Credit Grant Leighton

Marin Alsop artist page: listen to interviews, features and music archived at NPR Music.

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Eric Athas is a Digital News Specialist at NPR Digital Services where he assists in the development of NPR's member station training and product initiatives, with a focus on social media. 

Prior to joining NPR, Eric worked at The Washington Post, where he managed the front page of the site, helped develop mobile strategies, assisted in social media and blogging efforts and occasionally wrote for the paper.

Emphasis - April 19th
11:21 am
Fri April 19, 2013

Remembering Aldo Leopold

Credit http://www.aldoleopold.org/
Poster for "Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and a Land Ethic for Our Time."

A nationally-known conservationist and writer will be honored and remembered in southeast Iowa next week.

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Heather McIlvaine-Newsad – April 19
6:28 pm
Thu April 18, 2013

Running for Peace

Credit Rich Egger
Heather McIlvaine-Newsad

In their 2004 article in the journal Nature, Bramble and Lieberman write “Striding bipedalism is a key behavior of hominids that possibly originated soon after the divergence of the chimpanzee and human lineages .” Dr. Daniel Leiberman, a biology professor from Harvard also known as “The Barefoot Professor” suggests that a massive environmental change that took place on the African continent coinciding with the rise of running among humans.

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Close to record set in 1965
3:25 pm
Thu April 18, 2013

Lamoine River Rises 17ft. in 24 Hours

*UPDATE*  Since this story was published, the National Weather Service now says Lamoine River has broken the 1965 record of 27 feet, and is set to crest sometime Friday at 29 feet.

The over five inches of recent rains caused the Lamoine River to rise 17 feet in a period of 24 hours. 

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Also on Securing Sporting Events
8:26 am
Thu April 18, 2013

WIU Security Expert on Doing Business in Conflict

Credit WIU
Dean Alexander, director of WIU's Homeland Security Research Program, in March 2011, talking with Fatah prisoners incarcerated in an Israeli prison in Beersheba.

There are items we may want like a new cell phone, an iPad or a luxury car. Then there are items we need like food, water and shelter.

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Budget Challenges
7:39 pm
Wed April 17, 2013

WIU Workers Asked to Help Cut Costs

Credit Rich Egger

Western Illinois University President Jack Thomas told a standing room only crowd in the University Union that WIU takes pride in having avoided layoffs and furloughs despite the state’s financial woes over the past decade.

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Medical Marijuana
7:28 pm
Wed April 17, 2013

Illinois House Approves Marijuana Law

Credit salon.com
Marijuana

Medical marijuana took a significant step on April 17 toward becoming law in Illinois.  For the first time, it won approval in the House.

The vote was close (61-to-57), and lawmakers were vacillating until the last minute.

People who decided to support medical marijuana said they heard from constituents who told them it's the best way they've found to relieve their pain.

But others are worried about people abusing the system.

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Bill Knight – April 18
12:08 pm
Wed April 17, 2013

Real Reform Could Spur Job Growth

Bill Knight

Superficial reforms are failing, I reckon.

U.S. employers in March hired at the slowest rate since last June, adding just 88,000 jobs to non-farm payrolls, with steep job cuts in retail and government sectors, including 12,000 at the U.S. Postal Service, according to the U.S. Labor Department’s monthly report released April 5.

Economists had forecast the month’s gain to be about 190,000.

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Shereen Marisol Meraji joined NPR's Code Switch team after reporting for Marketplace's Wealth & Poverty Desk. Before Marketplace, Meraji was a business and economy reporter for Southern California Public Radio. There she covered entertainment, technology, entrepreneurship, and breaking business news.

Previously, Meraji worked at NPR from 2003-2011, first as a producer for Day to Day and then for NPR's flagship afternoon news magazine, All Things Considered. Over that time, Meraji produced by day and worked as a freelance reporter for NPR in her free time (nights, weekends, and vacations) until she landed a full-time reporting gig at Southern California Public Radio.

In 2007 Meraji received Johns Hopkins University's International Reporting Project Fellowship, which took her to Beirut, Lebanon. In Beirut, her stories focused on the effects of the 2006 war on youth and youth culture, and they aired on NPR.

A graduate of San Francisco State with a BA in Raza Studies, Meraji is a native Californian with family roots in Puerto Rico and Iran.

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