"Why more parents are riding cargo bikes, skipping the minivan” - report by
Jacob Fenston, #NationalPublicRadio - 6-minute audio with transcript
"It's such a better start to my day, that now there's truly not weather that I would rather drive in." https://www.npr.org/2025/10/18/nx-s1-5532087/why-some-parents-are-ditching-minivans-for-cargo-bikes
#NPR #CargoBikes #BikeToSchool #parents #children #BikeCommuter
Letters from an American – October 18, 2025 – Heather Cox Richardson
Letters from an American, October 18, 2025
By Heather Cox Richardson, Oct 18, 2025
Today, millions of Americans and their allies turned out across the United States and around the globe to demonstrate their commitment to American democracy and their opposition to a president and an administration apparently bent on replacing that democracy with a dictatorship.
Administration loyalists tried to claim the No Kings protests would be “hate America” rallies of “the pro-Hamas wing and Antifa people.” Texas governor Greg Abbott deployed the Texas National Guard ahead of the No Kings Day protests, warning that “[v]iolence and destruction will never be tolerated in Texas.”
In fact, protesters turned out waving American flags and wearing frog and unicorn and banana costumes and carrying homemade signs that demanded the release of the Epstein files and defended Lady Liberty. They laughed and danced and took selfies and sang. City police departments, including those of New York City, San Diego, and Washington, D.C., said they had made no protest-related arrests.
In Oakland, California, Mother Jones senior editor Michael Mechanic interviewed a man named Justin, asking him if, as a Black man, he had particular concerns about the actions of the Trump administration.
Justin answered: “You know…a lot of times I have a hopeless feeling, but…being out here today just reminds me about the beauty of America and American protests. And, you know, the fact that they tried to…stomp on this, step on this, you know, say it’s non-American, because that’s what I’ve been reading a lot about. No, this is the point of America right here: to be able to have this opportunity to protest…. [This] does not look like Antifa, Hamas, none of this stuff that they’re talking about…. [Y]ou know, this is the beauty of America.”
The No Kings demonstrations ran the gamut from hundreds of thousands of protesters in large, blue cities, to smaller crowds in small towns in Republican-dominated states. Together, they demonstrate that the administration’s claims to popularity are a lie. Such a high turnout means businesses and institutions that thought they must cater to the administration to appeal to a majority of Americans will be forced to recalculate.
And the protests showed that Americans care fervently about democracy.
Today, millions of Americans and their allies turned out across the United States and around the globe to demonstrate their commitment to American democracy and their opposition to a president and an administration apparently bent on replacing democracy with a dictatorship.
[Photo, “History has its eyes on U.S.” anonymous photographer, Boston, Massachusetts, October 18, 2025]
[Photo, “History has its eyes on U.S.” anonymous photographer, Boston, Massachusetts, October 18, 2025]See Notes and Links online…
Continue/Read Original Article Here: October 18, 2025 – by Heather Cox Richardson
#2025 #America #CNN #DonaldTrump #Education #Film #Health #HeatherCoxRichardson #History #LettersFromAnAmerican #Libraries #LibraryOfCongress #NationalPublicRadio #NoDictators #NoKings #NoKingsDay #NoNazis #October18 #Opinion #Politics #Protests #Resistance #Science #Television #TheWashingtonPost #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates #YouTube
PBS head lays out how bleak this is all about to get – AV Club
PBS head lays out how bleak this is all about to get
CEO Paula Krieger also pushed back on the idea that PBS would begin altering content to appease the White House: “They’ve already taken away our funding.”
By William Hughes | October 17, 2025 | 6:15pm
The Public Broadcasting Service is not in good shape at the moment, to put it mildly: We’re swiftly coming up on November, when the broadcaster would normally get its life-sustaining infusion of funds from the government-backed Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Except, of course, the CPB has been basically demolished over the last few months; as we’ve previously reported, Congress (at the guidance of the White House) voted to remove more than a billion dollars in public funds from the organization, which funds both local PBS and NPR stations and the overall organization. We’ve already reported on individual PBS broadcasters, like New Jersey’s, preparing to shutter; now, PBS head Paula Krieger has given a new interview to Variety where she reveals just how bleak this is going to get.
Noting that she’s been worried the most about smaller stations—often serving markets where they’re one of the only primary news outlets—Krieger has said her focus of late has been on putting together enough money to give those channels a “glide path,” hopefully one that results in some kind of survival, and not, well, the other standard outcome of a controlled plummet toward the ground.
Here’s Krieger:
Some of the smaller stations are looking at coming together in some sort of shared agreement, which would change the way they operate, but would keep local media in communities around the country. I think that’s a really good model. There are some stations that are looking at merging with an adjacent station and serving a larger market. And then I think there will be some that will find this a bridge too far and will decide not to continue.
