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China's Air Pollution: Is The Government Willing To Act?

Credit Ng Han Guan / AP

Skyscrapers are obscured by heavy haze in Beijing on Jan. 13. Air pollution remains a serious — sometimes overwhelming — problem, but researchers say environmental technology is available to solve it.

Credit Frank Langfitt/NPR

Environmental regulation can make a difference. In Shanghai, the government limits car ownership by auctioning off license plates each year at prices exceeding $14,000 apiece. Shanghai also benefits from its location on the water and winds coming off the East China Sea.

By Frank Langfitt

Originally published on Fri May 24, 2013 10:55 am

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Denise Mauzerall arrived in Beijing this year at a time that was both horrifying and illuminating. The capital was facing some of its worst pollution in recent memory, and Mauzerall, a Princeton environmental engineering professor, was passing through on her way to a university forum on the future of cities.

"I took the fast train from Beijing to Shanghai, and looking out the window for large sections of that trip, you couldn't see more than 20 feet," Mauzerall recalled.

To Mauzerall, the lesson was surprising and inescapable.

2:18 am

Fri May 24, 2013

Can This Man Bring Silicon Valley To Yangon?

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Credit Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

Educated in the U.S., Aung worked in Silicon Valley for a number of tech companies, including Google, before returning to Myanmar. Here he is at his office shortly after closing time. His employees keep to a tight schedule, starting early in the morning and leaving at 5:30 p.m. every day.

Credit Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

Aung gives one of his employees feedback during a monthly meeting. Giving regular feedback is one of the management techniques he brought from Silicon Valley to Myanmar. After the meeting, he hands his employees thick envelopes that contain their salaries in cash. Even though Nay eventually hopes to develop online and mobile payment services, most of his employees prefer to be paid in cash.

Credit Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

One of Aung's employees holds up the receipt of a payment he is about to deliver to one of Aung's partner hotels. Even though Aung enables tourists to handle their travel bookings online, he still has to deliver cash to his partners by hand.

Credit Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

One of the main challenges Aung faces in running an Internet startup in Myanmar is not having a consistent Internet connection. There are several Internet and electricity outages every day.

Credit Lam Thuy Vo / NPR

Nay Aung is the founder of Oway, a tech startup in Yangon, Myanmar. He used Taste Cafe as his unofficial office when he started his company — in part because it was one of the few places in Myanmar with a stable Internet connection.

By Robert Smith

Originally published on Fri May 24, 2013 8:29 am

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Like a proud father, Nay Aung opens up his MacBook Air to show me the Myanmar travel website he has built. But we wait 30 seconds for the site to load, and nothing happens.

"Today is a particularly bad day for Internet," he says. This is life in Myanmar today: Even an Internet entrepreneur can't always get online.

1:49 am

Fri May 24, 2013

Guava Paste And Tamarind? What To Do With Weird Food Gifts

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Credit Courtesy of Harrison Gowdy

Harrison Gowdy of Dayton, Ohio, has accumulated various Indian spices, guava paste and coconut oil — among other things.

Credit Courtesy of Lisa Keating

Mollie Katzen, author of Moosewood Cookbook

Originally published on Fri May 24, 2013 7:59 am

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This is an installment of NPR's ongoing Cook Your Cupboard, a food series about improvising with what you have on hand. Have a food that has you stumped? Submit a photo and we'll ask chefs about our favorites.

Harrison Gowdy of Dayton, Ohio, has developed a reputation among friends and family of liking everything and wasting nothing.

"Sometimes I'll even find things like Swiss chard dropped off on my doorstep," she says. And sometimes she receives foods that stump her.

1:46 am

Fri May 24, 2013

Military Moms: A Bond Borne From Shared Loss

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Credit StoryCorps

Sally Edwards (left), 80, and Lue Hutchinson, 71, visited StoryCorps in Cincinnati. Their sons, Jack Edwards and Tom Butts, are buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Credit Courtesy of Sally Edwards

Jack Edwards, a Marine captain in the Gulf War, was killed in February 1991.

Credit Courtesy of Lue Hutchinson

Tom Butts circa 1991 on top of a Black Hawk helicopter. The Army staff sergeant was killed in the Gulf War.

Originally published on Fri May 24, 2013 7:22 am

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In 1991, Kentucky residents Sally Edwards and Lue Hutchinson had sons serving in the Gulf War. Sally's son, Jack, was a Marine captain. Lue's son, Tom Butts, was a staff sergeant in the Army. The two men never knew each other, but today, their mothers are best friends.

Both soldiers were killed in February of 1991. Jack was 34. "They were the cover for a medical mission. The helicopter lost its top rotor blade, and they didn't make it back," Sally says.

1:03 am

Fri May 24, 2013

Igor Stravinsky's 'Rite Of Spring' Counterrevolution

Credit Erich Auerbach / Getty Images

After his shocking ballet, The Rite of Spring, Igor Stravinsky branched out in surprising directions.

Originally published on Fri May 24, 2013 7:54 am

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As the 100th anniversary of Igor Stravinsky's ballet The Rite of Spring approaches, commentator Miles Hoffman reminds us that — as earthshaking as that infamous debut was — the composer soon branched out into a variety of musical styles that would surprise his fans and critics.

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3:11 am

Fri May 24, 2013