All Things Considered on 89.5-1

Weekdays 4-7 pm & Weekends 4-5 pm
Melissa Block and Robert Siegel

In-depth reporting and transformed the way listeners understand current events and view the world. Every weekday, hear two hours of breaking news mixed with compelling analysis, insightful commentaries, interviews, and special - sometimes quirky - features. To hear the most recent broadcast, or search the All Things Considered archives, click here.

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Music Interviews
3:30 pm
Sun July 1, 2012

Bobby Womack: 'God Must Still Have A Purpose For Me'

Credit Jamie-James Medina / Courtesy of the artist
Bobby Womack's latest album, The Bravest Man in the Universe, came out June 12.

Originally published on Sun July 1, 2012 4:05 pm

"We had two shows that night," says Bobby Womack, recounting a recent concert in Houston. "It was a small theater, about 5- or 6,000 people. The second show, I was just out of it; they had to take me to the hospital."

It was a serious scare for the 68-year-old singer-songwriter — who has also lived through drug addiction and the deaths of two sons — and it didn't end that night.

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Author Interviews
3:03 pm
Sun July 1, 2012

The Complex 'Tapestry' of Michelle Obama's Ancestry

Originally published on Mon July 2, 2012 9:17 am

When Michelle Obama's great-great-great grandmother was 8 years old, her life underwent a dramatic change.

Melvinia Shields was a slave who grew up at a South Carolina estate with a relatively large community of slaves she knew well. But then she was moved to a small farm in northern Georgia where she was one of only three slaves; most white people in the area didn't own any.

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Pop Culture
1:08 pm
Sun July 1, 2012

It's Not Tatooine, But Luke Can Call It Home Again

Originally published on Mon July 2, 2012 10:28 am

Mark Dermul is a serious Star Wars fan. He was just 7 years old in 1977 when the original movie hit the theaters. As soon as the huge Star Destroyer flew across the opening scene, he was hooked.

"It hasn't left me," he says. At 42, Dermul now guides tours throughout North Africa, visiting sites that were featured in the blockbuster films.

On one 2010 trip back to planet Tatooine — OK, Tunisia — he and his tour group noticed that Luke Skywalker's boyhood home was decaying. They jumped into hyperspace — OK, the Internet — to save it.

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Movies I've Seen A Million Times
11:47 am
Sun July 1, 2012

The Movie Elizabeth Banks Has 'Seen A Million Times'

Originally published on Sun July 1, 2012 4:05 pm

Sports
4:56 pm
Sat June 30, 2012

For Italy's Balotelli, Racism On And Off The Field

The second biggest soccer tournament in the world — the Euro 2012 — wraps up Sunday in Kiev, Ukraine. One of the marquee names for the Italian side is Mario Balotelli. Born to parents from Ghana, Balotelli is constantly harassed by racist fans and sometimes by players on the field. Weekends on All Things Considered guest host Laura Sullivan speaks with Daniel Taylor of The Guardian about Balotelli's hot temper and how the taunts sometimes take their toll.

Environment
4:56 pm
Sat June 30, 2012

The Trickiness Of Tracking Severe Weather

Weekends on All Things Considered guest host Laura Sullivan talks with Heidi Cullen, chief climatologist at Climate Central, a non-profit science journalism organization in Princeton, New Jersey. They discuss wildfires and extreme heat in the Midwest this week and how these climate conditions are tracked by Earth-observing satellites.

Author Interviews
4:16 pm
Sat June 30, 2012

'Billy Lynn' A Full-Bore Tale Of Wartime Iraq

Originally published on Mon July 2, 2012 9:19 am

Billy Lynn is a 19-year-old college dropout living in the small Texas town where he grew up. After he's arrested for trashing the car of his sister's ex, he's given two choices: face jail time or enlist in the Army.

He chooses the Army. And Iraq.

Author Ben Fountain's debut novel, Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, is the story of what happens to Lynn after he joins Bravo Company in the early years of the Iraq war.

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Around the Nation
4:13 pm
Sat June 30, 2012

Synthetic 'Bath Salts' An Evolving Problem For DEA

Credit Brian Peterson / Minneapolis Star Tribune
Use of synthetic "bath salts," compounds sold legally but used as a controlled substance, has been on the rise since 2010.

Originally published on Mon July 2, 2012 6:22 am

One night a little more than two years ago, a 24-year-old man was rushed into the emergency room at Tulane University Medical Center in Louisiana. He was extremely agitated and hallucinating.

Dr. Corey Hebert figured the man was on drugs, probably PCP or a stimulant. But a few minutes later, the man became paranoid.

"He started doing some self-mutilating actions [and] was pulling out his eyebrows and eyelashes," Hebert tells weekends on All Things Considered host Laura Sullivan.

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Analysis
4:13 pm
Sat June 30, 2012

Week In News: Rounding Up The Health Care Ruling

Originally published on Sat June 30, 2012 4:56 pm

Weekends on All Things Considered guest host Laura Sullivan talks with James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly. They discuss the decision of the Supreme Court to uphold the Affordable Health Care act, Chief Justice John Roberts' role on the court and what the decision means in this election year.

Music Interviews
11:03 am
Sat June 30, 2012

Metric: A Rock Band Declares Independence

Credit Brantley Gutierrez
Metric's new album, its second on the band's own label, is titled Synthetica. Left to right: Joshua Winstead, Emily Haines, James Shaw, Joules Scott-Key.

Originally published on Sat June 30, 2012 4:56 pm

Metric has long been identified as an indie-rock band, but it recently embraced the "indie" part of that descriptor in a big way.

For their last album together, the band's members formed their own company — Metric Music International — to distribute the record, organize a tour and handle promotion without a label's support. The result was the biggest album of Metric's career: Fantasies sold half a million copies worldwide.

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