One way or another, though, change is coming to public broadcasting, because it’s simply inevitable with that kind of loss of funds. (Krieger says she holds out hope that Congress might someday walk back these cuts, but is honest about the fact that no “white knight” is going to come in and save PBS.) She also expressed some mild frustration at the suggestion that PBS has tried to curtail or edit the creators working under it in order to curry favor with legislators or the executive. (Who went ballistic, in the lead-up to the cuts, to things like local channels airing segments about drag story hours at libraries.) “They’ve already taken away our funding. I think if there was a risk of that, you would have seen it before, which we obviously did not do… I just feel like we have been buffeted through this entire year, and we have not held back from the programs that we put forward.”
Programming-wise, Krieger noted that the reduced funding will, obviously, impact which national PBS programs are tapped to continue, with top priority going to NewsHour. “Obviously, the first priority is PBS NewsHour, because that’s an ongoing news operation where you’re burning through money all the time,” according to Krieger. “And we’re looking at some of the big series where CPB was helpful, like Nova, Nature and Great Performances.” But programs like American Experience are probably screwed, at least in the short-term; the series—which recently caught flack after one of its directors accused PBS of cutting a politically charged Ronald Reagan quote from an episode—is set to go on hiatus once it finishes airing its current Kissinger series.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: PBS head lays out how bleak this is all about to get – AV Club
#2025 #America #CorporationForPublicBroadcasting #DonaldTrump #Education #Films #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #NationalPublicRadio #NPR #Opinion #Politics #Resistance #Science #Technology #Television #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates
7 surprising ways the library can help you save money – Life Kit – NPR
Kaz Fantone / NPRLife Kit Tools To Help You Get It Together
7 surprising ways the public library can save you money
Updated October 14, 202510:56 AM ET
By Marielle Segarra, Audrey Nguyen
This story was originally published on Oct. 16, 2023, and has been updated.
Everyone knows you can save money on books by checking them out at the library instead of buying them. But did you know that libraries can help you save on other things too?
Life Kit
How the local library can save you money
In some locations, you can borrow tools (saving a purchase at the hardware store), take free language classes and even get free tickets to local museums and attractions.
The resources that your library has to offer will depend on its size and funding, which comes in part from taxpayer dollars and donor funds. These perks are part of the public library’s mission to serve the needs of the local community, says Joan Johnson, library director at Milwaukee Public Library. “Libraries are one of the most important parts of the social infrastructure. The possibilities for how you explore are endless.”
To take advantage of these money-saving benefits, sign up for a library card, says Mychal Threets, a librarian, literacy advocate and the new host of PBS’ Reading Rainbow. Then check out the library website or simply walk into your local library and talk to a librarian.
Here are 7 surprising ways the library can help you save money.
1. Before you buy something, see if you can borrow it from the library
Libraries offer all kinds of items on loan. “Video games, musical instruments, board games. Some libraries have bakeware collections where you can get baking pans,” says Threets.
Akhila Bhat, branch manager at Harris County Public Library in Katy, Texas, says her library system has a seed library. “Patrons can pick up seeds to start a garden and drop off seeds for others to take home and plant.”
Meanwhile, libraries like the Providence Public Library in Rhode Island have tools you can check out. That includes a cordless drill, safety goggles and a laser level.
2. Reserve free tickets to local museums and attractions
In some places, you can get free or discounted tickets to local attractions in your city or town. The Nashville Public Library, for example, offers free tickets to the Country Music Hall of Fame (saving patrons $31.95 in admission fees). And library card holders in California can gain free entry to over 200 state parks, saving patrons $20 in entry fees.
3. Print out your documents at a discount
You can use the computers to print out documents like plane tickets, concert tickets or shipping labels. There’s usually a small fee, but it’s often cheaper than printing at an office supply store or a shipping center, says Threets. For example, it costs 10 cents to print a page in black and white at the Brooklyn Public Library in New York, and 26 cents at Fedex.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: 7 surprising ways the library can help you save money : Life Kit : NPR
#2025 #America #Borrow #DonTBuyFirst #Education #FreeTickets #Libraries #Library #LifeKit #MoneyMatters #NationalPublicRadio #NPR #Printing #PublicLibraries #SavingMoney #UnitedStates
Susan Stamberg, Pioneering NPR Journalist, Dies at 87
Susan Stamberg, Pioneering NPR Journalist, Dies at 87
#Variety #News #Obituaries #PeopleNews #NationalPublicRadio #SusanStamberg
https://variety.com/2025/digital/obituaries-people-news/susan-stamberg-dead-npr-1236554884/
Woman publicly implored NPR to sell her crop top designs. They agreed the idea was genius.
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.upworthy.com/womans-crusade-to-save-npr-with-crop-top-merch
Concerns mount over increased violence among federal immigration agents – NPR
Tackles, projectiles and gunfire: Many fear ICE tactics are growing more violent
October 13, 202512:57 PM ET
By Meg Anderson
Federal officers detain a person while members of the community and activists protest near the 3900 block of South Kedzie Avenue, Oct. 4, in Chicago. Armando L. Sanchez / Tribune News ServiceThere are countless videos on social media showing similar scenes. One, filmed by a photographer in Hyattsville, Md., shows a man pinned to the ground by two ICE officers. He pleads in Spanish and English for someone to help him.
