Credit Yassine El Mansouri / Courtesy: John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Nordic Cool Facade.
Credit Yassine El Mansouri / Courtesy John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The Hall of Nations is transformed by a plywood installation called Sup-Plywood, or How to Be Singular in the Plural. Plywood is one of the most used materials in Nordic design. The installation was created by the Norwegian architecture firm Snohetta.
Credit Yassine El Mansouri / Courtesy John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Northern Lights illuminate the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., during its monthlong festival, Nordic Cool 2013. The festival includes performances and exhibits from more than 750 artists. The exhibit runs through March 17.
Credit Yassine El Mansouri / Courtesy John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Among the countries represented in the exhibits and shows at the Kennedy Center are Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Greenland. The festival attempts to answer the question, "What is Nordic?"
Credit Yassine El Mansouri / Courtesy John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The Five Nordic Houses exhibit displays homes commissioned by Denmark's Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. Five architects were commissioned to build small homes that suit the style and needs of their home country, including this house by the Finnish firm Lassila Hirvilammi.
Credit Yassine El Mansouri / Courtesy John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Another home in the Five Nordic Houses exhibit was created by the Norwegian architecture firm Jarmund/Vigsnaes.
Credit Yassine El Mansouri / Courtesy John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
The Nordic design exhibit includes a lava rock, which Jukka Savolainen, director of the Design Museum in Helsinki, says reminds him of a gnome. The collection showcases the region's design roots, which include references to Bauhaus and 20th century modernism.
Right now, it's a massive festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., with artists and designers displaying art and culture from their very top sliver of the globe.
The festival arrives at what seems like just the right moment for Americans.
From the Danish modern furniture of the 1950s to the omnipresence of Ikea, Americans have long been attracted to the austere design of Nordic countries.
People walk down a market street in Eastleigh, a predominantly Muslim Somali neighborhood in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2009. The neighborhood has come under scrutiny as the U.S. cracks down on terrorism financing.
U.S. counterterrorism efforts include choking off the flow of cash to extremists, and urging friendly countries to help. But in Nairobi, Kenya, suspicion of Somali money — and an increase in terrorist attacks — has prompted a country-wide crackdown, with Kenyan police accused of extortion and arbitrary arrests of thousands of Somali refugees.
But how do you tell the difference between tainted money and honest cash?
Take Eastleigh, a neighborhood in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi.
Researchers who studied pieces of the meteor collected near Lake Cherbarkul say it was a common chondrite meteor. The largest of the 53 fragments was one centimeter in diameter. Photo provided by the Urals Federal University Press Service.
The meteor that caused at least 1,000 injuries in Russia after a startling and powerful daytime explosion one week ago has been identified as a chondrite. Russian scientists who analyzed fragments of the meteor, whose large size and well-documented impact made it a rarity, say that its composition makes it the most common type of meteor we encounter here on Earth.
Engineers from China and Myanmar work to bury an oil pipeline outside the Myanmar city of Mandalay. Chinese media reports say the 700-mile-long oil and gas pipelines will be completed in May.
Credit Anthony Kuhn / NPR
Residents of Nong Pha village in southern Shan State say the Burmese army confiscated their farmland to build the pipeline, and kept money intended to compensate them
For decades, Myanmar was isolated diplomatically, an economic backwater that seemed almost frozen in time amid a Southeast Asian region that was modernizing at a rapid pace.
But the political reforms under way in Myanmar, also known as Burma, are redefining its place in the world. President Obama's visit in November was a sign of the dramatic turnaround in relations with the United States.
This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block. Oscar Pistorius is free on bail. That's after a dramatic four-day hearing that's gripped South Africa. The star athlete with two prosthetic legs is accused of murdering his girlfriend. And the bail hearing was a tense battle over whether the killing was premeditated murder or a tragic accident. NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton reports now on today's bail decision by the magistrate.
This is SCIENCE FRIDAY, I'm Ira Flatow. The Internet is the new battleground.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: We know foreign countries and companies swipe our corporate secrets. Now our enemies are also seeking the ability to sabotage our power grid, our financial institutions, our air traffic control systems. We cannot look back years from now and wonder why we did nothing in the face of real threats to our security and our economy.
Originally published on Fri February 22, 2013 1:03 pm
A week after a meteor exploded over Russia on the same day that an asteroid swung closely past Earth, experts discuss how the potential threats posed by near-Earth objects should be addressed. Astronomers Donald Yeomans and John Tonry weigh in on how to keep the planet safe.
A women's group protests Tuesday outside the courthouse in Pretoria, South Africa, where Oscar Pistorius was attending his bail hearing. Violence against women is widespread in South Africa, and was already part of the national debate before the Pistorius case.
Originally published on Fri February 22, 2013 12:48 pm
No place has been as riveted by Oscar Pistorius and the Valentine's Day shooting death of his girlfriend as South Africa.
But even before this sensational story burst into the headlines, South Africans were fiercely debating issues that are more or less permanent fixtures in this country — crime, and violence against women.
Good morning. I'm Linda Wertheimer. At a school in Windsor, Ontario, teachers suspected an eighth grader was going through a teacher's desk. So they planted brochures for a beautiful class trip to Disney World. They even made a presentation, and then said: just kidding. The snooping student got his comeuppance but other kids and parents were furious. The school apologized. The real student trip will be to a bowling alley. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.