All Things Considered

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

A group of young musicians from the San Francisco Bay Area is taking a journey to explore the roots of jazz. The Berkeley High School Jazz Ensemble is in Cuba right now. The ensemble has a long history and a long list of all-star alumni.

Jeffrey Freymann-Weyr, of member station KDFC, spoke with some of the musicians before they left for Cuba.

JEFFREY FREYMANN-WEYR, BYLINE: Twenty eager young musicians rehearse "Cubauza," a piece that combines bebop with Afro-Cuban rhythms.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CUBAUZA")

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Audie Cornish.

MELISSA BLOCK, HOST:

And I'm Melissa Block.

At this week's Olympic trials, middle distance runner Jenny Simpson will find out if she's going to the Olympics. Simpson is the current world champion in the 1,500 meters, but as we hear from NPR's Allison Keyes, she's had some setbacks recently, and she and her coach are making last-minute tweaks to her training routine.

The uprising in Syria began in the spring of 2011 when rebellious teenagers scrawled anti-regime graffiti on a wall in the southern city of Daraa.

The protest against their arrest, and the regime's brutal response, sparked the wider revolt. Throughout the unrest, the country's younger generation has been at the forefront of efforts to end the repressive regime of President Bashar Assad.

At a cafe in the heart of Damascus recently, a young man flips open his cellphone to show pictures of people killed in the uprising.

"Actually, they are my friends," he says.

Kaiser Permanente rose out of Henry J. Kaiser's utopian, industrialist dream.

Transcript

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

President Obama and his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, responded to the high court's immigration ruling today. With immigration playing a high-profile role in the presidential election this year, both campaigns are heavily courting the Latino vote. President Obama offered up only a written statement which contained a mixed review.

The winner of Egypt's first competitive presidential election is the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammed Morsi. The official announcement was made Sunday to the cheers and jubilation of a massive crowd in Cairo's Tahrir Square.

Challenges remain, however, as the ruling military council has effectively stripped the incoming president of most of his powers. The popularly elected Parliament, dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood, was also dissolved.