NPR News

This week, the Senate passed a rules change to make it just a little harder for members to start a filibuster. Some think it's not enough action, and others think it's too limiting, but most agree that a compromise is better than nothing. Weekends on All Things Considered host Robert Smith talks with political scientist Sarah Binder about how the filibuster grew in to such a road-blocking nuisance in the first place, and asks Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., and Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., what these changes will mean for the senate filibuster.

Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi on Sunday declared a state of emergency in the three cities most disrupted by clashes with protesters. Weekends on All Things Considered host Robert Smith speaks with NPR's Leila Fadel about the situation.

Update at 6:10 p.m. ET Morsi Declares State Of Emergency

In a televised address Sunday night, Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi declared a 30-day state of emergency and night curfew in three provinces hit hard by recent violence.

NPR's Leila Fadel says it means that during this time the government can arrest anyone they want if they look "fishy," and they can use the full force of the state to try and quell the city.

President Obama said that those support gun control should "do a little more listening" to differing viewpoints in the debate over firearms in the U.S.

African leaders are meeting Sunday for talks likely to be dominated by the crisis in Mali where the French-led intervention against Islamist rebels is gaining strength.

NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton is monitoring the summit that is taking place at African Union headquarters in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, for our Newscast team. Here's what she says:

Update at 12:15 p.m. ET Toll Revised

Here's the most-recent information we have on the deadly fire in Santa Maria:

-- Maj. Cleberson Bastianello Braida now says 232 people were killed – and not 245 as had been reported earlier. He said 117 people had been hospitalized. He made the announcement at a news conference in the Municipal Sports Center.

Transcript

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Rachel Martin. Fisher Stevens is a name you may not know but you've probably seen his face. He was in the 1986 film "Short Circuit" with Steve Guttenberg. Fisher also had a role in the 1995 movie "Hackers."

(SOUNDBITE OF MOVIE, "HACKERS")

FISHER STEVENS: (as the Plague) Last chance to get out of this developed prison sentence. You're not good enough to beat me.

Transcript

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

For some historical context on the fighting in Mali, we spoke with Gregory Mann. He's an associate professor of history at Columbia University and he's an expert on North Africa, including the area in northern Mali now controlled by insurgents.

Transcript

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

As we just heard, Germans are still figuring out how to live with their military history. We're going to take you back now to the 1960s, when one French singer helped Europeans forgive, if not forget, the horrors of the Second World War. And she did it with this song:

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)

BARBARA: (Singing in Foreign language)

Transcript

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION from NPR News. I'm Rachel Martin. The French-led military intervention in Mali is picking up momentum in the campaign to help the Malian government recapture Islamist-occupied strongholds in the north. And while French airpower has tipped the scales in the Malian government's favor, the question now is whether Mali's beleaguered army is up to the fight. NPR's Ofeibea Quist-Arcton reports from Bamako, Mali's capital city in the south.

The Pentagon is expanding a program to training Mexican security forces fighting drug cartels. The training incorporates some of the same strategies the U.S. military has used against al-Qaida. Rachel Martin talks with Associated Press reporter Kimberly Dozier, who first reported the story.

After two devastating world wars, Germans recoiled from any prospect of military intervention. But today, German troops are posted in Afghanistan and engage in combat. This week, German lawmakers are expected to extend their country's military's mission in Afghanistan for 13 more months.

The Washington Post reported this week that Italy's effort to promote solar and wind power isn't so clean. A recent sting operation by the Italian government of the renewable energy sector resulted in the arrest of a dozen mafia figures.

Transcript

RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

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

It was an announcement that made history.

SECRETARY LEON PANETTA: If they can do the job, if they can meet the standards...

MARTIN: Something that will change the U.S. military in a fundamental way.

PANETTA: If they can meet, you know, the qualifications that are involved here, there is no reason why they shouldn't have a chance.

MARTIN: Women can now officially serve in combat. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta made the announcement last week.

"Larry Burrows made a photograph that, for generations, has served as the most indelible, searing illustration of the horrors inherent in that long, divisive war — and, by implication, in all wars."

That's according to Ben Cosgrove, editor of LIFE.com. He is referring to the image above, made in 1966 and titled Reaching Out.

Larry Selman devoted more than half his life collecting money for multiple charities, on the streets of New York, from total strangers. He did this for nearly 40 years, despite the fact he was developmentally disabled. Selman became the subject of filmmaker Alice Elliott's Oscar-nominated documentary, The Collector of Bedford Street. He died Jan.

In Colonial Virginia, oysters were plentiful; Capt. John Smith said they lay "thick as stones." But as the wild oyster harvest has shrunk, Weekend Edition food commentator Bonny Wolf says the market for farm-raised oysters is booming.

The local food movement is expanding from fertile fields to brackish waters.

Along the rivers and bays of the East Coast, where wild oysters have been decimated by man and nature, harvests of farm-raised oysters are increasing by double digits every year. At the same time, raw oyster bars are all the rage.

When Republican Mike Pence replaced Mitch Daniels as governor of Indiana this month, he wasted no time setting out to establish his conservative fiscal bona fides.

On-air challenge: You will be given some sentences with two blanks. Add the letters E and Y to the word that goes in the first blank to get a new word that goes in the second blank to compete the sentence.

Last week's challenge: Take the last name of a famous world leader of the past. Rearrange the letters to name a type of world leader, like czar or prime minister. What world leader is it?

Answer: (Golda) Meir; emir

Winner: Daniel Fisher of Westport, Conn.

The traditional immigrant story is a familiar one.

Someone who longs for a better life makes the tough journey, leaves behind the hardships of his or her native land and comes to the United States to start again. That story, in a lot of ways, helped build this country.

These days, however, there's a very different kind of immigrant who wants to come to this country — the rich — and they have a different set of dreams.

Anthony Korda was a barrister, or lawyer, in England who vacationed frequently in the U.S. with his family.

Life and Times is a 10-hour play about the life of one ordinary woman. It opens this week in New York city, and weekends on All Things Considered host Robert Smith attended a performance, complete with meals. He talks to the play's directors and to the woman on whose life it's based.