During the incident, one of the officers drops his gun and fumbles for it. Then, he appears to point it at bystanders. Emily Covington, an assistant director in ICE’s Office of Public Affairs, told NPR in a statement that drawing a weapon can be used as a de-escalation tactic.
Another video, from Broadview, Ill., near Chicago, appears to show a man outside an ICE facility getting shot in the head with a pepper ball, a projectile filled with chemical irritants. That man, Pastor David Black, has sued the Trump administration.
Late last month, a local CBS reporter said a masked ICE agent fired a pepper ball at her car at that same facility, causing her to vomit for hours. The reporter, Asal Rezaei, said there was no protest happening at the time. Broadview Police are now investigating.
“These are just the tip of the iceberg,” says Fred Tsao, senior policy counsel at the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. “People being tackled, people getting pepper sprayed or tear gassed. We’ve seen people getting threatened. And we’ve seen at least two incidents involving gunfire.”
A majority of Americans do not approve of the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics, according to a recent survey from The New York Times and Siena University. Yet in Chicago, immigrant advocate groups say federal immigration officers are escalating those tactics and becoming more violent.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: Concerns mount over increased violence among federal immigration agents : NPR
#2025 #America #DonaldTrump #Education #FederalImmigrationViolence #Gunfire #Health #History #Ice #ICETactics #ImmigrationAndCustomsEnforcementICE_ #Libraries #LibraryOfCongress #NationalPublicRadio #NPR #Opinion #Politics #Projectiles #Resistance #Science #Tackles #Takedowns #Technology #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates #ViolenceByICE #YouTube
A Prairie Home Companion: Status and Archives – A 2025 Update
A Prairie Home Companion: Status and Archives
A user today on Facebook asked about A Prairie Home Companion. It ended its original run on July 2, 2016, when Garrison Keillor hosted his final episode at the Hollywood Bowl after 42 years as host. The show continued under Chris Thile from October 2016 until 2020, when it was renamed “Live from Here” in December 2017 following allegations against Keillor.
However, Keillor continues to perform live stage shows under the Prairie Home Companion name, as he retained the trademark rights.
Current Status and Archives
Multiple comprehensive archives exist for accessing Prairie Home Companion episodes, though availability varies by time period:
Official Archives:
Comprehensive Third-Party Archive: Good for Finding Episodes!
Additional Sources:
The official Prairie Home site notes that their archive “only goes back to 1996ish” with “a few 1985 episodes on YouTube,” making the third-party PHC Archive particularly valuable for accessing the show’s complete history from its 1974 debut.
So yes, while there are no new shows in the traditional sense, there’s a wealth of archived content available online for fans who want to revisit the magic of Lake Wobegon and Garrison Keillor’s storytelling.
#2025 #America #Archives #Education #GarrisonKeillor #History #LakeWobegon #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #NationalPublicRadio #NPR #PHC #PrairieHomeCompanion #Technology #UnitedStates #Writing #YouTube
Nobel Prize winner Machado says Venezuela is in ‘chaos’ under current regime – NPR
Nobel Prize winner Machado says Venezuela is in ‘chaos’ under current regime
October 11, 20255:42 PM ET, By Alana Wise
Opposition leader Maria Corina Machado gives a speech during an Anti-government protest on Jan. 9, 2025 in Caracas, Venezuela. Alfredo Lasry R / Getty ImagesVenezuela opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado said in an interview with NPR’s Weekend Edition Sunday that her country is in chaos and called for the removal of Venezuela’s authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro.
Speaking while still in hiding within Venezuela’s borders, the far-right leader decried Maduro as an illegitimate strongman who had elbowed his way into a third term despite consistent evidence that his administration had rigged the vote.
“I want to be very clear with this: Regime change was already mandated by the Venezuelan people on July 28, 2024,” Machado said during an interview with NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe on Saturday, citing last year’s controversial, closely watched election.
“The narrative of the regime right now is that if Maduro goes, chaos will come to Venezuela. That’s absolutely false,” she said. “Venezuela is in profound, total chaos right now.”
Machado – whom Maduro’s regime had barred from running in the race – had backed opposition candidate Edmundo González in the race to steer Venezuela as it suffers through a political and economic crisis that has forced more than one-fifth of its residents to flee the country.
Machado has been one of the staunchest critics of the powerful United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) since it first came to power in the late 1990s. A former legislator in the Venezuelan National Assembly, Machado has been shot at, targeted by federal prosecutors, banned from running for office, and forced into hiding by the government of Maduro, who succeeded PSUV founder Hugo Chávez in 2013.
