This is Weekend Edition from n.p.r. News I'm Scott Simon the president is working to open States with governor's races on the ballot this year last night Mississippi Mr Trump rallied in Tupelo with Republican Tate Reeves the lieutenant governor who's in a tighter than expected race against the Democrat Jim Hood the state's longtime attorney general N.P.R.'s Debbie Elliott was at the rally joins us from Tupelo How are you Debbie I'm good how are you Scott fine thank you and what was the president's message there in Tupelo you know that a victory for Tate Reeves on Tuesday would be sending a direct message to the quote radical left crazy Democrats who are out to impeach him he talked a lot about the House impeachment inquiry calling it an attack on democracy itself but he also zeroed in on Reeve's opponent Jim Hood if you don't 2 want a far left Democrat running Mississippi wait a minute how is this guy you know I can't believe this is a competitive race and it's like embarrassing I'm talking to Mississippi. You know I'm talking to Mississippi I can't believe it Debbie how does this become a tight race you know Mississippi is typically very reliable Republican territory you have to remember Trump beat Hillary Clinton here roughly 60 to 40 Republican take Reeves's the lieutenant governor who emerged from a really tough primary Her head is the attorney general is the lone Democrat to hold statewide office and he's held it for quite a time now he's well known Reeves is certainly the favorite but he struggled to generate a lot of enthusiasm in some circles he also has a reputation for being hard nosed as lieutenant governor which is a very powerful position in Mississippi so he's got some enemies even within his own party he's trying to combat all of that by assuring voters that he is Trump's man in Mississippi here he is last night when the choice was Donald j. True or crooked Hillary Jim Hood stood with Hillary Clinton. And today with the election just days away I am standing with President Donald Trump to Tenet governor Tate Reeves Jim Hood once more will mention is Mississippi's attorney general Ozzie respond to attacks like that you know he claims that Tate Reeves is resorting to labels because he doesn't have a good plan to move Mississippi forward and he had is also sort of tried to show that he's aligned with Mississippi voters on issues like gun rights and the state's restrictive anti-abortion laws which he has defended his ads featuring with his pickup truck his wife Bull and his hunting dog but you know he's trying to show he's he's of the people right so yesterday in Tupelo yet a news conference ahead of Trump's of as that and said you know Mississippi voters voted for him for the last 16 years and no is record people here know that I'm not a liberal and moderate. So it's telling that Trump came here to Tupelo in the northern hills of Mississippi good lives close by he has proven he can win in this part of the state in typically Republican districts a trump campaign spokesperson said to me last night that there is a strategy and a reason why Trump came here and could tell how voters those you've been able to speak with really have responded to the president's attempt to link himself to the lieutenant governor's campaign it was a very adoring crowd and they responded with enthusiasm when the president talked about take Reeves I spoke with Amy Kaufman of Columbus who says this rally is just what was needed to fire up g.o.p. Voters no tremendous happy smiling Republicans America loving Southern loving we're just one big great family that wants the best for America the best for the South the best for Mississippi so we'll find out if that's enough to keep Mississippi's governorship in Republican hands come Tuesday N.P.R.'s Debbie Elliott thanks so much you're welcome Medicare for all it's been a rallying cry in the Democratic primary but how to pay for Elizabeth Warren was pressed on that in the October debate and still hardworking middle class families costs will go down and now she's released her plan Julie Rovner joins us to see if it all adds up she's chief Washington correspondent for Kaiser Health News Julie thanks so much for being with us thanks for having me one of the issues with Medicare for all the idea of expanding Medicare to cover all Americans is that it can take a few different forms in order to pay for it Elizabeth Warren had to sketch out exactly what her version would look like right that's right this is very much different from what Bernie Sanders even introduced in the Senate there were many many questions that were remained an answered in his proposal that Elizabeth Warren has gone in and answered which she needed to do because it's it's hard to say how much something's going to cost. Unless you know exactly how much you're planning to pay for it and she has gone in and said basically how much she's planning on paying for a lot of the health care that people now consume help us understand the structure that she has proposed with the Kardashians but she says she wants billionaires and businesses to pay for that's right she said that in most cases she wants to pay hospitals and doctors what Medicare now pays what Medicare for senior citizens which would be very different from the Medicare we're