2011 March | Here & Now

Japan’s nuclear safety agency announced it has upped the severity rating of the country’s nuclear crisis after discovering evidence of a partial meltdown. We get perspective from a nuclear power critic.

Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa announced today that Libya is declaring an immediate ceasefire and stopping all military operations. The decision comes after the U.N. voted to authorize a no fly zone and to take “all necessary measures” to protect the Libyan people, including air strikes.

From Air to Ahmad Jamal and more.

There are more than 1.3 million blind people in the United States, and for decades they’ve had to rely on expensive, blind-specific products. Now, smart phones and other mainstream devices are giving them more options. See a video of how one man is using his smartphone to grocery shop.

When entire towns are washed away, how do you begin cleaning up and re-building? That’s the question facing Japanese authorities, who have to start the clean-up amid uncertainty over the fate of the country’s Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex, disabled by last week’s earthquake and tsunami.

From Ahmad Jamal to Peter Dixon and more.

Japanese officials suspended helicopter water dumps after the effort failed to cool overheated reactors at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear complex disabled by last week’s earthquake and tsunami. We get some perspective from an expert who has worked at nuclear power plants similar to Fukushima-Dai-ichi.

House Republicans plan to float a measure today to permanently end federal funding for NPR and prohibit member stations from using federal funds to pay for NPR programs. This is the latest move to cut off funding to public radio, after a bill to cut funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting failed in the Senate earlier this year.

Named the best folk group at the Irish Music Awards for three years in a row, the High Kings are taking up the mantle from groups like the Clancy Brothers and introducing new renditions of traditional Irish folk songs to listeners. We speak with band member Brian Dunphy.

Journalists Anthony Shadid, Stephen Farrell, Tyler Hicks, and Lynsey Addario went missing on Tuesday while reporting on the events in Libya, a country that the Committee to Protect Journalists is calling the most dangerous in the world for journalists right now.

Anti-government rebels in Libya are lashing out at the West for not coming to their aid in their battle to oust longtime leader Moammar Gadhafi. Rebels are struggling to hold their ground as pro-Gadhafi forces intensify offensives throughout the country.

Residents in Plymouth, Mass. are trying to communicate with survivors and friends in the town’s Japanese sister city, Shichigahama, which was devastated by the earthquake.

Many Irish-Americans dust off their cherished Irish soda bread recipes on St. Patrick’s Day. But it turns out that the bread many Americans consider Irish soda bread is really just a distant cousin of the real thing.

We hear music from Tito Puente and prepare for St. Patrick’s Day with the Chieftans.

If you’re unhappy at work, can you post anything you want about your boss, your colleagues, or your workplace, online? We look into the do’s and don’ts of blogging about your boss.

Japan’s defense ministry now says it has decided against dumping water from helicopters onto the most badly damaged reactors at a nuclear plant, because radiation levels are too high. But emergency workers who were pulled out of the site when radiation levels soared today are being sent back in, after emissions dropped to safer levels. We find out about the risks of radiation poisoning.

From Massive Attack, Charles Mingus and more.

Japan’s government has dispatched 100,000 troops to lead the aid effort after an earthquake, tsunami and nuclear crisis have left more than 500,000 people living in temporary shelters.

As Japan struggles to deal with a nuclear crisis and humanitarian disaster following last week’s earthquake and tsunami, strong aftershocks shook the country today. We check in with two people in Japan.

Dangerous levels of radiation leaking from a crippled nuclear plant forced Japan to order 140,000 people to seal themselves indoors Tuesday after an explosion and a fire dramatically escalated the crisis spawned by a deadly earthquake and tsunami.