It's All Politics
3:14 pm
Thu August 23, 2012

Presidential Campaign Ads Target Seniors In Fla., Younger Voters In N.H.

Credit Phelan M. Ebenhack / AP
Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan campaigns with his mother, Betty Ryan Douglas, on Saturday in The Villages, Fla. The Mitt Romney campaign has created an ad from the event.

Originally published on Fri August 24, 2012 2:27 pm

Ask your average American about Florida, and you'll hear something like this: It's hot, it has Disney World, and lots of old people live there.

And since the weather and Mickey Mouse don't make good attack ads, both presidential campaigns are trying to scare the bejeezus out of Florida's senior population over Medicare.

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House & Senate Races
3:11 pm
Thu August 23, 2012

Democrats Give Up On Capturing Maine Senate Seat

Originally published on Thu August 23, 2012 4:47 pm

It looks like the Democratic Party has all but given up on clinching the seat now held by retiring Republican Senator Olympia Snowe. Independent Angus King has lead in the polls since he announced he was running. Even the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee isn't helping Democrat Cynthia Dill in her run for the seat.

The Salt
3:10 pm
Thu August 23, 2012

Willing To Play The Dating Game With Your Food? Try A Grocery Auction

Originally published on Mon October 15, 2012 9:56 am

Theater
3:07 pm
Thu August 23, 2012

In The Theater Of Politics, Staging Is Everything

Originally published on Thu August 23, 2012 5:16 pm

During the next two weeks, the major political parties will assemble their faithful in Tampa, Fla., and Charlotte, N.C., to officially nominate their presidential tickets. These conventions were once places of high political drama. But over the decades, as the primary system has determined the candidates well in advance, conventions have become political theater. With that in mind, there's much to be said on staging in politics — not substance, but style.

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The Two-Way
3:03 pm
Thu August 23, 2012

Ambassador To Afghanistan: 'Vast Majority' Of Afghans Support Coalition

Credit Corporal David R. Hernandez / 3rd Battalion 5th Marines-RCT 2
U.S. Marines with 1st Platoon, Company I, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines (3/5), Regimental Combat Team 2, in Afghanistan. (January 2010 file photo.)
  • Amb. James Cunningham on who is attacking U.S. troops
  • Amb. James Cunningham on the Afghan people's support

With "green on blue" attacks by Afghans in uniform increasingly in the news, Americans officials are being asked whether the people of Afghanistan are turning against the coalition troops that have been in the Central Asian nation since late 2001.

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Music
2:00 pm
Thu August 23, 2012

Old Gold, August 23

Original rock and roll lives on KRVS. While searching for records to play on "Big Band Swings", I've also picked up some interesting 1950s tunes---and just as BBS has become BBS and other things, Old Gold starts out as a big mix of musical genres, with an emphasis on rock, roll, rhythm, and my favorite, novelty!

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The Two-Way
1:48 pm
Thu August 23, 2012

Good Intention, Heartbreak: The Botched Restoration Of A 19th Century Fresco

Credit AFP/Getty Images
A combination of three documents provided by the Centre de Estudios Borjanos.

Originally published on Thu August 23, 2012 8:32 pm

Cecilia Giménez, 81, thought she was doing a good thing. A 19th century fresco by painter Elias Garcia Martinez had slowly been battered by time. The masterpiece portrait of Jesus had faded. His tunic was splashed by bare wall and half his face had gone missing.

Giménez, a member of the church where the fresco is located, took it upon herself to restore it to its former glory. Except, well, her artistic skills weren't up to the task.

The pictures tell the story, so we'll just show you.

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World Cafe
1:42 pm
Thu August 23, 2012

Van Hunt On World Cafe

Credit Hannah Mattix
Van Hunt.

Originally published on Thu August 23, 2012 3:27 pm

Van Hunt is something like a cross between Thelonious Monk and Prince: throaty and suave yet artistic, bold and a little weird. His inventive style speaks to his strong will, a trait that propelled the college dropout to move from his home in Ohio to the music hub of Atlanta.

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Asia
1:34 pm
Thu August 23, 2012

With A Girl Jailed, Pakistan Law Again Under Scrutiny

Originally published on Thu August 23, 2012 4:47 pm

Until last week, Pakistani Christians and Muslims on the outskirts of Islamabad lived side-by-side in peace — and in the tight quarters that come with extreme poverty.

Then an Islamic cleric heard a rumor: A Christian girl named Rimsha Masih may have set fire to pages of Quranic verse.

The girl's priest, Father Boota, says a Muslim neighbor claims to have witnessed it.

"He was the one who raised the alarm, and then there was a shopkeeper — he also started shouting, and he also started making calls, 'Get the Christians! Wage a jihad against them!' " the priest says.

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Megafires: The New Normal In The Southwest
1:30 pm
Thu August 23, 2012

Why Forest-Killing Megafires Are The New Normal

Originally published on Sun August 26, 2012 8:46 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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