talking about in Medicare for all though that is considerably less than many private payers pay doctors and hospitals they will not like having their payments reduced to that level but that does make everything cheaper and makes it easier for her to finance and easier to finance by basically taxing the rich which is essentially what she's doing she would also require people who are paying in now not individuals but businesses and states to continue to pay and that would also help finance this new system going forward the numbers add up they add up to what she says it would cost she said that they would be able to raise money by better enforcement of the tax laws which is something that everybody wishes would happen she's got some money in there from reforming immigration which the jest she's planning on reforming immigration before she does health care so there are a lot of ways that it might or might not add up it would add up if everything she anticipates happens Senator Warren says taxes would not go up on the middle class is that practical. Well there's one thing said the taxes won't go up on the middle class under her plan taxes won't go up on the middle class it's another thing to say that people in the middle class would pay less overall than they do now for health care yes health care would be free at the point of service but it's hard to know how much the employers would continue to pay and that is money that's basically out of workers' paychecks and if you have very generous benefits now and or you don't use very much health care in the end you might actually not end up paying less than you pay now it depends what you have now to know whether your costs won't go up how did Medicare for all become such a rallying point in the Democratic Party not so long after the Democrats had claimed credit for reforming health care with the Affordable Care Act Well I think the idea of Medicare for all is that it's easier at least it sounds easy that everybody would have what seniors have the government would fund it it would be we would be able to save money it would be more administratively simple of course it turns out and if you read Elizabeth Warren's plan it reads like a graduate seminar in health policy Medicare for All is anything but easy because the health care system is incredibly complex and moving to something more streamlined would be extremely difficult so for this plan to work a lot of things would have to fall into place that you share any president would have to get through Congress that's right and I think the other thing is that we normally don't see presidential candidates putting out proposals of this specificity although this is Elizabeth Warren's brand is to put out these very specific very complicated plans but this is mostly something that a president doesn't do this is something that Congress would have to do generally presidents like to leave it to Congress to work their will she has however come out and she believes that it is in her interest politically right now to have this specific a plan with proposals to pay for it Kaiser Health News chief Washington correspondent Julie Rovner thanks so much for being back with us thank you. President Trump will attend the Ultimate Fighting Championship m.m.a. Mixed martial arts event at Madison Square Garden tonight the event of course is a punching kicking pay for view brawl between Nate Diaz and Jorge mosfet out of the takes place inside a cage the winner gets a belt embellished with the initials b m f which is not stand for best mocha frappe Mr Trump is not expected to be booed Madison Square Garden as he was at a World Series game earlier this week the president is a fan of ultimate fighting and used to book m.m.a. Events into his casino in Atlantic City millions of people all over the world from all backgrounds watch mixed martial arts I'd wager there may not be much crossover between the Ultimate Fighting audience and npr's although no doubt each could learn from the other u.f.c. Fans cheer for maneuvers like the ground and pound flying knee in the getting choke N.P.R.'s audience gets choked up about tote bags Tiny Desk Concert and Terry Gross but mixed martial arts are not burlesque like pro wrestling where actor athletes like epic Okolona an ember moon play characters that Harlan hurt each other according to a script m.m.a. Is real violence fans will tell you how it combines boxing wrestling judo capillary and other techniques that all that translates into to human beings who punch grab kick knee and gouge each other in a cage even after an opponent hits the floor to the role or of thousands Senator John McCain once called m.m.a. Human cockfighting that would later work with promoters to fund research into brain injury in the sport at least 6 fighters have died from m.m.a. Matches since 2006 that's actually fewer deaths than boxing or high school football but a spectator sport does not have to be deadly to be damaging. President like any of us is free to enjoy any entertainment or diversion but what they choose draws attention there's so much to do this weekend in New York a food fest in Little Italy didn't last more dose at the Greenwood Cemetery comedy clubs jazz joints and plays the New York cat and dog Film Festival and the New York City Marathon