NPR News

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

No need to tweet this, it's hardly news: the use of social media has exploded this election season. There were some 7.2 million tweets sent during this week's presidential debate, compared to just half a million over the course of all four debates of 2008. And while hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent by the Obama and Romney campaigns to reach voters by TV advertising, they pay attention to social media, too.

Transcript

ARI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: I'm Ari Shapiro traveling with the Romney campaign in Daytona Beach, Florida. Ted Bickish and his wife Gina embody the two big problems at the center of Florida's economy. Ted lost his job when the economy collapsed. The only work he could find was in Virginia. They couldn't relocate because their house was underwater. And he couldn't afford to pass up the job either. So now...

TED BICKISH: Well, I go up there for about three weeks to a month at a time, and then I come home for a week.

Transcript

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

This is WEEKEND EDITION, from NPR News. I'm Scott Simon. In these final weeks before the presidential election, both President Obama and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, are rallying their core voters to turn out on November 6. But the president may find it harder to win big among younger voters this year, as he did in 2008.

Placido Domingo is one of the most influential people in classical music. During a 50-year career, he's played more than 140 roles, conducted more than 450 operas, and won just about every award that a human being can win in opera and life.

In January 2007, Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California was sworn in as the speaker of the House of Representatives — and became the first woman to hold that position. She is currently the House minority leader.

We've invited Pelosi to play a game about men breaking gender barriers — three questions about men who've gone where no man has gone before.

"James Moody is the most beloved jazz musician in the world," reedman Paquito D'Rivera says.

These may be strong words, but D'Rivera is far from alone in his appreciation of the tenor saxophonist, who died in 2010. On the bandstand, Moody was universally admired for his musicality, his generosity — he gave away mouthpieces, saxophones and, once, even the coat off his back — and his ability to illuminate any room with his personal warmth.

For the first time in nearly a generation, Arizona voters will elect a new senator. Republican Sen. Jon Kyl is retiring after 18 years. His ideological successor is Republican Rep. Jeff Flake, and a lot of people expected Flake to have an easy time of it.

But recent polls suggest Democrat Richard Carmona — a former surgeon general and a Hispanic — has a shot at winning. The race has become heated, and the airwaves are filled with brutal ads.

Many have had good fun at the expense of Big Tex, the 52-foot cowboy that burnt down in Dallas today.

But Big Tex was an institution, an icon of the State Fair of Texas, as big and bold as the great state itself.

NPR's John Burnett, a Dallas native, remembered him on All Things Considered today. He told this story: