All Things Considered on 90.5 WKAR

Indiana Treasurer and Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock accidentally released video responses to the Supreme Court's decision on the Affordable Health Care Act. The court has yet to announcing their ruling. Muourdock prepared four responses for if the court upholds the law, overturns it, if it splits and if it doesn't provide an answer. Melissa Block and Robert Siegel have more.

The leaders of Italy, Spain, France and Germany meet in Rome for a pre-summit summit. The host, Italian prime minister Mario Monti, says the next ten days are critical for the survival of the Eurozone.

Leaders of Germany, France, Italy and Spain met Friday in Rome to find a way out of its current financial crisis ahead of a full European Union summit next week. Robert Siegel talks to Matthias M. Matthijs, Assistant Professor of International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University, for more.

Named for the patron saint of musicians, La Santa Cecilia has deep roots in the immigrant community of Los Angeles. Yet the band's six members draw inspiration not only from their rich heritage, but also from their everyday lives growing up embedded in American culture.

During a short, recent trip to historic Olvera Street in downtown L.A. — "It's a little street with little shops resembling any town in Mexico or Latin America" — singer Marisol Hernandez describes the hopes and dreams the city represents.

For little girls, princesses hold roughly the same value that tulips did for the Dutch back in the 1500s, and that princess mania is sure to get a boost with the new Pixar movie Brave, which stars a Scottish princess named Merida.

For a keyhole glimpse into the pink and glittery world of pre-K princess culture, consider the scene at a recent princess-themed birthday party in a suburb of Washington, D.C.

For four decades, Woody Allen's been churning out movies at a rate of almost exactly one film per year, a phenomenon that I'd describe as being "like clockwork" if my whole sense of time hadn't been scrambled by his latest comedy, To Rome With Love.

Pleasantly scrambled, but still.

To hear Florida Sen. Marco Rubio tell it, it's happenstance that his newly published memoir, An American Son, became available just as the speculation about Republican vice presidential possibilities is heating up.

Rubio, a rising Cuban-American star in his party, told NPR's Robert Siegel, co-host of All Things Considered, in a Thursday interview:

Anyone and everyone can now look in the journal Science and read about how to make lab-altered bird flu viruses that have been at the center of a controversy that's raged for months.

But in the eyes of some critics, the details of these experiments are effectively the recipe for a dangerous flu pandemic.

All Things Considered continues its "Mom and Dad's Record Collection" series with singer Santi White, who's best known by her stage name, Santigold.

White says her father steered her artistic development by introducing her to the music of Nigerian Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti at a young age.

California is known as the land of fruits and nuts, but it also happens to be the country's largest milk-producing state. So it's no surprise that its dairy farmers are front and center in the debate over reforming the milk marketing system, which hasn't really changed much in 30 years.

Aung San Suu Kyi would probably not be the symbol of Burma's quest for democracy without her experiences at Oxford University. She studied there in the 1960s and raised a family there in the '70s.

Suu Kyi returned to her alma mater Wednesday to receive the honorary degree she was unable to collect for more than a decade while under house arrest.

Transcript

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

One power plant in particular is on the minds of many here in Southern California. It's the San Onofre nuclear plant, roughly 60 miles south of Los Angeles. The plant was shut down back in January because of a leak that released a small amount of radioactive steam. It's been off-line ever since. And this week, nuclear regulators called what led to the leak, a significant, serious safety issue.

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

From NPR News, this ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel in Washington, D.C.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST: