It's All Politics
1:58 pm
Sat August 11, 2012

Ryan Boosts Romney's Conservative Credentials, But Also Mobilizes Opponents

Credit Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images
Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin shakes hands with Mitt Romney as he's introduced as Romney's vice presidential running mate Saturday in Norfolk, Va. The USS Wisconsin is in the background.

Originally published on Sat August 11, 2012 3:09 pm

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney discarded his increasingly inert better-safe-than-sorry campaign strategy Saturday when he named budget hawk and Democratic bete noire Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate.

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Credit Doby Photography / 2010

Liz Halloran joined NPR in December 2008 as Washington correspondent for Digital News, taking her print journalism career into the online news world.

Halloran came to NPR from US News & World Report, where she followed politics and the 2008 presidential election. Before the political follies, Halloran covered the Supreme Court during its historic transition — from Chief Justice William Rehnquist's death, to the John Roberts and Samuel Alito confirmation battles. She also tracked the media and wrote special reports on topics ranging from the death penalty and illegal immigration, to abortion rights and the aftermath of the Amish schoolgirl murders.

Before joining the magazine, Halloran was a senior reporter in the Hartford Courant's Washington bureau. She followed Sen. Joe Lieberman on his ground-breaking vice presidential run in 2000, as the first Jewish American on a national ticket, wrote about the media and the environment and covered post-9/11 Washington. Previously, Halloran, a Minnesota native, worked for The Courant in Hartford. There, she was a member of Pulitzer Prize-winning team for spot news in 1999, and was honored by the New England Associated Press for her stories on the Kosovo refugee crisis.

She also worked for the Republican-American newspaper in Waterbury, Conn., and as a cub reporter and paper delivery girl for her hometown weekly, the Jackson County Pilot.

Local News
11:53 am
Sat August 11, 2012

Kentucky's Ever-Changing Liquor Laws Confound Drinkers, Proprietors

Laws governing the sale of alcohol in Kentucky are already labyrinthine, and to make things more confusing, they are often in flux. It seems like one county or another in the Commonwealth is always voting on whether to be dry (no alcohol sales), wet (alcohol sales allowed), or moist (drinks can be consumed in restaurants, but package sales are prohibited). Marshall County recently held such a vote—they chose to remain a dry county—and emotions ran high on both sides.

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It's All Politics
9:42 am
Sat August 11, 2012

Romney Names Rep. Paul Ryan As His Running Mate

Credit Win McNamee / Getty Images
The Republican ticket at this morning's announcement in Norfolk, Va.: Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, left, and Republican Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

Originally published on Sat August 11, 2012 3:11 pm

  • Listen to NPR's Live Coverage

Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan is Mitt Romney's choice for running mate on the 2012 Republican presidential ticket.

The official word, which began leaking overnight, came early this morning from the Romney campaign via a smartphone app and a news release.

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Election 2012
8:15 am
Sat August 11, 2012

Ryan Brings Big Ideas, And Some Risk, To GOP Ticket

Credit Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan is popular with conservatives and brings enthusiasm to the ticket. He won his House seat at 28, which means that now, at 42, he's a seasoned legislator.

Originally published on Sat August 11, 2012 9:43 am

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's newly announced running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, has youth and experience. A conservative from a swing state, he has big ideas and the policy chops to back them up.

He also brings a kind of enthusiasm Romney could use: He's a darling of the conservative base that Romney has had a harder time winning over.

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Andrea Seabrook covers Capitol Hill as NPR's Congressional Correspondent.

In each report, Seabrook explains the daily complexities of legislation and the longer trends in American politics. She delivers critical, insightful reporting – from the last Republican Majority, through the speakership of Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats' control of the House, to the GOP landslide of 2010. She and NPR's Peter Overby won the prestigious Joan S. Barone award for their Dollar Politics series, which exposed the intense lobbying effort around President Obama's Health Care legislation. Seabrook and Overby's most recent collaboration, this time on the flow of money during the 2010 midterm elections, was widely lauded and drew a huge audience spike on NPR.org.

An authority on the comings and goings of daily life on Capitol Hill, Seabrook has covered Congress for NPR since January 2003 She took a year-and-a-half break, in 2006 and 2007, to host the weekend edition of NPR's newsmagazine, All Things Considered. In that role, Seabrook covered a wide range of topics, from the uptick in violence in the Iraq war, to the history of video game music.

A frequent guest host of NPR programs, including Weekend Edition and Talk of the Nation, Seabrook has also anchored NPR's live coverage of national party conventions and election night in 2006 and 2008.

Seabrook joined NPR in 1998 as an editorial assistant for the music program, Anthem. After serving in a variety of editorial and production positions, she moved to NPR's Mexico Bureau to work as a producer and translator, providing fill-in coverage of Mexico and Central America. She returned to NPR headquarters in Washington, D.C. in the fall of 1999 and worked on NPR's Science Desk and the NPR/National Geographic series, "Radio Expeditions." Later she moved to NPR's Morning Edition, starting as an editorial assistant and then moving up to Assistant Editor. She then began her on-air career as a weekend general assignment reporter for all NPR programs.

Before coming to NPR, Seabrook lived, studied and worked in Mexico City, Mexico. She ran audio for movies and television, and even had a bit part in a Mexican soap opera.

Seabrook earned her bachelor's degree in biology from Earlham College and studied Latin American literature at UNAM - La Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico. While in college she worked at WECI, the student-run public radio station at Earlham College.

The Two-Way
1:13 am
Sat August 11, 2012

Reports: Romney Chooses Paul Ryan As Running Mate

Credit M. Spencer Green / AP
House Budget Committee Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis. introduces Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney on April 3, 2012.

Originally published on Sat August 11, 2012 8:17 am

Update at 8 a.m. ET. It's Official:

We're following the story now over at It's All Politics — Romney Picks Wisconsin's Ryan To Be His Running Mate On GOP Ticket.

Update at 1:30 a.m. ET:

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Arts and Humanities
4:25 pm
Fri August 10, 2012

Moderately Successful Poet, Jeffrey Skinner

Credit Erin Keane

Jeffrey Skinner, formerly a private investigator, is the author of five books of poetry, most recently Salt Water Amnesia (2005), and two anthologies of poems, Last Call: Poems on Alcoholism, Addiction, and Deliverance; and Passing the Word: Poets and Their Mentors.

He recently penned The 6.5 Practices of Moderately Successful Poets: A Self-Help Memoir for Sarabande Books.

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Local News
4:24 pm
Fri August 10, 2012

Drought Devastates Kentucky Corn Crop

The hot, dry summer has taken a toll on Kentucky's corn crop, which could result in the lowest yields in nearly 30 years.

A government report issued Friday predicts an average statewide corn yield of 65 bushels an acre. That's down 74 bushels from last year's crop. And it would be the lowest yield since the 1983 crop produced 48 bushels per acre.

Corn production in Kentucky is forecast at nearly 97 million bushels, down 46 percent from last year.

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