.

Just days after Rev. Billy Graham endorsed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's bid for the White House, the website of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has stopped overtly listing the candidate's religion among what it says are "cults."

Read more
It's All Politics
2:35 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

Want Thousands of Twitter Followers? Put A Meme On It

Credit bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com
An image from the Binders Full of Women Tumblr.

Originally published on Thu October 18, 2012 10:23 am

It is now clear that we are living in a world of viral memes that take no sides when it comes to spoofing politicians or debate moderators.

So what's a politician to do as the target of a social media parody?

Run with it.

"By kind of winking along with the electorate, you're humanizing, personalizing yourself, authenticating yourself," says Rory O'Connor, author of Friends, Followers and the Future. O'Connor argues that social media will be critical to deciding who is elected as the next president.

Read more
World
2:31 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

Israeli Politicians Look To U.S. For Campaign Funds

Credit Pool / Getty Images
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs the weekly Cabinet meeting at his offices in Jerusalem in October. A new report shows that Netanyahu raised more than 90 percent of his campaign money in the United States.

Originally published on Sun October 21, 2012 8:03 am

It's midday in the cafeteria of the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, and legislators and their aides are busy wheeling and dealing over lunch.

Gil Hoffman, political analyst for The Jerusalem Post newspaper, surveys the cafeteria floor with an expert's eye.

"Never a dull moment in election season," he says. "This is where the politicians, when there is something really important to get across to the press, this is where they do it; this is where they meet and make whatever political deals they need to get ahead."

Read more
Shots - Health News
2:24 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

How The Taliban Is Thwarting The War On Polio

Originally published on Wed October 17, 2012 5:26 pm

Pakistan is one of the remaining corners of the world where polio still lingers. Last year, the government declared a national emergency, and with the help of international institutions, embarked on an aggressive vaccination campaign.

So far, the results have been promising. The number of new polio cases is about a third of last year's total of 198.

But the new campaign, like previous efforts, hasn't been able to overcome one critical problem: getting into parts of Pakistan's lawless tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan to vaccinate the children there.

Read more
Credit Michael Paras

Margot Adler is a NPR correspondent based in NPR's New York Bureau. Her reports can be heard regularly on All Things Considered, Morning Edition and Weekend Edition.

In addition to covering New York City, Adler reports include in-depth features exploring the interface of politics and culture. Most recently she has been reporting on the controversy surrounding the proposed Islamic Cultural Center near Ground Zero. Other recent pieces have focused on the effect of budget cuts on education, flood relief efforts by the Pakistani community in the United States, the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy, and the battles over the September 11th memorial as well as the continuing human story in New York City in the years since the attacks. Her reporting has included topics such as the death penalty, affirmative action and the culture wars.

Adler did the first American radio interview with J.K. Rowling and has charted the Harry Potter phenomenon ever since. Her reporting ranges across issues including children and technology, the fad of the Percy Jackson books and the popularity of vampires. She occasionally reviews books, covers plays, art exhibitions and auctions, among other reports for NPR's Arts desk.

From 1999-2008, Adler was the host of NPR's Justice Talking, a weekly show exploring constitutional controversies in the nation's courts.

Adler joined the NPR staff as a general assignment reporter in 1979, after spending a year as an NPR freelance reporter covering New York City. In 1980, she documented the confrontation between radicals and the Ku Klux Klan in Greensboro, North Carolina. In 1984, she reported and produced an acclaimed documentary on AIDS counselors in San Francisco. She covered the Winter Olympics in Calgary in 1988 and in Sarajevo in 1984. She has reported on homeless people living in the subways, on the state of the middle class and on the last remaining American hospital for treating leprosy, which was located in Louisiana.

From 1972 to 1990, Adler created and hosted live talk shows on WBAI-FM/New York City. One of those shows, Hour of the Wolf, hosted by Jim Freund, continues as a science fiction show to this day. She is the author of the book, Drawing Down the Moon, a study of contemporary nature religions, and a 1960's memoir, Heretic's Heart. She co-produced an award-winning radio drama, War Day, and is a lecturer and workshop leader. She is currently working on a book on why vampires have such traction in our culture.

With a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, Adler went on to earn a Master of Science degree from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University in New York in 1970. She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1982.

The granddaughter of Alfred Adler, the renowned Viennese psychiatrist, Adler was born in Little Rock, Ark., and grew up in New York City. She loves birding and science fiction.

The Two-Way
1:36 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

Guilty Plea In Plot To Murder Saudi Ambassador

Credit Shirley Shepard / AFP/Getty Images
Manssor Arbabsiar (front, right) in court last October.

Manssor Arbabsiar, an Iranian-born naturalized American citizen, has pleaded guilty to conspiring with Iranian military officials in a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador to the United States, the Justice Department says.

Read more
Books
1:29 pm
Wed October 17, 2012

Thousands Line Up For Rare Rowling Appearance

Credit Dan Hallman / AP
J.K. Rowling promotes her new novel, The Casual Vacancy, at Lincoln Center in New York. It was her only U.S. appearance.

Originally published on Wed October 17, 2012 4:09 pm

While much of America was watching the second presidential debate, about 2,000 people — many of them between the ages of 20 and 40 — were doing something very different. They had gotten a rare and prized ticket to the only U.S. appearance by J.K Rowling, as she promotes her new book for adults, The Casual Vacancy.

The crowd was huge but happy — double the number originally planned, forcing the organizers to change venues. Attendees got a ticket to the Lincoln Center event and a copy of the book, which Rowling would later sign.

Read more

Pages