The Two-Way
5:50 am
Sun October 23, 2011

Pujols Has 'Greatest Night' Ever, Cards Lead World Series 2-1

Credit Ezra Shaw / Getty Images

Albert Pujols of the St. Louis Cardinals hits his third home run of the game — tying a World Series single-game record — Saturday night in Arlington, Texas. His team beat the Texas Rangers 16-7 to take a 2-1 lead in the series.

Three home runs. Five hits. Six runs batted in.

Sounds like what a Major League Baseball team might do on a typical night.

But that's what one guy — the St. Louis Cardinals' Albert Pujols — did Saturday evening against the Texas Rangers in Game Three of the World Series. His heroics led the Cards to a 16-7 win and a two-games-to-one advantage in the best-of-7 fall classic.

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Election 2012
5:37 am
Sun October 23, 2011

No 'Perfect Candidate' Yet For Iowa Conservatives

Credit Scott Olson / Getty Images

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks at the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition forum on Saturday in Des Moines, Iowa. Six GOP presidential candidates attended the banquet, seeking an edge in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucus.

Four years ago in the Iowa caucuses, evangelical voters rallied behind former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who won an upset victory and shook up the Republican field in the process.

With the 2012 Iowa caucuses just over 10 weeks away, conservative Christian Republican voters in Iowa are still searching for a presidential candidate. Saturday night they sized up six GOP hopefuls at a banquet in Des Moines, sponsored by the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition.

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Sports
4:26 am
Sun October 23, 2011

Pro Pitchers' Dirty Secret Rubbed On Every Ball

Credit Todd Vachon / WHYY/NewsWorks

Lena Blackburne Baseball is the only baseball rubbing mud company that serves the pro leagues. Where does the mud come from? That's a secret.

Behind every pitch in professional ball is a guy like Dan O'Rourke, rubbing up baseballs in the Philadelphia Phillies clubhouse. He plucks a ball from a stack of boxes between his knees and prepares his hands with mud.

"I'm applying mud to the baseball to take the sheen, the shininess off the ball, so the pitchers have something to hold onto," he says. He gives the ball a few quick turns against his palm.

"I do roughly three to four balls at a time," he says.

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Arts & Life
5:31 pm
Sat October 22, 2011

Uptick In Arts Funding Lacks Diversity, Study Says

While the overall U.S. economy seems to be stuck in neutral, there are a few bright spots. One of them is charitable giving to the arts, which was up more than 5 percent last year.

But a new study cautions that much of that support serves audiences that are wealthier and whiter than the country as a whole.

Audiences at the Metropolitan Opera in New York cheered this year's season-opening production of Anna Bolena. The Met has something else to be excited about: a record fundraising campaign.

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Africa
3:17 pm
Sat October 22, 2011

Journey From N.Y. To Be Somalia's Prime Minister

Credit Tony Karumba / AFP/Getty Images

Residents walk along a busy street in Somalia's capital, Mogadishu, on Oct. 6. After four years of bitter battles, African Union-backed government troops forced the militant group al-Shabab to pull out of the city.

Somali-American Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed came to the U.S. in 1985 to work at the Somali Embassy in Washington, D.C.

When civil war broke out in Somalia, Mohamed decided to stay in the U.S., moving to Buffalo, N.Y., where he earned a bachelor's degree in history and a master's in political science at SUNY.

Mohamed held various local government jobs before becoming a regional compliance specialist at the New York State Department of Transportation, but just a few months ago, he was the interim prime minister of Somalia.

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U.S.
2:43 pm
Sat October 22, 2011

Finding Common Ground Between Two Movements

Credit Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

An activist holds a sign during a tax day Tea Party rally in San Francisco.

Members of Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party may disagree on many issues, but there's one thing that unites both groups: distrust in concentrated power.

"One can't help but feel that there's a huge system out there between politicians, between corporate interests, that really prevents the average Joe from being able to air out his concerns," says Charles Zhu, an Occupy Wall Street supporter who was in Washington, D.C., this week to join protests in McPherson Square.

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From Our Listeners
1:00 pm
Sat October 22, 2011

Three-Minute Fiction: Closing In On A Winner

Transcript

GUY RAZ, host: It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.

(SOUNDBITE OF CLOCK TICKING)

RAZ: All right. We're getting closer to finding the winning story in round seven of Three-Minute Fiction. That's our writing contest where we ask you to create an original short story that can be read in about three minutes.

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Africa
1:00 pm
Sat October 22, 2011

Celebrating Life In Post-Gadhafi Libya

The first steps toward a post-Gadhafi government are underway in Libya today. NPR's Grant Clark reports from Misrata.

News
1:00 pm
Sat October 22, 2011

Week In News: Gadhafi's Death And The U.S. Troop Withdrawal

Moammar Gadhafi is dead, NATO will end its military operation in Libya at the end of the month, and all but a handful of U.S. troops will leave Iraq by the end of the year. Weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz speaks with James Fallows, national correspondent for The Atlantic, about those stories and others from the past week.

Middle East
1:00 pm
Sat October 22, 2011

After Gadhafi, What's Next For The Arab World?

As images of Moammar Gadhafi's body spread across the Arab world, protesters in Syria and Yemen are issuing renewed calls for their own leaders to step down. Weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz talks with Georgetown professor Samer Shehata about Gadhafi's death and the ongoing Arab Spring protests are reshaping the Middle East and North Africa.

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