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The Strand Bookstore, a New York City icon home to 2.5 million books and 92 years of storefront history, was commemorated by the city and chosen as a historic city landmark this week. Nancy Bass Wyden, the store's third-generation owner, isn't taking it as a compliment. "Some people have congratulated me and I said, 'No, this is no congratulations. This is a punishment,' " Bass Wyden tells NPR's Scott Simon. Bass Wyden feels that the designation is counterproductive. "We don't need the city to come in and just put red tape and bureaucracy and take control over decision-makings of the...

On National Public Radio on Saturday morning, Weekend Edition anchor Scott Simon interviewed Ed Martin, a pro-Trump author and Republican Party man, reveling in the Donald Trump-Steve Bannon feud. Martin said “I'm trying not to be on a side - it's like Mom and Dad had a little bit of a disagreement. I prefer to think that it's going to settle down and they're all in the family here, you know.” So Simon suggested Trump might be a lunatic: SCOTT SIMON: But disagreement - Steve Bannon is quoted as saying -- and to my knowledge this statement has not been...

Bill Cosby was asked on NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday whether he had anything to say about the resurgence of allegations that he sexually assaulted multiple women years ago. He didn't. Instead, he shook his head, and refused to say a word. Cosby's long comedy career and pedestal as one of America's favorite TV dads have been overshadowed in recent days, as the allegations have gained new attention, though they are not new. One of his accusers wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post on Thursday, an attempt at a Cosby meme generator was overrun with negative comments and Cosby's scheduled...

Weekend Edition Saturday Host Scott Simon talks to award winning Turkish novelist Elif Shafak about the nature and deeper causes of the protests in Turkey, which erupted two weeks ago.

NPR Host/Occupy Protester Says She's Been Fired By Tim Graham Created 10/20/2011 - 10:56am AP is reporting NPR host/Occupy protest leader Lisa Simeone has been fired: "A freelance broadcaster who works for music and documentary programs has been fired from a job after NPR questioned her involvement in a Washington protest." Lisa Simeone said Thursday that she was fired from "Soundprint," a documentary show that is not produced by NPR, but by Soundprint Media in nearby Laurel, Maryland. "Simeone says she was fired Wednesday in a phone call during which NPR's code of ethics was read to her." Simeone is...

Baltimore broadcaster Lisa Simeone fired back Wednesday night after National Public Radio told the Baltimore Sun it was looking into her role as a spokesman for a group involved in the Occupy D.C. movement. The public radio veteran expressed puzzlement as to why NPR "objects" to her exercising her "rights as a citizen," and she questioned why such big-name NPR correspondents and hosts as Mara Liaason, Scott Simon and Cokie Roberts are allowed to operate under what appears to be a different standard than the one being applied to her. At issue is whether NPR feels her activities on behalf...

NPR: Obama's Fat Lip Could Improve Image With Jong Il, Ahmadinejad and Putin By Noel Sheppard | November 27, 2010 | 17:14 Noel Sheppard's picture It appears that at NPR, even a fat lip for the President is to be heralded as a crowning achievement furthering his prestige and street cred when dealing with despots like Kim Jong Il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. According to Scott Simon, a president with a "gnarly, vivid scar" might even be able to intimidate China's rulers into halting their currency manipulation (audio follows with partial transcript and commentary): SCOTT SIMON, NPR: Just three weeks after...

The first time I heard the words "John Kerry" and "president" at the same time was the spring of 1971. John Forbes Kerry, 27 years old, a Yalie, a Navy vet wearing battle ribbons on a rumpled Army fatigue shirt, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that he could not support the war in which he and other veterans had risked their lives and killed Vietnamese. "Thirty years from now," he told a rapt audience, "when our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able...