Midwest Flooding

With rain looming and rivers cresting at historic highs, the Midwest faces the worst flooding in 15 years. Towns are being evacuated even as people rush to shore up levees with sandbags. We speak with Susan Staudt, public information officer for Cedar Falls, Iowa

A Beautiful Struggle

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Thirty-two year-old Ta-Nehisi Coates is a former Village Voice and Time Magazine reporter, but he grew up in one of the most violent cities in America. He tells his story in a new memoir called “The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons and an Unlikely Road to Manhood.”

South Korean Protest

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South Koreans took to the streets in Seoul yesterday in the culmination of weeks of protests over conservative President Lee Myung-Bak’s decision to resume imports of U.S. beef. We speak with public radio producer Sean Carberry from Seoul and Bruce Klinger, a Korea specialist at the Heritage Foundation.

Edith Wharton’s House

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The Mount is the home Edith Wharton built for herself in the Berkshire Mountains in Massachusetts to escape what she called an overstuffed and suffocating life in New York. It’s where she wrote classics like “The House of Mirth,” hosted friends like Henry James, and where she put into practice her ideas of home decor. Wharton’s home is now under threat of being re-possessed. We speak with Dominique Browning, former Editor-in-Chief of House and Garden Magazine about Wharton’s house and its relevance for our time.

Tony Preview

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We review two hot revivals on Broadway – both nominated for Tony Awards: Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “South Pacific” and Caryl Churchill’s “Top Girls.” Even though they are revivals, our critic-at-large Ed Siegel says both productions hold a modern day message for today’s theatre goers.