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Around the Nation
9:01 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

In Denver Taxis, Extra Eyes On The Street For Police

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Credit Kirk Siegler for NPR
Longtime Denver taxi driver Teddy Johnson participates in the "Taxis on Patrol" program, and has made two reports of potential safety issues so far.
Credit Craig F. Walker / The Denver Post
Max DeBarros drives his Metro Taxi in Denver. Police credit him with helping crack a hit-and-run case by recording and reporting the license plate number of the truck involved.
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Some days, it would be easy to mistake the Metro Taxi dispatch center in Denver for a police station. Traffic and crime incidents are recorded in a special logbook, as drivers call in descriptions and locations to police.

It's part of a program called Taxis on Patrol. Just a day after the program began, a cab driver helped police make an arrest for a fatal hit-and-run. In the months since, eyewitness calls from cabbies using a bulletin system similar to an Amber Alert have led to hundreds of arrests.

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Planet Money
9:01 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

The European Central Bank, As Seen From A Bar On The Coast Of Spain

Credit JOSE LUIS ROCA / AFP/Getty Images
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Originally published on Mon May 7, 2012 11:14 am

"I have a little bar. A drinks bar," says Chadd Ritenbaugh. His bar is called El Catalonia. It's in the port of Marbella, on the Spanish coast.

"Just sun, sand, and sea," he says. "It's just kind of empty at the moment."

Ritenbaugh bought the bar in 2009. Since then, business has gone downhill. He tried, and failed, to sell.

"Nobody's out buying bars right now," he says. "Banks in Spain are not lending a cent — a euro cent."

Chad himself tried and failed to get a bank loan. "Absolutely nothing," he says.

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Japan In Crisis
9:01 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

With Radiation, Doubt Grows In Fukushima Farms

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Credit Wally Santana / AP
A woman picks carrots on her farm as she explains her fears that no one will buy them since the radiation fallout in March 2011 in Fukushima, Japan. A year later, challenges persist for farmers in the region.
Credit Doualy Xaykaothao for NPR
Yoshiko Watanabe stands near where her roadside vegetable stand used to be in Kawauchi village in Japan's Fukushima prefecture.
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The mountain village of Kawauchi lies partly inside the area deemed unsafe because of high levels of radiation in Japan's Fukushima prefecture. Chiharu Kubota uses a high-pressure water gun to hose down buildings there.

Radiation is still leaking from the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which suffered multiple meltdowns immediately after last year's earthquake and tsunami.

'Nothing Is Better'

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Presidential Race
9:01 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

How Far Apart On Iran Are GOP Candidates, Obama?

Credit AP
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in April 2008. Western governments suspect Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, a charge Tehran denies. How to handle the possible threat from a nuclear-armed Iran is a major foreign policy concern of the U.S.
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Originally published on Sun March 11, 2012 6:10 am

Republican presidential candidates this week — with the exception of Ron Paul — appeared to be trying to outdo each other in saying how tough they would be in dealing with Iran. Speaking before a pro-Israel group, they said President Obama has been weak — "feckless," in Mitt Romney's words.

Obama, meanwhile, was not impressed. He said he'd heard a lot of "bluster" and "big talk" about Iran, "but when you actually ask them specifically what they would do, it turns out they repeat the things that we've been doing over the last three years."

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Author Interviews
9:01 pm
Wed March 7, 2012

'Fragile Beginnings': When Babies Are Born Too Soon

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Credit Martha Stewart / Courtesy Beacon Press
Adam Wolfberg is a specialist in high-risk obstetrics at Tufts Medical Center and an assistant professor at Tufts University School of Medicine.
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Dr. Adam Wolfberg had two daughters and another on the way when his wife, Kelly, went into labor. But this joyous occasion had come much too soon — Kelly was three months away from her due date. After just 26 weeks in the womb, their baby daughter Larissa entered the world by emergency cesarean section and was whisked into the neonatal intensive care unit of a Boston hospital. It was the same hospital where Wolfberg was doing his residency in obstetrics and gynecology, and his medical background turned out to be a mixed blessing.

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