Good morning. I'm Renee Montagne. The emirate of Dubai has created many wonders - a snowy ski hill in the desert, the world's tallest building. Its latest mega-project could be called a labor of love. The luxury hotel Taj Arabia will be a replica of the Taj Mahal, only four times the size. The 17th original in India was built by an emperor as a shrine to his beloved late wife. Dubai is pitching its faux Taj Mahal as a destination for weddings. It's MORNING EDITION. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
The Gold Standard: In NPR's survey, most readers chose Sean Connery (above, in Goldfinger), as the best James Bond. Daniel Craig placed second in our survey.
It's official: Sean Connery IS James Bond, according to NPR readers who weighed the question this week. The final results show that Connery set the gold standard as 007, the spy known for his playfulness, his ruthlessness — and his ability to look good in a suit. Today marks the Bond film franchise's 50th anniversary.
Originally published on Fri October 5, 2012 6:11 am
Beekeepers in eastern France were upset to find their bees were producing honey in unusual shades of blue and green. A nearby biogas plant processed waste from an M&M's factory. The bees were snacking on the candy coating. The waste treatment plant says it's storing the candy waste more securely.
Simon Cho competes in the men's 500-meter finals at the 2011 ISU World Cup short track speedskating final in Dresden, Germany. He won the event.
Credit Howard Berkes / NPR
Olympic speedskater Simon Cho holds a short track skate that is similar to the one he sabotaged at an international meet last year. Cho first openly described what he did and why in an interview with NPR this week at his attorney's home outside Salt Lake City.
Credit Leon Neal / AFP/Getty Images
Simon Cho (center) celebrates after beating China's Liang Wenhao and Liu Xianwei and Canada's Olivier Jean (right) in the men's 500-meter final at the 2011 World Short Track Speed Skating Championships in England.
Credit Haraz N. Ghanbari / AP
Olympic speedskating coach Jae Su Chun arrives for a State Dinner at the White House in May 2010. Chun is accused of verbally, physically and psychologically abusing various members of the U.S. short track team.
American speedskater Simon Cho says what he did was "wrong" when he yielded to what he claims was persistent pressure from a coach to tamper with another skater's blades at the World Short Track Team Championships in Poland last year.
"Tampering with someone's skates is inexcusable," Cho told NPR in his first interview about the incident."And I'm coming out now and admitting that I did this and acknowledging that what I did was wrong." The Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune also spoke with Cho earlier this week after the NPR interview.
Here's one thing President Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney could agree on during their first debate this week: Something has to be done about the enormous gap between what the federal government collects in taxes and what it spends.
But the two men fundamentally disagree on what to do about that budget deficit.
American billionaire, casino mogul and Republican donorSheldon Adelson has a new project: a $35 billion gambling megacity in Europe. He has chosen debt-ridden Spain as the location for "EuroVegas," which is expected to bring up to 250,000 much-needed jobs.
But many Spaniards are divided over whether they want casinos in their backyard.
In the movie Goldfinger, a minion of bad guy Auric Goldfinger asks 007: "Can I do something for you, Mr. Bond?"
"Just a drink," Sean Connery's Bond replies, deadpan. "A martini. Shaken, not stirred," he intones.
From Connery to Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, this preference is repeated again and again in 007 flicks. (Check out this video montage for the full Bond effect.)
In Haiti, two different humanitarian groups have built new factories to make this product, which is used to treat severe malnutrition and maybe someday prevent it. The problem is, Haiti doesn't appear to need two of them. Each factory, all by itself, could satisfy Haiti's current demand.
Ken Rensink found his calling, teaching special education, after a debilitating accident when he was 19. Now 47, he talked about his journey with friend and colleague Laurel Hill-Ward at StoryCorps in Chico, Calif.
Ken Rensink's path to special education teaching began when he was 19, just one day after he completed his training for the U.S. Army Reserves. He fell asleep at the wheel of his car, hit a telephone pole and nearly lost his life.
"I was paralyzed from the waist down," Ken told friend Laurel Hill-Ward, a Chico State University professor who trains special education teachers. "My left arm was so weak, I could barely hold a plastic cup of water."
Originally published on Fri October 5, 2012 8:33 am
It's a troubling story authorities think will unfold over the next month or so. An untold number of Americans who got steroid injections in their spine to relieve back pain may end up with a rare fungal meningitis. The drug was contaminated with the spores of a common leaf mold — nobody knows how.
So far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has recorded 35 cases of the fungal meningitis in six states: Tennessee, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Maryland and Indiana. Five patients have died.
For President Obama, Thursday appeared to have its share of what the French call staircase wit.
We've all experienced it. Heading up the stairs to bed, you think of the perfect response to something someone else said earlier. Of course, it's too late.
The day after his widely panned presidential debate performance, Obama delivered the sort of retorts to his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, that were mainly absent the night before.
Pakistani pop singer Shehzad Roy (right) sings for teenage prisoners at a prison in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2008. Known originally for fluffy pop songs, Roy's music has taken a harder, more political edge, protesting injustice in Pakistan.
