National News

AC Milan VP Unleashes Another Racism Scandal, Referring To Player With Slur

NPR News - Wed, 2013-02-06 10:46

The incident comes just after Kevin Prince-Boateng walked off the pitch after hearing racist chants. At the time, the club's president praised the move.

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Boeing remains upbeat about Dreamliner's future

Marketplace - American Public Media - Wed, 2013-02-06 10:40

All 50 of Boeing's 787 Dreamliners remain grounded after a series of incidents linked to its lithium ion batteries. As a result Japan's All Nippon Airways has cancelled more than 350 flights in February, including international flights to Seattle. But Boeing remains upbeat about the plane's future and is confident that despite the safety scares, airlines won't be cancelling future orders for the aircraft.

Dinesh Keskar is Boeing's senior vice president for Asia Pacific and India. He told the BBC no companies have asked for compensation following the grounding of the Dreamliner and defended the safety of the battery.

"Lithium ion batteries, there have been issues in the past, but at the same time we carefully analyzed everything. Went through the process of certification and we believe that's the right choice even today."

Authorities in Japan and the U.S. are currently investigating whether the batteries are the cause of the problem, but nothing conclusive has yet been found. In the meantime, Boeing has asked U.S. regulators for permission to run test flights of the Dreamliner. Keskar admits the company still doesn't know when the plane will be back in the skies.

AEG looks to take on Ticketmaster

Marketplace - American Public Media - Wed, 2013-02-06 10:38

Time to pull out your planner and mark your calendar. June 28th is the day Beyonce will launch her U.S. tour. She's performing at L.A.'s Staples Center -- the busiest concert venue in the country. Tickets for that show go on sale this Monday. It's the first time that customers will be able to buy tickets exclusively from AXS, the ticket selling platform developed by entertainment conglomerate AEG.

It is the most recent in a long line of companies that have tried to take on Ticketmaster, and the Beyonce ticket sale will be a big test for the AXS system. Thousands of people will log onto the site all at once, and very few companies outside Ticketmaster have been able to that pull off.

Agata Kaczanowska is a senior analyst at IBIS World. She calls the gamble ”a no-brainer for them because it will boost their income.”

Ticketmaster sold about 150 million tickets last year. Twenty million of those were at AEG venues. So with its own platform, AEG would get to keep ticket fees on those 20 million tickets. And it would have more control over prices.

“And on the flip side, if talent is deciding between several venues AEG can make a more competitive offer for them,” Kaczanowska said.

Most smaller venue owners avoid using Ticketmaster which is known for its high fees. But not all of them.

Barbara Wiggins is the executive director of the Topeka Performing Arts Center in Topeka, Kansas. The 2,500-seat venue has an exclusive contract with Ticketmaster. Wiggins says that the advantage to using Ticketmaster is the massive amount of data the company has collected over the years.

“Well if we're selling a touring Broadway show and Ticketmaster has a database for people that are typically theater buyers in the region then we are able to have access to that information,” she said.

Of course, Ticketmaster's massive size also means it's slower to innovate. This is where AEG hopes to capitalize. One of the features of AXS allows customers to control their entire concert-going experience from purchasing a ticket to buying snacks at the concession window. So you could pre-order a pretzel and a soda and have it waiting for you at your seat.

That way, you won't miss a minute of Beyonce.

Stone Age Stew? Soup Making May Be Older Than We'd Thought

NPR News - Wed, 2013-02-06 10:06

There's nothing better on a cold day than a warm bowl of soup. But when did our ancestors first brew up this tasty broth? New archaeological evidence suggests that soup making could be tens of thousands of years old.

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Oh, Mama! World's 'Oldest' Bird Has Another Chick

NPR News - Wed, 2013-02-06 10:04

Wisdom, a Laysan albatross who nests at the Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the North Pacific Ocean, is thought to be at least 62 years old. She's raised an estimated 30 to 35 chicks over the years and flown at least 2 million miles, scientists say.

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U.S., Afghanistan At Odds Over Weapons Wish List

NPR News - Wed, 2013-02-06 09:32

As the 2014 deadline looms for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, there's a debate over what kind of military hardware the U.S. will provide in its wake. Afghanistan wants tanks and planes for conventional warfare. But the U.S. says the Afghans need to focus on counterinsurgency.

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U.S., Afghanistan At Odds Over Weapons Wish List

NPR News - Wed, 2013-02-06 09:32

As the 2014 deadline looms for the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, there's a debate over what kind of military hardware the U.S. will provide in its wake. Afghanistan wants tanks and planes for conventional warfare. But the U.S. says the Afghans need to focus on counterinsurgency.

