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Latin America
2:19 pm
Thu January 12, 2012

Ordinary Life Resurrected, Slowly, In Haiti

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Credit Jason Beaubien / NPR
A storefront in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, is brightly painted with a message welcoming President Michel Martelly into power. Two years after a devastating earthquake destroyed much of the Haitian capital, progress is palpable.
Credit Jason Beaubien / NPR
Gerline Rousole, 22, stands next to her son, Savoiu, 7, in Place Pigeon, a displaced-person camp outside the National Palace in Port-Au-Price. Both of Rousole's parents died in the Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake. "If my parents were still alive, I wouldn't be here," she says.
Credit Jason Beaubien / NPR
At the Place Pigeon camp, residents bathe in the streets by pouring water over themselves from a basin.
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Originally published on Thu January 12, 2012 9:28 pm

In Port-au-Prince, a radio blares from speakers in front of a guy selling pirated CDs on Delmas, a main street in the Haitian capital. Women sitting along the side of the road hawk everything from vegetables to cigarettes to pharmaceuticals. Overloaded tap-taps, the pickup trucks that serve as the main form of public transportation here, chug up the hill.

The scene is one that's remarkable for being unremarkable: Though it occurred this week, it could just as easily have been Port-au-Prince two years ago, before a massive earthquake destroyed much of the capital.

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The Two-Way
2:13 pm
Thu January 12, 2012

Foxxconn Resolves Dispute With Workers Who Threatened Suicide

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By Eyder Peralta

Earlier this month, a group Chinese workers at Foxxconn spent two days on the roof of one of the companies factories in central China. As The Telegraph reported, the workers were threatening to commit suicide to protest their working conditions.

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The Salt
2:08 pm
Thu January 12, 2012

Why X-Rayed Food Isn't Radioactive, And Other Puzzles

Credit Lui Kit Wong / MCT /Landov
Irradiation is most often used to kill insects, parasites, or bacteria in or on spices, which are typically dried outdoors in before being shipped.
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By editor

Originally published on Thu January 12, 2012 3:23 pm

Earlier this week, we were surprised to learn that food manufacturers increasingly X-ray foods to screen for foreign objects that can break a tooth. That sounds like a good idea.

But the notion of X-rayed food also sparked a lively debate in The Salt's comments section on whether this poses a health threat. After all, we do know that some X-rays can damage DNA in the human body. So what does radiation mean for food?

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The Two-Way
2:04 pm
Thu January 12, 2012

Court Martial Recommended For Bradley Manning In WikiLeaks Case

Credit Patrick Semansky / AP
Army Pvt. Bradley Manning last month.
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Originally published on Thu January 12, 2012 2:28 pm

An investigating officer has recommended that Army private Bradley Manning face court-martial on multiple criminal charges related to the downloading of nearly 1 million war logs and secret diplomatic cables. Manning is accused of taking the files and them passing them on to WikiLeaks.

If he does face a court martial and is convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.

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Movie Reviews
2:02 pm
Thu January 12, 2012

An 'Iron Lady' Fully Inhabited By Meryl Streep

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Credit The Weinstein Co.
Meryl Streep (center) stars as Margaret Thatcher in Phyllida Lloyd's biopic about the former prime minister of the United Kingdom.
Credit Alex Bailey / The Weinstein Co.
Streep plays Margaret Thatcher — and Jim Broadbent her supportive husband, Denis — in The Iron Lady.
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Originally published on Fri January 13, 2012 11:12 am

I admit I was biased against the Margaret Thatcher biopic The Iron Lady. Not, you understand, against Thatcher and her Tory politics. Against Meryl Streep and her accents. Which are great, no doubt. But I went in resolved not to fall for her pyrotechnics yet again. I wanted realism.

Well, it didn't take long to realize that I was watching not only one of the greatest impersonations I'd ever seen — but one that was also emotionally real.

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