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Business
4:42 am
Fri August 17, 2012

The Last Word In Business

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Originally published on Fri August 17, 2012 11:06 am

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

As in much of the country, it's been a hot summer in the state of Oklahoma, and the heat has forced those without air conditioning to get creative.

Today's last word in business is a Scottish solution.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

Mechanics at O'Brien Auto Performance are keeping cool in kilts. From May to October, some employees there don kilts to enjoy a breezier workday.

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Europe
4:42 am
Fri August 17, 2012

Russian Judge To Rule In Punk Band's Anti-Putin Case

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Originally published on Mon August 20, 2012 4:48 pm

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RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

And I'm David Greene. In Russia today, a judge has delivered a guilty verdict for three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot. The band members were given a two-year sentence. They were found guilty of hooliganism motivated by religious hatred, after staging a protest in Moscow's main cathedral last February.

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Middle East
4:42 am
Fri August 17, 2012

U.N. To Appoint New Envoy To Syria

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Originally published on Fri August 17, 2012 11:06 am

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

The United Nations role in Syria is changing and so too is its personnel. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon is expected to tap a veteran U.N. troubleshooter to take over from International Envoy Kofi Annan. At the same time, U.N. military observers are wrapping up their mission. NPR's Michele Kelemen has the latest.

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Around the Nation
4:42 am
Fri August 17, 2012

Participation Nation: People Pitching In To Help Communities

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Originally published on Fri August 17, 2012 11:06 am

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DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Sometimes it can feel like a lot of what we hear is bad news. Well, we're going to hear next about some stories that inspire. All month, we've been collecting stories on NPR.org about good things Americans are doing, how they're working together to improve their communities.

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

We call it Participation Nation. You've told us about a California doctor who turned a two-room free clinic into a community health center.

GREENE: A writing program to help young people in Maine become storytellers.

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Your Money
2:59 am
Fri August 17, 2012

Student Loans Can Dent Retirees' Social Security

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Originally published on Fri August 17, 2012 2:37 pm

Families often pull together to help finance a college education, with parents and grandparents chipping in or co-signing loans. And now, a SmartMoney report finds the U.S. government withholding money from Social Security recipients who've stopped paying on federal student loans.

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StoryCorps
2:58 am
Fri August 17, 2012

A Murder, A Secret, And A Mother's Attempt To Atone

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In 1988, Julie Sanders was present at a racist murder. A lot has happened since then, she says — but forgiveness isn't included. She visited StoryCorps with Randy Blazak in Portland, Ore.
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Originally published on Fri August 17, 2012 11:06 am

At 40, Julie Sanders is a mother of three from Portland, Ore. But when she was 16, Sanders belonged to a white supremacist group — and one night in 1988, she witnessed a murder. Since then, she's kept the event a secret from most of her friends and family.

Before she sat down to talk about the incident with her friend Randy Blazak at StoryCorps, Sanders says, she had rarely talked about her past at all. She started out by recalling what her life was like in her teen years.

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Shots - Health Blog
2:58 am
Fri August 17, 2012

Would Judge Give Psychopath With Genetic Defect Lighter Sentence?

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Originally published on Fri August 17, 2012 11:06 am

In 1991, a man named Stephen Mobley robbed a Domino's pizza in Hall County, Ga., and shot the restaurant manager dead.

Crimes like this happen all the time, but this particular case became a national story, in part because Mobley seemed so proud of his crime. After the robbery, he bragged about the killing and had the Domino's logo tattooed on his back.

But there was another reason Mobley's case became famous.

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Dead Stop
2:57 am
Fri August 17, 2012

How Congressional Cemetery Got Its Name

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Credit Blake Lipthratt / NPR
Congressional Cemetery was founded in 1807, when Washington, D.C., was a new town. The 35-acre historic burial ground is located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, overlooking the Anacostia River.
Credit Blake Lipthratt / NPR
Congressional Cemetery is home to 171 cenotaphs honoring members of Congress who have died. The tradition began in the early 19th century, when it was often impossible to transport bodies home for burial. Later, as this became less of an issue, members of Congress still chose to have a marker in the cemetery, even if their final resting place was elsewhere.
Credit Blake Lipthratt / NPR
Washington funeral grounds like Congressional Cemetery often served as parks for the city's residents. Gravestones shaped like picnic tables encouraged people to come and spend the day, and even have a picnic.
Credit Blake Lipthratt / NPR
Congressional Cemetery also serves as a private dog park. Neighbors have walked their dogs in the cemetery for years.
Credit Blake Lipthratt / NPR
In the 1990s, as the cemetery fell into disrepair, a small group started paying to mow the grass. That group grew to become the K9 Corps — an official organization of the Association for the Preservation of Historic Congressional Cemetery.
Credit Blake Lipthratt / NPR
In the 1830s, a public vault was built with federal appropriations money, because Congress decided it was useful to have a holding place for the deceased while arrangements were being made.
Credit Blake Lipthratt / NPR
An old iron key unlocks the public vault on the cemetery grounds.
Credit Blake Lipthratt / NPR
Because of Congressional Cemetery's age, the gravestones' styles are varied. More uniform headstone styles didn't become common until the 1870s.
Credit Blake Lipthratt / NPR
The cemetery that served as the first national burial ground remains an active cemetery. Here, the headstone of Rep. Tom Lantos of California, who died in 2008. The stones on top have been left by visitors as a mark of respect for Lantos, per Jewish tradition.
Credit Blake Lipthratt / NPR
Among the cemetery's many luminaries is Washington native John Phillip Sousa, the bandmaster of the Marine Corps Band, who wrote more than 300 compositions. Each year on Sousa's birthday, the Marine Band pays a visit to the cemetery to play a musical tribute.
Credit Blake Lipthratt / NPR
Rebecca Roberts serves as program director at Congressional Cemetery and is the co-author of a new book on the cemetery and its history. Her grandfather Hale Boggs, a representative from Louisiana, has a cenotaph in the cemetery. Boggs was aboard a plane that disappeared over Alaska in 1972 and presumably crashed; his body has never been recovered.
Credit Blake Lipthratt / NPR
Congressional Cemetery was founded in 1807, when Washington, D.C., was a new town. The 35-acre historic burial ground is located in the Capitol Hill neighborhood, overlooking the Anacostia River.
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Originally published on Fri August 17, 2012 11:06 am

Back at the turn of the 19th century, Uriah Tracey was something of a trendsetter. The Connecticut senator was one of the first to fight in the Revolutionary War — and then one of the first to attempt secession from the Union. And in 1807, he was the first member of Congress buried in what later became known as Congressional Cemetery, in Washington, D.C.

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Animals
2:57 am
Fri August 17, 2012

Swarming Up A Storm: Why Animals School And Flock

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Credit David J. Phillip / AP
A school of Blue Tang fish swimming together off the Caribbean island of Bonaire. It has long been assumed that the schooling behavior of fish evolved in part to protect animals from being attacked by predators.
Credit Gabriel Bouys / AFP/Getty Images
Starlings fly over the Piazza Venezia as night falls in Rome.
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Originally published on Fri August 17, 2012 11:06 am

By tricking live fish into attacking computer-generated "prey," scientists have learned that animals like birds and fish may indeed have evolved to swarm together to protect themselves from the threat of predators.

"Effectively, what we're doing here is we're getting predatory fish to play a video game," says Iain Couzin, who studies collective animal behavior at Princeton University. "And through playing that game, through seeing which virtual prey items they attack, we can get a very deep understanding of as to how behavioral interactions among prey affect their survival."

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Law
2:47 am
Fri August 17, 2012

When The Lawyer Becomes The Object Of Prosecution

Credit Alex Wong / Getty Images
U.S. Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer says Charles Daum, a longtime lawyer, betrayed his profession.
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Originally published on Fri August 17, 2012 11:06 am

For more than 30 years, Charles Daum made a living by defending people accused of run-of-the-mill crimes. Then he met a charismatic Washington, D.C.-area man charged with distributing cocaine.

What happened next is a plot worthy of a television crime drama.

The accused drug dealer, Delante White, turned the tables and helped convict his own defense lawyer of manufacturing evidence and putting on false testimony to help the drug dealer's case.

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