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Assassination Of Opposition Figure Leads To Protests In Tunisia

NPR News - Wed, 2013-02-06 09:26

Chokri Belaid was a vocal opponent of extremists who pushed for Islamic law in Tunisia. The moderate Islamist government, however, said his assassination was an attack on the "revolution as a whole."

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REI Executive Tapped For Interior; Geithner Joins Council On Foreign Relations

NPR News - Wed, 2013-02-06 09:03

Sally Jewell, REI's CEO, would succeed Secretary Ken Salazar. She's a former engineer at Mobil.

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The Squeeze: Higher Costs And Smaller Paychecks

NPR News - Wed, 2013-02-06 09:00

The economy may be on the rebound, but life is getting tougher for some people in the middle class. With rising gas prices, insurance costs, and higher payroll taxes, people are feeling squeezed. Host Michel Martin asks if there's any financial relief in sight.

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Skip The Flowers And Jewelry For Your Valentine

NPR News - Wed, 2013-02-06 09:00

Valentine's Day is around the corner. Maybe you're eyeing chocolate, roses or something sparkly for your sweetheart? Mark Di Vincenzo cautions you to think about your timing. The author of Buy Shoes on Wednesday and Tweet at 4:00, says increased demand makes February one of the worst times to buy traditional gifts.

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Bravery By Speaking Up Or Keeping Quiet?

NPR News - Wed, 2013-02-06 09:00

In her 'Can I Just Tell You' essay, host Michel Martin talks about the different choices of two remarkable women: Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who survived being shot by the Taliban for supporting girls' education; and Essie Mae Washington-Williams, who was the biracial child of segregationist Senator Strom Thurmond.

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Shutting Down Black Markets For Guns

NPR News - Wed, 2013-02-06 09:00

This week, bi-partisan members of the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a bill to make it harder for convicted felons to get guns. They hope the move will help reduce illegal gun sales and violence. Host Michel Martin talks with one of the bill's sponsors, Congressman Elijah Cummings, a Maryland Democrat.

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Does Having Guns Make Women Safer?

NPR News - Wed, 2013-02-06 09:00

Many policymakers who oppose tighter gun laws have said gun ownership is important to women's safety. The writers and journalists of the 'Beauty Shop' share their thoughts on the role gender plays in the gun debate.

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With Gasoline Prices Rising, Consumers Are Having A Tough Year

NPR News - Wed, 2013-02-06 08:55

They're getting hit with a double whammy: a spike in gas prices and smaller paychecks because a payroll tax break expired. That combination could dampen consumer spending, economists say.

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Once-Secret 'Watch List' Of Alleged Polluters Under Review At EPA

NPR News - Wed, 2013-02-06 08:08

The Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general is looking at the records kept about allegedly chronic polluters and whether regulators have been doing enough to enforce environmental laws.

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Sure, I remember that

Marketplace - American Public Media - Wed, 2013-02-06 07:57

How accurate are our memories? Not as accurate as we’d like to think, especially when it comes to political events.

This week, we look at the work of University of California, Irvine, researcher Elizabeth Loftus, a memory expert, whose research shows just how easily we can be led to “remember” events that never happened. All you have to do is show someone a doctored photograph. These false memories become all the more intense when political beliefs are factored in -- Democrats are more likely to falsely remember events that show Republicans in a bad light, and vice-versa.

This leads Stephen Dubner to wonder: can Washington, D.C.’s partisan gridlock be solved by a few carefully doctored photographs?

Kai Ryssdal: Time now for a little Freakonomics Radio. It's that moment every couple of weeks we talk to Stephen Dubner, the co-author of the books and blog of the same name. It is “the hidden side of everything.” Dubner, how are you, man?

Stephen J. Dubner: I'm great, thanks, Kai. I've been thinking about you actually, lately.

Ryssdal: Really?

Dubner: Yeah, I've been reminiscing. I was thinking about the very first radio piece that you and I did together, back at Yankee Stadium. Let me take you back...

Ryssdal: So here we are and this is great. I’m having a good time. But the game doesn’t start for like an hour and a half. Why are we at batting practice?

Dubner: You remember that, Kai, yes?

Ryssdal: (Laughs) I do. Yes.

Dubner: You remember, we were watching batting practice, and we saw A-Rod, Alex Rodriguez, hitting all those massive home runs into the bleachers?

Ryssdal: Yeah. Shocking now, huh?

Dubner: Well, Kai, it's funny you remember that -- because, in fact, it did not happen.

Ryssdal: Whoa, no! I was there. I was there.

Dubner: We were there. We didn’t see A-Rod hit any home runs. But you did just beautifully illustrate the topic of our conversation today, which is false memory. Thank you very much for playing along.