on Sunday where athletes will use their feet to run not kick someone in the chest there are lots of ways to enjoy r you can surf the web with any internet connection but there's just one Jeff that the only I espied that directly supports j p r Jeff net is a noncommercial community oriented service of the j.p. Your listeners guild and your subscription helps us underwrite the new music and entertainment we bring you on the air and online you need an internet connection so choose the one that supports your favorite public radio station choose Jeff. Jeff not dot org or call us at 866 Jeff next. With these headlines crews in southern California have moved into a 3rd day fighting a hilltop wildfire northeast of Los Angeles the Maria fire is threatening nearly 2000 homes and other buildings and has displaced thousands of residents of fire the latest that has kept California firefighters busy President Trump is back at the White House after last night's rally in Tupelo ahead of Tuesday's election in Mississippi he used the impeachment inquiry to attack Democrats 100 support for the Republican in the tight race for governor there he's planning to be at Madison Square Garden for tonight's u.f.c. Fight and energy secretary Rick Perry is refusing an invitation to testify before a House impeachment investigators a department spokeswoman says Perry will not answer questions privately but will consider giving public testimony on trial Snyder n.p.r. News from Washington. Support for n.p.r. Comes from this station and from the financial services firm of Raymond James offering personalized wealth management advice and banking and capital markets expertise along with a legacy of putting clients financial wellbeing 1st learn more at Raymond James dot com from the Walton Family Foundation where opportunity takes root more information is available at Walton Family Foundation dot org And from listeners like you who donate to this n.p.r. Station. This is Weekend Edition from n.p.r. News I'm Scott Simon You may have heard some stuff about Ukraine recently with impeachment and all that stuff and to Ukrainian Americans involved in it there's a tenant Colonel Alexandrov in mn who recently testified and live Parness who may have helped him try to dig dirt who may have helped try to dig dirt in Ukraine on Joe Biden turns out both of these men came of age in a certain place Brighton Beach. Show reporter Alina Simone visited that Brooklyn and played. For many Brighton Beach remain something of a time capsule a forever frumpy land of Boris and Natasha as but a lot has changed in the past decade or well to Brighton beach I saw exactly the street I knew from the songs from the news from the movies from the command there is but you know nothing is endless all that fresh as an expert in the Stacia he sells it for a living as a jazz singer and as the host of a weekly music show on Russian language television fish moved to Brighton Beach in 1901 the Soviet Union was about to collapse and the crime rate in New York City was at an all time high fish remembers the years when exiled Soviet artists and intellectuals routinely mingled with. Like people from the criminal world. Raised from the table and just greet me all the high come or was a no no I wish it was someone I wanted to stay apart but became thought. About the It was the last big club on Brighton Beach Avenue to close it sad of course it's because National is the he's 3 at least the wildlife from the lives of the father of the people who used to come here in the ninety's in the eighty's every week but only because moving on literally he wants to move to Manhattan for more of what he calls a contemporary lifestyle and he says he won't have any trouble unloading his apartment from ocean from Ocean that's the key what right no in recent years Brighton Beach has become a Mecca for regular New Yorkers seeking a summer getaway developers have taken notice to last year a local developer announced plans to build a 13 story luxury apartment complex in Brighton Beach its proposed name Trump village tower for n.p.r. News I'm Alina Simone in Brighton Beach. There's nature of a crisis in Pakistan and it affects children. Since April more than $850.00 cases of infected children have been reported and health care workers are raising the alarm over systemic issues in Pakistan's health care system Fatima Meir teaches pediatrics at kharaj Aga Khan university she joins us from Karachi thanks so much for being with us Dr Meir thank you for having me Scott we've reached you in karate but you also work in Russia taro or I gather at least one doctor has been reusing dirty syringes on children what have you seen what do you know about in Pakistan most of the children who are positive for each i.v. Are either true Madonna transmission or true and unsaved blood transfusion this is the 1st time they have found a very large cohort of children very few of their mothers are infected very few have had transfusion but almost all of them have had multiple injections from local physicians not just one full very very minor childhood illnesses as a community of rural say in an interior send this place at the Bedouin lot of Qana is this is a place where your population is from the lower socioeconomic strata of society they may not