All Things Considered on 90.5 WKAR

Transcript

GUY RAZ, HOST:

Now to a story that's gripped a small town in Upstate, New York for the past five months. It's about 18 high school girls in the working-class town of Le Roy. It's just outside of Rochester. Reporter Susan Dominus wrote about it in this week's issue of the New York Times magazine, and she says it all started back in October when a high school cheerleader named Katie Krautwurst woke up from a nap.

Ready for some creative competition? Weekends on All Things Considered is launching Round 8 of its Three-Minute Fiction contest. Here's what we look for: original, short fiction that can be read in less than three minutes — that's no more than 600 words.

Robert Siegel talks to retired Navy Captain Don Walsh about the attempt by movie director James Cameron to take a submersible capsule to the bottom of the Mariana Trench — the deepest spot on Earth. Walsh says it will be a combination of science and adventure, because Cameron is a storyteller and dedicated amateur explorer. Walsh made a 1960 dive to the same trench.

The jobs report for February came in a bit stronger than expected. The Labor Department said jobs outside of agriculture grew by 227,000 last month. The unemployment rate held steady at 8.3 percent.

It took a lot of money and the margins were sometimes painfully slim, but Mitt Romney pulled out some important victories on Tuesday night in the race for the Republican nomination for President. Melissa Block talks to Ari Shapiro, who spent Wednesday at Romney headquarters in Boston.

Key Senators pressed the head of the Pentagon on why the U.S. is not being more aggressive in trying to help rebels in Syria. But Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey both insisted that Syrian air defenses make the prospect of airstrikes — like those used in Libya — very difficult. They also said the opposition in Syria is too fractured to risk sending in arms, which could end up in the hands of extremists.

The film version of the young adult book sensation The Hunger Games opens March 23rd. The hype around the movie has sent the sales of the already best-selling trilogy to new heights. And publishers are eagerly churning out more books set in post apocalyptic dystopian worlds — just like The Hunger Games.

The GOP presidential hopefuls addressed the American Israel Public Affairs Committee conference in Washington, D.C., on a day their campaigns battled in 10 state contests. Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich all criticized President Obama for his handling of Iran, and the president returned fire during an afternoon news conference.

The Washington Monument was seriously damaged by an earthquake last summer that left hunks of stone lying around the base of obelisk. Months later, National Park Service officials are finalizing a plan for repairs, but the structure will remain closed for at least another year.

Robert Sherman — one half of the songwriting team behind Disney movies and major hit musicals — has died. He was 86. The Oscar-winning Sherman Brothers, Robert and Richard, wrote some of the most enduring Disney songs of all time. Their output was astounding: Mary Poppins, The Jungle Book, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Bedknobs and Broomsticks, The Aristocats.

John Lasseter, of Pixar and Disney, once said, "You cannot forget a Sherman brothers song for your life."

Ever since The Rising in 2002 — and arguably since 1984's Born in the U.S.A. — Bruce Springsteen releases have functioned as State of the Union addresses as much as pop LPs. Wrecking Ball does, too, beginning with its Occupy-era lead single "We Take Care of Our Own," an anthemic bit of wishful thinking which, like "Born in the U.S.A.," seems easy to misinterpret by 180 degrees if you don't pay attention to the verses between the chorus.

Don't let the theme fool you. These three books are anything but failures. They are, in fact, full of sharply rendered and utterly original characters who fail spectacularly in their attempts to do right (or what they think is right). They are men on a mission, variously heroic, harebrained, heartfelt, even cruel, but their good intentions are undeniable, if not always admirable.