Search results for

Commentator Carol Wasserman observes two apple orchards on opposing sides of a street near her home. They have nearly identical products -- and a long-simmering hatred for each other.

NPR's Jim Zarroli reports AT&T's corporate board is still weighing various restructuring options, ranging from sticking with the status quo to a plan that would break the company into several parts. The AT&T board is expected to vote this evening and make an announcement Wednesday morning. Some Wall Street analysts were skeptical of the more radical restructuring proposals because they represented a retreat from the company's recent strategy of selling packages of local, long-distance, wireless and internet services.

Office equipment company Xerox is in trouble. Today, Xerox reported its first quarterly loss in sixteen years. As NPR's Jack Speer reports, the company is selling off assets and laying off employees to try and reduce its debt load. It is also seeking to regain dominance of the market for copiers and low-price printers, after ceding much of the territory to aggressive competitors such as Ricoh, Canon and Hewlett Packard.

To meet a recent state law, all California hospitals must be made earthquake safe by the year 2030. The problem is 75-percent of the hospitals need work and the estimated price tag is 26-billion dollars. With two-thirds of the state's hospitals already operating in the red they're looking to the state and federal governments to help pay for the retrofitting. Kathy McAnally reports.

NPR's Kenneth Walker reports the head of the military junta that took power in Ivory Coast last Christmas Eve has been forced out by violent street protests. The demonstrations against General Robert Guei began yesterday when he refused to recognize his apparent defeat in Sunday's election and declared himself the winner. The protests increased today, despite the presence of troops who responded to rock and bottle-throwing with gunfire, most of it into the air. The public, enraged by ten months of governmental instability and continuing economic decline, refused to be intimidated and gradually, some members of the military began joining the protests. General Guei finally stepped down and is reported to have fled the country. The presumed winner in the election, socialist Laurent Gbagbo, has assumed power, but the election results still are likely to be contested by other candidates.

For a brief history of Ivory Coast, Linda talks with Jeanne Maddox Toungara, Professor of History at Howard University in Washington D.C. Toungara lived and taught in the Ivory Coast for fifteen years, and has written extensively on the country. She says Ivory Coast is a former French colony. Its capital city was once thought of as the "Paris of Africa."

Planned Parenthood has invited an adoption counselor into its downtown Chicago clinic. Chicago Public Radio's Shirley Jahad reports the unusual alliance of an abortion provider and adoption agency is meant to give women more information and choices. The new partnership is drawing some praise and some fire.

NPR's Jon Hamilton reports on efforts to treat heart attacks that occur in public places. In recent years, airports, casinos and other crowded facilities have installed automatic heart-shocking devices and trained workers to use them. They're trying to improve the survival rate after a heart attack by restarting the normal rhythm of the heart as quickly as possible.

NPR's Jim Zarroli reports that Wall Street gave AT&T a thumbs down on its plan to split into four separate companies. Shares of the long distance and cable TV giant fell as much as 13 percent. The restructuring of AT&T will create separate shares for AT&T's wireless, cable TV, consumer and business operations. The company has been under intense pressure from shareholders to do something about it's sagging stock value.

Noah talks with Cheryl Stearns, a world-class parachutist from Rayford, North Carolina about her plans for an attempt to break the high-altitude skydiving record. Stearns says she's going up 165,000 feet in a helium balloon to jump. Stearns says there have been several people in the last forty years to experiment with what she calls "high-altitude ejections." She leaves for Austin, Texas tomorrow to start training with her team.

NPR's Richard Gonzales reports on two studies from the Rand Corporation think tank that offer starkly different views of the widely publicized improvements of Texas students on standardized tests. The dueling reports have stirred up the debate over education in the presidential campaign.

A Democratic candidate for Congress in Maryland, Terry Lierman, has invoked the "equal time" provision of the Federal Communications Act to get NPR member station WAMU to run his political ads. His opponent, incumbent Republican Connie Morella, will not counter with her own ads on WAMU. Instead she says she'll try to work in Congress to correct what she calls a "loophole." NPR's Shirley Jahad reports.

Linda Wertheimer talks with Mahmoud Zahar, a leader for Hamas, about resolving differences between Hamas and Chairman Arafat's Palestinian Authority. Zahar says both groups now believe in retaliation against Israel for recent Palestinian deaths. In the past, the Palestinian Authority has promoted negotiation rather than acts of violence. Hamas has always believed in resisting the Israelis with force.

In the final part of our Changing Face of America story Mom's Good Move, the moving van comes to Peg Collison's house where she has lived for almost 30 years. She and her partner Chaz have decided to move to a retirement community. Moving day is sad and emotional---their new home is the "University Retirement community" in Davis, California--a new facility. The place is much better than the children had expected, except that all the residents are over the age of 65. Peg has to meet new friends, find a new church and new children to tutor. But rather than finding a sedate life, sitting around, reading books -- she is just as busy as she was in her old home -- and seems just as happy.

Throughout this campaign year, education has ranked among the top concerns of voters -- especially those suburban women who often cross party lines and decide electoral outcomes. NPR's David Welna went to the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights to talk to moms with school-age children in a neighborhood George W. Bush visited this week.

Linda and Noah read some of the listener mail received during the past week.

NPR's Linda Gradstein in Jerusalem reports the upsurge of violence in the Middle East has sparked a new phenomenon in that region...cyber war. Hackers have attacked the Israeli Army and Foreign Ministry websites, among others, apparently in retaliation for a cyberattack on the website of the Lebanese Islamist group Hizbollah.

Commentator Phillip Hoose, a cousin of New York Yankee Don Larsen, remembers a pivitol time in his life when the pitcher's career achievement (throwing a perfect game in the 1956 World Series) helped his status at school.

NPR's Rob Gifford reports from Pyongyang that Secretary of State Albright's trip to North Korea this week afforded a rare glimpse of the isolated country and its grinding poverty. Women in a rural area were seen sweeping up precious grains of rice from the roadway, evidence of the country's on-going food shortage. And in the capital, medical personnel in the freezing cold main hospital were forced to use beer bottles to construct intravenous systems. North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il in recent months has been reaching out to western countries, possibly because of the country's need for economic assistance.

NPR's Kenneth Walker in Abidjan reports the day after Ivory Coast's military ruler was ousted in a popular rising there was further violence involving supporters of rival political groups. There were religious overtones to the latest unrest, with several mosques and churches destroyed by rampaging mobs.