All Things Considered on WRVO-1: NPR News

Pennsylvania's Susquehanna River is spilling over its banks, leaving serious flooding in its wake. The city of Wilkes-Barre's levies have held up, sparing it from a worst-case scenario flood. But small towns throughout south-central Pennsylvania are covered in water.

President Obama and two of his GOP opponents in next year's election have laid out their ideas to turn the economy around. NPR's Scott Horsley joins Robert Siegel to compare and contrast the plans.

San Diego's power company has restored power to all of its customers. Thursday afternoon, more than 4 million people in the Southwestern U.S. and parts of Mexico lost electricity. Arizona Public Service Company says the outage occurred after an electrical worker mistakenly removed a piece of monitoring equipment at a substation in southwest Arizona.

Australian Owen Wright won the first pro-surfing competition held in New York. Wright beat out Kelly Slater, a ten-time world champion surfer, for the $300,000 prize.

Scientists analyze patterns in all areas of life, from weather to health, to help predict outcomes. Journalist Sasha Issenberg examines how political scientists employed by the Texas gubernatorial campaign of Rick Perry in 2006 helped him strategize through testing random samples of voters. Robert Siegel talks with Issenberg about this approach — and how it shaped Perry's subsequent campaigns.

Summer is just about over. That usually means Major League Baseball fans are feverishly checking the standings as the playoff races tighten up in the last weeks of the season. But this year, virtually every division title and wild card slot have been sewn up. Could an unexciting September lead to a dramatic October? Robert Siegel talks to sportswriter Stefan Fatsis.

While President Obama's speech Thursday night focused on jobs, the president also touched on homeownership. The president talked about helping people refinance mortgages, in turn putting more money in families' pockets. Robert Siegel speaks with Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan about what the president has in mind.

Zach Condon says he was half-joking when he named his band Beirut: "I was kind of poking fun at myself," he says with a chuckle, "and some of my more exotic tastes in music at the time."

Contagion is about a flu epidemic that causes millions of deaths, Warrior about sibling rivalry in a working-class family. The former is a disaster epic writ surprisingly small, the latter a domestic drama writ larger than you'd think. Both prove effective, both have intriguing structures; it's a good week for movie nuts.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, host: From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

President Obama called on Congress tonight to stop the political circus and pass his plan, dubbed the American Jobs Act.

President BARACK OBAMA: There should be nothing controversial about this piece of legislation. Everything in here is the kind of proposal that's been supported by both Democrats and Republicans, including many who sit here tonight. And everything in this bill will be paid for - everything.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, host: Joining us now is a Democrat, Jan Schakowsky, Democrat of Illinois, a member of the House Progressive Caucus, someone who's proposed her own jobs bill. Well, how did the president do?

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ROBERT SIEGEL, host: Big question, of course, is how do Republicans in the House, where they are the majority, how did they react to the president's speech this evening. We're going to find out from one member of the House leadership right now. Congressman Tom Price of Georgia is chairman of the House Republican Policy Committee, and a member of the Budget Committee and the Ways and Means Committee. Welcome to the program once again.

Representative TOM PRICE: Thank you so much, Robert. Good to be with you.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, host: We've been hearing reactions to President Obama's jobs speech, which he made before a joint session of Congress. He started about an hour ago. Of course, he was done extremely early so that he could be done in time for the opening kickoff of the National Football League season. We'll have more on this subject.

From NPR News, this is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED. I'm Robert Siegel.

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MELISSA BLOCK, host: This is ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Melissa Block.

ROBERT SIEGEL, host: And I'm Robert Siegel. President Obama addressed a joint session of Congress this evening, urging adoption of what he called the American Jobs Act. It is a package of payroll tax cuts and spending increases aimed at jobless benefits and infrastructure improvements. The overall price tag is nearly $450 billion and the president said it will be all paid for.

Robert Siegel talks to NPR's Mara Liasson, NPR's Scott Horsley and NPR's Andrea Seabrook for reaction.

President Obama is slated to present his plan for job creation tonight. For more, Robert Siegel turns to NPR's Mara Liasson, NPR's Scott Horsley from the White House and NPR's Andrea Seabrook from the House chamber.

If there's anything the writers I know share besides an unhealthy relationship to caffeine, it's a childhood spent immersed in books. All my young-adult favorites look more like accordions than novels, because they've been dropped into the bathtub so many times.

Robert Siegel clarifies Tuesday's reporting on the U.S. Post Office's funding woes — and reads listener letters about fingerboarding.

On Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California, the leading Republican candidates for president will meet for a debate. It's the first featuring newly minted frontrunner Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

He was an unlikely star — a rather plain-looking, geeky 20-something in thick-framed glasses. But with hits like "That'll Be the Day," "Rave On" and "Peggy Sue," Buddy Holly became a rockabilly icon. He was a pioneer.

Since Sept. 11, the nation's leaders have warned that government agencies like the CIA and the FBI can't protect the country on their own — private businesses and ordinary citizens have to look out for terrorists, too. So the Obama administration has been promoting programs like "See Something, Say Something" and the "Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative."

Back in March, Paul Otellini — president and CEO of Intel Corp. — compared the situation of present-day America to that of the U.K. at the turn of the last century.

When I was a kid, I assumed that in the future things would get better and better until we were all driving flying cars and playing badminton with space aliens on top of 500-story buildings. Frankly, I kind of counted on this happening. But now I don't assume that we'll just keep going up anymore.