Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit SCOTT SIMON, HOST: This week, Coca-Cola announced it will buy Moxie, a tiny soda brand that's Maine's official state soft drink. The beverage has a cult-like following - kind of like B.J. Leiderman, who writes our theme music. Jay Field visited Lisbon Falls, Maine, the soda's unofficial home JAY FIELD, BYLINE: Moxie is almost like lobster or blueberries in Maine. It's firmly woven into the culture here, but it also stirs up more passions than those other Maine icons. Think "Star Trek" or, say, the Grateful Dead. LINDA WALLACE: If you like it, you like it. If you don't, you don't. FIELD: Take this crowded table at the Railroad Pub, where Linda Wallace and some friends are nursing early evening drinks. Wallace and Moxie - not so much. But her pals... PAT DEROCHER: He'll drink it any day of the week. PAUL DEROCHER: All the time. FIELD: To Pat Derocher and her husband Paul, nothing tastes quite like a Moxie. A waitress places one of those familiar

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Neil Simon wrote more than 30 plays and screenplays, including "The Odd Couple," "Barefoot In The Park" and "Brighton Beach Memoirs." He won Tonys, Oscars and the Pulitzer Prize. But when he died this week at the age of 91, Quinn Cummings remembered that she had a piece of theatrical history. Quinn Cummings was just 10 years old when she was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar in Neil Simon's 1977 film, "The Goodbye Girl." (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE GOODBYE GIRL") QUINN CUMMINGS: (As Lucy McFadden) I can't sleep. MARSHA MASON: (As Paula McFadden) Give it five minutes. You just got into bed. CUMMINGS: (As Lucy McFadden) I can predict the future. MASON: (As Paula McFadden) Yeah? How about predicting mine? (SOUNDBITE OF PHONE RINGING) CUMMINGS: (As Lucy McFadden) I could predict the phone ringing in your life. (SOUNDBITE OF PHONE RINGING) SIMON: She starred alongside Marsha Mason and Richard Dreyfuss in "The Goodbye Girl."

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Memorial services are underway, as we speak, for Senator John McCain at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. Meghan McCain spoke urgently and passionately about the legacy of her father. We're joined by Ron Elving. He's NPR's senior editor and correspondent on the Washington Desk. Ron, thanks for being with us. RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott. SIMON: And NPR's Kelsey Snell is outside of the cathedral. Kelsey, can you hear us? KELSEY SNELL, BYLINE: Yes, I can. SIMON: Henry Kissinger is speaking at the moment. We've also heard from Senator Joe Lieberman. Let me ask you both about the remarks made by Meghan McCain - deeply personal eulogy, deeply personal memories of her father and reaction but also some very pointed things to say with political smack, if I might put it that way. Ron and Kelsey, let me just quote one. She said, "we gather here to mourn the passing of American greatness, the real thing, not

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Gary Shteyngart spent a lot of time riding Greyhound buses and hanging out with hedge fund managers to research his new novel, "Lake Success." Barry Cohen, his main character, has lost nearly a billion dollars from his fund, and the feds are on his trail, and his 3-year-old son is diagnosed on the severe end of the autism scale. So Barry Cohen leaves behind his billions, his Amex Black Card, his overwhelmed wife and his ailing child and hits the road with just a few $20 bills in his pocket and his exquisite watch collection. He's in flight from his problems and, like all great road books, maybe in search of himself. Gary Shteyngart, the author of several best-sellers, including "Super Sad True Love Story" and "Absurdistan," joins us from New York. Thanks so much for being with us. GARY SHTEYNGART: Great to be here, thank you. SIMON: You know, I say this with respect - it's been a while since I enjoyed a novel as much that has

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit SCOTT SIMON, HOST: The black market for insects may have just gotten a whole lot bigger. And yes, there is a black market for bugs. Last month, thousands of insects were stolen from the Philadelphia Insectarium. Reportedly, it was an inside job by some disgruntled former employees. Well, wouldn't working with so many bugs gruntle you? The bugs are valued at around $50,000. BILL REYNOLDS: Butterfly specimens have been known to easily fetch a few thousand dollars. SIMON: That's Bill Reynolds, curator of the Arthropod Zoo at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences. He told us over Skype the black market for exotic animals is rife with insects and spiders. Hobbyists, pet stores, even some adventurous home cooks all over the world are trying to avoid the red tape of animal exporting laws to get their hands on exotic insects. REYNOLDS: The modern day Internet has made it much easier for people to seek out and acquire. Generally, it begins in

