Search results for

Three days after the Peruvian Air Force downed a small plane carrying a missionary family, military and diplomatic officials on two continents are still trying to sort out what happened. In Washington today, Bush administration spokesmen said the CIA had been involved in the drug interdiction effort that killed an American woman and her infant daughter. But they said the CIA-operated surveillance plane had no part in the decision that led to the tragedy. NPR's Tom Gjelten reports.

Linda Wertheimer interviews Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, former director of the White House Office of National Drug Policy under President Clinton. He is now president of McCaffrey Associates. They discuss the U.S. relationship with Peru and the war on drugs.

The 28th annual International Ramp Cook Off happens this coming weekend in Elkins, West Virginia. Commentator Michael Ivey says ramps are related to onions, garlic and leeks, but they're stronger and zestier. And they inspire a wide range of reactions.

Linda Wertheimer talks with Michael Loftis, president of the Association of Baptists for World Evangelism, about the work that his organization's missionaries were doing in Peru. Loftis discusses how the shooting down of a plane over Peru might affect the Association's approach to its work. The Association has 1,300 people in 65 countries. James and Veronica Bowers went to Peru in 1994, lived on a houseboat, and traveled among villages on the Amazon to preach and teach the Bible.

In most states, if you are poor and disabled, you can get Medicaid -- the state-run medical care program for the poor that is partly financed by the federal government. But in Indiana, it's not necessarily so. In Indiana, if there is a treatment that would fix your disability, such as a hip replacement or open heart surgery, you are not considered disabled. That's true even if you can't afford the treatment. NPR's Barbara Bradley reports on this catch-22, and how the Indiana Supreme Court may finally decide a case on the issue that has been in the courts since 1992.

Linda Wertheimer and Robert Siegel read letters from All Things Considered listeners. (3:00) To contact All Things Considered , write to All Things Considered Letters, 635 Massachusetts Avenue Northwest, Washington, DC 20001. The e-mail address is atc@npr.org.

No one would think to charge Starbucks Coffee with selling drugs for the caffeine it distributes every day. But David Courtwright, author of Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World, says psychoactives found in alcohol, coffee and tobacco are just as much drugs as psychoactives found in opiates, marijuana and cocaine. Robert Siegel talks to David Courtwright about the book. (9:30) Forces of Habit is published by Harvard University Press, March 2001.

Commentator Stephen Lynch is the pop culture critic at the Orange County Register. He says after actor Robert Downey Jr.'s latest arrest, attempts to portray him as a tragic Shakespearean hero don't make sense. He's not that great an actor.

In the final installment of our Changing Face of America series on the changing face of sports and society, NPR's Uri Berliner travels to Orange County, California, to see how girls fast-pitch softball has changed. The game has become big business, with highly paid pitching and hitting instructors, and super elite travel teams that all but assure scholarships to major universities. But gone too are the days when softball was just a game, and many girls are feeling the pressure to succeed in the sport on and off the field.

NPR's Mara Liasson examines President Bush's first 100 days in office by comparing them to his predecessor's first 100 days. He's generally receiving good marks from presidential scholars and political analysts, but the public still has some reservations.