“We won by a landslide in the presidential election, and we proved it with over 85% of the original tally sheets. The whole world knows that. Even Maduro’s allies know that he was defeated,” Machado said.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: Nobel Prize winner Machado says Venezuela is in ‘chaos’ under current regime : NPR
#2025 #America #Authoritarianism #Carcas #Chaos #CurrentRegime #Dictator #DonaldTrump #Education #Elections #Health #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Machado #MariaCorinaMachado #NationalPublicRadio #NobelPeacePrize #NPR #Opinion #OppositionLeader #Politics #Resistance #Science #SouthAmerica #Trump #TrumpAdministration #UnitedStates #Venezuela #Winner
Tenement Museum teaches students history through ordinary people – NPR
Kat Lloyd talks to the students during a presentation inside the Tenement MuseumThis museum immerses students in U.S. history: ‘You can smell it, touch it, see it’
October 10, 20255:00 AM ET
By Cory Turner
Kat Lloyd stands in the dim light on the first-floor staircase of a dilapidated, New York City tenement building. Before her: a tour of wide-eyed teens on a field trip from their high school in Queens. Their guide, Lloyd, encourages the students to imagine the building’s 22 apartments when they were new, back in 1863, and brimming with mostly German immigrants.
“I start to imagine, you know, babies crying and people yelling to each other across the hallway,” Lloyd says, laughing.
A few students close their eyes and smile.
With the nation’s 250th anniversary approaching, many teachers, parents and politicians are debating the best ways for students to learn about American history. The traditional approach, relying on the stories of the country’s leaders and focusing on its founding documents, is important, to be sure, but doesn’t capture the full spectrum of the American experience.
Lloyd hosts a presentation for the students before their guided tour through the museum. Keren Carrion / NPRLloyd is vice president of programs and interpretation at the Tenement Museum, which argues that it’s also important to go small, studying history through the lives of ordinary people. The museum explores the American experience by re-creating the apartments of real immigrant, migrant and African American families in New York City from the 1860s through the 1980s.
“Please use the banister,” Lloyd urges the students, telling them it’s her favorite part of the museum. “It’s been here since 1863, so everyone who ever lived in this building also used [it].”
The Tenement Museum in the Lower East Side of Manhattan explores the American experience by re-creating the apartments of real immigrant, migrant and African American families. Keren Carrion / NPRMike Agovino, the students’ history teacher, stands in the back, nodding.
“It makes the history more tangible,” he says of the museum, which he grew up loving as a native of the Bronx. “You can smell it, touch it, see it,” says Agovino, who earlier this year attended a summer training the museum held for K-12 teachers from all over the country.
The students tramp upstairs to a room of artifacts owned by a Black family in the 1860s.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: Tenement Museum teaches students history through ordinary people – NPR
#2025 #America #Education #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #Museum #Museums #NationalPublicRadio #NewYork #NewYorkCity #NPR #Opinion #Students #Teaching #TenementMusuem #UnitedStates
Minyo Crusaders: Tiny Desk (Home) Concerts
Democrats press Bondi over concerns DOJ is being weaponized to target Trump’s foes – NPR
WP AI image of Pam Bondi, deflecting questions, refusing to answer Senators.Attorney General Pam Bondi arrives to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 7. Win McNamee / Getty ImagesDemocrats press Bondi over concerns DOJ is being weaponized to target Trump’s foes
By Ryan Lucas, Updated October 7, 20255:26 PM
By Elena Moore 3-Minute Listen Transcript
Attorney General Pam Bondi faced sharp questions from Democrats over mounting concerns that the Justice Department under her leadership is being weaponized to go after President Trump’s perceived political enemies.
During a more than four-hour hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday that often turned combative, Bondi defended her work at the helm of the Justice Department, rejecting allegations that its investigations and prosecutions — including the recent indictment of former FBI Director James Comey — are driven by politics.
“I took office with two main goals: to end the weaponization of justice and return the department to its core mission of fighting violent crime,” Bondi told lawmakers. “While there is more work to do, I believe in eight short months we have made tremendous progress towards those ends.”
Unease grows at the Justice Department as Trump’s threats get even more blunt
The Justice Department has undergone enormous change since Bondi took charge.
During her tenure, career prosecutors who worked Capitol riot cases or investigated Trump have been pushed out or fired, as have senior officials at the FBI. The section that investigates public corruption has been gutted, while the bureau’s premier public corruption unit has been disbanded.
And the department has opened investigations into some of Trump’s most vocal critics, and dropped prosecutions of his allies.
Lawmakers broke on party lines in their views on the direction the department has taken under the Trump administration. Democrats sought to zero in on the turmoil and the departure from department traditions and norms to highlight what they say is the dangerous direction Bondi is taking the DOJ.
“Our nation’s top law enforcement agency has become a shield for the president and his political allies when they engage in misconduct,” said Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the committee’s top Democrat.
“In eight short months, you fundamentally transformed the Justice Department and left an enormous stain on American history. It will take decades to recover.”
Republicans, in contrast, argued that the department was in fact weaponized by the Biden administration against Trump and conservatives more broadly. And they said Bondi was cleaning up the mess they left behind.
“Focusing on crime and getting tough on criminals is a welcome change from four years of Biden administration soft-on-crime policies,” the panel’s top Republican, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said.
He pointed to information he said he and other lawmakers have obtained that shows the FBI in 2023 analyzed phone data of more than a half dozen Republican lawmakers, including members of the Judiciary Committee, as part of the investigation into Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.
“Can you tell me why my phone records were sought by the Jack Smith agents?” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said, referring to the special counsel who investigated Trump.
Grassley, meanwhile, called it an “outrage” and an “unconstitutional breach,” and called on Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel to address the matter. Several Republicans called for Bondi to appoint a special counsel to investigate.
Democrats press Bondi on Comey indictment
Democrats tried to press Bondi on their concerns that she’s turned the department into a tool in Trump’s promised campaign of vengeance on his perceived enemies.
Ex-FBI Director James Comey indicted on criminal charges stemming from 2020 testimony
They pointed to the decision to indict Comey less than two weeks ago following public demands from the president to do so.
Comey, who faces one count of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice stemming from congressional testimony in 2020, is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday in federal court in Alexandria, Va.
The indictment — and the machinations that led to it — are the latest, and arguably most concerning, example of what many legal observers point to as the politicization and weaponization of the department under Bondi.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: Democrats press Bondi over concerns DOJ is being weaponized to target Trump’s foes : NPR
#2025 #America #AttorneyGeneral #DeflectedQuestions #DonaldTrump #Education #Health #Hearing #History #Libraries #Library #LibraryOfCongress #NationalPublicRadio #NPR #Opinion #PamBondi #Politics #RefusedToAnswer #Resistance #Science #SenateJudiciaryCommittee #Stonewall #Trump #TrumpAdministration #USSenate #UnitedStates
OK, here's the deal:
You can go to NPRs Tiny Desk with 31 Minutos:
https://www.npr.org/2025/10/06/g-s1-91466/31-minutos-tiny-desk-concert
after you enjoy it, you can share in your networks.
In my opinion the best Tiny Desk National Public Radio has offered, even ahead of the one with #BadBunny.
P.S. Please share the NPR link, not the one hosted by the fricking Gugul.
#NPR #Chile #31Minutos #TinyDesk #NationalPublicRadio #immigration
The still-extant #NationalPublicRadio covered a survey today. The results are said to indicate more of the population are expecting some sort of hostile domestic conflict will happen soon. :blobcatfearful:
Ukrainian teachers and students keep education alive despite war – NPR
Ukrainian teachers and students keep education alive despite war
September 23, 20254:12 AM ET, Heard on Morning Edition
By Hosts 2-Minute Listen Transcript
Thousands of Ukrainian schools have been destroyed in the war with Russia, forcing teachers and students underground. They’ll share their stories of keeping education alive at UNGA Tuesday.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
September is usually the start of the school year in Ukraine, but as Russia’s full-scale invasion nears its fourth year, about 2 million students are still displaced. With more than 3,500 schools destroyed, Ukraine’s teachers and students have been driven underground, literally.
NATALIA HUTARUK: These schools, they are built 8 or 10 meters underground. So it means that they are safer for students to stay there during the air alerts.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
That’s Natalia Hutaruk (ph). She teaches at one of those underground schools in Zaporizhzhia about 20 miles from the front line. She says her school is made of concrete. It’s always cold. The daily sirens warning of Russia’s bombings disrupt their routine, and it was a lot for the students to get used to the new school.
HUTARUK: When they need to go underground with no sunshine, with no natural light, it feels very frightening.
FADEL: Bringing in flowers and toys warm the place up a bit. And when students can’t make it to the school because of Russian strikes, they’re equipped for remote learning.
HUTARUK: During these attacks, we use Zoom. We use Google Meet. We use telephone.
MARTIN: Hutaruk will bring her story to the United Nations General Assembly in New York today, highlighting how Ukraine is keeping education alive amid war. It will feature Ukraine’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, and nongovernmental organizations helping in Ukraine.
FADEL: Zoya Lytvyn is with the co-organizing NGO Osvitoria, which helped Ukraine set up a nationwide online education platform that specializes in microlearning.
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: Ukrainian teachers and students keep education alive despite war : NPR
#2025 #America #Children #DonaldTrump #Education #EducationInUkraine #Health #History #Libraries #LibraryOfCongress #NataliaHutaruk #NationalPublicRadio #NPR #OlenaZelenska #Politics #Reading #Resistance #Science #Teachers #Travel #Trump #TrumpAdministration #Ukraine #UkraineWar #UnitedStates
NewsLib and Sept. 11, 2001 – Internet Archive – 9/11 – We Will Never Forget
https://web.archive.org/web/20040617130947/http://parklibrary.jomc.unc.edu/NewsLibtulloch.html
AprJunDec1720032004200517 captures, 6 Dec 2003 – 16 Aug 2013
Paula Hane, a contributing editor to Information Today and editor of Newsbreaks, issued an editorial on September 17, 2001 entitled, “Information Professionals Respond Following Terrorist Attacks.” (1) This article inspired me to look at a specific group of information professionals. This group of information professionals performs both ready-reference and in-depth research for its clients. Most members of this group are true generalists, make little money, and work on extremely tight deadlines. (Perhaps not surprisingly, their interactions on their newsgroup – NewsLib — seem similar in many ways to our own ESU-SLIM class listgroups.) The individuals in this group of information professionals are generally known as news librarians or news researchers. To gain some insight into their work, I followed their interactions in the NewsLib group from September 11, 2001 to September 21, 2001.
From my review of approximately 300 email postings during the period from September 11, 2001 to September 21, 2001, I gathered three distinct impressions of news librarians/news researchers. I was impressed by their professionalism, the diversity within the group, and, perhaps, most of all, by their willingness to share and assist each other – their sense of community — especially during such a difficult time in our history.
Professionalism
Postings to NewsLib in the days prior to September 11, 2001 consisted of many of the issues that other librarians and researchers face. Postings included solicitations for help in finding resources, accessing resources, verifying resources, and assessing the quality of resources. Other topics included the following: a discussion about when news researchers “should” and “should not” receive research credit in a story; a discussion about copyright infringement; and, a survey solicitation by a group of researchers wanting to gather data on the “state of news libraries” for an upcoming conference. (2)
From September 11, 2001 to September 14, 2001 postings increased four-fold on NewsLib as news librarians and researchers searched for information on behalf of a stunned public. These people seemed to understand that they had a job that HAD to be done and they searched, shared, and asked for help, all in an extremely professional but human manner. The first question on the morning of September 11 was posted by Shelley Lavey of the Detroit Free Press at 9:24 am EST. Shelley asked the question that probably crossed the public’s mind later in the day. “Has anyone come across any significance to the date of September 11 that might be related to the events at the World Trade Center today?” (3)
In the midst of postings about the possible significance of September 11, Mike Reilly, a professor of journalism, offered his professional support. “For those of you researching and backgrounding air disasters, there are reliable resources at www.journaliststoolbox.com It has an entire section on airline disasters. Share with your newsrooms. Take care, Mike Reilly.” By 11:00 am EST, Abigail Brigham at the CNN library in New York shared a link to a list of tenants at the World Trade Center. By noon, Mari Keefe of ComputerWorld posted specific facts (and their sources) about the World Trade Center in response to the frantic inquiry, “Anybody got the fast facts like how many tons of concrete, etc? I keep getting a 404 message! “ by Suzanne Henderson of the Charleston Post and Courier.
In the few hours following the attacks, other news librarians shared information about web sites that track enroute flights. They also shared their frustration with these flight-tracking sites and other sites being overwhelmed, as well as reporting to each other that the live feed for the FAA flight-tracking web site had been suspended. Other requests and responses on NewsLib focused on gathering and putting together timelines of terrorist activities over the last twenty years.
Later in the day on September 11, researchers tried to verify among each other stories about price gouging at gas station. They also took “roll” on who had put out special edition newspapers (4). Finally, they continued to share resources. By early evening Gary Price, an “information and Internet consultant” in Washington DC, announced that he had begun compiling links to transcripts of world leaders’ responses to the attacks on his web site. At 7:30 pm EST, Jill Konieczko, MLS, a Lexis-Nexis marketing manager announced to her colleagues that beginning at 9pm EST, special packaged content would be available for free.
By early evening Gary Price, an “information and Internet consultant” in Washington DC, announced that he had begun compiling links to transcripts of world leaders’ responses to the attacks on his web site.
Article…
Noted Konieczko, “Our own information professionals at Lexis-Nexis are crafting searches to deliver on-point information for analysis and crisis management on the following topics:
News and Background Terrorism Legislation Other Attacks on the U.S.
Terrorist Groups Victims of Terrorism Act Oklahoma City
Terrorist Organizations Terrorism: Selected Statutory U.S. Embassy Bombing
U.S. Response to Terrorism Materials Kenya and Tanzania (1988)
Osama Bin Laden World Trade Center (1993) Pearl Harbor (1941) “
Ms. Konieczcko encouraged her colleagues to contact her to suggest additional topics and said that her own team would be continuously adding content.
What most impressed me about Ms. Koniecscko’s letter to her colleagues and patrons on NewsLib was her acknowledgment of the difficult job that they were doing and would continue to do in the days ahead. On September 11, when I remember doing little but watch the news coverage that these individuals helped to produce, these information professionals knew they had a job to do and they did it. Ms. Koniecscko described this situation well in her note to NewsLib. “We rely on your coverage to grapple with the details, understand the weight of the day’s events, and persevere… Again, please know that we are thinking of you, and please let us know what we at LexisNexis can do to better assist you in your research in these very difficult times.”
On September 11, when I remember doing little but watch the news coverage that these individuals helped to produce, these information professionals knew they had a job to do and they did it.
