Search results for

NPR's Rob Gifford reports on the meeting in Beijing between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Today, both leaders signed a joint statement opposing U.S. plans to build missile shields over North America and Asia.

It's summer, time to kick back and take off your shoes. Dave DiFonzo of the Dirty Soles Society takes host David Wright for a walk around Washington without footwear. DiFonzo believes going shoeless in public is healthy, and legal in public buildings. Our host and guest find out if the guards at some Washington landmarks agree. For more information, listeners can go to http://www.barefooters.org.

Akiva Eldar, a political analyst for the newspaper Ha'aretz, joins Robert by phone from Jerusalem to talk about the Middle East peace process. A top Israeli negotiator returned today from a visit to Egypt, and signaled that Israel wants to "build on progress" made at the recent Camp David accords. Palestinians are also showing signs of flexibility in their positions, including the September 13 deadline for an independent Palestinian state.

A paper in today's Science magazine reports the discovery of a new material that may be able to with stand irradiation for a thousand years. At present, nuclear waste is stashed away in containers that will start to break down after only a 100 years. Scientists are in a race against time to discover ways of building nuclear trashcans that can survive for much longer. And this new material could - at least in theory - be part of the answer. NPR's John Nielsen reports.

From Missoula, Montana, Kathy Witkowsy reports on the widespread damage that drought and wildfires are causing in the western part of the state. Hundreds of thousands of acres of forest have burned already, and millions of acres more have been closed because of fire danger. Businesses that rely on tourism are losing money, and ranchers are facing losses too. More than 200 buildings have been destroyed by fire.

Jason DeRose of Chicago Public Radio reports that the Mayor of Palos Heights, Illinois has vetoed a city council proposal to pay the Al Salaam Mosque Foundation not to open a mosque in the suburb. Mayor Dean Koldenhoven said last night that the proposal was an insult to Muslims and that he hopes the foundation will go ahead and open its mosque in the building formerly used as a Christian church.

Car sales dropped sharply in October, even with automakers offering zero-percent financing on loans. With so much capacity and inventory, manufacturers fear a glut of new cars may be building. NPR's Jack Speer reports.

NPR's Ina Jaffe reports on an industrial-environmental deal that could only have been made in California. After a beach eroded to expose oil pipelines, Chevron replaced it with new sand. But that ruined the surfing, and Chevron had to fix it. The company employed a surf engineer who's building a unique breakwater to create new but gnarly waves. It's the first such project anyone's heard of, but probably not the last.

Noah talks with Peter Stark, a writer who lives in Missoula, Montana. They discuss Stark's article "The Cold Hard Facts of Freezing to Death," which appears in the January 1997 issue of Outside Magazine. The article is a kind of tribute to the short story "To Build A Fire," by Jack London and it talks about the physical symptoms of hypothermia. It also describes the physiological and mental processes involved when a person freezes to death.

the former Soviet Central Asia for business and political influence. Trying to sidestep the US-inspired trade boycott, Iran is building a railroad into the former Soviet republic of Turkmenistan in an effort to channel trade from the region through its Persian Gulf ports.