State and National News

Can Helmets Cut Tornado Deaths? CDC Isn't So Sure

Credit Courtesy of the Stewart family

Noah Stewart shelters in the closet just 15 minutes before an April 2011 tornado demolished his house. Wearing the helmet may have saved his life, one doctor says.

Credit Courtesy of the Stewart family

Credit Russell Lewis / NPR

Dr. Mark Baker and his team at Children's Hospital in Birmingham, Ala., treated 60 children the night of April 27, 2011, when an outbreak of tornadoes roared across the Southeast.

By Russell Lewis

Originally published on Fri May 4, 2012 7:04 pm

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1:46 am

Fri April 27, 2012

Wanted: Mavericks And Missionaries To Solve Mississippi's M.D. Shortage

Credit Jeffrey Hess for NPR

Janie Guice is the recruiter for the Mississippi Rural Physician Scholarship Program.

By editor

Originally published on Fri April 27, 2012 4:19 pm

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When Janie Guice looks at the Mississippi Delta she sees a vast, flat flood plain home to cotton fields and catfish farms. She also sees desperate rural health problems and a deep shortage of doctors to offer care. Her job: to find doctors to fill that void.

"Who is the one that is going to go back and live in a community that maybe doesn't even have a Wal-Mart? And yes, there are a lot of communities in Mississippi that don't have a Wal-Mart yet!" Guice laments.

1:45 am

Fri April 27, 2012

In L.A., Dreams Of Sunshine Became A Nightmare

Credit Hal Garb / AFP/Getty Images

National Guardsmen watch a business go up in flames in South Los Angeles on April 30, 1992. The riots erupted after a mostly white jury acquitted police officers accused in the beating of black motorist Rodney King.

By editor

Originally published on Fri April 27, 2012 7:41 am

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Commentator John Ridley moved to Los Angeles 20 years ago, not long before the riots.

Look, I was always going to end up in Los Angeles. From the time I was a kid in Wisconsin, for me, L.A. was the city. It had sunshine, palm trees, a black mayor, even a police force whose legend was preached nightly on hit TV shows.

1:44 am

Fri April 27, 2012

Teaching The LA Riots At Two City Schools

Credit Paul Sakuma / AP

Smoke rises as fires burn out of control near Vermont Street in Los Angeles on April 30, 1992. Riots erupted after L.A. police officers were acquitted in the beating of black motorist Rodney King.

By Carrie Kahn

Originally published on Fri April 27, 2012 9:22 pm

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It has been 20 years since four police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King, and L.A. erupted in race-fueled riots. Many in Los Angeles, including students who weren't born when the riots hit in April 1992, are reflecting on those days of anger, looting and destruction, asking why it happened and how to make sure it doesn't happen again.

1:42 am

Fri April 27, 2012

Showdown Looms Over Europe's Largest Shantytown

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Credit Susana Vera / Reuters /Landov

Residents of Cañada Real stand near recently demolished shacks on March 5. The settlement is separated into different sections and tends to be segregated by ethnic groups: Roma in one section, Arabs in another, for example.

Credit Susana Vera / Reuters /Landov

A digger demolishes a shack as a boy walks nearby in one section of the sprawling CaÃ±ada Real slum on the outskirts of Madrid on March 5. After decades of turning a blind eye to Europe's largest illegal settlement, cash-strapped authorities are demolishing homes there and taking back the land.

Credit Lauren Frayer for NPR

Cañada Real is built on a traditional livestock path and dry riverbed that has been public land for 700 years. Dwellings have existed here for up to 40 years.

By editor

Originally published on Fri April 27, 2012 9:24 pm

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Europe's largest illegal settlement lies on the edge of Madrid. As the Spanish capital has grown, the city's limits have moved ever closer to the shantytown known as Cañada Real, a sprawling tangle of tents and cement houses. And as the economy has tanked, a growing number of people are calling it home.

Now the city is eyeing the property for possible development.

The roads in Cañada Real are unpaved. Houses are made of corrugated metal or cement. Some lots are just piles of garbage.

1:41 am

Fri April 27, 2012

Managing The Gershwins' Lucrative Musical Legacy

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Credit Joan Marcus / Boneau/Bryan-Brown

In Nice Work If You Can Get It, Matthew Broderick plays Jimmy Winter, a New York playboy of the Prohibition era. The show is at the Imperial Theatre.

Credit Michael J. Lutch / Jeffrey Richards Associates

In Porgy and Bess, Serena (Bryonha Marie Parham) and Maria (NaTasha Yvette Williams) give Porgy (Norm Lewis) some distressing news. The show is is playing at the Richard Rodgers Theatre.

By Jeff Lunden

Originally published on Fri April 27, 2012 6:24 am

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In the 1920s, it wasn't uncommon for the Gershwin Brothers — composer George and lyricist Ira — to have two shows running on Broadway at the same time. What's surprising is that this season, 75 years after George's death, it's happening again, with Porgy and Bess and Nice Work If You Can Get It.

It's no coincidence: Both shows were generated by the Gershwin estates, the nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews charged with looking after a legacy that's not only highly loved, but immensely lucrative — a multimillion-dollar-a-year responsibility.