All Things Considered

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GUY RAZ, HOST:

It's WEEKENDS on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News. I'm Guy Raz.

It's been more than a day now since news broke of a blind Chinese dissident's dramatic escape from house arrest. It's now thought that Chen Guangcheng secretly traveled 300 miles to the capital, Beijing, and is being sheltered on the grounds of the U.S. embassy there.

NPR's Beijing bureau chief is Louisa Lim, and she joins me now from there. Louisa, first off, is it clear that he is actually on embassy grounds?

Since winning American Idol in 2005, Carrie Underwood has become one of the most popular country artists in the business. At the age of 29, she is tied with country legend Reba McEntire as the Female Country Artist with the most number one hits on the Billboard charts. Not bad for a girl from Checotah, Okla.

Today at All Things Considered, we continue a project we're calling NewsPoet. Each month, we bring in a poet to spend time in the newsroom — and at the end of the day, to compose a poem reflecting on the day's stories.

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ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

Our book reviewer, Alan Cheuse, has been visiting the early days of British settlements in Australia. His means of transport is an award-winning novel called "That Dead Man Dance." It's by Australian writer Kim Scott.

ALAN CHEUSE, BYLINE: Cygnet River, the coast of southwestern Australia, early in the 19th century, first contact between the aboriginal Noongar people and the crew of settlers from England led by a well-meaning medical man named Dr. Cross. The Noongars are represented by young Bobby Wabalanginy.