NPR News

Rutgers basketball coach Mike Rice was fired for abusive actions towards players on the practice court. Did he go too far, or should people toughen up? Host Michel Martin asks the Barbershop guys for their take.

Reverend Cecil Williams has been called crazy and radical. But during his 50 years of service as pastor of the Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco, the Methodist congregation has gone from a mere 35 members to 10,000 people. Williams, and his wife, Janice Mirikitani, discuss their new book, Beyond the Possible.

Fresh Air remembers the film critic and bon vivant Roger Ebert, who died Thursday, with a roundup of interviews from our archive.

In one, from all the way back in 1984, host Terry Gross talks with Ebert alone; in a second conversation, from 1996, Terry interviews both Ebert and his late partner Gene Siskel onstage at Northwestern University.

In two very special conversations, Ebert himself interviews iconic directors Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese.

And finally, critic-at-large John Powers discusses Ebert's 2011 memoir Life Itself.

Host Michel Martin and editor Ammad Omar crack open the listener inbox for backtalk. This week, listeners weigh in on whether toddlers should be using tablet computers and other digital gadgets.

Millions of Americans are still out of work, and they're getting hit even harder as unemployment benefits continue to dry up. Host Michel Martin speaks with NPR Senior Business Editor Marilyn Geewax about why benefits are being reduced. Mike Rivas has exhausted his unemployment benefits, and joins the conversation to talk about how he's getting by.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

This is SCIENCE FRIDAY, I'm Ira Flatow. Earlier this week, the New York Times reported new CDC data on diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, ADHD, in kids. And the numbers are startling, with 11 percent of the parents surveyed reporting a diagnosis of ADHD for their school-age kids, higher numbers for some sub-groups of age and gender. That's a big jump. Estimates before that had been that ADHD affected somewhere from three to seven percent of children.

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IRA FLATOW, HOST:

That flute can only mean that Flora Lichtman is here. Hi, Flora.

FLORA LICHTMAN, BYLINE: Hi, Ira.

FLATOW: Flora is our correspondent and managing editor for video. And we've got our Video Pick of the Week.

Transcript

IRA FLATOW, HOST:

You know, one of the first ideas drilled to you as a sort of a foreign idea to you as a kid is that life is not fair. How come she got a pony for her birthday, I got a goldfish, something like that? Yeah, right, yeah. but where did we even get the sense of what's fair and what's not, of what's right, what's wrong, our sense of justice? Were they from theologians, spiritualists, philosophers, Talk show hosts?

Think that freezing food kills E. coli and other nasty microbes? Think again.

That's the lesson from the new E. coli outbreak caused by frozen chicken quesadillas and other snacks that has sickened 24 people in 15 states.

Freezing does slow down the microbes that cause food to spoil, but it's pretty much useless for killing dangerous bugs.