All Things Considered

A storm is brewing in Washington that could darken political debate for months to come. It's about the debt, the deficit, taxes and spending — all hot topics lawmakers have been fighting about for years now.

This time, though, there's a deadline, and the consequences of inaction would be immediate. That has many in Washington saying: Here we go again.

In the past week, President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner have begun a new round of sparring over the U.S. debt ceiling.

Transcript

ROBERT SIEGEL, HOST:

On Mount Everest, the climbing season is at its peak, and that means that if clear conditions hold, hundreds will attempt to scale the mountain this weekend alone. Suppose you wanted to climb the world's highest peak, Would it alter your decision if you knew that rescue was just a phone call and a helicopter ride away? Well, it turns out that helicopter rescues have been increasingly common in the mountains of Nepal. And that has raised lots of questions about risk-taking, not just for climbers, but for pilots, too.

Sufjan Stevens is a classically trained singer-songwriter whose recent work has leaned symphonic. Son Lux is a classically trained beatmaker whose solo albums do indeed evoke luxury. Serengeti is a self-trained rapper who creates voices for a panoply of full-fledged characters who range from scufflers to yuppies. Billed as s / s / s, this ad hoc trio has just released an EP called Beak and Claw that somehow synthesizes their specialties.

For years now, the Tea Party has held individualism up as the great American value. But Washington Post columnist and Georgetown University professor E.J. Dionne Jr. says that while Americans have always prized individualism, they've prized community just as much.

In 2004, pitcher Curt Schilling became a New England folk hero. That's the year he helped the Boston Red Sox beat their archrival, the New York Yankees, by pitching with a surgically repaired ankle. And when that wound started to bleed, his bloody sock also became legend.

On All Things Considered today, NPR's Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson will look ahead to Egypt's first free presidential election — voting begins Wednesday and is expected to lead to a mid-June runoff — and how some Egyptians who played roles in last year's revolution there are refusing to take part because they don't trust the military leaders who run the country.

"That's just crazy," Cincinnati Reds fan Caleb Lloyd said Monday night after he ended up snagging two home runs balls — from consecutive batters — during the Reds' 4-1 win over the visiting Atlanta Braves.

A deal has been agreed to that will facilitate international monitors' effort to investigate whether Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency told reporters in Vienna earlier today.

The Financial Times puts the news this way:

There they go again — those 17 federally appointed experts at the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force are telling American doctors and patients to stop routinely doing lifesaving tests.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled Monday that that a Florida man's children, conceived after his death through in vitro fertilization, are not entitled to Social Security survivors benefits. More than 100 similar cases are pending before the Social Security Administration, but Monday's ruling is unlikely to resolve most of them.

A few weeks back the Huffington Post and the nonprofit group Youth Service America issued a list of the 25 most powerful and influential young people in the world.

And one of them is from Derry, New Hampshire. Dylan Mahalingam founded the volunteer organization Lil’ MDG’s in 2004, at age nine. Since then he’s worked to encourage millions of youths to find ways to improve conditions for young people. He joins All Things Considered host Brady Carlson with more about what he does.