Article…
Diversity:
In addition to the professionalism displayed by NewsLibbers, I was struck by the diversity of the group. NewsLib has over 1250 subscribers from 22 different countries. These statistics certainly speak to the diversity of its members, but what impresses and surprises me is the diversity of news organizations that contribute to NewsLib. Researchers from newspapers and news organizations with circulations/audiences of 100,000 have equal footing with organizations with circulations/audiences of 1,000,000 on NewsLib. A researcher from the Seattle Times soliciting information from the NewsLib group might receive responses from a researcher at NBC, a news librarian at the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, an independent information professional, or a researcher from the Brazilian National News Agency. NewsLibbers also recognize the value of diverse opinions. Researchers in the United States called on Canadian researchers to get the facts on Gordon Sinclair, whose column about America had been circulating over the Internet in the day or two following the attacks. Similarly, early this week, a colleague in Belgium answered a question from a colleague in the United States about production of American flags outside of the United States. The NewsLib group highlights the democratic nature of information (information wants to be free!) and the value of different sources of information.
Community:
My final and over-riding impression of NewsLibbers is their commitment to assist each other in a common goal: to disseminate specific, validated, usable information to the public as quickly as possible. I have already noted examples of the sharing of information that goes on among NewsLibbers; now let me share a few additional examples of NewsLibbers’ “community spirit.” At 3 pm EST on September 11, Richard Geiger of the San Francisco Chronicle couldn’t access the “Government Interagency Domestic Terrorism Concept of Operations Plan (pdf)” (January 2001) from the FBI web site, so he asked for assistance and received the document as an attachment from a colleague. Also on September 11, Mari Keefe of Computer World happened to be working remotely and could not reach some co-workers that normally assisted her in acquiring photos. In the absence of direct assistance from her co-workers, Leigh Montgomery of The Christian Science Monitor came to Mari’s aid by providing all of the contact names and numbers necessary for Mari to purchase photos from Reuters. This happened within 8 minutes of Mari posting her initial request for assistance. Later in the week, the same kind of “community spirit” was evident. A news librarian in the Netherlands received a faxed copy of a 1980 article from the Far Eastern Economic Review from a colleague in Canada. The Canadian librarian found the article – an article about the last king of Afghanistan – copied it, and sent it to the Dutch librarian… all within 20 minutes of the initial request. If NewsLibbers are representative of news librarians overall, they are a tight-knit community indeed.
Closing Remarks
In closing, I want to introduce you to the moderator of the NewsLib group. Her name is Barbara Semonche ( semonch@metalab.unc.edu ) and she is Library Director at the University of North Carolina –Chapel Hill School of Journalism and Mass Communications. On September 13, she announced that she had gathered the threads of the conversations and organized the resources for the benefit of the news community on a web site entitled: September 11, 2001: NewsLib research queries following the World Trade Center Attack. In her closing remarks, Barbara Semonche said, “May I say that you are all extraordinary in your efforts to research and share data and information during this tragedy. You are truly impressive under deadline pressure, way beyond ‘just doing your job.’” Indeed. I will be contacting Barbara by email in the upcoming weeks to gain more insight into NewsLib, news librarians, and her assessment of how this group performed in the midst of this crisis. I will keep you posted!
(1) Full text available at: http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb010917-1.htm
Thankfully, this post and article remains in the Internet Archive and Wayback Machine. Never Forget…
See also: The companion piece showing the messages, the work, the help. https://web.archive.org/web/20040617101301/http://parklibrary.jomc.unc.edu/NWSworldtradecenter.html
We lost Barbara in 2015. RIP.
https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/newsobserver/name/barbara-semonche-obituary?id=12173408
#2025 #911 #America #BarbaraSemonche #CNN #Education #Film #Films #GaryPrice #History #JillKonieczko #Libraries #Library #Memorial #NationalPublicRadio #NewYork #NewYorkCity #NewsLibrarians #NewsLib #Politics #Reading #Resistance #September112001 #Television #TerroristAttacks #TheParkLibrary #TheUniversityOfNorthCarolinaAtChapelHill #TwinTowers #UnitedStates #WorldTradeCenter #YouTube
In his new book, author Dan Brown tackles the ultimate mystery : NPR
In his new book, author Dan Brown tackles the ultimate mystery
September 9, 2025, 4:27 PM ET, Heard on All Things Considered
By Scott Detrow, Tyler Bartlam, and Jeanette Woods
5-Minute Listen Transcript
Author Dan Brown is known for storylines that delve into myth and conspiracy theories. His new book — The Secret of Secrets — tackles the ultimate mystery: human consciousness.
SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
Robert Langdon is back in action, the dashing and brilliant Harvard professor who has a knack for wandering into situations where he unearths big philosophical questions and at the same time gets chased around by bad guys who do not want those questions answered. Langdon is, of course, the recurring main character in author Dan Brown’s thrillers “The Da Vinci Code,” “Angels & Demons” and many others. In Brown’s latest novel, “The Secret Of Secrets,” Langdon has traded the mysteries of Christianity and the mysteries of Freemasonry for the even bigger mystery of the nature of human consciousness. Dan Brown, welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
DAN BROWN: Thanks for having me.