necessarily be able to afford $5.00 to $70.00 or a $7.00 to $10.00 day course off or the medication so what they do Scott is the Oscar for one or 2 injections because that is the magic bullet to to break the fever to help the symptoms resolve and this is why people sort of. Fall but intro injections all over the of forgive me Dr Miller but don't physicians and health care workers know not to reuse an old needle I think RINGBACK over time Scott infection control has not been given a lot of importance in medical training we're also finding that just because of lack of resources. And poor commitment and poor organization of infection control committees infection control is a very low priority in a place where most emphasis is on provision of medicines and on diagnosis what are authorities doing what can they do they shut down all the quacks and the unregistered medical practitioners who were practicing in Larkana at that time and they set up this regulating body known as the Senate health care commission which has I think up to date closed down at least $300.00 clinics also Scott a special committee has been set up with the government which is going to work on infection control is especially in public sector hospitals because the system right now is pretty much dysfunctional Well how will the health care system now confront hundreds of children and possibly adults who might have. Your very very correct so you see HIV in focused on up till now was predominantly an adult disease suddenly now it has affected a large pool horde of children and children who actually was supposed to have standard risk not high risk now Scott is a district with almost 13 percent stunting and about 9 percent wasting so malnutrition has a high prevalence the under 5 mortality is high in this district initially there was so much hysteria that people were not looking at stigma so much but now as the dust is settling down people are now being ostracised their livelihoods are Tretton because see if a merchant is known to have any child in the family people will stop buying from him so we are seeing these stories come up and the government is now trying to work with communities and to build up communities so that we can provide social support to these patients so it's a large task which lies ahead of us. Thought him a mayor who teaches pediatrics at karate Zaka Khan University thanks so much for being with us thank you Scott. The revision errors is a story that ties together women of different generations in a family line of different races that spans more than a century it opens with Eva the mixed race single mother who moved in with Martha her declining white grandmother and has brought closure to the story and spirit of Josephine. Her other grandmother's great grandmother who escaped from slavery as a child to become a landowner and a matriarch Margaret Wilkerson section's new book is the revision nurse and she joins us from the studios of Youth Radio in Oakland thanks so much for being with us thank you for having me it's my pleasure tell us about mistruths a feeling the overwhelming major If you're so Josephine is a former in slave woman and a former sharecropper and though she has that very haunting history she's flourishing in 1024 she's in our seventy's She's widowed but she has huge family support she's locked up on owning a 300 acre farm so she has resources that she never would have imagined having and she's doing well when we meet or however this is the year that a white woman moves in next door and Josephine is reticent at 1st but soon they do form this cautious relationship that grows until Josephine discovers that the neighbor is a member of the women's branch of the k.k.k. And then many many many generations later we have Ava who is a biracial woman as you said and who is financially strapped in is and decides to move in with her white grandmother but soon her grandmother's behavior becomes erratic and even racist and the 2 story lines Josephine's and Eva's threaten to converge I love reading about mistress a pretty who who creates a real community doesn't treat. It's it's amazing. I have a great grandmother Margaret Ellen Radford Miller and my father would always talk about her as ahead of her time and she would give these great speeches at her church and she was instrumental in her own community and I didn't think about it consciously but in retrospect reading from Josephine section I'm starting to imagine a connection between those 2 women that I've never even met my great grandmother at that community she built and the power that she held even in such a limited period of time for her it reminds me of the character Josephine has little cult special powers to. She does she well she's a healer she's she has some psychic gives We have 2 periods in the book we have 1024 when we meet her and she's in her seventy's and then she's consistently flashing back to her time as an insulated little girl when she and her family are planning this escape and the community that's planning this escape and 855 is a group called the revision earth and they come together and they perform these very supernatural spiritual rituals where they're attempting to get themselves out of slavery but it's not through necessarily traditional or logistical means you