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit SCOTT SIMON, HOST: In the film "The Children Act," Emma Thompson plays Fiona Maye, a High Court justice who's palpably brilliant and accomplished but also contends with conflicting morals and her own unraveling marriage. She's asked to rule on if a 17-year-old boy who was a Jehovah's Witness should be compelled to receive blood transfusions even though it conflicts with his faith. The justice decides on seaming impulse to see him in the hospital. (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "THE CHILDREN'S ACT") EMMA THOMPSON: (As Fiona Maye) Should we let you do yourself in? Somehow, I've got to decide. FIONN WHITEHEAD: (As Adam Henry) I think it's my choice. THOMPSON: (As Fiona Maye) I'm afraid the law doesn't agree. WHITEHEAD: (As Adam Henry) The law is an ass. THOMPSON: (As Fiona Maye) So they say. SIMON: "The Children Act" is written by Ian McEwan based on his novel. It also stars Stanley Tucci and Fionn Whitehead. And Emma Thompson, who this year became a Dame

"I'm supposed to be a dead man," says Bobi Wine, a Ugandan musician turned politician. His driver Yasin Kawuma was shot dead on Aug. 13. Wine tweeted a graphic picture he said was of the man's dead body. Wine says police were the ones who shot Kawuma, but Wine says he was their real target. Bobi Wine's real name is Robert Kyagulanyi Ssentamu. He rose to fame as a musician — first with love songs and dance songs, but more recently turned to political themes in his music. His 2017 song "Freedom" has become a rallying cry for the country's opposition. In the same year, Wine was elected to the country's Parliament as an independent. He's become a leader in opposing the country's longtime President Yoweri Museveni — in power since 1986. Museveni is known for violently crushing dissent. Human Rights Watch says the government "continues to violate free association, expression, and assembly rights." "We are living in a country where life does not mean a thing," Wine tells NPR's Scott Simon.

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit SCOTT SIMON, HOST: And Tropical Storm Florence continues to drench the Carolinas. There's flooding, downed trees and buckled roads. Trillions of gallons of water have come down as rain. Nearly a million people are without power. At least five deaths have been linked to the storm. And, of course, rescue efforts are underway at this moment. Todd Terrell is with the Cajun Navy, a volunteer rescue group, and he joins us from Wilmington, N.C. Mr. Terrell, Captain Terrell - whatever I call you - thanks so much for being with us. TODD TERRELL: Yes, sir. Thank y'all for having me. SIMON: And what are you seeing? How bad is this? And you have seen a lot. TERRELL: We've seen a lot. Last night, honestly, was about the scariest part I've been with a group of volunteers, even though it wasn't the worst weather we went through. In Wilmington, we - I guess, we caught the tail end of it. And as it came through here, they had some straight-line winds came through

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) SCOTT SIMON, HOST: And to the uplifting notes of B.J. Leiderman, who writes our theme music, Major League Baseball is headed into the final weeks of the regular season. Mercy, is there a race in the NL Central. Howard Bryant of ESPN and espn.com joins us. Howard, thanks for being with us. HOWARD BRYANT, BYLINE: Good morning, Scott. SIMON: Oh, it is a good morning. The Cubs defeated the Reds - I mean the Cincinnati baseball team, not the KGB - 3-2. The Brewers defeated the Pirates 7-2. The Dodgers defeated the Cards 3-0. This put the Cubs a game and a half above the Brew Crew (ph) and five ahead of the Cards. These are three very worthy teams, aren't they? BRYANT: You know what, Scott? We talk so much this year about the president, and we talk about the NFL when we talk about Colin Kaepernick, and we talk about Serena and we talk about all of these things, but this has been such an underrated baseball season. And this is my

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit (SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "DING DONG MERRILY ON HIGH") UNIDENTIFIED SINGERS: (Singing) Ding dong merrily on high... SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Linus Vlatkovich grew up in the mining town of Hibbing, Minn. His father was a miner who hoped his son would become a dentist. And he tried for a while in college. But... LINUS VLATKOVICH: It just wasn't the right place for me. And when I changed to theater, they were not real excited about that. SIMON: Theater - a parent's heartbreak. But Linus Vlatkovich ended up building a career building props for 46 years at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. He eventually earned the nickname Prop God. His parents worried when the Guthrie first called Linus in 1972. VLATKOVICH: They asked me if I would like to work there for the summer and then hire me in the fall. So I said sure. They said they didn't have any real money to pay me, but they'd pay me out of petty cash. So I got three $30 paychecks. SIMON: Over the years, Linus

