The nation's housing crisis has touched countless people. Increasingly, the well-off are among them.
Housing counselors around the country say they are seeing more people struggling to keep their million-dollar homes. It's a twist on a familiar story of hardship — but one that involves some very big numbers.
This Thursday, when the Supreme Court is expected to issue its ruling in the health care case, many fingers will be anxiously clicking on the website ScotusBlog. It'll be live blogging starting at 8:45 in the morning, even though opinions don't come down until 10.
ScotusBlog was started in 2003 by lawyer Tom Goldstein, who's argued many cases before the Supreme Court. And he joins me to talk about his website and how it works.
A group of young musicians from the San Francisco Bay Area is taking a journey to explore the roots of jazz. The Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble is in Cuba right now. The ensemble has a long history and a long list of all-star alumni.
Jeffrey Freymann-Weyr, of member station KDFC, spoke with some of the musicians before they left for Cuba.
JEFFREY FREYMANN-WEYR, BYLINE: Twenty eager young musicians rehearse "Cubauza," a piece that combines bebop with Afro-Cuban rhythms.
From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Melissa Block.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
And I'm Audie Cornish.
What do your friends see on Facebook when they look for your email address? It might not be what you think. In the past few days, Facebook automatically changed the email contacts it displays without clearly notifying users about what it was doing.
As NPR's Laura Sydell reports, lots of people on Facebook are not happy.
Stockton's financial morass is an example of challenges faced by many cities these days.
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
In the coming weeks, we'll report on urban life in the 21st century with the NPR Cities Project.
(SOUNDBITE OF STREET NOISE)
BLOCK: Our Cities Project stories start next Monday and we want your input. What is the heart of your city, your favorite pocket park, plaza or watering hole? Please send us pictures and sound.
UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: The sound of San Francisco is the BART train.
When the Supreme Court ruled on Arizona's immigration law yesterday, it left in place what might be called the centerpiece of that law. That's the provision that requires law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of people who are stopped for other reasons.
Roberto Villasenor is police chief for the city of Tucson. We've been talking with him periodically about SB1070, as the law is known. And he tells us today that what the court left in place is the most problematic provision for his police force.
It's time for your letters and, today, they're all about sports.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
Last week, we aired a story about the 40th anniversary of Title IX. We referred to the golf adage, hit the ball, Alice, as a sexist insult about a weak putt. Well, several of you, including Kenneth Gookin(ph) of Dallas, say Alice isn't who we think she is.
It's ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, from NPR News. I'm Audie Cornish.
MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:
And I'm Melissa Block. At the University of Virginia this afternoon, a resounding turnaround.
TERESA SULLIVAN: Today, the Board of Visitors has voted to reinstate me as the president of the university.
(CHEERS, APPLAUSE)
BLOCK: Teresa Sullivan has her job back. Just two weeks ago, she was forced out in a behind-the-scenes move by some board members. Students and faculty were infuriated, and the campus has been in turmoil.
A Syrian youth flashes the victory sign as he stands in front of a building that was covered with anti-government graffiti — though local authorities painted over it — in the town of Duma, outside Damascus, in February.
The uprising in Syria began in the spring of 2011 when rebellious teenagers scrawled anti-regime graffiti on a wall in the southern city of Daraa.
The protest against their arrest, and the regime's brutal response, sparked the wider revolt. Throughout the unrest, the country's younger generation has been at the forefront of efforts to end the repressive regime of President Bashar Assad.
At a cafe in the heart of Damascus recently, a young man flips open his cellphone to show pictures of people killed in the uprising.
A boy walks past spray-painted graffiti that reads in Hebrew, "Death to Arabs" and "Revenge." The vandalism took place earlier this month in the mixed Arab-Jewish community of Neve Shalom in Israel.
Credit Ahmad Gharabli / AFP/Getty Images
Vandals slashed car tires and spray-painted graffiti in the village of Neve Shalom earlier this month. Here, Jewish Israeli and Arab Israeli men inspect a car that was spray-painted with the word "Revenge."
The Israeli village of Neve Shalom was founded decades ago as a place where Arabs and Jews could coexist in the volatile Middle East. The area has weathered regional wars and uprisings, but earlier this month, vandals targeted it and spray-painted anti-Arab epithets on the school's walls.
"We discovered first of all that a number of tires had been punctured, and then we noticed the damage at the school, slogans painted on the walls saying 'Death to the Arabs,' " says Howard Shippin, a longtime resident of Neve Shalom village. "Of course it's very disturbing."
