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The Picture Show
1:53 am
Fri March 9, 2012

Before And After: Japan's Wreckage And Recovery

Credit Toru Yamanaka and Roslan Rahman / AFP/Getty Images
Yuko Sugimoto (right) stands reunited with her 5-year-old son, Raito, on a road in Japan's Miyagi prefecture, 2012. This photo was taken at the same place where she was photographed immediately after the tsunami in March 2011.
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By John Rose

On March 11, 2011, at 2:46 p.m. (JST) Japan changed as a nation. A magnitude 9.0 earthquake, the largest to ever hit the island nation, and subsequent tsunami claimed more than 16,000 lives. One year later, the recovery efforts continue, as does the mourning.

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The Two-Way
10:01 pm
Thu March 8, 2012

Facebook Co-Founder Chris Hughes Is Buying 'The New Republic'

Credit www.tnr.com
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Social media meets old media:

Saying that he's convinced "the demand for long-form, quality journalism is strong in our country," Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes tells NPR's Steve Inskeep that he's buying The New Republic.

That's a magazine, as Steve says, which is four times older than its new owner. Hughes is 28.

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Shots - Health Blog
10:01 pm
Thu March 8, 2012

Forget The Robots: Venture Capitalists Change Their Health Care Investments

Credit Frank Perry / AFP/Getty Images
Surgical robots like this one are wildly expensive. Before the economic troubles began, investment in such high-tech medical devices was plentiful. Now, hospitals are looking for comparatively simple solutions to cut costs: streamline medical billing and even investing in $1 catheters that can save upwards of $50,000.
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By Sarah Varney

It wasn't that long ago that money flowed steadily to entrepreneurs who dreamt up whiz-bang medical devices.

Hospitals souped up their surgical suites with robots or high-tech radiation machines for cancer treatment. Cost wasn't an issue: They just got passed along to insurance companies, who passed them on to employers and patients.

But after the Great Recession hit and the 2010 health law passed, the financiers behind the medical arms race started to rethink their investment calculus.

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History
10:01 pm
Thu March 8, 2012

Girl Scouts: 100 Years Of Blazing New Trails

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Credit Tovia Smith / NPR
Brownies from Troop 65343 in Brookline, Mass. recite the Girl Scout pledge. Enrollment in the organization has declined since the 1980s, but a modernizing makeover and new focus on minority and immigrant communities have helped some.
Credit Tovia Smith / NPR
A member of Brownie Troop 65343 works on an art project at a troop meeting.
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It's hard to imagine Hillary Clinton, Condoleezza Rice and Lucille Ball as part of the same club. But they were all, at one time, Girl Scouts. Founded 100 years ago in Savannah, Ga., the Girl Scouts now count 3.2 million members.

Girl Scout cookies have become as much of an American tradition as apple pie. At a busy intersection in Brookline, Mass., a gaggle of Girl Scouts stand behind a folding table piled high with boxes of Thin Mints, Samoas and Shortbreads.

"They are really, really good," the troop collectively assures a prospective buyer.

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Rebuilding Japan
10:01 pm
Thu March 8, 2012

Trauma, Not Radiation, Is Key Concern In Japan

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Credit AFP/Getty Images
A worker is given a radiation screening as he enters the emergency operation center at Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s tsunami-crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant on Feb. 20.
Credit David Guttenfelder / AFP/Getty Images
A deserted street inside the contaminated exclusion zone around the crippled Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station, on Nov. 12, 2011. Experts say health effects of radiation exposure likely won't be detectable and a bigger problem is the mental health issues resulting from the trauma of the tsunami.
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One year ago this Sunday, a 9.0 magnitude earthquake off Japan triggered a tsunami that killed 20,000 people. It also triggered multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power station, one of the worst nuclear disasters in history.

But health effects from radiation turn out to be minor compared with the other issues the people of Fukushima prefecture now face.

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