The Salt
8:00 am
Sun February 19, 2012

Dining After 'Downton Abbey': Why British Food Was So Bad For So Long

Originally published on Fri October 19, 2012 3:06 pm

If you've ever watched the television show Downton Abbey, you've probably deduced that dining was a very, very big deal in the lives of the landed gentry of Edwardian England.

Much of the drama surrounding the aristocratic Crawley family and their servants unfolds against a tableau of the table.

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Around the Nation
8:00 am
Sun February 19, 2012

Providence Seeks Aid From Ivy League Resident

The mayor of Rhode Island's largest city is calling on the city's tax exempt hospitals and universities to chip in and help Providence stay out of the red. From member station Rhode Island Public Radio, Ian Donnis reports on how this has made for a sharp battle between Providence and its Ivy League university.

Education
8:00 am
Sun February 19, 2012

What's Behind The Rise Of College Tuition?

Weekend Edition Sunday host Rachel Martin talks to NPR education reporter Claudio Sanchez about the huge rise in public college tuition as states face a budget squeeze.

Around the Nation
8:00 am
Sun February 19, 2012

North Vs South: Carolinas Seek To Redraw Border

Weekend Edition Sunday host Rachel Martin talks about the 18-year process to re-plot the border between North and South Carolina along its original, 1772 line.

The Two-Way
7:57 am
Sun February 19, 2012

Paying Respects To A Fallen Journalist In Libya

Credit Andy Carvin / NPR
The grave of Mohamed "Mo" Nabbous is seen in Libya. Mo was killed by a sniper on March 19, 2011 while filming Libya's revolution.

A light mist of cold rain started falling on us from the moment we reached the cemetery. If I hadn't felt it on my face, I probably wouldn't have even noticed it, as the hardscrabble stretching throughout the grave yard appeared just as parched as one might expect in a desert country.

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Middle East
7:43 am
Sun February 19, 2012

Food, Supplies Short For Syrian Regime's Opposition

Credit Bulent Kilic / AFP/Getty Images
Syrians demonstrate against the regime after Friday prayers in the north Syrian city of Idlib on Friday. Thousands of Syrians rallied to demand Bashar al-Assad's ouster, as the embattled president's forces unleashed their heaviest pounding yet of Homs in a brutal bid to crush dissent, monitors said.

The offensive started on the city of Homs, where neighborhoods that have seen some of the largest protests and armed resistance to the government are now under constant fire from tanks, rockets and mortars.

Homs is in central Syria, and it is thought that if the regime lost it to the opposition, that would cut the country in half. The offensive continued in the city of Zabadani, a mountain resort town just outside of Syria's capital of Damascus.

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The Message Machine
6:00 am
Sun February 19, 2012

Santorum Shows He'll Fire Back In Michigan Ad Wars

Credit Paul Sancya / AP
Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney took the stage in a January presidential debate in Florida. They'll meet again Wednesday night in Arizona, which holds its primary on Feb. 28, the same day as the crucial Michigan contest.

The rise of Rick Santorum in the race for the Republican presidential nomination hasn't exactly gone unnoticed by rival Mitt Romney or his friends. Turn on a TV in Michigan this weekend, and chances are you won't have to wait long to see an ad attacking the former Pennsylvania senator.

"America is drowning in national debt," a narrator intones in one ad, a product of Romney's campaign. "Yet Rick Santorum supported billions in earmarks."

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Africa
3:46 am
Sun February 19, 2012

'Enough Is Enough' Say Sengalese Rappers

Credit AFP/Getty Images
Police arrest Kilifa, center, one of two leaders of Senegal's rapper-led youth movement on Thursday in Dakar.

Senegal's capital of Dakar remains jittery, with the youth and the riot police locked in running street battles.

The police are using teargas, rubber bullets and water cannon spray to chase away angry opposition demonstrators, including rappers from the Y'en a Marre movement. Their name means "We're Fed Up, Enough is Enough."

This past week, a planned overnight sleep-in protest was broken up by the security forces. Founding member and rapper, Djily Baghdad, blames Abdoulaye Wade for the ban, the crackdown and for overstaying his welcome as president of Senegal.

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Arts & Life
2:38 am
Sun February 19, 2012

E-Books Flipping The Page On Publishing Standards

The publishing business is not known as a hot bed of experimentation and has been slow to embrace the transition from print to e-books. But this past week in New York, the Tools of Change digital publishing conference attracted entrepreneurs and innovators who are more excited by, rather than afraid, of the future.

It was the kind of crowd where some were more inclined to say "steal my book" than to argue over what an e-book should cost. These are people who see digital publishing not as a threat, but as an opportunity.

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Technology
1:00 am
Sun February 19, 2012

Building A Village, One Home-Brewed Tool At A Time

Do-It-Yourselfers have made everything from bamboo bicycles to 3-D printers, but nothing as ambitious as what's happening on a farm in northwest Missouri where tractors and other industrial machines are being made from scratch.

Marcin Jakubowski earned a Ph.D. in physics and his doctoral thesis deals with velocity turbulence and zonal flow detection, whatever that is. But when Jakubowski graduated in 2004, he wanted nothing to do with physics or academia.

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