5:19pm

Wed May 23, 2012
The Two-Way

Beijing Imposes 'Two-Fly' Rule For Public Restrooms

Credit Greg Baker / AP

Officials in Beijing have ruled that public restrooms in the Chinese capital can have no more than two flies in them at one time, the BBC reports.

New rules issued Monday by the Beijing Municipal Commission of City Administration and Environment also regulate ads within the bathrooms and state that no more than two pieces of trash can be left uncollected for more than a half-hour.

The rules apply to bathrooms in tourist spots such as parks, railway stations, supermarkets and malls.

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5:05pm

Wed May 23, 2012
The Two-Way

British TV Presenter: CNN's Piers Morgan Showed Me How To Hack

Credit Chris Pizzello / AP

CNN host Piers Morgan has been dragged into the U.K.'s hacking scandal once again.

This time, the host of the BBC's Newsnight told a media ethics inquiry that Morgan had showed him how to hack into a cell phone's voice mail.

SkyTV reports that Jeremy Paxman remembered a lunch from September 2002 for two reasons: First because Morgan seemed to imply that he had heard a conversation between another TV presenter Ulrika Jonsson and England football manager Sven-Goran Eriksson.

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4:59pm

Wed May 23, 2012
Politics

Remember The Debt Ceiling Debate? It's Back

Originally published on Wed May 23, 2012 7:22 pm

Credit Brendan Hoffman / Getty Images

A storm is brewing in Washington that could darken political debate for months to come. It's about the debt, the deficit, taxes and spending — all hot topics lawmakers have been fighting about for years now.

This time, though, there's a deadline, and the consequences of inaction would be immediate. That has many in Washington saying: Here we go again.

In the past week, President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner have begun a new round of sparring over the U.S. debt ceiling.

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4:56pm

Wed May 23, 2012
It's All Politics

Romney Pivots To Education Platform In Seeking Latino Votes

Originally published on Tue May 29, 2012 4:39 pm

Credit Evan Vucci / AP

Declaring that a "national emergency" exists in public education, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney shifted from his usual economic message to outline his education platform during a speech to a Latino business group Wednesday.

Romney pledged to provide federal funding for "every" child from low-income families, or those with special needs, to attend the public, public charter or, in some cases, private school of their parents' choice. The proposals are boilerplate Republican Party planks.

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4:51pm

Wed May 23, 2012
World

Helicopter Rescues Increasing On Everest

Originally published on Wed May 23, 2012 7:22 pm

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

On Mount Everest, the climbing season is at its peak, and that means that if clear conditions hold, hundreds will attempt to scale the mountain this weekend alone. Suppose you wanted to climb the world's highest peak, Would it alter your decision if you knew that rescue was just a phone call and a helicopter ride away? Well, it turns out that helicopter rescues have been increasingly common in the mountains of Nepal. And that has raised lots of questions about risk-taking, not just for climbers, but for pilots, too.

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Robert Christgau contributes regular music reviews to All Things Considered.

Christgau began writing rock criticism for Esquire in 1967 and became a columnist at New York's Village Voice in 1969. He moved to Newsday in 1972, but in 1974 returned to the Voice, where he was the music editor for the next 10 years. From 1985 to 2006, he was a senior editor at the weekly as well as its chief music critic. He is best known for the Pazz & Jop Critics' Poll, for over 30 years the nation's most respected survey of rock-critical opinion, and his Consumer Guide column, where he began to publish letter-graded capsule album reviews in 1969. The Consumer Guide is now published by MSN Networks. Christgau is also a senior critic at Blender.

Christgau has taught at several colleges and universities, most extensively NYU, where after stints with the English and journalism departments, he now teaches music history in the Clive Davis Department of Recorded Music. In 1987, he won a Guggenheim fellowship to study the history of popular music. In 2002, he was a senior fellow at the National Arts Journalism Program, where he is now a member of the national board. He was the keynote speaker at the first EMP Pop Conference in 2002, and a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University in 2007.

Christgau has published five books: the collections Any Old Way You Choose It (1973) and Grown Up All Wrong (1998), and three record guides based on his Consumer Guide columns. He has written for The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The London Times, Playboy, The New Yorker, Video Review, Blender, Spin, The Nation, Salon, Believer, numerous alt-weeklies and many other publications. Most of his writing can be read on his website, robertchristgau.com. His capsule reviews are also part of the editorial content at the online music service Rhapsody.

Christgau was born in 1942. He attended New York City public schools and got his B.A. from Dartmouth in 1962. He married Carola Dibbell in 1974. In 1985, they became parents of a daughter, Nina.

4:42pm

Wed May 23, 2012
National Security

A Peek Inside The CIA, As It Tries To Assess Iran

Originally published on Sat June 2, 2012 2:04 am

The latest talks in Baghdad over Iran's nuclear program have prompted the usual arguments. Iran says it has only peaceful intentions. Israeli leaders scoff at that claim. Other world powers are unsure of Iran's intentions and demand that it take steps to show that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons.

The CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies, meanwhile, are sticking with the assessment they made in November 2007, when they reported that Iran "halted its nuclear weapons program" in 2003 and apparently had not restarted it.

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4:36pm

Wed May 23, 2012
NPR Story

Facebook Underwriters Sued For Hiding Information

Originally published on Wed May 23, 2012 7:22 pm

Shares of Facebook on Wednesday made up a little of the ground they've lost since the company's troubled stock offering last week. But the company and its lead underwriter, Morgan Stanley, still face a lot of legal problems.

Some of the investors who bought shares of the company filed a lawsuit alleging that the two companies concealed information about Facebook's expected performance.

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4:36pm

Wed May 23, 2012
NPR Story

Voting In Egypt Goes Smoothly On First Day

Originally published on Wed May 23, 2012 7:22 pm

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

And I'm Robert Siegel. In Egypt, millions of voters went to the polls today in the country's first-ever free presidential election. Most Egyptians were jubilant as they cast ballots for one of 13 candidates. The contest pitted Islamists against secular candidates in a race that never would have been possible while Hosni Mubarak was president. Among the voters who turned out, teacher Yara Khaled.

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4:34pm

Wed May 23, 2012
The Two-Way

HP Will Cut 8 Percent Of Workforce Or 27,000 Jobs

Originally published on Wed May 23, 2012 4:49 pm

As part of what it calls "a multi-year restructuring," Hewlett-Packard announced it was cutting 27,000 jobs or 8 percent of its workforce.

HP said the cuts would happen over an extended period and should be done by the end of 2014.

"The restructuring is expected to generate annualized savings in the range of $3.0 to $3.5 billion exiting fiscal year 2014, of which the majority will be reinvested back into the company," the company said in a statement.

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