NPR Story
4:07 pm
Wed July 18, 2012

Drought In Danger Of Beaching Mississippi Barges

Originally published on Wed July 18, 2012 7:30 pm

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

And now we turn to the Mississippi River. The drought has brought parts of the Mississippi to near record low water levels. Those shallow conditions pose difficulties for barge traffic on the river and we turn now to Mark Mestemacher who is co-owner of Ceres Barge Line. It's based in East St. Louis. Welcome to the program.

MARK MESTEMACHER: Thank you.

SIEGEL: And how low is the river in East St. Louis?

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NPR Cities: Urban Life In The 21st Century
3:55 pm
Wed July 18, 2012

Motorists To Urban Planners: Stay In Your Lane

Originally published on Wed July 18, 2012 7:30 pm

Cities and cars share a conflicted relationship these days. Environmental concerns, growing traffic congestion and an urban design philosophy that favors foot traffic are driving many cities to try to reduce the number of cars on the road. In cities such as Seattle, Chicago, Toronto and Boston, some people go so far as to claim there is a "war on cars."

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Arts & Life
3:48 pm
Wed July 18, 2012

Seinfeld Hits The Web, Still Talking About Nothing

Originally published on Wed July 18, 2012 7:30 pm

Jerry Seinfeld's new series is called Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, and the promos promise exactly that. The comic toodles around in his vintage wheels, drinking java with his pals Alec Baldwin, Michael Richards and Larry David, and discussing (among other things) the effrontery of ordering herbal tea when invited out for coffee.

But the next act from the man behind the most popular sitcom on television won't be on television. It's a webseries.

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April Fulton is the blog host of The Salt, NPR's Food Blog. As an editor on NPR's Science Desk, she edits and prepares radio and web reports on food topics ranging from raw milk policy to growing African crops.

Fulton, who joined NPR in 2009 as a health editor, worked with NPR's Health Policy Correspondent Julie Rovner and All Things Considered Senior Host Robert Siegel in preparation for their White House meeting with President Barack Obama just before the health care legislation passed in March 2010. In 2009, she helped launch the Shots health blog, just as the H1N1 flu virus pandemic was making headlines. Also that year, Fulton was part of the team developing content for the newly redesigned NPR.org website, which won a George Foster Peabody Award in 2009.

Before coming to NPR, Fulton spent five years as a freelance food writer. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, Capitol File Magazine, US Airways Magazine and on NPR.org.

As a legislative assistant for U.S. Senator Richard Durbin from 2004-2005, Fulton took a brief break from journalism to develop food safety legislation.

Covering health care, labor and transportation policy for National Journal, Fulton worked first as a reporter than as an editor from 2000-2004. During that time, she broke a story on a costly trip made by some Congressional staffers, who oversaw pharmaceutical companies, and paid for by a drug company.

Prior to National Journal, Fulton worked her way up from reporter to editor in chief for a Washington, D.C.-based newsletter covering the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

In 2010, Fulton was selected as a Knight Foundation Fellow and attended MIT's Medical Evidence Boot Camp. She earned a bachelor's degree in journalism with a minor in political science from the University of Rhode Island.

The Salt
3:33 pm
Wed July 18, 2012

Discarded Food Cans Turn Into Canvas For British Street Artist

Originally published on Thu July 19, 2012 3:32 am

Those eyes grab you first. Only after a couple of beats do you realize you're looking at the painted bottom of a flattened metal can left on the street, and not some mysterious fairy.

These can art people come from the imagination of a British artist known as My Dog Sighs, who has left a piece of art on the street for someone to find every Friday for the last 10 years.

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NPR Cities: Urban Life In The 21st Century
3:21 pm
Wed July 18, 2012

Drive Time: Commuting In American Cities

Credit CurvaBezier / iStockphoto

Americans' methods for commuting to work vary by city. Some drive alone or carpool, while others use mass transportation. Use this map to explore the geographic differences in how residents in cities with more than 100,000 workers get to work.

Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

The Two-Way
3:04 pm
Wed July 18, 2012

To Help Dissidents, YouTube Introduces Face-Blurring Tool

Credit YouTube
A screenshot of how the face-blurring technology works.

Originally published on Wed July 18, 2012 7:58 pm

In an effort to make posting video on YouTube safer for activists, YouTube has announced a new tool that automatically obscures faces.

"Whether you want to share sensitive protest footage without exposing the faces of the activists involved, or share the winning point in your 8-year-old's basketball game without broadcasting the children's faces to the world, our face blurring technology is a first step towards providing visual anonymity for video on YouTube," Amanda Conway, a policy associate at YouTube wrote in a blog post.

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Human Tissue Donation
2:43 pm
Wed July 18, 2012

Am I A Tissue Donor, Too?

Credit iStockphoto.com
Organ and tissue donation forms vary from state to state. Some are very general, while others allow people to choose or restrict what they want to donate.

Originally published on Wed July 18, 2012 9:20 pm

Part 3 in a four-part series

Maybe you've agreed to be an organ donor. There might be something on your driver's license — a red heart, a pink dot or the word "Donor" — to show it. That also means you've very likely agreed — even if you don't realize it — to donate more than just your organs.

I know that I'm an organ donor. I signed up years ago, when I renewed my driver's license. But I had no idea that I'd also signed up to donate my tissue. That is, until Laura Siminoff, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University's medical school, explained it to me.

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The Two-Way
2:27 pm
Wed July 18, 2012

Netanyahu Points At Iran After Explosion In Bulgaria Kills Israelis

Credit AFP/Getty Images
One bus was largely destroyed and others nearby were damaged by today's explosion in Bulgaria.

Originally published on Sun July 22, 2012 9:42 am

Reports vary on the number of deaths in Bulgaria today from an explosion that tore apart a bus carrying Israeli tourists, most of them reportedly young people in the Black Sea city of Burgas on vacation.

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Environment
2:21 pm
Wed July 18, 2012

Around The World, Cities Plan For Extreme Weather

From record-breaking temperatures to long droughts, extreme weather events are on the rise. Many meteorologists and climatologists say it's only going to get worse. Many cities are putting plans in place to prepare for a range of costly and deadly weather disasters.

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