The film First They Killed My Father begins in 1975 Cambodia, during the rise of the Khmer Rouge. The hard-line communist regime aimed to deport an entire nation into the countryside and form an agrarian utopia — but their experiment failed. People were forced to work, and they were also tortured, starved and executed. In the end, around a quarter of the country's population — roughly 2 million people — died. First They Killed My Father was directed by Angelina Jolie, and it's based on a memoir by human rights activist Loung Ung. Ung was 5 years old and living with her family in Phnom Penh when the Khmer Rouge arrived and essentially emptied the city. At first, her family managed to stay together, but then her older siblings were sent to a camp for teenagers. Not long after, they also came for her father. Ung's mother decided Ung and her siblings would be safer if they left and pretended to be orphans, so she sent them away. Ung survived the Khmer Rouge along with four of her siblings,
'This Is Their Film': Angelina Jolie Tells A Story Of Khmer Rouge Survival
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How Politics Have Complicated Business For Kushner Companies
Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: I'm Kelly McEvers, and this is EMBEDDED. Hello, hello. Can you hear me? DANIEL GOLDEN: Hi. How are you? MCEVERS: Hey, I'm good. This is Kelly. This is Daniel Golden. GOLDEN: Oh, this is a trip down memory lane here. Oh, I remember the... MCEVERS: Love it. GOLDEN: I remember the Kaspersons (ph). Let's see - they gave money... MCEVERS: And back in 2003, he started doing all this reporting on how the children of wealthy people were getting into these really good colleges and universities, like Harvard, because their parents were making big donations. And at one point, he gets this list. GOLDEN: I had been given, by a source of mine, a list of the 400 or so members of Harvard's Committee on University Resources, which is its committee of sort of big donors, big prospective donors. And so that's where I came across the Kushners. MCEVERS: Charles and Seryl Kushner, a very wealthy family that runs a big real estate company in New
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Understanding How Trump Does Business And Who He Does It With
Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: Special counsel Robert Mueller's team is reportedly looking beyond whether President Trump's campaign colluded with Russia in last year's election. It's also looking at Trump's finances on projects like his Manhattan building Trump SoHo. One of the developers of Trump SoHo is a company called Bayrock, and one of the people at Bayrock was a man named Felix Sater. To know about him is to understand how Trump does business and who he does business with. For my podcast Embedded, NPR's Alina Selyukh, Jim Zarroli and I start with Felix Sater's background. JIM ZARROLI, BYLINE: Sater was from the former Soviet Union, came here as a child living in the Brighton Beach section of Brooklyn, which is home to a lot of Russian immigrants. MCEVERS: Felix Sater's father had a criminal history. He once pled guilty to extortion charges. DAVID BARRY: He wanted Felix to be an above-board businessman. ZARROLI: That's David Barry. He's a former AP
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For Country Music Industry And Artists, Gun Politics Presents A Minefield
The Country Music Association Awards ceremony was Wednesday, but people are still talking about the show because of what wasn't said that night. The CMA tried to create a politics-free zone for hosts Carrie Underwood and Brad Paisley, and for reporters covering the event. A week before the awards ceremony, the CMA sent out media guidelines telling reporters not to focus on gun rights, political affiliations or the Las Vegas tragedy, where 58 people were killed at the Route 91 Harvest music festival. Paisley and others spoke out about the restrictions and they were reversed, but it brought into focus the relationship between the country music industry and the debate about guns in the U.S. Music journalist Jonathan Bernstein has written about this and joined All Things Considered host Kelly McEvers to talk about how those in the industry view guns, and why the Country Music Association took the actions it did. On why the association tried to stay away from politics this year I think the
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3 Generations Of Actresses Reflect On Hollywood, Harassment — And Hitchcock
In 1963, Alfred Hitchcock had a huge amount of power in Hollywood. That's when he plucked actress Tippi Hedren from relative obscurity to star in his new movie, The Birds . It was a big break for Hedren. But she says that over the course of making that film — and another movie, Marnie — Hitchcock repeatedly harassed her. She writes in her memoir Tippi that he tormented her; he would drive by her house at all hours, stare at her, and send her baskets of food when he worried she was losing weight. He threatened to ruin her career, keeping her under contract and refusing to let her work. "Nobody had any real answer for how I was going to solve the problem," Hedren says. "Alma, his wife, she said 'I'm so sorry you have to have to go through this. I said, 'Well, can't you stop it?' I was angry, and I was hurt that I had nobody to say OK, we'll help you." In the weeks since sexual harassment allegations against Harvey Weinstein were first made public, the entertainment industry — along with
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Homeless In Los Angeles: A Growing Problem
Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: The number of homeless people in the U.S. has gone up for the first time since 2010, so says the federal government's annual report on homelessness. And a lot of that increase has been here on the West Coast, namely in Los Angeles. The economy here is booming, but that means the cost of housing is going up and a lot of people just can't afford a place to live. One place to see this crisis is LA's Skid Row. It's where thousands of people congregate because it's where all the services are - the shelters, the meals, the temporary housing and some permanent housing if you qualify. And now in that same part of downtown, there are also high-rises and fancy lofts and expensive restaurants, places most unhoused people can't afford. This week we went to the Downtown Women's Center. It's a place where women can use computers, grab clean socks and do crafts and have lunch. And we met Joryelle Marage. Hey, how's it going? How are you?