know there are examples of them you know hobbling horses and diverting the master's attention to help the other enslaved people escape but mostly it's through the power of their minds and their imaginations and their spiritual force that they're that they're conducting these plans and so Josephine is from that tradition and that tradition carries her into the rest of her life. Who says mine magic based on a history you discovered or your literary imagination you know it's interesting it's not based on history but at least most of it I could imagine happening in my own family because I've seen elements of it they're not necessarily exact examples listed here but just the same kind of realm of the spiritual world very easily melding into the natural one like what. Well so this is a but it's not too personal no it's not I mean I grew up my mom's best friend and I did readings all the time you know and it's not like the traditional readings you would think of like you know someone on the corner turning cards or anything she just and she had this way of of imagining what would happen and informing people of what happened whether that was true or not I grew up thinking that that was a legitimate way to do to be in the world and you know the significance of dreams in my family is very important people are people take it very seriously if you have a dream about something there are different variations in the interpretations but I think most people in my family agree that they're significant and they're to be relied upon for guidance and I am sorry if this is too personal but you kind of open the door do you. Your dream speech I mean you work things out in your dreams that's a good question my dreams do speak to me but not so far not in terms of the books maybe maybe one day when I think Philip Roth said he wouldn't or wherever he would start he would take a nap and he would work things out in a dream maybe I need to try that it sounds awfully convenient. Yeah it's definitely a win when you think I would just wake up and go oh the same old problem. I do feel a little refresher. I turned the last page and I thought the real Earth of the story is that a boat in Josephine trying to each other. I think so I mean one of the main messages that I wanted the readers to get from the book was that. There is intergenerational trauma Yes but there's also intergenerational strength and wisdom and power that's passed along from our ancestors struggles and in this story the more Eva connects with that ancestral history and base of knowledge the stronger she becomes Margaret Wilkerson Sexton her novel The revision years thank you so much for being with us thank you. You're listening to Weekend Edition from n.p.r. News there's a widely used family of pesticides that's controversial because it can harm pollinators like bees now there's evidence it could also be risky for organisms in water like insects and fish. That evidence comes from a lake in Japan that N.P.R.'s Dan Charles has the story. Lake Shinji lies near the coast next to the Sea of Japan morrow a scientist with a geological survey of Japan this is the lake is famous for its views of the setting sun It's an amazingly beautiful Do people come in to look at the sunsets to see the lake yes yes we have a special spot for that historically there were thriving fisheries here people harvested clams and eels and small fish called smelts but morrow says about a decade ago people noticed the fish were declining rapidly and I was asked to investigate when she started investigating she realized the decline in fish population did not seem to coincide with anything that people were keeping track of like the lake salinity or levels of pollution but she noticed something else one kind of fish in the lake was doing fine this one had a more diverse diet it could eat as well as tiny insects in the water the Eels and the smells that were in trouble they mostly ate insects and crustaceans and that fish food was disappearing so we concluded something cute that's accrued over the e.u. In snow she now thinks she knows the culprit pesticides called Nica to know it's the evidence is circumstantial right around the time the fish started having problems farmers near the lake started using these pesticides on their rice paddies to control insect pests and Jamar a found traces of these chemicals in some parts of the lake enough she thinks to cause problems for tiny aquatic animals also these chemicals kill insects not the algae that the thriving fish are eating she and her colleagues just published these findings in the journal Science. Jason Hoover man an ecologist at Purdue University in Indiana says The study does not really prove that Neo next annoyed are guilty there is no historical data showing levels of pesticides in the lake back when the fish started to die but he says it is a reasonable suspicion and it's good to remember that chemicals can have really complicated effects on an ecosystem when we think about chemicals we often just go right to direct access to the of chemical and I thinking about the food web implications link between the food of the fish in the impacts the chemicals on that food near nicotine noids have become really controversial in recent years partly because they're used so widely corn and soybean and other seeds that are coated with these pesticides are planted on close to $200000000.00 acres of land every year in the United States and they're extremely toxic to be now scientists like Overman are starting to look more closely at their effects on insects that live in streams and rivers these chemicals can definitely end up in water rights so we apply them on land and they don't stay on land the question becomes are they what was. The cause of problem he says in some cases it looks like they may be but many times scientists are still searching for the answer Dan Charles n.p.r. News. Weekend singer sedan archives uses her instrument to say what she can't the violin is like an extension of me and I make these crazy sound that probably could make my voice my disposal much more comfortable like doing it through an instrument I'm Leila father and the debut album from Sudan archives Saturday on all things considered that's all things considered Saturday evening of fun I have here on j p r. Hi I'm Mark Shively I live in Oregon 'd and I donated my beloved 1990 'd 8 a Camry it was a great car. And well prepared putting more. Than a long time supporter of the 'd station you're a pretty smart and I've heard these testimony was before and I keep thinking if I ever do that where I want to go what I was so impressed when I donate your car is a j p r r o o r g. M Joel Snyder with these headlines Well Asia's leaders are urging Southeast Asian countries to stick together when it comes to world trade a prime minister Mahathir Mohamad spoke today on the sidelines of the regional aisy on summit in Bangkok amid the trade war between China and the u.s. Thousands of demonstrators again defied on Kong police today they streamed into the city shopping district with police using tear gas to break up the protesters this is the 22nd straight weekend of demonstrations in the Hong Kong office of China's official news agency it was vandalize for the 1st time in baseball fans are crowding into Washington d.c. Today a parade honoring the World Series champion Washington Nationals is set for the center now on trial Snider n.p.r. News from Washington. Support for n.p.r. Comes from this station and from new I'm offering a personalized weight loss program that uses psychology and small goals to change habits with a goal of losing weight and keeping it off for good learn more at noon an o.m. Dot com and from Fred Rica and Howard Stephenson supporting all in college which is working to help the next generation of engineers develop the entrepreneurial skills experience and mindset to bring technological innovations to market learn more at Olan dot edu This is Weekend Edition from n.p.r. News I'm Scott Simon there's been an exodus from Deadspin the popular sports and not just sports news site much of the staff quit this week after the new owners demanded that they stick to sports Meghan Reed Well was the site's editor in chief before she left in August for similar reason she's written about her departure from Deadspin thank you so much for being with us thank you for having me so why did so many reporters and editors for a sports site find it unacceptable to be told stick to sports. A couple of reasons one the beauty of Deadspin has always been that it has been very freewheeling it's so many people's favorite websites because they can come to it to read about everything the 2nd reason is because sports cannot be contained as just sports particularly in this era we live in you know you look at what's going on in the n.b.a. Right now and it's a story about economics and China and business interests you look at Collin Kapur Nick and it's about race and social justice the idea of sticking to sports it's just not doable and when we were ordered to do it we just knew it wasn't something we could ethically do and that we would lose all our readers if we did now no g.o.v.t. Of the sites owners said in a statement I'm sure you've read the $24.00 the top $25.00 stories in September were about sports and the non sports content accounted for less than one percent of the page views and they mention stories like classic rock ranked or your g.d. Right it's layering season or it's Ok to log off what do you say so your g.d. Right it's layering season was a weird one to include because that was Drew Magary wildly popular weekly n.f.l. Column. Just a very strange inclusion that indicates once again that they did not read the site they had bought the New York Times reported that our non sports content did about twice as well and yet it was only about 2 percent of our total output it was side content that we did for fun but it was a vital part of what made this enterprise great and interesting and one of the last you know fun and weird places on the internet but does. An owner have the right to say sorry I just want to support site is my candy store. Sure of course if an owner wants to burn down a profitable wildly popular site yes he can absolutely torch his own candy store I think it's very unfortunate that we've reached a place in media where so many private equity people like that are able to make those decisions and able to kill things that mean a tremendous amount to a tremendous number of people you know we were getting between 18 and 20000000 unique visitors a month that's a lot of people that cared about this enterprise I also think it's a very sad thing that doesn't portend particularly well for independent media well and let me ask you about that because you've been outspoken when you've been writing since the demise of Deadspin where you sort of describe a cycle where a new owner comes in and they're you know from the world of hedge funds or finance and they say boy this is my chance to be involved in the world of ideas and then they begin to you know the see the results in the clicks and they decide. Maybe I'll do something different I mean that yeah like I was just like that well. Is digital media too much driven by clicks sure yeah I certainly think it's a problem when your entire business model is so easily corrupted like that the benefit of Deadspin was it was getting a lot of clicks and also you know I'm biased but I would say was was doing a lot of quality content as well. But yes I certainly think it's a problem when everything is driven by just how many eyeballs can we get on the page because sometimes that's compatible with quality and sometimes it's just not making Greenwell former editor of Deadspin now works for Wired thank you so much for being with us yet thank you so much for taking the time. And tune in to Weekend Edition Sunday with Lulu tomorrow for what the story means for young women today and people young women will resign her House seat after nude photos of really gone to the Internet or are there lessons there for people who grew up online and should people who didn't grow up as so-called digital natives rethink how they feel about private images to become public you can tune in tomorrow by asking your smart speaker to play n.p.r. Or your member station by name. American Son opens in a Miami police station in the middle of the night where worried mother frets about her missing son and his frustrated at the lack of information she gets from a police officer who tells her he understands he's got kids too I am doing the best that I can. Wow we're really going to go there we've been there for a while. Now. Let's skip the 50 top to the k. Because believe me. You've got no idea that's Jeremy Jordan and Kerry Washington. American Son No Netflix is adapted from the Broadway play by Christopher de Mersch Brown Kerry Washington the star of scramble is the film star and executive producer and she joins us from New York thanks so much for being with us thank you for having me you played this role on stage and Broadway Why did you want to play it again I guess from the moment I 1st to read the play American Son I really was drawn to it because I think the material is so moving and to provide good have. I felt that it was important to do the work in to expose it to audiences but I also was aware of the barrier to entry that is inevitable in theater you know whether it's the price point of tickets on the Broadway stage which of course we tried to adjust for we had student tickets and discount prices but it's still a lot of money and also just the barrier of geography you know not everybody can get to New York to see a play so the opportunity to tell the story on screen and basically democratize theater in this way was really exciting for me the train set the scene a little more yet it's a dark and stormy night it is and Kendra the mother of Jamal knows that knows only that she can't reach her son and his car was involved in some kind of incident what do you are a teacher about some of the questions the police officer who by the way I note is always eating a donut. Often not always right. I wonder if drinking coffee and I wonder if you're a teacher can put a lot of weight during the Broadway run but you know he was he was very tactical on the economy of his bike but what are your tapes the mother can do about some of the questions that he asks I think Kendra is really disturbed because she is aware of Officer Larkin's unconscious bias he's asking her question. Gins about her missing son that implied that her son is. A street kid he asks if he has tattoos if he has gold teeth if he goes by a street name and I think it really bugs Kendra that he's already decided that kind of kid that her son is just based on the fact that he has a black mom who's looking for him. And Jim all the song. Says that he feels like the face of the race Have you ever felt that way. You know I I was obviously drawn to the narrative because of Kendra and who she is I myself am a black woman I have black children but I realize that a big part of what drew me to the material was also my deep understanding of Jim all that I am a kid from a working middle class family who went to a very prestigious private school and had to navigate some of those treacherous cultural investigations or discovery process of who am I And how do I fit in in all the different worlds that I belong to and I think feeling like the face of the race is not an unknown feeling for me you know there was a lot of talk when scandal 1st aired that it was the 1st show in 30 years to have a black woman as the lead of a network drama and with that came a lot of pressure I mean there was nothing I could do to guarantee eyeballs Unfortunately my business is not often meritocracy but I knew that I had to reach toward