Talk of the Nation on UPR Too

When actor Wendell Pierce returned to his native New Orleans to help rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, he noticed a lack of grocery stores selling fresh food. Now, Pierce is opening Sterling Farms — a chain of stores in the Ninth Ward that will sell food at affordable prices for low-income shoppers.

In recent months, a swarm of controversies have erupted over issues of women's health — from the split in the Catholic church over employer coverage of contraceptives to the proposed ultrasound laws in Virginia and Texas to the uproar over funding for Planned Parenthood.

Three weeks after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, no arrests have been made in what critics are calling a case of racial profiling. Columnist Leonard Pitts says the incident exposes society's "blindness" to African-Americans.

Former Rutgers student Dharun Ravi could face 10 years in prison and deportation to his native India after being convicted of bias intimidation. Ravi used a webcam to spy on his roommate, Tyler Clementi, having an intimate encounter with another man. Clementi killed himself several days later.

Business and political leaders have repeatedly warned that America's scientists and engineers are in short supply. However, some economists say the numbers indicate the opposite — a glut of high-tech workers. A panel of experts debate whether America's schools produce the scientific workforce needed to compete globally.

On his upcoming trip to Mount Everest, mountaineer Conrad Anker will team up with geologist Dave Lageson to remeasure the peak's exact altitude--a stat scientists still dispute. Physiologist Bryan Taylor will also be in Nepal to monitor how Anker's blood, brain and muscles respond to the thin Himalayan air.

Estimated altitude for this flight was about 115,000 feet, says Raul Oaida, 18-years-old. Raul launched the shuttle, along with a video camera and a GPS tracker, by way of a large helium balloon. Flight time was about three hours--the shuttle landing about 150 miles south of where it took off.

Astrophysicist Adam Riess shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2011 for his work on distant supernovae, which demonstrated that the universe was not only expanding--but that its expansion was accelerating. Now he's hunting for clues that might explain why, and one of the prime suspects is a mysterious force known as dark energy.

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

This is TALK OF THE NATION. I'm Neal Conan in Washington. Israelis see Syria convulsed in violence to their north; uncertain relations with a much-changed Egypt to the south; and many fear a conflict with Iran could be just a matter of time. But as if to remind us of the central dispute in the region, Palestinians launched a barrage of rockets from Gaza last week. Israel responded with airstrikes. [POST-BROADCAST CORRECTION: The violence began when Israel assassinated a leader of a militant Palestinian faction in Gaza.]

Transcript

NEAL CONAN, HOST:

The Iranian government continues to deny U.N. nuclear inspectors access to a military base where some believe they tested atom bomb parts. But Iran also says it's willing to resume talks with the United States and five other big powers, though skeptics argue Tehran is just playing for time. At a news conference yesterday, President Obama stressed diplomacy but added time for talks is running out.