The general presidential election is still months away, but President Obama and presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney are already hammering each other with attack ads.
Obama's most recent ads criticize Romney's time as a so-called "corporate raider," while Romney has released several ads seizing upon the president's statement that the "private sector is doing fine."
It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.
Jerry Sandusky will likely spend the rest of his life in prison. After just two days of deliberations, a jury found the former Penn State assistant coach guilty of sexually abusing 10 boys. He'll be sentenced in 90 days. But right now, the community where he lived and worked is trying to recover from the damage he caused.
NPR's Jeff Brady joins us from State College, Pennsylvania. And, Jeff, what are people saying about that verdict there today?
Norman Lear (center) created, developed and produced the hit show All in the Family, which ran from 1971 to 1979. The politically charged sitcom starred Jean Stapleton, Carroll O'Connor, Rob Reiner, Sally Struthers and Mike Evans.
Credit AP
Bea Arthur (center) starred with Adrienne Barbeau (left) and Rue McClanahan in the socially controversial '70s TV show Maude, a spin-off of All in the Family that Lear also created, developed and produced.
Credit NBC Television / Getty Images
Redd Foxx (left) and Demond Wilson played the titular father-son duo in the TV show Sanford and Son, a Lear production that ran from 1972 to 1977.
Credit Hulton Archive / Getty Images
Louise Lasser starred in Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman, a short-lived '70s TV show that Lear conceived of as a soap opera parody.
Credit CBS / Landov
Norman Lear (center) created, developed and produced the hit show All in the Family, which ran from 1971 to 1979. The politically charged sitcom starred Jean Stapleton, Carroll O'Connor, Rob Reiner, Sally Struthers and Mike Evans.
Credit Angela Weiss / Getty Images
Norman Lear hosts a book party in 2009. At almost 90, Lear is still an active member of People for the American Way, the progressive advocacy group he helped found in 1981.
When legendary TV producer Norman Lear was young, his father gave him a do-it-yourself radio kit. Lear built it, turned it on and remembers one day hearing a fiery broadcast that spoke kindly of the Nazi movement and ranted against Jews.
"It scared the hell out of me," Lear, who is Jewish, tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz. "It was the first time that I learned that I was, quote, 'different.' I started to pay a lot more attention to people who were even more different."
Michelle Marciniak (right) of the University of Tennessee Lady Volunteers attempts to elude the defensive pressure of Nykesha Sales of the UConn Huskies during the 1996 NCAA Women's Final Four.
Credit Roberto Schmidt / AFP/Getty Images
Brandi Chastain celebrates after kicking the winning penalty shot to win the 1999 Women's World Cup final at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Calif., in 1999.
Title IX, which turns 40 on Saturday, has helped reverse years of bias, banning sex discrimination in federally funded schools and colleges.
Its guarantee of equal access to sports was a small part of the original legislation. But it's become the most recognizable part of Title IX. That guarantee has not always played out, and the law has its critics. For four decades, however, it's played a huge part in shaping lives.
Father Paul Dobberstein began building the Grotto of the Redemption in West Bend, Iowa, 100 years ago. It's covered with stones, rocks, petrified wood and seashells.
Credit Sandhya Dirks for NPR
After he contracted pneumonia, Dobberstein — a priest, a geologist and artist — vowed he would build a shrine to the Virgin Mary if he survived. The Grotto of the Redemption is that shrine.
Credit Sandhya Dirks for NPR
Just about everyone in West Bend — population 785 — is connected to the grotto, which was built over a period of 40 years.
The Midwest is known for its roadside attractions — world's largest ear of corn, heaviest ball of twine, biggest truck stop.
But it's also home to one of the largest collections of grottoes in the world. Most of these man-made caves were created by immigrant priests at the beginning of the 20th century. And the mother of them all — encrusted in $6 million worth of semiprecious stones — is in West Bend, Iowa.
This weekend, the Grotto of the Redemption turns 100.
Gesundheit: Kichaa is the name of one of the animated characters causing consternation among the animators at Digital Domain. He's featured in the upcoming film The Legend of Tembo.
You may not have heard of the special-effects studio Digital Domain, but you've probably seen their work. They sank the Titanic for James Cameron; they aged Brad Pitt backward in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Most recently, their virtual likeness of the late Tupac Shakur performed in concert.
Having worked those wonders, they're tackling thornier challenges: fur and feathers.
Indiana Treasurer and Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock accidentally released video responses to the Supreme Court's decision on the Affordable Health Care Act. The court has yet to announcing their ruling. Muourdock prepared four responses for if the court upholds the law, overturns it, if it splits and if it doesn't provide an answer. Melissa Block and Robert Siegel have more.
The leaders of Italy, Spain, France and Germany meet in Rome for a pre-summit summit. The host, Italian prime minister Mario Monti, says the next ten days are critical for the survival of the Eurozone.
Leaders of Germany, France, Italy and Spain met Friday in Rome to find a way out of its current financial crisis ahead of a full European Union summit next week. Robert Siegel talks to Matthias M. Matthijs, Assistant Professor of International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University, for more.
The Degnan residence was built as a weekend retreat in La Canada Flintridge — a Los Angeles suburb reachable by freeway in 40 minutes (in light traffic) today, but that took a couple of hours' drive in 1927, before major freeway construction began in Southern California. This Spanish Colonial Revival home was Williams' first commission as an independent practitioner.
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
Williams thought a home's entrance should make a statement. In this Colonial Revival residence, designed in Beverly Hills for the Landis family in 1955, the narrow foyer has large double doors that swing open to reveal a high ceiling covered in a trompe l'oeil sky, and a lavish chandelier hung from a starburst medallion. The medallion's design is repeated on the marble floor.
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
The staircase of the French Normandy-style Sensenbrenner residence, built in Beverly Hills in 1933, features a Williams trademark cherished by his homes' owners: a beautiful, sinuously curving staircase that was the focal point of the foyer. "He did the most beautiful entry halls I've ever seen," said real estate agent Bret Parsons.
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
This Spanish Colonial Revival-style home is an example of how Williams worked with the existing landscape to make a home part of its natural surroundings. The window placement allows for views of the city skyline and the Hollywood Hills.
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
In recognition of Williams' creation of some of the Beverly Hills Hotel's most iconic spaces — the Polo Lounge, the Fountain Coffee Shop, the Crescent wing of the building — the hotel's owners named a suite in the hotel after him. Williams designed it to be a home away from home for long-term guests. Talk show host Jimmy Fallon declared it "the best hotel room I've ever stayed in."
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
Another view of the Historic Paul Williams Suite. Originally designed in the late 1940s, the suite was moved to the second floor during a renovation in the 1990s, and re-created just as Williams designed it. It contains the same use of stone, curved walls and marble that are found in many of his permanent homes.
Credit Copyright Benny Chan
Williams was a great believer that the mild Southern California climate should be taken advantage of whenever possible. He created an "outdoor living room" on the patio of this home, with a fireplace and furniture that would encourage alfresco meals. The large patio doors also help diminish the demarcation between outdoors and indoors.
Credit Courtesy of Karen E. Hudson
Architect Paul Williams (in a photo thought to be from the 1940s or '50s) developed the ability to sketch buildings upside down to accommodate white clients who might not want to sit next to him.
Paul Revere Williams began designing homes and commercial buildings in the early 1920s. By the time he died in 1980, he had created some 2,500 buildings, most of them in and around Los Angeles, but also around the globe. And he did it as a pioneer: Paul Williams was African-American. He was the first black architect to become a member of the American Institute of Architects in 1923, and in 1957 he was inducted as the AIA's first black fellow.