excellence in every area because even though I couldn't control the result if scandal was a failure it might be another 40 years before a black woman was allowed to be the leader of a network drama instead in the success of scandal we had empire and how to get away and Quantico and station 19 we had all of these shows with the black women at the helm because what was considered a quote unquote risk before we aired suddenly became commonplace so why do I do understand from various perspectives and at different times in my life a little bit about what Jamal is going through and there's a heartbreaking Well I will simply stipulate there are about 50 hurt broken but. One in particular where. Kendra says that she would sometimes put their son to sleep and just walk into his bedroom because she'd wake up in the middle of the net worried about him she'd have nightmares about what what might await him in life. What's your question well as it happened you. You know parenting is always an act of vulnerability the moment that you have that little person outside of your body if that's your path into parenting and there are a lot of ways to get there but once that little person is here in the world every day is a practice in letting go and you do everything you can to protect them and to try to create a safer world for them but we're not in control as parents it's funny when I was approaching the character I have I feel like I was approaching her in parallel paths one from a kind of intimate psychological perspective where I was minding my own fear and anxiety as a black woman and as a mom but at the same time at that I was working very personally I was also working in this kind of much more historical sociological anthropological track because there has always been in this country a history of state violence against black children if you begin with slavery to Emmett Till to feel endo Cast Steel It is a history of the vulnerability of being the parent of a black person and I think it's one of the things that's really powerful about that piece is that if you walk with us for these 90 minutes if you let yourself be in this nightmare you cannot say that communities that are disenfranchised and that are in hostile relationship with police that that we are overreacting you must understand what the experience is when you allow yourself to spend this evening with us Kerry Washington star and executive producer of American sun streaming on Netflix thank you very much for being with us thank you so much. The enormous anti-government protests in Chile over the past few weeks have brought thousands together. Was. Last week thousands in Santiago were led by dozens of guitarist playing a resistance anthem against the brutal regime of a Pinochet back in 1973. Director David Beard had the right to live in peace was originally a tribute to be at Mom's communist leader who she meant singer Francisca Valens whaler says is an icon in today's Chile he gave his life for his country is a tremendously talented composer and songwriter who was taken by the military to that theater ship and there was the peanuts and was killed he was 1st imprisoned and he had his hands cut off while being detained he even saying and wrote with the other prisoners and was a beacon of hope and resistance. This past weekend 30 trillion artists including ballads well of released a new recording of the right to live in peace. So this part of what is called the. Social agreement and what the movement currently fighting for basic. Human rights and dignity in terms of education and health pensions the movement has specific requests and it's actually adopted into the leader in the 1st. Human level. So I think what really incredible that right now in the artistic and cultural community is very active we're really connected to things happening every single day whether it's shows and to stations marches there's been a family's everything all day which have also you know live music I really feel very proud of my cultural community that we're part of because everyone's been very active and really putting their voice in the music of the service of this moment French is given to a lot talking about a new version of the song as director David Beard and. This is Weekend Edition from n.p.r. News I'm Scott Simon support for n.p.r. 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Foundation in your will or trust support our Indomie or even become a business underwriter. You have lots of options find out which ones are right for you at our Web site at r.j. P.r. Dot org Just click on the support j p r tab or you can call us at 18726191 thanks for spending part of your day with us. This is j p r southern Oregon University's Jefferson Public Radio 89 point one k s m f Ashley n.p.r. News analyst things moves. From . Live from n.p.r. News in Washington Snyder President Trump is back at the White House after traveling to Mississippi for last night's campaign rally where he used the impeachment inquiry dirts supporters to vote for the Republican in the race for governor in Tuesday's election N.P.R.'s Debbie Elliott reports the contest is being hotly contested. Told an adoring crowd in Tupelo that electing Republican tape for governor would amount to a referendum on the impeachment inquiry on Tuesday.