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Opinion
2:22 am
Thu August 23, 2012

For Indian Women, Teasing Is No Laughing Matter

Credit Sajjad Hussain / AFP/Getty Images
Protesters take part in a street play during a protest against growing cases of sexual abuse in New Delhi on May 5. The protesters urged police to protect women from abusers and stop blaming victims for attacks.
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Originally published on Wed August 29, 2012 4:15 pm

Morning Edition commentator Sandip Roy is back home in India after spending years in the U.S. He finds some Indians are standing up to a very old problem they call "eve teasing."

I lost touch with that peculiar Indian euphemism "eve teasing" in the years I was away from India.

It sounds coy, like a Bollywood hero romancing the pretty girl as she walks down the street, and it can mean that. But it can also mean what happened to a teenager a few weeks ago in the northeastern city of Guwahati.

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Planet Money
2:21 am
Thu August 23, 2012

Why Do Taxpayers Subsidize Farmers' Insurance?

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Credit Chana Joffe-Walt / NPR
Grandpa Traub — corn former and millionaire.
Credit Chana Joffe-Walt / NPR
Three generations of the Traub family are farmers.
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Originally published on Fri August 24, 2012 9:16 am

This summer's drought has hit more than half the states in the country. Crops are suffering, but farmers might not be. Most farmers have crop insurance.

U.S. taxpayers spend about $7 billion a year on crop insurance. It's our largest farm subsidy.

And this subsidy goes in part to farmers — who will tell you themselves they aren't so sure about the whole idea. "I have an aversion to it," says Jim Traub, a corn and bean farmer in Fairbury, Illinois. "But you're not going to turn it down."

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Around the Nation
2:19 am
Thu August 23, 2012

Hurricane Andrew's Legacy: 'Like A Bomb' In Florida

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Credit Lynne Sladky / AP
Florida National Guardsmen keep people in line at a food distribution center in Florida City, Fla., on Aug. 27, 1992. Many residents of the Dade County farming community lost their homes to Hurricane Andrew.
Credit Greg Gibson / AP
President George H.W. Bush talks to Dave Cavalier during a visit to view storm damage in New Iberia, La.
Credit Gaston de Cardenas / AP
Orlando Somante sits with his sons Orlando (left) and Jonathan amid the rubble of their home in Cutler Ridge.
Credit Lynne Sladky / AP
Florida National Guardsman Sgt. Jim Urbanik of Tampa holds out his gun to keep people in line as they wait for food at a distribution center in Florida City. Many residents of the south Dade County farming community lost their homes.
Credit Dave Martin / AP
Ted Allis sits in the remains of his living room in Lafayette, La., after high winds from Hurricane Andrew knocked a tree into his home. No one was injured in the incident.
Credit Lynne Sladky / AP
Joan Wallach (left) and her daughter, Brenda, carry possessions they salvaged from their trailer as they walk through the debris that was the Royal Palm Trailer Court in Homestead.
Credit AP
A water tower stands over the ruins of the coastal community of Florida City. Two decades later, Florida City and nearby Homestead have doubled in size.
Credit Lynne Sladky / AP
Members of the Florida National Guard subdue a man outside the Cutler Ridge shoe store. The unidentified man, carrying a firearm, was wrestled to the ground after guard members thought he was looting the store.
Credit Lynne Sladky / AP
A resident of Homestead, Fla., asks for help on Aug. 26, 1992, two days after the area was ravaged by Hurricane Andrew. The sign on the roof reads, "Help please! The block needs H20, can food, ice, gas, building supplies." Homestead was one of the hardest hit areas.
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Originally published on Thu August 23, 2012 10:46 am

Twenty years ago, one of the strongest hurricanes ever to hit the U.S. changed the face of South Florida.

Hurricane Andrew wiped out communities south of Miami, killing 15 people when it struck in 1992. Dozens more died from injuries stemming from the storm and its aftermath.

Adjusted for inflation, the 1992 storm was, after Katrina, the second costliest storm in U.S. history. It also changed how we forecast and respond to hurricanes.