Copyright 2018 KERA. To see more, visit KERA . SCOTT SIMON, HOST: In Texas, a race that no one expected to be this competitive. The candidates for Texas Senate battled in a debate last night. KERA's Christopher Connelly reports from Dallas. CHRISTOPHER CONNELLY, BYLINE: It was a scene that feels kind of rare in American politics these days. Two guys with diametrically opposed opinions lobbing barbed policy prescriptions back-and-forth without any name calling. Senator Ted Cruz and Congressman Beto O'Rourke were forceful and civil - mostly. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) BETO O'ROURKE: You just said something that I did not say... TED CRUZ: What did you not say? O'ROURKE: ...And attributed it to me. CRUZ: What did you not say? O'ROURKE: I'm not going to repeat the slander and the mischaracterization. CRUZ: So what did you say? What did you say? O'ROURKE: I'm not going to repeat the slander and mischaracterization. CRUZ: You're not going to say what you did say? CONNELLY: Ted Cruz is

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Now it's time for sports. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) SIMON: The Red Sox take the AL East. The Cleveland Browns actually win a game. And Vontae Davis of the Buffalo Bills puts on a halftime no-show. Howard Bryant of espn.com and ESPN The Magazine joins us. Howard, thanks so much for being with us. HOWARD BRYANT, BYLINE: Good morning, Scott. Is it really that much of a stretch to go from a toilet flushing to a team - The Cleveland Browns that hadn't won a game since 2016. I mean, is it... SIMON: No, no. Had the handoff... BRYANT: ...Really that much of a stretch? SIMON: been there,... BRYANT: (Laughter). SIMON: ...I would have made the turn. Well,... BRYANT: I know you would have. SIMON: Yeah. Well, let's talk about baseball first, though, if we can. The BoSox won the AL East this week with, I don't know, 200 victories or whatever. But is that going to mean much if they get into the playoffs and Chris Sale, their ace pitcher, has an

Copyright 2018 West Virginia Public Broadcasting. To see more, visit West Virginia Public Broadcasting . SCOTT SIMON, HOST: When it comes to making voting more secure, cybersecurity experts say the U.S. should move away from electronic voting machines back towards paper ballots. West Virginia's headed in the other direction. That state is experimenting with allowing service members deployed overseas to vote using an app on their smartphone. But as West Virginia Public Broadcasting's Dave Mistich reports, there are some big security concerns about that app. DAVE MISTICH, BYLINE: Here's the challenge for West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner - federal law says military and overseas voters have the right to cast an absentee ballot. But... MAC WARNER: The real issue here is the difficulty it takes to get that absentee ballot to a deployed soldier on a hillside in Afghanistan or to a sailor under a polar ice cap. The U.S. mail simply doesn't reach those places. And so they do have

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit SCOTT SIMON, HOST: A note written in March of 1930 said, difficult times of war lie behind us. We hope for better times soon to come. Poor roofers who worked on a cathedral in Goslar, Germany, left that note in a glass bottle, stashed it in the roof and patched it over. Eighty-eight years later, a roofer named Peter Brandt was working on that same roof and found the bottle. He knew one of the names on that note, Willi Brandt - his grandfather, not the former leader of Germany. Peter Brandt used to work with his grandfather and eventually took over the family business. The Washington Post reports Peter Brandt has memorized a line from his grandfather's 1930 note. (Reading) We worked an entire week for one pound of butter and one bread. Every day, we're discussing the many problems we have as a city, says Peter Brandt, but with this letter from 1930, we can see that the many problems that we perceive aren't really problems. The note is now in the

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Finally, time for sports. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) SIMON: The NFL suddenly powered by free agents. Are the Pats running out of gas? And the return of the Tiger (imitating tiger roar). Joined now by NPR sports correspondent Tom Goldman, who's somewhere in Minnesota - actually, Minneapolis. He's pretty easy to find. Tom, thanks so much for being with us. TOM GOLDMAN, BYLINE: Always a pleasure, Scott. How are you? SIMON: I'm fine, thanks. A little over three weeks into the season. Free agents are getting contracts. Among them, let me ask you about safety Eric Reid. This was kind of a surprise, yes. GOLDMAN: Sure is. And it is not just any free agent signing. Eric Reid, former San Francisco teammate of Colin Kaepernick's. He followed Kaepernick's lead and was the second player to take a knee during the national anthem protests. And he also filed a collusion grievance against the NFL, like Kaepernick, after he wasn't signed as a free

