Search results for

From member station KPBS in San Diego, Carrie Kahn reports on the Iraqi Christians who are seeking asylum in U.S Already, 75 refugees have crossed from Mexico into the U.S., and over a hundred are still waiting. Most of them sneaked out of Iraq, then spend several years in Turkey or Greece before heading to Mexico.

Marcie Sillman from member station KUOW reports that the fate of a 93-hundred year old skeleton known as Kennewick Man is still in limbo. The Clinton Administration says the bones should be returned to the five tribes who claim them...but eight Oregon scientists have taken the case to federal court.

NPR's Julie McCarthy reports from Prague on the opening of The World Bank and International Monetary Fund annual meetings. To counter the expected protests, the World Bank is trying emphasize that they are listening to pleas for social justice...and they're doing that with Bono...the lead singer of the Irish rock band, U2.

Professor Michael A. Bellesiles on the history of gun culture in America. His new book, Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture looks at our country's obsession with guns. Historically, he says it began around the civil war. Before that, there was virtually no access to firearms. His research refutes the conventional lore that Colonial families were armed, and that the gun was the symbol of the frontier. Bellesiles is a Colonial historian at Emory University, and the Director of Emory's Center for the Study of Violence.

Robert talks to Aleksa Djilas, Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, about the apparent winner in the Yugoslav election, Vojislav Kostunica. Djilas says Kostunica is not corrupt, has no ties to Milosevic, is educated, a legal scholar and respects the rule of law.

Noah interviews Virginia State Trooper Mike Scott about a weekend assault on cars traveling down Interstate 95 by monkeys armed with pieces of fruit. Scott was hailed to the scene by a motorist who said a monkey had thrown a banana at her car. When they returned to the scene together, a trio of spider monkeys was tossing crab apples from an oak tree alongside the highway. Scott says he has no idea where they got the apples and bananas, nor where they came from.

The Australian press is heralding Aboriginal athlete Cathy Freeman as a symbol of reconciliation between blacks and whites in that country. She won the Gold Medal in the 400 meters. Noah talks with Australian Senator Aden Ridgeway -- the only aboriginal member of federal parliament -- about racial tension in Australia and why he feels the government needs to apologize for the treatment of Aborigines.

C.J. Hunter, the world champion in the shot put and the husband of sprinter Marion Jones, has tested positive for steroids. As NPR's Tom Goldman reports, US track officials were aware of Hunter's test result in mid-August but kept it confidential. Now that it has been disclosed in the middle of the Olympics, the news could become a major distraction to Jones in her pursuit of five gold medals.

Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh laid out their case against Wen Ho Lee before two Senate committees today. Reno said Lee is a felon, not a victim of government persecution. Freeh described Lee's alleged duplicating and deleting of restricted nuclear weapons information, and the FBI director said Lee's actions showed criminal intent. NPR's Barbara Bradley reports on the hearing, and talks with a spokesman for a scientists' group about whether the testimony shows Lee was, or intended to be, a spy.

Page two of the New York Times today contains an article acknowledging that the paper could have improved its coverage of the Wen Ho Lee case. Among its admissions: the Times says it made the mistake of taking on the tone of some of the government's positions in the investigation of Wen Ho Lee. Robert Siegel discusses the article with Sandy Padwe, Former Deputy Sports Editor for the New York Times, now a professor at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.