All Things Considered

July 28, 2010 | NPR · A federal judge has blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona's new immigration law from taking effect Thursday. Robert Siegel talks to NPR's Ted Robbins about the ruling and where the legal challenges go from here.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · The federal government under President Obama has steadily increased the deportation of illegal immigrants. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it's on track to expel some 400,000 people this year, 8 percent more than it did in 2008. And ICE is increasingly targeting those who have broken other laws.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · Microscopic plants in the ocean are among the most important creatures on Earth and produce half of the planet's oxygen. But they are in trouble. A new study finds that since 1950, the amount of phytoplankton in the ocean's surface waters has declined by 40 percent.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · The program awards the equivalent of one percent of what the U.S. government spends on public education every year. Even states that aren't finalists have implemented reforms, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told NPR.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · Cartoonist John Callahan has died at age 59. He spent the last three decades of his life in a wheelchair, the result of a car accident, and created often tasteless and offensive cartoons dealing with people with disabilities.

July 28, 2010 | SCPR · The uproar continues in the small California community that found itself paying the highest salaries in the nation for its city officials. The city manager, the assistant city manager and the chief of police have all resigned after their six-figure incomes were revealed -- but now they are looking at collecting potentially million-dollar pensions in their forced retirement. The scandal has reinvigorated debate over the need to reform the state's pension system to plug the state's $19 billion deficit.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · The payout of pensions is proving financially burdensome to states and localities. So how sustainable are these pensions? To find out, Robert Siegel talks to Susan Urahn, managing director of the Pew Center on the States, who helped produce their report "The Trillion Dollar Gap: Underfunded State Retirement Systems and the Road to Reform." Urahn says states are obligated to pay because it is a state constitutional obligation, and she says, "The likely scenario is taxes will go up to pay the promises they made."

July 28, 2010 | NPR · Hugo Chavez is accusing the U.S. of planning to attack his country, using Colombia as its proxy. Nothing new, except for the timing: Colombian President Alvaro Uribe's term ends in a few days, and some observers say Uribe is stirring the pot as a parting message not just to Chavez, but to his own successor.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · Michele Norris talks to Paula Lavigne about her recent report for ESPN's Outside the Lines. In that story, "What's Lurking In Your Stadium Food," Lavigne examined the health inspection reports for all the stadiums used by the NBA, NHL, NFL and Major League Baseball.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · Robert Siegel and Michele Norris talk about the seemingly global infestation of bed bugs, and note that Wednesday, New York City officials announced a coordinated plan to eradicate the rapidly multiplying pests.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · A recent Coast Guard flight over the site of the exploded BP oil well shows that the thick black swaths of oil have dissipated in the Gulf. It appears that months of skimming, surface burns and other methods of containing the spill are working, and one environmental chemist says under the surface, bacteria are feasting on the oil.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · Many business owners in the Gulf, from plumbers to beauticians, are filing claims with BP. The ultimate decision about compensation is in the hands of administrator Kenneth Feinberg, unless people want to try their luck in court.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · Ten years ago, Fresno commercial painter Rick Norsigian bought 65 old negatives at a garage sale for $45. He now claims they've been authenticated as the work of Ansel Adams and are worth $200 million. A representative of Adams disputes this, saying the value of his work was produced in the darkroom. Michele Norris talks to Andy Grundberg, chair of photography at The Corcoran College of Art and Design, and former director of the Ansel Adams Center for Photography.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · In NPR interview, WikiLeaks Julian Assange dismissed those who say Afghan leaks are old news.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · Listeners respond to our coverage of the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Robert Siegel and Michele Norris read from listeners' e-mails.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · Life insurance companies boost their bottom lines by holding on to death benefits owed to families of service members and millions of other Americans, an investigation by Bloomberg Markets magazine found. Cindy Lohman, whose son was killed in Afghanistan, says she feels betrayed by his life insurance company, Prudential.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · Critics have said for years that minorities were being unfairly penalized by tough penalties for crack possession.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · When Shefali Kulkarni, a reporting fellow at the Village Voice in New York City, gets coffee at Starbucks, she doesn't give them her real name to retrieve her order. She uses "Sheila," her fake coffee name. Michele Norris asks Kulkarni why.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · Examining cockroaches with rectal tumors, training would-be-spies, driving a hearse in Santa Barbara, and running the ball-picker at a golf course: just some of the odd-duck summer jobs Robert Siegel and Michele Norris hear about this week as our series continues.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · Life insurance companies boost their bottom lines by holding on to death benefits owed to families of service members and millions of other Americans, an investigation by Bloomberg Markets magazine found. Cindy Lohman, whose son was killed in Afghanistan, says she feels betrayed by his life insurance company, Prudential.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · A federal judge has blocked the most controversial parts of Arizona's new immigration law from taking effect Thursday. Robert Siegel talks to NPR's Ted Robbins about the ruling and where the legal challenges go from here.

July 28, 2010 | NPR · The federal government under President Obama has steadily increased the deportation of illegal immigrants. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it's on track to expel some 400,000 people this year, 8 percent more than it did in 2008. And ICE is increasingly targeting those who have broken other laws.