Live from NPR News…it's the visual newscast

Plus, Scott Simon shares his love for the French national anthem.

View this email online by Suzanne Nuyen July 16, 2023 Good morning. This week, Hollywood actors went on strike, Bank of America was ordered to pay $250 million in fines, and Fox News was hit with another defamation suit. Plus, Scott Simon shares his favorite renditions of the French national anthem. Best of NPR How does a newsletter writer stay on top of the biggest stories every single day? I have my ways 😉 One of them is watching NPR's visual newscast. I love hearing Korva Coleman, Windsor Johnston and other hosts say with dulcet tones: "Live from NPR News…" NPR The NPR newscast unit has been around since 1989. The team started broadcasting live 24 hours a day during the Persian Gulf War. Weekend newscasts were added later, making it a 24/7 operation.  The visual version of the newscast launched in 2018 for smart speakers. Now, it's available for anyone to watch on NPR's home page. Nicole Werbeck, the Deputy Director of NPR's visuals team, says it's been fulfilling to find new ways to bring NPR's reporting to audiences on multiple platforms. You can even find Korva Coleman on Tiktok! "We know that people are consuming much more video content than ever before," Werbeck says. "We want to continue to bring audiences the information they are looking for on the platforms they are using." You can watch the NPR visual newscast on weekdays online from 7 a.m.-11:30 a.m. ET. You can also say, "Alexa, play the news from NPR" or "Hey Google, play the news from NPR" to watch it on Echo Show or Google Nest devices. Newsletter continues after sponsor message The Week That Was  Peter Power/AFP via Getty Images Humans have had such a profound impact on our planet that our soot, plastics and radioactive fallout have been preserved in the Earth. It's led geologists one step closer to formally naming a new epoch: the Anthropocene, or the age of humans. 🎧 Scientists propose that it began in the 1950s with the nuclear era. They'll vote on the official designation next summer. The U.S. State Department says it's receiving about 400,000 passport applications a week. The department announced in March it would take about 13 weeks to process new or renewed passports, but many travelers are seeing even longer wait times derail international travel plans. 🎧 Travelers still have some options if they need a passport on short notice, according to Clint Henderson from the travel website The Points Guy: You can pay for expedited service, get the passport express shipped or call your congressional representative for help. The list of Republicans running for president is long. The list of Democrats challenging Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination is much shorter. Robert Kennedy Jr. announced his campaign in April. Since then, he's regularly shared a range of falsehoods and conspiracy theories on podcasts and at other campaign appearances. The U.S. announced last week that it would supply cluster munitions to Ukraine to help the country defend against Russia, despite concerns from human rights groups. Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Lewis M. Simons shares his perspective on the bombs with NPR. The U.S. dropped over 2 million tons of ordnance on Laos in the 1960s and '70s, including cluster bombs. Simons writes that these bombs are still killing, crippling and disfiguring civilians to this day. Podcast Picks Valentina Antuganova/Getty Images/iStockphoto Ted Radio Hour: Join Manoush Zomorodi as she explores the biggest questions of our time with the help of some of the world's greatest thinkers. 🎧 Where do you see yourself in 10 years? 20? TED speakers explore why it's so hard for us to predict how we'll evolve and give some tips for planning for the future while giving space for the unexpected. Bullseye with Jesse Thorn: Celebrate the best of the arts with in-depth interviews with the most revered and revolutionary minds in our culture. 🎧 It's been a half-century since Kool & the Gang started making music, and they're still at it. In this episode, Robert "Kool" Bell stops by to chat about the band's new album, share stories about their most popular songs and discuss what motivates them to keep recording. Off the Path from New York to Boston, from WSHU: Reporter Davis Dunavin travels the road from New York to Boston, looking for unusual stories and fascinating histories. 🎧 In this episode, Dunavin dives into the story of Benton MacKaye, an idealistic forester who was inspired by a Vermont mountaintop to set in motion the construction of the Appalachian Trail. Scott's Thoughts Ludovic Marin/Pool/AFP via Getty Images Because Bastille Day was on Friday, our half-French family has heard the national anthem, "La Marseillaise," a lot this week. Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle’s 1792 composition is identifiable from its first blood-stirring notes. There should almost be a warning for the lyrics: “Let us march! Let us march! May impure blood water our fields!” Ah, but the tune is so catchy! We’d like to share a few versions of the anthem we especially treasure: ➡️ The rendition from the Paris 2024 Olympic Committee has glimpses of history and modernity. Musicians play from the Seine, the Louvre, the Notre Dame as it's being rebuilt, and a skateboarding park. It ends with an other-worldly finish from French astronaut Thomas Pesquet.  ➡️ I found myself moved to tears as my wife and I sang along to the anthem at the French Embassy in Washington, D.C., where we saw France play in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. The shining faces of the French national team, with names from all over the world — Theo Hernandez, Ibrahima Konate, Youssouf Fofana, and the peerless Kylian Mbappé — seemed indisputably proud to represent the changing face of modern France on the world stage. ➡️ We may find the singing of the anthem in a nightclub during the 1942 film Casablanca kitschy and colonialist now. But many of the actors were war refugees from Europe. Their tears evoke a moment when France was occupied by fascist forces, and the world didn’t know if we would ever hear La Marseillaise sung in freedom again. Marchons! Marchons! Listen to your local NPR station. Visit NPR.org to hear live radio from WUFT 89.1 (edit station). This newsletter was edited by Majd Al-Waheidi. Enjoying this newsletter? Forward to a friend! They can sign up here. Looking for more great content? Check out all of our newsletter offerings — including Music, Politics, Health and more! You received this message because you're subscribed to Up First emails. This email was sent by National Public Radio, Inc., 1111 North Capitol Street NE, Washington, DC 20002 Unsubscribe  |  Privacy Policy