NPR's Weekend Edition on KUER 1

On-air challenge: Every answer is a familiar phrase in the form of "___ and ___." You'll be given the two missing words, each with a letter removed, and you give the phrases. For example, given "lot and fund," the answer would be "lost and found."

Last week's challenge from listener Erica Avery of Wisconsin: Name a world capital whose letters can be rearranged to spell a popular and much-advertised drug. What's the capital, and what's the drug?

Answer: Tripoli, Lipitor

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Rachel Martin.

Mine workers in South Africa face a deadline tomorrow to return to work following a deadly dispute over pay and conditions. Violence erupted last month at the world's third-largest platinum mine. Thirty-four miners were shot dead in a confrontation with police. Striking miners are refusing to go back to work until their demands are met. And there are concerns about labor unrest, which has spread to other parts of the country's lucrative mining industry.

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Rose Syracuse has held one job - one job only - for her entire life. For 73 years, she worked mainly in the accounts department at the Macy's Department store on 34th Street in Manhattan. She's worked for Macy's longer than anyone else - ever. And last week, after all those decades, she retired. Rose Syracuse joins us on the line from New York. Thank you very much for taking the time to talk to us.

ROSE SYRACUSE: Oh, that's fine. And Rose Syracuse would not have retired if she hadn't broken her hip.

WERTHEIMER: Oh, dear.

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This summer we've brought you musical postcards of street performers from around the country. Our "Music Alfresco" series takes us to our last stop: Berkeley, Calif., where we meet guitarist Phillip Rosheger.

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DON GONYEA, BYLINE: This is Don Gonyea in Florida, the perpetual battleground state that President Obama is touring by bus this weekend.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Hello, St. Pete.

(SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING)

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Linda Wertheimer. And it is time for sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG)

WINONA CARR: (Singing) Life is a ballgame, being played each day...

WERTHEIMER: It is the first Sunday of the NFL season. NPR's Mike Pesca is back with us this week for a look at today's action on the gridiron. Mike, welcome.

MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Hi.

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We're joined now by NPR's national political correspondent Mara Liasson. Good morning, Mara.

MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Good morning, Linda.

WERTHEIMER: So, Mara, as we heard, President Obama and Mitt Romney are back on the road again, their conventions behind them. According to national polls, it looks like the Democrats got some momentum from their time in Charlotte.

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A marathon around the city of London wraps up the 2012 Paralympics Games today. They're the biggest, best-attended games in the history of the event, which began as an exhibition of World War II veterans, also in London, at the 1948 Olympics. Veterans from recent wars are returning to the competition now to find a very competitive tournament, and one in which the United States seems to be playing catch-up.

NPR's Quil Lawrence has attended the games. He joins us now from outside London. Quil, welcome.

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Linda Wertheimer.

Just under two months to go before Election Day. The national conventions are over. We're weeks away from debates. And while Democrats and Republicans try to win the White House, they are also locked in a battle for control of Congress. Republicans made historic gains in the House in 2010. And while the GOP didn't quite get a majority in the Senate, they had great expectations of this year because the numbers are in their favor.

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Over the last month, WEEKEND EDITION has been talking to top economists about jobs, growth, debt and taxes. But we also ask them a broader question: What is the one big idea in economics that's really caught your attention lately?

NOURIEL ROUBINI: Ideally, I would like the economists to become boring again.

Twenty-five thousand Chicago teachers are planning to walk off the job Monday if they don't have a contract by midnight Sunday. As the Democrats look to unions to help them get out the vote, a strike by Chicago teachers might just put a crimp in those plans.

On Friday during rush hour, a handful of parents and students stood on a bridge over the Eisenhower Expressway, holding signs that read, "Honk if you support teachers." Among them is Rhoda Gutierrez, who has two children in a Chicago public elementary school.

For decades, Veterans of Foreign Wars posts have played vital roles in small towns throughout America. But in recent years, as World War II veterans have passed away, membership in VFWs has fallen drastically, and many posts have closed. Now, though, some are facing a possible renaissance, thanks to female soldiers returning from overseas.

The main room of the VFW post in Rosemount, Minn., is half-bar and half-bingo hall, with long card tables. In a corner, two men on a stage rotate a round cage of balls and call out bingo numbers.

U.S. House candidate Richard Tisei is openly gay. He's also openly Republican.

"You know what, in Massachusetts, it's a lot easier to be gay than be a Republican," he says, "as far as trying to get elected to office."

But Tisei could make political history for the Massachusetts GOP. Not just because they could win their first U.S. House seat in 15 years, but also because Tisei would be the first openly gay Republican to be elected to a term in Congress.

For more than a decade, The Raveonettes' members have been making albums filled with fuzz-guitar feedback and tight girl-group harmonies. The duo's latest album, Observator, takes on a different sound, thanks in part to its embrace of a new instrument.

On-air challenge: You are given sentences with two blanks. Put a word starting with R in the first blank. Then move that R to the end to make a new word that goes in the second blank to complete the sentence. For example, given the sentence, "The door of the Indian ___ was left slightly ___," the answers would be "raja" and "ajar."

Weekend Edition Sunday guest host Linda Wertheimer speaks with former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell about the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. Rendell is a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Weekend Edition Sunday guest host Linda Wertheimer speaks with Wendy Welch and Jack Beck, owners of Tales of the Lonesome Pine bookstore in Big Stone Gap, Va. They are looking for someone to watch their shop while embarking on a two-month book tour. Wendy has written a memoir about owning a brick and mortar bookshop in a small, rural community.

Weekend Edition Sunday guest host Linda Wertheimer speaks with NPR national political correspondent Mara Liasson about the latest political news, as we await the start of the Democratic National Convention.

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Linda Wertheimer.

The conflict in Syria continues, anti-government rebels claim they have captured an air defense base in eastern Syria. The rebels are now concentrating on President Bashar al-Assad's air power, but that's according to videos posted online and reports from activists groups.

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney takes his campaign to the swing states of Ohio and Florida. NPR's Ari Shapiro reports.

President Barack Obama campaigned in Iowa on Saturday. In a speech, the president said that at the just-finished Republican National Convention there was a lot of talk about hard truths and bold choices, but no one actually told you what they were.

The Democratic National Convention begins this week in Charlotte, N.C. WFAE's Julie Rose looks at what this city's boosters want visitors and TV viewers to know about Charlotte and what they're trying to paper over.

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Hal David, the man who crafted the lyrics to such hits as "Walk on By" and "What the World Needs Now," died yesterday. He was 91. He died of complications of a stroke. NPR's Allison Keyes has this remembrance.

ALLISON KEYES, BYLINE: David's songs thread through the soundtrack of the nation in a way that makes you tilt your head and smile.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHAT'S NEW PUSSYCAT")

TOM JONES: (Singing) What's new Pussycat, whoa...

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The 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear accident did not just turn the Japanese against nuclear energy, virtually overnight it has legitimized the act of public protest in a country where few people have been willing to take political issues to the streets. Lucy Craft reports from Tokyo.

LUCY CRAFT, BYLINE: Nagatacho is Tokyo's Capitol Hill, home to parliament and the prime minister. It's a part of town few Japanese ever set foot in. But in the post-Fukushima era, this is the new normal.

(SOUNDBITE OF PROTESTING)

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LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Linda Wertheimer. Now, to sports.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "LIFE IS A BALL GAME")

WYNONNA CARR: (Singing) Life is a ball game, being played each day...