Roundup

Royal Company to Put All of Shakespeare on Stage [5min]

The Royal Shakespeare Company plans to produce ALL of the Bard's works in the next year. Deborah Shaw, director of the upcoming festival in Stratford, England, tells Scott Simon what's coming.

Dorothy Parker, Lillian Hellman and the NAACP [6min]

Writer Dorothy Parker gave her estate -- including proceeds from her papers -- to the NAACP. But literary executor Lillian Hellman made access to Parker's work difficult. Marion Meade tells the story in Bookforum Magazine, and discusses it with Scott Simon.

Chernobyl, 20 Years Later [4min]

Chris Stephen, Irish Times Correspondent, has gone back to Chernobyl and has been inside the nuclear reactor.

Covering the Chernobyl Crisis [4min]

At 1:23 in the morning of April 26, 1986, there was a disastrous chain reaction in the core of Chernobyl reactor No. 4. NPR's Melissa Block talks with Serge Schmemann of the International Herald Tribune, who was a New York Times reporter in Moscow 20 years ago when the accident occurred.

No More Livelihood: Tobacco Auctions' Last Call [5min]

In North Carolina, tobacco auctions were once festive occasions, where the smell of money competed with the scent of newly dried tobacco leaves. But those days are over. And once-busy auctioneers like Gregg Goins and Steve Nelms are left trying to adapt to what's next. Goins and Nelms took part in an auction tradition that stretches back for generations. But modern farmers aren't bringing their crops to market in droves anymore. The pair talked about the once-booming tobacco business during a vi

22 Apr 2000: Swat Team Grabs Tug-of-Love Cuban Boy [2min]

US federal agents have seized six-year-old Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez in an early morning raid on the home of his relatives in Miami. About 25 officers broke down the door of the house and re-emerged minutes later with Elian wrapped in a blanket. They bundled the screaming boy into a vehicle and drove him away, as the crowd outside the house shouted protests. Chaotic scenes followed as the officers retreated and pepper spray was used to keep back the crowd. Elian was put on a plane

Happy Birthday Ma'am [90min]

To celebrate Her Majesty's 80th birthday, Mariella Frostrup presents an account of the Queen's life and reign through the decades.

Can China Help Broker Peace in Darfur? [6min]

President Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao meet at the White House. Among many topics they are discussing Darfur, Sudan. What role does China have in the conflict, and can it help end the violence in that country? Guest: Stephen Morrison, director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Men and the Suffragettes [9min]

Mention the Suffragettes and it doubtless brings to mind images of women, clad in purple, white and green, on processions, making speeches, being arrested. But what might be more surprising is the number of men involved in the movement. Jenni Murray finds out about men's contribution to The Cause and how they reconciled their masculinity with the fight for women's rights.

Irish Women of the 1916 Uprising [11min]

The course of Irish History was irrevocably changed 90 years ago this week with the Easter Uprising in Dublin. As the poet WB Yeats wrote, a terrible beauty was born when a group of rebels attempted to seize the capital, with the intention of destroying British rule in Ireland. Among them was Constance, Countess Markievicz, who later became the first woman elected to the House of Commons -- though she never took up her seat. Other less prominent women also took up arms that week, or cooked for t

Are Universal Rights Possible in an Unequal World? [45min]

In the wake of the Danish cartoons row, Londn mayor Ken Livingstone's reluctance to criticise Chinese human rights abuses, and the ongoing fall-out from the invasion of Iraq and the London bombings, the debate between relativists and universalists has never been more heated. Across a wide range of issues - freedom of speech, humanitarian military intervention, forced marriage and many others - former ideological soulmates are splitting against each other and finding new allies. In manifestos, ne

Crossfield Tested the Sky's -- and Body's -- Limits [4min]

The legendary test pilot Scott Crossfield has died at age 84. The single-engine Cessna he was flying crashed Wednesday during a flight from Alabama to Virginia. Crossfield's fame as a test pilot was surpassed only by that of Chuck Yeager. He was the first person to fly at more than twice the speed of sound, Mach 2. In 1953, Crossfield reached 1,300 mph. In 1960, he reached Mach 2.97. That flight took place in an X-15 rocket plane that was launched from a B-52. In that flight, he reached an altit

A Frontline Vision of America's Power and Purpose [76min]

General Anthony Zinni will offer a blueprint for change in American foreign policy, drawing heavily from his experiences in Iraq, Somalia, and Afghanistan. Since leaving government service, General Zinni has become one of the most respected and independent foreign policy analysts. He also co-authored the book Battle Ready with best-selling author Tom Clancy. Gen. Zinni is former US Peace Envoy in the Middle East; former Commander-in-Chief of the US Central Command and author of The Bat

The Art of the Obituary, Seen by Walter Cronkite [13min]

One way to measure the fame of a celebrity might be the length of his obituary. Another might be how far in advance it is prepared. So says veteran newsman Walter Cronkite, who has covered the lives, and deaths, of many famous Americans. Cronkite talks about the art of marking someone's passing, including some of the stories he presented as anchor of the CBS Evening News.

Wesley Clark: Why We Should Care About Darfur [11min]

Former NATO Supreme Allied Commander Gen. Wesley Clark -- also a one-time contender for the Democratic Party nomination in 2004 -- discusses the ongoing violence in the Darfur region of Sudan, why the international community has been slow to react and why Americans should care about the ethnic and religious strife that has led to hundreds of thousands of deaths and countless refugees.

The Medical Detective: John Snow [14min @29:35]

John Snow was an austere, unassuming doctor in Victorian London who revolutionised public health by solving the mystery of cholera. Hundreds of thousands of people died in massive cholera epidemics across Europe in the nineteenth century, but it took John Snow's painstaking investigations to pinpoint the cause in contaminated drinking water. Sandra Hempel talks to Frederick Dove about her new biography of Snow; and we also hear from Medecins sans Frontieres in Angola, where a serious outbreak of

Using DNA to Plumb Human Ancestry [28min]

Nicholas Wade, science reporter for The New York Times, examines what we've learned about our human ancestors using the latest techniques in DNA analysis in his new book, Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors. The data being analyzed by researchers and detailed in Wade's book has offered clues to such developments as the emergence of language, the development of clothing and domestication of animals.

Darfur: Strategies for Intervention [36min]

The United Nations set an April 30 deadline for a peace agreement in Sudan, but genocide continues in the Darfur region of the country. Now violence is spilling into neighboring Chad. Can the U.N. bring peace to Sudan after more than three years of fighting? Guests: Noel King, freelance journalist in Khartoum; Oliver Ulich, desk officer for Sudan in the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs at the United Nations; and Samantha Power, author of A Problem from Hell: America and the

Pope Benedict, One Year Later [30min]

A year ago, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI. What does his first year indicate about the future of the Catholic Church? Guests: John Allen, Vatican correspondent for National Catholic Reporter and author of The Rise of Benedict XVI: The Inside Story of How the Pope was Elected, and Where He will Take the Catholic Church; and Monsignor Kevin Irwin, professor of liturgy and sacramental theology at the Catholic University of America.

Germany Opens Holocaust Archives [8min]

Germany announced today that it has reversed its decades-long opposition to opening what is considered to be the world's largest archive on the Holocaust. It contains information on the deportation, incarceration and death of victims. Guest: Sarah Bloomfield, director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.