Charlotte Talks
12:00 am
Mon May 20, 2013

50 Years Since Desegregation In Charlotte

Credit From Carolina Room, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, courtesy of Levine Museum.
Marchers on East Trade Street. From The Charlotte Observer article May 21, 1963. Headline: "J.C. Smith Students March Across Town." Observer Photo by James Denning.

Fifty years ago, a Charlotte Civil Rights activist led a march through Charlotte to call for desegregation in the city. That march triggered an "eat-in" at Charlotte restaurants with African American leaders, led by then Mayor Stan Brookshire. That action in Charlotte helped set the stage for the nation's 1964 Civil Rights Act.

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Books
7:12 am
Sat May 18, 2013

Author Elliott Holt says: 'Go West, Young Woman'

In Elliott Holt's beautifully subtle debut novel You Are One of Them, the protagonist, an American in her 20s, moves to Moscow shortly after the Cold War. After a few months, she returns to the U.S. a changed woman.

Holt, who is 39, also lived in Moscow where she worked as a copywriter at an advertising agency as well as in London and New York. Currently, she resides in Washington, D.C. and writes full time.

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Three-Minute Fiction
6:19 am
Sat May 18, 2013

Plum Baby

Credit iStockphoto.com

Originally published on Sat May 18, 2013 6:24 am

There isn't enough time in this world to grow your own tree. That tree is a plum baby still, never mind it's tall as the house those men are taking from us. It grew up with me. I say this to Mama Lee as she rests her hand on my shoulder like another shoulder. She nods and nods some more. She's been nodding all day like she's got two weights, one in her chin and the other in back of her skull that can't lie at rest.

We're standing in the yard facing the house in the dewy grass. The house is as old as Mama Lee's mama who died before I was born.

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Krulwich Wonders...
5:48 am
Sat May 18, 2013

David Foster Wallace Tells Us About Freedom

Author Interviews
5:18 am
Sat May 18, 2013

Dan Brown: 'Inferno' Is 'The Book That I Would Want To Read'

Robert Langdon is back. The Harvard art professor in custom tweeds — and an ever-present Mickey Mouse watch — wakes up in a hospital after getting grazed in the head by a bullet, wondering how he ended up in Florence. He's got a sinister artifact sewn into his coat and just a few hours to keep the world from a grim biological catastrophe.

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Environment
5:18 am
Sat May 18, 2013

Not Your Grandpa's RV: This Roving Lab Tracks Air Pollution

If you're driving down the road someday and you come across a camper with a 50-foot periscope sticking up into the sky, you just might have crossed paths with Ira Leifer. His quirky vehicle is on a serious mission. It's sniffing the air for methane, a gas that contributes to global warming.

Leifer is an atmospheric scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara. But you'll more often find him off campus, in a garage, next to a string of auto body shops near the airport.

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Law
5:17 am
Sat May 18, 2013

Turning Up The Heat On Civil Rights-Era Cold Cases

Six years ago, the FBI took on a challenge: To review what it called cold case killings from the civil rights era. The investigation into 112 cases from the 1950s and 1960s is winding down, and civil rights activists are weighing the FBI's efforts.

The review comes with word this week of the death of a man who'd been named, by a newspaper investigation, as a possible suspect in one notorious case.

The Case

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Media
5:13 am
Sat May 18, 2013

Media Covers Itself In Privacy Debacles

Host Scott Simon talks to NPR's David Folkenflik about the Justice Department's seizure of phone records of Associated Press reporters and editors, and Bloomberg's secret monitoring of its sources' and customers' activities.

Politics
5:13 am
Sat May 18, 2013

What A Week: White House Rattled By Controversy

NPR's Ari Shapiro joins host Scott Simon to talk about the Obama administration's week. The president was buffeted by revelations that the IRS had targeted Tea Party groups seeking tax-exempt status and that the Justice Department had subpoenaed reporter phone records. On top of that, Republicans continue to allege that the White House engaged in a cover-up of talking points about the attack in Benghazi, Libya.

U.S.
5:13 am
Sat May 18, 2013

When Alcohol Takes The Wheel: What's Your Limit?

This week, the National Transportation Safety Board recommended lowering the legal limit of blood alcohol content for drivers to .05 or even lower. Currently, it's illegal to drive in all states with a BAC of .08 or higher. Host Scott Simon speaks with Dr. Anthony Liguori of Wake Forest School of Medicine about alcohol's impact on driving ability.

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