Talk of the Nation on 89.5-1

Author Daniel Handler, who writes under the pen name Lemony Snicket, is known for his dry wit and matter-of-fact take on the mysterious and macabre. In his A Series of Unfortunate Events books and Who Could That Be at This Hour?, the protagonists confront twisted characters and dastardly villains.

In his latest children's book, he takes on the dark itself, with the story of a young boy who confronts his biggest fear.

Ken Rudin recaps the week in politics. Boston Globe political reporter Jim O'Sullivan previews the special election between Mass. Senate candidates Edward Markey and Gabriel Gomez on June 25. NPR senior Washington editor Ron Elving looks to the future of Congress.

A New York Federal District Court judge ruled that Fox Searchlight Pictures broke the law by not paying two interns for work on the film Black Swan. As a result, private employers may be considering revising their internship programs, or scrapping them altogether.

Twelve years after the war began, Afghanistan's president announced Tuesday that Afghan forces officially assumed control of security for the country. U.S. and NATO troops will remain until the 2014 deadline, but the Afghan military is now expected to fight without NATO support.

Parents have always had to break hard news to kids, from family hardships to national tragedies. Now there are more ways for children to learn about news faster — through 24 hour news and social media. So, what's changed in how parents broach these subjects? How can media help, or hurt?

Transcript

JOHN DONVAN, HOST:

Nearly half of the 7,000 languages spoken in the world are expected to vanish in the next 100 years. One of them is Athabaskan, a language of the Siletz tribe in the Pacific Northwest. Bud Lane, vice chairman of Siletz tribal council, explains the importance of language diversity.

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. For the past several weeks, we've taken the opportunity to reconnect with some of our favorite guests and colleagues in a series of conversations looking ahead. Today, longtime NPR New York correspondent Margot Adler, who's filed stories on hundreds of New Yorkers over the years: AIDS activists, street musicians, cops, environmental visionaries, and a guy who will move your car at exactly the right moment to take full advantage of opposite-side-of-the-street parking laws.

The Supreme Court ruled in June that police can routinely take DNA samples from people who are arrested for comparison against a national database. The decision raises major questions about how law enforcement and criminal justice processes will change.

In her book Cows Save The Planet, journalist Judith Schwartz argues that the key to addressing carbon issues and climate change lies beneath our feet. Schwartz says that proper management of soil could solve a long list of environmental problems.

"The thing to realize is that while we think about this as a sky thing — that it's all about all the fossil fuels that we're burning and all that spewing into the atmosphere — it's actually also a ground thing," she tells NPR's Neal Conan.