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All Things Considered

NPR's afternoon radio newsmagazine, All things Considered presents two hours of breaking news mixed with compelling analysis, insightful commentaries, interviews, and special - sometimes quirky - features. A one-hour edition of the program is available on Saturday and Sunday.
 

  •  Saturdays at 6 p.m.
  • Sundays at 6 p.m.

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Megafires: The New Normal In The Southwest
12:30 pm
Thu August 23, 2012

Why Forest-Killing Megafires Are The New Normal

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Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Jorge Castro, a visiting professor of ecology from Spain, sips water in the shade of a burnt tree in New Mexico's Bandelier Wilderness area, adjacent to the Bandelier National Monument. This site was devastated by last year's Las Conchas fire.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Driving along the Forest Service roads on the edge of the Bandelier National Monument, you can see the destruction wrought by the Las Conchas fire. The megafire burned more than 150,000 acres of forest — about twice the area of Manhattan.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Craig Allen, a research ecologist with the United States Geological Survey, points to the devastation in Bandelier's Cochiti Canyon, which was burned by the Las Conchas fire. According to Allen, these megafires are "the new normal."
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Wildflowers and weeds dot a once-forested landscape. The suppression of natural forest fires during the past century has set the stage for devastating megafires, setting new records in size and intensity.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Castro sits in a field that used to be forested by Ponderosa pine trees in the Dome Wilderness, an area adjacent to Bandelier.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
The skeleton of a lone tree torched in the Las Conchas fire
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Cochiti Canyon lies south of the Santa Fe National Forest, located near the Bandelier National Monument. The canyon was ravaged by a firestorm that spread out of the Las Conchas fire.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Allen (left) and Castro look across the wasteland of a plateau reduced to ashes during the Las Conchas fire. Because the fires stripped vegetation from hillsides, these areas are now vulnerable to flash floods during the summer rains.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
The skeletal remains of a tree are seen in front of a boulder in the Dome Wilderness area.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Allen surveys the moonscape of a plateau devastated by the Las Conchas fire.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Collin Haffey, a biotechnician with Bandelier National Monument (left), and Allen examine a tiny Ponderosa pine tree sprouting up in the burn zone in the Dome Wilderness. Indigenous species of trees have failed to return to the area since the Las Conchas fire.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
A budding Ponderosa pine tree sprouts up in the burn zone, a sliver of hope for potential forest regrowth.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Jorge Castro, a visiting professor of Ecology from Spain, sips water in the shade of a burnt tree in New Mexico's Bandelier Wilderness area. Last year's Las Conchas fire devastated the area burning over 150,000 acres of forest.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Craig Allen, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, walks up a bluff overlooking Cochiti Canyon, which was destroyed by last year's Las Conchas megafire.
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Originally published on Sun August 26, 2012 7:46 am

Second of a five-part series

Fire scientists are calling it "the new normal": a time of fires so big and hot that no one can remember anything like it.

One of the scientists who coined that term is Craig Allen. I drive with him to New Mexico's Bandelier National Monument, where he works for the U.S. Geological Survey. We take a dirt road up into the Jemez Mountains, into a landscape of black poles as far as you can see.

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It's All Politics
4:34 pm
Wed August 22, 2012

Cut Off From Party's Purse Strings, Rep. Akin Plans Next Move

Credit Jeff Roberson / AP
Rep. Todd Akin, R-Mo., says Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., the GOP vice presidential candidate, asked him to end his Senate bid after recent comments he made referring to "legitimate rape."
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Originally published on Wed August 22, 2012 5:59 pm

Republican Rep. Todd Akin's decision to stay in the U.S. Senate race in Missouri is likely to leave him with support from the state's evangelical community, but not much more, says a political scientist at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.

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Middle East
3:32 pm
Wed August 22, 2012

Despite Bitter Fighting, A Prisoner Swap In Syria

Credit James Lawler Duggan / AFP/Getty Images
The daily fighting in Syria included this gun battle Wednesday involving rebels in the northern city of Aleppo. Still, the rival sides recently worked out a prisoner swap in which two women were freed from state custody, while the rebels released seven pro-government fighters.
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Originally published on Wed August 22, 2012 5:59 pm

The bitter fighting in Syria seems to grow worse by the day, yet the rebels and the government do occasionally manage to work out something that requires each side to trust the other: prisoner swaps.

In one recent exchange, two women held by the government were freed in exchange for seven men who were fighting on behalf President Bashar Assad's regime.

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It's All Politics
3:19 pm
Wed August 22, 2012

Despite Fact Checks, Romney Escalates Welfare Work Requirement Charge

Credit Stephen Jaffe / Reuters /Landov
President Clinton signs the welfare reform law on Aug. 22, 1996.
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Originally published on Wed August 22, 2012 5:59 pm

Wednesday marks the 16th anniversary of President Clinton's welfare overhaul. That law has become a major issue in this year's presidential campaign.

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Summer Nights: Funtown
2:59 pm
Wed August 22, 2012

Festive Nanjing Road Recaptures Shanghai's Heydey

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Credit Frank Langfitt / NPR
The "Loving Happiness Band," supported, in part, by the Communist Party, plays for a crowd on Nanjing Road.
Credit Frank Langfitt / NPR
In 1999, Shanghai turned Nanjing Road, the city's most famous shopping area, into a walking street. On summer nights, thousands fill the street, surrounded by colonial architecture and riotous neon signs.
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Originally published on Wed August 22, 2012 6:34 pm

In the 1920s and 1930s, Shanghai was one of the world's most exciting — and notorious — cities. But all that came to an end in the middle of the last century, when the Communists took charge.

Over the past decade or so, though, a vibrant Shanghai has re-emerged. Today, it's a dynamic city of 23 million, with a skyline that dwarfs Manhattan's.

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