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All Things Considered

Melissa Block and Robert Siegel

In-depth reporting and transformed the way listeners understand current events and view the world. Every weekday, hear two hours of breaking news mixed with compelling analysis, insightful commentaries, interviews, and special - sometimes quirky - features.Melissa Block and Robert Siegel

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World
2:16 pm
Fri January 25, 2013

Spain's Strapped Towns Look To Churches For Cash

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Credit JMN / JMN/Getty Images
The Cathedral of Alcala de Henares is one of many buildings owned by the Catholic Church in Alcala de Henares, Spain. The town, which is outside Madrid, is broke and is pursuing a plan to have the church pay additional taxes.
Credit JMN / Cover/Getty Images
The Catholic Church owns more than just places of worship. It also owns apartments and retail buildings. Here, arcades line the busy Calle Mayor (Main Street) in Alcala de Henares, Spain, in 2008.
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Originally published on Fri January 25, 2013 4:12 pm

The Catholic Church is Spain's largest and richest landowner, though its nonprofit status means it is exempt from paying most taxes.

But amid the current economic crisis, that may be changing.

One college town just outside Madrid is leading an effort by some Spanish municipalities to serve the church an up-to-date property tax bill.

Alcala de Henares is re-evaluating the status of hundreds of church holdings that have been exempt from paying property tax for hundreds of years.

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Music
1:42 pm
Fri January 25, 2013

New Opera Gets Benefit Of The 'Doubt'

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Credit Michal Daniel / Minnesota Opera
In the operatic version of Doubt, Father Flynn (Matthew Worth) must defend his name after a suspicious Sister Aloysius (Christine Brewer) accuses him of sexually abusing an altar boy.
Credit Michal Daniel / Minnesota Opera
Playwright John Patrick Shanley transformed the text of his 2005 play Doubt into the libretto of a new opera. He says he appreciates the medium's musical and moral complexities.
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Originally published on Fri January 25, 2013 6:25 pm

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Planet Money
12:49 pm
Fri January 25, 2013

Free Breast Pumps And The Cost Of Health Care

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Originally published on Fri January 25, 2013 4:12 pm

Health insurance plans now have to cover the full cost of breast pumps for nursing mothers. This is the result of a provision in the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), and the new rule took effect for many people at the start of this year.

It's led to a boom in the sale of the pumps, which can cost hundreds of dollars.

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Europe
10:58 am
Fri January 25, 2013

Honoring 'Our Will To Live': The Lost Music Of The Holocaust

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Credit Courtesy of Francesco Lotoro
The Nazis imprisoned Czech composer Rudolf Karel (shown here in a sketch from 1945) for helping the resistance in Prague. He wrote his compositions down on toilet paper.
Credit Sylvia Poggioli / NPR
Italian musicologist Francesco Lotoro is on a decades-long mission to find and resurrect music composed by prisoners at camps before and during World War II. Here, he plays music in his home in Barletta, southern Italy.
Credit Plinio Lepri / AP
Lotoro displays a copy of music by Rudolf Karel, a Czech composer (in 1945 sketch at left) imprisoned by Nazis for helping the resistance in Prague, in a music shop in Rome, Feb. 22, 2007. Denied access to regular paper, Karel wrote his compositions down on toilet paper. He died of dysentery at the Terezin camp.
Credit Courtesy of Francesco Lotoro
Austrian musician Viktor Ullman composed more than 20 operas while imprisoned by the Nazis. In an essay, he wrote: "By no means did we sit weeping on the banks of the waters of Babylon and our endeavor with respect to arts was commensurate with our will to live." He died in the gas chambers at Auschwitz in 1944.
Credit Courtesy of Francesco Lotoro
Frida Misul, a singer from Livorno, Italy, was deported to Fossoli and eventually was at Auschwitz. She survived World War II and died in 1992.
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Originally published on Fri January 25, 2013 9:21 pm

For the past two decades, in a small town in southern Italy, a pianist and music teacher has been hunting for and resurrecting the music of the dead.

Francesco Lotoro has found thousands of songs, symphonies and operas written in concentration, labor and POW camps in Germany and elsewhere before and during World War II.

By rescuing compositions written in imprisonment, Lotoro wants to fill the hole left in Europe's musical history and show how even the horrors of the Holocaust could not suppress artistic inspiration.

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Monkey See
4:44 pm
Thu January 24, 2013

Home Video Review: 'Buster Keaton: The Ultimate Collection'

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Credit Kino Lorber
Buster Keaton, aka "The Great Stone Face," brought side-splitting comedy to the silent-screen era. Here, he's pictured in 1924's The Navigator.
Credit Kino Lorber
The 14-disc Ultimate Keaton collection is a treasure trove of silent-comedy genius, says NPR's Bob Mondello.
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Time now for a home-viewing recommendation from NPR movie critic Bob Mondello. A quiet recommendation — because Bob is touting the Ultimate Buster Keaton Collection, a 14-disc set of classic silent comedies.

Silent film had three great clowns. Charlie Chaplin's Little Tramp is the one everyone remembers; all-American daredevil Harold Lloyd is the one who made the most money; and Buster Keaton was the genius.

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