Ryssdal: Anytime. I'm glad to help. Please continue.

Dubner: I got to thinking about this topic during all the round-up interviews that Hillary Clinton has been doing recently, reminiscing about her very eventful term as Secretary of State. And I was reminded of another Clinton reminiscence that turned out to be a bit off. Kai, I'm interested to know if you remember this piece of tape.

Hillary Clinton: I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.

Ryssdal: Yeah, the thing was, there was no sniper fire. Right?

Dubner: That's exactly right. Hillary Clinton later said that she “misspoke” or maybe misremembered. So, to speak about misremembering, here is Elizabeth Loftus:

Elizabeth Loftus: What I love about this example is that it shows you that all that education, all that experience, all those IQ points -- that Yale Law School degree, it doesn’t protect you from having a false memory.

Dubner: So, Kai, Loftus is a psych professor at U.C. Irvine. She's a leading scholar in memory generally and false memory in particular. Recently, she and a couple of colleagues, along with the online magazine Slate, completed a study. And this study was huge -- 5,000 participants -- and they looked into how well we, people generally, remember political events. So, what they would do is the researchers would show people photographs of various political events. But the gimmick was that each participant would see four photographs -- three of them real, and then one that was doctored. So, for instance, George Bush hanging out at his ranch with his buddy Roger Clemens during Hurricane Katrina -- which did not happen. Or they'd see a picture Barack Obama in a nice friendly handshake with President Ahmadinejad of Iran, which also never happened. But Kai, here's the amazing thing: about half the participants in the study said they did remember the thing that never happened. Here’s Elizabeth Loftus again:

Loftus: Many individuals wrote in details that expanded upon just the claim: 'I remember seeing this photograph, I remember seeing this photograph of President Obama shaking the hand of the president of Iran.' And they may even tell you something about the feelings they remember having at the time they saw that photograph for the first time. But of course they couldn’t have ever seen it before because it was completely made up with Photoshop.

Ryssdal: That’s crazy, man.

Dubner: It is crazy. Honestly, it gets crazier. The crazier part speaks to how partisan we are, our country. I'm not just talking about the politicians but the rest of us, too. What Loftus and her colleagues did -- they did a follow-up study and they found that Democrats and Republicans “remembered” different fake events very differently. Which is to say a Democratic voter was much more likely to think the picture of Bush and Roger Clemens was real, and a Republican was more likely to believe that Obama had really shaken hands with Ahmadinejad.

Ryssdal: And one wonders why Washington is in the state it is in!

Dubner: It's depressing. You could say that we do a lot of it on purpose -- maybe a lot of it is just the way we're hardwired to root for our teams. I will tell you this: the research also suggests that there may be a way to improve, however, this gridlock in Washington, as long as you’re willing to engage in a little bit of trickery.

Ryssdal: In Washington? Never.

Dubner: What I'm thinking, Kai, is this: a nice doctored photograph -- you and I could put this together -- of President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner, maybe shooting skeet together?

Ryssdal: We totally could!

Dubner: Or how about the two of them at a ballgame in Yankee Stadium. Just like you and I! Although, the more I think about it, the less sure I am that you and I were actually ever actually at Yankee Stadium at all...

Ryssdal: I was there, dude. I was there. Stephen Dubner. Freakonomics.com is the website. That was pretty cool!

Dubner: Thanks, Kai. Thanks for having me.

Do Not Pass Go, Do Not Get Severance: Interview With An Iron

NPR News - Wed, 2013-02-06 07:53

We talk with the Monopoly iron about its career as a token.

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In Cost-Saving Move, Post Office Cuts Saturday Delivery

NPR News - Wed, 2013-02-06 07:47

The U.S. Postal Service on Wednesday announced that it plans to halt Saturday mail delivery, a major shift in operations that the agency says it must make in order to keep from bleeding billions of dollars every year. Package deliveries would continue under the plan.

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With Elbows, Cortisone Shots May Hurt More Than Help

NPR News - Wed, 2013-02-06 07:35

Cortisone shots offer quick relief for tendon problems. But they also carry a risk of side effects. A look at alternatives for treatment of tennis elbow finds that being patient may be the best approach to take.

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Concert on the Lawn July 27 & 28, 2013

CALL FOR VENDORS
KBBI’s Concert on the Lawn at Karen Hornaday Park brings together an eclectic group of talented musicians from Homer and beyond for a fun and spirited community weekend. Click here for details and to submit an application form. DEADLINE FOR APPLICATIONS IS JUNE 29th, 2013. We are not accepting food vendors as we are full in that category.

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