East Coast Starts To Add Up Irene’s Economic Blow

The day after Irene, clean-up efforts continue and the damage estimates are starting to come in. But overall, it appears to have caused much less damage than forecasters expected. However, it’s still early to make exact pronouncements about how much damage this storm caused or may still cause. Swollen rivers in upstate New York and [...]

After The Storm: A Fight For Recognition, Housing

Pamela Landry didn’t get any storm-surge damage during Hurricane Katrina, but the wrath of the storm’s wind proved furious. She lives far away from the ocean in Picayune, Miss., in Pearl River County, about 45 miles from New Orleans and from Gulfport. Like many low-income residents in Mississippi, Landry lived in a 1960s mobile home [...]

Bird Flu Flies Again, Prompting UN Advisory

Out of the public eye, the bird flu has been making a comeback. The United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization warned today about a “possible major resurgence” of H5N1 influenza, including a mutant virus that appears to be unfazed by available vaccines. The latest fatality from the infection occurred in Cambodia earlier this month. A [...]

Twenty Iconic Male Movie Roles In Which Helen Mirren Would Have Ruled

Helen Mirren’s latest, The Debt, opens this week. I found myself thinking about the fact that I enjoy her in pretty much everything, including interviews, and that as far as I’m concerned, it’s a crying shame that I haven’t seen her in more enormously famous movies. It occurred to me that given the dearth of [...]

NASA: International Space Station May Have To Go Unmanned

The International Space Station may have to fly solo this fall. All of the astronauts, NASA said today, might have to leave the station in late November if Russian spacecrafts can’t make trips to the station. The AP reports: If Russian Soyuz rockets remain grounded beyond mid-November, there will be no way to launch new [...]

Pediatricians Put The Kibosh On Boxing For Kids

Whatever you think about the merits of boxing as a sport for adults, pediatricians say children have no place in the ring. Citing the risk of injuries, including concussions, the American Academy of Pediatrics and its Canadian counterpart, the Canadian Paedeatric Society, have come out in opposition to boxing as a sport for children and [...]

Brad Bird, Patton Oswalt On Cooking Up ‘Ratatouille’

This interview was originally broadcast on June 28, 2007. In 2007, director Brad Bird and actor Patton Oswalt joined Fresh Air’s Terry Gross to talk about their film Ratatouille, Pixar’s animated comedy about a foodie rat who becomes a chef in a top Paris kitchen. Oswalt — a foodie himself — is the voice behind [...]

Reflections Of Ramadan From Childhood

For the past month, Muslims around the world have been fasting in observance of Ramadan, abstaining from food and water during daylight hours. International rights attorney Arsalan Iftikhar and his friend, Rabiah Ahmed, board member of an online platform for American Muslims called My Faith My Voice, recall childhood memories of how their families observed [...]

Freedom For Yvonne, Germany’s Runaway Cow: Search Is Called Off

The search for Yvonne, the six-year-old cow that dashed to freedom just before she was to be transported to a slaughterhouse in southern Germany, has been called off. The cow has become a star, drawing international attention to Zangberg, the Bavarian commune where she made her escape. Yvonne has been at large since May 24. [...]

Republicans Barred From Wisconsin Town’s Labor Day Parade

Wisconsin politics — which hasn’t been pretty of late — has made its way into a local Labor Day parade. The organizers of the Wausau Labor Day parade announced they would not let Republican lawmakers take part in the Sept. 5 display. The parade is organized by 30 local unions. The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports: In [...]