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Poisoned Places: Toxic Air, Neglected Communities
3:02 am
Mon November 7, 2011

Secret 'Watch List' Reveals Failure To Curb Toxic Air

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Credit David Gilkey / NPR
The Continental Carbon plant sits on the southern outskirts of Ponca City, Okla. Until August, the plant was on an internal EPA "watch list," for violating rules of the Clean Air Act.
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Originally published on Thu November 10, 2011 12:02 pm

Part 1 of a four-part series, Poisoned Places: Toxic Air, Neglected Communities

The system Congress set up 21 years ago to clean up toxic air pollution still leaves many communities exposed to risky concentrations of benzene, formaldehyde, mercury and many other hazardous chemicals.

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Poisoned Places: Toxic Air, Neglected Communities
3:00 am
Mon November 7, 2011

Powdery Pollution Coats Oklahoma Town

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Credit David Gilkey / NPR
The Continental Carbon plant sits on the southern outskirts of Ponca City, Okla. Residents blamed the plant, which produces a black dust known as carbon black, for polluting their city.
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Credit David Gilkey / NPR
A biker rides through downtown Ponca City, Okla. After 726 complaints and close to $20 million in settled lawsuits against Continental Carbon, there are very few reports of black dust tainting the town.
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Credit NPR
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Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Karen Howe's driveway is all that remains of her former home. Continental Carbon bought her home and many others, and tore them down after a settlement was reached.
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Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Karen Howe lived in a neighborhood next to Continental Carbon, where she says her daughter couldn't play outside because the carbon black aggravated her allergies.
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Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Jesse Beck, the environmental manager for the Ponca tribe, helped with the tribe's lawsuit against Continental Carbon.
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Credit David Gilkey / NPR
Dan Jones, a Ponca tribal official, went with the union to Taiwan during their fight against Continental Carbon over the pollution that was covering their town.
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Originally published on Thu November 10, 2011 11:55 am

Part 2 of a four-part series, Poisoned Places: Toxic Air, Neglected Communities

Karen Howe couldn't believe her luck. As a single mom working a minimum-wage job and living with two kids in a crowded one-bedroom apartment in Ponca City, Okla., she was desperate for a three-bedroom house and a lawn.

Howe, a member of the Ponca tribe, was offered tribal housing in a small, tree-lined subdivision of 11 homes on the southern, rural edge of the city.

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Jeff Lunden is a freelance arts reporter and producer whose stories have been heard on NPR's Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition, as well as on other public radio programs.

Lunden contributed several segments to the Peabody Award-winning series The NPR 100, and was producer of the NPR Music series Discoveries at Walt Disney Concert Hall, hosted by Renee Montagne. He has produced more than a dozen documentaries on musical theater and Tin Pan Alley for NPR — most recently A Place for Us: Fifty Years of West Side Story.

Other documentaries have profiled George and Ira Gershwin, Stephen Sondheim, Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein, Lorenz Hart, Harold Arlen and Jule Styne. Lunden has won several awards, including the Gold Medal from the New York Festival International Radio Broadcasting Awards and a CPB Award.

Lunden is also a theater composer. He wrote the score for the musical adaptation of Arthur Kopit's Wings (book and lyrics by Arthur Perlman), which won the 1994 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Off-Broadway Musical. Other works include Another Midsummer Night, Once on a Summer's Day and adaptations of The Little Prince and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for Theatreworks/USA.

Lunden is currently working with Perlman on an adaptation of Swift as Desire, a novel of magic realism from Like Water for Chocolate author Laura Esquivel. He lives in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Asia
2:00 am
Mon November 7, 2011

U.S. Urges Pakistan To Nudge Haqqani Millitants Toward Peace

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Washington is no longer demanding that Pakistan launch a military offensive against the Haqqani network which is based along the Afghan border. Instead, the U.S. wants Pakistan to supply intelligence on the militants and get them to the negotiating table.

Around the Nation
2:00 am
Mon November 7, 2011

2 Penn State Officials Leave Amid Sex Abuse Scandal

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By Tim Lambert

Two top Penn State officials charged with covering up allegations of a child sex abuse scandal have stepped down after Sunday's emergency meeting of the university's Board of Trustees. Former defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was charged over the weekend with sexually abusing eight boys over 15 years.

Europe
2:00 am
Mon November 7, 2011

Greek Prime Minister Papandreou To Step Down

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Originally published on Mon November 7, 2011 4:43 am

Transcript

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

The political drama in Greece now turns to who will govern that economically troubled country. Prime Minister George Papandreou has vowed to the opposition's demand that he step down to make way for a coalition government. The idea is that a government of national unity can steer Greece through austerity measures and save a bailout deal that's widely seen as the country's last chance. The new premiere is expected to be named today. Joanna Kakissis joined us from Athens with the latest. Good morning.

: Good morning.

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Analysis
2:00 am
Mon November 7, 2011

Politics In The News

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In less than two months, the first caucuses and primaries of the 2012 presidential election season will be held. And in just under two weeks, a congressional Supercommittee is due to deliver one-point-two trillion dollars in cuts and revenue to reduce the deficit.

Business
2:00 am
Mon November 7, 2011

The Last Word In Business

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By editor

Steve Inskeep has the Last Word in business.

Arts & Life
10:01 pm
Sun November 6, 2011

At Arena Stage, A Million-Dollar Toast To Playwrights

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Credit Stan Barouh / Arena Stage
The Book Club Play, revamped by author Karen Zacarías as part of her residency in the American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage, is a comedy about life, love and literature.The cast, from left, included Eric Messner, Kate Eastwood Norris, Tom Story, Ashlie Atkinson and Rachael Holmes.
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Amy Freed is the author of Beard of Avon and Restoration Comedy; her play Freedomland was a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for drama.
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Credit Nick Lehoux / Arena Stage
Arena's new Kogod Cradle — one of the newest and warmest theater spaces in D.C. — is a 200-seat house designed to provide a venue for new plays.
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Credit Arena Stage
Zacarías, the founder of the D.C.-based Young Playwrights' Theater, is the author of Mariela in the Desert, which won the prestigious Francesca Primus Prize in 2006.
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A reporter once asked the late playwright Robert Anderson, author of I Never Sang for My Father, if he could make a living writing for the theater. His reply: "You can make a killing, but not a living."

True enough: For the playwright who hasn't had a hit on Broadway, making a living can be tough. But Arena Stage, a major theater in Washington, D.C., wants to change all that.

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Around the Nation
10:01 pm
Sun November 6, 2011

Nebraska May Play Key Role In Canada Pipeline Battle

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Credit Nati Harnik / AP
TransCanada plans to build the Keystone XL pipeline through Nebraska's Sandhills region shown here in Mills, Neb. State legislators have introduced bills barring pipelines in environmentally sensitive areas like the Sandhills and the Ogallala aquifer.
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Originally published on Mon November 7, 2011 1:38 pm

Thousands of demonstrators ringed the White House on Sunday afternoon, demanding that President Obama deny permission for a proposed pipeline to carry crude oil from the tar sands of Canada to refineries in Texas.

Business and labor groups support the Keystone XL project; many environmentalists oppose it. But deliberations in Nebraska may play a decisive role.

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