NPR News

On the heels of the Penn State sexual abuse scandal, Syracuse University is now dealing with similar allegations. Oklahoma State is mourning the death of two of its women's college basketball coaches, and the NBA appears to have reached a stalemate that will last the rest of the season. Guest host Linda Wertheimer talks with ESPN's Howard Bryant.

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

With the current NBA lockout, TV networks like ESPN and TNT have had to figure out how to fill the holes left by cancelled games.

And they may lose advertising revenue, as NPR's Elizabeth Blair reports.

ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: ESPN was ready. They say they put a contingency plan in place over a year ago.

(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTBALL GAME)

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: But Texas A&M has so many points is their ability to run the football.

Transcript

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

Europe's economy, the world's largest, is in the midst of economic turmoil. A growing debt crisis has already forced the resignations of Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou as well as Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi. And forecasts from the European Union suggest the 17-nation Eurozone could be facing possible recession next year. Some analysts are considering the possible collapse of the Eurozone. The Institute for Policy Studies recently published an article titled "Is Europe Over?"

The European debt crisis has driven politicians in Italy and Greece to turn to technocrats for leadership. What exactly is a technocrat? Will they be the silver bullets needed to help lift Europe out of its economic quagmire? Guest host Linda Wertheimer gets some answers from political scientists.

It's a politics-filled Saturday as Republicans hold a presidential candidate forum and the Democrats have their Jefferson-Jackson Dinner in Des Moines, Iowa. This year's dinner features Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel as the keynote speaker; four years ago the dinner launched then-Sen. Barack Obama's presidential candidacy into high gear. Guest host Linda Wertheimer talks with NPR's Don Gonyea about the events.

The bipartisan supercommittee enters the final weekend prior to its Nov. 23 deadline with little tangible progress to show for over two months of work. NPR's Andrea Seabrook tells guest host Linda Wertheimer that several of its members are huddling in Washington this weekend, trying to come up with a way to reduce the government's budget deficit.

When President Obama came into office, he promised to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for good. In the years since, lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have made that difficult. Congress has barred the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to the continental U.S. and has made it difficult to send the suspected terrorists to third countries. That may be why the prison is beginning to feel permanent.

In the crowded race for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, Mitt Romney may be the tortoise, but Newt Gingrich is the newt. And newts are highly adaptive salamanders that regenerate limbs when wounded and emit poison when challenged.

Conventional — and up-to-the-minute contemporary — wisdom pegs Gingrich as the ascendant favorite, knocking other candidates off their posts and platforms like an Angry Bird.

The congressional supercommittee has only a few days left to come up with a plan to cut $1.2 trillion from the federal deficit. One of the areas on the chopping block is the nation's defense budget, and Pentagon officials are pushing back against any cuts beyond the $450 billion they've already been asked to make.

The defense budget is an easy target when it comes to cutting the deficit, because it makes up half of the federal government's entire discretionary budget, says Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.