Credit Lauren Frayer / NPR
Roy is shown here at the Fatima Jinnah Government Girls School in Karachi, a poor public school being refurbished by his education nonprofit, Zindagi Trust.
Credit Lauren Frayer for NPR
Handmade decorations adorn the refurbished Fatima Jinnah girls school, where stray dogs once roamed the classrooms.
A voter registration form and absentee ballot application at a Franklin County polling place in Columbus, Ohio, on Tuesday. The deadline to register to vote in Ohio is Oct. 9.
If you want to vote in the November elections and you aren't registered yet — you'd better hurry. The registration deadline in five states is this weekend. By the following weekend, the deadline will have passed in more than half the states.
A rat neuron before (top) and after (bottom) ketamine treatment. The increased number of orange nodes are restored connections in the rat's brain.
Credit Lianne Milton / For NPR
Chris Stephens, 28, has been battling depression all of his life. At times he wouldn't get out of bed for weeks. In January, he said his depression hadn't returned since he started taking ketamine.
Scientists say they have figured out how an experimental drug called ketamine is able to relieve major depression in hours instead of weeks.
Researchers from Yale and the National Institute of Mental Health say ketamine seems to cause a burst of new connections to form between nerve cells in parts of the brain involved in emotion and mood.
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block. Today, a long legal battle came to an end. On one side, Google; on the other, book publishers. The two have reached an agreement to resolve a lawsuit that's dragged on for seven years. But this does not end Google's legal trouble, as it tries to digitize the world's books. An even more important lawsuit remains unresolved - with thousands of authors of those books that Google has scanned. NPR's Laura Sydell reports.
And finally this hour, it's time for a literary take on one of our top stories today. Reporters step aside. Spin doctors drop those talking points. We've asked two writers to reflect on last night's debate in poetry. One from the right and one from the left. This is still politics, after all. First up, conservative commentator Mark Steyn, author of the book, "After America: Get Ready for Armageddon." He was inspired by the fact that last night's debate coincided with the president's 20th wedding anniversary.
The Major League playoffs begin tomorrow, spinning off a dizzying last day of the regular season, and there's a ton of drama to talk about with Joe Lemire, baseball writer for Sports Illustrated. Welcome, Joe.
JOE LEMIRE: Thanks for having me.
BLOCK: That dizzying last day featured a remarkable finish by the Oakland A's. They won the American League West, but they were all but dead three months ago. They were 13 games behind the Texas Rangers. What happened?
Originally published on Thu October 4, 2012 4:03 pm
Despite President Obama's celebrated gift for oratory, the Obama supporters least surprised by his underwhelming performance against Mitt Romney may have been two of his top advisers.
Senior strategists David Plouffe and David Axelrod have long doubted Obama's debating skills. Their concerns date back to the 2008 presidential campaign, as Plouffe wrote in his book, The Audacity to Win. He put it plainly: "Historically, Obama was not a strong debater."
Originally published on Fri October 5, 2012 12:17 pm
During the presidential debate last night, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney talked about their ideas to grow the economy. Here's how what they said matches up with our economist-approved presidential platform:
The story of the birth of accounting begins with numbers. In the 1400s, much of Europe was still using Roman numerals, and finding it really hard to easily add or subtract. (Try adding MCVI to XCIV.)
But fortunately, Arabic numerals (1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) started catching on, and with those numbers, merchants in Venice developed a revolutionary system we now call "double-entry" bookkeeping. This is how it works:
Each of these mouse pups was born from an egg scientists created using embryonic stem cells. It's possible the technology could change future treatment for human infertility.
Originally published on Thu October 4, 2012 7:45 pm
Scientists in Japan report they have created eggs from stem cells in a mammal for the first time. And the researchers went on to breed healthy offspring from the eggs they created.
While the experiments involved mice, the work is being met with excitement — and questions — about doing the same thing for humans someday.
Originally published on Thu October 4, 2012 1:16 pm
With the first presidential debate now behind us, what's the next big item on the campaign calendar?
It's Friday's 8:30 a.m. ET release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics about the September unemployment rate and how many jobs were added to payrolls last month.
Originally published on Thu October 4, 2012 5:44 pm
In case anyone was wondering, this week's presidential debate demonstrated why incumbent presidents and others leading in the polls used to refuse to debate their challengers.
After John F. Kennedy used the first TV debates to boost his campaign against incumbent Vice President Richard Nixon in 1960, there simply were no debates until 1976. Running again with a big lead in 1968 and 1972, Nixon declined to debate and won both times. Lyndon B. Johnson also demurred in 1964 without damage en route to a landslide.
Originally published on Thu October 4, 2012 12:54 pm
Google and a group of book publishers have settled a seven-year-old dispute that would allow the search giant to continue in its quest to digitize all the world's books.
This is only a step in that direction because Google still has an outstanding lawsuit with authors.
How much extra would you pay for local food? It's a familiar question. We face it practically every time we shop for groceries, either at the store or at the farmers market. But what about food that can save the lives of severely malnourished children?