DETROW: So this is by my count your sixth book starring Robert Langdon. How has he changed over the years?
BROWN: (Laughter) Well, he’s aging much more slowly than I am, I’ve sensed.
DETROW: (Laughter).
BROWN: You know, this book took eight years to write. And Langdon, who is always – he’s always skeptical about all things conspiratorial and paranormal and all that sort of stuff. And in this book, he is sort of dragged out of his comfort box by a noetic scientist named Katherine Solomon. And he becomes a believer in aspects of consciousness that to most of us, myself included, seem quite out of this world.
DETROW: I want to ask about the topic of the book. How much were you personally thinking about these big questions of consciousness? Was that how the book started out? Is that something you were wrestling with or wondering about and wanting to learn more about?
BROWN: Absolutely. I mean, it’s no secret I like to write about big, sweeping, important topics, you know?
DETROW: Yeah.
BROWN: There really is no topic bigger, that I can imagine, than consciousness. It’s the lens through which we see reality, see ourselves, see our interactions with other people. And I wrote the character Katherine Solomon maybe 10 or 12 years ago as an ancillary character in another book, and she was a noetic scientist. And through the research for that book, I started to learn about noetic science. And some of these mind experiments who have results that are simply – you cannot believe them. You hear what the result is and you say, that’s impossible. And you read more, and you find out that reality is a much stranger thing than we ever imagined.
DETROW: For those of us who aren’t as familiar, can you briefly explain noetic science?
Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.
Continue/Read Original Article Here: In his new book, author Dan Brown tackles the ultimate mystery : NPR
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Democratic senators urge Smithsonian to resist White House attempts to ‘bully the institution’ : NPR
Four Democratic senators urge Smithsonian to resist White House attempts to ‘bully the institution’
Updated September 5, 2025, 3:32 PM ET
Members of the U.S. Park Police guard an entrance to the 9th Street tunnel in front of the Smithsonian Castle on Aug. 13, 2025, in Washington, D.C., after the Trump administration initiated a federal takeover of D.C. police and deployed the National Guard in the city.In a letter sent Friday to the Smithsonian Institution’s secretary, Lonnie G. Bunch, Sen. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., and three other Democratic senators urged Bunch to resist any attempts by the White House to “bully the institution to go against its mission and values.”
The letter from the four Senate Democrats comes weeks after President Trump called the Smithsonian and museums “all over the Country essentially, the last remaining segment of ‘WOKE.’” On Truth Social, he said that the Smithsonian presents a narrative of the country’s history that is about “how horrible our Country is, how bad Slavery was, and how unaccomplished the downtrodden have been — Nothing about Success, nothing about Brightness, nothing about the Future.”
The White House also released an unsigned memo last month specifically criticizing 22 exhibitions, live programs and other materials at the Smithsonian, titled, “President Trump Is Right About The Smithsonian.” NPR has reported that some of the exhibitions were temporary and are no longer on view.
The coauthors of Friday’s letter are three senators with ties to the institution: Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., and Gary Peters, D-Mich., both current members of the Smithsonian’s Board of Regents; and Sen. Jeffrey A. Merkley, D-Ore., the ranking member of an appropriations subcommittee which holds jurisdiction over the Smithsonian’s federal funding. The letter was provided to NPR by Padilla’s office.
Visitors browse an exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History on Aug. 28, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Alex Wong / Getty ImagesWithin the letter, the senators asserted that oversight of the Smithsonian rests with Congress from its founding, not the White House.
“As you know,” the senators wrote in part, “the Smithsonian Institution is a national treasure, and it is also a public-private partnership managed as an independent federal trust. It is not an executive agency over which the President can exert unilateral control over its historical, scientific or artistic content. The Institution was created by Congress to care for the bequest of James Smithson and to found ‘an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge.’ In recent years, it has been funded with a relatively even split of private donations to support its programming, and federal appropriations provided by Congress to support its core operations including the maintenance of the facilities, further underscoring its unique status.”
The letter continued: “Congress assigned the trust responsibility for this gift of private property to the United States and its ongoing mission to the Smithsonian Board of Regents, not to the executive branch.”
In a written statement sent to NPR on Friday afternoon, Lindsey Halligan, a White House official tasked with reviewing the Smithsonian, said: “The Smithsonian is not an autonomous institution, as 70% of its funding comes from taxpayers. While we acknowledge the Smithsonian’s recognition of its own programmatic failures and is moving toward critical introspection, it cannot credibly audit itself. By definition, an ‘audit’ must be neutral and objective. The American taxpayers deserve nothing less, which is why the White House will ensure the audit is conducted impartially. This is non-negotiable.”
Continue/Read Original Article Here: Democratic senators urge Smithsonian to resist White House attempts to ‘bully the institution’ : NPR
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My birthday's coming up and Facebook offered #NPR as a fundraiser choice. Since they've been hard hit by funding cuts, I decided to activate the donation option this year. https://www.facebook.com/donate/1800859703847872/