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Encore: Eddie Izzard Talks About Coming Out
Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit KELLY MCEVERS, HOST: And before I say goodbye to 2017, I want to talk one more time about jazz chickens. Comedian Eddie Izzard was here with me in the studio earlier this year to talk about his book "Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, And Jazz Chickens." And we talked about a lot of stuff. We couldn't get everything in, so I wanted to share it again and include the part about the tigers and some other things that didn't make it the first time around. So yes, there will be tigers. And first - jazz chickens. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) EDDIE IZZARD: Cows go roo (ph). Sheep go meh (ph). Ducks go quack. Pigs go oink, all of them. Chickens go cockle-doodle-do (ph) unless you wedge a trumpet on their face. MCEVERS: If you are a fan of Izzard's surreal standup comedy, you probably can tell where this is going. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) IZZARD: (Imitating trumpet). Farmer's wife going, what's that? That's jazz chicken. (LAUGHTER) IZZARD:
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25 Years After The Tanks, Tear Gas And Flames, 'Waco' Returns To TV
Twenty-five years ago, all eyes were on Waco, Texas — where the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms was attempting to raid a compound owned by a fringe Christian group called the Branch Davidians, just outside of the city. ATF agents suspected the group was illegally stockpiling weapons. Four agents and six Branch Davidians died in the initial raid, and for the next 51 days, we watched a siege play out on TV. But eventually, it all ended with tanks, tear gas, and flames. The story is back on our television screens now, this time as a six-part miniseries called Waco . It's largely based on the accounts of two men who were there: Gary Noesner, a retired FBI chief hostage negotiator, and David Thibodeau, one of the few people who survived the siege. Branch Davidian leader David Koresh had a surprising sideline as a rock musician, and Thibodeau says that's what drew him into the group. Interview Highlights On how Thibodeau got involved with The Branch Davidians Thibodeau : Over the
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Looking At George Papadopoulos' Connections In The Russia Investigation
Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: George Papadopoulos is the reason the FBI started its investigation into whether President Trump's campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 election. We know this from that House intelligence memo that went public earlier this month. Papadopoulos was arrested last July and has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. Now he's cooperating with investigators. So we're going to look at how he got involved with this investigation. (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) FREDERICK RYAN: Mr. Trump, welcome to The Washington Post. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Thank you. RYAN: Thank you for making time... SHAPIRO: The story starts in March 2016 when candidate Trump announces his foreign policy team to The Washington Post. He lists five people, including... (SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING) TRUMP: George Papadopoulos. He's an oil and energy consultant - excellent guy. SHAPIRO: From our podcast Embedded, NPR's Ryan Lucas and Kelly McEvers
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How The Trump Administration's Travel Waiver Program Affected A Yemeni Family
Copyright 2018 NPR. To see more, visit ARI SHAPIRO, HOST: Earlier this summer, the Supreme Court upheld the Trump administration's travel ban, which means people from Libya, Iran, Somalia, Syria, Yemen, North Korea and Venezuela cannot get visas to the U.S. But there is an exception called a waiver. Kelly McEvers of the Embedded podcast is here to talk about that. Hi, Kelly. KELLY MCEVERS, BYLINE: Hey. SHAPIRO: Explain what a waiver is. MCEVERS: So basically if you are from one of these banned countries and you can show to the United States that you are not a security risk and that you would face, quote, "undue hardship" if you stayed in your country, you can apply for one of these waivers. And if you get it, you can come to the U.S. SHAPIRO: That makes it sound like this is not a total travel ban. MCEVERS: That is what the administration says. And, by the way, it's one of the reasons that the Supreme Court upheld the ban. But advocates who work with families in these banned countries
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