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Cheers rolled through Wrigley Field Tuesday night. The Cubs lost that night to the Pittsburgh Pirates, though they've clinched a playoff spot. Another drama unfolded above right center field. Photographer Will Byington was rolling as a large rat kept trying to leap from the shallow fencing, just above the fabled outfield, onto a wall into a small patch of grass next to the bleachers. Cubs fans, who, to be blunt, have cheered on quite a few rats over the years, clapped and shouted as the rat jumped once but missed, then twice but fell short, kind of like the Cubs always used to. Then finally, jumped a third time and... (SOUNDBITE OF CHEERING) SIMON: All right. The video of his leap was soon winging around the Internet. A number of people have commented that Wrigley Rat had to jump several times because he looks especially well-fed Well, Rick Bayless has a green chiles taco stand in the right field seats. Wrigley Rat may just need

Copyright 2018 KJZZ. To see more, visit KJZZ . SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Jeff Flake and Rachel Mitchell, of course, are two of the featured players in this week's emotional and contentious back-and-forth over the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh. They both happened to be from Arizona. Will Stone of member station KJZZ took to the streets of Phoenix and Tempe to find out what Arizonans are thinking. WILL STONE, BYLINE: Lorraine Pellegrino had no qualms with how Republicans handled Judge Kavanaugh's contentious hearing with his accuser, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford. LORRAINE PELLEGRINO: We as a party have been extremely accommodating and sensitive. STONE: Pellegrino was not the only one at the fall meeting of her organization, the Arizona Federation of Republican Women, who felt that way. She is proud of how the GOP has handled the confirmation hearings. PELLEGRINO: Including what the special... UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: The prosecutor... PELLEGRINO: ...Prosecutor... UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: ...Did a

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Just in time for midterm exams comes Sans Forgetica. It's a font researchers say can help you remember what you read. Typography lecturer Stephen Banham is part of the team at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, that developed the slyly named lettering. He joins us now over Skype. Mr. Banham, thanks so much for being with us. STEPHEN BANHAM: Absolute pleasure. SIMON: This font has letters that look like they're broken up, almost like your pen's running out of ink. BANHAM: (Laughter) That's a very interesting way to describe it. I've worked with psychologists on trying to work out how we can trigger recall or memory when people are reading particular select parts of text, in a quotation or a sentence or something. And the essence of what we've done is that we've actually subverted the kind of conventional reading patterns by creating, firstly, a back slant, which is a slant that runs counter to the normal direction of the

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit SCOTT SIMON, HOST: You know what we could all use this week? Sports. (SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) SIMON: And imagine; Major League Baseball continues the playoffs even after the Cubs have been defeated. Boy, is my October open now. Yanks, BoSox, Astros, Tribe, Braves, Dodgers, Rocks vs. the Brew Crew. Howard Bryant of ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com joins us. Howard, thanks for being with us. HOWARD BRYANT, BYLINE: You know, Scott, this just shows what a professional you are after going through what the Cubs went through - back-to-back days playing home games, losing both of them. SIMON: You don't have to elaborate. We've got a lot to talk about. BRYANT: Having another two consecutive teams celebrate on your home field. And yet, you sound great. SIMON: Oh, thank you. Well, it's all for show. Listen; one of the great rivalries in sports - Yankees-Red Sox. The Sox won last night 5-4, but Boston had to battle, didn't they? BRYANT: Yeah, they sure did. And

Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit SCOTT SIMON, HOST: He's part-man, part-machine - all cop. (SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "ROBOCOP") PETER WELLER: (As RoboCop) Let the woman go. You are under arrest. UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As Creep's Friend) You better back up, pal. (SOUNDBITE OF GUNSHOT) WILLIAM SHOCKLEY: (As creep, screaming). WELLER: (As RoboCop) Your move, creep. SIMON: 1987's "RoboCop" is a cult movie classic set in a dystopian Detroit before dystopian became a word used by seventh-graders. WELLER: (Laughter). SIMON: Peter Weller played RoboCop. And today Peter Weller acts, directs and produces. But over the years, he's also become a Ph.D. in Italian Renaissance art history. Next week, he will return to Detroit to be a featured speaker at the annual art conference Culture Lab Detroit. Dr. Peter Weller joins us now from Hawaii Public Radio in Honolulu. Thanks so much for being with us. WELLER: Thank you very much. Appreciate it. SIMON: So what made you go back to school to study art at

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