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Digital Life
2:18 am
Thu August 23, 2012

In Japan, Mobile Startups Take Gaming To Next Level

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According to consultant Serkan Toto, the anonymity of mobile gaming is tailor-made for the Japanese.
Credit Lucy Craft for NPR
Passengers on the Tokyo subway can regularly be found glued to their mobile devices.
Credit Lucy Craft for NPR
Like most mobile players, student Yoshiro Hinoki does his best to play for free, but it isn't always easy.
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Originally published on Thu August 23, 2012 7:47 pm

On the subway, in doctor's waiting rooms and during college lectures, millions of Japanese can be found glued to their smartphones. But they're not texting or making phone calls — they're playing video games.

In the U.S., video games are usually played on computers and consoles, like the PlayStation or Wii, but in Japan, gaming has migrated to smartphones.

With an ice coffee in one hand and an iPhone in the other, grad student Yoshiro Hinoki is fixated on slaying tiny cartoon monsters.

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Megafires: The New Normal In The Southwest
2:17 am
Thu August 23, 2012

How The Smokey Bear Effect Led To Raging Wildfires

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Adams (left) talks with Swetnam in their laboratory, nestled under the football stadium.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Rex Adams, a senior research specialist at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research, steps away from a band saw that he uses to slice tree ring samples.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Swetnam leaves his laboratory for the evening. Fires in the Southwest have been getting bigger and bigger over the past two decades. The Wallow fire in Arizona, Swetnam says, was "a tornado of fire." "It burned more than 40,000 acres in the first eight hours," he says.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
By cross-dating different tree-ring samples from a given area, researchers can get a clearer picture of how a forest burns.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Swetnam stands in the catacombs of storage boxes that house thousands of tree-ring samples. His laboratory is buried under the bleachers of the University of Arizona football stadium.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
A perfect tree-ring slice is a window in time, a slice of a forest's history.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
A tree's rings are marked on graph paper. Experts use this technique, called skeleton plotting, to help them cross-date tree-ring samples. This sample evinces no fire scars in the latest years of the tree's life.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
University of Arizona professor Tom Swetnam examines a tree sample at the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research in Tucson, Ariz. Swetnam's research focuses on understanding how forest fires are influenced by climate change.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Tree-ring samples are collected from every corner of the world and meticulously studied and stored in Swetnam's lab. The thick, dark rings on these samples are fire scars. Last year, more than 74,000 wildfires burned over 8.7 million acres in the U.S.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Swetnam holds a tree ring sample; it shows no forest fire scars from the past 100 years. The Forest Service's aggressive efforts to fight fires over the past century have had unintended consequences.
Credit David Gilkey / NPR
A Smokey the Bear fire prevention sign sits in Valles Caldera along Highway 4, which was one of the front lines in fighting the Las Conchas Fire in 2011.
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Originally published on Fri August 24, 2012 6:50 pm

First of a five-part series

The history of fire in the American Southwest is buried in a catacomb of rooms under the bleachers of the football stadium at the University of Arizona.

Here rules professor Thomas Swetnam, tree ring expert. You want to read a tree ring? You go to Tom. He's a big, burly guy with a beard and a true love for trees.

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It's All Politics
5:34 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 6:59 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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The Two-Way
5:28 pm
Wed August 22, 2012

Officials Say West Nile Outbreak Could Be Worst Ever In U.S.

Credit CDC
A map that shows where West Nile cases have been reported. Note that areas shaded white have seen no virus activity.
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As cases of West Nile virus continue to increase, authorities warned today that this could turn out to be the worst outbreak since the virus first showed up in the United States in 1999.

The New York Times reports that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is still unsure about "where and how far" the disease will spread, but so far there have been 1,118 cases and 41 deaths reported.

The Times adds:

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It's All Politics
4:45 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 6:59 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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The Salt
4:38 pm
Wed August 22, 2012

There's Too Much Food Waste, But Here Are Five Things People Are Doing About It

Credit Mustafa Quraishi / AP
Rotten jackfruit and tomatoes are sorted at a dump in New Delhi. India loses an estimated 40 percent of its produce harvest for lack of infrastructure. And Americans waste about 40 percent of our food.
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Originally published on Mon October 15, 2012 9:58 am

The food world is buzzing today about the latest news on just how often we waste perfectly good food. And we admit, the statistics are pretty depressing.

About 40 percent of food in the United States today goes uneaten. The average American consumer wastes 10 times as much food as someone in Southeast Asia — up 50 percent from Americans in the 1970s. Yet, 1 in 6 Americans doesn't have enough to eat, says the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And food waste costs us about $165 billion a year and sucks up 25 percent of our freshwater supply.

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Middle East
4:32 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 6:59 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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